How slow I have been to realise how often I am wrong!

I am very slow to get things. It’s a me thing, not a dad thing. In the last few months have learnt a few really important lessons. I am wrong about lots of things (not everything) and I am finding anybody who cannot admit that about themselves very, very annoying. So what? You say.

I have spent most of my working life in the public sector. Mostly having fun and trying to do my bit to get it to work better. To have a focus on leading the way, serving the customer, user, tax payer, what ever the appropriate label is at the time. Making a difference, helping people to enjoy their lives, get more out of what’s on their doorstep, feel and be part of a community, etc. All the apple pie stuff. Pretty much without exception I thought I was in the right place doing the right thing.

Over the last eight years the lack of the public sectors ability to change and actually DO all the above has frustrated me and on occasions made me very cross. Sorry if I was ever unreasonably cross at you, it wasn’t personal but it does happen.

There are lots of perfectly reasonable people in the public sector, many work very hard doing some pretty difficult jobs, most of which we wouldn’t want done by anybody else. That means you have to really want to be a social worker because you will never be well paid or celebrated, that’s just the way it is. The same applies to the basic back office paper pusher that make civil society function. Planners are celebrated by those who hate wind farms when they stop them and reviled by those who see the need at the same time. It’s a tough job and I doubt if there is a planner in the world who has not been on the end of a political lobby over almost every decision they make.

Its no fun, its not right but it is the cost of having some sort of functioning local democracy. We must never ignore it and always try to improve it.

For every hard working person here are 20 in employment “alpha state”, on auto pilot just getting to the end of the day to go and live the rest of their lives. Is that bad, no, there are even more flipping burgers and stacking shelves, driving vans, picking mail order items in a vast shed or answering the phone in an anonymous box, both in some middle earth, peri-urban ghost land.

What’s my point? Simple climate change, sustainable communities, real social justice will not be delivered by the public sector. As government department manger said recently “I head up sustainable procurement and I have 3 staff to help me. On the other side of the office is the sustainable policy team, there 40 of them. In government we can right policy but only you, the private sector, can deliver it”

So governments of all shapes and sizes, national, international and I hope local are in Copenhagen. There are a few reps from industry but not enough. It is those in the private sector who make, sell and sustain all things that we use that will solve all the above. We as consumers will influence them, as will regulators. Am I getting old or has the frequency of that word use in the lexicon increased in the last 20 years? But it will be possible to be in business and not change for at least anther 20 years. Probably not big business and defiantly not if you are a government contractor (the will be lots more of those as we search for even greater efficiencies) but there are many small and medium size enterprises across the northern hemisphere who have a poor safety record after 50 years of trying to kill fewer people at work.

I an amazing conversation this morning where we agreed that 30 years ago the cost of 15 deaths on a major construction project was an above he item. Today even talking about it over coffee would have serious career limiting effects in most companies.

Sustainability is not there yet but it is within reach. For me 2010 has to be less think and less blog and lots more DO. If you are looking for a new years resolution forget going to he gym or loosing weight, accept the fact that the collect of parts in the shed will never become the 1968 Triumph Bonneville or boat-tail Alfa spider of your dreams. Instead decide to do lots of little things, tidy out the shed, switch of the light, take the train, walk, ride the bike you found at the back of the shed (it just needs the tyres pumping up). For me its to get my business to put the same time and thought into environmental action as we do into safety. We believe in zero harm to people, mostly staff but anyone else we come across, mostly at work but we like people to come to office with all there fingers, no back injury, from 2010 we need to believe in zero environmental harm. Not only must we believe and practice 360 degree zero harm but so must our contractors.

That’s a big DO, should keep me out of trouble for a while.

Lessons learnt in 2009.

· I am wrong, so often its fun, so are you, admit it, its very empowering.

· Business will get us out of the hole we are in not government. Big or small they are better talkers than actors.

· Go hug a social worker, they won’t that you and they may prosecute you but why not try.

· Gotta Do not think.

What have you learnt?

Copenhagen, Dicky Drax, The Carbon Army, Life and Boris. A busy weekend.

So Obama is going to the end of the Copenhagen not the beginning, or is the beginning and the end? Not sure but what’s your view of the best time to be at a meeting. I always recon its all the way through if it important. I am not that familiar with the way these COP’s work but I suspect there are endless meetings inside meetings, at the side of meetings and over the top of meetings. Heaven help anybody you actually attends as they could end in the wrong place. I am sure that is what happened to “W” at the talks he attended. The bar is always a big draw. Incidentally has George W Bush created his own super élite club for those who are universally recognised, not just by there Christian names, but by just one letter?

I got in a black cab this week and asked for City Hall, the cabbie asked

“Which one?”

“Boris’s house.”

“Right you are”

10 minutes latter we were at the right place. Opps I used a cab not public transport, sorry but I was late and it was raining. Life just gets in the way some times.

That is my point, it was in the last blog and it will be until someone gets the message. Sadly the first serious Politian to actually talk realistically about incentivising people to change has been the man Cameron. The Greens, who you would have thought might have been leaders in this matter are stubbornly sticking to their fascist big stick approach of legislation and regulation.

Today the Tories were trying to convince anyone listening that the best way was to hand over predicted savings to householders once an energy saving installation was commissioned rather than leave us to benefit from the savings in our time. I can see lots of people signing up to that but the opportunity for fraud is enormous. Credibility is vital in this sort of thing, the leaked e-mails from UEA have dented the scientific consensus, hopefully a flesh wound and not fatal.

Back to my point if we are to see the much need change take place in our day to day life we need to make it easy and better still fun. Climate change is fun as fun! That should put the Daily Mail, Telegraph and Lord Lawson on the back foot.

On the much loved subject of the ranting Daily Fail can I point you all to http://tinyurl.com/yaaexgf for a very un-Fail outing of Cameron Uber De-Toff, Richard Grosvenor Plunkett-Ernle-Erle-Drax. If there was ever a made up name (badly) that has to be it, but its real!!!. The overwhelming image in my mind is of a sinister, drunken highwayman plotting world domination or the mugging of Horace Walpole, from a hi-tech lair buried in a volcano. Or have I been watching to many movies.

Dicky Drax to his mates, which include “just call me Dave”, appears to be a former Guardsmen and BBC Journo who now occupies himself looking after his Dorset Estate.

He is the PPC for Dorset South which according to the Fail is an ultra marginal and he is shoe in. Dorset South is the constituency of Employment Minister Jim Knight who increased his majority from a super thin 153 to a more comfortable 1,812. Helped in some part by the Pm launching the election in Weymouth and some very hard working election staff who really did get the vote out.

Jim has done a fantastic job for Dorset as well as serving as a minister for most of the past 4 years. I doubt very much if Drax will be able to do any better. South Dorset stick to the man you know with one the best records in the Commons. Stick with Jim.

Moving on the sounder ground can I point you all to The Carbon Army. BTCV are running 3,000 days of positive carbon action. Go to http://www2.btcv.org.uk/display/carbonarmy_signup and sign up. It’s probable the best thing you will do that doesn’t need any carbon. BTCV is very close to my heart as above all they deliver in their promises to change peoples lives. If only more promisers could claim that.

I have spent a hour this evening in the company of the BBC’s Life offering in HD. If anything convinces the viewer that we live in an amazing world it’s the sight of 250,000 spider crabs marching to the reef where they will sped their shells and grow a new one. Its an annual migration that is reminiscent of the H.G Wells’s tripods in War of the Worlds as they march across the floor of the pacific and then, after new shells have grown, they march back through a battlefield of discarded bodies and legs. Almost Spartan in its pathos.

To return to our opening hero president Obama for a fleeting final thought. The best party conversations are always in the kitchens so head for the food prep area, behave like a gown up, emboldened by some cheap Chardonnay and promise the earth.

Change, how it can be easy.

The ability to change is in all of us but how do we flick the “change” switch ? Is it just carrot and stick or is there some other way?

I have just had one of those typical business experiences where a huge amount of travelling is done for a short face to face meeting, that in this case was not entirely successful. I went all the way to Inverness for discussions with a supplier to try a resolve an outstanding issue. After less than two hours my colleagues and were on our way back, some progress made but no one very happy.

It’s the travel element of this and my attitude to travel that is exercising me at present. I went by train for the majority of the journey, a bit of car sharing at the other end to link station to office and very short trip in my very small Yaris too my very local station at this end. So I am feeling very smug on that front.

A bit of advanced planning and clever booking on the lovely internet meant the whole thing was done first class for less than the standard flight costs . The first class bit is important, not because I am, but because it enabled me to work for much of the journey.

My view of train travel has changed, I have always enjoyed travelling by train or at least said I did but for some reason I have usually opted to fly or drive. Odd!, yes, why? not sure, something about the ease of booking, some residual glamour that is still attached to flying and a travel desk that does flights but not railways. So why change? Experience and ease.

Somewhere else I have mentioned that if we do want people to change their way of living it has to be easy and sold as easy or worth it. I think trains have got there and now I am an evangelist. In the car journey back to the station we were discussing why, as a business, we did very little train travel and a lot of flying. One of our number trotted out the usual ease, simplicity and cost arguments. I have heard these, and in some cases used them, many times before. But since my trip to The Hague on a train and the amount of work that I did during the journey, I am converted. The great thing about a train journeys, especially long (4 hours plus) ones, is the peace, quiet and therefore concentration that is available. The benefit of the first class option is that even on my return leg, on Friday night from Edinburgh to London, when the rest of the train was packed and the guard constantly reminding people sit in their reserved seats or they would have to stand for the whole journey, the first class cars were busy but civilised and most people were working. All of this for £98.50. There was free WiFi, coffee and tea passing every twenty minutes, at seat service for food etc. The tables are big enough for 4 laptops to be in use at once and there is mains power to keep things going etc. This is better than my office on most days. Very little disturbance, and an atmosphere that encourages one to work. Or is that just me.

Any other form of domestic business travel is madness compared to the reliable, affordable, convenient train service.

My meeting may not have been anywhere near as productive as I had wanted it to be but the journey there and back certainly was.

Book in advance, use the business tools on offer from the train and station operators Lounges, WiFi, tea and coffee, showers etc and access this by travelling with a first class ticket.

If all this was available to the standard class passenger, particularly the peace, quiet and space then I would do that as a preference. On many European trains this is possible, as it is on Eurostar.

Total travel cost of Tisbury to Inverness by train were:

28 miles from office to station claimed at 10p/mile £2.80

Parking Tisbury station: £2.50

Tisbury – Waterloo (first class) £16.00

Tube Fare £1.60

Sleeper Euston – Inverness (first class) £136.00

Collected by colleagues and car share to meeting and then back to Edinburgh

Edinburgh – Kings Cross (first class) £98.50

Tube Fare £1.60

Waterloo – Tisbury (first class) £25.20

5 miles home claimed at 10p per mile £0.50

Total £284.60

Compared too:

38 miles to Southampton Airport £3.80

Parking at Airport £28.00

Return flight to Inverness £274.00

Hotel accommodation in Inverness £75.00

38 miles home £3.80

Total £384.60

The train was £100 cheaper, the whole thing took 30 hours door to door and was productive for 20 of them.

The flight option, if it was do’able (flights from Southampton/Bristol to Inverness are not that frequent) would have taken at as long but the productive time would have been closer to 10 hours.

I will not do this analysis for ever journey and some will not be as cheap or smooth but it has to be the way forward. The last missing piece of the jigsaw is reliable car hire at all stations.

I have changed because I have had a couple of genuinely good and positive experiences. This is the way to get more people to think about their lifestyle and how they can be more sustainable.

Less preaching, more real life relevant examples of how the same or better still more, can be achieved by just being a bit different and thinking near the edge of the box.

Europe's Wild Wonders. Worth a look.

A plug for something is a common site and sound in all our media and I am certain I have unwitting done it many times in this blog.

I this case it is very deliberate. Please go and have a look at www.wild-wonders.com. Under the strapline Unseen. Unexpected. Unforgettable they have commissioned 60 of the best nature photographers in Europe to capture and create astonishing images that celebrate the best the is natural Europe from individual animals, birds and plants, to the most stunning landscapes. All of nature has been brought together in this pan European collection.

I was shown some of the images over dinner last night here at the Europarc conference in Stromstad, Sweden. Yesterday was excursion day and all of us had had a pretty long but exhilarating day, in the clear autumn sunshine that has made this event memorable. However I expect most of us just wanted to sit down eat dinner and get an early night. There was an almost audible sigh when the pa system started up and another Scandinavian with perfect English started talking, “yet another speech, please leave us alone”. The chap on the mic talked about celebrating Europe’s natural wonder and described the Wild Wonders project whilst showing a few of the images.

The tone around our table changed in an instant, Jim Dixon from the Peak National park, Helen Smith for the National Association of Areas of Outstanding Natural Beauty, Ashley Thomas from the Wye Valley AONB and I. are not a hard audience for great photos and even greater places. The thing about this slice of the conference was the positive, accessible and enjoyable tone of the project ad its beliefs.

A great change from my last blog. So go look at the site and its photos, sign up to support it when the exhibition comes to a shopping centre near you and plan to upgrade your phone to a Nokia next year as they will be shipping 500 million of theme with many of these images preloaded. Be inspired to go and enjoy these places and spaces. Hey are there for all of us to enjoy.

P.S have a look at Jim’s blog: http://jimdixon.wordpress.com/ Its not often a public bodies CEO bothers to try a communicate his values, experiences and ambitions to a wider audience in quite such a clear, open and accessible manner.

Eweleaze Farm Campsite Review

Okay we are all back from our week away at Eweleaze. This is a fantastic campsite on Dorset’s Jurassic Coast just east of Weymouth and it lived up its billing in www.Coolcamping, www.beachcampsites, etc. One friend who had been down the week before to see family had suggested that the site had the greatest “reveal” of any he had visited but it was all a disappointment after that. He was right about the reveal, after turning of the Weymouth road one bounces up a farm track and over the brow of the hill to see the site laid out in the distance with the sea, beaches and bays beyond it. Our appreciation of the view lasted longer than many as we had to hone and wait for someone to come a raise the height barrier. A swift service, repeated on our exit at the end.

The track down to the site is equally bumpy and steep. I think a few folk were a little freaked out later in the week as the rain we experienced on Wednesday made the clay/limestone surface turn to an entertaining slurry too slide over. The staff on site did a good job of marshalling cars in and out of the various fields and were firm enough when needed to convince some who wanted to drive back to their tents, that a short walk was the better option. As a result the site stayed green rather than muddy and rutted.

The atmosphere is good, the result of a clash of styles to rival anything found in CERN. A few minutes wandering around will reveal most of the styles in the centre left clothes box from Sienna Miller circa Glastonbury 2004 (battered straw Stetson, Matthew Williamson dress and Hunter wellies) to the dishevelled Guardian reader in black everything, 3 days stubble and rollup. All liberally interspersed with the British middle class on staycation 2009.

The pitches themselves are mostly sloping, the angle will vary from gentle to extreme, the most popular field of the 8 available was the suitably named “Flat Field”. None were called the sheltered field, this is a beachside/clifftop site so kite flying is not normally a problem.

One of the features of the site is the “free” firewood supplied by the owners. This vast pile of landscape gardening waste is more reminiscent of the slums of Mumbai, Manila or Narobi than Dorset but combing over the heap you will find most of the residents and their kids searching for fuel for the evening bonfire. I did my share of rooting around, Eucalyptus and Leylandii are not the greatest burning logs but if old and dry enough do the job. One word of advice it is don’t bother to buy the logs on offer as they are mostly green and wet leylandii wich smokes slowly rather than burns. There is a rent a bale scheme, I say rent as I suspect very few take them home at the end of their holiday. The ones that get broken up are recycled through an old baler to produce more little square bales. “Great for sitting on” is the sale pitch, better as a wind break is the reality. As campers move on there is a very civilized stampede to take custody of their straw stack by those remaining!

The best things about the site are the kittens and puppies. No idea if they can be guaranteed every year, but if you have small kids, and want peace and quiet they are fantastic. My two spent most of their waking hours patiently sitting in huddles of other kids waiting for their turn to hold the kittens or take the puppies for a walk. Whoever has bought these pets can be assured they will be very well socialised.

We had a day on the beach, all shingle but fun. The route down is via a steep path is equipped with a thick rope to slow down descent and speed up ascent. The two beach facing fields have a great, if somewhat bracing view. Both are car free other than set up and drop off. The car population emulates the humans, lots of urban 4x4’s and people carriers with the sizable minority of classic spilt screen VW campers, series I, II, & III Land Rovers and the odd transit van

Best summarised as Glasto without the tunes. If that’s your ting then book early for 2010. We will but I suspect we will also follow Cool Camping for kids advice a try out a couple of the “slow life” sites further west.

Age of Stupid and the lack of laughs in life

I went to see the Aged of Stupid a coupe of days ago, and now I am in Sweden having just listened to so very good speeches about the challenges we all face to maintain and promote the biodiversity of the planet. It’s a tough gig and we , the professional managers, do very little to help ourselves or the biodiversity of the planet. The faces around me all day and all night are long and serious. They take the subject very seriously and worse still they take themselves very seriously.

We will never find a sustainable solution until we find a way of enjoying the natural beauty and depth and variety of the planet.

Biodiversity is not just about conservation biology and great wildlife TV. For billions of people biodiversity is the cornerstone of their life. Its about food, economic activity, freshwater provision, flood protection, healthcare provision etc.

Life everywhere is hard for most people from Manila to Mumbai to Manchester but the common factor in everyone’s life is the moments of joy, happiness and delight. There is very little in this room today.

That worries me more than the depressing messages of Age of Stupid and the loss of biodiversity.

I believe that the outcome shown in the movie can be avoided if we are smart enough to laugh, smile and realise that more people will do more that is beneficial if they are enjoying the result.

We must make the changes we need to happen to be enjoyable not worthy.

My first mountain bike event, horse riders and Epping Forest

So I did my first Mountain Bike event this weekend. Not a race as such but an orienteering type thing, set up by Garmin to promote their bike GPS gadgets. Pretty cool in fact, bit hard to read in the sun or rattling along the trail but once you get the hang of the moving map and the very simple keys, its pretty good. I must confess I think my time (1hr 51m) would have been faster if I had been using a paper OS map but one must move with the times. Orienteering is mostly a head game, with a lot of navigation thrown in to make it interesting. The Garmin unit does the nav and you just have to use your brain.

I didn’t do enough planning, just set out for the nearest check point with a decent points tally. This meant I ended up having the cycle over two valleys’ to collect the last 3 CP’s worth only 10, 20 and 30 points respectively. Out of a total of 360 available.

I have a Garmin 705 strapped to my hybrid which I use to cycle to work and for general trolling about on and off the road around Chilmark and it is great. Thanks Mark for the loan, not certain I want to give it back.

The Cadence and HR data, along with the GPS info can be analysed in the Garmin Training Centre software. This shows time, distance, speed, height gained and lost, and can be transferred back and forth to the bike unit from a laptop. Its is possible to set alarms and waypoints to see if you are getting fitter or in my case just chart ones decline into middle aged spread.

The event was fun as I had borrowed a proper full suspension bike from mate Chopper Dave. My first problem was that the seat post was fused into the seat pillar and being a combination of carbon fibre and aluminium was not going to move even with half a can of Carbon Flo (WD40 for carbon fiber). The very nice men in Stonehenge Cycles put their chances at no better than 50:50 at getting it to move or shatter the post. Not good odds with only 24 hrs to the off. What’s an inch and a half amongst mates, bloody masses in my view. I couldn’t get a full leg stroke on the uphill sections, which is very off-putting. I did a couple of short rides around local tracks to get used to the feel but the Daviator rides with flatties which feel weird after years with riding with eggbeaters, so they were changed. Peddling is a lot simpler with ones feet clipped into the peddles, rather than sitting on top. A bit of fettling improved the indexing and I was off to Queen Elizabeth Country Park for my first decent crack off-road on a proper bike in years. I had had a couple of big days in the Brecon Beacons over the May Bank holiday but that was a spine jarring experience on my hard tailed hybrid.

My first mountain bike (25 years ago) was a Peugeot Crazy Horse, only 10 gears, no indexing and a cast iron frame. I brought it with the intention of it being a great way to get me and my gear to the crags in style, without walking. My first attempt was at Swanage on the Dorest coast with panniers loaded up with ropes and my crag bag on the rack, I spent an entertaining hour falling off every 10 metres trying to get to the top of Boulder Ruckle. It normally took 30 minutes on foot.

I left the bike in the shed after that but kept the cycling to my local trails which at that point were in Epping Forest. Mountain bikers are now in serious conflict with walkers and horse riders in the forest. I think myself and two of my colleagues would have been the only mountain bike rider in 8,000 acres back in 1985/6. The conflict today is a silly one really, lots of intolerance of changing recreation patterns and few bikers being selfish. It’s not unusual that selfishness, dressed up as rights for the masses, is the cause of lots of local difficulty. I went back to Epping Forest to work for a cope of years recently. I had mountain bikers using a trail at the back of my house almost every day. As a family we never had a problem, they called ahead on the poor visibility bits of the downhill and slowed down when ever they saw us, normally out with the kids (then aged 3 & 5). We stood back and allowed them to pass, everybody got on fine.

I don’t doubt that there were incidents when bikers disturbed peoples picnic and walkers stubbornly refused to allow bikes past on narrow paths. I bit of given and take, along with calm discussion without adjectives, is the best way forward. I am sure the entrenched are busy digging in deeper but bikes are not going away. In fact I would suggest the number of people cycling for pleasure is growing. That’s great in my book.

The issue with horse riders is an interesting one. I can understand that bikes can spook the horses. One of the most enjoyable things I had to do during my time there was ride. I arrived as a rusty novice and left a lot better. We had lots is discussion about the issues with horse riders and I must confess to taking quite a hard line on this one. Horse riding is never going to be “safe”, there will always be risks. One of the horses I had to ride in Epping didn’t like white vans and would shy away if she saw one coming her way. This was a very regular occurrence as Epping Forest is in Essex, the home of the white van! I knew this about my mount and rode accordingly. There were riders in the forest who would expect all other users to stand still as they came past in case the horse spooked. One actually told me that her horse was scared of branches, whilst riding in a forest! I understand the risks of riding a bike and horse, and accept them. I understand that I have to mange my own mount and its behaviour. That I could be injured by the actions of another. I expect them to behaviour in a sensible way but I do not expect then to put my needs exclusively before their own and I certainly do not believe it is the responsibility of the land owning authority to de-risk my recreation space. Many of the horse riders in Epping Forest believe the forest authorities should provide an inherently safe place for them to ride. This position is made worse by the generally poor standard of horsemanship exhibited by the majority of riders in the forest. the shining example of good horsemanship came from the forest authorities own mounted staff. Sadly they are being disbanded and retuned to foot and van patrols.

Mountain bikers do need to take extra care around horses but equally the riders need to be aware of the other users and school their mounts to expect cyclists. walkers, white vans and trees. From observation I think the riders are more concerned than the horses and this spooks the animals more than the cyclist, etc.

Back to the present, Chopper has a very nice Trek Epic M5 with lots of XT, XTR and Fox Float front and back. I bit short in the cockpit for me. The front wheel was coming up on most strokes on the big rings and on some of the down hill bits I was very close to acrobatics at times. It’s a large frame and even though we are both the same height I think I could do with an XL.

No idea how long my route ended up being but there were 8 check points spread around QECP and I found them all. The Oregon unit worked well even under the tree canopy. I did spend a while wandering around a nicely thinned stand of beech, swearing at the bloody thing as it insisted I was on top of the CP but it was nowhere to be seen. I found it about 50 meters away and 10 minutes later on the side of a track. Why of course all the other had been, so why would they put this one in the middle of a load of bramble and singers. There were no other tracks in or out so it was all my fault not the hardware’s.

I made it back in one piece, a bit scratched and drenched in sweat but loved it and will be adding a new iron horse to the stable ASAP. The next goal is to find a few equally daft mates and have a crack at Mountain Mayhem. The bike is on its way to the shop for some proper fettling as the indexing drove me mad. Couldn’t get any low gears gear under load, especially the bigger rings. Old blokes like me need lots of mechanical advantage to get up the steeper, longer hills. Dave says he hadn’t noticed as he doesn’t need the big rings. Its not that he is fitter he just gives up and walks sooner!

Baby P, adjectives and tribes

Do I need to saying anything about the latest chapter in the Baby P story? Yes but its quite simple. What happened to the child was appalling, I know enough, I do not need to know anymore about the suffering and the causes. I do not want to know anything more about the people that did these appalling things and equally I do not want to know anything about the people who failed to do something to stop it or didn’t notice when undertaking a diagnosis.

The media appear to think that we do want to know and to this end have worked hard to get all the names into the public domain, or rather in there individual organs, everything reported in the media over the last few days has been available online for months, also reported by the media. To this end their campaign has been a waste of time and money.

We, the tax payer, will now have to pick up the cost of protecting the 3 people whose ID has been revealed, once they get out. The Sun estimates £1.5 Million per annum. I assume this is a massive exaggeration but it will not be cheap and it will go on for a long time. The ability of the media to generate a self propagating story is amazing. The incidence of one feeding story being recycled to feed the next feels a lot like feeding dead cows back to healthy cows and creating mad cow disease, which then jumps species to people. In this case we are creating mad journo disease which is jumping across the gap to infect newspaper readers, radio listeners and TV viewers. Will we never learn.

I am assuming the law suits being brought by the various social workers, managers and medic about the criticism of them and subsequent dismissal will all end up in a huge cost being covered by the publics purse, that assumes they do not win anything but there will be huge costs. Please God tell me that the employers took some decent advice from the employment lawyers and followed due process.

A bad day for the public purse, all driven by a media that loves adjectives almost as much as circulation, BARB and RAJAR figures.

A bright hope is that TATA have found their own funding from commercial banks to get Land Rover Jaguar back on track. A big thank you to Peter Mandelson for not caving in to huge pressure to cough up £400 million in loan guarantees. The idea of active industrialism might actually work. I know the great white hope of Heseltine was a strong advocate of intervention before every meal but government staying out of industry and looking after people in need more directly may be a good idea.

I could do a very long blog on the problems of people sticking their oar in when they have nothing to add but it would be of little value to anyone especially me. I will say that I am constantly surprised at the ability of people to not hear the important things that are said to them and how easily some can take offence at the best intentioned action. We do appear to love to create tribes in our life. Tribes have many good things about them but one of the things they do bring with them is tribal conflict and better still intra tribal tension. A like working in teams of people, I try hard to build teams to deliver objectives, being a firm believer in the Chinese parliament style of decision making. Get a group of smart people and give everyone an equal say, all idea valid and everyone then develops a workable solution. It gets everyone on the same page, shares the risk and builds ownership. Why is it then that some folk will not play but the game goes on and they are asked to come on a half time. Then they have to change the game plan to the one they like or they provoke a pitch invasion too get their own way. No real winners then and lots of time wasted.

By the way, love the sunshine. Lots more please. My enthusiasm for sunshine not rain and cold must be something to do with getting old.

Baby P, adjectives and tribes

Do I need to saying anything about the latest chapter in the Baby P story? Yes but its quite simple. What happened to the child was appalling, I know enough, I do not need to know anymore about the suffering and the causes. I do not want to know anything more about the people that did these appalling things and equally I do not want to know anything about the people who failed to do something to stop it or didn’t notice when undertaking a diagnosis.

The media appear to think that we do want to know and to this end have worked hard to get all the names into the public domain, or rather in there individual organs, everything reported in the media over the last few days has been available online for months, also reported by the media. To this end their campaign has been a waste of time and money.

We, the tax payer, will now have to pick up the cost of protecting the 3 people whose ID has been revealed, once they get out. The Sun estimates £1.5 Million per annum. I assume this is a massive exaggeration but it will not be cheap and it will go on for a long time. The ability of the media to generate a self propagating story is amazing. The incidence of one feeding story being recycled to feed the next feels a lot like feeding dead cows back to healthy cows and creating mad cow disease, which then jumps species to people. In this case we are creating mad journo disease which is jumping across the gap to infect newspaper readers, radio listeners and TV viewers. Will we never learn.

I am assuming the law suits being brought by the various social workers, managers and medic about the criticism of them and subsequent dismissal will all end up in a huge cost being covered by the publics purse, that assumes they do not win anything but there will be huge costs. Please God tell me that the employers took some decent advice from the employment lawyers and followed due process.

A bad day for the public purse, all driven by a media that loves adjectives almost as much as circulation, BARB and RAJAR figures.

A bright hope is that TATA have found their own funding from commercial banks to get Land Rover Jaguar back on track. A big thank you to Peter Mandelson for not caving in to huge pressure to cough up £400 million in loan guarantees. The idea of active industrialism might actually work. I know the great white hope of Heseltine was a strong advocate of intervention before every meal but government staying out of industry and looking after people in need more directly may be a good idea.

I could do a very long blog on the problems of people sticking their oar in when they have nothing to add but it would be of little value to anyone especially me. I will say that I am constantly surprised at the ability of people to not hear the important things that are said to them and how easily some can take offence at the best intentioned action. We do appear to love to create tribes in our life. Tribes have many good things about them but one of the things they do bring with them is tribal conflict and better still intra tribal tension. A like working in teams of people, I try hard to build teams to deliver objectives, being a firm believer in the Chinese parliament style of decision making. Get a group of smart people and give everyone an equal say, all idea valid and everyone then develops a workable solution. It gets everyone on the same page, shares the risk and builds ownership. Why is it then that some folk will not play but the game goes on and they are asked to come on a half time. Then they have to change the game plan to the one they like or they provoke a pitch invasion too get their own way. No real winners then and lots of time wasted.

By the way, love the sunshine. Lots more please. My enthusiasm for sunshine not rain and cold must be something to do with getting old.

Energy conservation, Heat magazine and hoodies

So Gordon is serious about being Green, how I hate the expression “green” . I am very happy with government policies that look after the planets assets and heritage but for me, green has become didactic, even dictatorial, free of choice and slavish to a few “do good” messages. Mostly do less and roll back to the stone age messages, stubbornly refusing to accept and enjoy the benefits that technology and understudying have brought to most of us.

What gets to me at the moment is the equally stubborn refusal of the government and its policy wonks to look down the other end of the telescope on power generation. I am delighted that the government has once again pledged its support to a future that will see a reduction in our carbon production figures and is beginning to get it that we do not have forever and need to act soon. I steer all readers to both the One Hundred Months campaign (http://www.onehundredmonths.org) and the Prince of Wales Rainforest Project (http://www.rainforestsos.org). Big Ears’s project includes a wordy action plan with a brief summary plus many fine words from lots of business leaders, a couple a junior Princes and Robin Williams, all posing with a frog.

Record a message, add a voice and feel connected. Then go on and be connected by encourage those who can change thing to buy a new telescope.

Back to the glassware. As an undergraduate, way back when, before the advent of e-mail, facebook and blogging, we were taught about the fallacy of the much peddled “energy gap”, a construct of the power generating industry. This great piece of hype repeatedly put up graphs showing that if we did not build nuclear power stations and drill for oil in hard to reach places, all the lights would be going out and we would be back in the Victorian era, for as long as society held together that is. The clear indication was that without 240 volts and a few amps available on demand, there would be rioting in the streets and the hording of bottled water, tins of beans and copies of Heat magazine, would be punishable by death. Actually I fully sign up to the later. Stand in any newsagent and see the number of different spins there are on Katie Andrea and Peter Price (a former Blue Peter presenter I think), let alone the long suffering father in the Smiths at Southampton Airport last week, who, bewildered by his daughters avarice forked out £47 in cash too buy the whole news stand of magazines called Now, OK, Next, Left, take a bit, a break, be comatose, Cosmo, Company Top Sante, Red, She and anything else with a red top and a six day bikini wonder diet plan.

The energy gap may exist if we keep plugging in more things and leaving them on, if we continue to allow heat to leak out of poor quality housing stock and we make people live all year round in structures designed for holidays only. The solution too much of our energy needs is conservation not production.

In those undergraduate lecture halls we were informed in the measured tones and with the barely comprehensible maths of a very bright physicist that if the technology of the day was harnessed and more efficient electric motors fitted, better light bulbs used and buildings insulted then there was not a gap but a surplus.

The same is true today. Those who know, say that we could reduce our energy consumption by 60% with a bit of loft lagging, window changing and a few more led lights and gadgets that switch of the TV if there is no one in the room for more than 30 minutes. All existing at market, low unit cost, technology. And not a mad haired boffin in sight.

But it costs money, yes and so does building new nuclear power stations or trying to make coal clean. Clean coal is nonsense, a very alliterative strapline but practical nonsense. Carbon capture and storage works in a lab, it might work in a shed or on an allotment but it has yet to be proven to be effective or even viable at industrial scales. It might work in the future to but conservation works now.

If Green Gordon wants to invest in something then invest in a Green new deal that will create jobs, wealth, and better homes, factories and business as well as reducing the amount of CO2 we produce on a timescale that will make a real difference.

Don’t stop with the wind farms, the offshore tidal stuff, the heat pumps etc but get real about large scale production. The secret is to use less, not produce more.

Is this so simple it’s a no brainer, yes. Will it cost more than the subsidy on offer to the coal and nuclear boys? No. Will it be more visible? Yes. Will it win votes? Yes, with those who get the work and with those that get their homes and workplaces improved? Yes, Yes. Do these people have the influence of the energy generators, construction companies, engineering combines and bankers who will finance the projects? No. Is the good option domed as a result, I hope not. Am I getting fed up with the debate being hi-jacked by those with the quite but deep pocketed voice? You bet I am. If big power and concrete want to make a profit then great, just make it out of new business not old business. In the short term its harder and more risky but in the medium term its stronger. It has the added bonus of there still being nice places left to enjoy all this wealth they have created.

A small plea is this, next time you get involved in a debate over the dinner table, in the pub or with the bloke sitting next too you on the bus, train, cycle lane or plane and they ask “would you prefer a wind turbine, coal burning or nuclear power station at the bottom of your garden” please answer by saying that you would prefer not to have any of them as you see the view over the fence through a triple glazed window, in the thermally efficient house with the “lecie” meter going round so slowly it was hard to see it move. The bill hasn’t got any smaller but neither have the icebergs up north and down south.

When the prospective parliamentary candidates start knocking on your door, invite them in, you do not want to loose the heat from your ground source heat pump. Get them to talk not about energy production but about conservation. Tell them that if they spent the same money on increasing the efficiency of our life then we would be able to get the existing power stations to last longer, run less often and trash the planet less quickly. If they talk about green issues, unless they are from the green party, tell them off and get them to talk about sustainable issues and the politics of climate change. If they adopt the stance of the climate sceptic, chuck them out with the flee in their ear that tells them to be better informed on the issues and to stop reading the Daily Fail.

We can do this and only we can do it, they, those who govern have now convinced me that they cannot, will not and do not want to make the real difference. We have to force them too. It will still be them but they have to be incentivised to do so. My vote has a price tag, it requires them to listen to the sensible voices and do the right thing, even if, like the builders and engineers its hard and takes a while.

One last’ish point. In a discussion a few years ago with people who were looking to invest some money in long term savings, I witnessed a whole debate about the folly of putting money on novel instruments, and by that I mean funds that invested in wind, wave and solar technology, rather than construction and energy, not the normal use of novel it finance terms which is wine, cars and lake fly pate.

Those who took the plunge and went for the eco funds have done well, those investing in bricks and boilers have done a lot less well in the last 12 months.

On a final note, I saw a great debate on Question Time last night. The panel where asked to comment on the Chris Greyling’s (Tory Shadow Home Secretary) idea that all young people who do anti social things should have there mobile phones and bikes confiscated by the police on repeat offending. WHAT?

The audience, the panel, including Tory Vice Chairman Margot James, didn’t really know what to say in response to a ridiculous proposal. Greying was slated by all, most effectively by Trisha Goddard, all pointing out that the demonization of “youth” will have a significant impact on all our futures. Do those in authority, and I included myself in that list, ever stop to think that the generation that will be make the key decisions about our quality of life in old age, are the ones whom we are trying to manage with “mosquito” devices, generalising as “hoodies” dismissing and misunderstanding as the “playstation generation”, etc.

We reap what we sow. I would like to see that begin to be recognised and the statements from platforms across the media being more balanced and acknowledging far more often that the current drop of young people work hard, study long hours, use the tools of life effectively, are not risk averse like their parents and will have to hold both a creaking planet and a creaking society together for most of their adult life. Both of these damaged edifices they will have inherited from their rather sanctimonious, short sited, head in the sand parents.

I fully expect my two to tell me I can sit in the mess I have created, literally and metaphorically, be grateful for what little help they can spare whilst they try to get the people and place of earth back together.

Jacko, Glasto, Blez and The Bomb

Michael Jackson is dead. Glasto was great, if populated by the middle classes, hence the popularity of people carriers with top boxes and car seats eastbound on the 303 all day on Monday. Lucy Kellaway is lamenting being fifty, I am in T5 and Paul Blezard has been creating collectives of bloggers on the south bank.

The railways are being nationalised, the banks have forgotten that they are, the IPPR have decided that being a pacifist is cheaper and I am still in T5.

Oh yes the F1 community are ripping themselves to pieces, the fans are astonished that its about money and the sun is out. According to a number of high brow newspapers London was hotter than Brazil yesterday.

Lets go back to the beginning. Michael Jackson’s death. Is the world a better or worse place as a result of this. I suggest it is unchanged. He might have been a great bloke but as I never had the pleasure I will never know. The songs, videos and dances were amazing, changed the face of pop. Obviously having changed the face of pop the next thing was for the proceeds of pop to change his face.

Glasto was great, not that I was there but the sky box is stuffed to the gunnels of its hard drive with hours of great music. Yes Springsteen was pretty special, the Durbury boots and guesting with Gaslight Anethem were both taking points but then again he is an old pro and knows how to get a crowd on his side. For me the performance of the weekend had to be Pendulum, I had never come across them before but that blend of techno and rock is just what we all need. We had a bit of a night of it on Saturday, a couple of friends came round for sundowners and we all ended up properly pissed in front of Bruce, with the kids coming downstairs telling us to turn the music down as it was one o’clock in the morning and they wanted to go to sleep!
A couple of the bits of Neil Young were special and bang on for the Glasto vibe. Florence and the Machine did it in the JP tent and Blur managed to get on stage as a group and do want they do well, have fun.

During the Bruce stuff M and the guests actually agreed to go to Gasto 2010 so see you there.
Check out Lucy Kellaways blog on the FT website as she is always great and never more so when deep in introspection. She is deep in middle aged mum land having just made 50. Worth a listen to her podcast.

Likewise The lady Magazines new Literary Editor Paul Blazard. The old Editor was non other than Charles Dickens, it has taken a while to find a suitable replacement. Much as I love the great Blez “suitable” is not the world I would use for him. He has a great log at http://libradoodle.blogspot.com. Tune in.

On the subject of tuning in if you are a petrol head go a look up www.sidepodcast.com or better still subscribe to the podcast and enjoy. This is for both supa-sad F1 people who really need to get a life outside there Excel spreadsheet analysis of Fantasy League F1, the real races and anything else that fits in rows and column. However if you are just a bit interested and want to hear some great interviews with F1 journo Joe Seward it’s a must. Joe speaks as well as he writes, even if he is either very tired or very “emotional” when the folk at SPC interview him. Again tune in, down load and find out the truth that is not F1 you read about in the papers. I love F1, not the racing its usually a dull a life devoid procession around a shiny new circuit in a shiny new country. It’s the politics and the technology that floats my boat. The level at which the gamesmenship is played is always breathtaking and sometimes heart stopping. Obviously its about the money the money and nothing but the money. Its no different from the Premier League, the PGA or whoever runs world tennis just the business of sport. Joe and the folk at sidepodcast understand this, talk about it well as both fans and world weary cynics.

As to pacifism, well I suggest anyone trying to understand why we want to spend lots of our national debt on either a nuclear deterrent or a couple of aircraft carriers read the first couple of chapters of Tony Giddings new book, The Politics of Climate Change. He offers the best and most succinct discussion of why at least the carriers will get built. A quick précis goes like this. We live in a globalised world economy, that was a one-way valve, we cannot go back, to that end trade routes are vital as everything we consume from Lego to petrol to newsprint and coffee come to our island by ship. As we have all seen, piracy is a growth industry, protecting the merchant shipping in the Gulf of Aden is one of the few areas where there is real cooperation amongst the navel powers of the world. All signed up to keep the cogs of global trade turning, we see joined up navel operations between the Chinese, Russian, French, British and US Navies, to name just a few. It is common to find one nationals air patrols spotting a suspicious vessel that is then investigated by helicopters from other forces, whilst fast response RIBs from a third deploy their marines to board and search. The air assets being refuelled by any ship with chip and pin, and club card points.

As we start to run out of stuff and it takes longer to find the replacement sources of energy, water, food etc, the only way to maintain the supply chain into British ports is to be an effective navel power. This means expense ships with even more expensive aircraft on board. A mix of fixed wing patrol/AWACS and rotary assault means a couple of carriers at least and hopefully a couple of cheaper HMS Ocean style assault ships. That should keep the shelves of our supermarkets full and childhood obesity on the upward trend.

Trident? As a fully signed up old hippy I do not like nuclear weapons but if the spokes really do not know where the Pakistani/North Korean or Irainian nucs are and who has the key. I do want some kind of seat at the top table and I suspect giving up being a nuclear weapons would result in a another revolving seat being created on the Security Council. We may be a tin pot nation, and I am a long way from being a little Englander, but until the EU have demonstrated a degree of solidarity in the face of “hostile” nations I want HMG to stay at the top table.
It might be cheaper to try and stick together an effective European military force but until we have, can we empty the piggy banks and melt down our fillings to pay for some real navel power, a half decent Air Force and an Army that is a little bit bigger than the home gate at Old Trafford. As to the Vanguard boats I have always found that gaffa tape and cable ties can fix most things, in the short term at least.

And finally. Yes its hot and sunny, that happens in the summer, even in the UK. Oh yes I am not in T5 any more, via a long bus tour of Heathrow I am now X thousand feet of England on my way to Newcastle airport. Deep joy. On an unexpected 767 not a cramped airbus. BA do get it right some times, even if its by accident.

Almost a perfect morning

It was almost one of those perfect mornings today. Not too certain how to describe the perfect morning but it includes; waking up to a soft silence, early morning sun streaming through open windows, a clean fresh slightly cool air in the room, drawn through by a gentle breeze.

The sheets have a clean, smooth feel, there is a mixture of cool and warm patches to fidget your feet between. The warmth is shared and comes partly from you and partly from the body next too you. The cool patches are at the edge of the bed, connecting the warm human to the cool air in the room.

You are awake, asleep, there is no rush to get up or go back to sleep, the day ahead has few plans, the fridge is all the fun stuff needed for a relaxing breakfast. The paper will pop through the door at some point, you know the day will be fun, probably warm but the company will be great.

The drifting air currents bringing the sounds of the waking day into and out of the soft silence. The birds start their usual chat, the church clock chimes, the ewes call to there lambs, a distant car, lorry or tractor can be herd staring its day, there are the early morning echoes of hoofs on the road outside.

Then the sound of small footsteps coming down stairs and a small body cooches in beside you and back drifts of to sleep. The serenade as I drift in and out of a deep alpha is of two sets of lungs in deep sleep.

The curtains flap gently, the bird sound increase, another small body climbs in the other side and a whole family lies content I the warm embrace of a summers morning. Until one kicks the other and all hell breaks loose and the deep dream of bliss is exploded into another normal day of family life.

Inspiration, some much more valuable than perspiration

Real inspiration is a rare commodity. Who, why or what inspires each one of us is very personnel. Tonight I had 4 inspiring encounters. The first three were at a reception at the House of Commons, not name dropping but creating context for the following.

The first two were speakers at the reception, one a politician, Hilary Benn, a man who today of all days (1^st April 2009) must been torn by his routes (his dad was standing on a platform in Trafalgar Square at the same time as he was standing on a small box on The Commons terrace). Tony was talking to 600 plus Stop the War campaigners decrying all that he sees as wrong with the way the west tries to dominate the world (he may have a point). Hilary was celebrating the way that BTCV provides a second, third, forth and more chance for people who do not fit into our modern lifestyle.

This is not the first time I have heard Hilary speak. The last time was at a farmers conference, a hostile audience to the Secretary of State responsible for Agriculture. On that occasion he was open and honest to the questioners. Told it as he saw it. Suggested that the farming community was an important part of the UK economy and would continue to be an important part of the nation but was not the only thing that mattered. Yes we all need to eat and we should all try to eat food that has low food miles but this did not giving farming special status in government and all other forms of business needed consideration from our elected politicians.

It takes a real level of statesmanship to be able to tell a conference hall full of delegates that their collective view of the world is essentially wrong and walk out alive, let alone with the respect of all but the most entrenched bigot.

Benn junior did it again tonight, despite getting the initials BTCV in the wrong order four times, he summed up why we (the societal we) need organisations that do not take no for an answer and stick to their beliefs. In this case that people are the solution to most of our problems even when successive governments think people of subservient to markets and corporations.

BTCV is fifty this years. It’s a charity that combines an enthusiasm for people achieving the impossible, with a love of the world we live in. I was privileged enough to be a Trustees of said charity for the decade that spanned the millennium. They taught me a lot about governance and business as well as politics, loyalty and diplomacy.

At tonight’s celebration of Fifty years, there were a number of speakers beside the SoS. One was a young ma had ended up with BTVC in Leeds because no one else would have him. He had been diagnosed with ADHD and had a very tough time at school. He suggested that his school might have had an equally tough time with him. He had ended up to BTCV as he liked gardens and the outdoors and no other organisation wanted to help him. During his time with the Trust he had gain a qualification (better than his school had done for him), the self confidence to speak to a crowd in the Commons, the confidence to keep coming back even when it didn’t work first time and had experienced success. The team in Leeds had nominated him for a award, which he won and was presented to him by The Prime Minister in Downing Street. At the end of his speech he mentioned how he had received E-mails and letters from some of his teachers congratulating him on his success, as a result of coverage in a local newspaper. He and his teachers had written each off a couple of years previously. BTCV had brought them together through a successful outcome. Without both the teachers, who I believe will have tried to do all they could, and the safety net held by BTCV his young man would not have been smiling and telling a story that had the whole room cheering for him.

Another speaker tonight was BTCV’s Chief Executive. Now CEO’s of charities stand up and give inspiring speeches almost every day and Tom is no different from any other in that respect. A few on the terrace tonight have been on the journey that Tom and BTCV have been on. He has been with the charity for 23 years, there were a couple of others who had been involved for longer. A couple more who had been on the staff or active volunteers for as long or longer but nobody else will have lived and breathed the business for as long or as deeply as Tom.

His inspiration for me has been sticking to what he believes in through the tough times that all voluntary sector organisations have. Working tirelessly to build the profile of the organisation as he went. He has received the rewards he wants along the way and none should begrudge acknowledging the success he has had. I have seen many leaders at work, they all network as if it’s in their DNA, in fact it is, they all have a game face that befits the performance that is required. They all have grace under pressure and an ability to remember names, faces and places, tie a casual comment back to the core message of the event and place a lasting thought in the audiences mind without knowing it. They all do it well but I find the charm and warmth that Toms brings to the process refreshing and stimulating. It is almost possible to see people signing up in the room as he speaks. Much of this is the natural salesmanship of the Irish but there is real commitment visible and I am certain that is what inspires people to support his organisation.

The final figure of inspiration was less of a meeting and more of a passing. I noticed him but he will not have noticed me. Previously I have written about why I became a bunny hugger. Sitting behind me I the standard class carriage that does not allow iPods and cellphones is the man who inspired the sprit of adventure and exploration in me. One John Blashford Snell he of endless expedition to the bet and most adventurous parts of the world. His books on rafting the Congo River and driving a pair of range rovers from the top f north America to the bottom of south America were the focus of my reading at the age of 15.

I return to Wiltshire, via a bus due to engineering works, tiered, slightly drunk but genuinely motivated to not give up on any of my daft plans.

For our Mates

Living in the this part of Wiltshire its not possible to avoid the war in Afghanistan, for me that’s compounded by working for a defence contractor who manages the training infrastructure. The conversations in pubs are exciting, fascinating and moving.

A number of the conversations take me back to a dinner many years ago in Monmouthshire. I was having one of those getting to know you sessions with a chap who I hope I would be doing a lot of work with. I had come across him when he led a training course for charity trustees at the Directory for Social Change. His session was unusual as it was laced with quotes from the likes of Karl Albrechts The Northbound Training to the inevitable Balanced Scorecard. Business books in a charity seminar was then unusual, especially when talking to Trustees not Executives. His style, pulling together a wide range of ideas to create a primeval soup from which charities governors could evolve an approach, resonated with me. Not only was he widely read, with an amazing power of recall, but he was proving that the sum of knowledge is greater than its parts.

Over dinner we did that whole dance of getting to know each other, probe, answer, probe some more, follow an interesting idea up and then start all over again. I was really interested in how he ended up in management consulting and coaching. He had started life in 3 Para and been with them in the Falklands as a young officer. At some point he took the option of leaving and moved into business education and worked for the Ford group developing managers and leaders from the shop floor through to the board room.

Some where along this road we got on to the subject of motivation and why we do “it”. He recounted that he found the same motivations on the production line in Hailwood as he had witnessed at Goose Green with 3 Para. They all did “it’ for their mates. Why turn up to work and do a decent job?

“Because I don’t want to let down the guys I go for a drink or play footie with”

The same much quoted reasons that most soldiers get out from behind the safety of the stone wall or trench to help out a fellow warrior.

One of the many conversations in my local about the Op Herrick as with a regular drinking buddie just return form a tour in Bastion as a aircraft commander on Chinooks. This guys is starts of a rare example as he is a loadmaster, commissioned from the ranks and now commanding one of the most valuable assets in theatre for the armed forces of all cap badges. He was talking about a hold range of near misses, difficult landings, the amazing survivability of the `Chinook and a whole bunch of other stuff. The thing that stood out was the tone of the discussion about the IRT’s. These are the immediate response teams who at the drop of a hat get on board an aircraft and fly out of the safety of camp bastion to help a unit in trouble. By the vary nature of the task the job is dangerous. No one asks for help if its all going well. The guys on the flight deck as well as the self loading cargo in the back now that what’s waiting for them at the other end of a low level seat of the pants/nap of the earth flight are some mates who need help and some bad guys who want to do harm.

I refer to the tone as at no time was one member of an IRT seen to hesitate as they strapped on their gear and ran up the loading ramp of the aircraft or prepared their weapons for a “hot and hurried landing”. My drinking companion had seen many IRT go out to help their mates but they were not there mates, well the likelihood that those in need of immediate response were well know to the team members would be remote. The IRT’s are made up of starch teams from any unit that is not deployed. So the RAF regiment will be going out to help the Marines. Signallers to assist Infantryman and Paras to support the artillery. Do not misunderstand me they are all professional soldiers and medics, trained and equipment to do the job but they are not elite troops or US style Para Rescue Jumpers, just run of the mill Tommy’s. The bond is that of there but by the grace of good, and tasking, go I.

Or

“If it is me hold up in a FOB or hunkered down in a irrigation ditch with RPG’s streaming over my head I hope they will return the favour”.

They do it for their mates, we all do it for our mates. What is it about friendship that inspires us to do out best no matter what the circumstances? From production line to getting the sofa up the stairs; from IRT’s to turning out on a Sunday afternoon for the village eleven we do it for our fellow man and women, the people were share a common bond with. It in large part to have fun and if nothing else the bragging rights in the bar

I have no idea but I am glad that I both have mates who will help me and that I have mates to help.