Psepholo-babble

I am on a blogging hiatus at the moment, but thought I would jot down some thoughts on last night's election - on the political situation we see, not on what it means for the country in terms of policies.

1. Despite the injustice, the election has produced a majority government. So no chance to a change in the voting system in the next five years. Though I expect Labour 2020 to get pretty close to a commitment to real PR (as win the European elections) in its manifesto.
2. Cameron is going to have a functioning majority of about 9 (after discounting SF etc). Doesn't leave much room for by-election losses or right wing shenanigans. So this government is actually less stable than the last one, despite being a single party one. He won't build a coalition, but will need to keep some potential votes sweet - so expect some policies generous to Northern Ireland.
3. In his favour though is a divided and uncertain opposition. Labour and the LDs need to decide the direction they want to go in, and elect the right leaders to perform in the election, not to please the party. That isn't necessarily done quickly*. Resigning and taking the blame is an honourable thing to do. But maybe staying on for nine months to allow for thinking time might be better. Michael Howard did that for the Tories and they ended up with "Call Me" Dave. You may not like him, but from what they had it was a good choice for the Tories.
4. By the next election the recommended boundary changes will be in, which gives the Tories a 20 seat estimated bonus. And they will be being led by (if he keeps his nose and other protuberances clean) Boris Johnson - who remains inexplicably popular. IF people do start to feel better off, that is a formidable head start.
5. And by then the spectacularly named EVEL (English votes for English laws) will have had to be considered. If we see Scotland (and eventually Wales) as just under 100 seats of anti-Toryness, this will change future election maths hugely.
6. But we should be very worried by the divided nature of the UK - not just the SNP and the very different result between England and Scotland. But Labour is confined with a few exceptions to the cities and suburbs, whilst the rest of the map is largely blue. How on earth do we heal this divided nation?
7. There will now be an EU In/Out/Shake-it-all-about referendum in 2017. That is a massive constitutional headache if for example England votes 'Out' and Scotland votes 'In' - especially given the government's lack of a mandate in Scotland. Forces us back towards Scottish independence.
8. What will UKIP do in a 2020 election? Either we will have voted to leave the EU - and that doesn't leave them with many policies, or we will have voted to stay - and it will be hard for them to stand on a 'neverendum' platform. They have some serious reinventing to do. If they don't that's four million votes that have to go somewhere...

*well, it is for the LDs - it will be Tim Farron - probably unopposed.

I said it in German and Greek*

Thought it was time for a quick check-in. January has been pretty busy, and all good fun but has whizzed by.

I was fortunate enough to perform at a gig showcasing some of the music of the rather wonderful Paul Ayres last Saturday. A choir of forty-odd and a programme with a mix of his arrangements of a wide range of music. Very enjoyable indeed, and with relatively minimal rehearsal time it was something I could fit in to the schedule.

Preparations continue for Voxcetera’s concert with the NLSO at St Martin-in-the-Fields on 28^th April which headlines with the Vivaldi Gloria. Had our first full sing through of that piece last night. As a bass it is lovely to have something with broadly predictable harmonies, so that you have a reasonable idea where the piece is going. Unlike the Poulence Exultate Deo which will be part of the first half, and where the next note at certain points is still a bit of a mystery. Then ‘Vox go mad in Dublin’ is scheduled for late May.

I wrote about my desire to try some new stuff this year, and that the first two would be something around meditation and a MOOC. I have borrowed a book on mindfulness and am currently required to contemplate a raisin. Domestic logistics mean I am contemplating a sultana instead, but I figure that any system of thought which is so prescribed as to specifics of dried fruit that it won’t work is probably not useful. I was described last week as being pretty ‘Zen’ over a kerfuffle with a train, so maybe it’s having an effect already.

MOOC wise I had decided on language learning. For various business reasons I would like to go back and work on my German (which was pretty good 25 years ago) but I have struggled to find a course that wasn't for beginners. So I am going with Spanish. As all the people I work with in Germany speak perfect English, and I would like to go and see some of Spain this year, that feels a much more useful option. I've chosen one which I can download as podcasts so that I can listen anywhere.

I also said I would keep a list of possible new stuff to do later on in the year. All that has been added to that so far definitively is ‘build a website’ but that’s one I definitely want to do. Not, you understand, because I need one for anything, just because I want to know how to do it. I think there may be something around cooking on it too – something I used to enjoy but had got out of the habit of doing anything other than that general one-pot thing that can by magic become a bolognese, chilli, curry or stew. With two under way though and setting myself six non-impossible things to do before Christmas* it will be after Easter before any of these need to be firmed up.

Anyway that’s it for now. I have Spanish to learn. Hasta luego.

* I've gone all Lewis Carroll this week

Nous sommes Charlie Hebdo

I've been writing this on and off for two days. I don't feel I have quite got it right. I think it reads as too apologist, too weak in what it advocates, and probably too cowardly. But I cannot advocate violent retaliation, and will not advocate for people to endanger themselves in some spirit of solidarity.

Let me know what you think.
______

This quote from The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy sprung into my head yesterday (not fully formed obviously - I had to look it up).

"The two opposing leaders were meeting for the last time. A dreadful silence fell across the conference table as the commander of the Vl'hurgs, resplendent in his black jewelled battle shorts, gazed levelly at the G'Gugvuntt leader squatting opposite him in a cloud of green sweet-smelling steam, and, with a million sleek and horribly beweaponed star cruisers poised to unleash electric death at his single word of command, challenged the vile creature to take back what it had said about his mother."

My point is of course that words do hurt, often in a much nastier way than sticks or stones. Adams, in writing this, however points to the absurdity of over-reaction, here through interplanetary conflict, as the consequence of insult.

What then of Charlie Hebdo?

We in the West of course condemn the killings without reservation. We point to freedom of speech and to the rule of law. 

Freedom of speech is not an unqualified right. Society sets its norms for behaviour, both through civil sanctions (defamation law here) and also the criminal (like malicious communications or obscene publications laws). Not all of us agree with the outcome of these laws - I struggle to see why words on Twitter should lead to anyone being locked up. But if enough of society had a problem with the laws they would change. And they will change as attitudes change. 

If we do not like a law, it does not generally exempt us from following it. The state would prefer that we lobbied for change, whilst complying with the law that is. And sometimes people don't want to do that - probably because they feel that they will not be heard. The examples of Gandhi and Rosa Parks will be familiar to many of you. Non violent direct action is the catch-all phrase.

If words, or pictures, hurt me, I have the right to be offended. I have the right to protest. I may not have the right to occupy the offices of the publication concerned, but if I did so in a non-violent way the legal sanctions would be limited.

I do not have the right to terrorise, to maim or to kill. And neither does anyone else. 

That's the easy bit. Unfortunately the difficult bits are, well, difficult.

What are we as society to do with those who do not accept these norms? And who seek to impose their views by force. Do we attempt to impose our views on them by force? Do we exclude those who approve of violent reaction from society? For what Orwell called 'thought crime'. Even if you think we should (I do not) then how do we police this? How do we address the dozens (hundreds? thousands?) who think that insulting their religion does justify violence? How do we know who they are? We can educate, we can build bridges. But oppression is a perfect recruiting tool for extremists. To move down that route is folly.

And what of those who seek to retaliate, not against the perpetrators, but against the religion? The fire-bombers of mosques etc. We must react with the full force of the law for those who do it, but do we also criminalise those who think of it? No, we should not and cannot.

It feels that the West, which has known freedom, peace and prosperity for 70 years now, so that none of us really know much different, is on the edge of an era where we have none of these things. This worries me hugely, and it should worry you. But the price of peace cannot be the removal of freedom. 

We should look to the example of Norway, of the grace and dignity with which it handled the aftermath of its own recent horrors. And we should try to be the same. 

Do we continue to criticise Islam? This is the truly difficult point here.The answer cannot be 'No'. It cannot be that the gun can silence freedom. But by answering 'Yes', we have to recognise that these will not be the last deaths to follow.

The press, at least in the UK, have declined to publish the cartoons when many felt that would be a show of solidarity with their fallen colleagues. I do not see this as cowardice. Any of us may feel that we are willing to lay down our lives for a cause. But none of us should feel the right to lay down the lives of others on our behalf. Publications are right to protect their staff from this sort of outrage. Not only are they are legally required to do this, but morally obliged also.

The press is in a difficult position here. They face the same issues as all of us, but in the public eye. They cannot give in to terrorism, but the individuals within the papers are humans, with human fears, and we cannot condemn them for that.

There are no easy answers. There is no magic switch. We can speculate about whether Western involvement in the Middle East has caused or accelerated this, but such speculation does not solve the problem.

There will be more terrorism as the months and years go by. We have to cling to what we hold dear, to freedom, and to law. We must remember the bravery of the staff at Charlie Hebdo, and not let it be in vain. But martyrdom is surely too heavy a price to pay.

Be bloody, bold and resolute...

There seems to be a convention around New Year’s resolutions – that we all make them and then they have gone out of the window by about the 6^th of January. (I am writing this on January 6^th.)

I've tended to do slightly better than this when I look back over the last few years. Largely I think because my resolutions have been practical and easy to break into manageable chunks. Too long in business I guess, with people droning on about SMART* objectives. But it is true that objectives like “be happier” or “make the world a better place” are very hard to judge in a meaningful manner.

This doesn't mean that objectives have to be trivial by any means, it just means that rather than “exercise more” you resolve to “walk for an hour at least twice a week and go to the gym for 40 minutes three times a week”. Then you can plan these in rather than being lost in the overall task. I also believe that positive resolutions are better than negative ones. With a negative (“I will not drink on week nights” being a common one) you lapse once, and then think “Fuck it”**. With a positive it feels easier to me to get back on the horse if a week goes by and you've missed your target.

I have been thinking about resolutions for 2015, and I have been struggling. Yes people, my life is, in the words of the sage of modern times James Blunt, ‘brilliant’ and I have nothing to change. That was ironic, by the way.

It’s more that I have had a few years where it’s been easy to say “I really need to do that”, or “I want to do that” and they are quite big things. But this year there isn't a big thing that is readily apparent to me. I'm at least broadly happy (and in most cases very happy) with life, lifestyle, exercise, hobbies, job etc. Yes, I could for example be a bit more productive at times in the office, but that feels like a nebulous thing to try and tweak. But I don’t feel I want to take on a new musical challenge this year, nor do I want to change job, flat etc.

So should I just skip the resolutions thing completely? That feels wrong – I think it is good to have goals/areas to improve. I guess that’s the heart of the issue – my mind sees the black and white definition that you are either ‘improving’ or you are ‘drifting’, and I don’t really want to feel I am drifting *Insert cliche here about shark swimming forward or drowning etc.*

So what I have decided is that 2015 will be a year where I am going to investigate and try some new things. I am going to aim to try six new activities (new being something that has formed no measurable part of my daily life in the last twenty years) over the year. I am going to give each one of them a decent go. And if I then decide that they have added nothing to my life, or are merely using up time, I will let them go and move on. If they become part of the day-to-day then that is because they have shown themselves as having value.

I don’t have the full list yet; this will build over the year but I will start keeping a mental list of possibles. But I have the first two:

1. I listen to a few podcasts which interview successful people in their fields – they try to get to what is common amongst them – looking for a recipe I suppose***. It has struck me that a very large proportion of these interviewees spend a small part of each day doing what I really don’t want to call mediation, but for want of a better word am going to call meditation. Sometimes this is the full Buddhist version. More often it is putting some time aside on a regular basis to think about what you are going to do, and how you are going to achieve it. So I am going to spend the rest of January and February trying to build this into my schedule.
2. I am going to dip a toe into the world of MOOCs. Massive Open Online Courses that is. Not MOOGs, which are either cool synthesisers, or one of these:

(those of you not around in the early 80’s should just gloss over that – you don’t need to know).

I am going to find something that looks interesting, or possibly even useful, and sign up for it and do it.

Both these two are things that I need to find out more about. And I imagine I will have a few dead-ends or false starts on the way. But that’s part of the fun. I will report back.

*Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Relevant and Time-specific, in case you a) didn’t know, and b) care.

** OK, you may not think this, but I probably would.

*** If you want lots of these in one place – try the Tim Ferriss Show – on iTunes. He’s sometimes a little smug and self-important for English tastes (in other words he's American), but does talk to a huge range of people who are successful, rather than celebrities, and who are generally interesting.

2014 and all that

On December 31^st 2013, I decided to try and blog my way through the coming year. Well, it sort of happened. In total 96 blog posts were achieved. There were a couple of month-long gaps in there when life got in the way but I'm actually quite proud that I managed quite as much as I did.

And I've decided to continue with the blog for the time-being anyway. Not least because on four months there will be a general election to get annoyed about. But I find it quite enjoyable to put finger to keyboard. A question I get asked quite often is ‘why?’. Why put stuff out there and let the world see it all? Why bother with things like Twitter? I'm not sure I have a great answer really. I enjoy it. I self-censor enough to ensure that I won’t share things that affect other people and which they might not want to be shared, and to ensure I don’t put anything out there that could be career-limiting. But other than that, this is no different to keeping a diary – just one that I let anybody read. I think that the knowledge that I am writing for an audience does prevent there being too much introspection, but it still has that cathartic effect.

So how has the year gone? Well – I've pulled up one of the early posts from 2014 and taken some of the headings from that – seems as good an idea as anything else.

Music - performance

Voxcetera continued to be a great source of pride for me – performing as I did at St Sepulchre in March, and then on tour in Edinburgh, before a ’home’ fixture in October and then a wonderful Christmas concert. This year promises a concert at St Martin’s in the Fields, and then Dublin.

But I also managed to sing in a Prom for the first time – with the Rachmaninov Choral Symphony (Crouch End Festival Chorus) being one of the most demanding pieces of music I have ever encountered. The sense of achievement was overwhelming.

Adding to that a Verdi Requiem, a (second) Mozart one, and six Albert Hall Christmas gigs (plus one at Birmingham Symphony Hall) made for a full year. And that is without adding in my involvement with Balham Ukulele Society – something I did not see in the tea leaves when looking ahead.

All the musical things I do have in common the opportunity to spend time with groups of people, from all walks of life, who are friendly, and who make my life a better place. I am grateful for all of them.

Music - In the audience

Two main words. Kate Bush. A dream fulfilled. But also Folk by the Oak – Richard Thompson, Seth Lakeman, and Keston Cobblers Club among others. James Taylor at the Albert Hall, Difford and Tilbrook at the Union Chapel and Chas’n’ Dave.

Add that to a range of smaller gigs, from solo guitarists to chamber and full choirs, and big bands, and it has been a busy year. I’d lost the habit of going to gigs and have gradually built it back up again. I am sure there will be more in 2015.

Holidays

Life got in the way a bit. The need to practice for a prom, and move house, mean that I didn't clock up the Air Miles this year. Mixed feelings about this. I don’t feel that I wasted my holiday entitlement, in that I look back and can see that I did plenty. But it would be nice to get away a little bit more in 2015. Pretty sure that the kids won’t want to come, so I can look to some more grown-up destinations.

Books

I've kept this one going – with a lot of Kindle stuff. Quite a bit of it has been fairly old and cheap sci-fi, but I've also read a bit of travel and some proper fiction. And I've read quite a lot of economics and social science-y stuff. But Thomas Piketty – just not had the drive to read him yet.

Media do overlap of course – I continue to be a great consumer of podcasts (one of the benefits of being a regular user of public transport). And I would heartily recommend Freakonomics, Planet Money, This American Life, No Such Thing as a Fish (the QI podcast) and Reply All. I greatly enjoyed ‘Serial’ too. Yes it is voyeuristic, and at times uncomfortable, but did have me on the edge of my seat – and we are all allowed one or two guilty pleasures, aren't we?

Work

I look back and (quoting directly from last year’s blog) ‘I do find myself thinking – worrying really, that I'm not sure I can, or want to, go at this pace for too much longer’. Wow. I think the pace has increased considerably. I have coped. In fact better than that, I feel more positive about my ability to do the job than I did then. I think that last year’s anxieties were a part of some more general malaise going on in my life, and that by correcting things elsewhere I had more reserves to devote to work. Of course, now that I look back I wonder whether I am pushing things too hard – just because I don’t see a problem at the moment doesn't mean I am not storing up issues. I'm currently very happy with what I do, but I suspect I should at least start to think about longer-term future options and prospects during the next year.

Health

THE major success story of 2014 for me. I managed to lose 30 pounds in the period from May/June to September. I have managed to put about 5 of them back on over Christmas, but am disgusted enough with myself over that to ensure they will not be sticking around. I found a level of will power I really didn't think I had, and (no surprise) that all you need to do is eat in a controlled way and do lots of exercise and it all comes good. Which makes me feel all the more stupid about the decade-long search for miracle ways of achieving it.

While dieting, I went almost entirely veggie for a couple of months. I've not stuck to that since I hit my target weight, but am eating much less meat that I have ever done – and I feel a lot better for it. At home, I could definitely do the veggie thing 100% of the time – it’s going out that kills it. Particularly it was three days away with work and the third consecutive mushroom risotto as the only choice on the menu that made me yearn for flesh. Does this go down as a fail? No. Because over all I am much much healthier. I have achieved something I knew I need and wanted to, but I think never really thought I would get to with weight etc. It would be better for me and the planet if I ate no meat, but eating it on a less frequent basis isn't a disaster for either.

Life

Big, big changes. Causing a lot of stress to me and to those around me (thank you to all those who gave me such support during what could have been a much trickier period without you). But I finally moved away from a situation that wasn't making me happy (and wasn't making anyone else happy either). With some time now elapsed between then and now, I know that I feel much better (and worry a little about where I would have been heading if I hadn't made the move – I think it would have been a pretty dark place). I've managed to keep what I valued most - my kids and the relationship I continue to have with them – whilst becoming (I hope) a much more balanced and centred individual.

So, there we go. Overall score? A few misses, a few definite hits, quite a few unexpected and unforeseen. A year of major change, and I feel very positive about it and about the future. So I have to put it down as a pretty good year. Of course, I now need to think about what challenges 2015 holds, and what I want to change or continue. More on that in future posts.

Who knows where the time goes?

Happy 2015 dear reader.

I've had a very busy three weeks since my last post. Concert after concert, as well as the usual Christmas festivities etc. It’s now the second of January and with the exception of going to see Sixfold performing at the Hob in Forest Hill tonight, it’s back to normal.

I will do a quick review of the past year and where the blog goes next over the weekend, and once I have had a chance to think about it. The whole blog idea came out of a New Year’s resolution; in the last few weeks I have been so busy that I haven’t managed to come up with plans for 2015 yet.

But after ten pre-Christmas gigs ranging from opening a school fete to the Albert Hall the last week has been a chance to relax a little bit, catch up with a few people and indulge too much. Christmas day itself involved a quiet dinner with the kids; the time since has included big band jazz at the Hideaway, playing the New Year in on the ukulele, and quite a lot of festive spirit.

I didn't dare stand on the scales this morning, but I know a few pounds have crept on over Christmas. They will be leaving during January, I can assure you.

So, once again, Happy New Year one and all. I hope it’s a good one for all of us.