Month: February 2020

We can’t help ourselves.  Everyone has a penchant for collecting some object of desire – usual culprits include shoes, bags and watches. The more affluent (show-offs) amongst us may extend this to cars, houses, works of art and race-horses. Other obscure collections can be more geeky like sporting memorabilia, celebrity artefacts, tattoos and records. Nothing wrong in that –one might say. Everyone is entitled to a bit of healthy self-indulgence and if we’ve earned it – like the tv ad says – “we’re worth it!”. For some it’s about displaying prestige; for others it’s an investment; many hoard to fill a gap in their neediness.

All well and good, but it’s when it all gets a bit too obsessional or irrational, that we might need to worry. Logically speaking no-one needs several hundreds of pairs of shoes. And a bag, is a bag, is a bag. And it doesn’t matter HOW MANY you own – there is never one where everything fits in!?? What about when you’ve tattooed every inch of your body? Start on the inside!? WTF?

If you know someone with a bit of a stuff habit, try to gently hint that they might be better using their energies (and money) in spending more time with you. Send one of these Moments. If that fails, tell them you have a second-hand Hermes Ostrich bag you found in a charity shop for £10! That’ll get them round for tea!

There are over a thousand pop songs with “love” in the title… with many artists trying to define the very essence of love. So, this Valentine’s Day we can think of no better way than to surrender ourselves to the contemporary bards of our times to help us truly understand the true expression of love….

Love is kind / Love is blind
Love is a question mark / Love is the answer
Love is in the air / Love is like oxygen
Love is a stranger / Love is the drug
Love is on our side / Love is a battlefield
Love is a silent thief / Love is the law
Love is the key / Love is a losing game
Love is like an itching in my heart (hmm..)
Love is thicker than water (eww!)
Love is a bourgeois construct (eh?)
Love is a laserquest (???)

Confused? Don’t be; love is whatever you want it to be… no label required. Or songs for that matter.
Use any of these Valentine’s Moments and express yourself to someone you love.

Hot on the heels of last week’s BAFTAs comes the glamour-fest of them all – the Oscars. A night traditionally renowned for the beautiful people to back-slap and out-frock each other all the way up the red carpet; swiftly followed by extravagant after-parties that we all gawp at from the (dis)comfort of our IKEA sofas. However, more recently, the occasion has become more associated with bitter controversy and criticism: elitism, racism, sexism, you-name-it-ism. Maybe it’s just a jolly for the privileged that has had its day? Get woke, Hollywood!

Perhaps we should be looking closer to home for the real stars of the firmament who truly deserve the awards and recognition? There are so many people who we may think of as playing a major role in this long-running production we call life. Who, for example, might you nominate as playing a leading role in your life? (Please say it’s your significant other, for pity’s sake!) Who would get the award for the best supporting role? Your mum, dad or bestie? Who deserves the accolade for giving you direction? And any newcomers recently arrived on the scene that you have had your eye on? 😉

When we think about it, it takes a huge cast and a tremendous production to get one little human through life. Most of us don’t do it for the accolades or the gongs (although a few of those to prop open the odd door might be nice). So, this Sunday, instead of enviously staying up late to ogle the gorgeous and the talented, perhaps spend some time reaching out to those twinkling stars that have made you the special talent you are. Choose any of these Moments and deliver them a thrill as big as hearing… “and the winner is…..”

7 February, 2020.