IanVisits…

Here I am sat at home trying to do some work. The balcony door is open and there is a cool breeze in the flat.

There is also an almighty racket outside from the seagulls. Quite staggering amount frankly. So, thinking that one of the neighbours is probably throwing chunks of bread from their balcony to attract the local birds (its quite a fun thing to do), I wandered out to watch the commotion.

All I saw were two seagulls on the riverside.

That’s it - just two birds making enough noise for a couple of dozen of their brethren.

I hope they get a sore throat from all that screeching!

Some years ago I was in Seattle for a business trip (horror of a flight there) and had a few hours to take in a few of the obvious tourist spots, including the Space Needle. When visiting touristy places I tend to pick up a few mementoes and have a tendency to get a booklet of some sort - and a cup.

I have learnt that most tourist venues sell cups - so if I always buy a cup, I can have a generic collection which is generally similar across the range.

Anyhow, this time I got something very different. I found some boxes which contain a wooden pen in the shape of the Space Needle - in itself not actually that interesting…

…until I read the note and it turned out these pens had been made for the 1962 Seattle World’s Fair, but hadn’t arrived in time so spent the past 40 odd years in a warehouse forgotten. They were found, cleaned up and were finally on sale.

I thought the story was charming - and promptly brought one for myself, and a few for my colleagues back at the office who had worked just as hard on the business proposal.

Why am I writing about it now - well, there is a weekend of Frasier on one of the satellite TV channels and I noticed from the trailer in one of them that the Roz character has one of those very same pens sitting on her desk when working in the radio broadcast office.

Neat!

I’m in Germany this morning - or so claims The Internet™. As it happens, I am sitting inside my usual coffee shop in Canary Wharf and sitting at my usual table (after it was vacated by interlopers) - but the internet is convinced that I am in Germany.

As it happens, this is not a new occurrence and every time I log on to the T-Mobile Wi-Fi service in the UK, all the adverts on websites switch to German. Google is usually better at knowing my real location, but even they sometimes get it wrong and just now tried to bounce me over to the German Google website.

As the location data is based on IP address tables, I could understand some glitches, but it does seem that either T-Mobile UK is routing all its internet traffic via a German proxy, which would be very odd - or they are identifying themselves as German to query systems - which would be equally odd.

However, as a diversion - it could once have been possible for me to be sitting in London - and also be in Germany. Where Cannon Street train station now stands used to be a German enclave between the 13th and 15th centuries. Queen Elizabeth 1 finally rescinded their privileges but the land itself remained the property of the Hanse merchants right up to 1853. It was only eventually sold to make way for the train station.

There is a plaque by the train station commemorating this heritage - and a photo of it (take by myself) is on Wikipedia

So - had the internet been around in the 14th century and I was sat inside the German enclave, then the adverts I am seeing today on my web browser would indeed be correct. But I am not - so they are wrong.

(Oh, and the Y button on my laptop seems to be glitchy this morning - damn)

The great British pint – an integral part of our culture. As summer approaches - hopefully, and our thoughts turn to lazy Sundays in the beer garden what better way to spend an evening than learning about beer (apart from drinking it of course).

Alex Bell, head brewer at O’Hanlon’s Brewing Company will be hosting a talk tomorrow evening (Wed 16th July) at the rather posh venue of the Royal Institution and will guide us through the science behind the perfect pint and let us in on some of the secrets of the brewers’ craft. What makes a good beer and why are some regions famous for certain types of beer? Is there a difference between keg, cask and bottled and how does this affect the flavour? Alex will reveal all.

The talk will be followed by a tasting session giving you the opportunity to sample some of O’Hanlon’s finest beers and put your newly acquired beer knowledge to the test.

I’ll be there (obviously!) and you can still book tickets via the Royal Institution’s website.

The Times newspaper is reporting that companies bidding for supply contracts with UK Government Ltd., will need to demonstrate in their bid documents how they will “build good relations with unions” as part of their contract.

I can’t help but wonder if that would fall foul of the EU rules on open tendering - as any contract offered by the state should be judged on the merits of providing the service - and not as a tool of political change.

It’s also worth noting that most companies in the UK are actually quite small and don’t have union representation as the people working there are rarely actually that interested in joining one. So, would a small business be effectively barred from bidding for a contract simply because the staff and management are not disposed to chatting to trade unions? A UK where government contracts can only be awarded to companies the size of Crapita (eyes passim) would not be a good one.

Oh, and any bidder would also have to offer training to their staff if they do not have basic literacy and numeracy qualifications. Ignoring the subtle fact that any sensible company wouldn’t employ such a person in the first place - isn’t it actually the responsibility of the government to ensure school children leave school able to at the very least read and write?

Why are they now expecting the private sector - which pays the taxes to fund the schools - to then also repair the damage done by the schools.

If people are leaving school unable to read and write - then fix the schools, don’t try to “fix” the bidding documents for government contracts.

Still - as someone who used to write replies to bid tender documents, I know that the government demands are probably going to be ignored anyway as most of the RFP’s I used to write were works of pure fiction - and I gather that is the same for most contract tenders.