Even He Gets Blanked Sometimes...

Nice post from my big brother Seth Godin, on being unintentionally snubbed by David Byrne from Talking Heads, and a response full of equanimity, largely unwarranted after that dancing when he moved his shoulders in a really odd fashion.

One of Our Boys Is Missing - Chapter 3, The Civvy in the Bivvy: Part 2

Charlie 'Terminal' Moraine is a former special forces soldier who served in the legendary (especially since it's now defunct, along with most of the legendary British Army regiments) 53 Assault Reconnaisance Squadron in some of the world's hot spots (well they were hotspots if you were a special forces operative anyway) including Northern Ireland, Oman, Columbia at the height of the drugs war, and Chelmsley Wood in the West Midlands. The Puumaja Crew is proud to present, in serial form, his new book, 'One Of Our Boys Is Missing', covering his life story and over 20 years in the front line of one of the deadliest units since the Ottoman Janissaries.

a recap from the end of the last part, our anti-hero has just passed out, and then, terrible news about one of his birds gives keeps us on course for the two to three tragedies per chapter quota.

Then I saw it...a local newspaper hoarding, the words seemed to scream at me 'Decapitation of Tragic Natalie: Pictures'. I knew it was going to be her even before I read the article; it turned out she'd been sucked into one of those giant hairdrying machines they used to have in hairdressers, whilst she was getting ready to come to the parade. Apparently her last word was 'Char...'. I just ran and ran in the pouring rain, not knowing where to go, until my feet literally dropped off.

      .                 .                         .                         .                        .                      .                    .                   

The situation in northern Ireland had been ever-present in the background when I was growing up. We had colour TV by the time the troubles started, so it was with this televisual wallpaper that we’d go about our daily business, eating breakfast, making packed lunch for school, doing homework, whilst the violence escalated. What had begun as a simple protest against British rule in the province grew very quickly into total war.

By the time I was a squaddie in the Calthrops we were into the era of carpet bombing, napalm and agent orange, mass global outrage and marches on the streets of major cities the world over. Catholic priests were committing self-immolation in protest against the regime, and the British Government was keen to spread the war further into the Republic of Ireland, or even further afield into Scotland, citing rebel activities there as their justification. British Army units tended to work on a rotational basis to give everyone a crack at 'em, and in June 1977 it was our turn. To me 'the province' had never been anything more than a far away country about which I knew nothing, and hadn't ever impinged on my life in any way. True, one of my grandparents had come from Ireland, but to my mind that hardly counted. I mean come on, imagine somenody English, maybe a sports person or something, claiming some sort of link with Ireland purely on the basis that their grandparents hailed from there. 

The first impression I got of Ireland was not that which was often portrayed by those most qualified to speak about Ireland, the English middle-classes, especially if they've never been near the place. I found that the stereotype we'd been fed, a barren, treeless land of awe-inspiring, ice-capped mountain ranges, glaciers, volcanoes and geysers, lonely farmsteads and fishing trawlers, was false. In fact it struck me, as I gazed out of the window of the C130 Hercules as we flew in, how similar it looked to my native Warwickshire. Then I realized it was my native Warwickshire - I'd been asleep, and losing all track of time, didn't know that the plane had just been circling for a few minutes following our takeoff from Brize Norton. Nevertheless, the real thing did indeed seem more familiar than expected, and as we looked out at the brooding Clannaghy Hills, there was one thought on our minds . Unfortunately as we were going to be patrolling in a Catholic area, that was all it was going to be, a thought, and we were going to have to put it to one side. I could fully understand why the people hated us there. I'd been pushed around myself in the past and I didn't like it much either. It was a no-win situation for us, and I came to feel that everyone was the victim of history, like some kind of mad game of musical chairs down the ages, with the music stopping in June 1977 with muggins here without a chair

A Welsh Guardsman returning from his tour as we were embarking on ours advised me that northern Ireland was 'a piece of cake mate. A piece of cake filled with broken glass and sulphuric acid, but cake nonetheless'. Our lack of experience – hell we were only just out of Thrushingfold – hardly counted in our favour. We were all so young as well. In world war two the average age of the combat soldier had apparently been somewhere in the mid twenties, but in northern Ireland he was twenty one. We were stationed in a maximum security base in South Armagh, an area known as bandit country owing to its proximity to the border with the Irish Republic, making it an area where the IRA was very active, and also due to the fact that many IRA members (known as 'players' in our parlance) were easily recognisable from the big sombreros, ponchos and drooping moustaches they sported.

Patrols were the bread and butter of life in the province. There was no getting away from them, particularly for the ordinary people who lived there, out and about on their everyday business, who had no connection with terrorism. It was always with a heavy heart that you had to step up to the next car at a VCP, not knowing who was going to be inside it or whether you were going to be greeted by the rattle of the Thomson gun. I felt like a chicken without doubt feels when it is about to be slaughtered.

Some of the local farmers were a laugh. They had been living with the troubles for some time now, and tried to go about their lives notwithstanding the unwanted attention from ourselves and the paramilitaries. Unless you've tried to build a house of cards on the deck of a yawing ship in a force sixer, you can't really understand the difficulty. Often the farmers' barns would be used by the players to store weapons, sometimes knowingly, usually not, and that was a job in itself, checking under the hay (not like in the films, with our bayonets) looking under any suspicious trapdoors for hidden weapons caches, some of which might have been there for decades.

It was also important to respect local people’s religion when carrying out these checks. We’d always offer rice or some sweets to the ubiquitous Buddha effigy that adorned seemingly every building we ever came across, and we’d take care not to drag our feet or trip over as we stepped through doorways (which, instead of being flush against the floor, had a small raised piece of wood along the bottom, ostensibly to keep out evil spirits). We were far from home. This, and also the sheer scale of what we were up against was brought home to me in one of the most horrific incidents I’ve ever experienced on active service, and I’m speaking as a man who’s seen someone fully defrangulated on a strat, whilst still breathing... 

To be furthered, or perhaps not..

 

Oh, the previous part is here.

On This Day 350 Years Ago...

28th April 1660

This morning sending a packet by Mr. Dunne to London. In the afternoon I played at ninepins with Mr Pickering, I and Mr Pett against him and Ted Osgood, and won a crown apiece of him. He had not money enough to pay me. After supper my Lord (Montague, Earl of Sandwich -ed.) exceeding merry, and he and I and W. Howe to sing, and so to bed.

...much the same as our day at the PMC really; minus the playing ninepins on a packet ship..or the gambling...or the making merry or the singing.

Don't You Dare Call Me Crap

Here's a good way to make a living of sorts; go round being  absolutely pants at something and then seek damages from anyone who points out that fact. Still, you need to be doing something which can be easily quantified; not sure it applies to the blogsphere.

The PMC Gets Its First Ever Complaint!

A reader who simply goes by the name of Mrs S., writes to us:

"I have taken the opportunity to view your blog, and can I just say that it is the most bizarre, hideous, ineptly written, ill conceived, poorly thought out, smug, obnoxious and mean spirited load of utter tosh that has ever offended my computer screen. You obviously have nothing better to do with your time than tapping out this utter sputum in the vain hope that someone will read it; and then what? Sleep with you? Offer you a publishing deal?
For the love of God, what you're doing is really quite baffling, and I only hope that you don't do any damage to anyone other than yourself.
I note that you are a former ESL teacher, so you could still have been imposing your version of the English language on fare paying customers, so things could have been worse. Marginally.
My children are aged 9 and 14 respectively and they can come up with better than this for their homework assignments when they've got the flu and the new series of 24 is on.
I showed this to my husband and he agreed. He actually would like to meet you for a fight! Are you up for it? He is ex paras so I would advise you to just walk away, walk away from that and from this half arsed repository of egregious dross - they used to rack people for less than this in earlier times.
Take a look at the blogs out there, and compare them with yours; I fail to see how you're contributing to anything of substance and am in fact raising it at the next Conservative committee meeting, with a view to bringing it to the attention of our local sitting MP (who was a Major in the SBS) so that he can get a private member's bill to amend the law to stop small, anaemic little weeds like you from offending right thinking, decent and proper people or wasting any more of anybody's time.
I can only hope and pray that you finally see your errors for what they are and do the honourable thing and commit cyber sepuku and take your grimy 'blog' with you"

Oh well, our critics are less kind then, eh?

A Kind of Press Freedom

I quite liked this story about a UK foreign office official paper which made a mockery of the Pope's forthcoming visit to the country, not because of the sentiment, which is offensive even to a non-catholic, catechumenate orthodox like myself (at least if you're gonna have a religious dig, make it witty, this was pathetic stuff).
No, what encourages me is the sheer and utter (is that an acceptable combination of adjectives?) ineptitude and incomptence of the department; makes me feel much better about the odd email that slips out pre-spell checker or without capitals in the right places.
 But this wasn't just an email, or someone filmed on a mobile down the pub, this was an OFFICIAL foreign office document. How the hell (pun not really intentional) did that happen, the document must have been printed, proofread by somebody, and put out there, wherever there is (actually looks like it was leaked to a broadsheet) before anyone twigged. Questions have to be asked - I guess it shows that the F.O. publications rival the PMC in terms of readership numbers.
Apparently the person responsible has been 'assigned to other duties'; I hope these are duties befitting the audacious success of what they did, maybe editor of the Catholic Herald would be a good start.

How to Manage Time the Patriotic Way

Canfield, Proctor, Nightingale, Zagler, Hill, Robbins, Tracy, Aaron... step aside please..there's a new success guru in town! Walt Gleeson is a highly successful, internationally renowned author of motivational books and CDs and other products. With a career spanning over half a decade, he has enthralled readers all over the world, from Alaska to Florida and from Hawaii to Rhode Island, with such titles as You Can Do It!, You Can Do It! Too, Literally Make Your House Work For You and Become a Billionaire Whilst On The Toilet, Walt is the Puumaja Crew's personal realization and fulfilment coach, whatever that is.   Today, Walt helps us truly understand the truth behind time management and spreads a little of his South Dakota charm along the way.

Some days ago one of the so-called contributors to this blog posted with his half baked ideas on time management.
He didn't even think to consult me, Walt Gleeson, on a subject which is so close to my heart (and therefore wallet).
I don't know this contributor but I can guess what he's like, so dope smoking, militant, activist, draft dodging limey greenhorn bum, no doubt, and I urge the PMC's good readership, both of them, to avoid what was written like the plague.
Since I didn't get to contribute to the movie 'how to do it', and it's accompanying boardgame, I think my cellphone must have been switched off or on silent when the call probably came through, and then probably deleted itself, I'll set the record straight and then you can waste no more time on this neo-liberal, pinko garbage and get on with getting rich:
Time CAN be managed, just ask anybody from Germany, a country in Eurasia which was one of the great post war economic success stories and, whilst no way as good as the US, was pretty god damned good, admittedly by odious, yellow-bellied european standards.
It simply has to be broken into units, and then smashed into smaller and yet smaller units until they're so small you could use them to season your corn grits in the morning, that's all. None of this ABCED listing baloney, or something about eating a raw crayfish for lunch, just straight, honest to goodness pragmatism and knuckle-headed guts.
Now, get outta here and get on with your day, 'cos if you don't, you're gonna be mighty sorry you didn't when the other fella gets in ahead of you, like he did me the other day, thanks to my phone being off.

Thought For the Day No. 14 - With His Eminence Sethie Godiney

"Just because you have someone's email address doesn't mean you have the right to email them".

Seth Godin

Don't Know Who is Laughing More Right Now, People in Iceland or People in Southampton

We at the PMC are reassured to find that when football clubs go down financially they really go down...
...if we were administering Portsmouth F.C. we'd look at addressing the most important debts first and worry about the rest after the FA Cup victory. First up would undoubtedly be the 40 quid owed to Pukka pies, though that might just be as an incentive never have cat food (or cat meat) wrapped in crap pastry ever foisted on us again. Trent potteries can probably wait, as can the scouts though the intriguing 626 quid claimed by the Ministry of Defence might merit some attention.
Football agents, being the utter effluvium of human existence, can whistle for it.
There, that initial consultation from the John Harvey Jones of the PMC can be for free though the hourly rate (which isn't going to break the bank any more than it already has been) might have to kick in thereafter .

Thought For the Day No. 13 - With the Rabbi Anders Weiss

.religious leader, psychologist, spiritual guru and arbiter of good taste..

 "Here on earth, there is no peace, nor should there be. Life is striving toward an unobtainable goal, and as such, there can be no peace or pause".

L. Tolstoy (again)

Buying a House - Seth's Blog

A long post from my big brother Seth Godin on home ownership in the US (see, he's a real estate expert as well!) which is well worth checking out...

My response to it would be: he's got the nail on the head with the idea that buying a house is a decision which tends to be accompanied by much more emotion and other trappings than any other purchase, this is how it can sometimes go awry. But I'd seek to get away from the emphasis on capital gains, something that seemed to have the UK in a fever-like grip when I was living there ('you bought at the right time'...oh yeah? How do you know?).

As he indicates there are different types of people and if you're a play-it-safe employee then a mortgage presumably goes with the territory (it did when I was anyway); however, if you're a freelancer, entrepreneur or investor without a guaranteed income, it's much riskier (the banks know this all too well I expect). Lose your job and there are all sorts of checks and balances in place (like getting another job in the same field) which can mean that foreclsoure's far from inevitable. If you don't have a job in the first place you don't have that luxury.

One possibility is to consider renting; It ain't necessarily throwing away good money after bad; depending on the downpayment you make and the nature of your mortgage it can potentially be cheaper month on month than buying these days with a lot of legislation aimed at protecting the tenant (notably in the UK as another PMC contributor has been finding out) and managing agents if things do go wrong. There's that old paradox, the monthly payments for buying can be less than renting (though I guess that's all changed now) and yet you can afford to rent somewhere that is nicer than you can afford to buy...if you want quality of life then why stake everything on somewhere that's not as nice?

Doesn't mean you shouldn't have a mortgage, but the mortgage should be on something that is a real asset, ie something that generates some sort of income, however small. Unless you wanna take on a lodger, it means buying to let of course.

B2L investors are well known for paying less for a property than many homeowners (perhaps 'cos it's not an emotional decision for them) so your mortgage may end up being smaller for a comparable property, if you're patient.

But in any case, don't bank on capital appreciation, that's called gambling, and if you do make anything on a sale, treat it as the icing on the proverbial cake.

So there you have it, rent your own home and have a mortgage on an investment property...not quite was Seth was saying but we both agree that property ownership ain't a bad thing..


Disclaimer: the PMC knows nothing at all about real estate investing and was merely thinking out loud with this piece. 

Time Management Suggestions, Just Suggestions

This might be of use to some and not to others, and nothing original but I expect anyone still reading might find some benefit, even if it is teaching their proverbial grandmother to suck eggs.

First off, time cannot really be managed. We all have 24 hours in a day, that's the great leveller, and noone is treated unfairly here. Only activities can be managed. So far so good but that's not much consolation if you are so overloaded you spent most of the time with a perpetual throbbing headache and feel crushed with the weight of it.

One good method is the ABCDE method: A stands for tasks which have to be done. Using the pareto principle, these should make up about 20 per cent of the total (so resist the temptation to make everything an A task, or if you have a manager who'll try to intimidate you into thinking everything is an A task, quit your job and do something else). In other words, if you get those two done, then that's the bulk of it already in the bag no matter what else happens. A novel twist on that is the 'eat that frog' approach. This holds that, if first thing in the morning, the first thing you had to do was eat a slimy, live frog, in all likelihood that's going to be the worst that's gonna happen to you on an average day. That said, sitting and looking at it all day isn't gonna make the task any easier, and so best get it out of the way in one gulp. You can do this with your worst task. Instead of, like Ben Elton's farties, you let it build itself up into a nightmare of such epic proportions that you in fact never do it. Then it's not so much a frog as a rottweiler which comes and bites you on the arse. So just make the biggest, nastiest task your 'frog' for the day and eat it before you do anything else.

B tasks are the things that need doing but which aren't gonna have any major consequences (ie you're not going to get into trouble for not doing them nor are you going to set the world aflame in doing them). They should be done, but NEVER before an A task.

Then there come the C tasks. These are the really tossy things that are nice to do but really have no benefit. There are as many of these as there are people, I should imagine, but common ones include chatting to friends, playing Civilization (or Medieval Total War in my case) non-stop for about eleven hours, Facebook (of course - in fact that debases 'C' tasks to mention it) and, dare I say it, sometimes even going to the pub.
Anything that's left over (which will usually be buggerall) should be devoted to these.

D stands for delegate, something that very few people do well since many people seem to think they have noone to delegate to. Not so. Anything you can't do, or can't do well, get someone else to do it. I don't pull my own teeth out or write novels, and the same goes for little things too. If you can get someone to photocopy something for you, print off a map, cook, do practically anything for you, then take it (as every husband knows). Even in obtaining the know-how to do something - people usually love to show off their knowledge too and often without realizing it, the time will come when you'll be doing the same.

Finally 'E' = Eliminate (yes, Facebook here actually!) .. worthless tasks go in here. Not sure if they warrant the dignitiy of being listed and yet they might need to in the beginning since there are often so many of them. It's great to be able to tick off things you've done today by simply not doing anything


A major time waster for many of us is dealing with bits of paper, especially if you live somewhere like the Baltic States (printed out receipt stapled to card with till receipt for a computer mouse, anyone?) and by extension emails, in which case the TRAF formula may work. Trash (ie throw away), Refer (to someone else) Action (ie pay the bill now, not cos the buggers deserve paying but just to save your own time which is far more precious; either that or just don't pay it) - this is where the frog eating comes in again. File (but only in the very last resort - avoiding the colonic irrigation that is going through your files and chucking most of it out once a year (only to inadvertently throw out something really important)). Sometimes you find yourself having to be ruthless and a little bit bold in what you're gonna throw out (I guess, I don't actually do any of this!) but it could be worth it for your own sanity and sense of control (again, I surmise).

In a nutshell, self-discipline needn't mean wearing a hair shirt and flagellating oneself into the small hours, just a little bit of planning and sticking to the task can pay itself back many times over, even if, in being self-disciplined, you feel bad about making all the un-self-disciplined people feel bad about themselves!

There you go, there are smooth talking north americans in expensive suits / tans who'd charge you thousands of dollars just to essentially spin that info out for an hour

What Would Happen if Someone I Didn't Know Actually Ever Read This?

A question that's often popped up and then been dismissed on the grounds that, with more blogs in the world than there are people it's unlikely to happen. But supposing it did, that one little post I'd knocked off at breakfast time might be the one chance the PMC is gonna get to make any kind of impression.

This is something my big brother Seth Godin has already posted about, and he's even seen strangers looking at his blog in a cafe, oblivious to the fact that the blog's author was sitting but metres away from them. How cool is that?! Maybe one day it'll happen to us at the PMC (if we can sneak in and type in the URL on someone's laptop whilst they're distracted).

Saving Needn't Mean 'a V sign'

 There was a time when 'saving' for me really did equate to the above anagram, something so unspeakably dull and depressing that piggy banks existed purely to get smashed open.

I now realise that my former disdain for saving, whilst largely misplaced, was not entirely so, though for very different reasons than the rather short sighted examples given above.

Conventional wisdom (ever read one of the Alvin Hall books? Now he is conventional) had it that you saved 10 per cent of your income, regardless of what that was, presumably on the grounds that this was do-able for even the most weekend-oriented of people and, in due course would result in a nice little nest egg instead of  an unmarked plot on the edge of town.

Still, not very exciting. And it overlooks the fact that you can get taxed on savings. Furthermore, the continual erosion of the value of all the currencies is such that in real terms your savings can often be dwindling faster than you'er accruing them; that's before we even get on to pensions, which are often linked to the stock market, which we're advised always goes up, but in fact has an annoying habit of coming down at inopportune times. Since putting money on the likelihood of something improving over time is really gambling, you might be better off doing just that on a regular basis, it'd be more enjoyable anyway.

The best approach to this rather demoralising subject I've come across is this: get yourself not one, but rather three piggy banks (literally if you wish). One of them can be marked 'savings'. After all, it's no bad thing to have a little tucked away for a rainy day, something you can get your hands on quickly if need be.

Number two piggy bank is for 'tithing' in other words, giving to charity. If you're of a religious bent that could be through the organised religion you subscribe to; indeed alms-giving, zakat, is I understand one of the five pillars of Islam. If you're not, just give to a charity of your choice. I don't believe that there are many people out there who genuinely believe supporting a charity, provided it's done quietly without too much fanfare, and there may be some instant karmic benefits of forgoing a good chunk of your money.

Then the third one is for investing. Investing in something is where the fun really starts. Not for capital gains, that's gambling as already noted. But for income. Put some money in an investment trust for example, you should get some dividends on a regular basis (not a lot though). This is where you actually start to make money rather than share it or let it lie dormant.

Real estate is a big one for a lot of people and yet there are so many amateurs out there, I should know, I've been one until recently. But if you pay attention to your portfolio and live somewhere where you can have control over the properties (i.e. not in another country where you have to give fifteen per cent of the takings to an agent before anything even happens, then it's sixty quid every time a light bulb needs changing); even if you're not a DIY person (I'm not) you may know someone who knows someone who is...

Setting up a business is often seen as the only way to riches, at least by those that have successfully done it, but again that's not for everyone, the hard work, frustration, fact that nine out of ten businesses fail in the first five years apparently (so just set up ten businesses!). Buying a business that's already established at least takes away some of that effort and you can see from the recrods what's been going on there.

These last three are all for income, not capital gains but if you really share the contemporary obsession for the latter, why not go for silver; although its price can be quite volatile, it may continue to rise (for example it was 12 USD and ounce a year ago, and these days is fluttering around the 17-19 USD mark) whereas gold, as well as being much more expensive, is currently disproportionately high compared with silver, historically speaking (about 64:1 compared with the historical average of 47:1). In fact the PMC posted at length about this some months ago, so we ought to preach at the level at which we practice here!

Finally, how much do you put in? Many people are going to grate at giving ten per cent of their money to someone else (in the case of tithing) and even for saving and investing. The answer is to start small. You don't have to set aside fifty per cent of you take home pay and never go out again. You could start off with just one kroon, dollar, pound etc a day, or even less if you want, most people could probably manage that. What may happen over time is that it becomes habit forming, and that small amount per day gets bigger and bigger, in each of the three piggy banks, and, hey presto, one's presence on this planet suddenly has some kind of justification.

Disclaimer: the PMC knows nothing at all about personal finance and was merely thinking out loud with this piece.

Friday Afternoon Labour

Anyone still worrying about Estonia's population problems need go no further than the PMC - this afternoon/early evening there was a whole lot of wailing going on in the flat downstairs thus heralding the arrival of its latest inhabitant (and the third baby this year, in a house of 6 flats!). I haven't ventured down just yet, the noise was unearthly and just like on the telly, but hope everything's ok in any case..

One For Last Thing At Night..

A great clip from yet another one of my favourite bands of all time.. I can't help thinking that the clip could have ended up on Soviet TV as an example of the degeneracy of the west, or at least I hope that was the case.

Thought For the Day No. 12 - With the Rabbi Anders Weiss

.religious leader, psychologist, spiritual guru and arbiter of good taste..

 

Heaven is angry at us for our sins and the world is angry at us for our virtues.

Be more concerned with the quality of your friends than with their number (Facebook? - ed!)

Lev Tolstoy

Slow Down and Speed Up at the Same Time - Walt Gleeson

Canfield, Proctor, Nightingale, Zagler, Hill, Robbins, Tracy, Aaron... step aside please..there's a new success guru in town! Walt Gleeson is a highly successful, internationally renowned author of motivational books and CDs and other products. With a career spanning over half a decade, he has enthralled readers all over the world, from Alaska to Florida and from Hawaii to Rhode Island, with such titles as You Can Do It!, You Can Do It! Too, Literally Make Your House Work For You and Become a Billionaire Whilst On The Toilet, Walt is the Puumaja Crew's personal realization and fulfilment coach, whatever that is. 

Hi, Walt here again. I've suddenly decided that you'll be immediately successful, if you'd only do this one thing that your uncle Walt asks of you. I'm sure some of you won't (in which case you'll have no children and die in bad ways) but if you do, you'll definitely be joining the likes of me at the high table in due course.

What you gotta do is you gotta slow down, stop rushing around everywhere like a jackass, and start doing each individual task as it comes to you.

Remember, we all have the same number of hours in the day, even the President of the United States (actually due to a quirk in the constitution the President actually gets 25 hours, but most Presidents have used this extra hours sleeping). 

So don't be pleased with yourself if you 'multi-task', there's no such thing, it's impossible to multi-task, just as you can't have multi-anything.

Having said that, you must, must, go much much faster than you already do.

You complete peasant, I've seen you, sneaking a three minute nap in front of the TV after arriving home from a ten hour stint at work, or using the time that you five children are eating to quickly read the newspaper - loser! I personally don't have any children, but that actually makes me more qualified to lecture others that do, 'cos I can objectivitize and appraisalize the situation mroe easily.


So speed up, god damn you, make sure every task takes no more than two minutes maximum, and if you find yourself over-running this, I've found that hitting a metal tray over your head helps; you can buy one inexpensively at the corner store if you're reverting to your innate peasant tendency to look at everything in terms of how much it costs.

I hope this has clarified what you need to do if you don't want to end up a total loser on welfare in the ghetto, so start doing it immediately!

Walt

It's Not a Competition - Seth's Blog

Good post from my older brother the other day - essentially that all these 'average person does x, y and z' is not really relevant. There isn't really such thing as an average person. As he points out, even if the average american supposedly only buys one book per year, there are plenty that don't; then he himself buys about 400! The PMC is a little way behind, though in our defence we say that we also read all the books we buy, all the way through! Though as we said, it's not a competition - we're all different.

Why I Don't Like Facebook - Part 3

If we get to a part 4 I'm taking down my profile!

I don't like the way it seems to encourage some people to grass on themselves. I'm talking the kind of 'so and so is feeling guilty because he/she (almost invariably she, though I suppose there is a male equivalent) has just devoured a packet of revels/bottle of Sauvignon/entire box set of Desperate Housewives' variety. We all have facebook friends like that...

It seems harmless enough and the people aren't under any obvious duress to put up these little entries, and presumably welcome any attention that might be garnered (which is a little bit sad in itself really). However it smacks of something darker. It's the confess-all-at-the-town-square approach, to be found in red China and other totalitarian states, and organizations which can mimic that (various religious cults, alcoholics anonymous - check out this article on the 'us stupid drunks' conspiracy etc). It may be over-indulging in chocolates or alcohol one day, but who knows what you're going to be confessing and to whom if you keep up the practice. Remember, Catholic Priests, admittedly not a sector of society held in particularly high esteem at the moment, have to take a vow of confidentiality and, along with therapists and counsellors (good ones anyway) have years of training and expertise at their disposal.

You don't need to tell a load of strangers about your little foibles, they have their own, and it's none of their god dammed business.

You never know who is reading your seemingly harmless little confessions or might, consciously or unconsciously, use one of your pecadillos in a hurtful way, so for god's sake don't do it, or at least be very careful about privacy settings and the like.

Presumably twitter is more and more of the same, I have steered clear of that so far so I may be misrepresenting it a bit, but I doubt it.

You can view the previous ramblings here and here.

Thought For the Day No. 11 - With the Rabbi Anders Weiss

.religious leader, psychologist, spiritual guru and arbiter of good taste..

"You never will be the person you can be if pressure, tension and discipline are taken out of your life."
James G. Bilkey

..what sort of person do they want me to be, some kind of nervous ruin? Maybe that's why I've never heard of this Bilkey - ed.

Stupid Questions I've Asked on Yahoo! Answers Down the Years and Their Answers Part 3

Part 2 is here...

Me: "I'm a huge fan of legendary British comedy due Little and Large, and as such was wondering if a DVD was available (couldn't find one on Amazon). I like their early stuff of course, but I actually found their ground-breaking later work, including the seminal 'Tina Turner' series of sketches, to be the more radical, perhaps a little (no pun intended) way out there for most people's taste.
Influencing a whole new generation of comedy, and given that I think TV audiences weren't sophisticated enough back in the late '70s to be ready for such geniuses, their legacy is surely great enough to warrant a box set."


The Yahoo! Community:

• "I agree. I do not think they are available on DVD just yet though...slowly but surely the production companies are starting go go farther & farther back in to the vaults of all the old great shows...eventually a set will be released, it's just a matter of when."

This was actually chosen as best answer despite missing the spirit of the question somewhat.

• "I disliked them intensely. We had many wonderful comedians in the UK, but I never liked Little and Large."

Yes, me too, hence the saki question.

• "Oh!!! Dear Lord

Is this a joke?"
Yes.

• "Yes, I loved them too, they were even better than Hale and Pace. Whatever happened to Jim Davidson, his Chalky White always had me crying with laughter". 

Finally someone gets it.

• "God preserve us all should they ever waste some bits of metallised plastic on producing DVDs of that rubbish! You've GOT to be taking the micky, haven't you !!! I mean - Legendary????? --- Comedy????? Let us know what you're on and we'll all have some !!!"

Yes, I am taking the mickey.

• "You seem to have captured the populist zeitgeist where this 'due', or duo, as I think they should be referred to are concerned. Yes, their mastery of timing and comedic wit was indeed exemplary and as for their savage, scathing parodies of 70's icons, well, there was no comparison.They will surely go down in comedy history as the funniest duo comprising of an alcoholic, bubble permed midget and a tall, thin bloke with glasses that ever appeared on tea-time television....genius. "

Hooray! My fave answer despite getting a 0% rating.

Just in case you're wondering what the hell I'm referring to or have forgotten just how shit they were, here they are in one of the massive two clips of them I could find on youtube. 

Why Is It So Difficult For Us To Exercise?

Note to self - we're pretty long on posts which have a question in their header. But then again, what does it matter, noone's reading! Well, if you are - that's another minute of your life gone for ever, for no gain whatsoever! Sucka!

Anyway, back to today's rhetorical question. It takes me a huge mental run up just to do my routine circuit train, which I don't even have to go anywhere to do, so I'm sure it's the same for others. The people who run gyms have got it right - make money about people's initial enthusiasm in joining for the next decade or so, only to fade away once January turns into February.

Any excuse will do for me. It's too cold (in Tallinn that can be a legitimate alibi, though the cold period seems to linger later and later every year - we're in April now!), it's too hot, I've just eaten, I'm too hungry, etc etc. Trying to think how such lackadaisical attitudes would work in other areas of life: "sorry I didn't finish the assignment, I hadn't had any lunch" and yet the promises we make to ourselves are surely the most important ones, aren't they?

Of course, exercise is tough. Even the crapout Royal Marines-derived circuits I do, whilst hardly being an ironman triathlon, do get you up to your VO2 max if you do a tough one, and can leave one feeling somewhat light headed for some time after. But the rewards are practically infinite; exercise needn't cost much, leaves you feeling great, and if not looking great at least a little less repulsive, and everything else slots into place. Too stressed and busy to have time to exercise? (yet another question - ed) Do it anyway and the time you need for the other stuff will look after itself.

So I'm going to put into practice what I've been preaching to an empty nave and exercise every day for the rest of this week. Will report back on the outcome..

One Man's Terrorist is Another's Freedom Fighter

...apparently. I remember having this conversation about the IRA anyway, which is a conversation which has no end, but to my mind the question is could the status applied to them differ depending upon whether they achieved their end or not? Since the IRA haven't achieved their main aim to date they are, or were, deemed one or other of these depending on who you're speaking to. Same with the Von Stauffenberg plot to kill Hitler. Had it succeeded I wonder what we'd be calling Von Stauffenberg today.

Seth had a good approach to this two sides to the same coin here; a 'self help' book which doesn't help you is still a self help book. One which does is something far more than that, something we pass on to others, something which passes the re-read test, a friend for life, or whatever. I have these feelings about 'Man's Search for Meaning' by Viktor Frankl. SImilarly a salesperson who doesn't manage to sell us anything is just that, whereas if they do (usually something we were out looking to buy anyway) then they're enormously helpful.

So on that basis this is either yet another blog or...well, I think here the theory has reached the limits of its pamarameters..

Don't Change Your Scottish Notes Here

On looking at silver coins in the Tavid kiosk in Kristiina Keskus I was a bit surprised to see that, for some reason, a 'Scottish' pound is set at a lower price than an 'English' one, whether buying or selling, to the tune of about a Kroon or so, given that they are actually the same currency.

Now, not being an expert in monetary matters I'm sure there's a legitimate reason, and I can well remember the confusion that Scottish notes that I was given as a kid when visiting relatives (especially if they were issued by the Clydesdale Bank) would bring when trying to persuade hog ignorant anglo saxons that they were legal tender. But at the same time I'd have thought there ought to be some solidarity between one small, formerly oppressed nation and another. Or are Estonian issued Euros going to exchange at a lower rate than Finnish ones from next year?

The Recession is Apparently Over

Not a feeble April fool's gag, the PMC is above such puerility of course (!) but according to a Moody's report this is the case. They were the people who (I think, or was it Standard and Poor's?) downgraded Freddie Mac in the US from the highest rating to the lowest in one fell swoop.
According to the report Estonia's outlook has been raised from negative to stable due to impressive Governmental fiscal performance (1.7 per cent budget deficit), a stabilizing of overdue bank loans and the likelihood of joining the Euro in early 2011. Furthermore there's likely to be gradual recovery from here on in, tempered by the high degree of debt leverage in the private sector.
All well and good, but more important than that what does that mean for the PMC? Does that mean people failing to pay us on time (delayed and incomplete returning of rental deposits, tenants being in arrears month after month, failure to pay for orders made, just failure to pay really) is going to be a thing of the past? Well, maybe, but the point is, we think this recession was primarily in people's minds anyway. The PMC's editor was in Riga this time last year and, though the economy was a mess, doesn't recall anything terrible happening, no bread queues or people starving in the streets, just a fairly insipid riot.
These things are really just numbers on a page which cause some 'experts' to go on TV and trumpet their little learning and knowledge like, well, a tuba and everyone follows suit causing a mass hysteria which is completely unnecessary, unhelpful, and leading to a self-fulfilling prophecy.
Yes, there has been a high degree of unsettling things like defaulting on loans and job losses, but we can't help thinking that a lot of it needn't have been so and was a part of this knock on effect to follow on from the giddiness of the 'boom' years.
Let's hope that once the dust settles some pointed lessons will have been learnt and Estonia can continue to progress and get stronger.
Oh, April fool's by the way.