Being an unrepentant red-blooded male, an inveterate people-watcher and a photographer I cannot resist a deliciously pretty girl. So here are a couple I spotted earlier in the week on my way back from a business trip to Glasgow.
More photos of all sorts on my flickr photostream.
52 Weeks 13/52 (2008 week 21)
Phew well I’ve completed a quarter of the assignment, which is more than I thought I might.
If I have to go to the airport at o’god o’clock then it is much nicer and much easier doing so at this time of year when it is light!
Jane Matera is a counsellor with Diabetes UK and she writes an interesting article in the charity’s latest magazine about her theory that type 2 Diabetes is often triggered by people not dealing sufficiently well with the stresses of life.
I’m not going to delve into that subject here – I’m hardly qualified to do so, except by having type 2 Diabetes myself. What interested me as much in Matera’s article is that she actually spells out the stresses we face in modern life compared with earlier generations. Not a surprising list but interesting to see it gathered together in one place.
Humans have always had stress. The hormones involved in the fight or flight response protected early humans from the dangers of the prehistoric world. Some degree of stress is creative, stimulating and necessary to a life fully lived. But […] our bodies are only equipped to cope with short bursts during periods of acute danger.
In our society, I feel there are many everyday stresses that might have been unthinkable 50 – or even 10 or 20 – years ago. They are accepted as immutable facts of life [and] not challenged or much discussed.
This normalisation means we maybe living for long periods […] at a level of stress […] considerably too high for our minds and bodies to safely cope with. And this is at a time when the traditional human support structures – such as the community, work security, the extended family, stable relationships and religious faith – have changed, been depleted or are not available to us.
Common modem stresses that have been normalised include:
- long-distance commutes, either through heavy traffic or at the mercy of public transport when we are most tired and vulnerable, either at the too – early start or exhausted end of the day
- the working world of short-term contracts, constant appraisal and machine-led environments may seem practical and economical but can take a human toll
- the pressure on mothers of even young children to work outside the home to meet the demands of an inflated mortgage
- mechanisation, which means humans are forced to adopt methods of communication and behaviour dictated by the machine rather than those that are innate
- mobile phones, iPods, ATMs, etc., disconnect the individual from human contact
- the fear of a terrorist attack – not a new phenomenon, but one that seems intensified of late in urban areas
- the completely rational fear of air travel, which is seen as neurotic because of its ubiquity.
How do we fix it? Unless there is a paradigm shift in society and the way our economy works sadly I suspect all we can do is to mitigate these stresses in ways which work for us individually. And hope this is enough to keep Diabetes – and depression – at bay. I see no magic panacea.
Food for thought.
For years – and I mean like 40+ years, since I was at school – there have been campaigns and continual sniping to keep the UK’s clocks one hour ahead of GMT around the year. I don’t just not get it, I fundamentally disagree with it. It was tried in the 1960s, when I was at school, and was a complete failure, So we had lighter afternoons in winter coming out of school, but we also had darker mornings and days when it didn’t get properly daylight until 10AM. As someone who suffers (albeit marginally) from SAD I need that early morning light to get me going and reset my body clock.
Jilly over at jillysheep has suggested in a post today that we should preserve GMT all year round. And I have to say I agree. I don’t see the point of continually changing the clocks with the seasons. Every time we move the clocks an hour (in whichever direction) it throws everyone’s body clocks; it isn’t just me who notices it; I hear many people commenting that their body clock is out of kilter with the our artificial time.
Now I can understand why the government thought it a good idea to put the clocks forward in summer during times of war (which if I recall correctly was a significant part of the rationale for its use; tho’ not the original reason for the idea). But I do not see the least necessity for it today. What does summer time give us? Longer and lighter evenings; nothing more. And while I love long summer evenings as much as anyone, in these days of flexible working we could achieve the same effect just as easily by adjusting our working hours if we need to. (Already some of us frequently have to start early or finish late because we are dealing with colleagues or clients on the continent or in the Americas.)
I wonder if anyone has ever worked out the (notional) cost of changing the clocks twice a year on business? I would think it is rather large. And certainly not something worth paying to get longer light evenings when there are other cost-free options available.
There’s the usual good article about Daylight Saving Time over on Wikipedia. What is interesting, that I didn’t know, is that a large swathe of the world has used summer time and has now abandoned it. Basically it is only the “western industrialised nations” (and some of South America) which use summer time. Large chunks of the globe have either given it up or never used DST in the first place.
Anyway … we really should keep GMT alive. It is, after all, a cornerstone of our heritage. Universal time was “discovered” in England, yes at Greenwich, which is why the Meridian is there! Universal time has been a great thing: the world equivalent of “railway time”. But let each country keep its own time zone. And let us keep and celebrate the heritage which is ours and is GMT!
Now who feels like starting a campaign to preserve GMT? Hands off our time zone! 🙂
Absolutely unbelievable!
According to this BBC News item there are now at least 15,000 (and maybe 20,000) pieces of luggage now stranded at Heathrow Airport’s brand spanking new Terminal 5.
And for a third day BA have cancelled around 20% of their flights out of Heathrow with many more apparently leaving without any luggage loaded.
What an unbelievable shambles.
When BA and BAA file for bankruptcy I wonder if the government will have the gall to pay off their shareholders? They’d just better not even think about it!
So after less than one day Heathrow’s sparkling new Terminal 5 has ground to a halt, despite all the much trumpeted testing which was done on the systems using thousands of volunteer members of the public. BAA and the staff appear to be blaming a crap luggage conveyor system. BA are blaming problems with “staff familiarisation”. That’s right; let’s blame the staff when our shiny new technology doesn’t work. Talk about appalling management; I was always taught that the first thing you do is defend your staff publicly (whatever you may have to do behind closed doors) – but that clearly isn’t good enough for BA.
Oh and all this after BAA has been forced to suspend it’s plan to fingerprint every passenger using T5 because the Office of the Information Commissioner says it’s illegal. And why were they going to thus abuse our civil liberties? Because they have been stupid enough to build T5 such that international and domestic passengers (aka. terrorists) can mingle after security checks and could swap boarding passes!
I wonder why I won’t be flying BA any more?
Heron … bastard … just been at my pond … thrown one large goldfish on the lawn … fish still alive and replaced in pond … might survive … rest OK as far as I can see … heron returned after 15 minutes … seen off by locals crows … I like crows … I also like herons and fish … but not together!
It’s Easter Day. And I’ve spent almost the whole day doing literary society work – well it is the end of our financial year coming up and membership renewal time, so lots of mailing to do.
Just as well I have plenty to do as I don’t like Easter; I think I never have; I always enjoy Christmas but not Easter. And no, it’s not because of my atheism and general lack of belief in anything – I enjoy a long bank holiday weekend as much as anyone. It’s just that I always feel Easter is a dismal time; I don’t know why. Which is weird as I am (marginally at least) affected by SAD and about now start to look forward to and appreciate the lengthening days. Maybe this year feels worse than most as Easter is so early, and it’s grey, wet, cold, and snowing on and off. I’m ready for a 3 month holiday in the sun: sun, sea, sand, warmth, wine, good food. I wish!
Now where did I put that lottery ticket?
This week’s self-portrait: 52 Weeks 4/52, 2008 week 12.
I was working on the train to Glasgow early on Monday morning.
One of a series taken at Alexisbad during RailTrail charter from Quedlinberg to Wernigerode, 13/02/2008. This was a special for our photoshoot; the train on the right is our charter train; the one on the left was a service train which had just terminated. And I must say it was a magnificent sight and not something you will see these days during normal service. It would have been even better if there had been the snow we should have rightly had in February. We spent well over half an hour here just standing around; it was a bit chilly even with warm layers, jackets, hats, gloves and scarves. But well worth the wait, I hope you’ll agree!
This completes the pictures from our Germany trip. For me this shot is the star of the whole set, but not by a lot!
