This is a story about the seasons...

I'm not just a city slicker. I'm actually reasonably tuned in to nature. I have studied weather patterns and the seasons. I have studied tides and rivers. I'm pretty adept at spotting patterns, and I can be a good data scientist to prove it.

Tomorrow - Sunday - I'm going on a climate march in the capital of the UK, London. It will be the first ever political march I have ever taken part in. That's pretty shocking. I have been remiss in my duty as a citizen in keeping UK politics honest. I've been one of the silent 76%. I will be writing about the reasons for why I was so quiet during the last General Election in later blog posts.

I had the pleasure of taking a plane ride home chatting to a couple of millennials a couple of years ago, and oh my God do they work hard. They wanted to go to University, but they quite rightly saw it as a huge privilege to go, and were exceptionally grateful for the opportunity. They laughed at the idea of spending a precious penny of education money on frivolities like partying. They gawped at the idea that the baby boomers paid no tuition fees, got grants and had plenty of money for drugs, drinking and smoking.

Yes, there is a huge generation gap. One generation got to drive around in gas guzzling cars and have heaps of foreign holidays where they travelled all over the globe by jet aircraft. That generation guzzled all the profits, the equity of the nation.

Baby boomers have bankrupted the UK with an unsustainable pensions model based on passive asset management. These lazy people were asleep on the job... never attending any shareholder meetings, while blue chip companies paid huge salaries and bonuses to lazy executives, and the massive enterprises were asset stripped in order to keep paying dividends into pension funds that were managed for short term growth.

The next round of asset stripping is now taking place, with round after round of redundancies, with all the jobs going offshore to China and India, plus the multinationals are restructuring to make sure they hardly pay a penny in corporation tax.

This won't work. We are expecting the millennials to prop up the pension funds, like a ponzi scheme, but we are getting rid of their jobs at the same time. How are they supposed to work to support the baby boomers in their retirement, if the same baby boomers have offshored all the jobs? There won't be any tax receipts either, because everybody will be either retired or unemployed and the multinational corporations won't be paying a penny in tax to the UK.

We are governed - politically and in our jobs - using a top-down approach. A pyramid scheme. The problem with that model is that if the guys at the top are total psychopaths, megalomaniacs, myopic losers... then the whole world is screwed.

The only antidote is grass-roots activism. The power of the unions was destroyed by the Tories, but we thankfully still have the right to peacefully protest about our lives and planet being destroyed by greedy fat cats.

I don't really care whether you believe man made climate change is real or not. If you want to deny the existence of the overwhelming body of evidence that shows that things are probably way worse than we could possibly imagine... get to the back of the queue for the water tap when the drought hits. Why don't you move to the edge of the Sahara... that'd be lovely and warm for you?

Yes, why don't we do that? Instead of taxing a tiny bit more for people who drive polluting vehicles, why don't we suggest that them and their family are therefore put lower down the priority list for assistance, when climate catastrophe hits. When there's a flash-flood, wildfire or a hurricane, you'll be last to be saved. How's about that?

If you're putting yourself first and ignoring the wellbeing of humanity and the planet, that seems fair, doesn't it? If you're so busy watching TV and reading crappy newspapers that print lies and pandering to your spoilt children and teaching them the same ignorant crap that you've bought into, I don't see why you and your lot shouldn't drown in the rising sea levels that you've caused.

We are a nation of sailors in the UK, and we are an island nation with the 2nd biggest tides in the world. The English Channel is one of the windiest places on the planet. Also, the UK is only able to enjoy its mild climate because of the anomaly of the Gulf Stream. The sea might look tranquil at times, but it can rage and storm and smash everything to bits too.

If you are a sailor you must master the state of the sea (waves) the tides and the wind, which can gust and squall out of nowhere. You have to look at the clouds and the surface of the water to see what's happening in the invisible currents of the air. You have to look at any points of reference on any land that you can see to guess what's happening in the invisible currents of the sea. The tide can carry you far faster than the wind sometimes.

It's a similar thing with the planet. You have to get way up a mountain or look from the basket of a balloon or the window of an aeroplane, in order to gauge the state of the climate. If you can see melted glaciers, dry river beds, empty lakes, dust bowls, deserts... the planet might be trying to tell you something.

Everything might feel OK in your double or even triple glazed house with air conditioning and other refinements that are designed to shut nature out and maintain a degree of microclimate control. Everything might feel OK in your air-conditioned car with tinted windows. Believe me, things are not OK.

The oil/energy industry is bigger than you can possibly comprehend. Their lobbying power is immense. They have bought politicians and media outlets around the world. They have controlled almost everything that is printed and has been broadcast, for a very long time. It's only with the advent of technology like the Internet that these monopolies are being eroded, and honest people are allowed to be heard for once.

You see that hole in the cloud cover, which is like a lovely dappled blanket over most of the area you can see? That hole is caused by a power station. Its heat output has actually vaporised the cloud cover above it. That means that not only the energy output of the power station is being pumped into our greenhouse, but also less of the sun's energy is being reflected back into space.

Can you  see how nice and white the clouds are, when you look down on them from an aeroplane? That's because the sun's energy is bouncing back into space. Clouds are fantastic at keeping the planet cool.

You know what isn't good for keeping the planet cool? Water. Yes, as a sailor you learn about something called sea breeze. This is wind that is created because land heats and cools very rapidly, but water absorbs and stores the sun's energy. That means that when the land starts to cool when the sun goes down, you get a big rush of warm air out at sea, back towards cold land. You always get a nice on-shore breeze in the evening during the summer.

Imagine if much more of your planet is covered by water, and much less by snow and ice (which is white, so reflects sunlight) and you have way less cloud cover because the temperature is raised so high that water droplets are not forming. Imagine if what little land that remains has been covered by power stations, roads, airports, offices and houses, which pump out huge amounts of energy. Imagine that.

What I think would happen would be very extreme weather. Cataclysmic storms, bush fires, mudslides, expansion of the deserts, inhospitable temperatures, flash flooding. Yeah... pretty much what we're seeing.

The oil/energy men will say that it's not true. They won't refute it with good science. They'll just say it's not true, and tell you to keep buying their plastic crap and driving around in your gas guzzling car and having heaps of foreign holidays in aeroplanes.

Yes, it's true that I flew all the way to San Francisco to have my photo taken at the Golden Gate Bridge. It sounds like I'm the ultimate hypocrite. However, it wasn't a holiday. I was going to kill myself.

That's right, I have reached the point where I can no longer stand what I see in the world. I can no longer bear wars being fought in my name, people being oppressed in my name, the planet being destroyed in my name. Politicians need to stop using me - their citizen - as an excuse to perpetrate war and suffering.

There is talk of austerity. How's about this? We don't bomb Syria. I will take a 'cut' in the amount of bombs that I buy. I don't want to buy any bombs at all, let alone have them dropped on anybody's head. Zero bombs for me, please. That goes for bullets and shells too. Yes no bullets for anybody's guns and no shells for anybody's tanks and artillery. I don't want any. None, zero, zip, nada... I don't want any. Not for me no. Never.

So, I'm a member of the majority of people in the UK. I'm one of the 76% of people who didn't vote for the Tories. That means that no war should be waged in my name by an unelected minority. Unelected? Yes... 76% of people in the UK don't want the Tories.

So, don't let these unelected wankers, these Eton toffs, these psychopathic warmongering twats... don't let them commit war crimes and global destruction in your name. You didn't vote for these awful awful people. We need to get out into the streets and let the arrogant little shits know that we won't put up with their awful policies.

The Tories will try and bolster their power to subvert and oppress the UK citizens. They will try and keep the police and the armed forces on side with flag-waving nationalism and warmongering, plus ostracising the poor and underprivileged. They will try to divide and rule. It's so painfully obvious that they have all studied the 'success' of the Falklands war and the growth of the City and financial services, in terms of Tory popularity. They seem to have lost sight of the fact that they caused the recession and the Poll Tax Riots.

Please remember that I'm promoting civilised nonviolent protest. No vandalism, no abuse and please be mindful that the police are just doing their job, and doing it in really tough circumstances. We do need law and order. We just don't need the kinds of laws that the Tories would really like to sneak through Parliament using their plutocracy.

I think the Queen and the House of Lords are actually doing a reasonable job of keeping a muzzle on the dangerous dog that is the Tory party. I was reading today about what a bunch of bullies and psychopaths are at the very heart of a party that will gladly drive people to suicide to further their political agenda. These dangerous megalomaniacs need to be treated with the contempt that they deserve.

So I know that many people are turned off by politics and probably will not have even read as far down as this. I will try and dumb things down for people and keep my political message coated in sugar and generally hidden from sight, like peas hidden in mashed potato to get a fussy child to eat some green vegetables. I'm sorry that's a little patronising, but you're letting the country and the planet get ruined by people who are political... but they're horrible.

I seriously recommend that you get some people who are nice and honest and caring, into the political system. All the psychos are really making the whole nation, the whole planet, very sick indeed.

That is all.

It's time to make the call to action right now. Christmas is going to be a big distraction, but when the credit card bills start hitting people's doormats in January, the suicide rate is going to soar. It's also going to be a bitterly cold winter because of climate change (October 2015)

Tags: #politics #suicide #mentalhealth #civildisobedience #notanonymous

This is a story about loyalty...

Midland Bank was taken over by HSBC (Hong Kong & Shanghai Banking Corporation) in 1992 and in June this year, HSBC announced that they were going to bury the Midland brand. I think that's a real shame.

I have family connections with both Sheffield, UK and Hong Kong, SAR, China. I have a very personal connection with The Bank as it's affectionately known in Hong Kong. I even learnt to speak Chinese, with the intention of furthering my career with HSBC, in the Far East.

HSBC had the 'prime' years of my life, and they taught me a hell of a lot. Not just how to drink like a fish, and prop yourself up with vast quantities of strong coffee. It might not have come across with a few of my previous blog posts, but I really do love Midland Bank and HSBC.

That's a snippet of an email I personally got from the CIO who is in charge of the #1 project in the biggest bank in Europe, which did $6bn of profit in the last quarter... I'm talking about HSBC of course.

So, I rather burnt myself out trying to get the #1 project back on track. Of course, heroics are never good. Projects are a team effort, and my actions were just as one tiny member of a very talented and dedicated team.

Did I make a difference? Did I make a noteworthy contribution? Emails like the one above remind me that I was pulling my weight in a big team, helping to get the #1 project over the line in time for the timetable imposed by the Department of Justice, to avoid the Deferred Prosecution Agreement (DPA) which could mean a fine of $5bn, or worse.

So, I'm sure if the project was going wrong, was running late or there were any concerns, that things would be escalated. It's really important that public companies are very careful to tell their shareholders how things are going, and be honest. Those shareholders own that company, and they need the facts in order to make their decisions about how their company should be run.

If you're a HSBC shareholder, you do attend the AGM don't you? You do ask the board some really hard, cutting questions, and demand that your company is run to the very highest standards, don't you? You do demand that your C-suite executives - the CEO etc - are all doing their job effectively and are keeping you, the owner (limited by shares) informed of everything that you need to know.

It's actually a legal requirement, and part of the role of the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) to keep public companies honest. If a group of people knew that there was a problem in a company before the public did, they would be able to sell their shares before that news became general knowledge, and as such they would be able to profit at the public's expense.

Insider dealing is a serious crime, as is knowingly withholding information from shareholders, when issues are being escalated.

For me, a clear desk is not a clear conscience. If I know that some wrongdoing is being perpetrated, the fact that it is a well guarded secret does not make it OK, for me. If you've taken the public's money, when you floated a company on the stock exchange, then you have duties to those shareholders. It's an issue of morality.

Very few white-collar criminals go to jail and I'm really not OK with that. Many people's life savings and pensions have been obliterated by white-collar criminals, who think that the law doesn't apply to them.

Cases brought against companies are incredibly hard to fight. Big companies have big legal teams, and the cases are so hard to prosecute. Plus white-collar criminals are extremely adept at covering their arses. They will make sure they have a fabricated paper-trail that supposedly exonerates them from any personal responsibility. They will make sure that the water is sufficiently muddy that they are really hard to prosecute.

Technology is helping. We can now mine millions of emails and use data visualisation to understand the connection between keywords and people and start to build up a picture of what really went on during the run-up to the eventual downfall of an organisation.

At HSBC on the #1 project in the bank, we started to use a hashtag in our email subject line. That hashtag was #RED. Yes, I saw a lot of that hashtag during my time working on the #1 project in the biggest bank in Europe. I didn't see a lot of #AMBER, and I'm not sure if I saw any #GREEN at all, but that's just from memory. I'm sure hoping that somebody tells the shareholders if there's a problem with the #1 project.

It's not my job to communicate to the shareholders. It's somebody else's. The guy in charge of communication left shortly before me. Not sure who's in charge now. I wouldn't really want that job. Jeeps! That'd be a lot of pressure to do the right thing.

I like doing the right thing though. It means I can sleep at night, when there are 245,000 jobs, 220,000 shareholders and a bank that's too big to fail on the line.

Do the right thing.

That is all.

I lied on my timesheets. I was actually working every hour that I was awake. I didn't sleep very much, but not because of a guilty conscience, but because of the importance of the project (September 2015)

Tags: #banking #career #hsbc

This is a story about breaking point...

I don't believe in 'rock bottom'. Instead, I feel that I have either run out of fuel or suffered some kind of mechanical failure. You can't drive yourself at the absolute limit forever without some kind of blowout. I have melted my tyres by cornering at high speed.

When I was younger, I pushed myself very hard because I was bored and not at all challenged by what was asked of me. I needed to work many many times harder than my colleagues to prove that my age was no limit to what I could achieve. I've been programming since I was a little boy, so why shouldn't I be better at it than somebody who's been doing it for less years than me?

I had a couple of brilliant teachers growing up, one of whom taught me boolean algebra. If you can master boolean algebra, then there's not much you can't do with a computer. Else if, you're not cut out to be a programmer. End program.

So, I've been doing more or less the same thing in my full-time career for 19 years, because it's a skilled job and is very highly paid. However, there are so many asshats that I must endure in order to get on with my job, which is rather trying. Eventually, the pen-pushers grind me down and I lose my patience with them.

What's really heartbreaking is that I have worked so hard for so long in order to have some time & space to do some things which I actually love and I'm passionate about. However, just when things were seemingly working out for me, people came and picked my pocket.

Now, it's my own fault for being so open and trusting and generous. I have always refused to stop treating others the way I would like to be treated myself. Just because other people are mean and selfish and steal from each other, doesn't mean that I'm going to be like them too.

I imagine that they must feel pretty rotten about themselves, knowing that they have profited from other people's hard labour. I know that we all think of ourselves as relatively hard working. Just remember to look at the evidence. Think about how many 100+ hour weeks you have racked up in your life.

So this isn't about boastfulness, or oneupmanship. It's just about an attitude adjustment. I know that many baby boomers who are in the process of thinking about retirement feel pretty tired and that they have worked pretty hard. Well, I would advise you to look at some hard numbers about just how hard your sons, daughters and grandchildren are working and will have to continue working in order to fund your retirement.

There is a "screw it let's just drown our sorrows" attitude amongst the young, who have no hope of job security, not enough money to buy a house, not enough money to support a family without state support. This is a rational response to a world that has few opportunities left for them.

Underpaying people below the age of 25 is obscene. I was working as a contractor for Research Machines and Lloyds TSB at the age of 20 and they paid me top dollar because my skills and youthful energy got shit done.

It really depresses me, just how many layers of idle and out-of-touch management there are sitting uselessly on top of the toiling youth, while they wait to collect a pension that they didn't contribute enough towards to justify what they are going to withdraw from the system.

The future of children and grandchildren has been mortgaged by profligate baby boomers who were too busy getting stoned and taking LSD to actually ban the bomb and prevent British industry from being asset stripped and having our competitive edge completely destroyed by myopic idiots. Nuclear arms proliferation is not my legacy... it's yours, old people. The lack of jobs for young people is not my fault... it's yours, old people.

Ok, so you might be feeling rotten in your old age, but maybe your body wouldn't feel so bad if it wasn't full of cancer from all the radioactive particles floating around from your nuclear testing? Maybe you'd feel a lot better if the nation hadn't been totally bankrupted by you and your cronies, so we didn't have to cut medical research budgets?

My suggestion? Well, Soylent Green seems a little unpalatable, so perhaps we could just make sure that the burden of austerity falls on those who are responsible. It wasn't a debt binge by young people that caused the current crisis. It was a complete lack of political and social responsibility from the baby boom generation, that meant that the landed gentry had their hands in the safe, helping themselves to all the loot, while you sneering arrogant wannabe pensioners were drinking and smoking and taking drugs.

So, we have a very cold bitter winter ahead of ourselves. Everything is going to hell in a hand cart. Please please please remember not to blame your children for the implosion of the world and the collapse of society. Your pension is a privilege you get for leaving the world a better place than you found it, and I'm afraid you have no right to take something you didn't pay for.

I'm really reluctant to do another round of propping up a broken system, for the benefit of a bunch of ungrateful twats who show no appreciation. I think I'm going to stand back and watch the whole thing burn down.

That is all.

This is my sister's cat, Calcifer. He was catnapped. Us young people are struggling to look after our loved ones, because we are under too much pressure to work 6 or 7 days a week on hardly any money... baby boomers have no idea how hard it is being young (September 2014)

Tags: #career #parents #childhood

This is a story about social engineering...

The first rule of bus stop club is: you don't talk about bus stop club. The second rule of bus stop club is: you don't talk about bus stop club. The third rule of bus stop club is: don't jump off the bus stop... it's quite high.

I work on the Customer Due Diligence project for HSBC. We are expected to do due diligence on 48 million customers in 61 countries worldwide. HSBC is not very good at due diligence, mainly because they won't listen to the experts.

When I was employed - as a disguised employee - by HSBC to work on the project, I was no fixed abode (homeless) and I was at the limit of my overdraft and credit cards. I had no income. I guess that technically made me bankrupt... except that it took me 4 days to get the job. That's a record... it normally takes me less.

When you are honest, hard working, dedicated, an expert, passionate and have integrity, you don't tend to have a lot of problems finding work. My main problem is finding anything that I'm interested in doing. Making the lives of 48 million customers a little better, and trying to save 245,000 jobs and create 13,000 new jobs is interesting to me. That's why I got up and went to the interview with HSBC.

So, this sounds super arrogant. Yes, sorry. There's absolutely no doubt that I'm only a very small cog in a very big machine. However, try buying a Rolex watch and removing one of the little cogs and see if it still works.

Teamwork is what gets stuff done, but every member of the team needs to be valued equally. Equality is important. Valuing people is important. Everything is awesome when we are part of a team. Everything is better when we stick together.

Here's me going to my interview... just opposite the bus stop where me and my other homeless friends hung out. I actually wasn't going to go... there were far more interesting projects at Meganews Corporation, Mega Credit Card, Mega TV Station, Mega Investment Bank(s), Mega Petroleum Company... London is not short of roles for software engineers. The agent convinced me to get up, have a shower, get dressed and go to the damn interview. I was glad that I did.

The way the whole system is set up with economic incentives, meant that rules were probably bent in terms of background checks. Nobody cared that my credit score was probably terrible - living on your credit card because society has abandoned you, is not great for your computer credit score. Nobody cared that I was no fixed abode (homeless) because the whole thing was arranged via email and mobile phone.

I guess this was an experiment in social mobility. I can tell you where all the 'gates' are that will prevent the 'wrong sort' of people from getting ahead. I did nothing illegal or fraudulent. I was just trying to get myself off the streets. I was just trying to move from surviving to thriving. I was barely surviving. I had countless hospital admissions in 2014 and 2015. Living on the streets and in hostels is hard.

Imagine being in a 14-bed dormitory with your one suit. Imagine how many people there are snoring in that room. Imagine how many people want to use the one bathroom in the morning. Imagine people knocking your ironed shirt off the bunk bed where it was hanging up, onto the dirty floor. Just put it in the washing machine, right? Oh... you share that washing machine with 120 people? Oh dear.

I used to go and sleep in Royal Kensington Park Gardens or on Hampstead Heath just to get some damn peaceful sleep. The sound of snoring and smell of sweaty bodies just gets too much to bear at times. Yes, sleeping under the stars and waking up to beautiful views like the one above is kinda sh1ts and giggles... when the weather permits.

Yes, you have to be very in tune with nature, with the weather and the seasons, if you want to survive. You also need some really high quality gear. The only reason why I was able to cope through a pretty rough patch is that I'm well trained and disciplined. I have the Dorset Expeditionary Society to thank for that.

I can live small and neat. Take only photographs, leave only footprints. Park rangers used to leave me alone because I would be camping out with nothing but respect for my environment and mindful of the fact that I'm just one of millions of Londoners using the incredible green spaces.

Fundamentally, we are animals. We are animals that need to sleep and eat. We need to be warm and feel comforted by the presence of each other... we are social animals after all. We were not supposed to be isolated in a concrete jungle, surrounded by glass and steel and right-angles that would never appear in a natural setting.

I am also seasonally affected. I think it's bad enough to say that it qualifies as Seasonal Affective Disorder (SAD). When the clocks go back and the days get shorter, I feel the need to hibernate. I get tired & depressed. Especially if my employer is not particularly supportive about me taking time out to top up the sunshine that I need to live. I'm literally solar powered... we all are.

Frankie the cat in his natural habitat. He loved his garden. So did I (June 2007)

Tags: #homeless #frankie #banking #career #london #computing #mentalhealth #hsbc

This is a story of a culture that lives in the hearts and minds of people, not a place...

Look how happy this burger flipper is! Look at him! He's so happy! There isn't even any ham in his hamburgers! He flips his burgers to D. I. S. C. O. music, and he is HAPPY!

What a lovely lovely thing the American Dream is. I totally buy into it. I've had the very best of it. I've flown in Boeing jets, driven Ford Mustangs, eaten McDonalds drive-thru, spelled words like "color" and "center" deliberately when in an American English context. I love the way that American culture has enriched every part of my dull beige British life.

I like British culture too. Some of it is cheap and tacky, like Spice Girls and the St. George's flag, but some of it is edgy and just downright edge-of-your-seat unmissable. Who can tear their eyes away from the tormented souls, the mumbling, bumbling, sexually repressed and oh so terribly polite British demeanour, where we start and end every sentence with a "Sorry".

You can't beat the brash snarl and roar of an overdriven electric guitar. However it's the British homage to American stadium rock that somehow lasts, beyond the brilliance and inspiration of Hendrix and a rock-and-roll 60s generation, who burnt out in a blaze of glory.

Let's see how many clichés we can pack into a single sentence about The Americans, who are the candle that burns twice as bright but burns half as long. Like a moth, we are attracted to their bright flame, but like Icarus, we need to be careful that our wax wings are not melted. You can't stare at the sun for too long. There's a little black spot on the sun today, it's in the same old spot as yesterday... yes The Police, and their illegal alien in New York are pretty clear about where they would really like to be Citizens.

I would love a precious Green Card, but I fear rejection by the prettiest girl on the planet... by which I mean the United States of AM-ER-IC-AH, F**k Yeah! I'm not even kidding. When I'm there, I feel like I just stepped onto a movie set. I find myself just gawping at road signs, or pinching myself when I'm driving down the freeway.

So, it's true. If you make great music, great movies, and you are contributing volumes and volumes of literature, art, music and amazing companies, technology, and thought leaders... how is it surprising that everybody wants to live there, and have a slice of the American Dream

That's the true "trickle down" effect, in my not-so-humble opinion.

Please let me in. I'm a refugee of the humdrum boring life that is not at all what I was brought up to expect from Hollywood and the adverts that told me I need to consume consume consume. I'm not even joking. Or maybe it's my dry British sense of humour. Dare I say... irony?

America, I love you x (I really do)

Tags: #america, #NHS #culture

This is a story of queue jumping and those who get left behind...

I keep this in my wallet, to remind myself not to be one 0f the self-important pricks who thinks they deserve their position in the world. It reminds me that it's never OK to barge in front of the struggling masses. I found it in the middle of a forest in Ireland. The former owner, I imagine, was a jumped-up London eedjit who littered one of the most beautiful and unspoilt parts of our world I have ever seen. This little patch of green is one of the few places to not have been totally screwed by selfish and greedy monsters.

This keepsake also reminds me of the day that I decided to make a switch, from being so consumed with the rat race that I was unable to stop and smell the roses, to notice that there are very few places left that have not got massive concrete tower blocks, huge piles of plastic rubbish, terrible air quality, polluted rivers and all the increasingly obvious signs that the human race is acting with little or no care for the future of the planet.

It also marks the day that I reconnected with nature, having been stuck in the concrete jungle for far too long. The problem with London is, that unless you have a healthy outdoor hobby, like cycling or surfing, you have very little connection with your environment. We live under artificial lighting 24 hours a day, and our views are dominated by huge buildings, not towering trees.

Another problem with London is the drinking culture. I'm not sure if London drinks alcohol to switch off and get some sleep, after all those strong coffees, or whether to numb the realisation that the standard of living is actually pretty poor, when you consider long commutes, high rents, overcrowding, crime rates and poverty everywhere you look (except for Canary Wharf, which is a private estate).

So, I decided that I am going to quit drinking. This is harder than you would think, when you work in an industry where a standard interview joke with a candidate is "Do you drink? Don't worry if you don't, we can send you on a course". They closed the bars in offices, as the City has cleaned up its image, but you can still roll from your desk straight to a bar within barely a few strides.

Let's be clear about my drinking though. I drank pints of lager out with the lads from work. Drinking spirits and drinking alone set of alarm bells in my head, luckily, but binge drinking huge amounts of beer is not good either, even if everyone else around you is doing it too.

It has taken some time to prepare my colleagues for the relinquishment of my final vice. I have never smoked in my life. I gave up caffeine over the last year or so and I am now completely decaffeinated. I am targeting targeting a 1 pint a week, which will be cut to zero in October. This is a drastic reduction from having 5 or 6 pints of Peroni (over 5% alcohol) on a midweek evening, and my body and my colleagues have felt the impact.

So, at first, my body was extremely unhappy about going alcohol free. My sleep was terrible. I was waking up sweating in the middle of the night. In the morning I felt like I was full of flu: aching joints, feeling sick, painful abdomen. This was when I was STOPPING... surely we are supposed to feel better, not worse? Well, as it turns out, it takes quite a long time before you start to feel better.

I was shocked by how long it has taken me to taper my alcohol consumption down to just a single social drink, which I accepted on the proviso that nobody was allowed to pressure me into having another one, and I would go home after I had finished it. My colleagues carried on and were nursing hangovers the next day. I felt surprisingly rubbish after only 1 pint, but I was able to get up and have my breakfast at the normal time.

I think it really is like my friend, Tim, often jokes: "I'm not an alcoholic, because alcoholics go to meetings". The City runs on that kind of gallows humour. However, I have now started to lose friends and colleagues to alcoholism, and many more are very ill indeed. I don't want to be next.

Could this be my last ever pint? My body and brain wish it was (October 2014)

Tags: #career #london #alcohol #addiction #mentalhealth #banking