A boring man

Yes, but is it better than a bar of chocolate?

2006-05-28T22:18:00.000+01:00

Trouble, they say, comes in threes. So do buses, which might explain the lack of enthusiasm for public transport.

Those who keep a close eye on the financial markets may be aware that, collectively, the stock markets have all gone mad. Bull and bear are caught in a fight to the death. Record falls one day, rebounding rises the next. And the computer systems don't like it.

Nerves are stretched thin. Management decisions are leapt to, sometimes unwisely. People grit their teeth. The busiest days are yet to come.

There is an old adage in the city, sell in May then go away.

I want to go away. Until it's all quiet.

I am not yet officially dead

2006-05-17T04:39:00.000+01:00

The combination of stress, jet-lag, illness and technical problems have conspired to stop me blogging for a while. The literary world has been trembling with anticipation.

I get an e-mail from new boss asking "are you ok? we're worried".

Isn't that sweet?

My early communications on the subject of not turning up were somewhat brief, a text along the lines of, "ill, please do my earlies, bye" before turning off all communication devices (which brings to mind the people who were sacked by text message, I wonder if other serious messages have been delivered in such a trivial format, "resigned, sort out my job, bye", or perhaps, "dead, sorry"). Still, the-deliver-the-news-and-run format seemed more professional than "ill, please do my earlies, don't call, will be too busy vomiting or shivering in a heap feeling sorry for myself, bye" and so was marginally preferable.

New York was nice. Hotel was super, if slightly mad (like stepping into a nightclub, very bizarre). Conclusion on business travel: nice to have done it, not nice to do.

Magnetic poetry

2006-04-30T23:59:00.000+01:00

Recently I bought one of those magnetic fridge kits: the idea being that you re-arrange the supplied words into your own poetry.

When would someone spend time in front of their fridge, when they could spend time delving for food inside it? One time is guaranteed: when you have to clean it.

These poems stick to you. But so did some of the noxious substances in the fridge.

poem #1
man and device
explore
skim
never vivid
they haunt

poem #2
I was epic like
his soul
covered by drama
beautiful and sad
I almost speak
whisper
dream
"take this love"
but romance laughs
it marks my heart a villain
empty of life
full of difficult wisdom

Start spreading the news ... London! London! Doesn't have the same ring, does it?

2006-04-17T22:59:00.000+01:00

I'm going to New York!!! My old manager gave me a very strange look at the news of this business trip.

"It's nothing frivilous, is it?"

I declined to mention the last team meeting, when he speculated on ways to get one of his other managers over there (where she pointed out without hesitation there was no justification for it).

"Of course."

"Well as long as it comes from your other manager's budget."

The phrase "teamwork", delivered with heavy sarcasm, almost makes it past my lips. Fortunately I show restraint.

New York! All those people in the New York office who thought they were safe ...

Beat me on the bottom with a woman's weekly!

2006-04-17T22:40:00.000+01:00

While some rather bland and predictable songs make it to the top 1,000, here is a work of poetry from Victoria Wood which really should have been in the top 10:

Freda and Barry sat one night.
The sky was clear. The stars were bright.
The wind was soft. The moon was up.
Freda drained her cocoa cup

She licked her lips. She felt sublime.
She switched off Gardeners' Question Time.
Barry cringed in fear and dread
As Freda grabbed his tie, and said:

Let's do it! Let's do it!
Do it while the mood is right!
I'm feeling appealing.
I've really got an appetite.
I'm on fire with desire.
I could handle half the tenors in a male voice choir.
Let's do it! Let's do it tonight!

But he said:
I can't do it. I can't do it.
I don't believe in too much sex.
This fashion for passion
Turns us into nervous wrecks.
No derision! My decision—
I'd rather watch The Spinners on the television.
I can't do it. I can't do it tonight.

So she said:
Let's do it! Let's do it!
Do it till our hearts go boom!
Go native, creative
Living in the living room.
This folly is jolly.
Bend me over backwards on me Hostess trolley.
Let's do it! Let's do it tonight!

But he said:
I can't do it. I can't do it.
Me 'eavy breathing days have gone.
I'm older, feel colder.
It's other things that turn me on.
I'm imploring: I'm boring.
Let me read this catalogue on vinyl flooring.
I can't do it. I can't do it tonight.

So she said:
Let's do it! Let's do it!
Have a crazy night of love!
I'll strip bare. I'll just wear
Stilettos and an oven glove.
Don't starve a girl of a palaver.
Dangle from the wardrobe in your Balaclava.
Let's do it! Let's do it tonight!

But he said:
I can't do it. I can't do it.
I know I'd only get it wrong.
Don't angle for me to dangle.
Me arms 'ave never been that strong.
Stop pouting. Stop shouting.
You know I pulled a muscle when I did that grouting.
I can't do it. I can't do it tonight.

Let's do it! Let's do it!
Share a night of wild romance,
Frenetic, poetic!
This could be your last big chance
To quote Milton, to eat Stilton,
To roll in gay abandon on the tufted Wilton.
Let's do it! Let's do it tonight!

I can't do it. I can't do it.
I've got other little jobs on hand.
Don't grouse around the house.
I've got a busy evening planned.
Stop nagging. I'm flagging.
You know as well as I do that the pipes want lagging.
I can't do it. I can't do it tonight.

Let's do it! Let's do it
While I'm really in the mood!
Three cheers! It's years
Since I caught you even semi-nude.
Be drastic. Gymnastic.
Wear your baggy Y-fronts with the loose elastic.
Let's do it! Let's do it tonight!

I can't do it. I can't do it.
I must refuse to get undressed.
I feel silly. It's too chilly
To go without me thermal vest.
Don't choose me. Don't use me.
Me mother sent a note to say you must excuse me.
I can't do it. I can't do it tonight.

Let's do it! Let's do it!
I feel I absolutely must.
I won't exempt you, want to tempt you,
Want to drive you mad with lust.
No cautions, just contortions!
Smear an avocado on me lower portions.
Let's do it! Let's do it tonight!

I can't do it. I can't do it.
It's really not my cup of tea.
I'm harassed, embarrassed.
I wish you hadn't picked on me.
No dramas! Give me me pyjamas.
The only girl I'm mad about is Judith Chalmers.
I can't do it. I can't do it tonight.

Let's do it! Let's do it!
I really want to run amok.
Let's wiggle. Let's jiggle.
Let's really make the rafters rock.
Be mighty. Be flighty.
Come and melt the buttons on me flameproof nightie.
Let's do it! Let's do it tonight!

Let's do it! Let's do it!
I really want to rant and rave.
Let's go, 'cause I know
Just how I want you to behave:
Not bleakly, not meekly.
Beat me on the bottom with a Woman's Weekly.
Let's do it! Let's do it tonight!

Stability is for wimps

2006-04-16T22:32:00.000+01:00

My mood fluctuates, casting around like a flock of birds. It has been a long time since I felt anything this strongly.

A death in the family last week. I am unmoved. My ruthlessness surprises me.

A hint to contentment and inner peace: avoid annoying people

2006-04-03T21:51:00.000+01:00

Message from person (who we shall name 'A') to another person (who we shall name 'J') on mobile phone: "J, you're supposed to be here for this meeting with Laphroaig; if you don't get back in the next three minutes you'll have to apologise to Laphroaig." 'A' then winks happily at me and says, "that'll get him here." Which it does.

Realisation: 'J' hates my guts.
Adendum: I don't give a shit, because I don't really like him either.

It's peculiar to realise that without really trying I have managed to pluck exactly the right tautly drawn strings within 'J's character to draw out a merry tune of disharmony. A more youthful version of me might have been rather sensitive about this, but I find myself examining 'J's superiority complex with something bordering clinical amusement mostly because somewhere, deep inside of me, my arrogant bastard side is accompanying 'J's merry tune with a less than subtle trilling of, "I have power over youuuuuuu". Two years ago, 'J' was my peer; oh how he hates this fact.

Sometimes I think arrogant people have all the fun. My moments of arrogance seem so .... refreshing. Arrogance: like spa treatment, but cheaper.

There's nothing and then there's nothing, learn to spot the difference

2006-04-03T21:47:00.000+01:00

The important thing to remember is not to panic. That's a bit of a conversation killer, but a useful tip nonetheless.

I did not do anything this weekend, which is exactly the way I like it. Watching the weather wander past, the big clouds proud and haughty like wealthy dowagers, the sky flipping between sunny and grey like a carnival ride. And books, how I miss you when I am not well; how could I ever forget the wonder of reading books?

Some weekends I do nothing and nearly weep from frustration. This weekend I do nothing and almost melt with contentment. To quote no-one specific, it's a strange old life.

Ignorance more frequently begets confidence than does knowledge

2006-03-26T23:31:00.000+01:00

My new/other manager thinks I'm a genius. I have to say it's rather nice, if slightly unnerving.

My old/other manager stares at me every so often thinking "is this like turning down the Beatles, or is his other manager mental?"

The juries out.

The trouble with the world is that the stupid are cocksure and the intelligent are full of doubt

2006-03-26T23:24:00.000+01:00

I am back. It's been a while.

It would be lovely to say that I've been off on a charity mission to the Congo (not bloody likely, I've read The Poisonwood Bible) or something equally worthy. Clearly not. Which begs the questions: what have I been doing?

I don't know. I've been somewhere. I'm back now.

God, I'm glad to be back.

Hell is other people. But so are orgies. I wouldn't say there's a direct link here.

2006-02-24T20:55:00.000Z

I am not getting old. I am not getting old. I am ... oh sod it, I am.

I was on the London underground, I was going for a seat, a slightly older woman wanted it, I gallantly stood back. Did she say "thank you"? Did she buggery. Quite why this plunged me into a foul mood I do not understand ("mental instability" is a possible explanation, but I have rejected it) but for the rest of the journey I pondered the reaction to saying "YOU DON'T HAVE TO SAY THANK YOU" while slowly fuming at a girl who said in a very Victoria-Wood-doing-posh-person voice "Doncaster really isn't as dreadful as you'd think" (she was a medical student, her friend did her gyne practice in Luton, can you imagine?, I couldn't imagine and was tempted to ask what was so terrible about Luton vaginas, but thought the conversation might get embarrassing). Which all paled into comparison to some nob on a phone spewing out shit faster than a sewage plant doing an emergency evacuation (I continue to believe it's a sad defect of our criminal justice system that there is no law to castrate anyone who ends a mobile phone conversation with the line "I've got to go babes, I need to pee big").

Old people, I am told, dislike everyone. Teenagers do as well (including themselves). Children don't even realise that other people exist until a relatively late age (probably the onset of the teens). Somewhere in the middle we're supposed to start liking people - i.e. when we're young, without disadvantage and the world is our oyster; then life gets hard, our bodies get soft and we start hating people again.

I think I might have missed that middle phase.

In truth, of course, people are easy to like and dislike. Like the old woman who smiled and rolled her eyes at me in a shared joke at the nob-on-the-phone. And the woman on the checkout who, triggered by my purchase of lemonade, tells me about salt lemonade and how to make it.

Hell is other people. But I suppose so is heaven.

And try not to be annoying.

Or have an annoying accent.

Or have annoying conversations with your friends that are overheard by other people without your realisation.

And being shallow is quite annoying as well actually.

Well, just try.

It's strange what gets you angry

2006-02-23T02:42:00.000Z

"1984 is the most profound work of fiction to deal with totalitarian communism."

http://www.librarything.com/catalog/1472

No it fucking isn't. 1984 isn't about totalitarian communism at all. I had to write a reply. I had to. It was required. And I'm not just being smug and middle-class. Or maybe I am.

1984 is not about totalitarian communism ... and it is just as relevant today. One of the points Orwell stressed throughout the novel is that there is nothing to segregate the three warring countries from one another and their their politics is a moot point (in fact the existence of the other countries could be thought debateable). The country in which the main character lives is a merger of the British Empire and the United States under a paranoid, totalitarian government that would brook no dissent, not necessarily a communist one.

1984 was published in 1949, McCarthyism stumbled along a few years later and in tone sounded similar in its hectoring, lack of respect for individual rights and the endless supremecy of the state over the rights and privacy of the individual.

Another key point of 1984 was propoganda and media manipulation, which becomes even more important today.

Of course, does anyone really care? Probably not. And is it really important? Probably not.

Get BACK in that sweatshop

2006-02-11T21:52:00.000Z

I've never really believed in over-work. How, scientifically, does over-working cause you to get sick? I mean, if your job was crash-test-dummy or inhaler-of-poisonous-substances then there is a direct medical link, but otherwise it all seems a bit silly to me.

Yes, I've been overworking and yes I've been ill. Coincidence, I say, mere coincidence.

Personally, I blame Barclays advertising. Every morning I have to walk through Canary Wharf where I am assulted by said adverts; apparently Barclays people are more romantic (because ideas make their hearts skip a beat). If that doesn't make you sick nothing will.

I assure you, dear reader, that "bonkers" was a kind description

2006-01-24T23:42:00.000Z

The current song lyric looping endlessly through my addled mind is, so sad, like a good book. Yes: I'm gay; the lyric's bonkers - that means it's Tori Amos.

It's true. A good book leaves a mark on your soul like the events of an entire life; regardless of how they end they're sad just for ending.

I went to the doctor (he said, "and guess what he told me? guess what he told me? he said girl you better try to do something no matter what you do" ... actually he didn't, that's another song lyric). I confessed to self-medicating, mea culpa mea culpa; she didn't have time for the mea culpa, in fact she seemed so cheerful about the whole matter I expected her to chirp in "me too, want to share a bottle of valium?" I was given more medication, I got back into the dose. Everything could return to normal.

"I just love it when the plan comes together." I am quoting someone from the A-team there, but only because he didn't have a quote along the lines of, "doesn't it really get on your TITS when IT ALL GOES FUCKING WRONG?" My scrambled brain was not on-message. If I was feeling better I'd get angry but fortunately that was not an option; I just keep popping the pills.

Yesterday I started reading.

I miss reading.

I shall take Friday off and spend the entire day reading.

And then, if the plan comes together like a disjointed dyslexic blind undisciplined uncommunicative synchronised swimming team operated by remote control by a pair of colour-blind dolphins, well ... a day of reading is something to treasure.

Power, your taste is strange but beguiling ... like Walnut Whips

2006-01-18T23:26:00.000Z

A strange and mysterious thing has happened: people have started paying attention to me. It's like grumbling about the cost of plumbers only to find that your off-hand comments have formed the basis for a government policy of sharp crackdowns on manual workers. It's not quite as liberating as I hoped; whenever I express dissatisfaction about something the comment is picked-up by my new manager who asks "what should we do instead?" in a genuinely interested way.

Power, you are a fickle friend.

Other things have changed. I am now the most hated person in technology (I wonder if this is a change) since there's nothing more irritating than someone who's informed about the problem.

Technologist: Ah yes, difficult one to predict. Could never have known the system would crash.
Laphroaig: What caused it to crash?
Technologist: Ah well, poisoned pill transaction ... null-pointer errors ... class-cast exceptions.
Laphroaig: So your code wasn't defensive enough?
Technologist: Well ... er, you see it should have been an integer.
Laphroaig: So you made lots of blind assumptions?
Technologist: Please leave me alone.

Of course, there is one thing more irritating than someone who's informed, and that's someone who thinks they're informed. Quite which side of the divide I sit is open to question but I have a strong feeling that, in terms of popularity it makes no difference at all.

It's called a land-grab, darling

2006-01-02T20:34:00.000Z

I was once shown one of those management diagrams with two unrelated variables on the 'x' and 'y' axis. This, I was told, fundamentally proved that people have four ways of reacting to change:

Ignore it;
Try to prevent it;
Play along;
Participate.

Screaming like a girl and hiding in a closet fell under the general sub-category of "ignore it", apparently.

It takes little experience of management diagrams to know that the way to success is to participate - as a general rule of diagrams, take the most inanely enthusiastic of options and that's the way to management (in this particular training course I overcame my desire to discuss particular changes such as, oh, I don't know, the nazi death camps). However, the lesson has not been lost on me.

It's rather fun having a second manager ... at least it is when the second manager sort of lets you make up your own job (although "management and oversight of all chocolate bars" was shot down in flames as a job description). Shall I decide to take control of this important project or this important project? Oh, the power, the power.

Some of my technology colleagues eye me with suspicion ... at least, the ones who projects I have power over.

Now, who has ever slighted me?

Bonus day

2005-12-14T22:56:00.000Z

It's that time of year. Tears and tantrums or smiles and handshakes? There is a sense of trepidation in the air, made all the more bizarre because no-one can talk about it afterwards. Is that supressed emotion fury or orgasmic happiness?

Management brings a new aspect to all of this: I spend a great deal of time worrying whether my slaves will be happy.

They are. I am glad.

Buy one manager, get a second free

2005-12-11T23:19:00.000Z

I went on holiday. I came back.

There has been a re-organisation. I now have a second manager. The old one is still my manager as well. It's that curse of the org-chart - cue screams - a dotted line. So now I have one boss in technology and another in the business.

If one was very cynical it would be possible to argue that I enjoy all the bureaucracy of technology while being excluded from the perks of the business. On the other hand one could look on the bright side and talk about synergy.

Personally, I'm focusing on something else. This bizarre arrangement is a compromise following an attempt by one manager to take control of my team. I'm assuming this is because he thinks we're so fabulous. Having grown men fighting over you: that, at least, is a bright side - but possibly not one that will ever get mentioned in a memo.

Evil cackle: you're all doomed

2005-11-28T22:56:00.000Z

How to destroy the earth

Reality is that which, when you stop believing in it, doesn't go away

2005-11-28T22:00:00.000Z

Adoption: it's a choice which has to be taken seriously. What if I won't like it? What if I get bored? What if I feel tied down? Yes, its got that time in my life, I've decided to adopt a magazine.

Walking into one of those really big bookshops in London the choice is really quite staggering. It seems everyone, these days, is running their own magazine. There's even one called Yet Another Magazine, which I'm sure seemed really chic and clever at the marketing meet, but which I didn't even bother to look at because, well, what was it about?

The major challenge for any bookseller (aside from which of the vast range of them to stock, which in the case of this bookshop seemed to be "all of them") is how to classify them. Some seem to segue naturally into one another: there is the whole range of designed-to-make-women-feel-bad-about-themselves magazines (Cosmo, etc.); the recent trend in making-men-think-less-of-women magazines (Zoo, etc.) which rather ironically face the making-gay-men-feel-bad-about-themselves magazines (Attitude, etc.), which are rather disappointingly shallow affairs but located, I noticed, right next to the making-people-feel-they're-literary magazines - just as in the high school of US cinema, brainiac and gay are, it seems, almost interchangeable categories. The allowing-nerds-to-be-nerds category bleeds seemlessly from outright "can I have that in a paper bag" category of train-spotting monthly to the nerdish-is-the-new-cool role playing magazines right to the nerds-in-denial categories of "Computer Stuff!" magazines. Then there are the fantastically glossy, all advertising-and-no-content magazines with their equally glossy price-tags (surely with that amount of advertising they should be free?) that I avoid buying for that most English of reasons: I fear I might end up purchasing something that is radically different; how, precisely, I don't know, since I can hardly fear being seen to be gay; perhaps they'd end up being the surprisingly up-market newsletter of the British National Party? I look to their positioning in the spectrum of magazines to determine what, precisely, their content is about (do they have content? they mostly seem to be very glossy pictures and advertising) although this provides precious little insight.

Oh decisions decisions. I really should have a magazines I buy on a regular basis; maybe, even, a subscription? It's a sign of maturity. It shows long-term commitment.

In the end I just bought a lot of novels. I know: it's another short-term romp but even when you think you're ready for the long-haul, deep down you're just after another short-term, week-long fling.

Waaaaaaaaaay too much time on my hands

2005-11-23T22:47:00.000Z

The cruelty test.

A recipe by any other name

2005-11-21T22:22:00.000Z

I have two weeks off. I am puzzled about what to do with it, although my body seems to have made a firm vote for the "sit aroud all day doing nothing" option.

Cooking has also become an option. Yesterday I made a recipe with the petals of a single rose ... distantly, I heard romantics shriek as I cut the petals into fine strips.

Tomorrow is a no-cooking day - I must meet my brother in London for lunch. Booooooo. Both of us will feel of it as a burden. Why do we bother?

The truth hurts

2005-11-21T00:27:00.000Z

Boss: Do you think he's going for an interview?
Laphroaig: [shrug]
Boss: You'd tell me if you were interviewing, wouldn't you?
Laphroaig: No.
Boss: You wouldn't?
Laphroaig: No.
Boss: Why not?
Laphroaig: It raises too many awkward questions.
Boss: You seriously wouldn't tell me?
Laphroaig: Okay, I am interviewing somewhere.
Boss: Really?
Laphroaig: Yes.
Boss: Really?
Laphroaig: [Irritated] Yes.

The internet allows you to meet such charming people

2005-11-20T23:58:00.000Z

Magic_Mago: hi
Laphroaig: hello
Magic_Mago: how are your bollucks?
Laphroaig: pedantic, how are yours?
Magic_Mago: hot
Laphroaig: what are their views on the current israeli political crisis?

This is hormone control: come on in, your landing gear is showing

2005-11-13T20:05:00.000Z

As the medication begins to have its effect, my body begins to wake up. All parts of my body. Yes, that bit.

Teenage-like crushes have a certain thrill, but so does drug abuse and that is rarely cheered-on. The biggest problem is that if they're left to themselves they inevitably skew one's behaviour into the IQ-of-a-dead-squirrel territory. While this is never a good thing, it comes as a double blow in front of those who we most wish to impress. Fortunately the dead squirrel has yet to take control of my mental processes. Although my soppy emotions are hardly in danger of being requited, I can yet cling to some hope - I have not yet got to the he'll-never-love-me-now despair as I have not uttered some ill-judged-bordering-on-moronic remark; at some point, however, my concentration will slip and something dumb showing-up my infatuation is bound to be uttered (in rom-coms, I note, this is the point when inevitably he will love me as he discovers my kookiness and general lack of malice, but love advice from rom-coms is, well, stupid).

It's worse because he's French. I'll have to practice my conversational French so that I can be sure if I overhear him talking about me. While I may hope for a conversation along the lines of "but how can I ask him?" I feel with gloomy certainty that researching, "What! Him!!!?? Gawwwwd!!!" may stand me in better stead.

I feel doubly-insulted because I'm fairly sure that my awakening sexual subconscious, having been caught sleeping on the job has just reached out for the first possible target and chosen him, in bad imitation of some seventies sitcom sketch (perhaps "On The Buses"). I can't help but feel that there's some kind of inspector of subconscious eyeing-up my new choice, dubiously tapping pencil against-teeth before finally deciding, "Well, I suppose Laphroaig could fancy him," while my libido breathes a sigh of relief, thinking "that was a close one".

Of course he's probably straight.

Still, there's the Christmas party soon ...

A friend will be a source of strength, maybe, or not

2005-11-07T21:41:00.000Z

Doctors must curse the internet. Every day they probably have to endure conversations along the lines of:

Doctor: Hello Mr Laphroaig, and what can we do for you today?
Laphroaig: Well, I've been feeling sort of, you know, odd, but not odd-odd, but different-odd. You know?
Doctor: I see and -
Laphroaig: And I was reading this web site and I was wondering if I have the bubonic plague.
Doctor: Errrr ...
Laphroaig: All the symptoms match and everything.
Doctor: To be honest, it's unlikely.
Laphroaig: Also, bird flu seemed like a good fit.
Doctor: Ummmm ....

Self-diagnosis, like self-medication, is a fool's game. I suspect there to be a high degree of horoscope-itis involved, particularly in conditions such as depression where the symptoms are suitably vague (symptoms include eating/not-eating, sleeping/not-sleeping, etc.) I have recently diagnosed myself as suffering from atypical depression, which is nice except I have a nagging doubt that in reality I am just lazy (also, it always makes me smile because I imagine a conversation along the lines of "I'm depressed" / "You seem happy enough" / "It's atypical")

This is rather like those online Myers-Briggs personality tests (which classify your personality into something like ENTP) which always compare your category to someone suitably inspirational (e.g. Einstein) leading to a "that's so right, that's amazing" moment (even though every time I take them my category seems to change). I think considerably greater cynicism would be employed if my personality type was summarised as follows ...

INTP
(Introvert iNtuitive Thinking Perceiving)
This personality type are a bunch of tossers. Males of this type tend to have a small penis. Mussolini and Imelda Marcos were INTPs: 'nuff said.

Similar Myers-Briggs may have been a less popular classification system if they'd dropped Extravert/Introvert, Sensing/Intuitive, Thinking/Feeling and Judging/Perceiving and gone for the more controversial Shallow/Boring, Knee-jerk/Blurry, Ice-queen/Cry-baby and anal-retentive/bullshit-artist categories.

Although personally, I prefer being an "ice-queen" to "thinking": life is so much more stylish that way.

To quote ABBA ...

2005-11-06T21:43:00.000Z

I fear I quote ABBA a little too often; any more frequent recitations could lead to me having to pay royalties. This time, however, I'll take the risk: S.O.S.

I seem to constantly suffer from what the more clinical may call (depression induced) amotivational syndrome, or the more judgemental may call chronic laziness. Amotivational syndrome is actually a phrase I've stolen from the symptoms of marijuana smoking, where the more technical term is being chilled (I avoid smoking it because I worry the effect of one on top of the other would result in me being chilled-squared, which may, or may not, be the same as death; alternatively it may be a very bad 1990s rave band - neither seems desirable). However, the connection is disturbingly similar: one is lethargic, happy and silly while the other is lethargic, anxious and guilt-ridden and they both induce the munchies and being around people under their influence is a bore. If only it was the other way round: no-one would bother with drugs and no-one would be pestering doctors for anti-depressents.

I took anti-depressents for a very brief period and what I now realise was little more than their placebo effect immediately perked me up. As an enduring sign of how stupid optimism is, I stopped taking them a few weeks later and after a brief period of vindication slipped straight back into a marijuana-but-without-the-fun episode. In fact the medication was probably completely unrelated - these things are cyclical and the dose was very very low.

I still have the pills.

I've started taking them again. But in a bigger dose. It's helped, actually. My life has that getting-back-in-order rhythm to it. I'm no longer living in squallor. On the other hand another part of me is saying ...

what the fuck are you up to?

I'm pretty sure that's not an ABBA lyric.

It's not easy being only one centimeter high

2005-10-31T00:04:00.000Z

Canary Wharf on a weekend is a bit like one of those architects' sketches which show lots of people wandering around aimlessly, admiring the landscaped and carefully arranged view while considering which restaurant to choose.

While sitting in the restaurant (Italian, of course) munching on my pasta, watching the other people who all looked a bit like architects' sketches (drinking wine, eating Italian food, being middle class), I began to feel slightly out of touch with the real world (something which always feels - and is portrayed as - a bad thing; although when you consider the real world being out of touch with it may need to be re-classified as not a bad idea). How to re-establish that contact? How how how?

I know! Sit in a darkened room for two hours, by yourself, watching plasticine.

Sod it - the real world is over-rated. The plasticine one was far more fun!

Work? On a Sunday? With MY reputation?

2005-10-30T23:27:00.000Z

Darkness has closed in. I can't really blame it since it's nice to have company on these long winter nights.

The problem with being manager of, well, anyone, is the need to write their appraisals. These forms come along every six months and have a back-breaking schedule.

How is person S in terms of their teamwork? and their communication? and overall? The problem with person S is that he's been around for ages and although he is exceptionally good at his job - quiet, diligent, methodical, reliable - there's not really anything to add from his last appraisal. How to keep true to the appraisal ideal without turning into the Barbara Cartland of the management world: churning out the same old stuff with the words re-arranged a bit.

Meanwhile a new person, N, joined five months ago. N is frightfully keen at working in an investment bank, which personally I find rather suspect - needless to say, something that I can not write on an appraisal form. N thinks I am a total luddite because I say things like "it's not really our job". Sigh. This is what it's like being the older, more senior, more cynical git who is less enthusiastic about all these wonderful ideas. I feel a need for a cardigan and a pair of slippers. N, I think, wants to be a trader and although this is not exactly crossing to the dark side (editors note: I'm lying, it is), I do wonder if in that bubbly enthusiasm he has managed to retain crystal-clear vision. Phrasing all this is proving to be a little tricky.

Nature is filled with self-throttling mechanisms to ensure balance is maintained: predator eats too much, lacks prey, predator goes hungry, prey thrives; insect grows big, insect needs oxygen, insect can't grow anymore. Appraisals are nature's answer to the empire-building manager: manager builds huge empire of staff, staff need appraising, manager spends entire time writing appraisals, manager can't gobble up any more staff. Really, it's very elegant.

Vomiting is sooooooo last season

2005-10-24T21:03:00.000+01:00

I feel ... rather ... strange, to quote Dr Jekkyl. I woke at 4.20am to find my stomach making the most obscure noises (I didn't actually hear any of them, but I definitely felt them), fortunately my body over-ruled my cynicism about my own hyperchondria and no cleaning of the carpet was required. The alarm was due to go off at 4.40am, I pondered vaguely what I was supposed to do. On one hand the probability that it was all nothing to worry about seemed quite likely, on the other there remained the dictinct possibility that I would vomit all over an unfortunate fellow commuter and it was the mind-boggling level of humiliation that this mental image conjured-up - "I'm so sorry", I'd say shrilly, hopping from foot to foot, my voice finally reaching the tones at which only dolphins could hear me - that drove me back to bed. My super-electronic device allowed me to deliver the news in advanced: think I might be ill, not sure, going back to bed until I've figured it out - truthful if somewhat unconvincing.

Having lumbered into work for ten o'clock I began to realise that I was ill, but not in any dramatic way (i.e. not very ill at all). There were definite stabs of queasiness; however, more disconcerting was the total loss of interest in work at all. "Laphroaig, we really need to get a connection to this Greek broker - what's the ETA?" Next year, on current levels of activity, "Errrr ... later?" "Laphroaig, any news on that report of comms on French trading?" I just really, really, can't be bothered, "Errrr ... not yet." "Laphroaig, someone said they'd come 'round and fix ..." tra-la-la la-la la-la, "I'll get someone to pay you a visit."

I just couldn't summon the energy to care. This, I realised grimly, is what it's like to work for the local council. The horror, the horror!

Time for a nice bath, an early bed, and to pray to someone that my sense of enthusiasm returns tomorrow. Or at least that whatever illness I had acts a bit more manly and gives me some proper symptoms.

I do worry about the police's management training

2005-10-19T21:50:00.000+01:00

Recently I was watching an episode of Waking the Dead (for those unfamiliar with this BBC drama it is about a "cold case squad" who work old cases). The head of the squad regularly berates his team for missing things, for not caring, for failing; he has recently taken to beating suspects.

I wonder if I could get away with this management style? I rather think not; beating a trader around the head (however tempting) would not go down well and shouting at one of my small team, "You got it wrong, didn't you? Didn't you? You did, didn't you? You got it wrong and you don't want to admit it."

Surely this is a sad judgement on the management training in the police force? Aside from the seething resentment that being such a tough boss can generate in the team environment, the risk of looking like a complete wanker is also worth bringing to any manager's attention.

This things are in my mind at the moment: time to write my team's appraisal and to be appraised. Hmmmm. I have found a candidate I wish to hire - this is the additional person for my team that was part of the agreement for me to withdraw my resignation. Now they are hesitating.

Management. Sigh.

Mad, I tell you, quite quite mad

2005-10-16T19:23:00.000+01:00

I came across a mad person today. A really truly mad person. Not one of those people who say, "I'm mad, I am," but someone who stares at you on the train, eyes gleaming with madness (it's a cliche but it's true) while you sit there wondering: is he mad? is he in love? if I stare back at him will he hurt me? have I got something written on my forehead? am I wearing clown make-up?

And then he barked in my face. His friend escorted him away.

I found the whole thing unnerving. It was the loudness, I think; mad people are loud, very loud. It's a break with social conventions that a drama queen (moi?) could trend towards homicidal tendencies.

I wonder what the good housekeeping guide has to say about polite behaviour when being barked in the face on an underground train.

And what to do about the pointless pity.

One website spells death to all relationships

2005-10-10T22:52:00.000+01:00

OkCupid! is an intriguing idea. You answer lots and lots of questions, some of which sound like multiple choice "what kind of lover are you" quizzes from women's magazines, some of which are slightly more philosophical (does violence solve anything? well, does it?). You rate the importance of each answer in a potential mate and then the website finds people who fit your profile. It also makes intriguing deductions about your personality from your answers (the deduction that I am "less loving" is surely libellous - every other person's profile says vindictively "he's more loving", although I am secretly pleased that I am "less sex driven"). The only down side (apart from the deductions and the unnerving statement that "we have a good understanding of Laphroaig", clearly to be spoken in HAL 2001 psychotic computer tones) is that the whole thing begins to feel like the personality tests Harrison Ford used to administer in Bladerunner: I half expect an additional statement that I am "more of a Nexus-6 android".

The entire idea is alluring, that in answering those big, and not so big questions - in all those little coincidences - you can match-up with a perfect partner.

I have found a flaw. Apparently, the best match to myself is ... me. I am an 88% match with myself; rather disturbingly I am only an 82% friendship match with me (I regard myself with distaste and state, melodramatically, "I love, Laphroaig, but I don't like you", before I leer at myself and say "you know what you love"). 88% is a much better score than other people; it seems I can't improve on myself (I blush); I announce to an accusatory silence "don't you see? I'm so much better by myself!" This even justifies talking to myself: it almost condones it, nay, encourages it.

There is, however, one problem with dating myself: any break-up could get very messy indeed.

I really think so!

2005-10-04T21:15:00.000+01:00

To quote an artist

I'm turning Japanese
I think I'm turning Japanese
I really think so

What, you wonder, am I talking about? Today I went for an interview for the Hong Kong job. The Hong Kong job, it appears, has been given to an internal candidate and the job on offer would be reporting to them doing support stuff; moving half way across the world to be demoted? Hmmmm. It was a video conference, there were microphones, it took a massive effort of will to avoid bursting into a song-and-dance routine, "I work all night, I work all day, to pay the bills I have to pay, ain't it sad?"

I advised the agent my interest in the role had waned.

A few hours later ... "so how about Tokyo?" Nothing's certain and it's all "maybe I can find a job for you", but maybe, just maybe ...

Hello Mr Zebra, can I borrow your sweater?

2005-09-18T00:20:00.000+01:00

An anagram? A cryptic crossword clue? A hint to my insanity? None of the above, actually a Tori Amos lyric ...

Hello Mr Zebra, can I borrow your sweater?
'Cause it's cold cold cold in my hole hole hole.
Ratatouille strychnine - sometimes she's a friend of mine
With her gigantic whirlpool that will blow your mind.
Hello Mr Zebra, ran into some confusion
With a Mrs Crocodi-di-dile.
Furry mussels marching on, she thinks she's Kaiser Wilhem!
Or a civilaes syllabub to blow your mind.

No, I don't understand it either although being gay it is compulsery to like Tori Amos (although my favourite lyric actually comes from her covers album, her heart's like crazy paving - upside-down and back-to-front).

Basically I just have too much time on my hands.

And what was my name again?

2005-09-16T01:30:00.000+01:00

I have gone consumer crazy.

No, that's wrong.

I've turned middle-class.

No, that's wrong too. I was always middle class. I've actually been purchasing like a middle-class person, getting excited about pillow covers and that sort of thing. If I remember correctly there was a very derogatory monologue in Fight Club about people who measured themselves by what kind of coffee table they owned, which I sort of agreed with but given that this was the view of a split personality schizoid anarchist I feel there's a little room for manoeuvre.

What is really remarkable about such people is that they can remember what their rooms look like when they're away from them. I can't. Standing, fairly lost, in the flagship of a certain department store I pondered what would be suitable. What colour was my bathroom now? Ummmm. Things began to go hazy from there. My initial, daring choice of brown failed under the confidence test ("it's daring, but it could just look awful"), similarly the black-and-white polka dots was culled ("I don't think it really goes with the ... umm ... aqua blue (?) that's already there") and the theme of large writing labelling everything appealed for only a short time (I felt it could give people the wrong impression, e.g. that shower curtain was written on the shower curtain to remind me because I was mentally defective rather than as an amusing counterpoint in internal design). At one point I was worried my bathroom was avocado green, which, happily, it was not.

The bedroom was a source of even more excitement (I sentence which very rarely makes it into my world): "yes," I thought, "I'll have a Chinese theme and a jewel-encrusted padded, ummm, blanket?" and then worried even more about colour clash; this is riseable, my bedroom is buried under so many clothes it could already have a Chinese theme and I would not know about it.

I vaguely feel that if I met the me from ten years ago he would look down upon me as, well, shallow.

However, I would have a nicer coffee table than him.

And the star prize is ...

2005-09-16T00:08:00.000+01:00

I recently had a friend who, lacking in my lavish financial status, went home to her parents' house and treated it like a holiday - tea and scones in cafes and so forth. She even sent me a postcard (she tactfully avoided the "lovely place to visit but wouldn't want to live there" comment). Her parents weren't there, which probably explains a lot, although I find where my parents live so depressing it would only be a day or so before I comandeered a car and got the hell out of there, parents or not.

Excuse me for a moment while I go off on a tangent. "I recently had a friend ...", hmmm, is that "I recently had a friend [nudge nudge, wink wink]" or "I recently had a friend [but no more]"? Terrible grammar. Anyway, back to the sort-of-linear meanderings ...

This is an expansion on the recent theme of holidays, which I'm able to spend considerable time pondering about because I have a whole week out of the office. The idea of virtual holidays has been particularly interesting, because it disposes of all that messy business to do with travel: passport, visas, lost luggage (although on the trip to Vietnam I was so stunned by my lack-of-panic at the losing of my luggage that the whole thing cheered me up no end - I'd even disaster-planned for it, perhaps George Bush should have a chat - although they did deliver it to the hotel the next day). The down side would be that it would not be 'genuine', which seems to overlap nicely with the benefits and one of my (many) irrational prejudices: people who want 'real' holidays, who want to see the 'real' country - tossers, the lot of them. However, quite how virtual holiday would work is a little open to interpretation.

One idea would be role play another country, cook oneself French food, for example, and listen to French music or watch French films. This has a certain appeal, but the loss of French television would be a major blow: not so much to the art world but my listening French improved greatly while listening to dubbed versions of Stargate (everyone in Stargate speaks very slowly and carefully and any words which are not understood can easily be dismissed as something alien without any harm to one's pride) or French pop songs such as je suis et je resterai (I am and I'm going to stay).

The out-of-body holiday has also been suggested; this would involve a lot of meditation which I am not practiced at and so may become the freeing-of-the-soul equivalent of being stopped at passport control. Also, I once saw a horror film in which someone did this and they were mistaken for dead, upon returning to his body he found himself to be buried alive; this is uninformed and irrational but I do tend to stop considering holiday destinations when people discuss the risks of being buried alive (or dead), it's another foible of mine.

Mentally this is becoming a heated discussion because my holiday allowance has grown staggeringly and therefore another two week holiday must be taken before the end of the year. Oh the options: in my head; out of my head or plain old reality?

Personally, I blame the missionaries

2005-09-13T20:35:00.000+01:00

When taking time off work there is a certain expectation - unfair in my opinion - that one will use it to do something, usually go on holiday. I think this is rather unfair, although I have to admit that there is a certain logic to the assumption since taking work time to go off and do things like jet off the Bahamas would be breach of contract. However, my resistance to this idea is not entirely illogical, given that travel is massively stressful it seems somewhat perverse to shrug off the pressure of the office only to pile it back on two-fold in one's free time.

This (it seems to me) is particularly true for young families; it is common knowledge that all children under the age of eight can be entertained by the most inane of objects, dragging them to the pyramids of Giza seems excessive as well as torture for them, oneself and the other passengers on the flight. Also, teenagers never appreciate anything so they may as well be left to sulk in the local cinema as in front of one of the modern wonders of mankind. Put bluntly, families should not go on holiday.

Where was I?

I have taken a week off. Typically I spend a great deal of this time sleeping and the rest wondering if I should be using my time in a more productive fashion. I do not normally mind such activities except there's always that unspoken pressure from that unspoken assumption (for something which does not speak a great deal it manages to bother me a great deal, although car alarms in the middle of the night have the same effect so perhaps this is not worthy of a great deal of psychological examination).

Personally, I blame the Victorian explorers: Amelia Earhart and so on. They were always taking a couple of weeks off to find the source of the Amazon or fly single-handed across some ocean or other. This sets very high expectations for the rest of us. While I could conceivably drift back into work on Monday and say, "I spent most of the week scratching my arse and playing with myself*," I sense people would prefer that I lied and said, "I spent most of the week looking for the source of the Amazon" (and hope I do not get the response "Isn't that Nevado Mismi in the Peruvian Andes?" - although I could conceivably reply, "Really? I was looking mostly in the Birmingham area").

Fortunately my subconscious has kicked-in and given me the perfect excuse: I have gout. Hobbling around the flat is about the most I can manage. It's a dubious blessing, but I suppose the single-handed flight across the world will have to wait until my next time off.

* Dearest reader, not true (but as relaxation it sounds interesting), although when I shorten my day to highlights I do wonder ...

Flattery gets you nowhere. But remember how stressful long journeys are.

2005-09-12T19:26:00.000+01:00

Oh yes.

Barking. Literally.

2005-09-05T21:11:00.000+01:00

One of the down sides of re-discovering energy and enthusiasm for my life, is the realisation that previously people had thought of me as a miserable git. In retrospect I can see their point of view: the mad rotations of my eyes when they spoke to me as if seeking Olympian levels of sarcastic rolling of the eyes; the fact that an extreme level of emotion would be the raise of an eyebrow; that everything they said seemed to exhaust me with its incredible pettiness and pointlessness.

In fact this is completely untrue. People's perception of my behaviour remains firmly in the "bonkers" category, it's just that whereas there was previously a firm expectation I would be found hanging by my colleagues, now the view is more that I will be found hanging my colleagues with an insane grin, probably saying "hoorah!" every few seconds.

"Hoorah!" is the second most disturbing thing I have got into doing. I was always rather enthusiastic with my language (I would often be heard to exclaim "rah!"), but the frequency of my "hoorah!s" is beginning to get offputting. Take, for example, this conversation ...

Slave of laphroaig: "Shall I write this in C-shell or bourne shell?"
Laphroaig: "Neither. Use Perl."
Slave: "But that makes it more difficult."
Laphroaig: "Hoorah!"
Slave: "Er ..."
Laphroaig: "Growl."

The growling is the most disturbing aspect of my recent behaviour, although it started some time ago. If I recall I was doing a Homer Simpson impression, who makes a gargling noise whenever stunned by some appropriately beautiful sight (such as the appearance of doughnuts). Then in the stupendously early mornings my prolonged yawns would turn into growling. Recently, I've started using it for a replacement for conversations I can not be bothered to participate in.

Slave of laphraoig: "God it is early isn't it?"
Laphroaig: "Yaw...grrrr...nnnn...rrlll."
Slave of laphraoig: "Do anything nice over the weekend?"
Laphroaig: "Grrrrrr....awrrrrr...wrrrl...ruff. Nothing special."

Of course the really disturbing part of the growling is how willing everyone is to accept it as normal. I get the occasional glance from one of the slaves along the lines of God, you're a nutter, before they smile awkwardly and hope I don't attack them as they can't remember when they had their last tetanus booster.

The most likely explanation is excess energy. I have become a terrifying sight on the trading floor, bouncing up to timid junior traders and enthusing at them: they answer with fear in their eyes.

Interestingly, Victorian doctors used to diagnose this condition in women. Their symptoms were a weak condition and frequent fainting and the cause was believed to be excessive, ahem, sexual energy. This always struck me as perverse (in more ways than one), not least because sudden loss of energy and falling asleep were symptoms more commonly associated with post-coital satisfaction than lack-of-coital frustration. I would have thought a more realistic patient would be a Victorian women screaming around London, saying "hoorah!" a lot, bouncing up to other Victorian women and yelling "so what about corsets then?" before jumping away like a whirling dervish. Perhaps their excessive energy was more of this kind, which would at least explain the turning pale and fainting.

I seem to have become distracted.

Regardless, the bound, exciteable, energetic Laphroaig is doubtless a thing of the past as I am back on earlies. My brief show of energy today can probably be blamed on adrenalin.

And if it can't? If the growling continues? Well, best stay distant during full moons. Just in case.

With a side dose of normality

2005-08-29T22:33:00.000+01:00

Today was a public holiday in the UK, but given that those infuriating other countries (every other country apart from the UK) insisted that it was a normal business day, I was obliged to come in to work.

There are actually a number of good things about working bank holidays: dress code is non-existent (clothes are still required, but tee-shirt and jeans are acceptable); get a day in lieu; no-one really gives a damn - there's about fifteen people on the entire trading floor and you could pull the plug on all the trading systems and they'd just shrug and go home. Also, you get to go home on time and there's no other commuters.

I was somewhat taken aback at being in the flat at 7pm, I wandered around it bashfully not knowing what to do, apologising to it for breaking the routine. I feel rather like a small furry pet (perhaps a hamster?) who has been placed in a brand new cage and is now a little perplexed at quite what is going on. I find myself cleaning, which is so ground-breakingly rare that I begin to worry. Perhaps I have not just given the black dog* a kicking, but have launched myself into a whole new area of mania. The fact that a bit of cleaning could be characterised as a violent episode of manic activity speaks volumes ("I'm sorry Laphroaig," my doctor told me tearfully, "there's no cure for hyperchondria"). Best not get the feather duster out otherwise I might have to be sectioned**.

I am so hopelessly upbeat at the moment that I feel nervous about when all this will end. Soon, to judge by past episodes. But I also have a theory.

I have been having vast quantities of sleep over the past four days and although today saw a return to early rising, tomorrow (sweet, sweet tomorrow) the spreadsheet has dictated that I am not on earlies.

Perhaps I was never depressed. Perhaps I was just ... tired?

* Depression, y'know.
** For non-UK readers: forcible detention in a mental institution.

Spreadsheets: with them we can rule the world

2005-08-28T22:44:00.000+01:00

I have recently been attempting to solve my team's who-comes-in-early rota, a work of logistics that is as baffling and as frustrating as a Rubik cube. I would like to do a week-on, week-off system, S would like to do a day-on, day-off system, N would like a couple of days-on, couple of days-off system, A would like a no-days-early system thank you very much. The system has evolved into mind-boggling complexity until I just did the leadership thing and said it is going to work this way, while of course listening to people's concerns (as all good managers should) and then totally changing my plans to appease them (I'm not sure where that lies on the scale of good management).

One side-effect of a lack of rotas has been that I turn-up early every single morning, officially before 7am but in effect any time between 6.30am and 7.25am, depending on how many times I hit the snooze button and, if I do, if I drift back into full-on sleep again. I really am not a morning person. Some people say you can train your body into being an early/late person: do not believe them, they are liars; listen to your body instead, my body screams "sleeeeeeeeeeeeeeep" and punishes me - I should listen to that. I took Friday off sick (just a cold) and having spent most of Friday and Saturday sleeping I am suddenly ... feeling well.

So now we have a rota in a spreadsheet. That is one spreadsheet that could save my life.

My love affair with spreadsheets does not end there. Now all my projects, everyone's holidays, milestones, important events, national holidays, everything is mapped out in a spreadsheet. Spreadsheets are the panacea to all management ills. With any luck I can cram in enough knowledge to make it sentient and it will start managing the group on my behalf.

To quote the good sex guide: bollocks to the content, it's the diagrams that count

2005-08-21T22:16:00.000+01:00

Mysteriously, I have to write two presentations. Who to? God knows. When to be presented? No-one can tell. Their purpose? Known only to dark powers.

Actually, I know what they're supposed to be about: the first is the "long term goals for my team". I am then told what my long term goals are, two of which I didn't even know about. The second is about something techie I did recently and why I did it.

The problem of presentations is the need to summarise a complex situation in a few words. The second is the grim awareness that presentations are something of a marketing piece. I have a terrible certainty that much of the Middle East situation, in fact many of the United States' less advisable foreign interventions, have all been because of powerpoint slides that summarises hundreds of years of conflict, resentment, mistrust and complicated, fluctuating alliances as "Us: good; Them: bad".

They're further complicated by the need to sell yourself. "Sort of getting there" is not a good slide, "Bloody fantastic! (just a few final steps)" is definitely better. Meanwhile I grappled with a slide that could be summarised as "we've failed on this aim because of a lack of leadership from senior management"; i.e. to be summarised as: "you're shit and you know you are". It just doesn't say "promotion" to me and, more worthy of objection, even if I write it I don't think anything would change (which is fair, if anyone called me rubbish at my job I would probably dismiss them as a lunatic).

I hate presentations.

I hate strategy documents.

I sort of hate management.

Sigh. If only I wasn't completely and utterly power-mad.

Everyone's a critic (but they're dreadfully bad at it)

2005-08-14T20:59:00.000+01:00

A few months ago I decided I would stop reading the book reviews in Private Eye. The main reason is that they never say anything nice (in fact Private Eye never says anything nice about anything, that's not what it's there for, the accuracy of its cynacism is truly disheartening) - what is the point of a book critic who can not recommend a book?

I am currently reading Alan Hollinghurst's The Line of Beauty, this is partly out of loyalty since it has an uber-gay storyline (the gay press was overjoyed at its winning of the Man Booker Prize) and partly because I wanted to compare it to the favourite for that prize, Cloud Atlas, which I read and enjoyed.

I'm beginning to think I've turned into a nowhere-near-centre right tabloid newspaper because I don't like The Line of Beauty and I've begun to suspect that its gay storyline has helped it, rather than hindering it.

Yet there is something else I dislike. There has been the faint air of recognition about its narrative, something about its pomposity I vaguely remember.

Ah yes, I once read a rather scathing review of it in Private Eye. Now, which came first? My opinion or the review?

She's travelling at light speed there: she won't like that

2005-08-14T20:09:00.000+01:00

I'm not a big sports fan (in fact I find the whole thing puzzling - people exerting themselves to the point of injury, isn't that just, well, unhealthy?) but there has been a general sense of good cheer given England's magnificent victory against Australia in the cricket (cricket is a sport that belongs to Alice in Wonderland - what other sport lasts for five days per match?) and so I have deigned to watch some athletics. To quote one commentator, "when the champion opens his legs you can really see his class".

I like middle-distance races the most, they strike a healthy balance between my short attention span and my need for intellectual stimulation (since there is a bit of tactics to them) and of course it's always worth getting your hopes up that a British athlete will, against all odds, snatch an unexpected medal only to find that in the British athlete vs all odds fight-to-the-death the British athlete generally ends up the loser by a significant margin. Under these circumstances it's generally best to look for small victories; and by small victories I don't mean victories.

Would, I wonder, our 4x400 relay teams even get to the final this year? The commentary certainly set unhealthily low expectations: "and the Jamaican team, with twenty-three athletes making it into the final of just eight, six of whom won the gold medal, really showing the range and depth of their squad, and then Britain we have Smith, who ran a four hundred metres at school once and wasn't that bad, Jones, who's new on the international circuit this year, best time twelve hours, well they're going to have to go significantly faster than that if we want to qualify, Singh, not known particularly well outside his home town of Derby where his reputation is in fact as a walker and they've put Patel on the final stretch, he's actually dead so really his last chance to display his skills". In fact both ladies and mens teams qualified comfortably. A triumph one would think, but no, the commentators are not impressed. And when it comes to the final while hoping for a surprise medal, a glum eighth place seems a more reasonable expectation.

But no. A bronze (women) and fourth (men) and very good performances; very exciting races.

Yet still the commentators are not that impressed. I sometimes think people from the inner worlds of sport are the worst people to commentate upon it: their expectations are too high. In the marathon they spent the entire commentary saying how the Athens olympics marathon, in which Paula Radcliffe, favourite for gold, retired visibly distressed, was "all in the past", proving that it wasn't by mentioning it on a constant repeat cycle every twelve seconds - although with two hours to fill you can hardly blame them.

Sometimes I just wish they would be more expressive, it would, somehow, be less nasty. Phrases such as "she won't be pleased with that", "not his best performance", "don't quite understand what she's doing there" sound so viperous.

Or perhaps I'm like the mad wife who's always seeing insults in the mother-in-law's comments ("you see, she called my cardigan nice, I told you she never liked me"). "Paula Radcliffe wearing an interesting combination of colours there", "not really what I would have chosen for her", "not me either, not really her colours, but she's continuing to run ..."

BumpkinsReunited.com

2005-08-07T23:37:00.000+01:00

I took a browse of Friends Reunited (a site that appears to have become extremely passe, a few years ago it really caught the public imagination but it appears to have been dropped like a toy boy with a paunch).

Almost everyone I went to school with has ... er ... not gone anywhere.

I want that Hong Kong job. I want people not to get the same depressed sense when they see my profile. I haven't wanted anything so badly in such a long time.

What a shallow reason. And yet still I want it.

I am on chapter five

2005-08-07T23:19:00.000+01:00

If you are a novellist wannabe there is a lot of advice out there, and a lot of advice is the same: plot your story in advance, plan every turn, know what's going to happen next.

This approach is not for me.

I like to think this is because of my creative spirit, roaming free, kicking the hell out of project management and accountancy approaches to my, ahem, novel (the words "my novel" sound incredibly pretensious).

I completed chapter four [including all the comments like this and making the file read-only so I won't spend all my time constantly editing it].

But, what should happen next?

Finally I have decided.

By about 2020 it might be written.

Your lack of explicit gay sex scenes enrages me

2005-08-02T20:47:00.000+01:00

Gay sex dropped from TV adaption.

This was sent to the distribution list of a gay book group. Frankly the gay book group concept confuses me. Is this a book group that is gay, or a group of gay books. In this case it appears to be both, in which case it should really be the gay book gay group, or even the gay gay book group, a sort of double-choc-chip gayness.

The dedication to all-things-but-with-that-gay-flavour (oo-er): gay books, gay olympics, gay choirs, gay gay people (men who love women but who are treated unfairly by gay society, often bullied, even suffering physical abuse, dirty little heteros) - it all seems a little, well, pointless. Gay for the point of gay? Or a meeting of like minds?

And what is the issue here? The distaste with gay sex? Surely not - I mean, have you ever seen gay porn? It ain't pretty. That the screenplay is not an entirely frank adaption of the book? Priorities people: have you seen War of the Worlds. Well no, neither have I, but Tom Cruise wasn't wearing a corset. That the screenwriter is a bit of a tosser?

Or is we Just Want Our Sex.

Oh God, don't we all.

So far the world has not fallen to pieces due to my application for a job. I am almost insulted.

2005-07-28T23:21:00.000+01:00

On a pure timing issue this makes sense: I sent my application yesterday, the agent will have received it this morning, they'll have forwarded it today, by which time it is late evening in Hong Kong. No doubt the world will fall apart tomorrow.

I have spent the entire day thinking "ah ha, and in a few months I will be in Hong Kong"; I am beginning to contemplate the possibility that I am not "excited by this great opportunity" (quote from my e-mail) but instead "deranged as a parrot on class-A drugs" (not a quote from my e-mail, at least I hope not).

Oh sod it

2005-07-27T23:16:00.000+01:00

I applied.

Out in the real world there are people with real-life problems.

It would be amusing if I was instantly rejected.

Which colossal death robot are you?

2005-07-27T12:50:00.000+01:00

Which Colossal Death Robot Are You?
Brought to you by Rum and Monkey

This week my job title is: Assistant Vice President

2005-07-27T02:32:00.000+01:00

Note that this is not Assistant to Vice President, i.e. I am not a secretary.

At least I think I'm not.

Hmmm. Although it could explain a lot.

The grass is always greener, or at least more interesting

2005-07-27T01:55:00.000+01:00

Oh dear, oh dear oh dear oh dear. Oh dear.

I have seen an interesting job. It is managing a slightly larger team, will be more responsibility, is more senior without being a massive leap, means more money ... and it's based in Hong Kong.

I have instantly begun thinking of my new life in Hong Kong (it is rather like the opening credits of a film, I wander down streets, greet someone casually in Cantonese, explore aspects of Hong Kong known only to us residents, etc.) I can not make out of this is me being intrigued by a genuinely interesting job which fits me well, or the kind of day-dream reform-my-life nonsense I get posessed by every so often (yes I will do the Atkins and become a male model, and have a fancy minimalist apartment and then find a cure for cancer).

There is the slight problem of me resigning five weeks ago and then agreeing to stay; although being literal about things, there's nothing to say I will stay, it's just a bribe to be delivered in January if I'm still there.

And perhaps I need a kick up the arse to get me doing something. To quote the guru:

Do one thing every day that scares you.

Although perhaps moving to Hong Kong is a little drastic. Also, taking advice from The Suncreen Song could be considered to be a little shallow.

I can not sleep. Normally I'm very decisive about things. I change my mind a lot, but they're not incompatible character traits.

Or perhaps it's just a passing daydream. And if I don't apply ... well, no need for that ghastly possiblity: rejection.

At this very moment I am supposed to be cleaning the flat

2005-07-26T12:40:00.000+01:00

Hmmmm

Ballroom blitz

2005-07-25T22:50:00.000+01:00

A long time ago I turned into a couch potato; now I am a lump of mashed potato (fortunately there are no premiership footballers around, as there would be a danger of being roasted).

I have taken three days of work and have absolutely no idea what to do with them. What, no minute-by-minute plan of action? Having spent two entire days doing noting (and the first of them was sleeping) I decide it is worth actually doing something, and with London on my doorsteep (perhaps literally if there was another attack): why not?

On the tube I get a little twitchy of anyone carrying a rucksack. This is disconcerting: my previous attitude to anyone voicing similar fears has been "that's fucking stupid". What better to distract myself from such violence than a nice gentle film like Kung Fu Hustle. How enjoyably silly.

The only certainty is uncertainty

2005-07-18T21:31:00.000+01:00

I attend a wedding of a dear, dear friend.

Everyone is a Christian. I have nothing against religion, in fact I find it quite intriguing, and although attending a Christian ceremony as the one and only agnostic does tend to make one feel like a bit of a fraud, it was all in a very happy cause. I even sang along to the hymns.

It was all going so nicely. There is something pleasant about standing and watching a scene of such joy - and not so much the ceremony itself but the events afterwards. I am a natural watcher: as I explained to one of my stalking victims, it's a natural talent.

But then ... someone tried to convert me.

I have a certain antipathy to the very idea of conversion. Beware the zeal of a convert is always a healthy warning that extends far beyond religion. I suppose I tend to feel that it's all just a trifle unfair: that if God wanted me to believe He'd do something about it - although then one can muddy the waters by arguing He is doing something about it and this is it.

I tried to explain that I mistrust certainty, both in my profession and in life in general it is something that is riddled with holes and, therefore, so is the entire concept of faith.

"So you doubt Jesus Christ?"

"Errrrr ..." feeling that they're getting a little sneaky at this point.

"You'd be surprised at how much room there is for doubt in the Christian faith."

Would I? Does the lord's prayer end with a "at least ... I think so, but, I could be wrong"? And are there passages of the bible that talk about "for those that believe in me, and those that sort of believe in me but aren't really sure and worry a bit about some of the paradoxes and those that just find the whole thing a bit too much hard work, but kind of suspect it might be true in a general sense ..." I think not.

Certainty? Who can be certain except God?

I suppose I have a religion: I place my faith in doubt. Is there a God? Maybe; and if He only judges me on my (lack of) faith I have to feel He is a bit of a pedantic one.

As an aside, and in case the bride is reading, the attempted conversion was brief and the wedding was lovely. I spent most of the reception gossiping with a bridesmaid and together we plotted ways I could be introduced to a particularly handsome usher (the word "usher" always makes me smile, it has such an urgent tone; it brings forth an image of a Tokyo metro station guard squashing wedding guests into their seats). If anything makes me curious about Christianity and is likely to usher (giggle) me into a group of young people who meet every week to consider our lord Jesus Christ, it is the bride and her bridesmaid. And yes, Shirley, that was a compliment.

Love

2005-07-18T21:27:00.000+01:00

Don't you sometimes suspect it's life's biggest con-trick? This belief in love, love as the hero, love as the curer of all ills and the justifier of all actions. Totally enveloping mind-blowing emotions: isn't that just a drug addict or someone with mental health problems? And people talk about love as if it's the most complicated thing in the world, but it's nothing compared to lust, which is nastier and slyer and twists and turns as fast as love but flips you into hate a hundred times as fast ... and then back again with a look. Love may make you despair of yourself but lust can make you despise yourself and still leave you its slave. Don't give me love, at least not the great romantic love: trouble-makers are not welcome.

I posted this as a comment on Living as Trinity and then liked it so decided to share it more widely.

Same old shit, different excuse

2005-07-10T16:39:00.000+01:00

So terrorists return to London.

The whole day had a feeling of languid insanity as if, at any moment, reality would snap back into focus and public transport would restart, the markets would shake off their panic and it would be laughed off. But no.

I heard of it when someone would be late into work because they closed the underground. "Closed the underground" I thought, surely not the entire thing. And then I saw there had been an explosion; it was being blamed on maintenance work gone wrong and I commented with a sideways smile how good it was the Olympic vote was held yesterday.

And then the markets went mad and I was busy so the rest only came in snippets: a bus bomb; three underground explosions; bombs; many deaths.

And someone in my team could not contact his girlfriend and that was horrible.

Then I began to go slowly mad because my epilepsy medication was at home and it was quite clear I wasn't going to get to it before Friday evening: Canary Wharf was closed (couldn't get out and no-one else could get in) and all the pharmacies had closed.

But now it all seems a long way away. The rescue workers talk about hell on earth and I do not want to hear. The girlfriend was okay, I got my medication, I stayed with Hien, people got home okay.

When I see the people whose loved ones are still missing my heart hurts. Strange that the nothingness is sadder than the gore.

"A wheelless gym moon with Ethel aflame zooms tosh" sings the Tsar No-Bum

2005-06-30T18:09:00.000+01:00

The semi-sweet wife stole me, I averagely rule a silly toy of a day's yellow dreg.

I knit tiny badgers. A bitch jungle oven got heroin abusing (I find a whore-tuner ok, if jedi ate a bit don't trout me, moron) - I freed my coffin.

This does sound a bit like drug-induced trip, but it's actually the results from playing around with www.wordsmith.org/anagram. But remember, don't trout me, moron.

My ego has swollen me to the size of the marshmallow man in ghostbusters

2005-06-22T22:52:00.000+01:00

Oh sweet sweet life, sometimes it gives you a really really really good few days.

On Thursday I began thinking objectively about resigning. Would I ever find another job if I did not take time off from my current one? Job-hunting is not something that can be done for ten minutes at 23.00 just before you go to bed. And in the end I decide calmly "let's do it".

So at 3pm on Friday I venture into Human Resources world and politely ask "how do I resign?"

To which I am asked why I want to do so and calmly point out many of my manager's failings. They suggest before leaving I discuss it with another senior manager who I trust, and I suggest person X. Person X is phoned at home and he will have a chat with me on Monday.

At 6pm on the Friday I discover person X has also resigned. How ... bizarre.

On Monday morning I am taken aside by my manager who tells me person X has resigned. He tells me some of the re-organisation that will take place.

"And 'A' will report to 'B'."
"Something you should know ..."
"What's that," chuckle, "you're not going to resign as well are you?"
"Of course not, just 'A' won't like reporting to 'B', she takes that kind of thing very seriously."

Finally have chat with X and explain what a bastard my manager is. He agrees my options are pretty limited.

At 3pm on Monday I resign to my manager.

Oh the comedy. He is very obviously panicked. Do I want to work a four day week? No. A three day week? No. I don't have to decide now, I can take a week off, a fortnight off, with immediate effect just to think about it. No. Is it him, is it someone else, is it stress, is it money, is it another job, is it ...

The next day at 8am I have a meeting with his boss. Take a fortnight off, starting now, and think about it. Take a fortnight off, and if on the Friday I don't want to come back, just phone in. I've made up my mind. Flexitime? No thanks. There's a job in my old team, move there? No, there'll be an atmosphere. An extra person in my team? No. More money? No. A lot more money? No. Is there something I'm not telling them? Of course not (silently thinking my manager is an idiot) Why are you being so stubborn? I'm a bastard.

And that, I think, is it.

At 2.30pm, a head of desk visits. "May I have a word?" And I get the whole rigmarole again.

"Laphroaig, it's about optionality. You can take that week off and just think about it and you lose nothing. And if you're sure, then nothing has changed. You can still leave. I'm a trader, to me that sounds like a good trade."
"But then everyone else in my team has to cover for me."
"We'll figure something out."

And so on, and so forth. Until eventually I give in and tell him that my manager is the root cause. And then I have to tell my manager's manager.

And now it is an open secret I'm leaving and everyone is telling me it's a shame and saying how worried my management must be and ... it's all getting very flattering. All those people who made me wonder "I wonder what difference it'll make when I'm gone" are coming to tell me they're pretty bloody sure what difference it'll make and can't I reconsider or something.

And from there my resolve slips away.

So at 7.30am I meet my manager's manager again ...
"Tell me about my extra person."
"We'll start the recruitment cycle right now."
"Tell me about money."
"Don't have any numbers on me, but it'll be in the form of a guaranteed minimum bonus at the end of the year."
"Mmmmm."
"It'll be good."
"And I'll definitely get my extra person?"
"Oh yes. And I've got an emergency meeting with some heads of desk, so I've got to go."
"Better had."
"And the meeting's about you."
"Oh!"
"Good job you agreed to this, else you'd have had a lot more visits from them."
"Oh!"

And so I feel triumphant but also a bit weak-willed.

Striking distance

2005-06-15T00:07:00.001+01:00

I now sit about two desks away from the quants. Yes, the most annoying people on the planet (okay, that might be a BIT of an overstatement, but they're still VERY annoying). Now they can wander over whenever they like and think aloud at me.

They never actually ask me anything directly, such as, "Can I have a report showing all the data for ..."

No, it's, "I wonder if it's possible to figure out a report that could help get to some data ..."
"Yes, that's do-able."
"But how would that tie in to [something I've never heard of]."
"I don't know."
"Hmmm, I wonder if maybe ... hmmm, I need to think about this."

And then a couple of days later it's, "Laphroaig, that report I asked you about, did you do it?"
"You never actually asked for it."
(Doubtful expression, as if I'm a compulsive liar and explaining it to me is socially awkward.) "I see. Well could you do it? And I thought you were working on it so I need it now."

Shriek.

Old bloggers never die, they just smell that way

2005-06-15T00:07:00.000+01:00

I'm still here.

I think.

A new Greek myth

2005-06-06T23:05:00.000+01:00

Arrogance and Pride, in most myths sired from the union Self and Assurance. They are typically shown as blind although some portrayals show them as walking with closed eyes. Despite their lack of vision they became powerful deities who could not be toppled. Jealous of their steadiness, their second coisin twice-removed, Doubt, enrolled the assistance of the sprite Karoake to lure them into a contest of songcraft; unknownst to the brothers Karoake's spells led every song to be twisted and warped. However, blind to his own failings, Pride chose to cover Crazy Frog which Karoake's spell then turned beautiful and Doubt was defeated.

The brother deities were eventually destroyed by the muse Television who had the gift of portrayal. By showing Arrogance and Pride to themselves through her eyes she diminished them to mortal status. In book 57 of the Iliad (chapter 12, footnote 9) the brothers eat hemlock having realised their own nudity, although other myths have them dying alone being eaten by satyrs.

The Iliad also tells how their mother, Assurance, enraged by their death, sought revenge on Television. Assurance tricked her into swallowing a potion and she immediately fell in love with the nymph Celebrity. Blinded by love, Television was only able to portray Celebrity but was spurned by her. Unable to tear herself away, Television's soul faded away, but she was doomed to continue soul-lessly portraying Celebrity however and wherever she could.

The worry scale is: nowhere near worried enough

2005-06-06T22:42:00.000+01:00

I am concerned. My last flirtation with disaster dating was preceded by many weeks of worry and anxiety as I contemplated the various disasterous consequences that could result from such a misguided and foolish idea (each scenario generally ended in dying alone and being eaten by cats - although being pedantic if I die alone where do the cats come from? Perhaps the cats were the cause of my death? Perhaps I need to protect myself from homicidal cats?)

This time however the whole thing was booked with only a couple of days to cram in really serious worrying time, and frankly I lack the energy. I can not help but feel that, for me, worrying is a healthy and natural, nay, almost spiritual activity. It burns incense to pacify the twin gods Arrogance and Pride and offers intonations (generally a mantra of I-will-die-alone-and-get-eaten-by-cats-oh-God-why-did-I-do-this-in-the-first-place repeated a few thousands times daily).

But this time my sacred candle of self-doubt has lain still, I have ignored the daily intonations. Oh god, I will sound all smug.

Self-confidence is a good thing. I believe this.

Just not in other people.

After all, who ever said, "I hate Laphroaig, he's so meek."

I burst into tears whenever I contemplate my life. Ask me how!

2005-06-05T18:46:00.000+01:00

It seems that the replace-Laphroaig grand plot was not quite the grand plot that I imagined it to be. Now the sensible response would be happiness ... which I was ... but deft plotting to outwit my Nemesis makes one feel so much more important than a simple misunderstanding. It's rather like a bad soap story, perhaps worthy of Emmerdale.

Yesterday I saw Sin City, which I liked but didn't find entertaining.

In London I saw a man sitting on a house step reading Men are from Mars, Women from Venus. The scene struck me as something from a film, partly because I can not believe anyone reads it.

And on the subject of lurve ... disaster dating returns. Tuesday.

Oh.

My.

God.

Revenge is a lazy form of grief

2005-05-30T20:56:00.000+01:00

So true. This is a quote from The Interpreter, which I have to admit to liking.

I should go into London more often, it makes me feel so much more positive about life. In fact, I went in today ... to work. Sigh. Oh well.

Now, must scheme revenge on my boss. I always thought laziness to be very under-rated.

To quote that modern day philosopher, Des'ree, I ain't movin'

2005-05-30T20:38:00.000+01:00

And yet ... and yet ... and yet my manager still feels it perfectly valid to offer my job to someone.

Now, the options are: 1. I am about to get sacked or 2. he has found out that I am desperate to leave. I'm pretty sure it's 2. (bloody well better be) but which back-stabbing, turn-coat, maggot-for-a-heart could ever think of doing such a thing?

Bloody employment agents.

There is one grain of comfort from this: the silly bugger thought I wouldn't find out. He thinks that just because I don't get pissed with "da boys" that I am not respected; oh-ho-ho-ho, and the first thing that happened was that the someone who was offered the job came to tell me about it. She said she was going to "speak to him about it later", so together we schemed of various questions she could ask: 1. what's happened to Laphroaig? 2. Laphroaig told me you were a back-stabbing bastard, is that true? 3. do you feel integrity is important in management? 4. I know this great guy called Alex who you've interviewed before, I think he'd be great as my right-hand man.

Oh well, an interesting few days no doubt.

Today I spilt some coffee down myself ...

2005-05-23T23:22:00.000+01:00

... but if I kept my tie at the right angle it was hidden.

The possibility of highlighting it with permanent marker and creating a collage effect was considered, but discarded.

As was the idea of walking up to everyone and saying, "Look I've spilt coffee down myself, how silly!" Why would this make it any better? (And yet somehow it does).

In the end adopting a body posture to keep the tie in front of the stain was the chosen solution.

I now have a sore shoulder from leaning 10 degrees to the right for the whole day. Some political pun is lurking in there, but I can't figure it out.

In the employment market, it pays to be a bit of a slapper ... but cheap and cheerful is less profitable

2005-05-23T23:08:00.000+01:00

I have applied for four jobs. Four! I feel so cheap, so wanton. And yet my acts of carefree and commitment-free correspondence leave me oddly unfulfilled, hungering again for more more more. Is there a spiritual side to me wanting to be sated? Am I that eternal side-character of popular fiction: a tart with a heart?

Well ... no.

I've given up on my agent. I feel guilty about applying for jobs without his knowing, and yet, everyone does it (I am sinful and will burn in hell for all eternity). Although I did TRY to tell him and got no response, so gave up and sent my CV anyway. Really it's his own fault (angst angst angst).

I imagine him phoning to express his sense of betrayel, and meanwhile I must keep him secret, must whisper in the phone and beg him not to tell my manager, I have so much to lose, it's not that I don't care it's just that ... I'm not strong enough, it's not him, it's me, I don't deserve him and I'm setting him free.

One of them seemed very positive. But they're employment agencies, that's what they do.

And if we meet for coffee and discuss the job, on the inside, secretly, I'll be thinking of him, wondering what he is doing now, if he still keeps my CV and treasures it, or if I am gone and forgotten and he has moved on to the next client, hoping for better with memories of me nothing more than a troublesome frown on his commute home.

Falsehood is easy, truth so difficult

2005-05-22T20:26:00.000+01:00

This week was a week rich in irony. Actually not that rich ... or ironic.

Wednesday and Thursday was a management training course. Normally I mistrust training courses, they too often tell you what you already know ("you should listen to people you manage", er, duh, really?), but this one was quite good. And fortunately I had a perfect opportunity to exercise my newfound management talents on the Friday.

For a while now, on-and-off, we have been attempting to recruit someone. This is a brief summary of events ...

Someone called Alex, who works in another department, is referred to me and I interview him. I quite like Alex, so ...
... Alex is interviewed by my manager ...
... who in a discussion with me says he is not sure about Alex, so we agree to arrange an interview with my old manager ...
... who says who already knows him and likes him so ...
... he is interviewed by my old manager's manager ...
... who afterwards I happen to have a chat with, and he tells me he's giving a thumbs-up ...
... but in a following meeting my manager says "ah yes, your old manager's manager said no", to which I say ...
... "that isn't what he told me"...
... so then we agree that he be interviewed by the head of department, and if he says no then that's an end of it ...
... and bizarrely the next day I am told, "oh yes, I'd already arranged a meeting with him some days ago and he said 'no', never mind eh?"

So I get a chance to practice my huggable, caring manager approach by telling Alex he has not got the job. And, fatally, I ask who is interviewed by.

One really should not put oneself in difficult situations. I could have just not asked.

Of course he wasn't interviewed by the head of department, of course my manager was lying through his teeth and of course on the management training course, when asked what were the most important qualities in a manager, integrity came very very very high.

Stock borrowing and lending: an intro .... zzzz

2005-05-16T22:36:00.000+01:00

A Stock Borrowing and Lending Intermediary (SBLI) is used to provide liquidity in the secondary market and can assist firms with short positions in a security. e.g. A market maker who sells 1,000 shares of a security in which it is registered without owning the shares. Although this may sound strange, it is very common. Because settlement of that trade is usually T+3, as long as the market maker has the stock to deliver in three days time the trade will settle as normal. In order to achieve this, the market maker will contact the SBLI who will have access to large blocks of institutionally held stock.

I particularly like the line this may sound strange. My concept of this may sound strange is more like this ...

A Stock Borrowing and Lending Intermediary (SBLI) is often viewed with derision by other financial institutions, who enjoy sneering at their dull suits and unadventurous ties. However, their role is still essential to most large finance houses since they can get traders out of a pickle. By weaving magical time cloaks using post-it notes and highlighter pen the SBLI's can step back in time and acquire sufficient stock to lend to their client. Due to the fraught relationships between SBLI's and other investment houses there is generally a high fee for stock lending, particularly if the lendee fails to return the stock on time, although under FSMA2000 (in conjunction with Criminal Justice Act 1993) penalties involving weighed measurements of the lendees flesh are strictly forbidden (with the exception of the Isle of Man).

Yes, I am preparing for my FSA exam, and there are lots and lots and lots of pages to read (and memories) before July. Under FSMA2000 the FSA exam is an "interesting opportunity to enhance my knowledge" and for the purposes of practical working is "a bloody pain the arse" (Criminal Justice Act 1993).

I'm in-dest-RUCT-able

2005-05-16T22:08:00.000+01:00

Alarm bells really should start reading whenever anyone uses the "indestructable" word, particularly when that person is a super-villain being faced by his (or her) apparently defeated arch-nemesis and/or hero. Or, as Shelley phrased it ...

I met a traveller from an antique land
Who said: Two vast and trunkless legs of stone
Stand in the desert ... Near them, on the sand,
Half sunk, a shattered visage lies, whose frown,
And wrinkled lip, and sneer of cold command,
Tell that its sculptor well those passions read
Which yet survive, stamped on these lifeless things,
That hand that mocked them and the heart that fed;
And on the pedestal these words appear:
"My name is OZYMANDIAS, king of kings:
Look on my works, ye Mighty, and despair!"
Nothing beside remains. Round the decay
Of that colossal wreck, boundless and bare
The lone and level sands stretch far away.

I have recently been thinking the word "unsackable" in regards to me, since if they sacked me they would have precisely one person to do four people's job. The word "unsackable" is generally as lethal to employees as the phrase "but rather than simply putting a bullet through your head I think I will have some fun with you" is to super-villains, i.e. it generally leads to the unravelling of your whole plan. I have recently been fantasizing about the following dialogue ...

MANAGER: Laphroaig, you've got to get better at this. Make time to deal with this pointless and time-consuming administrative task.
LAPHROAIG: Yes I suppose I could put the support of your multi-billion-dollar trading systems on hold for a few minutes. It is, after all, only money, and this is paperwork.
MANAGER: Are you being a smart-arse?
LAPHROAIG: I would say so, yes.
MANAGER: Don't give me attitude, when I told you to fill out that paperwork I ...
LAPHROAIG: I resign.
MANAGER (blanching): Oh God no! Who will interpret the technical detail for me? Who will tell me what people actually meant in the 5 o'clock meetings so that I can avoid sounding stupid when I send the e-mail summary (that you "proof-read" for me).
[later]
HEAD OF DESK 1: Laphroaig, we got together to try and convince you not to resign.
HEAD OF DESK 2: Yes, you're wonderful. We want you to stay.
HEAD OF DESK 3: If it's a matter of money ...
LAPHROAIG: Come sirs, gentlemen never talk about money.
HEAD OF DESK 1: Er ... this is an investment bank. We always talk about money.
HEAD OF DESK 2: At least, I do.
HEAD OF DESK 1: Coming to think about it, I never say "errr" either. I'm generally far more decisive.
HEAD OF DESK 2: I do like your tie.
HEAD OF DESK 3: I have to say your sartorial interest disagrees sharply with public perception of you as something of a primate.
HEAD OF DESK 2: And the fact that you are capable of using the word "sartorial" in a relevant and grammatically correct manner differs sharply to general perceptions of you.
HEAD OF DESK 1: Errrr ... something's not right here.

I very clearly remember someone saying that they were "pretty essential, 'cause I'm the only person who knows how it all fits together". I suppose one of the things that isn't always visible is that managers spend a reasonable amount of time doing succession planning, this is politely described as "what happens if so-and-so falls under a bus", but could be more accurately described as "if so-and-so resigns now how fucked would we be?" The realisation that if Mr Indispensible fell under a bus we would be ... well, fucked, had clearly not escaped his manager, who spent the next six months transferring his knowledge, and then skills and eventually his employment. Employees who swagger generally fall victim to managers who bite.

I really don't know what they would do if I resigned. Roll their says and sigh "again?" in all liklihood.

Alert! Alert! Candidate X is dangerously over-experienced. Core breach imminent.

2005-05-09T22:47:00.000+01:00

After another fun and frolicksome day in the office I contact my agent (it's wonderful having an agent, although so far the only real use is the indulgence of being able to say, I'll have to speak to my agent) and wonder aloud if any progress is being made on the general get-Laphroiag-another-job-as-soon-as-bloody-possible scheme of things.

"I'm unemployable," I whimper at one point.

"Not at all," he disagrees, "it's just with such a rich level of experience in such a short time it can be difficult for managers to focus on the entire package."

God I love being complimented, even if it is saying "you've been around the block a few times, you old bike".

Learning technical support by watching the film "The Net" a couple of times

2005-05-06T17:45:00.000+01:00

I really think super-villains and tyrants could gain a great deal by becoming Sarbanes-Oxley compliant. (For those who are mercifully free of Sarbanes-Oxley [SOX] bollocks, it is a 2002 piece of US legislation around corporate governance, and it really affects technology because by default, us techies have access to everything).

I mean, for a start they have these massive computer systems, but once you log in to them you can do anything. I mean, how many times do you see a hero hack into the mainframe, go to open the file "project deathwatch" only to be told "sorry, your user id does not have access to file 'project deathwatch'". And when they need a suitable diversion? Why of course a graduate trainee programmer should have access to the sprinkler and fire alarm system.

While I'm on the subject, let me cast some light on their personnel management. I mean, in a modern organisation that wants to get the best from its employees, the words "this is what you get for failure" should only (and this is worst case scenario) result in the termination of employment, rather than life. It hardly encourages open disclosure and dicussion of problems.

And don't even get me started on the health and safety records. Gangwalks, about bubbling checmicals? Who allowed that to go through?

How well do you know ... a perfect stranger?

2005-04-24T19:35:00.000+01:00

My rather-lazy-stalker has invited me take a quiz which will allow me to assess how well I know him.

I think I know who it is. But I did go through a very brief phase of ... well, it was all rather tawdry. Was one of them called Ben?

Rabbits of today - up to no good

2005-04-24T18:46:00.000+01:00

I sometimes feel like an animatronic side-character from a tongue-in-cheek sci-fi movie like Men In Black, a foot tall vaguely blob-like mini-me operating the rest of my body from a cockpit in my torso. Lower the controlling me's height and cockpit location and a second brain will be found, but that's not quite what I have in mind. I often feel that my body is under-used, that my presence does not reach down my long, eczema-scarred legs to my big feet and ugly toes.

So it feels good to wander around London, dodging around pedestrians while trying to look up. In my shoes I flex my toes.

And on the way in I see rabbits frolicking in a field. I call it frolicking, no doubt elderly bunnies are writing angry articles about the youth yob rabbit culture.

If work was like CSI Miami

2005-04-13T20:47:00.000+01:00

LAPHROAIG: So what do we have?

TEAM MEMBER: Getting rejected on this order. "Orderbook does not exist".

LAPHROAIG: What's the stock?

TEAM MEMBER: Dexia.

LAPHROAIG: Dexia, so that would be Euronext. And what does Euronext use as the instrumentation identifier?

TEAM MEMBER: It's the isin. But we've checked that. It's all fine.

LAPHROAIG: The international stock identifier number. Indeed it is. But you know what's special about Dexia?

TEAM MEMBER: It's Belgian?

LAPHROAIG: Yes, but the majority of the volume is in Paris, not Brussels, and isins --

TEAM MEMBER: ... only identify the stock, not the line. So we've been trying to trade the Brussels line --

LAPHROAIG: In Paris.

[LAPHROAIG looks smug while staring enigmatically into the distance.]

Ding dong the witch is dead

2005-04-12T20:41:00.000+01:00

And hast thou slain the Jabberwock?
Come to my arms! My beamish boy!
Oh frabjous day! Cllooh, calay! He chortled in his joy.

She's going! She's going! Ding, dong, the witch is dead. Which old witch? The wicked witch! Ding, dong, the wicked witch is deeeead!!!

And who is that odd guest celebrating Glenise's resignation by my side? Would that be obsession? It just might be.

Oh pleeeeease pleeeeease pleeeeeeease

2005-04-11T21:06:00.000+01:00

Glenise has resigned. They're going to try to convince her not to. Please don't succeed. Please please please.

I am hopeful. To withdraw her resignation she would have to admit she was wrong.

Or they would have to offer her more money. Oh no. Oh nooooooooo. No no no no no.

Don't tell me, I know this one

2005-04-10T22:14:00.000+01:00

I am to go on a training course. Most training courses are dull as dishwater, telling you what you already know ("be sensitive with your team members" - has anyone ever recommended "be insensitive"?) but find difficult to put into practise, the only skill gained being how to keep your eyes open during excrutiatingly boring training courses.

However, this course is for the FSA examination. I think this is the exam required by traders to allow them to trade ... so, why me? (FSA is the Financial Services Authority, the UK super-powerful financial regulator which is entirely different to the SFO, the Serious Fraud Office: being examined by the FSA means a three hour written exam, being examined by the SFO can result in prison time. It's also possible to theorise about a SFA, a Serious Fraud Authority, which regulates, licenses and advises fraudsters, or even an HFO, a Humorous Fraud Office, which goes around picking up all the stuff the SFO is too uptight to deal with.) Why does some humble techie require FSA examination? And how do I avoid doing all those things I currently avoid by saying "not qualified". Still, it will mean an entire week of training outside the office. It will also fire my paranoia to new and unprecedented heights as I wonder why I need to sit an exam which will allow me to speak to clients about trading activity. It is rather like being sent to sit an exam on "Tea Varieties and Tea-Boy Compliance Procedures", it send certain signals.

So I will be required to attend training for five days, revise and then sit an exam.

The sitting of exams scares me. Apparently, the exam is quite difficult. So I will have to revise. And memorise things.

How, exactly, do you do that?

And exam technique? What, precisely, was that?

Oh dear. I'm doomed.

You have to speculate ...

2005-04-10T22:04:00.000+01:00

Now where did the weekend go? One day it was approaching, the next minute I'm thinking about ironing my shirts for work tomorrow.

It would be wonderful if this brief time warp was due to a manically busy social diary but alas, and hardly unsurprisingly, it is due to my complete lack of activity. Not a single item I can use to field that alarming Monday question, "do anything interesting over the weekend?"

I really must start setting the alarm over the weekend, so I don't end up waking up at 3pm when most of the day has already run its course.

Optimism

2005-04-04T22:19:00.000+01:00

I feel strangely optimistic today. Perhaps this is because I have spent the past three days mentally scolding myself whenever I think of work. Perhaps it is the wedding I went to on Friday. Perhaps it's because I went home from work at a normal time.

Maybe it's because I now see daylight, maybe I suffer from SADS, or maybe I'm just a sad bastard.

I'll feel very silly tomorrow when I turn into my usual surly git.

Lettttttts doooo the tiiiiime warrrrrrrp again

2005-03-28T22:55:00.000+01:00

On Friday I was in a mad panic. I had a wedding to get to. I had to get my epilepsy medication. I had to get something to wear. I had to pick up my new suit. I had to get there in time. I had to pack. I had to collapse from a panic attack.

It took me a while to notice that I had the wrong Friday. Yes, the wedding is next week. I was about to leave for the station before I spotted this fact.

I now realise I could have been spending a significant amount of time thinking I am in a different week. Or maybe it goes further than that. What is the month? The year? Perhaps if I start doing my maths I'll discover I've only been working in the bank for a couple of years. Or perhaps it's the other way around. Maybe it's really 2014 and somewhere along the line I just lost track of time.

To add to my sense of disorientation is the bank holiday weekend. Four days in my own time capsule.

Now, I must go off and request holiday for next Friday.

Getting into work before 7am is tiring

2005-03-24T23:47:00.000Z

Alarms go at 4.40am
Actually wake up 5.05am
Crawl out of bed 5.20am
Leave flat 5.45am
Get into work 6.45am

I'm turning into a morning person.

And every weekend my body clock re-asserts itself to make Mondays hell.

I might need timezone re-assignment surgery.

I might need therapy.

Polite children are so sweet

2005-03-24T23:42:00.000Z

Someone brought his 12-year-old son into work for a "work shadow" day. He was so sweet and polite!

It is odd, I have so much more respect for his father now.

There goes the neighbourhood

2005-03-24T23:19:00.000Z

Of course, the potential move of Glenise gives me pause for thought. It would be a moment of genuinely black humour if I gain employment elsewhere only to end up sitting opposite her again.

Hmmmm.

This is, of course, a silly fear since any move is going to entail working with a lot of new people, at least one of whom will get on my nerves.

And yet there would be something so perfectly symmetrical about the whole thing it has a certain sense of inevitability. Perhaps I will withdraw my CV from the market, just to see what happens ...

Hahahahahahahahaha

2005-03-24T22:57:00.000Z

Glenise has been asked to do some real work and is talking loudly about resigning. I spend a good deal of my time sending psychic, silent encouragement while pointedly staying out of the whole thing. I suspect she thinks herself indispensible and showboating.

Please please please ... if there is a God ... pleeeeeeeeeeeease.

Death and bloody taxes

2005-03-13T22:51:00.000Z

I owe the Inland Revenue a lot of money. This is exasperating. It appears I've owed them money for an awful long time but they "couldn't find me". Then they managed to find me by ... errrr ... picking up the phone to my employer and asking my address. This project clearly took many years, during which time my unpleasant bill gathered penalties and interest and is now really, really, really nasty.

Apparently it was my responsibility to tell them I'd changed address. Hmmm.

Also I haven't filled in a tax form for years, so I've got to fill them all in. This week. Ha-bloody-ha.

This is what you get for being a smug investment banker.

Sweet dreams are made of this

2005-03-13T00:28:00.000Z

I had a strange dream last night and it has stayed with me throughout the day, although I can remember very little of it. When I am not thinking it is the undercurrent to my mind. How ... strange.

I have been weighed down by apathy. I had a kickboxing session on Friday but I quit after fifteen minutes as I was not really paying attention. The instructor was very nice and did not charge me. I can not seem to focus on anything.

I am troubled by something, but I do not know what it is.

Think.

I have new furniture. A rug and a very chic (and rather large) coffee table. They make this place look ... different. Organised.

An odd cloud haunts me, as if I have been drugged. I have that strange sense of abstraction that you achieve at 2am after a party and you realise you need to sleep.

I had a haircut today. The hairdresser kept on taking a step back and giving my head an oh fuck what have I done? look, but it looks fine to me. Not that I am the best judge of these things. The number of times I have wandered into the office and been met with stares of astonishment: too many to mention.

Must gain focus somehow. Hmmm, how?

Come back from first kickboxing lesson in two years ...

2005-03-01T23:28:00.000Z

... even my fingers are tired.

The bastards

2005-03-01T23:08:00.000Z

They have removed my "open position". This is not a diagram from the karma sutra removed from the workplace due to inappropriateness. This is my fourth person. Gone.

So ... I'm expected to support a few multi-billion dollar trading systems with, er, three people. And two people have to be constantly available. So ... um, the maths isn't helping here. If one person is on holiday and another is off sick then ... then ... ? I'm going to have to draw-up an emergency plan for when someone has flu!

Task for this weekend: bring my CV up to date. I told my old manager I was preparing to move on, he seemed sad but agreed with my reasoning: 1. when something goes wrong and no-one's around to pick it up, guess who they'll shout at? 2. I'll be offering a crap service, and that makes me unhappy; 3. their opinion seems to be "it's working at the moment", but I work long hours to fill the gap, and I'm not going to do that forever.

Grrrr. Angry and calm at the same time.

Technical errors in the great mainframe of love

2005-03-01T22:45:00.000Z

Disaster dating website have "improved" their website, a.k.a made it prettier and significantly more crap. In the old website you could enter your matches with a few clicks of a mouse, in the new one you have to traverse about twenty pages.

Most annoyingly, they lost my data for a few days. Having asked "what the f***'s going on?" I received an e-mail telling me not to worry about it, just part of the upgrade process, it'll all be back in 48 hours.

I wonder if anyone else knows this? My initial response to the broken site was "oh well, never mind, probably fate ... where's the nearest cat shop?" before I came back with the more incisive, perceptive, philosophical response - fuck this for a game of soldiers. If other people took my more laissez faire approach my potential love match may have given up. And the old site told you who had submitted their votes so you knew whether or not you were still in with a chance. So maybe they just don't fancy me, maybe they haven't submitted their votes yet.

Oh well.

Rather excitingly I have one "friendship" match, I wonder if I'm going to get any more?

It's best to capitalise on your natural talents

2005-02-26T23:32:00.000Z

I have a natural talent for getting lost. It's quite remarkable, I'm so easily disorientated that I once got lost about twenty metres from work because I couldn't reconcile what I was seeing (it all looked so familiar, and yet not) with the fact that I was 90 degrees away from my usual direction. Fortunately, getting lost can be quite good fun, so when it happened in London today I embraced the opportunity and went for a wander.

London is an amazing place. All different people, different voices, different languages and accents. I am so glad I am here.

Sometimes my lack of purpose infuriates me, but today it's as if the whole day has been a gentle meander.

Are you a mexican or a mexican't?

2005-02-26T23:28:00.000Z

I ... I ... I've done something. I've signed up for kickboxing again. Tuesday and Wednesday.

Kickboxing is very tiring. I haven't done any exercise for at least a year.

I have to start planning my funeral.

What I'm always moaning about

2005-02-25T23:39:00.000Z

She watched him. He lay pretending to be asleep, twisted like ivy, his sheet twined around him in slavish support. She saw him as a rainbow image of body heat, a glowing figure in the perfect blackness and listened to the studious regularity of his breathing, one sensor zooming-in on the careful stillness of his eyelids. She saw him in hundreds of different ways and a tiny part of her vast mind processed what she saw.

When she appeared her blueish glow draped the room in contrast. She was mature, past the age of beauty but still handsome in a haughty, unfriendly way. Her name was Machine. She had very dark eyes and they focused on him now. She was unsmiling.

With the light other sensors burst into life. She scanned his body again, noted his paless, his white skin blurring with supernatural feminine brilliance into the sheet, its folds turned into deep canyons under her ghostly illumination. Her thin lips tightened. Her calculations led her to a decision. She spoke his name.

"Red?"

It lacked volume but carried, the same tone might be used to recover someone lost in their own thoughts except she had hardened it so that it implied her impatience if he continued to pretend - as she knew he would.

Independent thought chains mused on various aspects of the scene, from his frown - an unconscious tick he lost in true sleep - to his insomnia. They took in the darkness at his eyes, almost erased by her light, the black line of his eyebrows. None of these observations could be categorised as an emotion, some were as simple and programmatic as a response of a nerve-ending, but somewhere in the swirl of thoughts she estimated his weight and from there tracked through various records until the analysis found an ending, a pattern spinning idly in her gigantic mind that could be thought of as concern.

Ater 7201 milliseconds she sighed. A loud, pointed sigh that people use when they are impatient.

The sensors saw a response, a slight rise in the heat of his face. The merest of blushes. Rapid interchanges of logic told her to speak his name again, dwelled on how often he played this game and that usually after two or three calls he "awoke". Swifter, more urgent thoughts interjected: her face darkened with impatience, exasperation injected into her voice so that when she spoke it sounded as if she wanted to say 'for Christ's sake'.

"I know you're awake!"

His eyes snapped open. They found her straight away, saw her features sharpen and clarify with indignation as if seen through a lens: the sudden hard edge of her jaw line, the air puffed through flaring nostrils. The end of one foot was curled in preparation for foot-tapping.

Red's first thought, irrationally, was we're arrived.

"It's Karl. He's dead."

Snow

2005-02-22T22:00:00.000Z

It falls like an emotion. Delicate and gradual and changing. People smile at, play in it, fear it.

I smile at it. It makes me tall and dramatic ... until I slip and fall on my arse.

Dating not so disasterously

2005-02-22T21:39:00.000Z

In the end it was all quite interesting and I am laid back and coooooooooool about it.

And am I constantly refreshing the web page to see how many "ticks" I got? Of course I am.

A very laid-back stalker

2005-02-14T21:41:00.000Z

I have received two e-mails from online address books advising me that Ben Hume would like me to maintain my information in them. See here for an example of such an address book.

Who is Ben Hume?

This is a sign of my degree of self-obsession. They're probably someone I've been friends with since birth.

Maybe not. I'm not sure I like this idea. One of the conveniences of manually maintained addresses is the fact that they can be relied upon to get out of date, it's an unspoken but clearly understood agreement that this can be allowed to happen. These online address books seem to be saying "I can't be bothered to keep track of you, but if you want to do it yourself (friend), here's how I want you to do it".

St Valentine died an excrutiating death

2005-02-14T21:24:00.000Z

You know how when your friends get coupled, you never see them ever again, like they dropped off the face of the earth? I think this is because single people cut their brake lines.

No Milk Please

Actually I quite like St Valentine's day, it gives an interesting perspective on life seeing everyone go out and do pretty much the same things but with entirely different facial expressions - from glum resentment to gleeful anticipation.

Lots of things went wrong this morning. I'm not entirely sure I should enjoy systems failing simply so that I can recover them, it's akin to a doctor enjoying their patients near-death experiences: it betrays a certain conflict of interest. However, it also assures me that my frankly suicidal decision to be in the office for 6.45am (writing it down seems to emphasise my madness) is the correct thing to do, for my reputation if not my sanity (surely these things are tied together?) When I opened the curtain this morning I thought "I wonder what the weather will be like" only to realise that at 5am (oh. my. god.) there is no weather.

Thank God I don't live with someone, they could never withstand the bleeping of the alarm at 4.30am.

And having moaned about my job

2005-02-13T22:32:00.000Z

I wish to spend a little time speaking of its benefits ...

... I spent sooooooooo muuuuuuuuuuuuuch money yesterday.

And now I have a TV.