Organic-Ally

This time last week I was settling happily into the meeting room at The Warehouse, home to Friends of the Earth at Birmingham. I was meeting with a group of 'Sociologists Outside Academia'. The train journey there was a bit fraught as the deluge we had on Friday meant trains had been cancelled and suspended and right up till late Friday I was uncertain whether I would actually get on the train. As it turned out the train arrived early, having made an unscheduled stop at Coventry (picking up another one of our group), and it looked like an unbelievably good start. Except that a couple of people had had their trains diverted from Basingstoke/Winchester area to (believe it or not) London. One was too frail to consider completing the journey via London and gave up. The other persevered and reached us at about 2pm! Another, a wheelchair user, planned to drive from Bristol but the roads were not very friendly and decided against making what could be a perilous journey. So it was a sm...

I don't remember how long I've been working with teenagers and children as part of my church ministry. Since my husband acquired a chronic disease I've resigned from working with teenagers but continue my work with the children. Well, I finally got my piece of paper -- the official approval from this UK government -- that says I have been cleared to work with children. Yippee! Back to Organic-Ally .

For some reason my husband left the following article on the desk-top. Why are lawyers miserable: want a list? I read it and had a good chuckle. I could identify with all that misery and money mentioned in the article. No, I was never a lawyer. I was worse than a lawyer back in Singapore. I was a management consultant, and more specifically, a change management consultant. While working with what was one of the top Accounting firms (we were an off-shoot of their 'Management Information Systems' off-shoot) it was not unusual to clock 80 hours a week. On days when a deadline loomed, we worked 'back-to-back' and managed to clock 100 hours. We were fastidious about time-sheets and time-keeping. It was part of our 'company culture', so it has to be true. It meant working from 8.30am to a minute before 12 midnight (because the doors locked electronically at midnight), seven days a week. We would take a booked taxi (waiting for us at the bottom of the office block) hom...

At what price "development" in China? 750,000 a year killed by Chinese pollution Back to Organic-Ally .