John Elkington

Elaine, Sam and I trolled along to a private view this evening at Francis Kyle’s gallery in Maddox Street, a long-standing haunt – to see the latest Ramsay Gibb exhibition.  Some stunning paintings, including a fair few beautiful, unsettling images of Arctic ice.  Of the more local paintings, the one I liked best was of an ancient British hill fort in the Malvern Hills.  Talked to the artist on the way out, partly to say thank you for the two canvases we have had for quite a few years, one of them showing the burial mounds at Sutton Hoo, and partly to see whether there is anything we can do to help him give a wider airing to what is happening in the Arctic, where the long-sought North-West Passage is rapidly becoming an unexpected reality. 

  This evening we watched one of the most beautifully shot films I have seen in a very long time, Mongol.   The Genghis Khan story.  Or a version of it.  Must read up on him, particularly since his genetic legacy in European – and then presumably wider – populations was inordinately large.  The framing and the colours were out of this world.  Can’t wait to see the next two films in the sequence.

Replica bazooka might work just as well

Quite day, starting off with a session with Charmian (Love) at Accenture, then on to Generation Investment Management for lunch at The Fishmonger with David Blood, Colin Le Duc, Peter Knight and Lila Preston, then back to Volans, and then by train to Cambridge for the twentieth anniversary for the Cambridge Programme for Industry, held in King’s College.  Lovely to see people like Tim O’Riordan and Polly Courtice, but my bat’s ears meant that I couldn’t hear people over the sound of the band – and took off home relatively early.  Very much enjoyed reading James Benn’s WWII novel Billy Boyle as I went.  Felt 120 by the time I got home, around 23.30, but finished off the book before falling asleep.

Was once again amazed to see Cambridge cyclists at night with no lights.  There ought to be a law.  People from Volans saw a great deal of blood in the street near the office earlier in the week: it turned out to be from a female cyclist who had been knocked off her bike and killed by a bus.  The number of altercations I have had with buses in that stretch of road, from Tottenham Court Road through to Holborn, is legion.  It is as if bus drivers pass through some sort of personality warp there, ignoring cycle ways and cyclists.  Have often meant to fit a bazooka to my handlebars, but somehow haven’t yet got around to it. 

And, in intemperate old age, I found myself wondering whether , instead of dancing the night away in King’s College, we oughtn’t to have a more open discussion about the industries and technologies we would happily bazooka – or dynamite – to ensure a more sustainable world?

Yves Rossy finally made it across the Channel.  Elaine was beside herself – loves people who do this sort of thing.  Makes me feel a bit better about Volans.  I have been saying recently that I oscillate between moments of sheer elation about lifting off with something new, then moments of total vertigo about launching forth on uncertain winds at the age of 59.  But I feel Rossy providing an additional bit of lift under my wings.

Detail of Regine Hagerdorn’s Rosiers  

This week was meant to be something of a break, but I have been working pretty much flat out, with Volans doing a major email out to our contacts around the world – which has had me respnding to hundreds of email replies.  Have also been working on a column for Director magazine, an article I’m co-authoring with Mark Lee and the WEC project.  So this morning Elaine dragged me off to Kew Gardens, to give me a bit of exercise and get some fresh air in my lungs.  And what a wonderful treat it was.

High points included (literally) the new aerial walkway and (aesthetically) the Shirley Sherwood Gallery of Botanical Art.  hadn’t thought I much liked botanical paintings, but there were many  would have gladly grabbed off the walls here and run away with.  Did buy Shirley Sherwood’s book A Passion for Plants, for its reproductions of many of the more recent paintings in the collection.  One of the ones I liked best was by Regne Hagerdorn, Rosiers.  It showed a series of different rose stems — and to my eye looked like a botanical score for some form of music that you would need some form of kinesthesia to hear.

Aerial walkway 1   Aerial walkway 2   Chestnut leaf-miner   Leaf-miners 2   Walkway surface   Temperate House   Elaine, aerially   Walkway again   Support   Elaine and metal tree   Walkway embraces   Fall leaves 1   Shirley Sherwood   Fungi   Fall leaves 2   Carved stomata   Sculptural version of a tree root