Much Twittering: A Master Class in Project Planning and Resource Management

As one of my many loyal readers, you will by now be well-acquainted with my love of peace and tranquillity. My professional services as an internationally-renowned Business guru and IT Consultant are, of course, legendary and in constant demand, but at the end of a hard week slaving away at the cutting edge of online Project Management, Document Management and Cloud Computing, even I need to relax. My high-tech Home Office here in the Cow Byre at Little Billing Grange is also my personal sanctuary, a place where I can get away from the hurly-burly of office politics, turn my back on the cut-throat world of international business and commerce, and just unwind.

Nevertheless, in a generous spirit of sharing, I occasionally like to reach out to the local business community and give them the much-needed benefit of my wealth of wisdom and expertise. In a selfless gesture to those less gifted and fortunate than myself, round about this time every year I fling open the door to my inner sanctum and welcome the general public in to the Cow Byre. Or rather, I welcome in those who have forked out forty quid for a half-day's expert consultation with tea and sandwiches thrown in.

And today is one of those red-letter days. The Cow Byre has been thoroughly aired and tidied up, chairs have been set out in rows for the expected throng, and every portable item of value securely locked away. All is orderly and polished; after all that cleaning and scrubbing the lingering tang of manure is now barely discernible. Seamus and Sebastian are on hand to help with the refreshments; Farmer Skinner has kindly fenced off a corner of Twittering Meadow to accommodate the overflow car park; I have carefully prepared my PowerPoint presentation and managed to set up the projector. All is prepared; I am ready to face my public.

The topic I will be addressing today is the eternal problem of Resource Management and employee time tracking. People are always asking me 'How do you organise and motivate your staff?' God knows I have had ample experience of dealing with difficult people. Recalcitrant Business Analysts and reluctant IT developers hold no fears for me: over the last thirty years I have seen them all. Lazy Project Managers and idle Web Developers, shiftless technical support staff: you'd better gird up your loins and look to your laurels because, make no mistake, I know who you are and I AM ON YOUR CASE!

So, how do I do it? What is it, the elusive secret of staff motivation? How can you make your sluggard resources wake up, buck up and bend to your will? Forget your online file management systems, forget your state-of-the-art electronic time management software. Forget expensive team-bonding exercises in over-priced hotel conference suites. I'll let you into a secret. What lies at the beating heart and the very hub of my global business empire? A decent cup of Lapsang Souchong and a good ginger biscuit, that's what! Start mucking about with filthy foreign, new-fangled coffee contraptions and snack vending machines and God knows where it will all end.

If you take home just one nugget of wisdom from my lecture today, I beseech you to remember this: make sure you have a good supply of proper tea , made in a tea-pot from tea-leaves, not from those wretched, miserable, tea-bags, and not, God forbid, from an automatic vending-machine. I wouldn't even pay that muck the compliment of calling it by the blessed name of tea: it is merely an artificial concoction compounded from a hellish tincture of chemicals and e-numbers. A hot beverage, possibly, but certainly not tea.

To quote that well-known adage from the world of Information Technology: 'GIGO', or 'GARBAGE IN, GARBAGE OUT'. To put it in the vernacular, feed your staff rubbish and rubbish is what they will churn out. In all my many long years of working in business and technology I have yet to encounter any worthwhile piece of work that was ever produced by a Project Worker who did not drink a proper cup of tea at regular and frequent intervals. If you are ever unfortunate enough to be saddled with this type of person as part of your team, however, I can only sympathise with you, and advise you to try and wean them off their disgusting habits as soon as possible. In these God-forsaken days of political-correctness-gone-mad and equal opportunity manifestoes, you are, unfortunately, no longer legally entitled to chastise them physically or give them the sack.

So, to summarise: once you have got your resources all drinking from the same tea-pot, as it were, you will soon find that they are pulling together as a tightly-knit, highly-disciplined professional unit. Throw into the mix a regular supply of home-made biscuits (I find that the ones sold by the Much Twittering WI in the Victoria Hall at their monthly Bring & Buy are suitable), and you will find yourself onto a winner. Tedious activities such as regular Team Meetings and Progress Reports will become unnecessary: you will meet quite frequently and naturally as a matter of course, as you make your way to the tea kettle in the staff kitchen. I call this the organic approach to Resource Management, and in my opinion, it is the only approach that actually works. But wait, I think I hear the screech of brakes, it must be Daphne Winteringham rolling up in her Jag. Hope she doesn't get stuck in the mud and has come in her wellies, or there will be Hell to pay. Toodle-oo.

Much Twittering DIY Special: How to Convert a Pigsty into a Home Office

All my loyal readers will be familiar with my professional track-record as a well-known and respected Business & IT Consultant,  popular journalist, and inveterate Blogger and Twitterer.

Modesty prevents me from mentioning my long list of degrees and diplomas from some of the most prestigious educational establishments in the Greater Twittering area; needless to say my abilities and skills have long been famous throughout the business world.  It may surprise you to know, however, that there is another, lesser-known string to my bow: yes, I am also a renowned expert in the field of Property Development and Interior Design.  In these cash-strapped times we all need to multi-task, even the most illustrious of us, and I have found this to be an absorbing and profitable activity.  Yes, the coffers of Little Billing Grange have greatly benefitted from projects in recent years.

My latest venture was right here in my own backyard.  Ever since I bought this place from Farmer Skinner 10 years ago I have been itching to get stuck into improvements on the various barns, sheds & outbuildings that came with the Grange.  Finally I have found the time in my busy schedule to get round to it, and you may be amazed to hear that I am actually writing this from what used to be a Cow Byre.  You would never know it now; looking around at my high-spec, high-tech office, all is low-level lighting, smoked glass and wire-less gizmos.  The only thing which betrays the lowly origins of the nerve-centre of my commercial operations is a faint aroma of cow muck, but I trust that will fade away over time.

The first job I had to tackle was the removal of an accretion of 40 years-worth of manure from Skinner’s herd of Long Horns.  This was achieved by the use of an industrial-sized hydraulic pump, which Skinner was kind enough to hire out to me at a favourable rate.  Contrary to popular tittle-tattle in the Slaughtered Lamb, I would like to make it plain straight away the THERE IS ABSOLUTELY NOTHING GOING ON between me and Farmer Skinner, ours is purely a professional arrangement.  All the fermented manure sucked out of the old Cow Byre was re-deployed as fertilizer on the fields on the lower slopes of Billing Hill, a clever use of resources and very green, to boot.  Snide remarks about how Skinner sold me a heap of S***, charged me a fortune to suck it out and take it away, and then sold it on at an extortionate rate to the local garden centre as organic compost, are nothing but the malicious outpourings of small-minded and envious peasants.

After that, it was more or less just a simple matter of gaining Planning Permission for the conversion, installing electricity and water supplies, re-building the main exterior and supporting walls, re-roofing, installing central heating and bathroom facilities, and a lick of paint.  And all this cost me a mere forty grand, quite a bargain I think you will agree.

I’m sure that much more than that will have been added to the over-all value of Little Billing Grange. 

And I now have my own self-contained home office from which I can direct my consultational and journalistic activities in peace and quiet, undisturbed by the day-to-day distractions of the Mooney household.  At the touch of a button I am linked up to the World Wide Web and all its potential for money-making endeavours.  My state-of-the-art Online Project Management System, puts me in charge of my highly-skilled team of professional resources at multiple secret locations all over the world, yet here I am, safe and snug in my rural sanctuary, looking out though my custom-made, architect-designed triple glazing over a panorama of green fields and woodland towards Skinner’s Abattoir.  What could be better?

Just a minute, I can hear someone knocking on the door to my sanctuary.  Dash it all, it’s the ruddy Vicar, the Reverend Payne.  Perhaps if I stop typing and keep quiet for a minute he’ll think I’m out and go away.  Otherwise I’m bound to get co-opted into volunteering for something unpleasant, like manning the Hook-A-Duck stall at the Village Fete, running a coffee morning at  The Laurels, or taking the minutes of the Much-Twittering Parish Council meeting. Sorry to dash off like this, but I must sign off now and get under the desk.

A Short Ramble Around Much Twittering

 After a long hard winter, with unprecedented levels of snowfall and over 46 hard frosts, the highest number since records in the Greater Twittering Met Office began (in 2009), by this time of year I am longing to get out of the house and into the countryside to sniff out some of the very first signs of Spring. On a fine March morning like this, crisp and cold but clear and sunny, it a very pleasant thing to put on the trusty wellies, don the old waxed jacket, and set out on a healthful stroll around our lovely and historic village. Our little 'in-joke' here in Much T is that as long as you can smell the emissions from Farmer Skinner's abattoir, you know for a fact you are still alive. And boy, can I smell them this morning.

I'm in even more need of a lungful of fresh air this morning, as I am suffering from an unexplained and blinding headache. Probably just stress, following an unfortunate incident yesterday involving me and the Reverent Payne. Bloody man walks in on me unannounced, right in the middle of my daily relaxation and meditation session in the Cow Byre. Just because he's a Man of the Cloth he seems to think he has the God-given right to barge in to decent people's private quarters without so much as a 'By Your Leave'. A daily work-out of toning and stretching, followed by a gruelling session of Tae-Bo and Kick-Boxing is just a part of my fitness and well-being regime. (You didn't think I look this good at my age just by chance, did you?) After all the physical jerks I like to round the session off flat out on the flag-stones, for five minutes of deep breathing and meditation.

Which is just the moment when Cuthbert walked in on me. I suppose it was a mistake anyone could have made, to think I was lying there unconscious, but did the blithering idiot have to attempt to administer the Kiss of Life? And did he have to do it quite so enthusiastically? Well, what a kerfuffle! It took all the strength I had to beat him off, disentangle his dog-collar from my leotard and explain that I was perfectly fine: not dying, just exercising.

After all that we were both so exhausted and discombobulated I was impelled to open a bottle of the old Elderflower Cordial, vintage 2006, and to resort to one of my son Sebastian's herbal cigarettes. Don't know where he gets them from; I have never seen them in the shops, but I find them an absolute God-send, and so wonderfully relaxing! Sebastian is such a dear, thoughtful boy, he makes sure I have a regular supply of herbal roll-ups, and charges me next to nothing for them. 'Anything to keep the old bat quiet', he always says, just his little joke.

Such a blessing to know that one has recourse to these fine, traditional home-made remedies, so much better and purer than anything one can buy in Boots these days. And so reassuring to know they contain no dangerous stimulants or chemical additives, especially now, in the middle of Lent. We had just lit a third herbal ciggie and were three-quarters of the way down our second bottle of Elderflower cordial when my other half, my darling Seamus, arrived home from work.

I had no idea it had got so late; nothing prepared for Seamus' tea, and me still in my lycra. He didn't seem at all pleased to see the Vicar, whom he escorted to the door in a very brusque, perhaps even slightly aggressive manner. Dear Seamus, he is well-known in these parts for being a confirmed and evangelical atheist, that is probably why he set about the poor Vicar like that. I myself, feeling unexpectedly dizzy and suddenly fatigued, went straight to bed and within minutes was sound asleep. Well I do, as you know, lead an extremely busy and demanding professional life, sometimes it can seem exhausting, even for a woman of my calibre.

And so, back to this morning. Off I go on my ramble, straight down the bridle path, past the abattoir, through the quagmire at Much-Twittering Beck, and on down into the famous and historic Stoneacre Woods. There is so much of geological, architectural and archaeological interest to discuss here, I hardly know where to begin.

My regular route takes me past what was once a Quaker School, over a medieval pack-horse bridge, round the perimeter of the local chemical works (unfortunately), and of course straight through Skinner's Farm Yard. Odious man, he does loathe it when we walkers cross his precious muck-strewn yard, and is prone to rudely bursting out upon unsuspecting, innocent passers-by brandishing his blunderbuss. As a responsible member of the community and founder member of the Much Twittering Ramblers Association, I feel I must do my bit, however, to keep the ancient footpaths and by-ways open, despite Skinner's protestations that I am scaring his wretched sheep.

One day, when I have more time on my hands, I must tell you the story of how I single-handedly uncovered the long-lost site of a Bronze-Age burial chamber down here in the woods, and brought to light the legendary Stoneacre Hoard, now the most prized and revered exhibit in the Greater Twittering and district Museum. For today, it is enough for us just to enjoy the first crocuses of the season, bask for a moment in the precious watery rays of early spring sunshine and breathe in a restorative draught of the pure Twittering air. Back up over the Golf course and into the village, and there's just time for a draught of another sort (non-alcoholic of course), at the Slaughtered Lamb, before lunch back at the Grange.

Much Twittering on the Aire ; a Technological & Sociological History from Weird to Wired. Rustic Ramblings and Rural Reminiscences from a Global Village

Sometimes it feels like nothing ever changes here in Much Twittering.  Today just another middle-class outpost of the city of L**** ,  a safe, comfortable and seemingly normal home for respectable folk. But actually that has by no means always been the case...

You don’t have to go back very far to reach a time when this place was a desolate, deserted hinterland,  its very name derives from the Anglo Saxon ‘Muckle T’Wet Rang’, which literally translates  to ‘Great  damp foul  midden’. Inhospitable, wind-swept and intractable to horticulture or husbandry, it was attractive to only the very dregs of society, social pariahs and outcasts who were slung out of the main settlements by the more respectable burghers of  L**** for reasons of thievery, disease, debauchery and witchcraft. Mary Mordant, a notorious witch widely credited with the gift of second sight live here for many years at the turn of the century (18^th to 19^th, that is).   For forty years she made a good living by telling fortunes to the more gullible citizens of L****, until she was hanged on the local gibbet on Billing Hill 1811. Not surprising that local religious leader and evangelist William Daines was inspired to pen the immortal lines:-

‘In Twittering Much, Great and West the children simple be, In Lower Twittering,  we truly mourn for thee’

The rise of the woollen industry saw some civilising influences arriving in Much T.  Along with a population of 45,000 sheep, came a rag-tag assortment of farmers, shepherds,  mill workers, spinners, weavers and a sprinkling of unattached ladies of dubious reputation and standard of hygiene. The mid to late 19^th century saw significant settlements of simple weavers’ cottages as well as the founding of some grand establishments for the mill owners and gentlemen farmers.  By this time a fine church had been built in the centre of the village; this was famously visited by a young Queen Victoria in the year 1825. She reported herself to be gratified by the sight of such a large and enthusiastic congregation  of apparently healthy (if unwashed) rustics and yokels, although we have no record of any return visit. Much Twittering’s patriotism and religious zeal was subsequently recognised and rewarded by Her Majesty by instituting a fund to create the Victoria Village Hall, to this day a popular and lively gathering place most Friday nights, a good place to go if you are fond of Line Dancing and Bingo.

Moving reluctantly  into the 20^th century, the blameless and productive employment provided for the simple local populace was increasingly threatened by the rise of the cotton industry in the further-flung outposts of empire.  The good, coarse, traditional  woollens of Much Twittering were unable to compete with the much cheaper cotton garments churned out in their millions by lower paid labourers in the colonies. Simple Much T children who had previously enjoyed the healthful benefits of working 15 hours per day at the loom, or of climbing up the smoky  chimneys of the local grandees (why did they do that?) were now forced out these pleasant pastimes and into the confusing world of the British School system.

Here, thanks to constant improvements in the system, such as the Literacy and Numeracy Strategies, and frequent enthusiastic and brutal canings,  they were eventually educated to rise above the simple level of their parents and grandparents, and aspire to achieve better things.  These simple rustics, born to expect nothing better than a life spent toiling on the land or labouring at the mill, now rose to become administrators, bankers, IT consultants and accountants.

The simple weavers’ cottages of Much T were now extensively improved and extended, indoor plumbing became universal, and on every drive a shiny car was to be seen; some even had two or three.  Every day this brave new generation of urban workers would get in their shiny new cars and drive the 8 miles or so to their workplaces in L****.  The toxic emissions from all those exhaust pipes could be seen from space, all plant and animal life along the commuter route was utterly annihilated.  On a good day the travellers sometimes managed to make the journey in under an hour, and if they were really lucky they also found somewhere to park.

Life was sweet, each simple cottage in Much T now boasted its own conservatory, central heating system,  at least 3 televisions, a pc, lap-top and Playstation.  Holidays in Tuscany or the Dordogne were taken 3 or 4 times a year, and little children no longer had to supplement the family budget by going out turnip-docking, shop-lifting or pick-pocketing. But alas, this happy state of affairs was short-lived.

All too soon came more years of sorrow and suffering for the inhabitants of Much T, in the shape of off-shore facilities, out-sourcing and the Credit Crunch.  Add these factors together with years of flood, drought, pestilence and famine (well all right, not actual famine as such, not in Much T, but you get the picture),  brought about by Global warming and the excesses of the capitalist regime, and it all adds up to the need for another industrial revolution.  The more enlightened denizens of Much T  saw the need for change, and like their ancestors of yore, they rose to the challenge of a new era.

So it was out with the old electricity-hungry house-hold appliance, in with the solar panel on the roof and the wood-burning stove. Out with  the four x four on the drive, in with energy-efficient cars like the Toyota Prius and the Smart. It  became fashionable to be seen to do your shopping  in Pound Shops and even in the local charity shops.  Save money, re-cycle and do your bit for the less fortunate, all at the same time!  The daily drudgery of the life-sapping commute into work is now largely replaced by working from home, the industrial-sized open-plan office by the Virtual Office.

Modern technology is finally being harnessed to help create a greener and better world for us all.  Yes, right here in Much Twittering.  I hear that the trend has even reached as far afield as Lower and Nether Twittering now.  Wonders will never cease! These days,  the Internet and web-based technology make it really feasible to work from home, at least for one day a week or so.    Saas (Software as a Service) wares, such as Webforum, mean that nowdays you can work as productively in your own living room as you do in the office (more productively sometimes, as there are fewer distractions and interruptions here in Much T).

Sheep can still be seen grazing in the quiet fields around Much T,  and it is a pleasant place for a ramble by the river, through the woods or over the Billing, although the rumble of the passing traffic is hard to escape from completely.  In the busy world of the 21^st century there is still time for a lunchtime stroll over the fields, past the Church and the Victoria Hall, sometimes I pass the time of day with a dog-walker who has a bit of a look of Mary Mordant about her. Long may she prosper, along with everything else about this place that is eccentric and charming.  I hope all the fields and farms will survive into the next century, and that life for me and the other local inhabitants will continue to improve.