Child's Play

Just a quick blog today as I pack my bags and head for Tbilisi, Georgia for the week. Yesterday was my daughter’s birthday party and we had it in the house. 13 crazy children running around and trashing the place and making tons of noise in the way that only pre-teens can. It took me 3 hours to clear up in the evening. They are all such a confident bunch and as I watched them I revised my list of things that all children should learn to do by the age of ten to make them confident adults. I came up with the following:

Swim
Speak another language
Ride a bike
Ride a horse
Play a musical instrument

The first three cost almost nothing but most children can probably only ride a bike. Speaking a foreign language opens up a part of the mind at a young age that I think helps young children to see the world in a much more open-minded way. It is puzzling me why our schoolchildren (in the UK and France) are not learning Chinese at the age of 5. They would love drawing all of those little pictures. Make it fun for them. Age 10 or 11 is just too late for this sort of thing.

I also appalled myself as I watched these children by dividing them mentally into the ones I do like and the ones I don’t. Only natural I suppose but I have to report that the 2 english ones there (apart from my own) were by far the worst behaved.

Over the next two weeks my blogs are likely to be less frequent but I hope to report ‘live from Tbilisi’. A mad place. But a great place.

Song of the day: Natalia – Van Morrision

Excellence

I was going to tell the tale of my mother chasing young Polish men around Europe today and it will make a fine story but I save it for the appropriate moment – which is probably at the moment of bankruptcy, consummation (unlikely) or divorce.

But today I want to say something about excellence in two very different fields. Caroline returned yesterday afternoon and I went to pick her up at Nimes airport just after lunch. I spent the morning cleaning the house and while I did it I put BBC Interactive on so I could have the Federer-Roddick match on while I cleaned. Every generation produces a sporting genius and in our era we are lucky to have Roger Federer. Roddick had been playing very well and more than a few experts thought he was playing well enough to beat Federer. It went to four all in the first set and after that Roddick won two games. It has been described as one of the greatest performances in Grand Slam tennis and having watched and enjoyed a lot of tennis over the years (it is my favourite one-on-one sport) I have not seen anything better. Let’s rejoice in genius. I write on Positive Thinking and always say that so few of us ever realise in reality what we are capable of with the gifts we have been given. Federer has – and I freely admit that his ability is a birth gift - and seems to be able to find new parts of himself mentally whenever he has to.

Excellence also exists in the world of art and art commentary and in Andrew Graham-Dixon we have a commentator who continues the TV legacy of Kenneth Clarke. BBC4 have recently started his new series on religious art and this week he took us through Byzantine treasures. Perhaps this series is not quite as great as the one he did on Italian art a few years ago (and clearly that is his first love) but nonetheless it is streets ahead of anything else in its genre at the moment. He ‘reads’ a painting or sculpture back to the viewer without pretension and with absolute involvement in it’s ‘story’. I remember around ten years ago he described a Vermeer and all the possibilities that lay within the picture and he was totally comfortable shedding a few tears at the emotion of it all. A man totally and sincerely in love with his subject. In the era of the autocue it is great to see someone who can bring you with him into his world through his language. Of course, that this programme should be on BBC2 rather than BBC4 hardly needs to be said.

Music of the day is the latest Gotan Project album ‘Lunatico’. Better even, I think than their first album ‘La Revancha Del Tango’ which was great. I saw them live in the courtyard at Somerset House a few years ago and they were terrific.

Woe, Woe and Thrice Woe

I was in a beautiful sleep last night, ably assisted by two excellent glasses of a vin rose pre-bed. When at 3am my eldest daughter Lily woke me to announce that her first tooth had fallen out. Of course this then provided a cue for her to climb into my bed. I got back to sleep to be awoken 20 minutes later by Charlie the cat wanting to be fed. This was 3.30am. I refused, exit disgruntled cat, braying around the house at his dissatisfaction. And then at 4.15am my naughty youngest started calling ‘daddy, daddy’ in soft tones, growing increasingly louder as I failed to respond to her initial calling. Enter child number two into daddy’s bed. Sharing a bed with naughty youngest is like trying to sleep on top of Medusa’s head. I finally got back to sleep at around 6.30 am and the church bells of Pezenas sang ‘get out of bed you lazy sod’ about an hour later. Which I duly did. So it was then a small rush to get Lily ready for her 9am piano lesson followed by ballet in our nearest major town, Beziers.

We got to piano and the teacher’s house was shuttered and the gate locked. No piano lesson. A large espresso gave temporary revitalisation and we shot off to Beziers. When we got to ballet Lily then started crying and telling me how much she hates ballet. So we came home. Please forgive me if I say that I bought a very good bottle for tonight which I shall consume and enjoy as a palliative cure for children blues. I love them dearly though.

I am so tired that I shall have to postpone the story of my mother’s current love for a Polish man half her age (who has no interest in her) and possible financial crash because of it until tomorrow. But it is a good one!

Today music is irritating me so no recommendation. But I am pleased to report that the Birmingham Post is allowing me the right of reply to the front-page story they printed last week.

Cat Racing

I have always enjoyed reading diaries and the three I have enjoyed the most are: Alan Clarke, Chips Channon and Jeffrey Bernard. Bernard’s pieces are not what you might call a diary – he would be a great blogger now if he could ever summon up the motivation to do it for nothing. I think great diaries and indeed autobiographies are best written by those who were close to the top of their chosen profession but who lacked the ruthlessness to really go for it. Very few of the greats write well of themselves because they are always trying to protect their reputation – even up to the end where the legacy becomes all.

I have just finished my annual dose of Channon and Clarke and I am currently reading some of Bernard’s last musings – ‘Reach for the Ground’. Not as good as his previous collections of which I have two but still very, very funny. Described as the longest suicide note in history he tells great stories of excess and impropriety. As a great gambler he tells a lovely story about what he and a group of friends had to do to get their gambling fix when snow had caused all of the horse-racing to be abandoned. They set the whole of an upstairs landing up of a large Battersea flat as a mini-racecourse complete with hurdles, water jumps etc. and at the end of the course they left a tin of opened salmon. At the beginning of the course they lined up a row of cats and one of them ran a book so that bets could be placed on winning cats. He tells another story of Metropolitan Police excess when they came to arrest him for running a book at the Coach and Horses pub in Soho. 12 policeman came to perform the arrest of, as he says, ‘little me’. I have met very few policemen and women in my time and with honourable exceptions I am always underwhelmed by them. But perhaps my favourite is how he came to be sacked from the Sporting Life. He was a little inebriated and was – how shall we say it – ‘unwell’ at the moment the Queen Mother was coming out of a lift and he was going into it. I believe she may have had to buy a new pair of shoes.

I am rather attracted to the world’s of shits and charlatans and I wonder why.

Song of the day: Funky Nassau – Ray Munnings

Two bubbles burst

Last week I was on the front of The Birmingham Post. My agent in Birmingham had issued a press release detailing the work I had done with the City Council as a means of promoting my new book on anxiety. Anyway The Post interviewed him and made up a story around which around 2% was accurate. They claimed I had delivered stress counselling to 700 Birmingham City Council housing workers. I have never counselled anyone so I do not know where the story came from. The referred to me as one of Britain’s leading workplace psychologists (which is fine!!) and a local rent-a-quote person described me as someone ‘who probably doesn’t come cheap’. And they topped the piece with an editorial slamming the council and the human resources department who had employed me. End of contract. End of the best work I had done for years – I really felt I had a made a difference to a number of people’s lives. And all of this through ignorance and a desire to sell newspapers. To quote Private Eye – ‘never let the facts get in the way of a good story’.

The heat bubble has burst here in Pezenas. And I really ought to be happy about that because 22 degrees on Saturday is a rather stark warning of what is to come. I like the heat but really only at the appropriate times of year.

I have sold my house – in fact two offers in one day. The inertia of agent one (Asshetons in Penge, SE London if you are interested) prompted a change of agent (Your Move in Crystal Palace) and they delivered four viewings immediately, two of which have put in offers. I do find property tedious. All the English people sit outside the Café Des Arts here in Pezenas (a dismal café) talking about property profit and renovation quoting from all of those programmes on the TV. I keep away but I am sure it bores the French too. I don’t agree with the French lifestyle much (too inert for me) but on this point I am with them. Although I notice that the prices of property go up by about 20-25% in the summer months. Who can blame them for taking advantage of gullible Englanders?

Song of the day: Showroom Dummies – Senor Coconut.

Does 'living' make dying easier?

In my blog profile I put one of my interests as the sudy of acceptance of death. For many years I was terrified by this but I think I am coming to terms with it. I think writing books on positive thinking have helped me - they have certainly driven me to do more with my life but also to enjoy some of the things that are already around me that I was previously ignoring. I actually would love to write a book called 'how living makes dying easier'. Emma, if you are reading this - what do you think! Anyway my blog today just consists of a few quotes (some are mine, others attributed) which suggest where I am coming from:

‘When you came into this world you were crying and everyone else was smiling. When you leave it, if you give life your best shot, you will be smiling. And everyone else will be crying. But they will be smiling too’. (me)

‘What we call luck, what we call chance, is what happens when preparation meets opportunity. If you stay ready, you ain't gotta get ready." (Will Smith)

'The greatest thing you'll ever learn is just to love and be loved in return' (Nat Cole via fellow blogger adam - http://simplepleasures3.blogspot.com)

'At the end of my life I want still to be standing up rather than on my knees. To say that I stood up to the world and had a go rather than letting all the opportunities I had slip through my hands' (me - in my book 'Make Your Own Good Fortune')

'Growing old gracefully? I want to grow old disgracefully!' (Mae West)

The death of two greats

Today jazz music mourns two losses – two indisputably great musicians. Alice Coltrane and Michael Brecker. Alice Coltrane was not given the credit she deserved given her marriage to JC, and she did devote much of the later part of her life to the legacy of her husband. But in her own right she made some great Impulse recordings, particularly Ptah: The El Daoud and the Warner recording Eternity. She was musically very close to Pharoah Sanders (whom she collaborated with) and will be best remembered for her introduction of the harp into jazz which gave her music spiritual colour. The spiritual edge to her music and JC, Pharoah and Archie Shepp too are where I get closest to complete musical bliss.

Many believe Michael Brecker to be the best tenor saxophonist since Coltrane. His influence is huge because he could play in a variety of idioms and sound great in all of them. I even noticed him on a Parliament album recently. But he wasn’t a musical tart. Just a great musician who was open-minded enough to test himself out in a wide variety of settings. He completed his last album two weeks ago. It will be a spine-chilling moment when I buy my copy of it.

May they both enjoy the long jam session they have now begun.


Song of the Day: Blue Nile – Alice Coltrane

On the beach

Have you ever wondered what you might do if you saw two women making love in the sand-dunes by the beach on the Mediterranean and you had a six year old and a two year old with you, seeing what you were seeing? There are times when you are happy to explain anything to your children and other times when you need a breathing space to prepare a form of words that might express what you to say in language that doesn’t add three-hundred supplementary questions to the one originally asked. So you want to know how I dealt with this? The answer is that I didn’t have to. My eldest daughter who normally manages to ask relentlessly acute questions at any time saw what was going on and carried on with what she was doing. As did the lovers. One of them was about 18 and the other around 55. Sometimes things are beyond our radar – even the highly developed and receptive radar of children. As for me I quite liked the idea that two people were able to have alfresco sex in the middle of January although the reality of an air temperature of 21 degrees at this time of the year is terrifying. There were people swimming in the sea and had I been ten years to the good I may well have been in there myself. But what was beautiful about the day were my daughters telling me how fantastic a day they had had by the sea. They were exhausted by the end of it. Message for parents who don’t know how to get their children to sleep – get them in the fresh air for about six hours. The investment of 6 hours in the day gets you 4 hours in the evening and possibly a mini lie-in too. A great return.

Thinking of Georgia (with link to swimming) as I am at the moment I remember the last time I was there. It was November 2004 and the hotel had a pool which the enthusiastic receptionist had assured me was heated although she said they would have to clean it. I watched the pool cleaner spend around two hours meticulously cleaning the autumn leaf debris out and then I got a call to say it was ready. The possibility that I may need a covering of goose fat and more than my speedos for company had not occurred to me. I stuck one hand in the pool and watched it turn a colour that has only been recognised by scientists in the IKEA paint laboratory. Not wanting to let the ever-willing hotel staff down I did the British thing of diving in and instantly felt my heart seize up so much that I thought it was going to shoot through the roof of my head. My muscles solidified so much that I could barely swim. Two lengths later I was out with assorted Georgians and Russians looking at me like I had three heads. I am not sure if my genitalia have ever been the same again.

Only one gripe today and the was the dog that managed to de-faecate half a metre from where me and my daughters were playing on the beach. The owner of this ‘dog’ – it looked more a furry rat – watched it’s deposit and walked on. No clearing up, no apology and a disdainful look at me which said you shouldn’t have children on the beach when my rat needs to go to the toilet. I realise there are many French people (mostly young) who find this as repulsive as me. But there are many (mostly middle-aged and upwards) who care for no-one but themselves with no sense of social responsibility. Fraternite n’existe pas ici.

Song of the day: Irma Thomas: 'Baby Don’t Look Down'. (one for the lovers)

Chips Channon

Every year I read the ‘Chips’ Channon diaries. For readers who don’t know him, he was a major light on the London aristocratic social scene in the 1930’s and 40’s and he chronicles an age that does not exist anymore. This was a world of country house weekends, London balls, bibelots, champagne and excess – the world of Emerald Cunard and Diana Cooper. He was an MP for 25 years, though did nothing of any significance there. The gift he had was to be able to gossip, absorb and digest acute observations and then write them in his diaries. I can best describe them as ‘discretely indiscreet’. Perhaps the best thing about him – and one of the key reasons for his lack of political success – was his backing of wrong horses. Munich, Chamberlain, Butler and so on. He did grow to love Churchill but was well aware of Churchillian weaknesses which we tend to have forgotten in his recent (and of course wholly justified) deification.

I say all this because I awoke at 5.30am this morning, minus bed partner and opened his diaries for their annual read. Two hours of bedded bliss before the children demanded cartoons, cereal and general entertainment. I must admit that I could have quite happily spent the day in bed reading. Nonetheless in one hour I washed the floor, loaded the washing machine, did last night’s washing up, emptied the cat tray and prepared lunch before dropping Lily at school and Izzy at the child-minders. And so here I sit at 10.00am on Friday morning guiltily wondering whether to go back to bed and read or to work. The puritanical side of me knows what the answer will be. Shame.

Talking of reading, my heart always sinks when someone hands me a book and says ‘you will love this’. However, what it does do is help you understand how other people see you. My father sees an image of me that has never changed. He recently said those fateful words while handing me a book ‘Penguins at Play’ by the late Harry Thompson. I had read his excellent biography of Peter Cook but I found this tedious and cricketing-cliché ridden. I am not much interested in a ‘man’s world’ – public school types playing cricket in Argentina and Antarctica. I wish he stopped to think for a moment that I am not like him. He for instance does not like Chips Channon because he disagrees with him and cares not for Chips's vanity. I rather enjoy reading about people and opinions I disagree with. Far more mentally enriching than re-enforcing your own ‘world-view’ all the time.

No musical recommendation today. I will enjoy the peace.

The real 'Georgia on My Mind'

The promise of foreign travel is the work equivalent of royal jelly to me so I was thrilled to see two emails from clients new asking me to work in Tbilisi, Georgia at the end of the month followed by Germany in February. I have been to Georgia before (both Batumi and Tbilisi) and loved it and I cannot wait to get on that plane. Georgian Airlines of course so one has to hold one’s breath a little. On my last flight to Tbilisi there were four people on the plane and I got upgraded to business class. Not that it really mattered in such emptiness. I feasted and imbibed relentlessly and watched the snow-topped peaks of the Caucasus. Marvellous.

I am with the children on my own for two weeks after dropping Caroline at Nimes airport at lunchtime today. It is so warm at the moment that I can actually see us going for a picnic at the beach on Sunday. Otherwise we will go to the ‘barrage’ lake inland which has a rather nice picnic area when it is not infested with untethered dogs.

I had an urge to listen to Archie Bell and The Drells ‘’Soul City Walk’ and contacted soul brother Nigel to see if he could email it across. He duly did and it was as I remembered it and so for that it is my ‘song of the day’.

O yes – did I mention that the Christmas bills all arrived in an unfriendly pile (what is the collective noun for lots of bills arriving at once?) this morning. I felt like Colonel Kurtz – ‘The Horror’.

Jazz

I am on musical fire at the moment sparked by blogger chats with fellow bloggers adam and brian. After a jazz chat about Gil Scott-Heron yesterday I started to think about all of those great musicians I have seen live. And I reminded myself of Sonny Rollins and how he doesn't get the dues. He is one of the last greats from the 1950's and possibly the greatest ever unaccompanied saxophonist (perhaps only Garbarek comes close). I listened to his 'Next' album today - a late one from 1972 but a gem and one that is underrated by the Penguin Guide to Jazz. I love his album 'The Bridge' too. I like the way that when he has nothing to say musically he says nothing. So he went off by himself for a while, spent time sat by a bridge and came out with 'The Bridge' at the end of it. His version of 'God Bless The Child' on it is a great demonstration of his unaccompaied playing. The times I saw him live he always did the showstopper 'Don't Stop The Carnival' (popularised by Alan Price) and at the age of 70 (as he then was) his lungpower was remarkable.

So I have spent the time I should be writing checking Amazon rankings for my books (the writer's disease I am afraid) and loading up my itunes with jazz classics. I listened to StarPeople (Miles) which I loved from the early eighties as well as Tutu and Amandla - not a great album but Mr Pastorius is a great track.

I feel guilty for saying how great the weather is because it cannot be normal for the South of France to be experiencing 20 degrees in early January. Today was t shirt weather and wonderful it was too. Perhaps the carnival weather prompted me to listen to the carnival-type music of Sonny Rollins. It really is worrying that I can sit here in my office in Rue De La Foire, Pezenas with the window open, a warm breeze kissing me and a dark blue sky spread over the rooftops. I wonder if the sea is warm...

I hate to say this but certain aspects of the year have started very well (apart from one which I alluded to in a blog a few days ago). It seems that someone may want to buy my house and I have also secured a great contract to do some psychology based work in London and Birmingham over the next few months as well as a nice piece of work in germany next month. In March I am off to Kosovo again. Now all I need is for my new book on anxiety to sell. My good training friend Nigel gave a copy to his wife and it seems she loved it (Nigel would say if she thought it was rubbish). In fact she liked it so much she handed in her notice yesterday. Changing her life I think.

I got a junk email from 'Frank Tyson' today. Cricket historians will know him as the man who destroyed the Australians in Australia in 1954-5. He faded as quickly as he appeared. Rather like Steve Harmison it seems although unfortunately his success did not come against Australia. Currently nobody's success is coming against Australia. I think the difference is that Australians see sport as 'life' whereas we see it as 'sport'. That's the only way I can account for their continuing competitive excellence.


Album of the day - 'Next Album'- Sonny Rollins

Black Music

I spent much of the day considering infidelity and the way it is perceived as ‘a man thing’. Of course statistics say that as many women are unfaithful as men so I wonder where the perception comes from. Are women more secretive? Are men more arrogant and therefore don’t want to see what is in front of their eyes? Do we tend to ignore problems in relationships until it’s too late? Or, do some men just say that it is easier to live with a happy woman than an unhappy one and let her get on with it? Being male I cannot answer for women. I struggle to answer for my own gender. The hardest thing is to answer for oneself.

I realise that my new year blogs have a sad tinge to them and I wonder if I am being affected by the news. As a massive fan of black American music I am saddened by the death of James Brown. To steal a phrase of Miles Davis’s if you could put the history of black America in four words it would be ‘Dr King, James Brown’. He was that important. And today I read belatedly of the continuing incarceration of Gil Scott Heron. I saw him live 3 times in the early ninetees. Twice at the Jazz Café and once at the Clapham Grand. The Jazz Café gigs were marvellous. His song ‘Beginnings’ is one of my desert island discs. He is now in jail for a minimum of two years for violating a rehab order (to do a show a show with Alicia Keys – Gil she ain’t worth it). He is now HIV I presume as a result of dirty needles. I watched him on a BBC programme on YouTube ‘Hard Talk’ filmed in 2001. He was great as a speaker but he looked a shell. What must he be like now?

There really is only one joy to being in France currently and that is the chance to spend a lot of time with my daughters. I am sporadically writing my next book and flitting in and out of inspiration (as I usually do) and playing with Lily and Isabelle. They are joyously happy although Lily is showing signs of the mood swings that inhabit my world.

Song of the day: the album ‘The New Folk Sound of Terry Callier’

Paris Hilton

I have sold the same numbers of copies of my first book as Paris Hilton has of her first album. I leave you to try and guess how many that might be. I suppose you are either thinking that must be a lot or, if you have heard the Paris Hilton album, you might be thinking that it is awful and that no-one could have possibly bought it. Should I resort to Hiltonesque publicity stunts? I remember going into Waterstones in Birmingham about a year ago to see if they had my book on their shelves (the kind of sad, narcissistic things authors do) and I walked into Jade Goody fans waiting for the arrival of Britain’s Britney to sign copies of her autobiographical tome. I wonder if she read a few passages from it to entertain the hordes. Now that would have been worth watching. The English language massacre live from Waterstones, New Street.

My New Year’s resolution is try and avoid using exclamation marks. The more I see them used, and the more I look back at my writings and assess my own use of them I realise what they are for. They are a cue for the author to say to the reader ‘I have tried to write something funny here, which hasn’t hit the mark so my use of the exclamation mark is a suggestion to you that you might like to chuckle a bit more than you would have done but unfortunately a bit less than I had hoped you might when I wrote it’. In other words the exclamation mark is a humour substitute.

I have used up a year's supply of cynicsm in my first blog of the New Year. All will be joy from now on. A happy one to all readers.

London was great for a month and now I am back in Pezenas, France. I have a month before the travels begin to write the book I want to write. ‘The Idea’ is coming…

Song of the day: The Cinematic Orchestra album ‘Motion’