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Paris

Today I was in Paris.

I travelled on Eurostar – leaving from London Waterloo to Paris Gare du Nord.

I arrived – and there were no taxis available – and a queue of several hundred people waiting. I resorted to diving into the Metro to travel across to the Novell office in the west of the city – near La Defense.

Turned out there was a strike on the RER – and some RER commuter trains were not running through Paris.

One benefit of taking the Metro is to ogle the timeless 1950’s design of some of the metro stations; Franklin D Roosevelt is one of my favourites – orange, silver and harsh lines; with delightful, gallic station names.

A good set of meetings with customers and partners – this is the first time back in Paris for a few years.

At the end of the day out to Paris Airport Charles de Gaulle – again major delays because ofthe SNCF strike – I have never seen people so crammed into a train.

London Taxis

Getting a taxi can be hit and miss anywhere across the globe. Too many times I have been let down by missing cars, breakdowns, rude and sometimes downright dangerous driving.

I needed to get a cab this morning at the ungodly hour of 0430. That’s way too early for me.

I booked a cab through the recommended services of Addison Lee – a London cab firm. They have great customer service. While on the phone booking the pickup I was told exactly how much the fare would be – no surprises at set down. That was my first pleasant surprise.

15 minutes before pickup I received an SMS to my phone saying that the driver was on his way; a description and license plate of the vehicle and the cell phone number for the driver. I got a second SMS minutes later saying that the driver was waiting outside to collect me. He wasn’t – just a few houses along; I called him and got picked up.

All cabs seem to be fitted with smart GPS and directions; much like the (much lamented) Hertz Neverlost. Part of me thinks this is a great idea (no more roundabout journeys), the other part laments the loss of ‘The Knowledge’ that is still required for all black cab drivers. I can see times when human knowledge of side routes and less busy roads beats the GPS hands down.

All in all I was really impressed by the service from Addison Lee – if you are in London and need to pre-book – try them out.

Wireless routers – it’s all about positioning

I wrote yesterday about the terrible bandwidth problems I’m having in London – tonight my wireless signal in the house was dreadful. I’m used to the attenuating effect of Victorian masonry (we lived in an old house when we were in England) – but surely it was never this bad. It was almost like having a century old Faraday cage built into the house.

I thought about this some – and realised that things had only changed in the last day; no it’s not my laptop; no there’s no new software.. what could it be?

Ah – the wireless router has been place ‘out of sight’ behind a steel filing cabinet.. Hmm.

I repositioned it – and full signal restored 🙂

Bandwidth – it’s all relative!

I just arrived in London at the start of a week of customer visits. I am staying with Granias family for a day or so (saves on expenses – and it’s also really good to see them!)

Grandpa has wireless internet – and it’s good and fast – it’s just not fast enough.

Latency is not the problem – just bandwidth – 1MB is just not a lot after being used to speeds of 7MB at home.

I guess this just goes to prove that we’re all disatisfied when it comes to speed.