mdtb

Bussing the Bankers

2009-06-28T12:33:00.005+01:00

Every decent high-school movie has to have a scene in a school bus.

The protagonist gets on the bus and he knows everyone. The cute girls are ogling at him whilst he walks past the usual selection of stereotypical schoolmates, the jock, the nerd, the wallflower etc etc.

Getting on the bus to work I recently felt like straight out of that movie. I have been getting on the same bus for a while and finally you realize, you have seen all of them before.

You know who is getting on where, who is leaving at which stop, who is going to work and who is dropping off their kids at school.

You also realize that some people are already at work when they get on the bus. They have their Blackberry out and type furiously, others approach the morning commute more leisurely.

Time passing is symbolized by kids who have been not reading recently are suddenly being quizzed by their mom over the spelling of "amazing". Occasionally, a woman starts showing a baby bump, others reappear from being gone on maternity leave.

The one thing that is different from all the high school movies, their is no chatting. It if like Ferris Bueller's Day off with the sound turned off. Because everybody provides their own soundtrack on their shiny MP3 players.

Which means everybody is in their own movie.

Let's hope everybody is enjoying it.

Smart Phone - Dumb User

2009-06-22T05:38:00.005+01:00

Apparently, as I read recently in the press, this is the summer of smartphones.

So that's what it has come to. Our parents had the luck of living through summers of love in the 60s. On the flipside, they also had winters of discontent in the 70s, but at least it involved some kind of emotion.

Our generation, however, has summers of smartphones.

Don't get me wrong, I love my iPhone. It's fun to have a cool little computer in your pocket and I find myself surfing the web on it at home, despite the proximity of a proper computer that I could use to display webpages on a 17' screen rather than 3.5'.

Does it make my summer however? Surely not. In fact, I could well do without it. My old dumbphone the size of a brick was able to do phone calls just as well, and whilst I was recharging my batteries on holiday, it rarely ever needed to. My smartphone however, needs even more recharging than I do.

Admittedly, surfing the web on the go is a lovely thing. A confessed news-addict, I enjoy staying updated wherever I am. But there is a slight difference between information and knowledge. Being able to google something everywhere doesn't make me cleverer, it makes me better informed.

Whilst waiting to pick the family up at the airport the other week, I found myself stuck in a crowded Costa Coffee with just my phone and TheLondonPaper I had picked up on the way. After the usual Facebook shenanigans and a round of Trism and Scrabble each, I found myself reading the (rather-trashy-but-not-as-bad-as-London-Lite) paper and solving crossword puzzles.

The whole world is at my fingertips, and all I worry about is "verse-type, 6 letters, ending with T".

Maybe it's just me who isn't smart enough. I am afraid that once my phone finds out, it will leave me for somebody smarter.

After my contract runs out that is.

When in June...

2009-06-21T15:55:00.006+01:00

I'd be tempted to say "Shoot for the moon" but that would be dumb.

And cheap, for reasons to difficult to explain to most people, in particular those without a Bloomberg account.

But as a random observation, I realised that there is a clear seasonal cycle of blogging activity which seems to be peaking in June.

Which is right now. Maybe it's the long days resulting from a combination of, ahem, long days (summer solstice and all that) and early morning wake-up calls from the little man.

But if history will tell us anything, this will come to an end very quickly, so maybe:

When in July, let the ink run dry?

28 Gazillions Later

2009-06-21T15:46:00.006+01:00

Since a career in banking is no longer guaranteed to make for glamourous living, it is time to branch out into entertainment. Here is my pitch for a movie project...

The movie starts with a pre-credit sequence showing a few well-groomed men in a high-rise office building in London. They stand in front of a Bloomberg terminal, applauding the launch of a new type of asset, one that is not shown to the audience.

Our unnamed hero is introduced as a successful, mid-level banker who has just been discharged from the Priory where he spent an unspecified period of time after suffering from burn-out.

Upon his return to work, he finds the City of London completely deserted, although it is rush hour. He manages to find local coffee vendor, Mr Frothy, who is hiding. Mr Frothy viciously attacks him until our protagonist manages to convince him that he does not pose a threat.

Frothy then reveals what has happened during his absence: Bankers created toxic assets which spread like wildfire across the financial markets. Once unleashed, anyone who came in contact with those assets directly - or with those who had been exposed to them - underwent a rapid transformation and became a mindless, raging lunatic. The first sign of infection was lack of consumer spending - to the extent those infected started bringing packed lunches to work. This was quickly followed by a descent into general man-slaughtering madness.

The Government reacted by quarantining the infected at Canary Wharf, turning it into a high-security area they labelled 'The Bad Bank'. But despite their efforts, there were more infected citizens still on the loose.

Our hero persuades Frothy to join him on a mission to Canary Wharf to get a better picture of the catastrophe that has befallen London.

There they discover the sinister truth behind the authorities' actions. The military had been trying to design toxic assets for decades, but the resourceful bankers succeeded first. Hence the bankers were being contained to bring the knowledge of those assets into the hand of the state.

Our protagonist is shocked by the plan to nationalise bankers in order to turn them into deadly government weapons, and decides to flee the country. Uninformed because of his recent 'holiday', he believes that the phenomenon is specific to the UK, and considers continental Europe a safe haven.

After being chased through London by hordes of raging bankers, our hero and Frothy make it to St Pancras, and collapse into their seats on the Eurostar.

Frothy, the trustworthy companion who has been serving the banking community for decades, unpacks a sandwich from home, and offers a bite to our hero with a smile on his face.

Published first on Here is the City Life on February 1st, the original can be found here.

Do you still Google?

2009-06-21T15:22:00.005+01:00

Or do you already Bing?

Odds are: The former rather than the latter.

First things first: As far as I am concerned, Bing does not seem to lend itself naturally to being used as a verb. Binging the web, maybe? Web-binging? Doesn't roll of the tongue. But then again, when Google was chosen as a company name, being in the Oxford Dictionary was probably not on the top of the list of what the founders where after either.

In any case, the exciting news was the other day, that Bing has made it in at Number 2 in the list of most used search engines. While this is impressive, the small print revealed that in terms of search engine usage, there is Google, and then there is nothing for a VERY long time. Being Number 2 means that you have a market share of about 2%.

Nevertheless, exciting enough to test drive the new Bing on the Block. Rumour has it that its strength is the image search.

I did what every respectable tester would do and googled (sorry, binged) my name as search term. And voila, it came up with a picture of me and my son. Apart from the fact that I didn't like that in terms of privacy, it turned out to be my own fault since it happened to be a Facebook profile picture.

Nevertheless much closer to the truth than a picture of some red chilli peppers that Google came up with. Taken by a photographer who shares my name.

And indeed much better than Cuil which chooses not to know me at all. This very non-representative sample of one explains however why the latter seems to have already joined Altavista on the scrapyard of Search Engines.

Time will tell whether Microsoft has finally scored some points on the web. I guess there's only a factor of 40 in terms of market share to go.

For Rent: London

2009-06-21T14:56:00.004+01:00

Yes, all of it.

Ah, those green shoots. People are seeing them everywhere they look. Optimism is on the rise and before we know it, we will all take out 95% LTV interest-only mortgages not worrying about such mundane things like repayments.

There is a saying that the difference between an optimist and a pessimist is that the latter is better informed. And in another word of wisdom, a colleague once told me, about 3 or 4 years ago, that a sure-fire indicator of the economy heading for a recession is the number of cranes that are up in the City.

Well, a few years ago that number was very large indeed and last time I checked we were still in a recession, green shoots are not.

Also, since builders have been busy a few years ago there is now a copious amount of office space in the City. Unfortunately, that space becomes available at about the same time as firms in the Financial Sector are clearing the desks in the space that they have already available.

If the demand for hiring is a good proxy for the demand for office space, I would not expect those "For Rent" signs to come down anytime soon.

So maybe if we are optimistically looking for green shots, it is best to cast a blind eye on commercial real estate.

Obituary: The Bonus

2009-04-12T20:47:00.004+01:00

It is with great sadness that we report the loss of a beloved friend who has been an inspiration to many of us. It was he who has been the incentive to work hard, and who has lifted us from mediocrity to excellence: the investment-banking bonus.

During his short existence the deceased touched the lives of hundreds of thousands in a remarkable fashion. Born into a world where 'leverage' was not deemed a swear word, he showed early signs of almost messianic leadership skills. When he spoke people listened, and his admirers craved his friendship and wanted to align themselves with him to form long-standing bonds.

Those close to him would not hesitate to testify how enriching his friendship was, and how it had elevated their lives to levels they could never have reached without his acquaintance.

However his life was not without controversy. Often his friendship was flighty. Those who relied too much on his alliance found themselves in a state of despair when they discovered that his favours had changed and that he had moved on to other partners.

Since people were aware of his volatile nature, they sometimes demanded written assurance of his loyalty, a practice which earned him huge criticism, in particular from those who could not secure this type of guarantee.

In the later stages of his life many of his friends were found to be involved in a global network of fraud, dodgy dealings and other misdemeanours. After the extent of these activities came to light, the late bonus was - maybe wrongly - singled out for his negative influence on the key decision makers at the heart of these aberrations.

Finding himself under intense scrutiny from media and politics, he finally succumbed to the pressure when he decided to end his colourful existence.

He is survived by his modest long-term partner, the base salary. He will be sorely missed.

First published on HereIsTheCity Life on the 4th March 2009.

Sacked or Just Offline?

2009-02-17T21:53:00.003Z

In this day and age, somebody being offline on his Bloomberg can only mean one thing, right?

When I meet with a friend of mine last weekend (who happens to work in Derivatives in a large investment bank) he mentioned that he had been given information about another round of layoffs being announced the following Monday. When wondering whether he could potentially affected, he assured me this would not be the case since he had been doing well over the course of the year, and was continuing to do good business. He rated the chances of him being part of the alleged 15% of the workforce to be let go as fairly slim.

A few days later, I thought I would check with him that everything was fine and tried contacting him via Bloomberg (so it looked like work). He was showing as 'Offline', so I decided to follow up the next day just to make sure. When he was still showing as offline, I started getting concerned since this clearly could only mean one thing: his optimism must have been poor judgement.

As I was about to contact his wife to check whether he was OK, I started remembering that the to-be-announced-layoff was not the only thing we had talked about over drinks, but clearly the only thing that was present in my mind.

It occurred to me that aside from that he had mentioned something about embarking on his long-delayed honeymoon the day after we met up.

Whilst I had already pictured him down at the local Job Centre, it turned out he was enjoying himself in sunnier climes, a few hours flight away from the corporate bloodshed at home.

And that's a much better reason to be offline.

Unfortunately, it's just not necessarily the first reason that springs to mind nowadays.

Originally published on HereIsTheCity Life, the original can be found here.

An Apple a Day

2009-02-17T21:41:00.003Z

keeps the doctor away, an entry a month the readers. If only the max no. of characters was 140, I'd be done by now. Ugh, now.

Crunch Time for Soul-Searching

2009-02-08T19:53:00.003Z

When bankers got together they used to talk money, cars and houses. Nowadays, they talk about 'What If' they lost their jobs. Or is it more a matter of 'What When'?

When the number of people losing their jobs goes into the hundreds of thousands, it is not surprising that people in your immediate circle of friends, if not yourself, become affected.

Recently I was taking stock of how my friends fared, and concluded that almost two-thirds of my banking acquaintances had lost their jobs. Given that bad news and disastrous results in banking come out more often now than bad results for Tottenham Hotspurs, it is understandable that my fellow bankers, those who still have jobs, are nervous.

At recent birthday drinks with a finance friend in Canary Wharf, unsurprisingly, the No. 1 topic was the employment situation, the likelihood of more redundancies, and how people perceive the threat of themselves being in the firing line.

And since nobody - not even the boldest optimists - consider themselves safe, a lot of thought is spent on what to do when the pink slip finds its way to you.

After a quick poll, it's clear that very few of my friends are in banking because they love it. It has been an industry that paid over the odds in the past, and therefore attracted bright individuals by the mere fact that salaries were so much higher than anywhere outside of banking.

It is obvious that the banking world is becoming smaller and it will not accommodate as many as it used to. For all of us who never have done anything but, it yields the question of what else there is to do. And unfortunately, retirement is not an option since most of us joined the industry too late to have reaped in the big bucks.

Interestingly enough, I recently met a former banker who has set up a recruitment agency placing former bankers into other industries. Her USP was: "What do you really want to do?" Her argument was that if you ignore your bonus, other industries don't pay that badly in comparison.

If banking has never been one's passion and the absence of bonuses means that the pay gap is narrowing, that suddenly sounds like a decent proposition.

And with bonus season upon us, I suspect the soul searching will continue.

Published on HereIsTheCity Life on 2nd December 2008, the original can be found here.

No Jobs, No Coffee, No Insurance

2009-01-22T19:50:00.003Z

How do you know things are really bad? When you can't even get a headhunter to buy you a coffee anymore!

Oh well, I do remember the good old days.

Our knowledge on funky derivatives was a sparse asset and when you wanted to be treated to a coffee, you could just call up a headhunter of your choice, tell them that you were interested in opportunities. They would meet you for a coffee, on their expenses of course.

As a sign how far the market has plummeted, I recently got a phone call from a recruitment agent about some opportunity, which was the first call of that sort in a long, long time.

We met up at a local Starbucks and while the recruiter was going on about the exciting opportunity (just like the old days) we were sitting at Starbucks for the biggest part of half an hour - WITHOUT BUYING ANY COFFEE!

Nobody mentioned it, nobody offered it, they didn't have any beverage, and neither did I.

Of course, I could have bought one for me, but that defeats the purpose, doesn't it?

Slightly bemused by the fact I went back to the office, where I found an e-mail from my financial adviser about how insurers do not underwrite unemployment insurance for anyone working in the Financial Services Industry anymore.

So nobody pays me when I lose my job, nobody pays me to take on a new job and nobody buys
me a coffee to tell me about any jobs.

Looks like I'll be downsizing from a Venti Caramel Frappucinos to a regular filter coffee.

7 Reasons to Hate January

2009-01-04T12:55:00.006Z

With the New Year upon us, it is sometimes a little difficult to be excited about what's ahead of us. In particular since every new year starts with the month of January which seems amongst the grimmest of them all.

Here are some reasons why we hate January:

Overcrowded gyms. The gyms are overcrowded with people who have either just subscribed to a membership they are going to use for about one month or with those who have subscribed in one of the previous year's January. Again, they will be gone by February but nevertheless a nuisance for the next few weeks.
Feeling the Weight. The excess weight that is. After eggnog lattes and mince pies galore it is impossible not to feel slightly heavy.
The Cold. Currently, London does not get anywhere above 0 degrees. But is it a charming, picturesque Winter Wonderland? No. It's just effing cold.
The Time to Bonus. With bonuses (albeit small) either already in your account or at least announced, the clock has effectively been set to zero again. Last year's achievements might not have paid off last year. They definitely won't count for this.
Detox. And by that we don't mean the rather dreadful Sylvester Stallone movie (which was D-Tox anyway) but rather the fact that there is a peer pressure of giving up booze and washing those toxins out of you. If only to make room for more toxins come February.
The aftermath of New Year's Resolutions. Let's face it - nobody ever keeps them, but that doesn't mean that one cannot feel a bit guilty about not living up to all those promises of New Year's Eve. Even if all those promises were born out of too much champagne.
Getting Older. Ok, it's a personal thing due to being born in January. Still counts though.

There might be some other things working in favour of good old Janus. But we will deal with those separately.

Bad Present = Bad Relationship?

2008-12-14T19:36:00.000Z

Does a gift indicate the state of a relationship? Lots of women think so and lots of men worry so. Which does not help to take the pressure off something that already can be a nerve-racking experience.

As everybody knows, women are sensitive creatures. Men assume relationships are fine unless they are told otherwise. They'll assume everything is great until they come home and either find all their personal belongings packed up in suitcases, or realise that the keys to the front door don't fit anymore. That's when they'll start to suspect that things might not be that rosy anymore.

Women however have a more refined approach and constantly question the state of their relationships. Whilst a lot of comments and actions can serve as a barometer of the emotional climate, presents by partners are the most welcome tool to judge the relationship. A not-very-thoughtful - or outright bad - present is read as an indicator that the partner has lost touch with what is important to her, and is seen as a sign of marital decline.

To be fair, it seems to work both ways: good gifts prove that their partner still cares about them and jumps through hoops to keep them happy.

As an example, I once gave my ex (a well-travelled, curious, worldly person) a huge, leather-bound atlas. Of course, she HATED it and if it hadn't been that oversized and heavy probably would have hit me over the head with it straightaway. Needless to say, it was a sure-fire sign that something was wrong, and not very much later I found myself in divorce court with little material possession left apart from said coffee-table atlas.

Then again, it is much easier to please somebody you are generally fond of. Over the years, I learned that diamonds are in fact, a girl's best friend, and that in general you can never go wrong with jewellery. Since you don't want to come across as an uninventive gift-giver however, there is a dangerous requirement to vary gifts. This can prove to be a lethal combination with the perceived pressure that any mishap on the gift front can be the entry ticket to marital counselling.

So when last year's Christmas shopping dawned, I thought long and carefully and finally came up with something I thought would be the perfect present for my significant other.

However, when wrapping up the present, the shop assistant asked me "Who's the lucky guy getting this gift?"

Needless to say, I was left wondering what that says about the state of my marriage.

Originally published on HereIsTheCity Life on 19th Dec 2007, the original can be viewed here.

The Return of the (Long) Lunch Break

2008-11-08T07:31:00.002Z

In times where employers cut pay by omitting bonuses, it seems that employees are getting even by cutting down on work hours and reviving a long lost treasure: The Lunch Break.

It does not take the skill of clairvoyance to figure out that come the end of this year, your annual discretionary payment will be - at the discretion of your employer - a lot smaller than it used to be.

While a lot of people came through last year's bonus season relatively unscathed, that is unlikely to happen this year where the number of banks doing well does not exceed the counting skills of a 4-year old.

And with this unfortunate outcome seemingly unavoidable, employees have drawn their own conclusions and seem to be acting accordingly.

Three years ago there was hardly a night when the trading floor was not well-manned at 9pm. It now seems difficult to find anyone around come 7pm.

Furthermore, people seem to have rediscovered socialising at lunch in order to brighten up the gloomy day-to-day proceedings.

Around St Paul's, a number of restaurants have opened in the last few weeks, and - as if the working population had only been waiting for more lunch joints - the likes of D Sum 2 and Le Pain Quotidien have been crowded from day one.

Bumping into a friend at LPQ, his only comment was: "If you look at how crowded this place is, you could wonder exactly where that recession is."

Right now, bankers sans bonus are not committed enough to spend their lunch breaks with a soggy sandwich, surfing the web at their desks. Nor are they too stretched to not be able to afford a sit-down lunch several times a week. We are after all, still speaking about suffering on a fairly high level.

Originally published on HereIsTheCity Life on 08-Sep-08. The original can be found here.

It's Raining Cabs. Not.

2008-11-03T20:39:00.003Z

There are 21,000 black cabs in London.

Unless it's raining and you need one, then there are none.

Agreed, there is a recession upon us and I know we all have to tighten our belts, but every once in a while I take the liberty to take a black cab.

And most of the time, the cabbies are perfectly fine, sometimes up for a chat, sometimes not. Sometimes you end up with one monologueing about how foreigners take all our jobs (clearly not recognising that he is driving around a foreigner) and sometimes they are just too busy handling their mobiles, a bag of crisp and driving a car at the same time.

Sometimes you find the ones with the light off who agree to pick you up because it's on the way, sometimes you find those with the light on who don't pick you up because they don't like the destination.

However, it seems that once it starts raining, they all disappear. It is impossible to find a taxi in the City when it pours down. Agreed that demand probably spikes, but hey - 21,000 cabs?

Maybe it's just that when there is a prolonged period of precipitation in London, all cabbies decide to go back to their houses in sunny Florida.

If you don't believe - try it: Ask your next cab driver about his house in Florida! Chances are he'll have one and he'll happily tell you about the benefits of hibernating in warmer climes.

Because that's what he does when you are being left in the rain.

Don't Ask Me, I Just Work Here!

2008-11-02T20:54:00.006Z

For some time I have been increasingly underwhelmed by the shop assistants you find in many high street stores.

What is the point of asking them if they know as much about what they are selling as you do?

From what I recall, it all started out with a visit to a electronic store because my camera (that I had bought in a store of the same chain) was not working properly. The person behind the counter clearly had neither knowledge about cameras nor any intention to help me and recommended going to Jessops. That was a surprising recommendation since I had not bought the camera there and I would have thought their inclination to help would probably be even smaller.

A similar incident occurred when buying a phone which we wanted to make sure that it could be muted. Asking the shop assistant she started reading the pack (which I had done before) and then concluded that the pack didn't say anything. I thought: "Thank you for being my reading assistant, I do have trouble with this occasionally".

I ended up asking her whether we could return the phone if it did not have the feature and simply unpacked it once I had left the store to check. If the mute button hadn't been that apparent I would have returned it right away.

It simply makes you think why anyone should not buy their goods online since the added value of buying offline seems to be fairly limited.

Then again, there are pleasant exceptions: In a standard High Street shop of all places, an employee surprised us with being helpful, knowledgable and - what seems to be very rare - feeling quite passionately about what he was trying to sell.

And you certainly don't want this rare passion to disappear simply because we all end up buying everything from Amazon.

The Traffic Warden From Heaven

2008-10-31T21:54:00.003Z

I always thought traffic wardens are supposed to write tickets and not point out to you that you shouldn't park where you park but that there is space on the other side of the street.

Who knew how wrong I could be?

Last Sunday, after a pub lunch out of town, we went into Kensington to meet a friend in the afternoon. After navigating our way through a maze of one-way streets, we finally found our destination and a parking spot right across the street from it.

Whilst we were still packing our things and our baby, a traffic warden walked past, but from our side there was no cause for concern since I thought I had legitimately parked the car.

Whilst walking past us he said: "I don't suppose you have a resident's permit, but let's assume I haven't seen that. However, if you want peace of mind, why don't you just pull your car over to the other side where there is a single yellow line which means it is allowed to park there this time of the day?"

From previous experiences, traffic wardens are usually fairly un-approachable and not susceptible to common sense at all.

Whether it was the fact that we were in the middle of getting our baby out of the car (which usually gets young a "young family" bonus) or he was just having a good day, I don't know .

And it doesn't matter, it's the result that counts.

And the fact that he played a role in rounding off a very pleasant Sunday afternoon.

Effortlessly.

Mirror, Mirror on the Wall

2008-10-25T22:37:00.006+01:00

A recent re-connect with a friend, the lack of quality drinking locations in the City and general depression brought us to grab a pint at "The Bolt Hole" off Cannon Street which turned into a after-work horror trip.

While the price of £6.40 for two 275ml bottles of Beck's (that being probably the worst beer that Germany could come up with) is already quite shocking, a more frightening experience occurred when visiting the gents'.

Looking into the bathroom mirror, suddenly an image appeared on that mirror announcing the release of the movie "Mirrors". I was surprised and intrigued about how nifty the projection on the mirror worked but what was being shown was fairly standard "Mirrors - In Theatres October 08" fare and therefore unremarkable.

Continuing to go about my business I turned my head away, and the next time I looked back towards the mirror, I was shell-shocked.

A rather distressed woman was seemingly behind the mirror, pressing her hands against it and screaming, eager to break through.

The announcement had changed to "There is evil on the other side."

And on this side, I was left wondering how small bottles of bad beer can cause such a trip.

Feel Free to Comment on My Life

2008-10-23T21:41:00.004+01:00

Where did this come from? Initially we liked Facebook because we could post pictures and connect with friends we had lost touch with (apart from the fact that it was probably ok to lose touch with them).

Then we all felt compelled to update our online status whereever we were and whatever we did (well, probably not to that extent, but it felt as if people were giving away a lot of information about their whereabouts and whatabouts).

And at some point, probably when Facebook updated themselves to a new version, they introduced that people could comment on your status.

So, when doing innocuous little updates such as

"[mdtb] is at the gym."

you suddenly find people leaving comments like

"What are you doing this for, Fatboy?"

That's when I realised you're not only putting up your life, you're actually putting it up for debate.

So you better have a good reason for it.

Random Thought #4: Look Up!

2008-10-21T22:31:00.004+01:00

Dogs can't do it, but you can. And in a very "Dead Poet's Society" way, it does in fact open up a new perspective.

As I recently walked through St. Katherine's Dock, a location I pass through with quite some regularity, I found myself waiting in a queue at the ATM, killing time, leaning backwards and spotting some artefact on a wall I hadn't seen before since I had never looked up there.

It turned out (as indicated by a plaque) that the artefact, a block of clear perspex showing a picture of a crown (more on it here) was planned to be featured in the Stanley Kubrick movie 2001: A Space Odyssey but was then replaced by the very well-known monolith.

I was fairly surprised that such a thing had escaped my attention for all the times I had walked past but felt that it simply confirms common sense.

Most of the time we only pay attention to what is clear view, usually at eye level and below. This is why supermarkets put whatever they want to sell you right there and not at a height of 7 feet. You wouldn't simply notice things up there (and you wouldn't be able to reach them but that's secondary).

On occasions it is great fun to walk through London and force yourself to pay attention to everything higher than let's say 10 feet.

You will be surprised about the amount of Gargoyles and statues you will find, as much as you will be simply putting a new angle on buildings that you might have walked past hundreds of times.

It beats reading the METRO hands down.

And by the way, dogs can look up as well but I thought it would make for a good opener.

Hate the Movie, Love the Review

2008-10-18T20:19:00.007+01:00

Sometimes movie reviews turn out to be more entertaining than the movie itself. Whilst their purpose is to let you know what's worth your time and what isn't, it is an added benefit if they happen to be worth your time themselves.

And so I came across Simon Mayo and Mark Kermode's weekly hour-long dissection of what is on at your local multiplex.

While this show has been for a while, I only got onto it earlier this year and now the weekly podcasts are a much welcome distraction when making the way to work.

Kermode (the critic) is a horror movie afficionado and seems to have developed a strong following for his rants about movies he dislikes, which includes any movie with "Pirates" or "Caribbean" in the title or movies directed by Guy Ritchie.

Both of them work extremely well together despite the fact that Mayo never goes and sees any movie that Kermode recommends and -- even worse -- seems to enjoy movies that Kermodes loathes (such as RocknRolla).

But admittedly, the movies seem to be just an excuse for the two to get together and go on endlessly about Jason Statham, Liam Neeson and how "The Exorcist" is the greatest movie of all times.

The Mamma Mia review that is available on YouTube has to be a firm personal favourite.

And it didn't make me see the movie as a consequence.

Keep Your Dignity with Google Mail!

2008-10-18T08:20:00.005+01:00

You have to love this. GoogleMail (or gmail) now has a feature that is aimed at preventing you from "drinking and mailing".

This feature - called Mail Goggles - is remarkably simple. You set up a time window (default is Friday and Saturday night between 10pm and 4am) at which you are most likely tempted to send out e-mails you might regret later.

Before the e-mail is sent out, you have to answer five maths questions correctly.

You can even set the level of difficulty for those questions, in case you happen to have a PhD in maths and consider yourself brilliant even when intoxicated.

Where were those features when we needed them most - 15 years ago, and applicable to all means of communications like phones, SMS etc?

I guess all you need now is a friend that prevents you from showing up drunk at you ex-wife's doorstep to embarrass yourself.

Although I don't want Google for this purpose.

Learn to Love Thy Employer

2008-10-18T07:31:00.005+01:00

Imagine you get on a carousel and suddenly you realise you are going to be stuck on the horse you picked for the rest of your (working) life. Welcome to the Finance Industry in 2008.

Sometimes there is a reason why the good old days are called the 'good old days'.

When I quit my first job in banking to move on (and a little bit up) after about two years, my father, who had been with his employer all his working life, started to seriously question my sanity. For somebody who had spent the biggest part of five decades with the same corporation, my swift move seemed foolish at best and high treason at worst.

Remarkably enough, the next job I gave up after a much shorter period, but by this time, resignation on his side had already kicked in and he chose to trust my judgement.

For a while, changing jobs regularly seemed a fairly low-risk strategy. You didn't really have to worry too much about whether long-term affiliation with your prospective employer was an issue for you. With a planning horizon of 18-24 months, being bound to an employer never looked like much of a burden. Loyalty in many cases lasted as long as - and rarely longer than - the contractually specified (and bonus-related) tie-in period.

The job market resembled a carousel where the workforce, sometimes in teams, moved from one shop to the next to apply their trade for ever increasing fees.

Needless to say, in the midst of an ever larger number of job losses being announced, this carousel has seriously, if not totally, lost its momentum, and a lot of staff have found themselves in situations where they are spending a much longer time with their current institution than they initially anticipated.

Whilst realistically, those who are secure in their jobs should consider themselves lucky, there might be a number of staffers who are not lamenting job losses (yet) but are rather disappointed about the lack of alternatives out there.

Maybe when getting on this carousel, those people should have selected the horse they were going to sit on with a little bit more diligence, just in case they were going to get stuck.

Because that is what they are likely to be now.

Originally published on HereIsTheCity Life on 01-June-2008, the original can be found here.

The Freedom to Be Opinionated

2008-10-18T06:00:00.000+01:00

Recently, whilst following the American election coverage and reading up on what people think about certain vice-presidential candidates I found a comment by a (presumably) American stating:

"You're not an American so you don't have the right to vote. Hence your opinion on the candidates is irrelevant."

Which made me think: First of all, whoever made this comment doesn't like the opinion of the other person (although this is not such a profound insight admittedly). And he probably isn't that pleased about what most people abroad think of certain Alaskan hockey moms.

Rendering the opinion irrelevant I thought was a more dangerous thing. The point is taken that you don't have to be won over since you are not the target audience. But does that mean until you're 18, your opinion doesn't matter.

Does it start to matter overnight? Or only if you like his opinion?

I guess if you throw your hat in the ring to stand in for the most powerful executive job in the world, you have to deal with the fact that people opine about you. Not only your voters, but everyone.

And since you end up dealing with Non-Americans, you might find out that their opinions matter.

Occasionally.

Happy Unemployment!

2008-09-08T19:45:00.003+01:00

It is coming up to 18 months that the markets have turned first on credit professionals and then on everyone. But friends who are casualties of the market do not seem very depressed about their lack of employment. What's wrong with this picture?

It is inevitable that, when banks start laying off 10-15% of their workforce, it will hit people you know. In my case, very recently, a few close friends have become victims of the market downturn and lost their jobs. Some of them even accepted voluntary redundancy that was offered, so conceivably they could have clung to their job and still be happily employed.

However, they are unemployed and as it turns out after doing some catching up (and being prepared for some hand-holding and back-padding) I found out to my surprise that neither of them is particularly unhappy.

On a side note, when I grew up in the Eighties, there was a huge rise of unemployment in the country I was living at the time, and it was generally perceived to be a big catastrophe to lose one's job. Chances of getting back into work were slim, and everybody feared the financial and social consequences of being out of work.

I turned out to be unemployed as well, albeit for 4 weeks only back then, which was before starting university. But even then our neighbours always asked my parents in a very concerned fashion about my future when all I could think of was to blow the little money I got from the state on a trip to Lanzarote with a friend.

So what has changed since then such that my friends do not seem to be concerned about turning into long-term residents of the local job centre? Is all the doom and gloom that is written about everyday maybe not that gloomy in reality after all?

After meeting a few on them individually, a few reasons for the total absence of depression transpired:

In general their redundancy packages were appropriate, and while nowhere near enough to retire, usually sufficient to get them through some time and to enable them to sit out the current bull market.
A few of them perceived their job loss as an opportunity to do something they always wanted to do, but had never had the courage to quit their jobs for. And the goals they dreamt of pursuing ranged from setting up their own trading operation to finishing another university degree.
Still being optimistic that markets will come back eventually (probably having been through the dot-com crash 7 years ago has already taught them a lesson about how cyclical the markets are), the opportunity to spend more time with the families is seen as something of a god-sent.
And finally, with one of them, I couldn't even catch up in person since she has chosen to travel the world for a little while and happened to be in Thailand last time I tried. As found out before, even a modest London severance package goes a few extra miles in other places of the world.

While I am grinding my teeth at work, only see my son for limited time during the week since I usually come home after his bed-time and have to make do with 5 weeks of holiday a year, I seriously wonder whether I could be caught on the wrong side of the equation.

The atmosphere in the market is so downbeat, with bonus expectations getting in a downward spiral as well, that maybe those who are out of the market currently are not missing out on a lot?

But probably a colleague who turned down redundancy to be moved into a different role has it right when she thinks that at least, when you are still in the market right now, you have a better chance of being in the game when (or if) markets pick up again.

Let's just hope that banks do not re-iterate previous mistakes when that happens, in that they don't bring in expensive people from outside but rather look after the staff that has managed them through the rough times.

Originally on Here is the City Life on 3rd August 2008. The original can be found here.

Vorsprung durch Schadenfreude

2008-08-19T21:37:00.008+01:00

If a language runs out of the words to describe things properly, it is not uncommon to borrow expressions from abroad.

This way the French have given us Menage A Trois, the Italian can claim Al Fresco dining to be theirs and Germany has thrown Schadenfreude into the mix.

Ergo, one would wonder whether there is a pattern.

Then again, European countries have been at war with each other with horrible regularity over thousands of years and have invaded their neighbours and were invaded back by their neighbours since the old Roman days, a fact that contributes its fair share to the mixing of languages.

It is remarkable however, how influences seem to be particularly prominent in certain aspects of life.

Clearly anything medical is firmly in the hands of Latin but since this is a language that is dead beyond any medication, it shall therefore hardly be counted. (I don't even mention my profound Latin knowledge in my CV any more - what an irony.)

The legendary obsession of the French with matters of love have therefore brought us rendez-vous and the above-mentioned menage a trois, but also surprisingly many militaristic contributions such as sabotage and Agent Provocateur. And since apres-ski is pretty much non-existent in the French speaking part of Switzerland, it has to origin in France as well.

A few culinary add-ons such as hors d'oeuvre and amuse bouche can't be left out although the Italians with their pasta, pizza and al fresco dining certainly compete for the top spot.

But since our friends from Italy have given the world amore, they actually don't have to compete with anyone.

Which, in terms of major languages leaves us to contemplate the German influence. Schadenfreude, ie finding pleasure in somebody else's misfortune, clearly says a lot about how Germans are perceived (and we don't mean perceived as in wearing Lederhosen and eating Bratwurst and Sauerkraut). They have also given England the Blitz, which is a dubious claim to fame if there ever was one, and on a only slighter note Poltergeist, Doppelganger but finally Kindergarten.

But maybe to strike a balance with a fair few negative connotations, teutonic benevolance is heard whenever some replaces "Bless you" with "Gesundheit".

So maybe not all is kaputt yet, and it's not all about enjoying other people's misery which should provide some piece of mind next time you leap of a rather tall building in a charity "Abseiling".

Fortunately, the German word for fast, schnell, is, while occasionally used, not common enough to really have rightfully gained its place. Otherwise, our beloved Wikipedia - derived from the Hawaiian word for quick wiki, could have turned out to be Schnell-pedia.

And somehow I doubt it would have been the Uber-website it is nowadays.

The "Watching-Olympics-In-The-Office"-Olympics

2008-08-12T21:07:00.003+01:00

The ancient Greeks and Romans had it right. There is nothing like a good, big sporting event to entertain the masses and create a community feeling.

Nowadays, there is no need to feed Christians to the lions to get a trading floor entertained.

The Olympics will do.

With the recent Euro 2008 slightly underwhelming in terms of public interest due to the absence of the England team, the next sporting event has just come upon us.

And this time, England is in. Not in the Olympic football tournament for reasons too difficult to explain (but having to do with long-standing animosities between the home nations), but in loads of other appealing disciplines.

Since the markets are currently not quite dead, but definitely on extended leave, the trading floors across the City are watching whatever sporting event is put in front of them.

This can be reasonably entertaining once getting used to the fact that every time you look up to the screen a different sport is on. One minute it's Badminton, then Archery, wild-water Kanoeing, synchronised swimming etc. You name it, it will be broadcast at some stage.

But of course some events are more entertaining then others, so from the last few days of becoming an avid trading floor athlete - these are the main findings.

If there is UK participation, the noise level will rise. Suddenly Badminton players are being cheered on and we are rooting for show jumpers. It doesn't matter that we don't care about them for the next 4 years.
Firm favourite in terms of hilarity value: Women's weightlifting. It caused major discussions since many of the women did not look like they were female. Do they test the gender when they do doping tests?
Whatever it is, it has to come in snippets - an entire basketball match seems too long to handle since in that time, you could watch multiple heats of swimming as well as more Archery than was featured in "Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves".
Team sports are particularly good when teams fail, such as the UK synchronised divers, because then you can watch them on live TV blaming each other for not having performed better. Single sports are a bit dull since there is nobody else to blame.
When Andy Murray crashed out in the singles in the first round, he was a Scot. When he won his doubles match with his brother, they were British.
Always know where your country ranks in the Medals Tables, and always rub it in. For instance, Germany leapfrogged Great Britain on Tuesday by getting four gold medals and that is worth mentioning. All the time.

Come the weekend, things might become a little bit more mainstream with the Track & Field events which traditionally have a bigger mass appeal.

But there will always be Women's Shot Put to keep us on the edge.

Bored of the Internet

2008-08-12T21:00:00.000+01:00

After years of surfing the web, sending e-mails, sharing pictures, social and professional networking and watching "original content" movies, it has finally happened: I am bored of the internet. How did it come to this, and is there anything that can be done to rekindle the old spark?

On a recent night of being confined to my home shouldering the arduous task of looking after a 3-month old baby, I found myself (after the cause of my home confinement was put to sleep) surfing the internet and suddenly realised that I was bored of it.

The Facebook status was updated, I had read and answered all e-mails and I had watched movie trailers for more movies than I will realistically be able to see over the course of multiple years.

The usual news pages had nothing spectacular to offer (which could be seen as a good thing) and I was running out of things to do.

To give some background, I have been using the web since its very early days, which is about 15 years ago. With what can from today's point of view only be described as very rudimentary tools, there was a limited amount of content but it seemed like a great tool to communicate through "electronic mail" or even put pictures up on a website during a year abroad to keep the folks at home up-to-date.

These early days were of course followed by boom, bust and the another boom over the course of a decade.

Thinking about it, I could attribute my lack of enthusiasm to one reason, namely the internet having turned into a tool, something utilitarian, not unlike phones, cars, television, radio etc.

Nobody would imagine staying home a night to "spend an exciting evening on the phone", so why would I imagine to be thrilled by the thought of doing exactly that on the web.

Internet is so omni-present nowadays that it has become a means to do everything from acquire information, order pizzas, send picture postcards, invite to parties and so on, that it does not seem to be a technology that wows in its own right.

This does not have to be bad thing but is rather a sign about its wide-spread acceptance and about how people have become accustomed to it.

You would imagine that the first telephone users made calls simply because they could and to use this ground-breaking technology. If you call somebody today to let him know that you are excited to be able to make phone calls, you might figure what kind of response you get.

Then again, cars have been built as a means to enable us to get from A to B. But still, you would not need to have an Aston Martin to achieve this goal but could still do this with a Ford Model T.

So there is hope that the pleasure will find its way back to what is a mere tool currently. And I don't mean pleasure in the way Avenue Q thinks the Internet should be used.

The Frappuccino Brainwash

2008-08-11T22:10:00.009+01:00

It's not just about waking up.
It's about making a lifestyle statement.
Cheers.

There is a Star Trek: The Next Generation episode in which a Virtual Reality game is being used to make the crew members of the Enterprise instantly addicted and which is later used by evil alien forces to brainwash the crew into giving up the starship.

Passing Starbucks on the way to work I felt very much reminded of this when one of the Baristas - dressed in the obligatory green apron - was handing out small cups of Frappuccino to the City professionals rushing by. It made me wonder when the adult population of the UK decided that life is not worth living unless one has at least consumed one ridiculously overpriced coffee-resembling product in the morning? Or whether it is potentially all part of a bigger scheme of the Baristas (which could -- for all I know -- be the name of an alien species) taking over the world and brainwashing us into succumbing to their Frothiness?

Looking at it differently, there are quite a few things around that a lot of people would argue they can't do without nowadays whereas 10 years ago nodody would have had them on the list of bare necessities. IPods, Wi-Fi, Facebook, Vitamin Water etc etc.

The key, and this is where the magic called marketing comes in, is making people believe that they genuinely cannot do without. Making it part of a lifestyle that people want to adopt, part of a culture that everybody wants to be part of.

It doesn't require a genius to sell water in the Sahara, but making people want to spend £4 for an iced coffee beverage takes a bigger effort.

It seems to have worked quite well for a while.

As long as a lot of people were making money like the girl in the Starbucks logo is catching gold coins, the strategy seemed to have paid off nicely. Looking at Starbucks closing down stores, h0wever, makes you wonder whether the Venti Caramel Frappucino is now moving from the "must-have" to the "could-do without" list, in particular when the cost of regular visits add up to the order of magnitude of a monthly travelcard.

Of course, everybody has to decide for themselves what they are cutting out of their daily routine when it seems that expenses are getting a bit out of hand. Whether it's the cab ride home, the Frappuccino, the lunchtime sushi rather than the M&S takeaway etc.

Always assuming that there is no evil head Barista in the mothership flipping a switch so that we find ourselves walking brainlessly to their next outlet mumbling:

Must - Drink - Frappuccino.

Air Travel gets mobile...

2008-08-03T21:40:00.005+01:00

... with the introduction of mobile boarding passes. Currently, it seems to be Air Canada, Continental Airlines and Lufthansa with the latter only for flights within Germany.

Maybe, it's coming to an airport near us shortly as well, and fingers crossed, it's not arriving at Terminal 5.

The concept is quite remarkably simple: You check in online, the airline texts you a "Mobile Boarding Pass" which consists of a barcode and a confirmation and the barcode can be scanned at the gate to allow you to board.

For details about how it works with Lufthansa, a lenghty description can be found here. And even though a boarding pass printed less here and there will most certainly not help save huge areas of woodland, it is just one less piece of documentation that can be lost, misplaced or forgotten.

Apparently, British Airways is looking into it although the timeframe mentioned is the year 2010. Maybe they do need to sort out 15,000 pieces of lost luggage at T5 first.

Status Update Anxiety

2008-08-02T08:19:00.010+01:00

Fancy having one sentence and one sentence only to convince everyone you have ever met, your former classmates, your colleagues as well as all your wife's friends that you are not only well-connected but also enormously witty? The Facebook Status Update is your stage.

There are numerous things about Facebook which - for the innocent by-stander - seem hard to understand, and the fact that the founder allegedly turned down a 1bn+ offer to sell it is only one of them.

For those not in the know, apart from being able to upload pictures, poke friends (or people you simply fancy) and give away virtual gifts (in exchange of real pay of course), you also have the chance, or as it turns out almost a moral obligation, to let everybody know what you are up to.

In the early days (which aren't that long ago), this usually amounted to statements like

[R] is at home,
[Y] is at work.
[T] has a cold.

But now, since anyone who is anything has friends at least in triple digits, you don't want to read that 50 of your friends at at work and another 30 are at the pub. Hence there is a demand for quirkier, punchier and wittier status update.

We have the right to know what our friends are doing, and we have the right to be entertained. In the best possible case, both at once.

Apart from the fact of being disposable, short and usually instantly forgotten, some of the funnier ones have stuck to my mind. For instance a friend in Richmond on a weekend of District Line work stating that

[G] is stuck in Richmond for the weekend without Tube or train. It's like the beginning of a posh slasher movie.

or another friend who with the innocuous looking update

[A] begs Mistadobalina, Mista Bob-dobalina won't you stop.

did put the almost-forgotten "Del The Funky Homosapien" track straight back into my head where it stayed for way too long after reading his line.

Of course, there are more existential ones as

[J] is therefore he thinks.

or the rather self-aware

[K] is updating his status.

It has become a standard to announce the birth of babies by saying

[A] is Geronimo's proud daddy. 6:10am, 6lbs, 12oz.

and during the recent Euro Championship, I was easily able to deduce all results by just looking at what Spanish, Italian, German and French friends had put down.

Then recently, amongst a list of sometimes amusing, sometimes only accessible to insiders and sometimes though not boring but rather informative updates, I found a friend whose father had passed away days earlier stating

[X] misses her daddy.

and this one stuck more than all the others.

A not-so-cuil new Google...

2008-07-29T21:57:00.010+01:00

It's not heresy trying to challenge Google. But if you try, you better be really good at it, because Google hasn't found its way into the Oxford English Dictionary for nothing.

Every once in a while new search engines come along and promise to redefine the way we search the internet and to deliver much more relevant results to whatever one is after.

This week, the new entry in this long list, which includes a lot of recently or not-so-recently departed endeavours is cuil.com which apparently is pronounced cool and is the Galic word for knowledge. In my view, Galic serves a bit of a niche market, so I was wondering whether cuil does in fact have more of a mass appeal than the rather guttural language it is derived from.

Trying it out, the first thing that is striking is the very simple interface - effectively just a box to type in the search words. A little bit like Google, huh? Far from it, because the background is - BLACK! So much for distinguishing yourself from your competitors. As a side note, the company has been set up by former Google employees, which probably explains the similiarities and the publicity it is getting.

The front page claims that cuil searches about 120 billion pages, compared to Google at about 40bn, although this number is not confirmed. As some techie put it, simply searching a bigger haystack does not make it easier to find the needle, nor does it guarantee that you find one at all.

Trying out my own name in a classic bit of search engine testing, I came out around number 20, not as high as with the white-backgrounded friends from Silicon Valley, but still ok. However, you immediately see that the results are presented differently, namely in columns like in a magazine, even with pictures. Looks nice, but apparently a US physicist's search for his name came out with a picture of a naked soldier pleasing himself in the column next to his research. So the type of presentation can be a bit of a mixed bag.

Then I searched for my wife and something strange happened: I typed in half her name and got a result showing her full name. Then I typed in her full name and it responded that there were no results. That, I thought was weird. Although it did have the results (and was showing them before), it didn't return them. Maybe the haystack is just too big.

Furthermore, it has the feature that it suggests searches while you type. I typed "Here is the" and it suggested "Here is the City". Fine, I thought, but then the search for it didn't return anything related at all which seems fairly anti-climactic.

After the first test drive, given the choice of Black v. White, I might still err on the side of White. And I cannot quite see the Oxford English Dictionary including "to cuil" as a verb for systematically searching the web anytime soon.

On a lighter note, the name has already triggered discussions what it is most likely going to be misspelled as.

And I spare any comments about the similarities of the Galic word for knowledge and the French word for bottom.

Savings for 52 rainy days

2008-07-28T21:49:00.006+01:00

According to a study by the Yorkshire Building Society, the average Briton can only survive debt-free for 52 days if he/she would find herself out of, or unable to work.

This means that if the average person lost their job tomorrow, they would have run out of money by mid-September, not taking into account that they might want to go on a proper summer holiday in the meantime.

Taking into account that property prices seem to be in freefall (if one believes the headlines pretty much every single day) and the UK seeming to be destined for a recession, this all adds to a perfect recipe for disaster.

Take 52 days worth of savings set aside for tough times
Add a rather bleak prediction of an unemployment rate that - according to the Ernst & Young Item Club, which is a Think Tank - might rise up to 7% from currently 5.6% which would mean that more people find themselves in exactly those times
Stir in record oil, food and electrity prices and season with an inflation rate on an 11-year high which could imply that 52 days could soon be less than that
Add a 4.4% year-on-year drop in house prices (in the year through to July), and a property market which does not deserve the attribute "liquid".

Maybe the Bloomberg commentary Mark Gilbert wasn't that far off the mark when he recently stated that Optimist buy iPhones, pessimists hoard gold.

Maybe the upgrade to the 3G iPhone was a bit premature and I should have considered the latest macro-economic data.

The Price of Happiness

2008-07-22T21:17:00.005+01:00

Recently, some researcher has worked out what salary it requires to be able to live happily in London.

Which makes you wonder how to put a price tag on happiness, how much it is and whether it comes with a 12.5% discretionary service charge for whoever serves it up.

As a matter of fact, when the research was initially published in 2006, the income to guarantee happiness was set at £25k per year. Ironically enough (not in the Alanis Morissette-sense though) it was worked out by a research analyst at an investment bank, most certainly making a multitude of this happiness in an average year.

As it so happened, back then he worked at DrKW (aka the former home of Cityboy) but not soon later quit to take on a - even more certainly - better-paid job at a different bank. He must have perceived his happiness threshold to be slightly higher than what Dresdner had paid him up to this point.

Whilst this kind of research definitely makes for a good headline, it is highly questionable whether there is any validity in it. Asking anyone who makes more than £25k they will certainly testify that they couldn't do with this amount of money, and would unlikely be happy with it.

It is folklore knowledge that lifestyles evolve with rising salaries and people get accustomed to certain treats they start to, if not take them for granted, at least appreciate enough not to be willing to give them up. Weekend breaks, dinners out, other indulgences add up, and, whilst not essential, rank as nice to haves, and - the longer you had them - difficult to do without.

As an upper bound (which very few ever get to) there seems to be a level at which the marginal increase in happiness of any further pound of income is too small to make an effort for.

On the other side, there is clearly a minimum to cover essentials such as food, shelter and clothing (and it is worth keeping in mind that out of 6bn people on this planet, a lot do not even cover this).

And somewhere inbetween, there is a level for everybody to work out what they require to be "happy".

Maybe the current financial market crisis will cause some people to find out that they are able to be happy with less than the 7-digit sums they bagged in the recent fat years.

When lamenting that this year's bonus might turn out to be as desastrous as everybody perceives it to be, it is maybe worth keeping in mind what a friend of mine once told me (although it being a bit grim)

Very few people demand on their deathbed to be shown their Ferrari again, but they want to see the people they love.

And if you are thinking to yourself that you would in fact in this situation request your Testarossa to be shown, you probably still think you can put a price on happiness.

And it's very likely you think it's more than £25k.

Market Bust - Baby Boom

2008-07-21T21:12:00.006+01:00

Have you noticed an increasing number of pregnant women around the office? Could this potentially be directly linked to the market downturn?

Always trying to be as attentive as possible, it did not pass me by that there is a growing number of women in my firm who are growing quite literally, i.e. sporting a baby bump.

Wondering whether this could possibly be a coincidence, I discussed with a few colleagues (who I knew would not immediately report me to the diversity committee) to see whether it was only me who thought that there could be more behind this.

It very quickly transpired that there were a number of possible reasons for this clustering of moms-to-be.

The simplest reason could be that by virtue of the business and the age structure of the employees, a lot of female co-workers are in their early to mid-thirties which is (at least nowadays) the age at which women have babies.
It was suspected though that there could be a correlation to the market downturn. Somebody suggested that pregnancy could "immunise" against being laid off since banks would certainly not make an expecting woman redundant. Although general consensus was that this sounds too calculating to be a viable argument.
The link to the market downturn could be more subtle though: A pregnancy usually means for the mother to be up to 6 months off work which would naturally have an impact on the bonus for this particular year. If you are planning to have a baby anyway (and are reasonably flexible about the timing), why not go ahead with this plan in a year where the bonus sacrifice will be significantly less than in other years? Since business is slow in many areas, this might be a good time to take the baby break and return to a more benign market environment at the other end of the maternity leave.

Clearly, it is impossible to be conclusive about any such relation between the current market conditions and the number of bumps around.

Unless proven otherwise, we shall stick to the ancient motto: "Honi soit qui mal y pense" and believe all this is caused by the fact that - as Richard Curtis' would put it - "Love actually is all around."

Originally published on HereIsTheCity Life on 04th June 2008, the original can be viewed here.

To be or not to be: A tourist

2008-07-09T22:35:00.005+01:00

London is an exciting town, which is probably the reason why in the summer (which is currently although one can't tell) the city is over-crowded by tourists.

This can be a nuisance for the rightful residents who don't really care about all the touristy bits on offer. Although, maybe they should care.

It is quite surprising that a lot of those living in London have not been to certain spots that some people travel to London for. I definitely include me in that portion of the residents who have not been to The Changing of the Guards or to the London Dungeon.

But, very surprisingly, some touristy bits of London are actually quite fun, and can be even more fun if you have lived here for a while.

For instance: I went on the London Eye a while ago and enjoyed it a lot, I thought it was in particular funny because I knew a lot of things to look for, tried to spot the office, my house etc. Not what your weekend visitor would look for.

Occasionally you get visitors who insist on going to Madame Tussauds or go on an open top bus tour (not to show off your FA cup trophy that is), so whether you like it or not, sometimes you are exposed to common sights.

Hence I compiled a Top 5 list of tourist attractions I consider worth seeing, and a Top 5 of those which are only in business because tourists (unlike us sophisticated natives) don't know better.

Top 5 (no particular order)

Take a Jack the Ripper walk from Tower Hill tube station (and end up on Brick Lane going for a curry)
Go on top of St Paul's Cathedral (unless you can't do heights)
Take a boat ride on the Thames
Try catching a Routemaster bus (top level)
Going on the London Eye

Bottom 5 (no order, all equally bad)

Dinner at Aberdeen Angus Steak House
Visit to Madame Tussauds
Visit to London Dungeon
Drinks at the Hard Rock Cafe
Seeing a "show" in SoHo

Random Thought #3: Clocking up the miles

2008-07-08T06:39:00.005+01:00

Nowadays, things are built to last a few years if at all. Digital cameras have a life span of a couple of years before they need to be replaced and a really well-built car can make it through a decade if it's well looked after.

All the more astonishing that nature builds things which are so much more durable than that.

When hanging out with my son the other day I looked at his tiny feet and legs and couldn't help but thinking how miraculous human beings are.

It reminded me that I had recently dug out a very old picture of mine as a toddler which showed me sitting in the mountains in shorts and I looked down my own legs and thought how funny it was that I still had the same legs that were pictured some 30+ years ago and how well they had served me over the years.

If you think about it, the human physiology is quite amazing. Our baby, being born very recently, has hopefully a realistic chance of living into the next century, which still is more then 90 years in the future. By then, his heart will have beat millions of times, his legs will have carried him thousands of miles and his brain will have stored tons of information and hopefully a lot of pleasant memories.

The sheer fact of such a complex biological system being able to function for that amount of time is something that I think is quite hard to understand, but it makes you appreciate how precious it is.

And once you appreciate that, it makes disregard for life which unfortunately seems so rife in so many things you read and see nowadays, so much more incomprehensible.

The best Whatever this side of Wherever

2008-07-06T09:28:00.010+01:00

In an attempt to come up with yet more superlatives to praise their products, vendors should not have reason, or geography get in the way of a punchy tagline.

Since I try to distribute my patronage of caffeinated drinks amongst all the coffee providers out there, my way leads me to Caffe Nero every so often. Apart from the fact that I usually forget my loyalty card and start collecting stamps from anew (leading to a rather large pile of loyalty cards that are nowhere near being redeemed for a free beverage), they also have the slogan:

The best espresso this side of Milan.

Whilst it didn't strike me as being overly silly, despite being difficult to either verify or falsify, a business lunch to Chez Gerard revealed their tagline as:

The best steak-frites this side of Paris.

Apparently, there seems to be a pattern in this. Maybe it is my failure that I have never read a textbook on advertising, which might reveal this to be a classic style feature, not dissimilar to alliterations and tautologies.

Logically however, I was wondering - where is this side of Paris? Or, assuming we are on this side of Paris (since Chez Gerard is obviously here), what's on the other side of Paris? Is it merely a matter of latitude and longitude? If so, is Berlin, although equally north of Paris but further east, this side of Paris or the other side? Which steak-frites have they compared it to then to get a comprehensive sample of steak-frites on this side of Paris?

All these things going through my head whilst waiting for the dish to be served, which, at the end did not turn out to be that spectacular after all. Then again, I never had steak-frites in Paris (neither on the other side of), so maybe they are all equally unremarkable.

But, a line that is good enough to praise espressos and steaks should have enough life in it to be used for so many other products as well. What about Whole Foods marketing their fruit as

The biggest apples this side of New York.

Or a brokerage in Canary Wharf describing their traders as

The biggest swinging d***s this side of the Square Mile.

Although maybe this ends up being too measurable after all.

Plagiarism - It's A Crime!

2008-06-30T22:08:00.005+01:00

You wouldn't steal a handbag. Check.
You wouldn't steal a car. Check.
You wouldn't steal an idea. Or would you?

Of course, the above sentence is in fact, already stolen, because it is what you have to sit through if you have the time and leisure to sit down at home and watch a DVD.

Nobody knows why you have to endure it, because by the time you are being brainwashed you are just about to watch a movie (or TV show for that matter) that you have legally acquired anyway. The stuff that's illegally taped in a movie theatre in Bangkok usually does not come with this type of warning.

The topic du jour however, is plagiarism. Stealing ideas, using other people's material without quoting adequately. Selling somebody's thoughts as your own.

In this day and age, everybody seems to be putting his or her thoughts out to the world. Are you stealing somebody's idea if and when you are just writing about the same subject?

Clearly, the Times reporter can't call his counterpart from The Guardian and tell him not to write about the Euro 2008 Final because he had already done a piece.

However, let's say that I have written something very random about movie posters and how the quotes on those usually have nothing to do with how good (or bad) the movie really is (which I have) just to find somebody else shortly afterwards writing about the same thing. Should I be upset (knowing through Google Analytics that my piece has been read)? Should I feel plagiarised?

I would in general think that once an idea is out, it is up to everyone to pick it up, be inspired by it and do their own take on whatever they have come across. From my past in academia, this is how science works and ideas progress. Here of course, the cause pursued is considerably less worthy, but then again, we can't save the world all the time I suppose.

Maybe, the right approach (unless somebody is genuinely being copied) is to go with the Muppets who would say: "Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery."

On this note, I shall feel flattered.

Random Thought #2: Do You Learn?

2008-06-26T21:50:00.007+01:00

Recently, I spoke to a friend of mine who told me about how he had taken on swimming lessons since he had never learned it properly. For once, he was excited about the fact that he was making progress but even more about him actually learning a new skill for the first time in a long time. Which made me think: When was the last time I learned a new skill? Do I still learn enough?

Learning something entirely new can be both gratifying and frustrating. For instance, my son, at his very young age of not even a quarter of a year, learns a ton of new things every day.

I am not sure whether he feels a great gratification in things like: "Yesterday I was unable to drool, today I can do it very well", but for parents it is certainly exciting. Maybe not drooling in particular, but skills like smiling at Dad go down extremely favourably in my book. It is thrilling to watch somebody starting from a clean sheet and just picking up so many things as they go along.

Then of course, you get to school where you are being told all sort of things, and since secondary school coincides with puberty, many of those things you will probably not find that useful. In particular those which aren't directly related to how you make girls fancy you. Nevertheless, this probably is the age at which you learn intellectually/academically the most, like science, languages, etc.

But then, once adulthood kicks in, it sometimes feels like many people think that they have learned enough and are happy with the skills acquired thus far.

My friend with the swimming lessons made me wonder which skills I had recently acquired and I had to think long and hard. Golf came to my mind, but that was a few years ago. Windsurfing, and albeit fun, was a bit of a one-off, surfing (without wind) even less sustained.

Computer programming, while professionally motivated, should certainly count, and driving on the left hand side of the road, although being more a modification of an old skill, does belong on the list.

So I thought, maybe I haven't fared that badly after all. My friend's enthusiasm reminded me that without a lot ado, a lot of things are being picked up along the way. While not as essential as learning to walk or learning to swim, it is still an exciting thought of being able to do things you weren't able to do before.

Being able to order your dinner in Tuscany in Italian, writing some lines of computer code that are genuinely sleek. All things that, if one can take a step back to think about it, are beautiful achievements in one way or another.

Which made me think about my son again and suddenly I realised that, while he is picking up things at break-neck speed, so am I. I wasn't able to change a diaper last year, or burp a baby, or even provide ok-ish support for a labouring woman.

Nor was I able to patiently rock a little 10-pound human being for hours to make him fall asleep until a few weeks ago.

You learn something new every day, after all.

House Prices, Bonuses, Whatever Next?

2008-06-24T21:49:00.007+01:00

Everything is dropping. Not a month passes by without horror stories about house prices dropping. Now comes the worst shocker: Last year's City bonuses, so reports The Guardian, were lower than the year before for the first time since total bonus payouts were recorded (how does that work by the way?) in 2003.

They were lower by the mere sum of £300m year-on-year, and they were still 174% higher than 4 years earlier, but such mundane numbers should never get in the way of a punchy headline.

Of course, these two things, and a few others are not entirely unrelated.

Amidst all the doom and gloom, people start wondering whether they really like to commit all their disposable cash to buy a bigger townhouse in Chelsea or whether it's worth the wait to get it a little bit cheaper. Maybe after the next Chelsea FC manager is sacked and moves back to his home country, or maybe after prices have declined overall.

Rightly so, a genuine concern about bonuses seems to have gripped the City. 2007 was a bad year - although note that payouts were still almost 3 times what they were 2003 - and 2008 does not promise to be much better, probably quite the opposite in fact.

And this of course, could have wider implications.

I am starting to get concerned for instance that Damien Hirst might have problems flogging his Golden Calf, or at least maybe has to give a discount on its £12m price tag due to a miserable economic outlook.

That is of course, unless potential buyers realise that it is ACTUALLY a bull (covered and suspended in all sorts of liquids and precious metals). Hence it could be considered food, and if one thing is certain about food prices currently, they are far from dropping.

Drink here to avoid disappointment!

2008-06-23T22:23:00.006+01:00

As if there are not enough rules and regulations in our lives already, it seems to be getting worse and worse.

Smokers are nowadays confined to outdoor spaces (which is probably just as well), KFC refuses to warm up baby bottles citing Health & Safety regulations (which is less convenient) and Circle Line parties have come to a grinding halt with Boris Johnson's recent coronation as London Mayor.

Even more shockingly, overground drinkers are being penned up in front of signs telling them where to drink for no apparent reason with the above example having been spotted in the City.

While the summer so far has not been inviting enough to wander the streets of the Square Mile with a casual bottle of Bollinger, maybe these extreme measures have become necessary because of an ever increasing number of bankers who are being informed of their redundancies and who become renegade consumers of alcoholic beverages with no intention of being tied down to pre-allocated drinking spots.

Next thing we know, they might stop serving drinks in the City altogether prior to 5pm in an effort to prevent traders from becoming rogue and risk managers from turning blind/hazy eyes on their dealings.

And this is when The Cloud will finally have turned into a very dark one indeed.

Upon Westminster Bridge

2008-06-22T22:43:00.013+01:00

With my son recently born in very close proximity of Westminster Bridge (but unfortunately not overlooking it for reasons too convoluted to delve into), I had a vague recollection of something we had read (or more precisely had to read) at school almost two decades ago.

It somehow had stuck to my memory in particular for its beautifully simple first line and I had to think of it when I drove home from the hospital, crossing Westminster Bridge, turning onto the Embankment around midnight with the city being relatively quiet.

While I usually consider this to be the most picturesque stretch of London on any occasion, just having experienced the birth of my first child gave the drive a totally different emotional angle.

The poem I thought of was not difficult to track down, and while London anno 1802 was certainly different than it is today (presumably), it was nice to see that the perception of its beauty has hardly changed.

The circumstances I found myself in that night made me realise that sometimes words you have heard more than 20 years ago touch your soul and stick with you, sometimes without you even knowing it.

It took an event of indescribable power to make "Earth has nothing to show more fair" surface in my head as the first line which Wordsworth had composed upon that very bridge.

And I thought that words that were written more than 200 years ago can still touch somebody today is a sign of human genius.

I hope that my son will think likewise many decades from now.

Composed upon Westminster Bridge

Earth has not anything to show more fair:
Dull would he be of soul who could pass by
A sight so touching in its majesty:
This City now doth like a garment wear
The beauty of the morning; silent, bare,
Ships, towers, domes, theatres, and temples lie
Open unto the fields, and to the sky,
All bright and glittering in the smokeless air.
Never did the sun more beautifully steep
In his first splendour, valley, rock, or hill;
Ne'er saw I, never felt a calm so deep!
The river glideth at his own sweet will:
Dear God! the very houses seem asleep;
And all that mighty heart is lying still!

(William Wordsworth, 3rd September 1802)

Parents, Babies, Hulks...

2008-06-20T06:24:00.010+01:00

While Parent & Baby screenings are a great way for parents of small children to get to see new movie releases without having to wait for them to come out on DVD, the selection of movies is restricted, and a little bit dubious.

When recently on paternity leave, I looked around for "adult" things to do, apart from not sleeping and changing diapers and I realised that quite a few mainstream movie theatres have so-called "Parent & Baby Screenings" where you are allowed to bring babies up to the age of one year (for free no less) and which usually happen during the day and during the week.

Like just about anything that can be done for new parents to keep their sanity in times of sleep deprivation and seemingly inconsolable babies, it did sound like a good idea. You don't have to get a babysitter, you don't have to worry that your baby is screaming (since probably everybody else's will as well) and you fool yourself into believing that leaving the house is still as easy as it used to be.

Since babies under the age of a year don't really care about movies as such, the main target is of course the parents, which means movies of anything up to 12A certificate are shown - although apparently with the volume turned down a little bit (I guess the audience provides additional sound effects anyway).

Unfortunately, having to wait for builders we did not make it the showing of "Iron Man" during my paternity leave, and since "Newbies screenings" happen exclusively during the week (which pretty much rules out the working population to take their newborns), I couldn't realise my dream of attending one.

When my wife had another go at going out to watch a movie with like-minded new mothers, they found out to their big surprise, that pretty much the only movie showing in these conditions was "The Incredible Hulk".

So, imagine what must go through somebody's head who is running a movie theatre and who is thinking about which movie to book for the next week.

You have a show at Tuesday lunchtime targeted at parents with newborns.
You probably figure that despite emancipation and all, these new parents are likely to be mothers.
You have "Sex and The City: The Movie" in your repertoire, which is a "chick flick" if there ever was one.
You decide to show "The Incredible Hulk".

Makes sense.

Half-Time For Euro

2008-06-18T22:15:00.010+01:00

After the first eight teams have been eliminated from EURO 2008 and the knock-out phase of the competition begins tomorrow, it seems appropriate to think about some of the lessons learnt in this tournament so far.

Greece winning Euro 2004 was a surprise, and a bit of a fluke. They were a well-organised team back then and defended brilliantly, but if you don't score goals, you cannot really expect to proceed. Ergo, they finish last with only zero points.
Only marginally better on one point, the French. And they were the (beaten) finalists of the last World Cup. Then again, they had Zidane back then which seems to have been a major factor. That was of course before he was sent off for head-butting Matterazzi.
Both Russia and Croatia, who helped avoiding England's participation in this tournament, have progressed into the knock-out stage. Maybe they were proper opposition after all, but that does not mean that Steve McLaren should have kept his job. Which he didn't.
Most goals were scored by the Dutch, which makes them sort of favourites. Because who scores most goals, usually wins.
Both co-hosts, Austria and Switzerland, are no longer part of the tournament. In fact many Austrians wondered why the Austrians were ever part of Euro 2008 anyway.
The rumour that you have to be born in Poland to score for the German team is not true. It certainly helps though, hence 75% of all goals for Germany were scored by Lukas Podolski.
Spain, Holland and Croatia have a 100% record in the tournament so far, winning all their matches. Although if Holland have to play Italy again and end up losing, they might regret not having performed worse against Romania and sending both Italy and France back home.
As shown in the Germany - Austria match (which was rather dull), there are always spare seats for coaches in the stands in case they are sent off. You even get to hug the head of state before you sit down.
Brilliant bit of trivia: The French coach proposed to his partner on the night they went out of the tournament (and on air). No wonder people thought he might have lost the plot a little bit.

One thing to note though is, that the general public in the UK cares little, if at all. Which is great if you want to watch a match in the pub, since you can get a seat. It's not so great if you actually want to watch a match in some kind of atmosphere.

Random Thought #1: Oblivious Tubing

2008-06-18T06:03:00.010+01:00

Have you ever thought about why you know where you are when you get out of the Tube? (Or any means of transportation for that matter?)

Now, the smart ones will of course argue that every Tube stop has a number of rather large signs indicating where you are. There is some truth in there. If you get to the station in the picture for instance, you will realise that you are only steps away from overpriced raspberries at Whole Foods on High Street Kensington and you will act accordingly.

But how do you KNOW that you are REALLY at High Street Ken?

Sometimes it amuses me to think that means of transportation such as the Tube, Eurostar, airplanes - where you do not see the way you are travelling - actually entail a huge degree of trust. Of course, if you get off at Westminster and you see Big Ben, you know where you are even if you haven't walked down all of Whitehall to make 100% sure that you are in the right spot.

But if you get on an airplane to get to a city which maybe does not have many distinct features but is a rather unremarkable agglomeration of non-descript buildings, you might not be that certain. Imagine further that you have slept through parts of the travel or you haven't been able to follow the in-flight route tracker mile-by-mile, and you can see that your mind could play tricks on you easily.

Stepping off the aircraft, it sometimes feels that you could be literally anywhere, and if the airline wanted to play tricks on you, they would have just dropped you off somewhere it suited them rather than you.

When I embarked on my first intercontinental travel to the US a couple of decades ago, I landed in San Diego and was rather tired after a long trip, and of course without fresh clothes to change into. A few hours of bus travel later we ended up in the Southern Californian desert but it took me a while, a lot of checking maps and finally some credulousness to convince myself that I was really there. But then again, maybe I was just too gullible and the school trip was all part of a huge scam. I mean, we have all watched Capricorn One.

So, if you happen to go to Balham for the first time to visit friends and you step off the Tube, spare a thought and think how you really know that this cluster of streets full of terraced houses is Balham.

For all I know, it could be anywhere.

(Some of) London's Best Chippers

2008-06-12T19:23:00.007+01:00

If there is ever such a thing as a genuine English dish, it has to be Fish & Chips. But there are better ones and less tasty ones. Time to take (fish) stock.

This survey by no means claims to be comprehensive, but rather based on first hand experience - which in many ways could be considered pure coincidence (since sometimes you just happen to get to places which turn out to be very good). But nevertheless, one knows what one likes, and in terms of Fish & Chips served, this would include the following:

Rock & Sole Plaice: Conveniently located on Endell Street in Covent Garden, one should not be deterred by the slightly run down interior. The fact that it is always crowded speaks for itself.
Tom's Kitchen: Admittedly, I never went there, but the Fish & Chips he served at last year's Taste of London in Regent's Park were so good in fact, I believe that it must be worth a visit.
The Narrow: Gordon Ramsay's gastropub in Limehouse does nothing to jeopardise GR's brand reputation. It is simply very well made indeed.
Masters Super Fish: Just around the corner from The Old Vic, this place is many cabbies' favourite. And since they have the knowledge, who would doubt their judgement.
Fish! Essentially the take out window of an upmarket fish restaurant in Borough Market, this is a lunchtime favourite for the Friday excursion to the market. The portions are so substantial, the afternoon is usually spent dozing off and digesting the giant haddock.

The first Fish & Chip I ever had was in Brighton about 15 years ago, and it was so genuine, it was even served out of a newspaper.

Surprisingly, neither of the above serve the fish in a paper, despite the fact that there are so many disposable newspapers to wrap fish in.

Then again, it's impolite to read whilst eating anyway.

iPhone: Curse of the Early Adopter?

2008-06-10T20:53:00.007+01:00

With Apple advertising the new iPhone 3G as "Twice as fast. Half the price", this can only mean bad news for all those who jumped on the bandwagon a little early, right? Not quite, it turns out.

Adopting technology early is a strategy that does not necessarily bear merits. Remember Beta videos and Sony minidiscs? Exactly. As a matter of fact the increasingly short lifecycles of technological equipment lead to two possible strategies when purchasing new goods.

You either postpone buying anything because you know that in a short while you can get a superior piece of machinery for less money or
You just grind your teeth and get on with it. Although in all likelihood, the goods you purchase will be outdated in next-to-no-time.

Following the second strategy at least has you have access to some recent technology whilst with the first one we would still all be computing (or what used to be computing) on a Commodore 64.

As a short background, I have not been a Mac user all my life, but have been converted about four years ago. It was not a decision of religious proportions but one of convenience, although in the meantime, it has gotten to the point where I could not see myself returning to PC mundanity. Ever.

So, when the iPhone hit the UK about 6 months ago, and thankfully my contract with Vodafone had just run out, I jumped on the opportunity to smarten up my phone equipment, albeit for a hefty price. Back then, it cost £269 to purchase, even though you had to commit to a 18 month contract. The upfront cost was dampered by the fact that my wife bought it for me (which led to the Vodafone representative arguing with me - when trying to lure me back - that this is pretty much like paying myself. This is when I stopped dealing with our friends from Newbury).

And while the phone is not perfect, the battery life is a bit meagre for instance, it is in fact a superior piece of engineering which from my point of view is head and shoulder above any other phone I had in the past. Having said that, I went - being patriotic - through a number of Siemens phones which tended to break easily and didn't like the few Sony phones I had afterwards. So I was ready to try a new brand anyway....

In general, as a reasonably passionate Mac user it didn't take much convincing to get me hooked on the iPhone and I have been happily using it since.

Now yesterday, Apple presented the new iPhone 3G which promises all the things that were criticised about version 1.0, 3G access, GPS etc etc. And all of that for half the price of the original one, which makes us early customers look a little silly.

I thought this would again be a case of just having to live with the fact that your car loses half its value driving it around the first corner, until I got a text from O2 tempting me into a free upgrade to the new model.

Last time I checked, O2 was not registered as a charity, so there must be economic reasoning behind this. First of all, they only upgrade those on a contract for £45 a month or more (which I am not) but the ones on the cheaper contracts can buy a new model for £99. So apparently, they must make enough out of the monthly fees to happily subsidise the handset. To tempt even more, they are introducing Pay-as-you-go so that the second (old) iPhone could still be used.

All in all, while I don't think there is concern to be had about O2's future earnings, this is a reasonably happy surprise to the early adopters.

Maybe, in an environment were technology becomes more and more disposable and exchangeable, somebody has actually realised that there is value in binding your customers to you by offering them something they appreciate, rather than leaving them feel ripped off.

This seems to have been Apple's strategy when they refunded the even earlier adopters (before they slashed the price in the US last year after a few months) and O2 has taken this on board.

Aside from tangible products, nowadays it is all about the brand and what consumers are associating with it. Not being penalised for showing brand loyalty is a nice add-on for the customer.

The Baby-Moon (AKA The Last Hurrah)

2008-06-08T10:04:00.003+01:00

Hailed as the hottest trend in vacationing, the babymoon (for those not in the know) is one (or more) last getaways before a baby arrives. Which means you will remember it as the last holiday where you had proper lie-ins!

Nature has its funny ways of making things work: For instance, alcohol (in reasonable quantities) apparently does not cause any serious harm to babies in the first few weeks. Which is a great coincidence because it takes most couples a few weeks to find out that they are expecting, a time which is usually not spent refraining from the odd drink.

And with 40 weeks (give or take), homo sapiens have a fairly long gestational period which gives parents-to-be ample time to rethink their undeterred hedonism in the future. More importantly, once morning sickness is out, and swollen ankles are not yet in the way, there lies an opportunity to embark on a last getaway before it's "All change". Some marketing genius has labelled this getaway the Baby-Moon.

There is an entire industry (and an abundance of websites) around the Baby-Moon, getaways to romantic locations, such as the Caribbean (The One and Only Resort in Nassau, Bahamas -- as seen in Casino Royale, although Bond was not babymooning) and the Far East (like the Peninsula in Bangkok). You better start checking with the airline how long you are allowed to fly.

The fact that British Airways recently had an ad campaign around the fact that their staff is trained in delivery (babies not parcels) could be taken as an incentive to travel while it's still only two of you.

Finding myself in a similar situation, I was happy to find out that a fair few destinations on www.baby-moon.eu have already been ticked off the list of places to go (such as the cute Hotel Lungarno in Florence) and that my own Baby-Moon destination, the Four Seasons in Hampshire, picked for early next year, when air travel is off limit, offers pre-natal treatment as well.

But then again, since we we are just 16 weeks, there was time to slot a trip to Thailand in, which should provide opportunity for some pampering as well. Maybe they even have a "What's kicking" package, although at 16 weeks, "Not very much" would be the appropriate answer.

Alas, since a Baby-Moon by definition is the last trip before family expansion kicks in, this would make this trip a mere Baby-Half-Moon.

Originally published on HereIsTheCity Life on 18/11/2007, available here.

One man's trash

2008-06-07T08:29:00.010+01:00

is another man's treasure. Which is what sprang to my mind when offloading my trash and bumping into poor old Genghis Khan who had been disposed of by his previous owner.

But of course, the local authorities have for some time now refused to take him on board of their garbage trucks, which could be for numerous reasons:

He is recyclable but not wrapped in a Local-Borough-Authorised Pink Bag and will therefore not qualify as recycling or
Despite his lean figure, he would be considered bulk refuse and therefore would need to get an appointment to be picked up individually.

One could argue that the second treatment is much more appropriate for a figure of his historic stature.

Even though it would land him exactly where the first option would lead him as well, onto the landfill of history.

Misleading Movie Poster Quotes

2008-06-07T07:36:00.004+01:00

On any given Friday, a fair number of movies opens across the UK. Some are brilliant, some average, many poor. How is it possible that every movie poster has critics quotes hailing the respective oeuvre as a masterpiece?

Of course no movie studio would admit that a piece of film-making they commissioned is outright rubbish, nevertheless it is astonishing how the distributors are usually able to put quotes on the poster about how great this particular piece is.

A lot has been made about the poster for Guy Ritchie's self-indulgent turkey 'Revolver' and the out-of-context quote "Brilliant - Guy Ritchie back to his best" quote allegedly from the Sun movie critic (which it wasn't).

Thankfully, movie history has cast a very dark shadow over the above product, but there are more examples of misleading movie quotes along the same lines which makes you think how a selected number of movie critics can get it so wrong (or whether the quotes might have been "taken out of context"). The following are examples of movies not worth watching, despite the plaudits:

"An outrageously hilarious comedy" (The Heartbreak Kid)
"A great time at the movies for everyone!" (Evan Almighty)
"It…just may kill you with laughs." (Death at a Funeral)
"The best movie adaptation of a video game so far." (DOA: Dead or Alive)

In general, it seems that one can almost tell by who is quoted whether the quote is reliable or not. For instance Maxim's former Peter Hammond seemed to have a reputation of producing favourable quotes for even the worst tosh.

Five star reviews by something like the Sun (despite being exculpated for Revolver) usually mean that you are up for a mind-numbing spectacle which does not have much of a storyline but is likely to sell out to large crowds.

Probably not unlike the very paper you would have read this review in.

Think Before You Chip and Pin

2008-06-03T06:09:00.006+01:00

In a world where you tip by waving your Oyster Card and feed the parking meter by phone, some first hand experience on how safe "Chip-and-Pin" is, and on how to deal with the aftermath of being ripped off and seeing your money disappear to Romania.

Last year during the run-up to Christmas, I stopped at the cashpoint at Cannon Street Station to get some money since the excessive consumption of egg-nog lattes had left me short of cash. Coincidentally checking my bank account online a few hours later, I saw the record of the withdrawal, but surprisingly noticed another withdrawal of a strange amount ending in 74p. Whilst I was still trying to figure out how I would possibly have taken out such an odd sum, I could not rule out that it had been a transaction done a few days ago that had just come through.

In an effort to be diligent and vigilant I contacted my bank (or rather their overseas call centre) in order to find out details about the withdrawal. While they had no more information at hand, I was promised that they would find out more within 24 hours and would contact me once that was the case. In the meantime I cautiously blocked the card.

Within the next day, the call centre called me back but - about half a dozen security questions later - only to tell me that more information had not come through yet. In the meantime, I had realised that not only my card but all my accounts were actually blocked. Which was particularly unfortunate since my -- 2007/credit-crunch/(but nonetheless) -- bonus had just come in which I couldn't access.

A few days, many phone calls later -- with the excuse of technical problems -- I was told that the transaction was a cash withdrawal made in a town that I didn't know. However, Google helped me locate it in the province of Romania. That explained the odd sum, but not how somebody stole my money somewhere in Central Europe.

Naively I believed (in particular given that the Romania and the Cannon Street withdrawals were about one hour apart) that this was quite obviously fraud. To my surprise the (overseas, call centre) clerk revealed to me that my bank would not be able to refund the money since clearly it had been me who had given the details to somebody else.

Well, let's rest here for a second: That's my bank - who I believe am a fairly good client of - calling me a fraud.

I was furious, and after threatening to close my accounts (which since blocking them about a week earlier had actually cost me more in interest than the sum withdrawn to begin with) he reiterated his statement referring to company policy.

Swearing to myself that this was the last time I would ever deal with a help line located further east than Canterbury, I decided to face the enemy and walk into the next branch, ready to cut my ties with this institution.

I would have, if it hadn't been for the fact that the employee in the branch (1) was friendly and apologetic beyond belief and (2) confirmed immediately that they would have fraud departments dealing with this and (3) stated that fraud like this happened pretty much all the time.

Apparently, depending on where you shop, sometimes dodgy employees sell on debit card details (he even knew the price - 20 GBP), get your PIN off security camera tapes, and then -- usually in Eastern Europe -- somebody gets to your money with a fake card, because the ATMs down there cannot read the Chip yet but only the magnetic stripe which is easier to forge.

While this episode had left me furious at times, it also left me with some valuable (and probably very obvious) lessons learnt:

Always, always cover your hand typing in the PIN. There are so many security cameras on you all the time, there's likely to be one on you when you Chip-And-Pin.
Being the victim of theft, no matter how "clean" and remote it might occur in these digital days, leaves you with the feeling of your privacy being invaded. And even if common sense prevails at the end and you get your stolen money refunded, this is not a good feeling to be left with.

Originally published on HereIsTheCity on 20Jan2008. The original article is available here.

3 Pen Cei, Aberaeron, Wales

2008-06-01T09:13:00.007+01:00

Following the Easter weekend spent on the Welsh coastline, we started a mission to spread the word about the beautiful B & B we stayed in the harbour town of Aberaeron...

We went to 3 Pen Cei for a long Easter weekend away from London to enjoy the Welsh coast. Whilst it was early in the year, the weather was predictably unpredictable. However, the coziness of 3 Pen Cei made up for the fact that it was cold and stormy outside.

Upon arrival we were greeted by Lesley who owns the B&B and showed us our superb room. The guest house has been completely renovated in 2007 and a great effort has been made to maintain a maritime decor throughout and make the environment stylish and comfortable. And these efforts have paid off. Best of all, the website conveys exactly the right image of what guests get themselves into so there we no unpleasant surprises but rather a sense of relief that everything was as fabulous as it came across on-line.

The small B&B has 5 rooms, all named after local rivers. We stayed in the spacious Aeron room, which was equipped with amenities from Plasma TV and Wi-Fi to a huge bath-tub and high quality linens. The giant bed was extremely comfortable and the furniture matched the features of the listed building very stylishly.

The B&B is family-run and the keepers look after their guests, by providing a great (Welsh) breakfast (we tasted all the options over the few days of our stay and they were all great) and all the information the guests need to make the most of the their stay. All that in a friendly and genuine way.

The guest house is located on the harbour front of picturesque Aberearon, next to the Harbour Master Hotel, which has a great restaurant and bar (so good it's usually fully booked).

The little town and the adjacent coastline provide charming surroundings for a weekend away, and 3 Pen Cei provides the perfect base to make the stay ideal.

Originally published on TripAdvisor, it can be found here.

Paper, Plastic, What the F...abric!

2008-05-31T10:02:00.005+01:00

Can you save the world by bringing your own bag to Waitrose? Has your paper-bagged lunch a reduced carbon footprint? Are we barking up the wrong last trees that are left?

First things first: I come from a country where we have been charged for plastic bags in supermarkets as long as I can remember which is about 3 decades. Everybody is used to it, and guess what, nobody pays. The simple reason is that people are either bringing their own bags to the store, or alternative means of getting your purchases home.

When I moved to this country I was therefore amazed that if you buy anything, even just a pack of crisps, you are always being asked whether you would like a bag with it. It turns out however, that things seem to be changing.

Marks and Spencer recently announced a 5p charge for any plastic bag with the purpose of eliminating about 280m plastic bags (! ) a year. On a side note, this led to the following conversation when recently buying a bottle of Lucozade at Tesco after the visit to the gym.

Me: I don't need a bag for this.
Tesco Employee: Come on, have one.
Me: I really don't need a bag.
T.E.: But they are free, we're not as stingy as Marks and Spencer.

The question is whether the plastic bag is really the culprit for the demise of our planet, or simply unfairly blamed. The raw facts are:

There are about 13bn plastic bags used in the UK every year, which is more than 200 per household.
A plastic bag can take 400 - 1000 years to break down.
Most plastic bags do not end up in landfills, but all over place. Therefore only 0.3% of waste in landfills is in fact made up of plastic bags.
On the upside (if there is any), claims that thousands of seabirds are killed by plastic bags each year, seem to be bogus.
In Ireland, where charging for plastic bags was introduced, plastic bag usage decreased, but purchases of bin liners increased by 400 per cent.

Is it maybe just the fact that the bag is plastic, that is so detrimental? Are you being more responsible if you ask to get a paper bag with your lunch at Pret a Manger?

It turns out that paper and plastic bags, if only used once, are very similar in their effects on the environment, considering everything from the resources used in production to their recycling.

I can see why some supermarkets are happily continuing to hand out plastic bags, given that they function as free advertising - you are effectively showing to the world that you shopped at Tesco whilst nobody seems to be shopping at M & S (although they will probably sell branded tote bags soon).

Even if I can't claim that I save a bunch of albatrosses every year, it seems like a no-brainer to happily refuse a plastic bag for every small purchase because it is just not needed (in particular not when you are with your man bag).

And for the regular groceries, I do it the way I grew up and bring my ecologically friendly bag labelled "Applied Probability Conference 1999".

Which is the same as being labelled "I am not a plastic bag - my owner is a geek".

Originally published on HereIsTheCity Life on 11/Mar/2008. View the original here.

Catching Movies

2008-05-31T08:17:00.005+01:00

I don't blame recent fatherhood on this (although it certainly does not help either) but increasingly I don't find myself being able to catch the movies I would like to see in the theatre.

In general, I would distinguish movies I am interested in into 3 categories (the ones I am not interested in do not qualify)

The ones I definitely need to see in the theatre,
Movies I can happily watch on DVD or on an airplane and
Movies where I am remotely interested in what they are about, but I wouldn't necessarily have to watch.

The first category is the most difficult one, since it leaves little room to manoeuvre. As mentioned above, the presence of a newborn does not lend itself easily to movie nights (although at some stage the added presence of a sitter certainly will). Parent and baby screenings are only on during the week, so they should really be called "Stay-At-Home parent and baby screening" because my commitment to the cause is not that great that I would take time off to take my infant to the local multiplex.

The second is generally easier, although I did find myself recently on a number of inter-continental flights where movies were shown on a big screen for the entire cabin. Needless to say, this would never happen in Business Class, and this particular example was unfortunately a 13-hour flight to Thailand. The fact that women got handed a flower when leaving the airplane did not make me forget the poor in-flight entertainment.

For the "stay in to watch a movie" variety, LoveFilm does the trick well, although we do find ourselves regularly receiving movies wondering who on earth would have put those on our "queue".

And, to speak with our friends at MasterCard, everything else, there is MovieSpoiler. Sometime the write-ups of movies are not that great, but at least they usually cover all the latest movie releases (latest US releases that is, which means that you can get the Cliff notes for movies that haven't even come out over here).

Which is a great way to be knowledgeable at the watercooler without having to bother watching all those movies - at least the Category 3 ones.

Zeavola, Ko Phi Phi, Thailand....

2008-05-31T00:25:00.007+01:00

Last year, I had the pleasure of spending a week in Thailand, and 2 days of those we succumbed to the "Charms of Rural Thai" in the Zeavola Resort on the island of Ko Phi Phi (one of the 2 islands were "The Beach" was shot). Here's my take on a memorable 48-hour experience.

When arriving from Phuket by speedboat (which takes about an hour and is worth the -- quite hefty -- fare) we were surprised to see that the resort is not as remote as you might believe. It is not reachable by land but is on a strip of beach with a few other resorts and a shanty town.

But don't let that put you off.

All the rooms are effectively luxury beach-shacks many with outdoor living rooms (and in some you have to go through that outdoor area to get to the bathroom). This was hard to deal with the first night when you are convinced you will be eaten alive by some crawlies.

It turns out, we weren't, although the resident pet was a rather large iguana, as well as a green snake and about a million centipedes. With this getting used to, after about 24 hours we were totally in the groove. You will soon realise that you just never were shoes (since effectively everything happens on the beach or in the adjacent jungle).

We were there for 2 nights, and it took us one to acclimatise to the setup. Wished we had stayed for 4 nights. One should bear in mind that the activity and dining options are limited, but not to the degree of being restrictive for a short stay.

More than 5 days might get a little long. Some people have mentioned the lack of privacy and security, and while the indoor/outdoor setup means that your living room can be looked into by other passing guests, we certainly didn't find the latter to be a problem.

The spa is great and so is having dinner on one of the sunbed platforms. The staff was attentive and friendly. We happened to have a room in the far back of the resort, which is not optimal. When booking one should mention to have room further to the front to avoid long walks in the dark and views of he resort next door.

Overall a fun experience for 2-4 days, although I can't think what one would do if there happens to be a period of uninterrupted rain.....

This and quite a few more reviews of Zeavola are available on TripAdvisor. And apparently, not everybody had as much of a good time as we did....

A slight change of plan

2008-05-30T07:33:00.001+01:00

I thought it would be worth re-publishing a few short pieces of mine that have appeared over the course of the last year on the life section of HereIsTheCity, a financial news website targeted at the London crowd.

They vary in subject and quality, and the order in which they appear does not contain any commentary on which one I favour.

Life After Credit Derivatives

2008-05-29T07:54:00.001+01:00

Ah, the life of a banker. Fast cars, expensive restaurants and the most presentable specimen of your preferred gender. Unfortunately, it's time to switch off Wall Street and get with 2008, where the first casualty of the year is an entire asset class: Credit Derivatives.

Me: I built trading models for credit derivatives.
Them: Credit Derivatives?
M: Yes, you know what stock options are, right? It's just that we are not taking bets on whether a share price will rise, but on whether a company goes bankrupt.
T: And that's legal?

Well, let's put it this way: not only it is legal, for a while, many people lived very happily off it. Investors received coupons that were higher than for any other investment that rating agencies thought was 'Triple-A' (that's as good as a US government bond - so really, really good), and that was even after banks had deduced their fair share of the proceedings.

Sounded like a great deal, until things started to go pear-shaped.

Last year it turned out that - surprisingly to some - lending money to people with bad credit and insufficient funds is not a good idea. Unfortunately, a lot of banks thought it was a very good idea because they could sell on the credit risk of the mortgages (i.e. the risk that a lender does not pay his mortgage) on to investors. They did so by applying some alchemy called 'Financial Engineering' to turn dodgy assets into something that rating agencies appreciated very much indeed and labelled AAA.

Banks thought they would signal to investors how positively they felt about these risks by leading by precedence. They took the risk for the riskiest pieces of these mortgages on their own books, therefore saying: don't worry if a few of these lenders default - we will generously cover the losses. They must have been figuring that somebody who earns $2,000 USD a month will always be able to service a USD $500,000 mortgage. (I leave you to do the maths).

Given the fact that in the meantime banks have written down about USD $160bn (and counting) in mortgage-related products, maybe it was not such a great idea after all.

Then banks started to become cautious about lending each other money. If another bank calls you up to borrow a few hundred million, is that because they need to fund their business, or because they need to fill another hole they found somewhere in the bottomless pit of sub-prime mortgages? They started charging each other a lot of money to borrow, if they were doing it at all.

Suddenly, credit became more expensive and the worries continued. Insurers that had guaranteed the least risky portions of the mortgage pools became concerned that they'd actually have to pay out on their insurance. And since quite a few had sold much more insurance than they could ever pay out on, this in turn concerned banks again, who thought: maybe we should safely assume that the insurance we bought is not really worth anything.

And another round of 'asset write-downs' occured and just like that, financial institutions did not look that rosy anymore.

Now, the chance of companies going bankrupt is suddenly much higher, in particular the chance of multiple companies going at the same time. That's what the financial wizards call 'Systematic Default Risk' which is just jargon for meaning 'Everything Must Go'. The consequence is that the credit risk that investors took a while ago (when it was AAA, although it might still carry this label) is now much higher.

Maybe all AAA assets are equal, but some are definitely more equal than others. Investors realised that when they called up for the monthly valuations of their investments, and what used to be worth 100 suddenly is only worth 70 - if they are lucky. If they are unlucky, they get a notice from their bank that the unfortunate strategy that was pursued with their money has actually lost all its value. How's that for an investment as safe as US government bonds?

Banks who need to hedge the bets they have entered into with the customers find themselves in the situation where nobody wants to hedge their bets anymore. So the market runs riot, and even if you want to get out of a position, you can't, since nobody wants to trade with you.

The model that is commonly used to price the likelihood of a lot of credit events happening simultaneously tells us these events are off-the-scale correlated. So correlated in fact, that it can't be expressed in numbers anymore.

To summarise, investors have not fared particularly well, banks have un-hedged bets they can't get out of, and even the wiz kids can't come up with a reasonable framework to put prices on these bets.

When I said, I build trading models, I meant: I made best efforts to build trading models.

Have I failed?

A former boss of mine always blamed market dislocations for everything.

It's worth bearing in mind that the market can stay irrational for much longer than you can stay liquid.

So on that note, I will prepare for a life after credit derivatives, and I take my own personal precautions to stay liquid.

Originally published on HereIsTheCity Life on 28/Feb/2008. View the original here.

To whomever it might concern....

2007-09-16T19:35:00.000+01:00

Anyone claiming that this world needs yet another "blog" will have some way in explaining why.... Yet I thought that this would be a convenient outlet for things that might be worth being put out there. And the reader (potentially even readers) will be the judge of this.

In any case, I don't have a website so this is the placeholder for it.

And in case anyone wonders, it is supposed to be an outlet for interesting things I come across in my residence of choice, London that is.