PERSPECTIVE by Phil Matten, executive editor, Fastener + Fixing Magazine
Phil Matten reflects on some of the key topics currently involving the fastener industry
On my office wall is an excerpt from Meditation XVII of the English 17th
Ukrainian conflict now was to her home city. That brought to mind previous visits to Ukraine, warm welcomes and unexpected generosity from people who surely deserve far better than this. Closer to home – although fought with words, not the bloodshed of centuries past – the people of Scotland
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wrestle with a historic decision on independence. As the 2015 general election looms closer, I fear UK politics will increasingly be dominated by the debate over continued EU membership. Strange, isn’t it, in a world of greater and faster interconnectivity than ever before, where communication
that took weeks a few centuries ago is achieved in nanoseconds today, that so much conflict and dispute is centred on differences not commonality. Donne was right 400 years ago, and surely is even more so now. What happens in one part of this globe impacts, irresistibly, all of our lives. It seems, though, that the very efficiency of electronic interconnectivity dehumanises, desensitises, detaches rather than connects. I recently went to the United States to visit National Machinery, Mectron and Anixter. Again the welcome was warm and generous, particularly in the time extended by busy senior managers. I learnt, far, far more about these companies simply by ‘being there’. That’s a philosophy this magazine has espoused for more than a decade and I’m convinced lies at the core of whatever reputation we have built. There is no other way I could realise the quality of Anixter’s engineering facility at Wood Dale; comprehend how a seemingly simple, but actually substantial, investment in lighting could make a transformational difference to National’s working environment; or realise how minute adjustments to Mectron’s laser technology could deliver substantive performance improvements to its users worldwide. You can read more of this on other pages – not the same as ‘being there’ but from a first-hand witness. Which brings me to another element of Donne’s meditation. Two journalists recently suffered hideous and
utterly unjustified deaths in Syria. They paid an awful penalty for ‘being there’, in infinitely more challenging circumstances than I have ever experienced, to bring first-hand accounts of events that are truly significant to us all. John Donne said, “any man’s death diminishes me, because I am involved in mankind, and therefore never send to know for whom the bells tolls; it tolls for thee.” He was right, again.
century cleric and
poet, John Donne. It starts: “No man is an island, entire of itself, every man is a piece of the continent, a part of the main.” Reflecting on current global events, it seems intensely relevant.
he world feels a particularly uncertain place right now, riven it seems by separatism or nationalism, perhaps above all the imposition of self-interested will. Europe faces critical geopolitical issues to the north east and south east. The severity of the Ukrainian situation certainly registered when I exchanged emails with Mariya Valiakhmetova at Metiz magazine, and was soberingly reminded how close the
Buy, buy – Captain!
Lederer’s Maritime Assortment. Maritimes Sortiment von Lederer.
www.lederer-online.com
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