I was interested in this new project in the US, Camp Grounded. A place where Americans pay over $500 for a weekend of digital detox. Participants pay the money to have their phones, watches, computers and electronic devices taken away from them for a few days. Instead, participants are given a feast of activities, such as camping, arts and crafts, star gazing, meditation, home cooking, typewriting. The aim is to recreate the joy of life without the distractions and addictions of modern-life. Also, participants are not allowed to talk about their profession, so people can’t define themselves by the work they do.
William Shakespeare is having a grand celebration for the 400th anniversary of his death. Shakespeare is literally everywhere at the moment, and it’s not just in the hundreds of words he helped push into the English language. We have Shakespeare’s Guide to Poisoning Plants, Shakespeare Insults, Shakespeare’s Guide to Parenting and even Shakespeare’ Guide to winning at Scrabble.
“Now is the winter of our discount tent” – Richard III
I wish I could write a serious post sufficiently literary to mark the occasion, but in the world of Shakespeare, I am a bit of a failure. The only Shakespeare I read was Macbeth and that only because it was on the GCSE English reading list. My thoughts at the time of reading Shakespeare was probably something along the lines of: “He has a good turn of phrase every now and then, but I think sometimes he could express himself a bit more clearly”
I took up Economics, I was no loss to the department of English Literature.
I do like the odd Shakespeare joke though. I hope William would approve, apparently he had quite a sense of humour, but many of his jokes are lost on modern audiences because of changes in the English accent. Probably a good job because some of his jokes could be a little ribald for a GCSE English class.
One of my all time favourite jokes – probably because I heard it told by Peter Kay, with his typical infectious enthusiasm.
William Shakespeare walks into a pub, but the landlord says “Get out, you’re bard!”
Knock Knock Jokes
Knock, Knock. Who’s there?
Noah. Noah who?
Noah’s the winter of our discontent. …
Oxford in May is beautiful. After a long grey British winter, in late April and May there is a real transformation as trees come into leaf and blossom covers many of the streets. The city’s architecture is complemented by nature’s beauty. There is also a great feeling of newness because of the tremendous greenness, which is very vivid. I particularly notice it after coming back from New York in April. There are few countries, which see such an intense green – in UK, we like to complain about the weather but the rain does help the colour and freshness.
I love these daises which grow in wildflower verges by the side of many roads.
May is also the month when we hold Sri Chinmoy Races at Cutteslowe Park, north Oxford. It is a great time to be in the park, which has quite a few areas of natural wildlife flowers.
I have a dilemma. This year I’ve taken more interest in gardening, and have bought a few plants. The problem is that there has been an explosion in the population of slugs and snails. The garden is being decimated by these small creatures.
You wake up in the morning and new plants and old daffodils are mere shreds of their former selves, slugs greedily leaving a trail of their feasting.
It presents me with a dilemma – what to do about the slugs? …
I was postering for some upcoming meditation classes in Oxford. Visiting Trinity College on the High Street I poked my head around the garden and there was a wonderful wildflower meadow – carefully managed to give a wonderful naturalistic style of planting.
When it is good in Oxford in May, it is very good. This felt like a scene from the Elysian fields.
Buttercups and daisies, with dark velvet tulips in the background. It was around 11am, so the light wasn’t ideal – a bit strong.
…
I was cycling in the Yorkshire Dales. Sometimes you would go around a corner or over a hill and a new vista like this would open up. This is just south of Dentdale, coming north from Ingleton.
Fleet Moss. The road was closed to cars so I had it all to myself. Looking towards Hawes. …
For a few reasons, I’ve moved my ‘self-improvement‘ blog to a new address. It a blog based on the personal experience of moving through life and trying to work out a slightly better ways of living. The latest post is dealing with personal difficulties or more accurately ‘how to deal with that annoying work colleague’.
When I joined Sri Chinmoy’s path (back in 1999), I read poetry series like the Dance of Life and didn’t always appreciate them. I preferred reading question and answers, and talks like ‘Everest Aspiration‘. Many years later, I dipped back into the poetry series Dance of Life and, at this point of time, the poems seemed to hold much greater understanding and resonance. Sri Chinmoy said he never wrote an autobiography, but in many of these early poems, I feel he wrote autobiographical incidents about his life. These autobiographical incidents were also visionary – in that many seemed to occur and develop after he wrote them in 1973.
Two undercover journalists offered an Olympic hopeful athlete access to an elite training camp, where 15-20% of the camp profit would go to the company and that a doctor would be arranged to provide doping products. (1)
The athlete, Mustafa Mohamed immediately said he was not interested, that he had never doped, and would never get involved in anything of that nature. He declined their offer to sleep on it. He told them he ran “for passion, not for money or fame”.
Mustafa Mohamed is a Somali-Swedish long-distance runner who mainly competes in the 3000 meter steeplechase.
If journalists can help bring real dopers to justice they are doing a favour to the sport. Journalists like David Walsh from the Sunday Times, did a good job in constant questioning of people like Lance Armstrong and trying to uncover the truth.
However, one thing about doping in the media is that it is nearly always the dopers who make the headlines. The people most quoted on the subject of doping are usually the doctors / athletes involved; and they can have a vested interest in trying to allege doping is widespread and ‘everyone is at’ – A form of justification for their own doping. …
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