Beggars Seated On A Sack Of Gold?

"We can't be beggars seated on a sack of gold." One of the slogans of the President of Ecuador – Rafael Correa, who has announced that Ecuador will be cooperating with Peru and Columbia in fighting opposition to mining.

Since coming to power on a populist vote Correa has overseen the adoption of a new national constitution, which includes legal recognition of the rights for protecting the Mother Earth, for protecting the environment. But this has not headed off social unrest in response to plans for large scale mining in eco-sensitive areas. More recently Correa has been accused of taking the side of the wealthy elite while Campesino communities see their way of life and their livelihoods threatened by water pollution and loss of land to mines.

According to reports on the Mines and Communities web-site, earlier this year police in Ecuador arrested a number of activists who were meeting to plan the ‘People’s March for Water, Life and Dignity'. The police were apparently challenged to find good evidence of crimes under Ecuador’s broad anti-terrorism laws and some Che Guevara tee-shirts, amongst other items, were later presented as proof of ‘terrorist' intentions. This struck a chord because in my eco-thriller novel ‘Wounded Mountain' I had placed one of the lead female characters in a Che Guevara tee-shirt. I hadn’t thought of the fictional character as a terrorist, but she certainly was committed to a cause. Of course, you see the iconic tee-shirts on sale everywhere.

In the UK mention of the President of Ecuador brings to mind WikiLeaks, Julian Assange, and his provocative addresses from the balcony of the Ecuadorian embassy in London after taking asylum from answering bail for questioning on rape and sexual assault allegations made in Sweden.

A BBC news item reports the Ecuadorian ambassador as recently saying of Assange: "At a time of year when people come closer together, Ecuador reaffirms the solidarity that our country gave six months ago to a person who was being persecuted for thinking and expressing themselves freely. Julian has become a guest in this house that we all have learned to appreciate… Often it is necessary, as we have done in our beloved country, to stand up and face those enemies of democracy that, far from seeking unity and peace among the citizens of the world, instead seek to ruin socialist peoples and dominate on behalf of small groups of people."

So they feel it is right to express solidarity with a person they believe was being persecuted for thinking and expressing himself freely…but not with small groups who they decide are enemies of their national democracy?

Find Wounded Mountain on Amazon here: http://www.amazon.co.uk/Wounded-Mountain-ebook/dp/B00A8GRXVA/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1356473824&sr=8-2

BBC – Long Term Ethics Fail?

‘Chaos and incompetence at BBC over Savile scandal – yet STILL nobody gets the sack’ screams the Daily Mail headline on 20/12/12 (on pages 6 & 7 that is; Arctic convoy medals and the fight against online porn take page 1).

I was intrigued by the details of e-mail exchanges given in the Pollard Review, a report by Nick Pollard, former Sky News head, of ‘an independent review commissioned by the BBC into the management by the BBC of a Newsnight investigation relating to allegations of sexual abuse of children by Jimmy Savile’.

E-mails are quick, easy, and a great aid to business decision-making, aren’t they? But they also get replicated across the corporate system, and as a result are hard to remove. They sometimes lurk, waiting to be discovered if there is a problem. And when matters are exposed to scrutiny we then start to hear the explanations: didn’t read it, forgot it, didn’t seem so important at the time, my PA read it and didn’t pass it on.

Here there were serious allegations relating to a well-known TV personality, one of the BBC’s erstwhile darlings, which should have been addressed years before his death. The Savile viewer-generating TV personality was in a powerful position, and he seemed to have led a charmed existence, avoiding various challenges over his behaviour, including several failed police investigations. Stacked against this we have the quasi-public service liberal culture of the BBC. Well paid, steady employment for many with a good pension at the end of it. People in it for the long run, a situation that wouldn’t encourage ‘rocking the boat’.

Just what are the mechanics of human psychology around an ‘avoidance decision-making process’ i.e. where doing nothing keeps the status quo, doing something has only immediate dis-benefits? How would a middle manager react? Try to tackle it themselves - hardly? Turn a blind eye, keep quiet - ‘not my responsibility’? Refer it up in an oblique way to cover backside, and don’t follow through? And just what is the risk that top management will not thank you for pointing up an issue that might apparently be ‘under the radar’ and forcing them to do something about it?

There just didn’t appear to be anywhere in the BBC chain of command that would actually react to rumours and allegations around Savile and to go on the record to ask the simple question ‘do we really want this person as one of our star personalities?’

Does this amount to a complete exercise in double-think? An ethics problem may be brought to light, but in such a low-key way that no-one in authority is listening (or maybe no-one is forced to listen). The elephant remains in the corner; the smaller cogs in the machine don’t really expect those further up the chain to react and aren’t holding their breath.

After Savile’s death we end up with e-mail chains where people now refer to a known problem but no-one actually says what it is. According to Pollard, Senior BBC managers used phrases in their e-mails such as:

‘I’d feel v queasy about obit. I saw the real truth!!!’

‘The guy is pretty complex and difficult and there is a dark side.’

‘We decided that the dark side to Jim … would make it impossible to make an honest film that could be shown close to death.’

‘I gather we didn’t prepare the obit because of the darker side of the story.’

A dark side? Where does the buck stop? You say you didn’t know about this, BUT SURELY IT WAS YOUR JOB TO KNOW?

Here’s a decision-making matrix for the ‘ethically challenged’ when dealing with errant celebs:

Hard decision – let’s expose this person, we will have to handle the PR disaster that may well follow, but at least we remember our integrity. Ethics score: 9/10.

Easier decision – let’s stop using this person now, keep it low key, we don’t owe them a living, and we need to put distance between us. Ethics score 0/10.

Even easier decision – let’s keep using this person, they’re great for ratings and we don’t want to see them working for someone else instead. Ethics score: (minus) 5/10.

The Pollard Review also gives an ‘eye-opening’ insight into the attitude of public relations people when confronted with challenging circumstances. Here’s an example quoted in the report:

‘Thought of the hour. PR [Newsnight editor Peter Rippon] changes blog and accepts he was wrong and goes giving panorama a scalp. GE then goes into Select saying he backed his editor as you would expect. Turns out he was wrong sad but he did the right thing and we all move on???’

A pet spin phrase for the guilty – ‘isn’t it about time we all moved on?’

Message for corporate leaders: DON’T LEAVE IT TO YOUR SPIN DOCTORS TO SET YOUR CORPORATE ETHICS STANDARDS.

Find the Daily Mail article here:  http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2250847/Chaos-incompetence-BBC-Savile-scandal--STILL-gets-sack.html?ito=feeds-newsxml

Pollard Review full text here (BBC Trust site): http://www.bbc.co.uk/bbctrust/news/press_releases/2012/pollard_review.html

The Long Ride Home

Motorcycle adventure. Adventure motorbikers are rough, tough guys and gals, out there in the wilds, relying on their own resources? Right? Er…maybe.

I’ve just finished reading Sydney to London…The Long Ride Home by Nathan Millward. It’s a motorcycle adventure, a bright enjoyable read, with good descriptions of some challenging riding and some pithy insights. It all starts with an Australian girlfriend called Mandy; an ex-postie bike, a little red 110 cc Honda; and the spontaneity of a young Englishman.

Deadlines, threats, risks. Fear. These are the kinds of things that might come to mind when planning a long motorcycle adventure trip through many exotic countries. Some can spend forever planning – the over-planning of the dreamer who ultimately never manages to go on the big trip. But maybe it is easier to sail past all of that; avoid doubt and indecision; and just get out there. To quote Nathan - ‘I had the only planning you really need – to be certain that it’s something you have to do. Not want to do, because that’s not enough.’

And although the lack of planning was often endearing, it contributed to some of the difficulties Nathan met along the way. The untried, un-serviced, bike bought through eBay; the last minute dashes to meet visa deadlines; heel-kicking for days after missing the rare ferry; or having to walk the visiting girlfriend through a riot-prone area in Bangkok because the taxi couldn’t get past the roadblocks.

What do you need for the ultimate ‘please yourself, take your time, meander about’ adventure trip? Nathan seems at times to have had little in the way of protective gear, images of crashes tell a story. Tools? Um …forget the tyre levers. Wild camping? Yes, tight budget. Camping equipment? Err …maybe a sleeping bag. Tent? …Get that later. Stove? Not now thank you very much. Torch?

To quote again from Nathan – ‘no commitments, nothing to go back to, no job, no kids, no mortgage.’ No mortgage, right, but thankfully there are still credit cards to help carry the burden! And our intrepid rider still had to contend with the sweet impact of his interactions with his family back in the UK. Pulling out of an earlier planned trip after speaking with his nan; delaying telling his mother that he had started a ride by motorbike back to the UK; and just why did the batteries not get replaced in the GPS location transmitter provided by the parents?

The Long Ride Home contains much good descriptive prose. An early image is the culture shock on arriving in East Timor after flying out from Darwin, contrasting the poverty in a post-war torn country with the wealth imported for the benefit of the UN peacekeepers. Then there are the descriptions of the altitude problems, mainly for the bike, going over the Himalayas on the Manali to Leh Highway. The difficulties in mending a puncture on the approaches to the Baralacha La high pass, holding tools with frozen hands, being forced to ride into the hours of darkness searching for refuge. I recalled my own experiences riding in the Himalaya, but then I was riding with a larger group. Riding alone (or with a fellow-traveller you have only just met) through these challenging environments really increases the risks.

And Nathan certainly didn’t shy away from attacking the more challenging roads. There was the beauty of the Karakorum Highway leading up out of northern Pakistan into China, running the gauntlet, riding alone on sufferance through the Swat valley where the welcoming friendliness encountered elsewhere had given way to a brooding mistrust amongst reports of kidnap and the Taliban.

Alongside the big challenges, the book is, at times, also imbued with a certain naivety. The ‘you guessed it’ consequences for the camera left in the shower-room for safekeeping. The willingness, almost a preference at times, to ride through hours of darkness, whereas the soothsayers among us might point out that this is the time of most danger on unfamiliar roads.

Sometimes the odd point does grate. It was interesting to read of the reverence for the King in Thailand (supported by strict criminal laws against disrespecting him!), but I wasn’t buying the conclusion that in England (quote) ‘neither the queen nor religion means anything to anyone any more.’ Yes that’s right, you won’t be arrested in the UK just for perceived disrespect of our institutions! We have basic freedom of speech and no-one is prosecuted for treason these days.

Nathan speaks of sipping flavoured tea with other travellers at the lodge in Malaysia while enjoying movies. He watched ‘Into The Wild’, but hoped for a better ending to his own adventure. I had read the book recently. Maybe Nathan’s decision to grow his beard and not to comb his hair was a nod in the direction of Chris McCandless, the young American who starved to death in the wilds of Alaska on his great adventure.

Although there are some similarities, the contrast between the two young men and their different adventure experiences is quite sharp. I guess Nathan wanted his independence but didn’t really want to break away. For Chris McCandless it wasn’t just a rite of passage – he truly wanted to escape from his family – finishing high school to meet his parents’ expectations; leaving on his big trip without telling anyone where he was going; covering his tracks; letting his family suffer knives to the heart through not knowing where he was; giving away his family inheritance money; burning his cash; eventually abandoning his car and living the life of the hobo.

The Long Ride Home challenges quite a few assumptions. I admire the author’s honesty in telling his tale. With his low budget trip he succeeded in achieving things many of us never get to do in a whole lifetime. Ultimately it took guts.

You can find out more about The Long Ride Home here: http://www.thepostman.org.uk/

Suicide of ‘Prank’ Call Nurse - 'the Lawyers checked it'

So sad, the story of the nurse at the pregnant Duchess of Cambridge’s hospital who died, apparently from suicide, shortly after being subjected to a ‘joke’ call from two individuals at an Australian radio station. It is obviously going to run for some time.

But just why are the newspapers referring to the deceptive call as a ‘prank’? How about simply using the word ‘deceptive’ instead? I know the media have to concern themselves with the risk of being sued for defamation, but no-one is going to dispute that the call was deliberately deceptive – are they? Yes, the word ‘prank’ has an old fashioned ring to it. Maybe it fits nicely into the headline or the sound-bite. But use of such words kind of endorses the idea that malicious behaviour is ok if it is just done as a joke. The school bully’s cry when challenged: “can’t you take a joke?”

I’m interested in the legal sub-plots and the ethical problems that run beneath such controversies. It is the kind of issue I examine in my novel Wounded Mountain. One of the radio station bosses has come out and tried to offer some justification by saying that the death could not reasonably have been foreseen when the call was made. That suggests maybe he had already been to the lawyers and obtained advice on the likelihood of being successfully sued over the death. His focus has to be on the legal liability because he really has nothing to say on matters like business ethics.

They say the radio piece was signed off by lawyers. And then we hear that the radio station has been challenged with the Australian regulators over previous incidents. So they are probably well used to having items checked by lawyers prior to broadcast. They are ‘edgy’, they will test the boundaries. Of course, the lawyers aren’t responsible for a business’ ethical standards – that is for the people running the business to take ownership of. And subtleties like ‘integrity’ won’t necessarily be high on the list of priorities for a radio show that sets out to ‘entertain’ by provoking and humiliating people who happen to be near (not even in) the public eye.

This radio station is a product of its audience. If it didn’t have listeners it couldn’t sell its advertising. A ‘fake calls’ programme succeeds only if it has an audience that wants to hear it. Apparently the local audience for the show is primarily young, early twenties. Maybe they are not representative of the general public. But anyone who ‘enjoys’ these programmes ought to pause to reflect. Yes, a lawyer might tell you that you can’t be sued, the ‘chain of causation’ is too long, it is not ‘reasonably foreseeable’ that someone would commit suicide shortly after being deceived and publically humiliated; but the people that consume this kind of spiteful radio show are responsible for what has happened.

Here’s a prediction – the owners of the radio station will want to revert to their original ‘business plan’ as soon as they can. It is costing them money not to have advertising. So they need to get the PR and legal issues out of the way quickly. And they need to recover their advertiser base before it goes elsewhere. Reports say they have now offered money to set up a fund for the dead nurse’s family. They’ll be desperately hoping the PR response will settle things down at least enough that they can push the controversy aside and get on with running the business for profit. Maybe there will be a scapegoat or two as the process plays out. And if matters prove too difficult or drag on without resolution we may find that the culprits simply pop up elsewhere.

You can find Wounded Mountain on Amazon here: http://www.amazon.co.uk/Wounded-Mountain-ebook/dp/B00A8GRXVA/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1355356197&sr=8-2

BBC News item here: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-20696610

Corporate Battles - Did You Pay Too Much?

The current Hewlett Packard/ Autonomy controversy seems to be hotting up with the creation by Autonomy’s former boss, Mike Lynch, of a web-site to counter Hewlett Packard’s widely reported claims that deceptive accounting artificially inflated Autonomy’s price prior to its acquisition by HP. Lynch says that HP’s financial team could not have missed such issues in the due diligence they carried out before the sale went through. This has led to allegations that HP is putting up a ‘smokescreen’ to draw attention away from its poor performance generally.

What intrigues me most about this on-going battle is Lynch’s claim that HP made their public announcements before contacting him about the issue. This makes it look like HP’s first priority was to manage their PR problem before even starting the usual pre-litigation posturing; although HP are now saying they believe the legal process is the correct method in which to bring out the facts and take action on behalf of their shareholders.

This real-life story has some resonances with what happens in my book, Wounded Mountain, as one theme in the book examines the ethics around a fictional company acquisition from the point of view of the professional advisers on the deal, the lawyers and accountants.

You can find Wounded Mountain on Amazon here: http://www.amazon.co.uk/Wounded-Mountain-ebook/dp/B00A8GRXVA/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1355048495&sr=8-1

The Telegraph article here: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/technology/news/9721708/Autonomy-founder-Mike-Lynch-creates-website-to-battle-HP-claims.html

Mike Lynch web-site at: http://autonomyaccounts.org/

Into The Wild

I've just finished reading Into The Wild by Jon Krakauer. The book has been around for a while - it examines the circumstances around the death in 1992 of a young man alone in the Alaska wilderness. His ultimate experience. I found it incredibly thought provoking.

Into The Wild challenges many assumptions. Is it truly possible to go back to basics and to survive in the wilderness without the trappings of modern society?

I found this book to be a good read, well researched and well written. The glimpses of other people's wilderness experiences and of the books that Chris McCandless read up to his death are enlightening.

At the end of it you are still left asking “why?” It is unsettling. Here was a young man who had a comfortable upbringing, a high-achiever who opted out of the life path that already seemed to be mapped out for him.

I think part of his motivation was the negative. The need to move out from the shadow of an ultra-achieving parent, the need to assert your own personality, an almost 'I'll show you' attitude as he displayed his own independence, perhaps exacerbated by a late discovery of the skeleton in the family cupboard.

But there is also a degree of irresponsibility - covering his tracks, effectively penalising those who cared about him, and the episode where he drove his car illegally far into the parklands, abandoning it in the gulch after a flood.

After time spent tramping the country, trying to improve his skills along the way, he seemed to be looking for the ultimate 'back to the wild' experience. Just what is this ultimate experience? Is it driving a well-stocked 4x4 down the tracks, parking up where other people might pass, telling friends and family where you are, putting the steaks on the barbecue and opening a few beers, taking a radio, maps, a decent hunting rifle, all the paraphernalia that modern society can provide? Or is it something else? I think Chris McCandless wanted this ultimate experience on his own terms. It meant he had to put his life in danger, and this led him to ignore advice and to take more risks than he needed to. For the experience to be real there had to be a significant risk of death. This meant no comforts, no easy escape routes. And it meant he really could die.

Was Chris' behaviour just a proxy for some kind of long drawn out suicide? I don't think so. He accepted the risk of death, even embraced it. Perhaps death would be the ultimate 'I told you so', but true success would involve surviving the experience; and at the end he was hoping for rescue. If he had a better map, better local knowledge, better understanding of what foods to eat, maybe the outcome would have been different. If...

This book has inspired me to try to engage more with nature, but not to try to do what Chris McCandless did.

Find out more here: http://www.christophermccandless.info/intothewildbook.html 

'Wounded Mountain' Published on Amazon

My first novel, Wounded Mountain, has now been published on Amazon. It is set in South America and tells of a battle between corporate greed and a desperate community.

A wealthy young City-based lawyer, while touring the back roads of South America by motorcycle, is drawn violently into the environmental conflict between big business mining and the local peoples.

As circumstances quickly move out of his control he is forced to confront his own mortality and to re-evaluate his own life, ultimately leading him to commit everything to bringing down something that he had helped create.

You can see the book on Amazon here: http://www.amazon.co.uk/s/ref=nb_sb_noss?url=search-alias%3Daps&field-keywords=james+rammell+mountain

Visit my web-site: http://www.jamesrammell.com/