The stench of corpses
I hate being here right now. I am filled with guilt (the Catholic in me) for having something I dont really need; there is someone else needs it far more, and they have been terminated.

The London team has been 1/2'd in size. Nothing formal has been announced yet, but there are a lot of empty desks.

I just spoke to someone on the phone:
"So, you're still here then?"

"Well, yes, but I think I'll be sitting on a beach getting drunk pretty soon"
The rain may have fallen, but only a fool would think that the storm has cleared. Anyone good is going to wait for the financial year end bonus, at the end of this month, before offering their up the same courtesy that was offered to their peers this week to that very hand that once fed.
- posted by Daniel @ Wednesday, June 29, 2005 0 comments

 
Feel your power
I love London. I love the fact that I could wander into the Natural history museum, marvel at a huge dead animal, wander back out again into a pub, and waste a Sunday evening in a way that felt so damn good. Never a dull moment, from watching some guy cruise about on a quad bike, to sitting on the street telling jokes. Edinburgh just doesn’t have the sheer presence that I feel when I walk this city. There’s just more to do, despite hardly knowing anyone here.

It could have been a dashing Indiana Jones moment on the tube, as the doors rushed to shut, and I hit the Turbo Pursuit button. Time slowed down, I made it inside the train; but the beeping of the doors continued. I was glued to the door, fallen from grace so abysmally, a turtle complete with flailing arms and legs. The hardback book in my rucksack was on the other side of the tube doors. All is forgiven, because Piers Morgan is turning out to be an engaging read.

Feel your power - something that Guiliana told me to do well over a year ago, and I’m only beginning to understand now. Scarface said it too. “First you get the money, then you get the power, then you get the women.” I’ll be contented with just power. Not in the traditional sense of social hierarchy, but just feeling my own power. The power to be able to communicate and witness a positive emotion unfolding before you.

On a separate note, redundancies are happening at the firm. The atmosphere is nauseating, as not everyone has yet been told, and we have to wait until tomorrow until we know. I, of course, being a cocky little git, have no cares in the world, and therefore will not get the bullet this time. I got the bullet at Sony, because I wanted to keep the job. This one can go. I’m done with living in Scotland, so sod’s law is going to keep me there until I pull the plug. September is when I envisage change. In the meantime, London is good for me, and I’m loving every minute of it.

Question I am asking myself right now: Somebody said that I was had a sense, similar to that of a feminine intuition. Apparently, it's rare. Still, i'm not quite sure what she was talking about.

- posted by Daniel @ Tuesday, June 28, 2005 0 comments

 
just two things....
Point 1. I saw an advert in LHR for The Economist, which I didn't understand immediately. I read it, pondered, walked past it, pondered, checked my bike into outsized, pondered, walked back past it, and then it dawned upon me. The ad read:

"Someone mentions Jordan.
You think: Arabian country with a 3.3% GDP growth."

I thought: Sure, Jordan isn't Persian or African, can't be hiding under some Saharan guise, it's got to be Arabian. 3.3% - sounds about right, gotta be much less than Turkey, which runs at less than 5 these days.

Apparently, it's also some halfwit celeb as well. Hmm.

Point 2.

I got a letter from the TV licensing boys today, demanding cash. My response:

Following your vaguely dated letter - June 2005 – I would like to respond with these complaints:

• I am in the process of moving into the above property, only purchased this month. I have therefore NOT failed to respond to any of your letters, as you have accused me.
• I do not enjoy being threatened by the Police when you have no rightful quarrel with me.
• Television is rubbish. In fact, I believe it to be of such poor standard, that it indeed rots your mind. I will refuse to accept this as an excuse for your demeaning and threatening letter to me.
• I am considering taking the matter up with the Trading Standards Association, on legal requirement to provide good service for a contract. It is my firm belief that the money demanded from yourselves is not representative of the offal that you broadcast. However, this is not a matter of your concern.
• I do not watch television, and do not own a television set. I do not intend to change this facet of my life.

Could I please ask that all further correspondence consider at least 3 of these issues.

Other Stuff.

Jumped onto a plane to move flat. Finally moved all my gear to the Small Flat, where it remains in boxes. God only knows when I will get to unpack, the car seems to live in the Long Stay these days....
Got to meet up with Vessella, who has imported 2 two Italian girls from her latest trip. Big round table, big dinner, wine, annoy the cat, sleep. Flew back the next morning. And the sun aint shining no more. Hundreds of titbits of bureaucracy to catch up with, drowning in taxman type letters now. Saturday is gone.

- posted by Daniel @ Saturday, June 25, 2005 1 comments

 
Holland Park
is bigger than I thought, so i got a little lost running about. when i got back to the bar, I was a panting sweaty beast. so i asked, in the most polite and composed form that I could muster for "A large glass of cold water, please". The Russian girl behind the bar replied "Large coke, ok". Oops - i dont want a coke, i want a water. Cold, not coke. My reply was "Daaa..." by which time she's taken the Da to be a Russian response, and turns to make my drink.

Headed down to Soho to meet Zajac, and ate at Mr Jerk's carribean restaurant. Fabulous, with a Guiness / Milk punch.

Got back home very drunk and shaved off the 2 day goatee in the morning. I'm not sure why I had it, but it was largely to do with having too much time in the morning.

Dreaming of Tokyo already, but I really should get married before I go. If I go. I want to go. I need to go.

My blog has gotten someone's blood boiling - again. This time, it is about Stornoway. Shobie took a look, and said "she's trying to impress Iain..." and then it all became clear. Nobody could get so irate over something as trivial as my jibes - to get upset, you need passion for the person you are angry with, irrespective of how disparate your opinions are.
- posted by Daniel @ Thursday, June 23, 2005 0 comments

 
Hotel
I checked into a hotel yesterday, and put the address as:

Cat Flat
133 .....Road

and the woman at checkin didn't say a thing. Perhaps this is a display of just how childish I am, but I'm going to continue anyway.
- posted by Daniel @ Tuesday, June 21, 2005 0 comments

 
Chicken or Egg?
I worked over the weekend. Large office, small number of people. On Sunday, someone ordered pizza. I was not invited.

Did they exclude me because:

they didn't have the courtesy to invite me
they lacked the a social gene
they wanted to exclude non-Deloitte types
they thought that as a non-Deloitte type I despised them, and felt no desire to remedy that feeling in me. Nobody talked to me in the office last week, so I bought everyone cookies. This week, people are more cheerful. They are also cheap.

I do not know, and such is the nature of these situations, is that I will never know, until I am drunk one day, and I become a Verbal Gatling. At that point, we will be able to safely assume Point 4 for all other exclusions.

Also, I heard a story about 2 girls falling out over A Man. Amazing to think, that in an office with a 10-1 ratio, there existed such a Prime Bull who could cause two women to tear each other's eyeballs out. In this case, there really are many fish in the sea....

- posted by Daniel @ Monday, June 20, 2005 1 comments

 
Potentially Kinetic
A conversation at the bar yesterday brought it to my attention that:

• Ken Livingston is now taking the making the state responsible for parenting, by the tried and tested reward/punishment routine. BBC Story here. It's a good idea, parents are happy, kids are happy, and hopefully taxpayers can afford it. Child discipline over the last few years has begun to turn to the state, and so it makes sense for the state to start rewarding Good Kids.
• Under-achieving. There is always someone out there who you believe in more than they believe in themselves. And as a result, you consider them to be all potential and no kinetic. Is it better to be potential or kinetic? I'm a neurotic mouth, overtly social and reasonably insecure. If I dropped the insecurities, I would be able to do so much more - but would I stop being me? Is the reason Morrison is not a stock trader on £50m/annum simply because he isn't? Is the reason Campbell is not a Senior Accountant somewhere simply because he isn't? I think the change has to be gradual to be lasting and valid. Patience is not a virtue rarely seen in youth - and as I still claw on to the remaining shreds of my twenties, I still maintain the right to impatience.

I met a bloke from my old school last night, that I didn't know at the time I was at school. This was because he is 5 years younger than me. It was particularly irritating to hear him spend an hour going through a list of names of people that "I MUST KNOW!!!", knowing full well that anyone he mentioned I would not know, and wouldn't be bothered to know anyway. I tried explaining that at school, I was a retarded athletically and academically, which meant I was unaccepted in the only two streams going, hence I did not know that some bloke in my year is now playing rugby for England, and given my complete indifference towards sport, this is not unusual. In fact, I am surprised I managed to remmeber this today.

- posted by Daniel @ Saturday, June 18, 2005 0 comments

 
Flat issues
Lots of shuffling between the Cat Flat, Small Flat and the Populous Flat. Clandestinos (the Italian for WithOut Papers) everywhere. So I became a very busy person, with just enough time to fit in a pleasant Friday dinner with McEntee, Kilgour and Pearson. A fault entirely of my own, for I have hardly seen anything of Pearson this year, with the one exception of a few weeks back, when I was fobbed off with the unimaginative, curt yet honest "i'm ironing my pants this evening".

McEntee finally gets to Walk The Earth, and i'm looking forward to the tales. He (and her) members of the anti-public transport campaign, will be vehemently opposed to skimping, and I hope that they don't run out of cashola too fast, for there will be less tales to be heard. Oz is the final destination, as McEntee yet again predicts that he will not end up in GeekWorld. This has a greater chance of transpiring, as the job at SAIC was an armtwisted by Allan.

Saturday was busy-ness again, but there was enough time to run down to the bar to meet Bell, with the always delightful company of Vasella. We yapped, laughed, drank, horified each other with stories, learned things of Venuezula. And the Vesella went to the toilet, and the men, who had separated from the girls at this point, all daggered their eyes at me and demanded to know What When Who and Why I knew someone like this. All very flattering for me - except of course nobody bought the explanation "she's not my type - and i'm not her type". Assumptions of homosexuality were brewed. What struck me though, was something that happened that evening, and something similar which happened during the day. The thrifty use of compliments and politeness.
Earlier in the day, I was sat in the sandwich shop with Montgomery, and he demanded I drive him somewhere. I said "of course, but there is no need to make the demand". to which he quite appropriately touchéd "you are the only person i speak like this to, because this is how you speak to me".
Later in the day, in the bar, I could have disqualified some of the insults I flung the way Vesella (who was acting in the manner of an Estate Agent) by perhaps allowing the comment "an incredibly honest person, yadda, yadda yadda".

What goes around comes around, and I'm not talking Karma here. We make the environment we live in, and what makes me feel good is my fellow humans feeling good. Give a little, and take back so much more.

Today I travelled across London town enroute to work for a Big TV Company. Walking through the campus, I made many assumptions on my first day, which, like all assumptions, will flitter away to nil as I become more familiar with the people and the environment. However, I think that one assumption will stay - TV is sexy.







- posted by Daniel @ Tuesday, June 14, 2005 0 comments

 
The weekend gone by in Wrocław
It was a simple idea, Remek was turing 30. Halina and other buiddies were in Wroclaw, so Stefan, Andy and I were to fly out for beer over the weekend. I had never met Andy before, but within minutes of the drive over to Stansted, it was clear why Remek and he say eye to eye. Vocal, witty, intelligent and beer drinking. Turbulence and a warm Henieken on the flight over threw Stefan’s stomach off key. Beautiful.

What followed after landing was a simple 15 hour zealed stint of pig and beer consumption, pausing only to sleep at 5.30am after the first trams drew the people into the city for another day.

With all the freedom of design, town planners today refuse to ape a design that works. The pedestrianised Town Square. Perhaps it is just pride of original design, but while the rest of the world suffers, the citizens of Wroclaw smile. There isn’t much for me to say about Polish food, I learned that it was an affair mostly devoid of spice and style. A story of warm beer soup for breakfast brought it into perspective. Whilst we devoured an unseasoned hunk of fried pig neck on a roasting hot summer afternoon, sitting in the Square, I realised that Eastern Europe was not famous for it’s rather peasantry cuisine, but for it’s beer, rustic towns and beautiful women.

After The Square we rode the pigs in true tourist fashion.


And then more people began to appear. Martin, brother-of, and then more randoms whose names I was not set to remember until the next day. Of all the places we visited, the one I felt bore the essence of Poland most eminently was an architects hangout. A courtyard sheltered by a single leafy tree accessed through a gated archway scented the atmosphere with the outdoor life that is so horribly absent from Britain. Then head downstairs to a basement bar with low concave ceilings, low lighting and low benches. A cosy break from the bitter Baltic winters. Here we remained with Krupnik and cordial beer until it was light. When the noise of morning commuters outdid the noise of tweeting birds, we headed home.

Saturday panned out in a similar style to Friday, with some story-lets:
As I sat in a bar, a complete stranger hands me a beer and says “nasdrovia”. I say thank you, drink up, and start talking. “We are here to celebrate the birthday of Remek” he tells me, and quite proudly continues to dictate incoherent stories about the days gone by, and how Remek is a good guy, and how I should meet him. He eventually called Remek over to introduce us, and was suitably embarrassed.

The bar was under a railway line. We started drinking when the trains were running, causing the bar to tremble, and conversation to dip in favour of thought toward the structural integrity of the old, old building. We stopped drinking when the trains started running again, having never noticed they stopped. We left after Mr Jones (Counting Crows) played for the second time; stepping outside was akin to leaving a cinema – blinded by the light.

Figuring that I must be in love with the barmaid - She gave me a drink on the house, and I beamed a schoolboy grin.

The Sunday was journey home day. I got to the airport ok, engaged the iPod, and watched people. Overloaded for the grand journey to Londyn, burdened far beyond the essentials, the couple ahead in the checkin queue turn to tears, as they are left short of the cash needed to pay for excess baggage. As they piled bottles of shampoo and toothpaste into their shopping trolley saying “it’s cheaper here”, the checkin clerk say “but 15 bottles!!!”. The girl behind next in line to checkin grows impatient with the delay. Graced with a supreme and enviable sense of self-confidence, she turned right towards a group of boisterous turbo-shandy characters, flashed her eyelashes and flirtatiously requested to join their group. Only because they knew she would be, they were flattered, and humbly accepted her offer. Light chat continued until my queue moved forward enough so that I was checking-in in time to overhear her begging the checkin clek to let her take the extra 2kg she packed onboard. I am not ashamed to think that the smile I bore was from hoping that one day, her knots will untie, and she will cry. For even then, before waiting to leave Poland, I was sad.

It has been a long time since I have been sad to leave a holiday. Ordinarily, getting back home is a blessing. The need to terminate the seemingly interminable state of transit that for hours after you have said your goodbyes is one reason alone. But this time, I felt no such pleasure from unlocking the front door to the Cat Flat. R & R were floating about, one with new overtly working class dishevelled boyfriend, the other with stories of casual weekend intercourse, which made me feel misplaced. I wanted to go back to Poland that instant, and spend time with people that lived a similar life to me, and had a more common outlook. People whose jokes I laughed at, rather than apologetically smiled at. And so began the post holiday blues, and missing the people, and not the place.

But they're over now, especially after writing this, and remembering the moments. Chin-Chin

- posted by Daniel @ Thursday, June 09, 2005 1 comments

 
Vikram's latest
mindtrip is Gattaga.

My latest mindtrip is: Why do we all assume that the flower has no roots? Perhaps we do not want to see them
- posted by Daniel @ Tuesday, June 07, 2005 0 comments

 
1. lotus elan is lower than a Cherokee grill
2. mcentee goes travelling, finally.
3. consultants are taking over the world. an admittance that there is nothing more than intellect and ingenuity required to make it as consultant, fills me with confidence that T Blair is doing the right thing in trusting the hands of the country to McKinsey. Not.
4. not living near transport in london is as painful as a snapped shin, and as tedious as a thesis on advanced concrete structures.
- posted by Daniel @ Friday, June 03, 2005 0 comments