I don't mind being manipulated

TAPED

I got taped today.  But manipulated first.  And welcomed both.

For a few weeks I've had odd sensations in my shoulder and neck.  A sort of pins and needles tingling, often followed by a numbness that feels like a mild paralysis.  It never hurts, it doesn't really restrict my movements, but it is annoying.  Especially when I'm trying to get to sleep and my neck has a disagreement with every angle I try out.

So I went to the osteopath.  The regular MoT for my back was about due anyway.  She could feel some tension in my muscles, suspected the damage came from the extended period of coughing I had earlier in the year, but could see no long term problems.  She moved bits of me around in the just-short-of-torture way that osteopaths and chiropractors and physios seems to delight in and reckoned it would all heal with time.  Then decided to experiment on me with her newest toy.  (This is not as kinky/exciting/depraved - delete as applicable - as it might sound.

The 'toy' was a roll of bright blue tape, of the sort increasingly prominent on a lot of sports people, especially in tennis.  Like Aga Radwanska's natty knee number here.

A bit of measuring up, some crafty scissor work and a few strips of blue later and I was ready to go.  "Keep them on for the next three days or so" she says.  Presumably to allow as many people as possible to have a good laugh.

I've become the type of person who just throws on a t shirt in the morning and forgets what I'm wearing thereafter.  But the positioning of this tape may make me reconsider.  Here's why.

I'm not quite too sure what kind of image this projects to the world.  Ailing sports star?  Cracked Android?  Or just Frankenstein's Monster?   Maybe I'll wear a shirt with an actual collar for a bit.  If you see me looking a bit posher than usual this'll be why.  Normal service will be resumed as soon as possible.

There again, if it helps the recovery along, I don't really care what I look like.  T shirt it is then.

The weather is letting me down

BLOODY SPRING, COMING HERE AND TAKING OUR CHANCE OF SNOW....

British Summer Time is here, there are buds appearing on the trees, even blossom in places, and the parks are ablaze with the colour of daffs and tulips.  I have to accept that it's Spring and that Winter has gone.  This is supposed to be a cheerful sign of better times ahead.  But for me it means acceptance of defeat.

So ends my second cold season back home in Scotland.  But still not cold enough.  After twenty five years spent in Southport, where snow is an alien concept, a bogey man that can close the world with half an inch, I was looking forward to getting out in some proper white stuff.  Walking and driving in snow were skills I grew up with and enjoy exercising.  If I can still remember how.

But defeat is mine.  There's been the barest hint of powdery whiteness seen from the window, but by the time I get out there it's just a memory.  I am doomed to walk damp but flake free streets, missing out on the pleasures of breaking fresh snow.

In the grand scheme of human affairs there are many potential threats to humanity from the impact of global warming.  And one minor annoyance for this particular Scot.

Writing for writing's sake

SOME DAYS....

I try to write something every day. Indeed it's become something of a mild addiction. I've mentioned before the impact of the 750words.com site on my habits, and that motivation continues. Most of the time I'm content just to write what comes into my head. There's nothing very joined up about the process, so don't expect to see any lengthy works coming from my keyboard. It's all just done for enjoyment, and very occasionally that turns out to be something I think might be worth posting on this blog.

But some days the inner drive to turn out words is stronger than others. On those days it feels like there is a real physical need to sit down and watch the words flow on to the screen. They don't have to mean anything in particular, they don't have to tell a story or describe an incident, they don't even have to put forward an opinion or point of view. It's enough for them to be, to come into existence as sentences, paragraphs, a stream of thought which may or may not have any relevance to the outside world.

As addictions go, as urges go, this feels to be a healthy example of the species. Human beings have a need to communicate, to impart their thoughts to others. But there are times when the desire to say outruns the need for an audience. If a tree falls over in the woods, and there's nobody there, does it make a sound? In one sense yes, for the action will result in a disturbance in the air generating sound waves. In another, no, for what we recognise as sound is active, not passive, and it only becomes a sound if there is a means of perceiving it as such - like the human ear for instance. Without that receptor there are only sound waves, but no sound. It is the transforming ability of the ear which turns those waves into sound.

So if I write, and nobody reads it, is it still writing? Unlike sound, the written word has some degree of permanence. Even if nobody has read it the potential for someone to do so will exist, until the medium on which has been created ceases to exist.

Whilst the previous paragraph would have been unarguable a couple of hundred years ago, it has become obscured through the advance of technology. The advent of recorded sound means that sounds can, it seems, be heard more than once. Or can they? The recording is created from the soundwaves that were originally produced, but when reproduced the molecules of air are not the same as those from which the recording was made, and the ear which then turns those disturbances into actual sound is not the same as that which heard the noise being created live.

So what of writing? To read a sentence our eyes receive reflected light. As with the air molecules, the light is not the same for you as it is for me, the instruments of translating that light into images, our eyes, are not the same either. If this has always applied to the written word on paper, it was then changed by the invention of printing, and further revolutionised by the ability to store words digitally, in the form you are reading today. These words you see now are the same, in one sense, as those I type, but what you see has no real physical link to action of writing.

At the end of which I feel I've confused myself sufficiently not to be able to come to any sensible conclusion. The tree only makes a sound if someone, something, is there to create the sound from the air. My writing exists for as long as the relevant digital storage medium exists and there is a means to access it. It only makes a 'sound' if someone, which might only be myself, reads it.

But whether or not someone reads this there is still a purpose in creating it. It was fun to do so. Sometimes that all the purpose you need.