Part one of three: the Grandi hours.
“All I want to do is buy the damn jeans” – I dreamt last night that retail had changed to the extent I could no longer work out the system to buy a pair of trousers. I was in a shop and had selected the perfect pair but for some reason I had to shine a special light onto them before I took them to the checkout because otherwise I was a thief. This can *only* make sense in the context of some of Grandis paranoia, so I blame him.
It was a good day, we met up and went for lunch. Then attempted to find a book on Munich – which was more difficult than expected, seems everyone goes to Berlin these days. Time for reminiscences and another attempt to explain some simple economics to me – the old Mathengine offices are still empty, with the few pieces of furniture we left still in place. We remembered that its almost exactly two years since our freedom came and celebrate this by sitting at the Head of the River understanding why rich people are rich.
We then dropped in on the Natural Motion bunch, who were pretty much the Mathengine hall of shame, just they’re in a different building and have a different story now. Clearly they deserved ice-cream, as is traditional. Finally we gathered in the pub over the way where Grandi got an edible mobile phone from one of the other prior collaborators.
Nothing much has changed for most of these guys – the name on their business card is different but the hubris remains. And will stay until the final months, when the real paranoia sets in. Still good to catch up with them again, hoping to keep in touch.
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