LOST VOICE NOT MOMENTUM

I lost my voice two weeks ago.  There's a bug going round and I heard even David Cameron croak through a talk to a group of City suits I think earlier this week, may be last.   Any way, he was croaking. As I teach yoga and present radio, its not a good idea to lose the voice. Sounding like the vamp in Carry on Screaming is one thing. Sounding like a squeaky mini mouse is not so cool.  I managed to do both week before last and ended up talking in whispers.  Thank goodness for the technology of microphones.

Where was I when I heard about Paris?  Working late.   I was recently asked to talk about where to go for Christmas. It has been an extraordinary year for travel, as in safety has over taken sunshine as the number one priority for travellers.  Or British travellers.   Shootings on the beach in Tunisia, bombings in Paris restaurants and flight blown up from Sharm.   I have never known a year like it.  Even when 9/11 happened it quietened the Americans coming to the UK, but the Brits travelled everywhere.  This is closer to home.  Next year the choice is Italy and Australia and China.  They seem to be the places people feel are safe….

BUSINESS AS USUAL, WELL SORT OF...

World Travel Market, Family Travel Market and Luxury Travel Market.  I have lost my voice. This wouldn't normally be a problem any other year as I'm not sure if people listen to me anyway sometimes. But I teach yoga and I co present a radio show so its a bit of a nuisance when the voice varies from Mariella Frostrop gravel to Minnie Mouse squeak within a few seconds.  I ended up whispering down the microphone this evening.   Never know, I may get some dates.

No one would talk about the elephant in the room at WTM.  Security. True they had 'talks; about it, but on the stands they went on business as usual as though this had been just like any other year.  Well, barring 9/11, I've never seen a year like this in travel.  

I'm heading to Luxury ™ and may pop into Spirit of Christmas although I have no spirit of Christmas at the moment. I'm still enjoying the fireworks.   I've looked at my blogs for this year.   It will be under forty written, unless I have a spurt in December.  This is a good sign.  

BOND - EATS SHOOTS AND LEAVES. MILK TRAY MAN BUT NO CHOCOLATES….

The new Bond film is glamorous mysogynistic twaddle.   I wouldn't usually put the second word in, but when the film Suffragette is on at the same time, you realise we have moved on, well, women have moved on, but men, men in power at least, have moved from being deeply superficial to superficially deep.  I suppose thats progress of sorts.   Its like realising something is important, not knowing why and not knowing how to achieve it, but knowing how to pretend you've got it.   Politicians do it well. So do TV presenters.  Its called soul.  And although this Bond film was desperately trying to find soul, the train fight (the one with Sean Connery in From Russia with Love much better), the fast car chases (Rome looked better than the cars), everything looked like a Milk Tray advert but without the man handing over the bloody chocolates and leaving with his calling card.  Now the man arrives with the chocolates, eats them all himself and then shoots you.  And if he's as toned and handsome as Bond is, he is more likely to be gay anyway. 

THE DAILY HATE - CORBYN CAN'T SING, HE CAN'T DRESS AND HE CAN'T WEAR A FLOWER.

I'm sure David Cameron can do all of these things but that does not make him a better person than Jeremy Corbyn.   

I've become interested in politics again thanks to Jeremy Corbyn. Such has the vitriol been poured on him by the media, I want to vote labour.   Its not so much I dislike the Conservatives - I don't know any of them personally and mistrust the 'figures which say we are a wealthy country - because I don't feel wealthy and so if I don't feel wealthy, I don't care what expert says I'm in a wealthy country - its not relevant to me.  End of story.   And as a lot of the 'research' is based on limited guess work under the guise of asking thousands of people (what people, what demographic, do they tell the truth, how do you know they tell the truth…), I also feel this has no relevance.  

The media have focused on the fact he won't wear a red poppy and didn't have his tie on straight.  Does this matter?  People are dying en masse in Syria, children with appalling injuries being shown on TV tonight and the papers are saying Corbyn looks like 'a scruff'.   Its like the Great British Bake Off Baked Alaska-gate last year.  Its nothing. Its a nothing story.   Isn't there a more important story they could put in?  

And the poppy.   They talked on LBC this morning about Corbyn wearing a poppy.    I have a lot of respect for those who fought in the war and those who held fort at home (the women).    Many of my family did and I wear a poppy in November, but that proves nothing. I live near where the poppy factory is, and my son visited it many years ago, but that does not make me a better person than Corbyn because he chooses not to wear one.   

I also believe those who don't have respect for those who did have a right to show it as well. I'm not sure what he is, why he wants to wear a white poppy or a red one or go half and half and wear pink - although then I'm sure the media will say he's gay, or mocking gay, because the guy at the moment is not able to win as far as the media (thats all of them) are concerned.    So my gut feeling is he has integrity, something the establishment in all its guises fears, mistrusts and wants to eradicate because anyone who has integrity makes them look foolish.    

The media under estimate Corbyn and the media believe the masses are stupid. They are not.   The media are part of the same establishment as the Government.    And btw, why is Rebekah Brookes back working again? 

A MAN'S WORLD?

I'm writing a series of books THE A TO ZEN OF… focusing on conventional subjects and examining them in an unconventional way - as in how each impacts on our emotions - namely nine in particular.  

Ranging from anger, greed, vanity, impatience, loneliness, heartbreak, jealousy, envy and lack of focus,  I've used the thinking tools of Edward de Bono to identify who and why these subjects influence us in such a powerful way and how to deal with these emotions - something the English (thanks to our stiff upper lip or other extreme - bare all in public culture) are particularly bad at.   So far, so good.  

Each book, I've been able to write diligently, even the one on sex which I found disturbingly quite easy to write.  On men, money and fidelity, fine.   On time, love, life, fine.    On women.  I stopped. 

Researching this book made me angry and upset, because when I started to interview men and women, and also read research both by psychologists and business people I realised how little has changed. I remember interviewing the late MP Barbara Castle when I was writing for the Londoners Diary Evening Standard, and had only been working there a few months.  She stopped me at the end of the interview and said 'how long have you been a journalist?"   I thought, omg, I've said something wrong, but no.   

"You're a very good interviewer.   You ask questions, listen to answers, you are feminine and don't believe you have to be hard or aggressive to get answers.   Women journalists believe they need to be harder, tougher more ruthless than men to get on. They don't. They just need to be women."     Another Barbara I interviewed a few years later for TV told me off for doing such a job. "Its no place for a woman in front of the camera.   People can't concentrate on what you are saying because they are looking at what you are wearing." So is that the fault of the woman or the people watching?      That Barbara was the late Barbara Cartland.

 I watched the programme 'The Ascent of Women' last night on BBC2, which illustrated the first novel ever written - by a woman - was by a Japanese woman who wrote about how a womaniser turns the many lovers he has into 'nuns'. 

The presenter, Dr Amanda Proudman, visibly moved as she looked at the inkwell the woman had used noted her name had not been kept for posterity, only a name given to her by her father, what he did and where he came from.   The programme went on to illustrate how the only powerful woman in Chinese history - the Dragon Empress - was portrayed as an evil woman killing all who got in her way.  The history books were written by men.  They still predominantly are.    Confucion was shown to keep women subservient to men, even women wrote rule books for women on how to behave.  

In my travels I've come across similar instances, none more striking than when I visited Buenos Aires several years ago with my son.     Eva Peron I had heard about, how she had slept her way to the top, how she liked fine dresses.  How she was ruthless.   History books focus on the irrelevance.   In reality, she was phenomenal.   She legalised abortion, rights for women, allowing them to divorce.  This is in a Catholic country and she did it before the rest of the world caught up. She was an incredible woman.   Even as I learnt from the BBC2 programme, so was the Dragon Empress who gave women a lot of rights and freedom they would have never had under a male emperor. 

So I was intrigued by the comments following the abuse and support being shown toward the female barrister who thought the comment inappropriate and sexist.   She is currently working on subject matter for her Masters, which really goes into the nitty gritty of sexism and misogyny at one of its most atrocious outlets  (genital mutilation).   I can just imagine the sort of research she is privy to at the moment.   Mr Silk should have recognised that before sending such a stupid text. 

So she was right.  He was wrong.  Although he won't believe he did anything wrong - although actually - he did realise he was being un PC (he put it in writing) so actually he did realise he was wrong.  Does that mean she can sue him?  

It was probably the tip of the iceberg, but the law, just like the media, just like the city, is riddled with misogynists who have been validated to behave the way they have.  And they are at the highest level, lauded as examples of professionalism and diligence.    They are establishment, and have no reason to change their ways because on a financially functional level they work. They may be married and have children and on a social level appear grounded.    But they are not.   They are emotionally broken. I don't know how else to put it. I won't put it like that in the book because I don't think my publisher will allow it.  Even studying psychology I realise a lot of the research is done for men, by men about men.  Only recently there was research to 'prove' women are more immoral than men based on the 'fact' many fathers are parenting children unaware that the child is not theirs.    Not that you could do a similar test with men of course.

I do not hate men.  I like them and love some of them deeply.  And I have a son, but researching the book I realise men have been emasculated not by women but by the social constructs which tell them they should be and feel this and that.  So you've got extremes.  Keeping everything in, then letting it all bellow out - usually onto their partners, lovers, anyone they trust to take it who won't tell them where to go. Or they break down, suicide, depression.  As a qualified yoga instructor, I teach both men and women.  The women carry their anger in their hips and boy are they angry.   The men carry fear in their  shoulders, and boy are they afraid.  But they have different ways of dealing with their emotion. The women bury it until they either become ill, or let it go.   They cry, they scream.  Men drink, take drugs, have sex, get angry, run, run, run.   But they don't let it go.    They dump it into their partners or get ill themselves. But they never learn and they never let it go. 

That's the difference.   And our culture - the British culture - is particularly anal.    As is the American which is completely the reverse.  Everything is out there - seemingly.   Their fear and anger on show; dumping it on the rest of the world on every level - politically, commercially and historically. 

Both are unhealthy, out of balance and cause issues which ripple out and have psychological consequences - all of which our children observe and absorb. 

I have experienced so much of this sexism over the years, and I have been blamed for it.  Because I'm open and friendly and I should be more guarded.   I once was able to interview a very hard to reach celebrity and I was told by someone, a male who is extremely high up in establishment the only reason I got the interview was because 'he wanted to sleep with me'.   I don't talk to that person any more.  He devalued himself with that comment.  As have all the men, married, who have approached me over the years. They devalue themselves.   We have become so use to misogyny we are told its just misconstruing compliments.   But its not.   Women and men are equals. We are, psychologically remarkably the same. We both are angry and afraid, we both need love and affection, although we may find it fulfilling from different sources (men from their partner, and women from their children, and children loving and being loved - the most unscrewed up of the lot until we teach them otherwise.), but we both need to love and be loved.   We are equal, despite what establishment and social constructs dictates. When we realise that we can breathe easy. We will automatically treat each other with respect, the same respect we treat ourselves (that is much of the problem - we don't respect ourselves - and that's men as much as women), and enjoy life rather than suffer for it.   Women will get paid the same as men because they are equal to them.    And men will do the same amount of child rearing and domestic work as women because they are the same as them.  If you've suddenly gone cold or laughed by reading that then you've fallen into the illusion that we are not equal.  

Men and women are equals.  Rudyard Kiplings 'If' is as much relevant for women as it is for men.    

Barbara Castle was only part right.   I don't believe it is a man's world.    I don't know what it is.    But it's not a man's world.  Ironically, if it were, they would treat women as equals.  Because the real men I have met in my life, all do. 

EDINBURGH IN AUGUST - MIND BLOWING CITY OF POETS

I didn't know what to expect.    I don't like people telling me I must like a place before I go because I instantly have extremely high expectations, and they are very high, as in ethereal, and consequently I've been disappointed with both Ireland and Ibiza - not because they are not wonderful, but because they were not as wonderful as I imagined.    Everyone told me the festival (in August there's the book, the arts, the international as well as the Fringe going on) so there are festivalS, would be amazing.   I had visited Edinburgh before, never during the festival season and passed through quickly on the way to St Andrews.  Walking the streets of Edinburgh (boy did I walk for those four days), I realise J K Rowling has filched every stone and cranny from every narrow archway and corner, every shadow and smell, every alley way and signpost.   She owes Edinburgh but I think she's paid back in bucket loads.

I was there for four days. I ate very little (I don't eat much anyway but seemed to live off almonds and water, and occasionally when I got really light headed, jelly sweets, and I had one lunch (at Civerinos @civerinos  www.civerinos.com) - very good.    On Saturdays they feed the chefs from the nearby restaurants and swap stories about how little sleep they've had in August. I don't think anyone sleeps in August in Edinburgh.  They have September for that. In August far too much going on.   I was even dreaming poetry on the second night.

The city is multi-layered, built up one street on top of one another, like a multi-dimensional cobweb, and this is mirrored by the mish mash web of incredible creative chaos which are the festivals, intertwining with each other - the high culture of the international festival, attracting big names like Juliet Binoche (beautiful but a bit snotty, pity), and baroque  of Lestyn Davies (think sound track from The Draftsman Contract and Dangerous Liaisons)  with the bookish book festival, tented and neat lawned in a square, with the arts festival spit-spotting galleries and sculptures anywhere there's a space and the fringe using every other nook and cranny, a bit like Rowling did but with less subtlety.  There isn't a space that hasn't been used for something creative.   The place buzzes with the inspired and inspirational.  You walk from one venue to the next because it is the quickest way to do it (dodging the tourists not forgetting YOU ARE ONE OF THEM, and the 'Edinburgh Crusties' who are here for the more cerebral stuff).   So you see a lot of Edinburgh.    The venues are inspired, anything from warehouses, to conference centres, student dorms, pubs, restaurants, ladies toilets, rooftops, cellars, graveyards, churches, anything that is a 'space' is taken.

Highlights.  OMG. Where do you start?   There are thousands of productions going on.   Do not go home thinking you have missed the best. If you do you will be miserable all the time. So be zen, be in the now and just enjoy what you see.    I went to about fifteen productions, plays, performances in three days.   That's enough. You need some time to walk, think, admire, be.

Two productions I attended at the EICC were mesmerising.    The Encounter, and 887.   The Encounter was phenomenal. Like Edinburgh, it was multi-dimentional, layer upon layer upon layer of story, of character, peeling away, with the actor and writer (Simon McBurney, one man show).  It was journey telling and story telling on a whole new level.  Desperately funny, funnily desperate, McBurney made himself vulnerable and so did the audience.  Some high art (OK, I find a lot of it), is too clever to loose yourself in. You are still thinking 'this is very clever' rather than getting into it.    The ego doesn't get into this performance.  It is visceral and perfect.   I have never experienced anything like it. Complicite is the company who produce works like this and it is mind blowing.  I still want to cry (in a nice way) when I think about it.  Its sort of like Walkabout (Jenny Agutter film) but set in South America.   You want the journey to continue.    I know actors over act, but boy is McBurney on the money.   You don't want it to end although you are utterly exhausted emotionally by the end of it.  A bit like walking round from venue to venue at the Festival really.    Any way, think you get the idea that I liked Encounter.   887, I saw after The Encounter.    If I had seen it before I would have thought more of it, and there were moments which were incredibly poignant, and creative, but the ego crept in and I could see it.   I could never see it in the other play.

Kate Tempest was another performance that blew me away.    She recited for an hour one poem after another with blistering intensity about, well, the beige-ness of life and how we are all terribly fearful and terribly angry and we do nothing about it.  We are bashed into apathy and mediocrity, but she did it, (as per Encounter) in a funny, filthy, powerfully poignant, lyrical, wise way.   Both The Encounter and Tempest made the audience cry and laugh within a few minutes of each other.   That is amazing.

The Fringe, I saw Phil Jupitus. He's a very funny comedian, and he's also a very good poet.   He makes up poems using the titles of the productions in the Fringe, and they're very good as well. He hates David Cameron and Boris Johnson with a vengeance but then I get the feeling that everyone in Scotland feels the same.

I watched Trygve Wakneshaw and his production of Kraken.   Very clever. I saw his penis but then so did everyone in the audience.  Twice.  

No penis performances include - Funny Bones Trash, excellent, funny and poignant (that combination again) for the children and their parents.    Go take your young children,  but they will need to be able to walk.  You walk everywhere in Edinburgh. No whinging children.  If they whinge, don't bring them. Tell them they are going to the real Harry Potter Land, and if they whinge they'll be turned into snakes or something.

UKIP the Musical, Nigel Farage meets South Park, clever and funny. Not poignant.   But funny.    Antigone, at the Rose Theatre, with Binoche and Finbar Lynch (very good) as well as obi Abili and Kirsty Bushell. Very strong cast.   I thought there would be no laughs in this one but there were.  I'm not a regular theatre goer but I do admire beautiful acting.

The performances go onto the early hours. I saw Pole, about Pole dancing at midnight, three girls performing (around poles) about the good, bad and very very ugly of the industry. One is a yoga teacher.  Yes some of the moves are very much like yoga postures although perhaps Iyengar wasn't thinking that at the time.

Tips, tips, tips, how to do the festival.   BE FIT.    And if you can, go by yourself and make friends, or just talk to people.  If you go with someone try not to debate too long what you are going to see. It takes time. Be spontaneous. Take a risk, as Kate Tempest would shout.    I know its not English but DO IT.

1) Wear very comfortable shoes.
2) Take snacks with you (almonds and water good).
3) Listen to those who say they loved something but do not die if you don't see it yourself.   One person's five star is another's no star.

I was told I must see Filthy Talk in Troubled Times, and didn't, but one day I'm sure I will.    And Tea Set and Brute.  But I didn't.    But I didn't stop walking or clapping, or crying or laughing, and occasionally I ate, and sometimes I even slept (at the Town Chambers (self catering apartments) with gorgeous views over Edinburgh and the Glasshouse - which is the other side of the railway station, in the new part by the Ingleby Gallery where I saw some of Charles Avery's work.   And I saw the David Bailey exhibition.   Powerful photos, but the best by far were Ralph Fiennes (1995) looking utterly edible, Jeanne Moreau (with smoking cigarette) 1966, Marianne Faithful (1964 - superb), U2 Bono 1985, his ego shouts out in this photo. Its all about him, will always be about him, has always been about him.   Bailey captures them even when they are soul less.    Mick Jagger in 1976 looking utterly trashed.   Mandela 1997, you want to know what he's thinking - probably (has he taken the photo yet?..), and Jack Nicholson laughing, Francis Bacon, looking as distorted and disturbed as the images he painted, Jacqueline Henri Lartigue (1982) like a map of a life on his face.    Incredible light on the face.   David Lean in 1989 looking dreadfully sad.

4) Go up by train and back by sleeper.    Its part of the experience, although someone I know found themselves in the same carriage as Janet Street Porter, so it wasn't quite the experience they had hoped for.

5) See the Edinburgh Tattoo. Its the icing on the cake.  The ceremony is wonderful. The castle beautiful.  The rest of the events are the cherries, each of them incredible. I have so much admiration for every performer there.   You are amazing, as are those who work tirelessly behind the scenes to make it happen. Actually you are exhausted but you still do it because you love it - I can tell.  

Edinburgh is the cake, substantial enough to welcome everyone and more than just a backdrop. Its the inspiration for so much of the work that goes on here.   You visit during this season and you end up breathing with the pace of this place, absorbing the performances. The place and performance become one. As J K Rowling realised, the energy of this place and people makes magic.

Edinburgh is a city of poets and for a month the world gets to hear what they have to say.  And for four days so did I.   It was a privilege.

SMOKE AND MIRRORS - DIVERTING ATTENTION WITH EASY TARGETS

Bring out your dead and those who are easy to target.    In the City a trader has been jailed for 14 years for LIBOR fixing.   What only him?   And only thirteen other of his colleagues? And no one at the top knew anything about it? No one?

His colleagues obviously didn't like him and he, like the other 13, has been sacrificed. Those who are 'discovered' are allowed to be discovered - its blood letting. The ones who did the most damage are allowed to get away with it as long as a few are seen to be punished. But these guys are small fry.    Watch carefully at those who are not jailed and those who are.

Those who are sent to prison will receive the heaviest sentences not because they are more guilty than the others, or more friendless (no one has friends or is friends in the City, they have contacts) those who go to prison are simply less well connected.    The trader didn't drink alcohol.   That would, if nothing else, brand him a loner and a loser.

And Ted Heath.   Bring out the dead; unable to protect themselves, they are also easy targets. It is easier to kill a memory of someone, than bring to task someone who is still alive, in power and able to manipulate the media and the law. These dead names are diverting attention from those in power in every industry, those well connected folk who are still manipulating the media and the law, who are as guilty.    They do not care if their reputation is destroyed when they are long dead. Who would.

No more bringing up the dead, lets go for those who have got away with it and are still alive.