In 2005 the Internet witnessed a new craze: Chuck Norris ‘facts’. My son and his friends delighted in hunting down new and more outlandish statements regarding the prowess of the martial arts actor, sharing them with anyone they could corner....
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I’ve heard the joke a hundred times, a thousand times, before… Eve: “Dad, why did the chicken cross the road?” Me (sigh): “I don’t know Eve, why did the chicken cross the road?” Eve: “To get to the other side!” (Peals of eight-year-old laughter) Time for a cold drink. And then, mind blown: Eve: “Get it? He wanted to get run over, get killed and see what it was like ON THE OTHER SIDE!” What?! I’ve heard that joke a hundred, a thousand times…but Eve’s interpretation had never before struck me. I wasn’t blown away by the joke, but by the thought ‘How the heck did...
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“Corporate Social Responsibility is dead…” Possibly not the wisest statement for someone to make whose career it is to develop social and environmental programmes for the corporate sector. Nevertheless I believe it’s true, although not for the reasons one may think. I remember making a presentation some years ago to a senior Bishop, describing the efforts my employer at the time was making to address social and environmental challenges faced by communities throughout its supply chain. This good man, for all his decency, was clearly sceptical. On the one hand he had an almost naïve hope that the ills of these communities...
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‘The Longest Day’. Released in 1962, nominated for five Oscars (the film won two), with a stellar cast including John Wayne, Robert Mitchum, Richard Burton, Sean Connery. A black and white film, but one that even 50 years on is invariably included in listings of the top 100 movies of all time. If you want a sense of the colossal forces brought to bear in the closing years of WW2, this is the film for you. I also believe it has a lesson to teach readers today....
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