Celebrity excess a turn off

As millions, including myself, tuned into X factor last night I couldn’t but help wonder whether the predictions on this blog regarding the demise of celebrity infatuation were completely off the wall. Interesting therefore to read the Sunday Observer this morning, featuring the headline “Hollywood’s bad girls clean up as US public tires of celebrity excess.”

Read more here.

Certainly last night I had no heart for the antics of Simon Cowell and so on, as I reflected on the recent loss to a family I have come to know and love. This article goes onto say however that, “cultural experts believe  the trend could be linked to the global economic crisis that has gripped the world for more than a year. With millions of Americans unemployed and losing their homes, celebrity shenanigans have given way to more weighty and meaningful concerns.”

Making room for a different sound? Time will tell.

Here are the type of celebrities I like. Next March a good mate of mine will set off to walk from the North of Scotland down to the edge of the Sahara desert in Morocco. Looking to raise thousands of pounds for an amazing charity called Pump Aid he will be pounding out the miles.

His name is Marko and he happens to be one of our writers. You can read more about his incredible vision by clicking here or on the logo. Go to his web site, bookmark it for more news, and track with a great idea. Walking so they don’t have to…….

Now Alan would have liked that

Dubai desserts?

This week I have had three days work decorating. That’s been great. I know I will get paid what was agreed and all will be good. Not so for Sahinal Monir-a Bangladeshi in Dubai. As that golden goose city crashes around its ears so he told his story, as written in the Independant  in May of this year..

Sahinal Monir is a slim 24-year-old from the deltas of Bangladesh. “To get you here, they tell you Dubai is heaven. Then you get here and realise it is hell,” he says. Four years ago, an employment agent arrived in Sahinal’s village in Southern Bangladesh. He told the men of the village that there was a place where they could earn 40,000 takka a month (£400) just for working nine-to-five on construction projects. It was a place where they would be given great accommodation, great food, and treated well. All they had to do was pay an up-front fee of 220,000 takka (£2,300) for the work visa – a fee they’d pay off in the first six months, easy. So Sahinal sold his family land, and took out a loan from the local lender, to head to this paradise.

As soon as he arrived at Dubai airport, his passport was taken from him by his construction company. He has not seen it since. He was told brusquely that from now on he would be working 14-hour days in the desert heat – where western tourists are advised not to stay outside for even five minutes in summer, when it hits 55 degrees – for 500 dirhams a month (£90), less than a quarter of the wage he was promised. If you don’t like it, the company told him, go home. “But how can I go home? You have my passport, and I have no money for the ticket,” he said. “Well, then you’d better get to work,” they replied.

A good spot by a friend of mine, this article  portrayed the real story behind this new sun seeker destination built on slave labour and the despotic rule of Sheikh Mohammed.

I quote from the article;

Once the manic burst of building has stopped and the whirlwind has slowed, the secrets of Dubai are slowly seeping out. This is a city built from nothing in just a few wild decades on credit and ecocide, suppression and slavery. Dubai is a living metal metaphor for the neo-liberal globalised world that may be crashing – at last – into history.

You can read more here

So within a few months the crash has happened; if you have missed it these last two days, millionaires losing millions and the whole place in meltdown. I can’t say that I am sad.

Okay I know, I should have posted on X Factor or something else suitably mellow for a Friday evening, but I did found myself wondering today what will become of Sahil.

Still, have a good w/e

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Pictures-Louder than words?

Writing-good soul therapy

So are our sink hole estates destined to sink further and are the cycles of poor parenting going to be for ever repeated? Or to put it another way, can the generations really flow together? Here’s another post which, just like Mark’s story, tells a different picture. “Bylie” is a moving tale of one woman’s brave journey over 40 long yrs, to deal with the suicide of her Mum.

You can read more here

We all have different strategies for dealing with loss and processing deep days of the soul. For Christophe he took to the roads a few months after the terrifying death of his Mum from cancer. Pounding the country lanes he began to process the potent mix of emotions, literally beating out the desire to find life again with each and every step. A story called “The finishing line” came out of those long hours of discovery and provided a remarkable concluding chapter to our launch book. It goes without saying, if you want a different type of Christmas present then this could be it. Click here to buy

That this is a theme that runs deep for Christophe is seen in his latest post. It came in just last night. Short and very sweet you can read it here; it will bring joy to your day I promise-without doubt one of our most gifted writers. You can read more of his work in some reflections from Uganda. The first of five postcards from that nation begins with “let there be light.“ Read more here and follow the rest in the nations section of the site.

Writing is an incredible therapeutic tool. The art form gives space for you and I to process deep things of the soul. You are welcome to join us on our journey. Just log in here and begin to write.

Thanks for reading this far.

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Breaking the cycle

Some would say that you can not be a successful father unless you have your own positive experience of fathering. The influence is too great at an age when patterns are set for an entire lifetime. Well, if you have had the chance to read through parts of Mark Ash’s story (see yesterday’s post)then the evidence is clearly to the contrary-even though like any trend setter,  he doubts himself in the process.

Yes, without wanting to embarrass the guy, Mark who never knew a father, has manifestly arrived at a place where the one thing he desires above success in career or anywhere else, is to be a good dad. I like that! Just look through his writing from the links of yesterdays post to see that.

There is no doubt, here in the UK, the influence of two world wars have scarred the generational landscape hugely. Fathers killed or hugely damaged by the terror of those catastrophic events inevitably have produced a fatherless generation; a generation that doesn’t know or understand the freedom that comes from those who create space and willingly stand aside to promote a generation through.

The stories and life of Mark, and I know my friend Alan, tell a different story. A story of hard decisions made often in the darkest times of the soul, not to live lives constrained by fear, neither to make choices out of the echoes of yesteryear……. rather to seek to be what no one has been to them……… amazing.

So today I am grateful for those who have found a way through the cycle of fatherless that curses our nation; those who are anchors to our lives both in death and in life.

That is massive.

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