Just pleasantly floundering around.....

REPORT FOR MOLLY POTTER For: LATE SUMMER OF LIFE (still warm enough for paddling pools) ATTENDANCE: Full on TEACHER: All that stuff out there what keeps happening and what she ponders on SKILL: Being tactful GRADE: C- COMMENT: Molly can be extremely tactful when she's actually trying to be AND concentrating AND has registered that the person she is talking to is unlikely to be able to cope with brutal banter. However, Molly does appear to suffer from a very short brain to mouth fuse and occasionally she manages to find the single most clumsy comment that really either is the epitome of inappropriateness or simply an unintentional twist of a knife and yet still have sincerely never meant to offend. She hates upsetting people - anyone - but especially those she loves and she's got big loving going on. SKILL: Being assertive GRADE: B COMMENT: Like most people this would depend on the time, place, mood and those present. She has teetered along the fine line between assertive ...

Haslar has been married to Gina the rabbit for 57 years. He believes the secret to a healthy relationship is honesty and not eating your spouse. Danger Level .......... 5 Age ....................... 88 Magical Power ....... 12 Max Speed ........... 17 Goodness ......... 5 Intelligence ............. 100 Addicted to high risk activities and adrenaline, Gij has found herself in the position of having lost 24 of her 27 limbs. Danger Level .......... 5 Age ....................... 103 Magical Power ....... 24 Max Speed ........... 3 Goodness ........... 10 Intelligence ............. 99 Croffit moves so painfully slowly that his north side is covered in moss and a Barratt home estate has built up around him. Danger Level ..... 2 Age ...................... 67 Magical Power ....... 22 Max Speed .... 0.000001 Goodness ........... 2 Intelligence .......... 86 Gary en...

Today I drove to and landed in the Fens...again. It takes more than an hour to get there from here (precise directions for you) and if you miss your target, another hour to find a place to turn round. Anyway, it's a lot of driving for a day job. For ages the radio and music maker had not worked in my car but it has recently been fixed (by lovely chap) and it makes the driving so much more pleasant (today Must be Love by Madness at least 16 times). I also tried a bit of Radio 4 because, I had forgotten what radio does to me..... Firstly I cannot listen to more than two sentences before my thoughts go off into Extrapolate City. Periodically, I return and get another two word to two sentence hit and it's not long before I am in a state of severe over-stimulation. I have no idea what the programme was about but the 'thought prompt' I received today was said in a Northern Irish accent: I tell young people, 'choose who you like and know why you like them and choose who yo...

I keep complaining that I regularly get lost in Blogsville without a map to help me find my way back. Well I wheeled out my cartography skills and have produced one so that nobody need ever get lost again...... click on it to enlarge...for those long of sight I would like to pledge to re-draw this after some time to see if it changes....when Mrs Blase manifests.

I remember reading somewhere that you have the longest relationship with your siblings. Pretty obvious really as you tend to be born around the same time, hang out in a shared building during childhood and hopefully die around the same time. But it's not just about time is it? Siblings share a dollop of genetic material and a very similar upbringing. No one else in my life has that. If I had been brought up by my parents without my older sister and younger brother present for dilution of parenting and moral support, I am not sure how I would have managed! The adult to child ratio was definitely in our favour. We had a lot of mischief to get on with so decoys were essential. My sister's teenage rebellion provided much needed cover for my brother's and my wrongdoings for years but mostly I think we worked on a rota system. Of course we had some sibling rivalry rattling about, enhanced by our parents need to continually - and sometimes brutally - compare us and in a family whe...

Less than two years ago I made a Thought Sorter for someone called Papa Bear and he still has it. I was a novice inventor then. It worked by turning a handle and lots of sparkly bits moving. It has instructions with it that basically explain that it will sort good and bad thoughts. It has served him well (although for his part he has had it serviced regularly). It lives in Southwold, Suffolk. That might be too far for some of you to go to get your thoughts sifted. So imagine my delight when I learnt that they are making and selling them online in Thinikityville (I really should have had mine patented). This is what it looks like. (You might like to click on it for further inspection before purchasing). Of course it does actually do much more than the one I made did. I concede it is a superior product. DIY is fine but those commercial organisations can always top us amateurs. The advert says.... This thought sorter will.... 1) Deliver a little ding when the daydream has gone that bit t...

I recently read the training 'manual' for diversity education (masters level) to see if it might enhance the existing training I have developed. The over-worded, poor point/page ratio-ed, piece of writing was satire fodder. This 'handbook' had huge paragraphs full of unnecessary (and in places inaccessible) terminology that if treated with the make simple sense magical (probably a pixie's) wand could usually be reduced to one or two phrases at most. And so this is how I found myself reading it: 1) Read six pages. 2) Stop 3) Think a bit 4) Translate - ah so that says, it's hard for you to understand what makes people in a minority feel like they don't belong if you are embedded in the institution's 'majority' culture . 5) Say aloud with furrowed brow, 'well why didn't they just say that?' (In fact - that was the only part in all 300 pages that made me think of a slightly new way of helping people to consider diversity and inclusion.) I...