One of the downsides of checking into my Yahoo email account is the full frontal news assault which I can’t escape during the two step process to my inbox.
Early in the morning it’s relentless and gratuitous. ‘Grandmother finds axe murderer in spare bedroom.’ ‘Five-year-old savaged by bull terrier.’ These stories are at the hard news end and they’re barring the way into my day.
They could be playing out in Willenhall or Wellesbourne, Solihull or Sierra Leone. I’ve no idea how they connect with my life and right now I haven’t time to wonder. They’re leeching my attention while I’m trying to do something that matters and so their gut-wrenching irrelevance is flagged up. I switch off.
Maybe I should try harder. In olden days my eye would be caught by the front page newspaper headline on the mat. The font size told me ‘this is the biggest news of the day and you need to know it’. Fair enough. Thirty seconds is enough to scan the standfirst and skim the content for the main facts of the case. But Yahoo doesn’t sleep and doesn’t have a copy deadline. 24/7 the stories keep coming even though there’s still nothing new under the sun.
Just replay after replay of the same old, same old human dramas.
This has been going on for a long time. More and more, journalists are talking brazenly about stories; a good story, a breaking story, an incredible story, an inspiring story. Do you have any stories? True or surgically enhanced… it makes no real difference. It’s all in your mind. Compulsive news-eaters will gobble them up, hungry for lurid stories to entertain the idling corners of their brains.
The places where imagination used to lurk.
Morning stories? The characters living them don’t think they’re fiction. Their stories are real and messy. And although you’ll never get to see, feel or taste the reality of them, they usually involve hardcore stuff like blood, drugs, weapons, tragedy, rampant egos and pointless loss of life. Swallowed whole with your Shreddies.
No wonder genuine storytelling is in revival. Stories that make you picture good and hopeful things, the heroic struggle against enemies followed by moral or actual victory, the glow of achievement and reunion with loved ones at the end. You know the sort of thing. Stories that make you feel good.
Happy ever after? All stories should be. Otherwise they’re incomplete and not ready for the telling.
Monday 7 December 2009
Wednesday 2 December 2009
Behind the mask
Just read a piece by the ‘great travel writer’ Jan Morris in the Guardian today. I’ve never heard of her but am willing to accept that is entirely down to my ignorance.
My attention was captured by Jan’s attitude to the cities she has visited in a career spanning many decades. Intriguingly, she treats the places she’s visited as people. She’s met them in favourable or unfavourable circumstances at a certain point in time and a relationship has developed of either liking or loathing on both sides.
Yes, that’s right. Jan’s relationships with cities are very definitely reciprocal.
I am one with this. I always feel very black and white about places, especially cities. It is just like meeting a person. You immediately become aware of their personality and whether it’s a good fit with yours. In the case of cities, you either like how they look (architecture, street plan, public spaces) – or you don’t. You either warm to the people (they’re friendly, energetic, helpful or vibrant) – or you don’t.
But there’s something else as well. All cities have their own unmistakeable atmosphere. Perhaps this is the sum total of everything - people, architecture, public spaces, and the businesses that call the city home. But it’s also something less tangible. It’s essence itself and it includes the history, whether turbulent or serene, and location, especially if it’s on a river, beside a mountain or on the coast.
Cities I have known and loved? Bursa in Turkey is one. I spent a year there and constructed a complicated relationship with that metropolis. Nudging the foothills of Uludag (Great Mountain) the city can’t escape the massive mountain rising just behind. It dominates the weather bringing heavy snow in winter and oven-temperature heat in summer. And it dominates the citizens’ thinking as well as it moves in and out of focus like a camera lens (again depending on weather conditions and visibility).
Cities I haven’t? San Sebastian left a strong impression. It might have been because I was tired (and I definitely was because we were camping and there was a thunderstorm right through the night), but I went there ready to love it and just didn’t. It seemed on the surface to have everything – beaches, headlands, shops and cafes, a vibrant population… but something didn’t add up. It just didn’t feel right. We headed back over the border next morning.
I’ve never been back. Just like friendships it’s best to move on. New places, urban spaces, to stimulate your mind and shift your soul. Just glance through a ‘city break’ travel brochure or surf a travel website and notice which places, pictures and descriptions lift your heart.
Who knows, it may be your new city friend calling you home.
My attention was captured by Jan’s attitude to the cities she has visited in a career spanning many decades. Intriguingly, she treats the places she’s visited as people. She’s met them in favourable or unfavourable circumstances at a certain point in time and a relationship has developed of either liking or loathing on both sides.
Yes, that’s right. Jan’s relationships with cities are very definitely reciprocal.
I am one with this. I always feel very black and white about places, especially cities. It is just like meeting a person. You immediately become aware of their personality and whether it’s a good fit with yours. In the case of cities, you either like how they look (architecture, street plan, public spaces) – or you don’t. You either warm to the people (they’re friendly, energetic, helpful or vibrant) – or you don’t.
But there’s something else as well. All cities have their own unmistakeable atmosphere. Perhaps this is the sum total of everything - people, architecture, public spaces, and the businesses that call the city home. But it’s also something less tangible. It’s essence itself and it includes the history, whether turbulent or serene, and location, especially if it’s on a river, beside a mountain or on the coast.
Cities I have known and loved? Bursa in Turkey is one. I spent a year there and constructed a complicated relationship with that metropolis. Nudging the foothills of Uludag (Great Mountain) the city can’t escape the massive mountain rising just behind. It dominates the weather bringing heavy snow in winter and oven-temperature heat in summer. And it dominates the citizens’ thinking as well as it moves in and out of focus like a camera lens (again depending on weather conditions and visibility).
Cities I haven’t? San Sebastian left a strong impression. It might have been because I was tired (and I definitely was because we were camping and there was a thunderstorm right through the night), but I went there ready to love it and just didn’t. It seemed on the surface to have everything – beaches, headlands, shops and cafes, a vibrant population… but something didn’t add up. It just didn’t feel right. We headed back over the border next morning.
I’ve never been back. Just like friendships it’s best to move on. New places, urban spaces, to stimulate your mind and shift your soul. Just glance through a ‘city break’ travel brochure or surf a travel website and notice which places, pictures and descriptions lift your heart.
Who knows, it may be your new city friend calling you home.
Sunday 29 November 2009
Can you spare a moment to be surveyed?
Doing a survey quickly makes you aware of one thing. The vast majority of people have a lot of trouble answering a question clearly and simply.
It would be reassuring to think that the survey designers were considering their difficulties when they drew up their questions. You know, gentle opening, introduction of subject in plain English, logical sequence from question to question, taking previous answers into account of course.
It's not always the case. In fact they’re more likely to be thinking of their client’s marketing requirements.
A range of ethnic groups, age diversity from 18 to 80, socio-economic status from A to E, all culled straight from the phone book. And all struggling at this unearthly hour, as good, true and honest citizens of these dominions will, to second guess your intentions and deliver the answers you want to hear.
But what DO you want to know, I wonder, as I dial the seventieth number of the day and start my spiel. ‘COULD you spare a moment …?’
In this case my charm works. The lady respondent neither ‘has visitors’, nor is ‘just on my way out’ or ‘right in the middle of cooking scrambled eggs’. She can spare two or three minutes and there is not a lot better that being told your opinion matters.
‘So,’ I venture, ‘how many pieces of fruit and veg do you eat in a day?’ It’s a challenging opener, unique in its ability to befuddle, confuse and polarise.
Are we talking about pieces as in parts of a whole? If you have an apple, say, with your breakfast and cut it into quarters, does that amount to four pieces? It’s difficult to say. And if you have five types of veg with your pork loin and fruit salad to follow does that satisfy your quota for a week?
The media, health professionals, doctors, nurses, dieticians, all remind us repeatedly that we should eat fruit and veg at five different times during the day. But it’s hard to quantify, not to mention hard to achieve.
Meanwhile I strive to keep on message. A supremely effective tactic of the lost and confused is to go off at a tangent. Despairing of understanding your questioning thrust, they meander off and tell you all about their very own personal dietary approach.
It’s not that I’m not interested. Just that I only have three minutes to get the answers I’m paid for.
Several questions later we veer round the bend into the final lap. This is the heart of the survey. Does my respondent seriously think that free cooking courses might be a good idea, even though she has fifty years’ experience, has raised six children and 18 grandchildren and knows more about nutrition that any of us raised in the junk food era. It’s patronising. It’s also showing clearly that the question-mongers have not thought this through. In their single-pronged assault on the nutritionally ignorant, they just haven’t allowed for the range of knowledge and experience that actually resides in the population.
Many of my mature lady respondents brush off such disrespect with contempt. ‘Would you like information to be available about preparing low-cost healthy meals?’ I murmur in an even tone, hoping my words will be lost somewhere down the line and she will say ‘yes’ just to save time.
‘My dear, I brought up six children on war-time rations. I think I know as much about this as I’m ever going to learn’.
I’ve even been called ‘young lady’. Music to my ears now I am decidedly not.
They’re understanding though. Everyone knows that surveys are the new national service. No matter how trite, irritating and irrelevant the questions, you just smile inwardly, think of the nation and offer your response. It’s all for the highest social good and practically everyone now accepts that surveys are integral to how society works. We just have to keep on believing that they garner some vacuous, twilight truths about what people actually think.
I’m heading into the final straight now. The ubiquitous demographic details. Postcode so we can place you, age (so we can get a spread), ethnic group (and the glaring truth that a very large number of people deeply resent the moniker of White–British and insist on their Englishness). ‘Would be you be willing to participate in future surveys?’ Some do, ‘if you can catch me in’.
It’s all over, the boxes are checked, contact details recorded. They walk free (perhaps with a smug, virtuous feeling to help them through the day).
I’m on to the next Watt in the BT Phonebook. ‘Er, I’m calling on behalf of …’
It would be reassuring to think that the survey designers were considering their difficulties when they drew up their questions. You know, gentle opening, introduction of subject in plain English, logical sequence from question to question, taking previous answers into account of course.
It's not always the case. In fact they’re more likely to be thinking of their client’s marketing requirements.
A range of ethnic groups, age diversity from 18 to 80, socio-economic status from A to E, all culled straight from the phone book. And all struggling at this unearthly hour, as good, true and honest citizens of these dominions will, to second guess your intentions and deliver the answers you want to hear.
But what DO you want to know, I wonder, as I dial the seventieth number of the day and start my spiel. ‘COULD you spare a moment …?’
In this case my charm works. The lady respondent neither ‘has visitors’, nor is ‘just on my way out’ or ‘right in the middle of cooking scrambled eggs’. She can spare two or three minutes and there is not a lot better that being told your opinion matters.
‘So,’ I venture, ‘how many pieces of fruit and veg do you eat in a day?’ It’s a challenging opener, unique in its ability to befuddle, confuse and polarise.
Are we talking about pieces as in parts of a whole? If you have an apple, say, with your breakfast and cut it into quarters, does that amount to four pieces? It’s difficult to say. And if you have five types of veg with your pork loin and fruit salad to follow does that satisfy your quota for a week?
The media, health professionals, doctors, nurses, dieticians, all remind us repeatedly that we should eat fruit and veg at five different times during the day. But it’s hard to quantify, not to mention hard to achieve.
Meanwhile I strive to keep on message. A supremely effective tactic of the lost and confused is to go off at a tangent. Despairing of understanding your questioning thrust, they meander off and tell you all about their very own personal dietary approach.
It’s not that I’m not interested. Just that I only have three minutes to get the answers I’m paid for.
Several questions later we veer round the bend into the final lap. This is the heart of the survey. Does my respondent seriously think that free cooking courses might be a good idea, even though she has fifty years’ experience, has raised six children and 18 grandchildren and knows more about nutrition that any of us raised in the junk food era. It’s patronising. It’s also showing clearly that the question-mongers have not thought this through. In their single-pronged assault on the nutritionally ignorant, they just haven’t allowed for the range of knowledge and experience that actually resides in the population.
Many of my mature lady respondents brush off such disrespect with contempt. ‘Would you like information to be available about preparing low-cost healthy meals?’ I murmur in an even tone, hoping my words will be lost somewhere down the line and she will say ‘yes’ just to save time.
‘My dear, I brought up six children on war-time rations. I think I know as much about this as I’m ever going to learn’.
I’ve even been called ‘young lady’. Music to my ears now I am decidedly not.
They’re understanding though. Everyone knows that surveys are the new national service. No matter how trite, irritating and irrelevant the questions, you just smile inwardly, think of the nation and offer your response. It’s all for the highest social good and practically everyone now accepts that surveys are integral to how society works. We just have to keep on believing that they garner some vacuous, twilight truths about what people actually think.
I’m heading into the final straight now. The ubiquitous demographic details. Postcode so we can place you, age (so we can get a spread), ethnic group (and the glaring truth that a very large number of people deeply resent the moniker of White–British and insist on their Englishness). ‘Would be you be willing to participate in future surveys?’ Some do, ‘if you can catch me in’.
It’s all over, the boxes are checked, contact details recorded. They walk free (perhaps with a smug, virtuous feeling to help them through the day).
I’m on to the next Watt in the BT Phonebook. ‘Er, I’m calling on behalf of …’
Monday 23 November 2009
The Food Revolution Arrives On My Doorstep
It was a bad moment. The organic fruit and veg section in Canley Sainsbury’s had completely disappeared. So once I got my jaw back in place, I went to ask why.
I only use organic fresh produce you see. And I didn’t want to wade through the chemicalised veg to locate the cunningly concealed pesticide-free items. Life's too short. It was clearly over with Canley Sainsbury’s and time to get online.
Some rapid research revealed two options. River Nene, based near Peterborough, are more local but Wimbledon-based Abel & Cole held the trump card. You don’t need to order a standard veg box and risk getting veg you don’t want. Instead, you just pick out your chosen individual items from their well-stocked online shop. So long as the total reaches a minimum of £10 per delivery, you’re sorted.
The situation was critical so I mentally hurdled my remaining objections. You have to leave your credit card details so payments can be collected on delivery day. This has always made me uneasy but the need for a reliable organic veg supply overrode all doubts. The padlock at the top of my screen looked secure and I’d seen Abel & Cole vans delivering to some of the plushest addresses in Oxford. So I gathered my courage and pressed ‘Submit’.
Overnight, it seems, my life was transformed. No more humming and ha-ing, handling various sad-looking specimens in the highly controlled supermarket environment. No more rooting around to find the one organic bag of apples in a sea of bagged and unbagged varieties stretching into the far distance on the left hand side of aisle 2.
Instead you’ll find me at home, herbal tea to hand, browsing Abel & Cole’s extensive and accessible online shop. They don’t just sell fruit and veg by the way. The range of produce covers bread, dairy products, soya milks and drinks, household cleaning products, loo rolls and oh … 7 different varieties of squash (at the last count). I should also mention (vegetarians please look away now) that they also stock a lot of different sorts of meat.
Shopping online can, if you wish, be a more considered act. There are no people gabbling into their mobiles in the wine section and no trolley bumps sending you hurtling into the man repricing the reduced items. Nothing like. I merely take another sip of tea and turn my attention to researching the provenance of the items on the extensive shopping list hovering in my mind.
There is so much more information available than in your friendly, local retail monopoly. For instance, there’s a product description just in case you don’t know what Cavolo Nero is, and notes on the producer. Plus a small pic so you can see what to expect.
I need to complete my order by midnight on Wednesday for delivery on Friday. And as if by magic first thing every Friday my box appears. The delivery man doesn’t knock - that would be mighty uncivilised at that time in the morning. He just puts my box in a pre-arranged secret hiding place and pushes the receipt through the door. Sorted!
There has been the occasional hitch. Once my delivery didn’t arrive but it turned out it was all my fault. You have to follow the online order procedure right through to the bitter end, I learnt. And to be on the safe side, Abel & Cole send an email to confirm your order’s been received.
The anguish caused by my missed delivery brought out the best in them. Daniel (in Customer Services) was happy to write six paragraphs of email explaining what I’d done wrong and how to ensure my order goes through smoothly next time. In my experience, Abel & Cole always respond rapidly to queries – within 24 hours unless a weekend gets in the way.
Another downside is that organic veg goes off quicker. Did anybody tell you this at school? Don’t worry, it’s natural - it’s the way it’s meant to be. The only reason that six-month-old celery at the back of the fridge is still looking good is because it's preserved in a shield of petrochemical-derived rubbish.
It’s all a question of perspective. When I see the black marks appear on my sprouts it’s a kind of vindication. This is the real deal – the true seal of organic quality. You just have to love it.
Now, when I see my fridge bursting with veg in such a variety of colours, shapes and sizes, my heart gives an involuntary leap. All fresh and green and relatively clean. In fact the soil on the carrots is real enough and helps to keep them fresh.
And on my increasingly rare visits to Canley Sainsbury’s I glance pityingly at the lines of uniform, standard issue veg, waiting to be rescued from their supermarket hell. I wonder how long they’ve been sitting there, how long they spent in transit and if they even remember the soil and air of home.
Then I snap myself out if it and remember my Abel & Cole veg snug in my fridge back home. Vegetables with heart, to nourish instead of poisoning body and soul.
W: www.abelandcole.co.uk
E: organics@abelandcole.co.uk
T: 08452 62 63 64
Last word
Just to prove I can do deadlines although I've been 'off sick' this week and not up to much. I just wrote this and then redrafted and tightened it up but I wouldn't say there's any conscious structure in it. It could do with a quote or two and if I follow it up that could still happen but there hasn't been time and I'm just pleased to have written this relatively quickly.
I only use organic fresh produce you see. And I didn’t want to wade through the chemicalised veg to locate the cunningly concealed pesticide-free items. Life's too short. It was clearly over with Canley Sainsbury’s and time to get online.
Some rapid research revealed two options. River Nene, based near Peterborough, are more local but Wimbledon-based Abel & Cole held the trump card. You don’t need to order a standard veg box and risk getting veg you don’t want. Instead, you just pick out your chosen individual items from their well-stocked online shop. So long as the total reaches a minimum of £10 per delivery, you’re sorted.
The situation was critical so I mentally hurdled my remaining objections. You have to leave your credit card details so payments can be collected on delivery day. This has always made me uneasy but the need for a reliable organic veg supply overrode all doubts. The padlock at the top of my screen looked secure and I’d seen Abel & Cole vans delivering to some of the plushest addresses in Oxford. So I gathered my courage and pressed ‘Submit’.
Overnight, it seems, my life was transformed. No more humming and ha-ing, handling various sad-looking specimens in the highly controlled supermarket environment. No more rooting around to find the one organic bag of apples in a sea of bagged and unbagged varieties stretching into the far distance on the left hand side of aisle 2.
Instead you’ll find me at home, herbal tea to hand, browsing Abel & Cole’s extensive and accessible online shop. They don’t just sell fruit and veg by the way. The range of produce covers bread, dairy products, soya milks and drinks, household cleaning products, loo rolls and oh … 7 different varieties of squash (at the last count). I should also mention (vegetarians please look away now) that they also stock a lot of different sorts of meat.
Shopping online can, if you wish, be a more considered act. There are no people gabbling into their mobiles in the wine section and no trolley bumps sending you hurtling into the man repricing the reduced items. Nothing like. I merely take another sip of tea and turn my attention to researching the provenance of the items on the extensive shopping list hovering in my mind.
There is so much more information available than in your friendly, local retail monopoly. For instance, there’s a product description just in case you don’t know what Cavolo Nero is, and notes on the producer. Plus a small pic so you can see what to expect.
I need to complete my order by midnight on Wednesday for delivery on Friday. And as if by magic first thing every Friday my box appears. The delivery man doesn’t knock - that would be mighty uncivilised at that time in the morning. He just puts my box in a pre-arranged secret hiding place and pushes the receipt through the door. Sorted!
There has been the occasional hitch. Once my delivery didn’t arrive but it turned out it was all my fault. You have to follow the online order procedure right through to the bitter end, I learnt. And to be on the safe side, Abel & Cole send an email to confirm your order’s been received.
The anguish caused by my missed delivery brought out the best in them. Daniel (in Customer Services) was happy to write six paragraphs of email explaining what I’d done wrong and how to ensure my order goes through smoothly next time. In my experience, Abel & Cole always respond rapidly to queries – within 24 hours unless a weekend gets in the way.
Another downside is that organic veg goes off quicker. Did anybody tell you this at school? Don’t worry, it’s natural - it’s the way it’s meant to be. The only reason that six-month-old celery at the back of the fridge is still looking good is because it's preserved in a shield of petrochemical-derived rubbish.
It’s all a question of perspective. When I see the black marks appear on my sprouts it’s a kind of vindication. This is the real deal – the true seal of organic quality. You just have to love it.
Now, when I see my fridge bursting with veg in such a variety of colours, shapes and sizes, my heart gives an involuntary leap. All fresh and green and relatively clean. In fact the soil on the carrots is real enough and helps to keep them fresh.
And on my increasingly rare visits to Canley Sainsbury’s I glance pityingly at the lines of uniform, standard issue veg, waiting to be rescued from their supermarket hell. I wonder how long they’ve been sitting there, how long they spent in transit and if they even remember the soil and air of home.
Then I snap myself out if it and remember my Abel & Cole veg snug in my fridge back home. Vegetables with heart, to nourish instead of poisoning body and soul.
W: www.abelandcole.co.uk
E: organics@abelandcole.co.uk
T: 08452 62 63 64
Last word
Just to prove I can do deadlines although I've been 'off sick' this week and not up to much. I just wrote this and then redrafted and tightened it up but I wouldn't say there's any conscious structure in it. It could do with a quote or two and if I follow it up that could still happen but there hasn't been time and I'm just pleased to have written this relatively quickly.
Sunday 8 November 2009
Running all over the UK
Running was the last thing on Dorota’s mind when she arrived in England in 2008. But, as she tells Kathryn Karakaya, it didn’t take long to become addicted…
‘Run a half marathon? Me?!’
‘13 miles did you say? Without stopping?!’
‘Why? I wouldn’t even run for a bus…’
That’s what I imagine I’d be saying. The motivations for running a half marathon must be many and varied. But if I’m honest, I could never be bothered to think what they might be.
Until I met Dorota. The idea of running horrified her too at first. But her story shows that initial resistance doesn’t mean you won’t enjoy it once you start. And the glint in her eye whenever she talks about her running tells you how she feels about it now.
At the Cardiff Half Marathon in October she easily beat her personal best, finishing in exactly 2 hours, half an hour faster than her previous attempt. She credits this with having to start with runners slightly faster than her. It was a perfect day, a perfect finish and a new medal to cherish. Plus a new time to add to the chart on the kitchen wall.
‘I keep a chart of all my runs,’ says Dorota. ‘I write down how far I’ve run and my time so I can see how I’m improving’.
Her achievement is even more remarkable considering she didn’t start running until she arrived in England a year and a half ago. She had never had the desire to run in Poland but, missing her local gym and aerobics classes, she started to pound the pavements of Earlsdon just to keep fit. And she found it didn’t take long to become addicted.
So the chart went up, a new watch monitor went on and Dorota was running with a target in mind.
‘I read somewhere that you need two years’ training before you do a half marathon,’ she says. ‘But when I started running regularly, I felt it was possible to do it much sooner.’
So after just six months’ training, Dorota completed last year’s Kenilworth Half Marathon in 2 hours 28 minutes. It was time to move on to bigger and better venues and see a bit more of the UK too. She loved Cardiff’s city to docklands route and the thrill of running with 9,000 other people. Now she is looking forward to Edinburgh in the spring.
Like all serious runners, she has her superstitions. She wore her Kenilworth race shirt in Cardiff and is planning to wear her Cardiff shirt in Edinburgh next year. That way there is an incentive to step up each time – to a faster time and the next rung on the ladder of running achievement.
The ramifications of her success are starting to spread far and wide, even to family and friends back in Poland.
‘Nobody ran before, but since I started my friend has started running 6kms regularly and my brother and his girlfriend have also started’.
And, even better, her boss in Coventry is so impressed he’s pledged to sponsor her in Edinburgh.
It seems that so long as there is another running goal ahead, Dorota will be happy.
‘When I set a target I want to achieve it,’ she explains. ‘It was my target to complete a half marathon in 2 hours. Now I want to achieve 1 hour 50 minutes in Edinburgh!’
And with her chart to motivate her, two medals for inspiration and an indomitable spirit, it’s a target that doesn’t seem very far away.
‘Run a half marathon? Me?!’
‘13 miles did you say? Without stopping?!’
‘Why? I wouldn’t even run for a bus…’
That’s what I imagine I’d be saying. The motivations for running a half marathon must be many and varied. But if I’m honest, I could never be bothered to think what they might be.
Until I met Dorota. The idea of running horrified her too at first. But her story shows that initial resistance doesn’t mean you won’t enjoy it once you start. And the glint in her eye whenever she talks about her running tells you how she feels about it now.
At the Cardiff Half Marathon in October she easily beat her personal best, finishing in exactly 2 hours, half an hour faster than her previous attempt. She credits this with having to start with runners slightly faster than her. It was a perfect day, a perfect finish and a new medal to cherish. Plus a new time to add to the chart on the kitchen wall.
‘I keep a chart of all my runs,’ says Dorota. ‘I write down how far I’ve run and my time so I can see how I’m improving’.
Her achievement is even more remarkable considering she didn’t start running until she arrived in England a year and a half ago. She had never had the desire to run in Poland but, missing her local gym and aerobics classes, she started to pound the pavements of Earlsdon just to keep fit. And she found it didn’t take long to become addicted.
So the chart went up, a new watch monitor went on and Dorota was running with a target in mind.
‘I read somewhere that you need two years’ training before you do a half marathon,’ she says. ‘But when I started running regularly, I felt it was possible to do it much sooner.’
So after just six months’ training, Dorota completed last year’s Kenilworth Half Marathon in 2 hours 28 minutes. It was time to move on to bigger and better venues and see a bit more of the UK too. She loved Cardiff’s city to docklands route and the thrill of running with 9,000 other people. Now she is looking forward to Edinburgh in the spring.
Like all serious runners, she has her superstitions. She wore her Kenilworth race shirt in Cardiff and is planning to wear her Cardiff shirt in Edinburgh next year. That way there is an incentive to step up each time – to a faster time and the next rung on the ladder of running achievement.
The ramifications of her success are starting to spread far and wide, even to family and friends back in Poland.
‘Nobody ran before, but since I started my friend has started running 6kms regularly and my brother and his girlfriend have also started’.
And, even better, her boss in Coventry is so impressed he’s pledged to sponsor her in Edinburgh.
It seems that so long as there is another running goal ahead, Dorota will be happy.
‘When I set a target I want to achieve it,’ she explains. ‘It was my target to complete a half marathon in 2 hours. Now I want to achieve 1 hour 50 minutes in Edinburgh!’
And with her chart to motivate her, two medals for inspiration and an indomitable spirit, it’s a target that doesn’t seem very far away.
It worked!
The Morning Pages worked! Except it was midnight. But two pages of free flow into my notebook gave me enough inspiration to decide how I might fashion an article from my notes. It's still 'work in progress' but at least it got me out of the writer's block that had come on me as soon as the interview ended!
Article to follow.
Article to follow.
Thursday 5 November 2009
The Empty Page
As a personal retort to the very public experience of the web, I ‘blog’ in a handwritten sort of way into a notebook, as recommended by Julia Cameron of ‘The Artist’s Way’ fame.
Does anyone remember this book? First published in the early 1990s, it became a bestseller, the heart of many a radical creative writing class, and a call to creative people of all genres to get in touch with the muse within.
For me, it became a fetishistic symbol. I’d see it looking inspiring on the corner of my bookcase and take heart from its mere presence amongst my personal belongings. But times were unsettled with many vagaries and pulls on my attention, and I never opened it except to savour the odd paragraph or two in the hot and steamy inspiration chamber otherwise known as my bathroom.
This blogging business inspired me to dig it out again and start reading in earnest. Julia’s advice is to unblock the creative channel and encourage the flow by scribbling first thing. We should sit at our technology-free desks in the time-honoured way and scribble three pages of ‘flow’ unhampered by left brain analysis and other self-imposed constraints. These are the fabled ‘Morning Pages’ and they can set you free.
The idea is to ramble, absolutely without restraint. Get it all on the page and free up your mind for all the clear and sequential thoughts that will flood in later. Petty irritations, rabid rants, family arguments, all can land on the Pages. You can write without excuse or apology cause only you will ever read it.
Theory has it that this lifting of the lid on all the rubbish floating around in our subconscious minds will liberate our creative juices, moisten the seed of our intent and enable the issue of something of writerly value in the day ahead.
I love this idea. And I love to write in a free and spontaneous way just letting the streams of (un)consciousness fall onto the page. What I like most is the absence of any apparent link between my brain (aka conscious thought) and the words that unravel onto the page. It’s as if the act of writing is a direct link between my unconscious and the entirely left brain world of sentence structure and subjunctive clauses. It always feels good and sometimes, as an added bonus, it makes sense.
But if flow is not to peter out to an unenterprising trickle there has to be a schedule propping up the creative act. Morning pages are fun for a one-off but it’s only when you commit on a daily basis that changes happen (allegedly). There’s writer’s block for a start. Nothing to say and your mind’s an empty space? No problem … just keep writing.
In my admittedly limited experience the words do flow, so long as you are not thinking too much about them. So you write your way through your block to the clarity that lies beyond.
And when you have finished, you throw it all away and start over.
Does anyone remember this book? First published in the early 1990s, it became a bestseller, the heart of many a radical creative writing class, and a call to creative people of all genres to get in touch with the muse within.
For me, it became a fetishistic symbol. I’d see it looking inspiring on the corner of my bookcase and take heart from its mere presence amongst my personal belongings. But times were unsettled with many vagaries and pulls on my attention, and I never opened it except to savour the odd paragraph or two in the hot and steamy inspiration chamber otherwise known as my bathroom.
This blogging business inspired me to dig it out again and start reading in earnest. Julia’s advice is to unblock the creative channel and encourage the flow by scribbling first thing. We should sit at our technology-free desks in the time-honoured way and scribble three pages of ‘flow’ unhampered by left brain analysis and other self-imposed constraints. These are the fabled ‘Morning Pages’ and they can set you free.
The idea is to ramble, absolutely without restraint. Get it all on the page and free up your mind for all the clear and sequential thoughts that will flood in later. Petty irritations, rabid rants, family arguments, all can land on the Pages. You can write without excuse or apology cause only you will ever read it.
Theory has it that this lifting of the lid on all the rubbish floating around in our subconscious minds will liberate our creative juices, moisten the seed of our intent and enable the issue of something of writerly value in the day ahead.
I love this idea. And I love to write in a free and spontaneous way just letting the streams of (un)consciousness fall onto the page. What I like most is the absence of any apparent link between my brain (aka conscious thought) and the words that unravel onto the page. It’s as if the act of writing is a direct link between my unconscious and the entirely left brain world of sentence structure and subjunctive clauses. It always feels good and sometimes, as an added bonus, it makes sense.
But if flow is not to peter out to an unenterprising trickle there has to be a schedule propping up the creative act. Morning pages are fun for a one-off but it’s only when you commit on a daily basis that changes happen (allegedly). There’s writer’s block for a start. Nothing to say and your mind’s an empty space? No problem … just keep writing.
In my admittedly limited experience the words do flow, so long as you are not thinking too much about them. So you write your way through your block to the clarity that lies beyond.
And when you have finished, you throw it all away and start over.
Monday 26 October 2009
Yes, I know it's too long ...
Somehow peace, reconciliation and Coventry have never sat easily together in my mind. It’s not that I’ve noticed more unrest here than in other cities, just that I haven’t noticed much harmony either.
But appearances can be deceptive. In fact the city’s face was mutilated beyond recognition when a war-time air attack destroyed more than 4,000 homes, countless factories and the iconic St Michael’s Cathedral on November 14th 1940, reducing Coventry city centre to rubble.
And ever since the Luftwaffe’s destruction of the Cathedral that night, Coventry has been quietly focused on the path of peace. Now the Peace & Reconciliation Gallery, part of the impressively revamped Herbert Museum, asks us the big question. Is forgiveness really possible after such an overwhelming atrocity?
The exhibition is built around a few poignant objects juxtaposed with spoken and written witness accounts. The handwritten diary entries of the Cathedral Provost, scribbled down immediately after the bombing, can be read and handled. His mellow prose gives an insight into the stoic reaction to destruction, not to mention ironic humour at the ‘excessiveness’ of the Daily Express’s reporting. (They claimed that the Provost himself had helped to put out 30 incendiary bombs).
Then you spin round and see a German military map of Coventry highlighting the places to be taken out in red.
A recording of Provost Howard’s speech on Christmas Day 1940 loops, urging the people of Coventry ‘hard as it may be, to banish all thoughts of revenge.’ His words led to the setting up of an international ministry of reconciliation at the Cathedral which gradually and arduously transformed itself into a site of peace. Connections were made with other ruined cities across Europe. The shell of the ruined Cathedral still stands as a perpetual reminder and inspiration to visitors: a space where forgiveness can be renewed time and time again.
Linking the objects and words are the personal stories of Coventry people who survived the attack. It was 11 hours until the all clear sounded, with no way of knowing what had happened to loved ones, homes and neighbourhoods. Snapshot accounts of survivors, spoken voice and on the page, vividly capture what it was like to live through that night.
The exhibition is fully interactive. It continually nudges us with the question of forgiveness versus revenge and then asks us to make up our minds whether the Provost was right.
We all know the answer. Seventy years on, the message of forgiveness is still rippling out from the ruined shell of St Michael’s Cathedral into the wider world. It’s a solid symbol of both atrocity and the well of forgiveness that must spring from it, encouraging us to value understanding and tolerance and share our horror of the impact of violent acts of war.
But appearances can be deceptive. In fact the city’s face was mutilated beyond recognition when a war-time air attack destroyed more than 4,000 homes, countless factories and the iconic St Michael’s Cathedral on November 14th 1940, reducing Coventry city centre to rubble.
And ever since the Luftwaffe’s destruction of the Cathedral that night, Coventry has been quietly focused on the path of peace. Now the Peace & Reconciliation Gallery, part of the impressively revamped Herbert Museum, asks us the big question. Is forgiveness really possible after such an overwhelming atrocity?
The exhibition is built around a few poignant objects juxtaposed with spoken and written witness accounts. The handwritten diary entries of the Cathedral Provost, scribbled down immediately after the bombing, can be read and handled. His mellow prose gives an insight into the stoic reaction to destruction, not to mention ironic humour at the ‘excessiveness’ of the Daily Express’s reporting. (They claimed that the Provost himself had helped to put out 30 incendiary bombs).
Then you spin round and see a German military map of Coventry highlighting the places to be taken out in red.
A recording of Provost Howard’s speech on Christmas Day 1940 loops, urging the people of Coventry ‘hard as it may be, to banish all thoughts of revenge.’ His words led to the setting up of an international ministry of reconciliation at the Cathedral which gradually and arduously transformed itself into a site of peace. Connections were made with other ruined cities across Europe. The shell of the ruined Cathedral still stands as a perpetual reminder and inspiration to visitors: a space where forgiveness can be renewed time and time again.
Linking the objects and words are the personal stories of Coventry people who survived the attack. It was 11 hours until the all clear sounded, with no way of knowing what had happened to loved ones, homes and neighbourhoods. Snapshot accounts of survivors, spoken voice and on the page, vividly capture what it was like to live through that night.
The exhibition is fully interactive. It continually nudges us with the question of forgiveness versus revenge and then asks us to make up our minds whether the Provost was right.
We all know the answer. Seventy years on, the message of forgiveness is still rippling out from the ruined shell of St Michael’s Cathedral into the wider world. It’s a solid symbol of both atrocity and the well of forgiveness that must spring from it, encouraging us to value understanding and tolerance and share our horror of the impact of violent acts of war.
Wednesday 21 October 2009
In the alembic
My new blog is out there today. Designed for astrologers but as jargon-free as I can make it. It could be a commentary on the astrological backdrop to our changing times. It could be other things as well and that sounds just fine. A blog evolves through time and experience and this one isn't starting off with a full-blown mission statement.
Later on there may be more about ascension and an astrological route map through the ascension process ahead of 2012.
Lost you? Yes, it's not just the London-bound Olympics that will burst through into mass consciousness in this notable year. Uranus in Aries squares Pluto and we will be facing more hair-tearing social and economic challenges than transporting contestants and spectators round the marshlands.
The process of ascension is only well-known within so-called 'new age' circles but I hope through this blog to join up some of the dots and show how small and positive changes within our lives and attitudes are being driven by much more fundamental energetic changes within our universe.
(Scratch that - too much like a mission statement - Ed.)
Later on there may be more about ascension and an astrological route map through the ascension process ahead of 2012.
Lost you? Yes, it's not just the London-bound Olympics that will burst through into mass consciousness in this notable year. Uranus in Aries squares Pluto and we will be facing more hair-tearing social and economic challenges than transporting contestants and spectators round the marshlands.
The process of ascension is only well-known within so-called 'new age' circles but I hope through this blog to join up some of the dots and show how small and positive changes within our lives and attitudes are being driven by much more fundamental energetic changes within our universe.
(Scratch that - too much like a mission statement - Ed.)
Tuesday 20 October 2009
blogging it
Blogs are our new store fronts (see Karen Bishop if you're wondering - she can expand on this jargon).
So while I'm sifting through my passions en route to discovering my heart's desire blog thread, I'll be keeping this random blog space updated with my process and meandering train of thought. Possibly.
So many passions and not enough writing time. It needs to be something personal but not private and something that matters but not too much. Cutting edge but not so sharp that someone decides to uncover my (admittedly uncertain) identity and sue me.
So while I'm sifting through my passions en route to discovering my heart's desire blog thread, I'll be keeping this random blog space updated with my process and meandering train of thought. Possibly.
So many passions and not enough writing time. It needs to be something personal but not private and something that matters but not too much. Cutting edge but not so sharp that someone decides to uncover my (admittedly uncertain) identity and sue me.
Tuesday 6 October 2009
ephemera wonderwall
Looking at all the magazines arrayed wall to wall, floor to ceiling, lining the newsagent's copious shelves, I'm overcome with the trivial sensation that I don't want to read, browse, or even look at, ANY of this stuff.
Cover lines and pics jump out and biff you between the eyes, shouting %$£*& - all wrapped up the same. Looking at 'em is just a deja vu - last week's output ... twisted, regurgitated.
Is there anyone out there in the land of publishing looking, feeling or acting DIFFERENTLY today? Pushing a few buttons maybe, expanding a few horizons or just giving the reader what they DON'T want? Just for an experiment you understand.
Is there anyone who's stepped out of the zeitgeist, albeit temporarily, and seen the future?
If it's the stuff lining my newsagent's shelves, it's just history.
Cover lines and pics jump out and biff you between the eyes, shouting %$£*& - all wrapped up the same. Looking at 'em is just a deja vu - last week's output ... twisted, regurgitated.
Is there anyone out there in the land of publishing looking, feeling or acting DIFFERENTLY today? Pushing a few buttons maybe, expanding a few horizons or just giving the reader what they DON'T want? Just for an experiment you understand.
Is there anyone who's stepped out of the zeitgeist, albeit temporarily, and seen the future?
If it's the stuff lining my newsagent's shelves, it's just history.
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