Words

I was chatting with a good friend of mine the other day and she mentioned to me that her boyfriend has this uncanny ability to melt her with his words. Not his spoken words mind you, his written words. They make her go all weak at the knees when he sends her a message when he isn't physically "there".

This made me wonder. Wonder just how exactly can words provoke such a reaction in a person, whether for good or ill. I know in my gut that words are powerful, that's obvious but WHY are they powerful, that's my question. Studies in body language and communication have shown that only 7% of the message that you convey to someone person to person is through your words. 38% is tone of voice and 55% is based on what people see in your body language. So what happens when you remove the face to face element, when all that is left is words?

Look at the popularity of novels, genre novels are flying off the shelves, whether in paper form or the new Kindle style readers. Recently we have seen the phenomena of Dan Brown, Stephanie Meyer and JK Rowling books and the impact they are having on people. Millions of novels are sold each year and people escape into an adventure, a romance, a thriller or a mystery - all sculpted by skilful authors. I wish I knew their secret but I don't know if I would have it in me to write such a thing.

Again I can see the popularity of novels but I return to the question of why. What makes the written word hold so much influence over our minds, our thoughts and our emotions?

I invite your comments on why you think this is but first I would like to put forward my own thoughts on the subject.

Words, written language, hold the keys to unlock our psyche. The part of our mind that we store in our subconsious and the part that holds our IMAGINATION. Somehow when we read, some visual response is sent to the centres of our imagination and a word triggers a thought, an impulse, or a reaction. There are some links to what we write and what we read - they are not necessarily the same things.

Lets have a look at some words and see what responses are triggered. I am curious to know if they have similar meanings to you as they do to me.

Breath

Abundance

Enigmatic

Juvenile

Behave

Kiss

Tense

Love

Hate

Depression

Mischief

Each of those words provokes some sort of reaction in me, but not on their own. When I look at them my mind automatically puts them into context. Therefore when I think of Mischief I think of being mischievous, a glint in my eye and a grin on my face. I think of being playfully cheeky, its a spirit of adventure, fun, élan. Does your mind put words into context too? If I were reading words without context it would be like reading a Dictionary cover to cover - very dry! However, when read in context my imagination kicks in, fills in the blanks, reads between the lines and paints a bigger picture.

Imagination takes you to a place in your mind that only you can access. It can create pictures and colours, hate and fear, or, as in the words of my friend, make your heart melt.

If I can sum up my thoughts on this matter then I fully believe that the power of words lies in both how we read them and the context we put on them, aided by the imagination our own minds provide. I think therefore I am , I read therefore I escape. Imagination leads to escapism and escapism lets us live in our imagination.

Hmmm I feel I am getting a little jumbled here. I can feel my thoughts getting muddled.

Let me wrap this up by saying a couple of more things. Written words have always had the power to move us. Poetry has always been popular because it taps directly into that centre of our imagination. The poetry of Elizabeth Barrett does things to me, things I can't really understand. I put forward this example of her poetry for you to read, may it have a resonance in your soul as it has in mine.

My letters! all dead paper, mute and white!
And yet they seem alive and quiveringAgainst my tremulous hands which loose the string
And let them drop down on my knee to-night.
This said,--he wished to have me in his sight
Once, as a friend: this fixed a day in spring
To come and touch my hand . . . a simple thing,
Yet I wept for it!--this . . . the paper's light . . .
Said, Dear I love thee; and I sank and quailed
As if God's future thundered on my past.
This said, I am thine--and so its ink has paled
With lying at my heart that beat too fast.
And this . . . O Love, thy words have ill availed
If, what this said, I dared repeat at last!

Context and Imagination. This I leave with you and invite your comments.

Cap'n

Manageable Tasks

Mark Twain once said " The secret of getting ahead is getting started. The secret of getting started is breaking your complex overwhelming tasks into small manageable tasks, and then starting on the first one." This is me breaking a complex overwhelming task into a smaller manageable task.

I believe my last Blog post was in September 2008 and since then a lot has happened. Here I go stating the obvious again. I cant break down ALL of those things into smaller posts and I have no intention to. I can however, start day 1 of my new blog - manageable task number 1!
Task number 2 - decide what to write ( see what I am doing here - breaking it down - good old Mark Twain )

I consulted a good friend about restarting my blog and they suggested a couple of things although I am not entirely sure that midget wrestling or minty top trumps are the best suggestions in the world although they are definitely random!

Hmmmm I think this deserves an explanation, an explanation that may actually become the meat of my first post. So thats it Task 3 - after deciding what to write, WRITE about it!

Explaining what Top Trumps are to the unenlightened hmmmm - and I thought other people were Random, it turns out that I am Random too!

Top Trumps is a card game here in the UK and there are versions of it around the world although I am not sure just how popular they are. The Official Wikipedia entry ( like I trust Wikipedia!!! ) says this

"Top Trumps is a card game. Each card contains a list of numerical data, and the aim of the game is to compare these values in order to try to trump and win an opponent's card. A wide variety of different packs of Top Trumps have been published."

Wiki then goes on and on and on about top trumps and the history etc. Boring!

I will try to show you by giving you a couple of Cards to look at. These Cards are from the Lord of the Rings set. A Flying Nazgul and an Ugly guy. The scoring areas are Resistance to Ring/Age/Resilience/Ferocity/Magic/Height. Usually the highest score wins.




















The game goes something like this.

Resilience - Nazgul wins
or
Ferocity - the Ugly guy wins

See! Top Trumps is simple. 2 players play and the winner is the one with all the cards at the end of the game. If a draw both cards go into centre and the next card is drawn. Winner of that round gets all 4 cards. There are many varieties of TT to play such as Harry Potter, Supercars, James Bond, Warships, Dinosaurs, and an odd one about Punctuation according to the ever reliable and always trustworthy Wikipedia.

Top Trumps is mainly a kids game but it is also a good way to while away the hours between 10pm and 8am on a static post while Stewarding! Decaf and Itchy you know what I am talking about!
Enough of an explanation???? Thats all she wrote anyway!

Anyhow thats all for my first post - just a taster, a smidgen of things to come. Just a reminder of how random I am, how you can never predict what you are gonna get from anything I write and hopefully......how much you have missed my inane ramblings. I will really try this time to keep these posts going again and as Mark Twain said the sharper the knife the smaller the cucumber pieces! ( dont quote me on that as I suspect he only said that to me.....in my head....probably safest ).

To finish todays blog I have selected some odd and random images from around the world for you to comment upon. If you like this blog let me know and what things you like about it. Maybe I will write about Midget Wrestling next???

Cheers me dears!!

Mud, Mud, Glorious Mud!

Well, heres me back from Sugar Hill and I think I have about finally recovered. It was HARD WORK! I am not talking here about the manual lifting and moving things around the site, nor am I talking about the time I was set free on the Sound Desk in Main Stage. I am talking about the MUD - lots of it - lots and lots of it!

When we arrived it wasn't so bad as the sun had baked the ground around the farm and the ground was nice and firm. T'was a good 5 minutes that was! Then it rained, and then a bit more rain and then some more - in fact there was loads of rain! What was nice and firm and ready to be walked all over nicely soon became a bog that churned up at the slightest notice especially when lorries and other suchlike were ruining it more and more turning into the mudpit I knew and loved!

I will skip over the back breaking work that would usually have been manageable with a bit of effort and I will also skip over the fact it was raining and got very muddy - whoops - I aint good at this skipping lark!
I will say that I felt sorry for the organisers if the Festival, that the punters were mostly scum who couldn't care less about anyone else around them or their own living environment. Some of these "bands" were rebel types and their rebellion seemed to manifest itself in throwing away as much crap as possible, having open flames i.e. FIRES!!!! next to tents and shouting abuse at each other till 4am then moaning to each other afterwards about the dogs they had shagged that night. Pigs - the lot of em!
The music was crap and there were only 2 bands that I liked, one of which I didn't catch the name of at all. The other band I DID like was that of Imelda May - I must say she was awesome - sexy, sassy, raw talent and a strong voice singing rockabilly, backed up with a band of professional, talented musicians. This girl will go places given half the chance and the only thing holding her back is that the genre she sings is not the most "chart friendly". She definitely has the talent of some of my other favourite singers of today in Duffy and Adele.

Check Imelda out - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fWHMnQ0cSu0

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mW0DG0DQXrA

the above links are her singing in small venues but in the big top venue she was awesome. The crowd was the biggest I saw in there all weekend and they all braved the mire with glee, enjoying the show. If you can catch this girl live I would encourage you to do so. Anyway thats enough of the fanboy - onto other stuff now!

I don't think Sugar Hill festival will go on next year - it's been loss making for too long and this didn't do anything to help the situation as I think there were less than 100 punters there all week. I will not be back myself though even if it does go off again next year. Once is enough for me.

I came away from the Festival completely knackered, demorilised, confused, muddy, smelly and with a brand new waterproof, weatherproof Regatta coat for a Fiver! Bargain!!!!!

I will bid you adieu on this note - F Sharp.........

Right. About time I got back to this blogging lark and told you about the rest of this years Support Team members at Greenbelt isn't it! I had better do this tonight as I am going to the Sugarhill festival in the morning as Site Crew.

http://www.sugarhillfestival.co.uk/

Here we go then - in no particular order!

Sweetcorn - or Doctor Sweetcorn as I have always called her, even when she wasn't a proper Doctor yet. 5ft 1 and a half inches of gullibility, sweetness and fun. Sweetcorn has such joy about life that it often overflows into singing, or dancing or other such entertainment. Whether she can sing or not is open to debate but her Choir "almost" made it to Last Choir Standing on BBC1. By the way........YES she IS really a Doctor and I believe she also has ambitions to be Mrs Martin Finey after telling him "you'll do" recently. Sweetcorn is a farmers daughter and there are few things better than telling her a tall tale such as Junior Connect 4 or Cycle lanes on motorways and having her believe you. Saying all that, life would be poorer without our Sweetcorn and I am confident she will continue to develop as a Hospital Dr or GP and be a credit to herself, her family and the NHS

Dangly - happy when hanging from rigging suspended by his harness I find Dangly in all sorts of odd places. Pictures of him half naked are distributed around the Internet and they do NOT make pretty viewing! Viewers discretion required!!! http://www.new.facebook.com/album.php?aid=45875&id=563182132#/photo.php?pid=1109606&id=563182132 Dangly is also a model railway enthusiast - and when I say enthusiast i mean nutjob! - he likes model trains, building them, showing them and talking about them. He is a bigwig in some society called DEMU or something. Ah well, someone has to do it and keep Doodah company I suppose! Dangly also likes piercings - quite a lot of em - you cant miss him - leather , long hair, piercings, ciggie - thats our Dangly! He also likes looking for wristband offenders - the offence being not wearing any!

Miriam - new to the Team this year Miriam hasn't got a nickname yet - although may I suggest Broken - as we seemed to break her half way through the festival when she fell ill. Sorry! Heres me thinking "oh you need a lie down love" and helping her to her tent like a good Christian boy should and thinking a good sleep was in order. Turns out she needed a little more than that - we broked her ( is that proper Lolcat?? ) Miriam has something on her chin - not that one, the other one! I enjoyed Miriam falling for one of the initiation ceremonies of the team. Miriam is in O and S some sort of singing and playing around group the Methodist have. I think she plays around and have heard the Bassoon or Oboe mentioned,I cant remember which as far as I am concerned they are both rubbish!If it aint Brass I aint interested! Oh yes Miriam wants to be an Oprah Singer - good luck to you lass, although I didn't know they had any singers on Ms Winfrey's shows - I hear the pays good though!

Chris - or as I will continue to call him Teflon. Chris has been going to the Festival for years and rumour has it he was even there back in the day that Zippie got his name. However ------ I dont know why but every year passes and Chris STILL doesn't get himself a nickname. Hmmmm - a few suggestions
Teflon - because nothing sticks.
Pardon - because he says that a lot because he is mostly deaf
Ear Trumpet - see above
Guy Rope - because he still uses guy ropes made out of 50 year old twine!!!
See what I mean though - my favourite must be Teflon because we just can't pin a name on him!
Chris' car got bashed on the final day of the Festival - I hope it don't cause too much trouble and that the right details were written on the note attached to your car!

Storm - or Mrs Long Suffering. Storm is married to Dangly and as such has to put up with trains all day long.PLUS she gets to see the aforementioned Dangly all the way naked!!! Arrrggghhhh half the way naked is bad enough! Storm is what they call a Goth apparently - nice people really even when they do carry around bags looking like Eeyore full of safety pin piercings! Storm knows just about every Goth worth knowing on the planet I think. She also likes cats. Nice that - I like cats too. Storm is a fairly placid soul generally and when she wears that hat of hers, when you catch her in the certain light, she looks like one of those vintage Hollywood Movie actresses in their prime. I dunno who these people are really but think Rita Hayworth or Greta Garbo with a big hat and you get the idea.

Staples - earned his name this year when he dared to challenge Doodah and say he had got it wrong with a staple gun - and was proved right!!!! Genius!!! Staples likes snowboarding, especially when he can get the school he works for to pay for it. Apparently he is also a sought after DJ playing many nationwide clubs and even being invited out to Ibiza to do the rounds of the clubs there - as a DJ not a punter! I found out a lot about Staples this year as it was my first shift working with him and I like to get to know the people I am Stewarding with. He does Visual Arty Techie things at festivals sometimes - the stuff you see on the big screen - whatever it is he seemed to enjoy it and for me, its the enjoyment that counts! Good luck on getting more freebies teaching the kids to snowboard mate! Seems he has it made!

Decaf ( or is it De - caff, or decaff or whatever??? ) hmmmm how best to describe Decaf. I think a few punchy sentences are in order and then leave you, the reader, to decide just what type of girl this is.

• Cambridge Math Student
• Daughter of a Methodist Minister
• Will do anything for 4 Quid
• Sets herself on fire
• Gets stuck in the mud with a flatbed truck and then proceeds to break the 4x4 sent to rescue her
• Likes to be poked in the eye and then feign terrible life threatening injury
• Needs to be kept AWAY from coffee at certain points of the day - in fact she is only allowed it during a supervised period of 1 hour during the day
• Likes rolling on the grass with Squeak
• Likes clouds
  

I think that about covers it.Hope it helps you develop a mental image of this insane yet very intelligent woman.


Itchy - seems to listen to me when I give him engineering or DIY advice - bad idea ( see tables, Zippies Meccano Shelving and the Kitchen Camping Cupboard as examples ) Didn't get the classic radio call from Handbag that went like this "Itchy, Itchy from Handbag" "Itchy receiving" "Scratch that!" - everyone else was in stitches yet Itchy had to be told about this afterwards. Itchy wears shirts and jumpers while he is Stewarding, and also when he was getting sweaty during Site Crew. The freaky thing is they always seemed ironed!!!! He was living in a tent for weeks - how is this possible!!!!! Itchy is however a go to guy - he will literally do almost anything for you if you need help and in all the dealings I have had with him he has always been totally relaible. He will one day make an excellent accountant and probably rule the world!!! This is his secret plan - he will probably then feed us to his Dairy cows ( YES I know they are a Beef herd and not Dairy but that aint half so funny!).


Thats all for this years Support Team I think. Will tell you about some members from previous years another time. After collecting for Salvation Army Annual Appeal, packing for Sugar Hill, taking Imodium tablets AND reading the new David Eddings book, I think I am just about whacked! Will update the blog again when I get back from a week of Camping near Swindon - see you in a week!

Support Team Pt 1

I got back from the Greenbelt Festival a few days ago and now I have had some sleep I feel I can put some words to my thoughts. The Festival is one of my annual highlights and as described by a friend is an Oasis in the year. I can clearly understand what he means.

For those that don't know what Greenbelt is please feel free to check out its site at http://www.greenbelt.org.uk/
In brief it is a music and arts Festival with a Christian ethos that takes place every year and is currently at Cheltenham Racecourse. It brings together people from all areas, faiths and ways of life. It also brings together some very odd people!

I don't get to see much of the music and arts part of the Festival as I tend to work some very unsociable hours as a Steward, these hours being 7pm till approx 3am from the Thursday to Monday nights. We patrol the campsite and main festival areas in teams of 2 and are directed by our team leaders. Other than this we are fairly autonomous and able to deal with any situation we see and are able to call for back up as and when appropriate. We love more than anything for the weekend to be quiet as it usually means that everyone is safe and everything is going well. I have yet to have a totally quiet Festival! It does however give a great sense of satisfaction in helping everyone on site, from Greenbelters to fellow Stewards to pushing Ambulances out of the mud! I will tell you some of the stories of Greenbelt in another post sometime but for the moment I want to tell you about the people I work with, the fellow members of the Support Team - some of the best people I know.

Let me paint some word pictures to try and describe these people, oh by the way - we nearly all have silly names!

Merlin - Team Leader 1 - In all the time I have known Merlin I have never seen him lose his cool or get anywhere close to it. Believe me he has had provocation! Last year at the Organic Beer Tent for example! Merlin is a Vet - or maybe not - I think he so far beyond being called a Vet that real Vets have disowned him as working for the Dark Side.... Merlin is a FANTASTIC driver, so long as you don't bring your drinks into the 4 x 4 with you - it's like a ride in Disney land all by itself! Merlin is a Conservative - but don't let that put you off cos he blogs about it as well and most of his readers are left of centre and let him have it!

Zippie - Team Leader 2 - Mr Spongebob! Hates Pink and likes the colour Yellow and maybe Orange, so that he can be seen in a crowd! Is the MASTER of the quick comeback on a theme, he can run for ages on a pun on any given topic with spontaneity and timing! Zippie runs his own business as a Steward Manager / Stewarding Consultant and just loves DIY - although he did force me to make wonky shelves with an over sized meccano set! Never let Zippie drive the 4 x 4 - thats Merlins job - there are reasons why....... Zippie gives us are Teams and almost always has Lemming in Team number 1 - just so that he doesn't get confused! Zippie sings badly to Queen but as a mate he is fantastic - even if he does take the mick out of my accent - I have no idea why!

Doodah - As a brother to me. Quick with his wit and a very clever mind and my favourite of the mentors in the team. I have never forgotten his advice to "never lose your wingman". If you see Doodah running you need to watch out - its a rare occurrence and the Ops Team have not yet learned that it can mean many things - not just that he is running to the loo after a curry! Speaking of Curry - he is a fantastic cook, or is that chef? Whenever I have had a meal made by Doodah I have enjoyed it. Doodah is built "Welsh" in that he is short and rotund but never let appearances put you off, he is also one of the most loyal, helpful and funny people you will ever meet. Listen to this man ( unless you are Sweetcorn, Cola, Miriam, Me, and almost anyone else you can mention when he is trying to tell us something silly )

Guilty - As charged M'Lud! - An IT techie by day who does things with computers that I cant even begin to understand but are very clever. By night he becomes Super thief and handler of stolen goods! He even ate the evidence so that he could not be arrested by the Authorities!
Guilty likes to laugh at my map reading skills and sense of direction although I really did like the M6 Toll Road and even he agrees that it is a very nice road! Guilty has the dubious distinction as one of the only people who believes he can say no to Squeak with ease - I have yet to see this with my own eyes. Guilty drives Golf Buggies and is grumpy in the morning before his coffee. He loves having debates with Lemming. He is phobic of Morris Dancers - sissy!

Squeak - hmmmmm what can I say? A 6 year old in an adults body? The ability to make children cry? The inability to make good judgment calls when listening to Doodah and accuse children of being large equine animals and sitting down on duty and being caught. I have never known anyone be more unlucky when it has come to judgment calls such as trying to bounce me onto the ground and landing on the ground herself or prancing around the parade area thinking she was unobserved when in fact............... Squeak is really very intelligent but tends to ignore this important fact during the Festival, nevertheless Squeak remains one of my favourite people and someone I happily confide in and trust when looking for opinions. I am both equally glad to say I would BE one of her tenants and to say that I am NOT one of her tenants!

Becky aka Cola - Cola is one of the new girls on the team and had the pleasure? of working with me for 2 nights and we both had a great time demonstrating our ballet skills, picking ourselves off the floor, playing hangman and discussing the colour Orange. She wears hats better than almost anyone I have met and just about any hat will suit her - try it and find out! Cola also makes great funny faces and can dance Salsa very well in the Helicopter field, but usually needs music funnily enough. Did I tell you Cola was also very pretty? Yes she is. In fact the only negative point I can say about her is that she almost killed/poisoned/murdered me under instructions from Guilty and Squeak. She licked a cola bottle and gave it to me to eat and gave me all her germs!!!! I nearly died! Bad Cola Bottle - BAD GIRL!!!!!

Lemming - Trade Unionist Liberal with some very firm political views - don't get him started on one of the great heroines of British Politics Margaret Thatcher! pssst he doesn't like her.
Lemming is a smoker which makes him a minority in the team and which has led to the insult "Lemming Stinks" needless to say he doesn't like this..... Lemming is always in Support Team 1 , whether this is for his convenience or for Zippie's I really can't say but the look on Merlin's and Lemmings faces was priceless when Zippie got it wrong this year! If you are in trouble at work, if you need an expert opinion, Lemming is the man to know. Gentle, kindhearted and great with "youth" Lemming is one of the experienced hands on the Team. Don't worry however if you cannot reach him on the radio - he never listens to the radio!!!


Well thats enough for now - We do have more Team members but I will save those for another post!
Till then ponder this ..................... how many seconds are there in a year?

Ants!

Right, the first post seemed to come out ok and now that I have fiddled with a few things I seem to be all set. On with the show!!!

Ants! I ruddy hate em! Thats a bit of a random statement I know but I have had a few encounters with ants the past few days - lots and lots of them!

The story goes that my Father is doing up his Shed/Garage and that at the back of it was this crumbly old work bench that was fixed to the wall and had some sort of polystyrene ( spellcheck someone! ) backing. Anyway - its rotten - AND it has ants!!! a whole colony of them. Lots of ant spray later there are STILL ants and there is more and more wood to get off the wall and I am the one doing it because I fit better in the narrow opening and as much as Father wants to, he is not as supple as he used to be. Long and the short of it is that I got covered in ants! I hate the things all horrible and crawly so I gave them a good slapping as a man should do - Orrible things! I was straight in the shower to get any off me that might have lingered but I still itch slightly even now just thinking about them - I wonder if it is contagious? Are you sat there with arms or legs itching? Have they got into your pants? Are you sitting comfortably?

Let me know if the ants thing communicates itself across cyberspace - we might try cyber yawning next!

Anyway - thats my rant - I hate ants!

Thoughts from a Saturday morning

Well, how random am I??? A Blog? My ramblings on paper? on the Interweb or wherever? Who'd have thunk? ------ just how many question marks can I get into the space of a few lines?

I don't quite know what decided me to write a Blog and what my motivation might have been. Maybe its personal and maybe I just need to get things out in the open and allow people to comment. I dont really know as I am speaking hypothetically here. Anyhow - you will have to pardon my style - or not pardon as the case may be - as I might get a bit choppy and over use some ?s and some - s just to be "punchy". I am sure you will get the hang of it. If you get the hang of my sense of humour then please let me know as I would quite like to understand it myself.

Well lets start this at approx 12.45 Saturday am when I am sat here at my computer contemplating Facebook, Human Pets and my various human and cyber friends that are willing to talk to me. I kind of figure this might be a good idea to keep them all in some idea of how I am feeling and maybe for others give an insight into the life of me an average odd bloke in his 30s. For those who might stumble on this blog from elsewhere I had better explain who I am.

I am the Cap'n.
I live in South Wales
Recently separated from a 14 year marriage and rebuilding my life away from Manchester
Also known in some circles as "Handbag"
I go to the Salvation Army and this is where I worship and play in the Band and sing in the Songsters
I play the Trombone by the way - you can decide how well I do that
I am a Pirate

Thats kind of a brief synopsis of who I am, hopefully you will learn some more as we go along. I hope you like it- if you dont tough! I am a Pirate and can raid yer women and pillage yer township!!!

Anyway, thats enough for an introduction. More posts on their way.........