Nat's Soapbox

I recently returned from Geneva where I attended the Ethics in Finance - Robin Cosgrove Prize award ceremony. It was a fun week involving catching up with friends and partying a fair bit - perhaps a little too much here and there!

The RCP has now completed its 3rd cycle. The prize is my step-mother's idea, born out of a need to do something to honour Robin following his untimely death in July 2004. The mission of the Prize is to stimulate innovative ideas for promoting ethics and integrity in the finance sector. The prize reaches out to young people familiar with the banking, finance and investment sectors, with special attention to emerging markets, to attract innovative ideas, proposals and projects which could be promoted to major players in the business community. The aim is to strengthen the sustainability of ethics in banking and finance and to reinforce its implementation, especially in emerging markets throughout the world.

Despite having been involved in helping to both organize and administer the prize, for various reasons I have been unable to attend the award ceremony on the first two iterations. As such, I was filled with immense pride to be there to see the real effect of the prize on the numerous winners who participated in this fantastic legacy to my step-brother.

After the formality of the ceremony itself a spectacular dinner was held at Vieux-Bois which is a spectacular restaurant next to the Palais des Nations and staffed by students from the nearby catering school L'École Hôtelière de Genève. This was followed by myself and a number of Robin's close friends taking the winners out into Geneva for some slightly more unruly fun amongst the Geneva nightlife and into the early hours.

However, whilst being at the award ceremony itself was great, the best moments occurred during what we should call the "informal part of the evening" when the winners sat together with Robin's friends and myself said that they really sensed that the prize had that feeling of being a legacy to this young person whom they had now heard a lot about and that it meant that bit more to them as a result. That left me beaming full of pride that the prize truly didn't just reach it's global audience, didn't just inspire young people to consider ideas for improving ethical behaviour in the finance sector, it inspired them because of who Robin was too.

Lot's of things going on. Plenty of prep for the award ceremony for the RCP, some web stuff and other general stuff. Also trying to co-ordinate a number of friends all flying into Geneva at the same time and going out for a drink the day before the ceremony.

Other miscelanious goings on include rebuilding a virtual server using ubuntu (no mean feat for me as linux is no different than farsi to me - completely different language), vatsim mentoring, wishing my brother AND my nephew happy birthday for the same day!!! Fiddling with a cake website that is soon to be released, brilliantly being out of the loop from work whilst on leave due to my network password expiring, general neglect of my own website and other hobbies (particularly photography right now). Been playing lots of finger style guitar on both 12-string and nylon and very inspired by the incredible arrangements by Igor Presnyakov which I really suggest you take a look at.

Hope to catch you all up on my other uncoordinated happenings again soon...

To mark the official opening of the newly built international pier at Birmingham Airport Emirates chose to mark the occasion by bringing in the Airbus A380 for a one off visit. Having never seen one before and knowing that it would most likely not happen again at Birmingham I nipped down there for the afternoon to get a look at the behemoth aircraft.

Video of the landing - it seemed to almost hang in the air on it's final approach. [audio disabled due to chatter of myself and others :o) ]

Some pictures of the aircraft on it's departure 2 hours later.

Video of the take off. [audio disabled due to chatter of myself and others :o) ]

My colleague and good friend Lee revealed to me the other day that he is participating in the "RacingThePlanet - Sahara race".

RacingThePlanet is a unique category of rough country footrace that take place over six days, 250 kilometres and in remote locations around the world. Competitors must carry all their own equipment and food. They are only provided with water and a place in a tent each day.

Aside from the fact that he wants to have nightly cook-outs in the sand and improve his tan, Lee is taking on this mamouth challenge in aid of the Breast Cancer Campaign for whom I hope he raises big wads of cash.

Please use the link on the left to view the Facebook page Lee has created which details all aspects of the admirable challenge.

What makes a good bank holiday weekend? I have returned home having just spent the weekend in a hotel away celebrating a landmark birthday for my Dad. One thing that did occur was that in the past, my bank holidays would probably have been spent glued to the TV watching some repeat of a Sean Connery or Roger Moore James Bond film. Before you ask, my Dad's actual birthday was back towards the middle of the month but this seemed a more suitable time to get family together for a party.

The August back holiday seems to bring out an extreme side to our energy consumption. Either we do something like drive to a beach for surfing and frolicks or we adopt a state of TV-watching lethargy only matched by that of a sloth or some other creature in a permanent state of semi-concioussness. For some, this is of course induced by alcohol fuelled evenings and landing back in our beds an hour before sunrise.

This year for me evolved into a mix of all these things. The weekend away at a seaside resort with me even getting up and going for a swim and sauna, all of which sprinkled with free time spent lying on the bed watching bits of the olympics and the ensuing fuss that has now begun regarding London hosting the next games.

My bank holiday has certainly been a good one, I hope yours has too!