If there were any greater indication that the United Kingdom is in a gigantic mess look no further than our falling exchange rate. The £1 is simply dropping in value like a stone.
However, to paraphrase Napoleon Hill, 'In every adversity lie the seeds of opportunity'.
So, if I were in charge of this country, here's what I would be doing:
- Restore our manufacturing industry.
No, even with the exchange rate we may not be able to compete with China on price - but we could compete on QUALITY.
Anyone else sick of cheap imports that break within days or weeks?
Anyone else remember the days when things actually LASTED?
I would be reinstating the 'Made in Britain' tag with regulated standards and pride in British workmanship to re-establish our brand worldwide.
- Restore our farming industry.
All but lost, and now imports from Europe are incredibly expensive. Yet we have acres and acres of verdant fertile soil.
Let's use them - and at minimum become self-sufficient in inexpensive food for all.
- Encourage future growth industries.
There's a huge tide in entrepreneurial instinct in this country.
Let's use business incentives wisely to divert this talent and passion away from 'no hope sectors' and into future growth sectors - like renewable energy, bio tech science and alternative therapies/well being.
- Encourage tourism like mad.
Britain may not have the best weather but it is incredibly beautiful. The weak pound now makes us a very cheap destination.
- Encourage enterprise skills in schools with a passion. Soon the days of being 'an employee' will be gone forever.
What's needed right now is long term, joined up thinking.
Not short term fixes.
Let's look at what real value and competitive advantage we can create in this country - and then GO FOR IT !
With the decline in the financial services sector it's our only hope to re-establish ourselves as a worldwide 'power' economy.
About Rachel
- Rachel Elnaugh
- Bakewell, Derbyshire, United Kingdom
- ...is one of Britain’s highest profile female entrepreneurs. Having started her working life as an office junior, at the age of 24 she created the market leading experiences brand Red Letter Days on a shoestring budget from the front room of her home. Red Letter Days went on to generate over £100million in turnover in the 16 years that she ran it, and in doing so pioneered the UK's £250 million experiences sector. This earned her an Ernst & Young Entrepreneur of the Year award in 2002, as well as being short listed for the 2001 Veuve Clicquot Businesswoman of the Year award. In early 2005, Rachel shot to fame as one of the original Dragons in BBCTV's BAFTA nominated cult business show Dragons’ Den. After the well-publicised crash of Red Letter Days in 2005, Rachel became heavily involved in the Small Business Sector and recently won the IAB 'UK Champion of Entrepreneurship' award for 2008. Her unique Entrepreneurial Profiling Test was launched in 2007 and you can take the test free by visiting www.rachelelnaugh.com. Rachel's first book 'Business Nightmares' was published by Crimson in May 2008.
62 comments:
Running for prime minister?
Well if Rachel was running for PM, I wish her all the luck and hope she gets it. Then we may all prosper in the new world of Rachel's
DLOG
Rachel, I think that you were so cute on the den,we are just seeing some of the first and second season here in the states, what is the deal with Peter, is he always so "saintly"? Doug Richards seems to be very angry all the time. Sorry that BBC America is so FAR behind in television coverage, but this show is fantastic, I can't wait until 2011 so that I can see the current episodes showing now on BBC 2.
Living up here in Northumberland I'm all for different support for farmers. Interestingly, chatting to a beef farmer at the weekend who was telling me that cattle prices are going back up sharply as in the last five years the more affluent Chinese are eating much more red meat than they used to. So many of the countries we import our beef from (yes its sad that we have to import) are now selling bulk to China. A major opportunity for British beef farmers, had not so many of them now got out of beef farming since the government cut cattle subsidies.....oh dear ....
Im a manufacturing man through and through...and I echo everything rachel has said!
I am one of these sad people that despite knowing the fact that it is a dreadful sector in which to make money, still set up three manufacturing businesses!
The problem is.. the rewards culture values all the people who just take a cut, like banks solicitors accountants and estate agents....and does not value people who create things at all.
Nobody could pay me to read caans autobiography...recruitment consultants are IMHO the worst of the worst, for screwing manufacturing!!
However rachel will never make a politician... She has a very bad habit of telling the truth!
Start telling convenient lies , and then she might get somewhere as a politician. On the other hand that wouldnt be rachel!!
For Petes sake Rachel. Its politics like ur suggesting that eff things up in the first place. Stop rehashing communism in the name of entrepreneurship.
Read some economic history. Every great economic empire has fallen sooner or later. Britain started colonising way back, started the industrial revolution a bit later, english is the language of the world. But thats in the past.
Now Asia have the free markets, expanding massively. Europe is being restrained by an epicly big beraucracy in EU.
Wanna kick start businesses? Kick down the barriers.
I agree with Rachel, but take a different line in all of this.
What concerns me is the threat to national security from foreign elements owning our infrastructure.
Surely we have not put our national security at risk and thrown caution to the wind by joining in the splendour or globalisation?
Well you better believe it.
This country is slowly disarming itself in so many ways as the months and weeks go by.
All i can ask is why?
Why is this strategy so essential.
Churchill would be turning in his grave.
Anonymous, "However rachel will never make a politician... She has a very bad habit of telling the truth!"
That is exactly what we need 'THE TRUTH'.
The Government must stop lying to the people who really matter in this country/world, it is they who keep the wheels turning of this Great Country, by their relentless passion for building business, and yes, some may fall, but bloody hell they get up to fight another day, and they are the ones who should be in Rachel's Government, helping more of our nation succeed.
"POWER TO THE PEOPLE" yes people, that is what we are, not numbers, people with passion and gusto, we will conquer in numbers.
By God, what wonderful, peaceful harmonious world we would all live in.
DLOG
I would concur that farming is an important resource that could be further exploited.
However, this should not be to the detriment of the countryside or wildlife. Modern (arable) farming techniques do not lend themselves to the preservation of hedgerows which further undermine the natural ecosystem upon which the countryside depends. Add to this, the almost criminal use of noxious pesticides and an uncontrolled expansion of the farming sector could create more damage than benefit.
The use of pesticides destroys the food chain for much of our wildlife which allows proliferation of exactly those predators that the pesticides are trying to contain.
Add to this the increasing evidence that pesticide use is storing up chronic health problems for us humans and simply saying “let's get farming”, may not be quite the positive action that it appears to be at first glance.
Cranberry, I absolutely agree with you here, we must allow the pyramid of life to dictate to us more.
By removing hedgerows to create more growing is an absolute crime, this sort of action destroys our wildlife.
It is the wildlife that should be the 'pesticide', every animal was put on this earth to serve a purpose, and should be allowed to serve that purpose with out human intervention.
DLOG
Thanks DLOG. Can you imagine Britain getting back to proper self-sufficiency? We were there once – and not so long ago. Two things would need to happen:
1.The nation as a whole would have to be prepared to work: doing the work that our Eastern European counterparts are prepared to do but we, as a nation, seem to think is below us.
2.The City as a whole would need to come round to the fact that industry of this type is worthy of respect and for the benefit of the nation rather than believing that an entire economy can be based around the financial markets. We all know where that ends up!
Going back to the farming issue, as it ties in a little with your comment.
I know a farmer quite well, and I have often asked him why he does not grow things like peas, sprouts, etc, he informs me that the reason for not growing these crops is because he cannot get the people to harvest them.
Further more the food stuffs like rape are heavily subsidised and the farmer gets money for growing this type of food stuff, it was worked on acerage as to much the farmer would be subsidised, but until recently the Government actually photograph the amount of land that will be used for this kind of food stuff, so now the farmer HAS to use all the available land that he says he will, hmm, is this good or bad?
Hope I am making some sort of sense!!
DLOG
You're talking about the DEFRA subsidy scheme and yes, it's based upon acreage and you get penalised for not farming the stated amount of land. So our farmers grow buckets of rape because that's the most profitable (and why not?) but it's a legacy from years gone by which 'I think' is being phased out (I'm by no means an expert on this so someone will doubtless correct me).
The problem is that, like most of us, farmers take the course of least resistance – farming rape requires few staff to manage and, as your friend points out, harvesting is easy since it's all automated – no people in fields required to pick the produce.
Talking of least resistance, I know of a farm that was 100% organic which received subsidies for being so. They recently reverted to 'traditional farming' (i.e. using pesticides). When asked why they changed, they said that although the subsidies made organic farming attractive, it was too much hassle with all the paperwork involved. And would you believe that some locals were in favour of the change because they preferred the 'look' of the well manicured weed-free fields that pesticide use creates?! Sure, let's fill our babies full of toxins so we can enjoy an artificial-looking countryside as we drive through it!
Talking about "organic" one of my friends owns a natural clothing business. She has actually posted here, but rachel misinterpreted something she said and bit her head off - so she hasnt been back.
But the think is her USP is the fact that she is totally natural....apparently many of the inks used on organic clothes are probably worse for the environment than producing non organic fibre.
There is so much confusion in the "green" bandwagon
And I am fed up of seeing visual pollution....thats windmills on my favourite hills that stand no chance of a worthwhil contribution to energy...but have become a "cause celebre"...Hi time tidal and wave power schemes were made to work...
Talking about "organic" one of my friends owns a natural clothing business. She has actually posted here, but rachel misinterpreted something she said and bit her head off - so she hasnt been back.
But the think is her USP is the fact that she is totally natural....apparently many of the inks used on organic clothes are probably worse for the environment than producing non organic fibre.
There is so much confusion in the "green" bandwagon
And I am fed up of seeing visual pollution....thats windmills on my favourite hills that stand no chance of a worthwhil contribution to energy...but have become a "cause celebre"...Hi time tidal and wave power schemes were made to work...
Has anyone notice the BILLION POUND bonuses made to the Mis managers of banks who would have gone under but for us the tax payers.
SHAMEFUL.
That's why they used our taxes, poor fellows they wouldn't have been able to go on holiday in luxury 4 times this year had we not bailed them out.
Oh how my heart bleeds for them!!
Bout time we all said NO NO NO, enough is enough!!
DLOG
Just on the green issue: I think part of the problem with proponents of the green agenda is that (some of them) are too evangelical. They want everyone to adhere to their way of thinking 'right now!'. Conversely, many others consider the green bandwagon as elitist and only obtainable by the few.
In a way they are both correct. For there to be a benefit to the world – we all need to start thinking about green issues and act 'right now' – but, 'right now', going green can be expensive and so it is somewhat elitist.
What often gets overlooked is that just about everything we nowadays accept as the norm was once elitist: air travel, eating fresh meat, owning a computer even. How could any of us imagine life without these things today? It's only because these things were adopted by the few, that a greater demand was created – and thus they quickly become obtainable to all. Demand grows supply.
Now I appreciate this is nothing to do with the £ & € but, I have read here before that this is also a Blog for those with problems and you are all here to help, so here is my predicament.
I am at the moment in an extremely good mood, perhaps even to the point of having never been happier in my life, and I'm not that young but equally so not that old either, so much so that the happiness is even rubbing off on to work colleagues, but the strange thing is I am also RAGING with an unexplainable anger.
So has anyone got any ideas?
CG
With regard to competing with China, why should we not be able to be cheaper than China, especially for print, I actually know of many books that are sent to China to be printed, can you imagine that it is actually cheaper to have them printed in China as oppossed to printing in our country, even with the cost of shipping!!
DLOG
"This is a blog for people with problems"
Not sure what you are talking about CG.
I don't think you have a problem because of the contradiction of happiness and anger.
I suspect you are experiencing both passion and power at the same time.
Use it!
How do you use it? I do not understand how raging anger is power.
CG
Apathy is as big a threat to humanity as barefaced oppression.
In fact out of apathy far more powerful demons rise.
Remember Hitler.
In a world where leaders increasing shirk responsibility - apathy breeds virulently. It is for those men and women with power, goodness and passion to stand firm against the slippery serpent of apathy.
There is nothing wrong with you CG.
Being happy and in rage tells me you are wiser than you think you are.
ps. I'm not sure if any one remembers but i have been trying to get 1Million people back to work, by getting them jobs to do on the Internet. I think it is a waste of money that many of these people are being paid to become apathetic, when they could be payed to be constructive and deliver a valuable service to the nation.
I am happy to say that i have received correspondence back from Michael Howard, my MP and from the Secretary of DWP. The minister has £1Billion at his disposal for supporting these initiatives are serviced via the Pathways scheme.
What the government sees as a success i see as a failure, with only 50,000 people being helped backed to work so far.
So if you are someone with power, goodness in your heart and passion and feel you have the time to help on this venture - drop me an email at intrench@gmail.com.
Wanna get 1 million people back to work?
best,
new website coming soon at
www.onemillionpeoplebacktowork.com
It wasn't apathy that led to Hitler. It was the misdirection of anger in Germany following their humiliation in WWI coupled to the financial collapse of their economy. Hilter merely provided a convenient channel for that anger and in doing so united the country behind a common cause.
Don't make the mistake of believing anyone was apathetic, on the contrary, they found something to believe in and acted accordingly. Also don't make the mistake that we are any different to those Germans. We now live in similarly dangerous times when extreme views can gain traction.
C
Those with anger rage against suppression of emotions.
Against those with a lack of concern for their fellow man.
Effectively directed Anger is good.
Those with apathy follow like sheep.
The germans followed Hitler like sheep.
Apathy lay at the heart of that movement.
It is apathy that is causing the currency to topple, like all apathetic movements do.
We need to get out people back to work. Get this engine started again. Stop playing games, get back to work.
I think the Germans who followed Hitler did so with their eyes open. Apathetic compliance would not have achieved what Hitler managed to achieve.
As for getting people back to work, my priority at the moment is keeping the ones I have in work.
C
It is amazing what treacherous leaders and apathetically minded apostles can achieve.
If you have any experience of "workplace mobbing", you will know what i mean.
The apathetic workforce is greatly more submissive, ensuring far greater compliance to requests made from above - than would otherwise be the case versus where people are allowed to express their emotions.
A leader in circumstances such as these can achieve greatness; for good or for bad.
This chemistry can bring almost absolute control to those in power.
"I have read here before that this is also a Blog for those with problems.."
Aint that the truth!
Stephen said "The germans followed Hitler like sheep"
Oh dear Stephen, if only you had read your history books, you know the words not just looked at the pictures..
If you had, you would know that the German Army, virtually disbanded after 1918 (except for 100,000 men) were planning their rise and training officers (although this was illegal under the terms of the Versailles treaty articles 231-248) well before Hitler came along, in fact from about 1922.
Ironically, the main architect of this was a Jewish General...I forget his name. He was actually murdered by far right activists I think just before Hitler came to power.
Here endeth History Lesson No 1. Have a nice day!
You patronising b.st..d Mr A Dragon, and that is your first lesson of who you are, as you obviously don't know yourself.
What brought Hitler to power was national humilation and real economic hardship. To put that in perspective, unemployment here is about 6% whereas in Germany it was something like 30%.
If we had unemployment of even 15% I think we would start to see extremism emerge here too. Employment is a very important determinant of social cohesion. Fortunately, all politicians know this.
Anyway, on a lighter note its my birthday today so I'm in a good mood!
C
You read too many history books - written by too many self-deluded/ self-interested people Mr A Dragon.
Power of this magnitude can never be made manifest by a few evil minds.
Power of this magnitude is made manifest by the few who direct the many and the many who allow Evil to take hold - through apathy.
Evil + Apathy = Evil Magnified.
It really doesn't matter where you are, what year it is or who is involved. These are common principles underpinning the greatest of evils.
Happy B'Day C, it just goes to show that all Sagitarians are extremely good people, that is not to say of course that other Star Signs are not good people, but the Sagitarians do seem to have that little extra something, pity you're a man really!!
HAPPY BIRTHDAY Mr C
My meltdown is here, have to work on one SERIOUS exit plan now. Need an escape route, any one got any good ideas on a way out?
ditto on what you said Stephen.
Happy Christmas to all on this board.
Jim Carter
My meltdown is here, have to work on one SERIOUS exit plan now. Need an escape route, any one got any good ideas on a way out?
Spell those problems out Anonymous. This is what anonymity was really meant for.
Throw us your scenario and see what we come up with.
best
Don't want be here, want to be there, wherever there is, but don't want to let the good people on this earth down, pissed off but happy, scared, no.
I have found that there is no point to living and no point to dying.
That is the really great thing.
Whether dead or alive - we will all still exist.
But we have found our way here and although life may not be great.
We might as well hang around.
Whats the rush to go to the next place?
Just grab a beer or something and chill with some friends for the rest of your days!
Plenty of time to go there.
Hey Mr C, is that really you; Jim Carter, if so, then no doubt Rachel was right, perhaps, she does know you from one of her fabulous photo shoots.
And before you all go and look at the Jim Carter website, take a look at Rachels gallery first, otherwise some of you will be getting the wrong idea!!
Must admit though Jim, if I may call you Jim, there are some wicked Glamour Model shots there, I must be in the wrong game, heehee
DLOG
Hello Everyone,
Apologies for being away, crises are clearly unfolding here!
First in response to Anonymous and your need for an 'Escape Route' Stephen is right there is no real 'escape', far better to confront whatever is going on...
I suspect your desire to escape whatever you are facing is driven by fear; why not go with the flow instead of fight it? Maybe you need to let go if whatever it is you're holding on to and embrace the change? It may be taking you to a whole better place.
A good book for you to get hold of right now might be Love Life, Live Life by Sue Stone www.suestone.com
Now to you CG. I suspect you are laying a delicate trap for me but here goes...
Anger and Passion are both strong energies, the question is what do you do with all that energy? It is how you channel it that is the important thing.
Take Anita Roddick, she channelled her anger at animal testing within the cosmetics industry into creating a brand in The Body Shop which would ultimately change consumer awareness and ultimately change the industry for good.
A far more powerful and positive use of the anger than breaking into laboratories and daubing people's house with red paint etc..
On a slightly bigger energetic level, it was pointed out to me that astrologically there was a Grand Cross on my birthday the other week - 12 December 2008 - essentially 5 planets in direct opposition to one another in a cross formation in Sagittarius, Gemini, Pisces and Virgo. A source of tension and opposing forces pulling at one another.
This could explain absolute joy mixed with anger, certainty mixed with confusion, desire to escape and so on. Particularly potent if you are one of those 4 signs.
Personally, I think we are reaching a breaking point where opposing forces will pull the whole thing apart. For change to occur there must first be a breaking down of the old structures.
This is what we are now seeing.
On a more positive point look at the prediction for 2009 (Year of the Ox) at www.raymond-lo.com - a beautiful year where harmony and peace replace the conflict which has gone before. Let's hope so!
Regards
Rachel
Rachel;
"I suspect your desire to escape whatever you are facing is driven by fear; why not go with the flow instead of fight it? Maybe you need to let go if whatever it is you're holding on to and embrace the change? It may be taking you to a whole better place."
It is not fear, that is for sure, and I know what I want, it is how to achieve it in the smoothest of ways, I know the better place, it is a question of how to get there, I will seek and I will find that true happiness that has been bequest to me, it is all a matter of when, where and how, that is the raging anger that beholds me, not knowing how or when.
Why do you think that I am setting a delicate trap for you, and if that were the case, which it is not, why would you think I am trying to lay a trap?
CG
Stephen said "A leader in circumstances such as these can achieve greatness; for good or for bad."
Then he said "Power of this magnitude can never be made manifest by a few evil minds."
Stephen you are sounding more ridiculous everytime you post!
What is your point? Do you dispute the historical facts because they dont fit the psuedo-psychology your feeble mind has dreamed up this week?
As for getting one million people back work, I would be supprised if you could get your TV to work!
And what does this mean "I'm not sure if any one remembers but i have been trying to get 1Million people back to work, by getting them jobs to do on the Internet."
What jobs? What the hell does "jobs to do on the internet" mean? Like what, carrying emails?
It must be difficult to type these posts with a straight-jacket on!
Sorry Stephen, C, Rachel, or should that be the other way round, heehee, think I will have to stop posting here, that Mr A Dragon guy is really beginning to piss me off now big time, so rather than insult any one with bad language and the like it is better to make a quick exit I think.
Sorry all, but will keep communication by other means now.
DLOG
There is no contradiction in my first two sentences Mr A Dragon.
The chemistry of leadership can rest on a hundred million peoples shoulders - and be directed by a few. The results of which can be much evil doing - or the reconstruction of social harmony.
If i read from a history book, am i from that to deduce that the author had all the facts of the period and even more importantly - am i too deduce that the author had sufficient knowledge and skill in leadership to have interpreted this information into a factual work?
There are in fact a million different interpretations as to why this, that or the other happened. On this occasion i prefer to listen to people who were actually there and my own experiences of leadership.
I have been setting up a website and talking to my local MP and ministers about my plan to get 1 million people who are unemployed, disabled and on incapacity benefit back to work - using the Internet.
I have spent 18 months working out ways that folks can earn an income on the Internet and with the redirection of benefits to subsidizing a wage should be more than sufficient to get 1 million people back to work.
Oh and one last thing Mr A Dragon.
Fuck u!
Bloody come back DLOG.
You can't let bully-mouths put you off meeting here.
Come back.
Its Christmas for Christ sake!!
Stephen Said "If i read from a history book, am i from that to deduce that the author had all the facts of the period and even more importantly - am i too deduce that the author had sufficient knowledge and skill in leadership to have interpreted this information into a factual work?"
You dope - Yes, I am referring to Winston Churchills account of the Second World War - Is that OK for you?
Then Stephen Said! "Oh and one last thing Mr A Dragon.
F*@k u!"
Very grown up and really fits in with your new age, lets help everyone Mumbo Jumbo!
Hows your positive psychic energy now?! Mad are we? Stamping our feet? Screwing up our hands into little fists and shouting "Why is the world so unfair?!"
Any other equally intellectual repostes?
How often the bullys become meak when faced with someone who stands up to them!
DLOG and Stephen, get a life and grow some balls!
Sorry Stephen and all, I think best left alone for now, the posting, perhaps in the New Year I'll come back, but for now have to stop, to many other issues at the moment to sort out.
But I wish you all a
Very Happy and enjoyable Christmas
God Bless and love you all.
Thanks for all your time and patience.
TheDLOG
Mr A Dragon.
If i can help you, i will.
You seem to have gotten the wrong impression. Its not so much new age - as "free spirit".
I say - as i see. Not as am i influenced to see.
As does DLOG.
And i feel Rachel has always done that to.
I say fuck u, because you are either in the free spirit camp or outside.
And this thread was about currency.
heh..
To be fair Mr A Dragon, Stephen is correct in his assertion that history is merely a viewpoint, whether it is written at the time or subsequently. Weick calls it sense-making, namely there is a cognitive process that takes the personal obervations and mixes it with emotions to provide to the individual a sense of what happenned. Two people at the same event can thus remember things completely differently even when exposed to the same stimuli.
To be also fair, Stephen you need to respect all views, whether or not you agree with them. However, I do suspect that Mr A Dragon does play with you a bit, largely because you are so easily provoked!
As for DLOG I'm sure he'll be back as you cannot keep a good man (or woman) down.
As for everyone, Merry Christmas to all of you and I hope you all have a peaceful and happy new year.
C
dlogs a prat anyway good riddance to bad rubbish i say
Mr A Dragon. Please drop me an email at intrench@gmail.com and we can talk things through further.
If its money you need then i am sure i can help you there.
I need all the help i can get to get these 1 million people back to work.
There are a lot of piss poor managers out there who are about to be found out next year - and we should be doing all we can to regenerate the economy. Having millions of people sitting on their arse's isn't it.
Getting people back to work is the place to start - not trying to shore up businesses that quite frankly should have failed years ago.
The banks are simply going to sit and watch everything sink around them.
We really must start fighting back.
Merry Christmas all,
Wishing EVERYONE a happy, peaceful and harmonious Christmas
Sorry Zeta's. Merry Christmas.
Long may you live and reign over us troglodytes.
love
"To be fair Mr A Dragon, Stephen is correct in his assertion that history is merely a viewpoint"
Dear C
Fellow sane person. Thank you for your reply. Yes, I understand the concept that you talk about, however, the facts will always remain the facts, whether they come out sooner or later.
Do I set out to wind Stephen and DLOG up? No, it was never my intention when I first starting reading this Blog, however, you and I know that this Blog and the discussions within are a cartoon parady with certain individuals wielding the frying pan at every opportunity.
For that reason, it will never be a place for sensible discussion, but always a hotch potch of Elnaugh worship on one hand and psuedo intelectualism with nothing real to offer but crackpot schemes on the other.
While this state continues I am happy to offer a mix of sane comment and the odd put down!
Merry Christmas everyone!
Dragon I really don't give a fuck what you say about me, cos when you have a family that doesn't even want to visit their own Grandchildren, well what more can I say, the sooner I get out of this fucking shit bollacks life the better, Christmas, huh, the time for giving and to be jolly, I'd be fucking happier in hell.
Anyway sorry if iv'e fucked up your Christmas it wasn't intentional.
I wonder - what is 'real' intellectualism? At what point does intellectual discussion gain authority? Should the people involved in the discussion have degrees in 'intellectualism' – would that add gravitas? Or, do the theories espoused merely need to take a new slant on popular opinion? Or, maybe, the opposite – maybe you can only be an intellectual if you're reacting against the mainstream? Or perhaps you simply need to be eloquent in your turn of phrase? Or maybe an intellectual only gains authority when history proves his forward-thinking notions correct? Or maybe it's simply the case that one person's intellectual is another person's idiot?
Opinions. Opinions only - and everyone is entitled to have one.
And on that note of harmony – Merry Christmas one and all.
I fear Mr Dragon that you need a visit from the Ghost of Christmas Future.
What is it that you would prefer to talk about then?
Merry Christmas one and all!
DLOG - you sound genuinely distressed, I hope you are OK.
Christmas can be a funny time when families are involved. Very often the "dream" of how it should be is different from the reality.
Cranberry - Whats real Intelectualism? No idea..
Stephen - A Christmas Carol is one of my favourite films, because it makes me feel Christmassy - I always try to watch as many versions over the holiday as possible.
And also, its a great story, for me, Christmas is just the vehicle, its really about whats important to us humans, getting the balance right, as we might say in these modern times.
But mainly I think its about regret and redemption, and yes, its a pretty powerful proverb which is perhaps even more relevant today..
Mr A Dragon, Thank you for your concern, I am de-stressed now, I think!, back to my normal self, was I ever normal? heehee.
Perhaps I am back to my normal self cos I am back in the office now, as of yesterday, yep on my own, such bliss!!
Next year (2009) I am on a mission, don't know how I am going to do my mission, don't quite know what it is, but hey, step by step I will find that pot of Gold and success, then I can pay back all the many wonderful people that I have met on my adventurous journey through life.
Wish everyone a fantastic New Year' Eve and wish you all a Prosperous & fulfilling 2009.
God Bless you all
DLOG
x
Also Mr A Dragon in comment to your comment;
Christmas should be about embracing all, it is the one time of the year that we should be as one, it should not be a dream, it should be reality, one day of ones life that is all, a day to be truly loving to all, a new start even, a time to remember all those who are suffering and in distress and relieve them of their sufferings.
In fact, Christmas should be the time of new resolutions, a new start, a new life of giving.
As Deepak Chopra states;
"The law of giving and receiving is simple> If you want Love, learn to give Love, if you want attention and appreciation, learn to give attention and appreciation, if you want material affluence, help others to become materially affluent......"
And yes I am as guilty and contradictory of not fulfilling my beliefs, (as above), as perhaps others are, but it would be nice if this love was reciprocated at times!!
Secondly, intellectualism, we are all intellects in our own way, each and everyone of us has something of value to offer society.
DLOG
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