Can I offer you a tasting note on tonight's movie - Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade.
I have always remembered one scene since my last viewing 20 years ago.
I can tell you three things about it - it is better in wide screen (there was none then) and it is better with a Rioja in front of you.
And one more thing ma'am...
It is a father and son tale.
A father whose "way" was unsure (who calls our hero Junior and never Indy; who gave his life to the quest for the holy grail to the exclusion of everything else - an obsession his wife and son could never understand - all of which sets it up for a bit of comedy banter.Oh dear, I hear you cry!)
They find the grail (who wouldn't) and drop it out of reach onto a precipice.
Our hero reaches out with a hand, the other grabbing onto his father's hand trying to pull him out of danger.
He reaches and slips and reaches, grip failing as the pit beckons. His father extends a second hand and implores him to give up the fight for his own life's desire.
Just a little further.
Give it up, Junior.
Just a bit further. I can get it.
The screen edges seem to fuse. The background noise fades.
And one word saves him from a deathly attempt to reach the treasure.
One word stops him from too high a risk of death.
One word.
Indiana.
Breathes his father, finally putting his son first.
The scene last 2 seconds and is worth the price of admission alone.
Two lives. One decision. One moment.
Eternity in a grain of sand.
Rarely does a movie deliver this.
And this movie is just a throwaway comic.
Isn't it?
There's one or two others scenes I am not so happy with, but Lucas and Spielberg have never bothered to engage.
Wednesday, 19 January 2011
Monday, 17 January 2011
All hail the generalist
You know those executive coaches?
Are they the “executive” or is it their customers?
And if it is their customers, isn’t “executive” really an old fashioned word?
Light grey broad pin-stripe anybody?
They use the word, I believe, to reflect glory on themselves. They are the executive.
And what do you need to become one?
A printer.
A business card.
C’est. Ça.
It is just marketing. And marketing is at its most offensive in areas of therapeutics.
As they bask in their own glory, what they are selling had better be good. Right?
But how many executive coaches teach themselves a few affirmations and a couple of NLP exercises, buy a nice suit, moisturise and label themselves corporate trainers or the like?
They are aiming high end.
Where the cash is.
But selling a specialised product in a specialised area makes you less than a “specialist”.
Would you really want a lifestyle coach that has never turned his so-called skills to say helping a heroine addict or a victim of homelessness or gut-burning debt?
Who has never visited the harder-edged side of society?
Would you really want to employ someone to trim the frayed fringes of your life when they are ignorant of the quality of textile beneath. Who has trained and targeted himself principally to lighten the overburdened wallet of people like you?
That is not much to be proud of.
And a specialist, it ain’t.
A specialist can help anyone in his chosen field (with the possible exception of language barriers)..
A specialist is a generalist of people and an expert in subject matter only.
A specialist in executives is a cynical ploy.
Let me give you another example.
Is a doctor of cruise ship medicine a specialist in high end cruisers?
Hopefully not.
He can treat 60 nationalities of crew members and passengers using skills of primary and secondary care and deliver the product of cruise ship medicine to each adult and child based on fundamental principles underwritten by several specialties.
Hopefully.
The generalist has the toughest specialty of all but the real message is this.
Once you have learned the skills that float your boat, expertise comes from applying them as broadly as humanly possible.
Are they the “executive” or is it their customers?
And if it is their customers, isn’t “executive” really an old fashioned word?
Light grey broad pin-stripe anybody?
They use the word, I believe, to reflect glory on themselves. They are the executive.
And what do you need to become one?
A printer.
A business card.
C’est. Ça.
It is just marketing. And marketing is at its most offensive in areas of therapeutics.
As they bask in their own glory, what they are selling had better be good. Right?
But how many executive coaches teach themselves a few affirmations and a couple of NLP exercises, buy a nice suit, moisturise and label themselves corporate trainers or the like?
They are aiming high end.
Where the cash is.
But selling a specialised product in a specialised area makes you less than a “specialist”.
Would you really want a lifestyle coach that has never turned his so-called skills to say helping a heroine addict or a victim of homelessness or gut-burning debt?
Who has never visited the harder-edged side of society?
Would you really want to employ someone to trim the frayed fringes of your life when they are ignorant of the quality of textile beneath. Who has trained and targeted himself principally to lighten the overburdened wallet of people like you?
That is not much to be proud of.
And a specialist, it ain’t.
A specialist can help anyone in his chosen field (with the possible exception of language barriers)..
A specialist is a generalist of people and an expert in subject matter only.
A specialist in executives is a cynical ploy.
Let me give you another example.
Is a doctor of cruise ship medicine a specialist in high end cruisers?
Hopefully not.
He can treat 60 nationalities of crew members and passengers using skills of primary and secondary care and deliver the product of cruise ship medicine to each adult and child based on fundamental principles underwritten by several specialties.
Hopefully.
The generalist has the toughest specialty of all but the real message is this.
Once you have learned the skills that float your boat, expertise comes from applying them as broadly as humanly possible.
Tuesday, 4 January 2011
Sax and soul
Windin' your way down on Baker Street
Light in your head and dead on your feet
Well another crazy day
You'll drink the night away
And forget about everything
This city desert makes you feel so cold.
It's got so many people but it's got no soul
And it's taking you so long
To find out you were wrong
When you thought it had everything.....
Sounds like you saw it coming, Gerry.
RIP
From Generation Sax.
Light in your head and dead on your feet
Well another crazy day
You'll drink the night away
And forget about everything
This city desert makes you feel so cold.
It's got so many people but it's got no soul
And it's taking you so long
To find out you were wrong
When you thought it had everything.....
Sounds like you saw it coming, Gerry.
RIP
From Generation Sax.
Monday, 3 January 2011
The substance of style
Today between designing my year and cleaning, I completed a new experience – exposure to period drama.
And I came to the conclusion that the best moment of dramatic counterpoint comes not from an explosion, not from a death or a joke and not from a pratfall. The best moments of Downton and largely responsible, I believe, for the huge success it proved to be is the display of total dignity in the face of adversity.
And great casting.
Why exactly that should make the eyes well up, I simply don't know.
And I came to the conclusion that the best moment of dramatic counterpoint comes not from an explosion, not from a death or a joke and not from a pratfall. The best moments of Downton and largely responsible, I believe, for the huge success it proved to be is the display of total dignity in the face of adversity.
And great casting.
Why exactly that should make the eyes well up, I simply don't know.
Sunday, 2 January 2011
Second change
Still looking for a resolution?
Why not write your own Wikipedia page describing everything you are in 2012.
Why not write your own Wikipedia page describing everything you are in 2012.
Saturday, 1 January 2011
Happy 1-1-11
It's that time of year again. Only this time the date is 1/1/11.
And so we may get to thinking about resolutions.
We may listen to the resolutions of others, maybe try them on to fit.
Maybe we look in the mirror. Maybe we look at our wallets before we decide.
In years past we might look at or weight or other trivia.
But this is not years past. Not yet.
Now we look to our jobs because the world has changed. In my mind, the old rules don't apply.
Believe me, I know this is a dangerous philosophy. I know that man's greatest mistakes are based on forgetting that history repeats.
But even so.
Even so, there is something different, something essential has changed.
Maybe it's a blip. You might reassure yourself that a lot of what affects society is written. In no danger of being reversed.
I respectfully disagree.
The borders are open. The demographic is racing on the corner of its most dangerous exponential curve presenting change with the force of several Gs.
We are way, way beyond the point of no return.
Or maybe you are right. Maybe nothing has really changed. After all, people are people.
Anyway whether you choose to agree with me or choose to be wrong, what you going to do about it? What do you change as we enter potentially painful years?
Perhaps you look to celebrity to be your rock, perhaps you look in the newspaper for their list of resolutions and choose to copy them.
It is the modern way. Emulating celebrity.
But I tend to concur with an editorial I read today that the nature of celebrity was permanently damaged during 2010. It "jumped the shark". Google it.
There can barely be a celebrity format that hasn't been rolled out. And there can certainly never have been in history a more one worthless bunch of characters who claim the moniker.
It's a Band-Aid for the masses that has value but only when it's aspirational. When it makes you want to join in and want to learn to oh, lets say, ballroom dance.
And the reason we shouldn't follow these charlies most of all. Well, they're not happy, are they? That's not news to you, is it?
Maybe you look to sport for your validation. Is there a sport that has not been corrupted if not by cheating then at the very least by vile agents, greedy inarticulate scumbags or a total lack of moral turpitude.
Are these people your heroes?
Do. You. Want. To. Be. Like. Them?
Slower. Louder. Repeat.
One of the answers to this problem is how we marry global relationships with parochial ones. There's been a feeling that long before the script of Shirley Valentine that people want to break out into the big wide world. Fine. But sometimes wide isn't easy. It is a crime to look at the script of Love Actually and to allow yourself to "live such a little life".
The answer is it has to suit your personality.
You can and should tweak your personality of course. Apart from anything else, that is true learning. And fun.
Playact being a better person and you might end up one by accident.
You'll be happiest when you're true to it. Not to play to its whims but to its core values.
I'm making a potentially fatal assumption here of course. That your core values are based on integrity.
But don't worry. I trust you. I am a truster.
You are my trustee. (Would you mind giving me a grant for a conservatory I am thinking of erecting?)
Those among us have tasted globality in business or maybe hols and that may be lead us to another answer: to consciously become more parochial, to aim for a littler life, to batten down the hatches and build up the walls.
Working on your walls and your hatches is not the worst resolution for 2011.
Feel free to leave as many escape routes as you think you'll need.
Or maybe what we need is a new kind of resolution with a harder edge, with a modernity (is that the noun you make out of modern?), maybe a more existential feel.
Let me offer you a starter for the year - wrrte a letter to anyone who moves you to tears this year.
And whatever route you choose.
The very best of luck.
And so we may get to thinking about resolutions.
We may listen to the resolutions of others, maybe try them on to fit.
Maybe we look in the mirror. Maybe we look at our wallets before we decide.
In years past we might look at or weight or other trivia.
But this is not years past. Not yet.
Now we look to our jobs because the world has changed. In my mind, the old rules don't apply.
Believe me, I know this is a dangerous philosophy. I know that man's greatest mistakes are based on forgetting that history repeats.
But even so.
Even so, there is something different, something essential has changed.
Maybe it's a blip. You might reassure yourself that a lot of what affects society is written. In no danger of being reversed.
I respectfully disagree.
The borders are open. The demographic is racing on the corner of its most dangerous exponential curve presenting change with the force of several Gs.
We are way, way beyond the point of no return.
Or maybe you are right. Maybe nothing has really changed. After all, people are people.
Anyway whether you choose to agree with me or choose to be wrong, what you going to do about it? What do you change as we enter potentially painful years?
Perhaps you look to celebrity to be your rock, perhaps you look in the newspaper for their list of resolutions and choose to copy them.
It is the modern way. Emulating celebrity.
But I tend to concur with an editorial I read today that the nature of celebrity was permanently damaged during 2010. It "jumped the shark". Google it.
There can barely be a celebrity format that hasn't been rolled out. And there can certainly never have been in history a more one worthless bunch of characters who claim the moniker.
It's a Band-Aid for the masses that has value but only when it's aspirational. When it makes you want to join in and want to learn to oh, lets say, ballroom dance.
And the reason we shouldn't follow these charlies most of all. Well, they're not happy, are they? That's not news to you, is it?
Maybe you look to sport for your validation. Is there a sport that has not been corrupted if not by cheating then at the very least by vile agents, greedy inarticulate scumbags or a total lack of moral turpitude.
Are these people your heroes?
Do. You. Want. To. Be. Like. Them?
Slower. Louder. Repeat.
One of the answers to this problem is how we marry global relationships with parochial ones. There's been a feeling that long before the script of Shirley Valentine that people want to break out into the big wide world. Fine. But sometimes wide isn't easy. It is a crime to look at the script of Love Actually and to allow yourself to "live such a little life".
The answer is it has to suit your personality.
You can and should tweak your personality of course. Apart from anything else, that is true learning. And fun.
Playact being a better person and you might end up one by accident.
You'll be happiest when you're true to it. Not to play to its whims but to its core values.
I'm making a potentially fatal assumption here of course. That your core values are based on integrity.
But don't worry. I trust you. I am a truster.
You are my trustee. (Would you mind giving me a grant for a conservatory I am thinking of erecting?)
Those among us have tasted globality in business or maybe hols and that may be lead us to another answer: to consciously become more parochial, to aim for a littler life, to batten down the hatches and build up the walls.
Working on your walls and your hatches is not the worst resolution for 2011.
Feel free to leave as many escape routes as you think you'll need.
Or maybe what we need is a new kind of resolution with a harder edge, with a modernity (is that the noun you make out of modern?), maybe a more existential feel.
Let me offer you a starter for the year - wrrte a letter to anyone who moves you to tears this year.
And whatever route you choose.
The very best of luck.
Thursday, 16 December 2010
Prime Directives
Life is other people.
But of course it's more complicated than that.
If you go with Sartre, Hell is other people.
Think about the challenge facing your general practitioner and glimpse this dilemma.
I do like a quote and I think it was Douglas Adams who spoke of doing six impossible things before breakfast.
In family medicine there are at least three impossible things for the GP to do:
1. Take responsibility for other people's decisions
2. Quantify uncertainty
3. Predict the future
4. Protect the innocent
5. Uphold the law
6. Serve the public trust.
Okay, so the last three belonged to Robocop. So putting aside his prime directives for a while, let's concentrate on the first three.
To take on any one of these some may consider to be madness, foolish vanity, gross stupidity or worse, an overeagerness to please.
To take on two of these things is carelessness (quotes are like buses, sometimes they come in threes).
Only a dreamer would take on all three.
Nevertheless.
This is the War.
Take your position.
And choose your weapons.
But of course it's more complicated than that.
If you go with Sartre, Hell is other people.
Think about the challenge facing your general practitioner and glimpse this dilemma.
I do like a quote and I think it was Douglas Adams who spoke of doing six impossible things before breakfast.
In family medicine there are at least three impossible things for the GP to do:
1. Take responsibility for other people's decisions
2. Quantify uncertainty
3. Predict the future
4. Protect the innocent
5. Uphold the law
6. Serve the public trust.
Okay, so the last three belonged to Robocop. So putting aside his prime directives for a while, let's concentrate on the first three.
To take on any one of these some may consider to be madness, foolish vanity, gross stupidity or worse, an overeagerness to please.
To take on two of these things is carelessness (quotes are like buses, sometimes they come in threes).
Only a dreamer would take on all three.
Nevertheless.
This is the War.
Take your position.
And choose your weapons.
Tuesday, 9 November 2010
Monday, 8 November 2010
Keeping Fit
Diagnostic coding has its place but if you are forced to label everyone who comes through the door, there are going to be tricky times. Most patients of primary care (family medicine) don’t have a clear diagnosis. Or don’t have one yet.
I have gone through a phase many years ago of coding (with the nearest most relevant code) those people I could find nothing wrong with as “Fit”.
Waking in a cold sweat a few years later as my subconscious reviewed this process in a less than timely way, I realized that a ‘fit’ is of course a ‘seizure’, perhaps even due to epilepsy.
So for those inconvenienced by my coding say during an application for an HGV licence or trying to get into the army, well, as we used to say at school: Soz!
I have gone through a phase many years ago of coding (with the nearest most relevant code) those people I could find nothing wrong with as “Fit”.
Waking in a cold sweat a few years later as my subconscious reviewed this process in a less than timely way, I realized that a ‘fit’ is of course a ‘seizure’, perhaps even due to epilepsy.
So for those inconvenienced by my coding say during an application for an HGV licence or trying to get into the army, well, as we used to say at school: Soz!
Thursday, 4 November 2010
Raising an eyebrow
Have you ever even in a weak moment desired to use a semicolon?
If so, stop and think. Know when you are out of your depth.
To me it demonstrates a level of uncertainty - "Oh I'd like to end the sentence but I'm just not sure. Shall I? Shan't I?
(This is best said in your internal dialogue in a lily-livered voice).
Because if there is a camper punctuation, I'd like to hear about it.
And this is from a chap who is about to start going to work on an emoticon this winter.
Apparently they don't use much fuel.
If so, stop and think. Know when you are out of your depth.
To me it demonstrates a level of uncertainty - "Oh I'd like to end the sentence but I'm just not sure. Shall I? Shan't I?
(This is best said in your internal dialogue in a lily-livered voice).
Because if there is a camper punctuation, I'd like to hear about it.
And this is from a chap who is about to start going to work on an emoticon this winter.
Apparently they don't use much fuel.
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