Hapless bosses

Over the last couple of years, too many people I come into contact with have been more interested in playing mind games as part of ego-building rituals, than have been constructive or even positive.

I was thinking of this today when I came across this article via a Google alert and it made a lot of sense to me.

To dream

My wife, Michelle, printed out an article from The Independent today which featured their 5-minute interview. This one was with Michael Ball, who is currently starring in Hairspray in the West End. We're due to take our daughter, Hayley, to it on Friday 30th November as it is her birthday on that day. Michelle has already seen it twice and I first saw it in Toronto a couple of years ago.

The interview was, as it's title suggests, a quick run-through, but the last question and answer caught my eye:

In a nutshell, my philosophy is this...

"To dream of the person you would like to be is to waste the person you are"

I've seen this on various sites around the web and, for the first time, it made me really sit up and take note. I am a Pisces and have spent my life day-dreaming of the person I could be and the life I could live. When I snap back into reality I worry about whether I've missed anything major while I've been away - especially regarding the children growing up.

Michelle assures me that I haven't missed a thing and that I'm actually getting better at the doing these days. I'm looking forward to Friday, as Hayley obviously is, and hopefully that will be another real memory for us all to treasure and we can all be just the way we are.

Frost

There was a quite severe frost in Burwell this morning. It was the first time I had seen frosty white roads in the surrounding countryside since we moved here in the lighter, brighter days of summer.

And yet, I spotted several children heading towards their school buses in just jumpers or even t-shirts. I was wrapped up in sweatshirt and coat and still felt quite cold. I realise that wearing the right clothing may not necessarily be the coolest clothins but surely better that than being cold rather than cool?

The lights are going out

all over Cambridge; we shan't see them lit again in our lifetime.

OK, so that (adapted) quote came from then Foreign Secretary Sir Edward Grey, who was educated at Oxford and not Cambridge. OK, so he was referring to the onset of WWI, which may make this post somewhat trivial in comparison.

However, I regularly drive to the station in Cambridge to commute into London. Invariably it's dark when I do so and I am astonished at the number of cyclists who have no lights on their bikes. Cambridge is awash with bikes during term times (and plenty outside of that too) yet not only are there no lights, but often no reflectors or reflective clothing being worn either.

Needless to say I've had a new misses but, as a motorist, imagine the backlash if I were to hurt someone accidentally because I haven't been able to pick them out (they also aren't the most careful of road users let me add, with often eccentric behaviour no doubt re-branded as 'original')?

Grey's observation proved to be well-founded and no doubt that accounts for its longevity. Perhaps 'the lights aren't on but there's somebody there' will become a sad epitaph for our 'enlightened' age?