Non-business books & films

When I'd finished my MBA I planned not to read another 'business book' again. That said I've read all sorts of things that have insights in them that are relevant (particularly to Creative Industries firms)...here are a few of my favourites:
- Flatland, Edwin A Abbott
- Rock'n'Roll, Tom Stoppard
- I don't mean to be rude but, Simon Cowell
- Murder in Samarkand, Craig Murray
- Feel, Chris Heath
- Air Guitar, Dave Hickey
- The Alphabet vs. the Goddess
- The Mastership Game, Scott McBain
- The Marketing Plan (a pictoral guide for managers), Malcolm McDonald & Peter Morris
- The New Great Game, Lutz Kleveman

and just for good measure a few films/dvds:
- Searching for the Wrong Eyed Jesus (Jim White)
- Legally Blonde
- The Corporation
- Rize
- Basquiat
- Enron
- McLibel
- Walmart
- Bull Durham
- The Fog of War
- An Inconvenient Truth
- Big Wednesday/Riding Giants

I'm just about to read Tao Te Ching by Lao-Tzu....I reckon it will make it on to this list shortly.

eulogy to the sea

Here I stand in the epicentre of my world, marvelling at so distant an uninterrupted straight line bisecting sea and sky.

As I sit still I am moved through a rhythm of the swell and on past each variation in this theme of blue. A seascape of such apparent substance as to be suited to walking out upon, yet my being is contained within this machine for living in, boundaried and protected by a fibre-glass shell. I go to sea not to escape the parallel realities that each individual crosses each urban day but to envelop my conscious mind in a single reality and thence to free my subconscious.

In this way the geography of the route is vital in the moment but irrelevant to the journey. It is the being at sea that matters. Time and direction take on new meanings in the sleep-deprived rhythm of the watches as we zig-zag our way out to a point marked only in the mathematics of a chart. A boat is not a car, a sea is not a road, there is no direct route here…only angles enabling Velocity Made Good. Nor does complexity end here, moment by moment changes of the angles of wind on the ears of trimmers and helmsmen changing expectations of speed, direction, sail set and weight on rudder.

As I sit still I am moving to the balance of the boat and her reaction to the sea states and wind patterns. Here I am in extra time, a gift of living slowly through a world conflated by ease of communication and increased speed of travel. In this sea surrounded world conversation becomes an alternative to quiet rather than the focus of companionship. And, in the hours or days between tacks, time expands and is filled by the meditative demands of a well-trimmed sail.

On a fair day land gives good warning of approaching arrival. Sizing him up as we run parallel to the coast, petulant and defiant yet ready to concede a certain relief of a safe mooring…relief that oft takes the form of alcoholic stupor as crew put aside hoses and sail bags for a harbour view and a beer.

Breakfast Bonanza

2007 is the start of a new era - gym membership for the first time in a decad coupled with a personal trainer who is helping me make drastic changes to the way I eat. Not so much a diet but a different emphasis. Most notably breakfast is changing from muesli with fruit (I seem to have eaten that all my life and am quite happy with the repetitive nature of it) to a cooked & larger breakfast.

It has required more than a little inventiveness but here are a few of the successes:

- porridge - a new thing for me (i recall lumpy and flavourless of a childhood) but many variations on a theme, mostly involving added fruit (dried, fresh and cooked) but the real revelation was the morning when I'd run out of milk so made it with water and elderflower cordial.,

- bacon - grilled with sciroppo di amarene (from carluccios) drizzled on top, accompanied by poached eggs and sauteed mushrooms & cherry tomatoes. The balsamic glaze found in waitrose is another variation on this theme. As an alternative to tomato ketchup I recommend crab-apple jelly/jam or redcurrant jelly

- scrambled eggs - i discovered exmouth market farmers market on friday and purchased some italian eggs and chanterelle mushrooms for saturday morning scramble. as i had some parma ham lying about i fried it like bacon, added the chanterelle's and then the eggs. fabulous colours as well as flavours. ditto the use of crab-apple jelly.

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