Insomnia

“Counting sheep is a useless way of dropping off to sleep, scientists have found. Instead, you should have been dreaming up a mental image of somewhere relaxing, such as a waterfall or a holiday.”

http://www.studentbmj.com/back_issues/0302/news/53a.html

I suffer regular bouts of insomnia. I used to worry about it but of course that just makes the problem worse so now I don’t fuss about it. I could try thinking about a relaxing location of course but quite frankly my mind is usually too busy to keep it still for more than a couple of minutes. I have found it best now to just give in to the wakefulness. Go with the flow.

Last night for instance I went to bed at 11ish but woke again at 1am and spent half an hour chasing round my mind for a word that had eluded me all evening. I ran strings of words all through my head but it remained utterly out of reach. So eventually I got out of bed and went downstairs to find the thesaurus. I found my word – it was discriminate. I don’t know why it is that a word can just slip away from you like that but it can be so frustrating. Another time I went through all the poems I can recite by heart but missed a line somewhere and had to get up and go hunting round the house for the book with the poem in. Not easy in a house that has well over a thousand books, and it would really have been a good idea to put my specs on.

I have accepted my periods of insomnia and the only aspect that bothers me now is that my insomnia might impact on the rest of my family. I can accept my own wakefulness but the thought of disturbing the repose of my loved ones is a nagging worry still.

I tried counting sheep once but it bored me to sleep.

Pen Yr Orsedd Quarry, Nantlle, Caernarfon

These workshops, part of a complex that includes offices and barracks. The site lies in a spectacular setting looking down onto Llyn Nantlle Lake and surrounded by snow-capped mountains. The offices were built in stages, firstly in 1863 when the quarry was bought by WA Darbishire and Company. They were substantially modernised to make the most of new water and steam technologies, and then again between 1899 and 1907.
The offices occupy a single storey T-block of coursed slate rubble construction. The earlier workshops are in two halves, one of which has slate roofing and the other a corrugated iron roof and elegant slate rubble buttressing. Both are metal-framed buildings hung or clad with slate slabs. A substantial amount of the workshops' original machinery and fittings have survived intact and include 'tuyere' hearths, woodworking equipment, storage racks, an overhead gantry crane and two railway lines with a small locomotive table.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/history/programmes/restoration/2006/wales_pen_yr_orsedd_01.shtml

I haven’t watched the whole series unfortunately but I have caught up with the last three of Restoration Village and I will attempt to see the final instalments. I have so far been most moved by the ‘working’ or ‘industrial’ buildings like this glorious project at Nantlle and I think this will probably remain my favourite, partly because I was really fascinated by the film clips of the splitting of the slates!
I’m not quite sure why these places my throat wobble, maybe it’s the feeling that these are the living, breathing histories of real and ordinary working people. The everyday lives of the unknown and average villagers seem so much more poignant and interesting than the trials and tribulations of the rich and infamous.

"We also believe in the 'what is beautiful is good' stereotype - an irrational but deep-seated belief that physically attractive people possess other desirable characteristics such as intelligence, competence, social skills, confidence - even moral virtue. (The good fairy/princess is always beautiful; the wicked stepmother is always ugly)"
http://www.sirc.org/publik/mirror.html

Body image – a whole can of worms.

I have brought this topic up before but it is a major problem to so many.

I watched the programme about the fat beauty contest, yesterday was it? It left me with a whole heap of mixed feelings.

I have had a hang-up about my body image all my adult life since I was told by my grandmother that I was stout when I was in my late teens. I was a blossoming size 10 at the time. However having had two children has kept me in a constant battle with my weight ever since and size 10 is a very distant memory.

I watched the programme with curious interest really and to be honest I applauded the idea of trying to challenge society’s perception of beauty but we are still only looking at these girls’ outward aspect. I am all for the ‘empowerment of women’, for these big girls, but……

Women are already empowered anyway aren’t they?

In all honesty the idea of parading big girls around in a beauty pageant for plus sizes is as vacuous and mindless as plastering our magazines with ridiculous airbrushed pictures of painfully thin celebrities. Creating unrealistic ideals for a younger generation. We are drawing some very dangerous pictures for our children here. On the one hand we have the skinnies who for many young girls represent an impossible model to emulate. Cue some eating disorders. Now are were going to put the idea to them on the other hand that they can be beautiful because they are seriously overweight? Obesity is only too prevalent in our society now and a contributory factor to many life shortening conditions.

A whole big can of worms as I said!

From another era………

“Should an actress marry?

Should an actress marry? Does marriage make for the better actress? Is a life with real love and passion in it helpful to the woman who has to exhibit love and passion upon the stage? It is generally held so, but I believe that such ideas have no solid foundation. Why should mere boys and girls sometimes be capable of realising perfectly for others emotions they can never have experienced? There is no justification sensual abandonment in a stage career. Control is the great secret.”

Taken from Acting for the Stage by Sydney W. Carroll.

I have to say as a rule it is not usually a problem to control passion on stage – in my personal experience. Whipping it up is another matter, what with the smell of the greasepaint, the inevitable halitosis and B.O. and the excessive perspiration under the hot lights….and that’s just in the dressing room!

“Women pick up on subtleties and then think about them. Men need things explained IN CAPITAL LETTERS before the message gets through.”

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/3002946.stm

It’s a super list but there must be some more out there…….

"Rio Ferdinand says England have the players to achieve FIFA World Cup success even if injured striker Wayne Rooney misses the finals."

http://fifaworldcup.yahoo.com/06/en/060529/7/6zac.html

Well quite frankly the other 22 must feel they are quite insignificant sometimes. It’s like ‘Hellloooo, Rooney isn’t the only one in the squad’.

Someone, somewhere – can’t remember where I was reading it - did also point out that following his injury Beckham failed to sizzle on the field so perhaps it would be a good idea to ease off this Rooney hype for a bit.

Why on earth am I reading about football anyway!

"Not that there was much to see. On Thursday we were told that Prezza – two Jags, two jabs, two shags - was two small. “Ex revels Prezza’s manhood is size of cocktail sausage,” said the Mirror’s headline. “2 INCH.””

http://www.anorak.co.uk/news.cfm?id=169574

No good for Tracey Emin then. I remember reading in her first column in The Independent that she couldn’t have sex with men with small dicks. She had tried, she said, but it was no use.

Being that it is something most men would be a little shy about too many people knowing, the fact that the whole country now knows that he has a cocktail weenie might mean years of therapy for Prezza. But you are not alone John, I know that for a fact.

He will fool no-one now by stuffing a couple of pairs of rolled up sports socks down the front of his trousers. And any ads for penis enlargers winging their way to his door? The makers of such merchandise should be looking to him now for maybe fronting their ad campaign.

Poor guy.

So….back to the World Cup

"With the world at your feet, there's no one you can't beat," the song goes. "With the world at your feet, there's no height you can't reach".

A good motto for life?

http://fifaworldcup.yahoo.com/06/en/060421/7/6l1l.html

Well Mel Gibson doesn't do much for me and he's rich AND good-looking...

"WHAT do women want from a man? In the past, surveys have overwhelmingly shown that women want a rich man, and men want a good-looking woman. While not much has changed for men, as women's financial independence has increased, it seems that their preferences have changed."

http://www.newscientist.com/channel/being-human/mg19025465.600.html

We are a society that is unnaturally obsessed with image. Oh it isn't just each other it's everything. The glossy magazines tell us all the time what is attractive to us. Our houses, our gardens, our food, our clothes, even our pets.

It doesn't surprise me at all about men wanting a good-looking woman. I know a number of men who rate women purely on their outward appearance. Their pouting lips, and breasts. The up-to-the ceiling legs. The sculpted cheekbones, and I don't just mean their faces. I have seen one or two cases of a successful man with his eye-candy wife who is not his intellectual/spiritual/emotional equal and when it goes sour it is rather sad for the lady. Believe me that can happen in reverse as well.

I'm not writing this as peeved 'plug' - I'm neither pretty nor ugly - I am rather offended by the idea that my outward appearance be the marker of a man's attraction towards me.

A while ago I was walking along with a man who kept drooling over passing totty. A man with whom one can have an intelligent conversation until a babe hoves into view. And then Dick takes over.

It's starting to make me sound like a misandrist but I'm not. I love men. I just wish they would pay a little more attention to the inner me than the outer.

But hey it would seem equality is catching up though and women are heading in the same disastrous direction. Don't fall for it ladies, there is something rather tiresome about a man who wants equal mirror time for his own preening and primping but can't understand how the boiler works. Go for the rich guy, at least he can get a man in and he can pay for his own dinner................

“Four gardeners described the rabbit as having one ear larger than the other.”

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/tyne/4886272.stm

Has to remind us of this from Monty Python’s Holy Grail, surely!

“Tim: Follow. But. Follow only if ye be men of valour, for the entrance to this cave is guarded by a creature so foul, so cruel that no man yet has fought with it and lived. Bones of full fifty men lie strewn about its lair. So, brave knights, if you do doubt your courage or your strength, come no further, for death awaits you all with nasty, big, pointy teeth.”

The curse of the were-rabbit is no fiction it seems. Bunnies everywhere are probably chuckling maniacally in their underground bunkers, polishing their knuckle dusters, ready for a fray. Their plans for world domination should have been evident long before now with their breeding programme. So take notice people, if you aren’t already a bunny-affiliate, think on. Does it count if you were born in the year of the rabbit – I’m a bunny, I’m a bunny, look I have one ear larger than the other…..

“Loneliness is bad for the heart, suggests a new study. It shows that loneliness increases the blood pressure of those nearing retirement age to the same degree as smoking or a sedentary lifestyle.”

http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn8908-absence-makes-the-heart-grow-weaker.html

So feeling lonely is bad for your health. Not that that is particularly surprising of course, we are social creatures, we need human contact. We need to be attached to other people’s lives in some way.

“One may have a blazing hearth in one's soul, and yet no one ever comes to sit by it.” Vincent Van Gogh

“I wandered lonely as a cloud” - William Wordsworth. Are clouds lonely? I suppose some clouds have problems with isolation but you often see clouds in groups so they can’t all be feeling lonely. And of course “Behind every cloud is another cloud.” - Judy Garland.

Loneliness is a terrifying thing.

There was a column in the Independent yesterday on the subject of crowding our lives to the extent that we never have enough time to just be. People don’t allow themselves enough me-time apparently. Well some people of course and some people are all me-me-me, which is plenty of me-time. Anyway it led me to this web page.

http://healing.about.com/od/higherselfmeditate/a/yeh_dailyritual.htm

It talks about daily rituals but I don’t think cleaning my teeth counts as communing with my higher self. It sure makes me feel nicer but that’s not the same thing. And clearing up cat yeucks is a daily ritual that does absolutely nothing for my higher self and in fact puts me more in touch with my lower self. The one that swears a lot!
But joking aside me-time is a precious commodity that we all need. Ok so most of us don’t feel the need to be talking to totems or angels while we are me-ing and if I was talking to my angel I am perfectly sure ‘he’ (it would have to be – and shaped like Johnny D) would be saying ‘stop pratting about and get some chocolate and some Baileys down your neck girl and slip into, or onto, something warm and cuddly’.

Ah me.

From the New Scientist this week.

Guitar phone
Musicians could soon have a new instrument to play – their phone. Motorola is patenting a cellphone that displays the layout of a guitar neck on its screen, and allows its keypad to be "plucked" or "strummed" by a user. The resulting guitar sounds can be played through the phone's speaker or can be inflicted on a friend at the other end of the line.

The guitar phone can be played live, to adoring fans, or a melody can be composed in private and stored in memory for use as a ring tone or meeting reminder. Motorola says the phone could even be converted into a banjo or violin at the flick of a switch, with strings automatically retuning. I fear duelling banjos in every pub…

Hello Moto, I'm leaning on the lamp post at the corner of the steet........

Already I can think of a hundred good reasons for one - well maybe a slight exageration but a groovy idea certainly. I always liked the idea of playing the fiddle. And one that fits in your pocket, wow!

From the Independent, on Tuesday, Catherine Townsend writes...

I was having coffee with my friend Richard the other day, trying to find a way of telling him that I wanted to see him in a new - and preferably horizontal - way. Usually when I have chemistry with someone we are ripping each other's clothes off in a matter of days. But since I was with my ex-boyfriend when we met, Richard and I were now trapped in that place of hopelessness and desperation: the Friendship Zone.
I felt stuck. I wanted to make a move, but didn't want to risk ruining the friendship if everything crashed and burned. Besides, the uncontrollable passion and intrigue at the beginning of the relationship has always been my favourite part: how could I be swept off my feet by a guy whom I'd already seen unshowered and wearing a stained sweatshirt?
I was also terrified of rejection, especially since I’m pretty sure that being knocked back with a line like: “I don’t want to risk ruining the friendship” translates to “I don’t want to see you naked. Ever” Even if he didn’t, what if the sex was horrible and the resulting awkwardness of seeing his hairy naked bits makes it impossible to look him in the eye ever again?

The trouble is that even though the primary purpose of sex is creation, or re-creation, it has a destructive side as well. How easy is is to destroy a good friendship - have sex. Although a really good friendship should, theoretically, survive - as friendship is friendship. But there is not one sexual relationship in my life that has remained in constant 'friendship' - they have all deteriorated and/or died. Maybe that's why I'm grown wary of that whole sexual arena these days!

The article was brought to my attention by a 'friend'.

“We are not the same persons this year as last; nor are those we love. It is a happy chance if we, changing, continue to love a changed person.”- Maugham

Love is not love which alters when it alteration finds, to borrow a line from Shakespeare.

Hm, thought provoking, but does also lead to the question 'What is love?'

Love has many guises and is mis-called over and over.

Love is in the hand that cups an injured creature but also in the hand that draws back for fear of causing further hurt.

Love is a quiet and modest animal that walks in us all.

The other thing is just lust!

But back to the quote, your thoughts............?

Some interesting points of view - well each to his own!

http://www.solvedating.com/relationship-advice.html

1. Modern Soulmate Theory is based on math and probability calculations.
2. It has nothing to do with reincarnation, astrology, or magic.
3. Soulmates are not destined to be with each other.
4. God may have made a soulmate or a few soulmates for you. God may help you find your soulmate or He may not. Evil forces or your own free will may influence you to choose the wrong person.
5. You may have one or millions of soulmates depending on how different you are from the population mean.
6. Statistically, there is at least one person in this world that will bring you true love, a love that will last a lifetime.
7. People spend a lot of time, money, and energy in their search for soulmates.
8. The odds of finding a soulmate are very slim. Only a few people are lucky enough to find their soulmates.
9. Current dating services are inefficient and flawed.
10. People are "forced" to settle for incompatible mates resulting in break ups and divorces.
11. Human and social capital decrease because of relationship problems.
12. One day in the near future, because of technological advances, people will find their soulmate or soulmates very easily.

“Missing a few brain cells? Print new ones
A printer that spits out ultra-fine droplets of cells instead of ink has been used to print live brain cells without causing them any apparent harm
A PRINTER that spits out ultra-fine droplets of cells instead of ink has been used to print live brain cells without causing them any apparent harm. The technique could open up the possibility of building replacement tissue cell by cell, giving doctors complete control over the tissue they graft.
The device is a variant of a conventional ink-jet printer. Instead of forcing individual droplets of ink through a needle-shaped nozzle and onto the page, the cell printer uses a powerful electric field to produce droplets just a few micrometres in diameter, far smaller than is achievable by other means.”

Wow – this is just what I need. I’ve always been missing a few brain cells and now my worries could be at an end!

Added to which with my business printer able to churn out hundreds of sheets in no time I could make a tidy bit of cash on the side supplying those equally short on BC’s!

If only life were so simple - oh well perhaps it is.

"Definition of root-bound

Definition as written by Floridian:
When a plant grows for too long in its container, it generally becomes root-bound. With no room for additional growth, roots become tangled, matted, and grow in circles.
Root-bound plants placed in the ground without having their roots untangled often fail to overcome their choked condition. This results in stunting the plants growth and potential."

Of course this doesn't just apply to plants!

A plant can happily grow in one for spot for a long time. But as it grows it may outgrow it's space and become constricted, choked, suffocated. It may suddenly stop thriving, it's potential to bloom may become stunted and the gloss and vigour of it's leaves may become dulled.

People can be like that too.

Star wars is out there..........

http://www.newscientistspace.com/article/mg18925331.200

if we can just get this quantum gravity sorted...

"Half an apple and two Brazil nuts will do it, if that's all you can face."

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/health/main.jhtml?xml=/health/2006/01/10/hfbestb10.xml

Unfortunately half an apple and two brazil nuts would be no good to me as I would spend the rest of the morning with an itchy mouth and have to go out and get some anti-hystamine tablets. A handful of cherries and some hazelnuts and I'd be under the doctor! Food allergies play havoc with sensible eating. However I thought the blueberries and fromage frais sounded nice - I could cope with that!

It reminds me of the home-made soft cheese we had when I stayed on a farm in France as a girl. Like Petit Suisse but more rugged and it varied from day to day. But that was to die for. A sprinkle of sugar and it was heaven melting on your tongue. We would have that and then my French companion would break up some slabs of dark chocolate and shove the chunks into a baguette and off we would go for the day. The idyll of rural France!

But back to breakfast. Do you ever find that consuming a bowl of cornflakes leaves you feeling hungry and in need of some actual food! Has that effect on me.

"An enterprising local dairy has developed a new Mozart yogurt and a Mozart dessert drink - flavoured with chocolate, hazelnut and marzipan.

As well as yogurt, you can buy Mozart sausage, Mozart baby bottles and Mozart perfume. Traders here are hoping for a bumper year."

What!?!

Surely Mozart's sausage is now a little past it's prime. The perfume is an intriguing idea though. Now just what did Mozart smell like...

Of course not!

"G8 leaders agreed in July to meet the pledge to double aid for Africa by 2010. But, within months, America said it was unsure if it would commit to the agreement. European finance ministers are also back-tracking, especially in France and Italy. The British Government stressed at the time that, for the pledge to be met, countries needed to increase their share of GDP given to aid to 0.7 per cent, and Britain said it would do that by 2007. Our share of donated GDP stands at 0.5 per cent; it is now accepted that we will not hit the target until 2013. In any event, this target would only bring Britain up to the level of spending of the Jim Callaghan era of the late Seventies."

http://news.independent.co.uk/world/politics/article335180.ece

It's so easy to stand up and say we will do this and then we will do that...while the spotlight is there...while the world is watching and can see what responsible nations we are. Not quite so easy to go away and actually put our little hands in our little pockets and pull out the farthing we promised.

I am reminded of the glorious caricatures of John and Fanny Dashwood.

"After 80 years in Hundred Acre Wood Winnie the Pooh is to get a female friend, replacing Christopher Robin, according to reports."

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/entertainment/4512770.stm

Am I dreaming again! Is this sick or what, or is it just me, age catching up with me or something. I'm pretty laid back about stuff generally. I live and let live. But this is a hard one to stomach. I love Pooh, the real one. The one that walked across the pages of Winnie the Pooh in black and white drawings with prickles in his bottom. The Pooh that watches the real tigger bouncing through the pages of House at Pooh Corner. The one that sings, tiddley pom. How much it stings, tiddley pom, how much it stings, tiddley pom what they are doing. That isn't Pooh, that Disney-warped corruption, that is some American bear passing himself off as Winnie TP. It's a sham-pooh!

"A new study suggests that having too many males of one species could lead to more sexual aggression toward females and ultimately the extinction of the species."

http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2005/11/1130_051130_sex_ratio.html

"Blogs reflect power of the pen

The continuing growth of blogging has changed the way journalists think about their work, argues technology analyst Bill Thompson. And it is for the better."

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/4492150.stm

"A ship in the harbor is safe, but that is not what ships are built for."
- unknown