Walking Thoughts

  Ian dear, I’m so deeply sorry about Des. Losing the person you shared 27 years with is shattering. What the two of you had was real, lasting love. In by Des’s own words, you made him very happy.  You have always been close to my heart, even across the years when contact between us was simply unavailable.  You were never absent from my thoughts. When my mum died, I found your letters from the 90s and relived the warmth and connection there was between us, and the weight of what followed. Life took me very far away in those years for survival, just as Childline had advised in 1986. go to university to get help for the severe childhood trauma. Taking that advice cost me contact with you, and everything and everybody I had ever known . Though it is distant now, I do remember the wrench .  In a world without mobile phones, email, or social media, disappearing was never a choice, it was the reality of survival.  I always hoped you would find someone I remember you s...

  Ian darling. I’m so very sorry to hear of your loss. You and des gave each other 27 years of happiness. In Des’s   own words, You made him so very happy. When my mum died I found your letters, Which I guess were written around 1990 to 1994. I was filled with Wanderers to what had happened in those missing years. We are the last generation to have had to leave absolutely everything and everyone we ever knew behind in order to go to university. It was Childline who it advise I go to university and that they I would find help for being getting raped as a little girl. And I spent five years and during all sorts of sexual abuse getting there. In our time, there were no mobile phones, No email, No Internet, No Facebook. And of course I had no. Home. Dad had changed the locks, And mum had already left, and did not yet have a home of her own. So for five years, I was of no fixed abode with no permanent address. As it turns out there was no magic cure for childhood gang rape at unive...

  The Hwang Woo-Suk Stem Cell Papers (2004/2005):  Published in  Science , these papers claimed major breakthroughs in human cloning and the creation of patient-specific stem cells. They were retracted after investigations revealed the data was fabricated. Diederik Stapel's Psychology Research (2011): Social psychologist Diederik Stapel had over 50 papers retracted after it was discovered he had fabricated data for years.

  Referring to Donald Trump’s the United States of President of America, ignorance of climate change a learning friend of mine commented; “If the top tier of global human leadership so clearly doesn’t comprehend even the basics of the challenges we face, how are those tasked with delivering solutions ever going to succeed? Resources are being undermined or withdrawn simply because the leadership doesn’t understand what they do.” The answer is that we must succeed in spite of them. Engineers, scientists -ists , technicians, construction professionals, brilliant minds, experts in computing AI and brilliant communicators must work together to limit the damage that the climate crisis is causing. Yes, Ignorant  leadership Will impact available resources of all kinds. But only a bad workman blames his tools . And every engineer, site manager And technician I have ever known has always found ways of relocating a resource to where it’s truly needed. PhD’s completed outside of laborato...

  Professional Competence, Social Contracts, and the Quiet Erosion of Agency As a professional engineer, I invest deliberately in the services that enable me to operate at the highest level of competence for my employers, clients, and society. Professional status is not conferred solely by pre- and post-nominal designations, although I hold them with pride: Doctorate, Chartered Engineer, and Member of the Institution of Chemical Engineers. It is equally expressed through attitude, behaviours, and the choices we make about how we live and work. Over a career of 30 years, I have worked alongside many entrepreneurial and flexible professionals. They have consistently shared certain qualities: resilience, creativity, accountability, and an ability to see opportunity where others see inconvenience. These are the same values I was raised with, and they remain central to how I approach both my career and my responsibilities as a parent. For many years, the largest proportion of my persona...

  As a professional engineer I pay for services that allow me to perform to my highest competency for my employers and clients. My professional status is denoted not only in my pre-and post nominal Designations- Dr For my PhD and CEng As a charted engineer, and MIChemE As a charted chemical engineer, but also bye my attitude and behaviours . Over the past 30 years, I have found many entrepreneur and flexible professionals To work with. All of them are hard-working and creative people. In them, I see the qualities I was raised in. As a parent with a commitment to my professional career, The majority of that spend Has been on childcare. For the first five years half of my take-home salary, went on just paying the nursery let alone all the services I needed around that situation. And this I facilitated by selling up and moving to a much cheaper home in a much cheaper area. And by luck, or skill, I angain encountered brilliant entrepreneurial, creative professionals making it work. A b...