Holidays

... and so we're off. In 10 minutes that is, but I thought I'd take the final few minutes of the Kiwi's 'getting ready' to knock out a quick blog entry.

Last night's wine tasting went down a storm, by all accounts - they always start the same, fairly subdued and everyone acting a bit nervous, and by the third wine everyone loosens up a bit and starts to interact. Job well done. The success of the tasting somewhat made up for the inevitable depression which followed a meeting with a financial advisor who assessed my position as 'in a bit of a state' and then smugly told me the saving plan he'd followed all his life etc etc etc before returning to the fact that I'm going to die penniless.

Pah.

Anyway, I'm hungover and the Kiwi's got some sort of 'flu going on which has decimated her entire office and is forcing her to speak in a whisper, which makes everything she says sound like a really big secret and I'm so trying to be supportive and caring but I think it's coming off more like I'm just laughing at her, which is sort of true. Bad boyfriend, again.

Aha - she's clothed, made up and hairdone, looking lovely as usual, so I'm guessing this is my cue to shut down the PC... see you in a week!

Happy Birthday!

Apparently, blogging is ten years old this year (at some point). Which makes me feel not only tremendously old, but way behind the curve. Thanks be to the Lord for the lovely new Super Furry Animals album to keep my spirits up. Despite the fact that I'm at work at 0800 and alone in the office, for the sole reason that the Kiwi gets up early and thus so do I.

Does get me thinking about the whole blogging thing though. Bloggers always used to really get on my nerves - all that baseless ranting and opinion-mongery - but I came to see it as a way of documenting your own personal experiences for your own record, plus that of those close friends and family you might invite to view.

Personally, I reckon that it's purely the high profile of the medium that's giving it a bad name. It's an open, public media platform, available for free (which is a first in history), so naturally those with an axe to grind will get on board and grind away in full public view. The sort of nasally self-righteous muppet who's more than happy to proclaim forth on any topic in any situation for a bit of attention. Who tends to start sentences with 'What I don't understand is...' followed by an inexpert and poorly-informed view of why they know better than a multi-million pound corporation guided by hundreds of years of direct experience.

So unfortunately the loudest voices in the blogosphere (can't believe I actually used that word) are consequently the most idiotic. It's a shame, really. They're spoiling it for everyone else.

Are we there yet?

For those of you not in the UK, today is a bank holiday, and what I'm doing instead of feeding my beer baby in the pub is sortofworking. I've had to invent a new word for it, because it's not really working, but I am actually doing constructive professional things in between doing this damn thing that Kathryn posted on her blog and has been intermittently occupying my time all morning. I've also been listening to more Pet Shop Boys than is probably healthy, but I'm in a sunny sort of disco mood and have had Se A Vida E going through my head since I woke up, so there you go.

However, apart from doing my expenses form (yay!) and fiddling around on Facebook (damn you facebook), I have actually been working this morning, and the main reason for this is that the Dublin project appears to have slipped another week, sort of. I have found this in the past though - instead of everything being delivered with a triumphant flourish on the due date, it all sort of trickles in over a period of several weeks. This is feeling like the last week of it all though - we've got a fair idea what we're building and how long it'll take, so work could conceivably begin next week.

I'll be involved then, although the build is taking place in the UK, so the visits to Dublin and their accompanying 0430 wake up calls will be less frequent, fortunately. I'm also going to miss the first week of the project because I'll be in Corsica working on my ability to do nothing for hours at a time (which I got quite good at in Sardinia last year). That's ok, as as far as I can see, week one will be all about working out who's sitting where and all the techies making sure their development environment is all working and so on. Nothing I really need to be involved in, I don't think.

One thing I will have to do before hols is give a wine tasting to my colleagues. 30 of them have responded to an invite to one on Thursday evening - normally 10 is a challenge to keep under control, so this could be something of a challenge, but I'm looking forwards to it. Will be a nice way to end the week - although it could make packing on Friday morning something of a challenge.

So, holiday then! Off on Friday, two nights in Nice (must... make... joke...), a week in Corsica and then one night in Cannes on the way back. Well, it's not really on the way back, but it's in the area and the Kiwi's never been. Personally I thought it was pretty dull, but it's a bit iconic I suppose and the train ride down the coast past Antibes is really lovely. Good cocktails at the hotel bars on the Croisette, too...

I can't bloody wait, to be honest. Apart from anything else, I've forsaken beer for the past month or so in an effort to be able to see my toes again, and I'm so looking forwards to that first cold one by the sea. That said, I've noticed a real improvement - I've cut out beer and almost entirely cut out bread lately. I've not really been exercising all that much more, but I'm visibly trimmer, so that's my top dieting tip - drink less beer.

I'm sure there'll be photos and all when we get back, but for now you'll have to make do with one of a pile of unnaturally shiny apples on reception at last week's hotel. They were definitely real: I think they'd been polished.

Bad boyfriend

I've been told off today. For being a bad boyfriend, not once, but twice. I'm staying at home in penance whilst the Kiwi goes off to watch a film with another kiwi. To think about what I've done.

The second thing that happened was this. I'm in the kitchen, debating whether to finish the Jaffa Cakes in order to throw the box away and make space in the cupboard (honest), when I turned around to see our white duvet cover in the hallway, full of Kiwi and thrashing around somewhat. She'd got herself completely inside it and was giggling quietly to herself. Soon though, giggling turned to a panicky 'I'm getting claustrophobic now - help me. HELP ME!' accompanied by more urgent thrashes and struggling.

I'd love to say that I sprang to the rescue like the valiant boyfriend I am but, dear reader, it saddens me to say that I was paralysed and helpless with laughter, and could do nothing but wait until that lovely little red angry face eventually appeared from under the cover, with words like 'how could you' and 'why didn't you' and 'worst boyfriend in the world' spluttering from it.

The first time was when she called through to me from the living room to the kitchen. It sounded urgent, but I had my hands full (with eggshells, which I hate) and called back 'wait a minute'. It turned out all she wanted was for me to put some music on, but the fact that I'd thought she might've been in terrible danger and yet decided she could wait until I'd dealt with the eggshells (which I hate) was enough to tick off a few brownie points.

So I'm ruminatively finishing the Jaffa Cakes, reflecting on how I've never enjoyed spending time with another human being quite as much as I do with my Kiwi, who's so thoughtful and brilliant and lovely and who gets lost in duvet covers and who talks to her mechanical cat when I'm not there.

I really do love her very much.

.... and another thing...

I'm doing this a lot, aren't I? Anyway, I just wanted to point out that I've just seen the video to The Smiths 'There Is A Light That Never Goes Out' on TMF, which is a funny little channel that sometimes comes up with some intriguing stuff.

Anyway, as anyone who's ever spent any time in Manchester will know instantly, it's filmed around there (Salford, I believe). And it reminded me how much I love and miss that amazing city - even the boarded up council houses and dodgy industrial areas - there's a familiarity and a melancholy friendliness even in the rusting gasometers and crappy broken up roads. I did once plan to move back there one day...

On another note, the next video TMF served up was Adam Ant's 'Prince Charming', which instantly extinguished any longing thoughts of the north with 'By golly you're right Adam: ridicule is nothing to be scared of!'. It's been a funny old day.

Update etc

So, you've probably noticed that it's been a while since my last entry, and so it has. I've not got bored of this blogging thing, I've been alternately manically busy and avoiding getting online for non-work purposes in a kind of 'laptop brings pain' sort of way. So here I am, with a rare Saturday to myself and in a bit of a communicative mood. Work is finished for the day, having spent this morning trying to get something right that's been plaguing me all week.

On that. One of the major frustrations I'm finding at the moment is that whole thing about just not knowing stuff. There are things that are expected of me which I'm just not being told about, and of course when it turns out that I've not done whatever it was, I end up looking a bit rubbish. There's also the annoying thing about knowing what it is I need to say or communicate, but not knowing the 'proper' ways of doing it. These have been a recurrent themes over the past week or so and have been getting on my nerves somewhat. I think we're almost over the worst though, for now.

This particular phase of this project has slipped by a week, which isn't great news. The Project Manager came back from holiday on Monday (my 30th, incidentally, more on that later) and predictably was appalled by how random it'd all got in his absence. Personally I reckon that properly briefing the team and formally appointing a de facto team leader might've helped, but there you go, what do I know? One more week to go, looks like a bit of a week of absolute hell to me, most of it spent in Ireland with nowhere to hide.

On a more fun note, I turned 30 on Monday, which was horrifying. I'd never really been that bothered about it, but all of a sudden towards the end of last week I was starting to feel like I'd really not got to where I wanted to be in general by this age. I reckon I was being a bit too hard on myself, but it got to me a bit all the same. The pain was eased slightly by an afternoon in the park with some friends on Saturday and lunch at the River Cafe on Monday, which was absolutely tremendous, something I'd wanted to do for years.

The Kiwi, continuing her trend in buying me potentially lethal gifts (last Christmas she had me thrown out of a plane at 15,000ft), has bought me a first helicopter flying lesson. I'm really looking forwards to it - one of my life's ambitions has been to learn to fly a helicopter, so she's done well, I'm amazed and so touched that she's picked up on it. I suppose the only worrying thing about it (apart from the fact that there's no reason to be found in most schools of physics why something like that should actually fly) is that having wished for it for so long I turn out to be rubbish at it. We'll see. I'm bracing myself for my Christmas present, which will no doubt be a 'Beginner's Lion Wrestling' course or something. She's ace - always helping me push my boundaries.

Speaking of continuing trends, I've discovered that for the first time in my life, I'm actually getting fat. This is truly horrific. I've always been slim, and yes, sometimes tended towards a little beer belly, but I've never actually noticed wobbliness. Until now. I've cut out beer (sob), bread (making finding lunch more tricky) and I'm trying to get some exercise in where I can. Which reminds me - must go for a swim. In fact, I think I'll do that right now.

Phew

Sorry about that. Feel much better now.

PS - on the whole I'm still really proud of what the company is achieving, what we have done is really good stuff. It'll be even better once it's built...

Rant. Pure, unfettered rant.

There, warned you. I've been in the most appalling mood for the past few days, inspired almost entirely by the people around me and their complete inability to follow instructions. Let me paint you a picture of recent times, starting with a mid-point presentation to the client at the end of last week.

All the way through this project, I've been clear to the creative team what the priorities are from the client's point of view, and how the fact that we've understood what these priorities are is crucial to maintaining our credibility. Despite this fact, two key points were missed off the presentation. I mean, so key that the client had to spend about an hour going over them again, pointedly looking at me with a sort of 'are you some kind of idiot' look on his face.

Coming out of the presentation, I mildly voiced my concerns to the group, and we settled on redesigning the whole thing the following day. That was actually quite productive, and I thought we were getting somewhere. We did, to an extent. The plan was to re-present to the client (who's on holiday - we presented over the internet) today, with more fully formed designs and technical solution.

Everything turned out well, except for the fact that we presented a homepage design without any advertising, one of the key points missed off the first session. Cue me going very red-faced and coming up with a number of excuses and again, looking like a bit of a fool.

So, whilst we're more or less back on track and I'm reasonably sure of getting this all sorted by the end of next week, I'm not exactly loving some of my colleagues right now. Stuff like that, by which I mean blatantly not listening to briefs and following one's own agenda, really doesn't help speed things along. It doesn't help that my 30th birthday falls right in the middle of it all, and I don't think I'll be able to properly relax with all this going on, in fact I know I won't be able to.

Still, all good experience I guess. Off to Dublin again tomorrow, thankfully just for a day trip, back there again next week for a couple of days. Can't decide if I want to stay on this project after this phase... jury's out on that one.

Must... blog...

Very quick one, as falling asleep on keyboard. Somehow wearing self out without seeming to be terribly productive. Hotel was lovely, lunch today at Tate Modern was too (albeit rushed), going to Manchester this weekend hooray, only in Dublin for a day trip next Thursday hooray again, mind leaking out of ears due to uncontrollable heaving beast of a project - booooo.

More comprehensive stuff next time, promise. When I've had some sleep. And maybe some of that EPO stuff that gets cyclists to the top of hills. Should be able to get me to week 5, I reckon...