Chez Gérard today for a spot of bizzo lunch. We had a car to take us there, although it turned out to be a miniscule distance away. Between the salade de saucisson fumé, tajine de légumes, penne au poulet crème de Gorgonzola and, for some, - er - steak, we talked seriously about various business matters and compared bad flights.
I can usually throw in some good stories if I describe my 'plane leaking large amounts of water inside', 'cowering on the floor at Ben Gurion whilst soldiers with guns ran about' or 'one engine on fire landing in the desert' but today we were more at the 'what happened at Terminal 5' level of discussion.
Then back to the office for a continued discussions, finishing late so that I missed my next conference call and then had to spend a couple of hours catching up on preparations for tomorrow's meetings. At least I missed the rush hour on the way home.
Scarlett Johansson's kissing with Penelope Cruz and the manage a trois with Javier Bardem, seems to be getting more publicity than Scarlett's Tom Wait's music album. The amorous moments were for Woody Allen's screenplay of Vicki Christina Barcelona and I'm sure the red lit photography dark room shot of the two women together only escaped from the closed set by accident.
Johansson plays American backpacker Christina in Spain and gets involved with painter Bardem, and his jealous ex-girlfriend Cruz. Scarlett isn't new to the use of affectionate photographs as part of publicity, such as this one on the red carpet with good friend Natalie Portman for that Boleyn girl film back in February. But let's face it, we wanna know whether Scarlett can sing Tom Waits songs well? She claims to have listened since twelve and trekked away to a misty swampland recording studio in Louisiana to make it happen. I'll believe the publicity on this one. Tom Waits is not exactly the way to popular acclaim in music although regular rashbre central readers will know its high on the list of favourites around here.
The problem is that we have to wait for the album. The company have gone all private and secret and pulled any early tracks so that only the LA Times and similar can review it first. In the way of things, it presents rashbre central with a dilemma. Whether to post a couple of rather raw cuts without production. They give an impression (you can hear a click track on the second one), but are not like the proper production of the album.
Scarlett Johansson sings Tom Waits (live in studio)
yesterday falling
It'll have to be reviewed separately when the produced version escapes - get a sense from this video.
As solidarity for Mazzmatazz, rashbre central has developed the five minute instadalek(TM) which can be constructed from a single sheet of A4 paper. Those who missed the original story might not know that Doctor Who(TM), bastion of family viewing traditions prevents a fan Mazzmatazz from distributing (free) knitting patterns of a few of the friendly monsters(TM) on the internet.
The full instructions for the rashbre central instadalek are posted here in flickr and I think we can all agree that the final product looks particularly scary.
Jools had half the current rashbre car CDs on display tonight with The Raconteurs, Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds and Bon Iver. Add the Chatham County Line (not in the CD player) and the whole theme was sort of Wild West, with guitars, steel, violins, mandolins and banjos. Dust on everyone's boots. Dig, Lazarus, Dig.
Mobile phone etiquette continues to change with the times. It used to be that when you rang someone professionally and they answered you'd say something like "Is now a good time to talk?"
Times move on.
Now, in some situations, you have to do the same if you walk up to them face to face. It's bluetooth that's done it. You can't always tell when some people are on the phone. Maybe they have a distant look, or they appear to be talking to themselves and if their head is tilted, it could be that they're packing a bluetooth headset.
So "Is now a good time to talk?" is sometimes needed face to face.
Its overtaken the accidental phone calls from speed-dialling in peoples' pockets and bags. We've all had them. Those footsteps on gravel or train compartment bing bong calls with no speech.
My most recent masterpiece was an accidentablog when I managed take a photo of some palm bushes in a Spanish street and automatically post it to flickr without realizing. I only spotted it yesterday when I returned home. The wonders of connectedness.
Spain on business and a mini phone movie of my return trip. It was a way to deflect the rather excessive problems within the airport. I arrived and yippee, the line for BA was empty. I was eticketed and fed my executive club card into one of the machines. Nada. "Please go to the checkin", it said.
So I did. "BA blah", I explained. "Euw", they replied (in Spanish), "you can't do that here, its codeshare with them over there". They pointed to a very long and irregular line of people.
"OK", I groaned. But I was in my zen-like "airport mode" where nothing that anyone does can affect me.
I join the new big line and stem the undercutting Swedes who are trying to invent a way to bypass those of us who are good mannered. The Americans at the front of the line have two huge items of luggage and the longest story possible to explain why they think they should take it onto the plane intead of having it tagged. After ten minutes, they get processed and the line moves forward.
Strangely, none of the other lines seem to be moving and then ours also stops.
I cast my eye along and guess that there has been a computer failure, based upon the level of inactivity from all of the checkin staff between rows 8 and 52. I can't see around into the next zone and start wondering if my card would work in that Spanish machine with all the cartoon pictures. We wait 20 more minutes without moving and the line starts to evaporate away as people try their own plan Bs. I take a phone conference call which I'd originally planned to take from airside.
After my meeting there's an announcement "The computer systems are broken", it explains in crackly Spanish. It sounds as if the PA system is also in need of attention.
I spot that the counter staff have started typing again and, sure enough, we are ready to move forward. Finally, front of line I get ticketed and my bag checked and then the lady tears my luggage tag in half. "You havn't paid", she says, "Yes I have", I protest rather feebly knowing I'm about to be sent to another line.
I use eye contact to say that I want to come back to the front of the line after I've been processed elsewhere and she agrees. Now for the cashier part. I've had this happen before when flights get changed and the excess gets paid but one airline doesn't pay another airline in time. I know I have to pay and then let the accountants sort it out afterwards. Now with etickets its much harder to to prove everything.
Another counter. Kerching.
Amex extraction and I'm ready to get my bag checked.
Back to the line. Straight to the front. Smile to the lady. She stops the other checking-in and immediately tags my bag. Now I can go to departures.
I won't explain the fun they had with gate changes, or the delayed aircrew.
Suffice to say we took off 40 minutes late and arrived 30 minutes late but my bag was first off the plane.
Instead, heres me taking off from cloudy Barcelona and ...
Here's me landing at green and pleasant Heathrow accompanied by the Portishead inspired Jazz fusion playing from the plane's speaker system...
I quite like that landing video. If you look carefully (in fullscreen mode) you can see a police roadblock (clockwise) as we flew over the M25. That explains the absence of traffic. The jolt was real when we hit the tarmac and the cameraphone jumped forward.
Another hectic day, finished with a Catalan supper in a rather stylish restaurant in Barcelona. I knew it would be a late one when we didn't leave to visit the restaurant until around 21:30 and an agreeable and leisurely conversation then ensued until well past one o' clock in the morning.
A short taxi ride back, but I declined the offers of further refreshment because I knew I had an 07:00 breakfast appointment on Tuesday.
We met for some stand-up comedy Sunday evening. Simon Amstell describes himself as a skinny Jewish homosexual comic and we had an entertaining evening listening to his stories, with him presumably powered by Benylin or some other form of medical assistance.
After a short introductory session by an accomplished warm up, Simon took us through two halves of conversational musings about life, existence, one-ness and relationships - with more than a dash of comic despair included in the ingredients. Quite a thoughtful act delivered slickly and with occasional dives into asides with the audience. There was ranging philosophy being used as a vehicle to make points and deliver a payload of humour too. Plenty of laughter and notably better than another recent standup I'd seen, who co-incidentally was referenced during the act.
I'm not sure how the jellybaby got onto the stage or if Amstell was as ill as he sounded, but he showed a trouper's spirit in the second half, despite some sort of bug. An enjoyable evening and I hope he gets some more entertaining write-ups to add to his collection on chortle.com.
Throughout the show, his stage sign displayed his name in reverse, perhaps symbolising that he's kind of running parts of his own career in an unusual order.
Idyllic Sunday with early morning gentle bicycle ride and kudos to the various folk who say 'hello' as we pass one another at that time of day.
Then followed by an amble through the newspapers, but things have now begun to become trifle hectic.
I've just realized my 'end point' for the day has been brought forward to around 17:00 when I'm supposed to be be heading out to meet, eat, then off to a comedy show, then home, then pack for a madly early start tomorrow.
And I've got a couple of hours of 'proper work' to squeeze in today, so I'd better stop this 'architecture of participation' blogging malarky for the day.
Well, maybe after a cup of coffee (not gin or sitcoms).
I tried to stand clear of the freezer, but the song kept ringing in my ears. I feel a lot better for liberating a little of the ice cream. And its still sunny.
Chez Gérard today for a spot of bizzo lunch. We had a car to take us there, although it turned out to be a miniscule distance away. Between the salade de saucisson fumé, tajine de légumes, penne au poulet crème de Gorgonzola and, for some, - er - steak, we talked seriously about various business matters and compared bad flights. 
