Search Results for: Tim elkington

Prime Minister Gillard  Brooke Corte and Peter Shergold crank up for ‘Social Business’ Ready to go

Among the media things I have done in Australia this time, I recorded earlier today an interview to air on the Qantas in-flight radio channel in December, and then went on with Jeni from the Centre for Social Impact to record a Sky TV panel discussion for their Social Business programme, hosted by Brooke Corte and Peter Shergold. View the discussion here.

P&O dawn: the view this morning Harbour Bridge Opera House 1 Opera House 2 Opera House 3 – with a pair of Asian hoodies echoing the building Opera House 4 Opera House 5: Japanese girl contemplates an icon Botanical Gardens 1: giant Ficus trees Botanical Gardens 2: graffiti in bamboo Botanical Gardens 3: Pan parties Botanical Gardens 4 Botanical Garden fruit bats/flying foxes: they’re killing trees and on the verge of being evicted Woolloomooloo/Finger Wharf 1 Woolloomooloo/Finger Wharf 2: Teddy Bear Woolloomooloo/Finger Wharf 3: Gallipoli Woolloomooloo/Finger Wharf 4: handkerchief Woolloomooloo/Finger Wharf 5 Woolloomooloo/Finger Wharf 6: Arrivals and Departures Woolloomooloo/Finger Wharf 7: Oldsmobile Wedding party at Circular Quay

Read much of William Gibson’s new book Zero History on the Qantas flights to Hong Kong and then on to Sydney, yesterday. History was all around, partly because I have been mugging up on the history of Qantas itself for a speech for the Qantas Foundation on Tuesday, and partly because Sydney brims over with history – both prior to discovery by Europeans and after.

Discovering a vast P&O liner moored across from our hotel this morning, I wondered what Captain James Cook would have made of its scale if it had come sailing out of the harbour towards him when he first arrived. It had rained heavily in the night and dense curtains of rain were visible early on, but the day cleared up later and eventually became distinctly summery. A lot more Chinese in the hotel and the streets than I remember from previous visits – and weddings of all denominations were everywhere to be seen across town today.

We walked around the wonderful Botanical Gardens, marvelling at the size of the Ficus trees – and at the number of the ibises. Elaine’s first time in Australia. Then a delightful lunch at the Art Gallery of New South Wales, where the treasures ranged from Aboriginal woven eel traps through to paintings by J.W. Waterhouse. Had a nice glass of white wine from the delightfully named Hay Shed Hill winery.

Then back down the hill to the harbour and to Woolloomooloo, where we walked along the waterfront. Here, on a previous visit with the Murray Edmonds tour, we had bumped into a bevy of very attractive Miss Earth contestants, enjoying a delightful exchange of views. (Oddly, a few weeks ago I had a request from California for a copy of one of my photos that appeared on this blog at the time, showing Bob Adams of IDEO gallantly engaging some of the Misses Earth.)  See September 19 2006 entry, here.

Finger Wharf is dramatic, but tinged with the memories of all those who came and went through here, including immigrants arriving and soldiers leaving for two World Wars, including the Gallipoli disaster that helped forge Australia as a modern nation. Very struck by the etched glass panels in various parts of the building – and by the tribute set into the planked floor at one of the arrival gates, showing a man in uniform, a woman waving goodbye and a child holding a teddy bear.

A boy waving farewell to his father or older brother in WWI could so easily have ended up shipping out for WWII. This city wears its history well.

And now to finish preparing for the presentations I have to do here and in Melbourne, this week and next.

Heythrop Park 1 Heythrop Park  2 Heythrop Park 3 Heythrop Park  4 Heythrop Park 5 Heythrop Park 6 Heythrop Park 7 Heythrop Park 8

Got up ferociously early to drive west, beyond Oxford, to Heythrop Park, near Entstone. Lovely morning, with early morning mist hanging over the landscape, right through to Entstone. Was speaking at an SAP conference on the theme of ‘sustainable utilities’. First time I have used Apple’s Keynote presentation software successfully, having had a hiccup at the National Grid a few days back, which forced me to rewrite that slide deck in short order in PowerPoint.

One of my messages was that the very fact that companies like Unilever (see previous entry) are committed to buying 100% of their ingredients from sustainable sources by 2020 spotlights a potentially huge market for software and related services to support the growing consumer and business-to-bussiness customer appetite for through-the-supply-chain traceability.

Had a lovely walk around the grounds, once I was sure the presentation would work, with a heron croaking wonderfully in the woods and the mist adding a sense of deep, Agatha-Christie-like mystery to the proceedings. Glorious to watch the red kites spiralling over the landscape as I drove to and from.

Before 1 Before 2 Michael Portillo in full flow Alan Sugar and Michael Portillo Mervyn Jones, Chairman of Aquamarine Power

Across to the Lancaster Hotel in heavy rain for the Director of the Year Awards, organised by the Institute of Directors. Found myself on a table right at the front with people from the Director magazine team, including Richard Cree. I had been one of the judges for the Director of the Year for Environmental Leadership Award.

Michael Portillo was an excellent chairman of the event, though I don’t always subscribe to his politics. He made a delightful comparison between the social dynamics of a meerkat group he had been involved in filming recently for a documentary (in which the dominant female chases other females out into the desert to die, and eats their pups, her system flooded with testosterone) and his time with Mrs Thatcher. I’m sure he’s told the tale before …

In any event, the short-list for the Environmental Leadership Award was: Mervyn Jones of Aquamarine Power, Duncan Goose of Global Ethics, Ian Jackson of Imerja, Nick Heaton of EnviroVent, Julian Dennis of Wessex Water and Pat McGarry of the Henderson Group. Was pleased when Aquamarine Power got the Award: they had come top of my list.

Aquamarine Power is a wave energy company, who I first came across during a cleantech tour of California. They have head offices in Edinburgh, Scotland and further operations in Orkney and Northern Ireland.  The company is developing its flagship technology, an innovative hydro-electric wave energy converter, known as Oyster.  Aquamarine Power’s goal is to develop commercial Oyster wave farms around the world.

The first demonstration-scale Oyster has been successfully deployed at sea at the European Marine Energy Centre (EMEC) in Orkney, Scotland and was officially launched by Scotland’s First Minister Alex Salmond MP, MSP in November 2009 when it began producing power to the National Grid to power homes in Orkney and beyond. 

Oyster wave energy device

Caroline’s studio (detail)

Drove across to Little Rissington yesterday, the countryside looking absolutely ravishing in the autumnal sun, with blue skies and red kites and gliders soaring as I headed through the Chilterns gap. Listening to The Beatles’ Love album, with ‘Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds’ playing as I slip off the A40 and down what the girls call “The Rabbit Hole” towards Burford, beautifully lit by the slanting sun.

Passed a very recent crash in the notorious dip between Burford and Stow-on-the-Wold, pick up double cream at the Co-op at the old RAF station on the top of the hill, before descending into Little Rissington, the trees and landscape wonderfully illuminated. A big hole in the day: Sam (Lakha), who was meant to come, but had to cry off at the last moment because of back problems.

Late in the day, I filmed Pat and Tim with my Leica D-Lux 4, the first time I have used it in this way. The quality of the images and the sound is extraordinary. They both get into the spirit, remembering how they first met at Castle Gogar, outside Edinburgh, and recount the early days of their marriage, including Mill Cottage, where I was born. Apparently, the reason Tim went across to Gogar from the nearby RAF base, which he commanded at the time, was to negotiate the use of some prisoners of war to clear barbed wire from a nearby quarry, apparently.  

We cycled from barbed wire to cheese wire, with Caroline saying how as a child she and a neighbour, Brian Lane, had tried to work out how they could decapitate members of the local fox hunt with wire suspended across the road. Brian had a pet fox, which Tim had found in our garden – and Brian’s mother, Mary, had once stood in the gap between their house and the next armed with a broom, batting away fox-hounds that tried to get through to Brian’s pet.

Caroline was teaching Marina to paint, so I spent a little time up in her studio, where, as ever, I was taken by her collection of found objects. Wonderful meals – and I came away with a trio of freshly-picked corncobs, huge tomatoes from the greenhouse, and some of Caroline’s squash from her cache in the barn.

As I came out to drive home, a brilliant Moon was hanging over Bobble Hill – and both Mars and Venus were prominent in the star-studded sky. A very easy drive home, with the Moon a constant companion, and small mammals darting across the road in the headlights.

Speaking to Caroline this morning, she reported that Hill House had seemed very quiet when she awoke this morning. She thought Tim must be out in one of the gardens, but then realised that he must be further afield, because “he emanates” – and she couldn’t detect the emanations. Indeed he does. In fact he had been driven off to yet another Battle of Britain signing ceremony.

She and I also discussed our conversation yesterday about who we we would resurrect if he had godly powers. Talking it through with Pat too, we all concluded that top of the list would be Tim’s mother Isabel. She emanated, too. What an extraordinary woman she was – and how I wish I could have an hour or two to fill her in on everything that has happened since she died. One of the things I wish I had recorded on the Leica yesterday was the story of how she had watched him being shot down over Chichester Harbour through her second husband Carey’s Navy binoculars.

Elaine still in Canada, so am listening to music through headphones as I work away today, at the moment it’s The Velvet Underground and their extraordinary track, ‘Beginning to See the Light’, which is part of the loop we have been playing in the office this past week. And, in a way, I think I am.

Studio (detail, 2) Studio (detail, 3)