I went on a quick trip to London with Brian to pitch a customer. Brian insisted that I upgrade on the way out so that we could work. Okay, what he really wanted to do was play PSP wirelessly. Despite my brick breaker skills, I’m really not into gaming. However, I decided a PSP would be a good birthday gift to myself, so on Sunday, I was inspired to get one for “market research.” The Easter holiday conspired against me as Fry’s, Best Buy, and Good Guys were all dark. I gave up.

The upgrade turned out to be a bust. The food was horrible (everything was overcooked and my steak was nuked all the way through). I got some work done and also slept some, which was good. Brian played “Rise of Nations” pretty much the whole way there – addicted.

I had high hopes for the Savoy Fairmont. Londoners seemed to be impressed – I was not. The service was good and the high thread count sheets were luxurious, but my room was small and dark. Although there were controls all over the place, they were completely unintuitive. I inadvertently turned on the towel heater and burned my ass while trying to figure out the shower (which incidentally dripped for half the first night and almost drove me nuts). Brian and I spent 90 minutes looking for a place to eat. We walked through Picadilly Circus and Soho (I think in circles). I asked a cab driver to take us a nice place. He drove us 2 1/2 blocks and pointed to a place another block down – 5 pounds. The place turned out to be closed. Brian enlisted Lisa’s help. She suggested a place so we hopped into another cab and ended up in South Kensington. My first observation was that, like Singapore, Ferraris seemed to be government issued (I saw my first F430 in person – hot). We ended up at a nice French place – it all worked out.

The next day was all meetings. One very good, one very bad. Yikes. After some drinks at the hotel, Sean took us to a swanky Conran restaurant with Latin food and music. We couldn’t hear a thing. Brian wanted to pay the band to stop playing. I wish he had, because just after we paid the bill, a lovely woman came over and pleaded with us to dance her. It was her daughter’s 20th birthday and it was our job to show her children and their friend a good time. After some finger pointing and stalling, it was clear that we weren’t going to get out of this. Sue was very persistent. Sugar and the kids bailed after a song, but I didn’t want to just bail on Sue (a fun, interesting journalist who was in charge of launching Al-Jezeera’s English site). There was a group of true professionals on the dance floor, so I felt like an even bigger idiot. One more song and we were out of there. We hung out with Sean for a while longer at the hotel. I think he we let him down, as his wife agreed it was silly for him to ride the train home at that hour. Sugar and I only lasted until about midnight.

I decided that the upgrade on the way home was definitely not worth the 30K miles they were quoting me. After losing track of time and running to the gate, I ended up getting an “operations” upgrade anyway, which was a nice bonus. Sugar’s sitting next to me – playing his game – again. I realize now that they charged me 30K on the way out – now I have to write a letter.