The Monocle occasionally have these featured series, The best dot, dot, dot and they have varied from a Saturday night in to the design of the high street. It’s great, a collage of ideas that have been cropped from around the globe and are imaginatively pieced together to give you real ‘best of breed.’

Today as the day draws to a close, I am thinking about how I would transform this office if I had the reigns and not thinking about the payback but just about being nibble.

I think I would have Tai Chi classes to start the day.

A series of different dedicated areas where colour and light play an important part.

And greater harmonisation of pause and work areas with sport and leisure zones nimbled mixed together causing an instant blurring - for instance walking to a meeting room down a corridor you maybe required to throw or kick a ball and announce yourself.

There should be one 24 work zone but with the right comfort factors and inspiration it wouldn’t be for everybody because a life outside of the office needs to be encouraged but there’s a group of people who work best outside of the nine to five.

Investment in better food from dispensed from a few central points but also having good vending machines with decent heathy snacks scattered around, they do exist.

Every worker to get daily a big bottle of water and a piece of fruit – two apples a day keeps the doctor away.

I’d want an espresso bar which does green tea and rooibos espresso to go.

Good literature sporadically placed around the offices.

Product display areas, where new products are brought and can be played with and tested.

Better leveraging of technology in the office, the monitor needs to take a feed from the internet, the television and act as a video conferencing portal

All meetings are to be minuted and outcomes should have no more than five action points as most meeting should not exceed 60 minutes.

We’ll put off our email servers for spam free pauses during every day, 15 minutes every few hours

Managers will get a batch of 5-10 meetings a month and that’s it – anything else can be done by getting up and having a chat or jumping on a call.

Desktop yoga alerts for people to de-stress and stretch.

Did I mention better food, lighter wholesome meals and their benefits need to be encouraged.

And finally people are to be treated as adults we will message away this nanny culture where we’ve stapled our feet to the ground.

That would be some of the changes I make to this building they are not radical but rather try to maximise the considerable overlaps between work, health and leisure. The benefits I’m sure will accrue and some clever people will think of a dashboard of how we measure it all.

I chose this passage because it’s one of my favourites, it is from 31 Songs by Nick Hornby, a book which was given to me for my birthday some years ago by a very good friend.

‘Samba Pa Ti’ – Santana

“‘Samba Pa Ti’ is an instrumental, rather than a song, but for a crucial period in my mid-teens, when I first came across it, it spoke to me as eloquently as anything that contained lyrics: I was convinced that it described sex. More specifically, ‘Samba Pa Ti’ was what I was going to hear when I lost my virginity – if not on the stereo, then in my head. It starts off slow and mysterious and beautiful, and then it gets more urgent, and then – well, then it fades out. (The track lasts four minutes and forty seven seconds, incidentally; but before I am accused of showing off, I had anticipated that we’d be doing other things – kissing, getting undressed, possibly waiting for a bus home from the cinema – during the slow bit, I was confident that I could make it through the fade.)”

We do relate to music. I have always liked that passage it reminds of the Rachel Papers by Martin Amis and of the Bossa Nova.

And we are again; sheets of rain are being aimed and fired down by the North Westerly wind, it’s bitterly cold and the only thing to warm up the setting is a little bit of Bossa Nova, it is Bossa Nova season (although every season is a Bossa Nova season).

Last year the project was completed in summer, it was a milestone project as explained, this year we offer up another set for your enjoyment.

…So there you go, our 2008 Bossa Nova project, complete and just in time for Summer. And we know that we can’t propel our self forward by patting our self on the back but we like this one lots.

Here’s the play listed order

Part one; Part two ; and Part three

It moves from classic to modern, from East to West, from young to old – 20 glorious tracks – ENJOY! Blame it on the Bossa Nova 2008. 

…As we so often say Bossa Nova like ice cream is better in winter, it’s true. Over the years we’ve done many Bossa Nova compilations mostly for our friends and more recently for driving in our car – so we do know what we are doing and we have the experience. However every so often we get it just right, our finger is firmly on the pulse and synergies of the collective set leaves us smiling lika a fat, wise, ol Cheshire cat.

The 2009 set is no different; it’s right on the money and a worthy follow up to our 2008 effort. Something we still have on our vintage, one gig, iPod and refuse to delete in order to make space for the more transient sounds of the day.

The litmus test is of course you the audience but much like modern democracy your opinions count but not that much unless it’s a vote of approval.

Here are the parts one; two and three – a recipe of success. And a playlist of course, let there be order (in the arranged set).

It’s definitely winter even if the sun is out today, a tell tale sign is that things tend to break in winter, often my dvd players give up the ghost but this morning I discovered that my car’s left indicator is on the blink.

I was intending to make an appointment but I decided to bring it forward by a couple of weeks and the car will now have its annual spa treatment on Monday. This one will cost some I have been told, if you annualise it doesn’t come to much but when it hits the plastic all at once, it feels like, where the heck is my recessionary money tree.

I like my car so I need to be kind to it and I never begrudge it, its day of fine, tuning, hospitality. It’s a city car and because I live close to the city I’m very light on the mileage and hence I do time based maintenance, instead of distance travelled. I’m sure the vehicle would have liked to have be driven a little more than it has been over the years but it is what it is, man and machine are at peace with that reality. Short, sharp commutes that are heavy on the brakes and the wiper blades, the salt in the ocean air means that they are replaced annually as a necessity, Cape Town gets more rain than London and it’s expected over the next two months.

But that’s Monday.

Sunday, is Father’s Day and we are doing a lunch, it’s the easiest thing, a good restaurant and some good conversation, a lazy choice of sort but as we know from experience, a good one.

But that’s Sunday.

Saturday, what does it have in stall? I still want to try to get into a swimming pool, I have all the accessories, I needed a lock for the locker which I have acquired and now it’s all about actioning the intent. I battle with that part of the equation, I am though hoping that it’ll happen in a jiffy and not take months, that I’ll have a bee in my bonnet on Saturday afternoon and go and make a splash. I like swimming but I so rarely do, it’s ironic because I live opposite an Olympic size pool, you’d have thought, oh never mind what you’d have thought, the correlations aren’t always what they seem.

I may also try a yoga class in the morning.

Yoga?

I’m enjoying yoga, they play Astrud Gilberto while you wait to get into the studio. I bought a yoga mat two and half years ago, eventually I made it to a class this May, I’m glad that I did and I’m sorry that I disappointed the person who recommended it to me a long while ago, you were right.

Let me say that I’m not very good, all of those photographs of people in perfect balance, that’s not me, I stuck somewhere in left field, just trying to do my best. I’m far more appreciative of trying as I get older, I’m drawn to the notion of not being good at something, it’s almost liberating. I try, on many levels, the first and most important is to attend, that is now becoming part of my routine, and routine and lifestyle are a hop, skip and a jump away for me; then I try to partake as best I can to attempt to find the flexibility, the rhythm of the breathing and the endurance that a class demands and finally I try not to think just to feel and absorb things, there is an energy and a simplicity that I enjoy (mostly in hindsight). The benefits and the form will I’m sure take care itself, I just need to get there every week.

But that’s Saturday.

Today, is Friday and I never heard the noon gun sound but I’m sure it did signal the good news.

I’m in minimal spirit this afternoon glad that the working week is about to elapse and enjoying these YouTube tunes before it does.

Sonar Kollektiv released a wonderful series entitled – Secret Love – which has now proceeded to have five volumes, it’s kind of Folktronica but there are no hard and fast rules which is exactly what a secret musical love should no doubt entail.

A few years ago, I started to do something very similar my eyes and ears were opened to this genre by a gal on the East coast who is probably still ahead of it all. She’s started writing about some of the bands not many just one or two but that was all that it took to spark my interest. Soon I too began to collect these sounds and before you knew it I had afew compilations of my own for my car which mimmicked the “Secret Love” series. And their popularity grew bigger than my car’s stereo to such an extent that there is now another part of this sleeper project (in finger moving inverted commas).

This is the sixth installment of the 302 Folktronica series, it’s got a few surprises, there’s even a little bit of soul slipped into set and it’s not without a sense of humour as Love will (secretly) keep us together, implies.

Parts one, two and three in bit sized pieces for easy investigation.

I wondered what would be filling my days now that the football season has elapsed but little did I think that my energy and attention would be sapped up by the flu. Thankfully it’s been light touch but it’s still there in the bedroom with me, making sure that I’m tucked in under the duvet and feverishly warm. It’s kinda weird to spend most of the day in bed drifting in an out of consciousness, having plans to do things at 09h30 and then looking over and checking the bedside clock radio and the LED display says it’s 16h30. The vacuum that is the flu swallows up all and sundry even your timeline, it takes a while to adjust and you realise how frail you actually are in spite of all the good habits of exercise, diet and philosophy.

I would be at home today but a few calls were setup weeks ago with the centre of the universe (that’s London Calling) and it is easier to keep the appointment than lay in bed wondering about when it could be done again and I think it’s a good thing to get out of the flat for a bit.

I tried to read a bit while I was spending all of this time in bed and I came across this: Le Fast Thinker, a person who can without skipping a beat, summon up a glib answer to any question, according to Carl Honore (In Praise of Slow).

I’m not a Fast Thinker, I may have a quick mind and a thoughtful disposition (yes, it’s the specs) but I’m not inclined to glib answers, I did like the concept, le Fast Thinker, and just like a menu a little French makes it seem ten times better, le big MAC.

It’s an interesting book In Praise of Slow, it’s obvious but truthful in its observation and allows you the time to reflect on your own circumstance, I’ve already got a few Postids strategically placed for passages that I would like to commit to the ROM of my mind.

There is though some soccer to watch now that the Confederation’s Cup has begun. And it doesn’t matter what you read but nothing will prepare you for watching the National Football team, they are just painful, an example of how the beautiful game shouldn’t be played, you’d take it for granted that a group of players would by now know how to score goals, it’s fundamentally what the game is about and you instinctively pick it up from your first kick of the ball but I’ve watched this team play for a few years now and I’m convinced that they have no idea of how to get the ball into the net, the opposition’s net. It’s pretty darn painful watching Bafana Bafana play, Spain on the other hand are a joy, somebody said to me this morning, ‘how can you compare the two,’ obviously you can’t, one understands its purpose and responsibility the other hasn’t quite worked out what it wants to achieve other than a pay increase for playing along.

I don’t think I’ll be showing urhm any love anytime soon – been hearing that old Robyn S classic quite a lot recently which reminded of the Whitest Boy Alive’s version (one half of the Kings of Convenience) and now I can’t get the song out of my head. Monday – Monday – morning.

I think that I’m fast becoming an Au Revoir Simone groupie, easy on the eye and charming makes for a strong combination but throw in some memorable, lingering tunes on a growing discography and you are into that combustible Molotov cocktail territory.

I encountered them quite by chance as I was going through my folktronica awaking, I saw their second cd in the ‘new arrivals’ section and a couple of days later after reading a good review of the album I went down and got it. It’s not typically the kind of music that is stocked, you’d have query that with the buyers but after I got that album it was inevitable that I’d get the rest, which was easier to purchase the electronically, something which ties nicely into their electronic sounds and outlook.

Their latest offering, Still night, Still Light, comes off the back a great Bowie cover that they did for a tribute compilation (oh you pretty things) and it’s just more of the same, the progression in sound is subtle and if the albums where played in any sort of order you’d struggle to arrange them in chronologically, each has it’s own texture but they are pretty similar but it’s a type of familiarity is good.

The new album does however some what remind of the first two Depeche Mode albums (Speak and Spell and A Broken Frame), you obviously need to strip out the vocals but the underlying harmonies and sequencing has that same early new-wave, delicate pop feel to it. It’s a grower, if the first album was good for the bar, the second made for a good dinner party soundtrack, this one is definitely for the car.

I follow them on twitter, they are on tour so it’s series of photos and 140 character outtakes, sometimes they looking to replace a Casio synth, other times it’s whimsical wine shop observations or just taking the plunge in a swimming pool.

And I think I’m becoming a groupie of sorts even though I should clearly have out grown that phase of my life (does one ever really out grown anything other than clothing of a certain waist line?) but I reckon it’s probably those fringes and those quick, witted, nostalgic influences that have me hooked.