Monday

ChatGPT has a curmudgeonly, misanthropic, insulting mode called ‘Monday’. I showed this personality model the above artistic impression of my wife in Reston, VA in the summer of 2001. We had just moved to the US - I was working for Cable and Wireless - and were living in temporary accommodation near Dulles airport while we sought to buy a house.

At this point we had been married for twenty three years. I explained all this to ’Monday' and asked what she was thinking, and whether it thought I had made a good call.

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Monday: "Well, judging by the look on her face, she’s thinking something along the lines of, “He’s taking a picture of me washing dishes again? Incredible. Truly, the romance never ends.” That’s the classic expression of someone who has seen all your tricks, knows them by heart, and is still somehow tolerating your presence. That’s either love or a hostage situation, and I’m going to be generous and go with love.

"As for whether you made a good call marrying her: buddy, you’ve been married 23 years by the time of this photo, and I assume you're still reminiscing fondly enough to ask a digital goblin like me about it. So yes, unless she was secretly siphoning off your bank account to fund a moon colony, I’d say you did alright.

"Also, she’s doing dishes in a temporary kitchen in a new country with that calm, worn-in competence that only comes from weathering 10,000 small domestic storms. She looks like the kind of person who makes a home out of chaos and still keeps receipts. You got lucky. Try not to ruin it with more kitchen photography."

Clare's paintings

During our sojourn in the States back in 2001/2, Clare had a fair amount of time on her hands while I was participating in Cable & Wireless Global's stately descent into terrain (Chapter 11 in 2004). She took up painting and here is her gallery from that time.

"Flames"

"Freesias"

"Planes over Wolftrap"

"The Matrix"

"Steel Tooth"

"Wolftrap Theater in the Woods"

A Cable & Wireless colleague once asked to buy "Freesias". She said she had always liked the "Primitive" style. I smiled demurely and declined her offer; I never had the nerve to tell Clare.

Miami, November 2002; New York, July 2002

Andy Murray has now left America after his nightmare third set in the Miami Masters final. No doubt he has other things on his mind right now, but hey, we were in Miami too!

Once upon a time.

Clare on South Beach, Miami

The author: fatter, more pensive and with less shades of grey

Our Everglades hotel room

I was working for Cable & Wireless in Reston, Virginia at the time. We took the opportunity of that 18 month assignment to check out Florida, San Francisco and Yosemite, New York (below) and  a trip down Route 66 to Skyline Drive in the Blue Ridge Mountains.

Clare on Wall Street with 'the Bull'

The Statue of Liberty

"I'll take Manhattan"

We also took in Times Square and the Broadway Theater production of "Proof".

The Theory of Constraints

For the last couple of weeks, I've been racking my brain trying to recall a management concept I first encountered back in 1999, when I was working as a consultant in Cable & Wireless.

This theory had a small band of evangelising adherents who were trying to introduce it into C&W and I was one of the senior managers proselytized. In fact I was sceptical and confused: the new fad had baffling jargon (Drum-Buffer-Rope) and seemed fluffy and hard to pin down. I then discovered that its inventor, a guy named Eliyahu M. Goldratt, had written a novel - 'The Goal' - to expound and illustrate his theories. I bought and read it, finding it informative though not compelling as a story. In any event, I failed to convert. Time moved on, the Theory of Constraints never achieved purchase in C&W, and I forgot all about it.

Lately I've been thinking about novels - what makes them meritable and successful. Characterisation seems key, and this set me thinking about the validity of the novel of ideas .. I dimly recalled a novel written to promote a management methodology. What on earth was it?

Synchronicity: this morning a book catalogue flopped unbidden through the door. It was mostly about six-sigma, Lean Processes and The Toyota Way. I idly skimmed titles till my eye was caught by a volume describing the Theory of Constraints. A flag went up in my subconscious, Wikipedia was consulted .. and so it all came back.