up to 3000 visitors a month make 3500 hits a day on this site currently....

Monday 18 August
A day at The Grange in Edinburgh watching the first ever official cricket match between England and Scotland.  A rain delayed start sees Scotland chalk up 156-9 in 44 overs, and England make 10 for none before the rain returns and that's the end of festivities.  Do we need an undercover national pitch for Scotland, or a rule change that says you have to play on in the rain?  Thought it was a creditable performance, given the pace and accuracy of Anderson and Flintoff.  Bresnan and Broad were pretty hot stuff too, if not quite as accurate or fast.  Some mean spirited BBC commentator described Scotland as 'struggling', but I thought it was a good show from a crew of amateurs and four second rank county players.  Certainly wouldn't like to have been facing some of the head high stuff coming along at close to ninety miles an hour on any Scottish village green I've seen!

Sunday 10 August 2008

Coldstream has suffered under the most terrible rain I've ever seen in a Civic week.  Such a shame for all the people who spend an entire year making this event work.




An hour later the whole green was underwater and the campers had all escaped, if a little wet.  Thanks to Jason for the photo.

Just back from the Edinburgh International Book Festival, Chairing a talk with Tim Harford, The Undercover Economist.  And now for some game pie...

Hope your week is looking good...

Monday 4 August 2008
Great Evening yesterday at the Festival Fringe launch party at the Corn Exchange Edinburgh, as guests of First Trans-Pennine Express (many thanks guys!)
My one unmissable show from the festival would be Sound & Fury at the Gilded Balloonn.  Three guys from LA, USA in Shakespearean costumes doing vaudeville based (loosely) on William Shakespeare.  Frenetic, energetic, perfect timing and very funny.  Good luck to them...
And back home to be asked to chair an event at the Book Festival, so another action packed week ahead!

Sunday 3 August 2008
Michael Vaughan resigns as England captain.  Probably the right time to do so, given his poor run of presonal form.  Never let it be forgot that Michael has been the most successful captain of the England cricket team ever.  A great model of leadership for us all.  Well done, Michael.  Hold your head high!

Saturday 7 June 2008
World Moth Day - according to the Bowhill walk-about organsied by Buccleuch Estates.  A nice idea anyway.

Wednesday 4 June 2008
A jolly outing to summarise at the end of a morning's debate on the planning process aorganised by Capital Review - City of Edinburgh's informative journal.  Managed to slip two biblical quotations in and stir some life into a flagging audience.  To East Lothian in the afternoon where it is a warm 22 degrees C and beuatifully sunny along the cooast of the Firth of Forth.  What a great place Scotland is to be when the weather is favourable.

Wednesday 30 April 2008

Yo!  They found a giant squid in New Zealand.  You have o check out this baby.  

See Gifts of Unknown Things by Lyall Watson

Wednesday 23 April 2008

Adam Wlkinson rings me and we agree to meet.  All is forgiven (see 18 April).  Well maybe.



Sunday 20 April 2008

Joseph Rowntree release the results of their 'social ills survey'.  As one of the 3,500 volunteer participants I was very interested in the results.  Some good, some alarming....

What are today's social evils?

People feel a deep sense of unease about some of the changes shaping British society, according to our consultation on modern-day social evils.

Individualism, greed, a decline of community and a decline of values were among the social evils that worried participants most. In addition, people also identified:

• drugs and alcohol;
• poverty and inequality;
• decline of the family;
• immigration and responses to immigration;
• crime and violence;
• young people as victims or perpetrators.

More information, and the opportunity to share views, is available at www.socialevils.org.uk.

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Friday 18 April 2008 World Heritage Day

To Edinburgh's Storytelling Centre to hear from the new director of Edinburgh World Heritage, Adam Wilkinson (and others).  He started well by saying we should end 'the polarised debate' on heritage issues.  Assisduous readers of the website will know I have been working at the same goal for over two years now - despite EWHT declining to make an appointment for the last twelve months to follow up on our earlier discussions.  Disappointed then that Mr Wilkinson promptly made three assertions designed to further polarise the debate:
1) that developers would simply ruin 'the goose that laid the golden egg' by building offices and hotels
2) that fiactions who were seeking to undermine the heritage lobby had better watch out (I'd be delighted if he could name me two people who were in collusion seeking to do that)
3) no-one comes to Edinburgh to see a conference centre - news to me - I thought EICC was Europe's fifth most successful business tourism destination
Could debate the matter as he promptly got up and left after his address.  Hopefull Mr Wilkinson havng 'made his mark' will follow his own advice, 'calm down' and engage in dialogue, before he chooses to nmake further disparaging remarks about a community he has only just joined!

Thursday 17 April 2008

A fine day with a cold wind and nearly a full moon...




Wednesday 2 April 2008
The Registrar of Companies spares my blushes by waiting till today to announce the arrival of Graham Bell Associates Limited (hence no fools here).  Owing to burgeoning demand for the service a recruitment drive is under way.  Have now had three messages saying 'God bless her and all who sail in her', so am wondering if I have inadvertantly launched a ship, not a company.  Go to bed and have wierd colourful dreams about all sorts of things, including setting out in a ship.  The freight is plentiful so I hope this is a good omen.

Saturday 29 March 2008
Sandy is 18 tomorrow and celebrates with a couple of dozen friends at Birgham Village Hall and then at home.  Dad retires to bed at 3 a.m. after hearing "Ssh here comes Sandy's dad" for the third time.  Good time had by all.  And what a fine bunch of young people they all are.



Sandy celebrates his 18th birthday at the Birgham Village Hall - here playing with Ben on Pipes and Gabrial on drums.

Wednesday 12 March 2008
BUDGET DAY - oh joy.  Alastair Darling, Chancellor of the Exchequer wimps it.  As usual I have to listen to the whole thing for news and briefing purposes.  The media agree it was DULL.  I didn't actually find it so as I was listen for the detail.  In fact I'm still waiting for it.  Seems the UK government is paralysed by all the sensationailst stuff in the media about world-wide recession, collapse of the housing markets etc etc (neither of which are evident) and by a need not to admit all their past failures (eighth budget speech in a row when they've had to admit their forecasts were over-optimistic - and not a dickie bird about the Northern Rock disaster.)  Nice to have a home-grown one so we don't leave the USA to have all the financial collapses.  Reality is the poor will get poorer and the rich will get richer.  Think I may be just above median as the BBC website tells me I'll be three hundred pounds better off next year.  Might increase my donation to the Salvation Army.

Friday 7 March 2008
Through to Glasgow.  I enjoy the two hours on the train crossing Scotland - it's always great to see more of our country through the changing seasons.  Coming back takes four hours however - harrumph!  In Edinburgh Waverley Station I am approached by a range of well disguised Engishmen - clearly all imbibing and all here for tomorrow's Calcutta Cup match.  Two want to know where the gent's toilet is (was once asked by the chap at the next urinal if it wasn't a waste of money to have to recycle beer so quickly.  We were in the Talbot pub just off Bishopsgate, heart of the City of London and financial home of the UK.  I replied "Depends whether you take the macro- or the micro-economic point of view."  He looked puzzled.)  Next request today was for "Where can I go to have a smoke?"  The station now being smoke-free (supposedly).  Indicated the in ramp and said "Get beyond the canopy."  Regretted it afterwards as it drives me bonkers that walking into the station you have to wade your way through fag ends and fight off smokers blocking up the pavement.  Ten seconds later a train pulled in (I'll spare the operator's blushes and not name them) belching smoke.  Within minutes the entire canopy has filled with the fumes of burning oil, before they can detach the (obviously on fire) locomotive and shunt it away somewhere else.  So much for 'no smoking station'.  Reminded me of the following little vignette.  I regretted having taken my camera out of my bag before leaving the house this morning.





Grangemouth stadium in the rain with the Chemical Works behind.  A curious juxtaposition of health wealth and extreme toxic danger.

Tuesday 4 March

To Edinburgh to meet with Mark Thompson Director General of the BBC.  Edinburgh Chamber President's Forum Dinner - the best turnout ever - which makes things a little crowded.  Some amusing letters to the DG read out but after that thought he played it rather safe and (might I say?  defensively.  One of the advantages of being floated on sixteen gazillions of public cash I guess.  I, like most folks, am very proud of the BEEB, but hey on this kind of support you'd struggle not to make something whizzo.  700 website visitors in four days.  Help! I'm surrounded.  The only way to know if they're other than robots is to request you post to mycelium.  Good show chaps!

Saturday 1 March 2008
St Davd's Day
Well happy greetings to all the Welsh who have a celebration day today.  And commiserations to the inhabitants of the isle of Colonsay, who after a week of delayed ferry crossing owing to bad weather have a local store which is down to two half carrots two packets of cornflakes and four tins of caviar.  An interesting variation from let them eat cake.
A productive day in the garden clearing stuff.  Planted some first early potatoes (Red Duke of York) and hacked back lots of tree weed (elder and sycamore).  Perhaps this year the garden might be a little more 'tidy' and vegetable productive instead of just the usual avalanche of fruit and salad.

Wednesday 27 February 2008
To Glasgow and in the evening to the Royal Television Society lecture at STV headquarters on Pacific Quay, given by First Minister Alec Salmond on the future of Scottish Broadcasting.  The man knows his game for sure.  His comments on lack of live coverage of Scotland football games on terrestrial TV being a sure fired ' newsy' arrow against the London-centric management of programme content.  He actually had a very good grasp of the issue and made some interesting ' vision' statem,ents.  He was also obviously hugely enjoying himself. 'Minority government' status does not seem to have dented SNP enthusiasm for their controlling position.  Thought it was highly noticeable (and regrettably meanspirited) that no-one from the BBC was in evidence...

Tuesday 20 February
An army of various types of cleaners have descended upon the house.  And lots of unnecessary 'stuff' has been gathered together and passed on to others.  Or binned.  Freecycle is a wonderful facility in which I acquire (mostly) musical instruments and give away office commodities, plants, books, tapes and sundry other things.  Things, which seemed so attractive at one point in life now seem burdensome and reducing one's footprint feels like lightening the burden.  Still have qualms about 'employing cleaners' as if passing on menial work to others is a cop-out, but realise they want to do the work and it creates income for them so why not?  Do you ever wonder about how these kind of thoughts get lodged in the brain?  I blame my Mother of course, but then that's what Mothers are for.  And Fathers?


Saturday 2 February 2008
National Potato Day - an event we helped create some years ago, which has got bigger and more tattificated with time. With over eight hundred varieties in the national collection with a huge range of qualities and attributes there's more than just 'spuds' under discussion.
To Edinburgh for the Junior Chamber International Burns Supper.  Only a week late, but hey then there's less competition.  Excellent speeches from the 'young' speakers.  (Not sure 28 seems that young any more!).  Well honed wit and a tribute to the work the JCI has done on training its members in public speaking.  What an asset these folks will be in the years to come.  Left Sandy behind to dance till 2 in the morning.  Being a fiddler and an athlete is a gift as a) he knows the dances and b) he can keep up... Time was...
 

Friday 1 February 
Where did that week go?  Today is Samaritan's Stress Down Day, which is a great reminder about the importance of not getting stressed out by work; something it's sometimes easier to say than do.  I was astonished to read that over sixty percent of people consider changing their job in January every year!  Are we all really so unhappy.  Golly!

Thursday 31 January
The Loud Tie Campaign starting today.  Apart from the excuse to wear some really awful ties it's all in the cause of publicising Bowel Cancer.  Like Prostate Cancer it's one of those things we avoid talking about as it's 'embarrassing'.  Not quite as embarrassing as being dead mind.  We really need to overcome these kind of taboos in the way that has been done so effectively with breast cancer.  Early detection is the most valuable tool in increasing the chances of treatment and recovery or at least good remission.

Monday 28 January
It's National Storytelling Week and also National Salt Awareness Week.  So you can take all those tall tales with a pinch of salt (but no more!).  Personally haven't used salt in cooking for thirty years (except to make pork crackling go crisp!  Delighted to see the latest tome on why Americans think the British are whacko is called 'from the nation that brought you pork scratchings', or some such.  But Storytelling is an art form we could all perfect - the basis of politics, selling, excuses for coming home late, getting young kids to sleep, sex, entertainment... is there anything else left?  Celebrate - tell a story to someone else today!

Wednesday 23 January 2008
Was approached yesterday after 29 years as a mere Member and asked if I wished to be a Fellow of the Chartered Institute of Marketing, and if so could I send a CV.  Duly did so but think the website might have been a greater reference point!  Pleased to tell you that 24 hours later I am informed I am so honoured.  Great!
This week (20-26 January) is Farmhouse Breakfast week.  You can join in our survey of the importance of breakfast and what people do about it here.  To check out the idea see the website.  Mine was porridge!

Thursday 27 December 2007
A sad day for the world as Benazir Bhutto is assissinated on the streets of Pakistan. A contemporary of mine at Oxford (along with Tony Blair!)  - don't worry we weren't chums!  Notice on the Scotsman website xenophobic ravings about Islamic extremists.  Not sure how such ignorance is going to advance anything.  Benazir Bhutto was a brave woman, and it is a sad day for Pakistan and for the whole world.  Before criticizing we in the West should consider the extent to which we have been destabilising the world of Islam for the last thousand years.  That was, and always will be, an unsuccessful approach.  The only future lies in working together and building an inclusive future.  I dread to think what violence will be visited on the people of Pakistan as a result of this tragedy.  God help us all (and any flavour God will do in that regard).

Thursday 29 November 2007
St Andrew's Day, the morn.  I cannot for the life of me understand why there has been argument in Scotland over whether this should be our National Holiday (and a public holiday to boot).  The only other country on earth that would quibble about taking its national day as a holiday is England.  How sad is that?  Challenged to-day by speaking with two businesses who have become implacable foes over a planning issue, but have never met to discuss it.  There must be a better way to make progress.

Wednesday 21 November
Scottish Chambers of Commerce Dinner in Glasgow.  Great to see over 500 people assembled to celebrate the contribution business makes to the well-being of Scotland.  Wrote the Chairman's speech again.  Just looking forward to the day when having fun will be perceived as equally important to being worthy.

I wonder how many songs have been lost?  Songs in lost languages, songs to a lover, songs made up walking or bathing?  Songs thought of when awake in bed at night and forgotten by daybreak.  Insights and observations set to a tune, rhythmic, rhyming, derivative or massively original.  A snatch of words or a carefully crafted lament.  Ballads which are not sung any more as people’s attention span adjusts to the three minute pop song, and we no longer sit in the dark winter evenings entertaining one another at the hearth.  The word hearth of course being cognate with heart.  The heart of a household, its fire and warmth.  Where the cooking pot is stirred.  And memory and tradition.

These are not just history, they are things that are constantly recreated.  New memories are a daily business and tradition is a living thing.  We have no need to underestimate the value of song.  And I guess it's OK for it to be temporary.

Monday 12 November 2007
National Enterprise week.

Saturday 10 November 2007
To the Health Centre to get the flu jag.  Am probably the youngest person there as centre throngs with everyone in town over the age of sixty (they are a majority in fact!) and there's a one way system to get everyone through.  As you have to sit and wait your turn, and then sit for ten minutes before you leave (just so they know you haven't collapsed) I was reminded of Hahnemann's parties in the eighteenth century when innoculation was introduced and the fashionable met for coffee or syllabub and a scrape of cowpox.  Like the idea of Health Centre as party zone for pensioners (and honarary guests like me).  Was also treated to anti-pneumonia thingy.  Which was OK except have spent rest of weekend with large red swollen left arm, running on hot.  But at least only my arm had pneumonia, not the rest of me.  When asked if I wanted it in my left or right arm, thought the obvious thing would be to have half in each!  Spend rest of morning peeling pears and preserving them in various ways.  Nancy makes fantabaroony apple cake.  Ah the joys of the forest garden.  Croissant and home made marmello for breakfast too!

Friday 9 November 2007
After hectic day of non-functioning computers (thanks Mike and Georgiana fo the assistance), clients in high demand mode, and rising stress levels, take the train to Edinburgh for a seven-thirty launch at the Sportsman Bar of Alistair Findlay's 100 Favourite Scottish Football Poems.  A great reading session with half a dozen of the featured poets, including one time international Wille Hunter, in which I am inveigled into reading The Bewteis of the Fute-Ball c 1580.  Not that anyone understood the old Scots, but the Mike Gilson story went down well.  Train back waited forty five minutes for delayed train from Aberdeen (as it's the last train South on the East Coast line) so more stress after an amusing evening.  And more grumps about our fragile transport system (this was be avoiding driving unnecessarily after recent road disasters!).  Consequently didn't get in till midnight.  Note to Transport Minister:  Scotland could do better!

Monday 5 November 2007
Go to an XL meeting at Prestonfield House Hotel with the legendary Roger Hamilton.  Treat Nancy to Dinner in the Rhubarb Restaurant - exquisite - (and get scowled at for being late to the meeting), having booked a room for the night.  Get upgraded to a suite!  Golly!  Seventh heaven.

Sunday 4 November 2007
Food for thought.
This was submitted to mycelium a wee while back, and i just thought it was stunning, so I wanted to share it with you.
I cooked my meal and sat down to eat. The first mouthful almost overwhelmed me- a complex rush of thought and emotion that literally brought tears to my eyes. I had to pause, place my hands together and give heartfelt thanks, all the way up and all the way down, for what lay before me on my plate.

I had gone into the garden and harvested broad and runner beans, Swiss chard, kale (ragged Jack), an onion, tomatoes and courgette from the poly-tunnel and a few of this year's spuds, already lifted and stored. I prepared the vegetables, stringing the runners, podding the broad beans, tearing up chard and kale, cutting courgette into chunks, halving the toms and steamed the lot over boiling spuds. When done I stuck them on a plate with a smoked mackerel, the only shop bought item.

Sounds simple and it was, yet it overwhelmed me. Here's why.

The tastes and textures were fantastically varied; earthy, soft, crunchy, moist, dry, light, rich, sweet, bitter; a delight to my physical experience of the world. The action of gardening itself, which I see as including harvesting, among many other things, is a simple physical exercise that, done well, becomes a discipline along the lines of T'ai Chi. In fact, many of the moves and postures of the martial arts arose from gardening and farming.

My emotional response was a rich combination of pure joy at the simple beauty of the action, a great sadness that this simplicity is invisible to so many of the dwellers in the modern age. A huge frustration at the ignorance that sees food growing as somehow mundane and lowly, not suited to intellectual life, rather than one of the most profound actions we can make in the transformation of life into an integrated, sustainable future.

Intellectually, I knew this food to be the best possible food that I could eat; the fact that it had been grown, harvested and prepared by my own hand means my body absorbs more of the nutrients and trace elements than if I had merely bought it in a shop (a fact that I have long felt to be true that has recently been demonstrated scientifically).

As I podded the beans I was aware that the time taken to prepare the vegetables (about fifteen minutes) would be seen as "long" by many- "much quicker to just whack something into the microwave". Yet it was far less than the time I would have expended to go down town shopping, especially if I also included the time taken to earn the money if I had had to pay cash for the food.

The energy required was minimal; no food miles, no chemical fertilisers or pesticides with their high energy costs, no large scale ploughing with the exposure of humus to burn in the presence of oxygen releasing yet more carbon dioxide to the atmosphere. Some of the seeds I had bought but others, such as the bean family I has saved from last years crop. The food that I harvested was made up of seeds and leaves; the plants are still there, still laden.

I was reminded of Thomas Hardy's "Jude The Obscure", where at one point Jude says, in despair at his failure to achieve the changes he so desires, something like "it will probably require two or three generations to carry out what we have sought to achieve in one". The novel is, after all, a tragedy, as is life for many who suffer as a consequence of the modern, mechanised gardening of the world.

To realise that in the sustainable societies and environments of the future, the production of food will fall not to farmers but to gardeners, is a revelation of considerable power. According to Masanobu Fukuoka, the Japanese natural farmer (check out "The Road Back To Nature"), the cultivation of healthy, wholesome food is one of the two essential requirements of a sane society, the other being the nurture and cultivation of young people. Without these any society is on the way out. It is pertinent to consider that culture and cultivation are words that arise from the same root.

So I gave thanks for my food, all the way up and all the way down; to the thriving micro-organisms of healthy, fertile soil whose complex and dynamic interactions are still not fully understood by science, to the plants as solar powered matter transformers, to the genius loci of my garden (who occasionally let the hens in through the side gate when I am not looking), to the functional deities of the land (like the Celtic god of farming, Amaethon), to the supreme being who presides over all, to my atheistic self as the physical gardener and to the undivided whole of the universe in all time, space, energy and consciousness. Then I ate and enjoyed my meal.

And I look forward to the time when the Gardeners shall inherit the earth.
_________________
web site www.konsk.co.uk
intermittent blog http://konsk.zaadz.com/blog
WelshYouth Forum on Sustainable Development www.wyfsd.org


Saturday 3 November 2007
Not quite sure why we celebrate the burning of Catholics with fireworks.  How does that fit in the panoply of 'multi-cultural Britain'?  But I like the fireworks. Mild for the time of year again, and the garden still yielding fruit and nuts and salads and broccolli.  Used the fruit in a business conversation yesterday illustrating 'added value' and differentiation.  Makes more sense if you've ever eaten Pitmaston Pineapple or Quince Jelly.  Never forget that wealth is only created by growing it or making it.  The rest of us are pushing round pieces of paper or recycling someone else's wealth.

Friday 2 November 2007
Been a busy week, so happy to see a weekend coming along.  Off to Historic Scotland today to talk heritage and development.  See my last contribution on this here.  Nuthatch (what a beautiful piece of God's creation!) and Robin sharing the bird feeder at first light this morning.  Hope you have a good day, folks.

Thursday 1 November 2007
Stunning autumn colours on the drive up to Edinburgh, in a pool of sunshine with dark clouds behind.  Autumn can be one of Scotland's finest times...
Meeting with Scott Sharkey CEO of the Sharkey Group.  What a great man, and what a great business.  From Dad starting as a self-employed joiner twenty years ago to a multi-million pound multi-faceted property company which is leading the UK in less than twenty years.  Let's hope I can help them.
Also great news for Luath Press.   100 Scottish Football Poems about to burst on the scene, edited and contributed to by the inimitable Alistair Findlay, go here for some live production!  And here for some good coverage.  Pleasure to be involved with this intelligent, penetrative publisher committed to all that is best in books, but picking up a lot of what's best in Scotland along the way.

Wednesday 31 October 2007
Just back in from Business Scotland Exhibition at Edinburgh's Corn Market where I've been running the seminar programme for the last two days.  Ten great sessions, from Sir Bernard Crick & Shrley Grieve (the latter of Learning Link Scotland) on issues around integrating migrant workers to Mike Gilson Editor of the Scotsman.  Check out the show. If you were there and would like to comment e-mail me on graham@grahambell.org .

Moment of the day - Mike Gilson (Editor of the Scotsman) confessing that when he was Editor of the Gravesend Echo (being an Estuary Lad originally) ... or some such August journal, he became the only Editor in history to publish a spot-the-ball competition having failed to blank out the ball.  Over a hundred entries received!  Three of them wrong!
Two interesting announcements today - Abolition of Communities Scotland (where her indoors, Nancy works) on the back of a new housing policy for Scotland.
Competition Commission announcements about Supermarkets.  One great antidote for those concerned with babies can be found at Lara Boyd's website .

Thursday 11 October 2007

The day of the great Chicken Disaster.

Well if you don't live in Scotland this might not strike you as funny.  Was in Glasgow last night and set off (early) to return to Coldstream to be at my desk and 'get on with stuff' - great word 'stuff' my sister, Valerie, who works in the world of basic skills teaching for adults, tells me it's the word used most often by academics.  This journey would normally take two hours.  But NOT when there is The Chicken Disaster.  An articulated lorry (OK truck. you foreign people) on the A80 overturned, killing 400 of its chicken passengers and releasing the other 2,600 onto a four lane highway.  This happened at 04.30 (a.m.).  Commiserations to the driver who hurt his back badly in the accident.  But not to the chickens (who were after all on their way to being de-chickenified).   And who closed the road for eight hours, as teams of 'professional chicken catchers' had to be imported from Fife - thus causing the whole of Central Scotland to come to a grinding halt as the traffic backed up for miles around.  So the two hour journey became four and I dread to think of the cost to the economy of the tens of thousands of people (and the pollution) of the world's biggest ever Hen Party!

Which just leaves me a little space to tell you we're just back from Portugal and had a great time!  Can't remember the last time we had a holiday just for us.  Apart from a few days in 1991, about twenty years!  So... dragging ourselves from relaxed mode to 'get working again' here we are.  But for the chickens.

Saturday 18 August 2007

Off to the Methodist Halls (Edinburgh - they host the Youth Orchestras Festival there) to hear Sandy in the National Youth Choir of Scotland (oh and he'll be singing at Last Night of the Proms this year!).  What a joy to hear these young voices making such a fantastic sound at lunchtime... In between take in the Simpsons movie (yep we've done the film festival).  This evening to hear the doyenne of Scottish fiddlers, Alasdair Fraser with cellist Natalie Haas in their sole performance at the St Bride's Centre.  If I get time I'll write a review.  Fantastic!  Ah the Festival!  Utter chaos but hugely rich and entertaining!

Wednesday 15 August 2007
Sandy gone off to Greenlaw for the day to film with his coach (David Bell) and Borders TV on the value of coaching and developing young people's talent.  Think this will also include Sandy coaching some younger people... (It ran on Border TV on Friday 17 August evening news)



Friday 10 August 2007
Cocktails followed by the Civic Week fireworks which I am proud to sponsor.  Good time had by all by the banks of the Silvery Tweed.  Huge crowd thronging the High Street and then lining the riverbanks.  Folks come from far and wide for what is a great wind up to the town's festival week.  And the rain held off!

Tuesday 7 August 2007
That's it then Sandy gets four A's 2 B's and is in to Edinburgh University to do Chemical Physics.  Ruby has already got her Higher grades and a confirmed place at Lincoln University to do Grpahics and Design, and so the old lady and the old man will be abandoned shortly!


Wednesday 18 July 2007
Came home and cooked some tea only to be summoned by Sandy who was picking fruit in the garden.  A sparrowhawk caught up in netting.  Released by the intrepid duo, but not before having his portrait taken.  Spot the ugly one!



Sunday 15 July 2007

Yes we have a winner of the Droogy Competition.  Quite right Chris Dixon, from Anthony Burgess Novel "A Clockwork Orange" with its largely Russian derived invented slang language, droogies are 'mates'.  Even now a copy of Hugh Morris 1936 Classic, The Art of Kissing and David & Joe Borgenicht's The Action Hero's Handbook (2002) are winging their way to Wales!  I particularly like the instructions on how to perform the Vulcan Nerve Pinch.

19.7.07 A response from Chris:
Hi Graham,
Many thanks for the book prizes! I have been thoroughly enjoying the extremely useful action hero's handbook- don't know how I managed without it. And also the kissing book; good excuse to practice with Lyn..
Hwyl!
Chris

Saturday 14 July 2007

A lost day.  Or a found experience.  Lunch at Cafe Gandolfi (Tim Stead's Meisterwork which propelled his talent from sculpture into furniture making) and a trip to the Russian Cafe where we discovered a Tim Stead retrospective exhibition!!  Rivetting stuff.  And some nice Woodschool pieces in the Cafe. We go to City Halls Glasgow to hear Sandy singing in NYCOS (National Youth Choir of Scotland): some sensational stuff.  And some not.  But perfectly acceptable.  Why with all this talent coming through haven't you booked 'em for your birthday party or sent them £1m?

OK me neither.


Friday 13 July 2007

 Just received this from the lovely Julie Diver at JCI Edinburgh.  Your chance to question me in the flesh (there's quite a lot of it) about what makes business work!


JCI Edinburgh’s July Enterprise Workshop

Where, When and How??:
Questions, questions...
 
With
Graham Bell
of Graham Bell, Agent For Change
http://grahambell.org/

With thanks to Lulu Nightclub and Oyster Bay Wines

Well, we’re half way through our enterprise programme for this year and with so much to think about in setting up and / or running a small business, you’ve probably got a million and one questions rattling around needing an answer.
So, by popular demand, this session will be geared towards answering your questions!
No query too stupid or small...

At this workshop, you’ll be able to:

• Ask anything you like that’s related to business, and expect a useful answer from experience!

• Challenge popular entrepreneurial beliefs

• Talk to other business owners about the stage you’re at and discuss issues


Come along for a chance to informally network with like-minds over a glass of wine,
hear an expert's take on Small (and perfectly formed) Businesses and learn what it can do for you!


Lulu Nightclub,
George Street
(below Tigerlily)
Monday, 23rd July,
6-8pm,
Welcome drink on arrival
Free

Places are limited so please register with Julie Diver at julie_diver@ejcc.org.uk or call 078 3334 1117 for more info.

See you there!


About Graham Bell
For over thirty years Graham has worked in business in the UK and abroad, and has experience of a wide range of sectors.  At one time or another Graham has worked in construction (he’s an electrician to trade), transport, IT, training, design, horticulture, and business advice.  He’s been Managing Director of four different companies, and he’s sure if there’s something you could get wrong in business he’s done it.  Graham has also got a lot of things right along the way, and keenly values the opportunity to learn from experience. His work has often involved him at the core of his clients’ businesses, (and there have been thousands of them!) so at some time or other he’s touched most industries.  Graham is passionate about entrepreneurship in its widest sense.