Journal

Just touching down after experiencing probably the best Sixties exhibition ever: Revolution: Records and Rebels, at the V&A. As Elaine and I were leaving, I wrote a message in the Visitors’ Book: “Remembered so much that I can’t have been there!”

The flashbacks were continuous: Beatles, Stones, Byrds, Fairport Convention (with at least four of their album covers displayed, including What We Did On Our Holidays, with the Essex University towers in the background and Martin Lindsay peering over the battlements), the My Lai massacre and the  Kent State killings, Woodstock, Jimmie Hendrix’s rendition of the Star Spangled Banner, tassled buckskin jackets, The fool poised I have in my study, Stewart Brand in his feathered hat, The Whole Earth Catalog, Moshie Safdie, Buckminster Fuller, and so ever on.

Outside the exhibition, there was a stand for children to write their own protest posters and banners. I liked the WE WANT “More of Everything!” banner on display. When I asked a young woman running the stand what her favourite was, she said it was: WE WANT “More Waffles, Less Broccoli!” That would have been a winner, even back in the day …

Yesterday, I finished Apex, the third novel in the Nexus Trilogy by Ramez Naam, who met briefly at the VERGE event we both spoke at a few weeks back in Santa Clara. Given to me a couple of months back by Sam (Lakha).

It’s a long time since I have enjoyed a science fiction series so much, here both because of the basic notion of a drug (Nexus) that connects human minds in a 2040s version of the Internet and because of the fast-paced narrative involving characters one actually cares about.

Including, weirdly, by the end, the AI devil incarnate.

Confess I ended the book in tears. The closest books I have read, in terms of conjuring an alternate reality, have been Frank Herbert’s Dune – and a few of the sequels. 30 years after his death, Herbert still ranks as the sci-fi author I have learned most from, to date.

Here’s an interview by Anjali Ramachandran of Other Valleys, just posted – which nicely captures some of the stuff in my brain at the moment.

Had a wonderful conversation with Esther Dyson at the Zouk Capital dinner on Monday. Yesterday she sent me a link to this image of Richard and I at the B Team launch several years back, from the BBC coverage.

Feels a lifetime ago. And my main memory of chairing the event was that, whereas I had imagined the event might follow the piratical rules of a Blackbeard (or at least Yellowbeard), it sometimes felt more like the Royal Navy in the days of the lash and yardarm.

Probably dictated by the need to beam out the launch to tight timescales to hundreds of parallel events around the world …

Covestro were certainly taking their “Colourful” mission seriously at this year’s K-Fair in Düsseldorf. (Their other two core values are “Curious” and “Courageous”.) Exciting to be part of it. Very impressed by the student projects that formed a core part of the Covestro exhibits.

Got to meet Bertrand Piccard of the Solar Impulse for the first time, over lunch, and then did a lively session in the afternoon on “Sustainability’ with Richard Northcote of Covestro, Martin Stuchtey of SystemIQ and Jean-Marc de Royere of Air Liquide.