Ragged Trousered Return
Actually those are far from being ‘ragged’ trousers: that’s my Dad and you could always almost cut your fingers on the sharpness of the crease in the trouser legs. Even so it is a good start – my Dad was born in the 1920s in a poor area of an industrial town where he went to school with two kids who were known to all as: ‘Patchy Pants’ and Clogger Dick’ [clog = ‘sabot’ by the way] – kids whose parents gave them all they had but this amounted to little more than wooden shoes and trousers that were more patches than pants. Dad’s birth was barely a decade after Robert Tressell’s iconic book ‘The Ragged Trousered Philanthropists’...
Quand on est Con …
OK… Brassens cornered the market on guitar-playing and singing: « Quand on est con, on est con » [If you don’t know it – have a laugh and watch]. But I’m still going to have a go at it… as life and hospital visits ‘obligent‘………………. A very good friend went to a day hospital recently for a battery of intensive tests to get ready for a much-needed and pretty urgent operation. A good idea: let’s face it, if you are going to have an op., better the surgeons and anaesthetists have a pretty good idea of how well your body is functioning before they start putting you ‘under’ and making incisions, so I’m not knocking the...
Customer Service?
… or a service by the customer? From reading this blog you will already be aware that I find poor service inexcusable and bad service unforgiveable in any circumstances, but today, on holiday, things took a turn for the worse and (unless you know better…I.e. …worse!), the bottom started to be comprehensively ‘scraped’. Here’s the short story…. We’d just arrived in Buonconvento when the clock struck midday and we heard the siren call of bianco do montalcino in our parched throats…(in our defence, it had been 35C since 0800) so we picked one of the little ostaria at the end of the old town main street… principally because it afforded both shadow and a semblance of breeze. While...
Goodbyeeee, Goodbyeee….
Well, I was wrong and I don’t mind admitting it! Although I was sure that the: ‘Blame the EU for everything – Brexit and all will be well’ message would attract the gullible, I guess I was unprepared for just how many gullible there were. In another sense, I’m not surprised at all. No, not because Britain has never fully signed up to a federated states of Europe ideal, but because things go in cycles: some short, some rather longer, but things that are made under one set of circumstances usually fall apart naturally or are unmade (and sometimes then re-invented) in another. Most business cartels and similar partnerships and arrangements tend to come about because all...
Who ARE these people?
In today’s news, a ‘nutter’ (religious extremist or not – we don’t yet know for sure) walked into a gay nightclub in the US with a sub-machine gun and stole the lives and futures of 50 people forever and maimed and reduced the potential of more than 50 others – not to mention destroyed the hopes of all their families who will share their nightmares all their living days. A murderer: killing people whose only ‘crime’ was/is to love across traditional boundaries. I teach on intercultural management programmes where cultural difference is recognised, respected, celebrated and shared. But there are limits to everything. One can’t respect a cold-blooded murderer no matter what principles he/she may espouse –...
BREXIT? Non!
Well, I suppose I’d better write something about this as I’m British, I’m in France and I keep being asked both where I stand on the issue and whether I think Britain will take the EU bretelle vers la sortie… Well having been here in Alsace 10 years on a UK passport and being able to work here without a carte de séjour…. I could find that suddenly I am an alien for the first time. OK… well I know that for most French people the Brits are pretty alien anyway… but that would then become my official status rather than just a societal perception. That feels different. I’ve helped asylum seekers and people from outside the EU...
About Me
Here is the link to my professional site personal profile if you are that desperate to know a bit about me, my career and life and thoughts in general! Surprising how many actually read it!