Alex Guest

Citizen K

noreply@blogger.com (AG) — Sat, 05 Oct 2019 08:12:00 +0000

Alex Gibney is attracted to stories of power and the abuse of it. In Mea Maxima Culpa, he chronicled the long history of paedophilia in the Catholic Church, while The Armstrong Lie detailed the extravagant lies of cycling’s one-time hero.

Citizen K tracks the history of financial and political corruption in Moscow from the collapse of the Soviet Union, and the start of democracy in Russia, to the present day. The central thesis is that Mikhail Khordokovsky, one of the seven notorious oligarchs, went through a conversion while in prison, from exploitative, manipulative and ruthless - perhaps even murderous - businessman to defender of democracy and hero of the people.

Gibney leaves space for disagreement, and I, for one, don’t buy it. While his depiction of Putin’s presidency as a dictatorship is clearly accurate - and hardly headline news - the extent of his sympathy for K at his sham trials is surprising. After all, K did make his vast wealth by exploiting the gullibility of the newly-capitalist Russian people who had no understanding of what was occurring. Yukos was expropriated from the people by unfair means; and the state took it back through an illegitimate courtroom. And so justice was served by means of its miscarriage.

Furthermore, the threat to the nascent democracy in Russia was directly attributable to the actions of the oligarchs. They bankrupted the state while making themselves vastly wealthy. And in order to sustain and increase their wealth, the oligarchs needed democracy to persist. Hence they corrupted Yeltsin when he was at his most corruptible, won re-election for him, and safeguarded the mechanisms by which they could appropriate yet more of the state’s assets.

When K boasts of the hundreds of millions of dollars at his disposal today with which to fight Putin from afar, Gibney’s narrative sounds a false note. K is not the knight in shining armour come to save the helpless people from an evil prince. This is a man hellbent on exacting vengeance from Putin for locking him up and taking away his toys; a man with political ambitions to top his financial potency; a man who calmly suggests that Putin should fear for his life.

K continues to corrupt democracy in Russia for his own means. He seeks to subvert the system with ill-gotten funds, providing finance for a theatre of protest to match the drama of Putin’s make-believe elections. And he would commit regicide in the name of democracy to grab power for himself.

The temptation must have been great to draw a classical narrative arc in which the hero undergoes trials, examines his conscience, and surfaces renewed. But the facts don’t fit the story, and Gibney has perhaps unwittingly become K’s apologist, and his messenger to Putin.

Gibney might see in K an ally against the man who inflicted Trump on the US. He dwells on Russian interference in the last election, going to some lengths to show how even ordinary Russians are fully aware of Putin’s role in bringing Trump to power. Putin is, therefore, a shared enemy, and so he gives K a clean bill of health. But if Gibney were completely convinced of K’s noble intentions, he would surely have omitted the footage that portrays K as an evidently compromised character.

Birdman or The Unexpected Virtue of Ignorance

noreply@blogger.com (AG) — Tue, 20 Jan 2015 08:50:00 +0000

The film opens with a shot of Michael Keaton sitting cross legged in a pair of white underpants, hovering about a metre off the floor. And thus begins an awkward relationship between filmmaker and audience, as difficult as each relationship between the characters of the play. For the film is a play, as the full title of the film (Birdman or The Unexpected Virtue of Ignorance) requires us to note, and the theatre within the film represents reality.

The opening moment of supernatural magic sets the scene for a film about a superhero. A quiet moment of solitude where our protagonist reflects on his condition. It's a standard scene in the genre. Here is one superhero who wonders how he got to this place. A place that smells of balls. What is this place? The Earth or this brick walled room? Or a state of mind? And are we talking about the balls barely concealed by his present attire? Or, metaphorically, the condition of mediocrity?

But that opening moment of wonder that the filmmaker has given us is fake. He isn't asking us, after all, to suspend our disbelief, as is required in viewing action adventures. We don't, at first, have any way of knowing this, since the play of the film is focalised on Thomas Riggan. Did the stage light fall because of his superpowers? Why doubt it, they haven't been called into question. Not yet.

It isn't until after Mike Shiner tells us "popularity is the slutty little cousin of prestige" that the filmmaker reveals that those powers are the illusion of a fragile mind. A fading mind whose life work has been dedicated to creating popular entertainment for the audiences which, in turn, prefer to escape reality through fantasy than confront the painful truths of life. Admit it, Iñárritu demands, you were childishly drawn in by the magical fiction. And now we are to feel both wonderment and embarrassment at each delightful instance of fantasy.

Iñárritu isn't done mocking us yet. The relationship between daughter, underplayed with poise by Emma Stone, and her father stems from his failings, namely, as she tells us, he wasn't around and then tried to make up for it by trying to make her feel special. A line delivered without melodrama that confronts each member of the audience to reassess the true extent of one's parents' shortcomings.

On the other hand, Iñárritu helps us a little, signposting the role of the theatre within the film as the description of some sort of reality. As an aside, who doesn't come away wanting to explore the works of Raymond Carver? The description of a man trying and failing to take his life is echoed in Riggan's story delivered to his ex-wife about his own failed suicide attempt. A story that is both bathetic and ridiculous. Iñárritu chooses black comedy over slapstick, having his protagonist tell the story, rather than film it. Instead he shows a beautiful shot of the beach with the seagulls pecking at the helpless corpses of the washed up jellyfish. This is a modern film noir.

I wanted to see something positive in this story, an allegory of how unbearable pain helped ironically to avoid total destruction and led to a new beginning. But no. Riggan heads out to take his life again failing spectacularly and ridiculously. And yet to the immediate onlookers, and those connected through the fantastical nature of a world of social media, his failure is misinterpreted as an act of heroism. In today's currency, heroism is measured in the number of views on YouTube or followers on Twitter.

Affixed on Riggan's mirror is a small card which says: "a thing is a thing, not what is said of that thing". Riggan lambasts the Times critic for the lazy application of commonplace labels. Iñárritu urges us to work harder, to think harder.

La Grande Bellezza

noreply@blogger.com (AG) — Tue, 22 Oct 2013 18:25:00 +0000

Toni Servillo as Jep Gambardella in La Grande Bellezza

In La Grande Bellezza, Sorrentino is altogether grander than in his previous works: the backdrop of Rome is more beautiful; the cinematography is more expansive; the clothes better tailored; and the music more elevating. So much so to contrast with the vulgarity of his protagonists and the ridicule with which he treats them.

Never has Rome been shot in such beautiful light, with majestic vistas across its ancient rooftops and sumptuous scenes within the regal palazzos. They are accompanied all the while by the haunting chants of the a cappella choir.

Then at once we are cast amongst the throngs of debauched revellers, all grotesque misfits. The thumping rhythms are motivating but the gyrations of the bloated, aged crowd are weird, even disturbing to watch.

The judgment that Sorrentino passes on the populo Romano is damning. There is no great beauty: the pursuit of it is in vain. Yet in delivering his sentence, Sorrentino indulges in a far greater and darker humour than what he allows in Il Divo or the Consequences of Love.

Toni Servillo continues to play Sorrentino's mouthpiece with ever more fluency, pouring out his lines with the deadpan flow that we've come to enjoy. Sorrentino, however, punctuates his delivery: the monologue revealed in the film's trailer, when Jep tells of his arrival in the great city and the whirl of its highlife, is broken up in the film with a the honk of a passing tourist riverboat and the foul-mouthed rantings of oncoming joggers. He will not allow the futility of his characters' lives to attain a sense of meaningful purpose.

Sorrentino is as despondent of the state of his countrymen as Sam Mendes showed himself to be of his own nation in American Beauty. Yet he offers perhaps some hope. Since what lies beyond is out of our reach, there is the capacity to make something of the nothingness of our wretched situation. Where Flaubert failed to write a novel about nothing, Sorrentino has succeeded in creating a work that both despises and celebrates it.

Quiet Zone

noreply@blogger.com (AG) — Mon, 01 Nov 2010 16:56:00 +0000

I saw "Quiet Zone" on the door, hesitated an instant, then quickly jumped on board. I could do with an hour and a half of calm.

As I found my seat, the woman in the seat behind mine was loudly talking on her phone while her travel companion, her daughter I presumed, sitting two seats back, shrieked instructions on what to say.

She ended the call and then a child, also travelling with her, began moaning about some trivial absent need. I took a deep breath and moved five rows up the train. Here were solo travellers quietly reading their newspapers.

As the train moved off, the announcements started.

"If you're travelling to Lower Clefton, Upper Pointon or Scraggy Bottom, move to the front five carriages. Also at Shepherds Surgaton, the platforms are short... blah blah blah. Blah blah blah. And more blah blah blah."

When the automatic announcement ended, the train conductor repeated the same helpful messages. And added that the first stop would be at 12.47.

Finally, the voices stopped. Only to be replaced by the scrunching of plastic packaging. And just as those eaters finished, the buffet trolley came through.

"Mum," shouted the harpe, "do you want anyfink to drink?"

She had moved up to my row.

Soon more plastic packaging was torn apart. The stench of reheated food and the crunch of crisps eaten with open mouth ensured that no tranquility was available on this train.

The conductor came through loudly checking tickets and repeating his instructions about where to sit for x, y and z stations.

Then that damned child started hooting in some perverse initation of a dying hyena enacting its last wish to sing before being executed by quartering.

I turned to my iPhone to bring me distraction from the distraction that I'd sought from my iPhone.

And relax.

Call it a death wish, if you like

noreply@blogger.com (AG) — Mon, 25 May 2009 16:02:00 +0000

Late last year, it suddenly dawned on me that what I really want to do is run the Marathon des Sables, a mad venture involving six marathons back-to-back across the Sahara.

But first...

OK, so the decision is easy to make, sticking to it and getting out to the desert is somewhat harder. There are no places for another three years and I have time to get fit, gradually building up the distance.

So I'm doing a half-marathon in September, the Great North Run. I'm under no obligation but I'd like to raise some funds for Alzheimer's Society. Please give what you can...

http://www.justgiving.com/alexguest74/

The MBA versus the crazy old witch

noreply@blogger.com (AG) — Fri, 22 May 2009 11:06:00 +0000

Scott Adams has been taking a dig at MBAs this week...

Have a great Bank Holiday weekend!

Lemon mousse

noreply@blogger.com (AG) — Fri, 20 Feb 2009 11:25:00 +0000

A wonderful, refreshing dessert after a good dinner.

Serves 4

Ingredients:

250ml double cream
Juice of one lemon
Zest of one lemon
3 heaped dessert spoons sugar
2 egg whites

Method:

Whisk up the cream, lemon zest and sugar just until it begins to thicken.
Then add the lemon juice and whisk a little more. But don't let it get too thick.
Whisk the egg whites until they form soft peaks, add to the cream mixture and fold in.
Spoon into 4 small bowls or glasses and put in the fridge to chill.

Chunky spinach soup

noreply@blogger.com (AG) — Thu, 01 Jan 2009 14:19:00 +0000

A tasty starter, ideal for a dinner in winter.

Ingredients:

50g salted butter
3 shallots chopped
1 pint chicken stock
300g spinach leaves chopped
nutmeg
75ml creme fraiche
75g gruyere cubed

Method:

melt the butter in a large pan
throw in the shallots and cook gently for 10 minutes
pour in the stock and simmer for 5 mins
then add the spinach, with a generous grating of nutmeg, then season and simmer for 20-30 mins
take off the heat and allow to stew for a while
warm up and stir in the creme fraiche just before serving
add the gruyere cubes

Wine suggestion: a medium bodied red - a burgundy would be ideal

Scent of a lemon

noreply@blogger.com (AG) — Wed, 31 Dec 2008 12:00:00 +0000

While enjoying my very lemony shower gel this morning, I got thinking about the old "you know when you've been Tango'd" ads. Like this one...

So being a film fan - and believing that watching film at the cinema is the full flavoured experience - I came up with the germ of an idea for a series of ads for Tango to be shown on the silver screen. Here's the first in the series, for lemon tango.

'Scent of a Lemon'

It's the run-up to the tango scene in Scent of a Woman. Smart restaurant, milongas playing in the background. Lt Col Frank Slade (Al Pacino) and Charlie Simms (Chris O'Donnell) have just sat down at the table where Donna (Gabrielle Anwar) is waiting for her lunch date...

Lt Col Frank Slade: I dedect a fragrance in the air. Don't tell me what it is... it's citrus limon.
Donna: That's amazing.
Lt Col Frank Slade: Well, I'm in the amazing business.
Donna: It is citrus limon. My grandmother squeezed it this morning.
Lt Col Frank Slade: I'm crazy about your grandmother... so, Donna, d'you Tango?
Donna: I've never tried
Lt Col Frank Slade: well, Donna, I'm offering my services.

He offers his hand to her but a bright yellow lemon Tango dancer screams into view, pulls him onto the dance floor and tangos him to within an inch of his life.

Voiceover: You know when you've been Tango'd.
Lt Col Frank Slade: Woo-hah!

Tango is under threat. Visit http://www.savetango.co.uk/

Kerala-style Prawn Curry

noreply@blogger.com (AG) — Tue, 08 Jul 2008 09:26:00 +0000

So, here's a tasty little number, really quick and easy.

Time to prepare and cook: about 20 minutes

Ingredients:

Tiger Prawns, uncooked, peeled 300g
Juice of one lemon
100ml coconut cream
Ginger, small piece
Garlic, one clove
Red onion
Red pepper
Crushed chillies, a good pinch
Groundnut oil

Serve with basmati rice.

Method:

Put the prawns in a bowl with the lemon juice to marinade.
Set a pan of water to boil for the rice. Add-in the basmati rice as soon as it's boiling.
Dice the red onion, garlic and ginger; and slice the red pepper. Heat a pan, add groundnut oil until hot but not smoking. Toss in the lot, along with the crushed chillies, and stiry fry until soft but not brown. Season with salt and black pepper.
Pour in the coconut cream and heat for about a minute or two until hot.
Add the prawns along with the lemon juice and stir fry for 2-3 minutes until just pink.

Serve at once.

Wine suggestion: a good rounded chardonnay like a Sancerre or Chablis

Train surfing in Soweto

noreply@blogger.com (AG) — Tue, 26 Jun 2007 17:53:00 +0000

Instead of going to school, children living in Soweto, with absent fathers and other family problems go to the train station to jump on trains and perform daring stunts. They get limbered up by drinking alcohol and smoking weed. Then, urged on by their girlfriends, they get on the roof of the train and duck under high-voltage cables which the train passes at 40 km/h. One guy gets out of the train while it’s cruising along and hangs underneath it. One false move and he’d get killed. Kids do get killed. Sometimes they misjudge one of the cables and get thrown off the train. This was the subject of a documentary scripted, filmed and edited by a young guy from Soweto, Muzi.

Muzi, aged 23, showed us his film this morning. It was originally put together as a story for his class. One of his teachers put him in touch with George Mazarakis, producer at Carte Blanche, and the film ended up being screened on national TV. He was shy and nervous but was keen to share the story with us.

Everything is not as rosy as it seems on the surface. In some quarters there is a lack of hope and not a lot is being done about it. In Soweto there are no real opportunities for these children and a lack of role models. To escape their problems and to get a high, to feel good about themselves, they put their lives at huge risk. They don’t care if they die. Surfing the trains, they are the centres of attention, revered by their girlfriends when they succeed, insulted when they get injured: forgotten when they die. Muzi’s film has persuaded some children to stop and raised awareness of the issue but it still continues.

Soweto now has its first shopping mall, which we saw a couple of days ago. The development has encouraged economic activity and benefited the local people. Yet nothing has been developed for the youth and it seems nothing is being done to deal with the fundamental social problems that mean the children lose hope.

Muzi is now working on his next project, a film about gangland funerals and how the young, impressed by the image the gangsters give off, want to join their ranks.

European Business Schools Case Challenge 2007

noreply@blogger.com (AG) — Sat, 14 Apr 2007 23:00:00 +0000

It was an unlikely crew that stepped onto the train to Fontainebleau on 12th April. Ramyani Basu, Greg Davis, Fumi Ota, Henry Zhang and Alex Guest were simply picked out of the hat to participate in the ECCH European Business Schools Case Challenge. Some of the other schools, which included IESE, INSEAD and LBS, had gone through rigorous selection procedures and one or two of the teams spent half their time on the road at other inter-school challenges. Well, rumour had it that our classmates’ expectation of success were low.

We had lunch a few weeks beforehand with Benoit Leleux, MBA programme director, to get some advice on preparing for the competition. We were thinking about extra case study sessions in our ‘spare time’. His advice: “don’t prepare. Enjoy it. Be creative.” We took this fully to heart.

Getting to Fontainebleau around 11.30pm, we chose to walk to our hotel rather than wait for a taxi to pass, with Ramyani telling us how much she enjoyed walking. So a short trip took forever as Ramyani tottered along refusing to give up her amazingly heavy luggage to any of her companions.

We missed the class’s session at the UN on Friday. Instead, we were presented with a long case about one man’s dream to turn the car industry on its head. Hugo Spowers, who worked at Morgan, had come up with a concept for the ‘OSCar’, designed around a hydrogen fuel cell, with a much reduced weight compared with current vehicles, far fewer components, sold on a lease basis. All the time, the design was to be ‘open source’. We were to imagine that we were a group of investors with €1m to invest. How much would we invest in this enterprise?

While other teams spent hours working on NPV calculations 30 years hence, we debated at length about whether there was anything in fact to invest in. No spreadsheets from us, then. We just kept talking and talking, writing things up on the flipchart. With 45 minutes to go, we got started on our long report, sharing out sections amongst us all. We’d decided that we wouldn’t touch OSCar with a bargepole, unless some massive changes were made, including a new CEO. We didn’t know that we’d be meeting Mr Spowers the following day.

Saturday morning, up early and into the auditorium for a case teaching. Everyone’s heart was beating a little faster in anticipation of the short-listing at lunchtime. We’d have happily spent the afternoon relaxing before the evening’s party but IMD was called to the next round. Having shot the OSCar concept to pieces in our investor report, we now had to play the part of the OSCar senior management. In typical MBA class style, we had just 1 hour to prepare a press conference in response to a new (fictitious) EC Directive. This time we were all enthusiastic about the emissions regulations and Greg delivered a great tub-thumping speech.

Dinner at a chateau. Beautiful setting, champagne, canapés, exquisite dinner. Yet at the back of our minds, the whole time, was the result. Having put in the effort all the way to the end, it would be nice to get on the podium. That feeling would not abate while the photographer, the ECCH staff and some of the other teams kept telling us they reckoned we were on to a winner. The third prize went to Otto Beisheim School of Management, Germany and we began to doubt our chances. The second to Smurfit, Dublin. So that was it, then. Until we heard first place to IMD!

We can’t say how proud we are to be the first IMD team to win the competition. We know that we were lucky to be part of the team that went there and we feel as though our success was that of the whole class against all the other schools.

Wrapping up February

noreply@blogger.com (AG) — Wed, 28 Feb 2007 00:00:00 +0000

At 5.30pm, I stood up from my seat and picked up my name plate. Tomorrow the class changes seating plan, as it does at the start of every month.

To close off the month, this afternoon we had two talks from distinguished businessmen, 'executives-in-residence'. One of them is the former CEO of Tetra Pak, Nic Shreiber. He was an IMD MBA about 30 years ago and a former partner of McKinsey. A very unpresupposing man, he earned the class's genuine respect, not just that of a captain of industry.

I took 3 lessons from his talk. First, harmony in your career. It's ok to work flat out 24/7, so long as you understand that 24/7 doesn't leave a lot of hours for anything else. If you want to have a family or any personal pursuits, bear that in mind.

The second lesson for me, was that power is increased inversely to its use. Or, if you like, using power diminishes it. The CEO of a $10bn company should rely on more subtle leadership - and we've spent a lot of time learning about that subject over the past 8 weeks.

Finally, in paradoxes lie opportunities. For example - and this is not one he gave - how can you save energy and increase the temperature of your home? Easy, insulation. Ok, now apply it to everything else in life. The paradox, not the insulation.

February made the course increasingly 'real'. Already we've had a number of graded projects and papers. The first was the Leadership paper, exploring the dynamics of the study groups we've been working in. Next, the Industry and Competition Analysis project. Finally, an individual paper on predicting, explaining and influencing the behaviour of individuals within organisations. With tight deadlines, it's hard to concentrate on devoting a lot of energy to our start-up projects - real companies in need of business brains.

Amongst all this, there's been a tiny bit of skiing and walking in the mountains. The first of a series of Sunday night films - Blood Diamond - screened in the auditorium. The broad theme running through them all is Africa in advance of the Discovery Expedition in June to South Africa. This coming Sunday we'll be seeing My name is Tsotsi.

Then there's the MBA Olympics. Well, the event, held at HEC in Paris, is not until May but I agreed to join the organising committee headed up by Ole (Danish), along with Tom (German) and Paul (Canadian). I'm responsible for sports. In other words, of the 90 people in class, plus however many spouses, I need to pull together teams for all the various sports. Sounds easy. You haven't seen my spreadsheet. But I'm grateful for the effort of the team captains.

What else?

Well, it's been a year since I left my job in Maidenhead. I'm still not regretting it. We had a session on power naps and other ways of sustaining your personal performance. I was picked out of the hat, along with four others - Henry from China, Fumi from Japan, Greg from Australia and Stéphane from Canada - to go to INSEAD in April for 3 days to compete in the European Business School Case Challenge. Careers planning is underway with draft number 783 due in soon; plus I had an online chat with a potential employer at the MBA Online Career Forum: he happened also to be an IMD MBA, from 1994. And... Perrine and I are still together.

Tomorrow is the start of the 48-hour graded integrative exercise, pulling together everything we've learned so far. Next week we have projects to hand in for Marketing and Economics. The week after we have a day-long Finance exercise. A few days later, the final version of our Leadership papers are due. There's also an Operations project; and an Economics 'quiz'. Then revision and exams. No doubt some surprises along the way, too.

Dark circles

noreply@blogger.com (AG) — Fri, 09 Feb 2007 00:00:00 +0000

Two hours' sleep and I crowbar myself out of bed. This morning at 8am is the culmination of the Industry and Competition Analysis project. 6 teams - each a pair of study groups totalling up to 16 distinct nationalities - present their analyses of a wide range of industries.

The night was spent refining presentations, rehearsing and preparing detailed industry reports. Naturally, the burden of the latter task fell principally on native English speakers. It's fortunate there are enough British and North American students to go around.

The skies were clear at 4am and the stars and the half-moon were shining bright. This morning the skies are blue and the sun is beaming into the auditorium. My attentions is divided between Brad's (American) and Dimitris' (Greek) slick slides on the oil and gas industry; the blue skies outside; and the darkness behind my eyelids. Whichever the choice, I feel sick from lack of sleep. I'm short of breath, my muscles are achy and my stomach, fragile.

Some time during Sean's (American) presentation, I inspect the back of my eyelids. A little too long, as I don't recall too much about the fascinating topic of shipping ports. Ming Teck (Malaysian) brings a change of pace in talking about renewables, quoting Sheik Ahmed Zaki Yamani:

"The Stone Age did not come to an end because we had a lack of stones, and the oil age will not come to an end because we have a lack of oil."

Deep!

Brazil, it turns out, is the world's lowest cost producer of ethanol biofuel. I wonder what the correlation is with the destruction of the Amazon jungle. Brazilian Francisco chirps up to answer my question: "people have to eat" he tells me! We took a short break in which a Brazilian mob insisted that the world wants to protect the Amazon because Europe and the US destroyed their forests many years ago. And anyway, people have to eat.

A typical IMD weekend

noreply@blogger.com (AG) — Sun, 04 Feb 2007 00:00:00 +0000

We were all looking forward to Saturday night. Last week a few of the guys had found a decent nightclub in Lausanne so now the plan was to check it out en masse. Before that, however, was all the other stuff that gets in the way of sleep around here...

A morning of working on my slides for our group industry analysis project - drugs and disease management in the US diabetes market. Then a meeting for a couple of hours: nothing like a good fight over one word - ‘delivery’ - to set you up for the afternoon.

Next, my plan was to spend some time on my leadership paper, an investigation about what has really been going on in our groups. How is the group operating? what are the real reasons for the interactions? what ‘fish’ are lurking under the table, causing a stink? But instead, I made myself some lunch. I can do the paper later or tomorrow.

So off to the White Horse to meet some of the other Brits - Laura (English) and husband Kevin (Scottish), Alistair (Scottish) and wife Clare (English), Jonathan (Orkney) and Mike (Kiwi) partner of Anna (Kiwi). The first game of the Six Nations pitting English determination versus Scottish flannel. The Scots weren’t singing any more after half time.

Did I return to my paper? nope. Made myself some dinner and took a quick nap before heading out to meet the guys at Café Louis around 22.30. Just one cheeky mojito before walking up the road to Red. And there I remained, dispensing relationship advice and making up with my study group after today’s little argument, until 05.30 when we were encouraged to leave.

I set the alarm for 09.00. I get up at 12.30. There goes my morning’s leadership paper writing schedule. I get to work after some breakfast then feel a hangover kicking in around 15.00. I need to make real progress - I’m meeting my study group at 18.30 to press on with the industry analysis project. We agree on most things! quickly!! so I get away early enough to make dinner, make a couple of phone calls and settle down to write at 22.00. Four hours later, I’m done. I think I’ve done a passable job. I email the paper and password with 6 hours to spare before the deadline and head for bed. Tomorrow it’s micro-economics for four hours starting 08.00.

Getting a career off the ground... or a business

noreply@blogger.com (AG) — Fri, 02 Feb 2007 00:00:00 +0000

It’s only the second day of February, 10 months from graduation day, but at 8am Careers Services have us in the auditorium for a 4-hour session to think about getting a job. The intention is to start working out what skills and experiences we have to offer and what our ideal jobs are.

If we contemplate what we really want to be doing, it’s often a far cry from we’ve been doing. For example, I’ve been doing marketing in the financial services industry in the UK. What I’d like to do - possibly - is to set up a business serving the tourism industry in Argentina. What’s the link?

Well, it’s a bit like the theory of six degrees of separation between you and anyone else in the world. Except in this case, it’s only 3 steps. Maximum. So, one option is to do the whole stretch in one leap. It’s more advisable, however, to get at least one common area, be it sector, role or region.

This afternoon, we have a class on entrepreneurship where we investigate the case of a MBA candidate (from another school), who presented his business plan for his entrepreneurship elective, thinking of commercialising the idea in an industry he had at best little knowledge of. He was torn to shreds by the panel. The point is, that Venture Capitalists are more interested in the team than the idea. Clearly, the opportunity must be fairly attractive but the VCs will not buy into the best money-making concept in the world if the wrong person is doing it.

So our MBA went off to get experience at a big name software company, learning everything he needed, while thoroughly re-writing his business plan. This time he attracted the funding he needed and got the company off the ground.

Well, it would have got off the ground if it hadn’t been for a French postal service strike lasting 2.5 months, in which 80% of his catalogues were forever lost. Unable to deal with the backlog, the postal service simply burned all commercial post stuck in the system! The business was all but dead. The money spent. No customers.

But the first 10% of catalogues had got through and produced great results. So he managed to get the same investors to plough another few million to relaunch. The long and the short of it is that there were other critical moments in the history of the company but that today it is listed on the NASDAQ and it’s worth several billion dollars. Our professor of entrepreneurship was one of the original investors. Well, it took 12 years to get a return but it was a huge gain.

Return on MBA Investment

noreply@blogger.com (AG) — Thu, 25 Jan 2007 00:00:00 +0000

This morning Corey Billington, in our first Operations class, shared his experience on reducing Inventory Driven Costs, a term he coined while at Hewlett Packard. It became clear to me while I pondered the effect of time on cost that IMD candidates must be particularly economically rational. Unlike MBAs at other schools, we like ‘pain’. Our pleasure is not in dining in chateaux, like our contemporaries at Club Med, Fontainebleau. But it all makes sense.

At the start of the course, somebody claimed that we were paying CHF 25 per hour for the pleasure of being here. I guessed that this figure had been arrived at by dividing the cost of the course by 8 hours of lessons per day, 365 days the year. If we deduct the days when we are officially on holiday, it comes to CHF 31. So to derive the best return on our investment, we need to work as many hours as possible. Working for 365 days, 24 hours a day, gives us a very reasonable cost of CHF 8.56 per hour.

So it is that, after completing a set of annual accounts for a fictitious manufacturing company, it’s 10pm and we’re just about to launch into discussing the case of a bearings manufacturer in preparation for the marketing class tomorrow morning.

What’s not clear is if the sleeping heads in the front row this morning were suffering the results of working late or…

Winter hits IMD

noreply@blogger.com (AG) — Wed, 24 Jan 2007 00:00:00 +0000

In a quick break from this morning’s class on ‘leading people in organisations’, where I’ve discovered that my main motivation is ‘Power’, followed closely by ‘Autonomy and Growth’, I’m taking the opportunity for a quick update...

The storm that struck northern Europe a few days ago has finally reached Switzerland. At last, the snow is coming down. My car this morning had about 10cm of snow on it. It’s really winter now and the temperature is dropping. Fast. Minimum forecast temperature in Geneva for Friday is -21C! About -10C during the day.

This is great news for the many ski resorts in the area. It’s clear that the Christmas holiday season was bad for all the businesses whose livelihoods depend on 4 or 5 months from December to April. With little snow on the slopes, many people chose to cancel their trips to the mountains. Many of the pistes have been brown for much of the last month. For day trips, it’s fine. We’ve been up to Verbier a couple of times over night and found enough decent snow to have a good time.

Tonight I’m meeting the start-up company that I’ll be helping over the next 5 months . I’m not sure what they do - other than that it’s a hi-tech company looking for US$5m - are what they want from our little group. However, they are going to get some 500 hours of help from 5 IMD MBAs. For free. We have about 35 years’ experience between us across a number of industries and disciplines.

The start-up project, just one of the assignments keeping us in the ‘Dungeon’ every night till midnight (or so), was one of the main reasons why I chose to come to IMD rather than take up one of the other offers I received. The school’s strapline is Real World. Real Learning. It’s cheesy but true and a clear differentiator.

Learning to dive in Cape Verde

noreply@blogger.com (AG) — Sat, 09 Dec 2006 00:00:00 +0000

The clear, starry sky that greets our arrival at 3am has given way to clouds when we get up 5 hours later. Still, it is warm and the sun peeks through from time to time.

We settled on Cape Verde because we wanted a relaxing week by the sea where we could learn to dive without going too far. More travel, more new experiences, more learning.

The principal centre for diving in Cape Verde is at Santa Maria on the little island of Sal. A flat, small rock in the Atlantic ocean, it is buffeted by the wind that blows sand across from the Sahara. It is perhaps the least attractive of the 10-island archipelago lying 450km from Senegal on the West African coast.

Our first diving lesson is at 9am so an early start after little sleep. The Hotel Morabeza provides us a good breakfast buffet and then we’re set. We meet our dive instructor at the ScubaTeam Dive Club not 50m away. After a few formalities he suggests we return at 10am. So we take a walk along the fine sandy beach, watching the waves rolling in across the green sea.

The PADI Open Water Diver course consists of 5 modules of theory with 5 dives in ‘confined water’, usually in a classroom and swimming pool, followed by 4 open water dives, going down to a maximum of 18m below. Our classroom is the dive club beach hut; and for a swimming pool, we have the warm shallow waters a little way out to sea.

In the hut, we watch a DVD and seek clarification on any points that remain unclear before taking short tests to ensure understanding of each module. We’ll have an exam at the end of the course.

In the afternoon, it’s my first ever experience of breathing under water. We get kitted up, check over our gear and waddle down the beach to the water’s edge. We swim on our backs to a little buoy and get ready to go down. I find it difficult breathing and as we go down I have trouble ‘equalizing’, ie matching the pressure of the air in my airways, particularly ears, to the increased pressure from the water overhead. This creates a painful ‘squeeze’.

The problem stops me breathing normally – slowly, deeply, continuously. I have a small panic, motion to the instructor that I have a problem – using the sign language we’d learned in the classroom in the morning – and head straight back up. On the surface, I get myself together quickly and return gradually to the bottom, where Perrine has sunk like a rock.

I begin to feel more at ease and manage to do the 5 exercises without hesitation. I find myself surprisingly calm at taking out my breathing apparatus, letting the air bubble out of my mouth, then replacing it and blowing hard to clear the water out, before continuing to breath. End of module 1 and back up to the surface.

Module 2 involves a couple of rescue exercises on the surface then another descent. This time all good. It’s starting to feel natural already. By the time we’re back out on the beach I’m looking forward to the next session on Monday.

We take a shower to desalinate and a siesta then head out to make our 6pm appointment with l’Homme Tranquile. At lunch time, we’d been anticipated by a friendly local man who’d taken us to see his little craft shop. After Ghana, this was not a novel experience. He had some nice items but we had no cash and were in a bit of hurry to get to our afternoon dive. He didn’t believe we’d be back even after I’d given my word. He was amazed, therefore, when we showed up as promised to buy the items we’d seen and liked earlier.

We had dinner at a very small restaurant, Nocturno. It’s just a little kitchen with a window onto a small terrace. There are perhaps six tables with maximum seating of 14 or 15. The food is very good value. We enjoy some excellent grilled fish, wahoo and bica, with rice, chips and salad. Plus a couple of beers, of course.

Six weeks to go

noreply@blogger.com (AG) — Tue, 28 Nov 2006 00:00:00 +0000

A relatively early start today. After Perrine leaves home at 8.20 to get to work late – as is customary for employees in the final week – I find myself unable to get back to sleep. Luckily I’m up and dressed when the doorbell rings a few minutes later.

Our Eurostar tickets have arrived. These are for the penultimate trip before it all gets real and it’s fast sinking in how little time is left and how much is going to happen in the next few weeks… Eurostar to Paris, TGV to Lille, back to Paris, flight to Cape Verde. Back a week later, take the van to London, collect stuff, head to Lausanne. Back to London for Christmas, drive to Champéry for the ski trip, picking up Perrine in Paris on the way.

So this morning I call UBS and make sure that I can still get my account all sorted this week, if I send all the necessary documents today. Yes, I’ve left it late but it can be done.

Last night I got an email from my mother offering me a financing option, which is very tempting. It involves something a little complicated as well as my little brother, so I discuss it with him. He seems keen. We’ll see how it pans out.

This afternoon, I intended to settle down to some nice financial management but the sun comes out while I’m having lunch and decide instead to head along the canal by Little Venice to take some pictures. Plus there are some workmen in my bathroom tearing out the shower floor, which has cracked and is leaking water through to the flat downstairs. Or at least I thought there were. They departed quietly, without saying word, leaving the front door on the latch. I begin to understand my mother’s lifelong frustration with builders etc.

So I finally get down to some nice financial ratios when I’m consumed by the urge to look at the MBA diary. The whole year, it seems, has been about transition for the class but in these final few days it’s about transitioning from a period of transition to stability. Something similar is happening to me. After nearly a year out of work, travelling, discovering places, peoples and myself, it’s fast coming to the time to switch to a different phase, yet it’s all still about shifting from where I was about 3 years ago to where I’ll be in 2008.

And all that thinking about life gets me thinking about writing about thinking about life. So here it is...

Goodbye to the Shoreditch Sharks RFC

noreply@blogger.com (AG) — Sun, 19 Nov 2006 00:00:00 +0000

Sunday 7.45am and I get up and get ready to drive over to Shoreditch Park. My boys are playing Away to Ealing RFC this morning and I need to make sure they’re all there by 10am to get ready for an 11am kick-off. It’s going to be tough: they’re a well-established club whose top team plays in London 1 against the likes of London Scottish. But it’s taken me two years to get this fixture into the diary and I’m happy that this will be the last game I take the boys to.

By 9.40, with only six boys, I’m forced to call Stuart to cancel. I’m apologetic and embarrassed. I’m also disappointed and angry that the communication and organisation within the club has started to crumble. For some reason, the updated fixtures list that was circulated did not have this game on it. Crappy way to end two years of dedication, getting up early on Sunday mornings to share a passion with some other peoples’ children.

To make the most of the situation, Tom Nicholson, who’s going to be a great replacement for me, and I decided we’d do a mini training session with the boys we had. At around 10.15 some more lads turned up thinking it was only training today. In the end, it was quite a good session. Some defensive drills, some attacking, finished off, at the request of the boys, with some high intensity fitness work. Meanwhile I took a couple of the boys off to coach them kicking.

After about 10 minutes of this, Tom called us back over to join the group. Charlie, who’d joined us when the club started up with no previous rugby experience and had made it into the Middlesex U14Bs, thanked me for my efforts with the boys and presented me with a replica shirt of the Pumas. It was touching.

I was then attacked by the biggest lads, including the inappropriately-named Junior, who’s a massive presence at 6ft4, as well as Joe, probably 6ft1 and spends his life body-building. I thought I did ok. I was wrestled to the ground and pounded. The rib I think I might have broken in the game I played last week seriously ached for the rest of the day. Even walking hurt. Did I say, ‘it was touching’?

I wish the club all the best in the year (or more) that I’m away.

I drove home, had lunch with Perrine, who’d got up at 11.30 to go for a run, then we caught the bus to Holland Park to enjoy the last of the sunshine. A typical winter’s day. Cold, clear and crisp. If there is something that I will miss in London, it will probably be the light in the winter time. The evening was rounded-off ice-skating at the National History Museum.

So passed one of the last Sundays in London: packing away the rugby coaching and saying our goodbyes to parts of the city we don’t usually visit.

Madrid Part 2

noreply@blogger.com (AG) — Sat, 28 Oct 2006 23:00:00 +0000

It was hot Saturday afternoon and, under the sun’s glare, the alcohol seeping through my sweat glands was bubbling on my skin. I could have flambéed a pancake on my forearms. Fortunately the terrace of our lunch spot was fully taken and we were forced to seek shelter indoors.

The glare of the waiter as we all traipsed in was as potent as the sun’s. By the end of lunch, though, he was laughing a little and taking pleasure in mimicking Sophia’s Portuguese pronunciation of six and my Argentinean pronunciation of vanilla.

Back out in the square, Javier informed us of an occasion when a hotel on one side of it had a certain room curtain left open in the early evening so that all could see in. It would, however, be inappropriate for me to repeat the details of the allegation.

OJ and Thomas went on a recce mission to see if the said hotel - now fully refurbished - had a roof terrace on which to enjoy a siesta. Thomas came back first and informed us it opened at 9pm. A few minutes later OJ reported that there were people on the terrace and so we headed up.

Greg made full use of the new white cushions to catch a nap, while Paul went to order some champagne. A lot later, 3 bottles arrived. And only a few minutes after we’d filled our glasses and taken the obligatory photos, the bar manager told us to leave and go back downstairs because the terrace was closed. Roland was quick to point out that we’d enjoyed the best part of the afternoon up there and the sun was starting to dip.

So we continued to drink champagne in the bar downstairs. Then caipirinhas. Then around 9pm we headed to another little tapas place for a couple of beers and some pre-dinner ham and cheese. I got to learn a little more about the business activities of my future classmates. Ivica is an equipment manager for the Croatian U19s women’s football team, specialising in balls. Thomas is an undertaker. Jonathan, in fact, is a vicar from Orkney, preaching in Ireland; or was it Irish vicar on a mission in Orkney? Paul, meanwhile, is an air steward for a defunct airline. So it was that I, a fashion photographer for plus-size catalogues, was now feeling at ease amidst this company.

Our dinner appointment was set at 10.30pm, nice and early to give us time to enjoy the nightlife later. Javier had once again pulled strings to obtain a booking for 21 at a restaurant that is such good value and good quality that reservations are not taken. You simply have to turn up and queue.

Finally, sitting down to dinner together, at three tables, I knew to expect a good, intellectual debate about pertinent economic issues. And so it was. Jorge, a madrileno who works in Zurich, joined the group now at this happy hour and was clearly drawn-in by Greg’s instincts for online enterprise. His ideas on interactivity and the use of avatars is surely ground-breaking. For some, it might even make the earth move.

So then, back up to the roof terrace to drink mojitos and watch the clocks go back an hour at 3am. Then, as it was starting to freshen up a little, we set off to a basement bar led by Jorge, where Thomas demonstrated his negotiating skills to get us in without queuing. Well, to be precise, some went back to the hotel, others to the bar and the rest remained with OJ’s compatriots.

The basement was packed full of young revellers plus the man with the widest grin in the world flinging his arms manically on the stage. It was some feat of engineering, surely, that kept his limbs attached to his meagre body as he flailed wildly. Still, nice to see young people turned out immaculately in a suit and tie of an evening. Perhaps he was connected with the man from Brazil that Paul had once met.

A Heineken later, it was time to savour a more upmarket place and so we waddled off to the Palacio Gaviria. Thank you to Ming Teck for supplying the photo with the name so that at least I know the name of one of the places we visited during the weekend. Well, some more dancing and a couple of drinks later, it was time to head back to the hotel. Another 7am finish.

I felt fine when I got up at 11am, joining Ivica and Thomas for coffee downstairs. After checking out, we then joined Javier, Alison, Bianca, Jonathan and, later, Ming Teck and Paul in the Parque Retiro for a drink of water in the shade. This is a really fun park, with lots of activity: puppet shows for kids; shiatsu specialists; rowing boats on the little lake and cafés offering drinks at reasonable prices.

After the rest had gone, Ivica, Ming Teck and I went to find lunch. A veritable feast of ham, cheese, salad, tomato bread etc and a couple of bottles of wine. With just enough time, we grabbed a taxi to the hotel, picked up our stuff and headed on to the airport to catch our flights to different European destinations.

Madrid Part 1

noreply@blogger.com (AG) — Thu, 26 Oct 2006 23:00:00 +0000

Way back in August, I’d read a thread on the IMD MBA 2007 web forum about a get-to-know-your-classmates weekend in Madrid, organised by Javier Asensio. With some Airmiles to burn, I thought I’d take full advantage of the opportunity. This was going to be a serious weekend, with Javier pulling strings at the Prado for a private tour of the museum’s special collection.

OK, I exaggerate a little. Still, I knew in advance that the people I’d be meeting were not run-of-the-mill: these are the business leaders of the future. After all, IMD bills the MBA class as 90 exceptional people who will shape the future of business. Hmm.

So when I got an email from Greg Davis to meet up in London last Sunday, I gratefully accepted, partly so that I wouldn’t be too overwhelmed meeting everyone at the same time. Greg managed to bring Amir Ahmad, Chief Simplification Officer of mobile telecoms to internet company Txtfo. Perrine and I were also glad to meet Greg’s wife, Jodie, and Michael, the partner of another of our classmates, Anna, who coincidentally is in Ghana right now.

....

Greg and I happened to be on the same flight but didn’t spot each other until we arrived in Madrid airport. In the taxi to the hotel, I was ashamed to admit that I’d let him down by not bringing my running gear, as I’d promised back in London. He eased my conscience by telling me he probably wouldn’t go for a run. Except that as soon as we’d checked in, around 6pm, Greg went for a run and I went with Ivica Pavic, with whom I was sharing a room, to join some of the rest of the group at a tapas bar. I imagined they were having coffee in the last of the sunshine and a shot of caffeine would do me some good.

I didn’t realise, however, that I was out for the evening, that we’d be heading to dinner from there and that my first drink would be beer. I had the privilege of meeting some of the finest young business minds around Europe: Caroline Hamrit, Thomas Buss, Bianca Chinescu as well as Paul Gabie.

We had a couple more beers before taking the scenic route to the next tapas bar via the Plaza de Espana and the Royal Palace. By the time we left the second bar, the rest of the group had joined, we’d consumed several bottles of wine and a lot of beer. I had also gorged myself on a small piece of bread with a lump of tuna mix on top - dinner.

Another bar and OJ got to know some of his compatriots.

If the next paragraph appears to be in note form, it is because my recollection is in note form. A little walk and a long-ish queue to get into a small bar with a dance floor downstairs and a balcony upstairs. Some dancing and drinking. The world’s fastest/shortest dance act ever performed on the miniscule dance floor while the many punters were shoved into the tight corners to allow the performers to show their skills. Very impressive. Some actividades incontroladas. OJ got to know one of his compatriots even better. Some people stayed longer, some left earlier. I think it was late when I took my leave. Well, it was some time after 7am when I got to bed.

Meanwhile, Goncalo and Sophia, having driven from Porto, at 4.30am were busily trying to check in to their room at the hotel, except that between Ming Teck and Paddy Jansen, the couple’s room had been occupied. I’m not sure I’d have been quite as jovial as they were about it over breakfast.

Breakfast, actually, was a quick coffee and croissant in the hotel café, around 1.15pm, before the scenic route to lunch. With just a little dinner and a lot of alcohol, even my rarely hungover constitution was performing below par. But I gave up regretting drinking excessively some time ago.

On to Keta

noreply@blogger.com (AG) — Tue, 11 Jul 2006 23:00:00 +0000

There are two ways to get to Keta from Ada Foah. You can back track along the road to Sogakope and cross the Volta there over the bridge; or you can - on market days only - catch the ferry across the mouth of the river to the little village of Anyanui. Market day is once a week, on Wednesday, and it just so happens that today is Wednesday.

The ferry is due at 8.00am and the people at the hotel advised me to checkout by 7.00am to make sure I get to the boarding point on time, apparently a 10-20 minute walk away. Checkout takes 20 minutes, in the end, with manual writing of receipts and VAT invoices, credit card authorisation etc. I decide to skip breakfast. $10 (USD) for a paltry-looking buffet just doesn’t seem worth it. I plan to eat something on arrival at Anyanui.

It actually only takes 5 minutes to walk down a dusty track from the Manet Paradise Beach Hotel to the shore in the fishing village of Azanzi. En route I get a lot of attention from kids heading to school: "hello!", "how are you?" and, of course, "obruni!". I wander along and miss the turning to the boarding point. A girl of 14 or thereabouts comes up to me and asks where I’m heading. She then guides me to where I should be. An older woman sitting outside one of the mud huts jokes that the girl has found herself a white husband.

With chickens running about at my feet, I sit on a bench by the water’s edge next to a colourful wooden fishing boat, alongside a house where young children are getting ready for school or playing about. The oldest of them begins to ask me questions. She says she likes my backpack and then asks who’s in it. I tell her it’s just "clothes". She asks me: "who’s clothes?". I understand "whose clothes?". I say "my clothes". She persists: "who is clothes?". Ah! of course, sacks on backs are for children in Ghana and are usually carried by women. So I say "clothes" and indicate what I mean by touching my t-shirt sleeve. "Sheds!", she says. I can see how the word has come to have that meaning: shed your clothes, hence just sheds. "Yes, that’s right", I tell her.

Then shes says "Give me something!" and I begin to lose interest as does she when I flatly say "no".

A small group of men come and check out the morning’s attraction. They’re eager to know who I am, where I’ve come from, where I’m going. They reassure me the ferry will arrive at 8.00am. I receive a text message - yes, even on the shore of a remote fishing village, courtesy of areeba. I take my phone from my pocket and they are awestruck. What a beautiful phone! (it’s the Motorola V3i aka RAZR).

They ask me if it can take pictures so I duly oblige. They gaze at it strangely as I take the picture and the image is less than flattering. They ask how much it costs. I decide it’s best if they don’t know that it’s about twice the annual GDP per capita of Ghana. So I say it was a gift and don’t know. That way they won’t try to barter for it.

As the ferry approaches, they help me to the actual boarding point, 20m away, where some live chickens and various other bags and boxes are waiting to be loaded and taken to the market at Anyanui. The ferry, the MS Sogakope, according to the Bradt Guide to Ghana, can carry about 250 passengers and is already crammed with market goers carrying tomatoes, smoked fish and all sorts of other goods. I clamber up the narrow gangway and take my seat on the upper deck, where it’s a little less crowded. The ticket costs me 3,000 cedis, around 20 pence.

On the way, we stop at a number of small villages on little islands that have no other means of communicating with the world other than the ferry once a week and the little boats - canoes, essentially, sometimes with sails - that we pass, taking children to school and others to whatever place there might be nearby.

Anyanui has a tiny landing point and long canoes full of passengers, either just heading off or arriving, are crammed around it. Right by the water are large piles of wood, big sticks in big bundles piled high in to cuboid towers that are being taken apart and reassembled precariously on to small trucks and vans. Some men call to me "where to?" and they direct me to the tro-tro that will take me some of the way to my destination.

A tro-tro is essentially a mini minibus that ought to have about 8 passengers but in reality carries 14 or 15. I got a seat at the front, next to the driver, which gave me a little more space, to load my rucksack, camera bag and tripod on top of me. A local chief gets in next to me and I have the impression that the front seat is usually for white people and people of rank.

I have no chance to get any food or drink, which I’m in need of now, at 9.00am, two and a half hours after getting up. I manage to squeeze off a couple of pictures through my telephoto lens and hope that they might capture some of the sense of colour and movement.

These tiny little battered cans hurtle along at unmeasurable speeds. Unmeasurable because the speedo doesn’t work. They feel like they could topple over at any moment and apparently have a knack for it. I’m glad that I can use my luggage as an airbag, should the need arise. The tro-tros seem to race each other so that they can pick up the next people waiting along the route. These are private vehicles and the idea is to make as much money as possible, even if that means having the ‘conductor’ hanging half out the door as we dash along broken roads.

At a small town, we jump off and I’m guided to the station, where another tro-tro (they actually call them cars here, preferring the english approximation) will take me on to Keta. Again I’m sat at the front with a chief next to me holding his staff. It’s hot and humid now but I’m largely oblivious to the discomfort.

On reaching Tegbi, in the Keta area, I jump out at Lorneh junction and walk half a mile down the road towards the beach to Lorneh Lodge, the hotel where I’m hoping to stay. I settle in and go to the poolside for brunch and a swim. I get a club sandwich and after a very quick swim head back indoors. It’s extremely hot now and I think I’m going to blister if I stay out any longer.

I meet an American in the grounds of the hotel. Charlie is a baptist ‘worship pastor’ (his business card says) from Tampa, Florida, USA. There is a cult, he tells me, that involves sexually abusing children, who after a certain age are simply abandoned. Their parents don’t want them back and they are outcasts from society. His goals are to educate people against becoming involved in this practice and to buy land to build an orphanage for the abandoned children. He seems to be doing other things too, like providing medical assistance while he’s around and a whole series of ‘workshops’.

He offers the services of his driver, George, to take me into town. I’m not sure what I’m looking to see but I’m thinking of just wandering about. But George tells me it’s not safe and so I settle on being dropped off at Fort Prinzenstein, an old slave fort built by the Danes and sold to the British in the late 18th century.

Actually, the Brits were relatively late to the whole slave-trading bonanza. The Portuguese had got here 300 years earlier and the Dutch and Danes had been at it for perhaps 200. Staggeringly, there were 42 slave forts in West Africa, of which 38 were in Ghana.

The Brits cottoned on to the idea of improving the conditions of the slaves, while banged up in the forts awaiting deportation to the Caribbean or wherever else. But this was not out of altruism. Quite simply they realised they’d make more money by keeping the slaves alive and that enlarging the windows to allow air to circulate around the cells was a good idea. It was a Brit too, William Wilberforce, who pushed for the abolition of slavery by 1832. However, the records at Fort Prinzenstein show that trade continued for another 60 years.

I enjoyed this visit far more than my visits to Elmina and Cape Coast castles in 2004. Although the buildings there are far more impressive, the guides were thoroughly politicised and moralising, as though the tourists standing in front of them were personally guilty of the rape of female slaves and the barbaric conditions in which they were all kept.

The story is more complicated and happened more than 100 years before my birth. The guide at Prinzenstein tried to keep things factual. Yes, the Europeans committed this and that outrage. The local chiefs, however, were complicitous and aided the Europeans in kidnapping people in return for guns so that they could wage war against their local enemies. It’s a sad period of history from which not too many people come out well.

Later we talked about English and Ghanaian football and our marital status. I was guided to the road where I could pick up a tro-tro back to Tegbi and he and a friend wait with me until it arrives, to make sure I’m safe. Again, I get a front seat.

I walk on to the beach to see what activity there is and take a couple of pictures. Not too much to see at this time but I’m assured that tomorrow morning is the best time to have a look.

As I walk back up to the hotel, I get a text from Will. He’ll be joining me in Ho on Friday morning. In the meantime, IMD have called and want to offer me a place on next year’s MBA!! Woohoo!!