Just pleasantly floundering around.....

Attachment - relationships

2012-01-20T10:09:00.007Z

I was lucky enough this week to have some training delivered by a psychologist (run more like a group therapy session!) on attachment this week. I have had previous training sessions on attachment but they were either overly detailed, too much about research and/or delivered knowledge that could not really be practically applied to the children I work with.

In a nutshell - (like I like it!)

The trainer started with the premise that every child is born with hard-wiring for survival. Obviously this makes a lot of sense in evolutionary terms. Therefore, whatever circumstance, family set-up, family behaviours etc a child is born into, they will adapt (and subsequently develop the hard-wiring) that will optimise their chances of survival. Getting a parent's attention is a crucial part of this survival so disorders to do with poor attachment are due to a child receiving, little, inconsistent and/or frightening attention from their parent/s. Strategies for getting these parents' attention will therefore be 'warped' and will result in extreme, unusual and difficult behaviours. For these children, their patterns often mean they get negative attention - but this is still better for them, of course, than no attention at all.

The psychologist then went on to list the four ways different attachments manifest in behaviour.

Secure (the 'healthy one'). When the parent of a young child with secure attachment leaves the room, the child exhibits some concern and then is pleased when the parent returns. I don't teach securely attached children!
Avoidant - this happens when parents have not responded to their child when s/he is distressed and in need of attention. This child will not notice when the parent leaves the room, would give any stranger in the room the same attention as his or her parent and not really respond significantly when the parent returned. The way a child like this would behave in my classroom is to mostly appear not to care above anything and then, suddenly explode. I get a lot of these!
Ambivalent - caused by a parent mostly not responding - but occasionally responding appropriately - to the child's distress. This child will be stressed when the parent leaves the room but also give the parent a hard time when he or she returns - 'how could you leave me?' A child like this tries numerous strategies to get attention (to try and hit on the one that gets the right response) and therefore this child's behaviour is all over the place - s/he might try banging the table for attention, might rip up work, might try verbal abuse etc
Disorganised - caused by abuse/bullying/fear/emotional chaos from parent, and therefore the behaviour of the child is really inconsistent, confused and all over the place). The behaviour from these children I would describe as full of fear and 'easily spooked!'

The difference between this session and others I have had is that this chap related attachment to everyone in the room. He asked us all to think about what we do to draw people in and form relationships and what we do to push people away. Just that simple question provoked a lot of discussion! The general consensus for pushing away was that we ignored the person. How British! But the ways people drew people in were quite varied including
- humour
- intense interest in the other
- show off (cleverness, capabilities etc)I think this might be counter-productive!)
- be nurturing and compliant
- be humble and compliant
- and some people clearly struggled with how they drew people in.

These lists highlighted our own hard-wiring from our own early childhood - as our attachment history effects how we behave in all relationships. It also highlighted that extremes in behaviour can cause some people to react badly (marmite people), whereas mediocrity makes a person more palatable to everyone.

Another part of the training seemed to be about highlighting the fact that what seemed completely normal to us (because it was embedded in our childhood) might seem extreme to another. I guess this was the therapeutic element - as it started to de-construct what you had held on to, maintained and even guarded as 'normal' so you might become more self aware and understand your own perspective might have been a tad warped and demonstrated how the resultant behaviours have affected your relationships.

Just more fodder for the dossier 'we are all, buttons and patterns!'

Debates

2012-01-06T08:39:00.007Z

Last night I stumbled across one of those 'debates' that erupt on Facebook every now and then. You know the ones - where one person posts their view and before you know it there are seventy or so post on the thread. You get the:

•the rationalist
•the idealist
•the militant conspiracy theorist
•the aggressor
•the misses-the-point-the-other-person-made-er
•the flippant
•the questioner
•the jump to someone's defence-er
•the academic with evidence
•etc

all putting their throbbing pennyworth in the pot. What fascinates me is how those 'debates' go. This particular one I would surmise had little impact in terms of idea development or opening up others' mind to accepting another viewpoints. In fact, because there was some aggression and personal comments I would go so far as to say it probably shut down a few minds.

This debate in part reflected the way we tend to approach conflict of ideas generally - in law, in education and in meetings: we are adversarial/oppositional. This links to my friend's Philosophy MA thesis - where she explored different ways of communicating to enhance idea development. She wrote her thesis on the back of feeling unable to contribute effectively to academic discussions (despite being extremely intelligent) because they were based on a person putting an idea forward and then everyone ripping it to pieces. (Thinkers - who receive the logic of a debate loudest can cope with this - feelers like my friend - cannot). This also links of course to Edwards De Bono's six thinking hats. Bono observed that in a meeting of egos people compete by shooting down other people's contributions to feel superior. So he suggested you align egos and make them compete not against each other; that you make the competition a race in the same direction so outdoing another builds upon ideas rather than knocking them down.

I guess there are rarely debates that actually ask, 'well what is it we are trying to achieve here?' because what is a debate ever trying to achieve?
•Consensus? No that cannot be right - we will always have different viewpoints.
•An agreed way forward? Yes that sounds better.
•Deepening individuals' understanding of the topic in hand. Yes - I'll go with that.
•develop ideas - yes!

I think effective debating might need an overhaul.

So after pondering all this, I finally went to bed and gave my chap a synopsis of what I had found and thought and he said, 'perhaps that will be the one thing Facebook teaches us!' An optimistic piss-take. He's funny!

Yes - they are good

2011-12-31T13:37:00.000Z

Crippled by Choice

2011-10-28T10:55:00.010+01:00

A very brief experience yesterday reminded me of a concept I read ages ago. The experience went like this:

I was in a cafe looking at a new product (new to me anyway). It was unusual 'Hedgerow' cordials offered in about eight different flavours. I was tempted to buy a bottle but my indecision over which flavour would give me the most enjoyment meant I didn't buy anything. I was literally crippled into doing nothing by choice. Now that is ridiculous! However, there is researched theory that shows this is quite typical behaviour and retailers 'in the know' play this to their advantage.

O.K. If you went into a restaurant and had to decide which of the following flavoured ice cream you were going to choose - which would you choose?

Now imagine the same restaurant offered you this choice, which would you choose?Was choosing from eighteen or three different flavours easier?

We tend to live under the impression that the more choice we have the happier we will be. There is no denying that absolutely no choice creates a miserable existence and we do need to have some control over our lives and be able to manoeuvre in it to feel happy but too much choice can overload us - especially if we are a maximiser.

The reality is, the more choice we are given, the more effort we have to invest in making a decision and the more chance we have of making a perceived 'mistake'. Greater choice, raises our expectations of the outcome and makes us more prone to disappointment and it makes us more likely to 'kick' ourselves' for not making a better choice. And strangely, how we feel about the decision seems to overshadow the actual experience the choice gave us! In other words, we can be more upset about what we missed out on than what we actually got.

So greater choice means we have more potential experiences to let go of and get over having turned down!

I think I will just go back to that cafe and grab the first bottle I look at. It's sure to create enough of a pleasant experience and it is just cordial after all!

Five Food Qs

2011-10-18T21:21:00.005+01:00

Ok here are some questions about food. I'd love to hear any passer-bys' answers.....

1) Would you rather go 24 hours without food or sleep?

2) If you had to choose three of the following foods as weapons in a food fight, which would you choose:

•A jug of gravy
•A can of squirting cream
•10 cheese squares
•A bottle of cola
•Twenty soggy tea bags
•A giant sausage
•A bottle of ketchup
•A bucket of grapes
•A bunch of bananas
•A box of eggs
•A bag of brussel sprouts
•A packet of crackers
•A bag of flour
•Some stinky blue cheese
•Some bacon
•Tomato soup
•Custard
•Six Yorkshire puddings
•A bag of frozen peas
•Chocolate sauce
•Pickled onions
•A large pumpkin
•A bag of jam doughnuts
•A packet of butter
•A pot of cottage cheese

3) If you had to eat one of the following foods all day (and it was the only food you were allowed) which would you choose?

•mashed potato
•banana
•porridge
•spaghetti
•chocolate
•cottage cheese
•buttered toast
•pears
•white fish

4) If you could design a your perfect food,

a) what would it have the texture of?
b) what would it have the taste of?
c) what would it have the smell of?
d) what temperature would it be served at?
e) how would it be eaten (spoon, fork, cut by a knife, served as finger food, eaten from your hand, drunk through a straw, pulled through your teeth, squirted into your mouth etc)
f) What colour would it be?

5) List as many foods that you do not like that come to mind easily.

Sinking medieval churches

2011-08-22T10:30:00.008+01:00

I am reading Bill Brysons's book about the history of everyday living. It's packed with interesting snippets. He's basically done lots of research and pulled out all the interesting bits for the reader. My kind of book. It's turned me into a walking verbal fact box much to the delight of chap. I pop up regularly with an urgent need to tell him something new I have learned. Of course I'll expect him to read the book afterwards too.

The part I have enjoyed most so far, however, I found on the first few pages. Bill B lives down the road from here in a Victorian rectory. One of our many 'where shall we go for a walk - let's look on the ordnance survey' walks in the Norfolk countryside runs between his house and the church he mentions in the book. And here is what he records from a conversation with a historian while wandering around that church (paraphrased):

Have you ever wondered why Norfolk's medieval churches (all ten million of them) always look like they are sinking into the ground? Careful: it is a trick question. Of course I have always just thought, 'well a stone church is quite heavy, medieval foundations were probably not overly sound and they've had centuries for gravity to shift them about a bit'. But no, the revelation is that it's not the church sinking, it's that the graveyard has risen. The hundred or so gravestones that are typically found in such a graveyard belie the volume of dead matter buried there. The book goes on to explain that with a parish of around 250 people (4 generations per century plus numerous baby/childhood deaths) you would be looking at around 20 000 burials. I could raise a two foot platform the area of a graveyard with that many skeletons. I wouldn't want to of course.

Now that is interesting and it has definitely changed the way I look at all those sinking churches. But I also would like to learn about grave diggers. How did they go about their business with all those bones everywhere? Making a 'new' grave must have been an exercise in clearing out lots of old bones. If so where did they put them? I'm sure the bereaved were not subjected to a little pile of bones at the graveside to be replaced once their loved one had been tucked away? And, presumably some graves were more shallow than others or is all this dead matter always more than six feet down? As ever, more questions than answers. Another book please Bill.

The British Riots by Carl Jung - I think.

2011-08-21T12:20:00.013+01:00

I find myself still reading about the varied responses to the riots. There certainly appears to be considerable polarisation. There are still those holding firm to the idea that anyone that took part in the riots has lost his or her right to be considered fully human and be treated fairly and punishments are the only answer Some of the comments are astounding and you really would think you were listening to Nazis talk about the Jews). And there are the others of us looking a bit deeper for answers. The best article I have read on the issue of harsh sentencing is this one:

Are the harsh sentences justified?

We were never all going to agree on this emotive issue (or any other come to that) were we? Consensus is a very slow thing and usually shown in subtle shifts in attitudes and ways of doing things - unless we are under a dictator of course!

I am now going to steal a bit of Carl Jung just to reiterate how the angle we approach things from affects our ultimate view.

We all have a dominant function - one of the following four:

Sensors see what is in front of them, they live in the now, they like to keep things real and practical and down-to-earth. They tend to like traditions.
Feelers make evaluative judgements and tune into the people element of a situation.
Thinkers interpret events and apply logic so it makes sense to them and
Intuitives extrapolate from the immediate, look to the future, see patterns and links and put everything into a big picture context.

OK so how did people with different dominant functions see the riots?
The Sensors will be able to give a very clear account of what actually happened. They will have observed all the details and will be quite pedantic if you were to suggest the riots started in the wrong place, for example. Sensors are reactionary. They don't like new or abstract ideas. They will be most likely to say, 'there was a crime, we always punish people that commit crimes'. Job done.

The feelers will have been appalled by the impact of these riots on individuals and be very angry at how some individuals behaved towards others. That will be their main focus. They won't have a definite idea about what is the right way to deal with what happened (they could be persuaded by anyone making a loud point) but they will want harmony restored and people protected.

The thinkers will read the logic of the situation and might fall on the side of 'punish them all', or might look for a little deeper logic. Whatever they do do they are likely to be firm about their beliefs. They are definitely right of course.

The intuitives cannot see the situation just as a string of events that just happened. They need to find reasons for the riots. They need to put what happened into big picture context and see so much more than just individuals committing a crime. They easily see reasons that might be too complex and seem too tenuous to others.

Of course this is a very simplified idea - other things do impact on how we see things (including our secondary, tertiary functions etc). Nobody likes to be predictable of course but these four responses describe what I have seen in a variety of places!

My ramblings on the riots

2011-08-17T11:41:00.008+01:00

There have been so many brilliant articles, blog posts and clever comments about the riots last week that humble little I could barely muster up anything astoundingly different. So, I will keep it as 'just what I feel the need to say'.

My first observation was the predictability of the approach a certain mass of people disappointingly took - including, sadly, the UK's prime minister. Something along the lines of -

'These people need punishment, lots of it and the more vindictive, the better. If they starve because we have taken away their benefits, then they only have themselves to blame. Let's feed our own dark sides heartily on these people. Let's take the phony oh-so-much-higher moral high ground so the lash of our whip falls that bit harder and revel in our justified (by the tabloid media mostly) cruelty - legitimised non-empathic nastiness aimed at the poor people that have metaphorically very quiet voices. Let's ignore any possible underlying cause and keep it simple.'

It was bound to happen. I do wish people would keep ugly subconsciousness to themselves - especially influential powerful people. I feel they have an especial duty to keep it inside.

Another observation was the provision of a perfect example of politicians keeping the mass media sweet. David Cameron appeared to have made his public speech about the riots by putting Daily Mail headlines together. Keep 'middle England' happy and we will be voted in again. Blech!

My third observation was the impact of the riots upon me personally. Not direct impact of course. I haven't so much as thrown a dustbin lid (although I once suggested it on Facebook - that might eventually get me five years inside). No, I was surprised how much strong emotion these riots have whipped up. Looking for the more complex underlying reasons for such social disharmony and reacting to the way this situation was dealt with, brought out my strongest values in full force: those of a need for greater equality and fairness in society and the prevention of abuse of power, compassion for fellow humankind - even if - no especially if - they have lost their way (David Cameron aside), the fact people with lots of power so readily and powerfully make stupid knee-jerk decisions that impact forcefully on individuals' lives and how this is simply wrong, how so many prejudiced assumptions were made and should not have been made and that things become so punitive and when they should attempt to be restorative.

And what would be restorative? I can only guess as I do appreciate this is hugely complex. How about exploring what might truly make a society cohesive:
* equality and fairness,
* a voice when it comes to issues that impact directly on you,
* shared goals and visions at a local level,
* feeling affiliated to those around you - connection not prejudice and fear
* having a clear role and opportunities that mean you can contribute and your contribution is valued
* reciprocation - give and take - mutual dependence
* the absence of such a strong materialistic hierarchy ('LOOK they have much more than us')
* the ability to meet all your basic needs and have what is considered the 'norm' for the society you live in so you do not feel socially excluded.
* and referring to my last posts - early intervention - children brought up in a stress free and supportive environment.

I can't see someone being locked up for four years for making a Facebook event as solving anything in the slightest. What a weird world we live in.

Inspired by all those swirly artists

2011-08-12T11:54:00.003+01:00

Two basic societal set ups.

2011-07-31T11:14:00.004+01:00

OK I'm still on about:

'The Spirit Level - why equality is better for everyone' by Richard Wilkinson and Kate Pickett

I do love a bit of evolutionary psychology.

Off I go....
So there are egalitarian societies and those full of inequality. The book gives endless reasons for why the former is preferable (by demonstrating correlations between inequality and overall higher rates of: poor physical and mental health, mistrust in society, teenage pregnancy, violence etc etc) and giving reasons for why this might be so.

Then as the book gets really juicy (in my books that means more theoretical) towards the end it delivers this....

We have the strategies to deal with very different kinds of social organisation. At one extreme, dominance hierarchies are about self-advancement, status competition and 'kicking' people lower down in the pecking order to maintain this status. In this society, individuals have to be self-reliant and other people are encountered mainly as rivals for food and mates. (This was in evolutionary terms the pre-human state of play - survival of the fittest etc.)

At the other extreme is mutual interdependence and cooperation in which each person's security depends on the quality of their relationships with others and a sense of self worth comes less from status than from contribution made to the wellbeing of others. Rather than the overt pursuit of material self-interest, affiliative strategies depend on mutuality, reciprocity, fairness and the capacity for empathy and emotional bonding. (It is suggested this was an evolution that happened later and was demonstrated well by the very egalitarian hunter-gatherer societies that existed for thousands of years where fairness was paramount and social structures ensured it was perpetuated. It was farming that brought the opportunities for some to gather more wealth than others.)

The book goes on to state that as both of these strategies are part of our evolution as individuals we can 'access' both. It also provides biological evidence that shows stressful pregnancies and early childhood wire a child (via hormones and genetic adjustment) to be geared up for a self interested society (this type of child has less ability to empathise and is more prone to being violent etc). Consequently in a very unequal society (where low social status and/or exclusion causes great stress because of humans' fundamental need to connect with others) children are far more likely to be born ready for the unequal society - therefore perpetuating many social ills we experience today. For me it links to the idea that when we are stressed our higher thinking brain functions are disabled and we revert to very basic instincts.

So equality is better for all - for those at the top and those at the bottom - if a harmonious society is what we are aiming for.

OK so who do I write the letter to?

Self esteem clarified for me!

2011-07-26T10:28:00.015+01:00

I am reading this book.
I am only on page 40 something but it appears to be a consolidation (backed up by extensive research) of all hippie lefty values and social ideals. Cool - some welly to wiffly waffly gut feeling about what is right!

Anyway, as I said, it's early days for me and this book but it has already clarified something for me: self esteem is still a good thing. I was a teacher when the first wave of the self esteem movement was underway. Then, the definition of self esteem seemed pretty straightforward: it was your genuine self worth, your resilience in the face of life's difficulties and criticisms. And for a long time people thought this was developed just by praising children. The understanding developed and it was realised that it was more about actually finding opportunities for children to achieve and feel an internal sense of pride etc. This definition was in no way linked to being egotistical as it went hand in hand with a genuine understanding of ones own strengths and weaknesses. It meant your self identity was comfortably accepted by yourself and it was based on good and realistic self-knowledge.

Then I remember reading the first wave of anti-self esteem articles. These cited that you could have too much self esteem because it made you arrogant and feel superior to your fellow human beings. This kind of self esteem could be linked to racism, homophobia and anything the Daily Mail endorsed really. I knew this was talking about something different and I held firm to the original idea that healthy self-worth is still a good thing.

And this book has elucidated this issue for me by defining two types of self esteem. The first is much like my original understanding. The second is demarcated from the first and described as 'insecure-self worth' (or even narcissism). Research has shown that this second type has increased in the last few decades. It is simply about needing to present a fantastic image of yourself to others because your self-image is so completely dependent upon how others see you. This self esteem is fragile and needs to be perpetually fed to be maintained. This kind of self esteem IS about feeling you are better than others and can consequently damage relationships (and ultimately disband communities - with individuals all vying for top dog status).

The book goes on to describe how this fragile self esteem is linked to people's need to improve their social standing and make constant comparisons with others. It also states that this 'narcissism' has probably increased because we no longer tend to be in a solid and settled community where our self-definition is stable and fully understood by those around us.

I just know which of the following two encounters I prefer:

1) A person that name drops, tells you all about their achievements and appears to have no ability to show an interest in you (fragile self esteem) AN UNCOMFORTABLE UNEQUAL CONNECTION

OR

2) A person that gives you the opportunity to ask them questions. They turn out to be very interesting and have achieved lots but modestly only share the bits you have shown an interest in. They also ask you questions and shown genuine interest in you. (genuine self esteem) A PLEASANT AND EQUAL CONNECTION

There are cultural differences of course but in more equal societies like Japan, modesty rules whereas in more unequal societies (UK and USA) declaring your own brilliance in an attempt to make others feel inferior is on the increase!

Bish Bash Bosh. Now to read more......

Cooperation

2011-06-05T20:18:00.004+01:00

It's always nice to know someone is checking on you

2011-04-23T20:47:00.005+01:00

I did a watercolour doodle in the back garden yesterday. I was lost in flow in the sunlight and it was bliss. My husband took a look at it declaring, 'I like to keep an eye on windows showing your state of mind now and then.' His verdict. No change. Phew - I'm stable.

FoodCycle Norwich Launch

2011-04-16T12:13:00.006+01:00

Last night the charity I am one of the project leaders for: FoodCycle

had it's official launch. We had TV cameras and newspaper reports covering us and overall it really was a great success.

However, one thing is niggling me. And here I express it....

Everyone assumes that because something is free, it must be aimed solely at those in need. The media assumed this and most people I talk to assume this. (The reality is that we only ever get a handful of 'those really in need' attend each meal. They are very welcome and it's great that they attend.) However, I have a suspicion that because getting things for free is so against our social conditioning and expectations - it is so unusual - that many people feel there should be an excuse for receiving - such as disadvantage.

It was a bit like when I tried to give away twelve pound coins to strangers. I didn't get on very well there because what I was doing was so counter culture:
You can't give it away...

When we hold our meals each Friday night, the buzz in the venue is always fantastic. Everyone appears to be genuinely touched and appreciative of the giving that is happening. And the people that receive do so in the way it is intended - with warmth. (Quite often people have a flicker of guilt for 'taking' that fortunately usually manifests in a need to offer themselves as volunteers for subsequent meals!) And for me, personally, this is a huge part of what FoodCycle is about: a blatant demonstration of 'giving' and if we can infect enough people with this bug - the world will certainly be an even better place!

Hard wiring

2011-04-09T10:49:00.009+01:00

I remember thinking about the nature/nurture argument as a young teenager and concluding everything was nurture. I suspect this was because my inexperienced mind did not fully comprehend that other people were or could be different from me. I thought we all started with the same blank canvas and life painted its stuff all over it.

Then as I grew up with a natural fascination in people, my view became slightly more sophisticated. The blank canvas does not exist of course (der)! A person pops into this life with their own unique blueprint that life fiddles a little with. I think different blueprints would cope with the same life completely differently but different lives fiddle with the same blueprint less significantly.

So I'm very much a believer in 'nature' these days! Why?

1) I had kids and their blueprints were apparent long before they could talk.
2) I remember someone who had worked in mental health for years telling me how studies of severely abused children always demonstrated that about a third of these children grew up with no apparent impact of their terrible experiences. This was because this third had a blueprint that meant they could cope with all the horrible stuff people had thrown at them.
3) It's just obvious isn't it!

So now I look at evidence of people's hard wiring and I'm really jealous of some people - particular two types of hard wiring:

High agreeableness
(as in The Big 5)

People with high levels of agreeableness can seem to those with much lower levels as all-giving, selfless, mugs! But research has shown that those with high levels of agreeableness are generally much happier people. They are those people that never have a bad word to say about ANYONE and always assume the best of everyone. They simply don't see other people's darknesses or shortfalls. Or if they do, it's not a big focus or concern. 'They're a git, let's move on'. These people are wonderful in my opinion. I might be biased because I married one. I probably needed to!!!!

Low neuroticism
(also as in The Big 5)

These people are just not wired up to worry or experience as many negative feelings as those with higher levels. O.K. it can mean that they are completely blasé about taking risks but they are emotionally stable and naturally resilient. That must make life very easy!

And when psychologists talk about these two traits and try to suggest that both high and low levels bring strengths (i.e. we're all great), their arguments for the pluses of high neuroticism and low agreeableness never quite cut it for me! (Especially as extremely high neuroticism is linked to poor mental health and extremely low agreeableness linked to an increased chance of being a psychopath!)

I am not suggesting I am really low on agreeableness or high in neuroticism, but if I come here again, I am queueing up for my blueprint to be tweaked a bit!

I sent a box in place of me

2011-03-20T12:24:00.013Z

This Friday chap was playing in Jurnets Bar

in Norwich. It's a great venue (in a cosy crypt) where every Friday night a handful of different bands and musicians play a few numbers each. I have had some amazing nights there over the years - sometimes because of the quality of the music and sometimes because of the wonderful crowd it attracts.

Unfortunately though, this week I wasn't able to go but because I knew a particular friend of mine was going who I was sad to miss, I sent her a box in place of me.

The box was a yogi tea bag box painted purple and labelled:

Sadly I cannot make it tonight so I have sent:
1) a better version of me and
2) some things that will be more fun than me
xxxxxxx

The 'me' she got was:

And inside the box for her to play with was....

CONTENTS
• Some play dough to make a new nose for me
• A yoga position to try
• A post-it to stick on her husband's back (It sad 'don't kick me')
• Poo Poem
• A bouncy ball to bounce at your leisure
• A photo scavenger hunt – I want the photos on FB tomorrow morning (yet to get the results. Suspect I might not get them)
• Some food (Folded up paper plate with sausages, egg and chips drawn on it)
• A fruiteller
• A glow in the dark sperm key ring that doesn’t glow – everyone should have one. (From my days of working in sexual health)
• A Zebedee fancy dress outfit (a spring)
• This home-made top trump card to give away > > > > >

I'd rather get all that than me - much more fun - although not entirely unlike a night with me actually there. What would need to be sent in your box to replace you?

A country's empathy quotient?!

2011-03-20T11:43:00.013Z

Yesterday I was reading a version of Al Gore's Inconvenient Truth

written for young people. (I like books for young people - especially when they have lots of pictures) This book is clear, cuts-to-the-chase and spells out what needs to happen. I have always thought the title was spot on for this work!

Anyway it got me thinking - linked to my post Sustainability

about different countries' readiness to embrace these issues. For example, a country that is in a state of civil unrest, that has starving people in abundance and heaps of corruption is unlikely to have the green agenda high up on its list of priorities. It takes a certain level of some kind of development for this readiness that I was pondering.

I know there is a Corruption Perception Index

for countries but I was wondering if there could be a more complex index for showing a country's readiness to embrace the sustainability agenda. It would need to take an awful lot into account as an awful lot can inhibit this progress.

So then I got to thinking what would be needed for a country to be poised for meaningfully addressing sustainability. For a starting place, you would need to care about future generations. That ultimately takes more empathy than many can muster. So I have decided to name this arbitrary, playing with ideas, slightly silly concept a an 'Empathy Quotient.'

It's also hard to judge countries on their attitudes (although some countries are undoubtedly more liberal than others) so maybe this quotient would be calculated on what a country actually does and has rather than what it says it does or what treaties it has signed - to get a real flavour of the country's concern for others. So I guess you would look at things like:

• level of corruption
• range of inequality within country
• justifications for participating in wars
• weapon manufacture
• treatment of criminals
• how much education is prioritised
• health care provision
• influence of the media on the masses
• levels of democracy and power wielded and by whom!
• etc -

Anyway, I suspect an academic somewhere has done this!

Poetry

2011-02-12T15:31:00.008Z

About 5 or 6 years ago the Klezmer band chap and I were in (Klunk) played at the wedding of Helen Ivory and Martin Figura - both poets. I did wonder at the time what the home-life of a pair of poets would be like. Metaphors, wit and concepts over the washing up? The odd ode or stanza dedicated to daily functions? I reckon it'd be rather lovely.

Anyway. I have never been into poetry. It's not that I do not enjoy how it plays - I do - no it's because I can't read very well and my auditory function is disabled. My barrier to poetry means the stuff I do encounter tends to be read aloud and I can never get past the first two lines before I'm extrapolating and have stopped receiving.

However, recently chap encountered Martin somewhere (chap described this somewhere as a stop everything bad and promote everything good 'thing' - he's not a poet) and chap returned with a little book of poems by Martin called, 'Boring the arse off young people'. And chap read it and chap clearly enjoyed it. I know when chap is enjoying things because he shares them. So, this was recited to me first thing this morning.

Talking (by Martin Figura)

I just talk too much I talk too much
never shut up if you cut me in half
with a spade I'd continue to talk
for up to nearly an hour from both ends
I'm more send than receive have never
had an unexpressed thought in my life
the path behind me is littered
with the hind legs of donkeys
those times when you should just shut up
that's when I talk even more let it tumble out
no matter how incriminating
there would be no need to tie me to a chair
and slap a rubber hose into the palm of your hand
for I will sing like a canary at the politest enquiry
tell you more about myself than you ever wanted to know
give up my own children just for a chat
in fact I can guarantee that the most hardened torturer
will soon be sewing up my mouth
to stop me telling him what I know
but I shall only rip my mouth open
spit out my tattered bleeding lips
and what I don't know I don't let worry me
for I never let lack of knowledge get in the way
of giving an opinion why should I
I've a habit of repeating myself
I've a habit of repeating myself
that was pretty obvious right,
but you try talking non-stop
and not saying something pretty obvious along the way
and if you're one of those quiet people that just looks
then you're just asking for it without actually asking
if you see what I mean but you can't just stand
and look at each other right
and if you're not going to say something then I have to
simple as that simple as that so it's your own fault
don't glaze over when I'm talking to you
if you want this poem to stop sometime
in the next hour then for God's sake
do something useful
go fetch a spade

Bloody brilliant. So now my introverted chap is using somebody else's well crafted and witty poetry to tell his extraverted wife to shut up. And first thing in the morning before I have even warmed up to full force.

So, at this point I have decided I like poetry - certainly the funny stuff. (Am I coming across as a little flighty?) So I pick the little book up and enjoy this.....

Acrostic (by Martin Figura)

Now the birds sing
I am gifted each
Clear note
Epiphany

The start of each day
Is your song, your scent
This heaven
Sweet and sure

....all on my own and with an 'out loud' giggle.

FoodCycle Norwich

2011-02-11T12:03:00.015Z

Since last September I been one of the project leaders for the Norwich branch of a charity called FoodCycle. Here's the national website - FoodCycle

It is a charity with a simple concept that was once an impossibility because of the fear of litigation.

FoodCycle simply organises volunteers to:
1) take fruit, veg, bread and dried foods a supermarket, cafe or shop would otherwise have discarded (because it's slightly past its best),
2) transport it to a community venue via a bicycle with a trailer and
3) cook a meal for anyone to eat. (targeting those in need but not excluding others)

It does this to:

• tackle food waste and more importantly (and effectively) highlight the issue of food waste and what fussy consumers come of us have become.
• tackle food poverty (we only scratch the surface of this currently). I am not sure what we create will ever be really easy for some disadvantaged to access as it's a large hall full of people.
• provide CV fodder for young people
•create a community space each week that everyone and anyone is invited to (that's special!)
• attempt to tackle prejudice towards homeless people (an aim the Norwich branch has added)

Its a simple idea that has instant appeal to most people and that's reflected in the 200 or so in our bank of volunteers and the successful bid for some funding.

It is an absolutely fantastic project to be involved in and today we will be cooking our fifth meal. We usually feed between 70 and 100 people and there's always a wonderful buzz in the place. I am personally surprised by how well it always seems to come together!

Donations of food were slow to come initially. The first contributor was a small food store on St Benedict's street. Then we hit lucky with Brandbank - a company that photographs food for online shopping. They have been wonderful but of course their supply is somewhat erratic and unpredictable. There were also small independent shops bringing food to the venue: namely 'Wholesome' on Swann Lane, Rainbow Wholefoods and 'The Metfield Bakery'. A veg stall (Holland Organics) on Norwich Market also donates a few bits and pieces and the spice stall gives us price reductions. But now we have hit really lucky. This week a fruit and veg wholesaler: McCarthy's will be donating food along with the Budgens store on Prince of Wales Road. We could not be more chuffed! That's a lot of food travelling round Norwich by bike power.

We will eventually have a 'launch.' We have had a lot of media interest and local celebrity chef (not Delia!): Galton Blakiston has offered to attend. I don't suppose Galton wants to be known as 'not Delia' actually!

We also have ambition. We currently only do one meal a week. With careful volunteer management this could increase. Also, the possibility of a community cafe might one day be viable. Watch this space.

FoodCycle Norwich

Sustainability ...oh I don't know

2011-02-10T15:50:00.017Z

Back in 1980 I wrote to Margaret Thatcher expressing my outrage about the destruction of the ozone layer by CFCs. The Department for the Environment wrote back and reassured me that they were doing their best to see that the UK was not contributing to the destruction of the ozone layer. Ahem. I was just a kid and I wasn't convinced. I was also annoyed that Margaret had not personally dealt with my concern - she was the one in charge.

Six years later I started a degree in Environmental Chemistry. Aside from the fact I learned that environmental has 3 'n's in it the day before I graduated, my interest in protecting and preserving the environment stayed with me throughout my degree. I guess the subject was taught appropriately.

Then venturing into the real world I lost faith big time. The gloom and doom merchants got to me. I developed an 'oh fu*k it' mentality. Humans could be bright individually but as a mass they'd never agree and unite in the common goal of sustaining this planet. And I gave up trying.

Several years later, I met my chap. I shared my despair but he persisted in his green ways and imposed them on me. When I challenged him (after the honeymoon) his philosophy was simple: he wanted to spend his time on this planet being personally responsible for the minimal amount of damage to this world that he could manage - regardless of what everyone else was doing. What a lovely bloke.

And now I am making up activities for children for an educational website about sustainability and so I have revisited the details of the topic big time. When you read the facts how can you not get depressed?
• Deforestation on a mass scale
• Pollution - air, water, earth
• Heaps of unnecessary waste
• Brutal consumption of natural materials
• Farming methods that add to greenhouse gases, damage soil etc
• And a fast growing and developing population that will just accelerate the amount of damage we are doing
• etc

......with nowhere near enough regard for future generations

And you can see why these things happen. There's a relatively small handful of people making a fortune out of practices that do not have the planet's best interests at heart in developing countries. And there's a lifestyle and a whole way of living that us westerners would have to seriously overhaul if we were to really, really try our best for the environment.

I read that if everyone in the world lived as the Australian or Americans did (and why shouldn't they - the western world has had its turn at luxury and convenience) we would need at least four planets. If everyone's consumption was the same as those in Bangladesh, we would need a third of the planet to sustain us. Such glaring inequality feels unjust in itself. Greedy, messy westerners!

The elephant in the room is shouting that it is almost definitely beyond us to sort out this mess and it will probably be a major catastrophe that might eventually force us to do the drastic things that would need doing - or that might force these drastic things upon us anyway. That's assuming anything is still salvageable and that any significant population is left! I am pretty sure most people at least suspect this and this suspicion contributes to some people not bothering to even try towards sustainability.

The whole world which is far too big, diverse and in different stages of development and awareness to arrive at any kind of consensus - is just so unlikely to get there without the jolt of a disaster. It would take huge attitudinal and actual changes in the way society, lifestyle, equality, community, the economy etc functions to tackle these issues. Changes that would currently seem like an enormous infringement on our basic comfortable western rights. (Imagine the Daily Mail's response if a huge magnet stole all the cars in the UK and left a great public transport system) Any 'power that be' trying to implement the changes needed would be seen as far too maverick to be actually voted in by a democratic country. And who is in position to deliver the huge world-wide re-education that would be needed to ensure such a vision would be voted in or implemented? No we need a huge-green-inspirational-benign-dictator-god to show the world the way but I haven't met one yet.

Aside: One question is though - how long have we got and what, if any, solutions might science come up with to temper our impact?

However. I will add. All this gloom and doom isn't me. For one, what does it really matter if we destroy ourselves - I mean that more positively than it sounds. What will be will be and I happily accept that. I'm not worried. But the main thing I want to say is this. I know I am not a huge-green-inspirational-benign-dictator-god and that I alone cannot save the world from itself but I can do what I can do. I have adopted my chap's ways. My conscience will be as clear as it can be in the way the world is currently set up. I will do my best to keep the dollop I personally add to this mess as small as I possibly can and perhaps eventually I'll get to hang out with with the huge-green-inspirational-benign-dictator-god in the sky!

Norwich - Narch - Norritch

2011-02-07T19:56:00.003Z

I have taken to cycling around Norwich taking photos of roof-lines. I have become a bit obsessed. Anyway, this is my version of Norwich. It's not an accurate representation - the real Norwich is far more magical.

and

Sigh ...bored of myself

2011-01-28T10:29:00.015Z

OK so I am in the region of the middle of my life assuming I make it to old age. That could be a big assumption the way I carry on but I'll go with it for now.

Carl Jung said that coinciding with mid-life, we are meant to get a bit bored of ourselves. He didn't quite word it like that but it's the gist.

He was right of course. I have become bored with my default position of seeing everything from my dominant perspective: that which Jung describes as 'intuitive'. It means that in any situation I always look for the overriding gist, the 'big picture' or the pattern so I can sum up and then extrapolate sweepingly should I encounter any similar situation again. I am bored with doing this. It uses up life too quickly. I have started saying to myself 'oh here I go again' when I find myself intuiting.

I am also aware that my intuition isn't always well received. It makes huge abstract leaps that in recent years I have grown to understand will leave a sensor (in particular) thinking I am bonkers/away with the fairies/in cloud cuckoo land/out of touch with reality. At least I am aware of this but it doesn't stop me doing it. It just means I expose my thoughts less readily in a room of people I do not know. Naturally we all gravitate towards others with the same dominant function - of course everyone tunes most readily into their own wavelength.

And my weakest function is the one I crave the most: Sensing. I want to notice and want the details and need to actually try things. I want to see, feel, smell, hear and taste harder! I am fed up with being satisfied with understanding the abstract theory and not needing to experience things for myself.

***********************************************************
And for those of you that might want to reflect on your own dominant function..... this was the best illustration I have found. An example given by Jung himself. I have posted this before but feel a need to do it again as its relevance is hitting me so hard these days!

*****************************************
We all have either,

• Sensation
• Thinking
• Feeling or
• Intuition

as our dominant function. These correspond to several personality profiles from history and a variety of cultures (although obviously the types have different names and symbols in other cultures).

Imagine one of each type witnessed the following scene:

Two men came staggering out of a bar. They are shouting and swearing at one another. There is a struggle. One of them falls to the ground and bangs his head on the pavement.

Each witness will respond to what is before them in a manner typical of his/her type:

The sensing type will give the clearest account of what happened. S/he will have noted the height, build and general appearance of the two men: one was overweight, middle-aged and bald and had a scar over his left eye; the other younger, fair-haired, more athletic and had a moustache. Both were dressed casually in T-shorts, jeans and trainers. It was the overweight one who fell and it was his right temple that struck the kerb. There was a crack on impact etc

The thinking type interprets the events as they happen, working out what it all means. The two men came staggering out of the bar so evidently they had been drinking. They are shouting and swearing at one another, so they are having a disagreement. A struggle ensues so they must feel strongly enough to become physically violent about it. One falls to the ground, so he must be the weaker (or drunker) of the two. The latter cracks his head so he may be concussed and in need of medical attention etc.

The feeling type responds to each event in the scene with value-judgements: ‘what a sordid episode!’ ‘What thoroughly objectionable people.’ ‘that is clearly a bar frequented by louts and not a place to go to if one wants a quiet chat with a friend.’ ‘The one on the ground may have hurt himself and as a responsible citizen it would fell wrong if I didn’t ring for an ambulance.’

The intuitive type ‘sees’ the whole story: they are football hooligans who support opposing teams. Disgusted by their aggression, the landlord told them to clear off and this inflamed them to violence. the man who cracked his head is accident prone and this is just another incident in a lifetime of misfortune. He has fractured his skull and a clot will form on his brain requiring surgery. He will be off work for weeks and his long-suffering wife will once again have to struggle to make ends meet. This is what happens to people from a disadvantaged background who have nothing else to live for but football and drink. Things like this will go on happening and get much worse because we do nothing to change society or improve the educational system.

1st being your dominant function......4th being your Achilles heal.

Myers Briggs type 1st 2nd 3rd 4th
ENFP or INFJ N F T S
ESTP or ISTJ S T F N
ENTJ or INTP T N S F
ESFJ or ISFP F S N T
ENTP or INTJ N T F S
ESFP or ISFJ S F T N
ESTJ or ISTP T S N F
ENFJ or INFP F N S T

And more on this if it interests you.....

Myers Briggs Spectra

and

Myers Briggs and communication

A tickle from the past

2011-01-27T17:43:00.008Z

I am aware that my chap is a little odd. I wouldn't have him any other way. However, there is odd I admire (quite extensive and diverse) and there is also odd that is so beyond my comprehension, it drives me to pull faces. That is probably why said fellar strived to keep one of his collections hidden from me for years. It was his considerably voluminous tin can collection.

Started in 1978, he collected every different type of can his young self could lay his hands on. Not composed of just soft drinks, his collection is evidence of considerable alcohol consumption. I can hear him now, 'it's all for my collection...hic.'

Anyway, it wasn't so hidden once we had moved house and it was agreed that the cans were to be sold on ebay - if they could be. These days he rarely leaves the house withour a cylindrical parcel prepared for posting about his person. I didn't bully him into it. Honestly. I think he's just a differnt person now.

However, out of one of his many can boxes one day came something that was to become the provocation of much hilarity, serious discussion and games. On the front they just looked like 70s styled cans of Tennents lager. Like this.

But then on the backs of the can...look at these....are you ready, brace yourself. Scroll down.

V
V
v
V
v
V
v
V
v
V
V

Mine is June.

The past and the present as the past's future

2010-12-29T11:16:00.008Z

The way I always remember the past is to clump periods of time together and attach an overriding feeling or gist. Consequently my personal history is chunked and categorised with the feeling each chunk evokes. Is that what everyone does?

The chunks' labels can be arbitrary and chunks can overlap. For example I can have a feeling for the time I lived in a particular house but also a feeling for a friendship that also spanned two different homes etc. I suspect this isn't unique to me but feel I might need to look for a little reassurance so I can deny anti-mainstreaming....again.

Other chunks can be decades. I suspect I am not alone here. What does the seventies evoke for you (feelings or thoughts?) or the eighties? Those two were so distinct. (The nineties and the noughties don't feel quite so discrete for me but can muster up a few 'gists').

A book I am reading at the moment also pointed out something else about the past to me: I(/we?) tend to arrogantly have a patronising attitude towards decades gone by - even those we were part of. My assumption is that while individuals from the past could be extremely bright the overall understanding of the world was relatively backward. The technology was so much more simple and people could not possibly have known what they were doing as well as they do now. We have progressed so much - surely the brightest of our time must have a better foundation of knowledge to draw on that the brightest of decades ago.

However, this paragraph in Engleby by Sebastian Faulks put me right. The most basic and impactful problems of humankind appear immune from our 'progress'.

It's written by 'Engleby' in 1973....

Don't patronise me if you read this thirty years on, will you? Don't think of me as old-fashioned, wearing silly clothes or some nonsense like that. Don't talk crap about 'the seventies', will you, as we do now about 'the forties'? I breathe air like you. I feel food in my bowel and the lingering taste of tea in my mouth. I'm alive as you are. I'm as modern as you are, in my way - I couldn't be more modern. My reality is as complex as yours; the atoms making me and this world in their random movements are as terrible and strange and beautiful as those that make your world. Yours are in fact my atoms, reused. And you too, on your front edge of breaking time, Mr 2003, will be the object of condescending curiosity to the future - to Ms 2033. So don't patronise me. (Unless of course you have completely overturned and improved my world, bringing peace and plenty and a cure for cancer and schizophrenia, and a unified scientific explanation of the universe comprehensible to all and a satisfactory answer to the philosophical and religious questions of our time. In which case you would be permitted to patronise primitive little 1973. Well have you done those things? Got a cure for the common cold yet? Have you? Thought not. How's your 2003 world then? A few wars? Some genocide? Some terrorism? Drugs? Abuse of children? High crime rate? Materialistic obsession? More cars? Blah-blah pop music? Vulgar newspapers? Porn? Still wearing jeans? Thought so. Yes you've had an extra thirty years to sort it out).

Well that told us! And told us in an unquestionable and therefore powerful way!

Fustyweed Reposted!

2010-12-23T12:12:00.002Z

There is a place in Norfolk called Fustyweed
http://maps.google.co.uk/maps?hl=en&tab=wl
Officially, it's just a hamlet........but I have insider information.

A terrace of five small houses sit some distance back from the only road. Smoke from the five little chimneys zigz zags into the sky. The doors and window frames are haphazardly painted orange, purple, red and green. The front gardens are brimming with stunningly beautiful flowers: mostly noddydil, fraf and craggleweed. Silver and gold fluttifol buzz around them collecting gliff to make their glittery crunnyplop (which is sold in jars from a table at the roadside).

All of the houses are kept perfectly maintained with the exception of number four. Minky Flupp who lives there says she spends far too much time granting wishes to bother with keeping her house shipshape. Her neighbours don't mind, as long as she grants them a wish now and then.

Jiggy Paloozeville at number three keeps yickins. The yickins lay the most delicious eggs with a yoke so deeply purple few can resist. He willingly shares the produce with his neighbours and most mornings the fruity aroma of freshly poached yickin eggs wafts around the terrace.

People tend not to call round to number five because its resident: Professor Batty Baffookink conducts science experiments there. The one time Minky knocked on the door, it was answered by a squealing green and brown slimey mass. It took Minky some time to recover even after she had learned that the sight was just Batty covered in Harpypoo Sulphate after a tuttyfragwill experiment had blown up. Even so, these days everyone prefers to wait for Batty to come to them.

The eldest Fustyweed occupant lives at number one. At four-hundred and forty two, Neg Keg is filled with memories. So many, in fact, that he has to have them regularly removed by Chiffle Lacey-Trickle-Doot who conveniently lives next door. The removal process uses a bespoke machine that Chiffle invented. The machine has many cogs, several springs, a few sparking wires, two glass tubes and a large wooden memory vat. A wriggling hose-like attachment (tailored to Neg's spikey head) sucks out twenty year's worth of memories at a time. With the relief this provides, Neg can go back to filling his head up with new memories. These memories mostly come from his time on the wirrity field playing tuffball.

Change is on the wind

2010-12-10T18:55:00.015Z

Interesting times, interesting times.

It is already feeling quite different from a year ago.
My wonderings are:

1) With so many socially-minded, middle income people being made redundant, what will fill that work void? By their nature, public sector workers tend to be idealists and not overly 'business minded'. A sweeping generalisation, but I don't think these 'types' are overly suited to business in boom time...let alone a time when people are being financially cautious. We are in the early days of this change. The first wave of redundancies are about to kick in. There are many more to come. So we haven't seen their full impact yet.

2) Recession can mean less consumption. This is good for the planet! We nearly all consume much more than we need. I wonder if a fundamental shift in values might occur or is this just my wish list? I guess difficult times can make people go both ways: snatchy, selfish and dark (1930s Germany) or connecting and mutually supportive in the face of adversity (London WWII or Christmas shopping!!!!)

3) With a Labour government trying to address social ills and appearing to tackle inequality for so long (albeit not overly effectively), we haven't seen substantial demonstrations for some time. Well there were war demonstrations but I didn't feel their presence as much as recent rumblings. Social networking is making organised protests far more accessible! People seem to be articulating their points far more effectively and abundantly.

4) Can an economy be based on a model other than increased production and growth (with bankers creaming off the top and making greater production neceesary)? It feels like that puzzle might need solving before all the world's resources are used up. The assumptions seems to be that we need to 'boom' again. Cannot we manage something different, something better for people and the planet?

Economics by a simpleton

They are just rambling thoughts. I have been avoiding the news as much as I can as it always leaves me depressed and with an exaggerated view of just how dark the world is! I need to believe the world can do well!

Eastern Daily Press turned me Norfolk.

2010-12-06T17:56:00.018Z

A few years ago I was asked to give some answers to some standard questions the local newspaper issues to various Norfolk people each week. Recently I was cleaning out my 'pooter files and found them. These are they! They make me laugh because they are so 'twee' and I don't think I am. I could be deluded...again.

What is your idea of perfect happiness in Norfolk? Is that not a strange question? Wouldn't it be better to ask - what do you love about Norfolk or in which Norfolk places do you find happiness?
I’m a small pleasures person – so it doesn’t take very much to make me happy – or even over-excited! However I do love Norfolk and Norwich’s many outdoor festivals or street events, wandering around and lapping up the atmosphere.

How do you relax in the County? Again - slightly odd question. Probably relax in Norfolk in a similar way as I would in Crewe, Inverness or Tunbridge Wells
Leaving the hustle and bustle of Norwich behind and getting into the countryside on my bike - which takes minutes. I particularly like the Norfolk roads that have grass growing in the middle of them. I don’t think I had ever seen that before I came to Norfolk. I probably felt I needed to add the bit about grass to quirk the answer up a bit.

With which Norfolk character do you most identify? I remember thinking - I can only think of Elizabeth Fry and as prison reform hasn't really been my thing, I am a bit stuck here. Actually it might be Alan Partridge.Well Stephen Fry has been my imaginary friend for many years now but I suspect that I don’t identify with him exactly – just admire him. I love that Norwich and parts of Norfolk have their fair share of ‘alternative’ people, artists and people with attitudes that aren’t mainstream! I guess I identify with them.

If you weren’t talking to us now, what would you be doing? By now I had figured my answers needed to be laced with Norfolk.
My job means that I spend a lot of time driving around this huge county visiting the county’s 400 or so primary schools. So had you not caught me on an office day – I would probably be driving in ‘the 60 mile cul de sac!’ They took that bit out. I guess it is a bit insulting.

What do you miss most when you leave Norfolk?
When I travel anywhere south or west of Norfolk (dry land is good!), I always feel I have to step up a few gears. I miss the tranquillity and ‘fluffiness’ of Norfolk. Oh and the hills can sometimes make me feel a little claustrophobic; I once asked what people did 'in case of fire' when I visited Edale.

How would you spend your ideal day in Norfolk?
A lunch in a country pub with my young family followed by exploring a new pocket of Norfolk – often instigated by looking for a public footpaths on an ordnance survey map. I love that there is simply so much countryside to explore. My favourites are walks at Holkham Beach, Foxley Wood, Wolterton Hall, Surlingham Broad, Castle Acre, Trimingham Beach, Burham Ovary, Saxlingham Nethergate, Warham, North Elmham, Filby….actually too many to mention…. I really was getting the Norfolk theme by now.

What’s your earliest Norfolk memory?
Arriving at St Stephen’s bus station in Norwich and walking along Earlham Road to attend my interview at UEA. As I had travelled so far, I stayed overnight (in those famous ziggurats) and all the interviewees were taken on a coach and walking tour of the sights. This included Elm Hill, the cathedral and the night view of the city from Mousehold Heath. That sold it to me – regardless of the quality of academia on offer!

In moments of weakness…..
Do you mean moments of indulgence? One beer too may in one of Norwich’s friendly pubs and it usually takes more than moments! Theme show offing by now.

What would your motto be?
Live, eat, breathe Norfolk. No that wasn't my answer.
Find your passions and drive with them!

And here's Norwich how Molly Potter sees it anyway.

The Teenage Pregnancy Fete

2010-12-06T17:26:00.018Z

You don't have to look far to see there's a lot of cut, cut cutting going on in the public sector. My team was part of the first wave of cuts. We are the county's Teenage Pregnancy Strategy Unit. We have known we were to be axed since July. July! That's a long time to know that you are going to be made redundant and an awful lot of sympathetic 'well what are you going to do?' conversations to endure! The team is well past needing sympathy and a little bored by those conversations - although we do acknowledge they come from kind intentions.

We have worked with lots of different agencies across the county and I have worked with many schools in particular. I have supported schools with their sex and relationships education, personal, social and health education and many things linked to well being. It has been a fantastic and fascinating job.
We were told a couple of weeks ago that we couldn't just say goodbye to everyone on the phone and that we needed to have some kind of official goodbye for our stakeholders. So we met and discussed this 'goodbye.' There was consensus that we didn't want a formal and miserable opportunity for more condolences so we decided it had to be upbeat. The result: The Teenage Pregnancy Strategy Fete.

Stalls included:

Splat the sperm

Office Junk Tombola (I mean we are clearing out our office!)

Pin the pregnant teenager into the educational establishment

Guess the number of conceptions in the jar (jelly babies of course)

The nearly new contraception stall

We issued a warning just in case.

And there were cakes to eat to attain 'closure'!

Through the arch....

2010-11-21T15:20:00.014Z

We have been reading children's books aloud for the last ten years. It's part and parcel of being a parent I guess. We've been through all the Rainbow Fairies, all the Harry Potter Books, much Doctor Who written merchandise and much more besides. Some I have managed to be mildly entertained by but none so much as the Mr Gum books by Andy Stanton (read to our seven year old son - although he doesn't always really listen) and they regularly make me laugh out loud. There are few books that do that.

Here's a great snippet to give you a flavour if you have not read these books (you have to read it out loud):

Chapter 3
Here's who went through the arch that morning:
First was Old Granny, then Martin Launderette, then the little girl called Peter, a little boy called Rita and a baby called Elsie Wa-Wa. Then a really, really tall bloke called Harry Extreemoleg, then Thora Gruntwinkle with Greasy Ian and their pet monkey Philip the Horror, and then Jonathan Ripple, who got stuck in the archway and had to go on a diet for ten minutes until he'd lost enough weight to squeeze through. Then came David Casserole (the Town Mayor), followed by Charlotte Casserole (his beautiful wife) and Frank Casserole (his beautiful husband). Next was Beany McLeany, wearing a bikini and reading a magaziney. After him came Pamela, Pamela, Pamela, Pamela, Pamela, Pamela, Pamela, Pamela, Pamela and Pamela - or 'the Pamelas' as they were known for short. Then came another Pamela who didn't count with the other Pamelas because none of them liked her. Then came a superhero called the Yellow Wriggler, who caught criminals by crawling along the ground dressed as a banana and shouting at them. After him came an illusionist called the Prince of Illusions. And after him came the Prince of Illusions again. 'Ha ha,' said the Prince of Illusions, 'The first time I went through the arch it was just an illusion!' Then came a few other people I can't be bothered to tell you about, then a couple more and then a couple more. And after them came the heroes - Polly, Friday and Alan Taylor, along with his class of giggling school children. And finally came Crazy Barry Fungus hopping along in his silver birdcage and tweeting like a chaffinch. 'Tweet. tweet!' said Barry Fungus. 'Tweet Tweet,' Wait for me!

Chapter 4

So then I thought. I'll have some go through an Arch. A different arch of course...

First there was Aunt Mo, then huge but quiet Geoffrey Taxidermy and tiny but loud Peanut Smith followed by Harry Flarry who likes to carry loaded up with his wife's annual baked bean shop. Next was Ted McFitwhistle, Jed McFitwhistle, Aled McFitwhistle, and Ned McFitwhistle who everyone thinks are related because they look alike but they're not, followed by Len and Fanny Lazy-Buzzbottom and their boss Graham. Next through was Measuring Matt Metremann with his yard stick who quickly constructed a minimum width warning sign for Frank the hippopotamus with the itchy bottom who turned out to be too wide and so went off looking for another arch. Next through was Dave looking for the Pennine Way, Jane looking for her lost tea cosy, then Humphrey Githead and his leaping giraffe that he had trained to jump over arches but he had a poorly toe and so just walked through. Then came Green Gina, Amber Amber and Red Riding Boot who played traffic lights for a bit causing a momentary queue with Viv Dim and Tom Dum at the front and Jim the decorator looking for work behind them. Once the queue cleared there was Dora Rigworm who got a little of her enormous frizzy hair stuck on the arch hinge and had to be set free by Henry the Chimpanzee who happened to have some scissor in his leopardskin handbag. Then came Ex, Why and Zed the spies who felt sure there was no funny business at the arch and therefore had no need to report to HQ, then Backtofront Brian who walked through backwards followed by Fronttoback Fiona who left before she arrived. Next was Archie Archway who has a PhD in arches who blocked the arch for a while as he took notes, causing Rampant Ruby who was in a rush to get extremely angry because she was late for her ballet lesson. Finally through was Clear-up Kelvin and his multi-purpose cleaning cloth and Claire Clipboard with regulations to shut the arch down because of trading laws.

Did I miss anyone?

Myer Briggs Illustrated

2010-11-04T13:44:00.012Z

I added these illustations to a post wrote last winter: Myers Briggs and Communication but I like them enough to just brazenly post them, on their own, without any explanation. Perhaps I will get a reputation for being reckless!

There might be a nutter out there somewhere that these might mean something to.

Here goes.....

For those pictures don't work for.....

Two new books

2010-11-03T20:41:00.006Z

I have two new books out this month. They are quite different from others I have written but I enjoyed the process of researching and writing about such serious issues. Of course I had to go and flick peas, wriggle like a worm and bounce on spacehoppers as an antidote after each writing session.

It's shameful to admit you google your own name but look what I found on the urban dictionary!!!!

2010-11-03T20:32:00.005Z

Molly Potter
buy molly potter mugs, tshirts and magnets

A term used by Harry Potter fans to describe someone who has the qualities of both Molly Weasley and Harry Potter, particularly Harry's brains and Molly's loving bubbliness.

In other words, Molly Potter = sheer greatness.

Some also refer to it as the name Ginny and Harry SHOULD have named their child.
"Woah, that girl is such a Molly Potter. She aced the test AND told me my hair looked good today"
perfect smart intelligent molly weasly harry potter loving
by picklejarr Dec 8, 2009 share this

Yes I'll go with that! In line with my self-googling narcissism! I might suggest this as a possible illustration....

Sympathy

2010-11-03T19:26:00.012Z

I have been having rambling thoughts recently about sympathy and my difficulties with it!

I'll start by saying that I do know it is usually a well intentioned thing. (I have never seen ‘too sympathetic’ listed as a vice.) For me however sympathy usually causes a lot of discomfort and a little repulsion - especially and ironically at times when it is probably most warranted.

If I stub my toe and someone is sympathetic - that's fine. I can cope with that. I probably wouldn't call that sympathy. I'd call that an empathic reaction.

It's all the other kinds of sympathy I struggle with. I'll illustrate and explain.....

When my father died, at first people could be as sympathetic as they liked because I was in shock and unable to properly receive whatever people were aiming my way. But I remember there did come a point where I had to brace myself to receive inevitable sympathy (that would happen for example when I saw a friend for the first time since my father had died) as it was like enacting a whole mini emotional replay in a few minutes. I was made to revisit the whole thing through the other person's sympathy - whether I wanted to at that point in time or not.

And then there is sympathy for less tragic life occurrences - like not getting or achieving something you had hoped for or a forced change in life. I can't do sympathy there either. I prefer the person that tells me I, of all people, will be able to cope with whatever the knock back was to the person whose forehead screws up with sympathy. There's an assumption with sympathy that I don't like. The assumption being that you are feeling awful. You could well not be at that point in time - that needs to be respected.

Perhaps I simply have a strong dislike of being 'a victim', perhaps 'suffering' is a very private thing for me or perhaps it is simply that receiving sympathy is rarely what I am in the frame of mind to do - because of its negative connotations. Or perhaps I have an innate stiff upper lip passed down to me through generations of stoical Brits! Unlikely!

I also think there is a big difference between someone being truly empathic and being sympathetic. I prefer the former; it feels more genuine and ‘with’ me rather than ‘at’ me. I can cope with ‘I can imagine how you feel’ better than ‘you poor thing.’

Perhaps I am concluding that people could sometimes be a bit more careful with their sympathy! Or is that just my need? I guess I would like to know if my response to sympathy is personal to me (and others like me) or commonly felt by many. So over to you...what do you do with sympathy?

The wisdom of Carl Jung

2010-10-30T10:15:00.031+01:00

I might have mentioned - once or twice - my interest (obsession) with the teachings of Carl Jung - both his conscious and sub-conscious psychology. I have some of his quotes on the wall in the upstairs bathroom. (Einstein is downstairs giving a speech about humankind - it's good to toilet with great minds).

Anyway - here are some of my favourite snippets of Carl Jung.......

Everything that irritates us about others can lead us to a better understanding of ourselves A very wise woman called Nuala Ronayne taught me this when I was about twenty six. I have grown to understand and explore its meaning more and more with age. Of course it's all about the sub-conscious rumbling and giving us clues to its existence. The same action can irritate one person and not another. That's a clue to our individuality. The irritated person therefore has an opportunity to learn something - if they choose the take it. It's also about knowing to own your own irritations rather than just blaming the person that irritated you. That could stop wars!
N.B. I have heard the subconscious described in many ways but the most accessible description I paraphrased in a post on: The subconscious

The meeting of two personalities is like the contact of two chemical substances: if there is any reaction, both are transformed A good one to remember! There's learning everywhere if we are inclined to look for it.

The shoe that fits one person pinches another; there is no recipe for living that suits all cases. Idealism sometimes searches for the single solution. The one glove that fits all is different for everyone!

We cannot change anything unless we accept it. Condemnation does not liberate, it oppresses. This is one of my favourites and something I have grown to appreciate after years of training people from a variety of viewpoints. e.g. rather than condemn the prejudice, accept it and then coax it along to a better place, otherwise it becomes hidden and then unable to address. There are many examples this quote can evoke...

Where love rules, there is no will to power, and where power predominates, love is lacking. The one is the shadow of the other. or power corrupts! Those that hanker after power and attain it are often the worst people to be making decisions on behalf of others! Einstein says (in the downstairs toilet) "My political ideal is democracy. Let every man be respected as an individual and no man idolized. I am quite aware that for any organization to reach its goals, one man must do the thinking and directing and generally bear the responsibility. But the led must not be coerced, they must be able to choose their leader. In my opinion, an autocratic system of coercion soon degenerates; force attracts men of low morality...

Observance of customs and laws can very easily be a cloak for a lie so subtle that our fellow human beings are unable to detect it. It may help us to escape all criticism, we may even be able to deceive ourselves in the belief of our obvious righteousness. But deep down, below the surface of the average man's conscience, he hears a voice whispering, "There is something not right," no matter how much his rightness is supported by public opinion or by the moral code. Which is similar to 'just because everybody is doing something doesn't mean it's automatically right.'

It all depends on how we look at things, and not on how they are themselves. I know this is obvious but I think it is regularly forgotten. We can never assume others have received what we have -even when we are looking at the same thing. I have just paraphrased!

If one does not understand a person, one tends to regard him as a fool. Evidence of this aplenty. We are not generally very good at appreciating differences in others. Our ego can hold onto our viewpoint and convince us that it's the correct and only one.

In studying the history of the human mind one is impressed again and again by the fact that the growth of the mind is the widening of the range of consciousness, and that each step forward has been a most painful and laborious achievement. One could almost say that nothing is more hateful to man than to give up even a particle of his unconsciousness. Ask those who have tried to introduce a new idea! The massive wheel of human consciousness moves under the power of the few cycling crazily at its edges - is my response to the last sentence of that quote. Our subconscious does appear to have an automated response of resistance and we go to great lengths to deny its contents.

It is a fact that cannot be denied: the wickedness of others becomes our own wickedness because it kindles something evil in our own hearts That's how Hitler could do what he did: mass sub-conscious projection!

Knowing your own darkness is the best method for dealing with the darknesses of other people. Bring the subconscious to the conscious and you become a more complete person. It's the task of the latter half of our lives according to Jung. Nice to have a task. Which brings us to....

Shrinking away from death is something unhealthy and abnormal which robs the second half of life of its purpose.

All the works of man have their origin in creative fantasy. What right have we then to depreciate imagination. When my playfulness, fun, imagination, silliness, excited and enthusiastic slightly 'out there' explorations are knocked....it's usually other people's fear (and safety through convention and what they already know) I'm coming up against. Creative, excited, silly and unusual 'play' appears to unsettle some! I think creative playfulness is therapeutic and about freeing up something deep inside! I play best with my 'deepest' and most 'open' friends and family members.

The creation of something new is not accomplished by the intellect but by the play instinct acting from inner necessity. The creative mind plays with the objects it loves. Ha! I embrace my inner necessity. Do you?

Nothing has a stronger influence psychologically on their environment and especially on their children than the unlived life of the parent. Jung is referring to his mother. This provides me with an excuse to explore my passions and not feel guilty about not spending all my free time with my children!

Every form of addiction is bad, no matter whether the narcotic be alcohol, morphine or idealism. I am addicted to idealism - I know that!

Happy Saturday!

More Evidence

2010-10-29T19:28:00.010+01:00

It is a bit like I am addicted to making these silly characters for my home made top trump cards which now number well over 300. Perhaps I should just start wearing an anorak and playing dungeons and dragons.

DAOSY
Daosy was a magician’s assistant until the ‘cutting her in two’ act went terribly wrong. Daosy used to have a lower half and a jet engine.

VILLOMAX
Villomax has been claiming jobseekers’ allowance for some time as nobody appears to want to employ a nuclear-powered triple-way nipper.

JIANNE
Jianne fell in love with a carboretta called Candy Rose. They have had three offspring: a cork screw, and spanner and a fork lift truck.

The Story Poem

2010-10-28T21:27:00.012+01:00

When my lovely, talented, musical friend Ruth Gordan sent me a poem with the middle missing....this is the filling I provided.....

The Story Poem (Stome)

I know a cat,
A black cat,
Santor
Lion-roarer
Playing tunes on the kora
Or facing the crowd,
Double bass in paw,
Wowing them into applause

I know a cat,
A black cat,
Santor
Inventor of song
And full moon dance-along
With wet red tongue
World expert on Jung
But he doesn’t like me
Oh no
He doesn’t like me

Slink and stare Santor
Blink and don’t care Santor
Not about me

*********** THE FILLING************************

INTERRUPTION

We interrupt this poem to debate the pros and cons of melodic rhyming.

For
 There’s not enough rhyming in the land
Typed up or written by hand
 Rhyming makes you look clevererererest
 It would continue the format that prompted all this
 Rhymes can easily be turned into songs
 Rhymes are nice.

Against
 Ugly forced rhymes are bound to happen
 Creative flow might be stifled
 I left my word starts at home
 Rhymes take twice the time(s) of non-rhymes
 Nothing rhymes with orange – Santor’s favourite colour
 Rhymes rarely span the whole page and therefore use more paper than prose and are therefore less planet friendly
 Rhymes are soporific and I would need to have several naps periodically throughout the poetry construction.

CONCLUSION: no rhyming here

AND SO…
Santor was undoubtedly most happy when he was attached to his kora or bass surrounded by a flurry of notes of his making. That’s why Santor did not like me, I was not an instrument and I certainly could not be played.

However, his happiness was relative and Santor knew his deepest needs had not been satiated. His Jungian subconscious was rumbling and stumbling and churning inside and he was certain his musical climax was yet to be reached. He loved his kora and bass and the applause they could elicit made him glow with pride and achievement. But the kora’s randomly un-chromatic scales rattled with his finely tuned western ear and after a bout of playing, his psyche was so flustered he would have to go out ram-raiding. Even the toughest cats in the neighbourhood disapproved of this behaviour. Santor knew this had to stop and the kora had to be sent back to Mali via the Cat Hobby Equipment Catalogue (CHEC Ltd) that he had ordered it from.

And the double bass, huge and booming, made Santor feel quiet, unnoticeable and insignificant. This unsettled him greatly. He aspired to be loud, noticed and very significant. The bass would have to be sent to his giant aunt Maud in Skegness. She would play it like a violin.

And this is where I came in. For though I tried to pretend it did not matter that Santor did not care for me, it actually bothered me more than anything. Santor’s friendship was something I aspired to.

________________________________________________________
INTERRUPTION – MY PSYCHOANALYSIS REPORT

Santor later explained that I had been brought up by a cat called Frank for the first two years of my life. Frank looked remarkably like Santor. I did not know this until Santor’s extensive psycho-analysis explored the contents of my unconscious through regular session on the couch and intense dream analysis. Being abandoned by Frank at two had left me with a huge block: a void that needed filling and my attachment to a need for Santor’s friendship. That's what was going on subconsciously. All - of course - without my conscious understanding.___________________________________________________

RETURNING TO THE STORY
In sensing Santor’s dissatisfaction with the bass and the kora, I saw an opportunity to please him. This drove me to some slightly peculiar 'pleasing' behaviour over the next few weeks: several times I knocked upon Santor’s door and presented him with a brand new musical instrument in an attempt to help him arrive at the pinnacle of his musical experiences and therefore ultimately (and hopefully) curry his favour and friendship.

The first instrument was a trombone. He looked at me shiftily as I presented it to him across the threshold. I returned a week later, responding to a phone call from Santor in which he stated that such a comedy instrument should never be played. He said his ribs ached from the amount of laughter the sliding action of the trombone and its bizarre notes had caused.

I exchanged the trombone for a pennywhistle. Santor rang the same day saying that he simply could not play something that had money in its name. It would make him seem greedy.

On subsequent visits I tried a variety of instruments but to no avail. The piccolo was too small, the xylophone made him fidget (and made him think of skeletons and that spooked him), the maracas were too simple and insulted his intelligence, the tuba reminded him of elephants and clumsiness, the bass drum made him angry, the guitar needed too many fingers (and hands), the violin was too melancholic and the clarinet too prone to squeaks.

It was at a point - close to giving up - that I presented Santor with a flute. I waited a week, then two, then three. I heard nothing from Santor. Eventually my intrigue got the better of me and I found myself stood in Santor’s porch, about to knock at his door. With my knuckles poised, I heard the sweetest sound: a cascade of notes trickling through the air. It was Santor and his flute. The notes came to me, pouring into my ears, on and on, a continuous flow.

I pushed open the door. There was Santor, looking frail and exhausted with a flute to his mouth. He was clearly mesmerised by his own playing and could not break free. The flute’s music had hypnotised him. I pulled the instrument from his mouth and he fell to the floor.

Santor looked up at me and grinned. He said,
‘I think I have had my fill of music for now. I want to try different things. Cat things.’

‘I want chase mice
And scratch lice

I want to pounce and creep
And lazily sleep

I want to lick my paws
A flash my claws

I want to purr and rub
An gobble my grub

I want to be a cat
It’s as simple as that!’

******************END OF FILLING*************************

I know a cat,
A black cat,
Santor

He sat and he gave me his paw
And rolled on his belly
And scratched on the floor.

Mind your Ps and Qs

2010-10-24T19:56:00.004+01:00

When I was eleven I went to stay with a family in Paris for two weeks. It was a great holiday and they spoiled me rotten - took me to all the sights - although it might have been a bit wasted on an eleven year old. The father was a friend of my dad's (Gerard) - a fellow air traffic controller - that worked at Orly Airport. I travelled from Gatwick to Charles De Gaul as an unaccompanied child. I think this just meant I got to sit at the front and the staff checked up on me now and then - although I did get to go into the cockpit too - as my dad was 'air traffic contolling' the plane! Very 1980.

Prior to the trip I had been given really, really clear instructions from my parents about behaving well and being really polite and grateful at all times. I was NOT to disgrace myself.

Gerard and his family were waiting at the airport to pick me up when the plane landed and everything looked great. They had two sons (Arno and Antoine) and a daughter Alice. I was excited by the idea of two weeks with this family....... that was until I got into their car. From the moment Gerard turned the ignition key until we arrived at his lovely home in the Parisian suburbs, he was all 'fu*k you', 'wa*ker', and 'cu*t'. As an eleven year old I had never been exposed to quite so much aggressive swearing. My eyes were popping out with shock and I actually remember feeling quite scared, wondering what my parents had sent me to and thinking I wanted to go straight home.

It was only later that evening that it suddenly occurred to Gerard what he had done. He could not apologise enough.
'I always swear in English when my children are around...I am ever, ever so sorry!'

My papier mache dragon

2010-10-16T01:42:00.003+01:00

My husband fell in love with me at the point of me showing him my papier mache dragon's wire innards. What a selection process! I haven't read it in a fairy tale.

Nit comb

2010-10-13T19:20:00.002+01:00

I have bought an amazing electronic nit comb. It buzzes until it finds a nit and then the buzz is interrupted until the nit has been zapped and falls out of the hair dead.

Hours of pleasure. I'd recommend one even if nits don't visit your house. You could chase ants with it, for example.

Sorry I needed an antidote after that last post!

My mother

2010-10-13T17:48:00.012+01:00

My mother visited last weekend. I do love my mum deep down (!) but on the surface our extreme differences cause us some difficulties. Our conversations can sometimes sound like the Guardian fighting with the Daily Mail. I try to steer her away from social and political comment but she nearly always brings them up - seemingly every time genuinely oblivious to the fact I might have a different viewpoint and then surprised at just how different and then a bit cross about my alternative view (I should agree - yes?). And sometimes it gets a bit heated because I am terrible at letting prejudice and negative evaluative judgements aimed at random minorities - just pass by.

Because the relationship with my mother is tumultuous and I prefer harmony, I am always looking for things that help me be more accommodating of her and her ways (even if she's not trying the same with me).

and then I came across this in the novel I was reading.....

What fabrications they are: mothers. Scarecrows, wax dolls for us to stick pins into, crude diagrams. We deny them an existence of their own, we make them up to suit ourselves - our own hungers, our own wishes, our deficiencies. Now that I've been one myself I know.
from Blind Assassin by Margaret Atwood

It did make me stop and think. What is it about the parent-child relationship that can sometimes be so strained? Does it boil simply down to some parents never accepting their child can be a free thinking individual that can disagree with them? (Always the young child in their head?) But this quote did make me think about the responsibility I have over any views and patterns of behaviour towards my mother that I have not challenged in myself. Like Margaret says (she's so wise) perhaps the child cannot expand their view of the parent beyond the one they made in their heads in early adulthood or teenagehood - the one that a child can blame for all their shortcomings and dissatisfactions with childhood/life/anything. As the child, it's certainly easy to see a parent first and foremost as just a parent and overly focus on their impact on you in that role - rather than ever affording them any individuality beyond that role.

But how much of what we think about our parents is fabrication? Is it fabrication because it is uniquely just the viewpoint of a child of their parent and so affected by this distinct relationship as to be unrecogniseable if you shared it with a non-family member? Nobody else would probably hold the same view - being a person's child is bound to give a unique viewpoint of that person! However, I think we know our parents more than they ever think we do - as they are so much part of our forming (and therefore 'inside' us). Because of this they do also seem to have the direct line to any hang ups we might have. Is this though because they put that hang up directly there or is it because we shunned their views (and them as a person to some extent) as part of growing up? For example an acquaintance can say exactly the same thing about me as my mother but only my mother will get my heckles up by saying it- is that proof that my difficult relationship with my mother and the reactions I have towards her are based on my part on a stagnant (shunned at teenagehood) view of her, rather than it being about genuine hang ups put there by her? I don't know! Perhaps when it comes to parents our reactions can be too conditioned - as theirs can towards us. How do we move on together and get over that?

As we grow up, most of us need to shun our parents to some extent, to broaden our horizons. This requires us to rebel to some extent - or at least form some independet opinions. Perhaps it is this process that makes the view of our parents stagnate so much (and stagnate at a point of persistent rebellion for some of us!)- as much as their view of us can stagnate! Either way, it's not helpful.

Perhaps the parenting books could focus beyond the toddler stage to help the likes of me form a brand new relationship between adult child and adult parent. Please!

Fruits of blogging

2010-10-06T18:23:00.004+01:00

There are many 'fruits' of blogging (nougats of information, foods for thought, feedback etc) but when one arrives in a large envelope and turns out to be a highly personalised housewarming gift that I adore...it's really quite something......

(This photo does not do it justice)

Thank you so, so much Carol at:
Not only in Thailand: www.notonlyinthailand.blogspot.com (my link thing never uploads - any advice?)

It is going into a frame and onto my wall. I am truly touched.
xxxxxx

Shards

2010-10-03T19:12:00.001+01:00

And as a CD....

I love a good social...

2010-10-03T11:00:00.014+01:00

Yesterday was chap's birthday. He's a quiet introverted person so his idea of how to celebrate is different from mine (which I appreciate). Where I fill my house, a pub or a field up with as many people as I know (and then get a little frustrated that I cannot get round them all to give them 'quality' attention - that's my idea of quality - there might not be consensus), Andy prefers a select few for food and drinks and chats. So that's what happened. And we had a sweet time.

However I couldn't leave it alone entirely and we ended up getting out the

box and much interesting, humorous, enlightening, self disclosing conversation was had. Questions vary considerably and include things like:

• What personality trait do you admire most in other people? (quite varied answers - resilience, sense of humour, generosity, honesty (some debate), being true to yourself)
• What would you call your autobiography? (Mine was, 'I meant well')
• Can you list three things you do every day? (people got clever with their answers!)
• How many South American capital cities can you name? (surprisingly few)
• Can you describe something you were told off for doing as a child?
• What is the nicest compliment somebody could pay you?
•If you had to be a fruit, which one would you choose to be? Don't give a reason.
•What is your porn star name (First pet's name followed by name of the first road you lived in)?
•Put the following in order from like the most to like the least: spiders, slugs, flowers, rats, stones.
•If you had to eat only one of the following food for an entire day, which would you choose? mashed potato, banana, pizza, pasta
• What do you think of London?
•What do you think of middle names as a concept? (caused quite a bit of debate that one)
• Do you know Ruby? (It's an illustration of what my friends are like that they all just answered - nobody said 'Who?')
• What would be your ideal view from your bedroom window? (I'm adding ones we did not discuss - just getting carried away)
• Have you ever been to Wales?
•What is the name of one of your school teachers that you remember well and what made you remember them?
•Do you know the meaning of your last name and if so, what does it mean?
•What do hairy monsters eat?
•Do you prefer swimming in the sea or in a swimming pool?
•What is photosynthesis. Answer using as much detail as you can muster.
•How would you describe your hair?
•Do you have any stories about the paranormal?
•Which fairytale character would you most like to be?
•Which insect can you draw best?
•Are you silly?
•Do you have brand loyalty to any particular product?
I think I'll stop listing the questions...if you want the full set - just ask and I'll send them to you!

Conflict again

2010-10-01T18:12:00.014+01:00

Mike Fleetham, ex-engineer, ex assistant headteacher, trainer, inspirer and author sends me thought provocations every now and then. I think it's always accidental. Yesterday he sent me this.....

“A court in India has said that a disputed holy site in Ayodhya should be split between Hindus and Muslims, but both sides plan to appeal”

Therein lies humanity's total problems

I blogged ages ago about a story Mike has in one of his books about a frog eating a snake that was eating the same frog (in a loop) as a metaphor for conflict. It reminded me of that. One eating the other eating the other in a futile exercise of destruction, unable to grasp the concept of its futility and so carrying on with dogged determination.

From afar, when you are not embroiled in the intense emotion, this kind of situation can send one into a despondent marvelling at the ridiculousness of conflict. Obviously it’s easy to rise above these things when one is not directly involved and its impacts potentially felt daily - when you are completely impartial. But it did provoke thought – like Mike is in the habit of doing - but it won't necessarily be cohesive..so jump ship now if you like concrete things that make absolute sense...um...let's see....

In my opinion we are, generally, a bit rubbish at truly respectfully agreeing to disagree (a slightly tenuous way of describing the above situation I know - as this disagreement has culminated in a territorial argument - but it originated from difference and disagreement) We are not great at accepting that someone else just thinks differently, holds different values, opinions or beliefs or tunes into situations in a different way. Why is that? What bothers us when someone else does not agree with us - especially if it's someone we respect? (Obviously if they are holding us at gunpoint and demanding that we agree with them - that might bother us.)

We are encouraged to make up our own minds and form our own opinions. I’m all for that. But then you get lots of different opinions and rarely find consensus.

But lots of viewpoints is good isn't it? A big thinking pot mulling ideas about - enjoying ideas, thinking, challenging, tempering extreme views (that might one day not seem extreme) and making ideas more likely to be fully formed and well considered - yes?. (Actually it's a wonder we do ever move in any direction! It's not just scientifically proven facts that we act on to change societal views - is it?)

There was a time in history when religion made lots of people think and believe the same (or similar) thing. Religion did an effective job of making the majority believe the same thing. Within one community, when there is consensus there appears to be harmony - doesn't there? Is that proof that we are just so uneasy with having different views?

So now I ask. Are we aiming for easy harmony through agreement (which might, ironically, be what drives us to strive sometimes aggressively for agreement) or more tolerance with conflict? Surely the latter if we are to accommodate lots of different viewpoints comfortably.

So how do we do that?

Would the Muslims and Hindus be more willing to make the suggested compromise if they had not arrived at a point of hating each other through centuries of refusing to agree to disagree respectfully?

Now I am just annoying myself. I think Mike should wait a while before sending me any more things to think about. Might one of you rescue me from myself?

Shame

2010-09-28T13:04:00.008+01:00

I have been reading about the psychology behind restorative practices (see yesterday's post). It's all fascinating stuff but I was particularly intrigued by the work of Donald Nathanson on shame. He states (after extensive research) that unlike many other emotions, e.g. anger, fear, disgust, surprise (described as a wipe-clean of the brain so you just focus on what's there in front of you), interest, enjoyment, etc, shame does not have any chemical or electric biological triggers when it is experienced. Although he admitted it might seem puzzling to some, he described shame, therefore as being simply the reaction to an interruption of a positive feeling or affect.

He saw that shame in his own children usually manifested in their turning their heads downwards and averting their eyes and that they also did this when a pleasurable or interesting experience was interrupted. This demonstrated that shame was not just felt when you did something wrong; it was also felt when a good thing was interrupted. This also explains why victims of wrong doings can also feel shame - as their positive experience has been interrupted. I found this interesting, and like he predicted, it took me a while to 'feel' that this absence of reaction was a possibility.

Then I did think of an example where I felt shame through the absence of positive affect. When I was a student teacher, the primary maths lecturer took us through how best to help children really understand the different numerical processes other than through using routine algorhythms. I actually enjoyed what he was teaching (the nerd in me). It was subtraction one week and we were discussing how you could help children to 'see' that when you subtract a negative number, you in effect add. I suggested that if you take away a negative thing like a hole, you in effect add something. I was enjoying my idea but he told me that answer was 'too contrived' and he carried on. Although I had done nothing wrong, his response stopped me enjoying the debate and all I can describe is that I felt shame! I remember wondering why I had felt that at the time. This chap's description of a break in positive feeling rang true.

Donald Nathanson then went on to describe four different responses to shame.

• Attack other - blaming others for what they have done and lashing out at them
• Attack self - where people self reprimandnad blame themselves e.g. "I am so stupid"
• Avoidance- where a person side-steps away from the shame by making jokes or using other distractions. Some of these distractions can be quite damaging such as alcohol abuse.
• Withdrawal - the run and hide response.

I suspect there are gender biases with some of these but he states that 'attack other' and 'avoidance' are the most common responses in our society. The responses can of course also vary in intensity - from full on to very mild.

I would guess every individual has a default reaction to shame and becoming aware of this can help our behaviour be managed. If shame is simply an interruption of positive experience, we probably all feel it pretty regularly!

N.B. I read far more explanation than I have written but the justification of exploring shame in terms if restorative practice is that RP manages shame and negative feelings and leaves an outcome of positive feelings unlike punishment. The relunctance to destroy the positive feeling created by restorative practices means repeat 'crimes' can become less likely for some individuals.

Restorative Practices

2010-09-27T17:09:00.007+01:00

Restorative Practices are a 'touchy feely' thing that is evidenced to work and it's happening effectively already in several organisations in the city of Hull, UK. It took one school from special measures - i.e. failing - to outstanding in two years for example and the police are finding it an effective way of tackling wrongdoings and preventing reoccurence.

I'll explain it my way........

OK - so you have done something wrong and you got caught. The 'powers that be' have issued your punishment. Because of the punishment, you feel like a victim because all you can think about is the punishment you were issued. You do not reflect on the 'crime' you committed or the effect it had on others. Nothing has changed other than you feel resentment towards the authority that issued the punishment and you might try not to do the crime when 'they' are around - so your 'bad' behaviour might be occasionally suppressed by fear of receiving further punishment. You might re-commit the 'crime' and all that happens when you are caught again is that you are punished harder. Break the rules and you will be punished - that's the traditional mindset of many schools, courts, police, parents etc. This traditional way certainly does not take into account the feelings and thoughts of those involved. Punishment is done TO you and you have no say in it.

With restorative practices simple scripts/guidelines can be used during 'conferences' - where everyone involved in the wrongdoing attends - to basically investigate
what happened, ('why' questions are not used because they are actually quite hard to answer)
how the wrongdoing affected everyone involved and
what the wrongdoer could do to make amends. (reparation)

Restorative practice goes on the premise that we cannot assume everyone understands the impact of their actions on others. We don't all readily empathise. It is about making people meaningfully face up to the effects of their actions.

It's called restorative because:

•Relationships
•Sense of wellbeing
•Feeling of community
are restored. When these are restored a repetition of the crime is far less likely.

Restorative practices work because people prefer it when those in authority do things WITH them rather than TO or FOR them.

Restorative practices are not about people in authority losing control - they are still very much in control of deciding what is acceptable and what is unacceptable behaviour - but they are also providing a high level of support to help the individuals involved repair the damage they have done and actually create a want in the wrongdoer to remedy the situation by helping them see the impact their actions had on others.

Restorative practices also separate the person from their behaviour. Instead of labelling people as a 'bad lot', restorative practices sees those that get into difficulties as good people that make bad decisions. It trusts people with opportunities to make positive changes in their behaviour.

It works - but I suspect there are those that would have to see it in action before they believed it. Like I have said before - just because a lot of people are doing something (punishing) doesn't necessarily make it right!

Do they have a plan?

2010-09-23T17:37:00.011+01:00

O.K. supposing you were in charge of a country, talking completely idealistically, what would you want for that country?

Just to paraphrase: what would a successful country look like in your opinion?

If you were to really think about it you might create a list of necessaries and desirables for this successful country. You might think generally or you might take it down to what every individual might experience when they exist in that country.

This idealist ponders.....

I want this country to give everyone equal opportunities, treat everyone fairly, encourage everyone to reach their potential and live a fulfilled life. This would mean nobody lived in relative poverty and it would tackle a lot of social ills - like crime for example.

What's the plan Mr Cameron?

I'll wheel out Maslow.....

Tea Towel

2010-08-31T21:21:00.003+01:00

A present I gave to one of my loveliest friends: Caroline when she got married. I basically painted six tea towels with six different artists' impression of Caroline and Joe - had they painted them. I did this one: Klimt and Miro, Munch, Van Gough, Kandinsky and another I cannot remember.

Still at the top trump malarky

2010-08-06T20:01:00.008+01:00

I am still making top trump cards and scattering them here and there. I also hand them to people so that they can use them as a form of identifucation (sp). There are now well over three hundred to collect. My sister says it's just attention seeking behaviour. I agree.

This book does not exist by Gary Hayden

2010-08-05T17:07:00.006+01:00

I breezed through a book shop the other day and glanced at a book called, ‘This book does not exist’ which described itself as taking you on adventures in the paradoxical. It entertained my nerdy department briefly and had I had more than a bike pump, a bottle of water and a daft look with me I might have bought it. Anyway the paradoxes I remember enough to regurgitate are as follows.

(Is it really a) Paradox? 1
A hang man says to his ‘client’ I am going to give you a surprise hanging some time during the next working week. I will hang you on Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday or Friday but I won’t tell you the day because it needs to be a surprise. The hangee replied, 'well if you have not done it by Thursday midnight, I will know it’s going to be on the Friday so that won’t be a surprise. So you can’t do it on Friday. By the same reckoning, if you haven’t done it by Wednesday Midnight then I will know it is going to be on Thursday so that would not be a surprise,' and so on. ‘So', said the chap waiting to be hanged, ‘you cannot hang me.’

I like that!!!

Paradox 2
Three people went into a restaurant to have lunch. At the end the bill amounted to £30. They each paid £10 towards the bill. At this point the manager realised that the restaurant had overcharged them and their bill should have been £25. She gave five £1 coins to the waiter and asked him to return the coins to the customers. The waiter was a little dishonest and chose to return just £1 to each of the customers and pocket the remaining £2. So if each customer has now paid just £9, three lots of £9 makes £27. Adding the two pound in the waiter’s pocket amounts to £29. Where has the missing pound gone.

I had to draw a picture to ‘see’ this one!

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OK I am going to brazenly bare my nerdiness for potentially the world to see and add my picture. Please continue to talk to me.

I promise to get out more.

Getting priorities right

2010-08-03T14:01:00.007+01:00

So we are in chaos generally - as a type of lifestyle. Full stop. We are happily resigned to that - especially as we are not sure if we created it or it found us - so embroiled as we are. We couldn't shake it off even if we wanted to.

But of course we have just moved house and consequently the randomly constructed 'to do' list is even bigger than usual.

So being the ever helpful person I am, I lightened the weighted list burden with my prevalent practical and supportive approach and chose, 'make alien flowers' as the most pressing priority in the in tray. My family are just so lucky to have me.
(Irony)

Maximisers and Sufficers

2010-08-02T17:40:00.004+01:00

A few months ago my sister declared flippantly that she was 'one of those maximisers, maximosers or something' and couldn't remember the name of the 'other type.' Well being a fan of any tool that helps you gain some insight about yourself, off I went to investigate.

It appears to have originated in marketing and a book called, 'The Paradox of Choice' that argues that no choice is rarely good, some choice is OK but too much choice can cripple us - especially 'maximisers'. You see maximisers are those that have to research, ponder and research some more before they can make a purchase. Give them lots of choice and a lot more pondering is necessary. What's more, a maximiser can buy something and then be agitated if a new, and possibly better, product comes out.

Sufficers on the other hand are happy with 'good enough' and the 'what might have been' doesn't trouble them. That's me.

Looking at a holiday I once took with my sister to Istanbul I think the maximiser/sufficer dichotomy was extremely apparent. When I go on anywhere, I float around and just absorb what I stumble across. I am happy to! However, holidaying with my sister was absolutely brilliant. No research stone had been left unturned so my floating was channelled into a very packed and fulfilling experience of Istanbul. So although sufficers are more easily pleased, my advice to them would be: always take a maximiser with you on holiday!

Good enough but not great!!!

NLP

2010-08-01T18:19:00.005+01:00

I read another (better) book about neuro-linguistic-programming (NLP) recently and learned enough about it to conclude it's a pretty powerful thing. What’s more, it appears to have the potential to impact beneficially pretty instantly.

Now obviously you could go and read a book about it yourselves if it interested you so there's no point in me regurgitating it all so I will do my usual and outline the main messages I took with me. I will also add, I have yet to complete the book......

NLP has several main foundation philosophies that it's based on - one of which is, if one person can do something then it is possible for anyone to do it (with the right effort dedicated to whatever it is). I like that. It reduces the self-limiting beliefs we all hold that can stop us from trying things. It also has a premise that if you look far enough into every action a person takes; there is always an underlying good intention – even if it’s a little misguided. I like that too as I have always believed (in my fluff pot head) that nobody ever deliberately sets out to upset others. Upset is usually the result of misunderstandings, victim complexes (people kind of choosing to be upset) and/or individual’s buttons being pressed unintentionally and people not being self aware enough to own their own buttons!

NLP argues that we can use the way we remember or visualise things to impact on our attitudes towards anything. A good example kicked off the book. Take a bad memory from your past. Now you cannot change what actually happened but you can change the way you remember it. The book took you through an exercise where you revisited the memory in your mind’s eye. It then asked you to think of a comical (or rousing) piece of music (I used the Okey Dokey?) and then replay your memory but with your chosen tune playing as the soundtrack. At worst it numbs the memory, at best it makes it frivolous.

NLP also addresses getting motivated. It explores how your brain visualises something you can muster a lot of motivation up for and then it explains how to ‘drop’ in something you want or need to muster motivation for into the same ‘place and style’ in your brain to promote motivation.

But the main, simple message that I took was about what is needed to live a fulfilled life. It’s sort of obvious but it’s about exploring your inner values and then finding opportunities to make a living in a way that is aligned to these values. It is a life half lived for those that do not achieve this. This reminded me of a time when I worked as a research scientist for British Sugar just after I graduated. I hated it and it was simply because an idealist like myself could not possibly be happy in an existence where my role was fundamentally and ultimately about putting more money into shareholders pockets!!! So I went off and did teacher training.

Anyway, there’s much more to NLP – I’d recommend some exploration. I’m going to do more.

I have moved house....

2010-07-27T09:53:00.007+01:00

I lived in my last house for more than fifteen years. That's a long time to settle in. So long in fact that it was bound to take some serious settling out.

A significant number of people said something like, 'moving house is supposed to be one of the most stressful things,' to me when they found me with what could best be described as 'the unhinged look' while hugging myself and gently rocking. They might have been right.

Generally I think of myself as being a pretty laid back person but moving house did stir up a few episodes of neurosis. There really is rather a lot to think about (oh and, yes, do) on so many different levels.......

1) The legal stuff - although our solicitor was grand she couldn't address my form phobia or my need to shout at legal-speak to more obviously say what it means.
2) The fact you're manoeuvring huge amounts of money around in a seemingly flippant way - although actually some of the building societies did their best to make it tricky. Oh and hidden costs - they jump up and bite in an already quite stretched time!
3) The sifting, sorting, binning, packing and situation of being unable to locate anything rendering you to a sort of chaotic half-life for some time before the move.
4)The need to inform everyone - even those that are barely in your consciousness (like the car registration) - of a change of address and the various bits of identification some of these people need before they accept you have moved.
5) Disconnecting and re-connecting. Ugh! Pah! Companies would do well to dedicate effort to researching how to make this as stress free as possible. If I see an advert for a company that declares they have - I'm switching - despite huge recent efforts to the whole switching process that have left me distinctly anti-switch. My frustration was mopped up regularly by some poor person in a call centre. Thankfully I think we have all the connection we need now.
6) Moving day which happened to be on the most hot and humid day this year so far. Actually due to the upbeat and determined chap that helped us - this went surprisingly smoothly.
7) Arrival. It's easy to restore a skeletal life where eating, sitting and after a bit of a search round - basic hygiene is maintainable. But arriving at the level of life you had before packing started involves several weeks of creative problem solving, moving stuff back and forth and a lot of cable.
8) My home is my haven, my hide away, my security. All the rumblings on the surface were not as unsettling as my un-earthed roots flapping about for several weeks!

However. I think we are getting there and I can see the foundations of a very happy new home.

Father's Day

2010-06-20T13:03:00.011+01:00

I don't entirely buy into Father's or Mother's or Valentine's or any of those days that have been turned into a mass marketed, money grabbing load of nonsense. I surprised myself there. Clearly I buy into it even less than I thought!

However, having said that, the kids and I did make a little booklet for the dad in our house. It was eight pages and I just got the kids to write (or tell me so I could write - in the case of Jed) and draw their responses to questions about dad such as:
*words I would use to describe dad...
*why we love dad...
*what makes dad great...
*etc

What they produced was reasonably entertaining - especially as both children had made up several adjectives to describe Andy - still not sure what was meant by 'shirtish'. Overall, however, I was a little disappointed about the result. That was until the last page which asked the children, 'If you could change one thing about dad, what would you change?' This clearly captured Jed's attention as he suggested earnestly,

"I would like him to have more (yes 'more') super powers so he could do things even morer and I would actually prefer it if he was a penguin."

Really listening

2010-05-30T16:13:00.004+01:00

I have definitely got better at listening as I have got older. I mean really listening. That's quite an achievement for someone that's a really enthusiastic extravert like me. I'm not saying there isn't room for improvement; I mean we are all of us perpetual 'works in progress' after all.

It occurred to me this week that listening properly is possibly one of the kindest things you can do for someone. And it also occurred to me that most of us probably are not used to being listened to - not properly. I might even go so far as to say that many of us probably have some 'hang-ups' about not being listened to because the vast majority of children just weren't listened to back in our day and proper listening was certainly rarely domonstrated in my childhood!

I used to think what I articulated was the quickest way to impress others and hopefully leave them thinking I was worth knowing. I now think differently!

THE Festival

2010-05-15T22:02:00.028+01:00

Every year the Norwich and Norfolk festival surpasses itself. And predominantly it's one adjective expanding: quirkyosivitiness (I know, I know - it's not a real word but it's what it does). Whoever is in charge of bookings must spend all year searching really hard for the bizarre and the extraordinary. And these acts and events don't appear in the expensive ticket, high brow, classical concerts part - no - they happen in the fringe festival and they happen all over town.

Take this afternoon. I wandered into town with my family with no agenda. If I am really honest - I had actually momentarily forgotten the festival was on. A man playing fiddle on a tightrope jogged it back into my memory.

....as did the somewhat strange merri-go-round in one of the city centre parks....

Having remembered the festival was on I had vague recollections of something happening in Blackfriars Hall that I had an inkling I might like but wasn't sure what it was. I had read a programme at some point...so I had enough confidence to believe my inkling could amount to something.

I am glad we did because we stumbled upon an: oh-so-much-my-cup-of-tea.

The Home Sweet Home Thingy. I don't think any name could ever do it justice...and that one certainly didn't. It was an EXPERIENCE - one that left me buzzing.

First you chose your cardbaord flatpack home and are given the white key to its door. It could be a canal barge, a flat, a small terrace, a large terrace, a detached, or various other shapes. Then you gathered up some craft materials and proceeded to decorate it in a style of your own choosing.

It was a hall full of people absorbed in creative flow.

I chose to create Professor Pott's house - a house with an explosion coming out of one window, a mutant mayor out of another, various experiments in action in and around the house and the start of a ladder to the moon on its roof...amongst other things. This was what it ended up looking like....

But creating a house wasn't all. There was a postman collecting and delivering letters being posted to and from houses.

There was also a community notice board and Residents FM Radio blasting out 'what was going down in the community' inbetween requested tunes. They told us of a campaign to have the radio mast moved to a non residential site (I might have started that because it was interfering with Professor Potts' experiments but another letter cited support for its position - I suspect it was from Mr Fuzz of the Television Shop), it also informed us of a ghostbuster business opening up centre town, of new fire station, etc....it was non-stop community action. I sent a letter to the radio over concerns about building regulations citing specifically that the fire station was somewhat flammable, that a large orange helium balloon was interfering with air traffic control and that explosions are not very community minded. There was even concern in the north of town that zombies might be taking over.....(concern initiated by the middle house in this terrace)...

On Monday, there is a street party, after which we can take our properties if we wished to.

My only complaint: I got a cardboard cut on my finger. Cardboard cuts are worse than paper cuts but considered a worthwhile price to pay.

I love a good metaphor.....

2010-04-19T13:09:00.007+01:00

I found this and I thought it was a powerful metaphor. I know it's odd to use a post to just exhibit someone else's work but I include it to show my respect for how it provoked my thinking, not having a disabled child myself....

Welcome to Holland
by Emily Perl Kingsley

I am often asked to describe the experience of raising a disabled child. To try and help people who have not shared that unique experience to understand it, to imagine how it would feel....it's like this.....

When you're going to have a baby, it's like planning a fabulous vacation trip - to Italy. You buy a bunch of guidebooks and make your wonderful plans. The Coliseum, Michelangelo's David. The gondolas in Venice. You may learn some handy phrases in Italian. It's all very exciting.

After months of eager anticipation, the day finally arrives. You pack your bags and off you go. Several hours later, the plane lands. The stewardess comes in and says, "Welcome to Holland."

"Holland?" you say, "what do you mean Holland? I signed up for Italy. All my life I have dreamed of going to Italy."

But there's been a change in the flight plan. They've landed in Holland and there you must stay.

The important thing is that they haven't taken you to a horrible, disgusting, filthy place full of pestilence, famine and disease. It's just a different place.

So you must go out and buy new guide books. And you must learn a whole new language. And you will meet a whole new group of people you never would have met.

It's just a different place. It's slower paced than Italy, less flashy than Italy but after you have been there for a while and you catch your breath, you look around...and you begin to notice that Holland has windmills and Holland has tulips. Holland even has Rembrandt.

But everyone you know is busy coming and going from Italy and they are all bragging about what a wonderful time they have had there. And for the rest of your life you will say, "Yes that was where I was supposed to go. That's what I had planned."

And the pain of that will never, ever go away because the loss of that dream is a very significant loss.

But if you spend your life mourning the fact that you didn't get to Italy, you may never be free to enjoy the very special, the very lovely things..... about Holland.

Dear Richard Branson,

2010-04-19T13:04:00.003+01:00

I have given myself some careers advice and have decided you need to employ me to create the most exciting, entertaining and unusual theme park in the UK. I'd make back the money you invested in no time - I promise!

Within the grounds of the park would be the Museum of the Imagination in which, because I have too many ideas to include, we would need to rotate the exhibits regularly.

There would be physical challenges (cross this terrain using the given equipment), murder mysteries - no actors needed!, add to the alien scape, moveable marble runs, a large (but miniature) treasure island around which children followed clues to find the treasure (different levels of difficulty), combat games that people could join in and leave at any moment, work out the one possible route puzzle, whole spaces that were visually and sensorilly spectacular, stream modelling, construct-a-fountain, 'cards' that I create for kids to collect -as prizes at various points in the park (they'll come back for more), scavenger hunts, collages that people add to, an interactive miniature railway, a sculpting park (you sculpt it), a muddled-colour scape, photo hunts, sort your own unusual furniture picnic area, finger races, .....actually the ideas are too many to list.

So please, Richard, employ me!

Dungeness

2010-04-18T19:15:00.010+01:00

This week we visited Dungeness in Kent. It really isn't at all what you'd expect to find in a home county. It's basically a remote and bleak shingle bank cluttered with 'shacks', a couple of pubs, a miniature steam railway station (we arrived by train), a cafe, a nuclear power station (!) and a couple of lighthouses. I could see how someone could visit and decide it was an absolute dump, but for me it was strangely captivating.

This was the view from the top of the old lighthouse....

There was also plenty of evidence of Dungeness' 'Bohemian' population. Several houses had arrangements of weird and wonderful 'clutter'.

Washed up debris....

Shoes.....

Posts....(?)
A nuclear power station always makes for an interesting backdrop...

And of course, there was Derek Jarman's garden at Prospect Cottage....

Even the road looked artistically shabby!

Native Americans

2010-04-11T18:28:00.009+01:00

Every time I read something about Native Americans my thinking is always provoked! I know there were many different tribes and I suspect their 'collective' wisdoms and philosophies varied but everything I have read has mostly not stated anything other than 'Native American'. Anyway - here is what I like:

1) I remember reading a story about how when 'whites' first arrived on the American continent, the Native Americans asked what it was that they were looking for. They did not mean what they were actually looking for, they were referring to a look in their eyes as if they were always looking for something. That something that the Native Americans knew you didn't go looking for because it didn't exist outside you.

2) In Raising Boys by Stephen Biddolph, the book refers to a rite of passage for boys. At about the age of thirteen, they were left on a mountain to fend for themselves (they were actually watched over all night but they did not know this). Upon returning to his tribe, he was forbidden from talking to his mother for two years and he was at this point considered to be a 'man'. Now I know this sounds a little severe but there was sound reasoning behind this. Stephen B's point was that in our western culture we have abandoned anything like such traditions. He states there is a need to acknowledge that childhood has been left behind but that adulthood is not yet fully attained. It is a transition stage that needs mentors other than parents. Very wise. I would add - it's probably true for girls too!

3) There was the wonderful Native American story about 'war'; a metaphor that illustrates the overall pointlessness of conflict. It's in an earlier post:

Conflict- A Tail of War

4) I also remember reading somewhere that Native American's view 'individuality' quite differently from western cultures. This is a sweeping generalisation I know but what I read said that individuals did not see themselves as separate from their community at all. They had a very collective consciousness - much like many cultures in the far east.

5) And then yesterday, I was reading yet another book on Myers Briggs when I came across this:

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Jung and Myers were not the first to observe personality types nor was Jung the first to write about a typology of awareness. One of the oldest such typologies is part of the American Plains Indian tradition of the medicine wheel which assumes that each individual comes into the world with a way of perception that is but a beginning point in understanding others and the world. To these people, one's task in life is to master not only one's own way of perception but of the others. To put it briefly, this model holds that each person is born into a particular way of seeing the world:

the buffalo way - logical and analytical (I'm guessing that's Thinker as dominant function)
the eagle way - seeing patterns and flying high above the details (Intuitive - me!!!)
the bear way - relational and connected to the environment (Feeler)
the mouse way - grounded and close to the roots and details of life. (Sensor)

The addition of various colours and directions to these basic descriptions (a person might be described as a green bear looking inward for example) honoured the complexity and uniqueness of the individual while showing the patterns common to all people. Tribal elders identified the way of a child after much careful observation. As tribe members demonstrated mastery in looking at and appreciating other people's ways, the elders granted stones to them for placement on symbolic medicine wheels. An individual's wheel was then carried in such a way that those approaching could see from the number and placement of stones on his shield or her buckle how accomplished that person was in seeing other people's point of view.
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So that is Myers Briggs and it's application!

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I once met a Native American making and selling dreamcatchers on a street in Ottawa. I chatted to him for a while. He was very droll and he made me laugh a lot. Oh and I have a friend from New Mexico who is a little part Native American. That's my sum Native American personal history.

It tickled me

2010-04-11T15:04:00.003+01:00

We have a game in our family called 'red car.' It's extremely simple. All you have to do is be the first to shout, 'red car' when you see one and you score a point. Obviously this is an outdoor game.

Last Thursday we were playing red car when the rules were changed. First my son suggested we play 'red anything' so we shouted 'red thing' when we saw something red. He then went on to say, 'how about we play anything anything, but in our heads silently!!!!!' Of course when you play it that way, it doesn't look like you're playing at all.

My suspicion is that he has grown out of the game!

Anyway today I informed him that I had been playing it for three days and had seen a huge amount of things first and therefore I must have won. He asked me to prove it.

Dang!

Robot

2010-04-09T16:23:00.004+01:00

Today my six year old son and I built a robot.....

that made it a good Friday for me.

April Fool's Day

2010-04-01T14:46:00.006+01:00

We had impromptu April Fools' Day actions that started with me wondering what I could do while I was lying in bed first thing and Andy was fetching a cup of tea. It's amazing how many sick ideas come into your head; ideas that could actually cause distress if my acting were maintained and not destroyed by succumbing to the urge to giggle. The sick ones were rejected and I came up with jamming my hand in the gap between the bottom of the radiator and the futon.

'Help Andy, I don't know how I did it but my hand has become stuck, I think I need you to move the futon down if I have a chance of getting it out.' I had him showing concern for all of three seconds. Then he said, 'April Fool' and I wasn't sure if it was an accusation or an indication that he hadn't been fooled. Still - it had worked a tiny bit.

Then we plotted to trick our ten year old daughter. We brainstormed and came up with this idea: it is performing arts week in her school, so we clained to have read a letter that said she needed to take a toy sword to school. We had this ridiculous sword all lined up and everything. Imagine her turning up at school with the toy sword and asking what it was for and then it dawning on her she had been an April Fool. However, she's smart and bombarded us with questions about the letter, about the sword and about how she had managed not to have heard of this and Andy cracked and giggled. Boo.

He did stall her for a while with a story abut her not being able to use the front door because the hinges were dodgy. But then she just opened the door and left for school. Smart cookie kids are no fun!

The kind of puzzles I used to love as a child....

2010-03-30T17:39:00.006+01:00

When I was a kid I used to love these kind of puzzles. I know some of them have been around for ages but I still enjoy them.......

1) A large ship is moored to a pier has a rope ladder hanging over its side. Each rung of the ladder is 2 cm in diameter and the rungs are 50cm apart, centre to centre. The ladder hangs down to the water, the water just covering the fifth rung from the bottom. If the tide rises at a uniform rate of 10cm an hour, how many rungs will be underwater after two hours? A drawing might help you find the answer.

2) What are the tree mistake in this sentence?

3) Why do white sheep in Wales eat more than black sheep?

4) Why are 2007 pennies worth more than 2006 pennies?

5) How much soil can be removed from a hole 2 metres wide by 2 meters long and 2 metres wide.

6) A scientist made an amazing discovery. He invented a liquid so powerful it would dissolve any substance known on Earth He made millions of pounds selling it for £15 a bottle. What is the flaw in this story?

7) What month has 28 days?

8) A crafty coin dealer tried to sell some coins to a keen coin collector. All the coins were dates 57 BC. Do you think the coin collector could be getting a bargain?

9) Alan decided to paint his new bicycle red and to give it three coats of paint. Which coat will be put on the first?

10) What happened in 1961 and will not happen again until 6009?

11) When is 5 half of 4?

12) What is light as a feather, but even the strongest man cannot hold it more than a few minutes?

13) On my way to the fair, I met 7 jugglers and a bear, every juggler had 6 cats, every cat had 5 rats, every rat had 4 houses, every house had 3 mice, every mouse had 2 louses, every louse had a spouse. How many in all are going to the fair?

14) Johnny's mother had four children. The first was April, the second was May, and the third was June. What was the name of her fourth child?

15) You are driving a bus. Four people get on, three people get off, then eight people get on and ten people get off, then 6 people get on and 2 more people get off. What colour were the bus driver's eyes?

Answers on a wheelbarrow please.

I find that once your head is tunes into this kind of puzzle, the answers come thick and fast.

A colourful interlude - i.e. sloppy art

2010-03-29T23:11:00.003+01:00

The meaning of life - a very personal viewpoint

2010-03-28T13:39:00.009+01:00

Most people say 42 and that's probably right. I think they'd also be just as right if they said, cherry tomatoes.

From my personal perspective -

There is no real meaning to life. This is in no way a negative thing to say. In fact, the quest for a deep meaning to life appears to throw some people into an unnecessary panic - especially around mid life.

I mean this statement in a 'huge picture' way. In a way of asking, 'what does a life amount to.'

When you unpick the legacy of most people's lives, it usually amounts to very little with the exception of what might live on in those people they 'touched' in their life time - and this can be both positive and negative. (This might predominantly be their offspring but will to a lesser extent include others.) There are those that leave a huge legacy - the Einsteins, the Curies, the social reformists - but they are a tiny minority. Few of us will achieve such a legacy. Even our minor positive impacts on the world will in the most part become irrelevant in this ever-changing world after we have gone. For example, the work I and others do now, although a necessary step on the way, will seem like an old viewpoint in no time I am sure - but it kept us occupied while we were around (and meant I wasn't free to mug people).

So if, in my opinion, there is no deep meaning to life, then I see a need to look a bit 'smaller.' And to me that is the key. I guess it's like saying, 'stop taking yourself quite so seriously!'

To those around you, you are what you give. I see what a person 'gives' as some point to their life. People give in so many different ways, making their part of the world that bit more pleasant. Some are nurturing, some create things for other to enjoy, some entertain..... I see positive 'giving' as a significant point to life.

Then there is the carpe diem train of thought - hand in hand with the phrase, 'live every day as if it was your last.' Well I might struggle with that. I think an uncomfortable restlessness comes from trying to pack a life with as many 'experiences' as you can muster. Quiet, simple and small pleasures are enough for me most days and, should I be lucky enough to die suddenly in my sleep, will probably fill my last day. It is great to create unusual memories and have striking experiences too, of course, but I also really believe it's even more fantastic to find contentment in everyday things. Our experiences will die with us after all. So seeing the pleasure very readily under our noses might be another point to life.

I also believe that life is about personal growth. I hate the idea of stagnating. Personal growth will, of course be different for everyone. There's always more to learn - skills, knowledge etc. But for me, increasing self awareness helps a person live a life more and more free from patterns and buttons. Free from the patterns and buttons that mean we continue to react to life situations in a way we have been programmed to in the past - that can in many cases mean a repetition of disastrous relationships, destructive behaviour, irrational reactions, poor interpersonal skills, wariness of others, etc. Self awareness sets you free to confidently explore a greater amount of life - more and more free from all those conditioned responses. This can also result in a greater amount of contentment. I'm in agreement with Jung on this. Good company to be in. It also gives you a lifetime's worth of work and therefore keeps you occupied because there is always more to know.

Another significant idea might be that of perspective. I feel that it is a very human condition to make ourselves unnecessarily distressed over things that really do not matter. This notion is a little out of place here but I think of it as an anti-point - what should life not be about. If you were on your death-bed, how much of what might have pre-occupied you in your time in a bad way would you conclude would have been better to have not bothered with. The ability to transcend pettiness is a pretty beneficial and healthy thing to be able to do. Many things would pale into the realms of pettiness on our death-bed - I'm sure!

I feel we are all floundering around - hopefully, often, just pleasantly. Nice innit!

Strangers Hall Museum

2010-03-27T17:06:00.016Z

We went to a museum today. One that's been in Norwich all this time but that we have never made it to. Generally I am not really a museum person - not unless it's really something special. I hate to say it but unless I find quirky things, or things are explained to grab my 'social history' imagination, I get really bored.

The hall was a merchant's house started in 1320 and added to in the following centuries. The name 'Strangers' refers to those skilled weavers that came over to Norfolk from the Netherlands and north Belgium to teach their methods to the locals. The different rooms are furnished as they would be in the 16th, 17th, 18th and 19th Centuries - with things rescued from different residences in Norwich. I do love social history and there were several things that grabbed my attention enough to keep me entertained. Including the following.....

A picture portraying different ages of people - that apparently were linked to different animals....and of course there's a skeleton with that morbid death fascination they had.

A stuffed bird display in the Victorian room. Just shows how fashions change. I can't imagine too many people wanting this in their dining room. I thought it was fascinating.

A beer warmer. You shove the protruding bit into the fire.

Lots of shop signs (of which these are just a small selection) that were saved from a variety of Norwich shops, from the days of prevalent illiteracy.

Butterfly = taxidermist
Sheep = all things wool
Glove = tailor etc
Eagle = silversmith
Pawnbroker
Tobacconist

And a lovely big garden surrounded by higgledy, piggledy walls - including the end of one of Norwich's 52 or so medieval churches, right in the centre of the city.

The dynamism of language

2010-03-26T16:32:00.004Z

When I deliver diversity training, I always arrive at the minefield part that is about language.

As an activity, I ask people to speculate why some people (in some minorities) might prefer the second term:

Immigrants > migrant workers
Homosexual > gay
Victims of bullying > targets of bullying
Teenage parent > teenage mother and father
traveller > Traveller

This is not an overly easy task and I stress that not every individual in these groups would have issue with the first term being used - far from it. But I use it to illustrate how complex the issue of language can be.

One of the main reasons for the difficulty in language is that it is dynamic. Some words develop negative connotations - often because of the media - and therefore these words are replaced or tuned more finely. No single person could be expected to know the up-to-date term for everything. In fact, to expect that causes people to become defensive. i.e. if you make them feel 'caught out' they will almost always say something like, 'that's political correctness gone crazy.'

The term 'political correctness' for this reason has negative connotations and therefore 'courtesy and respect,' are the terms that are better used to describe using appropriate language. Hopefully these terms will stay 'safe'!

The advice I give is:
1) Once you learn that a term might cause offence to a ‘group’ or some individuals within a ‘group’ – stop using it – even if you hear others using it.
2) Try not to be defensive if you are ‘caught out’ – we all are at some point! (And like-wise, if you inform someone of the up-to-date language that has been adopted, be gentle!)
3) Be aware that language does change – terms need to be changed if they start to have negative connotations
4) In most situations a ‘label’ is not necessary.
5) Ask – if you don’t know.

I was 'caught out' a while ago because I referred to someone as a 'person with disabilities' as opposed to 'disabled person'. The Disabled Society has had huge debates over language (like many organisations) and have gone with 'disabled person' and their reasoning was explained to me third hand. It was something like: the disabled person owns their disability and it is in the eyes of those exercising prejudice towards disabled people that make that a problem. I think I get it. But for now, I am glad I have been 'taught' the term that will hopefully cause the least offence! Some people put a lot of thought (on our behalf) into the best term to use to describe a group - so I am happy to go with their result -once I have learnt it.

Freedom of Speech

2010-03-26T14:46:00.007Z

This week during training we had a debate that often pops up. The balance between 'freedom of speech' and the right people have not to be harassed and offended or anything that implies some people are worthy of less rights than others.

There is that famous metaphorical illustration that speaks about a cinema and how you could, if you wanted, shout 'fire' and everyone would rush out of the auditorium in response to your call. But in the absence of an actual fire - you would be held responsible for any harm, accidents and/or annoyance you had caused. This illustrates that - yes - you can say something but not without responsibility.

Theorectically, it's simple. We live in a society that generally values the rights of an individual to be free from abuse over the right for others to say absolutely anything they like (e.g. racist comments).

I guess the complications arise in individual circumstances e.g. a piece of art that someone interprets as offensive or a provocative comment about any group of people. Then I guess it is important to interpret between intention and interpretation, facts and opinions.

All isms are just misguided opinions that view others with less rights after all aren't they? Now that's another thought. Typical. I'll have to do more thinking. And on Friday too.

Energisers

2010-03-25T17:49:00.005Z

When I deliver day-long training such as today, I like to break the day up with what we call, 'energisers.' They are brief activities I facilitate with the sole purpose of waking everyone up a bit - which is especially important in the after lunch 'graveyard slot' when you have a group of zombies filled up with more food than they are used to at lunchtime. The energisers often have the bonus of making people laugh.

I always have a few energisers up my sleeve - some are based on brain gym. For example:
You ask pairs of people to stand facing each other and:
* take it in turns to count to three alternately, 1, 2, 3, 1, 2, 3....etc
then
* alternate counting to three but clap on '1'
then
* alternate counting to three but clap on '1', and stamp in '2'
then
* alternate counting to three but clap on '1', and stamp in '2' and raise the arm (opposite the foot your stamped) on three.

Others involve a little concentration - like the 'Pencil Olympics'. (You have to ensure clarity about what you have to do on this one before anyone embarks upon it or fights break out!) This was an idea I just woke up with in my head - a clue to what my subconscious gets up to.

Or the 'equidistant' energiser where you ask people to 'clock' two random people in the room without telling them who they are. Then you all stand up and try to position yourself so that you are equidistant from both the people you arbitrarily earmarked. Eventually everyone stands still. It always works - even with large numbers of people (e.g. 60).

And some are out and out silly like the one I just woke up with in my head last Tuesday - that I carried out today:
I placed two chairs at the front of the room several feet apart. One chair represented 5 a.m., the other 8 a.m.. I asked participants to have in their head the time they usually got up on a work day. I then walked between the 5 a.m. chair towards the 8 a.m. chair and said that when I arrived at the point you estimated represented the time you get up, you were to stand up and make a noise. The noise you make could be a 'yeah', a squeak, an alarm clock, and animal noise, anything - but once you have made it you keep that noise. So I walked the time line. Then I walked backwards up the time line, then I walked quickly and then we did it all in slow motion. And yes, we did laugh. I tend to find most adults do not need much silliness and abandonment from the ordinary to get them giggling.

Norfolk's secret beaches

2010-03-24T21:57:00.009Z

You don't have to look hard to find a beach for yourself in Norfolk. We went to one such beach last weekend. It's called Trimmingham and it's just east of Cromer.

First you have to walk across a field and then through a little bit of wood.

Then you have to scramble down a slightly steep slope that I suspect would be somewhat treacherous after heavy rain.

And then you arrive at a beach that you have pretty much to yourself:

I actually witnessed a big clump of the cliff fall away in the distance so I would guess coastal erosion is alive and well here.

Then you collect pebbles and play with them until they inspire you to do something with them.....

Brain

2010-03-23T17:12:00.001Z

Closet Pyromaniac

2010-03-22T08:17:00.004Z

With two and a half house fires and a forest fire under my belt (and a few other close shaves besides) my brother (pictured left) had a theory that my subconscious lit a fire when I needed to have a change in direction in my life. Back in 1996, inspired by my most recent room combustion, he wrote this song about me.

Andy has hosted it on his MySpace - it should say by 'Mikey Potter'

www.myspace.com/andykirkham scroll down to:

'Closet Pyromaniac' (the last tune) (It starts quietly)

It give me a warm glow to know I have a song written about me, even if that song suggests a slightly destructive craziness - as portrayed well in the song.

P.S.I love my little brother. He's pretty amazing. Are sister's allowed to say that about brothers or is that counter-culture and akin to boasting? He's gone on to play and sing swing/jazz with many other musicians since.....one such (slightly old now) example is this recording from a live performance in the Chat Noir Club in Brighton.

http://music.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=music.singleplaylist&friendid=119125619

P.P.S. Sorry that none of the links are live. My link inserter does not appear to work any more - even though it did once.

Go on ...make the effort

2010-03-21T00:30:00.013Z

I hate plans. I am so far down the hate end of the hate planning/love planning spectra that it's yet another section in my freakdom dossier. So when I say 'yes' to an invite, I am happiest if there is wriggle-out space. There's always that with certain friends and certain events but I am aware there isn't with others. (Life's a teacher.)

So we were home after a day wandering round town, a meal in a restaurant and far too long in a bookshop and, quite frankly, a bit tired. What's more it was raining.

We were invited out to Henry's do. Henry used to be the drummer in our band (Klunk) and he's a quirky soul and very likeable. But we were tired and the rain looked annoying and it's not really summer yet - with it's brightness urging us to the outdoors - is it? And Henry's a wriggler himself - so he'd have understood.

So we dithered and teetered on the decision's edge. But then the whole spontaneity thing kicked in - as it usually does - and twenty minutes later we found ourselves driving up a country road with tired kids in the car looking for a place with vague directions - on the part of both issuing and receiving! Eventually, after drawing a few unnecessary patterns on country roads with a little exhaust pollution - we arrived.

And bam. One of those occasions that you were glad you made the effort for.

Wonderful Rachel Long - metal manipulator extraordinaire's barn at the end of a track in the middle of nowhere. Wonderful people to be enjoyed.

It's always good to push for adventure and novelty isn't it.

Apparently Bernard M said this was a bit too 'modern' to grab his interest. Glad he's such a discerning turkey snatcher. ha ha.

P.S. Today is officially 'Brother's Day' as declared by my six year old son.

Nostalgia

2010-03-20T11:37:00.005Z

What is it with nostalgia?

A little glimpse of times past via a song, smell, brand of sweet, food, TV programme, advert and you get this little gooey rush. All you need is a name - especially one that you have forgotten and are being reminded of - to spark off this process.

I have been reading 'One Day' by David Nicholls. It's a really light-hearted and quite touching read about a couple over twenty years - after their first proper encounter the day they graduate. You get a snapshot of their lives on 15th July from 1988 to...well I haven't got there yet. The way they change with age - from hot-headed, slightly naive, 'it's all about 'cool' and 'passion' and grabbing at life to becoming more mature and reflective - is brilliantly done. Thing is too - they're my era - just a little older than me - so the book causes nostalgic twinges throughout.

Anyway, it was just one word that found me squashed at the end of the sofa with a warm feeling inside and a wistful smirk and that was:

Spangles!

Oh and half pences!
What sets you off?

Auction - bid for a friend

2010-03-19T17:03:00.005Z

It's been a training-heavy week which is always interesting. I always learn something when I deliver training. I am still processing my learning in fact. Highly reflective - as ever.

In today's post, I am just going to tell you about an activity that has always gone down well - one that I did last Tuesday with a group of teachers as part of training in 'spicing up (PSHE) lessons'.

Here it is:

I start by asking people to start with a blank canvas friend. In other words, a friend that has no qualities - as yet. I then give everyone 100 Grifs, Doobles, Blibs, Knigols...whatever the currency is that day and ask them to keep a tally of how much money they have. This activity relies on a degree of honesty (and sound maths) but I actually nearly always admire the cheek of a cheat!

I then declare a quality (one at a time) and people bid for their blank canvas friend to have that quality. It is surprising how well it works. People that have been taking a back seat will suddenly start bidding frantically if the quality 'hits the right spot'. And, as people are bidding, it's actually a bit exciting!

The kind of qualities I include are:
•Polite
•Helpful
•Generous
•Sensitive
•Patient
•Confident
•Unusual
•Sensible
•Organised
•flexible
•Imaginative
•Laid-back
•Modest
•Popular
•Enthusiastic
•Open-minded
•Reliable
•Calm
•Brave
•Fun
•Hardworking
•Good sense of humour
•Cheerful
•Gentle
•Tolerant
•Thoughtful
•A good listener
•Entertaining
•Clever
•Good-looking
•Trendy
•Tidy
•Rich
•Serious

I never give the bidders a complete list of qualities so they never know what's coming up next. The reason for this is, if you bid, you know it's something you really value in a friendship. As the auctioneer, it's surprising how quickly you come to anticipate correctly who, in the room, will bid for the different qualities, as people often have quite a narrow idea of what is essential in their particular friendships. Some bid for the reliable, honest, sensible type qualities, others go for things like fun, good sense of humour, entertaining etc.

I also ask bidders to make a note of the things they bid for. It soon clarifies what they do and don't value in a friendship.

Social misfit - Part 1

2010-03-18T16:05:00.007Z

I’ve always been a bit of a social misfit in one way or another but certainly when it comes to appearance. I think this particular misfit calling started with the pink National Health Specs given to me at age four in an attempt to sort out my astigmatism and lazy eye. Oh and the eye patches. They made me stand out a bit. Not the pizazz type standing out. I would also regularly break my glasses (probably passive aggressive ‘accidents’) and often they were held together by a plaster. It wasn't a look that overly helped me to fit in.

Then there was my mother’s insistence on cutting my fringe a) wonky and b) half way up my (alien bone down the middle) forehead. I know everyone has those tatty old photos with examples of mother’s coiffure love but my barely-a-fringe came with me into adolescence – which also added some greasy lankness which tended to stick it down flat. Not a great foundation to launch a lifetime's relationship with hair styling.

I also suffered from tooth overcrowding in the mouth. Until some teeth were removed and braces realigned those that remained, my face was a bit mouth heavy.

It was a good that I had personality.

But even after the face was 'remedied', I never managed to be a proper girl. Several, at various points in my life, attempted to entice me into the ‘making the best of yourself club’ by showing me how much better I looked if I had my hair cut, flicked my fringe, recognised that what I was wearing was a decade out of date and wiped the mud off my face – for example. But it never stayed with me. I really, really was never interested.

I was truly more into climbing trees, making mischief and building dens and ‘nice’ clothing, makeup and styled hair would always be wasted on me. Still would be – it’s different mischief now but dressing well would certainly inhibit it.

The point in my life when I probably took most care over my appearance was a ‘gothic’ phase in early adulthood. I had purple hair for a while but the main rule to abide by was that clothing had to be black. I guess that made things quite easy for me. A self-imposed uniform with no colour coordination concerns. I had nearly got wind of the whole colour coordination (and you don’t wear three patterns together) thing by this stage. This phase did pass though.

Then, years of, frankly, wearing other people’s hand-me-downs (often with holes) later, there was that programme: ‘What not to wear.’ I am not sure how many times I had to suffer the teaching assistants’ excitement at the idea of sending me on it to save me from myself.
‘Surely I was sad that I never dressed well? Surely I really wanted to look good but just did not know how to?’ they’d bleat again and again to me. But I would insist,
‘no I really don’t care.’ And I’d continued wearing my tracky bottoms. (One time I dressed up to show them I could – and it shut them up for a whole week.)

Now don’t get me wrong. This does not mean I don’t have preferences. If you showed me two outfits and asked me which I would prefer to wear – I’d give you an answer. And I can do a reasonable job, now, of looking smart for work although taming my hair and face and trying to leave the house crease, grease and smudge free is not my favourite bit of the day. And I can really admire someone who dresses well. I love looking at those women (and sometimes men) with their colour co-ordinated jewellery, smart clothes and shoes and stuff. It’s an art form.

Point is though - it might be selfish - but I don’t have to look at me do I?

More bloody pondering...you should try being me..it ain't easy.

2010-03-17T18:56:00.006Z

I have always thought it a funny but true concept that as people, we don't know what we don't know. In fact there's bound to be much more we don't know than we do. A humble and open mind can go much further than a closed one. Anyway - that was just a not-entirely-relevant preamble.

***************************************************

When people are set up as experts, sometimes if they are asked a question they don't know the answer to, you see them making something up - because they feel they ought to know the answer, rather than admitting they don't know and offering to go and find out. I suspect this is similar to a need to be right and a fear of appearing not to have absolute authority over their area. I hope I am not projecting too much!

If given the choice between a fabricated answer posed as the correct one and someone who says they are not sure but will go and find out, I know which I would prefer.

Here's an example:

Recently a teacher expressed her concern for a young child that was physically born a boy who is upset if he is treated as a boy and wants to be completely treated as a girl. In fact this child insists that s/he is a girl. Now I have come across this once before - with a child that was a bit older. The teacher asked me for some advice. I said I wasn't by any means an expert in this but that I would do my best to dig out some information for her. I could only give generic advice from what I had read so far and offered to dig out some more information for her (which I did. I also used it as an opportunity to educated myself further on the matter.)

When we discussed future actions she could take, she said that the child had already been taken to the local GP but that he had said, 'don't let him dress up in female clothing for two weeks.' The school enforced this and the child was really miserable. I winced.

And there's my example.

I have no idea what the GP thought he was doing but he clearly had not read anything about this issue. But because he was a GP (and had 'authority'), the school adhered to his advice. A GP cannot be expected to know everything, but perhaps in an example such as this, some humbleness and acknowledgement that he didn't actually know what to do - would have shown more wisdom. I also suspect the GP's prejudice played a part and he assumed the aim would be simply, 'prevention.'

Next, the teacher mentioned getting an educational psychologist in. And here was where I could advise. I said that the ed psych is unlikely to have extensive experience in gender dysphoria. You, as the teacher, will need to be monitor the keeping of this child's best interest as central to any dealings.' E.g. If the ed psych makes a similar suggestion to that the GP made, you can explain that has already been tried and did nothing but make the child unhappy. Better still, you can read information about this topic and if you feel the ed psych is floundering, suggest s/he goes and investigates rather than making suggestions on the spot. This is an example of having a little background knowledge being very beneficial.

I also spoke to the teacher about helping the other children to accept this child as s/he is.

P.S. In my reading round the topic I found a great website: http://www.mermaidsuk.org.uk (which set me off on more ponderings about how the web is fantastic for information and how it must de-isolate minorities).

P.P.S. I could write more on the topic of transgenderism, but that was not really what my post is about. I'd say understanding of transgenderism is ten years behind attitudes towards gay, lesbian and bisexual people - but it's all moving in the right direction.

P.P.P.S. If you feel prejudice towards transsexuals, or if you feel you'd like greater understanding...this letter might help evoke a little empathy.
http://www.mermaidsuk.org.uk/letter.html

Corners I like to look at....

2010-03-16T19:45:00.025Z

My six year old son is often walking round our house with a camera filling it up with shots along the lines of a computer screen, his knee, a close up of his mother's ear, a guines pig's bottom, the remote control etc.

This inspired me to do the same. I wandered round my house taking photos of corners and things I like to look at. And this was some of the result....

Bathroom spirals and stars that are all over the walls and ceiling...

The clock centre. A shop bought one and one our daughter made from an old record, a cereal packet, a CD and milk bottle tops as part of an art project at school. I love how the numbers are wonky. Chap says one shows the time in Norwich and the other shows the time in the twenty second dimension - because they are always a little out of sync. Time runs a bit more randomly in the 22nd dimension because of the irregular spacing of the numbers.

A thirtieth birthday card my lovely friend Dayna made for me. It's made out of tissue paper, watercolour and cloth and it illustrates me sucking my thumb - which I have mostly given up - now I am a bit more grown up. Actually the same friend cut my hair short which made hair twiddling - and therefore thumb sucking - pointless.

Earring storage. I always think it's decorative.

The dragon that flies in our front room.

An experiment inspired by something I caught on TV

Daffodills from lovely Emily at work frame a photo of the family and our old band...ahh.

Chap's crazy tiling...

How a stairwell should be decorated

The two Ronnie's changing shelf

My favourtie of all the papier mache flowers....

Another joint craft project. Andy did the cork base and I did the batik shade. One of our pottier collaborations!

The Molly Potter section of the library. It makes me proud (if I am allowed to be). Not bad for a dyslexic. I notice my books are in the fairy tale section.

I just like that bit of the wall....

An example of one of our 'systems'

One of Chap's art projects...kids' shoes in a frame? Nutter.

That concludes the tour of slightly potty corners in my house. Thank you and goodnight.

Training....

2010-03-15T13:21:00.004Z

I have two days of training to deliver this week. I love delivering training.

You never know what the ‘crowd’ that you are going to deliver training to will be like. But I can conclude the following:

• It’s quite different delivering to a ‘team’ that already know each other and have their own ‘culture’ ingrained from delivering to a group of people that have travelled to your training and don’t know each other.
• If you work out a set of ‘ground’ rules before you deliver the training, it makes a much better ‘training space’ than if you don’t.

Something a wise and very experienced trainer (on a ‘training the trainers’ course) once taught me was this:

In any group you will get the following (it’s a bell curve again. i think you can get maslow and a bell curve to have relevance in just about any training):

A for Advocates – people that are already using whatever the training is about and completely ‘buy into’ it.

B for Bouncy Bubblies - I am not sure that was her term exactly but she meant people that are positive and want to sponge up all you have to offer.

C for Cynics - those that can get there but need a bit of convincing. These will ask challenging questions, not to disrupt or sabotage, but to enhance their learning and develop clarity.

D for Deadwood – those that simply refuse to receive any learning and challenge everything for the sake of challenging and to be all out-negative and disruptive, not for learning. She just wanted the word to begin with a ‘D’ – she meant it with ‘love’ (Jonathan).

And what this clear thinking and wise woman said was:

• Pitch your training to the Cynics. Convince them and your work is well done.
• Avoid locking horns with the Deadwood. As tempting as it is – especially if you become rattled, if you engage in trying to convince the inconvincibles and put lots of effort into attempting to persuade them, you will have neglected the As, Bs and Cs and will have achieved nothing (other than a heated debate and some bad feeling in the room).

I loved this advice.

As a delegate I am mostly B by a long way unless, as sometimes happens, the training is awful and ineptly delivered. Then I will become a C or possibly even a D. I love learning and if the training is well composed, I will lap up everything there is on offer. Unless I really need something clarified, I leave the challenging until after the session when I reflect upon what I have learned and challenge my own understanding.

Luckily for me, as a trainer, I don’t encounter too many Ds even though a lot of my field could be perceived as sensitive and controversial - especially sex and relationships education. When I do, I heed the advice I have been given.

Now I might have talked myself into a training room full of deadwood this week. Still – great for art projects.

What happens when I have power.

2010-03-14T19:48:00.004Z

As it was Mothers' Day I was in charge although Jed (6) said he was also a bit in charge. So with my new-found power, my request was that we collectively draw an alien-scape.

It was mostly my and Jed's composition but Andy drew a fish in a wheelchair and an ant-dog which is pretty good for a 43 year old and Maddy threw a few pictures in the pot in between moaning about her homework (regular Sunday mantra).

Lady in red moment

2010-03-13T10:53:00.009Z

Last night chap, friend and I went to a fantastic little music club called 'Club Uniquity' in Suffolk. There were lots of jokes about us being 'exotic' what with us journeying all the way from Norwich and when Andy said one of his songs was from south-east Africa there was some deliberation before they concluded that must be Southwold way.

The stage wouldn't have looked out of place at Butlins - with the sparkly lights and smoke machine but the comfy sofa we staked out, the cabaret style seating and mix of artistes made it a corking night! (I was handing out top trump identity cards and when that goes down well - one of my criteria for 'great venue' has been ticked).

Anyway. Andy got up to play his set. The compere said, 'tell us a bit about yourself Andy' to which he replied, 'I am the shyest guitarist in the world.' I could tell he wanted to get on and 'let his music speak for itself,' but there were more questions and backed into his metaphorical corner Andy lashed out by telling the audience what a nutter his wife was and that he was going to dedicate this first tune to her. I think comperes should pressurise him more often.

Anyway anyway. He started to play a song called Obiero. I adore this piece. (It's on his MySpace: Andy Kirkham.) It's played by dampening the strings down with some toilet tissue to get quite a unique sound. I watched the audience. They were absolutely mesmerised. He went on to play more tunes that exhibited his ability to move his fingers around the fret board like a freak of nature. And so I had my 'lady in red' moment.

Now for those of you that have tastefully shunned everything to do with Chris de Burgh, I will inform you. Somehow word got to me that Chris de Burgh wrote the song 'Lady in Red' about his wife. He'd taken her out and I'll be literal, she was wearing a red dress. It's deep. Apparently he had a 'moment' when he saw his wife with refreshed love and attraction because she was being admired by everyone in the room. Thus my lady in red moment. Not that I really need one. I adore my Andy anyway!

And the 'Lady in Red' theme does not stop there. One of my favourite heckles - that's guaranteed to get a laugh when someone delivers music of Andy's calibre is to shout in my best cockney (Gatwick really) accent, 'do you know laydeee in red?'

He's still with me...

2010-03-12T10:12:00.003Z

Does anyone else have their driving instructor’s voice in their head when they drive?

Good Old Rod from 17+.

He’s not there all the time (that would be ridiculous, I need to let other people in the car) but just odd moments like:

• When I go up a hill, I can sometimes hear him saying, ‘you need push that throttle – it’s a hill you know – you need more gas for hills.’
• There’s a bridge (in Cringleford) we often crossed on a learning route and every time I go over it I hear, ‘you can fit two cars at the same time, if they drive carefully across this bridge, but not a van and a car, and certainly not a lorry and a car.’ If my passenger is lucky – I actually say it our loud. Funny that a bridge can turn one into a manoeuvre bore.
• ‘That wasn’t left.’ To which I would reply – how am I meant to know which left you mean? Chap has taken over this role. When I get the wrong left, I think of Rod.
• ‘You only need a car and a half’s length gap to parallel park. People think going in front wheels first is easier, but if the space is not big, back wheels first is much easier because the back wheels are dead and they need to be got in position first.’ (It was before this was even in the test but he taught me to parallel park as a bonus – lucky me). This pops into my mind every time I am tempted to plough in front first. He was right.
• Brake, brake, brake – you’re still going forty and the roundabout is only THERE. Stopping distances – what have I told you?
• ‘I don’t think hesitation will be your weakness Molly.’ It was snide.

He should have been awarded sainthood. He got me through first time. It was a meaningful relationship with a purpose and then it disappeared…..but he’s still rattling round in my grey matter. Long live Rod (and therefore a little more safety on the streets of Norwich.)

P.S. The picture is from when I drive around North Carolina. (Of course)

A large red tea pot

2010-03-11T10:59:00.004Z

A teacher of a class of seven and eight year olds posed a simple problem to her class.

“There are four blackbirds sitting in a tree. You take a catapult and shoot one of them. How many are left?”

“Three,” answered the first seven year old with certainty.
“One subtracted from four leaves three.”

“Zero,” answered the second pupils with equal certainty. “If you shoot one bird, the others will fly away.

“Stop being so mean to blackbirds,” says Molly from the outer edges of the page.

I read this story yesterday and it’s exactly the thing I would have loved as a kid. When I read it, I went straight into school maths problem mode and said, ‘three.’ But then enjoyed discovering the ‘trick.’

I asked chap and he said, “None.” Smart arse. I thought I was the queen of outside the box thinking! I soon revert to conditioned training when it comes maths – clearly.

I think this little vignette is a powerful metaphor that illustrates heaps about perspective. Neither of these pupils were wrong once their perspective was explained.

And in engaging with this puzzle, it also illustrates our relationship with the need to be ‘right.’

I think we all like to get things ‘right’ and I do wonder if It comes from a childhood schooling where we were given ticks or crosses. We were probably quite fragile with respect to self esteem anyway (back in those emotionally illiterate days), so to receive the ultimate ‘correct-good’ or ‘incorrect-bad’ judgement was a lot to hinge our little delicate psyches on! At school self esteem correlated directly to academic achievement.

I wonder (considering myself and observations of others), if an uneasiness with agreeing to disagree, a need to persuade others that what we are saying is right (whatever we are speculating about: fact or opinion) and the ridiculous satisfaction we sometimes get when we prove someone else wrong – might come from this little delicateness – no? We are so uncomfortable with being ‘wrong’ because of how we were made to feel as a child???? Just speculating. Again.

I’m going to cliché.

We learn more from mistakes don’t we? And mistakes don’t always turn out bad – especially if we can get over the fact we have made a mistake, reassess, reposition and make a ‘new’ most of it.

Fear of making mistakes can cause people not to even have a go – that’s a component of low self-esteem. I remember reading somewhere that the same fear can be blamed for non-finishers’ behaviour. If you don’t finish, you don’t get judged.

So what I suggest is a new relationship with making mistakes. I am not talking about mistakes that put people in unnecessary danger, but those little mishaps, those little attempts that didn’t quite turn out right. Let’s not feel disappointed, let’s not berate ourselves or feel deflated. Let’s celebrate the learning they gave us. Let’s also forgive others for their mistakes and not be like those tickky/crossy role-modelling teachers from our childhood. And I will draw on something I wrote ages ago.

This new relationship needs to start by re-conceptualising mistakes.
Perhaps we need to rename 'mistakes'..............

• an interesting diversion,
• an enjoyable, slight, off-task
• a meaningful learning route
• a worthwhile bash against convention
• what had to be done/thought to arrive where we got to
• a creative expansion
• a back burner for now
• not the one we chose today

So whether your mistake is ruining a recipe, taking the wrong turn, giving the wrong present, getting a fact wrong, saying the wrong thing…....see it as the learning opportunity it is and don’t be hard on yourself!

Tonight I lined some more curtains

2010-03-10T20:57:00.004Z

I thought I'd try a literal and straightforward post to see what happens - to see if I can avoid finding some hidden meaning and intuiting all over the place.

Tonight I lined some curtains. It's the second pair in six months. The first pair I did for warmth before winter and this pair I did because I hate it when bright mornings wake me up at 5 a.m.

I am not a neat person or have I had any 'formal' training in needlework but with sound spacial awareness, reasonable problem solving capabilities and an old Singer turn-the-handle machine that my mum taught me how to thread up years ago....I get there.

Obviously there's lots of wondering if a needle in the mouth is wise, seven pairs of scissors on the go to ensure there's at least one pair within reach/findable, thread everywhere, little tangles now and then, a lot of talking things through with myself and the odd mild swear word. I get into the flow (I was 'lost' to a Little House on the Prairie type existence for at least 3/4 hour) and gather a great sense of achievement when it's done. I've also hidden all evidence of my doings as chap is out - it will be nice to see if he notices that it's darker tomorrow morning.

There done. Very basic. And boring.

How many different things could curtains be the metaphor for? No beef or smut allowed.

Speculation City

2010-03-09T10:51:00.009Z

Just playing around here…..albeit seriously!

Imagine you were in charge of a life. Well, I know you are in charge of one, but imagine you were in charge of a 'blank canvas' life, from the start and it was a life you cared about and you wanted it to be as good a life as you could muster up.

What would you not want for that life?

I suspect we might all have slightly different ideas about what we would not want for this life. Our perception of the 'danger' and 'risks' of various 'hazards' is bound to be different.

I will make a few guesses though……….(it won’t be comprehensive!)

FOR THIS LIFE WE MIGHT NOT WANT:
• Failure to engage in or achieve learning at school?
• No support network – friends or family?
• No friendships?
• Poor participation in anything?
• Loneliness?
• Boredom?
• No self identity?
• A poor physical self-image
• Never reaching his/her potential?
• No ability to care for anyone else but themselves?
• Inability to manage emotions e.g. anger?
• Low self esteem?
• Prejudicial views?
• Engaging in extreme risk taking behaviours with no regard for self or others? e.g. dangerous driving?
• Poor metal health?
• Being a bully or target of bullying?
• Excessive alcohol intake?
• Sexual abuse?
• Smoking?
• Early sex?
• Debt?
• Obesity?
• Involvement in exploitative relationships?
• Instigating or being the victim of domestic violence?
• Living in poverty?
• Unemployment?
• Pregnant or fathering a child at a very young age?
• Sexually transmitted infections?
• A gambling addiction?
• Drug addiction?
• Involvement in violent crime?
• A prison sentence?
• Prostitution?
• Suicide?

As I wrote the list, I was wondering which of these we might perceive to be choices a person makes and which are just hazards a person can fall prey to. Again, I suspect people might have quite different views about which are which. The ‘Daily Mail Culture’ seems to portray a lot of these as choices. I guess believing someone has chosen these rather than believing life's testing circumstances took you there unintentionally means there is less room for compassion (DMC).

I don’t think anyone would actually choose to live in poverty and I can’t imagine many seven year olds saying, ‘when I grow up, I want to be a violent criminal.’

So then I ask, still speculating, what knowledge, skills and attitudes and values would this person need to avoid these things?

Well I could never write a complete list……but here’s a half-hearted attempt.

Knowledge.
• Of opportunities
• Impact of various risk taking behaviours
• Knowledge of what keeps us healthy – including mental health
• Understanding of healthy relationships
• Knowing rights and responsibilities
• Literacy and numeracy
• Knowledge needed to do a job/enjoyable pastime/be engaged in activity
• To know when conforming is beneficial and when things need to be challenged
• Self awareness - including knowing your own strengths

Skills
• Good communication skills – assertiveness, negotiation, compromising, etc
• Emotional literacy - understanding and managing feelings
• Ability to learn from mistakes - and not be scared to make them
• 'crafts' ?! for fun? for a sense of achievement? for 'flow'
• Basic life skills like cooking, budget managing, washing etc
• Goal setting for motivation
• Ability to forgive, let go, move on, not let things fester
• Effective conflict resolution skills
• Ability to access help and support
• Informed decision making
• Ability to take responsibility for your own actions
• Minimising risk from harm
• Ability to empathise

Attitudes and values
• Aspirations
• Tolerance and acceptance towards others
• Self-worth (and confidence)
• A love of and receptiveness to learning
• Respect for others
• Celebrate diversity
• Self-forgiveness (we all make mistakes)
• A feeling of social responsibility
• Discerning eye for the messages we receive from the media
• An individual moral framework that will guide decisions, judgements and behaviours
• Respect for the right of others to hold opinions that differ from their own (as long as these views do not impact on the rights of anyone else) (e.g. racism).

And then if we were really, really in charge of this person, let's play almighty creator and ask what we would want nature to give him or her:

•Intelligence - loads of it, a fair bit, average, low?
•Attractiveness - stunning, a bit, average, not attractive, really not attractive?
•kinaesthetic abilities - loads? dexterity?
•Creativity - or can you learn that?
•An optimistic disposition?
•Extraversion or introversion?
•Be extremely laid back, or a little bit of a worrier?
•Natural resilience?
•Sensitivity? Insensitivity? - or is this a nature and nurture one? probably

I wonder what the luckiest thing to receive from nature might be.

Mmm. Over to you to do whatever you want with that....if anything!.......

Desert island luxury...

2010-03-08T15:47:00.006Z

You are going to be sent to the desert island of Gawaii. It is a beautiful place with sandy beaches, palm trees and freshwater rivers. The sea surrounding it is crystal clear. The days are always sunny and rain only ever falls at night.

On the island there is a cabin for you to live in. Inside, there is a wooden bed, a wooden chair, a bowl for washing, a toothbrush and paste, a bucket, a cup, a plate, a cooking pot, a knife and a spoon. You have a selection of hats, underwear, trousers, tops and footwear to choose from. You also have some basic tools: a saw, a spade, a lighter, some rope, a sharp knife some string, a hammer and nails.

On Gawaii, there are plenty of fruit trees and vegetables that grow in the ground. You could survive just by eating these fruit and vegetables and drinking the water from the rivers.

Before you go to live on Gawaii, you are asked to choose some things from each of the following lists. What do you choose?

Set up before you arrive – you can choose three
• A water system that meant you had a tap in your cabin
• Another room added to the cabin
• A boiler that meant you could have hot water
• A light switch that switches a light on in the cabin and one just outside the cabin.
• A gas ring that meant you can heat food and boil water
• A washing machine for clothes
• A shower

Luxury items to take with - you can choose four
• A mattress
• A pillow
• An armchair
• A rug for the floor
• A tub big enough for you to sit in
• A large table
• A telescope
• A duvet
• A boat
• A hammock
• Pen and paper
• A towel
• A musical instrument
• A clockwork radio
• An umbrella

Regular deliveries - you can choose five. These will be delivered once a week.
• Some meat to cook
• Chocolate
• Salt
• rice
• Milk
• Tea and coffee
• Bread
• pasta
• soap
• Sugar
• Different herbs and spices
• Butter
• Cheese
• Tissue
•candles

Ah...interesting

2010-03-07T11:30:00.001Z

I wonder what it actually says about us......as individuals and as a couple!

Inspired by a comment from Ken D

Navelgazellites

2010-03-06T00:57:00.003Z

I went to a conference yesterday. Always interesting.

In a hall of more than one hundred social workers, youth offending workers, people that work in pupils referral units, people that work with looked-after children, school nurses and many others from the caring professions working mostly with vulnerable children and young people, somebody piped up in the afternoon and said something to this effect:

"If you give these attention seeking children attention, won't you encourage the attention seeking behaviour we are trying to prevent?"

I call these people navelgazellites; people that see the efforts in improving children and young people’s emotional health and wellbeing as over-indulgent. They are a dying breed but they still pop up now and again. They are ‘old school’ and haven’t quite moved with the times. They still believe in a slight breaking of the spirit to keep these kids in check – especially the really vulnerable ones, because they tend to be more bother.

I met a Headteacher recently that was a navelgazellite. In a room full of teachers and headteachers. She regularly piped up with comments like,

“kids just need to toughen up.”

“Isn’t all this just ridiculous navel gazing?”

“All this self esteem stuff is wasted effort if you ask me.”

“If a kid is bullied on their way home from school, why should that be something I have to concern myself with?”

Fortunately, she was in a minority and I loved it when another headteacher said in response to the fourth comment of hers that I listed here,

‘well you either care about the kids or you don’t. A child from our school was being bullied on the way home and we got the local PCSO to look out for him. We felt that his safety was very important”

There has been much work in enhancing the understanding about what gives kids resilience. And this is my spouting off about it today……..

First of all, we are all wired up differently. Have I said that before perhaps? I remember at a CAMHS (child and adolescent mental health) conference hearing a speaker talk about the ‘approximately third’ of kids that come from horrendous childhood experiences that still manage to turn out OK. He put it down to their basic wiring. The nature part of them had meant these ultra-nasty experiences had not damaged them as much as they would have another child with different wiring. That makes sense to me.

Secondly, just because a lot of us put up with adults with poor emotional literacy, that were allowed to hit us, that didn’t listen to us, regularly criticised us, sometimes humiliated us, did not see bullying as a problem, rarely praised us and we survived, does not automatically make it the optimum experience or correct way to school children! Perhaps some people have not acknowledged (or accepted?) the steady improvements (with respect to how we treat each other in education) that have been made in recent decades.

Thirdly. How do we develop resilience? I am pretty sure an individual is more resilient if their life is built upon a childhood in which he or she was treated with care and respect. A childhood that ‘damages’ someone leaves them with an awful lot to work out of their system, poor role modelling to follow and a disadvantaged start surely?

I know which end of this particular spectrum I am on but the way we treat our children is surely an indication of the ‘state’ of a nation’s emotional health and wellbeing?

A flavour of direction......

Courting picture

2010-03-05T08:36:00.004Z

When chap and I were newly courting (I love that verb!) back in 1997, we got together with some gummy paper and produced this picture! I did one half, chap did the other. It was very territorial.

We spent the entire evening on it, absolutely absorbed in it.

When people admire it, I always ask,
'which side do you think Andy did and which side did I do?'

And people ALWAYS guess correctly.

Wanna guess? You're bound to get it right.

Secret Agent Work

2010-03-05T08:02:00.006Z

I recently re-found this picture that my son did a while ago. I remember him absolutely absorbed in it as he drew himself as a secret agent in his HQ. HQs are very important places. No super hero, agent or any other significant can function properly without a HQ.

I love kiddie's minds.

Cultural differences

2010-03-04T23:00:00.006Z

I have been exploring cultural differences briefly at work this week as part of difference and diversity training. There are some very entertaining things to be found on the internet relating to this topic. For example did you know that in Britain if you want to indicate that something is kept secret, you tap your nose. I’m not sure I have ever done that. I guess you can never write the definitive list of cultural gestures because 1) not everyone does them and 2) they date.

The interesting thing was the tendency to stereotype and make generalisations about etiquette, gestures, communication and what is considered polite but at the same time give a warning that stereotyping is never a good thing. One paper clarified the thinking by saying,
‘differences between two people within the same culture can be greater than differences between two people in different cultures'.

Another paper differentiated between generalisations and stereotypes by stating generalisations are about saying that a nation tends to do something in a certain way but a stereotype assumes they will just do it.

It’s comparing two overlapping bell curves - with the stereotypes sometimes at or near the peaks innit! Ooo I love a good bell curve.

I concluded that it’s just best to keep an open mind and understand that cultural differences do exist and if someone from a different culture offends you, try not to be too shocked and if you offend someone else, explain.

Meetings...&!!"£^^£$!!*! geeeeee

2010-03-03T19:42:00.002Z

Molly sits in her office, chin supported by her cupped hand, staring out of the window as she uses her inner vision to stare directly into her fanciful daydream......

A meeting was called and the agenda was sent out prior to the meeting and all meeting attendees-to-be checked to see if they needed to put in any preparation or thought before attending and if they did, they did so. Everyone arrived on time. The person who called the meeting had worked out clear and realistic objectives for the hour and a half everyone was to spend together. Everyone was clear about their role within and beyond the meeting. The chair kept everyone on task - although this was easy because the planning for the session was so unambiguous, there were no egos competitively and deliberately being contrary for the sake of it, nobody moaning as a work avoidance tool and no one felt the need to waffle on extensively down a fruitless tangent. At the end of the meeting all the objectives were met and those with responsibilities beyond the meeting knew exactly what they needed to do and when they needed to have done it by.

Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha. Have I laughed enough to indicate how far-fetched that daydream was? No. ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha Oh the pain ha ha ha ha ha

Every week the working world must play host to thousands of meetings. It's definitely a good method for keeping people off the streets as it certainly fills up a lot of time. I do suspect that the 'culture' of meetings varies from place to place and from organisation to organisation. I also suspect the private sector is better than the public sector at pinning down what needs to be pinned down - after all time is more obviously money in Businessland.

Looking at the angle from which I look (Potteryfluffbutstraightthinkingsville) most people don't do meetings well. A productive and effective meeting needs some planning - unless the meeting is really straightforward - there's no avoiding it. Few people seem to get that. (I say this despite being a person that's often happy to wing it.) An effective meeting also needs a strong chair - one with a clear understanding of the objectives and a firm hand for swiping at irrelevancies.

Another thing....meetings need conceptualising! Why don't these people know this? There are many different 'types of meeting' but I have rarely been informed beforehand what my role in the meeting is. In fact, when I have asked, I have been seen as somewhat difficult. (Again).
For example:
*is the meeting just for just for information sharing?
*is the meeting for problem solving for a distinct task that is repeated e.g. reviewing different resources?
*is the meeting about steering a piece of ongoing work that is done beyond the meeting?
*is the meeting about bringing experts together to complete or steer a finite piece of work (and eventually, therefore, have no more need to meet)
*are the people at the meeting representative of their organisation and can therefore make decisions on their organisation's behalf or just another 'mind' to help out?
*are there expectations of work beyond the meeting or is all that is required is expertise within the meeting?

The answers to these questions are meant to be set out in the terms of reference, but despite reading many, I have yet to find evidence of such clarity. I guess if meetings were the utmost in efficiency, we'd have too much spare time on our hands - and with that, I for one, would be out mugging - especially if I had come straight from the frustration of a meeting.

I feel I might have just have got something off my chest. Thank to those of you still here.

Molly continues staring out of the window. She is in charge of the world (perhaps just the northern hemisphere). All is well.

My new books are out...Yay!

2010-03-03T19:30:00.008Z

My latest books are out. They are called Even More Outside the Box (two books: for ages 7-9 and 9-11) and are full of more bonkers ideas (just a couple of examples below)

Even More Outside the Box for ages 7-9 is dedicated to my brother:

Even More Outside the Box for ages 9-11 is dedicated to my sister:

Two examples of the kind of activities in them.......

Money and wealth

2010-03-02T09:02:00.011Z

When it comes to money, in my experience, people tend to have patterns of behaviour that can stay with them for a long time. For example:

• Some people are happy with debt, some people fear debt.
• Some people are frugal, some people spend money flamboyantly.
• Some people are flamboyant with money in some areas but frugal in others.
• Some people are tight, some people are generous.
• Some people will ask for the exact reimbursement for something they fetched for you, others will buy the thing for you.
• Some people devote hours to bargain hunting, some people buy impulsively.
• Some people save, others never do not.
• Some people like the security a bit of money gives one, others don’t need such security.
•Some people have greater money 'needs' than others
• Etc

I suspect the way we are with money, like many things, has something to do with
A) upbringing (nurture)
B) personality (nature) and
C) life circumstances (C probably the result of A and B).

Money is such a weird thing. As I said before, I think of the flow of money as energy. It's needed to motivate people to do things (in this huge world where we no longer see the person that makes our food to pay them back by fixing their shoes). But nearly everyone appears to be absorbed in the idea that they always need more money...a belief that more is always good. Even those that have immorally large amounts - more than anyone could really need - want more!

It would be very hard to find someone that would actually refuse a windfall and many people often cite money first and foremost as what they would like to have more of. Yet we all know - and regularly confirm to each other with abundant clichés - that more money does not automatically equate to happiness. But all those clichés don’t really appear to stop everyone wanting more. Perhaps we don't ever really convince ourselves that money does not equate to happiness. Perhaps wanting more is the actual belief and the pointing out that it does not automatically bring happiness is the sour grapes.

(N.B. I am not talking here about people living below the breadline. I'd never be so stupid as to speculate more money isn't necessary for their happiness. I am talking about people that have enough money to live comfortably.)

I can, of course, see more money could create more opportunities and more possibilities for someone. And of course more acquisitions (blech - don’t get me started! – too much, too much). But I have yet to see a use of wealth that’s really impressed me!

What would you do if you suddenly found yourself wealthy?

I think we can all usually list a few things we would do and maybe a few acquisitions we might go for but would it really, really make us feel that much better? What are we really attracted to in wealth? Is it security, being able to give more to our offspring, having lots of ‘nice’ things’ or lording superiority over others (showing off - misuse of power). Perhaps it’s actually the freedom to be able to do almost anything. But I sometimes wonder if we have enough imagination to properly use that ‘freedom’. Or indeed if such wild freedom is what we really want.

It’s a bit like when you ask people what they would do if they were told they only had three healthy months to live. I’ve yet to hear an answer that’s blown me away! Is it because we are a little unimaginative painting on blank canvases or is it that we are actually mostly happy with quite ordinary life – the life we’ve already created for ourselves - with lots of things that do cause us happiness already?

Or am I just a deluded hippie spouting off...... again!!! Hippie adds: if she was wealthy, she would use her wealth to help others and inspire positive change. Hippie has lots of cloud cuckoo ideas too.

Anyway what started this vague - longer than I had intended - speculation was a snippet chap read to me from the paper.

Here it is. It really does illustrate the insanity inducing potential of wealth. The striving for wealth (which seems to be in most people's deep conditioning) cripples these lives. It is true madness.............

Some people appear willing to do almost anything for money. Guy Hands, the owner of the private equity company Terra Firma moved to Guernsey last April to avoid UK taxes. Since then, he says, he has "never visited" his wife and children, who still live in his former home in Kent, for fear of compromising his tax status. For the same reason, "I do not visit my parents in the United Kingdom and would not do so except in an emergency."

Hands, according to the Sunday Times rich list, is worth £100m. Were he to allow the Exchequer to reclaim a few of his unnecessary millions, he would face neither ruin nor starvation. He's reported to work 18 hours a day, which means he is unlikely to find much time to enjoy his wealth. It's hard to see how the fraction he has saved through becoming an economic refugee could bring him any discernible benefit, let alone happiness that could compensate for the life he has lost.

Extreme wealth invariably leads to captivity. Its victims live in an open prison. In Mexico and Colombia, they and their families face the constant threat of kidnap: they must scurry around, screened and shrouded, as if they were coppers' narks. In Russia they can never be free from the fear of assassination. Everywhere on earth they live behind walls and razor wire, guarded by cameras, dogs, watch towers and sensors. The walls that shut the world out also shut them in.

They must, if they wish to maintain their place on the rich lists, also live in fear of their rivals. Despite their lobbying power, they cannot permanently shake off the authorities, not least because of the irregular tax and accounting methods that helped many of them to become so rich: the remark attributed to Balzac ("behind every great fortune lies a great crime") is at least half right. Who in his right mind would volunteer for this life?
By George Monbiot, Guardian. 22nd Feb 2010

FINAL SPOUT........
So one thing is for sure, wealth does not afford you self awareness, a healthy perspective or protection from insanity!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Another doodle

2010-03-01T19:27:00.009Z

Before I spontaneously combust...

2010-02-28T09:58:00.006Z

As I might have mentioned once or twice before, I am going take a some time off blogging starting tomorrow. I need to break out of the post-a-day routine to prove that I am NOT addicted (and prove that blogging is not the thing preventing my spontaneous combustion - ha - preposterous idea!). I might take a few weeks off, I might blog on Tuesday....who knows....I'll just have to wait and see.

So then I wondered what I would leave you with before I go on virtual leave to risk spontaneous combustion.

Then my head did it's usual, whizz, whirr, tick tick, fuzz, whallop and said, 'Fact File'. I thought I would 'tag' myself in a slightly self-obsessed way. The file will have to be a slightly unusual one though because there's not much I haven't given away already.

ODD SNIPPET FACT FILE ON MOLLY POTTER

Worst journeys:
•The 40 hour train ride from Vienna to Athens wasn't great but the people we met made it 'interesting' - especially the Austrian knife wielding pig farmer.

•Driving through central London on Boxing day, without a map, with a dodgy car that would only move off if I revved the engine massively (and then not every time - I watched some traffic lights go green and then red again and we hadn't managed to move which did not impress other drivers at all) with a brother sat next to me reading the Tao of Pooh and telling me it was all in the journey, not the arrival man. He was lucky to live (especially as later when we were nearly home we did discover a map in the car, he just had not looked hard enough). I remember stopping and asking someone where the M11 was (after having driven for hours - past Piccadilly, up Oxford Street and near Liverpool Street Station in this ridiculous clown car) and his reply being, 'You wanna be north of the river for a start love.' Brighton to Norwich in nine hours.

•The million hour coach journey from Dorset to Aberdeen to see my sister - particularly the time I was sat next to a hugely overweight man that kept squashing and sneezing on me.

•The ferry trip to Brittany where my chap, my son and daughter all threw up - mostly on me.

•A coach trip from Marrakesh to Essouira in an afternoon during Ramadan. The coach driver's irritability was quite obvious - shall we say!

•I once went on the train with a friend (Jem) from Crawley to Brighton for a night out. I was a student on the Xmas break at the time and it was midweek. We had a fun night out but failed to catch the 1.30 a.m. return train home, so tried to hitch up the A23. We were with a friend of a friend that suddenly turned on Jem (started thumping him!), so we ran away. We decided we would just have to get the 4.30 a.m. train back. We made it onto the train and promptly fell asleep. We awoke in London Victoria - having overshot to the end of the line. We were woken up by unimpressed staff. Jem had had enough by this point (a bit tired and emotional). We got off this train and straight onto a train back to Crawley. I remember the ticket man trying to stop Jem but he wasn't having any of it. He just metaphorically brushed the ticket man away and I simply followed in his wake. Jem must have looked so angry, people didn't dare challenge him. So we didn't pay anything. By now we were amongst commuting passengers. Jem was so worried we would fall asleep again, he kept patting me on the head as if I were a drum. We must have looked like people to avoid by this point! We did make it back just to say bye to Jem's mum leaving for work.

Favourite small food:
•the pea

Party Pieces from the Past
•Being able to do the splits as a child won me some kudos.
•A rendition of 'I will survive' in a broad Norwich accent - with subtitles and actions.
•Hava Nagila sung to the accompaniment of guitar played by extra arms provided from behind by chap used to go down well for some reason.
•Button pressing to divide any group into those that warm to me, and those I repel! (Actually I have toned this one down considerably, improved my social skills and can mingle reasonably well now).

Things I learnt at school that I can still remember.
•The significance of the surface area to volume ration and how it means an amoeba does not need an internal 'system' like larger animals and can rely on diffusion alone.
•'The period of over confidence'. When you first learn something, your performance improves gradually until you become cocky and then there's a decline in competence!
•The equation for solving quadratic equations: minus B plus or minus the square root of B squared minus four AC all over 2A.
•How to throw a pot on a Potter's Wheel and centralise the clay (I think I could still do it after a bit of practice - I was once quite good and still have the first pot I threw.)
•I'm still pretty hot on the past perfect in French! Not overly useful in France to always be in the past tense! I missed a year of French - when they did the present.
•How Oxbow lakes are formed, what an erratic is (strange rock brought by glacier that is out of sorts with surrounding rocks)
•You didn't have to be able to read very well to be good at English Literature.
•Newton's Three Laws of motion (and I liked them!!!!)
•impulse equals change in momentum FXT= MV1-MV2
•You put potassium in water it crackles and sparks. The further down that group of metals on the periodic table you go, the more reactive they become.
•Cellulose is pretty insoluble and in the lab only dissolves in a blue liquid that I cannot remember the name of.
•Lactic acid is produced during anaerobic exercise because the oxygen can't arrive quickly enough to oxidise the glucose and that's what causes the pain in muscles.
•Actually, I keep remembering more facts so I'll stop here! I thought there wouldn't be much at all. I surprised myself.

Favourite swear word
•Bugger (for warmly comical moments)
•All of them in fast succession when only serious bout will do.

Worst experiences at customs:
•When I was travelling back from Thailand I swapped rucksacks with my then chap because my rucksack was so much heavier than his. He was stopped and had to stomach them searching a bag full of not just women's underwear, but women's underwear that hadn't been washed for the last two weeks of a six week holiday!!! I laughed a bit between cringes.

•When I must have looked anxious because I was trying to get on the plane before my sister to get the window seat but they picked up on my facial expression and stopped and searched me and she got the window seat. Boo

•Going into the states for the first time...boy....my humour was actually stifled!

Favourite colour
Purple. Then green, then blue and if we have all three together, we need silver too.

Favourite saying
Be anything....anything....but mediocre.' Anita Roddick

You got any answers for me Blog Gang?

Thought prompted by my Self Esteem dossier!

2010-02-27T10:01:00.003Z

Last weekend, I was having a bit of a muck out. This is prompted when I either cannot a) find something or b) move. It's quite ugly to watch. The equation is: slight irritation about lost thing + bullish person + extreme chaos in physical surroundings = irritation, even more bullish person, unsettled dust and nothing achieved. (I appreciate this isn't mathematically sound but I wouldn't risk pointing it out if I were you; I'm still in chaos). I was trying to find the visitors' book that we had in our toilet for many years to share some of the wonderful comments people had written, but failed. Instead I found what I used to call, 'my self esteem dossier'. It is full of newspaper clippings of stuff I have done, special cards people have made for me and various other 'feel good' bits and pieces from a variety of places. A look through is guaranteed to make me glow from deep inside.

As a teacher, I used to invest a lot in developing and preserving pupils' self esteem. I always worked with kids that were mostly from very testing backgrounds (things on their files like 'saw father hang himself when he was 7' or 'had to nurse dying step-dad aged 9 -including nappy changing - while mum went to pub') and felt that this work was really important if we were to ever get to a place where some learning would happen (as opposed to a lot of resistant and/or destructive behaviour). I used lots of 'gimmicks' to try and help kids feel better about themselves (e.g. special days, achievement celebrations, compliment sheets, acts of kindness, touch tunnels..etc) and they grew to love coming in daily to the safe haven we had created together as a class. In the first school I worked in, therefore, I gained a reputation for self esteem (and 'safe haven') work and was asked to lead a training session for the rest of the teachers. I decided to talk about self esteem generally (and showed how self esteem spirals up and poor self esteem spirals down etc) and share some of the gimmicks I used with the children.

One such gimmick that the kids used to love is quite commonly used now. It's effects are not long-lasting or overly effective but it does help children to feel less paranoid about what their peers think about them.

Here it is.......

You start by brain-storming compliments - this is to develop compliments beyond 'YOUR NICE'(you never got an apostrophe - despite extensive work on it!). Next, you give each child a sheet of paper and ask them to write and decorate their name in the centre - leaving space around the edge. You then ask the children to leave their sheet on the desk where they sit and you give them the following instructions:
1) Do not return to your own name sheet (as tempting as it is) until I indicate the activity is finished.
2) Wander around the room and try and write something nice about everyone in the class on their sheet.
3) Imagine how you would feel if you returned to your sheet and found something insulting. Please do not write anything nasty. Even if you do not get on with someone, you should be able to find something nice to say about them, even if it is something like, 'you have nice hair.'

An aside: I used to love watching their little faces light up when they returned to their sheets. I used to go and write something on everybody's sheet too, of course. One time, the class secretly put my name on a sheet and got everyone to write on it without me knowing and were pleased to present it to me at the end of the session.

Now as I might have said one or two times before; I know I am not everyone's cup of tea. In my youth, I am preety sure I was even more direct and outspoken than I am now. Those that struggled with me tended to be extreme conformers. I think I rattled conforming cages too much for some to cope with. (Perhaps I am the devilish conscious most have suppressed into their subconscious!!!) Anyway, I did this activity with the teachers (and have since done it with many teams that I have worked in - see picture). I gave exactly the same instruction to the teachers as I have listed above. So when I returned to my piece of paper I was a little surprised to find, 'You have nice blond hair' (written in the handwriting of the teacher of hockey sticks fame:
( http://torturedcreative.blogspot.com/2009/12/when-my-professionalism-was-called-into.html ). Clever woman had managed to craftily tell me she didn't like me, in the middle of an exercise about helping people to feel better about themselves. And do you know what? I admired her honesty and cheekiness!!!!

Everything comes to life!

2010-02-26T08:20:00.003Z

When our kids were younger and we were all bundled in bed together, they always wanted us to bring cuddly toys to life or turn our hands into characters. I suspect parents everywhere do this regularly. We still do this with our youngest. Last night's hand-demonstrated story, for example, was about Harriet the Hippo with the itchy bottom (she searched all over for the perfect scratch) and we have a fat penguin cuddly toy that is trying to learn English but can only really say, heavily accented, 'my nose is like a carrot.' In fact, I don't think there is a cuddly toy without a persona and my hand has played endless roles (no seedy ones). It thinks it is an actor.

The other day, I stumbled across this 'story' that included many of the characters chap and I turned our hands into. The characters became quite developed such that I must have written this down based on them. (I didn't remember writing it!) Our daughter used to nag us endlessly to tun our hands into these characters. Here they are.
******************************************************
This is Algernon and his friend Winston.
Algernon is a black spider. Winston is a white spider. He is also gay. (He quite fancies Algernon).

This is Vivienne. She is overweight. It hurts when Vivienne walks on you. She is a very shy spider and has to be coaxed from under the floorboards.
Vivienne is a single mum. This is her son David with her. David is disabled. He has only for seven legs but he can do all the things that eight legged spiders can do.

David's mum adores Winston but unfortunately Winston does not fancy Vivienne because he is gay.
Algernon fancies Vivienne like mad but sadly, Vivienne only had eyes for Winston. This is a very tragic love triangle. None of these spiders are very happy. Except David.David loves to play with his 'Uncle' Algernon. Algernon can throw David high into the air. This makes David laugh a lot.Algernon and Winston love making webs. Algernon is a web bore. Sometimes David falls asleep when Algernon tells him all about the webs he had made.

*************************************************************
This is Grandma Worm. She is very old. Grandma Worm eats sand rather than mud, because she is so course. She says her mud processing days are long gone. Grandma Worm smokes forty Rothman's a day. She has a very gruff voice.Grandma Worm loves to party. She often goes out with her two best mates: Sidney Worm and Ronnie the Tick.

Ronnie the Tick always forgets to take his money with him but it doesn't matter because he is so popular, everyone always buys him a drink. Ronnie the Tick is rumoured to have some dodgy connections.

After a long night out, Grandma Worm often fails to make it home. She was once found sleeping on her keys by the front door. This is very dangerous for a worm, particularly at dawn.

This is Harvey and Daisy. They are Grandma Worm's Grandchildren. Harvey and Daisy are very good at dealing with grandma Worm's hangovers. Often they find her a pint of water to soak in for a while.Harvey and Daisy are boyfriend and girlfriend. They are almost inseparable although they have both agreed that they are too young to be in a serious relationship.

Harvey and Daisy are very busy worms. Often in the morning, one of them is on 'First Worm Duty'. First Worm Duty is where a worm has to be available at dawn to meet the early bird. It is a very dangerous duty and you have to be very brave to do it. So far Harvey and Daisy have been unhurt.

Harvey and Daisy do something every night. On Mondays, Daisy goes to guides and Harvey goes to scouts. On Tuesdays Harvey goes to his trombone lesson and Daisy learns piano. On Wednesdays Harvey and Daisy both go to Canoe Club. On Thursdays Harvey cans worms and Daisy opens them. On Fridays, Harvey reads stories to the blind lady over the road and Daisy helps out with 'Meals on Wheels' On Saturdays, Harvey goes Morris dancing and Daisy watches him adoringly. On Sundays, both Harvey and Daisy go to choir practice at St. Wilifred's of Allotment. Daisy also regularly plays a Sunday afternoon football match with the Wormstead Wrigglers. They are top of the league and have won all the matches so far this season -including matches against the Centre-earth Centipedes, Slightly-Slow Slugs (no surprise - they have never won, even when the occasional snail subs), the Burly Beetles and the Ants United.

Harvey and Daisy are frequently also found out collecting for charity. Their favourite charity is 'Wormfam': a charity which helps parasitic worms overseas.