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November 15 How dare the Opposition discuss the rout of Sterling?
Gordon Brown indicated his displeasure from Washington, DC. Labour rolled out John McFall, the Chairman of the Treasury Select Committee to offer further denunciation. The programme even managed to find an unknown Tory grandee, whose name I forget, to join in the fun. All of this, of course, is designed as misdirection to divert attention from the significant fall in the value of Sterling which does not appear to be abating. I seriously wonder if we will see Dollar parity in six months time. I recall that in "Yes, Minister" Sir Humphrey explained how you "play the man, not the ball" when your policies fail or you are incompetent. This is an excellent example of exactly such behaviour. Osborne would be failing in his opposition duty if he did not discuss the truth of our current reality. Update 16th November: On the Andrew Marr Show this morning former Labour Minister John Reid was wheeled out to lay more recriminations on George for daring to speak an opinion and not being 'bipartisan'. Why on earth the Government thinks that the Opposition should collaborate in covering up their mistakes is beyond me. Vince Cable was also given a walk-on part. Vince at least had the decency to say "This shouldn't be some kind of secret business. Of course there is nothing wrong with George Osborne talking about it" (which is probably why there isn't a transcript of that part of the show online) but then when on to say "I am all for having an intelligent discussion about exchange rates, it just it wasn't very good way of dealing with it" without explaining in what way it wasn't very good. The good news was that George was given his opportunity to answer these critics at the end of the show. Unfortunately, Andrew Marr was far more interested in the George's position within the Conservative Party than with the substance (although, George has only himself to blame for handing out the ammunition). November 14 Secretary of State Clinton?
Why do I think it is clever?
All in all, being offered Secretary of State acknowledges her and neuters her in equal measure. Clever. October 19 My PDC Session Calendar (Draft, subject to change)
During the week, the Microsoft PDC site switched on the timeline planner so last night I did a second round of filtering to select the sessions that I intend to go to: Sunday
Monday
Tuesday
Wednesday
Thursday
September 08 For anyone who doesn't know me ... Yes! I'm a Political GeekI have backed Obama since the start of the Democrat Primary season. I certainly hope that the following sentiment is well-founded:
September 03 PDC 2008 - I'll be there! I have recently been given the happy news that Charteris are sending me to the PDC in LA. I'm very excited. I had to miss the PDC in 2005 but was there in 2003 and I found it very worthwhile. Benjamin Goeltz will also be going from Charteris. I was hoping to be at the same hotel as the Red Gate chaps, but sadly it was sold out so we will be at the Millenium Biltmore. I will be able to geek out with West Wing reminiscence (the hotel was used extensively as a set in Series 1). We will be going to the Pre-Conference Sessions as well. I'm booked for "Agile Perspectives, Industry and Microsoft". September 01 Voting for DDD7 is open
As usual, there are lots of excellent sessions for you to vote on so you get to choose the conference. You can check out my offerings and vote for them too! Microsoft Log Parser Toolkit? What the heck is that? Separating REST Facts from Fallacies August 13 SOA Stack
Created in response to the "[service-orientated-architecture] Re: REST/WS*-SOAP Stack Comparison" discussion at http://tech.groups.yahoo.com/group/service-orientated-architecture/message/11024
August 28 Accidental ArtI was getting out my mobile to take a picture and pressed the button
accidentally... but I thought it actually looks quite good. Working for OnlineTravelWell, I have just finished my third week working for OnlineTravel (which is part of Lastminute, now taken over by Travelocity). Better still, I just got my
first pay - which is always good news.
Anyway, I work at the Victoria
Gate office in Woking. It is a pleasant place, but the outside of the
building is a little perplexing as it has what look like walkways, but can't be
because pillars would stop anyone actually walking around the building on
them... July 06 Lunch in LondonI had an interview this morning, followed by lunch with friends at this little West End pub - "The Windmill". March 02 Lloyds of LondonI am working in the Lloyds building until the end of the week for a client (a syndicate) which is certainly on of the best known (if quirky) buildings in the City of London as it is 'inside-out'. February 25 SnowWoke this morning to discover that it was snowing again... Unfortunately, the gritters had not been out overnight so the roads were very slippery. It doesn't snow that often in the south of England, largely thanks to the Gulf Stream, and it is even more rare to be snowing in central London as it was this morning. I am hoping that it will have melted by this afternoon so that my journey home is smooth. Time to hurry off to Starbucks to get a nice, warm Americano. February 23 SequelThis is where I work in London, just next to Monument in the City of London. I have a six month contract with a company called Sequel Business Solutions who write software for the Lloyds of London insurance market. Still in darknessI'm really more of a summer person; winter does not wear well on me at all. Catching my train at 06:20 from Wokingham, the sky is still dark and the air is cold. Thankfully the mornings are growing lighter now but I am looking forward to May when dawn will have passed by this time. February 22 "Inside Story" by Greg DykeI have just finished reading this fascinating autobiography. I would recommend it highly (and I'm not normally a big fan of autobiographical works). As you would expect, Greg gives a robust defence of the way that the BBC dealt with The Hutton Inquiry and the "45 minute" story from Andrew Gilligan. Catching the early trainAnyone who lives or works in London knows that your life is ruled by the vagaries of public transport. Today, I have been lucky. I left the office at 17:30 on the nose and got to the tube station in time to catch the first of my trains. My journey home comprises the following parts: 1. Walk to Monument tube station. 2. Catch the tube west on the Circle|District line to Embankment. 3. Catch the tube south on the Bakerloo line to Waterloo. 4. Catch the train from Waterloo to Wokingham. 5. Drive from Wokingham to home. Not a simple journey, by any means... On a good day (like today) the connections all line up and I will arrive home around 19:30 - so the journey takes about two hours. On a more usual day, I miss my best train out from Waterloo and the journey will take about two and a half hours. On a bad day... All this, by the way, is for a journey of 33 miles as the crow flies! Of course, it is my choice to work in London - although I would prefer not to - and it is my choice not to live in London either, so I should not complain overly much. Still, it does seem that I spend an inordinate amount of my time sitting on public seats. Bandits at one o'clock!Having lunch at Café Nero with Paul, another contractor where I work in London. Mindy sleepingI have two cats: Mork and Mindy. They are brother and sister from the same litter. Here is Mindy doing what all cats do best... Sleeping! First postThis isn't my first blog (I have a technical blog on dotnetjunkies) but I thought it was about time to have a personal blog. I am also involved with Blogshares (an online game based on the blogosphere) where I am part of the Math Team. |
I was listening to the 
Yesterday evening, the BBC Radio 4 "PM" programme reported that Hillary Clinton was being considered by the Obama transition team for Secretary of State. I was struck by how clever this would be. There have been 
Last weekend I trawled through all the published sessions to separate out those sessions I was interested in attending from those that I wasn't (it turned out to be a long list of interest).
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