There is a flaw in the New Year Resolution system. It’s not just that the emphasis is on what you didn’t do very well last year – and that’s always going to be a bit negative; it’s not just that the commitments are unrealistic – if you haven't been reading a novel a week for the last 20 years, you’re probably not going to in 2019; it’s not just that you leave the list until a couple of days before (or after) January 1st, the one time of year you’ll [...]
Bullies have been on my mind lately. A few weeks ago we had the headline in the Guardian about a ‘bullying culture’ in universities. I work in this sector, so the story was both interesting and familiar and prompted me to a direct marketing campaign – I can help employers with this kind of problem. Next I conducted a mediation where both parties were complaining about being bullied by the other. This isn’t as unusual as it sounds. My job (successful in this case) was to help each party hear [...]
I’ve owned a car since 1988 – not the same one, but not that many. I’m on my third. In those thirty years, I've never taken it into a car wash. Which means that I have mostly been driving a dustbin. Things accumulate. Plastic bags, pens, shopping lists, CDs without covers, bits of mud, grass, crumbs. How do those crumbs get there? I hardly ever use the car, much less eat in it. Never, in thirty years, until today. I've just treated myself to a valet. It’s the best feeling. [...]
I am on a trip down the west coast of the US, taking in a few large cities and some smaller places. It’s easy coming to the States, apart from the money. Or not so much the money, but the tick I’ve developed whereby I can’t help comparing the notes to Monopoly. It’s boring for anyone in the vicinity and I’m dealing with it. The language is by and large the same; the culture is familiar from films and TV; America’s political news was the world’s news even before Trump [...]
I am proud of my excellent memory. I know exactly what people said, what they wore, how the behaved, years back. No one queries it, which is how I know I’m right. I am currently visiting the apartment in Aix en Provence that I first visited as a fifteen year old. It’s not unusual to visit places you came to as a child, often you visit periodically over your life. I guess it’s slightly less usual to have had a forty year gap. Several things have struck me. First, I’d [...]
I lost my website a fortnight ago. It was my fault. I ignored an email that looked quite boring. It was from the hosting company, referring to something I didn’t recognise and asking me to update my card details, in itself a tedious task. I hadn’t kept a copy of the website (though I managed to retrieve bits of pieces of it). I especially hadn’t kept copies of the blog posts. I drafted them straight onto the site. There are so many morals from this sorry story that I hardly [...]
