The importance of a relaxed groom

I went to an excellent, cheap yoga class in Manly Community Centre last night. I like going to yoga classes in drafty community centres rather than in swish expensive ones with tinkling fountains and up lighters. This is not (just) because I am a tight wad. It is because they are usually run by eccentric teachers and peopled by the most interesting, yet also eccentric, fellow students.

I've been taught by a sturdy German woman in a small hall in Stoke Newington, who was the first person to notice and celebrate the fact that I can move my little toes independently from the rest of my toes; a crazy curly-haired Welsh yogi, in a in a Cardiff sports centre who implored on a regular basis, 'How can anyone survive, without yoga. How? HOW?'; and an otherworldly, serene Cornish dude who served chai and taught me how to meditate in Buddock Waters. He – as a pointless aside - was originally taught by the crazy Welsh lady. Apparently the world of yogi's who teach in community centres is a small one.

So I was pleased to have found a community centre type class here in Manly.
The class is taught by the formidable Man Yee. A petite Chinese woman with the body of a gymnast and the kind, smiling face of a particularly happy nun. I spent the first half of the class thinking that her name was actually Man Lee, which gave me a huge amount of misplaced pleasure.

She teaches with skill and compassion, which is more important than you might think as yoga is not just another form of exercise or way to achieve the body beautiful. It is a more rounded, dare I say, holistic form of physical activity.

Throughout the lesson, as she gave instructions, raising her voice for the hard bits, I drifted of into wonderful three-second kung fu daydreams as she sounds, at times, like a female Bruce Lee. At one point I was distracted from my forward bend by the pleasant puzzle of working out what she meant when she said, 'This pose work your groom. Best to focus on your groom and also have a relaxed groom.'
Even though I have been going to yoga for years on and off and am quite good at some of the poses, I have incredibly tight hamstrings. It is a dream of mine that I will one day be able to touch my toes. At the end of the session when I told her how much

I had enjoyed the class, she said,
'You are good in the arms,' and gave me a little wry smile.
'I really need to improve my hamstrings.'
'Yes, yes,' she said, 'you really do have very conservative legs, Jen.'
'I suppose they are,' I said.

Take that Mr Brown.

Dee Why Sealife

Living in funny old Dee Why has had its moments.

I've been lucky enough to capture some photos of the wildlife here include one day after a storm and a number of strange jellyfish and other creatures were washed up onto the beach.






















There were hundreds of blue stingers or blue bottles at the hide tide mark with their long tentacles plastered to the sand trailing back to the waterline. The Norwegian was speaking to a woman who grew up here and she said as a child they used to pop the sun dried stinger bodies for fun like we would pop bubble wrap.
















There were quite a few clear jellyfish as well as these strange creatures that looked like frilly, mini, blue ghosts, perhaps baby blue bottles? They moved occassionally.

The weirdest thing was a small rock that was encrusted with the moving mouths of a number of shellfish. They were opening and closing, dark red creatures, like thick wet feathers, were pushing in and out in a hopeless fashion. If I were the anthropomorphising kind I would say they were thinking, 'oh shit, where did all the water go?'

















It was like the end of the world.

Home Sweat Home

I went to a Bikram Yoga class this week. This is the famous and controversial school of yoga, called McYoga by some, that has swept the globe. It involves doing yoga in a hot room. In a really hot room.

The room I lay in, waiting for the class, to start was 40 degrees C with 40% humidity. It was somewhat smelly, as the large space was filled with other people who were also lying there sweating. This yoga studio has been running for a while. Three classes a day, seven days a week for five years, in a room that rarely gets an airing? You do the sweat maths.

The idea is that the hotness allows you to stretch more deeply as muscles and tendons are relaxed, and the sweating speeds up the excretion of toxins. Hence the smell. I got really dizzy a couple of times, nearly yo-gagged, and had to lie down on my drenched towel. They say that the fact Bikram Yoga is so hard, the very challenge itself, gives rise to a increase in self discipline and self confidence. I say, Hhhhhmm.

It was very hard. If the instructor hadn't asked me, to stay in the room if I felt unwell, 'so I can keep an eye on you,' I would have hot-footed it right out of there. Through the class I heard, amongst the usual groans and puffs, a series of guttural almost desperate i'mgoingtodie moans coming from a brunette somewhere in the middle of the room. I was thinking, 'you go girl, I'd be groaning like a troll if I didn't have this stiff-upper-lip-english-reserve thing going on.' Afterward I saw her talking to a friend in the changing rooms. Turns out she is deaf and those are just her noises. Sometimes I wish I weren't so dumb.

Another older women to my front right was wearing leggings with no underpants. You may wonder how I knew she wasn't wearing underpants. Well I think these may have been her favourite leggings as they were - shall we say - worn in the seat area. During one bending forward pose I could see more than I've ever wanted to see, of a middle-aged woman's rectum.

As well as 'don't look at ladies leggings when they are bending over', my other tip would be not to wear a white top to Bikram Yoga. Mine went completely see through after about one second of intense sweating, so my friend with the leggings wasn't the only one flashing it about.

But it was so hard, and I was concentrating on just doing at least some of the asanas without keeling over, I didn't really give a flying shoulder-stand if the toned and tattooed yogaboy behind me could see my nipples. I don't think he did either.

Everyone was sweating. The water bottles were sweating, the walls were sweating, even the curtains were sweating, but I have never seen a person sweat so much as this uber-bendy woman in the front row. At one point she was standing on one leg, hands in front of her chest. Her elbows were pointing down and sweat was dripping of them. Actually I think the correct description would be 'running off them.' I don't see how she had any water left in her body. She should have just been a empty meat sack in lycra shorts and an Ohm tattoo.

Afterward I did feel strangely accomplished, though it took three hours of water sipping and melon eating to get rid of the pounding headache once I was back in the flat. No doubt my enthusiastic, kindly, though vague-on-the-science, instructor would say it was the toxins I was expelling. She did also say that by breathing deeply I would release more iron into my blood stream. I'm pretty sure that is not how hemoglobin works.

I paid $20 and can come as often I like for 10 days. I feel compelled to go again, despite the headache and the fact that I was a ravenous hosebeast the following day. I had to run out at 10.30am the next day to get a slice of toasted banana bread as my stomach was groaning like a deaf girl doing yoga and disturbing everyone in the office.

One last tip. Cycling to Bickram yoga on a hot summer day in Australia is almost too stupid to consider. Don't.

A rose by any other title...

I’ve been playing with the Lulu title tester.

Type in the title of your book to be and the tester will calculate the percentage chance you have of your tome being a best seller. That is if you finish writing it, get accepted by an agent, get it accepted by a publisher…

Anyway, the first stumbling block for a Hackney comprehensive educated girl such as myself is the series of questions they ask after you have keyed in the title.

Figurative or Literal? OK I get this. To Kill A Mocking Bird vs The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo. But then the next question asks...

'Title grammar type is a' with a drop down of many options including ‘possessive case with noun’ and ‘noun modified by verb or place.’ Somebody pass me the Valium.

Do I need to know these things to be a writer? Should I admit that I don’t?

My book, Hard Very Severe, came out as 63.7% chance of being a bestselling title, so I’m off to the bookies, though The Bible scored 35.9% and Charlie and the Chocolate Factory scrapped 14.6%. Though they do say, ‘the Lulu Titlescorer should, in practice, always be combined with use of your own low-tech judgement.’

http://www.lulu.com/titlescorer/index.php

More pillow talk

The Norwegian has informed me of another bit of sleeping/talk/nonsense I came out with last night.

I was well on the way to sleep and he came in and gave me a kiss on the cheek. I jumped and said in a bitter and accusatory tone,

'I thought it was an umbrella.'

This made sense. His stubble can almost be as prickly as the spokes of an umbrella. Almost.

Then in my sleep befuddled state I realised I was telling him off for kissing me good night which didn't seem right. So I thought I would offer a logical alternative option for kissing when he hadn't shaved. I'm nice like that.

'Next time, kiss me with the soft of your bottom,' I said and swiftly rejoined the pillow.

The Wrong Trousers

There are some amazingly good looking people in Bondi Beach, mainly wearing low key yet achingly hip clobber.

But there are also a lot of men wearing speedos – so it balances out. They wear these speedos proudly, often with words across the top of their taught, toned buttocks spelling out the name of the life surf saving club they belong to; Icebergs, North Bondi. Some – inexplicably – have the words 'budgie smugglers.' Please explain?

You do also get some real glamour pusscats teetering along on wedges, for-display-only bikinis and sunglasses with lenses the size of dinner plates. But the other day I saw something so wrong,so pointless - even more inexplicable than bird trafficking swim wear.

It was a pair of trousers that even Wallace and Gromit wouldn't even try to fix. They were lime green, high-waisted net affairs. The weave of the net was large, so each hole was the size of a 5 cent piece. They afforded no sun protection, no modesty, no warmth and definitely no impression that the wearer had a functional brain. It looked like her legs had been attacked by an angry neon fisherman's net still going through its 80s rave phase.

It certainly put the speedos into perspective.

Shark! Shark! Shark?

Surfers are a fairly macho bunch. Even the 'oceanbelongstoeveryoneman' ones are. Why? Because it is really hard and can be dangerous. Sharks, drowning, sunburn.

The other day we were at Whale Beach – a beautiful spot on Sydney's North Shores watching a group of surfers as the sun went down. They were surfing at the north end of the beach by some flat rocks. Cunning surfers save their arm strength by trotting along the beach, over the rocks and jumping in past the breaking waves and hey presto there they are.

But in a break from the norm we saw one guy paddling for the rocks and scrambling out in flailing, heaving, crablike fashion. Surfers while not being macho are cool. Cool, cool, cool. But not this guy.

He was being encouraged by a women and teenage girl on the rocks and as he scrambled out he turned to the other surfers and all three started shouting,

'Shark! We've just seen a shark.'

The other surfers turned and nodded. The women continued to call,

'Shark?'

Had they heard? One guy put his thumbs up, smiled, swivelled his board shorewards and paddled serenely for a wave.

The three came passed us on their way to inform the lifeguard further up the beach. The guy I saw was probably about 18. On his short, pointy board the words, 'Death or Glory' were marked in Gothic script.

What would I have on my board? Patience or Moderation? Happiness and Calm? Doughnuts or Beer?

Hong Kong

Our first shock upon arrival wasn't so much culture as temperature related. It's cool, bright and breezy in Hong Kong in December. Locals wander about in jumpers, tights and even coats and so, after the first day goosebumpy day, do the tourists. When it is cold in England, it is much colder, but at least we know when we get inside it is going to be warm. But here, in this city of massive and rampant consumption, the air con reigns supreme; in the ubiquitous malls, the amazingly wonderful MRT (underground), buses, cafes, museums and ferries.

Perhaps this is because most of the year Hong Kongers are made damp and wilty by the heat and humidity and when the weather turns itself down a notch, people are so relieved they just want to stay the same delicious chilly temperature all day long. Not to mention this gives them ample opportunity to show off their Chanel jacket or Gucci knee highs.

Sitting in the hotel restaurant wearing trousers, socks, vest, t-shirt, jumper and summer scarf sure does put a girl off her boiled egg, water melon, toasted bagel and watery tea though.

Because of the air con and mall affect, the Norwegian and I much preferred to stay outside in parks, on beaches and walking along foot paths. We wanted to be cold without adding to our carbon footprint, we wanted to be cold as nature intended.

Hong Kong has a number of rather nice parks, and a few terrible ones - pink concrete is not a good look. But whichever park we ambled through we found local people practising Tai Chi. Some in small circles, some on their own and most in synchronised rows. People of all ages, shapes and sizes, including little girls in trainers with flashing red and green LEDs and middle-aged, full figured matrons wearing anoraks and bum bags (or fanny packs if you please).

One day we saw a group practising with long silvery swords. Elegant and composed they cut the air with graceful, slow sweeps and thrusts. Another tourist couple stopped, German perhaps, and were talking pictures, as were we. A passing Chinese guy looked and laughed,

'Join in! Join in! Why not?'

The tourist pair laughed, taking a few shuffling steps backwards lowering their cameras. 'Ah but we don't have swords,' said one, relieved.

'But you do, you do. In here,' said the guy pointing to his heart.

'Maybe when we are in Australia, I'll take up a martial art,' the Norwegian says.

it's a sign of the times - two actually

Take care and check your sides are in full working order before reading these signs

If loving you is wong, I don't want to be wight

Avid readers of my blog might be interested to read an article I had published on webook.co.uk recently about my adventures speed dating including the cringe-inducing 'date' with Mr Wong that ended with me hilariously saying, 'If loving you is wong, I don't want to be wight.'

speed date


Yikes.

Open and Shut Gown

Last week, me and my mum had to take my dad to A&E. If you need to go, first thing on a Friday morning is a great time - were they all waiting for the evening? There was NO queue.

He has been having ectopic heartbeats, which though disconcerting and sometimes very uncomfortable are not life threatening. But that Friday they were very bad so off we went.

There were a few other patients; the drunk with broken ribs who wanted a pillow and had lost his coat and was going to be taking 'all you fairies to court'.

There was a young woman behind a curtain, trying to explain the tears.

'Don't worry about me,' I heard,'I'm a nurse. Unshockable.'

And there was an older guy, frail, pale and unsteady on his feet. He was being shown how to use a walker by a young bouncy physio, walking up and down the corridor where my mum and I were waiting. They were accompanied by a middle aged nurse. She was walking beside him, one hand by his arm should he need any extra support, the other gently holding the back of his hospital gown together.

Now there may be many things wrong with the NHS, but as we waited for the results, I imagined my father in ten year's time and hoped the NHS still has respectful and kind nurses like her then.

We got the all clear - and need to wait to see the cardiologist in a week or so.

I'm not a plastic bag lady

An amazing thing happened this week. We ran out of plastic bags. At one point we had a fetid, ever expanding nest of the things, sweating away in the corner of a cupboard. Then Norwegian got a smart blue plastic bag holder from the Swedish shop (you know the one) and they were all tidied away. But it was still stuffed to capacity, spewing forth slippery paper thin bags at any opportunity.

We must stop using bags we agreed. As committed environmentalists it is the very least - if not only - thing we can do to halt the tide of rubbish that threatens to engulf the overburdened landfill sites around the capital. So we started bring our own bags to shops and saying, ‘no, no bag please’ – even as the autopilot shop keepers opened and started to fill their pristine new bag. ‘Just put everything here in my rucksack/pannier/hemp bag.’

But now after months of vigilant (and smugly) shunning of all these weak plastic receptacles, we have run out. '

With your admirable regime of hip hempness why, why,' you cry, 'do you need them?'

Well the kind men who come every Monday to collect our recycling have asked that we separate bottles from cardboard, plastics from paper. In fact they kindly will leave uncollected any unsorted recycling for us to reconsider during the following week. So every week we use 6 or 7 bags. Sure they get recycled but reuse is better than recycle as all green warriors are aware.

So what’s a green girl to do?

The sound of two hands slapping

I recently made a most remarkable discovery. Sherlock Holmes, had he been with me, would have been proud. If I had told Miss Marple about it later over a cup of tea, she would have patted me on the knee and said, 'Well done dear.' Heck, even Horatio Caine, might have taken me aside, raised his glasses squinting into the Florida sun and said, 'We need people like you on our team,' before running off to shoot a drug smuggler in the arse.

I'm doing a copywriting contract with a bonkers French company in a dingy 60s office block in west London. The ladies on our floor has one sink, one large blue plastic flower in a dusty vase, one stall and is decorated with shiny blue tiles. Every day last week, as I sat availing myself of the facilities, I stared at two very strange sets of hand prints on the wall in front of me. The sunlight streams in through the window behind me, lighting up the tiles and these smudges can be seen clearly.

For some reason, someone has repeatedly pressed both hands on the wall. They are small hand prints and as this is the ladies, I think it is safe to assume they belong to a woman. Could she have stood up quickly, felt faint and leant on the wall for a moment? But why then would there be a series of hand prints? Or was she slapping the wall over and over in despair? After working there for two weeks I can see that this is not outside the bounds of reality. Each time I leave, wash my hands and return to my desk, amid the shrieks of zut alor! and shouts of ecoute moi! I forget about them.

One evening the Norwegian and I watched Ray Mears and a bunch of San Bushmen following a rhino's trail through the dusty African bush. They found it helped if they imagined they were the rhino. The next day as I sat, I had a moment of absolute clarity. I imagined I was leaning against the wall. The prints glinting in the dull sunlight, suddenly came to life and I knew exactly how they had got there.

Never mind Usher and his romatic call to make love in de club. The owner of these prints and a willing friend had made love* in the office loos. Nice.

*or equivalent.

Same coin, different sides

I love London.
I am sitting on a bench eating my chicken and salad sandwich overlooking Hammersmith Bridge, with my friend Kingston. He is from New Zealand. An old Jamaican dude sitting next to us tells us all he knows about promiscuity of information – the worst of which is committed by doctors and nurses. I tell him I have not heard of the concept. He asked if he can have a bite of Kingston’s pear.

I hate London.
An angry driver beeps at a pedestrian who was going far too slowly over a zebra crossing. She is going slowly as is with a frail old lady. The frail old lady is in a wheelchair. He beeped. At someone on a zebra crossing. Who was pushing a wheelchair. Arsehole.

Perspective

Every now and again much joy and laughter is sprinkled on my relationship with the Norwegian when we jointly discover a word or phrase with an amusing translation.

A Cat nap is a hen's blink for example.

The latest such titillation was finding out the kitchen implement used to lift a fried egg onto a slice of toast or flip a fish finger is called a 'frying spade' in Norwegian.

Stekespade pronounced Stair ke spa da

'A spade! A frying spade. How sweet. I absolutely love it.'

The Norwegian laughs and asks.

'So what do you call it then?'

'A fish slice.'

He just smiles at me.

As Marcus Aurelius said, 'Everything we hear is an opinion, not a fact. Everything we see is a perspective, not the truth.'

I will hunt you down

A particular song currently being played on the radio has weaselled its catchy little way into my brain – Maria Carey in a a fluffy number called Touch my Body.

It presents the usual gubbins R&B lyrics...

'I'll treat you like a teddy bear, you won't wanna go nowhere'
'I want you to caress me, like a tropical breeze'
'Let me wrap my thighs around your waist'

You get the picture. Then Maria trills

'Cause if you run your mouth and brag bout this secret rendezvous...

and then her tone changes slightly and she sings,

I WILL HUNT YOU DOWN

A picture flashes into your mind - Carey cooking up a nice Lapin Ragu a la Fatal Attraction.

A chill certainly touched my body.

Brrr

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yPkFClFBHRk&feature=related

Corporate Giant in Bullying Shocker

No one likes a bully and when a corporate giant gets headlines like this from Publishing Weekly - 'Amazon to Force POD Publishers to Use BookSurge' – you have to wonder what is going on.

The nub of the story according to PW is that Amazon.com is forcing print on demand publishers to use its own POD service, BookSurge. PublishAmerica said no, and they found their buy buttons on Amazon disabled. They issued a press release saying, "PublishAmerica will not comply with Amazon's ultimatum, and will not allow that company to dictate who will print PublishAmerica's books, and at what conditions."

Amazon own statement says, 'Speed of shipping is a key customer experience focus for us and it has been for many years. Amazon Prime is an example of a successful and growing program that is driving up our speed of shipment with customers. POD items printed inside our own fulfilment centres can make our Amazon Prime cut-off times. POD items printed outside cannot.

http://phx.corporate-ir.net/phoenix.zhtml?c=176060&p=irol-printondemand"

So the customer demands quicker and quicker shipping times and Amazon complies – naughty ole customer causing all these problems – so it doesn't have anything to do with an increase Amazons in profits?

A key customer experience for me is the concept of fair trade. It doesn't just apply to subsistence farmers growing bananas on the Windward Isles, it counts for UK farmer getting a fair price for their produce and not being bullied by Tescos and other other large supermarkets. And it most definitely applies to small publishing firms being able to choose with POD supplier they use. According to my Penguin Pocket English Dictionary to bully is to treat abusively or intimidate.

Online Petition can be signed here http://www.ipetitions.com/petition/protectPOD/?e

More information http://www.writersweekly.com/amazon.php on Angela Hoy's Writers site.

Just done a spell check on something I am writing to discover Birkenstocks comes up as laughing stock. To be fair it should've been Crocs - the devils shoes.

Also cringingly (which I'm not sure is really a 'word') came up as carol singer

Aint that a kick in the head?

Calling all submissions

I have been submiting a lot lately; pieces for publication in literary magazines, climbing websites, sample blogs for freelance work and even after a big deep breath the first three chapters of my book to a publishers.

I have totted up the my total submissions and my success rate is not looking good. But the Norwegian pointed out to me, quite rightly, that when I was a fundraiser I knew that I had to submit between 8 and 10 applications to get one success. So why should I expect any less with my writing. I submit and I wait. It is this waiting, this franticing checking of emails that is killing me, the occassional yes's I've had are far outweighed by the great yawning nothing, far worse than the odd considerate, 'Thanks, but no, it is not quite right for us' reply.

It is interesting to note that submit means, 'to allow yield to the authority or will of another,' as well as to put forward an opinion, piece of writing or application. Submitting doesn't suit me. I am assertive, not submissive. I don't want to 'submit' my work, walking backward out of the room, averting my eyes.

Perhaps I need to turn around the way I look at these things. Count the number of times I tap someone on the shoulder and say, 'Oi, what about this for your magazine or what about that for your website?' as a measure of success, or at least the hard work I'm putting in, rather than being bowed under the weight of the empty inbox.

Or perhaps should I call my submissions something else?

'Dear Ms Whiskers, Editor of Cats Monthly magazine. Here is my assertion... No that's not right. Unbearabilty pretencious.

What about, here is my presentation 'Ginger cats make better pets' But no again, that makes it sound like something in powerpoint littered with clip art and pie charts.

Would anyone like to submit any other suggestions?

Educating Sita

'Hello, 4K. My name's Catherine. You know Lynne – she was here this morning and that,' she says pointing to me,' is Jenny.'

'Good afternoon, Catherine, good afternoon Lynne,' they sing song. One tall boy, with a gold stud in one ear turns and peels a paper football off the wall next to him. The, 'Good afternoon Jenny,' is more ragged as thirty heads swivel around. Some smile. Some just stare. We are in Tyssen school in Hackney. I'm working with environmental project ecoACTIVE www.ecoactive.org.uk and I've come to observe a session in action.

'So, what were you looking at this morning?' asks Catherine. Classic teaching technique. Recap, recap, recap. I few hands go up.

'What were you looking at with Lynne on that table?' A few more hands go up.

'Oh, oh,' says one little girl, Sita, is jabbing her arm at the ceiling, lifting up off the red carpet. I can see her shiny patent shoes.

'Yes?' Catherine says to a smiling boy sitting near the front.

'A radio. It had a handle and you had to turn it.'

'Oh really? So you had to power it yourselves. Interesting. Anything else?'

'A fan. It was a fan and we blew on it,' says another.

'And what did the fan do?'

The patent shoe girl is practically levitating. Oh, oh, oh.

'Yes?' says Catherine to the boy who'd peeled the football off the wall who has just put his hand up.

'My aunty is called Jenny.'

There is a moment of silence in the class. One of the reasons my attempt at a teaching career failed is that I never mastered the ability of laughter suppression. He has a serene calm face. About a foot taller than the other children I understand a missing piece of ecoACTIVE equipment had been found in his pocket at lunch time. Someone had put it there.

'Is that the answer? No I don't think so. It was a wind turbine. A mini wind turbine.'

Catherine talks about electricity, where it comes from, how it is made and how it gets into our schools and homes.

'So how does it get into our homes? Does it just walk along? Do you ever see electricity strolling along the road?'

'No,' the group cries.

The patent shoe girl is still jabbing and pointing at the ceiling. Finally Catherine turns to her.

'Yes?'

She freezes, then looks up the traitor arm. She probably did have an answer when she first put up her hand. But not now.

'How does electricity get into our schools?' Catherine gently reminds.

'Umm... strings?'

'What like this?' Catherine points to a string of paintings pegs across a corner of the roo

'No,' the class cry in glee, incredulous. Strings indeed.

'Wire. Wire, isn't it miss?'

Yes. Indeed it is Wire.