Pick 'n Mix

Longer despatch to make up for lapsed time since the last one. Have just come out of what is traditionally the “most horriblest week of the year”, which means interim results and Christmas trading update, and which in turn means interminable meetings, endless debates about words (should we say "strong" or "solid"? How about "robust"?), last minute hair tearing about getting everything done and then a 4.15am start on the "big day", in to the London Stock Exchange and a series of grillings on TV with the chief exec (I sit sagely beside him with my advisor face on), followed by analyst briefing, press conference and a multitude of calls with journalists over the course of the afternoon. It can be quite a nice day in the way that a long run or march can be after the legs warm up, especially when I get into my banterish stride. And there’s a definite suburbman level thrill when the press the next day is good – and it was this year, with a couple of minor exceptions, which I excuse away. We did our first ever podcast this year and the usual round of BBC, Sky, CNN and CNBC. All in the sparkly bright colour enriched TV studio. Woolworths were also reporting numbers and the studio prop was a bowl of Pick ‘n Mix (or Pick ‘n Nicks as they call it in the trade – it’s where Woolworth reportedly haemorrhage profit). Quite a bit of it seems to have gone onto the waistline of the Woolies CEO.

Security at the London Stock Exchange, which nestles in the georgian parody that is Paternoster Square right next to St Paul’s, is tighter than an airport and they have a special sniffer scanner for all bags. Last year a colleague was refused admission because the sniffer didn’t like the bag she’d bought at a souk in Morocco.

The pre-dawn journey into town is alright, too, once I’m up and showered and there’s a bit of caffeine in the tank. On the drive to the station, I catch the Radio 4 theme, which is the point at which BBC Radio 4 switches from the overnight World Service broadcast to Radio 4 daytime service. It’s blatantly patriotic and I’ll forever associate it with sleepless nights when J was a baby and P and me would take turns of kipping with him because he refused to sleep in a cot. The R4 theme would be the point at which the agony of the night was behind and we’d be resigned to the prospect of the day ahead. It managed to inject some energy and verve into the morning and somehow make the world seem alright even though it is naff factor 8. You can hear it at this link: http://www.sterlingtimes.org/music_themes20.htm

I had flagged by the evening, and as it was a Wednesday we had taekwondo, which was pretty hard to get through and I had a complete mental block which had me standing there like a dead tree while everybody else was going through the endlessly rehearsed motions of patterns chon-ji, dan-gun, do-san, won-yo, yul-gok and ti-geh (violent ballet). To bed by 11, too wired to go any earlier, listened to LOSTCAST as I drifted off. I’ll come back to Lost later.

Thurs and Fri were reasonable. Thurs was mostly spent reviewing the press, doing further follow up calls, unpicking a few problems and the rest of it.

On Fri I went into town mid-morning to meet a journo friend, T, for lunch at a Sushi restaurant in Wardour Street – one of the ones with endless carousel. At one point, something got stuck on the treadmill and a couple of dozen plates of raw tuna and gluggy rice ended up on the floor. T has worked as a foreign correspondent for a major news agency and, coincidentally, ran the Canberra desk for some years.

Afterwards drifted around town ("store visits") and made some calls, some with the Sundays and the trades following up on the Wednesday news (I killed the CRT television this week, which was the main news as the week wore on). Then home for a catch up with P, I and J and a much-deserved drink.

Saturday now and the rhythm returns. Out in the garden turfing what feels like an acre down the left hand side. The soil is so full of water that each patch I move weighs a ton. It’s not a great job, but up here from my study if I squint it looks OK and I’m about halfway through now that the sun, at 4.15 or so, has popped below the horizon and I’ve packed up for the day.

Now how uninspired is all that? I must be more tired than I thought. Still, a diary is a diary, and quality control shouldn’t interfere with the record.

A week or so ago…

Spoke to my dad via MSN this afternoon, using the video chat function. Pictures are better than the ones we used to get from Skylab, and somewhat reminiscent. I expect to see apples or drops of water floating into view, or somebody in the background wafting by. Technological marvel – 12,000 miles away and real-time video and audio. Whatever next?

Quiet little weekend here in the burbs. I took J for a swim yesterday afternoon (freezing day, so it all felt a bit Nordic sauna) while P and I went to see Edward Scissorhands at Sadler’s Wells (directed by the wunderkind choreographer whose name escapes me). Settled down to a log fire and celebrity Big Brother when a knock comes on the door. Him opposite asking us where we are. Slight cock-up in invitation and we’re due there, we suppose, for drinks. We thought it was Sunday. We don’t feel like it, but it seems neighbourly. They’re a period piece – locked in the 1970s – sort of Tom, Barbara, Jerry and Margot all in two bodies.

Quick third-class spruce up and we wander across (kids thrilled at prospect of clandestine MSN, phone calls, DVDs, illicit tele..), already a bit bladdered after a bottle of wine and full to the brim after chicken casserole. Nevertheless, we have some seasonal goodwill left and conspire to stay for an hour or so before exiting stage left.

Apparently unpromising houseguests when we enter (librarian haircuts, a few beards) and the air is curiously heavy and potatoey. Can’t even manage the olive I’m offered almost immediately. Why rush the snacks?, I think. Oddly formal set up – everyone sitting round, dentist waiting room style. Tom/Jerry appears avec apron. Do come through. Dawns on us that it’s a dinner.

Get sat between two nice enough guests – comprehensively briefed by one on Angola, where her son is doing charity work (I was lucky enough to have scanned an article in the Economist about “Dutch disease”, which afflicts oil-based economies - basic idea is that poor economies that find oil are disadvantaged because their currencies strengthen against the dollar and weaken their capacity to trade in any other commodities, so the rich get richer and the poor get a lot poorer). The other side was unintelligible – low voice and Scottish accent, but with a legible face, so after a few more wines I was able to just let her go into monologue and echo her smiles and grimaces without having even a faint clue what she was talking about. There’s an art to dealing with those awkward moments when she asks a question, and I pulled it off.

Played with a few runner beans and tomatoes for my “meal” and too much wine.

Managed to extract ourselves at around 1am, returning to the 21st Century, feeling just puzzled and a tad annoyed.

Grindstone Cowboy

So back to the Hamster wheel that is my little suburban life. The office, now two thirds populated after the several hundred of us were tipped out by the oil blast on the industrial estate, is like a large version of one of those snow globes, with everybody displaced, popping up in unexpected cubicles. Loads of meerkatting going on.

We’re on the fourth floor and I’m a bit amazed at how breathless people are getting as they struggle to get up to even the second floor. The lifts are out and should be for the next 10 weeks, thereby making a modest contribution to the fulfilment of some resolutions.

From the top floor you get a good view across to the scene of the blast and there lots of once impressive warehouses that look more like squashed or torn tins.

It’s sort of nice to have a desk again. Pianists are musical clerks or maybe clerks are tuneless pianists – take your pick. The month has filled up with this and that – the car is going belly up, so I need to drop J at school and take the car with my bike in the back to the menders, cycle home, pick up the other car, drive to work, come back via J’s school, collect him, drop the car at home, cycle back to the menders, drive back to work and then come home. Not the usual rigmarole, but I have taken charge of car maintenance this year for the first time. It’s going to be minus 2 tonight, so by the time I have cycled home, I will have a face like a board.

Other highlights to come: I have the dentist on Friday the 13th and it is some time since I have been. I have the business equivalent of the UN on Monday as I welcome my European colleagues to the UK for a two day conference. We have annual results the week after. P’s birthday is at the end of the month. We have an Epiphany Piph-up to go to on Sunday. It’s just go, go, go.

Celebrity Big Brother starts tonight and there’s a strong rumour that George Galloway is a contestant – compelling prospect of Gorgeous George gizzarding the others with his tongue.

Happy new year, by the way. We had a very nice new year. P’s oldest friend J came up from Devon with her new husband J (sorry, too many Js) and her boys, C and R. J (my son J) was mesmerised by the trampolining prowess of C. I cooked three gallons of curry and we started to imbibe around 5.30. Made it the whole way – not bad for a codger like me. Pacing myself these days.

Didn’t get the guitar out until 10.30, by which time it was too late, the hands weren’t operating and the kids (16, 13, 13 and 10 respectively) gave me looks of withering incredulity which made my voice go all tense and tight and put paid to any prospect of me trying out my new Bob Dylan impression replete with harmonica with any measure of success. Consider yourself spared my Glen Campbell / Jimmy Webb medley.

I have found Bob Dylan this year. For years I have failed to graft, despite recommendations that stretch back as far as old friend R in Canberra, but this year I have succumbed, largely due to a surfeit of alternatives on holiday in Scotland, the Scorsese film and (P’s stocking filler) Don’t Look Back. I now think he shows promise. Musical find of the year for me was Antony and the Johnsons. Sadly I don’t have the vocal range, but I do, increasingly, have the figure.