Monday, January 22, 2007

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.

Wednesday, January 17, 2007

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.