Grombles

Western societies are progressively waking up to prejudices deeply ingrained in our cultures. Gender (both self-selected and birth-allocated), skin colour, religion, nationality and age are all differentiators which traditionally our cultures used to define how we treat people. Today - at least amongst civilised and liberal-minded people such as they might exist - we celebrate diversity, and we try to treat all flavours of people as equal... which of course we are. But is there a classification which we still wittingly, or otherwise, use to define our behaviour towards people who adopt or are given that classification? Are we still prejudiced despite our new liberal nature? Are we prejudiced by a person's occupation ? I recently received a form I needed to complete before being accepted for household insurance cover. It's what they call a Statement of Fact. It includes a whole range of things you might expect like 'have I made any claims recently', 'does my proper...

Business is risky. It has to be so we aren't overwhelmed with an infinite number of businesses all demanding their right to flourish. It's pure Darwinian capitalism. Only the fittest survive, so businesses that don't attract enough revenue or capital to pay their costs, will fold. Cease trading and liquidate what's left. The founders, shareholders, directors, staff, suppliers, creditors and customers need to take a deep breath and move on. Easy to say, enormously hard to do. When you've poured you life, soul and probably your house, marriage and family's future into something, deciding when it's time to call it a day is massively difficult. Usually there are still reasons to be hopeful. An order about to drop; New product around the corner; New strategy to test; New advertising in the pipeline; New management; Competitors failing. Endless reasons to be optimistic, except one. You're running out of money and the risk of the business failing is increas...

I started writing this before the decision by Theresa May to hold a 'snap general election'. Has anyone else noticed it will be held at the end of May ? The urgency to create a new political movement uniting the principle of collaboration in the face of division has never been so great. I've been a lifelong Conservative Party supporter. Or at least I was. I've always believed you need to earn money before you spend it, and that well regulated market forces will always trump (sic) state attempts to create wealth. I still believe in this, which is why any party who believes leaving the EU assists this objective is deceiving its citizens. It's irrelevant what the People SAY. They should never have been asked to make decisions in the first place. That's why we elect representatives. To make important and usual complex decisions for us. Not for us to tell them what to do. Democracy means everyone is represented, not a ruler. The day after last year's Brexit r...

The post's title was meant to surprise and possibly even anger you. I am a Remainer who blames our resistance to leaving the EU as the reason our parliament is unable to slam the door in the face of the EU and leave. But why do we even still exist? We were beaten at the referendum in 2016 and by rights should have held our hands up, taken a deep breath and got on with making it work. But we refuse to roll over. The reasons we still exist, and are consequently trying everything in our power (and beyond it) to prevent the country from leaving the EU (today as it happens... 29th March 2019) is down to four things: We only just lost. 51.9% voted Leave. The gap was 1.27 million. So if just 650,000 changed their vote (a quarter the population of Birmingham), or most of the 1.5 million 16/17 year olds who can now vote, or most of the 2 million excluded British ex-pats, or even half the 3 million EU citizens living here permanently, now voted for Remain, democracy would dictate we rem...

While wandering the streets of Kuching in Sarawak, Northern Borneo, my son and his girlfriend were approached by an elderly man who "wanted to practice his English". Their immediate reaction was of course that he wanted to sell them something - which he did, but not in exchange for money. He persisted and because they're polite people, a conversation ensued. Turned out he wanted to share some advice in the only way he knew how. By meeting people in the street. At the end of the chat, he handed them this photocopied sheet of paper which I've transcribed as best I can below. As far as I can see, the thoughts it contains seem in line with what I understand to be broadly Buddhism, but judge for yourself. Wise words whatever the label. Comments in [  ] are mine... "Shared [and possibly written] by Y T Ong (age 78) Malaysian/Chinese in Nov 2015 at Kuching, Sarawak, East Malaysia. The followings [sic] 'What really is worthwhile' 3 Ps... Passion + Persi...

So it's all unfolding as expected. The UK has declared itself in competition with the EU who can't afford for us to succeed. Obvious and predicted. Here . Here . Here . And here . Now we're faced with a compromise that is neither in nor out - and with none of the benefits of either - and kicking the same can down the road regarding issues that can't be resolved today, so will never be resolved (Irish border, Gibraltar, Cyprus even, etc), or a hard exit where we trade under WTO terms and citizens outside their country of origin (Brits in the EU and EUs in the UK) will have to rely on compassion (or more likely incompetence) to remain where they are. The likely scenario is that parliament rejects the 'deal', Brussels refuses to change any of it, and we're left with a hard exit or... a People's Vote to end this madness... or will it? Ignoring for the moment that we are a very divided nation that being either in or out won't resolve, what are the pos...

Most of us lead pretty complicated lives. We juggle work, social, play, relaxation and panic as best we can to achieve successes ranging from survival (ideally) to ecstatic amazement at our achievements – and all points between. Rarely does everything neatly fall into place precisely when it’s meant to. My life is no different from most, a chaotic combination of serendipity and attempts at using structures and disciplines to prevent me becoming overwhelmed. I muddle through. When I had a proper job, I had tasks assigned to me, I developed To-Do lists and I adopted the Urgent/Important prioritisation matrix to decide which tasks to tackle first: … which you can read more about here . But there was a catch. My lists and prioritisation techniques were defined by time . When should I do what? And in order to do most of the stuff in my lists, I needed information… and a lot of that information was in handwritten notes, recorded in the most haphazard way possible – sequentially. ...