Warning to all women!

Helen Garton, a dear reader in Tring, sent me an amusing spoof on those scary e-mails we all get that warn of strange evils that could befall us if we don't take the advice contained in the e-mail. (By the way, the e-mails I hate the most are those annoying ones that warn bad luck will occur immediately if you don't forward it to 10 people within 5 minutes -- I delete them ASAP and dare Fate to intervene.)

You know the e-mails I mean -- a good example of the type is the one that went around about how people were getting their kidneys removed after being drugged in hotel rooms. The graphic detail it went into about how the organ removers did it was sort of psycho. Who write these things?

Anyway, here's Helen's message:

Subject: RE: WARNING TO ALL WOMEN

This Could Happen To You..... It Could Happen To Your Mother, Your Sister, Your Daughter or your best friend. So please warn all the women you care about.

The strangest thing happened to me at lunch today. I was sitting at a local outdoor cafe having lunch by myself and two men came and sat down at my table. I gave them the death look, but they just casually stayed at my table and wouldn't leave me alone. I shined up my wedding ring then placed my hand on the table and I hinted to them that I was married and that I was just not interested in them.

Luckily for me they got the hint and left, but thankfully the whole thing was captured on the Cafe's camera. I'm sending you this picture as a warning just in case they try and pick you up too.

Honestly, some men think they're God's gift.

Pigs at the trough

Since we've been talking about Pimm's and beer in this blog lately, I wanted to share with you this amusing post from a political blog in London. He wrote this last Friday as Parliament broke up for its summer recess:

"As they slip off this afternoon to face a tough 12-weeks holiday in the real world without subsidised drink...how will MPs cope?

The House of Commons Refreshment Department operated on a subsidy of £5.5 million of taxpayers’ money in the 2007/08 financial year, which is equivalent to the total annual tax receipts from 35 pubs.

The subsidy, which for some inexplicable reason was not published in the House of Commons’ Annual Accounts, was £693,000 higher than in 2006/07 - a 15% increase. No belt tightening for MPs....

It accounted for 43% of the operating costs, meaning that the taxpayer coughs up £4.30 for every £10 spent refreshing our politicians: even before they claim back their outgoings without receipts through the expenses system. These figures don't include the multi-million pound re-fit of the wine cellar.

MPs are members of the best London club with a dozen bars on the parliamentary estate, plenty of dining rooms, brasseries and banqueting suites all operating without a licence and no restrictions on hours - you can even smoke in some.

A pint in the Stranger’s Bar costs £2.10, outside parliament in the West End you pay £3.50 to £4.00. An 8-year-old Scotch costs £1.35, while our politicians can enjoy a Pimm’s on the pleasant Thames-side terrace for just £1.65 - which is a third to a half of prices a mile down the road. Do you really think they need to pay politicians more to attract people?"

Russian immigrant advice

A new woman started working in my group. Her name is Evgenia, and she's from Russia. (Evgenia -- I love to say her name because it feels like I'm in the middle of a Tolstoy novel then and not just living my regular life.)

She showed me an amusing booklet sent to her by an immigration/refugee agency in England. It's to help Russians understand the new environment in which they find themselves. Click on the picture to see a larger version.

Next to the picture of the man and the fruit tree, it explains that you shouldn't attempt to work in England illegally. Then there is a picture of mace spray and a knife crossed out to help Russians understand that these things are also illegal in England.

I love the picture of the man and woman having coffee together. My other Russian friend at work, Vlad, explains that the text says, "No means No. Women and men have equal rights in England," so you can't just do whatever you want with women here.

I guess the condom section is self-explanatory?? I thought it was all very funny so am sharing with you guys.

Trip to Croatia

I drove to Gatwick to pick up my son Mikey -- home from Croatia after 10 days away. I enjoyed hearing about his travels. He told some amusing stories that I was just itching to type up for the blog when he said those dreaded words: "You cannot blog about this."

A gagging order from my own son! But I must respect it. I'm sure he won't mind if I put up a sample of the CD he brought back for me. He knows I love choral music so he got a CD of a Croatian chorus doing traditional songs. They are called Klapa Cambi, and have a lovely sound -- well, see for yourself below.

Sorry to be too thanky

I drove to Gatwick aiport after work last night so I could see my cousin John Scanlon and his wife Katherine for dinner. They fly back to the US this morning and had been travelling all over -- to Germany, England and Ireland before coming through London to go home.

We took them to a pub in the countryside. Here we are outside, about to eat.


Sitting outside at a pub on a beautiful summer's evening is one of the joys of living in England. My daughter Katie introduced Katherine to the delights of Pimms.

Here's a reporter from the Daily Telegraph describing Pimm's:

Campbell grabs a highball glass, fills it with one part Pimm's and three parts Schweppes lemonade. He crams it with ice and garnishes it with mint and bits of orange, cucumber and strawberry. I take a deep draught and allow it to weave its magic. It is my first Pimm's of the summer and utterly delicious, giving me that familiar warm glow inside.

Pimm's is what an English summer is all about.

Recipe below:

Pimms
lemonade
ice
fresh mint leaves
lemons, sliced
cucumber, sliced
ginger beer
strawberries, to garnish

Method

1. Pour the Pimms and lemonade over ice in a boston shaker.
2. Add ginger beer and ½ strawberry.
3. Add some mint leaves, lemon and cucumber slices to taste.
4. Serve in a wide brimmed glass.

We all had a lovely Pimm's glow after our time at the pub. Katherine and John were delightful company and were typically Southern in thanking us for all the trouble we'd gone to to see them, take them out, etc. Then we discussed how Brits can think Southerners are insincere with our gushing praise and thankfulness so they tried to tone it down for me. But I said, I'm a Southerner too. I love those effusive thanks. Later John sent me a little text apologizing for being 'too thanky' which made me laugh. I hope I don't have to wait another 5 years before I see them again, but that seems to be the case when I live so far away from my relatives.

Back to Gatwick this evening to pick my son Mikey up -- he is returning from Croatia.

Who needs the Olympics?

Forget the Olympic games! I read an article about some alternative competitions that sound like a lot more fun.

First is the Wife-Carrying competition. Men vie to see who can carry their wives the farthest the fastest. Winner gets his wife's weight in beer, I think. Here's a video:



VERTICAL MARATHON

Bangkok

Participants race up 1,093 stairs in the Banyan Tree's 61-floor hotel - in an annual reminder of why lifts were invented. The “finish line” is a former helicopter pad that has been turned into a restaurant.

LAUGHTER YOGA

Bombay

Forget the “Downward Facing Dog”, this is uplifting stuff. No training is needed for “laughter yoga”, developed by Dr Madan Kataria to relieve stress. Rhythmic clapping and chants of “Ho, ho, ho. Ha, ha, ha” lead to laughter, which is said to improve health and promote inner peace.

BOTTLE-KICKING

Leicestershire

Each Easter Day the inhabitants of the villages of Hallaton and Medbourne “kick” - or rather heave, push, wallop and do whatever they can to move - three kegs of beer for a mile between two streams.

GOAT POLO

Kyrgyzstan

Not for the faint-hearted. To celebrate happy occasions, groups of men in Kyrgyzstan, Central Asia, take to the polo field - but with the carcass of a beheaded goat as the “ball”.

Goat polo dates back centuries when horsemen who had killed a wolf that had been attacking their livestock used the carcass in such games. Laurence Mitchell, author of the Bradt Guide to Kyrgyzstan, who has seen goat polo, said: “The rules are loose. It's anarchic and macho.”

Always check the time on the ticket

My daughter wanted to go to one of the summer concerts at the Royal Albert Hall (below) called the Proms. The Proms are a tradition in England -- some people go to almost every concert in the series (it's three weeks long) each year.

"What time does the concert start?" I asked, so we'd have enough time to get to London from Reading.

"Seven thirty," my daughter replied confidently.

At six, I thought I'd just check to make sure we had the right number of tickets. I glanced at them and saw the concert started at 7:00, not 7:30. We'd barely make it! We flew down the motorway, parked near the Albert Hall, then raced down the streets of London so we'd get there in time. As we approached the building, red-coated attendants about the close the doors shouted, "You have ONE MINUTE!" It was sort of exciting in a way. We did make it with seconds to go before the concert started.

The concert was Russian oriented. A beautiful part of it was when a baritone sang from the opera Boris Godunov. I love all the emotion in Russian music. Here Boris sings that though he stands unrivaled in power, with an untroubled reign, "yet I grieve, within my sad tormented soul...no praise from the crowds can cheer my aching heart."


In the middle of the concert, the conductor Thomas Ades premiered a new work of his called Tevot. Well, because it was modern stuff and not something everyone knew, people felt they could talk through it. The German guy next to me was talking to his wife about many things -- not the usual urgent whisper in a concert if you really have to say something to your companion. I was sure he was asking her things like, 'are we having eggs for breakfast tomorrow?' No amount of glaring or shushing helped the situation. During the interval, I made my husband switch seats with me because he can speak German and could tell them to be quiet.

My favorite part of the concert was Prokofiev's Piano Concerto #1 (below). Elizabeth Applebaum introduced me to it in college, and I've loved it since then.

We went out without the kids

Yesterday I sent my friend Karen Blakeley an article from the New York Times about Mad Men, a TV show about ad men in the '60s in NYC, because she saw the show on British TV first and told me how good it is. I started watching it after that. Here's a bit from an article in the NYT yesterday. The second season is just about to start on American TV, then it comes to England a bit later. Watch it if you can.

Mad Men distills the moment in the American century when the buoyant certainty that came with winning a war and running the world was beginning to crack.

On the surface the dollar is strong and the Kennedy administration is in sparkling swing. There is a mournful, autumnal pulse to even the gayest office parties and supper club sorties, but it mainly goes unheeded. Most of the privileged white-shoe account executives and copywriters who ogle their secretaries; cheat on idle, discontented wives; and keep their offices as segregated as their country clubs have no real sense that their world is coming to a fast end. They are like vacationers on the beach just before a tsunami hits. All they see is that the ocean has receded and suddenly there is a lot more sand.

Karen sent me an email back after that saying that she and her husband Chris were going out for Indian that night so I jumped in and got myself invited too. It was so exciting because none of our kids were there! Karen's daughter is away in India; my son is in Croatia -- and the other two kids didn't come so it was just us. We were so excited to be able to have grown-up time and knock back beers and talk. We got into a great discussion over globalization, and how it is affecting the places we work.

I haven't been many places where I didn't have at least one kid in tow, and I do love being with them but it was so thrilling to just go out with other adults and talk about any subject we wanted (no talk about school, exams or teachers). We've agreed that this was a good first start and that we will go out together as just adults more often and work our way up to doing something after the restaurant -- you know, maybe staying out after 10:30!

Keeping up with the weight of the Joneses

I read a medical website during my lunch break and saw an interesting article today. Basically it says that how fat you feel depends on how fat those around you are. If, as in Mississippi, for example, you see a lot of fat people, then you don't feel like you are so big. But if you are surrounded by thin people, you think you might be overweight more quickly. Here's an excerpt:

Research by economists at the University of Warwick, Dartmouth College, and the University of Leuven, finds that people are powerfully but subconsciously influenced by the weight of those around them. Without being aware of it, the researchers believe, human beings keep up with the weight of the Joneses. For a whole society, this can lead to a spiral of imitative obesity. The researchers will present their results on Friday July 25th at a National Bureau of Economic Research conference in Cambridge Massachusetts in a paper entitled Imitative Obesity and Relative Utility at the NBER Summer Institute on Health Economics.

The authors suggest that whether for reasons of job promotions or finding a mate it is someone's weight relative to others that matters. They show that overweight perceptions and dieting decisions are influenced by people's comparisons with others of the same age and gender.

Tired Friday

So tired today -- wish I could take a month off and go to a cottage on a lake to recharge like the Finnish people working at Nokia do. (Nokia is a Finnish company.)

At this time of year, the rest of us in the company get emails like the one below(written in Finn-glish):

Kindly notice that whole team will be on vacation for next three-four weeks, so in case any questions, you'll have to wait!!

On to another subject. Here's some cute pics my sis-in-law in London sent:

If They were Women

Leo diCaprio


George Foreman


Harry Potter

Bodily orifice

Robert Novak, a US TV guy, hit a pedestrian yesterday while driving his black Corvette. I was reading about an accident he had earlier but they couldn't report what he actually said so they wrote this (below):

In 2001, the longtime political columnist cursed at a pedestrian on the corner of Pennsylvania and 13th St., NW, for allegedly jay walking.

“’Learn to read the signs, [bodily orifice]!’ Novak snapped before speeding away,” according to an item in the Washington Post’s Reliable Source column.

OJ can bring on diabetes?

Is there nothing left to enjoy in life?? :) News today that too much fruit juice can bring on diabetes (below). I remember when I went to a nutritionist to get some weight off after I had my first baby, she told me to remember that drinking a big glass of juice had the same amount of calories/sugar as having a can of Coke -- that stopped me in my tracks and from then on, I only had a small glass in the morning. Here's the scoop:

Just one glass of orange juice a day could significantly increase the risk of diabetes.

Research shows that fruit juices, regarded by many as a healthy way to start the day, raise the odds of a form of diabetes linked to poor diet and obesity by up to a quarter.

Eating whole pieces of fruit however, cuts the likelihood of developing the disease which affects 2.5million Britons.

It is thought the lack of fibre in juices may cause dangerous spikes in blood sugar levels, according to researchers from the Harvard Medical School in the U.S.

Wise words from my sis-in-law

Always remember you're unique. Just like everyone else.

No one is listening until you Fart.

If you think nobody cares whether you're alive or dead, try missing a couple of mortgage payments.

Before you criticise someone, you should walk a mile in their shoes. That way, when you criticise them, you're a mile away and you have their shoes.

If at first you don't succeed, skydiving is not for you.

Give a man a fish and he will eat for a day. Teach him how to fish, and he will sit in a boat and drink beer all day.

Never, under any circumstances, take a sleeping pill and a laxative on the same night.

Things I am mulling over this afternoon as I work:

1. Spanish phrases that my friend at work is trying to teach me. I have a month before I got on vacation in Mallorca so need to learn as much as poss.

2. Some crossword entries that have eluded me from yesterday.

3. The breaking story about John Edwards having a mistress and a love child -- and doing all this while campaigning for president and getting a lot of mileage out of his wife having cancer.

The story is here but I am blocked from viewing it, I guess because I am overseas? But you Americans can groove:

John Edwards' Juicy Story

Can this really be true??

Buddhism dying out?

We've discussed the declining fortunes of the Anglican/Episcopalian church in this blog, but I never realized that other religions are suffering as well. I thought Buddhism was on the upswing, but that is probably just because I see high-profile Hollywood converts like Richard Gere in papers.

From the International Herald Tribune:

"The Japanese have long taken an easygoing, buffetlike approach to religion, ringing out the old year at Buddhist temples and welcoming the new year, several hours later, at Shinto shrines.

Weddings hew to Shinto rituals or, just as easily, to Christian ones.

When it comes to funerals, though, the Japanese have traditionally been inflexibly Buddhist - so much so that Buddhism in Japan is often called "funeral Buddhism," a reference to the religion's former near-monopoly on the elaborate, and lucrative, ceremonies surrounding deaths and memorial services.

But that expression also describes a religion that, by appearing to cater more to the needs of the dead than to those of the living, is losing its standing in Japanese society.

'That's the image of funeral Buddhism: that it doesn't meet people's spiritual needs,' said Ryoko Mori, the chief priest at the 700-year-old Zuikoji Temple here in northern Japan. 'In Islam or Christianity, they hold sermons on spiritual matters. But in Japan nowadays, very few Buddhist priests do that.'

Mori, 48, the 21st head priest of the temple, was unsure whether it would survive into the tenure of a 22nd.

'If Japanese Buddhism doesn't act now, it will die out,' he said. 'We can't afford to wait. We have to do something.'

Love that blue eyeshadow

Such responsive readers I have. After a complaint was made over a boring post, I asked people to send stuff in so this complainer wouldn't fall asleep while reading the blog. And I already have a fine submission -- this postcard comes all the way from 1970s Louisiana:

Imagine this woman posing for the postcard now. She would have had a boob job first.

Crosswords

The British love their crossword puzzles. I remember reading this about a great Shakespearean actor after his death: "John Gielgud was a wonderful friend. He loved gossip and he loved political stupidity. And he loved crossword puzzles. Working with John, by five to 10, just before we began rehearsing, he'd have finished The Times crossword."

I noticed at rehearsals on Saturday that some singers had snuck in crosswords underneath their scores and was amused to see in the flute section, a woman had her crossword on the music stand and was working on it while the other sections were rehearsing. I thought I need to get in on this British fondness for crosswords. It's supposed to do wonders for your IQ too.

Brits do cryptic crosswords that are hard to figure out. I'm going to start out with an easy one -- a Newsday crossword from the US. Here it is for you to try too, and let's see how we do with it. Just think how much stronger our brains will be by the end of the day. :)

Click on the link to pull up the puzzle. Here: Newsday crossword

The nice thing about doing a crossword puzzle is, you know there is a solution. Stephen Sondheim

A Welsh weekend

I had an amazing weekend in Cardiff, singing Mendelssohn's Elijah at the Proms there. We rehearsed all afternoon Saturday, and when Bryn Terfel came onstage and began to sing, it was like magic. He has such mastery, such skill. I couldn't believe I was sitting there watching him rehearse. Here he is singing a Welsh song:

I did so many things wrong yesterday! I got totally lost trying to find the dressing rooms, I went to the wrong part of the stage, and I waved at my family when I saw them in the audience ("Stop that!" I was told immediately. "We don't do that from the stage.") Then at the end of the performance, I was so enthusiastic about the singing I'd just heard that I started applauding wildly. I got told off for that too. Maybe one day I'll learn. Here we are singing at St. David's Hall:

Wales is gorgeous. More on that soon, but I ate so many Welsh cakes just now that I feel sick so am going to take a break from the computer. Here's a photo of the Vale of Glamorgan where we were staying overnight with some friends who came to the concert. Isn't it pretty and green?

Irate reader complains

An irate reader wrote in, well, she wasn't really irate but mostly bored with my Pakistan stock exchange post. She wants more exciting posts and suggests I use a wedding photo that she just spotted in the local paper. So here it is. Clearly this woman hasn't been told the Southern rule about never showing your bosoms before 3:00 in the afternoon!

Other bored readers please send in stuff for me to use. I don't mean to be sending you off to sleep.

Me Today:

Going off to Cardiff in a couple of hours to rehearse all day for the Elijah concert tonight. I am so excited to think that I will actually get to hear Bryn Terfel sing in person. I just hope I don't fall over my chair during the performance or sing something when it's not my time to sing or in some other way make a complete ass of myself.

Trying to work with an air show outside the window

The Farnborough Air Show is starting soon, and they practice their flights around our office. So you're trying to work, and you hear major airport noise and look out the window and there's a sight like the Red Arrows flying past. Here's an example:

Actually, we've decided to hold a meeting at the top of the building at around 3 this afternoon (the next time the Red Arrows fly past).

Crashing stock market

Pakistan investors stormed out of the Karachi Stock Exchange, smashed windows and cursed regulators after the benchmark index fell for a 15th day, the worst losing streak in at least 18 years.

It makes my stomach hurt to check Bloomberg on the TV or on the Internet and see how my stocks are plummeting in value. So I could sort of understand the angry investors in Pakistan who were so furious at their retirement funds tanking that they started rioting this week. Here they are breaking down the door of the stock exchange:

"I have lost my life savings in the last 15 days and no one in the government or regulators came to help us,'' said Imran Inayat, 45, a protester and a former banker who retired early and said he lost 300,000 rupees ($4,175) on the market.

There was a quote from a man who said these investors are unable to understand that they can't force the stock market to go back up, even through violence. Investors are going to have to learn that stocks go down as well as up, he said.

The worst monarch

A London newspaper has published an article asking who is the worst UK monarch in history. They printed a list of their top ten. An excerpt from the article is below:

"English Heritage has just conducted a poll to find Britain's Most Useless Monarch and it's a pretty crowded field. The eventual 'winner' has just been announced as George IV. His lazy, spendthrift nature and unpleasantness to his wife Queen Caroline seems to have won him the accolade.

But so terrible have many of our kings and queens been that a closer look at their misrule serves to illustrate just how blessed we are to live in a more enlightened age.

The failings of George IV

In third place comes English Heritage's top choice, George IV, whose self indulgence, hatred of his kindly father, 'mad' George III, swinishness to his (admittedly dreadful) wife Princess Caroline, and appalling over-spending during straitened times, meant that the newspapers openly celebrated his death in 1830. Indolent and obese (he was nicknamed 'the Prince of Whales'), his scandalous private life - he married his mistress illegally - and his refusal to allow his wife to attend his coronation held up the monarchy to widespread ridicule.

Wimpy Edward VIII

Edward VIII, a profoundly irresponsible monarch who put his love affair with Mrs Simpson before his duty to the Empire. Knowing that he was going to abdicate the next month, Edward nonetheless outrageously told the unemployed miners of South Wales in November 1936 that: 'Something should be done to get them at work again.' his raised hope among them that the Government might save their jobs, which Edward knew was not the case.

Psychopathic murderer Henry VIII

Edward VIII was not a psychopathic murderer, however, unlike No. 6, an appropriate position for Henry VIII as it was also the number of wives he had, most of whom harried, bullied and generally maltreated. To behead not one but two wives, and to invent the whole concept of divorce in order to get shot of two more, would win Henry a place in any list of rogues.

But it was his cruel, cynical brutality towards everyone who crossed him in life - he was dying, he had the handsome, intelligent young poet the Earl of Surrey executed beforehand, supposedly for treason, but really because he was jealous of his looks, talent and charm.


My goodness, this report makes even our current Royal Family look good! Be sure and tell us who YOU think is the worst monarch in the comments section if you have an opinion.

Learning English

A Chinese guy at work just sent us all a funny YouTube video to watch. I thought you might enjoy it. The subject is learning English in time for the Olympics in Bejing.

Ship of Fools

Straight to London after work for another rehearsal of Mendelssohn's Elijah. We perform it in Cardiff on Saturday night so lots of work to still be done. We rehearsed in a church off of Oxford Street. That was an interesting experience, to be singing beautiful music in a little oasis of peace, while the sounds of London went on outside.

The chorus master says thought-provoking things to make us able to give the sound he wants. For example, when we need to reach a high note, he tells us to think of it as a low note and it's easier to hit. And then about breathing, he says to be like Caruso who said the breaths came to him when he opened his mouth, rather than him trying to grab a breath. It's sort of zen-like, what the chorus master says. I wish I could write it down but there's no time when you're standing up singing.

Reality changed when I went home last night. I got on a train out of Paddington that was filled with the most unusual people. I was sitting next to a drunk guy who was writing a diary -- he scribbled and scribbled the entire trip and kept giving me glances out of the side of his eyes to make sure I wasn't reading his words. Maybe he is practicing to be a blog contributor but I don't think he's ready as most of his sentences seemed to say this or that was 'wonderful.' I couldn't look over to read much but it would have been nice to have been able to look out of the window and see when we were pulling into Reading but he was so defensive about me glancing over that I didn't.

So where else could I look on that train ride home? Certainly not across from me where a Chinese transvestite had sat down. He was so loud, shouting across the carriage to his girl friends -- wish they had been speaking English so I could have listened, but no. I felt sort of sorry for him even though his loudness annoyed me. He's the type of person who gets beaten up on Saturday nights in town centers in England.

Then someone threw up.

When I stood up to get off of the train, the guy in front of the door was one of those people who have totally mutilated themselves with piercings, tattoos, etc. His earlobes had been sliced open so he could put little plastic circles in them. I had never seen this before but my daughter said it's fairly common. Why would you mutilate yourself like that?

Anyway, I finally get off the train and resolve to see how much a first-class ticket home would be for tonight as this is just too much humanity for me.

Too much information

One of my favorite actors from the 1950s is Alistair Sim. I especially loved him as Scrooge in A Christmas Carol (below).

I was flipping through the Books section in the Sunday paper and saw someone had written a biography of him. I began to read the review and immediately wished I hadn't. According to this book, Sim was an avid user of rent-a-boys, and even kept a separate house just for these hijinks.

This was something I would never have wanted to know about Mr. Scrooge. My mind immediately flew to that delightful scene when Scrooge wakes up so happy on Christmas Day and shouts to the little boy in the snow to buy a goose for Tiny Tim's family. Now I'm wondering if Scrooge didn't have something else in mind for that little boy later....

Another illusion in life shattered. Not many left to go.

I know nothing

Tough afternoon here -- can't blog about it without invading someone's privacy -- but it teaches me how little I know about things. The more I live and the more I blog and read all of your comments that disagree, make new points, give me pause for thought, I see that I really don't know a thing. That's liberating in a way but hard on the ego too.

I've read a couple of books lately that give info on how our brains can fool us into thinking we know best when we actually don't.

From the Accidental Mind by David J Linden:

"...the feeling that we have about our senses, that they are trustworthy and independent reporters, while overwhelming and pervasive, is simply not true. Our senses are not built to give us an 'accurate' picture of the external world at all. Rather, through millions of years of evolutionary tinkering, they have been designed to detect and even exaggerate certain features and aspects of the sensory world and to ignore others. Our brains then blend this whole sensory stew together with emotion to create a seamless ongoing story of experience that makes sense. Our senses are cherry-picking and processing certain aspects of the world for us to consider."

Suffering Teens

One thing that really upsets me recently is seeing footage of teenaged boys suffering. Those orphans from Zimbabwe last week really got to me -- I've found a Methodist charity that I can send money to that will then go to the church for refugees in South Africa but I wish I could take those boys and make things all right for them.

And this footage today of the 16-year-old boy being questioned in Guantanamo Bay was horrible to watch. When he kept saying over and over, "Help me! Help me!" and mistakenly thought his inquisitors were there to help him -- oh, it made me want to cry. (And to think he's still there, five years later, with never a chance to defend himself against -- against what? he's never been charged in a court with anything.)

And the feeling that I can't do anything about it makes me feel worse. When my kids are all grown up, I think I'll go somewhere needy and volunteer and try to expunge my guilt for having such a good life when others have it so hard.

St Swithin's Day and his curse

Today is St Swithin’s Day. Whatever the weather is today in the UK is what it will be for the next 40 days, according to legend. The Times newspaper explains:

"According to legend, St Swithin requested to be buried outside so that his grave would be exposed to the patter of rain and feet of parishioners. His wish was granted upon his death in AD862, but his remains were later moved inside Winchester Cathedral. The move was hampered by prolonged wet weather, which caused superstitious parishioners to conclude that they had been hexed."

The Weather Centre, where one of my pals works, apparently agrees with the St Swithin's Day curse. It's forecasting "that the weather today will be the norm for the next 40 days — a mixture of sunshine and clouds, average temperatures, lots of rain and no heat waves, a summer combination seen rarely in recent years."

I'm skeptical though. The weather in the UK has been bad all year -- it didn't need St Swithin to curse it for the next 40 days. It's not like it's going to turn into Barbados weather after that!

Here's St Swithin, no doubt pondering the weather:

Slimming by scalpel

Gastric surgery to lose weight has been in the news in England because an overweight woman who has a popular talk show lost a lot of weight and attributed it to a better diet and walking her dog and moving around more. She was on the cover of many women's mags with stories giving her tips for weight loss.

Well, it turns out that her weight loss was due to secret gastric band surgery. A few years ago, another UK celebrity with a talk show had actually gone on a reality show where she competed to lose weight with other celebs. She started a diet column for a national newspaper giving helpful hints to the rest of us who struggle with weight. Then someone turned her in to a newspaper -- she had seen her on the train to Belgium to get a gastric band operation. The woman had noticed her on the train, then seen her at the clinic. I guess she got sick of the woman crowing about her successful diets when she knew it was a sham.

In yesterday's Times, there was a fascinating article about how gastric surgery doesn't actually fix the problem that obese people have. Here's what it says:

"...amid the rush to slim by scalpel, doctors and patients are ignoring the fact that it isn't an easy cheat. While thousands of people do benefit, one operation in five fails because of a patient's significant psychological problems - the problems that led to their obesity - remaining unaddressed. The alarming way that many of these failures manifest themselves as binge-eating, severe depression, suicide or addictions is making experts increasingly sceptical.

John Morgan, a consultant psychiatrist at the Yorkshire Centre for Eating Disorders, began tracking obesity-surgery patients at St George's Hospital, South London, nine years ago. 'Since then we have been turning out follow-up studies saying that psychological issues are powerful predictors of postoperative results. About a quarter to a fifth of patients who have surgery have bad outcomes, particularly if they have a history of binge eating, bulimia, depression or anorexia.

'If you are eating because of a need in your brain rather than a need for stomach satiety signals, having your stomach reduced is not going to solve that,” he says. “In fact, having your stomach reduced will mean that you can't placate yourself in your usual way, so you can keep resolutely eating until you effectively reverse the operation by displacing the stomach band or creating a pouch in your intestines.'

A report in Pulse, the newspaper for doctors, highlights a problem called “soft calorie” syndrome, where patients cheat by consuming semi-liquid food that passes through the gut restriction. Nutritionists report stratagems such as melting Mars bars and liquidising McDonald's meals.

American psychologists have discovered how significant numbers of surgery patients become alcoholics, binge-shoppers or sex addicts. Melodie Moorehead, of the JFK Medical Centre in Atlantis, Florida, calls the problem “addiction transfer”.

A reader sent in this sad article about a woman in Mississippi:


Ann Beauchamp, 37, saved for years to have gastric bypass surgery, but by the time she raised the money, she had gained too much weight to have the procedure. The risk of complications greatly increases in patients who weigh more than 500 pounds. Beauchamp's daughter, Amanda, 19, is her mother's primary caregiver.

"It's hard not to eat. It's like an addiction or somebody with drugs or alcohol," Beauchamp said. "There's nobody that can help me with that addiction besides me."

Beauchamp has had success and setbacks losing weight. In 2004, she was the ideal weight to have the surgery. Family and friends raised $6,000 for the down payment for the $25,000 procedure. However, during the two years it took to raise the money, her weight shot up to about 600 pounds.

Sunday Miscellany

Kids and I went to the dental hygenist to get our teeth cleaned yesterday. Bill was $280. You can see why a lot of people would think they could do without that particular service.

Rained all yesterday afternoon but I did manage to have almost an hour in the sunshine -- it was off-and-on sunshine and pretty weak but I was thrilled. I am very envious of my son Mikey who is off to Croatia with his friend from school at the end of next week. He is staying at the friend's grandmother's house near the beaches of the Adriatic. I have to go buy some gifts for her today but am not sure what to get. I think maybe a nice English china teapot? I got that for my daughter's hosts when she went to Hong Kong last year, and they liked it. I did blunder when I sent an English lambswool blanket though -- why would they need that in a hot place like Hong Kong?

Here's a pic (beach near Split on the Adriatic) of what my son will be experiencing for two weeks while I am either stuck in the office or battling rainy weather:



Went up to London last night to eat at a Greek restaurant in Cockfosters, my son's favorite town, (see earlier post here) with my husband's sister and cousins. After all my attempts at dieting where I lost a few pounds, I put it all back on last night because I ordered the meze and the food kept coming and coming. I felt guilty, especially after our Prime Minister told us to stop wasting food, but it was so delicious, especially with Greek wine (and later, beer).

We discussed the recession and our worries as food and gas prices keep going up. One relative had investment properties in Florida and Spain that hadn't worked out. He gave up on the one in Spain totally at a big financial loss, and in Florida, all the owners in his development are suing. It's all very worrying.

And how was your weekend? Write in the comments, and tell us what you've been up to!

Rainy garden party

My husband always has to write down detailed instructions on how to get anywhere for me as my sense of direction is terrible. I had to laugh as I read his instructions for getting to the garden party on Wednesday. I doubt he will ever write details on how to get to such a grand location again. He instructed me on how to get to Victoria station, then I was to go out of Victoria station and turn right, walk down the road 500 yards and then, he wrote, "Buckingham Palace should be on the left."

A London paper published a couple of photos from the party yesterday. Here is Charles checking the weather:

Here's what the newspaper said:

The relentless showers caused a string of train delays, smashed sea walls and even turned the annual Buckingham Palace garden party into an ocean of umbrellas.

And here's a photo. My daughter and I are somewhere under those umbrellas!

Later, one of my fave goss sites, TMZ, put up a post about the rainy garden party and used this photo. Click here to check it out. Just look at Camilla's outfit below. You can see that she doesn't shop at discount stores.

The vicar on the radio

I was driving home from work yesterday and heard the story of a vicar who disguised himself in old clothes, a wig and hat, then rolled around in mud a few times and went to his congregation for help. He expected to at least be offered a cup of tea and kind words, but they turned him away, refusing to deal with him. He went home, changed back into a vicar, and returned to his church. When he explained what he had done, the congregation became ashamed and apologetic. "It's easy to help African orphans," the vicar explained, "but not people from your own community who have troubles and need kindness."

I thought about what the vicar said as I took the train into London after work to go to rehearsal. We had a big run-through of Elijah with the conductor for the concert (not the usual chorus master who rehearses us), eminent in his field. I was a bit late, sat down, and asked the woman next to me, "Is that guy here yet?" She looked at me then said, "Do you mean the Maestro?" Another gaffe from me. I think I make about 20 a day. Anyway, the Maestro soon entered to hushed reverence, and we had a thrilling rehearsal. On my way to catch the train back home, I stopped to get some french fries at the Burger King at Paddington Station because I hadn't eaten for hours. I heard a drunken man behind me saying he was so hungry and could he have some money for a whopper. I was at the counter, so could hear him asking people behind me for help. No, people said. He was moving around the crowd. He was drunk but not unfriendly -- just boisterous. Then he got to me, held out his hand that had some change in it and said, "I just need enough for a Whopper."

Of course, I was thinking of the vicar on the radio when I said, "I'll buy you a Whopper." Then I asked him what he wanted to drink with that and it took him a little time to decide he wanted a Fanta because he was so out of it. He seemed very happy to be getting a meal and started trying to chat with me about America (in that one-sided way that people who aren't sober have). When I got my fries and walked away, he shouted his thanks to me and waved happily.

I'm sure I wouldn't have done that if it hadn't been for the vicar on the radio.

They're changing the guard at Buckingham Palace

I was standing out in a mini-monsoon all yesterday afternoon in the gardens of Buckingham Palace. I've never seen rain and wind like that before. I was at a party honoring the Red Cross, and people came from all over the country to attend, in expensive outfits with delicate lovely summer shoes. Everyone had to cram inside the tea tents, and by the end of the afternoon, it was so muddy that women had mud splashed on to their outfits. Their shoes had been an early casualty of the weather - only 30 minutes after the start of the party, I saw women's delicate pastel shoes sink into the mud, and the horror on the faces of the wearers won't be forgotten. Their shoes must have cost at least a hundred -- and now they are ruined.

And the rain meant you couldn't wander around the gardens or sit in the sunshine with your tea and delicacies. I heard one woman say, "You work your entire life in the Red Cross for a reward like this, then it rains."

The 'lavatories' as they referred to them were interesting. They put mahogany furniture in them, with a old-fashioned dressing tables and full-length mirrors so you could adjust your hat and clothes. It was like something out of your great grandmother's house and very charming. But by the time I saw them, I'd been issued with a plastic rain poncho -- so these people were in their expensive outfits for no reason because we all started wearing the rain ponchos to protect ourselves.

My daughter and I waited for over an hour by the Royal Tea Tent to see the arrival of Charles and Camilla. When they came through, it was fun. He had gray tails on, and she was dressed so beautifully in a gold creation. He was smiling and waving to all of us so we enjoyed that.

The food there was delicious. Small sandwiches, cake with the royal insignia on it, endless cups of tea. My daughter and I went back for grub three times in the afternoon, hoping no one noticed what pigs we were. I especially loved the cucumber sandwiches as they had onion in them and a spicy kick. Here's the recipe:

Buckingham Palace Cucumber Sandwiches

Ingredients:

1 Cucumber
8 oz Cream cheese, softened
3 Green onion tops, chopped
1/2 Cup mayonnaise
2 Slices of bread
Dash garlic salt
Dash pepper
Tabasco to taste

Wash and grate the cucumber properly. Allow to drain over a paper towel. Mix cheese, mayonnaise, onion, tabasco, salt and pepper. Add cucumber and mix well. Spread on a bread slice. Cover with another slice. Cucumber Sandwich is ready.

A joke

A married Irishman went into the confessional and said to his priest, 'I almost had an affair with another woman.'

The priest said, 'What do you mean, almost?'

The Irishman said, 'Well, we got undressed and rubbed together, but then I stopped.'

The priest said, 'Rubbing together is the same as putting it in. You're not to see that woman again. For your penance, say five Hail Mary's and put $50 in the poor box.'

The Irishman left the confessional, said his prayers, and then walked over to the poor box. He paused for a moment and then started to leave.

The priest, who was watching, quickly ran over to him saying, 'I saw that. You didn't put any money in the poor box!'

The Irishman replied, 'Yeah, but I rubbed the $50 on the box, and according to you, that's the same as putting it in!'

Waste not, want not

Did all of you hear about our prime minister, Gordon Brown, lecturing us to not waste food? He said it would help with our current food crisis, and he also disapproves of those 'buy one get one' free offers at supermarkets because that is wasteful. I guess our PM has never heard of freezers, where you put the extra food to keep for another day.

Anyway, the day he choose to harangue us over wasting food was the same day he enjoyed a lavish banquet at the G8 summit. The menu is below (click to enlarge it). Now that's some austerity eating!

To nod or not to nod?

I have my Buckingham Palace garden party today, but, of course, it is chilly and rainy so probably not a great time to be outside admiring plants.

I intended to sleep late and get gussied up but I have to go to the office so will just have to rush off to London after that, without having time to adjust my fascinator properly. I was reading the instructions again -- I need this and that form of identification, no cameras, no this, no that -- and I can't even have a bag, only a 'ladies' handbag' will be allowed. But I have to take an umbrella, directions, my Elijah score for rehearsal later, the fascinator, lipstick, money, old paper from last month that I'll never need again but it's in the bottom of my purse -- how can I fit all that into a lady's bag??

I was thinking of my little excursion tomorrow into Royal-land as I was reading the protocol for nodding that the monarchy provided for anyone who worked on the royal yacht. See what you think:

"The select few chosen to serve on the Royal Yacht Britannia had to learn when to nod and not to nod as part of their duties on one of the Royal Navy’s most sought-after postings.

What to do should a member of the Royal Family happen to pass while the deck was being scrubbed was another of the challenges that faced the crew.

The protocols, rules and accepted modes of conduct were laid down in the “precedent book” for crew members, now published by the Ministry of Defence.

A nodding acquaintance with members of the Royal Family on board was one of the stipulations - although in this case “the nod” required the following manoeuvre: “Lower your head forward until your chin touches your chest momentarily and then raise your head to an upright position. The whole sequence takes about one second.

'There is no need to bend at the waist in the best Sir Walter Raleigh style,' the protocol memorandum said under the heading: 'Forms of address and nodding by Royal Yacht officers and Royal Yachtsmen.'

Under a sub-heading, the memo, dated May 19, 1982, said: 'To nod or not to nod?' The answer is that a nod was required when anyone entitled to this form of obeisance 'enters or leaves the Wardroom, Royal Drawing Room or on to the Verandah Deck but not [underlined] when they enter or leave Church in the Royal Dining Room'."

Weather Addendum

I just checked the weather for the rest of the day. Look, it's terrible. I'm going to be soaked before I ever even get a glimpse of Prince Charles today!

Yesterday was wet for many of us. But brace yourself - and your brolly - for today. If weathermen are right, we are in for a supersoaking.

An entire month's worth of rain is predicted in places, putting some parts of the country on flood alert.

Britain, it seems, is in the midst of its very own monsoon season.

My father was my everything

They wouldn't allow their faces to be filmed, these two young boys who had just been made orphans because their father was murdered for supporting the opposition party in Zimbabwe. They thought if their faces were captured on film, Mugabe's thugs would kill them too.

"We just started walking after our family was killed," one said in a quiet plaintive voice. "We didn't know what else to do. Then someone stole our shoes. We almost froze to death at night, then a man gave us some shoes so we could keep going." The camera was trained on their new shoes, but as they spoke, all you could see was images of a person taking the shoes from these boys, now all alone in the world, and of their bare feet, trudging through the night to take them somewhere they didn't know, just anywhere away from Mugabe.

The camera then focused on the boys' ripped and dirty shirts, to avoid showing their faces. It made the quiet dignity of their voices all the more poignant. "It all started to go wrong when my father was killed," One said, the sweet tones of youth overlapping the horror of his words. Then his voice broke with grief. "But when he died....My father was my everything."

The next news segment was about the rift in the Anglican/Episcopal church over ordaining women to be bishops. There was the head of the African church, resplendent in his church finery, standing next to the Archbishop of Canterbury, also in full dress. The church is arguing over whether women should be allowed to be bishops. One vicar was interviewed who was adamant he wasn't taking orders from a woman. The want to create a sort of two tiered system where a man has to take over for a woman in these churches so they don't have to suffer the indignity of female bishops. I was watching the man speak thinking, a woman gave birth to you! How did you allow that??

The idea of all these grown people arguing over this when little children are being orphaned in Zimbabwe makes us look like the self-indulgent overfed Westerners who have the luxury of spending time on this that we are.

I will pass over the fact that I don't even think there is a God who cares whether women are bishops or not -- if they think there is some celestial being who really gets upset over this sort of thing, then let them, but what are they doing when people all over the world need their services? Tearing themselves apart over women taking leadership roles in the church.

Really, what would Jesus make of that?

The Diary of a Nobody

I was struck by how many memoirs there are in bookstores in America on my last visit there. (We don't have this problem in English bookshops yet.) It seems like everyone in the United States is writing a tome to instruct hapless readers on the truths they have discovered on their own life's journey. The subject of the book can be something as mundane as refurbishing a house with your spouse-- but there will be something in that experience that imparts powerful lessons that they must then impart to us (for approximately $17.99).

Devoted blog reader Lisa wrote to me once: "I find those memoirs of everyone's important life, otherwise known as how they discovered the keys to universe and happiness - *extremely* pedestrian."

My aunt Susan in New Orleans sent me an e-mail last week about the avalanche of memoirs. She said, "Memoir publishing appears to be on a surge in the US at the moment so -The Diary of a Nobody- is being quoted in reviews."

Well, I had never even heard of The Diary of a Nobody by George & Weedon Grossmith so I immediately got it from Amazon. Fantastic! Published in 1892, but sorely needed in 2008. The first installment appeared in Punch magazine in 1888:

As everybody who is anybody is publishing Reminiscences, Diaries, Notes, and Autobiographies, we are sincerely grateful to "A Nobody" for permitting us to add to the historic collection.

What a breath of fresh air this book is. The author does not deign to think he has discovered a hitherto unknown fact that the rest of us don't know that will change our lives forever -- he doesn't lecture or cajole us. And most of all, he isn't intellectually dishonest like a lot of memoir writers are -- you know when you read some of these books that the authors are desperately trying to shoehorn some epiphany into an everyday experience like baking bread on a Sunday afternoon with an aging relative. It rings false when you read it, and you feel manipulated by the writing.

But let's give A Nobody the final word:

Why should I not publish my diary? I have often seen reminiscences of people I have never even heard of, and I fail to see -- because I do not happen to be a "Somebody" -- why my diary should not be interesting. My only regret is that I did not commence it when I was a youth.

Reinventing yourself (into a poor person)

I used to read an American women's magazine called More. It's for women over 40, and their big topic is reinventing yourself. Here's some of their inspiring copy:

...It's your life, and more important, you're the one who just had the notion to change it. Here are midlife women who seized the day....

So they profile women who have good jobs and salaries but they aren't "excited." One woman says of her job, "It wasn't a challenge." She wanted to write children's books but clients kept "regilding her cage, sending lucrative contracts her way...."

Poor thing, how awful for her. Well, of course, she quit her job immediately, even though her husband had just left his to start a consulting firm. "It was a huge financial risk," she admits. "We had three kids in private school, a mortgage to pay, and no steady income to speak of."

Another woman profiled was married to a man she felt demeaned her. So she decided to go to Greece (as you do). She was backing her car out of the driveway and her husband began to shout at her, "Stop" Stop the car!" but she went on driving to the airport to catch her flight, newly empowered woman that she was.

I wish the magazine would do follow-up stories on women like this. I'm sure it is a great feeling to quit your job because you have to do it day-in and day-out or dump your husband to go to Greece, but what do these women do for retirement savings or healthcare? Most of the profiles I read of reinvented women in this mag admit that they are immediately worse off financially, in addition to having no savings for illness or old age.

Wouldn't it be better to write glowingly of women who inject creativity into their lives despite having jobs that aren't thrilling or women who manage to change their relationships with their husbands in mature ways, rather than just by running off?

And you never see magazines write glowing articles about men who can't stand the rat race and give it all up to design greeting cards, and, in spite of being unable to support their families, feel "happier than ever." (A common refrain in these women's reinvention mags.)

That's what I call advertising

Thanks to my sister-in-law Paula for today's thought-provoking post:

How I spent the 4th of July

I worked most of the day at the office, then drove home and got my daughter and picnic stuff to go to the Royal Regatta at Henley. I was going to meet my friend Di for a picnic by the river. My daughter and I decided to take public transport. Two hours later, we found ourselves walking down a long unending road trying to find Di (the traffic was so bad for the regatta that they began to close roads so we had to get out and walk). As we lugged champagne and picnic food down a winding dusty road, we argued over how we had to come to be lost. "If you'd just done what I said in the first place," my daughter kept telling me, "we would have been OK." We continued to bicker as the road never seemed to end. "What if we never find Di and we just end up dying out here?" I asked. I had worn frivolous shoes, never intended to be used for walking two miles.

Finally we found Di and her friend Sally. Here we are:

Henley is such a beautiful place, and the atmosphere for the regatta is tremendous.


My son had impulsively decided to camp overnight in Henley too as many people just spend the weekend at the regatta. I told him he needed to be all packed up because I had to be in rehearsals in London after work on Thursday so wouldn't be around to do it for him. He assured me he had everything under control. All my subsequent nagging/checking if he was ready was met with a disdainful reply.

After our picnic with Di, my husband met us so we could go into the town to meet my book club for dinner at a tapas bar. The traffic was a nightmare, just to drive two miles from the picnic to the town, so I was very late. In the meantime, there was a call from my son from the campsite. "I don't have any food," he said. "Can you bring me some?" ARGH! We took him the leftover picnic food and gave him money. Then another call. "I brought water," he said, "but I don't have any cups to drink it from. Can you bring me some?"

By the time I got to the tapas bar and met the book club and their husbands, I was a stressed-out nightmare of a person. But Henley at this time of year is so special. People wear their rowing blazers and ties and straw hats, and the women dress up, and there's a complete party atmosphere that is infectious. On my way to the restaurant, I saw two men drop down into the middle of the street to have a press-up competition (push-ups, to you Americans). Cars stopped, people cheered, and it all seemed so normal somehow.

We had a delightful meal with the book club. I had to get a picture outside the restaurant. We are laughing because a strange man standing outside decided to join us for the picture (he's on the end at the right).

Happy Independence Day

Or IndependAnce Day, as they are spelling it at my office in emails. (This must be some British quirk because when I was writing technical manuals a couple of years ago for a tax software, I noticed they spelled dependents as 'dependAnts.')

Here I am at the office on the 4th of July, as it's not a holiday over here. I'm thinking of all the fun fireworks and BBQs my friends in the US will enjoy today.

England does know it's our Independence Day, and they do things like print recipes that will assist UK dwellers to enjoy American dishes. But they get stuff wrong -- one funny one was telling readers about the expression "as American as blueberry pie" then printing a recipe for blueberry pie, when of course it's as American as "apple pie."

And people over here assume because I'm from Mississippi that I eat mudpie all the time as Mississippi Mudpie is a popular dessert on menus in American-style restaurants over here. I even made it my email address as the assumption that I'm a constant mudpie eater amused me. But then I have to explain it to people all the time so probably should have just used my name instead.

Another thing that baffles Brits is our use of measuring cups. One UK food site tries to be helpful (below):

Confused by cups?

Using an American cookbook? Does their cup system have you confused? Never fear here is our indispensable guide to U.S quantities.

Anyway, Happy 4th of July to everyone - I will miss the strawberry shortcake and hotdogs and fireworks....

Pray at the Pump movement

Really, I am not making fun of these people by putting this post up, but I wish Rocky Twyman could bring his vigil group over here and pray at UK pumps for a little bit. The station I pass on the way to the office has petrol/gas for $10.00 a gallon!

Group Asks for Divine Intervention to Ease Oil Prices
CNSNews.com Correspondents
July 03, 2008

(CNSNews.com) - As the price of oil continues to rise, some are turning to God and prayer for an answer to their financial troubles.

The Pray at the Pump Movement, founded by Rocky Twyman, has been holding prayer vigils at gas stations across the country. On Monday, Twyman decided to take his movement from Exxon and Shell stations straight to the steps of the Embassy of Saudi Arabia in Washington, D.C., hoping to encourage the oil-rich country to raise the amount of barrels they release each day from 200,000 to 1.2 million.

Are we stupid?

If a nation expects to be ignorant and free, in a state of civilization, it expects what never was and never will be. -- Thomas Jefferson

This article from www.alternet.org caught my eye for a couple of reasons: 1) I think I am one of these stupid people, and 2) one of our readers was the lead curator at the new McCormick Tribune Freedom Museum. Read on:

Just how stupid are we? Pretty stupid, it would seem, when we come across headlines like this: "Homer Simpson, Yes -- 1st Amendment 'Doh,' Survey Finds" (Associated Press 3/1/06).

"About 1 in 4 Americans can name more than one of the five freedoms guaranteed by the First Amendment (freedom of speech, religion, press, assembly and petition for redress of grievances.) But more than half of Americans can name at least two members of the fictional cartoon family, according to a survey.

"The study by the new McCormick Tribune Freedom Museum found that 22 percent of Americans could name all five Simpson family members, compared with just 1 in 1,000 people who could name all five First Amendment freedoms."

"But what does it mean exactly to say that American voters are stupid? About this there is unfortunately no consensus. Like Supreme Court Justice Potter Stewart, who confessed not knowing how to define pornography, we are apt simply to throw up our hands in frustration and say: We know it when we see it. But unless we attempt a definition of some sort, we risk incoherence, dooming our investigation of stupidity from the outset. Stupidity cannot mean, as Humpty Dumpty would have it, whatever we say it means.

Five defining characteristics of stupidity, it seems to me, are readily apparent. First, is sheer ignorance: Ignorance of critical facts about important events in the news, and ignorance of how our government functions and who's in charge. Second, is negligence: The disinclination to seek reliable sources of information about important news events. Third, is wooden-headedness, as the historian Barbara Tuchman defined it: The inclination to believe what we want to believe regardless of the facts. Fourth, is shortsightedness: The support of public policies that are mutually contradictory, or contrary to the country's long-term interests. Fifth, and finally, is a broad category I call bone-headedness, for want of a better name: The susceptibility to meaningless phrases, stereotypes, irrational biases, and simplistic diagnoses and solutions that play on our hopes and fears."

A day at the beach (in China)

A day at the beach is supposed to be quiet and relaxing, isn't it? Maybe not a great idea to try and relax on some beaches in China, as these pics show. This looks more crowded than Bournemouth beach in England on a hot day!

In pursuit of perfection

Perfectionism is a terrible thing; you never have any fun out of life if you have to be perfect. Screwing up is totally human, and we shouldn't feel bad about it when we do it. I have a friend who freely admits she's a perfectionist. She's so creative and talented and could do a million things in life but she won't because she has to know she's doing it better than everyone else, and so is crippled in this way.

Psychology Today has a few words about perfectionism to enlighten us:

"You could say that perfectionism is a crime against humanity. Adaptability is the characteristic that enables the species to survive--and if there's one thing perfectionism does, it rigidifies behavior. It constricts people just when the fast moving world requires more flexibility and comfort with ambiguity than ever. It turns people into success slaves.

Perfectionists, experts now know, are made and not born, commonly at an early age. They also know that perfectionism is increasing. One reason: Pressure on children to achieve is rampant, because parents now seek much of their status from the performance of their kids.

Perfectionism seeps into the psyche and creates a pervasive personality style. It keeps people from engaging in challenging experiences; they don't get to discover what they truly like or to create their own identities. Perfectionism reduces playfulness and the assimilation of knowledge; if you're always focused on your own performance and on defending yourself, you can't focus on learning a task. Here's the cosmic thigh-slapper: Because it lowers the ability to take risks, perfectionism reduces creativity and innovation--exactly what's not adaptive in the global marketplace.

Yet, it does more. It is a steady source of negative emotions; rather than reaching toward something positive, those in its grip are focused on the very thing they most want to avoid--negative evaluation. Perfectionism, then, is an endless report card; it keeps people completely self-absorbed, engaged in perpetual self-evaluation- reaping relentless frustration and doomed to anxiety and depression."