Day 88: Farmer

Country Dinner

• Scotch on the rocks
• Popcorn
• Barbecue ribs, steak, chicken, 
• Corn on the cob, mash potato, Cesar salad,
• Apple pie

As you can see we were invited to a barbecue dinner in the French countryside today. Our hosts (R & F) are an American-Canadian family whom Fianna and I are lucky to count as friends.  It was a pleasant relaxed evening with free flowing food, alcohol and conversation.' The cottage is an hour and a half away from Paris in a rural farming area.  The village is composed of a few households of mainly retired people who's main activity use to be farming. R was telling me that the retired farmers had very low incomes (often less than 800€) which he felt was unfair after a life of hard work in the fields. Especially considering his own expected pension which as an ex-oecd official should be quite comfortable. We did not come up with an immediate solution probably due to running out of alcoholic lubricant. However, I feel this is probably another of these redistribution issues.  Why should the state give pensions on the basis of your previous earnings? Wouldn't it be better and fairer to guarantee an equal pension to all on the basis of a reasonable amount collected? People wanting a bigger amount would then have to make a conscious choice of saving more on their own rather than through the state.  I think that would probably allow a basic pension closer to 2,000€ which seems reasonable.

I could write more on this but I'm typing in bed on my tablet next to my sleeping wife, so time to switch off. sorry for any typos, i'm not great at writing on tablets.

Day 87: Petfood

I had a pretty tough week involving late nights, early mornings and lots of back and forth between Brittany and Paris.  The client I am working for is a maker of petfood ingredients.  They sell their ingredients to petfood manufacturers and its their product that gives the right taste to the food.  I was at their main site today and they have 300 humans doing the work and over 600 cats and dogs whose job is to taste the food.   The animals are constantly monitored to see how often they eat the food at what time and what they do before and after.  While I was in the cafeteria I came across an informal survey they were carrying out which had 5 questions (of which I only remember 4):

1. Would you give a Xmas present to your pet (after all he/she is part of your family)?
2. Do you have an ethical problem with making petfood to human standards of health and safety?
3. Should we stop using any kind of meat in all petfood?
4. Should we make kosher and halal petfood ?
5. ?

Aside from the fact that I find most of these questions completely absurd I am amazed at the effort, ingenuity and research that goes into creating the ideal petfood.  The company is highly successful and profitable.  The global pet food industry has over 100 billion $ in annual sales and yet we spend less than 2% of that world wide on protecting wild animals and endangered species.  I'm not a big advocate of taxes, but I would be find it fitting if governments implemented a 20% tax on petfood which would go towards preserving wildlife around the world. 

Day 86: Patriotism

Evening meal with more friends regretting their return to America after a year Paris:

• Nehm de crabe
• Salade de crabe royale
• Cheesecake (partagé)
• Pouilly-Fumé 

By now I'm assuming you can guess what my position is on Patriotism.  It's definitely up there in my top 5 disastrous human concepts along with Religion, Inheritance, Facebook and Hot Showers.  It is sad to see nations like the US, France, Italy and the UK who have taken pride in having invented or developed concepts of democracy and human rights now treating human beings who happen to have the wrong passport with cold hearted contempt. There are over 500 million people in the EU and there were around 2 million migrants last year.  That is less than 0.5% of the total population  (and the proportion is similar in the US).  Even if we doubled our intake of migrants that would be less than 1% of our population. I'm not sure why Patriotism is always used to defend mean spirited policies.  Why can in not be patriotic to be generous ?  Isn't the point of Patriotism to make people proud of their country? Are their people who are proud of the fact that they refuse to help people in need.  In France there is a law which allows the state to prosecute people who do not help people who who are in a state of danger (Non assistance à personne en danger). The maximum sentence is 5 years.  Why is our President still walking free in view of his refusal to help people who are stranded on sinking ships at sea?         

Day 85: Pride

Today Germany failed to qualify for the next round of the world cup.  I can understand that this may be particularly tough for them.  After World War II you could argue that German National pride has been rebuilt around its economic prowess and its football team.  Many countries look for reasons for their citizens to be proud:

• Invented democracy (USA, UK, France, Greece)
• Oldest civilisation (China, Egypt, Persia)
• Biggest (China, Russia)
• Greatest democracy (India, USA)
• Chosen by God (Israel, Saudi Arabia)
• Best food (France, Italy, Thailand, Japan)
• Safe haven (Switzerland)
• Beer (Belgium, Czech republic)
• Wine (France, Italy)
• School system (Finland)
• Vodka (Russia, Poland)
• Technology (Japan, Korea, Taiwan, Estonia)
• Inventions (UK)
• Politeness (UK, Japan)
• Equality (Sweden, Norway)
• Different sports (Australia, India, Germany, Italy, Brazil, Argentina, etc)

Anyway you get the point.  But I wonder if pride in one's country is entirely positive.  I know we tell our children to be proud of what thy do and parents are always proud of their children however mundane their "achievements".  But I find that too often pride in one's country comes with a negative view of others.  Why can't we just all be proud to be human instead (We'll worry about the possible impact that may have on aliens when we get in contact). 

Day 84: Teachers

A few days ago (#81) I talked about how shorter school holidays would be one way of improving improving kids educational experience.  There is another small change which in my view could make a big difference.  At the moment teachers in France are expected to do around 20 hours a week of classroom teaching, in addition to that it is estimated that they spend another 15 to 20 hrs a week on non classroom based activities, preparation of lessons, marking of tests,  meeting parents, etc. A lot of the non-classroom based activities are done from home.  I believe that requiring that teachers be present at school for 35 hrs a week (9AM to 4PM for example) would enhance the interaction between students and teachers which after all is the best point to learn.  When not teaching, the teachers would be available to discuss assignments, lessons or further work with their students.  This would make for a more interesting two way relationship and could reduce the time spent on marking essays and homework.  Most teachers have a good idea of the level of their students and don't need graded papers to know what kind of feedback to give.  

Day 83: Speed

Today I got up at 6am, I fasted all day, went to Rennes and came back and then worked till 1 o'clock the next morning.

When I got home I saw that Sasha had received a speeding ticket (her car is registered to my house). Aside from giving me something to write about at this late hour, I'm not sure I agree with the concept of speeding tickets for two reasons:

1. Considering the technology we have today it would be easy to make cars which could not break the speed limit.  Allowing the sale of fast cars and having speed limits is be a bit like allowing the sale of guns and yet prohibiting murder (does that really make sense?)
   
2. If we are going to have speeding tickets they should be linked to income.  Surely it's not fair that a poor student has to pay the same fine as a well off banker?  I'm in favour of income linked fines.  If a person on minimum wage has to pay a 45€ traffic fine then someone earning 10 x that should pay 450€.  The present system is just a flat tax on speed which is highly unfair.
    

 It is now 2am and Fianna can't go to sleep without me which is why I am cutting today's blog short.

Day 82: Exhibition

Evening Menu:

• Spaghetti Vongole
• Fraises au yaourt de brebis
• 1/2 carré de chocolat noir
• 1 verre de vin blanc 

Today was a Sunday and Fianna had organised a visit to the Grand Palais to see an Exhibition titled Artistes et Robots.    This exhibition was actually my idea despite the fact that I am often disappointed when I go to museums or galleries, not because of the exhibits themselves but because of the environment which you have to contend with.  The main problem is the sheer number of people that they allow in at any one time, despite being able to reserve ahead of time you still end up surrounded by people in front of you, behind you, next to you all moving at a slightly different pace.  So either you have to wait to see a particular piece or you feel pushed along as the queue builds up behind you.  I would prefer it if they let less people in at one time so you could actually take your time, stand or sit in front of specific pieces to really get a feel for them.  

Anyway, the exhibition was interesting, ultimately I feel Robot art is still Human art. The robot is just a sophisticated paintbrush nothing happens without the initial human idea. 

Day 81: School Holidays

This evening Eliot is having a party at our house (not my idea) with some of his friends from school.  Summer holidays in France last 2 months (and even longer in Theo's case as his classes stopped  in early June).  I do not understand the reasoning behind this system.  Why do children have 17 weeks holiday when there parents usually have 5-6 weeks maximum.  What are parents supposed to do with their children during the 10 extra weeks of holiday they have ? Would it not make much more sense for children to have 6 weeks off school and possibly a few less hours of school per week (they could start no earlier than 9AM and finish no later than 4 PM) which would probably be much healthier for them.

In addition to being impractical for parents and unhealthy for children this system is actually one of the contributing factors to the educational disparities between social classes.  In one of his books Malcolm Gladwell describes a study which shows that the gap in educational abilities between children of high  and low income parents grows much wider from the end of one school year to the beginning of the next year rather then from the start to the end of the school year.  This is because richer families have the means to organise activities and experiences for their children during the summer holidays whereas underprivileged children will often be left to their own devices to watch TV or hang out at home.

If our governments were serious about giving equal educational opportunities to all children an easy improvement would be to shorten the academic holidays, the main reason this is not done is the opposition of teachers who enjoy their 16 weeks of holiday.  So what's more important? Educational equality for children or acquired benefits for teachers? 

Day 80: Excess

This evening after dinner I went for a walk with Fianna in our area.  As we passed a restaurant near Place de la Concorde I told Fianna how a few weeks ago I happened to go that restaurant with a colleague. I happen to know that this colleague is very well paid and yet as we were walking away from the restaurant after our meal he showed me that he had managed to steal one of the cordless lamps that they put on the terrace tables as the sun goes down.  I must say I was shocked and disappointed in my colleague.  Some of you might say of course I was right to feel as I did, its immoral to steal, others might mock me as having a bourgeois sense of morality.  Actually I find stealing a complicated issue.  One of my guiding life principles is not to do to others what I do not want done to me.  Since I would rather people not take stuff from me without my permission I try to avoid doing that to others.  But if I have too much of something (duplicate books, too many clothes, extra furniture)  I would actually be happy for people to take (or steal) them from me.  So does that mean that stealing a 1 Million€ from someone who has 2 Million€ is OK?  After all, 1 million € is more than most people will ever have in their lifetime so stealing 1 out of 2 is just relieving them of useless surplus.

In many films we cheer the friendly, charming criminal as long as he or she is stealing from "bad" people or doing it in a clever way. That would seem to indicate that stealing is not an immoral act in itself it entirely depends on the method, the personality of the perpetrator and the character of the target.

At what point does stealing just become practical redistribution?

Day 79: AutoLib

I've been talking a lot about the sharing economy recently and how I feel its a great solution to over consumption and wastefulness.  Sadly today the Paris city council voted to end Autolib, the electric car sharing scheme that they put in place in 2011.  I was one of the first subscribers to the system and I thought it was an ideal answer to the 2 big Paris issues of Parking and Pollution (and as a bonus Noise).  It seems the 150,000 subscribers did not use it regularly enough or for sufficiently long trips and therefore it was not making economic sense.  I think there were probably other factors: the cars were often dirty, they were a bit plasticy and flimsy compared to normal modern cars, you had to have a subscription.  All of these issues are things that might have been fixed if the city and the operator could have had a constructive discussion rather then using mutual recrimination.  As a counter example the two companies that operate electric scooters in Paris are doing well, adding vehicles and operating a great service even though they do not benefit from any city assistance.  I trust that a new solution will be found as I still believe shared electric cars will be an integral part of the future of urban transport.      

Day 78: Report

Fianna received Eliot's school report today.  As for many children it was full of could do better, doesn't work hard enough, needs to have a better attitude, does not live up to his full potential.  In addition there are the average grades for each subject compared to the class average, thus already setting competitive rather than collaborative expectations.  You have to wonder what is the point of all this grading and comparison.  Ultimately, most kids will get through their schooling and come out with a variety of experiences, things they have learnt, capacity for work and short or long term friendships.  The sum of all their experiences at home, at school and with their friends as well as their social background will determine whether and which university they might go to.  All of this may then contribute to how "successful" they are in life.  However, none of this will determine how happy they are with their lives.  So in fact the stress that I see many parents putting themselves (and their children) through concerning their children's grades and future prospects is neither healthy nor helpful.  The important things in life are self confidence, responsibility, resilience, empathy, capacity for social interaction, generosity and courage, listening and communication skills.  I'm not sure any of these skills or qualities are part of our educational curriculum. 

Finally I wonder why these school reports go to the parents?  Surely they should be addressed to the child, he or she is the one concerned, he or she is the one who needs to take responsibility and may benefit from these insights.  Reports (if they must exist) should be addressed and possibly discussed directly with the children and then it would be up to them to share that report with their parents if they so wish.  I'm sure this would radically the nature and effects of school reports if that were the case.

Day 77: WeWork

Dinner:

• Lasagne végétarienne
• Salade verte
• Pêche au yaourt de brebis
• Carré de chocolat noir

As an operational consultant most of my work is done at client premises or from home using internet and skype.  However, on a regular basis I do need to have physical meetings with people who report to me or with candidates that we might recruit.  Until now I have had these meetings in cafés, in client premises or at my house none of which seem appropriate to me.  But since last week I have taken a subscription to WeWork which is the office equivalent of BlaBlaCar or AirBnB.  WeWork takes over whole building and transform them into modern, airy, uncluttered spaces with hotdesks, meeting rooms, recreation rooms, private telephone areas coffee areas and lounge areas, all on a shared basis.  As you may have noticed I am a big fan of the shared economy and this is a great example.  Most people don't need to be in the office everyday and everything that we work on in offices nowadays are on computers so you don't need filing cabinets with lots of papers. 

Aside from being a pleasant working environment it feels much less wasteful.  If this system was generalised in big cities it would have a massive impact on the housing market.  There is close to 60 million m2 of  office space in the Paris area if we used the WeWork system we could probably free up at least 20 million m2 for transformation into housing, that would represent  400,000 apartments with room for 1 million people.  I'm pretty sure that would go a long way towards resolving the housing and homeless problem in our cities.  

Day 76: Reading

Today was a fasting day next one will be in two days as I'm changing my rhythm to Mondays and Thursdays.

Yesterday Fianna told me she was so happy because Eliot was reading his third book in a row with minimal prompting.  Reading is one of those things that is deemed to be a good thing in itself.  I myself was an avid reader most of my life (I still read a lot but less than I used to) and therefore felt I should encourage my children to read.   But the alternatives to reading nowadays are numerous and varied.  Films and series are now on demand rather than at fixed times like they used to be, Video games are team events, Facebook and Instagram allow extensive interaction on all sorts of subjects from silly cats to fake political news, Twitter provides constant running commentary on events, Podcasts bring us back to the oral tradition,  YouTube and TED talks give us a conference like experience and the internet is an amazing encyclopedia of the best and the worst of humanity.

So why should we expect our children and ourselves to read books?  Does reading a book really prepare you for the world of tomorrow, am I just being out of touch when I think that book reading is an important part of our education?  After all digital media is much faster than books, you could argue that you can get a lot more variety and experience through sound and image than through a printed word.  The saying is that a picture is worth a 1,000 words , if that is true wouldn't it be more useful (and much faster) to study a 1,000 pictures rather than read a million words (which is around 10 books)?  I don't have the answer and I am heavily biased towards books, due to being an old dog who probably finds it difficult to learn new tricks, but I would be interested in reading (or watching) an objective study on the subject.

Day 75: Father's Day

I am happy to report that neither of my children (or of my step children) wished me a Happy Father's Day today.  It gives me great pleasure to see that some of my educational lessons seem to have stuck (admittedly teaching your children not to do something is a lot easier than teaching them to do stuff).  I have mentioned in a previous post ( #35) that I am not a fan of Religious Holidays, however,  I find these commercial holidays even worse.  Father's Day, Mother's day, Valentine's Day, International Woman's Day, Second Cousin Day, etc.  Why do we need a mandated day to celebrate or be thankful to certain categories of people?  Surely if I were to celebrate Father's or Mother's Day shouldn't it be on the day they became a Mother and Father (i.e. my birthday) ? Do we really need further excuses to buy each other useless stuff ?(presents on those days are most definitely the least useful of the year) If we really need extra days to express our love and gratitude for life, lets get rid of the consumerist ones and instead let's celebrate our planet.  There is already an Earth day (22 April for those of you who didn't know - like me) let's publicise it and add a bunch more:

• Ocean Day
• Forest Day
• River Day
• Mountain Day
• Animal Day
• Insect Day
• Atmosphere Day

I'm sure your getting the idea.  

Day 74: LifeX

Tonight, Fianna and I went out to have dinner with some friends at a Thai restaurant.  They are an Israeli-American family who habitually live in Providence and New York, but who are close to finishing a one year sabbatical in Paris.  Our conversation was wide ranging, but one of the things that came up was that they were sorry to leave, and would have liked to be able to stay longer.  At the same time we know a Franco-Italian family who have just spent a year on sabbatical in Boston who are sorry to  be leaving to come back to Paris.  I myself did quite a bit of dragging my family to different places every 3-4 years while they were growing up.  Although the uprooting process is not always easy, overall, I believe experiencing different cultures and languages is beneficial.  Of course,  I understand that its not always easy to have the opportunity to move internationally. 

As you may have noticed, where possible, I like to come up with solutions when I have identified an issue.  In this day of  social media and the sharing economy we should develop a new app which I would call LifeX.  The app would allow people (or families) to swap lives for a predetermined amount of time. People would sign up to the app and propose exchanging lives for a 1, 2 or 3 year period.  This could include their house, car, job, friends, political affiliations or any thing else people need to change. The world is full of people who are not satisfied with their lives and wish they could try something or somewhere different.  LifeX allows you to have a different life with the security of knowing you get your old one back at  the end of the period.  

Day 73: World Cup

Dinner with guests:

• Salade folle
• Fillet de bar au four avec courgettes et fenouil
• Purée de céleri
• Fromages
• Tarte aux framboises

On the opposite corner of our house there is a bar which sometimes stays open quite late.  As tonight was quite hot in Paris we left our windows open during dinner.  At regular intervals we heard a roar float up form the street as Spain and Portugal battled it out to a 3-3 draw in what must have been an exciting match.  Our guest asked me if I was into football, and I answered that while not being a fan I have often followed the world cup with some interest.  Having said that I must say that the fact that the tournament is taking place in Russia this year has definitely dampened my already moderate enthusiasm.  I guess that answers the question about whether I'm a football fan or not.  I cannot separate the event from the organizer and I feel that showing an interest would be a betrayal of my liberal values (a bit like taking an interest in the German Olympic Games of 1936).  Still I might tune in to the France-Australia match tomorrow... 

Day 72: Holidays

Today was a Fasting Day!

Last night I had dinner with my friend Guy and as part of a wide ranging conversation including, work, children, marriage,  blogs and cold showers we also talked about holidays.  The concept of holidays is clearly a middle class concept.  Very rich people don't take holidays because that's  how they became rich and the poorest don't take holidays because they can't.  All of us in the middle count our days to make sure we are using just the right amount.   However this may be changing.

Companies in the US (especially in the tech sector in California) are increasingly giving employees "unlimited" holiday time.  I must say that although, it initially sounds like a great bonus I think it probably creates anxiety for lot of people.  Nobody really thinks that if they worked 3 months and then took 9 months off that the company would honour that commitment.  So if these companies are serious about wanting their employees to feel "liberated" they should give them a range: You can take between 0 and 3 months holiday for example.  It seems that this is borne out by initial studies on the effect of these policies.  Employees with unlimited holidays take less than those with a fixed amount.

In the end companies are counting on people's guilt to stop them from taking too much time off. I don't think guilt is a positive emotion (even if I have occasionally used it as part of my educational artillery). Instead of unlimited holiday I 'd would like to see companies disconnect pay and hours.  Why are some jobs payed on the basis of hours worked while others (usually more intellectual) are based on an output basis?   If you pay people on the basis of their hours you are devaluing their work, they are payed for being there rather than for their achievements or contributions.  It is never
motivating to be paid on an hourly basis.

Day 71: Privilege

As you may have noticed I like to rail against privileges in my blog. Today I found out that railing against privilege comes with a cost: Fianna told me she will be losing her Green Plates, on her car (not a strange coloured crockery set), which has allowed her to avoid paying parking tickets in Paris.  I must say that although I fear we will suffer dire financial consequences from this decision, I can only applaud the principle.  How can diplomatic immunity for parking tickets be justified?  Why should you be exempt from normal laws just because you happen to be working for a foreign government? I'm not sure diplomatic immunity still has a place in the modern world. 

In my quest for equality of opportunity and the eradication of all privileges, I think we can add the abolition of diplomatic immunity (sorry darling). If we really want to give out privileges I would suggest some better candidates:

• The unemployed could get Green Plates : They need to be able to get to job interviews quickly without stress
• and Immigrants could receive diplomatic passports to help them get through customs

I'm sure there are other privileges to track down but its too late for me tonight.  (3 points to contributors on this subject)

Tonight's Dinner (I'm fasting tomorrow instead of today):

• Verre  de whisky Aran 
• Salade verte
• Fish & chips
• Chablis
• Carré de chocolat noir 85%

Day 70: 12th of June

27 Years ago my daughter Sasha was born.  I still remember her head coming out and the slight gurgling sound she made.  It was one of the most emotional experiences I can remember.  At the time Samantha and I were quite worried about how ugly she was (her chin was a quite squashed from the birthing experience), but as good loving parents we didn't mention it.   Its only much later when it turned out that actually Sasha was not going to be an ugly duckling and might be going down the Swan route that we admitted this to each other.

Over the past 27 years I have tried to impart some of my hard earned knowledge to Sasha:

• How to cook "Daddy's rice dish", 
• Overcoming (or accepting) adversity, 
• Ducking out of sight of the cops when sitting in the front seat of the car if your 5 years old,
• How to lie to your parents (but feel guilty about it)
• Which BDs to read
• That its a good idea not to throw your phone out of the window or in the toilet
• That showers should be taken cold
• And that children should call their parents twice a week (just joking, once is enough)

For her part Sasha has taught me how authority can become mutual respect and responsibility can turn into simple presence.  That's the great thing about children, they teach you (nearly) as much as you teach them.

So thank you Sasha for the many things you have taught me and the many things you will.

Happy birthday

Day 69: Shame

Fasting Day Today.

In general, my attitude to personal freedom is that people should be allowed to do whatever they want as long they are not actively hurting others.  However, this does pose interesting questions about how you deal with behaviour that is not criminal but is certainly morally repugnant.  Fianna was telling me about a friend who was offered a job as a "personal shopper".  Her first job, if she had accepted it, would have been to buy 40 Hermes handbags for the client's wife's 40th birthday! When you know that these handbags easily cost over 5,000€ each, you cannot help but feel that this is close to criminal behaviour.  How can a person think of doing something like this and not feel shame every time they look in the mirror.  More importantly what can society do to prevent such immoral acts.  I have to say that I feel that such disregard for elementary standards of behaviour are as bad if not worse than many acts deemed criminal.  I am against the principle of Prison and I don't really believe in punitive rates of taxation, so the solution isn't obvious, but possibly a healthy dose of redistribution of wealth would help.  While we wait for my inheritance system to be implemented (see #48) we could start by capping any single individual's wealth at €1,billion (which still seems pretty generous to me). 

Day 68: Noise

Dinner:

• Salade grecque
• Onglet à l'échalote et aux olives
• Polenta
• Yaourt de brebis et framboises
• Carré de chocolat noir 92%

There are many good things about living in Paris .... I'm not sure what they are right now. But one of the down sides is the noise of traffic.  Although I'm lucky enough to live in an area which is usually quiet on the weekend, It's still in the centre of Paris which means we get our fair share of traffic noises:

1. engine noises (until everybody switches to electric),
2. angry honking (until everybody smokes weed while driving - probably not the best idea), and 
3. Siren noises from police, fire trucks, ambulances and ... officials!

I have to say that I find the last one of the above outrageous.  I can understand why we need to make way for ambulances and fire trucks since lives are at stake.  And I might be persuaded (with difficulty) as to why police should have priority but I cannot see how there can be any justification for Presidents or Ministers having a right of priority.  This comes back to the idea that somehow some people are more important than others or that their time is more precious than someone else's.  On past evidence I would say that Ministerial and Presidential action is often negative and actually the more rushed it is the less chance of it being positive.  So maybe we should actually do the opposite, lets slow them down, I suggest that we replace official limousines with official rickshaws this would give our representatives more time to think about their actions and would be a great environmental example.

Day 67: Formal

We were invited to a pink themed party tonight.  To Fianna's chagrin after hesitating 10 seconds I decided to opt for a pinkish polo shirt rather one of my formal pink dress shirts. I felt I had already made a major concession by switching from my weekend shorts to casual trousers.  I must say that I can only encourage  the spirit of informality which increasingly prevalent everywhere.  I hardly ever wear a tie anymore, suits are quite rare and usually I can get away with just a jacket.  I don't really understand the concept of formal attire.  Why shouldn't we wear jeans or shorts to work? And why should we wear black or brown leather shoes rather than sneakers ? (are we saying vegans can't have serious jobs?)  I think that formal or professional attire is designed to make people take their themselves more seriously, which is probably not something I would encourage.  Most of the problems in this world can be traced back to people taking themselves too seriously.  I have a feeling that international negotiations would be a lot friendlier and productive if everybody turned up in sandals, jeans and t-shirts. 

Day 66: Blablabla

Over the last year I have noticed that more and more people use "blablabla" when speaking in a professional or personal context.  Why would people do that?  I was pretty worked up about "like" or "genre" in French which are filler word which do not actually add anything to your sentence.   Blablabla is even worse.  It means: "I feel I should have more  to say on this subject, but i don't know what, so I'm using  a filler word".  If you don't have anything to say ... say nothing!  What is wrong with silence?  The crazy thing is that I'm hearing this used in English and in French (I wonder if it is being used in Chinese, Persian or Korean?).

The whole point of words and language is to convey meaning and to provoke thinking.  The more we use meaningless words and "twitter sentences" the less we make sense.  It seems to me that twitter and most internet communication is not there to expand our consciousness but to fill up the time in the easiest way possible.   If it's too easy it's probably not worth reading or watching ... I trust you are finding my blog as hard to read as I am to write it!


Tonight was a Vegan Meal:

• Whisky Lagavulin 12 ans d'age
• Risotto aux champignons et petits pois (option parmesan pour non-vegan)
• Salade verte
• Carré de chocolat noir

Day 65: Mine

"Mine"  that's what I use to say to my sister when we were children and she wanted to use "borrow" my things.  It seems that the sense of property develops at an early age.  And yet at the same time I see many parents who don't hesitate to let their children borrow their smartphones or computers on demand ( I happen to feel smartphones are quite a  personal item).  Lets make this easier here is a list of things that can or cannot be shared:

Share	Don't Share
T-Shirt	Underwear
Soap	Toothbrush
Car	Smartphone
Food on other's plate	Food on my plate
Your house	Your bedroom*
Your blog	Your diary
Your views	Your prejudices
Your friends	Your wife/husband
Your books	Your BD
Your music	Your instrument
Good restaurants	Good mushroom places
Your doubts	Your certainties
	* Other than with your partner

Armed with this list you can now proceed with the delicate task of teaching your children (or parents) the difference between privacy and openness or between ownership and generosity.  As we increasingly move into the sharing economy and society maybe these concepts need to be revised.  In fact rather than ownership possibly the concept of the future is responsibility?

Contributions and corrections to the above list will be given 0.5 points per item.

Day 64: Youth

Back in the last century I remember being young and thinking that I knew everything.  When my Children became teenagers and students I was faced with failings from long ago.  When you have the energy and optimism of youth its difficult to accept that experience also has value.  The young forget that the older generations were also young and that they haven't forgotten those days they just see them in a different retro-active light.  I still don't believe that experience gives you all the answers, but I wish I had paid more attention to that different point of view when I was younger.

Why is it so difficult to communicate to the young, and in particular to your own children, the things that you've learned usually from making mistakes yourself.  Maybe there's the possibility of a book here.  "Lesson's Learned Too Late" by A Collective of Old People.   I could go around interviewing a selection of people and asking them what is the one piece of advice they would give a young person based on a mistake they made in their own lives.   I think that would make a pretty good book (I'd  be interested in reading it myself, Just in case there are mistakes I haven't made yet, that I can avoid).

Today was a Fasting day ... I wonder if my blog posts have a different flavour on fasting days? I'll have to do a statistical analysis when I get to 365.

Day 63: Drugs

Drugs are like television and religion for many reasons:

1. All three are a nonconstructive and meaningless way of passing the time
2. They are addictive either psychologically or physically
3. Their main purpose is to escape reality
4. They cost money which could be put to better uses
5. They create their own little cliques and cults
6. They reduce our humanity as defined by our capacity to think independently
7. In spite of the first 6 points I am in favour of them all being legal (even TV)

Some people might say that I am not qualified to talk about drugs as my experience has been limited to a few spiffs in my youth.  But if that was the case I  would not be allowed to have an opinion on religion which I have never participated in or on gun control because I have never killed anyone (trying to strangle my sister doesn't count). 

So I'm looking for contributions:

How do you ensure people avoid carrying out unhealthy activities while at the same time maintaining their freedom and responsibility ?

Day 62: News

Everyday, I start the morning by doing 2 x 2 mins of plank and 5 mins of Cold Shower (See #2).  In order to help the time go by I listen to BBC4 which is the UK radio news channel.  I am finding the news less and less interesting.  I can expect a variant of the following:

• Trump made some ridiculous statement
• The Brexit negotiations descend into farce
• Some new European country is turning towards nationalism
• Russia denied that the KGB exists
• Macron (assisted by Merkel ) will save the world
• Students were killed in a shoot out in the US because they forgot to bring their machine-guns to school
• The latest superhero movie did really well/poorly
• Something happened in sport
• Its too hot/cold/wet/dry for this time of the year (this is a British radio station)

I'm probably oversimplifying but my point is that I find this increasingly repetitive and lacking in food for thought (and I'm supposed to be interest in current affairs). I think it would be better to have just one item of news a day.  But that item would be discussed from all sorts of different angles and by different people.  This way we would actually hear unexpected viewpoints and we might start to do some thinking.  Lets move from unhealthy snacks to sophisticated three course meals. (You can tell this was a fasting day) 

Day 61: TV

(pre-fast) Sunday Menu:

• Tomates et mozzarella
• Coquelets aux pêches et cassis accompagné de riz basmati
• Verre de vin rouge
• Moshi au chocolat noir

We had some guest over to our house for Brunch today.  As usual with first time guest we showed off our living room with invisible TV (Its actually a normal flat screen TV behind a one way mirror).  The the point of it of course is that when the TV is off you can't see it at all it seems to be a normal old mirror over the chimney.  However I think there is an even better functionality.  As the TV is behind  a mirror it means that even when you put the TV on its actually quite hard to see the picture if there is too much light in the room.  In effect in summer you can't really watch the TV before 11PM, by which time everybody is in bed.  So we have the perfect situation.  We have a modern TV so you can't say we are not keeping up with the world.  It's invisible when its off so it does not intrude in our living room and its unwatchable when its on, so we never watch it! Its perfect!  This is exactly the kind of TV everyone should have.

Day 60: Liberal

Fianna's American friend is here with her 15 year old daughter who is quite impressive in her capacity for discussion and defending her opinions.  Overall she seems quite liberal in the American sense of the word which means more on the left of the spectrum.  At the same time she was defending the American right to bear arms, which is definitely not a leftist cause.  It raises the interesting question of how to define an internally consistent liberal position.  In general, I tend to feel that the less the state regulates things the more people take responsibility for their own actions which is probably a "good thing".  So lets look at a few simple issues:

1. Drugs
2. Guns
3. Speed limits
4. Prostitution
5. Abortion
6. Headscarves
7. Euthanasia
8. Redundancy
9. Seat belts

If you believe in individual freedom you should theoretically be in favour of all of the above being freely available/allowed (at least to adults).   And yet opinions on these issues are far from consistent, people are for liberal or restrictive policies on some of these issues but never all of them. I myself am very liberal on 1, 5, 7 and 8; restrictive on 2 and 6;  and ambivalent on 3, 4 and 9.  Maybe I should accept that its not possible to have a consistent approach to issues and that everything should be assessed on its own merits.   Then again, maybe not!

Day 59: Dilemma

Dinner (with guest):

• Whisky Gordon & McPhail
• Emincé de veau (merci Ratoune) aux carottes et champignons à la crème
• Riz
• Salade verte 
• Fromages (pardon Maman - 2ème protéine) et pain aux noix
• Moshi au citron
• Carré de chocolat noir 85%

At Xmas last year I was in Strasbourg and at the end of the meal we all had to say (thanks Fianna) what we wanted for the next year.  I said that I hoped to be in the same professional position next year as I was back then.  It's now half way through the year and I must say that my ambition is looking increasingly precarious. There are a number of possibilities:

1. I get fired
2. I resign
3. My boss (the company CEO)  is fired
4. My company goes into liquidation
5. My company is sold
6. I get demoted (and some one is put between me and my CEO)

This last one is definitely my favourite option (well actually my favourite option is number 3 with me replacing her). What do you do if you feel your boss is a lunatic ?  I have a lot of sympathy for people who work for Trump (Although they should have known what they were getting into whereas there was no way  I could know).    I am in complete disagreement with everything my boss does.  She treats all her managers like children, new people are stars for 3 months and then they are deemed incapable.  Over the last 3 years she has participated in the constant  destruction of the company but its all because people are not doing what she says!  My descent from stardom is now accelerating because I pointed out a few things that I felt were dysfunctional in the company (that is my job for clients).

As you may know, I have quite strong opinions and don't have a problem expressing them.   However, every time my boss asks her directors to express their views or opinions what she really means: could you repeat what I just said as if you believed it.   Any other response is deemed disloyal and offensive.  So there are three strategies:

1. Vocal disagreement
2. Silent agreement or disagreement (doesn't matter as long as its silent)
3. Vocal agreement

Most of my fellow directors have opted for option 3 even though they tell me in private they don't agree.  I have tried 1 which did not work and 2 which I find difficult but is not deemed loyal enough. I can't do 3 so how do I refrain from going back to 1 long enough to keep me in this job to the end of the year?