I'm not sure quite what I make of this - it is a Guardian report from a few months back on a palliative care nurse who has recorded her 'Top Five Regrets of the Dying' in a blog and book.
They include a range of different wishes, including:
"I wish I hadn't worked so hard" (every male patient) - which is more about not giving all your time to work and spending more with family, children etc, and
"I wish I'd had the courage to live a life true to myself, not the life others expected of me."
But the piece does, I have to say, come across as a highly sentimental piece of writing. It grates badly. So while I can see and agree with what is being said, the manner of it is a real barrier. At least for me.
Sunday, 10 June 2012
Saturday, 9 June 2012
Autonomous?
Another item of news that we missed here (partly due to the Jubilee) was the departure from HP of Mike Lynch. This against a background of HP shedding a reported 27,000 staff worldwide. Lynch was the only named individual to leave the company (that I saw).
Famously, Lynch founded and grew Autonomy - a software company specialising in high-end search tools built around Bayesian mathematics - to become one of Britain's most successful high-technology companies. He was notoriously proud of being British, and there were always rumours that Microsoft had offered him shed-loads for the firm and that he had always refused.
A few years back, I went to their offices, in an industrial park just outside Cambridge, to see if they could help us at the Museum. They had a certain flavour. Each meeting room was named for a different Bond villain (I think we were in the Goldfinger suite). As I was leaving I noticed the fish tank behind the receptionist's desk actually contained pirhanas. 'Yes, Mike makes the least successful salesman each month fee the fishes,' joked my host. He was apparently very proud of Bond as the home-grown, Brit super-agent, and wanted to make a point about the British being competent and world-class at some stuff.
Anyway, HP eventually bought Autonomy last year for £7bn. The rumours are that the entrepreneurial small-business culture in Cambridge clashed horribly with the international corporatism of HP. And that lots of high-calibre people have already left the Autonomy part of the business - and thus Lynch's departure was unsurprising. Also speculation about how long the Autonomy part will exist as a separate arm before being fully merged in. All a little sad, I guess, although Lynch has left with loads of dosh and an apparent intent to invest in and to build more innovative British firms. We shall see. Perhaps he'll turn up on Dragon's Den.
On the same day as the HP announcement, Jonathan Ive became a 'Sir' for his work on industrial design. Most famously of course, he was the key designer for a lot of Apple's i-stuff. So the shiny look and feel that people love about the Apple products is attributed to his work. Well done, of course, but - probably unfairly - it feels somewhat superficial to me by comparison with the Autonomy software. And of course, although a hugely successful British industrial designer, he ended up working in the US to gain that success.
Famously, Lynch founded and grew Autonomy - a software company specialising in high-end search tools built around Bayesian mathematics - to become one of Britain's most successful high-technology companies. He was notoriously proud of being British, and there were always rumours that Microsoft had offered him shed-loads for the firm and that he had always refused.
A few years back, I went to their offices, in an industrial park just outside Cambridge, to see if they could help us at the Museum. They had a certain flavour. Each meeting room was named for a different Bond villain (I think we were in the Goldfinger suite). As I was leaving I noticed the fish tank behind the receptionist's desk actually contained pirhanas. 'Yes, Mike makes the least successful salesman each month fee the fishes,' joked my host. He was apparently very proud of Bond as the home-grown, Brit super-agent, and wanted to make a point about the British being competent and world-class at some stuff.
Anyway, HP eventually bought Autonomy last year for £7bn. The rumours are that the entrepreneurial small-business culture in Cambridge clashed horribly with the international corporatism of HP. And that lots of high-calibre people have already left the Autonomy part of the business - and thus Lynch's departure was unsurprising. Also speculation about how long the Autonomy part will exist as a separate arm before being fully merged in. All a little sad, I guess, although Lynch has left with loads of dosh and an apparent intent to invest in and to build more innovative British firms. We shall see. Perhaps he'll turn up on Dragon's Den.
On the same day as the HP announcement, Jonathan Ive became a 'Sir' for his work on industrial design. Most famously of course, he was the key designer for a lot of Apple's i-stuff. So the shiny look and feel that people love about the Apple products is attributed to his work. Well done, of course, but - probably unfairly - it feels somewhat superficial to me by comparison with the Autonomy software. And of course, although a hugely successful British industrial designer, he ended up working in the US to gain that success.
Tuesday, 5 June 2012
Other Things have been Happening...
Well, although the Jubilation isn't quite finished (there is for example, the local Jubilee do on the Aquarius Golf Course with Steve Boltz still to come today), and bedraggled bunting can still be spotted around and about, we at TANH would like to remind our reader about the other stuff that has been going on while our Overlords have been celebrating their rule.
This is just a random selection, in no particular order.
Dragon Lands The SpaceX Dragon landed successfully in the Pacific Ocean on May 31. This was the first commercial spacecraft to dock successfully with the ISS. The second stage of the rocket contained some of the ashes of the actor James Doohan, who played Scotty in Star trek, as well as (Keroy) Gordon Cooper, one of the secen original astromauts in the Mercury space program. Gordon Tracy, the pilot of Thunderbird 4, was named after the latter.
Jeremy Hunt at Leveson The Leveson inquiry has shown that Jeremy Hunt was very, very much in favour of the Newscorp bid to take over BSkyB. The Prime Minister knew this when he appointed him to decide upon whether the bid should proceed. Given that Vince Cable was removed from this role because of his bias (in the opposite direction), how was this a sound decision by the Cameron? Can we assume that Cameron wanted the takeover to go ahead as well, so was unworried by Hunt's lack of neutrality, or was it just incompetence? Hunt has said he thought the bid would have been good for British media, but (as far as I can tell) has failed in any way to say how.
The Awful Baroness Warsi has seemingly been breaking a few rules, with the (non)disclosure of some of her own financial arrangements.
Bankia in Trouble Spain's banks look as though they are in trouble, with Bankia, the fourth largest bank in Spain, asking for a 19bn Euro bailout, and the Eurozone crisis is lurching into new problems.
The Annan Plan in Syria seems to be failing, with escalating violence, while armed militia stormed Tripoli airport yesterday.
HIGNIFY Resurgent For a few series now, Have I Got News For You has been a little moribund. But just recently it seems to have perked up again. Firstly with an appearance bu Ken Livingstone, who Hislop agreed was a less interesting guest on the show than Boris Johnson, but would have been a better Mayor of London. And then last week we had Alastair Campbell as chair. Which turned into a straight battle between Campbell and, well everyone else. A real bruiser and very, very funny. Watch it again on i-Player before it goes. It also includes the largest margin win I've seen so far.
And Finally... Don't forget the Transit of Venus - just visible tomorrow in the early morning...
This is just a random selection, in no particular order.
Dragon Lands The SpaceX Dragon landed successfully in the Pacific Ocean on May 31. This was the first commercial spacecraft to dock successfully with the ISS. The second stage of the rocket contained some of the ashes of the actor James Doohan, who played Scotty in Star trek, as well as (Keroy) Gordon Cooper, one of the secen original astromauts in the Mercury space program. Gordon Tracy, the pilot of Thunderbird 4, was named after the latter.
Jeremy Hunt at Leveson The Leveson inquiry has shown that Jeremy Hunt was very, very much in favour of the Newscorp bid to take over BSkyB. The Prime Minister knew this when he appointed him to decide upon whether the bid should proceed. Given that Vince Cable was removed from this role because of his bias (in the opposite direction), how was this a sound decision by the Cameron? Can we assume that Cameron wanted the takeover to go ahead as well, so was unworried by Hunt's lack of neutrality, or was it just incompetence? Hunt has said he thought the bid would have been good for British media, but (as far as I can tell) has failed in any way to say how.
The Awful Baroness Warsi has seemingly been breaking a few rules, with the (non)disclosure of some of her own financial arrangements.
Bankia in Trouble Spain's banks look as though they are in trouble, with Bankia, the fourth largest bank in Spain, asking for a 19bn Euro bailout, and the Eurozone crisis is lurching into new problems.
The Annan Plan in Syria seems to be failing, with escalating violence, while armed militia stormed Tripoli airport yesterday.
HIGNIFY Resurgent For a few series now, Have I Got News For You has been a little moribund. But just recently it seems to have perked up again. Firstly with an appearance bu Ken Livingstone, who Hislop agreed was a less interesting guest on the show than Boris Johnson, but would have been a better Mayor of London. And then last week we had Alastair Campbell as chair. Which turned into a straight battle between Campbell and, well everyone else. A real bruiser and very, very funny. Watch it again on i-Player before it goes. It also includes the largest margin win I've seen so far.
And Finally... Don't forget the Transit of Venus - just visible tomorrow in the early morning...
Monday, 4 June 2012
Sunday, 3 June 2012
Saturday, 2 June 2012
Getting Visceral
Oh, yes, and there is one event we are looking forward to that isn't about the insufferable Jubilee. We are off to Viscera Theatre on Monday, in the Old Vic Tunnels near Waterloo. Should be good...
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