Friday 25 April 2003, 4:16 PM
Friday
Friday 25/04/2003
News that Westminster Council is going to submerge Soho in a sea of 802.11b is quite a wake-up call to those who think that 3G phones will be forever safe from wireless networking, because the coverage will never be there. If councils discover it's cheaper to abandon their existing communications and switch wholesale to wireless Ethernet that they provide themselves, then they'll start building out the infrastructure as fast as their little budgets can carry them. And, sure as 802.1x is 802.1x, they'll then start flogging public access to those networks -- we'll be back to the days when councils ran the local telephone service in no time. What fun!
But it also opens up some interesting playtime possibilities. As anyone who knows Soho will confirm, it's a place where lots of people do lots of things that are illegal, immoral and fattening. Westminster is thinking of using the network to do CCTV monitoring -- why not? -- so the prize to the hacker who first works out how to piggyback the connections will be an endless stream of reality TV. The same goes for all the voice-over-IP, data and control services Westminster is thinking of providing: they're going to be doing this in a neighbourhood full of bright young people with lots of high tech savvy and some evil ideas. It should all be most entertaining.
Click here to see more of Rupert's diaries.
News that Westminster Council is going to submerge Soho in a sea of 802.11b is quite a wake-up call to those who think that 3G phones will be forever safe from wireless networking, because the coverage will never be there. If councils discover it's cheaper to abandon their existing communications and switch wholesale to wireless Ethernet that they provide themselves, then they'll start building out the infrastructure as fast as their little budgets can carry them. And, sure as 802.1x is 802.1x, they'll then start flogging public access to those networks -- we'll be back to the days when councils ran the local telephone service in no time. What fun!
But it also opens up some interesting playtime possibilities. As anyone who knows Soho will confirm, it's a place where lots of people do lots of things that are illegal, immoral and fattening. Westminster is thinking of using the network to do CCTV monitoring -- why not? -- so the prize to the hacker who first works out how to piggyback the connections will be an endless stream of reality TV. The same goes for all the voice-over-IP, data and control services Westminster is thinking of providing: they're going to be doing this in a neighbourhood full of bright young people with lots of high tech savvy and some evil ideas. It should all be most entertaining.
Click here to see more of Rupert's diaries.
Friday 25 April 2003, 4:16 PM
Thursday
Thursday 24/04/2003
Windows Server 2003 is launched today, and I win the much-coveted chance to go and have Steve Ballmer yell at me by remote control. There is a predictable format to such things, and I look forward to finding out how the PR company, AugustOne, has misspelt my name on my badge. They -- and their ancestors, Text 100 -- always do. This time the PRs avoid the problem altogether by losing my registration completely.
The launch itself follows the rules to the letter: "We've heard what you've said, and you won't get herds of happy Microsoft people with reams of PowerPoint slides!" said a happy Microsoft person in front of a PowerPoint slide, before introducing herds of happy Microsoft people with reams of PowerPoint slides.
But there were some high spots. The great "Here's how easy it is to move a SAP database from 32-bit Windows to 64-bit Windows" live demonstration resulted in many awkward silences and a selection of error messages. Likewise, the live demonstration of distributed deployment -- see twenty-six servers instantaneously load Windows across the network! -- worked fine for twenty-four. And it was surely cruel to introduce Ken Maxwell, director of Business Critical Systems from HP, to the strains of the Fun Lovin' Criminals. Back came the happy Microsoftie, who tackled the thorny issue of security head-on. "With NT4, we never talked about hackers or viruses" -- yes, we know, muttered the hacks under their breath, and look what a mess you got into -- "but now we know we have to make our operating system... impenetrable!".
And what to make of "We're betting the farm on open standards!" from Mark Greatorex, director of .Net development in Microsoft UK? The one reason I really wanted to go to the launch was to talk to someone about Microsoft not supporting open storage standards, but there was nobody there who had the answer. (They're getting back to me, as they have been for the past few weeks).
It was all worth it in the end. I had a cracking talk with Rob Short, MS' kernel supreme, who was a Real Engineer and thus made sense, and then went back into the fray to get shouted at by Ballmer over the satellite link.
Odd life.
Windows Server 2003 is launched today, and I win the much-coveted chance to go and have Steve Ballmer yell at me by remote control. There is a predictable format to such things, and I look forward to finding out how the PR company, AugustOne, has misspelt my name on my badge. They -- and their ancestors, Text 100 -- always do. This time the PRs avoid the problem altogether by losing my registration completely.
The launch itself follows the rules to the letter: "We've heard what you've said, and you won't get herds of happy Microsoft people with reams of PowerPoint slides!" said a happy Microsoft person in front of a PowerPoint slide, before introducing herds of happy Microsoft people with reams of PowerPoint slides.
But there were some high spots. The great "Here's how easy it is to move a SAP database from 32-bit Windows to 64-bit Windows" live demonstration resulted in many awkward silences and a selection of error messages. Likewise, the live demonstration of distributed deployment -- see twenty-six servers instantaneously load Windows across the network! -- worked fine for twenty-four. And it was surely cruel to introduce Ken Maxwell, director of Business Critical Systems from HP, to the strains of the Fun Lovin' Criminals. Back came the happy Microsoftie, who tackled the thorny issue of security head-on. "With NT4, we never talked about hackers or viruses" -- yes, we know, muttered the hacks under their breath, and look what a mess you got into -- "but now we know we have to make our operating system... impenetrable!".
And what to make of "We're betting the farm on open standards!" from Mark Greatorex, director of .Net development in Microsoft UK? The one reason I really wanted to go to the launch was to talk to someone about Microsoft not supporting open storage standards, but there was nobody there who had the answer. (They're getting back to me, as they have been for the past few weeks).
It was all worth it in the end. I had a cracking talk with Rob Short, MS' kernel supreme, who was a Real Engineer and thus made sense, and then went back into the fray to get shouted at by Ballmer over the satellite link.
Odd life.
Friday 25 April 2003, 4:16 PM
Wednesday
Wednesday 23/04/2003
There's always a period of confusion and misdirection when one regime gives way to another. Even when the changeover is expected and planned, nobody quite knows whether to do things the old way, or what's expected of the new -- just look at the transition between the Tudors and the Stuarts when Liz I pegged it and handed over the crown to Scottish Jimbo.
Some of the same unsettling feelings are being induced in the introduction of 64-bit processors. The Itanium 2 is just starting to make an impression -- still far less than Intel would have you believe -- and AMD is finally coming clean with the launch of the AMD64 processors. How does Intel respond? It releases a Pentium emulator for the Itanium.
I can make no sense of this whatsoever. First, the Itanium has a Pentium inside it already. A real, made out of silicon, Pentium, there to provide compatibility. It's not very fast -- in fact, since I've seen no figures for it in the years that the Itanium has been nominally launched, I suspect it is as slow as a wet Wednesday afternoon. But Intel can make it faster. That's what Intel does.
Writing a software emulator is just plain perverse. Software emulators are for people who can't afford silicon, or who don't have the rights to make the hardware, or who absolutely must have compatibility and there's no other way. That's why Transmeta does it: the talk about performance gains and power savings haven't cut much ice.
So why? Is Intel about to drop the hardware aspect of the Itanium's 32-bit compatibility? Is it about to launch a much better 32-64 chip for the desktop (the much rumoured Yamhill) and this is a stopgap?
I'm going back to my Z80 until things settle down. Let me know when sanity returns.
There's always a period of confusion and misdirection when one regime gives way to another. Even when the changeover is expected and planned, nobody quite knows whether to do things the old way, or what's expected of the new -- just look at the transition between the Tudors and the Stuarts when Liz I pegged it and handed over the crown to Scottish Jimbo.
Some of the same unsettling feelings are being induced in the introduction of 64-bit processors. The Itanium 2 is just starting to make an impression -- still far less than Intel would have you believe -- and AMD is finally coming clean with the launch of the AMD64 processors. How does Intel respond? It releases a Pentium emulator for the Itanium.
I can make no sense of this whatsoever. First, the Itanium has a Pentium inside it already. A real, made out of silicon, Pentium, there to provide compatibility. It's not very fast -- in fact, since I've seen no figures for it in the years that the Itanium has been nominally launched, I suspect it is as slow as a wet Wednesday afternoon. But Intel can make it faster. That's what Intel does.
Writing a software emulator is just plain perverse. Software emulators are for people who can't afford silicon, or who don't have the rights to make the hardware, or who absolutely must have compatibility and there's no other way. That's why Transmeta does it: the talk about performance gains and power savings haven't cut much ice.
So why? Is Intel about to drop the hardware aspect of the Itanium's 32-bit compatibility? Is it about to launch a much better 32-64 chip for the desktop (the much rumoured Yamhill) and this is a stopgap?
I'm going back to my Z80 until things settle down. Let me know when sanity returns.
Friday 25 April 2003, 4:16 PM
Rupert Goodwins' Diary
Monday 21/04/2003
Happy Easter!
Tuesday 22/04/2003
Meanwhile, over in Santa Clara, the O'Reilly Emerging Technologies Conference is underway. The usual suspects are there -- Howard Rheingold, Alan Kay, Mitch Kapor -- as well as this year's models, Craig Silverstein, director of tech at Google. And the usual subjects are under discussion: social software, wireless technology, nanotech. Alas, such high-powered minds come at a price -- even were I able to get across for the gig, I'm unlikely to be able to afford to get into a place that happily advertises "Save up to $455 on registration."
Fortunately, the revolution will be blogged, so I can live the thrill vicariously. I watch avidly from across the pond as the mighty brains swing into action and the troops on the ground poise fingers above wireless enabled laptop to report their every word.
Alas! The technology rises up and revolts! Urgent messages spew across the ether. "be very careful that when you're configuring your card, that YOU DO NOT CREATE an ad-hoc WiFi network called 'oreilly'!" It seems that careless configuration was knocking people off the wireless network, and at one point a user counted no fewer than three identically named 802.11b networks battling it out for users in one room alone. "Sounds like a regular goat-rodeo," commented LoveGravy on www.bonigboing.net.
Shame I missed it. It must have been a very Darwinian way to promote emerging technologies.
Happy Easter!
Tuesday 22/04/2003
Meanwhile, over in Santa Clara, the O'Reilly Emerging Technologies Conference is underway. The usual suspects are there -- Howard Rheingold, Alan Kay, Mitch Kapor -- as well as this year's models, Craig Silverstein, director of tech at Google. And the usual subjects are under discussion: social software, wireless technology, nanotech. Alas, such high-powered minds come at a price -- even were I able to get across for the gig, I'm unlikely to be able to afford to get into a place that happily advertises "Save up to $455 on registration."
Fortunately, the revolution will be blogged, so I can live the thrill vicariously. I watch avidly from across the pond as the mighty brains swing into action and the troops on the ground poise fingers above wireless enabled laptop to report their every word.
Alas! The technology rises up and revolts! Urgent messages spew across the ether. "be very careful that when you're configuring your card, that YOU DO NOT CREATE an ad-hoc WiFi network called 'oreilly'!" It seems that careless configuration was knocking people off the wireless network, and at one point a user counted no fewer than three identically named 802.11b networks battling it out for users in one room alone. "Sounds like a regular goat-rodeo," commented LoveGravy on www.bonigboing.net.
Shame I missed it. It must have been a very Darwinian way to promote emerging technologies.
Thursday 17 April 2003, 4:15 PM
Friday - Honest...
Friday 18/04/2003
At the time of writing, Friday hasn't happened yet. But that's never stopped me. Easter will be spent in London, with lashings of ginger beer and full advantage taken of the vast empty spaces left by the hordes who've departed for foreign climes.
Sol permitting, one such place should be Hampstead Heath, which is a grand place for a picnic. But be careful: odd things happen. A friend -- now long since departed -- was enjoying an Easter perambulation on the Heath one year when he came across a large cross embedded firmly in the ground overlooking central London. Being an easy-going chap, he wasn't quick to take offence from any religion -- but this was different! Vandalism of one of his favourite bits of urban countryside. So he set about pulling it down.
After about quarter of an hour of huffing and puffing, down it came. He looked up from his labours to see several members of the Heath's constabulary bearing down on him at some speed, with a couple of Angry Christians in their wake. Turns out that said erection was in fact 'a long running tradition' and due to problems from local kids the fuzz had been lying in wait. Turning the other cheek wasn't on the menu that day: the agenda was strictly smiting the ungodly.
My friend survived without being landed with the sort of record that gets you thrown out of America these days -- can you imagine explaining this to immigration at Atlanta? -- but it just goes to show. Live and let live: it's not just a good idea, it's the law. Especially on the Heath.
Click here to see more of Rupert's diaries.
At the time of writing, Friday hasn't happened yet. But that's never stopped me. Easter will be spent in London, with lashings of ginger beer and full advantage taken of the vast empty spaces left by the hordes who've departed for foreign climes.
Sol permitting, one such place should be Hampstead Heath, which is a grand place for a picnic. But be careful: odd things happen. A friend -- now long since departed -- was enjoying an Easter perambulation on the Heath one year when he came across a large cross embedded firmly in the ground overlooking central London. Being an easy-going chap, he wasn't quick to take offence from any religion -- but this was different! Vandalism of one of his favourite bits of urban countryside. So he set about pulling it down.
After about quarter of an hour of huffing and puffing, down it came. He looked up from his labours to see several members of the Heath's constabulary bearing down on him at some speed, with a couple of Angry Christians in their wake. Turns out that said erection was in fact 'a long running tradition' and due to problems from local kids the fuzz had been lying in wait. Turning the other cheek wasn't on the menu that day: the agenda was strictly smiting the ungodly.
My friend survived without being landed with the sort of record that gets you thrown out of America these days -- can you imagine explaining this to immigration at Atlanta? -- but it just goes to show. Live and let live: it's not just a good idea, it's the law. Especially on the Heath.
Click here to see more of Rupert's diaries.
Thursday 17 April 2003, 4:15 PM
Thursday - Meejah tart
Thursday 17/04/2003
"Why aren't you on the telly any more?" asked a fan the other day. Well, I say a fan -- I mean our MD, who very much enjoys each occurrence of "ZDNet UK" in the mainstream media. The rule is, I haul myself into the TV or radio studios at any time of the day or night (you can end up going in at 11:30 p.m. and back at 5:30 a.m.) to answer three questions lasting forty-five seconds in return for a cup of coffee and a byline mentioning my employment. The BBC knows this, and uses me shamelessly. I love it.
Well, I tell my eager audience, there's a war on, and everyone's busy with things other than goings-on in the high-tech playpen. You wait, I continue with more confidence than was warranted, just as soon as the Marines are eating their MREs in Tikrit Central I'll be back on the box as quickly as you can say "AMD's red ink".
And so it came to pass: today, there's an interview with Click Online (on News 24 several times over this coming weekend and BBC 1 on Sunday) about cyber-terrorism, another with World Business Report about Apple and Universal, and one on Radio 5 Live and one on World Service, both about AOL and spam. I'm back!
But I really should get an agent...
"Why aren't you on the telly any more?" asked a fan the other day. Well, I say a fan -- I mean our MD, who very much enjoys each occurrence of "ZDNet UK" in the mainstream media. The rule is, I haul myself into the TV or radio studios at any time of the day or night (you can end up going in at 11:30 p.m. and back at 5:30 a.m.) to answer three questions lasting forty-five seconds in return for a cup of coffee and a byline mentioning my employment. The BBC knows this, and uses me shamelessly. I love it.
Well, I tell my eager audience, there's a war on, and everyone's busy with things other than goings-on in the high-tech playpen. You wait, I continue with more confidence than was warranted, just as soon as the Marines are eating their MREs in Tikrit Central I'll be back on the box as quickly as you can say "AMD's red ink".
And so it came to pass: today, there's an interview with Click Online (on News 24 several times over this coming weekend and BBC 1 on Sunday) about cyber-terrorism, another with World Business Report about Apple and Universal, and one on Radio 5 Live and one on World Service, both about AOL and spam. I'm back!
But I really should get an agent...
Thursday 17 April 2003, 4:15 PM
Wednesday - Apple Records?
Wednesday 16/04/2003
Is Apple going to buy Universal Records? Can I think of anything odder? It's true that Steve Jobs considers himself something of a player -- well, setting up a reasonably successful film studio in Pixar can't have hurt the man's ego -- and it's also true that Apple is preparing an online music operation. But if you're doing that, the last thing you want to do is buy a record company -- as Bertlesmann found when it got Napster. None of the other companies want anything to do with you, and where's the point in having a record shop with only one label in it? (Unless it's Warp, of course. But the thought of Richard D. James, aka the Aphex Twin, in charge of product development at Apple is not a good one).
Nah, as far as can be ascertained it's a case of Apple going to Vivendi -- who owns Universal -- and offering money for back catalogue online distribution rights. Vivendi, keen to offload as much as possible in order to pay off its no-longer-trendy enormodebt, said "Why not take the lot?"; Apple went "Well, I'll think about that," at which point Vivendi leaked the best possible spin on the response in order to drive up the price with the other companies who are also sniffing around. Which may include Microsoft. Nice.
In any case, Apple Records? Not the best of associations for a business.
Is Apple going to buy Universal Records? Can I think of anything odder? It's true that Steve Jobs considers himself something of a player -- well, setting up a reasonably successful film studio in Pixar can't have hurt the man's ego -- and it's also true that Apple is preparing an online music operation. But if you're doing that, the last thing you want to do is buy a record company -- as Bertlesmann found when it got Napster. None of the other companies want anything to do with you, and where's the point in having a record shop with only one label in it? (Unless it's Warp, of course. But the thought of Richard D. James, aka the Aphex Twin, in charge of product development at Apple is not a good one).
Nah, as far as can be ascertained it's a case of Apple going to Vivendi -- who owns Universal -- and offering money for back catalogue online distribution rights. Vivendi, keen to offload as much as possible in order to pay off its no-longer-trendy enormodebt, said "Why not take the lot?"; Apple went "Well, I'll think about that," at which point Vivendi leaked the best possible spin on the response in order to drive up the price with the other companies who are also sniffing around. Which may include Microsoft. Nice.
In any case, Apple Records? Not the best of associations for a business.
Thursday 17 April 2003, 4:15 PM
Tuesday - Blue Screen Of Death
Tuesday 15/04/2003
We've got one of them new-fangled Intel 3GHz Pentium 4s with the 800MHz front side bus, nicely fitted inside a big fast box from one of Intel's friends. Slap on the benchmarks, press the big red button, hang onto hats, socks and other easily detached items of peripheral clothing, and... bang! Blue Screen Of Death.
It's not a normal BSOD. No reams of hex dumps, register contents and stack vomit, just a terse message and a couple of strings of zeros.
Hm. Try again. And again, the latest and greatest ends up in a virtual heap on the floor, more Norman Wisdom than Paula Radcliffe.
We're digesting this when the news comes in that Intel, bless, has withdrawn the chip due to a "small anomaly observed in validation testing on a small number of chips"
We have no trouble believing this, but despite much needling we're unable to find out what the anomaly is, nor why it would only appear on a few chips -- and if so, why they couldn't just junk those. Nobody gets 100 percent yield, specially not on a new and particularly fast design. So it must be something more than that -- but at least Intel hasn't got as far as an FDIV recall.
We don't know that our ill computer is really demonstrating whatever it is that Intel is trying to hide. But it remains a possibility. If only I had a scope to hang off the bus...
We've got one of them new-fangled Intel 3GHz Pentium 4s with the 800MHz front side bus, nicely fitted inside a big fast box from one of Intel's friends. Slap on the benchmarks, press the big red button, hang onto hats, socks and other easily detached items of peripheral clothing, and... bang! Blue Screen Of Death.
It's not a normal BSOD. No reams of hex dumps, register contents and stack vomit, just a terse message and a couple of strings of zeros.
Hm. Try again. And again, the latest and greatest ends up in a virtual heap on the floor, more Norman Wisdom than Paula Radcliffe.
We're digesting this when the news comes in that Intel, bless, has withdrawn the chip due to a "small anomaly observed in validation testing on a small number of chips"
We have no trouble believing this, but despite much needling we're unable to find out what the anomaly is, nor why it would only appear on a few chips -- and if so, why they couldn't just junk those. Nobody gets 100 percent yield, specially not on a new and particularly fast design. So it must be something more than that -- but at least Intel hasn't got as far as an FDIV recall.
We don't know that our ill computer is really demonstrating whatever it is that Intel is trying to hide. But it remains a possibility. If only I had a scope to hang off the bus...
Thursday 17 April 2003, 4:15 PM
Rupert Goodwins' Diary
Monday 14/03/2003
Have you had an Ebay Disappointment? I have. Bought an oscilloscope -- every home should have one -- that is cheap, ancient, 'working' according to the guy. He's a bit rubbish at answering his emails, which is not a good sign, and it takes a while and a few excuses before the postie finally produces a large, heavy package. Excitement!
It turns up bashed to pieces in the post, with the knobs smashed to smithereens and various components hanging off leads inside the box. In short, it's dead -- and after intensive investigations, it turns out you can't get spare parts for Philips test equipment, let alone old stuff. Matey doesn't answer emails. In fact, he's moved.
Bah.
But things aren't as bad for me as for those suckers who've been caught up in the Great Iraq Fire Sale on eBay. Tons of rubbish, but the best and most tempting offer is for those neat sets of cards issued to the coalition forces with the faces of the evildoers printed thereon. Bidding for one of those gets up to around $500-- well, they are iconic, interesting and culturally significant.
What they aren't is at all rare. Not only can you buy the cards from the original suppliers for around $6 all-in, but the US Department of Defense has put the PDF up on its Web site, so you can print your own.
Fab, and I don't feel nearly so bad about being ripped off over a dodgy scope.
Have you had an Ebay Disappointment? I have. Bought an oscilloscope -- every home should have one -- that is cheap, ancient, 'working' according to the guy. He's a bit rubbish at answering his emails, which is not a good sign, and it takes a while and a few excuses before the postie finally produces a large, heavy package. Excitement!
It turns up bashed to pieces in the post, with the knobs smashed to smithereens and various components hanging off leads inside the box. In short, it's dead -- and after intensive investigations, it turns out you can't get spare parts for Philips test equipment, let alone old stuff. Matey doesn't answer emails. In fact, he's moved.
Bah.
But things aren't as bad for me as for those suckers who've been caught up in the Great Iraq Fire Sale on eBay. Tons of rubbish, but the best and most tempting offer is for those neat sets of cards issued to the coalition forces with the faces of the evildoers printed thereon. Bidding for one of those gets up to around $500-- well, they are iconic, interesting and culturally significant.
What they aren't is at all rare. Not only can you buy the cards from the original suppliers for around $6 all-in, but the US Department of Defense has put the PDF up on its Web site, so you can print your own.
Fab, and I don't feel nearly so bad about being ripped off over a dodgy scope.
Friday 11 April 2003, 5:02 PM
Friday - Office party after-effects
Friday 11/4/2003
The inner child is silent this morning, due to the adult indignities of the night before. One of our new management's more dubious decisions has been to hold a quarterly state of the nation meeting, where the whole company (recently swelled by us buying another) is treated to presentations on where the business is going and why. I'm all for corporate communications, even though my one-man campaign to stamp out management jargon is not proving successful. We had nine 'going forwards' in just under an hour, or roughly one every six minutes: obviously I'll have to consider naming and shaming next. Even so, this isn't the dubious part of the decision -- what can go badly wrong is the "let's all go to the pub afterwards" aspect.
Now, these aren't the days of dot-com legend any more. We, like everyone else in this business, have had to put the corporate yacht on hold for a while. But it has to be said the post-PowerPoint party on Thursday night was more than enthusiastically enjoyed. I was going to recount some of the less reprehensible acts, but there weren't many of those. It's been a long time since I've seen senior management prove their authority through drinking competitions (strawpedoes -- just say go), or what 50 shots of glutinous cocktails look like on one plate. And as for the co-worker who invited me to a fetish club -- somewhere, pictures exist of the last time I went in for That Sort Of Thing, and the inadvisability they demonstrate cannot be overstressed (unlike the leather straps).
There was dancing of a sort banned in the lower twenty states of the USA, there was an excess of chicken drumsticks coated obscenely in barbeque sauce, and there was one recently married and very respectable bod who had to explain on her mobile from the floor of a tube train heading in the wrong direction why she was going to Woodford instead of back home to hubby in outer South-West London. It seems that London cabbies are under no obligation to take someone who is incapable of standing unaided. Did you know that? I didn't know that.
And this is during an uncertain economy. What happens when we once again scale the pinnacles of high profits? I don't know and frankly I'm scared to guess. But you can be sure I'll let you know when I do.
Nurse...
Click here to see more of Rupert's diaries.
The inner child is silent this morning, due to the adult indignities of the night before. One of our new management's more dubious decisions has been to hold a quarterly state of the nation meeting, where the whole company (recently swelled by us buying another) is treated to presentations on where the business is going and why. I'm all for corporate communications, even though my one-man campaign to stamp out management jargon is not proving successful. We had nine 'going forwards' in just under an hour, or roughly one every six minutes: obviously I'll have to consider naming and shaming next. Even so, this isn't the dubious part of the decision -- what can go badly wrong is the "let's all go to the pub afterwards" aspect.
Now, these aren't the days of dot-com legend any more. We, like everyone else in this business, have had to put the corporate yacht on hold for a while. But it has to be said the post-PowerPoint party on Thursday night was more than enthusiastically enjoyed. I was going to recount some of the less reprehensible acts, but there weren't many of those. It's been a long time since I've seen senior management prove their authority through drinking competitions (strawpedoes -- just say go), or what 50 shots of glutinous cocktails look like on one plate. And as for the co-worker who invited me to a fetish club -- somewhere, pictures exist of the last time I went in for That Sort Of Thing, and the inadvisability they demonstrate cannot be overstressed (unlike the leather straps).
There was dancing of a sort banned in the lower twenty states of the USA, there was an excess of chicken drumsticks coated obscenely in barbeque sauce, and there was one recently married and very respectable bod who had to explain on her mobile from the floor of a tube train heading in the wrong direction why she was going to Woodford instead of back home to hubby in outer South-West London. It seems that London cabbies are under no obligation to take someone who is incapable of standing unaided. Did you know that? I didn't know that.
And this is during an uncertain economy. What happens when we once again scale the pinnacles of high profits? I don't know and frankly I'm scared to guess. But you can be sure I'll let you know when I do.
Nurse...
Click here to see more of Rupert's diaries.
Previous
