It was a chilly evening in early February when the Managing Director called us all together. He paused a moment, glanced at the expectant faces all around him, and then he started.
Business is tough, he said, and we’re doing what we can. But finally, we’ve reached that moment when we’ve got to let some of you go.
A hundred of us stood there then, looking at each other, at the floor, and at the winter’s dusk outside.
There was silence. Some more explanation was required, and some more honesty was needed. And, to his credit, Mitch provided it. As ‘this company is going down the toilet’ talks go, it was pretty fairly done.
We’d had problems with one of our installations in the North Sea, he told us. We all knew that already. In the big money business of finding oil and gas and getting them to the beach, failing on either of those priorities was never good.
An asset team would miss its targets, and there’d be no bonuses or payrises for anyone ahead. Such is business, in any organisation. But this time, it was worse.
It’s the oil price, he said. February, 1999. (more…)
Summer. Early afternoon. A soft and unassuming heat haze rising from the lush green meadows of Sussex.
And rising too, slowly but relentlessly behind this pretty village, lies the reason that we’re here.
The most famous climb in all of southern England.
The mean city streets of London seem such a long time ago. The start in Clapham lies almost fifty miles behind us, and barely a handful more remain ahead. The countryside is peaceful. Very peaceful.
The chatter and banter of those early miles has faded now. With a myriad and more of cyclists on the road, along the classic route to Brighton – you can hear them, all the way.
Not just the whirr of spokes, the squeal of frantic brakes, or the grinding, mashing sound of crunching gears. There’s a richer, more lyrical sound to listen to, louder and more urgent still than the rhythm of the riders’ breathing.
Much more than that. Because I’ll swear that on these Sussex roads you can hear the spirit of the peloton. (more…)
Shut your eyes and think of somewhere
Somewhere cold and caked in snow Snow Patrol - May 2006
All of winter, and all in one day.
It’s mid-morning on a snowy Thursday, but as troublesome journeys to work might go, I really can’t complain.
Guildford’s white and black night is far behind me, and just a few hours later the snow is screaming past the train as we speed towards Oslo at 200 km/h. No Norwegian dogsled ever made such progress.
Arriving early at my meeting, I’ve a moment to survey the scene.
From the office window, the muffled view stretches out silently into the distance, Oslo peering shyly back at me through the white mist of intermittent wintry showers.
The view down to the railway tracks offers a camera angle perfect for any latterday remake of Anna Karenina, the architecture of this place even more impressive for the white curtain draping all around it. (more…)
2006 is over, and it’s more than high time that I penned an update to my articles from 2004 and 2005 on global warming and the energy crisis.
Science content is a key component of this site, and I may yet return to write that article, but in truth I’ve been struggling with it all week.
As I ran today, my iPod was set on shuffle, taking me to places that I rarely go. And finally it struck me that instead of writing, I should just leave you with this simple message, delivered directly and emotionally by one young singer-songwriter.
It sounds like a conversation on the environment, from my daughter’s generation to mine.
The Ionian Sea is shimmering brilliantly beside me as I look across the bay towards Ithaca. Late afternoon in a Greek summer is no time to be running, but it had seemed like a good idea as I lay beside the pool.
Now, half an hour later, the road is rising steeply out of Sámi, climbing up from the harbour through the pine and scattered olive trees. There are no houses here, no villas or hotels, and the landscape presents itself as it always has through history. Since time immemorial. (more…)
My winter’s journey of 18 weeks and 499 miles is over. Only four more days and 26 miles to go.
From the bleak beginnings of a frozen, snowy Christmastime in Scotland, through fifty Crawley lunchtimes and Guildford nightfalls I’ve wandered.
Along pretty Surrey towpaths and under pitch-black Houston skies, I waved those winter months goodbye.
I’ve seen the North Downs slopes from every side, gasped breathless in the Alps, and loped lazily down last weekend’s Warwickshire lanes and the Avon riverbank, too.
It’s been a long way, this year.
I’ve felt no real promise, honest aspiration, or even false pretence of quicker feet or swifter legs, this time.
Just run through winter, until you reach the spring, I said.
So I just got through it. And now I’m here. (more…)
Oh my love
It’s a long way we’ve -come
From the freckled hills
To the steel and glass canyons U2 – November 2002
My watch says almost midday, and still I’m waiting for the sun to come up. I’ve been sitting in my hotel room for a couple of hours already, wide awake and yet bleary-eyed with jet-lag, but a glance out of the window and across the freeway shows a resolutely dark sky over the plains beyond The Loop.
Oh well. There’s no point in waiting any longer. I chuck on a T-shirt and shorts, lace up my shoes, trot out through the lobby and hit the sidewalk running. (more…)
It was a less of a bang, and more of a low thud, which woke me on Sunday morning just after 6 am.
Something had fallen off a shelf downstairs somewhere, I thought, and I went back to sleep.
I’d never really believed those stories about the Krakatoa explosion being heard in India, 5,000 km away, or of Londoners being able to hear the First World War guns in France, but now I do.
Because that sound which woke me early on Sunday wasn’t generated in the house at all, but by an exploding oil storage facility on the other side of London, over 100 km away. Remarkable. (more…)
It was a chilly evening in early February when the Managing Director called us all together. He paused a moment, glanced at the expectant faces all around him, and then he started.
An asset team would miss its targets, and there’d be no bonuses or payrises for anyone ahead. Such is business, in any organisation. But this time, it was worse.
