Mountains at Spitzing, Bavaria

Mountains at Spitzing, Bavaria, originally uploaded by Simon Redfern.

Just love those mountains. Now back from holiday and easing back into work, but thought this pic was a good one and would cheer me up no end in those occasional gloomy moments.

Uh oh

Yesterday I experienced that peculiar feeling you get when something somewhere has gone terribly wrong. I was walking home having just bumped into the Party Chair. We had a nice chat about the doomed Leyton by-election as we hurried along a freezing late night Hoe Street. As we said our goodbyes and I turned into my street I felt an unmistakable absence. There was a massive car shaped hole when the trusted Ford Focus had been sitting the day before.

Balls - it's been nicked. And even worse - given that I can't find the car key - I suspect it was pretty easy for the perpetrator to do it. Double balls! And that probably means the insurance won't pay out. Quadruple balls with an extra helping of balls!

Being a good Labour boy I am generally of a fairly liberal nature when it comes to crime and punishment. But when something happens to ME ME ME I suddenly turn into a raging Tory. It exposes a level of hypocrisy in me which lies dormant, hidden behind my Guardian lite views. But today I want the bastard flogged in the town square, and then dragged through Walthamstow village naked to be jeered at by the locals.

Up to snuff

To Cellar Door , a chic little former public convenience at the bottom of the Aldwych, last night for cocktails and chat with the Coal Man, the Hack and Tai Chi Boy.

We were having a fab old time. Then Tai Chi Boy left and I think this must have destabilised the flow of the collective (or something) because someone spotted that five kinds of snuff were available on the menu.

Snuff? Had we been flung back in time to 1890? No. Although that would have been quite cool.

It's just that with cigarettes a no-no people still need their vices, and snuff remains probably the only legal stimulant you can whack up your nozzer. I learnt all about 'nature's snuff box' from the Coal Man who is evidently a bit of a dab hand.

Anyway - I'm recommending the club blend. Very minty... Get in quick before it gets banned.

What is it about rhyme...

I love it. Rhyme and all the little semi rhymes and half rhymes in between. Getting it right is really hard work. But when you look at a real expert like John Hegley and great stuff like

I remember Luton
As I'm swallowing my crouton

you realise you are in the presence of a master. Yes yes, I am sure there are many better examples, but I like what works for me. It's that ability to connect words and then twist them, add to them which is marvellous and often beautiful.

My other rhyme hero is Martyn Jacques - lead singer of the Tiger Lillies - who, on my ipod on the way in to work this morning, rhymed "toys" with "equipoise" and made me burst out laughing on the Victoria Line.

Rebranded!

The company I work for, Fishburn Hedges, does 'surprise and delight' really well. Every so often, throughout the year, I'll arrive on a Monday morning to find something mysterious and interesting on my desk, which'll relate to an announcement that's going to happen later in the day.

Today we're undergoing a major rebrand, the first in about 13 years. Huge levels of work have been poured into it, from having the rows about the look and feel, to changing the website, to sorting the stationary, to setting up new document templates.

But even more gets poured into making it feel like an occasion. This morning we were seranaded by a saxophonist as we arrived, poured fruit cocktails in the new colour scheme, and rooted through our goodie bags filled with a stash of stuff. New sofas have appeared around the place, and our PCs are all set up with the new look.

See what you make of the new branding - the website's not switched over just yet but should be later today.

That election date

I am 100 per cent certain it's 2009. Obvious I know... but I'm smug because I've got it from, if not the horse's mouth, then definitely its feedbag...

Mind you - don't just take my word for it. Peter Riddell's piece today gives a good indication that we're on for May 09...

Snapshot

He's in love with her, so much, so very
And between Euston and the stop at Highbury
As his hand encompasses her knee and
Snakes on down to tweak her boot zip, she
Smiling snapshot bright light love
Decks him with a hearty shove

The psychology of the plan

All seeing Ian has a new job and is bringing his unique, assertive management style to some old school health charity. He is a master of tough love management, revels in the havoc it causes, loves the success it brings.

ASI's schtick is 'planning'. That is the key to it all. Planning, organisation, time for thinking. These are the things that bring you calm, clarity and success. Even the small things, tidy desk, organised files, to do list, can have a huge impact.

I love his revelling in his authority. He is a master of saying it how it is and dealing with the consequences like a grown up. A great role model is All Seeing Ian.

Hail to the geek

Stratford Town Hall. Now there's a grand Victorian building. I was there last night at a Labour fundraiser for Ken Livingstone's Mayoral campaign.

There is one fundamental reason why Ken should win this election. He loves the job. He's a total nerd about London and he revels in the minutiae of City Hall politics. There's no way Boris would sit through the interminable meetings that Ken does. Or make politically unpopular decisions that ultimately change the way this city works for the better.

We need Ken, the thick-skinned policy geek. The man that takes on the Evening Standard. The radical. The lover of London.

Project Pancake KPIs met

I love a pancake. Especially because I am very good at making them. If I were in Heroes my special ability would be to toss hot batter [this joke is dedicated to Hightower]. I just have a knack of marrying wholesome goop with spectacularly hot kitchen surfaces to produce perfect lovely flat slivers of joy.


So this is me going for the flip (credit to four year old Tilster for the pic):

And these are the litlins with the end result. A particular hit with the boy wonder there...

Great Aunt Ethel el morte

Today I drove to Birmingham for GAE's funeral. She was my Dad's aunt but we'd never met while she was alive. This I think is a sad thing.

I was glad I went today. Ethel was our last link to the Hudsons, and my Dad's real mum who died of an asthma attack, right in front of him, when he was four years old.

May: that was her name.

We've always had a rose-tinted view of her. As if she'd been around everything would have been a lot better for my dad, who had a pretty unpleasant childhood at the hands of the Dundee Stepmother who washed his hair in fairy liquid and treated him like a servant for a long long time.

I don't know what May was like - but she was Ethel's sister and so it seemed important to mark today, if only for my Dad.

I like a good funeral though. I think it's the one thing the church does really well. Emotion wringing hymns like 'Abide with me' which allow the men to cry with dignity ... The vicar talking about Vera Duckworth in the address. Bizarre, but very British.

I get a real sense of closure from the ceremony as the final clumps of wet earth thud onto the coffin lid deeper down in the ground than you thought it would ever be. And then the other gravestones. Eileen Crump, William Bytheway. Names you couldn't make up or imagine, are there.

The French Lieutenant's Four Year Old

I am quite proud of this picture of a very cold looking Tilly, looking a lot older than 4. Hengistbury Head is a beautiful, rugged, windswept place near Bournemouth, with some of the most expensive beach huts in the world don't you know....

That beach knows me quite well. I've sat on rocks here as a teenager at night. Chucked flints at the ground and watched the sparks fly up. Brought girlfriends here. And now my children get to play with it too.

Sparking in the night
Chucking stones off rocks,
Flints on flints send shoals of sparks
Right into the sea

And in the darkness the warm wash
Of the weighty waves,
The vast sheer of the night sky
Buoy lights in the harbour.

Tube Love

There is this couple. I think he's called Rob, and I don't know what she's called. They get on my tube train almost every morning, same carriage, same seats. Creatures of habit, like me, until I remember I'm a creature of habit and shake things up.

Anyway Rob. 29. He is a big lad, proper Essex. Often in shell suit trousers, sometimes a suit, but rarely. Good hair, chunky build, drooping eyelids, fixed expression. He's not a smiler. Not in the mornings. Reads the Sun... doesn't opt for the Metro at all. Wears a massive gold ring. "RB" says the ring. You would be worried if you saw him with 10 pints down him.

She's a nightmare. 30sih too I'd say. Crazy greasy corkscrew hair, in some places smeared down, in others alive and bouncing around. Pan-face. Looks like the sort of girl you would not mess with under any circumstances.

When I first started getting the Victoria Line, about 6 years ago, they were so in love. Love was in their movements, their closeness, the goodbyes, the kiss. They shared the paper, sometimes the ipod headphones. They looked brighter, perkier.

But it struck me the other day. Getting off the train in front of me - barely a look, barely a word, and then him heading off at Finsbury Park, her heading through the tunnel to the Piccadilly Line and giving off this one long heavy sigh. I think it's coming to an end. Poor Rob and curly haired greasy girl. I hope they can make it through.

Absolutely

So that's a great call out,
And I absolutely recognise your approach.

Speaking to your point

I just wanted to reach out,
To really share my experience with you
And tell you why you are completely
And unutterably
Wrong