The Cavalry

People continually devour material that supports, bolsters and puffs
up their own opinion.
They reinforce rather than challenge their own biases.
You can argue whether this is good or bad or indifferent but it's a
very middle-class argument.

Look at it from a sub-mezzo viewpoint.
Imagine if you were really struggling to even be able to contemplate
that the world cares about you.

Wouldn't it be genuinely wonderful to find a well-articulated opinion
that seems to understand your point of view either by agreeing with it
or embellishing or just by respecting that view and adding something.
Or not.

It may be a hero, a celebrity with a nice turn of phrase and a genuine
soul. I don't mean that you have to find £9.99 to pickup Ruby Wax's
latest way to make money out of depression. But we can find material
nowadays all over the place. We don't have to wait for it to be
transmitted.

You might stumble across a program with an interview with somebody you admire.
It might be a podcast. Maybe a repeat of an old show on Radio 4 Extra.
Some sort of interview. Or a quote from the Matrix.

It's not a crime to take a little time to find somebody who resonates with you.
It could save your life.
In an ideal world, someone would help you find such an intervention
before they prescribe pharmacology.
They would find a linguistic key, and pick the literary lock.
They would find the right steps to your dance. And drop footmarks to
show where you need to step. They would stand by your side, and offer
an arm.

When there are people on the Internet who manage to agree to get
together to maim, kill or just hook up and eat each other's flesh,
whatever you have in your head has to be considerably less extreme.

Believe me, the world is full of people who share your view.
Find somebody who resonates with you. Just so you can breathe out.
Then breathe in.

You are not alone.

Braking Bad

I have discovered when I'm trying to get things done that the problem
is that there is only one of me.
Which is strange, because that's what most people consider to be my
best feature.

But where are all the characters?
Where have they all gone?
Where are the people who are daring to be different, claiming to be
original, flamboyant even?

I can tell you this.
They are not wearing hipster beards with moustaches looped up at the ends
They are not the students so bewilderingly keen to "free the nipple"
from some sort of presumed anti-nipple tyranny.
They are not the people from different races telling us that we are
all racist, instead of learning how to celebrate our differences in a
country which is largely colourblind.

The racepeddlers will still be able to argue in 100 years time that
Britain is racist, if they want. And it seems as though they do want.
Or we can just jolly-well let it go.
In a great many sub-societies of the UK, race isn't an issue. You
cannot blame the other 1%, and you cannot convert them.
I live in a major city and I haven't seen a single racist act in the
cities I've lived in in my entire life and I have spent years in the
seamier quarters of the city.
That isn't coincidence. It is reality.

Our differences are what makes us strong and unique. It would be time
to celebrate them had they not been all but erased by modern
lifestyles.
What happened to ...Vive la difference.
For a difference to vive, it has to exist first.
Character isn't homogeny.

Black subculture brings a huge artistic contribution to the world
(despite basing so much of its hip-hop on violence and sexism).
America has an entertainment channel exclusively for Black
entertainment. Awards for blacks only. Is that racist? Well of course
it is. But we don't worry about it.
Black comedians do largely race related material. But they're not
breaking any taboos. It is 2016.
It's just boring. Let the racial stuff go guys. We don't need your
trite stereotypies. Turn an examining eye to character and culture
instead. There is a rich seam of differences which exist in different
proportions in different subcultures, backgrounds and origins.

But this obsession with skin colour....it's ridiculous.
Not all white people are bad. Not all black people are good. Get over it.
I don't like Lenny Henry because he hasn't been funny in 30 years.
I do like George Alagiah and I never miss a Denzel Washington movie.
That doesn't make me a 33% racist.

Worse...we have got to the stage now where these regurgitations are
now teaching racism, teaching it to a bunch of people living in a
cosmopolitan, inclusive country to whom it simply would not have
occurred.
And that means it's gone too far. It's as gutless as it is witless. It
isn't brave or unique.
Stop already.
Stop teaching our children bad things and instead inspire them to grow
some unique qualities and celebrate their differences.
We need them to develop their own identities before they end up on the
psychologist's couch. They'll need to be brave to find their voice,
pick up the conch and start communicating.

The future is about character and culture.
Colour is a red herring.

Social Snoring

I recently met a man who was a snorer.... a "social" snorer.
You can apparently be a social smoker.
So why not a social snorer?
I'm thinking about offering him a social uvulopalatopharyngoplasty.

But I'm a bit worried what his friends will think about it.

The Endemic Epidemic

One of the things that you will see most commonly when GPs go into the written form, and usually after a list of moans, groans and gripes, is the tired claim that being a GP is the "best job in the world".

This sort of affirmation is a sign of somebody hanging onto the last fragment of a delusion.

They say on paper what they wouldn't say out loud.

And they say it so that they can still try to believe it's true.

They will probably imply in their recitation that it is a "well-known fact".

For example, by saying that it STILL the best job in the world.

They will use it to introduce us to their missive or to sign off on it in what, to me, is a "faux upbeat".

And, even in these well accepted days of evidence-based medicine,  they will fail to back up their comment with any data whatsoever. 

And we know the most extreme comments require the highest level of evidence.

It is shtick-ing plaster for the masses.

You might expect these comments to drivel out of anybody in the position of President or GP spokesman because they are paid to be in that position. 

What else would they say? 

Roll out a cheap, empty pick-me-up to engage the troops. 

It is a comment delivered by people who have never done any massively dissimilar job in their working lives. (This is more likely in medicine than possibly than any other subject due to its singular requirements). In other words, it is a comment made by the people least qualified to make it.

Apply a tourniquet over the wound and send the soldiers back out over the top. 

I can tell you that being a GP is NOT the best job in the world. 

It's a privilege. It is a challenge. It's worthwhile. 

But the best? Good heavens. 

Not by a long chalk.

But worse than that, it is a massive failure of imagination to suggest otherwise.

And those doctors experiencing such a breakdown of imagination, and ultimately such a failure of hope, are going to be of limited use. The complex dynamics of the possible power in, and of, the consultation rests in the deployment of that imagination. 

Stagnant doctors. 

Stagnant technique. 

Not bad people but nevertheless…if you don't have the power to flex the consultation, the best you're going to be is average.

And the best job in the world deserves something better than "average", don't you think? 

Maybe it even deserves the best. 

Why not?

A GP publicly externalising their internal affirmations is a long way on the road to a lie. 

Saying it. And living it.

It is likely that the compromise will harm them mentally and, because the mind and body are linked,  (they are, see any previous blog!) ….physically.

Square pegs. Round holes

A London service recently set up for stressed doctors has just warned that "soaring levels of ill health and addiction among doctors could 'destroy the NHS' ".

It has seen 3000 doctors - 10% of all London doctors. 

Not 1%. 

Not 0.1%. 

But 10% !!

7.7 % is "epidemic"

10% is endemic.

10% who have actually gone out "help-seeking", despite being doctors. Despite the stigma.

The health service has now been identified as an 'occupational health hazard' for doctors.

Their problems? "Burnout, depression, anxiety, and a syndrome indistinguishable from post traumatic stress disorder. The remaining third are doctors with addiction"'

I imagine only about 10% of professional sufferers would actually go to a service like that. 

But if that were the case, that would mean 100% of doctors were suffering.

Saying it's the best job in the world is a statement that is delusional. But it is also deliberately misguided. 

And, worse… it's unhelpful.

It implies wrongly that you are already at your peak potential and you should jolly well just get back to the front line, perhaps after a little counselling.

Here is the thing.

You don't need to do that if you don't want to.

Remember when you were totipotential human beings.

That's not an invite to reminisce. 

It's an instruction.

You can still do anything you want. 

Buckle up.

Honesty. 

Begins at home.

Off he went with a trumpety trump. Trump. Trump. Trump.

It's goodbye to the circus.

I don't know why everyone is so surprised that American made a radical choice. 

It is the first time in history that they were given a radical choice.

And if the Land of the Free can't raise a candidate to take that on, it deserves to have the status quo upset.

Here's a tip. 

Stop making it the "Battle of the Entitled 70-year-olds".

Newsflash  - 70 years old is too old to run the free world with fresh ideas.

It's not an entitlement that comes with bad hips.

Any 40-year-old would have won the public vote on an Anti-Sanatogen ticket. Look at Canada.

Some of us won a little money on this election. All you had to do was park your own delusions, look into the eyes of the people and hear what they keep telling you over and over and over again. 

"Stop. Look. Listen" as my old PE teacher / self-appointed drill sergeant used to scream. He was ginger which seemed to make it particularly abrasive.

The circus is in town

Take your seats.

Or step up.

And for electoral historians, here is your take-home message:

It's the economy.

And you're not stupid. 

Street Food

Utterly famished?

Don't make the mistake I just did by visiting Ted Baker and asking them, more than politely, for a Cornish pasty and a currant square.

It is a racing certainty that the miserable sods'll say they don't have any.

Window Lean

Have you noticed how it is a lot easier to get a streak-free shine on your windows ...than it is to get a streak-free shine on your Windows ?

That's computer spellchecks for you.

National Treasures

I have a terrible admission to make.

I usually don't watch David Attenborough programs all the way through.

I know. Not very British. (I'm English)

These are the programs that are supposed to be worth the licence fee alone.

What can I say! 

Well, two things really. I'm very sorry. And get over it, mugwump.

I did catch a bit of tonight's. 

Planet Earth Eleven, it's called.

They kept harking on about how difficult it was to film so I thought they would appreciate my support..

(Next time I'm trying to get a streak-free shine on my windows perhaps they'll return the favour. What I'm saying is that we is that we all have challenges).

After turning off some fairly dull sloths, trying "Britain's Next Great Magician" which was criminally shit (and I like magic), I returned towards the end.

Penguins!

Great!.

Really! 

(That cynicism is yours so take a good look at yourself).

Who doesn't love a penguin!

But the story really came alive in the "extra" last 10 minutes (after the main program had finished) when we follow the camera crew through their filming challenges in Antarctica.

Now that was exciting.

Yes, there were the usual hipsters wearing their beard uniform. But you know what, they are simple folk who need to belong and they were in Antarctica so I gave them slight break on that.

Seeing, through their eyes and perils, the live volcano crawling with penguins blooded (bloodied?) from battle, mothers guarding chicks from predators, hopeful for the return of their troubeld warriors from the cruel breakers, it connected with me much more than all the slow-mo, high def, 1000 frames per second schtick. 

Animals are amazing . This planet is amazing. And I suspect a lot of people who are not amazing watch these amazing programs for that alone. 

But some of us and I don't know how many it is  (30%, 70%, 2%, 90%)  are seeing it in 3-D.

We're seeing it in high-definition another and not because our TV says so.

We are asking what in this struggle applies to humanity.

And not because we are simply sharing the same planet's changing environment.

We are animals.

But we are not all animals.

We are the human animal. With our necessarily human lens.

I enjoyed that extra segment more than the others. 

Because we are the context of our own lives.

And even though that was the point I was aiming to make, I don't know if my little epiphany is profound or idiotically obvious.

You can decide.

I am going to have a Penguin.

Double Standards

You get a lot of topless ladies at the beach, but not at the swimming pool.

What's all that about?

Quotable Me #47

In the game of life, you can either be one of the players. 

Or one of the pieces.