From Bath to Cork with Baby Grace

I slept it out and missed my plane this morning.  

The alarm on my Nokia didn’t wake me.  Maybe it didn’t go off.  Maybe I didn’t set it right…

I stayed overnight in Bath with my dear friend Paul Cresswell. Was very tired going to bed and simply woke an hour after I was meant to.

Not RyanAir’s fault.

I has a hire car from Hertz.  Amazingly I was able to extend the hire for another day for £2. The Hertz woman looked at my RyanAir voucher, said she thought it might be that low but checked. Imagine a car hire for a day for less than a decent cup of coffee…

I’ve re-scheduled the next two days.  Arranged a meeting in Clarion Hotel Cork @ 1500 Friday. Apologised to Ken FitzGerald whom I’m meant to represent @BNI Phoenix Chapter tomorrow. (But I’m still looking for someone to cover for me, so that Ken isn’t left unrepresented at the business networking meeting.)

Discovered you pay £5 per hour for WiFi in Bristol Airport - but there are no signs to advertise this service.  [I suggested to the customer service person from Bristol Airport  they put some up. But she had no business card.] 

I settled down to recover.  Met a Newcastle Paul from Wharram Designs who’s got a client Sandford Care Village run by St Monica’s Trust.  This sounds like a great place for ageing people to live and be supported throughout the rest of their life.  He may be looking for a copywriter… You never know.

Now the Dell laptop battery is dying (running out).  There is no powerpoint anywhere near.

I’ve phoned Kava Media, one of my employers.  I’m off now to meet Richard Kennedy.  This is an unexpected opportunity to talk to him about the link between Kava Media & MarketWriteNow.  

My new business partnership with Gwenda Hughes of Dragon Marketing has started.

It’s absorbed loads of energy & time.  We [DragonMarketing&CopywritingServicesInternational] decided to go in for CorkMeet2009 - a business opportunity to meet new customers, partners and friends.

I never realised there was so much involved in setting up a new business properly - including dropping that mad name.

The implications for this omaniblog are clear: I must do all my work related writing on the blog of the new website.  It needs content.  And there’ll probably be a monthly business newsletter coming out of there too. (Got to earn more money… Minister Lenihan and sidekick Cowen are ready to make that even more necessary.)

So will "From Bath to Cork with Baby Grace" be for all my non-work stuff?

No. I don’t find the dichotomy between work and non-work helpful.  I work hard at having fun, being a dad, a husband, a good friend, a worthwhile companion,a coffee drinker & being angry about the state of the Irish body politic.

It’s all work to me.

So there’ll always be a fuzzy boundary with cross-over.  

I might as well accept that.  I spent long enough, years ago, organising my life into silos…  Trying to keep everything in separate compartments did me no good (but it has given me a fund of funny stories about how ridiculous the mind can be if you let it get the better of you.)

This blog will be mainly about mental health, being a father, the practice of focusing & continuing interest in food, writing poetry…

Of course, I’d love you to take a look at the new business website (MarketingWriteNow.com), but I won’t be using this place to flog it. 

All I’ll be hoping is that you leave a comment there on the blog and say what your first impression is. 

Harrods World

October winds unloose the trees
around the store we wheel bags
to the gentleman Jeeves who minds…

Escalate to the Fourth Floor,
settle in to croissants from Food Hall.
Tis Mohamad in Ramses court you know…

Flowing strands of auburn hair,
eyes agog at pussy cat’s dressing room
- how could she begrudge her pet? 

Chocolates here in silver coats,
diamonds cast to whet the purse,
fingers deep in pocket now…

Pagliacci  thrown into the aire,
a pizza here, mozzarella there
- I fancy the lady with the salt from Majorca.

That ice cream is much too heavy
for a man of my age
- let’s eat a photograph instead.

An elephant of glass,
a well-fired Ghandi
committed to memory.

We better leave, go get fresh air,
the smell of taste, the touch of waste.
The child in blue winked at you.

Friday 30 October 2009 
dedicated as gift to Tim Nelligan

It’s easy to write about London.  Tough to write about Harrods.

Conspicuous wealth is easy to condemn.  The craft, humour & manners I found in Harrods was remarkable - it’s worth it to have a go presenting it.

The first photograph I took in the pet accessories section

My first ever visit to any pet accessories department

I never imagined such a business

The book I got signed by the man who cooked the food

I don’t yet have a dog but, when I have one, I’ll remember this. 

This is the latest in ferret beds.  I know it’s advertised as a dog bed
but my friend the ferret lady & her friend the ferret man will see how useful it could be 

After writing for other people’s websites, I finally get my own.

It’s a partnership.  "Dragon Marketing" & "omani & co" [lowercase does not mean junior partner) have clubbed together to save our clients money.

Why have two websites when one will do…

Next week all will be revealed.  All I can say is that we’re not selling dragons from Oman. 

There will be more about this on my business blog (writingforbusinessfromcork).

I have to tell it again and again: I have no doctrine. I only point out
something. I point out reality, I point out something in reality which has
not or too little been seen. I take him who listens to me at his hand and
lead him to the window. I push open the window and point outside. I have no
doctrine, I carry on a dialogue.

*** Martin Buber (1878 - 1965) Jewish Religious Philosopher ***

Comments from David Gurteen:

This is one of my favorite quotes. I like it as to a large degree
it captures my own philosophy on teaching. I am not here to tell people the
ways things are. Who am I to do that? I am simply here to open windows for
other people and talk with them about what they see and I hope they will do
the same for me. What’s your view on this?

For more information on this quotation and the author:
http://www.gurteen.com/gurteen/gurteen.nsf/id/X00008DDA/

This morning this quote arrived in my email.  As I opened it, I wondered whether it would be a quote I’d note & delete?  Or would it be one I’d keep & share.

For me the decision is easy.  But the "why?" is the challenge.  Why do I share Martin Buber’s words?  Why do I judge it worth associating myself with?

I notice for the first time that David Gurteen has added his comments about the quote.  I hope he keeps this up for all future quotes.  However, he’ll have his work cut out because he sends out quotes every day.

Thank you David. 

In case you want to plan your visit to the southern part of Kerry, John O’Donoghue territory

Photograph of Office of Public Works (OPW) map on site… 

Yesterday afternoon, NAMA stripped off.  She opened up her dress, revealed herself naked and offered to spend years in bed with me. Her private parts were all mine.  She offered all I’d ever dreamed.  Stopped her titilating, teasing ways and gave herself to me.

Excited would be understatement.  I came.  I came right into her and everything I’d ever loved before faded.  NAMA & I were one explosion.  Completely & utterly seduced, this was my fulfillment, my most thorough coming of age. 

Could I satisfy her, insatiable wench?  Could I hold her whole body close to me for ever? Could I become her other self, as she was already mine?

Yesterday we coupled.  The pimp had done his work, earned his fee. What did I care how we’d come together? What did I care about anything else?  

and how she kissed me under the Moorish wall and I thought well as well her as another and then I asked her with my eyes to ask again yes and then she asked me would I yes to say yes my mountain flower and first I put my arms around her yes and drew her down to me so I could feel her breasts all perfume yes and my heart was going like mad and yes I said yes I will Yes.

NAMA…  NAMA……….  NAMA. 

I read a short report of an inquest in today’s The Irish Times.

A 26 year old man was found hanging from a shower rail of a psychiatric unit in Cork University Hospital.

He asked staff for paper.  He wrote the note on HSE-headed paper.  Shortly after, he hung himself. 

He’d voluntarily gone into the hospital’s psychiatric ward. According to the report, he had "a history of self-harm and suicidal tendencies".

This made me think.  How difficult a job it must be to look after someone with strong suicidal thoughts.  You can’t relax at all.  The suicidal person is inhabited by constant thoughts, drives, wishes to be dead.  You are there to make sure the person survives.  To be there for them at the worst of times.  You can’t afford to forget the danger, the risk of the person using their last bit of ingenuity to kill themselves.

The 26 year old man succeeded in ending the pain, found relief, made a tragic end to his misery.  The pity is that he’s not here to enjoy the change.

For a long time I’ve been erratic on here.  Unreliable.

You couldn’t be sure I’d even publish on any particular day.  I could be away. I was away, posting on Listowel Writers’ Week Fringe blog (April-June) and then Summer Music on the Shannon blog (July-August).  And I took three weeks off to holiday in France/Spain (June-July) with the vow that I wouldn’t social-network at all while on holiday.

All together, a recipe for losing readers, friends & followers.

No better day to form a resolution than a Monday: I’m going to return to my focus on mental health over the next few months.  I’m doing this because

(1) there is the book on Depression to be tied down and got ready to present to publisher

(2) there is desire to have a bit more stability in my life, meaning some additional ‘certainties’, and this is a ‘certainty’ I might be able to control.

(3) if I don’t keep my hand in, I won’t be able to write about mental health with confidence.

The renewed commitment:

an average of one piece per day, 7 per weeks, 30 per month…

I won’t crucify  myself over this but I intend to achieve it.

I would love to have some guest bloggers : people who’d like to post something longer than a pithy comment.  If you would like to send in a piece, I’ll put it up for you and be delighted.