Journal

Four sessions with Tetra Pak

Tetra Pak 1 Tetra Pak 2 – my zone Copenhagen airport

Flew in last night for a series of four sessions today with some 150 top executives of Tetra Pak. Great fun and subject to confidentiality agreement, but no great secret to say the area I did my sessions in was ‘floored’ in grass, which added an interesting fragrance to the proceedings.

On the flight back to London this evening, much delayed, we turned in over a spectacularly moonlit city, like something out of Avatar (like the eye in the second photo above), and the stewardess said ‘Wow!’ and came and sat beside me to watch the spectacle unfold.

Had an interesting email exchange from a speeding Mercedes crossing the Great Belt Bridge from Sweden to Denmark with Wu Qing, where she asked me how Elaine was. I replied that she was fine, but felt that I had my foot trapped on the accelerator of life. Wu Qing thought I literally had my foot stuck on the accelerator on the bridge. Happily, though, the Tetra Pak was my last major engagement of 2010 – and a quieter period now beckons, in which I start writing the new book.

Hard drive story

It’s a short story, really, but it means problems with blogging. My MacBook Pro’s hard drive had been a little wobbly for a while, so I took it in to the Covent Garden Apple Store, where they said come back in 5 days – and, typically, the hard drive died after 4. Had lost everything, but it turned out that Sam had installed trial version Carbonite a few days before the catastrophe happened. After a couple of days of restoring files, it looks as though most things are back, though not yet music (which only works when you pay), PowerPoint presentations and photographs. Amazing how crippled one is when IT goes down in this way. Am pondering getting a Mac Air, one reason being that my back is a bit of a problem and doesn’t need the weight of a 15″ MacBook pro, but also because the Air’s flash memory may be a bit more robust (no moving parts) when transported in my bike’s panniers.

With police helicopter hovering overhead

Forum 1 Forum 2: me, Sam, Alex (Nick) Forum 3: me, Sam, Alex

Across this evening to the Forum for the Future Christmas party, co-hosted by Interbrand in the Strand. A police helicopter hovered overhead, its spotlight beaming down towards Trafalgar Square, where the student protests were continuing – huge numbers had streamed past our office during the afternoon, down Southampton Row. very much struck by the fact that those who founded and led the environmental movement decades back are now moving into the mainstream, while a new angry generation is surfacing in the streets.

Artistic sit-in

Animated audience Fill our minds Occupied

Spoke at a Royal College of Arts ‘Sustain Talks III’ session, with Michael Pawlyn and John Grant, moderated by Joe Kerr–and with a fascinating opening presentation by James Wignall. Very lively. Toss-up as to whether we spoke in the conference room or in the area that the students were occupying: in the end, we did it in the conference room, but had a drink with the occupying students afterwards.

And of Hyde Park

Hyde Park 1 Hyde Park 2 Hyde Park 3

We went to a private view in Shepherd’s Market of Alan Kingsbury’s paintings. Elaine had bought a painting called Rover on the Riva. Walked back to Hyde Park Corner, stopping to admire the memorials and general statuary.