Sunny side up

Blue skies today and its getting well into march so here's hoping that spring is finally on its way here. As it stands my garden needs a heck of allot work done, need to move some of my planting beds and mainly just a bit of maintenance and tidying up really.

But soon I hope to have it all swinging along in a little while, hopefully be eating home produce in the near future. One big surprise is my little fig tree, which has figuratively exploded despite the cloudy days and cold weather, it’s doing pretty well on its little south-facing wall. Bought some strawberries over the weekend hopefully will be placing them out in their little hanging basket soon, they did quite well last spring but struggled over summer so I’ll be taking a little extra care with them this year.

One lesson learned from last year is to be vigilant against pests, cabbage whites slaughtered my brassicas last year and a pair of feathery bastards laid waste to my blueberries. I think to combat this i need some form of fortifications, castles and battlements maybe a bit to far, but some sort of net systems definably merits some thought...

Books hole

After reading this blog over a day or two, I really, really want to open my own book shop. Me and this guy talked alot about opening one in uni, but then to be fair we were drunk alot, so not sure how much was truley serious.

But now when I think about about, I tend to kick myself alittle and think, Hot Damn! we shoulda, but would it have worked out? well maybe, surely our love and lust for books would have bourne us aloft on a wave of selling crazness and oh, the hi-jinks!.... (woah hi-jinks is an awesome word, look at all those dots)

However, I have no business acumen and no idea how to do taxes and the like so the most likely outcome would involve swimming around in a finacial crisis for a few months before selling body parts on the black market.

But the dream remains, its a nice way to retire an live out the twilight. Is it fiscaly feasable? Maybe not, people are idiots now days they don't care about literature nevermind books. But there is something inherently lovely about a bookshop, even better imagine owning your own, although i think i would get alittle too atached to the contents, shelfishly knifeing browsers who dare touch my wares.

No time,

No time for a proper post, work and all that, so i'm going to fob you off with a bit i did for my old uni paper,

A Stab in the dark, An afternoon with Richard Brook

Firstly the interview,

How and when did you become interested in acupuncture?

It was when I was 17, I was already interested in yoga and Ti chi and its grown from there. I first properly started in my early 20's around 2004. I actually use to live with a new age community in Scotland and from that I have tried to make every part of my life holistic.

I sort of found my course through having a vision in a native American dance ceremony, at the time it didn't make much sense, but after I ended up at open night at a college a started thinking about it and what it could mean. Then absolutely by coincidence the instructor started talking about things that had appeared in my vision, I got goosebumps and it became clear that this was something I needed to do.

What type of training did you receive prior to obtaining your license?

I had bit of training before I started on acupuncture, some energy healing with my hands and reflexology but not to any real accredited standard.

I have a degree in food technology, which I saw as more similar to art, It was all to do with natural cycles.

Do you think a patients attitude towards acupuncture influences the success or failure of the treatments?

No, I believe that if some ones got that mindset it won't matter. It will still work. I think that them not believing in it is a sign of them losing touch with nature.

What about pain, do you think if somebody thinks its going to hurt it will?

Well every one has their own personal pain threshold. But feeling pain is a good thing, remember its just your body telling you what's what. It's the feeling of being connected with nature.

What might a typical treatment entail?

I start with a consultation and from that I'll try to gather what needs attention. Before I start with the actual treatment I'll also do a few physical exams to get a bit of diagnostic information, each exam I do gives me an idea of what's going on in your body.

How long would a typical treatment last?

The first will usually be around two hours with follow up treatments around forty five minutes.

My experience.

I must admit to prospect of acupuncture was daunting, now I'm no stranger to needles having my fair share of tattoo's and I have had pretty much every other holistic therapy under the sun.

But there will always be something about acupuncture.

The first thing everyone's wondering about is does it hurt? Well yes and no, some bits hurt and others I barely felt go in. The worst for me was the forehead and the inner arms and wrists. I should consider myself lucky as according to Rich traditionally instead of having a needle either side of the wrist you have one going straight through.

To be honest I did feel very relaxed during the treatment, but it's hard to say what its done to me in the following weeks as I didn't really have anything wrong with me.

But I do have to say lying there in my boxers with needles in my chest was a very surreal experience. Although as Rich said "this is text book acupuncture action".

Richard uses a very traditional approach, which is called the five point style. It has a lot to do with natural living and communicating with nature, as Richard says we have lived for thousands of years with nature but now we seem to of fallen out with it, and it seems the more we try the more we mess up. We need to try to get it back.

I would recommend acupuncture to people and not just for physical but for emotional pain, one particular thing Richard mentioned is that it’s good for stress, good news for all you dissertation stretched students out there.

Jamie's Dream School

This programme has angered me so much I think I may kill a vole,

It’s not that the programme was bad, far from it, nicely put together and aesthetically pleasing as all ‘Jamie’s ®’ are, I especially liked the build up adverts with chalk flowing out of every pore and swallowing up the floors and walls.

No the problem I have is with the students, a term used loosely in this context as student brings connotations of people who actually want to learn, a bunch of fucking witless idiots who can barely speak properly. If I have to hear one of the foolish air wasters say ‘betta’ one more time…

Yes my problem is with them, and my point is why? Why do they deserve this fantastic chance? Their idiots with no desire in education, they wasted their first chance and now, from what I have seen, they are wasting this. We seem to be predisposed in this country to reward the non-achievers, why try anymore? Is it not best to languish on benefits until somebody totters along and offers you a once in a lifetime chance?

It’s an insult to everyone who has tried in life, everyone who has fought for his or her place. Clawing at every inch of dirt, only to find some idiot placed before them because they couldn’t be bothered with school so got a chance on a television show.

I think the one thing that annoys me most is the children’s obsession with being respected by their teacher, they are children they are not owed respect from anybody, not least their teachers, who need to be in a position of power in order to do their job. Now I’m not saying that the teachers should be condescending, but they need to be in charge, in that room they should be god.

In short, they don’t deserve this, maybe on or two of them will benefit but they rest will waste this chance like every other chance in their snivelling lives.

Lomography

Ink & Wine

nothing today, enjoy music