Internet naif that I am, I was beginning to think more than some people liked this blog.

I have been getting quite a few posts like this one… ‘

‘WoW!!! I am speechless… you ROCK. I hope this goes far and wide, you deserve it.’

I am not so conceited to think this is a real comment. It is a robot post, one of many recently.

Only a robot could come up with such nonsense that is both sycophantic and bland at the same time.
I guess that people send out robots to post random comments on blogs like this in order to get links… to go up on google
….to feel better and/or make more money and feel they are king or queen of the Internet,  or whatever turns them on.

I have a message for these people…
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BYLMTvxOaeE&feature=PlayList&p=6B68C3EC0F5CF992&playnext_from=PL&index=0&playnext=1

So….
I am applying a Turing test to all comments from now on.
Any mindless praise will be trashed automatically.

Any mindful praise will be approved automatically.

Mindless abuse will be trashed (of course)
Any clever abuse will get a second glance, as it is at least not from a robot.

Robots beware!

As I was thinking about writing this post, and a host of other important things crowded into my mind, tempting me away from starting it, I wondered about Writer’s Block.

Isn’t it strange that writers are the only profession to have a specific and definitive block?

You don’t hear about traffic wardens’s block, or Waiter’s block, or for that matter, Politician’s block (we should be so lucky…) So why do writer’s have a block all of their own?

It is not fair.

I don’t think a manager would get away with it..

‘Hey, Forbes, where were you yesterday? We needed your input for the proposed merger.’
‘Sorry old boy, I had manager’s block, I just couldn’t bring myself to get into work, terribly frustrating.’

That is not to say that writer’s may find it difficult to write. It is a demanding and very creative task and by no means easy, but writer’s block explains nothing.
Sure, it is hard to sit down and write something that you may have file in the small cylindrical filing container on the floor. The first draft is usually crap, but you have to write it in order to get to the second draft where it starts to get good.

I know there are some writer’s who like Mozart can produce a perfect first draft, transcribing from head to paper with little loss, but this is unusual.

There is no shortage of advice and books on how to deal with the  reluctance to write, biut nearly all of it can be summed up in four words, Just Do It Anyway!

Never mind that it’s hard, never mind if it is no good.
Hit those keys and do something, even if only for a few minutes.
And keep doing that every day until it is finished.

And so it is.

Now that the dust has settled on the Icelandic flight ban (sorry, couldn’t resist that phrase, even if you have read that one hudred times in the last few days), and the airways are getting back to their normal frenetic selves, I was reminded of my many airplane dreams.

I fly a lot in the course of business, once or twice a month, with a transatlantic trip usually part of the package, although luckily I did not have to go anywhere for the last two weeks. I have a wallet full of frequent flyer cards that will probably get me to the Mars and back when the flight is available. (I will visit Venus too, Doctor Freud).

And because I fly a lot, I dream of flying a lot, and these dreams usually have the same form. By the way, I will not approve any psychoanalytic commentary on this post unless it is highly complimentary.
Here is my typical airplane dream.
I am on an airplane and quite comfortable. (Passing quickly over the  usual prelude to this dream of crowded airports and  being late for the flight, lost luggage etc).

I am happily looking out of the window, when I see that we are remarkably low. We are often flying along streets with the wings barely touching the buildings on each side.

I am not very alarmed, but I realise something is wrong and we will probably crash.
Strangely enough this does not bother me, this type of dream never makes me anxious.
Sometimes we land, with more or less violence, but I am always OK and so is everybody else.

So we could say it is a wish fulfilment, and everything is OK, but I am still struck by the images in the dream of flying very low (Which has never happened like this in reality).

My wife Andrea, who also flies a great deal, has very similar dreams, so I wonder….
Is there a typical frequent flyer dream?

Andrea and I would be interested….

I can’t believe this is my first post this year, I was just about to feel guilty, but then I realised if you stumble on this page for the first time you will see it for the first time, so it does not matter when I wrote it, so that is OK.
and….Apologies however to anyone who has been waiting since my last post and been disappointed.

I am reading a very interesting book by David Hawkins called ‘Power versus Force’

There are a lot of well expressed and very interesting ideas about human consciousness and evolution, and some very large claims about kinesiology testing and what it can accomplish.

Briefly, Kinesiology claims are that some ideas can make your muscles go strong, some can make them go weak. They do muscle testing, asking you to think of something and testing the strength of the outstretched arm. David Hawkins generalises this to many other things and gives books, ideas and music exact scores of how strong or weak they are.

What is the connection between this and working out at the gym?
Let me tell you.

I go to the gym regularly and work out.  I enjoy this very much, I usually do weights rather than aerobic exercise, and I have been noticing that some days I am stronger than others.
If you work out you have probably noticed the same thing, some days you can  really get that iron moving, other days gravity seems to be twice as strong.

One time last week, the weights were as heavy as a ton of plutonium in a black hole, and everything was an effort.
I also noticed there was a particular type of music playing at the time.
I do not happen to like that sort of music and maybe that was important too.

(I won’t say what sort of music it was to avoid offending anyone’s musical taste, and….to avoid contaminating what could be an interesting  scientific experiment.)

Could the music played in gyms affect your strength?

Does heavy metal really help you lift heavy metal?
Could Beethoven help you to be stronger?
How does rhythm and music affect your strength?
Serious questions.
And maybe with financial implications

Just imagine if gymnasiums put in some research into this.
Instead of playing whatever music the manager likes, or the latest CD that was left in the office, suppose they really thought about it?

A gym that played a certain kind of music might make the people feel stronger – they could do more.
The word would get around.
The gym would be crowded.

And is the effect all in the mind or all in the muscle?
(and is there a difference anyway?)

I know I do better in the gym when certain types of music are playing and not so well when other types are playing.

What about you?

Anyone interested in  making an experiment?

It would not be truly scientific because we can’t control all the variables, but I think the results would be very suggestive….

OK, I went for twitter.
God did not forbid, and  my hat was delicious.
Twitter is perfectly balanced, appealing as it does to one’s
egoism
(How many followers do I have?)
curiosity
(I wonder what is hot today?)

and literary skills.

Pardon? Literary skills?

Certainly, lterary skills. 140 characters is enough to hone a thought to almost perfection,
you cannot be verbose, and if you shun the temptation to use mobile phone speak, you have to think with a koan  like intensity that makes you head hurt in a good way. You have to be brief and interesting.
A good challenge and I accept.
So only another million and a half followers and I will be up with Stepehn Fry and Jonathan Ross.
Oh Brave new world…..

Joseph O'connor

Only three years or so late, I thought I would jump back to the future with a blog. At least it will be there when they are back in fashion, (in about five years time at current rate of change). I am not vain enough to think that anyone would follow this blog, but if you stumble across it on your  Internet rambles, then so much the better. This is the only place you will find things I write (apart from books); you will not find me on Facebook or (God forbid) Twitter.

To be continued….