Fractal, not Frayed

The former head of MI6 was talking on Radio 4 this morning about the benefits of strategic distance. The patterns he could see now that he was no longer responsible for the day to day business of spying. I thought it was an important passing observation.

The way we are bombarded with news, designed to grab attention more than to inform makes it hard for us to get strategic distance. If we could achieve it, we would see that what appears to be fraying at the edges is part of a pattern.

The man from MI6 was talking big patterns - China, Russia, Regional Conflict, Defence Policy. For the rest of us closer to home it is jobs, the High St, not being able to see family and other things that to those looking at big pictures must seem unimportant and prosaic. But the patterns are there.

Things fray at the edge. Whether that is post Brexit relationships with Europe, or locally, Thorntons continuing down a road decades ago when their strategic vision moved from its home in Derbyshire through finan…