Where are we all going to fit?

For many years now I've been concerned by overpopulation. To me it seems the most attributable factor to the other hugely damaging processes occurring to this planet we call home. Namely, deforestation, desertification, air pollution and thus by implication global warming.

Add to this malaise the lack of clean water in many areas and the subsequent competition for it, and it's clear we're reaching a tipping point. Just a few years ago CNN reported 'in 1999 the world population reached 6 billion, and in the relatively short time between 2007 and 2050, there could be roughly 2.4 billion more people on Earth needing clean water, space and other natural resources from their environment in order to survive'. Clearly unsustainable and alarming, especially when we stop to consider the waste and rubbish generated by a world population of 9 billion.

That's the global picture but yesterdays news headline brought another factor to the equation. A miracle pill that dramatically decreases the chances of a heart attack and strokes in the over 50's. Since these are two of the most likely causes of death in that age group it means in the future more and more of us by the advances of medicine will be able to live longer. Great stuff but it does lead to the question of where are we all going to fit?

For many years now I've watched in the UK as huge tracts of land have been swallowed up by contractors and reborn as identikit housing estates that haven't a shred of individuality between them. What's more, the build quality would seem so uniformly shoddy it can only be a matter of time before the whole process will need to start again. Hills and woods that I used to play in as a child no longer exist for the generations that follow. In my parents home town I watched incredulously as a river had it's flow channel altered so houses could be built on the land scavenged. These sames houses are now at the mercy of the historical flood plain that they were built on. This relentless march of urbanisation seems to have no end.

I live in Croydon which has a reputation of a town that has seen better days, and even those days tottered on the wrong side of average. Its a mish mash of concrete, jagged misshapen skyline, architecture from different eras crammed together and a huge flyover built around, over and below it. And if you take a journey on the tram (as I often do) you'll see it has an element to its population that are *ahem* undesirable to say the least. But it does have it's redeeming features. Some of the recent rebuilding in the area has shown imagine and verve, the plans for the next 20 years or so feature architecture to be rightly proud of; building on derelict areas it'll revitalise the city, introduce green areas, attract investment and business and will have a real chance of giving croydon the city status it so wantonly craves.

So surely a good thing? After all, most of the rebuilding is on derelict land; Croydon, rather than taking land and urbanfying it, is regenerating that which has gone before. Well, yes and no, because the other day I saw something that highlighted to me the problem of overpopulation. A new prestigious block of apartments are being built that look cool, shiny and desirable. Except; except, for the fact they are being built on the middle of a roundabout. Yes, a roundabout. With a subsequent view of a convergence of three main roads. How very 2009.

People have got to be housed somewhere as our species continues to explode across the planet and if it means building on land in the middle of a roundabout, then so be it. But for me, its just a small worrying sign that perhaps we really are running out of room - a local example of a very real global problem.

A career break ...

What a lovely term that is .... career break. Its two words that have been falling from my mouth with increased regularity ever since, oh, about Christmas time. This was about the time it really hit home that resigning a job without another position lined up was the height of arrogance with more than a little whimsy thrown in. Yes, I was desperately unhappy both with the limited potential of the role and the line manager but as a friend of mine is more than fond of uttering, I should have just 'manned the f*ck up' and got on with lining another role up. Instead my thinking went like this:

How easy was it to get this job? (well actually it was quite a tough interview, so extra kudos to me, other interviews will be a breeze).
How many interviews have I failed? (Mmm, not very many at all. I've been lucky that for most I've interviewed for something has been offered)
My mate reckons she might be able to get me a role elsewhere (well, win win win.......)
Oh and I've got a pot of redundancy £'s behind me if it all goes wrong.

Resign man, oh resign! And leave I did. And then the economy failed, and then interviews went well (excepting one, but I was angry and petulant and easily provoked) but nothing was offered and Icesave seemed a great place to put all my money................

And so, some months later I still find myself unemployed and contemplative of where to go next and what to do. My sector has died a death and other recruitment consultants seem bereft of ideas of what to do with me. I'm a man in limbo. A somebody who doesn't know what to do next. What has amazed me is the disparity of what some people require of candidates and the money they are willing to pay for these skills. The one that most took the breath away was a firm that wanted a person holding 5 years relevant experience, a contact book and fluency in 3 European languages. For £19K a year............. Madness......

Its a sobering thought that a working career of 14 years since graduation has left me -if I'm honest- with a core skills base of nothing really. A mish mash of this and that. Diversity of skills used to be a strength but in todays climate people want skills that are horribly exacting. Stray out of the 'perfect' candidate description and you'll get nowhere. I write that as a man who made it to the last 2 for a job I wanted and got beaten by the chap who had direct relevant experience. Needless to say I'll be waiting for him on his first day. With a crowbar.......

So, perhaps a new sector awaits - travel. The more I think on it, the more I believe its an area I've wanted to work in for some time but its the paucity of the starting wage that has put me off. But, perhaps for the first time I've got to be sensible and realise that short term wallet thiness can lead to long term career satisfaction. I hope so. Anything is better than visiting the local job centre.

The art of blogging

Is obviously something I haven't got right. Three months since I last scribbled down some nonsense and that's unacceptable. So, lets have a new beginning (if we leave aside the question of how many new beginnings you can have......).

Boo to meekness

Sunday saw United play Chelsea and come within 10 minutes of ending their 84 game home unbeaten run. It would have been a deserved victory as the brave team selection (Park and Fletcher played from the start with Tevez and Ronnie benched) played well in a system that for long periods frustrated Chelsea.

However, for the second week in a row my jaw dropped when it came to the crucial substitution. Park had run his legs off, putting in a strong performance going forward while tracking back with dogged determination; there's only one choice right? Tevez non? Big Uh AH noise as O'Shea lumbered onto the pitch almost immediately demonstrating with a windmill kick of his leg (slicing the clearance) just why he has united fans holding their heads in their hands upon his introduction. Chelsea equalised within 4 minutes....

Such frustration I took out on the lawn, cutting it by hand with shears........very zen like. I recommend it, I ached so much after I finished I'd forgotten the frustration the football had caused me.......

A tourist in my own City

The girlfriend and I on Saturday got the train to London Bridge and decided to walk into central London along the Southbank. It's the best thing we've done in months. The weather was balmy, the pace lazy and in the air hung a general sense of contentment. Walking through the renovated wharfs, seeing the overflowing cafes and breathing in the river air made me feel like a tourist, just discovering the city for the first time. It's not often I feel like that about London, it's congestion, its cost of living, it's dirtiness to name a few issues rile me but when an area has had life breathed back into it the results are staggering. We popped into a bar and drunk Argentinian beer, had Churros by the river (with a devils cup of melted chocolate) & lunched  at the Gourmet Pizza company. Even as our walk took us through the mad crowds of Covent Garden the mood sustained. We even managed to catch the train with seconds to spare. A superb day in a superb city.

Will Ferrell and the art of fellatio

I'm not Will Ferrell's greatest fan although Old School & Anchor man are great. But I love this piece to camera....

[vodpod id=Groupvideo.1581938&w=425&h=350&fv=key%3D36d31abcf2]

more about "Will Ferrell Answers Internet Questio...", posted with vodpod

Words of wisdom - wow....

To one who knows no better, a small garden is a forest.  --Ethiopian Proverb

Little man Opie

I had a terrible nights sleep last night. The kind were a random series of past failures and awkward events replay themselves through your head again and again and again. Horrible. Still, I did come to one conclusion during this episode of insomnia; I control my emotions - not the other way round. IN my head all those bad memories were put in the basement and the trap door shut. It was a good moment - I hope to bear this in mind always......... oh, and another thing, here is Opie rabbit just enjoying the moment something I hope to begin doing...

hulk sulk

After the conversation with one of my recruitment consultants I made myself watch the hulk......

This is me halfway through the movie



That's a little (green) mean, it was okay but the plot holes were bigger than the biceps.....

Sadly not mad...

Well, the psychometric test came back with some revealing insights. All of which were fairly accurate but sadly contradicting the sort of jobs I'm being approached for. I think I can safely say I bored to death the chap I was talking to earlier about my results. He thought it was all fantastic - I'm sociable, a team player, a leader, consistent, creative blah blah blah...........and then we had this conversation: -

him: says you don't like confrontation.

me: that would be correct

him: oh....(tails off, this is bad...)

me: I think if a situation ends up being confrontational, then at some point it's been badly handled ..

him: oh I agree. But you don't like confrontation?

me: ?

He's going to liaise with the recruitment consultant. I on the other hand will not be busy holding my breath...

The import/ export business

Well this is nice, a brand new blog on wordpress which I've opened up after reading the pros and cons of blogger vs Wp. Apparently it's easy to import from blogger.........I'm just about to find that out.....

Take my breath away (not literally......that'd be dead bad....)

Had a day yesterday of feeling like my chest was being utterly constricted. Horrible, but hey thats asthma for ya. The payback being in the evening settling down to watch United draw 0-0 with Villareal, while drinking beer and eating pizza with my gf. Happy times.....

There are many places in the world I'd like to go visit and anywhere that is out of my comfort zone I always find beautiful. Check out below the oasis shots


These are the Ubari Lakes which are part of Erg Awbari Oasis in the Sahara. Located near Fezzan and 30kms north of Germa in Libya, these salt water lakes are a central trading point for many locals, who gather at the edges of the lake selling souvenirs and other goods.















I love the following shot; This stunning image shows three men quenching their thirst at a small waterfall in the Saharan oasis of Timia, in Niger. It’s a picture perfect portrait of everyday oasis life for local desert dwellers.

Psycho testing

or something close. For the second time in the space of a month I've had to take a psychometric test. The first one was spookily accurate if a little disarming, this second one I have grave hopes for.... sadly the recruitment consultant who set it up for me has convinced herself that this test will reveal me to be a combination of Gates and Buffett. I fear it'll just reveal me be not so much as dumb and dumber (although this I do anticipate to be a finding) but just the shy, lacking in self confidence, neurotic, shrugger of shoulders that I am........some fast talking is going to be required.....

Still, lets end the day on a positive note. My role of house husband means I cook all the evening meals except when the GF decides she really wants to bash pans. So how good does it feel when your cooking elicits murmurs of taste satisfaction and a cry of "delicious"!

Very...............

the perfect timing of a parents email...

It's not often that my Dad will send me an email that I'll put on my blog. Mostly they contain an "ism", are just purely awful or are so disgusting this blog would be rated R. But today in my email inbox was an email that I really liked as it fitted in with trying to be a more positive person. It's below, and yeah it's a little cheesy but the message is over riding: Thanks Dad. I like the bits in bold at the bottom. There lies wisdom.....

John is the kind of guy you love to hate. He is always in a good mood and always has something positive to say. When someone would ask him how he was doing, he would reply, 'If I were any better, I would be twins!'

He was a natural motivator.

If an employee was having a bad day, John was there telling the employee how to look on the positive side of the situation.

Seeing this style really made me curious, so one day I went up and asked him, 'I don't get it!

You can't be a positive person all of the time. How do you do it?'

He replied, 'Each morning I wake up and say to myself, you have two choices today. You can choose to be in a good mood or ... You can choose to be in a bad mood

I choose to be in a good mood.'

Each time something bad happens, I can choose to be a victim or...I can choose to learn from it. I choose to learn from it

Every time someone comes to me complaining, I can choose to accept their complaining or... I can point out the positive side of life. I choose the positive side of life.

'Yeah, right, it's not that easy,' I protested.

'Yes, it is,' he said. 'Life is all about choices. When you cut away all the junk, every situation is a choice. You choose how you react to situations. You choose how people affect your mood.

You choose to be in a good mood or bad mood. The bottom line: It's your choice how you live your life.'

I reflected on what he said. Soon hereafter, I left the Tower Industry to start my own business. We lost touch, but I often thought about him when I made a choice about life instead of reacting to it.

Several years later, I heard that he was involved in a serious accident, falling some 60 feet from a communications tower.

After 18 hours of surgery and weeks of intensive care, he was released from the hospital with rods placed in his back.

I saw him about six months after the accident.

When I asked him how he was, he replied, 'If I were any better, I'd be twins...Wanna see my scars?'

I declined to see his wounds, but I did ask him what had gone through his mind as the accident took place.

'The first thing that went through my mind was the well-being of my soon-to-be born daughter,' he replied. 'Then, as I lay on the ground, I remembered that I had two choices: I could choose to live or...I could choose to die. I chose to live.'

'Weren't you scared? Did you lose consciousness?' I asked

He continued, '..the paramedics were great.

They kept telling me I was going to be fine. But when they wheeled me into the ER and I saw the expressions on the faces of the doctors and nurses, I got really scared. In their eyes, I read 'he's a dead man'. I knew I needed to take action.'

'What did you do?' I asked.

'Well, there was a big burly nurse shouting questions at me,' said John. 'She asked if I was allergic to anything 'Yes, I replied.' The doctors and nurses stopped working as they waited for my reply. I took a deep breath and yelled, 'Gravity'.'

Over their laughter, I told them, 'I am choosing to live. Operate on me as if I am alive, not dead.'

He lived, thanks to the skill of his doctors, but also because of his amazing attitude... I learned from him that every day we have the choice to live fully.

Attitude, after all, is everything.

Therefore do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own.' Matthew 6:34.

After all today is the tomorrow you worried about yesterday.

up and down

My mood(s) at the moment are very unpredictable. I awake on Monday to a new sense of optimism and then by the weeks end when nothing job wise has progressed I feel down, useless and stuck in a rut......Not good, but as mentioned on previous posts I'm trying to bring a new sense of positivity to my life so I shall put in writing now my sense of 'I can do" and the fact that job wise something will happen for me........ and at least my situation isn't resembling the pic above.....although sometimes that's how my mood feels, all okay on the surface but it's what lurks beneath...

Jar City

I'm kinda making it my mission that the GF and I should watch way more world cinema. Top this extent we watched 'Jar City" on Sunday. A superb Icelandic murder mystery. The story although formulaic was beautifully rendered by the natural landscapes that Iceland has to offer. I really want to go; I'm utterly seduced by the bleak desolation, the grey skies, the crashing waves and the sense of infinite that these landscapes smell of. They've been here long before us and they'll still be here long after we've destroyed ourselves......

Guiness and it's valuable assistance in not caring ...

Met with the chaps this Saturday to take in United vs Liverpool. A game which recent history has shown United like to play badly in and yet still take home the 3 points. The only difference rented in this match was we played badly and got soundly beat. We also conjured up a substitution of immense bafflement - Giggs for Carrick meaning our midfield was a mish mash of pic 'n' mix with nobody seeming to know exactly what they were meant to be doing. So we were outmuscled, and out played - it happens. Our defence also contributed to both their goals- which was nice of them. For some reason we placed Rooney on the right wing - just after he'd enjoyed great England success playing off a big man upfront. Still, welcome to United Berbatov. You're gonna have to work harder than you've ever had.....

This match had been accompanied by my great friend Guiness. It made Sunday a very lazy day indeed bit there we go. The weather was late summer/ early autumn balmy and the garden was there to be enjoyed. As a postscript, just how hard is it to find a good sporting venue to watch matches in? The sports bar is now more like a restaurant and there is a definite reluctance on behlaf of pubs to show early matches........bah.

And just when man builds something with a WOW factor, nature just shrugs and offers us this: -

We have a winner......

Picture of the day

This is the largest x-ray generator on earth - Teh Hadron Collider
is now live but this machine imho is just as impressive

“If you always do what you’ve always done, you’ll always be where you’ve always been.”

I like the title of this thread - I've listed it to act as a reminder that I'm meant to be in a new pattern of thought and action. However, after a visually stimulating yesterday I barely slept last night and am like the walking dead this morning. Inside my head last night was a scene of torture as it dug up and put on the walls my every perceived failure, incidents where I've been the bad guy, the stupid guy or the guy who just didn't get it. It made me want to wail loudly, thump my pillow and throw myself out the window into the cool night air. I didn't do any of that,, just quietly wish that I could turn a new page and start anew.......... this however has got to come from me.

Last night England put together an unexpectedly superb performance against Croatia and won 4-1. As I've described on emails since it was Rooney as the composer and Walcott the arching violin solo. Those two bode well for the future although we must bear in mind that England did beat Germany 7 years ago 5-1 and while we sunk with failure clinging to our coattails Germany progressed to a world cup final.

I was meant to be out tonight but I've cancelled. The reason? I have a spot on my chin that seems to want to co-exist with me. I'm 35 and still getting spots. Is this a good or bad thing? I'm not sure, but I'm going to subscribe to the line of thinking that states this is indicative of my skin still being young! Now I just need my brain and it's thought processes to return to it's scene of youth....