New Life

I'm afraid the butterfly is not alive now. Unfortunately before it was released into the outside world. But then it couldn't fly so we don't know what would have happened to it out there...

But look what has appeared on the tree next to the butterfly's place! A new shoot! So life is always appearing, even when you think it is disappearing.

Still Going

You can see: the left wing is a bit damaged. Two-spot markings. Nice yellowy colour. Proboscis - curly bit at the mouth end with which butterflies drink nectar out of plants.

Our friend is still going well in the safety of its home-made butterfly house. It can't fly well so I try to keep it out of trouble for the moment. It sleeps at night and wakes up in the day. It likes warmth from about 25°C, but becomes immobile if the temperature drops below 20 or so. It can still move if necessary in a cold temperature - I know this because when I first found it inside the fridge it could flutter and display its defensive "eye" markings on its wings. Anything with big eyes like that - you'd better keep away! It worked on me the first time.

I'm feeding it on a solution of honey and sugar in water. It is fed this on a chopstick. Since today I have a bit of tissue on the end which can soak up the solution. It would be nice to give it something to drink out of (like a flower) so it can use its proboscis properly.

Ideally this butterfly will get better and start flying properly, then the weather will get warm so I can release it into a lovely garden somewhere near. I try to give it some quality of life but it is designed to live outside, even if it is more dangerous out there.

I will see how it is looking.

History

I went to see the DINOSAURS. They live at the Natural History Museum. I had never seen any before which is why it was quite exciting.

I had read about dinosaurs before, especially a long time ago, so it was nice to see my old friends Iguanodon and Triceratops again. Disappointing to see no Tyrannosaurus skeleton. You could really say One Of Our Dinosaurs Is Missing (a film the racist undertones of which are not condoned by this establishment).

The other disappointment was the Blue Whale - the world's largest mammal, but here presented as a feeble plastic model. It is life size, so you can appreciate the dimensions. You can imagine the real thing of course, but I don't really like to be told what to imagine. I think that defeats the object of imagining.

Dinosaurs are really an alien thing. Nothing much like them here now - unless you look closely and think of evolution. So the skeletons are worth seeing. Also the fossils of strange and varied megafauna. And the petrified tree stump.

But as for the animals which exist on Earth today, I don't really have much interest in seeing models and so on. They exist! But these models are not really real. I suppose it's supposed to give you an impression or appreciation of the real thing. I think it may do that, but it is rather a poor substitute.

I don't know if I am not using them correctly, but the museums in Kensington are not as good as I was expecting. They are good buildings, though. And enough good things in them to justify having a look. For a good museum I'd go to the British Museum in Russell Square/Bloomsbury. There's plenty to see there. But no dinosaurs!

Fear

The things you fear are like shadows in the half of the room that you don't want to see. Your half is not in shadow, because you have chosen to look at it. But what's in the other half?

There is a monster under the bed, and one in the wardrobe too. Dark things come out at night and we clothe them in our own fear.

But in the daylight we can see what is there.

The things we fear are everywhere because we don't want to look at them. So when there is darkness - under the bed, in the wardrobe, or somewhere else we are not sure about - our fears appear. Whenever you sense some unknown thing coming towards you (in space or in time), you shape it into the thing you are afraid of.

The only question is, what is really there?

I think the answer has to be, there is something there. Or, there appears to be something there. What though? It's our choice whether we look closely or not.

Let's think of a situation. General fears around this area (where I am now) are: being robbed, being attacked somehow, losing things, or fear of a general disaster (of whatever type is popular in the media at the moment). Let's take fear of non-specific attack or robbery. OK, so you are afraid of that happening. When it is dark you are more afraid. That may be reasonable because there are fewer people around in the dark. However, that's rather the product of the fear of the dark that we talked about before. If it's dark then you put something there. If you can't see what is there, you imagine what could be there.

As uncertainty increases, this hypothetical person we are talking about gets more afraid. He creates more threats as his knowledge decreases. We can see that fear of attack gets worse when we have less information: if it's dark; if the place is unfamiliar; if we are alone.

However! We can do better than that!

Let's forget about the BlockbusterAttackMode way out. This approach says that the more prepared I am for attack, the less I will be affected by it. Look at these people, they learn a million-and-one-ways of defending themselves, nine-and-a-half exotic martial arts, carry six guns, a knife, and a flamethrower. And that's just for looking out of the window! Are they less afraid? No, and I think they are becoming a bit of a threat themselves actually. Yes, they did get more prepared, that's sort of taking a step, but they did not solve the problem.

The only problem was the original fear, fear created by the darkness we mentioned at the beginning. Then we were talking about a real darkness (the one under the bed, for example), but it's really the same thing if it is physical or a kind of mental darkness which comes from the unknown.

So given that we are afraid of something, we can see the following. First, we are creating more threats wherever we are unsure about something. We talked of a fear of attack but it can really be anything. There are plenty of uncertainties so there are plenty of fears to choose from!

Have you noticed that now? Whenever there is uncertainty, you turn it into a threat. Yes, I agree, the accident could happen now, your job could disappear this week, that heart attack you've been expecting could have happened five minutes ago. But does it make sense to be on panic alert all the time? OK, statistically there is probably a chance of these things happening. Probably each of them happened to somebody in the world yesterday. But you are not a supercomputer. The human mind is very powerful (or capable of being) but you are not helping matters by using that power to imagine how badly things could go wrong. Getting a scratch that goes septic and you die - chances are 2,987,453 to one. A chance. Yes, every second. Even twice a second! All the same...I don't want to upset your reasoning process, but it may not be your day for misfortune. Sorry, it must just be bad luck, I guess.

First of all, you are seeing your fears when you cannot see clearly. You can solve that by: recognising what you are afraid of, and trying to be objective (learning to see other sides of a situation, not just the one you are used to seeing). Low Grade Panic Alert is rather a vague state so it helps to identify what the perceived threat is. What are you afraid of? Write it down. Ok I think it is slightly less frightening already. Slightly is a good start. Then by learning to "see through other eyes" you can see where you went wrong before. Illusion is the product of isolation. "I'm afraid of..." is already wrong because it starts with "I". You think you are separate and you have your own problems. But you must be connected to someone else in some way. You have seen another person before, right? Right, so you are not really alone. Then who is this "I"? It is the fearing part. The part that does not fear is called "We" or "Us". Learn about it.

Finding ways to attack a problem will never solve it. Because you are afraid of attack, you are always attacking. Don't fight, invite! Your hostility makes hostility outside you. If you welcome the world and its chances of...failure or...success, then you are shining a bit of light on your fear and you will have more chance of seeing what is really there.

What is really there? A few naughty people doing naughty things. But not all the time. They want things the easy way and can't be bothered to put much effort in. And accidents do happen, but not to everbody and not every day, and when they do we have to stop and think how we got into that situation and maybe learn how to avoid it next time. Health problems do occur but not every minute. A system under stress has to release the stress somehow, and the results can seem unpleasant. But symptoms that come out are the product of something called health. If you are worried about your health then you must know why you are worried. Is it something you are doing wrong? If it is then you can change it. Your body is the only one you have and looking after it will help you a lot. Your life is your life and can change this world for the better. Our world is our world, too, though we are supposed to look after it rather than drain it of goodness. These are all good things. The bad things exist but they are not everywhere. They may not even be bad! They are probably just "things" until you decide they are going to be bad.

We should be afraid. There is a lot to be afraid of. But it is not meant to freeze us in our steps before we have started the race. We are not meant to stop climbing before the first peak has come into view. Fear is allied with caution, respect, care, and guides experiment. Each of those ensures the harvest comes in safe next year. They may mean the ship gets into port safe and sound. The eggs all get back from market in one piece. But where do the plans come from? What makes experiment? Total caution would have zero result. Now I have a message for you. You are not the victim of a dice game, neither coldly and without intent, nor maliciously twisting the threads of your fate. You are not the victim. You have the power to imagine danger for a very good reason - because of the power to imagine. Why do you have that power? To stop? To shut the shop and sink the ship, to shatter and fail and founder and grind to a halt? Or to see in your mind's eye what lies behind the hill, what lives on the other side of the world, what breathes where there is no air and swims without water?

What crawls in the morning, stands upright at noon, and crawls again at evening? The answer is man, from baby to adult to old age, but we should rather ask: What asks riddles? Who invents the impossible? The answer is the mind of man but what that really means is something we are still learning. Don't expect to read about it in the newspaper. With these things, it's better to try and find out for yourself. Believe me.

Now you are brave again!

You only got to be brave by admitting that fear exists. Well done. Now do more!

Teachers

There are many teachers. One could look for a long time without finding the right one. In a state like this someone could go from teacher to teacher, changing for a variety of reasons.

Every teacher has something to give a student. But some have only a little. Even by virtue of the fact that the teacher is older or more experienced than the student, they may know something useful at least.

Going from teacher to teacher will produce, at the very least, a succession of these lesser relationships, and will at least ensure some progress in learning. I never heard of anyone getting worse! Though for certain some people do not get much better!

However, the right teacher is always available. But sometimes the path that should lead to them is very busy with distractions.

A good teacher knows you and knows what your weaknesses are. Though they may not show it because not all teachers give everything away for free in the first lesson. Sometimes they feel their wisdom is valuable and you have to study for a while before it starts to come through. But how much you learn is not up to the teacher, it is up to you. If the teacher is limited, then what you learn is certainly limited by that. But a true master is not limited.

A teacher is often old. Because wisdom comes with age. Even doing very little for a long time can produce wisdom! Definitely, though, someone who has looked hard for wisdom could well have found a little more of it as more years have passed by.

But your teacher could be any age. There is nothing to say they can't be younger than you! It's the soul that guarantees the result, not the age of the body.

Many people find a good teacher. They might perhaps go to a college to study with someone they admire, and they improve and enjoy it. They look back and say how important it was for them. That's positive! Yet others have not flowered in any significant way, so they feel like they never arrived anywhere...and they don't know where they were going!

The journey of learning is complicated, but only if it has become complicated. Remember how well you learned in the first years of your life. That learning continues all through life, but life takes a long time and it is easy to lose track of what you were doing. The plan of finding your talents and developing them to help everyone goes on, even if it only goes on a little way. I wonder, though, how far it could go?

How much you learn is up to you. The student is the one who listens or chooses not to listen. The teacher is prepared to give everything...to the right person. But the student has to be open to the guidance. The trouble is that many people do not listen and do not realise they have got things wrong. They, of course, do not know they need to be guided.

Yet most people are looking to improve, and they listen to help from outside. I think this is wise.

Finding the right teacher is possible. Then learning from them is possible too. But a guide is only guiding you. They are telling you to hold the map the right way up. That should help!

They are guiding.

But you are the one who has to arrive.

But the right teacher would love to help you as much as you will let them. You may have to ask though. Sometimes.

The Language of Music

It's hard to explain impossible things to you.

But the reason one person writes to another is that there is something he needs to tell that person, something which he thinks the other person doesn't know. The only problem is that when a fact is an unknown fact, it is hard to understand. In fact it may be impossible to understand - it will take a lot of problems and hard work to finally see what it was. Sometimes, indeed, you can't just tell someone the answer they need, because they won't understand without actually discovering the answer for themselves. That's why we have symbols like mazes and spirals. Labyrinths were popular in ancient art. Popularity comes when something resonates with many people, no matter what the intention behind it. In this case, the Labyrinth is a journey you must follow until it is solved - there is not normally a short way through.

The Labyrinth is a part of the ear, too.

When we hear music we can identify patterns. Without them, it would probably be noise. But as long as we can fit the sound to a pattern we feel there is some sense behind it. We keep creating possible patterns to fit to the stimulus, trying to find a match for one or more templates that we have stored, or creating a new one based on the incoming material. So although I said we try to find a fit, really we are creating the pattern that we hear. The sound is what it is, but the pattern is our own. Listen to noise and see how soon you start to hear words. They may not be there as such, but we are looking (listening) for them.

So we may find there is sense at the first hearing of a piece of music. That depends on what experience we have. Whatever the case, we will try and we will find something. But you might end up saying, no, I just couldn't make anything of it. Like the ladies in the Wigmore Hall who laughed at the 'wrong notes' in a Webern piece - which was written in 1899! I was there, you can believe me.

There are "dissonant" cases where the music is too different from the listener's internal templates and antagonism results. Of course, the dissonance is not necessarily a question of some dissonance in the music's harmonic idiom - I was referring to the dissonance between what they are hearing and what they might expect to make sense, or what they have heard before and got used to. But on the whole the music one hears is mostly more or less familiar - you tend to recognise it as music, and more particularly as "our music". Statistically we are more likely to hear music we already recognise, of course - because statistically we will stay in more or less the same place.

Recognition comes then, somewhat or a lot. You can tell there is a loud bit coming up because it starts getting louder. It started quiet so you know it will be quiet for a bit. Or after learning a bit more, you know that if it is quiet, it might stay quiet or might SUDDENLY get loud. You start to learn what the options might be. And if you know a bit about music you might here where the harmony is going. You might recognise the sort of "subject" the composer is thinking of. Of course there is not a subject, it is music not words, but there are associations and special patterns we notice. It might be something clear like the sound of a bird (the cuckoo in Beethoven's Pastoral Symphony) or something ambiguous like the sound of water or wind in a Schubert song. It might be a topic like "military" (Chopin Polonaise) or "exotic" (Debussy Pagodas) or "academic" (Handelian fugue in Mozart or Beethoven). Whatever it is, you learn, and then finally you understand. It can take repeated hearings to get there though - although most do not try after the first attempt. And sometimes there is no attempt! (What are the chances of success there I wonder?)

All of these insights come with practise and understanding. Some come with learning and knowledge.

They say that a child's mind is a clear mind. They say a child will see the obvious when everyone else convinces themselves otherwise or trips themselves up in tangles of thought and blind guesses. That's why there is the famous story of The Emperor's New Clothes. Maybe it's funny, I don't know. I'm sure no-one believes it could ever really happen. But that's the shock you get when you realise it's happening all the time. Look at what people are doing around you now. A little or a lot, helping or un-helping, but they are certainly taking a lot of different approaches to the maze of their life. Certainly the mazes are different, but can all the people be right? The child says: I thought you had to get to the centre. (Does that mean it is easier than it seemed?)

Yes, you try to hear some sense in the sound coming in. But we are in luck, because the person who created it all - the composer - put sense in at the beginning. So we are in with a fighting chance!

I am convinced that we can understand music purely by paying attention to what the composer has put in it. That's the approach I took when I wrote about Evryali, and it's how I try to understand music on a daily basis. The significance of this is that it doesn't matter how much you know before you get started. Knowledge came down to us because other people noticed things; that means we can notice them too. But it will take a long time if we try to understand the knowledge AS WELL as the music. That's two jobs, you see. Fortunately I have tried to understand the music, afflicted with only a slight knowledge of the technical processes involved. (That's not a joke, I really don't know much!). That's why I'm here today to tell you where to look.

The first time I noticed something important about music was in a Mozart symphony last year. It wasn't a good performance (maybe that's why I noticed it). The symphony was called "The Jupiter", but I don't think that matters because I don't like the "I know it all" approach to music: Ah, The Jupiter, yes, of course. Beethoven's second Razumovsky Quartet, yes. Opus 106, a masterpiece. It does annoy me rather, you see this is talking about music without mentioning the music. Perhaps it is not talking about the music? I know it's helpful to use labels so we can know what is being discussed, but these are the names on the filing cabinet. They are the names on the files. They are not the contents of the files. Inside are lovely golden sounds without names. Songs without words that sing in my heart.

I forget exactly what it was in that Mozart symphony. I think it was a movement in the harmony. I realised he was doing something really funny, moving somewhere no-one could have predicted. I wondered why no-one was laughing. I think it was because they were hearing "A Mozart symphony" - the one in their heads, perhaps. You don't need Sherlock Holmes to tell you that the best Mozart symphony comes from Mozart, not from us. By some twist of fate, that was actually what I was hearing. Yes, no incompetence on the part of the conductor or players prevented me from hearing what the composer had put into the music. It was all there, and it always is in any piece or performance.

Music is highly cultural, you know. There is a lot to learn about. But as it happens you don't particularly need to learn any of it. If you are responsible and care about the music and why it exists then I think it won't hurt to try learning a bit. But you have to listen first.

I listened, and I am now telling you this:

A master composer knows his job and tries to get better at it.

The best composers didn't stop when they had had enough, or when they thought they were good enough. They continued changing.

In these cases, the golden secret inside centre of the music was what led the creator - it was what they were trying to communicate! In the other cases, the composer got tired and his forms started writing themselves, though there could still be flashes of inspiration. It could never dry up completely (some music leads me to doubt this but it is true)

The secret was called ecstasy. Did the composer want to be a composer, or could he not stop being a composer? "Ecstasy" is a word that means being outside yourself. What is outside? Whatever we don't already know. Other people. Other places. Other ideas. Mistakes. Answers. Genius.

Whatever you think about music, I think we all have to agree there is some kind of vision involved in it. Someone wants to communicate something, and that is their vision. It can be predictable, clichéed, or previously impossible - a surprising thing of brilliance and power. With skill, the vision becomes clearer.

That vision is present in every part of the work, and through the opposition between the parts we can appreciate what it is. (The word for an arrangement of parts is composition)

You won't at first know what a piece of music is saying. It's important to remember that it isn't saying anything. As long as you can say it in words, you are not there. You can talk about it but you have to live it to see it.

With repeated slow careful exposure to music you can learn to feel what it really is. Your mind is not understanding it, your heart is not feeling it, but these senses may be involved.

Remember what I am telling you: it is real. Music is real. There is a real reason for it. It is not something in a book or on a CD, it is something outside you, coming in. Also remember that if you were lost in a labyrinth, you might forget your journey. The outside might seem dark and unfriendly. Think then of what it's like to find the way through the maze. Find the end, and you see you were the one who had gone outside. Really the music is inside. People who don't listen are stuck outside. When we hear it truly, we are all joined up again. Or starting to be.

Primo Levi was in a prison camp. Then he sent us a message through his books so that the world would change. James Clavell was in a prison camp. He did the same. He did a good thing too, because he loved the people who imprisoned him. That is how he was set free. Any others who still hated them were still prisoners, weren't they? And Ronald Searle was in the same camp. He had to carefully hide his drawings while he was there. He sent us messages too.

There is a well-known analogy that life is like a bird flying through a lighted hall. It is light for a moment, then it is dark again. That's silly, because although I can see what it means, I think they are looking at it from the wrong side. Think what the other birds are thinking. Wot is that bird doing stuck inside that dark hall when we are all out here?

I spoke of prisoners because when we are stuck or lost, what we need most is a way out. Sometimes it is all we can do just to survive. There isn't much sign of life outside the prison. But one day a message comes.

To understand the message is all we need to do.

It is not obvious. But it is there. If you can love it, then you are hearing it.

This is the language of music.

Protect This

I went to a concert last night - it was pretty good, you know.

The last time I was in that hall it was to hear Maxim Vengerov playing Paganini's violin.

I was thinking about the sound of different violins, expensive ones and normal ones (which are still expensive). A quick footnote about the miserable scratchy sound of contemporary music violins (often, not always) which may be due to the playing or may be due to the financial potency of said violinists. I remembered the sound of the Paganini violin. What would Paganini have sounded like? This violin is part of what we have left of his playing...This violin! Then I imagined Vengerov pretending to break the violin for a joke and then bringin on the real one. I know, it's unlikely, but my brain thinks about a lot of things many of which may be even more unlikely. Genius answers come from considering the unlikely and the impossible - that's why we have to entertain unlikely thoughts. Because the ideal solution to a problem may be impossible and unthinkeble at this moment. Probably that is why it is a problem.

The next thing I thought was what if he really smashed the violin? But, you see, that is not possible because music is creative, not destructive. When there is a war we can go to a concert and be healed a little bit. Even if the music is not too good, or the playing indifferent, it is still music. There is still a special feeling of learning about something bigger than each one of us, something that involves all of us, and stops us from hurting people. A little bit.

I prefer concerts that don't take place during wars, though.

OK? Remember that - no wars please!

New Year's Message

Happy New Year~!

In many parts of the world people are vowing not to eat chocolate and things like that.

As you know, it's often quite soon that they start eating it again.

There may be other things people want to stop (or start) doing, some small, some complicated.

Whatever it may be, they can only do one thing at a time. You can do the same. If you want to change something, just try it one step at a time. Then when you have done the first thing on your list, you will know you have got somewhere. Then you can move on to the next thing.

It's good to have a day that stands for the end of the past and the beginning of the present. Not the future, because we are not all there yet. But living in the present is a good skill to learn! Not wishing about the past, not wishing now could be different. Just living it.

If you find you have started to eat chocolate again (or whatever it was), here is a tip for you. You do not have to wait another year to start again. Some cultures have their New Year on a different date, not necessarily January 1st. So remember that because here is a secret: you can start again any day you want to.

Now is a good time.

Granados

The composer Granados was born in 1867. He was in America in 1916, and because he was suddenly invited to give a recital for the President, he missed his boat back to Spain. Instead, he took a different boat to England, and then transferred to another one heading for France. But the First World War had started and the ship was torpedoed. Granados jumped from the lifeboat to save his wife but could not and also HE DROWNED!!!!!!!!!

But his music survived.

Continued Service Announcements

Hello! I'm still cataloguing! It will be done soon. There are about 45 categories so far!

It might be possible for other people to get by with fewer categories, but probably only because most people only write about one or two things. That means life here is much richer!

Scott Adams, creator of the Dilbert comic strip, also has a blog. He lost his voice completely 18 months ago, which is hard work to say the least. But he has some good news for you. You can read about it here!

I found that because I was looking at some photos at the Magnum photo agency and was finding that many of them are REALLY DEPRESSING! As long as something counts as news, it seems it has to be awfully serious and therefore depressing. I have realised that the same is true of art, particularly film. This has been touched on by Mr Adams too. Probably I say "particularly film" only because there are a lot of films around in the world, and not much talk about the latest symphony from...what was his name, oh that's right, we don't know the names of any living composers do we. Meanwhile they have all died! Anyway, back to art. Well, depressing things are serious. However, they do not have to be depressing to be serious. I think that to be really serious you have to be able to laugh. It shows you have understood the seriousness of a situation - because if you know how bad some things might really be, then you probably also know the first useful thing we can do about them is not to be defeated, and to laugh.

But the news is always serious, i.e. depressing! What about the other news? They don't bother to tell us about that, do they. Well, sometimes. But it's always "on a lighter note", it's an extra bonus after the depressing things. They could put in more positive stuff, you know. What nice things happened today? We don't know, but I bet something nice happened!

Right, that's enough talking from me. I'd better get on with my painstaking cataloguing of this valuable internet resource of usefulness!

PS I just had a glance at the adverts to the top left of this. I see we are now being offered Mandolin Instruction! How on earth did that get there?

PPS I have just mentioned Mandolin Instruction! Twice! Now all the adverts will be for Mandolin Instruction! Aggh, three times! Someone stop me writing about Mandolin Instruction!

PP

I was going to talk about a street preacher here in London - his name is Philip Howard and he's from Liverpool!! But he's 52 so that's not me.

But then I would have to talk about religions and I might have to be critical of some of them.

And I don't like to complain!

So have a look at some footage of Pablo Picasso painting instead.

I have started thinking about Picasso lately. The first reason to think about something (for me) is when I don't understand it. Or when I don't like it. Though normally either of these two things would stop someone thinking about it. Funny, eh?

Well, look. Once I didn't like pizza at all. But I tried and I can eat it now. And Rachmaninoff - I once had no idea what was going on there, but I was patient and now I think it's interesting. Now, perhaps Rachmaninoff is more important than pizza, and I can't say how important that is. Perhaps neither is particularly important, I'm not saying at this stage. But what is important is to give myself a chance. Because I took an interest, I have added two things to my "like" list. I think it's better that way. The more things the better, because one day I might find something that really is important. Yes, a key fact! Something useful! But as long as I exclude things from my "possibles" list, I might miss it.

I still don't know about Picasso but I know he was good at drawing, that you can see enormous technical facility and poise in the way he paints (in the film above), and that he was prolific - he painted 13,500 pictures in his life! And made 300 sculptures and many more works!

Most prolific composers managed about 1,000 works each. That was really a lot, too. So these are interesting statistics to compare. I wonder what it means?

So I will continue to "include" Pablo Picasso until I know what he is up to. Please do the same! Include things!

Thanks!

(PS the film seems to be a commerial for Apple - I don't think Picasso made it for them though!)

Spelin

My spelling worries me at times, and it's not my fault at all.

There is so much written material being produced using the English language today, most of it by unqualified people, that I have become infected by this superinundation of verbal effluvia (ha ha, I just said that to test my word-power!).

You can say,"We don't want to lose our powers of description". But the word "lose" is one of the words we have already lost, I'm afraid. And I'm the loser now that language use is looser, because what I see very often is the word "loose" when people mean "lose". And I get so used to seeing it that when I see the correct spelling I see it as a mistake. Something looks wrong!

Either we must throw away all the dictionaries and abandon English to the hyaenas, or...something must be done. (Ha ha again, I just felt like saying that - it's very dramatic!)

Today I feel I have helped the cause through not making errors and putting in a bit of effort to give my sentences a measure of moral fibre. However probably now nobody can understand what I'm saying so I'd better mess around with it until it looks a bit more normal. Is there perhaps a tool I can use that un-spellchecks this document? It could be more easily done by just easing the tension in my concentration. Just relax the attention a bit and everything might flow the normal way.

We've nothing to lose once we let it loose! (Because it is already gone!)

(PS I will keep writing in the "making an effort" style if you don't mind).

Goodbye! (For now...)

Speed

I have just read an article about children and the effect of fast modern life on them.

I completely agree. It has an effect on me too. That's why I've started going outside and so on.

Really the best thing to do is put all the TVs and things in a big bag and then go outside with all the little children and start playing. You will miss most reports like this one but by then maybe they won't need to write any.

Boy

I like this one. By Henri Cartier-Bresson.

Wind

Today there are many many ways of making things go fast and a long way. But remember the first discovery that sent ships scudding across the horizon into adventure - the wind! Imagine the first time someone saw a leaf blown away and made a sail for his boat. Imagine!

Sailing ships were beautiful, it is true. But steamships and their successors could go in a straight line without having to wait for anything. No more tacking and hoping and clinging to the wind by the skin of your teeth.

So now things go fast all the time. But we are still at sea. And we are not machines. So be glad when the wind drops and you have to rest. And even when the sky seems made of concrete but for a little tiny gap of blue at the top, and there is only the noise of traffic not rushing winds, feel the air around you and look up at the sky and remember!

Set sail for...?

Distractions

People sometimes ask, after reading something like my last post, what they can do about some or all of the great and terrible events in the world. Well I answered that once, and it seems that my answer is similar now. You can't do anything. Unless you can.

You can do what you can do. But you probably don't believe you can do very much so that is one obstacle. Things are not as bad as all that though. There are certainly some things you are good at now (some people think they are good at nothing, others think they are superior in everything - it is probable that both types are wrong) so you know you can do those things. Hopefully at least some of them are things that can help other people so you are on the way already.

Do you know, there might actually be something useful you can do to help. But probably we aren't sure what that is at this stage. You may have your suspicions (a hidden talent, a forgotten wish?) or may think you are not cut out for great things. You don't have to get your name in the papers to do great things, though. Could be you are great already. (I am telling the truth here - the biggest step is believing me)

Some people get their name in the papers a lot. They are famous and talked-about. We give them responsibility for good and evil things that we also read about in the papers. But have you noticed that the papers don't make a lot of sense? They are ENTIRELY speculative because they are of the moment. But we take the speculation as fact, and fail to notice that it changes the next day. Apparently it is correct to believe statements that have been put into print; less reliable to trust someone's word. (Unless they are famous)

It MIGHT be useful to read about events. Possibly. If you remember that what you're reading always has a particular viewpoint. But reading doesn't mean you are acting. That might seem obvious. But it is easy to imagine that reading today's opinion makes one well-informed and therefore makes one feel one has done one's bit to "set the world to rights". Is it true though?

It takes a while to read the paper. It takes some time to talk about what was in the paper. It takes a lot of energy to carry the beliefs that came from the paper. Let's just accept that not everything is right in the world (yet), that we can't fully know what's going on (probably), that we probably can't change the large-scale happenings, that you can control how you affect yourself and other people, that you can decide to make creative things happen and not destructive ones, that you can be the best person that you already were (under the surface), and not GET DISTRACTED BY CURRENT AFFAIRS!

The most important current affairs are your own current affairs. "Jane Smith orders air strike against husband". "Man declares war on that cat next door". "Twins sign new peace accord".

You are making your own headlines. The difference is, you can change everything about your own news.

Israeli-Lebanese Conflict Protest

Today there was a march in central London largely by Muslims protesting against the actions of Israel in the ongoing Lebanese conflict. Men and women separated as usual, the protest passed through the centre of London in four waves.

Children were represented both in person, carried in the arms of a parent or in pushchairs, and symbolically, shown by the presence of tiny black coffins also carried in the arms of demonstrators.

Pre-prepared orange placards were held up and as each crowd passed it chanted slogans, repeating the words of a few young men in their midst with megaphones, reading from cards.

The sight of the black coffins, both small and man-sized, was the most dramatic aspect, yet for me this visual imagery was matched by the chilling sound of the women's high voices shouting the Takbir, "Allahu Akhbar" (الله أكبر).

Not normally chilling, although sensational media might have us hear it otherwise, the phrase meaning God is Great is traditionally used in a rich variety of circumstances. But today it appeared provocative, the verbal missile of one religion hurled at another. Perhaps I misread the intention, but to my eyes it appeared that this protest was not against war and aggression, seeking conciliation, but was instead a protest against another country, people, and, perhaps, religion.


Other slogans to be heard were "Down With USA" and "George Bush Go To Hell". Perhaps I did not misunderstand after all. It seems unequivocal at least as far as the US is concerned. I could not hear everything they shouted but other chants were less pithy, for example "Death, Destruction, Full of Dark". It may have been more poetic but it didn't make me feel much better.

I don't believe we fully know what is at the root of the tension between Israel and Arabia. Clearly it is difficult. Clearly I wish there would be more understanding. Perhaps this is impossible. I'm sorry to say that I have sympathy for the cultures on both sides of this question. Only sorry because it doesn't seem a very popular viewpoint to take. In a war is it most dangerous to be in the middle?

I should know better than to criticise either side of the conflict - and I do, because I wasn't criticising.

We could potentially learn a lot from both of these religions. I'm sure the greatest winners would be the two cultures themselves, if they could do the same. But they are concerned about their own true possessions (land) and while that is very understandable, to me I do not see that ownership can ever be much more than ink on the map, when all one finds on either side of the line is people and...more people. I will say no more about that.

The procession has passed by now, without incident. I hope the same fortune will befall these simple, hopeful words. (Hopeful that no-one sees this as critical of Islam - which would be as foolish as taunting Israel when we have seen what she can do many times before...)

---

Extremely Mediocre

What is happening? What is happening is that the whole country of Great Britain is going a bit mad. Based purely on the level and intensity of media response, it seems that everyone is highly affected by the hot weather we are having.

As everyone prepares to be blasted by "the hottest recorded temperature in Britain EVER" I am left wondering why it is that I find it merely warm. Can it be that it is not actually dangerously hot? Well, you wonder, what temperature are we talking about here? Well, the hottest temperature EVER in Britain would be something like 38°C. When it gets over 30, British things start to melt and break. 38 is hot but...there are places in this world of ours where 38 is fairly normal!

The hottest recorded temperature "EVER" on the surface of the Earth was 57.7°C in Al 'Aziziyah in Libya, on 13th September 1922. Now THAT is very HOT.

If this heat crisis continues I shall probably start finding this country more attractive. I don't start to warm up before we reach 30°C so I will be feeling fine I should expect. But what of my fellow countrymen? To be honest, I haven't asked them. I have just read reports (apparently it reached 52°C on a bus and 47 on the Tube - so some concern is justified I think, not from me though because I don't use either of these normally). But I think we have to admit that htis country is used to quite a middle-of-the-road sort of temperature. It never really boils and it never really freezes. Isn't the national temperament much the same? One could well gripe at that, but I think these days particularly we can be glad that extremism is largely missing from the British psyche.

Java Earthquake and Tsunami July 2006: Links

Here are some links for more information on the Java Tsunami that happened yesterday.


Help Jogja blog (Bahasa Indonesia/Indonesian)
Indonesia Quake Help Wiki
News bulletins from Indahnesia.com,
Sumerbatikan blog - Hans van den Broek, who lives in Java and is raising funds to help
Indonesia Help
Another blog with local information
Wim and Phillip's site (Nederlands/Dutch)

A Lot On Your Mind

Some people have a lot to think about. They have problems.

One person writes from Germany that her friends and some of her family are stuck in Lebanon, with no access to the outside. The only things coming in are missiles. She says her friend has put up a blog - you can see it here. I don't know if it helps, but it is there, so you can see what it is. (I didn't like it the first time but it made more sense when I looked again.)

That sort of anxiety, the kind that comes from having bits of your city explode all night, is a higher level than most of us are used to. Fear of imminent and unpredictable death is very exacting. I cannot deny that they have a lot on their minds.

Coincidentally, another person writes from Germany to say that she has problems. The future is uncertain, and she can't sleep at night. She has a lot on her mind. But at least she is not in a war situation.

People need help but what help can we give?

And you cannot help them because you too have a lot on your mind.

---

When someone says they are afraid because the future is uncertain, that seems OK to me. I mean the second part is OK: that the future is uncertain. I agree, it is.

What you see coming towards you out of the shadows is unknown. That is more or less given. But to be afraid of this, while understandable, is...not helpful. I am glad that the future is not a given, because that way it can throw anything at me that it wants to. If I could control it totally it would not be as interesting. Even my imagination is not enough for that.

There is uncertainty, but of that one thing at least we can be certain. It isn't a joke! It just shows you that you have nothing to worry about - you KNOW that something surprising is going to happen, sometime. And once you get your life under control you can start to plan things, so it is not a total gamble.

There is still a risk, though! But chance enough that you might win.

----

And in Java they have problems too. Also see my list.

----

So, as you can see, many people need help. In many different ways.

But I think you can see that your problems are not as bad as you thought.

Except they sort of are, because if there is a big problem somewhere in the world then it is our problem. Yet, problems are not as bad as you think. If there were never any problem then nothing would ever improve. Do you see?

The future is never certain, even when we have reached it. That is worth remembering too.

The past? We forgot it. If we remember it, we may have got it wrong but not know.

We only have now. It's a good now. I wonder where it will go next?

Detox Diet Food

I'm not putting you on a detox diet, I'm just telling you which foods are good and which are different from good.

Let me explain.

You need to eat food to give you energy to live. Not all of the food you eat is digested; some is expelled as natural waste. Your body takes out all the good bits it can use first. There are various organs it uses for this, an important one being the liver.

The liver filters out poisons, or toxins (hence "detox"). This does not necessarily mean you are eating poison - sometimes it does though!

But the liver has to do this filtering all the time, and sometimes it has a lot to do. Sometimes it can get overloaded. It does its best, but when it cannot cope it does everything it can to keep working. This can mean relocating some of the toxins and storing them in your body to be expelled when there is less of a demand on the liver. One such method is to store them as adipose tissue - fat!

The liver, and your body, always does the best it can. As well as storing waste it cannot safely eliminate, the body can also send it out in other ways. So if you have ever had spots, bad breath, or a strange rash, it could be this method at work. Sometimes it looks less attractive, but it is always good for you.

So, spots etc. are actually waste being eliminated in a safe way (avoiding liver damage, you see). It is natural, but it is a sign that the liver is overloaded, and that things could be managed more easily if there were less of a load on it.

Do you want to know what is hard for the liver to process, and what is easy or even helpful? OK I will tell you!

CAUSES PROBLEMS:
Drugs (so-called "recreational" drugs)
Drugs (medical drugs - these are intended to help but they are foreign to the body and it will fight to eliminate them if it can)
Tobacco (smoking, oh dear, I hope you don't smoke)
Alcohol (Drink! It is hard to process too. You know that alcoholics can suffer liver failure, don't you)
Tea and Coffee (very common, I know, but you also know they are strong stimulants, don't you! Especially if you drink them...)

OK that's all for "special cases". Now we can talk about food.

MORE DIFFICULT TO PROCESS:
Red Meat (especially big steaks)
Potatoes
Tomatoes
Peppers
Aubergines
Mushrooms
Olives
Processed meats like sausages
Dairy Foods (Dairy fat): milk, cream, cheese, yoghurt etc.
[Apparently a lot of fat is harder to process too.]
Wheat
Food with preservatives, colourings, artificial flavourings
Sugar - buy any soft drink and tell me it does not have sugar in it (sugar, sucrose, dextrose, levulose, fructose, "fruit sugar" - it's all the same!)
Salt
Soya products (legumes such as peanuts, soy beans, and other beans contain a substance which inhibits the enzyme trypsin (from the pancreas) which is needed to digest them - but this is only really a problem in compromised livers, it is not so bad as bad things!)
Smoked foods

EASIER TO PROCESS:
Chicken and other poultry
Eggs
Oats, barley, rye, millet, buckwheat (also in flour and pasta)
Fish (though it is suggested you shouldn't have too much fish because of what we put into the sea...and into the fish)

ACTUALLY GOOD FOR YOUR LIVER:
Vegetables: Alfalfa, artichoke, bean sprouts, beetroot (not pickled!), broccoli, brussels sprouts, cabbage, kale, dandelion, fennel, garlic, leek, onion, parsley, radish, watercress
Fruits: Apple, pear, apricot, avocado, banana, berries, cranberries, grapefruit, grapes, lemon, orange, papaya, pineapple, watermelon.

How many from the last category did you have today? And how many from the first? And how is your health?

Anyway, a healthy digestion can cope with all normal things - but some of us need to get healthy first. Cutting out toxins will also make you feel happier and have more energy.

So now you know that if you feel a bit nauseous or have a headache, it could be because of "difficult" foods and drinks. So you can consider that now you know about it.

And if you ever feel a bit like that, you can have some of the nice foods to start feeling better!

That's what I wanted you to know about.

If you went for a serious "detox" then that would be different. It hurts! I mean, it should not hurt, but there can be some pains as toxins are released. So be careful - don't do it while you are working!

Oh yes, did I forget to mention one thing that's very good for you?

WATER!

Have a lot - but not too much. (Vegetarians will need less)

A good drink to have is water with lemon juice in it.

Also remember that the best foods are organic, fresh, pure. Organic means "growing" - organic food is "food that's grown in a growing way" rather than in a perverted and unusual way - there's nothing special about it, it's just the natural way! It can be more expensive, but it is getting a lot better. If money is a problem, get the best you can afford - this is your health and happiness, and if you are feeling better you will soon be able to earn more money!

The lists of good and bad liver foods I got from Liver Detox Plan by Xandria Williams. Here it is if you want one! -



[Health Note: Remember, health is a serious matter. I am not a qualified health professional. I am just speaking from personal experience. If you are concerned about your health you should speak to a qualified person.]

Reader Response Reply

Andrew writes in a comment to "Teaching and Learning":

This is very wise and true. But if you can't make enough money from doing what you really want to do, what should you do? Can you (ie. Philip) make enough money from doing what you really want to do, and if you can't, what else do you do to earn it?

3:33 PM GMT+01:0

Hi Andrew, thanks for asking! Although your question is rather penetrating as it involves interrogating me about my finances! :)

There is (as usual) more than one way of looking at this.

1) If I can't make money out of my chosen job, is it really useful to people? People pay for useful things...(of course they pay for useless things too!)

2) Creativity and imagination are very important in helping you find a good job. For example, if I say I want to be an acrobat, then that's fine. I could be a) mad or b) a talented acrobat. OK let's say I am a good acrobat. I could stop there and say, oh, but there is no work for acrobats, so I have to do something else. Or somehow my imagination and creativity could help me see a way to make it work.

Saying

you can't make enough money from doing what you really want to do

...means just that so far you haven't made money from it. Or that you have decided it is not possible and stopped trying - perhaps even before you started!

Now, it is also true that some jobs are not very lucrative. Perhaps they are not useful? But if someone has a helpful talent and they have developed it then there must be a place for it in the world. And you know you are doing the right thing when it makes you feel happy.

So, how to get your dream job: dream it, define your goals, train for it, discover who wants you to do it, aim at them, get money. (Very simple, eh?)

3) OR you can say, look, I love doing this thing, so I'm just going to do it, and not try to get any money from it. But you will have to get money from something, and the other thing you do to survive on needs to be something you enjoy as well...so it is a similar situation.

We all had dreams once, but school often teaches us that we are not good enough to do anything, that we have to make the best of what we have, and living in Britain often teaches us that everything is awful and grey and nobody wants you! (AAArggh!)

Not a pretty picture. And if it is not pretty, leave it! Paint your own!

It might be very daunting to imagine leaving your present path to find a more fun one. You have to be brave. But it will be more colourful and lively! I recommend it.

Myself, I know that everyone has talent. I also know that it could turn to genius with enough commitment. Anyway, regardless of that, we're just looking at talent here, skills, aptitudes, abilities. We all have skills - if there were really people without any skills it would be STUPID. I can't believe it's possible. Perhaps that is more a philosophical-type question - here we are just talking about the people reading this now. Hopefully some skills to be had among them...

If something is valuable then it is needed, somewhere. If I thought I had no value then I would admit it and either live in a hole in the ground eating stones or try to get more useful fast.

It is easier, at the time of writing, for me to make money as a pianist than as a composer because people recognise e.g. a Beethoven sonata or a Xenakis piece. They do not know what a piece by me is like (since I generally do not know either!) so it is harder to get them to "buy" it. It takes a bit longer to develop as a composer so I am not expecting to earn millions out of that yet! If I never get money for composing that's OK (actually I already did get a bit) because I will still get paid to use my skills. But I have not finished yet so it is possibly not the end of the story for me as a composer...

I recognise where there is a demand, and that plays some part in the way I direct myself. Somehow I can think of marketing potential yet still stick to my own interests. Odd. Strangely though, anyone can reproduce existing success, but something really distinctive is rather more memorable, and that's what I am going for. It is me, my personality, doing the things I am interested in. Even if I play a piece by Chopin, I know that it is potentially popular (people have done it many times before) but I also know that I am meant to play it (if I decide to) and that my way is different from the other ways. So that's what makes me think there could be some demand.

The other point is about "making enough money". What is enough? Perhaps some lifestyles have very high costs. It could be nicer to sell the 35 sports cars and grow apples instead. If you see what I mean. Doesn't mean you have to set lower standards. But it is worth thinking about.

And if you can't make enough money yet at your chosen thing, it's OK to try other things for now. You need to eat. But, one step at a time, you are learning how to make some money being you. It might not be ultra-profitable, but you will have enough.

Being rich is easy anyway (I'm not telling you how to do it!) although it is not very nice sometimes.

To answer the question, if you can't make enough money from doing what you really want to do, you should

Admit it.
or
Do something else.
or
Try harder.

Even to pick something a bit more common like banker, solicitor, etc., they all require training and so on, so success would not be instant. To get a good job you need to be good though. That's probably the key.

Thanks!

Teaching and Learning

People often ask me, "So what are you doing now, teaching?", and the answer is always no. I never have done any teaching. It seemed to me that many college-leavers who teach do it because they have to do something to make money and not particularly because they have a calling to be teachers. Of course, I think it's fine to do a bit of teaching to see what it's like, if you haven't thought about it. It's difficult! Also, people who want to become teachers will have to learn how to teach, and I suppose a good way to do that is to start practising.

But the idea of teaching instead of doing what you really want to do is not very appealing to me. Or you, I hope!

So, who is a teacher? Someone who can help.

Someone who can help a bit is a bit of a teacher. Someone who can help a lot is a better teacher. Someone who can guide you and help you find your way home is truly a teacher. I said find your way home because I feel that while learning is partly about gathering new techniques and bits of information (like a jigsaw puzzle), the important part of learning is finding out how to be really creative in the way that only you can be. All of that was always in you, as a potential, and somehow you have to find it. When you find it, it is not something new. It is you, the real you. (After that, perhaps you can make something new...)

Anyway, that is your genius. A real teacher knows that you have it, even though you may doubt this, and may even laugh if you hear about it.

He who knows not, and knows not that he knows not, is a fool. Shun him.

He who knows not, and knows that he knows not is simple. Teach him.

He who knows, and knows not that he knows, is asleep. Wake him.

He who knows, and knows that he knows is wise. Follow him.

(Persian proverb, translated by Richard Francis Burton)

Happy Anniversarararararies Darlings!

You and me, we have been together for more than a year now!

I hope you have been happy here since the very first post on 24th June 2005.

Now it is 2006! Just a number, of course...but it tells us that something is going somewhere! If you ever have that common feeling that things are going nowhere, I can reassure you that many things are going everywhere! The planet, the stars, all the people in the world, all ideas and plans are zooming around everywhere all the time. It was the Red Queen, in Through the Looking Glass, and what Alice Found There, who said something useful about that:

`Well, in our country,' said Alice, still panting a little, `you'd generally get to somewhere else -- if you ran very fast for a long time, as we've been doing.'

`A slow sort of country!' said the Queen. `Now, here, you see, it takes all the running you can do, to keep in the same place.

If you want to get somewhere else, you must run at least twice as fast as that!'

Lewis Carroll (Charles Lutwidge Dodgson, 1832-1898) wrote that down in 1871. He was a mathematician and logician, among other jobs, and so may have known a thing or two. I find his writing in the Alice books rather exciting. It is particularly creative, and in speaking of things that have no sensible relationship to the ordered outside world that so many people agree on, seem to be rather useful, to me. I like it, and I believe that so-called nonsense can be extremely useful to us all! Now RICK, who is a regular reader, will be saying, "Oh, of course he says that, but he's just being Philip"...well, yes, I do say it, and, who knows, I may actually mean what I say. I think RICK may have guessed that, too. Perhaps he suppresses this instinct?

These days people are saying all sorts of things about Lewis Carroll, some of them rather salacious. He is not alive now, so I suppose it is not wrong to speak of him. But they say "don't speak ill of the dead", don't they, and I wonder why. Is there some reason for this that lies through the looking-glass? And what is a looking-glass anyway? Well, today it's called a mirror, isn't it. Yes, through the mirror, and what Alice found there. Yet Looking-Glass tells us Dodgson was from a different time. Where is that time now? It is gone away, zooming off into the mirror, with the unnapproachable speed of the unimaginable. You can't catch up to time, because it is not there. Your watch works mostly reliably but it is the only thing ticking along like that. Haven't you noticed we don't feel time in the same way? To make a small example, sometimes we are interested and it goes fast, sometimes we are bored and it goes slow. Perhaps it is not really there, for the part of us that feels the difference between interesting and boring. Can it be, can it be, that there is no time at all?

There was nothing so very remarkable in that; nor did Alice think it so very much out of the way to hear the Rabbit say to itself "Oh dear! Oh dear! I shall be too late!" (when she thought it over afterwards it occurred to her that she ought to have wondered at this, but at the time it all seemed quite natural); but, when the Rabbit actually took a watch out of its waistcoat-pocket, and looked at it, and then hurried on, Alice started to her feet, for it flashed across her mind that she had never before seen a rabbit with either a waistcoat-pocket, or a watch to take out of it, and burning with curiosity, she ran across the field after it, and was just in time to see it pop down a large rabbit-hole under the hedge.

Yes, the private lives of past men are public information now. But the friends of the friendly, the nice people who are reading this, respect those people, even though they have moved on now. Because we still have everything they ever did. It is all here, in you and me.



Think kindly of people, alive or dead. Let's think kindly of Alan Turing (1912-1954), another mathematician whose non-mathematical life has been flagged up as "interesting" in a similar way to Charles Dodgson. Alan worked on cryptography during the second war, helping to break the codes of the famous Enigma Machine. He was also a world-class marathon runner. His best time was 2 hours, 46 minutes, and 3 seconds - 11 minutes short of the winning time in the 1948 Olympic Games!

There are lots of people whom I think of kindly. They all made an important contribution. They all used their genius. They were not always happy. I think we can learn from them for all those reasons.

I am saluting them! I am saluting you too, my friends on here. There is no music without ears to hear it, and there are no ideas if no people take the ideas into their minds. It might qualify as a hobby to write a blog to oneself, but it would not be quite as useful as it might.

Creativity is what you get when your soul shines through its clouds. Sometimes it shines even though there seem many clouds. People who had that feeling, those are the geniuses that we wonder about. But with genius there are never many clouds - I mean, there is always some sunshine. Spike Milligan had clouds but he laughed a lot. Uncontrollably. Isn't that why it was funny? What would you be controlling it for, exactly?

Please laugh too! And if people can't laugh, you keep away from them until you know how to make them laugh.

I have changed the blog page - as you should have noticed - to try and make it a bit brighter (I will keep improving it). As I said, it is the summer now, and that means more sunshine. But there is always sunshine - I know, I can always see it! Even when the clouds are there, there is sunshine. Even when the clouds are there in the night sky, there are always stars. There is always some good news if you are listening.

I don't really want to stop now, but you can't read this all day. You have got things to do!

I will try to pass on what good news I hear in my mad imaginings beyond the clouds...

And I will write here again soon - for you!

Thanks for reading this year. Shall I mention names?

No, but extensive cryptanalysis will reveal who you are:

Those who could "find no work in the hip replacement industry" - thank you!
Those who don't like dry dinners - thank you!
Those who live in the land of nori and katsuobushi - thank you!
Those who like watermelon, green, and elephant - thank you!
Those who upset the pegs - thank you!
Those families who are fans of the work of the writer Hargreaves - thank you!
Those who keep all their best frogs in a bucket, and do drawings on underpants - thank you!
Those who...well, there are lots of you!

Thank you! (did I mention that before?)

(hee hee)

My sister

My sister is SUPER!

She is raising money for breast cancer research as part of the Aviva Weekend to Breakthrough, a sponsored 60km walk. 60 km!

Because she is good and is helping other people (instead of hanging around not helping anybody, a popular alternative) you can now be good yourself and HELP HER!!!

Please, if you would like to make any donations go to her special Aviva page and follow the instructions!

Thank you!