first small kick

my new shoes

Went to the gym today and kicked some thai pads, not a lot but a start. Every journey starts with the first small step or in this case 'kick'.

Gorse

Gorse starting to flower

Walking the dog this morning I noticed the Gorse is starting to flower. When in full the bloom the air is scented with a strong coconut scent. In a months time, if you walk on the moor the strength of the coconut will be powerful.

I had intended to participate in the BJJ class tonight but it hasn't worked out for me timewise, but i feel that I'm on the precipice of getting back in there. With the change in clocks and sleep disruption - Caz is on early shift so a 4am rise - i've slept the latter part of the afternoon too long.

"Disability is a matter of perception. If you can do just one thing well, you're needed by someone."

Ginger has been shown to:
• Reduce abdominal bloating
• Stimulate digestion
• Keep intestinal muscles toned
• Reduce nausea and vomiting
• Support the cardiovascular system

The world's first biodegradable chewing gum is arriving on British supermarket shelves, potentially putting to an end the sticky mess caused by the conventional product.

Chicza Rainforest Gum is manufactured in Mexico by Consorcio Chiclero - a consortium of 56 co-operatives employing some 2,000 chicleros (gum farmers) and their families. The workers extract natural gum from the sap of the chicle tree, which is then used to make the product.

Unlike conventional chewing gum, which contains petrochemicals, the organic chewing gum does not stick to clothing or pavements. And once disposed of, it will crumble to dust in about six weeks, dissolving harmlessly in water or being absorbed into the soil.

It is costly and difficult to remove conventional chewing gum from public places because of its chemical content, with cleaning typically costing between 10p and 30p per piece. It takes 17 weeks for chewing gum to be removed from the entire length of Oxford Street in London, for example, but only 10 days for it to be littered with gum again.

Local authorities spend up to £200,000 a year each on clearing gum; the average cost is £13,000.

Spring Forward

Teaching Saturdays Class

I was out on the motorbike today for the first time since, i guess, October. With the clocks going forward its come at a time where its a bit less wintry and dare i say more spring like. So i got the bike out and cleaned it and took it for a wee run to see how i did. I was fine and chuffed being back on the Triumph workhorse.

This was after running a fighters workout where Chris Moir had 10 rounds of Muay Thai sparring with people all 20 kg heavier. This is incredibly good for him now that we have more people willing to turn up to these sessions and so i expect his standard to increase and start to really dominate fights.

My inside thighs are sore after doing some kettlebells yesterday. I didn't do many but since my body hasn't been stressed for a while, the few was enough. Cardio seems out at the moment as i tend to get dizzy but i felt good doing the Turkish lifts - see the video - and didn't get any cramps at night!



I'm 84.1 kgs. i don't think there is much more body fat but the big difference is the loss of muscle. I'm comfortable with my size, it's the strength i want to recapture.

Ray - king of the kettlebells

Chile’s president, Michelle Bachelet…
“I would say that because of the decisions we took during the good times, we were able to save some money for the bad times. And I would say that today that policy is producing results”

=== JKrishnamurti.org - Daily Quote ===

When I can look at you and you can look at me without the image of memory then there is a relationship.

Questioner: What relation has the observer, my observer, to other observers, to other people?

Krishnamurti: What do we mean by that word 'relationship'? Are we ever related to anyone, or is the relationship between two images which we have created about each other? I have an image about you, and you have an image about me. I have an image about you as my wife or husband, or whatever it is, and you an image about me also. The relationship is between these two images and nothing else. To have relationship with another is only possible when there is no image.

When I can look at you and you can look at me without the image of memory, of insults, and all the rest, then there is a relationship, but the very nature of the observer is the image, isn't it? My image observes your image, if it is possible to observe it, and this is called relationship, but it is between two images, a relationship which is nonexistent because both are images.

To be related means to be in contact. Contact must be something direct, not between two images. It requires a great deal of attention, an awareness, to look at another without the image which I have about that person, the image being my memories of that person - how he has insulted me, pleased me, given me pleasure, this or that. Only when there are no images between the two is there a relationship.

Collected Works, Vol. XVII - 7

sleep

The last two days have seen a lot of sleeping taking place. Whilst it is cold i blame this on the beta blockers. The appointment for the endoscopy for them to put the bandings in so i can come off the beta blockers is not till the end of April. I will email a question to see if i can come off them before.

Britons are the worst sleepers in Europe, claimed a survey last week, depicting a nation starved of sleep and facing a daily battle against red-eyed exhaustion.

The research, produced by the Future Foundation for health campaign Sleep Well Live Well, found that one in five of the population had less than seven hours sleep a night - and many of these tired souls reported feeling stressed and unhappy.

But how about looking at the question from another direction. If insufficient or disrupted sleep is bad for our health - then what would be the ingredients of a really good night's sleep? What makes a perfect sleep?

Dr Adrian Williams of the Sleep Disorders Centre at St Thomas's Hospital in London sets out a few ground rules.

Don't have any caffeine drinks after 2pm, exercise some time between 4pm and 7pm, have a milky drink and a bath before bedtime and try to exclude noise and light from the bedroom, recommends Dr Williams.

But sleep is a highly individual experience. Like our appetite for different types of food, we all have our own gourmet sleeps. Here are 10 to savour.

1. THE AFTERNOON NAP According to the wartime Prime Minister Winston Churchill, the pearl of slumbers was the afternoon nap. "You must sleep some time between lunch and dinner, and no half measures. Take off your clothes and get into bed."

2. THE WEARY PARENT For the sleep-starved parent, it can feel as though they've given birth to a temperamental air-raid siren. Their sleep fantasy is nothing more elaborate than a night alone and a long luxurious morning when they can wake up undisturbed. Maybe they could warm the room with a bonfire of all those smug-faced sleep training manuals.

3. HOTEL SCHADENFREUDE There are few more succulent slices of sleep than the first morning of a holiday. No alarm clock, no rushing for the train, no playing hunt the other sock, no making sandwiches for the kids. What makes it even sweeter is the thought of everyone else back at work toiling over a hot computer.

4. THE GREAT OUTDOORS Sleeping outside has a particular grass-scented pleasure, whether it's drowsing on a sunny afternoon in the back garden, on the beach or in the park. Looking up at the clouds creates that feeling of getting back to nature.

Fresh-air sleeping has a long tradition. Alice Ravenhill, an Edwardian authority on rearing children, ordered that bedroom windows should be always fully open, apart from in the severest cold spells. In summer, she recommended sleeping on the porch.

Modern hotels say they pitch their optimum room temperature for sleeping at 18 degrees. It must have been all the other ones I've stayed in that are hotter than the Gobi desert, with the windows bolted shut.

5. COMFY PILLOW Pillows now come with almost as much science as hair conditioner. And there are versions with in-built speakers to play sleep-inducing sounds such as a heart beat or soothing music.

This would not have impressed the Elizabethan writer, William Harrison, who attacked the young men of the 1580s for being so soft that they used pillows to help them sleep. In his day, real men slept on wooden logs or hairy sacks. Allergenic or non-allergenic sack, sir?

6. KEPT IN THE DARK For a city dweller, used to a constant fog of light, it can be a rare treat to sleep in undisturbed treacly darkness. It's becoming more and more difficult to find. There are light polluted skies outside - and the insides of homes are overflowing with light-emitting gadgets. Kielder in Northumberland is claimed as having the darkest skies left in England.

7. SNEAKY CINEMA SNORING We've all been there. It's warm, it's dark, the mobile is switched off and you're watching a film or a play, and you feel an irresistible urge to close your eyes. It's been a long day and your body is crying out for a delicious moment of rest. The innovative Japanese have recognised a gap in the market and run "sleep concerts", in which rows and rows of exhausted salarymen cheerfully snore while the musicians play.

8. NIGHT MUSIC Who wouldn't enjoy being lulled to sleep by music? Or else the music is so dull that staying awake becomes impossible. Interpret this either way, but a study for the hotel chain Travelodge says that Coldplay and James Blunt are the most sleep-inducing musicians. Guests also like "unchallenging" reads, with the literary works of Jordan and David Beckham topping the sleep chart.

9. DREAMING OF FOOD The Christmas sleep, after a big dinner, is a classic of its kind. But different types of food have associations with inducing sleep. The NHS recommends eating bananas. Since the Romans, lettuce has been a persistent ingredient in sleep recipes. Less attractive is the use of dormouse fat, as used by the Elizabethans. The Victorians recommended top quality champagne as an insomnia cure. Even if you didn't get to sleep, it would still have been a good party.

10. WEEKEND LIE-IN Going home on Friday, the weekend stretches out alluringly. The first pleasure is the morning lie-in, that extra hour or so when everything seems possible. You lie there planning that great novel, dipping in and out of sleep. Nathaniel Hawthorne caught this perfectly: "You speculate on the luxury of wearing out a whole existence in bed, like an oyster in its shell, content with the sluggish ecstasy of inaction."

Maybe we're not bad at sleep, just out of practice.

BBC journalist Sean Coughlan writes a blog on the subject.

A copy of the financial times from the year 2020 has fallen through time, delivering tomorrow's news today Hindsight.

'M'

Just got my Madness boxset with The Liberty of Norton Folgate.
Absolutely smashing!

The Liberty Of Norton Folgate in a luxurious limited edition boxed set, furnished with the full album both on Compact Disc and Vinyl. Also included, exclusive additional new tracks and Out-Takes (taking the total number of tracks to 42), a poster, a custom made 'M' pin-badge and many more collectors treasures.
Aside from the album itself, probably the most significant item in the box will be a membership card initiating your induction into the society and collective known simply as 'M' which grants you access to a private area of the Madness website.

Disc 1 The Liberty of Norton Folgate
Disc 2 The Liberty of Norton Folgate
Disc 3 - Practice Makes Perfect Plus Hackney Live & Correct
Vinyl LP


In Britain in 1993, three people needed hospital treatment as a result of an accident with a tea-cosy. So, if you walked into a room with no-one else was in there and there is a tea-cosy on the table what would you do?

It's Frothy man!

If you recall i mentioned that if I exercise i get severe leg cramps at night. Well the Dr told me to try drinking Tonic water as it contains quinene. However stronger doses of Quinene have caused serious problems - even death. Stop to marketing quinine for night leg cramps - health risks of prescription quinine - Brief Article

My urine continues to high levels of albumin which is a side effect of kidney malfunction possibly cause by the Sorafenib. After the CT scan they will look to weigh the benefits of whats happening to the tumor with the kidney issue.

Albumin symptons include a frothy pee, which i have now started calling Cresta after a childhood soda drink which had a polar bear saying "Its Frothy Man!" The current version of Cresta does not stand up to the old one, probably as half the ingredients are banned.

I'd saved up for a tin (1973/4) and left it in the fridge for the next day. My dad returned from work in London after i had gone to bed - which was the norm - and was eating a curry made by my mum when he chewed on a chilli. According to my mum, with his mouth burning, he drank water and grabbed my cresta out of the fridge and drank it in one.

I was, thus, scarred for life.



Just when you thought your email or phone call was private, guess what!

Sheep, wolves and sheepdogs

I was out walking the dog yesterday in cold weather, there had been snow and sleet and a strong bitter wind was cutting through the layers, when i met an old man shaking and in distress. I was keeping an eye out for him as someone had approached me full of concern. This was a man around the age of 30, who told me of an old man shaking and stumbling. Walking around with the dog i saw a few people walking on the moor.

It wasn't long till i met this old man, who was scared, cold, wet and shaking. He had obviously fallen and i went straight to him and talked to him. While i talked to him, several more people hurried past. There was a car park not far away so i got him to come with me as i felt I could find someone with a car who'd drive him home rather than call out an emergency service. I approached a young man who wasn't comfortable but willing to drive him home. I called his house to make sure there was someone home and at that moment a car drew up and the old gentlemans daughter got out full of concern.

How many walked past, seeing this man in distress? Even the man who alerted to me had not acted, although at least he let me know. After the situation was dealt with i bumped into my pal Dod, out with his dog and we discussed it as we walked. There are people who wont do anything and there are those who will.

There is a a passage from something called The Bulletproof Mind, written by a Lt. Colonel Dave Grossman, a psychologist by training as well as a military man. Grossman uses a metaphor of sheep, wolves, and sheepdogs, and divides humanity into three groups based on this idea:

If you have no capacity for violence then you are a healthy productive citizen: a sheep. If you have a capacity for violence and no empathy for your fellow citizens, then you have defined an aggressive sociopath--a wolf. But what if you have a capacity for violence, and a deep love for your fellow citizens? Then you are a sheepdog, a warrior, someone who is walking the hero's path....

Let me expand on this old soldier's excellent model of the sheep, wolves, and sheepdogs. We know that the sheep live in denial; that is what makes them sheep. They do not want to believe that there is evil in the world. They can accept the fact that fires can happen, which is why they want fire extinguishers, fire sprinklers, fire alarms and fire exits throughout their kids' schools. But many of them are outraged at the idea of putting an armed police officer in their kid's school. Our children are dozens of times more likely to be killed, and thousands of times more likely to be seriously injured, by school violence than by school fires, but the sheep's only response to the possibility of violence is denial. The idea of someone coming to kill or harm their children is just too hard, so they choose the path of denial.

The sheep generally do not like the sheepdog. He looks a lot like the wolf. He has fangs and the capacity for violence. The difference, though, is that the sheepdog must not, cannot and will not ever harm the sheep. Any sheepdog that intentionally harms the lowliest little lamb will be punished and removed. The world cannot work any other way, at least not in a representative democracy or a republic such as ours.

Still, the sheepdog disturbs the sheep. He is a constant reminder that there are wolves in the land...

Now, there are things in Grossmans thinking that i do not subscribe to. He's a military man with an agenda. However i do recognise the generalisation and yesteday i was the sheepdog. I act where others are hesitant. At the same time i will give or share my last morsel with a fellow human being and i do feel that a 'sheep' can step out of the pasture. That's why i teach martial arts and self protection. I know for some its about being nice to the victims [Peyton to McYoung], but i have this confidence, not a belief, that people can and do evolve and this is a fundemental difference to Grossman's stereotype.