Have there been times in your life when you challenged yourself to do something completely different – and then followed through?
 
About six months ago that’s what I set out to do.
 
To my list of skills, abilities and accomplishments I can now add “professional bus operator”, immediately above “the almost award-winning fourth-most-popular corporate communication specialist in New Zealand”*.
 
What a ride these past few months have been. Training has been extensive, as my client guests each day no doubt expect.
 
I have had to renew my Class 2 and 4 licences, acquire several Unit Standards, gain a “Passenger” Driver Licence endorsement, and show sufficient competency to certifying assessors before being allowed to go solo with fare-paying people. Hardly surprising really. A bus is a significant object (2.5m wide, about 13m long and weighing up to 18 tonnes fully laden), particularly on the streets found here in Wellington. People who get on board need to have confidence that they will arrive safely at their destination, and other road users need to be treated with courtesy and respect.
 
So what was the attraction of buses? I love things mechanical. I’m drawn to them like a moth to a floodlight, even more so when I can get to operate them. Particularly big things like cars, motorcycles, tractors, bulldozers, backhoe diggers, combined harvesters, trucks, bring it on! I have an agricultural science degree with a major in mechanisation. Get the picture?
 
In the process of doing this I have been privileged to join a startlingly inclusive family of drivers working for an employer that (unlike many others) genuinely does not discriminate against employing people on the basis of ethnicity, gender, sexual orientation, religion or age. All that matters, once deemed to be a “fit and proper person” by medical examination and Police record check, is that one is a competent and safe operator of all the bus types in Go Wellington’s fleet.
 
The handshaking, back-slapping and hugging I received from drivers I didn’t even know the day I was assessed as being “good to go solo” was genuine and overwhelming. I hope I don’t let these folks down.
 
Don’t make generalisations about the people who operate buses. I’ve met people with masters degrees and other university qualifications in everything from medicine to meteorology. People fluent in English yet for whom it’s a second language. People in their 20s and others in their 80s. Each of them an individual with a commitment to moving others safely from A to B.
 
I went into this venture expecting to learn lots – not just about the role and the bus business, but also about others and myself. So far I haven’t been disappointed – and I’m still a novice!
 
Most importantly I’m having huge amounts of fun every minute I’m at the wheel. Long may that continue!
 
 
* Apologies to the Flight of the Conchords.

​Another day, another Bucket List item ticked off. Today’s achievement was a meal of lambs fry and bacon for lunch, something for which I have been bracing myself for decades.
 
Today’s lunch was delicious. This was a stark contrast to the “lambs fry” we were forced to eat as children.
 
My mother was an exceptionally good cook. But I guess everybody has an Achilles heel, and Mum’s was lambs fry.
 
For the benefit of those with a sheltered culinary life, lambs fry is the liver from a young sheep. Here’s where part of the problem started. Living on a farm, home-grown, slaughtered and prepared meat was our norm. We didn’t eat lamb. The sheepmeat we enjoyed was sourced from older animals, referred to as hoggets. As animals gain age, the flavours and textures of meat and offal products sourced from them also gains complexity. Livers are no exception. They also gain granularity with age – crunchy bits – not to be mistaken for hydatids cysts, as children with over-active imaginations may believe.
 
Offals are usually prepared by finely slicing them, and adding seasonings, perhaps even a reduced sauce of some sort. Lambs fry in our house received no embellishment whatsoever. It wasn’t diced or even pan-fried with the bacon that accompanied it. No siree. A great lump of hot liver was dished up, with some bacon and vegetables.
 
We also grew up at a time where there were strictly enforced rules of engagement at dinner. These covered such things as the correct placement of cutlery, which direction bowls of vegetables were passed, and that everything place upon one’s plate had to be consumed. “Eat what’s put in front of you”.
 
Fortunately “death by liver” wasn’t that common. It was consumed fresh, usually for dinner on the same day as its contributing sheep was dispatched. So several times a year was our expected rate of exposure.
 
Since leaving home at age 17, consuming lambs fry has not been a priority for me. But in recent years I have seen it become increasing common on restaurant menus. Noting this, I wondered how these dishes may compare to those with which I grew up. I deduced that if restaurants served it, then there must be some sort of appetite for it. Today curiosity and bravery overcame me.
 
The thinly sliced liver had been sufficiently pan-fried with bacon and mushrooms and served with a delightful sherry reduction sauce. It was delicious. Indeed I may even be tempted to order it again. Perhaps today’s experience really is proof that what doesn’t kill you makes you stronger?

​Hobbyhorses. I’ve got a few, some may say even a stable full of them. They’re all pretty well exercised, although some on occasion get taken out for a canter more often than others.
 
I’ve noted that other people I know also have at least one hobbyhorse, and that some are more skilful riders than others. Which led me to muse…
 
Given that most forms of human endeavour are recognised and celebrated, why not hobbyhorse-personship? There could be tournaments, modelled perhaps on Olympic Three-Day Eventing, with different categories, such as dressage, show-jumping and cross-country disciplines. There could also be best of breed distinctions for hobby horses, with “breeds” in this context comprising such things as sport, politics, punctuation, economics, food production systems and even motoring. Best of Breed winners could then go head-to-head with each other, with a supreme champion emerging as Best in Show. A Crufts for hobbyhorses, if you will.
 
Watching the replays could be a bit wearing for some, but those Dear Hearts who find themselves constantly in the thrall of a hobbyhorser should be untroubled by such a challenge. Reality television viewers should also be comfortably attuned to what could harshly be seen as a plethora of banal repetition.
 
Best of Breed and Best in Show champions could then be persuaded to give something back to their craft by coaching master classes for the next generation of hobbyhorse riders. Hobbyhorse whisperers, if you will. Expert guidance provided by sympathetic listeners. Oh the irony.
 
The more patient champions could also lend support to the hobbyhorse version of riding for the disabled, leading around quieter souls astride the equivalent of docile Shetland ponies. Those quieter souls, under the compassionate tutelage of their heroes and role models, could then aspire to represent their nation in the Hobbyhorse Olympics. Imagine the pride of receiving the gold medal for hobbyhorse cross-country with the chords of one’s national anthem ringing in one’s ears! Also imagine the pride that would be shared by the grandfathers of the winners, many of whom would have filled a valuable mentoring role during the winner’s development.
 
Such contests, whether at regional, national or international levels, would require some organisation. However this, and the necessary sponsorship shouldn’t be hard to find. Newstalk ZB is one contender that springs to mind.
 
I hear the impatient snuffling of one of my hobbyhorse charges from behind its stable door. I had better take it to the dressage ring for a bit of practice before it becomes distressed.

​My Mum died this week. She was 82, had been married to my Dad, the love of her life, for 61 years. Mother of three and grandmother of three.
 
Like most Mums, she has had a profound and defining influence on us. She let us be our own people, within carefully defined boundaries. She celebrated our successes and comforted us or forgave us when we came up short.
 
Mum taught me a lot, not in the academic how to add, spell and punctuate kind of way, but in those people-focused ways that should be what define us as humans. I was not a good student but did my best and Mum forgave me my short-comings. If anybody ever wanted to see what unconditional love looked like, then observing Mum around her husband, children, grandchildren, other family and close friends would have provided some good insights.
 
Excellence drove Mum. She set high standards for herself and was understanding and forgiving of others not quite so talented or driven. Given different circumstances where she didn’t have to leave school at age 15 because her father transferred to a location far from a high school, she would have excelled at university and any related career she decided to pursue. But she was part of a generation of women who are now known as “at home mums”, a generation of skilled carers perhaps we are today the poorer for losing.
 
Mum was an innovative and creative cook who could turn her hand to produce tasty and nutritious spreads for family, farm workers, neighbours, community events and fund-raisers, as well as those in need. Only the very best exited our back door. As kids we used to joke about living on “dud pavlovas”. Sometimes even we couldn’t cope and visitors have been surprised to see what appeared to be a good quality pav sitting on the bird table.
 
Her housekeeping was legend. Vacuum cleaners were driven to certain death. Nothing was ever out of place or unclean.
 
She taught me a lot about sustainability, based on a desire to leave the world in a better state than it was when we found it. To say that Mum was a gardener is a bit like saying that Frank Lloyd-Wright built houses. Her gardens in Taranaki and in Waikanae are testament to her vision and skill and have been enjoyed by thousands of people. Her legacy will be the love and fond memories that those who knew her take with them.
 
I love you Mum.

Motorcyclists are tribal and, once having established a connection with a tribe they are generally reluctant to change their allegiances. These tribes include, but aren’t necessarily limited to: sports touring, cruisers, dual-purpose tourers, scooters, off-road, Italian, American, Japanese, German, British bikes and so on. There are quite a few tribes. Some are even on speaking terms.

While I like to think of myself as a bit of a motorcycle atheist, particularly in relation to the occasional religious zeal some of these tribes’ members exhibit, I’m largely a member of the Japanese sports touring fraternity, with some Italian waverings.

I am definitely not a Harley Krishna, a breed of American cruiser rider devotees who express their individuality by wearing the same clothes, revealing the same tattoos whilst astride large, low-slung, chrome adorned machines that rumble along going “potato, potato, potato”.

I had, however, noticed the recent arrival in town of a couple of new makes of American cruiser motorcycles – the Indian and the Victory. New to Wellington but not the rest of the world. While these two marques are siblings of Polaris Industries, they share little in common, apart from a parent. Indian has a long motorcycling heritage dating back to 1901. Victory is a more recent arrival, harking back to 1998. The styling of both marques is distinctly different. Indian motorcycles embrace an historic war bonnet logo, and design features like valenced mudguards. They certainly don’t look like any other brand of motorcycle cruiser. Victorys have sharper, more modern design cues.

Today I was presented with an opportunity to take the Indian Chief Dark Horse out for a spin.

Here is a naked cruiser that comes in any colour one likes, as long as that’s unpolished black. Chrome detailing and large muted silver war bonnet logos each side of the tank add some visual interest, with the 111 cubic inch (about 1,800cc) engine being beautifully finished, together with the chromed twin exhausts.

Instrumentation is restricted to one dial – an analogue speedometer. A small digital insert outlines fuel level, gear selection, odometer and trip meter details, a clock and an icon that shows whether or not the cruise control is turned on. There are other idiot lights for turning indicators, high beam, and ABS. All very simple to read and to understand. Switches are few. Starter, kill switch, indicators, horn, hazard lights and cruise control. That’s it. Everything falls instinctively to hand.

The seat is embracingly comfortable. The riding position is feet forward, on well-sized boards. The model I rode had a pillion squab and footpegs.

There is no ignition key. The rider has an electronic fob that they need to have tucked into a pocket on something they’re wearing. A large power button on the top of the tank needs to be pressed, and then everything works like a normal bike. Push the starter (no need to squeeze in the clutch) and the big V twin bursts easily into life. It’s smooth on the idle with no desire to walk off the mainstand or to shake one’s helmet off the seat.

Riding away, the clutch feel was good for such a large torque-rich engine. There was a bit of a clunk when shifting from first to second gear, but all other changes were clean and positive. The standard engine note is loud enough, although I suspect that many owners will prefer a more exhibitionist tone and opt for customised pipes. It’s hard in the absence of a rev counter, to really understand what the engine is doing. But this isn’t a Harley. It’s very smooth and willing, revving out as one would expect an Italian V twin to do, well, apart from the top end of the rev range.

Sixth gear is quite tall. In many conditions riding around New Zealand, fourth and fifth would be as far up the box as one needed to progress. Indeed the engine is quite happy indeed at highway speeds in fourth gear.

The real surprise was the bike’s agility. For something so large and heavy, it’s quite flickable. A favourite downhill, winding stretch of seal was easily navigated, with no sounds of scrapings from pipes or boards. Suspension is neither harsh nor plush but I didn’t have a chance to test it on a really rough surface.

Although this is ostensibly a naked bike, I was surprised by the level of wind protection provided by the front headlight unit. Today in Wellington was quite windy. While I was aware of the cross winds at times, the Dark Horse was well behaved.

Short ride, short review. I would welcome an opportunity to take this machine on a longer ride, including at night to test its headlight’s skills and panel illumination. I would also value feedback from an experienced pillion about levels of comfort on the back seat. Fuel range could also be explored.

So did I like it? Surprisingly, for a non-cruiser rider, I did. A lot. Would I buy one? Perhaps. I’d need to do some much longer rides, including in the rain and cold before making that call. Pricing is quite sharp compared with similar models with different manufacturer’s badges on. If you’re cruiser-curious, then definitely take the Indian Chief Dark Horse for a spin. I reckon you may well fall in love.

Many thanks to Clint at Wellington Motorcycles for providing today’s test ride.

Hardly a day goes by at the moment without discovering an article that waxes eloquent about the value to organisations of using online tools, particularly social media channels, for building relationships with clients and potential clients.

What such articles include is generally some sort of compare and contrast discussion about what each of these tools (Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Instagram, etc) can do and what each may be best used for. Interesting? Perhaps. Useful? No so much.

I say this because I believe that the key to the successful use of any tool is the skill of the person charged with operating it. The art of social media as opposed to the science of social media.

It is this operator skill component that is rarely ever mentioned in discussions about the value that social media tools can unlock for business and organisations. If skill is mentioned, words like literate, honest, helpful, canny, adept, and focused may appear. All good words but the two critical words that should be used to describe the operating environment in which a successful social media operator works are “trusted” and “empowered”.

Some organisations struggle with concepts like trust and empowerment. Sometimes for good reasons. That is because they generally operate in a world where risk management is paramount. This world is stalked by zealously pedantic and paranoid accountants, auditors and lawyers. It is characterised by nothing passing outside of that organisation without having been approved by an authorised person. The delays and gobbledegook language usage these processes often produce are not suitable for the fast-moving world of online social media. If that’s what the prevailing corporate culture of your organisation looks like, then under no circumstances should you be looking to engage through social media.

Online social media tools are also lauded as being free.

OK, there’s usually no purchase or licensing cost involved. But they’re definitely not free.

Any effective communication, listening or learning channel costs money to operate. A minimum investment is in an operator’s time to read, respond and participate in conversations. Not necessarily responding to everything that happens either. Knowing when and how to respond is a skill that some people struggle to learn, as Wellington business Ekim Burgers discovered recently. There are also costs in recording, collating and reporting on key messages and trends.

So if there are costs, how are benefits best measured? Think about the changes you want to achieve and then think about the information you need to reliably measure that change. This will usually be different for each organisation and is definitely not a one-size-fits-all space.

Collecting meaningful data for social media is challenging. The analytics provided by those channels themselves is of variable value. Facebook’s data is largely meaningless. Twitter and LinkedIn’s efforts are better but still not that insightful. Better data should come from a bigger picture analysis of an organisation’s reputation or commercial performance, where the value of each of the tools used in a communication or engagement toolbox can be assessed. Even then precise exactitude about each will be lacking.

“I know that half the money I spend on advertising is wasted. My only problem is that I don’t know which half,” says a famous quote attributed to one of several famous business people. That’s the danger of using a multi-solution toolbox to achieve a common outcome. Quality consumer research can shed valuable insights that can help, which is a lengthy discussion in itself. It is this data that should be used to help make meaningful decisions – data with useful context.

Here’s an example that may help to better explain what I mean:

Three mathematicians and three physicists are traveling to an out-of-town conference by train. They meet at the train station and go to buy tickets. The physicists are first, and buy three tickets, as expected, one for each person. The mathematicians are next, and they buy just one ticket. The physicists are confused.

“How come you only bought one ticket? There are three of you. Don’t you know that each person needs a ticket? You will be booted off the train by the conductor!”

“Don’t worry,” say the mathematicians, “We have a method!”

 Everyone gets on the train. The physicists take their seats, but they are paying close attention to the mathematicians, to see what they are going to do. The mathematicians all pile together into a single-person train toilet. When the conductor comes by to check the tickets, he knocks on the toilet door, which opens a crack and a hand with a ticket is extended out. The conductor takes the ticket and everyone proceeds on their merry way.

The physicists are very impressed.

After the conference, it’s time to go back home, so they all go to the train station to buy tickets. The three physicists are excited to try out their newly-learned trick, so they buy one ticket. They are surprised again, when they see that the mathematicians don’t buy any tickets at all.

“What are you doing? Don’t you need at least one ticket?” they ask.

“Don’t worry,” say the mathematicians, “We have a method!”

On the train, the physicists all pile together into one toilet, the mathematicians into another toilet. Just as the train is about to start moving, one of the mathematicians exits their toilet, walks over to the physicists’ toilet and knocks on the door. The door opens a crack and a hand with a ticket is extended out. The mathematician takes the ticket and goes back to the mathematicians’ own toilet with it.

Moral of the story: Do no use methods that you do not fully understand.

I was surprised recently by how many pairs of different sorts of footwear I have. All manner of boots, shoes and sandals. I even have a pair of ski boots stored away in the basement in readiness for winter blizzard conditions.

Life wasn’t always like this. Prior to rising to rugby grade 8, at which stage in one’s career one was allowed to wear boots, my footwear collection comprised a pair of roman sandals (summer school uniform), a pair of black lace-ups (winter school uniform and for “best”) and a pair of green-band gumboots for farm work and garden chores. These were replaced either as one grew too big for them or, in the case of gumboots, when they wore out. Working on a dairy farm meant lots of hours spent on wet concrete, the natural enemies of rubber gummies. Two pairs a year were usually consumed.

Growing out of things wasn’t confined to shoes. This was probably why we didn’t have a vast array of clothes either.

Clothing choices were based on intended location, with standards that were strictly supervised by Mum. Helping around home and the farm meant that work clothes were required. Venturing outside the front gateway usually involved either going to school, where a school uniform was required, or into town where “best” was the officially approved garb. The only exception for farm clothes being worn outside the front gate was when one was helping out at the neighbours, or accompanying Dad into the local stock and station agent. Going to town in one’s farm clothes came with a real rebellious rush.

Mum was always immaculately attired whenever she ventured off the ranch, and so had to be everybody else who accompanied her.

Mum has many claims to fame. One of these included a heavy traffic license.

When she and Dad first met, she was a telephonist for the Post Office and Dad was a dairy farmer. Mum didn’t have a driver license and Dad’s only form of transportation, other than a Little Grey Ferguson tractor, was a truck. He taught Mum to drive. In doing so he broke that long-standing, unwritten tradition about not teaching one’s partner to drive or to play a sport. He survived and Mum could expertly drive a truck before she ever drove a car.

Farm fertiliser was delivered by the truck load. Several tonnes of it in one hit. The local transport company would arrive early in the morning with a truckload and leave the truck for the day while Dad furiously spread the stuff. The deal was that the unloaded truck should be returned to the local depot before five o’clock in the afternoon.

One time Dad ran out of day and the evening milking had to take precedence over him returning the empty truck. No worries. He had a wife with an HT licence and son with a car licence. Mum could drive the truck into town and I could collect her and drive her home.

So off I went, arriving in the trucking company’s yard where I parked and waited for Mum’s arrival. It was nearly going-home-time at the depot and the smoko room was full of big, burly truckies waiting for the clock to strike five o’clock.

I will always remember the looks on their faces as the truck rolled into the yard, stopped and a small, demure woman wearing a twin-set, pearls, tweed skirt and sensible shoes dismounted from the driver’s door, brushed herself down before handing the keys in at the office. What were they expecting? Mum always got dressed up when she was going to town.

Once upon a time I had a white laboratory coat. I wore it in laboratories, as one does when one is required to study in these facilities at a university. The purpose of such apparel is as personal protective equipment in the same way as a fluoro vest is. Totally useless, apart from making the wearer feel safer and recognisable as an approved person in a restricted space. I became quite fond of Whitey.

If I had invested as much time in learning about the mysteries of chemistry as I had in embellishing my lab coat I may have earned myself a Nobel Prize by now. Whitey and I spent many memorable hours together.

Chemistry and I really didn’t connect that well. Which is unfortunate when one is an agricultural science student and required to have a sound knowledge of the inner workings of living things. But that is another story which, for the purposes of this one can be summarised as “C+”.

Whitey was a legend. The corners of his pockets had been eroded by acid burns. He was festooned with a spectrum of colourful reagent stains. The piece de resistance was a tyre mark from a Firestone Cavallino Sport 200 radial that ran the length of his back. In tar. He was just gorgeous.

At the end of my second summer, when I returned home for vacation time, Whitey came too.

Mothers are multi-talented people who are often up for a challenge, particularly when their children are involved. When it comes to hygiene, mine definitely is. It is a gene she inherited from her mother, from whom I learned the Dark Arts of polishing brass, silver and linoleum, as well as the inner nooks and crannies of a Shacklock coal range.

This particular summer my Mum met Whitey. Indeed they bonded strongly. I didn’t know this had happened until my first laboratory session of the New Year. I was stunned. Whitey had been transformed. His sins had been washed away. He was unrecognisable. Not a mark blemished his whiteness. All holes had been repaired. I felt betrayed.

Mum must have spent hours on this task. Litres of cleaning products and many Newton-metres of Elbow Grease™ must have been expended. Procter and Gamble’s development team could have observed a master class of their products in action.

Maybe it was this transition that impressed chemistry department staff more than my academic efforts. I never asked and will never know.

I like and am attracted to gizmos, particularly those that work. To garner my approval they don’t necessarily have to perform essential tasks, although that helps. They just need to be straightforward and work well.

The gene for this fascination was inherited from my father. Over some years on our family’s farm he contracted in all manner of equipment to move earth, dig drains, remove stumps, cut hedges and the like. He sometimes took a folding chair to sit on so that he could watch machinery in action.

These days gizmos are largely electronic devices designed to entertain, empower and inform. One can ride on a bus and complete a Sudoku puzzle, or sit in a café and discover what triggers the onset of myocardial infarction, or what the lyrics are to Led Zeppelin’s Kashmir.

I have a few gizmos upon which I rely. This includes my Android phone, my laptop and desktop computers. Much of my personal information lives in a cloud somewhere out there so that I can delve into it whenever and wherever.

For the most part, much of this stuff works. However it could often work better.

I remember discovering computers many years ago as a university student. I’ll date myself by revealing that interacting with Massey University’s beast (which filled a whole house on campus and which had less computing power than a modern microwave oven) required feeding it with cardboard cards with holes punched into them. It was all very serious and awe-inspiring. However that awe was quickly shattered when I learned the cure to nearly all computer technical issues that applies even until today: turn the power off and then turn it on again. This demonstrates that computers are just high-speed morons that cannot be reasoned with.

Since those heady days of punch-card programming, developers have invested considerable time and effort to make computers accessible to the average person at home. There have been some stunning successes. There have also been failures, particularly ones that should have been avoided with a bit of user testing or consideration of why previous models were so popular, as Microsoft Corporation should know.

Love them or hate them, computing devices are here to stay. They have become essential components for enabling life in this world we now all live. Everybody is expected to have an email address that they regularly engage with. People are expected to have social media interactions too. They are expected to accept that their privacy and personal spaces need to be accessed by all manner of third-party organisations, and that this is the price they must pay for being part of a world of ubiquitously accessible information.

While I love gizmos, I don’t like being beholden to agencies that know more about me than I do. They know where I am, where I’m going, what I’m going to do when I get there, who I’m engaging with, what I’m wearing and what I’m thinking. About the only thing that’s holding them back is the ability to assemble all of this information in a way that allows them to shape and direct my life for their benefit. While I enjoy what this Brave New World of technology can unlock, I am a bit nervous about what I may have to give up to access that potential.

Oh let the sun beat down upon my face, stars to fill my dream
I am a traveler of both time and space, to be where I have been
To sit with elders of the gentle race, this world has seldom seen
They talk of days for which they sit and wait and all will be revealed.

Thank you Google.

When one-day international cricket was invented by Kerry Packer and his mates in 1971, one of the many new ideas intended to add excitement and differentiate it from the longer forms of the game was players wearing coloured clothing. Each team wore a different shade.

This change from all players on the park wearing cream-coloured clothes was probably also intended to assist cricket watchers who may not otherwise be able to deduce that members of the batting side carried bats, whereas the other 11 players on the park (the fielding side) did not.

And so a tradition was born. New Zealand’s one-day cricket teams have since worn a range of shades, from the fabulous beige, through aquamarines and black. Other playing nations have also varied their hues.

But in recent times teams have started wearing more-or-less identical shades of a colour. Australia and South Africa recently wore the same green strip and England and Sri Lanka similar shades of blue. While the cricket purist knows that the batting team players are the ones with the bats, other observers may be more troubled. Goodness knows what emotional heartache has ensued.

In other codes, such as rugby and soccer football, there is a convention about home and away strips. Scotland recently graciously allowed the All Blacks to wear their all black strip as a mark of respect, wearing red jerseys themselves rather than their traditional navy blue. Apparently this was to acknowledge the All Black’s standing as world rugby champions.

I was expecting this issue of colour to assume significance in the world of cricket this summer in the lead-up to the ICC’s one-day-cricket world championship tournament. But for the meanwhile all cricket conversations seem to be focused on the tragic death of Australian Phillip Hughes.

While there are emotional outpourings of grief around most deaths, accidental deaths of young talented people seem to strike a louder chord. Phil Hughes’s death hasn’t just impacted on Australian cricket, it’s stopped that nation in its tracks as well as the world of cricket at all levels. Amazing stuff, probably assisted by social media sharing of this event and the ensuing mourning.

It has been observed that if Phil Hughes had perished in a car accident, the level of grief may have been less. That may be true. Phil Hughes’s death was also due to a work-place accident, and there are many other folk who perish at their place of work each day, never returning to family and friends who love them. A significant percentage of these unfortunate folk are also young and talented, but are mourned with only a fraction of the fuss afforded media celebrities like Phil Hughes.

It is what is learned from workplace accidents that is important, particularly changes that can be made to make those places and tasks safer for others who practise them.

This is where the sport of cricket will have to do some soul-searching, particularly around the currently allowable practice of a very-fast-moving, hard, bouncing object being directed at a batter’s head. A maximum of two such deliveries per over, or 33.3% balls in each game, to be exact.

Hopefully a reasonable solution is found to protect participants in what I believe is the world’s greatest sport. No doubt designers of protective equipment as well as the game’s regulators are already weighing options.

My biggest fear is that occupational safety and health professionals will be let lose, resulting in batters having to wear fluoro vests and the traditional wooden stumps replaced by orange cones. While this may make it easier for observers to identify the members of the batting side, Kerry Packer would not be the only person spinning in his grave.