“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!