Taking time

I rediscovered "We have all the time in the world" before I had discovered it.
I was pushed by a commercial.
I am not proud of it.

Music can be so context-dependent. John Barry says..said..it is the most personal form of expression there is. Implying that words are so prescriptive.
I faint to disagree. They just need their lack of form perfecting.
But it matters not.



His legacy is almost an entire genre of music and few can claim that.
I love his work.

A single composition conjures up a major cinematic experience and it also stands alone.
Maybe we could dream of moments that would do the same.
You only know who you are when you stand alone.

I found Louis Armstrong on my own. I can't remember exactly how.
I had two tape cassettes of great great great songs.
It was hellzapoppin. Amongst other things.

"What is that great sound that makes that noise in the Bond music, Mum?"
"That's a trumpet. Now go and do your piano practice".

The Everlasting

We are losing the hope of the infinite.

Has your spirit ever crumpled when putting on a No-Iron shirt?

Do you remember when rulers were Unbreakable?

When watches were Waterproof?

Remember when Shatterproof rulers were downgraded to shatter resistant?

The Neverending Story had two sequels and three conclusions.
Even immortals die - ask any Highlander.
And there's many a claim of undying love buried beneath the frozen sod of a neglected churchyard.

Nothing but aphorisms lasts forever.
But claims that stand out as a challenge to the schoolboy are doomed to end of term revision.
They are expensive things for companies to back up.

2 hip?

It's hip to be square, they claimed.

And yet when I am being hip perhaps getting down with the kids, talking about motorbikes, discussing various counterpoints in the narrative of Neighbours or debating which was the greatest Captain of the Enterprise.
Or teaming up with my other student union acquaintances to get behind some cause or other, or well, lots of other things too numerous to mention that my chums and I get up to while you squares are drinking, womanising and doing macrame, I expect.

So since when is it square to be hip?

When I really give this some thought I reckon that Huey Lewis and the News weren't telling us the full truth.

Mirrors - a poem

A captured spirit
A hurried date
A flick of hair
And fashionably late

A fateful appointment with
Inner reflection
Melting despair
At marching complexion

Anticipation
A night on the town
The fancy dress
Of a tired clown

A passing glance
An absolute must
Reassuring but.
A nightmare to dust

So real. So false.
A factitious dream
A perfect reflection
Of the person we seem.

A spectator sport.
A body report.
That brings a private whine
At inscribed time.

Instant truth.
With ruthless delivery
A tyrant, a bully
A brutal facsimile

A sycophantic playmate
A comrade in arms
Or judge. Or tormentor.
Thief of your charms.

Time stands still
And the illusion’s complete
The ludicrous present
With the future to meet.

You stare down the now
And let it infect
And inform the future
As it warns of the next.

But that’s not what defines us
It’s not how we appear.
It’s a trick
A footnote.
A lie.
Not real.

Because believing is seeing
And not vice-versa.
So there in the glass
Is a better person.

It’s a mirror of mind
So come back from the brink
It awaits your instruction
Just have a think.

It’s in service to please
Obliged to announce.
It’s not an expressway
For ghosts to pounce

Brainwaves trump photons.
Like rock over scissors
So click the chamber
You’ll have more hits than misses.

Strike a pose. Freeze!
And try not to yelp.
Smile at Mr Reflection
He’s just trying to help

He’s the truth at your mercy
A slave to your best
So give him a wink
And push out your chest.

Q:The funniest musical instrument in the world?

A: Monkey Cymbals

Preferably held above the nipples (by a human) at fingertips and, if possible, used infrequently to enhance a pretty formal ceremony.

Accentuate the...Eliminate the...

What drives you?
I'm quite driven by the possibility of negative things happening.
Do you think that's wrong?
Do you think that is pessimistic?
Fear (for want of a better word) of bad things happening, rather than a positive motivation like running towards potential fun and excitement.

For example, if one in 200 people at my age gets a fatal bone cancer and dies within six months, should that shake me up, make me change my life? Or should I just gulp a gulp, shed a crocodile tear to reassure myself I am a human sensitive (or a sensitive human), shake it off, forget it and go out to work and get pissed at the weekend as usual?

Should this dark pessimism propel you?
I think it should.
And I'll bet I am in the minority.
Those who assume that I am being negative and looking on the black side are implying I am a fatalist.
It's a short trip from there to loser.
And I am neither.
So if you answered yes to my claims of pessimism, I will tell you why could not be more wrong.
And worse, why you may be the very creatures of whom you disapprove. Sorry, who you disapprove of.

Let’s soften it.

Let’s not call it a shake up.
Let’s not call it a fork in the road. Let’s call it a gentle bend.
Let’s change the word “fear” to oh, let’s say, “motivating factor”?

Bad things happen to good people.
Shed your tear, sure, but say to yourself: That could have been me. That might be me tomorrow.
Living with no regrets is one of the most motivating forces you can find.
It renews your drive and it forces you to count your blessings.
You have an attitude of gratitude.
You take nothing for granted because you have access to your inventory of everything you are grateful for. (Not grateful to anything supernatural, I would urge. Nobody needs worshipping for your good fortune).
Keep your treasures close, like a list of negatives and positives – you know the sort a girl might makes when she is deciding whether to dump her boyfriend.

When you have this access at your fingertips and you inevitably tire or have a bad day, you have a rich stream of resource pre-lined up.
Pick one and do something positive.
For yourself or even better, for others.
For someone you like. Or even better, someone you hate.
Do. Something.

Call these people what you like.

I like losers like us.

One word

Can I offer you a tasting note on tonight's movie - Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade.
I have always remembered one scene since my last viewing 20 years ago.
I can tell you three things about it - it is better in wide screen (there was none then) and it is better with a Rioja in front of you.
And one more thing ma'am...

It is a father and son tale.
A father whose "way" was unsure (who calls our hero Junior and never Indy; who gave his life to the quest for the holy grail to the exclusion of everything else - an obsession his wife and son could never understand - all of which sets it up for a bit of comedy banter.Oh dear, I hear you cry!)
They find the grail (who wouldn't) and drop it out of reach onto a precipice.
Our hero reaches out with a hand, the other grabbing onto his father's hand trying to pull him out of danger.
He reaches and slips and reaches, grip failing as the pit beckons. His father extends a second hand and implores him to give up the fight for his own life's desire.

Just a little further.

Give it up, Junior.

Just a bit further. I can get it.

The screen edges seem to fuse. The background noise fades.

And one word saves him from a deathly attempt to reach the treasure.

One word stops him from too high a risk of death.

One word.

Indiana.

Breathes his father, finally putting his son first.

The scene last 2 seconds and is worth the price of admission alone.

Two lives. One decision. One moment.

Eternity in a grain of sand.

Rarely does a movie deliver this.
And this movie is just a throwaway comic.
Isn't it?

There's one or two others scenes I am not so happy with, but Lucas and Spielberg have never bothered to engage.

All hail the generalist

You know those executive coaches?
Are they the “executive” or is it their customers?
And if it is their customers, isn’t “executive” really an old fashioned word?
Light grey broad pin-stripe anybody?

They use the word, I believe, to reflect glory on themselves. They are the executive.
And what do you need to become one?
A printer.
A business card.
C’est. Ça.
It is just marketing. And marketing is at its most offensive in areas of therapeutics.

As they bask in their own glory, what they are selling had better be good. Right?
But how many executive coaches teach themselves a few affirmations and a couple of NLP exercises, buy a nice suit, moisturise and label themselves corporate trainers or the like?
They are aiming high end.
Where the cash is.
But selling a specialised product in a specialised area makes you less than a “specialist”.

Would you really want a lifestyle coach that has never turned his so-called skills to say helping a heroine addict or a victim of homelessness or gut-burning debt?
Who has never visited the harder-edged side of society?
Would you really want to employ someone to trim the frayed fringes of your life when they are ignorant of the quality of textile beneath. Who has trained and targeted himself principally to lighten the overburdened wallet of people like you?

That is not much to be proud of.
And a specialist, it ain’t.

A specialist can help anyone in his chosen field (with the possible exception of language barriers)..
A specialist is a generalist of people and an expert in subject matter only.
A specialist in executives is a cynical ploy.

Let me give you another example.
Is a doctor of cruise ship medicine a specialist in high end cruisers?
Hopefully not.
He can treat 60 nationalities of crew members and passengers using skills of primary and secondary care and deliver the product of cruise ship medicine to each adult and child based on fundamental principles underwritten by several specialties.
Hopefully.

The generalist has the toughest specialty of all but the real message is this.
Once you have learned the skills that float your boat, expertise comes from applying them as broadly as humanly possible.

Sax and soul

Windin' your way down on Baker Street
Light in your head and dead on your feet
Well another crazy day
You'll drink the night away
And forget about everything
This city desert makes you feel so cold.
It's got so many people but it's got no soul
And it's taking you so long
To find out you were wrong
When you thought it had everything.....

Sounds like you saw it coming, Gerry.

RIP

From Generation Sax.

The substance of style

Today between designing my year and cleaning, I completed a new experience – exposure to period drama.
And I came to the conclusion that the best moment of dramatic counterpoint comes not from an explosion, not from a death or a joke and not from a pratfall. The best moments of Downton and largely responsible, I believe, for the huge success it proved to be is the display of total dignity in the face of adversity.
And great casting.
Why exactly that should make the eyes well up, I simply don't know.

Second change

Still looking for a resolution?

Why not write your own Wikipedia page describing everything you are in 2012.

Happy 1-1-11

It's that time of year again. Only this time the date is 1/1/11.
And so we may get to thinking about resolutions.
We may listen to the resolutions of others, maybe try them on to fit.
Maybe we look in the mirror. Maybe we look at our wallets before we decide.
In years past we might look at or weight or other trivia.
But this is not years past. Not yet.
Now we look to our jobs because the world has changed. In my mind, the old rules don't apply.
Believe me, I know this is a dangerous philosophy. I know that man's greatest mistakes are based on forgetting that history repeats.
But even so.
Even so, there is something different, something essential has changed.
Maybe it's a blip. You might reassure yourself that a lot of what affects society is written. In no danger of being reversed.
I respectfully disagree.
The borders are open. The demographic is racing on the corner of its most dangerous exponential curve presenting change with the force of several Gs.
We are way, way beyond the point of no return.
Or maybe you are right. Maybe nothing has really changed. After all, people are people.

Anyway whether you choose to agree with me or choose to be wrong, what you going to do about it? What do you change as we enter potentially painful years?
Perhaps you look to celebrity to be your rock, perhaps you look in the newspaper for their list of resolutions and choose to copy them.
It is the modern way. Emulating celebrity.
But I tend to concur with an editorial I read today that the nature of celebrity was permanently damaged during 2010. It "jumped the shark". Google it.
There can barely be a celebrity format that hasn't been rolled out. And there can certainly never have been in history a more one worthless bunch of characters who claim the moniker.
It's a Band-Aid for the masses that has value but only when it's aspirational. When it makes you want to join in and want to learn to oh, lets say, ballroom dance.
And the reason we shouldn't follow these charlies most of all. Well, they're not happy, are they? That's not news to you, is it?

Maybe you look to sport for your validation. Is there a sport that has not been corrupted if not by cheating then at the very least by vile agents, greedy inarticulate scumbags or a total lack of moral turpitude.
Are these people your heroes?
Do. You. Want. To. Be. Like. Them?
Slower. Louder. Repeat.

One of the answers to this problem is how we marry global relationships with parochial ones. There's been a feeling that long before the script of Shirley Valentine that people want to break out into the big wide world. Fine. But sometimes wide isn't easy. It is a crime to look at the script of Love Actually and to allow yourself to "live such a little life".
The answer is it has to suit your personality.
You can and should tweak your personality of course. Apart from anything else, that is true learning. And fun.
Playact being a better person and you might end up one by accident.
You'll be happiest when you're true to it. Not to play to its whims but to its core values.
I'm making a potentially fatal assumption here of course. That your core values are based on integrity.
But don't worry. I trust you. I am a truster.
You are my trustee. (Would you mind giving me a grant for a conservatory I am thinking of erecting?)

Those among us have tasted globality in business or maybe hols and that may be lead us to another answer: to consciously become more parochial, to aim for a littler life, to batten down the hatches and build up the walls.
Working on your walls and your hatches is not the worst resolution for 2011.
Feel free to leave as many escape routes as you think you'll need.

Or maybe what we need is a new kind of resolution with a harder edge, with a modernity (is that the noun you make out of modern?), maybe a more existential feel.
Let me offer you a starter for the year - wrrte a letter to anyone who moves you to tears this year.

And whatever route you choose.

The very best of luck.