In the 12 years or so that I have been a member of EMWA, I have travelled all over Europe attending their conferences. At most conferences, the social programme includes a walking tour of the city. It’s always a popular event, and is a great way to see something of the conference’s host city (sometimes the only time you get to see any of the city at all). So given that walking tours are usually so much fun, it’s astonishing … Continue reading →

I’m delighted to report that I ran my first ever half marathon yesterday, namely the Bexhill Poppy Half Marathon. The weather was rather unpleasant, but at least the rain had eased off by the time the race started and we avoided the heavy downpours of earlier in the day. I wasn’t sure what time to expect, but given that I’ve done a couple of 10 mile races earlier this year with a time of just over 1 h 40 min, … Continue reading →

In my previous post “Everything is crap” I promised to write more about Ikea once the legal stuff was all over. Well, it is, so here goes. Almost exactly a year ago, we had some furniture delivered from Ikea. One of the delivery men dropped the furniture on the hearth of our almost brand new and expensive limestone fireplace, and broke it. When we pointed out the damage, the other delivery man then became quite rude and abusive, denying all … Continue reading →

I don’t think I’m paranoid, but sometimes I feel everyone really is out to get me. Why is it so hard to get products and services that just work and do what they are supposed to do? Some examples: Ikea. I won’t say any more for now about my own recent experience while it’s still with the lawyers, but watch this space for all the details in due course. I’m sure you know what they’re like anyway. Zanussi. See my … Continue reading →

When I set up Dianthus Medical 10 years ago, I have to confess that the idea of setting up a business was a little scary. One of the things that gave me the courage to go ahead anyway was the observation that so many companies seemed to be incredibly badly run, and yet still survived, so how hard could it be? I’ve just seen another fantastic example of that. 3 years ago, I bought an expensive fridge-freezer from Zanussi-Electrolux. Just … Continue reading →

Yesterday’s European election results were, on one level, a lot of fun. Our useless waste-of-space government, led by the incompetent Gordon Brown, suffered one of their worst election defeats ever. That’s a good thing, although sadly our government is so out of touch with reality they will no doubt ignore the huge message that the British electorate have just sent them and  continue to lurch from crisis to crisis until we finally have the opportunity to get rid of them … Continue reading →

Adam will be doing a sponsored 10K run in aid of Cancer Research UK in October. You don’t need us to tell you what a good cause this is, so please consider making a contribution, which you can do here.