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In addition to our various ‘day jobs’, Sam and I also maintain a number of outside interests including various catering engagements.

Some time ago, Sam began helping with the staff and artist catering backstage at the Cambridge Folk Festival. A couple years ago I joined her for the first time and we were back there again this year. While some of the backstage crew are ‘professional’ (in that they travel around all the festivals doing lighting, sound, etc) most are loyal to the Cambridge Folk Festival and only meet once a year.

Everything starts about a week before the music begins with rigging marquees, setting the infrastructure to cope with the influx over the weekend. We pitched up on Wed when Sam began serving egg & bacon butties from ‘Bob’s Country Bunker’ (a porta-cabin with a hotplate, grill, fridge, and not much else by way of catering equipment). By the end of the day the main catering Marquee was full of the cookers, fryers, hot plates, storage, boilers and serving equipment that is a functioning kitchen; including the kitchen sink! A walk-in fridge and a separate walk-in freezer kept everything nicely chilled, whatever the temperature in the kitchen.

It isn’t all festival food.

My sister was also over recently from Boston with my newly born Niece (7 months old) for her Christening at Mum’s local church. Sam did the cake and constructed the baby from Marzipan & icing, and the lettered bricks from icing blocks and letters piped individually to spell out “Evangaline” and individual “e”s on each of the 70 cupcakes.

Uploaded on February 5, 2006 by drobnikm

What’s the coolest thing you’ve seen in another country?

This is a Plinky inspired post. My short answer is the Soggy Dollar Bar on Jost Van Dyke, British Virgin Islands.

The longer answer is that it got me thinking about navigation and charting a route through choppy water/difficult times.

The backstory is that my sister was working out in the Virgin Islands when she decided to get married. Sam and I were a bit stuck for a gift, since she was already working in what many would consider to be paradise a holiday seemed a bit pointless. They were also living in temporary rented accommodation so house-type stuff was equally pointless. However, they hadn’t really explored the islands since arriving there.

So we chartered a yacht to take them around the islands for few days and to provide a different setting for the actual marriage ceremony. The backstory to the backstory is that my parents met running a yacht charter business in the Virgin Islands so there was a nice symmetry to the whole thing.

Being the height of hurricane season (late Sept) charter prices were cheap, if you could find a yacht still in the water. Fortunately we did, a very tidy Hylas 49. We provided the food & booze, the boat came with diesel & water. I was also expecting navigational charts of the islands. What I got was a 3-fold A4 drawing, pirate style, of the islands. Including several areas that were coloured in red – danger, don’t go near there!

Call me old fashioned but I wasn’t keen on taking a $500k yacht anywhere with what amounted to a novelty drawing of the area.

So I went to the nearest chandlers and bought a set of navigational charts, that now make very attractive wall art. One of the areas that was coloured in red on the novelty chart was the bay where the Soggy Dollar Bar is located. I did the simple calculations, checked our draft, planned an entrance pilotage, knew where the safe water was, and safely navigated in for a wonderful afternoon (and some excellent rum cocktails). Without having good information we’d have never found the place, and if we had, we could have easily run aground since the entrance was a bit tricky and there wasn’t a lot of room.

Are you navigating your business by high quality information or a novelty napkin?

(Disclosure: this post relates to my work with Knowledge West, it also doesn’t have that much to do with technology, start-ups etc)

One of the great aspects of my life is working with very cool companies that are doing very cool things and making very cool products. Unfortunately most of my work is around developing their business or helping with innovation so not easily shared.

Last Friday I got a chance to research some of the cool products that a company we’re working with make (ok it was mostly fun). Flexifoil are one of the top power kite manufacturer in the world for quality and performance. The University of the West of England are going to be working with them to get even better.

Easy does it

This was mostly fun, though the difference between even a 2.5m Blurr kite and the traditional diamond with a tail of string and cloth off-cuts was staggering. The morning on Weston-super-Mare’s uphill beach was almost perfect for learning. As you can see from the photo on the right, we actually had sun! The breeze was a bit light but it gave us the chance to play without getting dragged all over the beach if we messed up.

There was plenty of messing up! These are performance kites and they’d started us on the ‘Traction’ range, which even in those light winds was enough to pull you off balance. Getting the hang of the four control lines (2 power and 2 brake) and figuring out where the ’sweet spot’ was while not getting blinded by the sun was a real challenge that everyone pretty much got the hang of by lunch time.

Getting dragged around WSM

Around lunch time it began to cloud over and the wind picked up. I tried out a different kite, a 4m Blade IV. Slightly bigger, more powerful and a bit trickier to handle. The dark line behind me are the gouge marks where I was literally being lifted off the sand and unceremoniously dragged along until I could de-power. The kite is just off camera almost vertically above me.

After lunch we broke out the 3-wheeled buggys and had to learn all about tacking & gybing (which is fine for me) with a ’sail’ that moves around your body like a windsurf sail (ok, still mostly fine) and moves vertically from brushing the sand to overhead (that bit was harder to get a handle on). Fortunately for me, Sy had shown up and gave me a crash course which got me hurtling up and down the beach in no time. Mostly under control.

Hanging in there

Whilst we were getting the hang of it Flexifoil’s tame pro-boarder pitched up and began playing. The guy was officially bonkers. He’s actually flying one of the big surf kites, an Aaron Hadlow Pro (at least 7m across). After another couple hours of kite flying it started raining, so he switched into his wetsuit and started tearing up the seafront.

Hanging in there

A fantastic day with some amazing kit,thanks go to Stephen Batty and the team at RBI for organising. Now if I can just find a spare £1,000 for the gear, some spare weekends, maybe a van…

Photo by Clare Borley

The Cambridge Folk Festival might be a strange topic for this blog, but it is a function I have been working for the past sixteen years!  Most people attend events such as this to watch great bands performing live.  They get to enjoy the atmosphere and attempt to dance between the rain drops. I however am there to work!  Obviously many people are there to work; security, general helping staff, vendors, bar staff, stage hands, electricians, gas engineers, not to mention the performers, but as it is often said an army marches on its stomach.  That is where I come in……

I meet up with a select team of people each year under Bob the chef as part of the ‘Quintessential Cuisine’ team tasked with providing food for the “Staff and Artists”.  This merry band of 5 produce breakfast, lunch and evening meals for 2000 people over a four day period.  I am part of this team, but I also specifically look after the artists and their riders.

A contract rider includes specifications on stage design, sound systems, lighting rigs, as well as an artist’s wish list-from transportation and billing to dressing room accommodations and meals. At some festivals, a promoter will refuse a demand (crossing out the request on the document), but at Cambridge the stars usually get what they want, whether it’s new black cotton soaks, or a box full of fruit so they can prepare their own smoothies.

So I spend considerable amount of time preparing special meals for some artists and vast numbers of sandwiches and deli platers for others.  What this does mean is that when the rest of the catering team are not working I am in the kitchen trying to get on top of things so that when the main rush hits, I can help out with the staff meals and coordinating service times.

This break from the routine of health/clinical psychology and research analysis is wonderful.  As a qualified chef, preparing food is a careful balance of colours, flavours, textures and presentation not to mention getting it on the table in time (no mean feat when you’re basically working on a camping gas stove).  I also experience a whole different side of humanity.

It essence it keeps me fresh and if you’re not going away on holiday then a change is as good as a rest!