If at first you don’t succeed

Posted on April 11, 2014 by tashfriday

Good morning Tash Appreciators,

I had not intended to follow up on last week’s TF straight away but I had also not expected the reaction that I received. The people spoke and their answer was:

Here are a few examples of the responses (I have paraphrased in places to take out some of the stronger language):

“Re TF, what you are doing is laudable but nationalism is not something that can be argued dispassionately. It’s a matter of faith. Your average nationalist cannot be shaken from the belief that he is right (he loses his ability to reason when he cedes his individualism to the “nation”). Folk lamenting the lack of debate are missing the point: nationalists cannot debate. They look for arguments supporting their prejudices (same as folk who deny global warming).”

“It’s a disingenuous debate and I’m saddened by your willingness to try to take the politics out of an inherently political debate. There is no independence on offer, stop pretending that there is.”

“I know you are trying to broaden it out but the issue of the day is whether we have an Independent Scotland or not. I don’t think your thing is impartial because it implicitly accepts the premise of Nationalism. You’ve been beaten in the dressing room.”

“This weeks TF is a real self indulgent effort…”

There were other comments too and I’m grateful to everyone who responded.

The point about faith is particularly interesting. In a world that is only able to operate thanks to logarithms and science, faith can be seen as a synonym for irrationality and as something that is unhelpful when it comes to decision-making.

I can see the merits in that point of view, but if our lives were ruled by logic, would it not be a terribly lonely and uneventful place? Would we risk heartbreak by entering into relationships with people who, at least at first, are strangers? Would we have children? Also, to what extent do we base our “logic” on notions that we don’t fully understand? For example, how many of us use modes of transport that rely on the internal combustion engine or aerodynamics without really knowing how or why they work? How many of us understand how and why modern medicine operates? These are all things I don’t understand but in which, I suppose, I have faith.

It’s also not accurate to say that only a “yes” vote is based on faith. A “no” vote will also involve faith; just a different kind. I also don’t accept that we can’t have a conversation which involves faith. I think that we need to tailor the way we talk to each other in order to take into account where folk are coming from.

To conclude, I don’t think that we should go into the voting booths on 18 September and make a decision based on faith alone. After all, we wouldn’t get on a plane if it’s wings looked a bit rickety and we wouldn’t take medical advice from a doctor who was drunk. The point I’m trying to make is that faith does have a part to play in the independence discussion.

For the sake of offering all points of view (and to preempt this being thrown in my face), I’ll leave you with a contrary view from this week’s Tash: Friedrich Nietzsche

“Faith: not wanting to know what is true.”

Have a great weekend folks!

What’s next?

People of Scotland, lend each other your ears

Posted on April 4, 2014 by tashfriday

Good morning Tash Appreciators,

For once, the subject of this week’s TF is not a Tash-toting festival of humanity (although, of course, such a person will be included) but is a topic that will impact many of us and generations of Scots to come. This week, I’m talking about the referendum which will ask whether Scotland should be an independent country

I must say from the outset that I will not be offering my view in relation to the referendum. My aim this morning is to offer a way for us to have civil and constructive conversations about our hopes and fears for Scotland in the future. It’s important that we have these discussions now because the way in which we talk about the referendum will shape how we talk about Scotland from 19 September onwards.

To start that process, I invite you to consider this Commitment to Respectful Dialogue. Some of you may have seen this in The Herald and The Scotsman a couple of weeks ago, and many of you will recognise a few names amongst the signatories:

A group called Collaborative Scotland presented the Commitment following a series of meetings which took place over the last 6 months or so. The meetings, which were chaired by John Sturrock QC (an internationally recognised facilitator of constructive discussions and negotiations), gave those who attended the chance to test the theory behind the Commitment. The meetings were specifically not an opportunity to debate the referendum but were an opportunity to talk about how we have conversations about the future.

The magic of the process was that when the 50 of us sat down in groups to talk about our aspirations for Scotland, we discovered that the hopes and fears that we have in common are far more numerous than those that divide us. During our conversations, it was generally impossible to tell which way others would vote and, tellingly, that didn’t seem to matter.

So what does this have to do with you? Well, I know how many of you read TF every week and I suspect that many of you would find the conversations which I observed informative and inspiring. I also know that many of you are influential within your work/social circles and it strikes me that, together, we could spread the Commitment to a wider audience.

After all, on 18 September, we will be given the opportunity to shape Scotland’s path for centuries to come. We should take that opportunity to act as positively and constructively as we can. For my part, I’m planning to help host a conversation in Glasgow, and if there’s an appetite for it, I will invite all of you to come along.

I’ll therefore leave you with a link to the Collaboration Scotland website, where you can sign up to receive further information and offer your support to the Protocol; a request that anyone who might be interested in coming along for an evening of conversation in Glasgow sends me an email; and a quote from this week’s Tash, Mahatma Ghandi:

“We may have our private opinions but why should they be a bar to the meeting of hearts?”

It seems that every week that passes, this question becomes more important: what’s next?

Have a great weekend folks!

Don’t ever let them see you coming

Posted on March 28, 2014 by tashfriday

Good morning Tash Appreciators,

One of my pals coaches a rugby team and he was telling me about a match his team has tomorrow. It’s the under-18s West Cup final and kick off is at 2 pm at Whitecraigs rugby club in Glasgow. His team is at home but their opponents are league champions and arguably have the upper hand after winning the last encounter (albeit narrowly) earlier in the season. When asked what he thought of his team’s chances he said:

“We’re the underdogs; but definitely not written off.”

We all find ourselves in situations where it is unlikely that we will achieve our goal or, to use the sporting term, where it is likely that we will “lose”. We all therefore have experience of being underdogs.

So what can we do in a situation where we are the underdog? I have three pieces of advice, two of which come from this week’s Tash, Al Pacino, and one of which comes from me. Unfortunately, Mr Pacino doesn’t rock a Tash in the movies from which I’ve pinched some quotes. However, he has on various other occasions, my favourite of which was in his portrayal of Serpico:

My first tip for overcoming underdog status is that you have to have experienced losing – badly – at least once. No successful person (i.e. a “winner”) managed to achieve their goal at the first time of asking. In fact, most of them have had to hit rock bottom a few times before fulfilling their potential. Winning is easy, we could all do that. However, it’s only after losing that we can really appreciate winning, and we’ll work much harder to win after we’ve suffered a loss.

My second piece of advice is, after suffering a loss, to embrace your underdog status and make it appear that you are the “little guy”. For this tactic to work, you must be confident in the work you’ve done improve; you must be sure of your own ability; and you must have the mental toughness to perform better than your underdog status suggests:

“No matter how good you are, don’t ever let them see you coming. That’s the gaffe my friend. You gotta keep yourself small. Innocuous. Be the little guy… Look at me – underestimated from day one. You’d never think I was a master of the universe, now would ya?” (The Devil’s Advocate)

The third and final tip, is to band together with other underdogs and concentrating on taking small steps towards your ultimate goal. After all…

“You find out life’s this game of inches, so is football [and rugby]. Because in either game – life or football – the margin for error is so small.

I mean, one half step too late or too early and you don’t quite make it. One half second too slow, too fast and you don’t quite catch it.

The inches we need are everywhere around us. They’re in every break of the game, every minute, every second. On this team we fight for that inch. On this team we tear ourselves and everyone else around us to pieces for that inch. We claw with our fingernails for that inch. Because we know that when we add up all those inches, that’s gonna make the difference between winning and losing! Between living and dying!” (Any Given Sunday)

I’ll leave you all this week with one final Tash and one final comment. I’m adding the Tash simply because the name of this character in Any Given Sunday is just too good. His Tash is pretty decent too. I give you Montezuma Monroe:

My final comment is this: the speech I’ve quoted from Any Given Sunday is given by Al Pacino during half-time of a big game, when his team is on the ropes. At the end of the speech he says: “so what you gonna do?” I thought that was very similar to TF’s own mantra: What’s next? My message this week is that losing, or being the underdog, is sometimes the moment when we are best placed to work out what’s next – that’s the time when we really look at ourselves and see what we’re really made of. We’re usually tougher than we think.

Have a great weekend folks – I hope it’s a victorious one.

What’s next?

p.s. For the Whitecraigs lads, I thoroughly recommend this as a pre-game tune:

For the makers, the doers and the savers.

Posted on March 21, 2014 by tashfriday

Good morning Tash Appreciators,

This week saw the UK’s Chancellor, George Osborne, deliver his budget for the coming year. In the main, the headlines in response to his speech were taken up by better-than-predicted economic growth; an increase in the amount of money that an individual can earn tax-free; and an increase – to £15,000 – of the amount an individual can put into an ISA (a savings account) tax free each year.

Mr Osborne said:

“We’re building a resilient economy. This is a Budget for the makers, the doers, and the savers.”

Before I throw my thruppence (soon to be known as the pound coin) into this conversation, I should be clear that I have a leaning towards egalitarianism and am therefore biased in this debate. That being said, I question whether this really is a budget for the makers, the doers and the savers.

In the UK, around 1.4 million people are employed in jobs that pay the minimum wage. If you’re over 21, the minimum wage means that you will earn at least £6.31 per hour, or a little over £11,000 (net of tax) per year.

That may sound acceptable but numerous employers disagree. They pay their staff a Living Wage, which is £7.45 per hour generally and £8.80 in London. The Living Wage is calculated by considering what a person must earn to have a minimum acceptable standard of living. On that basis, Mr Osborne is allowing 1.4 million people to be paid a wage which doesn’t even provide the most basic standard of living.

So why is this the case? Well, one answer to that question is that increasing the minimum wage by 39% in London and 18% everywhere else (i.e. to the level of the Living Wage) would be difficult for businesses to support. That’s all well and good, but I wonder whether, after a disastrous few years for our economy, our focus should be on things other than the concerns of businesses.

Last Friday, former Labour MP (he was an MP for 47 years), Tony Benn, died. Some will not have agreed with his politics but something he said has been on my mind this week:

“We are not just here to manage capitalism but to change society and to define its finer values.”

I don’t have an issue with Osborne crafting a budget to support the makers, the doers and the savers, my issue is that he simply isn’t prepared to do it. He qualifies all his efforts by first testing them against their effect on business. If he really wanted to change society and help those who make, work and save, he’d pay them a wage which would give them a minimum acceptable standard of living, and then some.

In the end, this all comes down to justice, and whether the notion of justice is a pipe-dream that can ever come true. I say that it can, if we want it to.

This week’s Tash believed in justice, even when it was difficult and involved sacrifice and compromise. He may be a fictional character, but I still rate him higher than many of our real politicians. I give you Commissioner Gordon, of Gotham City and the Batman trilogy.

Have a great weekend folks!

What’s next?

How much?

Posted on March 14, 2014 by tashfriday

Good morning Tash Appreciators,

It appears that Spring is finally here! I was walking to work one morning this week and Pulp’s Sunrise started to play on my generic mp3 device. Although I didn’t do it outwardly, my insides were dancing much like Jarvis Cocker during his performances of this song:

For those not able to watch videos on YouTube, it goes a bit like this:

I was out with a couple of pals this week and we got to talking about whether, given the right amount of money, we would do any job. I have to admit, my attitude is that unless you’re doing a job about which you are passionate, or which is vocational, then earning the most you can should be your main objective. The contrary argument to that is, of course, that money can’t buy happiness and there are more important things in life than the cash in your pocket.

After strong arguments on both sides, I am just about ready to admit that my attitude was/is wrong. However, it took watching a TV programme and seeing a desperate man with a moustache to finally persuade me.

If I was to take my argument to it’s logical conclusion (and we all know that logic is the correct way to make an argument…), then I would do pretty much anything if the price was right. That begs the question, what would I be prepared to do for a pile of money like this:

Would I be prepared to work 7-days a week? Would I be prepared to sell drugs? Would I be prepared to kill my competitors? The answer to all of these questions is “no”. So where do I draw the line? That’s something I’ll have to work out.

I realised the error of my ways after sitting down to watch another episode of Breaking Bad. Fear not, I shall not spoil the plot, I merely point out that if I was purely motivated by cash, then I could end up behaving like one or more of the characters in that programme. I don’t want that, so one way or another, I’ll need to work out what my real motivations in life are. After all, I want to be able to look in the mirror and not see this man (however excellent his Tash may be) looking back at me – I don’t think he’s capable of dancing like Jarvis Cocker.

Have a great weekend folks!

As ever, the question on my mind is: what’s next?

900. 300. 26.

Posted on February 28, 2014 by tashfriday

Good morning Tash Appreciators,

As we leave February and start to leave winter behind, I thought this might be an appropriate moment to check how we’re all getting on.

I’ll start us off with my progress report: Operation Zorro has been a mixed bag so far. Some goals have been met, but others are going slowly and some are drifting out of reach. In some respects, results have been disappointing. In the past, I might have lost heart if things weren’t going exactly to plan, but not any more. Giving up and feeling down wastes time and energy and I don’t have any to spare.

I generally like to stay clear of the sort of clichéd dross that you see on social media. You know the sort, the motivational slogans which are invariably about fitness and/or diets. However, this week I shall make an exception and offer this quote:

I’ve missed more than 9000 shots in my career. I’ve lost almost 300 games. 26 times, I’ve been trusted to take the game winning shot and missed. I’ve failed over and over and over again in my life. And that is why I succeed.

That’s a quote from this week’s Tash. While it’s catchy and memorable, it’s not Michael Jordan’s failures that made him succeed – it was his desire to work in spite – and because – of his failures. He succeeded because he dared to try, because he dared greatly. Goals that are worth going for are, by definition, not easy to achieve. It’s therefore unlikely that they’ll be reached straight away, without any initial failure.

“But did Jordan have a Tash?” I hear you all shout. You bet he did, as well as 6 NBA championship rings:

Anyway, sporting references might not appeal to some of you. If that’s the case, then I urge you to check out a song which is getting played regularly at TF HQ and, seemingly, every radio station in the world:

That’s Pharrell Williams with “Happy” from the Despicable Me soundtrack. Oh yeah, Pharrell rocks a Tash too!

Have a smashing weekend folks!

What’s next?

Qubits and quiet moments

Posted on February 21, 2014 by tashfriday

Good morning Tash Appreciators,

I read two articles this week that blew my mind: one was about quantum computing and the other was about mindfulness.

The quantum computing article described a company called D-Wave that has produced a computer (known as the D-Wave 2) costing $10,000,000. The temperature of interstellar space is 80 times warmer than the temperature at which the D-Wave 2 operates and it looks like this:

The article describes how it works in detail but here’s the key part:

“Regular computers work with information in bits. Each bit can either be at 1 or 0 at any one time… Now imagine a computer that operates under quantum rules… Its bits could be 1, or 0, or 1 or 0 at the same time.”

This means that a computer using quantum bits can do far more calculations than one using regular bits. To be exact, the D-Wave 2, which has 512 quantum bits, could perform 2 to the power of 512 operations simultaneously. That’s more operations than there are atoms in the universe, by many orders of magnitude.

We’ve all seen how pervasive technology and computing have become in our lives. Many of us will have access to work emails at all times and it can sometimes feel like there is just too much information to process.

That’s where mindfulness comes in. It’s difficult to describe mindfulness but imagine training and developing your mind in the same way you train to develop your other muscles. Practicing mindfulness helps you to be “present” in a given moment and manage your thoughts.

To show how most of us struggle with that simple sounding task, take 20 seconds and try to clear your mind of all thoughts.

Didn’t work, did it? Thoughts about work or things you need to do will no doubt have popped into your head. You’ll also probably have found that the more you tried to clear your mind, the more those thoughts appeared. Mindfulness is aimed at helping you train your mind to acknowledge thoughts – but not dwell on them – and to allow you to focus on the task in hand.

My point this week is that many of us often feel like there are more operations going on in our head than there are atoms in the universe. That’s the price we pay for living in a connected society. All that being said, I’m comforted by the fact that, while some folk are striving to make technological advancements, others are striving to find methods which might help in alleviating the pressures on our minds.

This week’s Tash apparently – according to those in the know (i.e. not me!) – found quantum mechanics so counterintuitive that he thought the theories relating to it must either be wrong or incomplete. He also said this:

“The eternal mystery of the world is its comprehensibility.”

After trying to wrap my head around qubits and how to best find a quiet moment, I was glad to discover that even Albert Einstein struggled with comprehending the world around him.

Have a great weekend folks!

What’s next?

p.s. If you’re interested, there’s a free app called Headspace which is aimed at helping users become more mindful. Part of the app is a ten-day programme called “Take Ten” where users take ten minutes out of their day for ten days in an effort to get a basic understanding of mindfulness. I enjoyed it.

You better, you better, you bet!

Posted on February 14, 2014 by tashfriday

Good morning Tash Appreciators,

I was talking to a fellow Appreciator about how I couldn’t think of anything to write this week. Her one bit of advice was: “just don’t make it about Valentine’s Day.” The thing is, that is exactly what this week’s TF is going to be about.

I suspect that many of you will not be fans of Valentine’s Day. The usual complaint about that it’s a creation of the American greetings card industry. After a bit of reading, it’s clear that’s not the case. It apparently dates back to an early Christian festival celebration of Saint Valentinus. These days, it is far less “Americanised” than Halloween or Christmas.

I don’t mind there being a day set aside for people to show their affection for one another. My complaint is that, if you engage with Valentine’s Day, all you can do is meet expectations or be excruciatingly unoriginal.

If you’re in a relationship, you either have to make some kind of gesture (which, ordinarily, would be appreciated but on Valentine’s Day is seen as normal) or you do nothing and run the risk of inflicting upset upon your significant other.

The Who summed up this sorry state of affairs in “You Better You Bet” when Roger Daltrey sings:

“When I say I love you, you say ‘you better’

You better, you better, you bet!”

If you’re single, you might get texts from your single pals with dubious rallying cries lifted from Beyoncé songs (“all the single ladies” springs to mind). Worse still, you might receive condescending head tilts from those smug folk who offer consolation in the form of platitudes: “plenty of fish in the sea” etc.

At least all of us are in the same boat in a couple of respects: dating companies will be doing their utmost to buy our email addresses from any source – legitimate or otherwise – and will then endeavour to clog our inboxes with offers of free trials of their websites. Not only that, none of us will be able to go out for food as every restaurant will have bumped their prices up by a minimum of 50%.

There is, however, one group of people who won’t give Valentine’s Day a second thought: men with moustaches. Some of these men – the ones who really know how to rock their Tash – transcend the single v. relationship dynamic of Valentine’s Day because everyone appreciates them. Therefore, Valentine’s Day for them is just like any other. Here are some classic of examples of the sort of chaps I mean:

Clark Gable

Jean Dujardin

Errol Flynn

Have a great weekend folks!

What’s next?

Protest

Posted on February 7, 2014 by tashfriday

Good morning Tash Appreciators,

On Tuesday of this week, the Scottish Parliament passed a Bill which will allow same sex couples to marry. The passing of the Bill means that Scotland is catching up with England and Wales, where same sex couples will be able to marry by the end of March.

The rights of gay communities around the world are in sharp focus at the moment, particularly as the Winter Olympics formally open in Sochi today. The homophobic laws and attitudes of some in Russia (particularly President Putin) have attracted a great deal of criticism.

Some say that politics has no place in sport and there is merit in that point of view. After all, athletes cannot control the laws of the places where they are sent to compete. However, it’s also true that sport is a leveller and can be a real-life example of many of the qualities of human nature.

We’ve seen in the past that sport can be an ideal opportunity to challenge inequality. Think of Jesse Owens in 1936 (when Owens confounded Nazi propaganda by winning gold in three sprint events and also in the long jump) and in 1968 when Tommie Smith and John Carlos raised a fist in the air for Black Power (they said at the time that it was for human rights in general and that is reflected in the human rights badges which they and the Australian athlete, Peter Norman, wore on their jackets):

Given the iconic pictures which resulted from Smith and Carlos’ stance on the podium, it can be no surprise who this week’s Tash will be. This is Tommie Smith these days:

It’s not just people on the big stage that can be a catalyst for change. We all can be. Indeed, if change is ever to happen and take root, it has to happen at a local level as well in full view of the public. To conclude this week, I thought it might be useful to give an example of an individual who took a stand in a more personal way. This is a letter which Bertrand Russell sent to Oswald Mosley, the founder of the British Union of Fascists, in 1962:

I really appreciate the terms of this letter: it’s polite, concise, yet emphatic. I would urge everyone who discusses issues like gay marriage, or anything where people have strong feelings, to take the same approach. It’s not often that one person is always right or always wrong and the chances are that the person you’re talking too has something interesting to say, even if you disagree with most of their views.

Have a great weekend folks!

What’s next?

A sauce of manliness?

Posted on January 31, 2014 by tashfriday

Good morning Tash Appreciators,

As we finally reach the end of January, some of you will be reveling in new found wealth following a long-awaited pay-day. This week, TF will urge you not to allow yourself to be fooled by TV ads. Of particular concern is this advert:

For those who can’t watch the video, this is an advert where HP claim that theirs is the “sauce of manliness”. In addition to being a terrible pun, by using the Tash in a patently misleading advert (how a sauce made up of malt vinegar, tomatoes, dates, tamarind extract, sweetener and spices be the source of manliness?) the ad men at HP have gone too far.

For a start, they are entirely incorrect in associating the Tash with this particular type of “manliness”. HP is suggesting that being a man is all about bacon butties, duct tape and stupidity. That’s a far cry from the sort of masculinity which TF is all about.

Let me put it this way: Tash Appreciation isn’t just for men who choose to wear a Tash in a show of masculinity or conformity; it’s for everyone who can appreciate the unique qualities of those who rock one i.e. having the gumption to get out there, being yourself and giving life a good shot. That’s real manliness and it’s for that reason that TF is taking the Tash back from the HP Sauces of this world.

To demonstrate that, this week’s Tashes are not drawn from HP Sauce’s target demographic; they’re a bit more interesting than that: