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Journal: December, 2010

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Super Man at 90
Marking a big family milestone

From a 90th birthday card painted for Tim by Peter Mills

Back earlier today from Little Rissington, where even the Volvo had trouble making it up the snowy slope to Hill House, where Elaine, Gaia, Hania and I had gone to celebrate my father Tim's 90th birthday.... more >

Big Thinking
Snow outside, cameras inside

Big Thinking

Filmed today by Mark Seddon and Andrew Psarianos for Big Think.... more >

SustainAbility Christmas Party
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.... more >

Across The Great Belt Bridge
Four sessions with Tetra Pak

Tetra Pak 1

Tetra Pak 2 - my zone

Copenhagen airport

Flew in last night for a series of four sessions today with some 150 top executives of Tetra Pak. Great fun and subject to confidentiality agreement, but no great secret to say the area I did my sessions in was 'floored' in grass, which added an interesting fragrance to the proceedings.... more >

Dead Mac, Resurrected Mac
Hard drive story

It's a short story, really, but it means problems with blogging. My MacBook Pro's hard drive had been a little wobbly for a while, so I took it in to the Covent Garden Apple Store, where they said come back in 5 days - and, typically, the hard drive died after 4. Had lost everything, but it turned out that Sam had installed trial version Carbonite a few days before the catastrophe happened. After a couple of days of restoring files, it looks as though most things are back, though not yet music (which only works when you pay), PowerPoint presentations and photographs. Amazing how crippled one is when IT goes down in this way. Am pondering getting a Mac Air, one reason being that my back is a bit of a problem and doesn't need the weight of a 15" MacBook pro, but also because the Air's flash memory may be a bit more robust (no moving parts) when transported in my bike's panniers.... more >

Forum for the Future Party
With police helicopter hovering overhead

Forum 1

Forum 2: me, Sam, Alex (Nick)

Forum 3: me, Sam, Alex

Across this evening to the Forum for the Future Christmas party, co-hosted by Interbrand in the Strand. A police helicopter hovered overhead, its spotlight beaming down towards Trafalgar Square, where the student protests were continuing - huge numbers had streamed past our office during the afternoon, down Southampton Row. very much struck by the fact that those who founded and led the environmental movement decades back are now moving into the mainstream, while a new angry generation is surfacing in the streets.... more >

Sustain Talks III at RCA
Artistic sit-in

Animated audience

Fill our minds

Occupied

Spoke at a Royal College of Arts 'Sustain Talks III' session, with Michael Pawlyn and John Grant, moderated by Joe Kerr--and with a fascinating opening presentation by James Wignall. Very lively. Toss-up as to whether we spoke in the conference room or in the area that the students were occupying: in the end, we did it in the conference room, but had a drink with the occupying students afterwards.... more >

Private View - of Alan Kingsbury
And of Hyde Park

Hyde Park 1

Hyde Park 2

Hyde Park 3

We went to a private view in Shepherd's Market of Alan Kingsbury's paintings. Elaine had bought a painting called Rover on the Riva. Walked back to Hyde Park Corner, stopping to admire the memorials and general statuary.... more >

The Gigaton Awards
Companies helping stabilize the climate

Began to get tweets early this morning about the launch of the Gigaton Awards in Cancun, Mexico, for which I had been one of the judges. ... more >

A Week of Snow and Monsters
And Ale's last day

Poster for Monsters

Church Road

Richmond Park

Stag

Elaine

Lower lake, still under ice

Strange sense building this week that 2011 is going to take off like a rocket - almost as if Volans is in the process of casting off the booster rockets of its first two-and-a-half years and headed for a new trajectory. The sense of a watershed was in part created by the snow that swept across the country this week, partly by the tempo of requests for our involvement in interesting projects and partly, sadly, by the team's celebration of Al(jandro Litovsky's) last day with us. He's planning to set up a not-for-profit organisation focused on earth security, in effect our first spin-out. More anon.... more >