Phlegm and ROA paint the Southbank

I was delighted to see that the Belgian street artist ROA has worked on the Queen Elizabeth Hall. I wonder if it was a commissioned work or whether it's graffiti. I'm a big fan of ROA, mainly because he does great squirrels. The artwork along the bottom is by Sheffield artist Phlegm.

Fred and I were at the Southbank for The Art of Living festival, which has given me lots of think about. The first talk was on Work:
- average job lifespan: 4 years
- try to be a wide worker with several jobs or projects on the go, not necessarily in the same field
- remember the work-life balance
- job satisfaction is a relatively recent goal, but it's achievable
- record when you've reached your 'flow' in work (the point when the hours don't matter and you're in your zone)
- take the leap and think later
- if you can't take a radical sabbatical (leaping from your current job into the unknown), then try bridging projects in your spare time: volunteer work, shadowing someone in a job


The second talk was on Money with an economist and Mark Boyle, who lived without money for over two years and who is the founder of The Freeconomy Community. It was incredibly interesting and has certainly encouraged me to find out more about the gift culture (providing skills for free - I might need the skills of another for free in return at a later date) in order to build local community links. Volunteering at the West Norwood FEAST is already helping with this. In summary, people in households and firms need to be looking after their local communities (both the people and the soil they walk on) rather than thinking about profits.