Search Results for: Tim elkington

A day of rampant cabbages and Peacock butterflies

Tim and Pat Cabbage in the garden behind the barn Pat contemplates the beans One of Caroline’s cron cobs served for supper A bowl of cherry tomatoes

A day in Little Rissington, with much of the family. Elaine saw the buddleia bush completely covered in peacock butterflies, which was encouraging. We drove back to London very late, with a huge haul of vegetables from the garden. Joyous.

90 and still up in the air

Tim in back seat of spotter plane Little Rissington from the air

Shortly after his 90th birthday, my father Tim has been up there again – this time doodling around the landscape at 80mph in the same sort of spotter plane that he was en route to fly over the planned Burma seaborne landings in 1945, but WWII ended when he was only part-way, in Ceylon, I think. And a perfectly horrid job it would have been, too, once again with a very high mortality rate for pilots as they puttered overhead the Japanese. The aircraft he was flown around Little Rissington in had a patched bullet hole in its fuselage, underscoring the point.

Wednesday, it must have been Riyadh

Pre-speakers Paul Hawken’s session Greenovation session, including Paul Hawken, Janine Benyus and Nick Parker Bill Clinton’s session Janine, Mabel and Sally

First time I have been in Saudi Arabia, as it was in Abu Dhabi. Fascinated by the region, but the real opportunity in Riyadh turned out to be time spent with the likes of Paul Hawken of OneSun Solar, Janine Benyus of the Biomimicry Guild, Nick Parker of the Cleantech Group, Sally Osberg of the Skoll Foundation and Mabel van Oranje of The Elders. Spent pretty much all the time in the Four Seasons Hotel, doing sessions and meeting people.

Chaired a plenary session with Fadi Ghandour of Aramex, Professor Wu Qing, People’s Deputy at the Beijing People’s Congress, and Magatte Wade of The Tiosanno Tribe. Magic moment when I greeted the audience with Salam alicum – and it seemed that the whole lot of them answered back. That said, it was clear that there remains a fair gap between the Saudis and the incomers on many of these agendas. Striking example was the Greenovation session, where the backdrop to several of those mentioned above was a series of centre-pivot irrigation systems, notorious for quarrying fossil water from aquifers.

Enormously impressive session by Bill Clinton, which had me tweeting energetically (@Volandia), but striking how he sucks the oxygen out of the surroundings. The session that followed his struggled to get airborne, with a constant flashing of cameras from behind the scenes where he was being feted. A bit like the electrical storm that flashed through last night, the rain still crashing down as I headed out to the airport today with a nice driver from Syria.

In the Museum of Brands

Quality Nerve food Stampede Black tie 1 Black tie 2 Normal tied 1 Normal tied 2 Green tie: Geoff (Lye) sandwiched between Geoff Kendall and his brother Gary

My sister Tessa’s fiftieth birthday today: we spoke ahead of her flying to Abu Dhabi. This evening, 15-or-so of us were all trucked across to the Museum of Brands for the SustainAbility Christmas party this evening in a fleet of hybrid cabs, albeit in a sometimes near-solid-state traffic jam, caused by the wrong sort of snow. Joint session with Volans, though with others currently overseas (on holiday or, in Amy’s case, marooned by snow in Munich) Volans was down to Sam, Jacqueline (Lim) and I. Founded by Robert Opie, the museum is fascinating, a maze of displays of a total of 12,000 branded products that have been and are the environment for generations of Britons. Wonderful evening.

I wish I could fly

Kids Company 1 Kids Company 2 Kids Company 3 Kids Company 4

Day started in Southwark, with light snow falling, at Kids Company building at 38-40 Blackfriars Road. Glorious, moving artwork by children, including ‘I Wish’ clouds. Given the Volans mission of helping the future take flight, I was particularly touched by the ‘I wish I could fly’ one. This was a meeting of the Trustees of Virgin Unite, together with a number of MDs of Virgin businesses. Very stimulating discussion. I spoke alongside Chris West of the Shell Foundation and Heerad Sabeti of Fourth Sector.

Then back to Volans for series of meetings, including sessions with the likes of Tetrapak and Earthscan, then across to Green Park for a meeting with Tellus Mater Foundation. Heading back to Barnes, I heard that our bid for a session on ageing at the 2011 Skoll World Forum has been successful, which is encouraging.