We were in Florida for 2 weeks up to and just after Christmas. We had a good time (it's hard not to in Orlando) but a few things about the US of A struck as as odd, irritating or downright bizarre. So what does USA stand for ?
1. Unbelievably Slow Admission
When we arrived at Orlando International, we were quick off the plane and so faced only a short queue at immigration. Officials at the holiday airports always seem friendlier than those I remember at JFK. Or maybe it's just that I was exposed to a very fierce agent once in the past and they all seem benign by comparison.
In any case, with just 2 groups ahead of us (and one of those groups only had 1 person), I assumed we would be through in no time.
Not so. The official in our line ("Colon" was his name) was quite outstandingly slow. It actually took us just short of an hour to emerge. Truly remarkable.
Mind you, the US have their entry procedures in quite a pickle in my opinion. It seems to me they are actually pretty disorganized.
I assume that behind it all, the CIA/NSA/FBI are actually doing a good job tracking those who really need to be tracked and traced but for the average traveller their procedures look a mess.
I have been to the US dozens of times, and the green I94 visa waiver form is still with us, but they have added to it without ever streamlining it.
So now we have to fill in our vacation address before we leave the UK and the airline have to provide that to the US authorities in electronic form but we STILL have to write it on the form (and all this despite the fact that they can't very well check we have given a genuine address).
They added finger printing (which they keep a record of, but which we still have to complete from scratch each time) and then they introduced electronic visa waivers (ESTA) BUT they did not phase out any of the paper forms. You need to do both, for further duplication, so the paperwork just grows and grows.
Not that they have left the I-94W totally un-updated. No, they have now added fields for phone number and email - neither of which they are conceivably going to use. You would think that when they modify the form (understandably they so not wish to do so too often) they would correct the more obvious failings and inconsistencies.
For example: they use a grid format on the form despite the fact that many names, addresses and even country names will not fit in the number of spaces provided. But on the back of the form, they don't. And on the customs forms, they don't.
On the I-94W itself, there are 4 places to put your country - all the fields have different lengths. There is little enough room for names that many people will have an issue, but they allow 6 spaces to denote sex (M/F).
The new and pointless email field is ridiculously short - if you allow 11 or 12 spaces for "@hotmail.com" (hardly the longest domain name) there are 7 spaces left for the rest of the address. It would not take a genius to realise that this will be sufficient for almost no-one.
The entry procedure itself consists of presumably high-tech finger-printing and photo-recognition with an extraordinary amount of stapling and rubber-stamping.
In fact, on reflection, one hour wasn't bad just based on the number of staples and stamps that our agent had to process.
Unhelpful, Stupid, Annoying
Monday, 28 December 2009
Monday, 30 November 2009
Tuesday, 20 October 2009
A bid of fun
Ever since I came back from the local auction house with tales of "Guitar Hero: Rock Band" selling for £20, the boys have said they wanted to go and pick up such legendary bargains.
This Friday, I remembered to go to the viewing. Matt was away at a friend's and Karen didn't fancy the outing. Harry also wasn't keen but once he got there he was very taken with ... many things, mostly entirely impractical.
Amongst more realistic options, I decided we could look out for a toaster for Matt (apparently the boathouse needs one), a backpack for Harry and perhaps a new breadmaker for Karen.
On the morning of the auction, we all went down although the boys lacked patience to stand around and wait for the auction to reach the required stage.
Karen agreed to keep me company. For the most part we were simply watching. Over time, you understand the protocols and the subtleties of the format.
We were a bit reluctant to bid for anything, and of course were careful not to scratch our noses or point at things !
Eventually, the sale came around to the section where our target items were on display but before we could get to that, we suddenly found ourselves bidding for some BT cordless phones. Karen is always on the lookout for the perfect handsets.
£18 seemed a relative bargain. In fact I decided to bid and buy a second set of phones although, when some other phone lots went for as little as £6, they didn't seem quite as cheap.
Having overcome the initial anxiety about bidding, it seemed rather easier to get involved with other lots.
In due course, we landed a huge glass vase, a hoover, a juicer, 2 breadmakers and a draining board ! We failed to secure any of the toasters or the bag that we came for.
Although we started tentatively, by the end the auctioneer knew our bidding number and we were known as "in the hat". Our bidding signals - very bold in the early rounds - became more subtle as we were acknowledged as serial buyers !
So, in the end we had committed to about £100 of hammer-price items and had of course mentally forgotten about 15%+VAT premium and 15% of VAT.
Still, the checkout process was very efficient: we couldn't even remember what we'd bought but 10 minutes after we had left the floor we had an itemised bill and were all sorted.
Of course I had to go and get the car and a boy to help with the loading. The roads were somewhat chaotic around the auction site - we took the safe option of parking a distance away so as not to add a £60 parking ticket to the auction costs.
On the face of it, our items were bargains. £135 all in for face-value of about £500+ and it all looked in good order.
We have become more aware of what caveat emptor means though as most of the boxed items that looked new have revealed themselves to be probably returned stock with some faults.
In the case of the juicer, the fault is remedied by a quick tweak here and there. In the case of the £12 hoover (RRP: £99) it seems it may be going straight to the tip - no signs of life in it !
Karen is cooking test loaves today in the breadmakers and the phones are on charge. The vase definitely works although it turns out to be more of a bargain than we bargained for: it is HUGE !
The Simple Human draining system was probably the biggest disappointment: they retail at over £50 and Karen wants a new one. This one was ours for just £4 (plus 15% and 15% of 15% and another 15% of course !) but on purchase it turns out to be a well-used one in a brand new box - a bit sneaky that one.
Perhaps we should stick to towels, flowers and chairs next time but it was good fun I think !
This Friday, I remembered to go to the viewing. Matt was away at a friend's and Karen didn't fancy the outing. Harry also wasn't keen but once he got there he was very taken with ... many things, mostly entirely impractical.
Amongst more realistic options, I decided we could look out for a toaster for Matt (apparently the boathouse needs one), a backpack for Harry and perhaps a new breadmaker for Karen.
On the morning of the auction, we all went down although the boys lacked patience to stand around and wait for the auction to reach the required stage.
Karen agreed to keep me company. For the most part we were simply watching. Over time, you understand the protocols and the subtleties of the format.
We were a bit reluctant to bid for anything, and of course were careful not to scratch our noses or point at things !
Eventually, the sale came around to the section where our target items were on display but before we could get to that, we suddenly found ourselves bidding for some BT cordless phones. Karen is always on the lookout for the perfect handsets.
£18 seemed a relative bargain. In fact I decided to bid and buy a second set of phones although, when some other phone lots went for as little as £6, they didn't seem quite as cheap.
Having overcome the initial anxiety about bidding, it seemed rather easier to get involved with other lots.
In due course, we landed a huge glass vase, a hoover, a juicer, 2 breadmakers and a draining board ! We failed to secure any of the toasters or the bag that we came for.
Although we started tentatively, by the end the auctioneer knew our bidding number and we were known as "in the hat". Our bidding signals - very bold in the early rounds - became more subtle as we were acknowledged as serial buyers !
So, in the end we had committed to about £100 of hammer-price items and had of course mentally forgotten about 15%+VAT premium and 15% of VAT.
Still, the checkout process was very efficient: we couldn't even remember what we'd bought but 10 minutes after we had left the floor we had an itemised bill and were all sorted.
Of course I had to go and get the car and a boy to help with the loading. The roads were somewhat chaotic around the auction site - we took the safe option of parking a distance away so as not to add a £60 parking ticket to the auction costs.
On the face of it, our items were bargains. £135 all in for face-value of about £500+ and it all looked in good order.
We have become more aware of what caveat emptor means though as most of the boxed items that looked new have revealed themselves to be probably returned stock with some faults.
In the case of the juicer, the fault is remedied by a quick tweak here and there. In the case of the £12 hoover (RRP: £99) it seems it may be going straight to the tip - no signs of life in it !
Karen is cooking test loaves today in the breadmakers and the phones are on charge. The vase definitely works although it turns out to be more of a bargain than we bargained for: it is HUGE !
The Simple Human draining system was probably the biggest disappointment: they retail at over £50 and Karen wants a new one. This one was ours for just £4 (plus 15% and 15% of 15% and another 15% of course !) but on purchase it turns out to be a well-used one in a brand new box - a bit sneaky that one.
Perhaps we should stick to towels, flowers and chairs next time but it was good fun I think !
Thursday, 1 October 2009
The eX-files
Recently I have been sorting out paperwork in my office. This can be quite a big task, as I like to do a very thorough job – looking at every piece of paper in each file to see if it should be kept. I keep all kinds of documents, and “paperwork” in this sense also includes the folders full of instructions manuals, and boxes of “memories”.
I try to be reasonable about what I hold onto, but a lot would fail the “if you haven’t used/needed it for X years” test. Of course some has to be kept by law (for tax), and some other material is plainly useful or sensible to retain.
But a lot of it is just “interesting” – like documents for the sale & purchase of our 3-ago house, statements for accounts closed in 2001, University notes, O-level papers, or someone else’s school tie.
We’re not short of space, so I could keep even more stuff in theory but I enjoy the actual process of sifting through the files. On each round of processing (every couple of years, maybe) each file is reduced a little more. What I retain becomes more and more the “core” documents even though some interesting context is lost each time.
The process of checking through each file also reminds me of what’s there, and brings back memories.
Sometimes I do think it would be interesting to keep EVERYTHING. Yesterday for example, I threw out notebooks from my time on sabbatical from Bear. This was the period when I was still employed, but was taking a 3-month break. As we now know, this time was the start of the credit crisis and there were some rocky times for the business.
I had to make some calls during that time and my notes were scrawled in these books. They were not much more than phone doodles to be fair although there was enough there (names, dates, specifics of deals and so on) for me to recall the events. Actually finding the notes (in this case, at the back of what looked like an empty notebook) was in reality more interesting than the notes themselves. No one else would have been able to make anything of them.
It’s also good in these filing exercises to check that certain “important” items are still in my possession. I was able to find my 23-day plan for example. This was a single page of A4 notepad on which my revision plan for degree finals was scrawled. 23 days was all there was left by the time I realised that I was really running out of time to get the work done. It turned out to be just enough, history tells us.
The files themselves are interesting in some cases. Most of the actual documents have been re-filed a few times over the years and original envelopes, say, have for the most part been dispensed with at some point. But many of folders are still Oxford University folders that I vividly remember buying at the student union shop.
I seem to have retained exam papers from all the important milestones. I have most of the O level, A level and degree papers as well as scholarship exams for Oakham and Oxford entrance papers. I even have the ones from the banking exams. In all these cases I can recall the events of those times fairly clearly. In some cases, I still remember some of the questions (although not the answers).
Looking through them made me recall very fondly my time at school and University. Clearly these items are not “necessary” in any way but I could never get rid of them now.
Some other documents from that time are even less important, yet more interesting. I have, for example, a TELEX exchange between me and Jack Sakkab from Oakham (he’d gone back to Jordan by then) in which we let each other know our A-level results. Hard for the iPhone generation to understand that !
I wonder if the TELEX network still operates ? Actually, I wouldn’t be surprised. There was a TELEX machine chattering away at Bear Stearns for years after it was really needed for anything.
Also from the TELEX era, I have a timestamped page from the TELEX room to prove that I made it onto the FX trading floor at Natwest earlier than anyone else after a late night out other dealers, leading to a bet that I couldn’t do it. “Tweedie” still hasn’t paid up. 18 years later I haven’t forgotten (although I have written the £50 off !).
Looking through does also make me think of a number of items that I wish I had kept but I will need to be satisfied with just the memories of those !
I try to be reasonable about what I hold onto, but a lot would fail the “if you haven’t used/needed it for X years” test. Of course some has to be kept by law (for tax), and some other material is plainly useful or sensible to retain.
But a lot of it is just “interesting” – like documents for the sale & purchase of our 3-ago house, statements for accounts closed in 2001, University notes, O-level papers, or someone else’s school tie.
We’re not short of space, so I could keep even more stuff in theory but I enjoy the actual process of sifting through the files. On each round of processing (every couple of years, maybe) each file is reduced a little more. What I retain becomes more and more the “core” documents even though some interesting context is lost each time.
The process of checking through each file also reminds me of what’s there, and brings back memories.
Sometimes I do think it would be interesting to keep EVERYTHING. Yesterday for example, I threw out notebooks from my time on sabbatical from Bear. This was the period when I was still employed, but was taking a 3-month break. As we now know, this time was the start of the credit crisis and there were some rocky times for the business.
I had to make some calls during that time and my notes were scrawled in these books. They were not much more than phone doodles to be fair although there was enough there (names, dates, specifics of deals and so on) for me to recall the events. Actually finding the notes (in this case, at the back of what looked like an empty notebook) was in reality more interesting than the notes themselves. No one else would have been able to make anything of them.
It’s also good in these filing exercises to check that certain “important” items are still in my possession. I was able to find my 23-day plan for example. This was a single page of A4 notepad on which my revision plan for degree finals was scrawled. 23 days was all there was left by the time I realised that I was really running out of time to get the work done. It turned out to be just enough, history tells us.
The files themselves are interesting in some cases. Most of the actual documents have been re-filed a few times over the years and original envelopes, say, have for the most part been dispensed with at some point. But many of folders are still Oxford University folders that I vividly remember buying at the student union shop.
I seem to have retained exam papers from all the important milestones. I have most of the O level, A level and degree papers as well as scholarship exams for Oakham and Oxford entrance papers. I even have the ones from the banking exams. In all these cases I can recall the events of those times fairly clearly. In some cases, I still remember some of the questions (although not the answers).
Looking through them made me recall very fondly my time at school and University. Clearly these items are not “necessary” in any way but I could never get rid of them now.
Some other documents from that time are even less important, yet more interesting. I have, for example, a TELEX exchange between me and Jack Sakkab from Oakham (he’d gone back to Jordan by then) in which we let each other know our A-level results. Hard for the iPhone generation to understand that !
I wonder if the TELEX network still operates ? Actually, I wouldn’t be surprised. There was a TELEX machine chattering away at Bear Stearns for years after it was really needed for anything.
Also from the TELEX era, I have a timestamped page from the TELEX room to prove that I made it onto the FX trading floor at Natwest earlier than anyone else after a late night out other dealers, leading to a bet that I couldn’t do it. “Tweedie” still hasn’t paid up. 18 years later I haven’t forgotten (although I have written the £50 off !).
Looking through does also make me think of a number of items that I wish I had kept but I will need to be satisfied with just the memories of those !
Friday, 4 September 2009
Boot Drive
During a long-overdue sort-out in my office, I turned up some items that seemed too good to throw away, too large to eBay, too obscure to keep and equally unlikely to find a home with immediate neighbours or friends.
For some reason, my thoughts turned to a car boot sale. I have literally never been to one, either as buyer or seller. I always felt I could understand why so many people apparently enjoy these events but I had never personally felt a great urge to give it a try.
However, with Harry as a willing accomplice, I decided to give it a whirl. Starting with literally two or three items, I soon found that we had a whole car full. Once you start looking, car boot fodder is everywhere.
A quick google revealed a venue at Bedford hospital. However, when I called the organizer I discovered they were not running till September. Next stop, the local newspaper (I rarely read it, but I found plenty of sites). We settled on one near Barton.
Up at 6 on Saturday morning, we ventured out and found ourselves in a queue at the gate for the opening at 7am.
Before making the trip, I had done a little research online and picked up some advice from those with more care boot experience (that is, everyone).
We were warned about the dangers of being swarmed by expert buyers, and the risk of theft and so on.
In the event, the site at Barton turned out to be quite a small affair. There were only 25 cars or so selling, and almost all the buyers consisted of other sellers ! Chatting with our neighbouring booters, it seemed that this particular event was very new on the circuit and not established with the regulars.
Still, this was possibly a good thing as it gave us an easy ride for our first outing. Despite the lack of customers, we actually had a very good day, taking over £120. I think we may have sold more than all of the other pitches combined !
I’ve heard it said many times that “it’s incredible what sells at a car boot” and now I believe it ! There was literally rubbish for sale on many of the stalls.
We had the benefit of having a lot of high quality items to shift. The regulars, one feels, will find it tough to continuously source desirable items for low enough cost.
As far as pricing goes, I think I benefitted from having extremely low expectations. We had padded our stall with lots of books (which usually we send straight to the charity shops) and also over 100 DVDs that the boys never watch. Books, in particular, I did not expect to sell at all given the ubiquity of second hand booksellers.
So, each time we actually sold a book for 50p, I was quite pleasantly surprised !
We really did not have any “tat” on offer but it was surprising what items created interest, and which did not merit a first look.
Pricing wise, I can see that there are norms that operate. DVDs, for example, have a market-clearing price that is probably quite well established. However, even for such commodities and especially for other items, the real skill (I suspect) is to “play the player”.
One tip I picked up before going was NOT to put price labels on. This allows you to engage the potential buyer who has to enquire about price. It also allows you to change pricing according to time of day and other conditions.
The fact seems to be that many items will not sell at any price until you find the right buyer.
The right buyer, however, can be fairly indifferent to price (within reason). We also came to see that certain types of buyer are particularly valuable. For example, children who have been given £5 to shut them up feel a great need to spend it all as soon as possible !
Harry was a natural. He was genuinely helpful in seeking out “stock” at home, setting up the stall and in dealing with the customers. This was pleasing since he can be quite shy.
I was comfortable leaving him on his own at the stall for a while. I came back after a survey of the site to find Harry pointing out a couple of sales he had made. He also joked that he was sorry he had sold my stereo (one of our best items) for £3 by mistake. I knew he was joking (a) because even at a car boot it was obviously worth a lot more and (b) it was still sitting there on the table.
Five minutes later, the buyers came back to collect it as agreed !
Oh well. I was as guilty as Harry for under-selling over the weekend. And a happy customer is a valuable asset. Maybe the buyer felt bad about her coup, and she bought another £15 of stuff as much fuller prices.
We seemed to sell a good amount of stuff, but still had ¾ of a car full at the end. We decided to try again the next morning. We had been tipped off about a much busier site near Leighton Buzzard.
Our experience on the first day taught us that anything is worth trying to sell, so we easily used up the spare space in the car with more books, more toys and some highly speculative items: I filled up a box with left over mobile phone chargers, obsolete computer mice and freebie headphones etc. On Day 2, nearly all of these sold !
Billington car boot was more like what I imagined – well over 200 cars. We still did not suffer too much from vulture-experts or thieves. The only mishap we experienced was taking in a counterfeit £2 coin. It was a poor copy (obviously fake) so I have to suspect it was knowingly used. Still, one more lesson learned, quite cheaply.
After a second successful day (over £250 taken over the weekend), Harry and I are sufficiently hooked to want to try again in a few weeks. Now, I see bootable items everywhere. Nail it down, or else I am likely to try to sell it !
For some reason, my thoughts turned to a car boot sale. I have literally never been to one, either as buyer or seller. I always felt I could understand why so many people apparently enjoy these events but I had never personally felt a great urge to give it a try.
However, with Harry as a willing accomplice, I decided to give it a whirl. Starting with literally two or three items, I soon found that we had a whole car full. Once you start looking, car boot fodder is everywhere.
A quick google revealed a venue at Bedford hospital. However, when I called the organizer I discovered they were not running till September. Next stop, the local newspaper (I rarely read it, but I found plenty of sites). We settled on one near Barton.
Up at 6 on Saturday morning, we ventured out and found ourselves in a queue at the gate for the opening at 7am.
Before making the trip, I had done a little research online and picked up some advice from those with more care boot experience (that is, everyone).
We were warned about the dangers of being swarmed by expert buyers, and the risk of theft and so on.
In the event, the site at Barton turned out to be quite a small affair. There were only 25 cars or so selling, and almost all the buyers consisted of other sellers ! Chatting with our neighbouring booters, it seemed that this particular event was very new on the circuit and not established with the regulars.
Still, this was possibly a good thing as it gave us an easy ride for our first outing. Despite the lack of customers, we actually had a very good day, taking over £120. I think we may have sold more than all of the other pitches combined !
I’ve heard it said many times that “it’s incredible what sells at a car boot” and now I believe it ! There was literally rubbish for sale on many of the stalls.
We had the benefit of having a lot of high quality items to shift. The regulars, one feels, will find it tough to continuously source desirable items for low enough cost.
As far as pricing goes, I think I benefitted from having extremely low expectations. We had padded our stall with lots of books (which usually we send straight to the charity shops) and also over 100 DVDs that the boys never watch. Books, in particular, I did not expect to sell at all given the ubiquity of second hand booksellers.
So, each time we actually sold a book for 50p, I was quite pleasantly surprised !
We really did not have any “tat” on offer but it was surprising what items created interest, and which did not merit a first look.
Pricing wise, I can see that there are norms that operate. DVDs, for example, have a market-clearing price that is probably quite well established. However, even for such commodities and especially for other items, the real skill (I suspect) is to “play the player”.
One tip I picked up before going was NOT to put price labels on. This allows you to engage the potential buyer who has to enquire about price. It also allows you to change pricing according to time of day and other conditions.
The fact seems to be that many items will not sell at any price until you find the right buyer.
The right buyer, however, can be fairly indifferent to price (within reason). We also came to see that certain types of buyer are particularly valuable. For example, children who have been given £5 to shut them up feel a great need to spend it all as soon as possible !
Harry was a natural. He was genuinely helpful in seeking out “stock” at home, setting up the stall and in dealing with the customers. This was pleasing since he can be quite shy.
I was comfortable leaving him on his own at the stall for a while. I came back after a survey of the site to find Harry pointing out a couple of sales he had made. He also joked that he was sorry he had sold my stereo (one of our best items) for £3 by mistake. I knew he was joking (a) because even at a car boot it was obviously worth a lot more and (b) it was still sitting there on the table.
Five minutes later, the buyers came back to collect it as agreed !
Oh well. I was as guilty as Harry for under-selling over the weekend. And a happy customer is a valuable asset. Maybe the buyer felt bad about her coup, and she bought another £15 of stuff as much fuller prices.
We seemed to sell a good amount of stuff, but still had ¾ of a car full at the end. We decided to try again the next morning. We had been tipped off about a much busier site near Leighton Buzzard.
Our experience on the first day taught us that anything is worth trying to sell, so we easily used up the spare space in the car with more books, more toys and some highly speculative items: I filled up a box with left over mobile phone chargers, obsolete computer mice and freebie headphones etc. On Day 2, nearly all of these sold !
Billington car boot was more like what I imagined – well over 200 cars. We still did not suffer too much from vulture-experts or thieves. The only mishap we experienced was taking in a counterfeit £2 coin. It was a poor copy (obviously fake) so I have to suspect it was knowingly used. Still, one more lesson learned, quite cheaply.
After a second successful day (over £250 taken over the weekend), Harry and I are sufficiently hooked to want to try again in a few weeks. Now, I see bootable items everywhere. Nail it down, or else I am likely to try to sell it !
Monday, 17 August 2009
Boil in the Bag Meal
Back in May, Karen & I made a token effort at vegetable gardening with the planting of seed potatos and carrot seeds in some grow-bags on the patio.
Today we hauled in our harvest and for tonight at least we shall be able to eat our own.
The crop was rather modest ! The carrots in particular suffered from chronic overcrowding:
However, they were at least recognisably potatos and carrots:
Today we hauled in our harvest and for tonight at least we shall be able to eat our own.
The crop was rather modest ! The carrots in particular suffered from chronic overcrowding:
However, they were at least recognisably potatos and carrots:
Friday, 14 August 2009
A Raft of Problems
Last stop on the cruise itinerary was Vigo in Spain. Vigo is in that bit of Spain on top of Portugal, and the border seems to be the Minho river.
Matt, Harry and I were booked on "Rafting in Vigo" as our last tour, and the Minho river was the destination. "in Vigo" was a bit of a stretch as our journey was over an hour and took us very nearly out of Spain entirely.
Before we got underway with the long bus trip, we had a long unexplained delay in our departure. After some time sitting on the dock, the tour supervisor advised that one of the rafts had broken. Six volunteers to take a different excursion were needed. A full refund was offered, which prompted one group to take this option.
This was the first glitch, and next there was the shambles when we arrived at the river. There seemed to be no rhyme or reason to the allocation of people to boats and we nearly did not find a boat at all.
Plenty of other people also struggled with the "organization" and by the time our boat was put in the water, we had to take some stray passengers who otherwise may not have launched at all.
This seemed to take the number of rafters from six (which I assumed) to eight (the number that our first boat guide was calling for ) to ten (this is what our second guide went for) then twelve that we set off with.
Our guides were insistent that the overcrowding was down to a significant overbooking by the cruiseline.
This heavy load did appear to cause us some difficulties, especially with many of the passengers being less than enthusiastic paddlers.
Still, the river was beautiful and the mixture of short whitewater sections and longer flat stretches seemed pretty ideal for this kind of excursion.
Some of the rafters complained it was not exciting enough - slightly at odds with their rather lame paddling efforts. Matt of course was among the "more whitewater" group.
As far as I could see, it was challenging enough considering almost all participants were first-timers and that we had undergone precisely zero minutes of tuition on rafting technique. Safety instructions were likewise almost non-existent.
The element of (mild) risk was obvious when (about 1 hour in), we approached a particularly vigorous section and our boat (quite possibly in part due to the overloading) flipped entirely on its side and we had little chance to stay aboard.
Harry & I were on the submerged side, on which no one survived a ducking. Matt was one of only two hangers-on. All the other 10 passengers and the guide were dunked in the river.
At this point, I lost my prescription sunglasses which I only recently replaced having lost the previous pair in the waves on Santa Monica beach last year at about this time. Harry miraculously managed to pick his out of the water before they disappeared.
My wallet of course was fully submerged, but by now I know that cards and banknotes can easily survive this kind of experience. Likewise I knew my phone would have no chance. Even momentary drowning seems to kill phones instantly.
I was not able to catch up with our raft. Another raft picked me up and I had to assume that Matt and Harry had likewise been rescued. Without my glasses I couldn't identify the occupants of other boats at the distances involved.
We were reunited 15minutes later when I was able to reboard the original raft in a calm section.
It was a long paddle to the end - nearly 3 hours of rafting (value for money anyway !) - but none of the subsequent rapids led to a repeat soaking.
The late start and slow passage (exacerbated by overloaded boats I feel) meant that by the time we unloaded, we were only 30minutes away from "all-aboard" time, with a 1 hour bus journey to come.
Our guide reasonably advised us to grab a drink / change / visit the facilities ASAP but unaccountably we waited over 30minutes after we had done all this and so by the time we arrived back in Vigo it was 90minutes past sailing time.
I speculated that Karen would probably have tried to contact me on my defunct phone but I did feel pretty confident that the boat would not leave without 120 rafters and I am sure Karen also was not too concerned despite our obvious delay.
We arrived back at the gangway to a loud and ironic cheer from hundreds of passengers watching and waiting on the dock-facing decks. The boat was sufficiently primed for departure that it was away from the dock in the it took us to ascend i the lift from deck 2 (gangway) to deck 11 (for a welcome cup of tea) !
Matt, Harry and I were booked on "Rafting in Vigo" as our last tour, and the Minho river was the destination. "in Vigo" was a bit of a stretch as our journey was over an hour and took us very nearly out of Spain entirely.
Before we got underway with the long bus trip, we had a long unexplained delay in our departure. After some time sitting on the dock, the tour supervisor advised that one of the rafts had broken. Six volunteers to take a different excursion were needed. A full refund was offered, which prompted one group to take this option.
This was the first glitch, and next there was the shambles when we arrived at the river. There seemed to be no rhyme or reason to the allocation of people to boats and we nearly did not find a boat at all.
Plenty of other people also struggled with the "organization" and by the time our boat was put in the water, we had to take some stray passengers who otherwise may not have launched at all.
This seemed to take the number of rafters from six (which I assumed) to eight (the number that our first boat guide was calling for ) to ten (this is what our second guide went for) then twelve that we set off with.
Our guides were insistent that the overcrowding was down to a significant overbooking by the cruiseline.
This heavy load did appear to cause us some difficulties, especially with many of the passengers being less than enthusiastic paddlers.
Still, the river was beautiful and the mixture of short whitewater sections and longer flat stretches seemed pretty ideal for this kind of excursion.
Some of the rafters complained it was not exciting enough - slightly at odds with their rather lame paddling efforts. Matt of course was among the "more whitewater" group.
As far as I could see, it was challenging enough considering almost all participants were first-timers and that we had undergone precisely zero minutes of tuition on rafting technique. Safety instructions were likewise almost non-existent.
The element of (mild) risk was obvious when (about 1 hour in), we approached a particularly vigorous section and our boat (quite possibly in part due to the overloading) flipped entirely on its side and we had little chance to stay aboard.
Harry & I were on the submerged side, on which no one survived a ducking. Matt was one of only two hangers-on. All the other 10 passengers and the guide were dunked in the river.
At this point, I lost my prescription sunglasses which I only recently replaced having lost the previous pair in the waves on Santa Monica beach last year at about this time. Harry miraculously managed to pick his out of the water before they disappeared.
My wallet of course was fully submerged, but by now I know that cards and banknotes can easily survive this kind of experience. Likewise I knew my phone would have no chance. Even momentary drowning seems to kill phones instantly.
I was not able to catch up with our raft. Another raft picked me up and I had to assume that Matt and Harry had likewise been rescued. Without my glasses I couldn't identify the occupants of other boats at the distances involved.
We were reunited 15minutes later when I was able to reboard the original raft in a calm section.
It was a long paddle to the end - nearly 3 hours of rafting (value for money anyway !) - but none of the subsequent rapids led to a repeat soaking.
The late start and slow passage (exacerbated by overloaded boats I feel) meant that by the time we unloaded, we were only 30minutes away from "all-aboard" time, with a 1 hour bus journey to come.
Our guide reasonably advised us to grab a drink / change / visit the facilities ASAP but unaccountably we waited over 30minutes after we had done all this and so by the time we arrived back in Vigo it was 90minutes past sailing time.
I speculated that Karen would probably have tried to contact me on my defunct phone but I did feel pretty confident that the boat would not leave without 120 rafters and I am sure Karen also was not too concerned despite our obvious delay.
We arrived back at the gangway to a loud and ironic cheer from hundreds of passengers watching and waiting on the dock-facing decks. The boat was sufficiently primed for departure that it was away from the dock in the it took us to ascend i the lift from deck 2 (gangway) to deck 11 (for a welcome cup of tea) !
Tuesday, 11 August 2009
Clueless in Cadiz
I have been very impressed with the standard of the tours on our Mediterranean cruise. On our cruising debut last year we did not participate in any of the organized tours and in fact we only left the boat once, for less than an hour.
I don’t think that getting off the boat is an essential ingredient for a successful cruise, but with two weeks at sea it made sense to make a few stops. Karen waded through the enormous brochure.
We visited Monaco/Monte Carlo, Pisa and Cagliari. The boys and I went to a water park at the Rome stop.
On all of those I was struck by the high level of organization and the precise timings. I thought the tour guides did an excellent job in all respects (exceeding my expectations significantly). You might say it’s not a difficult job, but in my opinion it’s not easy to do it really well.
Today’s trip to the Cadiz water park Aqualand fell far short. Since all the tour escort had to do was get us on the bus, give us our tickets and arrange to get us all back on time, you might say it was hard to go far wrong.
However, although he did meet the low bar of not losing anyone, it was a seriously unimpressive performance !
Even before we left port he managed to be off by 4 on the headcount and the supervisor had to sort it out. He didn’t really speak English and met all questions with no answer beyond a shrug of the shoulders.
Our trip was not billed as a guided tour but his total silence on the 40minute trip was a weak performance. Our escort to the Rome park took the opportunity to tell us something “for free” about our surroundings, and also explained very clearly where we were going, what would happen etc. This makes a good deal of difference to the feeling that everything is under control.
The contrast was total.
On arrival, our escort today made a good effort to lose people on the way to the gate. He did state the time and place for our rendezvous at the end of the day. However, when we came back later he was not there to greet us, and eventually he showed up late at a different location. After he made no apparent effort to consolidate those who had found him and those who had duly arrived at the meeting point, most of us made our own way to the bus.
It wasn’t that we felt there was a serious chance of us being left behind, but it was clearly badly organized and “clueless” was the unanimous verdict among those on the trip.
Now, the waterpark itself was a nice facility: in good condition and well laid out.
However, “clueless” applied very well to the business running the park.
For a start, I seriously question the wisdom of opening the park at 11am in high season. It’s already very warm at 9am (say).
The enormous queues for tickets and entrance tell me very clearly that they could and should have got people in much earlier. Thankfully we did escape the main queues with our “group” tickets but I would have been furious that it wasn’t possible to arrive early to get any kind of jump on the queues inside.
Once inside, it was a 45minute queue to get a key for a locker. Just 2 people serving the entire mass of people. I estimate the 45 minutes, as I gave up waiting. Instead, we went to find a seat and shade.
Now, there was a charge for the sunloungers. I’m not delighted about that but if the business decision is to have lowish entrance prices and charge for everything else, then they should at least collect the fees. We saw no one taking the money all day.
When I went back to rent a locker after waiting 30 minutes, the queues were as long as ever.
Crazy to have so few staff at that key bottleneck.
We abandoned the locker mission and just hoped for the best. We now discovered that queue management was not a strong suit. The over-riding impression of the slides was that no one was on them. This was not for lack of people queuing up to ride, but somehow they contrived to have a 3 minute gap between each actual rider. Even allowing for the fact they need to ensure absolute safety, the fact is that it was poor ride control that massively exacerbated the problem.
We managed to get one ride on a relatively fast-loading ride (6 lanes). But still the method of sequencing the queue must have added at least 50% to the gap between rides.
We decided it was time for a drink. Could we find a drink? We could not. There were no signs for bars or cafes, no bars or cafes in sight. Our seats were actually next to a pizzeria – shut. At 1pm with the park packed. The bar next to the locker queue was shut.
There were so many places where they could and should have had a drinks stall or a vending machine or a mobile drinks seller.
Eventually we found they did have one cafe open. Two people were attending to a queue that was already growing fast. Apparently one person fulfilling orders in the back.
The food was nice, in fact, but the queue got only worse from then and later it was inconceivable to try to buy another drink. This has to be a classic lose-lose.
Later they did open one of the closed bars – with one staff member doing everything.
Simply incredible. The good news was that the few staff on duty were friendly and relatively efficient, and the customers were fairly placid although obviously frustrated.
There were more people taking the inevitable photographs of visitors (does anyone ever buy them ?) than employed in the entire food & beverage business in the park.
One place where we can give full marks was for plenty of bins for depositing rubbish, but since the availability of food & drink was so strictly rationed, there wasn’t much call for rubbish bins !
Still, thankfully we had had a good dose of water rides in Rome so we had a splash around in the pools and amused ourselves marvelling at the spectacle of bad management. Perhaps the park was supposed to double as an exhibit of Spanish business efficiency. It reminded me very much of some experiences in Spain last year (see the fishing licence and banking fiasco blogs !)
Thursday, 6 August 2009
Badminton Trials
The point of no return appears to have passed whereby I cannot beat the boys at anything (poker, hopefully, being a significant and possibly unique exception).
This is especially true of sports of all types, although video games of all genres are now also included. That’s rather concerning, although they do have tremendous opportunities to practice hand-eye co-ordination for video sports that I never had.
Their total superiority in video games was brought home on the cruise. The Independence of The Seas has an impressive arcade with many good quality games of all types. I was only able to beat Harry on one game of motorcycle racing (no idea why – he crushed me on the car racing games of various formats) and at Sinistar [on a very good multi-games console].
In the Sinistar, since I scored only 1/60th of my world record mark from the 1986-9 era, I wasn’t that impressed with my own efforts.
Back in real sports, it was not so long ago that I had to give considerable concessions to Matt and Harry at all racquet sports in order to make a game of it. Now, both can beat me and Matt is now capable of soft-playing to give me the appearance of having a chance (then powering over the line). Harry is not yet as strong, but soon will also leave me far behind.
Actually, Harry is probably just at the level where it’s a genuinely close game in some sports.
We played badminton just before we came away. We are both pretty bad in absolute terms, but I find badminton between somewhat-matched opponents is enjoyable at a poor standard in the way that tennis or squash is not.
The first set went close, with Harry eventually prevailing 15-13. In the second set, I got off to a flying start and held on to win 15-13 myself. Now in the 3rd set, I fell 12-2 behind before making a massive surge to actually have the first match point at 15-14 up following a prolonged “deuce” at 14-14.
Did I “let” Harry get so far ahead to begin with in the 3rd set ? Did Harry “let” me catch up?
Who knows but the battle at 14-14 and beyond was genuinely close. After I failed to close out several match points at 15-14 and 16-15, Harry eventually came through to steal the match 15-13, 13-15, 18-16 with just a minute or so to spare before we would have run out of court-time.
I will have to try hard to pull off any victories before it is too late.
This is especially true of sports of all types, although video games of all genres are now also included. That’s rather concerning, although they do have tremendous opportunities to practice hand-eye co-ordination for video sports that I never had.
Their total superiority in video games was brought home on the cruise. The Independence of The Seas has an impressive arcade with many good quality games of all types. I was only able to beat Harry on one game of motorcycle racing (no idea why – he crushed me on the car racing games of various formats) and at Sinistar [on a very good multi-games console].
In the Sinistar, since I scored only 1/60th of my world record mark from the 1986-9 era, I wasn’t that impressed with my own efforts.
Back in real sports, it was not so long ago that I had to give considerable concessions to Matt and Harry at all racquet sports in order to make a game of it. Now, both can beat me and Matt is now capable of soft-playing to give me the appearance of having a chance (then powering over the line). Harry is not yet as strong, but soon will also leave me far behind.
Actually, Harry is probably just at the level where it’s a genuinely close game in some sports.
We played badminton just before we came away. We are both pretty bad in absolute terms, but I find badminton between somewhat-matched opponents is enjoyable at a poor standard in the way that tennis or squash is not.
The first set went close, with Harry eventually prevailing 15-13. In the second set, I got off to a flying start and held on to win 15-13 myself. Now in the 3rd set, I fell 12-2 behind before making a massive surge to actually have the first match point at 15-14 up following a prolonged “deuce” at 14-14.
Did I “let” Harry get so far ahead to begin with in the 3rd set ? Did Harry “let” me catch up?
Who knows but the battle at 14-14 and beyond was genuinely close. After I failed to close out several match points at 15-14 and 16-15, Harry eventually came through to steal the match 15-13, 13-15, 18-16 with just a minute or so to spare before we would have run out of court-time.
I will have to try hard to pull off any victories before it is too late.
Saturday, 27 June 2009
A - Z
My A - Z of poker is available (in supposedly daily instalments) on poker actually and also on my gutshot.com blog.
I am planning to blog from Vegas itself of course.
I am planning to blog from Vegas itself of course.
Tuesday, 2 June 2009
Karma Chameleon
I had made my plans for Vegas well in advance this year.
My plans were to NOT play the $10,000 world championship main event. Instead, I booked a mid-June trip for 7 nights. My aim was to play in 2 or 3 of the side events and play some cash.
However, fate intervened. A friend qualified for the main event in a "double shootout" event. To succeed in this, one must win two consecutive 1-table tournaments, effectively beating 80 other players who each put up $200 or so.
As I didn't have $200 in my account, I played a double shootout to qualify for the double shootout.
To cut a long story short, I won 4 consecutive single-table tournaments to turn an $8 investment into a $12,000 WSOP package ! The long story is on my poker blog.
With the karma running this well, I certainly had to change my plans. It was possible to take a cash alternative but of course I chose to play the event.
Last year I qualified for an investment of $5. This year, $8.
This doesn't quite tell the whole picture, but it's going to be a pretty amazing story if I go on to win $10million in July !
More realistically, I do hope to make the money places this year - a tough but achievable goal.
My plans were to NOT play the $10,000 world championship main event. Instead, I booked a mid-June trip for 7 nights. My aim was to play in 2 or 3 of the side events and play some cash.
However, fate intervened. A friend qualified for the main event in a "double shootout" event. To succeed in this, one must win two consecutive 1-table tournaments, effectively beating 80 other players who each put up $200 or so.
As I didn't have $200 in my account, I played a double shootout to qualify for the double shootout.
To cut a long story short, I won 4 consecutive single-table tournaments to turn an $8 investment into a $12,000 WSOP package ! The long story is on my poker blog.
With the karma running this well, I certainly had to change my plans. It was possible to take a cash alternative but of course I chose to play the event.
Last year I qualified for an investment of $5. This year, $8.
This doesn't quite tell the whole picture, but it's going to be a pretty amazing story if I go on to win $10million in July !
More realistically, I do hope to make the money places this year - a tough but achievable goal.
Friday, 29 May 2009
Eggs Marks The Spot
Friday 29th May, Central London
Lights, Camera, Action !
Rather unbelievably I am here to audition for the BBC2 quiz show "Eggheads".
I can safely say that I have no ambitions to be famous for 15 minutes, or indeed any number of minutes. I did not apply to be on the show. In fact I don't want to be on it at all, so why am I here ?
I had reluctantly agreed to be a 2nd-sub for a team that was put together by members of the Gutshot forum. It seemed a distant prospect that I would actually need to take part.
For a start, it wasn't certain that a new series of the show would be commissioned. Then, our team might not be selected even to audition. If the team were called up, then at least I would be a reserve reserve.
Well .... of course the 11th series was given the go-ahead, and "Team Gutshot" was selected to audition. It then turned out that I was first reserve (6th of 5, rather than 6th of 4) and that the team captain had (unbeknownst to me) promoted me to the front bench on account of one member being noticeably unreliable.
To be fair, this was still an audition. I can still hope that we do not get to appear on the real show!
The nuts and bolts of the reality of TV is pretty mundane. We had to fill our names & other details for the umpteenth time, and then we actually answered some general knowledge questions. Next, a practice quiz against another auditioning team.
I actually won my round on science which included the poser: "What tiny ocean creature makes up the main diet of Wales ?". Once I realised that Lauren was talking about "whales" I was able to find the right answer.
Finally, we were filmed talking about the team and chorusing "Hello, We're Team Gutshot And We're From London".
It was all pretty low key. The "Green Room" was more of a "Green Kitchen" really. Actually it was a kitchen and it wasn't green although the chairs were a pale lime colour. The coffee machine didn't work. We stars shouldn't be treated like this !
After our turn on camera we were not given the results of our written general knowledge quiz, we weren't shown the footage which was for the eyes of the producers only, and we were told "we'll call you". The "don't call us" was of course understood.
Lights, Camera, Action !
Rather unbelievably I am here to audition for the BBC2 quiz show "Eggheads".
I can safely say that I have no ambitions to be famous for 15 minutes, or indeed any number of minutes. I did not apply to be on the show. In fact I don't want to be on it at all, so why am I here ?
I had reluctantly agreed to be a 2nd-sub for a team that was put together by members of the Gutshot forum. It seemed a distant prospect that I would actually need to take part.
For a start, it wasn't certain that a new series of the show would be commissioned. Then, our team might not be selected even to audition. If the team were called up, then at least I would be a reserve reserve.
Well .... of course the 11th series was given the go-ahead, and "Team Gutshot" was selected to audition. It then turned out that I was first reserve (6th of 5, rather than 6th of 4) and that the team captain had (unbeknownst to me) promoted me to the front bench on account of one member being noticeably unreliable.
To be fair, this was still an audition. I can still hope that we do not get to appear on the real show!
The nuts and bolts of the reality of TV is pretty mundane. We had to fill our names & other details for the umpteenth time, and then we actually answered some general knowledge questions. Next, a practice quiz against another auditioning team.
I actually won my round on science which included the poser: "What tiny ocean creature makes up the main diet of Wales ?". Once I realised that Lauren was talking about "whales" I was able to find the right answer.
Finally, we were filmed talking about the team and chorusing "Hello, We're Team Gutshot And We're From London".
It was all pretty low key. The "Green Room" was more of a "Green Kitchen" really. Actually it was a kitchen and it wasn't green although the chairs were a pale lime colour. The coffee machine didn't work. We stars shouldn't be treated like this !
After our turn on camera we were not given the results of our written general knowledge quiz, we weren't shown the footage which was for the eyes of the producers only, and we were told "we'll call you". The "don't call us" was of course understood.
Sunday, 24 May 2009
Luck Of The Oar
Friday 22nd May, National Schools Regatta at Nottingham.
A full day of racing starting at 10:00, up until 18:27. BMS had crews potentially rowing in both the first and last races, so a long day's spectating in prospect.
First off at 10:00, the girls J14 Quad missed out on qualification in the time trials by a second or so.
Matt's first outing was at 11:30; 17 B-class boats took part in a "processional" along the short course (1km) on Holme Pierrepoint's specialist rowing lake (2km is the full distance). The top 12 crews (racing against the clock) qualify for the semis, which are raced side-by-side.
They seemed to put in a good row, but we didn't get to find out the result for an hour or so (when they duly had qualified).
The A boat, in their processional, overtook the boat in front so they were fairly clear qualifiers. 18 from 30 to progress to their semis.
In the "B semi, windy conditions meant the crews had a "free start" when the officials judged the 6 boats were in line. As it was, BMS were over a length down when they went off and they struggled to catch up. They finished 6th of 6, with the top 3 to go through. However, their time would have been enough to put them in the top 3 in the second semi. So, a very tough draw finished off their regatta.
Meanwhile, the A boat easily finished in the top 2 in their semi (3 semis with top 2 only to qualify). They ought to have a good chance in the 6-boat final - the last race of the day.
However, luck intervened. The #6 in the boat cut with hand in the semi, lost a fair amount of blood and went into shock. He had to be substituted. As the crew rowed up to the start, one of the gates holding the blades broke. The boys had to row back the length of the course to replace the part. On the way back they collided with Hampton and this resulted in another crew member sustaining a race-ending injury (and a trip to hospital).
The race start was delayed for up to 20mins under the regulations and a 2nd substitution was made. The re-organised crew rowed back to the start line again and having already covered about an extra 1500metres of water they finally lined up.
The final was close, and the crew put in a valiant effort to finish a solid 5th only a couple of lengths behind the leading boats. The winning crew from King's Chester may have been too strong in any case but mishaps definitely cost them a medal.
A full day of racing starting at 10:00, up until 18:27. BMS had crews potentially rowing in both the first and last races, so a long day's spectating in prospect.
First off at 10:00, the girls J14 Quad missed out on qualification in the time trials by a second or so.
Matt's first outing was at 11:30; 17 B-class boats took part in a "processional" along the short course (1km) on Holme Pierrepoint's specialist rowing lake (2km is the full distance). The top 12 crews (racing against the clock) qualify for the semis, which are raced side-by-side.
They seemed to put in a good row, but we didn't get to find out the result for an hour or so (when they duly had qualified).
The A boat, in their processional, overtook the boat in front so they were fairly clear qualifiers. 18 from 30 to progress to their semis.
In the "B semi, windy conditions meant the crews had a "free start" when the officials judged the 6 boats were in line. As it was, BMS were over a length down when they went off and they struggled to catch up. They finished 6th of 6, with the top 3 to go through. However, their time would have been enough to put them in the top 3 in the second semi. So, a very tough draw finished off their regatta.
Meanwhile, the A boat easily finished in the top 2 in their semi (3 semis with top 2 only to qualify). They ought to have a good chance in the 6-boat final - the last race of the day.
However, luck intervened. The #6 in the boat cut with hand in the semi, lost a fair amount of blood and went into shock. He had to be substituted. As the crew rowed up to the start, one of the gates holding the blades broke. The boys had to row back the length of the course to replace the part. On the way back they collided with Hampton and this resulted in another crew member sustaining a race-ending injury (and a trip to hospital).
The race start was delayed for up to 20mins under the regulations and a 2nd substitution was made. The re-organised crew rowed back to the start line again and having already covered about an extra 1500metres of water they finally lined up.
The final was close, and the crew put in a valiant effort to finish a solid 5th only a couple of lengths behind the leading boats. The winning crew from King's Chester may have been too strong in any case but mishaps definitely cost them a medal.
Friday, 15 May 2009
Magic Marker
Recently one year elapsed since my departure from Bear Stearns.
All the anniversaries have now passed: one year since (i) I decided to resign, (ii) I actually tendered my resignation, (iii) my resignation was accepted, (iv) my actual last day in the office, (v) the day that would have been my last day (had the firm not collapsed), and finally (vi) my official last day of employment.
The anniversary tournament "BSPT9" was a great success: 104 people turned up (90% of whom were Bear alumni).
Somehow, passing the magic one year mark has caused me to reconsider my decision to leave the markets. My original plan was to leave "indefinitely" and 1 year away was certainly a minimum.
I am now looking actively. We do know that I won't be returning to Bear Stearns, which formally ceased to exist sometime in June last year. However, with former colleagues scattered in dozens of firms now, there are obviously rather better chances that I end up working with some of the same people.
All the anniversaries have now passed: one year since (i) I decided to resign, (ii) I actually tendered my resignation, (iii) my resignation was accepted, (iv) my actual last day in the office, (v) the day that would have been my last day (had the firm not collapsed), and finally (vi) my official last day of employment.
The anniversary tournament "BSPT9" was a great success: 104 people turned up (90% of whom were Bear alumni).
Somehow, passing the magic one year mark has caused me to reconsider my decision to leave the markets. My original plan was to leave "indefinitely" and 1 year away was certainly a minimum.
I am now looking actively. We do know that I won't be returning to Bear Stearns, which formally ceased to exist sometime in June last year. However, with former colleagues scattered in dozens of firms now, there are obviously rather better chances that I end up working with some of the same people.
Thursday, 14 May 2009
Good as gold
My Gold membership of Virgin's Flying Club expires at the end of June. A year of no business travel, and using BA on our Californian holiday, meant that my qualifying flights were limited to a couple of Vegas trips.
I thought it was worth a try ... I asked that they waive the qualification based on a long history of loyalty to the airline and a vague promise of future travel. And, somewhat to my surprise, they agreed !
I suspect it has more to do with tough conditions in the airline industry, but it's good news in any case.
I thought it was worth a try ... I asked that they waive the qualification based on a long history of loyalty to the airline and a vague promise of future travel. And, somewhat to my surprise, they agreed !
I suspect it has more to do with tough conditions in the airline industry, but it's good news in any case.
Tuesday, 12 May 2009
Balls Up
I played a practice round of golf recently in preparation for our Spain trip. I hadn't hit a single ball in 6 months, so a quick hack around the academy course at the Bedfordshire was just the thing.
The academy course is a 9 hole "par 3" course. There is one short par 4 at the end, but essentially it is a glorified pitch-and-putt.
Naturally, it is described as "challenging" by the club. Such a description is de riguer for any golf course and should not be taken too seriously. Having said that, it is a useful place to work on the short game.
OK. On the 1st tee. 7 iron. Straight up the middle, on the green! Of course I three-putted, but basically I was very happy. My brand-new-just-purchased-in-the-pro-shop golf balls were working well.
The 2nd hole wasn't so good, but I did rescue a 4 there as well.
Then, quite incredibly, I managed to lose three balls in three holes. The course has no meaningful hazards, and is - basically - short and flat ! This is a pretty depressing outcome.
Now, I did find four balls, so that was some consolation. And, to be strictly accurate, 2 of the 3 balls were not entirely lost. One was in plain view on the other side of a stream that I might have jumped if I had been younger. A second was reachable in another watery landing spot if I only had longer arms or more tenacious intentions.
The four that I found were of course even less hard to reach.
It got me to wondering about the found/lost ratio. Mine was a 1.33 today. What determines the statistic for a particular player?
Skill: a poor player will lose a lot of balls. An excellent player may lose almost none. However, the bad player has a lot more opportunity to come across new ones, whilst the good player does not want to waste time looking (and has no need to). So, low ratios are associated with very poor or very good players, with a peak at the "average".
Of course, a good player going round with a bad player may lose none, whilst picking up some extras as he helps his partner looking.
Age: The younger player is more willing and able to get involved with a tricky recovery, so fewer errant balls will stay lost. Meanwhile more new balls will be turned up during the search. The older player has probably found and lost so many balls that the novelty has faded.
Attitude: Some players simply will not give up on a ball. This may be due to miserliness, but equally it can reflect a tenacity that is an asset in the game itself. Others, of course, easily resign themselves to a loss.
The function certainly has some interesting characteristics. Perhaps if I was spending less time thinking about this then I would have been able to focus more on not losing balls in the first place !
The academy course is a 9 hole "par 3" course. There is one short par 4 at the end, but essentially it is a glorified pitch-and-putt.
Naturally, it is described as "challenging" by the club. Such a description is de riguer for any golf course and should not be taken too seriously. Having said that, it is a useful place to work on the short game.
OK. On the 1st tee. 7 iron. Straight up the middle, on the green! Of course I three-putted, but basically I was very happy. My brand-new-just-purchased-in-the-pro-shop golf balls were working well.
The 2nd hole wasn't so good, but I did rescue a 4 there as well.
Then, quite incredibly, I managed to lose three balls in three holes. The course has no meaningful hazards, and is - basically - short and flat ! This is a pretty depressing outcome.
Now, I did find four balls, so that was some consolation. And, to be strictly accurate, 2 of the 3 balls were not entirely lost. One was in plain view on the other side of a stream that I might have jumped if I had been younger. A second was reachable in another watery landing spot if I only had longer arms or more tenacious intentions.
The four that I found were of course even less hard to reach.
It got me to wondering about the found/lost ratio. Mine was a 1.33 today. What determines the statistic for a particular player?
Skill: a poor player will lose a lot of balls. An excellent player may lose almost none. However, the bad player has a lot more opportunity to come across new ones, whilst the good player does not want to waste time looking (and has no need to). So, low ratios are associated with very poor or very good players, with a peak at the "average".
Of course, a good player going round with a bad player may lose none, whilst picking up some extras as he helps his partner looking.
Age: The younger player is more willing and able to get involved with a tricky recovery, so fewer errant balls will stay lost. Meanwhile more new balls will be turned up during the search. The older player has probably found and lost so many balls that the novelty has faded.
Attitude: Some players simply will not give up on a ball. This may be due to miserliness, but equally it can reflect a tenacity that is an asset in the game itself. Others, of course, easily resign themselves to a loss.
The function certainly has some interesting characteristics. Perhaps if I was spending less time thinking about this then I would have been able to focus more on not losing balls in the first place !
Photos on Facebook
Karen has posted more photos from the Regatta up on her facebook account.
Also, I understand, hard copies to follow for family albums !
Also, I understand, hard copies to follow for family albums !
Sunday, 10 May 2009
Saturday, 9 May 2009
Gold Plated
146th Annual Bedford Amateur Regatta today.
The largest 1-day river regatta in the country, in fact. 295 crews competing in over two dozen different events.
Watching from the bank there is a lot of information to process; the river is filled with a quite bewildering array of age & standard classifications, boat types, class designations and so on.
After a few hours of watching (waiting for one's favoured crew to appear around the bend) one starts to know what to look for: how many oars per side? What colour are the blades? Girls or boys? Age & size ?
Mind you, it is surprisingly hard to tell girls from boys, 4 oars from 8, or indeed anything at 500m distance. Sometimes the best clue comes from the shouts of the other supporters who (perhaps) are better informed. The fallback is to cheer for any boat, just in case.
The regatta ran to a schedule of apparently military precision: nearly 300 races at 2 minute intervals from 8am - 8pm. Despite this, and despite the fact the event did not really run late overall, the boats appeared in somewhat random order at times: one event was announced 45 minutes late, another was ahead of time by a similar amount. Some races were not announced at all.
All of this made for lots of waiting, watching and wondering.
However, by the time the boats reached the finish line, it all came into focus.
Matt and his friends were rowing in the "J14S.8X" class. which is to say the B-boat in the Under-14s age group, in an 8-person boat with 2 oars per rower (whic is called an Octuple rather than an Eight which has one oar per person).
Matt was rowing at Stroke for the B crew.
The A boat, meanwhile, had strong hopes of securing the trophy in the top flight and they "easily" (that is a technical term, seriously) won their first 3 heats to reach the final against a strong St.Paul's boat who had beaten the fancied crew from Radley.
Matt's boat, meanwhile, had a tough draw in the first heat and lost by 2/3 length to a very strong team from Abingdon.
However, the first-round losers compete in another event that leads to the UEFA-cup of rowing - the "plate".
BMS B reached the final of the plate and faced local rivals Bedford school. In a close race, BMS took an early lead which they held against a strong counter from their opponents, winning by one and a half lengths. The joy of victory was obvious.
The A boat rowed their final shortly afterwards. St Paul's provided a much stiffer test, but BMS still prevailed by an exciting 3/4 length margin.
So: honours and silverware for both the J14 boats, and success in many of the other classes as well. A very strong performance all round for BMS at their home event.
The largest 1-day river regatta in the country, in fact. 295 crews competing in over two dozen different events.
Watching from the bank there is a lot of information to process; the river is filled with a quite bewildering array of age & standard classifications, boat types, class designations and so on.
After a few hours of watching (waiting for one's favoured crew to appear around the bend) one starts to know what to look for: how many oars per side? What colour are the blades? Girls or boys? Age & size ?
Mind you, it is surprisingly hard to tell girls from boys, 4 oars from 8, or indeed anything at 500m distance. Sometimes the best clue comes from the shouts of the other supporters who (perhaps) are better informed. The fallback is to cheer for any boat, just in case.
The regatta ran to a schedule of apparently military precision: nearly 300 races at 2 minute intervals from 8am - 8pm. Despite this, and despite the fact the event did not really run late overall, the boats appeared in somewhat random order at times: one event was announced 45 minutes late, another was ahead of time by a similar amount. Some races were not announced at all.
All of this made for lots of waiting, watching and wondering.
However, by the time the boats reached the finish line, it all came into focus.
Matt and his friends were rowing in the "J14S.8X" class. which is to say the B-boat in the Under-14s age group, in an 8-person boat with 2 oars per rower (whic is called an Octuple rather than an Eight which has one oar per person).
Matt was rowing at Stroke for the B crew.
The A boat, meanwhile, had strong hopes of securing the trophy in the top flight and they "easily" (that is a technical term, seriously) won their first 3 heats to reach the final against a strong St.Paul's boat who had beaten the fancied crew from Radley.
Matt's boat, meanwhile, had a tough draw in the first heat and lost by 2/3 length to a very strong team from Abingdon.
However, the first-round losers compete in another event that leads to the UEFA-cup of rowing - the "plate".
BMS B reached the final of the plate and faced local rivals Bedford school. In a close race, BMS took an early lead which they held against a strong counter from their opponents, winning by one and a half lengths. The joy of victory was obvious.
The A boat rowed their final shortly afterwards. St Paul's provided a much stiffer test, but BMS still prevailed by an exciting 3/4 length margin.
So: honours and silverware for both the J14 boats, and success in many of the other classes as well. A very strong performance all round for BMS at their home event.
Tuesday, 31 March 2009
What's That Racquet ?
Spring weather has seen the table tennis table un-covered and Matt wasted no time in re-asserting his supremacy. My best chance was in the first game, when we were both rusty. 21-15 defeat was a respectable effort on my part. 21-13, 21-9 and 21-5 were the subsequent results, and I think I can be resigned to certain defeat for the remainder of the year.
Meanwhile, Harry was able to beat me 7-6, 7-5 at tennis without the application of any of the special rules that were in use last year.
Harry also has found an interest in badminton. We've played 4 times. The match score is now 2 - 2, Harry having won the last two encounters by an increasing margin.
Harry won 24-22, 21-13 today. That battle seems to have been lost as well !
I can just about beat Matt's split time on the ergo - as a result of sheer weight advantage, really.
This will not last long as he is definitely benefitting from relentless training for J14 rowing. When we watched the boat race on Sunday, he did so with an expert eye. He said he favoured the approach of the current Oxford coach who is of the "crush the opposition" school of thought.
Matt's training also put him in good stead for the final school steeplechase. There was some hope of a podium but - possibly because he ran into a wooden post and cut his leg before the start - he had to settle for 5th (82 started). Still very impressive. The most amazing thing about the race is the huge distance that develops between the front runners and the also-rans.
As far as home sports contests go, I have now become officially "also ran".
Meanwhile, Harry was able to beat me 7-6, 7-5 at tennis without the application of any of the special rules that were in use last year.
Harry also has found an interest in badminton. We've played 4 times. The match score is now 2 - 2, Harry having won the last two encounters by an increasing margin.
Harry won 24-22, 21-13 today. That battle seems to have been lost as well !
I can just about beat Matt's split time on the ergo - as a result of sheer weight advantage, really.
This will not last long as he is definitely benefitting from relentless training for J14 rowing. When we watched the boat race on Sunday, he did so with an expert eye. He said he favoured the approach of the current Oxford coach who is of the "crush the opposition" school of thought.
Matt's training also put him in good stead for the final school steeplechase. There was some hope of a podium but - possibly because he ran into a wooden post and cut his leg before the start - he had to settle for 5th (82 started). Still very impressive. The most amazing thing about the race is the huge distance that develops between the front runners and the also-rans.
As far as home sports contests go, I have now become officially "also ran".
Monday, 23 March 2009
Year'll Be Alright
I had a feeling that it must be about the one year mark since I left Bear Stearns although I didn't remember the exact date.
I knew it was certainly more than a year since I gave in my notice (that was at the end of January 2008). And, of course, it was a little longer than that since I actually made my decision to resign (although not too much longer - I acted pretty quickly once I had made up my mind).
I remembered that my official leaving date was supposed to be sometime in April. Originally, I was working my entire 3-month notice period but the sudden collapse and dramatic "rescue" of the firm around Easter 2008 made that moot, and I left within a couple of days of the event.
So, it was still less than a year since my employment strictly ended.
I had a look for the email I sent out letting people know about my last day. It turned out that it was exactly one year ago on Friday (20th March), which is when I checked.
There are still a couple of anniversaries to come. The one year anniversary of the date on my P45 is 29th April. In the meantime, 17th April would have been my last day without the intervention of the US Government and JP Morgan.
17th April was also the date of "BSPT8" - this was the eighth and last of the Bear Stearns poker tournaments. I had been planning it before I left, and it went ahead after I left in a dual role as my leaving drinks.
I'm going to celebrate that anniversary, I think, with a re-union tournament. It can't be on 17th April itself due to the Easter holidays, but it appears that it can be scheduled for 27th April which would also be exactly three years since "BSPT1".
A year seems to have passed by very quickly, although at the same time it all feels like a long time ago.
I knew it was certainly more than a year since I gave in my notice (that was at the end of January 2008). And, of course, it was a little longer than that since I actually made my decision to resign (although not too much longer - I acted pretty quickly once I had made up my mind).
I remembered that my official leaving date was supposed to be sometime in April. Originally, I was working my entire 3-month notice period but the sudden collapse and dramatic "rescue" of the firm around Easter 2008 made that moot, and I left within a couple of days of the event.
So, it was still less than a year since my employment strictly ended.
I had a look for the email I sent out letting people know about my last day. It turned out that it was exactly one year ago on Friday (20th March), which is when I checked.
There are still a couple of anniversaries to come. The one year anniversary of the date on my P45 is 29th April. In the meantime, 17th April would have been my last day without the intervention of the US Government and JP Morgan.
17th April was also the date of "BSPT8" - this was the eighth and last of the Bear Stearns poker tournaments. I had been planning it before I left, and it went ahead after I left in a dual role as my leaving drinks.
I'm going to celebrate that anniversary, I think, with a re-union tournament. It can't be on 17th April itself due to the Easter holidays, but it appears that it can be scheduled for 27th April which would also be exactly three years since "BSPT1".
A year seems to have passed by very quickly, although at the same time it all feels like a long time ago.
Thursday, 12 February 2009
A Month in Pictures - Part3
3. Fifteen Minutes of Flame
We have seen the dangers of cycling. Skiing - the boys are going next week - can be dangerous as well. Even snowballing is dangerous apparently.
However, I wasn't aware that Sudoku was also problematic. Yet, it was whilst concentrating hard on a particular grid that I failed to notice a few warning signs as this happened on the hob:
Proving that TV is a death-trap as well, Harry similarly failed to notice until the tea-towel was nicely ablaze. Meanwhile The Simpsons held his full attention. Mind you, that is excellent TV and usually more interesting than a watched pot.
We have seen the dangers of cycling. Skiing - the boys are going next week - can be dangerous as well. Even snowballing is dangerous apparently.
However, I wasn't aware that Sudoku was also problematic. Yet, it was whilst concentrating hard on a particular grid that I failed to notice a few warning signs as this happened on the hob:
Proving that TV is a death-trap as well, Harry similarly failed to notice until the tea-towel was nicely ablaze. Meanwhile The Simpsons held his full attention. Mind you, that is excellent TV and usually more interesting than a watched pot.
A Month in Pictures - Part2
The snow meant a break in the cycling routine, but brought other activities.
The snow was perfect for building - it formed so perfectly into large balls by the rolling method.
I then built this one by the "disc" method, although it too was destroyed within hours - this time by Harry !
2. Snow Way
Chief amongst these was "not going to school". The boys had 3.5 days out of 5 with no school in the main week of snow.
We had a snowball Olympics in the back garden, and also produced a couple of snowmen. Harry & I built one on Park Avenue which was recorded in this shot before it was sadly murdered by a person or persons unknown.
The snow was perfect for building - it formed so perfectly into large balls by the rolling method.
I then built this one by the "disc" method, although it too was destroyed within hours - this time by Harry !
A Month in Pictures - Part1
In January, I started with the intention of updating my blogs regularly and that lasted about 10 days it seems ! Other resolutions lasted longer. I did go for a cycle (nearly) every day for example.
But, a month seems to have whizzed by without any of my bloggable thoughts reaching the virtual page. Let's take a look back at some of the highlights:
1. Wheely Wonky
A few days after the hole-in-the-shoe, I found myself once again dodging pedestrians. This time I had diverted through the car park to avoid some throng of amblers, when I clipped the kerb and fell off in a rather low-speed and (it felt) low-impact.
However, when I picked the bike up, the brakes were sticking. I detached the brakes so I could sort them out later and then I noticed that the wheel was behaving very strangely. I thought it had been knocked off the axle but in fact it had been bent into the most intriguing 3d-shape. Not good !
It's very difficult to capture the wonkiness of this wheel in a photo, so you may have to take my word for it - it was very seriously bent !
In the short-term I did a wheel-transplant from one of the boys' bikes. In due course I had a new wheel fitted and at the same time cashed in the "We Owe You A Bike" voucher that Karen and the boys gave me last year - so I now have a brand new "fitness hybrid" as well as the trusty old new-wheeled mountain bike.
Coincident with all this new cycling equipment, of course, I virtually stopped riding (snow being the short-term excuse)!
But, a month seems to have whizzed by without any of my bloggable thoughts reaching the virtual page. Let's take a look back at some of the highlights:
1. Wheely Wonky
A few days after the hole-in-the-shoe, I found myself once again dodging pedestrians. This time I had diverted through the car park to avoid some throng of amblers, when I clipped the kerb and fell off in a rather low-speed and (it felt) low-impact.
However, when I picked the bike up, the brakes were sticking. I detached the brakes so I could sort them out later and then I noticed that the wheel was behaving very strangely. I thought it had been knocked off the axle but in fact it had been bent into the most intriguing 3d-shape. Not good !
It's very difficult to capture the wonkiness of this wheel in a photo, so you may have to take my word for it - it was very seriously bent !
In the short-term I did a wheel-transplant from one of the boys' bikes. In due course I had a new wheel fitted and at the same time cashed in the "We Owe You A Bike" voucher that Karen and the boys gave me last year - so I now have a brand new "fitness hybrid" as well as the trusty old new-wheeled mountain bike.
Coincident with all this new cycling equipment, of course, I virtually stopped riding (snow being the short-term excuse)!
Sunday, 11 January 2009
Hole in My Shoe
I've been doing so much cycling lately that I have worn a hole in my shoe. Not quite in the way you would hope for.
On Sunday, I went out for the obligatory park & ride - I'm trying to build up slowly, so I am doing about 5 laps of the park at the moment which is about 6 miles.
Obviously the park is incredibly convenient - close, and entirely off-road.
However, there are other perils. It was post-lunch and the park was full of mobile obstacles - some travelling in packs, creating a 100% blockage. I am not exactly power-cycling, so I didn't mind the enforced slowing-down.
After a few laps, I got the hang of the distances and was able to negotiate around most of the walkers, push-chairs and dogs. The small dogs are the worst - they cannot be trusted to get out of the way, or stay put.
On lap 5, I encountered a triple-threat - pushchairs, dogs and 2-way pedestrians. I opted to pass on the left of the pushchair, slightly on the grass.
Or mud, I should say. My back wheel lost grip and slid beyond what I could correct. Then I lost the front as well and the bike slid along the tarmac with me under it. Luckily, the bike itself seemed to take most of the impact (and left some light scoring marks on the tarmac).
However. I saw that part of my shoe had gone red - that was where my shoe was on the ground and the abrasion went through the trainer, through Maxine's Xmas socks and took off a thin layer of skin which was now poking through.
Dangerous things, pushchairs.
On Sunday, I went out for the obligatory park & ride - I'm trying to build up slowly, so I am doing about 5 laps of the park at the moment which is about 6 miles.
Obviously the park is incredibly convenient - close, and entirely off-road.
However, there are other perils. It was post-lunch and the park was full of mobile obstacles - some travelling in packs, creating a 100% blockage. I am not exactly power-cycling, so I didn't mind the enforced slowing-down.
After a few laps, I got the hang of the distances and was able to negotiate around most of the walkers, push-chairs and dogs. The small dogs are the worst - they cannot be trusted to get out of the way, or stay put.
On lap 5, I encountered a triple-threat - pushchairs, dogs and 2-way pedestrians. I opted to pass on the left of the pushchair, slightly on the grass.
Or mud, I should say. My back wheel lost grip and slid beyond what I could correct. Then I lost the front as well and the bike slid along the tarmac with me under it. Luckily, the bike itself seemed to take most of the impact (and left some light scoring marks on the tarmac).
However. I saw that part of my shoe had gone red - that was where my shoe was on the ground and the abrasion went through the trainer, through Maxine's Xmas socks and took off a thin layer of skin which was now poking through.
Dangerous things, pushchairs.
Friday, 9 January 2009
Tuned Up
I spent a solid 2 days importing all my CDs into my iTunes/iPod.
That was well over 2,000 songs, and apparently enough music to play for 39 days continuously !
Then, I spent today actually removing some songs.
The problem is that you don't want to keep stuff that you don't really want to listen to. It's not about the space (that is effectively unlimited), but time is of the essence - it would take at least 3months to play everything as it is, without having to listen to nonsense.
Having removed duplicates and rubbish albums/songs, and done some other housekeeping, I then went to the trouble of downloading any missing album covers, so I now have a really "clean" 1,700 song set.
I have found there is one problem using the iPod on the daily cycle - I only get to listen to a few songs, which means I can't avoid realising that my sessions are actually quite short !
That was well over 2,000 songs, and apparently enough music to play for 39 days continuously !
Then, I spent today actually removing some songs.
The problem is that you don't want to keep stuff that you don't really want to listen to. It's not about the space (that is effectively unlimited), but time is of the essence - it would take at least 3months to play everything as it is, without having to listen to nonsense.
Having removed duplicates and rubbish albums/songs, and done some other housekeeping, I then went to the trouble of downloading any missing album covers, so I now have a really "clean" 1,700 song set.
I have found there is one problem using the iPod on the daily cycle - I only get to listen to a few songs, which means I can't avoid realising that my sessions are actually quite short !
Thursday, 8 January 2009
Half Pointless
I really do not understand the thinking behind the Bank of England's latest 50bp cut.
Lower interest rates will not, in my opinion, help that much (if at all). They may even be counterproductive. Each further cut must have less and less of an effect for technical and practical reasons.
In any case, if lower rates were going to produce the desired effect then surely 3% in the last three months would have done the trick. Most importantly, there simply has been no time to assess the impact of these dramatic cuts, or indeed of many of the measures put in place in this or other majjot economies.
Lastly, if they think that 5% to 2% hasn't worked (including 1% just a month ago), why do they think a further 0.5% will now help ? They should in that case have cut to zero and got it over with.
So the only reason for cutting now is that they intended to cut all along, and they want to be seen to be doing something.
There is no sense is just reacting to the continuing worsening of the economic conditions - what is happening now is simply the inevitable follow through on what has already happened.
There needs to be a better reason for the cuts than just the assumption that it will somehow fix the current symptons.
It is true that for some people, the effect of the cut will be to increase their monthly income.
However, this is only the case for borrowers, and then only if they have a variable rate mortgage, and then only if their lender passes on the cut (which there are sound reasons not to) and even then there is little reason to assume they will choose to consume more with the saving, especially if their job is in jeopardy (which it is).
A direct tax subsidy on mortgages would have been better in that case, and less arbitrary.
There is little practical relationship between the bank's official rate and the price of many forms of personal or commercial credit and, especially, there is little reason to suppose the lowering of the rate will create credit appetite - either by lenders (why should they lend ?) or borrowers (why should they borrow, and by the way, why does the Government want them to borrow ?)
I would think a much more suitable solution would be for the Government to lend (and provide other liquidity) directly to businesses through a nationalised institution set up for that purpose rather than trying to "push string" by making the banks do this job when it makes sense for them to do the opposite.
This might, of course, become a moot distinction as I would expect a very significant possibility of full nationalisation of the banks soon enough anyway.
Meanwhile, although it will still make little sense, I imagine we can expect to see 0.5% official rates later this year.
Lower interest rates will not, in my opinion, help that much (if at all). They may even be counterproductive. Each further cut must have less and less of an effect for technical and practical reasons.
In any case, if lower rates were going to produce the desired effect then surely 3% in the last three months would have done the trick. Most importantly, there simply has been no time to assess the impact of these dramatic cuts, or indeed of many of the measures put in place in this or other majjot economies.
Lastly, if they think that 5% to 2% hasn't worked (including 1% just a month ago), why do they think a further 0.5% will now help ? They should in that case have cut to zero and got it over with.
So the only reason for cutting now is that they intended to cut all along, and they want to be seen to be doing something.
There is no sense is just reacting to the continuing worsening of the economic conditions - what is happening now is simply the inevitable follow through on what has already happened.
There needs to be a better reason for the cuts than just the assumption that it will somehow fix the current symptons.
It is true that for some people, the effect of the cut will be to increase their monthly income.
However, this is only the case for borrowers, and then only if they have a variable rate mortgage, and then only if their lender passes on the cut (which there are sound reasons not to) and even then there is little reason to assume they will choose to consume more with the saving, especially if their job is in jeopardy (which it is).
A direct tax subsidy on mortgages would have been better in that case, and less arbitrary.
There is little practical relationship between the bank's official rate and the price of many forms of personal or commercial credit and, especially, there is little reason to suppose the lowering of the rate will create credit appetite - either by lenders (why should they lend ?) or borrowers (why should they borrow, and by the way, why does the Government want them to borrow ?)
I would think a much more suitable solution would be for the Government to lend (and provide other liquidity) directly to businesses through a nationalised institution set up for that purpose rather than trying to "push string" by making the banks do this job when it makes sense for them to do the opposite.
This might, of course, become a moot distinction as I would expect a very significant possibility of full nationalisation of the banks soon enough anyway.
Meanwhile, although it will still make little sense, I imagine we can expect to see 0.5% official rates later this year.
On Socks and CDs
The disappearing and sometimes re-appearing of socks is well documented. Re-appearances are usually in asynchronous pairs, obviously.
I have noticed the same phenomenon in CDs and their cases. Some of my favourite CDs have had a habit of vanishing. In some cases, when I finally gave up and threw away the box, the CD then turned up. One particular album went missing and I actually threw away the box and bought a fresh copy. Whereupon the original disc came to light, only to be subsequently followed by the loss of BOTH discs.
However, today I did actually find both copies of A Secret History by The Divine Comedy, hiding behind one copy of Dad Rocks (disc2) in a Hoosiers box in Matt's room. That solves that particular mystery.
I was doing a large-scale cleanup of my discs because I have been loading them into iTunes - hence the search.
I am late to iPods, but now that Karen bought me a nano for Xmas, I am discovering what everyone is so excited about.
It looks like by the time I have finished with the uploading, I may have about 2,000 songs on the tiniest thing - the incredible fact is that the 1in x 2in (maybe it's a bit bigger than that, but not by much, and it is as half as thick as the slimmest mobile phones) has to contain a screen, a battery and the actual storage gizmos. Incredible.
So far I have not tried the iPod in action at the poker table. I am not sure I will - I prefer to be able to hear everything that is going on. But it is great for the daily cycle.
I am a convert, no question !
I have noticed the same phenomenon in CDs and their cases. Some of my favourite CDs have had a habit of vanishing. In some cases, when I finally gave up and threw away the box, the CD then turned up. One particular album went missing and I actually threw away the box and bought a fresh copy. Whereupon the original disc came to light, only to be subsequently followed by the loss of BOTH discs.
However, today I did actually find both copies of A Secret History by The Divine Comedy, hiding behind one copy of Dad Rocks (disc2) in a Hoosiers box in Matt's room. That solves that particular mystery.
I was doing a large-scale cleanup of my discs because I have been loading them into iTunes - hence the search.
I am late to iPods, but now that Karen bought me a nano for Xmas, I am discovering what everyone is so excited about.
It looks like by the time I have finished with the uploading, I may have about 2,000 songs on the tiniest thing - the incredible fact is that the 1in x 2in (maybe it's a bit bigger than that, but not by much, and it is as half as thick as the slimmest mobile phones) has to contain a screen, a battery and the actual storage gizmos. Incredible.
So far I have not tried the iPod in action at the poker table. I am not sure I will - I prefer to be able to hear everything that is going on. But it is great for the daily cycle.
I am a convert, no question !
Wednesday, 7 January 2009
B-icicle Ride
I have had some success with the resolution to get cycling every day. I did miss one day (we're allowed a mulligan surely) when I allowed it to get too late and dark so, when this threatened to happen again, I felt the need to make all efforts.
Yes it was dark, and it was cold, but these seemed to be manageable issues.
More of an issue was the shed lock - frozen shut !
I eventually dealt with that, and got underway. I was not too keen on cycling on the roads, so spent some of the time cycling on the pavements which were like sheets of ice although the bike handled that pretty well.
It's continuing to be cold, so more ice-cycling is on the cards I think.
Yes it was dark, and it was cold, but these seemed to be manageable issues.
More of an issue was the shed lock - frozen shut !
I eventually dealt with that, and got underway. I was not too keen on cycling on the roads, so spent some of the time cycling on the pavements which were like sheets of ice although the bike handled that pretty well.
It's continuing to be cold, so more ice-cycling is on the cards I think.
Sunday, 4 January 2009
Wish You Were Here ?
One of the questions I am frequently asked is some form of "do you wish you were still in the markets?"
Former colleagues that I speak to assure me it is pretty hellish, which makes sense. I'm sure morale is very low, and making lots of people redundant is never fun.
I have not really missed work, as such, since I left. I do miss the people, and I don't like being out of touch with what all those people are doing now. I am loosely in touch with quite a few, but it's not the same as being in daily contact.
But, even though I loved what I was doing for nearly 20 years, I'm not pining for the actual job itself.
I think if I had still been in situ when the worst hit, I would have felt compelled to stay aboard for the sake of the rest of the team (if I wasn't fired !). Since we are not remotely near coming out the other side this would have led to many months of long hours and hard work for (relatively) little reward. It would have been less painful for me than for many people, of course, and I think I would have come to terms with the "game change".
It would have been / is pretty miserable out there, but there is definitely a part of me that would have found it exciting to trade through these historic conditions.
A lot of people, when I left, assumed that I intended to come back fairly quickly. This was never my plan, although I equally never ruled out a return. Of course, the situation has changed so much that it's not clear what I would return to !
Overall, I would say 1 part in 10 really regrets not being there for the show, but actively seeking to get back in would be another matter altogether !
Former colleagues that I speak to assure me it is pretty hellish, which makes sense. I'm sure morale is very low, and making lots of people redundant is never fun.
I have not really missed work, as such, since I left. I do miss the people, and I don't like being out of touch with what all those people are doing now. I am loosely in touch with quite a few, but it's not the same as being in daily contact.
But, even though I loved what I was doing for nearly 20 years, I'm not pining for the actual job itself.
I think if I had still been in situ when the worst hit, I would have felt compelled to stay aboard for the sake of the rest of the team (if I wasn't fired !). Since we are not remotely near coming out the other side this would have led to many months of long hours and hard work for (relatively) little reward. It would have been less painful for me than for many people, of course, and I think I would have come to terms with the "game change".
It would have been / is pretty miserable out there, but there is definitely a part of me that would have found it exciting to trade through these historic conditions.
A lot of people, when I left, assumed that I intended to come back fairly quickly. This was never my plan, although I equally never ruled out a return. Of course, the situation has changed so much that it's not clear what I would return to !
Overall, I would say 1 part in 10 really regrets not being there for the show, but actively seeking to get back in would be another matter altogether !
Saturday, 3 January 2009
Seat of Learning
We haven't bought a lot in the recent sales (and firesales). What we did buy was some new office chairs.
Karen needed a new one due to a broken wheel. A correctly fitting castor for a chair is, I suspect, high up in the list of low-value items that you want to buy to avoid the replacement of a much higher-value item (the whole chair) but the chances of doing so are inversely-proportional to the theoretical cost of the spare part.
The problem is exacerbated nowadays by the excessive cheapness of the "whole thing". We bought office chairs for the boys for about £30 - nice-looking faux-leather swivelling-and-titling ones. I have probably spent £100 in hourly-charged time looking for a spare wheel for Karen's chair. I think our solution is going to be to throw it away but keep the 4 remaining wheels for spares - that seems to be a reasonable approach !
So, the boys' chairs needed assembling. On the whole I was very impressed with the instructions. And the packing. And the lack of missingness of small parts.
It was a straightforward task, really. However, when I had finished Harry's and was tightening all the bolts, I tested the chair out. It seemed a little upright, and it didn't seem to tilt. No, it did have some tilt, but it only tilted forwards. Odd. Of course, I realised I had assembled it "back to front". Not an easy thing to do, you might think, especially as I had taken some trouble to match "front" with "front" markings.
This always seems to happen in DIY. You take great care to - say - measure the distance between 2 holes and make it dead level. Then, when you drill, the wall collapses making the hole 2inches wide and the whole exercise pointless. Or, you construct the object with precision only to find that one part had to be put in place at the very beginning.
In this case, the manufacturers had cleverly designed the whole kit to be symmetrical (so no need to fabricate different "Left" and "Right" arms. This meant it was possible to put the thing together more or less perfectly whilst still being inside out, so to speak.
The good news was that I had a second one to put together, so that the learn-by-doing exercise was not put entirely to waste.
Karen needed a new one due to a broken wheel. A correctly fitting castor for a chair is, I suspect, high up in the list of low-value items that you want to buy to avoid the replacement of a much higher-value item (the whole chair) but the chances of doing so are inversely-proportional to the theoretical cost of the spare part.
The problem is exacerbated nowadays by the excessive cheapness of the "whole thing". We bought office chairs for the boys for about £30 - nice-looking faux-leather swivelling-and-titling ones. I have probably spent £100 in hourly-charged time looking for a spare wheel for Karen's chair. I think our solution is going to be to throw it away but keep the 4 remaining wheels for spares - that seems to be a reasonable approach !
So, the boys' chairs needed assembling. On the whole I was very impressed with the instructions. And the packing. And the lack of missingness of small parts.
It was a straightforward task, really. However, when I had finished Harry's and was tightening all the bolts, I tested the chair out. It seemed a little upright, and it didn't seem to tilt. No, it did have some tilt, but it only tilted forwards. Odd. Of course, I realised I had assembled it "back to front". Not an easy thing to do, you might think, especially as I had taken some trouble to match "front" with "front" markings.
This always seems to happen in DIY. You take great care to - say - measure the distance between 2 holes and make it dead level. Then, when you drill, the wall collapses making the hole 2inches wide and the whole exercise pointless. Or, you construct the object with precision only to find that one part had to be put in place at the very beginning.
In this case, the manufacturers had cleverly designed the whole kit to be symmetrical (so no need to fabricate different "Left" and "Right" arms. This meant it was possible to put the thing together more or less perfectly whilst still being inside out, so to speak.
The good news was that I had a second one to put together, so that the learn-by-doing exercise was not put entirely to waste.
Friday, 2 January 2009
Virtuous Cycle
Amongst the New Year's resolutions, I have decided that it would be a good idea to do a bit of cycling every day. Karen says I may last a week, but I think I can do better than that!
Yesterday, on day 1 of X, the only cycling I actually managed to fit in was to bike down to Halfords to buy two new inner tubes for the boys' bikes. I had been doing the decent thing and pumping up the tyres ahead of a planned cycle ride today, when one burst with irreparable damage and the valve broke on another.
I had just spent an age trying to adjust the front derailleur on my bike - the mechanism is only slightly less unintuitive than those hinges in kitchen cabinets. As a result it was pretty late when I finally set off
Bedford is very cycle-friendly: you can get almost anywhere without the need to cycle actually on the road, which was handy in the dark. Mind you, I picked up a bright yellow-shiny jacket in Halfords which I put to use on the ride back. It turns out it is even shinier if you don't wear it inside out !
Today's planned trip to Grafham Water to cycle was scaled back to a trip down to Bedford Marina due to concern over Harry's injury from the "tube game". Karen also didn't seem all that keen when we actually got there, but after a few miles everyone was in the spirit !
Admittedly the preparations and all the loading/unloading took twice as long as the cycle ride, but now we're used to it !
Other New Year's resolutions include more regular posting on the blogs, so watch this place !
Yesterday, on day 1 of X, the only cycling I actually managed to fit in was to bike down to Halfords to buy two new inner tubes for the boys' bikes. I had been doing the decent thing and pumping up the tyres ahead of a planned cycle ride today, when one burst with irreparable damage and the valve broke on another.
I had just spent an age trying to adjust the front derailleur on my bike - the mechanism is only slightly less unintuitive than those hinges in kitchen cabinets. As a result it was pretty late when I finally set off
Bedford is very cycle-friendly: you can get almost anywhere without the need to cycle actually on the road, which was handy in the dark. Mind you, I picked up a bright yellow-shiny jacket in Halfords which I put to use on the ride back. It turns out it is even shinier if you don't wear it inside out !
Today's planned trip to Grafham Water to cycle was scaled back to a trip down to Bedford Marina due to concern over Harry's injury from the "tube game". Karen also didn't seem all that keen when we actually got there, but after a few miles everyone was in the spirit !
Admittedly the preparations and all the loading/unloading took twice as long as the cycle ride, but now we're used to it !
Other New Year's resolutions include more regular posting on the blogs, so watch this place !
Thursday, 1 January 2009
Games People Play
I have always loved games. Card games, certainly, but also board games and puzzles and quizzes etc. It would be an exaggeration to say I love sport, but I do enjoy watching and following sports for some of the same reasons I like playing games.
Clearly, poker and bridge are the main games holding my attention recently. However, when I was at school, I used to play scrabble, backgammon, chess etc.
I enjoyed them all although I wasn't all that good at them, I suppose. Good enough to beat most people I played against, certainly, but you come to realise that this is a long way from actually being good.
In chess, where I was definitely only average+, it is relatively easy to appreciate that the good players are far better. But in a game like scrabble, without strong competition, it is easy not to realise just how good the good players can be.
In fact, it was only recently when I read a Times scrabble column that I began to see that there are levels and levels beyond just knowing a lot of words and being quick to spot where to play them.
The situation posed did not ask which was the best score we could make, but invited us to consider - based on our inference on which letters our opponent probably held - where to play defensively to prevent him from making a powerful move on later turns.
It never occurred to me to be counting the letters, let alone for tactical defense ! When I was playing at school I am not sure I even knew about the 50-point bonus for using all 7 letters, which seems to be a vital weapon in a competitive match.
I haven't played scrabble for ages. I am only thinking about it now because someone on facebook challenged me. In that game, I have already played "LANDINGS" for the 7 letter bonus and also some very odd 2 letter words including "CH".
The online game handily has a listing of all the 2 letter words. I always knew that a full knowledge of these was important, but I had never actually got around to learning them.
In poker there is no shortage of strong competition to spur one on. But whereas in scrabble (like poker, a skillful game, with a luck element) you're going to get the message very quickly, in poker there is so much "noise" that any skill deficit is often disguised.
But there should be no doubt that proper and effective study of the game is going to make a big difference. I still haven't done enough of that, I know.
Karen, Harry and I went to a friend's house on New Year's Eve (12 of us altogether aged 12 - 50ish). It was a very successful evening, and memorable for the games Sarah and Derek came up with.
I thought they were very suitable. They weren't lewd, didn't involve drinking, were genuinely open to all ages and non-threatening (no forfeits) and didn't require any specialist knowledge.
There was Pictureka! (an actual board game), Chase the Ace (a well-known and very easy card game, that works with any number of players), Spoons (not sure I have ever played that before, but it was fun !).
Then there was the "tube game". You must pick up a cardboard tube with your mouth (using no hands, your knees cannot touch the ground, neither you nor the tube can fall over during your go). The tube is cut after each turn, so it gets shorter and shorter (harder and harder to pick up). Realistically the game can only be won by the youngsters, although anyone can manage it in the early stages.
Cameron won, but not before Harry put up a really spirited 2nd-place effort. He accidentally invented a new technique (I liken it to the innovation that was the Fosbury Flop). He was able to just reach the tube, then grab it with his mouth and perform a forward roll to land safely with the tube in mouth. This was judged valid.
Then there was the "chocolate game" - involving dice, hats, scarf and gloves, chocolate and mayhem !
One excellent feature of all the games - an ingredient of the best "fun" games - is that the rules were somewhat fluid. It's important that there are enough agreed rules to allow the games to get underway, but it's even better if the rules are then argued about and developed in a friendly way as the game proceeds.
In "spoons" there were debates over "feinting", and the speed of the pass, and the positioning of the spoons relative to the players and so on. In "chocolate", the requirement to throw a double six was quickly re-negotiated. In "tube", Harry's flop-tactic was allowed, and then Cameron won back the final advantage by successfully lobbying to remove the tray on which the tube had stood, allowing him to place his feet nearer the target.
These adaptations added greatly to the success of all the games.
Today, Harry is back on the XBOX360. I maintain that those are not real games. It may be another 364 days until we can play some proper games again !
Clearly, poker and bridge are the main games holding my attention recently. However, when I was at school, I used to play scrabble, backgammon, chess etc.
I enjoyed them all although I wasn't all that good at them, I suppose. Good enough to beat most people I played against, certainly, but you come to realise that this is a long way from actually being good.
In chess, where I was definitely only average+, it is relatively easy to appreciate that the good players are far better. But in a game like scrabble, without strong competition, it is easy not to realise just how good the good players can be.
In fact, it was only recently when I read a Times scrabble column that I began to see that there are levels and levels beyond just knowing a lot of words and being quick to spot where to play them.
The situation posed did not ask which was the best score we could make, but invited us to consider - based on our inference on which letters our opponent probably held - where to play defensively to prevent him from making a powerful move on later turns.
It never occurred to me to be counting the letters, let alone for tactical defense ! When I was playing at school I am not sure I even knew about the 50-point bonus for using all 7 letters, which seems to be a vital weapon in a competitive match.
I haven't played scrabble for ages. I am only thinking about it now because someone on facebook challenged me. In that game, I have already played "LANDINGS" for the 7 letter bonus and also some very odd 2 letter words including "CH".
The online game handily has a listing of all the 2 letter words. I always knew that a full knowledge of these was important, but I had never actually got around to learning them.
In poker there is no shortage of strong competition to spur one on. But whereas in scrabble (like poker, a skillful game, with a luck element) you're going to get the message very quickly, in poker there is so much "noise" that any skill deficit is often disguised.
But there should be no doubt that proper and effective study of the game is going to make a big difference. I still haven't done enough of that, I know.
Karen, Harry and I went to a friend's house on New Year's Eve (12 of us altogether aged 12 - 50ish). It was a very successful evening, and memorable for the games Sarah and Derek came up with.
I thought they were very suitable. They weren't lewd, didn't involve drinking, were genuinely open to all ages and non-threatening (no forfeits) and didn't require any specialist knowledge.
There was Pictureka! (an actual board game), Chase the Ace (a well-known and very easy card game, that works with any number of players), Spoons (not sure I have ever played that before, but it was fun !).
Then there was the "tube game". You must pick up a cardboard tube with your mouth (using no hands, your knees cannot touch the ground, neither you nor the tube can fall over during your go). The tube is cut after each turn, so it gets shorter and shorter (harder and harder to pick up). Realistically the game can only be won by the youngsters, although anyone can manage it in the early stages.
Cameron won, but not before Harry put up a really spirited 2nd-place effort. He accidentally invented a new technique (I liken it to the innovation that was the Fosbury Flop). He was able to just reach the tube, then grab it with his mouth and perform a forward roll to land safely with the tube in mouth. This was judged valid.
Then there was the "chocolate game" - involving dice, hats, scarf and gloves, chocolate and mayhem !
One excellent feature of all the games - an ingredient of the best "fun" games - is that the rules were somewhat fluid. It's important that there are enough agreed rules to allow the games to get underway, but it's even better if the rules are then argued about and developed in a friendly way as the game proceeds.
In "spoons" there were debates over "feinting", and the speed of the pass, and the positioning of the spoons relative to the players and so on. In "chocolate", the requirement to throw a double six was quickly re-negotiated. In "tube", Harry's flop-tactic was allowed, and then Cameron won back the final advantage by successfully lobbying to remove the tray on which the tube had stood, allowing him to place his feet nearer the target.
These adaptations added greatly to the success of all the games.
Today, Harry is back on the XBOX360. I maintain that those are not real games. It may be another 364 days until we can play some proper games again !
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