Weighty Matters

I'm doing a course in hypnotherapy and we are talking about weight loss today. I observed that fat people were considered to be solid, reliable and that is why many women put on weight to be in the boardroom. Fat people were respected because when there was scarcity of food it meant that you were a good provider and could support a family.

However, looking at really successful people nowadays they tend to be slimmer than the people at the next level down. If you see a picture of a fat family you make the assumption that they are unemployed and not eating properly.

All the male CEOs I can think of are not that overweight even the Prime Minister, President of the US and the people who are rivals for the job.

A bit simplistic but I'll look in the papers tomorrow just to make sure I'm not being unfair.

Different Perspectives on the Family

I spent an hour and a bit listening to an experienced therapist faciliting a meeting. One of her themes which she makes explicit from time to time is that families are dysfunctional. She seems quite delighted when this is proved by the information provided by the participants in the meeting and even described her daughter's family as suspect when they were described as perfect.

It amkes me worry when these ideas are expressed to people who are in a vulnerable situation and wonder if it sets them back from improving as they sit back and reflect on how tey came to be part of a dysfunctional family.

About two days later I was reading a biography of Charles Dickens where Claire Tomalin's view is that Dickens regarded the family as a convivial social gathering and a force for good. How did we get from that model to the model we have today considering the deprivation that people suffered 200 years ago.

Observations on Therapists

Therapists do not know the answer to your specific problem. They can provide you with options but not answers and they can suggest courses of action but its your action, your decision and your pain. You probably already have the resources within you to resolve your problem but you are not familiar with the situation that you find yourself in. They on the other hand see hundreds or thousands of people who have similar but unique situations, personalities, abilities and resources and extrapolate from one to the other what works. Unfortunately they become case hardened to the pain and looking from their perspective they can suggest things that are not appropriate but may look reasonable from the perspective that they are the expert and you are a person in distress. They can't tell the difference as they see themself offering an option with no consequences for them. You see someone throwing a person in distress a lifebelt.

They are useful as an introduction to what other people have done while in your situation but they cannot guarantee that it will work for you. At your lowest ebb you will have to pick yourself up, reassemble the pieces into something that looks like you used to do and then customise an answer for yourself. When you are doing this the therpaist may get resentful as you are not following their plan and maybe even hopes that you will fail in order to validate their ideas. But you will not fail you will adjust and try something new and change and adapt and overcome.

Remind myself - they do not have the answers they can just suggest options.

David Bowie Approach

I was listening to the radio a few days and a guitarist was talking about how thrilled he was to work with David Bowie on 'Fame' however he said 'these guys would turn up with a few scraps of paper and notes and come into the studio and start creating an album. I'd never worked like this before'. I think David Bowie is a creative legend a sort of collage artist who took RnB and added his own twists on it. After more thought I realised I disagreed with the guitarist - when they turned up in the studio they also turned up with talent, creativity and an open attitude to see what the results were. As they didn't know what the outputs would be in advance there was a possibililty they would uncover something interesting. It was a risk they took. A different approach would be to go into the studio with the songs already written and quite developed and then to complete them and then enhance them. A lot easier and less discussion required. Of the two approaches I think the second approach will turn a great band into a tribute band of themselves and make them unlikely to explore new directions and influences. I see this in management consultancy where I am bombarded by Powerpoint presentations and governance that all seem vaguely familiar and similar but I bet the originals were really good and no matter how committed the presenters are it means their enthusiasm is filtered and sterilised as it hits the audience. The Big 4 are the new tribute bands and I wait for the punk movement to blow them away.

Riots in London

The riots seem to be a consumerist flash mob that just kept on going going and inviting more and more people from outside the postcode to get stuck in. There was no way the police could contain the threat as it is an ever moving centre with no central, single point of coordination. They will need to devise some new tactics to meet the challenge.

This was not an underclass but an 'otherclass'. People living along side us that just see the world differently in terms of effort, activity and reward.

Labour went from saying 'where are the police' to 'who pays for the overtime' in the space of two days. They really have no idea.

Keeping Tidy

Scorpios are supposed to be people who compartmentalise their emotions, friends and probably develop a number of personas. Its quite a useful trait as you can blame the idiot heavy dring persona for your failures and congratulate the hard-working clever ones for your successes. At the moment my partner is receovering from a period when she's been absent from life in general and is trying to get a bit of traction. One irony is that she has lots of stuff around the house and it needs to be sorted. Her approach is to get as much stuff out as possible, make every room a mess and then to give up as it is too big a job. I fear there is some way to go before we get any traction. There are small steps such as dealing with some of her personal admin but it's all about following up which she finds tiresome.

Sge suggested that she could become a business manager last week and I suppreesed a scream.

Adam Ant Lives

Went to a pre-tour 'gig' at the Coronet Cinema in Notting Hill. Theyt show a few home movies from 79-82 that Adam Ant thought were special. One was excellent, one was good but the first one was poor. Thjen they showed a film of a gig from 81 - Kings of Wild Frontier, Dog Eat Dog, Proice Charming... about an hour. I was impressed how good some of the songs that were not singles sounded - he did a Q&A session and then played for 30 minutes.

A good night and I'll be interested in how his tour is received. He should get some press coverage as he's still box offoce compared to the home grown gruel I hear at the moment.