Stupid packaging

Another mad day. Worked late last night (until 4.00 am), grabbed some rest, up again at 9.30, worked until 4.00, grabbed some rest. Woke in a panic at 6.00, having forgotten I was going to the National Concert Hall for a concert given by the Hallé Orchestra as part of the visiting orchestras series. Managed to whip together some presentable clothes to wear, and got to the NCH with plenty of time to spare to blip the public areas with the audience gathering -- well, that was the intention, but I got the dreaded 'Change Battery Pack' warning when I switched on the camera and had to abandon the grand plan.

The concert was good in the second half (Elgar's Second Symphony) and okay in the first (a Mendelssohn overture and Mahler's Rückertlieder with Sarah Connoolly as soloist). We went to Hourican's down-to-earth pub around the corner from the Hall for a quick pint afterwards, I dropped Tom (one of the Music Group guys) home and got back to my place suffering from Blip panic as the clock inexorably approached midnight. I still had no idea of what to blip as I opened the fridge to get milk for a cup of coffee, got a strong whiff of something not right and realised that a pack of coffee had sprung open even though I'd used the adhesive label which is supposed to keep it sealed.

So that's the blip: a quick shot, taken at 23:48 (talk about cutting it fine!), of a pack of coffee with its ineffectual adhesive tab. Stupid packaging! Do the people who come up with these ideas ever bother to carry out field tests? The problem is that the material the pack is made from has a natural tendency to spring back when it's folded over, and this tendency is too much for the adhesive tab to resist. Fortunately none of the coffee spilled, but it's an annoyance I could have done without. The pack is now safely back in the fridge, held closed by a clothes peg. The ridiculous adhesive tab (complete with missing hyphen -- who decided 'reclose' was right, rather than 're-close'?) is keeping the rubbish company. Grrrrrr. Grumpy.

Now, after I calm down, it's time for another into-the-early-hours work session.