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
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
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
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
Random Photo – Surfers at Sunset
This is my favourite image from my time living in Cornwall, taken on a September evening in 2003. Surfing at dusk is a special thing, a tangible peace descends and one can feel an increased connection to the elements, to the others in the water. Surfing isn’t all about the action. The pauses, waiting, floating are valuable times.
110201 Mean World Syndrome
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
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.
31 Jan 2011
Yoga this morning was a run through of tomorrow’s class. It left me feeling good for the day ahead, even though I haven’t quite had enough sleep the last few nights. My new chair arrived at work, a Humanscale Freedom Task. I really like it, even compared to the kneeling Varier (Stokke) I have been using. Got a second-hand bargain on eBay thanks to the recession I guess. The bathroom is coming on. The tiles are all set and the toilet is back in place but we can’t use it yet. The weeing a bottle will end soon. Today is the end of the daily photos project, where I undertook to take and post one photo each day for one year. My favourite of all has to be the Hawkshead view from Black Crag:
I am also fond of the macro nature shots, such as:
I learnt to look around me at the details and the broad sweeps. I haven’t learnt a thing about photography itself – every image is taken in automatic mode – but I suppose I have more of a feel for composition. I understand the importance of good light, and why the expensive camera’s take better photos – faster lenses and bigger sensors allow more light in. Here is a ‘best of’ of the year.
Steps stepped: 6265. Another supermarket trip this evening so that’s a good 1000. We bought paint ready for painting C’s new room on Saturday, when she moves to Alresford.
The Trees of Brockwood – The Grand Oak (365/365)
The last photo of January and the last photo in my photographic year. We are back where we started, in the Brockwood parkland. It’s been an interesting challenge to use my camera every day. It made me look around a lot more, looking at the details as well as the grand sweeps and vistas, as I went about daily life and out on hikes and trips. I hope you’ve enjoyed the views!
30 Jan 2011
More driving practice for C with a run over to Harting Down. How delicious is it up there, especially with the sun out, blue skies, and the crisp morning air. We walked for a couple of hours over to Beacon Hill then down into the valleys to the south.
View of South Harting and beyond:
The climb ahead to Beacon Hill:
Views east along the downs:
Catkins in the sunshine:
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If you used to watch LOST and are feeling a little incomplete, all you have to do is answer these questions to tidy it all up:
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Polar Bears Status. Sad news of declines:
Don’t think global warming is real? Think the data is wrong? Think it’s a conspiracy to keep us in fear? Think it’s not man-made but a natural cycle? Regardless what you think, here are Met Office Observations Consistent with a Warming World:
And sea temperature anomalies data from eight different sources:
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Favourite track at the moment is The Roots Feat. Joanna Newsom – Right On. Great merging of styles, bass line on the chorus and that live drumming ticking along. Newsom’s voice is really growing on me.
“Right On” by The Roots (feat. Joanna Newsom & STS) from Bigger Than Blogging on Vimeo.
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Steps stepped: 8877
Pen Hill (364/365)
Very near to the end of the photographic year.
29 Jan 2011
My head hurts and my body’s tired. I bed most of the day. Watched the first half of Zeitgeist 3, making the argument that behaviour is learnt rather than genetic; need and want; and then going into the mess the financial system is causing. Its in cinemas and you can also see it online:
The richest 1% own 40% of the world’s wealth and it’s increasing by the minute as trading software scoops wealth from the stock market system.
No doubt the second half will go into how we can change this dire situation.
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A visualisation of Egypt’s recent internet traffic shows the extent of the blackout:
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I really enjoyed this history of hip-hop in beatbox. I recognise most of them. He’s got mad skills!
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I’ve seen a few 3D movies now and I am not impressed. I come away with the feeling of an enclosed rather than expansive screen and a tired head, like it was really hard work. Moreover, I just don’t see the point of it – a screen already shows a 3D scenario, with actors moving towards or away from the camera. I don’t need images to seem even closer. The critic Roger Ebert is also not a fan, and he has posted a letter from Walter Murch on his blog, explaining why it doesn’t ‘work’ and never will:
Hello Roger,
I read your review of “Green Hornet” and though I haven’t seen the film, I agree with your comments about 3D.
The 3D image is dark, as you mentioned (about a camera stop darker) and small. Somehow the glasses “gather in” the image — even on a huge Imax screen — and make it seem half the scope of the same image when looked at without the glasses. …
The biggest problem with 3D, though, is the “convergence/focus” issue. A couple of the other issues — darkness and “smallness” — are at least theoretically solvable. But the deeper problem is that the audience must focus their eyes at the plane of the screen — say it is 80 feet away. This is constant no matter what.
But their eyes must converge at perhaps 10 feet away, then 60 feet, then 120 feet, and so on, depending on what the illusion is. So 3D films require us to focus at one distance and converge at another. And 600 million years of evolution has never presented this problem before. All living things with eyes have always focussed and converged at the same point. …
But it is like tapping your head and rubbing your stomach at the same time, difficult. So the “CPU” of our perceptual brain has to work extra hard, which is why after 20 minutes or so many people get headaches. They are doing something that 600 million years of evolution never prepared them for. This is a deep problem, which no amount of technical tweaking can fix. Nothing will fix it short of producing true “holographic” images.
Consequently, the editing of 3D films cannot be as rapid as for 2D films, because of this shifting of convergence: it takes a number of milliseconds for the brain/eye to “get” what the space of each shot is and adjust.
And lastly, the question of immersion. 3D films remind the audience that they are in a certain “perspective” relationship to the image. It is almost a Brechtian trick. Whereas if the film story has really gripped an audience they are “in” the picture in a kind of dreamlike “spaceless” space. So a good story will give you more dimensionality than you can ever cope with.
So: dark, small, stroby, headache inducing, alienating. And expensive. The question is: how long will it take people to realize and get fed up?
All best wishes,
Walter Murch
I always watch the 2D version and can’t see that I’d ever want a 3D TV. Good story > gimmicky presentation please.
Tree Whale (363/365)
Lincoln Hall’s Survival
Lincoln Hall’s story is the most incredible I have come across in all the Everest reading and viewing I’ve been doing. At the end of the climbing season in 2006, this fifty year old Australian had reached the summit via the northern route, with three Sherpas. They had summited early in the day and had plenty of daylight and oxygen to get back to camp. But altitude sickness struck when Hall was still at 8600m. Suffering from the effects of cerebral edema, where the pressure inside the skull means fluid begins to leak into the brain, he began to hallucinate and collapsed several times. Each time he collapsed Hall believed he was taking a short break but they were long periods of unconsciousness. The Sherpas did their best to keep him moving through the day but he’d struggle with them and progress was very slow. Later Hall collapsed again and didn’t move. As the afternoon went on, the Sherpas continually tried to wake him and try to get him down to camp. All had been in the ‘Death Zone’ above 8000m for 19 hours, and supplemental oxygen had run out. They were all dehydrated and exhausted. Hall was declared dead at 5.20pm, and two hours later the Sherpas were ordered down to save themselves.
But Hall was not dead. He survived the night alone without water or shelter, drawing on yoga breathing and Buddhist meditation techniques, his consciousness tripping out in hallucinations. Luckily the temperature didn’t get below minus 25 that night – very cold, but not like it can be. He felt death as a grey cloak he was wearing, welcoming him. And so he determined to remove the cloak and face the cold. With dawn the sun warmed him somewhat and after 30 hours in the Death Zone he was found by another team heading for the summit. “I bet you are surprised to see me here,” were his first words. When they found Hall he was sitting cross legged and had removed his down jacket. He thought he was on a boat and wanted to get off – rather dangerous with a 3,000 meter drop in front!
The climbers abandoned their summit attempt and stayed with Hall until a rescue party could be organised and reached him. Still suffering from hypoxia Hall continued to battle with Sherpas on the way down, but he finally made it under his own power. Later he said Buddhism defines 8 stages of death, and he went through the first two. He doesn’t know what turned it around, nor can medical science explain why he didn’t die alone so high on the mountain. In an interview, Hall said:
The big thing I see is that what I had believed to be the nature of reality—the barrier between life and death, the dichotomy, I suppose—is actually not what I thought. And two things: the impossible can be possible, and death is not the grim reaper. It’s more welcoming. And it’s not like a trap, a welcoming trap. It’s actually just the next phase. I’ve been a card-carrying Buddhist for a dozen years now, and had Buddhist sympathies for a dozen years before that, but what happened this time around, on Everest, was that my appreciation of the Buddhist understanding of reality suddenly became real to me. That death isn’t the end, that it’s a cycle. So that’s the really potent life-changing message, even though I’m much the same person outwardly.
28 Jan 2011
Walked the loop past Black House Farm over towards Hinton, fast moving clouds allowing the morning sun through once or twice. Good to walk locally sometimes, each time getting more and more of a feel for Brockwood’s relationship with the landscape. After six years, the feeling still deepens of just where we live. I am so grateful to be able to live in the countryside, with open parkland, woods, fields and winding lanes. Views to the downs are just a shot walk away.
At midday I was in Alresford for a dental checkup, the first with Alresford Dental Care. What a difference to the St Cross Winchester practice where I was rushed in and out again in a few minutes. The new dentist obviously likes her job and is very professional. She was even enthusiastic in relaying how my teeth meet, what causes the sharpness I feel at the front, the fractures in one tooth that may need attention. Nothing needing doing.
This afternoon, C and I went to Gunwharf for a birthday meal and to see a film. C drove all the way in. Good on her! It went very well, and in the busiest and biggest city she’s ever driven in. We saw Barney’s Version. Hmmm, well, it’s one of those adult films – no, not that kind of adult film, but you know, adult issues, adult neurosis, adult fuck-ups. I suppose I was supposed to like the main character, or at least feel for his plight but I didn’t much. Most of the scenes worked well and the acting was good. It’s just that I didn’t care much. And it starts with a grumpy man and flashes back from there, so you know not much is going to change.
Back home, a present sent from Sweden, a Haglöfs ‘Tight’ medium daypack. It fits snugly to the back and is designed to move with your back. I still have a MacPac I bought over 15 years ago which I am fond of, but I will use the Haglöfs on longer walks.
First day of no yoga or sitting in four weeks. Tomorrow I may try some Dru yoga again.
Pickup (362/365)
27 Jan 2011
Today I turned 40. It feels like quite a milestone, and at the same time nothing special at all. I feel pretty much like when I was in my early 20s. My body is stronger and definitely healthier. I would say I am less fearful and more grounded. These are the things that count for me. So now I am middle aged! That’s pretty cool. I can relax a bit, be more eccentric, and more myself. A couple of changes I’d like to make: to walk every day, to relax about ‘how I should be’, to accept things as they are, and some of the struggling of youth can retire gracefully. No wars. I surrender. I reckon I’m a third of the way in – I’m going to be around until 110 or 120 years old. Why not? 40 years… a long time, and yet over in a week or two.
All the birthday wishes and facebook birthday messages is really fun and heart warming – thank you to my diverse and widespread friends.
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300 years of fossil fuels in a 300 seconds animation:
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Steps stepped 3780
Birthday Card Envelope (361/365)
From my dearest
26 Jan 2011
This is the last day of my 30s, or until 1530 tomorrow afternoon so I am not quite middle aged yet. What is middle aged is the amount of steps stepped today: 2961. One of my 40-something resolutions is to take a walk every day.
Yesterday I posted a quick facebook survey about toilet roll direction. The results:
Duncan Toms
Survey: Loo roll dispensing towards wall or away from wall?
Patricia H
away. definitely. I’ll even change it round if necessary. not that I’m OCD or anything…
Celeste C
Clearly explained: http://currentconfig.com/2005/02/22/essential-life-lesson-1-over-is-right-under-is-wrong/
Lucy H
Away, i too have to change it around…even if im in someone elses house!!!
Duncan Toms
I’ve changed two this week to away :) Celeste, I like the poster version:
http://currentconfig.com/images/overisright_hanger.pdf
Martin T
Away. Always.
Duncan Toms
Oops I’ve prejudiced my own survey!
Nicola B
Even your inevitably superior wisdom would not affect my response – AWAY!!
Sam B
towards.
Duncan Toms
Freak!
Sorry, I mean to say thank you for filling out the survey today.
Sam B
I prefer unique, if you don’t mind. And I’ll be the person behind Trish putting it back the other way!
Seppo V
This is clearly one of those things that divides humanity into two distinct schools of thought. Having done filling loo roll dispensers over 9 years as a professional cleaner (next fall I’ll be entitled to a gold watch after 10 years of toilet cleaning service) I’ve always belonged to the “away” school. However, I have once changed the content of a dispenser facing the wall, after customer request. I can see the esthetic sense of it, too, as it minimizes unsightly flapping of the free end of the roll and naturally aligns it with the wall.
My experience is that “away” school predominates. Nevertheless, lets us remember that adherents of “towards” style of thinking, while being in minority, are human beings, too, and don’t deserve discrimination on the basis of their esthetic leaning. “Away” with prejudices! “Towards, or let it flap away, let everyone have their say” could be our motto here.
Duncan Toms
I am humbled
Douglas H
Away if a choice allows, but sometimes you have to put it on coming off towards the wall, because if you put it away from the wall it will trap itself.
An interesting one that for some reason attracted me to speak up. Yeah and there have been occaisions when I see the toilet paper coming off towards the wall and It can obviously roll off coming away from the wall, then I have been known to turn it arround to come off away from the wall. Thanks for this one Dun.
Douglas H
I’ve just noticed all these comments after posting mine, this is supprising. I would have thought it would have been a more balanced out come, because the choices arn’t so diversly different as the results of the survey are.
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Coming up to middle aged but for me I am only a third of the way through. Things are pretty sorry for a lot of old folk who need care. In the Indie today are 10 ways we can turn that around:
Act One Support elderly people to stay in their own homes wherever possible
Everyone would rather stay in their own home than be institutionalised. There is a whole range of services that make this possible – from Meals on Wheels to home helps who are there to help an old man to shower in the morning and get into bed at night. We should be stepping them up, to keep anybody who possibly can free and independent. Instead, we are ruthlessly stripping them away. The local councils who provide these services are facing the largest cuts of any part of this cut-hungry government. As a direct result, Which? magazine reports that councils are “tightening their eligibility criteria, cutting services and putting up prices” on help for the elderly. All the charities for the elderly are warning frantically that many won’t be able to cope, and will end up falling over trying to shower themselves, or wasting away because they can’t cook for themselves. The result? Huge numbers of people who could have stayed at home with a little help are about to get knocked into the care system.
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An article on Tara Stiles, a yoga teacher in NYC and self-confessed nerd, who doesn’t go the traditional yoga route. I like her, erm, style and damn she’s gorgeous:
“I feel like I’m standing up for yoga,” Ms. Stiles said. “People need yoga, not another religious leader. Quite often in New York, they want to be religious leaders, and it’s not useful.
“Here, people want to sit and talk about yoga; it’s very heady. It’s very stuck, very serious,” she continued. “I was never invited to the party anyway — so I started my own party.”
Besides running the studio — which draws about 150 people to 40 classes a week that are called simply Strong, Relax and Stralax, a combination — Ms. Stiles posts a short video most weeks to YouTube. There, she has a channel with nearly 200 videos that have drawn about four million views. She stars in the yoga DVD that was part of the fitness set that Ms. Fonda issued in December (it sold out in Target, where it was first introduced). And “Slim Calm Sexy,” published last summer, was the No. 1 yoga book on Amazon.com until recently, she said.
None of this has made Ms. Stiles rich, but it has led to a certain celebrity. Last summer, Ms. Stiles released an iPhone app, Authentic Yoga, with Mr. Chopra, and the two recently completed a video in Joshua Tree National Park that will be released this year.
“We are both nonconformists who have incurred the wrath of traditional yogis,” Mr. Chopra said of Ms. Stiles, whom he now considers his personal instructor. “A lot of the criticism is resentment of her rapid success. I have been doing yoga for 30 years. I have had teachers of all kinds. Taking lessons from her has been more useful to me than taking yoga from anyone else.
“She is not a showoff,” he added. “She is ambitious, but there is a lack of ego.”
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Bought a cover for my Kindle. Now it feels right. The Kindle itself is very slim and so a little awkward to hold after a while. I bought the aluminium shielded Proporta case:
January Snowdrops (359/365)
Spring not so very far away, yet I’d like some more snow before winter’s out.
Falling Awake 