The issue of bullying has been very much alive recently and has become a political hot potato. The Prime Minister’s staff have allegedly been bullied and the revelations made public by a charity for bullying (that is for those who have been bullied rather than a club for bullies) threaten to undermine its existence.

It seems a little out of proportion. A bit McCarthiesque where we are all searching around for bullies (instead of communists). All desparate not to do anything that might get us accused of being a bully. Those that haven’t ever been bullied are feeling isolated and marginalised because they’ve nothing to say. I guess they could at least feel bullied on behalf of others. A sort of bully –by-proxy or vicarious bullying.

I don’t condone true bullying (though I can’t quite define it), I wonder whether we’ve lost perspective of what bullying is. We seem to have become less tolerant of many things our parents would have just put up with. You could argue that they shouldn’t have put up with it (but they probably didn’t have much choice). You could argue that they were tougher and we have become frail. You could argue that we’ve moved the goal posts and lowered the threshold of what constitutes bullying. You could argue that bullying has got worse but I doubt it. If you’re going to bully it should at least be done properly.

People working under stress often resort to uncharacteristic, sometimes, explosive and hurtful behaviour. But is this bullying? Does mere coercion or manipulation count too? Should we instead accept that spine donation or go on that “assertiveness” course and become bullies ourselves? Admittedly, it’s difficult to stand up to people who are in authority over you and no doubt it’s tempting for some (like Sylar) to misuse their power. When does strong persuasion become bullying? I kind of figured that bullying should at least have an element of deliberate cruelty, thuggishness and brutality (verbal, psychological or physical) to set it apart. If it’s all down to feeling intimidated then that’s difficult; it then depends on the context and how the behaviour is perceived by those on the receiving end – a bit like stress.

Real bullying needs practrice and thought to get right. To bully people so well that they don’t even know they’re being bullied (perhaps because they’re so used to it), now that’s the philosopher’s stone of bully school. That’s the stuff legends are made of (well, Greek Mythology actually). This punching in the play ground is so last season.

For professional advice, please give Gordon a call at no. 10.

Is it me or is technology getting too small to use?

Like many adults my age, I suffer from fat fingers. Truth be told, I’ve had them all my life. I’m therefore being squeezed out of the technological joy that is texting and to a certain extent, even ‘iPod Touch’-ing (as it were).

Maybe I feel left out. I feel aggrieved when I look around and see thin-fingered people furiously fingering their phones (so to speak – am I allowed to say such things ?) with expertise that confounds their apparent intellect (I didn’t say they were texting anything useful). I’ve had far too many sorry excursions into developing multi-line texts only to press the wrong button, cancelling and deleting the entire message. So, when I do text, it’s usually short – ‘OK’ or something. But I’ve already spent 15 minutes and as many expletives getting there. Even the iPod touch with it’s great ability to expand the virtual keyboard letters beneath my balletic finger movements cowers under the shadow of the fat finger brigade – choosing a random collection of letters which spell ‘help me’ in hexadecimal.

Yes we have predictive text (no doubt created by Mystic Meg) but I find it just about as useful as a torque wrench made of cheese (not of course parmesan, which is quite hard or brie, which is too soft. I was thinking more like Roquefort, which is just right). I find myself too tempted to accept the proffered word even if it isn’t what I want. I suppose you can use a stylus and that might indeed cause some amusement depending on where you choose to push it. And we now have voice activation but I fear that I am too self-conscious for that. People have been locked away for less.

I suppose I should count myself fortunate. I have been spared the terrible affliction of Compulsive Texting Disorder (soon no doubt to be a new mental illness), some awful repetitive strain injury (name one that isn’t awful) and, worse, corruption of the English language. Fortunate but, alas, I just feel left out. Now where did I put that disability benefit application form….’fat finger syndrome’ must surely be on the list of prescribed diseases….

There has been a good deal in the media recently about the troubles of Toyota and Honda. They’re two car manufacturers synonymous with high quality, safety and reliability. Toyota (including the Lexus brand) has had problems with sticking accelerator pedals in quite a few models in the US and, it seems, worldwide, a software issue affecting the braking of the latest versions of the Prius (affectionately known as the “Pious” because of the supreme smugness of some of those Hollywood stars who buy them). Honda has also been afflicted – malfunctioning electric window switch which could possibly cause a fire.

There are clear safety and quality lessons but doubtless there has also been much hype. New revelations every day; Japanese CEOs apologising profusely on TV. It’s almost reaching the critical mass of the coverage that the January snows in the UK received – it seemed like some of the reporters were willing the UK to run out of grit with their minute by minute updates on stock piles.

The true cost of recall will not be fully quantifiable for some time. This will all cost a great deal of money, not only directly in correcting the problems on millions of vehicles but also in loss of future business. You may ask, how can such things happen? Surely there’s testing and all that? Well, yes there is but when things are released on such a large scale, unforeseen issues seem to crawl out of the woodwork. This happens all the time for software – we’re so used to patches and upgrades to fix bugs that we don’t even notice.

Whilst consumer protection laws (like the General Product Safety Regulations 2005) can force a recall, it often doesn’t come to that. Many manufacturers these days seem to take the initiative and voluntarily recall defective products.

Life can seem a little unfair (depending on your perspective). The irony is that although Toyota and Honda have undoubtedly done the right thing in launching a product recall, their reputations are likely to suffer a great deal. For example, both the Toyota and Honda share prices took a bit of a bashing and sales took a dive. It seems you’re damned if you do and damned if you don’t.

Reputations take years to build and are so easily lost. Whilst the context here is product recall, the same can be said of service. Services can be delivered badly and have to be ‘recalled’ in the sense that they might have to be ‘fixed’ and repeated for a client. The short-term penalty for a poor quality service might be compensation, loss of custom or possibly prosecution but, long-term, it erodes your brand reputation (word gets around) and ultimately your whole business.

It’s often said that the ultimate question on any customer satisfaction survey is ‘Would you use this company again?’ Customer dissatisfaction can happen despite best intentions. I guess it’s how you deal with it that counts. Trying to do the right thing must always be better than denial. As Kuato, the mutant rebel leader said: “You are what you do. A man is defined by his actions, not his memory” (Total Recall, 1990, Directed by Paul Verhoeven)

The eponymous quote is a free translation of James Bond’s family motto Orbis non sufficit (yes, I know he’s a fictional character and I know a better translation is ‘the world is insufficient’ and, in any case, as classical languages go, I think I prefer Greek). James Bond was right though because, in environmental sustainability terms at least, the world is not enough.

The planet does not need saving; it can adapt and look after itself. Instead, it’s us that need saving; saving from a potentially very hostile climate, overpopulation, food shortages, mass migration and civil unrest. I could go on.

I blame myself as much as anyone. Optimistically, we try to do the right thing but our natural avarice is stoked by the prod of marketing messages. We may be driven by technology – we need that leading edge computer to replace last year’s model, that new gadget that will make our lives so much easier, that buy one get one free deal. Apart from the good stuff, there is a whole industry devoted to creating and transporting tat, which we buy and discard without really using. Sometimes it’s because of poor quality (why are most cheap tools seemingly made of cheese?) and sometimes it’s because it’s just not useful (I still cannot see the point of Christmas crackers – we buy them, we pull them and then throw them away).

There are strange financial drivers which encourage you to discard rather than repair. The other week, the ‘O’-ring seal on my push-fit hose connector split. It was cheaper to buy a whole new connector than the small ‘O’-ring seal (which only came in packs in any case). So, that’s what I did.

Life is complicated and arguments are never straightforward. Whole socio-economic systems rely on the circulation of goods. I read recently in The Environmentalist (p18, issue 90, 18th Jan 2010) about a well intentioned plan by the Swedish government to educate their local populace on the benefits of buying local produce. More sustainable and a jolly good idea you might think. But no, it flies in the face of a fundamental principle of the European Union – free movement of goods. So, that put paid to that.

We all know that we cannot go on like this. And, indeed, there’s lots of environmental tokenism around. The vehicle scrappage scheme (due to end soon) was principally brought in to financially stimulate the depressed car manufacturing industry (see here ) . But environmental benefits of investing in new, fuel efficient vehicles have been suggested too. I’m not convinced that the scrappage scheme has any environmental benefits whatsoever. I don’t know for sure but, when you look at the fuller picture, I would think that any benefits from fuel efficiency would probably be completely squashed by energy and resources used in manufacturing the new vehicle and disposing of the old.

I think we probably all want to do the right thing (with the possible exception of Jeremy Clarkson, a self-confessed petrol-head), but let’s not create obstacles for ourselves and let’s make it count – for us and for our children.