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Driving Force
Nov. 12th, 2011 09:14 amPerhaps it wasn't the best idea to decide to drive to Derby on Friday afternoon for MidCon, not after getting up at 5.30am and trying to get the entire weekend's tasks (washing, shopping, ironing) out of the way before leaving.
On the plus side, I managed to get away by 2.45pm, just after my new soooper-doooper fibre-optic broadband was installed. On the minus side, I didn't take my instinctive route of Blackwall tunnel and North Circular. Instead I took the advice of the "fastest" route from the SatNav. I will go no further into this nightmare except to say that Swiss Cottage is definitely the worst piece of road design in Britain and that it took me 1hr 50min to get to the start of the M1 instead of about 1hr 10min which I estimate it would have taken me via the North Circular.
The M1 itself was no barrel of laughs, with several fog warnings and fairly heavy traffic keeping the average speed down to sixtyish. But after the struggle just trying to reach the M1, it was fine.
Except that the SatNav didn't take me to the hotel. In fact it took me to a desolate road by the Derby Mail Centre. "You have reached your destination", SatNav informed me. "No I fucking haven't!!" I screamed back, as I stared at a desolate land of a five quid for 24 hours airport-sized car park.
I turned round, found a place to park the car, and hunted for the European Inn. Wandering around, I found another hotel that had an Emeric Miszti standing outside. "I can't find my hotel!" I wailed.
It turned out that there was a reason for this. The booking form says European Inn. Indeed, in the rooms it says European Inn. But on the outside it says no such thing. It says Hallmark Inn. This is certainly a cunning way to increase the number of no-shows from pre-bookings online. Become an incognito hotel operating under a different name.
But the four-hour drive and the half-hour hunt for where I could lay my head and call my home had just knackered me. The normal contingent with whom I would eat on Friday evening had already headed off to an unnamed destination who-knows-where. I bumped into Craig and arranged to meet him after he was free from the Diplomacy, then returned to my room, and promptly fell into a much-needed sleep.
I fear that this was due not only to the long day's work and the strain of the drive, but also a crucifying Thursday session in the gym. I managed a 2 rep squat at 130kg, although not what the cognoscenti would call "really deep". I am capable of these really deep squats at lighter weights, so next time round I'll try for 2 reps where the bum nearly scrapes the ground.
But that wasn't the murderous bit. These were, firstly, 15-rep squats of just 40kg, but with three resistance bands on each side. In effect that means that the more upright you get, the more it's pulling you back down. Personally I think that this exercise has already been banned in Guantanamo Bay. Then, after the relatively peaceful leg press, off we went to a 3 x 30 rep "static lunge". In effect you stand with one foot about a metre in front of the other. Then kneel on the back knee and drive up from the front leg. There are cushions so that your back knee doesn't go right down, but one of these is taken away after each set of 10, so by the end you are nearly hitting the ground with the back knee. Never known anything like it. I was still almost flat on my back from exhaustion 20 minutes after finishing the hour.
Got up early to move the car into the hotel car park (last night it was full), went for a short rather dispiriting walk (may look for the more interesting parts of the town later today), bought a Financial Times (none in the local "Mr Booze Express", more than a dozen in the WH Smith at the station) and returned for breakfast. Bumped into Geoff Hardingham, Tony Bromley, Dave Thorby and Kath Collman. Nice to see them all, although I don't think that I've ever actually spoken to Tony Bromley before.
Am now going to wander over to the main hotel to sit in the bar, order a fourth coffee of the morning, and read my FT.
++++++++++++++++
My short position on the euro reached a profit heading towards four figures by Wednesday afternoon, much of which I have since lost back. This is effectively a "new" set of positions, as the old ones were closed off a few weeks ago at an average of 1.34, reopening at an average of 1.3850. So I've already written a fair chunk of profit to book.
We are now entering an odd phase. As things get hairier and it looks more as if the euro will break up, so it gets weaker. Logically, however, the departure of Italy and Greece would make the euro stronger. But currency markets often don't act on logic, and the talent is guessing how the market will react,not how it should react.
Technocrats are coming into power now, but this won't make a difference. I suspect that in future these will be seen as weak and inconsequential leaders who will be thrown out by new charismatic leaders who will "discard" the debt. This will lead to nationalistic economics, export and import controls. etc.
I love emotional markets. There's so much money that can be made on the back of fools overreacting. They went too far on the downside on Wednesday, and came back too far up on Friday.
Still targeting 1.25 or 1.26 euro/dollar.
______________
On the plus side, I managed to get away by 2.45pm, just after my new soooper-doooper fibre-optic broadband was installed. On the minus side, I didn't take my instinctive route of Blackwall tunnel and North Circular. Instead I took the advice of the "fastest" route from the SatNav. I will go no further into this nightmare except to say that Swiss Cottage is definitely the worst piece of road design in Britain and that it took me 1hr 50min to get to the start of the M1 instead of about 1hr 10min which I estimate it would have taken me via the North Circular.
The M1 itself was no barrel of laughs, with several fog warnings and fairly heavy traffic keeping the average speed down to sixtyish. But after the struggle just trying to reach the M1, it was fine.
Except that the SatNav didn't take me to the hotel. In fact it took me to a desolate road by the Derby Mail Centre. "You have reached your destination", SatNav informed me. "No I fucking haven't!!" I screamed back, as I stared at a desolate land of a five quid for 24 hours airport-sized car park.
I turned round, found a place to park the car, and hunted for the European Inn. Wandering around, I found another hotel that had an Emeric Miszti standing outside. "I can't find my hotel!" I wailed.
It turned out that there was a reason for this. The booking form says European Inn. Indeed, in the rooms it says European Inn. But on the outside it says no such thing. It says Hallmark Inn. This is certainly a cunning way to increase the number of no-shows from pre-bookings online. Become an incognito hotel operating under a different name.
But the four-hour drive and the half-hour hunt for where I could lay my head and call my home had just knackered me. The normal contingent with whom I would eat on Friday evening had already headed off to an unnamed destination who-knows-where. I bumped into Craig and arranged to meet him after he was free from the Diplomacy, then returned to my room, and promptly fell into a much-needed sleep.
I fear that this was due not only to the long day's work and the strain of the drive, but also a crucifying Thursday session in the gym. I managed a 2 rep squat at 130kg, although not what the cognoscenti would call "really deep". I am capable of these really deep squats at lighter weights, so next time round I'll try for 2 reps where the bum nearly scrapes the ground.
But that wasn't the murderous bit. These were, firstly, 15-rep squats of just 40kg, but with three resistance bands on each side. In effect that means that the more upright you get, the more it's pulling you back down. Personally I think that this exercise has already been banned in Guantanamo Bay. Then, after the relatively peaceful leg press, off we went to a 3 x 30 rep "static lunge". In effect you stand with one foot about a metre in front of the other. Then kneel on the back knee and drive up from the front leg. There are cushions so that your back knee doesn't go right down, but one of these is taken away after each set of 10, so by the end you are nearly hitting the ground with the back knee. Never known anything like it. I was still almost flat on my back from exhaustion 20 minutes after finishing the hour.
Got up early to move the car into the hotel car park (last night it was full), went for a short rather dispiriting walk (may look for the more interesting parts of the town later today), bought a Financial Times (none in the local "Mr Booze Express", more than a dozen in the WH Smith at the station) and returned for breakfast. Bumped into Geoff Hardingham, Tony Bromley, Dave Thorby and Kath Collman. Nice to see them all, although I don't think that I've ever actually spoken to Tony Bromley before.
Am now going to wander over to the main hotel to sit in the bar, order a fourth coffee of the morning, and read my FT.
++++++++++++++++
My short position on the euro reached a profit heading towards four figures by Wednesday afternoon, much of which I have since lost back. This is effectively a "new" set of positions, as the old ones were closed off a few weeks ago at an average of 1.34, reopening at an average of 1.3850. So I've already written a fair chunk of profit to book.
We are now entering an odd phase. As things get hairier and it looks more as if the euro will break up, so it gets weaker. Logically, however, the departure of Italy and Greece would make the euro stronger. But currency markets often don't act on logic, and the talent is guessing how the market will react,not how it should react.
Technocrats are coming into power now, but this won't make a difference. I suspect that in future these will be seen as weak and inconsequential leaders who will be thrown out by new charismatic leaders who will "discard" the debt. This will lead to nationalistic economics, export and import controls. etc.
I love emotional markets. There's so much money that can be made on the back of fools overreacting. They went too far on the downside on Wednesday, and came back too far up on Friday.
Still targeting 1.25 or 1.26 euro/dollar.
______________
