Globalised.

It's been seeing a lot of action lately. 

Progress creeps up on us. Change happens without us even realising. People no longer talk as they once did about globalisation being the next big thing; it is happening to us right here, right now.  But to me globalisation has always been something of an abstract concept.  I've been aware that its happening, without really being able to see any obvious impact on my own life.  Perhaps it comes form living in London, which has always been a truly multinational place.  Perhaps its because the global movement of goods, services and money is so slick it happens without a second thought. Maybe we are so immersed in a global working culture it is hard to see it from the inside. 

But since moving to Asia my perspective has shifted radically. And not only because world maps produced over here have Europe on the far left, rather that in the centre.  I've spent more time on planes in the last three months than in the last three years.  My BA air miles account, after years of stagnation, is suddenly starting to tick over and a trip to the airport doesn't seem like a big deal. Four hours on a plane to Beijing now feels like a short trip and I notice when Cathay Pacific update their in-flight film and TV choices.    Lara talks easily of her 'Hong Kong house' as distinct form her 'London house'. She seems entirely comfortable with the idea that seeing Granny Eddy will involve someone getting on an aeroplane, or that when we Skype Uncle Greg and Auntie Carrie in the US, Ethan and Lauren are just getting up, even though it's Lara's bed time.  The idea of where - or what - home is has changed in a way that is difficult to pin down but no less real for it. If I fill in an immigration card and my country of origin is different to my country of residence, which do I call home? 

Last week I travelled to Mexico for the weekend for the wedding of Paul, one of my oldest and dearest friends, to the lovely Ashley.  I had honestly become convinced that Paul was not the marrying type, but I now realise he was just waiting for the right lady. (When I mentioned to Paul's brother Neil that I thought Paul was historically anti-marriage, Neil pointed out that it was more the case that historically women had been anti-Paul).  Clearly it was worth the wait - seeing how in love Pauly and Ashley are almost made me cry.  The wedding speeches started out with a shout out to all the places the guests had travelled from to be with them on their big day. From memory: Chicago, New York, New Jersey, Seattle, Boston, Canada, Columbia, Mexico, London, Dublin, Singapore, Sydney, Hong Kong - I've undoubtedly missed a few.  It felt like everyone at the wedding had something in common - they were all from somewhere else, and they'd all travelled a long way to get there. Travelling halfway around the world for a three day party suddenly didn't seem like that big a deal.

I was in Mexico for such a short time that timezones started to lose their relevance.  I still don't know whether I was ever really on Mexico time, or Hong Kong time, or somewhere in between.  I'm still struggling to work out what happened when I crossed the international date line (the first time ever for me) - having left Hong Kong at noon and flown for fifteen hours I arrived in Chicago for my Mexico connection to find it was almost exactly the same time as when I had set off - lunchtime to be precise.  I ended up eating lunch and dinner twice, which was all very confusing.  The weekend went something like this: thirty hours of travelling, eight hours of tequila drinking and disco dancing, ten hours of sleep, waking in the morning to find it was actually three in the afternoon, getting up to spend a few hours sunbathing only to find the sun going down after an hour and a half, more tequila, more disco dancing (headstand! running man!), less sleep, more sunbathing, an amazing wedding, more dancing, sombreros, maracas, even less sleep and then a twenty plus hour journey home which started at 5am on sunday, involved travelling all day via a blizzard in Chicago, and ended very late on Sunday night in Hong Kong. Except suddenly it was Monday night.  Somewhere across the Pacific Ocean I'd lost Monday. And if Monday never really happened does that mean I'm a day younger? 

Having stepped away from everything I have traditionally thought of as home, I feel as though I've entered a world where new opportunities are around every corner. I'm an immigrant, mixing with other immigrants, many of whom have migrated form somewhere else and somewhere else before that. There is a community here where everyone is new, and everyone is an outsider. Breaking away from the traditional concept of home feels liberating in a way I can't adequately describe.  Nothing feels permanent, everything is transient - yet in a good way. Perhaps this is what globalisation feels like on a personal level. So far I'm loving every minute of it. 

The challenge of describing something so often described using cliches, without resorting to cliches.

An afternoon by the seaside. 

It could almost be England (except for the weather).

Hong Kong. The beating heart of Asia. Asia's 'world city'. East meets west. Fusion. A city of contrasts. A concrete jungle. A sub-tropical paradise. Western capitalism, chinese-style. There's no place like it on earth. It is hard to avoid the cliches.

We've been in Hong Kong almost three weeks and, whilst I've been in work for 13 of the 18 days we've been here, it still feels a bit like we're on holiday.  Contributing to this feeling is the fact that we've not yet moved into our new flat, nor had all of our air freighted possessions delivered to us, meaning our accommodation feels more hotel than home.  Plus the weather has been glorious (exclusively high twenties, low humidity and blue skies since we got here) which contributes nicely to the holiday feeling. 

I've lived here before, briefly. In early 2003 I completed a six month secondment to the Hong Kong office as part of my training contract with the firm. I was in my early twenties and accordingly that period was largely spent (in descending order of time commitment)  partying, drinking, eating, spending and working.  I ventured beyond the urban sprawl briefly and sporadically. I lived within walking distance of the office and everything I needed (bars, restaurants, gym, ferry terminal) were a short walk away from my apartment.  So I thought I had a vague idea of what Hong Kong could offer even if I knew that this time round I'd be in for a different experience as a mid-thirties married father of two. (That still sounds like I am describing someone else).

So here are some things I didn't appreciate then, but do now. Hong Kong isn't really a city state, but actually a sub-tropical archipelago of over 260 individual islands.  If I want to work in the city but play out in the country, I'm better off in the Hong Kong office than London. Along with Bristol, Hong Kong is tone of only two citied in the world with world-class elite-level outdoor rock-climbing within the city (a 15 minute uphill escalator ride from my office in the case of Hong Kong). There are four separate Patagonia stores in Hong Kong. China may be the world's most populous country (home to around a quarter of the world's population), yet Hong Kong, with a population of over seven million squeezed into little more than 400 square miles, is one of the world's most densely populated countries (16,876 people per square mile - 136 times the global average). Yet the majority of Hong Kong's landmass is national park.

But life in Hong Kong is about more than statistics.  It's about getting the underground to work every day and never arriving at the platform when a train - air conditioned, clean and comfortable - isn't there, or about to appear. Finding a flat on the twenty seventh floor with a balcony and a view of the harbour, and reconciling ourselves to paying over double our London mortgage in rent for a property about half the size. Being unable to find decent skimmed milk and then realising its because there are no commercial dairy farms in Hong Kong. Or China. Or Asia for that matter. Its about the certainty of stepping outside in the morning without worrying about what the weather might do later in the day. Cheap taxis which are everywhere except when it rains and you really need one. Having a choice of world cuisines on our doorstep and then realising that 'chinese' food is actually a mix of hundreds, if not thousands, of individual cuisines.  Drinking martinis on an outdoor roof terrace twenty five floors up yet having to crane our necks upwards to look at the surrounding buildings.  Paying fifteen quid for a cocktail, or 20p for a ferry ride across one of the world's greatest natural harbours.  Enjoying chips by the seaside or dim sum by the seaside, as our mood dictates.  Watching Lara playing with chinese children in the local playground, and dodging chinese pensioners practising Tai Chi in their thousands on my morning run around the park.  Driving round a corner past palm trees and seeing a cricket game in full swing.

Hong Kong is all of these things and more. Its eastern and western, Chinese yet somehow still British, familiar yet alien, easy yet difficult.  It is hard to avoid the cliches, and there is no place like it on earth.  Western capitalism, chinese-style. A concrete jungle. A sub-tropical paradise. A city of contrasts. East meets west. Fusion.

Hong Kong. Home.

Onwards and eastwards.

Preparing to leave london for the East.
We haven't needed the jackets much since then.

As ever, its been ages since I last posted on this blog. I don't know why that continues to surprise me; its becoming a habit.  In the six or so weeks since I last wrote I've had time to reflect: on what I've achieved so far, and what I might achieve in the months and years ahead. Anyone who knows me will already know that forward planning is not my strong suit.  The thought of partnership in a law firm really started to frighten me when I was asked to formulate a plan for what the next five years would look like. Five years! I struggle to imagine what I'll be doing five months - or even five weeks - ahead.  

The one exception to this is climbing.  For some reason when it comes to climbing training I become a planning fiend. Spreadsheets, programmes, planned workouts, grade targets - I can't get enough of it.  I first started planning my climbing training in earnest a couple of years ago and have been following periodised training cycles of one sort or another ever since.  A cycle might be a few weeks long, or a few months; it might focus on strength, endurance, power, rehab from injury, aerobic fitness or a combination of all these things.  In the three months leading up to my trip to the Dolomites in September, I followed a pretty rigorous programme of cardio fitness, core strength and climbing endurance.  Having laid down a foundation of bouldering strength, two months before departure I did my first routes session at a climbing wall, managing eight 10m routes of moderate difficulty in three hours.  With two weeks to go and after a few more sessions I could comfortably climb 29 such routes in around two and a half hours. There is something strangely satisfying about seeing incremental improvement through numbers. 

The training paid off - Dave and I climbed The Comici Dimai route, 500m, E3 5c on the North face of Cima Grande in a continuous 17 hour round trip. Waking at 2.30am and leaving the car at 3am, we walked to the base through thick mist and total darkness (via several unintentional detours) and started climbing at 6am.  We topped out at 4pm, 17 pitches and several unintentional route-finding detours later and then spent another 4 hours descending via a lot of scrambling, numerous abseils and several unintentional detours. (There's a theme here - the drive home through Italy, Austria, Germany and France took 16 hours and several unintentional etc and so on).  Cima Grande felt like a turning point in my climbing career; way harder than anything I had ever attempted before, I genuinely did not know whether I was good enough, strong enough and fit enough to climb it.  Although considered a moderate climb by today's elite standards it felt right at the edge of what I was capable of at that moment: even though I have redpointed F7a, the 7th pitch on the Comici - 40m of overhanging F6b+ climbing at 2700m altitude - was probably the hardest and most sustained  pitch of climbing I have ever done.  Pitch 15, which we named "the unprotectable traverse" was definitely the most frightening pitch I've ever seconded - goodness knows how it felt for Dave to lead it - when I joined him at the belay he'd gone very quiet.  All in all though it felt like we belonged on the route. We completed it within guidebook time; we were up to the challenge rather than in over our heads.  The endless cycles of training, the running, stretching, dead-hanging, sweating in a climbing wall on a thursday night, cycling, resting, the not drinking, the endless planning, counting calories to hit my 70kg performance weight - it had all been worthwhile. 

As I write this in a small temporary flat in Hong Kong I am feeling very lazy indeed. Aside form a couple of valedictory pre-work bouldering sessions in London I've climbed nothing hard since - Cima Grande marked the definite end of one period of my climbing career.  Within a few weeks I had left the UK and moved 6,000 miles across the world to start my new job in Hong Kong. I am currently - and have been for some weeks - in what is known in technical training circles as a "transition period" - the time between ending one performance phase and starting the next major training cycle.  Or as my friend Ted the cyclist would call it, the "cake eating phase". In my case it is Dim Sum, rather than cake, and lots of it. My climbing gear is packed away in a crate that has hopefully cleared customs and is waiting for me in a warehouse somewhere. I probably won't unpack it until mid November, by which point I'll have had over a month off - the longest non-injury related climbing break I can remember. 

It's not like I've got nothing else to do - we've only been here a week and Hong Kong already seems like a place of limitless possibilities and opportunities. I'll have to write a separate post about our life here so far as there is simply too much to report in a post which is ostensibly about climbing and which - lets be honest - is so boring you've probably stopped reading altogether. Unless you're one of my hardcore pre-work arch session climbing buddies.  Nick, Jon and Dave: I salute you all. Nee-hau!

What do you want?

Some things defy convention: I LOVE mondays.

For the last 20 months I haven't worked on Mondays.  When I tell people this (or they email me at work on a Monday and receive an auto-reply informing them of the fact) their general reaction suggests they think I spend the day at home, probably in front of the TV, possibly in my pyjamas. So on reflection the statement that I don't work on Mondays needs some clarification.  Perhaps what I should say is I don't work for my law firm on Mondays.  There are plenty of things I do work at: cooking, food shopping and being a house husband, being a father to my two children, training to climb a 600m alpine north face.  Admittedly, whilst I work at all of these things, most of them could also be counted as play. But maybe the work/play distinction is irrelevant - maybe these things all just count as 'life'.

For me the single biggest positive change in my adult life has been choosing to work part-time.  It was only when I stepped away from the idea of a rigid five-day work week that I realised how much of an artificial construct this is: a product of convention, and nothing more. It is quite remarkable how our daily lives are dictated by conventional wisdom - it is, after all, just a point of view held by a majority of people rather than any sort of universal law of nature. But I believe that conventions change and in the same way that men no longer wear bowler hats (or, for that matter, ties) as a matter of course in the city, and supermarkets no longer close on a sunday, we are moving away from a strict convention that we have to work all day every day, Monday through Friday.  Or that we must start work in our early twenties and continue in one job, one company, one industry or even one profession for the rest of our working lives. Often (although by no means always) the most interesting people I meet, read or hear about, are those who have pursued a number of different roles in their lives, whether by pursuing a portfolio of different jobs simultaneously, mixing conventional work with child-rearing, hobbies or sport, making one or more complete changes in the course of their careers, or by constructing a life for themselves which allows them to work in blocks of time or only for specific periods during the year.  We would probably all agree that all work and no play makes Jack (or Jill) a dull boy (or girl) yet I am always surprised at how surprised, or even envious, people are when they learn that I have chosen to mix work with play (and life) as a matter of course.  I always point out that its a choice open to everyone.

When I was considering a career change, Dave Macleod (who regular blog reader(s) will know is one of my all-time climbing heroes) was a big inspiration to me.  A few years ago he wrote about making change and never wanting to look back in twenty years and wonder why he hadn't done what he wanted with his life.  He returned to this theme recently in a blog post about taking a year off work to climb.  His view was that this approach risks offering only temporary satisfaction, all the while knowing the clock is ticking down on your freedom.  As he says:

"If you are prepared to walk out on a perfectly good job for the sake of climbing, why not negotiate a better schedule as your first resort. If you’re thinking of leaving anyway, what have you got to lose? Naturally it will be an easier sell if you offer the solutions on a plate or point to an example of when it has worked in the short term before. Since jobs come in infinite shapes and sizes, there is no universal solution. It’s up to you to use your imagination, and then just about every other skill under the sun to make it actually happen. Whatever you choose, DO IT! Don’t leave it as a dream on the table."

Once again his words struck a chord with me. Perhaps the only thing holding people back is their (lack of) imagination. Or maybe it's a fear of stepping down to a lower level of disposable income or financial security. But no-one will make our dreams a reality for us, it is for each of us to take control - life should be something we do, not just something that happens to us. 

On one level, working a four day week is about working less, of course. Yet for me it is about something simpler and more fundamental - living more, and experiencing as much of life as I can in the short time I have available. I still find myself marvelling at how a career change, a paycut and a change to my working patterns has opened my mind to what life can really be about.  I'm not suggesting that everyone should work part-time. Many people don't want to, or weigh up the pros and cons and decide its not worth it. Yet we can find ourselves continuing on a path that offers limited satisfaction or even actual unhappiness, often because its what we've been conditioned to do.   So ask yourself: what's important to you? What do you enjoy? How much material wealth do you really need? In short, what do you want, and how are you going to get it?  

A great british adventure

Reaching what is technically
known as a "thank god" ledge. 

When I started this blog almost two and a half years ago it was intended - in part at least - to be a means of documenting my climbing exploits. But if I count - as I do -  indoor climbing as merely training for climbing, and only outdoor climbing as climbing itself, there hasn’t been much actual climbing to report of late.  

Last year was almost entirely a washout. So much so that I can comfortably count the number of quality climbing experiences in 2012 on two hands. 2013 began in much the same vein - after an excellent start to the year largely spent accumulating skiing days in the French Alps the British spring never really materialised.  The Peak District gritstone bouldering season came and went with nothing of any note achieved and apart from a welcome day clipping bolts in Tenerife for my mate Jon’s stag weekend, my climbing forays for the first half of the year appeared doomed to extend no further than the odd afternoon on the Kent sandstone outcrops an hour from our home in London. 

But belatedly the weather came good, and for the last few weeks the pressure has been on to grab as many days on rock as possible whilst juggling work, two children and assorted family commitments.  It all came together a couple of weeks ago when Dr Potter and I managed to coordinate a Monday off work for a day trip to Swanage in Dorset.  I am told that Swanage is statistically one of the sunniest places in the UK. Whatever the stats say (and I am a firm believer that faith in averages often leads to disappointment), the weather gods were definitely smiling. Sun, a light breeze and relatively calm seas made for a perfect day of multi-pitch sea-cliff climbing. Swanage summed up everything I love about traditional climbing in Britain - a beautiful setting, uncertainty about the weather, no-one for miles, a totally committing free-hanging abseil approach, belaying from a ledge with the waves pounding all around, superb moves up positive holds on steep overhanging rock, hanging belays from gear stuffed into just-about-solid placements, all the while not quite knowing whether you are good enough to climb the two pitches of E2 5c required to get back to the top of the cliff.  Everything about it spoke adventure. 

We finished by abseiling into an ‘easy’ sector of single pitch routes. Just the thing to round off the day by racking up the miles on some moderate routes.  How wrong we were.  By the time we started climbing, rock which only a couple of hours before had been warm and dry in the sun was now firmly in the shade and covered in a slippery layer of sea-spray.  Undeterred, Dave set off up an easy crack only to be unceremoniously dumped on his arse before he’d had a chance to place any gear (he has since attempted to show me the perfect donut-fossil-shaped purple and yellow bruise which he tells me covers most of both bum cheeks - so far I have resisted his efforts). The next climb saw me whimpering and wobbling up what should have been a very straightforward crack (described in the guidebook as ‘the most popular moderate route on the cliff’), gripping desperately to tiny pockets whilst my feet skated around on the soaking footholds .  After falling repeatedly - including onto a dubious and very rusty looking peg when my gear ripped out - I had a word with myself and carried on upwards to the dry face holds above.  I realised afterwards that for most of the climb all I could think about was one of Lara’s current favourite phrases - “don’t like it” - which kept repeating over and over in my head until I got to the top.  Sun, friends, adventure, a dose of fear - what’s not to love about climbing?!

Days like this are a welcome reminder of why I love living in the UK and just how much it has to offer.  Not just in terms of the variety of climbing but in almost every respect - possibly with the exception of the weather.  I have in the last week learned that in mid October I’ll be taking a new position as my firm’s Learning and Development manager for Asia, which will involve us moving to Hong Kong for a couple of years. Exciting times undoubtedly.  I have already checked out the climbing prospects in Hong Kong - excellent, since you ask - and there are many, many other things which will make it a wonderful place to raise a family.  Yet there is so much here that I will miss terribly - the home we have created for ourselves, friends to see, family to share fun times with, classic climbs as yet unclimbed, new areas to explore.  So as we embark upon the task of preparing to move our lives eight thousand miles around the world, perhaps the thing I am most excited about is knowing that in a few years' time I get to come back and discover it all again.

Goals, Targets and Challenges

Iliya gears up for her first Mumford & Sons gig.
On reflection its mummy and daddy who need the ear defenders. At night.

At ten past nine this morning I looked in the mirror.  Shadows under my eyes, almost a week's worth of stubble on my face and sick down the front of my t shirt.  No, I have not descended into alcoholism; this is just a normal saturday morning in the Phillips household.  The sick is, of course, Iliya's.  Last night we woke at 2am, 4am, 5am and 6am, hence the bags. Anita is faring worse than me - she spends an hour awake in the middle of every night feeding, knowing that her lifelong insomnia means she will struggle to return to anything near meaningful sleep.  But we rise to the challenge - what choice do we have?

No doubt contributing to my extreme tiredness is the fact that I have continued to train hard throughout the last five exhausting weeks.  Perhaps I am misguided, but in my mind it is a way of continuing with some semblance of normal life - that there is something to focus on beyond the cycle of morning routine - work - evening routine - bed. Or perhaps it is just selfishness on my part? I have to be realistic about what I can fit in, so my twice weekly climbing wall training sessions now happen at 6.30am before work.  If I am efficient I can manage two hours at the wall, a shower, a double espresso, a peanut butter bagel and be at my desk before 9.30. For a while I was obsessed with pure difficulty level, but now I am focussing on volume - yesterday morning I climbed 60 moderate problems in about 90 minutes.  I am aiming for 120 in 120. I drag myself upstairs for late night fingerboard sessions before the 11pm feed and twice a week I dash to the gym at lunchtime and run 10km on the treadmill. At the moment I can run 10km in 47 minutes - not particularly impressive by any reasonable standard, but only a month or so ago I was managing 49 minutes, so I know sub-45 is not far off. 

Why this obsession with goals and targets? Should I not just be climbing and exercising for the sheer enjoyment factor? Does it matter how hard or how much I can climb, or how fast I can run? I am sure many people would answer "no", but for me it matters a lot. Why? I'm not sure I know other than some sort of perverse desire to see how hard I can push myself, to find out just what I am capable of.  I know I am never going to climb E9, or F9a+. I'm never going to run a 2:30 marathon or break 60s for 400m. But somewhere below those levels are my own personal limits, and I am pretty sure they are higher than I think - and that I am some way off reaching them. I also think I want the reassurance that I can be the husband and father that I want to be still pushing my own limits. If I was single with no children, an easy job and all the time I needed to train life would be easy, or certainly far less challenging - and therein lies the paradox: challenging is good; difficult is more interesting. 

This could be a product of my professional background, my city upbringing.  Maybe I have become institutionalised by a decade of chargeable hours targets, appraisal grades and business development goals. Or maybe this is just another facet of human nature.  Perhaps we are conditioned to have goals and targets, standards to measure ourselves against, barriers to break through. Whatever the reason, I know I always need something to aim for. 

This past winter my target was to ski twenty days. I managed it - just - even though some of those 'days' consisted of a snatched couple of hours skinning up deserted slopes after the last lift for a single run down empty pistes in fading light (on reflection they were some of the best runs of the season). On the running front my target is a sub-45 minute 10km, although annoyingly I know will soon be there so perhaps I need to aim higher. (That's the thing with targets, as soon as you know you can reach them they lose their appeal).  

On rock, I have a very specific goal in mind: a one-day ascent of the Comici-Dimai route on the north face of Cima Grande in the Italian dolomites.  Seventeen pitches of mostly overhanging rock up one of the six classic alpine north faces.  Its the equivalent of climbing four Old Men of Hoy stacked on top of each other, only steeper, more exposed in a remote alpine setting.  Every time my climbing partner (the fantastically named Doctor Potter) and I discuss the face we experience a mutual cycle of contrasting emotions: excitement mixed with fear and a healthy dose of uncertainty.  Neither of us know whether we will be up to the task.  But if success was certain, it wouldn't be a challenge. A goal that isn't challenging isn't really a goal, its  just another item on my to-do list. And I've got loads of those already. 

Change

Outnumbered.

I have been thinking a lot about change recently.  For me, one of the most inspiring aspects of Andy Murray's rise to number two in the world of tennis has been his willingness to change himself.  Only a few years ago he sat at number four in the world rankings, behind Novak Djokovic, Rafa Nadal, and the seemingly unassailable Roger Federer.  Rather than a top four, it felt very much like a top three, outside of which sat Murray - ahead of those below him, but critically below the level of the three men who really mattered.  I even read an opinion piece in one newspaper suggesting how heartbreaking it must be to have dragged oneself to the absolute peak of one's tennis ability, only to suffer the misfortune of playing in the same era as the best player - if not the two best players - of all time. 

Murray, evidently, had other ideas.  He moved to Miami and started training like a demon through the winter months.  He worked on his strength endurance, reduced his body fat percentage, built some muscle bulk and changed his body shape.  He emerged as a new player.  The results since speak for themselves: reaching the final of the last five grand slam tournaments he's entered; reigning US open champion; a gold medal at the London 2012 Olympics; a deserved rise to number 2 in the world.  He undoubtedly improved his fitness, his technique and - through the adoption of Ivan Lendl's coaching methods, his mental strength. But for me what is most inspiring is that faced with apparently insurmountable obstacles - essentially he was tall, skinny and too weak to compete with the best - he physically changed himself through sheer hard work to be one of - if not the - strongest, fittest and feared players on the world tour. 

It reminds me of what Dave Macleod once wrote around bouldering - climbing short routes generally of ten moves or less, sometimes on an obscure piece of damp rock a few feet off the ground. Bouldering is a sub-genre of climbing that has been described as both the sport's purest form and the world's most pointless activity.  For me Macleod captures perfectly the attraction of bouldering, and the reason why it can be so addictive.  He describes seeing a line of holds, and knowing that they feel impossible, yet wondering whether - no matter how unlikely - one day he might be able to climb them.  How he might spend weeks, months or even years increasing his finger strength, working on his technique, improving his core stability, reducing his weight - in short, changing himself, until he can climb the problem.  Of course, at the point of success, the euphoria is fleeting, and the desire to try something even harder, to change yourself again, soon kicks in.

Tennis and climbing aside, however, the main reason I have been thinking of change is because it is happening all around me, right now.  Iliya Carrie Phillips was born at home at 8:49pm on Saturday 22 June, weighing 7lb 12oz.  In the space of only a couple of years, Anita and I have gone from being a couple, to a couple with a child, to a family of four. I would say it all feels terribly gorwn up, but that would be a lie - I'm not sure I feel any more grown up than I ever have.  I do think we had both forgotten finer details of raising a new-born baby - the brutality of broken sleep, the stress of looking after a brand new and completely helpless human being, the constant round of feeding and changing, pooing and puking.  Of course this time round we have a delightful two year old in the mix as well.  But I can say without any doubt whatsoever that I wouldn't have it any other way. As Dave Macleod points out, if it wasn't difficult, it would all be too easy, wouldn't it?

Roads

Life changing?

It is 9pm on Friday night. I am at home with the baby monitor whilst Anita is down the street in a bar with her girlfriends.  No-one told me this is how maternity leave was meant to be!  In a bid to break my Mad Men habit (series 2, episode 2 so far; gripping) I thought I'd write something.  I fully intended to write about skiing, but fate (the gods, serendipity - call it what you like) intervened, in the form of Portishead's 'Roads' - my favourite song of all time. Track 20 of 40 on my 'ambient' playlist. Ah, the wonders of iTunes.

Last New Year's Eve Anita and I spent a quality evening in Evian-les-Bains in the company of Nina and Paul Bowyer, a disproportionately large portion of which seemed to be taken up with naming our favourite songs of all time.  Anyone who has even the slightest interest in music will immediately appreciate how difficult this is.  I've often lain in the bath making and re-making the list of eight tracks that I would select if ever chosen to appear on Radio 4's Desert Island Discs (I accept that I am unlikely ever to get invited on for my services to the learning and development industry, but I can dream).   Choosing even eight songs has consistently proved impossible, so choosing just a single track as my favourite of all time seemed like a fruitless exercise - although aided by several beers and free reign on Paul's spotify account I gave it a good go.

Then not long afterwards I was running to work whilst my iPod shuffled its way through my four star playlist.  Roads came on and I immediately knew this was it. I didn't need to waste time trying to choose the right song.  The right song simply chose itself.  To explain why I need to rewind to the 1990s - early 1995 or thereabouts.  I was sitting with a load of people I didn't know in a student room at my sister's Cambridge college, having been invited down to Trinity Hall for an ultimately unsuccessful interview. This was my first of two unsuccessful Cambridge University interviews in two years - at least I was consistent. I can't remember who the owner of the room was, or even whether they were a friend of my sister or merely a passing acquaintance, but they had a huge album poster of Portishead's 'Dummy' above the fireplace.  I recall asking whether Portishead were any good.  The friend/acquaintance/room owner confirmed, with an air of authority, that they were. He may even have added a "man" at the end - he was an undergraduate student after all and I, as an impressionable A-level student, was in awe.  

But I was also slightly perturbed.  I considered myself to have anti-establishment leanings.  The music I liked could be described as "indie" or "alternative"; I owned a Rage Against The Machine t-shirt and was experimenting with wearing all black.  I think I had only just stopped riding my skateboard, although I was most likely still wearing ex-army combat trousers (although not to my Cambridge interview, I should add).  My idea of cool bands included Dinosaur Junior, Pearl Jam and Faith No More. Guitars! Lots of noise! Vocals that were sometimes shouted instead of sung! (I also owned the entire Guns n Roses back catalogue, but we won't go there). Portishead didn't even have a drum kit - they used decks and samples and keyboards and loops. My God, to my mind that made them Dance Music.  

I don't know how I reconciled this conflict in my musical sensibilities, but not long afterwards I purchased Dummy by Portishead. It felt like a brave new world, although maybe I just probably wanted to be as cool as the friend/acquaintance/room owner. He had long hair and a hoody with a zip down the front.  What I do know is that I was blown away.  From the opening warbly samples of Mysterons through the classic scratchy loops and jangling guitars of the singles Glory Box and Sour Times, and all interlaced with Beth Gibbons' frail, haunting vocals (once described as sounding like a wounded sparrow) this was music like I had never heard - the defining sound of what later became known as trip-hop.  Ironically my double Cambridge failure later led me to study in Bristol, only a few miles from Portishead, at a time when trip-hop was at its height - Massive Attack played a series of sell-out 'homecoming' gigs at the Bristol student union in my third year, although needless to say I wasn't cool enough to get a ticket. 

But Roads, track number seven, stood head and shoulders above the rest for me.  Something about the muted, echoing mellotron base, the stripped back drum machine beats, Gibbons' delicate vocals, the crescendo string arrangement, the lyrics that I still don't know the meaning of - it made the hairs stand up on the back of my neck then, and still does now, almost twenty years later. I would play it over and over, anticipating every pause, every subtle manipulation of the minor key. I listened to it through headphones so I could hear the barely-audible sound of Gibbons opening her mouth to sing the next line.  It felt like the purest, most beautiful song I had ever heard.  And more importantly it felt like it was something I had discovered for myself - it wasn't a song that had been recommended to me by a friend, it hadn't been played to me excitedly as the Best Song Ever! by my friend Kieran like Pearl Jam's live version of 'Alive'.  It wasn't released as a single and got no airplay that I was aware of. I didn't even know whether anyone else liked it. 

And then, I can't remember how many years later, I was watching TV one night when I chanced upon Tank Girl - a low budget cult film based on an underground cartoon strip.  I was about to change the channel when suddenly the scene changed, and there was Tank Girl showering the desert dust off herself - bizarrely fully clothed as I recall - to the sound of Roads.  It was a lightbulb moment - someone else liked the song! I felt like my discovery had been vindicated - whilst the radio was playing Sour Times and Glory Box, I had chosen to like Roads. I had made my own choice, and in doing so had stumbled upon a song that someone, somewhere considered good enough to use on the soundtrack to a Hollywood film. 

There have been a few big life changing moments for me over the last 35 and a bit years.  But there have been many more smaller moments that have all been life changing in their own way.  Discovering Roads was one because it showed me that I could think critically.  That I didn't necessarily have to like what everyone else liked. That I could make choices for myself that might well differ from the mainstream, but that was ok. That I could follow my instincts and my own path. Roads is my favourite song of all time because whenever I hear those unmistakeable opening bars it reminds me that I have an independent mind. 

And with that, ladies and gentlemen, I have officially disappeared up my own bottom.  Radio 4, I await your call. 

Conspicuous Consumption and the Big Mac Index

 

The same in any language.
Apple Store, Shanghai, China.

Twenty years ago when I was studying high school geography I was introduced to the idea of the 'Big Mac Index'. I don't remember it ever being referred to in those terms but I clearly recall our teacher, Mrs Austin, telling us that the best way to compare how expensive countries were relative to each other was to look at the price of a Big Mac.  It's one of the few human geography insights that has stayed with me (along with the fact that motorways cost £1million per mile to construct - or at least they did in 1993). Physical geography - glaciers, mountains and plate tectonics - was more my thing.  I thought about the Big Mac Index a couple of weeks ago when Anita and I were visiting Istanbul for the weekend and again today as I wandered along Shanghai's main shopping street.

I'm in China this week for work, delivering training to lawyers in our Shanghai, Beijing and Hong Kong offices.  I'm doing fifteen sessions across three cities in five days, so my schedule doesn't allow much time for sightseeing - half a day at each end of the week at most.  So this afternoon, fuzzy with jetlag, I made it out of my hotel and into downtown Shanghai in search of something to eat.  I last visitied Shanghai in 2003 - almost ten years ago to this day - on a drinking weekend from Hong Kong  in the company of JC and The General.  Within an hour of arriving we'd lost our guidebook, by the first afternoon I'd lost my glasses, and by the second morning we'd lost JC. I don't remember too much else about the trip other than walking along the main shopping drag and never being out of sight of a McDonalds.  It was one of the clearest signs you could want of the creep of capitalist enterprise into communist China.  Today, as you wander Shanghai's shopping streets you would be forgiven for thinking that you were in the west, if you could overlook the plethora of mandarin character neon street signs, the incredible mass of Chinese people, and the communist one-party political regime (this one's a big ask, admittedlty). Gap, Nike, Pizza Hut, Mango, Apple, Rolex, Burger King, McDonalds, Starbucks, Haagen Dazs, Costa Coffee - its all here. And everywhere you look people are buying clothes, carrying bulging shopping bags, trying on watches, eating ice cream, spending money. 

Despite not having eaten for eight hours - and even that an insubstantial aeroplane breakfast - I was determined not to sumit to the lure of the golden arches, so I am afraid I can not report first hand on where China sits on the Big Mac Index.  Instead, I ate with a load of locals in a small side-street noodle bar. I ate stir fried pork noodles, whilst the well dressed lady next to me opted for deep fried chicken feet. But a quick bit of google research reveals that according to The Economist's 2013 Big Mac Index China is seriously undervalued against the US dollar (and sterling) - in other words, it is a cheap place to live. 

On the one hand, I can see for myself that this is so.  I enjoyed a massive bowl of noodles and a coke for around £3 this afternoon, and I write this at a mahogany desk in a king-sized suite in Shanghai's Waldorf Astoria - complete with marble walk-in shower and automatic toilet seat - which is costing significantly less a night than our Istanbul hotel room. On the other hand, it is clear that the Big Mac Index tells only half the story.  An iMac in the Shanghai Apple Store costs more than in Covent Garden, which I find strange considering that it was probably put together by an army of cheap Chinese labourers a few hundred kilometres down the road. Similarly Nike trainers, Gap clothes and Levis jeans also cost more here than in the UK.  So a quick shopping trip reveals a truer picture - whilst Big Macs might be cheap, there is undoubtedly an appetite (and the spending power to support) a healthy market in luxury goods.  Conspicuous consumption is alive and well - in this part of China at least.

One of my resolutions for 2013 is to learn more about global economics. I guess lesson one is that if you want to really know what's going on, stay out of McDonalds.  Its probably better for your health too.

A fisherman's tale...

Taking it easy during Relax Time (for Lara and Daddy).
Chamonix Valley, 2013.

Today's post comes in the form of a parable. I didn't think of it myself, I stole it off another blog that I sometimes read.  I don't feel bad because that person also stole it off another blog. And so on. Viva the blogosphere! Anyway, it made me smile, so here it is. 

A tourist is standing on a quayside in a small fishing village in Mexico when a tiny motorboat chugs into view.  In the boat is a Mexican fisherman with an impressive looking tuna that he has obviously just caught.  "Nice tuna" says the tourist, "how long were you out before you caught that?" "Oh, not long", says the fisherman, "maybe a couple of hours. There are loads of tuna like this one out there" - he gestures out into the sparkling sea with his hand - "you just need to know where to look."

The tourist thinks for a while, and asks the fisherman why, if it's so easy to catch such an impressive tuna, he has only caught one.  "Well, replies the fisherman, I only need about half of this tuna to feed my family. I sell the rest at the market to buy whatever else we need. We get by pretty happily." The tourist thinks some more and says "But if you're only out there fishing for a couple of hours, what are you doing with the rest of your day?" The fisherman smiles and replies, "I fish in the morning, then I have lunch with my wife and kids. After a siesta, I might sit on the porch and strum my guitar. Sometimes I'll just head to the village square and hang out with my friends."

The fisherman heaves the tuna out of the boat and is about to set off down the quayside when the tourist stops him.  "Listen," says the tourist, "if you stayed out all day, instead of just a few hours, imagine how many tuna you could catch.  You could feed your family and have loads of fish left over to sell at the market. You'd make a fortune! Pretty soon you could buy a bigger boat and catch even more. Eventually you'd probably want to buy a few boats, and at that point you'd be making some serious money. You could set up your own company - not just fishing, but also canning and distribution - you would own the entire production chain. You'd dominate the market round here for sure, but you wouldn't stop there, you'd want to go nationwide. You could move to Mexico City and get a nice house for you and your family.  If you think about it there's nothing stopping you breaking into the US market.  You could move to LA and run a North America-wide operation from there."

The fisherman ponders what the tourist had said.  "How long would all this take?" he asks. "If you worked really hard, perhaps ten years" says the tourist.  "Another five or so for you to really get established in LA. So, fifteen years, maybe twenty at the most."

"And what then?" asks the fisherman. "Well", replies the tourist with a knowing smile, "this is the really clever bit. At that point you'd sell up.  You'd float your company on the stock market, cash in your shares and retire on the proceeds."

"Then what would I do?" asks the fisherman.

"Whatever you want! You'd be completely free. Just imagine - you could leave LA, and retire to some beautiful little fishing village down in Mexico. You could sit on your porch, strum your guitar, or just hang out with your friends. Maybe even buy yourself a little boat and do a bit of fishing..."  

Promise

A sequence of events showing
the awesome power of a baby-ccino.

Some days just seem full of promise. I've been trying to put my finger on just what it is, but I sort of think that's the point - you can't quite identify why a day seems full of promise, it just does. You know it when you feel it.  This morning was such a day. As I walked to the garden shed at 6.30am to retrieve my bike for the 15 minute ride to the climbing wall the entire day just seemed, somehow, positive.  Birds were chirping, it was just getting light and there was a smell in the air that reminded me of being awake in the very early morning of a childhood camping trip. As if everything was settled and content, and it was going to be the sort of day when I could achieve anything I put my mind to. Maybe it was just that - for once - it wasn't raining, it wasn't cold enough to numb my fingers, and it wasn't completely dark.  Whatever. I got to the wall at 6.45am, changed, chinned off a double espresso and then systematically sent all the hardest boulder problems that I'd been trying for the last couple of weeks.  Even problem number 10 on the red circuit (difficult overhanging moves to a dyno out onto a sloping hold, followed by a tricky compression move, a tenuous toe hold and a long stretch to a poor sloper since you ask).

This weekend we celebrated Lara's second birthday. It was technically her birthday today, but we told her it was on saturday for the sake of convenience. (Is that bad? At least we were here this year.) I don't have a schedule charting her expected climbing progression versus age, but if I did, she would be ahead. On Monday I took her to the climbing wall as I do most Mondays. Our trips to the wall are becoming quite demanding affairs. This week, when I suggested lunch, she said "No Daddy. Climbing!"  and refused to eat anything until I'd helped her up several routes. She has quite remarkable grip strength, yet seems completely unconcerned by the need to use her feet.  Notwithstanding these obvious flaws in her technique, she seems to genuinely enjoy being at the climbing wall, which is good enough for me.  I have no idea whether Lara will take to climbing as she grows up. Or skiing, or camping, or any of the things that I love to be honest. I know I have to let her find the things she enjoys, rather than push her to do the things I enjoy.  A bit of subliminal behavioural conditioning can't do any harm though, can it?