Gallery

What we have seen this week

Protests outside Oriel College, Oxford, to remove the statue of white supremacist Cecil Rhodes 

Poster seen on wall.

‘Keep your distance’ notice on classroom door in Sweden. The classroom is the same size as before the pandemic and caters for 30 full-time pupils, as before.

So the ‘Association of British Drivers’ is a completely normal organisation!

What we are listening to this week

Oustanding series from the BBC World Service about the first moon landing (series 1) and Apollo 13 (series 2).  The final episode of the Apollo 13 story was delayed because the presenter and co-writer, Kevin Fong, is a consultant anaesthetist at UCL Hospitals, and anaesthetic lead for the Major Incident Planning.  Here is how he concludes the final episode about Apollo 13 where he appears to be talking about so much more:  ‘There is so much that we might learn from the people who flew and saved that mission, even today. Perhaps especially today! In the face of crisis, no matter how apparently insurmountable, we must act.  We must do so urgently and decisively. We must delegate authority and defer to expertise, and understand where in the system that expertise truly lies.  We must know when to lead and when to get out of the way.  We know when to follow but learn to take full ownership of the tasks that fall to us.  We must act together, across whatever distance so that the whole becomes far greater than the sum of the parts.  And we must never ever give up, no matter how impossible the future might suddenly appear because within all of that lies a kernel of hope and determination that might grow into something much more.’

What are we reading this week

A compelling and disturbing read about race in America