Year: 2005

I went to Waterstones at Oxford Street to see the release of Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince. There was a party the previous night, with all the fanfare associated with a previous night. But things seemed fairly quiet when I was there. The usual crowd at Oxford Street, and the usual crowd at Waterstones.

I already knew who dies in the sixth book. I couldn’t help spotting it as I was reading some blog. Since the suspense was already spoilt, I opened to the last few pages, and ended up learning who the Half-Blood Prince was.

I cross the prime meridien almost every day. I live 0 degrees 5 minutes east of the prime meridien. I travel to Liverpool Street usually, which is 0 degrees 5 minutes west of the prime meridien. The station closest to the meridien, on my route, is Stratford, which stretches from 7 seconds to 17 seconds west of the meridien.

Of course, crossing the prime meridien has no time-zone related significance like the international date line. But it does mean that I travel to the western hemisphere and back every day.

There is a place near Stratford station called Meridien Square. Should visit it some time.

I met Leonard Payne, The Priest, Andrea Casalotti and Scott Caplan at the London Marketing Soiree. Quite a diverse bunch of people. Leonard quoted Seth Godin on something neither he nor I will never forget.

They say, if a website is well designed, people will find what they want. That’s not true. Think of the visitors as monkeys, wearing a ‘Big Red Fez’, going itchy on the keyboard. What’s the one thing on the monkey’s mind?

Where’s the banana!?

We had a conference call planned at 8:00am. Reva was to join in from India. We got on to the call, and were done by 8:40am.
9:10am: SMS. Waited in conference now off to lunch
9:56am: Mail. You didnt initiate the call!
10:03am: Reply. I guess you dialled in at 9am UK time. We had the call at 8am.
3:17pm: Mail. I dialled at 8 GMT = 13.30 IST ? Correct?
3:19pm: Reply. Ah, no. We’re 4.5 hours ahead.
3:25pm: Mail. Great Britain is one hour ahead of GMT during summer!
3:53pm: Reply. Yeah, you’re right — most people don’t realise Greenwich isn’t always on Greenwich Mean Time 🙂