Mohandas K Gandhi and areligious spirituality

I'm watching Richard Attenborough's biopic of Gandhi, and coming to some interesting conclusions. I think after discovering the idea of Humanism, through the late stand-up comic Linda Smith, I've been looking for something, well, not exactly spiritual but meaningful in an atheist life. While I have no longing for church services and for a connection to my creator (I still believe something happened to create the universe, but I'm not comfortable with the idea that a creator is taking an interest in our lives, less still mine specifically), I miss the sense of community that Christianity, specifically Catholicism, provided for me and still provides for many of my good friends and my family, though I know it's alway there for me to go back to, if I'm ready to change my beliefs.

I've just got to the bit where he turns away help from the British clergyman, saying that 'We must believe this can be done by Indians alone'. There's some injustice in Britain, but none that I feel so strongly about that I'm going to devote my life to opposing it (well, not yet, ID cards are on the horizon...). So when there's nothing to fight (not that is my fight anyway), what can I do to make the world a better place?

I've also been thinking about my career recently, and I think I've realised that I don't want to be successful for money or prestige - maybe because a higher level job brings more exciting challenges, but as long as I can eat, and I'm comfortable, I don't have any need for progression or promotion. Right now I want for nothing. A friend wrote today and told me about her calling, and where she felt God wanted her life to go, and that was food for thought (thanks for writing what you did, if you're reading). I'm probably feeling left out! I want a calling too!

As Leititia said when we were watching the Sultan's Elephant and she said something nice about French people, and someone replied 'Thanks very much', 'De rien, c'est gratuit'. Kind words cost nothing. I'm going to try to do that more often (and not just to pretty ladies with fabulous hair at operas in the park!). The majority will think nothing of it, but some will take it to someone else, and make their day better too. There's not enough of that in London. How do you promote a sense of community in 7 million people with as many sets of beliefs and opinions, and a hundred different languages and cultures?

And to my friends and family - you're the most important thing, you always will be, even if I go back to the Church, or to anything else. I'll try to tell you that more often, and not just in a drunk 'I fuckin' luv you' way!

Sorry this post has been a bit weird. I hope it doesn't sound self-indulgent or Messianic or whatever, I think I'm just trying to find a way of sharing my beliefs with a community I still haven't found, and I find all of this easier to type than to say. I guess the way to a better life is to make sure the people who mean something to you know that they do, and that you're there for the people with problems. And I'm probably still going to drink too much and revel in material possessions (I do love my kites...) but if this is all written down where people can see it, maybe I'll have to do something about it.

Chances are if you're reading this you're someone I know and like. So for the sake of a punchline, 'I fuckin' luv you!' Suggestions on a postcard please, for what we can all do to make life better for everyone. I'll ignore comments such as 'Don't drink a bottle of gin and several pints of pear/apple cider, bite your friend's fingers and talk a lot of crap all afternoon'. And I promise to go back to posting trivial observations on my social life tomorrow, cause I'll have stopped watching Gandhi and feeling spiritually inadequate!

Edit: It's probably a coincidence, but it's poignant that the only above-ground explosion in what is, disgustingly, becoming known as 7/7 (the terrorist attacks on London nearly a year ago) was in Tavistock Square, right by a statue of Mohandas Gandhi (that was a well-placed post on Policyblender, Ben). Ironically, the attacks probably did more to make Londoners closer to each other than anything in the last decade.

Reasons to be cheerful on the longest day

1) The Strokes put on a marvellous performance, the only band I can think of who would get away with covering that 'Walk on the wild side' song. The raconteurs were excellent fun too.

2) They had the pear cider! Pear cider comes up as rear aides on predictive text. Oh, and I put some guy on the floor in a dispute about a hat

3) This post has been edited, as I think I may have mentioned my website name to someone who was mentioned in it. But I swapped numbers with a very nice young woman (whose name I subsequently discovered,) and who turned out to be just as nice as I had hoped.

4) Contrary to the blockheads....I sang acapella White Stripes songs on the way to the tube and got applause, not abuse!

All in all, an excellent way to welcome the summer. Happy Northern-Hemisphere-Summer everyone!

'I choreograph violence'

When you're at dinner parties and civilised house parties, the conversation invariably comes round to a handful of topics. Firstly what you do, secondly how you know the host or hostess, and thirdly where you live in London (and depending on the prevailing age, the property prices there). I normally answer honestly with little imagination, and then hear people tell me much more interesting examples from their own lives. One of the ones I heard on Saturday night, at a very nice cocktail party in the docklands, was a man who said he was a Fight Director. This seemed reasonably plausible, the hostess was an actress. He said he essentially acted as a consultant to directors and filmmakers, to add realism and responsible depiction to violent scenes. He had studied martial arts from an early age, he boxed, he no doubt had some experience fencing and possibly with guns too. We had a chat about the difference between the A-Team, where thousands of rounds never actually hit anyone, grittier films, where every shot fired has a consequence, and Star Wars, where very violent scenes are done in a way so far removed from reality, that there's no real concern that they'll be taken seriously anyway.

Next time I get asked what I do at a party, I'm going to be a fight director.

Stupid lyrics

Yesterday I was in MacDonalds, listening to Bryan Adams and Mel C through no fault of my own, other than any fault you might find with being in MacDonalds. They sang the words 'Even food don't taste that good'. This is something I take particular umbridge with. Popular music, by its very nature, needs to pander to the lowest common denominator. Bryan couldn't have chosen sushi, curry, a roast dinner, a sandwich, crisps as something that exemplified tastiness that he could prefix with 'even' to indicate his shock at not enjoying eating it, because someone might not have bought the record, on the basis that they didn't think sushi, curry etc tasted that good anyway. However, on generalising as far as food, and leaving in the word 'even', what does he suggest the alternatives to food are, in terms of tastiness?

So I put my earphones back in and listened to Thom Yorke sing 'Yesterday I woke up sucking a lemon' four times instead, which was much better.

Ballet and mobile phones

On Thursday last, Paul, Michelle, Rob, Caroline and I went to Covent Garden to see Sleeping Beauty on the big screen, live from the Opera House. It was pretty special, some wonderful scenery, beautiful music and amazing dancing. Unfortunately, glass wasn't allowed in the seating area, so Paul decided to buy a 3 litre box of Australian Chardonnay. After Rob, Caroline and I decided to go down to the river afterwards and have a couple of gin-and-tonics, my general sobriety deteriorated, to the point where I talked to people on the tube.

One of these people was called Keisia. She told me about her evening (I forget what she said...) and I told her about the ballet. She sounded interested, so I said 'Well there's an opera in a few weeks, do you want to come?'. She entered her number on my phone and passed it back to me.

When you enter a name and number on a Nokia phone then exit to the main screen, it saves and that's that. When you do it on a Sony Ericcson, like mine, it asks if you want to save the changes. When you're drunk, sometimes you blindly press buttons til the screen looks right. The following morning, I looked to check for her number. It had gone.

My next phone will probably be a Nokia.

Beijing pt2

So then the following day, I went shopping and bought myself an erhu, which is a type of Chinese violin with two strings. The box sits between the strings and the strings themselves rest on a wooden bridge on a snake skin covering to the sounding chamber. By Saturday, Liz was free again, so we hit an international art festival being held in Beijing at the time. Liz came home with a very attractive statue of a man pouring tea, and I picked up a couple of cups as a present for my housemate.

Much of the following week involved trips to temples, a mosque, a few restaurants and a lot of DVD shops. The temples were all spectacular, (though temple fatigue did begin to set in towards the end of the trip), and the photos are marvellous (I'll get them online eventually). The Temple of Heaven was particularly memorable, partially because I was escorted there by four very personable young women, but mostly becuase it was just beautiful - the buildings, the gardens, everything. The Lama Temple was something of a highlight too, with its 18m high sandalwood statue of Buddha.

At the end of the week, Liz and I travelled to Mutanyu (or something like that) where we visited the Great Wall. Aside from being 6000km long and built mostly halfway up a mountain, it was particularly impressive cause the stairs all made 'glug-glug' noises as people walked up them. Along with that evening's trip to a Tibetan restaurant, it was a great end to an excellent trip.

Tippy top

While there's still plenty more to say about Beijing, last night deserves a mention. Linda Smith, once voted Radio 4 listeners' funniest person ever, died a couple of months ago at a young age. Listeners to The News Quiz, Just A Minute and I'm Sorry I Haven't A Clue will know how upsetting this is, and what a loss she'll be. When we went to see Hamish and Dougal recorded, Jeremy Hardy seemed particularly affected by the loss.

Last night friends and family organised a tribute evening in the Victoria Palace Theatre, which was all very impressive. Including shortened versions of the three shows above, performances from Mark Steel, Hattie Hayridge, Mark Thomas, Arthur Smith and Jo Brand and music from Humphrey Lyttelton and The Blockheads, it was a pretty spectacular affair, not least because of Phill Jupitus' vocal performance with the aforementioned Blockheads.

The thing about these charity things, not that I've been to that many, is that far too many people go cause they get such an excellent cast. I hold my hand up - I went to see a live version of I'm Sorry I Haven't A Clue. I came away with a picture of a fascinating, warm-hearted, remarkably sharp young woman, whose life was tragically cut short by several decades. I also came away with a keen interest in these people, and a picture of Phill Jupitus drugged up to the eyeballs, screaming 'Hit me, hit me, hit me' into a microphone, while Paul Merton danced about to his left, fascinated by the patterns of light his suit was making on his shoes.