• Skip to primary navigation
  • Skip to main content
  • Skip to primary sidebar
John Elkington

John Elkington

A world authority on corporate responsibility and sustainable development.

  • About
    • Ambassador from the future
  • Past lives
    • Professional
      • Volans
      • SustainAbility
      • CounterCurrent
      • Boards & Advisory Boards
      • Awards & Listings
    • Personal
      • Family
      • Other Influences
      • Education
      • Photography
      • Music
      • Cycling
    • Website
  • Speaking
    • Media
    • Exhibitions
  • Publications
    • Books
    • Reports
    • Articles & Blogs
    • Contributions
    • Tweets
    • Unpublished Writing
  • Journal
  • Contact
  • Show Search
Hide Search

Stepping Up In Symi

John Elkington · 10 June 2022 · Leave a Comment

Symi proved to be delightful – its better preserved bits showing evidence of considerable past concentrations of wealth, but with a surprising number of buildings in various stages of dereliction. was struck here, once again, by the way that rackety scooters and motorbikes weave their way through people on the waterfront, and alongside the restaurants at night. Am sure this traffic has its charms for some, and is no doubt necessary, but would gladly do without the noise and risk to limb, if not life.

Meanwhile, keep plowing through books. In addition to Merlin, the story of the Rolls-Royce Merlin engine, books I have read during the trip include: Omar al Akkad’s What Strange Paradise; Mick Heron’s Bad Actors; Hervé Le Tellier’s The Anomaly; and Stephen Ambrose’s The Wild Blue, about the American B-24 crews in WW2, which I bought at the wonderful Le Flaneur rare book shop in Datça – where we went to have our passports stamped for entry back into Turkey.

Two books I have also been nibbling at are Ian Morris’s Geography Is Destiny and Antony Beevor’s Russia: Revolution and Civil War, 1917-1921. And then two other members of the group passed on books they had read on the trip: Barbara Gowdy’s The White Bone, a novel written from the point of view of elephants, and David Davis’s One River, an exploration of the medicinal plants and hallucinogens of Amazonia.

Then we sailed on to Knidos this evening.

The Aegean Clipper moored in Symi
Garlic drying on a small tractor
The harbour lights as we have supper by the waterfront
Closed for business
Climbing up the seemingly endless Kali Strati (“Beautiful Street”)
The Magnificent Six
Octopus in pebble mosaic
Stepping up

Uncategorized

Reader Interactions

Leave a Reply Cancel reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

Primary Sidebar

Introduction

I began this blog with an entry reporting on a visit to the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution on Cape Cod, on 30 September 2003. The blog element of the website has gone through several iterations since, with much of the older material still available.

Like so many things in my life, blog entries blur the boundaries between the personal and the professional. As explained on this site’s Home Page, the website and the blog are part platform for ongoing projects, part autobiography, and part accountability mechanism.

In addition, my blogs have appeared on many sites such as: Chinadialogue, CSRWire, Fast Company, GreenBiz, Guardian Sustainable Business, and the Harvard Business Review.

Recent Comments

  • PATRICK DICK on Reminder of Glencot Years
  • Milton Marino Gómez Ortiz on Tickling Sharks
  • John Elkington on Green Swans A “Must-Read”

Journal Archive

About

John Elkington is a world authority on corporate responsibility and sustainable development. He is currently Founding Partner and Executive Chairman of Volans, a future-focused business working at the intersection of the sustainability, entrepreneurship and innovation movements.

Contact

john@johnelkington.com  |  +44 203 701 7550 | Twitter: @volansjohn

John Elkington

Copyright © 2025 John Elkington. All rights reserved. Log in