Author: nlpnow

Categories
Thoughts

Norbiton Railway Bridge Replacement

Travel from my home in Norbiton, part of  Royal Borough of Kingston upon Thames, here in the UK into London has been severely disrupted, in fact the trains will not be running over the four day Easter holiday.

Why?

They are replacing the railway bridge.


The old Norbiton Station Bridge.

Originally in the early 1830’s, with rail travel in its’ infancy in England, it was decided to create a rail link between London and Southampton with the formation of the London and Southampton Railway Company (LSRA). On 21 May 1938 the line was opened between Nine Elms, also known now as Vauxhall, to Woking, with Kingston upon Thames station located due to local Kingstonian opposition, about 1 mile away on Surbiton Hill.

As the benefits of having a railway station were soon recognised by the flourishing suburb of Surbiton, Kingstonions pressed for their own station near to their own town center, and in 1863 after acts of Parliament, a branch line was created from Twickenham to Kingston, which initially was to have stopped north of Kingston at Hampton Wick on the north bank, on the opposite side of the River Thames.

Shortly after 1869, the line was extended through Norbiton, the next town to join the main line from London Waterloo to at New Malden.

The low bridge at Norbiton, built at the above time, has been hit a few times by high sided vehicles, and having wooded rail sleepers, would if I am told by a senior track engineer, have a speed restriction of 20 mew, placed upon trains using it. It had to be replaced.

Due to the restrictions imposed by the water supply company, the bridge could not be lifted in one piece, and using a gas cutting tool, the central section was taken away, leaving the two outer supports to be lifted by a giant 500 ton crane.

The whole operation should take four days, and the teams of workers, work like a ballet dance, as the old bridge is removed, masonry taken away so that new concrete sections can be installed.

Lastly, the new sectional bridge will be built, hopefully ready for the commuters to catch the early morning rush-hour train on Tuesday.

The only sufferers so far on this twenty-four hour operation are the pigeons who nested in the old bridge. (click to read)

        
New concrete supports waiting on trailers, and the old Norbiton Station bridge ready to be removed

       
The old Norbiton Station bridge just begining the lift, and the 500 ton crane ready for the lift

 
The 500 ton crane lifts the old Norbiton bridge on a flatbed lorry

More on trains, the SWT Class 455 train  at Norbiton Station

Categories
Eating Out

Southside Chamber of Commerce

As an International Trainer, Coach and Speaker, I can sometimes loose contact with fellow business people in the UK, and it is good on occasions to go to meetings to meet people.

One organisation I have been a member of for some years is the Southside Chamber of Commerce which holds regular meetings in London, having speakers on various business matters, organising delegations to other countries to establish contacts for potential business co-operation, and arranging social get togethers.

Recently a number of members meet at the The Mercure London City Bankside Hotel on the south of the River Thames in Southwark.

Fine food, wine and conversations were had, and it was a joy to meet fellow members.

Southside Chamber of Commerce members through the looking glass
Southside Chamber of Commerce members through the looking glass

Categories
Books NLP

Malcolm Gladwell’s book What the Dog Saw

In Malcolm Gladwell’s forth book to date, What the Dog Saw, he has put together a number of essays, at taking a fresh look of why incidents or things happen. In NLP terms, to “chunk down”, to look beyond what seems to be obvious.

Once again, Gladwell cites examples to back-up his writing, examples of why the birth-control bill, has a monthly cycle of taking the drug and a period of time when the drug is not taken. It makes sense when Gladwell explains that one of the inventors of the birth-control pill, John Rock was a practicing Roman Catholic, going to mass every morning, and the Vatican believes there should be no artificial methods of birth-control. Rock stated that the birth-control pill used the natural chemicals of the female body to trick it to believe it was already pregnant, and thus not release an egg, but still produce the menstrual cycle, thus the church should accept the pill.

Gladwell, explains how Rock’s ideas were based upon trying to please the Roman Catholic Church, which prefers the rhythm method of abstinence, and had no bearing in the working of the birth-control pill which could be taken continuously. Research says that females are better off not having their monthly periods, being that the increase in the natural chemicals, estrogen and progestin in the females body at the time of mensuration, can cause cancer.

Gladwell explains why making the tops of medicine bottles more difficult to remove in the interests of child safety, makes them more dangerous due to the complacency of the parents.

He explores how we make instant decisions when meeting people, who is right for the job and who is not, and much more.

In Gladwell’s 19 essays, he helps to look at things in a different way. A good read.

Categories
Uncategorized

Malcolm Gladwell’s book Outliers

In Malcolm Gladwell’s third book, Outliers he looks at why there are people who are outside the normal population, those who excel, he investigates why these people are so great.

Gladwell again gives examples of successful people, and groups, to explain what he is telling us, and shows us that it is not always genius that makes these people a success, but the history of the family going back generations, the culture of the person, even that date of birth could make the difference between being a high achiever or failure, an outlier or an ordinary person.

Gladwell also explains that to be an outlier we should be in the right place at the right time, and to take advantage of the opportunity.

Having the above factors in-place does not mean success, to become an outlier, a person needs to become involved with the area of expertise of greatness, to DO the action, the work, for 10,000 hours. Gladwell cites examples of the Beatles, Bill Gates etc, of how the Beatles played in Hamburg nightclubs for long hours, amassing the required 10,000 hours, how Bill Gates spent hours and hours programming the early computers, again amassing the 10,000 hours before setting-up Microsoft.

Gladwell looks at the birth dates of those who created the leading computer software companies, and surprise, they mostly fall within a narrow year range, and he looks at American lawyers who specialise in takeovers and litigation are mostly Jewish of a certain age.

Gladwell asks, why are top basketball players birthdays mostly in the early months, January, February, March, and why pupils who achieve better exam results have their birthdays closer to the start of the academic year, than those pupils whose birthdays are nearer the end of the academic year. Simple really, the older pupil is nearly a year older and has a more developed brain, take for example a baby of one year old and compare it to a two year old child, there is a big difference in ability, understanding and behaviour.

An amazing book, which gives an insight to what could make people great, an outlier.

Categories
Books Culture NLP

Malcolm Gladwell’s book Blink

In Malcolm Gladwell’s second book, Blink, he looks at how first impressions, that within two seconds, our mind has been influenced, as Gladwell says “kind of thinking that happens in a blink of an eye“.

The book investigates what is going on inside our heads when we engage in rapid cognition, in the two seconds, and how we should perhaps go with our intuition, which is often proven to be the correct decision, it is only when our subjective, reasoning mind, comes into play, that we get things wrong.

As always, Gladwell gives examples to explain in an entertaining and informative way, for example in a hospital emergency ward, medical staff are trained to look for less information, in NLP terms to stop “chunking down“, for patients suffering with chest pains to hone in on just the few critical pieces of information, blood pressure and the ECG, ignoring everything else, like the patient’s age and weight and medical history, resulting in a quicker diagnosis.

He writes about how a fire office’s intuition told him that the firefighters under his control were in a dangerous situation, and ordered them to withdraw, only to find that the building they were in collapsed. How did the fire officer know to issue the order to withdraw? By intuition, which can take many years to instill into the cognitive behaviour, to become implicit, automatic, so that we can react in the blink of the eye.

For people who are PhotoReading, why we should take the first idea or concept that comes into our mind when activating the book.

Categories
Books Culture NLP

Malcolm Gladwell’s book The Tipping Point

In Malcolm Gladwell’s book The Tipping Point, one of his four great books, he explains how ideas, products, behaviours suddenly become the way people think and do things, the items that become desirable, become the behaviours of society, spreading through a population like an epidemic.

He tells us how beliefs can change quickly, how one person can have more influence on change than another, giving specific examples to substantiate his ideas, for instance how Paul Revere got the American colonists around 1773 to become organised against the British, how the Airwalk footwear became fashion, how crime waves were reduced in New York City.

He explains that in any situation or market there will be four major influences.

There will be the “Market Mavens“, people who passes vital information to others about their knowledge, perhaps about good prices, good deals.

There will be “Connectors“, people who know people who know people. There is a theory, often called “the six degrees of separation“, that says it only needs a chain of six people to get information from person A to person B, from yourself for example to the Queen of England.

The “Stickiness” factor, how a message or information will stay in the mind, say like a slogan, and advertisement, how something will become an “anchor” in NLP terms. 

The forth is “Context“, how ideas or products rely on the time and place change takes place, and the conditions and circumstances when they occur.

Using examples though-out, this book is easy to follow, a must for those in marketing and places of influence, and a must for those of us who are manipulated by others, by governments, by media, radio, TV and newspapers.

The book will open your eyes.

Categories
Uncategorized

Malcolm Gladwell a great author

For some time now I have been reading books written by Malcolm Gladwell, Tipping Point, Blink, Outliers and What the Dog Saw.

Malcolm Gladwell has been a writer on the Washington Post and The New Yorker. In 2005 he was named as one of Time Magazine’s 100 Most Influential People, and since the year 2000, has produced the four books mentioned above, and really good reading they are too. It is said he is an author, journalist, cultural commentator and intellectual adventurer, researching his facts and arguments, presenting them in an easy to read and well laid out fashion.

On my courses, training sessions and talks, I am often asked what books I would recommend, Gladwell’s work I consider some of the best to see how NLP, PhotoReading, Memory Skills are used in life without using the labels, and more.
 
In his work, it will be seen how little things, small changes can make big differences, how the power of intuition the power of thinking without thinking brings great results, what makes a person more successful than others are they just genius’s, and how we need to “chunk down” to look at the deep structure to look at culture and our history to understand why things happen.

Reading his books you will learn what made the Beatles great, why was Bill Gates so successful. I have often been asked how to become a good trainer, and I say in my opinion it takes four to six years to become great. I ask, how can a person who has just learned a subject in January become a Master Trainer in March, in Gladwell’s book you will understand why they cannot be. You will learn why we have apprenticeships, learning over long periods. You will understand why I use translators with long experience in their profession.

Reading Gladwell’s books will help you understand how our history, our family background, our culture will have a great influence in our outcome in life. You will understand why being born in the early months of the year, January, February, can be the difference in being great or not, and in some education systems, why being born in September, October may make you smarter than a person born in July.

You will understand what makes a product, an idea, a behaviour suddenly the “in thing”.

Fascinating reading I would recommend to you.

                         

Categories
Culture Thoughts

Math or Maths

There are times when my brain wants to explode, wanting to shout out “that’s the wrong word“, when my body justs goes into spasms when a wrong word is spoken.

One word that I am continually hearing in the last few days is “MATH“, and it is getting me mad.

The word “Math” is a shortened version of the word “mathematics“.
 
In the web site Wikipedia there is an explanation of the word “mathematics” as being :- 

    “…the study of quantity, structure, space, and change. Mathematicians seek out patterns, formulate new conjectures, 
    and establish truth by rigorous deduction from appropriately chosen axioms and definitions.“

which leaves me confused, as “maths” left me confused at school.

But that is not what I am writing about. My confusion about how mathematics (notice the “s”) work has been solved, has gone away, because over time, although I am not a mathematician, I now understand how numbers work, how to apply a mathematical formula (one) to work out a problem, how statistics are relevant to me, to calculate how much change I should have after paying a restaurant bill, or to calculate the value of the British Pound to the Turkish Lira, the Euro, or the Malaysian Ringit, and I learned this ability by applying “Maths” to real situations to problems I encountered as I work and travel through life.

What I am writing about is the use of the abbreviation of “mathematics“.

“Mathematics” has an “S” on the end of the word, which in the English language infers that it is plural, more than one.

If you had “an orange”  in your hand you would have one orange in your hand, if you had “oranges” in your hand you would have more than one orange in your hand.

So when the word “Mathematics” is abbreviated, why drop the “S“, making the abbreviation “Math“? It should be “Maths“.

If a student is going to class, are they studying one calculation or many calculations? Are they studying “Mathematic” or “Mathematics“?

Yes I am British, and I speak British English, we say “Maths“, and it is the Americans that say “Math” which is American English.

I am on a mission, that when ever I travel abroad and give training, I have to teach my translators real English, British English, the pronunciation, the correct sounds.

Sorry my American readers, but the different pronunciations and usages of words to me is like having a slice of dried bread or a piece of chocolate cake.

Categories
NLP Thoughts Travels

The Transport we use, I’m becoming a Grumpy Old Man

The world is in a big debate as to global warming, are we the human race effecting the warming of our world, the only place we can exist?
 
Yes we have a space station where less than ten people live for just a few weeks. Yes we have been to the Moon many years ago, but sorry, we are stuck on this round thing floating in space for many, many years to come, there is not room on the space station to house the billions of people if our world fails due to global warming tomorrow.

Oh Poo Poo.

So we are told that we have to reduce our carbon emissions, use less coal, use less electricity, use the car less to reduce petrol consumption.

The lifestyle of the human race has changed rapidly over the last hundred years, and one of the changes has been how the human roams or move about in the environment.

Before the existence of motorised transportation, people only traveled within a few miles or kilometers of their home, for the average person, to travel more than say ten miles, (16 kilometers), would take a day with meals stops, rest, etc. Now, with cars, we will go and buy a packet of crisps (chips for my American readers), and be back home in half an hour and think nothing of it.

We used to shop, buy our food at the corner shop which was within walking distance, now we go to the large out of town supermarket, maybe ten miles from where we live, and even if we had a day to walk there, we cannot because the supermarket is on a motorway, an autobahn, which does not permit pedestrians, and the shopping would be too heavy to carry back. We need our own transport.

Our jobs, the factories, the offices are located often far from where we live, in central city centers or business parks, we need transport to get to them.

Our entertainment, restaurants, theaters, cinemas are located long distances from where we live.

In the UK as in many countries in the world, we are being told to use the car less, to use public transport, to walk, and this way we use less polluting fuel, and we get healthier.

Being that I drove less than 400 miles last year in my own car, and have done for some years, I have not taxed, licensed, my car to be on the road, so I am car less, I have no transport of my own I can legally use.

So I walk, I use public transport. It is cheaper than paying out for petrol, having to pay to park the car when I get to my destination, and as I am entitled to free public transport in London, it is very much cheaper than driving.

I have a supermarket immediately opposite to where I live, so my daily needs are easy to acquire. The major town center is 15 minutes walk away, so good for my health, and I work from home. I do not need a car.

Until.

Yes, until I have to travel beyond my normal living existence.

My quest to research and look at the Blackburn Buccaneer jet fighter aircraft, took me to visiting the RAF Hendon Museum. That is easy, a quick train journey into London’s Waterloo Railway station, about half an hour, a ten minute transfer to then catch a tube train (metro, underground) to Colindale Underground station about another half an hour, (actually it is on the surface not underground), and a 15 minute walk to the museum. Let us say about one and a half hour journey, a journey by car which would perhaps take half and hour by car door to door.

I was asked to give my services to allow local school pupils to experience what it is like to have job interviews. To get to the school by car would take about ten minutes maximum, but by public transport, I had to take two buses, waiting for over 15 minutes for each one, plus the bus rides took nearly one hour.

Last night I went to a meeting which would take about 20 minutes to drive too, and an exceptional meeting it was, making many new acquaintances, but my journey back took one and a half hours, catching three trains, walking through dark country lanes to a deserted train station, where there was only one train per hour, to change to another train with a 15 minute wait, to change to another train with another 15 minute wait, and then a ten minute walk from my home railway station to home.

Then there was my trip to the wonderful Fleet Air Arm Museum of the British Royal Navy at RNAS Yeovilton. This journey meant that I took a train into London to catch another train back the way I had just come from, for on a two hour journey to Yeovilton Junction railway station. I relaxed and read, watched the changing countryside, having no stresses of driving a car.

On reaching Yeovilton Junction railway station I asked how I could reach the Fleet Air Arm Museum, and was told there was just one bus a day, but that left the station at 10:30 am, goes to the museum site, I expect through the villages, and leaves the museum to return to the station at 1:30 pm.

Um. That is useful as it was mid day when I arrived, and I did want to see more than the front door of the museum before I took the bus back again.

The only other options were walking, well it was ten miles away I was told, so I could do it if I walked fast only to see the “Closed for the Day” sign being put up, or I could take a taxi.

I took a taxi. Nice and quick, but £22 each way.

I am trying to do my little bit for the environment, replacing my light bulbs with low energy bulbs, (see Energy Saving Lights, becoming environmentaly friendly ), switching off electrical equipment when not in use, not having the heating on as much as required or set at a lower temperature, using public transport, but I am paying the price of convenience, of my time, of being at the mercy of a train driver, a bus driver or a taxi driver.

Have they turn-up for work that day?

Is there going to be the train, bus or taxi?

Have they taken an extra five minute break meaning that I miss my next connection?
 
Are there going to be engineering works, closing the rail network?

What are the timetable changes for evening and night time travel, they could be every hour instead of every 15 minutes because there is little demand in the evenings?

We have to start somewhere to stop global climate change. The infrastructure has to be set-up, the extra modes of public transport put in place so that people have a way of moving about no matter what time of the day or year it is, and the organisers of events also have to do think about people doing their little bit to save the planet by using public transport.

I will keep my state, for my NLP’ers, Mustafa, Fred or Antonio, to tell that little voice in my head to shut up and stop complaining, and to relax and enjoy downtime sometimes sitting on a slow bus or train, and stop being a grumpy old man.

Phillip Holt a Grumpy old man?

Categories
Books

Vulcan 607, Rowland White

Following reading Rowland White’s book thePhoenix Squadron and at the suggestion of my cousin Glynis, plus my interest in the subject, I obtained a copy of Rowland White’s previous book, Vulcan 607.

This book gripped me from the outset, telling the story of when in 1982, Argentina invaded the Falkland Islands in the South Atlantic, which Britain held sovereignty since 1833, having taken over from the Spanish, who were sold the islands by the French for £250,000 in 1767, who had  claimed the islands for themselves in 1764. Argentina regarded the Falklands as theirs, calling them Las Islas Malvinas.

The military junta of Argentina saw the return of the Falklands as strengthening moral of their country and planned to take Las Islas Malvinas with a quick invasion, especially as Britain had only a small garrison to guard the islands, and anyway, Britain was relinquishing sovereignty to other countries within their Empire.

An Argentinian entrepreneur and scrap metal merchant jumped the gun on the junta before they could finalise plans, by landing on the Falklands for its’ rich pickings of old whaling ships and equipment. The result was a hasty invasion by Argentina, and a British reply of “no the Falklands are ours”.

It was decided by the British Government that the sovereignty of the Falklands would stay in British hands, and despite many days of the USA trying diplomatic means to solve the problem, war broke out.

Britain assembled a task force of naval ships, and the army to send down to the southern hemisphere, and the RAF were tasked with a special mission to show Britain meant business, to show that Argentina were vulnerable to strikes by British Forces, and to have the Argentina junta having to redeploy their forces to protect their mainland.

The result was the longest ever bombing flight ever undertaken at that date.

This well researched book tells the story of how the RAF undertook the task, the training, the modification of old soon to be scrapped Vulcan planes, the operation itself.


Avro Vulcan bomber of the RAF

I was gripped by the story, better than a action fiction book, with true heroism throughout, as the story unfolded. I practically read the book in one sitting.

Yes it was my history, and the whole thing made a lot of sense to me, as I recalled driving passed RAF Waddington only a few years before the conflict began, seeing the Vulcan’s sitting waiting to get airborne, and I remember the pride in my heart on arriving in Saudi Arabia for work in early 1983, only months after the conflict had ended, and seeing the Argentinian flag flying above their embassy, proud to be British.

Rowland White writes that RAF Wing Commander Simon Baldwin, the flight commander of RAF Waddington, had stated “only 30 percent of what was being reported was accurate”, when reviewing the TV, newspapers and media after the event, I think that the book makes it near 100 percent.

Yes the book captures the story and history of the RAF’s involvement, and good it was, but as I read I began once again to think that the book is from the British point of view, and yes I am British and nationalistic as you are to your country, and I wonder what are the views of the Argentinians, their story. Perhaps the book only gives 50 percent of the story, the British side.

Oh well, that leads me further on, more research and reading to find out.