Magic Slippers

My wife grew up in the south of France, I grew up just north of Newcastle. I am sure you can understand that there is a slight difference in climate between the two places. Basically that meant that I grew up with carpets and she grew up with tiled floors. Given the fact we have a well balanced relationship we therefore "decided" to have tiles throughout our house. Unfortunately one of my other pet hates in life is walking bare foot on cold surfaces. Therefore I always make a point of taking the slippers from the hotel room each week to make sure I don't have to walk on cold surfaces at home during the weekend. I am sure that all my friends and guests to the house have the same pet hate (this is not the case), and as a result I typically thrust a pair of "Radisson SAS", "Sheraton" or "APEX" slippers into the hands of people who arrive at my house. I've had to travel a lot this week (too much), but it's been a bumper slippers week. I've been away 5 nights but take back a haul of 6 pairs of slippers (you must always check the cupboard because they often leave a second pair there). Extremely small and scant consolation for being away from home, but I'm just trying to look on the bright side. I'm off to the airport now and can't wait to get home.

Running scared? Running bored more like.

I hate running. When I used to play football we had to run but it always seemed like there was some purpose to it (i.e. needing to be fit enough to kick a pig's bladder into an onion bag). When I stopped football I thought that would be the end of my running. After a brief flirtation with chess and tiddlywinks I realised that I was fast becoming a couch potato. I then decided to get on a horse, but it quickly became apparent that this was a sport to be done sitting down. Hence I dusted off my old trainers and started slogging around the roads again to avoid becoming a slob. Generally it's a real pain, but for a short spell in the early morning sunshine in Helsinki today, it was decidedly enjoyable. That short spell lasted about 47 seconds. Not bad for a run that totalled 30 minutes.

Two personality disorders are better than one.

They say that married life is about resolving problems as a couple that you wouldn't have if you were single. My personality disorder is that I need things to be nice and clean and tidy. My wife's personality disorder is that she is extremely conscious about getting value for money. You see then that neither is a major problem on its own. However this weekend highlighted what a dangerous combination the two together can be. My wife refuses to let me throw out old shoes that I no longer like nor wear. I cannot bear to see these sad shoes gather dust and become dirty. The net result is that I spend half my Sunday afternoon every couple of weeks polishing shoes that are never worn. I don't know why it was only this weekend when I realised what a significant waste of time this is.

3 is ok, 4 is stupid

The number of countries any one person should visit in a day. I started the day in Paris before a flight to Helsinki. I then had a flight to London. I had done this trip last week so I knew what I was in for. I had not however anticipated a diversion to Amsterdam. 6 hours to get from Finland to the UK rather than the alloted 2.5. All of that following a delayed flight and a mere 4.5 hours sleep on Sunday night....I don't think I'll be winning any beauty contests tonight. I have other random ramblings but I will keep them for tomorrow....including my selection for the French National Show Jumping championships...I'll be representing the Aquitaine region in the first weekend of July in southern Paris. More anon...

Zen. 1,2,3,4,5......10

A relatively poor client meeting, a 3 hour train journey afterwards, a laptop whose wireless switch no longer works, a broken power pack, a smoker's room at the hotel, a broken handle on a suitcase and a London tube strike....it's enough to make your blood boil. For some reason I am managing to remain relatively sanguine about it all. Maybe it's simply fatigue.

Thankfully things are going better at the Finnish client. It looks like I will be spending the next 3 weeks out in Helsinki apart from a couple of random trips to London e.g. for the AIMS banding meeting. Basically I'll be writing a contract for application management services and how to transfer from an incumbent supplier to Accenture. I know absolutely nothing about this (or maybe slightly less than that), but looking on the bright side, at least the contract does not need to be in Finnish.

Trust the master

When one suggests in an earlier posting that you have learnt from your mistakes, then you might be setting yourself up for a fall (quite literally in the case of show jumping horses). Although I actually think there is a difference between understanding your mistakes and then being physically able to put into action a remedial course of action, thankfully I had a "clear round" on Sunday (basically when you don't make any mistakes or knock any bars off their perches).

The other thing that was quite clear was that I am lucky to have a very good coach. It's good that he says don't do "that" and it will be ok, and when I don't do "that", then it is ok. If only everything in life was as simple! Trust in, and respect to, those who really know what they are doing!

I am now off to Helsinki and Weymouth for a couple of client orals. Fingers crossed that we'll get some decent projects out of it. More anon no doubt.

Making mistakes

The jumping of horses was not great yesterday. I had my worst result in a long time.

Two things came to mind as I cried over my split milk. The first is if you are going to make mistakes then learn something in the process - thankfully I did that yesterday. Secondly, people traditionally say that only a fool makes the same mistake twice. In general I would agree, although without going into oodles of technical detail, what yesterday taught me was that you can learn different things from your mistakes depending on your level of experience. I am a more experienced rider than I was a year ago. As such the analysis of my mistakes yesterday is more in depth than any understanding of the same mistake I would have had 12 months ago. Translated into work terms....a Senior Executive's analysis of why we might have won or lost a RFP bid is probably more to the point that the junior consultant in the bid team, or quite simply the reason why it is managers or consultants who are asked to impact assess change requests.

I suspect this was totally obvious to everyone else, but reality only really bit yesterday. Going back for more today.....let's hope I don't make the same mistake because I don't think I've gathered much more experience since yesterday, especially after a couple of pints of Guinness last night.

Raspberries, baby vomit and life

Lots of random, irrelevant and pretty insignificant things passed through my head today...

Sunglasses: I've never really worn sunglasses. I now have a super pair of sunglasses and I really like them - they also make driving in early evening sunshine very enjoyable.

Stereotypes: My wife has just got her new car - a Nissan Qasqhai. My little Twingo pales in comparison. I shouldn't mind....I don't really like driving (even with sunglasses) and I am never at home. My wife works with horses and drives a lot. But still, isn't it the woman who has the little car. Sounds sexist I know.

Raspberries: Long live the summer and fresh fruit.

Babies: How do they grow bigger when they seem to vomit greater quantities of food than they actually consume.

Life: Do old people get sick of living? I remember my Granny saying to me she was ready to go. Maybe this is difficult for younger people to hear because we've still got so much living to do. Will I get bored of living at some stage?

There you go; unrelated and meaningless twaddle.

Signing off

Another RFP done. Timelines were tight, but regular communication, clear responsibilities and treating people like mature responsible adults has ensured that we've got this one in on time. It looks pretty good too. Seems like the insurance RFP wasn't a freak event and that the nightmare RFP before that really was just a blip......let's see what the outcome of each of these bids is. Orals for this one are next Tuesday, the 9th June.

Hurrah for the pound

Many of you know that I'm a true European (read: highly mixed up individual). Therefore you can imagine how important the GBP EUR exchange rate is to me given the fact I am based in the UK but spend a lot of time in stroppy France. I'm delighted to see the pound climb to the heady heights of 1.15 EUR today up from nadir of parity in January. I'm not sure if this is a long term resurrection (history suggests it should stabilise around 1.30 EUR), but it does make things a bit better for me. Although on the other hand it does actually mean I will now have to repay a rather large debt to my wife (it was premised on the exchange rate hitting 1.15 EUR). There you go, another life lesson, every blue sky has a grey cloud lurking somewhere!

Newcastle United

The last 10 days have been so hectic that I’d completely forgotten to mention the relegation of my favourite football team, Newcastle United, from the Premiership to the Championship. They were indeed worse than Hull City and Sunderland on the last day of the season, but in honesty the problems run deeper than that. My view: if you change your manager 4 times in the same season and run your club like a soap opera, then you get what you deserve.

Football matches and indeed league titles, like our Accenture projects, are not won in a heart beat. Although you do need a couple of star players, most success is built on day in day out activities that ensure the foundations are right. In Accenture language this is called “Business Operator”. In honesty it’s not really interesting, but it’s essential e.g. finding out who is staffed where and when people are rolling off their projects. However as you become more senior, this type of activity becomes increasingly important.

I think there is a similar lesson that holds true in life more generally. You’re probably better off being likeable but average, rather than an obnoxious know it all. Or as my Glasgow Granny would have said (of my Uncle Ed no doubt), you’re better off being born lucky than rich. Unfortunately Newcastle United was neither.