Go West...

Yes this leg of the journey was going to take me the furthest west I have ever been.  Now I have been to the East Coast numerous times but the previous furthest West I had been was to Chicago in 1990 which was actually my first ever trip to the States.  I can still remember my sense of wonder in the taxi from the airport to the hotel actually seeing for real the images that I had seen a million times on TV and films and not really believing I was actually finally there!

To get to Omaha Nebraska I had to go via Memphis.  Now Memphis International Airport seemed fairly modern and had a good selection of shops beyond your usual book, perfumes and newsagents.  Rock n Soul Museum and Sun Studio Music & Gifts definitely caught my eye and had a good selection of music related books but again unfortunately no room in the bag for them!  Now what was interesting was interconnected with these two stores was Memphis Kitchen.  A real culture difference with the UK is that it almost seems obligatory for, especially Southern, music, film and sports stars to have their own food related products!  No idea why but it seems one American idea that hasn't crossed the Atlantic.  Lemmy's BBQ sauce anyone?!

Now you didn't think that given the music related stores there wasn't going to be the obvious one did you?  Yes there in all its glory was an Elvis store.  Selling every tacky Elvis related product you could think of including for some reason the M&M peanuts from the TV ads dressed as singing Elvis!!!  Unsuprisingly I managed to resist buying any tacky product with Elvis face on it.  I was tempted by some Vegas era concert DVDs but I unfortunately do not have a DVD player for US discs.   Again they stayed in the store....

What might surprise you for someone who blogs is that I have not really embraced the wide range of new connection technology such as facebook.  Mrs D is a facebooker but she has friends across the globe from her time in Japan and I can understand how this makes it so much easier to stay in touch.  However it hasn't really caught my interest and I cannot understand people who post updates saying that they have just had an egg sandwich or something equally as mundane!  However facebook did come in useful for this leg of the journey.  Although I had said that I was very happy to get a hire car again the Omaha office wouldn't hear of it and insisted that they would pick me up from the airport and transport me around during my time with them.  Cindy, the Financial Controller, said that she would pick me up from the airport when I arrived on Wednesday evening.  Now although I had Cindy's mobile number given my experience when I arrived in Delaware I felt it would be good to know what Cindy looked like.  As she had an unusual surname I decided to google her and I found a facebook entry that matched her location and occupation and yes it had a photo.  So I had a good hope that I knew who to look for and when I arrived sitting near the baggage collection was the lady in question.  Good old facebook!

Now Cindy has to be one of the most friendly and genuinely nice people I have met.  Given that she had given up her evening to pick me up she couldn't be more welcoming.  She even offered to give me a tour of the city on the way to the hotel and kept making sure that I had eaten properly!  This went for all of the local office who were so welcoming and took me out as a group for lunch each day and I had a really good time meeting them all.

Towards the end of my first day in the office Cindy said that she had to leave early as she had to go to see her 17 year old daughter play for her high school volleyball team.  However she said that her daughter had invited me along to watch the game as in her daughter's words "it would be really cool to have a real life Englishman at the game"!!!  I am sure that there is going to be some of my male readers who will groan at the next bit but I decided to politely turn down the offer.  I just didn't feel that comfortable going to a girl's high school game and I also had the impression that her daughter thought she would be getting a real life James Bond looking like Daniel Craig rather than an ageing overweight accountant with grey receding hairline ... I was only going to be a disappointment!

Instead I went to the local shopping area.  Again this demonstrated another of those cultural differences.  I could see it from my hotel window and it would have only been a 10 minute walk but there was no sidewalks to be able to safely walk there so had to rely on the hotel courtesy bus there and back which took about 2 mins each way in a minibus!  After a good shop in the huge sports store and stocking up on Champion brand sportswear (my favourite!) I went to see a film at the multiplex (you will have to come back for Film Delta blog next week for a review!) followed by dinner at Mimis Cafe, a New Orleons themed restaurant.

After writing the very first blog welcome post below and a productive day in the office it was off to Omaha airport to start the journey home via Minneapolis St.Paul International Airport.  Now MSP airport is vast and I had to go from one side of the airport to the other to get to the international departures.  It took me over half an hour including a shuttle train and many moving walkways to get there!  I wouldn't want to be tight for time!!!

Now for the music for this blog.  Well given my connection in Memphis there could only be one choice.  The main man himself ... the one and only Elvis Aron Presley.  Elvis is one of those artists, like the Beatles, who just stays current from one era to the next.  If Elvis' career is a two CD compliation then I am very much a disc 2 fan from '68 comeback special on to his late Vegas era time.  Not that I don't love the early stuff but I prefer the later period.  There could also only be one choice for me of song "If I Can Dream".  This song is a very personal one for me and if you are just looking for a fun read you might want to skip to the video clip below...

In August 1986 I started my first ever job at Midland Bank as a management trainee at the Regent Street branch.  I soon became friends with two fellow trainees - Steve, who was from the suburbs of South East London, and Alistair, who was an older Scot (he was like our wise older brother!).  After a short time we had become the Three Musketeers out most Wednesday and Friday nights at the Leicester Arms (as was most of the rest of the branch who were largely between 16 and 24 years old) until closing time.   It was a great year socially even if at the same time I realised that banking was not for me and I started looking for a new job.  I finally left a year after I joined. 

As those of you who know me well will already know once I make a real friend it is for the long term (most of my friends are 15+ years and counting).  Even when I left myself and my fellow Musketeers vowed to stay in touch.  However tragedy was going to strike.  I had a month off between finishing at the bank and starting my new job and I had a week in Spain with my family.  I came back after a week and received a phone call on the day I got home from Alistair - Steve had been killed in freak accident at his home (he had accidently touched a live exposed wire - the house was being rennovated - and had been electrocuted). 

At his funeral I read the list of funerals for the day and Steve at 19 was the youngest by 40+ years.  My emotions had gone completely haywire and I was just so angry at god and the world at large.  How could someone so young and such a good man go so young?  On the way home from the funeral I tried to go to my local church (the one I had been christened in) but it was all locked up.  I felt that god and religion had turned me away and from this point my relationship with organised religion has never really recovered.

So why the song?  Well I had recently purchased an Elvis compilation and this particular song just really spoke to me.  I know that it is about the American civil rights struggle but for me the lyrics just seemed to hardwire into what I felt at the time.  I was at home alone (my family was still in Spain on holiday) and needed something to hold onto.  This song was what I found and I must have played the song over and over again at least a hundred times.  It is old cliche but the music really did help me get through a very difficult time.

Seven years later the song was again going to play a similar role when my old school friend and ex-QPR season ticket holder, Sav, was killed in a tragic accident in Thailand (he was knocked down by a drunken Chinese driver).  Again I struggled to understand why and this song once again helped me get over my initial rage and grief.

Steve and Sav were two of the nicest individuals you could ever meet, great friends and their death at 19 and 25 respectively was a tragic loss for their families and friends.  Even now each time I play this song I think of them both and I dedicate this song to them.  Rest in peace gentlemen - I still miss you both and I hope one day to see you again to catch up over a beer or two...

On the boats and on the planes they're coming to America....

... as the mighty Neil Diamond once wrote.  Well in my case no boats but a lot of planes! The company I am working for manages its costs very carefully and even the MD/owner travels economy (or coach as the American's call it!).  They also look for the best deals and coupled with US airlines increasingly looking to use 4 or 5 main hubs for international flights there were a lot of connections on this leg of my journey.

To get to Delaware (my first stop) I had to fly to Philadelphia via Detroit.  In the next week or so I am going to do a Barry Norman Film review special on the 6 movies I watched whilst travelling so nothing further to add on the transatlantic flight at this time. 

I arrived in Detroit with a little bit of panic beginning to set in.  Despite emails and phone calls I still had no information on where I was staying.  I couldn't get my mobile to work at first and had images of having to sleep in the hire car! Still no news before I boarded the flight to Philadelphia.  After a long flight from the UK the last thing I needed was a 40 min taxi around the airport in Detroit but that is exactly what I got.  As one fellow passenger asked the flight attendant at one point "are we actually driving to Philadelphia rather than flying then?!!".  Unfortunately the same happened at the other end and we actually spent more time on the ground on the plane than we did in the air!

Turned on the mobile to have a message from the Group FD saying that he still hadn't been able to get in contact with the US office but he thought I would be in the same hotel as they usually use for overseas visitors.  So after googling the name and location I now had an address.  The company had fortunately got me a car with a SatNav or GPS as they call it in the States and off I went.  I love driving in the US (one of my unfulfilled life ambitions is to drive from coast to coast) and half an hour late I was in the suburbs of Wilmington at the hotel.

History fact fans ... Wilmington was named by Proprietor Thomas Penn for his friend Spencer Compton, Earl of Wilmington, who was Prime Minister in the reign of George II.

Unfortunately the hotel had no record of any booking and they were full! Luckily they were very helpful and had details of other availability in the area.  After a quick phone call to reserve a room I was off to Quality Inns.  This was very much a motel more than a hotel and the external and internal decoration had seen better days.  However the rooms were very comfortable and had a kingsize bed and free wi-fi so not too bad at all. 

After a quick unpack it was off to Chilis for dinner.  This is one of my favourite stops when in the States.  I have been to one in the UK but it is just a pale imitation of the US originals.  I had a very tasty Fajita Trio (tender grilled steak, marinated grilled chicken and spicy garlic & lime grilled shrimp. Served with grilled onions & bell peppers).  I am getting hungry just thinking about it!  It was then off back to the hotel to get some sleep before starting work tomorrow.

Now the offices were in New Castle a 15 min drive from the hotel.  No that is not a typo - it is spelt as two separate words.  Probably due to the fact that the area had also been known as New Stockholm and Nieuw Amstel before being captured by the British. More history facts for you!  The local office was incredibly friendly and helpful with the project.  It was refreshing not to have language barriers (well not too many!) after my European trip last week.   The office was very American with lots of worker cubicles and whiteboards with targets and latest scores.

On my second night I had to go to a book and music store.  I love the set up in the US with stores the size of 3 or 4 football pitches, lots of chairs and sofas, cafe, listening posts.  I went to both Borders and Barnes & Noble!  I can lose hours wandering around them and often have when in the US! They just seem so much more welcoming than the UK versions and the vast selection is just so tempting.  I would have loved to have stocked up on some American history titles but knowing that I had  a small bag and had another location to go to I had to leave them behind much to my disappointment.  I also managed to resist the temptation to buy some CDs to add to my collection (cough cough ... Mrs D reads this you know!).

Dinner was at another of my favourite US restaurants, Red Lobster.  After some shrimp to start I had a lovely selection of different types of fish and seafood for my main course.  Yummy!

Back to the hotel for starting the original blog post below, reading the latest Nick Hornby book (more of that on a later blog) and then off for a good nights sleep.

The following day went well again.  After getting the job done it was off to lunch with some of the local office and then in the car for starting the journey to Omaha....

Now I am going to spoil you all and have two music clips for this blog.  The first one given the intro to this blog has to be from Mr Diamond.  Now I grow up with Neil ... well not literally - he wasn't an uncle or relation - although that would have been kind of cool!  My mum is a big Neil Diamond fan.  When the Jazz Singer came out she went to see it at least 5 times including the charity premiere and dragging me and my younger sister to see it.  She has also been to see him live on many occasions including when I treated my mum and dad for their wedding anniversary at Earls Court in 2002 (I went too and it was a very enjoyable gig!).  She hasn't really liked his two recent Rick Rubin produced albums (which I think are very good and show the talent as a writer he actually is) but still loves him none the less!  So here is Neil at Glastonbury in 2008 with America....

Now I was going to stop with Neil but in doing the research for this blog I found by chance that Vinnie Moore, UFO's current excellent guitarist, was born and brought up in New Castle, Delaware!  UFO are one of my favourite bands of all time and Vinnie has been an excellent addition to the line up once Michael Schenker self distructed again.  I have to say some of the recent albums with Vinnie Moore have been up there with some of their best 1970s work.  I was very lucky to get a ticket to see them in a small venue in Southampton earlier this year and they were fantastic.  So to finish this time here is UFO live in 2008 with Too Hot to Handle....

Tired and alone in Paris

A very early 5.30am departure from my hotel in Sweden to get the 7am flight to Paris.  It wasn't until I arrived and departed the plane that I realised that, although I have been to Paris a number of times, I have never flown into Charles de Gaulle airport before.  I have always been by either Eurostar or by car.  I have to say that I hadn't missed much.  The arrivals luggage collection hall was in a concrete bowl that has definitely seen better days and looks like something that would have featured in a 1960s Bond film as the villains lair!

I was then off in yet another taxi to the offices.  Now the taxi driver decided for some reason that, although he had a satnav and the full address and postcode, he was going to use his old battered map to find it.  After going round in circles for a while and a couple of dead ends he finally gave in and decided to use the technology he had!  Not unsurprisingly we found the office quite quickly after that...

As far as culture differences go the main one here in Paris was that unlike Sweden, apart from the senior management team, most of the office did not speak any English.  This made it a more difficult and isolating visit to my previous one in Sweden.

The office had booked me in a hotel near where the MD lives so that he could pick me up in the morning and also so that I could go into the centre of Paris easily by taxi if I wanted.  The MD told me that there was a hotel near the office but they would never put anyone in it.  Not because there was anything wrong with the hotel but the location that the office was located in left a little to be desired.  It is in a very run down area and I can imagine after dark would have been quite intimidating.  It reminded me of the location for the John Carpenter film "Assault on Precinct 13"!  The MD told me that one night he had finished very late and found a gang hanging around the front of the office.  He nearly decided to sleep in the office for the night!

Despite the hotel being only a 10 minute taxi ride from the centre of Paris I decided that an early night was needed and after a quick meal in the hotel restaurant I retired to my room for some reading and off to sleep. 

The following day was very productive and after a good chat with the local MD to finish it was off to the airport for the trip home.  I arrived back at Heathrow Terminal 5 for the very first time.  It certainly is very large, shiny and new!  It will be interesting to see how it looks in 20 years time....

So finished my first week of the consultancy project.  Next destination the United States of America....

So for this blogs music.  A blast from the past for this one in honour of my old amp that has come out of retirement due to our other one packing up. This amp really was part of my music life support system as a teenager when I lived at home! I decided to put aside the CDs and iTunes tracks and return to vinyl and I am playing "Vivid" by Living Colour as I type this. A real favourite at the time of its release in 1988 for my circle of friends and the soundtrack to many car journeys to various country pubs.  I haven't played it in years but from listening to it today it still is an excellent and very funky album.  Got a lot of coverage at the time due to a black group playing heavy rock which seems very strange now looking back.  Had the 1980s music journalists all forgotten Jimi Hendrix?!! 

A few years later I went to see Living Colour at the old Marquee Club in its Charing Cross Road version.  The band (and the venue) was past their peak and seemed to be going through the motions.  The only reason this gig sticks in my memory was that the lead singer, Corey Glover, decided to stage dive and ended up landing right in front of me.  After a 30 second stand off when he stared right at me he jumped at me and used me as a ladder and springboard to crowd walk back to the stage!  I was left with the marks and bruises to show for it!

Here is Living Colour with "Cult of Personality" on American TV at their peak...

I am so proud...

... of my oldest daughter who started school the day before I left for Sweden.  I agreed with the company that I am working for that I would delay my start by a day so that I could take her with Mrs D and younger daughter for her first day at a lovely village school.  I cannot believe that she has grown up so fast and is now taking her first steps into the wider world!

All went very well and she can't get enough of school.  She already has a new best friend and has been to two parties already (she has a busier social life than her mum and dad!).  She even asked me last Saturday why she couldn't go to school every day ... I think I will keep a note of that and remind her when she becames a typical teenager in years to come!

Here is my little girl on her very first morning in class....

Oh I am such a proud dad!!!

Off to the land of ABBA and Mikky Dee.....

So the globe trotting consulting journey begins!  Off to Heathrow for my first flight.  How exciting going to the airport and flying seemed at this point.  Come back in a few blogs time to find out how this excitement began to fade quite fast!!!

First challenge was that I was flying out of Terminal 3 but returning to Terminal 5 due to moving European locations midweek.  Which car park should I book?  After far too much time spent thinking about this decided to book the easiest one for getting home quickly when I returned on Friday.  You can tell the old decision making has become a bit rusty even after just a month off...thank god I am back to work before the brain grounds to a halt completely!

Now you could well be asking yourself the question - Simon you said you were off to Sweden, so why the picture of a road sign for lovely Slough?  Well I soon learnt that the locations for the overseas offices may have been advertised to me as Stockholm, Paris etc but as you would expect with a sales, distribution & warehouse operation their sites are actually outside the cities.  The best way to illustrate this would be to think that you are flying into Heathrow and being told that you are in London but are actually heading for Slough!  Not exactly a problem as the timescale for completing the work is very tight for each location and I am getting paid to work not be a tourist!

I arrived at Stockholm airport to be hit with my second dilemma!  Coming out of the terminal you are presented with two competing lines of taxis.  Which one to take?!  Well my choice was actually made very easy by the fact that one was headed up by a gentleman in a suit and tie who was opening the door of his clean family saloon with a smile and the other by someone who was unshaven, was shouting down his mobile phone and looked like he would take me to the forests surrounding Stockholm, torture me and then bury my body in many pieces amongst the trees!!!

One of the interesting sidelines from this project is to observe the difference in work cultures between countries. Three clear ones came out of my time in Sweden... 

Firstly the hours - the start very early 7.30am but also finish early at 3pm.  Apparently it is more of the norm for people to work this way so that they can have a family dinner together at around 4pm which I guess does give them a much better work life balance. 

Secondly they take their dogs to work.  I had been warned so this was not a complete surprise but still took a bit of getting used to when you are talking processes and controls to someone and their dog is sniffing your feet at the same time!

Lastly and the one that I most liked, and wished we had more of in England, was the real sense of "family" that the office had.  Now it was only a small operation (10 people) and this may well be the same for family type businesses in the UK but at morning and afternoon coffee/tea break the whole office and warehouse staff stop and come together for a conversation over a drink and a pastry.  There was no one saying that they were too busy and they genuinely seemed to enjoy getting together and catching up on the day so far.  I feel embarrassed and sad about the times that I turned down lunch or a drink at the pub with the team because I had something urgent to do.  My impression was that this short break made them more effective and efficient as a team and everyone went back to work with a real spring in their step.  I believe that this is something that larger teams could learn a thing or two from - yes you too my old team - especially the management team!

Now I was staying two nights in a hotel.  I soon realised that I needed some more money to cover all the taxi costs and the hotel told me where I could find a cash point.  Now it seemed a nice enough area I was in but I began to question my sanity (and safety) when I wandered off under a subway, taking a path across a deserted field and then under another subway in a station before emerging in a local residential area.  It was dark and I had no idea what kind of area I was really in.  Well all turned out well enough and got back to the hotel safely but I did think my god did I really do that when I woke up the next morning!  I will certainly think twice before doing that again....

My last observation from this trip is just how small the world now appears due to the globilising effect of TV.  Flicking the channels I came across the Swedish versions of Idol (complete with same graphics, format etc as the American version) and I am a Celebrity Get Me Out Of Here! A bit depressing really.   However my mood was brightened up when I realised that I recognised when of the contestants!  Now I guess for the majority of my readers this would have passed you by.  But a certain long haired bloke looked strangely familiar (middle of back row in picture above).  After thinking long and hard I realised it was Mikky Dee, Motorhead's drummer!  He is from Sweden and apparently quite famous in his home country.  A fantastic drummer (one of the best live I have seen) and he really made the Motorhead gig I went to see in November.  According to Classic Rock magazine he has been given time off by Lemmy to appear on the show.  Got me thinking how brilliant it would be to see the main man himself on the UK version - he would make John Lydon seem positively a ray of sunshine and god help the Z list celebs....!!!

So to finish this blog here is Motorhead with Rock Out from their latest excellent album Motorizer (happy now Stuart?!)...