Balance & Proportion

What do you call someone for whom you have warm feelings, and who is always warm and welcoming to you when you meet, but that only happens every few years? A friend? That seems too much for such a sparse relationship, and a little disloyal to people I love, that I make sure I see more often. An acquaintance? That's too cold; I have some people I call acquaintances that I'm not sure I particularly like. I expect other languages have a word for it

We went to visit our friend-acquaintance yesterday because they are a potter and we wanted to buy some plates. We bought some many years ago, and have enjoyed them very much - square plates used to be very unusual and often provoked interest from tea-and-biscuit visitors. Over the years we have broken some of them, so planned to top up

The plates are still square, the colours are still muted, cool earth-tones, but the designs have changed, and the potter's mark on the back is now a stamped brand-name, not the simple potter's initials of our originals. We are not disappointed, these are happy signs of success, and we are not six-of-everything kind of people

This kind of commerce is wonderful - buying things you like from people you like, combining exchange with social interaction. But in the continuum from this, through small firms, to large local businesses, ending with nightmares like Amazon and P&O, where does it all go wrong? How should an economy encourage business at a human scale - with a positive impact for employees, owners and customers - without opening the gate to companies that want to exploit the many for gross enrichment of the few? Even a government that wants to try and address this, in the context of the multiple, inter-locked crises we currently face, will probably find they have to much on their plate