Ciaran’s Omnipurpose Blog

The Brits love to talk about the weather. That’s because it’s so varied: you sometimes need to pack for all four seasons in a day. The other reason the weather’s such a hot topic is because moaning about the weather is also a national pastime. Colleague of mine who have come over from the States (especially those from California) have often been disappointed at how bad the weather can be here. “Chin Up!” I’ve said – summers in England can be the loveliest you’ll ever experience.

I had one of those English summer days the other day. It was a comfortably hot day and I’d arranged a boozy steak lunch with Duncan and Lee at the Gaucho Grill in Fitzrovia. We had a very pimping white leather booth and between us sank a lot off wine and about 2.5 kilos of excellent Argentinian beef.

The lunch moved on to a lovely summer pint on a sunny street corner in Charlotte Street. As we said our goodbyes in the late afternoon, I was quite sad that the day had to end.

I decided to browse in a shop for a little while before going home. Duncan ran back into the shop, “I’ve just had a pass out! Let’s do something!”.

We decided to hit the road on Boris Bikes. We swooped in on a book signing by Alan Moore and caught a glimpse of the top of his head through the crowds. We headed down to the South Bank through Parliament Square and St. James’ Park and soaked in the hustle and bustle around the South Bank Centre and watched the sun set over Parliament.

I was in a rush to get to work yesterday morning. I had a tonne of jobs to do before a meeting mid-morning, but I had to stop and look after a dog I found in the street, just minutes from my front door

It was bin collection day and the dog was ripping open some bin bags in the street, trying to find food. It was a good natured dog, but it was in terrible shape; it’s fur was in a state: matted and stinking. The dog was kind enough to pose for a photograph next to the bin liners – you can see for yourself.

I approached the dog. It seemed friendly enough. Thankfully, it had a collar on, with a phone number. So far so good.

I dialled the number. A woman answered, “You calling about my dog?”

“Yes. I’m standing with him now. He’s been eating out of rubbish bags.”, I replied.

“It’s a ‘she’. Where is she?”

I told her that I’d found the dog tearing open bin liners and gave her the name of the street.

“I haven’t given her her breakfast, so she’s hungry. I’ll be there in a minute.”

I waited a good 10-15 minutes. In the meantime, the occupier of the house that had produced the rubbish for the dog to feast upon opened the door and confronted me. His big, imposing form almost completely blocked the doorway: a woman stood behind him holding an infant.

“What are you doing outside my house? Why are you taking photos of my rubbish?”

This was a serious allegation. An Englishman’s home is his castle. His rubbish, fair game to council spies. Was I a member of the dreaded Bin Gestapo? Was this a serious enough transgression to warrant violence on his part? Would I be limping into my morning presentation? The stakes were high.

I told him the truth: I thought this was interesting. I tried to distract the brute by talking about foxes. He seemed to calm down and went back indoors, murmuring an apology.

Presently, the woman I’d spoken with on the ‘phone arrived and took charge of the dog. It was almost as if I wasn’t there. As if others exist to look after her dog like some errant child.

Something about her arrogance. Something about the way she carried herself, and something about her accent led to a dawning realisation that this was the same woman who was incredibly rude to me and Rebecca last year. Our cat had strayed and we were leafleting and knocking on doors – we were worried that the cat had been locked in someone’s shed, or worse (thankfully there was a happy ending). She and her partner accused us of not doing enough to save the cat. Did we really care enough about the cat? Why hadn’t we leafleted 800 homes by now? Were we stupid?

Now the tables were turned. Somehow, she’d let her malnourished, filthy dog escape from the confines of her house and in its desperate hunger, fill the street with shredded detritus.

“Well that bin bag shouldn’t be in the street anyway”, she said.

That bitch shouldn’t be running loose, I thought.

Children are delightful. I can’t help but smile when, on the way to work, I see kids playing in the playground. Sadly we’ve developed a paranoia about children. Victorian values taught that they should be seen and not heard, but now it seems they should not been heard or seen.

An indicative trend at the moment is the tendency of some picture editors to blur out the faces of children. It’s weird: it almost makes you feel criminal looking at the picture and isn’t even applied consistently according to any law, otherwise everyone would be doing it:

Sometimes real life proves that we won’t be influenced by people who want to peddle fear. This mother got chatting to a nice man on the tube. She had her son occupying one of the seats, which she gave up to another passenger. He wriggled on her lap, wanting to play tarzan on the handrail, so she let the man hold him as the boy climbed the post. They played together for about 20 minutes until the man had to get off for his stop. He didn’t steal the kid.

Some countries regard children as their parents’ first, but with society taking a hand in things second. Isn’t it healthier to think like that, rather than live in fear of being accused of being perverse for taking delight in the innocence and beauty of children and responsibility for our next generation?

It’s every cat owner’s nightmare: you get a lie-in because the moggy isn’t pawing at your face at 5am to be fed. In fact, you don’t see the cat for the whole day. Then two, then four. You start to fret. You worry that the worst has happened. Perhaps his death was mercifully quick? You decide not to give up hope and produce a series of posters and flyers with which to bombard the immediate neighbourhood. You try forget that your cat is basically a quadripedal ninja and can choose never to be seen if he wants. You go knocking on doors. You go for long walks with an empty cat carrier and a torch. You scour the web for advice on what to do when your cat goes missing. You tolerate smart alecs who tell you that you’re not doing enough because they found their dog after dropping 800 leaflets and never mind that dogs walk up to people whilst cats think it’s fun to hide from people.

You start to give up hope without giving up hope. Perhaps someone will find him and scan his chip? Why fight the inevitable: just wait for him to be found! Occasionally, your resolve breaks and you go back out for walks or try calling around vets. Then you give up again and feel bad for giving up. But it’s been 11 days, and with some of the hottest weather on record. How could he have survived?

Then one night, in the wee small hours, your cat comes home either like nonchalant teenager late home from a saturday night out or desperately happy to see you and all’s well again.

So my advice to you should your cat go walkabout for a few days, and assuming he’s microchipped, here’s what you should do: absolutely nothing.

See! They turn up when they want to!

I was wondering when I’d feel inspired to blog something. So here goes. Rebecca and I were out looking for our lost foster cat, Piper. We’d leafleted our neighbourhood and had a call from a neighbour who had spotted him in the fields nearby. Sadly we didn’t find him, although a very cute tortoiseshell followed us around as we shook a bag of kibbles to get his attention. Here’s a photo of Piper. What about those eyes, eh?

So we headed back to the house. On the way home, we stopped at Rebecca’s car, parked around the corner. Where we live, there are no residents bays or similar nonsense. It’s one of the nice things about the area; we never have to worry about finding our cars have been clamped after coming back from a holiday. The only downside is that you sometimes can’t park outside your own house, but this is a small price to pay.

Unfortunately, Rebecca has been unable to use her car for many weeks. This is because she broke her foot. It’s also been a bit or a turbulent time in our household, so we’ve been away from home a lot. We got into the car and Rebecca started it first time. Good sign! The windscreen was a bit dirty, so we spent a bit of time spraying and letting the wiper blades do their thing. Suddenly, there was a vigourous knocking on Rebecca’s window. We jumped a mile! A middle aged woman’s face was pressed against it. She was wearing a kaftan or something. It wasn’t a pretty sight. Here’s the conversation as I best remember it:

Woman: You’ve been parked outside my house for a long time. That’s not fair. Where do you live?
Rebecca: Just around the corner.
Woman: It’s not fair that you’ve parked here..
Rebecca: Well, it’s the street, so we can park here.
Woman: Well it’s really unfair that you parked here. I was about to call the police.
Rebecca: The reason the car has been here so long is because I broke my foot and couldn’t drive. I’m just trying to move the car now – I’m testing to see if my foot is strong enough.
Woman: Well it’s very unfair that you parked here. I was going to complain to the police!
Me: Did you not hear what she just said? She broke her foot and couldn’t drive!
Woman: Yes well, but I don’t see why you had to park there for so long. It’s very unfair on us!
Rebecca: I *broke* my *foot*! This is a public road! I don’t know why you’re having a go at me!
Woman: I’m not having a go, It’s just really unfair that you parked here.
Me: The lady just told you twice that she broke her foot. If it were me, I’d be too embarrased to complain about the parking, but clearly you’re not. End of conversation.

I was rushing through Hampton to visit my parents yesterday and saw this reminder to make haste slowly:

I think the poor cat (it looked like a Burmese) had just used up the last of its nine lives. The driver did her best. It must have been a real shock. She picked up the cat in a blanket and drove away, presumably to a vet.

After 3 and a half good years, I left EMC Consulting on Friday.

It’s been a good company to work for and I’ve been lucky to make some good friends there. My time there has taken me through a good dozen or so client projects, half a dozen pitches (some won, some lost), 42 Community Days, some very boozy work bashes at some incredibly swanky places in London, and interesting work in such exotic locations as Liverpool, Crawley and even Borehamwood!

The work itself has involved some great technologies and approaches. I got to know some incredibly talented developers and User Experience people here, as well as getting an education in Scrum. Not only that, the projects have involved contact with some quite senior and inspiring people within client organisations.

This was my first consulting job and a great way to get lots of experience very quickly. I was given lots of autonomy and in at the deep end so I learned quickly, but had lots of support so never felt overwhelmed

My colleague and friend Rachel made this for me with the LOLBuilder. Whilst I’m excited about my next job, I, too, am sad to part company with such a great bunch of people.

If you’re interested in a job in consulting, have a look at Michelle Flynn’s blog on the EMC Blogs site.

What a beautiful day!

The snow’s been falling thick and fast all day, and it’s been beautiful outside. I’m lucky to live in a very picturesque part of the world with narrow lanes and fields and hills. Click on the photos to enlarge them.

This is just 5 meters from my house. 2 cars were abandoned on the road and the police were called. Now the road is closed. I’m not going anywhere tomorrow.

This is on the fields near my place. Lit up in the distance is St. Mary’s Church on the top of the Hill.

Just behind the school at twilight.

It snowed last night, so we took the scenic route through the fields to the station. I live in a beautiful place with a beautiful person!

I was in Stockholm this weekend to visit some friends and hook up with my online buddies from The Corporation, as we do every 6 months. One of the friends I was visiting, unconnected to the Corporation, is a very dear school friend, Karl. He and I got to spend the day together preparing for a party at his place. Whilst doing this, I learned a couple of very important lessons:

• Alcohol is very heavily taxed and anything stronger than 3.5% is sold by Government monopoly stores (Systembolaget)
• The number counter on McDonalds tills only goes up to 99.

Our first stop was the Systembolaget, where we picked up 7 cases of beer and 3 cases of prosecco:

Total price? I estimated this would cost just shy of £200 ($327) in the UK. Here it cost about £550 ($900).

After loading the beer into a cab and taking it back to Karl’s place, we did a bit of party preparation before going out to get cheeseburgers for the party. Karl figured on about 60 people coming to the party, so he went up to the counter and said, ”I’d like 100 Cheeseburgers, please”. They couldn’t believe it. “Yes, I’m serious. I’d like 100 Cheeseburgers”. The girl behind the counter was a bit flummoxed by this and a committee was formed to work out how to make this happen:

In the end, we had to settle for 99 cheeseburgers:

We took a stroll and came back 15 minutes later:

The two drinks on the counter were a freebie from the manager. I nearly declined the offer, thinking that the drinks at McDonalds are a bit unhealthy. Then I thought how stupid that sounded.