What is it about the winter that makes one want to turn out cupboards and tidy shelves? In a frenzy of rationalization, I’ve spent the day reorganising my study, adding more and more items coloured the bright red of a certain fast-food outlet.
I know that red is an energising colour. Surrounding yourself with it is meant to speed up all your activities, including the demolition of fast food in their case. I’m hoping it will have the same effect on my writing assignments. (Or at least give me the energy to change out of my pyjamas on the right side of lunchtime.)
On my most recent trip to said fast-food outlet, made at the insistence of my small daughter, I discovered it now offers free Wi-Fi. A smart executive type sat discreetly in one corner tapping away at her laptop, apparently undisturbed by the numerous small children noisily enjoying their tea and free toys – and the rather bigger children seeing how much they could swear before the manager would evict them.
This new development must surely increase the average dwell-time of the customer, against all the usual business principles of such places. I suppose the one thing that can be guaranteed is that it must be a very high-speed broadband connection. When our rural exchange hits one of its frequent slow patches, maybe I should head out for a burger. Better slip some wet-wipes in my laptop bag – there’s only so much I want to oil the progress of my writing career.
This post was originally published in the February 2010 edition of the Hawkesbury Parish News.
