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Archive for the ‘London’ Category

I’ve deliberately held back on posting this, but on Friday April 18th I was made redundant from lastminute.com

I held back because I didn’t want to post anything in haste that I would later regret. Yes I feel angry, yes I feel that they stitched me up, and no I wouldn’t use their services (particularly with a credit card) if my life depended on it.

The culture in lastminute.com (and that’s the last time I will deliberately add the .com anymore – I don’t have to put a pound in their corporate swear box) is ‘trendy’ to the point of being strained. They still have a ‘chill out room’ in their very expensive offices in central Westminster with both table tennis and table football, how very nineties!

And, to be fair, they played the game on the ‘consultancy’ period of the redundancy process. They were laying off around 15% of their UK employees and we were ‘encouraged’ to apply for internal roles. However when I was contacted by an external agency about one role then I realised they were simply going through the motions.

And when I heard a senior manager demanding “a good degree from a good university” then I knew the writing was on the wall for me, I only have thirty years real-world experience.

I wish them well, and if I said I wasn’t bitter then I’d be lying, but I suspect that they’re going to struggle to survive, and they will feel an increasingly tightening grip from the hands of their owners in the USA.

It’ll be lastminute Jim, but not as they know it.

As for me, well I have a few ideas for starting up on my own; and will, of course,  try and find a ‘real’ job, but I recognise that in the current economic climate (impeding ice age) these will be few and far between.

In the short term, rather than sitting around for two weeks saying “We’re doomed” (a la Fraser in “Dad’s Army”) we’re doing it on a beach in Sri Lanka, which is where I’m typing this to upload when we get back.

See the Sri Lanka pictures here.

This mornings newspapers suggest that the British motor industry, such as we still have, will require significant government investment if they are to survive the current business downturn/recession.

Given the considerable sums already invested to ensure that the banking industry avoids a large and upleasant crash, such investment in the car industry seems inevitable.

However, at the risk of doing a Robert Peston again Im going to offer another you read it here first prediction.

The Ford plant in Dagenham, at its peak covered around 300 acres. I havent driven past the site recently, but would suggest that since car production ceased in 2002, much of the site is underutilised. As the downturn hits that under utilisation can only worsen.

Dagenham is about five miles from Canary Wharf and less than ten miles from the City of London with above average road and rail links. Its also less than a mile from the River Thames and only a few miles from London City Airport. That makes it prime real estate in my books, brownfield and ripe for redevelopment.

Im guessing (and it is only a guess) that around 250 Acres (100 Hectares) of land could me made available for redevelopment; using the Governments current plannning density of around 150-200 Dwellings per hectare (in the Thames Gateway), then thats space for around 17,000 dwellings. Thats a comfortably sized town in its own right, and would further benefit from the infrastructure and facilities currently being put in place for the 2012 Olympics.

So… Ford of Dagenham, dont build cars or engines… build a town!

Word is that the government want to squander this resource with its excellent trsnsport links to build a prison. Go figure.

Once again, if they come to their senses, you read it here first.

London hosted a different Beer event last week “Beer Exposed” (http://www.beerexposed.com) – this was a premium event featuring tutored tastings from some of the industrys best known names, representatives from some of Europes finest breweries and, perhaps most importantly, opportunities to sample the brews.

It cost around £14 to get into the event, but all the drinks were free to sample after admission. Admittedly most of the samples were on the small side, but there were plenty, and the admission fee included a half pint tasting goblet, programme and carrier bag. Most of the beers were also available to purchase to take home or for delivery. 

I attended with two very good friends, Rick and Tom. Rick has a great palate and is a wine buff, where Tom and I regularly enjoy a few beers together. We chose the Friday lunchtime session as we figured it would be more civilised than an evening session. 

The first stand we were presented with, on arrival, was Shepherd Neame. They had several ales on sample, including their autumnal beer Late Red and Canterbury Jack which I recall left me unimpressed back at the GBBF in August. I was quite relieved when both Rick and Tom shared my view… light, insubstantial and frankly bland.

From Shepherd Neame we worked our way through a number of interesting brewery stands including Duyck (who brew Jenlain which is probably my favourite beer), and some interesting lagers from further afield. We sampled Hue Beer from Vietnam, Pearl River Beer from Guangzhou, Bintang from Indonesia, Viru from Estonia, Cubanero from well, you can guess, and Moosehead from Canada.

It wasnt just lagers though, Dragon Stout from Jamaica had a stand, and Belgian Beers were well represented. While sampling Rodenbach I was explaining to Tom about the wild yeasts that give Lambic beers their unique sourness when the subject of dark lagers came up… Tom had never heard of dark lager, so we set out on a quest to find dark lagers. 

We found several. Budweiser (the original from Ceske Budovice) had a stand featuring their dark lager, a Spanish example Alhambra, Bernard from the Czech Republic and Xingu from Brazil. My recollection is that the Xingu came out on top in this very unstructured tasting, with Bernard a close second. Sadly Tsing Tao from China hadnt brought their dark lager, but maybe next time. 

We also enjoyed one of the tutored tastings with beer writer Adrian Tierney-Jones (http://www.beeralewhatever.com/). During an interesting half an hour we sampled pale lagers through to stout, including Castel Lager, from Ethiopia – a first for me. 

I lost count of the number of brews we sampled, but we probably only touched about half the brews on offer, and missed the American beers completely! Sadly our time had run out, each session at Beer Exposed is limited to four hours, but we discovered some fascinating brews which I plan to seek out in the future. 

You wont be surprised to learn that my wife described my mood as mellow when I got home.

And that night I slept the sleep of the just! 

While nobody would ever accuse me of be a sports fan, or even a sports follower (with the exception of Formula One) this weekends olympics coverage has been gripping.

The weekend marked Britains best ever performance in recent olympic times, and as I type this Team GB are third in the medal tally, second only to China and the USA. This may not last as the schedule now brings in events that were less strong in, but this morning, on the train, the newspapers were full of proud, patriotic copy.

Okay, so inflation is on the rise, along with interest rates, ( real prices are rising faster than inflation) and this is likely to be the wettest August for nearly a century, but for one brief moment the nation had something to smile about.

And I recounted the cranes… between Liverpool Street and Stratford stations (a distance of about five miles) I counted fifty construction cranes of various sizes.

Today marks the opening of the Beijing Olympic Games.

We were in Beijing in September 2004, and saw the Olympic Countdown clock in Tianemen Square. Beijing was, while we were there, mercifully free of fog, although a a couple of the pictures look a bit hazy. Check the China link on the Been There, Done That pages.

These days I commute through Stratford in East london. Stratford is at the heart of the 2012 Olympic development zone and its fascinating to see how the area is being redeveloped. Old, run down industrial estates are being flattened to make way for lavish apartment complexes.  

The skyline, from the train, is scattered  with tower cranes, standing like storks against the pale east-end sky. I stopped counting at twenty five. I am confident that the whole skyline will change radically in the coming four years as the Olympic site is developed.

How impressive the British Olympic offering will be, in comparison to what the Chinese have achieved with ruthless disregard to the prior residents of the sites, and with an almost limitless budget, remains to be seen. I fear that we Brits will deliver some half-baked solution, which looks and feels cheap, but actually cost way over the odds.

Thats just the way it seems to be. Somehow we always end up paying over the odds for sub standard goods and services.

Its the British way.

And as for todays Olympic opening ceremony, beamed live from Beijing at 08.08.08.08.08 – I have a prior engagement. Ill be drinking at the Great British Beer Festival – now thats something we DO do well, but again, not cheaply.