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Sampling Bruno Loubet again, in King’s Cross

Livening up King’s Cross

Elaine, Gaia, Hania and I had lunch today at Bernard Loubet’s new restaurant, The Grain Store, in King’s Cross. Glorious food and, because we were serendipitously able to celebrate our fortieth wedding anniversary, I also ordered a bottle of Nyetimber ‘champagne,’ grown in West Sussex. Extraordinarily good–one of the very, very few good things I can think of to say about climate change.

An immersion in values

The carpet ripples around the feet of John Ruggie and Phil Clothier Altes Rathaus Tell covers his eyes, John Ruggie beams

I was part of the teaching faculty, organised by Tell Muenzing and his colleagues, at the GIZ summer school on responsible business, these past fews days, in Bonn. GIZ is a key part of the German Government’s contribution to sustainable development around the world.

At the end of the first day, I did a speech in Bonn’s Altes Rathaus, apparently following in the footsteps of Charles de Gaulle and Queen Elizabeth II. The high point of the trip, however, came with two sessions done by Phil Clother of the Barrett Values Centre. We have worked with them before–and I really like their way of capturing people’s values and helping them work out to drive change both in themselves and in their organisations.

It was also great to see Professor John Ruggie, who led the UN charge on business and human rights a while back. Lovely man–and great presentation.

A day of rampant cabbages and Peacock butterflies

Tim and Pat Cabbage in the garden behind the barn Pat contemplates the beans One of Caroline’s cron cobs served for supper A bowl of cherry tomatoes

A day in Little Rissington, with much of the family. Elaine saw the buddleia bush completely covered in peacock butterflies, which was encouraging. We drove back to London very late, with a huge haul of vegetables from the garden. Joyous.

With thanks to Jo Confino

Out of the blue, Jo Confino warned me a couple of days ago in an email that he was writing a blog for the Guardian Sustainable Business website, having read George Eliot’s Middlemarch. The mind boggled. Having never read the novel, I looked it up on Wikipedia, and couldn’t quite imagine the tack he would take. It duly appeared yesterday. Lovely to have such feedback while the blood is still pumping around my veins, rather than when I am stone cold and bound elsewhere, as Jo himself noted. I thank him. Great to be in such company, though as the later comments on the website note, Jo’s list could have been way longer.

Meanwhile, this mini-blog hopefully restarts my personal blogging process after one of the longest hiatuses ever on this site – mainly because I have been working away to finish off the new book Jochen Zeitz and I have been writing. An advanced draft went off to the publishers in San Francisco late last week, and we now wait to hear how it has gone down. It now draws on no less than 85 interviewees with leaders from various sectors and geographies: the last one I did was with Justin Welby, the Archbishop of Canterbury, while he had his portrait painted (for Durham Cathedral) in a room where, he told me, Thomas Cranmer wrote the Book of Common Prayer.

Have also started cycling again after a number of months not doing so – after the attack by a car in Berwick Street. That case is now going to court, which is encouraging. The wounds on my ankle have just about healed, though the back mudguard on my cycle is still stuck on with masking tape. Wonderful to be out and about again, though the seething hordes of non-Londoners on Boris Bikes can be a wee bit of a nuisance. It was an intriguing indicator of the make-up of people in the streets of London these days that when 7-8 people queued up in Berwick Street to give their contact details and ensure I had the number-plate of the offending vehicle, none of them was from the UK.

In other recent news: our newest recruit, Richard Johnson, joined the Volans team today; Gaia began the process of moving into her new flat in Stoke Newington on Saturday; and, coming to the surface after the book project (to date), I have finally got back to reading for real pleasure – finished Philip Kerr’s new novel in the Bernie Guenther series last night, A Man Without Breath. Stunning.

Interviewing Justin Welby as a new portrait is begun

The painting in progress, its subject distracted

Did a wonderful interview for the new book with Justin Welby, the Archbishop of Canterbury, while a new portrait was begun for Durham Cathedral. Part way through, Justin noted that the room we were in was the one in which a previous Archbishop of Canterbury, Thomas Cranmer, wrote the Book of Common Prayer. A remerkable conversation, while he did his best not to move. A privilege and, in a very real sense, a blessing.