She's back!

As some may have noticed, my blogging habit has become, well, non-existent in the last half of this year. I'm here now to rectify that, by giving a bit of a wrap-up of the year, at least in terms of what I have been up to.

First of all, I began my new job at RBB Economics in London in August this year. RBB had offered me a job in about March, and I accepted the post towards the end of my course at the LSE. RBB is an economic consulting firm specialising in competition economics. Basically, we analyse the economics of cases where competition law appears to have been infringed.

One of my first cases was an excess pricing case. The plaintiff was a company called At The Races (ATR); they broadcast British and Irish horseraces to the UK, Ireland, and a number of other countries, including Australia. ATR claimed that they were being charged an excessively high price by the British Horseracing Board (BHB) for the information that ATR shows with the horseracing pictures (i.e. information on the horses, jockeys, colours, starting positions and so forth). We were hired by ATR to explain the economics of the case to the court. This involved things such as defining the product, the market, and then working out whether the price BHB was charging to ATR was excessive. On the other side, BHB hired economists (one of which was my supervisor from last year at LSE!) to show that BHB's price was not excessively high.

Now, one of the first rules of economics is that economists never agree, and this was certainly true for this case. Happily, however, our side convincingly won the case on all points. Some of the press the judgement received can be seen here:

Christmas Wishes from Peter & Natalie

Happy Christmas to all our family and friends. Wherever you are this Christmas season, we hope you have a safe and joyful time.

Our Christmas

With Christmas day just over 24 hours away I thought it time to talk about what our plans are for the Christmas-New Year period.

We are having a quiet Christmas here at home, with Natalie's sister, Kate, visiting us.

Between Christmas and New Year I intend to watch alot more college football, as the cable broadcaster for it over here has come to agreement with ESPN to show games, including the Alamo Bowl, which features Nebraska playing Michigan.

It should be a nice time, so long as I get over the cold which has been hitting me around for the last 36 or so hours. But I am looking forward to a bit of quiet time, to recharge the batteries after quite a busy and full-on year.

Fun in Bremen

Last weekend was a great time for Natalie and I.

We had a wonderful time visiting some friends in Bremen and playing in the snow. It was the first real snow we have seen since we arrived in London in August of last year. As you can see from the photos below we did get quite a bit. So it was our white Christmas come early.

We also went to the Christmas Markets - the Weihnacht Markt. We also visited a Medieval themed market along the river bank. We will be posting more photos soon.

Picture postcard: A park in Bremen, Germany, last weekend. Late morning the sun came out to provide light on the magical scene. 

Bremen: Here is a house we saw last Saturday. The snow-covered trees added a magical to the scene. 

Let it snow, let it snow, let it snow: No this is not London, this is Bremen, Germany, where Natalie and I spent last weekend. 

Some views of Bremen

We had a great weekend in Bremen, which included fun in the snow. but more on that later. Here are some links to some webcams which show you the city in the snow (it's still there) and the Christmas markets.

• Marktplatz Bremen
• Bremen University - overlooks the city, airport and football stadium.

Goggles

I am now wearing glasses for computer work and reading.

My eyes have been getting very tired of late and after seeing a local optometrist I found that I am longsighted in my left eye, but almost OK in my right. As a result, my eyes are working harder when I am working at the computer or reading.

It is the first time I have needed glasses - not bad for someone who has spent so much time in front of screens, both computer and TV.

I would like to thank my fashion advisor, Natalie, who wouldn't let me choose just any frames at the shop. They had to look right! :)

The Woman in White

Last night Natalie and I saw the latest Andrew Lloyd Webber musical, 'The Woman in White' at the Palace Theatre, London.

While the cast had amazing voices and were almost worth the price of admission alone, and the story is a good one, I found some of the dialogue boring and repetitive, and the direction a little overly melodramatic.

And the music? Well, this is one to skip. There is one good piece in the whole show and sadly you don't come away singing any of the tunes. There just isn't anything to grab hold of.

The set was interesting, using computer generated graphics on 'blank curved canvases. But I found myself distracted by the scenery instead of paying attention to the leads as they told their story.

Would I see it again? No, not in a hurry.

Winter Weather

This morning we awoke to a very foggy morning. Not sure what the explanation was though the front page of Metcheck seems to have a reasonable, if technical, explanation.

But while the weather will remain pretty cool over the coming weeks, I really can't see it snowing for Christmas. So it looks like we will miss out on a white Christmas unless you count the frost on the ground.

No golf here! This photo was taken at 11am on Sunday morning. Usually goflers are going around the chip and putt course by this time on Sunday but not this morning! 

Christmas is Coming

It is just like the song says, it's beginning to look a lot like Christmas.

We have had some cold weather over the weekend and with only two weeks to Christmas we decided to buy a tree today.

Our enthusiasm got the better of us and we forgot how wide the tree was last year at its base. So we have another 6ft tree which is very nice but takes up alot of room in our lounge room. Next year we are getting a smaller tree! :)

Tree's a crowd!: Our Christmas tree for this year is 6ft tall and very wide.