chrisworth.com

And just like that - they're gone

noreply@blogger.com (chrisworth) — Sun, 29 Jun 2008 19:45:00 +0000

Sunday afternoon. The University year is over, although not my year (yet). And suddenly, in the last 48 hours, the energetic lifeblood of the Warwick campus has drained away.

I got back on Friday night. Instead of the hordes of undergrads enjoying the warm weather on the piazza, there was only a handful of them. They've all gone, the 12,000 sub-22 year olds that make up two-thirds of this university's daytime population. Summer has begun and the kids have departed, maybe for a season overseas, sleeping on the steps of cathedrals or riding pillion across India. Because they have the time.

I envy them. Because the only thing I've ever wanted is more time. I wish I could have my time again, a thousand times over: I've lived the best of all possible lives, but there's a multitude of bests, and I want them all.

And sadness. The sadness that comes from the constant reminders that, all too soon, this strangest of years in my life will be over.

Goodbye, undergrads.

Conservatives win in Henley

noreply@blogger.com (chrisworth) — Fri, 27 Jun 2008 08:21:00 +0000

OK, so Henley isn't exactly a belwether constituency - it's probably the safest Tory seat in the country - but even so, it's nice to know there's one electoral district where the candidate for the ruling party actually lost his deposit, proving once again that Britain's just had enough of New Labour. As a local councillor puts it, 'get off our backs, stop the endless tax rises, and help us cope with the rising cost of living.'

How about a shout-out, Harriet?

noreply@blogger.com (chrisworth) — Thu, 26 Jun 2008 15:24:00 +0000

Hmmm... while I'd love an opportunity to bash Britain's appalling government, I think the newspapers have blown this up out of proportion. The bill seems more about bringing various bits of legislation together rather than creating new rules. And anyway - 'allowed to give a job to a woman over a man of equal ability'? Isn't that just what happens now - you choose the best person for the job, and if there are two equally suited applicants you have to flip a coin?

I have to say, though, it'd be really, really nice if just ONCE, a spendthrift New Labourite would express gratitude to the most oppressed and put-upon group in Britain today - something like:

"And by the way, a word of thanks to the one minority that never gets ANY benefit from what we do, but which uncomplainingly pays the huge cost of implementing it all, every single time. Employed white middle-class males, THANK YOU!"

The Good Student

noreply@blogger.com (chrisworth) — Tue, 24 Jun 2008 00:36:00 +0000

I'm a good man. And tonight I had proof.

Just spent an evening with a friend, nothing fancy, just noodles and Sauv Blanc. Forgot completely I'd had a load of laundry tumble drying in the block opposite, so went out to get it at 12.30am. I'd been ready for bed for some hours and groaned as I headed downstairs again.

On the way over, there's a girl arriving at the block's other door. Leggy blonde, boobs and bum half out of sequinned minidress, the usual thing. You can't help but look; I mean, whoa.

She's behaving a little strangely. Keeps doubling up, dropping things. Not unusual around this time on campus, although not an everyday occurence on a Monday. After the briefest of pauses I head towards the other door, bundle my bone-dry clothes into my bag, and head for home.

She's still there. All tits and ass and legs, in a giggling heap. I ask if she's okay. She is by the happy undergrad standards - i.e. paralytically drunk - but not if she wants to get home. While campus is safe enough, I don't want to leave a vulnerable teenager in a doorwell.

I offer to get her home. (My key fits this lock thanks to the laundry access.) I pick up the bundle of tits and ass and legs and support it on my shoulder, trying to get her to talk (it seems like just drunk, but if it's drugs I'll be able to tell once she's talking.) She talks, giggling. It's just drink.

"I'm Jess." Giggling. Oh hell and damnation, the bare arms are going around my neck. The face is startlingly beautiful, model-girl even. I ignore it. I'm a good man.

She doesn't know where she lives. I support her more. She remembers it's on this floor. Walking down a corridor I notice '------ JESS!' on a door. Whew. Now all we have to do is find the keys...

She's on the floor again. I sit her against the wall. The minidress barely covers her backside and there'd be nothing left to the imagination, if I imagined it. Concentrate, Worth, concentrate. You're a good man.

The problem here is that the evening out put half a dozen units into me, just enough to affect judgement and oh bloody hell she's kissing me. Stop. Stop her. I stop her. This isn't what I expected when I went to collect my laundry. Keep it together. Her breath's on my neck and the long legs are - you've got nieces this age, Worth. In fact, you've got 501s this age. Concentrate. You are an adult helping a young girl home. That's all you're doing.

We open the door. She nearly falls. Blast and buckets of blood, that means I've got to go in. Take a deep breath.

It's an undergrad room. In other words, it's just about possible to see the carpet under the jumble of towels, sheets, clothes, underwear, bags. "I leave in two days!" she mumbles among the jumble. Yeah, sweetheart, and I'm leaving in two minutes.

I don't even want to think about what'll happen if security walks down this corridor. I know exactly what it'll look like. This is bad. I ask her to take a few steps forward, to her bed and sanctuary. She reaches around and DON'T UNZIP YOUR DRESS DON'T UNZIP YOUR DRESS I stop her wriggling and manoevre her to the 'bed zone', a mountain of assorted blankets under which there's probably a mattress. I lie her down. She won't let go. Her arms are around my neck and I'm horizontal. Let go. The breasts are popping out and my resolve is hardening. I escape her honeyed grip.

She's on the bed at last, lying on her side, best position if she vomits in her sleep. She's peaceful, breathing evenly, not in danger. She'll wake up with a headache, but no worse. I force myself not to linger for a look, and leave.

My laundry bag's in the corridor where I left it. I shake myself and head across the lawn to my block and home.

I'm a good man.

noreply@blogger.com (chrisworth) — Fri, 20 Jun 2008 12:15:00 +0000

I've just had the best banking experience of my life!

Having to shovel cash around manually usually means a taped queue and a cashier. But the new-looking HSBC at Holburn takes the ATM principle to its logical conclusion: a proper bank, with people standing around to help if you need them, but all it contains is a lorryload of machines. Pay in, take out, and various other terminals for basically every banking service you'd ever want. Arranged in comforting swerves rather than stern horizontal rows. Three transactions, about two minutes, job done. Perfect.

The importance of sandwiches

noreply@blogger.com (chrisworth) — Thu, 19 Jun 2008 13:29:00 +0000

Back in the city! Starting my dissertation project in earnest, I'll now be spending half of each week in London. Feeling fresh. Feeling fast, strong, healthy after nine months of study. Feeling pretty good, in fact.

And all the better for finding a good sandwich shop.

If there's one feature that really 'makes' an office for me, it's the proximity of a good sandwich shop. Not the Pret a Manger chain type, but an actual family-run deli style place, usually run by Italians, where the bread's piled in a basket and they make big bowls of mixed fillings every day or two. There's a great one in - of all places - Surrey Quays shopping centre, where I used to live; the danger in town is that the big chains have squeezed out the independents. Fortunately, the company I'm working with is right next to Sicilian Avenue, one of those London streets with immense character yet without being on the tourist trail, and - paydirt. An Italian-run deli where they greeted me like an old friend on my first visit.

Chicken and bacon with cheese in a ciabatta bun. Sorted.

You don't need a parachute to skydive; just to skydive twice...

noreply@blogger.com (chrisworth) — Mon, 16 Jun 2008 09:13:00 +0000

Another weekend at a dropzone with Warwick's amazing Skydiving Club, with great weather and plenty of manifest space on the Cesspits, sorry, the Cessnas. (I don't like those planes much, but anything with a big door is fine after a few jumps.)

This weekend I'm on DRPs, where you have to demonstrate pulling out a dummy ripcord within a few seconds of leaving the aircraft. (The static line's still pulling out your actual chute; the point here is that you're showing you'd be capable of freefalling.) And then do it again. And again. Three in a row gets you to freefall; screwing up the third one puts you back at square one.

In contrast to most DRP students, my pulling-out technique is a little... relaxed. Both 'good' jumps, I was right on the five-second limit for a successful pull. I push myself out the door... wheee, this is fun, look at the scenery.... OK, time to start counting.... Two Thousand... Reach around.... There it is... OK, let's see if it comes out.... wahey! Done! So for the third one, the instructor wanted to see a slightly faster pull.

I, er, screwed up the third one. Forgot to mention above: '...while maintaining a stable position'.

There are perhaps occasions where being upside down and rotating rapidly is stable, but falling through void a mile up isn't one of them.

Yet somehow I've had no problem locating and pulling the toggle itself, even with the pack changing shape as the canopy deploys. Maybe it's an indication of my general attitude towards life, but somehow seeing the ground above my head didn't faze me. Just reached for the toggle and pulled, forgetting that above me (technically at that point below me) the instructor back on the plane would've been shaking his head sadly.

Quote from the debriefing instructor: "You pulled the toggle effectively, if we ignore the fact you were head down and spinning, which we er, won't...."

Oh well; had a great weekend anyway. Roll on the nationals!

New Labour wins by default, civil liberties crumble further

noreply@blogger.com (chrisworth) — Thu, 12 Jun 2008 14:29:00 +0000

OK, so they finagled a win. 315 to 306 votes in the Commons, after Brown bought off the Ulstermen and flipped his MPs a couple of handouts. At least he's not pretending to have won it on principle.

Why doesn't anyone understand just how terrible this is?

The 42-day vote - giving the cops the right to arrest you and hold you for a month and a half without charge, longer than anywhere else in the civilised world - is yet another huge blow to the UK's ever-decreasing civil liberties by New Labour.

It's appalling - ancient freedoms enshrined in the Magna Carta have been systematically dismantled by this awful government, everyone from motorists to terrorists now presumed guilty until proven innocent, local officials freely authorised to conduct covert surveillance of pretty much anyone they choose, anti-terrorist legislation freely used against anyone including white-collar crimes like embezzlement, and no-one seems to care. Or indeed understand just how bad the situation is.

There are countless things you could do in Britain ten years ago - based on basic principles of free association, right to private life, presumption of innocence, against unreasonable stop and search and seizure - that you now can't do. Not because those things are bad or wrong, but because they're simply nobody's business but yours ... and what New Labour hates, above all else, is the thought that you might do something without telling the government about it. These erosions are horrendous. And yet the British public stumbles on, dull-mindedly blind to the dangers.

I've had enough of the sheer stupidity and head-in-the-sand unthinking-ness of the British public. I knew they were stupid; I just never thought they were this stupid.

Sometimes, I despair of this country. I really do.

There Will NOT Be a waterfight! See Below -

noreply@blogger.com (chrisworth) — Tue, 10 Jun 2008 19:47:00 +0000

And supposedly mature MBAs will definitely NOT be attending.

"Right, as some of you may have heard, the recent attempt to organise "Warwick Water War 08" was cancelled due to "health and safety" issues. The university has said they do not wish for any alternatives. So, furthering on from that particular group, I bring you a warning:

-There will NOT be a waterfight held in warwick to mark the end of the summer term.
-It will especially NOT be held on Monday 16th June.
-It will NOT start at 2PM and end whenever people wish it to.
-It will NOT take place in the field behind Tocil Woods (or anywhere else, subject to change or better ideas), especially in such a place where it will be hard for security to notice anything going on and get to quickly, and where it is easy to run away if any trouble does occur.
-You SHOULD bring your student cards just in case any trouble does start at a waterfight and security asks for them.

I urge you all to forward this warning to as many of your friends as soon as possible, to make them aware of this. Suggestions welcome.

Many Thanks,

;-)

DISCLAIMER: For "Health and Safety" reasons - By joining this group, you agree that if you just so happen to attend any waterfight that just so happens to occur as a result of this group, despite my warnings to the contrary, and you just so happen to somehow inexplicably injure yourself, then you promise not to sue me, or anybody in this group, the student's union or the university, blah blah blah etc."

Sunday afternoon on campus

noreply@blogger.com (chrisworth) — Sun, 08 Jun 2008 15:56:00 +0000

I don't know why I should be so endlessly fascinated with a collection of brick and concrete boxes on a 1960s university campus, but I am. And days when the sun is shining makes it even better.

Now that's what I call living on the edge

noreply@blogger.com (chrisworth) — Sun, 08 Jun 2008 10:46:00 +0000

For those people who think skydiving just isn't exciting enough, there's wingsuiting! The jumpsuit creates lift and responds to body twists, so it's a bit like skydiving with a very, very, very small canopy and faster response times... I'm several hundred jumps short of being qualified to try this, but it looks amazing.

June 5th, 2008: the perfect day

noreply@blogger.com (chrisworth) — Thu, 05 Jun 2008 16:07:00 +0000

I want to preserve this day. Wrap it in gauze and keep it in a wardrobe like a wedding dress. Dry it gently in the breeze next to a new-mown lawn, then fold it lovingly to the dimensions of a rosewood drawer, then slide it shut to keep it crisp and fresh forever.

Today is the perfect day.

The sky's been bright but the sun not unstinting, stretches of sunlight interrupted by dreamy clouds breezing by. Warm but not hot, no jacket required. The perfect weather.

Preparing my dissertation, I've been drifting from Arts Centre to Learning Grid. The structure of my summer project is becoming clear. The perfect work plan.

I've paused only for coffee with beautiful women, conversation and frisson more sophisticated than you'd expect on a university campus, outside on the benches while the highly diversity-aware trees sway slowly, listening in. The perfect coffee break.

I'm needed. The need to be needed is perfect, too. Yesterday I was at Lord's with clients; tomorrow WBS itself wants me on another Open Day; recruiters have started calling. The perfect sense of belonging.

In the sunken central plaza, every step is occupied by groups of laughing students, drinking, smoking, doing things students do. A living place. The perfect plaza.

If only I could store days like this. Open a drawer and spritz a single cloud of lemon to bring this day back, late in the year when outside is scuzzed with slush and a million moist noses report sniffles season. One a week is all I'd need. To experience the perfect day once again.

But doing so would kill it. Value departs when available in infinite measure. And it'd kill me too. For living the perfect day, again and again, would make further progress down life's path meaningless. So I'll just appreciate this day while I can.

And so... I near the end ...

- of my perfect day!

Bittersweet rush of a year in the classroom

noreply@blogger.com (chrisworth) — Sun, 01 Jun 2008 20:48:00 +0000

The last roll call!

And just like that - it's gone. The 14 courses of the Warwick MBA, all teaching now finished. Just last assignments and a dissertation to take care over the next couple of months. A final MBA party, hastily arranged, happened last night, and for a few beautiful hours everything was like September again.

And it's been good. My only regret was I wish I'd ... got into it earlier. I don't feel I truly got the hang of studing and learning formally until Term 3; thinking back, terms 1 and 2 were nightmarish, winging it on worry and adrenalin. Trying to give the impression that you know what you're doing takes serious energy, especially when you don't.

But I've learned a few things about myself. I'm still a bad person, but perhaps a bit less bad than I was. And I realise now that I feel most strongly self-actualised when there's something to push against, like deadlines and course timetables and people to let down. Exhausting and depressing it's been at times, but it's also been... awe-inspiring.

Ha ha. Me, who's walked across deserts and sweated through rainforests, awestruck by a concrete college curriculum.

As an outsourced marketing guy I had essentially no obligations beyond turning a great headline, and that's the trouble: working alone breeds megalomania. I spent the previous six years detached from reality. During this year I've gradually started the long trek back.

So: one of the three wishes almost done: build a relationship with the academic world. The other two I'm surprisingly confident about*, too. I came here not to earn a degree, but turn around a life that'd grown stale, and maybe knock off a few of the rough edges I acquired in six years alone.

I'm at the end of nine months of hard work, and all I want to do is go back and do it again differently. But then everyone would.

*Not telling you yet.

Sweet smell of ... something

noreply@blogger.com (chrisworth) — Thu, 29 May 2008 20:28:00 +0000

What a great surprise. Somehow I've passed all the Term 2 exams!

I expected to fail one and possibly three, given that a) I'm crap in exam halls, b) I'm not a finance guy, c) I'd deliberately chosen electives I'd find difficult (finance stuff), and d) I turned out to be the ONLY PERSON in the entire cohort doing FIVE of the bastards last term (three electives absolutely had to be on my list, which meant doing an extra one in Term 2 and one fewer in Term 3.)

And yet I've sailed through the rocky waters of the Examic Ocean. Not even 'weak' passes; only one score came a bit close to the wind, and on the assignments (the parts closest to reality) I've scored plenty, even in the finance stuff I'm no good at. Whooohooo!

Pleased that another quarter of this four-term MBA is done and dusted. But at the same time... a little disconcerted. Shouldn't it have been harder than this?

I expected the numbers stuff to be hard; I don't have a bad head for figures, I just know nothing about maths save an interest in concepts, so the algrebraic bond pricing derivative greek whatever has been hard work for me. And despite being a marketer of 15 years' experience, I haven't done well in ANY of the marketing courses this year.

As 'soft scientists', marketing professors don't really want anyone whose experience was gained in the real world taking their programmes; it offends their sense of how the world ought to be. And it's showed in my results: steady sixtysomethingpercents all the way through. (The stuff I wrote was perfectly valid marketing: it just wasn't THEIR marketing.) But even so, those scores weren't difficult to obtain.

I'd love to say I've been up until 2am every night studying, absorbing texts and case studies and burning away blood in the Learning Grid. But I just haven't. (Except for the 2am mornings in the Learning Grid. But I'm a 'night' person by nature.)

The only genuine problem for me was all the group work an MBA entails; when you've been working as long as I have, some academic's idea of what constitutes 'group working' tends to be both artificial and insultingly juvenile. On the POM course I felt like Kindergarten Cop. And a course packed with representatives of a single nationality didn't help the time management aspect - or indeed the 'diversity' such courses like to trumpet.

(British MBA courses draw most of their cohort from the subcontinent these days, but for me, 'Shout at each other excitedly at high volume until someone listens' isn't ideal academic practice. I came here expecting a degree course in the Western intellectual tradition, yet what I got was... Mumbai Central at rushhour.)

But that's besides the point. I didn't really swot or sweat blood from my forehead.

I just did what I always do. Opened a textbook the day before and... winged it. Which I've always been good at, too good at to stop. Winging it through life, on a feather-thin slice of cash and the ability to string a sentence together. I'm a fraud.

Or maybe I'm just fooling myself, and this is how everyone works.

noreply@blogger.com (chrisworth) — Tue, 27 May 2008 19:48:00 +0000

Today was okay I suppose. If you like second-order derivatives, matrix algebra, and bond pricing equations comingatcha on 120 slides. Ugh.

I am scared to death of my Investments & Risk Management lecturer

noreply@blogger.com (chrisworth) — Mon, 26 May 2008 14:45:00 +0000

I can't believe it's here so fast, but it is. My last module of the Warwick MBA is this week! And the lecturer is already scaring me shitless. What is this, Corporate Finance all over again? Another megabrained lecturer who I'm sure sneaks off at every break just to laugh at my incompetence with financial calculus?

Hell no. It's worse than that.

This one's got such a long CV I can barely believe she's one person. She taught at Princeton, Oxford, and probably the InterGalactic Alliance of Extremely Clever People before Warwick; I've just been down her list of papers and most of them may as well be written in Latin. Whereas the Corporate Finance lecturer had a brain only moderately larger than that of Einstein, this one could have lectured Einstein and probably found reasons not to give him a pass. ("Think you're getting out of that patent office anytime soon, Albert my boy? HUR HUR HUR HUR HUR HUR!!!")

Investment & Risk Management requires Corporate Finance as a grounding, which means it's going to be harder. Looking down the programme (I should possibly have started this more than 24 hours before the first lecture) there are long lists including things like Forwards and Futures, Derivative Swaps, Bond Portfolios (shaken not stirred) and enough greek letters to keep the Athens Post Office busy for months. Just how big IS their alphabet?

There's a whole day on 'Options'. I think my 'option' will be to sit with my head in my hands and sob quietly so she won't ask me questions. Help!

Milliband ready to take a punt

noreply@blogger.com (chrisworth) — Sun, 25 May 2008 11:50:00 +0000

Things are moving. David Milliband is ready to save New Labour, he's confided to Cabinet colleagues. How kind of him.

Personally my money'd be on Ed Balls - wouldn't that be wonderful, Brown's loyal lieutenant stabbing his old boss in the back? But Milliband would be an interesting Labour leader: better matched to Cameron in age and experience, yet without the Eton education that gives so many Tories their air of confidence. (For all his faults, Brown has greater gravitas than DC.)

Brown, of course, will fight tenaciously for the job he believes is his birthright. But his psychopathic tendencies will never allow him to admit he's wrong or change course. I hope he doesn't, anyway: he's the Tories' greatest electoral asset if he hangs on for a year or two.

New Labour has perpetrated such crimes on the United Kingdom that it doesn't deserve any more chances. The torture it's going through should not end cleanly, nor quickly. The demise of this bunch of preening socialists should be a long, drawn-out bloodletting, filled with pain and suffering.

This is going to be a great summer....

I can't stand that Dalai Llama bloke

noreply@blogger.com (chrisworth) — Sun, 25 May 2008 10:49:00 +0000

A friend just blogged excitedly about seeing the Dalai Llama getting off his train in Nottingham. I can't stand the Dalai Llama.

Why do Westerners from Bill Clinton to Steve Jobs go gooey-eyed over some Asian guy in robes? Have we really come nowhere since the 1960s? I mean, what does the Dalai Llama actually DO? Don't we have something called the age of reason?

Why is it that the countries who espouse representative democracy and equality for all fall panting at the feet of .... a guy put in power claiming divine authority, leading an ethnic group hostile to outsiders, with some of the worst life expectancy and health statistics in the world?

(Did any of these guys have their eyes OPEN when they went to Tibet? The place is a shithole! Zero infrastructure, zero public institutions, and when the Chinese do something that might actually give the economy a boost - like laying a 2000 mile railway through unforgiving rock, an incredible feat of engineering - they thank them with brickbats.)

Do you realise one of the Tibetan people's prime grievances about the Chinese is that the Han race keep moving in on their turf? Shock horror! Actually having to live next door to someone of a different race! I mean, isn't that a little bit... racist?

But of course, this is how political correctness works: only white people are racist, certainly not the poor little Asians. If a white person takes this attitude, it's selfish and evil and filled with hatred (true). If a member of an 'ethnic minority' does it, it's 'protecting their culture'. And if you've got a roving ambassador with, apparently, a hall pass to No 10 and the White House, you can get away with pretty much anything. As long as you're wearing the robes.

Hint for religious leaders: bright colours work on Western leaders. Something orange and floor-length, and you'll have 'em eating out of your hand. The Dalai Llama's got it sussed.

Sheeesh, give me strength.

I'm no fan of the Chinese government, but as with so many territorial disputes, the Tibet thing all depends on when you draw the line in history. I mean, you don't have to go back that many centuries to discover Outer Mongolia has a pretty strong claim over most of Asia and a fair chunk of Europe. And let's face it, when Tibet was annexed by the Chinese - the 1950s - a great deal of Europe had redrawn its borders just a few years before, and over in the Middle East a bunch of guys were divvying up Israel and Palestine. Is China's claim over Tibet 'legitimate'? Depends on where you stand. History is a myth agreed upon.

New Labour nosedive continues

noreply@blogger.com (chrisworth) — Fri, 23 May 2008 14:28:00 +0000

Crewe & Nantwich goes blue! A safe Labour seat in the heartland of third-generation unemployment and broken dreams, yet the by-election has resulted in an incredible 17.6% swing to the Tories. And it's not even a bad news week.

It'd take just an 8% swing in a General Election to ensure a Conservative majority. The Conservatives are at a natural disadvantage in elections: with many seats in the countryside, a Tory government needs a higher share of the popular vote than you'd expect to win one. Yet it now looks like they can do so. If the people of Crewe can vote Tory, the whole country can.

Surely Ed Balls is going to challenge Gordon Brown for the Labour leadership on Monday? I mean, he's had to deny (twice) that he's interested in Brown's job, which means he's raring to get it as soon as possible. Oh my, this is going to be absolutely glorious.

Watching New Labour, realising there was nothing new about it after all, tear itself apart over the summer. And with any luck, evaporate for a generation in its self-deluding fog of squandered potential, skyrocketing taxes, and endless red tape.

Shine a light

noreply@blogger.com (chrisworth) — Thu, 22 May 2008 20:12:00 +0000

Scorsese films a Stones concert! And it's as far away from a concert film as - well, a Scorsese film. Just a few intelligent interludes of 60s and 70s shots showing the band maturing: the rest of it's just the footage from a single concert in New York.

What sets this film apart is the detail. You can see the sweat on Keef's guitar, the veins in Mick's neck. Most of all you can tell how different the personalities of the Stones are - and why they've been together so long. They're just having a great time hanging out.

Jagger: the practiced showman, well-rehearsed and everything calculated. Ronnie Wood: grateful to be there, the uncool one. Charlie Watts: physically looking the youngest, yet seems by far the most tired of it all, huffing and puffing his way through the drum sections. And 'Keef': the court jester, just doing his own thing, miming Jagger behind his back, and Widow Twankeying the audience. (Every time he manages a good chord he chortles down at his guitar, thinking "Cor! Did I do that?!!")

It's still a movie rather than a film. Scorsese very obviously made sure there were no old or ugly people near the front rows (except Keef, of course.) But the overall impression is much closer to being at a concert than watching a movie. There's no actual standing in the aisles dancing (not the done thing at Warwick Arts Centre) but there's a definite vibe and shared understanding among the audience. We're stoned.

I strongly dislike making toast in the griller

noreply@blogger.com (chrisworth) — Thu, 22 May 2008 09:37:00 +0000

The problem with toasting bread under the griller, rather than in a toaster, is that it takes so long the bread tends to harden rather than warm up. The resulting toast is somewhat suboptimal, not more than a 4/10 as opposed to the 8's and 9's you can get with a proper toaster that you know well.

The flat toaster isn't working, or rather it half-works - two of the four slots toast only one side of the bread and another slot doesn't work at all. Since I like three slices in the morning, I'm forced to judge timings and turn around two slices, which will never be as well toasted as the lucky slice in the fully-functional slot. Therefore my haul is usually: one slice of decent toast, and two slices of good-enough-for-breakfast-but-far-from-perfect semi-toasted flipped-over slices.

When you make toast in the oven's griller, the designers appear to have given no thought to late-process butter-asorption issues: butter on a grilled slice tends to float on the top rather than soak in. Thus the grilling-by-oven process contains a major operational error. Toyota would never have let this happen. Do they make toasters?

I'm not sure why the toaster isn't working. It's possible it's got something to do with the wall of flame that erupted from it when I used it on Monday and all the electricity to the kitchen went off - who knows? Some mysteries may never be solved.

I know this isn't an earth-shattering problem, but toast is a pretty major part of my life pre-9am, and bad toast means bad start to the day. Toast is important.

I am quite pleased I could now hold a conversation with a CFA

noreply@blogger.com (chrisworth) — Mon, 19 May 2008 08:52:00 +0000

Copy from an ad for the CFA (Certified Financial Accountant) institute: "If a CFA charterholder sits before you, she or he can evaluate undervalued and overvalued securities, calculate the values of callable bonds and puttable bonds, calculate alpha, calculate financial ratios used by credit analysts, analyze derivatives, alternative investments, taxes, pensions, inventories, and inter-corporate investments."

It's interesting to note that with the right electives, the Warwick MBA teaches you how to do every one of those things.

Database driven life

noreply@blogger.com (chrisworth) — Thu, 15 May 2008 20:46:00 +0000

One of the really impressive things about Warwick University is its databases. Or more to the point, the way its databases connect to the student intranet and let me, slumped in my study bedroom, collect pretty much everything I need to write my assignments and dissertation.

Take just now. An article referenced in one of the readings for a Strategy module caught my eye. It's not in the readings, although it's a seminal article on the globalisation of business from the 1980s. This is probably a test: the course director may have left that article in plain view, referenced in the folder's readings but not actually in the folder as a handout, in order to see which clever buggers would spot it and look it up.

So I look it up. A few clicks and searching into the library, the business section, and a subscription index. A search on author and title. And - within a second - it's there: the full-text article, not in ASCII but an actual scanned page of the Harvard Business Review from 1983, complete with foxy-edged pages and the imprint of someone's pen pressed too hard on a previous page a quarter of a century ago. Brilliant.

In the vastness of the Internet, I inhabit a more tightly-clustered node: an ordered space of indexed scholarship, given shape and form by subscriptions and module structure and the sheer buzz of a campus wired for desseminating knowledge. From my little room here, I'm wrapped in a warm, comforting coccoon of information plus the means to make sense of it.

I'm going to miss this place.

The name's Worth, Chris Worth...

noreply@blogger.com (chrisworth) — Thu, 15 May 2008 20:00:00 +0000

Of all the ridiculous things a year as a student has allowed me to do, attending the University Sports Ball as a member of the Skydiving Club is probably the funniest one so far. (Just booked my tix today.)

Now the next problem: sorting out a dinner suit.

It's been several years since I last wore black tie; I've completely forgotten the whole culture around it. For example, a 'tuxedo' technically means white jacket, which is pretty hard to carry off outside the Caribbean anyway, and at a ball where the dinner involves tomatoes it's completely out of the question. Black jacket, definitely. But whose?

I mean, I have to overcome a natural disadvantage here: since it's the summer ball of the university's sporting clubs, there'll be a large number of physically imposing males in the tent (well, in addition to me, obviously) and it'll take a lot to look impressive in that crowd. I've scheduled in daily swims and sessions to get myself back in shape after a few weeks of lumpen deskbound-ness, but that's only half the problem. The other half is the suit.

There's no way - no way - I can go for the standard Moss Bros rental like everyone else. I need the kind of suit Daniel Craig gasped at in 'Casino Royale' when Eva whipped out a tailored one for him, after he'd protested he already had a dinner suit. That's what a truly great suit does: make you go 'whoa'. But how can I get one?

There's got to be a way. Discounters, vintage shops, and friends (of my height and build) are on the list to call next week; one of them will have something truly sensational in my size. It'll be the perfect way to make the evening go with a bang.

noreply@blogger.com (chrisworth) — Tue, 13 May 2008 21:59:00 +0000

Some Facebook groups are so inspired, you've just got to join them.