|
|
My iPhone battery has been flagging for a while, and I started noticing the little cracks in the ceramic case that afflicts the white cased 16GB iPhone 3G. It is a known defect and acknowledged as such by Apple. Indeed, they replaced the iPhone once for me in NZ. But unfortunately, my current model is out-of-warranty so getting a replacement on Apple wasn’t an option this time around. And the lack of a user-replaceable battery either meant I shell out for a new battery, or pay £139 for an out-of-warranty replacement from Apple. And this, at the time of the release of the iPhone4, didn’t seem like such an appealing otion.
I considered getting a 12-month contract iPhone4 from Tesco. Hell, I was even on the waiting list. But the fiasco with Apple and the antennagate issue and the long-lead in times for production after the massive launch put me off.
I decided to look elsewhere.
I decided to go Android.
After a little research, I bought someone’s unwanted upgrade HTC Desire on eBay for £280. A bargain, give these are retailing for £380-£400. It was meant to be Orange branded and locked to that network, but it turns out that it was unbranded and unlocked – which saved me no end of hassle and about£20-£30.
I had a bit of a wrestle getting to grips with some of the crashes that a relatively young OS like Android can throw at you – which was frustrating, but that seems to have sorted itself out now. It isn’t as slick as the iOS, but Android is growing on me rapidly. And the HTC Desire is a nice bit of kit a better phone than the iPhone, but more like a mini-computer than a device specifically built to enable you to consume media like the iPhone. I have no idea how it compares to an iPhone4 but it is lightning quick compared to my iPhone 3G.
As I have hinted, the HTC Desire isn’t anywhere near as slick a product in terms of its integration with iTunes, and the videoplayer is nowhere near as integrated. But, I have found a player that will play some DivX and .avi files, which is a bonus in being able to get under the hood a little more than an iPhone.
So far, I’m pleased with my decision to divorce. Let’s see how long the new relationship lasts. And please, let me reassure you: I am just talking about the phone here.
It has been just over a year since I returned to London, and a bit longer than that since I took a break from living in NZ. A lot has happened. I’ve traveled – on my own: to New York for a training course at Fordham University – and with Kate to Paris, Calais, Stockholm, Amsterdam (x2), New York, Boston, Cape Cod, LA, and even back to NZ too.
I have bought a flat in London, bought a house in Wellington. Kate and I have got engaged and married, and we have a baby on the way. Kate has managed to find a locum job that has kept her going until she handed her notice in today – no mean feat in today’s employment environment – and I have worked three roles as a UK civil servant; swine flu vaccine policy coordinator, general health policy manager, and now as a private secretary for the Minister of State for Health.
By anyone’s reckoning, that is quite a lot to happen in just one year. I wish I’d seen my friends a little more – both here and in NZ – and worked a little less. But economic times being what they are, and family responsibilities creeping upon us means that we have to hunker down for now. Who knows what next year will bring, but I hope to be back in NZ before too long. Or at least, away from London. The commuting lifestyle is just unsustainable and we aren’t the sorts of people who can afford to live a Central London life.
But still, we are happy in our little flat and our routing little lives for now. Until the baby appears at the end of December. Then I suspect that nothing will feel routine ever again.
And how did this young chap not get sent off?
Posted via email from Sarb’s sandpit
This really isn’t good enough is it? I’m leaving it way too long before posts and paying far too much attention to twitter, facebook, audioboo, dailymile, and garmin connect (for my marathon training) while neglecting my humble blog, when I should really be hanging everything from the blog. I really must figure out a way of getting posts from my blog to auto-post to dailymile. Anyway, I digress…
The big news is that the certificate of approval finally came through for Kate and I and we were married on July 2 in a quiet ceremony in Richmond. We have just come back from a lovely relaxing weekend in the New Forest, which together with Oxfordshire, is becoming our go-to-place for a quiet weekend away from London. I expect we’ll be trying to get a few more of those is.
The even bigger news is that Kate and I are to be parents. Kate is 15 weeks pregnant now and the baby is due just after Xmas. We, and our respective families, are very excited – and also trying to pack in as much as possible before the baby arrives. We’ll be off to NZ in August for small wedding celebration over there and to do something over here too I expect sometime later in the year before the baby arrives.
Life is busy right now – and about to get even more so. Being a Private Secretary is interesting, but I’ll have to give careful thought as to how sustainable possible late nights in Parliament will be with trying to be a good dad to an infant.
What an interesting few weeks. I haven’t been posting, mainly because I haven’t had much of net connection until late last week (it’s good to be back). Lots has happened, and unfortunately, I’m just going to have to list them and begin to update again a bit more frequently.
My flat purchase has finally gone through. I have a new flat with Kate in Isleworth, West London. It’s a nice little area, pretty close to the River Thames. The journey to work in Whitehall takes about an hour, which isn’t too bad. The area is safe and has a good feel about it, and the running around here is just brilliant. Lots of access to the river and also to Richmond Park, Syon Park, the Thames Path, and the Capital Ring, as well and beyond to Bushy Park and Osterley Park, and the canal run to Hayes even. I’m going to do a return run to Putney tomorrow morning, and I’m enjoying a few runs about here, just exploring the area. Last weekend, I did a run to get back into things after a week’s break, from Isleworth to Kingston-upon-Thames, and back again. About a half-marathon length. Speaking of which, I ran my first half-marathon in April – the Shakespeare half-marathon in Stratford-upon-Avon. I beat the time I was aiming for and finished in 1 hour and 41 minutes, which I was very pleased with. I then did a trail / orienteering run on the following weekend of 21 miles – which I did at a much slower pace in 3 hours and 29 minutes. After that week’s break, I’m starting my training cycle again at 13-14 mile long runs, with the aim to peak in Septemeber to tackle my first marathon in Berlin. I’ll keep posting about the running – which has pretty much taken over my facebook page, and my tweets too to a large extent.
The other thing I have been tweeting about has been politics. I am now an Assistant Private Secretary in a Minister of Health’s office in the Department of Health. It’s been very interesting being in the civil service as the election has taken shape, been and gone, as we have prepared for various outcomes, including a hung parliament and various forms of coalition and minority government. It’s going to be incredibly interesting to see how this plays out – and was one of my main motivations to take the job when it was offered to me back in April.
We shall see.
Sadly, this is our last day of one of the best holidays I have ever had, and the first adventure I have had overseas (not involving a return to NZ) with Kate. We’ve had a great week in NYC, followed by a 5-day road trip across NY State, Connecticut through Rhode Island and into Cape Cod, Massachusetts. We finished off with a blitz through Boston, taking in the campuses of Harvard, MIT and Yale, all in one day. We’re back in NYC, and i have to say I’m a little blown away and tired. Having dropped off our rental car back in Manhattan this morning (crazy traffic), we sat and had a coffee overlooking Union Square and wandered into the East Village before getting the B train back into Brooklyn. We’re just going to kick back and relax for a while before heading for the grand finale – a NY Mets game tonight, our final night in NYC, with our wonderful NY hosts – Drew and Erin.
I’ll post pics and a report later on.
We meant to go to the JFK museum in Hyannis this morning but we were thwarted as we’re traveling around here out of season. Still, we hung out, bought baseball caps, as you do. We drove down to Woods Hole to get the ferry to Martha’s Vineyard where the weather has brightened up and we spent the afternoon pottering around.
Tonight is our last night in Cape Cod before we spend a day and night in Boston. Our motel here was a sweet deal. We got let downcby original booking – noone was there to meet us when we arrived. We tried a few places before a pla e with indoor swimming pool and jacuzzi. They asked me for my email address when we registered. I cheekily asked what I would receive for that information and was stunned when he said that there was an email list offer that expired that night for a 3rd night’s stay for 1c. So, we got a good show-up rack room rate made even better – effectively 3 nights for the price of 2.
I’m damn glad I asked.

I heard from a colleague back in London that it has been confirmed that I will be leaving my current team to be transferred into an Assistant Private Secretary role for the Minister of State for Health. It’s actually a more junior role than my current post, but it was an opportunity not to be missed. Not many people will work in a Private Office during the most closely contested election in the UK since 1992. I was shoulder-tapped to consider the role and I’ve been lucky enough to be appointed.
I shall see what the next few months bring from a ringside seat. It should prove very interesting. In the meantime though, our holiday continues.
The news is coming in thick and fast, holiday or no holiday. I’m part of a team that put in a research proposal to the HRC in NZ to investigate community responses to key health messages in the 2009 & 2010 H1N1 campaigns, the impact of messages on behavioural change and the differential impact on vulnerable groups.
I got a message late last night that this work is going to be funded. Brilliant news. Especially as it also means that I will be on the HRC panel to assist with assessing future proposals. I’m proud to be working with such a great team. However, with changes that might be happening with my role at the Department of Health in the UK and my running commitments, and other personal arrangements (such as getting married with celebrations in both the UK and NZ), I think I am going to have to evolve rapidly: homo constantlyawakius
I’m on holiday with Kate at the moment in NYC, staying in Park Slope, Brooklyn with my friends Erin and Drew. Lovely people who I met last year when on the Mental Health in Complex Emergencies course at Fordham University. Although it has been a miserably rainy, windy and cold (6C) day in NYC, it is brilliant to be here again, especially being looked after by such lovely people. We’ll be here until Easter Sunday, when we head east towards Boston and Cape Cod or a few days before a last hurrah in NYC before heading back to London.
All is happening back there. I hope to FINALLY complete the purchase of a flat in Isleworth in mid-April. It has been a really long-time coming, with Kate and I living with others (which is very kind of my friend Rob and my folks) since July 2009. That’s a long time and we can’t wait to get our own space again.
There is also the very real possibility that I may be changing roles again at the Department of Health when I get back to London after this holiday. Circumstances are a little unusual so I can’t say too much right now, but will post when all is finally confirmed.
This is probably a week or so overdue. It’s been a couple of weeks since I ran my first race in this series – the National Cross Country Championships held at Roundhay Park in Leeds on 27 February. Without a doubt, it was the hardest race I’ve ever run in. For a start – there is a reason why it is called the NATIONAL CHAMPIONSHIPS. These runners were good. Really. Good. And I am not really good. I am an average middle-of-the-pack runner, at best. And today was not my best. You have those days, and today was one of them.
As if 1400 of the country’s finest cross-country runners wasn’t intimidating enough, I also had the course to contend with. I was wearing very inappropriate trail shoes with minimal grip when I should have been wearing lighter 15mm spiked shoes like everyone else. So not only was I relatively inexperienced having only run trail races, I also had bad equipment to deal with the monstrous cloying mud, downhills and cambers we had to deal with in two laps of the course. Not that I am blaming my tools – I really was out of my league. Even if I had better shoes, I’d still have only finished in the last quartile of this tough 12km race rather than the last 100. Others were kind and said that usually this race would be run over 8km, but I really did struggle. The most disappointing thing was that I finished with gas in the tank enough to run over to the rest of the team and felt like running some more. I was very under prepared and that cost me. Anyway, all good experience for this relative novice runner.
The second race in the series happened today, and went much better. This was a 10km run in Regent’s Park, London at 9am run by the Friends of MSF, and is the event that inspired to embark on this path in the first place. Today was a good day – I was well-rested, well-fed and up for the challenge. I ended up running a great time for me in my first 10km tarmac race. I’ve run a few trail 10k races now, but only 5k races on tarmac / road. I ran today’s 10km in 45 minutes and 44 seconds – which is a pace of just over 7 minutes per mile. I’ve never sustained that pace over this distance before – not even in training runs, so I was very pleased with my result.
When I got home, there was even better geek fun to be had. I worked out my age-graded time. This involves taking my advancing years and into account and it compares my time with the standards that others at my time of life would run this distance after performing some kind of statistical corrections. When I first started running, my times put me at around the 48-50th percentile of equivalent aged male runners. Today’s race put me over the 60th percentile for the first time – 61st percentile means that I am now classed as a ‘locally competitive runner’ (70th percentile = regionally competitive, 80th percentile = national calls, 90th percentile = international class).
As well as being personally fulfilling through all the training and racing I’m doing, I’m of course looking to raise funds for MSF. Today, the racers and their supporters / sponsors raised over £20,000 for MSF – which is fantastic.
A big thank you to all of you that have sponsored me so far in my series of races. For those of you that have meant to sponsor me but haven’t got round to it yet, can I encourage you to follow the link and make a donation as soon as you can? Every bit helps, no matter how small – and encourages me a lot when I’m running for a good 100 minutes at a time covering 20km+ on cold London nights and mornings at the moment.
Here’s the link again: www.justgiving.com/sarbjohal
Please feel free to pass the link on to others or ask me questions if you feel like it. My workplace – the Department of Health – are publishing a ‘health & well-being’ feature on my in their staff publication next month, so hopefully that will bring a few more donations in too. If you know anyone who can help with publicity, or have any ideas, I’d love to hear them.
As a final sign-off, I’m now running half-marathon distance in my training runs in about 1 hour 50-55 minutes, and I’ve also added a new race to my schedule – the Oxon 40/20 (I’m doing the 20 mile version). I’m planning on running it in 5 mile chunks and treating it as a training run – it’s a bit of an orienteering mission, so I’ll take food etc. If you fancy joining me, give me a shout.
Will leave it there for now. Be great to hear from you and see your encouraging words on my Facebook and group wall and the donation site.
I got a text message last night asking if I wanted to attend a Ministerial briefing meeting today, and if I did, to wear a suit. I don't habitually wear a suit. I would probably wear one more often but the weather has been off-putting. I hate wearing suit, overcoat and all that jazz – I'd rather wear a shirt and trousers and my trusty Icebreaker. But I made an exception today. As it turns out, I was only in the Minister's Office for 10 minutes and I didn't say a word as my two senior managers led the briefing. Still, I'll be at the adjournment debate in Parliament in the little civil servants' box in Westminister Hall. Somehow, I don't think many others will…
Posted via email from sarb’s posterous
I don’t know what the rest of you iPhone users think, but the headphones that came with my iPhone 3G were pretty dire and have developed the widely experienced fault of going completely dead on the right side. My lovely work colleagues from my last team at the Department of Health got me a voucher to put towards whatever I needed at HMV, so I decided to cash my chips last week and got a pair of Radiopaq ‘Pop’ iPhone headphones (with built-in mic). I’m not a big fan of in-ear headphones, but I needed something not too expensive that would work with the background noise of public transport in London (considerable) and also be pretty compact a light too. That ruled out noise canceling headphones as a) I already have a pair, b) they tend to be pretty big and c) they tend to be quite expensive too. So, the Radiopaq headphones were reduced from £60 to £35, were small and compact, but were in-ear plug in types that claimed to be pretty noise isolating. A few reviews on the net confirmed they weren’t bad as fit goes. Interestingly though, they come in different designs that a purported to emphasise certain frequencies and thus suited to different broad genres of music – Rock, Pop and Classical. I bought the Pop version because it was either that or Classical, and they appeared to be best for the broad range of music and voice-based podcasts I tend to listen to.
Verdict – not bad at all. The range of sound takes some getting used to. The vocals weren’t quite as clear and crisp as I was expecting, but a massive improvement on what I was using. I something think I might have picked up the ‘Rock’ version of the headphones instead, but the colour decal of the headphone cord matches what it should be. The details of the musical arrangements are outstanding and the bass is punchy and tight. They do isolate sound pretty well when they are nestled in my ear canal though they work themselves loose from the depths of my skull a little too easily for my liking. Not too annoying though and I still need to fiddle around with the extra small and large earbud attachments that were supplied to find the best fit. Overall – a good set of compact headphones, excellent sound quality, though a bit out of the ordinary, and great price. Snap them up while you can – especially if you take calls while plugged in or record podcasts on audioboo.com – the mic is pretty good too.
Posted via email from sarb’s posterous

On the 14th of March this year I ran a 10km race in Regent’s Park to raise money for the international humanitarian medical aid charity, Médecins Sans Frontières. This year there were around of 250 us running – university students and members of the public from in and around London.
But that was just the start. Here is a list of events I’ll be running for MSF this year, culminating with the Berlin Marathon in September this year – my first marathon.
Steps to Berlin
March 14 – 10km for friends of MSF – Regent’s Park, London – DONE
April 11 – 10 mile race – Denbies Vineyard, Surrey – CANCELLED
Replaced with May 1 – Oxon 40/20 (21 mile trail run) – DONE
April 25 – Shakespeare Half-Marathon, Stratford-upon-Avon – DONE
June 5 – Otmoor Challenge (Trail Half-Marathon), Oxford
*July 25 – Dartmoor Mountain Half-Marathon (Trail), Dartmoor (TBC)
September 26 – The big one: The Berlin Marathon
I’m meeting all my entry costs, flights, accommodation etc – what you donate goes to MSF, not me. This site (http://www.justgiving.com/SarbJohal) is a great way for you to sponsor me and make sure that MSF receives the donations. It is very easy to use, and if you are UK tax payer this site makes it easy for MSF to claim back an extra 28% from your donation.
What you can do to help
It would be fantastic if you could sponsor me. Médecins Sans Frontières is an international humanitarian medical aid charity which is currently working in around 60 countries around the globe. Some of their recent efforts have been directed towards the devastating earthquake in Haiti, the ongoing unrest in Sudan and the so-called ‘neglected diseases’ such as Chagas. There’s information about MSF at the bottom of this email – please have a read or visit http://www.msf.org.uk/ourwork_where_work.aspx for more information. MSF’s YouTube video (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=73zMcdGfXGE) also gives a great overview of the organization.
Those of you who know me well also know that I’ve done quite a lot of work on psychosocial support after disaster events. In the case of Haiti, MSF’s emergency ward are still treating large numbers of patients but the nature of their injuries is gradually changing. Fewer people are appearing with wounds directly caused by the earthquake, but now the indirect consequences of the disaster are beginning to manifest themselves, with more children suffering from diarrhoea and more people coming forward with physical symptoms of mental trauma.
Feel free to get back in touch with any questions. If you’d like to come and support me on the day of any run, please let me know – it would be great to see you and hang out after the race. If you want to join me on a training run, that’d be great too.
Please do sponsor me – any amount will be gratefully received, and it will all help us raise money for a very deserving cause.
Argh, I’m sick of this grim winter. Cold, cold cold every day. Enough already. At least the days are getting noticeably longer – about 28 minutes per week at the moment which is heartening at the beginning and end of the day. There is something quite deadening about getting up and going home from work in the dark. Makes me feel like I have no other life than work.
Lots going on otherwise. I now have a house in Wellington and well into the process of Kate and I buying a flat in London, though it is so much slower here in the UK compared to NZ. We’re trying to figure out whether we are going to India or not next month, but we’ve got a couple of things going on that might get in the way of that.
My running is going well after my injury in November. Still seeing a physiotherapist as it isn’t quite right yet with my hip and lower back, but just starting to build up my runs again. I’ve just done my first 10 mile run this weekend (it was about 18km), and have signed up for the Berlin Marathon in September. But more about that in my next post, coming up shortly.
You can see from the left sidebar that I have been tweeting about running and work and life in general. The integration between Facebook and twitter that is possible – and Audioboo too for that matter means that I seem to be able to manage these three types of communication on a much more frequent, light-touch basis than I do this blog. Maybe all those people that say we will shortly witness the death of the traditional blog are on to something. You’ll see that I update this much less frequently than I used to. But there is still something quite special about having the space to reflect on things at little more at length that a Facebook status or series of tweets and links.
Running through recent events – Kate and I spent a couple of nights away in the New Forest National Park over the new year weekend, staying at a country inn and going for a couple of nice long walks. The weather has been icy for 4 weeks pretty much non-stop in London – and much worse in other parts of the country. This weekend has been a welcome respite from the relentless ice and snow, but it looks like the temperature will drop again later this week.
Work has been interesting again – I have joined the Quality Framework team at the Department of Health, which is much more NHS facing role. All the action in the NHS over the next five years will be about delivering consistently high quality services in a fiscally challenging environment – it will really be the story of the entire public sector as a result of the events of recent time. The next few months should prove an interesting challenge, and I’m looking forward it.
I’m stepping up my running again after some more physiotherapy. Things are easing up in terms of pain, and my current physio seems confident that the problem is located more in more lower back than elsewhere. I have a challenging race next weekend in Portland, Devon. The last 10km I ran was completed in 54 minutes. The average time for a man in this race is 1 hour 24 minutes! And the elevation map of the course looks positively horrific.
The latest on the accommodation situation is that we are still out in Hayes, staying at my parents’ place – who are kindly let us stay with them while we try and figure out something more permanent. As I think I posted previously, I bought a house (!) in Wellington, and this is now going through the final stages of the purchase. We’re also in the preliminary stages of nailing down a flat to buy in Isleworth – more of a modern pad for when we’re in London, in a reasonably accessible and nice part of town. I thought we were there but we might have a last minute change of mind – we’ll see what the next day or two brings.
You’ll be able to tell that I’ve got a lot on at the moment. Apart from the running, not a whole heap of travel lined up – but we’re only just back from NZ really. We’ve a trip to Amsterdam booked in for the end of this month, and then probably India on March on some frequent flyer miles, if I can get the right dates. After that – I’m not really sure. Possibly back to NZ for a visit / work in August – maybe New York somewhere along the way.
And that was the news, for now.
I find myself sitting in bed in London this Christmas eve – very different to arriving in Whangarei at Kate’s parents’ house with my friend Rob, this time in 2008. Different side of the world, opposite season, and very urban compared to what is pretty rural in New Zealand.
And much has happened this year:
- I have moved from NZ back to London – not sure how long for, but I’m here for now
- Kate came too
- I had a month long Fellowship in Japan
- I ran workshops all over New Zealand and went back in November this year to run some more
- I wrote, produced and was the talent for an educational DVD that has distributed all over the emegency management sector in New Zealand
- I have started work at the Department of Health in the UK as the Swine Flu Vaccine Policy Coordinator, while maintaining my business in New Zealand
- I secured a promotion at the Department of Health to Policy Manager in the Quality Framework Team, starting in the New Year
- I have secured honorary positions at the School of Psychology, Massey University, NZ and the National Centre for Neurology and Psychiatry, Tokyo, Japan
- I attended a training course at Fordham University, New York
- I had a paper published in the New Zealand Medical Journal
- I bought a house in Wellington (subject to various conditions being met) and am looking to do the same in London
- I turned 40
- I took up running, with some gusto
- I played a lot of cricket, both in NZ and in the UK
- And best of all, Kate and I got engaged to be married.
Along the way, I have met some fantastic people, traveled all over New Zealand, to Japan, the USA, Sweden, the Netherlands, and France. I have renewed old friendships and rekindled connections with my family through being back in London. I think this has probably been one of the more eventful and satisfying years of my life. In fact, the decade started with my clinical training at University College London, which was one of the better decisions I have made in my life, as was my decision to go to New Zealand. But more reflections about the decade in another post. For now, I feel happy to be alive, to be sharing my life with wonderful people, satisfied with my achievements for the year and challenges for the next, and grateful for the privileges that my life has afforded me, compared to many, many others.
A whistle-stop trip back to Wellington and NZ for two weeks for a bit of work for Massey University and MCDEM, as well as catching up with my old Ministry of Health colleagues and H1N1-buster counterparts. The trip couldn’t have gone much better from a professional point of view – the workshops went well, though attendance could have been a little better. I’ve had a bit of input intosome research proposals – which we’ll wait to hear back about. It was also great to be valued again from a work perspective – something that I am sorely missing in London
From a personal point of view, it has been a brilliant trip too. Kate and I have had some fun in Wellington – though I was working much of the time. I got a good game of cricket in – we lost, but I bowled well and hit an unbeaten 19 coming in at No. 9 trying to hit 30 off 7 overs to win. We fell 9 short, but I did enjoy pulling a big 6 over deep square leg with Josh’s new bat. I completed by Triple Continent Challenge, running a 10km cross country race in England before I left (in hail, thunder and lightning), a 5km race in Santa Monica on the stopover to NZ (finished 7th in my age group, 41st out of 447 runners), and then a 5km race in Wellington.
Then finally, a lovely side-trip to Taupo, where I caught my first trout and had a great time with Kate’s family. There’s more – but I think we’re boarding soon, so I’d better shut up shop. Until LA.
My inner government geek is getting nourished at this residential course I am attending at the National School of Government in Sunningdale, near Ascot. The course is designed to give a detailed working orientation into the machinery of Government that is the parliamentary democracy of the United Kingdom. Much of it is taught here in Sunningdale, but we’ll be off to the Cabinet Office on Wednesday as well as a pressure group to see how they can influence Government policy. I will be off to visit the Green Alliance. Next week will include a full day at the Palace of Westminster, including a tour with Jeremy Corbyn MP, a talk with ex-Minister Charles Clarke MP and attending Departmental questions in the Commons and general questions in the Lords.
So far so good – the instructors and knowledgable and great presenters, and the exercises have been fun and thought-provoking. The food is great and the campus is very pretty. If only I could run …
|
Run Sarb Run
|