De-Bris

Sun, 11 Jan 2026 21:52:01 GMT

As per my previous post, the audit went OK and we re-scoped down to two days onsite. There may be a few followup questions on Monday but we're basically done with it. I managed to make it to the office for 8:45 ahead of a 9am start!

The main complication was Storm Goretti, which hit the West Midlands and South-West on Thursday and Friday. I walked back from the office in a torrential downpour after work on Thursday, having been loaned a golf umbrella. The rain racing down the hilly streets and pavements soaked my feet, but it was still preferable to getting a taxi in the stationary central Bristol traffic.

I did think about trying to meet up with any of my Bristol friends but I was exhausted even after a shorter day at work, not least due to the early start. It was also distinctly not sitting outside weather. I crashed out for a couple of hours and decided to eat at the hotel rather than venture further afield. I did manage a brief mooch until my digestive system wanted to have a go at me for the disruption.

We finished early on Friday as well, and my boss and I shared a taxi to Bristol Temple Meads. All the direct services to Manchester were cancelled (as were many others across the country) but I managed to get home via changes in Birmingham and Stafford. I got a seat on each leg of the journey, and at least the stops meant I got brief breaks from masking. The one disruption that significantly impacted me was a vehicle driving into a bridge in Levenshulme, which stopped all trains between Stockport and Manchester Piccadilly - so I jumped out at Stockport and got a taxi home from there. I was very glad to be home, and earlier than planned!

We've so far had one problem identified by the audit - we should have done a risk assessment on our Bristol office, because laptops are stored there overnight. I'd been told that it was only used for meeting space and nothing was stored there, so it's a fair cop. I'll get that sorted tomorrow.

I'm feeling pretty good about the audit - our ISMS is lacking in a lot of ways, not least some overdue document reviews, and I'm glad we didn't get wrapped over the knuckles about that. My boss is happy with me, which is always nice.

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Brizzle

Thu, 08 Jan 2026 00:32:30 GMT

I'm in Bristol for work for a couple of days. The work is annoying - it's a poorly-scoped ISO27001 audit, pencilled in for five days but I reckon we can do it in two, so I'm hoping I don't have to go back next week.

I spent the train down being That Wanker with my laptop out, updating another couple of documents ahead of the audit. Turns out with no Internet or other distractions I can actually get a few hours of useful work done... I cut about half of our Disaster Recovery Plan out, reducing verbiage to make it more streamlined and effective.

I was clever enough to get an earlier train into Manchester for my connection; the train I was recommended only gave me ten minutes to change at Piccadilly, and ended up running at least 7 minutes late. I managed to end up with a table seat, which was nice, but several hours wearing a mask is always going to suck. The CO2 meter was giving levels up to 2000ppm, so it was definitely worth doing (for reference: 400ppm is "fresh air"; 800ppm is where the CO2 helps the virus to breed. I try to stay under 800ppm without a mask).

Got into Temple Meads, bought a milkshake for a homeless guy, and hopped in a black cab to my hotel. It's a Premier Inn, rather perfunctory, but it'll do the job. I had dinner and went for a walk, which reminded me how hilly Bristol is!

I also enjoyed hearing some proper Bristol accents, and had to stop myself mimicking them. I'm close enough to where I grew up that my accent's veering to the rural anyway!

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You Don't Live Like I Do

De-Bris

Brizzle