Mile End Group

Will be going to more of these talks at my Alma Mata - especially the session at the end of June and in September.

http://www.mileendgroup.com/

Month End

So May is almost over and I thought this would be a good time to look back on the short life of my blog and to say that I am enjoying writing it and intend to continue doing so. I do realise, however, that not all the posts are to do with politics, but this is because I am not a one man band.

So the first thing to point out to my readers is that, thanks to my best friend, I now have a site meter which shows how many hits my blog has had and where they are from. Having worked out how to use it I can see that my best mate is an avid reader of my musings, that the google spider has passsed by, and that someone in Virginia has been reading the blog to. So hi there to the reader in Virginia.

This week has been something of a blur. I drank a tad too much over the weekend, and have had two days of training at work. Useful training, but it meant that I worked late two days in a row and am already exhausted. However, the big project is only two weeks away from completion and then I can relax slightly. But only slightly, as I have four things my boss wants done before end Q1.

It would appear I spoke too soon in my earlier post about there not being too many political developments. The Deputy PM, two shags, has got himself in trouble over playing croquet at 4pm with his officials. A complete non story, but the PM might make him give up his grace and favour home. Am sure he will still shag his secretaries, just it won't be in as plush surroundings. Ho hum - poor chap.

More interestingly is the choice for new US Treasury Secretary. At last W seems to have appointed someone to the post who is respected in the financial community. Timing could have been better though, given that the new Fed Chairman is not yet a year in post.

Outside of work life is going well. I need to chase up progress on my apartment purchase as I would really want to be moved in by the end of July. Things are going well with S, and we are having lunch together tomorrow. One of the perks of having worked 30 hours over my contractual obligation last month is that I can take a two hour lunch tomorrow - hoorah!

On the literature front, I just finished my first Terry Gillingham fantasty novel - Going Postal - so J will be mightly pleased to hear that I have got in to them.

And to close this post, and provide a link to the next one, I just want to say that it is almost five years to the day that I first visited the world's capital and Fifee is about to go over for a week. Hooah!

Le Weekend

The weekend that is currently still in progress due to the public holiday today has been an exceptionally nice one. I took S to the theatre on Saturday evening to see Donkey Years at the Comedy Theatre. The play was wonderful, with a grand cast, and a wonderful script. It was also delicously topical, and the scene in which the junionr under secertary for education wondererd around with his trousers around his ankles, pjs covered in shaving foam, as he tried to get all the men out of his room so that the masters wife could escape was hilarious. The mad frentic energy on display brought tears to the eye, and I am sure that most of the Brits in the audience were thinking of two shags Prescott at that!

After the theatre we went out for dinner, and eyed up a large bowl of chilies but decided against it. It did lead on to a discussion of inappropriate first date food and we agreed that spagehti or noodles were a big no on first date meals out!

Sunday I slept late and then drove down to Southampton to see an old friend from university - can't quite believe it will be ten years next year since I went up to university - as she was having friends down for her birthday. A nice meal out, but I drank too much wine. I did learn a valuable lesson - never end the evening with Irish Coffee! My poor head felt like sand paper this morning. But it was a grand night out, and M kindly let me sleep over in the guest bedroom. The other lesson I re-discovered was that deep and meaningful conversations about the meaning of life always happen when one is drunk, and yet that is always the wrong time to have them!

Politics this week has been quietish. The UK press was getting a tad animated about Al Gore's appearance at the Cannes film festival and wondering if it is the start of his comeback and campaign to win the 2008 Presidential Election. On a personal note I submitted my fast stream application, so will now have to see what happens.

The major American political news story covered this side of the Pond was the supposed shooting on the Hill! Talk about a non event spun out of all proportion. LEAs reacted as one would expect, but the rolling news stations (whose tag lines should collectively be 'never wrong for long') went nuts devoting all resources to it, when all they could say was 'something might of happened but we don't know!' Hmmm - not sure what this says about modern society, but at least it didn't shake the markets that much. Not that they need much shaking right now given the volatility on the DJ and FTSE over the last two / three weeks. Not sure this is a good time to put any money in to my unit trusts, but I guess no time is a good time!

The big domestic political story this past week has been Blair's trips to Iraq and the US and then John Reid's criticism of the Home Office. Interesting times ahead as always, and the more I think about it the more I feel that it will be John Reid who succeeds Tony Blair rather than Gordon Brown. Reid has done both domestic and international jobs as SoS, whilst Brown is appearing more and more as a number cruncher with no experience outside HMT. Perhaps this is simply my own bias, and I know I should remain neutral on this, but somehow I think the Labour Party MPs will want a charismatic leader able to go toe to toe with Paxman and Humphries at the BBC and Cameron at the dispatch box. Gordon can do the latter but not the former, whilst Reid can probably do both. Interesting times, and on that note I need to go and get some laundry done and then go back to bed as I have not had enough sleep this weekend.

Over and out for now.

That was the week that was

Gosh what a week. Lots going on, and by last night I felt rather frazzeled!

So where does one start, well the begining is a good place.

The big project at work continues to crowd out all other issues, but at least we have finally been able to agree a new publication date. Everyone is happy - me most of all - and all I have left to do is recheck all the numbers and then send off to the printers. However, we are concerned that we will get caught up in the wash from all the negative stories around the mother department. This is especially so at the moment given that the SoS described part of the department as unfit for purpose. He is probably right, but it makes everyones job harder.

I have, however, been able to do some enjoyable things this week at work so all is not doom and gloom. It was amusing to talk about whether the SoS will be the next PM and to hear that several people think he will give the Chancellor a real run for his money in a leadership campaign.

On to the PM - who has flown from Iraq to DC this week. Should be interesting to see what bland comunique comes out of the trip, but it is amusing that the press were focusing on the fact that the Pres and PM had not seen each other since last summer. I mean come on - if this is all they can start their reporting with...

US politics are looking interesting at the moment, not least due to some wildish speculation that Al Gore might decide to run again. Not sure if this is a good idea or not, but he is probably sensibly not saying anything until after the mid-terms. If the GOP lose both houses he might well re-think his non-commital stance, but I find it more amusing that this is being talked about in the abstract than the detail right now.

The Enron boys have been very naughty indeed, but no surprise there. I saw a great documentary satire on Enron earlier in the year - Enron the Smartest Guys in the Room - which didn't take itself too seriously and was certainly better than any of the guff put out by Michael Moore.

Outside of work I have had by Rabies and Hep A booster jabs so will not foam at the mouth. Am sure S will be pleased to know this, especially as I am taking her to the theatre on Saturday evening to see Donkey Years - http://arts.guardian.co.uk/reviews/story/0,,1771505,00.html.

Things with S are going well, but still taking it gently and one step at a time.

The Home Office

The poor old Home Office has been getting something of a kicking recently - some of it deserved, some of it not. The problem we have, as an NMD part of the Home Office, is that our annual report may get caught up in the fuss about the Home Office and therefore may not be taken seriously.

Ho hum. Will just have to take the rough with the smooth and see what happens. Am sure my boss will be as fragrant and elegant about these matters as she is always is.

The Last Week

So I realise that I have committed a cardinal sin of blogging in not posting anything for a week or so, and thereby depriving my myriad of fans amusement and entertainment.

Well this last week has been busy and interesting. Work is continuing to chug along, and yet as the team is minus a Head of three of us are carrying the Head of workload - this is great in terms of visability and new experiences, but at the moment it is also constant full on without any down time to think. I realised how tired I was this morning when I left my cell phone at home - haven't done that in years. On one hand it was strangely liberating to be sans phone, but at the same time I felt naked with out it. Having said that, being called at gone 9pm to do with work kind of sucked but more on that briefly.

We are hosting some visitors from the Ukraine, and they arrive tomorrow morning. Unfortunately the people I was liasing with over there had forgotten to pass on the full details of the programme to the delegates so at 9pm this evening as they were on their way in to central London from LHR I got called by the FCO liaison officer who had met them to find out what / where / when was happening tomorrow morning. Hurumph!

So that is work - but it is still brilliant over all, and I have the full support of the people I work for in my application for the accelerated graduate development programme that is aka the Faststream. So will have to see how I do on that.

Now on to how things are going with S. Yesterday was date four, and we already have plans for next weekend. So I think one can say that things are going well on that front. We are both happy and are taking it gently and seeing how things go. We had hoped to go to the blockbuster show at the V&A, but got there too late. So instead we went and swapped coffee for the rest of the afternoon. No that is not a risque description of anything else - honest - but is what we did. S has her own coffee shop, and we were trying out new coffee combinations.

So apart from work and seeing S I haven't got that much done recently. I get to the gym as often as possible - spinning and pilates are great ways to distress - and try and see friends as often as possible. The one thing I really need to put some time in to is my charitable commitment, and the work I should be doing for World Jewish Relief and organising their trek to Nepal this fall.

Unfortunately the guy I am working for on this has been tardy in getting back to me on my proposals, and I think in part that is because I told him his $300 budget for organising and advertising was far too low given that he wanted to raise $30,000. He sent me a long e-mail last week, but given that at work I averaging 50 - 60 e-mails a day, I haven't got round to actioning it yet.

BBC Radio 4 has been a great comfort blanket, in particular the comedy Revolting People. Where would one be without Radio 4!

So I realise this is someone what disjointed and without a theme, so I will try and do better in my next post. I guess this one can be treated as akin to a traditional diary entry, rather than a stand alone chapter in a novel.

Over and out.

Work

Work is going well, and I am really getting my teeth in to some good projects. I had a very good and constructive end of year assessment in which my line manager said he was very pleased with the standard of my work. He also made some very helpful development suggestions.

Now on to the event outside our control. The very big project was torpedoed slightly by the number one man, who did not like the original date we had proposed to conclude our work. Things have been set back a bit, which is a tad annoying on one level, but at least gives us all a few more days to go about things and make sure it is a top quality item of work.

Apart from that I have 100 unread e-mails - it was only 80 when I left the office - but have just logged on from home to discover another 20 have appeared! It is nice to know that the people I work for think I am good at what I do and should be pushed to achieve more, but occasionally I would like to take 5.

Enough of my rant, best get back to those emails and make sure I have not missed anything too important.

Over and out

Apartment Purchase Update

It would appear that all things in life are up for negotiation - well certainly when it comes to buying an apartment. It transpires that the estate agents took my 'pull out' statement as a bargining position to get a lower sale price. I didn't mean it as such, but it has worked and I am now paying 92% of the original asking price.

This is a very good result, and one I am very happy about. I can now start thinking about furniture and the like as I hope to be able to move in late July or August.

Very exciting.

The West Wing

As a self confessed West Wing fan - hey I have quotes pinned up by my desk at work - I am unhappy that I am not in the US this weekend to see the show run it out.

Although I have not seen the show for a while, given that I don't have digital cable at home, I will be ordering the complete DVD set when it becomes available on DVD.

To close on this topic, I think JFK's quote of 'ask not what your country can do for you, but rather what you can do for your country' is appropriate. It is certainly a message that has driven my wish to do public service and help create a slightly better community.

I don't buy in to the hype that the West Wing changed things, but it certainly did appeal to people - Dem or Republican - who were in to intelligent TV shows.

I have heard some things about the ABC show 'Commander in Chief,' but don't know what to make of it as I have not yet seen it.

House Hunting

So I pulled out of buying an apartment today because the vendor would not drop the price he was prepared to accept down to one I was comfortable with given the cost of the lease extension.

Feeling a bit blue as it was and is a lovely apartment, but am sure will find one soon that I am happy to buy.

Why does house hunting have to be so tedious and complicated. Hurumph.

Don't think I made the agents day, but not too fussed about that as I am sure some twit will pay over the odds for the apartment.

Problem I have is that house prices have risen by 3% since the start of the year, my salary won't increase by that, and at the moment I am so busy at work that I don't have time to house hunt in the evenings. I think sleep will have to give on this, and I will just spend most Saturday's in bed recovering.

I did not want to still be living at home at 28 like an Italian boy - so uncool!

Will need to have a think about whether I can still aford West Hampstead, or whether I need to have a rethink. Urghhh - I really didn't want to have to remain in the burbs!

First Date Nerves

So I met up with S today for a first date and I think one can safely say it was a good first date. Lots of laughter, flirting and some gentle kissing. All very nice and soft and will have to see how things go & develop, but I am feeling on Cloud 9 which has to be a good thing.

But she likes good food and coffee so I am taking that as a sign!

Vietnam

In August it will be one year since I travelled to Vietnam, so I thought I would post here the e-mail with my thoughts that I had at the time and then continue with what my reflections are now.

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At the start of the trip we asked each other why we had chosen Vietnam and my answer was for a combination of reasons: I had grown up knowing that my mum had protested against the war whilst my dad had been in America in the 1960s and seen the anti and pro war demonstrations, and then more recently at university I studied the French and American wars and when in DC I had seen Vets at the memorial on the mall.

For ease here is an outline of my itinerary:

Hanoi
Hue
DMZ – including the tunnels at Vinh Moc and the former American Khe Sanh combat base
Hoi An
Danang
Nha Trang
Whale Island
Central Highlands and the Yok Don national park and a homestay with a M’Nong tribal family
Saigon and the Mekong Delta

The three weeks started in Hanoi. Hanoi is an interesting city and there is clearly a lot of economic development going on, whilst at the same time there are signs of the American war on most street corners. Literally – if one looks for them one can still see the single person concrete bomb shelters that were built to offer some protection from the B52s. The people of Hanoi are for the most part friendly and pleased to see you. As in the rest of Vietnam they assume that any foreigner spending time travelling in their country must be a millionaire because how else could one afford not to work for a few weeks. This is not exactly untrue, as $60 equates to around 1.5 million Dong and most Vietnamese outside the cities live on around a $1 per day.

Vietnam is, as one would expect, a country of enormous contrasts. As I have already mentioned most people live on around a $1 a day but there are also obvious signs of serious wealth. In the cities the signs of wealth are the ones we would be recognize in the west – brand of car or clothing or where one eats. In the countryside it is much more basic – does the peasant farmer have a tiled roof or thatched roof on his house and a fridge alongside the colour TV that everyone has. I found this fascinating and the country is clearly in a state of flux and on the move. The government is clearly concerned about the impact of unemployment as they open up the economy further as at every motor way toll booth, for example, there are at least twice as many people as needed.

We visited Uncle Ho’s mausoleum in Hanoi and I have to admit that my first thought was that it was there version of the Lincoln Memorial as executed by the Soviet Builders. Ho is treated like a god, and yet the Vietnamese joke that every year he has a 2 month Russian holiday when he is shipped to Moscow for re-embalming. Given that this treatment of his body goes against Ho’s own wishes I wonder what will happen as the country gets wealthier and the control of the VCP weakens. The VCP doesn’t appear to filter the internet or satellite TV so the Vietnamese are well aware of what is happening in the world; and perhaps at some point in the future they will want to have a say in how they are governed. Having said that the VCP are still seen as the party that liberated the country, and ended the wars, and thus have a lot of moral capital still in the bank. Will be interesting to see how this develops in the years ahead.

Whilst in one of the national parks we got the chance to ride on some elephants. I found being close to the elephants an amazing experience, and yet at the same time whilst out and about on them I couldn't help but feel like a French Colon surveying the province I controlled. A very odd feeling and one I had not expected to experience. It was almost as if in spite of all the wars nothing had really changed.

To understand modern day Vietnam, if that is possible after only 3 weeks in the country, I think it helps to keep in mind that the country has only really experienced peace in the last 20 years. This helps to explain why the country appears to be constantly on the move with everyone looking for advantage and financial gain. I don’t have a problem with this – far from it – but it does make for something of a sensory overload at times.

We did an internal flight from Danang to Nha Trang – neither town is anything special but it was strange flying between what during the war had been two enormous American bases. The blast shelters for the F4 Phantoms are rusting away at the side of the runways and the runways are each far bigger than anything currently needed, but then one remembers that they were built for B52s. Twenty years from now they will perhaps be benefiting from the size of the runways and taxi areas as they could easily use either place as a major cargo airport and holiday airport in the case of Nha Trang which was the American and North Vietnamese R&R area. Define irony – there was an unofficial agreement between both sides not to attack Nha Trang as that was where each side’s soldiers chilled out before being turned into hamburger meat in some corner of the country!

The two experiences that brought the war almost within touching distance for me was the time I spent at the Khe Sanh combat base and walking through a mine field. Most of the base is now coffee plantations, but one can still see part of the runway and the remains of a few of the buildings. One can sense that a lot of men died there on both sides whilst some of the comments in the visitors’ book from returning American Vets are haunting. If being at a former combat base that is littered with some of the paraphernalia of war brought the war within touching distance; the thing that really made me stop and think was walking through a mine field in the Mekong Delta on a safe path. Standing on the viewing platform and knowing that if we had all thrown our water bottles into the field at least one of us would have set off an apm was a humbling experience.

The Ho Chih Minh Trail is still used but not for the smuggling of weapons. The parts of the trail that are within Vietnam are used by truck drivers as an alternative to the main highway as they can avoid the road tolls and given the state of the majority of roads paying for their upkeep is a joke. The parts of the trail that go through Laos and Cambodia are now used by the hill tribes as smuggling routes for cigarettes. 200 cigarettes cost around $2 in Vietnam whilst they are half that in neighbouring Laos and Cambodia. Smuggled cigarettes are sold in the central highlands for around $1.75 and everyone is “happy.”

The amazing thing about the people of Vietnam is that although the war is there – it is rare to find a family in which someone did not die on either side of the conflict – they do not look back apart from to say things happened and now we should move on. The further south one goes the signs of the war change. Firstly the North Vietnamese War cemeteries get bigger, and it becomes ever more obvious that the AVRN (South Vietnam Army) cemeteries were bulldozed by the victorious north after 1975, and one starts to see maimed AVRN vets begging for small change as they get no support from the government. The lady who made my four suits in Hoi An was South Vietnamese and had a very hard time after 1975 until the mid 1990s when things began to get better. Her two brothers fled in 1975/76 to California as they had been officers in the AVRN and hanging around would have been a bad idea. For those who had worked for the Americans or the South Vietnam regime a brutal time in a re-education camp was the normal experience. One of our guides had been through this with his father. He didn’t really talk about what had been done to them, apart from to say that he had been “washed on the outside but not the inside.” This was a phrase I was to hear again from a cyclo driver in Saigon whose father had been an American GI. The people who perhaps suffered the most after the fall of the South were the children who had been abandoned by their America fathers. Although not common, it is not unusual to see Vietnamese men and women in their mid 30s who have Vietnamese features with blue eyes and blond hair!

The three weeks ended in Saigon after spending three days on the Mekong Delta. It is perhaps appropriate to talk about Vietnam and Saigon as two distinct entities as Saigon moves at a faster pace than anywhere else in the country. Walking around Saigon or being on a cyclo was great fun – just don’t think about getting on the back of a motor bike taxi (HondaOm) as they are scary. I took one in Hoi An and turned white with fear as we shot through traffic lights and weaved around traffic and then played chicken with a bus – and this was all within the space of 3 minutes!

On the food front I didn’t go hungry and ate some really amazing food. However, the Vietnamese will eat anything and will try and see if they can persuade visitors to do so. Needless to say we did not feel the need to eat dog!

If possible I would want to go back in a decade or so and re-trace my steps to see what has changed and what has remained the same given the break neck speed at which the country is now moving.

However, the most surreal experience of the trip actually had nothing really to do with Vietnam. On the sleeper train from Hanoi to Hue I called in to my voicemail at midnight local time to discover I had a new job to come back to in London. Without a doubt that will be the strangest environment I will ever be in to discover I have a new job.

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Sadly, but I guess this happens, I have lost touch with a couple of the people I travelled with. But I really enjoyed the trip and can't wait to set off on another adventure holiday. I have already decided what I will do for my 30 birthday - tracking silver back guerillas in Rwanda!

So have my thoughts changed since I wrote the above post last August? I don't think so, if anything they have been reinforced by what I have read since and re-looking at the photos I took.

Can 't wait to get out on the road again - I have itchy feet...

Music

So I have really decided to kick off my new Blog with some random postings.

I think once I have found my voice - or rather the voice I am most comfrotable writing with - they will get better and more joined up so to speak.

This post is simply to say I enjoy most kinds of music, but at the moment am really grooving along to the Buena Vista Social Club CDs. I was given a new one on my birthday and it is great. Really nice and chilled, but at the same time with a fun tempo of amusement to it that makes it great to listen to at any time of the day.

My iPod mini is full (1400 tracks - can you believe it!) and gets used every day. One problem with the iPod, however, is that at work when I am trying to get my head down and concentrate and put the headphones in not everyone understands that as the 'I am busy, please go away and let me get on with the work you have already given me to do' sign. Ho hum - maybe I am just not making it obvious enough as I don't have the big ghetto style headphones and the volumne is always low as I don't want to disturb others or kill my hearing.

Time to get up and change the CD I think, but before I do I will end this post with Na Na Na!!

Dating & Meeting People

So I have dated a few girls since the start of 2006 and I am not sure what is wrong with me, if anything.

They are all really nice, but I guess it is just me being oversexed and poor at picking up the 'no thank you' signal. This doesn't mean I would jump straight in to bed with someone, but would appreciate an honest answer if I ask whether I can see them again.

A couple of amusing dating disasters that have happened to me:

Girl A: met in a Latin American food hall in London as she said she was into Brazilian food. Things seemed to be going well (or at least I thought so) and I certainly hadn't made any rude comments. Then on the hour she said she had to go and left! Not sure what happened there, but left be puzzled and then amussed.

Girl B: had a good evening with, and had a cheeky kiss on the way home. Following day called me to say she didn't want to see me again as there wasn't anything there. Hmmm - again not sure what that was about, but at least she was honest.

Girl C: invited me in after a date, and then ten minutes later asked me to leave. I hadn't even sat down! That one left me very bemused.

So what I am trying to get at is that this dating thing is as hard for us chaps as it is for the chapesses, and the old rules (if they ever really existed) probably need updating to take account of the internet age.

So on to meeting new people. I have met, online as it happens, some great people this year and have, or will do shortly, meet up with them for coffee. One girl lives and works in Europe and h as just started dating someone so it will just be for a drink and friendship - we both are honest and open about that - whilst the other one is single and we have agreed to be grown up and yet see what happens!

First Post

So this is my first post on my blog and I thought I would set down why I have decided to write a blog.

I am treating this as something akin to a journal or diary so will be frank, but without naming names, and will set out my take on things that have happened.

Affairs of state interest me, but they do not define me as I have many and varied interests. I enjoy travel, and the art of getting there is indeed half the fun. However, I generally sleep on planes or trains so am probably missing some great scenery or conversation with other passengers and will have to spend the rest of my life, or at least the rest of the trip knowing that something amazing may have happened that I am unaware of.

skichap