Author: Maleghast (Page 31 of 38)

…and please, let’s be clear, I don’t mean “I really fancy this woman”, or even that I have any illusions about meeting her, forming a meaningful and reciprocal relationship with her and finding peace… I just mean “I love this person’s mind”, and for what it’s worth I would love to know her better, but I will certainly always treasure this…

I hope that you enjoy it too… 😉

..::EDIT::..

(You can download a higher resolution version for free by using this URL:

Thanks to jfs for isolating this address for me.

and as you may be able to tell, you can subscribe to TED Talks as a video podcast, visit the iTunes Podcast Library to subscribe; just search for TED)

So I am pretty much housebound. I’ve mentioned my screwed up, positively buggered right knee due to a stupid mistake that I made while I was skiing, but what I have not told you about yet is that my left knee finally gave up the ghost on Tuesday. Having been expected to do all the work of moving my admittedly too heavy form around the world, my left knee finally threw its hands in the air and said “Screw It! I’ve had enough!”. By the time Cathy had left after dinner, the pain in my left knee was so bad I could barely get out of my chair at the computer and I could barely concentrate. I went to bed, hoping that things would get better with some rest, but when I awoke in the morning and levered myself out of bed the pain of standing up was almost the most pain I can ever remember feeling. By the time I’d availed myself of the facilities – yeah taken a dump – and got myself into a chair I was in so much pain that I thought I was going to throw up and it was getting worse. It occurred to me that I was no pretty sure that I was no longer able to get out of the chair, and I was starting to wonder when it was going to stop hurting. In the end I did what every child of doctors does first; I called my parents. Please bear in mind, they are in Cyprus. There was no way that they could actually help me. They gave me some good advice, though, and on the basis of it I called my doctor and begged for a home visit. After some confusion the doctor came, agreed that it was almost certainly a bad sprain as a result of doing all the work and wrote me up a scrip for painkillers and anti-inflammatories. I managed to get a friend to collect my drugs and by the end of the day I was no longer in agonising pain. Today has been better, but I am really glad that I did not try and go to Preston, as there is still a fair old twinge every time I move out of the chair or do some shuffling around the flat when I move about a bit to keep the joint moving.

The thing is, I am FINALLY angry about all of this, I am desperate to be able to run instead of hobble – I want to be fit, and the infuriation of being stuck with this injury, and stuck in this flat is definitely starting to get to me. If you can read this and want to help out, please come and visit me… 😉

In other news the continued search for work rolls on – I want to stick to the plan and carry on contracting, but the market does appear to be worse off than it looks if you do a search on the core job boards. As far as I can tell there is a lot of briefing jobs that don’t really exist and a lot of leaving jobs on boards even when they are filled going on, but I have had a couple of genuinely positive conversations too, so hopefully I will have more work before the end of February.

Enough for now – I need to write a Ficlet and get some sleep; be well out there…

.
EOT

I’ve been giving this a lot of thought since the 20th of January and I think that I’ve worked it out. What have I worked out, you ask? I’ve worked out why I like Barack Obama.

Sure we have some political opinions in common, we’re both educated Liberals with a belief in personal responsibility and straight talking, and overall he seems like a decent guy, but it’s more than that…

For the first time in a very long time I can point at him and say, ‘That’s the kind of person I want running my country.’. Why do I want someone like Barack Obama running my country? It’s really very simple, he has no problem telling truth to power (whether you see that as Americans or Corporate America or Old Money America, they are all getting the same rap), he has no problem with the politics of realism, and most important of all he has no problem reminding the people that he serves that while he can inspire and set the tone and direction of his country, without the people’s support and engagement in the day to day running of his country he cannot succeed. He has as much as said that he will work tirelessly to fulfill his office if everyone else will accept that in order for their great democracy to work they all need to be involved, engaged and working (for at least some small portion of their time) towards the common good.

There is no one in British politics at the moment (or at least no one making enough noise for me to have noticed) who is prepared to offer to lead on the basis of the challenge of ‘get involved’, no one reminding us, the electorate that politicians work for us, not for their corporate friends, or their social agenda, or their religion, or even for their own advancement; they work for you and me. Sure it is reasonable for them to expect to be well (though not over exuberantly) paid for their hard work, and for that work to lead to other pastures once they leave public life, but the first priority of any public servant should be obvious – the clue is in the name.

I am sure that President Obama is no saint, that he would love a Nobel Prize or to leave office and be an envoy for the UN in four or, fate-willing, eight years time, that he has ambition of his own, but for the first time in a long, long time I really believe that there is a person in the Oval Office who sees the truth that putting his or her ambition aside for the greater good of their constituency is the surest route to affecting change. If Obama truly embraces his duty and is the President of the People then he cannot be manipulated into inaction or pandering, as he has nothing to lose but his office, and the Office really is greater than the man.

I hope I am right about him, and I hope I am right to have faith in the American People that they will see (if I am right) that their prosperity, health and freedom is his mission day to day, week to week and judge him on that rather than anything else. If that can happen, if a good man truly can become President of the United States then maybe, just maybe a good man (or woman) really can come to the fore and lead us in Britain into an age where the good of the many and the rewards of the just and the caring is the bounty of all and far outweighs the greed for power and money of the few.

( X-Posted from my politics and V-log blog, Britvox )

Some people have heard and others haven’t but on day four of my thirteen day skiing holiday I made a stupid mistake at the end of a run (just before the lift) and I have done some fairly crunchy ligament damage to my right knee. I’m ok, just a little miffed and annoyed at myself for screwing up, but I guess 22 years of skiing / snowboarding and just one serious accident is not a bad record, and equally it had to happen sometime…

There is every indication that with some physio, some rest and a bit of care (oh and the purchase of some hinged knee supports) that I could be skiing again next season, so it’s not all bad – hooray for travel insurance!

The accident has not left me with a pressing medical need to be sent home early, so I am marking time in resort, finding the internet when I can and generally just chilling, so at least the relaxation aspect of going on holiday is still being served 🙂

This post is not a request for sympathy, really, just the easiest way to tell as many people as possible at once, but there are a couple of people in Reading and environs that I might need to ask for some bits of help from in the short to medium term – good wine and a place in heaven will be your undoubted reward.

See you all soon(ish) and more regularly online after the 25th of Jan (when I get back home to a land of reliable and accessible internet connections)…

TTFN

First of all, best wishes to all for a successful, happy and peaceful New Year in 2009…

Now I’ve got that out of the way…

I’ve been thinking about New Year quite a lot over the last couple of days – natural enough I imagine, I think many people are given to moments of reflection at this time of year. It occurs to me that I am not entirely easy to please when it comes to the passing of one year and the birth of the next; that I tend to find myself suffering a little melancholy and occasionally a little ennui with the whole performance, and I’m not one hundred percent convinced that I don’t simply create those things for myself.

I have been heard to say that New Year’s is a time that I enjoy best when I have a partner, that welcoming the coming year in the arms of a lover is the best and most optimistic way of embracing the future, and there is no doubt that New Year 2006/2007 was a time of very real happiness for me, and that apart from the last New Year we spent together I enjoyed the first three New Year’s Eves that El and I spent together very much, and that they were all the better for spending them with her and being in love and being genuinely content.

Apart from those times I can only really remember being miserable at New Year until really very recently, and while I have genuinely enjoyed the last two – last night and the year before – they have not been quite as perfect as the times that I have been entwined. The sense of family and belonging that I have felt celebrating New Year in Belgium with my brother’s soon-to-be in-laws and their family, as well as our own, has been unparalleled in my life. While I mean to offer no dis-service to my Uncle and his long-standing double-bill of Birthday Party and New Year’s Eve party I never really felt entirely comfortable at them before my grandmother (his mother) died on New Year’s Eve and certainly after that point they became somewhat dour affairs that I escaped at every possible opportunity. Interestingly I feel pretty confident that I would have a whale of a time with them and my cousins these days, as everyone has become more laid back and I am more confident about who I am and I no longer feel as though I am on the outside looking in with them, but anyway I digress…

I suppose the point of all this is that I am not comfortable with the realisation that whether I like it or not there is a part of my head that wants to see the future unfold with someone by my side, and that part of me rebels, even now in the bosom of family and joy, against single-ness at this time of year. There are a thousand reasons why being with someone is a good thing, but there are also a thousand reasons why it’s not a healthy thing to make being involved a contingency for happiness, and while I feel that I have been doing better and better with regard to being capable of experiencing real joy and fulfillment as a single man, this time of year seems to be a reminder of the long road ahead, towards contentment, should it be my fate to remain a bachelor.

It’s all yet to unfold and there are many twists and turns that none of us can see before another year is done – there is as good a chance as any that this year I will bump into the person that I will be with for the rest of my life, or for a day/night, week or month… I suppose that for more reasons than simply avoiding another New Year as a singleton I hope that there is love for me in 2009, but at the same time I really do hope that if I am alone this time next year that I have found a way to not feel this way, but instead to revel in the possibilities that a new year brings and to cherish the memories of a year passed.

.
EOT

I love this – thanks for posting it and giving permission to pass it on, Kyle 🙂