Normal service will resume

I'm afraid that there will be no entry for today as I am bushed. Normal service will resume tomorrow. Have a great Friday everyone.

Tobacco mongerers

An interesting time at today's team-building day. One of the learning experiences for me from outside the day's main points happened at lunchtime.

Also at the hotel for a function were a group from a large tobacco company. I had never really seen tobacco company executives before, and I don't know what I was expecting, but I was struck by how normal they looked. A little dull, even. I suppose that even serial killers look like everyone else, and so there is no reason why these people would have hideous deformities or crazed, evil and soulless expressions. However irrational it may be, I was a little surprised.

One thing that I have to say in their support is that straight after their food about 90% of them went outside for a cigarette. Good to see them living and, more crucially, dying by their product.

Anyway, on a personal note I'd like to thank the organisers of today when you read this.

Do not go gently into that good night

I am not yet 30 but today I feel as if I am getting old. I like to think of myself as a modern sort of chap - I bought my retro clothes this time they were in fashion, not the last. I aggregate my internet, I write a blog, and some of the CDs that I have bought during the past year were actually released during the past year. I am even involved in a 'growing my hair longer' project.

What has made me feel old is the sight of boy racers (are they even still called that?) who had pimped their ride (OK, I can still cut it a little bit). The ride that they had pimped was the new model Mini - one of the first ones to come out. Looking clapped out already, with blacked out windows and a big exhaust and black alloys and floor-lighting.

Now I still think of the new Mini as, well, new. Because it came out when I was at university. I have now realised that I am a month away from the 10th anniversary of me starting at university.

Worse still, I have a team building day tomorrow. That's not bad in itself, I love my team and am looking forward to it. But the sequence of events is looking far more middle-aged than early twenties. Please help me understand this by answering the poll on the sidebar.

That's it. I'm off to drown my sorrows in a respectable, smoke-free bar where they don't play their music too loudly.

An earwig upon thee

Mrs Gripe and I have had a fantastic Bank Holiday weekend - yesterday we had a lovely suprise when we bumped into an old friend over brunch who we had lost contact with. We spent the afternoon with her and her boyfriend and finally parted ways at 23:30 after dinner. This morning I had one of those moments when you step under the shower and instantly realise how sunburnt you got the previous day. This afternoon we took in La Boheme in Greenwich Park - thoroughly recommend it (opera not really Mrs Gripe's thing but she loved the picnic and sunshine too). Anyway, onto darker and more sinister matters...

This is a photo of the moment when, by our calculations, the parking contractors for Greenwich made about at least £4,000 in 10 minutes alone through penalties (assuming everyone pays promptly and gets the 50% discount). The cars are all parked on the road outside Greenwich Park at the back, along Blackheath. They are on a single yellow line, which everyone parks on at the weekend because it is only restricted Monday to Friday.

Conventional wisdom in every part of civilization is that a Bank Holiday is treated in the same way as a Sunday. Clearly everyone who parked along here thought that the same would apply - and why wouldn't they?

The evil parking nazis, on the other hand, decided that on the technicality that Bank Holiday Monday is still a Monday and therefore they can fine all of these people, ruin their day and make some filthy money.

I'd like to say three things about this:

1. Thank you to the person who pulled alongside me and warned me just as I was trying to park in one of these spaces - you have saved me £50 and Mrs Gripe lots of my fuming.
2. A Bank Holiday Monday is clearly not the same as a usual business day, and therefore the spirit of the restriction says that it shouldn't be applied. These people are applying the letter of it only.
3. These wardens waited for people to turn up and leave their cars and then walked along ticketing them. How can they, and the parking contractor generally, sleep soundly at night?

Emergency on planet earth

Sorry to anyone who was living for my next post and has had to wait three days. I can explain - the sun came out and I decided to try and resurrect things between us. So Friday night's post didn't happen, and yesterday I was all about going driving in the sunshine and then sitting out drinking beer in the sunshine (no, I didn't drive home).

Friday night did, however, bring the subject for this post. And thanks to Jamiroquai for its title.

I now have proof, after what happened on Friday night, and it is imperative that we all now do something to save the planet. You see, we were in our favourite local bar and I ordered a glass of the fleurie that I am partial to.

Major: A large glass of fleurie, please
Barkeep: No
Major: Why not?
Barkeep: Global Warming

As we all know, bar tenders don't lie about anything. They only speak the truth. So that's it. It's official now, and I'm panicking.

Never mind rising sea levels - I live on higher ground so all I will get is the beach coming to my doorstep. That's just cool. Never mind forest fires and droughts and deluges and famine and pestulence. We all know that the weather can be erratic. It has now hit wine suppliers.

This has shown me the true way. People, you need to stop burning fossil fuels. If we work together we can recycle our way out of global warming.

And then I can have my fleurie back.

The Red Weasel

Well it looks like that loathsome, impish and throughly punchable mayor of ours has been on a mission to screw over the facts to push his own agenda again (does this sound more like the carping of old, Will?).

Posts by Greenwich Watch and Little Man, What Now are giving coverage to a subject that I posted on some time ago - the mysterious canning of the Blackwall Tunnel tidal flow arrangement. An enterprising journalist from Little Man used the Freedom of Information Act (I have just learnt how to do links) to get hold of a copy of a report commissioned by TfL on the tidal flow.

It shows that they knew, according to their own research, that ending the tidal flow would have a negative environmental impact and increase congestion on the south side of the tunnel. It also shows that the cost of maintaining it was relatively very low, and that it would not reduce accidents significantly because there was no significant increase in the accidents from the tidal flow. As you may recall, TfL stated this as their reason for stopping it and their website said that they would give CCTV footage to anyone who asked for it. My previous post described how they were obstructive when I asked for it.


So, Ken Livingstone, to use your own words, there is a chiselling little crook somewhere close to this. And you can bet your knackers to a barn dance that he isn't American.

Ditching the second one to get a first one?

I know that the subject of this post is a few days old, I meant to write about it earlier but I've had too much other stuff to write about with trips to A&E and all the snorting of live earwigs to be able to cover this topic. (Alright, I promise I'll stop going on about that soon, ok?)

There has been much coverage of the squeeze in the credit markets (it even crept into my last post) - an interesting and little known spillover effect happened online over the last week. Ginko Bank, the bank in Second Life, had a run on deposits as people rushed to withdraw their Linden Dollars. The pictures are very funny - a whole load of people's avatars (including, in the picture that I saw, one that looked like a fox or squirrel or something) queued at the ATMs desperately trying to pull all of their cash out of Second Life for fear of Ginko Bank collapsing. The effect was so severe that the bank had to cease operations and convert deposits into perpetual bonds. So, in fact, the events mirrored how deposit runs work in real life.

There isn't a lot to comment on about this except that it's a quirky reminder of the inherent fragility of banks and the extent to which they rely on confidence.

And no, I don't use Second Life.

Today's second post - the markets

As promised, here is today's second post. A lot less disgusting than the first - again, as promised.

After we had returned from A&E, while trying to eat and drink something to fill my stomach (if you have read the first post, you will know why), Mrs. Gripe and I turned on the early morning news. There was a story about the credit markets, and particularly the contribution of CDOs to the current squeeze. In discussing it, they mentioned that the ratings agencies had given AAA ratings to many of the tranches of debt - and consquently asked an analyst from Moody's whether the blame could be lain at the door of the ratings agencies.

Naturally, he was very much of the opinion that he wasn't to blame. He pointed out that the credit ratings agencies are about rating creditworthiness rather than market liquidity of credit instruments (which is much of the cause of the current squeeze). OK, fine, up to a point.

On the other hand, however, part of the problem is that many companies have ventured into buying credit derivatives as a way of earning from surplus capital. This has made it unclear exactly where many of the credit losses will end up (and therefore what the financial institutions' exposure is, and how much of their offloading of this risk will itself default). As Warren Buffet said when he called credit derivatives 'toxic waste', "it's only when the tide goes out that you see who is swimming naked".

Therefore, although they could only look at creditworthiness in rating CDOs, the liquidity of CDOs and other instruments must be a factor in other firms' financial stability (and hence creditworthiness) by determining how much risk they had exposed themselves to and how easy it would be to offload.

Therefore, weren't the ratings agencies in a perfect position to bring some much-needed transparency to this market by making firms disclose more (if not all) of their credit derivative liabilities?

Today's first post - a fable

You can look forward to two posts today. This one, a harrowing (and not a little disgusting) story with a strong moral attached to it, and the second a suggestion to the ratings agencies about areas of their business that they could consider.

So, first the gross story. I woke up during the night with a touch of asthma and, bleary-eyed, took my ventolin inhaler. When I breathed in sharply, I started choking on a large blockage that had got stuck at the back of my throat. As I was trying to cough the blockage back out, I felt it crawl up the back of my throat and into the back of my nose. After lots of snorting, coughing and spewing I brought something up into the sink. When I put the light on and looked, I saw that it was an earwig. A live earwig, somewhat stunned and surprised, trying to get out of the sink.

But the blockage wasn't cleared. There was another one, and after half an hour of trying to get it out in the same way, it was clear that it was much, much more stubborn than the first. So we called NHS Direct:

Mrs Gripe: 'do you have any tips for people who have inhaled live earwigs that are now stuck in the back of their nose and throat?'

NHS Direct: 'you have done what?'

Mrs Gripe: 'it's not me, it's Major Gripe. He inhaled a couple of live earwigs and has got one out but the other won't move. He's choking and his hands are turning blue. Do you have any advice for how to get it out?'

NHS Direct: 'Um, there's nothing in our guidance or our training about this. I think we would probably send ambulances for things like this if he's choking.'

Usually, NHS Direct offer an ambulance for pretty much anything. I remember being away on business and asking for the location of a GP because I had a chest infection and didn't know where I could find a doctor in the middle of Exmoor near the hotel. They took me through the standard questions, and when I answered the question 'do you have pain in your chest' with the answer 'yes, I have just told you I am calling about a chest infection', they tried to send me an ambulance in case I was unable to distinguish between the symptoms of a chest infection and those of a heart attack. I had to go through all sorts of disclaimers to waive the ambulance before finally being given the GP's address. Anyway, on this occasion I accepted the offer because I was, indeed, turning blue.

After 4 hours in Lewisham A&E (no wait though, thank you Lewisham), with an Ear Nose & Throat specialist who had been roused from his (presumably earwig-free) dreaming to come and see to me, a chest x-ray, a throat and face x-ray, talk of possibly being put under general anaesthetic to have it found and removed, and a drunk man banging his head on the wall and shouting swearwords and threats in the cubicle next to us, the earwig has finally moved. It is either in my stomach, being digested as we speak, or in my lung. We will know in a couple of days - if I get an infection then it is in my lung, if I don't then it was in my stomach.

One touching element to this story is that the first friend to whom I recounted the tale conveyed much concern for my wellbeing in his response: "you snorted a live earwig? Wicked!"

Now the moral of this story should be plain to see. But for the avoidance of all doubt, I will make it clear. It is twofold:

1. Do not leave your inhaler out on the side next to your bed. Earwigs may crawl in and try to make a marital home there.
2. No matter how sleepy you may be, always check your inhaler before you use it. Trust me, there is very little that is less sleep-disturbing than choking on live earwigs.
   

Here endeth the lesson.

Who's the Daddy?

Mrs Gripe and I are now fertility experts. We have very possibly enabled the creation of a new human life with our insights. A couple who we were talking to mentioned that after a long period of trying to conceive, they have been through IVF with no success (incidentally, acupuncture is said to have remarkable results that are much higher than IVF). At one stage during the conversation, we managed to pose the awkward question of how often they actually, you know, tried to have a baby. "The normal amount", they replied. A little tact discovered the root of the problem. 'The normal amount', for these two, was once every month or two months - furthermore they were sticking to this during their attempts to conceive, without checking the timing to see if conception was even possible. A little explanation of the mechanics of babymaking demonstrated to them the need for rather more frequent post-nuptials. Like, every day around that time, dickheads.

Aside from lamenting the grave failure of education establishment that dragged them through their GCSEs, I wonder how many other people out there might need such advice as this, and what income this may bring?

Evening Stunted in positive headline shocker

One of my readers noted that The Evening Standard (hereafter known as The Stunted) was a glow with positivity yesterday as it ran a headline about togetherness, collective responsibility and supportive behaviour:

World Shares Turmoil

One of my recent posts was rather critical of the British press, so it is only right that I should redress the balance by drawing attention to the Stunted's positive behaviour here. Thank you for running such a warm and fuzzy headline.

Pole position

Well you can knock me down with a feather. It appears that the polar ice caps might not be about to melt with global warming, and that they might in fact be about to grow, according to 'Cool It' by Bjorn Lomborg. And he should know about ice, judging by the Scandinavian-ness of his name.

He maintains that the polar caps never get warm, and will not be pushed into defrosting territory by the predicted temperature increases. Instead, the shrinking is caused by the drought there (the poles are, apparently, the world's biggest deserts). Global warming will increase the vapour content in the air, which will increase precipitation. More precipitation over the ice caps, where temperatures are below freezing point, will cause more ice, and therefore growth, not shrinkage, of the polar ice caps.

Interesting thought. Perhaps I didn't need to make 'high enough to survive the Biblical deluge' part of my buying criteria for our recent move and we could have bought that riverside apartment after all...

Sugar-coated sugar bombs

I must start with a couple of apologies - firstly, the lack of posts in the last week, and secondly, a pre-emptive apology for this entry - as Mark Twain said, "I am sorry for writing such a long letter. I didn't have time to write a short one."

One of my readers and I were discussing the ethics of Krispy Kreme Doughnuts at the weekend. The reason for reporting it is that the conversation took a different direction to that which I would have expected - that is to say, we took the opposite sides to those that someone who knew our jobs and normal approaches would have predicted. I was arguing the case of KK's moral bankruptcy, and he was arguing that they have a duty to act in the way they do. This is unexpected because he is a liberal sort (with a Che Geuvara haircut) who works in publishing, and I am a strategy consultant who is concerned with maximum revenue and profit (although I, to be fair, also appear to be growing a Che Guevara haircut).

I started the debate, after sitting opposite the same branch of KK (one which is in a row of many different restaurants) a number of times and observing the customers. Their average body weight must be in the multiples of the average body weight of the customers of the other restaurants. I also have experience of a diabetic friend testing my blood sugar before and after eating one KK doughnut and finding that just that one accounted for more than half of my safe blood sugar range within 10 minutes of eating it.

My view is that Krispy Kreme have an unethical business model, by trying to sell as many doughnuts as possible to people regardless of their health or level of activity. His argument was that it is right that these doughnuts should be available but that the consequence is unavoidable because they have a fiduciary duty to their shareholders to sell as many of the doughnuts as possible. He pointed out that it isn't a sustainable business model to sell one doughnut a week only to people who do plenty of exercise.

I think it's pretty fair to say that it wouldn't be a valid business model to do that. As far as I am concerned, they should reduce the level of sugar etc in their doughnuts to a more sensible level, because they are always going to need to sell as many as they can. The point is that they have created a product that should not be eaten regularly and a distribution model that demands that it be sold in the greatest volume that each customer will accept - meaning that they are entering into a business that they know will worsen (and possibly shorten) their customers' lives.

I have never been drawn on the debate about whether ethics are good business or not. As far as I am concerned, ethics are a ticket into the game and the question of whether or not they are good for business is irrelevant. But there has been some interesting work recently on the cost of bad ethics to business. I will dig out some things and post more on the subject soon. In the mean time, stay healthy.

British journalists 'cannot be arsed to check their facts'

I've had it with all the newspapers that trot out articles about subjects, both important and unimportant, with quotation marks in the headline. It really is 'sloppy beyond all comprehension'.

A story is either true, or it isn't. There 'is no halfway point'. If you are citing someone, that's fine, just say so in the text. If you haven't yet got enough confirmation of the facts to feel comfortable printing them, don't print them. It's quite simple.

Our newspapers 'used to be beacons of journalism' and have 'become dumbed-down, unreliable tripe'. And furthermore, it doesn't sound cautious. It sounds either like they don't believe it themselves, or 'it sounds sarcastic'.

Well done the Red Tops (for once) for steering clear of this practice and continuing to print headlines that, wrong though they may be, are at least bold statements. I would expect quotation marks and sloppy journalism from the free papers, but the 'quality' newspapers are also doing it a lot - and wondering why people are less interested in their news. Boo to the BBC as well.

That 'is all I have to say on the matter'.

Feckless xenophobe

Plastic pond slime Jordan again showed the world the vacuous nature of her mind earlier this week with her comments about her new daughter, Princess whatever. "I still love her, even though she's a ginge", she said. And then proceeded to say how racist it was that some people mock ginger-haired people.

Jordan, stop trying to make comments to sound broad-minded or intelligent, ok? It's either racist to mock people for being ginger, or you can love her in spite of her hair colour. Pick which it is, and then shut the $&%£ up.