Sunshine after the rain

A nightmare journey home following some public transport issues coupled with miserable, drizzly weather but having climbed 6 flights of stairs to my little flat, it all seems ok when I look out of the window.

Funny how such little things can change my mood...

Jubilations

Not that I am a modern day Scrooge but it has been very easy to enjoy an additional 2 days off work that have been granted to us all here in the UK to celebrate the fact that Queen Elizabeth II has been ruling over us all for a mammoth sixty years.If I had been more organised, I would have copied the masses who have taken this opportunity to take cheap holiday in the rest of Europe where flights are cheap, the weather is sunny and no one else is on holiday. As it goes, I have managed to stay in London whilst avoiding the many public street closing celebrations that caused great inconvenience for everyone but really only benefited the privileged few who were able to get tickets on the boats/concerts/parades etc.

So putting the ridiculous to one side as I am no royalist (?), it's still impressive to think that this one person has been Queen for sixty years. It's quite amusing to think what Prince Charles is thinking too - he will know he has nothing close to a diamond reign left in him and that's if he even out survives his mother! Sixty years... what does that even mean? It was certainly before I was born. It's a measure of time that is difficult to imagine in this modern age when emails can be sent in seconds, marriages can end in hours and presidents can be ousted in months as we have been seeing during the Eurozone crisis.

My mother comments on cyclical fashion if she sees me in oversized sunglasses and flared trousers but even that is only the 70s. In the 50's, my mother would be born, the 2 Koreas were fighting for dominance, the first jet plane would be flown, Albert Einstein would turn down the Israel Presidency, a gallon of gas cost $0.20 and  polio was still a disease that was causing an epidemic in the mighty USA.

Pretty impressive how much has changed and what has been achieved globally during the last sixty years. Yet there is still so much to be done in terms of diseases that need cures, mouths that need to be fed, international frictions that need to be resolved and some over-indebted countries that need a funding solution. Can't wait to see what we can do in the next sixty years!

Lunar bunnies

Despite flying solo in Paris, I thought I would theme up this Thursday given it is New Year in all those far Eastern countries who follow the lunar calendar. Every self-respecting Western city has itself an Asian quarter so a couple of google hits later and I had chosen the lucky venue that would be my host to toast in the year of the rabbit.

When I first arrived 2 weeks back, I was really amazed by how well connected the city was and how there were so many Metro stations - you can easily walk 3 stops in heels no problems. Now I have fully embraced the French culture and took the Metro a short distance to get to Rue Sainte Anne. The evening looked promising as the entrance to the street is presided over by a large Asian supermarket generating a good quantity of local trade.

At 7pm, it was still pretty early by French eating standards but these canteens open all day and I walked past a few which looked quite busy to get to Higuma - a well reviewed Japanese noodle bar. On entry, there is a large open kitchen bar where the noodles are made where there was one Japanese business man having a glass of beer - waiting for his food, still dressed in his camel coat but with his trilby hat on the bar top. The waiters and the chef were however Chinese and there were distinct Chinese influences around the restaurant. The food arrived in Chinese blue willow decorate bowls and there was a greasy jar of chilly oil on the table. There are days I crave Chinese food but today I had wanted something Japanese - simple and clear. 2 more couples came in whilst I was there but really, it was fusion in the worst sense and I have no intention of going back there.

However, I am still excited about the year ahead. I like that the year of the rabbit follows that of the tiger - 2 such complete opposites. Hopefully we will be able to notice the change in pace of life as we apply gentle persuasion to mould this year's destiny as opposed to the fierce force we had to apply last year.

Pourquoi...?

It's bitingly cold in Paris at the moment - to the extent that I seriously have to much a deliberate effort to make myself leave the office to buy lunch or even go home! Suffice to say, I haven't packed the appropriate clothes for this kind of weather...

There are some amazing restaurants here but they are absurdly overbooked. Largely helped by restaurant owners manipulating demand by only opening from Tuesday to Saturday and only for dinner. Many websites will not give tight opening windows but actually state a time you can call to make reservations and even then you have to be sufficiently understandable in French to a waitress who also has to serve the people who have managed to get into the restaurant! Where do all these people come from? It's not tourist season and I'm pretty sure it's not fashion week...

Another quaint French crazy is their Metro system. The signs are beautiful and point you to another era when Paris was full of music and feather boas but they have also kept an archaic ticketing system. Weekly tickets last for the week beginning Monday so if you are coming for a week starting on Wednesday you pay the full weekly price for a ticket that is valid only until Sunday. Similar thing for monthly tickets which only run from the 1st of each month and are the same price no matter how many days there are left in the month. This is ridiculous in itself, but even more amusing are the queues of French people on the first day of the month queuing to buy their new monthly Metro ticket when you can pre-buy it up to 10 days before the start of the month. Were they taken by surprise by the sudden arrival of month end or is there a silent protest against this crazy and inefficient system which we foreigners are not privvy to?

Anyway, I had a pretty smug smile this morning going to work with my pre-paid ticket...

Lundi Lundi...

It's Lundi in Paris and there was a sprinkling of snow in the early morning. I know this as my friend left on the first Eurostar back to London. The time difference means he can take the 7am train from Paris and be at his desk in London City by 8:30am. All very impressive although it meant I was left in no man's land - tired but awake and waiting for my alarm...

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Not that I am complaining. The weekend was glorious and despite the chill, we managed to pack in everything I wanted. It is amazing how many English blogs there are devoted to eating and going out in Paris. The wine tasting lived up to expectation and we stopped by the Maison Europeeane de la Photographie to see the latest photo exhibition which covered topical subjects such as the meaning of war as well as the big fashion names and famous landscapes from new angles. Much more manageable than a trip to the Louvre which I feel can be quite draining after all the queuing you do to take a look at a picture of a smiling woman which you have seen a million copies of.....

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The food was unsurprisingly very good. One of the best things we did was to have brunch (which here seems to cover more the lunch-dinner slot so maybe we should call it lunner...?) at Rose Bakery which is run by apparently run by an English lady (blog-pedia-style knowledge) with student waiters who were more than happy to serve you in English which I think takes the charm out of coming to Paris - half the fun is seeing whether you can ask for what you want and trying to look like nothing is wrong when something completely unexpected arrives! Then we went to a chocolate boutique run by the much coveted Jacques Genin. I believe this is the first time he has sold direct to the public (his chocolate usually only sells to the top restaurants & caterers) and it was truly worth visiting. If anyone visits Paris, I can really recommend it. The shop is deliciously clean and spotless, all the staff are wearing clinical white overalls and the hot chocolate (proper thick molten smooth chocolate....) is served in classic white tea sets. The whole experience makes you feel very special.

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We walked out of the City Centre past busy Republique towards Bellevue and ended up at a beautiful hilly park with fir trees and a lake feature with a suspension bridge which takes you up to a little stone gazebo-type structure. I would say it's much prettier than the Luxembourg gardens on the left bank which are crowded and surrounded by the sounds and fumes of busy roads and tour buses.

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Am determined not to fall into the trap of finding something I love on the first weekend and re-visiting it with different friends. For my next victim/friend who is coming next week, I am only going to do new things. The google trawling through the memoirs of past Parisian travellers starts again in earnest!

Allons-y!

My rate of cash consumption has been nothing short of amazing since I arrived in Paris. So much so that I had to resort to a dinner of bread and nutella tonight - which thinking about it was quite a treat... In the line at the little bakery, I was wondering how I would get through a whole baguette and whether it would still taste good tomorrow when the woman infront of me asked for a "demi-baguette". Genius - these people have thought of everything!

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Part of the eating light is because my friend is coming over to visit me for the weekend tomorrow. He probably doesn't appreciate just how bored I've been but basically the last week I have been planning the weekend to fit in all the things I have not had the balls to do on my own. Also have scheduled in a trip to Notre Dame and the Ile from which the whole City originally began and have chucked in a tour of the pere-lachaise cemetary where Jim Morrison is famously buried (along with other alumni including Oscar Wilde, Edith Piaf, Marcel Proust...etc etc) as a bit of a weirder treat.

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And of course, what trip would be complete without a good French wine tasting.... I came here for a friend's hen night a few years back and did this really fun tasting so have looked up the guy and booked us in. As it happens, he has done quite well for himself during this time and now runs a wine bar and tasting rooms close to the Louvre. Can you imagine being good at something like wine which is something everyone enjoys and likes to learn about and which can be quite good money? If I were to have a strike of entrepreneurialism, I'd like to think there is something I could put my all into which I would actually also enjoy doing.

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Something to ponder over the weekend but I'm not sure if I'll have time to schedule it in!

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One sleep to go!

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City of lights

I'm starting a stint in Paris - somehow I have been able to convince my work that this is integral to the process and it has all happened fairly quick. Having said that, nothing in Paris happens quickly at all and it has taken the month of January to get internet access in my new flat.

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Even the French are supposed to dislike Parisians but so far they have been very tolerant of my distinct lack of language skills and I seem to have arrived in the middle of the grand soldes so all the shops have -50% plastered on their windows which has really helped to make me feel welcome too...

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The one downside is that I am out here on my own and I can't help thinking the whole journey would be all the better for being shared. I am, however, making amazing progress at eating out alone. I refrained from putting myself in that embarassing situation to begin with but there are so many bistrots and bars that look so good that I was quick to develop a thicker skin. I've found if you go mega early (6:30pm ish) then the restaurants are still empty, you get served quick, waiters are more tolerant of you umm-ing and ahh-ing through basic French and I don't have to pretend to be reading a book to look as if I am not listening in to all the conversations around me. It's quite liberating actually, each meal is like an extra boost of confidence (as well as completely delicious!). I think I may even try it when I am back home.

WTF Wednesdays

The UK has recently been graced with the pre-budget report which details the economic policies the government will enforce next year. Not satisfied with the banks they already own and the mess that is looming over everyone's Christmas, they have decided to put further tax burdens on the whole banking industry. In spirit, I am fully behind taxing bankers but the measures proposed simply hurts the graduates and middle-earners who really have had very little to with bringing on the crisis and who are already suffering from the wage cuts, redundancy, over-leveraged mortgages, unemployment etc etc. It's like all these politicians just spout out headlines that will be short term crowd pleasers. This is not a stand up comedy act - I wish they would think about what they are doing. Completely randomly, they have also decided to reduce tax on bingo winnings - WHAT??!!

What is up with the Chancellor's eyebrows? Thunderbirds was so eighties...

Do we have a right to judge Tiger Woods? Should I care about what he has done in his personal life? Morally, he does not have a leg to stand on and I am not here to condone adultery. However, he's a professional sportsman and that is what he is known for. Why is it that he is having to take time off from the golf circuit because of the public backlash when politicians, movie stars, singers and even religious leaders can get on with their professional lives after their skeletons are unleashed? Surely some of them have more responsibility as moral examples than Tiger Woods? Then there are the celebrities who make immoral decisions in their field of profession - the multitude of politicians who lie and also sports personalities who cheat in their game. Even this year, there was the Renault scandal with a driver trying to throw a race, the rugby player who faked a bleeding face injury and France's controversial entry into the World Cup. I think we should give Tiger a break - glass houses, throwing stones and all that.

Time of excess

Goodwill and cheer - it is all around. As we repent our ways through another Christmas season where our insatiable desire to borrow and spend is keeping the newspaper headlines well padded - all I see is more evidence of excess. There's an automatic reflex switch in our brains which means that as we turn the calendar to December, as we hear the year's first outing of our favourite carol on the radio, as we admire the bright lights flashing santa scenes on our neighbour's house (there's always one who goes overboard...) - we all turn into eternal optimists and every year we think this year will be the best Christmas yet. I even caught myself smiling at a horrendously hungover man on the tube journey to work the other morning - good on him for braving his way into work, he clearly enjoyed some excess the night before! It's almost certain that the O family will be in feud by 10am on Christmas Day but right now today, I am still hopeful that this year will be different...

Man flu

Man down, man down.

Instead of working through the pain like any good female of the species, I decided to succumb to the more basic instinct of staying in bed and protecting myself from the dangerous elements.

In fairness, as much as I always dream of pulling a sickie, I can't face making the embarassing call to my boss. So man flu remains an as yet unachieved goal for me. However, I did manage to have a week off work as my doctor wrote me a sick note. He's my hero.

What have I learnt during my time off? Not a lot except that you feel most alone when you're sick. If I had died, how long would it have taken for someone to find me? Thank goodness I have no pets as that removes the possibility of my parents having to identify my half gnawed remains. The new year's resolution is going to have to be getting married or making friends with my neighbours. Tough.

Zombie

What a glorious weekend. The trip to Oviedo was great - I was re-tracing the movie Vicky Christina Barcelona, just with no Javier Bardem! It was the beginning of November but the weather was glorious and the town is just too cute. The town is big on cider which is slightly less pleasant in the mornings as there's always a faint whiff of dried fermenting apples in the air. I toddled over to the town auditorium to watch the final grand prix with all the die hard Fernando Alonso fans, seeing as it is his home town. Turns out, he is less popular than I thought, or the fans are not really die hard at all, as the place was sparsely filled. The positive side was that I was interviewed by a national radio station who were very excited that someone from Button-land had travelled there to support the national hero. Er... hello? Have you seen the man's jaw line? Mmmm.

Anyway, I completely forgot that I had set my alarm clock at home for 3am to catch a silly-hour flight on Friday and this morning when the alarm went off, I got up, washed and did my hair before I realised it was only 3:30am!! Needless to say, I have been a complete zombie all day. There was this big conference today, it was me and 20 or so finance people sat around a circular table. The room was warm and the chat was dull. My eyes were getting heavy - I was trying everything in my power to keep the tiredness away. I could sense that my writing was falling down the page but even though I could see it on the page, I couldn't wake myself up. Am really worried about how I looked - for all I know, I may even have been snoring!

Some excitement in the UK today as there may be some retribution on the horizon for those banks that have had free access to national funds. Chance would be a fine thing - I 'll believe it when I see it.

Facial conundrum

The head honcho - as in the man who is in charge of investments and sits like the fairy at the top of the tree - has requested to be my friend on facebook. For those of you who have skim read that first sentance, I'm going to wait here for you to read it again to fully comprehend the gravitas of the forked road that lies before me.

What should I do? If I accept, then I will constantly live in fear that someone will write something or put up weird pictures that he will associate with my behaviour. Plus why should I accept it? He's not the boss of me (outside of work...) but I can't help thinking it's some sort of test. But what's the right answer? I'm so sure I wouldn't be like this if we weren't in a job security-less recession! Also, I'm not sure I want to see personal photos of him. I mean, it's bad enough to see him in his best pressed suit but do I really want to see him chilling in his jeans or worse, beach holiday snaps?

Predictably, I'm just hoping it will go away if I ignore it long enough. Although that strategy doesn't seem to work too well with him in the office...

Witching hour

Today is one of my favourite days in the year - the end of daylight saving time! My annual ritual is to not change my clock all day until I am doing something I really enjoy. Then I turn back my clocks and it feels like I get an extra hour just at the right moment! And this year, you'll be glad to hear, I have saved it for blogging. It's such a good feeling - you can definitely see why the Doc (Emmett Brown) was so obsessed with his time machine.

The last week of summer time was a gluttonous one for me - I've managed to go to 3 restaurants I have wanted to visit in the space of a week. To my immense relief, all 3 were delicious and well worth the wait and anticipation. I may have to find a new sporty goal though, as I've not lifted a finger (or toe) since the half marathon in mid-October so all these nights out and the upcoming holiday season is probably going to take it's toll! It's weird because I've never really been bothered about it before, but I think I've enjoyed my new toned-ness and it's sad to watch it disappear before my eyes.

It doesn't take much to excite me - which probably goes a long way to explaining why I work in finance and how I can read the financial newspapers and the Economist without falling asleep - but there was a scandal this week in the business community which read like the content of OK! magazine. The head of the UK's biggest insurance company has left his wife (they have 4 kids together) to consumate his affair with his HR director who is also married - to another senior manager who works at the same company! The Aviva triangle - it's like a little bit of Hollywood amongst the pink pages..

Went on a date with the greek guy (the one who challenged me to 'impress him'). Anyway, as most of you rightly predicted but I needed to learn for myself (...!!), he turned out to be a bit of a jerk. Back to the drawing board for me!

This Friday, I am off to Asturias - the home of my hero Fernando Alonso - to watch the last Grand Prix of the year with all his local homies. Slightly less exciting given the Champion was decided last week (Button - ick!) but still, it will be more of a looking-forward celebration as he will be driving for Ferrari next year. Vamos vamos!

Duck duck goose..!

Went to the cinema to see Disney Pixar's Up in 3D. It's their latest animated movie and it was completely lovely. A grump of an old man setting off to live his unfulfilled dreams in memory of his childhood sweetheart - with a chubby little oriental kid to test his patience but who ultimately brings out the best in the old man. It's sort of like Gran Torino - but less violent and with helium balloons. Apart from crying my eyes out (it is very moving), the biggest surprise was how much 3D has evolved since I was 8, following Blue Peter to cut out glasses from cereal boxes and using green and red Quality Street sweet wrappers. I looked like an idiot and the TV screen was largely the same. Now, the plastic goggles still make me look like an idiot but the 3D element really works. Definitely go check it out.

It has been 10 years since I went to University - the first week of October 1999 was when I turned up at Oxford as a fresher to learn the ways of adulthood. To celebrate this joyous occasion, I organised a reunion (kudos to facebook as it made everyone very easy to find) and 50 of us gathered in a gentlemen's club in London on Friday. These types of official reunions are not as 'de rigeur' as they are in the US, and it was really nice to see everyone and for them to make an effort. The variety of different paths we had the choice to follow is really inspiring. Along with several hardened academics who continue to labour on their post docs for intellectual acclaim, there was a mix of lawyers, media moguls and art gallery socialites. Strangely, no one seems to have gone into banking but me - they obviously had better career advisors than I did! Anyway, it was warming to see everyone and to hear of their successes. It still makes me wonder though, whether we follow a predetermined destiny or whether we have the will to write our own futures.

Talking of ugly ducks turning into swans, you have to read about the Belgian Miss Homeless contest. As a social experiment, they ran this contest and the winner receives housing for a year... Aside of being a headline grabber, is it really any worse or better than an actual Miss World contest? The prize may seem more meaningful (in that it satisfies our desires to be do-gooders) but are we not taking exploitation to new levels?

Then the big goose of the week - my work has banned all web based emails and facebook! I spend 12 hours a day in the office and usually more than 5 days a week! It is apparently to protect information security - I still feel like I'm being violated...

Interlagos is underway - my Fernando is out on the first lap following repercussions of another crash. All my eggs are in the red bull basket now. Come on Vettel!!

Peace out

As we reel in the aftershock-slash-glory of President Obama's "extraordinary efforts to strengthen international diplomacy", it's hard to decipher whether the Norwegians have been drinking the same water as their crazeee Icelandic neighbours or whether this is a genius way of giving the busy new President a chance to pause for thought and consider the repercussions his actions can have. There's a man who must get shivers thinking of the butterfly effect!

Closer to home (mine at least!), the nation's hero Silvio Berlusconi (yes, the one who keeps refering to Obama as having a good suntan) has had his self-imposed immunity from all rules removed by the State. Some crazy Italians stopped eating pasta for long enough to see that Berlusconi, who control's the country's media already, should not have the privilege of dodging the hand of the law. Apparently this clip is really him..



A little more frivolous, but on X-factor yesterday, one of the judges made a comment about a contestant's sexual preference - it was completely unprovoked as well. I'm not sure what made her do it (it was glorious as an example of carcrash TV) but she repeated it to make sure everyone had heard her. In this day and age when everything you say is uber-scrutinised, why would she bring this bag of bricks down on herself?

And then most frivolous of all, I have bought my first grown up, significantly-pay-denting hand bag. After months and months of should-I-could-I, the deed has been done. In a most frivolous crushed raspberry. Yum...

Knowledge is power

Turns out the posh boys I work with actually are part of the English aristocracy. All this time, I thought they were just overpaid idiots with their false airs and graces and public school humour but turns out, the jokes on me! They have titles and signet rings and when their fathers die, they will inherit land and maybe even peasants... Isn't this hilarious, who even knew this stuff still existed? Anyway, ever the opportunist, I have profited from the situation as one of them is dating a girl at Jimmy Choo and she is getting me 70% off some new shoes!

The half marathon was today - there were 15,000 people running through the royal parks. Predictably, I under-trained so it was less exciting for me, but it was vaguely amusing to be running with so many people. It was nice weather at least and the views were lovely. Even London is pretty in the Autumn - lovely golden reds and browns on all the trees.

This run means I have spent a good chunk of this weekend with my colleagues. I'm already worried I spend too much time with them and this just confirms it! My work day starts at 7:30am and then don't leave until at least 7pm - and then usually only to have a drink in the bar with co-workers before coming home. That's a disturbing amount of time, but it keeps getting compounded because they naturally become my friends and we organise to do things like marathons at the weekend. Talk about having all your eggs in one basket. I need to get out more - any non-solitary hobby suggestions would be gratefully received!

Oktoberfest

Imagine the utter horror – you’re young and carefree and your boss tells you he’s sending you to Munich for a work conference in the middle of Oktoberfest... So it’s not my usual Mediterranean haunt but it’s definitely something worth visiting Germany for. We had an area booked in the Windl tent – it’s big enough to sit 8.5k people inside and a further 5k people outside. As you can see from the picture, it was fairly packed. The atmosphere is great – you order your huge steins of beer or radlers (beer with a lemonade top for those less hardcore beer guzzlers like me) and these women dressed in dirndl carry them 8-10 at a time to your table. This is no small feat – I struggled with even one, having to use both hands everytime I wanted a sip. The food was great – not a single wurst in sight – and there’s a live band in the middle who play a medley of Bavarian classics, old school pop and every other song is a Bavarian drinking song. Pretty early on, everyone as far as the eye could see was on the table, singing, toasting, dancing and generally being merry. It was really good fun and I even managed to turn up to my 9am meeting the following day in a vaguely coherent state!

The town itself is beautiful too – a real chocolate box setting. Cute little houses in pastel colours with climbing ivy and wooden window frames. One of the first things to strike you is how tidy the streets are, which just adds to the pleasantness of the city. In the same town, there is the ultra modern BMW World which showcases the latest in luxury cars in an amazing torque-defying glass structure that looks like a twisted cone and then you see the Siemens building which looks more like an Austrian stately home – I half expected the Von Trapp kids to come running down the stairs singing about their favourite things! It was election weekend, so every street corner had photos of Angela Merkel and her peers which was possibly the only scary thing I saw the whole week...

This week we are moving office. Only across the courtyard so that now we face the church. It’s very odd how many churches there are in the City of London. I work less than 5 minutes walk from St Paul’s cathedral but my office shares a courtyard with another church and from our top floor, there are plenty more church spires dotted all over the place. There’s even a masonic temple hidden in the inner bowls of one of the older hotels. Anyhow, I’ve got 4 years of paper to sort through this week. Fun fun fun!

Blessed be

My parents have been together for a handsome 29 years - during that time they have remained faithful to each other and unquestioningly loyal to me and my younger brother. I have always had somewhere safe to call home and even now, if I were to ring them and say I was sick they would drive straight over in the middle of the night with hot chicken soup. I feel very blessed and hope that they have been successful at subconsciously implanting a picture of domestic bliss in my head which I shall be able to recreate for my own. It's natural for me to think of my future as I get ever closer to 30, but it saddens me to see my parents age. My mother is talking about knee pains and my daddy is getting forgetful. I just kind of assumed they would be around forever to look after me but the balance is definitely shifting and I can feel them becoming more reliant on me. It makes me happy to give something back but still, it saddens me...

On Friday night, I was out with some work colleagues (all male) when a guy came over, told me he had noticed me and was going to give me a chance to impress him. Takes some balls to do that - the line in itself is pretty special but infront of all those banker guys.. He's given me a time and place to meet him this Friday - says he'll wait for me for 15 minutes otherwise it's game over. I like arrogance but I think this guy watches too many movies or something. But my only Friday night plans so far are Otin/Hit40's Happy Hour #3... It will be a busy weekend for me though, am taking James Bond to the big Chelsea game on Sunday.

Tomorrow I am travelling into the English countryside to present to the pension board of a regional corporate. They are hosting a sort of 'beauty parade' for people to pitch for their £50m fund. Let's hope my baton twirling is up to scratch!

WTF Wednesday

WTF! Far be it for me to pass judgement (yes, the irony is not lost on me don't worry!) but the joker Derren Brown is taking over English TV at 10:30 as he reckons he can predict what the winning lottery numbers will be tonight. It would be just that little bit more interesting for me if he were to use his magical powers in time for me to buy a lottery ticket. As it is, I don't see how he'll do it - if he gets it wrong he'll look ridiculous but if he gets it right, that may be an even bigger problem for the lottery organisers.

WTF! This is pretty disgusting so start jiggling your facial muscles in preparation of pulling your best disgusted face. On my daily commute to work this morning at a time when people are maybe tired but generally sober, a couple got on and sat on the same side as me. It was too early for the free newspaper so I was doing the usual gazing round the carriage to pass the time. In the window opposite me, I saw the couple's reflection and the girl had her hands on either side of her boyfriend's head and I assumed they were kissing and thought it was a bit early in the day for that kind of public affection. Anyhow, then I began to notice that other people were also looking at them and in a pretty disgusted way. I chuckled to myself thinking how conservative the British really are and took a look at them direct. Turns out they were not locked in a passionate embrace but the girl was using her grubby fingers to squeeze the puss out of they boy's acne-riddled face. A quick wipe on her shirt then it was back for the next one...

WTF! In the world of football (soccer, whatever...), the regulators have imposed a year long transfer ban on my Chelsea for allegedly encouraging a young player to come to the team when he already had a contract elsewhere. It's a pretty dangerous precedent they are setting as they'll have a tough time enforcing their own rules across all the football teams in Europe.

WTF! Had drinks with a girl last night who falls into the work-colleague-slash-friend category - always a tricky one with blurry lines... Anyway, she got really drunk and ended up knocking her full glass of red wine across the bar and all down my pale turquoise cardigan (it's nicer than it sounds). Not only did she not get me any napkins as I stood there with her red wine dripping down my neck but she offered no support as this strange Venezuelan man-slash-stranger kept hassling me to take my top off as he could remove it with tonic water. When I had got rid of the pest, she returned from the bar with only a new drink for herself!

WTF! South African gold medal winning sprinter Castor Semenya has been told she will not lose her medal no matter what the outcome of her gender test. Why did they make all that fuss in the first place then?

C'est la vie

Working for a publicly listed company has both good and bad points. A definite bad point is that we are not just focused on the bottom-line but also on the way we spin it for the sake of shareholders. As we have a August year end, we have received a memo from our CEO to manage our pay expectations. After talking about the redundancies that have been made and the savings that have been delivered, he goes on to say:

The direct effect of the sudden and substantial fall in markets has been to reduce the company’s income during the last financial year and these will inevitably have to be reflected in bonus payments and salary reviews in respect of last financial year to the end of September 2009. We are aware that our staff around the group have worked extremely hard over the last 12 months and may be disappointed that their bonus will fall year on year.

Not what you want to hear, especially as they already used this little trick last year and I ended up with a sackload of depressed shares. Not so clever when you were hoping for cash but hopefully when I am 50, they will be worth millions.. Anyway, like a good business school graduate, having slapped us down and warned us of how insecure our jobs are, he goes on to say:

I am therefore extremely confident that next year should show a strong recovery in both overall income and, more importantly, margin, which we would anticipate would be reflected in next year’s salary and bonus review.

I shall be keeping my eyes peeled to see what remuneration he gets when our annual report come out!