30.12.10
2010
i suppose it is fitting that 2010 ended with a last minute emergency business trip, and a psuedo passport crisis.
my last trip of the year was both last minute and action packed. i had to do a presentation for a client that should have been done last week, but wasnt because the miniscule amount of snow we had in London closed Heathrow and cancelled my flight. but the presentation urgently had to be done before the close of 2010, and so in the last gasp of the year a colleague and i headed off to Berlin to wrap everything up, but as my colleague has small children and was technically on holiday, he wanted to do everything as a day trip, which given BA's reduced (business) flying schedule over the holiday period meant a long day starting at 4 am. it also meant flying back on Sleazy Jet, from Schonefeld airport. Schonefeld seems to exist only to handle low budget flights, and it is a pretty grim place. As unimpressed as i was with it, so it seems Schonefeld's guards were equally unimpressed with me. Unlike some countries, Germany insists you go through passport control as you leave, at least on flights to the UK. I got as far as the passport booth, handed over my document and the guard stared at it for an unusually long period of time before asking me if i had another ID. i didnt. he insisted that i produce an ID card or a drivers license, but Britain doesnt have ID cards and I cant drive, so that didnt work. at this stage the guard announced that the photo in my passport was not me, and went off to fetch another guard. i spent the next while answering questions about the photo, turning my head in different directions, lifting my eyebrows and making other odd facial expressions for two guards who kept looking at me suspiciously.
they finally let me board the plane (which i delayed, to the wrath of 100 people or so) but suggested i apply for a new passport. i showed the picture to my colleague and asked if he thought it looked like me, to which i received an emphatic "no."
my passport was issued in early January of this year. has the year been so tramatic that i have become unrecognizable in 12 months?
so it hasnt been the best year. 2009 ended on a high, i had just finished my Phd, quit the job i hated, and had all sorts of plans for the future. but reality soon caught up with me. broke, i returned to work in the city, albeit for a different company. i started that job in March, and the time since has essentially been one big blur. i have travelled in over 20 countries, many several times, and the months flew by without my feeling even conscious, never mind in control, of my life.
the fact that this week, for the first time, i have been forced to close this blog to public readership, having found myself continually stalked by someone i dont even know, also indicates that this year was one full of trials. i hope that i am still the same person i was in January 2010, and hopefully next year will be better.
my last trip of the year was both last minute and action packed. i had to do a presentation for a client that should have been done last week, but wasnt because the miniscule amount of snow we had in London closed Heathrow and cancelled my flight. but the presentation urgently had to be done before the close of 2010, and so in the last gasp of the year a colleague and i headed off to Berlin to wrap everything up, but as my colleague has small children and was technically on holiday, he wanted to do everything as a day trip, which given BA's reduced (business) flying schedule over the holiday period meant a long day starting at 4 am. it also meant flying back on Sleazy Jet, from Schonefeld airport. Schonefeld seems to exist only to handle low budget flights, and it is a pretty grim place. As unimpressed as i was with it, so it seems Schonefeld's guards were equally unimpressed with me. Unlike some countries, Germany insists you go through passport control as you leave, at least on flights to the UK. I got as far as the passport booth, handed over my document and the guard stared at it for an unusually long period of time before asking me if i had another ID. i didnt. he insisted that i produce an ID card or a drivers license, but Britain doesnt have ID cards and I cant drive, so that didnt work. at this stage the guard announced that the photo in my passport was not me, and went off to fetch another guard. i spent the next while answering questions about the photo, turning my head in different directions, lifting my eyebrows and making other odd facial expressions for two guards who kept looking at me suspiciously.
they finally let me board the plane (which i delayed, to the wrath of 100 people or so) but suggested i apply for a new passport. i showed the picture to my colleague and asked if he thought it looked like me, to which i received an emphatic "no."
my passport was issued in early January of this year. has the year been so tramatic that i have become unrecognizable in 12 months?
so it hasnt been the best year. 2009 ended on a high, i had just finished my Phd, quit the job i hated, and had all sorts of plans for the future. but reality soon caught up with me. broke, i returned to work in the city, albeit for a different company. i started that job in March, and the time since has essentially been one big blur. i have travelled in over 20 countries, many several times, and the months flew by without my feeling even conscious, never mind in control, of my life.
the fact that this week, for the first time, i have been forced to close this blog to public readership, having found myself continually stalked by someone i dont even know, also indicates that this year was one full of trials. i hope that i am still the same person i was in January 2010, and hopefully next year will be better.
28.12.10
on cambridge
this year involves travelling until the last minute, and thus on the last week of the year i found myself up in Cambridge, which is sort of like my "home" within England, as i spent part of my childhood here, and my family has many friends in the area. it is the place i can always come to for a good chat in a nice pub, followed by a wander through the windy streets. Cambridge has improved over the years. when i lived here in the 1980s, there was practically no shopping around, and everything was closed on Sundays and bank holidays. Even when i lived here again in 2005-2006, the shopping was pretty minimal
(the Gap and the French connection on the market square were the only places i think i ever bought anything). but that has really changed. there is a massive new shopping centre in the centre of town, with pretty much all the major brands in it(Ted Baker, All Saints, and Apple store, and a huge H&M and Zara across the way). I arrived on a bank holiday and the place was hopping. Two shops, Jack Wills and Hollister, had massive queues just to get inside the place, which truely amazed me, but also reflected very much the youthful/preppy Cambridge style. I marvelled that is was incredible that a town which had virtually no shopping facilities 5 years ago now has overcrowded malls and queues outside shops for crowd control purposes. My godfather, however, was no impressed, claiming it all masked what is still a persistant problem with unemployment. "Dont think everything is great just cause the centre looks sparkily" he grumbled darkly, himself unemployed. a walk through the streets outside the centre still features boarded up shops and many local people not connected with the university are on the dole, often for years at a time. equally revealing, many of the Poles who filled the city in 2005 have now gone home, attracted by increased prospects in their own country, which coincided with the devaluing of the pound and the rising unemployment as a result of the ongoing economic crisis in the UK. I remember in September 2008 going to an international banking conference and hearing the CEO of one of Europes largest investment banks say that this crisis was going to be different. He predicted there would be no real recovery until at least 2013. many people in the room looked at him like he was crazy and my boss at the time burst out laughing and said the predictions were "absurd". In January 2009, as we had our New Year Kick Off Meeting, the same boss announced that is was "clear" the crisis was pretty much over, and in 2009, things would get moving again. But walking around Cambridge this afternoon, i am not sure. Whilst there are signs of affluence, many still seem excluded.
21.12.10
2010 travel summary
So 2010 is rapidly drawing to a close, something I am on the whole grateful for. I spent a lot of this year in transit, covering over 20 countries over the past 12 months. As a result, and given my obsession with composing generally useless list, the below represents a summary of my best/worst of travel notes from the past year, in no particular order:
1) best new travel accessory- Bose noise cancelling earphones. After several flights trapped next to screaming toddlers (and why are toddlers allowed in business flights anyway?) I concluded that these were essential to my survival. Not only do they block the sound, they are incredibly comfortable. I still love my kindle, but I have to say the new ipads, which I haven’t indulged in yet, have increasingly caught my eye.
2) Best airport- either Hong Kong or Singapore Changi. This is a tough call- they both have great shopping, great food, and great functionality. I like the logical layout of Hong Kong’s system (if you are going to Macau or the mainland, you can go straight, with out mucking about with HK’s immigration etc) both have great staff, both are efficient. Why cant European airports produce this quality?
3) Consolation prize, Most efficient European airport- Helsinki Vantaa. For a small provincial city, Helsinki has good connections, especially to Asia. It has decent shopping, a good shopping food selection at the Stockmans, and an excellent layout. Unlike in Western Europe, planes take off in the middle of winter, regardless of the temperature and the amount of snow on the ground, because the airport is well prepared to cope. Connections can easily be made in 15 minutes, and everything is clear. The staff are multi lingual and helpful. But compared to Asia, this is indeed a consolation prize.
4) Best airport bookshop for oil and gas books- Aberdeen Dyce. Ok, this is a very specialist category, but useful to me, and no doubt a few others. The WH smiths there has an entire bay of oil and gas books, a great place to grab a book before the flight home.
5) Coolest business class lounge- Madrid Barajas terminal 4. I love the exposed concrete beams and the colour scheme, plus the BA/ Iberia lounge has a decent selection of international papers. Actually, even if they only had el Pais, I would be happy, damn good paper it is.
6) Wierdest place- the Nation of Brunei, the Abode of Peace. Run by His Majesty Paduka Seri Baginda Sultan Haji Hassanal Bolkiah Mu'izzaddin Waddaulah, this place is strange. Wealth is everywhere and happiness is enforced. This love of the populace for their leader is stunning. But in addition, the country has many other oddities to behold: proboscis monkeys, Mangrove snakes, sun bears, and peat swamps. Rowing down a swamp, in total quiet other than the occasional greetings when I passed some fishermen, when I suddenly passed the enormous gold roofed house of one of the Sultan’s palaces was certainly one of the years odder moments.
7) Biggest overrated place- Bali. It is not that I didn’t like Bali, maybe my expectations were just too high. The food was ok, the hotel was ok, the monkeys were nice, but it didn’t hold any surprises. The large numbers of drunk Russian and Australian tourists was fatiguing, and I came to feel like vomiting every time I saw a western woman approaching middle age wandering about alone, clutching her copy of Eat, Pray, Love and looking wide eyed for the love of her future.
8) Best place to have an expense account- Moscow. Hands down, this place wins on ridiculous prices. And spending money can be necessary to get quality, and even then there are no guarantees. Charging £15 pounds per bottle of water drunk in my hotel wins the ‘rip off of the year’ category. Thank god for the company card.
9) Worst place to get stranded by snow/ Icelandic ash/ BA strikes- Aberdeen. This has to be one of the most miserable cities on earth. There is nothing to do and no decent way to get around. Meetings are always held on industrial estates outside the city, and there is no transport. Even if you have loads of the company’s money to spend, there are not many decent restaurants to spend it on. The weather is horrid all year round- the warmest the air got on any my 12 trips to Aberdeen this year was 12 degrees in late July. The only saving grace is my hotel/ manor house, which is lovely.
10) Best hotel bathroom- la Griffe in Rome. Don’t ask me why, but I just love the red tiles.
11) Best find shop- Kingsley Heath, Cape Town. Like the South African Abercrombie, but with a more creative twist.
12) Work travel essential- my 2010 moleskin- I am not an organised person so I like to keep everything in one place. I put directions to hotels, maps, tickets, reservation numbers, everything, in my moleskin. I would be lost without it.
13) Best place to stock up on bribes (I mean gifts)- the caviar house & prunier in Heathrow terminal 5. this place is designed for Western people flying to Russia. Everything you ever need to smooth over Russian receptionists or PAs is there- grotesquely expensive chocolate, caviar, alcohol and everything else.
14) Best place to pretend I am a celebrity- Manila, the Philippines. Strangely, my surname makes me famous there, for no legitimate reason. People ask for my autograph and I get to travel with a private driver and my name goes to the top of the list at all top restaurants, which is why I will also add the below…
15) Best surprise- Manila. Maybe this was just the opposite of Bali. My expectations were low, and as a result I was blown away. I loved the Ayala Museum, learning fascinating details of a national history I had failed to pay sufficient attention to. Great food too.
16) Best history lesson- the Sandakan death marches, Sandakan Malaysia. We don’t study the history of the Asian front of the Second World War here in Europe. Learning about the Sandakan Death Marches and reading the testimonies of the few survivors blew me away
17) Best Meal- Rome. My only regret is that I couldn’t eat everything put in front of me. The waiter pretended (well, I hope he was pretending) to be hugely insulted. The interior is lovely, and the food was unbelievable, especially the cheese selection. The food was so fresh it seemed to melt in my mouth. The pasta (cacio e pepe) was mind blowing. The wine selection exhaustive and the service perfect. Unlike in London, there was no rush, dinner lasted 3 hours and I enjoyed every minute of it.
18) Best curry- Tiffin Room, Raffles Hotel, Singapore. I never had a bad meal in this country. i love the selection of excellent Chinese, Malay and international food. but the curry deserves special mention in my view, and the curry in the Tiffin room is probably the best i have ever had in my life. absolutely perfect.
19) Best emergency clothing buy- Thomas Pink in any of the Heathrow terminals. Whenever I get a last minute email informing me I will be gone longer than I expected, I run into Pink and grab whatever there is in my size and preferred cut. Sometimes I even go in and grab a shirt pre-emptively.
20) Worst place to do business- Rome. Conducing a meeting in Italy is like attempting to keep cats in a basket. Best not to even bother really.
1) best new travel accessory- Bose noise cancelling earphones. After several flights trapped next to screaming toddlers (and why are toddlers allowed in business flights anyway?) I concluded that these were essential to my survival. Not only do they block the sound, they are incredibly comfortable. I still love my kindle, but I have to say the new ipads, which I haven’t indulged in yet, have increasingly caught my eye.
2) Best airport- either Hong Kong or Singapore Changi. This is a tough call- they both have great shopping, great food, and great functionality. I like the logical layout of Hong Kong’s system (if you are going to Macau or the mainland, you can go straight, with out mucking about with HK’s immigration etc) both have great staff, both are efficient. Why cant European airports produce this quality?
3) Consolation prize, Most efficient European airport- Helsinki Vantaa. For a small provincial city, Helsinki has good connections, especially to Asia. It has decent shopping, a good shopping food selection at the Stockmans, and an excellent layout. Unlike in Western Europe, planes take off in the middle of winter, regardless of the temperature and the amount of snow on the ground, because the airport is well prepared to cope. Connections can easily be made in 15 minutes, and everything is clear. The staff are multi lingual and helpful. But compared to Asia, this is indeed a consolation prize.
4) Best airport bookshop for oil and gas books- Aberdeen Dyce. Ok, this is a very specialist category, but useful to me, and no doubt a few others. The WH smiths there has an entire bay of oil and gas books, a great place to grab a book before the flight home.
5) Coolest business class lounge- Madrid Barajas terminal 4. I love the exposed concrete beams and the colour scheme, plus the BA/ Iberia lounge has a decent selection of international papers. Actually, even if they only had el Pais, I would be happy, damn good paper it is.
6) Wierdest place- the Nation of Brunei, the Abode of Peace. Run by His Majesty Paduka Seri Baginda Sultan Haji Hassanal Bolkiah Mu'izzaddin Waddaulah, this place is strange. Wealth is everywhere and happiness is enforced. This love of the populace for their leader is stunning. But in addition, the country has many other oddities to behold: proboscis monkeys, Mangrove snakes, sun bears, and peat swamps. Rowing down a swamp, in total quiet other than the occasional greetings when I passed some fishermen, when I suddenly passed the enormous gold roofed house of one of the Sultan’s palaces was certainly one of the years odder moments.
7) Biggest overrated place- Bali. It is not that I didn’t like Bali, maybe my expectations were just too high. The food was ok, the hotel was ok, the monkeys were nice, but it didn’t hold any surprises. The large numbers of drunk Russian and Australian tourists was fatiguing, and I came to feel like vomiting every time I saw a western woman approaching middle age wandering about alone, clutching her copy of Eat, Pray, Love and looking wide eyed for the love of her future.
8) Best place to have an expense account- Moscow. Hands down, this place wins on ridiculous prices. And spending money can be necessary to get quality, and even then there are no guarantees. Charging £15 pounds per bottle of water drunk in my hotel wins the ‘rip off of the year’ category. Thank god for the company card.
9) Worst place to get stranded by snow/ Icelandic ash/ BA strikes- Aberdeen. This has to be one of the most miserable cities on earth. There is nothing to do and no decent way to get around. Meetings are always held on industrial estates outside the city, and there is no transport. Even if you have loads of the company’s money to spend, there are not many decent restaurants to spend it on. The weather is horrid all year round- the warmest the air got on any my 12 trips to Aberdeen this year was 12 degrees in late July. The only saving grace is my hotel/ manor house, which is lovely.
10) Best hotel bathroom- la Griffe in Rome. Don’t ask me why, but I just love the red tiles.
11) Best find shop- Kingsley Heath, Cape Town. Like the South African Abercrombie, but with a more creative twist.
12) Work travel essential- my 2010 moleskin- I am not an organised person so I like to keep everything in one place. I put directions to hotels, maps, tickets, reservation numbers, everything, in my moleskin. I would be lost without it.
13) Best place to stock up on bribes (I mean gifts)- the caviar house & prunier in Heathrow terminal 5. this place is designed for Western people flying to Russia. Everything you ever need to smooth over Russian receptionists or PAs is there- grotesquely expensive chocolate, caviar, alcohol and everything else.
14) Best place to pretend I am a celebrity- Manila, the Philippines. Strangely, my surname makes me famous there, for no legitimate reason. People ask for my autograph and I get to travel with a private driver and my name goes to the top of the list at all top restaurants, which is why I will also add the below…
15) Best surprise- Manila. Maybe this was just the opposite of Bali. My expectations were low, and as a result I was blown away. I loved the Ayala Museum, learning fascinating details of a national history I had failed to pay sufficient attention to. Great food too.
16) Best history lesson- the Sandakan death marches, Sandakan Malaysia. We don’t study the history of the Asian front of the Second World War here in Europe. Learning about the Sandakan Death Marches and reading the testimonies of the few survivors blew me away
17) Best Meal- Rome. My only regret is that I couldn’t eat everything put in front of me. The waiter pretended (well, I hope he was pretending) to be hugely insulted. The interior is lovely, and the food was unbelievable, especially the cheese selection. The food was so fresh it seemed to melt in my mouth. The pasta (cacio e pepe) was mind blowing. The wine selection exhaustive and the service perfect. Unlike in London, there was no rush, dinner lasted 3 hours and I enjoyed every minute of it.
18) Best curry- Tiffin Room, Raffles Hotel, Singapore. I never had a bad meal in this country. i love the selection of excellent Chinese, Malay and international food. but the curry deserves special mention in my view, and the curry in the Tiffin room is probably the best i have ever had in my life. absolutely perfect.
19) Best emergency clothing buy- Thomas Pink in any of the Heathrow terminals. Whenever I get a last minute email informing me I will be gone longer than I expected, I run into Pink and grab whatever there is in my size and preferred cut. Sometimes I even go in and grab a shirt pre-emptively.
20) Worst place to do business- Rome. Conducing a meeting in Italy is like attempting to keep cats in a basket. Best not to even bother really.
20.12.10
new year comes early
I normally use the new year as an excuse to look for new jobs. But this year however, it seems the new year has come early.
This time I will be staying in the same company, just changing roles...exciting, but I have a lot of studying to do over the holidays...
This time I will be staying in the same company, just changing roles...exciting, but I have a lot of studying to do over the holidays...
17.12.10
the disposable academic
this week's economist has a fabulous article, subtitled 'why doing a PhD is often a waste of time.'
http://www.economist.com/node/17723223?story_id=17723223&CFID=151512952&CFTOKEN=68634053
it is scary how frighteningly true some of the points are. it is not an article against education or PhDs per se, but one highlighting the huge flaws in the system. life as a PhD student is hard: "one thing PhD students have in common is dissatisfaction. some describe their work as slave labour. seven day weeks. ten hour days, low pay and uncertain prospects are widespread." All true. due to a technicality in Britain's nationality laws, i was declared ineligible for funding, although i have and have always had a British passport, the commission determined i had "failed to maintain a relevant connection with the United kingdom." as a result i had to work full time during my PhD to support myself living in London. I also discovered my East European MAs were useless, and as a result spent several years in service sector jobs. I worked 40 hours a week, and then came home and wrote my PhD at night and weekends, literally 16 hours a day 7 days a week, for 5 years. it was hell. Because my economic situation was dire, i got out of the institution labour abuse most PhDs suffer, as the article notes, most serve as slave labour to their own universities- getting a PhD student to teach full time for a year at Yale costs $20,000, whilst a "real" professor would get $100,000 for teaching the same courses, as part of what the article calls the long standing "implicit contract between universities and PhD students: crummy pay now for good academic jobs later." It is a promise that sustained many of my classmates through our studies, but it too proved to be a mirage. the statistics are abysmal. Only 49% of those who start PhDs in the humanities ever graduate, something i have witnessed first hand. Many of my own peers spent years slaving away at their studies, only to never quite write things up, or worse, fail their Viva. Even if you pass, the job market in academia is lethal, especially in North America (the US graduated 100,000 PhDs between 2005-2009, whilst 16,000 full time academic jobs came on the market. Again, I saw this first hand- practically none of my classmates got full time jobs upon graduating, most are hopping around, teaching 4 months here and there, waiting for something to come up. but most damning is the articles point that even when PhDs manage to get jobs in the private sector (no small feat given some of the prejudice out there against us egg heads) they often underperform compared to those with only an MA. Again, this is a lesson I have learned the hard way, desperately trying to catch up with colleagues who sometimes dont even have BAs, but have learned practical skills on the job.
I am a big fan of education and i think it should be open to all who are qualified, but the expectations around degree granting need to be carefully managed, especially in depressed economy. An education of whatever level does not guarantee you a job, and getting a job should not be your only motivating factor in choosing to continue higher education.
on the one hand it would be nice to say that i wish someone had forced me to read this article 6 years ago, but i doubt it would have made any difference. what would have made one would have been a tangible presentation of alternatives, and how i could achieve them. I was a good student, therefore I was always encouraged to keep studying, straight until i got into a doctoral programme. I continued to live in student squalour whilst many of my less successful peers went on to start earning serious money. Worse, pursuing academia caused me to rack up debt in the form of student loans which it has taken years of working two jobs to shake off. At the same time, in my company i see 23 year old telesales guys raking in 100k per year with the most minimal educational credentials. Although I intellectually enjoyed doing my PhD on many levels, I now realise i will most likely never work in academia, or use my PhD in any professional setting. there are loads of alternatives to education out there, and maybe if bright students were presented with a wider variety of choices, there wouldnt be such gap between the number of PhDs granted and the number of positions available, and there wouldnt be so many people like me, wondering where five years of our lives went.
http://www.economist.com/node/17723223?story_id=17723223&CFID=151512952&CFTOKEN=68634053
it is scary how frighteningly true some of the points are. it is not an article against education or PhDs per se, but one highlighting the huge flaws in the system. life as a PhD student is hard: "one thing PhD students have in common is dissatisfaction. some describe their work as slave labour. seven day weeks. ten hour days, low pay and uncertain prospects are widespread." All true. due to a technicality in Britain's nationality laws, i was declared ineligible for funding, although i have and have always had a British passport, the commission determined i had "failed to maintain a relevant connection with the United kingdom." as a result i had to work full time during my PhD to support myself living in London. I also discovered my East European MAs were useless, and as a result spent several years in service sector jobs. I worked 40 hours a week, and then came home and wrote my PhD at night and weekends, literally 16 hours a day 7 days a week, for 5 years. it was hell. Because my economic situation was dire, i got out of the institution labour abuse most PhDs suffer, as the article notes, most serve as slave labour to their own universities- getting a PhD student to teach full time for a year at Yale costs $20,000, whilst a "real" professor would get $100,000 for teaching the same courses, as part of what the article calls the long standing "implicit contract between universities and PhD students: crummy pay now for good academic jobs later." It is a promise that sustained many of my classmates through our studies, but it too proved to be a mirage. the statistics are abysmal. Only 49% of those who start PhDs in the humanities ever graduate, something i have witnessed first hand. Many of my own peers spent years slaving away at their studies, only to never quite write things up, or worse, fail their Viva. Even if you pass, the job market in academia is lethal, especially in North America (the US graduated 100,000 PhDs between 2005-2009, whilst 16,000 full time academic jobs came on the market. Again, I saw this first hand- practically none of my classmates got full time jobs upon graduating, most are hopping around, teaching 4 months here and there, waiting for something to come up. but most damning is the articles point that even when PhDs manage to get jobs in the private sector (no small feat given some of the prejudice out there against us egg heads) they often underperform compared to those with only an MA. Again, this is a lesson I have learned the hard way, desperately trying to catch up with colleagues who sometimes dont even have BAs, but have learned practical skills on the job.
I am a big fan of education and i think it should be open to all who are qualified, but the expectations around degree granting need to be carefully managed, especially in depressed economy. An education of whatever level does not guarantee you a job, and getting a job should not be your only motivating factor in choosing to continue higher education.
on the one hand it would be nice to say that i wish someone had forced me to read this article 6 years ago, but i doubt it would have made any difference. what would have made one would have been a tangible presentation of alternatives, and how i could achieve them. I was a good student, therefore I was always encouraged to keep studying, straight until i got into a doctoral programme. I continued to live in student squalour whilst many of my less successful peers went on to start earning serious money. Worse, pursuing academia caused me to rack up debt in the form of student loans which it has taken years of working two jobs to shake off. At the same time, in my company i see 23 year old telesales guys raking in 100k per year with the most minimal educational credentials. Although I intellectually enjoyed doing my PhD on many levels, I now realise i will most likely never work in academia, or use my PhD in any professional setting. there are loads of alternatives to education out there, and maybe if bright students were presented with a wider variety of choices, there wouldnt be such gap between the number of PhDs granted and the number of positions available, and there wouldnt be so many people like me, wondering where five years of our lives went.
10.12.10
on Britain
i have seen far more of the UK in my current job than i ever would have otherwise. i frequently end up going to highly random spots, simply because a client happens to have set up shop there, normally on some grim industrial park.
every time i find myself in one of these places that otherwise would have been off my radar, i have the feeling i am stepping out of the Britain i know and into the UK of my parent's imagination. My parents have spent little time here since the 1980s, and i guess their view of the place is frozen in that horrid Thatcher influenced moment in time. When we lived here back then, in Cambridge, there was one Indian take away reserved for special occasions, and even it wasnt great. The selection in the supermarkets was limited, and all other restaurants practically non existent. the food in general was uninspiring and wine could only be got in speciality shops- few pubs sold it. Many people were poor, and parts of the country struck my mother as Third worldish (the Scottish village my father grew up in didnt get indoor plumbing in most private homes until the 1980s)
Moving back to Britain in 2005, and living in London, i cant claim to have ever suffered any culinary shortage. I genuinely believe the food selection in both supermarkets and in restaurants is much better than in, say Paris, or really any other European city. My parents have staunchly refused to accept my findings, and i have spent years refuting their tales of a place that seems to exist only in their memories. but actually, they may have a point. stepping outside london reveals a country i feel foreign in, and one which does indeed seem to match their tales of 80s doom. I spent several days last week in Leeds, and several this week in Basingstoke, which is within commuting distance of London but feels like it is on a different planet. When my colleague and i headed off for Leeds, a guy from there recommended what was meant to be one of the best restaurants in the city. it was ok.....but no more than that, and certainly not given the 100 quid bill that came with the meal. that would be an ok meal by London prices, given the general price structures in the North, i would have expected a lot more than "ok" for that amount. I never had a horrid meal in Leeds (or in Manchester, Basingstoke or any of these places) but i have had a lot of over priced mediocrity, which i suppose is indeed the Britain my parents remember.
every time i find myself in one of these places that otherwise would have been off my radar, i have the feeling i am stepping out of the Britain i know and into the UK of my parent's imagination. My parents have spent little time here since the 1980s, and i guess their view of the place is frozen in that horrid Thatcher influenced moment in time. When we lived here back then, in Cambridge, there was one Indian take away reserved for special occasions, and even it wasnt great. The selection in the supermarkets was limited, and all other restaurants practically non existent. the food in general was uninspiring and wine could only be got in speciality shops- few pubs sold it. Many people were poor, and parts of the country struck my mother as Third worldish (the Scottish village my father grew up in didnt get indoor plumbing in most private homes until the 1980s)
Moving back to Britain in 2005, and living in London, i cant claim to have ever suffered any culinary shortage. I genuinely believe the food selection in both supermarkets and in restaurants is much better than in, say Paris, or really any other European city. My parents have staunchly refused to accept my findings, and i have spent years refuting their tales of a place that seems to exist only in their memories. but actually, they may have a point. stepping outside london reveals a country i feel foreign in, and one which does indeed seem to match their tales of 80s doom. I spent several days last week in Leeds, and several this week in Basingstoke, which is within commuting distance of London but feels like it is on a different planet. When my colleague and i headed off for Leeds, a guy from there recommended what was meant to be one of the best restaurants in the city. it was ok.....but no more than that, and certainly not given the 100 quid bill that came with the meal. that would be an ok meal by London prices, given the general price structures in the North, i would have expected a lot more than "ok" for that amount. I never had a horrid meal in Leeds (or in Manchester, Basingstoke or any of these places) but i have had a lot of over priced mediocrity, which i suppose is indeed the Britain my parents remember.
called on the spot
a Canadian company calls me in for my supposedly expert views on a variety of matters. over the course of 30 minutes or so, the man asks me a whole series of questions on Russia, and i stumble along giving my views. on the one hand it felt like having a chat down the pub, and i would have preferred a bit of whisky to loosen my tongue, but i was aware in this case that everything i said would be overanalysed in a way pub pronouncements rarely are. What will Russia look like socially and politically in 5 years? if you were an investor, in which companies would you be investing? what are the countries greatest internal and external risks?
finally, part way through one statement or another, i stopped and pointed out that if i genuinely had definitive answers to such questions, i would be a very rich person indeed. unfortunately, however, i have no crystal ball and am thus reduced to my own opinion. the whole process made me feel terribly inadequate.
finally, part way through one statement or another, i stopped and pointed out that if i genuinely had definitive answers to such questions, i would be a very rich person indeed. unfortunately, however, i have no crystal ball and am thus reduced to my own opinion. the whole process made me feel terribly inadequate.
5.12.10
Italy
for the second time in two days i find myself having a meal with an italian man desperately trying to explain to me that he is not the "typical italian." i have been sent to Italy for work, yet everyone i interview seems to want to make the same point: the country is filled with useless Berlusconi loving louts, but I am different. So what is this "typical Italian" i find myself asking everyone. there is no one answer, but rather a series of negative characteristics. "They" create the impossible layers of bureaucracy. "They" make the job market so tight there is no movement and no one can ever get anywhere or achieve anything. "They" are corrupt. "They" hold meetings and talk forever about nothing. "They" refuse to take responsibility. i talk to several people who fill my ears with their desire to escape. several people tell me they want to go to Britain for work. one guy in his 20s asks if it is true that in England people can be easily sacked from their jobs, when i confirm that it is indeed very possible, his eyes positively light up with pleasure and he pleads with me to tell him how to get a job...but when i suggest he just show up in London and give it a try, he looks horrified- he cant just move to another country without something lined up, after all.
we go through different business models aimed at contrasting how things are done in italy versus England, but they are all useless, even as points of reference, the rules are just too totally different to allow such comparisons, the entire system seems to be set up with laws aimed at encouraging competition that are paradoxically so protectionist that they stifle it. analysing them makes my head spin. every meeting lasts 3 hours and ends in no resolution, and with the person i was speaking to complaining about the dilapidated state of things. based on what people tell me, it is truly amazing the country still exists. at any given moment, everything is on the verge of collapse. when my return flight gets cancelled (then cancelled again), this is held up as evidence that nothing is working, although the cancellation had nothing to do with Italy at all, but rather was caused by the heavy snow in Britain. no matter- it still shows the end is nigh. on the first day of being stranded, i decide to go for a walk, just to get some fresh air, and accidentally wander into a riot, as angry students are lighting off flares and burning things. i grab a cab, we get stuck in traffic for ages, the driver moans that the end is clearly here. he blames Berlusconi, as does everyone else i speak to. when i point out that he was elected, not once but several times, i am assured that the votes were simply bought (they coast 20 euros in the south, i am told).
yet whilst professionally, my whole trip is a disaster, i couldnt be having a better time: it is below zero and snowy in England, and i get stranded in the 18 degrees sunny weather of Rome, the food is incredible and at no point is there any reason to get stressed. i find the whole experience extremely pleasant. but the people i work with feel they are suffering...different standards maybe? or maybe italy is simply a better place to be stranded in for some days rather than for a lifetime.....
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