My view and thoughts on everything!

"I decided to ask an official (who were rarer to spot than the Loch Ness Monster).....I thought 'great' trust me to get the lunatic!!" It's amazing what a difference 72 hours can make. One minute you are literally in Sydney and the next you are in England! Well this is something that I have experienced in the last few days. On last Tuesday I received an urgent phone call that required me to travel to the Mother Country as soon as possible. By Friday morning I was in Kent having a cup of tea with my mother and sister! If anyone has had to travel at the last minute they will know that there are a lot of things that you need to do. First thing is to book a flight. Simple enough, really. However, in practice not as easy as it may seem. Virtually all airline websites will not let you book a flight within 72 hours notice. However, there are a few that will. With some great help from a work colleague (Jia) I was able to book a flight with Virgin Atlantic. My first minor

"she was the only leader who could spell ‘existentialism’....he made Vladimir Putin and our Johnny streak down the corridors of the Intercontinental Hotel while singing ‘achy break heart’! At last the APEC circus has departed good ol’ Sydney town and we can now get back to normal. All bar one of the leaders have paid their $4 for an airport trolley, loaded up their luggage, submitted the departure tax and have left Australia with their cuddly koalas, kangaroos and beef jerky. The leader who has pulled the short straw, however, is the Canadian PM who has stayed on for more talks with our PM John Howard, and also to collect more Australian soft toys (I recommend the wombat!). The main conversational topic around the hot water urn in most offices revolves around what happened during the last couple of days of the APEC summit. The reason for this is that all the meetings were held behind closed doors. Well, my avid readers, I can divulge what went on as I was privy to some confiden

"is the house situated in the middle of a milk Bermuda Triangle?.....the other suspect is the family pet a 14 year old cockatiel" One of the great things about being at home for an extended weekend (courtesy of the APEC summit - good onya lads!), is that you get an extra day to do whatever you want. Obviously that depends on what plans you have with other members of your family. At present my father in law is staying with us so that makes 5 people in the one household. I mention the number of people living in our household for a very good reason that will become obvious later on. As the long weekend was starting on Friday my father in law and I thought we would go to the nearest shopping centre on Thursday night and purchase some milk and cheese as we were not sure if any shops would be open on Friday. As it was late night shopping we didn't get to the supermarket until 8.30pm. Once there we were in and out in a flash. Well, not quite a flash, but more like 15 minut

"I thought Aussie tucker meant a Big Mac, fries and a shake! However, I was sadly wrong.......the New Zealand PM would hug and kiss all her APEC buddies, grab her Aussie bikini, before being escorted out by a beefy security guard. We are now just over halfway through the great APEC junket and Sydney is indeed a strange place to be in. Not only are there a lack of people in the CBD but movement is severely hampered by the motorcades that are roaring through the city streets. I even half expect to see Jack Bauer on his mobile phone protecting the President from the latest danger. Naturally, Dubya has his flotilla of security following him everywhere he goes. I assume they even follow the President to the bathroom! Let’s hope that George hasn’t been eating any Indian food lately! Actually, the President’s food intake has already been sliced and diced (literally) by food nutrition experts across Australia. A quick search on the internet will reveal all about Dubya’s dietary intake. Fr

"all leaders will be given Speedos (budgie smugglers) and thongs....seeing John or George in a taffeta dress and high heels certainly won't do much for the economy" This week Sydney is in 'lockdown' mode. It is one of those nowadays terms which simply means 'restrictions of movement'. It's quite interesting really as in the past few years buzzwords like 'lockdown' and 'collateral damage' have entered mainstream vocabulary. I am sure there are many more but at present these two seem to be the most common. The reason that Sydney is in 'lockdown' is because the Australian Government, led by John Howard, are hosting the APEC forum. I am not going to go into what APEC stands for, but in layman's terms it is a bunch of world leaders from a number of Pacific nations who come to a host country for a junket, eat lots of food, drink lots of alcohol, get spoilt and are gifted a ridiculous local outfit to wear! Aside from the Junket I b

"spurt out of the can like a fireman's water cannon......who had been deluged by my 1 and 2p coins! I was recently lent a book by a work colleague (David) called "Who moved my blackberry?" It's a humourous novel about a high powered marketing executive who communicates almost exclusively via email and text messaging. The book itself only reveals the electronic messages sent out by this executive, but you are able to work out quite easily what the other party has said. Even though I am only half way through this novel it's a really enjoyable read. It also reveals how dependant we are all becoming on technology, possibly which may be leading to the demise of face to face communication. This book got me thinking about how much has changed from a technological perspective from when I first started out in the work force to now. Many moons ago I used to work in London for what was then called a merchant bank. Typically nowadays they are called investment banks. I r