» Values & Philosophy

Yesterday, one of the longest solar eclipses for a long time was visible in Asia.  The moon moved in front of the sun for over 6 minutes and the world was plunged into premature darkness.  People watched in awe as they have for as long as man has walked this planet. However, this eclipsing of […][...] read more » Solar eclipse

Regular readers will recall previous pond blogs.  Today I noticed a rather exciting visitor, a full blown grass snake!  I know they like to swim and maybe it was dealing with the heat wave, or perhaps just after one of my other ‘guests’ the adult frogs. We have such a huge number of wild visitors […][...] read more » Diversity thrives!

I‘m sure we have all heard this advice but one of things that I have wrestled with over the years is how to interpret this meaningfully in my life and business.  After all, it is no use having the  benefit of aphorisms such as this if we can’t make them work for us.  My work […][...] read more » Making Hay whilst the sun shines.. [Weirdness Warning!]

I, and suspect many of you feel this too, tend to really value my ability to choose.  Free will is deeply enshrined in our social systems and even though these days much of this freedom is illusory, we treasure it. Yesterday I went to a talk on Behavioural Economics, which is the study of why […][...] read more » Choice… is it a good thing?

I don’t know if you have heard the expression ‘Pond Life’; it means “A worthless or contemptible person or group.”  So as regular readers will have noted that following the renovation of Cooke Towers (not on the constituency expenses!), we have now moved onto the next phase of upgrading Munstead Waters.  This has meant that […][...] read more » Pond Life?

I spent this morning walking round one of my favourite bits of Surrey.  It was pouring all the time we were out.  Odd as it sounds we really didn’t notice.   The thing is that we had on the right gear, and as we knew from the start that we would get wet, we didn’t need […][...] read more » Walking in the Rain

One of the odder activities that went on in Nazi Germany was the scheme to resurrect the Auroch.  These were a giant, primitive form of cattle that stood 6’ tall and had horns of similar dimensions.  They were hunted to extinction but remain part of European (and British) history.  Herman Goering, backed two zoologists called […][...] read more » A Heck of an idea… or is this the Herd Reich?

I was listening to Susan Boyle, a very ordinary looking 47 year old lady with an extraordinary voice today.  I then clicked another link and heard another extraordinary clip.  Here is Paul, living his dream to sing opera.  It is absolutely fascinating to watch the reactions of the audience and the judges.  As he gives […][...] read more » Heart and Soul

I don’t know if you were around in the 70’s or remember the Doors singing “Been down so long, that it seems like up to me”   That may sound like a cold comfort, but whilst I’m sure that we still a have a few unpleasant surprises to come, for most people, most of the bad […][...] read more » Reasons to be Cheerful … part 2

I woke up this morning and looked at my blackberry, and something seemed wrong… no flashing led, no email icon.  It wasn’t that I was expecting deluges of interesting and important mail, but usually I have to start the day by deleting the few spam mails that crawl through my filters.  The interesting thing was […][...] read more » Even junk mail has its use