Author Archives: James - Page 136
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Quality Street Fair
Earlier today Alexander went to the Quality Street Fair, we walked from home with Alexander in the buggy. Quality Street was shut off to traffic for the fair and it was quite busy with a two way flow of people up and down the various stalls on the pavement on both sides of the road. The first thing that really grabbed Alexander's attention was the local council's recycling stand, but not because he is particularly green. What fired his enthusiasm were the helium filled balloons that they were giving away. As I walked past slowly Alexander's head turned until he was leaning out of the buggy looking behind us. We turned back to get a balloon and a young woman was taken by Alexander. She gushed about how nice he was and got him a balloon without me asking. She…
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McKinsey Invented Matrix Games
Most of today I spent on a training course called "Top Down Thinking" being run by a nice chap from PA Consulting who is the project's workstream leader for technology. What was most interesting for me was the way it boiled the presentation of just about anything down to a 'Governing Thought' and some key lines that summarised your arguments (no more than five of those). The general style of it was very similar to the Matrix Game format where you say I think x will happen because ... and give three arguments to support your case. Apparently the basis for this approach was a book called Pyramid Thinking written in the 1970s by a woman called Barbara Minto who was the first female partner than McKinsey had. So on that basis I think it is fair to say that…
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7th July – A Year after the Bombs
Well I'm sitting in exactly the same place as I was this time last year when I heard about the bombings, which is in my office in Central London. I had expected it to be a bit quieter on the way in this morning, but it isn't noticeably so, although it is still really too early to tell. Usually I get in before the bulk of people in my office. Fridays are also usually a bit quieter especially when the weather is a bit nicer. I hope that today will be a quiet day of remembrance rather than some extremists trying to hit again in the same spot for more carnage. We'll know soon enough.
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Redhill and Back
We managed to walk to Redhill today, took a little over an hour, although that wasn't helped by me turning back when we ran out of pavement on the way there. I probably added half a mile or so onto the journey by walking back to where I could take another way forward. Once in Redhill we had a wee wander around, bought Alexander some more sandals to replace the ones he lost, went to Woolies for something to drink (Alexander can drink out of bottles no problem, although he did spill a fair amount of water down his front), Ottakars for a book and playing with their RSPB birds, Early Learning Centre for some toy time and then we got the bus home.
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Is Themself a word?
I am a civil servant and in the course of my work I was writing a document for publication (a Fire & Rescue Service circular). In that draft I used the word 'themself' because it was a gender neutral third person singular. I got back an e-mail from a colleague informing me that I couldn't use 'themself' because it wasn't a word. Here's an edited highlight of the e-mail (names removed to protect the guilty and innocent alike). >>> Someone 14:47 04 Jul 06 >>> There is no such word as "themself" >>> Themself 04/07/06 15:43:10 >>> I disagree on the existence of 'themself' I use it all the time. Perhaps it is a Scottish word. >>> Someone 16:07 04 Jul 06 >>> "Themself" is not in the Oxford English Dictionary. The Chambers Dictionary says it is best avoided. And Fowler's Modern…