Peter Bailey was Managing Director of Software Product Services in Woking, at which I was Project Manager and Oracle Education and Training Manager from 1994 - 1997.  He died at his home in Ireland yesterday evening at 6pm with his wife Nessa and daughter Eleanor.

SPS was a unique little company, founded by Cambridge graduate Peter, a hugely paternal man who insisted that each member of staff was presented with a box of Port at Christmas and made sure we all attended a grand garden party at least once a year in the Summer.  When I left the company in 1997 to join EDS, he arranged a huge dinner party for me --to which most of the SPS staff were invited in a private room at the Archduke Wine Bar at Waterloo and presented me with a set of beautiful cut lead crystal wine goblets as a leaving present.  I will always remember that during the evening he told me he hoped I would be able to come back to work at SPS one day in the future.  I made so many friends there and in fact we had a reunion at our "Company Pub", the Chandos off Trafalgar Square, at the end of December 2009.

RIP.

It is a very strange thing indeed when, checking the map to your aged aunt's house in Hove, Sussex, Google Maps' Streetview not only shows the map but a picture of her descending the steps outside her house...

Yesterday, arriving at Shampers in the early evening, I found something rather odd. Simon, the proprietor, came to apologise that he'd spilt coffee over the reservations book which is apparently why the note on my table said: "Neel Ruth? 6.30" on it, rather than "Cloudhigh 6.30." Surreal. Mind you, Simon pressed me to the treat of to two superb glasses of dessert wine on the house as we later paid the bill...

Yesterday evening I had the delight of attending a very rare public lecture by John le Carré at the Sheldonian as part of the Sunday Times Oxford Literary Festival.  I've tremendously enjoyed reading, now I think, the majority of le Carré's works from The Spy who Came in from the Cold through to The Mission Song, and now A Most Wanted Man sits in the Camilla's CD player.  (I see that Our Kind of Traitor is mooted for this year and le Carré alluded to this in his lecture as being expected for publication in October.) 

Le Carré is a tremendously entertaining and (oddly) quietly charismatic speaker, whose desert-dry delivery made the house roar with laughter on many occasions during his hour or so on the stage, summarising his life as a writer from his earliest days.  One example: le Carré was hugely in awe of the historian A J P Taylor* and one evening at an event in London was delighted, in a sea of famous faces he didn't recognise, to be introduced to him by his literary agent.  "Alan let me introduce to you John le Carré, the writer!".  Le Carré was shocked as he realised Taylor was looking at him with sudden reverence.  "Ah, Mr le Carré, you know I love every word of your books!  Everything you say is so perfectly put; so eloquent.  But you know, I have one problem: I can never get your soufflés to rise."  Le Carré reported that it was as if through a dream he saw his years in the diplomatic service swing into action as he replied perfectly, "Ah, the secret is always to heat the oven to temperature first..."

Another: le Carré had arranged a meeting with Yasser Arafat in Palestine in order to interview him to help in writing what became The Little Drummer Girl.  He was collected from an hotel by armed guards who escorted him to another location an hour or so away to meet Chairman Arafat.  At last, after some long time awaiting the great man, Arafat strode into the room.  "Ah, Mr John, why have you come to meet us?" he asked Le Carré.  "I have come," he replied, "To place my hand on the heart of the Palestinian people."  Overjoyed, Arafat strode towards him, first placing his hand on his own breast, "This is the heart of the Palestinians!" he said and embraced Le Carré warmly.  Le Carré told us, "His beard was as soft as a young girl's hair and he smelled of Johnson's Baby Powder."

 

*Completely as an aside, Taylor was a lecturer at North London Polytechnic at which I attended the Business School in Eden Grove to read for my first degree, in Business, 1982 - 1986. 
 

When James and I were in Copenhagen last year, you may recall that the Google car drove past us as we sat outside the Zoo.  It was a gloomy day.  Although the streetview pictures are now up, sadly we don't appear and our bench is empty.  James has pointed out that the pictures are all in lovely sunlight and even though I walked virtually along the whole of Vesterbrogade, I couldn't find us there.  We suspect that the googlies ran their little car along the road again on a brighter day and lost us!  Oh well.  Here's a piccy from the actual stroll on the day so you have a feel for it anyway...  Which reminds me, as I move the clicker along on Google Maps, doesn't it all feel a little like a scene from Blow-Up?  (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blowup.)

Memo to self - things you should never do:
1. Do not (do NOT) put yourself massively into debt;
2. Especially by pressing the CREDIT button on another bank's interweb console by mistake during the week when you mean DEBIT;
3. Or at the same time switch on the fraud marker on your debit card by attempting to put ten quid on your other half's PAYG mobile phone (even though you've done it many times before) using mobile banking;
4. Find out about it at 11.20pm on a Sunday night by suddenly realising those two characters say DR not CR at the end...

One of the joys of a new toy is the requirement to read the war-and-peace-like operating manual that comes with it.  I love doing this, and it usually takes me about a month to read and re-read all the features and little knurly bits and understand the tech stuff.  Now some of the things are really quite interesting and you think 'Oh, that's nice, that's really useful' or, 'that's really clever, I can see myself using that over and over again.'  However, sometimes there are features where you read it several times and think, "What the hell do the designers want you to do with this, isn't it blindingly dangerous and mad?"  Bear in mind that Camilla already has a switch setting called "sports" which is completely separate from these buttons, or, God help us, not, presumably if you switch them all on at once:

DYNAMIC MODE
Press to operate. Dynamic mode
co-ordinates the vehicle's control systems
to deliver a high performance driving
experience. This setting enhances key vehicle
systems so that the vehicle's full potential can
be exploited. The vehicle's responses are
aimed at involving the driver more in focused
and purposeful driving, helping swift progress.

TracDSC
___________________________
WARNING
Vehicle safety may be reduced by
inappropriate use of TracDSC.
TracDSC should only be used in
suitable conditions.
___________________________
TracDSC is an alternative setting of DSC with
reduced system interventions. With TracDSC
engaged, traction may be somewhat increased,
although stability may be reduced compared to
normal DSC. TracDSC is intended for use only
on dry tarmac, by suitably experienced drivers
and should not be selected for other surfaces
or by drivers with insufficient skill and training
to operate the vehicle safely with the TracDSC
function engaged.

Aside from "focused and purposeful", which I take to mean, "automatically p*ss off all other drivers on the road by pressing this and driving in a focused and purposeful manner unless you're completely alone in the dead of night or being pursued by a gunman", can anyone tell me why on earth you would ever press both buttons at once?  Would that not mean "Go on, kill me now"?  I did, once, switch off Dynamic Stability Control in the snow with Merissa to see if it would make driving easier: the effect was so shocking as the car started skidding violently, that I switched it back on immediately --and the sweat cascaded down my face...