I don’t write much about my work life here. I don’t anticipate that changing, but today I’m making an exception.

Tomorrow is my last official day as a consultant. It’s not quite as neat as that because I’m working for another six weeks on a consulting project, being loaned back from my new job, but this feels like a life milestone for me. And it’s certainly as good a time as any to reflect on ten years of work, all of them as a consultant.

Bizarrely, consulting is never something that I considered as a career whilst at school or for most of my university life. In truth, I didn’t have much clue what I wanted to do after university. I was good at mental arithmetic at school which gave me a head start on maths. I’m not convinced that I have a huge natural aptitude for maths, but I liked the applicability of statistics and so ended up doing a maths and stats degree. During my degree it became clear that I really didn’t get on with some of the pure maths but I started doing more and more modules in this strange new thing called ‘operational research’. This was even more fun than stats, and led me neatly into a masters in management science and operational research. I had moved gradually from the world of maths to the world of business.

During my masters course, a special half-day was laid on to teach us about what it would be like to be a consultant. It wasn’t particularly something I was thinking about, but I went along and Professor Richard Ormerod talked about his life in consulting. It was quite fascinating – you had to work out how to sell work to your customers, how much to charge, how to plan everything, then how to actually deliver the work – and sounded like running your own mini-business. It was his stories, though, which really sold it to me. He told us about workshops where he hadn’t felt connected at all to the customer group he was with and how he’d spent evenings thinking about this and coming up with new approaches. And then the success stories of getting through to people, of making substantial changes to businesses to make them slicker, better places to work. It sounded exciting. I found out some more, went so a bunch of interviews and got offered exactly the job I’d hoped for.

Skip forward ten years and I can say that it /was/ exciting, in parts at least. I got to work with an amazing variety of people at a staggering array of different types of organisation. I don’t think it’s the kind of experience that I could have got in another type of job. I found a pretty good niche for myself within a big company and made it my business to become the best in that niche (which was sort of just being really good at Excel and Access, but really was a lot more than that).

I got to plan stuff that I’d never done before and engage in all sorts of practical but intellectual bits of work. At some of the places I worked, I was the one making noticeable improvements. In fact, in one case, the work of a small team of colleagues over a long period pretty much saved an entire organisation from fairly dire consequences. Yes, my job was hardly crafting physical objects but there were many days where it was clear to see the positive impact of my work. That’s a good feeling.

I’ve worked with some incredibly smart people and learned so much. I look back at some of my early work with a degree of embarrassment now but it reminds me how much I have found out over the years, from customers and colleagues alike. I’d like to think that I’ve helped other people too (I’ve certainly showed a lot of people how to use pivot tables).

The frustrations? Well first was not being able to easily articulate what my job was to anybody (you’ll possibly have noticed that above). I could say ‘management consultant’ but that brought to (my) mind rather unflattering caricatures of waffly strategy folk; I could say I was a sort of ‘data analyst’ but that wasn’t quite right, it sounded boring and still nobody really knew what it was; I could tell them in detail about my specific role on whatever project I was on before explaining that was only temporary and feeling like I’d wasted their time.

The temporary nature of every project could also be frustrating. Wherever I have been working I have been an outsider. No fixed desk, no milk in the fridge, lugging my entire workstation setup with me wherever I go. That’s not to say that people haven’t been friendly, but the relationship is clearly a bit different (and rightly so).

Then there was never being able to plan stuff in my personal life. Would I like to go to a concert in two months? Yes, but I don’t know what town I’ll be in on that day (or I do know, and it’s one where nothing happens). Could I pop out to some drinks organised on a whim? No, I’m 200 miles away. In the early days, before hotel wifi became pervasive, those evenings away from home almost felt like having my life on hold. I couldn’t see friends and I couldn’t do much productive. It was easy to see why so many colleagues simply spent every hour working.

But since I started dating Kathy, and even more so after we got married, it has been the travelling and staying away from home that has been the killer. Although we have had brilliant fun in the time we spend together, it has sometimes felt a little like treading water whilst we wait for everything to be settled so that I can enjoy a “normal” working life with evenings at home and the ability to plan things for the middle of the week. It has taken quite some time for the right job to come along but I’m very glad that it has.

So what will I be doing now? Well, I’m not moving company (I am but it’s only a technicality) and my new role is somewhere at the intersection of product management, sales, finance and IT. I promise to work out a better description of it (I think there will be one but I need to see what shape it ends up being first). More importantly, there will be no need to go and see customers which means I can spend my evenings in Sheffield. With Kathy. I’m very grateful to her for being so patient and I’m looking forward to ‘moving in’ properly.

I interrupt the regular schedule of catching up on things that I’ve been to see and write, instead, about what happened to me last week. This is the short version; feel free to ask me in person for the long, pub bore, version.

Travelling home from Glasgow last week, my suitcase went missing on the train. I noticed that there was another, similar, suitcase left next to where mine had been and came to the conclusion that perhaps somebody had taken the wrong one. I should also mention that my suitcase contained my brand new (and somewhat expensive) laptop. What it did not contain were my contact details. Yikes.

I spoke to the train guard, who called through to the stations that we’d passed through, but nobody had handed it in. When I got home I spoke to the Transport Police and left all the details.

The next day, I phoned First Transpennine lost property (as I had been instructed). Their database of lost property is only updated once per day at 6pm. Their opening hours are 8am until 6pm. I wouldn’t be able to find out if my case had been handed in until the next day. Also, though, the intervening stations that we’d travelled through were run by Virgin so if the case had been brought to a lost property office there then I’d have to contact them. And as the train terminated at Manchester Airport, a separate company again would deal with anything still on the train (which would include the similar suitcase that I presumed would not have been claimed and which the owner would be trying to track down to swap for my suitcase).

I phoned Virgin lost property. A separate company deals with their lost property (I wasn’t clear at this point why, then, the lost property option on the menu didn’t just forward me straight to this third party rather than to someone whose job appeared to be just telling people to dial another number). I phoned them. They didn’t have my case, but were at least interested and took my details. I phoned the company that deals with the Manchester Airport lost property but didn’t get through.

At this point I began to despair slightly of the logistics of it all. I had already dealt with four companies and confined my search with the assumption that the case would be returned either to the company operating the train or to one of the stations that we had passed through before I noticed that it was missing. What if the person had changed at, say, Preston and ended up somewhere in Wales? Should I phone Arriva Wales on the off chance? And this was all still assuming that someone had taken the suitcase by mistake rather than deliberately. I wasn’t hopeful.

I phoned my insurance company on Friday evening and listed the things that had been taken. My heart sank a little at the thought of the “like for like” replacement that I’d get for my laptop.

We spend the weekend visiting Chan & Jon (another post to follow, probably in about 3 months). It was great fun and I managed to forget a little about the lost suitcase (though I did put in some more calls to the various lost property call centres with no luck). On the train home, I got a Facebook message on my phone from someone I didn’t know.

Hi – sorry if i’ve got the wrong person but I just wondered if you had lost a suitcase recently on the train? Thanks

It transpired that, as I thought, someone had picked up my case instead of theirs. Getting home, they weren’t sure what to do but their daughter-in-law had the idea of opening my laptop to see if there was any contact info there. My laptop was locked (of course) but the login screen showed my name and she was able to search for me on Facebook and send me the message (I’m lucky to have a relatively rare name). I got up very early on Monday morning, made the trip to Blackpool and was reunited with my suitcase.

So what have we learnt?

• I should uniquely identify my bags and make sure my contact details are in them somewhere (yes, this should be obvious)
• Tracking down lost property from trains is a bit of a nightmare
• There are still some nice people in the world who will try really hard to make things right
• Travellers from Poulton-le-Fylde station have somewhat limited horizons. Platform 2 is for trains to Layton & Blackpool. Platform 1 is for trains to ‘Kirkham, Preston AND BEYOND’.

This is somewhat old news now, but we did complete our trio of David Hare plays with ‘The Breath of Life’ at Sheffield’s Lyceum. This play is a two-hander and traces the relationship between two women (played by Isla Blair and Patricia Hodge) and the man that they have both loved. The action, such as it is, is generally through recollections of  events and conversations. This is a dialogue-rich (or heavy, depending on your point of view) play and at times it feels more like a radio play than a theatre piece.

The performances are both solid and Blair and Hodge give us two rounded, believable characters. The story, though, leaves a little to be desired – it is engaging enough in the moment but leaves something of a ‘so what?’ feeling after the event. The music cues are plain odd and a little distracting and, with the static set and small cast, I was trying to fathom why this was not in the Studio space with ‘Plenty’ allowed the larger Lyceum audience.

Now this was an exceptional gig!

Support was from Kate Miller-Heidke, who had somehow passed me by despite being exactly the sort of singer whose work I’d ferociously collect upon hearing it (yes, I did raid iTunes for every song I could find the next day). Kate has an absolutely amazing voice – classically trained with immense range and power but also vulnerability and an uncommon delicateness. Her songs are a mixture of whimsy, humour and heartbreak. Please go and immediately listen to ‘Don’t Let Go’. Thanks. Live she is electrifying, accompanied on acoustic guitar by her extremely talented husband, Keir Nuttall and is instantly one of the best support acts I’ve ever seen (up there with Duke Special and Beth Rowley).

But if Kate was great then Ben was magnificent, playing a set of nearly two and a half hours and covering every single one of my favourite Ben Folds tracks. He was on terrifically mischievous form, egging on the lighting tech to make full use of the glitter ball and composing ‘Sheffield’s Got Balls’ on the spot (apparently every room he has visited in Sheffield has contained a glitter ball). He also graciously took request after request during a Ben ‘n’ piano break from the rest of the band. Needless to say, one of the ‘requests’ was a sheet of lyrics penned by an audience member which Ben immediately set to music and belted out to much applause.

About halfway through the set, there was some sort of technical difficulty with the piano which needed the tech crew to completely disassemble and reassemble it (quite an impressive feat). Rather than just waiting for this to be done, Folds instead commanded his drummer to begin a mammoth solo and then grabbed the guitar from the bassist and began belting out an insane bass solo that must have lasted almost 10 minutes. Meanwhile the rest of the band filmed on camera phones. Quite a surreal moment. Another surreal moment followed the solo section as all the band returned wearing comedy moustaches (causing some serious corpsing when Folds glimpsed them).

This gig was terrific in just about every way – excellent value, hilarious and musically amazing. But I think the biggest thing was feeling that we got something unique and special, and that’s something that Mr. Folds is extremely good at. Please come back to Sheffield again soon.

I just made a list and, apparently, there are 13 things that I want to write about here that happened in the last month or so. Not just work that has been keeping me busy then, it seems.

The O2 Academy in Sheffield is a bit of a strange venue. For a long time it was the Roxy nightclub, then some sort of unusual church and then it lay derelict for a bit. Inside it’s not exactly tailored for live music and it’s also not exactly massive (it’s certainly smaller than other O2 Academy venues that I’ve been to) but it’s cosy enough and has a fairly decent soundsystem. After a bit of a desert in terms of gigs that I wanted to see, the end of February provided two in a row!

It’s quite a while since I’ve seen The Go Team! but one thing that hasn’t changed is their energy! Literally leaping, super-hero style, onto stage they gripped the room with thumping beats from the dual-drummers, enormous grins and lots of jumping from frontwoman Ninja (who must surely be ready to cash-in with a Go Team! exercise video?) I think they’re a band that benefits from the live performance as the sound really comes together in those circumstances; recorded they sound a little under-produced (not helped by the fact that the first album was recorded in a kitchen).

They played a decent-length set of a little over an hour, a mixture of favourites from the first couple of albums and plenty of new stuff (from the pretty excellent ‘Rolling Blackouts’). Not one of my all-time favourite gigs (I’d have to wait another day for that) but definitely worth the money. Also, I can’t figure out exactly where the O2 Academy 2, where they played, physically fits in the building. But that won’t surprise anyone who knows me.

Things have been a bit busy with me! The past couple of weeks have involved even more travel than usual (taking in places as exotic as Beeston and Birmingham) and there have been quite a few work and family things to juggle.

I’m not sure that it’ll get a great deal less busy in the next 3.5 weeks before our super amazing holiday but there are loads of things that I want to write about. So I’ll try my best.

I had a great weekend. Every February a bunch of us rent a cottage somewhere relatively remote, eat and drink lots, and play Rock Band and board games. This happened last weekend (though I took it a bit easier on the eating and drinking front as part of my current healthy regime).

I feel so lucky to have a group of friends who still get together and do this over ten years after (some of us) were at university together. It’s a brilliant way to catch up with people and a brilliant way to fit in a whole lot of board games. This weekend, for example, we managed to play Pandemic, Settlers of Catan, Catan: Cities & Knights, Forbidden Island, Ticket To Ride: Europe and a special total-darkness game of Waldschattenspiel. Lee also introduced me to Magic: The Gathering for the first time (I like it!).

What’s really great, though, is that we seem to be moving towards doing this twice a year now so I’ve only got another seven months to wait before the next one. Thank you, friends, for being so awesome.

If Plenty was my starter, then Racing Demon provided a very satisfying main course for my David Hare three-course meal at Sheffield Theatres. And if I’m going to insist on a rather clumsy meal metaphor then you probably don’t want to read any further. Before you stop, though, let me tell you that you simply must go and see Racing Demon at The Crucible. Kathy said it’s the best thing she’s seen there and she’s not wrong.

The scene is set, even before the actors emerge, by some of the most beautiful and careful lighting I’ve seen. When the action does unfold, though, the sheer craft behind this play is clear to see. The writing is so pitch-perfect that it’s almost embarrassing to write about it. That’s taking nothing away from Daniel Evans’ directing, though, which is also spot-on as are the performances from all the leads.

The story centres around an inner-city cleric who has lost faith but found solace in doing good work. The tensions within the church and its role in society are played out and it’s a piece in equal parts thought-provoking, funny and heartbreaking. Despite the fact that the play was written in 1990, this production feels extremely contemporary. Indeed, it seems clear that the recent sitcom Rev borrowed a few ideas from Hare.

And now I can look forward to my dessert – we’re off to see The Breath of Life on Saturday.

Sorry about that slight gap. I tend to write when I’m up in Glasgow and I didn’t make the trip there last week (I was, instead, in London but very busy).  Actually, the last two weeks has been quite busy throughout.  So much so that I just had to look at my calendar to see what I’ve been up to. Here, then, are some things that occurred.

The weekend before last we went to The Milestone in Sheffield to celebrate, belatedly, Kathy’s birthday. We’d been looking forward to trying the place for quite a while as they’re a significant voice in Sheffield’s growing food scene and were featured on Gordon Ramsay’s Best Restaurants last year. The place is great with friendly staff, a nice cosy feel and, most importantly, really good food. My gnocchi was really tasty and Kathy’s duck equally delicious. The six of us (we took both sets of parents too) had a terrific time and I’m looking forward to trying The Wig & Pen, which has recently been taken over by The Milestone. We also noted that they do wine-tasting evenings.

Whilst in London last week, a complex set of events (amusing but I really shouldn’t reveal them here – if you know me then ask me in person) meant that instead of going out to a restaurant I was rather looking forward to, we ended up going to Livebait. Nothing wrong with that, except for the fact that I don’t like fish. Well, let it be noted that Livebait do an amazing mushroom risotto. I’m looking for an excuse for a return visit.

I shouldn’t really have to go to Moss Bros to be fitted for a suit three times, should I? On the plus side, I am going to be wearing one well-fitted suit for my sister’s wedding. I’m sure it will draw comments.

Finally, I’m trying to break my lifetime habit of putting two spaces after a full-stop. I know that it’s wrong in these electronic times but I did actually start typing using a manual typewriter.  My granddad used to pay me to type up the AGM notes from his club and horticultural show programmes. Twenty years of typing later and you can understand why it’s a tough one to crack.

Thanks for the various comments, tweets and Facebook posts that have been rolling in.  I guess it’s time for another admin update (you can imagine a jingle right about here if you like).

I queried on Twitter whether people would like me to tweet when I post something here (this would also show up as my Facebook status through the magic of the API).  It would always actually be me posting, though, rather than one of those auto-post type things as I’ve seen those go wrong a few too many times leading to massive “splurges” of consecutive repeated tweets and so on.  And I think people count on me to only post to twitter about three times a year.  Anyway, if you have a view on this then let me know.

Feedback seems to have been positive on a) me writing some more here and b) me working out how to put all the archive posts back so that you can read about me making a staff shop at Vodafone overstock on Caramac bars and what I thought of some comedy shows from 2003.  So lots more work for me then, hooray!

I’ve also been given a challenge by Talia (in answer to my questioning what I should write about).  That will require a little research but it is not forgotten!

Finally, I wanted to reproduce an excellent and insightful comment from Paul who knows rather more about radio than I do (written in response to this):

I think you’ve kinda got it right there but maybe not in the way they see it.

It’s services like Spotify that are killing local radio – people want to listen to music primarily and let’s face it, most of the music they want to listen to is chart music (excluding the niche stations, of course). Local radio stations can’t afford the cost of 10 jocks, producers, support staff etc let alone the equipment, transmission costs and so on on their own, especially when they are basically playing the same music in a slightly different order to everyone else; hence why the major radio groups formed in the first place, to share as much of the cost as they can.

The natural way for these groups to go, when their profits are being squeezed ever further, was to quasi-nationalise and have a network of stations playing the same thing but with local adverts. In the case of the Heart network I have to admit I think it has worked rather well (ignoring the slightly shit combining of local stations) – you get a local breakfast and drivetime show, arguably the time when most people are listening in their cars and can actually hear the local news, events and gossip – and then during the day, you get presenters playing the music you want in the background while you are working, shopping or whatever, when you are not primarily focussed on the radio but on doing something else.

I think there is still a market for niche radio – the likes of Jack, XFM, and so on – but again, arguably these don’t need to be epecially local. The France Bleu network has arguably been the model for the Heart network and I suspect it is probably doing rather well.

Rather well put, I think.  I wonder if there isn’t room for something more of a hybrid though.  I have no objection to a large company owning a number of stations (Paul’s right – they’re not really commercially viable as individual concerns) and even consolidating all of the back-office stuff but I still think there could be room for them to make the public face of these stations more individual and more local.  Or perhaps I’m wrong and breakfast and drive really are enough?

And I agree that there’s room in the market for niche radio (talk also probably fits into this category) – I just think that ‘local’ is a niche that mainstream radio stations should be tapping more, not less.