Cardboard Spaceship

Signs of Nascent Recovery in Scotland.

Returned from my trip to Germany, and found a postcard from my father and his wife, who had been down in Antibes in the South of la Belle France, reporting on the Antibes Yacht Show. 

Being a very experienced and successful travel writer, this makes sense. 

Oil has recently reached record highs, yet again.

My father was commissioned to do the piece by no less a famous journal than the Aberdeen Press and Journal.  (Producer of legendary headlines such as, for the sinking of the Titantic: "Local Man Drowns in Shipping Accident.")

Finally, as the surge in the value of the North Sea Oil boils onward, the behemoths of world finance will rise, and we once again expect to have red haired men called Eck and Sandy lolling in the marble baths of their 30+ metre yachts, luxuriating to the smell of "Tam's Oxters Soap." whilst staring out over the vistas of Peterhead harbour. 

Sense and order have prevailed.  I am reassured.

Well, now that's interesting, sitting in a meeting with a bunch of people from a European Bank, and we were just sitting down after lunch, when one of the guests got out a Rubik's cube, turns out he is/was one of the fastest in the world, second in the world championship, and he just solved a cube twice in front of the room in about 10-15 seconds, unbelieveable.

Blogger's Block Again

As I have just been through a busy period, I thought I would sit down and catch up with the blog for a bit, but find myself with blogger's block.  So much going on in the world, Fukushima, tsunamis, Middle Eastern turmoil, Portuguese bailout, possibly leading to Spain, and then Euro bust-up, record Gold and Oil prices, IMF tells US to correct the deficit, etc., etc. 

Everytime I try to find some kind of line of rational thought about it, I really can't seem to find one.  Need to take some time to step back on this lot.

Been Busy, as You Might Surmise...

Whew!  Real Life(TM) has been pretty full on the last couple of weeks.  I had to give a days workshops at SAP's Financial Services event in London, and then worked for a couple of days as the "Demo Dolly" for the customer booths.  Event seemed to be a success, despite a few last minute wrangles behind the scenes. 

Then three of the world's big banks seem to have decided that the ideal time to do a rationalise of their systems landscapes is like right now, so that seems to also be something that is going on. 

As for the rest of the world, I am spinning in the head with the amount of what is happening out there.  Japan continues to be one of the world's worst natural disasters, and despite brave and valiant efforts by all concerned, it is hard to see how the Fukushima Prefecture and other areas can esily recover from both the natural disasters, and the very worrying nuclear meltdown situation.  No-one really seems to have realised how much that this is going to hit the local economy, but also the world economy, which passes through Japan in many ways. 

The continuing unravelling of the Euro continues apace with Portugal now paying record yields on its bonds having just been downgraded to near junk.  Ireland's new Government asked for some sharing of the pain from the senior bondholders to make its impossible situation more mangeable, but Trichet et al knocked them into touch, and then promised to hike rates, just to ensure that they can go back to debt peonage, but this time with French and German plantation owners.  If you're Irish and you think that is an offensive statement, you might want to look at who owns the bonds that the Irish public are being crucified to pay. 

Oil hit a new high, as the Libyan situation seems to be trending towards a nasty stalemate, with an ineffective rebel force holding sway over the oil producing areas and ports, but not with enough force to oust the current government. 

Good news does also come out though, it was 26 Celsius over the weekend here in Geneva, and it was fantastic, had friends in for a Barbecue, which I attended the latter half of, having been laid out by a spring bug for most of the day. 

Now I am at the good old Geneva airport, ready for my first trip of the week, which leaves at 12:45 and gets back at 21:00, so a short trip even by my standards, but a good senior meeting should result. 

Then I can go home and put my feet up. 

Will be blogging more as the backlog clears.