Jottings

Happy Birthday Joanne !

And the film ? Cloudy With A Chance of Meatballs

“Look up”, said K

And there he was on the wardrobe – rather dusty.

Amazing where a cat will get …

I’m still trying to get the whole David Allen thing sorted and incorporated into my work and home life.

In an ideal world you’re supposed to have the time in a Friday afternoon to sit down, look at what you have in the “system” and decide what the priorities are.

Today I was just happy to get the email down and enjoy a cup of lapsang souchong in the sun.

life

RBS Says Defections Cost Bank 1 Billion Pounds in Lost Profit – Bloomberg.com By Gavin Finch

Feb. 25 (Bloomberg) — Royal Bank of Scotland Group Plc Chief Executive Officer Stephen Hester said the departure of about 1,000 top investment bankers over bonuses cost the lender as much as 1 billion pounds ($1.5 billion) in lost earnings.

“We could easily have made across the bank perhaps as much as 1 billion pounds more of profit if we hadn’t lost people,” Hester said in an interview with Bloomberg Television today. The number of top-ranked employees who left the bank doubled last year to about 1000 people, he said.

RBS will pay its investment bankers about 1.3 billion pounds in bonuses, compared with about 900 million pounds for the previous year

So, for all the sorrys that were said, the lessons that were supposed to be learned – and more importantly the money we spent on them the bankers seem to be carrying on as before.

The excuse for the bonuses – well if they weren’t paid then those people would go elsewhere and the bankers couldn’t make all that profit.  That’s the profit that they aren’t using to repay the money we paid to get them out of the mess they got into.

We need a radical rework of our banking system – one we take out the risk, increase the loans and where people are paid for their talent and no more.

I wonder if Metro Bank is the way forward ….

bank, politics, metro bank, banking

Is Bloom Energy the next GE? | Analysis & Opinion | Reuters

The blogosphere is rumbling with anticipation of the “Bloom Box”, a pint-sized “power plant” that could change the way we power our homes and offices forever.

The buzz began Sunday when 60 minutes aired an exclusive profile of the alternative energy fuel cell developed by startup Bloom Energy and its CEO K.R. Sridhar (a former rocket scientist) in Silicon Valley. After eight years in the making, the power plant in a box is set to be released Wednesday with California governor Arnold Schwarzenegger and former Joint Chiefs of Staff chairman Colin Powell on hand.

“You’ll generate your own electricity with the box and it’ll be wireless. The idea is to one day replace the big power plants and transmission line grid, the way the laptop moved in on the desktop and cell phones supplanted landlines,” reports CNet News.

What makes this claim to the perfect, zero-emission energy source different? For starters, backing from Walmart, eBay, Google, Staples, FedEx, and hundreds of millions of dollars in investments.

Would you ?

bloom.power, electricity

Already checking out the manor…

It’s only been a few hours but things are settling down.

Meals eaten. The warmest part of the house found and a safe dark place under the spare bed is ready just in case.

Eric the cat has come to stay.

Gardening done, bird box put up, Sunday roast and family lunch.  Done

A busy day in London.

A meal at the Tokyo Diner; Penn and Bown at the National Gallery; cocktails at 5th View and some shopping at Fortnum and Mason …

If it all works out right then very soon the house will owned by a bundle of fur called Eric …