New perspectives

A new perspective on tower blocks. According to the BBC, the first of these moving skyscrapers, designed in Milan, is to be built in Dubai.

A note about our sponsor

I've always wanted to say that. SFL, the Cheshire-based leadership and human resources consultancy that sponsors the Donkin Life blog has changed its logo and corporate branding. I'm delighted because it has chosen colours that blend excellently with those of the blog template.

Last week I called my wife from London and told her I would be "staying at my club." for the night. I'd always wanted to say that too. All I need now to make the set is the opportunity to get in to a cab one day and tell the driver to "follow that car."

Jock rock shock

Visiting Edinburgh the other week I had the opportunity to see the Scottish Crown Jewels, including the Stone of Destiny, better known as the Stone of Scone.

The Scots are attached to their stones which made Edward I's decision to make off with the sacred Stone of Destiny as war loot in 1296 all the more spiteful. For good measure, he had it installed under the throne in Westminster Abbey.

After a 700-year interlude, the British Government decided finally that it should be returned to the Scots in 1996.

Now Alex Salmond, the Scottish First Minister, is casting doubts on its authenticity, suggesting the stone could be a fake. While there are plenty more stones in Scotland it is saddening to think that the one true stone may be somewhere else. Some think it never left Scotland - that Edward was duped by a hastily arranged substitute.

But if the real stone - on which the kings of Scotland had been crowned for 400 years - was not the stone taken to Westminster Abbey and upon which the Kings and Queens of England were crowned for 700 years, we're still talking about a substantially historical stone.

Of course, if that Westminster stone was a fake and its theft something of a sham, then it should probably belong back in England. On second thoughts, perhaps not. It only causes trouble.

The stone will be allowed back in England (the clause in the agreement allows a maximum of five days) for the coronation of the next monarch. And who will that be, I wonder? Tradition insists it should be Charles. But he might well be in to his 70s if the Queen is as long lived as her mother. One thing is certain: William will not have to wait as long as his father.

Talking Yorkshire

As a Yorkshireman I suppose it goes without saying that I miss the county of my birth. Yes, I miss the contrasts of the rolling dales and gritty mill towns, but most of all I miss the people.

Something of the character of Yorkshire people comes out in the dialect but you don't see it written much anymore. These little gems on the Open Writing web site by my old Huddersfield Examiner colleague Mike Shaw are a fine example of the genre. You never heard Compo speaking like this in Last of the Summer Wine. Minestchyer e' weern't a Yarkshire lad.

All of a Twitter

I'm finding that social networking is rather like Marmite - you love it or hate it. So if you are in the latter camp and have just received an email from me inviting you to join Twitter.com let me send you my sincere apologies for cluttering up your email box.

If, on the other hand, you were curious to know more - as I see a few were - all I can tell you is that my co-presenter at a recent seminar on social networking was telling us that Twitter was the "new new thing."

Status box

What it does, in a nutshell, is to take one of the most popular features of Facebook - a "status box" that allows you to make a brief mention of something you are doing - and share it among friends or contacts.

Everyone is restricted to 140 characters a twitter so you must keep your message brief. But you can include web links and there is a feature to receive Twitter notes (or tweats) on your mobile phone.

Is it a great thing? I have no idea, but I'm going to give it a try in the same way that I gave Facebook a try.

Social profit

"So you have nothing better to do with your time," some friends have said. In reality I don't spend much time doing this stuff and there is always, always, always some kind of return. But don't think of financial advantage, think of social profit. As BT once said in its advertising: "It's good to talk." Now we might find that it's good to tweat too.

In addition to Twitter I have also signed up to FriendFeed - a site that aggregates your involvement in various social networks. It seems like a good idea. I joined another too but can't for the life of me remember what it was - oh hum.

David Creelman, a Toronto-based human resources specialist who runs Creelman Research and who I also find is Tweating, has given me his own take on how Twitter could be useful in the workplace.

Imagine you are working on a project with five other people. You all sign up to Twitter and have your own twitter group. At a glance you can see how each other is progressing.

As David puts it:

"I suspect that it will be of most use when a group of some sort decides to use it for a real purpose. For example, a dispersed team might suggest they all use Twitter and it could be almost like overhearing the buzz of background conversation:

A - can't get the new motor working, called in for service
C - arrived in Frankfurt, will see Tony later
E - finished the code for sorting
F - J. is sick so I'm at home

The messages here would be distinguished from email because there would be nothing "need to know here." At the same time if you glanced at this from time to time you might pick up useful information. Not only that, simply the buzz would make you feel you were part of a team (if you were in a remote location) not a guy alone in his home office wondering why he wasn't rich like his friends."

That last bit, incidentally, is a personal reference to a twitter remark by some sad dude. I can't imagine who.

Out of the Ark

The Donkin dynasty is assured. My eldest nephew, Matthew and his wife Tanya, have just announced the birth of a son - Noah William Donkin. Yes you read that right.

He's a day old and already he's proving an exceptionally Googleable Donkin. I put his name in parenthesis in to the Google search engine and, as far as I can tell, there isn't one. Well there is now.

I have to hand it to Matt and Tanya. If I had been betting on their choice of name I don't think Noah Donkin would have come readily to mind. Donkins like this one come but once a flood.

Digging for war dead

Archaeologists have begun to uncover the remains of dead soldiers from mass graves at the Fromelles World War I battle site in France.

Some of those involved want to identify individual soldiers. They’re talking about restoring the dignity of the dead. But I don’t see much dignity in digging up human remains from almost a century ago. There can be very few, if any, immediate relatives.

I don’t think we’re learning much from this exercise. This strikes me as faux archaeology. If these war dead do not lie in marked graves they are in the company of hundreds of thousands of others - 72,000 on the Somme alone who have no known grave.

Grave or no grave, they are not forgotten. Digging up these remains after so long serves no purpose than satisfying a curiosity for which I can find little justification. By all means raise a memorial; but the dead should be left in peace.

Public Art - where will it end?

There is a craze just now for public art - large scale statements that some local authorities believe can breathe regeneration in to places that have become overlooked or forgotten. One of the latest is a giant seagull planned for the Isle of Man.

Ever since the Angel of the North appeared in Gateshead, local authorities up and down the UK have been wanting their own big thing. It has happened before. What is the Eiffel Tower but some kind of icon (an ugly one in my opinion) for a City? In the same way Blackpool had to copy it.


New York has its Statue of Liberty and Brussels,its Atomium. I suppose the Atomium and the Skylon tower - symbol of the Festival of Britain, 1951 - were less art statements and more statements of the kind of futuristic thinking that existed at the time.

But they are all big things that, once (and this didn't happen to the Skylon) they are afforded iconic status (a kind of creeping public and institutional acceptance), get the stamp of permanence. The Atomium was only supposed to be there for six months, just as the London Eye was supposed to be a temporary feature.

Remember all the controversy over the Millennium Dome (now the O2 building)? I wonder if there was anything similar over Stonehenge? I could imagine headlines in Bronze Age newspapers, had they existed, complaining about the "Salisbury folly." Perhaps there were Egyptians who grumbled about the pyramids.

I have nothing against the functional, such as the beautiful Millau Bridge in France, but tacky stuff such as The Meeting Place at St Pancras does nothing to beautify our world. that kind of "art" is as out of place in the English countryside as a garden gnome at Chelsea Flower Show.

N.B. I love Stonehenge. Here's a great piece about photographing the stones for National Geographic Magazine.