Sunset over Battersea

I've been out of the office for a couple of days attending meetings and a conference in London. I made sure I was in town early both days so I got to enjoy the view of the sun rising over Wimbledon and setting over Battersea as I navigated the treacherous environs of South West Trains there and back. Both views are strangely evocative, especially at this time of year - the sunlight is positively golden, and it makes South London look almost beautiful.

Fighting for a seat , it occured to me that public transport in London and the SE is in a no-win situation. There are trains every 4 minutes from my local station into Waterloo (many of them direct or only stopping at Clapham) and yet they were all full to a pretty uncomfortable level. I seriously doubt that the network could physically handle any more trains, and though going faster would help, that isn't the issue either. The issue is the sheer number of people who commute into London from the South East - the concentration of business and services in the Capital is effectively destroying the infrastructure built to support it. The roads are the same - building more won't help, buses don't go to the places we need to go and suffer the same problems as trains. Maybe the answer is to try and disperse some of that high-intensity economic activity over a wider area, to lower the density and reduce the need to all be within one small area. However, that's counter-productive as the employment provided by the service industries to the businesses keeps the city running - recycling and spreading the wealth and pushing on the economy. It's reached a kind of black hole effect where the inertia of the city's economic might creates more commuters, which drives on the economy and creates more commuters etc. etc. Clearly the future lies in matter transporters - all of the movement, none of the mess. Come on, science!

Very glad I had the Blackberry to hand as work has gone completely bonkers the last few days - suddenly a lot of activity on things I thought were dead, and we're clearing away a lot of the fog and confusion around our major project. The news isn't all good, but we are making progress of a kind. Also finding myself in demand for meetings and conference calls, which is nice but a little wearying!

Hopefully a quiet weekend ahead, going with M to a place they are planning to take the schoolkids to in a few months (M is a teacher at a local school, teaching year 4) tomorrow but doing as little as possible the rest of the time - though might go the Gym on sunday.

Lessons in (Mis) Management

Well, the wind had clearly blown through my town yesterday, it even managed to move the shed which had a load of stuff in it. Good job we didn't have the patio umbrella up or I'm sure it'd be in the next county.

Whatever the polar opposite of management is, that is what I'm experiencing today. Typically, it's always at review time that it becomes a) painfully obvious that both the big and small team management things are not happening, and b) it's somehow the team member's fault and up to us to fix it. I feel as if I'm living in a Dilbert cartoon.

Right, apparently I should at some point have written a personal development plan with my manager. Since that didn't happen, do I make one up and pretend or just put 'not applicable'. I can't even remember what my objectives were supposed to be! Aaargh. How can it be that something that will affect my pay/bonus and more importantly my manager's pay/bonus is so far down their priority list, and yet still my problem! I suppose I should look at it as an opportunity to stretch my creative writing skills.

Going to the gym tonight and find myself strangely looking forward to it. Not sure why, really, exercise is a pretty tedious thing to do but there is that buzz from it at the end.

I watched Nigella Lawson's 'Nigella Express' last night. The conceit is that it's gourmet food prepared quickly for people who don't have the time and inclination to spend hours at the stove and counter-top. It tries to capture some of Jamie Oliver's old joie de vie and combine it with Nigella's coquettish charms. She spent most of the programme last night squeezing citrus fruit and licking her fingers. I'm surprised that the news on Tuesday mornings is taken up with the number of middle aged men who had heart-attacks watching this gastro-porn. I'll say this for her, she makes the link between food and sex VERY clear. Last week she picked up a lemon juicer, turned to camera and said 'I love a good impaling!' I mean, wtf?

Watching it for the comedy value (honest, guv) the same things niggle me each week. Firstly, Nigella is pretty wooden on screen. Secondly, the idea that she is some sort of busy 'working woman', juggling career, family and cooking is just too fake to bear. It's patronising in the extreme and makes you doubt everything - are those really her kids? Are those people actually friends or just actors? The conceit is that she is cooking in her home for herself and her family/friends and frankly I don't believe a word of it. M seems able to suspend her disbelief (of course a busy working mum has time to prepare an entire freezer of 'time saving' ingredients! She does that in the hours between eleventy-twelve and nixteen) but it's almost unbearable. It must be the same sort of suspension of belief that gets M through 'romantic comedies'...

Whoosh!

Update on the minging weather from this morning - it would appear according to the BBC that at the time I was heading through town to drop M off, Farnborough, not far to the south, was being hit by a tornado.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/7010172.stm

Can I have a new head please?

Monday rolls round again and it's minging out there in darkest Berkshire. Why is it that when it's a bit wet on the road, nobody can drive properly? I'm a fairly conservative driver but good grief, you don't need to do 20mph all the way along a dual carriageway just 'cos it's a bit wet.

Pretty good weekend, all told. Particularly enjoyed a visit to one of the Gaucho Argentinian restaurants in London on Saturday night to mark the 31st birthday of good friend Si. Really nice steak, stunning wine, lovely. It was absolutlety stygian in there though - had to find the way to and from the table by braille. Not sure what they're trying to hide (apart from the gasp-inducingly expensive wine list) but they must have to employ owls for waiting staff. We had a really good night though, and (as per normal) we were the last to leave the restaurant.

One bit of bad news from Sunday - the band I play in has lost a member, backing singer Sally has found that she really can't make the commitment to us and isn't enjoying herself as much as she used to. We shall miss her lovely harmonies and frankly bonkers dancing. We had a positive rehearsal, but we are running up against issues on how to get enough gigs to make it worthwhile, and what new songs we can introduce to liven up the set and appeal to a function/party crowd - rather than the aging working-mens club audience. The W-M club scene is frankly moribund and not really booking bands anymore (not that we're expensive). The smoking ban, great news for us, will hit them hard now that the weather is changing. We need to re-position the band to get other gigs to make up the numbers.

The start, or possibly the beginning...

Having promised myself to do this for a couple of months now, I am now blogged up.

You can read my profile to find out a few not terribly relevant things about me, so I thought maybe I'd start by talking about some of the things going on in my world today.

I'm unreasonably pleased with the fact that I have managed to get myself a Blackberry for work - trying to manage my diary and contacts on an ancient Nokia phone was not going well and I'm quite excited to have upped my gadget-count with a shiny new bit of kit. I haven't worked out how to do everything with it so far but gosh it's exciting.

It's been a long working week and I'm quite glad it's now friday. It's going to be a busy weekend, though, with friends, family and a band rehersal on Sunday. I play guitar in a covers band, mostly playing Working Mens Clubs - subject of a future post!

My wife (hereafter known as M) and I have just joined a local gym after years of sloth. We had our health checks done yesterday by a friendly but sickeningly healthy individual called Chris. Unsurprisingly we're both pretty unfit (despite M spending all her time on her feet during the day) but we're going to start getting fitter, dammit! The club itself is quite nice and not too intimidating for us so hopefully we'll be able to stick at it. We're there again tonight for an induction session.

I get the feeling this is going to be one of those days where not a lot happens. Friday's can be like that around here as people 'work from home' or attend 'meetings' near their homes! I can't be too holier-than-thou, however, I'd do it myself if I could!

I'll work up some ire on the world later today and post a bile-filled entry on the cretins we have as a political class. Need more tea first.