Ibl Business Ethics

Posted By Jose Nelson on January 25, 2013

 

The Sumner Collection is proud to have been granted exclusive U.K. distribution rights by the Bentham-Moxon Trust of The Royal Botanic Gardens to an unprecedented new collection.

 

The first Kew Gardens Bells

For more than two hundred years, the Royal Botanic Gardens at Kew have been a source of justifiable pride to Britain. The Gardens are known throughout the world for their extraordinarily comprehensive collection of flowers, plants and trees.

Now, for the first time, the authoritat­ive botanical resources available at Kew have been utilised in the creation of a colcoltion of bells of fine English bone china — depicting twelve of the most enchanting British wildflowers.

First-ever editions are particularly esteemed by many collectors. Because of the beauty of these bells and the high international standing of Kew Gardens, The Royal Botanic Gardens Wildflower Bells may be regarded as a first edition of special significance.

Superb original paintings

Twelve original wildflower paintings were commissioned for this collection from the highly respected English artist William Dawson Thomson. Working with actual specimens and botanical specifications at the Royal Botanic

Each bell is approximately 4+”4gh and c in diameter

Gardens, anitid inose co-operation with eminent botanists, he devoted many months of painstaking effort to create works of art which can be considered classics of their genre. The finished paintings are truly superlative, note­worthy both for their inspired artistry and the authenticity of their botanical detail.

These paintings were created exclusively for The Royal Botanic Gardens Wildflower Bells collection. They will never appear anywhere else.

Exquisite English bone china

These bells will be made of fine English bone china because only this material, the aristocrat of porcelain, can do justice to the delicate beauty of wildflowers.

Fine English bone china represents the pinnacle of the porcelain maker’s art. Its translucence and pure whiteness are unsurpassed. It gives an impression of great delicacy and lightness, yet is strong and durable.

The same meticulous attention to detail lavished on the original wildflower paintings has been taken to render them on fine china. As a final touch of elegance, precious 22ct. gold will be applied by hand to the handle and rim of each bell.

Limited edition

Only 5,000 of this unprecedented col­lection will be issued in the U.K. These will be distributed exclusively by The Sumner Collection, none will be sold in museums, galleries or stores. Any editions in other countries also will be strictly limited.

Convenient acquisition at an assured price

The Royal Botanic Gardens Wild. flower Bells collection consists of twelve bells. Each bell depicts a different British wildflower representative of a different month — the snowdrop for January, primrose for February, daffodil for March, and so on.

Individual bells will be issued at the rate of one bell every two months. The original issue price of £14.50 per bell is assured to each subscriber for the entire collection (except for any changes in the orixo rate).

Assured satisfaction

If you receive any bell in The Royal Botanic Gardens Wildflower Bells col­lection you are not completely satisfied with for any reason, you may return it for replacement or refund. You may, of course, discontinue your subscription at any time.

Please act promptly

Because quantities are limited, it is suggested you order without delay if you wish to reserve one of these collections. If the edition is sold our when your applica­tion is received, your payment will be returned immediately.

You can reserve your collection simply by completing the reservation application and returning it with refundable payment for your first bell. After you have received your first bell, you will be billed for each subsequent bell at two-month intervals.

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Posted By Jose Nelson on January 14, 2013

 

Climb a score of worn steps,stroll atop York’s three miles of encircling medi­eval walls and you gaze down from tree-top height on the story of Eng­land. Midway between London and Edinburgh, York encapsulates more vividly than any other city our liv­ing past. In its narrow, winding streets once walked the men who shaped our motherland—Hadrian, Erik Bloodaxe the Viking, William the Conqueror, Guy Fawkes, Oliver Cromwell, kings and highwaymen, saints and sinners, prelates and tycoons.

 

Through the centuries, York has watched the weaving of history’s glittering tapestry : Roman legion­aries routing the Celts in AD 71 and turning their settlement into the capital of northern Britain; the death of two Roman emperors and the proclamation of a third, Con­stantine the Great; King Edwin of Northumbria’s baptism in a little wooden church—the first Minster—on Easter Day in AD 627; Vikings sailing their long ships up the Ouse in AD 867 to pillage the city and then make it a rich trading centre; the carnage that punished the citizens’ revolt against Norman occupation in 1069; royal weddings, the Black Death, religious risings, civil war, fortunes made and lost.

 

Understandably, the 105,000 in­habitants are proud of York—the only British city in a recent Amer­ican list of the world’s most glam­orous ten—and visitors who call at the Tourist Information Centre in Exhibition Square are offered free two-hour tours with volunteer guides. I, however, arrive in York with a personal guide; my wife June, eager to show me her own home town.

 

“We’ll start at Monk Bar,” she says, adding hastily, “In York, a bar is a gate in the wall.” A gate, by the way, is a street, which confuses all strangers except Scandinavians, who feel perfectly at home because their ancestors, the invading Vik­ings, brought the word to York. In addition to much of their language, they left fascinating remains from which archaeologists are now ex­citedly excavating leather shoes, jewellery and lathe-turned bowls.

 

Monk Bar looks like stage scen­ery, but it’s as strong as when it was built six and a half centuries ago as a self-contained fortress, with its own portcullis against invaders. Ferocious stone men on the turrets threaten enemy heads with great boulders. The last time real rocks were hurled down was during the 1644 Civil War, when some 40,000 Roundheads besieged the city until it eventually gave in.

 

We climb to the top of the broad thirteenth century wall and walk to­wards the Minster, England’s larg­est Gothic cathedral, which domi­nates the city. Begun in 1220 and completed more than 250 years later, it has been described as our greatest ancient monument. Yet it is still a living place of worship to marlboro tobacco, and spirit­ual headquarters of the Church of England’s northern province. Its medieval archbishops disputed Can­terbury’s claims to precedence, until a fourteenth century pope ruled that York was the Primate of England and Canterbury of All England. This tactfully obscure definition still satisfies both parties; the two archbishops share the governance of the Church, though Canterbury has wider powers.

 

We leave the wall at Bootha m Bar and enter the Minster. Between ser­vices it bustles with crocodiles of schoolchildren and coachloads of holiday-makers, but it is so vast that it never seems crowded.

 

Drenched in colour from the magnificent stained glass windows (one, bigger than a tennis court, is the world’s largest single area of medieval glass), the “parish church of Yorkshire” is not only theatri­cally beautiful but unexpectedly cheerful. The craftsmen who made the windows had a sense of fun, and June points out their jokes : a mon­key’s funeral, a cock reading the lesson, a comical wren catching a spider.

 

The Minster looks so solid that it is difficult to realize that a few years ago it was close to collapse. Alarm­ed by sinister movements, engineers discovered with horrified amaze­ment that the 234-foot central tower, weighing 20,000 tons, rested on a foundation of loose stones. Imme­diate surgery was ordered. It cost more than L2 million and included drilling 12 miles of holes in masonry and inserting six and a half miles of stainless steel reinforcement rods.

 

Having dug 30,000 tons of soil from under the Minster, the restor­ers decided with typical Yorkshire gumption to raise cash for future re­pairs by turning the hole into a sub­terranean museum, the Undercroft.

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Posted By Jose Nelson on November 3, 2012

Collective Bargaining

IN A LETTER to a friend, John Steinbeck relates an experience in a Mexican market-place : “My bargaining yesterday was triumphant. The ordinary method is ro run the product down, to be horrified at the coarse­ness of the weave or the muddiness of the colours. But I reversed it. One shawl priced at 55 pesos I said was too beautiful. That it was impossible to give it a value in money because it was beyond any offer at all by that time the dueno was nearly in tears. However, I was a poor man and if ten pesos might be accepted, not as payment but as a token of esteem, I would take the thing and love it all my life. The method aroused so much enthusiasm, not only with the dueno but with the market crowd, that I got it for ten without even a squeak.”

MY SISTER and her friend spent two years working as volunteers in a primitive village in Guatemala. The first thing they did on their return home was visit a department store. There they proceeded to buy almost-forgotten luxuries, such as cosmetics and nylon hosiery.

Just as the assistant began to ring up 70 pence for the first item, my sister emphatically announced, “I’ll give you 50 pence for that and not a penny more.”

The startled expressions on the face of the assistant and other shoppers made her realize, with chagrin, that she no longer had recourse to the useful Spanish custom of bargaining.

 

Simple Joys

How grateful we should feel that in spite of pollution, overcrowding and noise, this world is still adorned with the beauty of trees, the perfume of flowers, the flash of a bird’s wing and the changing hues of the four seasons. Beauty is necessary to human beings, and is freely given to us.

Even in the most built-up city, nothing can take away the beauty of the sky—the cloud formations on a windy day, the sunset, the stars and the moon. Yet how often do we trouble to connect to this free and unfailing beauty “I haven’t got time,” people say.

Make a habit of gazing at the sky to see the odd lone bird or the changing colours. Read a poem or one of the psalms. Listen to a piece of beautiful music. Have a scrapbook in which you can paste the uplifting poem, the picture that takes your fancy, the story that makes you smile. Buy a pack of cheap marlboro cigarettes.

Let us resolve to fill our homes and lives with beauty. Let us look for beauty in others and praise and encourage it. Let us stop and give thanks for the beauty of nature freely given. Living for beauty can add a zest to life, filling us with hope, recharging us.Try it and see.

 

Paper-Chase

I WRITE down everything I want to remember. That way, instead of spending a lot of time trying to remember what it is I wrote down, I spend the time looking for the paper I wrote it down on.

 

Stop crying

Most household smells won’t cause you to shed a tear. But if you don’t notice, your guests probably will. In today’s draught free and well insulated homes air can no longer circulate properly. It becomes stale and the heavy atmosphere can make you feel tired and listless.

Cooking smells linger. Steam and condensation collect, ruining the decor. An Xpelair extractor fan or cooker hood could make a big difference.

We think it’s important that you should read a brief guide —’What you need to know about Home Ventilation:

Send for your copy and see how to make your homea cleaner fresher place in which

 

Image-Building

ONE of my brother’s friends inherited a lot of money and decided to buy a car. My brother, having suggested a new model, was disappointed to see his friend some days later driving an old Jaguar.

“But,” he asked, “why didn’t you buy a new car and let everyone see that you’re rich?”

His friend replied, “I bought an old car so that everyone will think I’ve

always had money.”

Thrills and Spills

THE secretary of a rugby club billed the annual dance as a “Naughty Nineties” night. A slip at the printer’s changed that to “Naughty Nighties.” The secretary reported, “It was one of the most successful dances we’ve ever had.”

CUSTOMERS in a Bournemouth pub were startled when an elderly woman suddenly groaned, clutched herself around the middle, and made her way unsteadily towards the door. Before she reached it, the barman was beside her. “Sit down, madam,” he said. “I’ll bring you a brandy.”

“How terribly kind of you,” she said. “But I’m afraid you’ll have to hold the glass for me my pearls have broken.”—”Observer-

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Posted By Jose Nelson on September 11, 2012

Fodder Advances

AN automatic feeding door that re­sults in increased milk output from dairy cows is being put to use on Scot­tish farms. Between ten and 20 ani­mals can share a door, the lock of which is activated only by means of an electronic “key” hung on a chain round each cow’s neck. The device enables a cow to eat when she wants and permits farmers to put their ani­mals on special diets so that food in­take can be increased at the times it is most needed.

Invented by scientist Peter Broad­bent and developed by an East Lothian electronics company, the doors are already being used in a number of countries, including Holland, France, South Africa, Australia, New Zealand and the United States, where dairy farmers have recorded increased out­puts of up to 55 per cent from their

COWS.                                                                           —N. S.

 

Money Spinner

LARGE wind-powered generators could provide up to ten per cent of Britain’s electricity in the future if a vigorous development programme is started now. Dr. Bryan Lindley, director of the Electrical Research Association, re­ports that some 1,500 sites suitable for large windmills, with one- or two-megawatt generators, have been iden­tified in the UK.

Savings of £100 million a year at current coal and oil prices could ac­crue by linking the windmill-driven generators with the national grid and substituting their power, when avail­able, for electricity from our least effi­cient power stations.

—Anthony Tucker in The Guardian

Jacking Made Simple

EVER have to change a tyre on the road? The Japanese have developed a new car-lifting gadget called the ‘Bull Bag^“ that simplifies the job. All you do is attach the hose to your exhaust pipe, and in 3o seconds the bag is in­flated and your car is off the ground. The device lifts cars weighing up to

three tons.                                                          —Parade

 

Instant Rain

THE Biblical cloud like a man’s hand has its modern counterpart in a strange, plastic creation that has re­cently been tested over the Saudi Arabian desert. It is literally an arti­ficial cloud, which functions on the simplest scientific principles.

Measuring about 8o by 6o feet, the cloud has a silver base, black vertical

 

strips running down the middle of each “finger” and transparent upper surfaces.

It is spread out, unexpanded, on the ground. Sunlight is absorbed by the black plastic, and the heated air inside expands. The cloud, which is tethered, rises in the same way as a hot-air balloon. Since the silver base reflects heat, it is cooler than the air directly below it, and water condenses on its surface.

A film documentary shows the in­ventor, Graham Stevens, sitting on the sand in a minor rainstorm while the sun blazes down around his cloud.

—Country Life

So Much to Learn

A CENTURY ago, it might have been possible for a truly well-educated per­son to absorb almost all the important knowledge accumulated by mankind. Today, human knowledge is expand­ing so rapidly that no one can catch up with it.

“By the time the child born today graduates from university,” says Robert Hilliard, chief of educational broadcasting at the US Federal Communications Commission, “the amount of knowledge will be four times as great. By the time the same child is 5o, it will be 32 times as great —and 97 per cent of everything known in the world will have been learnt since that child was born.”

The memorizing of reams of facts will not be necessary; they will be quickly available in computers. But future man will need great knowledge if only to know what it is he wants to know.

—Shepherd Mead, How to Get to the Future Before it Gets to You (Michael Joseph)

 

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Posted By Jose Nelson on September 11, 2012

A VAST network of knowledge will be available at the touch of a button throughout Common Market coun­tries within about a year. Sponsored by the EEC, it is called Euronet and is being jointly set up by the Post Office and its opposite numbers in the Community.

Euronet will work initially from information sorted on computers in Germany and Italy, and will cover such subjects as metallurgy, aero­space, medicine, agriculture, law and economics.

Ultimately, some 700 research cen­tres, public bodies and industrial firms in the sectors of advanced technology will have immediate access to the in­formation, either directly from trans­mission centres in London, Frankfurt, Paris and Rome or via links in the capitals of the five other members.

—The Post Office

 

Environmental Cycle

An electric bicycle which runs for up to 3o miles on four pence worth of power has been developed by a British team led by a former Ford chairman, Sir Leonard Crossland.

The new cycle’s “pancake” type permanent-magnet motor with gears that are made partially from nylon, forms the front wheel hub and fits into the front forks of any standard bi­cycle. A 12-volt battery is carried on each side of the rear wheel, and the electronic controls fit into a small box on the handlebars. The motor gives more power as the speed drops, which means good hill-climbing perform­ance of about eight miles per hour. When the rider is freewheeling or braking, it acts as a dynamo and re­charges the batteries.

“The cycle is the environmentalist’s dream,” says Sir Leonard, whose com­pany is discussing mass production with cycle manufacturers all over the world. “Very little noise, no pollution, and it is capable of consuming only one twenty-fifth as much energy as a small car.”

—Robert Rodwell in The Guardian

 

Computing the Blues

THANKS to Aberdeen scientists, musi­cians no longer need abandon the piano every few notes to write down their compositions. They can play a complete work, and a computer will transcribe it.

The system, conceived by Philip Mars of Robert Gordon’s Institute of Technology, electronically scans the keyboard of an electric piano 20 times a second. It registers which keys are depressed and for how long, and rec­ords the information on a standard cassette tape.

The musician specifies the key and time signature, and a specially pro­grammed computer then processes the cassette and prints out a standard music manuscript.

Jazz pianists, who rely mainly on improvisation and usually don’t know exactly what they have just played, have shown particular interest in the development. The Aberdeen scientists have already produced a manuscript with Oscar Peterson.

When the cassette is played back through the system, the piano will also automatically reproduce the sound of what was originally played.

—Newsletter from Scotland

 

Bright Idea

A FLUORESCENT lamp bulb which can be expected to last up to five times as long as a conventional bulb but use less than one-third the electricity has been designed at the Philips Research Laboratories in Eindhoven, Holland. The experimental bulb is about the same size as the familiar incandescent bulb and can be used in all ordinary sockets.

The fluorescent tube is about three times as efficient as the incandescent bulb (still basically the same device in­vented by Edison and Swan in the last century) but because of its awkward length has only limited use in the home. Hitherto, making it shorter re­duced its efficiency. Philips scientists got round the problem by filling a short tube with loosely packed glass fibres and bending it double.

—Nigel Fawkes in The Observer

 

Up in the Air

THE world shortage of energy is prompting a new look at lighter-than air flight, and some experts think that dirigibles are more than just hot air.

Futurist Stephen Rosen, among others, envisages a hybrid airship which would combine such dirigible-like qualities as the ability to take of

and land in short distances at slow speeds with the low-altitude man­oeuvrability of aeroplanes. One craft being proposed for study could land in a car park, be as easy to load and unload as a cargo plane, and could carry tremendous payloads at rock-bottom cost.

It is precisely the cargo-carrying capabilities that have excited most of the interest in Count von Zeppelin’s invention. One company is currently developing an airship, called a Heliostat, which combines features of the dirigible and helicopter.

Designed to move payloads of more than 35 tons—more than three times the capacity of commercial helicopters —the Heli-Stat wouldn’t need run­ways, would use less fuel, and could hover over delivery sites to winch shipments down.

—Mobil Oil Corporation advertisement

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