Search Results for: Tim elkington

Andrea and Barry Coleman   Pamela and Charmian

 

Day started with a brainstorm session at SustainAbility on the future of our accountability, reporting and stakeholder engagement work – a timely and vibrant discussion.  Then, after drafting an article or two, walked across to Volans for a session with Andrea and Barry Coleman of Riders for Health.  They updated our team on some of the stuff they are now doing and on their plans for the future.  I really love what they do – and it was interesting that at last night’s dinner someone from a major mainstream organisation waxed lyrical about them, without initially knowing that we knew them. 

A fairly energetic day, starting with a train trip down to Newdigate for a meeting of the Trustees of the Environment Foundation, hosted by (Sir) Geoffrey Chandler.  Others there were Malcolm Aickin, Ian Christie, John Lotherington (of the 21st Century Trust), Tim O’Donovan and Halina Ward.  A key decision was to push forward with the theme of ‘Democracy & Sustainability’.  Geoffrey’s wife Lucy and their dog Pickles ducked in and out during the day, as did a Great Spotted Woodpecker.  

Later, Tim drove me across  to Dorking station for the trip back to London, where I met Elaine in Berkeley Square, before heading to the Lansdowne Club, to meet Melody Haller (who I first encountered at a Wall Street Journal conference in Santa Barbara, California) earlier this year, and her husband Michael (Tyler).  A fascinating group of people, working in areas as diverse as advanced silicon technologies and neuroscience. 

I have always had antibodies to the world of clubs, but was fascimated when Michael noted that Britain had conceded independence to the United States in the Treaty of Paris, drawn up with Benjamin Franklin in this building’s Round Room.  Sadly, we were all too busy talking to take up his offer of a guided tour. 

Malcolm and Foundation files dating back to the Year Dot   Halina and Pickles   Some Chandler trees Posted at 11:45:00 p.m. on Wednesday, 27 August 2008 by John Elkington. Digg | Permalink

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Otto Lilienthal  

Homo Volans; The phrase occurred to me a few months back – and, Googling, I found a number of East European references to Faust Vrancic.  He was brought back to mind yesterday when I read about the exploits of the Swiss airline pilot and adventurer, known as ‘Rocket Man’, who is now significantly closer to becoming the first jet-powered bird man to cross the Channel – and saw the final programme in Andrew Marr’s excellent Britain from Above, in which he took to the skies below a giant parasail.

On the Rocket Man front, as The Times reported yesterday:

“Yves Rossy completed a 10-minute test flight last week with his jet-powered wing strapped to his back. He flew for more than 22 miles, equivalent to a flight from Calais to Dover – the route first flown by Louis Blériot in 1909. The test flight, which had been postponed several times because of engine problems, saw Rossy jump out of a small plane 7,500ft above the town of Bex, in Switzerland. Reaching 180mph, he flew through clear skies to Villeneuve and back. Rossy, wearing a heat-resistant suit similar to those worn by racing drivers, steered by shifting his weight or simply turning his head and shoulders. He deployed two parachutes at 5,000ft and 4,000ft to land at Bex airfield with two litres of fuel left. Rossy used an 8ft carbon-fibre wing powered by four jet engines.”

A sad concatenation, with the news of the Madrid air crash cheek-by-jowl with the article on Rossy.

Meanwhile, Marr’s parasail reminded me of the early experiments on parachutes and wings, including those by Vrancic.  He apparently collaborated with Tycho Brache and Johannes Keppler, was fluent in at least seven languages and is now best known for his book of inventions in Machinae Novae, published in Venice in 1595. Among his numerous inventions the most famous is the parachute, which he tested in Venice.

 

 Vrancic’s parachute

 

Whenever I attempt to sum up where we stand with Volans, the image that comes to mind is that of Otto Lilienthal, the early pioneer of aviation, whose exploits inpsired me to do several pen-and-ink drawings back in the early 1970s.

The image of Lilienthal that comes most readily to my mind

 

When I came into the environmental movement in the 1960s, the emblem of what we are losing that meant most to me was the humpback whale.  Later, in the 1980s, I played The Songs of the Humpback Whale – which I had bought way back in 1970 – to Gaia and Hania in the dark when they were very young, songs recorded by Dr Roger Payne.  For more on all of this, see Wikipedia entry.  Today, happily, The Times reports that humpback numbers are back up to around 40,000, suggesting that the magnificent creatures have managed to haul themselves back from the edge of the precipice.  But climate change, by impact ingthe evailability of food, particularly krill, could still reverse the process.

Courtesy of BBC

Just watched Andrew Marr present two quite stunning programmes, on BBC1 and BBC2, the first on Britain from Above, the second on London ditto.  Seeing the pulsing webs of energy, telecommunications and road, air and sea traffic reminded me of the ecosystemic perspectives on landscapes and cities that first drew me to planning in the early 1970s – and then the Abercrombie Plan sequences in the London programme reminded me of some of the reasons why I fled the discipline once I had my M. Phil. 

The sequences of London’s Docklands at the same time prompted memories of my solo jaunts around the derelict docks, with my Leica M3, including one early morning horror where I found myself alone in an area of warehousing, triangulated upon by three guard-dogs – two Alsatians and a Doberman.  I had to stand in the same spot for an unconscionable time before their owner arrived to liberate me – and chastise me for trespassing.

The sequence of the Luftwaffe bombing the docks was extraordinary, with the aerial photographs catching one stick of bombs splashing into the Thames, but also reminding me of the stick that went along our road in Barnes – and of the day when Elaine was turned out of the house, maybe six or seven years ago, when neighbours digging a hole for a tree about five feet from our kitchen found an unexploded bomb from that same stick.

Some of the best television I have seen in a very long time.