LAST OF THE YEAR

Everyone is bemoaning 2016 as a bad year. It was an eventful year and amazing things happened.  Even the 2016 Wipe by Charlie Booker failed to be as funny as it usually is, because how do you satirise the surreal?  The surreal is already satirising itself.   There are more tigers and hopefully will be more elephants and people are planting more trees.   Everyone is bemoaning Trump as being as being clinically insane, but perhaps we are just exchanging one illusion for another.     Don't fix it if its not broken, they say, but people forget, all the establishment from the financial world, the economic, the political, the health, the education, the legal system - IS broken. So the establishment in all its guises does need fixing.

The Years Honours list is awful.  There are some names deserving of merit, those not mentioned on the news, but those who don't deserve it, the celebrities, the sportsmen, devalue those who do.    No celebrities.   No sports people.  And definitely no Posh Spice or Cameron cronies.   Cameron will be recognised as being almost as odious as Blair.   Or perhaps he is, and we don't know it yet (I suspect Murdock does).   As for the others, they have been rewarded financially enough.   And if they give to charity, then they get back in terms of feeling good about themselves (which they will) and in tax breaks.    Those who deserve the rewards are those who don't make the headlines and don't have the financial breaks.     

Patsies have been put out to protect the guilty in all areas.  People like Rolf Harris and the football coaches, long dead, have been given out as something to chew on while the others continue to go about their business believing they are above the law because half the time they make it.   But at least we know now no one is the public eye is to be trusted, respected, or given time. More people are turning off the news, not reading the news papers and trusting in their instincts.   And starting to identify who to talk to and who isn't worth the time any more.   Its a shame because there are some wonderful writers out there, just not the outlets for them to share their voice, which has neither ego nor agenda.   

I've had a good year.  Learnt lots of lessons.   And I know whats important.  I'm blessed to be teaching in phenomenal schools with phenomenal teachers who deserve the honours bestowed on the sports men and women and the celebrities.    We are completely misplaced in society about what is really valuable.   Funds should go directly, without passing go, to the schools and the hospitals and get the nurses, the teachers, the doctors, the heads to distribute the money. They will know what to do with it.   Where it is best applied.  But perhaps that is too simple.   

A lot of voices have chosen to leave, while others have chosen to remain, like a heavenly Brexit all over again.   

I have a list of things to achieve in 2017.   In order of priority.    But for now, a poem to appreciate the moment.  

Dragon fly life

one day

a breath

a whisper

an opportunity

one word

or perhaps two or three

no more

to fly high

and breathe deeply

and smile

and love and 

laugh 

loud

and scream

and love

oh to love 

and watch 

the beauty

of 

e-v-e-r-y-t-h-i-n-g

because 

now 

its

gone

.

BAD TV

I watched Philip Schofield on the TV last night. He was presenting a strangled excuse of a programme on the Duke of Edinburgh Award Scheme which celebrates its 60^th birthday this year. I never did it. I did the Queens Guide instead and had a hell of a time passing my camping badge because none of my patrol liked it each other.  It was my first taste of party politics, getting that badge. Getting people to cooperate and do something they didn’t want to do, didn’t have to do, and for which there was absolutely nothing in it for them.   And unlike politicians I didn’t even lie.  That came later.    But I got my badge and watched while others told me about their bronze, silver and gold which seemed a lot of work for nothing.     I don’t know much about HRH Philip. I have heard loads of rumour, which I’m sure most have on the internet. He drives around in a taxis in London, probably with his light off so that he can pass people by in the street when its pouring and Scrooge-like not offer them help.    He was skint when the then Princess met him and it was a marriage that was arranged by Mountbatten and the Queen Mother (allegedly).  I met someone who did a bust of him who told me he is an ‘alpha male who has to behave totally out of character and walk behind a woman.’ And an alpha male never follows anyone. They lead.   I’m sure he’s found his ways to rebel.  The taxis is perhaps a touch of it.  And he has many children, but then I’m sure the prune faced Mick Jagger has more than the eight he is officially announcing.   

And it was interesting watching Schofield sychophant his way so far up HRH’s arse, even the Prince looked pained.    The Prince has a contempt for the media, but then again, so do I. They lack authority and credibility now and it’s a pity because there are good writers out there who are boxed in by editors who have an agenda, which is nothing to do with the news.    In the late AA Gills’ review of the ‘fictional’ Royal family in the series ‘The Crown’ he comments ‘a not very bright, frightened and stifled family, looking out at a world they don’t understand and don’t really like’.   That’s ours and although I think the Prince is probably one of the brighter ones, that is not saying much. His arrogance and pomposity make him ignorant because he thinks he knows better.   Because he is better.

Talking on a completely separate matter, I do wish someone would get on leading that government paedophile enquiry. Then there would be some news to not write about….

Ps Brian Sewell dead, AA Gill dead.  Great writers and great voices.   I never met Gill but I met Sewell. The world is a poorer place at the end of 2016 and its nothing to do with global financial crisis.

FOUR TESTY YEARS

Degree done, yoga teacher training done.   I feel as though I've achieved something over the past four years.   Its been like being in the wilderness, and occasionally coming up against sand storms and tsunamis of other peoples emotional dramas.   As though I've walked into their book and don't want to be there, so I've walked out again, literally.   Interesting as I'm a storyteller and I've found the most interesting ones are the ones we tell ourselves.    Never again.  I didn't feel like myself, as though I'd lost myself.  Not got lost. I'd lost myself.    I've felt like Paul Pennyfeather, things happening to me, and when I've walked away, walked straight into someone else's storyline, and I was nothing more than a mirror for them to project onto.   Their stuff, their story.    I though it was my drama, my storm, my tsunami, but it wasn't.   I was just pulled into it, sometimes willingly.   Perhaps thats why I did the degree, watching all those years ago Educating Rita at the theatre in Bath, and realising I knew the stuff, I just needed to get the accreditation to be heard. And write my own story, and my own book again.    And the yoga teacher training, because although I can write, I wasn't appreciated.   They strangely complement each other.   Academia is isolating, as is teaching yoga.   They are both disciplines.   You focus in on yourself with yoga, and focus in on a subject with academia to the point of exclusion of everything else. They discipline the mind.   And the mind, if asked, wishes to be disciplined like the body.    The emotions want to be appreciated and let go of, and the body. Well the body likes to be stretched, and balanced and twisted but really just wants to have a good time.   Oh, and it loves it when you breathe.
Both the degree and the yoga has allowed me to walk above, below or around the sand storms and tsunamis without even knowing I am doing it.
I'm telling my own story again.  

LIFTS

Lifts are interesting things.    Love in an elevator, but then I see Trump and Farage in a golden lift and it takes on new meaning.    There was Roald Dahl, the Great Glass Elevator that knew no boundaries and had no boundaries, it was made of glass, but got Charlie and co in to trouble.    I remember the drawing in that book where the monsters were in lifts and with their bodies (you've got to read the book) marked out the words 'SCRAM.   There was that film where the devil was inside the elevator and they were trapped.  Evelator to hell, they seem to go up or down.  You get stuck in them. They are claustrophobic. No one speaks.  They can have sex (Fatal Attraction) or just flirt (New Years Eve), or get killed (Dressed to Kill), in one.    Confined spaces make people horny or suicidal.    Or in the case of Trump and Farage, you wish going down all the way.  Just making sure they do not take the rest of us with them.

TAKE A DEEP BREATH IN

What a year.    Anything could happen and it has!!!

I was at World Travel Market last week, where all the countries and peoples of the world were on a central stage all under the same roof and although there was a lot of noise, they got on.  Or seemed to get on.   I spent the morning in the Inspire Theatre, listening to people talk about the wellness tourism, and how it has grown incredibly, outstripping any other form of travel.   This is mainly happening, as some of the 'experts' mentioned because people, for want of a better phrase 'mentally exhausted, and sick'.   Yoga has led the way, a system which moves people to a place of calm (emotionally) to listen to their breath, and clear their mind of the internal dialogue that persists in creating imbalance.  Thats the idea.  Yoga itself has become a form of exercise when it is a meditation.   Kick boxing yoga, pilates yoga, spinning yoga?   Yer what?    Any way, I digress, because I taught yoga this morning, and my usual class of 6 turned into 26 because of the US elections and worry about the world.   We did twenty vinyasas, saluted the sun and stretched and twisted.  Thats all the posturing you need. Forget the political posturing which does you no good at all.

Don't worry, be happy.   Politics like the financial markets is foogazzy.  Guess work.   What really matters is that you are there for your children and you love them unconditionally.  I teach yoga in schools.   I know that's what matters.   Thats it. And you are in good health.  That's it.   Simple really.    Everything else is puff.

And everyone is going on about the 'elite'. I must admit, I have never met someone who is 'elite'.  I've met people who think they are.   Everyone talks about the 'elite' as though they are a 'race'.   The 'elite' is not a type of person. It is a social construct. People may feel they are better than someone else, but they are the ones who are insecure and feel less than everyone else.   Elitism is pomposity.  Pomposity is like a balloon. It is meant to be popped.

And I'm taking part in research to see how I cope with stress, my cortisol levels are being checked to see how my brain copes with everything.   I went to a fascinating talk by Tara Swart today @corinthiahotellondon at the Corinthia Hotel in London.  She will be the neuroscientist in residence there for a year and helping out with brain power day spa packages and brain power residential packages on how make the most of your brain.   And yes, yoga is part of it.

Take a deep breath in, close your eyes, listen to your breath and realise what is important.  Your health and your children.   And breathe out.

THE HEIGHT OF UN-WELLNESS

Did a BBC Radio Interview today and as per usual in November I loose my voice. Change in season, I always use to blame the dry air and continual shouting of the experience that is World Travel Market, but this has happened before WTM, so perhaps I'll explain it on a course I went on at the weekend.    Visited Greenwich. Lovely place and the Cutty Sark.  A ship I visited last when I was ten.   I like Greenwich village. It has a bohemian edge which Richmond has lost.  

The radio interview was about Stress Awareness Day.  I chatted in my husky voice which occasionally verged on Minnie Mouse about stress in the work place and how they are offering employees ways to deal with stress. Surely the best way to deal with stress is to change the working systems, change the management and identify that the people who work in the business aren't hard, tough, sociopathic enough to deal with what is expected of them.   It would make things much easier.

Of course, there are things you can't change.   The people around you may cause you stress.  Family and friends who cause you stress should be deleted.  It is possible and yes you might feel lonely initially but it is amazing how quickly white space makes you appreciate those you really miss, and those who were just, well, filling space.

So tomorrow yoga-ing all day and to radio show and then to a meeting and full day on Friday. Hope the voice will hold out. Radio is a bit of a bummer without a voice.

 As for how to deal with stress, and basic unwellness - I go for sleep. Sleep should be made statutory in the afternoon for two hours - 2 - 4.  That would deal with stress.   We don't need a day to make us aware of it.  

LOST IN ACADEMIA..

Lost in academia for the past four years, with little distraction I have observed more than I usually do. Culled friends rather than the other way round, and started to say no.   I don't usually do no. I do, can we work this out, which means I have to re work my thoughts completely, or perspective completely.

Academia is safe. Its a bit like being in an intellectual monastery.    You feel safe bound in by rules and regulations and you are irrelevant to the outside world although you think you are.    Our education system is irrelevant.  We have forgotten what we want.   We are told what we want but actually, when we listen to ourselves, we don't want that at all.  I learnt from the degree how little we teach our young, and how what we do teach them is largely irrelevant to what is valuable and of worth.

RAINY SATURDAYS WITH SPOONFULS OF SUGAR... (AND COFFEE).

Here I am on a Saturday evening, grey, wet and windy (the weather not me), playing Mary Poppins, a spoonful of sugar, trying to find the fun in cognitive psychology.   Categories and concepts, working memory (of which mine is limited, that’s why I write) and the issues with cognitive psychology (with which there are many). Perception, recognition and cognition and emotion, which is a very short chapter because we (or they did) know naff all about it.

So I went out to the cinema for a quick break to see the first Monday in May.    Vogue and the Met Ball and the Chinese connection.  V interesting.  Couture is art.    Back for more revision and pacing up and down. Exam on Thursday.   I feel for Tom. He has years of this to come. Ouch.

LOST VALUES

Each morning I wake up and have a brief look at Facebook and twitter. Twitter has a lot of rubbish on it I'm not interested in.

Facebook is a bit more selective, a mixture of happy silly things animals do although I didn't like the one about cats knocking over small children. No didn't get that one.    And then there is the rant about Brexit and about how everyone who voted out is stupid, ignorant, bigoted, selfish and racist, unaware of the greater good and the darker evil that lurks in all the media to manipulate hearts and minds.  And how all those who chose to Remain are elitist evangelistic intellectuals who are untrustworthy, arrogant, deceitful, sociopathic liars, who are emotionally dysfunctional with bullying mothers and are fearful of losing all their money because that is the only thing that holds them together.  

We have politicians who have shown themselves to be self absorbed cowards (although we knew that already, didn't we?), and probably into the dark net more than those they monitor, and who are arguing against each other and vindictive, irresponsible media who are mis quoting, misrepresenting and turning every positive into a negative and trying to find a lot more of their own.

Combined with this, you have baby boomers who are wondering what their life is all about, trying to find their inner child when they should be finding their inner grown up, and if they have wasted their life so far on the accumulation of money and stuff (short answer - you have).   And haven't focused on what is really important and have valued that are completely screwed (short answer - if you focused on accumulation of money and stuff - you have).

Counsellors, psychologists, healer, yoga classes have waiting lists because everyone is stressed and stressed people are easy to manipulate and they desperately feel out of control because they never had it in the first place.

Then you have the woo woos, who are the other group of evangelists, you tell us we have to be kind to each other and kindness is catching (there's a survey out today saying that is true. Really, you needed a survey to show that did you?).  But they have a sanctimonious air about them as though they are full of the holy spirit and despite preaching rising above ego, are all high church.    And they tell us to stop doing something which has been ingrained since childhood through social conditioning which is extremely difficult to get rid of.    It is not that easy.   And then they tell us they know its not that easy but its a bit like being told how to give birth by someone who has never given birth. Every experience is different.

Stop.

Stand back and realise that everyone has a point. Both sides have a right side and that the good from both sides should be addressed. There is good and bad in everything.  The remain side had a point and the leaver side had a point.    EU was a bad marriage.   It was a bad marriage.   Both sides need to work on themselves and both sides weren't prepared to.    There was a striking lack of maturity in how all this has been dealt with.  I know the media dumb down things so that the masses are able to understand things, but by simplifying things to such an extent they made a very complicated relationship seem one of black and white 'economy vs immigration' right and wrongs, and like every relationship, its not that simple.  Culture and nature and values and use of language are complex and can not be decided on with a 'yes and a no'.   A bit like friends only getting one side of the story on which to base their advice, and not getting the whole story.   No side told the whole story and the one who could (the media) was the last person one should trust.    

Then there was petulant behaviour from politicians who are unworthy of the people they serve.    I don't know if it is just how its being reported by the media but my analogy to playground politics is really quite accurate.  One boy doesn't like another boy so he won't play with him.  One politician doesn't like another politician so he won't vote for him.  

We tried to make the marriage work.  We went to counselling and it couldn't be worked out because both sides have to make it want to work and if they don't, it won't.

One side won't give up - the remainers.    The leavers would not either if they had lost.   But rather than just being constructive about it, and realising we have to think long term (as in two years which is a forever in this short sighted, must have world), we are panicking.

There are a lot of voices of doom and gloom.   There are very few voices of balanced reason out there, who are not resorting to emotional rhetoric.    I can't hear many of them.  Even those names in journalism I have long respected are sounding armageddon.   As though the end of the world is nigh.

It is not. Just this warped world of warped values is crumbling and that is a good thing. The dead wood has been too long held up by the fresh wood and the dead wood has to go.   It is only held together by the systems that have long been broken.    Of course, it will want to take the rest of us with it, and it won't go without a fight, but go it will.  And that makes them even more afraid and needy.    Hence the aggression and anger and fighting and rubbish that is being printed in the media that passes for balanced commentary.

What it has shown me is to what extent people are afraid and greedy.   People I know who I thought would have more substance.   This is the only thing I have found shocking.  I don't care about the people I don't know. Who are mere names in a paper. They are PR constructs and I don't have a clue who they are.   I'm not sure they do.   I'm shocked by those I know.    I thought people would have more courage and more compassion.   When we change our values we change our perspective.   We tell our children kindness is paramount but we do not show it in how we behave or how we are communicating with one another now.  

I think we will be fine.  Because in divorce, you find out who your real friends are and you go as low as you can go.   And then, you rebuild your self and find out what you are really made of.    Just that those who lack substance are finding out just that.   That they lack substance.     I do not believe we have hit rock bottom yet.    It is only then we will identify what is of value.  Because most of us have forgotten.

WHERE ARE THE GROWN UPS?

This is playground politics.      We have voted out of the EU and those who 'lost' are throwing the toys out of the pram because they didn't win.   This is the so called political class, who are also becoming very much the sneering class, classifying those who voted leave as imbeciles because they didn't understand what they were doing.  That is extremely arrogant and ignorant of those who voted to remain. Those who chose remain felt they benefited from being in the EU and the economy is going well.  Actually they said they 'knew' it.    And that staying would mean we would have better negotiating skills inside Europe.    Those who voted leave felt they weren't benefiting from being in the EU and although they were told the economy was going well, they didn't feel it.   If they did, they would have voted remain.

Under the banner of immigration and economy the two sides have fought but actually neither are the real issues.  Yes immigration was increasing dramatically, but the economy is also doing well.   But neither are as dramatic as they say. There was exaggeration. As soon as you exaggerate, you lose credibility.   Both sides had a point. Rather than saying 'both sides have a point and are valid', both sides  chose to bash the shit out of each other and say this is a black and white.  An immigration vs economy issue.  And its not that simple.   The media were irresponsible but then they always are when they are given such obtuse hypothetical information in the first place. They also make stuff up.  
Furthermore both sides offered such weak and convoluted 'hypothetical' evidence for their cause, often spouted by people who lacked credibility despite being headlined as 'experts' that I am amazed the turn out was so high.    The 'people' thought everyone was lying to them.  These people had before.

Meanwhile there are parents apologising to their children for ruining their future.   Really?  Well, that won't scare the shit out of them will it.  They may feel the vote was irresponsible but not as irresponsible as telling their children that the end of the world is nigh.  Creating a generation that will be stunted by fear, just as in many ways our own parents were.  

Shit has happened.  perhaps. We don't know yet. Not even the ones who think they know, know yet.  The markets are depressed, in turmoil, unhappy, as though they are living breathing human beings. They are not. They are run by gamblers who care more about their wine than they do about other peoples money. They guess.  Everything is hypothetical.   Its like screaming at a river for flowing the wrong way.   Like screaming at water.   And hey, the shit may fertilise some new idea thats better.  The river may take us to a better place.   We don't know. There may be grown ups somewhere who will realise there was value in both sides of the arguments and come to a balanced compromise so that every one wins.  Just like a divorce which this is being compared to, no one should go away with everything. No one wins in a divorce.    The man will always give more than he wants and the wife will always get less than she wants. Or the other way round depending who earns most of the money in the first place.   And the one that earns it doesn't mean they deserve it or are worth it either.   Its a fifty fifty thing, just like this vote was really.  That is how it should be.  So with this.

This proves we could see both sides of the argument.    Because both sides made a valid point.    Now go back and tell your children that.    YOU are scaring them.

BIRTHDAY BLIP

I haven’t been on here for ages have I?  I thought I would write as so much has happened, but I want to keep it to myself.   I’ve just read Bridget Jones ‘Mad About a Boy’ which best friend Caroline gave me some years back. I don’t read but strangely thought on way back from yoga retreat at the French house I would have time. I did. My flight was cancelled and I spent the night on a bench at Toulouse airport. All the hotels put up their prices just in time for cancelled flights and air traffic control. So it was an intriguing way to start the birthday.  Not the worst birthday I have had which says a lot for my birthdays, but worthy of a blog. And I felt I was doing something, going somewhere on my birthday,  which I don’t often.   And the fact I can think of it as intriguing as opposed to bad says a lot for perspective.  Not exactly rose tinted but everything has an upside.  Even air traffic control strikes. 

So reading Bridget Jones I have decided I am Bridget Jones and her friends. Having read about her and her life, I am her only there isn’t an SAS man in my life at the moment who’s pretending to be a teacher or anything. Or not to my knowledge.   There could be but I can’t see the usual suspects.   She has a surreal life and so do I.  Never dull during the ‘intriguing’ and downright wonderful moments. 

Yoga is going well. I love it.   I love teaching it and doing it is fine, but it’s the teaching it I love.   Writing I love too and that’s going well.  I’m blessed with a wonderful son and lovely friends who I don’t see enough of.  Radio going well. All going well, so that’s why I haven’t been writing the blog.   

So the birthday blip got me back to the blog.  

What else is happening?  Oh EU. 

In the world there is the EU debate.  The politicians are being purposely obtuse. If you can't convince confuse and thats what they have done.   Even the journalists are at a loss for more ways to describe 'no one knows what will happen'.   

On man front nothing, other than my ex bf turned up at my ex husbands birthday party, which was odd.  Both for him to invite and him to ask to be invited as they haven’t been in touch for thirty-two years but nice to know they have a connection now of sorts.  Me.   One’s more S & M the other more M & S.    I married the better man.

TRUMPED BY LACK OF CHOICE.

Watched the Trump interview last night.    The more I see politicians the more I feel the non politicians would do a better job. Politics is not about doing good, its about looking good.  Two very different things and at the moment the politicians in our government are being transparent (something they ironically say they always want to be) showing themselves to be self serving individuals jostling for places m the next government and not giving two hoots about the country.  Trump has enough money not to be at the bock and call of anyone.   he jumps to his own tune and although I think his hair is a mess (who cares) he realises the power is not only in the message but in delivering the promise.  He knows the 'people' are fed up of being run by people who are out of touch.   The politicians are The Riot Club. Even to the extent I believe their behaviour sickens some of them to the point they want out.   Just as the law has nothing to do with mortality and ethics, politics has nothing to do with the people.   It is to do with self promotion and keeping options open.   Point is, when you need a decision to be made for the good of the people, this lot do not understand they are there to facilitate, as are all the establishments.  They are not hierarchy to be revered or respected.  They are something to facilitate the rest of us making the most of our lives. That is what they are there for.    And at the moment our politicians do not deserve our respect or time, let alone our vote.

As for Trump, I don't know. He's a media man, so probably a very good liar and all you know about very good liars are they are very good liars. But then so are our politicians.   What a choice.

OUT OF EUROPE, OUT OF RICHMOND, INTO FRANCE

I vote out of Europe. Not because of Boris Johnson. In fact, the more business people who comment that it would be bad for UK business to leave the EU, the more I realise it is in their interest and that they have been taking advantage of the benefits and not passing them onto the customer.    I don't think they are on 'our side'.  They are on their side.  That may, very occasionally, be the same as 'our side', but it is only by accident.  But not on staying in the EU.

Not that I have anything against Europe. I love it.   Its wonderful. And I love living in France. I love the food, the French, the weather, even when it rains, and the parking.  There are no parking attendants where I live in France, there are parking spaces and there are no road works.    I don't even care about the adders in the back garden and the slow tractors because there are supposed to be tractors in the countryside.  We are the ones who are foreign.  And as for the adders - better the venomous snakes that slither than those you meet on the streets of SW London.   And there are no traffic jams in France where I live.  I mention traffic jams because this morning it was horrible in Richmond.

 I took a journey today that takes less than 10 minutes normally.  It took me ten minutes to get out of my street.   It took just under an hour to drive half a mile.    Gridlocked by gasworks and mummy mafia driving four wheel drives painfully slow, extension building builders double parking vans, with builders  working overtime (bonking blisteringly bored kept wives), and smug cyclists dodging doors opening at any opportunity of huffing and puffing businessmen trying to look powerful, I've got fed up of Richmond.   If there is road rage over the next few days, the local council should be considered culpable.   They are guilty of poor planning, for not banning four wheel drives in a town that doesn't need four wheel drives, and for allowing bankers to take over homes where creative types once lived, and adding extensions to their homes to make them into the homogenous colourless characterless places that mirror their own homogenous colourless characterless personalities.    Richmond Upon Thames is becoming incredibly beige and boring and it had magic twelve years ago.   Even the planes are starting to bug me now.

ITS SPRING - yoga, writing and getting screwed.

Its almost the end of the February and this is the second blog of the year I think.  At this rate I'll be doing one a month, which is really what people should be doing.   They should be living and occasionally writing about it, at a push getting it published, and then into a film, TV series, stage play or APP or all of the above.   And despite the frost it smells of spring.   And I'm on the last module of my psychology degree and writing and yoga-ing.   I haven't been traveling as much as I'd like but then I have a lot to focus on at the moment.   And I'm aiming to go to specific destinations this year, I haven't gone to before.

I'm so enjoying teaching the yoga. Especially the children and the retreats and workshops.   I taught at GSK today and I'm pleased I'm out of the corporate world.  They are lovely people and not starchy in any way, but here I am working with aromatherapy oils looking all hippy walking into a glass bastion of corporate discipline.

I want to see Spotlight although that will make me cross because its about injustice caused by establishment protecting itself  In this case the Catholic Church. I'd like to watch The Big Short, but that will make me cross because its about injustice caused by establishment protecting itself. In this case the Financial Industry.  In both cases they knowingly and willingly screwed the general public - one literally    And they both knowingly and willingly got a way with it.     And are still getting away with it. Is there nobody of any importance who is able to break these systems?  There must be someone at a high level who is prepared to out those who are really to blame, not just the patsies who have been put out as guilty parties.  Or is everyone at a high level, been so corrupt in getting to the top they realise they are just as guilty as those they will out?    The real guilty ones should go down for good.  Don't let them have time to find God or any other get out of jail clause. These types never find God.   No wonder we have a spate of superhero movies.  Batman would know what to do.

Oh, and i'm going to vote out of the EU, simply because every time I hear some one from the 'establishment' say they want to stay in, I just feel they are knowingly and willingly screwing us again.  I'm sure I'm not the only one.

BEAUTIFUL EIGHT

Just watched The Hateful Eight, Tarantino's latest masterpiece (and all three hours of it is).     Kurt Russell is beautiful. He's actually beautiful to look at.  Goldie Hawn is very lucky. Or perhaps he was just very well lit.    Tarantino should get an Oscar.  He won't but he should.   He gives the best lines to Sam L Jackson, Tim Roth (superb superb and strangely very attractive), and the  beautiful Kurt again. Its a cross between Agatha Christie, Carrie and a spaghetti western with snow.   Like an eskimo western.  He chooses actors who have so much character in the face, each line etched like a story in itself.  Jennifer Jason Leigh is horrible but she's meant to be horrible.    Channing Tatum doesn't have lines (on the face) and it shows, but he had a strangely sinister quality which Tarantino sees.   He just needs more lines (on the face that is).   Then he'll be one of Tarantinos beautiful eight for good.  Iconic film which will get better each time you see it.

NEW YEAR

I wrote half the blogs last year I did the year before. This is good.   It doesn't mean I have less to write about but that I'm doing more and have less time to write about it.   I met some very supportive, wonderful and genuine people in 2015. Yes a few odd balls, but less than usual.    Filtering helped.  This is also the last year of the psychology degree, a decision I took three years ago, that and the teacher training for yoga. Both are like a divorce; painful but necessary.  Yoga I love teaching.  Practicing is secondary to teaching it.  My father always said I should be a teacher but only to those who are interested and want to listen.   He was right.  

Studying for the degree has made me realise how linear education is, even on this level and how academia manages to make even the most interesting of subjects into something very dull. Bit like politicians but they do it on purpose so you don't realise how little they know and how little they are able to do.    It is painfully opaque, structured, limiting and dogmatic, a bit like those who pass and construct these blooming exams.    But hold your breathe to pass the test and then you can fly.  As in life.  

Got more books out this year, with the A to Zens and more radio, which I'm enjoying immensely.   I'm always a little nervous these days to admit or write 'I'm happy' so I won't.  

I loved Charlie Brooker's Wipe on 2015, especially the woman reporter's take on feminism or femininism as she put it (which is how I put it as well).  The funniest line was 'do you think a man would be better at being a feminist if he was a woman being a femininist than a woman would be being a woman being a femininist."  Strangely I actually think thats a good question.  

I watch the news less because I'm more aware its a depressing comic of non news. Bankers have once again been left of the hook by Osborne who is no longer going to hold an enquiry into how and why the crash happened and how and why they were able to break the World bank, because we allegedly need the greedy corrupt sociopaths to work for us because we need them to pay tax, which by the way, they are also not paying.     No news about that.  And its raining a lot.    Watch out for anyone building an Ark. I know a few men who have grown a long silver beard and hair long to the shoulders, admittedly looking more like silver haired my little ponies than Noah, perhaps in anticipation they'll convince God they're the chosen ones.   I for one, hope not.