I've never used Google maps in anger before

http://www.noelwatson.com/blog/PermaLink,guid,18877af8-a7b1-4e24-9fe6-1454de247668.aspx

But this evening I have to drive across London and am lucky enought to have a navigator. Ideally I would have a TomTom

http://www.amazon.co.uk/exec/obidos/ASIN/B000BYUN34/qid=1151571296/sr=8-1/ref=pd_ka_1/026-8787779-9446068

but I haven't got round to ordering one yet. Google can be used to plot a course for the navigator to use.

http://maps.google.com/maps?f=d&hl=en&saddr=old+street&daddr=Houndsditch,+City+of+London,+Greater+London,+EC2,+UK&ie=UTF8&t=h&om=1

Pretty useful.

After looking at the CQF a while ago

http://www.noelwatson.com/blog/PermaLink,guid,018fedc5-7a72-423e-9a01-a5cb4a12ea12.aspx

and completing the Maths for Quant course recently,

http://www.noelwatson.com/blog/PermaLink,guid,12aae4a3-4821-4a72-b973-36a6f5e30710.aspx

I started the CQF yesterday evening.

The lecture was about random behaviour of assets and lasted for about two and a half hours, with around an hour spent working with an Excel spreadsheet looking at normal distribution and how share prices differ from this. This lesson reinforced how powerful Excel is for creating quick solutions (this is a double edged sword), and there were a few Excel functions that were new to me. It was good to get to work with real world data - this helps this information to sink in better.

Over the past year I have seen

• Permies going contracting (including myself)
• Contractors going permie
• Contractors joining consultancies

After reading a blogger's views on "Coding the markets"

http://etrading.wordpress.com/2006/05/31/permie-vs-consultant-vs-contractor/

I thought I would add my own views. I have worked as both a permie and at a consulting company, and am now contracting. I agree with the majority of what has been written, but thought I would add a contractor's viewpoint - these are based on working in London's financial sector, and I may be biased towards contracting as I've yet to experience a downturn since becoming self employed.

• Contractor
  • Pros
    • Money: As a rough guide, you daily rate will be around 1/100 of your basic permie salary. So if you are on £50k as a permie, you can expect to earn around £500/day. Assuming you work 200 days of the year (more in a good year, less in a bad year), this works out at £100k/year.In addition to this, assuming your contracts are outside of IR35, the amount of tax to be paid is significantly less than as a permie. Of course, this ignores permie bonus, which can be significant if you are working in front office development. The following link has some real world bonus examples

http://magmasystems.blogspot.com/2006/02/data-point-senior-net-archdev-salary.html

Interesting salary survey link below (not IT so bonuses not relevant, but interesting nontheless).

http://www.napierscott.com/salarysurvey2006.htm

• Lack of politics: No more being unhappy and frustrated with your bonus or what other people may be getting.
• Freedom: Typical contracts are from 3-6 months duration. If you don't like what you are doing, move somewhere else (assuming market is reasonably buoyant).
• Being your own boss: You can decide what your company's targets are for the year, and what will be spent on training/invested.
• Cons
  • Job security: The biggest downside. However, the risk can be mitigated somewhat by making sure your business and technical skills are up to date (a good skill set to have at the moment is C# and Credit Derivatives).
  • Paying for your own training: Both in terms of cost and lost revenue. However, some companies run training courses out of work hours (I'm starting the CQF tomorrow - evenings only).
  • Administration: Running your own company does require more paperwork than as an employee, but if you employ a good accountant this can be minimised.

Comparing the other two options to being self employed

• Working for consultancy: As mentioned in the link, permie pay with contractor security. I believe if you want to get the best work you need to work directly for the banks, either contracting or permie. The lack of choice as to where you get sent is frustrating. For me, I would prefer to go back to being a permie than work at another consultancy (maybe there are good ones out there)
• Permanent: Offers greater job security and can offer more interesting work (although I don't think I could find anything more challenging than what I am doing at the moment).

Of course, I think everyone's dream would be to start their own consultancy and have others working for them.

I've been meaning to get a laser colour printer for business use for some time. The Lexmark C522n looked like a good buy

http://www.pcadvisor.co.uk/reviews/index.cfm?reviewid=166

http://www.pcpro.co.uk/reviews/81423/lexmark-c522n.html

especially as the model has a £150 cashback offer

ftp://ftp.lexmark-europe.com/brochures/uk/adtools/e120n_promotion_folder/colourofmoney_claimform.pdf

Printerbase offers a competitive price so I have placed an order.

http://computing.kelkoo.co.uk/b/a/sbs/114901/15524414.html

http://www.printerbase.co.uk/acatalog/lexmark_c522n.html

After my visit to Gordon Ramsey last week.

http://www.noelwatson.com/blog/PermaLink,guid,5ad825a1-b7ac-4103-8531-c51302eefd7a.aspx

I had the chance to go to a different type of restaurant yesterday.

http://www.bigeasy.uk.com/

This place is unashamedly American, with the emphasis on meat and lots of it. I had the 24oz T-Bone King Cut - good value at £17.90. All the steaks are Angus and are aged for a minimum of three weeks.

Before visiting the Big Easy, my previous favourite in London was Sophie's Steakhouse.

http://www.sophiessteakhouse.co.uk/

Also comparable (of the places I've visited) is Beltazar in Capetown.

http://www.noelwatson.com/blog/PermaLink,guid,0e82712d-ead7-4b06-bf72-f9b2daad239d.aspx

A friend has recommended Rodizio Rico.

http://www.rodizio.co.uk/menu_pgs/our_menu.html

fixed price for as much meat as you can eat.

Chic are one of the greatest bands of all time

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chic

A really good site is shown below

http://www.chictribute.com/

with some video clips here

http://www.chictribute.com/video/intro.html

I had been listening to some Chic productions the other day and had decided that I would list my top 10 Chic written and produced tunes.

Coincidentally, Chic released a new DVD a few days ago.

http://www.amazon.co.uk/exec/obidos/ASIN/B000FFL1S0/sr=1-1/qid=1151046418/ref=pd_bowtega_1/026-8787779-9446068?%5Fencoding=UTF8&s=dvd&v=glance

However, if you really like your Chic music, you should be buying this

http://www.amazon.co.uk/exec/obidos/ASIN/B000DN5UXG/sr=1-2/qid=1151046418/ref=pd_bowtega_2/026-8787779-9446068?%5Fencoding=UTF8&s=dvd&v=glance

When I got this DVD, it was only available from Amazon Germany, but has now been released in the U.K.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MRRgPk2z_us&search=chic%20good%20times

This was filmed in 1996, and a few days later bass player Bernard Edwards died of pneumonia (he was actually unwell during the concert). Sister Sledge make an appearance and sing a few songs.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bernard_Edwards

Chic in concert today (using Jerry Barnes on bass) comes a distant 2nd compared to when Bernard was still alive.

The original Chic drummer, Tony Thompson also passed away recently

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tony_Thompson

as did backing singer Luther Vandross

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Luther_Vandross

My top 10 Chic songs of all time are (in no particular order)

1. Carly Simon: Why
   http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ogGbGz_UOdI
2. Norma Jean Wright: Saturday
   http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fpz4xIJxniM&feature=related
3. Sheila and Black Devotion: Spacer
   http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vqSjtX7Oezo
4. Sister Sledge: He's the Greatest Dancer
   http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dQL49ocejCw
5. Sister Sledge: Reach Your Peak
   http://www.chictribute.com/video/sidor/iwntyrlv.html
6. Chic: My Forbidden lover
   http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Mui8RleQDcE
7. Chic: Happy Man
8. Chic: Dance, Dance, Dance
   http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t4rcWKiArLw
9. Chic: Good Times
   http://www.chictribute.com/video/sidor/gt79.html
10. Sister Sledge: Reach Your Peak

A good book was released a couple of years ago

http://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/1900924560/026-8787779-9446068?v=glance&n=266239&s=books&v=glance

We travelled to Le Mans last weekend in a Porsche 911T

http://www.classiccarclub.co.uk/carpages/por_911T.asp

I asked for the Aston but was informed that it was overheating so had the Porsche instead (Classic Car Club review at end of the year).

http://www.classiccarclub.co.uk/carpages/aston_martin_v8.asp

We left Portsmouth on the 7a.m. ferry and arrived around 4 hours later in Caen. We were the last off the ferry - I think they put all the old cars near the back in case they couldn't start.

The journey down was uneventful and we arrived at a campsite near the Porsche curves after an hour of searching. Unfortunately we missed the start of the race, but this didn't matter too much as there was plenty of racing to watch.

Of all the cars racing

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2006_24_Hours_of_Le_Mans

The three best sounding cars were the

• Corvette

http://www.corvetteracing.com/

• Panoz

http://www.panozmotorsports.com/News/Article.aspx?ID=2176

Lamborghini

• http://www.motorsport.com/photos/lemans/2006/24h/thumbs/lemans-2006-24h-eg-0006.jpg

The strangest sounding car was the Audi Diesels (one of which in fact won) which were almost silent, the only noise I could hear was some gearbox whine. It reminded me of Jackie Chan's Subaru in the CannonBall Run.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Cannonball_Run

We had a slightly more interesting journey when returning on Sunday morning. After slowing to pass through a village, the local "Cheese Eating Surrender monkeys" (I thought Jeremy Clarkson coined this phrase, but apparently not) Gendarme

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cheese-eating_surrender_monkeys

pulled up alongside and motioned for us to follow them into a car park. After accusing us of speeding (I don't think we were going as quick as they claimed), our pockets were lightened by 90 Euros and we continued on our way. This appears to have happened to others as well.

http://www.pistonheads.co.uk/gassing/topic.asp?t=281339&f=25&h=0

We stopped at the Chateaux de Sassy for a quick look round - it's just off the N158

http://www.chateauxcountry.com/chateaux/sassy/struct.html

We got back to Portsmouth at around 10:00 p.m., and when I started the car the alternator light was glowing slightly. My mobile had been damaged that afternoon, so I could see myself breaking down on the A3 at midnight with no way of getting in touch with the AA. Fortunately the Porsche was fine (we were last off the Ferry again).

For next year's trip, I would change the following

• Stay in a hotel rather than a campsite
• Return earlier and on the fast ferry - it's no fun getting back into London after midnight if you have work the next day

http://www.amazon.co.uk/exec/obidos/ASIN/1869710231/qid=1150960867/sr=8-2/ref=sr_8_xs_ap_i2_xgl/026-8787779-9446068

I ordered this book after reading about Marshall's altercation with Bobby Skinstad a few years ago. I've read several rugby autobiographies over the last few years including

• Willie John McBride

http://www.amazon.co.uk/exec/obidos/ASIN/0749950374/sr=1-2/qid=1150961209/ref=sr_1_2/026-8787779-9446068?%5Fencoding=UTF8&s=books&v=glance

• Mervyn Davies

http://www.amazon.co.uk/exec/obidos/ASIN/1845960319/sr=1-1/qid=1150961260/ref=sr_1_1/026-8787779-9446068?%5Fencoding=UTF8&s=books&v=glance

• Barry John

http://www.amazon.co.uk/exec/obidos/ASIN/1840183411/sr=1-3/qid=1150961465/ref=sr_1_3/026-8787779-9446068?%5Fencoding=UTF8&s=books&v=glance

Bill Beaumont

• http://www.amazon.co.uk/exec/obidos/ASIN/0007156693/sr=1-3/qid=1150961296/ref=sr_1_3/026-8787779-9446068?%5Fencoding=UTF8&s=books&v=glance

• Martin Johnson

http://www.amazon.co.uk/exec/obidos/ASIN/0755311876/sr=1-1/qid=1150961356/ref=pd_bowtega_1/026-8787779-9446068?%5Fencoding=UTF8&s=books&v=glance

• Jason Leonard

http://www.amazon.co.uk/exec/obidos/ASIN/000714444X/sr=1-3/qid=1150961393/ref=sr_1_3/026-8787779-9446068?%5Fencoding=UTF8&s=books&v=glance

And have found most of the modern ones a lot tamer than the older generation. However, this one is a lot more revealing and Marshall is honest about the players and people he has little respect for.

http://www.microsoft.com/presspass/features/2006/jun06/06-13Certification.mspx

This was announced around a year ago

http://www.noelwatson.com/blog/PermaLink,guid,edbfa0d1-7cb6-40bc-ba2f-a880f05a03fd.aspx

The cost is $10000 and only 250 people are being accepted for the first application period

http://www.microsoft.com/learning/mcp/architect/faq/application/default.mspx

http://www.timeanddate.com/worldclock/astronomy.html?n=136&obj=sun&month=6&year=2006&day=1

Although today is not the day that the sun rises earliest or sets latest

http://aa.usno.navy.mil/faq/docs/dark_days.html

http://www.quadibloc.com/science/eot.htm

Note that the longest day in the year 3999 is shorter than now according to the site

http://www.timeanddate.com/worldclock/astronomy.html?n=136&obj=sun&month=6&year=3999&day=1

I was lucky enough to go here last night

http://www.gordonramsay.com/royalhospitalroad/

The restaurant is the only 3 star Michelin Restaurant in London.

http://www.homestead.com/andyhayler/files/3_Michelin_Star_Restaurants.htm

We went for the menu prestige

http://www.gordonramsay.com/royalhospitalroad/menus/menuprestige/

and spent over 4 hours at the table.

The only restaurant that I have been to that comes close to this is Le Quartier Francais, which I visited in South Africa a few months ago

http://www.noelwatson.com/blog/PermaLink,guid,0e82712d-ead7-4b06-bf72-f9b2daad239d.aspx

Both restaurants feature in the best 50 restaurants in the world in 2006

http://www.theworlds50best.com/bestlist.aspx

Ramsey @13 and Le Quartier Francais @38

although they have slipped from their 2005 rankings

If I were to compare the two, I would say that they are on a par with food, but the service at Ramseys was exceptional. I would love to go again, but apparently getting a table is extremely difficult.

Next on the list is The Fat Duck

http://www.fatduck.co.uk/

This is also a three star Michelin Restaurant and won the best restaurant award in 2005.

I would also like to go to Chez Bruce on Wandsworth Common

http://www.chezbruce.co.uk/

http://www.wilmott.com/blogs.cfm

There are some impressive people blogging on Wilmott including authors of books I've read

• Satyajit Das
• Emanuel Derman
• Nicholas Nassim Taleb
• Paul Wilmott

Following on from

http://www.noelwatson.com/blog/PermaLink,guid,46a1740a-5b2a-4d99-b907-9551499a3c4f.aspx

I have been looking at how to factor age and weight when comparing rowing times. The following link is for 2000m, but I mainly row 5000m, so I will linearly extrapolate (not 100% accurate but acceptable).

http://www.concept2.co.uk/racing/correction.php

Two example rowers are shown below

• If Person 2 were to be rowing at the same level as Person 1, what time would he need to do to be on a par with Person 1:

17m 58s  = 1078 seconds

Weight adjustment: 1.059/0.979 = 1.082*1078 = 1167 seconds = 19m 27 seconds

Age adjustment: 1.6seconds *(5000/2000) = 4 seconds.

So person 2 would have to complete 5000m in approximately 19m 31 seconds to be on par with Person 1

• Alternatively, assuming Person 2 were to travel on a very fast spaceship and therefore didn't age compared to those on Earth, how old would Person 1 be before he slowed down to Person 2's speed.

22m 08s - 17m 58s = 250 seconds

~ 100 seconds over 2000m

Person 1 would have to be around 73 years of age before Person 2 can land his spacecraft and win!!

http://www.bloomberg.com/media/markets/toc.pdf

http://www.bloomberg.com/media/markets/kiesel.pdf

Some good CDS related info in this month. I picked one up from Finsbury Square

http://maps.google.co.uk/maps?f=q&hl=en&q=EC2A+1PQ&ie=UTF8&ll=51.520019,-0.086185&spn=0.004747,0.013475&t=h&om=1

http://www.amazon.co.uk/exec/obidos/ASIN/0273704745/qid=1150275471/sr=8-1/ref=sr_8_xs_ap_i1_xgl/026-8787779-9446068

This book has been discussed on Wilmott, with a few people moaning that it puts their profession in a bad light despite having not read the book.

http://www.wilmott.com/messageview.cfm?catid=11&threadid=38376

Das claims to have been in the industry for 25 years and has published a number of books

http://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/search/026-8787779-9446068?search-alias=stripbooks&field-author=Das,%20Satyajit

After reading Liar's Poker a while ago

http://www.amazon.co.uk/exec/obidos/ASIN/0340839961/sr=1-2/qid=1150275862/ref=sr_1_2/026-8787779-9446068?%5Fencoding=UTF8&s=books&v=glance

I hoped we'd get another similar book to carry on where that one left off. I personally feel that Traders Guns and money has almost pulled it off. The material in this book is very up to date, even discussing the GM downgrade in May 2005.

http://www.financialpolicy.org/fpfspb26.htm

There are a few good quotes in the book, including

"Selling options is like eating like chickens and sh*tting like elephants"

I felt that the book was maybe slightly too long and it drifted a bit after in the second half, but certainly worth reading

http://support.microsoft.com/gp/lifesupsps#Servers

Seems quite aggressive, and people seem to be have had issues with SP4.

http://www.sqlteam.com/forums/topic.asp?TOPIC_ID=66737

I'm not using SQL 2005 yet, but will have a look at this when we upgrade.

http://blogs.msdn.com/queryoptteam/archive/2006/04/06/570176.aspx

They have come from a 1% Fed rate to 5%

http://bigpicture.typepad.com/comments/2006/05/real_estate_dat.html

although I don't believe the ARM has moved by as much (1 year Freddie Mac link below)

http://www.freddiemac.com/pmms/pmmsarm.htm

FED predictions can be found here

http://clevelandfed.org/research/policy/fedfunds/Index.cfm

I personally think the U.K would've continued to drop if we hadn't had the 0.25% cut last year

http://www.houseweb.co.uk/house/market/irfig.html

With at least one 0.25% interest rate rise currently predicted for the U.K. over the next year it will be interesting to see what effect this has on the U.K. market.

Announced yesterday. CTP will be available in June (Tech Ed) and released at the end of the year.

http://www.itnewsonline.com/showstory.php?storyid=4125&scatid=4&contid=3

http://msdn.microsoft.com/vstudio/teamsystem/products/dbpro/

http://blogs.msdn.com/mattnunn/archive/2006/06/01/612572.aspx

Some of the tools it is offering, especially integrated source control, will be invaluable.

Reading this report today highlighted problems that a lot of the banks are having with booking Credit Derivatives trades.

http://www.finextra.com/fullstory.asp?id=15377

http://www.isda.org/c_and_a/pdf/ISDA-Operations-Survey-2006.pdf

CDS are an OTC product, and as such there will always be problems identifying the entity that the trade is being made on. My client has the luxury of having full access to the Markit database, but there are still problems:

Potential entity identifiers include

• Markit Red Code: This does not cover all traded CDS. In there are around 3900 entities, of which around 3600 are valid (i.e. underlying reference obligation has not changed in any way). Of these 3600, 200 do not have redcodes, so another identifier has to be found.

Note that for indices, Markit always supply a redcode, both for the index itself and for the underlying constituents.

• Name: This name is not unique (i.e. there are two Rentokils), although it is (currently) unique for valid CDS
• Markit Ticker: This is unique but is not industry standard

Of course there is an additional problem when your bank is trading an entity that is not in the Markit database. Or when you think the entity is not in the Markit database, so you use an alternative name, but in fact the entity was in Markit all along.