AN R IN THE MONTH

Next month there will be an R in the month again. Which makes it the right time to think about planting more trees.

Here's what we've planted at Laytham so far:

Oak approx. 40
Chestnut 1
Cherry 16
Apple 6
Mulberry 2
Copper Beech 1
Silver Birch 3
Willow 2
Gage 1
Plum 2
Walnut 1
Hawthorn 1

All, with the possible exception of the walnut, are thriving. I think the walnut has too much competition. I may have to move it.

There are three especially fine trees absolutely shooting up too. But I didn't plant them. They just appeared. Two are grey poplars, offspring of the huge tree that skirts the old moat. They shimmer most beautifully in the wind and make a lovely calming noise. Trees are therapeutic that way. They say that if you have a headache, go and sit under a willow for an hour. Your headache will go. I quite believe it. And it would not surprise me if the poplars are equally healing. The third tree is a sycamore. But I think that won't survive. Where it is, it is jostled and pushed about by the poplar brothers. And, despite their calm exterior, they are hard men, not to argue with. I found this out when I tried to remove another of their brethren, first with a machete, then with a lopping saw, and eventually with a big bush saw. Made me sweat, the bastard.

Come next month, I'll have a shopping list. Topping it will be one or more horse chestnuts, which, like the copper beech, should grow on the east side of the house to be magnificent and huge trees, long after I become tree myself. And a couple of willows, to soak up the paddock's deepest furrow in its ancient ridge and furrow structure. I'm tempted by a pine or two. But there again, I'm not sure. They seem somehow a bit middle class, and I'm terribly snobby about that. Someone suggested a Eucalyptus. Never.

I have kids. I may one day write a work of genius. I doubt that. Apart from these things, what greater legacy can there be than planting trees?

TEFLON

If Teflon is non stick, how come it sticks to the pan in the first place?

IDEAS, INNIT?

When organizations refer to upping creativity, they're normally jsut talking about getting better idea generation. I've been asked by a couple of clients to give them some simple rules to maximse their forthcoming idea generation sessions. Here they are:

• Get 6 to 12 participants
• Have a facilitator
• Call for ideas with a simple question: "I'm looking for ideas now, how might we..." Don't overcomplicate the stimulus or people won't understand it. Don't allow lengthy questioning of the brief. that will have the same effect.
• Allow, and brief participants to allow all ideas. Yup, all of 'em. You should aim for literally hundreds in a session.
• Rule people away from behaviours other than giving ideas. Asking questions, giving opinions, giving information. These things are great but not when you want ideas.
• Write down each idea verbatim. Verbatim.
• Watch for the cresting wave, the moment when the group fails to produce any more ideas. It's not the first moment of silence. That may just be people thinking.
• At the moment of the cresting wave, you could introduce a piece of new stimulus. The classic archetypes for this are Brian Eno's Oblique strategies. But you can invent your own.
• Encourage throughout a spirit of play rather than work. Encourage silliness, outrageousness, mucking about. Watch kids, who are nearly all geniuses when it comes to producing ideas. they do all of the above.
• Delay any evaluation till the end. Do any evaluation only at the end and simply and quickly. The simplest, and often the best is simply to give people each three or four votes, and let them choose the winners.

Voila!

It really is pretty simple. And the simpler, the better.

PROCESS AND POSTURE

To get ideas, sprawl.
To get (lengthy) opinion, sit.
To fight, get round a table.
To agree, be alongside.
To choose, move.
To decide, huddle.
To bare souls, walk.

TREASURE

The man came this afternoon to deliver my new mower. This grand toy costs the equivalent of a small car and is one mean machine - the Arnold Schwarzenegger of grass cutting. It was raining lightly and he advised me not to use it today. Obvious really. But I did. Works a treat even in the wet.

And there, just under the sycamore and elder were the treasure that I find once a year. Puffball mushrooms. I hopped about I was so excited, leaped off my new mower, ran for the kitchen, grabbed a knife and had them up as soon as you could say "calvatia gigantia". Then, back in the kitchen I sliced my chosen treasure to check that it's nice and white all the way through. You shouldn't eat them if they have gills formed on the inside. Fry some good butter in a pan. Bung in the puffball slices. Season well with salt and black pepper. Chuck in a couple of rashers of bacon. Top off with a couple of fried eggs. The Holy Roman Emperor couldn't have eaten better.

And the mower didn't pack up.

CHANDLER

My kinda town: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/foodanddrink/foodanddrinkpicturegalleries/5568774/The-Heart-Attack-Grill-in-Chandler-Arizona.html

ZEN TODAY

No self. No problem.

BET YOU CAN'T AVOID SMILING

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4-94JhLEiN0

ZEN TODAY

Is it better to live wide?
Is it better to live narrow?
Is it better to live deep?
Is it better to live shallow?

A PERFECT SUMMER'S DAY

Yesterday was a perfect summer's day. The sky was deep blue, but with enough wind and cloud for interest's sake.
Zara and I took Jed to his rehearsal at the theatre.
My replacement Guernsey turned up.
A spontaneously arranged day ensued with David, Karen and Tess, lived out almost entirely in the gardens.
We had broad beans and fat peas straight from the vegetable garden lobbed into a huge salad also containing leaves, cucumber, pancetta and croutons, together with tiny new potatoes. I experimented with making a toffee sauce for ice cream. It turned out better than I'd even imagined.
David and I played shuttlecock on the lawn for ages, he gradually revealing his sporting excellence, me less gradually revealing decrepitude.
The girls played happily in and out of Zara's summer house, in the hammock and on the new swing which Jed has fixed in one of the apple trees.
Yas and Karen chatted contentedly.
There was mint tea and a big jug of elderflower presse.
David and I picked up Jed, elated at the progress the production is making.
More badminton long into the evening with Jed.
Frost, on TV.
Bed.

Can't be more blissful.

CALLED TO THE BAR

Last night, an unusual amount of pomp and circumstance. I attended the Call to the Bar ceremony at Middle Temple. For my host, who was being called, it was a proud occasion. He has every right to feel proud after the outrageous slog to qualify. And he was duly called and signed his name in the register that has been kept for centuries on the Middle Temple's cupboard, made of a deck hatch from The Golden Hind.

Some impressions then.

What stuck out to me were the furrowed brows and intensity of the young men and women who had been Called. Their predominant concern - unemployment. Having taken first class academics, and massive amounts of sheer sweat and application to get to this point, they almost all face the prospect of .............. nothing. Pupillages will be given ultimately to less than 20% of them. The wastage rate is ridiculous.

Then there were the parents. Diffident. Congratulatory. But not joyous, not affectionate, not exuberant.

Some say that the very role of barrister is arcane. Maybe. But it can't be right to put so much talent through so many tests and challenges, only to waste it.

And those parents! Every step of restraint in the matter of love seems to me wasted, every moment of potentially joyous contact missed, again a waste.

SMALL AD

Someone asked me recently to write a lonely hearts ad. Here it is.

"Utter git, no redeeming features, seeks well manicured, well heeled goddess to laugh at life's shortcomings. No nutters."