Archives

Anyone been listening to Radio 4's book of the week? Now is the Winter of our Disconnect is a light-hearted account of one family's attempt to live without all forms of electronic media. No Skype, Facebook, iPhones/pads/pods, and return to living in the RL (real world). It is worth dipping into. And if you thought that it was onl...

Radio 3 are having a Mozart Fest. They're playing every note he composed over a ten-day period. At first it was magnificent, and reminded one of sheer genius of that remarkable man. And then a funny thing happened. Every time the radio was switched on it began to feel like Groundhog Day. It only goes to prove that sometimes you ...

According to Linkedin, 29 of my contacts have changed job title in the past year. By any standards that's quite a lot. Some have taken on new positions with their existing employers, but most have moved on. A significant number of them have decided, like me, to branch out on their own. There is something hugely exciting about tak...

With Christmas and a January birthday, I've had plenty of new books to get my teeth into. I've already mentioned the book by Susan Maushart in a previous post. Here's what I've made of the rest: Franzen's Freedom - disappointing. I'd been looking forward to it so much but I never really warmed to the characters or the theme. Roth'...

I've been thinking recently just how insidious truth can be. Just when you think that you can control the message, pesky old truth manages to inveigle its way to the surface. Slowly and surely, cunning old truth manages to find a way around all the obstacles that have been placed in its path. Take two current examples: firstly, th...

I've recently read two books that have profoundly impacted my thinking. The first was Jonah Lehrer's 'Proust was a neuroscientist'. I have to admit that I was drawn to this book initially because of my love of Proust. But it's message is powerful. Basically Lehrer posits that when it comes to thinking about how the brain works, ma...

I’ve recently started hitting golf balls again after a gap of ten years.  Reading Bounce by Matthew Syed helped convince me that talent is a misnomer and that it’s practice that counts. So when I was asked whether I played golf I said, despite all the evidence, that I did. And so I now find myself less than a month away from a c...

I’m currently crawling my way through Dante’s Inferno (in English, obviously) and have just met those souls doomed to walk forever with their heads facing the wrong way.  Walking forward but facing backwards, these are the futurologists; those who were so presumptuous as to try and foresee and foretell the future.  Con...

One of the most fulfilling of my many roles is mentoring.  I act as a, often unofficial, mentor to a number of people and have done so throughout my career.  Giving people the confidence to see issues differently is, I like to think, one of my key strengths. A number of recent conversations have all had a common theme and have led...

As the conference season for UK political parties draws to a close some are beginning to wonder whether they have now passed their sell-by date.  What was once a cross between rah-rah events for the faithful and serious policy-making forums has now become little more than made-for-tv events that take place in front of an audience of...