FIFA - death, corruption and football

"For the good of the game" - really??

Regular readers will know that I love football.  Passionately.  My small, local club from where I grew up was on the edge of being relelgated out of the professional English football league altogether 6 years ago, but this year has won promotion to the Premier League.  Next year Bournemouth will be playing against the likes of Manchester United, City and Chelsea.

This concept is as ridiculous as it is amazing.  Or just, amazingly ridiculous.  Through my parents my boyhood team was Manchester United.  AFC Bournemouth were a team I started to watch when I was an older teen because they were local and I had started working so could afford to go.

Following the two clubs was fine, as the idea they would be playing in the same league would be as much a possibility as if I had chosen my second team from Portugal - it was never going to happen.  And yet, here we are.

But then attaching the tag "amazingly ridiculous" is quite fitting with football.  After all, just look at the international governing body for the sport - FIFA.

Football is a passion with many contradictions.  Over the years, aside from the action that has taken place on the pitch, there have been issues regarding racism, homophobia and violence, from both players and fans of the game.

Growing up in the 80s all these things were the norm in football, although thankfully a lot has changed.  The issues are still there, but at least when you hear that a footballer or group of fans have been racist, such as John Terry or Chelsea fans, you are shocked.  In the 80s it was so prevelant it made you sad, but not shocked.

However, there is nothing in the game more appalling than the governing body.  FIFA takes that yard stick and it runs away with it!

At the time of writing the FIFA congress is taking place, and we are in the middle of the voting process to decide the next president of FIFA.  The election is between the current president, Sepp Blatter, and his challenger Prince Ali bin-Hussein of Jordan.

The congress is mired in controversey, although that's nothing new.  FIFA being mired in controversey is like a jam sandwich at a picnic being mired in bees.  You might not like it, but what did you expect?

The big controversey at this time is that shortly before the congress took place a number of FIFA officials have been arrested in Switzerland on behalf of the US Department of Justice looking into accusations of bribery where officials were being paid kick backs by TV executives in order to secure rights to show World Cup matches.

The investigation has apparently been going on for a while, with former FIFA exec member Chuck Blazer, who had quietly pleaded guilty already, wearing a wire to meetings with FIFA officials to help the Dept. of Justice gather evidence.  He'd better stay out of jail for his efforts, because on the inside no one likes a grass!

At the same time the Swiss office of the Attorney General has started an investigation looking in to corruption around the voting process which decided the hosts for the 2018 and 2022 World cups, which were Russia and Qatar respectively.

The fact that Russia and Qatar that were selected should be enough to inspire doubt.  First of all Russia - they love annexing parts of other countries but hate the gays.  Not really an inspiring choce to say the least.

But trumping them by some way is Qatar as a choice.  Seriously - Qatar!

In answer to everyone's first question "where???", Qatar is a small oil rich country in the middle east with a population of just over 2 million people.  It is also a country where in the summer temperatures can get as high as 50°c (122° fahrenheit).  A strange, if not insane choice for a host of a football tournament.

But worse than the conditions for playing football itself, are the conditions for workers.  Perhaps you have seen this graphic already being shared on social media:

Needless to say, the statistics are shocking.  According to a report by the Guardian newspaper Immigrant Nepalese workers in Qatar are dying at a rate of 1 person every two days.  They calculate the death toll of Nepalese, Indian and Bangladeshi workers to be 964 in 2012-13.

That should be shocking enough to make FIFA reconsider it's decision to award the tournament to Qatar, but then the death toll of labourers in Qatar will not come as surprise to them, as there would be deaths of workers even without a World Cup.

The International Trade union Confederation estimate there have been over 1200 deaths so far, with another 4000 expected to die by 2022.  Corruption and kick backs are bad enough, but now FIFA have blood on their hands.

Scourge of the poor and oxygen thief Prime Minister David Cameron describes FIFA corruption as the "ugly side of the beautiful game".  And he supports Aston Villa/West Ham/insert football team name here so he knows what he's talking about.

But FIFA appears to beyond reform.  Sepp Blatter is still expected to win the election comfortably.  He has support from the bulk of Asian and African confederation countries after delivering both World Cups in their continents, as well as money for the development of the game.

Some would say that all that money provides much needed investment in the grass roots game in developing countries, others would call it further corruption to enhance Sepp Blatter's power base.  To be honest, both sides of that argument might have a point.

But hey, the fact that 7 officials have been arrested and the election hasn't been postponed at all tells you that this is an organisation without a sense of shame.  I mean, if there is any chance of a shake up it will come because sponsors such as McDonalds have threatened to withdraw their support unless reforms are made.

You know your organisation is evil when you can let McDonalds be the one to take the moral high ground.

Also, Blatter's opponenant is a Jordanian Prince!  FIFA is so backward that it takes a figure from a Feudal system of governance to be seen as a great reformer.

At the end of the day, FIFA may be the governing body, but ordinary football fans do not recognise them as part of their game.  Next year I wll be trying to see as many Bournemouth games, home and away, as I can, and experiencing the wonders that the game can provide.

If the 2022 World Cup does go ahead in Qatar, then I won't be watching it that year.  I love football, but I won't have blood on my hands.

"We are Premier League!!"

5 more years of the nasty party - why, and what do we do now?

At 10pm last night the polls closed and the BBC provided us with exit polls that predicted that the Tories would be the largest party, but would come short of a majority.  Also the SNP would dominate in Scotland and the Lib Dems would be decimated.

The clear indication of a Tory victory sent me in to a depression.  The question is, would the Lib Dems have enough MPs to be the junior partner in a coalition or not, or rather would the Tories turn towards the DUP (Democratic Unionists - the dominant Loyalist party in Northern Ireland) to make up the numbers.

At 6am I was woken by the cat.  I checked my phone to see the prediction had now shifted to suggesting that the Tories would come to within 1 seat of an overall majority.  After seeing that, try as I might, I couldn't get back to sleep.

Then in the morning when I'm driving my girlfriend to work I hear on the news that the Tories will definitely get a majority after all.  Only my love for her stopped me turning the car over in to the River Irwell.  Who would have thought that those exit polls were a best case scenario?!?

Ok, so nailing my colours to the mast, I'm a big old leftie.  Actually, I'm proud to call myself a Socialist - the term still exists, I've just checked a dictionary.

As such, general elections to me are only one part of politics.  When most people think about politics, they think it is something you elect someone else to do every five years, and hope they don't all bollocks it up too much.

The elections are still important of course, because these are the people who decide on our laws.  I was going to write that they run the country, but that's far too simple a concept, and we all know how much money and power outside of official 'politics' plays it's role.

What we have had under Tory rule (propped up by the Lib Dems), is an austerity drive as a method of bringing down the national debt.  In the last 5 years we have started to see growth, and employment increase.

It was always going to be hard to shift a party that's in power when growth begins, however, we would have had growth whether the Tories or Labour had been in power.  It's the global market recovering.  We were not as hard hit as many countries in Europe for a variety of reasons, and growth was always going to happen.

The worst aspect to the government position was just how much the very worst off in our society have been affected.  Look at the degrading assesments around disability benefits.  ATOS, a  private company, being given the job of trying to find any reason to force people off benefits.  A big number of those who complained won their appeals.  Think of how many didn't appeal because they didn't have the knowledge, energy or ability to do so.

Labour offered us essentially a nicer version of what the Tories were doing.  Still austerity, but stretched over a longer period, and with promises to look after the NHS, introduce a Mansion Tax and other reforms to make the rich pay at least some share of the costs.

If you look at what Ed Milliband was promising over the last few weeks it sounds pretty good.  The poorest and most vulnerable in society would be protected in some way.

But it was still austerity, and that isn't the kind of politics that can energise activists.  The SNP in Scotland however, who are not a radical party, could win activists.  Getting rid of Trident (our nuclear deterrant), ending austerity, these were the kind of policies that got people excited.

The SNP might have lost the referendum on Independence, but politically they won massively from it's aftermath.  Many working class voters, traditionally Labour, voted for independence, and switched to the SNP as the only major political force in Scottish politics that backed it.

The Yes vote might only have got around 45% of the vote in the referendum, but if you have even close to that many people deciding to support one party in 'first past the post' politics they will win every time.

The referendum was a massive democratic debate the like of which I have never seen in my lifetime.  Apathy was pretty much impossible in Scotland around this time.  This platform was enough to turn the SNP into the biggest force by far in Scottish politics.

Whilst the SNP were the biggest winners despite losing, the biggest losers despite winning were the Labour Party.  The three big parties of the time were all strongly in favour of the Union, but it was Labour that delivered the campaign and the vote.  When the right wing aftermath from the Tories and UKIP in England showed how actually disregarded the Scottish are south of the border, it was the Labour Party they turned on.

It made no difference to the Tories, so really, they were the ones who really won.

Aside from Scotland though, the Labour party also lost the argument throughout England and Wales as well.  There are a few reasons as far as I can see.

The effect of the Scottish referendum also had a big negative impact on the Labour party in England I feel.  As I said, it was the biggest democratic debate that I can remember in my lifetime, but if you lived in England you heard nothing on the news except about the referendum and yet had no say it whatsoever.

I'm not saying that English voters necesarily wanted a vote, but I do think it helped further enforce a feeling of disenfranchisment.  In terms of English nationalism, many felt bitter towards the Scottish, and as soon as the election was confirmed the likes of the Tories and UKIP were on the news again banging on about 'English votes for English laws'.

The fear of an SNP/Labour coalition drove English centre-right and right wing voters away from Labour.  This idea was pushed massively by the Tories and the right-wing press, and wasn't helped at all by Nicola Sturgeon constantly saying that they 'would work with Labour'.

Saying that was intended to appeal to Scottish voters, but also scared some English voters at the same time.  Those on the left loved the idea of such a coalition (rather the SNP than the Lib Dems anyway), but Labour knew all too well that it would cost them votes from the centre ground in England.

Talking of the agenda of the right wing press, Ed Milliband in his interview with Russell Brand said he didn't think Rupert Murdoch had as much influence on this election as he has had in the past.  Of course he does!!

Just because he personally hasn't said much means nothing, his media empire pushes his agenda for him.  The Sun campaigned viciously against Ed Milliband, even republishing pictures of him looking slightly odd eating a bacon sandwich on the front page.  Anything to frighten people in to voting Tory - fear Ed Milliband, fear Nicola Sturgeon, vote Conservative was the message.

The Sun is by far the widest read newspaper.  Any office I work in usually has at least one copy floating around, and there's only so much people can see a person or group of people demonised before it is internalised as fact.

At the end of the day Labour were not able to convine the centre ground that they were a better alternative than the Tories.  Why would they, Labour didn't appear to really be that different.

From working class or left wing roots folk also had little reason to back Labour.  In the same way that many were convinced to vote Tory out of fear, all Labour really had was a fear about what the Tories could do to make you vote for them.  Don't get me wrong, we do have every reason to be afraid.

Could Labour get themselves in a position to attract large numbers of new members to their party to reinvigorate and reinforce their activist base - have people to door knock, canvass and leaflet in future elections?

The SNP did that around the referendum, but there will not be anything like that for Labour.  They are the party in opposition, but any opposition is in words only, never in deeds.  They would have scrapped the Bedroom Tax, but will they genuinely stand in opposition to it?

No, they won't.  Councils which are Labour controlled could refuse to enforce the Bedroom Tax, but they won't.  They will do as they are told and will only complain through letters and council motions, which mean nothing in concrete terms.

The argument from Labour is always "when we get in to power, we can change things, but until then... "  In other words, voting for them is the only thing you can do, and without that you are impotent.

The Bedroom Tax is an interesting area for me.  For those that don't know, this is the name given to the 'Under Occupancy Penalty'.  For people who live in social housing (such as council housing), if you are deemed to have more bedrooms than you need you have money deducted from your Housing Benefit.

That benefit is designed to give you enough money to survive if you are unemployed.  So for a starter, they are taking money away from the minimum that you need to live on, when in reality even that is not enough.

On paper it might not sound too bad.  We have a housing shortage and it's not fair that people get to live in houses with a number of bedrooms if they don't need them.  Other families need them so it's only fair that they move in to a smaller home so larger families can have them.

The problem is that the smaller homes do not exist.  The waiting list for people who have declared that they are willing to downsize is huge because the smaller houses are just not there.  What would happen in reality is that you would be forced to move in to the private sector and pay rent to a private landlord.

That's one thing when you're unemployed and in receipt of housing benefits, because the rent is covered.  But when you get back in to work you pay your rent of course, but now you are paying a lot more because rents are much higher in the private sector.  Don't worry though, Labour are going to bring in rent controls when they get... oh...

But there is one other thing, one other problem with forcing people to downsize - It's that the house they live in is their home.  You know, because we are human beings, and that's what we do.  We make homes, where we live and raise families.

Tories you see don't have homes - they have properties.  Portfolios of them.  Houses to them are commodities to be bought and sold.

When I lived in Bolton I helped form the anti Bedroom Tax group there, and it was a wonderful experience.  I was the joint chair of the group alongside a woman called Linda, who was a tenant facing eviction.  In the garden of her home she had buried the ashes of her late Mother and Brother.  As you can imagine, she wasn't for moving.

But don't worry, she had no intention of moving.  Nor, of paying the Bedroom Tax.  Could she afford it?  Not really, but that wasn't the point.  She wasn't paying the Bedroom Tax because she was taking a stand.

We set up groups throughout the area, and attracted many people to public meetings.  People who felt like they were alone and vulnerable found other people in the same situation.  After that, they were not alone.

People were worried that if they didn't pay they would be evicted, physically thrown out of their homes.  At these meetings pacts were made that if anyone ever faced eviction as many people as possible would be outside the front of their house to block access to any baliffs.  We had a saying - "I'll stand by you if you stand by me."

But why was I so heavily involved?  Was I facing the Bedroom Tax?  No, I was working and lodging with friends.  I got involved because it was an injustice and something needed to be done.

I met Linda and others through being involved in the Socialist Workers Party in Bolton and being active in my Trade Union.  We met at the Trades Council in Bolton where they had come because they were given the number for the chair of the council as being someone who could help them to organise.

From that day I was joint chair representing the Trade Unions, and Linda was chair with me representing tenants affected directly by the Bedroom Tax.  The campaign involved tenants, trade Unionists, and people from various political parties and non.

We were critical of Labour councillors at times but always invited them to our meetings - invitations that were often accepted.  Labour Party members in various Unions became heavily involved in the campaign, alongside Green party members, SWP members, and many who were not a member of any political organisation.

Why am I telling you all this?

Well, after such a depressing election you ask yourself, what can we do about it?

My answer is that voting in elections is only one very small part of democracy, and that democracy is too important to just be left with MPs.  There are alternative forms of democracy that you can be a part of.

If you work, join a Trade Union.  They are not perfect organisations, but they are very important.  If you are in a Trade Union become a workplace rep - just ring the number you have been given as a member for more information, they will be happy to tell you what is required.  The politics in Unions can be limited times, but fight to make it more than just a helpline for colleagues to ring if they're in trouble, more than just discounts on credit cards or insurance.

Organise in your workplace, and not just on work issues.  We have a whole tide of bullshit coming our way that we have to fight back against - the Bedroom Tax, Fracking, attacks on the NHS, closure of local services, etc.  Organise and unite with people in your workplace, other workplaces, in your communities, nationally and internationally.

Doing this won't take away the feelings of anger or frustration at the Tories (or any of the major partes at times).  But, what else can you do?

The Tories are in power.  It's time to unite and fight.

Who needs 'Roy of the Rovers' when you've got 'Eddie of the Cherries'

Club captain Tommy Elphick celebrating with the fans

It's been referred to as a 'Roy of the Rovers' moment, after the British staple football comic book hero, because it feels like a work of fiction.  But no, it's real life - AFC Bournemouth have won promotion to the Premier League.

When the news is dominated by the election and the earthquake in Nepal (and it's hard to decide which is the most depressing) this is a rare good news story.  And not just for fans of the football club - it seems nearly everyone with an interest in the sport has been cheered by this news.

In 2009 the club was almost snuffed out of existence.  Bournemouth had spent years in financial dire straights.

I was born in Poole, next to Bournemouth, in Dorset, on the south coast of England.  My parents were both Northern - My Dad a coach driver from Manchester and my Mum a nurse from Accrington in Lancashire.  When they married they moved down south because it meant my Dad would spend less time away from home due to the tours he could do.

Our neighbours thought they were grockels - a local slang term meaning tourist.  My Mum's accent is still strongly Lancashire even after well over 30 years on the south coast, so many still think that.

Through them both, but mostly my Mum, I developed a passion for Manchester United.  There is an absolutely valid argument that says that you should support your local club.  However, I never remember there being any pull to do so when I was young.

If you live in a big city like Manchester, Liverpool or London I suppose this makes sense.  For somewhere like Poole the nearest City (and it's still an hour away) is Southampton.

Kids at school supported a variety of teams, the most popular in the 80s being Liverpool, closely followed by Manchester United and I suppose Southampton with a bit of Arsenal and Spurs thrown in.

My family roots were not from the town, so it makes sense the route I took in following my Mum's team.  In the early 90s when I started to get into football United changed from being a team with history, to being a team that started to make it's own history again.

I do not remember there being any pull to watch Bournemouth when I was growing up, I don't even remember kids at school supporting them at all.  Watching the local news I picked up that they were a small club that were permanently in financial risk.

The first time I went was in 1999 to watch them play in a pre-season friendly against Southampton, and the only reason I went was because former United front man Mark Hughes had just signed for Southampton.

Whilst the match was not particular memorable, I enjoyed the atmosphere.  I had been to Old Trafford a few times, which is a hell of a stadium of course, but the rawness of a rickety stadium like Dean Court (as it was then) stood in the terraces - the experience struck something with me.

I was 17 and in a summer job in a factory, so had a bit of money and freedom to spend it for the first time.  Doing a morning shift on the first Saturday of the season me and a lad got chatting and decided to go.  I found out which was the football bus using the google of the time - i.e. by asking my Dad.  Then off we went.

The first game was against newly promoted Lincoln City, and we won comfortably 2-0.  I remember seeing Mark Stein playing up front for us.  A very handy striker who, with age, was starting to come down a bit in his career (he had played for Chelsea before us).  He also looked like a small boy with some kind of weird ageing disorder.  A top player though.

This experience was enough.  Being a bit shy I only went because there was someone else who wanted to go too (even the friendly against Southampton was with my Dad).  But after that I was happy to go by myself, and went to nearly every home game that season.  It was a big turnaround compared to previous years and they only just missed out on the play-offs.

There were some great players then.  Richard Hughes who went on to play in the Premiership with Portsmouth.  A great defence as well with full back Neil Young and Jamie Vincent who would overlap in attack (a style of play still adopted to this day) and the centre backs in Ian Cox and a promising young lad called Eddie Howe (I wonder what happened to him?).

Alongside him was Mr Bournemouth himself - Steve Fletcher.  I must admit, I wasn't smitten at first.  A big target man of a centre forward, his job was to dominate in the air, hold up the ball and win flick ons for team mates.

To me he was big, awkward and slow, and not much of a goal scorer.  Others who were Bournemouth hardcore fans explained to me that despite what my eyes had been telling me, he was in fact a legend.  Over time, I got it.

Eddie Howe and Steve Fletcher in their younger day, doing their bit

When in 2009 he scored the only goal in the last game of the season to save Bournemouth from relegation, I got it.  On that day if we had lost we would have been relegated out of the football league altogether, and would soon have gone out of business completely.

Our leading appearance maker covering 20 seasons might not have been Messi, but he gave every bit of himself on the pitch, and we loved him for it.  He now has one of the stands at Dean Court named after him.

Next year is going to be strange for me.  As I said before, I was brought up supporting Manchester United - this is ingrained.

Supporting Bournemouth as well reminds me of what Irish friends have said about supporting football.  In Ireland many support an English team and a Scottish team, knowing that it made no difference because they would never meet.

In the years I have been going to watch Bournemouth I know that a lot of the supporters have other teams they follow as well.  However, there is of course the core of fans who are pure Bournemouth.

For them there was never a choice.  Generations of their family supporting the one club, no matter what division, no matter how little money they had.  These are the fans who put the hands in their own pockets to help save the club time and again from complete destruction.

All of that was just to have a club to watch and support FULL STOP.  However, enter Max Denim, a run of the mill Russian billionaire who lives in Sandbanks.  Many have heard of this tiny area of land on the coast in Poole because it has the highest concentration of millionaires anywhere in Britain.

To many when I say I'm from Poole this is all they know, not realising the Poole is an average working class town, albeit with a big slant towards tourism and a few rich folk with yachts.  Well, one of them provided AFC Bournemouth with a personal loan of £10 million.  This was to stop the club going bankrupt, but now look at us.

There has certainly been money spent on this current squad, but not a ridiculous amount, and certainly very wisely invested.  A few years ago you start to see midfielders and defenders that cost 100-200k here and there.  Not huge sums compared to the big players in the game, but for us more than we had ever been able to spend before.

Throw in to the mix a young genius of a manager in Eddie Howe, and we are now set to join the elite in the Premier league.  He's seen us through from survival in 2009 to being promoted three times in 6 years.  He recently won the football league manager of the decade, quite an accolade to say he hasn't even been in management for the full decade.  But still, an award richly deserved.

I have lived in Manchester for over 10 years, so most of the matches I have seen them in have been away matches around the region.  I have loved every minute.  You get the hardcore support, lots of singing and passion, just what football should be about.

Hoping these Blackpool fans don't kick off.  We had just beaten them 6-1!

Although I'm delighted to see the club in the Premier league next year, there will be changes.  I'm used to turning up to grounds like Bury and Doncaster - big open stadiums in which you pay to enter a certain stand then can sit where you like.  Not that I ever sit of course, I'm stood through out singing my heart out.

Not in the Premier league though, shit hot stewards and cameras, tight controls to make you sit down and shut up.  I think it's fair to say though that after all these years of hard work and pain, the Bournemouth fans will be ready to cheer no matter what conditions they are put in.

I hope to be there singing alongside them too.  That's if they don't mind a weird northern sounding grokel being there, that is.




Bringing me down to earth, I expect my next blog will be about how awful the outcome is from after the election.  I'm not predicting who will win, just that whatever happens, it will be awful...

Meditation, mindfulness and my naughty chimp

I am a dreadful procrastinator.  By which, I suppose, I should mean I'm a really good procrastinator.

A bad procrastinator, when faced with any given task, would completely fail to get distracted or sidetracked.  They wouldn't put off any difficult tricky jobs in their life, but instead would just get on with them.  Completely failing to waste their time - a woeful performance if you want to be a pro level procrastinator.

I, however, am excellent at wasting my time.  Before writing this blog, for instance, I have spent at least 30 minutes on Facebook clicking on random links to funny videos, etc.  I've checked my emails, completed the washing up, lots of things that are not on my 'to-do' list.

And I enjoy writing my blogs.  The key though, is that it is a task that takes some effort, and my mind is desperate to distract me.  It wants to distract me for a number of reasons, one of which is that if I put a piece of creative work out there for people to view, I open myself up to criticism.

A part of my brain is there to try and help me, to protect me from harm.  The problem is, it doesn't know the difference between me publishing a blog and me going up to a Tiger and tapping it on the nose with my wang.

It senses danger and it wants me to flee.  Another part of my brain knows this and is fighting against it.  Concepts like this are covered in the book The Chimp Paradox by Prof Steve Peters.

Prof Peters is a consultant psychiatrist whose clients include Ronnie O'Sullivan, Victoria Pendleton and Steven Gerrard.  He has helped them understand the relationship between their 'chimp' with is the part of you that reacts emotionally, to their 'human' part, which is the part that reacts logically.

The sports stars he has seen have stated how much help he has given them.  It's just a shame Prof Peters never suggested to Gerrard that he could do with investing in less slippy boots!

The ideas he puts in the book is that you can't win by fighting your chimp, you have to learn to manage it.  You recognise in what ways you worry or feel bad.  You exercise your chimp, listen to it, and only then can you start to reason with it.

Chimp Mangement

When my chimp says "you shouldn't do a blog.  There are professional writers out there blogging who can do it a lot better, you'll just show yourself up.  People won't like it."  I shouldn't try to ignore it.  It is part of how I feel, of my worries.

What I can do is recognise how I feel in that sense and have space to think.  I can respond with "I've worried about that in the past, but I have published a number of blog posts and they get hundreds of views, and a number of people share them on social media, so they must enjoy reading them."

I believe mindfulness and meditation come within that same realm of thinking.

Mindfulness is focussing on how you are in the present moment.  It isn't dwelling on the past or worrying about the future.  The part of your brain that works when you worry or are stressed cannot work at the same time as the part of your brain that deals with the senses (sound, touch, smell, etc).

The brain can fluctuate between all those things of course, but if you take time to focus on the senses, this can help with mindfulness.  Taking time to sit and focus on your breathing for instance, or by taking in the sounds around you, this can all help.

Your brain will fight to go back to worry mode, but if you focus on those senses it can help alleviate the sensations of stress.  To anchor yourself.

This is essentially what meditation is as well.  I don't want to appear like a preachy expert here, because I'm not.  I've only recently taken up meditation, but I have found it beneficial.

Most people have a concept of what meditation is, but it's interesting the view points I've found from friends who haven't experienced it yet themselves.  Many have a tendency to think it isn't for them for a number of reasons.

Something that has come up a number of times is they think that in meditation you have to clear your mind completely, and they cannot imagine doing that.  Meditation isn't about clearing your mind and 'not thinking'.

There are various methods of doing meditation, but for the most part the main focus is that you spend time with your eyes closed and focus on your breathing.  Thoughts will come and go, and if you find yourself distracted, you pull your focus back to your breathing.

It isn't about denying thinking at all, but it is about focusing on your body, on your senses.  I find through doing meditation it helps me reach a clarity in my thought.  It helps me strip away some of the worry, and get to the root of what I am actually feeling.

Sometimes I find I'm having thoughts keep coming in to my head that I didn't even realise were there.  Say for instance I had a bad gig during the week (which happens to all comics at times).

I know logically that I should take lessons from such gigs, but that I shouldn't dwell on the negative.  Through meditation I will realise that I am in fact dwelling on one bad gig.  Having that at the surface helps me to deal with it better, otherwise it would be left buried, which is never a good thing.

After a while through meditation you get to control your mind and achieve a level of Zen.  With dedication you then begin to develop Shaolin Monk level kung-fu skills, and can learn to shoot a fireball from your stomach.

HADOUKEN!!

Well... maybe not.  It isn't a magic trick that makes everything right in your life, but it can help you to cope and manage your emotions better.

If you're interested in meditation I have used Head Space.  It's a website which provides guided meditations.  You pay to subscribe, but you can do 10 free sessions to try it out first.  There are also plenty of guided meditations available on YouTube.

If you live in Greater Manchester I have also done group sessions with Sadhana Yoga which have been very good.  Having an instructor you can actually talk to about your experiences of meditation can be very helpful.

As I say, meditation can help, but it doesn't automatically solve everything.  Last week I did a guided meditation in the morning before work.  I set it to be a 10 minute session, but it ran for 20 minutes without me realising, and that meant I was late for work.

There is nothing more ironic than suffering road rage as you race in to work knowing that it's meditation that has caused you to be so stressed in the first place!

Of course, I haven't let that put me off.

My diet and "Eat to Live Forever"

GIllian McKeith next to a cracking buffet.

The idea of wanting to live forever is pretty horrific.  Carrying on in to your hundreds whilst everyone you've ever cared about has already passed away.  As with the Tom Hanks character in 'The Green Mile', it would feel like a punishment (even if you did have an immortal pet mouse to keep you company).

In his documentary aired last week, "Eat to Live Forever", food critic Giles Coren found plenty of people whose very aim was this.  If not live forever exactly, a desire to live until at least 150.  A very old age, no doubt, but certainly not one that would make as catchy a title.

In his quest to find entertaining television weirdos he of course heads to America.  I've always found there to be quite enough weirdos in the UK myself, so I'm not sure why documentaries always have to head across the pond to find them.

Maybe this is something UKIP could take up as a cause.  Nigel Farage being interviewed saying "this is a waste of license fee payers money travelling to find strange foreigners.  What we say is British nutters for British TV shows!  I suggest that if the BBC are struggling to find any unhinged lunatics, they should just come down to our next party conference".

In America the first people Giles meets are Paul McGlouthin and his wife, of the CR Way (a.k.a. the calorie restriction way).  They believe that to live a long and healthy life the secret is to eat a calorie restricted diet.  The average man is recommended to eat 2500 calories a day, but they say it should be 1800 instead.

This is not an idea that is new to me.  Many started to understand this concept following another documentary on the BBC back in 2012 - "Horizon: Eat, Fast and Live Longer".

Presented by Dr Michael Mosley, this documentary looked at the health benefits of fasting.  What attracted me to the findings of this program was that everything discussed was done through a scientific process.  This wasn't just hearsay.  It was this documentary that really launched the concept of the 5:2 diet.

To give you an idea of my own dieting, I started making a conscious effort to look after myself around 5 years.  Following my partner at the time I started doing Slimming World.

To boil it down to it's basics, the concept behind Slimming World was that you have 'free food' (lean meats, pasta, rice, legumes, etc) and 'super free food' (most fruit and veg).  You had to aim to have at least one third 'super free food' to two thirds of the 'free food'.

The key to this was that there was no weighing or points counting, you basically ate as much as you wanted until you felt genuinely full.  If you ate within these limits you could eat as much as you wanted and you would lose weight.  The group 'weigh-in' session I went to each week showed that this was genuinely true.

Not to say it was easy of course.  All the naughty food, like chocolate and booze, was given a 'syn' rating.  You could only have up to 10 syns a day.  Or, like me, you could save them up over the week, then on the weekend do a murder.

Seriously, after no biscuits for a week you would be ready to stab someone, so that's barely even a joke.

I must say though, this diet did work well for me.  Over about 6 months I ended up slowly managing to lose about one stone in weight.

But then I watched the Michael Mosley program and discovered the 5:2 diet.  The concept is simple.  On 5 days in the week you eat normally, and on 2 days in the week you can only consume 600 calories (500 for women).

Having never been a dieter that counted calories, it took me a bit of effort to work out what I could eat that would fit in to these limits.  After a process of weighing foods and using MyFitnessPal to check on calorie levels, this became my meals on a fast day:

Skip breakfast

Lunch - A tin of Mackeral in tomato sauce with spinach leaves

Dinner - fillet of cod with steamed brocolli and cauliflower

What I discovered was that with using veg you could have quite a plateful within the calorie limits.  Other than that I was having fish so I had a source of low cal protein, as protein tends to fill you up more.

It seems that for everyone who does this diet they have different good and bad points for them personally.  For me, the bad points were a lack of energy in the afternoon, and, I'm reliably informed by my girlfriend, a tendency to be a little snappy in the evening.  No surprise there, I am literally starving!

Another problem was dehydration.  I would drink plenty of fluid and feel fine throughout the day in that sense.  At night though, I would either end up having to get up in the middle of the night at least once for the toilet because of how much I had drunk, or if I stopped drinking long enough before bed time, I would end up feeling really dehydrated in the night.

It was like my body wasn't able to keep hold of the water like it would normally.  Again, I'm sure that's part of the starvation process.

The point of the diet though was mainly in the overall health benefits.  When Dr Micheal Mosley did it he found he went from being overweight and bordering on diabetic with very high cholesterol to having very good blood levels and losing weight.

The weight loss is the by product of fasting rather than the point really, although without doubt this is why most people give it a go.

In terms of my own health, a recent blood test showed that my cholesterol was 2.9 - very good.

Also, combining the 5:2 intermittent fasting along with my normal diet conscious of the Slimming World ethos and regular exercise meant that in total I went on to lose 2 and a half stone in weight.  I went from being overweight at over 15 stone to going down to 12.5 stone.

So, with everything combined, I've done pretty well.  I don't want to live forever, but hey, I want to have a good go at it and not be ill or in excessive pain whilst I'm at it.

Spot the odd one out

Back to the documentary and Giles Coren is on his calorie controlled diet.  One thing you notice about Paul McGlouthin and his associates from the 'CR Way' is that, frankly, they don't really look healthy.  Unsurprisingly, they are pretty skinny.

At one point McGlouthin congratulates Giles Coren on how good his skin looks, a way of saying how well the calorie restricted diet is working for him.  All you can think while he says this though is 'well, Giles might look well, but your skin looks awful!'  And it really did, unfortunately.

Writing them off as nutters isn't really fair, lets just say they are a little eccentric and a bit overpowering in their interpersonal skills (well, he was anyway, not so sure about his wife...).

Giles went to visit various other groups, including fruitarians (or just 'Fruits', really) and a Doctor who promotes the idea of 'faecal transplants', which involves squirting a healthy persons poop up your own backside to get all the good bacteria from it.  It looks like there might be something in that, but hey, maybe not for me quite yet.

What did look interesting though was the 'paleo' lifestyle.  The paleo diet is essentially a caveman diet.  You only eat what a caveman might have done.  So that means no cultivated food such as those containing flour or oats, and instead eating meat, fish, fruit and veg.  Anything processed is out, including sugar.

So this means no sweet snacks at all, no sugar in drinks, etc.  The main thing really, is no carbs (so no pasta, rice or bread).  That's the tricky part.

Yes, in the documentary the paleo community do come across as something of a cult, even with their own 'Jesus' leader figure.  The fact that you can call people linked only by a diet a 'community' seems extreme enough in itself.

Also, a drawback is that there seems to be very little science in understanding the true benefits or flaws of the paleo diet.  If I had one major criticism of Coren's documentary it's that the whole thing is a bit 'science lite'.

Yes, he has a Harley Street Doctor on call to discuss each diet, but she is only able to give the conventional scientific response.  As we know of the fasting diets, conventional medical advice would be to definitely avoid fasting, but the science definitely backs it up.

All this said though, I am attracted to the paleo diet.  The main reason was seeing so many people talking about how fit and healthy they feel.  Full of energy throughout the day, no problems sleeping, looking great and burning fat.  Even with looking online I have struggled to see evidence from people who have tried it and suffered.

But still, the Science is not conclusive.

What I have decided to do then is give the full paleo diet a go for a full month, to see how it effects me.  My bloods are already very good and I could have them tested again after the month has passed.

I'm even considering setting up a new blog to keep a diary of how I get on.  If you have any thoughts on this, please let me know.






EDIT - Well, I have indeed decided to try going paleo for a month.  My first day was today and I've set up a dedicated blog so I can keep a diary of how I get on, which you can find here - paleochallenge30days.blogspot.co.uk

Nigel Farage and Jeremy Clarkson - 'Common assault' not 'common sense'

Right wing populists are rarely out of the news in Britain, but this week has been dominated by them much more than usual.

On one hand you have UKIP party leader Nigel Farage getting in to trouble for essentially calling for equality legislation to be scrapped in an interview

Whilst at the same time Jeremy Clarkson has been suspended for allegedly punching his producer on Top Gear.  For both of them the same pattern has emerged - those who like them will defend them to the teeth, those that dislike them call for their heads.

I know that sounds obvious, but it's still irritating.  As a Socialist I'm far on the left, so you can guess my opinion on Farage and Clarkson - I'm not exactly a fan.

But you soon realise that when you espouse an opinion about either of them that mocks them you are only playing to the choir, you will only have people respond who completely agree with you already.  It seems impossible to actually effect, let alone change, anyone's opinion on these two.

Same thing the other way round.  Clarkson has been accused of punching a colleague at work.  As such he has been suspended following an investigation.  Because of the suspension the BBC are considering cancelling the rest of the current series of Top Gear as he wouldn't be available to film and, frankly, it would be weird to just go ahead without him.

So far, so clear.  I think we all know that if you're accused of assaulting a colleague at work you will be, at best, suspended as the allegation is investigated.

And yet there is a (currently) 600,000 signatures strong petition calling for Jeremy Clarkson to be immediately reinstated.  WHAT??

There are many arguments that can made to suggest that Jeremy Clarkson shouldn't be on TV.  He has a rich history of controversy already.  But all that to one side for now, as it stands at this time, he has been accused of punching a colleague at work and so has been suspended.

WHAT IS THERE TO ARGUE AGAINST?  Without making comment about his guilt or otherwise, how can anyone argue against him being suspended?

And yet, here we are, with a petition signed by over 600,000 people who have decided, with no need for any form of evidence whatsoever, that Jeremy Clarkson should just be reinstated.  The reason why?  Because they think it is all a conspiracy.

Right wing blogger Guido Fawkes started the petition, and wrote in The Sun on Thursday explaining why.  Now, someone like Guido Fawkes is very hard to satirise because his language is so absurdly reactionary that he himself appear to be an ironic joke.  But he's not, he's very real.  To give you an example, he said he loved Clarkson for all the reasons:

"...a bunch of Left-wing pinkos at the BBC have been out to get him for ages"

Seriously, "left-wing pinkos"?  What is this, 1950's America?  McCarthyism on the march once again?  What a bizarrely archaic term.  But then this comes from the same lexicon in which Tory Ministers also pluck the term "pleb" from (allegedly/probably), so maybe not that surprising.

The BBC Trust meet to discuss Clarkson, yesterday

The point is they think Clarkson is subject to a conspiracy where the liberal-lefties at the BBC are out to get him.

Top Gear, in it's current form after being revamped in 2002, has been a massive success for the BBC.  The programme is estimated to have around 350 million views per week in 170 different countries.  Do we really believe that the BBC would want to kill off this cash cow?

Of course not.  Yes, Clarkson can cause them all manor of headaches, but the figures speak for themselves.

I suppose the reason they might have suspended him, and I don't know if I've mentioned this, is because he is accused of punching a colleague whilst at work!!

Meanwhile on the other side of the green in this village made up entirely of idiots lives Nigel Farage.  A man who is pure Marmite, both because he divides opinion but also because he is the by-product left over from a process, in this case mainstream politicians stoking up racism and anti-immigrant sentiments.

In an interview that has just come out with Trevor Phillips, the former head of the Equality and Human Rights Commission, Farage was questioned on his views regarding the existing Equalities legislation.  His response:

"I would argue that the law does need changing, and that if an employer wishes to chose, or you can use the word 'discriminate' if you want to, but wishes to chose to employ a British-born person, they should be allowed to do so.  I think you should be able to chose on the basis of nationality, yes.  I do."

So he suggests that discrimination in employment should be allowed.  Unsurprisingly, there are many who didn't take well the suggestion of rolling back legislation that we have had in place in one form or another since 1965.

Sadique Khan, Labour's shadow justice secretary, said:

"when my parents moved to London they frequently saw signs saying 'no blacks, no dogs, no irish' and what UKIP is suggesting would take us back to those days"

The bizarre thing is, that since the contents of the interview became public causing Nigel Farage to do some backtracking, he and others in UKIP have presented data in interviews that are indeed sympathetic to those suffering from racism.

One UKIP candidate interviewed on the radio gave the statistics about how much harder it was for young black men to find employment than young white men, but still went on to say that the equalities legislation was unnecessary because "people can just use common sense instead".

In practice they're saying is "we know that racism exists, but we think the best thing to do is just get rid of the legislation designed to stop it".

Now, I tried to find the exact details of that radio interview I heard, but it's impossible to find.  Trying to goggle phrases like 'UKIP candidate defends Farage' throws up so many stories from soooooooooooooooooo many gaffes, it is impossible to wade through.

I might as well have goggled 'pieces of hay that look like needles'.

But again, there are so many that will jump to his defence even though the position seems indefensible, and they will say it's 'common sense' whilst they do it.  That's the most egotistical thing of the populist right.  I can argue my politics quite vigorously, but I still realise that I am putting across a certain political point of view.

They believe that they are not merely arguing a position, but that what they say is what 'everyone is thinking'... it's common sense.  How egotistical is that?

When asked about his views after that interview Nigel Farage said that UKIP as a party was 'colour blind'.  As they are still arguing that jobs shouldn't go to foreigners, can we call that 'blind prejudice'?

At least he doesn't wear jeans and a jacket...

As a caveat to this piece I suppose I should point out that Nigel Farage has not himself signed the petition to reinstate Jeremy Clarkson.  When asked about it he said:

"It seems to me that as boss of Ukip, if I punched one of our press office – it’s tempting at times, I have to say – but I’d be in very, very hot water indeed and I would without doubt be suspended for a period of time pending a disciplinary hearing.

So I think people signing up online saying Clarkson should be re-employed are doing so really without any knowledge of what went on or whether there’s any history there, so as far as I’m concerned the jury’s out, but I’m not going to worry too much for Jeremy Clarkson."

So to everyone who has signed the petition calling for Jeremy Clarkson to be reinstated, you are potentially being more reactionary then Nigel Farage.  That should be a sobering thought for you, but I don't suppose it is unfortunately.

Book review and podcast

Hi folks

I haven't had the time to write a full blog this week, but here are a couple of things that I've been up to instead.

First up is a podcast I was a guest on called 'The Cock Inn'.  A mix between a topical comedy panel show and a pub quiz, we discussed 'that' dress, plucky woodpeckers and the pitfalls of being santa.  You can listen at:

https://www.mixcloud.com/TheCockInn/the-cock-inn-episode-6/

You can also find it on iTunes.

Also, I provided a review of 'Jebel Marra' by Michelle Green for the latest online edition of Now Then magazine, which is an arts and culture magazine for the Manchester area.  Don't worry if you don't live in Manchester though, because the book is collection of short stories set in Darfur during the civil.

And yes, it is a right laugh!

Ok... clearly not.  But I did like it.  You can read my review at:

http://nowthenmagazine.com/manchester/issue-17/books/

That's all from me for now, I'll have a new blog at the end of the week.  Thanks for reading.