Wifi to the Four Horsemen, a course on Citizenship, and a trip in a time machine.

In some respects, Lockdown has been a subtle extension of past life for me anyway as I home-work from deep in the Wiltshire countryside normally. The only difference recently is the number of cancelled or deferred contracts rather than active cases. Time as well. More time. Time allows thought. Quiet and peace allow thought. No wonder Monks abound out in the wildernesses of our country. Here are some random but connected thoughts to maybe engage you.

I am used to videoconferencing as it has always enabled me to move faster and more widely than F2F meetings, and most importantly not to give my life control and limited time to Great Western Railways. Have I lost insights over candidates in the past by not shaking hands? Well, maybe a few. They have been more than compensated by new learnings on candidates. Homework space sometimes reflects organisational traits, and ability to even use the tech seamlessly does point to aptitudes here and there, as two small examples. I shall now have to be even more discriminating in future, however, to divine more subtle nuances as everybody has recently been getting up to speed and practicing!

I never really used Zoom but now it provides me with new client- side potential; the ability to show and explain F2F and actually see responses. This means that again I can have an open chat “in full colour”.

I knew this anyway (thanks to a massive BT installation error with us), but having weak broadband or wifi networking will be a “No-No” for any mobile worker. I foresee much more personal and corporate investment in communication and networking technology. I have recently got used to a seven node mesh network at home which seemed very expensive at the time but has proven its’ value as three of us here have locked down, and all using several devices at once has been faultless. It’s not perfect as it drops a node for no apparent reason periodically (a known fault) but I hope Linksys can fix this annoyance soon. Generally it’s pretty good, even in the garden.

I am, however, disappointed my 87 year old mother just will not get into technology as the new wave of devices such as Facebook Portal would have been a boon for her, but she resolutely will not get broadband or even think about touch technology. One sees so much benefit by enabling the aged with good technology but there must equally be so many breadline families who could do with a hand up as well. The cost of Amazon producing a light version of Fire, for example, to give to the needy, supported by a broadband supplier in association with the education system cannot be unreachable? Come on Department of Education – get stuck in. It is blindingly obvious it could help social levelling. I am sure you could generate a positive investment case for the little it would cost. Think about the upside for the under-privileged. Do a Geldof (more later).

Fresh air and lack of noise even hits home out here. I walked round our lanes for two hours with the dog today. We were passed by about 20 cyclists – one even on a modern penny-farthing! I saw four vehicles in transit and two were farm vehicles. It was nearly silent apart from cow, sheep and loads of bird noises. What I did find however, which really hacked me off, was that having done the walk a few days ago and being one of several then picking up litter – I didn’t expect to find the beer cans and crisp bags again that we found on pristine lanes today. A fresh batch of detritus from the morons. Clearly this a cadre of person who thinks it doesn’t matter to litter our beautiful countryside. Given the trouble we are in this demonstrates a complete lack of any thought or emotional intelligence. I can visualise exactly who does this as well. When lockdown eases these are the people to bring it all back on by breaking any rules. Would it be awful to hope they catch the damned virus? Nothing else will shake them out of their utter ignorance. It’s like the toilet roll panic buying. We appear to have a badly infected moral and ethical position in the UK. We have had it long before CV-19 showed up. It often makes me ashamed to be British. I found myself marvelling at the robustness of Italian culture to be so stoic and controlled in the earlier stages of this outbreak. No panic-buying there. Family has much more importance in Italy but so also does a moral underpinning – doing the right thing, thinking generally here.

I had rather hoped something good would come out of CV-19. A greater sense of team and togetherness maybe? More appreciation of our world’s potential and how we have massively abused the planet so far, but my thoughts go back to a very early philosophy class when we discussed whether it was OK to ignore the “keep off the grass” sign? If one person does it then there are no issues but if everyone does it then no grass is left. That is this country I am afraid. No grass left. Too many people, too many rules to break, not enough grass to start off with. Still the weather has been epically good hasn’t it?!!

Then further on my wandering today I came across a lane full of St Mark’s flies. I didn’t know they were St Mark’s flies - I Googled them when I got home - and they emerge around St Marks’ day on the 25th of April. Black things with dangly legs. They are harmless, scull around for a few days, mate and die. Not sure what their point in life is. Anyhow that got me thinking about the massive swarms of locusts which are devastating Africa and the Southern Middle East. They are record-breakingly massive and destructive and they don’t even make the UK news anymore!!

The Four Horsemen are (variously) Conquest, War, Famine, and Death. Variously Pestilence figures as an alternative horseman in some cultures as well. Imagine you are a starving child in war-torn Yemen where cholera runs through every town and village, ripped to shreds by War and then a plague of locusts appear and eat whatever little crops there are left, and finally CV-19 appears and picks off survivors . That is really what is happening there. It sure looks like the Apocalypse to me!! I am not religious, but I do think we all have to do something better now to look after each other and not turn away from the blindingly obvious. Yemen is a complicated nightmare but why is nobody doing a Geldof â€œand getting the ‘fucking money’ in to save lives.” In truth it’s because they don’t mean anything to us In London or anywhere else other than Sanaa. We just ain’t got the bandwidth to care anymore. It’s a shame, but probably a fact.

“Do something good today” might, however, be a mantra going forward and that is at the geopolitical level as well. But how do we start? What changes? What moves first? I am a great believer that family sets a tone, but I no longer think there are enough decent parents here in the UK. I sure wasn’t great. Not awful but not great. Schools and parents together however are a great start. Jointly share the accountability of really teaching right and wrong. Opening eyes to the world but from a positive perspective as aspirations. Set new frameworks of expectation, mutual accountability and responsibility. Rights and corresponding duties – remember them? Universities and colleges make a tiny slice of the agenda on every course about citizenship. Armed forces the same, companies the same. Make it a condition of doing business with anybody, that they have a citizenship warrant. If we don’t teach it how can we expect it!! Once we have taught it then there is nowhere to hide if you ignore it!!

I genuinely believe that the UK would feel better about itself, be happier, more productive and less tolerant of the flotsam that ruin it for all of us. Let’s ruin it for them?

With more positivity comes greater influence and greater insight as well as greater connectivity. Stronger business. Stronger families. Less unnecessary “bollocks” (sorry!). I just hope that having had a Horseman in the ICU with him will help Boris drive a truly innovative agenda to make more of the good things that we are discovering about ourselves and our country and rescue us from the Morlocks and the Eloi .