Features and blogging

Whatever your political persuasion, no one can have avoided the momentous events of this past week. Our phones have ripped through data as history played out in painstaking slow motion. I bought an actual newspaper because I like to keep the covers for anything majorly newsworthy; it’s tucked alongside a front page photo of Millennium fireworks and a much earlier one of Diana kissing Charles (that one didn’t end so well).
Hugh Laurie joked on Twitter about those final figures being so burned into his TV screen that he’ll see a shadow of them during the cricket next summer. Three recent-ish news events have left me with this same long-lasting tingle:
• The Hudson river rescue – that image of commuters in suits standing on the wings of a huge floating plane is still burned into my mind.
• The Chilean miner rescue – I kept watch until every man got out, and the mood at the school gates that afternoon was buoyant.
• The Thai cave rescue – when the Wild Boars football team went exploring in northern Thailand and couldn’t get out, it seemed impossible that they would ever be returned to daylight, but they were.
And now, the White House rescue.
Whether you feel rescued or not and whichever way you swing, a big event like this defines the time in which it happens for all of us; it’s personal. I can recall where I was at the time for all of the above events as well as HOW I was, emotionally, for the middle one.
There is much to do. I’m enjoying the optimism and treating it as a new lead. I’m thinking about changing the way I work ever so slightly: short-term tweaks for the longer gain. I’ve a nice new client on the books and plenty of half-finished personal projects to complete. It’s time to crack on.
Call this Lockdown 2 Management, call it an early new year, I’m jogging towards the light and can’t wait until the next ray of sunshine peeks through the clouds. I’m still unable to detach myself completely from Twitter and we all know there’s a long road ahead, but I’m smiling.