This week has been almost all about Nestoria India. We have started the search for an India country manager please get in touch if that’s you. The battle to geocode bad data is never ending, but we at least now have several clear angles of improvement. The Indian market could not be hotter, with another $90M investment in our partner Quickr announced today. Lots of work to do here, this will probably be my main focus for the next month.

Besides work I made it out to two events: First the Albion Society panel discussion about innovation in big companies, which I mainly attended to hear the giff gaff story. I’m a very happy customer for the main reason that the service is cheap, gets out of the way, and I can control it. Previously I had been on orange and it was an avalanche of unneeded noise being pumped into my life. Afterwards I dashed over to the OSM pub meetup, which I hadn’t made it to in a long while. Good to chat with everyone, Matt Amos shared some funny stories about the early, early days of OSM.

In a moment of literary weakness I’ve started reading Game of Thrones and it has become fairly all-consuming. There’s a strong argument to be made for the joy of pure escapism. Relatedly, on Saturday night I went to see Grand Hotel Budapest which was delightful and filled me for a deep longing for Mitteleuropa. About five years ago my wife and I went for holiday in early Jan to the Sächsische Schweiz, and stayed in a deserted ex-communist era hotel. It was fantastic. I miss East Germany.

This week also marked the start of the 2014 Birkenstock season. So it’s all good.