And it gets better.













My holiday-fest over Christmas includes a week skiing in Meribel over New Year. It strikes me as an absolutely fab way to spend New Year - traditionally a tricky night to ensure a good time. I love skiing and I can't wait to go again.

This week I'm off to Germany for a couple of nights to visit our sister company. Apparently it's also cold and snowy there right now. Hat, gloves, scarf, blue skies and smiles. Perfect.

I've taken virtually no holiday this year (a fact which probably shows...) and have booked off a bunch of time at the end of December to take a break. I was looking forward to a rest, but I was also secretly dreading going away somewhere on my own.

So I've been hunting for something suitable to do - I wanted a group trip, with a bit of adventure and activity, nothing too extreme (because I only have 10 days and I really want to relax too). As usual I fancy somewhere a bit off the beaten track which will test me and push me outside of what feels comfortable. I want stories to tell on my return.

Having discarded the Everest Base Camp trek (at 26 days, slightly over budget) and various spectacular but rather far-flung trekking destinations (Peru, Nepal and Borneo) because it takes far too long to get to them and back in a ten day trip, I finally settled on something which caught my interest - a trip to Jordan and Egypt.

I've never been to the Middle East before and, despite the obvious tension there right now, felt it was high time I did. So I'm off on the 10th December for ten days. It'll involve a fair bit of jeep driving through the Sinai desert, a hike up Mt Sinai and a night out under canvas in the sand. Petra itself looks pretty impressive - an ancient city carved out of the rocks. I'm definitely going to be taking lots of photos.

I'm hoping there'll be a decent group of us - could be anything from 6 to 12 people. Mostly Australians I think since it's being organised through an Australian company. It will be good to meet some new people and just have a laugh. Now very much looking forward to it.

I've been busy getting my hands dirty with web design again - it's been a while - but it's also good fun.

My sister and her fiance Paul are getting married at the end of May next year and they wanted a web site to announce their news on and coordinate the guests.

It's a MovableType blog (so they can keep a journal) with some static posts for various references. I'll post all the photos with Flickr and might hook up PayPal for easy gift-giving.

You can see the results here.

I was swimming this evening. The outdoor pool at The Park Club is one of my favourite places to unwind. But as the steam rose off the pool in great clouds, completely obscuring the swimmers at the other end of the pool and giving the water an eerie green glow from the flood lights above, I realised, as always that my brain doesn't always want to unwind. You'd think it'd be tired after a ten hour stint at the office, organising, motivating, project managing, emailing, typing, talking.

Instead it was still thinking. I find the twin urges - the first to try to relax and not think of anything - to free the mind, and the second to try to think over as many thoughts as possible so that I eventually will be able to relax - difficult to balance. Sometimes I have to leave the pool and go home just so I can write down all the things which are swirling round my head and somehow capture them so they won't disturb me all evening. But I wouldn't have it any other way.

Now it's later and I'm trying to jot them all down... here's what I was thinking about:

• The relative difference in future, potential, value between a growing dot com content company with a high multiple vs a consultancy company in a growth market. Whether I want to choose between either.
• Ideas for a new dot com site and how to make it work cheaply and effectively with very few staff. Breaking the sites I know about down into their bare essentials - the minimum required to make a successful dot com - supply, demand, content, traffic, SEO, critical mass.
• How to build my sister's wedding website and give it to her as a present for her birthday next week
• The relative merits of front-crawl versus breast stroke and how my crawl technique seems to have improved since I first started swimming here. It feels almost graceful at times.
• Holiday. I have a holiday coming up and on the one hand I'm really looking forward to it, on the other I know I'm going away on my own and secretly don't relish the prospect of that. Where should I go?
• How strangely satisfying it is to swim an entire length of the pool underwater, holding my breath and yet swimming as fast as I can. Exhilarating.
• How beautiful the steam looks rising off the pool

Good thoughts. Now I can relax.

Remember Gattaca? It's a film about our futuristic selves, and a slippery slope to a place we might not like. A place where your genetic destiny is easily gleaned from a small sample of your DNA, and facts about your health, intelligence, longevity and susceptibility to disease effectively determine your career, your education, the opportunities you are given, who you marry and who will insure you.

A place where every child born has been pre-selected to have "the best" combination of features from each of it's parents. And where "faith" (or natural) births are frowned upon because of the risk of imperfection. A sad, clinical place where genius may never arise because it is clear that some of the most creative and intelligent amongst us are the geniuses they are because of some disease, however minor, or the impact of one.

If you haven't seen the film, go and get it on DVD. It's a beautiful, inspiring one.

I came across this unique look at the concept of identity, played out as a series of ideas for business cards.

Imagine that the exchange of business cards today becomes the exchange of a blood sample, in the future.

Even if you think you're principled and wouldn't want to encourage this sort of genetic-apartheid, given the choice, would you rather do business with someone you can genetically prove is prone to honesty or someone whose genetic identity is hidden to you?

It's not far away.

Regular readers please forgive the "Heat magazine" lapse this post represents in an otherwise (relatively) sensible blog. Those who know me will know I'm definitely not one for celebrity gossip, soaps, fame (of the TV sort anyway), reality television etc.

People who are in the public spotlight are there (generally) because they have a talent of one sort or another and this talent has led to great public popularity. Which is a funny sort of relationship to have - having a lot of people you don't know know a lot about you (and probably want to get to know a lot more...). I'm more likely to sit smugly knowing that they're just ordinary people really - and that I'm lucky enough to have talents which don't, or at least haven't, led to crazy fame.

So I've always shunned those people who had crushes on pop stars or fan sites or the seedy side of the internet who provide fake pictures of the latest hearthrob actress in the buff.

But, the point of all this is that, I can't hold back - Keeley Hawes is just downright foxy. There I said it. I was watching the brilliant version of Macbeth - part of the BBC's excellent ShakespeaRe-told series and couldn't help noticing that despite her rather scary portrayal of Ella Macbeth (aka Lady Macbeth) I really would like her to have my babies. Although to be honest, I'm fairly sure that's something I don't get to decide. And anyway she has two already. And a husband.

So then, just when I'm recovering my composure after all this, well, swooning, another one turns up: Naomi Cleaver - where has she been hiding all my life? A beautiful, sexy, intelligent design consultant, business-woman and presenter of Channel Four's property shows. When asked "Are you happy with your body shape?", she said, "I wish the distribution of my weight was more up top and less at the bottom. But you can't have everything.". She looks pretty perfectly-distributed to me.

Maybe this is a thirties thing and certain women suddenly become maddeningly attractive to the more "mature" gentleman. Maybe I just have the horn.

I'm sure millions of other people have also noticed these two goddesses of the small screen (and this post is therefore also an exercise in site traffic generation from the less discerning side of the internet - let's see what we can drag in). All I can say is shwing-bala-balah.

Obviously, Keeley, Naomi, this is all meant in a decidedly non-threatening way, drop by sometime, show me you're both still ordinary.

I was out with Matt, one of my American colleagues last night. He's over for the week, to get to know our team. It's his first time ever in London. We went out to a hippy pub in Notting Hill.

On our way back to Matt's hotel, we are chatting away and pass this guy wearing a big, cream, stripey blazer and a loud scarf. A big black fellow; he looks like a proper, Notting Hill, English gent with an eccentric twist.

Matt shouts out "That's a fly jacket, man!".

I'm taken aback, not because I think it's the wrong thing to say - it's a brilliant thing to say and a great jacket - just because I would never have bothered to say such a thing myself.

The guy grins, and says, "It is, thank you very much!"

Three people: me, Matt and the blazered gent, smile and go on their way, lightened by the moment.

Matt smiles, "I always try to pay at least one person a compliment every day."

I head home thinking that's really something I'd like to do too.

I had good cause to be in Didcot on Thursday - making a visit to a supplier in Harwell. After a disasterous, delayed train journey I stood in line at Didcot Parkway for a cab to take me to the science park.

It turns out Harwell taxi men are a breed apart. If you'd visited a World War II Veterans Luncheon and collected up the ten crustiest chaps and told them they could earn a bob or two driving patience-free London train passengers around sleepy villages, you wouldn't have come up with a better match for this bunch. Each in their own silver Mercedes - with, I noted, in-car navigation systems (the cars have obviously been updated more recently than the drivers) - the men are elderly, silver-haired, rotund and all turned out in their "best".

They have that fat, purply-veined facial look which I suspect comes from far too many days drinking pints at 11am and following it with bottles of cheap whiskey before 6pm. "Best", in this part of the world, seems to mean putting on a greasy blue blazer stuck with wispy white hairs and flecks of 70-year-old dandruff. I half expect my driver to open his blazer and proudly offer a look at his medals.

He doesn't have one for driving. It's 20 mph all the way, and a navigational error means we end up inside the nuclear testing facility at Harwell rather than the innovation centre where I'm headed.

However, my man on the return journey was to be congratulated both for his forthcoming political views, and the fact he managed to get me back for the 13.30pm to Paddington with a deft shortcut and a speedy piece of overtaking.

For an entertaining sidestall to the day's activities, I thank you, old men of Harwell.

Tonight I have a dose of the post-party blues - obviously normal following the consumption of a large quantity of alcohol, having a massive party where everyone had a great time and the commencement of my 4th decade with a day at work which was basically dull and frustrating.

Fortunately the photos of the weekend are trickling in and thoroughly entertaining.

If anyone else has any, please send them over.






From Geraint:

Did I tell you aswell the picture of naked you on my back got me chatted up in the bar by two fit young australians? Perhaps you should use it as your pulling shirt in Texas....

Maybe the shirt has a purpose after all.

The party last night went off with a bang.

Despite me forgetting to count myself in the dinner numbers and forgetting two guests who had to be accommodated at the last minute as we pushed the room to capacity, the restaurant staff were faultless, flexible, dedicated and so keen to see me have a good time.

Everyone seemed to be enjoying themselves thoroughly and my speech was upstaged by five of the boys turning up wearing shirts with a horrible transfer of me naked on the back, save for a pink Texan cowboy hat. They proceeded to take half their clothes off to the Hot Chocolate Full Monty song around me. Fortunately they'd brought one for me to wear so I didn't feel left out.

The evening went rapidly downhill from there - with silly dancing, giggling and whiskey drinking. I was lucky enough to get a bundle of presents and have made a mental note to have more parties like this.

I'm slightly concerned that by Monday photos of me naked, save for a pink cowboy hat, will be circulating around my current workplace and it's new Texan bosses - but then, they probably deserve to know the horrible truth about the theme of nudity which seems to blight my life.

Thanks to all who came, all who put a lot of thought into the various presents and pranks and all of have been such good friends to me over the last 3 decades.

It was a Friday night, I was four pints down and returning from a fun evening down at the Vesta Boat Club in London, watching the fireworks display in Fulham from the balcony.

I get home to a strange text message:

Hi. Susie from Elite here. All set for Tim tomorrow. Any last minute requests?

It's from a number I don't recognise. My heart sinks - it appears as though someone coming to my party tomorrow has hired some kind of dirty stripper or escort or something. Up until now the party has been entirely within my control - now events are overtaking me and anything could happen. It's not a nice feeling.

But I'm puzzled. Firstly, why would the message have come to me? And secondly which of my friends have failed to know me so badly that they would feel I might actually appreciate that kind of humiliation. Mind comes up blank, so I sleep on it.

In the morning, the only thing I can think of is the "Fat-o-gram" I once witnessed at a big party - a thoroughly unpleasant fat woman came along and took all her clothes off in front of the "lucky" host. No-one was particularly amused.

In an attempt to get to the bottom of it, I rattle off a text message to the top 10 candidates on my list of prankster mates...

Now very concerned about the text below I received last night. Know anything I should?
Hi. Susie from Elite here. All set for Tim tomorrow. Any last minute requests?

It helped to share the anxiety and when all I got were replies protesting innocence, I sent my text to more and more people (including those I had absolutely no reason to be suspicious of).

Here's some of the responses:

From a concerned Chris:

Bloody hell Tim! Maybe Mark knows something? I know Lizzie was organising a whip round but that doesn't sound right

From Mark Stitson:

I think it sounds great! Unfortunately not to do with me! Looking forward to tonight with or without Susie!

Gareth:

Wow. That looks exciting! I know nothing. See you later

Widening the search to the girls... from Joss:

Oddly enough I don't know anything about a girl from Elte but understand why you might be concerned... try the boys?

From Ross:

Nowt I know about... honest! Susie sounds like fun. Feyzan says wear your best boxers!

Getting more and more concerned, when Chris and Rhian turn up at my flat, I tell them I'm pretty nervous about what's going to happen. Having played along all day long, Chris looks at Rhian and says "Shall we tell him?".

I can't believe it - the two of them have completely set me up.

Later on:

Apologies, Susie is off sick today, replacement for Tim's party is Jelena. Hope costume is satisfactory following our communication. Elite.

It turns out Chris was in the pub on Friday night and used his friend's phone to send the message. He even had her primed incase I chose to call back. They thought they'd gone a bit far when I said it would ruin my "classy" party but they held their nerve and pulled off a very successful prank.

Bastards.

http://www.gapingvoid.com/Moveable_Type/archives/002007.html

http://headrush.typepad.com/creating_passionate_users/2005/10/how_to_spend_yo.html

http://thebrandbuilder.blogspot.com/2005/10/raison-detre.html

Why we absolutely shouldn't hire a team of interns to "fake blog" about our products to make us successful. And believe me, there are people suggesting it.

And why instead we should:

(a) get our operation into shape
(b) start doing the things the customers really want, not what the business thinks they want
(c) when we've got there, start talking about it online