Clarinet today April 12th 2012

The purpose of these videos will be to chart my progress and persuade myself that I'm improving and perhaps encourage others that learning an instrument is fun.

Interviews with people in Ulverston

There are about 10 - 15 interviews with interesting people who work in the town, to be found on this blog.

Look here http://geoffdellow.blogspot.co.uk/search/label/interview

These are found by clicking on interview on the word 'cloud' below on the right

Shooting for the stars!

And why not.

Keeps me busy!

Just had a good 40 min practice and aim to have another later. Some way to go yet!

!
Let's see where we get to after another 2,000 minutes - say three months!

And now ten minutes of bliss

Can you ever think of the Euro surviving when you have people like this who have found better things to do than slave for money!

The Euro is a nonesense, only dreamt up by the powerful. Long live those that enjoy this kind of thing even if it means living on next to nothing and eating bread wine and cheese!

Hoorah

The nomination date for the upcoming local elections has now passed - it was mid-day last Wednesday -  and no one asked me to stand as an independent.

Had they done so I would have felt duty bound to stand.

Thankfully, no one did, so I have been let off the hook.

I really hope that there are some independents amongst the candidates. They are the ones that will get my votes even though I am a member of the Green Party.

The candidates for the District Council are annonced on the SLDC web site but  as yet, not those for the Ulverston District Council 

Sadly there are no truly independent candidates for any of our six wards - so it would appear we have non- business as usual. This is in contrast with other parts of the country were it can be rare to have candidates that are not independents. This demonstrates just how uninvolved local people are in their own affairs.

What we have got is one candidate from each of the four parties - Labour, Conservative, Liberal and Greens for each ward with one United Independent Party - not independent at all.

I will give serious thought as to whether I will vote for the Green Party candidates for my ward. Sadly in the past I have not been impressed as in my view they are motivated by wanting to represent the Green Party rather than to get involved with dealing with local problems of which I have found they have scant knowledge. What I will try to assess which candidate really has the interests of the town at heart.

How can you tell? At this stage, I can trust each candidate will try to bluff their way past the electoral finishing post - God help us!

My bid question will be :

Are there any voters that even care enough to vote?

I look forward to asking them what indeed the candidates stand for on some of our immediate problems.

And then decide if they make any sense.

Has anyone (sensible) suggestions as to what questions we should be asking the candidates?

People watching

If you enjoy sitting watching, observing and reflecting, you'll enjoy this:

Amsterdam

Filmed and created by "Sim" a friend of a friend of a friend of a friend of a friend called Geoff

What I love about this video is: -

The filming from pigeon level.

Some of the panning shots - from Flags to the street below

Some of the contrasts - respectable Burgher to "porno star" - this appeals to my French background - like nuns taking a peek at stripped down hunks of healthy young men

I love the 'feel' of Amsterdam where I get the impression they are far more accepting of people as they really are - such a contrast to the prudish 'Mary Whitehouse' image of the English - something that has echos in my mind of the attitude I met when I went to work here in Ulverston at Church Walk School - "we don't allow that kind of behaviour here" referring to boys playing in a lively manner in the playground. And the message "we know what is best and you'd better conform"referring to my telling a teacher there that I didn't want the children to be 'rescued' but to develop confidence in themselves by 'doing their own thing'. This is the kind of attitude that leads to access to Youtube being banned in most schools - I digress!

The quick spontaneous filming; capturing things of interest as the tram stops.

Well done 'Sim' keep it up. You're encouraging me to put together a video from my filming last time I was in Paris when I was fascinated by 'watching' (and filming) what was going around me 'peoplewise' (what a lovely horrible expression!)

Wise sayings from Jack

I think this one is great - I remember being criticised by my son when he was eighteen and saying to him "I'm only a big kid myself and struggling hard to grow up"

This is at the heart of my disagreement with a few people who give the world the impression that they have reached 'maturity'.

When for God's sake does that ever happen. How boring if it ever did.

Do we all need to wear hat's with the label "Immature big kid" please treate accordingly.

Isn't great to have parts of your personality to refine and develop? Here the opportunity to get close to others and learn from them is so rewarding. Sadly some people become too hurt to take the risk, they live like snails, rarely popping their heads out. How sad that they have been hurt so deeply. They need time to develop trust that situations/people, where it is safe to expose oneself, really do exist.

Random Acts of Kindness

When you're feeling low:

Thank God there are so many people about with a twinkle in their eyes, a sense of mischief and a sense of humour.

Thank You :-

For all the wonderful emails I've received recently, the people I've met in the train who've shared a little of their personal lives, for the neighbour willing to lend me precious tools, the lots of genuine smiles from people of all ages that I meet in the street, the fun I have with families passing my door, the person who offered me a lozenge as I passed them when I had one of my coughing fits in the street, the person that I don't know who called out "Hi Geoff" as I passed their garden,  for the baby who stroked my beard and gave me a grin, Peter who brought me a birthday present of four hen eggs and two beautiful turquoise duck eggs, for another neighbour who works with me for four hours to recover wood because of one of my madcap ideas, the person that is going through a very tough patch who phoned to check how I was, for the lovely sun that shone in my face as I sat back against the fence in the allotment feeling decidedly unwell, for the person who broke into their morning activity to come and fetch me home in the car because I didn't feel I could manage the journey back home on my own.

I love all these "Random Acts of Kindness" - makes up for the very very few situations that sap your spirit.

Isn't it great living in a town full of such friendly people!

School assignment

“When I was 5 years old, my mother always told me that happiness was the key to life. When I went to school, they asked me what I wanted to be when I grew up. I wrote down ‘happy’. They told me I didn’t understand the assignment, and I told them they didn’t understand life.”
― John Lennon

Passed on by Happy Jack - who else?

Materials for making Flags

We're back from Bradford were we bought some lovely materials. If you want to get involved let us know.

Just the way you are

Dedicated to . . . .