17 Jan 2010

Posted on by Duncan Toms

Awoke from deep within a dream of a yoga course within a music festival, a warped Kripalu within an even warpier Glastonbury. Feeling sleepy all day, trying to wake up by taking the outdoors cleaning job for our weekly clean at work this morning, breaking boxes for recycling. Heavy rain this morning and tonight. C drove CC and I to the supermarket this eve. CC reminded me of this company http://www.laptoprepairslondon.co.uk/ in London who repaired C’s laptop and a friend’s. So when a student’s Mac notebook failed, we both recommended letting them repair it. But instead of repairing it they switched out some of the components for lesser parts – hard drive, RAM, not sure what else. And then gave it back saying it couldn’t be repaired. So this is a review of Laptop Repairs Fulham: don’t trust them.

Yoga day 17, postures specifically for back strength and flexibility. Work ordering the priority for the audio production project, plus pulling a few transcripts on morning meeting for a school staff member. In the afternoon, researching DVD/TV combis for the Centre, to replace the current VHS combis in the viewing booths. While verifying the transcripts, I often tweet bite size Krishnamurti quotes here.

This evening watched a little of the most stressful show on earth: Grand Designs, and a little Everest ER from 2007. I also saw the trailer to the third Zeitgeist movie, Moving Forward, seemingly focussing on the capitalist system gone too far:

16 Jan 2011

Posted on by Duncan Toms

Regular viewers will notice a design of the site. I’ve updated the template after a few years of K2, to the WordPress default Twenty Ten. I recoloured the header blue and the cloud is now… black. This template gives a lot more options such as custom headers. There may be a few more changes I’ll make but this is pretty much how my blog will look this year.

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I’ve been up Everest several times now. Once with the IMAX crew, once with Jon Krakauer, last night, twice, with Anatoli Boukreev. And today with Nick Heil in Dark Summit. I suppose my fascination will naturally cease at some point, but I’ve been really enjoying the exhilaration. The sheer craziness of ambition and the decision-making, even by expert guides and leaders continues to amaze the more I learn. Factor in the cost of each expedition and the pressure is really on to get as many people to the top as possible. Add the unpredictable weather into the mix and you’ve got high risk of death.

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A big driving day, one session in the morning and another after lunch. C has her test in three days. She’s improving all the time and handling the unpredictable more competently. I cannot remember much about learning to drive. I remember it being one of the few times my mum and I argued. I remember driving with my older brother and hesitating at a narrow bridge so that someone drove into the back of me. I failed first time with the classic fault of ‘undue hesitancy’. I passed second time. Soon after, ignoring the advice to take it easy, I took mum’s Nova up to Kingsdown Hill and floored it down the long straight Roman road, hitting 100. I got an erection. My driving back then wasn’t safe, getting to town as fast as possible, even with passengers, flying over humpback bridges. And a crash in Bath, overtaking at a junction. Someone turned right into me when I thought he would go left. Nothing serious, a big dent in the rear quarter. I don’t think C will suffer from speed thrill and she is for the most part ultra safe. It’s hard sitting in the passenger seat sometimes, with little or no control over anything.

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As C is moving to Alresford in early Feb, the town has naturally been on my mind. I enjoyed looking at these old images Here’s one example, of Broad Street:

15 Jan 2011

Posted on by Duncan Toms

BP in the Arctic: There goes the neighbourhood:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-12195576

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Locals borrow every book in a Buckinghamshire library as a campaign against its closure:

The library at Stony Stratford, on the outskirts of Milton Keynes, looks like the aftermath of a crime, its shell-shocked staff presiding over an expanse of emptied shelves. Only a few days ago they held 16,000 volumes.

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A very good summary of the 2010 wikileaks, grouped by region. Examples:

– A storage facility housing Yemen’s radioactive material was unsecured for up to a week after its lone guard was removed and its surveillance camera was broken, a secret U.S. State Department cable released by WikiLeaks revealed Monday. “Very little now stands between the bad guys and Yemen’s nuclear material,” a Yemeni official said on January 9 in the cable.

– Pope Benedict impeded an investigation into alleged child sex abuse within the Catholic Church, according to a leaked diplomatic cable. Not only did Pope Benedict refuse to allow Vatican officials to testify in an investigation by an Irish commission into alleged child sex abuse by priests, he was also reportedly furious when Vatican officials were called upon in Rome.

– Anglo-Dutch oil giant Royal Dutch Shell PLC has infiltrated the highest levels of government in Nigeria.

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Went to Alresford to check out a house share C is interested in. She thinks she’ll take it, come early February. Then a short driving session before lunch. In the afternoon, reading, conversation, yoga.

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Today’s question is: If you had a time machine that only let you spend one hour in a different time, what date would you go to?

I don’t want to go to any time. To go to now would be the real miracle.

14 Jan 2011

Posted on by Duncan Toms

If I torque my arm far enough, I can break my forearm bones.

Like bending a two-by-four held in a table vise, I can just bow my entire goddamn arm until it snaps in two!

Holy Christ, Aron, that’s it, that’s it. THAT’S FUCKING IT!

There is no hesitation. I barely realize what I’m about to do. I unclip from the anchor webbing, crouching until my buttocks are almost touching the stones on the canyon floor. I put my left hand under the boulder and push hard, harder, HARDER! to put a maximum downward force on my radius bone. As I slowly bend my arm down to the left, a POW! reverberates like a muted cap-gun shot.

The above is from an extract of Aron Ralston’s book Between a Rock and a Hard Place, the story on which 127 Hours is based. It’s such a great story, and so simple, so real. It captivates me, both the film and reading about it. I’m also reading my second book on the 1996 Everest ‘disaster’, the first by Jon Krakauer called Into Thin Air, and The Climb by Anatoli Boukreev, a Russian guide with the ill-fated Mountain Madness team. What is it about these on-edge stories that I like? The simplicity, the stripping away of the trappings of modern life and post-modern concerns to the basics of survival. The fact that they have all chosen to be there takes away the tiresome necessity for sympathy even. Man and nature.

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Cleared up a lot at work, in the two days before the weekend. A two-day work week – I can live with that. This evening, watched the Relocation guy doing a programme in Australia. I’ve always thought New Zealand would be preferable if I were to move anywhere. Australia seems a little… bland.

OK, back to Everest.

BTW, has facebook been down today? The couple of times I have tried it has frozen on loading…

13 January 2011

Posted on by Duncan Toms

“I desire therefore I am” would be more accurate than “I think therefore I am.”

David Bohm
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Read an article with highlighted quotes from a Pilger-Assange interview:

And despite the pressure the website has been under, reports of trouble at WikiLeaks are greatly exaggerated, he claims.

“There is no ‘fall’. We have never published as much as we are now. WikiLeaks is now mirrored on more than 2,000 websites. I can’t keep track of the spin-off sites – those who are doing their own WikiLeaks . . . If something happens to me or to WikiLeaks, ‘insurance’ files will be released.”

The contents of these files are unknown, but, according to Assange, “They speak more of the same truth to power.” It is not just government that should be worried about the content of these files, however. “There are 504 US embassy cables on one broadcasting organisation and there are cables on Murdoch and News Corp,” he says.

The attempts by Washington to indict him should worry the mainstream press, he adds.

“I think what’s emerging in the mainstream media is the awareness that if I can be indicted, other journalists can, too,” Assange says. “Even the New York Times is worried. This used not to be the case. If a whistleblower was prosecuted, publishers and reporters were protected by the First Amendment, which journalists took for granted. That’s being lost.”

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Read an article about the late surfer Andy Irons’ hectic life:

Whatever treatment Andy received, John Irons says it helped. “Did it change his life? Yes. He was amped to get back on the tour. He was refocused and ready to go.”

Kelly Slater recalls a conversation with Irons from around 2007. “A couple of years ago, he had an awakening in his life about things,” says Slater. “We had one real deep talk. He said how excited he was to be feeling everything—to be feeling his emotions and understanding them. For him, that was a new lease on his life.”

BUT IF IRONS WAS ON an uptick in 2007, it didn’t last. His erratic behavior returned in September 2008, when he went missing during a World Tour contest in France. He surfed badly in one heat and then failed to show up for the next. He finished the year 13th overall but decided not to compete in 2009. “We encouraged Andy to take a year off,” says Billa­bong’s Naude, “because he had lost the desire to be on the tour.”

Irons told friends that he’d almost been dropped by Billabong. According to Mike Reola, a friend and co-founder of the clothing company Lost, Irons said that “everyone at Billabong wanted me gone when I was off tour” and that “Paul Naude was the only one who fought for me.” Irons also told friends that he took a substantial pay cut.

His wife has blocked the release of the toxicology report for six months.

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Back to work after a week in the Lake District. Wading through a thick inbox this morning, and this afternoon finishing off the last of the K/Bohm dialogues from 1975. This final conversation is about desire being the root of the self, and how we desire to be free of desire once we see the relentless problems it causes.

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The introduction of the shoulder stand on day 13 of the 28-day yoga course. Put a shoulder stand in a yoga sequence and it will change everything. A very subtle yet powerful effect. I look forward to practising more. I’m coming back to full health now.

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C found a place to live in Alresford, looks like. It’s sharing, but with someone who is working in London weekdays. We enjoyed a snooping session on Google Maps, looking for the house numbers on dustbins, ahead of a real visit on Saturday.

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The WordPress postaday2011 topic for today is: What are you looking forward to this year?

– a bit of surfing
– a lot of yoga
– some long walks
– space
– skiing?
– reorganising the flat
– a new bathroom
– healthy health
– My brother’s wedding

12 Jan 2011

Posted on by Duncan Toms

Took the day off and spent the morning in bed, after an hour’s yoga session. I felt quite run down, and again itchy feeling in my face and weak eyesight. There is no doubt this is the effect of a week of wheat and a little sugar. In the afternoon we did a food shop, with C driving both ways, through the dark and rain. She did well and it’s looking good for the test in a week’s time. This evening after home made pizza we watched 127 Hours, the second time for me. It’s such a watchable film, despite knowing the plot, and is one of my all time favourites. I don’t want to get trapped in a canyon, but wouldn’t it do us all good to be forced to stop for five days and face what we are?

11 Jan 2011

Posted on by Duncan Toms

Woo: 11.1.11 – according, only, to those Gregorian dudes, so don’t read too much into it.

A day of packing and travel. The drive took a long time. A lorry had hit the M40 central reservation and off the carriageway into a ditch. After an hour’s crawl we saw it getting craned out, soil and hedge in its caved in radiator. Later on the A34 a van had skidded to face the other direction. The driver and passenger were still sitting in the car looking embarrassed, a police car having closed one lane.

Still got the morning yoga session in, and a half hour sit together by the fire, and leisurely breakfast before realising we are leaving in half an hour. A rushed packing session only to find we weren’t ready to leave until nearly 1030. What did I say about groups leaving on time? Jennifer took some group photos which I’m looking forward to seeing.

Good to be home, hanging out with C again. What a lovely being she is!

My tongue has swollen up during this week. I think it might be a reaction to the wheat bread I’ve been eating – what else I couldn’t guess. It’s painful because I’ve bitten the edge of it a few times. And I can’t quite talk right. I sound like the bloke on QI. C is treating me for it now; I have two needles inside of my shins as I type. Within a few seconds I can feel the tongue is less big and fits between my lower teeth again.

This photo looking east from Yewfield while waiting to leave:

It was a damn fine week.

10 Jan 2011

Posted on by Duncan Toms

For the first time on this staff week I went to sleep on time and woke up ahead of the alarm. Ahead by 20 minutes not 4 hours. Day 10 of the yoga course, adding the locust pose. I thoroughly recommend the Hittleman 28 Day Exercise Plan. It’s dated, but it’s clear, precise, and builds day by day. The emphasis is on the ‘housewife’ but what he says applies to us all, but it’s not preachy or idealistic.

Today is the last day of the retreat, and our group has no chores to do. Looking out at the still dark morning, I see we’ve had a few cm of snow at Hawkshead Hill overnight. After breakfast:

After lunch and before supper I watched 127 Hours. You all know by now that he has to cut his forearm off. But that’s at the end of over five days of very little food or water, with cold temperatures each night. You know it’s coming but when the cutting comes it’s bloody and gnarly. All those nerves and tendons and stuff that enables me to type right now. How to keep yourself cutting? Premonitions of a son yet to be born to a wife he doesn’t know. When he finally got out I cried and cried at the sheer relief of his return to human contact. The guy is a bit of an adrenaline berk, and the soul searching isn’t particularly deep but it’s enough to add some depth and humanity to his somewhat self-imposed predicament. And it being a Danny Boyle film there are excellent cuts into fantasy and hallucination. Don’t be screamish, watch it.

Today was the ‘deepest’ day of the retreat, with a video this morning of an intelligent inquiry into nothingness, and the dialogue this afternoon continued with a similar depth. This evening after a supper we each spoke, if we wanted about how the week was for us. It’s nearly always hard for me to speak to a group, and today feeling shoddy after the sugar in the meal, and the crying at the film I didn’t think I’d be able to say anything. But I did. It’s been a really valuable week on many levels. Some questions I’m left with right now:

What is the generator of thought?
Will thought, and identification with a continuous self, do absolutely anything to survive?
What does it mean for thought to be at the end of its tether?
Do we only know ‘near the end’ and so look forward to ‘the end’ as frightening?
How secure is our security?

Humans: Crap at walking straight

Posted on by Duncan Toms

A nice animation highlighting the fact that without visual reference we cannot go in a straight line. It’s funny to see the routes people took in the experiments, even when driving.

Incidentally, even with visual reference, our walking in a straight line waves left and right. It’s not proof but here’s a picture I took of a Cornish beach which shows this:

I remember reading in (the late) Lyall Watson’s Gifts of Unknown Things how on the Indonesian island he visits, this means the footpaths have a natural rhythm to them as they sway through the landscape. Maybe like an English country lane, and not at all like a Roman road.

Wish Tree

Posted on by Duncan Toms

Near Colwith Force was a fallen tree with coins driven into it. At first I thought the coins were fungus, but each is a coin pressed most of the way into the wood. I don’t know if individuals have placed each coin, or whether it is more of a work of art by one person, but it seems like it is the former.