Twins Ready To Topple!

Right, own up. Who is voting for John & Edward? Who are you? Who is stupid/tone deaf/humourless enough to keep them in this TALENT show?

Gruesome twosome John & Edward are car crash telly. Which amounts to a certain amount of TV gold - I am aware of this fact.

But I would never actually pick up my phone, spend my hard-earned cash and vote for them. I have my pride.

And I'm willing to bet that all of you who think it's funny to keep the poor deluded boys in the competition will NOT be rushing out to buy their Christmas single. Well unless it's for someone you don't like very much.

The British public will boost them up, only to knock them right down again as soon as they get close to the top.
They will keep them in week after week before finally saying, when the prize is just within reach: "Only kidding, you're rubbish!" and voting them off. I guarantee it.

But I don't feel sorry for them. They'll be ok. They'll get their own Jedward TV show. And then you'll all be sorry.

They absolutely slaughtered Queen's We Will Rock You. They use too much hair gel. They can't sing. Or dance. And the matching outfits will only get them so many brownie points.

Meanwhile, poor Rachel (one of the few who can actually sing) was sacrificed at the altar of the terrible twins.

What else do they need to do to convince you to put your vote to better use? I don't understand, and at the risk of sounding like a nazi supporter (That's for you Simon), i'll take Danyl over those numbskulls anyday - they're even starting to look guilty for still being in the competition - Do a John Sargeant BOYS!! and walk away while you still have some dignity and pride in tact.

All you secret voters out there, come forward now and explain yourselves. It's the least you can do...

High School Environment - Oh Please!

I hope its message resonates with its target audience. I really do. But why do I want to crawl up into a ball and weep tears of despair after listening to the new song for Disney's Project Green (above)?

Admittedly, the "tween pop" genre is not one that I follow closely, but I know enough to recognise that Miley Cyrus and the Jonas Brothers are about as big as it gets at the moment, particularly in the US. So when they come together with their fellow Disneyites, Selena Gomez and Demi Lovato, to record a song urging us all to do our bit for the environment you could be forgiven for expecting their collective might to produce some much-needed magic (although not, perhaps, the sort that got Mickey Mouse into trouble in Fantasia).

Well, kazaam! Just a few days after its release, Send It On is already troubling the top spot on the iTunes download chart in the US. Therefore, the first hurdle of reaching hundreds of thousands of tweenagers has already been cleared effortlessly. You wouldn't really expect anything else with Miley Cyrus and the Jonas Brothers onboard.

So now let's turn to the song's message. This is where the problems begin. Where is the message, exactly? Here's a (mercifully) quick snip of the lyrics…

Just smile and the world will smile along with you
That small acts of love
Then the one will become two
If we take the chances
To change circumstances
Imagine all that we could do
If we…

Send it on
On and on
Just one hand can heal another

It's all very "Yes, We Can", and Barack Obama's election more than proves that messages of positive empowerment do work. But I fail to see how anyone listening to this will join the dots and realise that these lyrics about the power of collectivism are meant to inspire us all to get up and tackle the many environmental challenges we now face. In fact, there are no references at all to the environment to be found within the song.

In the name of research, I steeled myself and sat down and watched the video from start to end in search of these elusive environmental references. Alas, all I could find was a sofa made of, what looks like, recycled denim that all the singers sit themselves down on towards the end of the video in what appears to be some kind of subliminal reference to the opening credits of Friends.

But maybe I've invested a little too much hope in the starlets created so skillfully by the house they call "The Mouse". For a little dose of the smelling salts, let's reverse up a year and recall Miley Cyrus's last lyrical expedition into environmentalism.

Here's a sample of "Wake up America", taken from her 2008 album Breakout …

Everything I read
Is 'global warming', 'going green'
I don't know what all this means
But it seems to be saying
Wake up America

That's a little bit more like it, but it hardly fills you with confidence that it will be the next generation – all those currently nodding their heads to Miley Cyrus on their iPods – who will be the ones to lift us all out of this giant hole we managed to dig for ourselves.

But let's not give up on the kids quite yet. As part of Project Green, Disney executives have pledged to allow children to decide how the company should spend $1m on environmental projects.

What are friends?

A little meditative thought, going over old poems of mine. Powerful stuff to face old writing. All sorts of things become clear upon reflection.

One thing, for example, that got me was how black and white the world once seemed. Was it that way for you long ago? Here's a question to frame it for you: What is a friend?

I've been blessed with many in my life. One who is my brother. One who may not be my brother by blood - but is my brother nevertheless. One a mentor. One practically a father. One my spiritual master. Three who called themselves my mam. Those I've worked with through some hard times, and those who work to try and build something special with me, with little resources, and little personal gain.

And then there is the instance of the one I turned on for a break of trust. It still can shock me the depth of anger I felt at the perceived betrayal. Since then I've actually let a few people walk all over me, my response to that situation bothered me. People say I'm now too trusting. It's a compliment... I think :)

Well according to dictionary.com a friend is:

1. A person whom one knows, likes, and trusts.
2. A person whom one knows; an acquaintance.
3. A person with whom one is allied in a struggle or cause; a comrade.
4. One who supports, sympathizes with, or patronizes a group, cause, or movement.
5. Friend A member of the Society of Friends; a Quaker.

If I recall correctly, as a child your definition of a friend is very black and white: Someone you play with. And as a teenager it gets a bit more complex - A soul you can trust. A heart that accepts you. A person you care for. A fist that will fight for you. Two feet that will stand beside you when things get hairy.

But as an adult we muddy our definition of the word friend. It becomes elastic to include acquaintances. People who we simply share interests but may not care for in the least. Maybe this is a good thing. We grow tolerant. Our hearts less exclusive. Maybe its the acknowledgment that life is a whole lot easier if we lay down our walls and be okay with one another.

Maybe its an acknowledgment that we had it right when we were children - simply now a friend is someone you share a drink with and maybe a joke.

I'd like to believe that, but...

A part of me holds that teenager's definition a little too dear - for example, it pisses me off how some throw around the word friend and then walk away the first time someone needs help.

That same part wants to revolt at how we market our 1,251 friends on My Space or look at our link ranks on Technorati... speaking of which... if you link to me.. are you my friend? If you don't... what does that say?

Well, then again, sometimes a link is just a link. A comment is just a comment. And it's expressions of reaching out that counts. One way, or another.

Only Donald & Oprah Can Save Us Now!!

Donald Trump is a grade one buffoon. I'm presuming he is not going to sue me for saying as much because he surely knows I'd win on "fair comment." I'd cite the dead grey squirrel he wears draped across his forehead and that funny mincing pink mouth which makes him look like Paris Hilton's vainer elder sister; I'd point out that compared with Sir Alan Sugar he's an absolutely rubbish Apprentice boss; and as exhibit A, I'd cite the unbelievable crapness of his abysmal new self help book Think Like A Champion, which serves up warmed over non-aphorisms like "I see no value whatsoever in believing ignorance to be an attribute. It isn't," as if they're startling and insightful and worth paying 20 bucks for.

Donald and Melanie Trump

Today, however, I am brimming with admiration for the man. His decision to sue a journalist for having claimed he is a mere millionaire when in fact - at least so far as Trump claims - he is a billionaire is an example to us all. I'm not saying I want him to win necessarily, but I do applaud the principle. Now more than ever we need stinking rich people to go on shouting just how disgustingly, revoltingly, stinking rich they are.

I felt a similar frisson of joy when Oprah Winfrey boasted the other day about how nice it was to fly around in her private jet - and for just the same reason. As a firm believer in the trickle down effect, I know that the only way we're really going to get the world economy going again is if the super-rich start spending again like there's no tomorrow. We need their liquidity. What's more, we need their example. I'm sick to the craw of reading lifestyle feature articles claiming how chic it is to be frugal, how staying at home is the new shopping, and saving is the new spending. They're just making things worse.

So hats off to Trump for being such a vulgar, plutocratic show off. Hatsoff to Oprah too. And hats off to that splendid fellow, whoever he was, who broke classic car auction records by blowing £8 milllion on that glorious 1957 Ferrari 250. We need these people for they remind us of perhaps the single most important fact in the world right now: Capitalism is not dead, merely experiencing a temporary and naturally self-correcting blip.

Life - Full of dissapointments?

I dont know where to begin with this one - basically the title says it all, and as we go through life we realise people, jobs, ambitions, lifestyle, partners and our own achievments at some time or another are a big let down.

We all aim big and try to do the best we can, but for some it seems like no matter what they do, failure is always following. We all go through bad times, no better or worse than anyone else, but everyone is different as to how they percieve and deal with it. I have friends whose problems seem quite trivial in the grand scheme of things or even if i've compared them to some of the things that i have personally went through, i sometimes cringe at the nievity of them, but as i said, its perception, and someones mountain is someone elses molehill, and regardless of my opinion, i will be there for anyone who asked for my help or advice, even if i know they're not going to take it.

I have a new theory on this. Almost 90% (thats without exaggerating) of the time we bring these burdens and misfortune on ourselves. How many times have you given advice to someone who hasn't listened and exactly what you predict actually happens. I'm sure all people know things aren't going to work out the way they want, no matter how much they hope and pray for them to happen. But we keep doing it. When are we going to realise that there isn't enough time to make every mistake for ourselves and actually listen to the people who are only trying to help, simply because they can see something that we're too close to either be able or want to see.

I think there is a little bit too much hope in the world, and not enough positive actions that would lead to a positive result, most would like to just bury their head in the sands rather than deal with life altering decisions, and hope that things will work out. Well screw that for a laugh, i make things happen, i always have. Success and failure come hand in hand, and wherever one is, the possibility for the other to present itself lingers around, and sometimes, infact a lot of the time, there is not a damned thing that can be done about it no matter how hard we try.

I love failure, i wouldn't be who i am without it, i wouldn't have had the success i've seen in the past without learning from it - you have to pass failure on the journey to success, even if sometimes the path leads back to dissapointment. I'm getting back on my feet again, and getting on with it, and only really confide and whinge to one person about it. I keep trying though.... because i know more than anyone, true failure is when you stop trying. I learned that lesson from my father, a man i used to love and respect so much... he stopped trying, and now he's an alcoholic, with three suicide attempts under his belt - even though i pity him, i feel contempt rather than love for him, because out of all the people i've ever met, i never thought it would be him that gave up on life.

I've had a pretty bad two or three years a while back, and i'm only now getting back on my feet, yeh i've lost a hell of a lot in a short space of time, more than some people lose in a lifetime, but thats only because i did more than most people achieve in a lifetime - i think there is only one thing worse than having something and losing it - and thats never having it in the first place. I've had money, a great lifestyle, travelled every continent in the world, all by the time i was 23. I've always set my sights high, and anyone who knows me knew i wouldn't be down long.I realise now that everything i lost was material and a lot of it i took for granted.... a mistake i wont make again.

Work Hard, Play Harder, and spend whatever you have while you have it, because its not going with you at the end of all things. Help anyone you can, speak to people you have never spoke to, and try everything at least once before you cast judgement on it. The most natural part of life is death, and its the one thing none of us can get away from, its hunting us from the day we are born, its relentless and its biggest ally is time, and they both work as hard as each other to catch you up - and believe me they will. So its time to start living and realise what you can do in life for other people, not just what you can get from them.

I commit my time in other people, because i have belief in them, That's the true nature of wealth - its my legacy and its my way to cheat death - i will be remembered by the good deeds i did, not the good things i had.

And thats all folks.... be great to each other...

A Good Philosophy!!

Keep this philosophy in mind the next time you either hear or are about to repeat a rumour.

In ancient Greece (469 - 399 BC), Socrates was widely lauded for his wisdom.
One day the great philosopher came upon an acquaintance who ran up to him excitedly and said, "Socrates, do you know what I just heard about one of your students?"
"Wait a moment," Socrates replied. "Before you tell me I'd like you to pass a little test. It's called the Test of Three."
"Three?"
"That's right," Socrates continued "Before you talk to me about my student let's take a moment to test what you're going to say.
The first test is Truth.
Have you made absolutely sure that what you are about to tell me is true?"
"No," the man said, "actually I just heard about it."
"All right," said Socrates. "So you don't really know if it's true or not.
Now let's try the second test, the test of Goodness.
Is what you are about to tell me about my student something good?"
"No, on the contrary..."
"So," Socrates continued, "you want to tell me something bad about him even though you're not certain it's true?"
The man shrugged, a little embarrassed.
Socrates continued. "You may still pass though, because there is a Third test - the filter of Usefulness.
Is what you want to tell me about my student going to be useful to me?"
"No, not really."
"Well," concluded Socrates, "if what you want to tell me is neither True nor Good nor even Useful, why tell it to me at all?"
The man was defeated and left, ashamed.
This is the reason Socrates was a great philosopher and held in such high esteem.

It also explains why he never found out that Plato was having it off with his wife.

I love it when we do what we do!!

I do think this is worth repeating. I read it in a dear dr page of one of nations great tabloids today. It sounds sooooooo familiar. This is what it read verbatim:

"I'm a successful, highly motivated guy, confident, at ease with my sexuality and blessed with wonderful friends. Yet when it comes to relationships, I'm a total doormat, inwardly screaming from abandonment and loneliness. It took a marriage for me to realise I was gay. Since then, it has been a woeful litany of short-term happiness. There was a wonderful 18 months, during which I financed my boyfriend's diploma course – and wrote most of his essays – before he ditched me. Two years with a seemingly sound guy ended in his sudden suicide. Six years later, I'm struggling to meet the needs of his elderly and demanding parents – his final letter asked me to take care of them. Two years with another Mr Wonderful, getting him through a nervous breakdown, ended when he dumped me – by phone. All my close friends are happily settled and I'm facing a nightmare summer of civil-partnership ceremonies. There's loads to mourn, as you can see, and I'm starting to lose sight of the funny, happy, glass-half-full, heart-on-his-sleeve guy who used to be me. It would be a tragedy if I became bitter and twisted, but I feel such a sad bastard and a failure. Please help. "

It's odd, isn't it, how we can describe ourselves and our relationships with such clarity, yet fail to see the patterns we have drawn? It's as if you've put all the dots in place, but can't join them up to see the full picture.

So, perhaps it might help if I join up a few. What seems perfectly clear is that our inner and outer selves sometimes don't match. It's as if we're a stranger to ourselves. The string of adjectives this guy uses to describe himself – "successful, confident, funny, happy, glass-half-full" – are so far from the people we choose as intimates or friends. I, probably like so many others, am guilty of doing the same thing this guy has done - not only in relationships, but also in friendships.

I once asked a therapist to define soul mates. She said: "It's two people who recognise the damage in each other." So much for romance – but what she was actually saying is that we are attracted to fragilities in other people that we know, often at an unconscious level, we share ourselves. If I was really at ease, I wouldn't need to go around rescuing people who are insecure, anxious and inclined to melancholia. I wouldn't need to rescue people at all. So, why do it? Well, when we don't like our own fragilities, we deny them by painting ourselves as the opposite. We literally deny who we are. It's called the false self.

To strengthen the false self and protect the fragile inner self, we may become compulsive helpers and people-pleasers – anything to take the focus off ourselves and put it on other people. We promote ourselves as Mr or Mrs Wonderful. People don't dare criticise or question us because of all the good work we do. I am not suggesting this is conscious, but I also think that, as with most PR exercises, there's an implicit lack of honesty. If we are always focused on other people's weaknesses and difficulties, it means we don't have to look at our own. By deflecting attention onto others – "Poor them, look what I do for them" – we stop people seeing us as we are. If we can make people focus on what we do, not what we are, we distract them from the real picture.

Now, all those apparently vulnerable souls who dumped this guy despite all the great things he did for them – paying for their education and other financial help with things, writing their essays, seeing them through a nervous breakdown etc. I imagine they get fed up with being in the shadow of a conquering hero.

No matter how great a job we do at constructing a false self, people eventually recognise an inherent lie. On top of that (over a period of time), they start to resent their rescuer, or the person that tried to help them the most. Nobody enjoys being beholden to another person, particularly in a romantic relationship let alone a platonic relationship. Intimacy is the admission of human frailties on both sides. It is an equal-vulnerabilities policy. Once you start rescuing people, you disrupt the balance of power. A relationship/friendship may work for a while, or somebody may be so vulnerable that they need help, but once they are strong enough, the rescuer to them, looks like the oppressor.

If you want a successful relationship/friendship, you need to start with yourself. I suspect you're so good at denial, you may find this hard. However, the extreme wake-up call of a marriage that the guy this blog is about answered, only to discover he is actually gay, might tell you something about the extent of denial that our humanity is capable of.

A course of tough-talking therapy would be a good start. we all need to chip away at that false self. It makes intimacy fantastically difficult because it forms a hard, shiny barrier (like the hard, shiny words – "highly motivated, confident" –we use to describe ourself) so people can't reach us. We all need to be needed. None of us likes being needy.

Try to remember that when you are next confronted with the possibility of intimacy ...or even friendship. , it could save you a lot of time, money and uneccesary pain.

I'm a poet and didn't know it...

The World We Live

In the world we live, time goes fast
Too short ‘til the future, too long is the past
With comings and goings, who knows where we are?
So near is it over, it’s never too far.

In the world we live, people are strange,
With good versus evil, and we’re all in that range.
We’re nasty, we’re nice, all rolled into one,
Sometimes regretting the things that we’ve done.

In the world we live, full of anger and war,
With hatred, and difference, the cause of it all.
Who’s right? Who’s wrong?, it seems like a game,
I wish that god would make us the same.

In the world we live, there’s pollution everywhere,
Our children and loved ones breathe in toxic air.
So we start up our engines, and light up the sky,
We’re reckless and careless to let it go by.

In the world we live, there’s work, not much play,
We exist in a rat race, queuing and waiting every day.
No time to stop, and look at the splendour,
At laughter, and sunshine, or things that are tender.

The time has now come, to look at your face,
To stop, take a moment, and cherish our place.

Do someone a favour; make somebody smile,
Treasure the difference - don’t stand in a file.

Love someone special, have something to give,
Before it’s too late, in this world where we live…..