Red, White and a little Blue

Here's the thing, if you had one of those white Ford Transit type vans with the totally enclosed back space, and you were parked in a public car park, why would you engage in sexual activity in the front?
It's ok, the question's rhetorical, I know the answer.

The heat is on again. We were promised lower temperatures and not just for one afternoon. But...it's back, beating down.

The weekend to come promises little rest. My dragons and I will be spending Saturday at the City Centre Celebration. I have no idea why we have to celebrate quite so much. Every week we are 'invited' to some fest or another. Mostly we have to tell them to sod off.
We get no benefit as an organisation from any of this, the idea is to raise our profile and yet wave after wave of kid already recognises us from the school programmes.

Back at Schloß Schnee, Kevin is writing an account of some of the projects he has worked on for his professional organisation. Just like me, he is having to 'learn the code'.
One of the most frustrating projects in his career needs the most encoding.
When the company he works for was first taken over by a Dutch firm, there was an office in California and an office here in Richmond.
The Dutch firm looked to rationalise and there were severe cuts made in the Canadian office. I remember his office at this point and it was a few good engineers working in what looked like a makeshift office connected to an equally makeshift lab.

The project, a collaboration between both teams, limped along, hamstrung by the distance and lack of communication. The small electronics team in Canada were being jerked around by the monster mechanical team in the States.

Then along came a Brit to sort it all out. He actually lived in California, still does in fact. But having seen both offices and looked at the expertise in both, he simply said to the Dutch,
'You're cutting back the wrong one, close the American office.'
Simple as that.
Before Kevin knew it, he was off the project that was becalmed, beset by huge problems, and going nowhere, and was part of a growing and flourishing company.
But it's difficult to account for that in professional terms. Should you try to weather the storm or cut and run? When do you reach the point where you have to jump ship?

My friend Dawn, as you know in Bangladesh, has contributed to a blog being published by one of her colleagues. I will link to it while she is out there. In her own most recent e-mail, Dawn had mentioned eating a western chicken dish as a refreshing change from the Asian food. My first reaction was, fancy anyone needing a change from Indian food, but then I thought again, and wondered how long even I would be able to eat it without respite. I think I've certainly managed a week, but then only dinners.

Interestingly, L'Oréal, they of the expensive end of the inexpensive cosmetics and hair products market, have been fined and in the case of one senior exec, given a suspended gaol term, for using representatives to promote their product who were specifically aged 18-22, UK size 10-14 and 'BBR', ie bleu, blanc, rouge, the colours of the French flag.
No, sorry, they haven't been punished for all of that, just the French flag bit. Uha. Why is that bad? Because apparently French flag colours means the person is white.
See to me, it just means French, and it seems more reasonable for a French company to promote their product in France using French people than it does to specify age and size.
And we're just talking about people who demonstrate their products in supermarkets, I'm surprised they even register on anyone's radar, they certainly don't on mine, oh well except for the woman in ours who dems everything and seems to have very few teeth but talks a lot.

Still, she is white.