Finally, a "normal" day . . . and Fish & Chips

Finally got the sleep I was craving. I also got in that first run here. Gary, the doorman at the hotel, helped me with an interesting 5.7 miler along the Thames. Down Kingsway to Allywch, across the Wellington Bridge and up the South Embankment to the Tower Bridge and back along the North Embankment. A nice run, but lots of discovery following the ins and outs of the Thames path along the river. Went by the Starbucks across from the hotel, but ordered -- drumroll -- tea and milk. There's something about how they make it over here that's just better.

Joel and I had a lunch meeting at The Ship, but we eschewed the pints (lemonade and Diet Coke). It was a good day in the office. First call with an EMEA client. We went over the TechEd press conference and he liked our recommendations. Claudia comes tomorrow from Paris so we vet our plans with her. I'm seeing the value that can be added by having this kind of integration with the U.S. teams. We broke a few rules in the office today (after Claire went home). The air goes off in the office about 7 p.m., so us working fools get hot and there's no way to override it. Opening the windows is verboten, but we did it anyhow. Joel and I had a conference call back to the US at 7:30 GMT so I brought up pints from The Ship to help us battle the heat and freshen us up.

Josh and his friend Sibylle dropped by shortly afterwards and we all went to The Rock & Sole Plaice for dinner. Dined outside on the street with the guy in the priate hat who was putting the big make on his girl. Shaun from the London office, who's leaving tomorrow for holiday in Cypress, joined us.

The news here is about today's local elections and fretting over England's first match in Euro Cub 2004. This is like a very big deal. England plays France on Sunday night and every pub in the city will be rocking. I visited Ladbrokes to check out the odds. There are odds on everything, but England is the underdog. It's like the fifth or sixth favorite. It's not as big as the World Cup, but fairly close.

So, now for the pics . Attached find pics of my hotel, the office, The Ship and a strange place across the street from the hotel called the Leisure Exchange that I think is a video game parlour.

I'm posting this from the hotel bar (again) and cringe to think about how late it's getting. The Cubans, which you can smoke indoors here, are superb. But gotta log onto mail to do a smidge of work.