An Excursion

picture by Believe Collective

On Monday I received an unexpected summons to the Strategy and Planning Department - they wanted me to brief them on the progress of Project Phoenix.

My spirits were lifted, as I don't often get to visit the C-Suite on the 27th floor. "I would be delighted", I emailed back, "I am free any morning next week between 10 and 12".

They suggested 3pm the following afternoon.

Everyone likes to go up to the 27th floor.

Not for the thick carpets, free mineral water and expensive art on the walls, but because it reassures us that our company don't all spend their time performing reconciliations, testing SOX controls, writing progress reports and wrestling with the automatic bulleting software in Powerpoint.  Nope, up on the 27th floor we also make plans, decisions and budgets. "It's like work", I was once told by an indiscreet SPD staffer, at his leaving drinks, "but makes you feel really important - and without having to connect to the outside world"


I had sent my slides ahead, and when I arrived in the SPD conference room, there was the quick thrill of seeing my presentation printed out and bound up, a pack neatly at each seat at the table. But this time something was different and seeing our familiar Phoenix logo brightly on each cover page I gave a sort of squeak of surprise, and was too much taken aback to hold my tongue: "You can print in colour!",  I said. "Yes," they said, "we can print in colour, We have that privilege"

I hurried through my presentation, which was entitled Whence Project Phoenix and which asked whether the stakeholders were realising the benefits from which and indeed by which the project was justified.  After five slides I was interrupted by senior MD who looked up from his blackberry momentarily to ask "Sorry, but who exactly are you?". I smoothly referred him right back to slide one, and was allowed to continue.

All in all I think it went pretty well: I didn't losing my thread, and I got to the end without asking if there was anyone there from Tarporley.

But I wish someone had warned me about that colour printer: If I had only known I would have taken the trouble to make sure that all green traffic light symbols adorning my handouts were, well, green.

Speaking in a different voice

"From time to time in the execution of Project Phoenix", said the email, "it's necessary for the Planning and Administration Department to form an definitive view"

Well, now, I work on Project Phoenix, and I can confirm entirely without equivocation that, from time time, it is indeed necessary for the Planning and Administration Dept to form a definitive view. Oh yes indeedy: it most certainly is.

So, I unplugged my mp3, shut down my browser and paid attention.
.
"Accordingly, the purpose of this email is to confirm that within the context of Project Phoenix George Dylan will act, when needed, as the official voice of PAD"

Naturally I picked up the phone and called George directly. "Congratulations, George, and all that... and I have a question:  How will we know, George, on any particular occasion, whether you are speaking with your official voice, or whether you are just making up as you go along like you normally do?"

Mind, I wasn't being flippant, for the official voice is a very subtle and important concept.

Here is Oswald Bates on this very subject, as he confronts his corporate nemesis...

(The relevant bit for this post from 2:30 to 2:50, but trust me: if you watch the whole 5 minutes you won't regret it)

(From Stephen Polliakoff's timeless and extraordinary drama Shooting the Past)

And here is Scott Adams (of Dilbert fame) who can recognise the 'voice' when he hears it.

You see: very often in the corporate world it is exactly the case that for the truth to heard it must be spoken in the right voice, at the right time, and by the right person. Get it right and you're a guru, a truthsayer, a seer and a leader of men.  But time it wrong, phrase it wrong, use the wrong voice and you're a trouble maker.  Oswald is a trouble maker - an entirely correct trouble maker - who knows he is right and even knows about the 'voice' but yet he doesn't have it.

Neither does poor George

"Don't be silly, Alibert" he told me, "are you expecting me to speak more deeply? Ha Ha, no, of course not, you'll know because of WHAT I am saying, not the manner in which I say it".

Of course we will, George.

--------------

Over in Brussels this week an obscure MEP called Daniel Hannan in a quite brilliant three minute speech absolutely speared Gordon Brown who I don't think has experienced anyone speaking to him like this for years.

This video went viral and was the most-watched video on YouTube on Wednesday..

It isn't even anything new: we've heard it before and we all know it to be true,  but this is first time we have heard it said in a the right voice..

Who thought oratory was dead?

Close Calls, and Deep Regrets

frozen light in a snow weekend
by Paulo Brandão

In life they say that you regret the things you didn't do much more than the things you did: for while the bold mistake is easy overlooked, the fork untaken (or, worse, the fork unnoticed) gnaws the soul.


And it was in that spirit last week that I boldly attempted all the jumps in the snow park (I stacked), and it was in that spirit that I raced with middle-child madly, recklessly down the mountain (it was an epic tie) and it was in that spirit that I persuaded Mrs Botogol, a determined but improving skier to attempt the blue run down to St Martin, to return over the mountain via the gondola.

The previous few days, careering round the well-groomed pistes of the Three Valleys in bright sunshine, pausing only at high altitude bars to enjoy a €6 glass of vin chaud and free wi-fi, it was  possible to imagine that the Alps have been tamed.

Not so.

For when Mrs Botogol and our party found ourselves an hour behind schedule and 2600m above sea level, the sunshine long gone and a light snow falling, sliding and stumbling as fast as we could for the very-soon-to-close gondola which was Mrs Botogol's only hope of making her way safely down the mountain that evening short of an emergency helicopter, well the thin-aired, steep and freezing mountains were suddenly about as tame as a polar bear.

It wasn't as if the decision point that afternoon had gone unnoticed either: the metaphorical and literal fork in our road had been 45 minutes earlier and 800m lower when, behind time on a run that had proved too demanding by far, we had found ourselves at the top of Biolley piste and the bottom of the St Martin 2 chairlift.  The safe option was obvious: the five us should continue down the mountain to safety: an easy blue run, no more than 5 mins on a good day 25 minutes at current pace but to the wrong side of the mountain, and a good 30km taxi ride back to Meribel.

The other option, the silly option you could call it, was to head up the mountain the waiting gondola, 1000m above us and two chair lifts away.

I thought about it... and we blundered on.

It was when Mrs Botogol fell over getting off the first chair-lift that I knew for certain I had made the wrong decision, but by then there was no way to turn back and on we pressed, higher and colder, the pistes beside us all redder and steeper.

So, how close did we come to catastrophe?

Well, if I tell you that Mrs Botogol and her friend made it into the gondola but by the time the two boys – just a chair behind us on the way up - had taken off their skis and scrambled over to me the Retourner a Meribel door was shut and firmly padlocked.... well then you will realise that we had the nearest of near misses.

The ski down was fun though, and the boys and I easily overtook the mums in the bubble, who waved cheerily as we raced past.

“You skied down!”, they said when they eventually rejoined us at the bottom of the mountain, “but why didn't you take the gondola like we did”

“Well, you know, the boys fancied a run, so..."   

No regrets

The Spirit of Christmas

picture by law_keven

At work this year I have received just one Christmas Card:

Dear Botogol

it said

Have a very Happy Holidays 

(we don't have Christmas in Investment Banks, we have Holidays)

and thank you for all your help
Kate

'Ah, isn't that nice", I thought,
"I wish I knew someone called 'Kate'"

I stared at the scrawled handwriting trying my best to turn it into a 'Jane' (I know a Jane) or a 'Mark' (I know a Mark) or even a "Parminder". 

Not that I could recall helping any of them, mind, that didn't sound like me. But anyway it remained, defiantly "Kate".

Must have been delivered to the wrong office?

But then there aren't many people called Botogol where I work.

Frustrated, I took the option of last resort: with a creak I opened my office door and poked my head out to interrogate my team. "Oi!, team! did you see who left this card in my office?"  

They quickly minimised facebook, minicllip and www.get-a-bigger-bonus.com and concentrated carefully on my question. 

"No, Sorry", said Jane

"Didn't see anyone", said Mark

"I'm not sure?", said Parminder, who is quite young?  "because I don't really know her? but it might have been that woman from Controllers? Kate Jones?"

"Oh", I said, "right", I said, "It was Kate then. Well, thanks"

My Help? 

I wonder if I am supposed send her a card.

Nolstagic Reminders of Projects Long Neglected #1: Statuesque

Large Mermaid by botogol

I joined flickr in 2005; not so early that I can call myself a pioneer, but way before the dead hand of yahoo almost spoilt it all.

In those days flickr was small as well as cool and for a while I hung out with some genuine photoheads, but it turned out I was among them but not of them: my flickr DNA reveals I have posted 408 photos and been favourited only once.

Sticking photos on the web is fun, but I wanted more and, looking for the web2.0 idea that would make my fortune, I started one hundred and twenty eight groups but none of them, alas, turned out to be lolcatz.

This is my best idea: statuesque.

Founded 2005 it now has 41 active members and 67 photos - and not all of them uploaded by me! You'd think that was impressive - until you realised that it's 280 fewer members than love my hamster, and 5,800 fewer members than squared circle (yep I did a four of those as well).

For my money I think statuesque is an idea 160% better than lolcatz (but obviously only 53% as good as dogbook). It deserves so much more and I wonder how one goes about getting more members.. Other than seek and go pimp (HT George Oates) Blog about it perhaps?


Warning: Statuesque can seriously spook your children. A promising statue and a tiny reach for the camera can cause them to scatter precipitately with neither sense nor caution.

I'm with Wayne Barnes

U11s run a lot faster than U10s and this season sometimes referees - even super-fit triathletes - find it hard to keep up. So, at two tries each, with three minutes to go, when the super-fast left wing was caught by the full back in the far corner, well I was just very glad I had a touch judge, and when his flag shot up it was a simple matter to call a line out 5m back.

"Line-out??" said the TJ indignantly, "Line out????? He wasn't out! That was a try!"

Now, I might not have the prestige of Wayne Barnes, but on my side I have many more years of experience, and I knew what I was doing:

"But..", said I, "...but you put your flag up!"

"Yes of course I did! I was signalling a try!"

There was a short pause, punctuated only by very troubled 11 year olds

"Ummm, yes,.. sorry about that, ref", he said, (delightfully sheepish, now) "I was, um, excited ... but it was a try"


I don't suppose this situation comes up very often for it's not mentioned in the Continuum. So I pondered for a moment, surrounded by 11yr olds with points of view, and it didn't take me long.

"Sorry boys, silly mix-up. Try given"

The boys were fine about it, I relaxed, problem solved.

Except for ....except for.... over on far, touchline a small group of parents were incensed "Oi Ref! But he put his flag up! Oi Ref, what are you doing? It's a line out, surely"

There are a great many hand signals available to the rugby referee, but they don't include anything for "Sorry, everyone, but the touch judge is a prat"

So I had to make one up. I'm altogether not certain it worked, but touch judge understood which, after all, was the important thing.

Back to Work

Rat in a maze by :: Varda ::.

How people are expected to come back from holiday rested, energised and raring to go is a total mystery to me.

It makes no sense: you take two weeks off running, you come back slower, not faster. You take two weeks off work, you forget all your passwords.

And in my case also you forget where your office is.

You can only imagine how amusing that was: bursting in to find the new Regional Cross-Functional Inter-Department Coordinator sitting in my office trying out my chair. I must have given her a good half-minute of the Goldilocks treatment before I remembered that I had moved again just three days before I went away.

I actually suspect I have been away longer than two weeks, but have forgotten it all in a haze of manzanilla, or perhaps we were all drugged on that bus. As well as the memory loss, this would explain why it's become winter. And why everyone seems to have forgotten about standing on the bleeding right on escalators.

At least they missed me while I was a way (well, I left some little booby traps behind to make damn sure, of course)

Three Pounds Eighty

"Excuse me ladies and gentlemen, I am really sorry to bother you on your journey home after a busy day, but I am currently a rough sleeper and I am trying to raise eight pounds tonight to get into a hostel.

"Normally I do sell the Big Issue for a living, but today there was a problem and I only got a small number to sell so I am £3.80 short tonight. If I can raise that, I will be able to get into the hostel and have a bed for the night and keep warm and dry. If you can spare anything I would be really grateful. God bless you"

I probably hear that speech once a week commuting home on the train. Probably every other late-night commuter in London hears it as well. I wonder how many young men there are (for it is always young men) travelling the late night trains, all with this same patter? They are well rehearsed - much of it is delivered verbatim - and most strikingly it is always precisely in the same tone of voice: a tone of voice that is at the same time apologetic, respectful, slightly embarrassed, self effacing and polite. The whole package is a successful meme, no doubt about it. Where did it come from? Did it evolve naturally by imitation, did someone actually script it?

And why does it work? All the passengers know they are being spun a line; there is no shelter further along the Kingston loop turning away the young homeless for want of £3.80.

We have heard it all before; the performers know we have heard it all before but nevertheless they proceed to deliver it again, straight-faced, and because they deliver it we passengers give them money. All parties all complicit in the shared fiction, a suspension of disbelief, a doublethink: an unspoken - but clearly understood - agreement between strangers to a pretence that makes it easier - less embarrassing perhaps - to give and to receive. I wonder if it happens in the same way in other countries?

But last night something different; the spiel delivered, the hapless supplicant was moving down the carriage collecting money when a second man entered at the other end of the carriage and started the exact same speech. Beggar #1 started guiltily and backed away. Too late; he was noticed, and he turned and ran down the aisle, hotly pursued by beggar #2.

A small window in this world opened to me.

I never give them anything, anyway.

Whispering Grass

It's not a criticism of the Twickenham Rugby Club groundsman when I observe that the grass on the Colts pitch is too long for wheelchairs.

It's also bumpy.

Not that the groundsman doesn't do a good job with his scythe, paint-bucket and roller; He does, he does; It's just not..... accessible

Last Sunday afternoon, for instance, when the end of season 7s festival had all finished, the BBQ was winding down and scores of multi-coloured rugby players were making their way home, I was walking from the U10s pitch back to car carrying the tent, the kit-bag, my rucksack, my boots and the remains of the picnic.

On my right a crowd had gathered around the control caravan watching the prize giving. On my left, some 50m away in the middle of the pitch, was a small boy, about my son's age, in a wheelchair. All alone. As I watched him he struggled forward a few yards, he stopped, he tried to turn, stopped again, went a few more yards forward, hit a bump and threw his hands in the air in frustration.

I looked around very carefully to see if anyone was watching him - parents, siblings? Dom Jolly and a Channel Four camera crew? So far as I could tell there was absolutely noone at all... so I heaved a sigh of relief and hurried on my way.

But when I came trudging back three minutes later he was still there. Well, he had moved about 10 metres. I cursed and I diverted to speak to him

"Hello. Are you all right, mate?"
"Yes"
"It must be hard work wheeling that through the grass. Would you like a push?"
"Yes!"
"No problem. Where do want to go then?"

He pointed. He pointed at the public footpath in the far corner of the field. The path that leads past the railway bridge to the reservoir.

"There!!"
I considered this very carefully for a moment.

"Tell you what" (brightly) "are your Mum and Dad here?"
"Yep"
"Great! So where are they then?"

He tossed his head - indicating the crowd around the caravan.
"So, shall I take you over there?"
"No!" fiercely, "there!" He pointed again.

I considered my options and I began to sweat:

• I imagined myself pushing him off into the distance, down the footpath past the railway bridge to the reservoir

• I carefully visualised myself pushing him in the direction he didn't want to go, perhaps shouting at me, towards his father. Who would turn out be a tight-head prop, no doubt about it. Evidently with a medal-winning elder son.

• I imagined myself leaving him on his own, in the middle of the field, unable to follow me Momentarily heartened, I imagined breaking into a run as I neared the car...
  

No good deed ever goes unpunished.

The sun beat down.
I moved my weight from one leg to the other
"We-ell....um"
"There!!"

At least, I thought to myself, desperately; at least I'll be able to blog about it later....

Glass Half Full

• I'm not one of those tiresome kind of people who insist on seeing their glass as half-full
• but neither am I one of those sensible kind of people who see their glass as half-empty
• Nope, I'm one of those smart-alec kind of people who remark that the glass is twice as big as it needs to be.

Old Woman Climbing

Hurrying along my road on Saturday morning, my sharp eyes were distracted by a pair of smartly-dressed, middle-aged burglars climbing over the side gate at No 42. I stopped dead in my tracks, un-holstered my phone and appraised the dangerous-looking pair

Ever since squatters moved into No. 3 last month, everyone in our road has enjoyed being vigilant. In the orange glow of the urban night, dark rumours have circulated from dinner party to book club, talk of shadowy goings on, mysterious comings and goings, the amount of litter that's built up in their garden, and should someone clear it up or do we just leave it.

Naturally, I was thrilled: thwarting a Broad-Daylight Burglary would give me something to brag about and something to blog about, all at the same time.

I flipped open my phone, thumbed the 9 button and silently rehearsed my call. Burglary In Progress. Suspects IC1, 1 male, 1 female. Beige Slacks, Beige Anorak, Grey Hair, Medium Height, Early 70s, ringleader is climbing gingerly and slowly over side door of #42 with door keys in hand....

....I smiled brightly and strode over "Are you all right? Can I help at all?"

And the boot was suddenly, firmly, unequivocally on the other foot. She didn't look like the look of me AT ALL. She was elderly. She was climbing over a rickety 5ft side door, down to a crumbling 3 foot wall. But she wasn't about to trust me.

There was, you see a problem: I was picturing myself as friendly neighbour, offering a helping hand both literal and metaphoric. Unfortunately I was wearing an England rugby shirt; It was an England match day and I live in Twickenham. To her I was one of 70,000 passers-by up in town for the game and on the lookout for an opportunistic bit of burgling before kick off. I know that now.

They were babysitting their grandchildren. The front door was stiff. Their arthritic fingers couldn't pull it open from the inside. They couldn't get out. They went out the back and round, but their son had freshly padlocked the side door because of the squatters.

I smiled harder. 'Really, you shouldn't climb, OK, but let me at least help you down....BE CAREFUL! .. look, put your foot here... no, HERE"

Reader, she climbed. I watched. She stumbled. I opened my ventilated armpit holes. She reached the ground. I left.

On the way past No 3, I walked on tip toes and craned my neck to try and see over the cardboard sellotaped to the inside of the bay window, and stubbed my toe on the new recycling bin that has appeared on the pavement.

Natural Leaders

In the workplace there are two types of people. Either type can accidentally ESC a powerpoint presentation leaving themselves abruptly, and unexpectedly, staring at strange screen. Easily done.

When this happens one type of person looks helplessly at the screen with palms upturned, perhaps stabbing at a button or two; the other type yell "Press F5, John!", from the audience.

On the Clapham Omnibus (yes, really)

Now, you wouldn't think that anyone who has lived in London for 20 years would be stupid enough to get on a Replacement Bus Service when the trains aren't running

Well, I am

In my defence, it was only at the station I realised that the trains weren't running. Should I go back and fetch the car? But there was the bus all ready to go.... I went for it.

Looking back, I made three mistaken assumptions

• Mistaken Assumption #1: That the bus was about to leave.
• Reality: The driver was merely warming the engine

• Mistaken Assumption #2: The bus was replacing the FAST train that I had planned to catch, and would go directly to Richmond, and Putney
• Reality: it was replacing the slow train. St Margarets, Richmond, North Bleedin' Sheen..
  

• Mistaken Assumption #3: That the bus driver knew the way
• Reality: The driver failed to make that half-right turn at Chalker's Corner and crossed Chiswick Bridge. We had gone wrong. Worse, we were on the wrong side of the river.

Nobody on the bus said anything

Well, I was reading the paper and I didn't notice until it was too late. That's my story. Perhaps everyone else was doing the same.

Aren't we all polite?

As the bus accelerated up the A316 toward Chiswick there came just a few faint murmurings "Aren't we supposed to be going to Mortlake?", "Well, I thought so", "Did we actually cross the river?"

But no one spoke to the driver.

It was a good half mile before, finally, a woman deferentially piped up:
"Excuse me, driver?"
"Yes?"
"Um, Do you think we've gone the wrong way?"

Reader, never, ever admit that you are wrong. If you doubt my advice, rest assured that the benighted driver of the 09:10 replacement bus service from Twickenham to Clapham Junction learned his lesson on Saturday.

- peace and calm -
- peace and calm -
- murmur whisper -
- peace and calm -
- polite question -
- peace and calm -

"I missed a turning back there didn't I?"

- PANDEMONIUM -

"Do a U turn!"
"He's missed the turning!"
"Turn right"
"Turn left"
"Keep going"
"Hammersmith Bridge"
"Slow Down!"
"3 point turn"
"Everyone put your hands in the air, sit down in your seats, and no one will get hurt. Now all of you - give me your phones"

OK the last one was me and, no, it wasn't funny and it wasn't clever,

Bewildered by the conflicting heckles the driver simply plunged on. The further we strayed from our route the later we were going to be. The later we got, the faster he went. The faster he went, the more we shouted

"Don't be stupid, he can't u-turn in a bus, "
"Keep going until we hit a roundabout"
"Turn left and then left again"
"I will execute one person every 40 minutes until my demands are met"

Cometh the Hour, Cometh the Man. It's in a desperate situation like this that true natural leaders emerge. I coughed gently.
Unfortunately our true natural leader turned out not to be me but a wild red-headed woman at the front, with no sense of direction and no memory for roads. "There's no roundabout up this way!", she yelled, just a few hundred metres short of Hogarth Roundabout, "Not for miles..Turn LEFT now!"

Tyres screeched. The bus turned left. I strode masterfully to the front.
"Um, can I get out?"
"Out of the bus?"
"Um, yes"
"OK"

Odd decision.

One moment I'm in a warm bus, with plenty of material for my blog unfolding before my blackberry. The next I'm on a street in Chiswick. It's raining softly. I'm carrying ski-boots.

And there's no taxi rank on the Hogarth roundabout.