Category: Musings

Mind over Matter: does it matter?

An example of how we really do own our lives.

We were invited to our friend’s 25th Wedding Anniversary on Saturday, 21st November.

It was in a local pub and they had invited many friends, some of whom we had not seen for many years.

One friend had started his own architect business, built it up over the last 10 years and, although he had lost a large amount of work because of the recession, things seemed to be picking up.

I mentioned that my work had dropped off dramatically since the summer. He said:

Well, Jon. You can make your own mind up what you do. You can either decide you’re going to go bankrupt or you can decide that you’re going to succeed – in spite of everything.

For some reason, that short conversation had a huge impact on me and I realised that it really is mind over matter and once we make our mind up about something, good or bad, it tends to happen.

By Jon Lavin

Resignation, anger or possibilities

A recap on some important messages.

One of the great benefits of being a team of authors is that we, too, are learning from each other. So on that theme I wanted to review some of the Posts that have been written by my fellow authors as a reminder of some powerful motivational ideas.

Sir Ranulph Fiennes

When asked about his approach to climbing Everest at the third attempt in May 2009 and, at age 65, the oldest Briton to do so, he captured the full spirit of separating actions from goals when he said:

Plod forever! Don’t expect to get there. Don’t think there is going to be a top to this mountain. Just plod forever!

Watch the video.

Remarkable people: Warren Buffett

What does Bill Gates admire about Warren Buffet?

On this blog about integrity, and in these difficult economic times, it is particularly poignant to note that Bill Gates cites Warren Buffett’s integrity. This was during a recent event at Columbia Business School in New York City, see below.

While many of the questions from MBA students and the answers from Gates and Buffett are not new, Buffett’s brief witty and topical comments provide considerable insight into his thinking.

It is particularly interesting to get a sense of how the world is viewed by people with their perspective. When asked about the outlook for America, both Gates and Buffett answered that it is very good. Warren Buffett even offered any of the MBA students $100,000 in return for 10% of their future earnings. Later, he increased the offer to $150,000, if they received training in personal communication skills!

Watch them together on CNBC at Columbia Business School, New York City on November 12, 2009.

Maybe you are interested in further information about Warren Buffett, if so you are not alone. The BBC, among others, have taken a strong interest in him recently.

You might like to read and view some recent stories on the “Oracle of Omaha” including:

Despite a setback in 2008, Warren Buffett’s long term investment success is without question.

By John Lewis

Update on the “British Solution”

The Credit Crisis in Britain

Following yesterday’s Post on this Blog about Goldman Sachs, here’s Britain in action.

Ministers yesterday (17th November) launched a £50 billion ($84 billion) bailout of Britain’s crippled banks – and warned there could be worse to come. State-controlled lenders Royal Bank of Scotland and Lloyds Banking Group will receive fresh injections of taxpayers’ money totalling £39 billion ($65.5 billion).

RBS – which has now received the biggest state rescue anywhere in the world – was also handed £11 billion ($18.5 billion) in tax breaks to help keep it afloat.

Source: The Daily Mail

Thanks for the Greed. Are the directors responsible still in place? Are the Great and Good who removed controls and oversaw the decade of binge-spending and easy credit still in place?

Oh, I remember now. The very same person in Britain who was Chancellor throughout the 90s and is now Prime Minister is – according to John Prescott (former Labour Deputy-Leader and the person whose office sign was changed at a cost of £700 ($1,200) when his job name was rebadged weeks before he left it anyway) – a “Global Giant” who saved the world.

Oh, and let’s not forget, this is the same person who said that: “Britain is better placed than other countries in Europe to weather the crisis …..etc blah, blah, blah …”

The reality (which is in fairly short supply among Global Giants) is different:

Within hours of the Chancellor’s announcement, the European Commission issued a stark warning about the frayed state of Britain’s national finances, warning of an ‘extraordinary deterioration’ because of the cost of City rescues.

It estimates public debt will double as a share of the economy between 2007 and 2011, reaching 88 per cent of gross domestic product – the biggest rise of any leading EU economy.

The latest £50billion bank bailout is roughly equivalent to the annual schools budget and far exceeds the annual defence budget of £35billion. The new moves bring the total of public money lavished on Britain’s financial rescue to £1.2trillion – almost £20,000 for every man, woman and child living in the country.

… and the £ has sunk drastically against the euro ….

Still, let’s have a bit of positive spin …. the National Debt isn’t quite (yet) what is was just after WWII. A great achievement. Well done Gordon Brown …. but you can do it …. just one more little push.

We could do with fewer spin-ridden “Global Giants” and more people with vision, courage and competence.

And rather than “saving the world” it might be nicer if Gordon Brown started with saving Britain.

By Chris Snuggs

Education, Literacy and Text-Messaging …

English Paper – Question 9, bmbl gr8 cu focl. Discuss!

Well, every day one learns something new and today I found out that British GCSEs (the state exams taken by pupils at age 16) will henceforth include a section on “text-messaging”.

Yup, you read it right … at a time when many employers are complaining that even university graduates cannot write and spell correctly we are going to spend time in secondary school practising for exam questions on text-messaging, or “the art of not writing proper English because it is so fiddly”.

text message speak

There are – sadly – so many idiotic things happening in Britain these days that one has sort of got inured, but this takes the biscuit. And the new courses will be not only on the messaging itself but on the “etiquette” of the art …… Am I living in a parallel universe?

What is the “etiquette” of text-messaging? The whole point about this form of communication is its anarchic, personal style. The internet and mobile phoning are two of the few areas of our life where we can communicate exactly as we like with whom we like. Why this OBSESSION with regulating everything? LEAVE IT ALONE!! And CERTAINLY don’t waste precious school time TEACHING how to text message “PROPERLY”.

And as for “PROPERLY”, WHO exactly is to decide? Ah, we need “norms” … we can’t have anything UNREGULATED after all, especially not in modern Britain. Better set up a commission, preferably at EU level and vast expense, with a President (Oh, they DO so love Presidents) to decide for us HOW to text message with “etiquette”.

When I read this I thought it must be April 1st, but “No”, it is serious …. Pupils “will have to write an essay on the etiquette and grammar of texting, using their own messages as examples – earning up to ten per cent of their overall English GCSE mark.”

But the best is yet to come. It seems that this new departure is “part of the Studying Spoken Language module intended to make GCSEs harder.”

“Harder”? Who wrote this garbage? How can anyone claim that and keep a straight face? And of course, once you have text-messaging on the syllabus and in the exam, then teachers will start to PREPARE for it …. precious time will be devoted to it in class …

“Plonkett – why are you on your mobile phone?”

“I’m just practising for my exam, Sir.”

“Oh, that’s all right then.”

The whole thing makes me despair actually. We are paying civil servants large amounts of money to come out with this nonsense. Many kids can hardly read and write now; apart from anything else it is a clear message that writing in textspeak is OK and that the other stuff is a bore.

“Studying Spoken Language”? If this is the aim, why not get kids to study speeches of great orators? Gandhi, Luther King, Churchill, Kennedy? Or even of some of the more eloquent current MPs? William Hague, Vincent Cable and so on? Study what they say? How they get their message across? Discuss and analyse their arguments? That would be fascinating, no? And the kids might at the same time learn something about how their society – and therefore lives – are governed.

Well, No – we have to have “text-messaging” ….

Sorry, our kids deserve better, and so does the British taxpayer.

By Chris Snuggs

Oh, and by the way, the answer to the question at the top of the post is: busting my brains laughing, great, see you, fall of chair laughing. DILLIGAS is all I can ‘say’.

Single-handed sailing

A personal reflection on this rather strange way of travelling!

The recent Post about young Jessica Watson sailing alone around the world raised a few comments but also reminded me of my own experiences of solo sailing.

Some years ago, having successfully sold my own IT company, I warmed to the idea of being a full-time yachtie! A second-hand Tradewind 33 was discovered on the Island of Corfu. (Now here’s a surprise! I was just browsing the web looking for a picture of a Tradewind and came across my old yacht currently up for sale. Her name is Songbird of Kent! Picture below.)

Anyway, the deal was done and having sold my house in England I flew out to Corfu to collect Songbird of Kent. Inevitably it was a number of months before the boat was ready to head out into the Mediterranean but in early Spring 1988 it was time to explore the long coastlines of Greece and Turkey.

After a fantastic summer cruising from one idyllic anchorage to another mostly with friends or family on board, it was time to find a winter haven. Many recommended Larnaca Marina in Cyprus. Thus it was late in the summer of 1988 that I said goodbye to friends and set out on my own to cross from Antalya in Turkey to Cyprus and for Larnaca, on the SE side of the island.

That sea crossing, only a little over 200 nautical miles, was to become a regular solo experience at the start and end of each summer season. Impossible to do in a single day it was always a night at sea and rarely, if things didn’t go well with the weather, a couple of nights. I hated it! Maybe it was the sudden transition from coastal sailing to a deep water crossing, often going from having friends on board to being alone, but whatever it was I never enjoyed my time on my own and knew that long-distance solo sailing was never going to be my scene.

Chickens coming home to roost?

Chickens, farming and global issues.

We keep chickens at our home in Devon, England and, thus, we have an account with a local farming supplies organisation called Mole Valley Farmers. Once a month we get a small news letter which I find fascinating. The first page always has The Chairman’s Newsletter and I love reading about the current price of grain, what’s current in the dairy world and a bit about food politics – usually very little about chickens but then I’m biased!

The Chairman quoted a British Government minister at a recent conference making a reference to the need to increase food production but then spending most of his speech talking about “rewilding” the countryside by reintroducing lynx and elk. (The link is to a slightly tongue-in-cheek article in the Times Online.)

Quite how that would help food production was “incomprehensible” but it shows a complete lack of understanding about the serious threat to the UK, and other countries, as we now import so much of our basic food needs and many local farmers have been underpriced out of farming by the monopoly of the supermarkets. An interesting parallel with the banks and greed in general.

With a world food shortage affecting many parts of the world it makes me wonder what is in store for us, especially our children. So far, I am unaware of anyone in UK politics making a link between pollution, food shortages, global warming and the fact that unless we wake up soon, we stand a big risk of reproducing ourselves out of existence.

By Jon Lavin

Yet more on Piper Cubs

Bringing back memories

Sometimes we think that we know nothing and feel that we having nothing to contribute; then, on reflection, we realise that, in fact, we do know something and that maybe it is worth sharing. This is perhaps the opposite of the paradox that the more we know, the more we realise that there is to know. Is a little knowledge a dangerous things? Possibly, if used with a cavalier attitude. In the end you, the reader, will decide.

A couple of months ago, Paul Handover described on this blog some details of his Piper Cub aircraft. Although I knew of his post, having skimmed it at some time, I had missed a coincidence which now triggers me to think about my limited knowledge and experience of the Piper Cub!

Democracy and Marriage, Pt 2

A huge misunderstanding of democracy.

Yesterday, I covered the appalling lunacy that took place recently on British television. This is the concluding part of my Post.

Nick Griffin and his party are gaining support because immigration in Britain has been overdone, and anything overdone is bad news. Moreover, many perceive that their own government has been involved in a campaign of blatant lying.

The average Brit is a staunch yeoman, solid as a rock, but he won’t take being lied to, nor patronised, nor flooded with immigrants of an alien culture who often show little wish to integrate and some of whom seem to be actively seeking the downfall of the west and the establishment of a single Islamic worldwide Caliphate.

Now these are megalomaniac dreams, but many before have had them: Genghis Khan and Hitler to name but two.

There is also a visceral dislike of certain Islamic practices seen as alien to an open, democratic society based on Human Rights, in particular the attitude to women.

Hence the growth of the BNP, which – despite the above arguments – remains a nauseatingly xenophobic and homophobic party.

BUT, and here’s the rub, it does – for better or worse, and thanks to the idiotic policies of the present Labour government – represent the views of a substantial and increasing minority of people.

Democracy and Marriage, Pt 1

Nick Griffin’s Appearance on BBC’s “Question Time”

Recently, an event of surpassing lunacy took place on British television. The weekly popular current affairs programme, “Question Time”, invited Nick Griffin to appear as one of the five politicians who respond to questions from a studio audience. There are some clips from the programme on the BBC website.

Now Nick Griffin is not just any old boring political hack; he is the Leader of the BNP, the British National Party.

For our American friends who may not be up to speed on the minutiae of British politics, this is a minority party which is strongly anti-immigrant. Moreover, Nick Griffin himself is homophobic, has flirted with leaders of the KKK and is said to be sympathetic to Nazi ideas, though this he denies, alleging that the British Nazis hate him.

The latter, by the way, are a group of microscopic importance on the British political scene; extremism having never taken root in British politics.

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Bringing back memories

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