Commitment

I love this quote, which sprang to mind again recently:

"Until one is committed, there is hesitancy, the chance to draw back, always ineffectiveness. Concerning all acts of initiative (and creation), there is one elementary truth the ignorance of which kills countless ideas and splendid plans: that the moment one definitely commits oneself, the providence moves too. A whole stream of events issues from the decision, raising in one's favor all manner of unforeseen incidents, meetings and material assistance, which no man could have dreamt would have come his way. I learned a deep respect for one of Goethe's couplets:

Whatever you can do or dream you can, begin it.

Boldness has genius, power and magic in it!'"

W. H. Murray, The Scottish Himalaya Expedition, 1951.

Wear Your Y-fronts Over Your Trousers

Nothing like a quick 5 kms scamper around a public park in your underwear for charity to spice up your weekend. Pants in the Park is on this Sunday, 15 June at 11am in Battersea Park, London (and elsewhere in the UK). Registration is at 10am.

Cameras allowed.

Better Regulation - Fill Your Boots

For those interested in keeping regulation to a bare minimum, like BERR (yeah, right), here's a little gem from the Office of the Leader of the House of Commons - the Government's rationale for the 2008/09 legislative programme.

It actually wouldn't let me set up any email alerts for speeches, statements, debates, parliamentary questions and so on, but it's a nice idea all the same...

There's plenty of fun to be had figuring out what problem(s), if any, they are trying to solve and comparing the rhetoric with the substance. I have some pet issues to revisit in the coming months.

Meanwhile, look out for random infrastructure projects to be paid for with public funds, like the £1.5bn pledged toward the Manchester congestion charge scheme. New Labour seems to believe it has a lot of taxpayers' money to hand out and not much time to do it!

Marketing Mad

Can anyone explain why Alliance & Leicester displays banner ads for its internet banking service within its internet banking account pages?

Is it a mistake? Or did someone consciously decide that this would impress all their internet banking customers?

Either way, it seems moronic to me, and I honestly consider switching to a new provider every time I see the damn banner.

Good to get interest on the current account balance, though. Great change from NatWest.

Politicians@LinkedIn

I was slightly taken abarack just now to see that someone in my LinkedIn network had added Mr Obama to their network. Having viewed the candidate's profile, I also see that other US politicians have created profiles. I was somewhat comforted not to have found profiles for Gordo or Dave, but concluded that this may be more to do with their own arrogance than any desire to spare people the dilemma of whether or not to add them to their networks.

I don't know about you, but I can't see myself adding a politician to my social network, unless they happened to be a trusted, real-world friend. And that's just it. As far as I know, none of my trusted, real-world friends are politicians (other than perhaps in the sense that they cope with daily cut and thrust of office politics).

I also reckon that to add a Politician to your social network is tantamount to drinking the Kool-Aid - it's never going to end well.