Preludes and Nocturnes

I'm taking it as a sign: after a year or so of sleeping mostly the same way everyone else does, I've started to dream again - my way. Vividly and strongly, with coherent narratives and dialogue that retain their form into the waking hours.

Last night it was, for some reason, about Hitler. I'd discovered some iron rods that drained evil out of people, so tricked Adolph into meeting me in an underground cavern and trapped him under the rods. Once all the evil had been sucked out of him, I threw him into a lake of fire - ooer, getting a bit religious-themed here or what? Technically I shouldn't have done the last bit, since at that point he wasn't evil any more, but there are some people that shouldn't get off on technicalities.

I love dreaming; it assures me I haven't wasted six or seven hours just lying there.

Dreeee--ee-ee-ee-eeeem......

I've always had great dreams: vivid and well-scripted with a proper narrative. Last night's was excellent: driving a yellow hummer across a desert with my sister following a cheetah, then stopping and getting out to watch her give birth to a basket of eggs. (The cheetah, not my sister.) But I'm a bit concerned about a dream last week featuring... Sarah Palin?

I mean, apparently she's the most popular Halloween costume among Americans this year. But I'm a sucker for a stylish little black number (that black skirt-suit she wears a lot certainly does it for me) and there are few 44-year olds (especially those who've given birth five times) who could pull off the trick of looking both smart and sassy yet acting your age. Hmmm, it's almost a pity I only date ten years younger these days. And believe in evolution rather than primitive superstitions. And am sane. (Sort of.)

100 tips for applying to MBA programmes

Bschool.com has compiled a list of 100 tips for applying to MBA programmes (American-focussed but general enough to have European appeal.) Consider yourself linked, Kelly...

Adventures in Guyland, Part 2

After last week's Guyland, this week's Sunday Times contains a retort using George Clooney as the archetype of the perpetually unmarried male. I thought the first piece seemed a bit prescriptive - earnest and worthy about 'doing the right thing', but forgetting that his idea of the right thing might be subjective. So it's good to see a second episode from a guy who's perfectly happy being a single. I'm in my late 30s and can't imagine being permanently attached; there are just too many single women in this town, and the age of the girls I date has been going down for years.

Faith in humanity.... declining

I'm not one of those deluded souls who believe human beings are fundamentally 'good', but even so, I had my beliefs about society shaken today. Sometimes, evidence forces me to conclude it's just not worth being one of the good guys. (I won't say it's a British problem, since this part of London is as multicultural as it gets.) When you see someone being attacked, isn't stepping in just the right thing to do? Decide for yourself:

The scene: a Streatham supermarket, 3pm today. An angry young man - possibly drink or drug influenced; I'm not sure - is terrorising the place, stomping over to shoppers and staff and screaming obscenities. Several times, he approaches the lone security guard, and it starts to turn violent.

Anyway, it's at this point I drop my stuff (I'm in the checkout queue) and walk over. This takes more courage than I thought it would. (In my 'year out' the only sport I did was skydiving, and I'm only just starting a gym schedule again; I doubt I'm much physically superior to an average guy right now.) But I stand by the lonely security guard's side and occasionally in front, as the scene evolves, ready to do - something - should it escalate. We're bobbing and weaving like aging boxers, but no actual blows are exchanged. The only other guy 'helping' is a cashier, a little chubby Indian guy, but standing his ground albeit a few metres back.

The manager is hanging back on the phone to the police... and it's obvious he's having real problems persuading them to make a visit. I'm not a fan of today's ultra-politicised Met, but surely even they have enough decency left to actually send a car round to an assault in progress? (Maybe I should tell the manager to say there's a motorist blocking the road, or a middle-class mother overstaying her meter. They'd come much faster to an easy win like that.)

The scene continues, dancing and flailing around this unpleasant young man; no actual punching, but he's slapping and spitting.

Here's the rub: NO ONE ELSE - despite the many males in the supermarket - does a damn thing. I'm thinking: is this what society's come to? So stultified by over-regulation, political correctness, and health-and-safetied to death that nobody's prepared to just 'do the right thing'?

The guard is obviously having real problems, shaking and on the verge of tears, but even though he's earning a pittance and is experiencing great fear, he's doing his job. This supermarket doesn't deserve men like him. I guess from face and accent he's a fairly recent immigrant from Nigeria. (Don't be influenced by that country's venal and violent image: Nigerians are overwhelmingly peaceful and gentle people.)

The violent guy steps towards me for a moment, I step back reflexively, but he steps back too. Coward: he's sticking to what he regards as the easier target. Bob and weave, bob and weave... I try to meet his gaze, but he's blanking me.

Some time later he stomps off out of the store, and the cops deign to make an appearance, in full stab-vest regalia. Turns out they're actually answering a different call: from another shop from which he's lifted a bottle. It was drink causing it, then.

I go back to the queue, pay... not even a word of thanks from the manager and staff standing around. I was prepared to try and save their sorry asses from a violent attack - and they treat me as a blasted inconvenience? Couldn't they have offered, I dunno, an extra 100 Clubcard points or something? smile Well, you've gotta laugh, haven't you.

Three cops are 'talking' to the guy outside, and he appears to have chilled big-time. Doubtless he'll have been let go, without even a caution, for violent abuse, physical assault, and creating fear in over 30 people. The manager and staff are trembling and finding it hard to speak to each other. But do they realise - I was feeling the same way? Two hours later I'm still a bit shaky.

Hey, I'm not magnanimous; I'll leave the modest 'Just doing my job, Ma'am' stuff for Superman. A word of thanks would really be nice. None are forthcoming. Ungrateful tossers.

And it's attitudes like this that hurt. Just how long will it be, before the few who are prepared to 'do the right thing' finally give up on the gutless 99.9% of society? To just let the violent and the abusive do whatever they want, and just look out for themselves because they realise nobody will ever help THEM in a pinch?

Britain remains a fairly safe country: in seven years as a Londoner, I've been involved in very few violent incidents. But with feral children roaming at will, the streets running red with the blood of knife crime victims, and a growing sense that those who play by the rules will be penalised, I'm thinking the war has already been lost.

Anyway, I'm going to make a cup of tea.

Elephant in the room, or maybe a pit bull

Or maybe even a moose. The US elections are going pretty well for those of us outside the USA: Obama's an exciting young healer, McCain's a decent man, both could put America back on the right course.

But there's something that we in Europe just don't like to even think about.

The ultimate horror of....

..... a President Palin.

While John's face is unlined and his spirit strong, he's still pushing mid-seventies, and if the Republicans win next month - the lead isn't that clear, Obamaniacs - she's only a faltering heartbeat away from the Oval Office.

I mean, there we were thinking nothing could be as bad as the Bush years, yet a Prez Sarah 'God buried the dinosaurs to test my faith' Palin might be worse than Bush. Next to her, the rootin'-tootin, honky-tonk, rinky-dink yeehaw Dubya looks like an urbane liberal. On basically every newsworthy issue she's either flat-out out wrong, intellectually incomplete, or just plain illogical.

Abortion. Nothing illustrates the differences between Britain and the USA so clearly as the abortion issue. In the USA it divides families and chooses senators; in the UK it's barely even a debate, and Marie Stopes has just been honoured with a Royal Mail stamp.

Evolution. This young-earth creationist probably thinks the bible was written in English, like approximately 45% of the USA's god theorists. Logic and rationality once again take a back seat to whatever feels right accordin' to Momma. Risky. Very risky.

The god theory. A Palin presidency would mean the triumph of private feeling over rational decisionmaking. Anyone who understands religion at the meta level ('why' people believe - it's a perfectly valid evolved trait, since shared beliefs allow societies and civilisations to form) gets frustrated by people who push their invisible friends as genuine explanations rather than comforting stories. And Palin's a real get-the-kids-prayin' type.

The War on Terror. Palin would be like Bush, only more so. Expect an Iran invasion within months, maybe Syria after that. Gotta keep those guns blazin' at those nasty foreigners, 'cos we sure as hell know what's best for 'em. Worrying. At least she wouldn't have Dick Cheney pulling her strings.

Hold on... a Palin presidency would mean a spare VP slot...

Oh dear.

You can have my wine glass when you pry it from my cold dead hands

This article really annoyed me. An American writer expresses disbelief at the prevalance of drinking in British culture. Well, it's certainly 'prevalent'; but the way this (British-resident) American assumes it to be culturally abnormal rather than a 1000-yr old tradition (from Friar Tuck to Gin Lane) isn't exactly celebrating diversity, is it?

I mean, what if I went to the Deep South and wrote articles commenting how 'abnormal' it was to keep guns in your house and have a vice-presidential candidate primitive enough to think the dinosaur skeletons were buried to test her faith. But Stateside both those things are 'normal', and against them I think overdosing on the odd beer or three seems rather pedestrian...

Banks get grabby

The ATM console I just used at the local HSBC contained a button to 'Donate to charity'. Never noticed that before. Is this a creative way for banks to dig themselves out of the credit crisis, by asking customers to simply GIVE them all their money instead of merely allowing them to hold it?

Neanderthal Day

What is this, Neanderthal Day? Just collected some lunch outside and the Holborn streets seem to contain an alarming number of men with heavy-set foreheads and powerful shoulders. Perhaps a large family happened to be out shopping. I dunno, last week I was chased by zombies, and now this...

Brown shovels more taxpayers' cash into banks

Gordon Brown's on the office TV, injecting another £37bn into Britain's banks and taking shares in them.

I have an odd feeling about this, because I understand the situation on two levels. The MBA part of me realises that a working banking sector is essential to a networked economy, and the capitalist part of me (that's nearly all of me, actually) accepts that with government proffering cash, they're not going to take responsibility for their errors since that'd mean accepting more strings attached. All of this I understand.

But part of me is a populist rabble-rouser, and that part wants me to head for Speaker's Corner and yell the obvious: that the incredible £500bn value put at risk by Brown on Thursday didn't work. It didn't ungum the interbank market; it didn't reassure investors. On Friday, the FTSE fell another 8%. We're getting Black Mondays every week at the moment.

Just how much taxpayers' money is it going to take for Britain's bankers to start doing their damn jobs?

What these bankers did is far, far worse than simply making bad decisions. Their lack of understanding of the most fundamental risk factor of all - does it feel right? - has resulted in a loss of confidence in capitalism itself. All over the world, government is taking stakes in banks and says on boards. (Brown states government shareholdings will be at 'arms' length'; fine, he can believe that if he wants to. Public ownership always leads to meddling by public officials, and in this case, they'd seem to have every right to do so.)

We're heading back to the 1970s, of Red unions and nationalised industries, mass unemployment, phenomenal taxes and work-to-rule. The British economy has just been put back 30 years. Let's just hope Cameron is a new Thatcher.

Into the light

Emerging from the shower I feel.. reborn.

The dark writhing mass in my heart and stomach and lungs last week, a gritty diseased cocktail of mucus and phlegm, has gone. I can climb stairs again without feeling I'm carrying a crochety old man on my back whipping me with a walking stick. One month into my London life again, I take it as a sign: with my mind rebuilt from the bottom up, it's now time to rebuild my body.

Those final MBA months cut my exercise hours to zero, and my 183cm frame has grown soft and flabby, with a perceptible stomach, sticklike arms, and the ultimate horror of 'moobs'. Shoulders have shrunk laterally and both legs resemble reeds. Well, that's overstating the case, but I'm definitely a lot weaker than I was 18 months ago, and I don't like it at all. Right now I'm barely faster or stronger than an average person, and obviously I can't stand that. I may just have had another birthday, but I'm still in my prime years.

So today the fightback, Project Me, begins. The shaggy student look is history, replaced by a shorter barber's cut that goes better with the suit and tie I'm wearing a lot these days. (Although my wardrobe's suffered this last year. I'm not sure handmade English-cut shirts go with Versace suit and ties; the structuredness seems to team up well, but a fashionista would probably turn her nose up at the disparity of sartorial cultures.) But at least every piece of clothing I own is now laundered, dried, and folded or hung after months in storage; old stuff has been thrown; new stuff is back in play.

Tomorrow, my morning exercise routine begins afresh: 33 press-ups, 33 sit-ups, and 33 squats in sets of 11. In one month I'll be aerobically fit from the core again. (It's amazing what a difference 15 minutes make.) With that core built I'll recommence running and cycling and swimming, building towards some 2009 triathlons. And beyond that something new: some proper strength work, maybe kettlebells to work on fine-motor stuff (a grip like iron) as well as flexibility. And of course, more skydiving. Every day, I'll visualise myself at my peak: skeleton of steel struts wrapped in industrial-grade hawser wire, all connected by tightly-coiled steel springs.

The speed of a cheetah.

The strength of a bull elephant.

And the agility of... one of those little monkey things that can scramble to the top of the forest canopy in about two seconds. Forget the name, but you know the one.

The superman within me - within all of us - will emerge once more.

(Well, yours won't, obviously, unless you're doing the same thing. I'm just saying that we humans are capable of extraordinary mentality and physicality, and most of us never explore those upper reaches.)

On the work side, I'm thankful for all those financial courses back at Warwick. Corporate Finance. Management Accounting. Economics for Business. Investment and Risk Management. I'm in big-company meetings these days and I can now break down dry charts and spreadsheets into the concepts taught to me over the last 12 months, understand both big picture and detail using these gymnastics of the mind. I'm brimming with power and it shows; self-actuated, under control, fully and absolutely in command. I rock.

Life is back, with two companies and a third project in the pipeline.

I am reborn.

Shark goes it alone

A second case of shark immaculate conception seals the case: some sharks are capable of conceiving young without needing a male.

Sharks have always been among the coolest creatures for me. First off, their evolved design: so perfect for their environment that it's barely changed in half a billion years. Second, the sheer weirdness of shark society: in many shark species, the young have to test their mettle in the gene pool before they're even born, fighting and eating each other inside the womb. If sharks could talk, they'd be the equivalent of Klingons or Furyans - races built on violence. And it seems that even if an enemy wiped out all the males of that species, the girls could continue regardless.

I wonder how many other species this happens in?

Trucking with Google

Hey, I just saw a Google van go past! A Google-labelled vehicle with a huge camera mounted on top, doubtless taking video/images for Google Streetmaps.

It's weird to think that if I look up 'Hummus Bros' on the street view of Google Maps for London, the pic will contain me.

First among sheds

Some companies use a logo. Some hang out a shingle. This company took the creative route of hoisting a scale model of one of its products high up onto the premises... whether that requires planning permission or not I don't know, but it's an interesting bit of marketing.

Personal development for males

Here's a test of your openness to understanding the grosser parts of female physiology, guys: see if you can read about Mooncups without blanching.

Guyland?

Hmmm. I'm a bit suspicious that the author of this article about adult men remaining flatsharing bachelors is simply trying to convince himself he's made the right decision. I'm currently sharing a house post-MBA, and I have to admit it's a bit guy-looking with pizza boxes and plasma screens everywhere, but my top floor is an oasis of minimalist calm.

Brown shuffles his feet

My word. Peter Mandelson is returning to government? I can only assume this is a new strategy: New Labour realises the next election is a lost cause, so has simply decided to go out with as loud a thud as possible.

I've got a bad feeling about this

I'm in touch with a few of the latest Warwick MBA full-time cohort, and one thing has become clear: they're all named after Star Wars characters.

I mean... Sumudu M? Jib Warittha? Gokturk D'mir? Sumudu M's undoubtedly an X-Wing fighter jockey, defending the rebel alliance from the Empire. Jib Warittha, obviously an ambassador of a friendly alien race, possibly a diplomat. Gokturk D'mir - well, of course that's an officer on an Imperial Star Destroyer. All of them would be perfectly at home in the Mos Eisley Cantina.

I wish them luck as their second week ends. I mean, my cohort last year was pretty special, but this lot fight space battles! But do they know how to build their own lightsabres yet? They'd better learn. The Force is strong with this cohort.

Wearing my Kenobi hat for a moment, here's a tip for any of them reading:

"The Operations Lecturer in Term 1 will state your initial presentations 'do not need to be polished and professional'. Don't believe him."