Posted 2:52 AM by Paul
Moving On

Not blogged for a while. It's been a busy time and we have just got back from a short break in Ireland.

I handed in my notice at work just before we went away. It's a great feeling to be moving on and experience the thrill of a new challenge. I am off to work for my old boss at the Millennium Dome. She is the director of a big live events and - to use the marketing jargon - brand experience company. She was also one of the few people to come out of the debacle with any credit. I will be one of the team running a big careers and vocational educational expo in London called SkillCity.

It is a short term contract on good money but if I make a success of it could lead to long term prospects. Permanency in employment is largely a chimera. Large organisations like the one I have worked for since 2001 re-structure every two years following a "strategic review" by consultants. A swathe of middle managers are made redundant and their jobs re-branded with subtly different titles and responsibilities.

The new outfit are part of a larger group of companies including Interbrand and they have already brought me in on the discussions to revitalise and re-brand Blackpool. For any Americans reading this, Blackpool is a northern seaside resort, which used to attract millions of visitors but is now going through a bad time. As sleazy as Coney Island but with none of the charm.

The city fathers backed by some major investors are trying to put together package including casinos and gambling, which they hope will make the town more like Atlantic City and less like Hell. We were there a couple of years ago for mum's 80th birthday and had a great old time of it - when we were in the hotel. We ventured out with the kids around 3.00 p.m. and within an hour saw a blind drunk man laying in a horse trough dressed as a woman - stag night excesses - and another charging £4 to have your photograph taken with his Boa Constrictor. Blackpool Tower had discount shops in the units at its base and the shops were full of blow up dolls and sex toys. No exactly family entertainment. Added to that gangs of young men with 1000 yard stares roamed the streets bumping into holiday makers - "Watch where ya f*****g going !" screamed one. Again the stag night phenomenon. Not so much sleazy as positively menacing.
So, helping turn the place into somewhere ordinary people want to go will be quite a challenge. I start in October but I am fitting in a few days before then.

Ireland was a welcome break from the noise and dirt of the city but I am glad to be back. After a few days in the country a kind of melancholy sets in. We stayed with Kate and Finbar, a couple of friends who live close to us in London. Finbar inherited the family farmhouse when his mother died and still keeps it on. His brother works the land part time in the farm next door. Given that Finbar is the Deputy Director of a museum in London and Kate works as a social worker it's remarkable that the place feels like a real home and not just a holiday bolt hole. They are clearly routed in West Cork but have no intention of moving back in the near future.

The six days featured some great highlights:

Watching the kids pick blackberries down country lanes.

Visiting a Faerie Fort - a circular Iron Age settlement on Finbar's family land with the Fastnet lighthouse blinking in the distance.

Swimming with Alice in the surf at Barley Cove on the South West tip of Ireland

Watching Emily catch crabs in rock pools with Eoin , Kate and Finbar's five year old boy

Swimming in the peaty water hole under the bridge with the kids.

A visit to Levis's a tiny pub and shop run by two Irish spinsters in their 90s

Two hours body surfing on the Red Strand with Emily and Alice and a big gang of Irish girls from Tipperary. Emily laughing as the water splashed over her head. This was followed by supper with Kathleen and Kevin. Friends of Kate and Finbar's since they were in university. Kevin is a civil engineer and Kathleen is a Labour member for the Irish Senate. Despite having respect for Blair as a communicator she asked the question " I mean he flew over to America after 9/11 and made out he was the Leader of Europe without even asking the boys"…by which she meant the other EU heads of state. Well said. But then she asked a larger question.

" But perhaps democratic countries get the leaders they deserve. the ones that reflect the wider culture". She has a point.

So now it is back to two days at the new job and we fly out to Bilbao for the 2nd leg of the family holiday on Wednesday. I hope we will have more luck with the flights. The plane to Cork went in low and tried to land twice but poor visibility meant we had to pull out. The landing gear was down so we must have been blow around 3,000 feet. I was grimacing, the kids were laughing and Heather as ever was cool. I am sure she even managed a short nap as it came in for the second time. Worst case scenarios were going through my mind but I am sure that if I panicked Heather would leap up slap me across the face and shout, "Pull yourself together man"

Eventually the plane landed at Shannon 100 miles away and we returned to Cork by coach.
It's strange. When I was 30 I was relaxed when flying and scare of the sea. Now it's the other way round