Happy memories

Some initial results from Prof Wiseman's happiness experiment were announced yesterday. It seems that on average we, as a nation, were about 7% more cheerful at the end of last week compared to the beginning of the week. So there. This was determined by way of a couple of polls undertaken at the start and end of the week. Of course, it's not possible to determine how much, if any, of this increase in the nation's happiness might be attributed to the science of happiness experiment.

Participants in the study were assigned to one of five conditions. Four of these groups were asked to spend a few moments each day engaged in an exercise that previous research had indicated might influence feelings of happiness. One group was asked to use those moments to focus on expressing gratitude for one thing in their lives (this is the group I was assigned to) while a second group spent the time simply smiling. A third group was asked to carry out an act of kindness and the fourth group was instructed to recall a pleasant event from the day before. The remaining participants were in a 'control' group in which they were asked to just think about the previous day's events.

More than 26,000 people took part and it would seem that reported levels of happiness in all groups, including the control group, increased over the course of the week. So everyone's a winner! The biggest increase was seen in the group asked to recall a pleasant event from the day before. They showed a 15% rise in reported happiness over and above the folks in the control condition.

The difficulty is that even if these kinds of exercises do have an impact upon perceived happiness, and the initial results from this study seem to suggest they do, then the effects are likely to be rather transient and so many other things will have a far greater impact on our how we feel on a particular day. And are we dealing with underlying 'happiness' or whether we're in a good mood?

Still hats off to Richard for attempting such an ambitious project!

The price of wisdom

Am I being a grumpy old man or is 50 quid a lot to pay to listen to a talk? It's the ticket price for An Evening with Deepak Chopra at the Bridgewater Hall in Manchester next month. I'm sure it would be very interesting and uplifting, and I'd like to go, but £50 seems rather steep, don't you think?


Deepak Chopra has written over 50 books on spiritual topics ranging from love, healing, life after death, and so on. Indeed, two of his books are sat on the bookshelf in front of me (SynchroDestiny and The Book of Secrets). So maybe he can justify the £50 price-tag and I'm sure he'll fill the 2,400-seater hall. But it is a shame that he (or rather the organisations surrounding him) is charging a price that will mean a lot of people who would really benefit from hearing what he has to say are put off.

Anyway, if you're not put off, here is the link to the event via which you can book a seat. I doubt I'll end up going myself, but if I do I'll be the one tutting under my breath and moaning about the price of the ice-creams.

Happy now?

Compared to this time last week, are you more or less happy than you were? It's hard to tell isn't it? Unless, of course, you've taken part in a scientific experiment to measure just how happy you are. Well, I have. And I'm, er, still not sure if I'm any happier or not. I may have a better idea on Wednesday when some initial results from the study are to be announced.

Did you take part? Do you feel any happier?

The study was being conducted by Professor Richard Wiseman, Professor of the Public Understanding of Psychology at the University of Hertfordshire. I know Richard well having worked as his Research Assistant a little over ten years ago and I have always been amazed at the way his research captures the public's imagination. This particular project is linked to his latest book 59 Seconds, which is "a triumph of scientifically proven advice over misleading myths of self-help" (not my words, the words of Derren Brown).

My copy of the book arrived from Amazon this morning. I'll let you know if it's as good as Derren thinks it is.

Joy to the World

How are you feeling this Monday morning? However you're feeling, my old friend Prof Richard Wiseman is up to his old tricks again and conducting an experiment for us all to take part in. This time he's trying to make the world a happier place. No he's not campaigning for all tapes of The Vicar of Dibley to be burned (though there's an idea...). He is simply wanting as many people as possible to take part in a week long happiness project at www.scienceofhappiness.co.uk.

It will take less than a minute a day to take part and, who knows, this time next week you may be as happy as, or even happier than, Larry.

Zen Bound

It's not always easy to predict what will happen in a day... This morning I was talking to an old friend in Fiji, as you do. He mentions a game you can download for your iPhone called Zen Bound. I download said game. I get hooked.

It's a rather bizarre little game. As the link to the website, above, will tell you, it is "a calm and meditative game of wrapping rope around wooden sculptures". I said it was bizarre. But strangely compelling.

The sham continues...

Those pesky pranksters at NASA have even got Google under their spell. You can now explore the moon's surface on Google Earth. The clip below has a man pretending that he went to the moon in 1972 (he's very convincing) and inviting us to tour the moon "as I did" in Apollo 17 (yeah, right).



You can even view human artifacts left on the surface of the moon from each of the missions. Or rather you can view 3D models of them because... er, they're not really there and NASA made the whole thing up! They should just come clean and admit it was all one big joke that got out of hand. I mean, it was the 60's. One guy probably just gazed skywards and said, "hey, wouldn't it be cool to walk on the moon!" and next thing you know they're being given millions of dollars to knock up plans for a lunar landing craft.

Still, fair play to them. They know how to keep a secret.

A freelance what?

"So, I hear you're leaving us?" Sam half stated, half asked.
"I am indeed", I replied.
"Where are you going to?"
"Um, I don't know! I haven't got another job, if that's what you mean."
"Hey, that's... brave!"
"Yeah, I'm getting a lot of people telling me I'm brave. Either that or foolhardy!"
"Yes, some would say foolhardy."

When he said he thought I was brave, did he really mean to say I was foolhardy?

When people ask me what I'm going to do when I leave Hope, I tend to respond by saying I'm not sure. I'm trying to get into the habit of saying I'm going to be 'freelance'. "A freelance what?" usually comes the reply. It's a fair question. By way of an answer to this I feel like the woodwork student who is asked by his teacher what it is he is making:

"I'm making a portable", replies the student.
"A portable what?", asks the teacher.
"I don't know yet... I've only made the handles!"

Not moonwalking

And why is 'moonwalking' called 'moonwalking'? Since when did walking backwards in such a way to make it look like you're walking forwards replicate what Neil and Buzz (but not Michael) did on the lunar surface?

Over the last few days I've seen the clips from the lunar landings (faked or otherwise) a number of times and at no point have I seen the astronauts walking backwards but eerily looking as though they should be moving forwards. Or have I missed those clips?

Perhaps with Michael Jackson's death, the moonwalk can now be reclaimed by NASA? Assuming of course that Michael Jackson's death hasn't been faked as well...

Not walking on the moon

40 years ago today the first men walked on the moon. Or did they? The conspiracy theorists will tell you it was all a hoax, and that Capricorn One was so close to the mark that they had to change the premise of the film from a faked mission to the moon to a faked mission to Mars.

Personally I feel sorry for the guy who had to stay in the command module, so never got to walk on the moon. So let's celebrate the 40th anniverary of Michael Collins' great sacrifice.

Slow down, you move too fast

We were up early this morning so we watched the Disney-Pixar movie Cars on DVD. Freya lost interest after the first 10 minutes or so, but Rachel and I found ourselves watching it all the way to the end even though we'd seen it before. It's such a good film!

Behind the amazing animation is a story about the importance of having to slow down once in a while. Life isn't all about winning.

Sent from my iPhone

How cool is this? I can post to my blog from my new iPhone!

Pale blue dot

Sometimes it helps to keep things in perspective...

One small step

Watched Capricorn One last night (another birthday DVD from Rachel). I've seen it so many times and is possibly one of my favourite films of all time!

The film centres around what is supposed to be the first manned mission to Mars. But it quickly emerges that due to technical and political reasons the mission needs to be abandoned. Or rather, the mission goes ahead, it's just that the astronauts are removed from the rocket before it launches. What follows is an attempt to fake the Mars landing, and in my opinion it makes for a great thriller even though it is now over 30 years old!

Seems all the more appropriate due to the 40th anniversary of the first lunar landings, given the movie was inspired by the claims that the moon landings were faked.

IMDB seems to suggest that a remake of teh film is due out next year.

I can't decide

I'm currently enjoying reading Dave Gorman's latest book, America Unchained (another birthday present from Rachel!). It chronicles his attempt to drive across the USA avoiding all the big Chains. This means he doesn't allow himself to stay in any of the Chain motels and, more of a challenge, he's not allowed to fill up his car at any of the Chain gas stations.

The trip was inspired by an earlier stint in the States in which Gorman had lamented how the big Chains had taken over America at the cost of independent owners of motels, gas stations, and so on.

As I say, I'm really enjoying the book but was distracted from its pages the other evening when I heard Dave Gorman's voice coming from the TV. He was providing the voiceover for an ad for Sainsbury's Homebase, a large chain of DIY stores in the UK.

I couldn't decide whether that was a little ironic or a tad hypocritical...?

Too sarcastic for my own good

As I was adding the blog entries from our holiday in Italy, something made me a little uneasy and it's been niggling away at the back of my mind for the last few days. So I thought I'd just set the record straight... I do NOT find Stavros Flatley funny. I was being (too) sarcastic (for my own good). There, I've said it.

Homeward bound

Our final day, and the first time we’ve been leaving the house before midday as we have to check out by 10am. I hope the next guests at Scopeto enjoy it as much as we did. Along with the 3 beers we’ve left in the fridge and the 2 lemon ice lollies, with the oh so yummy liquorice sticks, in the freezer. It’s our first properly grey day, which we’re very happy about as it would be even harder to wave goodbye to the house and pool if it were blazing sunshine.

We head back up to Bologna via a different route from the way we came down. This way takes us near to Florence and we consider stopping in or near Florence for some lunch. The problem is the map we have is crap. It was the one we got with the hire-car and so has very little detail. We take, not unreasonably, the exit from the motorway signed Firenze. But by the time we’re driving higher and higher into the hills we guess that we’re not heading into Florence.

We’re eventually forced to ditch the idea of lunch in Florence if we want to get to the airport in time for our flight, so we continue up the motorway towards Bologna. As it turns out our last meal in Italy is in the equivalent of a RoadChef. Bummer.

A warm glow

Poolside in the morning and early afternoon. It’s been really nice to have the contrast between the mornings sunbathing and relaxing in the pool and the afternoons exploring the local towns. This afternoon we ventured over to Perugia, I guess around 30-40 miles South East. Parking is in an underground carpark and you take a series of escalators to emerge above ground via some kind of museum. Weird.

Perugia is a very pretty town with much more going on than Citta di Castello (which isn’t difficult). Very picturesque historic buildings and churches. We sit down for a beer and a diet coke in a pavement café, Café di Perugia. It’s too early to get dinner in Perugia so we decide to drive on to Assisi, about another 15 miles. We had already thought we would do this as I had read in the guide book that the sunset is particularly impressive in Assisi because the town becomes bathed in a warm glow because of the pink tinge to the stone built buildings.

As we approach Assisi, it is very imposing perched on the side of the hill. We arrive at 18.45. I know this because just as we walk to the entrance of the Basilica de San Francesco it closes. Instead we walk through the town and pick up some little gifts for the children (painted wooden letters, L, R and F). A little furher on and we arrive at one of the main squares and choose a restaurant that has a terrace overlooking the piazza. The surroundings are beautiful. Like a film-set. As the sun sets the wall of the building opposite is bathed in a warm glow just like the guide book promised.

After dinner, we walk back to the car through the town along the side streets. We agree that it is quite a magical place that we’d love to wander around more if we had the time. Maybe we’ll come back here one day.

By the time we get home, it’s around 10.30pm. I’d promised myself I’d have one more swim in the pool and I convince Rachie to join me. It’s cold, but a swim under the stars rounds off another magical day.

Fly

This morning, as you might guess, was spent by the pool. The weather returned to clear blue skies and hot sunshine so sunbathing was the obvious choice.

I wasn’t really being moved by Rosie Swale Pope’s book about her run around the world, though I do think what she did is deeply inspiring and I will finish the book when we get home. Instead I ventured up into the second bedroom that is above ours through a trapdoor in the ceiling to browse the books left by the owners (or former guests?). I picked up three: Mysticism and Logic, a collection of essays by Bertrand Russell; How to Talk Dirty and Influence People, Lenny Bruce’s autobiography; and Jonathan Livingston Seagull by Richard Bach.

The easiest and shortest read was going to be JLS so I began with that. Also it seemed potentially the most appropriate given where my mind is at right now having just last week handed in my notice at work. Although I have no doubts that it is the right decision (perhaps no doubts is too strong), at times I am filled with anxious thoughts that perhaps I shouldn’t be leaving. I shouldn’t give up what is a perfectly good job. JLS is a spiritual parable (is parable the right word?) about a seagull who wants to learn how to fly. Not just fly in the way that every other seagull flies, in order to get food, but to really fly at amazing speeds. The other members of his flock tell him that he should forget thoughts of discovering the limits of his flying capabilities and do what everyone else is doing. This he tries for a short while but soon realizes that he has to go back to his flying practice. Without that his life has no purpose. He is soon labeled an outcast from his flock. The second and third parts of the story take things to a more spiritual realm but it all makes sense to me. The story is about learning to fly, and then flying. Living. In the front of the book is an inscription dated 6th May 1975: “To Johnnie, Fly high or fly low. Fly a long distance or fly a short one. But please fly. As I know you can. David”.

After lunch we sunbathe some more before heading out north east to Citta di Castello about 10 miles away. This town is supposed to be the local town that the owners of Scopeto like the best. And today is market day so it should be thriving. When we get there, there is no sign of the market. In fact it took us a good walk round the historic town before we even found a scattering of shops. Not sure why this is the owners’ favourite. Maybe it does come alive when the market is there or during other local festivals. We enjoy a coffee and a coke before driving back to have a lovely dinner at home involving pasta, local sausage, mushrooms, garlic and tomatoes. A bottle of wine and wide-reaching conversation about life and the point of it all takes us to bedtime.

[Er, I didn't take the photo of the seagull flying... like you needed telling.]

Happy Birthday to me!

I seem to be a little fixated with the fact that I’m going to be 40 next year. As I turn 39, today is the first day of my 40th year on this planet. Even while I was still 38 I was saying I’ll be 40 next year if people asked me how old I was.

Rachel cooked me a full English (or should that be Italian) breakfast: Sausage, pancetta, eggs and mushrooms. Then I opened my card from Rachel (a birthday moo) and my remaining presents as I’d opened some before we came away. Two CDs (Flight of the Conchords and Eels), Seven Pounds DVD, and a complicated looking game called Ingenious! It was also really nice to get text messages from my parents, my sister Sally, and Emma a friend from my PhD days. My best present though was waking up in an Umbrian farmhouse with Rachie next to me and glorious blue skies out the window.

Another morning sunbathing, but this time we had decided we’d head out around lunchtime to drive over to Montepulciano, where our favourite red wine comes from. Turns out we’d timed it well as a little cloud came over making it just a little cooler. Conchords and Eels made it a short drive over into Tuscany, though the road over to Cortona is torturous. Another half hour drive past Cortona brought to the hillside town of Montepulciano.

As with Cortona, the roads are steep to walk up but the town is not big so it’s not too taxing. Even better that is cooler due to the cloud. We buy some nice red wine for Sandra and Keith to say thank you for looking after Freya for the week (although from the texts we’ve been receiving it sounds like they’ve all been having a great time). We also buy ourselves a cheaper bottle along with some sundried tomato, pecorino and salami sauce which is almost the same price. But we’d tasted it on the Italian bread at the front of the shop and agree we should buy some before we know how much it costs. It does taste good though. We also buy a little wooden toy as a present for Freya.

We hadn’t really had any lunch and decide we’d like to have dinner in Montepulciano but it is now 5pm and Italian restaurants tend not to open till around 7. We walk back up the hill to Café Polliziano (probably spelt wrong) as we’d walked past earlier and it looked nice and had views out across the Tuscan countryside. We kind of hoped it would be open and serving food. It was open but the only food it was serving was cake. So we have a coffee and share a piece of lemon meringue pie Italian style. Delicious.

We then decide to drive back over towards Lake Trasimeno to Castigliano Del Lago, another small town overlooking the lake. By now the cloud has drifted away and it’s another beautiful evening. A quick look round the few shops there, and a present for Lauren, before settling on the nicest looking restaurant in town which has a terrace under some trees and a view towards the lake. Another fantastic meal (well, it is my birthday). The meatballs were the best I’ve ever tasted!

If the remaining 364 days of my 40th year are as good as this one then I’ll be a happy boy.

Busy doing nothin’

An even lazier day today if that were possible. Again the morning and afternoon by/in the pool. I finished my Goats book, Rachel finished her Death in Tuscany book. She’s now reading about the Goats. I didn’t fancy the Death in Tuscany book but did try Frances Mayes’ Bella Tuscany, her follow-up to Under the Tuscan Sun, but didn’t take to it. Even though we are surrounded by the countryside she eloquently describes I’m just not interested. As I scan through I stop to read the odd few pages that mention somewhere we’ve been (i.e., Cortona) or plan to go (i.e., Montepulciano) but other than that I don’t thnk I’m her target audience. I’ve started Just a Little Run Around the World by Rosie Swale Pope. It’s a book about her 'little' run around the world, something she decided to do to raise awareness about cancer screening after her husband died of prostate cancer.

Late afternoon we jump in the car to nip down to the shop (emphasis on the shop) in San Leo Bastia to get some bread. Didn’t have much there so continued the 5 miles or so down the road to Trestina the nearest town where there is a Spar, or should I say EuroSpar. (This reminds me of the weekend of my brother’s 40th birthday last summer which a group of us spent at a collection of cottages in Anglesey. Someone asked if there was a shop nearby. “There’s a Spar just down the road,” someone else suggested. To which one of the girls present responded, “oh really, is there a spa here?” only to be immediately told, “not the kind of spa you’re thinking of luv”.)

No bread in the Eurospar either but we did pick up some more essentials (i.e., beer, wine, and stuff for breakfast). We quickly tried another supermarket down the road, where we heard an English couple doing a shop. Aren’t English accents abroad just so grating? Again no bread but we did get some lemon ice lollies for the drive back. Very refreshing, but the stick of liquorice as the stick rather than a wooden lolly stick thew me little. Why would you want to eat liquorice after being refreshed with a lemon ice lolly? It’s political correctness gone mad!

Back home for pasta with Feta cheese, basil, and lemon (no liquorice) and a bottle of wine. We spent our first bit of time in the beautiful living room that has views over the valley. Rachel had bought me Man on Wire on DVD for my birthday (tomorrow!) and so we watched it on the enormous TV. An excellent film of an amazing story of tight-rope walker Phillipe Petit who walked on a wire between the two towers of the World Trade Center shortly after it was built in 1974. All the more poignant after what happened in 2001.

The road to nowhere

Another morning and afternoon lazing in the sun by the pool. Me reading Jon Ronson’s The Men Who Stare at Goats (birthday present from Rachie), Rachel reading A Death in Tuscany. Every so often it gets so hot you just have to dive in to the pool to cool off. It’s a hard life.

Again around 4-ish we head out in the car, this time with a view to taking the gravel road over the hill opposite us towards Lake Trasimeno. We were warned by Marianne and Andrew the day before that it would be twisty and bumpy (which it was) but it apparently cut out a 20 minute drive along this valley and back along the next so it seemed worth it.

“The only place you can go wrong,” Andrew had warned, “is where the road forks and it looks like the road continues straight ahead. But you need to bear right.”

“Just keep to the right,” Marianne had added.

We duly arrived at a fork in the road towards the top of the hill. The main road (using the word “main” and the word “road” loosely here) did look as though it continued straight ahead over the hill and down the other side. But there was a track to the right that continued up the hill. Rachel and I agreed, as we replayed Andrew’s advice in our heads, that we should bear right and continue up the hill. And so we followed the single track road through the trees that was even more bumpy and twisty. And we followed. And we followed. Until… we came across a lorry that was coming the other way! If there was one thing I wasn’t expecting to encounter along this isolated track through the forest, it was a lorry coming the other way. Somehow it managed to get past us. And we thought that the lorry must be coming from somewhere so this road must lead somewhere. And so we followed. And we followed.

Eventually we passed through an open gate. We could make out the word “privat” on the sign next to the gate. But still we continued. We’d come too far to simply turn around. Until we came to another signed that said something to the effect of “No entry to unauthorized personnel”. At this point we considered that we must have come the wrong way. We didn’t fancy carrying along the road only to be stopped by a landowner carrying a shotgun yelling the Italian equivalent of “Get orf moi land!”

Our detour meant we arrived a little later in Tuoro than we might have. Not much there. The town itself was about a mile from the edge of the lake. At the lake’s edge there was a campsite (which reminded us both of childhood camping holidays) and a manmade beach. Not much else. We considered heading back home to have some dinner back at the house, calling in to a supermarket on the way to pick up some essentials (i.e., beer). But before doing so we thought we’d look at Passignano, another small town 5 km along the edge of the lake from Tuoro. Passignano had much more going for it that Tuoro. Although it wasn’t at all busy you could see it would be more attractive to tourists with it being right at the edge of the lake, and having a number of bars and restaurants. We parked the car next to an Alimentari (grocery store) and so were able to do get our shopping (i.e., beer) before having a wander around the town.

We called home to see how Freya was. We couldn’t really hear but picked up that she had been swimming for an hour and a half and was having a lovely time. A text sent by Sandra later that evening confirmed this and added that they had gone out for dinner and Freya had had fish and a crème brulee (presumably as a main course and dessert, not mixed together in the same pot… though I wouldn’t put it past her). We, too, decided to eat out, and found a lovely trattoria hidden down a back street.

The drive home was somewhat less treacherous.

This is the life

Wrote yesterday’s diary entry early this morning sat out on the upper balcony overlooking the hills. A cloudless sky. A croissant for breakfast and then 10 minutes meditation. Wanting to do more meditation this week to kickstart me in to meditating when we get back home.

Down to the pool for a morning’s sunbathing and a swim. Rachel even went topless for the first time ever!

“Hello team!” called an Englishman’s voice from above us. “Is everybody decent?”

“I am”, I called back. Dripping wet, I walked up the steps to meet Andrew who, with his wife Marianne, are caretakers for Scopeto. I’m guessing they are probably in their 60's and discover they moved out to Umbria a little over 20 years ago to a house the renovated just down the road. Their friendly dog, Oscar, takes a rest in the shade as Andrew and Marianne make sure we’re settling in.

“Everything OK?” Andrew asks.

“Fantastic. The place is beautiful!” I reply, "I think I've heard Rachel say 'this is the life' about five times this morning already". Andrew and Marianne proceed to suggest places we could visit during our stay such as the lake (Lake Trasimeno) which is just over the hill opposite us, a great local wine-tasting place, the town of Citta del Castello, and of course Cortona which is about half an hour’s drive over the hills along the valley. Cortona is a hillside town just over the county border in Tuscany made famous by the books Under the Tuscan Sun and Bella Tuscany by Frances Mayes in which she recounts her experiences of renovating a Tuscan farmhouse and how she falls in love with the surrounding area. The book was made into a film and much of the location filming was done in Cortona.

“The irony is,” Marianne tells us, “Frances Mayes has now moved over the county border from Tuscany to Umbria to get away from the American tourists that descend on Cortona! American tourists that come to visit the town she describes she fell in love with in her books.” Ironic indeed. Andrew and Marianne bid us farewell and wish us an enjoyable stay. I don’t think that will be hard.

A few more hours sunbathing and swimming, broken only by a home-made lunch of Italian meats, mozarella, baguette, and a rocket salad with oil and balsamic. And an ice-cold beer. Eventually, around 4-ish, we decide we would take a short drive down to the nearest village, San Leo Bastia, to see if the shop was open and just see what was down there. The shop was closed, and so we drove a little further along the road to find a café open but again no shop. Now we were out, we thought we’d take a little drive further along the road to explore a little. Before long we were driving along the high and windy road that would take us over the Tuscan border toward Cortona.

Cortona is, as Marianne described, very beautiful but full of tourists. Not in an overly bad way compared to say Spain but I imagine it is the one town around here that attracts the tourists. It is a fairly small Etruscan walled town set on the hillside with fantastic views across Tuscany. We weren't able to take any photographs of Cortona as we'd left the camera at home (listen to me, I'm calling it 'home' already) thinking we were only popping out to the shop.

There are a few shops there to browse and a number of restaurants and trattoria and so we decided to kick around till 7pm, which is when the restaurants tend to begin serving dinner and eat there. An excellent meal at La Locunda overlooking Piazza della Republica as the birds darted around above our heads. Rachel even reserved the table in Italian. Show-off.

Under the Umbrian Sun

When Sandra and Keith, Rachel’s parents, asked if they could take Freya on holiday for a week this year, it wasn’t long before Rachel was poring through holiday brochures and browsing the web looking for places to go. Not, you understand, places to take Freya. No, no no. Rachel was looking for places we could go. Without Freya.

And so it is that we are sat outside Scopeto, a glorious stone-built cottage tucked away in the Umbrian hills. Rachel’s internet searches have really come up trumps this time. A week of relaxation should be pretty easy here, with only the sounds of birds, and the occasional lizard to distract you. Our own private pool catches the sun* all day, there are three different terraces on which to sunbathe, and the view across what feels like our own private valley is a delight.

It will be our longest time away from Freya. She is spending the week with her grandparents in a cottage in Northumbria. They are joined by Alice, the 17-year old daughter of friends Lynn and Ron. I’ve got a feeling that Alice is going to become Freya’s new best friend. On the flight from Gatwick to Bologna, we seemed to be the only couple who weren’t accompanied by a young child or two, which initially made us miss Freya even more but by the time we were waiting in line at Bologna airport to collect our hire-car, we were simply grateful we weren’t one of the couples having to chase after and/or manhandle a fractious toddler who was getting bored/hungry/tired etc.

The convertible (“cabrio”) Mini that Rachel had hired for the week didn’t materialize. We had imagined ourselves cruising down the Italian highways with the top down with the sun on our heads and the wind in our hair.

“No cabrio” the surly man behind the Eurpocar desk informed us, “I can offer you CinqueCento”. I looked to Rachel, “that’s one of those crappy little Fiats isn’t it?”. Rachel was already letting Signor Surly that she wasn’t best pleased with being offered a CinqueCento when she had booked and paid for a cabrio. None of the other car-hire companies had cabrios either but the one next door did at least offer us an Alfa Romeo which has to be better than a CinqueCento, so we cancelled the Europcar booking and went with the Alfa Romeo.

A few hours later, after a drive through some beautiful countryside, we arrived at Scopeto. Nearest village San Leo Bastia, nearest town Trestina. We’re about half an hour away from Cortona. It’s beautiful.

*Note for readers in the UK. The “sun” is a large firey ball in the sky that sits behind that grey blanket we call cloud. In other countries, it is seen on more than one or two afternoons of the year.

So long, and thanks for all the fish!

Yesterday was quite an auspicious day. At least it was for me. I finally decided to hand my notice in at the University where I have been employed for the last 10 years! Back in January, I indicated that I was contemplating taking a career break, but after much deliberation (including several sessions with an occupational health counsellor!) I realised that it was time to move on. Anyway, I'd have to apply for a career break and I was told it would be unlikely to be approved by the head honcho, so I thought I'd bite the bullet and give my notice.

Gulp!

Comic genius

I think I might have had a sense of humour bypass without realising it. Last weekend I caught the result of Britain's Got Talent having managed to skilfully avoid the whole thing until that point. It wasn't so much the shock defeat for Susan Boyle that caught my attention, rather the phenomenon that is Stavros Flatley. YouTube won't let me embed the better quality clips of their Final act (which you can view here), so apologies for the poor quality of the clip:



Each time I watch this clip, my sides ache with pain as I guffaw at the sheer comedy genius that this father and son display with their moves in time to the Riverdance music. You read that right folks, they dance to the Riverdance music! And they're a fat father and son! It's funnier than a whole weekend of The Vicar of Dibley crammed into a minute and a half.

More weird science

The book on anomalous experiences I mentioned in an earlier post will hopefully be published later this year or early next year. In the meantime I thought I'd draw your attention to a book editted by a former colleague of mine, and himself a contributor to the Anomalous Experiences book, Dr Craig Murray.

This book has the rather wordy title of Psychological Scientific Perspectives on Out of Body and Near Death Experiences and is published by Nova. More details can be found here. With chapters written by the leading researchers on OBEs and NDEs, it looks set to become a leading text dealing with these unusual, though not uncommon, experiences. Perhaps these experiences tell us something about consciousness, how our brains construct conscious experience, or even shed light on what happens after we die!

All done by mirrors (or is it?)

My mistake. The camera trick linked to in the previous blog was more than likely inspired by this Dr Wiseman trick (not the colour changing card trick):

Camera trick

I came across this today quite by accident and just love it:



I actually discovered it when I stumbled upon a blog that linked to it. The blogger even made reference to the fact that it reminded her of a Dr Wiseman trick (don't worry Richard, I'm sure she meant to say Professor Wiseman). She was no doubt referring to his superb colour-changing card trick. Remember the effect is achieved with no editting. Have a think about how it might have been done before you watch the clip below that reveals the wonderful secret:



Great piece of marketing.. who knows I might even consider buying a Samsung if I didn't already have my eye on an iPhone.

(Just for now, I have stretched the template for the blog so that the full screens from the YouTube clips above are shown. The usual template rather annoyingly cuts off the right hand side of the clips.)

Flowery Twats

After their recent attempt to kill off the nation's brain cells by broadcasting back-to-back episodes of The Vicar of Dibley, G.O.L.D., the nation's favourite comedy channel (apparently), have redeemed themselves. I just caught the repeat of Fawlty Towers Re-Opened, a two-hour documentary about the truly classic sitcom in which John Cleese, Connie Booth, and others from the show talk about why it was so successful, how it was written, what inspired it, and so on. Excellent stuff.

Fans of the show will remember that at the end of the opening credits of each episode, the letters on the hotel sign were re-arranged by the paper boy to spell out different words like 'Fatty Owls', 'Farty Towels', etc. In fact only one of these was an actual anagram of Fawlty Towers...

Israeli bender (of spoons)

Talking of psychics, when I was a kid Uri Geller was a bit of a hero of mine. I guess I have to use the word 'psychic' loosely as nowadays he refers to himself as a 'paranormalist', whatever that is.

I also use the word 'hero' fairly loosely, but he was a big influence on me. In fact he was probably one of the reasons I became interested in the idea of paranormal phenomena as I already an unhealthy interest in magic and conjuring. Geller seemed to be able to bend metal (more often than not in the form of spoons) with the power of his mind as well as start broken watches and reproduce hidden drawings. What Geller did looked an awful lot like magic tricks but he claimed he was doing it for real. And it started me wondering whether any of this stuff could be done for real. I still wonder.

I was hoping that YouTube might provide a clip from the Dimbleby Show on which Geller shot to fame in the UK in the 1970s, but all I can find on YouTube are clips seeming to show Geller bending spoons in less impressive ways. Either that or clips from the various versions of his recent TV shows in which he leads the search for the Next Uri Geller (this is the title of the German version of the show; in the US it went by the name of Phenomenon, and in Israel it was called The Successor). The show hasn't made it to the UK. Yet.

Psychic Unfair

I have long been interested in the possibility that some of us, or indeed all of us, possess some kind of psychic ability. In fact, the vast majority of my academic research over the 15 years or so has examined this question in one way or another.

It was therefore with interest that we paid a visit last weekend to a psychic fair that was being held in a village hall just a few miles down the road from our home. As we paid the £3 each entry fee to the girl on the desk, I looked over the girl's shoulder to glance at the room we were paying six quid to enter (Freya was free). Down one side of the room stood five or six tables selling a little jewelry, a few crystals, and not a lot else. On the other side of the room were a handful of smaller tables at which were sat the psychics giving their readings.

Call me old fashioned but having been to one or two psychic fairs before I was expecting a few more stalls, and perhaps even a few more psychics. Still, we thought we'd enter into the spirit of things and get a reading each (me and Rachel that is, I don't think Freya was that arsed...). To get a reading we were required to put our name down with the girl on the front desk for the psychic (or indeed medium) of our choice. We opted for a reading from a medium so put our name down for someone called Annabel. I would go first and then Rachel, and we'd take turns to look after Freya. While waiting for Annabel to become available we thought we'd wait outside as it was such a beautiful sunny afternoon, and surprisingly Freya found it rather boring inside the hall with absolutely nothing to do.

A few minutes later I wandered back inside to see if Annabel had become free, only to find she was now giving a reading to someone else! What an effective queuing system... It's good that the girl on the front desk was taking people's names so as to avoid just this.

Oh well, perhaps it wasn't to be. Rather than wait another half hour for Annabel to become free (and perhaps be gazumped again) we decided instead to take Freya to a park and enjoy the Saturday afternoon sunshine. We quickly saw the positive side... we'd just saved ourselves £40 and we could be back home to catch the remaining hours of the Dibley-a-thon on G.O.L.D. Yay!

Goose, Moose and Apple Juice

As I've mentioned before, I'm a bit of a fan of Derren Brown. So it was a treat last night to see the man himself in his touring show, Enigma, at the Lowry Theatre in Salford. This was the second time Rachel and I had seen DB in a live show, having seen his An Evening of Wonders show in the West End last summer.

Both shows were excellent. Members of the audience needed on stage are chosen by frisbies thrown out into the audience. At the London show I was lucky enough to be one of about eight on stage at one point for a segment involving pendulums, each made of a large nut tied to the end of a piece of string. Through the power of suggestion the pendulum swings from left to right or in a circle no matter how much you feel you're keeping your arm still.

The best part of the Enigma show comes right at the end which, of course, I can't reveal. Suffice to say, the the title of this post might seem random but it isn't. It seems that DB is in agreement with Spiritual Junkie in so far as nothing is random.

Death by Dibley

This weekend the TV channel G.O.L.D. (which apparently stands for Go On Laugh Daily...) is showing back-to-back episodes of The Vicar of Dibley. Sadly I won't be able to watch these as I'll be too busy sticking forks in my eyes.

The man with the never-ending surname

Yesterday, the video about our research into coincidences that Hannah liked so much made it on to the website of the Liverpool Daily Post. So up yours Hannah!

Speaking of coincidences, while looking for the link to the video on the Daily Post, I just took a look at the Daily Post's main page as that was where the video appeared yesterday. The video that appeared in its place today was about a launch event for something called CAUSE (Children's Aid Using Soccer Events) and featured former Liverpool and England footballer Steve McMananam. The coincidence? Somewhat bizarrely, when Rachel and I were enjoying a meal out on Monday this week, for Rachel's birthday, we recognised one of the large party at a nearby table as a famous footballer. Neither of us were able to remember his name at the time, but when we got home we did a bit of internet searching to discover it was none other than Steve McMananam.

Somewhat of a coincidence that Mr McManaman turns up twice in one week, once in person and once in an indirect link to this project via the Daily Post, don't you think?

Everyone's a critic

As you know, I absolutely love Facebook. Can't get enough of it. So just as I posted about our horse-riding lesson last night, I was delighted to receive an email via Facebook informing me that Hannah Mowl had made a comment on a video of me on Facebook!

If you remember, the University's PR agency suggested we set up a group on Facebook (called 'Do you believe in destiny or chance?' in case you're interested) to help recruit people for a survey on meaningful coincidences that one of my students was conducting. Well they also suggested that a short video on the Facebook page might for some reason attract people. So they did an interview with me a couple of weeks ago, and posted the short video on the site at the beginning of this week.

And now Hannah Mowl had seen fit to post a comment about the video on the Facebook group page. How exciting! I immediately clicked the link that took me to the page to find out what insightful comments Hannah had made. Imagine, then, my surprise as I scrolled down the page to discover Hannah's one word review. The solitary word she had chosen to post to convey her innermost thoughts about the short film about our research project? "fanny".

Thanks Hannah! And I don't even know who Hannah Mowl is! That's what I love about Facebook. Now I can get the insults of complete strangers dropped straight into by email inbox. Cool, eh? I suppose I could be grateful that this is a fairly tame insult (and a step up from insults like "tosser" or "wanker" that I'm used to...) but who knows what future comments might bring?

If you're really keen to watch the offending video then you need to do no more than click here. I was going to say you could also read Hannah's scathing review but it seems as though it's been removed, but you can always leave your own insults!

Why the long face?

The last time I sat on a horse, I cried. I was probably about 9 years old at the time. My sister, Sally, went to horse-riding lessons and so my mum took me and my brother, Anthony, along too. The first few times Anthony and I would just play around while we waited for Sally to have her lesson, but eventually my mum thought it might be a good idea if me and my brother had a lesson at the same time. I don't really remember if we had a choice in the matter, but before we knew it we wearing hats and boots and were lined up next to each other on our respective horses. Sally was on her quite respectable looking mottled grey steed whose name I don't remember, Anthony was on a smaller, hairier, horse I think called Snip, while I was rested upon an animal that went by the name of Jason.

Now Sally, of course, was a more than willing participant in the lesson (indeed she was the reason we were there in the first place) and so no doubt found the whole thing rather enjoyable. Perhaps even fun. But my brother and I were more reluctant riders and so found it less enjoyable. Traumatic even. Anthony probably had the tougher horse as Snip seemed to have trouble seeing through his shaggy mane that fell over his eyes and would often stop half way round the ring to graze on the grass over the fence. My horse, Jason, seemed to be more up for it but paid little attention to what I was doing with the reins or my heels and decided to do whatever he fancied doing in whatever direction he fancied doing it. Which I personally think is fair enough. But you try telling the horse-riding teacher that. (I use the word 'teacher' but I think fascist cow is nearer the mark.) From the beginning to the end of each lesson she would shout her instructions from the centre of the ring, telling me that I was doing it all wrong. Hence the tears. (Hey, I was a sensitive kid.)

These memories re-surfaced today as I agreed to join Rachel for a horse-riding lesson. Yes folks, a horse-riding lesson. I've been reading Susan Jeffers' book Feel the Fear and Do it Anyway, so I thought what the heck! (And the fascist cow/teacher of 30 years ago must be retired, or even dead, by now right?)

When we arrived, the smell brought it all back to me. I could almost feel the tears welling up in my eyes. I actually felt a little nervous. And the pair of crutches beside the door of the reception office didn't help my confidence too much either. Still, Ms Jeffers would have been proud of me, as I followed Rachel into the office and found a suitably sized pair of riding boots and hat.

"Rachel, you're on Rosie", the woman behind the desk informed us. "Matthew, you've got Ed". She pointed across the stable yard to a black horse with a white streak down his face. I liked the look of Ed. As we led our horses out to the ring, Ed seemed very laid back, almost not caring. Did he not realise the demons I was exorcising?

Our teacher today was Geena. She was neither a fascist nor a cow. In fact she was really nice. She told us both (me and Rachel that is, not me and Ed...) how good we were doing and she was "very impressed" (her actual words mind) with my rising trot!

The entire lesson passed without a single tear. In fact, I had a smile on my face the whole time.

Men who...

I was looking for information about Jon Ronson's book The Men Who Stare at Goats, and so started to type the title of the book into Google. I got as far as typing "Men who" and of course Google, being Google, suggested the various ways in which this phrase might end. The first surprise was that the phrase I was actually wanting to search for "Men who stare at goats" came up as the first suggestion (with around 298,000 hits)! But I was more intrigued with the other suggested endings to the phrase. Google's second suggestion was "Men who cheat" with 14.7 million hits. Further down the list were the suggstions "Men who can't love" (100 million hits) "Men who have walked on the moon" (4.7 million hits) and "Men who knit"(968,000 hits). What stuck out, though, with 950,000 hits was the suggested phrase "Men who look like Kenny Rogers"!

It would seem that basically having a white beard is enough to count as looking like Kenny.

Blind leading the blind

What do you find yourself thinking about on those occasions when you wake up at 3am and can't get back to sleep? Sometimes it's the strangest things. Freya is teething at the moment and so tends to wake in the night crying. After getting up to settle her, I found I couldn't get back to sleep as my mind starts to ponder some of life's questions. Tonight my mind decided to mull over this little engima...

Those of you who also have young children will more than likely be familiar with the BBC channel CBeebies. One of the more recent additions to the fine range of programmes on CBeebies is called Me too! set in the fictional city of Riverseafingal which is a kind of composite city made up of bits of cities from around the UK. Amongst the array of characters is Rudi who runs a fruit and veg stall on the market. Now the first time I saw Rudi, I thought "he's not a very good actor! He's not even looking at the woman he's supposed to be talking to...". I then I realised there was a good reason for that. He's blind. But what confused me is that at no point do they refer to him being blind. He goes about his business, selling fruit and veg and exploring the confusing hybrid town that is Riversea Fingal as if he can see perfectly well. This confuses me (it's even keeping me awake at night!) so surely it's going to confuse pre-schoolers.

I wish I could get back to sleep.

I feel dirty

One of my dissertation students is conducting an online survey on 'meaningful coincidences'. Please feel free to go and complete the survey. Thing is, our University's Public Relations agency had the rather ingenious idea of using social networking to get people to complete the survey. Yes, folks... that's Facebook to you and me! Aaagh! This means I have had to join a specially constructed Facebook group and invite all my "friends" to join too...

I just wanted to say sorry.

If you've got a young child then my guess is you'll hav esome kno

Slumdog a winner!

A good night last night for Danny Boyle and friends... Slumdog Millionaire won 8 of the 10 Oscars it was up for (Best Picture, Best Director, Best Music [Song], Best Music [Score], Best Film Editing, Best Sound Mixing, Best Cinematography, and Best Adapted Screenplay)!

Have you seen it yet?

The future of cubing?

Oh dear. Just because you can do something doesn't mean you should. They've just released a new Rubik's TouchCube. All the fun of the original Rubik's Cube but without any of the twisting and turning that actually made up much of the original fun! (See my earlier post that brings back memories of cubing as it should be...)

Still, with a price tage of $149.99, I think us 'purist' cubers are safe for a while.

15 Steps to Tyranny

This week I have watched a TV documentary called Five Steps to Tyranny three times. It is something we show to our first year psychology students as part of one of their seminars. As I take three separate seminar groups, I have sat through the film three times this week!

The film is a very useful introduction to how social psychologists explain how it only takes a few key ingredients to turn any one of us into someone who might inflict terrible harm to others. Step 1 is that from an early age we identify with various 'in-groups' of which we regard ourselves to be a member, and can contrast those with 'out-groups' of which we are not a member (i.e., 'us' and 'them'). Step 2 is that we readily obey orders, often without questioning them. More worryingly, perhaps, when there is an authority figure who asks us, or commands us, to do something that we might normally not want to do (Step 3: do 'them' harm) we will often follow the command especially if we feel that someone else will take responsibility. The eye-opening research conducted by Stanley Milgram in the 1960's revealed the extent to which this was the case. Around two thirds of people who participated in his studies of obedience (who thought they were taking part in research on the effects of punishment on learning) would go on to deliver electric shocks to a co-participant of 450 volts when told to do so by an experimenter. (The co-participant was actually a confederate of the experimenter who never received the shocks, but the real participant wasn't told this until after the experiment.) Experts in human behaviour had predicted beforehand that only a very small percentage would administer these shocks.

Step 4: 'stand up' or 'stand by' shows how many of us are far more likely to stand back and do nothing when we see somebody who might need our help. Combine this with step 1 and we are particularly reluctant to offer help to someone who we see as being in an 'out-group'. By the time we get to the final step, 'exterminate', we've reached the point there is every chance that members of a more powerful 'in-group' will seek to get completely rid of any 'out-groups'. It was the research of another psychologist, Philip Zimbardo, which demonstrated this so effectively. In his Stanford Prison Experiment he turned the basement of the Psychology Department at Stanford University into a prison. Male students were arbitrarily split into either 'prisoners' or 'guards' and asked to role-play these roles as part of the planned 14-day experiment. As it turned out, after just 6 days the guards had become sadistic and were treating the prisoners so badly the study had to be stopped.

It is through these 5 simple steps that, according to social psychologists, tyrannical regimes can emerge and be allowed to continue to exert their power.

Bummer.

The full documentary can be found here.

Better late than never

In October 1993, US stand-up Bill Hicks recorded a set for The Late Show with David Letterman. The set was never aired as the show's producers felt that Hicks' material was too controversial and might upset the TV network's sponsors. Bill Hicks died of pancreatic cancer (aged just 32) a few months later in February 1994. In the final months of his life, the fact that his stand-up routine had been cut from the show was of major concern to Hicks (and his fans).

Last month, the set was finally broadcast. Enjoy:

Hair cut

Today was my first day in work since getting my hair cut at the weekend. Not one person commented on it.

Is that a good thing or a bad thing?

Hide and seek

This advert for the Ford Ka caught my attention in the first advert break tonight during Lost on Sky 1. There are supposed to be 80 Ka's hidden in the ad. Just love the idea and the song:



The clip above, from our friend YouTube isn't great quality. Clicking here will get you to the Ford Ka website for a much better quality version (click on the 'media' link), which you'll probably need if you want to be sad (like me) and make it full screen to see how many Ka's you can spot.

True love

True love is like ghosts,
which everybody talks about
and few have seen.

Francois De La Rochefoucauld

Happy Valentine's Day.

Unlucky for some

Today is Friday the 13th, the first of three this year. And it would seem that on Friday the 13th there really is an increased chance of being involved in an accident even though there is less traffic on the road. A study conducted in the early 1990's*, compared the number of traffic accident casualties admitted to hospital in the South West Thames region of England on Friday 13th's with the number of admissions on Friday 6th's during the same period. The researchers found that there were consistently more admissions on Friday 13th's than on Friday 6th's (a total of 65 in the period examined compared to 45, an increase of more than 50%). The difference was statistically significant.

The researchers did a similar comparison for the amount of traffic on the roads on these days (specifically certain sections of the M25 London orbital motorway). They found that there were actually a little over 1% fewer vehicles on the road on Friday 13th's compared to Friday 6th's.

If these data reflect a genuine difference between the two days, then maybe Friday the 13th really is an unlucky day! What I think it might reveal is that people's beliefs about Friday the 13th could become a rather neat example of a self-fulfilling prophecy. That is, a small percentage of people (around 1%) may be sufficiently superstitious about Friday the 13th being an unlucky day that they avoid driving (or at least motorway driving). Those drivers that still decide to get in their car may still be aware of the superstitions surrounding Friday the 13th and this may actually increase their fear and anxiety enough to affect their concentration while driving.

I stayed at home today.

*Scanlon, T. J., Luben, R. N., Scanlon, F. L., Singleton, N. (1993). Is Friday the 13th bad for your health? British Medical Journal, 307 (6919), 1584–1586.

Colour changing card trick

I have been meaning to link to this clip from YouTube for a while, and what with the recent references to Professor Wiseman and his blog, I thought it was now time...



Richard uploaded this short film to YouTube in April 2007. Since then clip has been viewed a staggering 2.9 million times (2,909,647 times at the time of writing to be precise)! In addition to it being a dramatic example of change blindness, the clip's remarkable success on YouTube also demonstrates how sometimes when you do something you can't always predict what will come from it. The last time Richard and I met, he told me that one consequence of him making this film and posting it on YouTube was that world-famous magic double-act Penn & Teller had seen it and it had inspired them to devise a whole new routine for their Las Vegas show!

Fluent

I would love to live
Like a river flows
Carried by the surprise
Of its own unfolding.

John O'Donohue 1956-2008

That's my girl

They say that the criminal always returns to the scene of the crime. Well it's true. Today we found ourselves back in the bookshop from which I, ahem, "stole" a book a couple of years ago. (I put the word stole in inverted commas there trying, unsuccessfully, to make it sound less wrong!) It was a book about cosmic ordering (which I've still not got round to writing about!), and I did eventually take the book back to pay for it, admittedly some months after I had originally taken it.

Today's purchase (yes, purchase... I paid for it) was a book by Susan Jeffers called Embracing Uncertainty (Mobius, 2003), a book that I thought might help me s I consider a career break. Dr Jeffers seems to be one of the more successful self-help authors, with over 20 books under her belt. Her best known contribution to the literature is her book Feel the Fear and Do It Anyway, a phrase that would now appear to be a registered trademark (and might even be taken by some to be condoning shoplifting! Or is it only me that reads it that way?). But you'll be pleased to learn that I did indeed pay for this book, along with the book of Rupert the Bear stories Rachel had chosen for Freya, who was being very good in her pushchair ("booky... booky!"). So, unlike my first visit to this shop, I was able to walk out proudly clutching my book complete with receipt!

As we walked through the shopping mall, Rachel turned to me and asked "Did you give her that?".

"Give her what?" I asked back.

"That...". I looked down at Freya in her pushchair as she looked innocently back up at me gently chewing on the end of a plastic container of Winnie the Pooh blowing bubbles. A plastic container of Winnie the Pooh blowing bubbles that she hadn't had a moment ago.

The irony didn't pass us by... but we did go back and pay for them.

O well...

I just had a quick look and it would seem that the article by Ben Sherwood for O, The Oprah Magazine is now published and is available here.

I don't even get a mention. O well...

Luck is no accident

A book arrived from Amazon this morning as a consequence of having looked at Richard Wiseman’s blog last week. One of his recent posts mentioned that the current issue of Newsweek included an article that featured his research on luck. The article was actually adapted from a new book written by Ben Sherwood called The Survivors Club: The Secrets and Science That Could Save Your Life (Grand Central Publishing, 2009). Ben had been the guy who had interviewed me about luck last year for an article for O, The Oprah magazine (I wonder if that is published yet?).

However, the book that arrived this morning isn’t the one by Ben Sherwood (though perhaps I should order that one too!). No, it’s actually a book I discovered by following the link Richard had included to another website, called Get Rich Slowly, that also referred to the Newsweek article but focused more on Richard's work. It was this website that linked to an earlier article (are you following this?) that reviewed a book called Luck is No Accident: Making the Most of Happenstance in Your Life and Career by John Krumboltz and Al Levin (Impact Publishers, 2004). It was this book that I ordered from Amazon and which arrived this morning. The message of the book is very similar to that of Richard’s book The Luck Factor (2004, Arrow Books), although the focus here is on making the most of unplanned events.

Unintended consequences

Imagine you're on a flight. You've read the in-flight magazine, savoured the remaining crumbs of an exquisite in-flight meal, and about to relax for a restful in-flight nap. However, you're jolted from your reverie by an announcement from the pilot saying there are problems and he's going to have to "take the pane down" (that's crash-land to you and me). As the plane takes a dive, oxygen masks make a sudden appearance from above your head and you begin to wish you'd paid more attention to the cabin crew when they were talking you through all this stuff as you were taxiing.