Diversions Manifold

My business trips are now rare in comparison to how things were a few years ago. I count myself lucky as this dip has coincided nicely with starting a family. So from monthly trips to Asia and almost weekly trips to Germany from the UK, I now occasionally fly to Italy to meet suppliers and drive around Germany meeting customers. And read bedtime stories. This week I ended up on a more unusual trip, to Dacia in Romania, to discuss some issues that they have been having in production. It was to have been a relatively relaxed journey, flying to Bucharest from Frankfurt airport early in the afternoon to stay in an airport hotel until my colleague from Turkey arrived early the next morning. Alas, though, systems happened. We have the Egencia travel booking system at work; it is the business version of Expedia. Egencia turned out to be a nightmare for rapid turnaround travel as it has an - in itself eminently sensible - approval system built in. The problem is that these approvals nee

Blogging is an art form. Examples abound of it being produced spectacularly well and spectacularly badly; as with all other art forms, it requires a certain discipline with quality control. So, with me swyping this entry on a mobile phone, can I do justice to the artistic endeavour? Surprisingly, yes. Whilst it is more difficult to see the overall picture or flow of what is being written, and more care is required for the input itself, if I can take time and care over it, saving it, re-reading it, tweaking it, then there is no reason for this document to end up qualitatively different to a blog written with a fountain pen and paper. I don't subscribe to the view that the care required for input amplifies the care taken in pre-selecting the word about to be written. Much more important is having the time available to concentrate on the content and avoiding distractions; even better than merely time is multiple times. The factor that most limits blog entries such this on my Mo

I came across this poem whilst researching for Diversions Manifold (research meaning the desparate search for inspiration for the name). But yield who will to their separation, My object in living is to unite My avocation and my vocation As my two eyes make one in sight. Only where love and need are one, And the work is play for mortal stakes, Is the deed ever really done For heaven and the future´s sakes. —Robert Frost, Two Tramps in Mud Time, st. 9

 I to do too many things without devoting sufficient time to any one of them to become particularly good at it. Business, engineering, playing trombone, biking, singing, being a Dad, being a husband - and now blogging. So why should I harbour this conceit of publishing my thoughts? And why should you want to read them? The answer to the first is fairly clear - I want to force myself to think again, something that I have not truly done since university. Egotistically, I want to push the results of these thoughts onto the web in order to force myself to find the right words, and to get as close as I can to a truth, however limited. To the second question - why should you read this - I hope you have the answer. My hope is that some of what I write strikes a chord of recognition, a feeling of “Mitmensch” - being related in this form of humanity - and that it creates a little frisson of expectation that more is to come. Perhaps we share some interesting thoughts, perhaps we're pole