Crisis? What crisis?

I turned up today to see how everything is progressing and found the internet team room festooned with England flags. Well, I say the team room...to be more accurate, it was more the immediate area around the Senior Managing Consultant & Web Producer. And when I say 'around', I mean all over. Some say toga. Some say shroud.

Still, it's good to see that the team approach all sporting events with a passion - not just Wimbledon.

Shortly after my arrival, there was a cry of "the website has gone down" from one party. Now, with the Championships just three days away, one might be forgiven for thinking that this announcement would be met with gnashing of teeth and blind panic. Not so the IBM team. Instead, there was a measured response of "who is that directed at?" followed by swift and decisive action. And, 17 seconds later, all was well once more. (In fact, there was no terminal crash, no failure of systems. A fact that the IBM team knew - hence the cool, calm and collected response. It was nice to witness).

That's not to say there aren't things still to finish off - amongst the studied and measured atmosphere in the team room, with heads down and collective minds concentrating at an atomic/pixel level, a spool of cable was brought in and unravelled. Then spliced and cut and unravelled some more. A mound of blue spaghetti grew and grew. To an outsider, this looked somewhat disconcerting. What was wrong? Where was the cable going? Where was it needed? It looked kind of vital - what was broken? But with the exception of the two industrious souls employed in 'fixing' whatever it was... no one batted an eyelid. This is normal. This is ok. This is the team making final tweaks.

So - I can report back that all is on schedule, all is ready, all is fine.

(Except the football result. More flags and bunting are obviously needed).