Circus Skills

You can say what you like about body art, but those girls who balance the shiny metal ball on their tongues without swallowing them do NOT get the credit they deserve.

Time Well Spent

I have started knitting.

I'm a knitter (or as my speech recognition program would have it, Anita)

Generally what I'm saying is, I do knitting now.

I don't, of course. That would be ridiculous.

But I might as well, as I've noticed that I have started doing things with less credibility than even that.

I am in the process of repairing a board game. (I have to be honest with you, it's an absolutely terrible use of my time).

But, it's my boardgame. In fact, slightly poetically, it is the Game of Life.

And I've let myself down, because I have actually repaired it before. And like an idiot I didn't ask Google for expert advice beforehand. Shamefully, I've discovered I didn't do a particularly good job.

A little research has told me that there is a golden rule that I was unaware of. (It is not a defence, I understand that ignorance of the law is no excuse, unless it's marital coercion).

It is simply this: 'Never put Sellotape (Scotch tape  - hello America) on the outside of the game box'.

This would not previously have occurred to me, but I recognise a ruthless truth when I have to.

So like Marty McFly going three decades back in time, I've had to rectify the wrong. So I have just spent a few hours removing the Sellotape from the fragile 30-year-old piece of cardboard - solvents/cotton buds/the whole nine yards. (Don't get too worried about me, the great thing is you can do it while you're watching Dallas).
So now, effectively I'm a knitter. That's what those patient wondrous chapesses do isn't it...watch Dallas and knit? (It's getting good by the way, Bobby's been arrested for murder and I still don't know how to pearl one).

I have to be honest. I didn't expect to find myself making this admission.

It's got me thinking about a few other admissions I'd like to introduce myself to.

So I'm thinking of becoming a Scientologist. Where is that Free Stress Test when you're actually looking for it? I can't believe I've walked past so many opportunities to mess with their heads. What was I thinking of?

At least where I live there is a Spiritual Evidence Society just down the road.

So don't call me on Thursday evenings.

It's Healing Hour.

Dodgy Foreign Mechanisms

There something wrong with my watch.
Every time I look at it, the big pointy thing has gone three quarters
of the way round the wheel.
This happens several times a day and then the sky goes dark.

Does anybody know what the bloody hell is going on?

Quotable Me - 6

Getting good at things is about making patterns.

Getting better is about breaking them.

Doing Time

The template of medicine is to See one, Do one, Teach one. (This was before "Do One" became a standard modern insult).

That this concept left us with a lot of people who thought they were teachers, and weren't, is regrettable.
That's recruitment for you. Get the wrong people in the first place and you're screwed. (If only we had not left this most important of jobs to recruiters).

For the rest of us who got through this process okay, and even recommended it for a time, it plays into advancing life.
The trouble is you See less and Do more.
You become pure doers. The balance is wrong but it's better than the alternative.

You can withdraw to some administrative level, but largely, personally, I have preferred the frontline.
I am sure that the only people who genuinely "de-skill", never really had the skills in the first place. And ironically most of the ones that de-skill (and bleat about its dangers), generally decide to find a little niche for themselves training the skills to others.
I don't really care whether you refer to this loop as a paradox or irony. But if you're going to call it something you might as well call it what it is. It's bullshit. Pure and simple.
The doers are relegated to worker-bee level, and managed/looked down upon by the de-skilled.
Where you are on this spectrum, is where your conscience lies. It's what sort of a human you are.

I may on a spring February day argue that the doers are the men in the white hats. And the managers, should be the men in the short cream jackets with a very long arms that can be tied behind their backs by a third-party. (Remember to check their oral cavity for hair grips).

But when, then, do the doers do their thinking? They're busy doing the doing. (Wasn't that a hit for Sonia in the 80s? No? Gina G then).
I think I think I need more thinking time. I need to timetable it. The entertainers have it right. One 90 minute show twice a week, and the rest of the time to think. I could go for a bit of that.

Our current skills took time to learn. It's hard to ever sideline them. They control our spending power, and hugely influence our identity. But without ongoing seeing and learning, it's not that they decay, or that you de-skill. They just date a little. You date. In your heart of hearts, you know it. And it's not comfy.

Growing up isn't about hitting 18. And anything worth learning can take 5 years to learn - a language, a skill, an apprenticeship, a degree with a bit of practical know-how. Whichever way you spin it, you're looking at 5 years. And that's 5 pretty intensive years.
If you want to learn a language and are only going to put in an hour a week, instead of 35 hours a week, you can multiply that 5 years by 35.
Good luck with that by the way.
Or you can lower your expectations of your eventual skill level. That's a pity. And if you begin with low expectations of yourself, you're bound to underachieve.
It's one of life's cruellest negative loops.

Many of us traditionalists are used to the concept of trying to work out at the age of 18 what we want to be at the age of 21 (slacker degrees) or 23 (medical degrees). Frankly, in the rest of life it is not usually possible to think even this far ahead, but we all forget that this process never ends.
Get married and have kids and the process is massively derailed. But this is a mercy, as the burden of so many possibilities is narrowed down for you. You can focus instead on what a young seed of yours may achieve when they are 18, and allow the cycle to loop.

But the gritty reality is this.

At 30 (remember it takes 5 years to learn stuff), you need to make a decision about what sort of 35-year-old you want to be.
At 45, you need to decide what sort of a 50-year-old you want to be.
At 55, you need to make a decision about what you'd like to be when you're 60.

It never ends.

I suggest you start now.

G vs E

What's the difference between good and bad?

Well in simple, somewhat relative terms, I'm good.
And the heroin addicts, murderers and burglars with whom I regularly hobnob are bad.

The trouble is, I don't really believe it.

So how are we going to tell the difference?

Well, if you have given this as much deeper intellectual thought as I have then I'm sure you have come to the same inevitable conclusion as me. Namely, you are going to need to make them watch The Karate Kid 3.

(Other 80s movies may work but have not been formally approved for the purpose. Any of them that ends in a freeze-frame with somebody punching the air is a good substitute. You will find ITV2 a rich seam of alternative reference material. Basically start with Teen Wolf and get back to me if you have any difficulties).

So, in our template Karate Kid 3, the good guys will side with Danny LaRusso and Mr Miyagi (white karate uniforms).
And the bad guys will side with John Kreese, and the tall fellow with the ponytail (black karate uniforms).

(Now obviously I'm dumbing this down a bit for the layman because I know full well that the karate uniform is called a Gi, because I used to learn karate.
It wouldn't be fair to tell you what belt I reached. But suffice to say when you buy a Gi, it comes with a free white one).

But I don't think good sides with good and bad sides with bad in that way.
I bet real-life bad guys side with Ralph Macchio and Mr Miyagi as well. I bet they see themselves as heroes. Even if its heroes in need of redemption.
The occasional psychotic aside, I bet they're not cheering when Danny gets a kicking. But I bet there's a tear in the eye when he gives one.
Karate Kid 3 has a strong sense of justice. When Peter Cetera wrote "I am a man who will fight for Your Honour", that wasn't just a song he wrote about a magistrate.

I don't think I'll expand on this.  You get the point.
And obviously I want to catch the climax again on ITV 2+1 (It does get me every time!).

But I'll deposit one more thought. It's been a recently explored concept that we are more than our heavily advertised 5 senses. Rather we are many.
But I'd like to add one to the ever-expanding list.

From deep, deep, deep, inside is the visceral scream that is the hallmark of a strong sense of justice. And injustice.
It silently gnaws, mildly irritates, and is becoming increasingly irrelevant and counter-productive in this modern world.

It still rears its head occasionally but has largely been relegated to movies, where it can be boxed and mocked, where people can claim it's not real, well, istic.
But it can still control the margins of many an existence, the corners of a brain and if you're a man of faith, you may pray that it makes the occasional guest appearance in our illustrious legal system.

The sense of justice is the recognition of the difference between good and evil, and the grey strands that connect them.

And when it is sharply focused in the mind, it creeps like a searing wave over any internal organ you care to mention.

Cure for the common cold caller

Fed up with calls from pensions helpline, endowment mis-selling, etc?

Want to be polite but also want them to bugger off?

Understand they are just trying to earn a living but that that is not your problem?

Or are you missing calls from me because you think your caller ID identifies them (when many of us channel our calls through similar pathways)?

Then try my new method.

Pick up the ringing phone and say "Hello".

They will soon tell you who they are.

Just keep saying hello as though you can't hear them.

Continue for as long as you find it fun to enjoy their bewilderment.

Say hello once more and hang up.

Job done.

Florence, The Machine and The Doctor

Not that Florence needs an extra verse from me..but a nod in appreciation


No light, no light in your crystal skull
Where electricity can be so tidal
A new sensation from the depth of night
A primal scream 
Attacks in a lucid dream
And I'd do anything to make you stay
No light, no light
Tell me what to keep, what to wave away.

Love Boat Dreams

I don't know who the first Doctor on The Love Boat was but I know the most famous. It was some fellow called Bernie Kopell. Second in the cast list, if you don't mind!

And I just bumped into this blog  that refers to that very same ship as the biggest star in television history (though I think that Larry Hagman would have something to say about that).

The mini-retrospective tells us that the ship is sitting idly in a port in Italy. But on the assumption that it is the right way up, we should be grateful for small mercies that Captain Stubing never did a handover with Captain Coward.

And Italy being the capital of retreat, it might as well be there as anywhere. Because that was where I left it. When I was a crew member working on the Pacific Princess, we retired its life under that name in a shipyard in Genoa. Handed over the keys, paid off the corrupt officials of the port (allegedly), called it a day, said goodbye to the leaky roof in the Starlight Lounge and said goodbye to the unique officers-only quite lovely outside deck area.  Everybody knew we would never see its like again.
But they also now knew that nobody would be able to drive and maintain it successfully. Following the timely sale, it was rarely out of the news for breaking down.

I don't know who the first Doctor on The Love Boat was but I know who was the last.

Because it was me.

Birthday Present - Doggy Delivery

Stafford

You say there is no one who cares in the NHS

But you got rid of the carers.

The GPs who cared, you tied up in red tape.

The nurses who cared, you got other nurses to bully.

You set managers like Rottweilers against the rest.

And in came the privateers, laughing.

You divided and crushed, 

Patients stuck in the middle.

Public enquiries led to new standards.

But privateers could ignore them.

Profiteer from cheap staff.

And you complained the staff didn't care.

You removed professionalism.

Allowed nurses to answer to no one but themselves

You allowed every country in Europe to ignore your UK rules. 

The bodies of doctors who can't speak English 

sue for racism when they fail their exams.

And in came the outsourcers, laughing.

Complaints quadruple.

Litigation escalates exponentially.

And you wonder how we could have got here.

You did it.

You.

You awarded contracts

Blind, to the patients.

And still you say there's no carers

Because you got rid of them all.

Doctors on Prozac.

Nurses on the sick.

And your response.

Another enquiry.

To conclude there is no caring.

Caring isn't a quality you later install

You got rid of them all.

What are you going to do now?

You got rid of them all.

What are we going to do now?

'Who' - a poem

What are you aiming for?
What are you shooting for?
What do you want to do?

What are you waiting for?
What are you rooting for?
What will you do to get through?

What do you want to learn?
What do you want to earn?
What do you want to see?

What do you need to know?
What do you need to feel?
Who .... do you want to be?