Following on slightly from yesterday's blog on the theme of boarding schools, it's amazing to me that applications to boarding schools are up as the effect, apparently, of Harry Potter and because of the cosy spell of Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry.

Now I actually went to boarding school, and as the result of my experience, I can advise any child considering a spell 'inside', that it's not all broomstick flights, fun magic tricks and chasing around corridors on the trail of exciting creatures!

There are plenty of things to recommend boarding school, at least the one I went to, Marlborough College. Outdoor activities such as rock-climbing, canoeing, windsurfing, orienteering. Creative out-of-hours pursuits like woodwork, metalwork, arts and crafts and loads more that I don't even begin to remember.

There are also plenty of good reasons to avoid boarding schools too. They are a breeding ground for bullying, viscious cliques and artificial pecking-orders to break the sternest character, but much of that goes on in day schools too.

No, the single biggest reason not to go to boarding school is because you won't be with your parents. Now you may not see any problem with this. Afterall, overbearing, stuffy parents can be a real pain, especially during teenage years. But at least they care! Trust me, after five or ten years at boarding school, where absolutely no-one cares about you or how you feel, it'll be a miracle if you make it out the other side with no scars . Sometimes it's important just to be with people who care about you, even if they can have an odd way of showing it.

Do not be fooled into believing you (or your child) will get the kind of one-to-one attention that Harry gets from Dumbledore! The truth is more likely to be a brisk reprimand for disturbing morning assembly with tears of rage and frustration caused by the fact that your bed, and the contents of your bedside cabinet have been thrown out of the dormitory window into the flowerbeds below for the fifth time in a week. All fine and dandy if you've got a glossy wand and a "reparo" spell to put things right, but a real heartbreaker otherwise, and this is fun and games that your parents are unlikely to indulge in on a regular basis.

Look before you leap!

It's great to see that money and bluster don't always win out. I read over someone's shoulder this morning that the nasty youth expelled from Marborough College will not be reinstated. His father has apparently dropped the case.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/wiltshire/4287316.stm

Why do I know that the young lad is (in all likelihood) a nasty piece of work? Well, I went to Marlborough College, and I have to tell you that when I was there, it wasn't enough to be unpleasant to get kicked out. Practically everyone there was an odious brat, myself included. No, to get kicked out of Marlborough College, you have to be REALLY nasty! According to the school, Rhys Gray had an "appalling record of behaviour", which is a pretty strong statement.

So hooray for Henry and Henrietta! They'll get to carry on being thoroughly beastly to each other without having to deal with some selfish brute stealing the limelight and beating them at their own game!

This is probably the most shameful event in the long list of embarrassing things that I have done or have happened to me!

Some time in 2002, I was out in Finland with a business colleague of mine. We were installing and commissioning some software for a well known Finnish company and left the building at about 6pm to wait for a taxi back to our hotel.

As we left the building, a very large man shouted something unintelligible across the street to us. We shrugged, and the man crossed the street and repeated whatever the hell he was trying to say. We explained that we didn't speak Finnish and tried to convey to him that we only understood English. As a very large proportion of the population speak English quite well, we assumed there wouldn't be a problem. Unfortunately this didn't seem to help, in fact the situation began to deteriorate rather rapidly. The big chap started to behave rather oddly. By this stage it was pretty obvious to us that he was drunk, as well as a bit bizarre. I kept my distance, but my colleague, being of a kind and helpful disposition, allowed the big man to approach in order to aide communication, whereupon he was seized round the neck!

Thoroughly alarmed now, I shouted at this Finnish giant to unhand my colleague, making gestures several times to drive home my point. When nothing happened, I took two steps towards them and lauched a kick at the assailant's voluminous stomach. My foot sank in, my colleague was released and we both managed to escape a short distance away.

It was at that point that we both noticed a very short, white cane that the man was carrying! Another passer-by was hailed and our attacker called across the street to him, extending his cane to help him on his way. Initially, the new target seemed nervous of this man-mountain, but as we watched with a mixture of astonishment, outrage and shame, the two of them eventually came to some understanding and set off into the distance.

Although we've laughed about this event since, I shall never be able to shake the guilty feeling caused by the fact that I assaulted a visually impaired person.

On my way to catch my train home yesterday, I passed a lady with a white cane, just abou to reach a dangerous intersection. I stopped and offered my help. I'm always nervous about this. Some people with disabilities get quite shirty when you offer help and I don't think it's a very appropriate response. "That's very kind, but I'm quite capable," would be more friendly.

My helpee turned out to be entirely capable, and in many ways - with her white cane - far safer than me on the busy streets of London. Ahhh, but she did want a chat. No problem there. What a lovely person. Canadian visiting her son who works (wouldn't you know it) in IT for a dutch bank. Small world isn't it?

Tomorrow I will post a VERY embarrasing story about an incident in which my treatment of a blind person is far less charitable.

Back at work after a brief but premier-division cold! Life is good. Chill Autumn winds chase away the stuffy summer air. Fluffy white clouds race enthusiastically across the deep blue sky, like delinquent teenagers allowed out for the day.

Free coffee this morning thanks to devious loyalty card from Nero's.

Before I set my own company up six years ago, I wrote a book. Back then I sent it to the two or three publishers who would have it, but it was rejected. It's not really surprising. I have re-read it since then and it's pretty poor. The plot needs to be re-worked and much of the prose is amateurish and the dialogue is clunky.

Never mind. The framework is good and it's quite extensively researched. It just needs a complete overhaul, that all! Now that I've ditched my own company and my life as an employee is a little more straightforward, I should be able to find the bandwidth for this. I have the evenings and the commute to use.

What a buzz it would be to see my name on the spine of a book! Worth another estimated 800 hours of effort?

This post follows on from yesterday's theme.

I want to start a new creed and I need your help!

They don't mean to do it, but religions encourage bigotry and narrow mindedness. They provide a safe refuge and support for extremists. They are undermining efforts to keep the number of humans on this planet to a sustainable level. They are sapping people of their self-esteem, robbing them of vast sums of money and in horrifying numbers claiming their lives.

Here's the plan. We're going to put together a set of guidelines and build a new belief system. We're going to show people that there is another way. A way to stand tall and still give maximum respect to all others. A way to meet the end of our lives with dignity.

The new creed needs a name and I don't think "Make the Most" is appropriate. We'll welcome suggestions for better names. The creed will be based on ideas like the ones enshrined in:

The song "Imagine" by John Lennon
The poem "If" by Rudyard Kipling
The piece entitled "Desiderata"
The idea from the film "Pass it Forwards"

We'll welcome nominations for this list, especially if they come from other cultures. Anything that encourages love, tolerance and charity.

I don't think anyone will be very surprised by the main guidelines.

1) No taking of human life
2) No theft, blackmail, torture, maiming or extortion
3) Everyone has a right their own concept of spirituality
4) All races, colours, shapes and sizes of people are equal
5) No one will be coerced into this creed
6) Work to achieve a balance with the planet we live on
7) Promote schemes to end world poverty
8) Take time out to help others
9) Take care of the children, they are our future

These are only roughed out and they need re-ordering. There are doubtlessly other guidlines that merit consideration. Additional clarifications may be required.

This is the people's creed and will not support leaders or priests or others whose livelihoods may come to depend on maintaining the status quo. It may have to appoint spokespersons...we will welcome ideas to ensure that these people acquire only limited power.

Copy this text and send it to as many people as possible. It will take a long time to change the world, but it will be worth it.

With last week's postings done, I can revert to the more important matter of life and how to make the most of it! One thing that interests me at the moment is the plethora of books advertising their ability to turn you into a towering success in every aspect of your life. I read one a couple of months ago called "Unlimited Power" by an extraordinary fellow who, from the cover of the book, looks a little like Jaws from the Bond films! Naturally he's a tall, handsome American with teeth like a concert hall piano, and he's quite obviously made an enormous success of his own life, largely by telling others how to do just the same.

A number of things trouble me about these sorts of books. The most trivial of which is; clearly we can't all make huge successes of ourselves writing self-help books (which seems to be about the easiest way to make money). Someone has to actually do some real work.

But the thing that's really troubling about all these books, is that they all start out on the basic premise that we (the readers) are all hopeless losers in need of becoming triumphant winners. "What's wrong with this?" I hear you ask.

Well...potentially, quite a lot. It seems to me that there are two apparent paths to happiness, developing goals and achieving them, or learing to appreciate the things you already have in life. These two approaches are almost diametrically opposed to each other, and whilst the "go get it" story sounds very alluring, there are some very dangerous currents flowing there. If you train people to set goals and then strike out for them, you run the risk of creating a group of people who are constantly in the state of travelling towards one objective or another, and habitually set new destinations for themselves. How can such people ever find lasting peace?

I think - and perhaps the one or two people that read this blog can opine - that there is a hole in the market for a book that teaches you that you are a star, you have acheived great things, life goes on and there are people who love you. Money and career aren't everything. Perhaps to achieve "Unlimited Power" we should first be congratulating ourselves on where we have arrived! We should rejoice that we are alive and that every day brings the miracle of dawn to planet that hurtles through space around a ball of fire!

You might suppose that "Make the Most" is an amoral philosophy, intent on the pursuit of pleasure at all costs. This is not the case.

One of my friends (Fr.I) is a devout Christian, whose views would not be out of place in the American "Bible Belt". In the past I have enthusiatically engaged him - and anyone else - in discussions on the meaning of life and the big debate as to whether there really is a creator.

A few weeks ago we were watching our children playing tennis when a discussion originating in the recent London bombings turned to moral codes.
"Of course," I said, "even if I succeeded in convincing you that you were wrong and God does not exist, you'd still have your own personal morals to fall back on."
"Not at all," replied Fr.I, "I can't predict how I'd behave."
"But surely you'd still know it was wrong to kill or steal?" I asked.
"Not really. I think I'd become a hedonist or something like that!"
Shocked, I couldn't reply initially. Fr.I wandered off to play with one of his children for a while. We are both waiting while other children of ours finish their tennis lessons. Eventually I can't bear it any longer. I stand up and walk up to him, pointing at his chest.
"The moral framework you adhere to comes from in here, not from your religion!" I insist.
"It might also be out there," I gesture at the heavens, "but it also lives in here." I point at his chest again, trying to hammer home my point.

I didn't wait for his answer; just walked away feeling slightly queasy. The truth is, for the first time in my life, I've finally seen the full horror of what might happen if I ever did succeed in converting a religious person to my non-faith. Am also worried about friendship to Fr.I!

In spite of my apparent near-death experience, I stubbornly believe that we are all worm food. It would be lovely to be comforted by the knowledge that there really is a cheerful chap in the sky waiting for us with open arms, it really would. The trouble is, the evidence just isn't conclusive.

I do have a moral code, a sort of "live and let live" ideal, which may not measure up to the requirements of any of the Good Books or those who claim to support them, but at least it's part of me and could no more be removed than my heart or brain.

If anyone reading this posting is religious, I'd be interested to hear whether your religion IS your moral code or merely supports what you believe in your heart to be correct.

After last Friday's confession, just about anything I say today is going to be an anti-climax!

In case anyone reads this blog thinking it's going to be packed full of salacious detail, I'm afraid you'll be disappointed. Sooner or later I will tell of my two outings as "Penny", but my cross-dressing is NOT the subject of this blog, rather an illustration of how seriously I have re-thought what I need from my time on this planet.

Do not die sad or disappointed! Whether you believe in an afterlife or not, you should try to make the most of your time here.

[Retrospective: Nov 2004] I have decided to tell my wife that I am a cross-dresser.

Since the age of about 9 or 10, I have had a dream, a dream that I can escape from masculinity. Every now and again I need to let go of the man I am and commune with my feminine side. I'm not gay, I'm not a transsexual, and I may not even qualify as a transvestite because my need is quite small; small, but no less important. Society can be very constricting, sometimes for no apparent reason, and the truth is, although I'm happy with being a man, I find that I do not fit 100% with society's sterotype of what a man should be.

This is so scary! I've made the decision, but how can I stick to my guns and not bottle out at the last minute? How can I put an end to 28 years of hiding? I feel sick. D is away on her annual girls' weekend away and I've taken time off work, Friday to Monday to look after the kids. It's Sunday and D is back tomorrow evening.

The likelihood is that by the time she gets back, I'll have chickened out. Then an idea occurs to me! There is a step I might be brave enough to take now, which will force me to come clean tomorrow. The kids are asleep in bed now, so with a little wine for courage, I turn on the shower, get in and shave my legs!

For those of you who are new to this blog, the history can be summarised thus: I was told I had cancer and had an operation to remove a growth in my upper leg. After the operation I was told that it wasn't cancer!

In the wake of this scare, I decided there were things about my life that needed to be set right. I explained in yesterday's post that one of the steps I took was to close my ailing company down. There was another big step I had to take to get my life aligned with my own personal needs. Since I was very young, I have had a secret, a secret which I didn't feel able to share with anyone, not even my wife. My love for D prevented me from telling her the truth because I was (and still am) desperately scared of losing her.

As I reflected on my life and what might or might not be about to happen, something even more frightening than losing D occured to me. We might live our whole lives together and yet still be strangers!

It took a few weeks for the full horror of that prospect to sink in, but when it did, I decided that I should trust the love that we had demonstrated to each other for eleven years of marriage, and finally open up completely.

It occurred to me that revealing my secret to D would probably have one of two effects. She might lose her respect for me completely, or she might see it as an act of trust and a demonstration of honesty. I dearly hoped that it would be the latter. I want to grow old with her, and I don't want any more secrets.

I've only got this one shot at life, so I've got to get it right. So I resolved to tell her.

When I came out of hospital May 2004, I don't think I'd given any consideration to closing down my business, however by the time February 2005 rolled around, my new found clarity of vision helped me to see that we were flogging a dead horse!

In February this year, I took the decision to shut down the company I had started nearly six years earlier. Recovery from my medical scare in 2004 made me much stronger and much less concerned with this apparent failure.

After five years and a half years of trading, including doing business with the worlds biggest manufacturer of mobile phones, we were back down to a head count of three from a high of six, so it wasn't as painful as it might have been. The simple reason was that the company wasn't making enough money. We'd lost two contracts and one sale that were "in the bag" and losing them was the final straw.

Gutted? Yes a little, but as I personally had no pay rise in five years and 25,000.UKP extra mortgage to pay as a result of financing the company through bad times, it was time to start thinking about my family's future.

Lots of people dream of starting their own businesses, and in spite of the poor result, I can still recommend it. Hell, I'll probably give it another go some day! "They say a wise man learns from his mistakes," but I'd add to that, "A wiser man learns from the mistakes of others." So here are the top mistakes I made:

1) I valued loyalty above the balance sheet
2) I was overly optimistic and didn't make cuts early enough
3) I didn't allow enough sales effort

On the plus side, the company I started fed several familes for a few years, and I got to work close to home while my children were very young, so I managed to get home to put them to bed most nights. That's priceless!

Of course not everyone wants to start their own business, but it you do, you'll never regret giving it a go (even if you get it wrong) as much as you'd regret finding yourself on your deathbed and never having tried. The perception of unfulfilled potential has to be more frustrating than a failed attempt to realise that potential. Good luck!

Thought you might want to see the car.

[Retrospective: July 2004] It can't be a mid-life crisis, I'm only 37! There should be at least a couple of years before this phenomenon kicks in. In an idle moment I type "TVR" into eBay and find a 9yr old, 4-litre V8 Chimaera standing at 8,200.UKP with 12 hours to go on the auction. A sickening lurch jangles my innards. D and I used to talk about owning a TVR. I'd go so far as to say we were sick with fever for a TVR, but that was years ago, and I thought we'd recovered. In that instant I suffered a relapse.

That night I talk to Diana about buying it and somehow manage to convince her! Maybe she's not as cured of that particular illess as I thought...heh-heh-heh.

The next day I check out all the details. It's too far away to view it before the bid ends, but I speak to the keeper and the HP firm that owns it and get an HPI check too. I get extra photos and details sent through. ARGH! Then I place a bid; 100.UKP more than the current winning bid. I watch in anguish in the dying seconds, convinced I will be outbid and not have to go thorough with this silly purchase...

...a higher bid fails to materialise...damn!

All I have to do now is go and collect it. My leg is still damaged from the operation and I can't drive. I have to pay travel for a friend to come with me to view it and drive it back for me.

What have I done? What madness is this? Then I remember the promise I made to myself when I got over my cancer scare; "Make the Most". It's not a mid-life crisis, but a "beginning of the rest of my life crisis"! Phew, that's OK then. ;-)

It's difficult to imagine a more stupid organism than yeast. Stick it in a closed environment, give it some limited resources and then stand back. What does it do?

It chews up all the sugars and turns them into alcohol, until there is no more sugar and too much alcohol left for it to survive.

Hang on a second...that story sounds familiar. We humans may think we're dead-clever, but we're repeating the same mistake as an organism that would rate a score of a big, fat zero in an I.Q. test. Doesn't reflect well does it?

Perhaps we're doing a bit better than that, after all, at least we acknowledge that there's a problem. Well, all of us except the Americans that is, but then we all know that collectively the country would score about the same as a mild case of candida in an I.Q. test.

Seriously though, we do need to manage our resources better. The link between emissions and global warming may not be well proven, but what about the toxins, heavy metals, tons of high longevity plastics. Yeast may outlive us all!

I love it!

I don't read many biographies or autobiographies, but I still recall the shock of reading Sidney Poitier tell of the time when he tried to f**k a chicken!

Although I'd probably stick to the mamalian line if were to indulge in a spot of bestiality (reptiles - essentially what chickens are descended from - being beyond my range of needs), I'm quite a broad minded person, so it wasn't so much the act that astonished me as the naked, brutal honesty of the admission.

I suppose there are some things that should never be told, but I have resolved to aim for total honesty in this blog. Last year, I finally opened the most closely guarded part of my soul up to D, and I now wish I'd done it years ago. Of course, that's not to say she's happy, but my cancer scare has made me stronger, and I have no intention of living and dying as a stranger to the people I love the most.

Yesterday was not a good day. A couple of mistakes I have made at work have reared their ugly heads. Project timescales and costs will have to be adjusted. In addition to that, I got some bad news from my accountant. Not only is my old company that I am closing down going to owe more VAT than I had allowed for, it's also going to receive less of a Corporation Tax refund than I thought! Grrr...yesterday evening was definately a two (large) whisky evening!

This morning I've almost overcome the blue funk that yesterday's news put me in. "Make the Most" is a good philosophy, but no philosophy can remove every low from your life. After all, without a low, there can be no high; without evil there can be no good!

The work thing is a nuisance, but the truth is that I have made lots of good positive contributions to the overall outcome, just that no-one will remember these except me. And my old company's finances are an irritation, but actually, things would have been a lot worse if I hadn't been bold enough to call time on it when I did!

Also on the plus side, today isn't likely to be worse than yesterday, and one positive thing to come out of yesterday was that I took a trip at lunchtime to check if Paolina's is the restaurant I remember from 5 years ago and it is! As a result, the lunch-bunch now have a venue for the next "Extreme Lunch" ( Copyright CasaB ).

For those of you unfamiliar with this blog, I had a cancer scare in 2004. This blog is my attempt to share the insights I have gained as a result.

Is my new state of mind the result of a sudden "Eureka" moment? Before this episode, I would have expected someone in this situation to say "Everything changed for me!" Strangely, that's not what happened. It seems to me that the instant change occurred to my evalutation process itself, an effect which only began to change me as I thought about things. The result has therefore been a much more gradual one and to be honest, after 18 months, I think the changes on have only just begun.

Over the course of this blog, I intend to explain all of the important changes so far. This means that in time, I will have to turn a secret about me into public knowledge, something I would never have been able to do before the event!

On another matter entirely, I was invited to join some staff from the client organisation yesterday who headed out after work. A large number of oysters were purchased, leaving me in the position of having (really) to try them, something I've resolutely avoided for 38 years. Of course now, my mindset is different, so I thought "what the heck!" I'm not sure I would try those big Witchetty Grubs from the outback, the kind of stuff that Ray Mears tucks into for breakfast, but hey, these are just oysters...what's the worst that can happen?

I had two in the end and you know, they were nothing like as bad as I had feared. The 1st one was significantly better than the second one. It had the consistency of thick yoghurt and almost a sort of delicate smokey, slightly brie-like flavour with a briny finish. I don't think oysters will be a regular choice, but if they're forced on me again, I certainly won't have to refuse them!

One thing that makes me feel good is breaking the mould. It's so easy to get stuck in a rut, but you know what? It's so easy breaking it too. All it takes is small changes to the usual routine. Choose somewhere different to get your morning coffee; take control! See how empowered you feel! :-)

This is one of the reasons I like the lunch-bunch. Mr C. e-mailed me just now and Mr H. to suggest a lunch at Bubba's. We have a kind of informal arrangement to have lunch in new venues once in a while. It makes a great change from the tedium of sandwiches.

Of course if you want to make a BIG change to your life, you could "go postal", but it does seem rather extreme!

Try this exercise for me. Close your eyes and imagine this is the last hour of your life. The flowers and trees, the fascinating people, the beautiful clouds that scud or boil across the skies. You gaze up at the rooftops and see a seagull soar on an unseen updraught, wingtip feathers ruffling and tail twitching and adjusting to the tiny changes in the air currents. It's the last hour on this planet, so what will you do? You can take the Su Doku puzzle I'm handing you, or you can turn back to watch the seagull...

Here's one easy way for us all to make better use of our limited time on this planet...stop playing Su Doku!

Drip, drip, drip...
Drip, drip, drip...
Drip, drip, drip...

That's the sound I could hear of my life seeping away last weekend. D and I completed a Samurai Su Doku in "The Times on Saturday". It was supposed to take us 50 minutes, but probably consumed about 4 person/hours of our precious lives.

Why have so many of us fallen prey to this dreadful pastime which is far, far worse than crosswords as a way to absorb and dissipate the joy of life? Every day I see hundreds of commuters scribbling away. Why? There's no massive intellect, grasp of the language or general knowledge required, just the well oiled use of a handful of strategies. Even when you finish one, there's no big sense of achievement, just a sick sort of relief that it's over!

I'm not playing again...not ever. I call upon the souls of the damned and all the horrors of the underworld to bear witness to my vow.

I'm back from holiday. I did seriously consider taking my laptop with me so that I could blog from Devon. It's a good job I didn't bother as there was no telephone in the cottage and absolutely no mobile signal from anywhere in the village!

Before we left on holiday, I told D about this blog. She was astounded that anyone should bother to write a blog, but even more incredulous that anyone would actually waste their time reading it!
"Well you read newspapers and columnist's articles" I pointed out.
"That's not the same," she replied. "They're professionals, and what has Joe Blog (pun intentional) got to say of any interest anyway?"
"So what you're saying is that I'm illiterate and boring?" I asked.
"I wasn't referring specifically to you," came the answer.
"No but my inclusion in your condemnation was inferred, whether or not it was implied!"

We didn't really get much further than this, although in the middle of last week, when the subject arose again, she did suggest that she might have to get the URL. It looks like my severest critic in real-life may soon be my severest critic in cyberspace!

Never mind, I will use replies to future postings as a guage for the value of my contribution and will try to dredge up something of interest to write about. :-)