Rich Schefren the Internet based business guru has just released another of his free reports concerned with the reasons that people fail, (or succeed), in business. In a smokescreen of reframing and redefinition pegged to an historical account of the rise of technology and communication Rich is declaring the information age to be dead. Instead [...]
What Famous Leader Are You? personality tests by similarminds.com I have just repeated the Similarminds Test and have moved from being Lincoln to Gandhi. Is this good I ask myself? After all both were assassinated!
Irem looks pensive at Amos Restaurant I discovered today that some people start their day by looking here to see what has befallen us at pebblesfromparadise.com. I had no idea we were so popular, but spurred on by this news I today have come out of self-imposed seclusion and share these images with you. They [...]
Why Is The Sensei Perplexed? Because only one of these students knows how to tie their belt correctly. The Grand Master is here in Marmaris as part of his tour of the Middle East. His visit was unexpected but the Marmaris Dojo leapt at the opportunity to train with such an important Sensei. Of course [...]
Why Is Irem Looking So Chipper? It’s because not only was she able to spend time on the mat yesterday, but today Gaku Homma Sensei came to Amos with the Marmaris Aikido Group and spent several hours with us here. Why then, you may wonder is the main photograph of Irem? It’s very simple really [...]
A simulated platinum print using ‘Tony Real’ You may have noticed that I am into monochrome at the moment. Long ago we used to mix our own fixer at Blandford Grammar School Camera Club, but we always bought our ID 11. I once won the prize in the photographs junior category although I had inserted [...]
H.M. Queen Elizabeth II, (Sans Crown) by Annie Leibovitz Mr. Keith Nolan recently referred to Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II as a ‘pompous old biddy’. His comment was made at the ‘State Of The Art’ web site. Naturally as an ardent Royalist I have done what The Lord Chamberlain should have done, and replied to [...]
Haute Cuisine Maybe? I was cleaning out some files on the computer today when I came upon this ‘still life’ image. What can this meal be, you may ask? In fact it’s no meal at all, it’s a joke! Earlier this year, when my mother-in-law was staying with us, I attempted to explain to her [...]
A. D. Frankland, a.k.a. Franco, and ‘The Dome’ Over breakfast the other day I happened to mention to Irem that I ran a consultancy business whilst still a schoolboy. I was what today would be referred to as a ‘spin doctor’, or more correctly an ‘image consultant.’ When any young boy was in trouble and [...]
Sorry about the lapse in transmissions. Not me this time, if you want the full story you may read it here, and here. Anyway, we’re back on-line today. At least pebblesfromparadise is. The Family Business School web site got so over run by spammers in the time I couldn’t access it that I had to [...]
Excerpted from Damla’s latest SPAM e-mail Apart from swimming and writing crass comments on the Ecademy blogs I’ve been pretty lethargic today. Damla must be in a similar state as she keeps sending me SPAM e-mails. This link she sent is rather good. And this one must not be pressed under any circumstances. It will, [...]
Sometimes I wonder when we’re going to give up the notion of “What’s in it for me? What’s in it for them?” Damla lent me a book purporting to be a translation of the words of the Dalai Lama, it even had his picture on the cover. Within it I found the following paragraph: When [...]
Irem is enthralled by Phillip’s Conversation I’ve just taken delivery of a spare Olympus E-400 body. The sensor in it seems much superior to the one in my original body, at least at high ISO and low light. I tested the body in Turunç this evening when I took this shot of Amazon and her [...]
The Old Man Sometime during the 1970s Suzy, my wife of those days, and I gave my father an illustrated copy of the ‘Tao Te Ching’. The old man, my father that is – not Lao Tzu, said that he enjoyed reading it. Certainly he kept the book for it came down to me upon [...]
The copy of the Tao Te Ching I bought at The Compendium Bookstore Camden and gave to my father during the 1970s I love this old copy of the Tao Te Ching. It seems like yesterday that I bought it in a bookshop in Camden. Its cover was then pure black and pure white and [...]
Damla Is Playing Silly Buggers! But Then I Snapped Her! Irem Seems Amused? Or Perhaps Pootled? As a variation from posting commentary about the Tao Te Ching today I’ve decided to post a few snaps! I could equally have written how Behruz was listening to Phillip explaining that his house here at Amos is a [...]
The Steps From The Beach At Amos Not exalting the gifted prevents quarreling. What does it mean to be gifted? Is the refuse collector not more valuable than the physician? Certainly she or he saves more lives. The simple minded may uplift us with their openness whilst learned academics bore us with the narrowness of [...]
Did you make your life happen, or is It simply occuring? The Tao is like an empty bowl, yet it may be used without ever needing to be filled. Where a bowl grew from a function, so the concept of Tao grew from our need to name the unnameable. What’s in a name? What’s in [...]
1966 Vauxhall Viva HA . . . but in the life of our planet it is a blink. It seems like yesterday but it has been half a lifetime. Am I being nostalgic, I think not? These were simply the days of miracle and wonder, but it’s not Paul Simon I want to write about [...]
poster design by Art Machine, A Trailer Park Company Yesterday I was reminiscing about how Sally introduced me to Bob and Bob, in turn, introduced me to Leonard Cohen’s music. He also introduced me to the songs of Melanie, a woman with an equally soulful voice as Cohen’s. These were the days of the first [...]
The Nature Of Heaven And Earth! Heaven and earth are ruthless; They see the ten thousand things as dummies. Descartes said: “I think, therefore I am.” He held that the mind was real but the body was an automaton. He believed that we are our minds, or individual egos, and we own our bodies. When [...]
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Difficilis,querulus, laudator temporis acti.
Sepuero, castigator, cesorque minorum
Stephen Jeremy Maxwell Bray lives with his wife Irem, and daughter Amazon at Amos, Turunc near Marmaris, Turkey..
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