Ronnie By The Sea

How many graduation speeches have you heard, heard about, or even given? Every single one has aimed to inspire and enthuse, rouse and motivate, and will contain words of advice, words of wisdom, lessons learned, ideas on success, insights into happiness, or a combination of them all, designed to explain what really matters in life blah, blah, blah … Type into a Google search “You are not special”; you will be flooded with links to a speech, which went viral in 2012. A no-nonsense Pulitzer prize-winning historian, David McCullough, told Wellesley High School's "pampered" and "bubble-wrapped" graduating class that they were not exceptional and that they should come to terms with it … "Capable adults with other things to do have held you, kissed you, fed you, wiped your mouth, wiped your bottom, trained you, taught you, tutored you, coached you, listened to you, counselled you, encouraged you, consoled you, and encouraged you again. But do no...

We often hear the words “only in America” when we hear of some weird or wonderful event that’s happened there. Well, here is an “only in England” story. In the years we have travelled to the UK, we have observed a crazy belief that a sign will fix the problem. There are signs everywhere, seeking to advise/caution/define/warn/threaten/direct.  We have also observed the rise and rise of Political Correctness, the latest example recorded in The Times this morning. In 2009, a London council banned parents from supervising their own children in two playgrounds because they had not undergone criminal record checks.  Only a handful of council-vetted rangers would be allowed to assist children at the adventure playparks.  Parents were forced to watch their children from outside the perimeter fence.  Parents said that the ban amounted to the council labelling them “potential paedophiles.”  However the Council claimed it was only following O...

Marjie and I watched a movie about the Challenger disaster, when the space shuttle exploded over Cape Canaveral, Florida, just seventy-three seconds after lift-off, on 28th January 1986. All seven crew were killed. “Here was no sacrifice for the sake of knowledge or science; they were lives expendable in a tale of political ambition and corporate greed” (TV Scene, the Sunday Mail, 29th April 1990.)  The movie looked at the physical and emotional demands of Astronaut training, the arguments over safety standards, and critical decisions made in the lead up to the 1986 Challenger mission. Challenger did not actually “explode”, rather, it broke apart.  Disintegration of the vehicle began after an O-ring seal in its right solid rocket booster (SRB) failed at lift-off.  The O-ring was not designed to fly under unusual conditions such as in this launch. Its failure caused a breach in the SRB joint it sealed, allowing pressurised burning gas from within the...