British Entrepreneurs

Richard Branson was on the radio this morning. He asserted that it is as easy to be a successful entrepreneur here as anywhere else in the world. In particular, he didn't think it was easier in America. The one caveat he made was that the British entrepreneur has to think globally as the home market is too small for may businesses.

In my experience of having run businesses in both the US and here, the great advantage the US has is that you can let people go quickly and easily when you have to. Here, you have to go through long drawn-out procedures and even then you can have to face an employment tribunal. Branson is probably big enough not to have to worry about this, but it is a serious obstacle to employing people when you are a small business.

Catastrophe in the Indian Ocean

The scale of the disaster really defies comprehension. A couple of small-scale thoughts:

This time last year, both my children were in the Maldives on holiday. If they had chosen this year, rather than last...........

We also have some friends who have a business out there - Maldive Scuba Tours. They were visiting Bali when the Tsunami struck and so were not in danger. Luckily, as we understand it, their dive boats were in deep water and rode out the waves OK. However, they have real problems now in locating all their clients and getting them safely home. Beyond that, their business must surely suffer, both from the loss of infrastructure and from the damage to confidence.

Ankylosing Spondylitis NASS Home Page

Ankylosing Spondylitis NASS Home Page

Argee asks about Ankylosing Spondylitis. Like most spondies, I tend not to talk about it much, but it can be a real pain at times. The link above should take you to the National Ankylosing Spondylitis Society, which has some useful information on the illness.

In reponse to your specific concern, Argee, it is hereditary only in the sense that the HLA-B27 antigen does tend to run in families and this antigen makes any children slightly more vulnerable to the disease. However, there is no automatic link that means that they will get it and neither of mine seem to have it.

dayofagringo

dayofagringo

Argee in Brazil has begun his blog after reading mine. How incredible! I am still not entirely sure how he found mine, but there you go. Apparently we both have Ankylosing Spondylitis and this may explain it.

Merry Christmas to all my readers!

That's it, really. Merry Christmas!

She made it back!

In case you were worrried, Catherine eventually made it home at around 9:30.

Traffic nightmare

Poor Catherine. She has been stuck outside Bromley in stationary traffic for over two hours. She went to visit Nana and got caught up in a terrible jam caused by an accident at the A20/M25 junction. I have asked her to call me every half-hour that she is still stuck. That way, I will know when she has started to move as she obviously cannot call once she is driving. It is now half an hour since she last checked in and I am hopeful that the phone will not ring again. if so, she must be on her way, but she is still one and a half hours out.

I shall put supper on and prepare a hot bath. The house is nice and warm and the Christmas tree looks very welcoming.

The Blog lives!

I have just had a comment!!!

Argee, an Englishman living in Brazil, has commented on my thoughts on Girl with a Pearl Earring. How on Earth did that happen?

Extrasolar Planets

Extrasolar Planets

During our trip to France, we attended a fascinating evening at the St Michel Observatoire on the theme of "Exoplanetes", the French word for planets in other solar systems. Apparently, the Swiss were the first to discover another true planetary system, back in 1995. Since then, about 130 more have been found.

This link is to PlanetQuest, the Nasa site dedicated to the search for planets in other systems.

The British Journalist

I am reading Andrew Marr's entertaining history of British Journalism, which is peppered with anecdotes from his own experiences of reporting from around the world.

The book opens with this wonderful quote from Humbert Wolfe:

You cannot hope
to bribe or twist,
thank God! the
British journalist.

But, seeing what
the man will do
unbribed, there's
no occasion to.

Guy Ritchie at the Sefton

I was sitting having breakfast at the Sefton Hotel in Douglas, IOM, yesterday with the HR Director of Manx Telecom. As we were leaving, he asked me if I had recognised the guy at the next table. Of course I hadn't, but it was apparently Guy Ritchie. He is filming on the IOM and always stays at the Sefton. Madonna comes over to join him at the weekends and the two of them love the island because they can go wherever they like without anyone bothering them.

I must remember to bother them next time!

Although I like the Sefton too, I had some problems this time. I actually changed rooms twice in three days, which is unheard of for me. The first room was fine, but the shaving lights failed. The night manager told me he would fix it in the morning butI was in a bad mood, having just had a delayed flight, so I told him to fix it now or get me another room. I got another room.

The next room had a problem with the plumbing that only became apparent at four in the morning. There was an annoying noise in the pipes or somewhere in room 192 and it woke me up. Furthermore, the temperature was just a tad too low and I could not increase it, whatever I did with the control.

I moved again.

The third room was great. I imagine Madonna and Guy had better luck.

Mobile blog!

This is a first! I am updating my blog from my laptop which is not physically connected to anything. The Sefton hotel has a wireless network and my laptop has detected it and connected to it.

I am sure that this is a common occurrence, but it is completely new to me.

Wonderful time in France.

The weekend with Rod and Gilla was a huge success from our standpoint.

Of course, it was wonderful to see them (and the dogs) again and we had a terrific time. The weather in the Luberon is fantastic. They have 320 days of sunshine a year there and certainly we saw only pure blue sky with not a cloud in sight the whole three days. The nights were cold, crisp and clear and the days warm and sunny. Rod and Gilla had organised a visit to the St Michel Observatory and this was stunning. The sky was crystal clear and we spent a couple of hours in the open air, viewing the universe through the medium-reflector and through powerful mounted binnoculars. I saw Saturn clearly with my own eyes, which was fun, and also the Andromeda Galaxy.

Perhaps the highspot of the visit was the Sunday lunch. Rod and Gilla had invited three French couples to lunch and it was wonderful to be able to converse with French people about every subject imaginable. The lowspot was possibly the moment when, by chance, we witnessed the end of a Wild Boar hunt. The Boar was cornered and shot only yards from where we were walking and we saw the whole poor animal die. We all like Wild Boar and we understand that you cannot eat something until somebody kills it, but all the same, it was upsetting to see.

Douglas at Christmas time.

I made it to Douglas! I finally checked into the Sefton at around midnight and went straight to bed.

The course at Abbey is going well. But Douglas is a revelation. I had formed the impression that it was a sleepy and dowdy town, but that is not the impression I am getting now. The Christmas lights are some of the best and merriest I have yet seen and the town seems much buzz-ier than I had remembered.

Stuck at Stansted!

Well, this is a pain. I checked in at five this evening for my flight to the Isle of Man, where I am running a course tomorrow, and it is now 7:20 with no further information on when, or if, I am going to get away.

The last announcement was over an hour ago and estimated the time of departure at 8:15. However, the screens are saying, "wait in lounge" with no time given. I was looking forward to a pleasant evening in my hotel in Douglas, but that is clearly not going to happen. Damn!

Ici au Luberon

We have arrived safely at Rod and Gilla's. The weather is gorgeous and the house is fantastic. More to follow.....

Fascinating Dyson

James Dyson gave the Dimbleby lecture this week. He made a powerful case for engineering and manufacturing in the the UK and talked about the culturally destructive nature of being surrounded by things we did not make. He strongly attacked the idea that we could survive on services in a "post-industrial" age. The BBC has published a digest of the lecture at: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/4081937.stm

One idea that he advanced was entirely new to me. He reminded us of Britain's industrial past. In 1600, China produced one third of the world's output of manufactured goods and Britain produced effectively nothing. By 1800, with 2% of the world's population, Britain produced half of the world's output. What was new to me was Dyson's argument that this was a fluke and not due to the innate superiority of British inventiveness. He pointed out that we simply ran out of wood! The world economy prior to the Industrial Revolution had been wood-driven. We built from wood and we heated from wood. We also used Charcoal for smelting. Around 1700, we ran out and the goverment imposed strict limits on the use of wood in order to conserve what was left for shipbuilding and other essential uses.

In desperation, we turned to coal and brick and iron. But these required totally new methods of extraction and creation and so we were driven to invent, for example, the steam engine to give us the power to drive the mines. He argued that any country in our position would have had to industrialise or die and that it was chance that we got there first.

If this thesis is correct, it does address something that has always puzzled me: why here? Why, given all the intelligent people there must have been all over the world did Britain suddenly surge ahead and create the world we see today. Surely a better-resourced country would have been a more likely candidate. Dyson may have explained this.

Festive evening at CBHRD

Last night we had an enjoyable end-of-season evening at CBHRD, the local forum for professionals in the HRD and HR fields.

You can read more at www.cbhrd.org.uk

Anyone want my dollars?

The dollar is a basket-case at the moment, heading down below the $2 to £1 mark. Economists tell us that this is because the Americans are living beyond their means and so are relying on the rest of us to support their lifestyle by buying US securities to offset the twin deficits they are running.

My own investments in the US are now 8% off on the year, despite the good underlying performance of the companies making up the portfolio. But good dollar figures don’t matter at all if the value of the gain is more than wiped out by the fall in the dollar. Since the Bush government seems to be incapable of, or unwilling to, take the necessary steps to fix the deficits, the dollar is likely to carry on down. This is causing me to consider disinvesting in the US and cutting my losses.

I am pretty sure America can stand the loss of my support, but surely the big players on the international markets must be considering their positions hard. And if there is a general flight from the dollar, where will the fall end?

So, anyone want my dollars? Offers over 50 pence each considered.

Blunkett and Quinn

The papers are once again full of the Blunkett-Quinn affair and the Tories are now baying for his blood: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/4069923.stm

It seems to me that one aspect of this case, though mentioned, has been understated and that is the Home Secretary's state of mind. The reactions of both parties demonstrate clearly that this is an affair that has generated huge passions. In these circumstances love and hate merge into a maelstrom of emotion that takes years to calm down. I know from turmoil in my own life in the past that these matters tend to occupy 80% of the mind and that other functions are carried out more or less on autopilot. I also know that judgements that seem objective and sound at the time are subsequently seen to have been severely affected by the chaos within.

To me, the issue is not whether the Home Secretary has abused his power. He may or may not have done so. The greater issue is whether he is mentally competent to carry out his vital duties when he is bound to be in an extremely emotional state. Personally, I don't believe any man could face the personal issues that he is facing without letting his emotions affect his daily conduct. I am therefore in no doubt that he should step down and focus on his personal life. My guess is that it will be at least two years before he has any idea how much of what he thinks today is his head talking, and how much is his heart.

Measuring the Universe.

This evening we took a phone call from our friends Rod and Gilla Heath in the south of France. We are flying down to see them next weekend and they called to ask if we could bring an electric blanket with us (King size). They have looked all over the place down there and the French either do not have electric blankets, or they are not available that far south.

The weather there sounds lovely: clear frosty nights and warm days so that you can eat out of doors at lunchtime.

On Saturday night they have arranged for us to spend an evening at the local observatory learning how to measure the universe. The Observatory looks terrific and you can learn about it at http://www.centre-astro.fr/ The evening will be entirely in French which will be an interesting test for Catherine and me.

On Sunday, they have invited six of their new French friends round for lunch. This includes a judge and his wife and the local builder and his wife. None of these people speak English, either.

We are really looking forward to the trip. It will be interesting to hear how ordinary French citizens view the world today. I wonder if the slight national disagreement over Iraq will come up?

Nanny state!

Surely the affair of the Home Secretary and Kimberly Quinn proves beyond doubt that we live in a "nanny" state?

Burke's triumph

The Oxford Dictionary of Quotations set out to find the world's favourite quotation as part of the launch of its latest edition.

The winner was Edmund Burke: "It is necessary only for the good man to do nothing for evil to triumph". W B Yeats came second.

You can read the top ten at: http://www.askoxford.com/worldofwords/quotations/quotefrom/100quotes/quotations/?view=uk

Update the Blog!

I received an urgent communication this morning from my friend David Friedman in America who had noticed that the Blog was now a record two weeks behind reality. So, here we go!

It has been one heck of a month. I think I ran ten courses in November and travelled between Edinburgh in the North to Jersey in the South. The organisations I worked with in November were:

Abbey
Barings
Ansbacher
Abacus
Scottish Reinsurance
Roche Pharmaceuticals

However, Abbey are by far our biggest client and I ran courses in Jersey, St Albans and Warrington for them. In December, I am flying out to the Isle of Man to run one further course for them.

In the whole of November I cannot have spent more than a couple of consecutive days at home. Catherine, too, has been amazingly busy, running promotions and closing sales. She has landed CIGNA and the Land Registry, which may lead into Government in a big way.

All this activity is raising serious work-life balance issues. We love to be busy, but we clearly need to find ways of scaling this business up without killing ourselves. Tomorrow we interview a young man who we think might be able to take on the training part of what we do, freeing us up to think more and develop the business.

Things are slowing down for Christmas a little now. Next weekend we fly down to the South of France to stay with a couple of friends who have retired over there. We are really looking forward to a couple of days relaxation and good food.