Quite why it didn’t dawn on me yesterday, I don’t know. But this evening at about 7pm it suddenly struck me that all the frustration I’d felt in my run-through yesterday with trying to handle the microphone while simultaneously doing experiments could actually be resolved relatively easily, with a ‘Madonna mic’. Or, in readily accessible consumer electronics terms, a Skype headset.
To cut a long story short, I’m now going to have to take the laptop up again, because it seems Skype mics need some pre-amplification before they go into the speaker I’m using, and our little netbook is the smallest, most portable way I can think of to achieve this. I won’t be taking it online, though!
Tonight I’ve also buttered all my toast and packed it in between layers of kitchen paper, to avoid the buttery sides messing with the non-buttery sides, and unpacked and repacked the plinthing suitcase in experiment order, checking I had every last item as I went.
There can’t be many suitcases in the world which currently contain both eggs and bricks. I can’t foresee any potential problems with that mix, either.
I’ve also run off the last of the bits and pieces of printing – a ‘FREE BOOKS’ sign (in the giveaway sense, not the Nelson Mandela circa 1984 sense), some thanks/credits, that sort of thing.
I’ve put the air quality monitoring device on charge, and just need to make sure my phone, laptop and camera are similarly packed with potential energy and then I’m off to bed (although I shall peep at the day’s schedule at midnight to see myself listed at noon before I finally drop off!).
Goodnight, readers: see you – or, at least, be seen by you – from the plinth tomorrow!
P.S. My local paper published this today, 15 days after I e-mailed them about it.
Good luck! See you tomorrow!