Cartoon of the Week
Listography – Ch-Ch-Ch-Ch-Ch-Changes
As this seems to be confessional time, here is Kate’s Listography from last week that I missed doing. It’s Things I’d Change About Myself … but more specifically characteristics I’d change. (Apparently the vanity of how I look is not allowed.) Hmmm…
My Weight. What do you mean this counts as looks? No it doesn’t. I’d look like a sack of spuds whether I was twice the size I should be or not. I have this characteristic which means I eat too much. Not necessarily the wrong things. Just too much. And if I’m not careful I drink too much beer as well. And I seem to be unable to switch it off. Why can’t I be down to fighting weight and sexy? Even hypnotherapy has so far only succeeded in chipping odd bits off the corners. And it’s all linked to …
Depression. Wouldn’t I love to get rid of my depression. It is so destructive. And I suspect I’ve had it since childhood. I also suspect that, although it is probably multi-factorial there is a genetic component; my father and his father were both depressive. I do seem to have made some progress here as a result of the hypnotherapy. My depression is now much less (giving up work helped a lot!) and I’ve halved the dose of my anti-depressants. Maybe that one is amenable to being smacked on the head.
Patience. I admit I’m not patient. I never have been. Although again I’m a lot better than I used to be. I hate being late. I hate others being late, or dithering, or being stupid, or disorganised. I hate standing in queues. I hate it when things don’t go my way; I get annoyed and sweary. Gggrrrrrrr! Just get a life and relax will you! NOW!
I’m not quite sure how to sum up this next one. But I would like to be less prone to having my arse stuck in my chair, doing more around the home, helping and generally being more engaged. I don’t mind being inept with my hands and having ten left thumbs for fingers (after all my father had twenty left thumbs and he survived to be 86). It’s partly down to the depression, but I feel that is really only an excuse. But I would appreciate being able to make myself do more; things might get done then. And I know Noreen would appreciate this too.
Finally, I need to be able to let go; be less “in control” all the time. Everything I do and say seems to be controlled; thought out; calculated. There isn’t enough spontaneity; not enough emotion. I seem to be frightened of being emotional, letting my emotions out and just allowing my self to relax into things and go with the flow. And for some strange reason it feels as if it has gotten worse recently. Or maybe I’ve just become more aware of it. Definitely something I need to work on.
Listography – Guilty Pleasures
I haven’t done Kate’s Listography for the last couple of weeks — one has to have a break sometimes! One of the weeks I missed was because the subject (kid’s films) does nothing for me at all: I don’t have kids and I don’t do films. The other I just never got round to doing. So I’ve come back in this week on a really difficult topic: guilty pleasures.
What makes this the more difficult is to interpret what the topic means. Kate’s definition of a guilty pleasure is something that you shouldn’t really like but you actually do. But that isn’t quite my understanding, which is more like something you like (regardless of whether you should or not) but which you don’t normally talk about in public (for whatever reason).
So my five choices are going to be a mix of the two. Here goes …
Fried Food. Bad. Hideously bad. Both in calories and cholesterol. Just what is it about fried food that make it so good, and means it’s comfort food? There’s nothing quite like good fish & chips, or sausages, or full English breakfast. Then again there’s … chips! I do try to resist. Honestly, I do! But I usually fail. It’s no wonder I’m the size I am!
Dr Alice Roberts. Well if all you girlies are going to drool over a half-baked men like Tom Jones and Andrew Marr, then I can have a girlie. A real, sexy and frighteningly bright one at that: Dr Alice Roberts. Formerly of Time Team and latterly of Coast. As I say, not just sexy and frighteningly bright, she’s a talented artist, a medic, teaches anatomy and is no mean anthropologist and archaeologist. There seems to be nothing this girl can’t do! Geek girls are definitely sexy.
Plane Crashes. Yeah, ghoulish. Well no, not really. I would never wish a plane to crash nor for anyone to be involved. But they do. And I take a forensic interest (albeit from my armchair) in why they crash; what happened. I do the same with train crashes and other disasters like the demise of the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power facility in Japan. I like working out what happened and why.
My PA. [NSFW warning] No idea what I’m talking about? See here for an explanation. And no you don’t get a picture — not publicly anyway.
Onanism. This is squarely in the “we all do it but guiltily we never talk about it” category. Why don’t we talk about it? Why is it such a taboo? It’s normal, natural and healthy. We all do it, regardless of gender, sexual orientation, relationship status etc. So where’s the problem?
So what would you own up to?
Word of the Week
Dzong.
A religious and/or governmental centre in one of the Buddhist kingdoms of the Himalayas (Bhutan and Tibet). A Buddhist monastery. The architecture is massive in style with towering exterior walls surrounding a complex of courtyards, temples, administrative offices and monks’ accommodation.
Weasel!
Weasel!
Weasel??!!??
Blimey, that is a weasel!
Something I never expected to see in suburban London — at least not in broad daylight. And I think it is only the third time I’ve ever seen a weasel, the previous two times being fleeting glimpses in the twilight as they disappear out of sight at breakneck speed.
This one was running around on the pavement and road (trying hard to get run over – stupid creature) on the busy Greenford Road right outside the Bridge Hotel about 1130 yesterday morning. (If you go to the “Location” tag at the bottom of this page, or to the Flickr image, you can see exactly where this is on the map.) The beastie is here seen lurking under a piece of metal barrier; (s)he’s probably about 15cm (6 inches) long in the body.
It was so fast it was a question of point the camera out of the car window in vaguely the right direction and hope. I got one shot in before the lights changed (and I almost missed that!). This is a tiny crop from the middle of that one shot.
Secure Your Own Mask Before Helping Others
There is often criticism of Zen Bhuddism for being self-centred, selfish and insufficiently altruistic. This is true up to a point; as Brad Warner explains in a recent post on his Hardcore Zen site it is difficult to help others if you’re woozy yourself because you ain’t fixed your own oxygen mask. Here’s an extract of what Brad has to say …
Zen [seems to be] self-centered. Rather that hearing a lot about how we should be of service to others, the standard canonical texts of Zen appear to focus on what we need to do to improve our own situation and state of mind … They say we need to help others, but don’t go very deeply into how that might be done. This focus on the self is ironic considering that Zen is often portrayed as a practice aimed at eradicating the self.
But have you ever glanced up randomly when you’re on an airplane ignoring the flight attendants safety instructions? When they tell you how to use those oxygen masks they say that you should first secure your own mask before helping others. There’s a good reason for this. If the plane is losing oxygen you’re going to be too woozy to be of service to anyone else until you first get your own stuff together. This is the way it is in life as well.
…
Much of what passes for religion … takes as its underlying unstated assumption and starting point that we ourselves are OK … It’s painful when that assumption is challenged …The underlying problem is the same as the problem with the emergency oxygen masks on airplanes. In our usual condition we are far too woozy to be of much service to anyone else. When our own condition is all messed up our attempts to be helpful are more likely to make things worse than to improve them.
That’s not to say we shouldn’t do anything when we see someone is in trouble. We always have to act from the state we’re in at this moment. It’s our duty to do what we can with what we have.
One of the greatest and most useful lessons I’ve learned from Zen practice is how not to help … People learn best from their own mistakes and learn nothing when you fix things for them.
…
The problem is not whether we should live for others or not. The problem is how we should live for others … It’s important to discover how to truly help. And sometimes that means not helping.
Immediate take-away moral: don’t jump in and fix things for people but teach them how to fix the problem themselves. Kindness can be cruel in the short-term. It’s a bit like school is dull, tedious, boring and apparently pointless but later in life you realise it did actually enable you to fulfil your dreams.
Moral Decay
There’s a thought-provoking post from a couple of days ago by Peter Osborne on the Daily Telegraph blogs site under the title “The moral decay of our society is as bad at the top as the bottom“.
He takes our revered leaders — politicians and businessmen alike — to task for being hypocritical over the recent looting when they have equally been found with their hands in the petty cash box. As the good book says “Let those who are without sin cast the first stone”.
Worth a read.
Fact of the Week
An educated person would be expected to have an active vocabulary of about 30,000 words, whereas to read The Sun newspaper you require a vocabulary of just 800 words.
from AC Grayling, The Form of Things
Quotes of the Week
Some odd bedfellows this week …
Politics is perhaps the only profession for which no preparation is thought necessary.
[Robert Louis Stephenson]
Your car is Japanese. Your vodka is Russian. Your pizza is Italian. Your kebab is Turkish. Your democracy is Greek. Your coffee is Brazilian. Your movies are American. Your tea is Tamil. Your shirt is Indian. Your oil is Saudi Arabian. Your electronics are Chinese. Your numbers are Arabic, your letters Latin. And you complain that your neighbour is an immigrant? Pull yourself together!
[Seen on Facebook]
‘chav’ (vogue label of 2004, originally a traveller’s term of address or endearment, from a French nickname for a young fox), who represents an imagined social grouping, a troublesome, truculent, feckless, shameless underclass delighting in petty criminality and conspicuous consumption (of, inter alia, illicit substances, electronic stimuli, pimped technology and ‘bling’).
[Tony Thorne, Jolly Wicked, Actually]
An eye for an eye makes the world go blind. A tooth for a tooth gums up everything!
[Thoughts of Angel]
Sex was an expression of friendship: in Africa it was like holding hands … It was friendly and fun. There was no coercion. It was offered willingly.
[Paul Theroux quoted in Christopher Ryan & Cacilda Jethá, Sex at Dawn]
I had a friend at university who used to propound this latter theory that sex was (and should be seen as) not necessarily more than an expression of sincere friendship and that why should one not have sex with ones friends just as one might have a beer with them. Not sure he ever managed to put it much into practice though.
More Pussy Porn : Rosie
Meet Rosie …
She is our next door neighbour’s young Persian cat who is currently being fed and watered by Noreen.
She is also about to drop a bundle of kittens. The owners get a female cat, don’t have her spayed and then wonder why every tomcat in the area comes to call. They then bugger off on holiday for 3 weeks – although to be fair they have gone “home” to Lebanon because the husband’s father is seriously ill. So Noreen has had to man the breach. Fortunately they’re due back today, although who knows if that will materialise!?
Fortunately Rosie is a placid and amenable pussy, although that lovely soft, long fur needs a lot of brushing to stop it getting matted. I love her Hobbit feet – in this second photo you can just see the tufts of fur between her toes.