One-Upmanship - Let It Go

🏆 In 1952 Stephen Potter (1900 -1969) published the infamous guides to Lifemanship and specifically One-upmanship.

On holiday with a friend, we played several rounds of backgammon in the hotel lounge and I won. "You're very competitive," she observed, "I never realised that about you before." Say it with a smile and it's not an insult right? She lost at backgammon that night but she won at life.

Another time a friend was telling me about a wonderful place she'd visited on her travels. It was the most spectacular scenery in the world. She ended her description with, "I don't care how many pictures or videos people see, you cannot understand the full beauty of it unless you've been there." What is there left to say after that? You've been to better places than boring old me so you win?

Lifemanship is making yourself appear more accomplished or knowledgeable, or the better person. It's chatting with an accomplished writer and saying that you plan to write novels when you retire. It's following a story about a walking holiday in the Lake District with, "When I went hiking in the Himalayas..."

It's basically disrespect for the knowledge and experiences of others.

One-upmanship is altogether more sinister. A back-handed compliment but more nuanced. Use it clumsily and you look mean. However, with some practice it can be honed into an art form. By all means use One-upmanship on your enemies, your adversaries, or your competitors. Be aware that you'll still look mean and people will hate you for it, they just won't be able to pin anything on you.

"One-upmanship is making the other man feel that something has gone wrong ever so slightly" (Stephen Potter). It's leaving the other with a slight feeling of discomfort. You can't argue with One-upmanship. "What do you mean? I gave her a compliment!"

It's meeting an older friend for coffee and saying, "How lovely to see you out and about and looking so well."

Another example I read once, went like this: You invite guests for dinner and you've obviously spent much time and effort cooking a lavish selection of dishes and desserts. One guest compliments you with, "Thank you so much for tonight, it was a lovely evening. The mayonnaise was delicious. I would love the recipe. I can't stop thinking about how good it was. You are clever."

Or the parting that ends with, "I've really enjoyed meeting you and spending time with you. I hope you find what you're looking for in life." (What? I'm concerned about you.)

Have you ever been One-upped? What do you do? You smile to yourself and remember that One-upmanship is the tool of the insecure. It's used by people who feel that: "if you're not one-up, you're one-down" (Rilke). Feel sorry for the habitual One-upman but never confront him. He'll pretend  not to understand why you're upset. If he needs to always feel superior he's not going to apologise, is he? Let it go. And you can feel a little superior if you like, because of your maturity and stronger sense of self.

I Am Not Prince Harry

A cottage in the country

I'm supposed to be working so all I want to do is blog. Not a good idea because of the need to get work done, but also because all I want to talk about is why I think Prince Harry will be unhappy in North America and why he'll be back in the UK eventually, or even sooner. So if you're fed up with my obsession with Harry and Meghan, please stop reading now.

First you have to understand that it's all about me. Not Harry and me. I've never met the guy in person and he certainly doesn't know who I am. My point is that opinions and advice are usually highly subjective. Meaning, if someone gives you their opinion about what they would do in your place, even if you begged them for it, you have to bear in mind that they are not you.

I learned this when I got a job running teenage camps for three months in Australia back in the summer (their winter) of 1990. It was an amazing experience, though exhausting. I had the time of my life and I was paid for it! Six months later they asked me to go back and do it again in the spring of 1991. I didn't know what to do so I asked around. This is the advice I received.

I had steady employment with a company whose busiest time of year was the spring. So my father, who was always extremely careful, advised me not to go so as not to jeopardize my job. He was fearful of me being unemployed on my return and was thinking of my future.

My Australian friend who had just arrived in Israel for the adventure of her life, said, "You went last year. What do you want to go back again for? It's just more of the same."

A friend who was a professional youth worker and spent his life running camps, clubs, and activities, said, "Why do you want to travel all that way to work? Work hard during the year and save up so that when you want a holiday you can travel on your own terms and your own itinerary."

And my hard working friend who was fed up with her low paying job, had never traveled and dreamed of having the money to do so, said, "Of course you should go! How can you turn down a free trip to Australia?"

In the end I didn't go. I didn't stay in the same job as I soon went back to teaching, and I did regret not going back to Australia a bit. But it wasn't a life changing decision so no harm done. The issue is that everyone gave opinions based on their own situation and desires. None of the advice was about me, it was all about them.

So if I were to write that Harry will miss being close to his large family and that it's sad for Archie not to be brought up with his cousins, I'd be projecting my feelings, as an expat, of living far from my family and that my daughter only sees her grandmother, aunts and uncles and cousins once or twice a year. It would be less painful if Meghan were not estranged from most of her own family.

When I say that he'll miss the English culture it's because I do.

When I think he'll miss his large house in the English countryside, it's because I live in a small flat without a garden in the Middle East desert. I yearn for the rolling green hills, rivers and commons of England. I would love to have even a small cottage in the English countryside.

When I feel that it's sad for him to have to give up on all his military associations that gave him so much pleasure, it's because I also had to compromise my career when I moved to a country with a different language. Different challenge, same result. Well not exactly the same result but also a compromise.

And I've also been in a relationship where my whole personality changed. A situation where after some months of doing only what he wanted, I found that I wasn't at all happy.

In Harry's case, he used to be friendly with the media. Long gone are the days of the paparazzi that he blamed for contributing to his mother's death. Nowadays there is an agreement, a system whereby the royals give photo opportunities at certain times and rites of passage for them and their children. At Christmas, on birthdays, after births, christenings, and first days of school, etc... They smile, they wave, they remain still for the photographers to do their jobs, they answer a few questions in a friendly manner, and then they are left alone. Harry was a favourite because he was always friendly and chatty with the official reporters and photographers. He knew that his job was a team effort.

But Harry and Meghan have not been playing the game. They refused the assigned photographers and only wanted those that they personally invited. They have refused to speak to the media. They refused to pose with Archie until they decided the time. And they kept unnecessary secrets like who his godparents are. All this helped turn the media against them.

It's not how Harry used to be. I don't blame Meghan because Harry is a grown man and can decide for himself how to live his life. In fact, knowing the system better than she does, he should have put his foot down about certain issues of protocol. He should have explained to her how it works and that it's not the same as being a Hollywood celebrity.

I do think he will regret this decision to move away and out of the Royal family, but that's all about me, not him.

Just Selfish (Ultra-Orthodox Jews in Israel)

Blue and white workers keep this country going, not black hatted shirkers.

Last night I tried to get to J's house in Bet Shemesh, about a half hour ride from Jerusalem. I dropped DD off at another friend where she was staying the night, and went to catch my bus into town. Who knew that there was a huge demonstration by thousands of ultra-orthodox Jews, blocking the roads leading to and from the Central Bus Station (CBS) and the light-rail system?

You have to feel sorry for them - not. While everyone in Israel has to do some sort of National Service (not necessarily in the military - it could be in the voluntary sector) the ultra-orthodox are exempt.

It's an old law from the beginning of the State, when there were only a few remnants of ultra-orthodox Jewry left after the Holocaust. All the huge Jewish study halls (yeshivot) in Europe were gone. Thousands of years of learning were in danger of being forgotten. Israel's first prime minister, David Ben Gurion, decreed that these men could receive a stipend to study the Jewish sources full time and that they would be exempt from Army Service. It seemed like a good idea at the time. And it was a good idea for its time.

Since then a lot has changed. For one thing, we now have an alternative Voluntary National Service for those not suitable for combat. However, the main problem is that after 70 years, and with a religious ban on family planning, there are now thousands of ultra-orthodox men who opt out of real life and spend their days in the study halls. And believe me, they are not all scholars. They live off charity, and/or they send their wives out to work - the women who also have to look after a household of, give or take, 10 children.

They say that they want nothing to do with the State while using the roads, sanitation, electricity, water, gas, engineering, doctors, hospitals, schools, police, transport, agriculture, food, other commodities, and national security that the working people of the State provide.

The demonstration was about new laws that cancel the exemption from National Service. Why should ultra-orthodox men take any responsibility at all? For anything? So they chose Thursday evening for maximum disruption.

Thursday night on public transport is crazy at the best of times as our weekends are Friday/Saturday. Hundreds of people leaving for the weekend. Many with backpacks or suitcases escaping the city after a long working week. With half the system down it was absolute chaos. The buses that could run were crushingly crowded and the roads were in gridlock.

I eventually arrived at the CBS to find that all buses had been suspended until 7.45, after the protest. So after a week spent in the study halls (because they don't work) while others earned the taxes to pay for their everything, they then shut down the transport system so the tired workers couldn't get home to begin their weekend.

It was 6.15. At the Bet Shemesh terminal, people were just sitting and waiting. I had somewhere to be at 8 pm and I wasn't going to wait. A taxi to Bet Shemesh costs about 200 shekels (£42.50) but if four people split the cost... I called out loudly, "Who wants to share a taxi to Bet Shemesh?" Three people jumped up and off we went.

I got to my event on time but people travelling further afield couldn't just take a taxi. And after a while there were very few taxis available. Another friend walked for over an hour to cover the part of his homeward journey that was void of public transport. As he said, not everyone is young and fit enough to walk long distances.

On Friday morning there were special prayers for the new month at the Western Wall. A group of women pray there on new month days, days, which are attributed special status for women. The ultra-orthodox selfish brigade regrouped to heckle, throw stones, and physically attack these women for the crime of praying the full service with a Torah scroll - an act traditionally reserved for men.

The ultra-orthodox Jews in Israel protest against doing army service because combat would sully their pure, but selfish, souls. Yet the next morning they come and beat up women who only want to pray. It's not about purity or serving God. These men have only basic education, if any, outside of religious studies. They are not equipped to think for themselves. They do as their rabbis tell them and for the despot rabbis, it's all about retaining control.

It's all about power.

It has to stop.

Blog Guilt - Is It A Thing?

Something I didn't mention,

Do any other bloggers have blog guilt?

A couple of weeks ago I wanted to write my weekly Reasons 2B Cheerful post and I felt that I couldn't do it without first mentioning the fatal shooting of 11 worshipers in a synagogue in Philadelphia. Obviously that didn't belong in a R2BC post so I delayed the post and wrote about this and other tragedies that occurred that week.

Today I wanted to write a Tuesday Tidbits post. I don't often have funny things that DD says or does to write about now that she's growing up. But a couple of nights ago something funny happened and of course I thought of blogging about it. However, I'm still feeling guilty that I didn't even mention the 80th anniversary of Kristallnacht (The Night of Broken Glass) that was last week.

Here I am with a platform that's read by 300 people a day and I didn't write about the Kristallnacht Pogroms. It's was the 80th anniversary, not the 77th or 79th but a significant number that should be commemorated. On the night of November 9th 1938, all over Nazi Germany (including Austria and Sudetenland) Jewish shops were vandalized, looted and torched, Jewish families were herded into the town squares where they were attacked and humiliated, 300.000 Jewish men were arrested and deported to prison camps, Jewish books and and ritual items were burned, and 1400 synagogues were desecrated and torched. Ninety-one Jews were murdered.

This was the turning point for Jews in Nazi Germany. Whereas previously, many had thought the Nazi threat would blow over, now they knew that they were in mortal danger. For most of them, this realization came too late and they were trapped. Some of those who did manage to leave thought they would be safe in France, Belgium, Holland, and other Western European countries. Only those who made it to England and the Americas were spared the horrors of The Holocaust.

On Sunday was Armistice Day, 11/11, when we remember the fallen soldiers from both world wars. My facebook feed was full of my friends' photos of their parents, grandparents, and great-grandparents in uniform. Proud and sad at the same time of the tremendous, often ultimate, sacrifices made by their families. Me? 300 readers and I wrote nothing.

Last night and today Southern Israel has been under rocket fire from Hamas in the Gaza strip. People have died, houses have been destroyed. Schools in the south were cancelled today and until further notice. My friends who live there have spent over 24 hours no more than 15 seconds from their safe rooms (rooms of reinforced concrete) or bomb shelters.

The country is talking about whether we are heading for another war against Hamas. Soldier reservists are waiting to hear if they will be called up. A school in Jerusalem has announced that it will take in any children from the south who want/need to get away and find them families to stay with. And that's just the one school I heard about. Many friends have offered to host families under fire who just need a break from it all.

With all that going on I just can't write about DD's funny sayings.

A couple of weeks ago a friend marked the Yarhzeit (anniversary of death) of her husband who died far too young. She asked that we all do a Mitzvah for Michael (a good deed). I immediately thought, what a good name for a blog post, and I had every intention of writing about it. I did two mitzvot (pl.) during that week. I can't write about either of them. Both were good deeds for specific people who either read this blog or know people who do. To write about how these 'poor' souls needed my help would humiliating for them if they found out.

And there was one mitzvah, another one, that I was able to do and I could've written about it here. It was a general offer that was taken up by a complete stranger, via a facebook group. No one would know who the beneficiary is. But it doesn't feel right to brag about good deeds. Either you do them or you don't, but to tell everyone how wonderfully you behaved... nah, not cool.

So instead of writing blog posts every few days, I've been consumed with guilt about things I'm not mentioning and would feel guilty about mentioning other events that happened. I'm wrestling with the notion that a relatively successful blog (successful in that it's been going almost eight years and people read it) brings certain obligations and responsibilities.

I could say, "I don't write about politics," but that wouldn't be real as politics concern me. I've grown out of cute stories about motherhood, or at least DD has grown past it. I want this blog to be about real life but my real life involves others who don't always want to be blogged about. Sometimes it's hard to find a satisfactory middle ground.

Blog Guilt. Is it a thing?

Meghan Markle: Sabotage By Wardrobe

I don't know who is trying to sabotage Meghan Markle and set her up for failure but whoever, or whatever, they are doing a good job of manipulatively destroying her personality outfit by outfit. I saw Germaine Greer on the TV programme This Morning and immediately knew what she was talking about. I have been thinking the same for weeks.

You only have to Google Meghan Markle Images to see the difference between how she dressed before the engagement, when she presumably chose her own clothes, and how she is being dressed now.

Every outfit since the engagement has been dowdy. Heavy material in boring neutral colours. Too much material making her look like an old dowager rather than a young blushing bride. Most outfits are ankle length at the bottom and over the collar bone at the top. She is swamped in an effort, it seems, to erase any suggestion of a nice figure - or any figure. I am absolutely certain that Meghan would never have chosen these outfits for herself.

In contrast, Kate is dressed in light outfits showing off her youth and great figure. Bright colours, wonderful designs to just above the knees so we can see her shapely legs, and soft playful designs that many women of all ages would be happy to emulate.

I didn't just take Germaine Greer's word for it, I went to Google Images to see the full range. Look at Meghan Markle Images and then look at Meghan and Harry Images. Do you see it? It's as if Elizabeth Hurley morphed into the Queen Mother. I was more than shocked. This has to be a deliberate and manipulative ploy.

There is no reason why Meghan Markle shouldn't be a shining model of British fashion. She has the looks, the polish and the figure. Money is no object. Any designer would give their right arm to have the opportunity to dress Meghan to show off their clothes. She would do them proud, if only she were allowed. It's not like she's unaware of fashion - just look at the way she dressed before.

Someone is controlling Meghan Markle's wardrobe in a way that does her a major disservice. Someone is deliberately making her look the worst she can look without being blatant about it. They choose expensive couture so you can't say they're treating her like Cinderella in rags. No, they are waging a far more devastating and subtle campaign to crush Meghan Markle outfit by outfit.

I have no concrete motive. Maybe it's a test of her staying power. Maybe it's we the public who are being manipulated so that we shouldn't love her until we are permitted to do so. Or maybe they are really out to destroy her for her.... what? Her background? Her ethnicity? Her divorced status? Her Chutspah? Who knows. But something is going on here and I believe that the truth will out eventually.

The Arrogance Of Thanking God

I'm running out of relevant photos. Here is possibly where God lives. 

I have many friends who, whenever things work out for them whether it be a stroke of good luck or good timing, thank God for putting everything in place for a happy outcome. I started to do this myself recently. The older I get the more I'm convinced of a higher power. Whatever the nature of this higher power is up for debate. I do believe though, that if you work for the good and if you are in tune with the universe and humanity within it, then it will will work for you and you will get your reward.

We want to make two trips to London in the coming year to visit family and celebrate various events (the exodus from Egypt being one of them ;~p). My mother had been urging me to book the flights for the first visit at least so that she could plan around it. I was holding off until October when I get paid for my summer courses and get a full salary for being back at school in September.

Ten days ago I got an email from Easyjet saying that bookings were now open through to next summer. I decided to take a look. If I booked for our second trip as well I might get really low prices for being so early. 

Prices for next year were very reasonable. Prices for the end of this year, less than three months away, not so much. So I went to check out Monarch. I found something cheaper but not enormously cheaper. I found the Monarch website confusing as I'm familiar with Easyjet, and I couldn't work out how to change the quoted prices from dollars to pounds. 

I suddenly realized that my credit card only gets paid from my bank account on the 10th of the month (in full so it's actually more like a debit card paid once a month). So I went back to Easyjet, paid the extra, and was confident that I'd not sacrificed the known and trusted to save about $70. And while I was at it I also booked for our second trip next year. 

I was wrong about the credit card. Apparently when you pay for something in foreign currency it gets paid straight away directly from the bank account. I went into big overdraft but put the week's worth of interest on the overdraft down to experience. 

Ten days later Monarch went bust and Easyjet prices have almost doubled. I spent over 1000 pounds on eight flights and, had I booked with Monarch, would have had to spend another almost 2000 pounds had we decided to go anyway - which we might not have done due to the cost. 

My first thought was to thank God. Well something made me 1. book early and 2. decide not to book with Monarch even though they were cheaper. Thank you God. God loves me. I please God and he takes care of me. Trust in God and all will work out for the good. Etc... etc...

However. There's always a 'but' isn't there. A friend of mine, a widow who lives modestly in order to be able to visit her children and grandchildren living abroad, booked a trip with Monarch only a few days before the closure. Her credit card company say they have already paid Monarch so there is nothing they can do (different rules from the UK possibly) and she's lost her money. 

What does that mean in terms of God? He loves me but hates her? Believe me, she's a lot more particular about the religious laws than I am. 

Elliot Jager, in his book The Pater, My Father, My Judaism, My Childlessness, writes that he started to turn away from God when they couldn't have children. How could he love a mean God who would not bless he and his wife with a child when so many others, even less worthy others, are having families of 6, 7, or more children. And I remember thinking the same thing when I was single, childless, and approaching 40.

Jager's friend pointed out to him that he must have known childless couples before he found himself to be in this situation. He must have known people in the past who desperately wanted children but were unable to have. Of course he had. So why was God only a mean God when he didn't deliver for the Jagers but not when he didn't deliver for all the other worthy but sadly childless people? 

So then it's ok to thank God when you accidently leave your purse or your phone in a shop but then remember and run back to find it still sitting there on the bench in the fitting room. And it's good to thank God when you narrowly miss being knocked down by a motorcycle overtaking the car that stopped for you on the zebra crossing. And when you slip over in the street but only bruise your knee and scrape your hand but don't break your leg, thank God. 

But this doesn't make sense if you can't also thank God when you miss being affected by a tragedy that has struck others. If I were in Vegas last week and survived, should I thank God for sparing me? If He's so powerful why didn't he spare everyone? If He spared me, is it arrogant of me to believe myself to be more worthy than any of the other people there?

Of course you don't have to evoke specific events for this line of thought. It could apply to our very lives. Thank God I was born into a middle class, loving family, in the UK, at a time of peace and not into a starving village in Africa. What do you say to God about those children who were born in poor villages in Africa? 

I wish I had an answer but I don't. Every time I want to say, "Thank God," now, I feel guilty. If anyone has any insight on this I'd be very interested to hear it. The nearest philosophy I can come up with for some sort of explanation is from my friend's mother, Mrs Slifkin, who used to tell her children, "different people have different things." You can't argue with that. 

  

Reinventing Yom Kippur Without The Middleman

Today was Yom Kippur - the Day of Atonement. I didn't go to shul (synagogue). For someone who comes from a very traditional (and sometimes orthodox) background, this is no small thing.

I felt guilty because I belong to a very small community that meets only for services on Rosh Hashana and Yom Kippur and its continuity relies on people turning up. Otoh, the community has evolved over the years with people moving away and new people joining every year. And they don't do it for me, they do it because it's important for them and they love the intimacy of a small community in someone's home. But I rsvped that we would be there and so I felt bad and I was too much of a coward to tell them that in the end I just didn't want to. 

I love parts of the services that involve uplifting singing of tunes that I've known my whole life. And the feeling of that final 'kaddish' at the very end and the long blast of the shofar when everyone has been without food or drink for 25+ hours and it's all over, is an amazing feeling of togetherness and achievement. 

But actually what did we achieve? For me the answer was that I lasted a whole day without sustenance and I managed to attend all the services throughout the day in full. Surely that's not what it's all about?

This year, after resisting it and distancing myself for a few years, I decided to follow my heart. In previous years I've had the excuse that DD gets bored and a bored DD prevents me from having any sort of meaningful prayer experience. But I had a place to leave her this year and anyway there are other children at the shul for her to go off and play with. Otoh, at almost nine, it's not a matter of finding her somewhere to be with other children to play with. She doesn't want to be out all day playing. For some of the time, yes, but she has things to do at home and she also needs her personal time. 

I have a problem with orthodox prayer in that the women basically go to watch. I didn't always mind about this as it meant I had it easy. I never had to learn the prayers or worry about being called upon to do something I couldn't do or hadn't practised. In recent years, however, I have felt differently. Yes women are supposed to pray but as they are not counted in the minyan (the quorum) and they sit at the back or in a viewing gallery upstairs, they might as well stay at home. I have no problem with the men going to do their thing but I don't need to be there to watch them. In recent years many modern orthodox communities have made carefully considered gestures to give women more participation in the services. I appreciate that in Judaism it's extremely hard to make changes but. (Nothing else, just but.)

Of course there are gender-egalitarian services that I could go to. So let's examine the nature of the services. The prayers are all in a book and everyone has the same book. You start at the beginning and you read, chant, sing, follow silently, stand, sit, bow, face eastwards, and generally choreograph your way through to the end in unison with the whole congregation. It's all prescribed, there is a lot of repetition within each service, and you do the exact same thing every week or year depending on whether it's a weekly Shabbat or a yearly festival service.

At the end of each service I used to feel virtuous because I'd gone to shul and that was the 'good' thing to do. Nowadays I'm left with a feeling of, "I didn't get to say anything I wanted to say." You can try tuning out to do your own introspection but you sort of have to keep one ear tuned in so that you join in with choreography. If you just sit there it's considered rude. Or ignorant. Or, worse, blasphemous. In a large shul you can get away with sitting at the back in a corner and reading your own book. I know some people do this for parts of the service they consider less important. But guess what? I can read at home. 

There are alternative services near me where they allot times in the service for private meditation and thought. This is nice because you get the community togetherness and time for your personal prayers. However, I decided to ditch the prescribed prayers altogether this year and explore my own relationship with God and atonement. 

It's not about being less Jewish. It's about being more meaningfully Jewish. It's about having a direct relationship with God rather than going through the rabbis. I admire the rabbis for their learned knowledge of the Bible and the ancient laws, just as I admire doctors for their learned knowledge of medical science. Much as your doctor will advise you towards better health, the rabbis also teach us that we have freedom of choice. Ironically the orthodox rabbis then proclaim that if you choose to do it their way you will be rewarded for the good, but if you choose a different way, you are wrong. I'm just not on that page anymore. 

This Yom Kippur I cut out the middleman and I spoke to God myself. I repented and atoned and I prayed for Israel and Jews everywhere and humanity in general. I sat on my balcony and thought deeply about a better approach to the year ahead and asked that I may be written in the Book of Life in order to carry through my good intentions. It was good.

Fasting For Love And Reconciliation

I spend much of my life trying to find a meaningful way to participate in a religion that I feel is increasingly outdated and bogged down in unnecessary ritual. One of my biggest problems is that if we are living the 'right' way, then everyone else must be 'wrong'. Another bugbear of mine is the insularity and exclusion of others encouraged by the laws of keeping kosher and the strict rules of keeping Shabbat. I am Jewish but I want to live a life that is relevant to humanity and the planet Earth not just to a small sect within it.

The 9th day of the lunar month of Av is designated as a Jewish day of mourning. We observe a 24 hour fast from sundown tonight until sundown tomorrow evening.

There are seven fast days in the Jewish calendar. Five of them are minor fasts - from sunup in the morning till sundown in the evening. They all commemorate various events in Jewish history and I don't really identify with any of them. It actually annoys me that we are told to fast on these days but no rabbi has the power to instigate a fast for victims of the Holocaust. As if Judaism as a dynamic religion died some time in the Middle Ages. Others argue that the Holocaust is included in the mourning of the 9th of Av.

The 9th of Av (Tisha B'Av) is one of the two major fasts. The other one is Yom Kippur. Yom Kippur is the Day of Atonement when we fast to concentrate on atoning for our sins made during the previous year and promising to try  better in the coming year. I can understand and identify with this fast and I participate in solidarity with Jews all over the world.

I was always taught that Tisha B'Av is the day that the Temple in Jerusalem was destroyed (both of them, conveniently enough). And that this is a big deal because it lead to the dispersion of the Jews, the loss of a homeland for 1878 years, the loss of independence and the resultant suffering imposed upon us over the ensuing centuries (the Spanish Inquisition and expulsion, blood libels, pogroms, the Holocaust, etc...).

I can identify with this explanation and support it to a point. It still feels a bit like an enormous pity party though. Whilst I am sad about all the pain and suffering, I'm not so much into highlighting victimhood.

Dig a bit deeper and we are taught that the reason God let the Temple be destroyed was as a punishment for baseless hatred among the Jews of that time. In other words, corruption, greed, undue punishments, jealousy, and the pursuit of power for the glory rather than for the good.

My friend Rinat, wrote on Facebook today that she is fasting as a stand against baseless hatred. I can totally get behind that. This also appeals to my sense of global citizenship. We tend to be far too insular much of the time and Lord knows that the whole world could do with some love and reconciliation, not just us Jews who are, admittedly, also far from perfect.

So tonight at sunset and for the first time in many years, I will be observing Tisha B'Av and fasting for 24 hours as a protest and a prayer against all the baseless hatred in the world. I will try to focus on love, reconciliation, and peace for all mankind, for all religions, for all races, for all nationalities. This is my prayer and my hope for all of us on this beautiful planet.

Disclaimer: In 30+ degrees heat I do drink water. This is not an exercise in making yourself ill.

Are Faith Schools Breaking Down Society?

We, the Reasons 2B Cheerful regulars, decided to give it a miss this week, out of respect for the families of Manchester. Another alternative light-hearted post also did not sit well me today. I have been in turmoil since this evil terrorist attack and trying to make sense of where we as a society went wrong.

We need solutions not just platitudes. Piers Morgan and Katie Hopkins have offered their no-nonsense plans of action for crisis control. I don't disagree with them but we need to go deeper and examine some of the problems in our society. I am writing from Israel and we have some similar problems here. I'm not talking about terrorism. Terrorism isn't similar, it's the same evil wherever it occurs. I'm talking about religion keeping people apart.

When I was a child I, and most of my Jewish friends, went to the local primary school. Yes there were Jewish schools but not many and in London there were far more Jews in local authority schools than in Jewish schools. The divide was mainly down to how religious you were - the more orthodox went to the Jewish schools, the more traditional and reform Jews did not. 

I grew up hearing stories about Jesus, singing hymns, and celebrating Easter and Christmas in school while learning about my Judaism at home and at after school Hebrew classes. It was the dawn of multiculturalism and we had the local Rabbi come in to talk about Hannuka, Passover, and Shabbat. In our area there were not yet enough other ethnic groups to warrant any further multicultural events.

By the time I became a teacher the local authority schools were embracing Diwali, Ramadan and other Hundhu, Sikh and Muslim holidays. However, over the years there has been a rise in Faith Schools. Most of the Jewish community now go to Jewish schools (60% according to Wikipedia).

There is historical and political background. With the creation of Comprehensive Schools and the closing of Grammar Schools in the early 1970s, there was more demand for Public Schools. True to the laws of supply and demand, competition became fierce and tuition fees rose. The middle classes who prioritized academia  needed an alternative and Faith Schools offered a stricter curriculum than the free for all Comprehensives.

But still there were not so many - only 32 Jewish schools by 2001 when the Guardian shows the Government positively encouraging more Faith schools.

"...according to the Blair government, which believes they [Faith Schools] improve educational standards and wants to see more of them. Previous education secretary David Blunkett said he wanted to "bottle" the ethos of faith schools, and a recent white paper declares: " We wish to welcome faith schools, with their distinctive ethos and character, into the maintained (state) sector, where there is clear local agreement.""

Reading between the lines, I see this as meaning that the State system cannot deal with behavioural issues so it's best if the Faith Schools use their religions to control the kids (and scare the hell out of them as only religion can). By 2011. "about one third of the 20,000 state funded schools in England were faith schools, approximately 7,000 in total." (Wikipedia) And these numbers do not include all the privately funded Faith Schools. 

When he went to University my nephew said that he was looking forward to meeting some people who aren't Jewish. He went to Jewish schools, Jewish scouts. Jewish clubs. Jewish football leagues, and prayed with a Jewish community. He'd lived in London all his life and he didn't know any non-Jews!

In Israel for many years we had very set state-run educational systems - The Ultra-Orthodox, the State Orthodox, the State Secular, and the Arab schools. Recent years have seen the rise of other alternatives. My daughter goes to a "Traditional" School. It would have been so easy for me to choose the State Orthodox school around the corner where I am friendly with many of the other parents and familiar with the community. But in the end I had to vote with my principles and chose the school that teaches Jewish values whilst not pushing Jewish practice. We have Orthodox, Traditional, Reform and Secular Jews, a community of Christians, and some African refugees in our school. I love the diversity and I believe our lives are richer for it. (No Arabs yet but it's a process. There is an Arab-Jewish school near us but only one so far.)

However, one thing Israeli State Orthodox, Traditional and Secular Schools have is a definite nationalistic agenda. All our children have to serve in the army and our survival depends on a level of national pride, love of our country, and national responsibility like no other nation I can think of. Once when I posted photos of Israeli flags hanging from windows, balconies and cars on Independence Day, other bloggers commented that it was strange to them, refreshing even, as in England (though not in Scotland or Wales) flying a national flag can sometimes be construed as sinister or provocative. How sad is that?

America is more into nation building than England. All school children pledge allegiance to the flag, the President, and the Constitution - all non-denominational by law. Further than that I can't comment. I know they have their share of Faith Schools as well and have also been tackling problems of internal xenophobia. 

I am beginning to believe that as comfortable and cozy as it is to have your children in a Faith School within your own community, it might be the undoing of British society. I believe that religion should be a family issue and living in communities around your church, synagogue or mosque is a personal choice. However, the Government provides free education (yes I know we pay for it through taxation) and therefore the Government should enforce a national curriculum to encourage nation building in a multicultural society. Call it a Nanny State if you like but the people of Britain need to know who they are, who takes care of them, who they need to protect, who their fellow citizens are, and what they should be grateful for. 

On facebook yesterday, my cousin's Muslim friend praised her for taking the time to get to know Muslims and become true friends with them. Both women have lived in England all their lives and yet being friends is considered extraordinary. This anomaly has to be addressed from Reception Class up, across the nation. 

Living the dream With Parry Hotter And The Cheese Sandwich

Tools of the trade in soft focus

I watched some You Tube videos yesterday about having the courage to do what you really want to do in life. There was a great quote from The Minimalists along the lines of: Most people spend their lives working at things they don't enjoy to buy things they don't need to impress people they don't like.

I'm way ahead of them in that I've stopped buying things I don't need and I do like all the people in my life. I also enjoy what I do but there needs to be some fine tuning - i.e. stop working for one organization that pays peanuts. (I didn't realize that they paid so much less than all the other similar organizations until I was in too deep to pull out without upsetting a lot of people that I didn't want to upset. Sorry if that's cryptic but one has to be careful not to burn bridges too early in the game.)

So while I don't want to give up what I do entirely, I want to make big changes. And of course I want to be a full time writer - who doesn't? For years I wanted to write Heidi, but it had already been done. Now of course I want to have written Harry Potter - who doesn't? Alas and alack that too has been done.

On the other hand, there are half a dozen HP rip-offs that are also successful: Charlie Bones, Percy Jackson, Septimus Heap, etc... And other epic quests involving parallel worlds like Philip Pullman's Northern Lights Trilogy. However, I don't want to jump onto the epic-quest-in-a-parallel-world band wagon.

DD and I lie in bed trying to think of a theme that I could develop into a great novel. She keeps suggesting witches. I keep telling her that witches, wizards, fairies and princesses have been done to death so they're out. I tell her that the subject must be something I'm passionate about so trains and mountain climbing, for example, wouldn't be appropriate for me. Or animals - I don't do animals.

"What am I passionate about?" I muse. "Sandwiches," replies DD without hesitation. Hmmm Parry Hotter and the Cheese Sandwich? I don't think so.

I've not given up dreaming and thinking and planning. The gurus on You Tube say to think big. You can have anything you want if you just tell The Universe (and do it of course). Marissa Peer is one of my favourites. She says be precise because you get exactly what you ask for. Her example is not to say you want a week off work and to be left alone. Do this and you'll wake up with flu. Punkt! A week off work and no one will come near you.

So I'm planning my next move and I'm thinking big. Very big. I'm thinking something along the lines of The Bible but without all the subsequent carnage, wars, hatred and terrorism. It starts with the creation of course and ends with peace and love throughout the world amongst vegan humankind and all the animals who roam therein. Oh, I forgot I don't do animals. Back to the drawing board.

There is a risk factor. You give up your peanut paying job to follow the dream and all those life-coaches and gurus egg you on to have the courage, seize the day, etc, etc. Meanwhile that crappy job brought in just enough to see you through the month with the mortgage paid. And of course those cheerleaders lose nothing if you fail.

There's some necessary selfishness involved too. As one astute comment in the Daily Mail Online put it, after a 'Pursue Happiness' type article, someone still has to clean the public toilets and fix the plumbing. We can't all be living the dream. In order to live your dream a lot of people have to be willing to work for your comfort.

So if I can find the courage, square it with my conscience, pay the bills, and find my passion.... I'll be sharpening my pencils shortly.

Winter Is Coming

Retrophoto from before the creation of  Chain of Moans or whatever it's called

Winter is coming.

Today we had a big storm. No thunder or lightning but strong winds and heavy rain and hail. I was caught in one of those hailstorms that actually hurt. It's like being struck with millions of tiny pellets. The ground turned white for a moment before the hail stopped.

Winter is coming.

Last night there was an almighty crash at 12.36 am. My full length mirror had fallen off the wall and shattered all over the floor. The mirror was given to me by a cousin who left Jerusalem over 20 years ago to return to England. There she got married and has two teenage daughters in school. However, if you were thinking of coming back to Israel, Lucy, you''ll have to buy a new mirror as your old one broke.

Winter is coming.

We have given up pretending that DD sometimes sleeps in her own bedroom in her own bed. She's firmly in the other half of my bed for the duration (nights only). This means we only have to heat one bedroom unless she's playing in hers during the day. It's cosy and she's miles better than a hot water bottle.

Winter is coming.

Having got to the end of Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince and with two weeks until Grandma gets here with book #7, we are filling in with The Little Princess. Last night we got to the part when her father dies and she is left a penniless orphan with no family at all. We were both sobbing. I could hardly get the words out. DD stammered through her tears, "why did they put this in a book? It's not fun! It's no fun at all!" I woke up with my eyes all swollen and red.

Winter is coming.

I made a big pot of onion, carrot, tomato and lentil soup on Friday. It's the sort of thick pottage that makes you think of selling your birthright (or tricking your brother out of his). I've been drinking a mugful of it with croutons each night. Tonight I had two mugs of soup.

Winter is coming.

I dedicate this blog post to 13 yer old Felicity Wilcox who was threatened with a lawsuit for using the phrase "Winter is coming" in a piece of artwork. Apparently HBO thinks it owns the words and phrases of the English language that it uses in its TV dramas. Well here's news for you HBO, winter has been coming for centuries. Eons before you even had the means to broadcast it to the masses, the masses already owned the phrase "winter is coming." Oh and by the way,......

Winter is coming (in case I forgot to mention it).

Three Weeks Of No Sugar

11 items containing sugar that I found in my kitchen two weeks ago

I was going to wait until the month was up before posting any results but so many people have been asking and after three weeks I have a nice tidy result. So here's the update.

First the original blog post titled Poisoned by Sugar in which I recommended three videos about the effects of sugar in our lives and on our bodies. It was the single most successful blog post I've ever published with over 1,000 views in one day. This proves the point, as if we didn't already know, that people know that something is not right with the western diet, they are searching for answers, some of them are desperate, and the information we are getting is often heavily biased according to who's paying the big money.

I chose three videos that I liked and trusted. The first is a woman whose family gave up sugar for a year. It's an honest unpretentious account of what happened. The second is a Doctor and activist who is fighting at the highest levels of Government to get sugar recognised as a drug on a par with tobacco and alcohol. And the third is actually a series of six videos where Dr Jason Fung explains how too much sugar can lead to type 2 diabetes, a collective name for insulin resistance, fatty liver disease, heart disease, kidney failure, and probably eventually dementia.

If you are already pre-diabetic and have a fatty liver, which I probably do, Dr Fung assures us that you can reverse some of these conditions by giving up sugar, cutting down on carbs and intermittent fasting. I have been doing all this and will tell you more about it in a moment. First a few words about the reactions to the blog post.

Some people said, "That looks interesting, I'll take a look over the next week or so."

However, many people were positively incensed that I should recommend watching videos about a healthy diet. Interestingly, all these nay-sayers are intelligent educated people in real life but in this instance, without even watching one of the videos felt very strongly that they were all a load of rubbish, they would no more watch these videos than join the Flat Earth Society, and that it was very dangerous of me to suggest that anyone else watch them. Presumably because no one is intelligent enough to watch and make up their own minds. It was all a bit like trying to argue with a cult who shut out the modern world lest people be tempted by something that makes more sense than the lives they have lived for the past 50 years.

Others saw the word 'fast' in the phrase 'intermittent fasting' and, because they didn't watch the Fung videos, didn't understand that I wasn't promoting some sort of anorexia approach.

And finally, there were those who cannot condone any dietary choices, even giving up sugar and alcohol, without first discussing it with my doctor. They didn't like the fact that I had read all the symptoms of a fatty liver and, because I have every single one of them (from blood test results, how I felt, and visible signs), concluded that I probably do have fatty liver disease. And, because they also had not watched the videos, didn't understand that the best thing to do about is to make the dietary changes, lose weight asap, lower your blood pressure and cholesterol, and then check out the situation again with more blood tests. Because, unless you already have liver cirrhosis or cardiac arrest, every doctor is going to advise just that.

Here is what I did and what happened....

Down to 9 items this week. The ice-cream, Nutella, and cake is for DD
I expect we will throw out the jelly as DD has gone off it - too sweet
DD also gets chocolate for Shabbat but there's none left by Sunday
Astoundingly the gluten-free flour (for my nephew) is cornflour and sugar

No Sugar
I cut out almost all sugar. I did not eat cakes, sweets, biscuits, chocolate, most processed foods including yogurt, fruit juices (even 100% juice), ketchup, soft drinks, alcohol, honey, jam, or maple syrup. I looked at the ingredients of anything that came packaged in any way and rejected those items with sugar in any of its forms.

Exceptions: I chose the mayonnaise with the least sugar but when this jar is finished I am going to try making my own. I also kept the soup powder I use to add flavour to soups as the one teaspoon per litre of liquid is acceptable to me. (That is 1 tsp of soup powder, not 1 tsp of sugar.) I also kept the soy sauce as, even though the main ingredient is molasses, the tiny amount I use is negligible. Finally, I am also using up my mustard and next time will either buy the option in the supermarket with the least sugar or buy mustard powder to make my own.

This is what I eat: vegetables, fruit, cheese, eggs, fish, bread, rice and other grains, pasta, humus, olive oil, non-dairy milks (because I don't like milk), nuts and dried fruit, tea and coffee. (I also choose not to eat meat.) I have to confess that I've also been eating crisps occasionally which is not a good choice but it's my treat instead of anything sweet.

I have been drinking lots of lemon water with apple cider vinegar. I don't know if the apple cider vinegar has the magical qualities that are claimed for it but I've grown to like it and it must be better than too much tea and coffee, which I now drink only occasionally. Mostly I just drink water.

Intermittent fasting
Intermittent fasting can be anything from not eating in between meals, to following the 5:2 regime (where the 2 fasting days allow you to eat between 500 - 800 calories), to the one meal a day diet (OMAD), to not eating anything for 2, 3, 5, 7, 14, 21, 28, 30 or 40 days straight (drinking plenty of course).

Without even consulting my doctor, I decided not to eat in between meals. ;~p And I've never been a breakfast eater even as a child so I am in fact eating only two meals a day, lunch and supper. I'd like to say that my meals are low carb but many of them are not. I wanted to give up bread but sometimes a sandwich or toast is the easiest option. On the other hand, with two small meals a day, the carbs are automatically reduced by default.

Results
So mainly by cutting out sugar, intermittent fasting, drinking plenty of water, and eating lots of vegetables, I have lost 10 lbs (about 4.5kg) in three weeks.

The fasting has been easy for me as my food addiction is similar to that of an alcoholic. It is impossible for me to eat something small to keep me going until the next meal without opening the floodgates and ending up bingeing on anything and everything. This happened a couple of times and my binges were all about bread and potatoes - no sugary foods.

In general I ended up not eating from about 7pm until 2pm the next day (19 hours). In reality this means not eating in the evening, which is the hardest part for me. In the morning I'm rushing off to work and busy without a break until lunchtime so I don't even think about food until then. I do sometimes have a tea of coffee in the morning with milk.

I feel less stiff, the pain I was getting in my knees when I climbed the stairs is gone (I live in a third floor walk-up), and I am less breathless when I reach my front door.

I intend to continue until the weight has gone and then check out the fatty liver situation to see if a more modified diet is needed to reverse it more.

If anyone has any questions please watch the videos before asking as all the answers I have are answered in them.

Poisoned By Sugar

The 11 items in my kitchen that contain sugar. More about this on a later post.

I've been saying that sugar is poison for years. I knew it to be true but I couldn't explain why except that sugar is known to be empty calories. I'd read Pure, White and Deadly and also Fast Food Nation but I didn't retain enough facts to be able to make the argument. And despite knowing that it was true, it's ever so hard to give up on sugar completely.

Then I had some routine blood tests done and some of the results were shocking. I've always been healthy if, at times, overweight. This was a big wake-up call especially as the 'at times overweight' has slipped into obesity over the past couple of years.

As you know from reading this blog, I've tried everything in a quest to eat a healthy diet. For me it was never just about losing weight (except when I was desperate), it was was always about finding the healthiest diet to ward of disease, to keep from becoming an old woman before my time, to be able to get the most out of life, etc... Of course this also includes not being fat.

My 'wake-up' call was actually frightening, all the more so because my father died this year from multiple complications of type two diabetes, which isn't a disease in itself but rather a collection of symptoms including insulin resistance and any number of the following: non-alcoholic fatty liver, fatigue, obesity, pressure on the heart and kidneys, circulation problems leading to leg ulcers and amputation, skin problems, loss of eyesight, and possibly alzheimer's disease.

I started googling about healthy diets for prediabetics. Folks, it's all about the sugar - even the sugar in carbohydrates such as bread and pasta. Ok, we knew this already. But did you know the extent of the sugar in your food? And do you know what it's doing to you?

I love this entertaining talk about Our Year of No Sugar by Eve Schaub. I'm giving you the link rather than embedding the video because it's more reliable in the long term. Please watch it, it will make you think about how you feed your family.

I was then all fired up against the food industry and thought that surely, after all these years of being told about it, someone must be fighting it. I found Dr Robert Lustig on You Tube who is waging a similar war to the anti-tobacco wars. The two are remarkably similar in many ways. Please watch Dr Lustig here, it's shocking.

And finally I found Dr Jason Fung, an expert in obesity and non-alcoholic fatty liver disease and type two diabetes. I wanted a real doctor, not a health guru with something to sell. And I wanted information that applies to everyone, not a specific diet. I love it that he tells you how you can reverse type two and that the drugs are not the answer.  This is also for anyone who doesn't want to be fat or unhealthy in the first place. (Warning: this is the first in a series of six videos.)

If you care enough about this issue and you take the time to watch all eight hours of video that I've given you, you will be well informed. What you do after that is up to you.

EU Referendum - The Aftermath And Why The 52% Might Not Be So Stupid After All

Totally unrelated  photo from an Around The World event at DD's school

Whilst, as an expat, I felt that didn't have any right to persuade people (if I even have that talent) living in Britain how to vote in the EU referendum, I feel very strongly about how the results are being swallowed by those who lost.

I admit that most of my facebook friends (and my real friends, and indeed myself) are educated, elitist, snobs. We make enormous efforts not to be racist, sexist, ageist or discriminate against the disabled but when it comes to the ordinary working class citizen we are, apparently, not shy to call them ignorant (stupid even) and not deserving of a vote on important matters such as this that they can't possible have understood.

Never mind that we need people to do all the manual work that we hope our children won't be doing to earn a living. Never mind that the 52% are still people and still British citizens. Never mind that maybe, just maybe, you didn't bother to campaign in a way that relates to them at all (whereas Brexit did)?

Living in Israel I saw first hand how different sectors of the population can be voting in the same election on entirely different issues. And here the scathing aftermath and howls of depression were similar. We had the security-hardliner Netanyahu running against the social-justice reformer Herzog. Those in the centre of the country were caught up in the enormous social injustice issues that we desperately need to reform. Those in Jerusalem and near the borders (not everyone obviously) are not oblivious to social injustice or against social reform nor are they uncaring about the poor and the enormous income gaps, minimum wage, the ridiculous property prices, supermarket monopolies and other mafioso controlled industries that push prices here through the roof. But they felt they had to vote for security. You can't fight for social justice if you're dead. Same election, different concerns.

In the EU referendum the broadsheet newspapers published in-depth economic and political arguments for Remain. However more than half the country don't read those papers. Instead they were listening to the PM saying "relevant" things that they could understand like students will find it harder to go Euro-railing and property values will fall. Seriously? If I were someone working my guts off with no hope of ever buying property in this market and still holidaying in a caravan in Wales because that's all I could afford, that would speak to me. But not in the way the PM intended.

Where were the adverts on television explaining to those without university degrees why they and their children will be better off staying in Europe? I saw adverts like this for the Scottish referendum. One particularly aimed at housewives just went to cast doubt and catch the undecided, with no real reasons to stay. But at least it spoke to the housewives and mothers rather than just ignoring them. In this referendum they didn't even speak to the ordinary person in the street, let alone explain anything relevant to them.

Papers like the Daily Mail, on the other hand, were actively campaigning for Brexit. Amongst all the hysteria about the millions of immigrants marching across Europe intent on reaching Britain where we have to provide all of them them with instant financial help, housing and health care, there was not one article addressing these fears in DM language and without just dismissing people's real fears (albeit fears encouraged by the media and the DM in particular) as ignorant and racist.

With all the publicity media available today, I did not see one infomercial, one advert, one open letter to the workers of Britian. Not one You Tube video that those who know how to do these things could have made viral, not one good reason to remain if you are a lorry driver or a school secretary in Carlisle.

Some of my fb friends (all with university degrees and mostly professionals living in London) exclaimed: Who are these people who voted Out? I don't know any of them! Well precisely. We all assume that the 52% were all voting against immigration and for a fascist state. Because they couldn't possible have any other concerns. Except for those over 70 of course, who are obviously expecting us to go back to the late 1950s when we never had it so good. They're stupid too. Or maybe not - who knows?

Has anyone even considered other reasons for leaving? An academic posted on fb that she looked deeply in to the workings of the EU and found them to be corrupt and self-serving, which made her very reluctantly not put her x in the remain box. Farmers and business owners caught up in EU bureaucracy and red tape might have had their own motives too.

But let's not ignore the elephant in the room. I agree that most Brexit voters are those worried about the immigration situation. Parents who have no school place guaranteed for their 5yo at a local school, schools where the level of education is tempered by language issues, families waiting for council assisted housing who see recent immigrants jump the queue. It is a racist issue but it is an issue and you can't blame people for putting their own family first.

These people just want a job, a place to live, a decent wage, and an education for their children. They're not interested in trade treaties or the international exchange rate because they don't have stocks, shares, or investments. They don't have international business contracts and they don't travel abroad that much. What they do have is the skill and will to mend your burst pipes, drive articulated lorries to deliver your commodities, look after your children and the elderly while you're at work, keep your schools and hospitals clean, mend your roads, schlep your furniture when you want to move house, make your garden grow and build your extension.

So while you all wail about how your children will not be able to work abroad easily. How we have lost our advantage as the English speaking gateway to Europe. How your property and investment values will fall. How immigration is a positive thing, as long as they are not sending their children to your schools for the first generation at least. How England is heading towards extreme right wing fascism and dangerous isolation. Remember that you will still need plumbers, lorry drivers, cleaners, nurses, carers, movers, builders and gardeners. And that's why the 52% aren't as stupid as you think. Same referendum different issues.

Note to selves: Next time you need to speak to the people, include all the people.

And now, pick yourselves up, heads down, stiff upper lip, best foot forward, pull together, keep calm and carry on. Business as usual on Monday and for the next two years at least. All those who shouted about not being quitters - now is the time to not be a quitter.

But Is It Chutzpah?

One loose screw and you begin to doubt everything you believed in. 

Google the word 'chutzpah' and it tells you it means, 'shameless audacity'. Yup, that just about sums it up.

A recent example in my life was when a student asked to start the online summer course early because she has three weeks off in June but will be working through July. As the course is not available yet online, I have to send her batches of assignments and instructions by email - a task I agreed to out of the goodness of my heart (and because the Head of Dept. asked me to). She sent me her latest submissions the day before a four-day national holiday and four days later, before I'd even got back to the office, she emailed the Head of Dept. that I wasn't answering her emails. That is chutzpah.

A more well known and used example is the person convicted of murdering his parents who asks the judge for leniency on account of being an orphan.

So now we're on the same page, I have a question. I wrote yesterday about how long it took me to screw 20 screws into my new IKEA table with nothing but my trusty old screwdriver. I wrote how it took me all day to do it in increments as it was tough going and I was getting blisters on my hands. An electric drill/screwdriver would have done the job in about two minutes.

I happen to know that my upstairs neighbour has an electric drill/screwdriver and normally I'd have no problem asking a neighbour for a small favour like this. However, my upstairs neighbour is a handyman by profession. And therein lies the problem.

He charges a reasonable amount of money for an hour's work and then slightly less for subsequent hours when needed, plus the cost of materials used. Last month I asked him to come and help me shift big furniture - beds that had to be dismantled to be moved into different rooms and a large bulky and heavy piece of furniture to be taken down three flights of stairs to the rubbish. It all took about an hour, I paid the money, everyone was happy.

But now I had a two-minute job that you would ask a neighbour to help you with but you wouldn't ask your handyman to come and do for free. I could probably get away with it once but he'd be thinking, is this going to become a habit? He told me last time that I should wait until I have a list of things to be done so that the first hour's payment is comfortable for both of us.

The trouble is that most people don't need a handyman to screw in a few screws.

I tried to think what would happen if the tables were turned. What if he asked me to teach his daughter. If she wanted a few lessons to bring her up to scratch for an English exam I would expect him to pay for it. But if she knocked on my door one day (she's only 3 btw but for argument's sake) and asked, "please can you help me, I have to do this homework on the 3rd conditional and I don't understand it." There is no doubt that I would tell her to come in and I'd spend the 10 or 20 minutes it would take to explain it to her. No doubt whatsoever. And I'd not for one second think of this as a chutzpah.

Likewise if any of my former students were to call with the same problem and ask if they could pop round for the same explanation. No problem at all. Maybe the difference is whether they pop round to me or if I have to go to them? Who knows? All I know is, one loose screw and everything you believed in about neigbourliness and helping others falls apart.

Am I lacking in confidence or just too nice? I regularly countersign passport photos for friends who are renewing their British passports as I'm a UK qualified teacher. But when I needed my request to have my degrees accredited by the Israel Ministry of Education signed by lawyer, the lawyer's secretary signed on his behalf and used his stamp, and charged me 50 shekels!

Otoh, another lawyer friend wrote a number of letters to another neighbour for me, when there was a problem with a leak that they wouldn't resolve, and she didn't charge me anything.

It's a minefield of professional etiquette versus chutzpah out there. I'm covered for the next IKEA episode as my lovely friend Yael offered to bring her electric drill round next time for the price of a cup of coffee and a chinwag. Meanwhile I'm nursing my blistered hands and wondering what others would have done.

What would you have done?

Beyond Filofax (And A Warning For Israelis)

First some background. Choosing and buying a new diary for the year is a spiritual event for me. Around this time of year I start looking out for the new crop in the shops. The Jewish New Year is in September - not the 1st of September but sometime in that month according to the lunar calendar. So conveniently everything starts after the long summer break. Nice and neat. And my birthday is in September so, as a teacher, it's triple neat for me.

Last year I missed it. I was so busy getting DD ready for school and every time I went shopping she was with me so I couldn't browse in comfort. I ended up going to the mall on September 1st when she was back at school and the remaining selection was pitiful. In desperation I bought a week to a double page pocket diary but I never liked the landscape (sideways) layout. I like a book to read like a book. So a month later I bought another week to a double page pocket diary with portrait (upright) layout and its been ok. I mourned the velvety softback diaries in dusky lilac that I'd missed. A few weeks later this particular shop (Chanan in the Hadar Mall) gathered all the leftover diaries from a number of branches and my dream diary was back. But I couldn't bring myself to buy a third diary.

We went to London in December and I dragged DD round the shops looking at Filofaxes and other diaries for 2016. Luckily I saved myself the up to 80 pounds for the most all encompassing, beautifully finished, practically live-in Filofax when I realized that the weekly spread that I like starts on Monday in the UK whereas our weekends are Friday-Saturday and we go back to work on Sunday. The lack of Jewish holidays and National holidays was a minor irritation that I could have overcome easily but starting the new week at the end of each old week was not on. All that browsing for nothing. And you know how much I loved Filofax.

So with all that disappointment last year, I was so excited to see that the new September 2016 - September 2017 diaries are in the local shops already, and we're only halfway through June! This morning I made my pilgrimage to Chanan and with the full array of new diaries before me - I was disappointed.

Warning to all Israelis: Rosh Hashana (Jewish New Year) is late this year, falling on October 2nd. So some of the diaries don't start until October 1st. Others start on September 7th or 11th. WTF? How does that help when all the kids go back to school on September 1st and all activities and arrangements have to be made from that date?

There was a page a day diary where you write your own days and dates. The guy in the shop proudly showed me it and explained how it works. I might look stupid but wasn't too stupid to notice that the full year calendar on the front page was 2014 with two half pages for 2015 and 2016. The shop guy didn't think that was important. Idiot.

There are four options for week to a double page spread with upright layout (although not all of them starting on September 1st):
1. With a complete year chart.
2. With a page for each month with the days in a list.
3. With a month chart set out like a desk calendar with a square for each day.
4. With none of the above.
Is it too much to ask to have all of the above in one diary? Don't they know that people don't just have appointments anymore. We have goals and intentions, we have exercise schedules (well I don't) and food diaries, menu plans, scheduled blog posts, random ideas, lists.... They so don't have a clue.

Yes I know there's nothing in it

The only one that had everything was Filofax of course. But I realized that I've gone beyond Filofax. I don't need a zipped pocket, a place for credit cards, an address book, or those bulky ring binder centers. Sorry Filofax, it's not you it's me.

So I bit the bullet as it were. I bought a plain paper book to make my own bullet journal. For the uninitiated, a bullet journal is a personal diary that you create yourself, with space for all your aims, goals, and lists. Yes I know - far more opportunity to fail but that's half the fun in life, isn't it? For me the perfect diary is going to have a full year chart. Each month on one page with the days listed for planning the year. Before each new month there'll be a month chart and an empty page for shopping lists, menu plans, contact numbers, etc...

There was a dusky lilac softback book but it was a bit too big to fit in my bag and it didn't have enough pages. So I went with the turquoise. I can hardly wait to get my felt tip pens, ruler and pencils out and make a start.

Doggy People Who Don't Get It

These are goats not dogs. I like goats. 

I'm often told that you have to be dog person or an animal person to understand.... whatever it is under discussion about dogs and other pets. I agree and I get it that some people love dogs in a way that I have no concept of. What I don't get is how some animal people have zero sensitivity to those who don't love animals or, and this is particularly offensive it seems, are scared of them in certain situations.

It all started when I left my apartment for a meeting at college and got as far as the second floor (I live on the third). There was an unaccompanied  golden labrador on the second floor landing. I quickly retreated back to my apartment and went into action. I have no problem with dogs in the street or those bounding round the park. I have no problem with dogs with their owners. But I'm scared of an unknown dog barring my way on the stairs in case they feel trapped and/or are angry or upset.

First I called the Police who told me to call the Municipality. The Municipality said they'd take 4 hours to get there. I tried a couple of neighbours but no one was in. So I turned to my trusty friend Facebook.

As a friend PMed me - Blimey, some people are mental.

A big thank you to those who offered to help and gave virtual support and there were many who did. Someone posted the number of the JSPCA (our RSPCA) and the lady there was going to send someone to get the dog. Then my 80yo neighbour left her apartment to go out. With no fear at all she walked right past the dog and out onto the street. The dog followed her out.

Meanwhile another neighbour saw the fb post and sent her husband round to rescue me. The dog had gone but he walked me out of the building just in case. I called the JSPCA lady back and she was quite upset that we'd let the dog go. And did I know where it was now? Seriously?

This all happened four hours ago and the thread on fb is still going strong. 80 comments, loads of replies to comments and over 20 reactions (likes, etc) so far. The original post was shared for others to have a good laugh over - I'm happy to provide entertainment. In fact I'm laughing even as my Klout score hits the roof but as I said before - Blimey, some people are mental. Here are a few of my favourite replies which are outstanding in their unnecessariness,

Rachel Selby

2 hrs

Help! I'm trapped in my house! There is a golden labrador with a collar sitting on the stairwell and I'm scared to leave the house. He doesn't belong to anyone in our building. He's not barking just sitting there. I called the Police and they said call the Iriya. The Iriya said it could take them 4 hours to send someone! If any doggy person is near Kibbutz Galuyot street, Baka and can help me leave the house please pm me.

First Prize: This is ridiculous and hysterical, I can't believe it! It's like being afraid of a mouse.

Like · Reply · 3 · 2 hrs

Rachel Selby Is there anything you're scared of? I hope not because others aren't scared of that thing so that makes you ridiculous.

Unlike · Reply · 6 · 2 hrs

I don't think I would call emergency numbers and cry for help because of a completely irrational fear.

Like · Reply · 2 hrs

Yael Stekel Gabbai Sorry but most phobias are irrational it doesn't mean we have to belittle them

Unlike · Reply · 8 · 2 hrs

I know that, and I don't want to offend anyone. But this reaction is completely exaggerated. Sometimes it helps against phobias when other people put things into proportion.

Like · Reply · 1 hr

Ilana Trachtenberg it's exactly like being afraid of a mouse - haven't you ever seen someone who's terrified of mice?

Unlike · Reply · 1 · 1 hr

Rachel Selby Eliana,There was no hysteria or crying just frustration that I had a meeting to get to and I felt trapped. I called anyone who might be able to help. It's called being pragmatic. Nothing like hysteria. Two replies with the numbers of JSPCA and from my neighbour who came round would have sufficed. All the perceived hysteria was whipped up by you and others getting all hot under the collar about it. Relax, it's all over.

Second Prize: Rachel Selby Thanks everyone. My 80yo neighbour went out and the dog followed her into the street (it's not her dog). Then Michael Simons came to rescue me but the dog was gone. The Lady from the JSPCA was upset that we let it get away. David Ilan needs to get a hobby. People who said it was ridiculous to be scared of a dog are obviously not scared of anything themselves so have no idea what it feels like. And I am safely at work (although not actually working yet obviously). Big thank you to all who offered help and virtual support.

Your 80 year old neighbor must be very brave 😉

Like · Reply · 4 · 1 hr

Rachel Selby She is, she survived the Nazis, she fought in in the War of Independence, she brought up her kids during the years of austerity. I am not a fraction of her character.

Like · Reply · 3 · 1 hr · Edited

don't underrate yourself. And I like my hobby of posting cute pics of puppies just fine 😉

Like · Reply · 1 hr

dont be an ass david

Unlike · Reply · 1 · 1 hr

Third Prize: Glad that the problem has resolved itself. Hopefully the dog hasn't got run over

Like · Reply · 1 · 1 hr

Rachel Selby Hopefully. I don't keep animals in captivity so I have no idea what its chances are.

Like · Reply · 1 · 1 hr

Fourth Prize: I think this was the experience that you needed...maybe now you can get some help with your fears. Good luck

Like · Reply · 1 · 1 hr

Rachel Selby I'm not scared of dogs outside or with their owners. But a strange dog scrabbling at my door - I'm not going to find out if it's safe or not.

Like · Reply · Just now · Edited

I understand this. But know that most dogs can smell fear...if you act scared..they know. You should still seek help in your ability to remain calm in simular situations.

Like · Reply · 1 hr

Fifth Prize: you're not stuck in your apartment. you're choosing to stay in your apartment. its a golden, not a T-rex.

Like · Reply · 1 · 1 hr

Rachel Selby If you are scared of something you are stuck. It's a figure of speech. Obviously if the house was on fire I'd have run out and never mind the dog. Don't worry about it, it takes some sensitivity to understand.

Unlike · Reply · 2 · 39 mins · Edited

 I'm fresh out of that, but have you heard of therapy dogs? they are sensitive.

Like · Reply · 1 hr

Don't forget rescue dogs!!!
Last known surviving 9/11 search and rescue dog laid to rest
http://www.cnn.com/.../bretagne-911-dog.../index.html

9/11 search and rescue dog laid to rest

CNN.COM|BY THOM PATTERSON

Like · Reply · 1 hr

Rachel Selby I'm not oblivious of sensitive dogs. It's insensitive people I don't understand.

Like · Reply · 1 · 38 mins