Quit your day job. Go on. I dare you.

One of the best things about quitting your day job is the ability to take Fridays off if you feel like it. I felt like it today. Got up late, put a load of washing on and went up to town to have coffee and breakfast. Bisou’d a few friendly faces and read the Guardian with my bacon and egg baguette.

You need to get up to date with the news from time to time, and reading the Guardian in the sun outside Elevation is my favourite way of doing i. Online news simply won’t do.

So for those of you stuck in 9to5ers (who aren’t already at the pub) - here’s the news that’s new & approved by Listings Lab.

World News
The crazy Russians have this week laid claim to a huge chunk of the arctic. In a hilarious reminder to the rest of the world that the Ruskies are still out there and still have all the oil (Russia has the world’s largest gas reserves and is the second largest exporter of oil after the Saudis), the Russians signalled their intent to annex a vast 460,000 square mile chunk of the arctic. Apparently some scientists have found a loophole in the laws governing this kind of thing and can proove that the Russian mainland is linked to the arctic by an underwater shelf. Doesn’t matter that Canada could do exactly the same thing - they thought of it first and anyway, they only want a chunk.

When asked if drilling for oil were possible in a territory estimated to contain 10 Billion tonnes of gas and oil deposits, Mr Priamikov said…. ‘Yes.’

A brilliantly bold democratic/capitalistic move that says to the west… ‘Fine. Have Iraq. It’s fucked anyway. We’ll take the arctic where there are no mental people and we’ll STILL be selling you your oil in 10 years time. Unless China can pay more.’

Obviously the reaction from the rest of the world will be along the lines of ‘From our cold, dead, hands’, but hey! Full marks for trying.

UK News
Finally! The BBC have nearly got the iplayer technology to market . I’ve been waiting for this innovation for a long time. After installing the (currently PC only) iplayer software, users will be able to download almost any programme from the previous 7 days and store and watch it for up to 30 days. The open beta launch will be on the 27th July, but we’ve seen a pre-release here at Listings Lab and we are confident that the BBC’s claim that it’s the biggest change to the way we watch television since the introduction of colour 40 years ago isn’t going to be far from the mark.

Personal News
Today is my sister Caroline’s last day at work. For the past 5 years she’s worked in the city of London as a solicitor in several different top-notch law firms. The commitment and hours that must have gone into doing that, a lazy git like me can only imagine. Caroline has taken this blog’s motto ‘Quit your day job, go on I dare you’ to heart and is quitting the city to travel a bit and start a new life with her husband to be in Germany. I’m sure all of us who know her wish her the best of luck, and say to her….. ‘Nice one :)’

Isn’t it funny how a little lapse in concentration can really balls up your day? The day started pretty well. Nice and sunny, I was out the door on the way to the office in good time and knew exactly what I was going to work on once I got there. I parked the van and got out. Bang. With the clunk of the door I’d ruined my day.

The van has one small, but annoying problem. The driver’s side door can’t be opened from the outside the lock has broken. You can get out, but not in. So I always get in from the passenger side and climb across. When I park I lean across, lock the passenger side, grab the keys from the ignition and get out the driver’s side door.

I didn’t grab the keys. I was stood outside a locked van with the keys in the ignition. The office keys are also on the same keyring. In fact, the only way to get into the van is to get the spare set of keys from the apartment, 5 miles away. The keys to the apartment are obviously ALSO on the keyring, and the only other copy is with Sarah somewhere in Ireland.

So I’m sitting here, writing this in an Internet cafe, drinking coffee. Contemplating how quickly a day can go tits up, and wondering what on earth I’m going to do about it.

My great friend Phil and I have taken trips together since we were kids. At school we surfed together, after school we’ve travelled, skied and hung out in bling spots all over the world, but for a while our sporting interests diverged a little. Phil spent a lot of time in South America mountaineering while I spent those years scuba diving.

With moving to Chamonix and the climbing/ski touring I’m doing we’ve decided it’s time to do something together again. This summer we’re going to try to achieve something Phil has had on his list for many years. The Matterhorn.

Climbing the Matterhorn is hard. It’s high, it’s cold, it’s long, it’s steep. It’s a challenge. There are several possible routes up it, the main 2 choices being the Hornli Ridge and the Italian Ridge. The Italian is more difficult and more committing, but on the plus side, shorter and less crowded. It’s the Italian Ridge we’re thinking of doing.

The idea has been firming up since I saw Phil in Suffolk a few weeks ago. The last couple of emails we’ve exchanged have changed in tone from gung ho -’how hard can it be?’ to ‘right, let’s actually do this’. A significant difference and one which has made me feel the first tang of fear.

We’ll be doing some training. Neither of us are very experienced with this type of climbing (called Alpinism). There’s all kind of technique to learn about; crampons, rope-work, self arrest. These are best NOT done for the first time half way up the Matterhorn. In addition there’s fitness and acclimatization. My experience with altitude has taught me I don’t react well to the thin air, so I’ll be spending some time at the top of the Aiguille du Midi prior to to the climb. And it’s probably a damn good time for me to stop smoking cigarettes too.

Buy a vespa. They’re cool.