I want to break free

It will be apparent that I survived the flight back from Guernsey, about which I was worrying like an old woman. And I've survived the busy week since. Work dinner Wednesday. Work drinks do Thursday (hosting the great and the good of London litigators who were doing their best to drink the bar dry. Friday and Saturday saw rehearsals and performance of the Verdi Requiem with Crouch End Festival Chorus. It seemed to go pretty well and I am very pleased I did it - for North Londoners they are quite a decent bunch really.

Today was a lazier morning and then a potter round Greenwich and lunch, before getting back into the gym tonight to deal with the consequences of all the above. So I'm not exactly resting, but I feel happy, busy and invigorated as another week starts.

The week of the independence referendum.

So if you were wondering "how is Ross of Balham" doing*? then now is the time to switch off and do something else - we are going into political territory here.

I don't usually think about the first fourteen months of my life. Not a lot happened. Well, man landed on the moon (or did he**) and such, but for me, whilst I may have learned my first few words, it passed in a bit of a blur to be honest.

But it did pass in Edinburgh. So I am Scot-ish, if not truly hand on heart Scottish, and so I watch the unfolding drama up there with keen interest.

Living in London, which is the centre of news, culture and pretty much everything in the UK it is hard to empathise with Scotland. For years they have been neglected by the UK government, or worse - experimented on (they got the Poll Tax before we did). And this isn't just a Tory thing. Here is a list of all the good things Tony Blair did for Scotland:

1. left after he finished school. 

So given the chance to make your own destiny, after years locked in your rich cousin's attic and rolled out every so often to be belittled, wouldn't you jump at it?

The sentiment is right. But the idea is surely barking mad. Isn't it? Scotland is a small nation, with an ageing population, no significant industrial base, and no stable economic base. Ah, but there is oil, isn't there? Billions of pounds worth of revenue over the next 30 - 50 years.

Every argument I have yet heard for independence consists of one of two points. Oil and 'fuck the English'. And I'm sorry, I don't think that is quite enough to build a nation on. This model shouldn't have had a chance of working. A resounding 'No' was obvious. But as we approach Thursday, I have this horrible feeling that that it is going to be a 'Yes'.

In the next couple of days I'll write again and say what I think Scotland should be doing and how it can set itself up for the best possible future. But it's not a future of the Toad-like Salmond holding crown and sceptre and wrapped in the Saltire.



*Everyone is calling me that now. Its only a Twitter user name which is 100% descriptive and 0% imaginative but when someone you know in real life's parents meet you and that is how your are introduced, AND THEY KNOW WHO YOU ARE you start to realise that Social Media pervades everything now.
** yes, he did. End of. It's not that sort of blog

At first I was afraid...

But I survived at least the outward leg of my trip to Guernsey on the aeroplane with propellers.

Just about to go and do a couple of meetings and have checked into my very pleasant hotel room with a view over the marina and the cruise ships moored outside. Guernsey is experiencing an Indian Summer even if London is not, so I spent a couple of hours wandering around. It's an odd mix - lots of people wandering around picking up their lunch from Boots and M&S, and tourists clutching large cameras sharing the streets.

Generally stuff here looks fairly expensive - guessing that's a combination of 'tourist tax' and the need to import everything except (it seems) milk products and tomatoes. And offshore financiers obviously. And the shops aren't too different to home. A lot of jewellers, but not all high end stuff (tax free?) but St Peter Port is a working town for the locals and it shows it. But every time I've been here before it has rained nonstop, so at least this time I could see some of it. And I've managed so far to avoid hanging onto any funny money - the sort of stuff that makes Scottish currency look substantial.

As mentioned above, a nice hotel - La Fregate - at least bits of which are very old, and which hangs onto the side of a hill, in a way that gives everyone a sea view. I'm not paying for this one, but you know it isn't going to be cheap though.

So, meetings now before drinks and canapes at 6:30. Then I've got the big presentation to the Board first thing. Feeling it will go well, but up to a point these things are always a bit of a job re-interview.  If I foul it up massively, it is likely to be 'career-limiting'. But, for now anyway, the prospect of that is considerably better than that tiny plane waiting for me afterwards. Ah well...

And Gravity wants to bring me down...

This may be my last blog.

No, it's OK. I'm not planning to quit writing just yet. But tomorrow morning I have to get on a perilously small aeroplane and fly to Guernsey, and then Wednesday I have to fly back. We're talking about the sort of tiny little aircraft - with all the substance of a 70's Datsun that looks like it will be torn apart by the lightest gust of wind.

Mr Boeing reputedly said when asked why he chose to fly in a four-engined plane "because there are no eight engined planes." and this pretty much summarises my view on flying - the bigger the better. Little planes where they have to balance the passenger load by weight are unnecessary.

But my options for dealing with this are limited. Someone kindly suggested that in the spirit of this classic, I could chug a couple of whiskies before I got on the plane - but that's not really me. And I don't have any tranquillisers, so it will be eyes closed and take a firm hold of the arm rests.

Of course, as was also pointed out to me, it could get foggy and I could get stuck in Guernsey - which feels like a different sort of terror - you worry about them starting to sing "Summer is icumen in" and burn things.

In other news, I've hit my target weight! I hit it last Wednesday and have been at it since. These means several things:

1. that I have lost over 15 kg since Easter
2. that I feel really good about myself as a result
3. that (my app tells me) I can now happily eat an extra 500 calories a day over what I have been living on. And this is odd, because I don't know quite what to have. A Starbucks muffin every morning probably isn't ideal, but I can't eat another 5 bananas either.

I've still got some toning up to do - not major but a bit, and I really miss it when I don't go to the gym so that will all continue. And the longer term challenge is to get this stabilised and permanent. So I shall be watching my weight like a hawk - and if you think I am slipping, please intervene.

So with that hopefully done, I'll need to find something else to talk to you about. Suspect it is not going to be the royal baby - I feel so sorry for that poor woman and the scrutiny she is permanently under so I shall say no more unless they wish to name it after me.

And I've been threatened with death if I just keep going on about Kate Bush for the next 9 days and 3 hours. And I think they meant it.

So, instead I'm going to write a couple of blogs about Scottish independence. I am Scottish you see - lived the first fourteen months of my life in Edinburgh, so I will be "considered a citizen" by a future independent Scotland. And could sponsor my kids to be one too. Sounds like something worth exploring, at least in blog form. And it may presage a turn back to the longer-term political agenda of some blogs previously, you never know.

Kicking Our Way Through a Golden Gown

As I start to write this it is 6:30 am. I looking out on a morning that certainly looks very autumnal, and conducting an experiment into how much coffee it is going to take to wake me up. The "one-cup hypothesis" has failed but I have high hopes on the two.

This has been the first normal - five day working week for a while with a couple of late work ones thrown in. Plus a couple of late non-work ones. OK, it would be easier to say I haven't got to bed at a sensible hour since Sunday.

I've changed my morning routine a little. As anyone who goes anywhere in the morning will be aware, kids are back to school. And most of them seem to be getting my train. I've tended to get the same train for about the last 3 and a half years. At the beginning there were maybe four or five kids getting the train to the private schools out South of Croydon. Now it is maybe 30 from Balham, with another 30 or so already on the train from the stops before.

This shows something about the area - it's one that is impossible for normal people to buy a house in (if you can afford £18k per year out of taxed income for each of your kids to go to school - which is a salary cost of nearly £70k just on education if you are going to send both Oliver and Sophia, then you are not "normal people"). But this isn't (today) a moan about the increased bankerisation of Balham. It's simply a comment that I've changed to a slower train where I have my choice of seats, and a pleasant-enough ten minute to the office at the end of it.

And it looks like another busy week ahead. I'm doing the Verdi Requiem with Crouch End Festival Chorus and the gig is Saturday 13th. So a rehearsal for that first thing tomorrow. Ukulele to restore the balance Sunday, and then I am off to Guernsey (working) for a couple of days next week, back to host a work drinks party - deep joy - Thursday and then two days of Verdi before the gig. So I think tonight and Monday is it in terms of free time for a while. And obviously I need to go to the gym on those to counter the excesses of all the other things. It's good to be busy but right now (at 6:47am) with coffee number 2 failing to make much of an inroad yet) I'm thinking maybe not this busy.

It has all felt rather easy in the nice summer weather. Easy to get out and about, just looking out the window makes you smile. I normally really like autumn, but I do wonder how that is going to be, when it gets cold and dark by the time I am home from work. Maybe I'm a little anxious about that right now.
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Right - two hours on, in the office and just posting this I saw the following story.

And in sad closing news, the BBC reported that the space sex geckos have died. I'm sure all our hearts go out to the plucky little fellows. I hope that, following their inevitable dissection and prodding about, that they will be given the send-off so deserved by such pioneers.