So long, 2009. Don't let the door hit you in the ass on the way out.

I wasn't sorry to see the back of 2008. 2009's been an even more interesting year. By 'interesting', I mean 'shite'. But the more well-balanced of my friends tell me that it's always a worthwhile exercise to focus on the long term; so here, in the waning hours of the last year of the decade, is my brief, off-the-top-of-my-head inventory of the ten years just passed.

- Y2K-related disasters: 0
- Children: 2
- Houses bought: 1
- Houses sold: 1
- Cars: 6
- Moves: 3
- International moves: 1
- Jobs lost: 1
- Jobs found: 1
- Dirty diapers changed: ~4,000
- Kitchens remodeled: 1
- Kitchens I wish I could remodel: 1 (the current one)
- Countries visited: 11
- Grandparents lost: 1
- Hours commuting: ~6,000
- Blog posts: 111
- Photos: 27,198
- Fender benders: 1 (today)
- Facebook friends: 333

I guess the Noughties haven't been all good, but they haven't been all bad either. I suppose that in any period of time, there will be highs and lows, but on average, things have a way of balancing themselves out.

I hope that you have a happy, healthy and prosperous 2010.




First there was the recession-induced belt-tightening. Then I lost my job. I found it again pretty quickly, but there was a pretty touchy eight-week period.

Christmas Traditions

When a country's been around as long as England has, it's bound to acquire a few traditions which appear, to the uninitiated, somewhat peculiar.

Christmas provides a bountiful harvest of historical oddities. Mince pies sound like a much better idea than they actually are. Wassailing involves making a sacrifice of toasted bread to an apple tree. The Christmas pantomime.

At first glance, the panto seems a quaint but lovable tradition, endured with grudging good humor, much like the monarchy or our Electoral College. In actual fact, everyone looks forward to its arrival, though no one will admit this.

To the untrained observer, a pantomime is just a bad musical, loosely based on a well-known children's story, containing a high concentration of inside jokes and acted out by people who were almost famous once. But, as with so many things, one must look deeper to understand pantomime's true nature. It's actually a shockingly bad musical, loosely based on a well-known children's story, containing a high concentration of inside jokes and acted out by people who were almost famous once.

There are a few stock items which must be included in each and every pantomime. To wit:

- A villain, who must be booed each time he appears on stage

- At least one sob story, for which the audience must express adequate sympathy

- A buffoon who plays the part of a narrator/MC. He greets the audience each time he appears on stage, and the audience must respond appropriately.

- A transvestite

Aladdin is the panto show this year at the Wimbledon Theatre. Having seen one pantomime several years ago, I really felt no compulsion to attend another, despite having gone native with many other things. At least I didn't want to attend until I learned that the genie was to be played by none other than Pamela Anderson. Yes, the Baywatch beauty has arrived in our fair city, in all her peroxide- and silicone-enhanced glory. I'll leave it to the professional critics to dissect her performance, but suffice to say, it included about as much giggling, jiggling and Tommy Lee wisecracks as you'd expect.

As odd as the panto tradition is, though, I must admit that we harbor a few zinging oddities in our house, particularly with regard to the existence of Father Christmas. Not since the Piltdown Man has an utter fabrication been so painstakingly crafted and lovingly upheld. In our house, the Santa presents are wrapped in special paper. Santa has special gift tags. The children must never, ever, be allowed to see either the Santa paper or the tags in our closets. Michele and I had an argument tonight over whose name was to be attached to the Wii - ours or Santa's.

I don't think I'd have such an issue with the old chap, were it not for two things:

1 - I never believed in Santa as a child. My disbelief was a handy thing when, in second grade, Sister Joanne Whatshername told the class the truth about Santa Claus. I exchanged a knowing, dry-eyed glance with the only other non-believer in the class. We were vindicated. And a little relieved.

2 - The fat bastard gets the credit for the good presents. We give our kids socks and underwear, Santa gives them Nintendos and guitars. No wonder he gets a special plate for his cookies.

I have to admit, though, that it's kind of fun, perpetrating this lie. The children clearly enjoy the myth, it does no harm as far as I can tell, and, in bad years, we can call Santa a piker.

I showed Caroline how to check Santa's progress on NORAD's website tonight. She gazed in wonder at the Google Earth mash-up pinpointing Santa's location. She counted down the seconds and called out the locations as he moved from city to city, wide-eyed and mispronouncing Lithuania and Belarus.

Someday she won't believe in Father Christmas. Someday she'll have her heart broken. Someday she'll know all about sex and war and toxic debt.

But not tonight.

Tonight's Christmas Eve. Tonight Santa's coming. Tonight, everything's OK.

Merry Christmas.

Race Cars and Washing Machines

My grandfather died last December, a month short of his 82nd birthday.  He grew up during the Depression and lied about his age so he could enlist in the Navy early.  He worked three jobs to support his family - he would leave the house on Friday morning and worked straight through to Sunday.  

He was a designer of things - vending machines, industrial brushes.  Parts of the Apollo 11 lunar module.  The lines of his drawings were straight and dark and clean, and his handwriting looked to have been typeset.  

He could make himself an extremely disagreeable person, particularly in his declining years, but he could also be kind and generous.  My favorite memory of him is of the time he helped me build my Pinewood Derby cars.  This annual ritual of forming a slippery-fast racer from a plain block of wood brought us as close as we would probably ever be.  Our car never won, but it didn't matter.

Lately I've been channeling my grandfather.

At work, I've started keeping a stack of blank paper at my desk and making drawings of what I'm working on.  I've started using a pencil instead of a pen, and I've started writing like him, though not quite as neatly.

This week, the kids wanted to make washing machines.  I have no idea where this idea came from, but I'd promised to help them, so today, despite a smallish hangover, a leanover really, we made washing machines out of plastic jugs, a couple of cheap pens and a few kebab skewers.  

I hope the kids remember that.

Last Day of Summer

Remember how it felt when school started in the fall?  The late summer sun turning the leaves prematurely golden, the shadows lengthening early in the evening.  The crickets chirping in the cool night air.  A new pencil case, a crisp white shirt.  New school shoes just out of their box and slightly too big.  The whole world seemed to hold its breath in anticipation of that first day of school.

And then the day finally cam and you realized - this sucks.

Today was the last day of summer holiday for the kids.  While their friends and relatives in the States are enjoying their long holiday weekend, celebrating whatever it is that Labor Day is supposed to commemorate, our kids will be sweating in their starchy new clothes, nursing the blisters from their new shoes and misplacing their new pencil cases.  

Michael starts Year 1, and Caroline Year 3.  These are both big steps.  I remember starting first grade.  I was frightened of my first grade teacher, Sister Bernadette.  She yelled a lot and once made Kara Sincavage stand in the trash can.  She had a red-faced tantrum when she tripped over Jeanne Rowlands, who'd leaned over to stuck her head in the bottom of the desk to look for something.  I remember the Phonics book from first grade, and that 'W' was sometimes a vowel back then.  

I also remember third grade.  We had bathrooms in the classroom in elementary school and I locked myself in one.  They had to call the janitor to get the lock undone.  This of course all transpired in a classroom full of my peers, all of whom thought it was about the funniest thing that had ever happened to them.  I don't really remember much else about third grade, but I'm sure something must've happened during the year.  Last I heard, my third grade teacher, Miss Chaya, was still teaching third grade, and looked much the same as she did thirty years ago when I was in school.

I spent twelve years in the same school, from first grade through twelfth.  I still have a few friends from that time.  They have children now, too, and they have new school shoes.  

And so it goes.

Party's Over

They warned me about this, the people who came here before me.  They told me that eventually, everyone leaves London.  I never believed them.  I do now.  

Two sets of close friends are leaving.  That comprises a fairly large percentage of those we feel comfortable phoning up on the weekend and inviting to an impromptu.  OK, so we don't have all that many close friends, but we're just poor foreigners.  London is really an Ellis Island: the people here are generally in transit to somewhere else: New York, Australia, Kent.  As a result, there is little constancy, and even less attachment.  It's very Zen.  Or at least it should be.

Today we had a little party to bid good luck and adieu to those who are leaving.  The combination of the end of summer sun-slant, this afternoon's grey clouds, and a largeish amount of Champagne conspired to make it a somewhat bittersweet but still enjoyable afternoon. 

If you've watched the fizz vanish from a glass of Champagne, you already know what an apt metaphor this is for the nature of the acquaintances one makes here.  People are constantly coming and going.  Some you like, most you don't.  But there's a decidedly un-fizzy quality to a few of the acquaintances, and the people here today were very much not fizzy.  I can't help but believe that at least a few of the friendships we've made here won't vanish like a Champagne froth.

Whether or not you're fortunate enough to have friends who've just returned from Champagne with a carload of booze, you will no doubt enjoy today's recipe.  This is very much a Fall dish, best served with falling leaves and departing birds.  Or departing leaves and falling birds.

End of the World as We Know It Potato Salad

Regular readers will note the similarity between this and my Totally Edible Brussels Sprouts.  This is no accident.  Bacon makes almost anything better.

500g Streaky Bacon

1 Red onion

2 lb new potatoes, washed and quartered

2 shallots

1Tbs olive oil

1 Cup apple cider vinegar

2Tbs wholegrain mustard

Salt and Pepper

Boil the potatoes for 12 minutes and drain well.  Meanwhile, dice the shallots and peel and quarter the onion. Slice the onion into 1/4in pieces.

Heat the oil over medium heat in a large heavy skillet.  Cube the bacon and drop into the oil.  Stir constantly until it stops steaming.  Reduce heat to medium low and continue cooking until the bacon is brown but not hard.

Remove the bacon from the pan using a slotted spoon, reserving the bacon fat in the pan.  Raise the heat to medium.  Add a little more oil if needed and when the oil is fairly hot, drop the sliced onion into the pan.  Stir constantly, breaking the onion into individual pieces and shaking the pan occasionally to spread out the onion.  When the onion has started to cook, reduce the heat to low and add the shallots.  Continue stirring and shaking until the onions and shallots have turned very soft.  Remove the onions and shallots with a slotted spoon, reserving the oil in the pan.

Increase heat to high and when the oil is just starting to smoke, add the vinegar and open a window.  Stir the brown bits from the pan into the vinegar and add the onion, shallot and bacon and mustard.  Let this heat a bit and add the potatoes, turning to coat with the mixture.  Season to taste with salt and pepper.

Serve warm.  You can reheat the potatoes in the pan if needed.

Bachelorhood

Every year, Michele and the kids take a summer holiday in the US and I stay here in London.  I tend to enjoy both a bit of solitude and a bit of going where the wind blows me, so these few weeks do have their appeal.

But it's also somewhat alarming how so many years of training and evolution unravel so quickly. 

I returned to London last Sunday morning, and immediately switched to Bachelor Phase 1.  This involves peeing with the door open, leaving the toilet seat up and not making the bed.  Bachelor Phase 2, which set in sometime on Monday, means that I'm leaving my socks on the stairs, my suit jacket on the newel post and my work shirts on the dining room floor.  All of these may seem innocuous, and they probably are.  

Bachelor Phase 3, however, is deeply disturbing, so it was while watching late-night TV on the couch in my underwear and eating a takeaway curry at midnight off an overturned laundry basket that I realized: it's a damn good thing that I'm married, or I'd be a total degenerate.

Yes, I relish the freedom to come and go as I please, without feeling guilty that I should be spending more time with Michele and the children.  And yes, I also enjoy coming home to a quiet house when I'm tired of socializing and need some down time.  But I wonder whether not having these things all the time is exactly what keeps me from falling off the edge.

I earn a fairly good living, so I've often fantasized about what it would be like to have all my income to spend on me.  I'd travel, buy a boat, eat curry at midnight on a makeshift table.  But the fact is, I don't particularly enjoy travelling alone, I get seasick rather easily, and eating on the couch in one's undergarments is, frankly, deeply pathetic.  If I had all my income to myself, I'd probably be a nasty drunk with permanent curry stains on my fingers.

In fact, I can't help wondering whether having a family has led to my earning a decent income.  If I only had me to worry about, would I work as hard?  Would I be as motivated to progress my career?  Or would I simply sit back and live moment to moment?

The question is completely academic, really.  The facts are that I DO have a family and I DO work hard.  Whether these facts are in any way connected is completely unknowable.  The fact is also that this family is going to return to London soon, so I'd better vacuum up the rice I've spilled.  Right after my nap.

Blueberries

I am feeling particularly sentimental tonight, even for me.  

It is a breezy, crisp evening.  The sun has long since set and the new leaves now scour a sapphire sky.  The air feels autumnal as I perform my small evening rituals, all tea-making and milk-bottle-washing.

It is a night that longs to be inhabited, sweatered and hatted and glasses filled in the back yard.  It is a night that silently wishes it had a fire, that asks for nothing but that is full of possibility, an overflowing void.  

But there is no fire.  There is no sweater, no hat.  There is no wine.  It is the middle of spring, not the beginning of fall.  

There was a fire on a mountain thousands of miles away that burned the better part of my childhood.  It raped the paths and the rocks and the blueberry bushes where my mother and I spent golden summer afternoons.  There have been other fires, too, fires that took away places and people and things I've loved and forgotten and remembered again.

My daughter now insists on bathing unaided, preferring to grapple by herself with the mysteries of soaps and valves and gels; she wants to "be big".  I am in no hurry but I know that her fire will come eventually, inevitably, as it does to all parents of children, and to all children of parents.  

I've wasted much time wishing they were older and didn't need me so much.  I got my wish.  Now take it back.  Please.

Intelligent Design

As some of you will no doubt realize by now, I'm a big fan of intelligent design.  No, not the one that tries to compete with evolution, but just, you know, good design.  The MacBook, for instance, or TiVo.  Both are designed intelligently.

I had a conversation about design with the kids yesterday at breakfast.  The brandy barrel had broken off Caroline's toy St. Bernard, and as I tried to piece it back together I made a comment about it being a poor design.  Because of how it was attached, there is absolutely no way that brandy barrel could possibly have remained attached for any length of time under normal usage conditions.  Even Caroline, who is exceptionally careful with her things, managed to snap it off in under 10 minutes. 

My comment led inevitably to the sorts of questions one is generally unprepared to answer before 10am, questions about the meaning of the word 'design', and what things in the room had been designed, and by whom.

Among the many classic Looney Tunes episodes shown on TV here is this one, "Water, Water Every Hare".  Go ahead, watch it.  You know you want to.

via videosift.com

The kids, who spend a lot of time watching classic Looney Tunes episodes, had recently seen this one, and I was well impressed when Michael asserted that the scientist had designed the robot, or at least I was once I'd puzzled out what the hell he was talking about.

This led to a conversation about the various capabilities of the robot, what he would be designed to do, and of the sort of moral and intellectual limitations that a large metal animatron designed by an evil scientist might exhibit.  

Into this discussion, I injected the question of whether it would be better to build a robot that doesn't walk into walls, or one that doesn't fall over when it walks into a wall.  My belief, based on a fair amount of experience with software and infrastructure architecture, is that an intelligent design would be one that assumes that no matter how much effort is put into the wall avoidance mechanism, there are unforeseeable conditions which at some point will cause the robot to walk into a wall.  My view, therefore, is that while a sensible effort should be made to avoid intersecting with walls unnecessarily, considerably more effort should be put into equipping the robot with the necessary mechanisms to gracefully handle those situations which might otherwise cause him to fall over.

Of course, this view is somewhat abstract so I'd assumed that the kids would think that it would be better to build a robot that doesn't walk into walls, thus affording me the opportunity to lecture them on the necessity to plan for and mitigate failure.  I was therefore really surprised that Caroline said it's better to build the robot, "not to fall over, because it might accidentally walk into a wall even if it's not meant to".

Now, you might see this entire post up to this point as me shamelessly constructing for myself a platform from which to brag about how smart my children are, and you'd be right but only partly.  Because it also provides a useful starting point to raise the subject of human intelligence in general.

The human mind is a subject which has long fascinated me.  How do we think?  How does our environment influence the outcome of our thought processes?  How does our own ego, our view of ourselves, alter our thinking?  

To make this discussion somewhat less abstract, let me give you my own, somewhat embarrassing example.  In 1994 or '95, I visited Penn State and attended a technology fair.  One of the products being demonstrated was a graphical interface for the command-line Internet technologies I'd spent so many late nights in college mastering: FTP, Gopher, RXIRC.  Having bested these beastly applications was a source of pride for me.  How dare someone make them easy to use!  How dare the founders of America On Line throw wide the gates of my technological temple to the great unwashed masses!

Of course, you know how this story ends.  Some years later, while elbowing my little Honda through rush hour traffic, I was overtaken by an impossibly large Jaguar.  As it glid lithely past my window, I noticed the number plate: "THX AOL".  'Nuff said.

The point is that I learned from that experience - I changed my thought approach.  My initial view was heavily affected by pride and ego, but my subsequent thinking is influenced by examining that initial thinking and comparing the outcome which arose from it to the actual state of the world.  In other words, I've since realized that I'd have been the guy driving the Jag if I hadn't been so pig-headed and territorial.  But the good news is that I wasn't bound irrevocably to my initial thought pattern.  I'm still not driving a car that's roughly the length of the Lusitania, but at least I know enough now to set aside personal prejudices and think differently when the situation warrants doing so.

I worry about a lot of things: war, global warming, the economy.  But these fears are based on the assumption that everything continues infinitely along its current trajectory, that nothing changes.  Of course, we all know this to be a patently false assumption.  In the late 1800's, the horsepower to move people around in cities was provided almost exclusively by actual horses.  The problem, of course, is that horses, like politicians, produce enormous quantities of shit, and it all has to end up somewhere.  The trouble at the end of the 19th century was that it ended up in the street.  At least one urban planner predicted that by 1950, every street in London would be buried under 9 feet of horse manure.  Most everyone at the time agreed that streets awash in horse crap were at odds with the emerging image of the modern city, yet attempts to solve the problem directly failed.

Of course, the problem was ultimately solved, but not by people attacking it head-on.  Rather, it was solved because innovation responds to incentive, and not necessarily to a specific problem.  Henry Ford didn't develop a mass-produced automobile to solve the horse manure problem, he developed it because he recognized that there would be massive financial rewards accruing to anyone who could provide an affordable, ubiquitous means of transport.  The fact that his work also happened to address a looming future problem was a good, but secondary outcome.

And this, I think, is the real story.  I didn't teach Caroline that it's better to incorporate failure recovery than to try to avoid all possible failure scenarios, she figured that out on her own.  How, I don't know, but she did, so that's good.  Most species that have existed on this planet are now extinct.  We're not.  Why?  Because as a species, we're undeniably intelligent.  Individually we may do unfathomably stupid things, but collectively we can, and have, created a world that couldn't have been dreamt of by our ancestors.  

The other day, I watched our fox teach her pups how to hunt and kill their prey.  As the pups wrestled each other, she crouched, waiting, until one of them disentangled himself from his brother.  Then she sprang on him, wrestling him to the ground, holding his throat in her powerful jaws.  When she released the pup, he rejoined his brothers and attempted the same maneuver on one of them.  It was fascinating, to watch but it also supports my bullishness on humanity's future.  While foxes are born with a certain amount of instinct, they need to be taught through demonstration.  We can solve problems without having had someone show us how first.  I believe (well, I'm starting to convince myself, anyway) that innovation through the exercise of human intelligence will help us either avoid those catastrophic outcomes or recover from them more quickly. 

If we can build a robot that won't fall over, maybe there's hope for us after all.

 

I blame the parents

I'm trying to raise socially responsible, kind children who are well-adjusted and who can respond with calm and confidence when life doesn't go their way.  Really, I am.  But every once in a while, I really do want to encourage the kids to just kick the shit out of some little prick who clearly needs it.  

Again, only harder this time, honey.

Take today, for example.  We were at the park, having a perfectly nice time feeding the ducks and cleaning goose poop from between our toes, when for no apparent reason, some kid started in on Michael.  To Michael's credit, I thought he handled it pretty well.

"You're little.  I'm big.  You're an idiot."

"I'm not little."

"Oh yeah?  How old are you?"

"I'm four."

"Well I'm four and a half."

"Actually I'm four and three quarters."

"Well, you're stupid!"

Now, I knew that this child probably didn't arrive at his particular state of misanthropy on his own; this sort of behaviour manifests itself in either the attention deprived or the brain damaged.  The child had obviously received considerable assistance in this area from his father, who spent the entire time yakking inanely into his mobile whilst scratching his balls, so it's entirely possible that the boy was both.  It was only when someone else's father intervened because the kid nearly pushed a smaller child off a climbing frame that the father grudgingly detached himself from his intense discussion of the sublime joys of football and corrected, briefly, his kid's behaviour.  Hang up and pay some attention to your son, you self-absorbed asshole, so the rest of us won't have to.

One of my earliest childhood memories is of an event that took place on a playground in Long Island.  My family had gone to a party at a relative's house.  I was probably 5 or 6 and terribly bored, so my mother took me to a nearby playground.  There was a rocket-shaped climbing frame, which I and some other bigger boys were playing on.  The bigger boys, who were at the top, began shaking the structure, which frightened me.  I'm not sure why, maybe I thought it would fall over, or take off.  Anyway, I started to cry, and my mother intervened, yelling at the boys until they stopped.  

This was not my proudest moment.  I was not only ashamed because I was crying, but I was mortified that mommy had to come to my rescue.  For this reason, I try to avoid stepping in when my own kids are having a confrontation, unless whatever's going on is obviously likely to cause them serious harm.  Instead, I try to give them some approaches to help them deal constructively with similar situations, though God knows I'm not in the best position to deal rationally with someone else's bratty kid, and this discussion usually doesn't take place until well after the event, so I'm not sure it's really sinking in.

My resolve was starting to wear thin after the first altercation, when I heard Michael crying on another piece of play equipment.  Another boy had apparently stepped on his arm because he wanted to get past Michael.  OK, fair enough, these things happen, and I explained that to him.  But then a pair of five year olds were trying to dislodge him from his position (he was, to be fair, blocking the only passage).  To understand this exchange, you will need to bear in mind that Michael's chin recently lost an argument with the edge of the bathtub, requiring a visit to the A&E and resulting in a fairly ugly and occasionally bleeding scab.

"What happened to your chin?"

"I split it open."

"HAAA! HAAAA! He split his chin open!"

"Waaaaaah!  He laughed at me when I said I split my chin open!"

It may have been wrong to tell Michael that the boy taunted him because he was insufferably ignorant and deeply unhappy.  It may have been wrong to tell Michael that he shouldn't be too upset because that boy will most likely grow up to sell life insurance.  It may have been wrong to counsel Michael to label such a person a miserable git and to toss him in the rubbish bin of total disregard.  But the intent was good, and my Irish was up.  And, to be honest, I have painful memories of being teased as a child which always surface at such times.

Years ago in a life skills seminar I attended, the group was asked what makes parenting difficult.  The best response, the one that sticks with me today, was from a young single mother who had a reputation as something of a nasty piece of work.  It's the things other parents don't do.  Profound yet simple.  

Here's another bit of profound simplicity: if you're not going to bother actually raising your children, don't have them in the first place.

 

An Evening at A&E

We had a small emergency last night.  Michael, at 4, is not terribly coordinated.  (I, at 38, am not either, but that's beside the point).  There was water on the bathroom floor, and little Michael, trying to climb into the bath, slipped and bashed his chin on the side of the tub.  This resulted in an inch-long gash which bled profusely over his tiny naked person.

It is with some trepidation that I bring my beloved bleeding offspring to the emergency room.  Our friend Johnathan is kind enough to drive us. In the car, Michael has calmed down somewhat and only occasionally produces a tortured sound when I dab at his chin with a wet washrag, now bloodstained and cold.  Why I haven't thought to put some more appropriate dressing on his wound is a mystery.

St. George's A&E department is just about everything I'd imagined the NHS to be.  The queue for registration is 10 deep.  Over there is an intoxicated Pakistani who falls out of his wheelchair to crack his skull on the snack machine.  A bystander attempts to lift him back into the chair while a slim, pretty nurse makes a halfhearted attempt to talk him in.  I suspect he speaks no English.  

A teenage mother of two in dilapidated Ugg boots and a dirty track suit curses at everyone and at no one in particular for allowing the drunk man to flop about the room.  "I'm not havin' it!" she shrieks, accompianied by various colloquialisms.  It is difficult to take seriously one so young.  It is a Vicky Pollard moment and Michael stares, wide-eyed; he is in the scene, it swirls around him and over him, but he is somehow separate from it, non-combatant.  An observer.

Michael's chin is bleeding again and as I turn to wipe it, the young mother in the tracksuit finishes registering, and the mainspring of her anger over the drunk spends the last of its energy in a volley of obscenities as she moves off.  It is now our turn, but there is a woman lying on the floor near the registration desk.  "Do you know that there is a woman lying on the floor?" I ask the clerk.  

"Yes," she replies with a knowing smile and a slight shake of her head that suggest the prostrate woman may be a regular.  "She told me she was going to lie down."  The clerk is remarkably friendly, relative to those I've encountered in my limited experience with hospital registration clerks.  I wonder whether it's because although I'm obviously a foreigner, I'm clearly one who is likely to pay taxes and contribute to the NHS.  I wonder if she's as friendly to the Pakistani, or to the floor-hugger.

Forms completed, I am instructed to take Michael into the Pediatric A&E, a separate area from the chaotic main waiting area.  Although it is devoid of the drunks and vagrants which inhabit the main area, it is instead absolutely heaving with children, parents, double and triple buggies, toys, bags.  It is a large room and it overflows with life.  The children cry or laugh or stare vacantly into the middle distance, but the adults appear uniformly unhappy.  There are 17 patients in front of us I am told by a nurse, and the wait is likely to be at least two hours.  She looks briefly at Michael's chin and makes a sympathetic noise.

I find a narrow perch for Michael on a bench and stand guard nearby.  He gives a book he's found to the little girl next to him and she reads it haltingly.  A woman with a small and tired-looking child on her lap moves aside a bit to let me sit.  I read to Michael and to the little girl whose name is Shayla.  She is seven.  Ten minutes pass, then twenty.  We have just started our third book, a book of poorly-rhymed and arrhythmic story-poems about teddy bears when the sympathetic nurse calls Michael's name.  She beckons us into a small examination room, asks a few questions about what happened.  She appears visibly relieved that she won't have to involve social services.

I have expected that stitches will be the outcome, though I haven't told Michael this, but Gerry the nurse delivers unexpected good news.  Not only will they use glue rather than stitches to put my Humpty back together, but also she can perform the procedure on her own, and can do it for us in short order.  Back to the waiting area, where my suddenly high spirits are only slightly dampened when I discover that our seats have been taken.

Moments later, Gerry comes for us again and takes us to a bed in a curtained-off area.  Michael begins to whimper a little as we walk, but doesn't cry.  I lift him onto the gurney and continue reading bad bear poetry as Gerry pastes him back together and calls him "baby" affectionately.  I am reminded of the time my monther passed out while my thumb was being stitched back together after an incident involving a red pepper and a large chef's knife, and I am glad that Michael will not need any injections.

His chin now back in one piece, Michael scuplts pretzels into letters by nibbling strategically, and thanks to Gerry we are home by 9:00.  There will probably be a scar, but there will be no hospital bill, no insurance forms, no copayments.

I wonder how the Pakistani fared.

Zen Vacuum

There's something incredibly soothing about vacuuming.  Feel the rhythmic back-and-forth motion, hear the unbroken monotone whine of the motor, the broken wheel squealing at regular intervals.  See the alternating triangular patches of light and dark carpet.  

At this point, you men are rolling your eyes and you women are wondering if I have an available brother.  Ladies, sorry, too late, I'm taken.  (And I cook, too.)  Men, it's the same feeling of combined accomplishment and well-being that you get from mowing the lawn.  Now you're getting me, right?

So today, while vacuuming the carpets in the old house, I emptied my mind (not a lengthy operation, admittedly) and meditated.  Push, squeak.  Pull, squeak.  What is this all about, anyway?  What do I want from my life?  What do I want to be when I grow up?  Where did it all go wrong?  And where did it go right?

Much of my adult life has been spent in pursuit of security, but in a roundabout way.  Go to college, get a job.  Work hard.  Get a better job.  Work harder.  Build a career.  Make more money.  Buy more stuff.  Income=stuff=security, so income=security, right?  But it doesn't, does it?  If there's anything to be taken from the experience of losing my job (although technically, I'm just 'at risk' of losing it), it's that there IS no security.  

Push, squeak.  Pull, squeal.

But how do you actually GET security?  I mean, it'd be nice to drop out and go walkabout for a couple of years, maybe sleep on the beach now and then, run a tiki bar somewhere.  There's a cafe for sale on a Greek island for €75,000.  Tempting.  But what's the education system like in Greece?  Could I support my family peddling saganaki and ouzo to pasty British tourists?  Maybe not.

Push, squeak.  Pull, squeal.

Maybe security is really just a function of whether you feel secure.  Do I feel secure?  I guess so.  There's a severance package coming my way once the consultation period is over, that provides a certain level of security.  I have a  few transferrable, marketable skills.  But what if something goes wrong and the severance doesn't come through?  Nothing's guaranteed until the cheque is in the bank.  And then what if the bank where I keep the money fails?  What if my visa isn't approved?  What if I can't find a job before the money runs out?  

Push, squeak.  Pull, squeal.

I've always been a thinker.  Unfortunately, thinking results in conjuring up a wide array of possible outcomes, some of which are inevitably more frightening than others.  For this reason, I worry a lot.  The recession.  The environment.  My health. A terrible image forms in my imagination, faded and cracked like an old picture.  An image composed of photos I've seen of the Depression.  A man in line for bread, clothes dirty and torn; a stub of a cigarette hangs from the corner of his slack mouth.  His children, uneducated and hungry, their growth arrested by malnutrition, their hair straggly, their eyes frightened.

Push, squeak.  Pull, squeal.

But what is the likelihood that any of these dire possibilities actually comes to pass?  Certainly not nil, but also not as likely as a positive outcome.  So maybe that's my security; the knowledge that while there are any number of awful possibilities, the most likely outcome isn't one of them.  In fact, the most likely outcome is that I'll find a job, pay the rent, feed the kids and things will be just fine.  Different from before, maybe, but still fine.  

And it's this realization that makes me feel secure.  The knowledge that in all likelihood, things will be just fine.

So maybe there's really no security.  Or maybe we just have to make our own.

Push.  Squeak.

Construction Project

There's very little that can't be accomplished with a little ingenuity and a virtually unlimited supply of cardboard.  I suspect that the space shuttle program was conjured up using only these raw materials.

Take, for example, the water closet I mentioned in my last post.  I have spent literally hours watching "This Old House" reruns, so I know a thing or two about old houses.  My instincts and extensive training tell me that this WC must have been added some years after the house was originally constructed.  Unfortunately, in the late 1800's when indoor plumbing was coming into fashion, hygiene hadn't yet been invented, and the Victorian owner who added the toiletof course didn't include a sink.  (Some well-intentioned but misguided owner later installed a towel warmer, but unless one is meant to wash one's hands in the toilet, there seems very little point in having a supply of warm towels when there's no basin).

Since it's unlikely that we will ever require the services of a third toilet, particularly one without a nearby sink, we decided to put in a coat rack and use this WC as a coat closet.  The downside of this is that we'll be hanging our coats directly over a loo, which, if you stop to think about it, is just a bit over the line you don't cross when you're living in a First World nation.  The solution, of course (short of tearing the thing out) is to cover the toilet up.  Somehow, not being able to see the toilet makes the idea of storing our clothing in close proximity to it more palatable.

I have more free time than I know what to do with these days, so I spent the better part of yesterday afternoon engaged in a measuring, marking and cutting frenzy, at the end of which I'd succeeded in covering the toilet and tank in cardboard, and in covering everything else within a 10-foot radius in blue permanent marker.  Regardless, our Water Closet Storage Unit is a go.

Thus emboldened by my early success in the cardboard construction trade, I set about today to put a floor in the attic made entirely of cardboard boxes.  I've upgraded my tools, though, having purchased new blades for my utility knife, I'm much more productive and surgical in my cutting than I could ever be with mere scissors.  Tomorrow, I'm considering covering the walls of the downstairs shower so we can use that as a utility closet.  Maybe I'll try building a car...

I expect that these alternative construction skills which I'm now honing will find a use later on when many of us from the industry formerly known as Banking are living under bridges.  If anyone needs me, I'll be in the fourth shanty from the left; the one with the indoor cardboard toilet and no sink.

Moving With Children - Redux

I'll admit it.  I hate change.  Actually, that's not true.  I love change, I just hate changING.  This may come as a surprise.  After all, I DID uproot a perfectly content family and move them to the rainiest, greyest, most expensive place on the planet on a whim, but that's different.  That was change initiated by ME.  That kind of change is A Good Thing.  Moving to London, Good Thing.  Buying a Mac, Good Thing.  But today, due to events largely outside of my control, we moved house.  Not a Good Thing.

For starters, there's the issue that it wasn't ME who initiated the change, it was our landlord.  He's lost his job in South Africa and has to move back, so he and his family need a place to live.  As our lease was conveniently at an end, out we went.  And there's the fact that the only house we could find that would actually fit our American furniture (for example, we brought with us a bed the size of Texas), is kind of on the wrong side of town and has very little storage.  By very little, I of course mean none at all, unless you count the shed and the spare toilet room that we've pressed into service as a coat closet.  Yes, there's something unsettling about having a slash in a room full of jackets, but it's either that or leave them outside.  

Then there's the heat.  The house has no thermostat, just a timer.  So our house has two temperatures: hot and otherwise.  I didn't discover this until after we'd taken possession of the place.  Caveat emptor, you may say, but seriously, would YOU think to check whether there's a means of controlling the temperature in a residence you were considering living in?  Who the hell installs a heating system with no thermostat?  I had the managing director of the estate agency around to validate my findings (or lack thereof), and he tried to sell it as a benefit by drawing a comparison to his under-floor heating system, which apparently needs a few hours notice to heat his house.  "But with this system, the house will get warm immediately"  As he was quite posh, "immediately" was pronounced "ee MEED jut leah".  Gee, thanks, bub, and I suppose you'll give me the rundown on the fab Instant-On Lighting, right?

But then, there's the kitchen.  Ah, the kitchen; the soul of the home.  Except that our soul is apparently a hard little pimple on the ass end of the house.  Diminutive counters and a dearth of cabinet space, an aging electric stove squeezed into a corner and fixtures from the Thatcher era make our kitchen the culinary equivalent of a double-breasted suit, shiny with overuse and two sizes too small.  Julia Child is doing turnovers in her grave.

So why, you may well ask, did we choose to move here?  In actual fact, it's really not as bad as I've made it sound.  The house is very old, but it has some gorgeous and seemingly original Victorian features, like big thick doors and chunky moulding (I do love moulding) and intricate ornate plasterwork on the ceilings.  It's an Upstairs, Downstairs sort of place, we've got the fancy rich guy part, and a couple of Russians have the servants' quarters in the basement.  I wonder if anyone's told them what I like for breakfast.  

The kids bedroom is also large enough that we can fit both of their beds AND both of their dressers in.  Now Michael won't have to sleep on the pullout mattress under Caroline's bed, and he can keep his clothes in a proper dresser, not the plastic 3 drawer thingy we've had him using.

It also runs about £300 a month less than our old place and, get this, includes a gardener twice a month, so it appeals to both my unemployed status and my terminally sedentary nature. Woohoo!

I'm sure that once we get everything unpacked and put away, and once we get used to the chavs down the street and the Russians living in our basement, it'll all be fine.  It's funny, though, that the kids seem to have inherited my distaste for changing.  Tonight, his first night sleeping in his OWN bed, Michael wanted to sleep on the pullout mattress under Caroline's bed.  You just can't win with us.

ShiteBank

I'm never going to be the guy they nickname 'Happy', but having spent a fair bit of the morning raking fox crap out of the garden, I was in an especially curmudgeonly mood when I tried, vainly, to contact a knowledgeable human from my bank.

Normally, I avoid talking to people from banks if it is in any way convenient to do so.  Today, though, I had a question that couldn't be answered by pressing numbers on the telephone keypad.  Today, I actually needed to speak to someone in a branch office.  You'd think a big outfit like my well-known multinational bank would have this sussed out.  Hell, my little credit union back in the US sprays their contact numbers pretty much everywhere.  Not so here, though.  

Being put at risk in someone else's country brings with it its own set of challenges, not least of which, that of finding a way to remain in the country legally after one's employment expires.  Obtaining a visa is a relatively straightforward affair.  You either meet the requirements and you get the visa or you don't and you don't.  Simple, or at least it would be, except that the Home Office is changing the requirements next month.  Starting from 1 April, applicants need to have a Master's degree or better; I have a Bachelor's.  This means that I need to get my application in before 1 April, and if I make any kind of misstep on the application, I won't get a second chance.  The application is 70 pages long.  That's a lot of opportunity for mis-stepping.

I've hired a lawyer to help me out.  Really, I just wanted someone else to fill out the paperwork and to make sure that I get everything just right.  And this getting everything right is, as often happens when lawyers get involved, where the wheels came off.

Applying for a visa involves paying a lot of money and going on a scavenger hunt.  I needed my diploma (stashed away in a warehouse in Delaware, along with Rosebud and Jimmy Hoffa), copies of my last 12 months of payslips (easily obtained online, except that I don't have access to my company's systems anymore), copies of my bank statements for the last 12 months (I have 9 out of 12, what does that get me?).  All of these hurdles finally cleared, I thought it would be smooth sailing, until my lawyer called today to tell me that I also need a bank statement that covers right up to the date I apply for the visa, which will be this coming Friday.  

And so it was that I found myself today, shoes full of poo, attempting to patiently reason with some lackey deep in the bowels of my bank's call centre.  Normally when you want a copy of a bank statement, you order it, they send it to you, it arrives a few days later.  In this case, that's not adequate.  I need to prove that, as of the day I apply, I have £2,399.  This is the amount that the government deems necessary to support me and my family (not sure how anyone would live on this for any length of time, that much might get you a decent meal down the pub), and that I've had that for at least three months.  So on the day that I apply for the visa, I have to get a bank statement that shows that, on that day, I had that much in my account.  

I'm sure you understand the impossibility of this task.  Even if the bank did happen to issue a statement on that day, I'd never get it on the same day.  One might reasonably assume that if one went to a branch, one could obtain a statement.  But then, one would not be dealing with my bank.  At my bank, not only do they not publish the phone numbers for the branches, but customer service is wholly unable to communicate with anyone in a branch.  

You will probably understand my frustration, therefore, at the below exchange:

Lackey: "I'm very sorry sir, but I cannot connect you to a branch office.  We do not have their telephone numbers."

Me: "OK, then I'd like the name of the manager of the Canary Wharf branch."

Lackey: "I'm very sorry sir, but I cannot provide that information.  We do not have that information."

Me: "I need a statement that includes all the activity up to the current date.  Can I get that in the Canary Wharf branch?"

Lackey: "I'm very sorry, sir, but the branches cannot print statements, but I can request one for you."

Me: "But will that get to me on the same day?"

Lackey: "I'm very sorry sir, but I cannot guarantee that it will reach you on the same day."

Me: "But I need it on the same day or it's useless.  Can I print a statement online and have the branch validate it?"

Lackey: "I'm very sorry sir, but I cannot say whether the branch can do that, you will need to speak to the branch."

Me: "HOW CAN I DO THAT IF I CAN'T CALL THE BRANCH?!?"

All call centres go to the same training course to deal with unhappy customers.  As soon as you ask to speak to a manager, they pretend that they can't hear you and hang up.  So tomorrow, I'm going to trek an hour across town to the branch in Canary Wharf and hope that they are marginally less incompetent than the people in the call centre.  At least when I ask for a manager, they can't hang up.

Love It, Love It, Love It!

No, not being redundant (or, more accurately, 'at risk of redundancy'), but my new MacBook.

OK, technically it's OUR new MacBook, and I do have to fight Michele and both of the kids to get some time with it, but that notwithstanding, and at the risk of sounding geeky, it's got a really high coefficient of cool.

I've been a PC user my whole life.  No, really - I started using DOS 1.0 when I was about 8.  I remember when there was no such thing as a subdirectory.  I remember Cassette Basic.  I remember 8MB hard disks.  I remember punch cards.  OK, the punch cards weren't actually for the PC, but I do remember them, since my mom used them when she was studying computer science in college and used to take me to her classes.

When I was in college, the computer labs had Macs and PCs running DOS.  Windows only made an appearance in my last semester, and then only in some of the labs.  I always used the PCs, even when it was the last week of the semester and everyone was finishing their papers and I had to wait for one and there were rows of available Macs.  Here I must admit to being a computing elitist; I've always thought of Macs as hand holding pieces of trash.

Until now.

It's really about the design.  I'm a big design freak.  I am disproportionately annoyed by badly laid out carparks; don't get me started on the barely usable Sky+ user interface.  It's total crap. Crap+, even.  But I digress, and I'll post something about that eventually.  It's crap.  The MacBook, (we bought the 13" aluminum model through the employee discount website on an impulse just before being put 'at risk') on the other hand, is sleek, yes, but it's also got a well thought out functional design.  

First, there are two large areas on either side of the mouse sensor where I can rest my meaty paws while I type.  The aluminum stays nice and cool, so my palms don't get all sweaty and sticky, and they're just the right size that the edge of the laptop doesn't cut into my hands.  I'm sure my hand position isn't 'proper', but who cares, I'm comfortable.

Second, there's the mouse sensor itself.  I've been using IBM Thinkpads for years, and have gotten used to the little red eraser head of a mouse in the middle of the keyboard.  But the Thinkpad mouse has a serious flaw - and I've encountered this on every single Thinkpad I've used with operating systems from Windows 3.1 through to Windows Vista - the damn thing has a mind of its own.  The pointer would float across the screen even without me touching it.  When I wanted it to go the other way, I had to fight with it.  Not so on the MacBook, the mouse goes where I put it and stays there.  Period.  There are also no mouse buttons to futz with, just tap the pad to click.  Now I've used Thinkpads with trackpads before, and the first thing I always did was to disable them, because the sides of my palms would always touch the pads and move the mouse around as I was typing.  Again, the MacBook doesn't suffer from this problem.

Next, there's the keyboard itself.  The keys are spaced far enough apart that even with fingers like sausages, I seldom bonk the wrong key accidentally.  Here again, this compares favourably to my Thinkpad, whose Backspace key is blank and shiny from erasing the typos caused by its teensy little Chicklet keys.  

Now, lest you think this a paid advert for the MacBook, I'll throw in my two complaints about it here.  First, there's no Delete key.  Well, there is, but it doesn't behave like a PC's Delete key, which removes characters to the right of the cursor.  The Mac's Delete key acts like a PC's Backspace key, removing characters to the left.  Try as I might, I cannot seem to find a key combination that emulates the behaviour of a PC Delete key, so a beer to the first person who can tell me how.  Second, the X key falls off at the slightest provocation.  This is surely a manufacturing defect, which I expect would be corrected in short order by taking it to a repair place.  With all this redundancy time on my hands, I may just do that.

OK, back to the upside.

Scrolling on a Thinkpad requires a carpal tunnel-inducing hand contortion involving holding down the mouse button with your thumb while simultaneously keeping the aforementioned willful mouse pointer confined to a horizontal space roughly the width of a helium atom and moving the mouse pointer vertically with the eraserhead.  On the Mac, you put two fingers on the sensor and move them up or down, left or right as appropriate.  Good design.

In Windows, to switch between applications, you hold the Alt key and press the Tab key repeatedly until you find the one you want, then you let go of the Alt key.  On the Mac, you swipe horizontally on the sensor with four fingers and click on the one you want.  Good design.

In Windows, to zoom in or out on a photo, you muscle the mouse pointer over to some sort of zoom control.  On the Mac, you pinch (to zoom out) or, um, unpinch (to zoom in).  See - I'm getting more creative already and making up verbs.  To rotate, you turn your thumb and forefinger clockwise or anticlockwise as appropriate.  Good design.

There's very little technology that doesn't disappoint me the minute I take it out of the box.  My iPod was one.  My TiVo (God, how I miss my TiVo) was another.  My, er, OUR MacBook is the third.  Thanks, Steve Jobs!

The Axeman Cometh

So it finally happened.  The GFC (that's 'Global Financial Crisis', according to my friend Simon; personally I prefer 'Global Friggin Cockup') has claimed another victim: me.

I was not entirely surprised when I got the news last Thursday that I am being 'put at risk' of redundancy.  After all, business isn't what it was a year ago.  What has surprised me, though, is just how OK I am with the whole thing.  Now, don't get me wrong: I've been working for the last 24 years, so not working isn't something I've ever learned how to do well.  I also can't help feeling a certain sense of loss over leaving the company I've called home for the last 13 years.  Hell, I've practically grown up there.  But there is something really energizing about not knowing what comes next.

For those of you who are unfamiliar with UK labour laws, 'at risk of redundancy' means that I technically still have a job.  As far as I can work out, though, this job appears to consist mainly of sleeping in, catching up on my reading and sprucing up my resume.  They call this 'gardening leave'.  I'm supposed to use it to look for another job internally, though of course, if there were many jobs internally, we wouldn't be in this situation.  At the end of the 90 day gardening leave, I become a free agent.  I'll get a severance package and that, as they say, will be that.  13 years gone.

Let me be absolutely clear about this: I'm not bitter.  I'm not.  I was paid pretty well for my work, I got to do a number of really interesting things, I travelled a bit on someone else's dime. The company certainly doesn't owe me anything.  I'm also confident that it isn't because I was a poor performer, or because someone didn't like me, or because I smelled bad.  It's simply a case of being in the wrong role at the wrong time.  

So what will I do?  As I said, I had a strong feeling this would happen.  Michele and I talked it over well in advance, worked through a number of scenarios, and decided to pull the trigger on a plan we'd been cooking up for a while, that being to take the kids and travel.  We'd planned to do this in a few years, so the timing isn't quite what we'd have liked, but it's as good a time as any.

Unfortunately, the act of making significant decisions in the abstract and after a few glasses of wine is always fraught with danger, this decision no less so.  Last Monday evening, I noticed the email count on my blackberry starting to tick inexplicably backwards towards zero.  I assumed this meant that I would get the redundancy call on Tuesday.  As I watched the detritus of my daily work life float gently away - 700 mails became 680, then 650, then 600 - my first emotion was a tremendous wave of relief.  Finally, the uncertainty about my job, the waiting for the axe to fall, would be over and I could get on with living.  200 mails.  150.  100.  When the count reached 50, my euphoria was cut short by a wave of stomach-flip nausea brought on by the realization that I would be without a job, without a home, without any of the security I'd spent my adult life scrabbling for.  This forced me, on my journey home that rainy night, to consider what this really meant; and to conclude, logically, that having a job is better than not having one, especially when you've got kids.

Turns out that the incident with the blackberry was a total fluke.  Tuesday wasn't the day, Thursday was, and when I finally did lose my email, when that eventually happened, was completely unlike the experience of Monday night.  The temporary loss of my email was just a serendipitous event, because it forced me to think concretely about what losing my job really meant.

So for now, I'm keeping my options open.  There are other roles internally that would be interesting.  I have a strong network outside the company that I might be able to leverage.  Travelling is still a viable and attractive possibility.  There may be other outcomes as yet undreamt-of.  The possibilities are endless and I have the luxury of time to consider them.  Who wouldn't be OK with this?

The timing of the blackberry thing was kind of weird though.

...And we're back

In case you've been in a coma for the past 6 months and this is your first stop on waking (and if it is, thanks, but I hope you'll reconsider your priorities in light of your recent near-death experience), here's a quick recap of significant events that happened while you were out:

1. The US elected a new president.
2. The world economy is in the shitter.

In this post, we'll talk about Number 2.

Thanks to unprecedented levels of greed and stupidity in developed nations, we collectively find ourselves in more straightened circumstances than one year ago. Companies are downsizing, people are losing jobs, and governments are spending unimaginable sums of money in an effort to prop up their national economies.

All of this has been going on for a while, of course, but what prompted me to finally get off my ass and get back to posting was an article in today's Telegraph about Starbucks' economy contracting too. Yes, the home of £3 coffee-scented hot milk is actually closing some shops.

Here in the UK, we've dubbed the current economic crisis the 'Credit Crunch'. This delightfully alliterative moniker, which has given rise to all sorts of cute expressions (credit crunch lunch, anyone?) just paints a smiley face on a voracious beast with a very long tail. The icing over of the global capital markets isn't a short term problem, and it's not a problem that governments can fix by lending money to banks, or even by guaranteeing the loans they make. I'm not talking about mortgages here. If you don't already own a house, you're screwed for a while, but chances are you'll either stay where you are, or maybe find a squat in Mayfair. I'm talking about the corporate financing that makes it possible for businesses to continue their operations. When large numbers of otherwise solvent companies can't borrow and can't sell their equity, it's just a short trip to consumerist Armageddon.

This news has a bright side for me, though: we'll now have to learn to live within our means. It may surprise you that I've never been much good at managing money. It's not because my family was wealthy - I grew up eating chuck steak and drinking powdered skim milk - but because I've always had a job, and always had about as much money as I wanted. A plot of my earnings over the past 24 years would show a general upward trend, so if my attitude was always that if I didn't make enough this year, I'll make more next year. Demand always roughly equalled (and sometimes exceeded) supply. In short, my savings are Lilliputian considering how long I've been working and how much I've earned over that time.

For the moment, I'm still employed. That's more than many people can say, so I realize how fortunate I am. For the first time, though, I find myself having to really budget my money. This is not necessarily a Bad Thing.

One side effect of this is that I've become much more conscious of what I spend my money on, and whether I'm actually getting good value for money. A few weeks ago, several of us had 2-for-1 coupons for a restaurant near the office, so we decided to treat ourselves to a nice lunch on a Friday. The food, when it eventually arrived, was cold, overcooked and not actually what we'd ordered. Normally, I'd have shrugged all this off, complained to my friends and when the waiter asked how everything was, nodded sullenly. Not anymore, though. A complaint to the manager resulted in replacement meals and a free lunch on our return. Result! (A few days later, a different restaurant, a paper towel found in my salad, a similar complaint and a similar result...I may start bringing a bag of dead mice with me to lunch).

One problem with trying to save money - it seriously curtails your social life if that life is based on going out. This year, we're trying some alternatives, for example, entertaining more at home. Our first Credit Crunch Dinner Party was last weekend, and was a brilliant success. We had some friends from the kids' school round to ours; the kids had fun, the grownups had fun, and the whole thing (including wine) cost less than it would have for the two of us to have a decent meal out. It was also a nice way to show our appreciation for some folks who've been extremely nice to us since we arrived, wide-eyed and friendless, on these sunless shores.

At work, I try to go to as many management presentations as I can. They are sometimes boring, sometimes baffling and occasionally farcical, but lunch is provided and I almost always come away knowing something I didn't know before. In one recent talk, a senior manager discussed the notion of paradox in management and how the more senior you become, the more paradoxes you face. A junior manager may be mandated to cut costs without sacrificing quality. That's hard. But a senior one is expected to reduce costs and improve quality. That's paradox.

"Do more with less" is hackneyed to the point of caricature, but it may apply equally to personal life: can we cut our costs while continuing to enjoy the things we enjoy? We'll find out...

Credit Crunchy Pork Loin
serves 6, plus enough leftovers for about 3 nights
2kb (4.5lb) boneless pork loin, with skin
2 tbs cider vinegar
500g (1lb) sauerkraut
2 pears
3 apples

Score the skin (have the butcher do this if you can). At least 8 hours before cooking (preferably the night before), place an over rack over the sink with the pork on it, and pour about 1 liter of boiling water over the whole thing. This helps open up the skin. Pat dry with a towel and brush on the cider vinegar. Refrigerate, uncovered until about an hour before cooking.

Dry the roast well and place directly in a roasting pan. Core and cut the apples and pears into chunks and mix well with the sauerkraut. Distribute the mixture evenly around the pork.

Roast at 165C (325F) for about 90 minutes. Stir the sauerkraut mixture occasionally. Since ovens and loins vary, use a meat thermometer and take the roast out when the thermometer reads about 68C (155F). Cover the pork with foil and let it rest for about 15 minutes. Put the sauerkraut in a bowl in the hot oven (turn the oven off first...).

The skin won't quite be as hard as proper British crackling because the sauerkraut will steam the pork a bit, but it's still reasonably crunchy.

Total cost: about £26 (food prices are different in the US, so a conversion to dollars isn't really appropriate. I reckon it'll be under $30, though).