08:28 pm

Okay, so this is obviously done by LibDem supporters, but it is quite funny (given that it is to do with the election)

http://www.gbjab.com/

PS Picture nicked from Angus Abranson - thank you!

09:48 pm

Who should I vote for?

Your expected outcome:

Your actual outcome:

	Labour 8
Conservative -51
	Liberal Democrat 78
UK Independence Party -12
	Green 46

The LibDems take a strong stand against tax cuts and a strong one in favour of public services: they would make long-term residential care for the elderly free across the UK, and scrap university tuition fees. They are in favour of a ban on smoking in public places, but would relax laws on cannabis. They propose to change vehicle taxation to be based on usage rather than ownership.

Take the test at Who Should You Vote For

06:20 pm - Those were the days...

Ultimate Gamer!! GM says drop 2d10, aanndd... you roll 78% !

What, are you a first generation gamer? Did you own the brown box?! Whatever you do in your spare time, gaming seems to be your job. Either you looked up the answers or you're the best of the best, the type that makes other gamers strive to know more. Just don't let the knowledge overwhelm the newbies, it tends to push them from the hobby. We all bow before you. You are the living nat 20, congradulations. I'm going to flee the scene now ;)

07:05 pm

Jolly good, wot! Anyone for tennis? That'll be ten ponies, guv. You're the epitome of everything that is english. Yey :) Hoist that Union Jack!

How British are you?

this quiz was made by alanna

12:43 pm - Sheep!

Which flock do you follow?

this quiz was made by alanna

06:42 pm - Deadwood

Why does everything have to be overhyped? Deadwood was reasonable, watchable, entertaining. But it was not brilliant. Whilst it was believable in its setting, violence and language, it was not truly engaging. Maybe it will improve, and as long as I am in hotels with Sky I will continue to watch it, but it was not the event that all the hype portrayed it to be. So in some ways a perfectly okay programme was a disappointment.

Off to the theatre shortly. No idea what the play is about. Time to go.

09:56 pm - Weekend

Friday night saw us braving Carensky's Ghost Train (http://www.guardian.co.uk/arts/reviews/story/0,,1275330,00.html) and recovering with a top notch curry.

This weekend was www.londonopenhouse.org, so Saturday morning far too early saw Sally and I heading off to the Swiss Re building.  It would seem that we were not the only people to have had the cunning plan of being there at 10am when it opened.  The prospect of a several-hour wait sent us wandering, around the city, and we found St Botolph's-on-Aldgate, and Christ Church Spitalfields, which was particularly impressive.  We also found S&M Cafe which proved to have an excellent all-day breakfast. 

After that, it was back to building the bathroom, with a little trip down to Battersea to inspect some wooden flooring installed in the very posh (yet strangely prison like) Albion Wharf by the chap we will now probably get to do our front room.

And now it's time to watch Deadwood, see if it's as good as the hype.  Report tomorrow.

10:04 pm - Back to life

So I get my life back - for awhile at least. Go-live is pushed back a month and I get to stay in Sutton Coldfield until Christmas. At least now the controlled panic of being two weeks from go-live is over, with another 4 weeks of grace.

Burgundy was fun. Good to get away from work for a week, and the cycling was an amazing panacea. Brilliant weather as well. Somewhat too brilliant at times - trying to get up some of those hills in 32C was, how shall we put it? - quite a lot of effort. And as for Sally - the usual view of her was a small dot disappearing into the distance.

Did confirm that French wine is really rather dull compared to the Commonwealth upstarts - give me a good South-East Australian shiraz any day over a Cote du Beaune pinot noir.

One relevation - now I understand why the French are so protective of the Common Agricultural Policy. CAP has preserved a wonderful rural landscape, and I can see why they want to keep it that way.

Stopped off in Lille for an hour or so on the way back. Might go there again - Eurostar is worth travelling on now we have finally got our act together on the Channel Tunnel rail link, and what with Lille being European City of Culture at the moment, I think it would definitely re-pay a more extended visit.

This time, with the pressure off a bit at work, I am determined to keep my LJ going. But I've said that before.

Final thought. Joined-Up Government in Action: Oil prices reach record high promting the Chancellor to call on OPEC to pump more oil. Prime Minister says that Climate Change is major threat and we should all be cutting carbon dioxide emissions. Try squaring that circle.

Current Mood: rejuvenated

10:02 pm - Measure for Measure

Popped along to the National Theatre last Saturday to see Measure for Measure with Sally.  I think I got slightly more out of it than I did last time I saw - but I was probably 13 or 14 then, and given the somewhat "adult" themes of the play plus the language, that's maybe not so surprising.  It was a very good production, with it set in a quasi-current time, and nods to current events like George W and the orange Guantanamo-style suits of the prisoners.  The acting was pretty good, although I found Isabella to be not quite believable enough to carry her unintentional seduction of Angelo. 

Graeme was back over from Singapore, so I met up with him and those of the Shogun crowd (Guy and Iain) that we could round up.  Played Diplomacy - first time in years - and I am pleased to announce that I won.  Makes a change from getting slaughtered in Shogun.

Back in Sutton Coldfield all week now.  Went to the leaving do of the interim FD.  Felt somewhat out-of-place, and so left at an opportune moment.  Get to meet the next interim FD this Friday - should be interesting.

02:44 pm - What happens when a supposedly left wing UK party gets into bed with psycho right-wing Americans?

They get a kicking at the polls!

'Tis a pity that Tony Blair has been so seduced by power politics that he has lost touch completely with both his own roots and the mood of the country. You think even he would have noticed the largest ever demonstration in this country might be an indication that his policy was not in tune with the electorate, but there you go. And since the protest vote is not going to the Tories, it's all good!

If Blair could at least point to some concrete benefit we've gained from slavishly following the US, like getting them to sign up to the Kyoto treaty, or a just peace between Israel and the Palestinians, or even a proper attempt to rebuild Afghanistan and Iraq, then that might at least justify his realpolitik approach. But he has nothing to show but a more dangerous world and a lot of dead people.

It looks like the Tories will continue to be abject failures at opposition and we can have end up with either A) the replacement of Blair with Brown, or B) a co-alition between a chastened Labour and the ascendant LibDems, or preferably both!

09:06 pm - Personality Test

Courtesy of ukmonty and davywavy , this test can be found: here</span>

Result

You are an SRCL--Sober Rational Constructive Leader. This makes you an Ayn Rand ideal. Taggart? Roark? Galt? You are all of these. You were born to lead. You may not be particularly exciting, but you have a strange charisma--born of intellect and personal drive--that people begin to notice when they have been around you a while. You don't like to compromise, but you recognize when you have to.

You care absolutely nothing what other people think, and this somehow attracts people to you. Treat them well, use them wisely, and ascend to your rightful rank.

11:32 am - Proper holiday

Right, off to Prague this afternoon. Shall be away until next Wednesday.

10:10 pm - Elections

Okay, so I'm a bit late on this one, but I did think that the local and European election results showed how confused the electorate is these days.  No-one really wanted to vote for either Labour or Conservative, although a fair few still did out of habit, or because they thought the alternatives were worse.  Those that did vote for UKIP generally did because of the vilification of the EU that is the constant drip-drip of fantasy stories in the tabloids.  This was confirmed by my focus group (er, my implementation team plus an Oracle implementation consultant) who generally distrusted "Brussels" and in one case, "foreigners". 

It's clear that few people think that the Tories represent a real alternative to Labour - on Europe they are being split by the UKIP and their own Eurosceptics, whilst apart from Michael Howard, their front bench is still pretty anonymous.  Labour have done their best to demolish their huge advantages over the Tories in terms of the economy etc. by firstly falling over themselves to back the US neo-cons' war that virtually none of their natural supporters want anything to do with, and secondly by not stridently pushing Europe they let all the running in the debate be done by the rabid tabloids.  The old mantra, "snatching defeat from the jaws of victory" springs to mind.

The alternatives to the big two, however, are questionable as well.  The Lib Dems are generally rubbish (which I say sadly as someone who wants them to do well) and UKIP are likely to implode - at least that's what they did after the 2000 Euro elections.  Not enough people outside London vote Green, and the latest attempt (anyone remember the Socialist Alliance?) to launch a "true socialist" party - Respect - and reclaim the heart of Old Labour, has foundered.  Interestingly, both UKIP and Respect used the "big name" theory - Robert Kilroy-Silk of course for UKIP, but Respect actually styled themselves as "Respect - the Unity Coalition - George Galloway".  Your average voter probably doesn't view gorgeous in the same way they do Kilroy - what were Respect thinking?  No wonder they crashed and burned.

So what next?  With a general election expected in 2005, what will voters do?  Labour are claiming that it is just a mid-term protest vote, but the expectation is that by protesting, you get changes so that you can vote for them again.  If Labour sit on their laurels, what will happen?  But given that the Tories will be lucky not to be in the middle of a  European civil war, and the paucity of their vision of an alternative to Labour, I doubt they will present a real challenge.  And with first-past-the-post focusing people's minds on the top parties, I think Labour will squeeze back in as the least bad option.  But there's plenty of time for Tony to still screw it all up ("What's that Mr President, invade France?  Why, I shall send the troops through the Channel Tunnel this very evening!")

09:46 pm - Demob happy

22 hours from 2 weeks of freedom!  Yes, holiday time beckons.  Just got to get tomorrow out the road and back to London and then I can get forget about work for a fortnight. Hurrah!

It's been a theatrical week, what with the Old Masters at the Birmingham Rep, Bill Bailey at the Hammersmith Apollo, the Comedy Store at the weekend, and Jerry Springer tomorrow evening (two spare tickets if anyone's interested!).  On the work side the implementation is pottering along quite nicely. 

10:30 pm - Pet Rescue

No Trudi whatsername unfortunately, but thankfully no Rolf Harris. 

Heard an unusual sound today, coming back from lunch, and on investigation discovered a little face peeking out from under the garage door in the empty house next to our office/house.  The cutesest kitten you ever did see suddenly sped out from under the door and attached itself to me.  It followed me back to the office, where it proceeded to bounce around the room, climbing on tables and attacking chairs.  I was up for adopting it as a project mascot, but we suspected that this might be against hospital policy, sadly.  It was pretty obviously abandoned - it had just appeared a few days ago we found out, it had no collar, and another kitten had been found elsewhere in the grounds.  So we tried to find it a new home.  Luckily, someone in the upstairs office was able to take it.  Other than that, learnt some stuff about Oracle General Ledger.

10:15 pm - Where did that week (and a half) go?

Very remiss of me.  A week and a half since my last (and only second ever) live journal post.  Not a good start.  So what happened?  Where did all the time go?

For a start, I did spend 5 days in the bathroom (building it - before you start putting any other interpretation on it).  I did overcome Virgin's efforts to get to Birmingham and back.  I did see Ricky Gervais and Onegin at the Royal Opera House.  I did give a presentation to the CIMA central government group.  I did go out for a couple of meals.  I even did some work.

But I didn't actually stop.  I didn't sit down and veg out.  And that's why I didn't get to write any live journal posts.  And that's also probably why I'm knackered a lot of the time.

More on some of it tomorrow (the Royal Opera House is a seriously impressive venue!)

09:47 pm - The Oracle House

I'm currently working out of the ground floor of a house. The lounge has been converted into a meeting room. The dining room is full of computers. The upstairs bedrooms are a different set of offices, which I've not seen. Its all a bit strange. When we want a cup of tea, we go into the house's real kitchen, replete with bright orange tiles. There is a conservatory as well, but unfortunately it has no glass and is rusting away. It's still got it's full 1970's decor, curtains etc. plus stained glass sections in the windows, but it's only got office furniture. You can sit in the back garden if it's sunny. It is really bizarre. Makes a change from a swish office complex in London or Bristol, or an ant-infested converted world war 2 hospital ward in Bath, or a Portakabin, I suppose.

Current Mood: sleepy

10:48 pm - Preamble

Welcome to this, the first ever post on my shiny new live journal.
I have no view yet of how it will develop. And I will be very interested to see whether it is but a passing fancy, or whether it becomes something more fundamental and important.

So why am I starting this journal? Well, for a number of reasons. Firstly, because I now have some time to put into it. Time itself is both the most trivial driver for, and the most fundamental blocker to, starting a live journal, so there must be more reasons, which there are. Secondly, I guess because I want to connect with people, particularly as right now I am sitting in a hotel room on my own! Thirdly, because I’m interested in starting debates and discussions about the things that interest and irritate me. Hopefully they’ll interest and irritate other people as well. Finally, I’ve never kept any sort of journal, so I’d simply like to try keeping one.

And that’s it. Preamble over. Normal service will begin shortly. Do not adjust your sets…