All that you can leave behind

In the course of my work, I often deal with consultants, usually foreign, who are brought in to tell us, what to do and how to do it. Most of the time, we already know what to do and how to do, are required to tell the consultants what these things are so that they can write it all up in a REPORT and furnish it to us as their "findings". It's an interesting system and as I said before, I get to spend time with them.

Don't get me wrong, most of the time I have no beef with the visitors, I shrug and get on with business as do they. We all know the score. The other night, I tootled around with a couple of them in the car. U2 was on my CD player as is often the case these days. I find Bono non-offensive and I can sing along because I generally understand the lyrics unlike a lot of popular music these days. Gack! I have become my grandparents...but I digress.

Matt was telling Steve that he liked U2 because their lyrics are cinematic. Wow, now that is insightful. Because it's true. If you listen to their work, even the very early stuff it's like a foreign language film. Not the black and white stuff with people entering and leaving rooms suddenly, but those films that make you get past having to read the subtitles, engage your attention so you stay until the end.

You know how it is when you hear a particular song and it evokes an emotion or memory, well almost every U2 song is like that, though even I think that Bono goes a little overboard with the well-meaning causes and sanctimonious attitude. Anyway, that said, I did wonder what Bono would have come up with to describe working with consultants.

Just in case you might think this is a pointless rant, bear with me, I'd had a trying evening which I would prefer not to admit to seeing as it made the newspaper. I started humming U2 songs to keep myself going..."all that you fashion, all that you make,all that you build, all that you break,all that you measure, all that you steal, all this you can leave behind".

That's from "Walk On", if you ever feel like " a singing bird in an open cage, who will only fly for freedom". Then you might understand what I'm talking about.