41/365: Sadness for Cadbury's

Cadbury's chocolate is uniquely British. Foodies and the EU may sneer at its taste and ingredients,  but it's what we all grew up with, and the hostile takeover by Kraft was only ever going to end in tears. Now we hear they are closing the Bristol site, used by Cadbury's for 90 years and previously by the famous Quaker Fry chocolate dynasty for over 200 years.

It's very sad. Cadbury's was very enlightened in the way they treated their employees and their plants were more like families than factories. Like most of the chocolate dynasties, their founder was a Quaker and a philanthropist.

I'm not a big chocolate eater and I do like dark chocolate when I indulge (but not the overrated Green & Black, owned by Cadbury's). But I also remember fondly some old Cadbury's marques that have long since disappeared: Country Style, Aztec, Grand Seville. Those were the bars I used to munch as a child.

38/365: The Sunday roast

Over the land millions of chickens and beef joints are roasting away. It's not surprising the French call us the "roast beefs". It's been three weeks since we've been home for the traditional Sunday lunch, which we always have at the table. Today it's beef with the usual accompaniments: roast potatoes, peas, runner beans, parsnips, Yorkshire pudding, mustard and horseradish. What could be better?

36/365: Cat silhouettes

A sunny spring-like day and Molly the cat decided to sit in the window, silhouetted against the blinds. She is invariably referred to as "the cat" by J, or occasionally "that cat," as in "who let that cat in?" Anonymous meanwhile refers to all cats as "rancid".

Although it's Friday, no trip to the snug or E Four tonight. J is going to a running club soiree so I will have my finger on the Sky Plus box.

Did you notice the comments are back? It gets stranger and stranger.

35/365: The curse of the buffet lunch

Was in a different building today, much smaller with no cafeteria. Fortunately, because it was a meeting that extended over lunchtime, a buffet lunch was brought in. I should have brought my own sandwiches. This is just a small part of the lunch - there were also cream cakes provided by someone else, a bowl of fruit and some more sandwiches. And once it's sitting there, you can't help reaching out. Well, tomorrow is another *(dieting) day....

33/365: The motley crew

Today I moderated a webcast that went out across EMEA. It was an hour long and my role was to introduce it and then moderate the questions. These were either live in the meeting room or on the web from participants in many countries. I filtered the questions real-time and put them to the panel, who are shown here. It was fun - I enjoy doing this type of thing. It's a throwback to when I was a radio journalist and all sorts of things used to go wrong. Fortunately nothing went wrong today.
Now regular readers may have noticed that comments have disappeared from posts. I was baffled because I hadn't changed any settings. Some research revealed that Haloscan, whose widget I was using, have now decided to monetise their service. No-one had emailed me about it, and presumably they made my code redundant. I have now attempted to install their new offering, Echo, but the Blogger plug-in doesn't work and I'm no expert on HTML, so until I fix it, the comment box on the right will have to suffice. Please don't let it put you off.

32/365: It's all virtual

No surprises for identifying the object on the left. Yes, a mouse. Normally at this time of year I would be in the sunnier climes of Las Vegas or Anaheim (LA) for the annual sales & marketing conference. This year it's being done virtually. So we watched the executive keynotes, chatted and networked with colleagues, and took our assigned classes - all online. While it's good to be at the cutting edge, we do miss the valuable interaction and genuine networking so hopefully next year we will be back in the US.

31/365: The Canterbury Tales

Went to Canterbury today where J was running the Barretts Canterbury 10 mile road race. His daughter is at university in Canterbury so she came to spectate and then we went to Prezzo's for lunch. J's verdict on the race: "Much hillier than I was expecting, heart rate was high throughout the race. I won't be doing a half marathon if there is one!"

Talking of half marathons, he is doing one next Sunday but I'm not expected to come as he will have a car full of lady runners.

The window picture is the view at Prezzo's - right opposite the West Cornwall pasty co!