Business Traveller

Just had the announcement of our latest re-org. Apparently theyre halving the pay-outs to people they make redundant this time (because they’re keen not to lose anybody!!!???).

Class quotation from the announcement?

“We’re very keen to minimise the inconvenience to the maximum extent possible!”

Re-org is also including an office move, where we’ve been proudly told that the innovative new office communications systems have been modeled on the film ‘The Devil Wears Prada’. We’ve been wracking our brains, and the only really innovative use of communications we can think of in that particular movie was the use of a coat which, when dropped on an employee’s desk, was an indication that they had fallen out of favour with the boss.

I’m really looking forward to getting my new management communications pack. I could use a new coat this winter!

So the other day I’m sitting on a delayed plane from somewhere to somewhere (it’s been happening allot lately, so I forgot which time it was), and I was reading about the up-coming Bond film in some random newspaper or magazine, I should have saved it so I could write specifics, but I didn’t.

Anyway, some stupid twat was writing about how the name ‘Quantum of Solace’ was a departure from traditional Bond film names, and how Bond fans would have to get used to this new sort of name.

What?

So, for your twattish information – person who felt qualified to write an article aimed at Bond fans:-

In a little book called ‘For your eyes only’, Ian Flemming actually published a collection of short Bond stories rather than the normal single Bond  novel. Some of them even became movies that you may have heard of, since the first short story in this book is called ‘A view to a kill’, and the second short story was ‘For your eyes only’. The 3rd is called ‘A Quantum of Solace’, and is a very short story about a boring cocktail party Bond has to attend, where he is told a story.

The ‘Quantum of Solace’ relates to the last grain of human kindness in a relationship.

while sitting on a plane at heathrow today, waiting for a parking spot, i started to calculate just how much my hair had grown while waiting for delayed planes in the last week.
Based on a hair growth rate average of .44mm per day, i figure that my hair has grown .26mm while waiting for delayed flights in the last week.
It’s been a bad week!

Today, I am in mourning.

Yes, that constant companion to all business travellers, Jenna Jameson, has announced her retirement from the porn industry.

Business travel will never be the same again.

We’ll miss you Jenna.

No, don’t worry – I’m not about to break into song, wearing a white Lycra jumpsuit, and emulating Freddy Mercury…

Well, OK, I might, but later, and not in front of you!

No, this post is about an annual event that happens in Barcelona.

First, for those who don’t know me. I head up a team for the biggest telecoms company in the world, responsible for delivering the future innovation strategy for them. My scope is all services that are not traditional voice and SMS calls on mobile, and I am expected to provide the technology strategy for the entire group.

Every year, the GSMA hosts a show in Barcelona, where the latest and greatest in this space is show-cased. Everybody that has anything to do with mobile telecommunications has a stand, and it is the place where they launch their latest stuff. A perfect place for somebody like me to ensure that they aren’t missing anything, wouldn’t you think?

Certainly, the 15 invitations that I have received from companies who are planning big launches at this year’s show would indicate that I should be there…

So why then, did I just get an e-mail from my director, explicitly banning me from attending – for the 3rd year running?

Short sighted bastards!

November has been a terrible month for people I know. One of my friends has been diagnosed with stomach cancer, and has spent the month in chemo. My best friend’s daughter got very ill (but is thankfully alright now), and then the bravest guy I know had a major turn for the worse…

He’s had MS for a few years now, and has been controlling it with some drugs that he had to take every day. Last week, he had a really bad spell, and the Doctors confirmed that his condition had changed, and that his immune system was now out of control.

He spent the last week in dialysis, where they basically stripped the immune cells from his blood, and gave him a choice of hard core chemo or a drug infusion. The hard core chemo would make him feel like shit, and he would get sick often and die young. The drug infusion may give him a short, but comfortable life, or it could kill him or turn him into a vegetable instantly.

He took the drug option, and the infusion happened today. Still not heard anything, but if you are the praying type, please put a little prayer in for Axel.

Yes, unbelievable as it may seem, and after a mere 7 months of paying lawyers and accountants to resolve the issue for me, the fascists at the South African Revenue Services have finally conceded that they cannot prove that I worked in South Africa over the period that they previously claimed, and that I owe them no taxes. The courts have reversed the judgement against me, and the arrest warrant revoked!

Happy days.

 Now to get those fuckers at the credit bureaus to remove the incident from my credit history – this may prove to be the hardest part!

Good news, though, is that one very homesick South African in a frosty and cold England can start shoppiong for tickets to fly South for some sunshine annd to meet up with friends!

It’s been way too long since i last posted. Mainly a result of the amount of travelling i’m doing at the moment, but that’s all about to change (not the travelling – the blogging) because i have a new toy.

Enter the Nokia E90 that i’m writing this post on.

First off – yes it’s big. But it’s smaller than a phone and a blackberry combined, and it actually works with e-mail attachmemts, and on the internet.

I absolutely love it. Only 2 minor gripes – first hardware related. I think that having the internal screen be a touch screen would improve usability.
Second is software related. I hate the fact that i can’t copy a phone number from an e-mail or an appointment and use. It’s not rocket science people. Also, why not display html e-mails? It’s not like the phone can’t cope with html>

Other than that, though – all good. Get one, you’ll love it!

When I was in high school, my parents blocked every attempt I made to get a motorcycle.

So I did what any half intelligent kid would do. I bought one without telling them, and parked it at my girlfriend’s house. Looking back it was a slightly silly thing to do, because I used to cycle to her house in the morning, so I could ride my motorcycle to school. Her house was twice as far from my house as the school…

It all ended when we broke up and I suddenly had nowhere to park the bike. A few years later, I bought a motorcycle off a friend that needed the money to go overseas. It got ugly when he got back though, and wanted his bike back…

Then I grew up, got a responsible job, and almost completely forgot about the motorcycle. It’s been gnawing away at me though. The faint voice growing louder with every year I get closer to the inevitable midlife crisis. That’s why I just did my motorcycle licence here in the UK (I never bothered with one when I was younger). I passed first time, and getting back on a bike was like going back in time. Except for that the motorcycles these days are so much better. And I’m just talking about the cheap job that I did the test on. The good bikes these days are on a whole different planet to the ones that I was riding in the 80s and early 90s!

So now I’m motorcycle shopping. I’m going to get this midlife crisis thing out of the way early. Current favourites on my shopping list are:-

• Honda Fireblade
• Ducati 999
• Suzuki GSX-r1000
• Yamaha R1

One of my personal highlights on my recent trip to the US was when some very nice people from Microsoft (no, please don’t flame me Linux people – I was there for work, and had to meet with them. They were nice.) showed me around their museum/R&D lab display.

Once you got past the inevitable photos of young Bill with long hair and old PCs, there were the bits where the Microsoft R&D team display the things of which they are most proud (and able to dislay – presumably once the patents have all been filed, etc.).

Tucked away at the very end of this display was a glass wall, onto which was projected an image, and behind the glass were some gadgets that looked like WebCams. When you started to play with it, it was sortof like the video wall in Minority Report, and it was great fun, although in practice – in the demo, all you could do is move the images around with your hands, it established a principle and the potential was obvious. I was amazed that they had taken what they had seen in the movie and implemented it so well so soon.

 This week, I saw this article, and it’s great that Microsoft has taken this further and actually turned it into a product. Not quite the same visual impact as a glass wall, but I hope that it will follow soon!