BLOG 76: THE GIFT

“There are two ways to live: you can live as if nothing is a miracle; you can live as if everything is a miracle.” Albert Einstein German born American Physicist and Nobel Prize winner .



And so here we are in Christmas week. The Real Christmas is beginning to make it self heard. There were even some carollers under the clock tower this afternoon. Wonderful harmonies floated through the air as they gave us ‘Angels from the realms of glory’ but they had to pack it in when the snow came down heavy. It’s a lot calmer out there now – a winter wonderland outside my window, deep and crisp and even. The locale is flashing gamely with a variety of lights and neon.

WOW! It really will be Christmas in a matter of days.

I looked up the words for Angels from the realms of glory when I got home as I had found myself humming it all afternoon. It really is quite a piece of poetry… unsurprisingly as it was written by an Irishman and they do have a way with words. The song totally captures the spirit of Christmas.

I was then rather disheartened to find that some of my friends feel the spirit of Christmas is better reflected in what song is or isn’t number one in the charts. Others feel Christmas is better reflected in how much money they can spend on booze, presents and going out clothes. And all of them have uttered ‘where is the Christmas spirit?” over the pass few days.

I find this extraordinary! Whilst the spirit of Christmas does like to hang out in unlikely places it is by the same turn the easiest spirit to find. All you have to be is open to being able to see miracles.

Christmas for me is about how hope for all of us came from the most unlikely of sources. It’s about the odds being stacked against you and yet succeeding. These miracles is what the first and every Christmas is full of.

This Christmas more than any other I am grateful for my own miracle. JaxWorld came out of the most unlikely source. It should have failed… I mean who was going to read all my waffle? But you lot do… twice a week every week. And because of this JaxWorld has gone on to succeed. Now THAT is as bone-fide a miracle as you can get.

Okay it’s not quite up there with a 15 year old Jewish girl who claimed to be a virgin though she was clearly pregnant, whose fiancé (who had never had the intimate pleasure) standing by her, but forgetting to book a room on the busiest night in town, so she ends up giving birth in a barn, which gets visited that night by three kings, some shepherds and a whole host of angels…. BUT it’s my miracle and I’m grateful to you all for it.

I wish you all a Wonderful Christmas. I trust none of you will be without the modern day three kings - love, security and prosperity. I hope all of you enjoy good health. And from the very bottom of my heart I thank you all for your support in 2009.

As Mr Einstein put it so well – we have the choice… we can live life like NOTHING is a miracle or we can live as if everything is. GO out there into this beautiful Christmas week and find your miracle – it’s there. Just like the spirit of Christmas, you just have to look in the right places. I really don’t think anyone really believes the spirit of Christmas can be found in a present, the perfect outfit, or booze. And it certainly cannot be found in the UK top 40 charts!

If it is the Christmas spirit you are looking for you just have to start looking in the right places. (clue: try carols.org.uk and look at the lyrics to your fave Xmas carols). Peace and Goodwill to all men, and a snowball in the gob to anyone who says otherwise!!!

Happy Christmas one and all!

JaxWorld has been nominated for ‘Best Blog about Stuff’ in the Bloggers Choice Awards. If you enjoy this blog please vote for it using the following link:

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BLOG 75: Let it SNOW!!!!

“Only British Rail could explain away the complete disruption of their services in London and the Southeast because the heavens had dared give them “the wrong kind of snow”. “ Philip Eden, Journalist, Daily Telegraph.

We do know we are in Northern Europe… honestly WE DO. We know we get four seasons. We know to expect showers and weak sun in spring, showers and hot sun in summer, showers and blowy winds in autumn and snow showers in winter. Yep… mainly we are big on showers. We carry umbrellas for all seasons. BUT... we do know that in the two long seasons we are liable to get sun burnt in one and snowed on in the other. You see, it’s happened before. (Like for about 17,500 years… but who’s counting!) But to be British is talk about the weather…it certainly isn’t to prepare for it!

You see, to be British is to NOT to want to be like those kill joys in mainland Europe who take precautions. We like to approach our weather like a catholic schoolgirl does her lust… we just prefer to HOPE the worst doesn’t happen (even though the evidence that not preparing for the evitable outcome will lead to avoidable misery).

Yes, they do like to be prepared on the mainland…. even sunny Spain owns more snow-ploughs than we do (they had snow in January this year in Madrid and it caused 5hrs of chaos). We had snow in February this year in London and we closed the entire country for a day.

You see, even though we have the best Met Office in the world, and can predict weather fronts at least two whole weeks before ANYONE else. We – as Brits - prefer to be surprised.

For the past couple of weeks our satellites have been giving the met office infrared images that have had SNOW over London and the Home Counties written all over them. Information has been showing the invisible infrared radiation emitted directly by cloud tops/ land/ocean surfaces and all that other meteorological gobbledy gook…. It’s all been translated and put into graphs and pictures. The boffins have put a four letter word underneath each picture… SNOW. Then they put another other word… COMING. Then to make sure one more… SOON. The Met Office doesn’t like surprises (they are still shaken up from the hurricane of 1987!). They wanted us to know that the snow is heading for the M25 orbital motorway that runs around Greater London and we run the risk of snow cutting the Home Counties off from London. They even put the dates we could expect the stuff….Thursday 17^th, Friday 18^th December 2009.

But like that catholic schoolgirl who wonders where her twins came from… we all got up this morning and discovered that our capital was inaccessible from the Home Counties, cause somehow a big ring of fluffy white stuff had fallen from the sky.

And so just 10 months after the last fiasco where we closed the entire country, we found ourselves no better prepared.

A selection of today’s lovely headlines… with of course a JaxWorld review!

*BREAKING NEWS 6:22am UK, Friday December 18, 2009

Partygoers Stranded

The worsening weather has forced around 1000 people to spend the night trapped at a Xmas party in Kent. The snow meant a road was closed so they couldn't get out after the event.

Now this was the big story when I got up this morning and man it did make me laugh! 1000 people who were stuck at a Xmas Party! Imagine that… end of the night your shoes are killing ya and you’d do anything to be back home with a nice cuppa… UNLUCKY! Imagine having to sleep under the DJ box then having to face last night’s mincepies for breakfast!

*BREAKING NEWS 2:43pm UK, Friday December 18, 2009

More Travel Chaos As Snow Traps Xmas Shoppers

Heavy snow has caused travel chaos around the M25 orbital with hundreds of Xmas shoppers stranded in snow drifts.

It is supposed to be heart wrenching when they told the stories of people stuck in cars full of Xmas shopping on the M25. Failed to touch me though cause I chuckled heartily at the fools who got up this morning saw the snow and STILL though today is the perfect day to go to Bluewater or Lakeside! I do hope their shopping included clockwork radios or at least a little brandy to while away the hours while they wait to be rescued.

*BREAKING NEWS 3:17pm UK, Friday December 18, 2009

Snow Strands UK Airport Passengers: Holidaymakers Now Facing Further Misery

Last night and today’s snowfalls have caused misery for thousands of holidaymakers who turned up at airports to find them either closed or that their flights had been delayed or cancelled.

It’s hard to feel sorry for folks jetting off to sunny climes when we’re left here, but you have to feel for those who struggled to an airport just to get the Joseph and Mary treatment. Luton Airport just gave up and closed for the day, hanging up the “NO ROOM AT THE INN” sign in more than a metaphorical way. . Stansted and Heathrow struggled on, but Gatwick closed for 7 hrs for what looked a snowball fight. I have been instructed to highlight that their spokesman insists that the machinery used for clearing runways really does spit out snow in tight ball shapes.

*BREAKING NEWS 4:59pm UK, Friday December 18, 2009

More Travel Chaos As Big Freeze Continues

More travel chaos is expected this afternoon with more snow on the way as the start of the Christmas getaway begins.

WHO are these people? The rest of us kind of got the idea we had adverse weather when we saw the first snows yesterday and when we drew back the curtains this morning and saw the winter wonderland outside. Why are these people trying to bust out of the M25 orbital regardless? It can’t just because it is on their schedule? This is a little island it don’t take more than a day to get ANYWHERE! Good grief, Christmas ain’t till FRIDAY next week… are you really that homesick or do you have to reserve YOUR slice of turkey a week in advance?!

But I guess there is a serious point. We forked out for the best equipment to predict the weather. We predicted it… and we got it right… then we pretended not to know and we’ve been caught out again. And come the next extreme weather condition we will be again. Being prepared means having something in reserve for the extreme and you know what…. MOST of the time the weather here is unextreme. We know it will shower. It usually does. That’s why we ALWAYS have an umbrella somewhere on our person. We can be prepared if we have to.

But please… we’re British we just can’t do that Mainland Europe thing of planning for every possible “What if”! I mean Madrid buying all those snowploughs… sure they came in handy this January, but they’ll probably rust before they use them again. Yeah… today Britain has gone crazy cause the predicted event happened and we were not prepared… again. So as a consequence we have Kentish ladies in best frocks sleeping in the DJ box, out of town shoppers in cars playing I-spy snowflakes, airport staff clearing the runway one snowball at a time, and homesick northerners trying to bust out of snowbound south regardless.

But today captured in a nutshell what it is to be British. And you know what… I wouldn’t have us ANY OTHER WAY. We are unique, we are fabulous and we (unlike our Spanish cousins) will NOT be frightened by the “WHAT If’s”. Today captured our essence which is (to paraphrase the great Fred Allen)… to be British is to be a member of that group called the unprepared. And each of us is always totally unwilling to do what may just prove to be unnecessary.

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BLOG 74: Tis the Season...

How touching to have the meaning of Christmas brought to us by cola.... Who'd have ever guessed that product consumption and spirituality would mix so harmoniously? ~Bill Watterson, Illustrator and writer of the Calvin & Hobbes comic strip

Ah… Charlie Dickens may well be my hero… but my fellow Kent Dweller, Political Stirrer-upper and Thought Scribbler has a lot to answer for at this time of year. So much of we like to think of as traditional observances for the Yuletide period are actually nothing of the sort. And thank to Charlie you HAVE to observe them now or the words BAH HUMBUG and the title SCROOGE be with you forever!

We are very good at forgetting festivals (or masses as they are properly called) here in the UK. A hugely popular mass here once was the ‘festival of the strong’ also known as Michael Mass (pronounced Mikelmas) Michael Mass falls on Sept 29^th and is a festival in which the principal celebration is of Michael who was a kick-ass warrior (Michael is the greatest of all the archangels and is honoured for his defeat of Lucifer in the battle for the heavens). The settling of debts and scores, the candlelight processions, the bosses serving a banquet for the workers AND a goose being prepared which will be followed by a special cake. This is a festival every man, woman child and yapping dog on this island had looked forward to, observed and enjoyed for some 1700 years. I’d call that a tradition wouldn’t you? But it didn’t have a champion to bring it back… and now al but a handful of Lutheran Christians even observe the day. Not all events on the calendar get a champion like Charles Dickens to bring them back and make them bigger.

So, given that background you can see how it was that Charles Dickens lived in a Victorian world where the celebration of The Christ Mass was very much in decline. The Christ Mass fell on Dec 25^th and was a festival in which the principal celebration is of the birth of Christ who was the founder of Christianity. For some 1800 years a festival which combined the celebration of the birth of Christ with the ancient Roman festival of Saturnalia (a pagan celebration for the Roman god of agriculture), and the Germanic winter festival of Yule was the big end of year knees up here in the UK. But by Dickens time, the traditional had gone the route of Michael Mass and was barely observed.

Some rich people wanted to bring it back for themselves…Prince Albert brought the German custom of decorating the Christmas tree to England, the singing of Christmas carols (which had all but disappeared at the turn of the century) became popular in drawing rooms and under lamplight, and the first Christmas card appeared in the 1840’s. But it was all a little top brass…Christmas had stopped being a festival for any but the wealthy. The Industrial Revolution, which was in full swing in Dickens' time, made sure of this as it allowed workers little time for the celebration of Christmas. It was the wide reading of the Christmas stories of Dickens, particularly his 1843 masterpiece A Christmas Carol, that rekindled the joy of Christmas. No employer wished to be cast as Scrooge! Coming together as individual families to eat, exchange gifts and sending messages of good will to all became the backbone of the Christmas that we still celebrate today.

And Christmas today is big business. I doubt if many even know that the festival is a Mass, let alone observe it in any other way but commercially It’s more to do with the trucks of Coca-Cola rolling into a snowbound main street USA and the launch of the Argos catalogue.

I do understand that few care that the medieval Yule logs man (in his green forest outfit) who used to bring gifts to sleeping children has been turned into a corporately branded (red and white) Santa for Coca-cola. Why should they when the green forest outfit isn’t a patch on Cokes red one and the bells jingle and the choir pant “The Holidays are Coming” so breathlessly?

I do understand that for many Christmas has more to with keeping the 1840’s tradition of sending greeting cards to everyone they have ever met. Why should they not take part in something that has been going on for 170 years to mark and event that happened 2010 years ago… why should they be bothered about the maths when sending a card brings such joy?

I’m not going to go on about the commercialisation of Christmas. I’m not going to be a good Baptist girl and go on about the true reason there even is this Mass.

I am going to say that on the 13^th of December every year my son and I go the garage and get out our many boxes of decorations and argue over which of our three trees go where. I am going to say that from 13^th December to Twelfth Night, I enjoy the decorations and twinkiling lights of not just my own home but the entire neighbourhood. I am going to say that I ensure that no one spends Christmas alone and that the places around my table are full. I am going to say that I drop cards round the neighbourhood and read with interest the ones that drop on my mat (“Ohhh… THAT’s what her name is at no. 47”). I am going to say that displaying my received cards makes me feel connected and remembered when I glance at them

I am going to say that I’ll be thinking about the pleasures of other people more than myself, and I’ll be doing my best to let those I care about know that I do. You see Charles Dickens fought through his Christmas Stories (do get them out and read them) to bring back Christmas as it is a time of fellowship.

Fellowship is an odd word. It does make me think of rows of church pews… but I don’t think that is all the word means. Oh yes, I will go to church Xmas Day to tip a nod to the guy who’s Mass the day is for but fellowship simply means being socialable, associating yourself with others. Charles Dickens did good wit making us remember that we should, even if we only remember in that last week of the year be nice to each other.

Eric Sevareid got it so right when he said "Christmas is a necessity. There has to be at least one day of the year to remind us that we're here for something else besides ourselves."

And you know what…. I can’t see ANYTHING at all too commercial about that!

JaxWorld has been nominated for ‘Best Blog about Stuff’ in the Bloggers Choice Awards. If you enjoy this blog please vote for it using the following link:

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BLOG 73: HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO YA!!!

“You BECOME 21, you TURN 30, then you're PUSHING 40. Whoa! Put on the brakes, it's all slipping away. Before you know it, you REACH 50 and your dreams are gone. But wait!!! You MAKE it to 60. You didn't think you would! You've built up so much speed that you HIT 70! After that it's a day-by-day thing; you HIT Wednesday!:: GEORGE CARLIN, 5 time Grammy winner, actor, author, stand-up comedian and social critic

On Monday, it’s my Birthday.

I was brought up to believe that if you can’t celebrate the day your life started then what the hell else is there that’s gonna get you celebrating. This maxim has seen me well though school, uni and into the workplace.

My ex-colleagues over the years have all approached the first week of December with some dread, knowing they will have to suffer the countdown, the manic build-up and the post birthday period before they will FINALLY be allowed to have Xmas. (You would have noted they would not have to go through the day itself for I have always taken that day off – work is not all about me and my birthday so is therefore they were NOT compatible).

Birthdays are special – your own personal Christmas – where everyone reflects on the world since your arrival and you are… just for a day, emperor of your own personal universe.

I love my birthday. There is something about being born in December means that you REALLY do feel you have waited a whole year for it – the anticipation is huge! Also as the world is in party season anyway, people are up for celebrating. And the shops are so thoughtfully stocked with gifts at this time of year, and people are already in buying mode. I always do very well compared to my friends who have the misfortune to be born in the other 11 months – which have the misfortune of having no such assistance.

By enlarge my birthdays have always been seen as the pre-cursors to the party season. The events run... Jax Birthday, Company Party, Christmas, New Years Eve…. Back to the void till next December.

My mother used to tell me that if you “Cry on your birthday, you’ll cry that whole year through”… so I’ve always tried to be chipper on that day. But emperor of my personal universe or no, some birthdays have just not been as good as others.

Not that I’ve allowed tears to fall on those occasions. But it is harder to have to be your own cheerleader on a day when everyone else should be celebrating YOU.

There are some people who are as bah! Humbug about your birthdays as Scrooge was about Yuletide.

I once had a very cruel and evil boss who hated me who forced me (on pain of dismissal) to work on my birthday. (Though in her defence she was a very anal and stunted human being who recoiled for any kind of joy so she was only trying to make herself feel comfortable by attempting to reduce my Tigger-like bouncing). She soon enough learnt that was pure folly on her part and no boss has ever been so brave to consider such action again!

Then of course you have the accidental backfire that happens on birthdays when people just don’t let you know that are onboard the birthday train soon enough!

I once had a boyfriend who did not understand that I do not do surprises. I am the worse person to mislead into thinking that nothing has been done just for people to be in the other room ready to shout “SURPRISE!!” I woke up at 6.30am… No Card, No Pressie… just some diatribe about how he had to dash to a meeting which would go on all day. I was gutted. I took it that he had forgotten. Of course, at 11.30am, a huge delivery of my favourite things arrived (I hate cut flowers…my poor boyfriend have always had to work a bit harder). At 6.30pm he assembled everyone we knew in a restaurant for a surprise party then came home at his regular time of 7.30 to take me along for what he was going to mislead me to believe was an intimate diner for two.

Sounds great… but unfortunately at 8.00am, I booked myself onto the Eurostar and went to Paris for the day. I had a great time spoiling myself and flirting wildly with French Men… I got home just after midnight, knackered so although my ansaphone was blinking furiously, I went straight to bed. It was the following day when I took the missed delivery card to the post office and got my Fortnum’s and Masons hamper I realised I may have missed something. That was when I felt I should play my messages and found out about the party. OOPSI!

However, leading someone to feel crushed, forgotten and abandoned in the name of a surprise means that you expose yourself to the risk of them finding something better to do. So “Vive la France” on that point!

Mostly though people are pretty much guided to how to treat you on your birthday by how you convey you feel about your birthday.

Yes, of course… birthdays after your twenties are more a sign of your mortality than an achievement! No one really frets about being 18-24. A frisson runs through you when you realise you have to tick the next box up on the form (25 and over) but it really isn’t until you reach the third adult age group that your relationship with age changes for ever. The late George Carlin gets it spot on in the quote I started this blog with!

But like he says… each year IS an achievement… a cause for celebration…YAY I MADE IT THOUGH ANOTHER YEAR. It’s always good to live – get older…what other choice is there?

After 30 you start noticing that you have out lived your heroes…

Get to 35 and you beat: Sylvia Plath (30)Poet and author, Brian Epstein (32)Beatles manager Bruce Lee (32)Martial arts actor, Karen Carpenter (32)Singer and musician, Keith Moon (32)Rock drummer, Carole Lombard (33)Actor, Jesus Christ (33)Founder of Christianity, John Belushi (33)Comedian/actor, Sam Cooke (33)Soul musician, Charlie Parker (34)Jazz saxophonist, Jayne Mansfield (34)Actor .

Get to 40 and you beat: Bob Marley (36) Reggae musician, Marilyn Monroe (36) Actor, Michael Hutchence (37) Rock musician, FLO-JO (38)

Olympian/sprinter, George Gershwin (38)Composer, John F. Kennedy, Jr. (38) President USA, Anna Nicole Smith (39) Model/actor, Dennis Wilson (39)Rock 'n' roll drummer, Malcolm X (39)Militant civil rights leader, Martin Luther King, Jr. (39) Civil rights activist/minister .

They all may have achieved during their lives… but theirs were short. If yours is not… get of your big fat but and PHARTAY!!!

I love my birthday. I love the season in which my life started… it seems so apt… winter is a time when life seems to be dormant… but that is just an illusion for the unobservant! Winter is a time when stuff happens! Me arriving being just one of those things.

Yes… it’s a case of getting older... and yay that idea…. They say biggest victory you have in this life is to live another day. I say, the how much bigger is that victory when you have made it through 365 of them!!!

So…I’m off to get this gals party STARTED!!! So I think I will hand over this blog to some people who can wrap this up nicely for me… Ladies and Gentlemen I give you….The Arrogant Worms…

Once a year we celebrate,

With stupid hats and plastic plates,

The fact that you were able to make

Another trip around the sun.

And the whole clan gathers ‘round,

And gifts and laughter do abound.

And we let out a joyful sound

And sing that stupid song.

Happy birthday!

Now you’re one year older.

Happy birthday!

Your life still isn’t over.

Happy birthday!

You did not accomplish much.

But you didn’t die this year, I guess that’s good enough.

So let’s drink to your fading health,

And hope you don’t remind yourself,

Your chance of finding fame and wealth,

Decrease with every year.

‘Cause if you feel you’re doing laps,

And eating food and taking naps,

And hoping that someday perhaps

Your life may hold some cheer.

Happy birthday!

What have you done that matters?

Happy birthday!

You’re starting to get fatter.

Happy birthday!

It’s downhill from now on.

Try not to remind yourself your best years are all gone.

If cryogenics were all free,

Then you could live like Walt Disney.

And live for all eternity,

inside a block of ice.

But instead your time is set.

This is the only life you get.

And though it hasn’t ended yet,

Sometimes you wish it might.

Happy birthday!

You wish you had more money.

Happy birthday!

Your life’s so sad it’s funny.

Happy birthday!

How much more can you take?

But your friends are hungry, so just cut the stupid cake.

Happy birthday!

Happy birthday!

HAPPY BIRTHDAY!

Dear… JAX..JAX…JAX…JAX…..

JAX?

JAX WORLD WILL RETURN AFTER THE BIG BIRTHDAY CELEBRATIONS WHICH WILL GO ON FOR A WEEK: THE GIRL LOVES BIRTHDAYS!!! However…JaxWorld has been nominated for ‘Best Blog about Stuff’ in the Bloggers Choice Awards. If you enjoy this blog please vote for it using the following link:

http://bloggerschoiceawards.com/blogs/show/80516?load=comments