That Madness song

I am a bit of a believer in bits of NLP, especially the stuff that says if you spend your day saying "today is going to be miserable" then the forces of a yet to be defined piece of physics work to try and make a day that would have otherwise have been average, turn a little the worse.  

And this is why I am not prepared to name the Madness song about how they expect their day to start.  Needless to say that my stint of being "emergency re-prioritised" is at an end and today sees me back at my old account.  Off to London tomorrow but today at home, wondering the best (i.e. most effective for my contribution, sanity and general usefulness to the account) way to re-engage with my colleagues.  I think the next couple of week will be instrumental in determining my true "status", as anyone who has yet to cancel their Facebook account would put it.  In fact, it may well be the period when I start humming the Clash song "Should I stay or Should I go?", which will probably bring a smile to the inside of my face.  It may also be a variation of that mind trick you are taught that when faced by an angry or unreasonable person, just imagine them naked and you cannot then take them seriously.  Having tried this once or twice, I can report from the front line that it can be in equal measures effective, vomit-inducing and utterly discomforting to do this, the precise mix of that heady cocktail depending on the attributes of the person to which you are applying the technique.  i.e. your fifty-five year old male boss engenders a different internal response than a young (that is, younger than me) female colleague.  The latter of course could be construed as both sexual harassment and "typical man" depending on the extent of the imaginings.

In case it is occurring to you like it is just occurring to me, I did watch, for the first time, the film Up at the weekend, so I may have unwittingly recharged my squirrel gland.  As for the film, rather good actually.

I also watched Ghost, which has Ewan McGregor and Pierce Brosnan and was also a pretty good film, with one of those trying-not-to-be-predictable endings that are almost too cool for their own good.

So, another week, another chance to shine, and to become the fulsome human being, reaching my potential and at one with my spiritual and physical being.  Think I may have gone too far this time.

Until next time.

A journey with no destination

The title represents my ideas for this blog, namely that I don't have any, but will just meander and see where it takes me.

Actually, just as I am half way through that sentence I DO know what I am going to write about.  I met up with Brad and Angelina on Sunday for our friend's daughter's thirteenth birthday party.  I remember when she was this high, and so it was lovely to also be part of her journey into teenagedom.  I can only hope she remains as she is today, and that is bright, funny, balanced and a lovely young woman.

Anyhow, to link back to the title, squirrel moment now passed, Brad and I were discussing a book we had both just read called Tuesday's with Morrie.  If you have not heard of it, probably shame on you, and if you have, no doubt you enjoyed it as much as we did.  The premise is none too promising; a young man, and old man who is dying with a very sad wasting-away type disease, and a regular Tuesday meeting where old man imparts his wisdom to young man.  The beauty is in its simplicity.  Morrie was a philosophy teacher, so did have some good and well crafted thoughts, but in essence it was about how he turned his condition into a positive thing, and on the way, how he gave some interesting words of wisdom.  Love your family and friends, show compassion, give back to your community, look for the good in people, searching is unhappiness, that kind of thing.

Now, the book was sold to us as a life changing book.  When able to reflect on it for a while, the person who recommended it thus did accept she may have over-sold it.  Having said that, it was a very interesting and enjoyable read and it has made me think about things, particular in my current work situation.  If you have not yet read it, and are able to read, then I would definitely recommend it, as long as you open the book with modest expectations.

Only other news is slightly sad in that I found out on Friday that a good friend and colleague at Starfleet has decided to cash in his chips and has resigned.  I hope to catch up with him to see what his plans are, but as a work colleague he will be sadly missed, and as a friend hopefully we will keep in touch, but us being men, probably not. 

We are off camping in our little white box for a long weekend starting Friday, and a better antidote to city working I cannot imagine.  I absolutely completely and utterly cannot wait for Thursday evening.

and . . . relax!

When I was younger, I used to go to aerobics every Tuesday.  Let's all of us think of a long and interesting story as to why I did that, but a guy's got to get his exercise where he can find it.

Anyhow, I have three strong memories of those times.  The first is that Mrs Scobi used to go, so we can sort of say we met over a sweaty leotard.  My second memory was this girl/woman who was always in the front row, who was friends with the instructor, who always did the "if you want to push it further do this" bits, and who had the most amazing curve in her back - her body in a leotard looked like one of those Jane Austin women with a massive bow on the back of their dress, such was the curve and the protrusion of the bottom.  I can feel a serious squirrel moment coming on.

The third thing I remember was the terrible bit at the end when you had to stretch and bend and hold all sorts of positions that in another context would definitely contravene International Human Rights legislation.  Right at the end of all that torture was the "and . . . relax" moment when we were allowed to just lie there and rest.

That is the feeling I have today as Friday appears over the horizon.

I am starting very early today (my day started with the lowest number starting with a six, for Bad Man readers) so that I can finish early and head to the New Forest for some R&R amongst the trees and with our very good friends, who I mistakenly called Homer and Marge last time I wrote about them, but who of course really should have been called Brad and Angelina.  In the good days.  And without any adoptions.  Anyhow, the weather forecast is looking good, and there is a lovely river near the site where one can dip one's toe in to water, or jump from a rope swing in to the deep bit, depending on your predilection.  If the sun does shine it will be as busy as Brighton beach, and just as interesting for the people-watchers amongst us. 

Have a great weekend, and speak again soon.

Blinking

I have just blinked and it is Friday. How did that happen? I must try blinking more often.

It happened, of course, because the week has been very busy. I spent a couple of days and one night in London, as I have already told you, and had some train issues on the way home, something that is frustrating beyond belief, but something I think I will have to get used to. The final leg was spent sharing a taxi with three other fellow travellers to get home. I remember reading the definition of how you complete the Luge is "Lie flat, don't die" and you need a bit of that to get through a week like this.

So Friday it is, and this Friday sees me with a half day off to go, yes you've guessed it, 'vannin'. I shall be dragging the big white box down to Lyme Regis to stay at a campsite by the sea. It is also a site where our friends, let's call them Brad and Angelina, are also staying, in a static caravan owned by Brad's mum. When it comes to big, white and ugly theirs knock ours in to a cocked hat.

And in best squirrel tradition, I just had to Google that expression, because in black and white, it does look strange. The definition taken from several sites seems to settle on something like this:

"The game of Cocked Hat was similar to ninepins except that only three pins were set up, in triangular formation. It took its name from the three-cornered hat with the brim turned up (i.e. cocked) worn in the late 18th and early 19th centuries. The expression implies a comparison between something in disarray after a defeat and the way in which pins are sent flying in a game of Cocked Hat."

So there you go.

We are very much looking forward to being away in the 'van, to spending some time by the sea with our very good friends. We are not, however, sure we like the weather men (and women) very much. They keep insisting it is going to rain over the long weekend. What's that all about? I for one shall do what I always do in such situations, and ignore the reports, simply believing that it will "probably be all right where we are." I shall report back as to how this highly scientific experiment goes.


I have just caught a news item about a sixty-seven year old man from the US who accidentally got his foot caught between the accelerator and brake, and managed to reverse fast in to has parking space, punching a hole in the wall behind the space. Oh, and he was seven floors up in a multi-storey car park. No people were hurt, but a couple of cars have had their pride and bonnets dented by falling rubble.

I hope your long weekend is enjoyable, and your imagination and weather-altering powers are as good as mine.

The bright lights

I was personally not a great fan of Terry Wogan's breakfast show, but I am very aware that a lot of people were, and I have it on good authority that a subset of his followers like to call themselves TOGs, which is either Terry's old Gits or Terry's old girls, depending on what dangly bit you do or don't have.

I am wondering whether I should make up something for the followers of Scobi Wan Kenobi. Having given it almost no thought at all, I have come up with SWKers. I think it has a rather cheery sound to it, and can see both my followers getting t-shirts printed forthwith saying "I am a SWKer".

If you have been wondering where I have been for a couple of days (yes, both of you) then I can tell you that I have been up to the capital of our country, the Big Smoke, up in Town, namely Londinium. I can confirm a couple of things:

- the streets are not paved with gold
- there are a lot of people up there
- I decided to walk from station to office and from office to hotel, so can confirm that I really did take myself by the hand and led myself through the streets of London.

I am transitioning, a fine word and one that does not even begin to describe the difficulties found therein, to a new account. If you have ever watched You've Been Framed, and based on polls carried out by Worrie, they have defined my demographic as "the sort of people who are likely to watch You've Been Framed", so I am guessing you probably have, then you may remember one of the key themes that are repeated QUITE A LOT, is the theme where the person, usually a bit older and a bit un-nimble and more than a bit overweight, is stepping off a jetty and on to a small boat, and as they have one foot on each, the boat begins to move away from the jetty. As any physicist will tell you, action and reaction are equal and opposite, and boy there is some action in a 22 stone person stepping on to a boat, and the finale is a rather wet person. Oh how we laugh.
Anyhow, ... squirrel ... that is what it is like when you are "transitioning". It can be quite an emotional tug of war with your old account still wants a piece of you, and your new account is so happy to have finally got a body, want you at least 100%. More often, it is just a pain in the bum that is a lot less fun than ending up in the drink as you try to step on to a boat.

London is an interesting place. There are people everywhere, from my small poll sample, there is no time of day after 11am when someone isn't in a pub or bar having a drink, and they always have a suit on. Don't they have work to do?

I think it is fair to say that I do enjoy a visit to London, but I am not a natural city boy. I don't know whether I am actually chewing on a bit of straw, but I do feel a bit out of sorts with all the bustle. Our office is pretty flash, lots of glass and marble, but once you are inside there are seats and desks and I am staring at a partition wall, so I really could be anywhere.

Nevertheless, my new account is full of interesting problems and I am relishing the challenge of something new. I just hope I can be as effective as my managers are hoping, and I make a success of things.

I stayed up for the night, so met up with a very old friend from college. Since we like to give pseudonyms for people, let's call him Taff, a name that, to my best knowledge, he has never been called. We have not seen each other for a couple of years, but we just slipped back in to a comfortable and very enjoyable evening of drink, food and chat, catching up on what we had both been up to since we last met, which did give us a vast tableau of topics to discuss.

I am working at home today, hoping that the garage can fix my car by tonight so that I have it for our planned 'vannin' trip down to Lyme Regis.

It's all in the numbers

GOOD NEWS: Well I'll be tuggered, Golfy has only been and gone and done it. I now have a read count on my blog.

BAD NEWS: Now people know the paltry number of people reading my blog.

Well, you cannot hide the truth. Well, obviously, with statistics of course you can hide the truth. You can even create a whole new truth with statistics. In fact, when you come to really think about it, in the world of statistics, the sky can be any colour.

Squirrels. Don't you just love them. Golfy's nickname for me is Squirrel. It is a reference to a scene or two in Up. You know the one, where the dogs are chatting and half way through a sentence one shouts "Squirrel". All the dogs look at the same spot on the horizon for 2 seconds, then continue on chatting as if the squirrel had never existed. Apparently, if Golfy is to be believed (and let's be honest, there is a lot to believe), then that is me. I am king of the digression, and I am very proud of that title. When I talk, everyone else is either confused at best, lost at worst, and maybe even thinking "what has this person been drinking?".

I am in a meeting at the moment, and we are discussing getting up early and doing exercise and blogging and other stuff. The scottish bloke can do exercise, but not blogging. The west country guy can do blogging and a bit of exercise. The really good looking and charismatic one (me, of course) does blogging a bit, exercise not much, but holidaying a lot. I can holiday anywhere, anytime and with anyone, and that is what makes me tick. Give me sun, or quiet, and no access to TV or phone, and I can become very happy. Throw in an egg bap, cup of tea and a slice of cake for afters, followed by a game or two of Canasta, then I am in seventh heaven.

It reminds me of the tale when a slug meets a centipede on the road, and the slug says to the centipede "How do you walk with all those legs?". The centipede thinks about it for a while, and trips over his own feet. Moral of the story, is probably something about not thinking too hard about stuff before doing it. Like when I was young, I used to try and ride my bike along the top of a low wall. This is a wall that is about 25cm wide (10 inches on old money) and a drop of about 1 metre (3 feet in old money). Now, if I was trying to ride along a white line painted on the floor that was 25cm wide, then I could easily do that. No problem. Take that white line and suspend it 1m above the ground, then it becomes a totally different experience. Thinking too much about the pain if I fall see. I can do it, but the impending pain makes me think too much. Result? Bruised shins and a feeling that I won't ever be trying that again.

So, where was I?