This working week has started in much the same way as it's recent predecessors. With a packed diary based at the opposite end of the country to my home and family, I have to accept the reality that Monday to Friday will be a tightrope walk - trying to throw myself into the exciting challenges of the project Im working on but also to spend the right time (and the right times) with those that I love the most.
As a result I find myself in Caffe Nero at Clapham Junction, trying to map out the day ahead's events so that I can dive in on autopilot, see everyone and do everything that I need to and be over two hundred miles away at tea time.
Yesterday I finally admitted that my job really does require a lot of time in London, by buying an Oyster card. There was something about doing this that felt like defeat, even though I know it's just a more cost effective way of doing what I do at the moment. It doesn't make me any less rooted in the North West, but it makes me feel like one of the masses that I commune and commute with once I reach Euston. Normally when stood on an underground platform, I console myself that I've left this grind behind - that I'm a visitor, a tourist, an outside observer of the rushing, pushing and crushing of London travel. The Oyster card is a frightening reflection of the reality of my working week and of being sucked back into the world I turned away from 13 years ago.
I've tried making conversation with the person opposite me - but they just smile awkwardly as if to indicate that I've broken the golden rule. "This is Clapham Junction station at 7:30 on a weekday morning - we don't talk we just rush - got it!"
Thanks to Marianne's little nudge today - I decided to take the Friday Four out of mothballs and see if anyone is interested in trying to link these four songs. The rules are fairly easy, but just in case you don't know them - the first song here is linked in some way to the last one from last time. The second song is linked to the first, the third is linked to the second and finally the fourth has some link to the third. It's a chain... we nicked it off Radcliffe & Maconie.
So the last one was almost a year ago... you can find it here. But to be clear, the last song last time was Rufus Wainwright's version of Hallelujah. You need to find a link between that song and this one...
Song One:
Next up - can you find a link between Song One and this one...
Song Two:
You've got the hang off it now. Can you link that song with the next one?
Song Three:
...and finally. What links Kirsty or her song with the final song...
A special in honour of tonight's Comic Relief, here's one of my personal favourites from a few years back. Catherine Tate stars as her obnoxious schoolgirl character, Lauren Cooper, and they have a new English Teacher...
You can still donate this year... http://www.rednoseday.com/sponsor-and-donate
The unadorned room
Seems shabbier than before
The season of joy.
Undecorated.
Stripped of its festive layers,
The room is naked.
Reduced to a husk,
From which to flower again
And face a new year.
January 5th, always feels to me like one of the saddest days of the year. Christmas has become a period I've looked forward to more and more over the last decade or so, but even when I didn't hold much stock by Yuletide, I still hated the day when the decorations had to come down.
Today I went around the house, slowly removing the festive decorations, undoing the lights and taking the baubles off the tree. Eventually, I squeezed the newly naked Nordmann Fir out of the nearest window, and took it off to the local Scout hut where it will be used for woodmanship practice. I returned to our newly un-Spruced lounge, and hoovered up the remaining traces of needle and tinsel. I looked around the sparse rooms which I had created, but didn't feel quite as depressed as I have in years gone by.
Maybe, in the same way that Christmas has grown on me, Twelfth Night won't groan on me anymore. Maybe I'm learning to greet a new year with my room clear.
I very rarely post about Madness even though they're my favourite band. Over the last few days however I've been reminded of a song they wrote back in 1984 in support of CND, a cause they were lending their support to at the time.
The song was a 'throwaway B-side' to the sublime single 'One Better Day'. Madness were trying to make a difficult transition at the time - one which it could be argued they have never successfully accomplished. They were attempting to move away from the Nutty Boys image which had brought them such success in the first four years of the decade, and start to tackle subjects that were beginning to trouble them as individuals as their world view widened beyond Camden Town. Its simplistic both musically and lyrically - songwriter Suggs dealing in a naturally jokey way with the parallels between gun ownership and the nuclear weapons debate that was raging at the time. Madness have never wanted to get 'too heavy' with their audience and any messages have always been treated in a light-hearted way... but the message is still there behind the smile.
'Guns' compares something that has always seemed faintly ridiculous to us Brits - the idea that Americans are safer for being able to carry guns - with the accepted theory on nuclear deterrence (at the time) that continuing to invest in nuclear weapons was the best way for the West to ensure that it remained safe from the threat of a nuclear war. Ironically - in the quarter of a century plus since the song was released, the latter theory has been gradually dismantled along with the world's stockpiles of nuclear weapons. And yet the bit which we always saw as ludicrous - the arguments in favour of the freedom of Americans to carry guns - seem to retain the same strength that they had back in 1984.
Last Friday's shocking events in Newtown Connecticut have quite rightly brought the question of gun control to the front and centre of the American political agenda. We in the UK can only look on slightly bemused as Americans grapple with how to deal with the contradictions of preventing such events as these and yet protect their rights under the Second Amendment. On Sunday, a former Texan Judge commented on the radio that the problem was not too many guns, but too few! He said "I wish to God that [the Sandy Hook principal] had had an M-4 in her office, so when she heard gunfire she pulls it out... takes him out, takes his head off before he kills those precious kids." This sort of thinking just seems entirely irrational to me.The National Rifle Association is reckoned to be one of the strongest lobby groups in the US. It has 4.3 million members. Since Friday it has sensibly set it's Facebook page to private and kept a low profile on Twitter. But silence cannot be its position in the long run and at some stage someone from this group needs to show leadership and face up to the unarguable link between guns being easily accessible and the risks it increases of massacres such as Newtown and Columbine, Virginia Tech and Aurora.
Maybe, this time something constructive (or hopefully deconstructive) can be done to start to reduce the likelihood of future recurrences of this sort of event. In the meantime - here's Guns...
I read a brand new paper The man who had a thousand guns Lived in the Southern States Well away from everyone Felt it wasn't safe Even in the Southern States
I read a brand new paper Walking down my own street The man with a thousand guns Has taken to his feet He felt it wasn't safe Even in the Southern States
He thought that he might die Who was he frightened by? Anyone with a gun. Well, every stranger's danger Everybody has one But alone and hungry He couldn't eat his..... Guns
I watched my television Sitting on the floor The window man was watching Me and a million more He read me the news Someone's getting their dues
He thought that we might die He wasn't frightened why? Everyone has a bomb It's a passing danger Or so he said Everybody has one Courtesy of Judge Dredd
I've always had a penchant for numbers and also for numerically pleasing dates... so I couldn't let this moment pass without a post in recognition. After all, it'll be the last of these for a while... unless you want to mark 8:12pm in 8 days time of course ;-)
Or probably more accurately how to win more than one gold medal.
As part of our Corporate Leadership event in Birmingham today I was lucky enough to be able to listen to Sir Steve Redgrave taking part in a Question & Answer session led by Gavin Esler. He was clearly briefed to fit the theme of the day about sustaining high performance, but all the same it was fascinating to hear him speak about some of the psychology that helped him achieve five gold medals over five Olympic Games. His messages actually chimed a lot with some of the principles and techniques I've been trying to use from the work of David Allen (the productivity 'guru' not the dead Irish comedian).
For posterity... and for my own future reference... here are some of the key things that I picked up from Sir Steve today...
After winning an Olympic medal an athlete will sit down with their coach and consider what it will probably require in order to win again at the next Games. Usually this will mean facing up to the need to achieve an even faster time than they can currently achieve and often at face value this can be very dispiriting after the high of achieving their first goal
To make this achievable though requires that you break down the task at hand into intermediary tasks. Shaving four seconds off a time can seem daunting when you've just achieved the fastest time you've ever rowed to win gold. Viewing it as a second improvement each year starts to make it seem more achievable Viewing it as less than a tenth of a second improvement per month suddenly makes it feel a whole lot more do-able. (Of course 'cutting up the elephant' is a basic task management technique, but hearing it from Sir Steve in relation to winning gold brought it so more vividly to life)
Redgrave was asked how he motivated himself to train on cold dark mornings when he really didn't want to and I found his answer very enlightening. He said that goal visualisation is a key technique for all top sportsmen and women, but the goal that you visualise can't always be standing on the winner's podium bathed in the sunshine. When the going is good then that's fine, but on the dark mornings the goal would be a much smaller, much more achievable one. It may even be just getting to the cup of tea or the hot bath that awaited at the end of the training session. The less motivated you're feeling the easier your goal needs to be, so that success can be constantly achieved.
Finally he made a very interesting comment about goal setting and aspiration. He said that not everyone has the ability to be an Olympic champion or even the best in their particular field, but every one of us has the capability to achieve personal bests. Its all about setting realistic goals to make yourself the best 'you' that you can be.
It was a really inspirational session and one I will remember for a long time to come.
