TV, SUICIDE AND SUFFRAGETTES

Arsenal just needed one more goal.  I know its only a game but it was so close and if ever there was a  match they lost it was that one.   They lost beating the smallest principality in the world two love, or two nil.  Tom was fuming and so was I. It wasn't so close. They didn't win.  You think with all their money they could have afforded a better side, each player earning bank account number salaries.   Too many near misses, almost there -  but it doesn't matter how well they played, they lost.   In yoga I talked about not competing with yourself, or judging yourself, or others; just having compassion and acceptance for yourself, which I'm sure is the exact same thing Wenger is saying to his team right now - not.

Then a programme on suicide which was very well produced.  And I suppose is the antithesis of having acceptance and compassion for yourself.    How do you start or begin to touch upon a subject which is riddled with guilt, denial, anger, betrayal, in fact every word that wasn't mentioned in the programme.  Shock was mentioned.  No one seemed to realise that there was a good chance that someone who was depressed would consider suicide.   Selfish it may be but when the black dog looms I am told it is all pervading and even in my psychology, which is barely skimming the surface of such matters, when there are so many things real or imagined - and the imagined becomes real - pushing you over the edge, relationships or lack of them, finance or lack of it, dreams or lack of them - its an option.    The woman talking and interviewing talked about the importance of talking, but perhaps the importance of listening and observing to alleviate the 'shock' should also be qualities we should nurture.   And the talking we tend to do as a culture is about stuff that so does not matter - like the weather, or I suppose Arsenal losing to Monaco.

And lastly, the last in the series on the suffragette movement. I didn't see the first two but will have a look on iplayer. I interviewed Barbara Castle, when a documentary was produced in 1994 on the anniversary and she had written her autobiography. She put in it to me 'never let it be a man's world,; having told me I shouldn't toughen up like other journalists and be sensitive and strong and basically feminine without being a pushover.    I'm not anti male, in fact I really like and have deeply loved some of them, but the programme concluded that considering what those suffragettes endured we have achieved very little - as a gender, politically, in industry, financially and we don't help our own. And that men still have their old boy network and block women at every turn.    I have, in general, not found that.   I think its' more to do with the person than the gender.  Yes, there's a type who will always condescend and patronise and block and politic but they do so to both genders and its their stuff and insecurity.  I have always gone my own way, and viewed system and authority as smoothing some one else's path and palm, although not necessarily mine.  

I taught yoga again today and was told by some people who came they thought I was the best teacher they'd ever had, which is a wonderful thing to say, isn't it?   And I went up to kiss my son good night.   Which was the best bit of the day.

sexy spring

Forget Cameron, Clarkson and just smile at Spring.   It is sexy. 

SPRING

That exquisite scent of nature's orgasm

Aroused from a deep sleep

Shrouded in winter's sober blanket of

dark enclosed comfort

Breezes whisper like a hair's breathe

As the delicate petal sheets unfold

And peel back, layer by layer

the bud

With graceful knowing ease

And aching colour plumps up the shoots as they burst

into life, pushing up and out and through and

into light

The pinks, and reds, and purples

ripen in the cool-kissed sunshine

Twisting and bending and arching back into crescending shape

Nature's ecstatic wake up call

As it explodes into a screaming smile

And sighs bliss.

cameron, farage, clarkson, and brightman, welcome to the world of non news

I am revising for my sports psychology exam next week. Three hours of writing by hand and I've been doing lots of yoga to clear the mind, which has been brilliant.   And its Spring and thats wonderful.   Its my favourite season, then Autumn, then Winter, Summer last.   Especially after last summer.   And I have not turned on the TV or read the news.   And then I turned it on.   Singer Sarah Brightman is going into space. Is this news?  Or irony because she sang Starship Trooper. I think the space travel is happening because there's a asteroid heading our way and they don't want to tell anyone because there would be chaos and we would burn all the politicians and bankers, not pay taxes and run a muck.   So they've got those who can pay to go up into space and perhaps connect with aliens from another planet - although looking at the ones they are sending up there - we're not exactly sending the best of our bunch - just the richest, most self obsessed and well connected.  

Then there was more Farage bashing because the other parties pay their PRs more than he does and he seems to be apologising for everyone. But at least he speaks up for himself which is more you can say for the others.   Cameron at least he letting down his guard.   He looks more like a cabbage patch doll everyday squirrelling nuts into his cheeks.

He is not a man for the people, he thinks he is a man above the people. As do his friends (did he know Jimmy Saville as well?  everyone who is anyone seemed to know Jimmy Saville).

And now he stands up for his friend Jeremy Clarkson who had a hissy fit because he didn't have a hot meal waiting for him at the end of a hard day's filming.   I read all the other things he's allegedly done wrong and laughed. They are funny and ridiculous and yes we are all becoming terribly PC, so helpfully these pompous twerps can lead the way and allow the average Joe to throw a punch the next time they are served cold meat in a hotel after a hard day's work.  JC is a spoilt brat and we're allowing him to be a spoilt brat.  Just like Cameron, we vote for these pompous people, helping to blow up their balloons by watching them on TV and voting them into Parliament. Well not me.  But allegedly most of us.   Well actually not most of us because a lot of us don't vote. And even then it was a hung Parliament.   Any way, all of the news on the news at the moment is non news, which obviously means there is much more important stuff to be told.  When a guy selling cars on TV gets top coverage you know the world has gone mad.    Any way back to the revision...

fifty shades of grey and new pix

Well, I've changed the pix on my Facebook and Twitter pages. I know some people do that all the time,  but I don't.  I'm now no longer in the field and now wearing a hat.   And in child's pose/balasana which is a lovely yoga posture.  Its kind and kind is harder to take than the more strident postures that evoke courage and discipline, strength or stamina.   Essentially its one where you listen to your breathe and are at peace, but stretching your spine at the same time.  You are still and in that stillness everything flushes through you  emotions, thoughts, breathe whoosh.    Its an interesting posture for many reasons.  I sometimes see people cry when they are in this posture as so many other postures are 'heart openers', and you're never long enough in downward dog to get away with the tears.

Any way its in the book THE A TO ZEN OF YOGA which is out in April.  

I went to see fifty shades last night.   The book is better than the film.   I've met Christian Grey, or wannabe Christina Grey (i.e. no helicopter or imagination - just the need to control). Little boy lost playing the I can't help myself to women who are natural nurturers and can't give enough to someone who is essentially a black hole.   I am told there are a lot of people who are into S&M (they also probably like M&S).   Middle classes who look so straight on the outside.    Pity sex is so often used as a weapon these days.