It's due to be an eventful Friday tomorrow.
Interview at lunch. Prepared as well as I can.
And then there's the Afternoon Delight - I'm receiving a surprise from Anne. I have no idea what it is... all I've been told to do is to pack my bag as if I am to be staying at a friends house until Sunday...
Tune in on Monday to find out what happened! :-)
Thursday, April 30, 2009
Monday, April 27, 2009
Oxford: you make your own Break...
You make your own breaks!
Whether you make your own opportunities to find work, to move forward in your career, to get the last toy at Toys'R'Us at the Christmas Rush or purely to organise a chance to get away... there is a lot that you can do yourself by trying.
Sometimes its not that easy to just get away because it takes quite some effort just to get out of bed. When planning is involved it's easy to take the option of doing something that takes no effort and no planning . Getting up and going when you actually can just as easily lay in bed all day can sometimes be tough. But when you do get up and go you see wonderful things. Anne and I saw Oxford on Sunday and saw some wonderful things.
You see guys in Yellow suits playing the TUBA...
Cute little kids... acting like a gangster... threatening a tree at the Botantical Gardens...
Flowers that look like witches fingernails...
Fantastic sights. It's extremely easy to get to Oxford from London. There is a bus called the Oxford Tube that runs every 15 minutes and runs all night long. Whats funny is that in Oxford all we heard was proper English. Everyone spoke with a fairly posh accent... everyone looked fairly proper as well... there were quite a few tourists but luckily you could find some quiet spots too.
Quite funny... from the Botanical Gardens in Oxford we were able to see a proper cricket game too.. reminding me of my time in Australia playing cricket.. the gentlemans sport:-) and no... we didn't watch it all... it takes several hours to play...
It's quite unbelievable that it's been 2 years since Anne and I met. It feels like just yesterday but I'm sooooo happy she is here with me in London. It's incredible how much easier it is to move with someone to share your pains and joys.
I'll leave you with some more pictures from Oxford.
As this was a nice day away and a surprise day away at that for Anne, it was great to see that she enjoyed it as much as she did. :-)
Whether you make your own opportunities to find work, to move forward in your career, to get the last toy at Toys'R'Us at the Christmas Rush or purely to organise a chance to get away... there is a lot that you can do yourself by trying.
Sometimes its not that easy to just get away because it takes quite some effort just to get out of bed. When planning is involved it's easy to take the option of doing something that takes no effort and no planning . Getting up and going when you actually can just as easily lay in bed all day can sometimes be tough. But when you do get up and go you see wonderful things. Anne and I saw Oxford on Sunday and saw some wonderful things.
You see guys in Yellow suits playing the TUBA...
Cute little kids... acting like a gangster... threatening a tree at the Botantical Gardens...
Flowers that look like witches fingernails...
Fantastic sights. It's extremely easy to get to Oxford from London. There is a bus called the Oxford Tube that runs every 15 minutes and runs all night long. Whats funny is that in Oxford all we heard was proper English. Everyone spoke with a fairly posh accent... everyone looked fairly proper as well... there were quite a few tourists but luckily you could find some quiet spots too.
Quite funny... from the Botanical Gardens in Oxford we were able to see a proper cricket game too.. reminding me of my time in Australia playing cricket.. the gentlemans sport:-) and no... we didn't watch it all... it takes several hours to play...
It's quite unbelievable that it's been 2 years since Anne and I met. It feels like just yesterday but I'm sooooo happy she is here with me in London. It's incredible how much easier it is to move with someone to share your pains and joys.
I'll leave you with some more pictures from Oxford.
As this was a nice day away and a surprise day away at that for Anne, it was great to see that she enjoyed it as much as she did. :-)
Tuesday, April 21, 2009
Who are they?
What would you say to this man if you sat next to him on a plane... Nicely trimmed 'tache?
This guy has doned a suit and greased his hair but normally he sells you kebab?
Perhaps a model for SpecSavers?
A guy who took the wrong door in the hotel and ended up on stage in front of thousands of people?
A bodyguard to some 5 year old superstar?
A woman who lives for the weekend and the rodeo?What if I put numbers in front of their names....
#22 Prince Alwaleed Bin Talal Alsaud
#7 Mukesh Ambani
#16 Li Ka-shing
#19 David Koch
#24 David Thomson
#12 Alice Walton
You guessed it here is the entire list of the worlds billionaires as published by Forbes on the 11th of March.
Now chances are you won't be sitting next to one of these people on your next bus trip, or stand next to them in the queue for the cinema, but whats striking and whats interesting is that even if you did, the majority of us wouldn't recognise them.
Some of them have earned the money themselves. Some have inherited it. Some have found it in a bush beside the highway... or maybe not... I refuse to believe you stumble over that amount of money... in certain cases in which it is inherited it might not necessarily be through the hard-work and perspiration of the individual themselves....
Interestingly enough if you look up a lot of these names, many these people are also using their money to do good in the world instead of lavishly overspending on ridiculous non-essential things... I say many because obviously there is still the wastefulness of some...
Does the money make them happy... no...nothing we know makes them happier when they go to bed at night than someone who's just found a job, someone who's just written a poem or someone who has just seen the sun set... but for the majority of us we'll never understand the world they are living in... and apart from a select few we will not strive to accomplish it either...
Don't get me wrong... I like the list of the worlds Billionaires 2009. I don't think people should look down on people simply because they have money, simply because that is what drives them... nor should people worship the ground these people walk on... if there are lists for the best songs, lists for the best books, lists for the best restaurants... then why not for the worlds Billionaires... the majority of them are no more famous than you or I... they might purchase slightly more expensive things but also give more to charity... the world we live in is an intriguing place...
Here's a few lists I haven't seen though...
List of the world's happiest people... List of the world's greatest accomplishments ... list of the world's best friends... but I suppose these are far more difficult to set up standards to measure. :-) Thank god... Imagine the pressure of being the world's best friend... :-)
Wednesday, April 15, 2009
Ostiarius - the word of the day
An ostiarius, a Latin word sometimes anglicized as Ostiary but often literally translated as porter or doorman, originally was a servant or guard posted at the entrance of a building.
Why this word? Why today?
As some doors open, others are shut and throughout my journey to find a job here in London I've been through what seems like an infinite number of doors...
Some of the doormen are friendly when I'm on my way in, and when I'm on my way out
Others are not friendly at all, possibly cause they have too many people coming in and out of their doors...
Some doormen I know from the past and get me in through the back enterance...
And then there are the ones that are only too glad to see the back of me but who welcomed me as a king...
Today I was shown out of one door by a friendly Ostiary... the outcome however is as definite whether the Ostiary is kind, cruel or unremarkable...
Today another door opened and the doorman is someone I know...
Tomorrow one door is wide open ...
So you see... I have met a lot of these doormen, and gone through a lot of doors... but not yet got a foot in
I'll leave you with a funny picture taken on Monday... Anne and I met this pigeon while crossing a street in London... Standing and waiting until the light turned green... quite a site... fancy meeting a patient Londoner... but then again, it was Easter, he might have been an out of town pigeon...
Monday, April 13, 2009
Hmmmm... what do I see
Easter... how lovely it is to have four days off.
It's been an extremely quiet easter... London has practically been dead except for all the tourists but luckily we've stayed clear as much as possible...
Anne and I have had the apartment to ourselves... first time we've really been "alone" since I moved from Sweden in November and although we get on with our temporary flat mates really really well, it kind of reminds us that we are getting older and that we enjoy having our own space, being able to do what we like in our own apartment when we want to... not as easy when you are living with others even if you get along with them...
Thursday night Anne and I attended the filming of the Chris Moyles Quiz night. Its free to get tickets to be in the audience for these shows so its a great night out...only it takes around 4-5 hours of filming. If you want tickets you can get them from Applause store. For those of you who don't know who Chris Moyles is, he is the biggest Morning Radio DJ in the UK and has a show on BBC Radio 1... he's now launched a TV show where celebrities compete for something that Chris Moyles owns and loves. This week the winner won his BBQ. The loser has to sing karaoke...
The Celebrities we got to see were Gary Barlow (singer in the band Take That), Denise van Outen (Singer, actress, business woman) and Stephen Fry (all-around Genius and very well liked English man)...
It was a great show that aired yesterday (Sunday)... but some of the funniest parts were cut from the programs possibily because they were not PC (politically correct) or for other reasons?!?!?
Now while we're still on Thursday night, I have to highlight this... the UK has an OBESITY problem... the number of OBESE people we saw on Thursday night was INCREDIBLE!!! Literally around 10-15 members of the audience of 300 were seriously obese. That's a staggering number. All over town wherever we walked on Thursday there were Obese people. I'm talking seriously obese and I listened in to the majority of them to make sure they weren't American tourists... It's a serious issue but when you see everyone walking around with packets of crisps (chips) you understand why that is... Throughout the weekend we have continued to notice people who are not taking care of themselves. If there's one or two fine, it might ..."NOTE: it MIGHT" be a disease but this many, its damn well lazy and unhealthy people and unfortunately probably extremely sad and self-confident people too... Terrible to see and I obviously don't judge them on their weight but its a real societal problem when you see sooooooooooooo many... Note I would say the same if I thought everyone I saw was underweight too but clearly I don't see that many
Like I said before, it was a calm weekend... on Sunday we went to the Natural History museum to see the Best Wildlife Photography Exhibition... incredible pictures... highly recommend going there if you are in town before the 26th of April...
The museum was full of families... young kids with their parents... soaking up as much information as possible... its funny to see their minds fill up with knowledge... their curiousity and their willingness to scream, shout, run, trip, play, roll around on the ground, eat ice cream so that their entire face is covered in vanilla ice cream...
Realised you haven't seen a pic of me for a while so here's a pic of me outside the museum.
Interesting thing happened on the way back on the tube from the museum... Anne and I were on the tube and a quite professional looking man came on, sat down across from us and started talking, he was turned slightly to his right and talking to what we can only assume he believed was his imaginary friend... but nobody was sitting in the vicinity... he got off and I turned to Anne and said that was strange... as I did that... I slightly hesitated... what if Anne was just a figment of my imagination, my imaginary friend Anne, nobody else could see her and I thought she was here but she wasn't in fact... how strange would it be to one day wake up and find out that a friend you had was imaginary...!!! anyway, quickly realised she existed when others could notice her...:-p
This week I have two potentially interesting meetings with companies so fingers crossed... Never give up... here's a clip I found on CNN today which pretty much sums up what I'm going through as well... interesting that it affects soooo many people in so many ways...!!!
Anne and I are now goin out for a walk... bringin my camera so hope to be able to take some nice snaps...
It's been an extremely quiet easter... London has practically been dead except for all the tourists but luckily we've stayed clear as much as possible...
Anne and I have had the apartment to ourselves... first time we've really been "alone" since I moved from Sweden in November and although we get on with our temporary flat mates really really well, it kind of reminds us that we are getting older and that we enjoy having our own space, being able to do what we like in our own apartment when we want to... not as easy when you are living with others even if you get along with them...
Thursday night Anne and I attended the filming of the Chris Moyles Quiz night. Its free to get tickets to be in the audience for these shows so its a great night out...only it takes around 4-5 hours of filming. If you want tickets you can get them from Applause store. For those of you who don't know who Chris Moyles is, he is the biggest Morning Radio DJ in the UK and has a show on BBC Radio 1... he's now launched a TV show where celebrities compete for something that Chris Moyles owns and loves. This week the winner won his BBQ. The loser has to sing karaoke...
The Celebrities we got to see were Gary Barlow (singer in the band Take That), Denise van Outen (Singer, actress, business woman) and Stephen Fry (all-around Genius and very well liked English man)...
It was a great show that aired yesterday (Sunday)... but some of the funniest parts were cut from the programs possibily because they were not PC (politically correct) or for other reasons?!?!?
Now while we're still on Thursday night, I have to highlight this... the UK has an OBESITY problem... the number of OBESE people we saw on Thursday night was INCREDIBLE!!! Literally around 10-15 members of the audience of 300 were seriously obese. That's a staggering number. All over town wherever we walked on Thursday there were Obese people. I'm talking seriously obese and I listened in to the majority of them to make sure they weren't American tourists... It's a serious issue but when you see everyone walking around with packets of crisps (chips) you understand why that is... Throughout the weekend we have continued to notice people who are not taking care of themselves. If there's one or two fine, it might ..."NOTE: it MIGHT" be a disease but this many, its damn well lazy and unhealthy people and unfortunately probably extremely sad and self-confident people too... Terrible to see and I obviously don't judge them on their weight but its a real societal problem when you see sooooooooooooo many... Note I would say the same if I thought everyone I saw was underweight too but clearly I don't see that many
Like I said before, it was a calm weekend... on Sunday we went to the Natural History museum to see the Best Wildlife Photography Exhibition... incredible pictures... highly recommend going there if you are in town before the 26th of April...
The museum was full of families... young kids with their parents... soaking up as much information as possible... its funny to see their minds fill up with knowledge... their curiousity and their willingness to scream, shout, run, trip, play, roll around on the ground, eat ice cream so that their entire face is covered in vanilla ice cream...
Realised you haven't seen a pic of me for a while so here's a pic of me outside the museum.
Interesting thing happened on the way back on the tube from the museum... Anne and I were on the tube and a quite professional looking man came on, sat down across from us and started talking, he was turned slightly to his right and talking to what we can only assume he believed was his imaginary friend... but nobody was sitting in the vicinity... he got off and I turned to Anne and said that was strange... as I did that... I slightly hesitated... what if Anne was just a figment of my imagination, my imaginary friend Anne, nobody else could see her and I thought she was here but she wasn't in fact... how strange would it be to one day wake up and find out that a friend you had was imaginary...!!! anyway, quickly realised she existed when others could notice her...:-p
This week I have two potentially interesting meetings with companies so fingers crossed... Never give up... here's a clip I found on CNN today which pretty much sums up what I'm going through as well... interesting that it affects soooo many people in so many ways...!!!
Anne and I are now goin out for a walk... bringin my camera so hope to be able to take some nice snaps...
Wednesday, April 8, 2009
Back to business
And surprise surprise...today I'm back in Business and super productive once more.
It's amazing what one day of reflection can do...
(by the way, I think this song is quite catchy but then I love musicals so i would)
Tuesday, April 7, 2009
The long and winding road...
It's been one of those days and I feel this song sums it up perfectly...
The song's been covered by numerous artists around the world since it was first released but here's the original video with the Beatles. I feel it has a strong message (and that message is not that men should grow beards and mustaches and long hair and get Japanese girlfriends).
What I've found is...
Some days the road seems short and extremely straightforward.
Other days, like today you feel like its an awfully long road which turns and jiggles it's way along and the destination seems far off in the distance. If you turn around and look back to where you've come from ... it seems a long way away ... not that you want to return. The road is unique and nobody really understands and appreciates but you and perhaps those close to you. Why didn't you just take the highway some may think? Surely that would have been simpler. But like Robert Frost wrote in his poem:
Two roads diverged in a wood, and I --
I took the one less travelled by,
and that has made all the difference
Sometimes you just have to stop... look at the damn map and remind yourself that if you just keep going you'll get there in the end... pity the map isn't all that great and you have to draw it yourself at times, eh?
At times you just want someone to pop out on the path and pull you in... force you to be a lumberjack in the forrest, a farmer in the field, a dog walker in Beverley Hills...
Other times you don't want any help at all.
Sometimes you get to the top of a peak and you see what you think and hope is your destination but you hesitate to expect too much... its dangerous... you see what you think might be your goal and you sprint 200 meters thinking its just around the hill but ultimately the sprint may only leave you breathless, disappointed and you might lose track of the goal... so you need to keep on keeping on...
It's not that I've received any bad news today, its not like my meetings with the companies over the last weeks didn't go well... on the contrary, they have all gone very well...
but the wait, the expectations and the desire to make it to your goal some days can get the better of you...
Luckily...
the path is still there...
you still have your map...
you are in control of your goals...
you have support, shelter and supplies...
you have the ability to walk, jump, climb and move uninhibited...
and tomorrow will always come.
Don't get me wrong, I certainly don't believe that I'm the only one that is on a long and winding road... everyone has their own paths... mine might not even be the "one less travelled by"... everyone has their own challenges, obstacles and dreams...nobody's is straightforward all the time, everyone has their journey and those that I believe might be currently taking the highway might not be doing so at all... everyone has those days where they just feel like its awfully long...
Whats important is to be able to step back, put it in context and enjoy it for what it is...
Friday, April 3, 2009
Yummy yummy
Nobu for Lunch on a Thursday!?!? Mathilda was kind enough to invite me for lunch at Nobu yesterday (Thursday). Scrumdidlioucious Japanese Cuisine... For those of you who have not heard of Nobu (Click here to see website http://www.noburestaurants.com/london/index.html), it is one of London's top restaurants. It has one Michelin star and is a common celebrity hang out. Our friend Jimmy used to work there as a chef and I must say I got a really good vibe of the place.
Fair enough the place isn't cheap. It's definitely not a "where should we go for quick affordable Lunch... oh lets go to Nobu" kind-of-place... unless of course you are raking it in...
But it didn't have that auro of SNOBBINESS to it that I was expecting. At least not for lunch. Normal tables, normal decoration and a normal enterance. The staff were all very friendly and polite but not annoyingly so. The food was fantastic. I ordered the Sashimi and Tempura lunch special for a mere £26 and my sister and Simon ordered the Bento box. Top quality ingredients. Top quality service and all in all a great experience. But not cheap.
One thing that struck me as strange was that there were a lot of children eating there yesterday. It didn't come across to me as a "children's menu" kind of place. We saw one hot-shot businessman father bring his harry potter looking son in and moments later answer his ringing phone and subsequently spend the next half an hour on the phone... was this Quality father-son time?!? The son looked a bit like he'd rather have been at McDonalds where he might have had a play ground to play at. When the food arrived he got a rather simple looking fillet o salmon, doubtlessly though the playground was probably in the kids mouth after he had tasted the simple looking salmon:-)
There was a guy in a business suit with a guy in jeans and a teeshirt, a large family table and some proper snobby looking business people... Interesting what Top-End restaurants attract for lunch in times of recession... :-)
On our way back, Mathilda and I wandered through Hyde Park on a lovely stroll. we've had fabulous weather here recently.
Don't know if it's only the UK but I have noticed a lot of senior looking men in business suits wearing extremely colourful socks... everything is properly conservative and then they have neon green socks... its quite odd... it makes me want to stop them in the middle of the street with one single question..."what is it you do that forces you to wear that suit when those socks indicate all you really want to do is wear wacky sunglasses, some tacky shorts and a hawaii t-shirt?"
Tomorrow we will attend the filming of a hit Political satire comedy chat show called "Argumental" here in London... looking forward to it. More news on that in a later post. And whats more I am planning on going to the Harcourt Arms to watch Malmö FF (my football team) play Häcken in the first game of the Swedish football season. Quite odd that I can watch it here in London but such is the times we are living in.
Fair enough the place isn't cheap. It's definitely not a "where should we go for quick affordable Lunch... oh lets go to Nobu" kind-of-place... unless of course you are raking it in...
But it didn't have that auro of SNOBBINESS to it that I was expecting. At least not for lunch. Normal tables, normal decoration and a normal enterance. The staff were all very friendly and polite but not annoyingly so. The food was fantastic. I ordered the Sashimi and Tempura lunch special for a mere £26 and my sister and Simon ordered the Bento box. Top quality ingredients. Top quality service and all in all a great experience. But not cheap.
One thing that struck me as strange was that there were a lot of children eating there yesterday. It didn't come across to me as a "children's menu" kind of place. We saw one hot-shot businessman father bring his harry potter looking son in and moments later answer his ringing phone and subsequently spend the next half an hour on the phone... was this Quality father-son time?!? The son looked a bit like he'd rather have been at McDonalds where he might have had a play ground to play at. When the food arrived he got a rather simple looking fillet o salmon, doubtlessly though the playground was probably in the kids mouth after he had tasted the simple looking salmon:-)
There was a guy in a business suit with a guy in jeans and a teeshirt, a large family table and some proper snobby looking business people... Interesting what Top-End restaurants attract for lunch in times of recession... :-)
On our way back, Mathilda and I wandered through Hyde Park on a lovely stroll. we've had fabulous weather here recently.
Don't know if it's only the UK but I have noticed a lot of senior looking men in business suits wearing extremely colourful socks... everything is properly conservative and then they have neon green socks... its quite odd... it makes me want to stop them in the middle of the street with one single question..."what is it you do that forces you to wear that suit when those socks indicate all you really want to do is wear wacky sunglasses, some tacky shorts and a hawaii t-shirt?"
Tomorrow we will attend the filming of a hit Political satire comedy chat show called "Argumental" here in London... looking forward to it. More news on that in a later post. And whats more I am planning on going to the Harcourt Arms to watch Malmö FF (my football team) play Häcken in the first game of the Swedish football season. Quite odd that I can watch it here in London but such is the times we are living in.
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