Destroy All Onions!

A slightly shorter day, as we went into the office later, and left earlier. But still didn’t get back to the hotel until about 9:00.

Another bright and sunny day, but not unbearably so – about 25 degrees. We went up to the canteen, which opens out onto the roof, and I was able to look around at the view for a while without melting into a puddle, even wearing my jacket (because I had all my stuff in the pockets).

The food highlight of the day was the fact that the nice people at Tech Mahindra arranged lunch for us in the office. But tea, once again in the hotel, was very nice.

The quote of the day was “Belfast taxi drivers are very adventurous”. Under normal circumstances, that’s not an unreasonable statement. However, it was said in the back of a jeep driving through Bangalore! Driving in India is less “getting from A to B”, and more “a crazy, adventure filled, white knuckle ride filled with thrills, spills and zany antics”, so for Manu to say this about Belfast taxi drivers while our driver sped between the hordes of motorbikes, three-wheelers and pedestrians tooting his horn all the way, was just amazing. But he was only serious.

The other notes for the day are:

• that DEET, the mosquito repellant, really irritates my nose.
• that I can get Moutain Dew in the office, which I got a real taste for in Dallas last year (though I am of course still drinking water too).
• that my laptop power supply isn’t fried (I had some difficulty with it last night).

I should have mentioned that the weather is hot, but not unbearably so – around 25 degrees (C). But completely unexpectedly it rained last night, for quite a while, despite reassurances from colleagues in Belfast that this wouldn’t happen. And me without a coat! Fortunately, I do have my trusty travelling hat, in case I get caught out.

I also forgot to mention the excellent desert made out of carrot cooked in sweetened milk, which was superb with the hotel’s home-made ice cream. That was the food highlight of day one.

And I haven’t yet mentioned the ongoing mystery of our taxi driver, who keeps bringing us to and from the office. My colleague thought I had arranged it, and I thought he had arranged it. This only came to light when I asked how much he had paid him, and we discovered he hadn’t asked for money.
So someone out there has organised it for us, but we have no idea who to thank.
Or maybe he just enjoys our company. Who knows…

So I made it to India, and was delighted to find that my case had arrived too, thought not until after quite a long wait – I don’t think I’ve ever seen so much luggage come off a single plane. I was also pleased to find a bank machine in the airport, since I was unable to get many Indian Rupees before I arrived, since it is a closed currency and it’s illegal to take it out of the country, or bring it back in.

I was met at the airport by a nice man from the hotel who knew my name, who brought me to my taxi and sent me off on my long drive to the hotel. It was long, and I was sitting in the back seat, so felt a bit travel sick, but made it to the hotel dignity intact.

After a short nap, fought with the hotels network, and was able get my laptop talking to home again, and do a good half-days work without ever having to put shoes on. A nice meal in the hotel’s restaurant with my colleague, and I was tired enough to sleep all night, with or without jetlag.

This morning, I got up at around my usual time, and made it into the office not long after 9:00. This is early for India, as the tendency here is to work late because it matches up better with the UK. As we found out when we left the office, at 8:45. But at least this way we missed the rush hour and the mosquitoes (said Norwin, stuggling to find a bright side). By the time we got back to the hotel, it was too late to do much other than eat in the hotel again, but at least we chose to try the other restaurant this time. It was also very nice. The highlight this evening was the buttered naan, which is not completely unlike hot buttered toast, which led me to believe that some things are so good that they evolve in parallel in different places. Or perhaps God creates them that way. Anyway, very nice.

And now it’s late, so I’m off to bed.

Goodnight world.

I’m off on my travels again, once again exiled from Belfast by the powers that be at work, and not allowed back until I have participated in a design workshop in Bangalore, and visited the development teams in Pune and Calcutta.

So although not quite like Dallas last year, it sounds like an opportunity for some blogging, as there’ll probably be plenty to talk about.

So this morning instead of heading for church, I headed to Belfast City airport to fly to Heathrow. The City Airport is once again different to the last time I was there, though this might be the final configuration by the looks of it.

At Heathrow I was able to get checked in and have lunch with plenty of time to spare. Went to TGI Fridays for one of their excellent milkshakes and some chicken bits. I ended up in the very last row of the plane, 88D, but it wasn’t a problem at all. Emirates are very civilised to fly with – the same sophisticated entertainment system as Air New Zealand last year, with touch screens allowing pause and what have you, even in economy. Watched District 9 and The Princess and the Frog – both excellent films. And some Armstrong and Miller, who I think are very funny. But I can’t report on the food, as I felt a bit sick for the first part of the journey, so I skipped it and slept a bit instead. I didn’t expect to feel that way so early in the trip, but fortunately I felt much better when I woke up, so that’s good news.

Now sitting in Dubai International Airport, which is huge and impressive, and has plenty of free wi-fi. I had a gorgeous rhubarb tartlet, and a very grown up hot-chocolate from Paul (not nearly as sweet as usual, and made from a darker chocolate I think). Was delighted to be able to pay in pictures of the Queen, even in these foreign parts. Also discovered on facebook that my cousin has got himself engaged – isn’t modern communication kind of amazing!

Not too long before my next flight, to India itself.
Y’all have fun now, y’hear.

There was a small hiccup with the domain registration over the weekend.

But now the blog is back.

And due to a number of requests, there will probably be some changes soon, and my magnificent (but slightly unpopular due to its placement) logo will be moved around in some way.

I had cause to visit the toilets in Starbucks the other evening.

I found this sign:

I have to admit, that I had planned to put something more than toilet roll down the toilet, so I was a bit stumped by this. Should I ignore the sign, or obey and just hold it in? I have to admit, I ignored the sign, and went in the toilet, as I usually do.

But the worst part of the story is that there wasn’t even any toilet roll there, which meant you couldn’t put anything in the toilet! So what was it there for? Perhaps it’s an art installation of some sort. Or maybe just for washing your face in. Who knows!

We’re used to the pace of technology these days, with constant improvements in mobile phones and the like meaning that anything more than a few years old is unusual because it’s so out of date. But some areas of life don’t seem to change so often. Or so you’d think.

Recently the toilets in my office got a bit of refit, so we now have the 3rd set of toilet roll dispensers in 11 years. These ones look like large white eggs stuck onto the cubical wall, and they dispense pre-cut pieces of toilet paper (an actual roll is apparently so last decade). I had no idea that toilet roll technology moved so quickly! We also have an exciting new soap dispenser, to go with the 5 signs that tell us to wash our hands. I can hardly wait to see where bathroom technology will take us in the future!

I resisted for a week, but I just have to share this.
The following conversation occurred between myself and my friend the Coke Shy Hero in Burger King. It followed an appearance by Ian Paisley on the news the day before.

Me: I thought Paisley was looking well.
Him: Did you? I thought he had a bit of a limp.
Me: Probably from kicking Peter Robinson. He’ll be shouting “Come back Peter and I’ll kick you with the other foot”.
Him: You mean Ian Paisley kicks with the other foot!!

Yes, that’s it. But I thought it was hilarious.

I am lacking in moral fibre, and finally got myself an iphone this week. I’ve wanted one for months, but O2 decided that I needed to learn the value of patience, and kept me waiting for my contract to finish.

There are a lot of things to like about it.

• Bluetooth works nicely – with my little in ear headset for calls, with the stereo headphones for music, and with the car. I had the stereo headphones with me to the gym tonight, and had a carefree wirefree evening. Great!
• It is a lovely small but functional internet browsing device.
• In addition to my own music and videos, BBC iplayer streams beautifully on it (using wifi), but even on lesser connections it was happy to stream radio in the gym over the internet.
• It’s a terribly clever controller for games. There are some where you turn and twist it in your hands to control things, and others where controls get drawn on the smooth surface and can be as complex or simple as the game requires.
• It has some clever apps, and some useful apps, and some that are both, and some that are neither, but I’ve been impressed so far.
• It has good taste in shuffling! It picked Lee Morgan’s The Sidewinder for me to run too, following by Mark Ronson’s God put a smile on your face. Instrumentals are great to run to, since you don’t have to put any effort into singing along (mainly silently when I’m in public, thank goodness).

• The good news – I bought some Pepsi Raw today in Tescos. I hadn’t heard about it, but it’s an interesting idea. If you’re familiar with the process of making cola, you’ll know that some of the ingredients in it are not very friendly (there are these sorts of warnings). So Pepsi have launched a back to basics product, with all natural ingredients – so no artificial colouring, flavourings or preservatives. My friend described it best – it had a nice fruity hint to it that was reminiscent of Christmas cake. It has a premium price, but I think it’s very nice. Well worth a try.
• But the bad news – I haven’t been able to buy a bag of flumps since before Christmas. If you aren’t familiar with the joy of flumps, they are truly wonderful marshmallow sweeties like these. Usually you can get a nice big bag of them in Tescos, or Sainsburys, or any fine sweet shop. But not these days. I worry that the increase in the popularity of Rainbow Drops (more widely available than they were a year ago) is somehow at the expense of flumps in some frightening cosmic balance thing.