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Patrin, Alejandro and Kavita Sam laughing

David Christie of Innovation Arts and the Value Web facilitated an away day for us today at the Value Web’s place near the Oval. Extremely productive, partly involving tearing apart what I have been doing with the team in recent weeks – and then putting it back together again. By the end of the day, after a visit to a local pub, I was beginning my first major migraine for years – too much going through limited bandwidth, I suppose. But the day was a huge contribution to the evolution of our collective thinking.

Drivers of change Over our heads Jieying and Juliana Magazines Alexa and Kavita Geoff and Alejandro Cutouts Most of us David Sam Pens Sam and friend Complexity is our game

Glorious cycle into Bloomsbury this morning, open skies, my brain racing all the way – as it has been for weeks – to colour in  the outlines of the proposal we have been working on since last month. Ale(jandro) back from Brazil, Zheng Jieying (our new Chinese MBA intern) started yesterday, and the office is abuzz. Took in a couple of figs from the fig tree in the garden, which has finally started producing full-bodied, lush fruit.  What next: British pineapples?

The kitchen is ablaze with flowers, sunflowers that Elaine bought, irises from Roger across the road in thanks for a looked-after cat, and some astonishing hydrangeas Jane Davenport brought this evening. A stunning evening with two of the most important women in my life – and Venus and Mercury burning bright in the sky. Am enjoying August.

One of the social enterprises I have helped over time is the Business & Human Rights Resource Centre, which has just launched a new portal for John Ruggie, Special Representative of the United Nations Secretary-General on business and human rights. Well worth a visit.

He could almost have taken off with those moustaches alone

He may have collapsed his undercarriage 100 years ago today, when he landed on these shores after his first-ever flight across the Channel, but Louis Blériot was a prototypical example of Homo volans. The whole adventure, with a damaged foot incurred before the flight, was an example of coming in on a wing and a prayer, and only just ahead of competitors whose names failed to register in the historical record. But he certainly looked the part.