Water Theory...

One of my favourite pictures is The Great Wave Off Kanagawa by Japanese artist Katsushika Hokusai.

It's part of a set of 36 pictures that Hokusai created as woodcuts depicting different views of Mount Fuji. But Fuji isn't really the central component of many of these pictures. It's often in the background or to one of the sides and the focus of the pictures tends to be events unfolding a long way away from the mountain, like the fishermen battling the power of the wave in the Great Wave or the tea house at Koishikawa the morning after a snowfall.

The Great Wave, however, remains my favourite out of this set as it's not only utterly beautiful but the image of water as a potent force inexorably driving forward is something I find utterly compelling. I love the idea that all waves start as small and often insignificant things but grow and gather force the further they travel along a certain path.

One of the key philosophies in hapkido is Yew or water theory. It basically states that water is usually considered something soft but water always find a way around or through even the hardest rock by constantly driving against it and finding a weak point then wearing it down. Water can also be something that is both incredibly powerful or incredibly soothing and it can also be totally formless and adapt to its circumstances.

The Great Wave is a constant reminder of these things and whenever I get near grading the Great Wave always appears as a screen saver on my machine at work and at home. I'm grading on Sunday and well ready as my head is pretty much where it needs to be.

Knob gags will be back next week...

Pussy News...

The new kitten, Willow, is starting to have the run of From Beer To Paternity Towers after been cooped up in the living room for the past few months while various builders have been working in the house.

The downside of this is that she and our other cat, Buffy, are now starting to run into each other several times a day and they're sort of working out how to handle each other amid the snarling and hissing.

Buffy, of course, is a lethal killer and regularly brings us 'presents' of the small, furry and bloody variety at 4am in the morning, prompting the Missus to turn into the housemaid from Tom And Jerry cartoons as she shrieks for help while standing on the bed.

Willow is also showing signs of following in Buffy's footsteps as a mouse recently escaped from Buffy and ran through the gap under the living room door a few weeks ago. The poor mouse obviously thought it had made it to freedom. Then it ran into Willow and she made short work of it.

To encourage this disposition the Missus has recently bought three toy mice which Willow now chases and savages around the kitchen. Last night she also climbed into our bed and decided a certain part of my anatomy was also fair game, meaning it's padded boxer shorts in bed from now on.

Anyway... the upshot is I now have two female cats in the house, all of who can sometimes be affectionate but have clearly decided that brutal violence is a much more entertaining option.

Can't imagine where they got that from...

Sally Morgan: Star Psychic...

The world may be heading towards financial meltdown and the omens for a speedy recovery may not be good, but ITV can always be relied upon to cheer up a discontented nation... or alternatively heap yet more schlock and misery on an unsuspecting public with its latest attempt at creating a she's-one-of-us, real-life, salt-of-the-earth D-List telly star like that old thing off Driving School.

Welcome to the world of Sally Morgan: Star Psychic...

The basic premise of the show is that celebrity psychic Morgan, a bubbly, fiftysomething with a body shape like an enlarged Ewok, meets and greets various celebs and other punters for the 'first time' and displays her pyschic gifts to all and sundry by delving into their pasts to reveal astonishing facts and helping guide their futures.

Interestingly the show opens by claiming that Morgan was a trusted confidant and psychic reader for the late Princess Di, like that alone means we should implicitly trust and believe in her. But once you delve beyond the surface of that little fact it's not exactly a ringing endorsement as our Sally didn't have any visions of a car crashing in a Paris subway to help protect her star client.

In the main body of the show Sally uses her psychic gift to astonish and bewilder various D-List celebrities (the Cheeky Girls, a couple of Page 3 stunnas, that bird off the Scottish Widow adverts, Jennie Falconer), before she then gets to grips with members of the public.

Some of the former celeb-bilge is bizarre because Morgan throws so many keywords and guesses out that when one of the celebs latches onto something it's like the Red Sea has opened. It's miracle time! The fact that Morgan is all enthusiastic machine-gun delivery and touchy-feely with people is also quite a clever ruse as viewers accept her as a chatty old girl who always talks a lot so they conveniently forget the bits of guess work and loaded phrases leading up to the miracle moment that were wide of the mark or ignored. And conveniently viewers don't see the bits that were edited out either.

But it's in the latter non-celeb section where it gets quite intriguing because it ventures into the arena of emotional pornography where vulnerable and needy members of the public lay themselves open to be hoodwinked by more fishing and digging until one of the guesses gets lucky.
'I'm seeing man... He's very close to you... Have you had a man who's passed over to the other side? He's very proud of you...'
'Yes. My dad/brother/uncle/brother* passed away...'
'Did he have a favourite coat?'
'Yes...'
'It was a dark coat, wasn't it?'

Sadly some of it is quite clever and I must confess I don't know how she does all of it.

For example she knew pretty early on that one the Page 3 girls was pregnant but a decent cold reader would have spotted the hands on the stomach in a protective guard immediately. It's also well chronicled how other psychics use intricate networks of information so they can prep up on psychic tourists who've visited other psychics before and it wouldn't take a genius to figure out how facts about 'surprise' guests could be leaked ahead of schedules through a helpful TV production bodkin.

Remember: just because you can't see the strings it doesn't mean there aren't any.

As far as I could tell Morgan is a coldreader par excellence in the guise of Blanche from Coronation Street voiced by the cast of Loose Women. All of the cast of Loose Women.

But in essence it's end-of-the-pier and bottom-of-the-barrel stuff which has none of the style or presentation of Derren Brown and, even more dangerously, purports to be the real thing rather than trickery whose method is exposed at the end.

It's shocking that ITV puts this bilge on TV. If they want to do something genuinely interesting in this area then bring Phillips in and subject her to proper scientifically controlled conditions with people she can't previously research or cold read and not publicity-hungry celebs who are booked months in advance.

Sadly, of course, that wouldn't be interesting or good telly. But then again neither is this – unless you're Morgan, of course, whose business (£1.50 per minute with one of her hand-picked team of psychics or £30 for 20 minutes via credit card) is probably booming as more needy and gullible folk flock to her website...

Making The Grade...

I grade for my black stripe at hapkido in 11 days and I'm a tad nervous.

It's been a year of niggling and nasty injuries and my recent bout of flu totally knocked me on my arse so I'm still not operating at full strength. Even worse the sort of training sessions that I'd normally fly through are currently turning into a bit of a grueling ordeal.

My body feels like the Starship Enterprise in Star Trek when it's under attack from the Kingons and the shields are struggling to hold up and Scotty is shouting 'She cannae take it, captain!' from the engine room.

Apart from my current stamina issues I also need to tighten up my stances. And I need to run through everything else I've learnt over the past five years. But that's all I need to worry about.

Oh... apart from learning the Korean words for the techniques I'll be tested on. Still, nobody said it was going to be easy...

Other Woman Who Loves Other Women News...

I am grading for the belt before black in just over two weeks and as I've had bits and bobs of time off injured and ill over the past four months I am trying to get back up to speed so I don't make a total arse out of myself.

Fortunately the OWWLOW (Other Woman Who Loves Other Women) passed the same grading last year so I spent an hour going through stuff with her this evening. She's a very good martial artist and as she's also a dancer she looks incredibly graceful when she's moving. She's also an utter athlete and it makes me realise I still have a tendency to be a bit of a brawler rather than a nimble-footed ninja-in-training whenever I take some time to watch her.

But if I'm going to spend an hour getting hot and sweaty in a room with a woman who's not my wife then I'm glad it's her. And I also love the fact that she give me advice like 'You need to spread your legs a bit wider' without smirking.

Well, without smirking too much...

Going Victorian...

My need for amusing facial hair has resurfaced so my sideburns are back.

My brother-in-law thinks I look like cannibal butcher Hilary Briss from the League Of Gentlemen while the Boy is convinced I've gone all Victorian and am trying to emulate Sherlock Holmes.

Consequently any time I mention anything to the Boy it suddenly turns into a gag about something Victorian or detective-related. For example:
'What school did you go to?' asks the Boy?
'Goole Grammar School...'
'Are you sure you didn't go to an elementary, my dear Watson, an elementary...'

The odds on me paying for his very expensive 18th birthday present are getting longer by the day...

Pussy News...

The new kitten Willow is getting bigger and has taken to sleeping in a wooden bowl on a table in the living room.

I commented on this and suggested Willow was maybe a little bit mental.
'She'll fit right in living in this household then,' replied the wife.

Probably a fair point...

All Heart...

I am in hapkido class and really going for it and feeling fabulous then suddenly I have horrible chest pains.

My heart feels like it's about to burst out of my chest so I stop and sit down for about 15 minutes until I can gingerly move without pain. It is quite scary. My body hasn't rebelled like this before. Ever. Even in my feral drinking, smoking and carousing years...

So I eventually feel able to move without pain and I slowly make my way home and explain what happened to the Missus and the Boy in and in their usual sharing, caring way they demonstrate their love and concern.
'Can you shut up as we're watching TV?'
'And I'm trying to eat pizza...'

The next day I phone NHS Direct and they suggest I visit my local doctor. One phone call later and I'm booked in to visit my doctor the same morning and he checks me out and sends me off to a hospital in Paddington for an ECG. I get to Paddington and get the ECG done within five minutes of arriving at the hospital then I head back to my local doctor's surgery where I manage to book an appointment for later that evening and I give him my ECG results and I get the all-clear.

So two appointments with my local doctor and one hospital visit in one day. The NHS are doing great work.

My body, however, has clearly had enough and three days later I succumb to the flu. And it's proper flu as well. Bugger...