B U R N

If one day they decided to organise themselves in unions, my life would become much more difficult.

We talked about Divo earlier, the reviews of which will probably go down in history as the worst ever. However, now the time has come for another painful review by the otherwise forgiving Matthew Norman:

There are two ways to handle a rogue restaurant such as this first British branch of a venerable, showbizzy New York steakhouse chain. You can take the diplomatic route, coaxing it towards the civilised world by ignoring the violations and praising the positives, but since there are none of the latter, let the napalming commence.

The art of war is entertaining but ruthless.

I wrote a piece for the Guardian’s online sustainability section, Sustainability questions the media needs to answer:

An exploration of the media’s CSR journey and its role in influencing audiences on climate change and measuring its sustainability impacts.

On the topic, I am giving a talk next week - do join if you are in the area. Seminar Abstract:

In debates around what constitutes an ethical (sustainable, responsible, etc.) company, it is often assumed that we know and agree on what these terms mean. That is rarely the case, though. Like ‘globalisation’ and ‘culture’, ‘ethics’, ’sustainability’ and ‘CSR’ have thus become residual categories. Based on detailed work studies within three avowedly sustainable businesses - a property company, a consultancy and an oil company - I argue that organisations produce their own rights and wrongs. Responsible behaviour then emerges as multiple and often conflicting ways of doing things. In coming to grips with the idea of a sustainable company, I identify three mechanisms by which professionals manage to cope with such complexity: by producing an infinite number of standards, by using only certain technologies and rejecting others and, lastly, by creating sophisticated vocabularies to describe the inferiority of other companies/people with ethical aspirations.

Despite swearing that all those lonely hours on the bank of the Thames were a thing of the past. Despite reaching the conclusion that there is absolutely nothing worse than passing the 38-kilometer mark on foot. There is only one way forward, and that is Boston.

London Marathon would, of course, be the obvious choice, but it is only open to runners who can raise at least £1K for charity. This makes it the largest annual fund raising event in the world; the 2009 race alone raised more than £47.2 million. The runner in me thinks it is rubbish that participation is virtually restricted to wealthy people or those with generous friends (I find it incredibly embarrassing to beg for money for something I love doing). On the other hand, it is great that so many charitable causes come to benefit so much.