Expertease

There is an old Bob Newhart sketch, called I think the Bus Driver.

It's a classic. A real classic. If you haven't heard the album, you should get it. There are other classics on there and even when I bought it as a youngster on LP, it had already been a classic for 30 years. (I know, I'm younger than I look. At least that's what they used to say... thinking about it now, nobody's said it in years, and my dental hygienist this week had the perfect opportunity. Twice she's hurt me. Twice!). 

It shares the same album as classics such as "An Infinite Number of Monkeys"... ring any bells? Or the Discovery of Tobacco? No?? Philistine!

Anyway.

It is a bus driving training school. The instructor trains the new driver to drive jerkily to make it as difficult as humanly possible for a pensioner to navigate her bones to and from her seat, and, needless to say, there's other unhelpful jiggery-pokery along the way, typifying the public servant. (These were the days before privatisation cured the world with a hefty dose of distracting corruption!)

It is, to use an overused cliche....hilarious. More than that, Newhart is utterly brilliant.

The end of the sketch – not so much a punchline but an end – is a summary of the salient points of the driving school. At least I think it is, I haven't heard it for a decade or two. "So remember", says the instructor, "it's accelerator – brake, accelerator – brake".

Due to Newhart's brilliance, you imagine the old lady careering backwards and forwards to the punching of the pedals. And there's nothing like thinking of anything or anyone falling over to raise a chuckle. 

Some things have to sit with you for a while, sometimes a short while, sometimes the longest time, sometimes a New York Minute. (I thought I might as well go for that, I was already sounding like Billy Joel).

And I stumbled across a new thought just now. Based on an echo (aren't they all?), a combination of words that my brain reminded me of. A second glass of Vin de Table Rouge may have played an essential part (although frankly it takes a bit more like Vim de Table).

It was simply this

That's what life is.

Its accelerator – brake, accelerator – brake.

And now...shucks... I fancy a Kitkat.

You've Got a Nerve!

You know that feeling when you watching You've Been Framed. (Sue me, smart arse)

The one you get just beneath the skin, the one that rolls over you.

The strange undulating tingle when somebody on a bicycle go straight over the handlebars into a wall.

Or falls off a stage into the front row.

That's what medics call 'visceral'.

Medics and horror writers. 

That's what visceral is. The not-very-accurate nerve endings that supply our inner organs.

They are hardwired accidentally (or not?) to a set of primal prehistorical directives. 

What's going to make your liver roll? 

What's going to make your kidneys tingle, your flesh crawl?

What's going to give you THAT feeling in the pit of your stomach?

Because there is only one nerve supplies the pit of your stomach. 

The vagus nerve. Non-medics may need to give that first syllable a looong "a". But the vagus nerve is not the sort of attitude that wins you a fortune in America's most famous gambling desert.

It's just THAT feeling.

And rather than over describe it, it's the thatness that makes it unique.

The Cull

Ideas are like rosebushes.

They need to be pruned. If you are waking up with yesterday's thoughts, free up the space for some new ones. May I suggest writing the old ones down as a way of putting them to bed or in context. 

If you are obsessing about ideas rather than developing them, get them on paper, or screen.

Perhaps if they are concepts that have touched you, write them down and make them rhyme. Pretend it's verse. And by the time it's on the page, it pretty much will be. Verse can make a simple idea mythological. Strong. And pruning your own thoughts and ideas is healthy. Don't be frightened to cast out something that may have a bud,  if you think it is too weak a bud to generate real growth.

Look at the ruthless bastards that the world knows as gardeners!  Taking the sword to living tissues more viciously than Victorian surgeons. And yet, they are the ones with tidy garden (if you'll forgive the phrase).

New ideas need not just a bit of space for themselves to sit in, but free physical intracerebral space in which to grow. The almost infinite capacity of the human mind needs to prepare a bit of space with finite boundaries. It needs to have the decks swept. Paradoxical, yes, and maybe it would not be necessary if we were masters of our brains. But we are not. 

The space that you free up should scream to be filled. Then,  ideas can leak, and spread, and flow. They can paint and taint other ideas and before you know it, they are developed. Into new ideas, maybe slightly better, perhaps revolutionarily different. One step closer to a truer truth that is more relevant and has more capacity for the leverage in day-to-day life. You are standing on the shoulders of your own giant.

I think I'm going to go and de-rust my secateurs.

News Flash

I was in the park (just) before 8am today having a run, the occasional lunge and the odd undignified squat.

I know it's not exactly news. 

I'm just telling everybody I can.

Not Since 1936... Never Say Never, Once Again

A reminder where effort can take us.

Where vision and resolve can lead.

What hard work can bring in increments

What enduring pain and early mornings can achieve.

To pick at the seam of success.

To hammer like rain from the gods

To yield to nothing and no-one

To defy what fools think are 'the odds'

To defend when defence seems pointless.

To throw even the kitchen sink

To attack with all you are worth

To make the other fella blink.

To play the last like the beginning.

To fail and pick ourselves up.

To fight on, as though we're winning.

To persuade your opponent to give up.

To be a model of role and of action.

Something to admire and inspire.

To be mindful of looking the part.

Thoughts. Words. Deeds. Attire.

To aim as true as you are able.

To fire. When it's the right thing to do.

To emote and dally sparingly.

To smile, whatever happens to you.

Well done, Andy...Bloody well done!