I had a great lunch with Elie today. As always, I was impressed with his energy and his enthusiasm!
He has a new business idea that we discussed, and I am going to think more about how I might help.
Also, some of his thoughts about database structure and indexing stimulated some thoughts about how I will handle some of the technical challenges with my latest project - I think that he could have an important role to play!
I love cats and I’m always happy to see them get the upper-hand, but even I was surprised to see a moggy win in this stand-off:
I can imagine nothing worse than waking up to find flood water in your house.
When I was a child, I used to have a recurring dream about living in top-floor apartment, surrounded by water from a heavily-flooded River Thames… It was pretty disturbing, but not as disturbing as the real thing, I’m sure.
Those people who live in beautiful houses near rivers must be really devastated, because after years of valuing their unique and historic houses, they now find that their homes are uninsurable and may no longer be worth much - on top of having their domestic lives ruined.
To add insult to injury, these people don’t seem to be getting as much sympathy as one would expect:
“It’s just global warming - deal with it!” summarises some of the comments that I have heard. Shocking really.
If it really is Global Warming, then how come some of the same areas that we are flooded this year had their hottest ever summer last year? And even if it is Global Warming, then it’s kind of all our responsibility, not just those people that live in flood-plains.
Whatever the causes, it seems that we must be braced for increasingly unpredictable weather in the future, so what are we going to do about it?
Us Townies shrugging our shoulders and getting on with life while our Rural cousins suffer is probably not acceptable - we need to fundamentally change the way that we live if we’re going to be able to cope with what the future has in store for us.
I’ve just seen the latest Harry Potter and it’s pretty scary. I’m sure that I would have been scared out of my wits watching something like that when I was 12, but then I was a late developer! Not bad, though… The final film will be awesome, methinks.
Today I finally complete on my purchase of an newly-completed apartment in a converted warehouse in Kings Langley, just on the outskirts of London… It’s a quirky three-bed, duplex penthouse at the front of the building that I happened across this Spring.
Naturally, I’m delighted, but I am also ambivalent about the prospect of finally leaving London. I’ve often talked about it, but now the thought of actually doing it fills me with trepidation.
London is like that girl you fancied at school, but who treated you like dirt! No matter how bad she makes you feel, you just cannot help being attracted to her and lusting after her, but sometimes you wish that you had never met her.
So, I’ll hedge my bets and keep my place in Crouch End too… If Boris Johnson wins the race to be Mayor of London, I’ll move out for sure!
Last night over my brother’s birthday dinner, conversation turned to whether or not Ricky was still funny, following the excellent article with a similar title in last weekend’s Telegraph.
Hmm… I think that I will have to go and see him live to see if he delivers the goods, but watching him at the Diana Concert was more painful than having my wisdom teeth removed!
I thought that The Office was excellent (especially the Christmas special), but I never got a chance to watch ‘Extras’ and so I don’t know how it compares.
What I do know is that he seems to struggle on the spot. He’s not as funny as the sort of stand-up comics you get a dodgy pubs in Islington, but perhaps his TV shows are genius and where he should focus his efforts.
However, what’s really interesting is the Press’ desire (need?!) to destroy people that are doing well and being successful… He’s taking more heat than David Cameron at the moment, and I do wonder if all of the Ricky-sniping is part-driven by jealously - didn’t a lot of showbiz journalists actually want to be in showbiz?
Damian did remind me about the woeful episode of “The Simpsons” where Ricky made a guest appearance. I thought it was the worst episode of The Simpons ever. It’s the only one where I didn’t laugh once. Damian watched it with me and speechless in disgust.
Maybe the little fella just needs to stick to what he is good at? I’ll certainly be looking out for his TV show, but I won’t be inviting him to perform at my wedding!
Even after all these years, Prince is still able to wow me with his breathtaking live performances, and it was an absolute pleasure to see him yesterday evening with Damian.
Sometimes when you go to watch a legendary performer like Prince, you’re kind of worried that they might decide to play lots of new or experimental stuff that you might not be familiar with, but we knew that we were in for a treat when he kicked-off with ‘1999′!
I first became a Prince fan when Philip Huffer and I were shopping in Tottenham Court Road and won some tickets to see ‘Under the Cherry Moon’. It was 1986, I’d never heard of Prince and the film wasn’t being talked about as a summer block-buster, but when you’re a spotty 14-yr old free tickets are free tickets!
I was mesmerised by the film. Not only was Prince fascinating to watch, but the beautifully shot monochrome and absurdly fun plot kept me captivated. However, it was the music that seduced me.
When Prince and his gang performed ‘Girls & Boys’ I was hooked. I saved-up my pennies to buy ‘Parade’ and my love-affair with Prince’s music began.
21 years later, I still haven’t explored all of ‘Parade’. I didn’t get much past ‘Kiss’ back then, which I must have played a thousand times whilst bopping around pretending to be Prince. Hearing him perform it a few hours was just as good as hearing it for the first time - and he seems to have no less energy than he did back then.
What amazes about Prince is his versatility.
‘Parade’ includes piano solos like ‘Venus De Milo’ mixed with the pop/rock classic ‘Kiss’, spellbinding ballads like ‘Do You Lie’ & ‘Sometimes It Snows (In April)’ and sinister one-offs like ‘Anotherloverholeinyohead’. Like many of his earlier albums, the styles on it are more diverse than your average chart compilation album.
All these years later, Prince is still able to switch effortlessly from a powerful guitar solo to a ballad without breaking a sweat and without losing his audience.
We were treated to many more the classics, including some of my personal favourites ‘Forever in My Life’ (which I introduced to Dana in Turkey a couple of weeks ago!), ‘Alphabet Street’, ‘If I Was Your Girlfriend’ and ‘Take Me With You’, ‘Purple Rain’ and ‘Let’s Go Crazy!’.
He had a subtle dig at some of today’s modern ’stars’. The message wasn’t lost on his audience - he is in a league of his own. ‘LoveSexy’ is the only musical performance that I have ever seen that surpasses this. And we were both ten years younger then!
The venue was wonderful too - I have always been a fan of the O2 / Millennium Dome despite the controversy surrounding it, and it is certainly one of the best concert venues that I’ve been to - if only getting home was as smooth and funky as Prince!
You know, at the start of the season, us poor Arsenal fans got a lot of stick, particularly from those Tottenham lads on the wrong side of town.
Of course, the thought of losing the inimitable Thierry Henry filled me with dread, but, as we have seen before, the Arsenal whole is greater than the sum of the parts and great players just don’t seem so great any more when they’re not in an Arsenal shirt. (Viera? That’s a brand of Sony TV isn’t it?!)
Our faith in Wenger is paying-off - Fabregas stepped-up when Viera left, and Adebayor is the new King of Highbury.
According to Spurs ‘fans’, he is a donkey. Well, we’re at the top of the table with a game in hand and a GD of plus-16 versus Spurs in the bottom three not even able to beat Bolton with a GD of minus-2 - and some of their points were earned against relegation favourites, Derby! Perhaps Martin Jol needs to get himself up to Blackpool and gets some donkeys for the not-so-Hotspur?
Jol is still smiling. I’m not sure why. No one wants him - not the fans and not the Chairman and this has got to be Spurs’ worst start for a decade. (Of course, it’s a false position according to Jol and it will come right soon.)
South of the River, things are even more amusing. Poor Mourinho. Damian tells me that Daniel Levy put in several calls to Jose and that he might be moving up North to join the Hotspur. Can you really see Mrs. Mourihno shopping on Tottenham High Road?! Or his kids kicking it at Edmonton Green with their mates on Saturday afternoon? Spurs’ fans capacity for self-delusion never ceases to amaze me.
What we have at Arsenal is team spirit and a passion for winning. When one big name moves on, another picks up the challenge. That’s what a real football team is about. We’ve proved it time and time again.
Roll on the rest of the season. I predict that we will be three points ahead at the top at Christmas, and in the race for the title with Manchester United, Manchester City and Liverpool. I also predict that Reading will finish above Spurs, although it will be close.
If only I could have convinced Chris to part with some cash and participate in our annual ‘Who will finish higher - Spurs or Arsenal?’ bet. Alas, he’s running scared after the last couple of years, so I’ll have to find another source of income!
Come on you Gooners!
The Emirates project has been a huge success for Arsenal - it just goes to prove what good management can achieve when they have the right strategy and good execution - what a shame that we cannot seem to run public infrastructure projects as well - the Public Sector could learn a lot from projects like this.
Arsenal is currently generating about £3m per game at the new stadium, with near-capacity attendances, which must make Roman Abramovich choke on his pelmeni because Chelsea can barely scrape together 30,000 visitors these days.
All of this has lead to Arsenal become the richest football club in Britain and has secured our position as one of the world’s premier sports team - the turnover for this financial year will be over £200m.
Oh, it’s good to be a Gunner!
I had had a very productive couple of days in Russia and was reflecting on how best to maintain the momentum when the battery on my ThinkPad died. Again.
I pulled Martin Amis’ “Money” out of my case and carried on reading the hilarious exploits of John Self until I became aware of a fast-moving person entering the waiting area.
He sat down hard. He seemed agitated and slightly nervous; he was the sort of person that stood out in crowd – not least because he was well-dressed, very dark and intense. I guessed that he was Sri Lankan or Mauritian, either coming back from meeting a Russian girl he’d found on the Internet, or on a business trip.
An attractive Korean couple entered the lounge. They were one of those middle-aged couples who still seem very much in love; chatty, affectionate and dressed in similar fashion. They sat next to me and I shuffled-up to make some space for them. The man nodded his appreciation so violently that his glasses nearly fell off. Shortly afterwards, his mother joined them and went to sit in the only nearby empty seat opposite me.
Realising that they probably wanted to sit together, I stood and ushered her towards my seat. She took it, and then her and her son both thanked me with vigorous nods of their heads. “Must be a family trait,” I thought.
I turned my attention back to my book for a few minutes before an announcement informed us that the flight back to Heathrow would be delayed by 30 minutes. Nobody stirred apart from the mysterious chap whose body language made it clear that he was not happy with this development. My only thought was that I could have stayed in the VIP lounge a bit longer and polished-off a few more of those tasty little pastries.
Thanks to Mr. Amis, the time passed quickly and people started shuffling towards the departure gate where the surprisingly friendly staff quickly let people through. I’m always pretty quick out of the blocks when it comes to boarding, but Mr. Mysterious had leapt up even faster than me (I do still have two knackered knees!) and was immediately in front of me in the queue.
The young ‘Inspector’, whose apparent role was to check people’s passports, adopted a rather quizzical expression on spying Mr. Mysterious’ passport. He flicked backwards and forwards through the tattered and curious looking document before asking if the owner had another British visa, as the one he was looking at expired. Mr. Mysterious explained that he did, and pointed it out. I’ve racked-up a few visa stamps in my time and space is always tight, but this chap’s passport was in awful shape, and should have been replaced a long time ago.
Satisfying himself that everything probably was in order, the Inspector let him through after a delay of some two or three minutes, which had Mr. Mysterious muttering under his breath and stomping down the gangway to the plane.
The Inspector took a cursory glance at my passport before smiling at me and telling me to have a good flight before I stomped onto the plane even more loudly. Mr. Mysterious was sitting in the row behind me with a face like thunder. I slid into my seat and delved back into my book.
It was coming up to 22:00 and I just wanted to be home. I leaned in my seat, noticing that there were few dents in engine cover, before closing my eyes. Soon, we were in the air and the cabin crew were distributing our supper.
“I ordered a vegetarian meal. Where is it?” said Mr. Mysterious in a firm but annoying voice dripping with entitlement.
“We didn’t have an order for a vegetarian meal, sir. Sorry, but we don’t have any on-board as we didn’t get any orders for then.”
“So what are you going to do? I requested a vegetarian meal.”
“We didn’t get any requests, sir.”
“Well, I was originally on another flight and I ordered one.”
“They didn’t pass your order on, sorry. Would you like this meal?”
“No, I want a vegetarian meal.”
“I can’t help you. Sorry,” said the stewardess before going off to continue distributing meals, which consisted of a brown bread roll, a white bread roll, two slices of cheese and a slice of ham. I thought about telling him to throw the ham away before chuckling to myself and tucking in.
Several minutes later, she was back at the front of the half empty cabin when Mr. Mysterious took us both by surprise.
“What’s your name,” he fired at her.
“Sorry,” she replied, her hands full with cups.
“Your name. I want your name. I want to complain about the way you treated me!”
“My name. Umm… Here it is, sir. On my badge.” She offered him her badge and stood in silence while he wrote her name down. Slowly.
“I’d like to see you manager too. Please get your supervisor.”
The look of disbelief on her face reflected well what I was feeling. Clearly, Mr. Mysterious’ pride, having been bruised, needed to be healed by taking it out on the innocent cabin crew.
The Purser arrived rather promptly and employed all of the tricks from her training manual. She knelt on the floor to look at him, said sorry about 12 times in the space of a couple minutes and agreed to severely reprimand the stewardess who had treated him so badly. This was not enough. He continued to press his point.
“She really should have apologised to me for not having a vegetarian meal. She didn’t seem sorry at all. You really need to explain to her that it is not good enough. I would like to have an official complaint form so that I can make a formal complaint.”
Barely able to believe what I was hearing, I put my book down on the seat and loosened my seat-belt. If there is one thing that I cannot stand, it is this sort of petty injustice – inflicted just to make the perpetrator feel better at the expense of a defenceless innocent in the wrong place at the right time. The purser headed for the back of the aeroplane.
I thought for a few moments. I undid my seat-belt and strolled up to the back of the aeroplane. Five of the cabin crew were there, obviously discussing the incident.
I tapped the Purser on the shoulder and apologised for interrupting.
“Hi. I’m sorry to interrupt, but I just can’t ignore this. Your colleague did nothing wrong. The chap sitting behind me was embarrassed by your Inspector before we boarded and he is just taking out on your team.”
“I’m confused,” she said, “are you saying that she did nothing wrong.”
“Yes. She was polite to him and did absolutely nothing wrong. He is at fault.”
“Thank you, sir. I don’t know what to do now. I have to report it and she’ll get into trouble.”
“Take my name and I’m happy to confirm, as an independent witness, that she did nothing wrong. He was looking for a fight.”
“Thanks!”
I slipped back into my seat, comforted by the fact that, despite my tiredness, I hadn’t let the situation get out of hand.
The ‘guilty’ stewardess – rather foolishly – came to thank me. Fortunately for, Mr. Mysterious was now feeling much better having reasserted his importance, and was having a cheerful ‘business or pleasure’ conversation with the man sitting next to him, who could barely conceal his desire to be anywhere but in that seat.
Not content with nearly blowing my cover by thanking me, she then came back to talk to me again. By now, I guess that her shock had turned to anger and she looked like she was ready to rip his head off.
“Excuse me, sir. Are you sitting in your original seat?” she said, pretending to be addressing some ticketing problem. Being one step ahead of her, I flicked her a business card from my top pocket. She flashed a warm and genuine smile at me, clearly forgetting that she was on-duty.
“Thank you, sir. Sorry to bother you.”
No doubt, if Mr. Mysterious doesn’t see sense and drop his silly complaint, I will be asked to give my version of events.
It may seem like a trivial matter, but with women from Eastern Europe able to lose their job for looking at their bosses the wrong way, it would have been ungallant of me to allow that to happen.
The smiles and chorus of “Thank you!” when I left the plane confirmed that I had done the right thing - an eventful flight to end an eventful business trip!
