I've been busy these last few months with various projects but I have missed blogging and shall make time, from now on, to jot down the whirligig of thoughts that enter my brain. 

 A college prospectus says the ability to keep to a topic is the sign of an educated mind.  I understand the point but for me, one idea sparks a myriad others, creating numerous possibilities and a state of complete indecision.

As a writer, I do a lot of churning;  I'm not sure if I could be hanged for my thoughts, but I would prefer to keep them private. Many employees who take part in those hideous staff-training days which involve  'bombing ideas', would, too.

This is where employees  'share' their ideas (sorry, their jargon, not mine), thus enabling the group leader to trash most of them, (I don't mean the staff, thankfully).  In the gritty remains at the bottom of the pot, they will pan for gold (fools gold).

This exercise has gone on for years but was declared completely pointless by a psychologist last week. Can't say I'm surprised, but here's an interesting point:

President Obama has a female employee whose task it is to think about possibilities and difficulties that might arise in any given situation.  Before you act, think of what might go wrong. Good thinking.

Ideas do not exist in a vacuum, though. They usually come from somewhere, like films, people we know, or books.

 President Hollande does not read books, according to Thomas Picketty, author  of Capital in the Twenty-First Century. I expect the President is too busy with matters of State but, like Paul Valery, the French poet who admitted to not having read Proust, he might save time by leafing through a critique. 

I have spent (squandered?) a lifetime squirrelling my way through books and will reveal more in my next blog. Happy reading!