Madam, let me tell you one thing
Tales of foolishness in India from Liz Scully of Rethink Central
Signage Sunday : Curated : Don’t pollute it
Something new - please meet curator of this months Signage Sunday Aurelia Zoss. This is the first of four posts from Aurelia. Back home, people started having a plastic phobia a couple of years ago. The plasticizers that enter the liquid content of plastic bottles...
I’m the Crane of the month!
Those lovely ladies over at Talking Cranes, have very kindly featured me as their 'Crane of the month' for July. Which is awfully nice of them. Do check out their blog if you don't know it, it's full of fabulous information about India, and a really great...
Don’t get even, get grateful
Recently I had a row with someone. You know how it is, you don’t mean to, but tempers fray and a falling out happens. It’s human. The next day I got an email. A very strongly worded and emotional email. It was upsetting. And for a moment I wanted to hit back, to shout...
Signage Sunday: Would you like bacon with that?
Far as I can tell everything in Canada boils down to just two flavours. Maple syrup. And bacon. You can even get maple syrup flavoured bacon. I kid you not. But I was shocked to discover that you can get 'bacon chocolate chip cookies' in a trendy downtown restaurant....
Signage Sunday: For World Pride
This week's Signage Sunday is in honour of World Pride in Toronto. Which is of course a fabulous celebration of gay life. So what better way to do that than to share a company name that stopped me dead in my tracks in the lovely fancy area I'm staying in at the...
What’s your second best story?
I got in the cab still laughing and the cabbie smiles and says, You finishing for the night? Yes, you just starting? Yeah, I’ve only been on for a half an hour. How long you worked nights? 35 years. Gosh, you must have some stories. No, not really, I’m not good at...
Stationary Sunday: Everything is going to be… OK
I wanted to say thank you to the many people who mailed me after Wednesday's post. I was saying that I'd had a bit of a rubbish week and many people not only were very kind about that - but even kinder to share the things they're struggling with. Some big stuff. Makes...
Today is not a good day. But that’s ok
I'm a business coach and people generally expect me to have most things sorted out. Patently, this is not the case. Not only is this blog witness to that (I've even been known to shout at cripples in the street on a particularly bad day) - but it's human to not be...
Signage Sunday: Apparently, this afternoon resembles a Grand Master painting
Just a quickie for you today. I spotted this on Saturday in London. There are now large TV screens giving information at some tube stations (this one's in Camden Town). There's information from TimeOut the once great, and now free, London listing magazine. And the...
View from the office: 10 June 2014
So I'm in London at the moment. Not only am I working away as usual online, I'm getting out and about to meet clients. Which means that between meetings I bed down with my laptop at the nearest likely looking location and make with the free wifi. Mostly that's coffee...
Signage Sunday: But I don’t want to eat soil
Ages ago, I met the lovely Aneeta Madhavan from Talking Cranes for lunch in Bangalore. Which was a delight. Not just because Aneeta is fabulously interesting and fun, or that we were in a rather lovely hip place with delightful food. No, we were rather intrigued by...
Video: I don’t talk about this much
Deep breath - so this is quite personal, as I get a little upset in this video. It's about cake, which as you know is a subject I feel very strongly about. What you might not know is why, I feel quite so strongly about it. So, here's a snippet from my...
Signage Sunday: Please leave your relatives
We're back on Indian signs again this week (I know, it's been ages!) This rather large and impressive Police sign appeared close to where I lived a few weeks before I left. Apparently, there'd been a spate of 'chain snatching' and this was the way to clamp down on...
Another year as a top Indian Blog…
Apparently, we've made the cut over at India Top Blogs. And we're on the list of top blogs. Again. They seem awfully keen over there, but all the same, they maintain that it's a curated list and they do actually weed people out each year. So, instead of being slightly...
Signage Sunday: Please disregard this information
As I was coming home last week (from a lovely little weekend in France, seeing as you ask), I realised I was travelling by train on a Sunday. For those of you not familiar with trains in the UK... this is quite definitely 'not a good thing'. Sundays are when they do...
I HAVE to eat this ice cream
I've been travelling a lot recently, as you've probably noticed. Which is, of course, lovely. Partly that's because I can work from anywhere. Yes, I know I go on about this location independence thing a lot, but it's really good. But there is a downside to that. See...
Signage Sunday: Call that an ocean?
So I was in Plymouth recently, visiting my best mate. Which is nice, as I've not seen him for a few years. Well not seen him in the flesh that is, I see him on Skype all the time of course. Such is modern life. Anyway, now I've left India, I have a bit more time to...
Breathing. I miss it
I can’t, currently, breathe. Or rather, I can only breath very slowly and rather shallowly. I sound like a cheap Darth Vader impersonator. This lack of easy breathing is why this post is late. I have a cold, and my brain is made of cotton wool and I’ve been working on...
Signage Sunday: Optimistic light at the end of the tunnel
This week I'm in Bristol in the south west of Britain. It's a beautiful city with a rich history and a lively feel. It's also utterly plastered in ace street art. My eye was particularly taken by this optimistic little number in a large underpass called the 'Bear Pit'...
Vultures on the beach
I looked up from breakfast and saw something shifty on the beach. Several shifty somethings now as I looked closer… Good grief - are those vultures on the beach?! And yes, that’s exactly what they are. Vultures in a group, skulking about the beach in Costa Rica. I’ve...
Signage Sunday: A balanced diet
Just a quick, little sign for you this week. Mostly because I'm away at the moment rolling about the Scottish Highlands and enjoying a little time off after a rather frantic period of travelling. So, it's lovely to be hanging out with old friends, staring at gorgeous,...
Look, I’m in a Canadian newspaper!
I had an article printed in the Globe and Mail recently. Check me out! A very nice chap interviewed me about my Career Course and the joys of nearly working myself to death in film (top tip from the interview? don't do it). To be utterly honest, I'd never heard of the...
Signage Sunday: How’d you like your eggs?
I'm guessing you might like them scrambled, or perhaps in an omelette, or even poached. How would you feel about having them pouched? I didn't think so. Yet again, comedy spelling on menus in Hampi brings us an image of food that makes it less than appetising. Still,...
It was all so incredibly clean
I’m very excited about soon being near actual real quality pavements again on a daily basis. I realise I’ve mentioned this pavement thing a lot - but it kept coming up over and over again when I was telling people I was leaving India. There I'd be waxing lyrical about...
Signage Sunday: No outside food
This took me a while to get used to. You see it everywhere in India. No outside food. At first it made me wonder if there was inside food. Or if outside food was food from a rubbish bin. But obviously, you gentle reader, are quicker than I am. And are aware that it...
Dinosaurs on the lawn
I'm currently in Costa Rica So, as many of you know, I'm not currently living in India. As of two weeks ago, I emigrated. Not immigrated anywhere else - as I've not actually landed anywhere in particular yet. But I did the leaving India part: I now officially have no...
Signage Sunday: Use me
You see this legend on almost all litter bins in India. Use me. Obviously it's a simple request. Use the rubbish bin. Fair enough. But it does have a lot of emotional baggage with it. Whenever I see it, I can't help feeling it has a plaintive rather submissive edge to...
Things I won’t miss: the noise
Second in a series of things I won't miss about India. India is noisy. Very noisy - there are dogs, and cars and temple festivals ALL the time. People live in noisy joint family houses and seem to not even hear the sound of each other shouting. Unfortunate that, as I...
Signage Sunday: Hard to gauge a language
I like this sign particularly. Languages being hard to gauge at the best of times. Spelling even more so. The fact it's a book store, it's on about language... the fact it's spelt wrongly. So much to enjoy in just those two transposed letters. In fact, I'll just leave...
Things I won’t miss: being stared at ALL the time
First in a series of things I will not miss about India. In Kerala the stare is benign. Soft even, and if you catch someone's eye, they almost always break into a massive smile. Staring feels considerably less benign in Bangalore. It’s not out and out aggressive - but...