Category: Musings

The power of touch

Some of life’s lessons are easy to learn – once we have been taught!

Readers be warned! This is one of my more subjective posts written in the hope that many will ‘connect’ with the emotions expressed.

I want to explore the power of touch.

Not just in a direct manner such as a hug or an arm around the shoulder but also the way that love can reach out and ‘touch’ us from afar. I’m going to do that by recounting something that Jean and I have experienced over the last couple of weeks. Here we go!

A while after we had moved to Payson in February, 2010 both Jean and I noticed that I was getting forgetful. Initially we thought it was just a characteristic of the vestibular migraine that I was diagnosed with in 2009 but eventually it seemed a good idea to have a local doctor here in Payson check me out. That examination took place last April 24th., a little over two weeks ago. The doctor dropped a huge bombshell in our laps by saying that she thought that I was exhibiting signs of early-onset Alzheimer’s Disease!

To say that I was shocked was an understatement. Jean was beside herself with worry as her late American husband, who had died in 2005, had suffered badly from Alzheimer’s Disease for his last two years. We had 48-hours of wall-to-wall worry!

A few days later, I was getting very angry at the lack of gentleness in the way that the doctor had spoken to me. Jean had the brilliant idea of contacting a retired doctor friend. His response was loud and clear; he advised me to get a second opinion and continued by recommending a neurologist that he knew well. That appointment was held this last Tuesday, May 8th, down in Phoenix.

The neurologist asked me many questions, including such verbal tests as how many animals can you name in a minute, spell the word ‘world’ backwards, deduct 7 from 95 (and then keep deducting 7 from the resultant answer!!), and then undertook a physical examination including co-ordination skills, blood flow in the neck and other relevant aspects.

All of which lead him to the conclusion that I was not showing any signs of dementia. My forgetfulness was normal for someone of my age (67 last birthday) especially taking into account all the life changes of the past few years.

Then the neurologist went on to warn me about anxiety. He said it was a ‘killer’ of healthy bodies and healthy minds, especially as we got older. So my anxiety over my sister’s dementia, my half-sister living in Devon, England, whom I am very close to, is now badly affected by vascular dementia and got me thinking I might be following in her path, and my anxiety over thinking my life now was ‘too good to be true’, was getting in the way of me being a relaxed, ‘go with the flow’ individual.

Thus a couple of extremely stressful and worrying weeks came to a most wonderful conclusion; an outcome that couldn’t have been better. The degree of emotional and psychological disruption that Jean and I have been through was not however without some major lessons being learnt.

Being scared – I’ve always taken for granted that I would have good health throughout my life, aided and abetted by the fact that I have never been admitted to hospital and have avoided serious illnesses. The first doctor’s so-called diagnosis was one giant slap-in-the-face especially realising that the future in store could be a steady decline in my cognitive skills.

For the first time in my life I was truly scared and last Monday, the day before the visit to the neurologist, I broke down in Jean’s arms saying how scared I was. Revealing such vulnerability was not easy for me but being held by Jean under those circumstances was deep and pure bliss. As the saying goes, ‘If one doesn’t run the risk of being lost, then one can never be found.’

Love and friendship – The number of people that came up to Jean and me, gave us big hugs and said that they would be thinking of us during our trip down to Phoenix last Tuesday was indescribably beautiful. So many showed such a depth of feeling for what Jean and I were going through. Many others from distant places sent encouraging emails or telephoned. It all amounted to preventing us from feeling alone and reinforced our determination that whatever the medical outcome, we would find a way of handling it.

The power of the mind – my brother-in-law, in a recent telephone call, said that once the mind latches on to an idea, it does everything it can to reinforce that idea, however illogical it may be. Thus over the last couple of weeks, every time I dropped something, or forgot where I had put my glasses, or wasn’t clear which day of the week it was, and on and on, I used that as ‘proof’ that I was rapidly losing my mind. It should serve as a strong warning that we can literally think ourselves into a crisis!

The love between a dog and a human – hugging a dog when one is feeling emotionally vulnerable is beyond measure. Dogs always sense when we humans are feeling fragile and they offer their uncomplicated hearts to us without any condition or need for return. That selfless love is an inspiring example of what we all need to learn to give one another.

Touch and social intimacy – we have so much to learn from dogs when it comes to touch and social intimacy. We are all needy for touch.

Which leads me providentially to a recent item from Terry Hershey. Terry came to Payson in March, 2011 and he was a most inspirational speaker. I have followed him ever since.

Last Monday’s Sabbath Moment included the following story, republished with Terry’s kind permission – the story is all about touch!

Caroline was very sad. Caroline was only six years old and her father had just died. In fact, her father had been assassinated.

Sitting in the back of big black limousine, Caroline Kennedy didn’t quite know what to do with her sadness. On the seat next to her sat her nanny, Maud Shaw, and next to Maud, Caroline’s younger brother John.

Through the windshield Caroline could see her mother, Jackie, and her uncles, Robert and Ted, walking in front of the limousine as it slowly made it’s way down the Boulevard to St. Matthew’s Cathedral. Looking out of her side of the car, Caroline recognized the friendly face of Secret Service agent, Robert Foster. She liked and trusted Robert Foster.

Not knowing what to do with her sadness, and on impulse, she rolled down the window and stuck out her six-year old hand. Agent Foster had a choice to make. Secret Service agents are not allowed to have their hands occupied, needing to be ready for any emergency. But Robert Foster didn’t even think twice. He held Caroline’s hand tightly the entire way to the cathedral.

Later, Agent Foster said it was all he could do to “fight back his own tears of sadness, for little Caroline Kennedy.” When asked about his kindness, he seemed surprised, “All I did was hold a hand,” he answered.

Terry then goes on to say,

We all know sadness. Life breaks for each one of us in different ways and in different places. And sometimes the sadness seems too much to carry.

It requires courage to roll down the window, to connect or ask or invite. For whatever reason, there is a knee-jerk need to deny any sadness, or dismiss it, or apologize for it. “I’m sorry,” people will say, wiping away their tears, as if their sadness is a violation of some tenet of propriety. Heaven forbid if any humanity is exposed.

So sometimes I am afraid to ask. Not sometimes; most times. I don’t want to appear weak. Asking for help is a hard pill to swallow.

I spent Saturday in Clearwater, Florida, with a group talking about intimacy and communication. (Yes, it is easier to talk about than to practice.) Here’s what I told the group.

If we don’t bring it with us, we’re not going to find it there. Which means intimacy–trust, vulnerability, authenticity, honesty–begins here.

With me. With this me.

I was raised in a religious environment that taught me to eradicate my messiness (to quash my sadness or grief or untidiness).

I now believe differently. I now know that we find and express acceptance, love and grace (the place where we can be fully human), in our messy, imperfect, and fully thorny selves. In other words: We can embrace this life–without any need to photoshop it.

To be human is to be vulnerable. I am capable of being wounded and cut and sad… which also means that I am capable of being kind and generous and present.

In such moments of heartache, I can have the courage to ask for a hand to hold.

In such moments of heartache, I can have the courage to hold a hand the needs to be held.

Robert Foster didn’t think twice about holding a hand that needed to be held. And he wasn’t posturing or amassing heavenly brownie points. He was doing what needed to be done.

Here’s the deal: we don’t need more remedies or advice. We need more touch. We become more human when we touch. Why? Because when we touch, we are seen. And when we are seen, we recognize that our value is not tied solely to our sorrow.

And we, you and I, will find no better lesson to learn from our beautiful canine friends, than this lesson of touch.

Not so common sense!

Sometimes one wonders what happened to common sense!

Today’s Post is motivated by a number of items that have crossed my screen over the last few days which when looked at collectively might remind one of the old saw, “You don’t have to be mad to work here, but it does help!”

Sit with me, metaphorically, and allow me to muse.

First was a recent Post on 350 or bust that included the March 2012 TED Conference in Long Beach, California where NASA climate scientist Dr. James Hansen explains why he must speak out about climate change. (See the video later on.) That Post refers to an item on Martin Lack’s Blog, Lack of Environment, where Martin as well as including the video below also lists the challenges that we on this single, finite planet face. Here is that list,

The Earth’s current energy imbalance is 0.6 Watts per sq.m.; a rate of energy input 20 times greater than the energy output of all human activity; and equivalent to the detonation of 400,000 Hiroshima-type atomic bombs every day.

Since measurements began in 2003, there has been a noticeable acceleration in the annual rate of mass loss from both the Greenland and Antarctica ice caps.

The last time atmospheric CO2 was 390 ppm, sea levels were 15 m higher than they are today, which implies even if we stopped burning all fossil fuels tomorrow, this is where they would end up several centuries from now because the warming “is already in the pipeline” (i.e. because the Earth must warm-up in order to restore its energy balance).

Unless we stop burning fossil fuels soon, sea level rise will continue to accelerate, which is likely to cause between 1 and 5 metre rise by 2100AD (depending on how quickly we now decide to stop burning them).

Palaeoclimatology tells us that 350 ppm is the safe limit for avoiding significant disruption to the planet’s ecological carrying capacity (i.e. in terms of both populations of individual species and overall biodivesity); and it now seems likely that between 20%-50% of all species will be “ticketed for extinction” by the end of the century.

If we push the Earth beyond it’s “tipping point” (i.e. allow all the emerging positive feedback mechanisms to take hold); ACD will become unstoppable; and the ensuing socio-economic damage will be almost unimaginable. The total global cost of mitigation is already put at somewhere between 35 and 70 Trillion US Dollars depending on how soon we choose to act.

If we had started to get off fossil fuels in 2005, it would have required 3% reduction per year in order to restore energy imbalance by 2100AD. If we start next year, it will require 6% p.a. If we wait 10 years it will require 15% p.a.

Recent droughts in Texas, Oklahoma and New Mexico were 3 Standard Deviations outside the norm. Events such as these cannot therefore be ascribed to natural variability; anthropogenic climate disruption (ACD) is happening just as Hansen said it would 24 years ago (if we did not change course – which we haven’t).

Pursuing emissions limits (i.e. Cap and Trade) will not work because there is no actual incentive to reduce emissions without any self-imposed restraint being to the advantage of others who do not do the same (i.e. the Tragedy of the Commons problem).

Hansen uses the analogy of an approaching asteroid – the longer we wait to prevent it hitting us the harder it becomes to do so.

Do watch that Hansen video,

Second is that yesterday Martin Lack published an item that really does seem to endorse the view that there is no sign of intelligent life living on Planet Earth (not counting dogs!).

Think about it. The planet is warming up. The use of carbon-based fuels is a strong suspect, putting it mildly, of the rising levels of CO2 in our atmosphere, 394.45 on April 5th, so rather than change the incentives for using such fuels, we are taking advantage of this warming planet causing the melt of the Arctic ice cap by allowing Shell to drill for oil in the Arctic. But even crazier than that, Shell have contracted for a Finnish icebreaker to assist them in breaking up the ice! (I really do feel a headache coming on!)

Greenpeace in the UK are running a campaign to stop this.

Sign up to save the Arctic

Let Shell know your feelings.

The pristine and beautiful Arctic: Shell wants to exploit it for oil. We want it protected.

Dozens of Greenpeace Nordic activists have boarded and occupied a Shell-contracted icebreaker in Helsinki harbour as it prepares to leave for the Alaskan Arctic.

Drilling in this fragile ecosystem – home to the polar bear, narwhal, Arctic fox and other iconic species – is unacceptable. A spill or accident in these waters would be disastrous and the harsh conditions would make responding to such a disaster almost impossible.

Demand Shell stop their plans to put the fragile Arctic and its biodiversity at risk. We’ll keep you updated on our campaigns.

Write to Mr. Peter Voser.

Mr Peter Voser, Shell

The Arctic isn’t a place you can exploit, it’s a place we have to protect. Time and time again, experts have expressed serious doubts about the possibility of cleaning up an oil spill in the Arctic. The technical challenges posed by drilling there are obvious and no matter how much you try to convince people that your company can operate safely in such a harsh environment, we know the truth.

Because of this, I demand that you scrap your Arctic plans immediately.

Yours sincerely,

————–

By the end of this week we want 500,000 people shouting at Shell that it must end its campaign of Arctic destruction. Click here now. [N.B. This is a time-sensitive campaign response – please visit Greenpeace website and enter your name and email address and they will email Shell on your behalf.]

We can change things! Together we can stop Shell and other oil companies from destroying the Arctic. Not everyone can board a ship to demand that change. But today, you can email Shell and ask them to stop drilling for oil and ask 10 of your friends to do the same. Together, we can save the Arctic!

Rosa Gierens
Greenpeace Nordic activist from Finland.

It’s not just an isolated instance of madness! Just a little over 10 days ago, I reported on President Obama’s support for the oil companies that threatens the polar bears, see “President Obama’s proposal for these magnificent and imperiled animals is a gift to Big Oil”

In closing, luckily there are many voices being raised about putting an end to this madness; see the recent item from Patrice Ayme. Hopefully, all these voices will bring about the changes to the way so many of us are governed. As Patrice commented recently on Learning from Dogs, “Hope is the breathing of the planet“. Maybe, just maybe, hope will win through. No better put than by James Hansen,

Most impressive is the work of the Citizens Climate Lobby, a relatively new, fastgrowing, nonpartisan, nonprofit group with 46 chapters across the United States and Canada. If you want to join the fight to save the planet, to save creation for your grandchildren, there is no more effective step you could take than becoming an active member of this group.”
– Dr. James Hansen, head of Goddard Institute for Space Studies, NASA

Oh, and before I forget, a tornado touched down in Southern France! Not common and not making sense!

The last 484 feet!

Some milestones on the age of the solar system.

Forgive me, dear readers, but something light and simple for today. I don’t mean in the sense of the content, far from it, just easy for me to put the post together as it is from a presentation that I gave a year ago.

Here’s a picture of our solar system.

Most of us are reasonably familiar with this visual concept of our solar system, but what of it’s age? That’s much more difficult to embrace in a way that we can relate to.

So let’s use something to represent the age of our solar system, the distance from Phoenix to Payson.

In round terms, Payson is 80 miles North-East from Phoenix. Put another way, that’s 422,400 feet!

So if those 80 miles represented the age of our solar system, what would be the significant milestones on this metaphorical journey?

Phoenix represents the start, the ‘start’ of our solar system some 4.54 billion years ago

It was 1,075,000,000 years before Blue-green algae appeared. That is the equivalent of travelling 18.94 miles from Phoenix North-East along Highway 87. Or looking back, those algae appeared some 3.465 billion years ago.

But on we travel, metaphorically an unimaginable 3,459,800,000 years after the arrival of Blue-green algae until the next milestone; the earliest hominids. In terms of our Highway that’s a further 60.97 miles. Again, looking back that was 5,200,000 years ago.

The sharp-eyed among you will see that 18.94 miles added to 60.97 miles is 79.91 miles. Goodness that’s awfully close to the total distance of 80 miles between Phoenix and Payson! In fact, the 0.09 miles to run is the equivalent of 484 feet!

So let’s look at those last 484 feet.

The first 465.20 feet represents the approximately 5 million years after the earliest hominids appeared before H. sapiens arrived, some 200,000 years ago.

The appearance of Homo sapiens brings us to just 18.6 feet from Payson.

But first, we travel 9.3 feet and see the arrival of dogs, generally regarded to have separated, in DNA terms, from the Grey Wolf 100,000 years ago.

And are you 60 years old? You were born just 0.0669 inches or 7/100ths of an inch from Payson! If my maths is correct (someone please check!) 0.0669 inches is about 34 times the thickness of the human hair! That’s very close to Payson!

Don’t know about you but it puts the age of our solar system into a perspective one might be able to get one’s arms around.

On the scale used above, one inch represents 895.68 years, one foot the equivalent of 10,748.11 years and a mile represents 56,750,000 years.

Anybody want to hazard a guess as to the state of our planet in one further inch?

OK, let me stay more or less on topic and just round things off.

EarthSky website seems to have some great items, including this one.

Ten things you may not know about the solar system

9 ) Pluto is smaller than the USA
The greatest distance across the contiguous United States is nearly 2,900 miles (from Northern California to Maine). By the best current estimates, Pluto is just over 1400 miles across, less than half the width of the U.S. Certainly in size it is much smaller than any major planet, perhaps making it a bit easier to understand why a few years ago it was “demoted” from full planet status. It is now known as a “dwarf planet.”

Go here for the full list of ten items.

Finally, just how far does it all go?

How far do the stars stretch out into space? And what’s beyond them? In modern times, we built giant telescopes that have allowed us to cast our gaze deep into the universe. Astronomers have been able to look back to near the time of its birth. They’ve reconstructed the course of cosmic history in astonishing detail.

From intensive computer modeling, and myriad close observations, they’ve uncovered important clues to its ongoing evolution. Many now conclude that what we can see, the stars and galaxies that stretch out to the limits of our vision, represent only a small fraction of all there is.

Does the universe go on forever? Where do we fit within it? And how would the great thinkers have wrapped their brains around the far-out ideas on today’s cutting edge?

For those who find infinity hard to grasp, even troubling, you’re not alone. It’s a concept that has long tormented even the best minds.

Over two thousand years ago, the Greek mathematician Pythagoras and his followers saw numerical relationships as the key to understanding the world around them.

But in their investigation of geometric shapes, they discovered that some important ratios could not be expressed in simple numbers.

Take the circumference of a circle to its diameter, called Pi.

Computer scientists recently calculated Pi to 5 trillion digits, confirming what the Greeks learned: there are no repeating patterns and no ending in sight.

The discovery of the so-called irrational numbers like Pi was so disturbing, legend has it, that one member of the Pythagorian cult, Hippassus, was drowned at sea for divulging their existence.

A century later, the philosopher Zeno brought infinity into the open with a series of paradoxes: situations that are true, but strongly counter-intuitive.

In this modern update of one of Zeno’s paradoxes, say you have arrived at an intersection. But you are only allowed to cross the street in increments of half the distance to the other side. So to cross this finite distance, you must take an infinite number of steps.

In math today, it’s a given that you can subdivide any length an infinite number of times, or find an infinity of points along a line.

What made the idea of infinity so troubling to the Greeks is that it clashed with their goal of using numbers to explain the workings of the real world.

To the philosopher Aristotle, a century after Zeno, infinity evoked the formless chaos from which the world was thought to have emerged: a primordial state with no natural laws or limits, devoid of all form and content.

But if the universe is finite, what would happen if a warrior traveled to the edge and tossed a spear? Where would it go?

It would not fly off on an infinite journey, Aristotle said. Rather, it would join the motion of the stars in a crystalline sphere that encircled the Earth. To preserve the idea of a limited universe, Aristotle would craft an historic distinction.

On the one hand, Aristotle pointed to the irrational numbers such as Pi. Each new calculation results in an additional digit, but the final, final number in the string can never be specified. So Aristotle called it “potentially” infinite.

Then there’s the “actually infinite,” like the total number of points or subdivisions along a line. It’s literally uncountable. Aristotle reserved the status of “actually infinite” for the so-called “prime mover” that created the world and is beyond our capacity to understand. This became the basis for what’s called the Cosmological, or First Cause, argument for the existence of God.

Think I need to lie down now!

It’s an ill wind …

It’s an ill wind that blows nobody any good!

Amazing to find that the saying was recorded as far back as 1546 when it is first recorded in John Heywood’s A dialogue conteinyng the nomber in effect of all the prouerbes in the Englishe tongue: “An yll wynde that blowth no man to good, men say.”

The reason this comes to mind is that good friend, John H. from here in Payson, recently sent me a piece under the title of Spider’s Web. This is how it started,

An unexpected side-effect of the flooding in parts of Pakistan has been
that millions of spiders climbed up into the trees to escape the rising flood
waters.

A quick web search came across the item in National Geographic online, from which I republish this:

Cocooned Trees, Pakistan

DECEMBER 14, 2011

Cocooned Trees, Pakistan
Photograph by Russell Watkins

This Month in Photo of the Day: 2011 National Geographic Photo Contest Images

An unexpected side effect of the 2010 flooding in parts of Sindh, Pakistan, was that millions of spiders climbed up into the trees to escape the rising flood waters; because of the scale of the flooding and the fact that the water took so long to recede, many trees became cocooned in spiderwebs. People in the area had never seen this phenomenon before, but they also reported that there were fewer mosquitoes than they would have expected, given the amount of standing water that was left. Not being bitten by mosquitoes was one small blessing for people that had lost everything in the floods.

(This photo and caption were submitted to the 2011 National Geographic Photo Contest.)

John’s email also included more images, that are reproduced below.

So it looks as though we have much to learn from spiders as well as from dogs!

Or maybe, it’s just another example of the beauty, magic and mystery of nature!

Dogs and the mathematics of calculus.

A remarkable story about two very clever men and an equally clever dog!

Five days ago, I received an email from a Richard Hake quite out of the blue! This is what it said,

Dear Paul Handover,

I’m taking the liberty of cc’ing this to Tim Pennings since he may be interested in your blog “Learning from Dogs.”
As founding author of the great blog “Learning from Dogs”, I thought you might be interested in the work of Tim Pennings.
Paraphrasing from the Hope College website:

*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*
Tim Pennings is a professor of mathematics at Hope College and owner of a famous Welsh Corgi dog, Elvis, who knows calculus. He has given over a hundred talks – including several speaking tours – based on his papers “Do Dogs Know Calculus?” [Pennings (2003)] and “Do Dogs Know Bifurcations?” [Minton & Pennings (2007)]. Articles about Elvis are easily found on Google and Youtube. For example:
1. “A Dog, a Ball, and Calculus” Ivars Peterson’s MathTrek,
2. “Calculating Dogs” Ivars Peterson’s MathTrek ,
3. “Dog Plays Fetch With Calculus” YouTube (see below)
4. “Elvis The Calculus Dog at Roanoke College” Vime0 Videos.
*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*

Regards,

Richard Hake, Emeritus Professor of Physics, Indiana University
Honorary Member, Curmudgeon Lodge of Deventer, The Netherlands
President, PEdants for Definitive Academic References which Recognize the Invention of the Internet (PEDARRII)

Well what fun!

Let me start with that YouTube video mentioned above:

Tim Pennings of Hope College in Madison, Wisconsin takes a look at the mathematics his dog Elvis uses to play fetch.

And here are a number of wonderful pictures of Elvis from which comes this one:

More may be learnt about Tim Pennings from here, from which I quote:

I am a professor of mathematics at Hope College. My areas of research and writing include dynamical systems (the shadowing property in particular), mathematical modeling, and the infinite. I have directed the Mathematics REU Site since 1995 and have mentored research students almost every year since 1990. A complete list of published papers, talks, and other professional activity is included in my vitae.

My interest in infinity stems from my intrigue with the rich stuff that lies in the confluence of mathematics, physics, philosophy, and theology. My paper, “Infinity and the Absolute: Insights into Our World, Our Faith, and Ourselves” is the backbone of my senior seminar course, Pondering the Big Questions. Several other math-theology papers, published in Perspectives include “A Life Lesson from Calculus” and “Haggai, Mathematical Dynamics, and the Nature of Good and Evil”.

I have a famous Welsh Corgi dog, Elvis, who knows calculus. Here are some pictures of us. We have given over a hundred talks – including several speaking tours – based on our papers “Do Dogs Know Calculus?” and “Do Dogs Know Bifurcations?” (written with Roland Minton) both published in the The College Mathematics Journal of the MAA. Articles about Elvis are easily found on Google and Youtube.

Finally, the author of the email, Richard Hake, is no slouch! Here’s Richard’s Blog Hake’sEdStuff and information on his academic background.

Thanks, Richard, for getting in touch!

The love of a cool cat!

How lady luck brought joy for a ‘down-and-out’ Londoner and a cat called Bob!

I was chatting with my son yesterday and he happened to mention that perhaps I should write about a cat for a change! Alex mentioned a book recently published in the UK called A Street Cat Named Bob: How One Man and His Cat Found Hope on the Streets.

This is how the book is described on Amazon (UK site),

When James Bowen found an injured, ginger street cat curled up in the hallway of his sheltered accommodation, he had no idea just how much his life was about to change. James was living hand to mouth on the streets of London and the last thing he needed was a pet. Yet James couldn’t resist helping the strikingly intelligent tom cat, whom he quickly christened Bob. He slowly nursed Bob back to health and then sent the cat on his way, imagining he would never see him again. But Bob had other ideas. Soon the two were inseparable and their diverse, comic and occasionally dangerous adventures would transform both their lives, slowly healing the scars of each other’s troubled pasts. A Street Cat Named Bob is a moving and uplifting story that will touch the heart of anyone who reads it.

A quick web search found volumes of material, so let’s start with this video,

The local London newspaper the Islington Tribune wrote this back in 2010,

Two cool cats… the Big Issue seller and a stray called Bob

Inseparable: musician James Bowen with Bob

Down-on-his-luck musician teams up with ‘wonderful loyal friend’ he rescued from streets

Published: 24 September, 2010
by PETER GRUNER

NOT since the legendary Dick Whittington has a man and his cat become such unlikely celebrities on the streets of Islington.

Big Issue seller James Bowen and his docile ginger cat Bob, who go everywhere together, have been attracting comments since they first appeared outside Angel Tube station.

The story of how they met – widely reported in blogs on the internet – is one of such extraordinary pathos that it seems only a matter of time before we get a Hollywood film.

James, 31, who lives off Seven Sisters Road, Holloway, is a musician who has fallen on hard times.

He ekes out a basic living selling the homeless people’s magazine Big Issue at Angel and Covent Garden.

Bob was a stray discovered by James outside his accommodation one day.

The cat was limping after apparently being attacked by another animal, possibly a fox.

After failing to discover the cat’s owner, James took him to the RSPCA hospital at Finsbury Park, which prescribed a course of antibiotics.

“I kept him for two weeks until he was well enough to go on his way,” said James. “But when I opened the front door to let him out Bob wouldn’t move. He seemed to me to be saying: ‘I want to stay with you.’

“Now we go everywhere together. I even have a cat harness when we go out and Bob gets really excited when I show it to him.”

Read the rest of the article here and if you want more information, a web search on Bob the Cat will finds loads more.

It’s a fabulous story with a great message of hope for not just for James and Bob but for all of us that find ourselves ‘up a creek without a paddle’ at points in our lives.

Here’s how the newspaper The Daily Mail wrote about it on their website,

[last half of the story]

But then Bob started following him and it became increasingly difficult to shoo him away, especially as there were dangerous roads to be crossed. One day there was nothing for it but to put Bob on a makeshift lead and take him along. Bob travelled sitting on James’s shoulders.

The trouble was, so many cat-mad passers-by stopped him to stroke the animal that James arrived late at his pitch, secretly cursing Bob for thereby costing him some of his usual £25-a-day takings. He couldn’t have been more wrong.

Within minutes, people who would normally have walked by without giving James a second glance were lingering to make a fuss of the cat sitting sedately in his guitar case, and most made a donation. By the end of the day, he’d racked up more than £60.

It was the beginning of a phenomenon as tourists and commuters befriended Bob and James, many bringing titbits for the cat. People were amazed at how placidly Bob would sit all day, quite happily watching the world go by while James earned a living. Not that it was always without a hitch; on a couple of occasions Bob bolted when startled, leading to a frantic chase through the crowded streets.

Bob’s popularity continued when James switched from busking to selling the Big Issue, the magazine produced and sold by homeless people. This change in direction was part of James’s growing sense of a need to get his life in order, which he puts down to the responsibility of looking after Bob, and the example the cat offered of the possibility of a second chance.

It enabled James to make the final push to end his drug dependency, going through the necessary cold turkey to get off heroin substitutes, and to mend broken contacts with his family. The final result of Bob’s influence came when a literary agent who passed the duo every day and had seen them on YouTube suggested James tell their story in a book. The result is this heart-warming tale with a message of hope that will appeal especially to the many cat obsessives out there.

Read the full story here.

Let me close with another video, this one from a recent UK This Morning TV show with James Bowen and his cat being interviewed by Eamonn and Ruth.

Thank you, Alex; great story!

Being at sea!

A discovery of some writing from the past triggers memories.

Way back on the 15th November, 2009, I wrote a post about single-handed sailing and how it caused me much disquiet. Rather than just leave you with a link to that reflection, I’m going to include the post again, below. The reason is that a few days ago, in looking through some of my earlier writings in conjunction with a writing group that Jean and I belong to, I came across a piece that I wrote following a solo voyage from Larnaca in Cyprus, west along the Mediterranean Sea and then out over the Atlantic from Gibraltar to Horta on the island of Faial in the Azores. That last leg was a little over 1,100 nautical miles (1,300 land miles) and took me eight days.

So first here’s that earlier post from 2009.

A personal reflection on this rather strange way of travelling!

The recent Post about young Jessica Watson sailing alone around the world raised a few comments but also reminded me of my own experiences of solo sailing.

Some years ago, having successfully sold my own IT company, I warmed to the idea of being a full-time yachtie! A second-hand Tradewind 33 was discovered on the Island of Corfu. (Now here’s a surprise! I was just browsing the web looking for a picture of a Tradewind and came across my old yacht currently up for sale. Her name is Songbird of Kent! Picture below.)

Anyway, the deal was done and having sold my house in England I flew out to Corfu to collect Songbird of Kent. Inevitably it was a number of months before the boat was ready to head out into the Mediterranean but in early Spring 1988 it was time to explore the long coastlines of Greece and Turkey.

After a fantastic summer cruising from one idyllic anchorage to another mostly with friends or family on board, it was time to find a winter haven. Many recommended Larnaca Marina in Cyprus. Thus it was late in the summer of 1988 that I said goodbye to friends and set out on my own to cross from Antalya in Turkey to Cyprus and along the South coast of Cyprus to Larnaca, on the SE side of the island.

That sea crossing, a little over 200 nautical miles, was to become a regular solo experience at the start and end of each summer season. Impossible to do in a single day thus it always included a night at sea and rarely, if things didn’t go well with the weather, a couple of nights. I hated it! Maybe it was the sudden transition from coastal sailing to a deep water crossing, often going from having friends on board to being alone, but whatever it was I never enjoyed my time on my own and knew that long-distance solo sailing was never going to be my scene.

Anyway, I ended up spending several very happy winters in Larnaca.

One time, there was news of a Frenchman who had come into Larnaca on his way home to France having nearly completed a circumnavigation of the world. He was on his own!

I was astounded to hear how someone could do this and made a point of calling round to his berth. The boat was a beautiful, solid steel yacht, the very epitome of a craft that could challenge the oceans. The owner’s name was Pierre (it would be!). Pierre invited me aboard and we went down to his saloon to drink a hot coffee – real French coffee!

Inevitably the conversation turned to the challenges of sailing alone. Pierre said that the big cargo ships at sea moved quickly relative to the speed of a yacht so at night he set an alarm for every 15 minutes. That was the time that a ship could go from being hull down over the horizon to being close enough to be a hazard. Thus while at sea Pierre got up briefly every 15 minutes during the night to avoid being run down! It sounded totally exhausting.

Then Pierre asked me about the sailing I had done and whether I had sailed on my own. I declared my trivial journeys back and forth from Cyprus to Turkey and revealed that being on my own made me very, very unhappy. Pierre was surprised to hear that as he admitted that being at sea alone was one of the most tranquil and peaceful experiences ever. Pierre asked how long these solo journeys took. I replied, two or three days.

“Ah!”, he said, “That is the problem.” “I, too, hate the three days. It is always a period where you adjust and it is terrible.“

“My friend, you must find a way to be alone for more than three days. You will see that it is very different.“

It was some years before that opportunity came about but, in the end, I did undertake a solo journey of 8 days. Pierre was right. The first three days were hell, the rest were heaven!

Thank you, Songbird of Kent, you gave me some fabulous memories!

at sea

By Paul Handover

Now on to my writings about being out at sea alone on a small yacht.

Being at Sea

Going to sea in a small vessel is a profound experience.

In harbour we build up a reliance on things external. We have no need to worry if there is insufficient food on board, we can plug into the dockside power supply, sleep through the night undisturbed and we can wander off and enjoy the company of others if the boat feels a little claustrophobic.

Then slowly, imperceptibly, but with huge force, arrives the need to move on. The realisation that our cosy life connected to the busy, bustling and self-obsessed world of shoreside is not fulfilling our search for adventure and for the truths that lay over the horizon. It is time to leave.

The act of casting off is always exciting as it heralds a new adventure. But it also carries feelings of loss and apprehension as one lets go of the bonds of a previous certainty. The first few hours are filled with the workload of getting one’s craft shipshape and battened down for the unknown seas. Then gradually comes the realisation that the land is now less the dominating visual feature than the vastness of the seascape that is ahead. But with the land in sight, albeit a distant horizon behind one, you can still sense the life you are leaving.

Now all that surrounds you is the sea. You are now truly disconnected from the land. It is often at this point that despondency and uncertainty play with your mind; after all this new life is still very unfamiliar compared to the warmth of that island home that still resonates in your heart. Time to remind yourself of why you wanted to take this voyage.

A small boat is very fragile. Just a centimetre of hull separating you from the unimaginable depths of the ocean beneath your keel. Not until the end of your voyage, when you draw your boat up, metaphorically on to that beach, will you ever stop feeling how close fate is, how it rides on your shoulder night and day. That, of course, is why we go to sea. It is the place where we taste life, where we savour each moment of the present because the future seems too bound up in the mystery, the uncertainty of the ocean. You are in charge of your tiny craft. Your survival depends on how you manage your small ship, how you navigate these seas, how you read the weather ahead and avoid the storms.

Soon your life on the ocean becomes everything to you. You have time to reflect on so much that is left behind. The distance seems to dissolve all the nuisances, bring into focus all the things that are important to you. There is no certainty with the ocean apart from the knowledge that you are very small and very, very vulnerable and yet, in a sense, also so strong.

In the end, we have to break away from our insecurities and our emotional dependencies on external people and situations because, without that, we are never able to command our own life and the destiny that flows from that captaincy. There is a real strength in knowing ourselves as we would know our own boat. If we really know every spar, sail, rope and fitting, if we have real understanding of the strengths and weaknesses of our small vessel then we are able to know when to breast the waves or when to turn and run before the storm. We are secure that our small craft will protect us day and night.

Thus self-knowledge gives us the same freedom to manage our lives, to know when to fight and when to turn away. And just as after every long voyage the boat will need hours of careful maintenance so our own souls need regular love and caring from our spiritual keeper.

solo — The setting sun ahead of a night on the ocean.

Just some ‘ah’ moments.

Taking a rest from the serious stuff!

The first picture comes from Merci O. from here in Payson.

The next two are from the camera of ‘yours truly’.

Cleo has settled in so beautifully and we can’t believe that these two weeks have gone so quickly.

Finally, talking of settling in, our five young chicks have reached the stage where they could be housed outside in their new chicken house, the move taking place just five days ago.

P1110370 — Welcome to your new home, young chick!

Helping the planet and the pocket.

Professor Nicole Darnall, ASU, outlines what can be done.

At home, we subscribe to the Payson Roundup, our local newspaper, and in the April 10th edition there was a full back-page article written by Pete Ayleshire, Editor, about …. well let me quote from the on-line copy,

ASU professor Nicole Darnall taught a session on living a sustainable lifestyle at the Women’s Wellness Forum. Photo by Pete Aleshire.

Save money.

Get healthy.

Save the planet.

Why wait?

That’s the message Arizona State University professor Nicole Darnall delivered recently to a roomful of savvy planet

Prof. Nicole Darnall

huggers at the Women’s Wellness Forum. The daylong event drew about 240 women to listen to speakers on an array of topics.

Darnall offered a gripping presentation that started with global disaster, but ended with a reassuringly doable list of steps individuals can take to solve the seemingly overwhelming problems.

As I wrote at the end of last Friday’s article on Autism and bees, “I hope to publish a summary of a fascinating presentation given to a local women’s group here in Payson that shows the many obvious and easy steps we can all take to revert back to a resilient life on this planet.”

It’s so easy to be overwhelmed by the barrage of ‘doom and gloom’ stories that abound and, make no mistake, if each of us do nothing, the future does look ‘interesting’!

I don’t know about you but the degree of awareness of the changes we all need to make is huge and growing. So Prof. Darnall was right on the button when she spoke to that women’s forum. For instance,

“Livestock generates more greenhouse gases than all the planes, trains and automobiles on the planet,” said Darnall. In part, that’s because the methane from, well, the other end of cows, has 21 times the greenhouse gas warming effect as carbon dioxide.

Darnall’s solution? Meatless Mondays — to start curving that scary trend line.

A few paragraphs later,

The average person generates 4.5 pounds of trash daily. Of that, 75 percent can be recycled — but less than 30 percent actually ends up recycled.

Worse yet, we discard half of the food we produce, which works out to 474 pounds of wasted food per person.

Once again: The answer lies surprisingly close to home.

Start a composting bin: That would reduce discarded trash by about one-third — while increasing the health of your garden, not to mention averting the production of chemical fertilizers.

Then there’s this …..

Quit buying the plastic water bottles that add 25 million items to the waste stream every day. After all, tap water must meet higher health and purity standards than bottled water.

And not forgetting …..

Worried about all the bleach and other chemicals used in household cleaning products? No problem, said Darnall — before offering up a recipe for environmentally friendly scouring involving vinegar and baking soda. You can also ditch the ammonia in the window cleaner, with a mixture of corn starch — great for smudged mirrors and spots in the carpet.

Then this touched the spot for this part of Arizona with this year’s rainfall already far below the 30-year average.

Worried about the reckless use of fresh water, with predictions of longer deeper droughts well established?

Shorter showers can save 150 gallons each time — and a low-flow shower head can save 175 gallons a month. Get rid of the lawn, cut the water bill by 60 percent.

Rounding off by …..

But here’s the kicker, she said — you can save your wallet by saving the planet.

Make your cleaning products and you not only protect streams you also save money.

Change over to LED lights, you not only reduce greenhouse gas emissions — you save money.

Install solar tubes and you reduce greenhouse gases — and save money.

Eat less meat and reduce global warming — and also lose weight.

And heck: You might even make the cows happy.

Delightful close to the article that is Pete Ayleshire all over. (Pete teaches the creative writing class at the local extension college that Jean and I have been attending for two terms.)

It seems to me that one of the many lucky aspects of living in Payson is having the Arizona State University (ASU) School of Sustainability in the area and being able to draw on the expertise of people such as Prof. Darnall.

So look around and see what small steps you can take to make a difference, and start those small changes. As in the words of an old saying from my England days, ‘By the inch, it’s a cinch, by the yard it’s hard!‘

RMS Titanic – in memory.

Spare a moment’s thought today.

On April 14th, 1912, at 23.40 ships time, the Titanic struck an iceberg and the rest is history. I’m not going to add to the wealth of information available on this sad centenary except to say that 1,514 people lost their lives and they and their descendants should be held in our prayers. And to recognise that one of those who lost his life was young ‘Jack’ Phillips, Senior Wireless Operator, who persisted in sending out distress messages by Morse Code to the very last, thus enabling the RMS Carpathia to rescue 710 souls.

Below are some local times to assist you in offering up a quiet thought as one hundred years ago to the moment the sound of a liner hitting an iceberg reverberated around the world.

RMS Titanic Ships Time April 14th 2340 – 11.40 PM

GMT/UTC April 15th 0240 – 2.40 AM

British Summer Time April 15th 0340 – 3.40 AM

Arizona/California April 14th 1940 – 7.40 PM

New York April 14th 2240 – 10.40 PM

London April 15th 0340 – 3.40 AM

Paris April 15th 0440 – 4.40 AM

Moscow April 15th 0640 – 6.40 AM

Singapore April 15th 1040 – 10.40 AM

Sydney, Australia April 15th 1240 – 2.40 PM

More world times may be calculated from this website.

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Sign up to save the Arctic

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Two cool cats… the Big Issue seller and a stray called Bob

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