My messy study

OK, here's a bit of fun for the lockdown.

Recently, the Guardian newspaper ran a story on people who work from home. The specific angle was the embarrassing difference between what colleagues see - the camera's perspective - and what a visitor to the house might see. The article included pictures confessing both perspectives.

I looked at this article and gazed abashed around my study. It seems that I'm one of those people too.

My daughter and I run the local Joeys mob - Scouts under the age of 8. With Coronavirus having closed schools, Scouts Victoria has suspended face-to-face meetings in halls. As a result, we're using Zoom, a teleconferencing program, to carry on with our Joey meetings.

We normally present the meeting from the spare bed and have the computer and its camera set up on a small table in front of us. That way we have a very sparse background with only an Australian flag. You can see the Zoom picture of me here. It's not the best quality picture, taken in low light.

From the other angle, however, our co-host, eBear, watches from the bed with wrinkled lip and sneer of cold command. "Look on this study, ye messy and despair"!

Like a lot of people, I have several projects going on at once.

In front of the teleconferencing computer are the notes I need for running the Joey meeting. Emma's notes are also on the bed. My work bag has been unceremoniously dumped on the floor.

I don't think there's any doubt as to the optics-related aspect of the photo, one of my projects being to replace the laptop that controls my rig. With the automation involved, getting it to work together is a nightmare of cables.

By the way, the Joeys are fantastic. They're getting used to teleconferencing. Of course, they'd prefer to be in the hall as a group, but they're Scouts, and they're doing their best in a difficult situation.