Friday, January 27, 2006
Is it to much to ask.....
I Hate Starbucks.
You can't walk the length of a block anywhere in the city without coming across one of their soulless little outposts. They're a cancer, multiplying unnoticed on our street corners.
I'm on a mission. A Quest, if you like. I want to find the Perfect Coffee Shop.
I don't care if its a branch of an established chain ( except for Starbucks, they are unclean/ verboten/ off limits ) or an independent mom and pop type of place. Neither are my criteria for the P.C.S impossibly over the top.
All I'm looking for are:
1) Baristas who can understand english, and won't give you a cup of camomile tea when you've actually asked for an espresso.
2) Clean premises. Not just Guido-wiped-the counter-an-hour-ago clean, but the kind where they've actually moved the furniture to sweep, rather than just going around it. Where you don't stick to the counter like some sort of mutant on coffee flavoured flypaper.
3) They serve plain black coffee. Do you have any idea how hard it is to find a coffee shop that sells good old fashioned coffee around London? The wee people behind the counter are happy enough to whip you up a double decaff skinny lattemochachocogelattochino in the blink of an eye, but ask for a black coffee and they stare at you like you've sprouted a foetus on your forehead. The closest impresonation of a black coffee they offer is the so-called "Americano"-- which is an espresso poured into a coffee mug and topped up with hot water. Oh fuck no thank you very much.
4) They are reasonably priced.
5) They're easy to get to. I'm not travelling to Prattswitheringstone Under Lyne just for a coffee. I want somewhere I can go and sit down in on a rainy Saturday afternoon, not a journey to make Ranulph Fiennes blanche.
6) They appreciate that people who enjoy their coffee want to sit in peace and relax. No one should rush you. Its a place to have a chat, have a bit of a read or just sit and watch the world slip by. It is not a makeshift creche where Holly Housewife can bring her 3 bawling brats and then feign ignorance about why everyone is wishing she and her brood would simply die quietly.
7) Comfy chairs.
There. That's not such a tall order, surely? I think I'll start reviewing coffee shops I find myself drawn into on here.. hmm. Yes. I like that idea.
And it's not just the whole big-fish-from-small-pond-goes-to-really-big-pond-and-discovers- he's-actually-a-tiny-fish syndrome. It's a completely different take on finance to what I'm used to. Everything is shiny and new to me. The people I work with are intelligent, well spoken and intelligent, and are rather 'old school' about their work ethic. Its both refreshing and a bit intimidating. Do you have any idea how long it's been since someone corrected my grammar on a letter?
I tell you what, it makes such a difference to have to actually keep your brain in gear from the time you sit down in the morning until you leave in the evening. The days whizz by in happily productive blur. I love the old fashioned style that we send our correspondence out in. I like wearing a suit. I love the fact that today someone wired me £400 000 because I asked for it.
Tuesday, January 24, 2006
Nnngh
learning curve
n. A graph that depicts rate of learning, especially a graph of progress in the mastery of a skill against the time required for such mastery.
At this rate I'm going to have to start forgetting things to make space for the new stuff...
Monday, January 23, 2006
Day One
Well, thank the gods for that. the wait has finally ended. Today was my first day at The New Job.
It went well, I think. I had the usual first day jitters - Did I blag too much? Can I do the job? What am I actually going to be doing? But, all unfounded. It went swimmingly.... I am feeling quite upbeat and optimistic about the whole thing. :)
Plus, I got to wear a snazzy suit & tie. I tell you what, I clean up rather well. It's been ages since I got all dollied up, and I was very pleased with the results, even if I do say so myself. Which I just did. I got to swan around Bishopsgate like a proper ponce and sneer at the manual labourers and other non-suited types.
Nothing more than glorified vagrants, the lot of them.
It's certainly a very nice bit of real estate. If you wait for the right moment, in between clouds of diesel fumes and dust, you can actually smell the money.
Now all I have to do is get my hands on some......
Sunday, January 15, 2006
Bah
No lottery millions for me just yet.
But!
For no one else either- yes indeedy, the jackpot has rolled over for another week - which means that this week's jackpot is a staggering £80 000 000.
Jeeziz Mary & Joseph.
In other news, there is no news. Life plods on. Work is becoming a bit of a farce.. it's become a more or less accepted fact that I'm really not putting much Ooompf into it. I've actually surprised myself about this, I thought I was the kind of guy to keep my standards up until the very last gasp, but I guess I'm not. In my defense, I've never really resigned from a job before, so I'm running the gauntlet of some brand new emotions/ experience.
When I left my job in S.A to move over here, giving notice was a...how can I put it?..a communal thing. The boss had been in on the idea for a couple of months before we formally gave notice. (I'm not counting casual jobs- they're not really job - jobs, you know?)
Anyway, thats not to say I'm just sitting with my feet on the desk chortling away. I'm doing the work, I just don't care what happens to it in a week's time.
Anyhoo. I'm signing off to go play some Guild Wars. I took a 3 to 4 week break from it over the xmas holidays. I found myself getting bored with it.. no one from my guild was ever online and theres only so much crap you can take from pre-pubescent twats who spam the chat interface with things like "take your armour off and dance".
Helloooooooo, how sad are you, you lame schmuck?
Cut my heart out with a wooden spoon if I ever -EVER- display the remotest inkling of getting hot under the collar from the sight of game characters, wearing white undies, stuck in a dance loop. Especially the ones still wearing their helmets.
Tuesday, January 10, 2006
Do you have them in red? I'll take 4.
This Friday the EuroMillions lottery draw jackpot stands at..... £70 Million.
Yes, £70 million sterling. That's 70 million of the above coins.
I know, the odds are heavily stacked against me winning. But- they were equally stacked against Dolores McNamara, the Irish wimmin who scooped £77 million last year.
She wouldn't have won it if she didn't have a ticket. And that's the way I see it -- someone has to win it, and if I don't have a ticket then I have no chance whatsoever. Nada. Zilch. Fukoli.
I am someone else's someone.
What would you do with £70 million? (Or the equivalent in your own currency?)
At today's foreign exchange rates, that would be:
South African Rand: R 752,365,150.45
New Zealand Dollar: $ 178,329,665.66
Canadian Dollar: $ 143,713,536.26
US Dollar: $ 123,528,903.72
Here for more.
I tell you what. If I scoop the jackpot, I'll fly everyone who's visited my site over here to London, put them up in a 5 star hotel and have one hell of a party, all expenses paid.
And that's a promise.
Monday, January 09, 2006
Fat Gecko Slim
The Fat Gecko is en route to becoming not so fat.. the journey starts here.
Bah.
It hasn't worked out - the blog, not the weight thing- so I've trashed it. I'll keep a record of my weight on the main page instead.
Saturday, January 07, 2006
N.A.A.F.I
Ah, what a week.Much has been made of going back to work after the christmas/ new years break, but you know what? I've had a good week.
Maybe it's the fact that I've pretty much stopped worrying about the cases I've got in my pipeline, or that I don't care about what I'm doing anymore. I find myself hopping onto the net at random times during the day, daydreaming, taking the time to actually enjoy the coffee I make myself, chatting to people more and so on.
Today was particularly choice. Got loads of post in, and as usual for a Friday there was nothing simple. Every fax was a 2 - 4 page long handwritten diatribe or sermon about something, and naturally they were all marked urgent.
I hit on the simple solution of simply ignoring them. Its the whole 'the boy who cried wolf' effect. Urgent just doesn't mean shit anymore.
I figure if it was urgent they would have contacted me by phone to say "Hey, I'm sending over such-and-such on fax number 555 0123, please could you grab and pass it to Mr Scrote, it's rather urgent." But, no one did, so they're all there fermenting in my in-tray.
A few weeks ago this would have caused me several degrees of apoplexy, but not anymore. What are they going to do? Bring it up in my next quarterly appraisal? Pffftt.
Ah, but what about your references you may say. Well, funny thing is, about a week before I handed in my notice I had my appraisal for the last quarter. It was a glowing report, chock full of nice things about me, about the extra effort I put in, how happy they are with my work etc.
God bless photocopiers >:¬]
Anyhoo, I'm not worried about getting snowed under by post on Monday.
The fun bit about ignoring stuff is once you get the hang of it you can do it any day of the week.
I broke the news about leaving to my colleagues yesterday. I was most pleased by the reactions I got. We're all going out on the 19th for a farewell drink... the translation of which is: I'm going to the pub at 12h30 and will remain there until it's time to go home, since tradition states everyone must buy me at least one drink :)
As long as no one buys me lager I'll be fine.
Tuesday, January 03, 2006
2 0 0 6
2006.
Here's hoping that this year is a lot better than last year; my new year is certainly starting with a
handful of new adventures, the greatest of these being the new job.
I hit the post xmas sales last week, picking myself up 3 nice suits, a few nice formal shirts & ties and some new black shoes... yes indeed, I get to play dress-up on a daily basis in a couple of weeks time.
Some people think new years resolutions are lame, but I believe in them. Think about it; everyone who has ever tried to go on a diet, give up smoking or something similar knows the "I'll start on Monday" effect. Well, you don't get a more dramatic and definite Monday than new years day. This is the time to commit to something you've been putting off for far too long.
I'm squaring up to tackle my long standing nemesis, Dr. Fat. He's wormed his insiduous way back into my life. I weighed myself a couple of days ago and almost 7 kg has snuck up on me in the last few months... thats the equivalent of 14 standard sized tubs of margarine that have grown around my gut.
Go to the fridge and open a tub. Human fat is much the same consistency and colour as that yellow glomp... and its iNsiDE mE.
So thats my primary resolution- to get back on the wagon w.r.t my eating program. Every time I feel myself slipping I'm going to cram threee fingers into a tub of butter and swoosh them about.
Come this time next year I want there to be 30 tubs less of me. That's my goal- to shed 15 kg's in total.
Watch this space for updates - there's no better motivation to stick with it than to tell people about it, since then you have a deadline/ expectation to work towards.
My secondary resolution is to work like a demon when I start my new job- yes, I'm going to start behaving like a grown up :¬/
[ shudder ]
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