London - Land of the Monkeys

As I type this, I am awaiting a flight back to Abu Dhabi, which I am now supposed to consider 'home'. Odd feeling that is...

My trip to London has been very successful work wise and I personally felt I did a good job representing my company given I have only been there for 3-4 weeks at best. I travelled with our Group CFO and he was happy enough to let me run the show and it all went smoothly. A good start!

Also, had the pleasure of meeting one of my virtual gaming rivals Brian who lives in London. You play games via email and/or web and when you travel to their local part of the world, you have the surreal concept of meeting people who you have perhaps conversed with via the email for the best part of 2 years in the flesh.

But Brian was a great bloke who whipped up some real food (so sick of hotel food!) and we yacked about gaming for 90% of the time and his girlfriend joined us in a game of Settlers of Catan. A few beers later and a stroll to the tube station and I got back to the hotel happy to have a non-work / non-hotel related diversion.

London itself hasnt changed much of course since I was last here 18mths ago, but they are doing an awful lot of road works in the city... cab trips seemed to take an age this week... and the Conjestion Tax was supposed to fix that? I don't think its working...

So, its back to Abu Dhabi... I get to spend my Friday watching movies and episodes of the Family Guy on Etihads in flight system and then I have a long weekend because Sunday is a public holiday! Not sure why, but I'll take it!!

And the Monkey reference? Well I have just read this thoughtful article titled "What is the Monkeysphere". Thanks to Pete for the link!