Variants

Got my jab last week.

Very well organised vaccination center. In and out in 20 minutes. Go a shot of Pfizer. Stirred, not shaken, with three olives.

I didn’t have any side effects this time. So far, so good.

Now the concern seems to be the Indian variant, which is rapidly becoming the dominant variant in the UK. So maybe they won’t be removing all limitations next month after all.

Most countries which had very widespread contaminations developed their own variant, in Italy the “English variant” had huge success.

Here they actually call it “the Kent variant”. Must be something like the “Crema Inglese” (or Crème anglaise), which doesn’t exist in England. Then the “Brazilian variant” . The “South African Variant”. Now the “Indian Variant”…

I wonder why we didn’t manage to market an “Italian variant”. We are usually good at this stuff! Everybody would have been happy to get the Italian Variant. It would have been way more stylish and expensive than all other variants. An opportunity missed. Come to think of it, there hasn’t been a very successful US of A variants either. No Starts and Stripes variant.

The weather got a little warmer today, hopefully we are at the end of this endless cold spring.

I have a few meetings booked for the next weeks. In person. In town.

There’s a whole new sensitivity around meetings, everyone has a different perception of risk and is more or less willing to travel/meet/engage. There’s a whole new language around asking politely if somebody wants to meet in person or if they would prefer a zoom call.

I guess I’m more or less in the middle of this spectrum: I’m very cautious, get tested all the time (you can get free lateral flow tests here, which is a great thing), wear my mask. But at the same time I’m happy to start booking a few meetings in person or hang out with a few colleagues in our office.

Stay safe. Be kind. Get a Martini.

Odd Ads

Three examples of targeted communication campaigns I noticed in the last week.

M&S Asparagus

Got this in the mail as soon as I got home from the grocery store. As we discussed recently on the SotN Podcast, it’s not that you don’t know that these companies have your data, it’s when and how (or if) they decide to let you know which might be disconcerting. In this case, I felt that the immediate message about a purchase, without me asking anything, went a bit too far.

State of Israel

This just happened in the regular rotation of ads on YouTube. It’s a 30 seconds commercial with scenes of rockets and bombings and people screaming, which finishes with this. Interesting how states too can now completely bypass the press and deliver their messages to carefully targeted audiences.

Simplicity Cremations

Well… they will always have business, and they need to advertise too. But why YouTube? And why me?

On the way to normal

I’m free!

I’ve done my 10 days of self-isolation, I took my tests, answered all the government phone calls, and now I’m free to do… well, not exactly everything, but at least I can leave my flat.

As of today some of the restriction have been removed in England (we can eat inside restaurants, yay), but a few are still in place. According to the roadmap, more restrictions will be lifted in June. Every time they give back some freedom there’s so much enthusiasm that I wouldn’t be surprised if by July they will make smoking in bars legal again ;)

Last week I’ve been to our office. There were just two of us and I can’t say it felt in any way special. I don’t really see myself doing the every day like we used to. It feels strange to think we ever did.

Office life.

I also went to Central London over the weekend. It was a bit sad to notice all the empty shops on Oxford and Regent streets. I didn’t really care about most of them, the only shop that I did visit and I won’t be able to visit anymore is T.M. Lewin, it looks like they have gone on-line only.

In other news, the weather sucks, nothing like the beautiful spring we had last year, but I should get my first dose of vaccine this week. Exciting stuff!

Be good. Or don’t get caught.

Quarantined again

Last Sunday I flew back to London, so now I’m on day #5 of my 10 days compulsory quarantine for people travelling back to the UK. It’s strange to be back in my flat, lots of memories of the last quarantine. I’m also getting daily calls from UK government track and tracing team, reminding me every day of the rules to follow (I do wonder if this is the best way to user their time).

I’m leaving on a jet plane, don’t know when I’ll be back again.

The trip was quite good. Almost no people at the airport in Venice, plenty of room on the flight, I got from landing at Heathrow to walking into my flat in about 50 minutes. Never had it so good.

My groceries were delivered perfectly on time, I have booked both my vaccine shots, and I’m adding actual in person meetings to my calendar. As smooth as China silk.

I turned 50 last week. While I appreciate that it’s just a day like any other, I have the feeling that I’m at the beginning of something new. We’ll see how it goes 🙃.

Stay safe. If you can, go get a beer.