Scour the news for an entirely uninteresting story. Consider how it connects to your life. Write about that.
The story I have chosen is
I saw the story yesterday and thought what a pointless item of ‘news’ it was. Man eats ice cream with his family having starred in a series of films 20 years ago! What have we come to if this is news? Then I thought about it and realised how much certain actors and musicians and sports stars have become part of my life over the years. If I had been there I wouldn’t have got a selfie but I would definitely have taken a picture and it got me thinking about one of my all consuming hobbies.
When I was a kid I used to write off for signed photos. I restarted the hobby when I became a house husband for a few years and before I knew it, I had a large collection of signed photos from TV, film, sports and music. Every time a new photo arrived in the post I was absolutely over the moon. The photos were left in bags and envelopes for ages until I got a couple of scrapbooks for Christmas a few years ago. Now, most of them are in the book, and it has encouraged me to start again when my current full time job comes to an end.
Who are my favourites? Well, the personalised signed photos from a few stars stick in my head. In no particular order of importance I have Jack Nicklaus, Dick Van Dyke, Alan Alda, David Tennant and my first ever celebrity signed photo from 1970s and 80s TV presenter and singer Isla St Clair. I have many more and apart from restarting the hobby soon I will be blogging about it. So watch this space!
It’s quite amazing that a small photograph with a signature can bring so much pleasure but it does. The story isn’t as uninteresting as I first thought as it has encouraged me to revisit a hobby that has given me huge pleasure over the years.
List 30 things that make you happy.
When I first saw this prompt I thought I might skip it because I think of lists as good when you are going shopping or planning for Christmas, but otherwise far too superficial for something like this.
Then I realised that the answer was to point you towards this blog and the many posts contained within it. So, here are links to 30 of my favourite posts. Also, at the top of the page is a link to another 11 so that makes 41 in total! If you have read this far, please choose at least one and give it a go. My aim is for at least one person to read each of these posts. Nothing would make me happier today!
Posts to Read
10 Songs That Changed Me Song 1
Back in the Land of the Hearing
The A to Z of My Singles Collection Part 1
Revisiting Christmas 1974 Re-Play
Reflections of an ageing gig goer! 2
The Sound of Being Human by Jude Rogers
The Wonder Years Season 1 Re-View
The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe Re-view
Re-Play Melody Original Soundtrack
The List of Suspicious Things by Jennie Godfrey
What Are You Doing Here? by Baroness Floella Benjamin
Re-Play 24 Original Hits by The Drifters
Four decades on … my (brief) RAF career
The Nutcracker from the English National Ballet Coliseum, London January 2, 2024 Review
Some Like It Cold by Elle McNicoll
The Christmas Wish by Lindsey Kelk
The ‘A Girl’ trilogy by Jessica Taylor-Bearman Book Reviews
Time Shelter by Georgi Gospodinov (Translation by Angela Rodel)
Describe one habit that brings you joy.
I am going to perhaps surprise a few people on here with my reflection on the central premise of this prompt. It is in its own small way emblematic of the way that our language has been steadily reduced in effectiveness and meaning over the last couple of decades. George Orwell saw this in 1948 when he reversed the digits of the year and created the dystopia of 1984. If you control the language you control the people.
Joy is derived from the Latin word rejoice, and in current parlance means a feeling of great happiness or pleasure. How can something you do every day be a source of joy if either of the previous two definitions are our starting point? A habit can bring, contentment, it can bring a feeling of security, it can bring quiet pleasure, but it cannot bring a feeling of joy. Our language has become a diet of extremes. We are told that everything is the best, the worst, the most important, the most amazing, unlike anything else. It’s exhausting! We need to get back to the days where simplicity and subtlety were valued, where people carried on quiet contented lives that fulfilled their needs. Instead, we are told to seek emotional highs at all times and not be satisfied with a level headed approach to life. I am just as susceptible to this emotional arms race as everyone else, pouring over social media, news, apps etc looking for my next hit of dopamine. By constantly chasing those extremes we are far more controllable by those in power who can manipulate us with joy, anger, fear and hope, all of the cheapened emotions to which we are prey.
So, take comfort in your habits, take pleasure in them, but do not try to take joy. Be happy with moderation and ignore those trying to tell you to reach for the extremes.
What are you curious about?
I am curious about the future. Isn’t everyone? It’s a bit of a dull answer on the surface, but bear with me.
For the last few years, probably since the pandemic, I have been looking no further than the next week or so. Maybe some of you know the feeling. You are so caught up with the rat race that pretty much all you can do is look to the weekend and hope you can get a decent rest. I stopped being curious about anything other than my payslip at the end of the month. All the interests I had before just dropped away and just surviving until the next break was the focus.
Then, I decided to resign from my job and finish full time year round teaching. Almost immediately I became enthusiastic about projects that had been mothballed, education that had been forgotten about and places I had never visited but always wanted to. My curiosity about what I was capable of returned, after a few years of being employed in a job where no one in management cared what I was capable of and I was so tired that I stopped caring.
I have a new lease of life and for however long I can I will keep my curiosity for the future.
Write about a random act of kindness you’ve done for someone.
Another tricky one today until I decided to flick through my memory bank. When I was in the Cub Scouts in the early to mid 70s we had a week called Bob a Job. The phrase came from the slang for a shilling which was a ‘bob’ of which there were 20 in a pound. As Cub Scouts we would go to people’s houses in uniform, knock on the door and say, ‘Bob a job?’ and, if they had a job they wanted doing they would pay us 5 pence, or more if they were feeling generous, and we would do the job. It would usually be something in the garden but occasionally it was washing the car or doing something in the house.
Looking back, it was truly a good deed, because all of the money went to the Cub Pack we were so proud of and we got nothing tangible out of it, other than the feeling of having done something worthwhile which was actually really fulfilling. From those days onwards I have done something good without expectation or hesitation, and I believe that it was those times as a Cub that gave me that mindset.
Bob a Job was the butt of many jokes from those outside the Scout movement but it was truly decent in its intention and execution. Those days are gone with our focus on safety issues but it’s a shame in many ways. We need the principle if not the practice back in our societies across the world more than ever in this selfish world we live in.
David Pearce - Popular Culture and Personal Passions 