Sebastian Abbott

Hej då, Saab Cars

Saab cars went into bankruptcy just before Christmas. There is tons about it on the web, so I don't really need to describe the ins and outs of the long and painful slide from being sold by GM to Spyker and "Swedish Automobile," to the rather demeaning attempts at sale to the nobody Chinese firms Pang Da and Youngman.

I'm writing about this now because I had to pop into the local Saab dealership in Ipswich to have an engine management problem looked at. (It turns out that the turbo vacuum hose had a small hole in the side, most likely caused by a marten, the famous "Marderbiss" in German.) I had to wait a while, just over an hour, for my car to be looked at and repaired, so I had time to sit in the upstairs waiting area to read a 1987 history of Saab-Scania, and to sit in the latest and last Saab, the 9-5 Aero turbo 4.

The book was full of hope and pride of Saab Cars, noting its original raison d'être of being an emergency occupation for thousands of Svenska Aeroplan workers who were no longer needed for aircraft manufacture in the post WWII years. It was always a bit of a side-show for SAAB the company.

The 9-5 was rather nice and sitting in it made me feel slightly melancholy about a brand that I have always appreciated from the days of the 900 Turbo. It had all the equipment: HUD, gear-changing flaps behind the steering wheel and a nice big old turbo engine. I rather liked the styling; there were a lot of subtle details in there that set the Saab design language in a modern context. The interior was less successful (rather too black and with some rather perplexing discontinuities in there).

One of the big problems about it all is that none of the tech really belonged to Saab. Suppliers and GM owned all the technology. Saab repackaged it nicely but no longer sufficiently uniquely. There was talk in Feb 2009 of Saab being the "Apple of the auto world", but ultimately there was nothing compelling in knowing that GM platforms were the Intel chippery inside.

As I write this, there is talk of the bones of Saab being bought by Mahindra and Mahindra. I still doubt that they will be able to keep the Saab name, as the aircraft manufacturer would like its name back in reasonably good order. But if a car based on the 9-5 can be resurrected along with the next 9-3 and Saab can keep its engineers, then there would be a chance of it being as successful as the Indian owned Jaguar Land Rover. We shall see...

→ 7:03 PM, Dec 30

Pass. Partout

I mentioned that I am home for Christmas. This means that I am at my parents' house with my own family, having made it to England without a full passport.

After the initial assurances that my passport would be ready for me well before our travel, I eventually received an email from the lady working on my case that it emphatically would not be ready. I would have to travel up to Düsseldorf to obtain an Emergency Travel Document (ETD) from the British Consulate in person.

Actually, I was supposed to have gone to Munich, because that’s where British citizens living in Bavaria and Baden-Württemberg are catered for (or “processed”, I suppose). But, since Heidelberg is so much closer to Düsseldorf than to the Munich mother-ship, I went there instead.

It was an early start, but the weather was good and I made swift process along the Autobahns. Having left at around six o’clock in the morning I arrived just after nine, after battling through the Düsseldorf rush-hour traffic and finding a parking spot.

My application was ready just after eleven, having hit a slight hitch with the payment of €113 for the pleasure via credit card (the simple form didn’t allow for any security details, nor did they ask me in person, so their charge was initially rejected by Mastercard.) However, by five past eleven, I had the receipt in my hands, only to learn that it would take an hour to produce the card and that that would therefore run into their lunchbreak, so could I return at two o’clock…

A little bit of discussion ensured with the result that I could return at half past one, leaving me with just around two hours to kill for lunch. So I walked into town.

I find Düsseldorf strangely appealing. It has an interesting mix of the swank and the shabby, the artistic and the heavy industry. The Rhein is naturally a key feature of the city, but they still had to make something of it, which they have done, overall successfully.

I wouldn't mind going back, as long as it's not for anything to do with passports...

→ 10:34 PM, Dec 27

Delicious by design

Back at my parents' house over Christmas, I was (watch out, this is going to get exciting) doing the washing up after my sister had made the dinner. (Just to write "pork chops" does the meal an injustice, but that's basically what it was). The item I cleaned last, because it had now rather unappetising looking bits of wet pastry on it, was the beater from our old Kenwood mixer. As I washed, I remembered how this piece of utilitarian design had always fascinated me through its complexity and simplicity.

It is designed as a 'K', instantly bringing the branding to the forefront. Whether or not this is optimal for mixing pastry I cannot say; but it works very well, generally resulting in great cakes, so its impact on the mixing dynamics of pastry is at least not negative. Its complexity is subtle, but everywhere present. It warps in all three dimensions, combining rigorous straight elements with beautiful curves, tubes with flat and developing blades.

Some of the joins are no longer quite so beautiful on our example, but after over twenty years of use, that can be expected. Doubtlessly the assembly process has improved significantly since then (or has been made ever cheaper), but the K-Beater design remains to this day and, even when mass production using 3D printing becomes commonplace, it will remain in the future...

A classic.

→ 12:05 PM, Dec 26

Pass. Port.

Last week I was on a business trip to Genoa. I was there to represent the Technology department in the lions den of a quality managers' meeting, as I had been a few years previously in Liège and in Bielsko-Biala. This time around was somewhat more relaxed than the previous few. The quality team had finally accepted our way of working and come round to accepting our thinking behind the complex tolerancing on seemingly simple parts. And to accept the necessity of measuring what we make.

Naturally, I had only a little time to experience Genoa itself.

My evening out with the team at a pizzeria in the port at least showed me the way down to the port, so when I escaped an hour earlier than required the next day, I was able to wander down for a quick look in the daylight. The Genoa that I saw had that certain Mediterranean lived-in grandeur that many Italian cities posess; fading architectural glories simply being part of the activity going on in and around them. At least the busses were now electrified (using overhead transmission lines) so that the level of soot particle attack on old stone was reduced, even if the traffic otherwise continued apace.

The port area was a little bit dead when I visited. The mix of upper class (yachts and a few of their designers, coffee and wine bars with excessive glass and stainless steel) existing along with the Ecuadorian fake-goods sellers didn't really work. I say "mix", but really the two worlds are oil and water, imiscable when coexisting. The intermediate layer of November tourists was very thin, as could be expected, which dampened the spirits more than the warm but grey weather. The university district around Via Balbi at least added that chaotic sort of youthful vigour that universities tend to do. As my colleague RP said, it would be worth going back to Genoa for a weekend in late spring, early summer to get a more in-depth impression of the place.

As an aside, I was stunned by the wonderful section of the A7 Autostrada between Milan and Genoa near the Scrivia towns and leading down to Busalla (where our company has its Italian production plant). Curves! Mountains! Scenery! It had everything. I could have imagined better cars to drive on it than my Fiat Bravo hire car, but even that was able to let its hair down without collapsing in a heap.

I flew in and out of Italy via Milan Malpensa. For some reason, the security control was chaotic, despite the sleek "entry pods" that permit only one person to enter into the scanners at once. It may have been there, though it could also have been anywhere, that I lost my passport. I managed to lose my boarding pass there, too - but when, after some minutes of panic, I enquired of the security personnel there, it was swiftly found. I didn't realise that my passport was missing, however. I still don't know when it went awol.

And, as I write this, I am still without my passport. From searching everywhere at home, asking the hire car company, Frankfurt airport and Malpensa airport to have a look, to filling out the application forms for a new passport (there is very little in life that makes me more nervous, skittish, fretful than filling out forms), it has been a stressful few days; I need the passport to get back to England for Christmas with my family (As a good subject of the Queen, I have no other form of ID that would be valid for travel.) We need it in order to apply for my baby daughter's own passport (as a good German citizen, she needs proof that I agree with her having said document).

So, I wait. The man I spoke to at the British Consulate-General in Düsseldorf reassured me that it would not take the advertised four to six weeks to get my new passport. I certainly made it clear in my accompanying letter that I need it soon; currently applications for the new electronically readable passports (which can not be printed in Düsseldorf as could be the older versions) are dealt with rather more quickly and I could easily expect it before our travel. I will remain on edge until I have presented it to border control at the Channel Tunnel…

One positive corollary of the whole passport episode is that I cannot travel. All of a sudden, in the two and a half weeks before the Christmas holidays, I was being asked to travel to Palencia (via Madrid), to Nazelles near Tours and to Bologna. Now, I am safely and happily "stuck" at home, getting my normal workload done, if not dusted, and being home for bedtimes. I appreciate that all the more.

→ 10:16 PM, Dec 12

St. Martin

One of the lovliest traditions that I have come across is the Sankt-Martins-Umzug. Last night (13th Nov) I was reminded how wonderful it is with my eldest proudly parading her owl lantern through the streets of Wieblingen, down to the Kerweplatz where the Feuerwehr had installed a large bonfire and several stands were dotted around selling Bratwurst and Glühwein.

Wieblingen Dorf was very well represented with lots of familiar faces as well as the small Blaskapelle playing the St Martin’s songs in continuous loop.

→ 2:20 PM, Nov 14

Sport and children - a fidgety mix

Sport, whether played in a team or singly, is essentially a selfish pursuit. I want to get fit, I want to improve my flexibility and coordination, I want to forget work and - well, you know how it is sometimes - I want to forget the family. Lots of 'I's happen, in any case.

Bringing up children ends up generating not a little internal tension between selfishness and selflessness, despite the best protestations of celebrities that it has finally taught them to think about others. It is also the cause of some sporting ingenuity. For example, throwing an 8 kg baby around for a little several times a day helps to keep the upper body muscles active. Hauling two children and a child's bike in a bike trailer is good for the legs and stamina. Not just standing around in the swimming pool, but actively swimming and splashing around expends some energy. My evening rides around the block with the eldest, whilst fun, don't really count other than as chances to get some fresh air.

Time off for a couple of hours on the mountain bike of a weekend, or an evening run, is the pinnacle of sporting activity granted to me at the moment; I a also manage to get in a late-night hour of squash per week at the moment. Despite all of this, my sports equipment is overwhelmingly static.

And yet - when I think back to my single days, how much sports did I do at the time? Not particularly much more than I do now. Having children does seem to have concentrated the mind on what's important, for me as well as for the others. I am more aware of the worth of trying to keep things active, like writing this blog, rather than passively surfing. Getting out rather than lolling about. Making more of my time.

(phew, that was exhausting. Time for a cup of tea, actively made.)

Oh, and I am also sensitive enough to know that all of this is valid for my wife, too; currently stuck as the "milk bar", she's certainly got a good metabolism. But exercise? Not much - we'll make some time for her, too.

→ 2:11 PM, Nov 8

Morning people

I’m not a morning person. It’ll be a recurring theme of mine, especially, I suspect, when we experience at first hand the tyranny of the German school day (starting before 8am? Pointless).

However, I simply wanted to record here how wonderful it is when our baby daughter starts her day and ours with a great big smile at us.

That’s it. Thanks!

→ 9:16 PM, Oct 19

Noise and quiet

On Saturday we decided to cycle into town. Our three year-old (coming on four) had her new bike, our three month-old hovered in her hammock in the Chariot cycle trailer. The sun shone and we rolled into Heidelberg happy and proud.

Then we went shopping. On a Saturday. It was of course very busy; we knew that it would be and planned for a nice hot chocolate reward in Schiller’s. In our experience it had been an oasis of calm where one could take time to enjoy a nice or unusual (sometimes both) hot chocolate and a home-made cake. Unfortunately, Schiller’s has become too popular. We were able to sit down and order, but the level of noise in there was unbearable. Our baby added to that by crying and not being able to settle for a feed. People looked at us, we looked at them. We paid for our chocolates and left as quickly as we could, not having enjoyed it at all. There was music beating in the background and conversation was stuck in a feedback loop of ever-increasing volume. Schiller’s has become a victim of its own success.

Worse, the traffic on the way back was heavy but flowing; engine and tyre road noise accompanied us all the way back home. We did not enjoy a single minute of peace in that outing and that was stressful.

I’ve never had the ability to deal with much noise, always preferring to step out of parties for longer than just a breath of fresh air when I was younger; but I have rarely felt so stressed by noise. I hope we find some quiet again soon.

→ 1:08 PM, Oct 17

Musing on Maastricht

Yesterday I was in Maastricht for lunch. I felt no urge to blog about it; which itself is good cause for a short blog post.

Maastricht is a lovely city, full of Dutch and European styles. It has a grown-up feel to it; calm, confident, aware of its place in the world. It has its own identity and is full of culture. Its political status is well concealed from the average tourist - there are no huge European institutions in the centre to remind the Maastricht Treaty, for example (although there are some suspicious-looking buildings further along the river).

But I didn't particularly want to blog about it, in direct contrast to Naples. It simply didn't raise as many emotions. I certainly know where where I would prefer to live, of the two, where I could bring my family - I also know where I would prefer to visit...

→ 12:53 PM, Oct 13

Thoughts on a plane

04.10.2011

Thoughts on a plane - I am of course referring to the prosaic (but amazing) technical achievement of the aeroplane, rather than to otherworldly spheres of thought.

I am flying in an Airbus A321 from Munich to Naples. A three-generation Italian family is in constant sound and motion in front of me. The children are getting bored now that the afternoon snack is finished; I have my headphones on, listening to Carl Craig & Moritz von Oswald's Deutsche Grammophon Recomposed mix of Ravel's Bolero (mashed with Mussorgsky); I'm relaxed and in a good mood, so the children aren't too annoying.

The Italian next to me is reading his Reppublica.

I am tapping away on the virtual keyboard of my Samsung Galaxy Tab 7", hitting the 'delete' button more than anything else.

Really I don't have anything to say for this blog entry; this is just something to keep me occupied until the fasten seatbelts sign is switched on and we have to switch off our electronic items. I am in typical 'brain coast' mode, not overtaxing myself, but presenting my synapses with the challenge of selecting appropriate words in a stream of unprepared typing. Just to see where this all leads.

Today is all very European, despite the Samsung and the Shure headphones. The Airbus is the epitome of European collaboration, politics, questionable finance and beating the Americans. I'm flying over the Alps to Italy where I will eat wonderful food and drink fine wine.

I like Europe, but I don't know how I want it to be.

Fasten seatbelts, let's do Napoli.

→ 9:30 PM, Oct 6

Impressions of Napoli

05.10.2011

Put short, Naples could easily be described as a characature of Italy. Take for example and especially the motorcyclists on the Tangenziale; one sitting upright at the handlebars in order to have both hands free for his mobile phone, another gesticulating whilst talking into his (at least hands-free) helmet headset. The cars jockeying for position in the clogged city arteries (using my Milan driving mantra of knowing where everything is, but pretending that you don't). The wonderful weather, the port smell and the smog over the city. The sheer number of people out and about in the centre - the life - on a Tuesday evening. The wonderful dinner (fish and fruits of the sea) in an unassuming restaurant near our hotel in Pomigliano. The 'man bags' (handbags for men) and the big sunglasses. It was all there.

From the strucutre of a typical blog, I would now normally explain here all the very good reasons why Naples isn't a characature of Italy; there simply aren't any, though. None at all.

And that's brilliant.

→ 9:30 PM, Oct 6

Boarding time

04.10.2011

I'm in Frankfurt airport awaiting my flight to Munich and then on to Naples of which I will of course see very little, this being a business trip for meetings with Fiat tomorrow. It's a lovely day, the airport isn't too busy this lunchtime and it feels invigorating to be on the move again.

I almost wrote 'good' there, but I can't catagorically state that it is good in itself.

Yes, we're supporting the customer even better than can be expected (the presence of an 'expert from Germany' lends weight to our arguments) but there's nothing coming up that my Italian colleagues cannot sort out by themselves. And it'll be the first time that my wife will have to put both daughters to bed by herself - not a task to take lightly with a three year-old and a two month-old. Of course it'll all work out, but the first time is naturally the most stressful.

In both senses, then, it's of limited virtue but it's still a bit of a nice break from office work for me. It beats work, as my Dad always used to say.

Right, then, boarding time.

→ 9:30 PM, Oct 6

The wonderful world of the PPAP

There is an intriguing little phrase I came across in a trombone technique book that hovers in a limbo between right and wrong: "It's not what you play but how you play it"

There is a lot to be said for giving your best at all times, no matter what music you have been asked to play. It is a matter of pride, of professionalism, of maturity - of character, too. I can certainly say that I gave my best to (and received a lot back from) playing in a Shropshire brass band, even though I really do not like much of the music we played.

However, one cannot really be expected to be able to find one's best when playing the wrong sort of music for you. The talent isn't there, the fluency goes, the "Selbstverständlichkeit" is lost. Asking a striker to play in defence can work, but, if it goes on for too long, his motivation will drop to the extent that he becomes a liability, or he will ask to leave the team.

And so I come to PPAPs. PPAPs are the scourge of the auto industry, a chain of disinterest ending in a dark pool of valuelessness. Nominally, it is an acronym; Production Parts Approval Process. Its meaning and raison d'être lies in ensuring that each and every part that goes onto a car is tested, approved and well managed. A noble pursuit, naturally - and of course impossible to argue against. Even when every single type of screw in a vehicle has a 20 MByte PPAP file associated with it. Each car has around 30000 parts, maybe 10000 unique part numbers; so perhaps each model of car has a 200 GByte file associated with it that nobody uses. (Except when something goes wrong and the lawyers start crawling around, which is the reason for the whole PPAP escalation)

So when I was working on managing fittings for my company, and PPAPs were a major part of this, I swiftly found myself playing the wrong sort of music. Each and every PPAP had to be exhaustively inspected; are test results all present and complete (usually not); all dimensions understood and properly measured (ditto); control plans, process flow plans, material data sheets all present...? It was very rare for a PPAP to be completed in a single sitting, so I ended up with a backlog of semi-complete, interim-approved files awaiting further information from their suppliers (who were sometimes less keen than me on getting things done properly). It was - and is - a never-ending controlling position in a company; one that requires a Kafkaesque, bureaucratic mind, a mind I categorically do not possess.

Alas, those that do possess such minds, and (is that 'and' necessary?) the lawyers, also own the process, so that it has embedded itself deeply into its own work groove; a record that only a small clique would find cool. Similarly a shame, the process does not seem to be enough of a financial burden on each and every supplier in the industry for there to be a concerted effort to remove it, or at least streamline it.

Every industry has its administrative and proofing methods, but few outside of the medical industry seem as fat as the auto industry's. If you're the type of person who enjoys being the controller, or can simply accept such a role, then fine. If you're not - then avoid at all costs; PPAPs and their ilk will ruin your day, every day.

→ 9:57 PM, Oct 3

Frog, Toad and bureaucracy

The other night I was reading my 3 year-old a bed-time story from one of our favourite series of childrens' stories, Arnold Lobel’s “Frog and Toad” collection, when this little exchange between the two got me thinking:

{Frog’s List has blown away in the wind}

“Hurry!” said Frog. “We will run and catch it."
“No!” shouted Toad. “I cannot do that.!
“Why not?” asked Frog.
“Because,” wailed Toad, “running after my list is not one of the things that I wrote on my list of things to do!"

This resonates with so much of business life; procedures, workflows, instructions, audits, filling out forms. We all have lists of things to do, from our (largely ignored and occasionally conscious-pricking) task lists, to those procedures. We need to realise that we can make the choice between “merely” following the procedures to the letter, and rehumanising them.

Naturally, this all applies to the bureaucracy of life, too (I recently married and had a child, so I know all about filling out forms and chasing the right administrator at the right time…) but since I have been thinking has been about business life lately, that’s where the brain cells decided to resonate with interest.

At work, I have a great collegiate friendship with a quality manager who is also a trained auditor. He is (it sounds strange to write this), a human being. By this I mean that he treats the audit procedures as a frame within which he must operate, but not as a constraint. He is a detective who understands that humans have created these constructs around them to force themselves into doing the right thing, in the sense of doing the best for the company and (by extension) the best for society in general. He also knows that humans tend to cut corners, in order to maximise leisure time. He understands that rigidly following an audit checklist is the surest way of ruining a day and of missing the real issues that a list can paper over. Yet without this list, even he is lost.

We need to force ourselves to get things done properly. These constructs, sets of instructions, whatever we call them, that we have placed for ourselves - in business, bureaucracy, religion and in every walk of life - do not necessarily stifle or strangle creativity. They can postpone the effort of thinking to more important tasks. Yes, they take time to complete and yes, they require an effort of willpower; but no, it is often not really time or energy wasted. And if there is waste involved, then it is a business benefit to eliminate this waste.

(If there is waste involved, then it is a religious necessity. If there is waste involved, then it is a bureaucracy…)

With all of our lists, we must ensure that the free thinkers - the frogs - amongst us have room to breathe, to innovate, to dream; and we must ensure that the petty list-followers - the toads - do not exceed their remits or relish their “powers” excessively.

→ 11:06 PM, Sep 20

From home to work

I returned to work yesterday after two months off on paternity leave following Emily’s birth in July. Those two months of wearing shorts, not trousers, T-shirts not shirts were (Emily’s virus aside) wonderful.

Towards the end of my leave, I started thinking about and investigating the world of work again - discovering interesting buzzwords like “social enterprise” and “curation” brought up concepts that I was keen to try to implement in our office. I also checked my work emails to make sure that I wasn’t going to be overwhelmed when I got back.

Whilst checking up on my work emails from home, I noticed a slight reaction of repulsion as soon as I saw a drawing of one of our tube products - this continued when I returned to being “live” at work, too. It’s not the greatest sign for motivation, although the holiday blues are bound to be at work. I fear my lofty ideas will not survive being dragged down to the product level, into the muck and brass of a metal-forming automotive supplier’s life; yet it is at this product level that these lofty concepts need to work, and work seamlessly. Without the product, concepts remain simply that; nebulous ideas.

So - my challenge is to compartmentalise the day-to-day grit (quality complaints, validation testing, drawings updates) into chunks of “done” and to leave myself time, room and mental energy to devote to improving the way that we work. Whilst also giving myself some time to get back home to enjoy my family life.

It is a battle - improving our communication, knowledge distribution and search capabilities can improve work itself - but I do feel that ‘loving’ the product would make it one battle more easily fought.

→ 10:46 PM, Sep 14

Repetition

Music purists will tell you that electronic notation in general, and copy-paste in particular, is the scourge of music. Hit the Cntrl-C / Cntrl-V combinations (or their Mac equivalents) and you’ve increased the length of your piece at no extra cost. Most people would probably want to hear that riff again, anyway.

Composers of old didn’t have software to facilitate it, so perhaps they had to invest more thought into repetition; but they could equally well pencil in the double bar lines with bracketed ends, likewise at little cost and to the same effect: play that bit again (I think it’s cool).

Everybody has done it, from Bach (whatever his variant of ‘cool’ was) to Burt Bacharach. Used by master and novice alike, repetition is not necessarily a reflection of competence; indeed, repetition is a nearly inescapable component of music. Like most of music, though, it is incredibly difficult to do right and at the right time.

Context is a key component in any decision to utilise repetition: a Scottish reel is impossibly dull to listen to, but dancing to a symphony never made it big as a pastime. A listener’s mood is the other component. Some evenings I can listen to Underworld in their pomp (Second Toughest in the Infants) and really delve into their soundscapes, enjoying the timelessness of each piece. At other times, I’m scrambling for alternatives within seconds.

There are some very frustrating examples of repetition. The album “Rhythm” from Like Vibert has some great and rather inventive riffs that break the mould in terms of electronic / dance music. But he overuses them each and every time. Most annoying for me is his use of the frog trombones sample from the The Mole / Der kleine Maulwurf / Krteček in the episode with the transistor radio. This is a brilliant little effect that deserves many listens… But… 15 times in one piece is both excessive and leads to depreciation. The album is strewn with excessive repetitions.

I cannot do repetition. When creating my electronic pieces, copy-paste is the foundation of their construction. However, I quickly feel the need for development - however small - in order to maintain my own interest; variations on a theme. I also tend to generate larger leaps in each piece that then try to find their way back home.

There is always an element of musical development (exposition - transition - development - retransition - recapitulation) in my pieces, even as I stray from whatever theory or initial idea I had during the actual creation process.

Electronic notation opens up composing to dilettantes like me who cannot quite envision or 'hear' the music that they want to create before it is played. This is a great thing for hobbyists the world over. Whilst it may open up the composing game to a greater number of players, the sheer fact and necessity of quality rising to the top still applies. Let me and my ilk paddle about in our pools; let's see which great monsters of composition today inhabit the oceans now.

→ 10:24 PM, Aug 2

Caffeine

Caffeine doesn't taste of anything. Extracted, it's a tasteless, dull white powder that has some resale value for caffeine pills and caffeinated drinks thanks to its stimulant properties. In other words, it doesn't add anything to the taste of coffee. As everything else in this world, it is a chemical, one that can be analysed and understood - and can therefore be targeted by other chemicals or processes for removal from its carrier.

The most interesting carrier of caffeine is, of course, coffee. Whilst tea is a culturally vital plant that also contains caffeine (roughly half the quantity of coffee when comparing the the drinks), coffee has a deeper culture of drinking for stimulation of the body rather than of conversation. Decaffeination, whether by carbon filter or using solvents such as methylene chloride or ethyl acetate (the latter of which exists in fruits such as apples and pears, leading some marketers to refer to a "natural" decaffeination process), requires initial processing of the green beans to enable the caffeine to be extracted. This is usually done by steaming, but can also involve compressed CO2. Whatever the case, the bean fibres are broken open for "attack." Beans are also re-steamed to remove any remaining solvents and are then roasted. These preparation and finishing processes lead to weaknesses in the bean structure that lead to sensitivity to the roasting process.

As far as I can understand, the somewhat underwhelming taste of most decaf coffees is a result of there being a higher likelihood of individual beans within a particular roasting batch becoming over-roasted and imparting a burnt, unfulfilling taste to the blend. For this reason, decaf coffees tend to be light to mild roasts that naturally cannot give the "bang" that a high roast can.

Whilst coffee decaffeination is still an imperfect art, it is very much a luxury for many that would be denied those who cannot or should not consume caffeine.

All of this is a prelude to me voicing my intense annoyance at the fact that the small coffee stall in the Heidelberg Kinderklinik doesn't sell decaffeinated coffee at all. Yes, those young mothers looking after their breastfeeding children are denied this one crucial luxury that allows them to escape the hospital environment, no matter how briefly, with an intense taste experience that is all too often denied them during their stay there.

As a postlude, it will be interesting to see how genetically selected (see how awful that appears these days? But how else do we get our most beautiful flowers or treasured dogs?) caffeine-free beans work out, commonly known as decaffito.

→ 9:05 PM, Jul 24

Learning to love Dvorak in Heidelberg

I play trombone with the Musikfreunde Symphony orchestra in Heidelberg. We rehearse and perform along the university semester cycle, which leads to some intense periods of music; a welcome insight into the world of the musician, without having to be one.

This semester we have been working on Dvorak's 9th Symphony, "From the New World", alongside Mussorgsky's "Night on Bare Mountain" and Bruch's Violin Concerto (no use putting any numbers there; he doesn't seem to have written anything else worth performing). We recently had a rehearsal weekend, immersing ourselves in music, and our first two concerts, successfully dispatched in Langenselbold (no, I had no idea, either) and Freiburg. Tomorrow night is our final, crowning concert in the Heidelberg Stadthalle.

I want to write a little bit about the Dvorak. For me, it's easy to dismiss - it's popular, for a start, which always makes me suspicious - and even as I tried to disregard its popularity, the piece never seemed to have anything of interest to say to me. It has its famous tunes and that's it; a pretty face with not much behind it. However, sitting at the back of the orchestra alongside the other trombonists and the poor tuba (who only has 14 notes to play in the whole piece), I have been learning to appreciate the piece, certainly to admire it, possibly, at times, conditionally, to love it.

That word 'learning' implies a process and indeed it took a while for me to feel at all involved in the piece during rehearsals, even though there's enough for the trombones to play (except in the third movement, where the trombones are inexplicably tacet - perhaps Anton didn't trust us to be sufficiently fleet of foot; or perhaps he simply didn't trust us to successfully find all of those repeats).

How could I not be involved in a piece that I am playing? It's a good question and the answer has two components - the physical / technical aspect of playing, and the emotional.

Physically, of course I was involved. There are several themes that the trombones play and - more difficult - lots of stabs to hit successfully. I was working on my technique, getting the breathing right, tweaking the tuning, trying to listen in to my colleagues to make sure we were playing as a section. Oh - and of course trying to play the right notes most of the time.

Through all of this, I didn't really have time to experience the piece. It had some tunes and some trombones.

Emotionally, we didn't connect for a long time, the piece and I. Maybe it was the overall lack of dissonance in the overall outlook, the almost saccharine positivity in the piece that discouraged me from investigating further. I certainly identified more strongly with the Kabalewsky and the Roussel that we played in previous winter concerts. Whilst the Dvorak certainly contains many little clashing details embedded throughout the piece to give it that certain frisson every piece of music needs, the overall impression was of musical platitudes that have become somewhat cliched.

Historically, Dvorak wrote the piece during a three year long sojourn in America (1892-1895), where he encountered and revelled in its musical and natural diversity. He was inspired to write a classical symphony that whilst not specifically including American elements, certainly painted a picture of a voyage, wide open plains, dance and returns to source. There is a human element in there that is American-tinged, leading to the critics' and theorists discussions about the nature of the songs - American or slavic.

Dvorak himself denied the presence of any American idiom in the piece, but I feel it does bubble forth with a visitor's joie de vivre. The perennial problem with incorporating traditional songs of whichever background is that those songs were meant to be sung, those rhythms danced to, not stuffed into a symphonic wad of cotton.

The significance of Dvorak's sojourn in New York stems from his assertion that the Americans should really develop their own classical language. The Americans we're hungry for confirmation of their place in the world, Europeans were thirsty for impressions of this New World, so its success was guaranteed and justified.

So - after that slight interlude, how did I begin to appreciate the piece? The interesting devil is in the details. Burrow underneath the tunes and you will find so much activity going on behind the scenes. The scherzo third movement in particular has so much going on. There are rhythms that rejoice in syncopation, there are for me unfathomable chords (the shimmering echoes between strings and woodwind are wonderful), there is a spark of excitement that is not lost in the repeats. It was in not playing that I could 'shut up and listen'.

As with people, so with music; give yourself some time to get beyond the superficial and you will find much to admire. Such listening is hard work, and requires practice. I currently do not listen to nearly enough classical music, mostly, I suspect, because I do not train myself to do so, nor grant myself the time to do so. Time to try again, I think!

So - do I really love the Dvorak? Actually, no. But I can admire it and that's a step foreward.

ps, boredom in music is of course not an uncommon problem, but the reasons behind what makes a piece dull are still remarkably difficult to describe.

→ 1:00 PM, Jul 8

My Marathon

A few days ago I took part in my third BASF Firmencup at the Hockenheim Ring. It was my best so far, 25'29 for the 4.8 km track, a two minute improvement over last time, yet leaves me with an obvious goal for next year, to beat 25 minutes.

Where does that stand in relation to the best runners? Well, the best in our group ran it in 19 minutes, and he was 200th or so. I was 2500th, give or take, and there were around 12000 participants, so I didn't do too badly. I definitely felt fitter than the previous two times, and I had more energy.

Energy was the biggest realisation from 2010. That year I had trained reasonably well, but I made the mistake of eating nothing other than an energy bar from lunchtime. This year I ate well at lunchtime, but kept munching at various intervals (I was at work, it being a Wednesday). I also made sure that I was well stocked for the bike ride from Heidelberg Pfaffengrund, where I work, to the Hockenheim Ring.

2011 was also my first "race" with the Terra Plana Evo "barefoot" running shoes. These have transformed my running. From clomping around in chunky Asics via Nike Free to the Evos, my feet have become steadily lighter and more flexible. My achilles tendon did receive a hard workout that points to potential for improvement, but basically I am a convert to barefoot running, landing on the front to middle of the foot rather than on the heel.

Naturally, I received a few comments about them, but mostly interested ones rather than snide.

Since that run, I have felt freed up to get back onto my various bikes, but the warm feeling of good intent is there, the thought in the back of my mind that a half marathon would be on the cards. But can I devote sufficient time to running rather than music or biking? That remains to be seen.

→ 8:55 PM, Jun 12

Energy considerations
My stance on energy is an open one: I am for a mix of available technologies.
- Oil will remain a key component of transportation energy for years to come
- Coal should be wound down (very slowly)
- Gas and shale gas are interesting agents for energy balancing
- Nuclear should be the key base energy driver
- Renewables should be part of the mix but should nor cannot become dominant sources
- Local energy (on houses or in communities) are interesting distractions from the energy requirements of whole countries
- Efficiency drives are necessary (and result in fascinating technological challenges in themselves) but should not return us to the dark ages
I will come back to each of these as I develop my own knowledge base. My key sources of information are the now classic Sustainable Energy Without the Hot Air by Prof David MacKay and Prof Barry Brook's Brave New Climate blog, which was a key resource for me in becalming the media panic that surrounded the Fukushima Dai-ichi crisis.
→ 6:20 PM, Jun 3

I wish...(trombone version)

I wish...

somebody had taught me how to breath much earlier; how important the body is to playing; that the lips are the gateway to the trombone, but that the work is done much earlier; how important the mind is to playing; how important relaxation is to playing; that the instrument should be brought up to my posture, not the other way around.

These things I now realise and know intellectually, but they are not innate.

Does it matter? Well, I am where I am with orchestra, and I don't necessarily need to be at a higher level... But I do dream of it sometimes. We can all dream.

→ 3:21 PM, Jun 2

A Night flight and a right fright

My business trips are now rare in comparison to how things were a few years ago. I count myself lucky as this dip has coincided nicely with starting a family. So from monthly trips to Asia and almost weekly trips to Germany from the UK, I now occasionally fly to Italy to meet suppliers and drive around Germany meeting customers. And read bedtime stories.

This week I ended up on a more unusual trip, to Dacia in Romania, to discuss some issues that they have been having in production. It was to have been a relatively relaxed journey, flying to Bucharest from Frankfurt airport early in the afternoon to stay in an airport hotel until my colleague from Turkey arrived early the next morning. Alas, though, systems happened.

We have the Egencia travel booking system at work; it is the business version of Expedia. Egencia turned out to be a nightmare for rapid turnaround travel as it has an - in itself eminently sensible - approval system built in. The problem is that these approvals need to be completed within a certain time, presumably in order to protect us all from monstrous price rises as the flight date nears. As soon as I had understood the need, I booked my flights on Friday afternoon. The approval deadline (written in very small letters in the confirmation email) was set for 20:00 that evening, when my manager and his boss were unlikely to be reading emails. The same happened on Monday, as the pair were out of the office. When it came to my flight on Tuesday, I thought that it had been confirmed, as Uwe had submitted his consent; but I discovered when I arrived to collect my eTicket - no ticket. My seat had been cancelled.

So, following a frantic round of internet bookings, phone calls and awaiting confirmation, I ended up on the late flight to Bucharest. On that flight over clouds lit by a full moon we passed a thunderstorm in the distance; the flashes of light within that dark mass of cloud were awe inspiring. We landed uneventfully at a quarter to midnight.

Bucharest airport has a new terminal that is perfectly inoffensive, but the signage is terrible. When I asked the infodesk how to get to my airport hotel, they sent me down a flight of stairs and a ramp into a dark car park occupied by an off duty, wide-boy taxi driver who convinced me to part with 20 Euros (the smallest note I had at the time) for a 2 minute ride to the hotel and, in the meantime, proceeded to tell me how insignificant 20 Euros was to me, especially as the company would pay for it, how the French were so arrogant, the Maroccans working for Dacia even more so...

My room was fine, though blighted by that most east european of curses, the endlessly barking and yapping dog outside. It reminded me of my earlier 'adventures' in Liberec but I was at least tired enough to get to sleep relatively quickly this time around.

The next day I met my colleague Ilker at the airport and we found the taxi that he had pre-arranged. It was an ageing Dacia Logan that took us lumpily (with noticeable wheel wobble) through an ageing, shabby Bucharest suburb onto the motorway. Half way along that obviously European money edifice, the taxi was suddenly surrounded by a cloud of black smoke and then white steam, the engine revved out of control, we stopped on the hard shoulder and got out to survey the damage.

The engine was obviously not going to restart, despite the taxi driver's best efforts, so he started to make some phone calls. He initially offered a replacement taxi, but that, too, would have taken 45 minutes to get to us. Instead, he started to wave the traffic down. Astoundingly, within a few minutes a van transporting another (new) Dacia on its flat bed stopped and agreed to take Ilker and I to Pritesti, a town near to Mioveni which was our ultimate destination (well, my ultimate destination was home, but I couldn't possibly write that in LinkedIn). We were met there by another taxi and finally we arrived at Dacia.

We were offered a small coffee.

The meeting wasn't terribly effective as our customers didn't seem to have the faintest idea of what we were talking about; which meant that they would not change their view that we were at fault for a particular issue. However, when I pointed out that there was no evidence whatsoever that what they were experiencing was linked in any way to our parts, they seemed to go a little bit quieter still.

I got home again, in the end and thanks to the worst "quiche lorraine" on the planet courtesy of a certain large German airline, I even arrived with a little bit of energy to spare.

→ 10:19 PM, May 24

Blogging from a mobile phone

Blogging is an art form. Examples abound of it being produced spectacularly well and spectacularly badly; as with all other art forms, it requires a certain discipline with quality control.

So, with me swyping this entry on a mobile phone, can I do justice to the artistic endeavour? Surprisingly, yes. Whilst it is more difficult to see the overall picture or flow of what is being written, and more care is required for the input itself, if I can take time and care over it, saving it, re-reading it, tweaking it, then there is no reason for this document to end up qualitatively different to a blog written with a fountain pen and paper.

I don't subscribe to the view that the care required for input amplifies the care taken in pre-selecting the word about to be written. Much more important is having the time available to concentrate on the content and avoiding distractions; even better than merely time is multiple times.

The factor that most limits blog entries such this on my Motorola Defy is fatigue. It a strain on the eyes to focus on such a small screen, it's a strain on the wrists holding the phone in such a way as to facilitate tapping or swyping, and on the shoulder. So in the end, this entry may end up being shorter than a version tapped out on a keyboard - but that is not necessarily a bad thing.

And so ends this entry, if not the experiment.

→ 1:10 PM, May 16

A relevant poem

I came across this poem whilst researching for Diversions Manifold (research meaning the desparate search for inspiration for the name).

But yield who will to their separation,
My object in living is to unite
My avocation and my vocation
As my two eyes make one in sight.
Only where love and need are one,
And the work is play for mortal stakes,
Is the deed ever really done
For heaven and the future´s sakes.
—Robert Frost, Two Tramps in Mud Time, st. 9

→ 10:15 PM, May 15

An Introduction

I to do too many things without devoting sufficient time to any one of them to become particularly good at it. Business, engineering, playing trombone, biking, singing, being a Dad, being a husband - and now blogging. So why should I harbour this conceit of publishing my thoughts? And why should you want to read them?

The answer to the first is fairly clear - I want to force myself to think again, something that I have not truly done since university. Egotistically, I want to push the results of these thoughts onto the web in order to force myself to find the right words, and to get as close as I can to a truth, however limited.

To the second question - why should you read this - I hope you have the answer. My hope is that some of what I write strikes a chord of recognition, a feeling of “Mitmensch” - being related in this form of humanity - and that it creates a little frisson of expectation that more is to come. Perhaps we share some interesting thoughts, perhaps we’re poles apart.

What I write should be well considered; I don’t want to waste any of our time as, I know all too well, it is spread far too thinly. What little we have should taste, sound or feel good.

Finally, I view it as a short history of who I am in an intellectual sense. If they are interested, maybe at least my daughters will browse through this blog (if it still exists) in the future to find out what complexities drive or at the time drove their otherwise boring old Dad.

→ 10:06 PM, May 15