2025. - What Sarah did

 Where Reason Dared to Dance 

I built with words, with bodies, thought, and clay, 
Set poems loose where reason dared to dance; 
I launched the Boardroom Bard, a daring stage, 
And taught, and mentored, at Cambridge halls, 
I taught young minds to try an oblique glance 
In school halls, lecture rooms, assemblies wide, 
In Cambridge courts worn smooth by other minds. 

I spoke where ideas gathered their finest gowns, 
Launched festivals that clinked like crystal glasses, 
And moved through clubs with bespoke poems in hand, 
MCing moments that invited laughter and thought alike, 
Sometimes measured, sometimes delightfully overlong, 
Each line a gentle detour, a knowing wink, 
Each audience a mirror for the improbable, the unexpected. 

I wore silver jeans under the sun of distant islands, 
Danced with accountants in ballrooms dressed as princes, 
Zip-wired through rainforests, shaped forms from clay, 
Taught, wrote, tapped, and gathered moments like rare coins, 
Finding joy in small glittering victories, 
Reuniting with friends whose faces had grown decades, 
And leaving behind only traces of curious thinking, 
A year lived broadly, fully, without apology.

REMADE IN CHINA, REJUVINATED IN SWEDEN, RECHARGED IN CORNBURY, REVIVED IN EDINBURGH - AND SO MUCH LOVE AT THE LORDS - SUMMER OF 24

 I've had a humdinger of a summer. Do people still say, humdinger?   Four days in Edinburgh
during the festivals, staying at the Finlay, a converted ship in Port of Leith harbour, and the House of Gods in the heart of Edinburgh, watching brilliant and unexpected performances at the Fringe (Bills 44th and Why I Put a Flare up my arse for England). and to the International Edinburgh Book Festival where I learnt about the disruptively innovative Futures Library in Oslo.   

A week in West Sweden, the region outside Gothenburg staying in a glasshouse in the forest, foraging for wild chanterelles and making rather good mushroom soup.   And then to China, Anhui, to the Paper Museum, which was incredible, as if made out of paper (see pix), and the faces of the people even more evocative than the architecture.   The region inspired films Avatar and Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon.   China in miniature.  

And to top it all off, the cherry on the icing on the fike of a summer, was the event at the Lords, after seven years of research the de Bono book Love Laturally, published and Lords and Baroness and Knights attended and brilliant speakers and the sun shone.  de Bono did good, and for once I admit, so did I.  

NET ZERO

A zero this year, not as in net zero, but six zero. It was odd receiving cards with that number on the front as though it was meant for someone else.  Whatever sixty feels like, it feels very much like thirty.  Not forty, or fifty but thirty.  Perhaps it is because the past decade has been exceptionally productive, and the learning trajectory positively vertical, full of surprises. some of them shocking but always useful.   Sort of anticipating climbing the stairs and you end up peaking Everest.   As with climbing it's interesting to look back at what you've achieved, but even more so to continue on. So it is with a lot of my friends who find themselves at this age, 'retiring' to do something for themselves, hooked onto the structure of what they have been doing for the past thirty rather than what they have actually been doing.  I was with a friend who has lived in Hertford and is retiring from thirty years in teaching this summer, seeking out huge dramatic murals, which leads visitors and locals down paths they wouldn't have normally ventured. The friend is one of those who enjoyed both the work and the structure and is planning afresh, a change to another structure, less structured, but still structure.  For me, it's been less about structure and more about journey. Not as in Strictly Come Dancing journey which is a format, which is another word for structure.  

I feel very much life has been led along paths with the odd bit of drama, romance, adventure, fear, weirdness, and hope, and thinking of each trip as Freudian, Jungian or Tuckian (looked that one up in case it meant anything rude and it doesn't).   There's the famous Mappa Mundi displayed in Hertford Cathedral, the 700 year old map which 'scholars' have yet to fully digest and understand.  And I've been researching Edward de Bono's biography, about a man who championed thinking out of the box/lateral thinking, changing the patterns of not just how we do things, but how we think, our perceptions, which comes with age anyway. Read a book at ten, the same book at twenty, thirty, forty, fifty, you should read it differently.  If you don't you haven't evolved.  You are as stuck as the printed word.  So it was when I read Alice in Wonderland at ten and then again forty years later.   Same with films.  So many films I thought romantic at ten now I look at and go 'ouch' such was the entrenched misogyny and the male narrative norm.  (think Man with Golden Gun, Blazing Saddles and Young Frankenstein (although Madeline Kahn 'I'm tired' is priceless and how I felt for much of my forties).

As a freelancer for most of my life, the element of structure has always alluded me, or rather I have alluded it, recognising that although there are numerous positives (planning is much easier, although not guaranteed, bill paying is easier, although not guaranteed...) I have chosen to be, what one of my editors in the first week of meeting me recognised, free spirited.   This has given me the opportunity, or rather I have given me the opportunity to do many things I have dreamed of, some I haven't, and others I would rather have avoided (but not many).  So I find myself in a situation where I don't want to do different things or more of what I do already but really free spirit it.   Add a zero to all my efforts for the next twenty years.  An 80 is almost a 60 if you think about it.  Just completing the circle.    

NO NEWS IS GOOD NEWS. - it's a beautiful world.

The world is bonkers. There's a song by Dizzy Rascal which is called Bonkers, but the world is really bonkers. News has been full of news about The Princess of Wales (always think of Diana not Catherine when I write that, but anyway) going to hospital because she has something wrong with her (too thin) which may have been triggered by multiple things (stress, not eating enough because of stress, which may have been triggered by anything from her husband to probably reading too much news).  People are at war with themselves. The media, the politician, the police force, the energy companies, everyone is mistrusted.    Anyone who smacks of authority is allegedly crooked, and anyone who has a voice is either pointing a finger at someone for being crooked or having a finger pointed at them. Lots of finger pointing.   Then there's AI which is allegedly going to lead to Armageddon, although there could be a meteor coming our way before that, and oh yes, it's important to live on a hill, because water levels will rise, although of course it is going to get hotter, so this may soak up the water.    Then the glaciers are disappearing, so there may not be any snow for the Winter Olympics in two years time.   In the meantime, more animals are going extinct more odd ones are being discovered and ... stop. 

Just had four blissful days in Bormio, northern Italy. Lovely food, company and experience. Lovely Italians.  Saw and hugged my brilliant son. Wonderful.  Walked in the park and Isabella Plantations which even in the rain and grey is stunning.   And in the morning, the view from the top of Richmond Hill, with the rising mist as the river turns is mesmerising.   I have set my algorithm to avoid politics, finance, sport, cars, war, celebrities and am left with astronomy (that's why I know about the meteor) and nature.   That's it.   It's a beautiful world.   

THE MALE SCRIPT - POOR THINGS

 I've just realised so many Christmas films read off the male script.   It wasn't really until I had to write about favourite Christmas films and had to analyse them in more depth I realised, everything centres around the male protagonist. The woman is something to be rescued, or is by default, an object where things happen to her.   My favourite film Chitty Chatty Bang Bang has a rather gormless (admittedly ok dancer) male protagonist, hapless, and meeting Truly Scrumptious who is made happy just by being loved by this 'lovely lonely' man.  

Then there's Home Alone, where the protagonist is again male, the mother has to go back and is the guilt ridden one, the father literally the absent one looking after the rest admittedly in rainy Miami and for Home Alone 2, Paris.   Nothing about the boy being irresponsible or probably possibly enjoying being by himself.  If I was the mother I would let the father take the lot of them away and take time for myself.   Go travel to Japan, perhaps take one child, the favourite and leave the rest behind. They all seem very over indulged and petulant any way, and that older brother.  Ugh.   But I suppose if you have that many children, you enjoy the company.    Is it only me who finds that uncle really annoying? 

Then there's Die Hard, which again is around a man, who rescues the day, from another man, and the woman is saved, although admittedly she does have a career and a maid called Marlana (is it Marlena?) beings with M 

Elf is male, It's a Wonderful Life, its about a male who messes up and then is redeemed by another (male) angel, ditto The Bishop's Wife, which is about a male vicar rescued by a male angel although the title of the film is about the woman but only in the role of a wife, so basically its still about the man she's married to. She only has purpose because she happens to be married to the vicar and flirted with by the angel.   

But probably the most chauvinist is Scrooge, where it's' all about him, his past, present and future, where he is fixed and redeemed.   Having just spent the last seven years writing a biography of a man, who had a host of women looking after him, following after him, I have felt a bit like trawling through his life like a ghost observing the scenarios in his past from various perspectives, including his own like a Who done it/who did it psychological murder mystery.   The women in his life have been merely buffers he brushed up against like a ball on a pinball machine, aiming for the jackpot, in order to fulfil his goal. He accomplished a lot but again without them, he could not have achieved what he did, but they are the B listers, the bit part players, paragraphs or one liners, who are happy, sad, angry at having met him.   

I feel the narratives of women in life reflect the narratives in the things we watch.   It's just that women don't have enough female narratives.  Even the super heroes who are women have more camera angles on their bums and boobs than they do on their (stunning cheekbones) face.   And this starts at school.  Get women to earn more than men.  To have that financial freedom.  Then the narratives will change and Scrooges ghosts won't bother turning up.  Least of all to fix a tight fisted old money lender. 

ALL LIT UP

The Christmas lights at Kew Gardens are magnificent this year. If you can go, please do, as they have surpassed themselves.   Incorporating ideas from a wide variety of sources, with over three quarters of their lighting LED, and all sustainable products. 

Attractions include Lili, an abstract series of towering, illuminated flowers by TILT, captivates visitors. ArtAV introduces Trapezoid, among the longest light tunnels at Kew, alongside a cascade of over 400 lights adorning Camellia Walk. The Hive, an evocative representation of a beehive with 1000 glowing LED lights and an entrancing score, makes its trail debut. Returning favourites include Pitaya’s Spark Ballet, a dance of 24 lanterns, and Candles, suspending a hundred flickering flames to enchant passageways. Admire the Christmas Cathedral and the reimagined Fire Garden, illuminating Kew's oldest Victorian glasshouse with 300 candles and mesmerizing LED displays. Each display punctuates a journey through the park, which is this year, not only dramatic and enchanting– as it usually is – but many times, extremely poignant. Music has been well chosen throughout to capture the fragility of nature, and messages in lights drawn bright about how we should save the bees, be respectful of nature and the planet.  The trees are carefully lit, unlike some Christmas light trails I have followed where all semblance of nature is subsumed by luminescent pink and orange dancing mushrooms, Cinderella’s and for some odd reason, Big Bens, which have nothing to do with nature or Christmas for that matter.  

 

The day I visited it was cool but not cold and not raining. When it is cold (skies clear) ones wants to jog round rather than stroll. When its raining (and therefore warmer) the lights are blurred.  It was just right as I walked (it takes an hour even without children) and there are stops for food (the usual mulled wine, mince pies and for some reason waffles which now need to be covered in cheese et al.   There are huge robins, stars perched in trees, portals of light, and a lake which becomes a sky of passing clouds, and then Northern Lights, and then flowing stream.  It is mesmerizing and memorable.  Father Christmas is in his home about a third of the way through, with his hut and heater, and the huge greenhouses are lit to resemble something out of Spirited Away, and Chinese palaces, while the final curtain call is the son et Lumiere over the lake, with its dancing fountains.   

 

With all that is happening with climate change, and the gentle messages that pervade throughout this trail, I found myself quite tearful.   We must not only sustain and be responsible with nature, but we must also regenerate, or else the lights will go out. For all of us.   

 

Embrace the seasonal magic at Kew and Glow Wild with tickets available at www.kew.org.

 

THE MADNESS OF GLOBAL MENTAL HEALTH DAY

 I've spent over an hour talking to my energy supplier about an outstanding amount which has been outstanding for over three years. I contacted the energy ombudsman who are nowhere near as sharp as the financial ombudsman at marking their own homework, and am stressed despite teaching yoga at seven, two work outs today and wanting to visit Epsom to see the amazing Horton Centre and the events there.   I overran the conversation with the energy company, and didn't get to the event.  E On Next are crap. Changed energy supplier.  Contacted Martin Lewis.  

There's obviously a buzz about electricity in my life at the moment. The house in France has suddenly developed issues with its electrics which are now costing over £2k.   Admittedly this is French 'stranger' prices, which are usually double that of the locals, but again, annoying and I am investigating if it is a cost that is able to wait till the spring. Although knowing the local workers, they will double the price, especially if they read this blog. 

Then back to editing and writing, a source of calm, although one particular narrative I'm working on has been on going - a bit like the E ON Next thing.  

As I will be holding a workshop on basically seeing the funny side and the importance of seeing the funny side to resolve issues at the Hawkswood Centre next week, I will attempt to do the same. I usually end up putting it somewhere at some point in a novel, but at the moment, I just think everyone is a fucking nuisance.  

FALSE PROPHETS AND PROFITEERS

 I listened to Russell Brand's podcast occasionally.   He interviewed I believe some genuinely good people. It will not have escaped him all that surfaces from now on, is a way of showing what he would often discuss in his podcasts.  Namely how establishment in all forms hides the truth, manipulates, misdirects, 'turns a blind eye' whatever that quaint little phrase means (plausible deniability I think they call it in court),  lied in plain sight, and got away with it.  

In the podcasts, Brand often claimed greed governed these organisations and they were not seeking truth, or the good for and of society. In knowingly ignoring his behaviour, these organisations have given weight to an argument he has relentlessly spouted over the years since he became a born-again wounded healer. There are a lot of these wounded healers about, offering their services for payment, having been through countless therapy sessions themselves, they have learnt by rote the vocabulary, and body language, and turned and twisted it, in the same way a coercive abuser behaves.  They abuse under the pretext of supporting.  But then again, so has religion and politicians over the years.  

Such is his ego, he will believe he is a Christ-like figure, putting himself out there, to illustrate how what he said all along was true.  How he has martyred himself to prove a point.   He claims establishment lies and co operates for the greater good - or greater greed - to maintain profit.  The only reason not to 'out' the abusers if they have more dirt on you than you have on them, and/or you make them a lot of money.   

Brand is one of a growing number of false prophets and profiteers who are increasingly preying on the vulnerable, in search of authenticity and guidance, because there is increasingly little authenticity and credible coherent guidance originating from religion, politicians, police, media, all of whom have shown themselves to be corrupt and corruptible.  The health service is broken through mismanagement both within and without - by consecutive governments.  Education and educationalists are bogged down in the ludecy of bureaucracy and attempting to devalue the role of teacher to one of social worker because parents don't parent.   Our so called leaders are appalling specimens, unworthy of the masses who are in their droves turning off their TVs, their radio, and challenging social constructs, some which should have been redundant decades ago, others more valuable. The baby always goes out with the bath water. 

The stories told by the women Brand is alleged to have abused triggered me, as I have found myself in a similar position on occasion when I was younger, and it was out of naivety or luck I managed to walk away, most of the time.  RB is the tip of iceberg. There are others who are disingenuous, dishonest, abusers, who still earn large corporations too much money for them to fail and fall.  They are fawned upon by the media, and validated, having seemingly become respectable, wounded healers, wanting to share their happy clappy brand of monetised healing, attempting to buy back their souls, by selling out others.   

FROM BOMB TO BOMBSHELL TO ALICE AND KICKING - PATRIARCHAL WAR GAMES

Entering summer madness mode aren't we?  The heat may not have reached the UK, but we are on fire so many other ways. The former Brexit banker known as Farage is creating a stink because banks didn't want his money because, in playground speak, they didn't like him.  I'm sure it's more complex than that, not that the papers would or could tell all, possibly because he knows some of the publishers anyway.   And men get emotional about money.  And any former banker is never a former banker. They always think in asset and liability terms.   Bottom feeders, focusing on the bottom line.  Tis a pity this story won't release more about Farage and his money, where it came from etc., but then that really would be opening up a can of worms, something no bank wants to happen.  

But to more serious news, just watched Oppenheimer, which suggested that nuclear bombs will end the earth. Nope the earth will end us. The earth is on a tilt, something to do with water, I read somewhere, the Antarctic is dissolving which is awful but the 'powers' are pleased because then allegedly they are able to drill for oil,  and volcanos are exploding more, and everyone is still intent on going to Greece, Turkey, southern Italy in the summer, with their families despite the fact it will be too hot to go out after a certain time and if you don't get sunstroke, skin cancer you may just dehydrate and faint as I did one year in Turkey (not even mad dogs went out that year in the mid day sun - just nutty English women..).  See summer madness for you. 

Anyway, back to bombs.   Extraordinary performance by Cillian Murphy, and the supporting cast, but he is the mainstay of each frame.   The bomb is not the star of the show, just a catalyst.   Downey Junior plays a politician to perfection.  Vindictive and patient hiding in the shadows, was a line that stung the audience, but then it was a Richmond audience and I am sure there are a lot of those who look out for the shadows and many who are in them.  Politicians came out of it very badly, as in Hollywood films they always do - as do lawyers who are not the main character, and bankers.   They know who the bad guys are.   In fairytale land only the 'good' people will leave and all the horrid people will suffer unimaginable suffering and then disappear. Poof. Although that's subjective and based on perception and politicians, religion, certain media etcetera, do everything in their power to smudge, distort, blur that perception, so that in the end you don't trust anyone.  Which was their game plan in the first place. 

Chris Nolan really does not know what to do with his female stars. He wastes them, even in what I feel is his best film Inception, they are used sparingly, objectified to the point of being ornaments on the sideboard.  Florence Pugh, in it only four times, although over exposed in three, is wasted and still manages to be amazing.  Emily Blunt, again under used is brilliantly brittle.  Downey Junior, away from his Iron Man, superb as a malevolent opportunist as is the case in politics.  Fascinating to learn Hitler allegedly didn't want to invest in research into the atomic bomb as he viewed it as a Jewish weapon.  Oppenheimer was complex but then genius are complex. It is the shallow puerile ones, as this film illustrates, who wait in the shadows deciding to drop the bomb. The government did everything they could to trash Oppenheimer's reputation, but the scientists who are collegiate (a concept quite alien to  politicians and politics for that matter) banded together despite their differences, which were obviously academic. The bigotry overwhelmed their greed for power. 

So when I went to see Barbie (full house, lots of men there surprisingly but all under 30) I was expecting puff candy floss pink. A film which celebrated women, where men played the bit parts.   The media played up to the patriarchy in the 'real world' and focused on Ryan Gosling's fab performance as Ken who only exists when Barbie plays with him.  A bit like Henry VIII only being remembered because he has six wives.   In Barbieland, the women were in charge of everything, everything was pink, there was no eating, just pretend, no drinking, just pretend, no waves or water, just pretend, and women could be anything they wanted to be. Just pretend.  No cellulite and no flat feet.  Helen Mirren did a wicked take as a narrator.   There was a feminist soliloquy which everyone clapped - the girls did and some of the boys although they know the world is still resolutely patriarchal.  The most revealing thing was - and I was shocked by this - I know Ken. I have dated Ken. I have been taken back to Ken's Mojo Dojo Casa House.    OK, not admittedly anyone as attractive and buffed as Ryan Gosling, but definitely plastic and shallow.   In fact I know a lot of Kens. Or rather I knew. One unnervingly behaved so much like the Ken when he was at his most plastic, he was nothing more than a doll to be toyed with. And I loved the swipe at Pride and Prejudice. Clever.   

And then I saw Alice in Wonderland in Kew Gardens which was amazing.  I interviewed the writer and director and Alice and Mad Hatter, and told them about The Intelligent Gardener, my take on Alice who decided to not go down the rabbit hole and write her own narrative, taking on the narrator with big boots on. Real kick ass.    Every production has strong characters. Sometimes its the protagonist, sometimes its the anti hero, sometimes its 'the other guy' who steals the scene.   In this one it was the Queen of Hearts. She is so angry.  Like raging Queen.  Brilliant.  In the original the King is simpering, but in this one he comes across between Boris Johnson (big belly) and City Trader.  He is still brow beaten by the Queen. In fact there are a lot of angry women in Alice in Wonderland, and a lot of afraid men.  Which brings me nicely back to Barbie and Openheimer, where oddly it was just the same and all the men are puerile war mongers and women angry queens.  And some of the men are too. 

SPIRIT OF SUFFRAGETTE - ALIVE AND KICKING

 Men are afraid because women are angry and women are angry because women are afraid. Just that when men are afraid they punch and kick and when women are angry they cry.   So it looks like the reverse.   Being feminine is being empathetic and angry.   I thought of all those things when I attended an event at the Museum of London Audley Square Spirit of Suffragette meet.   Fascinating meeting the panel for a lively and embracing discussion on women's voices.   I also thought back to one of my first journalist gigs at the BFI, to celebrate, oddly enough, the suffragette movement.  Barbara Castle, then minister for education, was there, signing copies of her recently published autobiography. She was autographing books, as women some of whom had brought their little dogs queued to speak to and have their books signed, but the dogs they brought were taking gulps of her Gin and Tonic.   I looked down and said I would get her another one, which I promptly did, waiting patiently for her to finish. She turned, clapped her hands on her lap which was her way, and said 'what can I do for you young lady?"  

I told her, "my name is Sarah Tucker, I'm writing a piece for the Londoner's Diary, Evening Standard..."

I asked questions, she gave straight answers. I asked further questions, writing down what was pertinent to the suffragette movement, and thanked her.   She looked at me.  

"You been a a journalist long?" she asked. 

Shit, what have I done. 

"Erm, only a month or so."

"Don't change. You are good. You're a listener. You listen and ask good questions. Don't lose your femininity.  A lot of female journalists think they need to be tougher and nastier than the men. They don't. Being a woman is more than enough."

I was so taken aback, I didn't get her to sign a copy of her autobiography.   And so I thanked her.  

I looked at my book and thought, no, I'm gonna ask her.  I went over to the lectern, from which she was just about to give a speech before the film started, and I asked her. She took the book and looked at me.  Returned it to me and then I thanked her and walked away.  On the bus I phoned in filing the copy.  And then I opened my book.  In it read the words 'Dear Sarah, Never let it be a man's world, Love Barbara Castle'.

I would add, never let it be a puerile man's world.   Never forgotten her words, or the spirit of her words. Doesn't matter how you do it, but always subvert the patriarchal, misogynistic narrative in the way you live, work, speak, write.   And keep hold of your drinks when little dogs are around.

THE STYLE (ISH) SCREAMERS

 I attended a Harry Styles concert this week. I didn't have a daughter in tow, I went by myself as it was my 59th birthday and wanted to treat myself.   I came away feeling a bit like David Attenborough going into the jungle for the first time, and being surprised by what I found.  Harry is a very handsome man, good singer, with a penchant for dungarees which gives him the feel of an Andy Pandy with sparkles.   In this case, loads of sparkling hearts.   He bounced about the stage like a tigger, engaged and cared for the audience - on my night helping a girl to 'come out', and someone needed water in the audience.   Everything was very well orchestrated.  The musicians were on point, sufficiently trendy, cool or whatever the word is for trendy and cool at the moment, and the warm up bands - Mila Diaz (I think) who was like an Alannis Morisette both in style and lyrics (talking break ups) and Wet Leg who everyone seemed to know. They were across between Bjork and Coldplay.  Really liked them, but boy the lyrics.  And then Harry who was on for two hours, with four encore tracks.   But it wasn't him that blew my mind, it was the audience. 

They screamed.  They sang verbatim to the warm up songs (Angels Robbie Williams, Bohemian Rhapsody Queen) and knew every single word of every single one of Harry's tracks.   Sometimes I was unable to hear him because the audience of 80,000 strong women, many of whom I am told will attend two or three times this week at Wembley, were screaming so much.   Think Elvis Presley/Beatles/Donny Osmond fans.   Wet Leg did a screaming song before hand and the audience showed they had lungs on them. 

Very pleased I went. If anyone wants a good scream and not feel alone.  Wants a powerful DGF vibe - go see Harry.   Just take the boas, cowboy hats and sequins, and if you are one of the few blokes there, go as they did, dress as a banana.  Lots of banana blokes there.  

PRETTY IN PINK OR JUST WEAK?

 BARBIE is out soon, and looking at femininity and feminism and all things pink I find of interest.   I bought a magazine called PINK in the supermarket as it was for a child audience and wanted to see what little girls were being fed. Free gifts of mermaid slime, barbie playing cards and barbie mobile phone holder.  Pink stickers.   And teddy bears, and Ariel and Snow White and Encanto (a bit more kick ass) and a bit about dollhouses, and hello kitty, and Frozen II (more kick ass).  I found out my Frozen II name is Lady Willow Sparkling Forest.   Yeahhhh.   I am so Lady Willow Sparkling Forest!  

 I was always a tom-boy, climbing trees, and being outside in the countryside, having more fun with the boys than the girls, because they had more fun.   The girls played with dolls, were inside, sitting quietly, or bitching, the boys were outdoors, running, getting mucky and being dangerous. That IS more fun.   I am still very much that way. My dad brought me up really as a boy, saying 'give in give in' before I had hit the first ball on the tennis court.   My dad's philosophy was never ever give in. My mother's 'you will need support from a man' which sort of conflicts with dad's philosophy.   In the end I chose dad's because it is better, stronger, enabling and for me, right.   I'm a feminine female, love colour and nature and 'the stuff of experience rather than the experience of stuff'.  I still think men have more fun, and as a mother (a role I loved), had much more fun without being married than I ever would have, being married. I suppose again that is different for all women.   I think there would be times when it would be useful to have a man about, but I have an invisible one, who appears when I need the plumbing done, or the electricity fixed or some such.  But best still to learn how to do it yourself.   And learn to do stuff. Fly, drive better, swim better, paint better.   Live better.   I am still in a way that Tom-boy climbing trees and being outside in the countryside, having more fun with the boys than the girls, because they still are, more fun. 

WHY DON'T YOU....DO SOMETHING MORE INTERESTING INSTEAD...

When there are so many more serious things going on in the world, it is oddly reassuring how people are still interested in the petty politics of day time TV.  Probably because issues such as climate change, global recession, mass gun killings, AI destroying the world,  are rather overwhelming.  TV is small fry and soap opera even more so when the characters are allegedly 'real'.  There is nothing real about television.  Tell - lies - vision after all shows us in plain sight we are complicit in an illusion these presenters are our friends, whom we know and like and relate.  We do not know them. They do not know us.  They are as connected to us as royalty and politicians.  In other words, they are not, they are simply paid handsomely to convince us they are.  

Top of the 'empathy' pile are those who work on day time TV, but it is these same folk who tend to be the most ruthless, nastiest pieces of work in the industry.  Ive been told this by many people over the years, who worked in the industry in front of and behind the camera, at all times of the day, and told me those whom appear the loveliest tend to be the exact opposite.  These shining firmaments of goodliness are allegedly the most malignant, malevolent to those who work with them.  I've always thought it must be the pressure of appearing so calm and lovely all the time. 

I have been interviewed a few times on morning and daytime TV.  This was some decades ago, and even then I heard how one presenter had a long standing, wide spread reputation of being an utterly shitty human being - treating everyone who they didn't consider their equal or above their pay grade like a serf.  I was interviewed by them a few times.   

There was another presenter on morning TV who also had a reputation for being lovely who I also found was the antithesis of how they wished to appear.   

It is not so much day time TV is not a happy place to work, it is more to do with so many people want to work on it, so they put up with appalling behaviour in order to maintain the status quo. There is a degree of ruthlessness in daytime TV presenters more akin to the characters on a FX trading desk than a smiling happy clappy place where everyone feigns kindness and empathy. They protect a brand of integrity and honesty, but that is what it is - a brand. At least on a trading floor you are able to be your money fixated self.  

When I met them, I liked Ferne Britton and I liked Eammon Holmes.  They are too long in the tooth to care about what those in TV will or won't do to them.  The rest care, and that makes them easy to manipulate and to buy.

The final denouement came with Nadine Dorries talked about Schofield abusing 'authority, power and trust', and I thought she was talking about her mate Boris Johnson.   

TV land is a microcosm of politics, everyone pretending to be something they are not, wanting to maintain a brand so they maintain and enhance their viewing and voting figures.   They are liars - playing a part - or actors, which sounds so much more acceptable doesn't it. They all lie big, huge, massive.  All of them. And we, the viewer and the voter are complicit in the lie.  I watched PS being interviewed.  Presenters do have influence on contributors, so they are able to get people moved if they so wish.  Whether they chose to use it or not is another matter, but I know it does and has happened.  

The media are relentless, but I remember having lunch with a senior tabloid newspaper editor once who said the most he regretted in life was causing the death of someone who they had written about.  This person wasn't famous, and this editor had no doubt he - he was a reporter at the time - had triggered the death.  His editors argued that the person was vulnerable anyway, in which case they should have taken that into account.  PS has put himself in the spotlight and is aware of the consequences of doing so. If you accept the acclaim you accept everything else.  I am told he thinks he will be spat at.  That says more about the people who choose to do so than it does about him, but it also reflects a all embracing self pity that fails to recognise why people dislike him - and that is unconnected with the runner incident but is connected to his behaviour towards them and others.  

He is also aware of the consequences of lying.  He has interviewed enough of them over the years to identify the repercussions, but perhaps it is always a case of feeling you have risen too high to fall.   Some in society do appear to have reached that level.   

PS knows how to play the media, he has had decades of experience, and the 'hate' may have been generated by years of people who feel they have been mistreated by him.  What's that comment 'don't kick people on the way up coz they will kick you on the way down'.  The hate may just be the kicking PS has given to others on the way up, which has nothing to do with this particular incident, but to do with the arrogance which allowed him to believe he could get away with it. I don't know. Person who is free from sin, throw the first stone and all that, as one of his colleagues said.  Although I doubt any one in that world abides by that rule.  We have become a culture of stone throwers, encouraged by the media, politician, even religion, actually especially religion, to do so. I've done it in the past, feeling they've given me the stones to throw.  There must be a lot of other day time presenters who are concerned they will receive the same treatment when their star falls.  If PS knows how to play the media he knows how to play the audience. He's not a victim of hate. He is a victim of his own narcissism and conceit.  The upside is that he knows his daughters love him unconditionally.   They are the important and innocent ones as well.  To be loved unconditionally sustains when you feel there is nothing left.  And he isn't poor.  

As for watching daytime TV, decide to vote in the only way the Exec producers and the presenters understand. Best to turn off and, as that BBC1 Saturday morning show would tell me every week, when I was a teenager,  'Why don't you just turn off your TV and do something much more interesting instead'....  

INCREDIBLY PRIVILEGED TO BE HOLDING A WORKSHOP AT THIS AMAZING VENUE IN OCTOBER - PLEASE COME!

  https://www.hawkwoodcollege.co.uk/event/humour-lateral-thinking-oct/

WHAT DOES GOOD LOOK LIKE - HEGEOGRAPHY - OR JUST HOW YOU SEE THEM

At the beginning of meetings or any sort of project I would ask this question. What does good look like, so that expectations were managed by all those involved and we all knew what would make each other happy.  Of course, that might change during the course of the project but as long as it was communicated (and usually it wasn't) then things went fine. 

Take this and turn to writing about someone.  What does good look like?   I see good as writing an appraisal of someone's achievements - identifying the good in them, or identifying the flaws in them, which may be one and the same.  Good is also relative just as the same quality may be regarded by some as a weakness and others as a strength.  Being generous and spend thrift, lazy or chilled out, focused or nit picking, the words say the same but the value is different.  

I've had just such a challenge.  On the first draft of a biography, I was told I was making someone appear much better than they are (hegeogaphy), but if that is my perception, that is my perception. Perhaps as a travel journalist I've always been encouraged to look at the positive, focus on the positive and view the flaws as things which are human, rather than 'bad'.   Also 'bad' is such a loaded word.  And relative. 

The person I've recently written about came from a family of grafters who encouraged the same and he led life at full pelt.   Someone like that is at times bound to crash and burn.  And I don't want to go down those rabbit holes, because the flaws are mundane, the achievements are not. Perhaps like my travel writing I have chosen to see the best in this person rather than the worst, making up for what I am sure will be the remit of other writers more akin to seeking out something to attack.  I would still rather see and seek out the good rather than the bad.  It's a quality I like in myself.

EQUAL GENDER?

I was recently asked to write something about gender equality.  As I am interested in 'words' at the moment, as in how they limit thinking, and how they are used for the purpose of so doing, the issue of gender equality, defining what it is, the implications, read a bit like the last few lines of that comedy series Soap, which was a parody of Soap operas. It always ended with about ten unanswered questions which the following episode would hopefully answer. 

Example,  when men were men and women were women, the gender equality issue meant women should get equal pay to men, commensurate with their skills and workloads.   There should be no wage differentiation.  There should be maternity care - childcare and - menopausal care. For those men out there who say this is actually more than men receive, I think it should be taken as a back pay for all the decades when women were earning less than men.   Either we take the pay that way, or we earn more than men in order to earn back the back pay.  I quite like that idea. 

Now, gender equality is a tad more complicated.   Now if someone is a she, they could be a he, does that that mean a he, who starts off as a she, would earn what a man earns or would they still earn what a woman earns even though they are now a man?   Does that mean they have achieved gender equality by changing sex, or they have not changed gender equality they have just changed gender and the only way to attain gender equality is to change gender – on paper anyway.  Does that mean that men who change to the gender of women, will receive less pay or will they still receive the same pay they did as a man, even though they put themselves forward as a woman? So, they also benefit from gender equality, bringing the female pay to the same level as the male pay, or will they receive less pay they are now a female and consequently fight for equal pay because they received higher pay for the same job as a man than they do as a woman?   And then you have those who don’t define themselves as a man or woman, so what pay do they get?  Are they somewhere in limbo land or are they aligned to male or female pay dependent on their born gender. 

My belief is the government - both of them actually - will play about with the genders and say gender equality has been achieved, when it has not.  Nothing has changed, only the words, limiting not just our thinking but now also the ability of women to achieve equal pay. 

WOULDN'T DIANA HAVE MADE A PHENOMENAL QUEEN

Sorry. That's the first thing I thought when I saw the golden carriage.   I didn't see Camilla as the Queen nor Charles as the King, but having queued to pay respect to the Crown, I was interested in witnessing the coronation and the ceremony. 

What took me by surprise was the glorious and humbling beauty of the music, the spirituality of the service, and the majesty of the robes.  There was something other worldy about it which tomorrow's Sunday newspapers, though they may deign and strain with their carefully crafted supplements and twenty pages of royal news and fashion and expert insight as to why and who spoke to Harry and who did Andrew sit next to, gossip, will never tap into.  Words have not been invented to capture the energy and not even the finest poet or artist will be able to fully encapsulate the magic of those moments. The publishers and editors are the least likely to understand or communicate.    It is vibration.  Good vibration.  Pure, old energy which transcends definition.   That is why the presence of politicians was completely out of place. Their energy is out of place in this ceremony and space.  I am amazed Truss and Johnson didn't burst into flames and turn to dust as they walked through the archway, vampiric as they are. Truss with her increasingly weird crooked smile, dominatrix necklace and that creepy sleepy husband who must know and acknowledge the affairs at some point. And Johnson trying to emulate Churchill now not only in his oration but in his shape.  But they didn't burst into flames because we welcomed them in, didn't we? We voted them in.   Not me personally, but I suppose as a nation. Although we didn't vote in Truss.  

What else stands out?  The startling beauty of those grey horses leading the golden coach. The strained and terrified face of Charles looking every one of his years as the crown, that beacon, was placed on to his head. Until his son kissed him.  I felt for him then.   I felt for him. The man, the father, the connection.  The weight of the responsibility and the crown.  And I want him to succeed.  I want him succeed as a voice and leader and King and to do good. I want him to succeed at being a strong King and voice and kick those politician and media vampires into touch.   And then I saw Camilla in the background and thought of Diana.

What else stood out?  The mind blowing history of the ceremony, which is what struck me so profoundly when I first witnessed the crown on top of the coffin, and the ceremony of the guards as they changed position with such precision around it.   The tigger like behaviour of the conductor squeezing the best out of each instrument.   The voices, those voices, tear jerkingly moving.  The military precision, the incredible three cheers.     

I pay respect to the crown, to the procession, to the history, to the majesty. 

As for Camilla, I don't like her.  I listened to one of her ladies in waiting interviewed on Radio Four earlier that morning by chance.  She sounded like one of those big bosomed big boned sargeant major types, Low low voice, she sounded like Camilla.  Wiltshire, not a bone of feminine in her.  I laughed when I saw them walking behind Camilla, the three of them looking like white, craggy chinless versions of The Three Degrees. Which is probably why Charles liked her. I remember he liked the Three Degrees didn't he. 

I loved the way the Bible was described by the Archbishop of Westminster as a 'lively oracle of God'.  I loved the fact Charles was taken down to the shirt and was as he is - a man. He needs Camilla to lean on, because Camilla has kept him needy so he will need her.  Camilla has made him the man he is, petulant, self pitying. She put herself in that place so he would depend on her.   As one of my editors told me "I met her. She was in it to win it. She could have walked away from Charles but chose not to. He was weak. She is not. She is also not, as her friends and sycophants politely comment 'lovely'".   Strangely, I believe Diana would have made a stronger man of Charles. A better man of Charles.  A better King of Charles. He saw her as competition, when she had the potential to be the most incredible asset. He didn't want a wife, he wanted a nanny and a mother which he never had in the Queen.  He never viewed Diana as anything other than a liability, something imposed on him.  And like a spoilt little boy he threw her away.  For he suspected his wife would always outshine him.  None more so than on the day of the Coronation.  'Tis a pity he didn't realise, she would have shone the light onto him, just by being at his side. God Saved the King.  Pity God's grace didn't manage to save Diana as well. 

ITS ALL SEMANTICS

I like that phrase. 'It is just semantics'. As though the detail doesn't matter.   The sense of the sentence being the choice of words are irrelevant to the meaning. A house is a place is a space is a home is a floor is bricks and mortar but it represents the same thing within the sphere of where we live. Only when we chose to travel to another country or culture with another language and perspective we realise how a house is not the same.   But let's keep it simple.   A house is possibly, probably used for the same purpose and people essentially understand it is a place where people possibly, probably live.  It is a generalised collaboration of understanding which allows humans to connect.  Does it matter what it is called if we understand the sense of what is being said. Advertising for example is just an illusion in which everyone is complicit, giving value to one brand over another where the product is the same.  And think of how an estate agent would describe 'small and cramped accommodation' - bijoux, cosy, a hug of a place. 

When I lead my creative writing courses I talk about semantics. Changing the noun in a sentence and how it changes the tone and flow of what is being said. And taking way the adjectives to understand how individual perspective creates different sense, even with something as inane as 'house'.   With adjectives it is even more so.   'Luxury' carries different weight with everyone I listen to, almost making the use of it, meaningless as a communication tool, or even as a window we are better able to explain our belief and value system to others.   Semantics teach us that language and the use of words is not an effective communication tool.  

Words lead to misunderstanding as does silence.  Some philosophers describe language as a window through which you are able to understand the world, although it will glaze over unless you are constantly refining and evolving and expanding vocabulary.  I used the word 'luxury' but replace that with 'love' and you see the point even more clearly. 

And how about expanding vocabulary not just in learning and using more words, but also adding to those already in existence? Is someone who is well read, better able to connect and communicate with others than someone who isn't well read, or does that just make them more judgemental on those who don't have the breadth and understanding of words?  This depends on their values and how and if they view words as portals through which to expand their thinking and support others, or use those same skills to limit and manipulate the thinking of others.   It's the same with truth. It is not identifying your perception of the truth and reality (two very different qualities), that presents challenge, but how you choose to use them.  How you chose to use words reveals more about the speaker than the listener.  Questions asked by someone reveals more than the answers they give.   Identifying what someone wants to know rather than what someone wants to tell.   

Words for many professions and individuals are also something to hide behind.  All areas of society hide behind words, being strategically obtuse to sell a product, a service, gain a customer, client or voter, in order to win.  Winning meaning short term financial gain and probable long term financial gain.  

And who am I to judge?  As a writer I play with words, for financial gain as well, although my aim is not to deceive but to inform, entertain and reveal and change perspective.  I deal in women's fiction, yoga books and travel, hardly subjects which lead to litigation.  Usually.  I like the way I am able to express myself with - usually - more care than I do when I speak.   I need to engage brain before I write, whereas when I speak, I am frequently thinking I shouldn't have said something, or said it in a different way.   

The Finish and Japanese are thought of as enigmatic as they don't do small talk.  They think before they speak.  I found out with my research recently, this is possibly because their language, the intricacy of it, forces them to engage with what and how they are saying it. How it sounds, and when they write, how they place the words.  With Japanese in particular it is more like an art form. Poetry also transcends into art, putting the right words in the wrong places, and challenging the brain to think from another perspective and question their own. I like those poets who invented words and played with structure and style.  At Cambridge I learnt from the poet in residence Mariah Whelan, about how to structure poems and that helped me enormously with how I think and express how I feel.  

Learning other languages helps you to understand how we bastardise our own.  Studying language this way and also acknowledging how language limits our ability to learn how to not only think, but feel and express, limits our ability to think, feel and express unless of course we are artists.  Artists push the boundaries and express words which have yet to be created.  A multi sensual experience broadening the mind to infinity and beyond..

Language by nature of its 'definition' and even didactic 'dictionary' of this is what this word means and this is what that words means, is fixed and specific, until it is not.  Academic language is precise to the point of when it is being read, it is like drinking condensed soup.   Each word counts.  But then I was taught the same in journalism.   When you only have fifty words to 'play' with, getting the hook, the angle, the zeitgeist of the piece needs to pack a punch.  The antithesis of condensed soup. More Pringle sweet spot. 

Some semantics are obvious as language meaning evolves, or perception evolves even when the word does not.  Fit used to be mean put in place, then healthy, then handsome.   Language is narrow, just as math is narrow.   A house is a place to live, as two plus two equals four.  Although a house is many other things to different people. What one person would consider a home, another would consider a hovel, another would consider a safe haven. Same word has multiple perspectives and means different things to different people. The word has not changed but the meaning has.   In much the same way, the physician will tell you two plus two does not equal four.  But that's a different blog.  Everything including language and words, our use of words evolves.   Watch how texting has shortened words, and put words into images, which people understand as if by code.  Words and images becoming a short hand code of connection, fast food for the brain, not encouraging us to think, but to consume words as we do everything, devaluing their substance by narrowing their sense. 

The word may have been the bond in the City, but then they decide what the word is.   Politicians deflate words by merely uttering them, turning them to dust as they dilute their value and authenticity.  I remember Liz Truss repeating 'deliver' over and over again, and now when anyone says it I sense it is a sign of the reverse happening.   Politicians like tabloid editors, use their intellect to antagonise and at public school use their debating skills to manipulate the words of others against themselves.  Media focus on attack, gimmick and human interest. Look at the headlines over the past ten years - on any one day and it will focus on war, war, war, war, war.   Conflict of some sort. Covid was a brief respite but that was conflict on an another level. Fighting against nature which is sick of warmongering.  Words in the media are used to confuse, distract, deny, conceal, detract under the guise of reveal, entertain, inform, reveal and change perspective.   But what is the difference between 'change perspective' and 'manipulate perspective' - its tone and inference.  

Those who are able to chose and use words to best effect, who cast a spell, are listened to.   Boris Johnson was adept at it proving the best orators are also but not always the most proficient and practiced liars and manipulators.  Or as he would view it, storytellers. Or fibbers. Or being strategically obtuse for the greater good. 

GEN V AT EASTER...

I spent Easter quietly.  Watching films that seemed oddly appropriate. V for Vendetta, an old film with Natalie Portman and John Hurt, where the line 'artists tell lies, to tell the truth, politicians tell lies to hide the truth', should headline as the motto of the year, if not the decade. The first part is definitely mine. 

In V, the establishment created fear to keep control and everyone decided to wear masks and then simultaneously take them off, in revolution.  And Parliament was blown up and all the politicians were sliced to pieces.  I believe there is a group that wears the Guy Fawkes mask.   I had tapped already into much of the thinking and themes behind this film.  It echos the more recent Parasite where everyone accepts their status, their box, their place, to their detriment.

And then Anatomy of a Scandal where a smooth-talking liar politician curates the truth to his own needs continually betrays his beautiful but carefully constructed cold wife.  The man belongs to an Oxford club that strongly resembles the Bullingdon and/or The Riot Club (film of the same name), of self-righteous entitlement which they rehearse with religious rigor.  They get away with rape continually, disarming with charm, but not - probably, possibly - murder - in this particular story anyway. In real life, I believe they regularly do.  I admit, there were moments watching this series that made me go cold with recognition.  I admit I haven't met the equivalent at Cambridge. It probably exists although Homerton is a progressive college, so there wouldn't be time or space for this thinking.  Or lack of it. 

I checked out Wag the Dog, about a false war being manufactured by media to help a failing politician, who wants and needs to be portrayed as a hero, and detract from his lies.    

Someone suggested I watch the Jimmy Saville documentary but I think that would have been a bit too much. Although I am told he was a devout Catholic. 

As a child at Easter, I remember when it was Ben Hur and the chariot race, and my Christianity always being reborn.  Somehow Easter was more powerful that way than Christmas - rebirth more than birth. An inspiring story, or parable, inspires humans to be empowered.  

I would receive a collection of eggs, which I would bit-by-bit demolish by June, my birthday.  Easter chocolate always tasted better than at any other time of year.   The shining colourful packaging, the colour, the secret, the breaking of the egg, the always pleasant surprise.   

This year, no eggs.  Gifting them, but not receiving them.  And that was fine. 

Watching the BBC and ITV News, it appeared life was not imitating art.  It was attempting to ignore it. 

I COULD BE WRONG

 So here am I at 2.19 (almost 2.22 in the morning) that paladrom again, All the twos.. dreaming about how Trump gave all the US secrets away to Putin, his ego betraying not only himself but his country and the west to the contempt of a man who has been a politician for far too long and believes the rhetoric of his own press release.   

He has acted by the playbook and will use chemical weapons, just as he did in Syria, flattening a country and a people, which initially the media covered, until a Royal or Spice Girl did something and the attention went else where.   I remember when studying for journalism, a lecturer asking me to put in order of news items I would cover.   It would always be any news related to the death of someone British.  It could be just one, but if it was one British person, that would be of more interest than say, a train crash in India, or cyclone in Fiji.   Even then in my twenties I thought this was odd. This jingoistic view nurtured by media, under the guise of this is what the people want.  The media has never thought of its punters as part of a global community unless of course it was in their interest - not ours - for it to do so. 

I watch the reportage of the news in Ukraine. At any hour of the day or night when I can't or won't sleep.   The news reporters being made courageous, intrepid in their own right, when really it is their job.   Having reported on items which probably made them despair about why they entered the profession in the first place (anything to do with celebrity meltdowns), they have had plague and now war to speak and write pithy and inspiring.  I watched as reporters stood in front of scenes where the evacuees where dazed at a train station or warehouse where they were finding shelter, wanting, someone to tap them on the shoulder and shout. 'Will you stop filming and fucking do something'.  It will only be a matter of days when a film crew will be bombed, shot, accidentally as the Russian media will report it.   For both sides are organising the propaganda.  Unfortunately the media in this country have been stirring something out of nothing for so long, they don't know what to do when there really is something to report on.   

I presented a talk to a group of PhD students at Cambridge yesterday on the use of lateral thinking in the real world.  An alarmingly obtuse title, especially for PhD students and spent the first ten minutes dissecting that title.  What is real?  Is it truth or perceptual truth?  Is there such a thing as perceptual truth? (no).  Is there such a thing as perceptual thinking (all thinking is perceptual).  Is lateral thinking a good thing? (yes, portfolio careers, no gaslighting, and finance).  Tapping into what the late and great Ken Williamson says about education squeezing out creative instincts, reading a poem about the language used by academics which the first time I heard it thought was a foreign language (dominant hegemonic discourse - knowledge is power) wondering why they need to use it, but then realising that is why they do.  I also shared De Bono's thoughts on the media, interested in clash and controversy, attack, human interest and gimmick, all of which fall into the plague and war that have been going on in the past years although they have always been going on somewhere in the world, just that they haven't affected the British punter.  So they don't count as 'news' of value and substance to a paper that knows if they put Princess Diana on the cover, it will sell more. 

I remember being in an interview for the BBC journalism course (I should have pursued that) and having a first interview being asked about the order of the news again.  By that time, I had worked in radio and some freelancing on the Mail on Sunday, where I had a scoop finding Brits who had escaped from Kuwait across the desert when the country was annexed and Maggie (Thatcher) sent in the troops.  I was confined to my page three byline only by pictures of large phallic missiles. Sex and violence in once phrase.  One of the interviewers asked me in what order the radio, TV and print journalists would cover the story.  I replied the newspaper would cover all the stories, taking the risk, the radio would cover it, bleeding off the newspaper reporting, with 'real' people (anyone who isn't a journalist or a PR), and the TV wouldn't report it eventually but only after the paper had taken the first step. 

For ultimately media lacks courage and curiosity. It is left to documentary makers to go in depth, and step over and through the red tape, everyone terrified of what they might find out on their way to uncovering one story as they realise they have found many others which would lead to people in power, having their ego and livelihood damaged. 

I listen to LBC and turn down when someone comes on and gets ripped to pieces by James O'Brien, who loves the sound of his own voice and laughs at his own jokes and mentions he has listening figures which have grown exponentially, Ive noted he likes that word. 

I told the PhD students to write clearly, simply, making their language accessible, because unlike most of those I have met outside academia, they really know their stuff rather than they pretend to know their stuff. They have integrity of thinking, while those outside have fluency of style, when both are needed.  

I told them the concept of 'real' world, is a misnomer. The real world is nothing more than an illusion, in and of which we are complicit for example in advertising and most certainly in politics, and also again the media who shine a light on issues because people want to know human interest, gimmick, attack, clash and controversy.   Actually they don't, but that is what they are fed. That stuff is bad for the soul as well as the brain and 'be careful the stories you tell, children will listen (into the woods) is as relevant to the adult punter as it is to the child listening to a fairy story about a prince rescuing a princess, because a lot of women grow up thinking they need to be rescued and a lot of men grow up wanting to be the princess.   Personally, I never wanted to be in that fairy tale. Alice's Adventures in Wonderland, lacking in kindness (think of the Duchess calling the baby 'pig') and decrying the fact cooking is a relaxing and rewarding past time, and the pompous caterpillar who fails to blossom into a butterfly and the empty dinner party full of empty chairs. How relevant to life that story is.  How observant Dodgeson was, although highly dubious as well reading about him. How he observed everyone and looked at what they said and how they said it, manipulating the light to fall on them. Where angry ugly women want to decapitate their underlings, but looking closer its men in drag, paper thin shallow superficial, good at playing the game of life.  

How much Alice's Adventures tell you about life. More than any socio psychology text book or website on how people live could and more effectively and playfully provocatively.  I am doing the same with a book I am writing - Size Six - which has the same back story of how things are reported, observed and if you don't fit, like Alice into the doors into paradise, you have to change shape because you are never enough.  And we are all animals with a thin veneer of sophistication which goes completely to the wall when we are in war. What does Putin care about all the sanctions, when he wins the war he will get it all back again.  They will forgive and forget and the protectionism which previous generations have fought so hard to tap away at over the decades, making us realise we are a global nation, has now entrenched into small states, much easier to attack.  Divide and conquer. We should be rescuing the Ukraine, and the images are hitting those psychologically more than they are physically.   False evidence appearing real I said to the students, that is what the 'real' world encourages, as does finance, as does insurance, as do politicians, as does religion.  The one area it is exempt is education. They do question and do have to research their stuff, and they do focus on evidence - although how much of that is perspective again, they need to take into account. Everything is perspective. and that is why Edward wanted to teach learning how to think in schools because he realised advertising politicians would become so sophisticated at influencing not only what we perceived but how we thought if we didn't realise what was happening. He listened to the Etonites who hold the power in all industries, at strategic positions at the top of the pile.  The papers like the New European and TV like Al Jazeera report more fluidly about events because they see the bigger picture, they zoom in and zoom out.  And they spend time investigating.   

So Trump gave up official secrets his ego stroked, and China is invading Taiwan and flattening the rebels in Hong Kong as the eyes of the world are directed onto Ukraine where they are taking the wheat and nuclear and strategic positioning.   Playing the long game while the west play the short game, as they always have.  Chemical war fair will be used, and everyone is hoping our government are far more intelligent and fast moving and long sighted than they appear.   The class system, with talk of the working class and the elite is alive and kicking thanks to the media and politicians who keep those words in play. 

Because it is our language that limits our ability to think, the windows to communication or symbols in their own right. It is humour that taps into the multiple perceptions and breaks down dogma and ideology more effectively using playful provocation than earnest text books which disempower although they remit their brief as empowering. 

Mental health would be vastly improved if it focused on teaching people how to think rather than going on about the psychobabble and I teach yoga in schools.  Even I recognise that. 

And the travel industry will never be sustainable until it stops flying and staycations will never be value for money because we don't respect those who serve.  Amazing what happens when you stand back and start to think. 

But I could be wrong.