Work

Happiness

| Richard

A beautiful, sunny day today! I left Manchester this morning and drove through the Peak District to do a presentation at an immensely impressive off-site fabrication park near to Worksop. Due to the amount of traffic, my speed was forced lower which meant I could actually sight-see as I was driving along and made my journey so much more enjoyable.

The middle of the afternoon found me heading back down to London and I chose my preferred route, via the A1 and M11. What this meant was that I ended up driving back down the route I used to travel twice a week when I was living in Cleethorpes and hence was very familiar. As it was still hot and sunny and with the music playing loudly, my mood was its usual positive one, genuinely happy. I did find myself reminiscing about the times I’d done this same journey as I passed Grantham, my former turn-off onto the A46.

I thought about the good times I’d had as a result of those journeys and how ignorance had been bliss; ignorance of my being conned, betrayed, deceived and then blatantly lied to before I left forever. And then I was reminded about how much I’m enjoying life these days without all of that baggage and how I’m at peace with what happened. I’ve already forgiven but not forgotten. It appears that what doesn’t kill you does indeed make you stronger: in my case it taught me that I could still be generous whilst suffering fools and con-artists graciously and to value family and friends more. And it meant that I could have true happiness without hassle and heartache. And that’s got to be good.

It's better to have loved and lost than to live with a psycho for the rest of your life
This was on my Facebook Newsfeed recently!

So I’m back in London tonight but heading back up to Manchester in the morning, this time by train so I can have a leisurely breakfast and a snooze in First Class. Work hard, play hard, love lots and live life to the full: looking forward to seeing more stunning European Cities (like Vienna, again in June) and then my Big Trip in the summer.

Bank Holiday Weekend

| Richard

Well that was a busy one!

After a somewhat heavy session on Friday night at Abacus with colleagues – damn you Happy Hour! – Saturday found me packing for the weekend and heading over to GT for Saturday, including seeing “The Avengers”/”Avengers Assemble” (which I can recommend as a good, fun film) and a nice meal out afterwards.

Sunday morning and GT was running a half-marathon so I left at a reasonable time and headed off to Manchester with a stay at the comfortable Radisson Edwardian and an evening out at the Comedy Store‘s “King Gong” stand-up show with some very good (and some really awful) stand-up comics.

Monday was a day shopping at various stores in Manchester including a 20+ minute wait at Starbuck’s in the Arndale Centre for a coffee. I was somewhat disturbed though by this that I saw whilst walking through Top Shop:

I'm sorry? "Formal"? Jogger?

Then another night at the Radisson Edwardian that ended with me watching Homeland’s disappointing end (well, for the first series anyway): why do the US networks insist on keeping these series running on and on rather than actually developing a story with a start, a middle and an end? I won’t now bother with the second series.

Tuesday saw me mainly sitting in traffic jams on my way to Birmingham for a meeting and then back down to London. Somehow, despite excellent driving conditions, people had variously managed a series of crashes on the M6 and one on the A406 North Circular that closed it leading to really long tailbacks. How do people manage to crash in such excellent conditions?

Goodnight Vienna

| Richard

Well that was a busy week! The Friday before last, I was heading back in the rain from a meeting with a Client when my phone rang and a colleague asked if I’d be available to go to Vienna for a day the following week to do some training for another Client.  The answer, as always, was yes. When I got back to the office, it all started going pear-shaped…

It transpired it was two days’ training: join mid-morning with a German lawyer’s last session and then repeat on the Friday before an evening flight home; my colleague would be staying at the comfy Hotel de France. But there were problems: firstly, I couldn’t guarantee arriving on time if I travelled on Thursday morning, so I had to make arrangements to fly out on the Wednesday evening (which meant cancelling another meeting) and I couldn’t fly back on the Friday because all the flights back were fully booked, so I now needed to stay another night and fly home on Saturday which meant cancelling all my plans up in Norfolk.

By Tuesday, more changes were afoot: half the delegates were calling in sick, so the venue (which had been a lovely hotel in central Vienna) had been cancelled and we would be doing it at the Client’s offices 15km outside the city. This meant cancelling the hotels I had managed to find and instead I was put up in what was thankfully a four star guest house 5km from the offices, the Landhaus Tschipan. They had also asked us to condense two days’ of training into one, the Thursday and I still couldn’t get a flight back!

Wednesday was horribly wet in London but landing in Vienna that evening, I was greeted by a lovely warm evening and I went for some beers with the German lawyer to run through the slides and edit them down.

Thursday went very well indeed and when we had finished we realised all the HR staff had gone home and there was no-one to take us back or even arrange a taxi … so we walked the 5km back in full suits and carrying laptops in high 20s temperatures! We then changed and grabbed a taxi into central Vienna to meet up with my other two colleagues for beers and a meal before heading back.  Vienna is a beautiful city by night!

Friday morning I checked out of the Tschipan and headed to my hotel for Friday: the five star Steigenberger Hotel Herrenhof in the historic part of Vienna. A bit more work until lunchtime and then I headed out for a sightseeing wander around the shopping areas and the Naschtmarkt: some 10km in the sun and high 20s temperatures: no wonder I got sunburnt!

Back to the hotel to change before I met up with my colleagues at the University of Vienna where they’d been delivering a course for the post-graduate MSc Law course. Lovely ribs and beers before heading off to St Stephen’s Square for more café culture and beer and a wander down to the Danube itself. I finally stumbled into bed at 2.30am!

A light breakfast – or two – before heading back to the airport for a flight home … to the same cold and wet London I’d left behind. Ah well!

 

“It Just Works”

| Richard

Yesterday, I was reminded about just how good technology can be when it all works together. This can, of course, be a rare thing and nothing is more frustrating than kit that doesn’t work as it should.

But two things – OK, three – reminded me of how lucky we are these days.

It started with iTunes Match: I updated the iTunes software on my work laptop and then enabled iTunes Match and watched as it increased the number of songs from simply those I’d previously purchased from the iTunes Store (available since a previous release of iTunes) to all of my music collection currently stored on my iMac back at home but now backed up to iCloud.

I was then able to download a track I wanted on my laptop from my music store back home.

I’m working away from home at the moment and saw that there was nothing much worth watching on the telly. So I fired up my iPad, tethered it to my iPhone – thanks to 3’s All You Can Eat data plan – and did a bit of social networking before starting up Sky Go.

I then watched a couple of films from Sky’s Anytime+ feature: new or classic films that are available to you, depending upon your Sky TV package. Streamed over 3’s network at no additional cost to me.

“It Just Works”…

Thorntons Delivery Fail

| Richard

Another year ordering some expensive chocolates from Thorntons and specifying a delivery date.

Another year when they fail to deliver, due to their using that complete shower, Parcelnet/Hermes/Home Delivery Network/Yodel/Any Other Name We Can Think Of for so-called Premium Delivery.

Last year, they “lost” the packages of chocolates I was having delivered to my London office for the receptionists and Ops Director and Thorntons had to re-order.

This year, I paid for premium, next day delivery, so that delivery was due to take place on Tuesday, 13th to our SE1 offices. Guess what?

Out for delivery 15/12/11 16:30 VAUXHALL SERVICE CENTRE
In transit but possible delay 13/12/11 17:30 VAUXHALL SERVICE CENTRE
Arrived At Depot 13/12/11 04:33 VAUXHALL SERVICE CENTRE
Departed Depot 12/12/11 20:54 WEDNESBURY HUB
Arrived At Depot 12/12/11 20:50 WEDNESBURY HUB
Parcel data received awaiting coll. 12/12/11 SHEFFIELD SERVICE CENTRE

He must be lost.

Here’s the second package’s current tracking details:

In transit but possible delay 13/12/11 17:30 VAUXHALL SERVICE CENTRE
Arrived At Depot 13/12/11 04:31 VAUXHALL SERVICE CENTRE
Departed Depot 12/12/11 20:58 WEDNESBURY HUB
Arrived At Depot 12/12/11 20:56 WEDNESBURY HUB
Parcel data received awaiting coll. 12/12/11 SHEFFIELD SERVICE CENTRE

Crap, eh?

Goodbye Sofia!

| Richard

So that was an interesting last night out in Sofia: at the end of the Hearing, wine and snacks had been laid on for the Arbitrators, lawyers, experts and the stenographers, so we did our best, finishing the (decent) red wine and the chilled white as well.

We then asked the ‘opposition’ lawyers where we should go for dinner and ended up going eating and drinking with them. My suit got doused by a bottle of beer that decided to blow out the glass bottle base: dripping wet sleeve and more beer over my shirt… which was nice… Fortunately, it is going to be cleaned anyway as a week working with chain-smoking Greeks has left me with a filthy, smelly suit!

200 leva later and ‘our’ lawyers rang to tell us they’d moved to the more comfortable Sheraton – thanks for leaving us! – and to meet them there for drinks. Who were we to say no? So we walked to the Sheraton – going past a Fetish club that looked interesting – and went downstairs to the “Scandal” bar for drinks. The general low ambient light levels and red upholstery rang some alarm bells; the pole dancers more so! Funny how the hotel website doesn’t seem to list this ‘facility’.

Katy, the English stenographer, and I then spent the next hour or so being bitchy about the pole dancers and more particularly their poor choices in lingerie before being asked by our lawyers to mark them out of 10. Very few got over 5/10 though one did have a nice bum and another clearly used her pole for exercise! The Greeks seemed to rate them somewhat higher…

At this point, I did the News of the World reporter bit: made my excuses and left. Somewhat underwhelmed by my first visit to such an establishment – I clearly lead a sheltered life…

CIOB Selling e-mail Addresses?

| Richard

Well that’s very disappointing: I’ve today received a Spam e-mail from Karnack Books sent to an e-mail address I set up and use solely for the Chartered Institute of Building.

I’ve checked my profile on the CIOB website and have specifically opted out of third party mailings, so no consent has been given.

So either their membership records have been hacked or they’ve gone against my wishes.

Bid Rigging and Price Fixing in the Construction Industry

| Richard

As usual, it’s the construction industry getting a hard time for dodgy dealings: first there was the issue about cover pricing that was then somehow translated into bid rigging in the media. A lot of hot air over what was practically nothing…

Now there’s news that the OFT has fined six recruitment agencies £39M for fixing fees.

I wonder when we’ll see similar fines for agencies working in other business sectors?

Or how about some massive fines to the banks for price fixing both in relation to bank charges and interest rates?

Or what about members of the BPI for price fixing? You’ll remember they sued online retailer CD WOW! for daring to sell legitimate CDs in the UK that had been sourced from Hong Kong for less than the prices they were being sold for in the UK. Much the same as the lengthy dispute between Levis and Tescos over parallel importing.

I won’t hold my breath.

Cover Pricing

| Richard

So the OFT has fined construction firms £129.5M for cover pricing.

Contrary to what was said on BBC Breakfast this morning, “cover pricing” is not telling other firms what your price is to enable them to price higher – that’s bid fixing or price rigging and is what record companies, banks and insurance companies and the like continue to do.

No, as “Building” magazine succinctly describes it:

“Cover pricing is when a firm tenders for a contract with a high price in order to avoid winning the job. The aim is to remain on the client’s future tender list while avoiding taking on work it does not have capacity for in the immediate term.”

So not as bad as everyone is making it out to be, surely?

Tony Bingham also sums it up quite nicely in an article he wrote here:
http://www.tonybingham.co.uk/column/2008/20080516.htm

But of course the OFT and others need to be seen to be doing something, even if that means driving hard-pressed builders to the wall. One that someone else might have put a cover price in for…