Akpr

10/10/2022

JOHN Simpson, BBC World Affairs Editor, reporting from an underground bunker of a hotel in Kiev at the age of 78.
Were it not for these remarkable journalists, people like my friend Lynne O'Donnell, as well as the teams that support them, the world would not know what is going on in dark places like Ukraine and Afghanistan.
It is one of the great privileges of my career to have been awarded membership of the Frontline Club, whose number includes many war reporters and foreign correspondents.
The club helps to support these brave journalists with practical items like helmets and flack jackets, as well as with first aid and other training.
My hope, at some stage, is to be able to go and see for myself our work in places like Ukraine.

04/10/2022

DURING the leadership campaign Liz Truss made much of her interest in numbers and mathematics.
However, she seems to struggle to understand that as a consequences of the mini budget, for many households, savings made on energy bills, will be more than wiped out by increased costs, especially for those with mortgages.
Does she also not understand that any changes such as to stamp duty to encourage the property market is wasted when people face rocketing mortgage interest increases?
Being good at maths is not the same as understanding numbers as Ms Truss ably demonstrates.

27/10/2021

18/08/2021

THE terrible situation in Afghanistan and the UK’s part in it brings many lessons but little hope that they will be learned.

Many ordinary Afghanistan’s, as well as our brave servicemen and women, have been betrayed and left to their fate. Nothing required the UK and the western powers to get involved but having done so there was an obligation to see it through, not walk away.

Again the UK, like the tragic comic character Hyacinth Bucket, gets involved in these things in a pathetic bid to ‘keep up appearances’ and cling to a past that is long gone.

No longer a great world power economically and militarily, a situation that has existed since the end of world war two, the UK continues with the delusion that it is, to cling to symbolic baubles that it can no longer afford like ‘an independent nuclear deterrent’ that the wise know is neither independent or a deterrent. To believe that we are better off outside the European family of nations working together. To believe that the UK is best served by basking in the dim sunlight of reflected glory as the 'Groom of the King's Close Stool' in our relationship with the USA.

In 1962 the former American Secretary of State Dean Acheson said: ‘Great Britain Has Lost an Empire But Not Yet Found a Role.’ That is as true today as it was 60 years ago and brings a bitter price for the people of the UK and third parties like Afghanistan.

For individuals, as for countries and businesses, coming to terms with a diminished status can be tough but the price of failing to do so is high.

17/08/2021

NOT many may have noticed but the expulsion from Russia of the excellent BBC journalist Sarah Rainsford is bad news.
Sarah is on her second tour in Moscow, having served in Istanbul and Madrid as well as Cuba resulting in her superb book ' Our women in Havana.'
She is a skilled and brave journalist who recently reported from Belarus. Just the kind of person authoritarian regimes do not like.
Journalists, including those of us less well known than Sarah, are at the front line of preserving freedom and holding those in authority to account.

15/08/2021

I FEEL so sorry for the people of Afghanistan, especially the women.
For all who have list loved ones fighting in that country, for all the servicemen and women who have returned with broken minds and bodies.
It has been an exercise in futility and I am afraid anyone who says otherwise is either trying to fool themselves or others, perhaps both.
The pygmies that determine our foreign policy go into these 'adventures' without understanding the consequences and any idea of an exit strategy. Are we or the world any safer for this act of folly, is the future for the people of Afghanistan any brighter than it was 20 years ago?

13/08/2021

AS the perceptive John James in another post observes, for all the terrible things we were told Covid-19 has done to our young people and their education, if the 'A' level and GCSE results are anything to go by, it seems to have actually made them 20 per cent cleverer.

13/08/2021

FRIEND or acquaintance?
A friend asks 'how are you' because they want to know, an acquaintance often uses it as a salutation. Do you feel you can tell them the truth?
Split reverse this. When you ask someone this do you really want to know. If they tell you they feel bad or have a worry or problem do you really want to know, to listen and be supportive?
Using this test most people can probably count the number of true friends they have on the fingers of one hand if they are lucky.

12/08/2021

FRIEND or acquaintance?
A friend asks 'how are you' because they want to know, an acquaintance often uses it as a salutation. Do you feel you can tell them the truth?
Split reverse this. When you ask someone this do you really want to know? If they tell you they feel bad or have a worry or problem do you really want to know, to listen and be supportive?
Using this test most people can probably count the number of true friends they have on the fingers of one hand if they are lucky.

11/08/2021

WHAT do you call someone who sees positives in everything?
Dangerously delusional.
Of course, positivity is a good thing but I hate the fake 'have a nice day' cheerfulness that you get from some people.
The great thing about dogs and cats is you cannot fake it. They know if you are feeling up or down. This little cat that I came across on the golf course, could see I was having a tough day and came and rubbed round me, as cats do, which made me feel a bit better.

10/08/2021

WHEN people ask for an opinion or advice or when we ask the same of others it is worth trying to decide what they or we really want.
Often it is not really advice they or we seek but reassurance and confirmation of what they or we have already decided.
Which ever side of the fence we are on, giving or asking for advice, we should always remember that advisors do just that, advise not decide.

09/08/2021

A WONDERFUL mushroom. Can anyone tell me anything about this wonderful fungus on a tree in a park near my home?
I find the natural world a great stabiliser in a busy professional life.
One day we will all rest in earth and life will go on. Our wealth, status or our material possessions will count for nothing but the memories that people have of us will live on.
These and our genes are the only footprints any of us will leave on the sands of time.

08/08/2021

ANDREW and I had a pleasant working lunch on Friday with our friends and colleagues Nancy Duan and Graham Welland.
We got to puzzling why so many people seem to admire and crave the label 'serial entrepreneur.'
In our, not inconsiderable collective experience, these are usually people who move regularly from one failure to another, often leaving behind a trail of unpaid suppliers and other wreckage.

06/08/2021

I WAS saddened to hear of the death of Roger Vanstone.
It was many years ago when I first met Roger. I cannot say I knew him well but we met periodically for a coffee, glass of wine or a beer and to talk business and sport. As a young man Roger was a good cricketer, on the edge of first class professional standard and he told me he once opened the batting at Lords.
I know he had a long battle with cancer and it was obvious from his social media postings that it was a battle he was bravely losing. Sadly, we did not get to have that last lunch. Rest well in the sweet by and by, big man.

05/08/2021

WHY do I make reference to sport so often on business platforms?
Because it can teach us in business so much.
1. That whilst enthusiasm, dedication and hard work are important for success, they are not in themselves enough.
2. That we can only learn so much from the Internet and books. Having people with knowledge and experience to help us is vital.
3. That practice does not make perfect, perfect practice makes perfect.
4. That keeping doing the same thing and expecting different outcomes is madness.
5. That we should have concentrate on what we can control and have the wisdom to recognise what we cannot.
6. That luck is a big part of success or failure but not something on which to offload blame.
7. The importance of humility in success and grace in defeat.
I could go on but enough for now.

04/08/2021

WITH my friend and colleague Paul, a great photographer, who has worked for the national press and many leading corporates.
Great to have him on the team. He is also a fine golfer who has played on the pro tour and is helping me. He has given me some lovely clubs but I wonder if they are wasted on me.
The way I am playing at the moment perhaps Chris Packham has a point: 'golf, walking round, hitting a little ball with a stick, ridiculous.'

03/08/2021

I LOVE the BBC, so never thought I would hear myself say this but I am preferring the Eurosport coverage of the Olympics.
With the BBC, I feel it is too much about the ego of the presenters.
The evening coverage feels like the Clare Balding and Alex Scott show with the sporting action an unfortunate but unavoidable inconvenience.
If the BBC's highest paid 'talent' are a football programme anchor and a Radio 2 pop jockey then something is wrong.

02/08/2021

MOTIVATION and dedication are not the same and often get confused.
Motivation, like all emotions comes and goes, it's waking at 6am on a sunny summer morning, feeling great and going for a run. Dedication is waking at 6am on a cold and wet winter morning, feeling like a bag of you know what and going for a run.
Laziness and rest are likewise not the same thing but often get confused. Rest is essential to good physical and mental health and a vital part of a high performance culture.
Our bodies and minds need rest and recuperation to grow stronger, just as they need hard work.