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On Tuesday I was lucky enough to see the fabulous Grace Jones @ The Roundhouse. I’ve always wanted to see Grace live: I grew up listening to her songs blare out of the bedrooms of my siblings (one of the side effects of having much older brothers and sisters is that I love a lot of music from their era!) and she didn’t disappoint.

What can I say to do this show justice? It’s hard to know where to begin.

She had stage presence that X Factor finalists or indeed most gigging acts today can only dream of.

Sure, making an entrance on a crane from above the stage helps, but Grace Jones is a genuine star. With a new outfit (and hat) for each song she personified what show business should be all about! On one song she hula hooped for 10 minutes. I’d like to see Alexandra pull that off.

An enraptured audience (with more than the usual quota of celebs), a tight as you like band (which includes her Son), simple, but highly effective staging. And a wind machine that almost took off.

Oh, and she can sing. Boy can she sing!

Hearing La Vie en Rose and Slave to the Rhythm live made sure I left the venue grinning from ear to ear. I can’t wait to see her live again. Apparently she’s playing the Montreux Jazz Festival which is a bit of an annual destination for me, so I’m going to be sorting out my flights very soon!

If you get to see her live, do. You’ll leave a fan even if you weren’t before.

Here’s a bit of La Vie en Rose, complete with top hat, tails, wind machine and pole dancing pole:

A nice round up of footage from Wednesday’s show here:

And here is Grace on Later… earlier this year performing the Trevor Horn produced masterpiece Slave to the Rhythm.

Not bad for a woman of 60 eh?

A true Icon and a true talent in an era of pretenders to the throne!

Forgot to post that the OpenSoho3 video is up here:
http://www.boringlondon.com

After 3 years of development, Monster launched their new site mid Jan. Read about it here.

A week later, all the media is full of news about a security breech.

Coincidence?

The two stories appear a week apart. About a site that has had it’s re-launch in the making for three years. A site that has spent an estimated £90m on the revamp. A site which is one of the market leaders in the multi billion dollar global recruitment market.

And now they are across TV, print and digital media for all the wrong reasons.

Coincidence?

I think not. I am betting this was a “hack to order” and the news has been seeded like fuck by a PR firm doing some very clever under the radar work for one of Monster’s rivals.

Do you know who the PR firm is? Or the rival that planted this little bomb?
Or are these the ramblings of a paranoid android?

I find it quite hard to relax and switch off from work, but one of my new years resolutions was to try and do just that, particularly at weekends.

So this weekend I’m visiting my sister Sarah and her boyfriend Erik in Switzerland. I arrived Sat afternoon into Geneva, caught a train high into the mountains to meet them and have spent an awesome 24 hours in Verbier. 

Verbier is clearly a resort unaffected by the credit crunch.  It’s all a bit sloaney and very very British and American. It reminds me a bit of my Exeter days but with a cast of people 10 years older: think of lots of very middle class (but not necessarily that bright) peeps in turned up rugby shirts drinking wine and talking a bit too loud.   City Bankers with neurotic wives and 1 new born baby.  That sort of thing.   The atmosphere is quite contagious though:  I’ve never done the whole ski holiday thing, and a part of me can’t help feeling I have missed out a bit.   So perhaps another thing to sort this coming year?

Soon we will drive back down to Geneva in time for a drink and a mooch. I fly back tomorrow AM landing  just in time for work. 

 
It’s been great. Mountain air and snow creates an amazing atmosphere and is a total change of scene. Sarah and Erik have been great hosts. It’s enabled me to clear my head, and I know come Monday AM I’m going to be twice as focused as I normally am.

It also reminds me how spoilt we are living in the UK. Talk to someone who’s just moved here from Australia and they can’t understand why we don’t visit Amsterdam, Prague and Italy every other weekend. With Easyjet and short flying times, I think they have a point.

I flew into Geneva which is a flight time of 1hr 20 and my fare was under £100, flying on the very civilised SwissAir from the very civilised London City Airport. Granted I am lucky to have people to stay with on arrival, but in the current climate you can get bargains on accommodation in most European cities so I’m definitely going to be doing more of this sort of thing in the future.

The other side effect of this trip has been that I’ve resolved to learn some form of snow based propulsion. Based purely on how cool/good looking the people at City Airport carrying Snowboards vs skis were I think I need to learn to Snowboard.

So on the to-do list for this week is some investigation into  lessons at the Snow Dome in Milton Keynes, with a view to flying back here soon to try it out for real. Stop laughing at the back, I think Snow Boarding could be my secret hidden sporting talent!

I had a great meeting at Foviance today: the guys there are super smart and continuing to grow an already impressive business.

The whole meeting emphasised to me the importance of objectivity in online projects: no matter how obvious something may be to you, it might not be obvious to a casual web surfer! And a fresh pair of eyes can bring a whole new set of insights. Also data doesn’t lie: never assume – let’s look at what the data says!

Lots of food for thought!

I used to work on the same floor as Catriona, Paul and Marty when we were all part of Brainspark back in the dot com day. Foviance was called The Usability Company then (it has since merged with a few other complimentary companies and grown much bigger in size) but it’s nice to see them and other fellow incubees are still around today doing what they love.

January is turning out to me a very busy one but I’m enjoying work more than I have for months at the moment.   Acknowledgement and Boring are currently on top form and I’m really pleased with the work we are putting out. We’ve a great team and a great vibe in the office: I guess it’s official – we’re cooking on classical gas.

Recent work stuff includes a social network for the media buying industry lots of filming for BoringStudent plus we are also working on a couple of really nice CMS driven sites, doing updates to some legacy projects and doing some very ace rich media ads and social media bits for a number of clients.

Our headcount is on the up with Greg having just joined, and Giles joining next week. There are also some very interesting new business opportunities on the horizon and we’re also getting into mobile in a big way. As Yazz sang, the only way is up! Although, thinking about it, what ever happened to Yazz? Hmmm – one to ponder there.

For all you techies reading this we’re also mid way through a project to offer increased redunancy on sites we host. We’ve always taken hosting very seriously and have now moved to using a dual datacentre/auto failover at DNS level approach with our most uptime critical sites. We’ve been very impressed with the results so far.

As some of you know all too well, hosting is a favourite pub conversation of mine (along with ticketing systems and plane crashes), so at some point I’ll be writing about virtualisation, cloud computing and lots of related things on this blog. Make sure you book mark the hosting category of this blog to not miss out

In other news I’ve decided that I’m going to move from Islington to Shoreditch: not only will this save me 80 minutes a day in walking time, it will also mean that I’m nearer the office, nearer my gym (yes I am still going!) and I quite fancy living in a new part of town.

Finally as if all this wasn’t enough I’ve also decided that I am going to start reviewing restaurants on this blog. The first review will be this weekend.

Forget Obama. Forget Ross and Bland. Forget Verne falling off his little scooter. This blog is where the excitement is to be found in 2009. Can you bookmark it? YES YOU CAN!

Those of you who know me in the real world may have heard me announce (more than once): “I’m going to get fit and do the London Marathon”.

Often, this announcement is made after I’ve drunk a few glasses of white wine and it has been known for me to utter it with cake/finger food/pizza in hand.

It is true that I’ve been saying this for at least the past 5 years and it’s also true to say that it’s developed a hollow ring to it. But fear not earstwhile blog reader: I’m not going to shout this out loud in the real world, but between you and me I want to make good on former proclamations!

Every journey starts with the first step and I have made that first step: I’ve joined a new gym: Market Sports in Shoreditch. But more than this, I’ve started going each morning.

I’m already feeling a lot more healthy and less tired: it’s still a novelty at the moment though and the true test is going to come in the next couple of weeks: will leaving my flat at 6am still seem such a good idea then? I’ll keep you posted via this blog!

One good thing about my new gym though is that it is quite small and always fairly busy. The reason this is a good thing is that it actually forces you to do some exercise! Previously, I’d been a member of the much bigger, much more luxurious (and much more expensive) Virgin Active Broadgate.

The Virgin Active is a lovely gym: modern, big changing rooms, lots of equipment and a massive members reception area with comfy sofas.

The problem is all of that stops you exercising. Market Sports has everything you need in the way of equipment but it’s size and footfall means that you have to get changed quickly (as there isn’t a huge amount of space in the changing rooms), and you have to occupy yourself on a machine of some description as there isn’t those massive empty spaces to walk around in Virgin has. Spend too long reading a notice board and you’ll quickly become in the way of someone wanting to get past. Try and sit in reception for a rest and you’ll be a sweating wreck next to someone filling out their application to join.

As I say: this is a good thing! I’ve been a member of around 10 gyms in London and Market Sports is my favourite by far.

Stay tuned to see if my health plan continues to stay on track!

On Thursday various members of Acknowledgement and Boring went down to OpenSoho in Floridita in Soho.    It’s an informal networking event for people working in the tech and media industries in London.

It’s been a while since I’ve been to a networking event ( DigitalPodge is my only usual exception!) but I really enjoyed it. It reminded me a little bit of the “Clerkenwell Tuesdays” that used to happen around the 2000 dot com boom.

With a leaning towards a sociable drink with fellow members of your profession rather than hardcore business networking OpenSoho reunited me with some friends and contacts I hadn’t seen for a while and also introduced me to some new ones! It’s made me resolve to get out from behind my desk a lot more in 2009.

Boring sponsored this event and also did some filming there, so stay tuned to see the results!

Find out more info about OpenSoho here:
http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=43449196267

I was pleased to learn on Friday that the MORE TH>N “Quote and Buy” forms that Acknowledgement designed and built (via HyperHappen) were rated the best in market by Insurance Times!

It’s a great boost for the team to see best practice design and usablility being recognised as such!

Read the full review here:
http://www.insurancetimes.co.uk/story.asp?sectioncode=48&storycode=375951

One of the things I’ve noticed about myself is that I tend to have a bit of a love/hate obsessive thing regarding what music I listen too.  Put another way, when I like something I listen to it pretty much non stop for a short concentrated period of time, download all the back catalogue stuff and then get to the point when I can’t bear to hear anything from that artist for about another 6 months.

An interesting side effect of this behaivour is that I tend to rediscover artists when the gigs that I bought tickets for in the above described obsessed phase then come around.   

Last year two such gigs which had this effect on me were Yazoo and Ben Folds.  Both artists had featured heavily on my Ipod in early 08, and as part of my short term infatuation I’d bought tickets to see both acts live.  But by mid 08 I’d forgotten all about them.   

So come the eventual day of the gigs I was nonchalent and not at all excited: in fact to leg it all the way over to Hammersmith/Shepherds Bush was a bit of a pain.   But I had bought tickets.  And tickets aren’t cheap. So I had to go.    Like a family event or good friends birthday it’s a three line whip, and not going would cause more mental effort and anguish than simply turning up. 

On both of these gigs I arrived about an hour before the on stage time, enjoyed a couple of swift drinks in a near by pub with friends, then took my place amongst the huddled masses. 

And then they came on.  And it was loud but crisp. And the lighting was cool. And the audiences were so into it. And I knew all the songs.  And I didn’t mind if a few people were a bit in my way.  Or a bit too drunk.

So the point of this post? I guess it’s that sometimes things are far more enjoyable without the weight of expectation. 

I compare these “low expectation” gigs to ones that I’ve really looked forward to.  Where I’ve been counting down the days and hours.  Where I’ve hurried poor friends out of pubs to arrive at a venue far too early. 

Occasions where I’ve stood down front glaring at anyone who tried to push in and mentally inflicted a horrible death on the couple next to me who won’t stop talking.  And I feel a little bit ashamed. 

Maybe I’m getting old, but I’ve decided things can be more fun when you don’t have high expectations.  Like that strange moment when a classic tune comes on at a wedding  and despite yourself, you finally abandon the pretense of looking cool in front of elderly relatives and admit to enjoying yourself at an event you’ve dreaded for months by throwing some shapes on the dancefloor.

And it’s not just gigs: other things that are better without the weight of expectation include: food, restaurants and bars (discover a good one yourself!), films and theatre, relationships, dates and sex, holidays. 

It works in business too: in a pitch situation I’d always much rather be the lesser known agency that shows a potential client true insight and desire they weren’t expecting than the major player who everyone has heard of.  They have everything to lose but nothing to gain by simply opening their mouth!

In fact the more I think about it the more I think expectations are bad.
Viva indifference! Viva the underdog!