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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

We’ll Travel for Miles in our Saturday Smiles

There aren’t many days I have wished would never end. Today however is one of them. In spite of not having had the deepest sleep last night, I at least awoke with a clear head which, considering the Friday night averages is no mean compliment. It helped too that upon awakening it was obvious that the day promised to be brilliant. As though to heap one successive bounty upon another, as we listened to CBC radio while sipping our morning coffee at the kitchen table and tapping busily upon our respective lap top computers we heard a reference not once but twice to my very friend, being thanked for his music recommendation “Come Saturday Morning” in answer to last week’s public invitation. As the song played, I stopped what I was doing to relish the lyrics, which capture exactly the type of day we ended by having, wonderful in every way.

On the Cusp of Thanksgiving Weekend

There is invariably an atmosphere of anticipation as a prelude to a national holiday, or what perhaps as a concession to creeping Marxian philosophy is called a “public holiday”. The distinction may be nothing more than a diversion of one’s attention from the element of “state run” to the more palatable factor of “community”, though I am reminded of the dismissive comment of a denizen of an upper class ghetto that “Fairs are for the poor!” But I am getting off-point. This wasn’t meant to be a discussion of socialism or the proletarian revolution; rather I want to address and acknowledge what has become one of the most important annual holidays on the calendar quite outside political ideology or the functioning of capitalism. Indeed in the American vernacular Thanksgiving is all about excess and abundance, very much in keeping with the reputed tendency of our neighbours to the South to indulge themselves in the profits of free enterprise. But again I am losing the thread.