Month: February 2011

110204 Retro Materialistic Delights

Posted on by Duncan Toms

Another trip to the dentist, this time for the hygienist. What is it with Alresford Dental Care? Even the hygienist was happy and into her job. I was flossed, brushed, scraped and varnished into shape, and motherlyly told off for not flossing often enough. Actually, I am inspired to look after my teeth a little better and not count on my luck which has meant only one small filling in the last 20 years.

Another three day weekend coming up, with packing tomorrow morning of C’s things for Alresford, then decorating the room. Sunday will be the actual move and then Monday helping her to settle in. I can’t quite believe she is actually moving. It’s been so long coming that now it feels like it’s not quite real.

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Really enjoying looking at this old Argos catalogue; a snapshot of 1985.

Sinclair Spectrum!

Vintage British Argos 1985 Catalogue

Game & Watch! Speak & Spell!

Vintage British Argos 1985 Catalogue

Crossfire! Tank Command!

Vintage British Argos 1985 Catalogue

Every page a retro materialistic delight.

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Google have driven their Google Street View cars inside famous galleries, to bring you this: Google Art Project

I don’t know much about art but I like the idea of a virtual gallery.

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Hedging their money on our food, distorting prices and starving people:

Food speculation: ‘People die from hunger while banks make a killing on food’

It’s not just bad harvests and climate change – it’s also speculators that are behind record prices. And it’s the planet’s poorest who pay

Food speculation graphic Illustration: Katie Edwards

Just under three years ago, people in the village of Gumbi in western Malawi went unexpectedly hungry. Not like Europeans do if they miss a meal or two, but that deep, gnawing hunger that prevents sleep and dulls the senses when there has been no food for weeks.

Oddly, there had been no drought, the usual cause of malnutrition and hunger in southern Africa, and there was plenty of food in the markets. For no obvious reason the price of staple foods such as maize and rice nearly doubled in a few months. Unusually, too, there was no evidence that the local merchants were hoarding food. It was the same story in 100 other developing countries. There were food riots in more than 20 countries and governments had to ban food exports and subsidise staples heavily.

The explanation offered by the UN and food experts was that a “perfect storm” of natural and human factors had combined to hyper-inflate prices. US farmers, UN agencies said, had taken millions of acres of land out of production to grow biofuels for vehicles, oil and fertiliser prices had risen steeply, the Chinese were shifting to meat-eating from a vegetarian diet, and climate-change linked droughts were affecting major crop-growing areas. The UN said that an extra 75m people became malnourished because of the price rises.

But a new theory is emerging among traders and economists. The same banks, hedge funds and financiers whose speculation on the global money markets caused the sub-prime mortgage crisis are thought to be causing food prices to yo-yo and inflate. The charge against them is that by taking advantage of the deregulation of global commodity markets they are making billions from speculating on food and causing misery around the world.

As food prices soar again to beyond 2008 levels, it becomes clear that everyone is now being affected. Food prices are now rising by up to 10% a year in Britain and Europe. What is more, says the UN, prices can be expected to rise at least 40% in the next decade.

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My yoga practice has changed this week. I’ve just been getting on the mat and moving the way I feel I need to. No schedules, sequences, timings, guidance.

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Steps stepped: 4282

Scrap Book: Mossy Mushroom Tree on Dartmoor

Posted on by Duncan Toms

Another from 2003. After a long featureless trek across the open moor, C and I found ourselves in a small valley, with a group of gnarly oaks surrounded by a crumbling dry stone wall. Everything within the wall seemed to be covered with moss. Within the mossy trunk of this tree, hundreds of fungi:

It felt ancient there and not a little wriggly.

Meanwhile, another 1990s morning train commute. Observe ESP Precautions.

Posted on by Duncan Toms

Four boys going to school, one of them in DMs.
“Boxing Day’s a Thursday isn’t it?”
Talking about Christmas presents and polar bears.
It’s getting lighter outside but today is going to be one of those days that never really gets light and then it’s dark again by four.
Talking with mouths full of crisps they have opened their packed lunches already.
Now they are selling chicken wings.
“I’ll give you 40p for one.”
Chickens from factory farms, full of antibiotics so they don’t die too soon.
I have big baggy trousers on and new wide trainers.
The laces are loose.
The slightly crusty school girl is smoking B&H.
It is 08:30 and we are at Hilsea.
“Observe ESP Precautions” says the sign.
“Authorised Personnel Only”.
“Well cool place innit?”
“What number she live at?”
“Your granddad’s probably dead.”
They are talking but not one of them is particularly listening.
There is a red bus parked on the wasteland by the gas storage thingies.
“My mum gave me the water bed.”
One boy is swinging the chicken bones in a bread bag.
Crumbs of southern fried coating on the floor will be there all day, travelling up and down the line.
Five yellow bollards surround a loose paving slab next to a puddle on Fratton Station.
Approaching work in the city.

110203 Love

Posted on by Duncan Toms

On the phone to Hyderabad today where they are going to help remaster the entire Krishnamurti audio collection. AM is somewhat reluctantly going out there to help set up the project and make sure the production values meet our requirements. This is a project which will result in all the Krishnamurti audio professionally produced, based on the seven years of digitisation we’ve been doing.

This afternoon I’ve been working on a transcript. Instead of a typical round and round discussion with new Brockwood students, Krishnamurti talks for one hour on love. What it isn’t and what it might be. Towards the end he mentions the relationship between the extensive suffering we all go through and love. Certainly Krishnamurti is not like the gurus who go on and on about love in a vague but appealing fashion, with dreamy-eyed followers lapping it up. Instead K takes the approach of what it is not, and emphasises the need to address the way the world is, the way we are, rather than zone out into a fantasy over love.

To discover for yourself, not repeat what I am talking about, discover for yourself what this relationship is, between this suffering of man, of a human being, and the enormity of what he calls love. To discover their relationship. And when you discover the truth of that relationship, what comes out of that flowering? That may be the real compassion. So, to understand this, to go into it, that is part of meditation.

And some quotes along the way before this:

The word ‘love’ is loaded, spoiled, spat upon, vulgarised.

Love of the country, love of the flag, love of an ideal, has killed millions and millions and millions of people.

Actually find out, you know, in your heart, in your mind, find out what it means to love somebody, love human beings, love another.

Random Photo – Devon School of Yoga Foundation Course – Pool

Posted on by Duncan Toms

Long before the teacher training I undertook at Kripalu in the States, there were two yoga foundation courses I took in the south west. One was with The British Wheel of Yoga in Bideford and the other with the independent Devon School of Yoga. The Devon school is founded and run by another Duncan – Duncan Hulin. What a great teacher Duncan is! He’s really found his own style of teaching and a non-dogmatic approach to postures and sequencing. In 2003, part of the foundation course was a trip to Orgiva in southern Spain. The classes and meals were up in the hills at a small studio with mountain views. Also this gorgeous pool right outside the studio:

The studio is no longer a studio and as far as I know the foundation course is held in the UK, near Dartmoor. Duncan continues to teach in the Exeter area. While I was considering living there I didn’t know how it would be for there to be two teachers called Duncan in town…

110202

Posted on by Duncan Toms

Taught another class to a student who couldn’t make it yesterday and people who wanted to come again. Going over the same class routine again I could add more detail and I was also able to take it easier. It’s a good way to learn how to teach, with no money involved, to reasonably small groups.

Not much to say about today. A cold, damp, windy day and not much going on. Took a walk at lunchtime with C, one of the last while she lives at Brockwood. I’ll miss that, being able to hook up that easily and just take a stroll. She won’t be far away, just a few miles, which takes a little more organising. But when you aren’t living together the conversation is deeper, less about domestics, and less of the feeling that you know pretty much everything that’s happened to each other. It’s a hard time for her, with a new home, new job and new practice all coming at once.

Going to bed really early now, way before nine.

Steps stepped: 6007

110201 Mean World Syndrome

Posted on by Duncan Toms

I taught yoga at Brockwood Park School this evening – a weekend class open to students, mature students and staff. I kept to the same format as last year, a gentle class with relaxation at the beginning and end, plenty of pratapana before some classical poses. People welcomed it and said it was just what they needed. I’m glad to be able to help a little. I still get nervous beforehand. Not directly before but during the afternoon as it gets nearer. But once I am inside the hall and I get to the reality of it rather than the imagined scenario, it is fine. I am accepting what I feel, loving it and allowing it’s place. I’ve been afraid of speaking in front of groups since Miss Dolan’s class when I was about six, when I probably cried. So this is healthy for me, to speak in a context in which I am comfortable and enjoy sharing. Another class tomorrow due to demand (and my wanting to keep class sizes to around 10).

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A clue to DJ Premier’s inventiveness:

Like, I was a weird dude… I used to listen to a lot of New Wave stuff, like The Smiths, and Psychedelic Furs, and The Cure, Siouxsie And The Banshees, Dial House, Joy Division… I was into all that stuff. The Thompson Twins, just all this crazy stuff.

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Great iPlayer viewing: How TV Ruined Your Life. Episode 1: Fear.

Those old public information films were very frightening. It’s all inside somewhere; I’m riddled with fears of overhead power lines, substations and farmyard terrors.

From the show:
“Television began to enjoy the same level of influence on society as religion had for centuries.”
Our “brain nuts” (Amygdala) don’t know the difference between TV and real violence, so despite any rationalisation and fancy shoes, the same primitive fight or flight response kicks in. It’s stressful, and the nervous energy doesn’t get used up in the would-be fight or flighting.
“The more TV news you watch, the more passive, nervous and frightened you become.” But you don’t show it of course. The more frequently an image is repeated on screen, the greater significance we attach to it in the real world. Mean World Syndrome: the belief the world is a mean and frightening one.
And switching it off doesn’t make you feel any safer because now you are more aware than ever of the glowing silence all around.
“You are 20 times more likely to die driving to the airport than you are on the plane”
The more frequently an image is repeated on screen, the greater significance we attach to it. Mean World Syndrome, the belief the world is a dangerous place.
“What if the Large Hadron Collider went a bit Amstrad?”
Good old Charlie Brooker.

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Steps stepped: 4447

Random Photo – Custard Point Mini Mal

Posted on by Duncan Toms

So I am missing posting a daily photo already, so I’m going to select one from iPhoto most days.

The first random photo is my very first surfboard, a Custard Point Mini Mal bought in 2002. Back then, Custard Point boards were made by hand in Newquay, but now, like many, are Made In China. I really liked the colours of this board, and it was a great size and shape for my introduction to surfing. I sold it when I moved back to Hampshire and thought I was quitting surfing. I don’t think you can ever quit surfing once you have enjoyed the thrill of a wave. I rode this mainly at Widemouth Bay, my old local spot.