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OnlyConnecting to the "Summer"
           Issue 5/2012
In This Issue . . .
Women In Peace
Celebrate the City
The End of the PC?

Why Would You Want To Be Here? 

 

Well June 19th The Lady Daw Aung San Suu Kyi spoke at the LSE, free and open to everyone, students and staff first preference. It was also streamed and podcast, you could almost be there. The following day she spoke to both Houses; an honour only accorded to two others, both men, and Heads of State.

 

Last year was Michelle Bachelet, and this month Mary Robinson is broadcasting on the big five for the BBC World Service at the RSA. This ticket beats any celebrity concert, or O2 Arena - even a Prom!

The Lady Daw Aung San Suu Kyi 

 

 The Lady Daw Aung San Suu Kyi

   

Mary Robinson

 

 Mary Robinson

   

Music

Ed Farmer's Orchestra,
 
 The London Arts Orchestra (LAO), celebrated with a gold theme on 28th June. One of our newer conductors, he and his orchestra will be doing free concerts across the City; One for the "ladies who lunch".
 London Arts Orchestra
Sound Experience at the Science Museum literally blows you away by the volume, and being in the centre of the sections of the orchestra.  You can follow the score and even have a go at conducting. The Philharmonia.

 

The LAO is very new, so the SbS by contrast is now quite grownup, or at least a teenager. A 10 years celebration concert was held at Grays Inn Great Hall with Alessio Bax, recording to be released soon. The Rush Hours continue, before they all are off to Anghari for the Summer festival.  For details click here.

 

Southbank Sinfonia

   

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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Welcome to the Summer Edition

  

 

A surfeit of bread and circus has left me feeling a little alienated and strange. Too much pomp and tradition, reinforces the looking backward to the past and the golden age.

 

As Margaret Throsby said, the Thames looks quite tiny compared to the pageants put on with the tall ships in Sydney Harbour which is just a little bit bigger!

 

Point Ormond

 

A little homesick; People on return telling of running along sandy beaches on a Queensland island, with not a soul in sight and the blue sky above. Reminds me of cycling around Point Ormond, as the city comes into view. Australia does seem to be good at sky.

 

 

Here we await the Olympics with bated breath, as London gets more and more crowded, and dirty, and the building works push people off the streets. We have a chance to remember Bhopal, as Dow is one of the sponsors of the games. 

Top

Women-in-Peace

 

Margaret Throsby was talking to an Australian playwright, Kate Mulvany. The author of 'The Seed', currently performing in Sydney and Melbourne. There will be many people for whom the words "AgentPhan Thi Kim Phuc Orange" have no meaning, and many people who will have no idea who this woman is.   A Vietnamese-Canadian, her name is Phan Thi Kim Phuc and the burns on her arm are a clue; Another generation.

 

We need our Women-in-Peace.

 

Kate Mulvany is an "Agent Orange" child; a defoliant used in Vietnam to destroy the forest in which the Viet Kong were hiding.   Her father left to escape the IRA, migrated to Melbourne as a £10 POM, only to be conscripted to Vietnam, and "Agent Orange".

 

It's one thing to fight a war not of your choosing, but to be poisoned by your own side? The most dangerous chemical ever.

 

"Agent Orange" children carry the gene passed down from their parents which results in kidney cancer, amongst other disabilities, so the years from 3 to 6 were spent in hospital.  Yet Kate has turned her experiences into art.  Her play bears witness. But it is also joyful, and her life and writing is a tribute to the indomitable spirit.

 

President Banda

 

Just one of the Women-in-Peace currently striding the world stage. The others, President Banda in Malawi announced the lifting of a ban on homosexuality, and refusal of the Presidential jet.

 

 

What's a woman worth? 1/3 of a Nobel peace prize.   Nobel Peace Prize 2011 went to Women's Activists Ellen Johnson Sirleaf, Leymah Gbowee and Tawakul Karman.

Ellen Johnson-SirleafLeymah GboweeTawakel Karman

 

Some pretty amazing women. Our own Australian, Ruth Russell, one of the first interviewed some years back when she went as a human shield to Iraq. She found that, as she made a stand, she had a voice. People listened and she could speak for all the Australians who opposed the war in Iraq.

 

Now to the really important piece of news some may have missed. They're tightening the dress code at Ascot this year. No fascinators in the Royal Box!

  

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Celebrate the City: Guildhall and CBL

 

City Guild Hall

(taking a break until after the Olympics)

My seminars for entrepreneurs at the Guildhall often focus on Heritage, less on Tradition, despite the hallowed walls.   After all, the Guildhall is to be filled with sheep, as well as the London Symphony Orchestra playing 1812. Introducing City of London Festival (CoLF)

 

The City represents all that is old and new; urban and country; local and global. Last year an Australian theme, and bees; bee keeping all over the City.

 

This year, Wildflower Meadows in the churches, June 30th.

 

Money passing through is often very new, even if the ceremonies and costumes are old. Many of my budding entrepreneurs are new arrivals from abroad and/or Eastern Europe, so they bring new blood but, more importantly, fresh ideas and experiences which find a niche often missed by the locals.

 

Cities such as Melbourne were built on the back of the immigrant talent that arrived first from Europe, later across the world, and still arriving. Welcome the migrants - celebrate the difference. People have moved from countries since before time.

 

Otzi, murdered in the Alps between Switzerland and Italy. During the ice-ages, you could walk from Russia to the American continent. Now they flounder in boats off the Australian coast.

Anh Do

 

Anh Do the happiest refugee, currently gigging/giggling in Melbourne.

 

Celebrate the City included sheep, pike men, the Worshipful Company of Musicians, and amongst other Guildhalls Open, the Goldsmiths; a wonderful historic exhibition of gold, power and allure from Iron Age and Saxon Rings to the Ascot Cup, ceremonial gold and current jewelers. Open until July and entry is free. 

  

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Technology Concerns

 

A very personal worry: If twitter reduces thoughts to 42 characters, then i-phone email reduces content and concept to what can be communicated. A very subtle kind of censorship, or dumbing down, but with the drift to phones and away from PC, it seems reasonable to assume that people are less likely to take time to read the newsletter, as it won't fit on the phone. Neither will big photos.  The Personal Computer is dead: MIT Tecnology Review or click http://tinyurl.com/6uzpygg 
 

 

As in Sherry Turkle, people are 'Alone Together'; they would rather text than talk.  Friendship is now controlled and held at arms' length, or sometimes only virtual. How many friends do you have, real friends to whom you talk?

 

How communication shifts and changes, and access to knowledge is greater? Or, if given too much choice, lesser, if all time is spentGenevieve Bell managing the technology and keeping up with the latest. See Genevieve Bell (or to read more about her click here):

 

"...reputation is so important Jobs ties his products to the promise that your reputation will be enhanced.  Folks don't stand in long lines for gadgets; they stand in long lines to buy things that enhance their position in the community."

 

In the light of the recent massive cyber assault on the banks, it's worth re-visiting Applyard:

 

"Perhaps the most extreme way in which these gadgets are adapting us to their purposes is through the theft of our identities. Facebook is now famous for its ability to seduce users into disclosing personal information and then to make it extraordinarily difficult to prevent these intimate details from being used and disseminated. Google does the same thing, though less noticeably, and the move to 'cloud computing' - the storage of information in remote server farms - will accelerate and intensify this process. These information stores are now worth billions, if not trillions, of dollars. One company is said to have 1,500 pieces of information on 97% of individuals in the American population. This is all being done in the name of selling, through highly targeted advertising and marketing. But political parties are also using this information and, soon enough, they will use it for social control. Their ultimate commercial - and, potentially, political - purpose is the creation of a surveillance society on a scale that would have shocked even George Orwell."

 

Back to top 

As ever, go well in the world:

 

You CAN make a difference even in small ways, and you can create your own reality. You can even hold on to your own reality if you care enough.

 

But reality is being gradually removed; just as most friends are now virtual, and you operate the world through a variety of remotes (such a choice of word!), you have less and less real touch with reality, and are being groomed into gadgets. It's funny how little attention has been paid to the banks' hacked of over billions. Most focus on phone hacking our personal information, but it's way beyond that, and beyond Google, it's the world run by global multinationals: private police; justice system; prisons, across 5 continents.   It was ever thus

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Christina
Woman on a Mission
Diversity and Leadership Consultant
Inspirational Speaker 
MRI, FRSA
Alumnus Women of the Year  

©2012 Christina@wwom.org

 

Motivational Speaker
NLP Master Practitioner
Counsellor and Coach
Graduate of Woman of the Year Lunch  

Photographs provided with thanks to Wikipedia