Month: October 2003

drunkeness

very drunken time last night…. The company laid on a free bar so it was down to Rocket for a pile of beers then off to meet my cousins for a London get together. Cousin John is getting married just before Christmas and we hadn’t met his fiancee Victoria. So it was lovely to see them all and catch up. Much red wine later and I was well on my way. Kipped over at my bro’s place and woke up with a hangover the size of Canada ! Took pills, showered and eventually made it in to the office at about 12….doh !

At 4pm we all trooped out into the courtyard to see the final concordes fly past. They came 3 in a row, roaring over the office towards Heathrow and history. I’ve seen it a thousand times and it’s still an awesome sight ! The plane is just so damn quick ! Jeremy Bowen described it brilliantly on the news – in the time it takes to pour a glass of champagne, concorde has flown 10 miles. That’s Mach 2 for you !!!!

house plant heaven

I went a bit mad today and bought loads of houseplants and pots and stuff from the garden centre. Am planning to make a little cactus rock garden thing and have re-potted my bonsai which has been looking a bit sad recently. I also picked up a venus fly trap which has to be fed little pieces of meat !

autumn

I was out and about today and noticed how the seasons are a changing. The leaves are coming off the trees and it’s getting colder. One of the hottest summers on record is now over. Autumn is upon us, albeit a bit late, and winter awaits. Will it be a cold one ? Am I bold enough to put money on a white christmas…. We’ll see !

Oh, and another cousin of mine is getting married, must be the hot weather…!!!

today's weather...

mania

manic, manic day…. will the phone ever stop ringing and will I ever get on top of my inbox !? Lots of quick turn around stuff, problems, issues, politics, meetings etc etc. I kinda like it when it’s busy. But, I’ve a coldy flu thing creeping up on me so it ain’t so pleasant. I rarely get these so it is a bit of a surprise. Stocked up on Beechams so should be OK !

Think I’ll take it easy and catch up on the Secret Life of Us omnibus…..

mmmmmm

ooooh ! Sainsbury’s Northern Indian Snack Selection with a tommy k dipping sauce. Munching on a spicy little samosa as I type !

content ?

A very amusing day being trained on a web content management system. The system was appallingly difficult to use, the site was down for most of the day and at 4.30 there was a scare that the programmers had accidentally deleted all the content. The whole system looked like a proper dog’s dinner and it cost a fortune to set up. The developers kept exchanging nervous glances and darting out of the room to hack about trying to get it to work.

It’s a classic outsourced IT consultancy project mess. We discovered that the front-end developers were in Bangalore, the content management system programmers in America, the servers in Scotland and the consultants in London. How they expect to get the thing to work I have no idea. They’ve delayed the training twice so far and the project timelines are slipping dangerously with all confidence in the system fading fast.

They did serve a very nice lunch tho’….

phallic sorcery ?!

Here’s a weird one I read in the papers….

A man accused of stealing a penis by sorcery was beaten to death in the Gambia. Police said tricksters appear to make genitals vanish then extort cash for a cure.

How the hell does that work…

Bali

One year ago today, I flew from Melbourne to LA to travel up the coast to Seattle before flying home via New York. I left Melbourne in the early hours and news was just filtering through of a bombing in Bali. Information was sketchy and I boarded my flight unaware of what had happened.

The news programme onboard was prerecorded and I didn’t find out what had happened until I arrived in LA 14 hours later. I was knackered and spent a few hours glued to CNN in my motel room absolutely horrified.

I had spent the previous 16 months on the backpacker trail and knew the kind of place Bali was. I’d chilled in Dahab, got drunk in Goa, smoked dope in Manali, danced on the beach at Hat Rin, hung out on the Kao San Road and spent Christmas day on Bondi Beach. I had been to many of the places where my generation go to party and find cheap dope, hedonism and so called ‘freedom’. They were the ultimate easy target for fanatical extremists bent on murdering people. And that’s what makes me angry….

Such a soft target, such devastation, such young people. It’s unforgivable and I’m glad that the bombers have been given the death sentence. I’d throw the switch myself….