Kids really do say the funniest things

Whenever my little one comes out with a golden nugget, I often like to praise her by saying..."You should be a comedian".

But my wife quickly follows up with ..."or a doctor or a lawyer".

At least she would do if I was married. 

Or had children.

On which subject, have you ever noticed that strange myth targeted at single people ...namely that they live selfish lives?

It is usually coming from somebody who has committed the ultimate act of selfishness by reproducing another generation as close to themselves as they can muster.

It is a good job such an act is excused in today's society by the process of instinct and the questionable necessity of the survival of the species because having children must be the single most narcissistic act in all of creation.

Of course when they realise what they got themselves into, some of them have to ease off on the 7 day Prosecco  and  develop some selfish habits by putting their kids first.

Hopefully at least one of the loving couple will manage that for some of the time that they share the children in formative early years, and some of the time that they have them in the post divorce years.

The curious thing is that they then decide to misremember this desire for the ultimate accessory and recall it as an act of "unselfishness".

And then.. then.... they  point to people who haven't committed such an unnecessary addition to the population and sneeringly identify them as selfish.

It beggars belief.

The Magus

Yesterday, after a few weeks of dedicated effort, something unusual happened.

I completed a long book.

Reading that is. Not writing it.

The book was The Magus by John Fowles, of the French Lieutenant's Woman fame.

It's always held a bit of a mystique for me not least in the title. 

I'd seen a fragment of the movie adaptation on BBC1 decades ago. It hinted at mystery and supernatural trickery which it turns out is the sort of thing that floats my boat.

As a consequence, it's always held a bit of a mystique in the back of my mind not least in the title. 

There are not many pieces of work that lend themselves to the claim of being one of the best books ever written - frequently hitting the top 100 books of all time, and also claim that they represent one of the worst movies ever made.

The Magus movie - damned forever by Woody Allen's brilliant quote.

"If I had to live my life again, I'd do everything the same, except that I wouldn't see The Magus."

Cruel, but brilliant.

Brilliant, but cruel.

I read the 650-page copy I bought abroad 10 years ago. And knowing what I am like for not completing long books or any books at all, I threw every trick in the book at finishing it  - by carrying my paperback, obtaining a computer file, and using an audio book.

I could read it when I was sitting. I could have it read to me when I was walking somewhere or falling asleep.

In the end by combination of paper and audiobook alone I finished it.

Yesterday.

I mentioned that.

Of course it wouldn't be quite that simple. The audiobook was the original edition but John Fowles revised this with an extra 70 pages - my paperback is the Revised edition  - that is his capital R not mine - and with apparently, though I still have to check this, a slightly different ending. But the ending is fairly open-ended anyway so I don't expect too much of a change.

Along the way I could often track the words he changed or moved around or expanded by reading and listening at the same time, my confusion hopefully adding to my concentration.

It pleasingly phased in and out its ideas of hypnosis and magic, dreams and intoxication, morality and reality checks.

Exactly the same thing as I offer my dating profile.

So in completing the book and jolly good it was too, I finally watched the movie.

Actually, I thought the movie was rather good, and a sight quicker to acquit.

It felt exactly like the book I just read.

Michael Caine was actually giving a performance, 

Of course his character was unsympathetic. But that's the point. It doesn't make it a bad performance. Quite the reverse.

These possibly supernatural Mediterranean mysteries are almost a genre in themselves but a very small one.

There are strong echoes of a BBC TV serial called The Dark Side of the Sun, which has lived with me for many years.

This was one of a number of BBC series written by Michael J Bird, so my next task is to revisit a little bit more of that.

His legacy was series known as the Lotus Eaters, Who Pays the Ferryman, and the Aphrodite something-or-other.

I was always pleasantly haunted by the supernatural paganism of The Dark Side of the Sun.

Is there a deeper well? 

I'll let you know. In your dreams.

Arts Review

There are only two things wrong with Drum and Bass music.

Quotable Me 57

It's only by learning to parry the knocks, 
that you can deal with the blows.

Mad-erel

I bought John West Mackerel Fillets in Korma Sauce(125g) at Home
Bargains yesterday.
I paid 59p
They're nice - try them.


I had already tried them from ASDA - 75p

But I could have bought them from Morrisons £1.20 [2 for £1.60]

or on OFFER at Sainsbury reduced from £1.30 to £1

or Waitrose £1.59 [2 for £2.00]


So I could have spent £1.59 for the tin.

But spent 59p

British pricing.

Mad!

Today's Invention

You know those ice chilling covers you keep in the freezer.

Rapid Ice.

You know how people are drinking more Mini bottles nowadays...

So they have a Rapid Ice MINI, don't they?

An obvious easy stocking filla...

Well ...no..they don't.

Why not do it?

Brand it nicely..include a wine miniature, add a lollipop or a purple Quality Street or Ferrero Rocher, depending on your level of class  - it's  a pretty lovely gift, ain't it? 

I think so .... but then I'm a lolly man.

Until then I've sorted it for you ...

Buy a big 'un and add a laggy band.

You're welcome.

It's 1984

If I shout loud enough, I can get two Amazon Echos within a 5 yard radius to well…give them an inspirational anecdote, define a word, play a song…

Alexa - tell me a joke

Alexa - newsflash … please

I can get the students upstairs to pay attention to current affairs or discover an inspirational concept.

If I could only get them to stop dropping Starbucks cups on the pavement and throwing their fag ends in my back yard and leaving their bottles and cans in the street , the future will really be here.

At least if they really annoy me I can get their Alexa to call them an Uber.

Unfortunately... they can do the same to me.

A Fistful of Dribbles

Do you remember that Marlon Brando always used to get a hard time for being difficult to work with?

Why was it such a surprise?

What else would you expect from someone who called his son Superman? 

It's bad enough nowadays when naming children after a food, a fruit or weather condition.

Peaches or Romeo, 

Buster or Fido, 

Rocket or Buzz.

Yes, of course we should punch Jamie Oliver in the face if we get the chance.

Nobody is arguing that we should forget to do that.

But he's not the only one deserving of a knuckle croque monsieur.

Being difficult to work with is hardly a surprise is it?

So give poor old Marlon a break.

It's not as if he ever called his dog, Dog.

I'm not saying he was perfect. 

He wasn't. 

He was very fat.

But he didn't call his cat, Philip.

As I reminded my nephew Cumulonimbus, recently.

Poisson Day

It's April the 2nd !

Ha..haaaaaaaaaaaa....you mugs.

OK... I need to work on my hoax material.

MRIght?

I had to act "anger" today.

That's not necessarily easy because I'm not a particularly angry person. I just don't see the value in it.

Plenty do.

That's not to say I cannot get animated enough for some fuckwit to accuse me of anger if it suits their tactical purposes. There is a certain level of moron that will never know the difference. 

It is the same level as, say, the half-wit who thinks Brexit it is a bad idea, but can't articulate why.

Or thinks that cannabinoids should be legalised because they've never seen the people its gateway has destroyed. The sort of people who are short on experience, short on  memory, short on IQ, or simply opinionated and dis or mis informed. 

In the worst-case scenario, they are angry and malevolent - the very name-calling they accuse others of so, so early, I save till last. 

That is because I believe I can help them with the other things but I must  also accept who they are. And if what they are reaches a level of purity in its anger and malevolence, then even I know my limitations. An act of charity from me at this point will not be seen for what it is. 

And the fact is, at the risk of arrogance, if I'm not going to bother with them I can pretty much guarantee that nobody else is either.

Those broken people perpetuate.
Believe it or not, they even reproduce.

And they reinforce their own misinforcements.

Of course I broke up laughing in my challenge. There was too much paradox in play for the engine not to choke. 

The fact is that people mistake the things that they see in people. They believe that their own opinion is a good enough reason to do that.

It isn't.

It is poor training, in need of correction

It is poor insight, in need of vision. 

It is poor development of skills and a lack of credentials

But they stand amongst us, eating with us, drinking with us, as equals 

Are you going to tell them? No,  you're too scared. 

All the information you need is written in the face of the person you are almost certainly looking at at the time.

It's a code.

And it requires a big part of the brain apportioned to its recognition.
You need to be a superscanner to communicate properly. 

A fancy imaging machine  will tell you how far you are on with that. But they won't book a session No.
They'll assume they're doing just great.

The sort of people I'm talking about would take decades to develop that muscle.

But they are not getting any younger.

The fact is that it is a code.

It's written behind the eyes.

Start learning now and in 30 years... come back... for a conversation.

But of course by then, you won't need to even speak, before it is clear if you can handle it.

So do the wise thing.

Give up now.

And open your mind  instead.

The Living Dead at Teatime

Last week I saw a newspaper a feature article about what they used to call legal highs.

I've seen hundreds  of people high on legal highs and I did not recognise what they were talking about.

The article was effectively talking about a kind of street zombies. It had photographs of men leaning over,  stood still on busy streets in he middle of the pavement with stooped shoulders. 

I didn't recognise this manifestation of the epidemic.

I've interviewed hundreds of people on Spice, Doom,  Pandora's Box etc and I have seen hundreds of people drunk on alcohol both professionally and in the mirror. But I didn't recognise this description.

Until today.

I live in a heavily studented area and at 5pm on a beautifully still and sunny day on my local shopping street was that exact picture. A young man, leaning forward, stooped shoulders, stationary but for a mild stagger an inch forward an inch backwards. 

Not drunk. Not quite. We've all seen drunks. They are more animated. Less, well less zombie-like. 

Somebody walked past him minding his own business. Just as he passed the body animated and shouted. "Fuck Off Dickhead".

And then he as quickly he returned to standby zombie mode again.

I watched him for the next few minutes. 

Before he lurched off.

Like a walking dead.

.

Nearer to Really

At its simplest, living by your religion is living in the 3rd person.

Do something good in your life and you thank your  God for what He has done for you.

See something good in somebody else and you can raise your religious fervour to make you amazed at what God has done with them/for them/ in them.

Don't give anybody any credit.

See something bad and, with enough effort,  you can see the Devil's work and the evil that He is.

And every flower, every sunny thought and every warm day, it's God again. God doing his great things.

For you. His children.

I'm only saying this as I bumped into one minute of a religious channel with some American pastors talking amongst themselves around a big rustic table.

But it struck me that all they were talking about is living by proxy.

Living by proxy isn't a good way to live your entire life.

It might be a good  way to install a few rules.

We all need a little rulebook every now and again. We can copy a few favourable traits in order to make is more resilient.

But at some point we need to grow up. Forget childish things.

Put away the dolls, retire the tooth fairy and  live with responsibility.

Believe me, I don't like it any more than you do, but we must own ourselves.

That has to be the way to live.

I'm not even going to mention the terrorist elements that will dedicate their repulsive  actions to their God. They may even credit their God with giving them the strength to act.

But I'm only mentioning religious terrorism in passing.

Really I'm talking about day-to-day living.

Living really. 

And living real.

Probably

Apologies that is is taken 4 years to think of this offering...

But you know when Pudsey the Dog got 4 Yesses from the Britain's Got Talent judges? 

Do you think her trainer/ owner went home that evening and said:

"My dog's got no Nos"

Real

I am spending a lots of life second guessing life but it takes time.

I don't want to, but I live in systems that demand it. And I haven't managed to escape.
Yet.

I have to think 10 minutes into the future.

I am careful not to live in the past but I'm not allowed to live in the present. Which is usually okay by me because I don't really agree with living in the present. It hurts too many people. But that's another story.

When you are building and preparing, you're constantly sitting on a building site, you're constantly standing in rubble, in the rain.

You're constantly in danger of losing the bigger picture.

And even when you build your Trump towers, there's no million dollar windfall waiting for you.

Today, the most interesting thing I did was spent 45 minutes talking to a producer of an upcoming BBC programme.

Which was pleasant because she was dealing charmingly and energetically with the practical difficulties of living in the real world.

And that's where I live.

I don't protect myself from the outside world with marble and granite.

I don't retire to my inner circle, largely because they've long since abandoned me and my ideals.

I don't hide behind the infantry and I don't seek out a second row to protect me from reality.

I live on the front line. 

In a tin hat. 

And sometimes not even that.

I'm not saying anybody should care about that, and believe me I am used to the fact that they don't. They largely mock my choices.

But for whatever else they are. They are at least mine. 

But talking to somebody that I feel lives on the front line and that person being in the media .. that's irony.

Somebody dealing in facade turning out to have more reality than my own subject area should be improbable.

Because I'm a medic. Physician, if you know the difference. You probably don't.

Most of my peers have sold the real world for a supply of marble and granite and Le Creuset.

So I can't show you marble.I don't have any.

Any granite I have goes into the consultation. I don't have it on my living room floor.

And I won't even tell you where I buy my pots from.

I work hard to make my tiles interlock but they are the tiles of life, not of my cold new kitchen floor.

But there are voices...

There are voices out there that are real.

Voices like mine.

We just need to look beyond the obvious.

And don't be nervous. 

Because all that is waiting for you is reality.

It's only harsh when you're not used to it.

Two Things I Can No Longer Stomach and One Thing It Seems I Can

1. Anybody who wishes people "Happy..{insert day of the week here}.

It's not 1984. Grrrr

2. Agonising plinky musical introductions on promotional youtube videos. Grrrr

3. Steamed some asparagus today for the first time - didn't mind it. What's it to you, monkey-face? Grrrr

Nexting

Sometimes you will be happy with your day, your month, your year.

It will be delivering to your expectations. 

Lucky you.

But sometimes you won't.

And what you do in the next moment will define a great deal of who you are and how you are perceived by others.

So how do you react to that fundamental question?

Do you even know how you react?

Do you recognise your own mantras and your own self tortures?

Because if you don't, you haven't asked the question yet. And I'm getting you a little early.

I'm suggesting answers.

Except I'm not.

I am offering you mine. Take it. Leave it. It's your choice.

And it's only mine "at the moment", because when I'm bored with it, when response fatigue sets in, I will have to switch it out for something else.

So that all those moments when I don't deliver or reach my potential, when I have underperformed by my own judgement...

I ask myself that question.

What am I going to do now?

I don't suggest you borrow my answer because it's pejorative.

But I can be pejorative to myself without recommending it to you.

And it is pleasingly, mercifully brief. 

What on earth am I going to do now?

Better.

I'm going to do better.

Community Chance

I bumped into Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall a couple of days ago and filmed a little sequence with the Newcastle Can production crew. 

It's an ambitious project.  I've signed up for all Hugh's campaigns. I am now a model recycler, and I've managed to reduce my personal consumption of fresh ivory by 20% in the last 6 months alone.

This is an interesting project because it's a population change.

Even public health departments are spectularly ineffective at that. 

Setting it as a Challenge is a good way to go because success is not guaranteed.

Of course, ownership must be given to the people.

And the hope is they will take it up!

But look at the comments on this website for Hugh's recent visit:

http://www.chroniclelive.co.uk/news/health/what-happening-greys-monument-today-12486999

The comment-maker rightly points out the Newcastle already has quite a lot going on for the  already motivated. The question being how to reach the unmotivated.

But this is the telling line in his comment "They'll need to move quickly though to make some changes within a year".

Notice the way he says THEY and not WE. 

That is people sitting back waiting for a magic wand to be waved.

Doctors have failed at this over and over again.

Doctors TELL people to lose weight, but it's the creeping threat of death sidling and sliding into view in the wing mirror that makes change stick. When it's a little late.

The dietician hands out dodgy government advice, changing that advice with the wind. Still believing that leaflets change people.

A strange rival creature called the "nutritionist" busily promotes all sorts of bogus nonsense that gets flogged in Holland & Barrett.

Between us, we've all confused the nation. 

Low-fat diets? It defies all logic that anybody would think eating fat would be a bad idea for homo sapiens. 

Low-cholesterol foods? We make cholesterol. We don't buy it in.

Gastric bypass surgery? Ask any gut surgeon and he will tell you it's the best thing since sliced bread and refer you to his private clinic. He will surgically butcher your intestines and yes, you will lose weight.

And yet it is possible to reverse type II diabetes in 2 weeks without surgery. That research came from Newcastle.

It is possible to get people up and get people going.

But not by telling them.

It might be a little bit of push, but it's also a little bit of pull. Pulling people along, and people pulling together. Giving them a reason to bother.

Change is a vector. 

Targets are good but momentum is better. 

Life-shortening habits decay more and more when people are just busy surviving. 

Tricks and hacks are really what people need. It needs to be fun - with a little game theory thrown in for good measure.

And the irony with a population approach, is that you need to find the trigger for the individual. That's tough.

So you need people to help find each other's trigger. Push each others buttons.

Can an individual lose weight? Of course.

The one thing we've learned from TV diets is that any single diet at all works perfectly well. It is being followed by a camera crew that makes it successful. Another paradox. The day they disappear, of course, they are back to square one.

Last night there was a BBC programme following Frank Gardner - the disabled BBC journalist. He was birdwatching in Papua New Guinea. Sadly, the tribe they met had been visited in the past by American missionaries who brought them down from the hillsides to convert them to Christianity. By the time that the missionaries left, the tribe had culturally lost the skills to survive on the hillside, and now the children were suffering from malnutrition. The reason for Star Trek's Prime Directive, I suppose. 

It is oddly easy to cherry pick the most motivated without having any impact on a population.

Populations are not individuals. It's a counterintuitive thing.

There's a lot of counterintuition in healthcare. Tell somebody to stop smoking for example and most people get so anxious that they have to run off to their favourite purveyor of fine tobaccos and buy a pack of fags. 

Can a community do it? 

What do we even think community IS at the moment?

A community has to be built or rebuilt before it can be charged with a task.

But we have a growth of anxiety, shyness, depression, and people who can't function unless they are staring at a portable telephone.

How do we bring sustainable long-lasting change to a population?

Well, you can't follow everybody with a TV camera.

The project is to make a City healthier. Not an individual.

Of course, the great thing is that the end result - a TV programme - is exactly the sort of thing can reach into all those houses. The only problem then is that the audience we really need to get on board is actually watching ITV2.

The one thing we know for a racing certainty is the problem is getting worse, despite all the public health measures that have been thrown at it.

The one thing we know for sure, is that everything we have been doing so far is, at a population level, failing.

It's a question of strategy.

Take the glut of psychologists we are currently churning out...America did this in the 80s when everybody had a counsellor and a free course of Prozac.

Now we too have never had more psychologists...and, guess what,  we have never had more mental health problems.

It is an absence of strategy.

The psychologists cherry-pick easy cases.

I can tell you what happens to the people who really, really need help....... 

They get discharged from the caseload.  They become invisible. 

They don't darken the day of the cognitive behavioural therapist, because they prefer somebody a little bit more fragrant. A little bit more attractive. A bit easier.  

The angry man who is too angry for anger therapy? Case discharged. 

The shy man who is too shy to turn up for his session? Case dismissed.

The depressed patient who is not getting better? Discharged from CBT services.

The man who is crying  for help so loudly in A&E, that the staff nurse calls the police? Case removed.

But these people don't go nowhere.

Medicine is the art of communication; doctors its supposed experts. That means expert with everybody.  No cherry-picking.

If you're a psychologist or a dietician and your pony can only do one trick, you have a problem. 

So they dismiss those people from their caseload and that problem appears to disappear. Ta-daaa! 

These populations are full of people who think everybody's forgotten about them.

You don't change populations without at least trying to change the tough cases. Because that is when you must the right question. 

And the right question is... "How can I help?" 

You might start with "Why is what I'm doing not working?" But that is ego.

The question really is... "How. Will. I. Help?"

 

A good strategist has multiple options in play.

Different strokes for different folks. 

I'm an optimist. I know this is all possible. I spend most of my life disagreeing with doctors who suggest it's all a waste of time, who won't use their time to work out strategies with their patients, who prescribe drugs over personal change.

I look forward to watching the show on TV and punching  the air at the zenith

Unless I can find a fish to have a #fishfight with.

Presents of Mind

The great thing about kids, when it comes to presents, is that it's all about the present.

And so it bloody well should be.

All this... "It's the thought that counts nonsense"... That's an affectation. Boring nonsense.

That's the sort of stuff that begins when you start thinking of saving the paper for next year instead of ripping it open and causing a right bloody mess.

It's a present. So it's about the present. 

Witness as I fairly recently caused.. a kid unwrapping a Christmas present from yours truly.

The look of horror on her face when she ripped open the paper and saw that it was a book.

A book.

A bloody book.

How dare you!

Not a game. Not chocolates.

She held her look of utter horror undiminished, nowhere to recede.

"A fucking book,what you want to do with that?", she didn't say. 

"Bloody well, read it or something, dipshit? she didn't add. 

Are you mad?

Of course all this was portrayed by just one look of utter astonishment at the bloody-minded nerve of somebody giving her an actual book.

And she was absolutely correct.

I was totally on the same page, if you forgive.

How dare anybody give somebody a book ? 

Everybody knows that the only type of book acceptable as a gift is the Annual. That most seasonal of gifts that never in history has  lived up to expectations.  But entirely appropriate.

And not the Blue Peter annual either. Whose life is going to be improved by using Peter Purves, Yvette Fielding or John Leslie as role models. I'll give you Mark Curry because I liked him on Change That. 

But after that I draw the line.

The male members of my immediate family have a particularly chequered history in the giftgiving department.

Not a huge amount of thought. Not a huge amount of present.

My Dad, I'm pretty sure, never bought a present in his life.

I think he probably regifted a couple of things in his later years and sent his girlfriend to Primark with a fiver once or twice, to minimally acquit responsibility. But that would be about it. 

Santa was always Mum-shaped. 

And yet bizarrely he was very keen to receive a nice gift. And would feel totally free to comment if  he felt otherwise.

Funny isn't it?

So I gave her a book. I can still see that look of horror.

She handled it like a dirty dishcloth.

I can't remember which boring classic it was. I'd like to think Treasure Island but I have  feeling it was something like Gulliver's Travels. The point was not the text however. It was the thickness of the paper.

And as it fell to the side, it fell open.

Out fell gold coins from its secret compartment. 

Chocolate of course.

And just one  silver one. 

Milk chocolate of course. 

Just one though.

I'd eaten the rest.

Resolutions

I am completely on board with this "Dry January 1st" thing that is so popular nowadays.

I really do think they should make it a regular thing.

Because after 35 days of heavy drinking ever since, my eyes are going and I'm totally ready for another day off.

Praise It

We wash in it. 

We drink it.

We apply it as a poultice.

It is supposed to cure everything from multiple sclerosis to eczema.

We imagine that it lowers our sugar levels or stops us burning in the sun. 

We put it in yoghurt and then eat it. Or splash it all over.

We open retail units dedicated to it.

We inject it in tissues. 

Some  are thinking of using it as fuel.

And what has it ever done to us?

Simply asked for our obedience. Nothing more.

Is that too much to ask?

As for the rest of it, please stop this madness.

Save the Aloe Vera**

** Warning: possible carcinogen. May cause the shits

Clarification

It's not that I don't care.

It's just that when you care about everyone,  the distance between care and love fuses.

It melts.

And, as every schoolboy knows,  when something fuses.. it breaks.

My job and duty is to make sure that that thing. 

Is nothing else but me.

Straightening the Curves

There are days that you wake up and all the world has changed.

I just discovered a moment ago that there was a cartoon series of the "Dukes of Hazzard".
I'm pretty sure it wasn't shown in the UK otherwise or I would be totally on board.
That joyful (live action) series that ran for 128 episodes. Some of us endured when the series when Bo and Luke were replaced by Coy and Vance before their triumphant return after contractual negotiations concluded.
It was not lost on me a few years ago when I walked into a bar in Juneau Alaska - the Red Dog Saloon, since you ask -  and a pianoman was playing The  Good Old Boys...as I entered

I remember the day my Dad came in as I  was recording that very theme on my Currys C90 and made a noise after the pressing of Record and Play.
Still hurts....still hurts.

Sometimes I think I am still in that living room.

Edges of Society

Recent reports have identified the most dangerous members of society - the ruthlessly sociopathic relatives and friends of quiz show contestants.

If I have to hear one more time....

"me Dad'll kill me if I get this one wrong" 

"Nan would murder me if take the lower offer"

"Me wife would finish me slowly with rat poison for breakfast, lunch and tea if I gambled"

Maniacs.

It's hardly indicative of a example of a nurturing home environment.

Laws of Physics

There are 2 things that defy the laws of thermodynamics:

• wet shower curtains, and 
• suncream
  

You know that they are the temperature of their surroundings.

But the Gods don't.

MF

I share a birthday with Miguel Ferrer. 

I found that out today.

Only one of us is a son of Rosemary Clooney and cousin of George though.

I found that out today. (It's not me)

He was one of those hugely powerful actors.

You would never guess by looking at him. But when he looked at you. When he opened his mouth.

I remember watching Twin Peaks the first time round with him utterly dominating the screen.

It's a gift that he completed filming on the new series.

Such power.

The malevolence that he betrayed in the original towerhouse powerhouse movie Robocop made you just want to punch him in the face.

He was brilliant.

61.

The 1 Stands for 1ntensity

Quotable Me : Proverbs

A man with no eyes is infinitely more blind than a man with just one.

Toughie

I was just looking at the next thing on my job list....

Mend the Blind, it said.

Yes. I thought, yes. I will.

I'll take up the challenge. I am your man.

All my healing instincts fused into a singularity and at once I knew why I was here.

But it just turned out to be a bit of frayed cord sticking in the roller.

I've called the dogs off.

Please Help

Some of the richest actors in the world need your help.

Ewan McGregor and Daniel Craig need YOU to send a fiver every out of your family allowance or every benefit cheque to make sure the head of the World Wildlife fund has an Audi with a 2017 registration plate.

The chief of the RNLI is barely scraping by on only £151,000 of your donations. Please help him. 

The head of Marie Curie is getting by on only £160,000 of your donations. 

Please give more, now.

The boss of Save the Children makes ends meet on only £234,000 of your donations. Can't you pit a little more aside for her well being?

Please don't make any of these heroes serve Prosecco at their next ball when they deserve champagne.

Failed drug charity Turning Point pays only £210,000 to its boss. What sort of pleasure can he possibly have on that at today's prices?

Wake up. Yes you, on the sofa in your pyjamas watching Gogglebox. These people are worth their weight in gold. Help them. 

What do you have in your purse? Send it now. Text this number.

And don't waste your time contributing to your local community or just helping elderly neighbours. That sort of drop in the ocean is exactly the twisted sort of thinking that is never going to influence national statistics.

Adopt a dyslexic tramp instead and we'll get him to send you a postcard. 

If you can, please give more. 

Not your time. Fuck that. Your money.

Not in a tin. Fuck that. Direct debit.

Now. 

Do it now.

[Gold should be posted in a padded envelope]

Thank You.

Retox

People talk about detox just about now. 

But detox isn't herbal medication from Holland and Barrett.

It's presumably some sort of a body cleanse, but because that term is essentially meaningless people haven't worked out what it is they should be buying or buying into.

Think of your body as a system of plumbing. Except one with everything it already needs to self-clean.

Basic maintenance is required -looking after yourself on a day-to-day basis.

And occasionally a larger servicing is required - a holiday, say.

But this is a system that you cleanse not with additional toxins bought from a shop or from the pharmaceutical industry but from your own natural chemicals within.

Your own chemical factory produces the molecules to flush your own system. It's the greatest trick on earth. Everything it requires is already included.

Your mission then, should you choose to accept it, is to remind the systems that they are alive and wake them up.

In the words of Ken Dodd... If you don't use your chuckle muscle, it drops off.

In the words of the medic or a physio, muscles atrophy at around 3% per day.

If you don't laugh, your mouth forgets how to. The world is full of mouths that look as though they have smiled in years.

So if you don't find something to laugh at (and you yourself are a good place to start), the chemicals cannot be released.

And they are the really good ones.

And I am afraid that your method of servicing may need to be tweaked along the way.

You may have a lifelong love of train sets or a similar hobby that will never ever let you down.Great.

But it's just a television series that you love to relax to, then you are on a countdown to disappointment.

If it music - by which I mean somebody else's recorded music that you are listening to, then the difficult 3rd album might drive you to distraction. It may be that making the album gave them good chemicals. But you need to find your own album. 

You need to be your own mixtape.

You need to find a new tool to crank the same engine. 

A good engine keeper doesn't just look after his engine, he looks after his tools.

A carpenter does the same thing. So does a painter and decorator.

So should you.

If you avidly watch TV, you will probably pick TV as your tool again. But a spin-off from Game of Thrones won't give you the service that you need. And it certainly won't give you an upgrade.

Such living by proxy means there are corners of your chemical factory that will stay permanently closed and unavailable to you.

Watching your favourite stars being interviewed telling you what fun they had making that movie is insulting. Who cares? You don't know them. That's them looking after their chemical factory. Look after yours.

The fact that the movie is pretty crummy means they've enjoyed themselves at your expense. They're laughing. Believe me.

We don't just cleanse from within. You can't tickle yourself.

You will need new stimuli that by definition will be external.

Travel maybe, people certainly, and just some wider exposure to the world. The remaining nice bits preferably.

Mix that up with a bit of listening to and noticing your body, some rest, some exercise, something green on your plate, love if you're lucky and friends if you have one or two that care enough to check up on you when the chips are down.

The simple things..

Get to it.