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[This email is an update. If you haven't got one from me before you'll
find I write them two-four times a year. Please email me to opt-out
or opt-in - I'm not very methodical about updating the list of people
I send this to!]

So I'm finishing this email one chilled out rainy day in San Sebastian
with my brothers, and five months ago I moved to London and got
burgled. In between all that some stuff happened. A lot of stuff. Life
is busy, but very very good.

Most recently, graduation. Oxford's graduations are all in Latin and
no more interesting than anyone else's (one of the Professor's down
the front had his kindle out, I wished I'd brought mine too), but the
superman robes are fun. Graduation and the days leading up to it was
also the first time my immediate family has been in one place
since...? Whatever, I don't actually know. A very long time. Anyway,
we were, I loved it, and I'm very grateful they had journeyed from all
the distant, disparate corners of the world! Ultimately, that was the
point of the graduation, not the robes.

The holiday me and my brothers left for the day after graduation has
also been great. We had a couple of days together at Easter last year.
Before that it was Christmas 2008 in Vienna. But now we've agreed to
holiday somewhere every year, just the three of us, and San Sebastian
is the first. Next year? Tentative plans to do something in the
Carribean or Florida. Living in three non-contiguous time zones means
we need them, lest we become strangers...

Talking of young men on holiday:

http://bit.ly/icK9Da

Of course ours is much more civilised. So far.

Enough scene-setting. On with the work at BCG. It takes up quite a lot
of time. It's been interesting, challenging and a lot of fun. I'll
never go back to being an academic either. It was nice being an
academic and knowing everything about nothing, but being a consultant
who knows nothing about everything is a million times more for me.

Except that it's not true, knowing nothing. The training at BCG is
amazing. Most recently: an introduction to the insurance industry with
someone who's worked there more than 20 years. On-demand and as
necessary interviews with experts inside and outside BCG. Interviewing
skills, a slew of other business, professional and people-related
subjects. Training sessions in the office. Virtual sessions, via
conference call and web presentation. Regional and global training.
Coming up: a 2-week mini-MBA in Boston, another regional week in
Paris. And that's just the officially organised stuff. I don't bother
to count the number of times I've been able to sit down with someone
more senior and pick their brains, and I don't bother to count the
number of times people have offered it to me and those around me,
without being asked.

Needless to say, the people are friendly. They're also varied, smart,
really good to work with and intimidatingly competent at their jobs.
It's a high standard, but a good one. It means I don't spin my wheels
because of some incompetent colleague, and the aforementioned training
also means they aren't waiting on me. Problems and gaps get filled
quickly. This ubiquitous competence is gloriously refreshing, so much
so I doubt I'll ever be able to express it. Talking of varied people:

http://bit.ly/gySckh

On the other hand, my chances of ever winning a Grammy are nil. Back
to the work. What do I actually do? Well, mostly I talk to people and
read things and make Excel models and powerpoint slides. Very rarely
does anyone tell me what to do, and even more rarely does anyone tell
me how to do it. Instead, I usually get a vague description of what
needs to be done - "a presentation of XXX to present to YYY [a
multinational media company] tomorrow" - and I talk to other people on
the team. Then I or we (depending on everyone's commitments) sit down,
think about XXX, the analysis this needs and the presentation story
line it creates, and then I or we do it. If diaries align there'll be
another slot of time later that day with the manager to iterate, but
not always.

Which brings us nicely to the hours. These are long, and I'm not sure
when I last had a weeknight dinner at home. I think Monday 9 May. The
time before that was sometime in April, or maybe the end of March. Of
course, the advantage of everyone working long hours is that the
people in Australia are in the office when you are, and vice versa.
I'm pretty sure that's called globalisation or something.

The hours also mean it's almost impossible to do anything on a
weeknight and so I've had to give up jitsu for now, which makes me
sad. All the other evening things got shifted to the morning too,
which means I'm busy then as well. Whether it's an early morning work
call to the US, going to the gym, Chinese language classes or skyping
with family in NZ, I'm not often sleeping in. So yes, I'm busy... But
it turns out I don't need as much sleep as I thought I did, and I
wouldn't have it any other way!

And now we come to the burglary, just 7 days after my flatmate and I
moved to London. Ouch. They took my laptop, my camera and my iPod. And
my backup hard drives. Ouch. They left my alcohol unopened and neatly
piled on my bed. Confusing. But apparently normal - the police
officers say the burglars are all addicts, and the dealers will take
electronics in lieu of cash. At least the clean up was straight
forward. The final ouch? The police take 42 days (and want £10) to
send you the police report of your own burglary.

But enough moaning. In my spare time? Relaxing Stories is in beta test
and it is going extremely well! Alex, Deeksha and Akshat have done
amazing things, the stories sound great and the app's UI is getting
rave reviews. More news to come on this front soon, and I've attached
the logo to this email because I love it!

In my other spare time I've become a school governor at Old Oak
Primary. This is an amazing school, and the head teacher and staff
seems great - but North Acton can be pretty grim, the community is
very transitory with lots of refugees and socioeconomically its very
deprived. Also, Wormwood Scrubs is right next door, they need to hire
a new deputy headteacher and they're changing from a 1.5 form model to
a 2 form model, which means growing from 330 students to nearer 500.
I'm looking forward to getting stuck in.

San Sebastian hasn't been the only holiday either... Katie and I had a
fantastic time up in the lakes district, made sure to drink a bottle
of champagne on our anniversary and raced up and down mountains most
other days. Lots of photos attached. We'll be in New Zealand at
Christmas and walking the Routeburn with family. More immediately,
we've got a weekend in Amsterdam coming up too. Life? Life is busy,
but life is good.

And this is hilarious:

http://bit.ly/lqydVd

FINIS