Whitehall

Sitting here waiting for the coffee to take effect.

Today's London has lost the blast of sunshine colour and become more muted again. Damp drizzly early pavements but not enough rain to quench the yellow deserts of London's Parks.

I'm about to go into a couple of meetings and then later I head for Germany. I'll be staying at one of those hotels that has 'Airport' in its title, but could be anything from 'on site' (I doubt it) to ten kilometres away.

I know that the taxi drivers won't like it though, because the fare will be less than a trip into the city.

the octopus was right

"Will you be watching the match?", I was asked in the early evening. I'd gone away somewhere quiet to do some work, which needed to be ready for tomorrow morning.

Post England's defeat, I'd chosen to support the Spanish on the basis of being in a lively Madrid when they beat Portugal a few days ago.

The thing is, when I'd watched the lack-lustre England matches aggregate two goals, my interest waned to the point I wasn't even sure I'd watch the final.

But I did, and the Spanish deserved to win in what was choppy and unsatisfying game with a large number of fouls and yellow cards being distributed. After 90 minutes and nil all, the commentators were getting ready to talk about penalty shoot-outs.

Replacing skill with gamesmanship seemed to form an important part of the match, especially from the orange ones. If this is the best the world has to offer then perhaps FIFA does need to think about some rule changes to make the game more interesting.

shopping

Really, its too hot for shopping, but I need ice cream, cool beers, stuff like that.

hot oct hot

I was chatting to someone yesterday who is about to head out to Riyad, which is where I worked for a while.

I guessed that the temperature would be about 45 degrees Centigrade at this time. The Riyad air could be just hot without any breeze, and no real difference in the shade.

Another time when I drove across the slightly cooler 40 degree Joshua Tree Park in California it somehow seemed hotter, because I can remember the wind, which outside the car felt like a permanent fan heater blowing in the face.

The strange thing is that the even cooler 32 degree UK seems just as hot a the moment. I open a window and there's that fan heater air blast.

Its probably that we Brits are just not as geared for heat. I'm guessing British temperature tolerance (especially we Southerners) is something like 0-20 degrees C and either side we either slip over or burst into flames.

So I'm predicting a slow weekend if the weather holds. Al fresco dining and the football on Sunday. Predictive Paul the Psychic Octopus has already told us that Spain will nail the world cup final, despite that Dutch parakeet's argument to the contrary. With my recent time in Spain when a match was taking place, they've become the natural third choice for me... 1) England, but pah! 2) Slovenia because of the office sweepstake and 3) Spain - whose supporters know how to party.

So I'll predict a "¡Visca España!" as the mainly Catalan team play the orange ones on Sunday.

getting through the gaps

Suddenly its half way through the week again.

Originally I was to have been travelling but all of my plans have been thrown into the air.

Luckily I'm used to living in a permanent state of being rescheduled. Kind of weaving through the streets and calendars, trying not to scratch the edges.

Its not overly alarming, but it requires placing bets about the future state of meetings and expecting one thing or another to bounce.

My agenda gambling is mainly working, but I still get those moments when I'm cleaning my teeth in the morning and calculating the next evening when I'll be (a) home or (b) able to get a full night's sleep.

Sloane Ranging

Yesterday afternoon and evening we were listening to live music at the Mercedes Benz place and then on to a bar. Two strong acts with real musicians playing and singing and several others that were using backing tracks.

The picture shows Will Young and his band relaxing before the concert started. They, and Scouting for Girls produced engaging proper live sets; the others were still popular with the audience, but I find it disappointing to go to live music to then hear recordings played back.

I do still have a suspicion that The Saturdays will get more hits on my flickr account than the others, however. I shall check in a few days.

This morning was an early start to meet and celebrate Alex's birthday with breakfast in the King's Road. We were to rendezvous at the Bluebird Cafe and in the bright sunshine it was ideal to sit at one of the round tables, which today had huge tennis balls lodged on it as a symbol of the Wimbledon men's final to play out later in the day.

We had other plans and after breakfast our gang split into groups; the shoppers, the wanderers, the glow-stick massive on their way to another concert in Hyde Park and even one of us to do a proper 4th July party at the American place (yes, that one).

orange elephant moves to join Chelsea herd

A few days away from London and I see that the elephants that were sprinkled around London have finally moved along. One of my favourites was the lovely and slightly orange one outside of the Horniman's in Hay's Galleria.

It's part of the ever-changing nature of things, although I hear they have been clustered at the Royal Hospital Chelsea, prior to being auctioned by Sotherby's.

For me, its far West London this afternoon, for an open air concert which will probably finish around midnight. Then onwards in the morning for a pre-arranged brunch involving glow-sticks.

In my own agenda, amongst the travelling, I'm hoping to see the elephants all together at sometime during the weekend.

welcome to the buffer zone

Chained to a desk today.

A big project to finish which involves me from more or less when I wake up until when I go to sleep. The travelling around I do can also create accumulations of other tasks that don't get done.

Despite taking conference calls on headsets from airport lounges up to the minute I get asked to switch off the phone on the plane and sitting in coffee bars with PC fired up tapping away at the workload, it can still create a backlog of activity.

And, to be truthful, don't most of us look at 'people like that' with a slight groan. Eek - I am (sometimes) a blackberry and iphone totin' one of them.

And then, tonight, dealing with a foreign system that won't accept my uploads long after sensible people are in the pub or watching telly.

Time for some brain defrag.

Esta noche vamos a volver tarde

Sometimes things can get a bit random.

There was a moment when I stepped into the lift to reach my floor and accidentally pressed 4 instead of 10 (its easily done?) and found myself in a metal catacomb.

I staggered around for a while, suitably wild eyed, until I spotted the lift area on the outside of the building and got back into one of those bubble-lifts to reach my own floor. Only a momentary glimpse of someone else's world, but even a short view can provide a new perspective.

Same with the city. First time for me, but I can feel the appeal.

football interlude supporting a different team

The way to a mid afternoon meeting on Tuesday also encountered huge quantities of traffic. Partly the Metro strike, but I suspect there was another matter affecting everything.

The Spain vs Portugal match was to be that evening, and the city needed to be prepared.

With England already down and out, the natural thing was to switch allegiance for this match to the local team. Of course, the central area was somewhat overcome with the double bonus of being in the next round AND to play their nearest neighbours, oh, and to win.

So the temperature of an already hot Spanish evening clicked up a few more notches, and then the car horns and the whooping and firecrackers and finally what can best be described a small home-made bombs were being let off around the streets.

I decided it was safer to get back to the midnight party in the club at the top of the hotel.

Es para uso personal

An early sunrise view across to the four towers dominating the downtown skyline and then into a five minute breakfast before I was to be met at the hotel.

The world suddenly slowed down. A metro strike was in progress. I didn't need to use it, but everyone else who did had decided to take to the roads. We skittered through back streets and twisted through on ramps to the motorway system but it didn't help. Madrid had decided to go slowly. Luckily my companion knew her way around and we criss-crossed the city to be within five minutes of the planned arrival time for the first meeting.

But.

They didn't have a parking space for us and the roadside ones stretched full for at least fifteen minutes in each direction around this sleek modern high tech building. "No hay problema", said my colleague as she parked blocking the exit from the complex and called the PA of the person we were due to meet. A few moments later we were back inside, in my case having to leave the car, walk through security scanners and re-join the vehicle.

That was before they took my passport.

in which I get caught in a space vortex

When I moved the chair in this room, it made a sound that reverberated like that scene near the end of Kubrick's 2001. You know, when the spaceman is kept in that white room.

My room's black though; I had to choose it from a menu when I arrived here. Apparently each floor was designed by a different architect. There was a floor that looked like something out of another Kubrick. That swirly white curved bar where the droogs met.

I couldn't decide easily though, so chickened out and chose the highest floor on offer. The theme is Japanese, with lots of sliding panels and a box-shaped wooden bath next to the minimalist high tech shower which also has lots of minature nozzles. I've probably dropped into a Murakami novel.

Thinking back, it started right from the airport. It's what they call 'ultramodern' in its design and if I'd had more time I'd have marvelled even at the strange jet contraptions in the baggage hall. I'm pretty sure that if I was a space traveller, this city's terminal would be the type I'd be leaving from. I'm wondering if the nozzles have somehow rearranged the molecules around here.

But next I must figure out how to power the room down. There's several mystery buttons which, if pressed, cause large machinery noises to occur but no apparent change to anything in the room. And there's a button by the bed that buzzes intermittently as if to say 'press me'.

Oh well, here goes.