Getting Somewhere

Spent the day yesterday on the big dig at Nailsea enveloped in a cloud of pipe smoke and expletives, trying to scrape away 200 years of mud that swamped the site in last week's heavy rain. I am due to write a report on medieval Nailsea by the end of the month and at this rate I'll have to make it all up.

Checking the messages on the answerphone this morning reveals that Reverend Spencer has called from the neighbouring parish of Cleeve. I am always loathed to get involved with councelling members of the church (although it always pays extremely well), as their problems are always deviant in the extreme and I find it difficult to be empathetic with bishops who are serial poisoners or priests that are serial sex offenders. Still I may have to consider this option if cash isn't forthcoming soon. I decide to put some more effort into this project management book inorder to avoid Rev Spencer for another month. I pack my pipe carefully with my best Borkum Riff tobacco and light up ....

I note down many potential links between psychology and project management on my pad but nothing seems like the starting point for a methodological vision and after half an hour stomp off after Mrs Huggins for tea & cake. Despite the obvious warming benefits of my pipe there are great cries of ""Get that bloody thing out of here !!!", and grabbing mug of tea but not cake, I am forced to comply.

From the carpark I watch the feckless citizens of Backwell lost in their own little worlds trudge their way to Spar, the doctors', or whatever equally depressing destination they have that day. It occurs to me that people do not on the whole want advice or guidance, and that when they do seek the opinions of others it is only in order to confirm their already existing opinions and to reassure them that what they have done all along is correct. An elderly lady in a headscarf billows across the busy road with her two carriers of shopping oblivious to the squeeling of brakes, whilst a young mum chatting on a mobile phone launches her toddler in its pram off from the pavement. These people are not project managers scanning the shelves of Borders for the latest career saving guidebook, but perhaps deep down their basic human requirements are the same. Perhaps my methodolgy should treat the reader as the patient not the pychologist (its never good to share trade secrets anyway there are far too many amateur psychologists as it is). How much better to soothe the reader's professional fears and anxieties than to present them with a completely new set of practices, methods and phrases they will have to actually learn at a time in their life when they are already stressed and anxious. Think how much more financially successful a book that says "you're great" would be than a book that says "ha you know nothing !". Now we're getting somewhere.

A loud blast from a horn wakes me from my revelry. "Oi mate are you getting on or not ?" From nowhere a bus has appeared and through steamy windows I notice about 40 of Backwell's finest shaking their heads and tutting at me. "You'll have to put that out too we're no smoking now- mores the shame !" For the first time I notice the sign on the metal post I'm leaning against. 34,40,43X Clevedon via Nailsea. "In that case no thanks " I reply cheerfully "I've got work to do"....