I’m not sure whether it’s the people themselves that annoy me or what they do for enjoyment that pisses me off the most.  They’re pompous; they haven’t got a clue about real life or people, and they couldn’t knock the top off a rice pudding unless they were armed with a 12 bore!  I’m taking, of course, about the great British landed gentry and their urge to hunt and kill small animals.  Pick something tiny and insignificant and soon their will be a party of ‘fan-nar fan-nars’ (upper class twits), chasing it with a gun – but immaculately dressed.     

All I can do is draw from two important life-lessons instilled in me by my parents, from a very early age.  “Learn to lose gracefully and pride yourself in a sense of fair play in all circumstances.”  Boys and girls, I give you, the foxhunting debate.    

Now, according to the upper crust, you and I are classed as bits of rough and dwell in riff-raff circles.  Do I give a rat arse, not really; at least I know I’m a decent bloke who would help anyone.  And I’d rather be me than think like this…

“I have an enormous amount of wherewithal, I’m immensely well educated and I can do what I want when I want, because I have friends in high places.  And anyone below these criteria is cannon fodder.”  Yip, that’s how the higher echelons of the ‘Berk’ squad (Berk: cockney rhyming ~ Berkshire hunt) think, and what they pass on to their children.   

Obviously I’ve looked at the hunting argument from all sides, not just both sides, because that’s what I do.  But, I still find it hard to believe that it’s classed as one, a sport or two, that it’s fair.  On team one you have a very naughty fox, and on the other you could have as many as 200 riders, plus some unpaid staff (riff-raff) and 60 to 80 hounds.  Now, even as a failed math’s thicky, I can see an imbalance in numbers pretty much straight away!       

The argument for ripping foxes apart is: they kill farmer’s animals.  Well all right, let the famer shot them.  It would be a tad more humane than letting a bunch of unfed dogs set about the animal.  Oh no, that would put a halt to the ‘gathering’ wouldn’t it!  Alright then, let’s all meet up at the Twatley-Smyth’s hiyse (house) once a week for a game of ‘Maim the beater’!

And as for bring up children to hunt in the same way well, there’s a life’s work for a psychiatrists right there.  “Come on Jocasta, we’re going to kill something minuscule and mange-ridden.”  “Hoorah, but is it hygienic to daub the blood of my first kill around my chops when it’s still warm mater?”  “Oh yes dear, everyone does it, and it didn’t affect me at all, whinny-whinny-snort-snort!”

So, this is largely how the people’s food chain works from the top of the hunt downwards.  Your entire bloodline, past and present, were or are Conservatives.  You will have lived on the family estate and have an enormous amount of ‘folding’ money, none of which you earned.  You are such a Royalist that you fully believe that that’s where your roots lie, and the police wouldn’t dare try to prosecute you because you’re loaded and always tell the truth!

Now, the only issue these pillocks have to worry about is how they can keep up there lifestyle without actually getting their hands dirty.  And the first ‘wheeze’ they thought of was to slap a farm on their vast amount of land.  They could pump up their already inflated ego by employing a ‘gaggle’ of plebs to run it, and at the end of the year cop most of the cash from the harvest.  And not only that, they could charge the riff-raff rent for the privilege of living on their land and order them about as they work their nuts off for 22 hours a day.  Brilliant!   

Well it’s okay for a while, but then the toffs get bored.  What to do – put your name down on the list of hunting venues, get a bit life in the old place what.  The master of the hunt and a few friends get a free ride but, everyone below that is charged a fee.  What makes me laugh is, even within the snobbery, there’s a hierarchical pecking order – priceless! 

Any mounted riders are required (told) to stay at the rearof the field master, and you will be hung, drawn and quartered, and then tortured, if you overtake him.  And the charge for this honoured position is between £25 and £70.  Those following on foot or by car (sad gits) are informed not to get in the way of the fox, and are charged a ‘cap’ of a £1 or £2, towards the cost of the hunt.  Multiply some of these figures by 200 and you’ve got a nice little earner.        

It’s been going on for centuries, since the earliest recorded foxhunt in 1534, in Norfork, England.  So the toffs have had a good run, until animal rights activist kicked up a stink and wanted the Government to ban it.  It was voted on under a Labour administration, when Tony Blair was in charge, and oh my, the Conservatives weren’t a happy bunch of bunnies when the vote went 362 to 154 in favour of an out right ban. 

Not content with hunting the adult foxes, these bastards hunt/hunted the cubs too, and what goes generally unreported is that the dogs stray on to country roads and are hit and killed by cars or gain appealing injuries when they become entangled in barbed wire fences.  In one case 11 dogs were killed at once, when they were hit by a train!

Safe to say, it’s still one rule for ‘us’ and another for ‘them’ in dear old Blighty.  If I cantered down the middle of the road, and held up the traffic because a pack of my dogs had spilled onto it, I’d get arrested!  However, don a bright red jacket, wave your hand about like a prat while carrying a brass instrument, and your unbiased Conservative-voting constabulary let you get on with it!

Right, I’m off.  I’ve got a frog baiting contest to referee…

 

On first sight my gut feeling said, “Oh no, he’s far to smooth, he’s just another eager salesman.  What does he sell – overall false hope to the also-rans and success and more wealth to the already rich.  How does he do it, by    employing the use of Neuro Linguistic Programming (NLP) which, according to  the shrinks, lies at the periphery of psychotherapy, as there’s a lack of credible evidence to support its effectiveness.  So how does it work?

Overall, it prays on the gullible (N.B. gullible doesn’t appear in the dictionary) who get sucked into the back draft of a speech from a smarmy git.  Once a patsy has given unlimited access to their credit card, and the first purchase has been secured, then and only then does the trance of the life coach wear off. 

I first became aware of Mr. Robbins during a TV ad, and he was banging on about how I could have ‘it all’, just by buying his tapes, and this would only take seven weeks!  I thought shit; I better buy a bigger house!  A week later he was on again, in the early hours, chuntering on about the same thing, only this time I could buy the CD’s, and now achieve the same results in just seven days – isn’t technology marvelous!  Not even six sheets to wind was I tempted to buy!                                                                      

How do you become an obnoxious, fire-walking millionaire – by having an overbearing mother it seems!  According to Anthony Robbins’ sickly online bio, mummy had a ‘special’ bond with him, but not his siblings, and papa wasn’t allowed to have a say-so in his upbringing.  As time went by Robbins Jr. became a sports writer, for which he had a natural talent.  But, when mama realised he was becoming a success, and felt she was losing control of him, she put a halt to his early career, claiming she needed him to be at home to look after her.     

He left the family home with nothing, on Christmas Eve 1977, after a massive row with the old bat.  Do I believe that?  On the whole, no!  As a writer of non fiction, I can write an emotive line or paragraph, in fiction, if I choose to ‘flower it’ up.  Why so cynical?  I know what’s coming up next, I’ve seen Robbins ‘act’ and I’ve read the complaints that he won’t allow on his websites.       

Now, he may have taken a hike from the house and the ‘control freak’, but, how could you make that sentence more heart rending for a bio?  Ooh, I know, add the words ‘Christmas Eve’, ‘with nothing’, and, ‘walked out’!  Get’s ya right there doesn’t it!  And it gets better.  His uncle gave him a job, but mummy put the kibosh on that too, saying, “If he wants to make it on his own, he’ll do it by himself, not by using family,” and convinced the uncle to sack him.  Nice lady!

At 22 he was fat, broke and alone and he slipped into a depression.  (Wait for it, wait for it… he comes an epiphany!)  One year later he forced himself out of his retreat and took a run on the beach.  And it was in that instance that he willed himself to start taking back control of his life.  [Author reaches for a bucket, and notes that there was no mention of medication, recovery or any intervention by a mental health professional at all in the bio.]  

Having been infused with the Godly power of self-recovery it seems, Robbins was going to package it and flog it to anyone he could talk into a corner.  He had some success too, then the seminars began or the second coming of the Nurnberg rallies, as one writer described them, after bearing witness to one such meeting.  Another said, from what I gleamed from his seminars, he’s almost an evangelist in terms of his stage work and I personally believe he’s pushing a Christianity message.”  Now that’s why I find him so annoying!

So, if you’re expecting a nice quiet talk in a cosy room about the benefits of his wares, think again, this is how it works live.  Before ‘lanky’ finally hits the boards you have sit/stand through the dimming of lights and a warm up guy.  He runs on stage, welcomes the potential suckers, then twenty or more girls with tight fitting tops with “FUN” emblazoned across their chests join the party.  The warm up then challenges the crowd to scream louder, while the fun-babes hand out twenty-dollar bills to the audience members who showed the most enthusiasm!!!   

By all accounts it’s one long grueling and hypnotic induction, which is over-stimulating, and which is heightened by an ear-splitting PA, jumbo TV screens and live cameras everywhere.  And right there is the start of the super hype.  Just as you think, “Girl I can’t get no higher,” on ‘it’ walks.   

Now you’re encased in Robbins’ world, where you’re profusely encourage to jump up and down a lot and scream “YES YES YES YES,” at the top of your vocal range.  While you’re caught up in this skit, smoke machines belch for all their worth and then you’re bombarded with strobe lighting [Presumably checks were made so none of the suckers were affected by this.] and a rubbish musical backing track.  At the zenith of the hysteria ‘The man’ asks you to call up your deepest feelings of lurvvve!  Apparently he requires copious amounts of lurvvve, because he can’t survive without it, well that and your hard earned life savings.   

Look up a guy called Milton Erickson and check out his ‘Confusion technique’, it’s part of the NLP method of getting what you want.  As is body language, non-verbal communication and the tone of your voice.  What’s interesting is the way the non-verbal expressions often directly contradicted the verbal ones, and it’s at that point when your bullshit alarm should go off.

 

Someone took my dog, stole the microchip the vet had inserted, and returned my pet to me three days later.  So to stop this occurring again I’ve made a chip that can be attached to the other chip so I know if it’s been stolen!  And while I was designing it I thought – cycling?  What the h-e-l-l’s that all about?

Can you remember your first bike?  You know, the innocent days, when a bike was just a bike and not a fashion accessory.  Sure you had racing bikes back in the day, but the machines used were just a couple of wheels, a frame that was made of the finest British oak and a saddle that was the size of an armchair.

My first mode of transport was a three wheeler with, I’ll have you know, a metal pannier box between the back wheels, oh yes madam – very posh!  I can still recall the sense of freedom it gave me.  I felt as if I could go anywhere in the world on it, well, to the sweetshop and the park anyway.  Then, things changed.  When I was six, women came into my life, and the way to tell the difference between a girl and boy in those days was if their bike had a cross-bar or not! 

But I digress… once designers discovered that they could make a bike go faster than 3 mph, by adding gears, races and sponsorship took over.  The milk race was born and this led to the Tour de France.  Quite how people find this sport, (Sport?  Priceless!!!), interesting is beyond me.  I mean, what do you get for your money? 

You stand in the same spot for days and watch a bunch of tooth picks ride around in circles!  SHER-WHOOSH!  “What was that?”  “The first wave of cyclist mate”  “When does the next lot arrive?”  “Ooh, bout six hours!”  Bunch of sickos if you ask me.  Their not there for the race, they’re there for the crashes!  

Personally, I’d gain more satisfaction head-butting a hedgehog all afternoon. And what’s the top prize for slogging your guts out on the French circuit for days at a time – a yellow T shirt – well slap my thighs and call me Susan,  whoop-de-bleedin’-do!    

So, you want to buy a racing bike, and the equivalent of a male ballet          dancer’s outfit to impress the neighbours – how much do you think that’s going to set you back?  Well, the ‘silly suit’ alone has to be around £300 doesn’t it?  Especially if the Lycra has been hand knitted by Chinese doves in Watford!  And don’t get me started on the rest of the rubbish you think you might need.

 Oh yes, the boys and girls in marketing have busted a gut to relieve you of your wage packet, and you can you can pick up a ‘speed demon’ for a mere bagatelle, well if you call £6,709 mere!  With this price in mind, it doesn’t take an idiot to work out how much the rest of the gear is going to cost.    

 A bog standard helmet is £28, but a racing version might cost £350.  The list is endless and just the basic equipment will set you back £2,000, and the pricing gets sillier and sillier depending on which country you’re in. 

In America, one bright spark set about building the world’s most expensive two-wheeler, and you’ll be glad to hear he succeeded.  It’s a snip at half a million bucks and it’s so light you can lift it up of the floor with your wedding tackle!         

I mean, what was the fucking thing made of for God’s sake – a range of last years butterfly’s knickers!  I guess the first requirement is to find a rider that weighs less than a fetus.  They would have to be that light to sit on a saddle no bigger than a matchbox for eight hour at a time.  And all for what?  A brightly coloured piece of material and piles for the rest of your natural life. 

Next week tandems, and how they can be best used in a suicide bombing…

 

So, you’ve had a nice long holiday, and what do come home to – a few bills, but at least 15 pieces of junk mail.  It’s only paper, but why is it so annoying?  For me it’s quite plain and simple, it’s a waste of a perfectly good tree… 

But, my other gripe with the stuff is that it doesn’t stop coming through the hole in my door.  I mean, like you, I know where the fast food outlets are, and if I want a ‘heart attack in a box’ I’ll go an order one.  I don’t need a reminder to tell me when I’m hungry.  You know, I might just print up some of my own fliers saying, ‘No take-aways today, I’ve eaten’, and stick ‘em through their letterboxes on a regular basis and see how they like it!

The best place to live and avoid this papyrus plague is the Fair Isles.  Lying half-way between the Orkney Isles and Shetland, it’s the remotest part of the UK, and there isn’tone single take-away on the island!  I’ll say this for everyone, “Up yours McDonalds!”  But do know what, junk mail still makes its way to the 70 or so occupants.  A boat delivers supplies and post there once a week.  The junk mail goes into the bin, the rubbish is collected and then it goes back on the boat and is dropped off at Shetland to be burnt – and who foots the bill – the tax payer.  I guess the burning question is, why would someone send a Freeman’s catalogue there anyway?

In Cornwall they have a slightly bigger problem.  If you lived there you could receive up to 20 or 30 pieces of unwanted tat a month.  You only have to multiply that amount by the number of residence, and by the end of the year, you’ve got a paper mountain to dispose of.  Oh yes you can recycle it of course, but as usual it comes at price to guess who?  Last year, Cornwall accumulated 4,000 tons of little bits of annoyance, enough to fill 500 dust carts.  “Let’s stick it in a landfill site!”  “Certainly sir, that’ll be £700,000 please.”  ‘OW MUCH?  I swear you could build a mental health unit with that!

As usual, there are two sides to any story, and here are the two teams, the trusty Royal Mail and their revenue and a Netherlands based company situated in an anonymous industrial estate in London called, Spring Global Mail (SGM) and their income.  They have a ‘same dog more hair’ policy regarding junk mail, they call it Direct Mail.  Basically, the two companies make money for each other, lots of it, but the set up also leaves a loop hole for the scam mail artists to ply their cruel trade.

Now this stuff is nasty.  It prays on the vulnerable, the gullible and the mentally ill, but do the two sides feel as if they’re causing a problem?  It’s hard to say, as neither company would be interviewed on television.  Oh they released a statement slapping each others backs, and mentioned that their services were vital to the economy, but said nothing about the harm that scammers cause.

Even though it has a Royal Mail stamp on the envelope, it doesn’t mean it’s been sent from this country!  Some how, foreign criminal gangs are allowed to make their post look ‘local friendly’!  They slap a ‘Royal Mail’ stamp on it, aim it towards companies like SGM, in bulk, and they pass it on to our ‘Penny black’ company.  Once it’s in the ‘system’, it has to be delivered.  As it’s such a trusted brand many people place their trust in it.  Well, after all, the Queen does deliver it herself, although quite how she finds the time at her age baffles me!

So this is how it begins.  A vulnerable or elderly person replies to one scam letter that claims they have won say £250,000.  Now the scammers have an address, this is added to what’s known as a ‘sucker’s list’ and the list is then sold on to other criminal gangs.  To win this enormous amount, all you have to do is send £20 to ‘Scammers r us’ – and you’re quids in!  No you’re not, the prize never arrives, but what does turn up is another letter from a different gang.  And that’s all it takes for some people to become addicted.

In one case a guy’s marriage nearly ended after he spent £5,000 hoping to fund a golden wedding anniversary trip.  In similar situation another guy’s mother spent a quarter of a million pounds, over a 10 to 12 year period!  But the worst case I’ve heard of was that of an Alzheimer’s patient.

She was convinced she would win a huge prize eventually, and her daughter couldn’t stop her replying to these letters.  In total, her mum had parted with £50,000, and the last thing she said to her daughter, before she died was, “Has the postman been?”  When it came to selling her mum’s house her daughter found over 30,000 letters scattered around the property.

Royal Mail said that, in conjunction with the police last year, they removed 6 million scam letters which sounds great, until you hear that foreign con artists flooded the UK with 2.4 billion of the little blighters!  SGM were less than helpful.  They said that it’s very difficult to remove such post, as you can’t tell if it’s a piece of scam mail, even through transparent wrapping!   Honestly, have you ever heard such a crock of horseshit!!! 

My view – let’s hope that one day all of the naughty fake mail bastards die the death of a million paper cuts or their combined genitalia turns square and festers at the corners real soon…

 

Now you’ll have to trust me on this, I’m just doing what I see as a civic duty, so you don’t have to endure any undue hardship or suffering.  So, with this in mind, if you never done this before; don’t bother.  I did it with a group of friends, and all because some bright spark said, “I’ve hired a boat, fancy a week on the river Thames?”

Well,  the four of us were all in our early 20’s, and it felt like a brill idea at the time, so one day during the height of the English summer of 1977, we drove to Reading, Berkshire to bond with our floating caravan.

What I found a tad strange was the boat’s owner wasn’t concerned that none of us had ever driven a boat before!  So rather than a strict rundown of ‘what does what and why’, and quotes like, “Never do this, while holding these,” our meeting with ‘Goat’s Breath Mcginty went like this.  Cash, keys, and, “See you in a week!”  Presuming any safety instructions would be on board; we spliced the mizzen mast, had rub down with the cabin boy and headed off into the great unknown.

Oh yeah, this was definitely the life but unfortunately, being young and stupid, we had forgotten one basic fact, anything ahead of us would be new territory and we discovered the disadvantages of this when we came up against our first barrier.  Honestly, it would have been quicker to torch the boat, wait for the insurance claim to come through and ask the company to deliver the new one the other side of the lock!  

In the brochure herds of locals streamed out of the riverside pubs to aid the virgin lock-openers – not on our watch!  Forty-five minutes later we were still fighting with a lock wheel that seemed to have been welded shut.  Did the crews of the ‘boat jam’ behind us rally round and help us in our hour of need?  Did they bollocks!  So that’s where we left them as we sallied forth and carried on our travels up old father Thames.  

We had been sailing for most of the afternoon, but it was starting to get dark, and it was at this point we realised that we were the only ones on the river.  This conclusion led us to believe that we would find a ‘parking space’ with relative ease.  It was a stupid assumption!  The reason that we were the only vessel moving at this time was that all the smart-arses had moored up at 4 o’clock.  Did our boat owner mention this?  He did not, just like he failed to tell us there weren’t any lights on the bloody boat!  Half past seven we parked up – in the pitch dark!

However, the evening brought about a sense of normality to our day, after we discovered our first pub.  We had a great time; the girls tried everything on the top shelf, while my mate and I sampled every pump that had ‘local ale’ on it.  Lesson one: never get rat-arsed then try and find a boat, after nine pints they all look the same, even though they were different lengths!      

On the morning of day three there was this smell, a smell that promoted the thought that it should be dealt with sooner rather than later.  Well, by the end of the day, and with countless locks behind us, we still had ‘the smell’, but it was now accompanied by small plumes of black smoke!  Lesson two: a boat engine needs an oil top-up every three days!  Did our boat owner…, oh what’s the bloody point!      

At no stage did anyone say, “Ooh you don’t wanna go up there, your boat’s to big.”  So we turned right, just to see what was up ‘there’ – big mistake!  We found a ‘flock’ of smaller wind and oar powered vessels, and by the looks on the faces of the horrified crews, we had turned into up an un-signposted creek minus our paddles!  Still, after a 28 point turn, three collisions and one near fatality, we were back on course.  

Day four:  we were all suffering from ‘lockytitus’, and the first signs of this disease can be seen noted in the Captain’s log: “Oh no, not another bloody lock – had to eat Johnson – crew down with scurvy.  Overall, this virulent condition is contracted by the toxic pong of the chemical toilet, a poor diet, and travelling at a maximum and mind numbing speed of 8mph for five hours a day, with the sun in your eyes!     

What else could go wrong?  We had mastered everything that the river could throw at us.  Yeaaaaaaah – not strictly true!  Lesson three: if you’re stationary, you’re either securely moored, you’ve run out of fuel or you’ve run aground.  As we had become accustomed to the gently rocking motion of a boat that was tied up for the night, and knowing we had a full tank, this could only mean we had hit a sand bank!  Fortunately for us a large passing tourist boat washed us of in its wake.

Believing we had beaten the trails of river travel now, we entered day six.  It was hot, really hot, at least 90 in the shade and my girlfriend was at the helm.  My mate and his partner were snoozing up on deck, while I was flaked out on my bunk when I heard this scraping noise initially, and shortly after this was followed by a repetitive creaking and straining sound. 

I opened my eyes to see part of another boat entering my window, which turned out to be attached to a very expensive yacht!  After the female screaming and cries of, shit, shit, shit had stopped, it came to light that my ladylove had steered her way into a private mariner!  All we had to do now was escape without being sued for a new aluminium mast, park up at our boatyard with the damaged window facing away from the jetty, and we home and dry – never again!

 

The secret thoughts of a manic depressive

Wednesday:  Thinks?  I should change my socks.

Thursday:      Naaaah, I’ll do it tomorrow…

Friday:            Wow – they feel great.

Saturday:       Ooh, fresh socks again!      

Sunday:          I can’t believe how comfortable these are.

Monday:        And this pair smell great!!!

Tuesday:        Oh… I can’t get my trainers on?

Wednesday:  Note to self.  Next time take old socks of first.   

Thursday;     Note to self part II.  Next month I’ll wash my feet, yay!

A town planner from Bristol, England was sacked today after plans for a children’s play area turned in to chaos, a court heard.  A spokesman from the council said, “We simply can’t understand why a psychopath was left roaming free around the boating lake, when we specifically asked for a cycle path!!!”

The grass always looks greener on the other side of the fence, when you live on a landfill site.

Two dyslexic friends, who had never been skiing before, decided to take a holiday in the French Alps.  At the top of the beginner’s slope, one said to the other eagerly, “Let’s zigzag down here like they do in the films as fast as we can.”

His buddy said, “Well hang on a minute, will that mean we’re zigzagging or zagzigging?”  As his friend couldn’t come up with an answer, they decided to ski slowly down to the bottom of the slope, and ask a man who was standing outside the ski shop taking in the view.

Ten minutes later they shuffled up to the man and asked him if he thought they were zigzagging or zagzigging down the slope.  The man stopped and thought about the question for a moment and replied, “Well, you’re asking the wrong person really, I’m a tobogganist.”   “That great, said one of the skiers, “can I have 20 Rothmans?”

Would a car insurance company cover a giraffe against whiplash injury?

Things were tough and times were hard for my parents, and overall I had a harsh and turbulent upbringing.  Mind you, I was brought up in wind tunnel.  I bloody was!

Naval news now… harbouring a grudge without owning a harbour will carry a heavy fine from midnight to night.  “The landlocked parts of England will be the hardest hit,” a harbour master said.

Never commit suicide.  It’s illegal and you could face a fine or worse, go to prison – fact!

If Cd’s were square, you’d have to cut the corners off to get them in your MP3 player.  I’M JUST SAYING!!!

Raw plugs should be cooked, say food analysts.

North London sport now… Enfield Narcoleptic’s entire first 11 team were booked last Saturday for time wasting in a friendly against the Barnet Somnambulists’.  Their manager said last night, “I simply can’t believe this has happened agai…. Zzzzzz zzzz zz zzzzzzzzzzzzz.”

Bipolar is in never a walk in the park, your mood can change from an amazing high to an unbearable low. We’re not talking the normal highs and lows of everyday life, those that suffer from Bipolar find the changes in their moods extreme, and it can affect relationships and in some severe cases lead to suicide if left untreated. These different moods are often referred to as episodes of mania and depression.

Bipolar usually develops in later teenage years or early adulthood, but it can go undiagnosed and it can take years to recognise that the illness has begun. The disorder affects millions of people all over the world but it is treatable, with careful management it can be kept under control. Bipolar can also be referred to as Manic Depression.

If you have Bipolar or have recently been diagnosed don’t feel alone. There are lots of celebrities that have suffered with mental health issues. Stephen Fry and Catherine Zeta Jones have both been treated for Bipolar, and they have both campaigned to end the stigma surrounding the disorder. Fry even made a documentary for BBC2 in 2006, ‘The Secret Life of the Manic Depressive’ in which he talks to experts and other suffers to bring an honest, in depth and factual insight into Bipolar.

Many people they find it difficult to work out if they are just having a bad day, week or month or if they are suffering from manic depression or bipolar. If a down or depressive mood has occurred every day for at longer than a week then it may be time to look for some support and advice. The earlier you find help the better, as you can then get the right treatment and learn to control your moods so it no longer takes over your life.

The majority of people with Bipolar can be treated by a combination of different treatments such as:

Medication known as mood stabilisers (for mania and depression episodes)

Medication to treat depression and mania as they occur

Learning to recognise things that trigger a mania or depression episode

Learning to recognise when an episode is about to happen

Depression in Bipolar can often be treated in the same way as clinical depression, through the use of anti-depressants and therapy. Psychological treatment, counselling and psychotherapy can help you deal with your depression and any other mental health issues you may have and provides you with support and advice. Regular exercise, a healthy diet and doing activities you enjoy can also help you manage your bipolar.

Counselling and Psychotherapy can help in the treatment of depression and bipolar by helping you develop an understanding of the triggers in depression and the mood changes experienced in Bipolar, this will then help you to manage your condition. A professional counsellor or psychotherapist can use several types of therapy to help you understand your depression; one popular therapy is Cognitive and Behavioural Therapies.

Cognitive and Behavioural Therapies are based on the way you think and/or the way you behave. These therapies can help you recognise your ability to change our thoughts or behaviour to overcome problems such as depression. Within Cognitive and Behavioural Therapies there are 3 types of therapy. These are Behavioural Therapy, Cognitive Therapy and Cognitive Behavioural Therapy (CBT).

Cognitive Therapy

Cognitive Therapy teaches you how to identify and replace negative thoughts and beliefs, which will change your behaviour and reactions towards them. This type of therapy will normally focus on the present as it is a problem solving treatment. Cognitive Therapy is based on the idea that they way we interpret situations influences how we feel about them.

When you become distressed you often find it difficult to realise that your thought patterns have changed, Cognitive Therapy helps you to identify these thoughts and changes them for the better.

Behavioural Therapy

This type of therapy is effective for those who want help for a change in their behaviour, anxiety disorders or addictions for example. Behavioural Therapy is based on the principal that behaviour is learnt and therefore can be unlearnt, but it does tend to focus on the ‘here and now’ and doesn’t necessarily look at your past to find the reason for your behaviour.

Cognitive Behavioural Therapy (CBT)

CBT combines both Cognitive Therapy and Behavioural Therapy, and it helps you change the way you think (cognitive) and your response (behaviour). It focuses on what is happening to you now rather than the past, and breaks your problem down into smaller parts which makes them easier to deal with and overcome. These parts can be thoughts, actions, emotions and physical feelings. Each of these parts can then affect the others, the way you think can effect your emotions and your physical wellbeing and your behaviour.

CBTis based on the idea that you learn unhelpful ways of thinking and behaviours. Learning to recognise how these thoughts and behaviours can cause you distress can help you challenge them, which can lead to a more positive way of thinking and behaving. CBT sessions with a counsellor or psychotherapist can be on a one-to-one basis, with family members or offered as group therapy.

A Cognitive Behavioural Therapy session may offer you a range of activities such as:

• Coping Skills
• Relaxation
• Challenging thoughts
• Thought Stopping
• Communication Training
• You may also be asked to carry out some work or projects at home.

If you would like to find out more about the benefits of counselling for bipolar or to find a professional counsellor in your area you could visit Counselling Directory.

counselling-directory.org.uk

 

Well, I’ve seen pictures of people doing it, and I understand that hundreds of groups do it every weekend; my only thought on the matter is why they would undertake this ridiculous pastime on a regular basis so blatantly?  I’m talking, of course, about the ramblers of the UK.

I mean, the facts and figures speak for themselves, but I believe that almost all of these strolling buffoons have a mental illness that’s gone undiagnosed for decades.  And, you know you’re in trouble when the ramblers of this green and pleasant land have organised – an association!

Can you imagine what the head office is like?  A bunch of knitty-Norah’s, who only listen to Radio Four, are regular church goers and sponsor unknown animal groups from an undiscovered continent on Mars.   Then you have the local groups to contend with, and I can assure you these off-shoots from the main vein will be far worse than the main HQ.

There will be some self-appointed arse and a begrudging wife taking the lead in all cases.  He will decide everything in the group because he had a high-powered job in organising plebs and he’s used to pushing people about and getting his own way.

So, you’ve joined a local ramblers group and you’ve worked out internal hierarchy and now you’ve got to buy yourself  some gear.  Yes, aside from socks, trousers, gloves, boots, a hat, (all water and wind proof I might add), and a walking stick that walks, you’ll need a pedometer.  Quite why you would want to take a pervert with you is beyond me!  

And to complete the list of requirements you need to put one foot in front of the other, you’re going to have to shell out for: a ruck sack big enough to carry an eight-man hurricane tent, a stretcher, at least one iron lung machine, a first-aid kit and possibly a two-seater kayak!  Well, you have to take into account the dangerous aspects of WALKING!!! 

You may be interested to know that you will also be required to take along with you, a bunch of maps, a compass, at least two theodolites, breakfast, dinner and a high tea, a thermos flask for a hot drink, and at least 20 litres of water, along with your over trousers or gaiters.  Well, it’s a hazardous hobby this walking malarkey, deadly in some cases.

Of 39,407 people killed or very, very seriously killed on Britain’s roads in 2002, 8,631 were people who walked about a bit.  And what was the cost of the pedestrian road accident casualties in Britain?  Well, the knock down, rock bottom price is £2.4 billion big ones a year!

A prat or novice walker, usually between the ages of 16 and 32 may try to use a sat nav system if they’re lost.  After all, they know exactly where you are and can take you to where you want to be.  This is bollocks.  In all cases the outcome of using such a device will result in death due to starvation and dehydration or discovering you’ve made it to France, much the same thing really.

I can safely say that, second to potholing, I can’t think of a more selfish and costly pastime than walking a bit and then getting lost of injured.  And all because a rambling cell somewhere in the grimy underworld of Croydon, London enrolled a bunch of fresh-air freaks and radicalised them into believing that they have a right to roam!!!

The cost of finding the daft bastards runs into the thousands each year, and in this country I’m sure the NHS has better things to spend its money on quite frankly.  “Quick, quick, there’s a man who’s injured himself after falling off of a molehill.”  Well worth calling out a fleet of ambulances for!  Meanwhile, somewhere in the centre of town, where you don’t need to be a map reader or rely on grid references, is someone’s mother who’s fallen down the stairs and had a heart attack!!!  Personally, I’d shoot all ramblers at birth.

 

Aquatic Corner

If fish had legs they could walk under water…