Stick It Where The Sun Don't Shine..

Bitesize Philosophy Lesson Five:

 Everybody has a motive.

Stick it where The Sun don’t shine…

So today’s ever-insightful edition of The Sun has the nation’s favourite bad-boy prince butt-naked, clutching his bollocks under the enticing caption of ‘Pics of naked Harry you’ve already seen on the internet.’

Uh, great exclusive there then guys, plus the story is a few days old. So what is the deal with print VS the internet? And why is everyone getting their knickers in a twist?

The Sun say it’s a matter of public interest to have those images printed, because it highlights issues to do with Harry's security and his royal and military image. That, and of course the bigger debate of freedom of press, a term that’s getting thrown around a lot with the Leveson enquiry, which is looking into media ethics. (Or rather whether anybody has any.)

The Sun’s argument is that though a picture can be freely floating around the internet quite happily, regulations and laws means the same image can’t be printed and this, as they put it, is “ludicrous.” (Big word, well done.)

That to me sounds like our Harry is a bit of a scapegoat here, not the type of goat anyone wants to be especially when you’ve got no clothes on in a Las Vegas hotel.

On The Sun’s website there a nice little video speech where the managing editor opens by stating “The Sun is a responsible paper.” An interesting choice of words for a tabloid whose primary concerns are generally whose on page three, and which footballer’s had a piece of it.

“We’re not against him letting his hair down once in a while.” He says of Harry. Wow, that’s kind of you Mr managing editor, and good to know, because I’m sure Harry would think twice about a vacation if The Sun in its wealth and wisdom were unhappy about him getting a tan.

“This is about our readers getting involved in the discussion about the man who is third in line to throne.” Is it? Is it really? I think there’s alot of things wrong about that sentence, but it does pose the interesting line of discussion about what is public interest. Yes he’s a member of the royal family, but does knowing or not knowing what he did this summer really affect my life as a member of the public? Did we not know he had butt cheeks or something? What is public interest and what is the public enjoying gossip and scandal has become a rather blurry line in this celebrity-obsessed culture, and it’s probably a good idea to remember that this is a boy whose mother died while being chased by a hungry herd of paparazzi looking for their next juicy story. 

The Huffington Post reported how “UK readers were treated to the odd sight of Sun employees posing naked on the front page in place of the real pictures on Thursday. (Editors were criticized for using a 21-year-old female intern in the picture.)”

Bloody hell, and this bald-headed editor is trying to convince us that this responsible paper is fighting a battle that’s to do with press integrity and matters of public interest?? (It also made me realise that actually, maybe I had it easy in my time as a newspaper intern, my clothes as a rule, stayed on...)

Newspapers love throwing around the term ‘it’s in the public interest’ -a loose and lucrative expression that acts as a ‘get out of jail free’ card, or Charlie Sheens ninth life. Wake up- it’s not about your interest, or what best for you, a good and upstanding member of the public. It’s not in the public’s interest- it’s in their interest. They’re a business and they’re in the industry of selling newspapers.

Maybe that’s the difference between print and internet; I can look at Harry’s lovely buttocks for free online, but I’d have to pay 20p to take them home with me from the newsagents. A nice bit of controversy means The Sun gets #hashtagged a few more times, blogs are written, comments are made, hell, here I am talking about the company right now; so the country becomes a walking talking advert for the nations shoddiest tabloid. (A part of, lets not forget, the disgraced Murdoch media empire.)

 Always, always be aware of motive, because in business, everybody has one, and in journalism there’s a fine line.

The internet has changed the world of newspapers and journalism not only because of its immediacy but because of its lack of editing. (And I’m not just talking about the Daily Mail Online’s atrocious typing errors.) Twitter is an un-edited mouthpiece for politicians, celebrities and world leaders, (even Ghandi’s got a twitter account.) There are millions of blogs, social networking sites and online news sites; the internet just doesn’t have a filter in the way a printing office does. The more interesting question to ask is does this make it more or less valuable as a medium for news and truth? Uncensored, un-edited, a wealth of opinions and angles, maybe there’s more opportunity to form your own opinion here rather than in a newspaper; reading a story worded for a certain market.

There are different stigmas and stereotypes attached to different newspapers- a tabloid reader compared to a reader of The Guardian for example, but the notable argument is not who but why: because it’s a market. It’s an industry making money, so different papers are produced in different styles; certain stories are highlighted compared to others, different political angles taken, all to reach these different demographics and produce a profit.

I’m not quite sure what it says about us as a nation if The Sun really is, as they claim, ‘the nation’s favourite newspaper. Yes its easy to read, lots of pictures, not too many words, it’s cheap and has the valuable opinions of topless young ladies in there, but why do we need news to be dumbed down for us? Put it this way, if someone labelled me as a Sun reader, I’d be offended.

 With the internet, more and more people can have it straight from the horse’s mouth, not a day later with a cheesy headline in a bold font. So are we going to grow out of The Sun? Maybe they’re just grasping at straws printing Royal rear-ends?

Of course the best line on the subject came from Good old Boris, who never fails to deliver:

"The real scandal would be if you went all the way to Las Vegas and you didn't misbehave in some trivial way," he told the BBC.

Yes Boris. Yes indeed.

Recess- France: Nurses, Nights and Nibbles intermittent

Recess-
France: Nurses, Nights and Nibbles intermittent.

So I was in rural France, a land large and green where people still take wicker baskets to market and you get your eggs from chickens in the garden not from a shelf in Tesco. Where my family have created a small corner of happiness in a beautiful French farm house with sheep and chickens and the odd cat (although Keith the donkey has sadly moved on.)

I quickly decide this suits me well, where the most pressing concern is what book to read next and where no one has heard of graduate options or an overdraft. Such foreign concepts are substituted with good food, conversation and a hammock under the pear trees that I intent to retire to.

I do however, manage to sustain an injury which leads to two interesting discoveries; firstly, French health care makes the NHS look like a half-arsed attempt at first aid, and secondly, iodine bloody hurts when poured into an open wound.
The second of these discoveries is played out suspiciously like that scene from ‘Fight Club’ where Brad Pitt pours some corrosive ingredient onto Edward Norton’s arm, teaching him some valuable lesson about the nature of his true self as he writhes about in agony. I have no such epiphany, or Brad Pitt. Instead I have the notorious Nurse Rachett, a burly and solid-looking French women with a large mole on her face, who doesn’t so much as flinch as my whole body trembles as iodine is poured into the hole in my side and I nearly bite my tongue off.

Now the NHS aren’t exactly famous for being forthcoming with their medical care, but the word I would perhaps use for the French system would be overzealous. They’re at me with a scalpel and local anaesthetic before I can say petit poi, performing a minor surgery in the middle of the doctor’s office; I’m used to my GP using his computer to treat me rather than any of the tools in his office. So I don’t quite have time to decide whether I’m impressed or alarmed.

Nurse Rachett is then sent forth, trotting on down to the farm house armed with bandages and disinfectant happily holding me me down muttering at me in French.
          “Every day? You have to change the dressing every day??”  
Dressing as a verb implies material on top of the skin, layered careful for an aesthetic finish. No such luck. I experience the ‘packing of a wound’ which involves ‘mesh’ being stuffed into the whole in my side soaked in iodine, after it has been irrigated with the stuff (not the word you want to hear considering iodine feels like vinegar on open flesh.) I fob her off a bit and manage to get her to come every other day, which she thinks is quite amusing, but I don’t know how to say ‘don’t laugh at me’ in French, so I then convince my aunt to take over packing duties, ushering the she-devil back down the lane into her Renault Clio.

                                                         *** 
The thing about the noise here is that there is none. I step out in to my Grandma’s garden that first afternoon looking down at her mini sheep grazing in the grass at the bottom and there is this odd moment when I think I might have gone deaf. I can’t hear anything. Nothing. There’s no soft roar of cars on tarmac somewhere, the familiar constant hum of an aeroplane above, sirens screeching or neighbours yakking. The silence is so absolute it’s as if the mute button has been hit and its almost unsettling until the wind glides through the trees and the sheep spot me and ‘baah’ indignantly.
If its noise you need then a little car trip in order. In the gorgeous French port of La Rochelle we rent bikes and beach walk about, stopping intermittently for coffee and croissants, discovering that Fort Boyard (who doesn’t remember Melinda Messenger on that British Sunday TV pastime) is just off the coast here. The other thing I learn is that the French eat all the time.
           “I just want a sandwich,” I sigh exasperatedly, and the woman in the restaurant looks at me with an equal sigh, asking why can’t we just have a full three-course meal like everybody else in the city.
          You could always opt for ice-cream, which is a meal in itself around here; insane portions of brightly coloured and vividly rich flavours, none of this one-scoop nonsense, but layer upon layer of creamy icecream that melts as soon as the cone is in your hand, so the whole experience is a kind of insane desperate happiness where you don’t even care anymore that you have dessert all around your face, slowly dripping from your hands up to almost your elbows.
One scoop would be enough for even the most optimistic child but my grandmother has a secret talent whereby despite her tiny frame, there is no amount of ice-cream in the world that can leave her full.


She has rather a sweet tooth, in the supermarket a few days previously I saw her with her hands full coming out of the cake isle and I mistakenly said “Well let’s not go mad shall we?”
          “No lets do go mad, because these are important.” she corrects me, putting five packets of biscuits into the trolly.

The other thing my grandmother believes in passionately is the piano. Back at her house we play for a solid afternoon together, her ever patient mind excusing my inability to read music (despite all the lessons she paid for me) and it seems so funny to me that this extraordinary women who will swear blind she is useless at everyday tasks, can sit at the piano and play Chopin, Bach and Mozart with the ease and grace of the men themselves.
It’s not always merely modestly that blinds us to our own greatness, maybe it’s the human condition that sees us naturally focus on the things we can’t do, the things we don’t have. Either way it never fails to amazes me how she’s almost surprised to remember she speaks French, plays piano, got herself through medical school, loved, lost and travelled round India at the age of sixty-five. Perhaps that’s what grandchildren are for. I am in awe of her.

The neighbours, although not on par with my grandmother, are definitely also an interesting bunch. There’s the abandoned ranch next door where you can learn to ride like a cowboy whatever that means, and stories of Jon Jon and the local woman that everyone seems to happily share. (I still haven’t quite worked out whos wife she is.) Some of these people have never left the French borders, and when I come across Jon Batiste’s fishing lake with one solitary mouldy chair on the end of a jetty, I just wander on through, forgetting the French attitude to trespassing. I wonder if I will be shot, but return the next day to see a large chain obstructing the gate instead.

It’s not until you leave the clutches of the city that you can look up and see lights of a different kind; the stars. My god the stars. There aren’t even street lights here so when the night takes hold the sky is impossibly full of streams of lights, the mist of the milky way as clear as if you painted it on yourself.

Watching the end of something never looks quite as beautiful as when you’re looking at a shooting star. I don’t think in my whole life I’ve ever stood still enough to see one, and out on the terrace sitting in a flimsy plastic chair I see my first one, and marvel at something so beautiful and so dead.

Stars tend to have one of two effects.
Either its along the lines of “Dude they’re so beautiful, anything is possible because the universe is infinite man.”
Or, “Bloody hell, im rather insignificant.”

You can either feel very big, or very small staring up in the dark and as I tilt my head back I remember a quote:

Everything you really need to know, you learnt when you were four.

Bite-size Philosophy Lesson four:

Everything you really need to know, you learnt when you were four.

Though children are seldom fair, they have a passion for fairness. In their need of certainty in an uncertain world, they demand all promises be kept. 
                                                                                        John Mcgahern.






All you really need to know about life, the good the bad and ugly, you learnt aged four: Share everything. Play fair. Don’t hit people. Put things back where you found them. Say sorry when you hurt somebody. Wash your hands before you eat. Flush. Milk and biscuits are good for you. Take naps. The Ugly duckling grows into a beautiful swan. Glitter doesn’t taste as good as it looks. Goldfish and hamsters and the little seeds we grow in the plastic cups- they all die. And so do we.

As life bundles you along to more important levels of learning and earning, sometimes you forget. So lucky me to have the opportunity to be re-learning the things I actually need to know to get me by, in between being covered in paint and glue and flour, and quite a lot of small children, (who cover you with not only the above, but with hugs and kisses. And snot.)

Time is not measured by a clock.

One of the big questions in life when you are four years old and in your first year of school is ‘When is home-time?’ When you’re two foot tall and can’t read a clock, home-time is a point of the day that isn’t necessarily fixed. Some days home-time arrives earlier than others; this depending on whether you’re having fun, if you’ve been told off, or if you just can’t write that damn number five and have decided to eat the pencil instead.

It takes a lot of reassuring this gang that no matter what, we always go home at 3pm, that 3pm really is the same time every day, and no, Miss Miller does not sleep at the school. Since the staff always seem to be here they find it hard to picture us living anywhere else, to the point when I bump into my tiny classmates outside the school gates, they tend to look at me almost blankly, perhaps a vague flutter of recognition at most, but appear shy and modest at this random stranger that definitely doesn’t spend 36 hours a week with them..

The other important thing to note about home-time, is it’s not a time for jokes, a lesson I learnt after Rosie’s mum was running late and I made the mistake of teasing my little friend saying; “hope you’ve got your panama’s Rosie.” This did not go down well.

Don’t stick your nose where it doesn’t belong.

“You awright Miss Miller?”               

“Hmph”

“Miss Miller?”

“Go and play over there for me Bertie for a minute will you?” I clutch my nose. It’s bleeding. The lesson learnt three seconds previously being don’t lean over small bouncy children if you are not part of the ‘frog’ game they’re playing.

Religion involves a big guy and lot of chocolate.

“So children, what is Easter all about?

“EASTER BUNNY”

“EGGS”

“CHOCOLATE!”

“Well, yes, but actually, Easter is about Jesus.” The kids are given a slightly less gory version of the crucifixion and resurrection, throwing in a few lines at the end about the child-friendly all-loving god that brought him back to life, and after having given them piles of chocolate on a particularly fun Easter egg hunt around the playground, (I enjoy these things a little too much) we then want them to sit still. For an hour. In church. The ever faithful wet wipes are whipped out to make them all look presentable and tucking in shirts we lead them in telling them they ‘need to be good.’

            “I’ve been this good today.” Nelson tells me, flinging his arms wide. “And I’ve been this bad.” He adds putting his hands slightly closer together. Honesty is a rather fluid concept when you’re under five. He looks over at the priest in his robes as we enter then up at me, eyes wide.

            “Is, is that God?” He whispers cautiously.

            “No Nelson, don’t worry, it’s not God. Not unless Father Andrew has been promoted.”

Do as Dad does.

One morning we are drawing along the theme of ‘what we did at the weekend with dad.’ You get a few T.Vs and a fair few footballs out of this exercise, but Bertie draws a surprisingly detailed picture of a lawn mover with an orange line sprawling off into the corner. “That the extenshun’ lead.” He informs me. “It goes in the sokit.” He points to the brown scribble where the orange lead ends. He then points to a purple scribble which explains are flowers. “We got them in the garden, dad didn’t fink they’d come up.” When I try to get him to expand on this, on what he means by them ‘coming up’ he shrugs and I smile at how he copies things his dad says until I overhear him calling one of the other kids a ‘silly old mare….’

Magic exists. Everywhere.

I dip one on of Raj’s little hands in yellow paint and the other in blue paint.

            “Now,” I say, “rub your hands together and see what happens.”

Any kind of painting that involves a lack of paint brushes goes down a treat round here- but learning about colours renders some of them speechless. His face is a sight I will never ever forget as the paint squishes between his little fingers, the colour miraculously changing before his eyes. He has made green.

My favourite topic has to be butterflies, frogs and seeds. The world looks like a place where anything is possible when you’re explaining to small people for the first time that caterpillars turn into butterflies, tadpoles turn into frogs, and tiny seeds turn into a 6 foot sunflowers. This without a doubt, is the best type of world to live in.

            It also does me a favour that it’s perfectly acceptable to get a bit over-excited about the story of the Hungry Caterpillar because when I’m in a room full of four year olds, I actually blend in.

            “And who can tell me what this is?” Mrs R says pointing to a photograph of some frogspawn.

            “Frog-is-born.” Says a little voice.

            “Frogspawn do you mean Helen?”

            “Yes she says. Frog-is-born. Frog-is-born.” When you say it fast enough, yep, the kid’s right. Genius.

Bears eat porridge

Mr Sand is everything a school keeper should be; hardworking, kind, often seen up ladders and down stairs, fixing things and generally making the world go round. An early riser, Mr Sand had made himself a bowl of porridge one morning and had put it in the microwave (the wonders of Oats So Simple) only to return to find the microwave empty and the porridge, gone.

“Sorry to interrupt Miss Miller,” He said, his head peeping round the door, “But has anyone seen my porridge? ”

I shake my head.

“Hmmm,” he sighs, scratching his head. “Well kids, somebody’s eaten my porridge.”

The children look first at Mr Sand and then at each other.

“GOLDILOCKS!” They squeak excitedly and little Joe, ever the democratic little leader, proceeds to interview everyone in the school over the course of the morning in light of the mystery of the missing porridge, determined to finds some evidence of a golden-haired porridge-eating thief. As it turns out, the culprit is one of the other teachers, which Joe finds to be a slightly disappointing ending to the tale.

Always ask why

Little Joe is our ‘why man.’ Every class has a ‘why man;’ the kid that add the words ‘but whyyyyy’ to every sentence you say, to every instruction you give, and if you happen to come across such a child, see it not as a hindrance, but an opportunity. I mean, how often do you really ask yourself questions such as ‘why does bread rise?’ ‘Why is glue sticky?’ ‘Why do carrots make you see in the dark?

The smaller the person, the sharper the sight.

The one thing you must learn with kids is that they may be small, but they sure as hell aren’t dumb. You can’t get away with stuff even if they do only come up to your knees. One morning I was running rather late and as I tried to scoot in the side gate I heard a small voice.

“See mum, I told you we weren’t late! Look, even the teachers aren’t here yet!”

 “I fink it needs new batteries.”

This is Bertie’s favourite sentence. Bertie is your boy when it comes to anything possibly electronic and has his own screw driver under the teacher’s desk ready for any toy-related battery emergency. He seems to sense which toys at the very bottom of boxes need new batteries and rescues them from the depths, bringing them proudly to us to proclaim it so. “Yep, I fink I’ll get the screwdriver Miss Miller.”

To cook is more fun than to eat.

You can bake anything with enough mixing bowls, an oven on wheels and lots of little hands..

Pancake day is a great day to be in a school with 24 little people and a frying pan. They had great fun making the batter but when it came to whipping out endless pancakes on plastic plates, they all licked the maple syrup and the sugar, but were apparently uninterested in the pancake itself. Or the washing up.

Change is a big deal.

We begin to introduce them to the idea of next year- moving up the school where a lot more will be expected of them, and try to make this sound as fun as possible-

So next year you’re going to be upstairs children.” Upstairs in the school is a mythical place that few have seen, older children disappearing up the banisters and since Zander still has trouble climbing stairs I’m not sure how this is going to go down.

“You’re going to have a new classroom and new school books and new teacher. Mrs Shane will be your teacher, won’t that be nice.”

Amy bursts in to tears and puts her hand up. “Will we still have the same mummy though??”

The golden rule.

“ Miss miller?”

“Yes Mandy?” I looked over at the face that had popped up round the door.

“I love you.”

The face disappears before I can reply, and instead I smile at the coat pegs reading all the names.

“I love you too.” I say looking at the tiny blazers.

To be a nun or a director of I.T? Career advice they DON’T give you.

Bite Size Philosophy Lesson Three: 

So Forbes in their infinite wisdom of lists have published the top ten happiest jobs and the top ten most hated jobs which churned up a few debate topics…

Top Ten Happiest Jobs

1.     Clergy

2.     Fire Fighters

3.     Physical Therapists

4.     Authors

5.     Special Education Teachers

6.     Teachers

7.     Artists

8.     Psychologists

9.     Financial services sales agents

10.                        Operating engineers. (Boy toys i.e bulldozer and diggers.)

Top Ten Most Hated Jobs.

1.     Director of Information Technology

2.     Director of Sales and Marketing

3.     Product Manager

4.     Senior Web Developer

5.     Technical Specialist

6.     Electronics Technician

7.     Law Clerk

8.     Technical Support Analyst

9.     CNC Machinist

10.                        Marketing Manager

One of the aspect that stands out the most is the difference in salaries; the majority of the ‘happy jobs’ are obviously paid a lot less than the ‘hated jobs’ which generally seem to sit in higher pay brackets.

So what kind of question does this pose? Especially to us young people finding our feet in the working world; that you can either have happiness OR money? You can’t have both??

The number one happiest job is a clergyman which I’m sure can be taken in many different ways; firstly that although I want to be happy, I don’t think I want to be a nun to get there. (I’m not sure they’d have me to be fair..) Forbes’ take on the matter is that “the least worldly are reported to be the happiest of all.”

Ah. So believing in God makes you ‘less worldly’ now?

 I suspect the writer has missed the mark just slightly as people often do when the ‘G’ word is called into play. The point here is not a religious one; whether the god the clergyman has devoted his career to exists or not, isn’t the pivot whereby his happiness is decided. Looking at that happy list, you could argue happiness derives from actively participating in making a difference, supporting a community, being in some kind of close contact with others and most importantly- a point illustrated most noticeably with the clergyman- happiness come from doing something you believe in.

That’s the bones of it- passion is the worthy drive, you’ve got to believe what you’re doing is worth your time otherwise the pay check becomes compensation, and compensation is spent on things to make you feel good, because the job doesn’t quite hit the spot.

You have a class of young strong men and women, and they want to give their lives to something.  Advertising has these people chasing cars and clothes they don't need.  Generations have been working in jobs they hate, just so they can buy shit they don't really need.

~Chuck Palahniuk, Fight Club

It’s worth noting that Forbes and their love of lists isn’t law- i.e. you could easily have one on those top ten most hated jobs and feel passionate about it, have total job satisfaction and happiness. You can indeed have the whole package- I’m sure someone like Richard Branson would agree. It’s not that you have to choose money or happiness, rather you have to choose how to navigate both into your life.

It’s an age old image that money is the root of all evil and true wealth doesn’t have the queen’s head on it. Personally, being a girl who is spiritual but essentially Essex, I disagree. Greed and selfishness are ugly, but a banknote itself hasn’t the capability to be greedy, it’s the hand clutching that does. What you decide to do with money and how you decide to obtain it is the key thing here. And contrary to belief, you do decide how to earn your money.

The formula is simple enough. Follow your passion, do something you actually like doing, have an interest in, a flair for, and you’ll want to work hard at it, do it for long hours, invest time and effort into it. You’re then likely to be good at it because not only have you worked hard, if it’s a passion of yours then the spark has come from somewhere, suggesting that underneath all that doubt, you’re probably naturally quite good at it. If your good at what you do for all of the above reasons, it’s more likely you’ll be successful and therefore make money if your eye is on the ball rather that on the clock, praying to that God that makes you ‘less worldly’ to make 5pm come quicker.

So why aren’t we all off gallivanting doing the things we love and being rich?

Painting/writing/talking/gaming/photographing/shopping/computing/ drawing… whatever it is in your life that would be too good to be true if you got paid to do it- that won’t get you that house deposit, it won’t let you get finance on a car, won’t get you a week in Ibiza or store card. It’s hard to go against the grain when the apparent route to happiness has already been laid down for you.

The trick is being brave enough to choose a different pavement. And don’t worry if you look around and find you’re the only one walking down it- it doesn’t mean you’re wrong, in fact it probably means you’re onto a winner. The big gamers in this life, whether you want to go all Steve Jobs, Branson, George Lucas or J.K Rowling here, they didn’t make money the same way Joe Bloggs in cubicle B does, they worked with their strengths and didn’t suppress or ignore them for not fitting into a more socially appropriate box.

So what do? (Apart from become a clergyman…)

Take time to find out what you really love doing. This may seem an odd suggestion, but it’s one we don’t tend to spend much time on as it doesn’t seem justifiable in terms of time and finances out there in the ‘real world.’ But the fact is you spend an insane proportion of your time in the pie-chart of life at work, so actually its quite wise to make an investment in figuring out what makes you tick, and even wiser to ignore all those who are impatient for your choice. Don’t let anyone hurry you into a conclusion. And when you think you’ve got there, remember there is no law that says you have to pick one job, one career and then stick to it faithfully until your 65.  (Which is lucky, as it’s a law I’ve joyful broken a fair few times already.)

 An education’s value when trying to weigh up consequent graduate employment rates or salaries might not be much to look at, but to take that dive, exploring something you have an interest and passion for- this is not time wasted, this is preparing the way. The waste is to throw the graduation hat into the air and jump into the first desk chair that slides your way for fear of missing the slip road onto the rat race.

To any pending graduates, any long-lost graduates, old and greying graduates, non graduates; sprint in the opposite direction of anybody drilling into your bright mind that you must go get a job any job there aren’t enough jobs be grateful for a job be responsible and never leave that job…

I don’t mean starve and not pay your bills. I mean don’t compromise. Because never forget, it’s your life your compromising with.

You've got to risk it to get the biscuit as they say and i'm not suggesting i've got a mouthful of custard creams over here, but knowing where the biscuit tin is, that's a good start....

#Check it out for yourself

See the Forbes article here: http://www.forbes.com/sites/stevedenning/2011/09/12/the-ten-happiest-jobs/

Bite Size Philosophy Lesson Two: 'Go Smack Yourself in the Face with a Cliché'

Change the way you look at things and the things you look at change.

This is what they call a cliché, an overused and wise phrase translating a clever little idiom into a saying that has been heard in one form or another too many times for it to mean anything to you anymore. You know what it’s trying to say so well you probably just skipped over those italics, your brain ticking the ‘ I know what that means’ box so fast, you probably didn’t even read it.

The trick with a cliché is to be able to deduct its meaning, because as with most truisms, they are, well, they’re true.

If I was asked to choose three words to describe this picture, I’d probably go for tranquil, green, natural. Maybe calming, peaceful and cool; the point being, it’s a nice picture and most people wouldn’t mind chilling out around some place like it for an afternoon away from the busy and stressful lives we seem to lead.

I took this picture. And I took this picture in Romford.

Yep, you heard me right, Romford.

Romford can be an ugly place if that is what you choose to see, and in all honesty, ugly is what jumps out at you without doing too much choosing. There’s a lot of concrete and cars, brightly lit shopping centres, supermarkets and B&Q’s (where wood comes from, as one of the kids in my class today told me authoritatively. He was genuinely flabbergasted when I told him that actually, it came from trees.)  

          New billboards sprout from the ground like weeds promising ‘delightful/stunning/beautiful one and two bedroom properties’ in every spare square inch and sometimes I think I can feel the ground suffocating. Or maybe it’s just me that can’t breathe.

          To find some space in a land where space has a profit margin can be tricky.  But I have a place that growing up around here for every concrete mixer that pours forth, for every first-time-buyer plan shoved down your throat, there are still a hundred trees worth of B&Q wood growing forgotten and left alone.

The Chase. On first glance, an unremarkable piece of land wedged between a YMCA and a learner drivers centre, houses looming either side up to the forest’s edge. My Dad would take us there as kids on Sunday afternoons, collecting interesting pieces of wood (I still don’t know what he means by that) and picking blackberries every September, me and my brothers dragging plastic buckets through the bushes and producing on average 24 pots of jams a year which then filled every inch of cupboard space, driving my poor mum crazy until the following April when it would finally run out.

 There’s a stream that runs right the way through from one end to the other, starting as the River Rom (where Romford gets it’s name from don’t you know) and trailing off into Harrow lodge park somewhere, and I have swam in that stream where it widens in the cover of the trees on a summer afternoon as a child with my friends, unfazed by rats and broken glass, being supervised by my dad who never did seem to have that built in danger radar that everybody else’s parent’s did. We, aged eight, thought this was brilliant.

The water trickles through stones and banks giving life to nettles, flowers and little shrubs, home to a jungle of birds so loud you can’t even hear the air traffic, trees growing around that line of beauty covering it completely from all buildings and generally, people. This for me, is my most favourite spot, because here on a little wooden bridge, it doesn’t matter which way you turn, you can’t see a single house or even hear the road, and you could be anywhere in the world but on the edge of Zone 6.

A huge black sewage pipe crosses the river bank over towards the YMCA, and looking at the height of it with adult eyes I shudder at the memory of me and my brothers walking across it as kids, arms balancing us like three small tight-rope walkers, fearless of the rocks and shallow water below, because Dad was standing at the other side, yelling ‘you won’t fall!” Parents are the Gods of childhood, all-seeing, all-knowing, all loving, and since he sounded pretty sure we weren’t going to slip and crack our heads open, we believed him. (I’m sure Mum would have disagreed...)

On a sunny day, you can guarantee that shopping centres will be jammed, beer gardens will be overflowing and you’ll be waiting for your food in The Harrow for at least 45minutes,  but this green bit of land with no signposts, it is always empty. I’ve never seen more than five or six people at a time from one end to the other, the odd person walking their dog in a hurry, the odd teenager on their bike up to no good in among the dark trees.

It wasn’t until the second or third time that I wandered through here that I realised the true joy of what I had discovered- I was in the middle of Romford. Romford. I was here, right here where I lived, which was somewhere pretty. My imagination didn’t need to do any work, I didn’t need to pretend I was in a faraway tranquil place- everything I wanted to see was right in front of my face.

It’s not about selective hearing or wishful thinking. I can choose whether to see Romford as an ugly place to live, or a pretty one because I can choose to walk through The Chase or down Upper Rainham Road. I can choose how I look at things. And that simple sentence, whether it’s regurgitated to me in a cliché, a bumper sticker, an Americanised self-help dvd, however it arrives at my feet, this is one of the most important skills I am ever going to try and learn.

This already may look like a small page of cliché ideas; nice-sounding but un-practical advice that you don’t see being applicable to your unfolding life. But the truth is every day is compilation of small decisions that physically shape the day you’re going to have, the life you are going to live, and it’s up to you what you do with this. It’s up to you whether you keep in your awareness your attitude, how you treat others and the environment you’ve put yourself in, or whether you just operate on a default setting. 


From when you either growl or smile at the guy at the ticket gate when your oyster card doesn’t work, when you decide to either mock or compliment that person you find difficult, when you decide whether or not to buy the beauty magazine that seems to do the opposite of making you feel beautiful, whether you walk on the road or through The Chase, these are the decisions that create your world; the world in front of your face, so do yourself a favour- choose carefully.

You get to choose how you think about things, the type of people you spend time with, what you read or don’t read. (No one is forcing you to read The Mail Online) You get to choose your job, it doesn’t choose you. You don’t owe it anything- on the contrary, your job owes you a pay check every month for doing it. But it is you that gets to decide whether to do that same job every day until your 65, or have 65 different jobs in your lifetime. Neither road is right or wrong, (whatever anybody tells you) but to dislike the one you’re walking along and do nothing about it most certainly is.

Life isn’t a series of events that come to pass with the same amount of fickle fortune and chance as the weather. You either find something beautiful, or you find something ugly. They both exist, and choosing one over the other doesn’t deny the other’s existence, but in choosing you are navigating yourself, plotting your route towards happiness or misery, towards average or extraordinary, and that choice never ends. It happens all day every day.

Take that job on like it’s the career opportunity of a lifetime. Because whatever your parents or your boss or your bank balance tell you, it’s the only career worth investing your soul into.

Check out the full set of images and more on Flickr 

http://www.flickr.com/photos/76711600@N06/

Bite Size Philosophy: Lesson One-- How To Be Less Of A Wanker.

“You know what he’s like, that’s just the way he is.”

We’ve all heard this phrase, you’ve probably used it yourself a few times, usually in justifying why someone is being a wanker, (mostly when justifying why someone is being a wanker in fact.) It’s a ‘get out of jail free’ card for actions and words, as if behaviour is a trait engraved onto the core of a person, as if that person just arrived as a whole and complete character with nothing to be done.


‘We are what we repeatedly do,’ Aristotle said. If you’re being rude, if you’re being ignorant, that’s not intrinsically who you are, but the sum of what you’ve been doing. A reality often forgotten is that we can choose to be the sum of a different set of actions. The best and worst of you is always and utterly in your hands.


You are not a finished product. You will never be a finished product. The day is not going to arrive when you say- ‘yes, that’s who I am, I’m that guy, I get it now.’ The fact is you’re never going to get it. You need to stop, trying, to ‘get it.’


The trick is to see that actually you are on a never ending conveyor belt in a factory where you are choosing what machinery works on you, shapes you, moulds you.  You’re a work in progress and your job, the most important job you’ll ever have, is to be aware of what is doing the work on you.


Media, magazines, TV, advertising, internet;  it is all a part of our everyday routine, a relentless pounding where we know what we like because we are told what to like, you know who you are in relation to whose name is on your pants, is it Calvin Klein or George at Asda? 


Western culture produces a never ending stream of dribble that is undeniably addictive as it taps into the lazy bone in us all- we say ‘hey, we work hard all day, we deserve the easy option of convenience food, convenience comedy, zoning out to episodes of ‘Two and Half Men’ after reading newspapers with no words on the come down after a Friday night.’


 It is the fact it is easy that should make you suspicious, and highlights how unbelievably important it is to not just be a vessel- instead take something in and then form your own opinion. Question everything you come into contact with and never stop. If you want to be in control of your life, be in control of the filter you are seeing your world through, because reality is all relative. Media is an offering, an interpretation- not truth.


Be aware when you’re only one in the shop wondering why you’re about to spend £50 on a t-shirt that is worth about a fiver. Feel self conscious in Starbucks, buying hot water and coffee beans for £2.40 instead of the 17p water and beans are worth. Be grateful for these thoughts- it means you’re awake. 


The answer isn’t simply to stop drinking Starbucks, but begins with pulling into your awareness what’s going on in front of your face, what campaign or ideal is doing its work on you, the choices you’re making as a result and how you feel about that.


This is an incredibly difficult thing to do, mainly because seeing that cup of hot water and beans is not encouraged as this kind of thinking wouldn’t exactly help the economy to grow. It’s in wealth and power’s best interest to teach that the collective wants a better car, a bigger house, a chai latte to go and a nice life of pretty things – as it always far more comfortable to be a part of the collective than to be alone. 


Being arrogant or rude, I’d argue that this is someone who’s merely got sucked into the picture, someone who buys into the poster. You can make your life as big or small as you want, but if someone says about you ‘that’s just the way he/she is’, you’ve got stuck, and you need to wake up.


The fool is the one that lets others think for him, who lets adverts do the shopping for him, layering up in this seasons must-haves before asking himself whether he even likes trousers tight enough to make his bollocks shrink.

So, next time someone is being a wanker, all you need to do is tell them that they’ve got stuck on their conveyer belt somewhere and they better get some new machinery or you’re going to have to punch them on the nose to wake them up. 


Ta Da.