Speak no evil
Red Writer on 09.22.05 @ 04:44 PM gmt [link]
Thursday, September 22nd
Tuesday, September 20th
Change
"The only constant is change"
Buddha
Red Writer on 09.20.05 @ 11:14 AM gmt [link]
Wednesday, September 14th
Ginger Gene
Apparently I am one of those more sensitive to the cold and pain, according to a new study on people with ginger hair. Not that I want to dispute this theory because living in Scotland it gets pretty chilly and the older I get the less I like the cold but the pain bit I'm not quite so sure about - I've had various ops and had my second child with no anaesthetic at all and survived them all without any problems. In fact the only problem I've ever had is being given too strong a dose of anaesthetic!
Red Writer on 09.14.05 @ 10:02 AM gmt [link]
Monday, September 12th
Habits
Wine drunk - much down on previous but guests and a party didn't help!
Crisps - none
Dip - none
Weight lost - 4lb
Weight gained - 2lb
Mental state - no matter how much is learned in adult life, the child inside is never far away.
Red Writer on 09.12.05 @ 08:54 AM gmt [link]
Friday, September 9th
Monday, September 5th
Cowardly Bumpers
Don't you just hate it when some bas***d bumps into your car in a car park when you're not there - enough to mark and dent it and doesn't even leave you a note to acknowledge it. 
Red Writer on 09.05.05 @ 01:57 PM gmt [link]
Sunday, September 4th
Beethoven
A tourist in Vienna is going through a graveyard and all of a sudden he hears some music. No one is around, so he starts searching for the source.
He finally locates the origin and finds it is coming from a grave with a headstone that reads: Ludwig van Beethoven, 1770-1827. Then he realizes that the music is the Ninth Symphony and it is being played backward! Puzzled, he leaves the graveyard and persuades a friend to return with him.
By the time they arrive back at the grave, the music has changed. This time it is the Seventh Symphony, but like the previous piece, it is being played backward.
Curious, the men agree to consult a music scholar. When they return with the expert, the Fifth Symphony is playing, again backward. The expert notices that the symphonies are being played in the reverse order in which they were composed, the 9th, then the 7th, then the 5th.
By the next day the word has spread and a throng has gathered around the grave. They are all listening to the Second Symphony being played backward.
Just then the graveyard's caretaker ambles up to the group. Someone in the crowd asks him if he has an explanation for the music...
Red Writer on 09.04.05 @ 04:56 PM gmt [more..]
Info
I tried the joke below on SO. When I had told him verbally, he laughed but as someone who doesn't read blogs much he didn't realise that when an entry has the little highlighted "more" at the bottom of it, you press it to read the extended bit. OK so sometimes I put more on the front page than others and sometimes I don't use the extended entry at all. But as I was writing a joke, I didn't want to put the punch line somewhere people would just scroll down to ................so, for the previous entry, you have to press the 'more' to see the punch line.
I guess it wasn't a good joke. I thought it was funny. But I've had to explain how to read it now, so......well it doesn't seem funny anymore. I never could tell a good joke. It's all in the delivery you know. And timing. I'm not good at
Red Writer on 09.04.05 @ 04:50 PM gmt [more..]
Saturday, September 3rd
Frederick Delius
Sometimes you learn a lot from listening to the radio. Yesterday I was listening to a programme and heard all about the composer Frederick Delius. I always thought Delius was German but he was actually born in Bradford, England and I also didn't know that not only was he a very famous composer but he was also an incredibly fussy eater?
Apparently, during concerts away from home, he often became very ill because he was so weak through lack of eating because he couldn't find anything that he liked. To overcome this problem he started to take all his own ingredients with him to concerts and he'd prepare meals in his dressing room himself. It used to be a great source of entertainment to all those back stage as they passed his dressing room, smelling the wonderful concoctions he used to make. At one point in his career, getting in to see him prepare his meals became almost as much of an event as his concerts and people queued up outside his dressing room to watch. So, while we think that all these celebrity chefs like Jamie Oliver and Nick Nairn are a product of modern day life, we're wrong. Old Freddy was doing his demonstations way back at the beginning of the 20th Century......
Red Writer on 09.03.05 @ 04:10 PM gmt [more..]
Hooping
See comments on previous post about the Hula hoop. Being unable to do this properly is now a sense of frustration and given that it's meant to be fun and good exercise, I was looking for more info on hoops. I found a video here which is just hillarious - I don't think it's meant to be!!!! Then I found some basic instructions on how to do it, so now I know where I've been going wrong! I think I have just found a cheap form of exercise I might be able to find fun.....or is that just funny - perhaps being doubled up laughing doesn't help my technique. Especially after noticing that someone has actually asked the question "can I take a hoop on an airplane with me?"
PS: I really shouldn't laugh but keep finding funnier things: video
Red Writer on 09.03.05 @ 09:00 AM gmt [link]
Friday, September 2nd
Habits
It's SYD's birthday today and I also have a day off. Today will be the first time I've had a free Friday for months. It's nice. I've already done lots of tidying, baked bread, finished the necklace I started making last month, cleaned a very muddy pair of shoes which have been lying in a corner for about a year and danced around the kitchen like a released bird to mediocre music on the radio. The sense of freedom and achievement I feel so far today feels good. I can now concentrate on baking SYD a nice cake instead of the usual panic of throwing one together at the last minute. I can plan a special dinner for tonight and I can go shopping or to the Cartier Bresson exhibition (although there is time for that).
But as always, birthdays and anniversaries get me thinking and so there was a bit of deeper thinking this morning. My train of thought led me, via a circuitous route, to habits and how much of our lives are dictated by habits we don't even know we have. So I browsed (habit??)for a while and found a really interesting article which contained the question Can habits alter one's brain structure in such a way that free will is lost? I'm not about to launch into a long discursive on what I think about free will and determination, except to say that it's a topic I have studied in the past and still not come to a conclusion about.
However, from a very simplistic viewpoint on habits themselves and starting from the basic bad habits like biting nails, sucking thumbs, eating chocolate, general bad eating habits to more dangerous habits like alcohol abuse, drug abuse etc etc. I realised that a lot of the things I do are out of habit and those habits are responsible for a lot of the bad feelings I have about myself. But I managed to break the first two above as a child so you'd think I could be tough enough to break any others.
For example, my eating habits are the cause of the extra few pounds I'm not happy about. Sitting down after work with a glass of wine, crisps and dips before dinner has become a habit, so I have to break that habit if I want to stop adding the pounds I want to loose. But it's hard. I like wine, I like crisps and dip and I like the time spent chatting to the family while eating and drinking. So I have to find alternative ways of enjoying that time (the rewarding bit) and the experience of good tastes (also rewarding). I could substitute the wine with a glass of water or a cup of coffee, but neither hit the same satisfaction buttons. Perhaps a fruit juice and a healthy snack might work. I think some experimentation is required.
Anyway, I thought it was interesting and it's given by brain something to concentrate on whilst doing the housework. There is another thought and that's, are some things addictions and some habits? Obviously the former is more worrying and I have addressed this on the alcohol front by attempting to have a few alcohol free nights over the last few weeks - but I have to say, sometimes I fail and when I do succeed it's difficult. Does that mean I have an addiction to alcohol? Now that would be a depressing Scottish stereotype! And switching on the pc, checking emails are these habits? Did I really need to check the blog this morning? Ho hum, it's all very confusing. Can a habit become an addiction and at what point is the former considerd the latter? I think I should go back to housework - at least I get the satisfaction of having achieved something rather than having spent half an hour online.
Does anyone know how long it takes to break a habit? 
Red Writer on 09.02.05 @ 11:05 AM gmt [link]
Thursday, September 1st