What Tarot card are you ?

You are The Sun

Happiness, Content, Joy.

The meanings for the Sun are fairly simple and consistent.

Young, healthy, new, fresh. The brain is working, things that were muddled come clear, everything falls into place, and everything seems to go your way.

The Sun is ruled by the Sun, of course. This is the light that comes after the long dark night, Apollo to the Moon's Diana. A positive card, it promises you your day in the sun. Glory, gain, triumph, pleasure, truth, success. As the moon symbolized inspiration from the unconscious, from dreams, this card symbolizes discoveries made fully consciousness and wide awake. You have an understanding and enjoyment of science and math, beautifully constructed music, carefully reasoned philosophy. It is a card of intellect, clarity of mind, and feelings of youthful energy.

What Tarot Card are You?
Take the Test to Find Out.

Petition

Via Tim.

I don't normally bother with e-petitions. Total waste of time - the Government's not going to listen.

This one however, is important. An unelected bureaucracy is making a takeover bid for Europe, despite two sovereign nations voting it down, and our Government is complicit in nodding it through - even though it was a manifesto commitment at the last election that they would hold a referendum on the issue.

Once again, I have no hope that the Government will listen, even if they entire electorate were to sign it. However, it may at least succeed in publicising the issue, and embarrassing the equally spineless Tory party into opposing it, and maybe, just maybe, enough Labour MPs will discover a scrap of integrity and defect to scupper the passage of the bill.

Sign it today.

Yet another one

Your Personality is Somewhat Rare (ESFP)

Your personality type is playful, charming, open minded, and energetic. Only about 7% of all people have your personality, including 9% of all women and 5% of all men You are Extroverted, Sensing, Feeling, and Perceiving.

How Rare Is Your Personality?

Who am I to argue with the Captain of the Enterprise ?

An impassioned commander with more respect for individuals than for authority, you have a no-holds-barred approach to life and its obstacles.

I don't believe in the no-win scenario.

Bob Woolmer

So police finally confirm what I had suspected and feared from the very first, that Bob Woolmer was murdered.

I'm the biggest cricket fan going, but I'm utterly sickened by this and I think the tournament should be cancelled. The ICC needs to send a signal that we would rather shut down the game than have this sort of thing go on. However, money calls the shots, the ICC are probably the weakest governing body in sport today, and so the tournament will continue. "It's what Bob would have wanted" they will say. Bollocks.

The rabid fans from the sub-continent who were chanting "Death to Woolmer" need to look at themselves and re-evaluate their priorities in life and behaviour. But they won't. Animals.

Swinging the lead

Andrew O'Hagan complains today that the furore over the Fredalo incident is due more to England and Freddie's poor form than morality.

Well, duh !

We all have our ways of misbehaving / skiving / acting unprofessionally. In my own organisation, there are one or two lunchtime drinkers, people spend varying amounts of work time on the internet, many disappear to the gym, there's blogging of course - you get my drift. The point is, there are three tacit rules that must be observed.

1..You have to be good at your job. So long as you are achieving, a blind eye will continue to be turned, provided the behaviour is not too unreasonable. After all, everyone here works long hours - you can't be 100% all the time.

2..When the pressure comes on and there are key deadlines/targets to hit, you pack it in and knuckle down.

3..Be discreet. If the customers get wind of it, management can't protect you.

Sadly, by getting caught boozing by the public/media, during a World Cup, while out of form, Flintoff has broken all three aspects of the omerta. The England management team had no choice, but to take action.

Hopefully, this will be the wake-up call he needs to regain his focus and form.

Note to Self

Watch The Great Global Warming Swindle on 4od when you get back from this weekend's stag do in Reykjavik.

Okay, so it confirms my existing prejudices, but what the hell...

The Law of Unintended Consequences

An NHS Blog Doctor article reminded me of this recent discussion point.

It's always unpleasant leaving a pub and discovering that your clothes smell of cigarettes.

However, if the two pubs in Canary Wharf that have become early adopters of the non-smoking ban are any guide, clothes will henceforth stink of stale beer and farts. A colleague of mine likens the smell to that of a rabbit hutch...

Also, all the smokers from the above two places seem to now congregate in my formerly favourite pub, instantly making it completely uninhabitable for non-smokers such as me. I'd imagine their staff are going to kick up a fuss at the fog any day now, and then that one will convert and so on. Until then, it's off the rotation.

Envy Backlash

More on the Envy debate in the Telegraph today, from Jeff Randall and Simon Heffer.

While Heffer's constant picking at Cameron is getting a bit boring, he does have a point when he says that the Tories have been conspicuously quiet on this subject. However, I'd be interested to know who exactly these 'undeserving rich' he refers to are...

Cause and Effect

Via Tim Worstall, the first signs that the wealth generators are preparing to scarper.

Would the last one out etc etc...

More Politics of Envy

This time its the Liberal Democrats who are the fruitcakes.

1% a year on a million quid house ? Ten grand a year ? Is he serious ? Now my house isn't worth anything like that much (or even half), but some of my colleagues who've been living in Central London for many years are getting close. These are not remarkable houses mind, they're just ordinary 4 bedroom houses in nice areas. There's no way they could afford £10k pa on top of the mortgage.

And bear in mind that stamp duty for a £1m house is £40k.

State sponsored robbery, pure and simple.

And as the rest of the drivel in his speech, well, words fail me. Except for two. Economic illiterate.

Cry God for England, Harry and St George

It's not a particularly funny cover of Private Eye this week, but it does remove all doubt about who Prince Harry's father is.

Couldn't Resist

Apologies, but I saw this headline and I just had to...

1.7 million to have dementia by 2051

Damn straight - and I'm planning to be completely plastered by half past nine.

Bonus Time

I understand the furore over the City bonuses is all about the politics of envy, but this quote made me mad.

Another Left-wing Labour MP, Alan Simpson, backed the survey's findings but said that Mr Brown was just as responsible as Mr Blair when it came to promoting divisive policies.

He said: "There is no difference between No 10 and No 11. Downing Street has pursued policies which have courted City financiers at the expense of everyone else. Financial services and the money markets are engaged in a greed-fest - and Treasury rules are actually making this possible. Many of these huge bonuses are actually rewards for failure."

Is he serious ? Does he actually think the banks are in the habit of giving out large quantities of cash to non-performers ? I guarantee you every single one of those 4,200 people receiving over £1 million made at least ten times that for their organisation. You pay the going rate or they leave and take the business with them - end of story. Non-performers make money or are fired.

Yes, I do work for an investment bank and yes, I did get a nice bonus this month. Not a seven-figure one obviously, but then I'm not a revenue generator. However, I did feel it was payback for the many months of late nights and weekends I slogged through last year. And do I begrudge the guys on the trading floor their wedge ? Not bloody likely, those guys work as hard as we do, and they make the money for our bonus pot. And the 73% of the population who think bonuses are 'excessive' should remember that the profits those people make mostly go to the shareholders, and that the banks are 90% owned by the pension companies, and the pension companies' returns go to....who exactly ?

So go on, allow Gordon to windfall tax the bonuses away and send the business to Frankfurt - you'll be slitting your own throats you idiots...but then that's how socialism works isn't it.

Vocabulary

Your Vocabulary Score: A+

Congratulations on your multifarious vocabulary! You must be quite an erudite person.

How's Your Vocabulary?

NATO Generals

Good News : NATO general says we need one more year to defeat the Taliban.

Bad News : It's 2014.

Asia Calling

This blog post comes to you from sunny Singapore. Yes, after only nine years working for one of the largest investment banks in the world, I finally get a business trip out of London.

We are staying in the quite astoundingly opulent Fullerton hotel, which just happens to overlook the main tourist hotspot of Boat Quay (below) - naturally we had to check it out on arrival yesterday evening. Allowing myself and my long-time partner-in-crime (and new boss) to stay quite so close to so many bars and restaurants may be good news for the turnover of said establishments, but probably not so much for our productivity for the trip. Ah well, I've earned this jolly about a hundred times over, so I'm not about to start feeling guilty now.



It's a fairly unstructured trip, I'm pricipally here to meet my new team of developers and try and figure out how we're going to work this year. I was loosely involved with this team last year, and there were a lot of frustrations both here and in London, so we definitely to do some serious work on the operating model.

Anyway, I can definitely recommend the January weather here, and so far everybody has been overwhelmingly welcoming - both old friends who now live here and new colleagues seem very pleased to see me.

Felt okay this morning - woke at a decent time to watch the Patriots race into a first-half lead in the AFC Championship game, only to find out later that we'd lost. Damn shame - was looking forward to another Superbowl - I've applied for tickets to the big Superbash in Batterea, if my name comes up in the ballot, it would have been doubly wonderful to be there as a Pats fan. I'm struggling a bit now, just as London is getting into the office - Jon has been feeling poorly most of the day and has already headed back to the hotel. See if I feel like going out later - may be just a quick couple in town with the two youngsters who've just moved over, and then back for a good sleep.

Big Brother Racism Row - Reducto

Woman made famous for being thick and ignorant on Big Brother appears on Big Brother - displays thick and ignorant behaviour.