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Today’s Financial Times carries a story on the decision of the Hearst Corporation to close the Seattle Post-Intelligencer newspaper, which I built ties of affection with while spending time over decades with family in the Seattle area.  

The news also reminds me of a wonderful conversation I had with Frank Herbert, who recalled the time when he was a cub reporter with the Post-Intelligencer, and was sent to report on a dune stabilisation project in Oregon – indeed in exactly the place (Dune City) that Elaine, I and the children had visited just before flying back to London, landing in London just in time to get to Frank’s hotel before he flew back to Seattle.  More on Frank Herbert here. 

First Tuesday 1

First Tuesday 2First Tuesday 3

First Tuesday 4

Across to the British Library with Charmian and Sam, after sending The Phoenix Economy to the printers, for a First Tuesday debate at the British Library.  I was paired with James Cameron of Climate Change Capital, in a greentech session moderated by Rebecca Burn-Callander of Real Business. Lively session and conversations across at the Novotel afterwards.  Photos by Sam, who says since I post photos of others, what is sauce for goose is sauce for the gander, or somesuch.

Blue sky Spawn 1 Spawn 2  

Up early and as we walked I said to Elaine that this felt like spawn weather.  Sound of woodpeckers singing and hammering away in the trees.  Brilliant green cascades of parakeets.  Sly jackdaws. A biplane soaring over the deer, radio-controlled. Then we found great clumps of frog spawn, though someone – or something – had been fishing some out, since there were long skeins of eggs streaked across a log near the bank, drying out. I sluiced them all back into the water. A powerful sense of connection to what got me started in this space way back in the 1950s. Meanwhile my Uncle Paul says that all the frogs this year in his area of Cumbria are male.

Hound The hound’s Believe Kiss on the stairs Arm wrestling on the roof Shot with Duncan Another kiss on the stairs Magnolia

Started the day with Sam at Image Source, meeting Duncan Grossart – and then speaking to his team. Next, back to Bloomsbury Place – where the magnolia continues to inch into bloom – for a succession of six meetings.  My mood of depression is beginning to lift, which is no doubt a boon to the world.  Cycled home, which helped, too.  Moon last night seemed to be full, though could equally have been this evening.  Walking back into Barnes last night, very late, after my trip to Oxford, a flowering blackcurrant was in full perfume.  Delicious.

 

 

The text of the Amsterdam Declaration on Transparency & Reporting, the first issued by the Global Reporting Initiative, as described in the previous blog entry, can be found at http://www.globalreporting.org/CurrentPriorities/AmsterdamDeclaration/.  I confess I’m rather pleased with the result of our efforts.