Trampoline invasion

On a train journey from central London out to one of the leafy shires this morning, I noticed the proliferation of trampolines in people's gardens. we are being invaded...some without protective nets around them, some with protection, some placed into a hole in the garden and some of the most extravagant and ostentatious designs I have ever seen. If the UK has such an obesity problem with children, why dont we get them to go and live with the evident mulitiude of families who fork out large sums of money for garden trampolines?

philosophical puzzle

why doesnt someone make mouse-flavoured cat food?

enjoy life and think positively

How important it is to think about what we want to achieve rather than what we want to avoid...in a relationship talk about what we want rather than what we don't want

The London Underground

Sometimes I travel early in the morning on the London Undergound. It is packed and inhumane at times.

These days everyone seems determined to read the free newspaper that is given out ('The Metro'). These papers are all thrown away by people leaving them at the base or the top of the escalator - causing a potential fire hazard.

the solution seems simple to me:

leave one copy of The Metro in each carriage and ask an obliging person to read it to everyone.

Voila! Everyone hears whats is in it and the the pile of jetisoned newspapers is reduced in an instant

"The proof is in the pudding" - what?!?

I have noticed recently that quite a few people are using the phrase 'the proof is in the pudding'. It seems to be a popular phrase amongst certain types of footbal managers right now. I'm not an etymologist, I would not want to be, but when I was child I was told the phrase was:

'The proof of the pudding is in the eating'

This seems to make sense. you cannot know the quality of something until you have tried it.

'The proof is in the pudding' does not make sense....

unless, of course, you are eating a proof-centred pudding (whatever that is)

chuang tzu: ontology, epistemology and fish

Chuang Tzu and Hui Tzu were walking by a river. Chuang Tzu loooked into the water and saw some fish. He pointed at them and said

'Do you see the fish swimming? they really enjoy that'.

To me and you this might be the start of a pretty tedious conversation? But his friend was in no mood for idle chat.

'You are not a fish so how do you know what fish enjoy?' said Hui Tzu in what could be deemed as a provocative philosophical repost

'Hang on one minute mate...you are not me - so how can you know that I dont know what fish enjoy'said Chuang Tzu (sage-like Taoist guy that he was)

Hui Tzu wasnt going to give up easily
'No, you hang on one minute...I am certainly not you, I know that and therefore I do not know what you know....but... (here we go)....you are definitely not a fish - and that proves that you cannot know what a fish enjoys.'

Chaung Tzu thought for a moment and said ' whoooah! dont give me that me old mate. You originally asked me how I could know what it is that fish really enjoy...
therefore...you already knew I knew it when you asked the question'

I'm sure this conversation went on and on for many a kilometre.

These two guys must have been great fun to go out and have a beer with.

Velcro - what a rip off!

My dad loved jokes like that
My mum loved to laugh too

"The Naughty Step" - why I hate it

'Go and sit on the naughty step now!'

I heard a friend's wife say these exact words to her 4 year old daughter after she had been 'rude' to her mum. The girl eventually sat on one of the steps on the stairs - clearly the one bearing the invisible label 'the naughty step'. After what appeared to be a random amount of time, her mother said very clearly 'don't be rude to me again'. The girl agreed and off she went to run around in circles in the garden with her brother.

I hate the naughty step. I hate everything about it. why?

• what does a child learns from sitting on it? (I am naughty)
• the self-determining internal labeling that goes on internally for a child (I am naughty) often leads to negative self-image (there's something bad about me)
• this has a direct influence on reinforcing problematic behaviour
• a child learns absolutely nothing about behaving differently by sitting on a naughty step
• it reinforces a view of human behaviour that "naughty" behaviour is based upon a deficit of self. It does not take into account any interactive view of the causation of a behaviour difficulty (ie its about me and what is happening to me at a given time)

My advice to parents - when they ask me that is - is to get rid of 'naughty' places (steps, chairs, corners of rooms, whatever) and replace them with 'thinking' places. the difference between sitting on a naughty step as a punishment and sitting on a thinking step as a sanction for unacceptable behaviour is massive. 'Sit there and think about your behaviour and what needs to be different please and I will talk to you about it in two minutes'. then you can talk to a child about what you want them to do rather than let them have some 'time out' and then remind them of what you don't want them to do.

Despite this happening at the house, and my mind going into overdrive about developing the concept of 'self' in those that you love, especially your children...I must say they had some beautiful red wine that I enjoyed drinking

I'm persecuted by NLP. Its everywhere.

When will the world start to see NLP (Neuro Linguistic Programming) for what it really is? 'The new mental technology; the study of human excellence; The modelling of achievement' You must be joking! its hilarious and depressing at the same time.

And there's more... 'The map is not the territory', 'Meta practitioners' 'master practitioners' blah blah blah. last week I met someone who told me he had carried out "extensive research" when doing "my masters" and then talked in a pseudo-academic way about what he knew...."and thats a fact"

Point one - in the world I live in knowledge is tentative not absolute _ so telling me he knew something "as a fact" I found irritating (but I accept thats my problem not his).

Point two - and what irritated me further was that his "masters" was not a two year programme at a University. It was a week-long NLP programme to become a 'Master' practitioner of NLP. Give me a break you fraud. I'm persecuted by this type of nonsense

Derren Brown relates a story of how he didn't attend the course to become a 'Master' practitoner but they still sent him a certificate anyway.
I have no problem with the conceptual notion of NLP and *some* of the techniques, its just some of those charaltans who peddle it as some sort of paint-by-numbers psychology of human change that wind me up.

The guy who was telling me about his research started 'mirroring' me (an NLP technique). When I crossed my right leg over my left he did the same - trying his best to create some stype of subconsious connect and rapport. It was blatant. It was never subconscious. I rubbed my nose- he then rubbed his nose. He became confused about what he should do when I scratched my nether regions.

Perhaps 'How to establish subconscious rapport with a man who is itching his private parts' wasnt part of his 'masters'?

High Performing Teams

High performing teams understand that there is something mutual, something that has an interdependent meaning that is difficult to describe, something life-enhancing about being in a team.

I can't bear the slogans that abound about teams and within teams 'winners never quit, quitters never win'...'there is no 'I' in 'team' (by the way there is a 'me' in 'team' if you look carefully) 'no pain, no gain'. These redundant slogans that have no meaning at all when scrutinised.

Humans are complex, the dynamics of teams are complex, and these slogans come from a world similar to that of the worst business consultants who think that performance can be maximised by a slogan or a mnemonic. Go and run your slogan 'up a blue sky flagpole' and 'park it' 'outside the box' before you 'push the envelope' and then 'shoot the puppy'.