Sunday March 29^th 2009. Launch -?? days.

There is not a lot of point in setting the clock forward and carefully setting the alarm and then not switching on the alarm! However, I awoke just after the race started anyway. After a race somewhat akin to a demolition derby, Jenson Button won and Lewis Hamilton managed an almost miraculous third place. Tomorrow is looking better already.

Then it was off at 10:30 to a Bach concert, courtesy of complimentary tickets from our Press Department for helping out: music and images of space. Back home and have a long nap after watching the Boat Race, around long sessions reading “The Right Stuff”. There are many incidents and anecdotes in it that I did not know… mind you, I was only about 16 months old when Alan Shepherd made his first flight. Deliberately or not, it seems that Tom Wolfe sets out to explode carefully the myth that the Mercury astronauts were somehow special or exceptional. The book is fascinating.

The world seems a better place for having rested and switched-off completely. Will this feeling survive tomorrow, I wonder?