Monthly Archives: August 2017

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Sunday reading

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Current
Watchmen, by Alan Moore and Dave Gibbons (a chapter a month)
The Help, by Kathryn Stockett

Last books finished
Decide Your Destiny: Claws of the Macra, by Trevor Baxendale
Aliénor: La Légende Noire, vol 1, by Arnaud Delalande and Simona Mogavino, art by Carlos Gomez
The Presentation of Self in Everyday Life, by Erving Goffman

Next books
Moon Stallion, by Brian Hayles
QI: The Book of the Dead, by John Lloyd and John Mitchinson
Short Trips: Transmissions, ed. Richard Salter

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Brexit latest

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I think this is pretty significant and rather hopeful.

First, of course the first side to state a number will end up having to move towards the other side. The consensus around Brussels is that the final figure is likely to be €60bn, but allowing the €100bn to unofficially circulate was smart tactics. If the UK’s opening offer is €40bn (rather than zero, as it was previously), we will likely reach a figure that both can live with in the end. (Probably nearer the €60bn because the EU has prepared better.)

Second, if the UK line is now that they will only pay if they get a trade deal, that is not really very far from the EU line that they can only have a trade deal if they pay.

Third, of course it is not true that the EU is refusing to talk about trade until it has “reached a settlement” on the three priority issues (money, citizens’ rights and the Irish border). The criterion is that the negotiations must make “sufficient progress”, a much weaker test; this is because the EU27 need to be satisfied that the British are negotiating in good faith, and at present there is considerable doubt about that.

It looks from here as if the UK government is presenting the EU’s position as much more hardline than it really is, and a gullible press is uncritically accepting this line, thus enabling the British to present their inevitable caving in to the EU’s real conditions, when it comes in due course, as a famous diplomatic victory.

This is all relatively good news, in that the chances of a catastrophic hard Brexit are being reduced and we are left the the merely awful spectacle of Brexit with some form of trade deal. But the work seems to have barely started on this in Whitehall.

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Asking a manager

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One of my guilty pleasures is the Ask A Manager blog, written by Alison Green. Other people’s problems are always grimly fascinating, but in particular in the artificial environment of the workplace, where people may come across problems that they would never encounter with family or friends and be at a loss as to how to react, the commentary of a sympathetic expert (combined with the awfulness of the problem reported) can be gripping and thought-provoking. (And the thought it provokes is thankfulness that it isn’t me on either side of the transaction being discussed.)

Humanity is flawed, and people at work particularly so. The compelling entries of Ask A Manager are often the readers reporting back on what happened when they followed Alison Green’s advice. Often this means that those who have erred turn out to have got (some of) their just deserts. I give you:

Someone drew genitalia on our intern’s cast, and what happened next

My horse died because of my manager’s carelessness, and what happened next (warning – this one is very sad).

Sometimes she finds herself giving clueless young people a clue, as with:

The CEO’s wife ruined my job prospects, and what happened next

I was fired from my internship for writing a proposal for a more flexible dress code (warning: annoying autoplay video), followed a year later by I was one of the interns fired for writing a proposal for a more flexible dress code.

But sometimes we never find out the end of the story. The one I wonder most about is the inhuman manager who Alison tore apart for complaining that my best employee quit on the spot because I wouldn’t let her go to her college graduation. Did he or she read the column and learn? I hope that the former employee is prospering.

These things are tough. All we can do is hope to make as few visible mistakes as possible as we learn along the way.

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London sights

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We took a few days in London at the end of last week to celebrate F’s 18th birthday, renting an AirBNB on Bedford Street between Covent Garden and the Strand; you can’t do much better than that really in terms of localtion. I had to work Wednesday and Thursday, but Anne and F went to Bletchley Park and enjoyed it.

We went to the Clarke Award ceremony on Thursday evening – I was pretty tired and didn’t get around to talking to everyone I wanted to (sorry to those I missed!), but I was rooting for Colson Whitehead’s Underground Railroad and therefore very pleased when it won. It wasn’t easy to hear the Chair of the Judges, but his speech is here and well worth reading.

On Friday morning, F and I went to London Film and Comic Con in Kensington Olympia – not sure that I had ever been there before. Like all gate shows, there was a lot to buy but much less to actually do; we gave it the full morning, I bought some books and he bought some games, and we bailed after lunch. I did get Deep Roy’s autograph, choosing the photo of Mr Sin over the Oompa Loompas.

On Friday afternoon, we took in a slightly random attraction: the Roman amphitheatre under the City of London Guildhall. We were lucky to be there on the very day that the skull of a suspected gladiator went on display, as part of a city-wide season of exhibitions and events about Roman London which runs to the end of October. Strongly recommended if you are in the area (or even if not; we walked there from our flat in about half an hour).

And on Saturday, we fulfilled an old ambition of mine and visited the Tower of London. Yes, there were long queues, and our guided tour group, led by a genuine Beefeater, was around 70 in number which is too big really. But if you have the slightest interest in English (or insdeed Irish) history it’s a fascinating place. It was especially interesting to get there so soon after reading the biography of Katherine Howard and visiting the Leuven exhibitions about Thomas More.

We popped around the corner to St Olave’s Church to try and see Samuel Pepys’ grave and the bust of his wife Elizabeth, but unfortunately it’s closed on Saturdays. Another time.

Foodie notes: Iberia (Georgian)Leong’s Legend (Taiwanese)Wahaca Covent Garden (Mexican).

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