The quote is associated with former rugby union player Paul O’Connell, who captained Munster, Ireland and the British & Irish Lions.
As O’Connell explained on Sam Warburton’s ‘Captains’ podcast (July 2023):
There’s so many bits in the game that require no talent. They take a bit of mental toughness for sure and they take fitness for sure, but there’s a load of zero talent moments in rugby. And if you can be world class at them you can be a world class player.
Warren Gatland, who would go on and lead the Lions in the 2017 and 2021 Tours of New Zealand and South Africa respectively, still uses one of O’Connell’s iconic motivational lines. The Irishman first used it in 2009 and then again in 2013 as he helped inspire the squad before the Test that brought him his first series win. Gatland remembers O’Connell told the squad: “Let’s be the best at everything that requires no talent.”…
Ahead of the third Test against New Zealand in 2017, Gatland used it again and the Lions went out and secured a draw to tie the series 1-1. In his book ‘In the Line of Fire’ Gatland said: “I spoke about the four pillars that we’ve been working hard on during this tour: being the best at everything that requires no talent; not being out-talked by the opposition, being more physical than the opposition and making sure we stay alive and don’t get caught out by the unexpected.” They didn’t and emerged undefeated. Gatland has regularly used the line ever since he first heard O’Connell say it. It’s served them both very well.
A quick dig around the web and the concept commonly shows up next to these ten specific actions:
What the Lions did was to develop a game plan around the players they had and to that, add a wholistic mindset, a belief system that drove the tour to a famous series draw. Effectively, what they did was to take this concept of 10 Things that Require No Talent and apply it to everything on the tour. Including the way they played the game.
They refined this concept into the phrase “be the best in the world at the things that require no talent”. And when you think about it, what a wonderfully distilled, simple, yet massively effective tool for achieving results and outcomes. You may not have the best squad or resources… but that doesn’t stop you from being coachable, working harder, having the right attitude or doing extra. And if everyone commits to this, the whole team/business lifts.
It’s a simple principle, hiding in plain sight, that anyone can adopt.
Getting up earlier to read and expand your knowledge. Going for that run despite the driving rain. Going to bed a bit earlier so you’re fresh for the morning. Showing up even when you don’t feel like it.
It’s raining outside. Your team at work is being restructured. The bus was late. A friend has behaved in a way that’s annoyed you. The boiler has broken. There’s a two year waiting list for your operation.
Life is a constant stream of things that canpotentially frustrate and annoy us.
But why only potentially frustrate and annoy us? Surely they most definitely do? The truth is we control and decide how we respond and react.
It’s summed up in a comment from Jeff Bezos in 2017, speaking at the Future of Newspapers conference Italy. Bezos was there as the owner of The Washington Post, which he’d bought in 2013 and turned a profit on in 2016.
He was speaking during ongoing upheaval for the newspaper industry, struggling to compete with the advertising money flowing into Google and Facebook. Bezos was clear. Whining about the internet and the death of the old business models won’t help anything:
“One of the first rules of business is complaining is not a strategy. You have to work with the world as you find it, not as you would have it be.” (CNBC online article, 21.06.17)
Thinking about our lives more generally, that one sentence turns on its head the huge, futile amount of time and energy we can spend individually and collectively complaining about things. It gets us nowhere. Just putting us in a cul-de-sac of pessimism and inertia.
Weirdly, whinging can often be an easy, safe, lowest common denominator means to build common ground with others. Making small talk, we happily conspire to cast ourselves as powerless victims on the receiving end of stupidity or problems we haven’t caused.
The Bezos quote is referenced and the sentiment explored in a book called ‘Clear Thinking‘ (2023) by Shane Parrish, in a chapter on ‘Self-Accountability’. He writes:
Facing reality is hard. It’s much easier to blame things we have no control over than look for our own contributions… Complaining isn’t productive. It only misleads you into thinking that the world should function in a way that it doesn’t. Distancing yourself from reality makes it harder to solve the problems you face. There is always something you can do today to make the future easier, though, and the moment you stop complaining is the moment you start finding it.
Parrish continues:
The path to being exceptional begins when you decide to be responsible for your actions no matter the situation. Exceptional people know they can’t change the hand they’ve been dealt, and don’t waste time wishing for a better one. They focus instead on how they’re going to play the cards they have to achieve the best result. They don’t hide behind others. The best people rise to the challenge – whatever it is. They choose to live up to their best self-image instead of surrendering to their defaults.
Taking the list of things at the start of this post, Parrish would advise:
You can’t control everything, but you can control your response, which makes circumstances better or worse. Each response has an impact on the future, taking you either a step closer to or a step further from the outcomes you want and the person you want to be.
Just learn how to get stuff done. And what I mean by that is I’ve seen at every level people who are very good at describing problems, people who are very sophisticated in explaining why something went wrong or why something can’t be fixed. But what I’m always looking for is no matter how small the problem or how big it is, someone who says “Let me take care of that.” If you project an attitude of whatever it is that’s needed, I can handle it and I can do it, whoever is running the organisation will notice, I promise. And which is why I think with young people, you don’t always need to be so impatient asking for the plum assignment. A lot of times the best way to get attention is whatever is assigned to you, you are just nailing. You are killing it. Because people will notice, “Oh, that’s somebody who can get something done.”
That’s also solid general advice to guide our individual lives. Ignore the back seat drivers, armchair generals and people who prefer to diagnose, criticise and moan in the background.
Find momentum by taking ownership for getting stuff done in your own life.
‘What are the key personal attributes for success in life?’
Here’s the response on 07 May 2023 from the Nova AI chatbot powered by ChatGPT & GPT-3 & GPT-4:
There are many personal attributes that can contribute to success in life, but some of the key ones include:
[1] Determination and persistence: Success often requires a lot of hard work and effort, so it’s important to be able to stay focused and work consistently towards your goals.
[2] Self-discipline: Being able to manage your time and stick to a schedule is important for achieving success.
[3] Resilience: There will inevitably be setbacks and failures along the way, so it’s important to be able to bounce back and learn from those experiences.
[4] Adaptability: The ability to be flexible and adjust to changing circumstances can be crucial for success, especially in today’s rapidly changing world.
[5] Creativity: Thinking outside the box and coming up with innovative ideas can help you stand out and achieve success.
[6] Curiosity and a willingness to learn: Being open to new ideas and experiences, and constantly seeking to improve and grow, can help you achieve great things in life.
[7] Emotional intelligence: The ability to understand and manage your emotions, as well as the emotions of others, can be helpful in building strong relationships and achieving success in both personal and professional settings.
But what actually is ‘success’ in life? The Nova AI chatbox suggests:
Success in life can mean different things to different people, as it depends on individual goals, values, and priorities. Generally, success in life can be defined as the achievement of personal and professional aspirations that bring satisfaction, fulfillment, and happiness. This can include accomplishments in career, education, relationships, health, wealth, spirituality, and personal development. Success also involves overcoming challenges, learning from failures, and making progress towards long-term goals. Ultimately, success in life is about living a meaningful and purposeful life according to one’s own standards and aspirations.
So are you, Nova AI chatbox, successful?
As an artificial intelligence language model, I can’t assess my own success objectively because I am a machine and do not have emotions, desires or goals. However, I am designed to assist and provide helpful responses to user queries and feedback, so if I am able to do this effectively, it could be considered a measure of success in performing my intended function.
‘He Would Never Use One Word Where None Would Do’ by Philip Levine
If you said “Nice day,” he would look up at the three clouds riding overhead, nod at each, and go back to doing what- ever he was doing or not doing. If you asked for a smoke or a light, he’d hand you whatever he found in his pockets: a jackknife, a hankie — usually unsoiled — a dollar bill, a subway token. Once he gave me half the sandwich he was eating at the little outdoor restaurant on La Guardia Place. I remember a single sparrow was perched on the back of his chair, and when he held out a piece of bread on his open palm, the bird snatched it up and went back to its place without even a thank you, one hard eye staring at my bad eye as though I were next. That was in May of ’97, spring had come late, but the sun warmed both of us for hours while silence prevailed, if you can call the blaring of taxi horns and the trucks fighting for parking and the kids on skates streaming past silence. My friend Frankie was such a comfort to me that year, the year of the crisis. He would turn up his great dark head just going gray until his eyes met mine, and that was all I needed to go on talking nonsense as he sat patiently waiting me out, the bird staring over his shoulder. “Silence is silver,” my Zaydee had said, getting it wrong and right, just as he said “Water is thicker than blood,” thinking this made him a real American. Frankie was already American, being half German, half Indian. Fact is, silence is the perfect water: unlike rain it falls from no clouds to wash our minds, to ease our tired eyes, to give heart to the thin blades of grass fighting through the concrete for even air dirtied by our endless stream of words.
Henry Sanderson’s book ‘Volt Rush’ (2022) lays bare the reality of the transition to electric vehicles.
He puts a pin in the simplistic, binary perception of petrol cars being ‘bad’ and electric vehicles (EVs) being ‘good’ as humanity grapples with decarbonising transport and addressing climate change.
Sanderson cites a prescient observation from academic Peter Dauvergne back in 2008:
Not only is environmentalism failing to produce sustainable patterns of global consumption, much of what policy makers in high consuming economies are labelling as “environmental progress” is in reality little more than the wealthy world deflecting consequences and risks into ecosystems and onto people with less power – and thus less influence over global affairs.
And the focus of Sanderson’s book is on the big environmental and human costs of mining, transporting and processing metals – lithium, nickel, cobalt and copper – into the batteries needed to meet the growing demand for EVs.
China is at the heart of the story. It spotted the huge global economic opportunity around the transition to EVs. While America and Europe companies have dominated the car industry to date, China pounced to get ahead of a future without the internal combustion engine.
Lacking sufficient metal supplies within its borders, China scoured the world with a large cheque book to secure supplies to produce batteries for electronics, including mobile phones. It led to Chinese company Huayou gaining control of a significant amount of the cobalt mined in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC):
A decade after Huayou took a gamble on the Congo over ninety percent of the minerals from around Kolwezi were shipped to China. No one cared where the cobalt came from, how it was mined, or whether children were involved. As a result, consumers across the world were all indirectly complicit in the practice of child labour. The only thing that mattered was making the phones, and their supply chains, cheap. Designed in California, Made in China. But don’t mention the Congo.
The DRC produces over 70% of the world’s cobalt. China’s reliance on imported cobalt from the DRC is its greatest reliance on one country for any commodity. By 2019, China processed 90% of Congo’s cobalt using it for mobile phones and EV batteries.
It was Amnesty International who, in 2016, exposed the dirty secret behind EVs. Children mining deposits, eking out a living in conditions hazardous to their safety and health. That’s on top of the environmental cost of the cobalt then being shipped to China where coal-powered factories processed and used it in batteries.
With their supply chain suddenly in the spotlight, EV manufacturers in US and Europe scrambled to source lithium from Glencore, a Swiss multinational commodity trading and mining company.
Glencore itself was complicit in corruption scandals linked to buying political influence in the DRC. During a particular period of political instability in the country, the company took full advantage, acquiring two of its large cobalt mines at a price far below their true value.
Meanwhile Chinese companies, financially backed by the Chinese government, have hoovered up supplies of other metals wherever they could get their hands on them.
China mines only a fraction of the world’s lithium but processes over 80% into batteries. It had an insatiable appetite for supplies mined in Australia, Argentina, Canada and Chile. Sanderson writes:
China had become the central clearing house for the mineral. There was simply no alternative. It was a strategic success for China: once the lithium reached China, it was more likely to be turned into battery materials by a Chinese company and end up in a Chinese-made battery.
A similar story with nickel. Chinese company Tsingshan invested heavily in Indonesia where mining nickel requires stripping large areas of the upland forest to access the ore near the surface. Erosion and heavy tropical rainfall lead to run-off into the sea, impacting downstream communities. Sanderson writes:
The move into Indonesia…put Tsingshan in pole position to capitalise on the rise of electric cars, which by 2020 were using ever more nicklel in their batteries instead of Cobalt from the Congo… The reliance on coal-fired power meant nickel for batteries produced in Indonesia could be up to five times as carbon intensive as that mined in Australia or Canada
And finally copper. Used in everything from dishwashers, air conditioners, cars, phones and pipes in our homes. An EV can use up to three-and-a-half times more copper than a petrol car. That’s between 40 and 80 kilograms of copper per EV, including in the electric motor, inverter, wiring and copper foil in the battery.
China produces only 8% of the global supply of copper, so it almost wholly reliant on foreign supply. It now owns one of the world’s richest deposits of copper in the DRC (the Kamoa mine), discovered in 2008.
America and Europe have since woken up and smelt the cobalt. Alive to the risks of this major transition being dominated by China, with it controlling significant supplies of key metals and the processing and manufacturing capacity needed to produce EV batteries.
Beijing denied subsidies for several years to electric vehicles using foreign batteries, making the foreign battery-makers uncompetitive in China. That has helped turn Chinese company CATL into the global battery leader for EV battery production, supplying carmakers including Tesla and Volkswagen.
The Financial Times reported in January 2023 that CATL and another Chinese firm, BYD, have 50% global market share for manufacturing EV batteries.
Post update 11.04.23: Swedish company Northvolt, founded in 2016, has a gigafactory which supplies lithium batteries to automotive giants like BMW, Volkswagen, and Volvo. It is currently building a battery-recycling facility, near the Arctic Circle, which will crush, shred and filter dismantled batteries. Materials such as copper, aluminium, and plastic can be separated and given to industry partners for recycling. The company plans to use 50% recycled metals in its batteries by 2030. Business Insider (03.04.23) reports that EV demand for lithium batteries had a record-breaking year in 2022, accounting for 12.1% of the total market share for new cars in Europe.
It felt like Groundhog Day. Another report published by the world’s climate scientists warning that our efforts to reduce the speed and impact of global warming are falling woefully short.
There’s the analogy of the frog sitting in a pan of gradually heating water. By the time it is aware of the water reaching boiling point, it’s too late. The frog is doomed.
But in our case, the scientists are giving us plenty of prior notice of what’s to come. That still may not change the outcome.
“Dear friends, humanity is on thin ice — and that ice is melting fast,” stated UN Secretary-General António Guterres at a media conference. “The climate time-bomb is ticking.”
Climate change is a threat to human well-being and planetary health (very high confidence). There is a rapidly closing window of opportunity to secure a liveable and sustainable future for all (very high confidence)… The choices and actions implemented in this decade will have impacts now and for thousands of years (high confidence).
In 2018, IPCC highlighted the unprecedented scale of the challenge required to keep warming to 1.5°C. Five years later, that challenge has become even greater due to a continued increase in greenhouse gas emissions. The pace and scale of what has been done so far, and current plans, are insufficient to tackle climate change.
1.5C is gone. The world is likely to reach 1.5C above pre-industrial temperatures in the first half of the next decade. The fight is over our trajectory beyond that threshold. Climate scientist Peter Thorne said: “The question is whether we reach 1.5C, maybe go over and come back down – or whether we blast through, reach 2C and keep going.”
It continues:
The scale of what’s already happening is so large it’s hard to comprehend. In 2021, nearly 24 million people were displaced within their own countries by environmental disasters… The language of the report says time is of the essence. Decisions made now around the extraction and consumption of coal, oil and gas will reverberate for centuries. Aside from the countries that are most directly threatened, though, the attitude of most of the world is that this is still somebody else’s problem.
Some key points from the report:
More than a century of burning fossil fuels as well as unequal and unsustainable energy and land use has led to global warming of 1.1°C above pre-industrial levels.
Approximately 3.3–3.6 billion people live in contexts that are highly vulnerable to climate change.
Without a strengthening of policies, global warming of 3.2°C is projected by 2100 (medium confidence).
Post update 29/03/23: In this podcast (March 2023), Dieter Helm, Professor of Economic Policy at the University of Oxford, tells it straight: “The science on climate change is pretty clear and not new. The latest IPPC report is pretty dire in its predictions, but our understanding of the science is not new – it has been around since the 19th century. Alongside this science and increasing understanding, however, is what is happening on the ground – a different universe altogether. This podcast looks at this reality, and why now is the time to get real about the implications of a world of 1.5ºC+ within our lifetimes, not only in terms of the likely costs, but also what it means in terms changing our behaviour.”
Following part one, there’s some other nuggets from Carmine Gallo’s book ‘The Bezos Blueprint’ (2022) that studies communication techniques used by Amazon founder Jeff Bezos.
[1] Work backwards – open with the most important takeaway Amazon refer to BLOT (bottom line on top). Put the most crucial information your listener of reader needs to know. If they know nothing else but the bottom line, they’ll know the big picture. It should be the first thing your readers see in an email or hear in a presentation. Gallo writes:
Here’s an unspoken rule that you will not learn in business school: You’re more likely to win over your boss or teammates with communication that saves time and energy, and gives them the bottom line up front. Studies show that you have fifteen seconds to grab a reader’s attention in an email, document, or article. About 45 per cent of readers will lose interest or drop out completely after fifteen seconds. If, however, you can grab and keep their attention past fifteen seconds (thirty-five words), they’ll be more likely to stick around for the rest of the content.
Apply the ‘So what?’ test to presentations: ask the questions three times to get to the key takeaway.
[2] Use metaphors Metaphors are shortcuts to understanding. According to Ward Farnsworth, academic and author: “A metaphor can make unfamiliar things familiar, invisible things visible, and complicated things easier to understand.” Bezos adopted the flywheel metaphor coined by business author Jim Collins to describe Amazon. A flywheel is a circular disk that rotates faster and faster as it collects energy.
[3] Use analogies A figure of speech comparing two unrelated things to highlight their similarities. Although an analogy can contain a metaphor, it’s a more elaborate explanation than a single metaphor. For example, Bezos used a handstand analogy as a reminder that achieving excellence in any skill doesn’t happen overnight. It takes time.
[4] Storytelling in a three-act structure Act 1 is the setup: introduces and establishes characters, launches the story’s central premise, illustrates the world in which the characters live, and creates relationships between the main character and others who inhabit their world. Act 2 is the challenge: the hero is tested, encounters villains, obstacles, and conflicts that stand in the way of achieving their dream. Overcoming these hurdles moves the story forward and keeps the audience invested and engaged. Act 3 is the resolution: the hero finds a solution to their problem, achieves their dream and critically, transforms themselves or the world for the better.
[5] Six page memos with narrative structure Scrapping use of PowerPoint amongst the executive team, Bezos introduced six-page memo (or even shorter where possible) to force writers to clarify their thinking. The act of writing narrative memos with titles, subheadings, sentences, verbs, nouns, and paragraphs is harder than filing slides with bullet points. Here’s an example of a one-page memo structure adopted by Procter & Gamble:
[1] Idea summary (one sentence) [2] Perspective (a situation summary that presents facts, trends, issues) [3] How it works (explain details of proposal: what, who, when, where?) [4] Key benefits (at least three) [5] Next steps (what actions needs to be taken, by whom and by when?)
Try writing the story you want to convey before you start building slides. PowerPoint slides don’t tell the story; slides complement the story.
[6] Six parts of a media release Example from 2007 introducing the Kindle. Put 80% of your creative energy into the title, subtitle and summary paragraph because 80% of your readers will stop reading at this point.
[1] Headline [2] Subheading [3] Summary paragraph [4] Problem paragraph [5] Solution and benefits paragraphs [6] Partnerships highlights, executive quotes or customer testimonials
[7] Get to know your audience Ask yourself three questions before witing: [1] Who is your target audience? [2] What do they need to know? [3] Why should they care? (Nobody cares about your ideas. They care about how your idea will help them lead a better life)
[8] Use the Flesch-Kincaid test to simplify writing Amazon teaches its employees to aim for a “readability” level of 50 or higher and a grade level of 8 or lower. Reading ease is measured on a scale of 1 to 100. The higher the score, the easier it is for readers to understand your writing. A score of 70 is “easy” and a score of 90 or above is “very easy”. Content written at the eighth-grade can be read and understood by 80 per cent of Americans. For context, academic papers, incomprehensible to the vast majority of readers, are written for grades sixteen to eighteen. Run text through the Flesch-Kincaid test which examines the number of words in a sentence, the number of syllables per word, and the number of sentences written in the active versus passive voice.
[9] Phrases that trigger audience takeways “If there’s one thing to know, it’s this…” “The most important thing you need to know is this…” “If there’s one thing you can take away from this presentation, it’s this…”
[10] How to structure content for next pitch or presentation
Good writing, like any skill, needs an investment of time and effort.
‘The Bezos Blueprint’ (2022) by Carmine Gallo looks out how Amazon founder Jeff Bezos made such an investment in his business writing.
From 1997 to 2020, honing his annual shareholder letters to be punchy and impactful.
Many will empathise with Jerry Seinfield’s comment that expressing your ideas in written form is like “pushing against the wind in soft, muddy ground with a wheelbarrow full of bricks.”
Gallo identifies 7 lessons from Bezos’ writing, in a chapter titled ‘Writing that dazzles, shines, and sparkles’:
[1]Begin sentences with subjects and verbs
Think of subjects and verbs as the locomotive of a train, pulling along the rest of the railcars. A good writer starts with the strongest element of the sentence, a subject and verb, and lets everything else branch to the right.
Examples Amazon’s vision is to build Earth’s most customer-centric company. We designed Amazon Prime as an all-you-can-eat free program. We live in an era of extraordinary increases in available bandwidth. Our energy at Amazon comes from the desire to impress customers rather than the zeal to best customers.
[2] Order words for emphasis
Start with the strongest words, leave weaker ones in the middle, and end strong.
Examples We love to be pioneers, it’s in the DNA of the company, and it’s a good thing, too, because we’ll need that pioneering spirit to succeed. Setting the bar high in our approach to hiring has been, and will continue to be, the single most important element of Amazon’s success.
[3] Use the active voice (most of the time)
The active voice conveys action and creates a stronger emotional impact. Stay active to stand out. If the subject of the sentence performance the action, it’s an active sentence. If the subject receives the action, it’s a passive one.
Examples Jeff Bezos founded Amazon in 1994. (Active) Amazon was founded by Jeff Bezos in 1994. (Passive)
[4] Unleash strong verbs
Verbs, words of action, are the primary source of energy in your sentences. Strong verbs pack a punch.
Example The fox dashed through the woods – stronger than The fox walked rapidly through the woods, where the verb depends on an adverb (‘rapidly’) for its meaning
[5] Avoid verb qualifiers
Assertive writers and speakers pay attention to words that are easy to remove. Common adverbs (verb qualifiers) are a good place to start e.g. sort of, really, extremely, kind of, could have. Adverbs aren’t useless, but they’re often redundant or unnecessary in business writing.
[6] Vary sentence length
Break up the pattern. Great writers vary the length of their sentences to engage readers. They write short sentences, medium sentences, and much, much longer ones.
[7] Construct parallel structures
This involves using the same pattern to express two or more ideas, which give the ideas the same level of importance.
Example We are proud of our low prices, our reliable delivery, and our in-stock position.
Silicon chips now have an indispensable role in global products and services that billions of people depend on daily.
Used in everything from smartphones to data centres (that host the cloud) and refrigerators.
Cutting-edge chips – known as semiconductors or integrated circuits – power all advanced tech such as machine learning, missile systems, automated vehicles and armed drones.
So any country without guaranteed access to these chips is vulnerable.
In the compelling book Chip War (2022), Chris Miller explains:
During most years of the 2000s and 2010s, China spent more money importing semiconductors than oil. High-powered chips were as important as hydrocarbons in fuelling China’s economic growth. Unlike oil, though, the supply of chips is monopolised by China’s geopolitical rivals.
Chip War explores the history of how the design and manufacture of chips resulted in today’s reality, consolidated amongst a small number of companies spread across a few countries.
Neither America or China currently has self-sufficiency within its own borders to design and manufacture all the chips it needs.
That’s why Taiwan is crucial to both countries, producing 41% of all processor chips and more than 90% of the most advanced chips used globally.
And as Miller points out:
Taiwan isn’t simply the source of the advanced chips that both countries’ militaries are betting on. It’s also the most likely future ground.
China claims Taiwan as part of its territory and has vowed to unify it, by force if necessary. Self-ruled Taiwan sees itself as distinct from the mainland. Add Taiwan’s critical role in computer chip production and its alliance with the US, and easy to see why diplomatic tensions have escalated in recent years.
Since the 1990’s, the Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company (TSMC), has enjoyed a spectacular rise as a foundry or ‘fab’ (semiconductor fabrication plant) which can fabricate hundreds of fingernail-size chips on 12-inch silicon wafers. TSMC was well-placed to benefit from global markets for new technology, such as smartphones:
Application processors, the electronic brain inside each smartphone, are mostly produced in Taiwan and South Korea before being sent to China for final assembly inside a phone’s plastic case and glass screen. Apple’s iPhone processors are fabricated exclusively in Taiwan. Today, no company besides TSMC has the skill or production capacity to build the chips Apple needs. So the text etched onto the back of each iPhone – “Designed by Apple in California. Assembled in China” – is highly misleading. The iPhone’s most irreplaceable components are indeed designed in California and assembled in China. But they can only be made in Taiwan.
Miller points out that from day one in 1987, TMSC wasn’t really a private business: it was a project of the Taiwanese state. It was led by industry expert Morris Chang, who was previously a senior executive at US-based Texas Instruments helping it establish a semiconductor facility on the island.
Taiwan can thank a government minister K.T. Li for hiring Chang in 1985. The government provided 48% of the start-up capital for TSMC, with the rest provided by wealthy Taiwanese who were “asked” to invest. Dutch semiconductor company Philips transferred production technology and licensed intellectual property in exchange for a 27.5% company stake.
Here Miller explains where TSMC sit within today’s multinational supply chain:
Nearly every chip in the world uses software from at least one of three US-based companies, Cadence, Synopsys, and Mentor (the latter of which is owned by Germany’s Siemens but based in Oregon). Excluding the chips Intel builds in-house, all the most advanced logic chips are fabricated by just two companies, Samsung and TSMC, both located in countries that rely on the US military for their security. Moreover, making advanced processors requires EUV lithography machines produced by just one company, the Netherlands’ ASML, which in turn relies on its San Diego subsidiary, Cymer (which it purchased in 2013), to supply the irreplaceable light sources in its EUV lithography tools. It’s far easier to control choke points in the chip-making process when so many essential steps require tools, materials, or software produced by just a handful of firms. Many of those choke points remained in American hands. Those that didn’t were mostly controlled by close US allies.
One of the revelations of the book is the crucial role of these EUV (extreme ultraviolet) lithography machines manufactured in Holland, but which rely on components from companies in America and Germany with the latter relying on critical pieces of US-produced equipment.
Costing $100 million each, they are the result of three decades of investment, billions of dollars, a series of technological innovations and the creation one of the world’s most complex supply chains.
Miller points out the challenge for China in trying to build its own EUV machine, which might take a decade or more due to their complexity. Replicating just the laser in an EUV system requires perfectly identifying and assembling 457,329 parts.
Chip War is a fascinating deep dive into the scientists, innovators and rise and decline of companies and countries in the global chip industry.
Post update 07.01.22: Since the publication of Chip War, the New York Times (06.12.22) reported that US President Joe Biden joined the founder of TSMC in December to announce the expansion and upgrade a US production hub that it is building in Phoenix, Arizona. Raising its investment in the state from $12 billion to $40 billion, TSMC plans to import advanced manufacturing technology that has largely been limited to its factories in Taiwan. The investment by TSMC is one of the largest foreign investments in US history.
CNBC reported (06.12.22) that: “Biden signed the CHIPS and Science Act into law in early August, allocating billions to lure manufacturers to produce the widely used chips domestically. The law includes $52.7 billion in loans, grants and other incentives as well as billions more in tax credits to encourage investment in U.S. semiconductor manufacturing. Once the TSMC plants open, they, along with existing investments, will produce enough advanced chips to meet the U.S. annual demand, 600,000 wafers per year, according to Ronnie Chatterji, National Economic Council acting deputy director for industrial policy who oversees CHIPS implementation.”
“‘Never give up’, are the three most important words in the language” was once said by Australian cricketer Shane Warne who passed away in March this year, aged 52.
He was quoted in Alastair Campbell’s 2015 book ‘Winners And How They Succeed‘ in which he concludes:
Winners use emotion, but also know when to control it. Winners think big and bold. They are ambitious. Winners have a plan where possible they stick to it. Winners pay attention to detail, know it is in the implementation and constant iteration of planning that winning objectives can best be met. Winners never give up. They embrace pressure and they embrace setbacks. Winners turn disappointment into progress. They learn from mistakes. Winners always want to improve and the desire to improve is what leads to innovation. Winners feel special. That is not universal, but I was struck by how many of the people I met acknowledged feeling from a young age that they would be more successful than others. Winners focus on the next win, not the last one. Winners have the will to win, and know that it is not the same as wanting to win. Winners know the mental and the physical are always connected. Winners care about their reputation and know that building it never stops.
Financial journalist and broadcaster Martin Lewis listed four things he believes that you need to be successful on the BBC’s ‘Political Thinking with Nick Robinson’ podcast broadcast in June 2022:
Talent
Hard work
Focus (find the thing that you’re really good at)
Luck
Lewis talks about having to do payback having had luck to get to where he is now:
You have to recognise my success is not because I’m innately brilliant… it’s cos, you know, there were lots of people who could have been successful. I was the one. I was the one who got that luck and that brings a responsibility. And so I feel that burden of responsibility.
Meanwhile, Mary Christine, one of the best appellate lawyers in the US, shared this lesson from her career on the High Performance Circle website (April 2021):
Finally, and this is true in life generally but, never give up. In several of my cases. I’ve lost at one stage of an appeal but then years later won at a higher level appellate court or before a larger panel of the same court. And that of course requires fortitude both by the client and myself to keep going when it doesn’t look very favourable or when we’ve lost already. But sometimes you can lose the battle and win the war…Don’t give up when it looks hopeless – you may yet say something in a new way that persuades someone of your view. Sometimes all you need to do is get to the next step, to live to fight another day. Give up too soon you will never know what is possible – so never, ever give up.
We each run our own race. We don’t need to be ‘successful’ or at the top of a profession to never give up on the causes that matter to us.
On 24 February, Russia invaded Ukraine. Since then, up to the end of November, the Office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights recorded 17,023 civilian casualties in Ukraine: 6,655 killed and 10,368 injured. The actual figures are likely to be much higher.
There’s no obvious sign of when the war might end. Millions of Ukrainians continue to show defiance, resilience and indomitable spirit.
They will never give up on the country’s sovereignty and independence. Millions of people who will never know fame, wealth or celebrity.
Collectively digging in for their country. Enduring hardship and making sacrifices to push back on a bully.
ніколи не здавайся is Ukrainian for ‘Never give up’ (pronounced ‘nikoly ne zdavaysya’).
The words above of the Greek Stoic philosopher Epictetus lie at the heart of what Ben Aldridge calls Stoicism’s “Golden Rule” – also known as the “The Dichotomy of Control”. In his book ‘How to Control the Uncontrollable’ (2022), Aldridge writes:
The Stoics believed that we have little control over external events (basically, much of the stuff that happens to us). Life is uncertain and we can’t control outcomes. However, they did believe that we could control our response to those external events… By choosing to focus on our response to what happens to us, we bring power back into our hands. That awful thing might have taken place, but we can pick where we go from here and how we deal with it. This is very much a mindset thing. And it’s a wonderful way to deal with setbacks and hardships.
The Cardinal Virtues – the qualities of character that the Stoics believed we should strive to bring into our lives.
Wisdom
The ability to make wise and sensible decisions
Knowing that complaining about the weather isn’t going to change it
Understanding that the best course of action for lot of problems we face in life can be found within philosophy
Justice
Being a kind, fair and decent human being
Aspiring to make the world a better place for our existence
Fortitude
Exemplified by grit, endurance and resilience
The ability to handle setbacks and rise up to the challenges in front of us
Dealing with discomfort gracefully
The courage to stand up for what we believe in even if that will be difficult to do
Temperance
Self-control
Discipline and the ability to stick with difficult things and situations
The ability to commit to our goals
Stoic principles
1. Voluntary discomfort
By deliberately exposing ourselves to hardships, we will be better prepared to face hardships in the future
Deliberate discomfort (e.g. cold showers, sauna, exercising in bad weather, sleeping on the floor)
“Shame-attacking” (e.g. taking a pet banana for a walk, exposing ourselves to situations where we feel uncomfortable to help reduce social anxiety through desensitisation)
Deliberate deprivation (i.e. avoid something you want or like, to test self-control and mental strength)
2. Perception
We have a choice about how we view any situation. If we can’t control it, we have to change the way we think about it
Strive to face everything in an objective, not negative, manner applying logic and reasoning
3. Setbacks
Thinking about how we respond (The Dichotomy of Control)
By taking charge of the situation, we can proactively deal with the cards we have been dealt
Amor fati (“a love of fate”) accepting and leaning into things when they go wrong
What can I control? Reframing – each setback is an opportunity to test out our character; setbacks and difficulties can help to define us
4. Self-reflection
Study wisdom – ideas and values that can guide us in life
Whenever you face a problem in life, look for a book that might help
Self-reflect on our actions to ensure that we are aligned with those ideas and values (journaling was a tool used by the ancient Stoics)
Socrates: “Know thyself”
5. Role models
When we are inspired by someone’s actions or ideas, it motivates us to make important changes in our lives
Anti-role models: “The best revenge is not to be like your enemy” – Aurelius
6. Negative visualisation
Use to anticipate future problems so that you are better prepared to face them
Create a heightened appreciation for life itself and a deep sense of gratitude for everything (e.g. through contemplating loss, actively thinking about how much worse the situation could be brings some objectivity to it)
7. Managing strong emotions
The ability to not get overwhelmed by our emotions can help us live less reactive lives and remain level-headed when things start getting intense
Apatheia: the ability to remain in control when strong emotions come knocking
Delaying our response can massively impact on how we handle our emotions
8. Dealing with others
How we deal with difficult people says a lot about our character
It’s easy for us to judge someone’s bad behaviour but most of the time we don’t have access to the full context
9. Memento Mori
“Remember you are mortal”
Life is precious but we often forget this. Being conscious of the fact that we might die at any minute gives us a heightened appreciation for what we are doing in the moment
10. The cosmic perspective
By becoming more aware of the miracle of our existence, we can learn to detach from unnecessary worries
When doing mundane tasks, dealing with difficult and uncomfortable situations – a good tactic is to reflect on the impermanence of everything
Post update 04/01/23: From page 3 of The Daily Stoic (2016), by Ryan Holiday: “..the following little reminder sums up the three most essential parts of Stoic philosophy worth carrying with you every day, into every decision:
Control your perception. Direct your actions properly. Willingly accept what’s outside your control.
That’s all we need to do.”
Post update 17/09/23: From page 277 of The Daily Stoic (2016), by Ryan Holiday: “The seeds of Stoicism are long underground. Do the work required to nurture and tend to them. So that they – and you – are prepared and sturdy for the hard winters of life.“
If they weren’t paying attention, radio listeners would have easily missed it.
A comment from economics correspondent Andy Verity, as part of a report for BBC Radio 4’s Six O’Clock News (16.08.22) on rising inflation and 1.3 million UK job vacancies:
Brexit is a big part of the reason for this labour shortage because restricting immigration means restricting the supply of labour.
The new system represents a significant tightening of controls on EU migration compared with free movement. Migrants from EU countries coming to work in lower-skilled and lower-paid occupations will, in principle, no longer be able to gain entry.
Portes adds:
The end of free movement has led to substantial sectoral shifts in migration flows, with particularly sharp falls in the number of migrants coming to the UK to work in the accommodation and hospitality sector, and possibly in less-skilled and lower-paid administrative jobs.
This has led to sharp rises in vacancies in these sectors, although there are also high vacancy rates in other sectors, for example, health and social care.
Organisations are left competing for a diminished pool of available workers by offering higher pay, yet higher wages don’t buy as much because prices are rising faster.
Verity’s report featured comments from Baroness Ruby McGregor-Smith, President of the British Chambers of Commerce. In July, the Chamber called on the Government to review the Shortage Occupation List which lists occupations where employers face a shortage of suitable labour and where it is sensible to fill those shortages with migrant workers.
McGregor-Smith commented:
We still see that we have a million vacancies across a whole range of different industries, but it’s certainly at the low levels of skills. And what we’ve asked for and been asking for some time is to have an immediate review and reform of the Shortage Occupation List so that we can bring in more individuals to really support all businesses at all levels, particularly over the next 2 to 3 years.
Back in February, the Shortage Occupation List was expanded to include social care worker, care assistant and home care worker roles. This is a temporary arrangement that will be reviewed after a year. Social care workers still have to meet the salary threshold of £20,480, which is higher than the Government’s minimum wage requirements.
The Guardian reported this week that:
Half of care workers employed in independent care homes would earn more if they took an entry level job in a supermarket, according to new research into a staffing crisis that has left thousands of vulnerable people suffering inadequate care. In June nearly 400,000 care staff earned less than the minimum wages paid in most of the major supermarket chains, while a third of workers would have received an immediate 6.3% pay increase, plus staff benefits, by moving to the best-paying supermarkets, according to the research by the King’s Fund health thinktank. (The Guardian, 24.08.22)
There are about 165,000 vacancies in England’s social care workforce. Chronic under funding of the sector has been compounded by the new barriers to migrants from EU countries taking up care roles as well as raising the cost for those employing them.
The vacancies have a knock-on effect. Hospital beds aren’t freed up quickly if patients aren’t promptly assessed and discharged to receive care in their own home or in the community. Adding to the NHS backlog and examples like the 90-year-old woman in Cornwall who waited 40 hours for an ambulance after a serious fall, before remaining in the vehicle for 20 hours because of a bed shortage.
It suits Government ministers, much of the mainstream media and other pro-Brexit supporters to turn a blind eye to the impact of the changed immigration system on growth, productivity and the public services we rely on.
The British Chambers of Commerce say construction, production and manufacturing, logistics and hospitality are also facing difficulties recruiting staff.
Post update 22/10/22: The Economist (22.02.22) report: “Since a post-Brexit points-based system was introduced in January 2021, the number of immigrants from outside the European Union has surged. In the year to June, 46% of those granted visas for skilled workers were from India. Their numbers have grown by 80% since 2019. Nigeria and the Philippines supplied many of the rest. Only 10% were from EU countries.” This draws on Government data also featured in a House of Commons Library Briefing Paper: ‘How has immigration changed under the UK’s new ‘points based’ system?‘ (September 2022).
What you can see below is the weather station at RHS Garden Wisley in Surrey that has recorded conditions every day since 1904.
It was taken the day before it recorded highest ever temperature of 39.3°C on Tuesday 19 July 2022, surpassing the previous high of 37.8°C from August 2003.
Less than a hundred yards away from this weather station – in a climate change exhibition in the building in the background of the photo (RHS Hilltop) – an interactive display predicted the following hottest day temperature for South East England in 2100:
So in effect – 78 years ahead of time – the hottest day temperature ever recorded at Wisley has already reached 0.8°C above the lower end of the predicted range.
This was during the heatwave from 16 to 19 July 2022 which marked a “milestone in UK climate history“, with 40°C being recorded for the first time in the UK.
On 19 July, 40.3°C was recorded at Coningsby (Lincolnshire), setting a new UK and England temperature record by a margin of 1.6°C.
46 stations met or exceeded the previous national record of 38.7°C, with seven stations at or above 40°C and a further 30 stations at or above 39°C.
The UK is not prepared for these Mediterranean temperatures. Buildings are poorly insulated and lack air conditioning. Much of the infrastructure cannot cope: train lines are built from steel that is only stress-tested to 27°C. Beyond that, the lines are prone to buckling.
This ominous UK milestone came just over a week before today’s publication of the Met Office’s State of the UK Climate 2021 report “reaffirming that climate change is not just a problem for the future and that it is already influencing the conditions we experience here at home.”
But now the heatwave has passed, attention moves on quickly. Today is the Opening Ceremony of the Birmingham 2022 Commonwealth Games. On Sunday, England play Germany in the UEFA Women’s EURO 2022 final at Wembley. Then on Monday, it’s the final of the 2022 series of Love Island.
The cost of living crisis is escalating and Rishi Sunak and Liz Truss compete to become the next UK Prime Minister. And as edie.net reported earlier this week (26.07.22):
Neither of the two candidates to become the next Prime Minister have shown a willingness to discuss actual policies related to the climate crisis, a trend which has not been helped by the media’s perceived lack of willingness to provide them with ample time and questions to do so. While both Truss and Sunak have reiterated a top-line commitment to the net-zero emissions target set for 2050, both have relatively poor track records on climate and have also signalled that some green legislation may be relaxed if they become the next Prime Minister.
It added:
Despite the ongoing energy price crisis and the recent record-breaking temperatures, party members are more concerned about cutting taxes, an impending general election and increasing defence spending. Indeed, a recent YouGov poll found that only 4% of surveyed Conservative members felt that net-zero should be one of their top priority areas. Out of 10 key policy areas, net-zero ranked last in terms of priorities.
Post update 08/08/22: The World Weather Attribution group – a collection of leading climate scientists who meet after an extreme weather event to determine whether climate change made it more likely – found that without human-caused climate change temperatures of 40°C in the UK would have been extremely unlikely.
If we’re honest, those four words drive humankind: individually and collectively. Governments, businesses and individuals.
Our action, attention and priorities are led by what’s easy, expedient and holds direct benefit in terms of our power, wealth and happiness.
In geopolitics, countries compete for supremacy. Economic and military dominance.
In democracies, the government’s priority is simply to win the next election. In autocracies, the despot or ruling party does whatever it takes to hold onto power.
Businesses are ruthlessly driven by profit.
And what we care about as individuals depends on where we sit on Maslow’s hierarchy of needs. For many, that’s just day-to-day survival, struggling to make ends meet.
All of which makes humankind perpetually driven by short-term self-interest.
Rather than stepping up to do the difficult, costly but necessary things to address the climate crisis that need to be done. Unless we’re forced to, we are simply not hardwired to sacrifice our self-interest for benefits that we won’t accrue.
Wars, natural disasters and pandemics force sacrifices on us. And when our self-interests are impinged by an immediate crisis, Government make hard decisions and take expensive actions. Anything is possible.
But when the irreversible and devastating consequences of climate change show up – as they increasingly are – it’s too late. We can’t vaccinate our way out.
David Elton Trueblood told us that:
A man has made at least a start on discovering the meaning of human life when he plants shade trees under which he knows full well he will never sit.
But despite knowing the consequences our actions are having on the long-term viability of human life, nothing overrides the supremacy of our own short-term self-interest.
The Keeling Curve doesn’t lie. CO2 emissions continue their unstoppable rise.
Post update 23/03/23: The latest Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) report published on 21 March 2023 (AR6 Synthesis Report) states that: “Without a strengthening of policies, global warming of 3.2°C is projected by 2100 (medium confidence)“. The accompanying media release states: “In 2018, IPCC highlighted the unprecedented scale of the challenge required to keep warming to 1.5°C. Five years later, that challenge has become even greater due to a continued increase in greenhouse gas emissions. The pace and scale of what has been done so far, and current plans, are insufficient to tackle climate change.“
Post update 22/11/22: In this podcast (November 2022), Dieter Helm, Professor of Economic Policy at the University of Oxford, tells it straight: “We’re actually not making progress on climate change and that means that the unsustainable will go on being unsustainable. We’ll go on living beyond our environmental means but you know, that means it won’t be sustained. And what we need to do is focus on what happens when it isn’t sustained. When the temperature is 2.5 or 3 degrees warmer. And that’s not so far away.”
When two Bank of England economists started writing a book published this year called ‘Can’t we just print more money? Economics in Ten Simple Questions’, even their best modelling wouldn’t have forecast its timely relevance. The current choppy economic waters have placed the Bank firmly in the spotlight.
Particularly these ominous words in chapter six:
…almost everyone agrees that the costs of inflation become particularly severe once it has hit around 10 per cent, and the risk of it taking off from there grows rapidly.
Inflation is a measure of the rate at which a range of prices are rising over a given period of time. It’s effectively a tax on keeping money. Just as income tax might take away a fraction of our salary each month, inflation takes away a fraction of our spending power.
It is measured using an index which tracks how the price of a typical basket of items changes over time. The Consumer Prices Index (CPI) is the index that the Government’s inflation target of 2% is linked to and is therefore widely referred to and used, while Retail Prices Index (RPI) is also still being used to calculate the price rise of many things. Read more on the difference between the two.
UK inflation hit 9.1% in the 12 months to May, from 9% in April – the highest level since March 1982, when it also stood at 9.1%. The Bank of England expects it to rise to slightly above 11% in October, when another big energy price cap increase takes effect.
Rupal Patel and Jack Meaning explain in their book that:
Over the last thirty years, inflation in the UK, and most other advanced economies around the world, has averaged about 2%. This is a relatively modest amount, but even that is enough to erode roughly half of the spending power of your cash over three decades.
Inflation’s overshoot of the 2% target mainly reflects previous large increases in global energy and other tradable goods prices. The former has been greatly exacerbated by the war in Ukraine, which has also raised significantly the wholesale price of many agricultural commodities. The latter mainly reflects the impact of the pandemic, which shifted demand towards goods but also impaired and disrupted supply chains.
This is one of four types of cost-push inflation:
Rises in the prices of commodities – e.g. oil, gas or steel
Movements in the exchange rate – increasing the cost of importing goods. Globalisation means the cumulative costs of exchange-rate fluctuations can be significant
Increases in wages – why wages are moving matters. For example, whether it is due to productivity (which compensates for the wage increase and may not lead to inflation) or a shortage of workers (may need to spend more on wages, increasing prices to compensate)
Taxation – e.g. VAT and sugar tax which can raises prices, reflected in inflation
Demand-pull inflation is anything that causes demand for things to increase by more than the economy’s ability to increase their supply. Examples include:
People feeling more confident and wanting to spend more (John Maynard Keynes: “animal spirits”), leading to price rises when supply can’t keep up
Increase in the supply of money – e.g. through quantitative easing (QE), which leads to interest rates that are lower, stimulating spending and investment and nudging up the rate of inflation when it might otherwise be too low
The Bank of England’s traditional response to rising inflation is to raise interest rates. Higher interest rates make borrowing more expensive and they encourage saving. Both of those things reduce how much people spend overall which helps to push inflation down.
But when inflation is caused by external forces, like rising global energy prices, then there is a limit as to how effective UK interest rate rises can be in curbing inflation.
Plus raising higher interest rates doesn’t work straight away. It takes time to take full effect. So when the Bank of England does this, it always looks at what will happen in the economy over the next few years, not just what’s going on now.
The Bank currently forecasts that inflation will peak this winter – then come down to be close to 2% by 2024.
Post update 08/08/22:Announcing a 0.5% interest rise to 1.75% on 04 August, the Bank of England’s Monetary Policy Committee forecast that “CPI inflation is expected to rise more than forecast in the May Report, from 9.4% in June to just over 13% in 2022 Q4, and to remain at very elevated levels throughout much of 2023, before falling to the 2% target two years ahead…The latest rise in gas prices has led to another significant deterioration in the outlook for activity in the United Kingdom and the rest of Europe. The United Kingdom is now projected to enter recession from the fourth quarter of this year. Real household post-tax income is projected to fall sharply in 2022 and 2023, while consumption growth turns negative.”
The Bank of England published this short briefing (04.08.22) that covers ‘Why is the rate of inflation in the UK so high?‘ and ‘When will inflation start to fall?‘.
Post update 06/11/22: The interest rate was raised 0.75 percentage points on 03 November to 3%, the biggest jump since 1989. The Bank of England said it expects inflation to “fall sharply from the middle of next year [2023]”. The Bank also said it now believes the economy has already entered a “challenging” downturn this summer, which will continue next year and into the first half of 2024. Here’s the analysis of Ed Conway, economics and data editor at Sky News: The economy is almost certainly in recession – but it’s complicated (03.11.22).
It can legitimately claim the ‘superfood’ tag: beetroot.
Wheelchair athlete David Weir revealed that beetroot juice helped him to win four gold medals in the 2012 Paralympic Games.
It’s special properties were investigated by Dr Michael Mosley as part of his BBC Radio 4 series Just One Thing (2022) looking at ways to improve your health and wellbeing.
Beetroot is rich in nitrates which – with the help of bacteria that live in our mouth – are converted into nitric oxide in the body. Nitric oxide widens blood vessels and reduces the amount of oxygen needed by muscles.
Dr Mosley interviewed Andy Jones, Professor of Applied Physiology at the University of Exeter, who has been involved in research into the influence of dietary nitrate for over 12 years. This has found that beetroot juice can:
Improve muscle efficiency by consuming less oxygen
Enhance endurance, including during high intensity exercise
In a series of studies, Professor Jones and his colleagues in Sport and Health Sciences and the University of Exeter Medical School have shown that drinking beetroot juice boosts stamina. Their research explains how the high levels of nitrate contained in beetroot juice makes exercise less tiring so athletes can keep going for longer.
This was also reaffirmed in a 2017 meta-analysis of 23 beet juice studies found beet juice can improve cardiorespiratory endurance in athletes by increasing efficiency, which improves performance and increases time to exhaustion.
One to two shots of concentrated beetroot juice taken two to three hours before exercise is recommended. Taking it for a few days prior to the race is likely to prove even more effective, Professor Jones told Runner’s World in 2018.
Roast or bake beetroot to retain the nitrate which is water soluble. Pickled beetroot tends to be pre-boiled, so the nitrate content will likely be too low to get all the good stuff.
Two-three medium beetroots, or a shot of beetroot juice, is all you need to see positive effects. Getting about 6 to 10 millimoles of nitrate is what’s important.
Consuming beetroot is also linked with a range of health benefits, including reducing resting blood pressure. The betalain compounds, responsible for the root’s red colour, have been shown to have high anti-oxidant and anti-inflammatory capabilities. This means they help protect cells from damage and may be helpful in the fight against age-related conditions like heart disease and cancer.
Although beetroot is grown commercially throughout the UK, a key traditional growing area is within the Cambridgeshire Fens due to its fertile soils and cool even climate.
Chuck who? Most people won’t have heard of Chuck Feeney.
But he has led an extraordinary life, as captured in the compelling 2007 biography by Conor O’Clery updated in 2013: The Billionaire Who Wasn’t.
Born on 23 April 1931 in Elmora, New Jersey, Feeney grew up in a blue-collar Irish-American family during the Depression and became hugely rich as the cofounder of the world’s largest duty-free chain, Duty Free Shoppers.
Right place, right time, the company had a licence to print huge sums of money capitalising on the explosion of Japanese tourism from the mid-1960’s and travellers’ unsatiable appetite for alcohol, tobacco and luxury items.
So far so bling. But the twist is that Feeney shunned the ostentatious trappings of wealth and embarked on a ‘giving while living’ mission – distributing the vast majority of his wealth, $8 billion over four decades. He funded worthwhile projects across five continents via his philanthropic foundation, inspiring Bill Gates and Warren Buffett to establish the Giving Pledge in 2010.
Feeney did this by stealth for as long as he could, disinterested in the spotlight and going to great lengths to avoid generating any public credit or recognition for his giving.
Plus this wasn’t a case of throwing money at problems from the comfort of a private island. Feeney was on the ground, kicking the tyres of the projects he went on to support and often leveraging matched funding from national governments and universities. O’Clery writes:
The greatest paradox of his life arose from his relationship with money. He has loved making money, but not having it.
“I had one idea that never changed in my mind – that you should use your wealth to help people. I try to live a normal life, the way I grew up. I think there’s something in the makeup of people from the way they are brought up. I set out to work hard, not to get rich.”
Frugality was Feeney’s watchword, insisting on flying economy rather than business class until his mid-seventies (when health and comfort reasons prevailed):
He always claimed it was a money-saving measure. “It would be different if it got me there quicker,” he would quip.
Feeney observes:
“Since my earliest days I have been frugal, but I am frugal person in that I hate waste, at any level,” explained Feeney, who always wears off-the-peg clothes, a cheap plastic watch, and reading glasses of the type sold in bookstores. “If I can get a watch for $15 that keeps perfect time, what am I doing messing around with a Rolex?”
The final line of the 396-page book gets to the heart of his outlook:
“There is an Oriental proverb,” Feeney added. “Fortune doesn’t change a man, it only unmasks him. I guess under the mask is a kid from Elmora wearing a baseball cap.”
The crass and provocative title – ‘Rich Dad, Poor Dad’ – achieves it’s purpose in grabbing attention. First published in 1997, the latest edition of Robert T. Kiyosaki’s book can still be found onsale a quarter of century later in Waterstones in the UK.
Testimony to the fact that interest in generating and protecting wealth never goes out fashion.
Kiyosaki talks about his friend’s father as his ‘rich dad’ – a businessman who gave him and his friend a financial education from the age of nine, growing up in Hawaii. He describes his biological father as his ‘poor dad’ – highly educated, with a steady public sector job.
The book boils down to this: there are three different types of income:
Ordinary earned
Portfolio
Passive
Kiyosaki writes:
When my poor dad said to me, “Go to school, get good grades, and find a safe secure job,” he was recommending I work for earned income. When my rich dad, “The rich don’t work for money. They have their money work for them,” he was talking about passive income and portfolio income. Passive income, in most cases, is income derived from real estate investments. Portfolio income is derived from paper assets such as stocks and bonds. Portfolio income is the income that makes Bill Gates the richest man in the world, not earned income.
Rich dad used to say, “The key to becoming wealthy is the ability to convert earned income into passive income or portfolio income as quickly as possible.” He would say, “Taxes are highest on earned income. That is another reason why you want your money working hard for you. The government taxes the income you work hard for more than the income your money works hard for.”
There’s a clear logic in what Kiyosaki says. But of course, if building assets and generating portfolio and passive income was that easy, we’d all know lots of people who aren’t working for money. How many do you know?
But even if you’re not going to be investing in a repossessed flat as a buy-to-let opportunity anytime soon, the book provides some grist to the mill in evolving our financial intelligence. As Kiyosaki observes:
A person can be highly educated, professionally successful, and financially illiterate. These people often work harder than they need to because they learned how to work hard, but not how to have their money work hard for them.
23 March 2021: remember the extraordinary pictures and headlines. The massive Ever Given container ship wedged across the Suez Canal in Egypt, blocking one of the world’s major shipping routes.
The BBC TV revisited this in a programme called ‘Why Ships Crash’ (February 2022) looking at what happened and why. Starting with some context:
The Suez Canal is a 120 mile wide manmade strip of water that serves a shortcut for ships sailing between Asia and Europe, avoiding weeks and 6,000 miles of travel around the Horn of Africa
18,000 ships and 12% of world traded physical goods pass through the Suez Canal every year
The 400m long Ever Green container ship can carry up to 20,000 containers and on the fateful day was carrying £5 million worth of consumer goods destined for Felixstowe
The intermodal shipping container was first developed by US haulier Malcolm McLean in the 1950’s – 90% of global trade is today moved by container ship
Within 4 days of the Ever Green getting stuck across the Suez Canal, some 300 ships were backed up. An estimated £42 billion of cargo was held up before the ship was finally freed after six days.
It was then impounded while the Suez Canal Authority sort to reclaim the costs of the recovery. Four months late, the Ever Green arrived in Felixstowe.
The investigations are yet to conclude, but weather conditions and ship speed are likely to have both contributed to the Ever Given’s mishap.
Meanwhile it gave people across the world an insight into the fragile, just-in-time supply chain of medical supplies, fuel, food and consumer goods. To keep lean, businesses minimise money tied up in inventory – fine, if supply is always on tap.
Thousands of ships pass through these five key gateway points:
The Ever Given lays bare the vulnerability of global supply chains if just one of these shipping routes is blocked, even for just a few days.
It’s an extraordinary story. Of how – over two decades – an American family unleashed a powerful and addictive opiate painkiller onto market that racked up $35 billion in sales.
And as this prescription drug helped turbocharge an opioid crisis in America, the Sackler family were gifting huge sums from the proceeds to universities, art galleries and museums across the world.
Through their drug company Purdue, the Sackler’s launched ‘OxyContin’ in 1996 – pills of oxycodone, an opioid twice as strong as morphine. The drug quickly established itself as a blockbuster cash cow and by 2020, the family had extracted $13 billion out of Purdue.
OxyContin’s original pill coating allowed the controlled-release of oxycodone, but users quickly worked out they could simply crush the tablet to snort or inject a pure hit.
Below is the timeline of key events covered in Patrick Radden Keefe’s compelling book – a narrative non-fiction – ‘Empire of Pain’ (2021):
1993: New painkiller pills ‘OxyContin’ in development.
October 1994: Purdue offer a morphine pill product, ‘MS Contin’, for sale in the US that went onto generate $170 million a year in sales (following UK release in 1980).
December 1995: US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) formally approves ‘OxyContin’.
January 1996: Purdue launch OxyContin, ahead of the patent expiry for MS Contin that opens the door to competition from generic versions. First year $44 million sales of OxyContin – $20 million a week by 1999, hit $1 billion in sales within 4 years.
Feb 2000: Federal prosecutor in Maine sent a letter to thousands of doctors across the state, warning them about the increasing dangers of abuse of OxyContin.
2007: Purdue pleaded guilty to a criminal charge of felony misbranding $600 million fine, three executives pleaded guilty to same charge and fined.
2010: US in the grip of a full-blown opioid epidemic.
Summer 2010: Purdue quietly began shipping a reformulated OxyContin tablets with a crushproof coating, which had the benefit of restarting the clock on the patent on the original product set to expire in 2013. The new pills led many users to either switch to more readily abusable prescription opioids, or to graduate heroin which was the cheaper, stronger and widely available alternative.
2008 – 2016: Sackler family had paid itself nearly $4.3 billion in proceeds.
2018: Multidistrict litigation launched against Purdue.
2019: Purdue files for bankruptcy.
2020: In the federal settlement, Purdue agreed to plead guilty to criminal charges of defrauding federal health agencies and violating anti-kickback laws. The penalties included $3.54 billion in criminal fines and $2 billion in criminal forfeiture of profits, the largest penalties ever levied against a pharmaceutical manufacturer. The Purdue settlement also included $2.8 billion in civil penalties, related to allegations that the company violated the False Claims Act. The Sackler family agreed to pay $225 million in damages to resolve its civil False Claims Act liability. Purdue declare bankruptcy.
In an ironic twist of fate, the 2019 settled required Purdue to become a “public benefit corporation” which would continue to sell opioids but distribute the proceeds to the US states that had brought multidistrict litigation, so they could fight the opioid crisis.
‘Empire of Pain’ describes how a huge Purdue salesforce went to work on doctors and pharmacists across America, hard selling OxyContin and pedalling the unsubstantiated claim that fewer than 1 percent of patients who took it became addicted.
But Purdue had not conducted any studies on addiction or abuse liability before marketing OxyContin as less addictive and subject to abuse. Indeed, it took full advantage of an initial misperception in the medical community that oxycodone was less powerful than morphine.
Radden Keefe writes:
“The opioid crisis is, among other things, a parable about the awesome capability of private industry to subvert public institutions. Just as the FDA was compromised and Congress was neutralised or outright co-opted with generous donations and some federal prosecutors were undermined with a back-channel appeal in Washington while others were mollified with the promise of a corporate job, just as state legislators and the CDC [Centers for Disease Control] were hindered and sabotaged when they tried to curb opioid prescribing, the DEA [Drug Enforcement Administration] was not immune to these pressures and proceeded to soften its position under a steady barrage of industry engagement. Between 1994 and 2015, the quota of oxycodone that the DEA permitted to be legally manufactured was raised thirty-six times. A subsequent report by the inspector general of the Justice Department criticised the DEA for being “slow to respond to the dramatic increase opioid abuse.”
No member of the Sackler family has been subject to criminal charges, and is never now likely to be. As for the FDA official who oversaw the approval of OxyContin:
“After the approval for OxyContin went through, he resigned from the FDA. Initially, he joined a pharmaceutical firm in Pennsylvania called Adolor. But he did not stay long, Barely a year later, he moved on, to a new position at Purdue Pharma, in Norwalk, with a first-year compensation package of nearly $400,000.”
As the full fallout of OxyContin came to light, many benefactors of the Sacklers’ largesse had to distance themselves from the family.
One activist, Nan Goldin, who campaigned to bring the company to account declared: “The Sacklers made their fortune promoting addiction. They have washed their blood money through the halls of museums and universities around the world.”
Two other interesting nuggets from the book:
A company owned by the pharmaceutical giant Johnson & Johnson first developed a new strain of opium poppy, genetically engineered to produce a higher proportion of thebaine – an alkaloid that is the key chemical precursor for oxycodone. About 85% of the world’s thebaine is grown in Tasmania.
Heroin – roughly six times more powerful than morphine – was created by the same research team at the German drug company Bayern that invented aspirin. They stopped making it in 1913 after its addictive and destructive effects became apparent.
Ricky Gervais chose some of his favourite songs of all time on BBC Radio 2’s ‘My Life In A Mixtape’ (January 2022). The twelve tracks he selected were featured in his TV series ‘After Life’. They were an eclectic mix, including artists and tracks I had not heard before. Most had rather melancholic themes which Ricky hoped listeners wouldn’t find too depressing. His appreciation of sad songs was the inspiration for this post.
Songs have the power to evoke the range of emotions including love, happiness, loss, regret and sadness. At one level they can give enjoyment of the moment. At a deeper level songs can help us appreciate life, ourselves and others a little better. As Ricky noted, once heard a song can stay with you and retain it’s goodness for ever.
Song lyrics have the power to comfort or inspire or startle or paint a vivid picture. Just a phrase or sentence can make a lasting impression. Here are two examples that have touched me:
‘Well something’s lost, and something’s gained In living every day’
From ‘Both Sides Now’ written by Joni Mitchell when in her early 20s. Her insight into life is masterful and is encapsulated in this simple but profound quote. We certainly loose something as we age every day, but we offset the loss through relationships, experiences, knowledge and acquired wisdom.
‘From mirror after mirror, No vanity’s displayed. You’re just looking for the face you had before the world was made’
From‘Before The World Was Made’, set to music by Van Morrison based on a poem by William Butler Yates. I find these words mind boggling – how on earth did Yates come up with them? They envoke concepts that range from the relatable to those so big and complex that they are impossible to contemplate.
Most of Ricky’s Mixtape songs have lyrics about regret, loneliness and death. Nevertheless, he finds them beautiful and listens to some to start his day and cheer himself up. He wondered if that makes him rather strange. I think not. Songs can inspire by articulating sadness in an engaging and uplifting way. They expose us to fears and feelings with a detached eloquence that we cannot achieve ourselves. As an internet article ‘On Melancholy’ by the School of Life says:
‘….we find echos of our own griefs, returned back to us without some of the personal associations that ….made them particularly agonising’
Sad songs (or dirges as my wife calls them) do little for some people just as music itself does little for others. But for many they can enrich wellbeing by articulating the ups and downs of living with intensity and beauty. They reinforce the reality that life can be difficult at times for all sorts of reasons and this is part of the human condition affecting us all. As Ricky attests, it is magical that a song can do this and have an impact that lasts a life time.
Handed a contract to sign, we’re always advised to check the small print. To make sure hidden within is not some stipulation that will come back to bite us in the future.
Small print is regarded as the dry, tedious finer detail.
Yet it’s in the detail that life’s gems can often be unearthed. Mining the Christmas Radio Times for that nugget of gold radio programme; spotting an event flyer on a community noticeboard. Following-up a recommendation in newspaper of a new book to read, place to explore or recipe to try. Or asking someone for their favourite this or that.
Often the treasure is all around us, hiding in plain sight.
To find them we need to pay attention, listen intently and keenly observe the details. Opening up a world beyond the obvious, routine and expected.
Taking you off the beaten track to discover a new experience or one of life’s simple pleasures. Inspiration in unusual places, if you delve below the surface.
They say “don’t put all your eggs in one basket” but that’s perhaps the least of your worries if the chicken is controlled by someone else thousands of miles away.
The COVID-19 pandemic brought into sharp focus how parts of the world like America and the UK are dangerously dependent on global supply chains. Witnessed in the scramble to source personal protective equipment (PPE) and test kits from China, as well as lean on global manufacture capacity to mass produce vaccines.
The pandemic also contributed to a spike in gas prices, disruption to semiconductor supply and availability of lorry drivers in the UK causing product supply shortages.
It demonstrated the consequences of a situation that has been building for decades. To revisit the metaphor above, America and the UK were once self-sufficient in eggs. Now when it comes to many key products and raw materials, they are heavily reliant on other countries that control the chicken and therefore egg supply.
Back in July, the Biden-Harris Administration published the findings from a 100-day supply chain assessments for four critical products: semiconductor manufacturing and advanced packaging; large capacity batteries, like those for electric vehicles; critical minerals and materials; and pharmaceuticals and active pharmaceutical ingredients (APIs).
Here’s some stark numbers that lay the challenges bare:
China (mentioned 458 times in the report) is estimated to control 55% of global rare earth metals mining capacity in 2020 and 85% of rare earths refining. Rare earth metals are essential to manufacturing everything from engines to airplanes to defence equipment.
China refines 60% of the world’s lithium and 80% of the world’s cobalt, two core inputs to high-capacity batteries—which presents a critical vulnerability to the future of the US domestic car industry.
China has over 75% of global cell fabrication capacity for advanced batteries.
The largest facilities that manufacture the ingredients for medicines – active pharmaceutical ingredients (APIs) – are located in China and India.
We reap what we sow. The report comments that current US market structures “fail to reward firms for investing in quality, sustainability or long-term productivity” and a focus on “maximising short-term capital returns has led to the private sector’s underinvestment in long-term resilience.”
Substitute oil in Iraq for semiconductor production in Taiwan and it’s easy to see how the country is already becoming a growing source of geopolitical tension. The report comments:
Semiconductors are an essential component of electronic devices… [and] have become ubiquitous in today’s world. They enable telecommunications and grid infrastructure, run critical business and government systems, and are prevalent across a vast array of products from fridges to fighter jets. A new car, for example, may require more than semiconductors for touch screens, engine controls, driver assistance cameras, and other systems.
The US share of global semiconductor production has dropped from 37% in 1990 to 12% today, and is projected to decline further without a comprehensive US strategy to support the industry.
This provides an obvious incentive for the US to prevent Taiwan and its semiconductor manufacturing capacity falling under the direct control of Beijing.
When President Biden signed the executive order in February 2021 that initiated the review, he invoked an old proverb (of which there are multiple variations):
For want of a nail, the shoe was lost. For want of a shoe, the horse was lost. For want of a horse, the rider was lost. For want of a rider, the battle was lost. For want of a battle, the kingdom was lost, And all for the want of a horseshoe nail.
Time will tell what progress America makes to improve its resilience, acting on the recommendations also set out in this independent summary. It’s hard to see China ever making a report into its vulnerabilities public for its primary geopolitical competitor to see.
Last year the media reported that the UK Government kicked-off “Project Defend” — an internal exercise to ensure the UK retains access to critical goods while diversifying the country’s trading relationships. But the outcome of that and any planned actions have never made the public domain.
The UN Secretary-General António Guterres said the Working Group’s report was nothing less than “a code red for humanity. The alarm bells are deafening, and the evidence is irrefutable.“
It’s a pretty safe bet to say that right now, no one else on the planet is typing the words ‘carbon border adjustment mechanism’.
About 0.000000000001% of the world’s population probably ever will.
But it could be important. Very important if humankind is to make progress in halting the rise of greenhouse gas emissions witnessed over the past 30 years. Tomorrow the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change will set out the latest science on the scale of the challenge ahead.
When a tabloid newspaper deems it worthy to talk about a carbon border adjustment mechanism and gives it a snappy shorthand name, we know things must be serious. The Financial Times meanwhile has referred to it variously as the ‘carbon border levy’, ‘carbon border tax’ and ‘climate import tariff’.
So what is it exactly? Money talks and drives behaviour. People often say in surveys that they are willing to pay more for more sustainable products, yet their purchasing decisions suggest otherwise. Price is king.
The conundrum is simple. Countries like the UK have been deindustrialising for some now, relying on countries in the Far East, particularly China, to manufacture and export to us products that we once made over here.
In some cases, the very reason UK industries such as steel manufacturing have declined was because they couldn’t compete with cheaper imports from China. This meant cheaper prices for the consumer and the amount of greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions generated within the UK fell substantially as fossil fuel hungry industrial processes were effectively offshored.
But hang on. Isn’t it disingenuous for the UK to crow about reducing the amount of GHGs generated within its borders if that reduction is just displaced somewhere else and yet is driven by our consumption?
Particularly if environmental standards are less rigorous in that ‘somewhere else’? We can’t have it both ways: expecting countries like China to clean up their act yet at the same time shipping over its cheap goods, turning a blind eye to the environmental impact that no-one is paying for.
The UK now imports more goods from China than from any other country.The COVID-19 pandemic highlighted this reliance when it came to the scramble to source personal protective equipment (PPE) and test kits.
So where does the carbon border adjustment mechanism fit in? The European Union recently set out proposals to phase one in gradually, initially apply only to a selected number of goods: iron and steel, cement, fertiliser, aluminium and electricity generation.
It is effectively a levy on the carbon emissions of certain imported goods that are not carbon-taxed at source. As this Greenberg Traurig LLP article explains:
This reduces the economic incentive to shift production to countries that impose a lower cost on carbon emissions and creates greater certainty that European carbon regulation will contribute to an actual decline in global carbon emissions. The CBAM also aims to encourage industry outside the EU to take steps in the same direction.
Under the CBAM, companies importing into the EU (EU importers) will buy carbon certificates corresponding to the carbon price that would have been paid on certain goods had the goods been produced under the EU’s carbon pricing rules. Conversely, once a non-EU producer can show that it has already paid a price for the carbon used in the production of the imported goods in a third country, the corresponding cost can be fully deducted for the EU importer. (Greenberg Traurig LLP, 21.07.21)
Sir Dieter Helm, Professor of Economic Policy at the University of Oxford, believes this would encourage other countries outside the EU to adopt carbon pricing:
If imports come from a country with a similar carbon price to that in the EU, then they would be exempt. The incentive is then to impose a carbon price to pay to the government of the exporting country rather than to the European Commission. This incentive may have a much greater impact than trying to agree top-down targets through the COP process, post the Paris Agreement. Indeed the striking feature of the UN-led COP process since 1990 is that it has failed to stop the relentless rise in emissions and in the concentration of carbon in the atmosphere. It has not worked, and is very unlikely to work in the medium and perhaps even the longer term. (dieterhelm.co.uk, 29.07.20)
The EU plan would need approval from the European Parliament and member states. If enacted, it would not start until 2026 and take a decade to rollout.
Many will try to scupper it ever coming to pass. Russia would be particularly hit hard financially – it is Europe’s biggest supplier of oil, coal, rolled steel and aluminium.
Of course UK is no longer in the EU. Back in January a UK Emissions Trading Scheme (UK ETS) replaced the UK’s participation in the EU Emissions Trading Scheme.
Turkey would also feel an impact, accounting for a third of Europe’s cement imports and 12 per cent of steel. The EU imports 14 per cent of its steel from China.
Both the UK and America are looking at the merits of a similar mechanism.
Post update 06/12/21: In September 2021, the Environmental Audit Committee launched an enquiry into CBAMs. In this video of evidence from the first hearing in November 2021, Sir Dieter Helm, Professor of Economic Policy, University of Oxford makes the case.
Post update 08/08/22: In June 2022, the Government published its response to the Environmental Audit Committee’s report (April 2022) which re-iterated its intention to consult later in 2022 “on a range of carbon leakage mitigation options, including on whether measures such as product standards and a CBAM could be appropriate tools in the UK’s policy mix. This announcement does not commit the Government to any course of action down the line, but will enable us to better understand our options“.
Post update 02/10/22: The US-based Centre for Climate and Energy Solutions summarise the current status of efforts in America and Europe to bring forward CBAMs. It mentions that “Interest in border adjustments, including carbon tariffs, is growing in the United States, with both Democrats and Republicans expressing support” but adds that “Questions remain about how the United States could implement a carbon border adjustment in the absence of a federal carbon price on which to base the fee.”
In November the UK hosts the 26th UN Climate Change Conference of the Parties (COP26) in Glasgow.
It has prompted a flurry of new books in the run-up. Written by commentators who, quite rightly, don’t pull any punches explaining why we shouldn’t get our hopes up.
It’s not going well. Thirty years ago, world leaders vowed to address the new great challenge – global warming. Thirty years later, the concentration of CO2 in the atmosphere continues to grow unabated. Over three decades, it went up from around 355 ppm to well over 400 ppm, rising by around 2 ppm per annum. In 2018, it went up by 2.7 ppm. Not even a blip for the global financial crisis dents the relentless upward path. Only the Covid-19 lockdowns and associated temporary collapse of global GDP have checked its path. Global temperatures have already increased by nearly 1°C since the Industrial Revolution.
THE POLITICIAN
Helm’s analysis is echoed in the comments of ex-UK Prime Minister Gordon Brown, in his book Seven Ways to Change the World (2021):
[A]ny attempt to tackle climate change should begin with an understatement: it is a formidable and seriously complex task, one that a series of intergovernmental meetings have not yet succeeded in addressing since the first UN initiative almost three decades ago… Since the 1980’s, the planet has become warmer than each preceding decade, with the five years from 2015 to 2019 the warmest ever reported. Evidence is mounting that the world is far closer to abrupt and irreversible changes – so-called tipping points – than previously thought. Average global temperatures have increased by 1°C since pre-industrial times, but if we take no further action, they will rise by 1.5 – 3°C by 2050 and by 4°C or more by the end of the century.
THEBUSINESSMAN
Richard Walker, Managing Director of Iceland Foods, also offers a similar assessment in his book The Green Grocer (2021):
Yet despite bold intentions such as the Paris Agreement signed in 2015, where 189 countries legally pledged to limit warming by well below two degrees above pre-industrial levels (through nation’s pledges to hit net zero carbon emissions by 2050, or earlier), there has been precious little action. Global carbon emissions – ultimately the only metric that counts – have continued their inexorable rise. In 1995, the year of the first international climate convention in Berlin, Germany, humans emitted about 23 billion metric tonnes of carbon dioxide. By 2019, we were estimated to have produced 33 billion tonnes. The clock is ticking.
That’s 33 billions tonnes of ‘just’ CO2. Bill Gates uses 51 billion tonnes for the world’s annual emissions in carbon dioxide equivalents (including other greenhouse gases like methane).
At current rates, human-caused warming is adding around 0.2°C to global average temperatures every decade. This is the result of both past and ongoing emissions. If this rate continues global average warming “is likely to reach 1.5°C between 2030 and 2052” according to a 2015 UN report.
Net zero means huge declines in the use of coal, oil and gas. In this 12 minute podcast entitled ‘COP26 – time to get real about fossil fuels‘ (July 2021), Dieter Helm leaves us under no illusions on the size of the challenge ahead:
Within 29 years, global energy from fossil fuels will need to reduce from around 80% now to 20%
China*, Russia** and Saudi Arabia*** and a host of related large fossil fuel producers hold the cards, “none of which are nice democracies“. Helm adds: “The sad fact is, this is where it’s going to count or not and for several of these really major fossil fuel countries there is no ambition whatsoever to get seriously out of their main source of government revenue and particularly for the elites that run those countries“
The world’s population is forecast to increase by 2 billion by 2050, mainly based in developing countries, further increasing the demand for energy
China is building more new coal power stations than the entire set of closures in the US and Europe
Genuine, meaningful global action is even harder as the US grapples with the future prospect of losing its status as the world’s most powerful country, eclipsed by China’s ever-growing economic growth and militarily muscle. A geopolitical slugfest currently underwritten by the abundance of cheap fossil fuels.
Meanwhile developing countries such as China, India and Brazil prioritise short-term economic growth at all costs over emissions reduction. Their argument to the developed countries: ‘why should we put the brakes on and jeopardise getting rich like you?’.
Growth fueled by cheap, dirty fossil fuels – and why China, India, Indonesia, Japan and Vietnam are building out 80% of the world’s new coal-fired power plants. And why the deforestation of the Amazon continues (cattle ranching, soy production, illegal logging) and deforestation in Malaysia and Indonesia (palm plantations linked to the palm oil industry). Richard Walker reveals in his book that:
Indonesia, now the world’s largest exporter of crude palm oil, produced over 47 million tonnes of palm oil in 2019. This is an industry worth tens of billions of dollars to the country, and therefore vital to their national economy and security. (The Green Grocer, 2021)
The UK champions its efforts to reduce emissions, largely due to deindustrialisation and reducing its reliance on coal for electricity (due to end entirely from October 2024). In effect, offshoring manufacturing and the related emissions to counties like China that still rely heavily on coal. In 2018, China overtook Germany to become the UK’s biggest single import market for the first time since records began.
The first table below from Dieter Helm’s book and second one from Gordon Brown’s tome, lay bare the raw numbers that help explain gridlock over the past thirty years.
** Russia is Europe’s biggest supplier of carbon-intensive products such as oil, coal, rolled steel and aluminium work an estimated €10bn in 2019 (FT, 16.01.21)
*** The OPEC website states that Saudi Arabia possesses around 17% of the world’s proven petroleum reserves. The oil and gas sector accounts for about 50% of gross domestic product, and about 70% of export earnings.
“Past performance is not a guide to future returns” – these words or similar are often found on adverts for financial products touting their wealth generating prowess.
It also could be epitaph of this previous post back in January, extolling the fortunes of Southampton FC – at the time 9th in the Premiership, days before beating reigning champions Liverpool 1-0 at St Mary’s.
Re-reading the post with the benefit of hindsight, what stands the test of time is the Ralph Hasenhüttl quote from his first press conference at the club in December 2018:
“If you want guarantees you should buy a washing machine. There are no guarantees in football anymore.”
And if Southampton were a FTSE company, its share price peaked at the high-water mark of the Liverpool win on 04 January before starting a steady journey south ever since.
Ahead of tonight’s game at Anfield, Saints find themselves 16th in the table – AKA 5th from bottom. Ten points clear of Fulham in 18th, only thanks to Saints early season form winning 5 of their first 8 matches.
These facts compiled by the BBC Sport lay bare their woeful form in 2021:
Earned the fewest points (11) and conceded the most goals (40) in the Premier League this calendar year
Dropped more points (23) from winning positions than any other team in the Premier League this season.
Eight defeats in the past nine Premier League away fixtures
Winless in the past seven league matches when Danny Ings did not play, drawing three and losing four
Back in April after losing 2-1 at Tottenham, BBC Sport also revealed that since the day after topping the Premier League table for the very first time (November 7th), only Sheffield United (13) have won fewer points in the PL than Southampton (P24 W5 D5 L14 – 20 points).
A particular low point was the 9-0 mauling at Old Trafford in February.
Over that period Saints reached the FA Cup semi-final only to see the journey fizzle out with an anemic display at Wembley, losing to Leicester. Hasenhüttl’s side failed to produce a single shot in the first half and didn’t get a shot on target in the entire game.
Another unflattering stat is that the club have now been eliminated in eight of their past 10 FA Cup semi-final appearances, two of which have come in the past four seasons (2017-18 vs Chelsea, 2020-21 vs Leicester).
To complete the gloom, in January the club posted a net loss of £76 million for the financial year ending June 2020.
Saints are paying 9.14% interest until 2025 – £7.2 million a year – on a £78.8 million loan from MSD Holding. They also had a 90% wages to turnover ratio.
Clearly the coronavirus pandemic – and lost matchday and broadcast revenue – had a big part to play. Comparing to recent years, The Athletic reports that:
Last year [financial year ending June 2019] Southampton posted a net loss of £41 million, which in itself was a dramatic fall after they posted a post-tax profit of £29 million for the financial year ending June 2018. That profit, however, was down to Virgil van Dijk being sold to Liverpool for £75 million in January 2018. (The Athletic, 12.01.21)
Chinese real estate magnate Gao Jisheng acquired an 80% stake in Southampton in a 2017 deal that valued the club at about £200m. The Financial Times examined this back in June 2019, reporting that Gao had no intention of spending huge sums on players, pledging to impose financial discipline and ensure the club becomes “self sufficient”.
While he’s executed the first part of that intention with distinction, the “self sufficient” part looked wishful thinking even before the pandemic hit.
Last August saw the embarrassment of Saints having to temporarily stop the sale of replica kits after “the biggest sponsorship deal in the club’s history” blew up. Suddenly LD Sport – described in May 2019 as “a brand new sports content, marketing and entertainment platform, which is launching this summer for the Chinese market” – could no longer be confirmed to be a “appropriate and viable partner”. All a bit murky.
The Financial Times reported back in June 2019 that:
Mr Gao said the club benefits from his ownership thanks to his connections to China, where Premier League matches are widely watched. He pointed to a recent three-year shirt sponsorship deal with Chinese start-up LD Sports, saying the deal was worth “nearly twice” the £4.8m per season it received from its previous sponsor. It is a transaction that has led to further confusion about the Southampton’s sources of income under Mr Gao, with the club admitting LD does not yet have an operating business and would “launch this summer for the Chinese market”.
Of course things like this are glossed over when things are going well on the pitch. But the hard truth is Hasenhüttl faces a tough summer ahead to give the squad a much-needed overhaul, with the club on its uppers and an owner unwilling to put in cash.
It will require smart moves in the transfer market to find some rough diamonds, while the club lack valuable players to sell. Seen through that lens, Saints should resist making a permanent move for 32 year-old Theo Walcott. Unquestionably a class pro, Walcott’s high wages and injury-proneness make for a likely poor return on investment.
Saints’ fight for retaining their Premier League status starts at the final whistle on 23 May.
Update 23.05.21 Saints finish the season 15th after a 3-0 defeat at West Ham. BBC Sport report a couple more unwelcome facts:
Saints have lost 10 of their 11 Premier League away games in 2021, conceding 33 goals in these 10 defeats, scoring just seven in return.
Conceded more Premier League goals in 2020-21 (68) than they have in any other season in the competition.
Hasenhuttl was reported telling Sky Sports: “We don’t have to discuss it. This is definitely not Premier League [standard]. We’ve conceded the second-most goals in the Premier League. We have to change massively, otherwise it’ll be about relegation again [next season].“
In the book ‘No Rules Rules‘ (2020), Netflix co-founder and CEO Reed Hastings analyses alongside Erin Meyer (INSEAD Business School) what has been described as Netflix’s “counter-intuitive and radical management culture, which defies tradition and expectation.”
The Economist (12.09.20) paraphrase that in eleven words: hire the best people and let them get on with it.
The book fleshes out Hastings’ management philosophy which has, since 2009, been outlined in a PowerPoint ‘culture deck’ available to anyone.
So firstly, Netflix pay top dollar to bring in the very best staff. They call it “talent density” – believing they’re better off paying for one Lionel Messi than five James Milners.
That causes performance to spiral upwards as their assembledgalácticoslearn from and motivate one another. The company also treat them as the conscientious, responsible top performers that they are. Hastings writes:
At most companies, policies and control processes are put in place to deal with employees who exhibit sloppy, unprofessional, or irresponsible behaviour. But if you avoid or move these people, you don’t need the rules. If you build an organisation made up of high performers, you can eliminate most controls. The denser the talent, the greater the freedom you can offer.
Next up is making sure the galácticos give and receive regular, candid performance feedback. Don’t sugarcoat or pull any punches.
Giving feedback
Aim to assist – feedback must be given with positive intent, explaining how a specific behaviour change will help the individual or the company, not how it will help you
Actionable – focus on what the recipient can do differently
Appreciate – when you receive feedback ask yourself, “How can I show appreciation for this feedback by listening carefully, considering the message with an open mind, and becoming neither defensive or angry?”
Accept or discard – the decision to act on, or ignore, feedback is entirely up to the recipient
This is of course easy to explain, but quite radical to introduce, do properly and sustain. We’re not conditioned, for example, to give constructive feedback to a superior in a team meeting (let alone the top bosses). Indeed, most would regard this as career suicide.
Yet Netflix actively encourage and expect this, at every level of the organisation. It feels bold, brave and completely alien. But think about the unhappiness, dysfunctional relationships and all the other problems caused by the more conventional approach to avoiding giving and receiving honest feedback.
They’re not just talking at Netflix about annual written 360 feedback exercises but live 360 degree feedback dinners with colleagues. Meyer writes:
There is one Netflix guideline that, if practiced religiously, would force everyone to be either radically candid or radically quiet: “Only say about someone what you will say to their face.” The less we talk about people behind their backs, the more we eliminate the gossip that creates inefficiency and bad feelings – and the more we can wash our hands of the unpleasantness generally referred to as “office politics.”
Giving and receiving candid feedback is a key foundation for building a company that can innovate quickly and thrive in its industry. Hastings writes:
Once you have a workforce made up nearly exclusively of high performers, you can count on people to behave responsibly. Once you have developed a culture of candor, employees will watch out for one another and ensure their teammates’ actions are in line with the good of the company. Then you can begin to remove controls and give your staff more freedom. Great places to start are the lifting of your vacation, travel, and expense policies. These elements give people more control over their own lives and convey a loud message that you trust your employees to do what’s right. The trust you offer will in turn instill feelings of responsibility in your workforce, leaving everyone in the company to have a greater sense of ownership.
That’s why the entirety the company’s travel and expense policy consists of five words: Act in Netflix’s best interests. Also, they don’t mess around with performance-related pay or performance improvement plans. They pay upfront for the best talent and are quick to bring the curtain down if things don’t pan out.
Hastings uses the analogy of a professional sports team that needs the best performer possible in every position. Don’t join Netflix for job security, join because you value being on winning teams.
Starting at the company, you’re handed a stack of metaphorical betting chips. Your performance will be ultimately judged not on whether any individual bet failed, but on your overall ability to use your chips to move the business forward.
The Netflix Innovation Cycle
“Farm for dissent,” or “socialise” the idea.
For a big idea, test it out.
As the informed captain, make your bet.
If it succeeds, celebrate. If it fails, sunshine it.
A loosely coupled system
Decision-making is highly dispersed with few centralised control processes, rules or policies. This provides a high degree of freedom to individuals, gives each department greater flexibility and speeds up decision making throughout the company.
The Keeper Test
If a person on your team were to quit tomorrow, would you try to change their mind? Or would you accept their resignation, perhaps with a little relief? If the latter, you should give them a severance package now, and look for a star, someone you would fight to keep.
Lead with context, not control
The boss’s job is to set the context that leads the team to make the best decisions for the organisation.
Hastings realises that there are plenty of work environments – including parts of Netflix – where safety and error prevention are the primary goals. In which case rules and process are what’s needed. But he believes for the increasing number of businesses like Netflix in today’s information age, creativity, speed and agility are critical. Hastings concludes:
In these situations, the biggest risk isn’t making a mistake or losing consistency; it’s failing to attract top talent, to invent new products, or to change direction quickly when the environment shifts. Consistency and repeatability are more likely to squash fresh thinking than to bring your company profit. A lot of little mistakes, while sometimes painful, help the organisation learn quickly and are a critical part of the innovation cycle. In these situations, rules and process are no longer the best answer. A symphony isn’t what you’re going for. Leave the conductor and the sheet music behind. Build a jazz band instead.
The Economist (12.09.20) comments that:
It sounds like a recipe for expensive anarchy. But managing “on the edge of chaos” as Mr Hastings mischievously puts it, has served Netflix well. Most of its 7,900 full-time workers seem happy being treated like professional athletes, paid handsomely as long as no one can do their job better. Each generates $2.6m in annual revenue on average, nine times more than Disney employees, and $26.6m in shareholder value, three times more than a Googler does.
Here’s the visual summary from the book of the management philosophy:
If the world entrusted one man with absolute power to oversee its response to climate change, Bill Gates would be a good shout.
Methodical, logical and evidence-led, he would breakdown the problem: analysing the causes, impacts and most effective solutions.
And that’s exactly what the American business magnate, software developer, investor, author and philanthropist has done in his new book ‘How to Avoid A Climate Disaster‘.
Carving up the source of the 51 billion tonnes of greenhouse gases typically added by the world to the atmosphere every year:
He takes each category in turn: making a practical assessment of existing and potential solutions and where we lack a technological rabbit to pull out of the hat. Gates writes:
If a genie offered me one wish, a single breakthrough in just one activity that drives climate change, I’d pick making electricity: It’s going to play a big role in decarbonising other parts of the physical economy.
Producing electricity is itself a major contributor to climate change: taking coal, oil or gas out of the ground and moving it to a power plant, where you burn it, using the heat to boil water and letting the steam turn a turbine to make electricity. But as Gates explains:
With clean electricity, we could shift away from burning hydrocarbons (which emit carbon dioxide) for fuel. Think electric cars and buses; electric heating and cooling systems in our homes and businesses; and energy-intensive factories using electricity.
How does Gates see the path to zero emissions in manufacturing?
So we’re banking on a lot of innovation then. Gates is a realist on the size of the challenge:
We need to accomplish something gigantic we have never done before, much faster than we have ever done anything similar. To do it, we need lots of breakthroughs in science and engineering. We need to build a consensus that doesn’t exist and create public policies to push a transition that would not happen otherwise. We need the energy system to stop doing all the things we don’t like and keep doing all the things we do like – in other words, to change completely and also stay the same.
Gates recognises that he thinks “more like an engineer than a political scientist” and doesn’t have a solution to the “politics of climate change”. Indeed, the messy, often irrational world of realpolitik is far from Gates’ logical, evidence-led domain.
A world where humans, companies and countries are led by narrow, short-term self-interest. Where we reach for the cheapest, most profitable, economically advantageous or politically expedient option. Where economic growth and living standards are deeply rooted in the current energy system and infrastructure, built on the abundance of cheap fossil fuels.
Which has bred inertia and intransigence. In a newspaper review of ‘How to Avoid A Climate Disaster‘, former British Prime Minister Gordon Brown writes:
Seemingly unanswerable scientific evidence can be torpedoed by powerful vested interests, or sidelined by bureaucratic indifference, or undermined by weak and incompetent political leaderships that make commitments they do not honour. Or they can be sabotaged by geopolitical rivalries or simply by nations clinging to old-fashioned and absolutist views of national sovereignty. As a result, the multilateral cooperation necessary to deal with a global problem does not emerge, and the very real tensions between economic and environmental priorities, and between the developed and developing world, go unresolved. (The Guardian, 17.02.21)
These knotty tensions can’t be solved by just investing in more R&D. Cheap hydrocarbons fueled prosperity in America and Europe. They helped Bill Gates generate his wealth and public platform. Other countries are locked onto the same path. Gates writes:
China has accomplished one of the greatest feats in history – lifting hundreds of millions of people out of poverty – and did it in part by building coal-fired electric plants very cheaply. Chines firms drove down the cost of a coal plant by a remarkable 75 percent. And now they understandably want more customers, so they’re making a big play to attract the next wave of developing countries: India, Indonesia, Vietnam, Pakistan and nations throughout Africa.
Looking ahead to the UN Climate Change Conference (COP26) in Glasgow in November, Gordon Brown comments:
[T]o operationalise the Paris agreement – to limit warming to 1.5 degrees – requires countries to halve their CO2 emissions by 2030. So vested interests like big oil will have to be enlisted for change. The populist nationalist and protectionist rhetoric of irresponsible demagogues will have to be taken head on. And supporters of a stronger set of commitments will have to show why sharing sovereignty is in every nation’s self-interest, and that coordinated global action is indeed the only way to end the mismatch between the scale of the environmental problems we face and our current capacity to solve them. Success will come by demonstrating that the real power countries can wield to create a better world is not the power they can exercise over others but the power they can exercise with others. (The Guardian, 17.02.21)
At the moment too many humans, companies and countries know full well they gain more in the short-term from the status quo: juicing our natural resources, burning fossil fuels and carrying on as we are. They shirk at the cost, difficulty and lack of instant payback from pursing a more sustainable path at the pace we need.
Only when it’s too late and they’re reaping the dire consequences, will our descendants fully recognise what their forebears have sown today.
The global book launch was impeccably planned and executed.
The first volume of Barack Obama’s presidential memoirs – ‘A Promised Land‘ – was published fourteen days after the 2020 US presidential election.
701 pages written by Obama himself, there’s no peacock display here to impress, sensationalise or settle scores. It reads like an over-the-fence, down-to-earth chat with a next door neighbour.
The overriding impression is of a man in firm grip of a moral compass, guiding him through life and his political career. Living sentiments expressed in the 1934 poem ‘The Man In The Glass‘ by Peter Dale Wimbrow Senior.
Driven by higher ideals, his two term presidency and public standing remain untainted by the moral hazard that lie within the shark-infested corridors of power and politics. “When they go low, we go high“, his wife Michelle once explained.
Starting out as a Harvard-educated lawyer, Obama’s restless idealism led him away from the corporate career ladder into teaching, writing, community organising and then public service. His heritage and upbringing cast him in the role of a political outsider and underdog.
A once in a generation campaigner, his temperament, calm authority and soothing tone that drew in hearts and minds across the world. Leaving so many with that rare, elusive and instinctive feeling: “I can relate to, and trust this guy. He’s genuine.”
Coming into power with the urgent task of fire fighting the global financial crisis, Obama saw how high the barriers were to overcome to get anything done.
His agenda was thwarted and stalled at every turn by the grinding reality of partisan politics and the Senate filibuster. It forced a need for compromise and pragmatism. With his capacity to lead change buffeted by the past and present, Obama writes:
I reminded myself that every president felt saddled with the previous administration’s choices and mistakes, that 90 percent of the job was navigating inherited problems and unanticipated crises. Only if you did that well enough, with discipline and purpose, did you get a real shot at shaping the future.
To inform “working the odds” on every big decision, Obama recounts taking his time to seek a range of expert views and the best possible evidence to weigh up the options. He describes sitting alone late at night in the Treaty Room, ruminating on the biggest calls.
Perhaps most confirmational of Obama’s character and values are his observations about colleagues. He describes visiting Tuscaloosa, Alabama in 2011 after a tornado outbreak, escorted by Craig Fugate, director of the Federal Emergency Management Agency. Sharing his thoughts after local residents praise the federal response, he writes:
I wasn’t surprised, for Fugate had been one of the my best hires, a no-nonsense, no-ego, no-excuses public servant with decades of experience dealing with natural disasters. Still, it gave me satisfaction to see his efforts recognised, and I was once again reminded that so much of what really mattered in government came down to the daily, unheralded acts of people who weren’t seeking attention but simply knew what they were doing and did it with pride.
Earlier in the book Obama recalls a conversation with his hard-working national security advisor, Tom Donilon:
I’d asked Tom once where his drive and diligence came from, and he’d attributed it to his background. He’d grown up in an Irish working-class family, putting himself through law school and serving on various political campaigns to eventually becoming a heavy-hitting foreign policy expert; but despite his successes, he said, he still constantly felt the need to prove himself, terrified of failure. I’d laughed and said I could relate.
Throughout A Promised Land, Obama reflects on his presidential achievements with clear-eyed perspective. His moral compass always pointing towards somewhere better.
Sometimes you can stumble upon a hidden gem. The framed poem below was on display on a wall of the Brunel building atrium at Southmead Hospital, Bristol on 04.02.21.
Hundreds of people will walk past it every day. Far less will ever notice it or read it. But those that do will hopefully take a moment to pause and reflect.
It’s the title poem of a book by Roger Robinson chosen as a New Statesman Book Of The Year and won the T.S. Eliot Prize 2019.
The poem was next to another framed poem ‘Still I Rise‘ by Maya Angelou. In between the two was a print of the cover of a special G2 supplement on racism in the UK from The Guardian, created by Turner prize-winning artist Lubaina Himid.
So hello 2021. An obvious New Year sentiment for everyone is to get through the next few months, get the vaccine and get back closer to normal (pre-covid) life later this year.
But it’s easy to overlook just how fortunate we are even to be considering these kind of timescales. Bill Gates blogged about the race to find a vaccine last April and December, reflecting in the latter post:
When I think back on the pace of scientific advances in 2020, I am stunned. Humans have never made more progress on any disease in a year than the world did on COVID-19 this year. Under normal circumstances, creating a vaccine can take 10 years. This time, multiple vaccines were created in less than one year. (GatesNotes, 22.12.20)
Gates is well-placed to know. The vaccine developed by Pfizer/BioNTech involve what’s called mRNA technology—an approach that the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation is familiar with because it has been funding research on it since 2014 as a way to create vaccines for malaria and HIV.
In the UK, the NHS aim to have 22 million people – everyone aged 50 and over and all vulnerable people vaccinated by the end of April 2021.
As of today (02.01.21), government figures show that 944,539 people across the UK have received a first dose of the Moderna and Pfizer/BioNTech vaccine, the first one to be approved in the UK.
It has been reported that report that two million doses of the newly approved Oxford University and AstraZeneca vaccine will be supplied each week by the middle of January – with some 530,000 doses available for rollout across the UK from next Monday (04.01.21).
Both vaccines require two doses – government guidance says boosters will be given up to 12 weeks later
The Pfizer vaccine offers 95% protection after two doses, while the Oxford vaccine is up to 80% effective
The Oxford vaccine can be kept at normal fridge temperature but the jab from Pfizer needs cold storage of around minus 70C
At a little under £3 a dose, the Oxford jab is much cheaper than Pfizer’s offering which costs £15
The last two bullets above are particularly important, as vaccine expert Sanjay Mishra explains:
The competing mRNA vaccines by Moderna and Pfizer/BioNTech require ultracold temperatures for stability. So the AstraZeneca vaccine will be easier to use in normal clinics, especially in rural America and the developing world.
Another important advantage of the AstraZeneca vaccine, which is being tested in collaboration with a larger number of global sites, is that it should cost less because of AstraZeneca’s commitment to COVAX, a global initiative that aims to distribute low-cost vaccines to low- and middle-income countries. Pfizer and Moderna have not joined the COVAX initiative, but AstraZeneca has agreed to make the vaccine on a not-for-profit basis for the duration of the pandemic. (The Conversation, 24.11.20)
At the end of last year, the UK government announced that:
Throughout this global pandemic we have always been guided by the latest scientific advice. Having studied evidence on both the Pfizer/BioNTech and Oxford University/AstraZeneca vaccines, the JCVI has advised the priority should be to give as many people in at-risk groups their first dose, rather than providing the required two doses in as short a time as possible.(media release gov.uk, 30.12.20)
This means that the second doses of both vaccines will be administered towards the end of the recommended vaccine dosing schedule of 12 weeks. The four UK Chief Medical Officers said in a joint statement (30.12.20) that this “will maximise the number of people getting vaccine and therefore receiving protection in the next 12 weeks”.
Yesterday Channel 4 published this FactCheck Q&A: how much coronavirus vaccine do we have? The UK government has said it has secured access to 100 million doses of the Oxford/AstraZeneca vaccine for use across the UK. An equivalent figure is unknown for Pfizer/BioNTech vaccine.
In a letter published at the turn of the year, signed by the UK Chief Medical Officers, they comment:
We have to ensure that we maximise the number of eligible people who receive the vaccine. Currently the main barrier to this is vaccine availability, a global issue, and this will remain the case for several months and, importantly, through the critical winter period. The availability of the AZ vaccine reduces, but does not remove, this major problem. Vaccine shortage is a reality that cannot be wished away. (letter published on gov.uk, 31.12.20)
The Times (02.01.21) reported that AstraZenca has struck deals to produce 3 billion doses around the world:
However, to produce the UK’s doses, the firm has relied on a consortium of outside companies. They include Oxford Biomedica in Oxfordshire, Cobra Biomedica in Oxfordshire, Cobra Biologics in Satffordshire as well as a company called Halix in the Netherlands. Once those companies make the vaccine in bulk it goes to a plant in Wrexham, run by an Indian company called Wockhardt, where it is decanted into vials, or transported to a similar plant in Germany.
Bill Gates explains the scale of the global supply issue:
The world will have to manufacture around 5 billion doses if there’s a vaccine that requires only one dose, or 10 billion in the current scenario of two-dose vaccines. (This is assuming that 70 percent of the global population must be covered in order to break transmission of the disease.)
Is 5 to 10 billion doses a lot? Well, all the vaccine companies in the world typically produce a total of fewer than 6 billion doses a year. That includes flu shots, routine childhood immunizations, and so on. So to produce all the COVID-19 vaccines needed without cutting back on any others, the manufacturing capacity will at least need to almost double, and more likely almost triple. (GatesNotes, 22.12.20)
If they’re wise, governments across the world will carefully manage their citizens’ expectations around the vaccine rollout, under promising and over delivering.
Update 09.01.21: The Prime Minister announced (04.01.21) that, by 15 February, the NHS hopes to have administered the vaccine to everyone in the top four priority groups listed below who accept the offer:
From the moment Ralph Hasenhüttl arrived at Southampton Football Club in December 2018, there was a sense he was different gravy compared to his last two predecessors.
“If you want guarantees you should buy a washing machine. There are no guarantees in football anymore,” he famously stated in his first press conference (06.12.18).
Straight out the blocks, Hasenhüttl wrote to all 19,000 season ticket holders ahead of his first home game in charge against Arsenal. No Saints manager had ever done such a thing, proactively and confidently setting out his aims and expectations:
What I ask of myself and my staff, I will be also be asking of my players. They will find an intensive and very hard-working environment, I will push them to their limits so that they can reach their maximum as individuals and as a team. If they go with me on this, then they will find a very rewarding journey.
Now over two years on, it has indeed been a “very rewarding journey” so far for the club and its supporters. Well beyond expectations.
Yes, the 9-0 defeat home against Leicester in October 2019 was an infamous low point that grabbed the headlines. A dismal result that even now pundits like to refer back to. But it was one game. An aberration. The club moved on, finishing 11th in the table that season.
08 November 2018: announced that Southampton vice-chairman Les Reed has left the club
05 December 2018 – Hasenhüttl named as new manager with Southampton third from bottom in the Premier League, one point from safety
16 December 2018 – Hasenhüttl’s first home game is a 3-2 win over Arsenal, ending the Gunners’ four-month 22-match unbeaten run
12 May 2019 – Southampton finish the season 16th, five points off the relegation zone
01 July 2019 – striker Danny Ings completes permanent £20 million move from Liverpool, following a season-long loan deal
25 October 2019 – 9-0 defeat at home to Leicester, equaling the record set in 1995 for the biggest ever Premier League victory/defeat
02 June 2020 – club announce Hasenhüttl has signed a new four-year contract
26 July 2020 – Saints finish the season 11th, their highest position for three seasons,above Everton, Newcastle, West Ham and 17 points off the relegation zone; Danny Ings is the Premier League’s joint second highest scorer with 22 goals
05 August 2020 – Hasenhüttl named Barclays Manager of the Month for July, after Saints went unbeaten beginning with a 1-0 win over second-placed Manchester City
06 November 2020: Saints beat Newcastle to briefly top the Premier League for the first time since 1988, prompting the Tweet below from Saints fan and UK Chancellor Rishi Sunak
01 January 2021 – Southampton start the year 9th in the table
While the chronology above sets out the key milestones, it’s important to put Hasenhüttl’s impact in the context of the club he inherited and off-the-field changes since he joined:
12 April 2019 – club announce Chairman Ralph Krueger’s contract won’t be extended beyond 30 June 2019
24 June 2019 – new board structure announced which includes Martin Semmens appointed as CEO and majority shareholder Gao Jisheng appointed Chairman
06August 2019 – confirmed that Danny Röhl left his role as First Team Assistant Manager, having been part of Hasenhüttl’s coaching staff since December 2018
14 October 2019 – club announce that Ross Wilson, Director of Football Operations leaving to take up a role at Glasgow Rangers
26 November 2019 – Matt Crocker announced as new Director of Football Operations, taking up the role in early 2020
08 March 2020 – Daily Mail report that Jisheng has put Saints up for sale
01 May 2020 – Sky News report that talks with an American-based company to buy Jisheng’s 80% majority share held up due to the coronavirus pandemic
Hasenhüttl has had limited room to manoeuvre in bringing in new players, after inheriting a squad that included a number of expensively signed, misfiring players. These under-performers were on lucrative long-term deals, so not easily moved on.
That was epitomised by Argentine striker Guido Carrillo, signed from Monaco in January 2018. After just ten appearances and no goals, he was packed off to Spanish side Leganes for consecutive loans over two seasons. Finally in October 2020, it was confirmed he had left Saints on a free transfer to join Spanish side Elche. Ouch.
But Hasenhüttl did inherit Danny Ings, signed permanently in July 2019 after a season-long loan move initiated under previous Saints manager Mark Hughes. To say Ings has been the golden goose would be something of a understatement.
While he ‘only’ notched eight goals in the 2018/19 loan season, with a full pre-season behind him he took the 2019/20 season by storm. He scoring 22 league goals – 43% of the club’s total for the season – finishing the Premier League’s joint second highest scorer.
In the summer 2020 transfer window, Hasenhüttl was able to convert Kyle Walker-Peters’ successful loan move into a permanent deal, faciliated by midfielder Pierre-Emile Hojbjerg transferring the other way to Tottenham. Walker-Peters fits the profile of the young, malleable player that Hasenhüttl prefers to suit his methods and style of play.
Mohammed Salisu and Ibrahima Diallo are prospects for the future, also signed last summer. Meanwhile the wildcard loan signing of the experienced Theo Walcott back to Saints under-promised but has over-delivered so far.
Saints start 2021 in 9th place in the table. Sheffield United are currently bottom with just two points, after finishing 9th last season with two more points than Saints. It illustrates how quickly and dramatically things can change for a manager, in this case Chris Wilder.
While it’s true that there are no guarantees in football, hopefully Saints’ “very rewarding journey” under Hasenhüttl has many miles left to travel.
Updated 04.01.21: Danny Ings scored the winner at St Mary’s in a 1-0 win against Premier League champions Liverpool – only their second defeat of the season.
Writing in The Times earlier this year, Martin Rees – the astronomer royal and former president oft the Royal Society – observed:
Governments recognise a duty to prepare for floods, terrorist acts and other risks that are likely to occur in the short term and be restricted to their own countries. But they have little incentive to tackle longer-term threats that are likely to occur long after they’ve left office and which are global rather than local… Other threats such as climate change and environmental degradation emerge insidiously. We fail to deal with them because their impact stretches beyond the horizon of conventional political cycles. We are, in short, like the proverbial boiling frog: content to be in a pan of warm water until it’s too late to save ourselves. (The Times, 26.09.20)
While the news came earlier today of a second COVID-19 vaccine approved for use in the UK, there is no equivalent magic bullet for tackling global climate change.
For COVID-19, medical science has come to the rescue by providing a get-out-of-jail card for stumbling governments, caught by the global pandemic like rabbits in the headlights.
The vaccines represent a clear, easy to grasp ‘fix’ to the ‘problem’, after 9 months of governments effectively winging it and living hand-to-mouth.
While the pandemic has dominated our lives and attention in 2020, to use Martin Rees’ boiling frog analogy – the pan of warm water quietly continues to rise in temperature.
We’ve already seen a 1.1 degrees Celsius rise in global average temperatures since pre-industrial times that has led to about a 22 centimetres rise in sea level.
That has already increased the amount of coastal flooding we’ve had around the world.
Brazil has alone recorded an agricultural loss of about $3 billion.
Some of the rising temperatures have been shown to have lost about 100 billion potential work hours since 2000 (in the tropics and sub-tropics where a lot of food is produced by family owned farms where the temperatures and humidity mean there are days where it is physiologically impossible to work outside).
The goal of the 2015 Paris Agreement is to to limit global warming to well below 2, preferably to 1.5 degrees Celsius, compared to pre-industrial levels.
Let’s be clear. 2 degrees global warming already locks us into a number of impacts by the end of the century:
Sea level could rise up to 50 centimetres which could increase coastal and river flooding, making many coastal cities very vulnerable.
We’d see more extreme weather events – including droughts, heat waves, floods and severe storms becoming more common.
It’s going to have major effects on warm water coral reef ecosystems.
We would lose quite a few valuable ecosystems and species from the polar regions, wetlands and cloud forests.
There would be a spread of tropical infectious diseases and there would be an increase in heat-related illnesses and mortality.
At the moment, taking the pledges agreed by countries in Paris and – making the big assumption – that they all do what they say they’re going to, we’re still looking at 3 to 3.5 degrees rise in temperature. That’s going to have a huge impact:
We would lose most of the warm water coral reef systems.
We would lose sea ice from both the Arctic and Antarctic regions.
Start to impact low latitude fishing which is essential for peoples’ diets.
Crop yields around the world would start to plummet.
Paris opened a discussion about getting to net carbon zero. How do we get the whole world to zero emissions by hopefully 2050, earlier if possible? But as we’ve already got a lot of emissions baked into the system, even if we get to net zero, for the rest of the century we would need to sucking excess CO2 out of the atmosphere to keep the actual temperature to the preferred to 1.5 degrees warming. How?
Huge fans, a new technology, that suck CO2 directly out of the atmosphere which is then pumped directly into rock such as granite, which is locked up as rock forever.
The quicker we get to net carbon zero, the less CO2 we have to suck out of the atmosphere.
But here’s some sobering analysis from John Browne, the former chief executive of BP:
The consensus is that oil demand will be around pre-Covid-19 levels of 100m barrels a day (bopd) for at least the next decade. As the advanced economies shrink their oil use, the developing economies are still going to be growing. At the same time, supply is abundant, with most of it in the hands of state actors, who provide 80 per cent of the oil and gas produced in the world. The question then is who is going to deal with the other 20 per cent.
Will it be absorbed by the states or will the international oil companies (IOCs) continue? My prediction is that the oil and gas majors will continue producing oil and gas. There is no doubt. That is where the cash flow is coming from. Even if they’re diversifying into other forms of energy, notably renewable energy and storage, it’s going to take time. (Investors’ Chronicle, 18-30.12.20)
Will greed, money, power and short-sighted self-interest perpetuate the existing behaviour of world governments and companies? In turn overriding making the global transition at the pace we need to? As citizens, will the majority of us remain apathetic, passively allowing the crisis to take root on our watch?
In the end, after a lifetime’s exploration of the living world, I’m certain of one thing: this is not about saving the planet. It’s about saving ourselves. The truth is, with or without us, the natural world will rebuild.
He continued:
The living world will endure. We humans cannot presume the same. We’ve come this far because we are the smartest creatures that have ever lived. But to continue we require more than intelligence. We require wisdom.
Everyone has travelled their own journey in 2020, facing adversity, challenge and sacrifice. Testing our fortitude and resilience.
Whether consciously or not, finding coping mechanisms to navigate change and uncertainty.
The aptly-titled book ‘Endurance’ by Louis Rudd sets out his story of facing adversity, challenge and sacrifice in a very different context.
In 2018/19 he undertook the ‘Spirit of Endurance’ expedition which was a 56-day, 920-mile solo unsupported (no kites or resupply) crossing of the Antarctic continental land mass, becoming the first Briton and second ever in the world to complete this journey.
There’s a little detail in Rudd’s story that may hold a wider lesson to help deal with the ongoing impact of pandemic on our lives. As he explains:
Food in the Antarctic is more than merely fuel. It boosts morale and provides an aiming marker for the day.
Enter onto the stage, the humble chocolate-chip biscuit pudding:
The chocolate pudding was all part of my mental coping strategy. It was something to look forward to and, because I had my food packaged in ten-day sacks, I knew that every time I reached a chocolate pudding, my pulk would be around 15 kilograms lighter from the consumed food and fuel. It was like a treat, a motivator – get through another ten days – and it worked really well.
Nothing more, nothing less. Just making it to this next little treat became Rudd’s lodestar and focal point. Then the next one. And the one after that. He continues:
I made camp that night with two things on my mind. Firstly, the joy of rolling up a ten-day food bag, knowing that my pulk was 15 kilograms lighter. I had seven of those large bags; at the end of each one, I knew I was ten days closer to achieving my goal. And secondly, it was time for a chocolate-chip biscuit pudding. It was a sumptuous dessert packed full of calories. I slept well that night with my mind focused on emptying the next ten-day food bag and enjoying another chocolate pudding. Such is the life of an Antarctic traveller: it’s all about the little things.
The lesson we might draw on? Whatever the challenge or situation, break down the journey into chunks and find ways to reward your tolerance. perseverance and progress.
Find the equivalent of the chocolate pudding to help get you through. Taking each day at a time, finding staging posts and using little treats and rewards to help continue on.
You won’t have heard of David Page or the business he works for.
He’s chairman of a company called Fulham Shore which owns the Franco Manca and The Real Greek UK restaurants chains.
After being expelled from school and then attempting to become a cartographer at the Ordnance Survey, he began trained as a teacher while earning money washing dishes at his local Pizza Express in south London.
He ultimately found his calling in the restaurant trade. Page’s rise began at Pizza Express, sold in 2003 to a number of private equity firms for £278 million. This 2018 Evening Standard profile and BBC article explain more.
Page has witnessed a lot working in the industry for 40+ years. That included the huge expansion of mid-range restaurant chains from 2010, as private equity money poured in. Some company valuations reached 10 times earnings (Financial Times, 15.02.19).
Then gravity caught up. After years of aggressive expansion, Page observed that a number of casual dining chains were going to the wall even before this year’s pandemic:
There were too many restaurant businesses with owners and managers convinced they could swim like Mark Spitz, but which were actually being kept afloat by some badly made rubber rings and various leaky flotation devices.
They were driven to expand by historically cheap debt, supposed high exit multiples on sale of the businesses and run by management teams who had never experienced either a downturn in the UK economy or an oversupply in the restaurant sector. (Evening Standard, 15.10.20)
Reuters listed other casualties back in June. And well before the COVID-19 pandemic, Jamie Oliver Restaurant Group – which included 22 Jamie’s Italian outlets, plus the Fifteen and Barbecoa restaurants in London and a Jamie’s Diner at Gatwick airport – appointed administrators last May.
Keir Wright-Whyte, Managing Director of Accounts and Legal, picks up the theme that these mid-range chains all leaped at the chance of taking on cheap debt in return for more premises across the UK. Saturating the market in which they were trying to compete.
And at the heart of their business plan was expansion, not profit:
When these mid-range restaurants took on cheap debt and equity investment, they automatically surrendered any good intentions for growing the business’ profitability in favour of inflating the business’ portfolio and quickly selling the entire organisation on to another investment group – that’s where the profit would come into play.
Unfortunately, as everyone was playing the same game, all that was ultimately created was 5,785 new restaurants between March 2014 – 2019 (BBC), many of whom had no defined or loyal consumer-base, huge running costs, and the finest recipe for High Street disaster. (Article on Accounts and Legal website, 28.05.20)
Meanwhile the wily industry veteran Page said the restaurants owned by Fulham Shore were “well positioned”, “carefully chosen” and “fairly rented” (BBC News Online, 15.10.20). Last year he revealed a simple business formula:
“You have the best product at the best price and guess what happens? Customers keep coming.” (Financial Times, 15.02.19).
A previous post on this blog in April looked at the evidence coming to light about the impact on care homes of the government’s response to coronavirus.
In Britain, the government and other authorities were distracted by the need to protect hospitals from becoming overloaded. Great efforts were made to ramp up testing, increase critical-care capacity and equip hospitals with more ventilators. Care homes — 801 of which already had Covid outbreaks by the time lockdown was imposed — were overlooked. In order to free up space in hospitals, older patients were discharged into care homes without even being tested for the virus. In the two weeks after lockdown, when the risk of infection should have been waning, a further 1,800 homes in England reported outbreaks.
In July, a report by Public Accounts Committee (a parliamentary select committee) commented on the “appalling error” committed when 25,000 patients were discharged from hospitals into care homes without ensuring all were first tested for COVID-19 – even after there was clear evidence of asymptomatic transmission of the virus.
Add in shortages of personal protective equipment (PPE) and “all the preconditions were in place for the rapid and uncontrolled transmission of the infection within care homes and across the social care system in the community.” (LSE blog, 07.05.20).
The number of first-time outbreaks in individual care homes peaked at 1,009 in early April. Between 9 March and 17 May, around 5,900 care homes, equivalent to 38% of care homes across England, reported at least one outbreak of the disease (PAC report, July 2020).
We will never know the true number of care home deaths since the start of the pandemic. A lack of available testing in the community made it difficult for GPs to be certain about the cause of death in suspected COVID-19 cases.
But the definition of deaths “involving COVID-19” used by the Office of National Statistics (ONS) includes cases where the certifying doctor suspected the death involved COVID-19 but was not certain, for example, because a test was not undertaken.
It also uses the term “involving COVID-19” when referring to deaths that had COVID-19 mentioned anywhere on the death certificate, whether as an underlying cause or not.
In early July, the ONS reported that between 02 March to 12 June 2020 (registered up to 20 June 2020) there were:
19,394 deaths of care home resident in England and Wales that involved COVID-19 – 29.3% of all deaths of care home residents
Of those 19,394 deaths, 16,305 (84.1%) were classified as “confirmed” COVID-19 and 3,089 (15.9%) were classified as “suspected” COVID-19.
And of those 19,394 deaths, 74.9% (14,519 deaths) occurred within a care home and 24.8% (4,810 deaths) occurred within a hospital
Dementia and Alzheimer disease was the most common main pre-existing condition found among deaths involving COVID-19 and was involved in 49.5% of all deaths of care home residents involving COVID-19
Although the government confirmed the roll out of repeat testing for care home staff and residents across the country from 06 July (BBC News, 03.07.20), over two onths and the London School of Economics (10.08.20) suggest that:
The pledge in early July that care home staff would be tested weekly for COVID-19 infection, and residents monthly, has also failed to be delivered because of a shortage of testing kits, and may not now be operational until the beginning of September, introducing further delays in enabling safe visiting.
Meanwhile the results of a survey of care home staff published by the Queen’s Nursing Institute (24.08.20), the world’s oldest nursing charity, confirm the situation on the frontline:
Having to accept patients from hospitals with unknown Covid-19 status, being told about plans not to resuscitate residents without consulting families, residents or care home staff, lack of guidance on issues like personal protection and issues of poor access to pay if they became ill were some of the major issues the care home workforce faced during March and April 2020.
Analysis by BBC Reality Check (07.07.20) sets out the chronology of the government guidance given to care homes and how that evolved over time.
As winter approaches. care home staff and residents brace themselves.
Coles Books is an independent bookshop tucked away in Bicester, Oxfordshire. It issues a weekly newsletter which, as well as promoting the latest titles (often author signed), often contains something thought-provoking:
“Books and writing have been important to many people for many reasons over the last few months. These simply produced piles of paper, and the words they contain, have been a source of comfort, they have brought peace to balance the chaos, certainty to assuage the doubt.” (15.08.20)
The newsletter shared the first two verses of a poem which should resonate with every book lover. It’s called ‘Good Books‘ by the early 20th century poet Edgar Guest.
Here’s the full version:
Good books are friendly things to own. If you are busy they will wait. They will not call you on the phone Or wake you if the hour is late. They stand together row by row, Upon the low shelf or the high. But if you’re lonesome this you know: You have a friend or two nearby.
The fellowship of books is real. They’re never noisy when you’re still. They won’t disturb you at your meal. They’ll comfort you when you are ill. The lonesome hours they’ll always share. When slighted they will not complain. And though for them you’ve ceased to care Your constant friends they’ll still remain.
Good books your faults will never see Or tell about them round the town. If you would have their company You merely have to take them down. They’ll help you pass the time away, They’ll counsel give if that you need. He has true friends for night and day Who has a few good books to read.
No matter the challenge, goal or problem we’re faced with – someone, somewhere has been there before and written a book to share their experience. Whether that book provides comfort, empathy or practical advice to apply to our own situation, we are never alone.
Libraries continue to re-start and adapt services in the ‘new normal’. The sentiments expressed below by Barack Obama apply worldwide, now as much as ever:
“More than a building that houses books and data, the library has always been a window to a larger world–a place where we’ve always come to discover big ideas and profound concepts that help move the American story forward. . . . .
Libraries remind us that truth isn’t about who yells the loudest, but who has the right information. Because even as we’re the most religious of people, America’s innovative genius has always been preserved because we also have a deep faith in facts.
And so the moment we persuade a child, any child, to cross that threshold into a library, we’ve changed their lives forever, and for the better. This is an enormous force for good.”
In American football, the quarterback touches the ball on almost every offensive play, and is the offensive player that almost always throws forward passes.
They are the equivalent of a star centre forward in football (soccer). Their output and contribution has a conspicuous, direct link to their team’s success.
Michael Lewis’ 2006 book, The Blind Side: Evolution of a Game, looks at the rise of the quarterback from the late 1970s when the passing game went onto eclipse the running game as the superior way to move the football down the field.
The innovative ideas of legendary coach Bill Walsh at that time, literally were game-changing. He pioneered the concept of shortening – and timing – the passing game, which reduced its two biggest risks: interceptions and incompletion. It allowed Walsh to repeatedly transform lacklustre quarterbacks into star performers.
But in 1982, the New York Giants unleashed a new weapon: rookie linebacker Lawrence Taylor. He had both the size and speed to get to – and take out or ‘sack’ – the quarterback before he could pass the ball.
In mere seconds, Taylor could shut down the opponent’s passing game at source. And if the quarterback was also badly injured in the process, as regularly occured, it could derail a team’s season. Taylor’s sack of Redskins quarterback Joe Theismann in 1985 inadvertently ended his career.
Lewis describes how Taylor transformed the quarterback sack into the turning point of a football game. A new official NFL statistic was born:
The record books defined the sack as tackling the quarterback behind the line of scrimmage as he attempts to pass. Taylor offered his own definition: “A sack is when you run up behind somebody who’s not watching; he doesn’t see you, and you really put your helmet into him. The ball goes fluttering everywhere and the coach comes out and asks the quarterback, ‘Are you alright?’ That’s a sack.”
How then could teams respond? Lewis describes the challenge:
Bill Walsh had made the quarterback a lot more valuable, and so the man who protected the quarterback was going to be a whole lot more valuable, too. Whoever he was, he was going to have to be special.
This led to the rise in prominence of the left tackle position, tasked with protecting the quarterback’s blind side.
The position had been previously considered interchangeable as one of the five players in the offensive line. Described as a team’s “castle walls and the battering rams”, offensive linemen are typically well over six feet tall and weigh over three hundred pounds (or 21.5+ stones, 136+ kilograms).
But now the left tackle position stood apart in the offensive line. Find a rare physical specimen with the right combination of speed, size and strength, and the threat of a Lawrence Taylor-type opponent could be nullified.
All through the 1980s and into the 1990s, offensive linesmen had competed with tight ends and kickers for the title of lowest paid players on the football field. As one player described it, the left tackle “made his living trying to prevent a guy making twice as much as he did from killing a guy who made three times more”.
But that financial disparity began to change from February 1993 with the introduction of new salary caps tied to leaguewide revenues and players being granted the right of free agency. This effectively created a new market and the value of left tackles began to soar.
As Lewis describes:
By the 2005 season, the left tackle would be paid more than anyone on the field except the quarterback, and the percentage difference between the two of them had shrunk dramatically.
The Blind Side weaves this with the story of black American Michael Oher from Memphis, Tennessee.
Some lucky breaks led him from an impoverished childhood into the care of a wealthy white family and on a path to college football and a successful career in the NFL. Oher possessed the rare, standout attributes to excel as a left tackle – at a time when the position had become highly prized in the professional game.
Oher’s NFL career began with the Baltimore Ravens who drafted him with the 23rd pick in the first round of the 2009 NFL Draft, agreeing a five-year, $13.8 million contract.
Lewis writes:
Michael Oher was in possession of what had to be among the more conspicuous athletic gifts. Apart from the seven foot tall basket player, the six five, 350-pound kid who could fly had to be the easiest future star to identify. And yet, without outside intervention even his talent would quite likely have been thrown away. Michael Oher would have just become another big fat man: Big Mike. If Michael Oher’s talent could be missed – whose couldn’t? Those poor black kids were like left tackles: people whose value was hidden in plain sight.
The repercussions of the global Covid-19 pandemic will of course be felt in myriad ways beyond our health for decades to come – socially, economically, culturally.
How we deal with the aftermath cannot yet be predicted, as the very bedrock upon which we’ll rebuild has not yet been established.
While the population density of our cities has meant they’ve been hit hardest with the health crisis of the pandemic up to this point, the economic fallout will extend far further, stretching tentacles out to our towns, villages and rural communities.
In Cornwall, surf-and-party hotspot Newquay has already suffered hugely, and with a recent report suggesting more than 70,000 jobs in the county could be at risk, there’s almost a stunned silence that things could have gone from gangbusters to bust so quickly.
As well as welcoming 4 million tourists per year, Cornwall is uniquely placed as the centre for the British watersport sector, as well as a popular destination for land-based activities, such as mountain biking, yoga, walking, hiking and climbing.
The market for adventure sport instructors and outdoor activity guides has grown in recent years, with many young people turning to it as a career.
Becoming qualified and offering your services as a freelance instructor or guide provides obvious daily health benefits, and for many ensures an unparalleled work/life balance.
Since the lockdown however, Cornwall’s instructors and guides have been forced to watch their usual supply of clients dry up, hamstrung by a nation on pause.
There are green shoots, however.
With the lockdown coming to an end and restrictions beginning to ease, Cornwall will see increasing numbers of visitors, desperate to get out from their houses and breathe in some fresh air.
Nationally, the Government’s generous furlough scheme has even meant some people are actually wealthier than they were before the restrictions.
And with fears of sitting in a disease-ridden plane for hours to get abroad, many people will instead opt to staycation – which means Cornwall’s tourism trade is likely to bounce back, with gusto.
So, where does that leave our Cornwall-based adventure sport instructors and outdoor activity guides? Well, there’s something new coming which they just may want to check out: Go Dabble.
A new platform directly connecting them with members of the public looking to experience adventure sports and outdoor activities, Go Dabble is launching in August and promises to make it simpler, easier and quicker for instructors and guides to reach people, take bookings and share their skills.
Likewise, for members of the public looking to Cornwall as the escape they need – and wanting to experience an adventure sport or outdoor activity at the same time – Go Dabble will give them direct access to the experts.
Coronavirus (COVID-19) hasn’t pulled any punches. As the worst public health crisis in a century, it could also cause the UK’s worst recession in 300 years.
Within two months, it has turned life upside down.
Our day-to-day freedoms, choices and opportunities – never given a second thought – were suddenly whipped away. Travel and social contact curtailed.
It has also exposed some big cracks in UK life. Bringing to mind the quote from American investor Warren Buffett: “Only when the tide goes out do you discover who’s been swimming naked.”
A government forced to take on a mountain of debt to provide financial life support to debt-laden businesses and households already living hand to mouth.
Our dependency on China for vital imports including personal protective equipment, the active pharmaceutical ingredients needed to make painkillers, antibiotics and anti-viral drugs, industrial chemicals, metal products, mobile phones and laptops.
The lack of resilience across all levels of government and the NHS, worn thin by years of cost-cutting. An economy propped up by debt-fueled consumer spending.
By dramatically shoving us all off the frenetic treadmill of modern life, coronavirus did not just force people into self-isolation, but reflection and re-evaluation too.
Some may feel guilty to say that the pandemic has in some ways improved their quality of life, ushering in a period of calm. Without a self-help book in sight, life suddenly scaled back, slowed down and de-stressed. The roads and calendar clear.
The white noise and distractions of modern living have been dialed down. We’re noticing birdsong. Appreciating the spring changes to plants, trees and flowers.
Some are reassessing the wisdom of their life of two months ago. Vast amounts of unproductive time, money and CO2 emissions spent travelling to work and meetings.
Some are saving money. Acutely conscious of cash previously frittered away. Now happy and content to be at home, even though we’re no longer forced to.
People talk about ‘things never being the same again’, the ‘new normal’ and ‘building back better’. The simple truth is until there is a widely available vaccine, the world will live in the shadow of the threat of future waves of coronavirus.
The pandemic has forced us to react, respond and re-think. To confront the flaws in how we live, work and govern ourselves. To ask searching questions of what’s really important to us, what we want to hold onto and permanently change.
If we are wise, we should realise that this crisis has given us a taste of a far bigger, darker cloud on the horizon: the global climate crisis. And when it’s impacts really start to bite, we won’t be able to vaccinate our way out.
The world has been sleep walking into a future that will bring far more devastating and permanent impacts on our lifestyles and freedoms.
Unlike the emergence and spread of coronavirus, we already understand the science and know what’s ahead of us.
Now that we’re living through the biggest carbon crash ever recorded, could coronavirus be the world’s wake-up call to build back better? To accelerate the action and permanent changes needed to avert a much bigger, looming catastrophe?
Most UK adults still have some basic level of control, choice and autonomy during the coronavirus pandemic.
We can control who comes into our homes.
We can choose to stay at home and respect social distancing.
We don’t rely on others to feed, wash, dress ourselves and access fresh air.
And we also have the capacity and means to make ourselves heard.
But the current public health crisis has brought into sharp focus the vulnerable in our society who have no, or extremely limited, control, choice and autonomy.
This includes some 410,000 elderly people, many suffering from dementia, living in around 11,300 care homes in Britain. These are run by a mix of private operators, charities and local authorities.
Their residents’ survival literally hangs on the decisions, choices and actions of others.
And they have been at the mercy of an unfolding, silent crisis. Caused by the ongoing lack of capacity to promptly test the following for COVID-19:
Care home residents displaying symptoms
Patients discharged from hospital into care homes
Residents moving into care homes from their own homes
Care home staff
Even where discharged hospital patients have been tested, government guidance (02.04.20) had been that “Negative tests are not required prior to transfers / admissions into the care home”.
A deliberate policy of speeding up the discharge of hospital patients to free up NHS capacity has been at the expense of “importing death into care homes”. All exacerbated by shortages of Personal Protection Equipment (PPE) for care workers.
But while it seeks to close the stable door, we don’t yet know how far the horse has bolted. Daily government figures only capture COVID-19 deaths that occur in hospitals after a positive test.
On a weekly basis, the Office of National Statistics (ONS) publishes all death registrations (including in care homes) where COVID-19 was mentioned by the certifying doctor as “deaths involving COVID-19”.
[This figure] may also include people who have not tested positive for the coronavirus. This might sound strange, but doctors outside hospitals who do not have access to testing kits are able to record suspected cases of Covid-19 on death certificates without having their diagnosis confirmed by a test.
This reflects NHS guidance that: “In the circumstances of there being no swab, it is satisfactory to apply clinical judgement”.
Meanwhile recent reports (Channel 4 News, Daily Mail) cast doubt whether confirmed or suspected cases of COVID-19 are always been properly recorded on the medical certificate of cause of death (MCCD).
Nevertheless, we are likely to see a steep rise in registered deaths involving COVID-19. According to one media report yesterday:
Professor Martin Green, the chief executive of Care England, told The Telegraph that around 7,500 people may have died in care homes as a result of the virus. “Without testing, it is very difficult to give an absolute figure,” he said. “However, if we look at some of the death rates since April 1 and compare them with previous years’ rates, we estimate a figure of about 7,500 people may have died as a result of Covid-19.” (The Daily Telegraph, 17.04.20)
The Guardian (15.04.20) previously reported that:
By law, care homes must promptly report deaths to the CQC (England’s health and social care regulator) but until last week were not asked whether it was Covid-19 related. A tick box for confirmed or suspected coronavirus was only added the day before the Easter break, by which time more than 6,000 people had died from the virus in NHS hospitals and hundreds more in care homes.
The regulator said homes could have written “COVID-19” or “suspected COVID-19” in the free text box but many did not and some left it blank. The new tick box data is due to inform future ONS data reporting.
Time will tell whether things could have done differently to have better protected the elderly and highly vulnerable in our care homes.
Could robust testing have been put in place much sooner had this been prioritised for care home residents, discharged patients and staff? Or was that always impossible given the lack of capacity and thousands of care homes?
It has drawn attention to long-standing problems with adult social care sector. As The Economist (18.04.20) observes:
Although the government has poured resources into Britain’s National Health Service, Britain’s care homes are mostly small private businesses and have been left to deal with the crisis themselves. Some patients’ fees are paid by local authorities, but the bulk of care homes’ revenue comes from fees paid by patients or their families. Even at the best of times, staff shortages are endemic, points out Nadra Ahmed, the chair of the National Care Association, and industry group. Despite doing difficult and valuable work, such as bathing and cleaning infirm people, the majority of care home workers workers are paid the minimum wage or only a little above it. Budgets have been squeezed for years.
As the Association of Directors of Adults Social Services suggest:
Social care will emerge from this pandemic looking very different. It is vital that we use what we have learnt from this crisis to help shape and reform social care so that it is truly fit for the future and for future generations. (ADASS, April 2020)
This oak tree, photographed on 2nd January this year, has stood for several hundred years at Westonbirt Arboretum in Gloucestershire, England.
Perhaps over-looked by most of the thousands of annual visitors attracted by more exotic species, it stands silently as the world marches on around it.
A solid, dependable presence firmly rooted. Outliving governments, wars, monarchs, ordinary folk and so much of life that is here today and gone tomorrow.
One of nature’s elder statesman, cycling through the seasons, decades and centuries.
It was an unassuming symbol of continuity at the start of a new year, when thoughts stray to what lies ahead.
“[A]s we enter the new year, when many talk of making changes and setting goals, we should also be grateful for all those things which don’t change, and which remain constant in our lives.” Professor Mona Siddiqui, BBC Radio 4’s ‘Thought for the Day’, 03.01.20
Seven days on from this photo, most of the world was oblivious to a statement (09.01.20) released by the World Health Organisation. Chinese authorities had identified a new coronavirus in a person hospitalised with pneumonia in Wuhan.
The fuse of a pandemic had been lit.
As the extraordinary global impacts and implications have unfolded since, our hopes and horizons for 2020 have radically shifted.
The rug suddenly pulled on the pillars of modern life, previously taken for granted. The 24/7, always-on global merry-go-round brought to a standstill.
Nations, communities and households feeling vulnerable. What does the future hold? “Never let a good crisis go to waste”, they say. The world will emerge a different and perhaps a better place from this.
Meanwhile the oak tree now embraces spring in peace, the arboretum closed. Just as it has done through many others over hundreds of years, it lives on serenely through this latest setback to humankind.
One day the gates of the arboretum will re-open. The tree will have a full lush green canopy. It has stood the test of time.
It is the constant both in, and beyond, our lives. Whether we notice it or not.
“In three words I can sum up everything I’ve learned about life: it goes on.” Robert Frost
Update 29.06.20: The above photo was taken five days before the further easing of lockdown restrictions in England on 04th July (originally in place from 23rd March).
Westonbirt Arboretum reopened with an online booking system from 3rd June.
Updated 14.11.20: Photo taken during further period of national restrictions (‘lockdown 2’) when arboretum able to remain open.
Updated 27.11.20: Photo taken during ‘lockdown 2’. Helter skelter in the background set up for ‘Enchanted Christmas’ event.
Updated 02.01.21: Photo to taken when 44 million people in England (78% of the population) living under Tier 4 restrictions.
Updated 19.06.23: Photo taken on 18.06.23, Father’s Day. On 05.05.23, the World Health Organization declared that COVID-19 no longer represents a “global health emergency”.
Updated 03.12.23: Photo taken on 02.12.23. Several days before ex-Prime Minister Boris Johnson appeared before the UK COVID-19 Inquiry.
In 2017 there were over 70,000 drug overdose deaths in the US: more than the nation’s peak annual deaths from car crashes, AIDS or guns.
The profile of this overdose crisis has changed over the past decade, initially fueled by oversupply of prescription painkillers but now driven by illicitly manufactured synthetic opioid powders, particularly fentanyl.
Fentanyl is typically distributed in a white powder form, to be mixed with heroin or pressed into counterfeit pills – with or without the user’s knowledge.
The US Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) reported in 2018 that illicit fentanyl and other synthetic opioids – primarily sourced from China and Mexico – are now the most lethal category of opioids used in the US.
While the country saw a 5% reduction in total drug overdose deaths (68,557) in 2018 – the first drop since 1990 – the number of overdose deaths involving fentanyl or another synthetic opioid increased to 31,897.
Unlike traditional street-sourced opioids, such as heroin or diverted prescription painkillers, synthetic opioids are often much more potent.
Fentanyl is 50 times stronger than heroin and 50-100 times more potent than morphine. One type of fentanyl, carfentanyl, is 5,000 times stronger than heroin and used as an elephant tranquilliser.
Some of these chemicals are active in the tens of micrograms, making precise dosing very difficult without sophisticated equipment.
With a range of street names in the US such as Dance Fever, Friend, Goodfellas, Great Bear, He-Man, Jackpot and Tango & Cash, this stuff is lethal.
The DEA report that:
Fentanyl available in the United States is often sold under the same or similar “brands” as heroin, which can lead to confusion and wariness among customers depending on what the customer is seeking. For example, one of the most popular “names” associated with high quality heroin is “China White,” but distributors across the United States all use “China White” to mean different products. Moreover, it is highly likely many distributors do not know what exactly they are selling when it comes to differentiating between heroin, fentanyl, and fentanyl-laced heroin, as well as differentiating between diverted pills and fentanyl-containing counterfeit pills. This probably means many distributors are not intentionally deceiving customers; instead, suppliers do not always inform distributors specifically what substances or combinations of substances they are selling. Still, other distributors actively cut heroin with fentanyl to extend their heroin supply; however, it is often unclear whether customers in these cases are aware of how/if their heroin has been cut. (US Drug Enforcement Administration, 2017)
Fentanyl is very profitable for drug traffickers. The Economist (25.01.18) cites a DEA report that estimated that a kilogram of heroin sells for $80,000 on the street, whereas a kilogram of fentanyl can command between $1.28m and $1.92m. So traffickers are highly motivated to push it on their customers.
Testimony last year from the RAND Corporation to a subcommittee of the US House of Representatives referenced US and Canadian law enforcement reports that most synthetic opioids and precursors (chemicals used to synthesise drugs) originate not from a single clandestine source, but from what could be many semi-legitimate manufacturers and vendors, most of whom are in China.
Chinese suppliers ship these substances via the international postal system and private express consignment carriers, such as FedEx and DHL, as well as by cargo. It’s the subject of a book called ‘Fentanyl Inc‘ by Ben Westhoff published last September.
Last May the Chinese government, at the request of the US government, adopted a generic ban on all substances that are “structurally related to fentanyl”.
However, the DEA believe that fentanyl suppliers will continue to experiment with new fentanyl-related substances and adjust supplies in attempts to circumvent new regulations imposed by the United States, China and Mexico.
And as the RAND Corporation points out:
Although China has made efforts to control fentanyl and fentanyl analogues [compounds with similar chemical structures], many of these chemicals continue to show up in drug seizures at ports of entry and in domestic drug markets. The ease of ordering these substances online and having them shipped directly to the United States hampers supply reduction efforts. Chinese chemical and pharmaceutical firms openly advertise these substances on English-language websites accessible by a simple internet search. Vendors will sometimes purposefully conceal shipments through freight forwarding systems, mislabel packages, or route them through a third country to conceal efforts to trace packages to their original source. (RAND Corporation, 2019)
Mexican drug trafficking organisations are also importing fentanyl and fentanyl
precursors from China.
Drug traffickers smuggle powder fentanyl alongside heroin or press it into counterfeit tablets made to look like genuine pharmaceutical-grade products. Since late 2017, five clandestine labs have been seized in Mexico.
Synthetic opioids are also imported from China into Canada, where they are pressed into counterfeit tablets, some of which are then smuggled into the US. The equipment to make the tablets (including industrial-grade press machines) is imported from China.
In the UK, the government is vigilant. While the risk to public health from fentanyl may be lower in the UK than in North America due to a smaller population of people addicted to strong opioids, a report by the Advisory Council on the Misuse of Drugs (ACMD) published at the start of this year points out:
There is an ongoing risk of illicit fentanyls increasingly infiltrating the illicit opioid market in the UK, with consequent increases in drug-related deaths that could be substantial.
ACMD recommend that more research and evidence is needed.
Post update 10.07.23: The Time newspaper published this analysis on 08.07.23 linked to a story on the death of an Essex couple in their sixties who were found to have taken fentanyl before their deaths. A doctor has suggested they may have been using it recreationally, combined with promethazine.
The report also commented that “Fentanyl, a synthetic opioid that is 50 times more potent than heroin, has killed an estimated 100,000 people in the US but is not widespread in Britain. In 2021, the last year for which there is data, 69 people died. Deaths from the drug have been at a similar level since 2018. In the past decade, fentanyl was detected in 2.5 per cent of deaths where heroin or morphine was noted. Home Office figures for 2021-22 show 18 seizures of fentanyl, a total of 17kg.”
“England are the best team in the world. By one minute.”
That was Eddie Jones’ take in the wake of Australia’s 20-17 final defeat to England in the 2003 Rugby World Cup after Jonny Wilkinson’s last minute drop goal. Jones was the head coach of the Wallabies at the time.
Sixteen years later and England were yesterday the second best team in the world by a good 80 minutes. Comprehensively beaten 32-12 by South Africa in Yokohama, Japan.
This time as England’s head coach, Jones was again on the losing side. A deflating finale to his project to win the Webb Ellis Cup since taking up the reins as England’s first foreign coach in January 2016.
Such was the focus on this end goal that a countdown clock in a team room at England’s training base at Pennyhill Park was set to the World Cup final kick-off.
A previous post from this blog on Eddie Jones referenced an interview with Sir Clive Woodward in which Jones revealed:
I see the 2019 World Cup as three projects. The first two years, the next two years and then the final three months. In the first two years how the team forms is completely different to the next two years and I know that Dylan [Hartley] is going to do a great job for us in that first two-year phase. Then we will assess what happens for the next two years. (Mail Online, 06.01.17)
After the hours, weeks, months and years of toil building towards this objective, it was crushing to see England fall at the last hurdle. They had been favourites to win the final after a brilliant 19-7 semi-final victory against the All Blacks. That had followed a 40-16 swatting aside of the Wallabies in the quarter-final. The trophy was there for the taking.
But that’s the jeopardy of sport. The job is never done until it’s done.
In his newspaper column Lawrence Dallagio commented:
Was Warren Gatland right to wonder if they had already played their final against New Zealand? I don’t think there was any lack of appetite or endeavour from Jones’ men, but the contrast with last weekend’s performance makes it even harder to swallow. In time, though, England’s World Cup journey will be seen in the round. There will still be an element of an opportunity missed at the finish, but equally there’s every chance it can be the start of something too. (The Sunday Times, 03.11.19)
Meanwhile this was ex-England hooker Brian Moore’s summary of the final:
England’s starting XV was the youngest ever to step out for a World Cup final. The winning mentality, belief and confidence amongst the squad in stark contrast to when Jones first took the helm in the wake of the 2015 RWC debacle.
Will he see out his contract to 2021? Will he have the desire to try once more to reach the summit of Everest, to oversee the next four-year cycle to France 2023?
Weeks ago signed copies of Jones’ autobiography ‘My Life and Rugby’ were available to pre-order before its release on 21 November.
Presumably the ghostwriter was waiting on standby for the last twists and turns of the rollercoaster in Japan. The wheels sadly came off in the final. That’s sport. That’s life.
Perhaps a last perspective on England’s disappointment should go to prop Joe Marler, who came out of international retirement to make the squad:
At the end of the day it is a game that we all love and enjoy. Win or lose, the reason you do it is to have fun. And I’ve thoroughly enjoyed myself. It would have been great to win, so we could call ourselves world champions. But it is what it is. Losing a game of rugby, no matter whether it is a final or a friendly against Old Whitgiftians, it doesn’t matter. My perspective is I get to go home to my family and concentrate on the most important job I’ve got, which is mowing the lawn.” (The Sunday Times, 03.11.19)
Who made the world?
Who made the swan, and the black bear?
Who made the grasshopper?
This grasshopper, I mean-
the one who has flung herself out of the grass,
the one who is eating sugar out of my hand,
who is moving her jaws back and forth instead of up and down-
who is gazing around with her enormous and complicated eyes.
Now she lifts her pale forearms and thoroughly washes her face.
Now she snaps her wings open, and floats away.
I don’t know exactly what a prayer is.
I do know how to pay attention, how to fall down
into the grass, how to kneel down in the grass,
how to be idle and blessed, how to stroll through the fields,
which is what I have been doing all day.
Tell me, what else should I have done?
Doesn’t everything die at last, and too soon?
Tell me, what is it you plan to do
with your one wild and precious life?
Photo taken 25.07.19 near Westonbirt Arboretum on the hottest day ever in the UK (38.7 degrees C recorded in Cambridge)
And so in five days’ time Theresa May steps down as leader of the Conservative Party, paving the way for a contest to decide a new prime minister.
History will unforgivingly boil down her prime ministership of nearly three years into four words: failure to deliver Brexit.
Whether that makes her time in power a success or failure depends on which side of the leave-remain divide you sit.
Certainly May made plenty of missteps and had some farcical, hapless moments. Many words have been written suggesting that her private nature, introverted character and unwillingness to be clubbable made her unsuited to the leadership task of finding compromise and getting political opponents onside.
Her style favoured evidence and cold hard logic, rather than chutzpah and bluster.
Time will tell whether her successor’s approach is any more effective in untying the Gordian Knot of Brexit. Or if it simply confirms that, regardless of whether raconteur or recluse, the PM’s personal influence on Brexit is severely over-estimated.
Hanging up all political views at the door, it’s hard not to see Theresa May on a human level as a genuinely good egg – who was in politics and climbed to the top for the right reasons. For better or worse, substance above style.
During the Easter Parliamentary recess earlier this year, how many serving prime ministers would have found the time and humility to help marshal a 10k run in their constituency? Tony Blair? David Cameron? Boris Johnson? Good luck with that.
This didn’t feel like a cynical, calculated PR act to try to position May as an unpretentious, woman of the people. Of course it might have been. But surely they’d been too much water under the bridge by then; the public had firmly formed their view of her. Rather, this felt like a non-ego driven act of genuine public-spiritedness.
Anyone who has ever taken part in an organised running event will know that the marshals are volunteers, who willingly give up part of their weekend to support (mostly) complete strangers. Standing for hours, often in miserable weather.
May’s stint at the Maidenhead Easter 10K spoke of an admirable sense of perspective and moral compass from someone at the apex of an unforgiving political jungle. Someone else in her shoes might well have found a million and one self-serving other things to do that day.
Prime ministers haven’t always acted in ways that demonstrate themselves to be individuals with personal integrity who do selfless things. Particularly when the shark-infested political waters are at their choppiest.
Maybe May’s successor will have more success navigating through Brexit. But whatever her personal failings as a prime minister, her work ethic and commitment to public service is widely acknowledged. Supported by her ‘rock’, husband Philip.
Written today Rudyard Kipling’s poem ‘If’ would hopefully be gender neutral. Theresa May would have a good case for fulfilling its requirements.
Which ten species would Sir David Attenborough save on his ark ahead of all others?
The answer was revealed in a BBC documentary, Attenborough’s Ark, first broadcast
in November 2012 and repeated in February this year.
Here’s the hall of fame from 2012:
[1] Black lion Tamarin monkey
Squirrel sized monkey with long claws, lives on insects, fruit and sap – the stones in the fruit help scrape off parasites in its gut.
Believed extinct for over half a century before being rediscovered in 1970 near the Sao Paulo Forest in Brazil, living in tree holes left by woodpeckers.
The species is being brought back from the brink, with around only 1,000 left in the world and only 3% of its original habitat remaining.
Found on Hispaniola, the island shared by Haiti and the Dominican Republic, very little is known about this reclusive mammal.
Able to inject venom into its prey through its teeth, they have also evolved a ball and socket joint in their snout to give it extra-special maneuverability.
Numbers are rapidly declining, faced with cat and dog predators introduced to the island by humans.
[4] Olm
The ancestory of this amphibian stretches back 190 million years – it can live 100+ years, is virtually blind and can survive 10 years without food.
Found in limestone caves in Croatia and Slovenia, olms have developed a shark-like sixth sense to detect weak electrical fields.
Only true scaly mammal in the world. Similar to anteaters but unique as they have hard scales made of keratin (same substance as human nails).
Rely on sharp claws to dig into ant nests. They walk on their knuckles with their claws folded under.
Half the population disappeared in last 15 years, illegally exported in huge numbers from South East Asia, particularly from Vietnam, going mainly to China.
Their scales, blood, and other body parts are in high demand in traditional Chinese medicines, and their highly sought after flesh is consumed in China as a delicacy, or to acquire perceived “health benefits”.
[8] Priam’s birdwing butterfly
Found in Indonesia, Papua New Guinea, Solomon Islands and northern Australia.
Live only for about 10 days as fully formed adults. Fly long distances high above the forest canopy.
Male (shown below) is vibrant green and black; the female is larger and less colourful.
[9] Northern quoll
Found in northern territories of Australia.
The squirrel-sized marsupial has a fondness for the poisonous flesh of invasive cane toads, introduced into Australia in the 1930’s.
The cane toad has poisonous glands on its back that release a venom that has poisoned quolls in their thousands.
Captured quolls at the Kakadu National Park have been fed cane toad sausages laced with a small amount of the poison, which quickly teaches them that cane toads are not a tasty treat. It is hoped when they are released back into the wild, they will give cane toads the swerve, passing on that learning to their offspring.
[10] Venus’s flower basket
A sponge, the simplest of all living animals, which clings to the ocean floor in a small area of the sea near the Philippine Islands.
Have been found at depths of 1,000 metres.
Possess a glass-like skeleton formed of silica fibres woven into a vase shaped structure.
** Update 02.06.19 – around six and a half years on from Attenborough’s Ark, the National Geographic reported (27.05.19) that due to decades of habitat loss and poaching, fewer than 80 Sumatran rhinos are now thought to exist in the wild, most on the island of Sumatra. The rest are scattered across Kalimantan in Indonesian Borneo. The last male Sumatran rhino in Malaysia died this year, after unsuccessful captive breeding attempts. Malaysia now just has a single female Sumatran rhino.
Lewis writes:
500 Word World 