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Moved....

Thu, 21 Sep 2006 21:37:50 +0200

Hi.

Having not updated this blog for a long time, I have a decision to make:

1) Do I start writing again? Or
2) Do I give up, and forget this blog, or
3) Shall I start a completely new blog somewhere else

The third option being totally illogical and pointless! ....so I naturally decided to take the 3rd option!

My new blog is now located at
http://robfr8.blogspot.com/

(until I decide to move again!!)

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Business Cards - what to do with them?

Fri, 14 Apr 2006 01:06:45 +0200

Today I was given my "Business Cards" by my new work. I'm not actually sure what I'm supposed to do with them, as I have never had business cards before – not genuine ones, anyway. I was given a couple of hundred of them, so I'm not sure if I'm meant to distribute them to everyone I come across? So far, I haven’t managed to give even one away!

And speaking of work, I snuck some photographs of my office - when almost everyone had gone home of course. Here they are (in order of apperance): My desk, the view from behind me (of Berkeley Square) and of the guy who sits next to me, Patricio, who is a really cool, Argentinean, surfer dude! And finally, one of the Plasma screens that hang in the office. :-)

I'll try to take some better (and maybe more interestng) photographs next week.

Reading one of the comments left on my blog, by a person who shall remain nameless (even though it clearly says Tracey Hastey), it appears that I gave the impression in my last blog entry, that leaving Mintel was not a particularly sad event. ...Good!

Naturally I miss a few people – don't get a big head Kev, I'm not talking about you, you bloody slacker!! – but work-wise, I think it was a good move: my work at Mintel was becoming mundane and toward the end, I never felt like I'd achieved much at the end of the day, a big contrast to when I first started. By the way, Nick Badger still has my leaving card! Give it back. I'll swap you a business card for it?

Easter weekend is here, 4 days of holiday, which translates as 4 days of sleep to me! I would feel guilty for being so unproductive, but some people, like Kevin Musker, are going to Shropshire! In my book, that's even less productive than sleeping – so thanks to him, I'm actually having a productive Easter holiday.

Enjoy, people!!

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A Rainy Day – and a big update.

Sun, 09 Apr 2006 19:43:16 +0200

It appears that I've neglected my blog for a little while – 7 months and 1 day to be precise, buty who's counting? Amazingly, they haven't deleted it - probably because they appreciated the incredible writing and pure genius of what I had to say. So I thought I'd write a new entry. In fact, the real reason I'm writing the entry, is because it's a miserable rainy day outside and I'm simply bored! Here's the dreary view from my window:

You see how bored I am! I've taken a photograph of the rain from my window! You cannot get much more mundane than that!

You would have thought that in 7 months, enough events would have occurred to give me something to write about. ...But no! Well, actually I'm exaggerating; there have been a couple of major events:

The biggest event is that I have started a new job. In a semi-sad event, I left Mintel and have just started a new job, still (as always) a programmer, but working in a totally new industry: oil-trading. So far it has been a bit daunting, but exciting. I haven't quite got to grasp with all the financial instruments (these cool names like: forwards, futures, options and swaps), but I feel like I'm slowly beginning to understand them ...which is obviously a good thing!

I have not taken any photographs of my new office yet, as I don't want to give my new employers the impression that I'm a bit weird. No doubt they'll discover that I am in fact weird soon enough, but I'm going to try and let them think I'm normal for as long as possible.

Anyhow. I’ll try to write some entries more frequently, if only to waste web-space. I’ll leave this entry with some final photographs from Mintel, on my last day.

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Intermission. – Photos from a night out.

Sat, 10 Sep 2005 15:25:52 +0200

I'm taking a rest from moaning about pointless things in London today - mainly because I've still been too lazy to go out and take photographs of examples.

Instead, I can write about yesterday evening. After work, we went to a pub nearby, in order to say our final goodbyes to Steve and Matt. We went to Extra-time, one of the most rubbish bars nearby. I'm not sure whose idea it was! Probably Steve's - I suspect he thought he'd have one final laugh at us before he goes!

I don't have many photographs from the evening, and the ones I do have I don't know who photographed them - it wasn't me! I think my ancient camera was passed from person to person, and when I downloaded them to my computer, I saw what you can see below!

As with all the photographs on my blog; if you click on the photo, you will see a bigger and clearer version of it:

Me, the Genius Czech, Petr, and Kevin.

Kevin and Nick.

Me, and the Genius "Petr!"

Dan and Steve.

And finally Sam, demonstrating to a bemused Marta, the fine art of sipping a drink like a girl, through a straw in the side of your mouth.

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Completely Pointless Things in London. Part 2 "Sculptures, continued"

Mon, 05 Sep 2005 22:30:24 +0200

To be honest, my quest to find aimless sculptures has been rather dire; this is not because the sculptures do not exist - they certainly do - but because I have simply been lazy! I will find the energy and photograph them all at some stage, but until then, I will have to settle for some poor examples. Which by mere coincidence, are located about 60 seconds walk from work!

The first example (shown below), I originally though was simply a lazy attempt to sculpt a unicorn. I imaged that the artist had been commission to sculpture the Unicorn, but after completing the body, the artist became bored and decided to do a half-arsed attempt at the wings, resulting in the totally rubbish representation you see below:

However, after taking the photo, I noticed an explanation of the sculpture nearby, probably published as a result of many people asking exactly the same question: "When is it going to be finished?" It reads:

The two circles represent the Sun and the Moon.

So, I am wrong. The sculpture is not a lazy attempt at a Unicorn at all. It is in fact, a remarkable sculpture of the Sun, the Moon, and a horse! One moment... The sun and the Moon?! Not only has he got the proportions totally wrong, but in no parallel universe does the Sun and the Moon look like that!! Which is which? It's impossible to tell. No attempt has been made to sculpt even a single crater on the moon, which I could have done in about 3 seconds with nothing but a hammer! Total Laziness! - or perhaps the artist died before completing the sculpture. In which case, "Sorry mate! Nice horse."

Which brings me rather neatly onto my second example. Here it is:

A piece of wood! Fantastic!! Not even a nicely cut, healthy piece of Mahogany, but a decaying piece of dead tree. It has though, I admit, inspired me... to go to a forest, collect some decaying dead trees, stick them on a cheap base from Ikea and sell the "masterpieces" to every city currently lacking such amazing, inspirational works of genius!

Admittedly, these aren't particularly great examples of aimless sculptures that I have uncovered, but this is purely because I have been too lazy to stroll far from work. But I promise I will try soon.

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Completely Pointless Things in London. Part 1 "Sculptures"

Wed, 31 Aug 2005 21:04:43 +0200

Yes! I have finally thought of something to write about! Quite often, when I'm in a grumpy mood (usually when walking home from work) I realise that there are lots of things around me that are, to be honest, totally pointless!

There are far too many things to write about in one entry of this log, so I shall divide it into parts. The first part will cover sculptures. I am not referring to all sculptors, simply ones that are obviously stupid, and only mean something to the person who made it!

So, I decided to document some of them on my way home. Today was a fairly annoying day at work, so it seemed the perfect opportunity. First things first! I needed to destress with a Frappuccino from StarBucks; quite possibly one of the best drinks ever invented!

Then, immediately, I stumble into my first perfect example of an aimless sculpture. It is situated at the end of the Millennium Bridge, on the North side of the river. You can see St Paul's Cathedral in the background (covered in scaffolding)!

Someone please tell me what the purpose of this is! I considered that perhaps it could be used to shelter a person or two from the rain, but when I stood under it, I realised it would not be very effective. It looks rubbish! Who ever designed it neglected (wisely) to put their name on it anywhere.

If President Bush is getting agitated and desires to bomb something, then I would that suggest he begins here. With the help of Google Earth, the co-ordinates for this waste of metal are 51.5118789737° North, 0.0980947445871° West. Click here for a map.

I shall continue to find some more examples to report about, before changing the subject to other pointless things in London. How quickly I achieve this, depends on how many bad days at work I have!

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The Purpose (or lack of it)

Sat, 27 Aug 2005 17:53:00 +0200

After reading people's blogs on the internet, I thought that I'd participate in this hobby, and perhaps write about interesting things and share my viewpoint on topics. But, after creating the blog, I've spent 3 days trying to think of interesting things to write about, and have come to the conclusion that I'm unable to write about anything, of any interest whatsoever!

So, instead, my blog will contain totally random things - of which nobody will find any interest in; thus making the purpose of this blog, purely a hindrance to people who Google for things that happen to be mentioned in my ramblings!

I've put up some photos, with the sole intent on embarrassing some of my work colleges at Mintel International. The photos are from a dinner we had a couple of days ago, to say goodbye to Matt Hall and Steve Nuttall, who will be leaving the London office, to head up a new development team in our Chicago office.

Here we are, about to eat Sam's cooking! Nic took the photo.

Kev, fighting back his desire to eat, so we can take a photo.

Steve, looking.... bemused?

Some photo's from after lunch.

And then for a brief stroll, to walk the dinner down.

Standing at the end of our road, by the river, with Canary Wharf in the background.

I don't think this needs any comment!

And me, looking dumb!

And here ends my first entry.

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