The month long absence was largely to do with focusing on starting work as a trainee solicitor at Bird & Bird although, with the first two weeks spent on what broadly amounted to an LPC-lite Professional Skills course, very little has actually been going on. The trainees are a fantastic bunch, and I’d managed to meet about two thirds of them already through various social events over the past two years since the summer scheme (yes, it has been that long). From that bunch Rachel, Chelsea and Matt have joined, with Kelvin also starting in the firm’s Hong Kong office. Rob will be joining us next year.
Obviously client confidentiality means I’m unlikely to discuss work at length here, but the firm culture is possibly even better than we had hoped. Rather than waxing lyrical about the ubiquitous “work-life balance” claim of every law firm, instead they just give us great hours with virtually no late nights so that people can, well, go away and have lives. I’ll be in the IP department for the next six months and, having been a student for too long, I’m actually looking forward to getting properly stuck into some real work.
With classic poor timing in my last week of freedom before work, my Xbox 360 finally gave up the ghost, refusing to start and displaying the dreaded three red lights — meaning a critical hardware fault. While an electronic device of that value ought not to break after just 2 years, Microsoft’s support has been stellar. With unusually high failure rates they extended their warranty to three years, meaning that after logging the problem online they emailed me a UPS label and paid for all transportation costs. Once received the turnaround was only around a day, and it arrived back working fine. The included note stated they had found problems in both the motherboard and DVD drive, so not exactly a minor repair. The inclusion of an unboxed scratched-up disc of outdated tennis game Top Spin 2 was a somewhat insulting gift, but the 1 month Xbox Live subscription card was vastly more welcome. Overall it was a problem that should not have happened, but being able to resolve it for free without even calling up a helpline mean Microsoft get top marks for their response.
The wedding itself took place in the heart of Oxford town in The Church of Mary Magdalen (the name being pronounced, somewhat confusingly, in the regular manner unlike the inexplicable Oxbridge college pronunciation — maudlin). Chris and I have discussed the high church nature of the services there, but I had not realised the true extent, with the whole affair easily mistakable for a Roman Catholic one. Having lived opposite them for years I know all his family well so it was great to see his parents, brother-and-best-man Alex, as well as sister-and-bridesmaid Jennifer.
Transportation to the reception had been something of a secret, the bride and groom travelling in a replica of the car driven by 
The cutting of the cake — being a large one atop an impressive tower of smaller cakes that formed the marquee’s centrepiece — was followed by dinner inside the house. It was as delectable as one would expect, with a careful seating plan that ensured conversation flowed easily despite the mixed generations. The bride and groom made it through the speeches relatively unscathed, though with time slipping away proceedings were running very late and I had no hope of returning to London that night as planned.
could only look normal in an airport — they are transient places where everyone is on the move and no one belongs so anything fits, and for that I love them.
