I watched a film this weekend where someone had to phone a friend to tell her some bad news. While it was ringing, she repeated to herself, "Don’t pick up, don’t pick up".
It made me think of the times I have HAD to phone someone, not text, either I don’t want to talk to, or whom I had to talk about something difficult – and the sense of relief when the answerphone kicked in. This’ll come in handy one day….
I had a little car bump during the drive home Friday night. Since The ice and snow had left the roads in my village like glass, I was driving at glacial pace when the girl behind me lost control and drove into my rear bumper. We exchanged details, both cars and people we’re fine, though she was a bit shaken. Nevertheless, she had to get a move on for an appointment to ‘design’ someone’s kitchen in their home.
Later, in front of the fire, I thought about this. Here was me on a Friday night, enjoying a particularly good bottle of wine, the weekend in front of me, while she was in a stranger’s house, trying to sell them a kitchen while they did their best to get rid of her. I hoped she enjoyed her job, but it made me feel lucky doing what I do.
The other day I got a nice little leaflet from an company that delivers organic, eco friendly boxes. I got a bit excited – I like good food, stuff like this is important to me and companies that do this are rare Up North.
Lovely little website, lots of nice stuff. I got very excited, especially when they mentioned that they source food locally. BUT, they’re based in London and ‘locally sourced’ seems to mean as close to the UK as possible. Why don’t I just go to the local market and butchers?
Even without air freight, thats a lot of vans using a lot of petrol, and anyway, I want to support people HERE in sunny Yorkshire. So pretty green, but the fine print shows some weaknesses. We’ll see a lot of supposed eco brands that don’t bear close scrutiny I think.
I’m reading a rather lovely book by Alex Kapranos- him from Franz Ferdinand – about his food adventures on tour. It’s beautifully written and shows you should be careful when judging what people are capable of – he did quite a few things before getting famous, it shows. I’m also liking how he demonstrates the stories around what you’re eating totally changing the experience (the sausage experience is certainly different thanks to Marcus). Anyway, I love this quote:
"When you get to a certain age, if you haven’t tried something there’s probably a very good reason".
With that in mind, have a look at this post from the wise, succesful and opinionated Rob Campbell.
By the way, this post has some things to say about the biggest survey on British sexual fantasies ever. You’ll never be able to look at your work colleagues in the eye again.
I’ve had to make some hard decisions this week.
It doesn’t matter what it was about, but it’s forced me to think about what’s really important. Once upon a time I would do whatever I wanted, and hang the consequences. That’s fine when you’re young, but when you get older the stakes get higher. You’ve less time to learn from mistakes and other people get affected too.
I’ve always been curious – never settling anywhere for long and hating taking the easy option. I wanted to go out to the edges and find what was out there. This week’s made me wonder if maybe the hardest thing is NOT doing something and wondering what might have been. This week I did the right thing, I didn’t do something I really, really would have loved to have done, I did the best thing for me and mine instead, the thing that will make us happier. That doesn’t mean it was easy. Just right.
The IPCC Report came out on Friday. Since I this issue’s important, I bought a few papers on Saturday to delve into it as much as possible, I also thought a few perspectives would be useful. I won’t bore you with what they said – you’ll have your own views anyway – what surprised me was THE LACK of coverage.
As you would expect, The Guardian and The Independent devoted their front covers to it. But the Telegraph decided to lead with the Blair cash for questions saga, at least they had it on the front page though. The Mail just has Blair, although they manages some coverage in the paper. Then we come to the Sun, the most widely read newspaper in the land.
Nothing, absolutely nothing. One of the key reports on the issue of our generation (?), and the nations biggest readership won’t have noticed. Biased reporting is one thing, not even covering it is quite another.
I was doing some research in Watford last night. By the time I finished it was too late to be bothered about what I ate – it was a Pot Noodle in the hotel room. Strangely satisying, although I’ve never figured out how to avoid dribbling scorching noodley sauce down my chin. Eating slower might help.
This post is in no way related to jibes about me drinking girley white wine.
I’ve just been reading the last few posts (not a self referential way of course!) and I’ve noticed that I seem to overuse the word genius. I’m not sure what this means, and I’d rather not know, so to avoid closer inspection the word will be strictly rationed on this blog (from me anyway).
This appeared in ‘The Drum’ today – trade press for agencies outside London. Nothing new, you might think, but as I found out last week, it’s dangerous to assume everyone thinks like you – as a cursory read of ‘The Drum’ would show.
By the way, they heavilly edited this which is a tad annoying, it doesn’t make total sense now but you get the gist. – probably a good thing overall, what with with my speling and grammar.
..thanks to one drink too many when the The Northern Planners met in Leeds last night. Hope I didn’t say anything too untoward. James had to give it a miss to look after his ill son, but Rob, Gemma and Simon made for great company.
Simon onced freelanced at my place, I used to work with Gemma and we all know quite a few of the same people. It reminded me how small this industry is. It really does pay to be nice to people.
The conversation drifted over many subjects, including the unsurprising probing of Simon regarding Yorkshire Tea and the highs and lows of writing corporate blogs.
Rob played me some of his musical compositions, which are very, very, good and nearly made up for the fact he ordered Cointreau again..
We may be off to Manchester next month anyone up for that?
NORTHERN PLANNER 