Nov 14 2007 Chamber of Commerce dinner, cartoons and media freedom
I am going to learn Mandarin. Or at least ensure my four-year-old daughter does. I listened to a insightful speech from chairman of HSBC Stephen Green last night at the Chamber of Commerce Dinner at Aintree.
He spoke with real depth (if not a great deal of humour) about the growth of the Far East economies, particularly China.
Clearly there huge trade surplus will lead to enormous commercial opportunities and Merseyside may be well placed to take advantage.
And when Morgan is 21 there's a great chance that Chienese firms will be the global market leaders and presenting the most enticing job opportunities.
I asked him if our kids should learn Mandarin, French or Spanish. 'Not the middle one' he replied with a smile. Looks like I wasted my school years, then.
Usual stuff about press negativity from one or two of the guests. Not really fair. If people did an audit of positive Liverpool stories v negative ones in our papers they'd have their eyes opened by the reality.
I would ALWAYS rather be positive.
NWDA Chief Exec may have made a veiled reference to perceived negativity when he spoke from the stage about the need to stop 'stirring the cowpats in Liverpool'. He'd be better asking the movers and shakers to stop their cows crapping on the lawn in the first place.
On the subject of pressure on the media I was interested to read about the legal action against journalists in Spain for an irreverent cartoon about the sex life of the heir to the Spanish throne.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/europe/7092866.stm
This, on top of the worldwide furore about the Prophet Mohammed cartoon last year.
Only tolerance and freedom of expression will stop this world destroying itself.
