Keep your mouth shut and save the world

So,yes. I'm doing a lot of writing. I've done a press release about Andy's hypnotherapy which has got the go-ahead from Nick and Toni -it's about dealing with Toni's public speaking nerves and Nick has been very helpful in advising me how to write it.

Not long, for a start, two hundred words is ample, he says. So I had to halve it. Not that that was difficult - I like cutting things out, a most liberating experience, I always find it. And chastening too, to realise just how few words are needed to communicate. And we all use so many. I wonder if all those useless, superficial words are contributing to global warming? How fantastic to be able to ask people to shut up to save the icefloes.

I've also been revising a couple of features about Cornish businesses. So with all that and the other deadlines floating around in my head, from time to time my brain just seems to switch off. I hope that accounts for the memory lapses anyway. It's either that or my fortysomething hormones getting the better of me.

Sidetracked from the seminar

I am a bad, bad blogger. I have quite got out of the habit recently. My excuse, reason, I mean, is that I am writing all the time anyway and so by the time I've finished, there is no brain matter left with which to blog. So what have I been so busy writing?

Well, last week I attended a Chamber of Commerce seminar on trading with India. It was held at Fistral Blu, the trendy restaurant in the new complex on Fistral Beach in Newquay, with a stunning view of the surf and headland. There were about thirty delegates from various Cornish businesses plus the speakers and the usual hangers-on from publically-funded organisations. I've been on that side of the fence too, so I know what it's like to get a pleasantly regular salary and attend functions for PR reasons. And to have to bargain yearly to justify your funding and jump through hoops to achieve 'targets' and 'outcomes.' So I know now which side I'm on, despite the uncertainty of the patchy local economy.

Still at least now I understand why the ridiculous targets and outcomes exist in the first place, having watched the BBC2 programme about freedom (sic) over the last few Sundays. Turns out it all comes down to Game Theory, dreamt up during the Cold War by a very clever but at that stage undiagnosed paranoid schizophrenic who now says he got it wrong.

His theory was that human beings are entirely motivated by selfish gain and are always plotting against their fellow humans to achieve maximum payoff. The neat thing about this is that you can conveniently reduce all human activity to numbers and measure how well they are doing in all kinds of ways.

Despite the fact any reasonably experienced adult will tell you this is nonsense, it has been taken on by successive generations of politicians until we find ourselves in 21st century Britain, where all public servants, police, teachers, medical staff etc etc, are bound hand and foot by targets and red tape. So what do we all do, bearing in mind we have to meet the targets if we want to keep our jobs? We make damn sure we achieve them, of course, even if it means neglecting our real duties to do so. Congratulations, Blair, Brown et al.

Sorry, where was I? Ah, yes, back at Fistral Blu. So anyway, I was there on behalf of Business Cornwall magazine, so I could write up the event for the next issue of the mag. I think that had better wait till next time.

Poor blog

I've been catching up with other people's blogs over the weekend. I missed the IT session to set up blogs, not having even joined the course at that point, and so I was completely unaware of the fashion to give one's blog an ironic or punning name, Ms Ann Thrope and Miss-cellany being two examples. By contrast, mine sounds pathetically old-fashioned - the blog at the party without the trendy clothes.

I've become aware recently that I do tend to always go for the nearest-the-bone, most minimal solution in all things. My wardrobe rarely gets beyond what most people would consider 'basics', and the house probably looks barely lived-in to those who love their 'stuff'. I can't help preferring the minimal option. It's not even a conscious choice, just a need to cut out anything extraneous, but I'm beginning to think it comes across in some ways as horribly literal and utilitarian.

I may prefer the asceticism of white paint and plenty of bare space, but I need a few flourishes as well!

Slash and burn

I'm ranting again and this time I mean it. I got home on Friday afternoon to find a note through the door from the local Sustrans person, informing us that on Sunday a group of volunteers would be meeting across the road to do 'maintenance work' on the cycle trail. The last time this bunch of slash-and-burners turned up, the area looked devastated for months and it still hasn't grown back properly.

We knew when we bought the house that the cycle trail was going to be built over the road in what was then a lush, green tangle of trees and bushes. It seemed a positive factor - naively I assumed that Sustrans would be in favour of countryside, and greenery generally. After all, the whole point of the organisation is to build off-road trails for the public to enjoy when they want to get out of the town and away from traffic. It never occurred to me they would be obsessed with turning the stretch of pleasantly overgrown land opposite our house into some kind of sanitised suburban park, completely stripped of any vegetation between the trees.

Conveniently no phone number was provided so I hit the internet and the phone book - both people concerned were, equally conveniently, out of the office, but I did manage to leave a message for one of them with her colleague. In an attempt not to sound completely unhinged I asked for some new planting, but goodness knows what got passed on - ' a nasty piece of work in Ruddlemoor objects to your nice volunteers clearing the path' probably.

We decided to go out for the day today, as the last thing I wanted was to go over and 'discuss' it in front of an interested crowd, all believing they are doing good for the community by spending their Sunday defacing an inoffensive stretch of path.

Sure enough, we arrived back to find everything levelled once again and the path completely open to the road. I find this utterly bizarre, both as a user of the trail and as a resident. Which is more pleasant - to walk between banks of green, leafy vegetation which blocks out sight and some sound of passing traffic, or in full view and earshot of it?

I realise this may sound pretty minor stuff, so why does it get my back up so much? Firstly because we, whose environment is adversely affected, are the last to know - I have discovered that for the last few weeks Sustrans have been putting invitations in the local press for people to come and help. Then to have absolutely no control over what happens just outside my property. And finally to think that all those people are now congratulating themselves on being so public-spirited. If they are really so concerned about the environment, they could go and pick up all the rubbish flung out of souped-up old Peugeots the moment the local petrolheads finish their drive-thru McDonalds. Or campaign to reduce the speed limit on this road, where yet another driver was killed last week, his car on the wrong side of the road,and which is now referred to in the local press as an 'accident blackspot'. How would they feel, these marvellous volunteers who no doubt live in wonderfully leafy surroundings, if I turned up outside their garden fence and started hacking down all the vegetation they can see from their windows?

So you could say I am not happy. At the moment I intend to get back on the phone tomorrow and put my case. Sometimes I simmer down and decide to let it pass. This time I think not.

Pasties in Tavistock

The rain has been lashing down most of the day, so it's been no hardship to sit at the computer and get my hypnotherapy feature done. Absolutely no temptation to go out and do other things.

And anyway, we did that yesterday to take advantage of the sunshine we knew would be a temporary phenomenon - we escaped Cornwall and took a trip to Tavistock! Which turned out to live up to its reputation for being an attractive town. It reminded me slightly of Totnes; it has a similar 'green' feel to it! The pannier market was full of stalls and thronging with shoppers and the cafes were all full on our first wander round, so we had to wait to get a coffee. So nice to experience a bustling town centre and so different to St Austell, which always has such a dead feel to it, so that I avoid going as much as possible.

We sat on a bench outside the market and ate a pasty out of a bag, and the sun was really warm. Quite a novel experience, despite this having been a mild winter. The drive there is all green fields, woods and the moors in the background, and only just over an hour away. It's comforting to know the border is not too far away.

Blah blah blog

I read Liam's blog today. He has written it as a letter to his blog, apologising for not writing much these days. Very funny, and I'm glad I'm not the only one. Doing all the other stuff seems to take up so much time and somehow the blog has got pushed way down the list of priorities.

Today I spent the morning on business stuff - getting the financial records up to date and talking to Andy about how things are going. I feel better when I'm on top of all that, but guilty that I'm not spending the time on my college work instead. I've decided that I haven't got the time to read novels any more. I borrowed 'Gilead' from the library several weeks ago and was really enjoying it, but it's been languishing at the top of the stairs for nearly a fortnight now and I have to take it back on Tuesday. Can't say I've been missing it much, what with keeping up with the papers, researching for my book and everything else.

I'm glad I've got my presentations out of the way for both units. I hope it will now feel as though I've got loads of time once I get my feature done. What a depressing blog. Time to sign off, I reckon.