There and back again… A consultant’s tale

There

So, Wednesday night involved a flight to Hannover. Unfortunately, having spent the entire day in an office block, underground train or airport departure lounge, I hadn’t realised how bad the weather had got. The result was a one and a half hour delay in taking off, which certainly stretched my patience. On my eventual arrival, a taxi was waiting for me, all pre-booked and pre-paid. Unfortunately the driver stank to high heaven. He’d obviously been eating something unwholesome sometime in the last week or two. My mood got no better on arrival at the hotel where I found that my reservation had been lost. Luckily this was quickly solved, but my irritation was about to reach a new high, despite the fact the journey was over. Some genius had decided that the best place for an over-sensitive lightswitch was in the headboard of the bed. And so, every 5 minutes or so, my head or the pillow, or some passing microbe would switch the main lights on, wrenching me from my well-earnt slumber. This went on for a while until I finally decided to remove the lightbulb from the fitting. I was quite reasonable about it though. In the morning I returned the bulb to reception, with an explanation of why I was presenting it to them.

The next day, the meeting itself went very well indeed. A hostile audience (hostile to the project, not to me personally) was converted into being positive about the future and all was right with the world. I left Germany with a brain like scrambled eggs, but quite content. (Okay, maybe I was a little smug as well). And this morning, my project manager reported to me that apparently I “went down a storm” in Germany, which is nice to hear. Just as well really, my jaw really aches…

An Interlude

Sorry about that! Now, moving on to books I have finished recently. Firstly, ‘Freakonomics’ in our non-fiction category. Very, very interesting book, well worth reading. An economist uses his powers to investigate aspects of the world we often take for granted, gets accused of being a eugenicist and proves sumo wrestlers cheat! You can borrow it off me once Andy’s finished with it.

Next up, Clancy’s ‘Teeth of the Tiger’. Utter pants. I know I said recently that I only consider Clancy pulp anyway, but this has to have been the worst Clancy I’ve ever read! (The only one from the Jack Ryan\John Clark book I haven’t read is the previous one, Teeth of the Bunny or whatever) It is weak, boring, uninspiring, unresearched… bobbins.

And finally, ‘Thud!’ the newest Terry Pratchett. A book I enjoyed immensely. The second half was as good as the first half. Not my favourite Pratchett book, but it certainly fits well into the Guards storyline. Much better than ‘Going Postal’. I’m slightly hesitant to lend this out as it’s my signed copy.

Back Again

Stayed at Andy’s place again last night, which was cool. Travel from Heathrow to Chiswick is only 30 minutes. Watched an episode of Spooks (strange), ironed a shirt and crashed, only to get up early this morning to get back up to Amersham. Hopefully I can leave early today.

Saturday

I couldn’t write about this earlier as Penny has internet access in the evenings now. But tomorrow is our one year anniversary since we got together. Amazing how time flies, isn’t it? She’ll be working part of tomorrow, but I certainly have plans for the evening…