Posts in category "UK"

...is worth a thousand words, particularly when annotated.

The perfect job for Aishah Azmi.

Maybe this time, she should go dressed for the interview as she intends to carry out the job.

Apologies for the brief radio silence.

I was shocked and alarmed by this news on Wednesday so I have been busy purging my blog of all contentious, provocative, controversial articles and erasing every last trace of my true identity (which is Norman Brightside, 23 Baker Street, London) to an amusing pseudonym that can never, ever be traced (even by clever people from Essex). I have also taken the sensible precaution of moving house and going X-directory.

I was living in fear of a madman or worse, a Manchester City fan, arriving on my doorstep brandishing a machete after taking offence to this blog. I must admit the teenager selling dusters looked a little startled when I opened the door armed with a shotgun.

Now my identity is once again safe, normal service will now be resumed.

The best bit about the whole story - the culprit bragged about the attack back in the original chat room. The stupidity of some people never ceases to amaze me.

There is nothing worse than a blog entry titled Dear Diary - hence the title - but this is my humble submission for One Day in History so please forgive me. Of course, I could author this piece directly on the site but that would mean checking I am within the 650 word limit which is far too much work (unless I use Microsoft Word).

Get up at 7am and unload dishwasher. My one and only household chore but one I perform very well. Breakfast of cereal, tea and orange juice.

Quick scan of work email to see if anything needs my attention. Today I am going to be onsite with a customer and unlikely to have access to email.

Quick scan of Netvibes. The only thing to interest me is the recent update to TailRank. I have occasionally played with various meme trackers (TechMeme, Digg, Reddit, populicio.us) but usually my feeds contain the same stories of interest. I also like popurls as a quick dashboard of current and breaking news.

Today I am visiting a Siebel customer in Ascot. This location is convenient for me (no hotels, no flights, no lengthy drive) and is a shorter journey than to Oracle's offices in Thames Valley Park.

That's strange. For some reason, the traffic in Kingston upon Thames isn't completely gridlocked and I actually cross the bridge over the River Thames in less than 20 minutes. Then I remember why. This week is half-term for some local schools (my son is on holiday) but, much to his glee and her chagrin, my daughter is still at school.

Drive through Sunningdale and marvel at the size of some of the houses (mansions would be a better description) here. Although I keep hearing that Sandbanks in Dorset is the richest area in the UK, Sunningdale must run it a close second.

Arrive at client offices. I am slightly early which is better than slightly late so I make a quick call to an account manager with a ('political not technical') query from a customer about a review from last week.

This customer has a serious data issue in production. On July 22 2006, a 'consultant' advised the customer to configure Siebel to use Universal Time Co-ordinated (UTC). This proposal was a good idea (TM) but poorly executed.

Key elements of the UTC migration were omitted (migration of pre-existing non-UTC data, specification of timezones for each group of users who are located around the world, modification of the database timezone). Apart from that, the conversion to UTC went very well.

The net result was obtuse behaviour and incorrect appointment times observed by different users. The issue is compounded by the fact that this customer also has mobile Web clients who use Siebel on a disconnected laptop and then synchronise with the server. In addition, the Siebel administrator reports that server components (EIM, Workflow) function but now report incorrect submit/start times.

Fortunately, Siebel has a conversion utility (documented in the Global Deployment Guide) to address the issue so I spent some time configuring and testing to fix the data quality issue for the various scenarios.

Get home. Eat tea. Settle down to watch United versus Copenhagen. Discover that the wife is going out (how very inconsiderate) and I have pop out to collect my daughter from trampolining.

Count words using Google Docs - 560.

Last night as I waited for the baggage carousel to leap into action at Terminal 1, I heard a familiar voice speaking on his phone. I looked round and there was a very familiar face - the face of Michael Aspel.

Then I started thinking about all the celebrities and superstars I have seen over the years

Walked past Martin Buchan with mouth open (mine not his) on Deansgate.

Tommy Docherty signed a pack of MUFC matches for me in a Chinese restaurant in Wilmslow.

Temporary job at NatWest bank where I...

• Printed up cheque books with the girlfriend of Norman Whiteside.
• Gave 'Rita Fairclough' the balance of her current account.

Spotted members of The Fall (minus Mark and Brix) having a quiet, pre-match drink in the student union bar at Warwick University.

Flew to Sydney in 1990 with the Australian cricket team. The novelty of Merve Hughes' suggestive comments to BA stewardesses, his loud and repeated demands for alcohol and generally obnoxious behaviour soon wore off. In fact, it wore off 10 minutes into the 9 hour flight. Thankfully Alan Border had a quiet word in his moustache.

Saw George Best in a King's Road pub.

Made John Inverdale a cup of tea in my kitchen.

Chatted with Mark Burgess before a Chameleons gig.

And, err, that's it.

The MySQL database for this WordPress blog was unavailable at 18:45.

Service was restored at 19:15.

I recently read some homework (Religious Education) about the life and times of Jesus Christ that included the following gems:

• Jesus came to earth through the Virgin Mary
• There was another incident where Jesus was crucified

Richard Hammond, the 36 year old presenter of Top Gear and Brainiac, is critically ill in a Leeds neurosurgery unit with serious injuries after crashing at over 200 mph in a high-speed jet powered car, Vampire.

Let's hope he pulls through.

And just this once, not mine.

When you take out a Self Invested Pension Plan (SIPP), most SIPP schemes are unable to accept Protected Rights.

Imagine my surprise, then, when Sippdeal contact me asking for authorisation to make a payment from my SIPP to Equitable Life in respect of a refund of Protected Rights payments that the Government are requesting, in turn, from Equitable Life.

Equitable Life claim this refund is now very urgent because the original request was made in January 2006 and no response has been received.

I ask Sippdeal why they didn't forward this original letter from Equitable Life to me in January. The answer was simple. Sippdeal did not receive any such letter from Equitable Life in January 2006. Sippdeal are efficient. Sippdeal communicate via email. Sippdeal send me copies of correspondence from Equitable scanned into a PDF. Sippdeal answer my emails promptly. Sippdeal are well informed and helpful.

So I contact Equitable Life directly and ask them why a refund of protected rights contributions is required from a SIPP that was legally unable to receive any protected right contributions.

Inevitably, after a lengthy delay and some 'research', it transpires the letter (both of them in fact) were sent to Sippdeal 'by mistake' and should have been sent to my other pension provider.

I'm not sure whether my decision to consolidate all my pension plans into a SIPP was the correct one and whether my SIPP funds will outperform the fund managers in grey suits.

However, for the pleasure of not having to deal with Equitable Life any longer (apart from the rare interruption caused by their unbelievable incompetence), I'm prepared to take my chances.

Yesterday I had a pretty bad day. I got up early and drove to Chesterfield. Unfortunately, the performance environment was not available as originally planned (overrunning weekend engineering works) so I simply collected some data and drove back to London.

Still, it could have been worse. The original plan had me staying overnight in a hotel in Chesterfield.

Although this unexpected change of plan was inconvenient and tiring, it still wasn't as terrible as this gentleman's bad day

I'm still here. I've been in hospital after accidentally locking myself in one of my beehouses. I was stung so much that I have given up beekeeping as a pursuit.

I am certain he has made the correct decision in giving up beekeeping. Maybe he should now study 'How to unlock a door - quickly !'