Send us a text

Wit and wisdom, November 1-4 2024

@cjhancock
People say I have an elevendency to exaggerate.
@mustard99
Same here, I go to Elevenerife on holiday.

@at a prayer meeting for Trump
“But I want you to know and we want you to know we believe you are a vessel. You are a chosen vessel”
@jemmaforte
The Titanic?

@TollytB
Everyone should try blindfold archery.
Go on, give it a go, you don't know what you're missing.

@cynicalboomer
Reporting on a discussion on Fox News over wives deceiving their husbands about how they voted
jesse: if i found out my wife secretly voted for harris, "that's the same thing as having an affair... that violates the sanctity of our marriage... that would be D Day"

 @lesmartin7
Why do so many people get simple sayings wrong? 
Answers on a coastguard please...

• Stay up-to-date with all of Tudor's podcasts, blogs and current affairs commentary by signing up to our newsletter!
• Email [email protected] to sign up!

• Follow Tudor on Twitter @Tudortweet
• Follow Tudor's blogs:
• everydaycreativity.uk
• leaderswedeserve.wordpress.com

Send us a text

Dilemmas of Leadership Chapter 2: Dilemmas of Destiny and Development

Written and spoken by Tudor Rickards

Faced with an important leadership problem, a helpful approach is to arrive at a simple either–or statement which expresses a way of thinking as a dilemma.

Sometimes this is enough for an idea of resolving the problem to occur to you.

At other times, deeper thinking may be required, often of a creative kind.

A powerful thinking trigger is to convert the problem into a how-to statement which becomes the starting point for ideas for addressing the problem. These usually suggest different actions than those indicated in the original dilemma.

A simple example

Jan’s dilemma

We don’t know whether to spend our holiday celebration with my parents, or with Greta’s parents.
Greta’s parents live close by, and have plenty of room for us to stay.
Jan’s parents live a long way away, and have no spare room if we visit.
Which ever we chose, the other parents will be unhappy ...

Stop the video here if you want to explore ideas of what Jan and Greta might do.

• Stay up-to-date with all of Tudor's podcasts, blogs and current affairs commentary by signing up to our newsletter!
• Email [email protected] to sign up!

• Follow Tudor on Twitter @Tudortweet
• Follow Tudor's blogs:
• everydaycreativity.uk
• leaderswedeserve.wordpress.com

Send us a text

@jdpoc John O’Donnell
Remember, clocks go back tonight.
If you're a Tory, back to 1953.
If you're Reform, back to 1932.
If you're Jacob Rees-Mogg, back to 1741.
And if you're Nigel Farage, you just demand that 'Clocks Should Go Back Where They Came From."

@disavowtrump20
Jeff Bezos has forced The Washington Post - the newspaper he owns - to not endorse in a presidential race for the first time 36 years because he’s worried Donald Trump will take away his government contracts. 
@askDinaDoll
So apparently the only billionaire with courage is @taylorswift13
@EveNewtonJobs
and Beyoncé 

@Keir_Starmer
This is a landmark week for Britain. 
For the first time in 15 years, our Budget will put working people first.
The truth is, the Tories left you to pay the price for their chaos.
We will clear up their mess. Step up in tough times, not stand back. 
We will deliver change.

• Stay up-to-date with all of Tudor's podcasts, blogs and current affairs commentary by signing up to our newsletter!
• Email [email protected] to sign up!

• Follow Tudor on Twitter @Tudortweet
• Follow Tudor's blogs:
• everydaycreativity.uk
• leaderswedeserve.wordpress.com

Send us a text

The club of 1984. A walk down memory lane

Written and spoken by Tudor Rickards

10.45am, Monday 28 October, 2024
I am sitting in Bold Street Coffee (est 2010)
It’s one of a range of coffee shops and rather swanky bars which have replaced the West wing of the old Manchester Business School off Booth Street West.
I’m about to join the 40 year reunion of MBA graduates at what is now the Alliance ManchesterBusiness School.
Manchester has changed. Its Business School has changed. Goes without saying, I and the MBA grads have changed. Beyond recognition?  I hope not.
I eventually find my bearings and locate the impressive facade, inside which I hope to find archeological evidence of its ancestor.
The usual mutual pleasures of recognition at a reunion. James has organised the event with military precision. He remembers something from one of my lectures. Postpone Judgement, he adds.
Glorious flattery. Thanks Charles.
We straggle in.
 Another surprise. Our reception committee is fronted by an old friend, Lisa Sanberg. We have a clumsy consensual huggle. To the left of the reception area there is a spectacular mural in the Greco-Mancunian style representing Ascent of Man …Chester 

Our conversations return to recollections of the titans in our shared time in the roaring eighties. 
The competitions for the Goat, greatest lecturer, top in consulting earnings. The Prof who won the drinking prize for waking up one morning not remembering where he was or how he got there…

• Stay up-to-date with all of Tudor's podcasts, blogs and current affairs commentary by signing up to our newsletter!
• Email [email protected] to sign up!

• Follow Tudor on Twitter @Tudortweet
• Follow Tudor's blogs:
• everydaycreativity.uk
• leaderswedeserve.wordpress.com

Send us a text

Cricket’s dirty secret revealed. 

I am utterly gobsmacked. Flabbergasted. Dumbfounded. Discombobulated. Shocked to my underparts. Shaken and stirred. My entire sense of reality upset.
This morning, early enough for me to suspect I had been dreaming, I heard the hideous truth about the cornerstone of everything British, the game of cricket.
I am not alone. 
Scales dropped from my eyes. 
It is six thirty am, during the last week of British summer time. I am avoiding getting out of bed, listing to a sports bulletin from Rawalpindi in Pakistan. 
The commentator announced England has won the toss on what he described as a very unusual pitch.
If anything his description was an understatement.
Selection might have given a clue. More spinners were included by both sides. The preparation of the pitch was not some much unusual as surreal. 
Every effort had been made to produce conditions favourable to the spinners. Serious technology was deployed including gigantic air blowers, backed up by patio heaters. Scratch marks scarred the pitch. A groundsman had been observed dragging a sack of nails its entire length. 
In case you are wondering, this not an exaggeration, but as reported by the commentator.

• Stay up-to-date with all of Tudor's podcasts, blogs and current affairs commentary by signing up to our newsletter!
• Email [email protected] to sign up!

• Follow Tudor on Twitter @Tudortweet
• Follow Tudor's blogs:
• everydaycreativity.uk
• leaderswedeserve.wordpress.com

Send us a text

Monday, the 21st of October

The East Cheadle second team begins it season with a lengthy trip to a newcomer to the league Glossop.
Our new captain Jim continues to show off the luxury of driving in his super new BMW. His enthusiasm stretches to picking up various members of the team transporting us to the event.

The pick ups are executed smoothly. we set off into the night. We have every reason to be confident. Glossup has had a bad start to its first season in the league. in their last match, they lost all their games to a modestly ranked team in the league. For once we were not going to be out ranked on each board.

We arrived at the desolate streets of Glossop apparently deserted by its inhabitants. Even the car park was empty and we fumbled our way eventually finding the entrance to an unusually impressive building which housed the club.

Inside, we were welcomed by a clubroom of remarkable opulence. Light. Warm. Plenty of room between the Chess boards. And a unique innovation, a trolley with coffee and refreshments.

We were strengthened by new member Dan, leading as our highest ranked player. On board two, James, another first team regular with dispensation to play for the second team.

Board three was Captain Jim, I was on Board 4, and with great courage, the team was completed by Keith, still recovering from a nasty fall and bearing the bruises for all to see.

• Stay up-to-date with all of Tudor's podcasts, blogs and current affairs commentary by signing up to our newsletter!
• Email [email protected] to sign up!

• Follow Tudor on Twitter @Tudortweet
• Follow Tudor's blogs:
• everydaycreativity.uk
• leaderswedeserve.wordpress.com

Send us a text

The Dilemmas of a new King: Charles 111 heckled on his State Visit to Australia.
Written and spoken by Tudor Rickards 


On October 21, 2024, the 70 year-old King Charles is making his first visit to Australia since acceding to the throne.
His time as King has been troubled with serious health problems. 
His earlier role as Prince of Wales was frequently interrupted by Welsh Nationalists shouting “you’re not our Prince”.

King Charles suffers from the longevity and popularity of his Mother Queen Elizabeth 2.His image management must be difficult, even for the formidable publicity machine on behalf of the Monarchy sometimes referred to as ‘the firm’. The troubled life of the house of Windsor’ as it was described by Penny Junor, one of the most loyal of Royal Correspondents.

https://www.harpercollins.com/products/the-firm-the-troubled-life-of-the-house-of-windsor-penny-junor?variant=32181688303650

As he is concluding his address to the Australian Parliament in Canberra, Senator Lidia Thorpe,  an Aboriginal independent lawmaker for Victoria, interrupts King Charles’, shouting “you’re not my King”. Outrage and embarrassment ensued ...

• Stay up-to-date with all of Tudor's podcasts, blogs and current affairs commentary by signing up to our newsletter!
• Email [email protected] to sign up!

• Follow Tudor on Twitter @Tudortweet
• Follow Tudor's blogs:
• everydaycreativity.uk
• leaderswedeserve.wordpress.com

Send us a text

Why I don’t edit my podcasts. It’s not entirely sloth, or obsessive need for closure

Written and spoken by Tudor Rickards

20 October, 2024

I have friends who are far more tech-savvy than I am. One asked me directly recently why I didn’t remove the various audio blubs or whatever they are called from my podcasts.
The others probably remain silent to stop further discussion of podcasting (a subject banned from our coffee meetings,, along with philosophy, Manchester United, and reminiscences of work practices in the 1960s when we were all gainfully employed.)
My justification, otherwise known as special pleading, goes as follows: 
I am an amateur podcaster just like the vast majority of practitioners. I leave it to my highly satisfactory site buzzsprout to do a certain amount of magic as they call it in marketing terms to remove the most gross extraneous noises in my work. That leaves the occasional lengthy pause while I recall my next sentence. Incidentally, this is true even if I am working from a reasonable script in front of me.

• Stay up-to-date with all of Tudor's podcasts, blogs and current affairs commentary by signing up to our newsletter!
• Email [email protected] to sign up!

• Follow Tudor on Twitter @Tudortweet
• Follow Tudor's blogs:
• everydaycreativity.uk
• leaderswedeserve.wordpress.com

Send us a text

A brilliant fighting draw for the injury-hit first team: Urmston v East Cheadle irregulars

Thursday 17 October 2024

It’s the nightmare of travelling to the gates of hell and through the Urmston roundabout, year after year. The great Welsh philosopher Dai Nickerbockers called this the perpetual recurrence.nightmare, but that’s a different story.

So, to the tale of pulsating matches, of victories gained and victories snatched away by the fickle finger of chess fate. 

But I get ahead of myself, perhaps dizzy with the afterglow of the dramatic events which unfolded. 

The trip began with a remarkably simple journey once it was discovered at club night yesterday that I had been selected due to the injury problems that have beset our premier league team. Also that Jim McKie had answered the call, like a latter day Braveheart, to lead the team into battle, and would deliver half the team through the treacherous Urmston roundabout ...

• Stay up-to-date with all of Tudor's podcasts, blogs and current affairs commentary by signing up to our newsletter!
• Email [email protected] to sign up!

• Follow Tudor on Twitter @Tudortweet
• Follow Tudor's blogs:
• everydaycreativity.uk
• leaderswedeserve.wordpress.com

Send us a text

The Photograph of 63. A short story by Stephen Tranter

It gives me a lot of pleasure to introduce this podcast. It’s a prize-winning short story written by and read by Steven Tranter. 
He says it’s partly biographic. I’d say it’s a fine example of a creative work from an experienced author. If you like what you are about to listen to, you will be able find examples of Steve’s novels drawing on his legal experience, via Dr Google or Amazon.
Tudor Rickards

• Stay up-to-date with all of Tudor's podcasts, blogs and current affairs commentary by signing up to our newsletter!
• Email [email protected] to sign up!

• Follow Tudor on Twitter @Tudortweet
• Follow Tudor's blogs:
• everydaycreativity.uk
• leaderswedeserve.wordpress.com