Scattered showers

To stave off its execution, I thought I might pimp my tired showerproof raincoat with some velcro cuffs in a tribute to both its long service and well, .... mainly its long service.

But how to source a nice pair, you ask?

Turns out you are best off looking in the ebay fetish section.

I am hoping that what I have found is some of the most user-friendly sadomasochistinc bondage equipment I have ever used to take the edge off lightly disagreeable weather.

Epitaph to the Multitasking Myth

For some years, many of us have known that the one certain way for someone in the medical profession to take their life in their own hands is to ask a nurse to do two things at the same time.

This has now been acknowledged by several hospital trusts which have insisted that nurses now wear tabards asking people not to interrupt them with additional requests.

Some years ago the role of the nurse was rebranded from a vocation for angels to a profession.
But there isn't a profession on earth that would be lowered to this.
Where is the fight?

It is an insult to the quiet, calm short-skirted nurse (don't get me on scrubs) who actually can cope well, make a difference and used those nice slow thermometers that you could dip in your cup of tea.
I don't mean the nurse that bitches at the nursing station, who can't make a bed (never mind that cup of tea), but the one who came into it for the right reasons (money, the generous sick leave and the right to have a go at doctors) and tries not to hate the patients for being ill.

I would employ nurses preferentially who don't have a degree.
Give me a nurse that wants to be a good nurse.
Give me a doctor that wants to be a better doctor.
Leave the administrators at home and I'll show you gently how we do great care together.

Honestly, what would Florence say?

Revolution - not!

Go to Edinburgh
If you hit it hard, you can see 1% of the shows in 3 weeks in August.
So in 30 weeks, you might see 10%.
If it lasted all year, you might see let's say, well with holidays let's say 15%.
Fifteen!
Percent!
And what if you had to go to work?
10% max?
I could live like this.

Someday the world will be this way.

This isn't entertainment.

It's evolution.

Butterflies of Steel

There is a cancer of passion.
Maybe that's why it's such a valuable commodity - the fact that it's so vulnerable to erosion, to downsizing, to dilution. To decay.

But it is also susceptible to covert attack.
Because some people are scared of passion, at least passion in others.
They're frightened of enthusiasm. Perhaps because it represents change.

Positive change is too close to upsetting the applecart.
But it's their applecart, not mine.
And guess what? There is no applecart anyway.

Change is something to be feared.
Change is something to be shied from.
Change, after all, is change.
How perfectly horrid!

Yet it is also a quality people claim to admire.
It's confusing.
It's the secret ingredient of everybody from the entrepreneur to the reality television contestant.
I am never sure about those people we love to hate.
Do we love them or do we hate them? Or do we just want to be them?

The backlash from the semi-articulate is the darkest danger of all.
If you play the game of your life on a rigid field with four sharply whitened corners and you try to push the boundaries, you expect resistance.
But resistance can be dispatched.
There are a number of ways of doing this - soft, hard, playful, brutal - but it can be dealt with.
And guess what? There are no sharply whitened corners.

Resistance from a insidious mix of secret resentment tempered with confusing claims of admiration is another beast entirely. Particularly when it comes from pseudo-intelligent pomposity or an overblown organisation that has lost its way.

You might refer to this beast as Super-resistance.
Super-resistance requires super-resilience and enthusiasm isn't enough without it.

Passion isn't a butterfly that gets caught in a gust.
It's a driving force of dirt, guts, exsanguination and self-doubting tears with the hope but no promise of either praise or glory.
It is a sleepless momentum that propels a sense of duty, of what's right and what's not.

People grudgingly claim to admire it because they lack it.
Tilt your hat against this enemy.
It isn't passion until it is ready to take on the weather of the day.
So tool up, toughen up, and carry your windproof brolly.
The wind of change is coming from all directions.

Let everyone else be as afraid of it as they wish. (But help them if they don't).
Let them live with all the palpitations their hearts' desire. But don't let them infect you with their closedness. If anyone is going to infect, you are the vector.

Hard polish your passion and deflect their dents gently with your buffed wings of steel. If that doesn't work, run them over like Mr Bean behind the wheel of an F1 car.
Invite them along for the ride if you want.
Forget to tell them to buckle up, if it pleases you.

But whatever you do, if you have the belief that it's right, or good, or both, then do it anyway.

Because when that is the case, this is no longer about you.
You are channeling the universe.

Subtext and flying blackboard rubbers

Remember when songs had a message?

Sorry being the hardest word.
Bridges over troubled water.
Giving peace a chance?

It seems like powerful messages died when Rihanna eventually stopped reminding us that carrying an umbrella was quite a neat idea.

Nowadays it seems all that songs are trying regularly to motivate us to do is one thing: put your hands up!
Why, I am not clear. It's no substitute for an umbrella.

I don't think that that action alone will enhance civilisation.
I don't think it will prolong life.
Unless you find yourself at the OK corral.

Or unless they are talking about volunteering.
Or school discipline.

In which case, I'm all over it.

Moving Stationery

I am throwing away a small old stapler today.
Big wow.

Only, I have had this stapler as long as I have had anything.
I used it at school and it takes pleasingly small staples.
It started to decay a few years ago. A bit broke off and the stapling became less reliable. But I stuck with it. I always enjoyed its brief repertoire whenever it worked.
And it wasn't easy to replace. Every ministapler uses different slightly less 'mini' sizes nowadays.

Then 6 months ago I resolved one final time to really find an identical replacement.
I had to research staple sizes - they are incredibly confusing in case you want to visit Wikipedia on the subject. I bought 2 wrong replacements.
Perfectly satisfactory.
But I knew they were wrong.

Eventually I tracked down the updated model of the same make and waited 6 months while Amazon said it wasn't available.
I cancelled it eventually and found a new supplier.
It arrived today.
I peeled off the mini-printer name tape from the old one labelled in my school days (when I labelled everything). It had survived impressively well. And beneath was my childhood handwritten capitular scrawl written long, long before I changed my J.And possibly predating my school handwriting prize. Though I rarely dine out on that anymore.

I have had the same box of 2000 ministaples from WHSmith costing 20p for as long as I can remember.
I have 17 of these copper staples left.
They have gone in the new stapler.
And it works fine. Of course.
I think in time we too will form firm bonds together. (I don't have a dog).

The box is in the bin.
Now the stapler has had its obituary and it feels apt.
It's in the bin too.
So, don't mess with me. I'm ruthless!


Time.
It rather passes, doesn't it?

Well hi there

Spam email is a curse but they can be clever folks.
They make it sound so personal that it looks as though it could be written only for you.
There's been a lot in the news recently about elderly folk tricked by snail mail scammers into firmly believing they are big prize winners.
But email can be just as compelling.

It feels so personal.
It seems to be addressed directly to you by someone with personal knowledge of you.
I got one today.
It created the illusion of being tailor made for me yet undoubtedly was a message they thought might somehow have a wider appeal.
I later realised it was from someone with far more numbers in their email address than letters (not the sort of calibre of person I usually mix with).
It hit home so hard, I can remember the whole message.
Hello sexy, it said.

**it.

Passion.
Not the overly seeded fruit.
Grit.
Not the stuff you find at the bottom of a parrot's cage.
Rather the stuff you put under your shoes in winter.
Heart and solidarity.
Soul, sweat, meaning.

England against the mogul and the insiduous corruption that an Australian brought back to our shores.
I think this may be the greatest week for British politicians since the second world war.
And long overdue.

Imagine this in Spain.
You can't.

Here's a joke for you. Integrity in Italy?

Or France? Politically chic? Don't make me laugh. You have to be a rich rapist to apply. And the public will still support you. You great lad.

But this is what it is to be British.
This is why it's different.
It can't be a sin to re-identify with this difference.
God knows we need a reminder from time to time.
(Even an atheist can capitalise god when he is at the beginning of a sentence).

We're not quite all the same.
We are not some entry level, lowest common denominator human.

At times, we can be better.

Once in a while..

... something makes you tingle..

A Quantum of Fluff

If you ever think you don't understand about life.

If you're wondering if what you have is enough

If you ever think rats wouldn't not tolerate this race

Remember the commitment that's made to guff

If you find yourself wading into more trouble than strife

If your getting too full of the serious stuff

Add some reason to what passes for rhyme

And commit yourself to a quantum of fluff.

We're not supposed to know life in the detail you need.

So it's OK to add some vigour to grace.

The numbers may never appear to add up.

Remember.

They made TEN series of Hale & Pace.