What are the biggest mistakes people make when visiting your country?
I thought about this and decided a Top 10 list was in order! So, here are my top tips for a UK trip that really makes the most of your time.
- Don’t spend all your time in London. It’s good city to visit, but York and Edinburgh are even better.
- When you are in London, avoid the tube as much as possible. It’s crowded and you never see the real city. When you walk you find places the guide books don’t mention.
- The centre of London is an incredibly expensive place but nearly all the museums are free so explore them to your heart’s content.
- The parks in London are the jewels of the city. Spend as much time as you can in them.
- Within two hours of London are marvellous buildings, green hills and sandy beaches. Head for the train station and go to Kent, Sussex, Surrey, Berkshire or Oxfordshire. The air is different out there.
- Food is expensive so try to eat only one meal a day out.
- Don’t spend your time following all the other tourists. Look for side streets and explore those, but only in the daytime!
- If you hire a car try to get on the road early because our traffic is awful!
- If you know someone in a city you are visiting employ them as your tour guide. If you don’t join a walking tour not a bus tour.
- Make sure you put your money and your phone in your front pocket as the pickpockets find it almost impossible to get at them.
Safe travels!
A reflection on a staple of Primary School for many decades, the marvellous Singing Together.
Memories of Singing Together
This is my most popular post ever. It has 1200 views and counting. It was published three years ago today. If you haven’t read it, it’s a heartfelt tribute to a marvellous programme and a tour through the many downs and ups of Primary school life for me in the early to mid 1970s.
What’s a song that always puts you in a good mood?
As I have mentioned in a number of my posts I have always been a huge fan of music. Actually, that’s underplaying it. Music has always been central to my life. Prompts like this are usually a real problem because I have so many songs that I can think of. However, in this case one song came into my head as soon as I read the prompt and it was instantly perfect.
In the summer of 1974, a song came on the radio that was unlike any other in the effect it had on me. From the introduction with it’s slow build to the brass section coming in is just a few seconds but it was enough to hook me instantly. The tune was, in an indefinable way, every bright summer day you have ever had set to music. The lyrics were a story of love, beaches and loss. All life was here and even though at the age of 9 I had experienced very little of life, I instinctively understood every word and every beat. Every note was perfect to me then and remains so now. Whenever I hear this song I get the same feeling of joy and excitement as I did over 50 years ago. My childhood self calls to me whenever I hear it and tells me it’s still there.
Here is First Class with Beach Baby. Take a listen and let me know if it gives you the same feeling of joy. ⛱️
What’s a fear you’ve overcome — and how did you do it?
Fear is hardwired into our DNA and to a large extent has been very useful to us as a species. 10000 years ago we were at great risk of being eaten by other animals or killed by other human beings. The role of fear at that point was to ensure that you had some chance of surviving these dangers. Safety was to be found in avoiding dangerous situations as far as possible and the person who mixed that approach with the judicious application of risk would not only survive but thrive as would his descendants. In the context of the millions of years of evolution that have acted upon us, our modern society is simply a blip, but it’s a blip that has completely changed the game. Sadly, our genome is playing an old game with old equipment.
Why do we start with a mixture of irritation and fear when we hear raised voices on a train? Well, many centuries ago, loud voices, particularly aggressive ones, indicated attack was imminent. Our fear response was immediately triggered to tell us to, as my old Biology teacher put it, ‘sh*t or sprint’!! That old, hardwired, response is still intact and it causes us to overestimate the danger and react accordingly. The same happens when you receive an angry email or an email from a person whose name you really don’t want to see on the message! In the days where life was genuinely dangerous, you might be expelled from the safety of the tribe for angering or disagreeing with the powerful members of that tribe. Surviving on your own was very difficult and very unlikely to meet with success in the long term. Getting sacked, resigning or being made redundant all triggered the same response because, even though you may not like your work tribe, you know that the situation outside of the job is more concerning than the situation within it. After all, losing your income and your means of support, will be taken as a threat to your very existence by the primitive mind which still resides in the amygdala and is far quicker to react than the more modern, more rational mind.
So, how do we try to overcome these fears, deep seated as they are? In the immediate situation, it’s sometimes useful to take some deep breaths to try to calm yourself and allow you to access the more reflective part of your mind. That won’t always work but it’s worth a try. If you anticipate something happening, walk through the possibilities and decide in advance how you will deal with each one. Again, that won’t always work in the heat of the moment but it may encourage a different response to kick in. To be honest, my record of overcoming fears is patchy and I will probably never be as effective as I would like to be, but I can at least rationalise situations before, during and after with more success. I just know that it will always be a work in progress and I have accepted that.
What’s the best way to build self-confidence?
I have always thought that self-confidence is a trait that is a combination of upbringing, genetics and bluffing.
If you listen to, or read comments by, many an older person, you will be informed that children these days are too indulged by their parents. They are told, according to these correspondents, that they are amazing and that they can do anything. This is generally seen as a bad thing, and I suppose in the more extreme cases it could be. However, it made me think of my upbringing and the upbringing of most children around me in the 1970s where we were constantly told what we were doing badly and occasionally what we are doing well. That wasn’t a good setting to develop self-confidence. The only exception to this were the upper middle classes I came across at times who were brought up to believe that they were a cut above the common herd!
Even if you have an upbringing that is designed to fill you with self-confidence you have to believe it inwardly. I have had imposter syndrome all my life and I have never felt like I was in control. I was metaphorically looking over my shoulder all the time waiting for someone to find out that I wasn’t really up to it. Yes, there is an element of upbringing in this, but I have seen many of the people I grew up with having no real issues believing that they got their successes due to their own excellence. This is where I think we have a genetic component. In nature vs nurture it’s always the former that is most significant.
One of my least favourite modern sayings is ‘Fake it till you make it’, not because I think it’s nonsense but because it completely explains modern society. The people who become managers and politicians are often way worse than those they lead but they have this air of knowing what they are doing that they cultivate in order to climb the greasy pole. They will make bad decisions, make the lives of those they lead ten times worse, occasionally accidentally, often deliberately, and they will be protected by others from the same breed. In all my years in teaching I can only remember coming across two top managers in my centres or schools who were genuinely brilliant. The rest ranged from adequate to appalling and by the end of my career the latter way outweighed the former!
I am now way too old to develop self-confidence but I have tried to bring my children up to have that trait. It’s the least I can do to try to save them from my disappointments and missed opportunities as a result of lacking that quality which is now far more important than actual ability.
David Pearce - Popular Culture and Personal Passions 