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.

Final week

Six weeks have flown by in a whirl of new people, places, numbers, processes and clothes. I'm not totally sure I'd really looked this far into the future when I started (even seeing the end of the first week was a struggle), so everything's seeming like it's all becoming very real all of a sudden. I suppose this is the reality of consulting; we'll deliver the multi-million pound business model to the client at the end of next week (Thursday morning, to be precise) and then I'll be onto something else, another client, another site, another project.

Provided our proposal's taken up, the development elves will take our place, filling the client's offices with computers, wires and gadgetry whilst they build the shiny new commerce platform we've been sketching out in Visio. While all this happens, I'll be somewhere else dreaming up big dreams for another client.

I know this sounds like a dead cert for Pseud's Corner, but the thought struck me whilst walking along the river yesterday and the sunset was colouring a damp Embankment that sort of nicotine yellow and Ryan Adams' new album was playing (specifically 'Two') and for a few minutes everything seemed silent and calm - in these sort of moments things seem to fall into sharp relief, and I noticed the somewhat nebulous quality of my role. Still, pays the bills and keeps me out of trouble I suppose. And I do enjoy it, very much.

So, the reason I was wandering thataways was that I was en route to meet my old boss in a bar in the Oxo Tower, who spectacularly failed to turn up (not that I was that surprised as he'd been somewhat cryptic about whether he would or not). Not to worry, enjoyed the sunset overlooking the Thames with a couple of Peronis and chuckled at the typically splenetic Evening Standard until the Kiwi arrived. Dinner at a so-so pizza place on Gabriel's Wharf, quick look round the newly refurbed Royal Festival Hall (considering membership, decided to probably not), then a final pint in a horrid pub on Villiers St as the lovely Gordon's was rammed and then home.

So, today I'm doing a bit of work, nothing strenuous, then off to drop in briefly on a birthday party and tomorrow's lunch in Sarf London with the family who so kindly put me up for the first few months of me living in London. Writing this has also reminded me that I really should be looking around for something else to work on post-next week. I'm not sure how this works but something tells me I'd better find out pretty quickly...

First milestone

Ok, quick work update. Mid-project presentation this morning with about a million people from the client and no shortage of people from our place, including the CEO and assorted senior chaps. This is basically the point in the seven week process where we say where we've got to, describe the approach we're taking and open it all to debate.

Now this might sound all huggy and friendly, but realistically this is crunch time. We are presenting everything from the commercial model to the processes and people involved in operating what we're implementing. We're talking about a business which will need to turn over hundreds of millions of pounds in a few years' time. It's worth a fair bit to my company so if this meeting goes well, we're half way there.

It went well. The client engaged with us enough to show they were listening and taking us seriously, we got plenty of interaction and some very positive comments, and to top it off, the main sponsor of the project made it abundantly clear at the end that he was very happy with what he'd seen.

Marvellous. Much thanks from internal people (including the CEO, who's ace, btw) and the sheer relief of a job well done. This far, at least. We do have three weeks to go and a whole lot of work to be done and difficult questions to be answered in that time. Nonetheless I'm happy with the result of my first presentation - by my reckoning, I and the project manager did very well indeed.

So a moment's relaxation is called for. Tomorrow will be a bit of regrouping, one or two catch up meetings, lunch from Borough Market (I'm heading for the cassoulet myself), perhaps a pint or two in the Market Porter and then home for a quiet one with the Kiwi before she jollies off to New York for a week to do massively important stuff with really important people. Dead proud of her I am: my girlfriend's going to New York on a business trip. That's how important she is.

And the rest of the marigolds are flowering.

It's happening!

Now, I wasn't going to do this until it'd fully opened, but I'm just a bit too excited about it - my first marigold is opening! I'll post a few more pics once it's properly open, and probably take them on a better camera, but here you go.

I know it's not the most manly thing in the world to get all excited about a little flower that you've grown from seed but trust me, this has taken bloody ages and plenty of TLC from yours truly over the past months (months!) so it's a bit of a momentous occasion. I wanted to prove to myself that I could grow stuff, as throughout my whole life I've shied away from it having once killed a couple of house plants in my youth. How growed up do I feel now? Tremendous. What you can't see next to my lovely flower is the Kiwi's pot - full of rocket and chives, which are both lovely but are now frankly overshadowed by my majestic Marigold, which I'm sure will be the envy of the neighbourhood before too long.