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 wooden leg named Smith

Posted on January 24, 2014 by tashfriday

Good morning Tash Appreciators,

Many thanks for the texts and emails of complaint following last week’s re-post of an old TF. I was working on an Operation Zorro activity and that had to take priority. Hey, I’m not perfect.

Perfection is something that I have been reading and thinking about recently. Mainly this is because I’ve been reading the incredible book “Daring Greatly” by Brené Brown. The book covers a multitude of interesting topics but, for the purposes of this week’s TF, I’m just going to talk about perfection.

You often hear people saying that they are perfectionists. I assume they are trying to say that they pay attention to detail or that they are thorough. That’s all very laudable but it isn’t really being a perfectionist in the proper sense.

If I were a perfectionist, I’d never get out of the house in the morning. I would have to try over and over again to pour the milk perfectly onto my cereal; I’d spend until the end of time trying to iron a shirt perfectly; and I’d spend so long trying to make the perfect knot with my tie that the threads would eventually come apart in my hands. I may be wrong, but I don’t think human beings are capable of perfection. We can get close (for example, the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel or Jimmy Page’s solo in Stairway To Heaven) but nothing we create will ever be perfect.

That being said, I do think that we sometimes experience perfection. I’m thinking in particular of those moments when weather, company, music, time, speed, location (and every other factor you can imagine) conspire to create something which is perfect. I remember one moment in particular which I felt was perfection and thinking that I had to try and capture it somehow. It’s not great photography (although the sunburst sums up how I was feeling at the time) but this tht exact moment:

As we get older, we feel less free to enjoy ourselves and perhaps moments of perfection pass us by. We worry that things are going “too well” and that some disaster must befall us in order to balance the scales of life. Or we feel guilty that we’re happy when others are not. This weeks Tash lost the ability to enjoy life because he got wrapped up in his responsibilities and stresses. However, with a bit of help, he realised that life is best lived when you can laugh and enjoy the company of those around you. The man I’m referring to is Mr Banks from Mary Poppins:

I wonder if Mr Banks felt that the kite flying out of his hands was a perfect moment.

Have a great weekend folks – enjoy it! Maybe go and fly a kite or something?

What’s next?

Operation Zorro

Posted on January 10, 2014 by tashfriday

Good morning Tash Appreciators,

Happy New Year to you all.

We all know that January is traditionally the time to set targets for the year ahead. For my part, I have/am committed to making changes this year. Not because I think what I’m doing now isn’t worthwhile, or because I feel like I need to “improve” myself, but because I want to set a series of targets and I will be delighted when I hit them. It doesn’t matter what those targets are; all that matters is that I’ve set them and that I’m going to hit them.

To give myself a better chance of reaching my goals, I’ve been reading a bit about change. Although I risk incurring the wrath of Appreciators who are sick of hearing about cycling, I gained a good insight into the subject from Dave Brailsford, Team Principal of the wildly successful Team Sky. He describes his thinking as the “Triangle Of Change” and he says three elements are required:

1. You must be suffering enough, or the reward must be great enough, for you to engage with change.

2. You must believe that you are capable of change.

3. You must be committed to change.

What I take from this theory is that we won’t change simply because we feel that we should i.e. that feeling obliged to change isn’t enough. If we want to change, it has to be for ourselves. That seems healthy and sensible to me.

Although all three points of the triangle apply to me, I’ve decided to add another layer of carrot/stick. By sending out this TF, I’m also going out on a limb and saying that I’m committing to making these changes. This means that, if I fail, I’ll have to face you as well as myself. The added advantage to going out on a limb is that there’s a chance others will come out there with me. It’s always easier to attempt things with the help of others.

I have also decided to give this project a name: Operation Zorro. There are three reasons for this: it makes the whole thing “real” rather than just some jumbled ideas; Zorro has many qualities which I admire (the wiki page refers to him being a superb athlete, acrobat, tactician, horseman, swordsman, marksman, unarmed combatant, well-educated, wealthy, master of stealth with extensive scientific knowledge and advanced gadgets. No-one sees him coming); and, crucially, Zorro rocks a Tash:

Just one last point. I heard a quote (I don’t know where it originally came from) just before Christmas and it’s been buzzing around my head ever since:

“A year from now you’ll wish you’d started today.”

I’ve started already but you can start today, if you want.

Have a great weekend folks!

What’s next?

2014 and Beyond – Part 2

Posted on December 20, 2013 by tashfriday

Good morning Tash Appreciators!

Welcome to the last TF of 2013.

Last week, we looked back at this year and I said that adversity drew out our true character. This week, I’m going to challenge everyone (especially myself) to take our experiences of 2013 and use them to make 2014 count.

In order to look ahead to 2014, and beyond, I’d like to pose one question:

My honest answer to that question is that I haven’t got a clue.

Not having an answer to that question doesn’t mean that I’m not ambitious or that I don’t care, it just means that there is a wide world out there and I don’t yet know where my place is within it. I hope I’m not the only one who feels like that; I suspect I’m not.

I also don’t mean that I feel lost or down about life – quite the opposite, in fact. It’s just that, for too long, TF has been about “keep going”. Keeping going is all well and good, if you know where you want to go but, if you keep going without a thought as to where the final destination is, are you not lost? From now on, I’ll be thinking to myself: what’s next, what’s next, WHAT IS NEXT?

This week’s Tash (Samuel L Jackson in “Coach Carter”) was a leader: he was able to encourage those around him to listen to their better angels. In order to draw out a member of his team, he kept asking him “what’s your deepest fear?”

For a long time, the young man had no response until, one day, he came up with a secularized variation of a quote from Marianne Williamson. I’ll give you the full quote and you can choose to take the word “God” as meaning whatever makes sense to you:

“Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure. It is our light, not our darkness that most frightens us. We ask ourselves: who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented, and fabulous? Actually, who are you not to be? You are a child of God. Your playing small does not serve the world. There is nothing enlightened about shrinking so that other people will not feel insecure around you. We are all meant to shine, as children do. We were born to make manifest the glory of God that is within us. It is not just in some of us; it is in everyone and as we let our own light shine, we unconsciously give others permission to do the same. As we are liberated from our own fear, our presence automatically liberates others.”

In 2014, and beyond, I’ll work out what’s next and TF will shine. Consider yourselves liberated to do the same.

Have yourselves a thoroughly wonderful Christmas and hopeful, happy, New Year.

What’s next?

2014 and beyond – Part 1 (tashfriday.wordpress.com)

2014 and beyond – Part 1

Posted on December 13, 2013 by tashfriday

Good morning Tash Appreciators,

Welcome to the penultimate Tash Friday of 2013 – the first of a two-part Christmas Special. I’ll preface this week’s TF by saying that it may not seem all that festive but, fear not, it’ll all work out in the end.

I’ll start this week with a quote from Theodore Roosevelt, which was sent to me earlier this week:

“It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; who errs, who comes short again and again, because there is no effort without error and shortcoming; but who does actually strive to do the deeds; who knows great enthusiasms, the great devotions; who spends himself in a worthy cause; who at the best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement, and who at the worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who neither know victory nor defeat.”

I know that many of our number have faced points in 2013 when they have felt very much like their faces are marred with dust and sweat and blood and when they can taste defeat. However, at the same time, the way in which those same people have conducted themselves after those points confirms the truth in what Roosevelt said.

Roosevelt was 42 when he took office: the youngest ever President. Becoming President also took him by surprise as he was sworn-in following the assassination of President McKinley. He must surely have felt at times that he was out of his depth.

However, just like all of those Appreciators who had to battle to get through 2013, Roosevelt did more than just survive – he thrived. His success was complete when he won a land-slide victory in the 1904 general election. Naturally, for a chap who was made of stronger stuff than the Average Joe, President Roosevelt wore an absolute stoater of a moustache:

The lesson which I will be taking into 2014, and beyond, is that our character is strengthened by adversity. This year may have been pretty rough, but as I will set out next week, there is plenty to be hopeful about as we head towards the New Year.

Just to finish this week, when I was reading up on Roosevelt, I found an interesting quote from Vice-President Thomas Marshall, who said after Roosevelt died in 1919:

“Death had to take Roosevelt sleeping, for if he had been awake, there would have been a fight.”

I thought that was great.

Have a great weekend folks!

#keepgoing

Black Friday

Posted on November 29, 2013 by tashfriday

Good morning Tash Appreciators,

Yesterday saw the United States come to a halt as people got together with family and friends for Thanksgiving. Today will see a fair few of those same people heading to malls and department stores to do their Christmas shopping. However, this isn’t any normal day of shopping, today will be the biggest shopping day of the year: Black Friday:

I had thought that Black Friday was just an American thing, but judging from the adverts on TV and the subject headings of the emails in my inbox, the hysteria has made its way over here. I saw it in person too – at a shopping centre earlier this week when, even at 9 pm, there were still thousands of people shopping for presents.

I don’t care what people spend their money on – it’s theirs, they earned it, they can spend it however they like. I’m not that interested in snooty arguments about consumerism, either. What struck me was that, in all probability, the people who are shopping on Black Friday or mid-week at shopping centres are not doing it for themselves, they’re surely buying Christmas presents for others.

That got me thinking about why we all go out and spend so much of our hard-earned cash on other people. I don’t think it’s because we’re all slaves to consumerism. I don’t necessarily think it’s because we expect to get something back in return, either. I think we all just like to see the look on the faces of our friends and family when they open a present, which we’ve given to them, and it’s immediately clear that the present was what they wanted. With that in mind, maybe we don’t all need to be shopping at 9pm on a Wednesday, maybe we just need to spend a bit more time thinking about what we should get and whether it’s actually going to be appreciated.

Speaking of appreciation, with this being the day after Thanksgiving, I feel it’s appropriate for TF to give thanks too. Surprisingly enough, TF gives thanks that Tom Selleck decided that this look didn’t suit him:

But that this one did:

Have a great weekend folks!

#keepgoing

It’s that stage of proceedings

Posted on November 8, 2013 by tashfriday

Good morning Tash Appreciators,

It may not quite be panto season yet, but we seem to have reached the stage of proceedings where we take a slight pause from the action to make some shout-outs. Feel free to whoop loudly if you, or someone you know, is mentioned…

This week, a steady trickle of Movember-related Tashes have been submitted for TF’s consideration. Here are a selection of my favourites:

From the world of professional sport comes a Tash which must surely have been on the go for some time. This chap is a South African rugby player who has played for the Lions in the Super-14 and, more recently for the Glasgow Warriors. I think this effort may take some beating:

From across the Pond comes a Tash of a sweeter kind – a sugary effort from the stupendously named Glory Hole Doughnuts in Toronto:

Last, but not least, comes another offering from Scotland. I am reliably informed that this chap is known for smashing his way up and over various high mountain passes around west central Scotland. I also hear that the shape of his Tash is the result of exhaustive aerodynamic testing – a man must be aerodynamic, after all. Mr Russell Bridges, take a bow, sir:

Thanks for all the submissions and #keepgoing to those taking part in Movember.

Have a great weekend folks!

#keepgoing

Same Rules Apply

Posted on October 25, 2013 by tashfriday

Morning Tash Appreciators,

A couple of weeks ago I saw Filth, the film adaptation of Irvine Welsh‘s book of the same name. For the first 45 minutes or so the audience laughed as Bruce Robertson – a dirty, racist, sexist, drug- addled cop – strutted around Edinburgh causing chaos and doing his utmost to manipulate his way to a promotion:

After that though, the perception of his appearance changed as the audience discovered the reasons why Bruce is the way he is. I don’t think I’m ruining the plot by saying that, while he is all of the things I’ve already mentioned, beneath his filthy veneer is a broken, lonely man struggling with mental illness. At the end of film, as the credits whizzed by to “Love Really Hurts Without You” by Billy Ocean, I was in bits. It’s stuck with me since then and I’ll never listen to that song (or a cover of “Creep” by Clint Mansell) the same way again. This week’s Tash, by the way, is Billy Ocean:

I was thinking about the film afterwards, and what really upset me was that Bruce was totally alone. He was alone because of the way he treated those around him but it struck me that he had lost his family, he bullied his only “friend” and he hated his colleagues. Even without any underlying issues, circumstances like those would pose a problem for any person. After all, by my reckoning, we spend the majority of our lives in three ways: asleep; with our friends and family; or with our colleagues. If something has upset our relationships with one of those groups then that would be upsetting, but if something is wrong with all three then that’s a perfect storm – just like the tempest in Bruce Robertson’s mind.

The same rules apply to family, friends and colleagues: we don’t often choose them; we don’t always like them; we will in all likelihood be around them for a significant time; but, if by some quirk of fate we find ourselves with people who end up being a blend of family, friend or colleague then that’s something to really cherish. In the film, Bruce’s problem is that once he’s lost his family, his friends and colleagues follow shortly after.

TF usually has a point and this week’s is two-fold: firstly, people who appear to have filthy characters tend to be that way for a reason; and, secondly, most of us are driven, intelligent folk who could, if we wanted, manipulate those around us for our own ends. The most common example of that is in the workplace but, to my mind, getting ahead in that way is a pretty hollow victory – is it not better to be able to say your colleagues are friends rather than being promoted but without any support? The other thing is that if you act in a way that is manipulative or underhand then, when someone has the opportunity to get you back, the same rules apply.

If you get the chance to see Filth, take it: James McAvoy is unbelievable:

Have a great weekend folks!

#keepgoing

Movie review: Filth (18) (dailyrecord.co.uk)

Hurry up with my damn croissants

Posted on October 4, 2013 by tashfriday

Morning Tash Appreciators,

I’m a bit behind in listening to it but this week has seen Kanye West’s eighth album – Yeezus (yeah, it’s very like Jesus, isn’t it) – getting a lot of airtime in TF HQ. For those who don’t know who he is, this magazine cover tells you everything you need to know about who he used to be:

This album is good – really good. The lyrics and melodies are imaginative and quite different from any hip hop album I’ve heard before. The only difficulty with it is it’s also one of the angriest records I’ve ever heard. Parts of it make for difficult listening.I don’t have a problem with an album being difficult to listen to, nor do I think that many Tash Appreciators are interested in what Kanye raps about on this album. What is interesting, I think, is that he wasn’t always an angry guy. In his first big release in 2004, his lyrics were about consumerism, being self-conscious and modern racism. It was all pretty insightful and constructive:

We buy our way out of jail but we can’t buy freedom.

We buy a lot of clothes when we don’t really need ’em:

Things we buy to cover up what’s inside.

I don’t know what’s happened to Kanye to make him seemingly change his outlook on life so dramatically (maybe it’s just as he predicted in 2004: “the people highest up have the lowest self-esteem”) but it seems a shame that it’s come to this, even if it does make for entertaining music.

We’ve probably all had times when we’re angry or disappointed about what’s going on around us and that can sometimes seep into our attitude towards life in general. It’s also difficult for us to always see those changes in ourselves. The aim, I guess, is to ensure that we have folk around us who will say when things are getting out of hand. It’s a shame, but maybe Kanye doesn’t have someone around him to say: “Here, you know that song when you say ‘I am a God’ over and over again and then use that line which talks about you wanting a “damn croissant”? That’s too far.” They should perhaps show him a picture of this week’s Tash:

The croissant Tash is a first for TF.

I’ll leave you with one final Tash this week. It’s a picture of Kanye from his High School yearbook. As you can see, he was awarded best dressed, he’s happy, he’s rocking a Tash (just about) and he’s wearing a polo shirt:

As a matter of fact, he chastises himself in this current album for ever wearing a polo shirt. However, I wonder when he was happier: when he was wearing that shirt or when he was writing this album.

Have a great weekend folks!

#keepgoing

You’re having a laugh!

Posted on September 27, 2013 by tashfriday

Good morning Tash Appreciators,

I’ll keep it short and sweet this week.

As was discovered in one of TF’s satellite offices this week, most people enjoy a good prank; particularly when they have masterminded and implemented it. Just like a good Tash, pranks can lighten the mood when folk are a bit down and can also invigorate people when they’re lacking energy.

Just for the hell of it, here are a selection of TF’s favourite pranks:

Pranks can go wrong though, badly wrong. The most obvious example of that is where the person upon whom the prank is being played does not find it funny. Perhaps worse, though, is where the person doing the pranking takes it too far. This might be where there have been a series of pranks and the ante has been raised to such an extent that something must eventually go wrong. There are a fair few examples of these too:

In the wrong hands, the Tash can be a dangerous thing too. For example, at a recent beard and moustache championship held in New Orleans there were stunning examples of superlative moustachery (not a word, but I’m having it) such as this:

While, in New York, Justin Bieber was trying to pull off this monstrosity (you might need to look closely):

Tashes, like pranks, should only be attempted by those who know when they can and, more importantly, can’t be pulled off.

Have a great weekend folks!

#keepgoing

‘Star Trek’ Teleportation Prank Confuses Mall Shoppers (mashable.com)
Guys Prank Buddy by Replacing All the Tap Water in His House with Beer (gawker.com)

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