Common Courtesy

Day 42 ( Wednesday 11th January 2017)

42 times higher than the national air quality standards - was the finding of
scientists in India when assessing pollution in Delhi during Diwali (the
celebratory fireworks plunged the city into smog and air pollution levels
rose significantly on the night of the Diwali holiday.) Air pollution causes as many
as 10,000-30,000 deaths annually in India.

Today's post is by a delightful man, whom I met for the first time on 8th December 2016 - Bede Northcote, the Managing Director and founder of Northcote Internet Ltd, a business that provides videos for online annual reports and live events production. Bede has had a fascinating route to where he is now - with a degree in Nuclear Engineering and a period in the British Royal Navy as a submariner, before  working in software development and as a consultant for a range of organisations including IMR Global, Thomson Financial and Morgan Stanley International. I met Bede because he and I share a love of rugby - having both played in the front row when younger. We enjoyed watching The Varsity Match together - I am pleased to report that, being supporters of Cambridge, we had much to celebrate (Cambridge broke a six year run of losing to take the title). 

Bede can be found on Twitter (his handle is @northcote_b), although he is seldom active in a personal capacity. His post is on the theme of heart and the impact people have on others through the way they interact.

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Common Courtesy

For some years now, I have been trying to be more polite.  

It has the most wonderful benefits.  I started by thanking bus drivers and now try to look back at the driver and wave my thanks as well.  This invariably results in a smile and a wave back.  I now hear more bus passengers also thanking the driver.  We rely on so many people doing hard jobs in difficult situations at odd hours of the day and night that politeness is the least that we can do.

London Transport's first female bus driver, Mrs Rosamund Viner, at the driver training centre in Chiswick 1974

Britain has always thought of itself as a polite country.  We need to work at being more polite and remembering that manners, etiquette and civility all help us get along.  This is particularly true in the coming years as we face a new future.

This thought has lead me to another level.  I have a wonderful multi-national and multi-cultural team working for me.  A lot of them are from Europe and the morning after the Brexit result, they felt that they weren’t as welcome here as they had felt before.  Meanwhile all of the rhetoric from our politicians assumes that we can just get what we want.

We need to be more polite, we offer help to the world and we should be polite in asking for it back.  We should be generous in our offers and un-assuming in our expectations.  We have no right to expect a better world for ourselves.

Banksy drawing in Clacton

If we approached the future negotiations with utter politeness, maybe it would be much easier.  People achieve so much more happiness and success when they are polite to each other rather than assuming that everything is in conflict.  Countries are only huge collections of people and politicians are only representatives of people.  If the people demand politeness, then contentment will follow.

The first thing we could do is offer the wonderful people who are British by choice, the protection of our country. 

Global etiquette

Advent Hopes

Day 1 (Tuesday 1st December 2015)

Number One London – the informal address of Apsley House,
the townhouse of the Dukes of Wellington. 
It was lived in by Wellington, who acquired the house off his brother, 
after the Battle of Waterloo (which celebrated its 200th anniversary in June)
It gained its name because of its being the first house passed by travellers when
entering London via the toll gates at Knightsbridge.
It stands in dignified isolation amongst the chaos at Hyde Park Corner.

It is the first day of Advent. Welcome to the 2015 Advent Blogs Series. It is both a privilege and pleasure to host this annual event for a second year and I can promise you some wonderful blogs over the next few weeks. I appreciate that a few people found this year's theme of "Comet Tails and Coal Dust" challenging, but the thought and effort has paid off. New and experienced writers have interpreted the theme in a variety of ways. I hope you enjoy reading these wonderful posts; they were written for us as a seasonal gift and have become a tradition within a broad community. I always find the Advent Blogs a wonderful time for reflection, sharing, celebration and making new contacts - 2015 will be no exception.

The first post in this year's Series is written by my good friend and occasional work associate, the inspirational consultant artist, Simon Heath. As many of you are aware, due to Simon being a popular contributor on Twitter (his handle is @SimonHeath1 ) where he speaks openly about his past, Simon had a successful career within commerce - culminating in being Head of Operations for a number of significant financial services businesses - before taking advantage of redundancy to follow his heart and step into a new, more creative career. He founded Speech Bubble EQ in January 2013 and is now recognised as a leader in his field, providing pithy and witty illustrations for conferences, senior leadership and training events and the communication of crucial messages. He has the knack of appreciating the importance of what is being said by others, his commercial grounding helps, and is capable of turning thoughts and words into memorable and impactful images. Today he has done something different and used his creative talents to write a poem around the Advent Series theme (of Comets and Coal Dust) that encapsulates much of the festive excitement of children and families in the lead up to Christmas.

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Trailing through the winter sky

The comet spotted up on high,

Brought Shepherds out to gaze aloft

With toes and fingers firmly crossed

‘Twas Christmas, see.  And at that time,

People up their trees did climb,

To put on top the shining star

They’d seen across horizons far.

And children out, all bundled up

While parents steaming glasses cup

Faces turned towards the sight

Of stardust lighting up the night.

All Advent hopes dispel the fear

That in the night no one would hear

The jingle bells, the “Ho, ho, ho!”,

The crunch of footsteps in the snow.

At the Pole, the patient elves

Turned once more to fill the shelves,

Hoping that the job was done

As in the East, appeared the Sun.

The turning handle, stopping banter

And in the room comes striding, Santa!

Then by the sight all there were cheered

Of dabs of coal dust on his beard.

Thank you Simon, the countdown has begun....