Back Office Systems

There should be two principles to back office IT.

1) Make monkeys redundant.
2) Free up good guys time.

It’s not difficult. It’s not complicated. It will save money.

All Your Money Is Belong To Me

Final scores!

Position Score 1 -27 Me 2 -58 Dave 3 -107 Dec 4 -112 Alex 5 -154 Pease

Well, it was a great tournament. By which I mean that I won the betting. I think Dec, who would normally be eternally shamed at losing a bet to me, will trade it for the Irish Grand Slam. Pease and The Grad though? Very poor showing.

And Finally…

Will Ireland get a Grand Slam? Will Dave or Me win the money? Will Ant set new record levels of sucking?

All this, and more, to be revealed:

Me Dec Alex Pease Dave Italy vs France France by 18 France by 18 France by 14 France by 15 France by 19 England vs Scotland England by 15 England by 15 England by 22 England by 18 England by 13 Wales vs Ireland Ireland by 1 Ireland by 7 Wales by 9 Wales by 5 Wales by 2

With One Round Remaining…

The status is as below. The big three figures for Pease!

Position Score 1 -16 Me 2 -40 Dave 3 -75 Alex 4 -92 Dec 5 -126 Pease

6 Nations – Round 4

Predictions for this weekend are:

Me Dec Alex Pease Dave Italy vs Wales Wales by 10 Wales by 15 Wales by 18 Wales by 25 Wales by 18 Scotland vs Ireland Ireland by 5 Ireland by 12 Ireland by 12 Ireland by 15 Ireland by 8 England vs France England by 3 France by 8 France by 5 France by 7 England by 2

Oenology

What wine goes with fishfingers, alphabites and spaghetti-os?

Amy says: Blue Nun
Dave says: Muscadet
I say: A preconception-busting Syrah.

Six Nations Round 3 Update

Current status is:

Position Score 1 -3 Me 2 -19 Dave 3 -40 Alex 4 -55 Dec 5 -75 Pease

6 Nations – Round 3

Current status is:

Position Score 1 -1 Dave 2= -9 Me Dec 4 -15 Alex 5 -26 Pease

Pease seems to think that England will win by 12 at Croke Park. He is a nutter.

Predictions for this weekend are:

Me Dec Alex Pease Dave France vs Wales France by 5 Wales by 9 Wales by 6 Wales by 8 Wales by 3 Scotland vs Italy Scotland by 10 Italy by 6 Scotland by 8 Italy by 5 Scotland by 8 Ireland vs England Ireland by 10 Ireland by 12 England by 4 England by 12 Ireland by 9

Asia (7 Armies)

Last week, I pondered whether to head East via Central Asia (Tashkent, Samarkand – Uzbekistan; Bishkek – Kyrgystan; Almaty – Kazakhstan) or via Russia and Mongolia (Ekaterinburg, Irkutsk, Lake Baikal; Ulaan Baatur). The simplest way, of course, would be to go one way (e.g. trans-Mongolian) on the way out, and the other (Silk Road) on the way back. The problem comes that I don’t want to come back that way, I want to head off to Tibet. Or Japan. Or Cambodia. Or, you know, anywhere that’s not back to Russia. This is also not entirely due to the fact that getting visas for Russia is a royal pain in the arse. You need letters of invitation and precise itineraries for everything. Or, you know, to be be Ewan McGregor.

At the same time, I could go down to Kazakhstan, faff around that way for a while, head back to Moscow and then head East. But going back on yourself just feels wrong when travelling. Just as flying does.

Bah. I’d also quite like to go on a tour. I’ll probably be travelling on my own quite a bit and, well, I’m mildly insufferable and am unwilling to inflict myself on, uhh, myself for large periods of time. However, tours seem to be split extremely between slightly more active Saga trips and legions of drunk Australians. Why is there no middle ground?

Should probably learn Cyrillic too.

6 Nations betting update

An improved performance by England, but they still lost. A similar thing could be said for Declan this week. Current leaderboard:

Position Score 1 -1 Dave 2= -9 Me Dec 4 -15 Alex 5 -26 Pease