Walking Commentary
Thoughts and cycling from Manchester to Rome in 2023
A reader asked about a photo in my recent article about a shrew I met while walking in London. The photo was originally posted to WhatsApp, a great tool that I use to broadcast photos and the odd note to attest to my continuing safe progress, remaining both vertical and mentate. Cold Blooded is another photo from the same wet walk.
We lived in Los Angeles for a couple of years, a decade before the devastating Northridge earthquakes rolled out from a huge slip on a hitherto undetected fault.
Our first home was in the foothills of the fault-bounded San Gabriel Mountains. The office was close to the Raymond Fault. Despite such proximity to future earthquake epicentres, we never experienced any severe ground shakes though the potential for them lurked large in our subconscious.
A few weeks ago, I took you on an allegorical journey from my gut to the soil. I hoped to make the point that there are many small forces that shape our world and whose impact on our lives is very often overlooked. You are breathing as you read this. We all take our autonomic breathing for granted until we can’t. The breathing happens unnoticed until it’s hard to do. Small forces, likewise, do their thing whether appreciated or not.
There are a few stories in these journals about how technology changes with time (and space). Today, our TV breakfast news was headlined by the story of a collision of two black holes several billion years ago. A redefinition of the concept of a ‘late breaking’ story that we know about because of the sciences. The collision that was detected chirped for less than a tenth of a second on May 21st, 2019. It’s worth noting that mankind only invented the mechanism to record such news recently.
Other people’s thoughts often provide the focus for my own musings. And I’ll admit that there are many days when I think that other people’s words convey my thoughts better than I can express them for myself. Today has been one of those days.
‘Is this the real life? Is this just fantasy?’ sang Freddie Mercury back when Queen dominated the music charts.
Imagine the medics explaining to you that a patient’s pulse is dangerously low but no one can diagnose the cause. The next day the patient is much revived and you are pleased he was hospitalised. What do you do on the third day when his pulse drops dramatically for no explicable reason?
There’s a medical history that you don’t yet know. So you make the call, the only call you think should be made. His health is your priority. So you arrange for a medical evacuation to a country with better medical facilities.
He’s a colleague and you are both a long way from home. In this instance it matters that you are his boss. Despite the training and protocols, responsibility and accountability for your office co-workers were just concepts before a crisis. Suddenly your egalitarian approach to office and project management needs a hierarchy to function to preserve a life.
