In scent tiffs Trust me, the headline will eventually make scents. Sense. Cents. (How do people learn to speak English?) Today was the seven-hour journey to London: two buses in Belfast, the flight, the train from Gatwick to London, then the tube to Shoreditch, where I worked with Raj until I dropped. Almost
The Missing60 I spent just over a week trying to reach 19 asset managers. I got only three interviews (two by phone, one written responses to submitted questions) and eight policy statements sent by PR people. The result is the article I wrote today, of which I’m very proud. I think
Conversations Part 2 As I said, four panels today. The first featured historian David Reynolds who wrote a book called Summits. He compared Neville Chamberlain/Hitler meetings to those of Kruschev/Kennedy and Reagan/Gorbachev. He talked about the role of the diplomatic corps vs. elected leaders--the latter aren’t too keen on
Conversations So the National Trust and the BBC--two British treasures--jointly sponsored a series of conversations at Mount Stewart this weekend. We went to three today and will go to four tomorrow. The first talk was about Lord Castlereagh, whose family owned Mount Stewart for eight generations or so. When you tour
CNB Tonight is Culture Night Belfast. According to the program, 264 events in eight hours spread over 100 venues. These types of festivals annoy me because I have to look through the 68-page brochure, circle the dozen or so I want to prioritise, write them down on a single sheet of
Substitution Ageing is an interesting process. I mentioned a while ago that I’d like to take up golf. I haven’t pursued it because I did something to mess up my tricky shoulder and was in a lot of pain for a week. I decided I need to start swimming
BlackRock I’m having an exciting week with Preventable Surprises. I’m interviewing the largest asset owners and managers in the U.S. to have them explain their votes on shareholder resolutions addressing climate change. Shareholders have asked BP, Shell, Statoil, Exxon, and Chevron to publish an annual assessment of the
EHOD Part 3 On Sunday we started at Campbell College, as chronicled. Then I went to church, then we toured Friar’s Bush graveyard, a site of Christian worship going back to medieval times. A church stood on the site in the 1500s. Supposedly Catholics worshipped there under a thorn tree during the
Comedy and Tragedy Saturday night I went to a comedy show fundraiser for the Integrated Education Fund. Only 7% of Northern Ireland students attend integrated schools (which are neither Catholic nor Protestant in affiliation). It was a great night of comedy in support of a good cause. I wish I’d jotted down
EHOD Part Two Today I took my camera, so the images won’t be as professional. This is Campbell College, a very exclusive private school that was once home to Belfast’s elite. As is the way with globalisation, it now counts many students from the Mideast and China among its wards. Impressive
European Heritage Open Day This weekend a lot of buildings were open to the public for a look see. We went to: Belfast Central Library "Opened in 1888, it was one of the first major public library buildings in Ireland. ... Designed to reflect the ambitions of the growing city of Belfast, its architecture
TGIF Through the week I am somewhat careworn by my new job. I find I’m not good at managing my time when it’s entirely up to me when I work and how long I work for. My attention span and energy are such that I struggle to sit in
Feeling Peevish I do quarterly performance reporting for a friend who formed a business that allows financial companies to outsource such annoying and voluminous work. The client I write for is T. Rowe Price, which decided it wants all of its freelance writers to fill out a bunch of forms (I’ve
Friends I haven’t lined up any outings with friends this week. Which is too bad, because working by myself every day in an unfinished room is isolating. Just when I feel sorry for myself that I always have to initiate contact, friends reach out to me. Three friends recently have
By contrast... Yesterday’s post was grim, so here’s a photo of Botanic Gardens that I took on Friday. My job today was to submit article ideas for a quarterly magazine put out by Responsible Investor. So today I read 10 out of the 65 e-mails I’ve received from RI
All the Light We Cannot See This weekend is a bit of a blur. I think I basically took it easy. Pottered around the house. Read a book for book club (referenced in title). Went to church. The above book is about WW2, told from the perspective of a teenage girl living in occupied France and
A real pro After three days of sitting in my bedroom office working on Preventable Surprises stuff, I took today off. I went into town and had tea with Diarmuid, a librarian at Queen’s. He told me that professors each have to hit an annual fundraising target, whereby they attract research money
Almodovar I hadn’t seen a movie in months and I’ve seen two in a week. Today I saw Julieta by the incomparable Pedro Almodovar. It was a lovely film and very unlike his prior films. Emma Suarez, the lead, is diametrically opposed to his muse Penelope Cruz. Emma is
Racism and baking I once had a heart-to-heart with a fellow Unitarian Universalist about the racism I sometimes feel. I would never own the label racist--I’m a typical liberal in that sense--but I have some racist reflexes (I realise that sentence may sound like classic denial). My friend told me we are
Bad habits My first few weeks with Preventable Surprises, I developed a pretty good work habit. I’m meant to work three days a week. I find I’m not a lot of good past 6 or 7 hours per day, so I might work a bit on the fourth day. The
A happy end A tent with a leaky fly isn’t much good. I dried the tent and the fly in the back garden and was planning to then put them in the bin. The fly is not only leaking but the fabric is producing a snowfall of plastic flaky bits. Binning the
A tent shun We got into camp last night, set up tents, had dinner, then took photos. Views in every direction. My favourite: The group I hike with is called NI Walking and Photography Group. The rest of the members are Good Photographers, unlike myself. I tried to steal one of their shots
Slieve Bearnagh After failing to pin Raj down on a few last minute details, I left town for a camping trip without getting the monkey off my back. I climbed Slieve Bearnagh with three friends from a Meet Up hiking club. We saw these dudes on the way up: Hiking companions Andrew,
Orchestrated I spent most of the day dealing with issues with the e-mail. Then I went into town with neighbours Michael and Faye. We had dinner with David then went to hear the Ulster Orchestra at the Ulster Hall. It is a very impressive orchestra. The problem is I can’t
Perfection For the most part I stayed away from my computer and my monkey today. I had a massage at 9:15 in Bangor--pure heaven. I’ve been running 35 minutes per run without stretching, which is asking for trouble. The massage was like preventive medicine. On Tuesday, I bought five
