Ruminations on my career

Aweh, My Dearly Beloved Fellow Ruminants & Groupies Yes, this blog is often self-indulgent, and today will be no exception. I recently turned 64, and quite astonishingly, my wife still loves me. With less than a year to go until mandatory retirement, I’ve hit an important milestone: I no longer care about career advancement. I’veContinue reading “Ruminations on my career”

Ruminations on the unravelling of coherence

Aweh, My Dearly Beloved Fellow Ruminants & Groupies What does it mean to be coherent, and does it still matter? Coherence is the alignment of thought, speech, and action—a consistency of principle over time. Paired with articulate expression, it becomes clarity of voice. In our age of noise and narrative drift, speaking clearly from aContinue reading “Ruminations on the unravelling of coherence”

Access Denied: Ruminations on Gates, Status, and the Global Belonging Game

Aweh, My Dearly Beloved Fellow Ruminants & Groupies, Let me level with you. I’m writing this from inside a paradox—privileged enough to live in a secure suburb with high walls and patrolled by armed guards. Sometimes I’m even able to skip a queue or two when it suits me. But also: extensively vetted for visas.Continue reading “Access Denied: Ruminations on Gates, Status, and the Global Belonging Game”

Celebrating Oliver: A Tribute to My Eldest Son Upon His Graduation

Aweh, My Dearly Beloved Fellow Ruminants & Groupies, Oliver didn’t have a 21st birthday party like his younger brother, Connor—Covid-19 put paid to that. So instead, we’re celebrating with a graduation party. I never planned to have children, but when I married Nerine, she began making the critical decisions in our lives. Without her, thereContinue reading “Celebrating Oliver: A Tribute to My Eldest Son Upon His Graduation”

Ruminations on being a grinch and aspirational gas forecasts

Aweh, My Dearly Beloved Fellow Ruminants & Groupies, I spent a large part of my corporate career in the strategy department because I thought I knew a thing or two about strategy—and perhaps more worryingly, management agreed and hired me. Let’s start with a concept beloved by visionary strategists: the Big Hairy Audacious Goal (BHAG).Continue reading “Ruminations on being a grinch and aspirational gas forecasts”

Ruminations on Ruminations

Aweh, My Dearly Beloved Fellow Ruminants & Groupies, I ruminate—a lot. According to the dictionary, rumination is “deep or considered thought about something,” which sounds beneficial. However, a quick Google search reveals articles warning against it, labelling it a mental health problem. Psychologists describe rumination as the repetitive focus on negative thoughts and experiences withoutContinue reading “Ruminations on Ruminations”

Ruminations on Social Justice, Narratives Being the Truth, and Decarbonisation

Aweh, My Dearly Beloved Fellow Ruminants & Groupies, Tomorrow, I begin teaching my decarbonisation course for the third time to postgraduate students far younger, far more sleep-deprived, and far more socially enlightened than I ever was at that age. Writing today’s blog is a last-ditch attempt to clarify the swirling mess of messages and competingContinue reading “Ruminations on Social Justice, Narratives Being the Truth, and Decarbonisation”

Ruminations on Journals, Mistakes, Corrigenda, and Electorigenda

Aweh, My Dearly Beloved Fellow Ruminants & Groupies, Some rightly accuse me of being pompous and using fancy vocabulary. Now that I am pretending to be an academic, I have also found that to be truly impressive you must confuse people with fancy and obscure language and terminology. People may strongly suspect you are talkingContinue reading “Ruminations on Journals, Mistakes, Corrigenda, and Electorigenda”

Ruminations on empathy

Aweh, My Dearly Beloved Fellow Ruminants & Groupies, One of my readers sent me the featured quotes. My visceral response was to demonise Musk and identify with Hannah Arendt—but then I started to ruminate, as I do. Is empathy the most essential feature of a successful society? The empathy quote is widely (but wrongly) attributedContinue reading “Ruminations on empathy”

Ruminations on Trump

Aweh, My Dearly Beloved Fellow Ruminants & Groupies, One of my readers asked me last week what my latest views are on Trump. I am an obliging chap so here goes. Trump is a full employment scheme for journalists, sensationalists, comedians, and obscure bloggers. If we still relied on ink, we’d have a global shortage.Continue reading “Ruminations on Trump”