Angry People

I have just listened to a pension presentation regarding my employers stakeholder pension scheme. This has drawn may attention to the fact that, like many 30-somethings today, I do not have a pension. I also do not own a property, nor can I currently afford to buy one.

The average property price for a semi-detached house in Exeter is, according to the land registry, £210,000 and the South West has the highest disparity, in the country, between wages and house prices.
Looks like a good time to learn some bushcraft because at this rate I’ll soon be living in the woods, eating berries and wild mushrooms.

Exeter Cathedral has a large green which they often use for public events, craft fairs, fireworks displays etc. (Let’s not go into the recent chopping down of 7 mature trees here). However, it is within this Cathedral that we see tolerance for ‘the bazaar‘. (Also the bizarre but that’s the nature of organised religion.)

Contrast this to another of Exeter’s newest cathedral’s - the Princesshay Shopping (Sheeping?) Centre. This is not a public space, it is a corporate space where sheeple may enter as long as they do as they are told.

At lunchtime today I witnessed one of the many street vendors, that are attracted to the city centre in the summer, setting up his stand. He was not doing this in any of his usual places in the high street, rather he was in the Princesshay development. The first part to open, which is shiny and new and really quite a nice public? space, is also filled with restaurants and bars so there are plenty of people there, not to mention the people passing through on their way to the high street.

Two plain clothes security personnel, complete with clear earpieces and looking like something from the movies, were in the process of moving him along. They don’t want unauthorised sellers providing choice and competition, cluttering up their sculpted, managed, environment, defiling the Cathedral, whether they actually constitute competition or not. They do not want choice. Everything they do is designed to make you do exactly what they want you to do, what you are already conditioned to do in fact; they are just making it easier for you.
As nice as these new environments can be, they attract the sort of sheeple that I witnessed on Woodbury Common in the early hours, watching the shooting stars from the Perseid meteor shower.

How often are we really ‘in the present’?

This sounds like it’s going to be some new age, flopsy bunny crap, but I assure you there is no chanting, crystals, rebirthing etc involved.

What this is about it how to use daily events to bring your awareness back to the present.

Here is an example:

I was at work, walking down a narrow corridor that’s just wide enough for two people to pass if they turn sideways. There is a door from the main corridor that opens into the internal corridor, blocking it completely. This obviously represents quite a threat, particularly if you are carrying something, such as a mug of coffee.

Usually, if I am carrying a drink, I approach the door with caution. However, yesterday I must have been on autopilot as I was not carrying a drink, just returning to my desk. As I approached the door it opened, suddenly, not with force but in the way a deliberately opened door moves. (Perhaps a bit fast in the circumstances!)

BAM! I’m immediately in the present.

With no time to think I put out my hand to stop the attacking door, thus also bringing into the present the gentleman who was behind the door.

The great thing about this was that it showed me that my mind had gone to sleep.

I’m halfway through watching Click, a film about a guy who gets a universal remote with which he can control his life. I haven’t finished yet but already what I can see as interesting is how, in the film, it shows people on auto-pilot, drifting through their lives (or sometimes running through them on fast-forward).

I can’t speak for anyone else, but I would like to have my mind in the present (unless I choose to put it elsewhere).

Recognising the little events, like the example above, that are opportunities to show us that we have drifted away to the future, the past or just plain zoned, out is important when trying to maintain our awareness of the present.

How many times has this happened to you today and, did you notice? More importantly - did you blame someone else for your lack of mindfulness appreciate or appreciate the opportunity to become more focused?

Some industries are worse than others when it comes to keeping up with the changing pace of technology, preferring to make do as they’ve always done until the pressure to change is unbearable. These are usually the groups which are targeted by cowboys who offer to take away all the pain of change and manage the whole affair while promising the moon (and charging it too!)

It’s the small businesses that are often the ones that miss out on the latest developments. They are far too busy grafting, trying to make a success of their business, to look around and notice the technologies that may help them achieve their aims. Take my friend Ryan, a driving instructor. He spends the majority of his working time ‘on the road’ delivering his much demanded driving tuition.

So, after running his own business on recommendations and the de rigueur yellow pages ad, Roadmasters Driving School in Exeter has finally got a website. It’s not a complete site, rather just a web presence - a small step up from no web presence. Expect improvements in the very near future.

After 7 years of minding their own business, choosing to concentrate on providing search engine optimisation services to their clients, Netrank has decided to promote their own brand online with a shiny new website.

Search Engine Optimisation seems to be a major growth area, certainly in the UK. Where once it was a closely guarded secret, now every man and his dog with a website and a copy of FrontPage has read a few forums and is promoting themselves as SEO experts.

There are several UK SEO companies that deal with high calibre, blue chip clients and some invest more time promoting themselves than others. It’s a difficult market to judge. When I was younger and car mechanics were engineers, not just fitters automotive technicians, real mechanics drove the plain old, no frills car that got them where they wanted to go. After all, they put all their efforts into working on customers cars. Those customers told their friends what a great service they received and the mechanics were always busy.

Nowadays we have the internet and a global audience, commenting on subjects from philosophy, ethics, finance, pharmaceutical products, politics - not to mention all aspects of internet use - whether they know what they are talking about or not. That means you often see posts from people new to search engine optimisation or people looking for an SEO company stating that they wouldn’t employ a company unless they can do what they sell for themselves. Eh? Why not just ask them for a client list or some testimonials, like you would if you were looking for a driving school?

The new Netrank website seems to have a lot of search industry information. I particularly liked the sound of the search forensics services and Linkscape.

I wrote a whole post about this book yesterday, which I am sure I saved (intending to finish the post today) and left open in the editor - unfortunately the browser crashed and I seem to have lost the post!

I’ll come back and add to this when I get a chance.

Back!

The book appears to be written by a student of the Virginia Ki Society and takes a very ‘educationalist’ approach, breaking explanations down and often providing several different approaches or analogies. It seems to me this would be a very good resource for an instructor beginning to teach a children’s class. Whether or not it is useful to a new instructor in an adult class depends on how the class is run.

Where I practice now it is unlikely that someone would be in a position to teach an adult class without already possessing the necessary skills. However, if they were asked to teach a junior’s class a different approach would be required. Some McDojo’s allow instructors to teach a set syllabus from about 3rd kyu (where this grade can be achieved within a fairly short space of time). For the junior instructor I believe this book could be useful.

On challenging preconceptions:

Q. Isn’t Aikikai hard? Ki Aikido soft? Yoshinkan too stiff?

In working with advanced students, who presumable represent their respective styles, the most softly effective technique I ever felt came from Aikikai, the hardest and stiffest from Ki Society, one of the most graceful and flowing from Yoshinkan.

Good answer!

Although I missed this one at the cinema, I took the opportunity to watch the film on DVD. The director takes the approach of making the film personal by featuring people that have been affected by Wal-Mart and their actions. It’s very sad to watch families that have built up businesses, serving the local communities for generations, lose everything.

It’s not just businesses in competition that lose out - the employees get a terrible deal - from the low wages, culture of fear, abuse to lack of basic facilities and human rights. How do Wal-Mart manage such low prices? Watch the section about the Chinese prisons factories where products are produced for a few cents by people working 7 days a week and living in the factory, which are then sold for maybe $15.

WAL-MART SUBSIDY NATIONWIDE: $1.008 BILLION

What boggles the mind is the huge cost to the taxpayer. Huge subsidies are offered to Wal-Mart to get them to bring their mammoth superstores to a town. Local businesses receive no such benefits and close down due to the competition.

WAL-MART Costs Taxpayers $1,557,000,000,00 to Support its Employees facts page

This is because the wages Wal-Mart pay are so low, most of their employees are on state benefits or similar.

Currently in the U.S. there are 26,699,678 SQUARE FEET of empty WAL-MARTS

Wal-Mart accepts subsidies to build their stores but before they become liable to pay a percentage of their profits to the town, they move their stores. The town is left with a massive, empty building and a ravaged economy where no-one could afford to rent a building of that size. In 2005 Wal-Mart had 356 stores empty and available for sale or to rent.

And so the list goes on.

The film features some examples of how Wal-Mart/Asda has been defeated in the UK, in Canada and in Germany but they are not unique in their marketing/business strategy. Could Tesco be the next Wal-Mart?

As Tony Blair steps down after 10 years as Prime Minister, it seemed a good opportunity to review some of the less publicised effects of his time as PM, so off we went to our local Picture House to see Taking Liberties.

From the synopsis page:

Right to Protest, Right to Freedom of Speech. Right to Privacy. Right not to be detained without charge, Innocent Until Proven Guilty. Prohibition from Torture. TAKING LIBERTIES will reveal how these six central pillars of liberty have been systematically destroyed by New Labour, and the freedoms of the British people stolen from under their noses amidst a climate of fear created by the media and government itself.

During the film, with the exception of when clips of politicians showed them caught in their own web of deception, there was a stunned silence. We watched in shock as massive numbers of police descended on innocent, peaceful protesters who, in many cases, hadn’t even arrived or begun their protests.

The scenes of police officers holding shut the doors of a coach load of people on their way to protest against the Iraq war outside an airbase was unbelievable. They wouldn’t even let them out of the coach to talk. The doors were held shut and the coach was escorted by police vehicles back home. The police closed all motorway exits and services so that the coach could not stop on the way.

This action was later found, in the courts, to have been unlawful.

Doesn’t really matter too much now. It was hushed up for a couple of years while the war was conducted. Who cares if anyone protests now. Until it happens to you!

One injustice that beggars belief is the story of a man who was arrested under the new terror laws, as suspected of producing ricin. The UK and US media were able to run stories of their success in the ‘war on terror’ and justify the new laws despite the fact that no ricin was found and when the case finally came to court the man was found innocent. Here’s the best bit - he’s spent 2 years under house arrest despite having been found innocent! There is more to this than meets the eye - watch the film to understand the full part that international politics plays in this.

This is not just a film or a book- it’s real life and it’s happening now. What are YOU doing about it?

Since I started my new job, it seems much harder to find the time to post here. Also, spending all day tying my brain in knots means I’m less inclined to sit and post at home - ’tis a waste of drinking time!

Last week I got a new motorbike, a 98 Suzuki Bandit exactly the same as the one I sold in 2001, when my boy was nothing more than a little bundle of conjugated cells. Spookily, the decree absolute for my divorce landed the day after I got the bike!

How often are you taken out of your comfort zone?

Everyone will have their own notion of what I mean by ‘comfort zone’ and that’s ok. It could be having to make a presentation to 1000 people when you have a fear of public speaking, or cycling to work instead of taking the car.

For me, Aikido is the method I use to push myself past my comfort zone.

I don’t just mean the physical aspect either. One’s comfort zone is defined by mindset.

Changing/improving Aikido is one thing - altering your mindset… now that’s a challenge!

Right now, my practice feels like it has plateaued at the edge of my comfort zone and I’m struggling to push past it.