Hmmm. So is it me (and my lack of international diplomacy skills) or when your spokesmen announces you are having discreet talks, are they really that discreet?

They’ve updated the cashless system at work today, so we all had to go pick up new badges. I went to get mine and the lady searched through the ‘S’ pile and said, “oh, hmmmm, well this is yours, but is this your picture?”. Yes it is, but 10 years ago.

Somehow, while everyone else had a recent picture, the system reset my photo to the one I had taken on September 15th, 1998, my first day in IBM. Look, not only am I wearing a suit and tie, I have hair!

I may not agree with him, but there’s something to be said for Sir Alan Sugar’s view on global warming. Does it bother him?

“Nah. Not really, because there’s nothing we can do about it. The Americans don’t care about it, they’re the biggest polluters of the atmosphere. There’s little England here, making nice, lead-free products, putting paper here, putting plastics there, and President Bush is pissing cyanide in the air in the middle of America.”

There’s something about that that makes me laugh everytime I read it. From The Times Magazine last Saturday.

I can’t say I’m really into classical or opera music. I mean, everyone likes a little of Pachelbel’s Canon once in a while, but it’s not my day to day listening material of choice.

There is something about it though that has some kind of effect nothing else does. Anyone doing Nessun Dorma or especially Katherine Jenkins belting out Canto Della Terra gives me goosebumps and those little pin pricks in the back of my eyes. Even my all time favourite songs (or Britney) don’t do that.

Have you ever thought about the different service mechanisms restaurants use? How do they decide the way you should order and receive your food. They’re either symmetrical, where you order, pay and take delivery of the food all at the same point, or asymmetrical, where things happen all over the place.

• Traditional Restaurant - order at table, food delivered to table, pay at table.
• Fast Food Restaurant - order at counter, pay at counter, food delivered at counter.
• Take A Number Restaurant - order at counter, pay at counter, take a number to table, food delivered to table.
• Take A Table Restaurant - find a table (and its number), order and pay at counter, food delivered to table.
• Take A Bill Restaurant - order at table, food delivered to table, bill delivered to table, pay at counter.

I prefer the first two symmetrical mechanisms, as at least it’s always obvious what you are meant to do. The problem with the asymmetrical ones is that can get a little confusing as to how you’re meant to order and pay.

The worst ones are the Take A Table restaurants, I really hate those. They always seem to have them at busy UK airports (I’m thinking of O’Neill’s at Heathrow T3). They work, unless you are trying to get breakfast and you’re on your own, which lots of people are at airports. You find a table, read the menu, go to the counter, queue and then order, by which time someone else has taken the table that your food is assigned to. You’re in an airport so you can’t even leave any belongings on the table as they’re likely to get destroyed in the interests of security.

It can’t just be me that has this problem every time can it?

Try getting a well done steak in a medium to upmarket restaurant these days, it’s impossible. If you ask for well done, you will end up getting what in old money would have been called medium. I don’t mind medium steaks, but sometimes I just want one on the edge of being charcoal. It’s just food snobbery to think that the customers are wrong in wanting something a certain way, just because it isn’t the current fashion.

I’m going to have to start asking for a new category, super well done or maybe burned.