Just pleasantly floundering around.....

A very brief experience yesterday reminded me of a concept I read ages ago. The experience went like this: I was in a cafe looking at a new product (new to me anyway). It was unusual 'Hedgerow' cordials offered in about eight different flavours. I was tempted to buy a bottle but my indecision over which flavour would give me the most enjoyment meant I didn't buy anything. I was literally crippled into doing nothing by choice. Now that is ridiculous! However, there is researched theory that shows this is quite typical behaviour and retailers 'in the know' play this to their advantage. O.K. If you went into a restaurant and had to decide which of the following flavoured ice cream you were going to choose - which would you choose? Now imagine the same restaurant offered you this choice, which would you choose? Was choosing from eighteen or three different flavours easier? We tend to live under the impression that the more choice we have the happier we will be. There is...

Ok here are some questions about food. I'd love to hear any passer-bys' answers..... 1) Would you rather go 24 hours without food or sleep? 2) If you had to choose three of the following foods as weapons in a food fight, which would you choose: •A jug of gravy •A can of squirting cream •10 cheese squares •A bottle of cola •Twenty soggy tea bags •A giant sausage •A bottle of ketchup •A bucket of grapes •A bunch of bananas •A box of eggs •A bag of brussel sprouts •A packet of crackers •A bag of flour •Some stinky blue cheese •Some bacon •Tomato soup •Custard •Six Yorkshire puddings •A bag of frozen peas •Chocolate sauce •Pickled onions •A large pumpkin •A bag of jam doughnuts •A packet of butter •A pot of cottage cheese 3) If you had to eat one of the following foods all day (and it was the only food you were allowed) which would you choose? •mashed potato •banana •porridge •spaghetti •chocolate •cottage cheese •buttered toast •pears •white fish 4) If you could d...

I am reading Bill Brysons's book about the history of everyday living. It's packed with interesting snippets. He's basically done lots of research and pulled out all the interesting bits for the reader. My kind of book. It's turned me into a walking verbal fact box much to the delight of chap. I pop up regularly with an urgent need to tell him something new I have learned. Of course I'll expect him to read the book afterwards too. The part I have enjoyed most so far, however, I found on the first few pages. Bill B lives down the road from here in a Victorian rectory. One of our many 'where shall we go for a walk - let's look on the ordnance survey' walks in the Norfolk countryside runs between his house and the church he mentions in the book. And here is what he records from a conversation with a historian while wandering around that church (paraphrased): Have you ever wondered why Norfolk's medieval churches (all ten million of them) always lo...

I find myself still reading about the varied responses to the riots. There certainly appears to be considerable polarisation. There are still those holding firm to the idea that anyone that took part in the riots has lost his or her right to be considered fully human and be treated fairly and punishments are the only answer Some of the comments are astounding and you really would think you were listening to Nazis talk about the Jews). And there are the others of us looking a bit deeper for answers. The best article I have read on the issue of harsh sentencing is this one: Are the harsh sentences justified? We were never all going to agree on this emotive issue (or any other come to that) were we? Consensus is a very slow thing and usually shown in subtle shifts in attitudes and ways of doing things - unless we are under a dictator of course! I am now going to steal a bit of Carl Jung just to reiterate how the angle we approach things from affects our ultimate view. We all h...

There have been so many brilliant articles, blog posts and clever comments about the riots last week that humble little I could barely muster up anything astoundingly different. So, I will keep it as 'just what I feel the need to say'. My first observation was the predictability of the approach a certain mass of people disappointingly took - including, sadly, the UK's prime minister. Something along the lines of - 'These people need punishment, lots of it and the more vindictive, the better. If they starve because we have taken away their benefits, then they only have themselves to blame. Let's feed our own dark sides heartily on these people. Let's take the phony oh-so-much-higher moral high ground so the lash of our whip falls that bit harder and revel in our justified (by the tabloid media mostly) cruelty - legitimised non-empathic nastiness aimed at the poor people that have metaphorically very quiet voices. Let's ignore any possible underlying c...

OK I'm still on about: 'The Spirit Level - why equality is better for everyone' by Richard Wilkinson and Kate Pickett I do love a bit of evolutionary psychology. Off I go.... So there are egalitarian societies and those full of inequality. The book gives endless reasons for why the former is preferable (by demonstrating correlations between inequality and overall higher rates of: poor physical and mental health, mistrust in society, teenage pregnancy, violence etc etc) and giving reasons for why this might be so. Then as the book gets really juicy (in my books that means more theoretical) towards the end it delivers this.... We have the strategies to deal with very different kinds of social organisation. At one extreme, dominance hierarchies are about self-advancement, status competition and 'kicking' people lower down in the pecking order to maintain this status. In this society, individuals have to be self-reliant and other people are encountered mainly as rivals ...

I am reading this book. I am only on page 40 something but it appears to be a consolidation (backed up by extensive research) of all hippie lefty values and social ideals. Cool - some welly to wiffly waffly gut feeling about what is right! Anyway, as I said, it's early days for me and this book but it has already clarified something for me: self esteem is still a good thing. I was a teacher when the first wave of the self esteem movement was underway. Then, the definition of self esteem seemed pretty straightforward: it was your genuine self worth, your resilience in the face of life's difficulties and criticisms. And for a long time people thought this was developed just by praising children. The understanding developed and it was realised that it was more about actually finding opportunities for children to achieve and feel an internal sense of pride etc. This definition was in no way linked to being egotistical as it went hand in hand with a genuine understanding of ones own...

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

Last night the charity I am one of the project leaders for: FoodCycle had it's official launch. We had TV cameras and newspaper reports covering us and overall it really was a great success. However, one thing is niggling me. And here I express it.... Everyone assumes that because something is free, it must be aimed solely at those in need. The media assumed this and most people I talk to assume this. (The reality is that we only ever get a handful of 'those really in need' attend each meal. They are very welcome and it's great that they attend.) However, I have a suspicion that because getting things for free is so against our social conditioning and expectations - it is so unusual - that many people feel there should be an excuse for receiving - such as disadvantage. It was a bit like when I tried to give away twelve pound coins to strangers. I didn't get on very well there because what I was doing was so counter culture: You can't give it away... When we hold...

I remember thinking about the nature/nurture argument as a young teenager and concluding everything was nurture. I suspect this was because my inexperienced mind did not fully comprehend that other people were or could be different from me. I thought we all started with the same blank canvas and life painted its stuff all over it. Then as I grew up with a natural fascination in people, my view became slightly more sophisticated. The blank canvas does not exist of course (der)! A person pops into this life with their own unique blueprint that life fiddles a little with. I think different blueprints would cope with the same life completely differently but different lives fiddle with the same blueprint less significantly. So I'm very much a believer in 'nature' these days! Why? 1) I had kids and their blueprints were apparent long before they could talk. 2) I remember someone who had worked in mental health for years telling me how studies of severely abused children always de...

This Friday chap was playing in Jurnets Bar in Norwich. It's a great venue (in a cosy crypt) where every Friday night a handful of different bands and musicians play a few numbers each. I have had some amazing nights there over the years - sometimes because of the quality of the music and sometimes because of the wonderful crowd it attracts. Unfortunately though, this week I wasn't able to go but because I knew a particular friend of mine was going who I was sad to miss, I sent her a box in place of me. The box was a yogi tea bag box painted purple and labelled: Sadly I cannot make it tonight so I have sent: 1) a better version of me and 2) some things that will be more fun than me xxxxxxx The 'me' she got was: And inside the box for her to play with was.... CONTENTS • Some play dough to make a new nose for me • A yoga position to try • A post-it to stick on her husband's back (It sad 'don't kick me') • Poo Poem • A bouncy ball to bounce at your leisure ...

Yesterday I was reading a version of Al Gore's Inconvenient Truth written for young people. (I like books for young people - especially when they have lots of pictures) This book is clear, cuts-to-the-chase and spells out what needs to happen. I have always thought the title was spot on for this work! Anyway it got me thinking - linked to my post Sustainability about different countries' readiness to embrace these issues. For example, a country that is in a state of civil unrest, that has starving people in abundance and heaps of corruption is unlikely to have the green agenda high up on its list of priorities. It takes a certain level of some kind of development for this readiness that I was pondering. I know there is a Corruption Perception Index for countries but I was wondering if there could be a more complex index for showing a country's readiness to embrace the sustainability agenda. It would need to take an awful lot into account as an awful lot can inhibit this p...

About 5 or 6 years ago the Klezmer band chap and I were in (Klunk) played at the wedding of Helen Ivory and Martin Figura - both poets. I did wonder at the time what the home-life of a pair of poets would be like. Metaphors, wit and concepts over the washing up? The odd ode or stanza dedicated to daily functions? I reckon it'd be rather lovely. Anyway. I have never been into poetry. It's not that I do not enjoy how it plays - I do - no it's because I can't read very well and my auditory function is disabled. My barrier to poetry means the stuff I do encounter tends to be read aloud and I can never get past the first two lines before I'm extrapolating and have stopped receiving. However, recently chap encountered Martin somewhere (chap described this somewhere as a stop everything bad and promote everything good 'thing' - he's not a poet) and chap returned with a little book of poems by Martin called, 'Boring the arse off young people'. And chap ...

Since last September I been one of the project leaders for the Norwich branch of a charity called FoodCycle. Here's the national website - FoodCycle It is a charity with a simple concept that was once an impossibility because of the fear of litigation. FoodCycle simply organises volunteers to: 1) take fruit, veg, bread and dried foods a supermarket, cafe or shop would otherwise have discarded (because it's slightly past its best), 2) transport it to a community venue via a bicycle with a trailer and 3) cook a meal for anyone to eat. (targeting those in need but not excluding others) It does this to: • tackle food waste and more importantly (and effectively) highlight the issue of food waste and what fussy consumers come of us have become. • tackle food poverty (we only scratch the surface of this currently). I am not sure what we create will ever be really easy for some disadvantaged to access as it's a large hall full of people. • provide CV fodder for young people •creat...

Back in 1980 I wrote to Margaret Thatcher expressing my outrage about the destruction of the ozone layer by CFCs. The Department for the Environment wrote back and reassured me that they were doing their best to see that the UK was not contributing to the destruction of the ozone layer. Ahem. I was just a kid and I wasn't convinced. I was also annoyed that Margaret had not personally dealt with my concern - she was the one in charge. Six years later I started a degree in Environmental Chemistry. Aside from the fact I learned that environmental has 3 'n's in it the day before I graduated, my interest in protecting and preserving the environment stayed with me throughout my degree. I guess the subject was taught appropriately. Then venturing into the real world I lost faith big time. The gloom and doom merchants got to me. I developed an 'oh fu*k it' mentality. Humans could be bright individually but as a mass they'd never agree and unite in the common goal of sus...

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

OK so I am in the region of the middle of my life assuming I make it to old age. That could be a big assumption the way I carry on but I'll go with it for now. Carl Jung said that coinciding with mid-life, we are meant to get a bit bored of ourselves. He didn't quite word it like that but it's the gist. He was right of course. I have become bored with my default position of seeing everything from my dominant perspective: that which Jung describes as 'intuitive'. It means that in any situation I always look for the overriding gist, the 'big picture' or the pattern so I can sum up and then extrapolate sweepingly should I encounter any similar situation again. I am bored with doing this. It uses up life too quickly. I have started saying to myself 'oh here I go again' when I find myself intuiting. I am also aware that my intuition isn't always well received. It makes huge abstract leaps that in recent years I have grown to understand will leave a se...

I am aware that my chap is a little odd. I wouldn't have him any other way. However, there is odd I admire (quite extensive and diverse) and there is also odd that is so beyond my comprehension, it drives me to pull faces. That is probably why said fellar strived to keep one of his collections hidden from me for years. It was his considerably voluminous tin can collection. Started in 1978, he collected every different type of can his young self could lay his hands on. Not composed of just soft drinks, his collection is evidence of considerable alcohol consumption. I can hear him now, 'it's all for my collection...hic.' Anyway, it wasn't so hidden once we had moved house and it was agreed that the cans were to be sold on ebay - if they could be. These days he rarely leaves the house withour a cylindrical parcel prepared for posting about his person. I didn't bully him into it. Honestly. I think he's just a differnt person now. However, out of one of his many ...