Wednesday, February 28, 2007
A busy week
A week of diverse personalities, ranging from a group of young Syrian physicists to the new British Ambassador. In between I met someone who has developed a concept for a robot them park; robots can be controlled remotely by people dialling up via the web, and then can interact with people visiting the park. Not as good as it sounds, sadly, as the range of robot movement is limited to a sort of skating progress in a limited area, whilst flapping arms and opening mouths. And it would be interesting to know what happens if someone remotely controlling a robot chose to make it take a swipe at a visitor to the park, or ran over a toddler... Still, useful to meet someone with some electro-mechanical knowledge, which we will need.
Then a visit from someone advocating pranic healing. This is a spiritual process, involving a series of squats while holding the earlobes and facing north, to channel energy to the brain. Lots of pseudo-science to back it up, all written by people with the letters MPH after their names, which seems to stand for Master of Pranic Healing, so as Christine Keeler said: they would say that, wouldn't they? Still, I'm trying the exercises, as my poor old brain needs all the help it can get.
Next lunch with the manager of the Four Seasons hotel to keep him updated on our development of the Old International Fairground site, which is just opposite his hotel. Spent time talking about maintaining levels of customer service, which I think they are very good at, sourcing high quality local suppliers, staff training, car park provision and project management. All good stuff, and he is very supportive. He suggested his investor might be interested in commercial opportunities on the site, and perhaps supporting the project financially. Will be good if so.
New ambassador seems like a good change from the old, if only because he is a more engaging character, with what seems to be quite a wicked sense of humour. I spent an hour with him and a few embassy staff before a dinner he was hosting, and then afterwards downed a few of Scotland's finest before heading off to bed. Interesting to get the official UK perspective on Syria.
Then a visit from someone advocating pranic healing. This is a spiritual process, involving a series of squats while holding the earlobes and facing north, to channel energy to the brain. Lots of pseudo-science to back it up, all written by people with the letters MPH after their names, which seems to stand for Master of Pranic Healing, so as Christine Keeler said: they would say that, wouldn't they? Still, I'm trying the exercises, as my poor old brain needs all the help it can get.
Next lunch with the manager of the Four Seasons hotel to keep him updated on our development of the Old International Fairground site, which is just opposite his hotel. Spent time talking about maintaining levels of customer service, which I think they are very good at, sourcing high quality local suppliers, staff training, car park provision and project management. All good stuff, and he is very supportive. He suggested his investor might be interested in commercial opportunities on the site, and perhaps supporting the project financially. Will be good if so.
New ambassador seems like a good change from the old, if only because he is a more engaging character, with what seems to be quite a wicked sense of humour. I spent an hour with him and a few embassy staff before a dinner he was hosting, and then afterwards downed a few of Scotland's finest before heading off to bed. Interesting to get the official UK perspective on Syria.
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