100 Seconds to Midnight

The same boiling water that softens the potato, hardens the egg. It's about what you're made of, not the circumstances. Unknown This is the second time I've written a blog.  The first was a peek inside my one any only foray into the world of marathon running, I say peek but, after 750 continuous days, reading it was more of an endurance event than the actual race.  It became a daily habit that I enjoyed writing but grew increasingly uneasy with the fact that I was, to all intents and purposes, publishing a diary online and really what was the need?  It took a little over three and a half years, and a knee jerk reaction to the resetting of the Doomsday Clock, for the compulsion to write to resurface - what I've yet to really settle on is why? Without wishing to jump back into the realm of diary (but alternate stimuli have been few and far between this week) I have received word that my art submissions have been moved from someone's 'to look at later' p...

I once had a friend who talked about jumping off the world, like it was some sort of roundabout, so you could stand still and catch your breath before hopping back on.  Over the past thirty years I have often dreamt of this, wishing it was reality. Never did I consider the option where it was the world that stopped, nor the plethora of emotions that would follow.  In the past week I've been anxious, worried, sad, cross, disappointed, downright gutted, concerned, confused, conflicted, grateful, hopeful and occasionally optimistic - my head's spinning and I want the chance to extract myself from it all more than ever. Sounds like social distancing has come at just the right time, except rather than sitting at home surrounded by the books I haven't read, my knitting and multiple art projects, I'm going to be busier than usual shopping for my 93 year old father and trying to work out where to forage for food now that the supermarket shelves are bare - with the notable e...

This is not a time for pessimism.  This is a time for optimism.  This is a time for tremendous hope and joy and optimism and action.  But to embrace the possibilities of tomorrow we must reject the perennial prophets of doom and their predictions of the apocalypse.    Donald Trump speaking at the World Economic Forum in Davos, January 2020 President Trump I do not agree that we should dismiss expert opinion nor should we use inflammatory language in doing so, but on the time for optimism and action you might have a point. Optimism on the day we leave the EU, you're joking right?!! Err, actually no, I'm not. This week I listened to 'What happened when Trump removed the experts?' on the BBC Radio 4 podcast 'Beyond Today'.  In this episode author Micheal Lewis talks about how Trump and Boris Johnson are tapping into anger for their political gain, and that, in his view, one of the most important issues facing us is how we control our emotional respon...