Supercargo

Me on life, society and the world of work. I encountered the term "Supercargo" in the book "Black Gold" by Antony Wild. It referred to the supervisors of a ship's cargo during the time of the East India Company. They were crew, but would (I presume) also have worked with the Company's factors when auditing and transferring cargo from ship to port, via the factory. Anyway - a cool name, with links to work, trade, society, inequality, international justice, slavery, colonialism, corporate power: things that I (aged 51) am not expert in, but interest me deeply at the time of starting this blog in August 2025

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Too vast

A weird reading connection flow today: from a Rands in Repose post called Become the consequence about becoming good in a role (you need about three years) and developing delegation skills to the point where you - as a good manager - can say: "otherwise I'll do this...", to an article in the The Guardian about Norway's Sovereign Wealth Fund rejecting Tesla's obscene "compensation" package for their obscene CEO, which, combined, mention millions, billions and trillions, in which each next is a factor of a thousand larger than the previous. As Rands says: “our mental model isn’t remotely close to...

November 4th, 2025

Kids in the kitchen

Last Thursday night, my wife and I went to the German Film Festival in Ludwigshafen on the Rhein, where we watched the distinctly "non-art" German-American media-ethical thriller September 5, about the ABC film crew who captured live footage of the terrorist hostage-taking of the Israeli athletes at the 1972 Munich Olympics. The question of effectively live-streaming a terrorist attack, reporting hopeful hearsay and then having those hopes dashed was all well put together: I did find the timing of things confusing though, as some characters drove off to a nearby airfield, and a few minutes later were back again -...

September 6th, 2025

Mizen Head, West Cork

During our trip to Ireland (where my daughter and I contracted COVID-19), we visited Mizen Head , "Ireland's most Southwesterly point". We loved it there, with its spectacular geology and scenery, wild craggy outcrops slicing into the battering Atlantic Ocean, even spotting seals from above. For me, though, the whole was made more romantic still by the Signal Station, a collection of buildings and towers forming a radio station and originally a lighthouse (which is now situated on Fastnet Rock). It was originally a research station for Marconi, but also formed part of the CIL, the Commission of Irish Lights:...

August 31st, 2025

COVID-19...20...21...22...23...24...25

It's with us again, that COVID-19 virus, once again after visiting the British Isles. Our youngest got it first, whilst we were in Ireland. I caught it there, too, but only started to develop symptoms during our return trip: super spreading? I hope not, hope bolstered by our eldest and my wife remaining stubbornly negative in testing. What are my symptoms? This time nothing overblown, though in one sense I wish it was - a blitz and then done. Now, it's a full-body and -mind lethargy. Dizziness when I go for my usual lunchtime walk or help out in the...

August 31st, 2025