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10 years on the blogging front

Chez Zedel

Just back from The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Nighttime, with Elaine and American friends Jim and Heather Salzman. The original book was published 10 years ago, in May 2003, and it struck me that I began this blog series exactly 10 years ago, in September 2013, with an entry on our visit to the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution on Cape Cod. And, as chance would have it, Heather asked us earlier this evening about a painting by Caroline (Elkington) in the kitchen of Elaine walking along the seahore near Wellfeet, on Cape Cod, that same year.

Tim (seated) and BBC film crew pause as plane flies by

With the build-up to the seventieth anniversary of the Battle Britain, I have been fielding a number of interview requests for my father, Tim. He did a filmed interview this week, to screen in September. Doesn’t much like interviews – says he didn’t do much and can’t remember much – but he did and does, and I think it’s great that there is such interest these days.

What concerns me, though, is that we tend to overlook the at-least-as-heroic efforts of people like the bomb disposal experts, the firemen, the convoy crews, the submariners and – because the bombing of Germany has come to be seen as overkill – the bomber crews. They may not have had such sexy (by the standards of the day) uniforms, but we should remember them, too.

Skateboarders, last night Nick Parker in full flow Propellor outside 100 Spear, 1 Propellor, 2 Illumination, British Consulate UK Trade & Investment Minis Jennifer (Biringer) Patrin (Watanatada) and I Wattson – offered by DIY Kyoto, one of the Mission’s 19 UK cleantech firms James (Lawn), Jaclyn (Mason), Oli (Barrett) and Bronwyn (Kunhardt)

First full day of the Cleantech Forum, which provided a huge amount nof grist for the six columns I have to write on Sunday – on which more anon. In the evening, we made our way across to the British Consulate for a wonderful reception to mark the ending of the Clean & Cool Mission, with participants radiantly happy about the collective adventure we have been on this past week.

My congratulations to Brownyn and James of Polecat, Oli who compered, Richard Miller of the UK Technology Strategy Board, whose support was crucial, and Jaclyn Mason of UK Technology & Investment, based in San Francisco.

Am more than ever determined to see how SustainAbility (already based in San Francisco, in the form of Jennifer Biringer and Patrin Watanatada) and Volans can do to help drive and shape the sustainability movement in this part of the world.

 

As I prepare 5th Avenue to the Apple Store Whale skeleton in MOMA Brigitte Mechanical dragonfly MOMA view 1 Calder mobile Whale, again Reminiscent of Star Wars Giamcometti shadow Monet 1 Monet 10 MOMA view 2

Back this morning from New York, where I had spent Friday with the Nestle Creating Shared Value Advisory Board. Some of the time was spent on developing a CSV paper by Michael Porter and Mark Kramer, some on a new CSV Prize, to be announced next year, and part on a major CSV event, again for next year. Yesterday, I spent a fair few hours out and about, including a visit to MOMA, where I loved the Gabriel Orozco whale. But, for me at least, the runaway highlight was spending time in the Monet gallery, where the sheer scale and ambition of his water lily paintings really drew me in. Wonderful how the fingerlings and larger fish flit below the surface of the paint.

Store 1 Store 2 Store 3

Elaine, Sam and I headed across to Hammersmith this morning to check through SustainAbility’s storeroom in a repository that used to be a Ford factory. Weird going through crate after crate of files, papers, reports and books dating back up to 22 years.

Will drive in and collect the stuff in a few days, including about 15 framed posters from environmental campaigns from around the world. I had picked them up as I travelled, including two giant Body Shop posters given to me by Anita Roddick. They occupied pride of place in SustainAbility offices in Ladbroke Grove, Kensington High Street and Knightsbridge – overlooking Hyde Park. By the time we reached Bedford Row, Holborn, the aesthetic had begun to change.

Despite reclaiming a fair few cratefuls, we will still have to send quite a lot of potentially interesting stuff to landfill. Which has me thinking that we really need to put together some form of museum of environmentalism, green politics, sustainability, cleantech and so on – an idea that has been bubbling in my brain for a couple of decades, but there’s beginning to be a sense of now or never.