Drinking and Working
This evening I've been out with the London-based Millarworlders (and a few others from slightly further afield) for a couple of drinks. My participation was slightly curtailed, as I was late getting there due to work and had to leave before the gang went off to get food, as tomorrow's (hopefully) my last day in the office before the break. (Plus, I went through my 'going to the Wong Kei to enjoy the rude service' phase years ago).
Tomorrow promises to be fairly major, as not only do I have to try and get the decks cleared ahead of the break, but I'll be out for half the day at a big pitch. What kind of client gets you in to pitch two days before Christmas? Actually, a very big one.
If I do indeed get to be away from the office after tomorrow I'm planning on spending quite a large chunk of Thursday doing bugger all.
The ‘Break’ Starts Here
Well, I seem to be done with everything I can get finished with before the break - I'll no doubt be talking to the office tomorrow, and there's a part of me that thinks I should go in even if it's just for an hour or two to wrap up some admin, but I don't have a lot of enthusiasm for that. The pitch went well as far as I can tell, so we just have to wait and see what happens there.
Shopped
Ended up doing most of my shopping at Canary Wharf today, and it wasn't at all as bad as I was expecting - getting there early clearly helped: by the time we left, the car park was a good deal busier than when we arrived.
I was struck as I wandered in and out of shops that I don't really get a lot of pleasure from shopping these days. I used to like the process of going out looking for just the right thing for someone, having an idea and following it up, or looking around for inspiration, but none of that seems to have much appeal now. It's not that I don't enjoy giving gifts, but the pleasure in going looking seems to have faded in a major way.
Maybe it's an effect of having done so much shopping online in the last couple of years, or a result of what seems to be an ever-shrinking list of people I need to shop for. Whatever it is, it's yet another example of an area in which the fun seems to have gone out of Christmas.
Christmas Shopping
Ridiculously, because of being all over the place for the last few weeks, I'm going to have to do pretty much all of my Christmas shopping this weekend, which isn't ideal, obviously. Fortunately I don't have a huge number of people to buy for, but I can't help thinking every shopping centre in the city is going to be hell today and tomorrow.
You’ve Been Marple‘d
Forgot to mention that we watched the first of the new ITV series on Sunday night. The inanely named Agatha Christie: Marple seems to be one of those badly-conceived, badly-realised pieces of nonsense that ITV has become so good at in recent years. The four stories that they're doing to kick the thing off have a combined cast list that reads like Who's Who in British Character Acting, and I think therein lies a large part of the problem: It's like they've all got together for a jolly fun romp, and they're having such a lark at it all that they seem not to be taking it very seriously. Add to that the fact they they appear to be messing with the plots, which is a cardinal sin as far as Christie is concerned, and you've got the makings of a bit of a mess.
I don't have very high hopes for the rest of them.
Post-Blunkett
My word but the news last night was entertaining. Blunkett appears to have set new records for self-serving hypocrisy, which is remarkable when you look at the high bar he'd set for himself previously.
The idea that anyone in a position of authority, never mind a Secretary of State, could pass an issue on to a subordinate and say "something needs to be done about things like this", while not expecting them to get on and facilitate it suggests a degree of naïveté that none but the most credulous could accept. Blunkett may be many things - a reactionary bigot chief among them - but I'm quite certain he's not that unsophisticated.
The way he played off the situation regarding his kid against the visa situtaion in his interview with Andrew Marr was little short of shameless.
Essentially, he's decided to show remorse now that he's been found out, and is somehow trying to take the moral high ground while doing so, while also trying to play for some sympathy.
Unreal.
Ding Dong The Witch Is Dead
Words cannot describe my joy, delight, crazed happiness and satisfaction. Who cares if some of those are the same thing?
Amsterdam’d
Quiet for the last few days because I've been in Amsterdam and made a conscious decision to avoid being online. Good trip, if more than a little wild, but absolutely shattering - there's something fundamentally wrong about already being on the road at the time of the morning when Radio Four picks up from the World Service and you get five minutes of Rule Britannia and and the like, which is how I started Friday.
From there it was pretty full-on, and let's face facts, I'm not as young as I was.
Still, back now, with real life happening all around me, and the last mad rush towards Christmas now well under way.
A One-Off, I Promise
For certainly the first time, and almost certainly the only one if I have anything to do with it, I'm going to post in admiration of Michael Howard.
Listening to Yesterday In Parliament this morning as he recounted the criticisms of practically the entire cabinet which appear in David Blunkett's new biography was an unalloyed joy. The BBC cover it here, and inevitably Simon Hoggart covers it in his Guardian Sketch.
"It is said Mr Blunkett has been ringing round his "friends" to explain or perhaps even apologise for his intemperate words."
Blunkett must surely now be seen as the biggest liability any government could possibly be saddled with. The man needs taking out and shooting.
China In The News
The business news this morning is full of IBM's decision to sell its home computer business to Chinese firm Linovo. The reasons, as outlined by IBM and various analysts, lie in the fact that PC manufacture is increasingly low-margin, and as I know from personal experience, IBM have been repositioning themselves as a services business for some while. In China of course the margin can be lower, because costs are commensurately lower too, which will give Lenovo the ability to make money where IBM couldn't. By paying less and working people harder in other words.
In the meantime, the foundation of China's economic growth is its coal industry, and as the BBC reports, that industry killed 15 miners a day in the first nine months of this year because of safety shortfalls and lack of regulation.
The relentless move to expand trade with China is frequently supported by claims that it will force China to open up more and then by extension somehow decide to give up totalitarianism out of the goodness of its heart. I can't, surely, be the only one who sees this as just pouring apparently limitless amounts of money into China with no actual incentive provided to encourage them to change?