What a difference a few days make

When I came back from Spain last Tuesday, little did I know what would unfold just 48 hours later. My daughter went off on a hen party to Majorca for four days on the Thursday and won't now be able to get back until Saturday night - and even then only by flying on the only flight they could get, to Doncaster (not Gatwick where they set off from). If they wanted to return to Gatwick they wouldn't be able to get on a flight until Wednesday week! Oh and even if they could get to the Spanish mainland (I've suggested hiring a pedalo) the ferries from Santander are fully booked until the 28th and I am not sure how much faith I have in the Navy being able to pick everyone up. How many people can an aircraft carrier hold and where would they sleep?

To cap it all the French border police put paid to any chance of a repeat of the Dunkirk flotilla being raised. A pity that because it would be great seeing a mixture of pleasure boats, dinghies and barges crossing the channel to do their bit to get our brave tourists and business people back anytime soon.

I am sure there re very good reasons for the total ban on flights, but it does beg the question, is this the only serious volcanic eruption in recent history? I am not questioning the severity of it, but you'd expect at the very least a bit of a hazy sky or maybe a bit of darkness and swirly stuff. Instead Britain is relatively basking in its best weather for quite a while.

All this can't be doing much for the economic recovery. I expect Brown will get the blame somehow.

Is it OK to slag off the oppo in public?

OK, this seems a bit random, but a debate has been raging this morning after an advertising agency posted a couple of tweets, the first which boasted about making less loss than another, and the second which took a pop at a rival agency for going bust in one of the countries they operate in and thus bringing into question their 'global' claim.

Now, the debate is this - to the outsider who doesn't know the agency in question it seems like a blatant dig at one of their competitors. The flip side of the coin is that to those who know this particular agency, their comments should always be seen to be a bit tongue in cheek as they are 'a quirky bunch'.

My take on it? It may attract attention but I am not sure the attention is purely positive. Potential clients reading such tweets might judge it as being in poor taste and unnecessary, particularly the heralding of a business going bust and jobs being lost, wherever they might be.

What's your take? Keep quiet on such matters and be judged by your results or post seemingly damning stuff then hide behind your company's whacky persona?

I'm a judged by results man myself. I made a profit last year. That must make me better than the lot of them!

PS- Showing my age, but it reminds me of the Saatchi's and JWT I think it was, spat years ago. One slagged off the other in Campaign one week, so the very next the other took out a full page ad saying something along the lines of "being slagged off by them is like being savaged by a dead sheep". It created quite a stir at the time. I could have crushed several grapes I can tell you!

Telling your children what you did - Part 1

I had a random thought the other day. My dad died when I was 13, so I really never got to know what he did for a living. I know he worked for ICI and was in PR and I know he spent a lot of time in Westminster, presumably lobbying MPs, but that's about it.

Anyway, it got me thinking, with all this technology at our disposal these days, finding images of places where I used to work and writing a bit about them would be a nice thing to do for my children. It would be good to write about the jobs I had and the places I worked so that they could be better informed about what it was their dad actually did than I was about mine.

It was only some time later, after a few lengthy searches that I discovered that three of the buildings I used to work in have been demolished - and I can't even find an image of one of them anywhere

We're not going back eons here, but the building where I started my career working in offices as a Clerical Assistant in the Department of Transport was knocked down in 2003. Here's an extract from the report "one of SE1's ugliest monstrosities - St Christopher's House, described in the GLA planning decision report as 'deeply unattractive', has been demolished."

Not a great start then. The trouble was, I knew that my next place of employment had also suffered the same fate. Marsham Towers, pictured above, were only put up in 1971, yet were soon described as "the very image of faceless bureaucracy", whilst local people nicknamed them "the three ugly sisters". No surprise then when they were taken down in 2003. I was a Clerical Officer in the Contracts (Highways) Department there for 3 years.

It doesn't get any better either, for my next port of call for some seven years was a building called Gotch House in St. Bride Street, EC4 where I worked as a Classified Advertising Sales Executive for The Daily Telegraph. Guess what? That's been knocked down too.

From there I went to work in the same field, i.e. ad sales, at The Brighton Evening Argus. Last I heard the building was still standing, but it's not newspaper offices anymore. They relocated quite a few years ago so it would come as no surprise to find that it was derelict or indeed demolished too. Part of me doesn't want to find out!

So there you have it. Three places of work, three demolitions, with a fourth possible if I am brave enough to dig a bit deeper. 89 North Road, Brighton was the address from memory. If anyone knows the fate of that building, please don't tell me . Oh go on then! Put me out of my misery why don't you?

In part 2 I will investigate my workplaces in Soho Square, a road behind Marylebone High Street W1 whose name I can't remember offhand , Rivington Street EC2, High Holborn, Fitzroy Street W1 and Chancery Lane WC2. I am not holding much hope for some of their chances. I know that all of them no longer house the companies I used to work for. As for the building's fate, stay tuned! I could be a demolition jinx!

Welcome to my big black blog

No idea what am going to write about on here, but everyone's got a blog these days haven't they? So, even though I am a guest blogger in a couple of places, I thought I'd create one of my own.

I'll have a think about what direction I want to take with this particular blog and be back later.

Until then....