Foreign Travel, More on Airlines & Healthcare

I am writing this blog from Asia as I have been presenting at a major health care conference here. Now the conference was fine, well attended and organised - I'm sure heralded as a great success by everyone. Yours truly was given the role of 'last speaker in a very long day', a very sought after slot, surpassed only by the coveted 'first on after a damn good lunch' position. I was presenting on branding, a subject close to one's heart and something that, ordinarily, I would have nailed, however this time, fate conspired against me and the source of the problem lies with my old friend, air travel.

Readers of this blog will be starting to realise that air travel is a part of my life that I have mixed feelings about (as in sometimes, I only despise it!), but there does seem to be a trend emerging that every time I get onto an aircraft, events or circumstances conspire to ensure that, as we say in the Consultancy business, "outcomes are compromised to the point of sub-optimisation" (NB Consultant's maxim "Never use one word when ten will do"). On this occasion, the problem is deafness.

Now I have always gone a little bit deaf on aeroplanes (everyone does don't they?) but on this occasion, the effect has been spectacular. We had barely left the runway at Schipol (I don't do Heathrow - but that will be a topic for another day) when there was a pop in my right ear and, that was that. Silence, silencio, rien de sound - aural nowt! Usually this reverses on landing so I was not too distressed. (This will actually soon become a boon since some airlines are piloting a (daft) scheme to allow people to use their mobiles in flight. Can you imagine? Manchester to Kuala Lumpur, 13 hours of being welded into an over large baked bean tin with wings, strapped into a seat next to some prat yelling "Yeah I'm on the plane, just going past Bangalore" - Oh god!) However, on this occasion it did not reverse. Going through customs I had to cock my head at a ludicrous angle like some kind of demented parrot, just to hear the customs official ask me if I was a drug-trafficking human slaver or not.

That was on Sunday, on Monday I was due to give my presentation and could not actually tell whether I was whispering or yelling like a TV evangelist (or worse still Donald Trump - have you seen the US version of the Apprentice? If not, you have no idea just how GOOD Alan Sugar, sorry "Sralan", actually is). Luckily, as this was a health care conference and one of the delegates was a client, help was at hand. A lovely lady, she manages one of the hospitals in town and speedily referred me to an ENT specialist. This was great and involved her in putting herself and her staff out for me quite considerably. I am very grateful to them all for their efforts but it did start a rather frantic race against the clock which one's blood pressure has still to normalise from, and resulted in me shouting at some strangers in Starbucks!

I raced to the hospital, leaving the convention centre at 2 in the afternoon (due to present at 5, so no pressure!). The ENT surgeon saw me really quickly but said he would have to make incisions in my eardrums (not as nice as it sounds!) but that, since this was a private facility, he would give me a local anaesthetic first which would take one hour to work. In the meantime, the anaesthetic would make me A LITTLE MORE DEAF and that I could go downstairs to the Starbucks and have a coffee while we waited.

This I did but on getting to Starbucks I was now so deaf I could not even hear my own footfall. I ordered a Cappacino, by which I mean I TRIED to order a cappacino. It was obvious from the body language of the "Barista" that I was not speaking too loudly (he was virtually bent double over the counter trying to hear me). As I am a world-renowned expert in non-verbal communications, I was quickly able to deduce that I needed to speak up a little bit and so I made a slight and subtle adjustment. He recoiled as if shot...everyone did. I looked behind me, it was carnage! Someone had dropped a tray on the floor, small children were crying and hiding behind their mother's skirts - it is just possible that I had over-adjusted just a tad on the volume front! I was asked to leave. Never actually been barred from a coffee house before so that is another first for the personal CV.

Finally went back to the doc and had the procedure then rushed back to the convention centre with 5 minutes to spare. Presentation was a bit of a blur but I think the audience didn't notice the pale pink liquid that gently seeped from the presenters' ears every time he looked up from the lectern.

I wonder if they'll ask me back next year?

Birthday shopping

It was my birthday on Friday - you forgot, it's OK! The entire Guru clan decide it would be fun to go to the Trafford centre to buy my present. I should state that the clan consists of the current Mrs Guru and three daughters. Knowing that, it will now take you just one moment to see that I am hopelessly outnumbered, that any two of them could take a vacation and I would still be outvoted! Come to think of it, even Millie, the 'Peter Pan' of the Retriever world, is a bitch (in multiple senses of the word) so actually three of them could take a vacation and I would still be the minority. So, it was against this Banana Republic, democratic backdrop that 'we' decided a trip to the Trafford Centre on a Friday would be just the ticket!

I tried to claim that I had an important client meeting to go to and so would, regrettably, and with a very heavy heart, be unable to join the retail fun. I so nearly pulled it off too until my secretary rang to wish me a happy birthday whilst I was indulging in my favourite birthday pastime ( a trolley dash around Staples since you ask - that's sad and pathetic you say? so you're so perfect are you?) and confirmed that "No, I'm looking at his schedule right now, Tom ALWAYS takes his birthday as holiday" (that blows next year too then I guess!).

So we arrived at the place, after only a very reasonable 2 hours of crawling along the M62 (I think speeds above 25 miles an hour are probably bad for us in some dark and sinister way so I am grateful to the Department of Transport for ensuring that my feeble and rapidly ageing frame was not to be subjected to the sorts of 'G' forces that speeds of, say 40 miles an hour, would have exerted upon it).

Have you been to the Trafford Centre? First thing, it's enormous, it's probably one of those structures that can be seen from the moon (or at least Widnes) it has doric columns and Greek cherubs on the outside and no end of very miserable people on the inside. I swear, in 4 hours the only time I saw anyone smile was when I caught my own reflection as a toddler dropped his ice-cream over a banister and on to the head of a very bemused chav beta male below. There seems to be some retailing compulsion gripping the British. We shuffle round these places (the new cathedrals) looking for stuff to make us feel better, only trouble is, any joy is fleeting and then the bills come in! Anyway, enough with the social commentary, as I say, the reason I was given for the trip was to buy my birthday present, which appears to be some sort of code for "Let's all buy shoes because we need a new bag". Those of you who are gentlemen may not have understood that last sentence but rest assured, you did read it correctly.

Buying shoes with Mrs Guru has been a task that I have not endured for some time now. For some reason, she felt the entire experience was somewhat less enjoyable when I was around. I find this odd as I very quickly grasped the concept of it. Accompanying Mrs Guru on a shoe shopping trip is actually like a kind of elaborate treasure hunt (Dan Brown, if you are reading this, please feel free to use this as subject matter for your next novel, it has more twists and turns than the 'Da Vinci Code' but is similarly complex and won't land you in court. Essentially, shoe shopping with Mrs Guru is a treasure-hunt where you go in the first shoe shop you come across after leaving the car and find a pair of shoes. You now follow the following process;

1) Try the shoes on
2) Say "they are really comfy, were just what you were looking for and are the perfect size"
3) Put them back on the shelf
4) Walk out of the shop
5) Visit every single other shoe shop in Christendom
6) Return to first shop and buy the shoes (if they haven't been sold in the meantime)

When I was newly wed, I thought this was an annoying and immensely frustrating practice, but Mrs Guru's careful and patient coaching down the years has helped me to to see that this is actually perfectly natural, and indeed the only way to get a pair of shoes. Nowadays however, I long for the joyful, simple charm of that method! Now there are offspring involved and the complexity has been ratcheted up significantly. Now the process requires more planning that Airbus uses to build the Superjumbo jet (then again, most people's bathroom habits involve more planning than the Superjumbo launch!).

I watched in abject horror as they, in turn, pushed, pinched coerced and just plain shoved their feet into stupefyingly tiny shoes. Shoes that had points like winklepickers but which started almost from ankle level. I cast my mind back a few short years, to the scouring around Lancashire looking for a shop with a 'Clarks' foot measuring service. Of paying wayyy over the odds for shoes that were guaranteed to not pinch those teeny tiny delicate little toesies "Do you have this sandal in a 3H?" Now, those same feet were being subject to forces more powerful than anything seen on earth (apart from the Tokyo underground train service obviously). Essentially, this process continues for a few hours and is punctuated by trips to designer knit wear stores to play the interactive fun game they have there. You know, the one where the assistant sneers at you for coming in and then follows you around the place. For your part, you must get out and unfold as many jumpers, sweater, cardigans, 'knitted tees' (whatever they are) as possible and they have to sigh or tut and fold them back up the very second you put them down. An assistant that was 'marking' me timed her move badly and ended up re-folding a garment I had not actually let go of yet, what followed could best be described as 'unseemly'

And yet, I shouldn't complain,the entire process was over in less than 91/2 hours (god they stay open late!), only cost £1,200 and did achieve it's primary aim, of getting my birthday present, and so, if I sound in any way bitter or ungrateful, please forgive me, I am not, a £20 WH Smith voucher is always going to be something I can make good use of! Until Next Time, Tom.

Preparing a Proposal

Have spent the last four hours preparing a proposal for a new piece of work with the firms most important account. Correction. Have actually spent three of the last four hours trying to get PowerPoint to do the things it is supposed to do without malfunctioning, crashing or presenting me with that irritating Paper Clip thing. What the hell is that thing anyway? Why does Microsoft imagine that I would follow the advice of a paperclip anyway? I mean, is that even likely, is it remotely rational?

The thing that really gets my goat about software designers (other than the fact that they are all younger than me and earn six times as much) is that they are all so melodramatic! Half way through slide 46 my laptop decided it had had enough of this world and froze. After frantically bashing the 'Enter' key (why do we do that? We know it won't work) I got a message telling me that a 'Fatal' Error of type 23087 had occurred and that my PC would now shut down, hitch to the airport and retire to Bermuda until it felt better. Why are PC problems always 'Fatal' or ' Catastrophic', why can't they say 'a mildly irritating thing has happened and I'm shutting down now, sorry you haven't saved your work for two hours, but, hey-ho, no one ever said life was fair". Moreover, are there really a minimum of 23087 catastrophic things that I can do to my computer? Why do they tell me the number? Is it in any small way possible that I could ever be so much of a trainspotter to actually memorise them ("Oh thank god, it's type 23087, that's not such a bad one, I'm so grateful it wasn't type 23,086 as that one is a total home wrecker").

I don't actually think the error numbers mean anything at all. I'm pretty sure they are just produced by a random number generator anyway. I think I can prove this. When you phone an IT help desk, having gone to great lengths to document every single keystroke leading up to the problem and then writing out long hand the bizzaro error message and number, you aways get the same response from the pimply foetus on the help desk "Have you tried turning it off and then turning it back on again"? I don't know which makes me more angry, the fact that I am paying £1.25 a minute for such lame 'technical support' or the fact that it invariably works!

Finally defied all the odds and got to the end of the proposal and tried to send it to the client but the gods of IT are not done with me yet, oh no. First of all it was rejected by my firms mail server as being too large (lots of sexy graphics in it, e.g half moons, crescents etc - no one ever knows what they mean but they look good) Am now trawling through the thing trying to make images smaller so it will be small enough for the server to deign to send it, latest casualty was a fabulous image of a pyramid with 5 layers to it that looked superb (it didn't actually make any kind of a point but that isn't really important, it looked complicated and impressive and that in my game is what counts).

Whilst doing the research for the proposal, I found myself hopelessly distracted. I read recently about a phenomenon called WILFing. I think the WILF part means "What am I looking For"? I had thought it nonsense when I read the article but have in fact just spent two hours doing it myself. I remember, when preparing the proposal, I definitely opened a Firefox window to Google something specific, trouble is, an hour later I was reading an article by a relative of Ainsley Harriot's on the importance of aerating lawns, which itself lead to a very interesting article on why Bats hang upside down and another on the different fonts used on the old sixpence coins - all very fascinating but totally not what I went online to look for. I still can't recall now what it was I was after.

Time to go now, early start tomorrow, I'll just read this email that has come in.

Oh no, "Your email entitled 'Proposal' was rejected due to error number 23086 and just when you thought it couldn't get any worse, here comes a paperclip to patronise you until you are sorry".

The Joys of Business Travel

Just back at my hotel after a client meeting in Amsterdam. Now I'm not one of those who goes mad for a spot of International roaming but I didn't mind it in the old days. That is to say, in the GOOD old days, the days before of the 'No-frills' airline.

Because of "Economies" (the Latin word for cutback I'm sure) we are now obliged to travel in this godawful manner for all business trips. So there I was this morning at 6 am on a bus (they don't let you walk down a nice heated airbridge to the plane oh no) to a QuesyJet flight from Liverpool John Lennon Airport. Can I just say here, what a wonderful idea that was, to name a regional airport after one of its favourite singing sons? I think London should follow suit, they could call Heathrow 'Chas' and Gatwick 'Dave'.

Well I was the only person on the bus (and hence the flight) who was actually travelling on Business. There I was, best suit and tie with my nose directly adjacent to the armpit of one of a very loud and raucous group of women who were all wearing Tee-Shirts with "Barbara thought we were having her 40th in Sunderland, but we're off to Amsterdam, Yorkie Girls on the p*ss tour 07" emblazoned on them. Now that is a lot of words to fit on a Tee-shirt, regrettably both Barbara and the rest of the Yorkie girls all had the physique to accommodate such marathon syntax easily!

I wasn't prepared for the boarding procedure, I remember doing a case study on Southwest airlines (who pretty well invented the No frills concept in the US) once, so deep down I knew about the 'no-assigned seats' rule, what I wasn't ready for was the mad scramble across the tarmac as the bus doors opened. It was every man for himself, a war zone, elbows were flying, there was kicking, punching and eye gouging, small children were trampled underfoot in the rush! Looking back, I feel a little sorry now, perhaps I should have eased off a bit but it is terribly important that one is able to get one's Swiss Laptop bag safely stashed in the overhead bins!

Anyway, I quickly got my comeuppance a couple (she was wearing designer clothes, yards of cleavage and belly showing, this pale pink in the cold morning air and at stark contrast with a face that was a colour known to Dulux colour charts as 'Dale Winton Orange', he was short, round shaven-headed and clad in a football shirt and WAY too much Burberry. The sprog had one of those names that is pointless and bound to irritate (Callum or Cody or something similar). Thing is, the kids spent the entire journey turned round and stared at me over his seat top for the whole journey. I swear he didn't even blink, not once, the only time he moved at all was to wipe his nose on the seat back (Advice, next time you are on a QuesyJet flight, if you are in seat 22E, do NOT put your head back on the head rest!

Finally got to Schipol and landed at that wonderful new runway they have there, the one that is actually in a different time zone to the rest of the airport. After a 20 minute taxi, I swear you could almost see the airport! Waited an age for passport control while watching some poseurs going through the retina scanning line (no queues, no need to show your passport, straight through, no messing - god they looked so smug!). After waiting an age for my baggage, finally managed to make it to the station and the client. Now back at the hotel contemplating a depressing room service menu (they actually call the food 'Fayre' with a 'Y'. Just realised, I have to repeat the entire journey experience tomorrow, oh god, perhaps I should phone down for some hemlock!

Sunday Night

Typical Sunday so far. Forgot the hour went forward (or did it go back?) and got up late, couldn't decide whether the meal I was supposed to have was breakfast, brunch, lunch or afternoon tea so ended up having neither. Spent the day walking Millie the stupid dog, trying to avoid having it dislocate my shoulder whilst chasing after ducks. Millie has the worst sense of smell of any creature on the planet. I once read that a dog can smell and spoonful of salt in a bath tub full of water - oh Yeah? If that's the case, why do they shove their noses right into one another's bottoms eh, you'd think it would take their heads clean off!

Millie is a disappointment all round, is supposed to be a retriever but never actually grew into being one. It is so embarrassing walking it when people ask "How old is your puppy" and you have to say "Three actually".

The very WORST part of dog walking though (other than the obvious one of picking up the poo ( tip for new dog owners, only ever do this DOWN WIND)), is coming across tweedy, middle-aged f-idiots who look at you and say "Oh, are you Millies Dad"?, to which I invariably reply "Yes, can't you tell, she has my eyes", (memo to self, tweedy, middle-aged doggie Frau's do not do irony).

Now sitting in the lounge watching Jane bloody Austin because Mrs Guru got first dibs on the remote. It's not that I dislike Jane bloody Austin (although I do), it's just so irritating listening to the needlessly long dialogue. Why are all the sentences so long?! "Oh Mr Darcy I declare that my friend Miss Bennett was recently, and most unexpectedly talking of you when I blah, blah" - was Austin paid per word or something? I mean bloody hell the entire thing could be over in a fraction of the time, have they never heard of brevity? If a bloke had written it, it would be all over ages ago and I could now be watching Peter Kay who is on the other channel!

What is it about Sunday nights? I have NEVER liked them, right from when I was a kid and it was Black and White Minstrel show on TV, Sing something Bloody simple on the radio, bread and butter for tea then bath and bed! Even now I get that 'school tomorrow' feeling!

Have a client presentation tomorrow, will spend much of the morning in a glass-lined goldfish bowl pretending to be a conference room fielding inane cliches such as 'what are the deliverables on this project?" or "What are the leveraged synergies associated with the downsides"?