The last thing I need at the moment is do the “management” thing. But, I seem to need to.

With so much on at the moment I need people who I can rely on to deliver. With a few large projects, the lab to run and the odds and sods of work life (when am I going to get my expenses done ?) I rarely have a free moment. One moment it’s eight in the morning the next two in the afternoon.

So, it was nice to get out and about this evening and away from the house and desk groaning under all this work.

Posted by Mark at 11:01 PM | Permalink

This place is powered by the excellent blogging engine Moveable Type. In the next few days I’ll be testing out the beta of the latest release, 3.3

Can’t say this will be a big visible change but I’m looking forward to cloud tags which I’m sure I’ll try out ..

Keep watching…

Posted by Mark at 11:16 PM | Permalink

It started with the wrong shoes.

The plan had been to go to the County Show. We drove to the park and ride car park. It started raining. We sat and waited. Then we noticed that rather than sensible shoes Joanne had small, thin, sparkly ballet style shoes on. The rain stopped and we arrived on the bus, avoided the mud at the gate and went to see some of the cattle and sheep.

Almost in stereo started the cries of “Hungry”. We queued up for chips as Richard and Joanne ran around, despite the advice to watch out for the mud. Then, from behind the van appeared what was once a little girl dressed in pink but now covered in mud.

After the chips started the cries of “tired” and “want to go home” and so that’s how I found myself alone with the goats whilst Martin caught the bus back to the car and then drove them home.

Despite the sun this was a cold day with the odd shower. Not at all like the other times we’d been here in the blazing sun and heat. I settled down to watch the show jumping with a cider and wondered how to get home. After some more cider it didn’t seem such a big problem.

Martin came back to watch the end of the show and wander around the car stalls with me (Golf or Alfa ?) and watch the heavy horses but by that time in the day even the goats had left …

Posted by Mark at 10:52 PM | Permalink

“It’s taken us four hours to drive down from the Midlands and there’s bugger all in there”. He was offering me the ticket, still with the stub attached. “Want to buy this for a fiver ?”.

I did wonder as I crossed the muddy field why so many people were walking the other way. It had taken me an hour to get into the place, a combination of bad stewarding and very wet ground.

I agreed, did the deal and hung around the ticket booth looking like I was buying one then wandered in unchallenged. It was billed as countryman’s fair : a collection of rings with a variety of outdoor events, a fishing section and clay pigeon shoots. The most entertaining part was the gundog events.

I love watching working dogs. To me that’s the point of having one. Either a sheepdog or a gundog, trained to do a role and happy and well exercised to perform it.

There was a lot of opportunity to watch that in action here with various scurries and retrieves to exercise the dogs. Unfortunately there were also a lot of owner who thought it was easier than it looked and put their dogs into a competition they had no chance of winning, or even completing.

Still, on a sunny afternoon with a glass of Pimms what could be a nicer way of spending a day ?

Posted by Mark at 10:37 PM | Permalink

Sometimes I can go out and find something immediately. Sometimes I can’t. Today was one of the days I couldn’t.

I seem to spend all day drifting from shop to shop looking for something for Karen. In the end I did settle on some things.

With Elizabeth’s birthday coming up I hope that will be easier …

Posted by Mark at 10:09 PM | Permalink

I had one hour off today from back to back calls which started before 9.

Increasingly I’m talking and doing less work. The upshot of this is that less things are getting done and the things which are getting done aren’t getting done well. We now have a delay in our lab as the network hasn’t been built properly.

I was just glad to put down the phone, eat and settle in the front room with Martin for a few beers, listen to some music and plan the weekend out.

Posted by Mark at 11:28 PM | Permalink

I’d been inside all day on the phone. We have a freeze on spending so everyone is confined to barracks.

In a way that’s good. I’ve been doing too many miles and attending too many meetings without doing any real work. However, the freeze on spending just means more phone meetings and less and less real work. There was even some sun today. Once I’d have proposals or something to take outside to read.

With Martin off a few days for the kid’s holiday he’d been to a Thai supermarket and Fhai had made a curry. So, armed with some beers, we all sat out in the sun to eat.

Whilst Martin munched away happily I had a pile of chillies on the side of my plate and had cautiously tried Fhai’s hot Som Tam salad.

Freeze there may be but I was certainly hot.

Posted by Mark at 11:58 PM | Permalink

I reach across the bed and press the button. The blue light from the display panel is closely followed by the sound of Miles Davis playing “Nuit sur les Champs Elysees” from Radio 3’s Late Junction programme.

I used to sleep to the TV but now it’s always the radio. Sometimes it’s on for comfort, sometimes for interest. Tonight, after an early start and a drive into London for a planning meeting, it’s only on for a moment before I roll over and sleep.

Posted by Mark at 11:08 PM | Permalink

It was just as well Amanda moved our meeting from 4 to 5.

I’d had a day with more and more meetings appearing, she had a day with a child developing teeth and crying. Both of us were fraught.

I guess it says a lot about our relationship that we’ve changed gear from meeting in champagne bars in the City to an evening in with takeaway pizza and that we get as much fun from either thing.

The last time I took pictures of Ben was back in March and I was amazed at how much he’d grown and developed. Almost on solids now he was enjoying apple and pear although much of it was now on the bib rather than in him.

We only spilled a little pizza and, oddly, no red wine…

Posted by Mark at 11:24 PM | Permalink

The moment I stepped into the hall I slipped back twenty years.

Black walls, with bars attached to the roof from which hung a few lights aimed at a small stage cluttered with instruments and speakers I was in a moment back in the old college hut which used to host the Thursday lunchtime informal show called Outhouse.

I remember it as never really having any formal structure but somehow people appeared to perform music and comedy with simply lighting to an appreciate audience. Richard Hawley’s gig was more polished but simple and was all the better for it. When I’d booked the tickets (standing only) Martin and I had said to each other, “It will be like the Guildhall, with a standing area and some seating”. The reality was this was a small room in which you could only stand.

We’d arrived way too early and spent 5 minutes driving up and down the road convincing ourselves that this place was some theatre, perhaps a little tatty around the edges, easily spotted from the road. In fact it was a nondescript door guarded by a bouncer who said the doors wouldn’t open for at least 5 minutes and the support wouldn’t be on for an hour. We decided the best place to wait was the pub over the road for a few pints of Guinness and Summer Lightening.

Talking to the people behind the bar it seemed we weren’t the first to think that and the pub was usually packed before a gig on account of the bar prices being cheaper than the venue. In fact once we had been to see the support (a strange American singing angst ridden songs and trying to out Elvis Elvis Costello) we came back for another hour in the warmth and light of the bar.

Hours after we arrived we bluffed our way back in to watch Hawley and his band. I’d only come to his music via his latest album Coles Corner, named after the place in Sheffield where people met to go on dates. Most of the gig was songs from this album with a few from earlier ones and a little rockabilly to liven up the crowd, not that they needed it. Spotting the two young teenagers in the crowd Hawley remembered how his parents had taken him to see bands and asked if they played in any bands. After the gig they even got to go backstage to meet the man himself.

With the sounds of “The Ocean”, different from the album and more a wall of sound played long and loud, ringing in our ears we tried to get into the Candela to have a post gig Turkish grill but ended up going home happy…

Posted by Mark at 11:36 PM | Permalink

After ages Amanda’s old PC finally made it to Martin’s house.

Spurred on by his birthday computer game Richard was up early and cleaned out under the stairs to make sure he had a place to put it. So, I brought all the bits down, we plugged them in and then had a morning of learning how to drive trains and explore the world. I really do suck at computer games. It was never a part of “IT” that I was interested in which makes explaining all the controls a little difficult but I’m sure in the end we will get there.

Posted by Mark at 11:01 PM | Permalink

I’ve been a member of the National Trust for years now.

Some summers I manage to get out to one or two places, other years all I’ve managed to do is read the magazines they send me.

This year I’m planning to get around a decent few places and get a little more value out of my membership.

Today I headed for Petworth House. I’ve been here before but the other side of the estate for an outdoor summer concert. This time I was here to see the house on a grey, drizzling day.

The place is very impressive. The gardens are laid out by Capability Brown, there’s a room carved by Grinling Gibbons and the largest of all the National Trust art collections littered with Turners, Van Dyck and Reynolds.

Despite the weather the place was packed as a plant fair was on in the grounds.

If you go this way try the Stonemasons Inn across the road for some really nice food….

Posted by Mark at 11:54 PM | Permalink

Was it really a week ago I put the washing outside ?

Today the garden’s wracked by gales and rain and the sky is dark. Luckily I don’t have to travel anywhere other than a short commute along the landing to try to sort out the mess that is my expenses and timesheets.

I managed to clear up a lot of work but there’s a pile looming for this weekend.

Posted by Mark at 6:17 PM | Permalink

Normally my trip to this office is an easy one and stress free. Not so today.

Aside from the crawl past the burnt out BMW on one motorway (frightening how this can happen, note to self to get the car serviced) and the 40 minute delay as we passed a stalled lorry on the other motorway there was the fun of parking.

I knew we were redeveloping this site but I didn’t realise that it had started, nor that it meant the car park I normally used was now under the foundations and framework of a new building.

After driving around the site and squeezing the car into what seemed like half a space I sat in reception and re-read the visitors guide.

I wonder what the cyptographer and computer scientist Alan Turing would have made of what we do here and what happens in the room he used in the old clock tower….

Posted by Mark at 11:06 PM | Permalink

The people you employed in their 20’s (young, carefree and traveling the world, happy to pick up some cash by doing some work or based here and starting a career) become the people in their 30’s married, settled and having their first child.

This week has seen the arrival on 12th May of Michael, son of Lou and Dave, and today Cassara Amelia Balough, daughter of Rachel and Mike.

Congratulations to all !

Posted by Mark at 10:26 PM | Permalink

It hardly seems a year ago that it was Brio and today it’s K’nex.

Spending the last few days with Richard it’s amazing how he has changed and is slowly leaving childhood behind. Today he is another year older and the presents reflect how time is marching on.

What does the 7 year old about town need apart from a compass and a set of flippers and a snorkel ? With Brio left behind it’s now K’nex with magnets to build models that pick up metal or allow connect together magically. The games for the computer are different as well with Microsoft Train Simulator replacing the read and spell early learning type of activities.

With so much wrapping paper around Joanne decided that she should be a parcel and demanded to be wrapped up, then upwrapped, wrapped up and on it went.

With a birthday tea of pizza and cake and the odd glass of something to celebrate with it was a great party !

Posted by Mark at 11:19 PM | Permalink

“London has been the home of the largest, most extensive decorative tiling project ever undertaken in Britain”

Check out Doug Rose’s beautiful web site describing and unearthing,

“The tiling of over 90 tube platforms, and associated passageways, staircases and surface-level booking halls, probably amounted to the largest single creation of decorative art on public display anywhere and arguably the longest and thinnest art gallery in the world”

Posted by Mark at 7:33 PM | Permalink

With Martin doing chores it was left up to Richard and me to go the local transport festival after we picked up my dry cleaning so that I had a clean suit for the week ahead.

I can remember this park when it held the local carnival, the two shows on the Saturday (one of the local events of the year) featuring military bands, helicopters and stunt drivers. The park is still used but now for static displays of vehicles and Richard and I wandered down the lines of buses, lorries and motorbikes.

There was an impressive collection of ambulances through the ages with the oldest being what appeared to be a large pram with a cover on it. A few years later and the idea had moved onto something with flowing curves and a running plate. Looking at it Richard said, “It looks nice from the outside but it’s really scruffy inside” which indeed it was.

Posted by Mark at 10:45 PM | Permalink

You can hardly call it babysitting.

Looking after Richard this morning involved two computers (one with Linux on to play Connect 4 the other connected to the Internet for doses of Hot Wheels), an explanation of solid rocket boosters and a trip to the NASA website to watch the movies explaining all the parts of the spaceship.

After a day doing shopping and chores I needed a little distraction and ended up watching the latest Mission Impossible…

Posted by Mark at 11:16 PM | Permalink

“The last time I was out this way I saw gypsies”, I said to Martin. “Just wait, around this corner”, he replied, and then, all of a sudden, there they were.

The word gypsy conjures up all sorts of images for people. Large shiny modern caravans, resurfaced drives, land occupied and left with piles of rubbish. These gypsies, however, are different.

Lost down a road which hard scrapes into the “B” category they live in two traditional caravans neatly tucked on a small grass verge next to a field. Martin slowed the car and we coasted by peeking into another world.

Around a few more corners and we arrived at The Plough and walked in for a pint. It’s very much a traditional village pub with one ‘L’ shaped bar tucked against the back wall. We both scanned the counter looking for familiar badges on the handles and then noticed there were no pumps. “Any Guinness ?”, Martin asked hopefully. He looked at me as the woman said they didn’t do it and I began to wonder what they did do when I noticed the casks of beer racked to one side on the wall.

With a pint of Archers Golden and Archers Best we settled down outside on the small patio. “It would be a great pub if it was picked up and put somewhere else”, said the landlady. “We’re too far out for people to come here for lunch and make it back to their offices. And our customers are slowly dying off. We have more than one death a year from the older customers and the people moving into the village don’t come to the pub”, her voice trailed off sadly.

We wandered out to the village green across the road from the pub. With night coming in the sky was too cloudy for what would have been a spectacular view of the stars as there wasn’t one streetlight in the village.

Driving back we passed the gypsies. The doors to the wagons were open, the campfire burning brightly and for a moment we slipped into someone else’s life so different from ours. No mobile phones or Internet, no email or weblogs, no DVDs or streetlights. They were like The Plough. Rooted in another time and hanging on to what they value against a changing world.

Posted by Mark at 11:41 PM | Permalink

take this basket on your shoulders:
that done, trudge with it in all haste, and carry
it among the whitsters in Datchet-mead, and there
empty it in the muddy ditch close by the Thames side

Well, there was no muddy ditch but a rather nice, super thin moat all the way around the smart new offices I was visiting today reflecting the steel and blue glass of the building in the still water.

I was here to meet with suppliers, learn about their products and get them interested enough in us to work with us over the next six months.

The weather today was stunning, clear blue skies and very warm. Inside the air conditioning quietly hummed keeping a steady, cool climate despite all the glass both on the outside but also the inside of the offices. The meeting went well. I have to admit I was surprised how little they had spoken to us at a corporate level before today but that does mean we’re the first to work with them and if we keep our side of the bargain everyone should win.

Amidst the small talk in the corridor after we’d finished talking monitoring and deliverables someone mentioned that they also owned the old manor house at the end of the gravel path. As it was a nice day and no one wanted to rush back we took off our jackets, found some sunglasses and walked up the path to the house once part of the dowry of Anne Boleyn.

Another literary day….

Posted by Mark at 11:34 PM | Permalink

It’s always a little exciting turning up somewhere new.

Today after an early start and a four hour drive I walked into a finely tiled reception hall, signed in an picked up a visitors badge and entered The Italian Room.

I have to admit it wasn’t the type of surroundings I thought I would find myself in today but it was a very pleasant surprise.

The hall was designed by Pugin who “did” the Houses of Parliament and it was here that Agatha Christie wrote ‘The tale of the Christmas pudding’ and ‘After the Funeral’.

Fortunately no one was killed but we spent a long day working.

As Poirot would have said, “It is the brain, the little gray cells on which one must rely. One must seek the truth within - not without.”

Posted by Mark at 11:07 PM | Permalink

With all this driving around I’m doing I get to do a fair amount of thinking.

I’m also getting more and more aware that with all the engineering we need to do in the months ahead we need somewhere to store all the things we’re going to (hopefully) build and deploy.

At present we don’t have anything and I was casting my eye around a few projects the other day like Sourceforge which seems to fit the bill.

I guess it will be a little bit of an uphill battle, especially given the way the Wiki went down with people, but in the end it will be worth it. Hopefully.

Posted by Mark at 11:32 PM | Permalink

It’s not everyday that you come across a 40 foot high, 50 ton mechanical elephant.

Rumours had been circulating on the Internet for a while that Royal De Luxe were going to be in town and this weekend they finally appeared along with the elephant and the little giantess who arrived and left in her spaceship.

It was an amazing show. The elephant is a sight to see, as tall as the London buildings yet so dexterous that it’s trunk can push tree branches to one side or be used to squirt water to make a way through the crowd.

With most of the streets in central London shut people wandered in the road, listened to the sounds of birds and church bells rarely heard on normal days. In some streets there were static displays, such as the line of cars sewn to the road with rope, the final car pinned there with a huge needle.

We had all come up for today’s show, a rare treat for Fhai away from work, and it was funny to watch the kids proudly showing off their knowledge of our central London haunts.

All too soon the show was over, the little girl climbed back into her space rocket the elephant, fuelled it from his trunk and magically she was sent on her way to another place….

More pictures here …

Posted by Mark at 11:13 PM | Permalink

Well I looked and looked but inspiration didn’t strike for Richard’s birthday.

However, I did see a rather large elephant….

Posted by Mark at 8:45 PM | Permalink

In the midst of all the noise of a Friday evening here, and with Richard recovering after a strop over who got to go on the laptop first, Joanne brings me a small paper flower.

It’s been in the front room on a small Indian stone dish since Amanda was here last.

“It smells nice”, says Joanne as she holds it for me to smell.

I recognise the perfume and a hundred memories come flooding back.

Posted by Mark at 11:41 PM | Permalink

In order to sell something you need to know what it is you are selling.

With suppliers over and our product marketing people from the States it’s clear we have a disconnect in that we don’t know what we are selling or indeed how to successfully sell it. After an afternoon brainstorming I had enought to bring home, sit in the garden and rough out a presentation for tomorrow. Hopefully, it’s a compelling story which takes us from the mess we have at the moment to a story we can sell to clients and sales teams alike.

I walked down to polling station with Kate and Jonny who are planning to go elephant hunting as well this weekend and came back to the last bit of sun on the patio, the papers and my notes to rehearse to next doors cat …

Posted by Mark at 9:37 PM | Permalink

I was back earlier from London tonight so I managed to get some food, cook and sat out to eat for the first time.

The weather today has been warm which is apparently thanks to some meteorological phenomenon called the Spanish Uplift. It’s just nice to have a the sun late into the evening, the warmth and the time out of a car to catch up with reading, planting bulbs and just enjoying being still in one place for a while

Posted by Mark at 10:36 PM | Permalink

Back on the road today for meetings in Manchester.

It was the first time I’d used the M6 toll and I was really impressed. Well, apart from the service station.

I was really hungry and stopped for a Wimpey. Service Stations seem to be the last place you can find them on earth and this one didn’t live up to the fast food ideal. The queue got longer, the orders became more and more confused and tempers rose. The food didn’t live up to Hamburger Union but kept me going until I got back home to catch up with work, mail and weblogs.

Posted by Mark at 11:09 PM | Permalink

We set off early with no real plan but to explore and found ourselves surrounded by policemen.

After a trip into the city by Tube (which seems now to have stopped issuing tickets to children to prevent the tickets being passed onto adults, a policy which leaves the gates congested with children trying to race through in front of parents) we started with lunch at Hamburger Union, a stroll through Covent Garden and down to the Strand.

Most of the roads in this area were closed for the May Day protests (luckily the quiet sort rather than the militant eco-warrior type) and we came across two traffic police guarding some cones closing a road. This sort of duty means a good opportunity to talk to the public and for the public to learn a little of what their work is like. So, while Richard and Joanne sat on their BMW bikes with the lights flashing on and the radio crackling Martin and I talked to them about the Very Important Duty they had drawn today and if they were getting Harley’s to replace the Beamers.

After offering to get rid of their sandwich wrappers we left them and crossed the Strand and headed across the bridge to the South Bank. Here there were more police sitting around in their vans and eating sweets. Richard decided today was get to know the police day and headed off to one of the vans to get a sit in the drivers seat and to try out the various bits of headgear.

The policemen were in good spirits and happy to have something to break up the day and we were soon talking about the radios and what the day held for them while Richard got the more exciting duty of trying the sirens and lights on the van. We were set up to make some comments to the police in the next van down awakening some old jokes and rivalries before we set off to the river and ice cream.

After wandering around the Clink Prison, reading more about the Winchester Geese and the terrors of the boot (used to torture prisoners by crushing a foot in a heated metal book with wood swollen by water and oil) we sat by the river for a pint or two of Guinness before we headed home.

Posted by Mark at 11:51 PM | Permalink