Blimey.

A couple of weeks ago I was delighted to find out that teemarto.com were offering a Jon Snow t-shirt. Just the thing to wear on my non Rageh Omaar days I thought so I bought one. But as I did so I couldn't help but think...

"The newsreader shirt I really want is an Evan Davis shirt. But they'll never make one of them.. sigh..."

Bloomin' 'eck. They've only gone and made one :)

I'll try and post a pic when it arrives. Oh Joy!

I love working for ThoughtWorks. I've just come back from the UK away-day and being the worlds most easily motivated/inspired person I'm obviously pretty psyched (and the fact that I won a bottle of Champagne, a box of chocs and a Who Wants to be a Millionaire game has nothing to do with it... well not _much_). But I've felt like this for ages, even when the work itself wasn't so good. My current project however really rocks - a great team of ThoughtWorkers, a truly Agile approach and a customer who really wants to be part of the process - it's pretty sweet.

The best thing about ThoughtWorks are the other ThoughtWorkers. In my experience ThoughtWorkers are positive, smart and keen to do the right thing and they've got a kind of personal integrity which builds trust and confidence. And this goes right the way through the company: in Operations, in top management (and I've never seen anywhere with a flatter management structure), the developers, analysts, PMs - everywhere. Just recently I got some very positive feedback about something I never thought I would get recognition for in the workplace and it's things like that that make me so positive about this place.

Then again I tend to be positive about everything. So don't just take my word for it.

Or his.

The Westminster Statesmen have just taken delivery of our new team strip.


There's no I in team. But there is a JJ!

It's been a good week for the Irish: Cheltenham, St Patrick's Day and the Triple Crown. So it seems like the right time for my long pondered list of English-places-that-I-always-thought-were-in-Ireland:

• Billericay
• Lingfield
• erm..
• that's it.

From TMS this morning..

I thought Liberty X was something like Amnesty International... but apparently not.

Said Vic Marks with an audible grin. I love it when Aggers and Vic get on to pop culture but it's all a propos of KP going out with one of the X. Does anybody know who?

This week's finds from the archaelogical 'dig' in Oxford:

• Mum's degree. Bigger and more Latin than Edinburgh University degrees had become by my day
• Dad's hats. Two beautiful, bespoke, top hats. One grey and one black. Both had a JBJ monogram in the inside
• A bishop's crozier!! Overlooked by me but discovered by my aunt Anne in the attic. In sections and rolled up in cloth like a tool kit, it once belonged to the Bishop of Kensington, Rt. Revd. John Primatt Maud, aka my great-grandfather on my granny's side. Might come in handy in future for, you know, bishop stuff. I've have been troubled by an errant flock recently...
  

Just back from a fantastic weekend in Edinburgh. Being there was like meeting up with an ex-girlfriend and remembering how much you love her, only everything is fine now and what you really love is just how much you used to love her. Does that make any sense? Suffice it to say that if Peter Ackroyd can write London: The Biography then I want to write Edinburgh: The Love Story.

The purpose of the visit was to put on a special edition of NSN24 at the Bedlam Theatre and meet the current improv team. I'm so delighted that the show I joined at the end of its first year in 1990, is still running in 2006. And judging by the show we saw on Friday, when the current Improverts were performing, it's running better than ever. It was one of the best improv shows I've seen for ages and the current crew is very tight indeed. It was great to meet a lot of the current and recent players on Friday and on Saturday at the open workshop they run at the Bedlam.

The plan for Saturday night was that we (Glen, Andy, James, Briony and I) would do our NSN show at the Bedlam, have an interval and then do a freestyle improv jam with the current (and some recent ex-) players. So we did! And it all went off beautfully. It was a massive nostalgia trip of course: seeing the Bedlam, being on the stage, rummaging around backstage all seemed wonderfully familiar. But more than that it was great to hook up with the current crew and (for me at least!) to share this common bond we have: there's not a lot else I have in common with people born in the mid 80s! The new folks were very generous and seemed to be pleased to see us and there are certainly some rare talents going around there. I thought our NSN format went down well and if the show started slowly it built up and we ended really strongly. Talking about it afterwards we did think that at the start much of the audience (who were mostly other improvisers!) were quietly assessing us and I think things went better once people just started to get with what we were doing.


It was also great to catch up with a lot of old improv friends who are still in Edinburgh. I probably hadn't seen Paul, Stuart or Garry since 1994! And the warmest fuzziest feeling of all came when the legend that is Al Broom volunteered to tech the show. Cheers Al!

Shout outs, props, love and 'nuff respect to: Idil and the rest of the Improverts for wanting to be invovled, James Mitchell for the organisation, Andrew for being very brave and Smarty for putting us up - at least one night out of two ; ) (Cheers Steven for the other night) - Thank you all