Wednesday 25 November 2015

No 129: Remember this name: Anna Oliphant Wright


The daughter of one of my mates in Australia, Tony Wright (CEO, Victoria Water Association) likes to sing and write songs (yes I know, you have heard this sort of story many times before, but this one is a bit different). She recently released a song on iTunes and within days it was listed as number 3 on the iTunes top 100 new releases in the blues genre. As you might imagine, this took her parents somewhat by surprise. They knew she was good but…..

Here is a link to a page the local radio station put together on Anna. The two songs on the link are originals and Anna plays the instruments. These songs were recorded in her living room and in the school music studio. Keep in mind she is 15. She is still at school. She is awesome. 




I listened to the songs and thought she was exceptional, but what do I know. I am just a water-boy. Now through a quirk of circumstance I happen to know the singer/songwriting legend (and former lead singer for 1980s pop group Ultravox) Midge Ure. Yes, this is the very same Midge Ure who penned the Band Aid single 'Do they know it's Christmas' and helped, along with Bob Geldof, change the face of the world for the better back in 1984. (Fun fact: Midge is the phonetic reversal of his given name Jim. You can take that to your next dinner party and dazzle people with your knowledge). 

Having been blown away by Anna's style I felt compelled to share her songs with Midge. He is a busy man, touring the world and the like but, being Midge, he took the time to listen to her recordings and has given her some advice (which I won't share here, partly to save embarrassing her but mainly so I can then cash in big time when she becomes famous with my exclusive early insights into her journey to the top). Suffice to say he compared her to the young Kate Bush. 

Listen to these songs. This is not the voice of an X Factor flash in the pan. She has a Katie Melua richness. She needs to gently nurture her talent, develop her style, and become the truly great musician that these songs promise. Listen to those words : This is the work of a songwriter extraordinaire.

And she wants to study to be a civil engineer. How cool is that?! 

And I know her dad. 

And now, by default, so do you. 


 (if you also enjoy the link let me know, I will pass it on to her dad)

Friday 20 November 2015

Note 128: Facebook: Move fast. Make mistakes. Learn.


As you approach the offices of Facebook, 30 miles south of San Francisco, there is a 2m high concrete monument displaying the iconic thumbs up Facebook logo. It boldly welcomes you to the Facebook campus. What few people know is that on the other side of this monument is the logo for Sun Microsystems. Back in the 1990s Sun was a leading pioneer in the computing sector, but they failed to evolve. The world of high technology is fickle. Only the bold survive and Sun refused to embrace change. Instead of being open to innovation Sun stuck to the old ways and rapidly became toast. When Facebook moved onto the site they adopted the Sun welcome sign, turned it around and put their own logo on the back. It serves as a stark reminder that surviving in this sector is by no means guaranteed. You have to keep thinking differently. 

Fortunately thinking differently is what Facebook do in spades. My visit was arranged through a good friend, Kevin Slover. In an organization where the average age is 28, Kevin, being the wrong side of 50, is positively ancient. Yet he has the maturity and experience that comes from spending a career working on tough problems, and has miraculously not lost that childlike quality of thinking without prejudice and exploring without fear. He bubbles away with a constant stream of ideas. I understood less than 10% but I knew I was in the presence of someone who will change the world (and by nodding every few minutes and saying 'My word, how interesting' he never realized my stupefying ignorance).   

The Facebook mission is 'to make the world more open and connected'. Kevin is working on a groundbreaking project that, through the mindboggling use of lasers and satellite aircraft, will provide internet access to the 4bn+ people who do not have the telecoms infrastructure that we enjoy in the developed world. These are typically the same populations that lack access to clean drinking water or adequate sanitation, also caused by a lack of critical infrastructure. In comparison, internet coverage might seem a low priority, but the educational, social and economic benefits are impossible to refute. If successful, Kevin's project will deliver the internet without requiring traditional infrastructure. Like this Facebook project, there are some notable water projects which attempt to address the same lack-of-infrastructure challenge (dlo Haiti for example), but we need more. There is much the water sector can learn from Facebook's approach.

The Facebook campus is a cross between a modern theme park and the hippest university one could ever imagine. There is a Main Street, filled with quality restaurants serving free food to the 5000+ staff based there. There are free bikes and everywhere you look there are bright young minds beavering away. It is like a massive human bee colony. 

Even inside the buildings, where the real work happens, the quirky we-think-differently vibe is obvious at every turn. Every workstation has an electronic desk which can be raised or lowered depending on whether you want to stand or sit. Some even have treadmills. I walked past a meeting where Sheryl Sandberg (the COO) was in an intense discussion. Everything looked normal, apart from she was barefoot. I didn't see Mark Zuckerberg, but I passed his desk, situated in the centre of the open plan workspace, next to the worlds biggest goldfish bowl conference room.

Even the meeting rooms are named with a freedom of expression that literally beggars belief. While I was there  Kevin attended a short meeting in a room named 'Rats live on no evil star'.  Other room names include "I know it is cheesy, but I feel grate' and 'The door is alarmed, calm it down'. My personal favourite however was 'Time flies like an arrow, fruit flies like a banana'.


If the room had had a Like button I would have clicked it. 

Wednesday 18 November 2015

No. 127: The NSA want me.

Late last night I arrived in Phoenix, Arizona. My flight had been delayed, customs had been hard work, and I had missed my planned dinner engagement. I was hungry, tired and irritable. 

Imagine my delight therefore to find on my hotel bed a large family-sized pack of Snickers, complete with a welcome card, apparently from the NSA. It read 'From the NSA - the only part of government that actually listens'. Next to the chocolates was a small and suspicious-looking technical device, about 5 cm square. It was either a tracking device to monitor my every move while on US soil, or a communication tool that would provide me with details of my next secret mission, if only I could work out how to make it play. 

I opened the chocolates and waited for something to happen. 

Jet lag caused me to wake 3 hours later. It was 3am local time but my body thought it was mid morning. I promptly ate 20 fun-sized Snickers (a breakfast of kings if ever there was one..) and re-examined my NSA gifts. I was none the wiser. If this was the NSA's recruitment technique for potential new spooks then it had a lot going for it. The chocolates were an immediate plus and the 'peeping while you are sleeping' tag line on their card suggested a level of self depreciating organisational humour that appealed. 

Later, when I joined the dozen or so other attendees at my business engagement I asked if anyone else had received a similar welcome gift. I was alone. I was special. I had been carefully selected. One might argue that I did not demonstrate my best secret agent skills by sharing, loudly and proudly, the news about my chocolates (sadly now all gone) and my comms device. 

It was at this point, just as I was beginning to believe that I had been especially selected, that it became clear that Debbi Madigan, Executive PA to Trevor Hill of Fathom, was the source of my gifts. She had read my earlier Note about how 'they' know just how many Snickers we eat from our hotel mini-bars and had decided to welcome me to her home state, with some true Arizona hospitality. I confess that a little bit of me died on realising that the NSA do not adopt a Christmas-Elf approach to espionage. Confectionary and comfortable beds is surely an excellent way to make the world a better place.  

My inability to be selected as a new spook is probably for the best.  I have never been good at secrets. I am more Inspector Clouseau than James Bond.

Friday 13 November 2015

No 126: Ironic Mangroves and Unwritten Celebrity Novels

Ironic Mangroves: On Monday evening I met with a senior representative from the Abu Dhabi Environment Agency. The location was particularly special; we overlooked the beautiful Abu Dhabi Mangroves. My host, with infectious passion, shared with me how these were the 'most western mangroves in the world'. Other mangroves can only be found to the east. I decided it would be churlish to point out that if you go far enough west then, eventually, you would find mangroves as that is how globes work. Her point was that the flora before me was rare and needed protection. With the increase in desalination facilities around the Gulf there is a steady, undeniable and potentially unstoppable rise in salinity which puts all local marine life at risk. If the mangroves are to survive then radical change is required. I share my hosts passion.

The irony however is that we were having this discussion on the viewing deck of a 5 star hotel, complete with its own large chlorinated swimming pool and rooms ('executive suites') that make my 5 bedroom home in Epsom look positively Spartan. There is something slightly perverse about building a hotel that offers guests the worlds best power-shower experience, whilst also giving them a view of the environment they pillage in so doing.  If this was a plot line in a movie people would not believe it, it is so incredulous.

Unwritten celebrity novels:  Following my last note various people have shared with me their Michael Palin encounters. He gets around.  The undoubted best anecdote came from Alan Thomson, MD for Abu Dhabi Sewage Services Company (ADSSC). Back in the late nineties Alan worked for the West of Scotland Water Authority. One day a call came in from Michael Palin's agent asking if he could meet with someone who 'understood sewage'. When they met Michael shared that he was considering writing a novel about a man who goes to Spain and overhears a couple of radicals talking about a new controversial sewage works that is being built nearby. This in itself doesn't make for a best seller. One assumes the story would develop with a usual mix of antagonists and heroes (with the water sector personnel as the heroes...obviously). 

Michael and Alan met half a dozen times, which suggests he was either sufficiently impressed with Alan's description of his rock and roll life in sewage, or that was searching but failing to find that elusive character hook. Over the ensuing weeks Alan and Michael developed a friendship which makes his minor involvement in my birthday celebrations even more pathetic than I had feared. Fortunately I am not jealous or bitter. (Suffice to say neither Michael nor Alan will now not be invited to my 47th celebrations. )


As far as we know Mr Palin's sewage novel was never completed. With the exception of the Jack Nicholson's film Chinatown, water doesn't generally get much air-time in novels or films. I once read a David Nobbs story which included a scene where the residents of a fictional North-London village attend a public meeting with their local water company. The character from the water company is clearly based on the real life Bob Collington at Thames Water (fortunately he comes out well). We need more stories that celebrate water. I have an idea for a terrific blockbuster. It involves mangroves, luxury hotel chains and a slightly incompetent but well meaning individual who wants to make a difference...

Wednesday 4 November 2015

No 125: Michael Palin came to my birthday celebration


Last night my wife and I, along with my mother and ex-Monty Python and seasoned traveller Michael Palin had a little get-together to celebrate my up-coming birthday. It was a truly fine evening and a great way to celebrate the passing of another year. There was also about 150 other people who, due to a confusion over the invites, may have been under the mistaken impression that they were attending a Guardian-organised ‘Evening with Michael Palin’ rather than a Clark-organized birthday party, but I let this pass.

Michael was in excellent form. Entertaining and jovial, telling a series of engaging anecdotes and stories. In a slightly quirky twist he didn’t bring me a present but instead appeared keen to talk about his recently published Diaries. Again I let this pass.

During the evening we heard how the BBC didn’t engage on Monty Python until the final third series was well underway. For the first two series it had been buried in a late night slot and so busy were the BBC comedy controllers with the likes of Dads Army and Morecombe and Wise that they didn’t interfere, or indeed watch, Python until it had become honed. Comedy might have been very different had they not left it to gradually develop.

He shared that his favourite sketch is the (now iconic) fish-slapping dance. This led to a slightly off-beat, yet strangely revealing, discussion about how fish are funny (think Haddock or Halibut) but pumas are not. We even heard how Michael was not the first choice for his ground-breaking and style-setting travelogue series ‘Around the World in 80 Days’. Rather frighteningly Noel Edmonds was an earlier and preferred option. Travel documentaries could have been very different.

Mr Palin is a truly fascinating character. Generous and engaging, honest and clearly values-led. Spending an evening with him, albeit with 150 strangers, was a great way to mark the passing of another year. He is one of my heroes (I have many). I just have to keep reminding myself that, wonderful though he is, he is not the Messiah. He can be a very naughty boy.