Reflections 30th July

On Walls, and modern Husbandry

Some weeks offer more food for reflection than others, and this past one has offered a bumper crop full of imagery, paradox and irony. A week where disastrous fires sit alongside record profits from energy and utility companies and the “dark PR” that seeks to delink them. A week where there is a ritual sacrifice of bank executives for sins far less egregious than the ones they enable every day, and the Economist carries a feature on “The "Overstretched CEO”, highlighting how little real autonomy they have and that in many ways, they are as hapless as those they employ (although cushioned a little by the fact that their pay is now around sixty-four times as much, double what it was the year before. The “Matthew Effect” is alive and well).

As I sit here on Saturday, with the weeks jigsaw pieces spread around in front of me, the picture they form is a need for modern husbandry:

husbandry (n.)

c. 1300, "management of a household;" late 14c. as "farm management;" from husband (n.) in a now-o…