Tuesday, November 30, 2010

A Tiny Christmas

Doc Kelly was well-known for his magnanimity. It was not uncommon for example for him to accept potatoes or corn in payment of his medical services, especially from those who would, as fate would have it, oblige him to travel by sleigh on a blustery wintry night from Town to the nearby Village of Barnhart Mills where several of his more elderly and struggling patients lived. They relied upon him and his good advice, always given cheerfully and without restraint. They would have given more to him in compensation of his professional services, but they hadn’t any more to give and Doc Kelly knew that. It is no accident that if one is good at something in particular, one is often so in general. While it may be considered an odd extrapolation, the beneficence of Doc Kelly was so widely disseminated as to include not only human kind but also animals, particularly the small ones which are so often ignored on the theory that their diminutive size somehow accounts for a greater likelihood of survival in the harsh winter months, an observation which Doc Kelly understood to be patently erroneous.

Monday, November 29, 2010

Your Serve!

Life can provide incalculable annoyances. Because of the enormous variation of personal circumstances, the buffet of trouble which is spread before us is equally vast and particularized. The irritations which vex are strikingly well-suited to our present condition, seemingly capitalizing upon the underlying weaknesses of the moment. It would of course be stretching the point to imagine that there was anything other than mere randomness in this nastiness. The concept of fate and the visitation thereof in unwelcome fiery packages by various gods of the universe has long disappeared from the current vernacular. But at times it nonetheless leaves one thinking...

Friday, November 26, 2010

Late Silvery Autumn Days

We are blessed today with a perfectly blue sky. The temperature is pushing the freezing mark, but the air is so dry and clear that one can hardly complain at this time of year. Very often we’re up to our shins in snow at this late date in Autumn. As everyone knows, the sun, though shining brilliantly at the moment, descends at a rapid rate after midday. When the sun begins to decline, the light assumes a silvery aspect, no doubt pronounced by similar colours on the ground. The deciduous trees for example reveal their grey trunks and branches; the once grassy lawns and verdant fields are now various hues of brown and neutral colours. The grey stone houses project themselves in stately silence against the sky. It is a time of utter softness and unmeasured consistency. The only relief from the unbroken view of the insipid landscape is the reflection of the sapphire sky in the passive waters of the River below.

Tuesday, November 23, 2010

Utility

Understanding the fundamentals of the internet is for an old fogey like me no mean task. When I first began to hear about the internet many years ago (was it back in the 1980s?) it surfaced in the context of “internet servers” which still means very little to me. If, for example, I were asked to explain the concept to a ten year-old child I would be taxed. All I knew at that time was that there was money in being an internet server and there were a number of parties competing to be the one to do so. My involvement was through young entrepreneurs (since labeled as “geeks” or “nerds”) who were intelligent but obsessive enthusiasts having special knowledge in this rapidly developing world and who apparently had proprietary interests which they were willing to sell to others. It was not uncommon to hear in the early days that the internet was the up and coming thing, that eventually everything would be done on the internet, even though people like me really hadn’t a clue what it was or how you would do it. Descriptions such as “cyber highway” did little to improve my intelligence on the subject.

Monday, November 22, 2010

Cottage Pie

Some things are just nice to come home to. While I can’t for a minute say that I had a hard day at the office, it was nonetheless an uplifting pleasure on this late November evening to walk out of the drizzle and fog and into the house to be greeted by the unexpected wafting aroma of a cottage pie fresh from the oven. As the name suggests, cottage pie (like its virtually synonymous shepherd’s pie) is an inheritance from the modest rural crowd, whether cattle or sheep herders. Cottage pie ranks right up there with any of the other marvellous “comfort foods” which I challenge anyone to deny. Sometimes it is so relieving to have nothing more to do than to attach a bib to your collar and to hunker down to a delicious and hearty meal! Comfort foods seem to invite informality and resolute indulgence.

Saturday, November 20, 2010

Morning Coffee

There is something liberating about getting out of bed at four o’clock in the morning and not begrudging it. Apart from the babble of the BBC World News Service there is nothing happening other than the tick of the clocks. At times like this one is afforded the faultless luxury of dwelling upon those trifling matters which during the past week or so were either ignored or side-lined. Being so obviously outside the perimeters of commerce at this time of day, there is no preoccupation other than idle contemplation to distract one. I don’t know about you, but I find I need time to recapitulate. I suspect it is part of my make-up as a small business entrepreneur to see the need to reconsider the empire from time to time. Like it or not the hurly-burly of daily business makes it difficult to find time to see the larger picture and to allow things to percolate to the surface.

Wednesday, November 17, 2010

A Word About Insurance

Though I am not aware how I first developed the thought (and pardon me if the result sounds Bolshevist), I have long maintained that the world is effectively run by the banks and insurance companies. In my view they represent the cornerstone of commerce, like it or not. In the pyramid of industrialists those businesses are pretty much monopolized by the same people or at least guided by very many of the same principles. Anyway apart from the incestuous management and any politically subversive views they may engender, I suppose I could enlarge upon the comparison by suggesting for example that getting a loan is somewhat like insuring one’s life or material possessions for hundreds of thousands of dollars; viz., both events involve commitment to a sizeable monthly outlay and the hope that in the end it will all pay off. But forgive me for having dilated upon the subject unnecessarily as it is neither the alliance of, nor the similarities between, the banks and insurance companies which prompts me at the moment. What compels me today to opine upon the subject of insurance companies in particular is that I have just applied for what the Lawyers’ Professional Indemnity Insurance Company calls “Excess Errors and Omissions Insurance”, that little extra $1M - $9M of coverage just in case.

Monday, November 15, 2010

The Gentleman Bien Rangé

Life is a delicate thing. Very often, however, we treat it with less regard than it deserves. It has to be one of the advantages of getting older that the preciousness of life is increasingly obvious and the need to participate in it fully becomes more compelling by the day. To think of life as an oyster to be consumed, while advancing its invaluableness and emphasizing its rewards, is not exactly what I had in mind. Rather I am thinking more along the lines of putting out, not taking in.