Journal

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.

PM in full flow

Spent much of the morning at a NESTA summit on innovation in the public service sector, launching The Lab.  All going quite well until Gordon Brown and entourage crashed into the proceedings.  In the context of what Team Obama are aiming to do in the USA, the Brownian offerings seemed lacklustre.  I left.  Then went across to Oxford to speak at the Said Business School.  Supper with Pamela (Hartigan) and Geoff (Lye), then home.  The ruffian count on the train was uncomfortably high, but I buried myself in the latest issue of Fast Company, which spotlights the Fast Company 50 innovative companies.  Five of them also appear in our Phoenix 50, which will be announced at the Said Business School during the Skoll World Forum at the end of the month.

Bike Wake Door to GRI Face 3 Flags 1 3 flags 2 Graffiti Man in workshop Nelmara Arbex and Ignasi Carreras GRI team BlackBerry (and similar) moment Declarative group 1 Declarative group 2

Back late yesterday from a couple of days in Amsterdam, with the Board of the Global Reporting Initiative (GRI), chaired by (Judge) Mervyn King of South Africa.  Bumped into several people I knew while arriving in and walking around the city, including Hein Sas and then Franklin van Beuningen of GreenPartners.  (Little sleep in the hotel on the second night, when the street outside the Eden Rembrandt Square Hotel seemed to be full of screamers and shouters from nightfall to dawn.  When I asked the receptionist whether this was normal, he said yes.  Steer clear of this hotel if you can, ask for a room at the back or on the top floor or wear noise-canceling headphones to sleep.) Still, the wonderful GRI team proved to be fatigue-canceling.  Indeed, the two days were a forceful reminder–if reminder were needed–of just how important transparency and reporting can be.  We ended by drafting a fairly energetic Declaration that will hopefully see the light of day.