February 2012
1 post
The minute we expect things in return from people,... →
I found this paper on Karpman’s drama triangle incredibly provocative. I wanted to share it as it gave me so much food for thought. Transcending the inter-play of three damaging forces - those of the victim, rescuer and persecuter - means that there can be no excuses, no blame, no externalising of our issues. Instead it demands that we take total personal responsibility. To do this we...
October 2011
1 post
The neuroscience of happiness
Since I’ve started to realise the benefits of Buddhist practice, and have studied a little biological psychology, I’ve been on the look out to how spiritualism and science can talk to each other and shed light on each others underlying theories. It was therefore with delight that, during some idle internet research, I happened upon ‘Buddha’s Brain: The Practical...
September 2011
1 post
Late night musings 2 - The nature of commitment
On a night out at The Old Red Lion in Kennington with my friend Mike, the evening’s conversation turned to commitment. What does committing to things in your life bring to you? Why is it important?
Commitment can invoke dread. If you’re committed to something, you can feel shackled by it. “If I don’t succeed, I’ve failed.” Public commitment has the danger of leading to public shame. The...
August 2011
1 post
Late Night Musings - Happiness Post 1
Having a husband that mainly works the night shift leads to many late night musings. I adore the peace of late night, the slight feeling of naughtiness that you’re awake when you probably shouldn’t be. There’s school the next day you know.
Many of my posts from this point on will probably be on the nature of happiness, like a little happiness series. Late night makes me...
March 2011
8 posts
Spiderman in a Minute →
Class divide
Americans ask me a lot about the class system. ‘You guys know your place, yes?’. For some reason this gets me defensive - surely we’re not so rigid anymore? Getting back on the tube last night, I picked up the Evening Standard - a free paper given out to mass transit commuters. Two comment pieces caught my eye, confirming our obsession with the social elite. First up, Nick...
“Men who treat women as helpless and charming playthings deserve women who treat...”
– Anonymous
Dealing with difficult people
Sometimes you meet people who are relentlessly negative. They do down others’ achievements. They are bitter and insulting, even to their own family. They revel in being rude and obnoxious to other people, hoping they’ll feel better about themselves in the meantime. This never works - and they are the only ones who can’t see it. They wonder endlessly why they have no friends or...
Take 1 minute to email your MP about this travesty →
“Tomorrow I defend chlamydia”
– Zoe Anastassiou
Three Sisters
Last time I was at Classic Stage, I saw Uncle Vanya with Maggie Gyllenhaal and Peter Sarsgaard. Maggie was good, Peter was not. Last time I saw Juliet Rylance in New York, was in Othello by Theatre for a New Audience. She seemed to be acting in a different play to everyone else. So it was with some trepidation that I sat down for the critical love-fest that is Three Sisters starring Maggie,...
OK, OK, this is why
1) The cast. Josh Gad is insanely good: a lumbering oaf with the best of intentions but the worst of ideas, his first act closer raised the roof. Paired with Ken-doll lookalike Andrew Rannells, the effect is delicious - a man so plastic perfect, he’s barely human, but brimful of preppy charm. Rory O’Malley as head mormon is just superb.
2) The subject matter. They had the audience...
February 2011
10 posts
Book of Mormon
The single greatest musical in the history of Broadway. Still speechless 3 hours later.
Beautiful Burnout
The press night of BB at St Ann’s Warehouse and the atmosphere was buzzing. Steven Hoggett and co rocking it again. Particularly enjoyed the reference to Eastenders which left the Americans completely nonplussed. I asked the 50 year old woman next to me what had tempted her to book and she replied ‘because I’m a boxer, and so is my husband”. Tough crowd. Literally.
“When the communication stops, that’s when the hummous starts flying.”
– Carl Petts
“New York is like the craziest lover you could imagine. The moment you’re...”
– Allison Troup-Jensen
Bottomed out
A horrible day. Thank you to Allison for Masala Chai tea and inspiring words and Bianca for crab bisque and introducing me to the wonderment that is Audrey Hepburn in Sabrina.
American Idiot
To American Idiot. Completely blown away by the energy of the cast and the ecstatic reaction of the audience. Watching Billy Joe Armstrong own the stage, wheeling about like a drunken uncle at a Christmas party, eyes a-goggle, was something else. The man oozes so much charisma, I was surprised that the rest of the cast didn’t fall over in the slick. And an encore of the ultimate teenage...
Taking stock
How do we know that we’ve achieved anything? Because we have an acutely calibrated internal system of weights and measures based on societal expectations. I got to work on time. Tick. I finished a big project. Tick. I threw a friend and surprise birthday party. Tick. But the quality of the achievement can easily be diluted. A colleague gets to work half an hour earlier. The project i...
Quitting work
Most people spend a very long time wondering about what it would be like to quit full-time work. Just stop it. Down tools and run off around the world. I can tell you now, it’s strange. It’s both freeing and anti-climactic. Why? Well, you’re the anomaly. You’re the one that can roam the streets at strange times of night, go to the gym at the off-peak hours, get the...
“His lack of education is more than compensated for by his keenly developed moral...”
– Woody Allen
A bit like London
When you take an 8 hour flight, you sort of expect the place you arrived at to be somewhat different to the place you exited. So here I am, in a Lower East Side apartment, listening to the rain thunder down, having just finished off last night’s home-made curry, and about to try and hack into BBC iPlayer.