Changing jobs is never easy. When I joined seven and a half years ago Lotus it was a unique and special place to work. It was fun, interesting, at times challenging and one where I looked forward to going to work on a monday morning. Lotus then suffered the usual ignominy that small dynamic organisations undergo when taken over by bigger ones than aren't, the life was squeezed out it. Senior management gave us the usual platitudes that the essential spirit that was Lotus would be preserved even improved, but as was apparent early on they don't understand it's people that make companies, not products, buildings or spreadsheets and all that was good about the business slowly melted away. It's classic stuff covered in any number of business journals and books but it would seem senior management at IBM don't read very much! So I like many others have voted with their feet. It isn't about money, status, corporate religion, stock options, company cars of the size of the desk, it's about not having fun anymore. Plain and simple. I'll keep you posted about the new job...

Your view of the internet is probably tempered by whether you consider yourself a ‘Suit’ or a ‘Geek’ or as in my case somewhere in between. David Weinberger, yes him again, highlights many of the mistakes the ‘suits’ make at The World of Ends co written with Doc Searls. I wonder if Doc is his first name or his job? To paraphrase Weinberger and Searls you should bear the following in mind. The Internet isn’t complicated. The Internet isn’t a thing. It’s an agreement. The Internet is stupid. Adding value to the Internet lowers its value. All the Internets value is at the edges. The Internet has three values. 1. No one owns it 2. Everyone can use it 3. Anyone can improve it Well that all makes sense to me. The Internet is just a means to deliver stuff from one end to end to the other and if you want to sod about do it at the edges not in the middle. In the ‘Suits’ vs ‘Geeks’ debate this is aimed at the ‘Suits’ but many ‘Geeks’ don’t understand this either.

I don't know about you but when it comes to celebrity and celebrities I am drawn and repulsed in equal measure, I like the idea of celebrity but generally dislike celebrities and the factory of mediocrity that makes them. It was then with the fascination you have as you pass an accident on the motorway that I have followed the case of the Zeta-Joneses vs 'Hello' magazine, a case of biting the hand that feeds if ever there was one. The final outcome of which was a 'victory' depending on which side of the the camera you sit. As the one paper commented, "It is hard to feel any great sympathy for a fabulously rich Hollywood couple who never sought to disguise the fact that they had sought to control - for money - the images of their fashionable New York wedding in December 2000 and were miffed that a rival magazine managed a spoiler." The Zeta-Joneses claimed their privacy was violated but the Judge disagreed probably on the assumption that if you seek publicity the way Catherine and Micheal do you shouldn't be too surprised if it bites you now and again. It is for no small reason that the collective noun for the press is 'pack'. He did find for them regards the arrangement they made with 'Hello' rival 'OK' magazine ruling that the actions of 'Hello' were illegal under data protection laws and commercial confidence. The truth is both sides have emerged from this looking rather ridiculous as they need each other to survive. The Zeta-Joneses need the oxygen of publicity provided by the media of which glossy celebrity fodder magazines are now an integral part, 'Hello' needs complicit celebes to fill it's pages. One day they'll learn.

Anyone who as ever played D&D will know how true to life this is.

I subscribe to more newsletters than one individual can realistically read and keep tabs on, they arrive in the inbox, get a cursory glance and deleted if nothing instantly grabs my interest. There is one exception however, David Weinberger’s Journal of the Hyperlinked Organisation or JOHO for short. It’s one if those rare gems; informative, thought provoking and occasionally funny. A constant theme that JOHO returns to is our relationship with the Internet and what it means for individuals, corporations and institutions like governments. David thinks most still don't get what the internet is about...I tend to agree. To quote once piece some evidence of this can be found in the following behaviors: a) Seeing the Web, like television, as a way to hold eyeballs still while advertisers spray them with messages. b) The Net is something that telcos and cable companies should filter, control and otherwise "improve." c) That it's a bad thing for users to communicate between different kinds of instant messaging systems on the Net. d) That somehow the Net suffers from a lack of regulation to protect industries that feel threatened by it. More from JOHO later I reckon.

It’s not often that TV moves me but the other night it did. It was a documentary about a little girl who has Progeria. Progeria for those of you who don’t know is a very rare genetic condition which manifests itself as accelerated aging in children. Here was a bright, intelligent, brave little girl who if all goes will probably just make it into her teenage years. Not sure why but it brought me to tears.

Myself and Mrs C have been thinking about getting a dog for sometime, now it looks like we've found a breeder and a puppy. Hopefully we can bring the little Hungarian Vizsla home at the end of May.

Been away for a few days to celebrate Mrs C's birthday. As she doesn't do budget we went to Babington House in Somerset...I'd heard it was good but it was rather better than that. Our room had a hot tub on the balcony and sitting in it looking up a rare blue sky glass of cold Semillion in hand was almost a religious experience, the drudgery of work, mortgages and unfullfilled dreams all forgotten. Super Monkey Ball on a 42" Flat TV is pretty cool as well.