Daryl's Blog

This is good news for me, but perhaps less so for the newspaper industry, for which this could be the last straw. I found myself recently on a cruise to the Arctic (more on that in my next confession). I've been on cruises before and always managed to stay pretty well in touch with the news of what's going on at home in the UK. However, this was an Italian ship and very few concessions were made to the modest group of Brits on board; so for 2 weeks I had very little news coming through, nothing in the way of TV channels even to keep me in touch. Now I am a man who has taken the Daily Telegraph for 48 years missing hardly a day.

The result of this deprivation is that I'm suddenly freed up from the compulsion of having to watch the news or read a daily paper. When I now make the morning tea, the TV doesn't get switched on for news of the latest scandal or disaster; once a week is quite sufficient. If it's important it will still be there in a week. Do I really need a daily paper? I get very few snippets for my bulletin from the papers, so I can't use that as an excuse. Who knows! I might even manage to get some Bible reading in with the time that I save.

The only problem now, is that to save money I tied myself into buying these blocks of discounted vouchers, which means I will have to work out how to stop my payments; and we all know how tricky that can be.

I wrote this 6 weeks ago. Since then I sent back my vouchers, the relief of not having to read a paper every day is palpable. I'm not missing it all. (I cheat when I'm in Costa's). Now let's get that Bible dusted off!

Today it's time to write about Penelope Trunk. I wanted to write about her for months, but today I read one of her old blogs and want to quote the way it ends. So, I hear you ask, what's so special about Penelope Trunk?

Penelope has Asberger's. This makes life interesting for her. She frequently gets lost driving home, and has to allow a couple of hours extra if she's driving somewhere strange. She has to take a day off to renew her car tax. She has enormous difficulty recognising verbal clues and body language and a meeting with the teacher at parents' evening is a nightmare. What to us are everyday irritations, to Penelope are major logistical mountains to be climbed.

She spent a day paying an outstanding parking ticket (plus late payment penalties) and got home exhausted. Her husband asked for a stamp. 'I'm cooking dinner, why does he need a stamp? Who writes letters except to Santa?' He told her he needed it to pay a parking fine he incurred a couple of days ago, 'before I forget'.

She turned off the stove, and walked over to give him a kiss. You see, she wrote, the important thing when you have Asberger's is not to be able to do stuff you can't do; it's to surround yourself with the people who can.

Now that's a lesson for all of us. As I've got older, I've learned to be comfortable with who I am, and stay close to people who are good at all the things I'm not good at. If I listed these dear and amazing people it would take all day, (but they know who they are)

If you want to be safe, build a team of people like you (I still carry the scars of being the odd one out in a team of clones). If you want to be successful, get people around you who aren't like you (apart of course from the passion for the task)

Thanks Penelope Trunk: your winsomeness, honesty and ability to laugh at yourself is always a great blessing. Sign up for her blog if you work with someone who has Asberger's and want to increase your understanding. Or if you just want something to make you smile.

Bit of a frustrating week. My bulletin was 3 weeks late going out due to server problems so the June issue had to be renamed July. Then, what I thought was a harmless reminder of an obscure issue (Places of Worship item if you must know), elicited a whole raft of responses mostly from people who knew rather more than I did. Somehow these mentions tend to bring into play the people that are good on detail, and they were quick to tell me (in the nicest possible way) that my efforts to simplify had not helped at all.

This means I have to put an item into my next bulletin to clarify my misguided attempt to simplify a complex issue, which means I will have to get into the guts of the problem and really take care because my next effort will come under careful scrutiny by those that know and understand. I, being a bear of very small brain, have a problem to solve: I wonder if I can get one of the experts to take pity on me and write a paragraph that will stand scrutiny.

All this reminds me how much we need one another: I need people around me that are good on detail. Hopefully they recognise they need me to keep the big picture in view. Perhaps a new charity is called for: a charity given to promoting the happiness and welfare of the human race by making things simpler. We'll call it KISS which in management speak means something like, 'Keep it Simple because I'm Stupid'.

Now I'm off to kiss my wife, who's maiden name was Helps and I was told by people who should have known better that she had the Gift of Administration. Now, that simply isn't true; she's even more big picture than I am especially when it comes to finance. ('Give it all to God' 'No, we must keep some of it!') We live in an increasingly glorious muddle, but I wouldn't change her for the world, though I sometimes catch her looking at me thoughtfully.

I close by saying a big thankyou to all those amazing people who actually read my bulletin and who so gently put me right when I have got out of my depth, and made something a bit too simple.

Whether we like it or not it's a powerful communications tool and we have to reckon on it. I talked to someone over the weekend who had stopped using it; she didn't like the fact that her details were out there for the world (or at least her friends) to see. Now, if you want total privacy you can have it, even to the extent of hiding the fact that you even have a Facebook page. A colleague is so hidden away, you can't find him. He keeps his friends to a select few and he has a very helpful means of communicating with people close to him, exchanging photos, information etc.

The other thing I want to share is a little more sinister: A friend who wanted to be an MP, and was in with a good chance of winning was on the wrong end of a page set up by her opponents. They dragged up an incident out of this person's past, magnified it out of all proportion, distorted it and, hey presto, a weapon to damage that persons electoral prospects. The person lost marginally (him/ her, rather not say). Secondly, I found a page set up by disaffected people who left a church because of disagreements with the leaders. So if you Facebook searched for either of these you wouldn't get their official site but a site set up by their enemies.

Now, I'm a great believer in all things working together for good. If you have a problem in church, don't go blathering it all over the internet. Hold onto your integrity. The rule I always apply is that you should only say kind things. If you can't be kind, keep quiet. Move on. Life is short. (Even shorter when you get to my age and suddenly every minute counts).

I wrote this a couple of weeks back. Last night, just by being on FB got me an amazing invite to lunch at a great restaurant. That was good. What wasn't so good was having a ringside seat at people being really very unkind to other people who simply held a different point of view. So FB can bring people together or it can damage relationships. Be kind to your friends and those who disagree with you.

This is one of my all time favourite words. Coined by Horace Walpole, 18th Century writer of fairy tales, it means, 'the gift of being able to make happy and unexpected discoveries by accident'. Let me give you an example: We were in St Peter Port, Guernsey a couple of months ago. With a couple of hours to spare we decided to visit Victor Hugo's House (Les Miserables). Toiling up the hill to get to it, we arrived there at 11.30 only to find it didn't open until noon. The exterior of the house was quite unprepossessing; an ordinary house in an ordinary road, with nothing to distinguish it from its neighbours. We almost turned round to head off to somewhere more interesting (wine bar overlooking harbour?)
I'm so glad we hung around. Inside it was astonishing, captivating, every room contained unexpected discoveries. Carpets on the ceiling! Little bits of humour and hidden political comment, (In those days if you spoke out you could be imprisoned or exiled) Overall this tiny house has been well described as a poem on 3 storeys and it is a statement of his spiritual journey, starting on the ground floor (birth) and developing as you reach the top of the house (death)
If you are ever in Guernsey, don't miss this astonishing serendipity. But also cultivate the art of looking for serendipities in your everyday life. Let me close with 2 aphorisms from Victor Hugo.
'A faith is a necessity to a man. Woe to him who believes in nothing'
'Adversity makes men. Prosperity makes monsters'.