yawn

I am tired, and have just battled through a truly shit day. It is going dark, I'm supposed to be at the tailors to get my new jacket fitted as I'm too pikey to buy a new suit, I was close to firing someone today, my laptop died and this stupid PC I'm working on keeps switching to arabic text arbitrarily, my head hurts and my legs have chosen this evening to start feeling the pain of yesterday's squats, and I'm sitting here waiting for rb to finish the arabic translation so I can shut the london office up and bugger off home.

In other news....

Weekend shaping up nicely, with attendance for the polo on Friday growing steadily, and the prospect of visiting Trilogy post-polo roundly pooh-poohed by some of the merrymen planning to attend. Which is good, as I haven't been back since the boy ben pirouhetted down the stairwell, and I am a bit nervous of being on the rooftop whilst under the influence. Mainly because I know I'd want to go and have a look at how far he fell, and work out what he bounced off on the way down, and that would utterly freak me out, especially after a day on the bubbles. So, I'm a firm opponent of the Trilogy plan, and will be sticking to my guns on that one.

Won a new client today, and have absolutely no idea what it is they do. Good that I've got a conference call to kick off our work with them tomorrow, and we were selected because of our unique insight and attention to detail. I shall mainly get through it by lying alot, again.

I think my cats might hate me. I bought them food that has different sized nuggets, perhaps four or five varieties, and it seems they only like one of the nuggets. It is quite amusing them selecting these with their nose in a complicated nudge manoevre, before balefully glaring at me over the plate. They quite like one of the other flavours (I imagine they're different elements of the 'country special') but seem to leave the last 10% of the nugget, leaving a sort of large grain of sand sized nugget on the plate. All very odd. They're still addicted to lying in sinks of any kind, and have taken to sitting on the edge of the bath peering round the shower curtain whilst I shower in the mornings, meowing if a drop dares to hit them. I think they're amphibious felinious, but have no solid proof.

Tick tock... Rana is being super slow doing this arabization. I'd love to leave her to it, but can't, as I have to be 100% sure it goes to James. Joys.

Boot camp tomorrow at Safa Park. I'm glad DOHMS has set in... for non-bootcampers that is delayed onset something-starting-with-H muscle soreness ... basically it is a posh word for pain.

Went to the launch of the Flying Angel ship last night - this charity boat that takes ministers of many faiths (plus the more useful offerings of food, free telephones, free internet, hot showers and a library) to the poor guys who come in to port on the super tankers, and are often left sitting on said tankers while owners in plush offices in Lagos or Athens argue whether or not the load has been delivered fully or other nonsense. It was held in the Fairmont ballroom, which was all set up for their ATM party - ATM being the annual travel market, which is a big excuse for hoteliers to practise oneupmanship. Not a common occurence in this region at all. Anyway, we chatted to Steven, whose idea it was, and who put it all together, who is the funniest holy person I have ever met, well, since Father Richard who oversaw my first communion shortly before he was rushed out of Saudi Arabia for gambling and drinking. Good old Catholics. Nick's company insured the boat for free, which was nice of them I thought. An old friend of mum & dad's from KSA had basically built the engine room and engine for free, so he and his wife were there. As we've known them since we were toddlers, it was a bit like seeing long lost family, nice but a bit dull. We actually saw another old KSA person before heading to the launch party, David Duncan, whose daughter Elidh is getting married this summer. She's my age - he invited us all but I am not schlepping all the way to Scotland to watch someone I haven't seen since we were 12 and didn't really get on with then tie the knot. It's depressing enough thanks. His other useful piece of information was that one of his twin daughters was the stand-in for Hermoine in the Harry Potter films, at which I think we were expected to coo in admiration... so I did, but got a bit of a funny response. Not sure where I went wrong, but it was an odd statement I thought. Quite a cool film to be on the set of though I'd imagine. Sadly, I'm looking forward to the book in the summer. On that note I'll get back in my box.