Spreading the NGN Word

Steve Johnson, Head of the BT 21 Century Global Venture was interviewed today by America's Network, taking this opportunity to underline the rationale behind this venture, e.g. "to take the learning from the UK and package it up in a way" that fits other operators. BT works with them to "implement the transformation, effectively learning from the mistakes made in the UK to help the operators transform more quickly and at lower risk then they could probably do themselves".

The full(y) educating interview is available at http://www.americasnetwork.com/americasnetwork/article/articleDetail.jsp?id=425049

The Art of Travel: Travel Literature and Literature to Travel

You are flying to another meeting and you have done your homework and read all the exciting deliverables and progress reports. You feel tired, but not sleepy.

You may read “The Art of Travel” (Alain de Botton[1]). It crosses today’s traveling with the adventurous journeys of Flaubert, Humboldt, Woodsworth, Van Gogh and Ruskin. It is interesting and inspirational, but far from the more disturbed and vivid travel writings of Jack Kerouac[2] or Ryszard Kapuściński[3].

Want to stay really awake? Let me suggest some authors whose short-stories and tales, likely to be more compatible with your journey, will grow your sensibility to cross cultural nuances, make you laugh, keep you duly oxygenated and less tired on arrival: Giovanni Boccacio[4], Franco Sacchetti[5], Dino Buzzati[6], Francisco de Quevedo[7], Mor Jokai[8], Machado de Assis[9], Millôr Fernandes[10], Witold Gombrowicz[11], Isaac Leib Peretz[12], Alphonse Allais[13], Karel Capek[14] and Arkadi Averchenko[15].

Some of them are being much undeservedly forgotten, so it is next to impossible to find them at the airport shops. It is better that you look up for them in your favorite bookshop.

[1] http://www.alaindebotton.com/

[2] http://www.rooknet.com/beatpage/writers/kerouac.html

[3] http://www.culture.pl/en/culture/artykuly/os_kapuscinski_ryszard

[4] http://www.brown.edu/Departments/Italian_Studies/dweb/boccaccio/index.shtml

[5] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Franco_Sacchetti

[6] http://www.geocities.com/athens/delphi/8892/indexe.html

[7] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Francisco_de_Quevedo

[8] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/M%C3%B3r_J%C3%B3kai

[9] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Machado_de_Assis

[10] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mill%C3%B4r_Fernandes

[11] http://www.culture.pl/en/culture/artykuly/os_gombrowicz_witold

[12] http://www.enotes.com/salem-lit/bontsha-silent

[13] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alphonse_Allais

[14] http://capek.misto.cz/english/

[15] http://russia.rin.ru/guides_e/5501.html