Over the bank holiday weekend I have been working at the UK School Games as a volunteer at the volleyball competition.  A couple of years ago I was asked to use a statistics system for volleyball called VIS, which is developed by the International Volleyball Federation (FIVB).  I originally used this at the World Championship Qualifiers in January 2005 and have since used it again at the National Finals last year.

VIS is a good system of statistics but the software often gets a little bit flaky and so we've had problems using it in the past.  This time the statistics went very well and by the end of the competition I had managed to train up 7 new people in using the system.  The overall competition was run really well, and I would definitely like to be involved in something like that when I was younger.  The idea is to replicate as close to an Olympic environment as possible, including an athletes village at Warwick University.

Actually its more like, what a difference two years makes.  Yesterday I returned to Canary Wharf to see couple of my friends I used to work with during my placement year from University.  During that year I also used to live just outside Canary Wharf in the Boardwalk Place development and living so close to work I had a good idea of exactly what was going on in Canary Wharf.  Coming back two years later the Wharf has changed a lot.  Two new buildings are being built close to where I used to live with a third being built between the HSBC and Barclays bank towers.  One of these new building will be for Bear Sterns, but this won't be finished for some time, I'm not sure who the other is for.

Before meeting me friends I took a walk around the area I used to call home.  I walked down to where the old London Arena used to be and found that is now having flats built on it.  Also around the docks in this area are two new towers being constructed, one of which will be 50 stories high (it's called Pan Peninsula).  It seems like Canary Wharf is growing by the day and becoming more and more like Hong Kong!

As I've recently finished university and am moving into the world of work I've had to consider tax more often.  This summer I've been doing a couple of freelance website designs (see my portfolio) to give me some spending money while I'm out of work and so had to register myself as self employed with the Inland Revenue.  Registering was pretty easy and I only had to phone a helpline, however working out what the implications are of being self employed is much more difficult, and this is where the title of this post comes in...

How do the government get away with adverts saying "Tax Needn't be Taxing".  Surely they should be done under the trade descriptions act or advertising standards!  There are not many people - barring accountants  who need to know for professional purposes - that fully understand the tax system.  I think that after about 3-4 days of reading through articles on the internet I'm not beginning to understand roughly what I have to do for my self employement, that is until I have to fill in the self assement form next year, when I'm sure it'll get much more complicated!

Today I went for a trip out to central London to see some friends and do some touristy stuff.  Having not been in the area long I though I would explore some of the places I'd not been before.  I started by taking a tube to Stratford.  Most people know that Stratford is the area that the 2012 games will take place in, and so I'd heard there was quite a lot of redevelopment going on.  It turns out Stratford really isn't that nice, its a typical inner London poorer area.  There is a shopping centre, complete with indoor market selling fruit and fish (something I'd never seen in a shopping centre like this).  After walking around for a while I found there isn't much around to see and went back to the tube.

As part of the preparation for the Olympics, Stratford is having a new transport interchange and International Station that takes Eurostar trains.  I saw quite a lot of work going on, and the tube station has recently been upgraded, but it still looks like there is some way to go!  Stratford is also one of those very confusing tube stations where you actually have to go through a set of barriers to get from one tube line to another!

Being someone brought up in a world of big business, I've tended to look on a successful company as one that make a lot of money.  Some of my 'heroes' are people who have made a lot of money themselves, as this is what I see as a successful businessman.  Why am I telling you this?  Well after moving house you have to register at a new doctors and dental practice in our area for treatment.  Registering with a doctor is generally not a problem, however it's been known for a while that dentists are often hard to come by...

My first problem I had was that the NHS website that tells you your closest dentist is not actually up to date.  On approaching the closest dentist I was told that I would have to put my name on a waiting list and I may get an appointment in a few weeks.  Not sure how this works as they were sort of full, but not...  Anyway 10 minutes up the road I managed to find another surgery and it was problem solved - but really you would think that this website could be kept up to date.

Having lived in London for a couple of weeks now I'm beginning to get used to things.  The area in which we live is actually not what I expected from a London suburb.  The area is very green with plenty of trees lining the road and plenty of open spaces.  We live between two areas of Wanstead and South Woodford, both of which have high streets with a number of shops and bars / restaurants.  Wanstead is closest and has a small Somerfield along with Boots, Woolworths and smaller indepdendent shops.  South Woodford is a little further but has a few more shops including a Sainsburys.  Both places have tube stations with the closest tube station being Snaresbrook which is about 5 minutes walk away.

The image that most northerners have of London is place where everyone is unfriendly, doesn't speak English and the shops are all more expensive.  Now I can't say that all of those myths are untrue, but like anywhere there are always unfriendly people and tourists.  Yes, some things are more expensive - here is a list of what I've found so far:

• Fish and Chips - surprisingly this is about twice as expensive as our local chippy in York!
• Beer - yes this is normally more expensive, although it does depend where you go and what comparison you make
• Rent - yes this is normally significantly more expensive
• And that's it...

The reason that my site recently received a new design is partly becuase I'm now moving into a new stage of life and wanted a new start.  I've recently graduated from the University of York where I got a Masters Degree in Computer Science.  Having lived 'up north' all my life, I've now moved down to London to start a job working for 'a global investment bank' (sorry but I'm not revealing the name as the corporate communications department will go mental!) working in its Canary Wharf office.  Those of you who know me well enough will know where I'm going anyway!

The move down to London actually went well, which was surprising on one hand as I never expected things to go well, yet it was planned for so long that any problems should really have been thought about!  If you're planning on moving to London then a little advice about looking for houses / flats to rent.  Living in York we took a couple of days to travel to London and do lots of viewings about 3 / 4 weeks before we needed to move in.  We covered quite a wide ranging area and saw about 15-20 properties over 3 days.  Although this was tiring at least it allowed us to see a range of properties on offer and get to see a lof of the area - somewhere we had never been before this. I'd really recommend looking at a lot of properties at once.  Its does make it a bit of a pain dealing with estate agents but then again estate agents are one of my most hated professions (it's a bit harsh as there are some good ones!).