Universally Challenged

Does anyone else think that the team captain in University Challenge should be allowed to substitute one of the members of his team?

Just a thought..

Forgiving, not forgetting and the greatest trick of all

What is forgiveness?
I have no reason to to be thinking about this just now but what really is it?
Wikipedia tells us that is is the process of concluding resentment, the granting of a free pardon and giving up all claim or debt on account of the offence.

So who can really do that?
Unless you're gifted with the blessing of Alzheimer's disease, in which case forgetting and forgiving would be a highly recommended approach, can you actually just forgive?
On its own?
Just like that?
Draw a line under something and relinquish all resentment?
Is that even possible?
Maybe you need to be religious, but if it takes believing in supernatural overlords and all their false prophecies to allow you to forgive, then I fear for forgiveness.
Isn't it in fact the ultimate joke that one of the commandments (and I think it's one that polls rather highly with those in the know) is not to worship false idols?
False idols!!!!
Isn't that the greatest trick god ever played?
Isn't that the greatest paradox, there is?

But forgiveness is certainly a necessary quality in these times.... as Paul McCartney would say.... "in which we live in".
Ah yes, I think I remember why I'm talking about it now. I had half an eye on a television programme last night. The man had been unfaithful to his wife, they were 'giving it another go' and at one point in the episode he said, "you have to forgive me at some point".
And I thought to myself, "No, she doesn't".

And then I realised it wasn't an instruction, it was actually really only half the sentence.
He was tacitly going on to say "you have to forgive me at some point, otherwise we don't make it, that's the end of us, I'm off". You couldn't say that of course because, to say the full sentence is to give an ultimatum. Ultimata end in fights.
Silent threats are the only way to go. (As long as you're not talking to somebody too thick or too forgiving to recognise them).

So, in fact, he was giving friendly advice. That advice being, 'on balance I (currently) want to be here' and 'on balance, I (currently) want to be with you in at least the medium-term, but if you're not going to forgive me, ever, then let's cut our losses'.

It has quite a subtext, this concept of forgiveness.
And it is wrapped in the deepest of emotions.
In terms of married life and television dramas, the dramatic event is frequently infidelity. So let's define that as well. You can have sex with 200 people before you get married but the second the ring goes on the finger, 201 is a no-no.
When you think about it, it's quite an abstract concept.

But as long as you successfully choose somebody who shares early 21st-century human sensibilities and isn't a bit of a psychopath, then hopefully this sacrifice is at least favourably mutual.
Many build that so-called security out of this mutual sacrifice, possibly even without making absolutely sure it is mutually understood. Possibly more in hope than expectation.
After all, it's the only code of practice that we can easily subscribe to that delivers this type of mutual control.

And yet, I have heard of the concept of open marriages. Indeed I once spent 5 or 6 hours on a trans-American flight talking to an international porn star who was very happily married. As a result I have yet to be convinced that the traditional approach is any more successful a recipe than a more modern one.

For me though, I am a traditional guy.
I surely don't need to prove it, but I play my internet torrent video downloads on an old 12" black and white TV and my up-tempo songs from the hit parade on what can only be described as a basic second-generation iPod.

Surely, it doesn't get much more traditional than that.

The Art

The thing about helping people is that you are a proxy for change. A prostitute for change, I suppose. They must be derived from the same root.
Like Derren Brown. He does a card trick and it is a miracle, but when he gives you the cards and gets you to do the same effect and stands back, well then miracle is too small a word.

If you are a doctor and you give the patient the tools to get better, not just pretend that you are the answer (or you are the tool!) then you're doing the best possible thing.
The subject sequences their own success. There are negotiating their own way.
They're getting better and the only person they have to really credit is themselves.
Is there any better success than that?
A success unencumbered by gratitude or, in the UK at least, cost.

And of course you as the instigator can sit there perfectly.
Perfectly ungratified.
Perfectly poor. Well, not really poor but compared to the level of achievement...

And because of the nature of the work you maybe frequently abused, insulted, invited for a fight, oh... and occasionally killed, if not you then a colleague, well… maybe this is warfare, after all.

Maybe this is what Sun Tzu was on about.
Maybe those of us cowards who've chosen a sedentary role and even shied at its claims that it is vocational.

Maybe.

Maybe some of us are soldiers after all.

The Twenty-Ninth

I'm going to take a few standing jumps this year. (Why is that not an Olympic sport? It could be hilarious. There's precious little comedy at the Olympics. We need more theatre sports).
I'm going to make a hop and skip in a new direction, maybe two.

Some things I feel as though I've been taking a tentative run up to for a while now.
But in one or two, my step has faltered, I've stumbled and I've fallen down a bit.

Anyway, 2012 feels like the right time to do just about everything.

Why don't you join me?
Because this is the year the world didn't really end, but changed like never before.

The is the year of opportunity, the chance to take off and the possibility of jubilee.

This is the year you were there.

This... is your leap year.

Bigger on the Inside

I saw a man with belly pains today.
It's an enlarged liver, he told me, clutching below his rib cage on the left-hand side.
I was a bit confused.
"But your liver is on the right-hand side" I said.

Exactly, he replied.

The Confessional

I see Gok Wan is telling people who have an eating disorder to come clean and own up today.
How many times can one man out himself?
Presumably this request is to make him feel better about his own eating disorders.

Well, in the modern spirit of the age, here I go... ahem..

Last night I had a piece of chocolate cake after 9pm.
There I said it.

Actually, it's a bit of a weight off....

Sleeping Draft

I have written a little visual induction for a little bit of auto-hypnosis.

Hypnosis, of course, means sleep which is what I want you to do so why not try this tonight to get you off to sleep.

• Get yourself comfortable in a position where you can doze off and close your eyes.
• In the extremes of your peripheral vision of your closed right eye, you notice a white dove.
• The dove is taking off and at the same time you notice a mirror image on the left-hand side of another dove taking off.
• The two doves are in the extremes of your vision but they rise up like the final third of a circle as you look straight down the middle.
• Take a deep breath as you look up as far as possible while they arch gracefully and then swoop down.
• You are staring straight ahead.
• Relax as they get closer enjoying their steady flight in the grey sky.
• You see them in the distance almost at midline and they turn toward you, tiny little specks that are going to come down gently towards you.
• They won't get much bigger than specks but they will land on your nose.
• When they do you will be asleep.
• Focus on them.
• Concentrate on their gentle progress.
• Allow your focus to drift. Gaze at them but start looking through them.
• At them then through them.
• Notice their slow steady progress further down deeper
• Getting closer but never growing much in size.
• Allow your eyes to lose focus.
• Realise that by the time they're close enough to reach you will be asleep.
• Repeat, slower.

Inside Out

I wonder if there is a danger of bringing the sort of questions you might use at work home with you.
I reckon a lot of managers will be trained to use such an approach, without any consideration of the line I'm about to take.
I reckon a lot of people would highly recommend the practice of inspected reflection (ask any GP appraisee) but is it really fair? Or reasonable?

Imagine such an approach by a gruff manager. You may be naive enough to think your response isn't going to be used against you.

Imagine being asked by somebody who isn't very good at their job.
Imagine, as they badly perform and mimic your answer later in a less favourable, more critical tone, prefixed by the words "and you know what she said next? or "and you know what he said then?".

So this is the key question... "How do you feel about that?"
I think reflexively you'd want to reply.
But should you?

Doesn't your internal state belong absolutely to you and you alone?
Yes, you might choose to share feelings with people with whom you've built up a relationship, but be very careful who you do that with.
We've surrendered too much privacy already.

Are you obliged to give it up simply in response to a direct question?
Isn't it an incredible arrogance to ask?
Isn't it an incredibly rude approach?
Think about it.
And could you honestly find a polite way to decline this interrogation that someone wouldn't find offensive?
Largely because they were dumb enough to think they'd been perfectly reasonable in asking?

Is it reasonable to hold a conversation like a psychiatrist, or talk to a friend like a busy GP?
Or do we actually have to be very careful about that sort of thing?
How do you feel about that?
Eh?
How do you feel?
Tell me.
Tell me now.

So that is the request paraphrased - "Tell me your internal private feelings and do it now".
The problem with direct questions is they appear to give direct answers.
But they don't.
They can just as easily generate untruth as truth.
It's a short hop from there to the sort of checklist mentality that discredited NHS management, and Health and Safety amongst other inglorious institutions.

So where does ownership of yourself begin?
I reckon it begins at the nipples, chest high, skin level.
Anything proximal to that point I own and you have no right.
If I choose to donate an organ, I'll let you know.
It used to be that in polite company, one didn't discuss religion or politics. While most people with half a brain now wear their atheism as a badge of honour, I still wouldn't expect to be asked about my political persuasion, assuming I had any. It's just the last flicker of a memory called politeness.

So anything from my skin inwards is mine.
Are we agreed?

Everything beyond that we can share.

You can borrow my cardigan, if you like.

Bleedin' Marvellous

A brilliant victory for old timer Steve Davis yesterday and fantastic win for Stephen Hendry today against the current young upstart Snooker Masters champion today.

I see sport's eternally compelling underdog stories as having a lot in common with the pain of third degree piles.

They both make the human spirit sore.

Snakes and Ladders

Of course, sometimes it's trickier than that.
Sometimes life is just a plod. Sometimes it's wading through treacle.
How do you cope with that?..

Well.... you plod.

It doesn't matter how quickly or slowly, you just do what you can. Plod to the beat of a funereal march if you want but plod on anyway.
And do it because well, because that's your job today. That's your privilege and your duty.

Life's a game of roulette.
And as every medical student who goes to the local casino occasionally on a Friday night, even if it is largely because they used to give you a free egg mayonnaise sandwich, realises, there is one simple truth.
You can be wiped out.

All you need is eight reds in a row and a positive feeling of inevitability towards black.
And the run of bad luck can continue.
It can even go on dialling up red forever. Every spin until the end of time itself could come up red.
Nothing in the laws of nature prevent that.
And there isn't a soul in the universe that wouldn't crumble at it.

But ...of course we have other options, because we don't have to play that game today.
We don't have to play it tomorrow either.
That's why god invented Blackjack.

We can leverage other inspirations - anything from a novel, a photo, an old school exercise book, a word, a play, a joke, a wink.
The trigger might come from buying a pint of milk at the shops or a bun at the bakery.
Or from an advert. A recipe. Youtube.
Interaction of any and every kind.

We don't have to play the same game over and over again.
Your new direction might come from a quote.
Your chink of light from an anecdote or a memory. Perhaps one that reminds you it is an idiot who does the same thing over and over again and expects different results.

Remind yourself and the spell is starting to bend.
Remind yourself again and look, it's breaking.

You can change the game.
You can always return later, rewrite the rules and kick its arse.

You've left old routines behind before.
Games that you loved that lie in the bin, on eBay, under the bed. You didn't even deliberately retire them. It just happened. You just moved on.
Time moved on.
Life moved on.
You could do it then couldn't you? Without even thinking.
You didn't really believe the deskilling myth did you? That's just a lie invented so blue sky thinkers can sell training videos.

There are some days when the sun will shine, the work gets done as though effortless and you could top it all off with running a steeplechase naked over a field of five bar gates and not spill your Pimm's.
And there are some days when you just have to plod.
Ploddy ploddy plod.
And you have other decisions – plod alone or drag someone into the mud with you.
These are decisions only you can make.

So mix up your unique recipe because there are really no metaphors here. Throw in as many little links of inspiration as you can to join the loose ends. Keep plodding and point your nose towards the spring.

In these times, you need to be your own physician.
Just make sure the doctor is in.
Because the monsters are coming anyway.