united

good news that barcelona won the european cup final by completely destroying manchester united. uniteds multimillion pound footballers got made to look like sunday league players by iniesta and xavi, who came through the youth system at barcelona. how shit did michael carrick play?. in a team that was made to look ametuerish he stood out for me as being exceptionally inept. 

alex ferguson did compliment barcelona as even he couldn't blame the referee for any controversial incidents, although you could tell he was bitter judging by the fact his nose was that purple colour it tends to become, when he is pissed off.....or drunk. 

nothing else to write. just wanted to gloat at man utd being smashed up last night. at least when my team, arsenal, gets smashed up, we have some good excuses like our players being injured all the time (van persie, eduardo, fabregas, rosicky, gallas, clichy....), or our best players tend to be moody and want to leave (anelka, viera, henry, adebayor) and also the fact that most of our team are kids and even our captain is 22 years old. those are some good excuses. 

man utd had no excuses. they just didn't have enough class, talent or ambition. ronaldo and rooney can't win every trophy for them, even though they have done a good job of doing so for the last 3 years. 

anyways, its thursday today and only one more day of this week to get through. no football for me tonight as i am meeting some friends in shoreditch tonight. there is not much else to say apart from i miss my friend from california. stay strong my friend. 

today i have mostly been listening to the gaslight anthem - great expecations. 

beyonce

lovely sunny 3 day weekend just gone. i didn't do anything out of the ordinary, ie: cycling, training, but it was nice to have the extra day off. these single days don't really count for that much but it just gives you a little boost occasionally. 

i also installed the new windows 7 release candidate on my laptop at home. despite being microsoft certified to the eyeballs i am not a fan of everything that comes 'straight outta redmond', and i only ran windows vista for a few days because i discovered after a few hours it was a piece of shit. windows 7 is much better though. its not a revelation but it does work, which is more than can be said of vista. have been getting all my music and picture libraries nicely organised. the mindless trivialities of my life. 

last night i went to see beyonce perform at the o2. a friend of mine had a spare ticket and asked me if i wanted it. its not the kind of thing i would buy a ticket for, but i won't turn down a free ticket for beyonce. it actually turned out to be better than i thought. she really is a very very good performer. i thought she would be good, but i was surprised just how good she actually was. 

its the european cup final tonight. i shall be hoping the artists from barcelona win. they are a great team and i don't think i could stomach watching another smug interview from alex ferguson. at least if they lose you will get to see him for what he is really like, which is an ungracious whining fucker. he will probably blame the referee, or diving 'foreign' players conning the referee, or that there was not enough added on time, or that they had 3 stonewall penalties not given, or he will say they were the better team and deserved to win. the usual shit he comes out with. it might be nice if one day he actually congratulated the opposition in defeat. there is always a first time.....but i won't hold my breath. 

today i have mostly been listening to casual mafia - douchebag anthem. 

i actually know a couple of people like this. double pop collars, what the fuck is that about?. why wear 2 polo shirts???. a friend of mine did that exact thing a couple of weeks ago. trucker caps, sweat bands, tight t-shirts, party pics on facebook, bottle service...all that shit. one of them keeps suggesting i go out on a night out with them, but i always politely decline. i have seen the pics on his facebook page. 

whats a nice way of saying your friends all look like like a bunch of cunts and i would rather eat hair, than hang around with that group of waxed chest, blinged up, trust fund kids who are living off the money from their parents mobile phone shops, grocery store or building firm?. someone on the youtube page has commented that it describes the majorty of the population of los angeles. ha ha ha!!. london as well mate. 

people of the sun

long, busy, disorganised week just finished. had to get some servers built ready for some consultants to work on from tuesday and they have been sitting at my desk for the last 4 days going through stuff. it was all a bit of a rush job. i was used to doing things in a rush when i worked at the internet company but am surprised they did it here. its ok, as its only for one week.

looking back at it, i can't believe i worked like this for months on end. its not good to be that stressed out all the time and i definitely would not want next week to be like this. anyways, its all done now for the most part, and things are calming down.

long 3 day weekend coming up which is good and the forecast is for sun. will get out on my bike. not much else planned. dull dull dull. feel a bit strange recently. can't put my finger on it. it feels like i am slipping away from the world.

on the subject of slipping away from the world, one of the guys that plays football with us didn't turn up last week and won't be any longer. i only know him through football and have seen him around for around the last 7 or 8 years. i few years back he went to prison and did a 2 year stretch. he got in with the wrong crowd and shit happens i guess. anyways i heard that he had to leave the country in a hurry. no one is exactly sure why. some say he got in trouble with police again and other people say some gangsters are after him. either way he has left the country in a hurry and no one knows if and when he might be back. my life is dull. others have some serious dramas. i will stick with dull thanks.

take care california girl.

today i have mostly been listening to rage against the machine - people of the sun.

their first album was incredible and this was the first song on their eagerly awaited second album at the time. i know a few people who didn't like it as much as they thought they would, but i really liked the hard edge, raw, sound they had on this album.

the tube

the train was packed this morning even more so than usual. it was pulling in to my stop and the doors opened and a few people including me tried to squeeze past and towards the doors to get out. 

there was a small corrider to pass through between the people in the carriage. some guy went to squeeze through the little gap between people near the doors and being a polite person, i nodded to him to go ahead in front of me. he took a couple of paces towards the exit and then stopped. turns out he was not getting off the train at all and now he had blocked the narrow path to exit the train. 

in the meantime a whole rush of people on the platform then tried to squeeze onto the train. i was trapped in the carriage and then about 5 seconds later the doors closed and the train moved away. i missed my stop. i gave the guy who blocked the path the kind of look that said "you know you are prick, don't you fella?, so i don't really need to say it". he looked at his shoes in acknowledgement. 

its so horrible taking the train everyday. its why i always moan when its raining on the weekend because it means i can't cycle to the gym and have to take a train. overpriced, over crowded, hotter than a sauna and full of idiots. 

a couple of months back i saw some bloke squeezed into a rush hour train, and he was trying to read a book which he was holding in front of him. at one the stops loads of people got on and it was a tight squeeze, which is what you expect at rush hour near canary wharf. it was less crowded when i saw u2 at wembley stadium. the closest comparison i can make is that a rush hour squeeze on a train was similar to the mosh pit at janes addiction at the hammersmith odeaon a couple of years ago. 

anyways, the idiot with the book got annoyed and started pushing a guy standing next to him to make space so he could hold his book in front of him. the guy looked round and asked why he was pushing him and the idiot said he had no space to read his book. i couldn't hear the rest because i was a little bit away from them, but i suspect the guy then replied with something along the lines of 'its a packed commuter train mate and we all want to get home, so can you stop pushing me as there is no space to move, and if you do keep pushing me i will headbutt you and stick that fucking harry potter book up your ass, so just behave yourself sunshine'. 

there are too many idiots on the tube. 

today i have mostly been listening to the cure - plainsong. its the opening song on the disintegration album, which i may have said a thousand times before, is one of the greatest albums ever made. its one of those rare albums where you never skip a track. if you have an hour free one evening, put it on your stereo and just listen to it all the way through. it is epic. 

take care V. 

bored

now today has been a proper busy day. its 4.15pm and its the first time i have even checked the time. the day has flown by. there are only 2 of us flying the spacecraft today as my boss is away for a seminar or something. 

had a bunch of servers come in for a big project and spent most of the day swapping processors and memory because they delivered the wrong specs. my bosses boss was none too happy but its not a big deal. shit can get sorted out. i don't know why people have kittens when things don't go smoothly. chill out dude. 

aside from training, i did nothing this weekend. absolutely nothing. didn't go out, didn't study, didn't read, didn't watch any films, i did nothing. actually i did do one thing. i checked out to see if there were any good contracts out there. the market is pretty down at the moment but there are one or two interesting things out there. i have to tell myself that i must not apply to them and stick this out a while longer. thats how bored i was. i was looking for jobs even though i don't want to leave. fuck me i was bored. 

anyways, just over an hour till my day is over. still not booked my ticket for cali. can't believe my friends are so lame, and don't or won't come. 

today i have mostly been listening to bush - 40 miles from the sun. mr gavin rossdale grew up not far from where i am from and live. bush are a very good band. their first album, sixteen stone, is a wicked album. got to support our north london boys who have done well. 

chicken and rice

weather is showery today. i went to have my friday lunch treat from the turkish place 10 minutes away and i got caught in the rain on my way back. it didn't take anything away from my delicious grilled  chicken and steamed rice though. 

hurt my shoulder in the gym on wednesday. i still had the last of my cold and was not 100% and i tried to force things a little and i strained my left shoulder. it hurt really badly for the last couple of days but its not quite as bad today, though still very sore. it also means i have been getting the occasional shock when i am asleep at night and i inadvertantly turn onto my left side. ouch!!. that stirs me from my sleep pretty quickly.  

work is ok. i really do need some time off, but there is not any plans to take any days off for the next few months. i just need to hold on and its not like i have a choice. well i do have a choice and i could take some days off but i can't really justify losing out on the money and besides, its just shitty weather most of the time and i wouldn't be able to do anything productive with any time off. will dream of california for the next few months. that will have to do for the time being and when i get back from cali, all bets are off and i will be a free agent for hire to the highest bidder. 

none of the people that sit on my group of desks is into football. what are the odds?. because of that i barely speak to any of them in a non-work capacity. i talked more to the guy who made me rice and chicken at lunch than i did with any of my work colleagues. sad but true. 

my job is all it is . a job. work. nothing more, nothing less. it makes everything simple and plain but it would be nice to feel part of something, but i don't, and that is my own doing. i don't really want to feel to ingrained in this organisation or any organisation. i learned a while ago that its not of real value. a friend of mine worked at the internet company i used to work for and a couple of months ago they fired her because they were making cut backs. 10 years of loyal service clearly meant nothing to them. sad but true. 

anyways, the forecast is good for this weekend. will go to the gym and change my exercises to not put too much strain on my sore left shoulder. bench pressing is off the menu for the next few weeks but i should be able to do other stuff ok. 

today i have mostly been listening to blink 182 - always. have a lovely weekend flower. 

wrong

it all went wrong for arsenal last night. we got thoroughly beaten by man utd and we didn't make it through to the european cup final. ronaldo was awesome for man utd. not too dissapointed as barcelona would have beaten us if we got to the final with messi running rings round us, and if chelsea had made it to the final, they would have just kicked us for 90 minutes and used didier drogba like a battering ram and they would have eventually outmuscled us, probably. 

arsenal are a pure footballing team. we aspire to be like barcelona but we don't quite have players with as much talent and experience as they do, at this moment in time. we are like a diet-barca, a sugar free-barca, semi-barca, quasi-barca.......you get the idea. anyways i would rather try and play beautiful football and lose, than play like chelsea or liverpool and win. our dream is a bigger greater dream than theirs. for me, whether we succeed or fail, is a secondary issue.  

anyways, today i have mostly been listening to depeche mode - wrong. love the mode. used to listen to them from when i was a youngster at school and they are still making wicked songs. 

my bear stearns story

am just getting over the cold i had most of last week. its been one of those that just lingers on and on. hopefully tomorrow i will be back to 100%. would have been better a couple of days earlier but i cycled to the gym on saturday and it got really windy and cold on my way home. felt not good when i got home. 

back to work today after the long weekend and i am on earlies this week which is ok. i get to miss the worst bits of the rush hour which makes it almost worth waking up at 6.30am.

i also get to read my book called liars poker, on the tube in the morning because there is enough space to hold a book in front of you as opposed to the mosh pit it usually is on the train. only a few pages left and will probably finish it off on my way home this afternoon. its very good and having worked in banking recently, it is not entirely unfamiliar even though this is recounting stories from salomon brothers 20 years ago. actually its probably familiar to lots of people who work in any company. inept upper management, people getting promoted through politics and not ability, people taking credit for other peoples work....you get the idea. a lot of this went on at the internet company i used to work as well. i still hear the stories. it probably happens at my current place as well but i am just to new to know any of the politics and i just don't want to know either.  

it also recounts how salomon brothers expanded aggressively and quite recklessly in hindsight, and it reminded me of the investment bank bear stearns, that blew up last year. 

a couple of years ago when i was trying to break into the closed circle of investment banking, i had an interview there. at the time they were based high up in canary wharf and had 4 floors at the top of the tower but they were already building their own 12 storey building just down the road and preparing to move into that a few months later. i met a couple of managers in the technology division and they went through what i had done and what i knew. 

both of them seemed long term company men, and i would guess that they had been there for 10 years at least. they just had that look about them. i remember one of them was wearing a rolex submariner, which is a very nice watch but seems to be part of the standard uniform of someone who has worked in banking for a few years. they must get a voucher or coupon for them after 5 years of service i reckon. 

anyways the interview went well and i killed any questions they asked me, and we talked about tech stuff in general as well. i was prattling on about everything and anything. it was then that i got the feeling things were not going my way. the 2 guys shared a knowing look and then said that they were impressed but that i might be over qualified for the job they were hiring for. i probably was but i had no banking experience and at the time i just wanted to get the name of a bank on my cv. i tried to convince them that i was keen to do the work they had and i knew what the role was that i was going for and was happy to do it, but i knew they weren't convinced. 

also in the interview they mentioned their expansion plans and i remember being a little startled when they went through it. they said that they were recruiting because they were planning on growing their operation in london, which was why they were building their own purpose built offices down the road. they said they had 1,500 staff but were planning on increasing this to 3,500 staff in the next 2 years. i remember sitting there doing some mental arithmetic in my head when he said it and thinking....you are going to more than double in size in 2 years!!??....2000 new hires in 2 years....thats 1,000 new hires a year.....thats 19 new starters a week, every week for the next 2 years.... are you guys fucking nuts!!!. you are an 80 year old investment bank, not some internet startup in the dot com boom (and we all know what happened to most of them). 

anyways, they ended up not offering me the job and the agent initimated that it was because they thought i was overqualified. they were probably right but i also thought that they should hire the best people they could and not deliberately turn away able candidates for ones less able. that seemed a little unfair at the time. 

less than a year later bear stearns collapsed under a mountain of mortgage backed debt that lost its value in the US real estate crash. i was working at a japanese investment bank at the time and a lot of my friends told me how lucky i was i didn't end up getting the job at bear. i dodged a bullet on that one. 

anyways reading about some of the stuff that happened at salomon brothers, it reminded me of bear stearns. on my travels around london at other banks i ended up working in the canary wharf area about a year ago, and there was a brand new, almost completed new building, just down the street, that was where bear stearns was supposed to be, but which was lying empty, a symbol and reminder to everyone about irrational exhuberence, greed, ambition, mis-management, and folly. i don't know if its still uninhabited or what the plans are for it. they should leave it empty and let it serve as a monument to excessive greed and misplaced ambition. 

arsenal v man utd in the semi final of the european cup. come on the arsenal, though i think it will be tough. i hate man u, but even i have to admit that rooney and ronaldo and tevez are awesome players. chelsea v barcelona tomorrow night. artists v thugs. beauty v beast, football v anti-football, good v evil,...you get the idea. viva barca!. 

today i have mostly been listening to gin blossoms - found out about you. one of my most favourite songs ever. 

you look after yourself flower.