Close your eyes and you will think you’re dreaming. Today looks like proving to be one of the most extraordinary moments in our history. Just after midnight it was announced in Gaza and Beirut that both Hamas and Hizballah had declared peace with their Israeli neighbours. This provoked the Israeli government to lift all restrictions on the Palestinian population. In a joyous sweep of events the Iranian President then stated that he foresaw a future in which his country and Israel could work together throughout the Middle East as a regional power combination for good.
Confirming their own re-think China has withdrawn all claims on Tibet. The Chinese Government stated that by the first day of the Beijing Olympics, as a gesture of good will, they would withdraw all their military forces from that country. President George W. Bush expressed his sincere appreciation of this momentous action. In another announcement he stated that the troop surge has now been concluded, and that because of the demonstrable ability of the Iraqi army to control that country, and the lessening of the corruption, previously endemic, he felt able to define a date for American withdrawal.
In related news the Taliban’s Leadership Council declared a unilateral ceasefire in the Afghanistan conflict. Their leader stated that he could no longer see the sense in the seemingly endless war. There would be no further attacks launched against the NATO forces or any civilian targets.
The Russian Prime Minister, Mr. Putin seemingly in an effort to embrace this Peace Tidal Wave made the bold statement that his country were ready to accept the claims for independence by the leaders of Chechnya. It is hoped that formalising of this newly won status will shortly be ratified at the United Nations Security Council. Aid is promised to the region by both Russia and the USA, with the European Union also pledging support.
In sport today there were unusual rumblings among the big beasts in the football jungle. Sir Alex Ferguson, manager of Manchester United and Arsenal’s manager, Arsene Wenger, have apparently agreed to work together on a series of initiatives for the improvement of their sport. There is no financial gain from this and both men agreed that there are more important things to life than winning.
Today’s entertainment news centres on the news that the games and television industries are joining with the internet’s big players to make their self regulation work to more effectively protect their younger, more vulnerable users, both from themselves and those that prey on the young and defenceless.
Our thanks go to our special international correspondent, Rafi P. Lools.
Tuesday, April 1, 2008
Monday, March 31, 2008
Being Creative - I have a dream
I think its time I revealed why this blog has this name. I have a dream. It is a creative dream. I want to share it with as many people as I can around the world. I believe that everyone has creativity within themselves. Some realise this and understand that they should accept this part of their nature. Just because you can’t play an instrument doesn’t mean you can’t appreciate your kind of music.
To that end I put together www.bCreativelimited.com, which is a new generation business that services the new needs of today and caters for those coming on stream. What’s different about this generation of users is the blur between consumer and creator. Everyone who consumes the creative can be creative.
Growth in social network sites has been extraordinary, as has the shift in purchasing entertainment from retail outlets to those on the net.
We all listen to music, watch movies, go to galleries, concerts, play games and have creativity at the centre of our lives, whether we know it or not.
This is a place where you could imagine being able to buy and sell original art, poems, music, and the creation of galleries of new work.
bCreative is also a one-stop website covering the main areas of the arts.
Set up like a social networking website, it allows anyone to become a member and promote their work with their very own web page or micro site.
It allows members to create a profile and promote whatever creative or artistic venture a member is working on, whether it be a film script, a piece of music or creative writing.
The difference between bCreative & other social networking sites is twofold:
• bCreative offers advice and help by respected professionals within each of the arts to all our members
• Their work will be placed in a shop window to the arts world and those within the industry as a good market place for spotting new talent
Because experts are working with bCreative, and working with members, the bCreative website will receives recognition by the arts world.
We start out with the shop window, which is www.bcreativelimited.com
If you ever had a creative dream but didn't know how to make it come true but wanted some help, a guide, a little encouragement, or simply someone to be in contact with? The answer is here now, and available to anyone, it's name, bCreative.
bCreative is unique, helpful and informative, it's the creation of industry professionals aided by gifted teachers with vast experience in each of the creative sectors. Allied to this bCreative is the one place where you can, in future, simply view the creative work of others, show what you've got, develop your creative talents just because you want to, or because you want to share your creativity, perhaps even sell the results.
The founders of each creative gateway have enormous knowledge of the creative process in each of their fields, plus experience of how to pass on this knowledge, and where necessary, help guide the creator to realize their commercial potential.
bCreative is not a school, but does guide you to a greater knowledge of how you can achieve your best work. bCreative is also a social networking site for the creative person, and that means every one of you. bCreative is here for you now, and people will say of course it is, as if it was an old friend.
Just to look at www.bcreativelimited.com is free of any charge. Just log on and register your name and details. If you want to interact there is a nominal charge, and if you want further, specific services there is menu with costs attached.
There are a large and growing number of subject areas and facilities such as Film, Music, Radio, Theatre, Creative Writing, Poetry corner, Crafts, Friendship club (dating and / or just friends) Art (to look at and ponder)
And many more related links are to come.
Each of these topics contains a varying number of sub headings. For example in Film, there are many groupings, such as Casting, Budget, Directing, Producing, Distribution and many others.
bCreative is a one-stop website covering the main areas of the arts. bCreative is also going to be a social networking website that allows anyone to become a member and promote their work with their very own web page or micro site.
Now you can create a profile & promote whatever you are working on, whether it be a film script, a piece of music, creative writing, painting, sculpting or anything else that defines your creativity.
bCreative is for people of every age and type, there are no exceptions. Whether you are 8 or 80 you will find something for you on this site.
Students are welcome and encouraged. bCreative provides half price membership and services for all registered full time students.
I hope you share my creative dream.
To that end I put together www.bCreativelimited.com, which is a new generation business that services the new needs of today and caters for those coming on stream. What’s different about this generation of users is the blur between consumer and creator. Everyone who consumes the creative can be creative.
Growth in social network sites has been extraordinary, as has the shift in purchasing entertainment from retail outlets to those on the net.
We all listen to music, watch movies, go to galleries, concerts, play games and have creativity at the centre of our lives, whether we know it or not.
This is a place where you could imagine being able to buy and sell original art, poems, music, and the creation of galleries of new work.
bCreative is also a one-stop website covering the main areas of the arts.
Set up like a social networking website, it allows anyone to become a member and promote their work with their very own web page or micro site.
It allows members to create a profile and promote whatever creative or artistic venture a member is working on, whether it be a film script, a piece of music or creative writing.
The difference between bCreative & other social networking sites is twofold:
• bCreative offers advice and help by respected professionals within each of the arts to all our members
• Their work will be placed in a shop window to the arts world and those within the industry as a good market place for spotting new talent
Because experts are working with bCreative, and working with members, the bCreative website will receives recognition by the arts world.
We start out with the shop window, which is www.bcreativelimited.com
If you ever had a creative dream but didn't know how to make it come true but wanted some help, a guide, a little encouragement, or simply someone to be in contact with? The answer is here now, and available to anyone, it's name, bCreative.
bCreative is unique, helpful and informative, it's the creation of industry professionals aided by gifted teachers with vast experience in each of the creative sectors. Allied to this bCreative is the one place where you can, in future, simply view the creative work of others, show what you've got, develop your creative talents just because you want to, or because you want to share your creativity, perhaps even sell the results.
The founders of each creative gateway have enormous knowledge of the creative process in each of their fields, plus experience of how to pass on this knowledge, and where necessary, help guide the creator to realize their commercial potential.
bCreative is not a school, but does guide you to a greater knowledge of how you can achieve your best work. bCreative is also a social networking site for the creative person, and that means every one of you. bCreative is here for you now, and people will say of course it is, as if it was an old friend.
Just to look at www.bcreativelimited.com is free of any charge. Just log on and register your name and details. If you want to interact there is a nominal charge, and if you want further, specific services there is menu with costs attached.
There are a large and growing number of subject areas and facilities such as Film, Music, Radio, Theatre, Creative Writing, Poetry corner, Crafts, Friendship club (dating and / or just friends) Art (to look at and ponder)
And many more related links are to come.
Each of these topics contains a varying number of sub headings. For example in Film, there are many groupings, such as Casting, Budget, Directing, Producing, Distribution and many others.
bCreative is a one-stop website covering the main areas of the arts. bCreative is also going to be a social networking website that allows anyone to become a member and promote their work with their very own web page or micro site.
Now you can create a profile & promote whatever you are working on, whether it be a film script, a piece of music, creative writing, painting, sculpting or anything else that defines your creativity.
bCreative is for people of every age and type, there are no exceptions. Whether you are 8 or 80 you will find something for you on this site.
Students are welcome and encouraged. bCreative provides half price membership and services for all registered full time students.
I hope you share my creative dream.
Sunday, March 30, 2008
Password Overload
I don’t know about your take on this, but I have reached Password overload. I agree with the need for security, but clearly our systems don’t operate as they should. They’re impossible for the consumer, but perfectly navigable for the fraudster. That cannot have been the intent.
I have about ten personal and corporate credit and debit cards, and they all have Pin numbers, or in the UK you simply can’t use them. The temptation is to change these Pin numbers when you received the card, to a simply remembered number, such as a birthday, on all of them. Of course this is pretty foolish since, if someone else, can figure this out, and gets hold of your card they can have a birthday treat of their own. How can anyone remember ten different Pin numbers, it’s not possible. Some of us cunningly have half of our cards using one memorable birthday and the remainder on a different memorable birthday. Then you’re faced with which card belongs to which birthday group.
Add to this the requirement to remember every one of your web, blog and other Internet addresses, passwords and URL’s and your head begins to spin. If you write these numbers, codes or passwords down somewhere then your local, friendly crook can find it just as easily as you can.
In my home and business we have four computers which I guard like an attack dog. I am responsible, each have their own passwords, and then there’s our WiFi broadband access code.
The burglar alarm has its own code, and another word to remember to tell the central dispatcher when you set it off by accident and you have to telephone them to stop the police coming to your home, costing you a whole bunch of money for a false alarm . It's not so easy to remember that word when the loudest noise in the universe since the big bang is happening and its 4 in the morning and you're trying to tell some really cynical person down the line that it was just a mistake and you can't recall the code word.
Of course all the bank accounts also have their own security codes, and passwords, as do every other account we have. We should be the most secure people on the planet. We have about the same level of security as Fort Knox without the armed guards, what could go wrong?
Imagine my horror when, after all of this being in place, I looked at one of my credit card bills last month. I discovered that someone had defrauded the card of nearly £3,000 ($6,000) in January. Immediately I telephoned my card issuer to notify them of this. A charming young lady with a Punjabi accent passed me to someone in the Fraud department. They listened to me patiently, but somehow they made me feel as if I had done something wrong. The questions they asked me sounded more like accusations. I re-assured them that I had never been to any of the places in Florida in which the fraudster with my cloned card had spent this money. In fact I have only been there twice, once about eight years ago, and previously twenty-two years ago. I found myself having to prove a negative, which was not appropriate or easy. I wasn’t there, and could prove it, but maybe, the implication was, you had given someone else your card and they were doing this on your behalf. A neat trick when I had the card with me all the time.
My card must have been cloned but I was faced with having to dispute each and every Florida entry, including visits to a risqué lingerie shop, and trying to reclaim the excess interest and over limit charges.
Surely the way to counter act all of these problems is for the credit card companies, the banks, the insurers, the customs and immigration people and anyone else whose business demands knowledge that proves we are who we say we are to work together. Maybe there’s one biometric system for everyone to enable this. That way the system could be made foolproof. We can’t fake the details in our eyes and fingerprints simultaneously as its just too difficult. We would be left with a system that didn’t involve signatures, codes, passwords or other nonsense.
Of course I would then have no alternative but to fight the system I’m calling for on the grounds of it infringing my human rights and privacy. What was that bloody number?
I have about ten personal and corporate credit and debit cards, and they all have Pin numbers, or in the UK you simply can’t use them. The temptation is to change these Pin numbers when you received the card, to a simply remembered number, such as a birthday, on all of them. Of course this is pretty foolish since, if someone else, can figure this out, and gets hold of your card they can have a birthday treat of their own. How can anyone remember ten different Pin numbers, it’s not possible. Some of us cunningly have half of our cards using one memorable birthday and the remainder on a different memorable birthday. Then you’re faced with which card belongs to which birthday group.
Add to this the requirement to remember every one of your web, blog and other Internet addresses, passwords and URL’s and your head begins to spin. If you write these numbers, codes or passwords down somewhere then your local, friendly crook can find it just as easily as you can.
In my home and business we have four computers which I guard like an attack dog. I am responsible, each have their own passwords, and then there’s our WiFi broadband access code.
The burglar alarm has its own code, and another word to remember to tell the central dispatcher when you set it off by accident and you have to telephone them to stop the police coming to your home, costing you a whole bunch of money for a false alarm . It's not so easy to remember that word when the loudest noise in the universe since the big bang is happening and its 4 in the morning and you're trying to tell some really cynical person down the line that it was just a mistake and you can't recall the code word.
Of course all the bank accounts also have their own security codes, and passwords, as do every other account we have. We should be the most secure people on the planet. We have about the same level of security as Fort Knox without the armed guards, what could go wrong?
Imagine my horror when, after all of this being in place, I looked at one of my credit card bills last month. I discovered that someone had defrauded the card of nearly £3,000 ($6,000) in January. Immediately I telephoned my card issuer to notify them of this. A charming young lady with a Punjabi accent passed me to someone in the Fraud department. They listened to me patiently, but somehow they made me feel as if I had done something wrong. The questions they asked me sounded more like accusations. I re-assured them that I had never been to any of the places in Florida in which the fraudster with my cloned card had spent this money. In fact I have only been there twice, once about eight years ago, and previously twenty-two years ago. I found myself having to prove a negative, which was not appropriate or easy. I wasn’t there, and could prove it, but maybe, the implication was, you had given someone else your card and they were doing this on your behalf. A neat trick when I had the card with me all the time.
My card must have been cloned but I was faced with having to dispute each and every Florida entry, including visits to a risqué lingerie shop, and trying to reclaim the excess interest and over limit charges.
Surely the way to counter act all of these problems is for the credit card companies, the banks, the insurers, the customs and immigration people and anyone else whose business demands knowledge that proves we are who we say we are to work together. Maybe there’s one biometric system for everyone to enable this. That way the system could be made foolproof. We can’t fake the details in our eyes and fingerprints simultaneously as its just too difficult. We would be left with a system that didn’t involve signatures, codes, passwords or other nonsense.
Of course I would then have no alternative but to fight the system I’m calling for on the grounds of it infringing my human rights and privacy. What was that bloody number?
Saturday, March 29, 2008
The Gift of Friendship
Before my dad and mum died I had the opportunity to tell them how much I loved them. I think that was hugely important. You should, right now, tell people that you love them if that’s the case, don’t wait until it’s too late. The subject of this essay, I hope has many years left to live. But this is a brief love letter to a friend called Stevie. Although we’re straight, it doesn’t stop me loving this special guy.
I have this friend called Stevie. He has a great gift. His is the Gift of Friendship, and it is a rare and wonderful gift we could all use some more of. Stevie makes people happy just being himself. He has a smile and a greeting for everyone. He has his own problems, but rarely talks about them; in fact he doesn’t unless you ask.
Stevie only wants to share himself and his poetry with the world, and there are far worse things in life than this gentle man and his gift with words. Stevie is truly a gentleman, a man who wants everyone else to be happy and friendly.
Stevie is a friend to everyone he meets. He knows and is known by everyone from the richest to the poorest of the world, from the bus boys in restaurants, to the most powerful men and women. He treats you the same if you are the biggest movie star or the guy who fetches your drinks. It is the most unusual thing to watch billionaires treasuring their time with this unique man. Some of them have no idea that this guy can give them nothing more than his time and his poetry, and they don’t know how to react to him and his happy smile.
A great many people in the sixties called themselves Hippies because they took a lot of dope and made peace signs every place they could. Stevie didn’t just make the noises of peace; he has lived his whole life that way. I don’t want you to think I am trying to make a saint out of Stevie, in fact I don’t know if you can have a Jewish saint, but if the qualification for sainthood is to live a good life making as many people happy as possible, then Stevie is getting near to being Saint Stevie. But I do wish there were more people like Stevie, who want to see the good in this world.
Stevie is not perfect; he comes with the same waft and weave we all have built into our DNA code but in him the faults are far outweighed by the good stuff. I love his poetry and lyrics, his passion and his love for others. I wish you all could have a friend like Stevie in your life. The world would be a better place. Thanks Stephen J. Kalinich, for being my friend.
I have this friend called Stevie. He has a great gift. His is the Gift of Friendship, and it is a rare and wonderful gift we could all use some more of. Stevie makes people happy just being himself. He has a smile and a greeting for everyone. He has his own problems, but rarely talks about them; in fact he doesn’t unless you ask.
Stevie only wants to share himself and his poetry with the world, and there are far worse things in life than this gentle man and his gift with words. Stevie is truly a gentleman, a man who wants everyone else to be happy and friendly.
Stevie is a friend to everyone he meets. He knows and is known by everyone from the richest to the poorest of the world, from the bus boys in restaurants, to the most powerful men and women. He treats you the same if you are the biggest movie star or the guy who fetches your drinks. It is the most unusual thing to watch billionaires treasuring their time with this unique man. Some of them have no idea that this guy can give them nothing more than his time and his poetry, and they don’t know how to react to him and his happy smile.
A great many people in the sixties called themselves Hippies because they took a lot of dope and made peace signs every place they could. Stevie didn’t just make the noises of peace; he has lived his whole life that way. I don’t want you to think I am trying to make a saint out of Stevie, in fact I don’t know if you can have a Jewish saint, but if the qualification for sainthood is to live a good life making as many people happy as possible, then Stevie is getting near to being Saint Stevie. But I do wish there were more people like Stevie, who want to see the good in this world.
Stevie is not perfect; he comes with the same waft and weave we all have built into our DNA code but in him the faults are far outweighed by the good stuff. I love his poetry and lyrics, his passion and his love for others. I wish you all could have a friend like Stevie in your life. The world would be a better place. Thanks Stephen J. Kalinich, for being my friend.
Friday, March 28, 2008
Things That are Good
I have been accused of ranting, and I have also been told that I am writing what many of you are thinking. Both of these observations have some truth in them. Despite my best efforts there are some of you who ask me if there are some things I am happy to say something good about. Of course there are.
In my office at home, where I write this blog are pictures of my family, smiling, happy photographs of people that I love. Nothing, except being in the room with them could give a person more pleasure than seeing those pictures.
I looked out of my window yesterday and saw two ducks walking on my lawn. They are clearly a bit confused as the River Lea, and the adjacent canals in this part of Southern England, are about a hundred metres away, but they are very welcome guests. The ducks spent the day with us, waddling up and down, quite happy to visit with us, and, although I’m no bird specialist, it was a pleasure watching them.
Now in danger of sounding like a nature boy, which I certainly am not, I have to admit to enjoying the first buds of the spring flowers. They’re brave, these possibly foolhardy flowers, coming out at Easter time in England, because the frost can easily return and kill them instantly. But thanks for showing your pretty faces to us, yet again giving promise of another good year to come.
Admitting to being a rabid Manchester United football fan I have to admit to a bias with my next choice of things that are good. Watching Cristiano Ronaldo play this season is one of those things. Unless, that is, you are a supporter of one of the teams that he’s punished with his beautiful skills. Not since George Best has there been a single player who is worth the price of admission by himself. If you get a chance to watch him, even on your television, do yourself a favour and do so.
Speaking to your friends every day should be a part of all our lives. It’s the best medicine for when you’re feeling down, or you can reverse the flow and be the giver of a smile to someone you care about and who cares about you. The same goes for family. We speak to each other, brothers and sisters, partners, kids and parents, cousins, all the time. It’s great to communicate, but don’t just speak at each other, try listening, and talking with each other. There is a difference.
I can remember setting myself a series of very real targets when I was a child. I refined this list when I was a teenager, and again when I was in my early twenties. I wanted to make a million pounds, win all kinds of awards, be a film maker by the age of eighteen, have a London film premiere by the time I was twenty-one etc. I achieved most of my list, and climbed my imaginary mountain, and when I got to the top I realised there were many more mountains to come. Over the years I also came to the realisation that the targets I had set myself were meaningless. What’s an award when set against the smile of a child you care about?
When we’re kids it seems like every day is an eternity and the things we want to do, not allowed to us until we’re bigger and older, will never arrive. Then there’s the rush of the teenage years, where everything is for the first glorious time. Before we know it we’re in our twenties and the responsibilities multiply, the realisation dawns that with these come problems and set against possible rewards are the chances of failure. Most of us get through this stage into early middle age, when we build and consolidate. Relationships, some build, mature and endure, some come to a natural end, leaving room for fresh hopes and potential, but all are to be learned from. Taking us to that point in our existence when we seek answers to eternal questions and rail against injustices, perceived or real. We take stock of ourselves and the world around us. Did we achieve what we set out to do? Was there a good reason to it all? Is the sum total of the love we get equal to the love we give? When people contemplate you do they think, or even better do they smile, or better still, do they think and smile?
Everyone has different answers to these questions, but if the balance is in your favour then you have lived a good life. It would be a very good thing if I have achieved any of this. There is still time for me I hope, and I shall keep trying to work toward the goal of being one of those things that are good.
How’s that, not one rant, can I keep it up?
In my office at home, where I write this blog are pictures of my family, smiling, happy photographs of people that I love. Nothing, except being in the room with them could give a person more pleasure than seeing those pictures.
I looked out of my window yesterday and saw two ducks walking on my lawn. They are clearly a bit confused as the River Lea, and the adjacent canals in this part of Southern England, are about a hundred metres away, but they are very welcome guests. The ducks spent the day with us, waddling up and down, quite happy to visit with us, and, although I’m no bird specialist, it was a pleasure watching them.
Now in danger of sounding like a nature boy, which I certainly am not, I have to admit to enjoying the first buds of the spring flowers. They’re brave, these possibly foolhardy flowers, coming out at Easter time in England, because the frost can easily return and kill them instantly. But thanks for showing your pretty faces to us, yet again giving promise of another good year to come.
Admitting to being a rabid Manchester United football fan I have to admit to a bias with my next choice of things that are good. Watching Cristiano Ronaldo play this season is one of those things. Unless, that is, you are a supporter of one of the teams that he’s punished with his beautiful skills. Not since George Best has there been a single player who is worth the price of admission by himself. If you get a chance to watch him, even on your television, do yourself a favour and do so.
Speaking to your friends every day should be a part of all our lives. It’s the best medicine for when you’re feeling down, or you can reverse the flow and be the giver of a smile to someone you care about and who cares about you. The same goes for family. We speak to each other, brothers and sisters, partners, kids and parents, cousins, all the time. It’s great to communicate, but don’t just speak at each other, try listening, and talking with each other. There is a difference.
I can remember setting myself a series of very real targets when I was a child. I refined this list when I was a teenager, and again when I was in my early twenties. I wanted to make a million pounds, win all kinds of awards, be a film maker by the age of eighteen, have a London film premiere by the time I was twenty-one etc. I achieved most of my list, and climbed my imaginary mountain, and when I got to the top I realised there were many more mountains to come. Over the years I also came to the realisation that the targets I had set myself were meaningless. What’s an award when set against the smile of a child you care about?
When we’re kids it seems like every day is an eternity and the things we want to do, not allowed to us until we’re bigger and older, will never arrive. Then there’s the rush of the teenage years, where everything is for the first glorious time. Before we know it we’re in our twenties and the responsibilities multiply, the realisation dawns that with these come problems and set against possible rewards are the chances of failure. Most of us get through this stage into early middle age, when we build and consolidate. Relationships, some build, mature and endure, some come to a natural end, leaving room for fresh hopes and potential, but all are to be learned from. Taking us to that point in our existence when we seek answers to eternal questions and rail against injustices, perceived or real. We take stock of ourselves and the world around us. Did we achieve what we set out to do? Was there a good reason to it all? Is the sum total of the love we get equal to the love we give? When people contemplate you do they think, or even better do they smile, or better still, do they think and smile?
Everyone has different answers to these questions, but if the balance is in your favour then you have lived a good life. It would be a very good thing if I have achieved any of this. There is still time for me I hope, and I shall keep trying to work toward the goal of being one of those things that are good.
How’s that, not one rant, can I keep it up?
Thursday, March 27, 2008
The Three Ages of Exercise
William Shakespeare wrote about the seven ages of man. I think there are the three ages of exercise. I am fairly long into the third age but maybe there’s also a fourth age beckoning, when I just think about jumping about and running, rather than doing it.
Mirrors and exercise don’t go together for me. Perhaps they would if you look great in a leotard or other sporting apparel, but you need to be blessed with the ability to perspire and glow at the same time. Most of us just sweat and melt. I was blessed with some ability in sport when I was a boy. That ability and sheer laziness meant I didn’t do or need much exercise to get into the swimming or boxing or football teams. I got into them because I was pretty good, and there were a lot of boys who must have been a bit worse.
I loved sport and still do. I enjoyed being part of a team. It was exhilarating trying to win matches for both the team and myself. Of course it helps if you are part of a good team, but your memory is a strange thing, the matches you won are well remembered, and the ones you lost are now more humorous than annoying. I remember one of the few rugby games I played at full back and seeing their biggest, fastest forward bearing down at me at what seemed like inhuman speed. I immediately realised that there was nothing I could do to halt this leviathan, so I tried to skip about, to avoid this onrushing collection of bone, muscle and gristle. I had to make it appear as if I was constantly hopping about to get in his path, but the opposite was true. However blessed he might have been in the size and strength and speed departments, he was not gifted with good steering, as I went left, he went to his right, and so on, the collision was inevitable. He ran right over me, all I could do was put my despairing hands up to protect my face, as instructed by my loving mother, and, as a consequence, I found myself holding his shorts, which somehow ripped from his body. As I looked over from my prone position on the mud all I could see was his lean and naked ass hurtling over the try line.
In the boxing team I had the good fortune to have been taught some of the noble art my grand father’s friend, Ted Kid Lewis, who was already a very old man at this point. Did I leave out the fact that he had been the World Boxing Champion? Yes, Mister Lewis knew quite a bit about what to do in the boxing ring. I learned just enough to win all but one of my fights. My technique largely rested on the fact that at a young age I was short for my weight and, as a consequence, could fight out of a crouch and was very hard to hit. Every so often I could bop up and bash my opponent in the stomach or on the nose. Ted told me that young boys were likely not to know that a bit of nose blood wasn’t going to kill them, and when hit on the stomach, they might well throw up. Both of these turned out to be accurate and it worked a treat until I had to fight a very tall fellow who simply poked my head off with a stiff and very annoying left jab. Try as I might I couldn’t get anywhere near to him. I reluctantly conceded my previously unblemished record to him always remembering my mother telling me not to let anyone hit me. It seemed like a very good idea to me.
My biggest disappointment came in the swimming pool, where I was at my best. I won all my races but one, and was capable of swimming endlessly up and down the pool at whatever speed my teachers selected for me. I was being groomed for bigger and better things when they told me about what I would need to do to progress to a national level. It involved getting up at dawn and swimming almost every waking hour except for when I attended school. I didn’t do as I was advised, and although I was a very good swimmer, I didn’t go nearly as far as I should have if I would have done the training and exercise.
Then I lived in the States and together with my friend, Dave, formed a Soccer team in the San Fernando Valley in California. We packed that team with celebrities who had in common a more than fair ability to play football. We won almost all the time in showbiz type matches in some blazing heat. For the first time I knew I had to get in some kind of shape just to be able to enjoy the game enough and to keep up with the pace. Now I was in my late twenties and this period would go on for about five years. I didn’t mind doing the exercise as it was aimed at being fit enough to play my beloved team sports.
Time passed and now I was a bit older but perhaps no wiser. I tried to participate in some friendly football matches but began to find that injuries that would have healed in a day or two were now taking a week or two to get better. In fact some of them never seemed to completely recover. My family advised me to seek more gently pursuits. In fact my son, somewhere along this time line, had become a monster sports person, and was now infinitely better than me at all ball games. In fact it was around this time that I walked past a shop window and saw my father staring back at me. I knew almost instantly that it was, in fact, me, but in my head I should have looked like my taller and more athletic son. In fact, when I don’t shave, I imagine that I am going to look like a mean, lean fighting machine, instead of which I look like middle European rabbi.
Now I was getting heavier and less fit, whatever I did to reverse, or even slow the trend. Years passed and I was forced to give up smoking at forty and anything I liked to eat at about the same time. I took up jogging and believe me it was hard, more like a punishment than a pleasure. I have, with the odd gap, managed to keep up some form of exercise most of the time since. O.K. I admit to the odd six months or so when my resolve vanished, particularly in the middle of the cold, damp British winter.
But, I am proud to report, I am back at my fifty minutes per day for six days per week. I am proof that you can be both fit and not too thin. Nevertheless all the illnesses that afflicted my late father now loom on my medical horizon also. I lamented my fate with my doctor who said that it was great that I was so fit or I would probably have had a heart attack and died years ago. In a perverse way this cheered me up , but looking at my overweight and unfit doctor I did think life could sometimes be so unkind. I bet he doesn’t get up to do his exercise by the dawn’s early light but I remain determined to be the fittest person in the graveyard, even if mirrors do me no favors.
Mirrors and exercise don’t go together for me. Perhaps they would if you look great in a leotard or other sporting apparel, but you need to be blessed with the ability to perspire and glow at the same time. Most of us just sweat and melt. I was blessed with some ability in sport when I was a boy. That ability and sheer laziness meant I didn’t do or need much exercise to get into the swimming or boxing or football teams. I got into them because I was pretty good, and there were a lot of boys who must have been a bit worse.
I loved sport and still do. I enjoyed being part of a team. It was exhilarating trying to win matches for both the team and myself. Of course it helps if you are part of a good team, but your memory is a strange thing, the matches you won are well remembered, and the ones you lost are now more humorous than annoying. I remember one of the few rugby games I played at full back and seeing their biggest, fastest forward bearing down at me at what seemed like inhuman speed. I immediately realised that there was nothing I could do to halt this leviathan, so I tried to skip about, to avoid this onrushing collection of bone, muscle and gristle. I had to make it appear as if I was constantly hopping about to get in his path, but the opposite was true. However blessed he might have been in the size and strength and speed departments, he was not gifted with good steering, as I went left, he went to his right, and so on, the collision was inevitable. He ran right over me, all I could do was put my despairing hands up to protect my face, as instructed by my loving mother, and, as a consequence, I found myself holding his shorts, which somehow ripped from his body. As I looked over from my prone position on the mud all I could see was his lean and naked ass hurtling over the try line.
In the boxing team I had the good fortune to have been taught some of the noble art my grand father’s friend, Ted Kid Lewis, who was already a very old man at this point. Did I leave out the fact that he had been the World Boxing Champion? Yes, Mister Lewis knew quite a bit about what to do in the boxing ring. I learned just enough to win all but one of my fights. My technique largely rested on the fact that at a young age I was short for my weight and, as a consequence, could fight out of a crouch and was very hard to hit. Every so often I could bop up and bash my opponent in the stomach or on the nose. Ted told me that young boys were likely not to know that a bit of nose blood wasn’t going to kill them, and when hit on the stomach, they might well throw up. Both of these turned out to be accurate and it worked a treat until I had to fight a very tall fellow who simply poked my head off with a stiff and very annoying left jab. Try as I might I couldn’t get anywhere near to him. I reluctantly conceded my previously unblemished record to him always remembering my mother telling me not to let anyone hit me. It seemed like a very good idea to me.
My biggest disappointment came in the swimming pool, where I was at my best. I won all my races but one, and was capable of swimming endlessly up and down the pool at whatever speed my teachers selected for me. I was being groomed for bigger and better things when they told me about what I would need to do to progress to a national level. It involved getting up at dawn and swimming almost every waking hour except for when I attended school. I didn’t do as I was advised, and although I was a very good swimmer, I didn’t go nearly as far as I should have if I would have done the training and exercise.
Then I lived in the States and together with my friend, Dave, formed a Soccer team in the San Fernando Valley in California. We packed that team with celebrities who had in common a more than fair ability to play football. We won almost all the time in showbiz type matches in some blazing heat. For the first time I knew I had to get in some kind of shape just to be able to enjoy the game enough and to keep up with the pace. Now I was in my late twenties and this period would go on for about five years. I didn’t mind doing the exercise as it was aimed at being fit enough to play my beloved team sports.
Time passed and now I was a bit older but perhaps no wiser. I tried to participate in some friendly football matches but began to find that injuries that would have healed in a day or two were now taking a week or two to get better. In fact some of them never seemed to completely recover. My family advised me to seek more gently pursuits. In fact my son, somewhere along this time line, had become a monster sports person, and was now infinitely better than me at all ball games. In fact it was around this time that I walked past a shop window and saw my father staring back at me. I knew almost instantly that it was, in fact, me, but in my head I should have looked like my taller and more athletic son. In fact, when I don’t shave, I imagine that I am going to look like a mean, lean fighting machine, instead of which I look like middle European rabbi.
Now I was getting heavier and less fit, whatever I did to reverse, or even slow the trend. Years passed and I was forced to give up smoking at forty and anything I liked to eat at about the same time. I took up jogging and believe me it was hard, more like a punishment than a pleasure. I have, with the odd gap, managed to keep up some form of exercise most of the time since. O.K. I admit to the odd six months or so when my resolve vanished, particularly in the middle of the cold, damp British winter.
But, I am proud to report, I am back at my fifty minutes per day for six days per week. I am proof that you can be both fit and not too thin. Nevertheless all the illnesses that afflicted my late father now loom on my medical horizon also. I lamented my fate with my doctor who said that it was great that I was so fit or I would probably have had a heart attack and died years ago. In a perverse way this cheered me up , but looking at my overweight and unfit doctor I did think life could sometimes be so unkind. I bet he doesn’t get up to do his exercise by the dawn’s early light but I remain determined to be the fittest person in the graveyard, even if mirrors do me no favors.
Wednesday, March 26, 2008
The Sanctity of Insurance
I am a fervent believer in insurance. My belief is that if I am insured nothing can happen to me. It’s my good luck wrapped in a policy. Bad things cannot happen to those that are insured. I acknowledge that I am probably more insured than I might need to be. I also don’t claim very much against my many insurance policies. The reason for this is because I have the insurance in place. I am convinced that should a policy lapse I would immediately suffer terrible retribution from the insurance Gods. They exist you know, waiting for me to miss a payment.
I have insurance on my travel, cars, critical illness, death, but for some reason that’s called life insurance and health. This is a seriously expensive business. I don’t want to even calculate how much this is costing of my not so disposable income. My behaviour I learnt from my late mother, whose belief in good, solid insurance I have inherited. When she was dying in a very expensive Intensive Care Unit of a Harley Street hospital she rallied briefly and leaned forward to me, “Has it cost the medical insurance a lot of money?” she whispered, “Yes mum,” I responded, gently stroking her forehead, “but you don’t have to worry about it.” She smiled and gathered her strength; “I’m not worried, I’ve been paying all the years, now it’s their turn!”
I once had two insurance policies on my first ever house. My purchasing insurance cover on the house, and my lawyers, thinking I was new to the game of self-protection, also obtaining me another policy for the same thing, had caused this error. Apparently we had purchased the two policies within thirty minutes of one another. This is where my fear might originate. Of course the property consequently suffered subsidence. The policy I had obtained turned out to be the first one purchased. This meant that the two insurance companies would split the costs, and the two of them would be led by the first. “Ah ha!” I thought happily, “no problem,” that company had profited handsomely from my family business and therefore there would be a quick outcome. Flash forward some four and a half years. They were total bastards, not willing to pay a penny, and totally unhelpful. The other company, who I had never dealt with previously were more than willing to cooperate, but were constrained by their peers.
Eventually I was able to convince the building company that they should purchase the property back from us at the market value. I did this by reminding them that I had a camera, a film crew and access to the media. They got the message and I got a cheque. I think I might have forgotten to tell everyone about this happy outcome. That same afternoon I then telephoned the insurance companies and asked them if they would reconsider my plight as we had been begging them for half a decade. The people I didn’t know offered to match whatever the first insurers would do, up to half of the cost of repair. I told them I would accept. I then spoke with my friends, and they told me they would make an ex gratia, one time payment to close the matter once and for all. “But you must understand, old chap, that once you accept that payment you can make no further claim against the insurance company, ever.” I said I did understand and asked them, “and does this mean that the matter is settled, both ways, once and for all?” they repeated that it did. I accepted their payment on these terms and the payment, matching this from the first company. I banked the cheques.
Once the payments cleared I reimbursed the nice insurance company and they were most happy with this outcome. I telephoned my "friend" at the insurers with whom I had agreed that the matter was closed. They were annoyed that I rung, reminding me that there could be no further claims. I told them of my good luck and they were very happy for me. They asked me if I would consider giving them their money back. I told them I would consider doing so, for about four and a half years, strangely enough, the same period of time I had waited for them to honor their commitment to me.
I won’t bore you with the decision I reached all that time later, but suffice it to say I am still a believer in the insurance concept, if not in all its practitioners. Remember to buy that umbrella on the sunny days.
I have insurance on my travel, cars, critical illness, death, but for some reason that’s called life insurance and health. This is a seriously expensive business. I don’t want to even calculate how much this is costing of my not so disposable income. My behaviour I learnt from my late mother, whose belief in good, solid insurance I have inherited. When she was dying in a very expensive Intensive Care Unit of a Harley Street hospital she rallied briefly and leaned forward to me, “Has it cost the medical insurance a lot of money?” she whispered, “Yes mum,” I responded, gently stroking her forehead, “but you don’t have to worry about it.” She smiled and gathered her strength; “I’m not worried, I’ve been paying all the years, now it’s their turn!”
I once had two insurance policies on my first ever house. My purchasing insurance cover on the house, and my lawyers, thinking I was new to the game of self-protection, also obtaining me another policy for the same thing, had caused this error. Apparently we had purchased the two policies within thirty minutes of one another. This is where my fear might originate. Of course the property consequently suffered subsidence. The policy I had obtained turned out to be the first one purchased. This meant that the two insurance companies would split the costs, and the two of them would be led by the first. “Ah ha!” I thought happily, “no problem,” that company had profited handsomely from my family business and therefore there would be a quick outcome. Flash forward some four and a half years. They were total bastards, not willing to pay a penny, and totally unhelpful. The other company, who I had never dealt with previously were more than willing to cooperate, but were constrained by their peers.
Eventually I was able to convince the building company that they should purchase the property back from us at the market value. I did this by reminding them that I had a camera, a film crew and access to the media. They got the message and I got a cheque. I think I might have forgotten to tell everyone about this happy outcome. That same afternoon I then telephoned the insurance companies and asked them if they would reconsider my plight as we had been begging them for half a decade. The people I didn’t know offered to match whatever the first insurers would do, up to half of the cost of repair. I told them I would accept. I then spoke with my friends, and they told me they would make an ex gratia, one time payment to close the matter once and for all. “But you must understand, old chap, that once you accept that payment you can make no further claim against the insurance company, ever.” I said I did understand and asked them, “and does this mean that the matter is settled, both ways, once and for all?” they repeated that it did. I accepted their payment on these terms and the payment, matching this from the first company. I banked the cheques.
Once the payments cleared I reimbursed the nice insurance company and they were most happy with this outcome. I telephoned my "friend" at the insurers with whom I had agreed that the matter was closed. They were annoyed that I rung, reminding me that there could be no further claims. I told them of my good luck and they were very happy for me. They asked me if I would consider giving them their money back. I told them I would consider doing so, for about four and a half years, strangely enough, the same period of time I had waited for them to honor their commitment to me.
I won’t bore you with the decision I reached all that time later, but suffice it to say I am still a believer in the insurance concept, if not in all its practitioners. Remember to buy that umbrella on the sunny days.
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