Spot the tourist attractions.

I spent the weekend in London with my wonderful girlfriend. Doesn’t that sound much nicer than a weekend with my long-suffering girlfriend? We stayed at the Grosvenor which is a very swanky 5 star hotel on Park Lane. Better than that was that we were staying for free! You just can’t beat a free stay in a flash hotel surrounded by people wearing dinner suits while I’m just dressed in my Gap-esque wardrobe. Of course, as the poem goes, you’re supposed to be able to walk with kings and never lose the common touch.

Anyway, you may recall if you’ve been a long-term reader of my ramblings (the one or two of you that are), that I spent a couple of months working down there. I wasn’t overly keen at first but soon found myself to be having a great time, due in no small measure to the fancy hotels I was staying in and the great food I was eating in some superb restaurants. So returning to London took me right back to a year ago. And after a few days I’m reminded why I like living where I do and how I can’t understand why people would want to have such a way of life.

I can’t believe these things walked the earth. The dinosaur that is.

However, it was nice to catch up with some friends and family. That’s the trouble when you meet people at school and university and then move to other ends of the country / planet - it can be tough to stay in touch and it never feels like you’re doing enough. This time we didn’t take the tube very much (a good thing too considering the crash on the Central line), instead walking around the city a bit. We went to the Natural History Museum (right), which I’ve always wanted to see. Dinosaurs were a fascination of mine from an early age and I guess it was a pilgrimage to see so many fossils and recreations of the beasts that ruled the world for many millions of years. I could have spent hours in there. And did.

The residents come in all shapes and sizes.

We walked around places like Chelsea where the rich and famous live (can’t see the attraction really, pretty poky houses) through Hyde park which seemed full of people trying to run themselves into shape (for the record I only saw one guy that I would consider to be in decent shape). We also paid our generic visit to Harrods to look at expensive watches (they didn’t have mine) and get lost in its vastness. We saw a guy starting a fight with another guy and lots of people living on the streets (I stress that we’d left Harrods by now). We were also reminded of the “Somebody Else’s Problem Phenomenon” that people seem to have (in that everything is everybody else’s problem, so eveybody ignores everybody else). I swear that if a person exploded and an alien popped out, nobody would even give them a cursory glance.

The most amusing thing that happened was a knock on our door at about 12.30am. I answered it to be presented with a tall, very attractive Spanish woman who looked amazed that I was standing there. Clearly she was expecting someone else so I pointed out that she must have the wrong room. I went back to sleep and the phone rang half and hour later for the same woman to ask for Rafael! Once again I pointed out that she had the wrong damn room and to leave me alone. Fortunately she did. But it was a fun trip and as always London has a lot to offer the visitor. But I couldn’t live there. I just don’t like being in cities for longer than a few days. And there were too many tourists for my liking!

Oh, I’m afraid I didn’t catch the James Bond or Star Trek exhibitions. Two nights just weren’t long enough to do everything. Maybe next time…

I’VE BEEN PRETTY BUSY LATELY STOP OUR TEAM LEADER
IS AWAY IN THE STATES AND ALTHOUGH YOU MIGHT THINK
IT IS A TIME FOR RELAXING I’VE BEEN WORKING REAL HARD
INSTEAD STOP AT LEAST I’M OFF ON MONDAY THOUGH STOP

Sometimes I wish I’d been around in the era of the telegram. Communication systems were primitive and people would be all excited to receive a telegram from a loved one on the other side of the world. It almost made the planet seem smaller and the person was just around the corner. Of course in the modern day we’ve got mobile phones, the internet and video conferences to make the place seems small and I think some of the wonder of communicating has been lost along the way.

And that takes me neatly on to my point. Communication. Many argue that language can be a barrier to communication, and that can certainly be the case. But I reckon that culture is a far larger barrier and language can preclude that, and I’ve got an example to demonstrate it. I work for an American company, based in Minneapolis. We all speak English over in the UK, and they all speak English over in the States. We speak the same language. So there shouldn’t be any problems with communication. In theory.

But reality doesn’t quite work that way. We’ve had lots of problems, and everybody that I’ve spoken to who has worked with Americans has had the same set of problems with eerie regularity. But although it’s easy to generalise and blame our American cousins, it’s not their fault. And I know for a fact that we drive our counterparts mad sometimes, acting in what seems to them to be wildly unpredictable ways. And again, it’s not entirely our fault. The problem is that we all speak the same language and just assume that we’re on each other’s wavelengths. But that’s sometimes not the case.

I do recognise that everybody is an individual and therefore I can’t just refer the “The Americans” as though they are an army of clones, but attitudes and behaviour patterns tend to be very similar within a geographical location. However, America is so darned big and multicultural that there are a great many cultures within the whole country. So rather than generalise, I’m refining my discussion to the Americans I work with and have come into contact with (although not on an individual basis) so you can’t accuse me of being a generalist or a racist! Plus it wouldn’t be fair otherwise.

When I first started working with my American colleagues I treated them exactly like everyone else and quickly realised that they had a sense of humour (one generalisation gone), some were very clever, some were not so clever, and they were all different characters with different interests and lives. Much like anybody else. But as I’ve worked with them more I’ve come to realise that while our language is common, their attitudes to business and they way they talk and think is somewhat different to my UK colleagues. My favourite analogy concerns NASA. To put a man on the moon the USA spent billions of dollars, thousands of people and years of carefully controlled planning and execution before meeting their objectives (which they admirably did). Had Britain tried to do the same you can bet that a group of maybe ten people would have designed the rocket on the back of a cigarette packet, worked for a year or so out the back of a shed, made the rocket out of bits and pieces lying around the local dump and after a massive final push, have sent the ramshackle rocket on its course (after a few false starts when the rubber bands broke). It’s a totally different ethos.

And it’s this difference that has been most obvious to me. The people who colonised the USA may have come from Europe originally, but the European and American cultures rapidly diverged from that point on. It was only a few hundred years ago that this took place but already as nations we seem to be motivated completely differently. And it’s not a bad thing. The French and the English are a completely different race (and not easy bedfellows in general). But we know that’s the case because they speak different languages (note the use of the word ‘they’ as I am in fact Scottish). And the English and French are just as different as the English and Americans. It’s just that you don’t immediately realise thanks to there being no language barrier. So having realised this I can respect it and be less dismissive of my colleagues in future. And remember, just because you can’t see something doesn’t mean it’s not there.

There’s been a lot in the news recently about the increased use of guns by criminals in the UK and as usual it’s stirred up the hornet’s nest of controversy. A couple of teenage girls were shot dead with an Uzi machine gun for no apparent reason on a Birmingham street and the great gun debate has returned front and centre to the news.

As far as I can remember, the Hungerford massacre in 1987 started it all. An unemployed labourer, Michael Ryan, went on a killing rampage with a collection of semi-automatic weapons resulting in 17 deaths (18 if you include himself) and 15 injuries. The 1988 Firearms (Amendment) Act was passed and that banned the ownership of semi-automatics and the general consensus at the time was that it was a good thing that we didn’t have a gun culture like in the USA as this sort of thing could happen much more frequently. Don’t fly off on the handle just yet, I’ll come back to that statement later.

Then in 1996 a disgraced Scout master killed or injured all but one of a class of 5 and 6 year olds in Dunblane primary school in Scotland. This tragedy sent shockwaves around the country and many questions were asked as to why a man capable of this atrocity should have firearms in his possession. And just a couple of weeks ago these two teenagers were gunned down after a party and suddenly the statistics started to pour out.

Apparently gun crime in the UK has risen by 35% in the last year with an average of 27 firearms offences being committed every day. Throughout all this there have been some well publicised shootings in the States, particularly kids gunning their classmates down at school (such as the Columbine killings). However, while crime rates and particularly gun crimes are rising at an alarming rate in the UK, the converse is true across the pond. You are several times more likely to be mugged in London than New York and the percentage of burglaries in the UK are higher than in the USA.

In the UK, it’s illegal to carry concealed weapons. If somebody breaks into my house and attempts to rob it and I catch and then kill them (maybe he tries to cut my throat, I wrestle the knife off him and stab him) then I’ll be the one charged with manslaughter. I know a man who caught a couple of guys trying to steal his car, he chased them down, beat them up and he was charged with assault. You rob me at gunpoint and I take the gun off you and shoot you with it (which I probably would, given the chance) and I’d be the one facing the jail term. Where’s the sense in that?

Compare that with the USA, where it is legal to carry a concealed firearm in 33 states and it’s a part of the constitution that you are allowed to bear arms. Could burglaries perhaps be so low in the States because you are allowed to shoot any intruders on site? And could muggings be lower because the potential mugger doesn’t know if his target is carrying a gun or not? Who knows, but all I can say is that it can’t just be a coincidence.

The UK has always relied upon a system of total protection for all. This means that the government manages the safety of the people by means of the police force. So you shouldn’t take the law into your own hands, you should let the police deal with any muggers or burglars for you. Anyone who lives in the real world knows that this is a pathetically unrealistic idea. The middle classes who have very little contact with crime will tend to claim that the police are doing a great job, but you ask any cop working in Birmingham, London or Bradford and they’ll give you a better view of what it’s really like out there. It’s a war. And the kids out there carrying guns doing drive-by shootings don’t give a damn about the laws of the land.

Do I trust the police to protect me from the ills of the world? Do I feel like I live in a safe, cotton-wool wrapped world? No I don’t - I’m under no illusions. Do I think that guns should be legalised in Britain as in America? Probably not. Do I think that the current system is working? Hell no. Crime rates are accelerating, end of story. Will our government’s ban on replica guns make any difference to the crime rates? Not a chance.

The people who commit these crimes aren’t concerned by the consequences of their actions, and that means that the deterrents aren’t working. Prison terms don’t matter to some kid who knows that with a gun he can get whatever he wants; drugs, respect or whatever makes him tick. But if his potential victim was carrying a gun of his own? I wonder if that might make him think twice. In an ideal world the kid would have had a better upbringing that would mean he lived a decent life and loved his mother and never committed a crime. But come on, what planet do you think we live on?

Scenario 1. I’m going mountain biking. I’m going straight from my house about 6 miles to the local forest where I’ll find miles and miles of woodland trails. I’ve been there many times before and I’m looking forward to it. I haven’t had a puncture in the last 500 miles of biking and given that the terrain is pretty easy, I decide not to bring a puncture repair kit. I’ve never needed it in this place before so why should that change? It will come as no surprise to you that at the furthest point from my house (about 15 miles) I get a puncture and my riding partner has to go all the way back home, get the car and come pick me up.

Scenario 2. Bond has been given an assignment. It’s not well specced out and he’s pretty much playing it by ear. Q, his gadget supplier, gives him a rather swish Rolex that also has a dart gun at the clasp of the strap that can fire exploding rounds, amongst other things. You wouldn’t think that he’d find much of a use for it given that he carries a Walther PPK handgun that can do all the damage he wants. But Bond finds himself strapped to a chair spinning at a surprisingly high velocity - his death is imminent. But, aha! He remembers the watch and fires a bullet from it that breaks the machine and stops the spinning just in the nick of time.

Scenario 3. I’m in Glencoe. The sun is shining and it is a beautiful day to be alive. I’m there with my friend and we’ve just had a weekend’s quality hiking. It’s our last day and we decide to take a wander up to the “Lost Valley” which is a valley hidden between two mountains that used to be used to hide cattle in the old Clan days. It’s about an hour’s short walk from the car and as the sun is shining I decide to leave my Gore-Tex jacket in the car. We walk up the side of the hill and cross a small stream. Of course as soon as we reach our destination the heavens open and there is a huge deluge. By the time we return to that stream it is now a waist deep torrent. I got piss wet through, and I was shaking for half an hour after we got back to the car.

Scenario 4. Bond is in the Caribbean and he’s scoping out his latest super-villain. Q catches up with him and happens to give him a mini-re-breather that allows him to breathe under water for about 4-5 minutes. When’s he going to need that? I can hold my breath for a couple of minutes and if he’s going to be under for longer than that he’s going to need some proper scuba gear. But he just so happens to get thrown into a shark-infested pool that has the top closed over. No escape, he’ll drown for sure. But then he remembers the breathing kit, gets it out and calmly swims to freedom. Rule Britannia!

You may have detected a pattern here. In a Bond film, he gets a different bunch of gadgets each time but he always finds himself in a situation where only those specific gadgets will get him out alive. If he got a hand full of kit that he never needed it would look a bit stupid him carrying it around in a rucksack for the whole film. But in the real world he’d be screwed. He’d either be screwed because he hardly ever had the right tool for the job or he’d have a knackered back from carrying everything including the kitchen sink around all over the place.

While I’ve made numerous mistakes so far in terms of seeing the future and bringing something I’m going to need, I have a simple strategy that gets me through most situations, although it doesn’t get me the slick moves of Bond. My strategy is this: whenever I get a voice in my head saying “maybe I should bring this” or, more generally “maybe I should do that” and I’m not sure either way, I always do it. Even though I’m not sure it’s the right thing to do at the time, I recognise my own indecisiveness in action and say yes.

Try it. It’s playing the percentages and on balance you should win out at the end of the day. Now if you’ll excuse me I’m off to watch where Bond gets to use his latest high-tech gizmo on that nasty media mogul bad guy…

Some 2 pound coins for your convenience.

I’ve never been a good saver. In fact, up until now I don’t ever recall actually saving money for anything other than immediate spending. But that has changed, albeit in a small way. I remember before the 2 pound coin (that’s UK currency, not weight) was introduced thinking how odd it would be to have. I realise that there’s the 1p and 2p coins but on the whole UK currency is split into multiples of 5. The 5p coin, the 10p coin, the 20p coin, the 50p coin, the 1 pound coin, 5 pound note and so on. But I always liked the idea of a 2 pound coin, probably because the only ones that had been around prior to general circulation were limited edition ones commemorating special occasions - they seemed exclusive.

Anyway, I digress. A couple of years ago my girlfriend suggested we start saving 2 pound coins for a king sized bed. We’ve both got double beds but there’s never enough space for two people to stretch out at the same time in one so it seemed like a good idea. Of course, once we started collecting neither of us would get them as change any more and I didn’t see one for weeks. But after a while they started appearing thick and fast. I’d walk into a supermarket and buy some sandwiches and cookies (no, not biscuits, cookies - the big things with chocolate chips or raisins in them). I’d go to a cash machine first and get a tenner. I’d pay with that note and get a couple of the aforementioned coins back. I then couldn’t spend that change so I’d have to return to the cash machine if I wanted to buy anything else.

If any of my friends had any I’d swap them for pound coins and all the time our box of change was getting heavier and heavier. At the same time, my mattress was getting lumpier and lumpier. This didn’t bother me as I can sleep on anything from concrete floors to tables to gravel car parks. Remember, when I moved into my house I bought a shoe rack before I bought a bed. However, it was playing havoc on my girlfriend’s back. To be fair, the springs were like lumps of rock boring into your body and there was no support in the mattress at all (in fact, you could literally fold the thing in half). So we decided that enough was enough and we’d spend some of our saved money on a new mattress.

This is my bed. The mattress is the thing you lie on.

So we went out yesterday to a few places before finding one that had quite a selection. The guy was delighted to explain to us all the science of beds and it turns out that the types I prefer (rock hard) are actually the cheap ones. Sadly, compromise in a relationship means doing what the female wants, so I had to be fair and choose one that my good lady could sleep on. So after chatting with this guy we opted for one of the more popular brands, brought it home and made the bed. I always like to get my money’s worth out of things so I was counting the minutes until I went to bed.

Okay, if you’re still reading this then you’re probably waiting for some kind of punch line. Or at least a verdict on how good the mattress was. Well, never being one to want to disappoint, here goes. The mattress was excellent. Tough guy though I may be, I notice now how bad the old one was by how comfortable this one is. I haven’t slept that well for ages and was in no hurry to get up. I eventually did and feel much better for it thanks.

I know this may have sounded tedious and not exactly and adventure, but I can’t stress enough how important a good night’s sleep can be!

Okay, I’m going to take a deep breath before I write this down. On the whole I’m a pretty relaxed sort of guy and I tend not to get stressed about things. But if I were the type to fly off the handle I’d have flown off it and entered orbit quite some time ago.

I mentioned that my laptop had been taken away to be repaired. Well, apparently it was repaired and sent out to me on the 2^nd of January. Great. Except that it didn’t appear. I didn’t know this and phoned up the computer company and they said it had been sent out, but that the delivery company had decided to route it to Oxford instead of my house. So I called the delivery company and they said that their man had been out the day before but had been unable to find my house (sounded pretty unlikely to me).

Let me just rewind a month. I ordered a hard drive for my desktop PC and opted for next day delivery. When it didn’t turn up I called the delivery company and they said the driver couldn’t find my address (I was having it sent to work), it turned up 10 days later. Guess who the delivery company was? That’s right, the same one supposed to deliver my laptop…

Anyway, back to the present. The guy I spoke to said that he’d have it delivered to my work address the next day. Guess what? It didn’t turn up.

So I phoned them again and was told that it couldn’t be delivered to my work address but that it was against their policy to deliver packages to different addresses so try to deliver it to my house the next day. I explained that during the week I’m never at home between 9-5 so I wouldn’t be there to pick it up. I then said “why don’t you get the delivery man to give me a ring and I’ll meet him at my house?” which the lady I spoke to said she would. Next day I get the call and then sneakily direct the guy to my work and collect the laptop! Result.

Well, not quite. The laptop seems to work perfectly now having had a replaced motherboard. The problem is that when I sent it away it was a Pentium III 1GHz. And now it’s a Pentium III 500MHz. To the non-technically inclined, that means I’ve got a far inferior computer now. So, first thing this morning I was back on the phone to the computer company and they’re going to come and collect it on Monday.

So I’m writing this article on my laptop but when I get home I’ll have to copy the site back onto my desktop again and re-package it up in preparation to lose it again for another week or so. It’s just lucky that I don’t get stressed out about that sort of thing. I’ve gotten so used to bad service and never getting what I want that I just take it in my stride. In fact I get more shocked when things do go my way and I get good service.

Anyway, the moral of the story? Don’t expect and you won’t be disappointed. And never throw out the boxes your electronic equipment comes in!

When I was a lad and the Super Nintendo Entertainment System (SNES) was the pinnacle of modern gaming, I was hooked. I could spend all night playing games and many was the time that I’d watch the sunrise knowing that I hadn’t been to bed but I had at least gotten on to level 10 of whatever game I’d been playing. I’d get home, play, stop to eat, then play some more. It was all-consuming and fun. But it was highly detrimental to my dealings with the opposite sex (what I hadn’t learned then was that I’d never be any good with women, I was still young and hormone driven).

So eventually I managed to quit. I found sport instead and decided not to play games any more. That was until Quake, Quake 2 and then Quake 3. There was nothing better than killing my work colleagues with a rail gun or more frustrating than how good Jon was with a rocket launcher (incredible, he could move so fast and shoot so accurately). Once that got banned so that we could actually get some work done we stopped playing and I was free again of the gaming demon.

But over the last few months I’d started to waver. I was seeing adverts for amazing games. Games that were light-years ahead of what I used to play. Games so realistic that they boggled the mind. So I thought to myself “if only they’d had these games when I was younger”. But eventually I cracked. I’d seen the advert for Grand Theft Auto: Vice City on the tv and it hooked me in two ways:

1. It played a quality song from the 80’s by “Flock of Seagulls”.
2. The game looked awesome.

I must confess that I bought the original Grand Theft Auto for the PC years ago (written by some guys from Dundee I believe) and really enjoyed the immoral nature of stealing cars, murdering innocent people and killing cops. Then nicking the cop’s car and running over some more people. Then jumping out and firing a rocket at the car to kill even more people… You get the drift - being a bad guy but not in the real world where a lengthy prison term is what awaits you at the end.

So I checked the web and realised that it was getting rave reviews. One of my friends had the game and said it was brilliant, another got it for Christmas and said the same. So I bit the bullet, went out and bought a Playstation 2 along with the aforementioned Vice City game. And I’ll tell you this. It’s fantastic. I really do walk around the streets of Yorkshire looking for large pink arrows pointing down at things that I’m supposed to steal. The joy of taking a sniper rifle and shooting the heads off cops. Then shooting down the SWAT team helicopter… You get the point. It’s a lot of fun.

Luckily, my good lady won’t let me play until 5am. The sound of her calling “come to bed” somehow makes helping the Cubans to kill Haitians and vice-versa a bit less appealing. But I’m still hooked just like the old days. I get highly frustrated trying to complete a mission but getting killed just before I get there, having to try again and again. I’m glad those controllers are tough as I suspect they get thrown around a lot (not by me - but it’s been a close call a couple of times). Still, with it being winter time and the sun setting before I get home from work, it’s something to do that… No, stop. I’m trying to justify playing with some eloquent speech about how it’s a worthwhile thing to do. It’s not. It’s just pure, unadulterated fun. And I’m not too old (in fact I’m right in their target demographic group). So if you’re considering getting a console, then do it! Unless you want a life that is or you think it will turn you into a killer (yeah right)…

See, I’m great with kids!

The trouble with holidays is that they’re too damn short and before you know it they’re gone. We may be into a New Year but it just feels like another week to me. Perhaps I need another holiday to consolidate the relaxation that I started to feel over the last week or so. It could be the onset of winter and my hibernation response - I haven’t decided yet.

Anyway, my Christmas break was great (thanks for asking). I’ll give you a quick rundown but I warn you - it’s not terribly exciting (that comes in future posts, I’ve got lots to say so I’ll spread it over the next week or so). I started by venturing back home to Scotland. I’ve not mentioned it but my brother decided to move back north again after living with me for a couple of months. Let’s say that we both learned valuable lessons in life and are still speaking, and leave it at that! (Whoever said that brothers can’t live together was spot on). So I went back home and spent a couple of days with my brother and father. On Christmas day after we ate our meal my father and brother decided to have a mid-afternoon nap (not together I might add) and left me rattling around the old house. It was so quiet. Without my mother’s booming laugh you could hear a pin drop - not nice. But on the whole we had a nice time and it wasn’t as bad as I expected, we remained fairly positive and didn’t get too down.

This is what Christmas is all about: The children.

On Boxing Day we went over to meet my girlfriend’s family at the hotel they were staying in (did I mention that the whole family travel up north and stay in a hotel for the holiday? Thought so). We had a great night and I stayed while my bro and father went back. Next day my good lady and I went to see a couple of friends who’ve just had a baby (on the 21^st of December in fact). I’ll be honest, babies haven’t really been of any interest to me before but this one is just lovely. And two nicer parents there’ll never be. It’s quite something to remember when my friends started going out and now they’re married with a son. Time flies.

Anyway, my girlfriend set off back down south and I went back to the parental home for another day. I got a few DVDs for Christmas including “The Hitchhiker’s Guide To The Galaxy” (which is a personal favourite of mine) so I watched most of that (Marvin the paranoid android always makes me laugh: “Life, don’t talk to me about life”).

I returned home to Yorkshire to finally fix the damn leaky shower once and for all! I’ve got an upstairs shower and a damp patch has been gradually appearing on the roof of the downstairs hall and I’ve had a nightmare trying to sort it out. Some advice suggested I remove all the silicon seal in the shower and replace that, and the lower grouting on the tiles while I’m at it. This I did and finally stopped the leak! Sadly the leak has in fact been there for years and has managed to rot part of the floorboard and the skirting board - so I’ll be calling in a carpenter to sort that out in due course. Oh, domesticated bliss…

I celebrated New Year by going to my local curry house and finally getting around to ordering one of their specials that you need to warn them of 36 hours in advance. It consisted of an entire chicken cooked for a day with all kinds of herbs, spices and other unidentified things. To be blunt, it was absolutely superb. My digestive system was on the verge of explosion by the time I finished but it was well worth it. Quite unlike any curry I’ve had before but I’d recommend it to anyone (except vegetarians of course).

So after all that I’m back to work again. I didn’t think about work, or my website, or technology while I was on holiday. A rest from it all was just what I needed. But it’s all over too soon and it’s back to reality. It’s not fair…