This Is The Way We Play The Caixa

You know, it's weird how a person, a place, or an experience you don't think anything of at the time can evolve to become the inspiration to pen (or type) a poem.

Recently, I have started going to a drumming/percussion workshop on a Sunday evening put on by the London School of Samba (although ironically I'm not going to tonights as I have man flu). I don't attend the dance or costume making things as I'm not into that (two left feet, only wear jeans). I've only been to the drumming one three or four times so far, but I've really enjoyed the atmosphere created when a room full of people come together to make some (organised!) noise under the instruction of the "conductor" called Fred (I believe there's another one as well who conducts but it's always been Fred by chance on the weeks I have been).

This Is The Way We Play The Caixa

Brigadier General Fred takes his place,
Standing high above his troops,

"Today soldiers, we go forth to face our enemy,
Be ferocious in battle, but magnanimous in victory,

Tame the beast, make friends with it,
Its name - The Samba. Now let us commence",

Our army's name: The Bateria,
Our weapons are cleaned and ready for use,

The order to move up is issued by our commander,
"Standby, standby, GO!",

The engines of the Surdos roar into action,
As intimidating as any tank should be,

Following on in their masses - the Caixas,
The ever-present loyal and skilled infantrymen,

Bolstering the Caixas are the Repiniques,
Specialised in both weapon and hand-to-hand combat,

Supporting these forces, the Tamborims,
Diligent and competent engineers,

Combining their strengths are the Agogos and Chocalhos,
This signals corp defines our regimental march,

Our strengths are numerous,
We hold the ground,

Chanting the spirit of,
Dagga dagga da boom bang!

(I'm not in any of these ones by the way, but gives you an idea of things!)

Atom Spotting - Getting to Know the World Around You

I am fortunate to work for a company which believes strongly in employee well-being. A happy employee is a creative employee right? Moreover, a happy person is a creative person both at and outside of the workplace.

Our dear leader, and all-round "Jolly Good Fellow" who for the purposes of this blog shall be referred to as Kim Meng-il (although our Meng is popular and would never be so roanree - warning: video contains a naughty word!) has encouraged the holders of thousands of curious minds to continue to develop their curiosity and step into a world which will hopefully, over time will increase their general levels of happiness.

I highly endorse taking some of your time to read his blog Mengstupiditis and just see what you think.

Through the practice of a technique known as Mindfulness, the idea is to both relax (through breathing) and also get to know (through a deep awareness) someone very important - yourself. I like to think of it as "How can we even begin to understand the world around us if we do not take the time to first know ourselves?"

As far as I know, there are no official "stages" of experience or knowledge, but if there are, then I'm still very much at stage 1 (maybe 1.5 if I get extra points by blogging about it? I think so!). I just find it an interesting concept and one to play with as and when just to see what grows if I plant the seeds. My personal interest in it is to see if it can help reduce levels of anxiety that I experience (I call this "tortured genius syndrome" ;))

I've always been a bit of a curious chappy. I like to let my mind wander and see how many of the synaptic gaps I can bridge before I leave this planet. So, leading on from the mindful approach to life, I have come up with my own way to practice this -- Atom Spotting. I haven't really practiced it much, and maybe it will not prove to be useful. I suppose only time will tell!

If you can have train spotters hanging around alongside train tracks, or plane spotters gathering at an airport, then why can't you have people who spot atoms? That is to say that when you go about your daily business, why not look for everything? An example might be walking down the street, minding your own business. But, what if you played "atom spotting" and looked for everything? The clothes people are wearing, what logos are on the clothes, what they are made of, the shades of colour, the fibres of the particular fabric used to make that piece of clothing? Apply this to everything around you (vehicle detail, the fonts on sign posts right down to the small indentations on the pavements on which millions of people have walked) you essentially begin to live the saying "God is in the detail".

So, see how many atoms you can spot. I'm going to give it a go!

The Downsides of Living Within One Mile of The Houses of Parliament (perhaps!)

Warning Spoiler Alert: (if you haven't seen the first episode in series 9 of Spooks)

So you know when you're watching TV and you get a little too into it? That doesn't happen to me often, but last night, rather humoursly it did.

I was watching the first episode of series 9 of Spooks -- what is perhaps the BBC's finest show.

Cutting a long story short. Terrorists get hold of some explosives and plan to send them crashing into the Houses of Parliament. Only way to stop this from happening is to use the last resort which - detonate an EMP to disable the bombs. The downside - it'd knock out anything containing a microchip within a 1 mile radius.

The bombs (contained in small submersibles) are making their way up the Thames. There is no time to stop them. The decision is made. The EMP must be detonated to prevent the destruction of the Houses of Parliament.

As I mention, I had a got a little too into the episode, and.....see thing is, is that I live comfortably within the 1 mile radius of the Houses of Parliament. For a brief second, I was watching the episode as if it was real time waiting, the tension building inside me as I waited for my internet connection to go off. Thankfully it didn't ;)

I did enjoy this random person's tweet on the subject though. Very funny!

Anyway that's all. Congratulations to the BBC for another great episode. Also thanks that this wasn't real and my internet connection was unaffected so I could still look at porn opportunities to volunteer.

Dear Boris, I have A Suggestion For The Olympics

Dear Boris,

Please please please please can we have "Knifey-spooney" in the London 2012 Olympics?

Yours sincerely,
Phil

P.S. I have also written to Jim'll Fix It

So You Think You Can Dance?

This may well explain a lot about me! And apparently I'm going to die young without having children. Fortunately this is scientific research, so if I wait a couple of days, something will come along to contradict this and suggest I will live a long happy life with a wife, kids and associated picket fence.

Interesting article from the BBC about different dances moves that make men appealing to women.

I'm with Joey on this one -- see video below.

"Scientists say they've carried out the first rigorous analysis of dance moves that make men attractive to women".

"The researchers say that movements associated with good dancing may be indicative of good health and reproductive potential."

"Movements that went down terribly were twitchy and repetitive - so called "Dad dancing." "
-- Source: BBC News

Ministry of Creative Solutions

Why isn't there a Ministry of Creative Solutions? I think there should be!

There are all kinds of government departments/ministries, the Ministry of Defence, the Ministry of Justice, and the Department for Education to name just a few.

When given the opportunity, us humans can be incredibly creative. Think of some of the things we have invented? Airplanes, cars, telephones, the internet, electricity, penicillin and dishwashers. When we spend a moment to step away from criticising all the horrible things humans have done/are doing (of which I agree are numerous) but instead focus on all our wondrous accomplishments, you will find a plethora of evidence proves our creativity.

So I believe strongly that more time should be given over to "creative solutions" (see Google 20% time as an example).

Creating a new government department is easier than you may think. Just look at the Ministry of Silly Walks as an example ;)

Therefore, I introduce to you the "Ministry of Creative Solutions", or MCS (using abbreviations - that's another creative solution!). Hotly off the heals of the (albeit satirical) ramblingsfromakitkat election manifesto earlier this year, this new department in the world of Phil shall have the brief of;

"seeking to channel creative solutions to solving problems (both big and small problems) in order to bring about a cost effective and efficient resolution."
I first got thinking about this the other day when watching a clip of the BBC comedy show Mock The Week. The contestants had to come up with suggestions for "Commercials that never aired" (warning: contains adult humour)

One of the comedians (relating to the BP Deepwater Horizon spill) had this pearl of wisdom at 1.45;

"Have you got long dry hair? Could we stuff it down an oil well?"
Perfect! This is creative thinking....true creative thinking where it's OK to be outside the box. Makes you wonder, what if the MCS (remember, that's Ministry of Creative Solutions) had been able to reach out to all hairdressers and ask them to collect all hair left on the floor, bagged it up for the MCS's collection staff? Could this have helped? Well, in this case I don't know. But having a department which could look into these things and know it can act when it can produce something effective would be wonderful in my view!

I wonder what other examples you can come up with to offer to MCS? All ideas (remember they must be thought through so they fit in with the mission) are welcome, and indeed encouraged. Be an ambassador for creative solutions!