Thursday, October 23, 2003
Sailing Away
Just been away crewing in my first yachting regatta - "Ariane's Cup" - in the Aegean. It's an annual event bringing together all the European space companies, at a different location each year, with plenty of boozing, eating and singing, and with a little bit of yacht-racing thrown in. There were 90-odd boats and about 750 crew taking part, mainly from France, Germany and the UK, but also from Holland, Spain, Italy, Sweden etc.
It's great fun whizzing along in the spray with the sun beating down. Shame that only happened for about an hour during the whole four days - the rest of the time the wind was little more than a breeze, and we lazed about in our elaborate £¼M bobbing caravan, occasionally pulling on the odd rope - sorry, sheet - and soaking up the autumn sun.
I'm now back at work, at my desk, with 3 damp degrees outside the window. Have just received a text from Roger the Cabin Boy, one of six members of my crew who stayed on for a few more days - "79 degrees and 20 knots. Stayed last night in Ydra, off to Paros today."
Bastards.
posted by Plig |
13:45 |
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Forget the sentimental notion that foreign policy is a struggle between virtue and vice, with virtue bound to win.
Forget the utopian notion that a brave new world without power politics will follow the unconditional surrender of wicked nations.
Forget the crusading notion that any nation, however virtuous and powerful, can have the mission to make the world in its own image.
Remember that diplomacy without power is feeble, and power without diplomacy is destructive and blind.
Remember that no nation's power is without limits, and hence that its policies must respect the power and interests of others.
Hans Morgenthau
The whole problem with the world is that fools and fanatics are always so certain of themselves, but wiser people so full of doubts
Bertrand Russell
The release of atomic energy has not created a new problem. It has merely made more urgent the necessity of solving an existing one
Albert Einstein
When you are right you cannot be too radical; when you are wrong, you cannot be too conservative
Martin Luther King Jr.
Our great democracies still tend to think that a stupid man is more likely to be honest than a clever man
Bertrand Russell
I think it would be a good idea
Mahatma Gandhi, when asked what he thought of Western civilization
There are painters who transform the sun to a yellow spot, but there are others who with the help of their art and their intelligence, transform a yellow spot into the sun
Pablo Picasso
Those are my principles, and if you don't like them... well, I have others
Groucho Marx
Whatever you do will be insignificant, but it is very important that you do it
Mahatma Gandhi
Always make new mistakes
Esther Dyson
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