Two weeks ago, I was working in the beautiful city of Oslo. After a couple of hours, the client finally couldn’t take any more of my tedious hand-waving and badly drawn architecture diagrams so he suggested we had a five minute coffee break. In the immaculate pine kitchen, my eyes were drawn to a notice in Norwegian affixed to the kitchen cupboard. One of my hosts smiled and said ‘I bet you don’t know what that says’....
I have been a little quiet recently because I have spent the last two weeks in Florida during which time I didn’t see a computer, pick up a newspaper and thankfully, didn’t speak on a phone. Fly to Orlando Stubbornly refuse the persistent Alamo sales pitch offering an upgrade to a oversized vehicle, pre-paid petrol and a host of other unwanted ‘options’. Visit Magic Kingdom on the busiest day of the year....
[Well, my SEO professor said it was much better than ‘Sports Bars of Europe #7’] Feverishly scoured the Interweb looking for alternative sports bars in Copenhagen. Once I saw the address of my previous haunt, the marvellous ‘Irish Rover’, my mind was instantly made up. Tomorrow morning, when the customer politely asks me what I got up to last night, instead of ‘Caught up with my email and ordered room service’, I can now proffer ‘I spent a glorious, unforgettable night up ‘Jorcks Passage’....
Travel Administrator for overpaid and unbelievably stupid IT consultant must be capable of using a corporate travel service to book a flight to Copenhagen from London Heathrow must be capable of reading confirmation email to check flight is actually from LHR and not London City airport must be able to secure approvals for travel booked less than 7 days from departure must be able to verify a flexible ticket has indeed been issued as requested must be able to convince the lady at SAS ticket sales to change a fixed, non-refundable, non-changeable ticket to a different flight at no additional cost Salary - none....
Next week, I am bound for the wonderful city of Copenhagen, near Denmark. I normally aim to stay in a hotel close to the client offices. If my commute can be done on foot, I am absolutely delighted. However, on this one occasion, I have elected to stay on the other side of town which, unfortunately, will mean a very long taxi ride over a congested bridge, to cross the city in rush-hour....
Last night I returned to London from Brussels. Unfortunately, my overnight bag didn’t. I guess this was inevitable after four years of multiple short flights in Europe and I have been pretty lucky thus far. Curiously, two other passengers on my flight suffered the same fate. One gentleman was very irate. For reasons best known to himself, he had buried his car keys in his suitcase which seemed a very odd decision....
I am working in Oxford and booked into this small hotel overnight. I arrived at 18.30 and rang the bell. No one is home. I phoned the company who made the booking to get the phone number. They call the hotel on my behalf. Guess what. No one is home. The helpful man from LateRooms asked if I could wait around in the cold for 30 minutes to ‘see if someone turns up’....
Just encountered two very talented buskers, attired in an immaculate dinner jacket with bow tie and a lovely, long, sparkly dress, singing the most beautiful opera. I was about to toss them 3 Norwegian Kroner but found they only accept credit cards.
The annual Brightside family vacation in Norway is now over and the nominations for ‘Highlight of the Holiday’ have just been received: Norma - ‘The fantastic scenery, the awesome mountains and unspolit beauty of the fjords coupled with the feeling of absolute peace, solitude and tranquility.’ Norman - ‘The 3 hour hike on the Jostedalsbreen glacier with spiked boots, roped together in a group, taking in stunning views back down the mountain, sticking an ice-axe into ice that is thousands of years old....
This superb photograph from NASA gives me a taste of what I missed.