SteveStreeting.com

I’m here in Sweden again for the rest of the week, working for an interesting client who is making a sizeable investment in creating a long-term strategy on Ogre, which is obviously a good thing. It’s a little under the radar for the moment so I’ll leave it at that until a more appropriate time

Luckily my back held up for the trip, despite carting luggage and 3 flights with fairly small connection windows in between. I was really sore this morning, but I didn’t snap in half so that’s an overall positive.

I had to pass through Manchester airport this time, which was in many ways better than going via London and having to switch between Gatwick and Heathrow. I used to travel through Manchester every other week a few years back, either on my way to Dublin or to get into Manchester itself, but I can’t believe the place is still being renovated - it was last time I was there too.

Bizarre experiences while travelling:

• Watching a woman trailing about 100 metres of wool as she wandered through Manchester terminal - a ball of it had fallen out of her bag without her noticing and made it look like she was trying not to lose her way back
• A motion-activated recording on the entrance to the baggage reclaim that went off literally every 15 seconds as people passed it, explaining the very same thing over and over and over again. I was a hair’s breadth away from picking up the nearest fire extinguisher and smashing the speaker into tiny little pieces before it told me not to forget my baggage for the 376th time (after all, I had heard it this many times precisely because I was still waiting for that baggage she kept banging on about)
• Escaping from a labyrinth of booze and perfume - Manchester airport’s new layout involves a sign saying ‘Gates’ with an arrow that just leads into a sprawling mass of duty free perfume and alcohol stores. Sure most airports have these, but other airports at least have a ‘corridor’ around the outside or through the middle that leads to where you want to go (i.e. the plane) - not so here, you literally can’t see the exit, it’s just a chaotic maze with assistants hovering around every corner. Eventually I managed to find my way out, and without a single bottle of gin or Yves St Laurent. Lucky escape.
• As I was boarding my final plane of the day, the wife of a couple who were directly in front of me in the aisle suddenly started projectile vomitting everywhere. Literally spraying all over the place like she was auditioning for a part in the next Exorcist remake. Luckily her husband was in the way otherwise it could have been a Mr Creosote incident for me too. Nasty. This delayed my final hop while the poor cleaners got called in to deal with it.

I’m back at the weekend, anyway.

I just got back from my trip to Gotland, I almost didn’t make it back due to delays on the M25 (surprise surprise) making my transfer from Heathrow back to Gatwick rather late, when I didn’t have that much time to spare. I just about made it by sprinting all the way through Gatwick, getting to the gate just as they were about to leave.

It was a good trip despite the travel overhead, I think there’s a good chance we can build an ongoing working relationship and I’ll end up going back again sometime. If all goes well I’ll talk more about it in future posts.

It struck me how much Gotland and Guernsey have in common - we both have about the same populations (despite Gotland being much bigger), and the main town of Visby is about the same size & population as our St Peter Port, although if anything it’s quieter, maybe because there are less cars. We share the same frustrations at having to shuttle through onshore international hubs, and that we one we can get to isn’t necessarily the best one for international connections (London Gatwick for us, Stockholm Arlanda for them), and a culture which is a little different from the ‘mainland’ we have the most direct connection with. Gotland relies most on tourism, and although Guernsey tends to worship the finance sector these days tourism is still very important, so we share experiences such as ‘cruise ship days’, and their harbour is dominated by a marina awash with expensive yachts too. Both our towns are full of history, theirs very medieval, ours more of a mixture from medieval (e.g. our castle), via Victorian and up to the WWII occupation. I was surprised to discover they don’t have an active fishing industry though - I generally assumed fresh local seafood would be a staple in any island community like it is at home. Anyhow, even though the culture & language are very different, there was an odd sense of familiarity about the place…

The hotel I was staying at had no Internet access so I have a bunch of catching up to do again. I’m back for this week, then I’m off again to Siggraph so apologies if I’m rather brief / flighty with my communications. After Siggraph is over I should finally get to settle down for a while again!

Feel free to whistle the very appropriate but highly copyrighted tune that you’re no doubt already thinking of

I’ve wedged another business trip rather hurriedly into my schedule, sandwiched betwixt (oh, you gotta love that word) our recent holiday and my impending departure for Siggraph in about 10 days. It came up at really short notice and I didn’t know if I was going to be able to fit it around my existing commitments, but luckily I was able to organise it to happen over this weekend, which just about worked (although I still have to leave early Friday). This will be my first trip to Sweden, specifically Gotland, so I’m looking forward to it, although my time there will be short and I’ll spend an enormous amount of time in transit. It’s a bit of a tortuous route, requiring 3 flights and a coach in each direction (Guernsey-Gatwick-Heathrow-Stockholm-Gotland), plus a short transfer to Heathrow Terminal 5 on the way out (uh-oh). I can’t really complain though, living on an island myself I know all about having to shuttle through onshore international hubs, you just learn to live with it - but I have it at both ends this time!

Should be good anyway - with luck some business and/or future partnerships will come out of it, but at the very least it should be an interesting trip.