feast of sport

This is one of those summer weekends that brings out the sport-lover in me. True, Wimbledon has been and gone, but we have cricket, golf and cycling to gorge on at the moment, and all three seem to be bubbling up to an exciting crescendo over the next few days. I wouldn't call myself a sports fanatic as such - I'm certainly not obsessed with one particular pursuit (I've even committed the cardinal sin of changing my football allegiances, only to change them back again later on!). However, I love a good game of anything really, and when the world's best are doing battle at the highest level, the choice of 'game' ceases to matter to me - to a certain extent, anyway. What takes over at that level of competition is the sheer emotion - the passion and the glory; the pain and despair.

And so it is that some of the best cricketers, golfers and cyclists are currently conjoined in battle with their fiercest rivals. England are, much to my astonishment, in a hugely advantageous position going into tomorrow's fourth day of the 2nd Ashes Test at Lords. They've amassed an enormous lead of 521 runs with four second innings wickets still standing, and surely only they - or perhaps the English weather - could conspire to snatch failure out of the jaws of almost-certain success at this stage? The hero of the piece so far is captain Strauss, but - after the rollercoaster ride of four years ago, the country (well, the cricketing public at least) waits with bated breath.

At a wild and woolly Turnberry, meanwhile, a positively ancient sportsman, and true gentleman, in the form of Tom Watson, leads the field into tomorrow's final round of the Open Championship. With Tiger already chopped out by the cut, and a wealth of links experience to draw on, old TW may just be able to hold off the pack. he certainly thought so when he was asked that very question on BBC Radio on Friday evening: 'That's my intenttion', he stated simply.

And then down in la Belle France, the cyclists are trading blows in an epic battle of strength, stamina and willpower. The lack of drugs stories in this year's Tour has been wonderful to behold - for once, everyone can concentrate on the stars: the bikes, those nutters that ride them and, of course, the true heroine of the piece, France itself. She threw some testing terrain at them yesterday in the Vosges mountains of Alsace, but it was the cold and the rain that really did the psychological damage to many.

Today saw a tactical and political kerfuffle between the leading teams, the upshot of which means a mere eight seconds now separate the leading four riders in the Tour's overall classification (Nocentini and Hincapie are closely followed by the intense personal and intra-team rivalry of Contador versus the returning supremo, Lance Armstrong. Tomorrow sees the beginning of three tough days in the Alps - surely the stages, along with Thursday's individual time-trial in beautiful Annecy and the monstrous ascent of Mont Ventoux next Saturday, which will decide the overall winner. There is truly impressive side-show entertainment for British cycling fans, as Mark Cavendish (the 'Manx Missile') and Bradley Wiggins hold their own with the best, but it is the maillot jaune of the 'classement generale' which offers the ultimate prize, and the glory of an unchallenged finale along the Champs Elysees in Paris next Sunday.

All this, and hardly a mention of football - apart from the usual over-hyped transfer gluttony and hearsay - about which I give far less than a damn. After all, it's summer, so football's off the agenda, and almost off the telly.

appleicious

No, these are not my freshly manicured fingernails. But this electronic appliance, this gadget, if you will, is identical to my new phone - an iPhone, I believe they call it. Without belittling the strength of feeling I have for my wife, Rachel - nor, of course, my devotion to the dog and cat - this mobile hand-held device is, for a while at least, the new love of my life. It is perhaps another big reason (excuse?) why my writing has been curtailed over the last few weeks.

Not only is it sleek and beautiful, but it engages the senses of touch and sight in such a mesmeric - almost addictive - way. Combine that with the mind-boggling array of 'apps' ('Leeds chants' anyone, or Alan Partidge soundbites?) and you have a device which looks like everyone else's, but which feels - and this is the key - utterly, privately and pleasurably one's own.

The beauty of it for me, though, is in the connections it creates. It seems to bring my whole life together - past, present and a massively exciting future. I can pluck snippets of information out of the information super-highway as if I was casually spearing fish from a stream. I can email it, tweet it, post it, share it, download it, upload it, comment on it or ignore it. I can log it, store it, reply to it or trash it. I can use it, abuse it, copy it or paste it. I can skim it, dissect it, manipulate it or even create it. The possibilities are endless and, significantly for me, this mirrors what I feel about life at the moment.

Whether it is simply the process of resurfacing from my illness, the lessons I have learned about myself, or the messages I have been giving my subconscious mind through hypnosis, psychotherapy and EFT - or perhaps a combination of all three - I see the world very differently these days. it is no longer a scary place. It is a place full of wonder and possibilities. It is a place where both good and bad things happen, but where I can create my own meaning from everything that befalls me. My life is full of magic, opportunity and madness (in a good way), and I can't wait for the next instalment.

As you follow the flow of this particular post, you may get the impression that I am somehow suggesting that my iPhone might be responsible for this new-found positive outlook of mine, or even that Apple can bring happiness to the world. of course this would be ridiculous. But then, they're a very clever bunch of people, so who knows?

back to 'normal'

Goodness me - it's almost a month since my last post, and probably 6 weeks since the one before that. I guess it's some kind of blogger's block, but also a seemingly inevitable consequence of 'being busy'. However, I'm not fooling myself and realise I make my own choices these days - after all, what we do and don't do is simply a result of the priorities we attach to them. So maybe I just didn't really want to write for a while? It's certainly true that I didn't need to - not in the way I did when I was finding my path out of the abyss of depression, at any rate. But could it be that I need to write now, more than ever, precisely because I am getting back to 'normal'?

After all, what is 'normal' anyway, and isn't this a state I never wanted to get back to, given how dysfunctional the state I had thought to be normal had become? All this insight, this painful journey of realisation and self-awareness, was not accomplished so that I could merely return to how I was before. I have fought off the demons and the doomsayers in my head to reconnect with the raw feelings that are truly mine, so I can hardly disown them now - it would be like being hauled out of a deadly and foaming sea-swell, only to then shoot my rescuer (and then myself) in the head.

Yes, if I am to move forward (in the longer term) from this experience, then getting 'back to normal' is not enough. It is self-deception of the most dangerous kind. And yet... and yet it is so tempting. I feel so strong, so sharp, so ready-for-anything, so... happy! And when we're happy, naturally we want to stay happy, get more 'happy', even bathe and wallow in this new-found and long-lost happiness. In short, we have stared into the jaws of death, and rejoice to be alive once more, to have rediscovered our vitality.

And this vitality is not a trick. No, it is very real, and - in itself - can do us no harm . But, as with everything, it is what we do with it - what meaning we attach to it - that will determine whether it guides us to a healthy way of living or places us back on the helter-skelter to self-destruction. And the differences are subtle, the margins narrow. Staying on the right side of the line - the depressive's frontier between being kind to himself and piling pressure on himself - is no easy task. It's like having to keep just alongside a fault-line which lies below the earth's surface - impossible to define, uneven in form, and ready to open up and swallow you without warning or pity. We find things that work - maybe yoga, gardening, walking the dog or perhaps spending quiet time alone. But how easy it is for the self-punishing brain to turn these nurturing pleasures into painful obligations with which we can all too easily beat ourselves around the head? It's a funny old game, inhabiting an unquiet mind, and one must always be vigilant. Vigilant and accepting, relaxed and aware - and all at the same time!

So I'm glad to be 'back on the force', as the great Clouseau would say. I'm truly, genuinely glad to be back in a job I enjoy, and am equally genuinely grateful for the love and support I have received from those around me - both from those I know well, and from those who cannot - nor should not - hope to fully understand. The real difference this time around (and this is my one great hope for the future) is that I have gained a true sense of responsibility at long last.

That is to say: I realise that I - and only I - am responsible for the meaning I give to events in my life. I am therefore wholly responsible for how I feel, and if I accept this responsibility, then I will also accept my true feelings and work with them rather than feeling the need to cut them off or conceal them. This should make it easier for me to carry my true self (and especially my more vulnerable, younger, inner self) with me, rather than shutting him out. No excuses any more. No casting blame. No bemoaning my lot. The simple fact is that this is my life, and I am the only one who can live it.

it were 'ot in 'ull

Oh my god... the best part of a month has passed and I haven't applied my fingers to the fcuking, blogging keyboard - not once! Ah well, I've managed a June post after all,and such is the heavy price I must pay for getting back to 'normality' and having to earn a crust through this thing they call full-time work. More on this later, I suspect...

I haven't been completely idle, though, and there are a lot of semi-indecipherable scribbles in my notebook which might - or might not - find their way onto the digital page on some future occasion. For now, though, I'll content myself with a rather simple update on the third of my quartet of races this year - the Humber Bridge Half Marathon.

Like Stockholm last year, it was way too hot for serious running. There were also some nasty and prolonged hills. This took me somewhat by surprise as I had opted for this 'half' under the misguided impression that the banks of the Humber Estuary couldn't be anything other than pancake-flat. The unremitting bastard of an incline which showed itself around the 9-mile mark was to prove me very wrong.

These unforeseen challenges notwithstanding, I was destined to prevail with nothing more than a bulbous red blood-blister to remind me of the suffering I endured. My legs were fine, my morale unsapped... though the heat and the hills took their toll on my body generally, and that evening (plus the following day back at work) was marked by sheer exhaustion. I had targeted a 1 hour 40 minute finish, but - between me, you and cyberspace - I'd been hoping to crack one-hour-thirty. I was nowhere near in the end, of course, but I did better my previous 'best' for a half-marathon by a full eight seconds, crossing the line in 1 hour, 38 minutes and not a single second more.

The day was made all the more bearable through making the unexpected acquaintance of a lovely blonde vulcanologist from San Luis Obispo. I ended up giving her a lift to and from the race (for various complicated an unimportant reasons) and the resulting lessons on the world of volcanoes were certainly an added bonus. Maybe I'll cobble together a post on the subject at some point in the future?... it would certainly make a suitably random topic for inclusion.

Anyway, that's 'Orrible 'Ull done and dusted, with - I have to say - the minimum of fuss. All that remains now is the long, hard slog of training (I love it really) in readiness for the challenges of the Loch Ness biggie in October. I can't say I'm looking forward to it just yet, but I'm confident I'll be fit and ready when the time comes to break for the border. No doubt I'll be pining for the unexpectedly scorching conditions of the Humber Estuary as I line up among the tartan-clad locals outside Inverness. The autumn rain will doubtless be hammering the glens and those gusty northerlies will be lashing around my flimsy running shorts. But I'll be ready for those jocks - bring it on!

on the run in stockholm

In a little under four hours' time, the 31st Stockholm marathon will begin under sunny skies in the Swedish capital. 364 days ago, I was about to begin the 30th such event, and I have some wonderful memories of a truly magical trip.


As excuses for a lads’ holiday go, running a marathon was a pretty radical one. Surely Darryl, Christoff & I could have hit on a less demanding option for quality time together (dry-stone walling or pot-holing, perhaps?), but the decision was made and we found ourselves in the Swedish capital laden with glucose tablets, energy bars and blister plasters.

The weather was perfect. For visitors, that is; not for runners. A steady 26 to 28 degrees meant torture out on the course, but the sun-starved tourist in me was secretly delighted - I would see this beautiful city at its best and, hey, I might even get a tan!

Only the combined terrors of the following day’s race and the intimidating price of beer kept us from a wild first night on the town. Instead, we were happily tantalised by a city which, in spring and summertime at least, radiates all that is good about the civilised world. In Stockholm, everything works, everything sparkles, and everything looks fantastic.

The promised views with which I had lured my mates to this corner of Europe did not disappoint. As a city built on 14 islands, with a further 24,000 close by, Stockholm is notoriously easy on the eye. The same can be said of its inhabitants: after lurching around like zombies with our eyes on stalks for the first few hours, it soon became apparent that the slavering Brits-on-tour look just wouldn’t cut any ice here. By the time we left, we had become nonchalantly blasé about the swathes of fresh-faced and gorgeous bombshells around us.

One memorable day was spent travelling on a hundred-year-old wooden ferry to and from the small island of Grinda. This is a tiny gem in the treasure trove that is the Stockholm Archipelago (inexplicably called ‘Archie Capello’ by my mate Chris - owing something to the new England football manager, perhaps?). If Stockholm in summer is reminiscent of Sydney - all broad smiles, lapping water and long, tanned limbs - then this pure, natural paradise is a European version of the South Pacific: we chugged between rocky outcrops with wind in our hair, sun on our faces and beer in our hands to arrive at a tranquil, pastoral idyll. On Grinda there is nothing to do but stroll, slowly, to the island’s only restaurant for the best seafood lunch you could wish for, served by ever-smiling staff (the island’s only residents) on a wooden terrace with unimaginably perfect views. The Grinda Wärdshus is surely, I thought afterwards, the answer to everything.

And what of the race itself? The sun beat down mercilessly, but the city’s beauty won the day and cheered us home, as did the many thousands of locals lining the route and filling the Olympic Stadium, where a magical last few hundred metres around the track brought the walking dead back to life. Such was the sheer pleasure of taking part in all this, the recurrent thought afterwards was not, as I had expected, ‘never again!’… Instead, I was thinking ‘where next?’

more than a club

FC Barcelona's website proudly proclaims: més que un club (more than a club). Perhaps this doesn't sound like an unusual boast: I'm sure the supporters of Manchester United, Liverpool, Real Madrid, Juve, Benfica and others would stake a similar claim. But in the case of Barça, it happens to be true.

Founded in 1899 by a group led by Joan Gamper, a Swiss footballing pioneer who eventually committed suicide after a period of depression, the club was to become a Catalan institution. It is also the largest club to be wholly owned by its fans (over 150,000 socis, or members), and refuses to carry a commercial sponsor's name on the club shirt, having signed a five-year deal with UNICEF to donate 1.5m euros per annum to the charity.

As a symbol of Catalan pride, FC Barcelona became inextricably intertwined with the region's struggle for nationalism and with Spanish politics in general. A month after the Spanish civil war began, Barça's left-wing president Josep Sunyol was murdered by Franco's soldiers near Guadarrama. Soon, the city was under fascist occupation and, following the war, the Catalan language and flag were banned. Consequently, one of the few places that Catalan could be spoken freely during Franco's dictatorship was within the club's stadium. Even today (especially today, one might say), its two most revered figures are firecely proud Catalan 'nationals': defender Carlos Puyol and new manager Josep 'Pep' Guardiola.


In 1973, a Barça legend was born with the arrival of Dutchman Johan Cruyff. Already an established player with Ajax of Amsterdam, Cruyff won over the Barça fans by revealing that he chose Barça over Real Madrid because he could not play for a club associated with Franco. He also christened his son Jordi, a Catalan name, and inspired his team to an historic 5–0 victory over Real Madrid at the Estadio Santiago Bernabéu in the Spanish capital. In 1988, Cruyff returned to the club as manager and began to assemble his celebrated Dream Team: Bakero, Beguiristáin, Goikoetxea, Hagi, Koeman, Laudrup, Romario and Stoichkov were the stars. Under Cruyff, Barcelona won four consecutive La Liga titles, as well as the 1992 European Cup, defeating Sampdoria in the final with El Gol de Wembley, a bullet-like free kick from Dutch international Ronald Koeman.

Another member of Cruyff's dream team was 'Pep' Guardiola, who, this season - during his very first year as manager - has further cemented his legendary status at the club by winning an unprecedented treble (un triplete historico). By comfortably winning La Liga (including, along the way, a sensational 6-2 thrashing of Real, again at the Bernabeu), and by humiliating Manchester United in the final of the Champions League, he has already emulated Cruyff's greatest achievements in a matter of months. Add another trophy in the form of the Copa de Su Majestad El Rey Don Juan Carlos I ('Copa del Rey' to you and me), and this all amounts to more than a job well done. Small wonder that the celebrations along La Rambla were both wild and exuberant, and that cries of 'Viva Catalunya!' echoed long into the night.

mad men

Mind Week 9 to 16 May 2009

Men and Mental Health

The man every woman wants, we are told, is the ‘strong and silent type’. When we appear weak, we are told to ‘be a man’. If our emotions get the better of us, we remind ourselves pointedly: ‘boys don’t cry’.

Despite increasing encouragement to ‘open up’ and recognise our true feelings, there is still an alarming and widespread stigma attached to all aspects of mental health. People don’t know how to deal with it, so they pretend it isn’t there and hope it will go away. They don’t know how to help and, if they are a sufferer themselves, they often don’t know how to explain it - either to others or to themselves. This ignorance is accompanied by its four ugly sisters: doubt, guilt, shame and anxiety. This, of course, only makes matters much worse and makes us hide the truth at all costs - ironically, the one thing that could really help us.


When it comes to the male of the species, this 'doom loop' can take on another, hellish dimension. The notion of being ‘one of the boys’ defines our interactions more than most of us would like to admit, and we play along with a surface level of machismo and bonhomie. While often perfectly harmless, this can also act as a real barrier to getting our true feelings across, or even recognising them in the first place.

As far as mental illness is concerned, many men simply don’t want to 'go there'. Even if such problems are staring them in the face, they will do anything to avoid them, frequently resorting to violence, alcohol or drugs. The lucky ones are people like me who have been able to find help and deal with their illness in a supportive, caring environment. But there are others with chronic addictions or who lead lives of crime as a futile attempt to escape their own self-destructive thoughts. Thousands more suffer in silent terror, frightened to death of facing the contents of their own heads.

This is why Mind is telling men to ‘get it off your chest’ for their forthcoming campaign. If we can find ways of getting rid of the stigma around mental health in general, and men’s mental health in particular, this will be an important step. Important, too, is the openness with which some are prepared to share their difficult experiences.

Marcus Trescothick, the former England international cricketer is one such example. Having initially put his sudden return home from a Test match tour in India down to ‘personal reasons’ and a ‘stress-related illness’, he was eventually much more candid about his battle with clinical depression. Trescothick released his autobiography - Coming Back To Me - last year, admitting that, in doing so, he wanted to get things ‘out in the open…there have been so many questions left unanswered and I've not helped that process’. In this book, he writes:

‘My mind was pulling itself apart in a hundred directions. Then came the pictures in my head; specific, enormous, terrifying images… I couldn't distinguish between what was real and what I imagined to be real... things, beings, beasts, bastards... attacked in waves, one after another, each worse than the one before. “Oh God, please, make it stop. Please make it stop.”’

Like all other sufferers, Trescothick asked himself why he should have depression. ‘What did I have to worry about? I had always been someone who coped. But depression doesn't care who it attacks; if it wants you, you cannot beat it off with a CV or a bank balance.’

It surely must be one of his proudest achievements that he now appears to have his illness under control. ‘While there may never be a cure’, he says, ‘I have built up strategies to deal with my depression and understand it better.’

The only way to achieve such a breakthrough is through facing up to the truth and being honest with ourselves. Even though men and women experience mental health problems in roughly equal numbers, the tragic truth is that men are much less likely to be diagnosed and treated for it. One in three men with depression and anxiety feels embarrassed about asking for help, and the suicide rate among men is much, much higher. This is why it’s so important for men to ‘come out’ about their mental health and seek the support they need.

running up hill and down dale

York (where I live) is lovely but it is undeniably flat. In this sense - as well as in many others - it's no San Francisco, Porto, Caracas or Rome. While the absence of seven or more hills from the local topography can be a little uninspiring, it's great for views of York Minster... and for running. In fact, you can run all day around York and never encounter so much as an elevated mound. If you feel the need to do any proper hill training, on the other hand, you have to drive halfway to the coast to encounter any serious kind of gradient (which my running club plan to do tomorrow night, the masochists). So why, of all the 10k races to choose from, did I go for Kirkbymoorside? The views, of course: I can't resist a good view.


As the name suggests, Kirkbymoorside grew around a church on the edge of the North York Moors. The moors, being lofty and wild compared to the pancake-flat Vale of York to the south and west, require a bit of getting to. Pretty simple by car, but not so easy by bike or on foot.

So the ten kilometres began with an unforgiving, unremitting pull for a mile or more out of this charming little North Yorkshire market town, winding steadily up to the village of Gillamoor on the very edge of the moors. It was a beautiful day, if a little fresh, and the views were indeed wonderful (yes - all the way back to the Minster!). By this stage, the men had already been firmly separated from the boys and I, along with the rest of the 'boys', continued onward to the equally pretty village of Fadmoor to be cheered onward by a clutch of farmers' wives, a rabble of dogs and a few stray chickens.

From here, it was a glorious descent back into 'Kirby' (or KMS, if you prefer), with the odd cheeky little hill thrown in to dispel any misplaced tendency towards enjoyment. The final, invigorating sprint brought me, red-faced and thoroughly out of puff, straight down the main street amid cheering locals, welcoming pubs and the brassiest of bands. Once greeted by a suitably impressed wife and dog, I downed my sickly-sweet 'recovery drink' in order to counterbalance the dehydrating effect of a couple of pints of Jennings, which were soon to follow.

So that's two of the year's four races out of the way, and with reasonable success (19min 37sec for the 5k; 42min 24sec for the 10k). 'All' that remains now is the Half Marathon across the Humber in June, and then the biggie... along the shores of Loch Ness in the autumn.

...and the power of choice

By coming to terms with the ‘shoulds’, ‘oughts’ and ‘musts’ in our lives and by learning to ignore the insidious voices within, we open up the ability to choose for ourselves, rather than feeling as though we are being channelled along a single-track railway to nowhere.

In order to do this, our thoughts should (‘should’!) reflect reality as far as possible, so we can take responsibility for the consequences of our choices. Sounds easy, eh? The trouble is, we - like everyone else - don’t so much reflect reality as interpret it. As we often discover - either to our amusement or our annoyance - the same event can have completely different meanings to different people, even if their circumstances are the same.

What’s more, the meaning we attach to things is extremely important in determining how we feel about them. So the most powerful and influential way to exercise choice is in our ability to choose how we view reality. Perhaps the most extreme example of this is expounded by Viktor Frankl, the celebrated Austrian psychiatrist and Holocaust survivor, in his book Man’s Search for Meaning. Despite the unimaginable suffering endured by Frankl and some of his fellow prisoners, they were able to find personal meaning and growth, and a way of seeing the world that created value from their experience:

‘…everything can be taken away from a man but one thing: the last of the human freedoms - to choose one’s attitude in any given set of circumstances, to choose one’s way.’

This powerful, but extreme, example can be applied to any situation in which we find ourselves, but this requires us to slough off the burden of expectation, habit, conditioning and history. It requires us to live in the present moment and view the reality of a situation as it exists in the here and now. Nor is it mere ‘positive thinking’ (there is something to be said for that too, although I am naturally quite sceptical of the concept). Instead, it involves cultivating a sense of open-hearted acceptance of each and every situation as we encounter it. Only by accepting how things actually are can we remain conscious that we have a genuine choice, and choose the attitude with which to make it.

We are also free, moreover, not to choose. In the medieval paradox of Buridan’s Ass, the animal is located exactly halfway between two equal piles of hay. In being unable to choose one over the other, the ass fails to recognise that he is, in fact, making a third choice - to starve to death.

the tyranny of expectations...

Expectations have a lot to answer for, especially in a society as developed as ours. We are positively encouraged to nurture expectations that are unlikely to be fulfilled, while living in an environment which ensures they will be unattainable.

We expect to be happy, but are fed on a diet of transient, short-lived and addictive pleasures. We expect to be valued, but are treated like numbers in a game and talked to like idiots. We expect to be in control, but we feel like puppets, manipulated by politicians, bosses, bankers, even friends.

Even if we are more realistic in the demands we place on ourselves, society is not. We are expected to be brainy, slim, sexy, thoughtful, eco-friendly, ambitious, healthy, wise, kind, wealthy, brave, strong, smiling, positive, sensitive and fair. It is not clear whether we ought to be all of these things at the same time, although this seems to be the implication. I guess it depends which magazines we are reading or TV stations we are tuned into. And if, by some superhuman miracle, we manage to embody an approximation of all these qualities (as one lovely woman I know does), might that be enough? Of course not! After all, we could always be brainier, slimmer, sexier, more thoughtful… and so this woman suffers from depression and dissatisfaction, just like many others.

As if this wasn’t enough, there are the expectations we carry with us from early childhood into adulthood. Whether we felt the urgent need to ‘be good’, ‘be loved’, ‘be happy’ or ‘behave’, these are the expectations which exert the tightest grip over us - after all, our very existence depended on exhibiting these behaviours when we were small and vulnerable, and when pleasing others was our very means of survival.

So we live under nothing less than a tyranny. I recall that, in my very first therapy session, I attempted to visualise this terrifying burden of expectations in a drawing. I’m no artist, but it was like a huge dark cloud bearing down upon my body with unbearable weight and crushing force. I felt empty and abandoned inside as I finally gave up struggling against the unstoppable tidal wave of domination which had pulverised my spirit. I felt empty, but I also felt a desperate sense of enormous relief in finally being able to give expression to how I felt.

The only way to free ourselves is to slowly and inexorably become aware of these silent imperatives and the contexts from which they emerge, and so to release ourselves from them. We need to be on the lookout for the ‘shoulds’, ‘oughts’ and ‘musts’ in our lives, and listen for the insidious, domineering voices within. Only through this painstaking process can we cast aside the fear of living under tyrannical rule, and enjoy the sense of liberation we deserve.

in the loop

In The Loop is a film which carries a serious message through adopting a frequently hilarious tone. I can't remember laughing at a film so much for ages, but was all the while painfully aware that its creator - Armando Iannucci - knows exactly how the powerful elites manipulate our world, and that, instead of creating a pure fiction, he has chosen to exaggerate a scary reality to comic effect.

There are many great characters in the story (including a brilliant cameo by Steve Coogan as a disgruntled constituent) , but my favourite is Simon Foster (played by Tom Hollander), the gaffe-prone Minster for International Development, who reminds me of Harry Enfield's memorable creation, Tim Nice-but-Dim. The most ingenious line in the film also belongs to Foster when an aide unintentionally interrupts him in the Meditation & Prayer Room at the UN, of all places:

Aide: I’ll leave you alone with your thoughts, Minister
Minister: I haven't got any thoughts. I'm just staring into space while a voice in the back of my head goes 'Oh shit', like a car alarm going off in the middle of the night

the joys of spring

1) New-born lambs in the Dales. I love mint sauce as much as the next man (in fact, I'd wager I love it considerably more than the next man), but seeing the little darlings bleating and frolicking in Swaledale is another matter entirely. Isn't it?

2) Longer evenings. At least when I finally return to work after my illness (later this week), I will be coming home in the daylight

3) A cacophony of birdsong in the trees

4) Feelings of optimism and growth

5) Flowers in the local park

6) The warmth of the sun's rays on my face

7) Running in shorts

8) The sweet smell of newly mown grass

9) Summer is yet to come!

10) Digging out the old Birkenstocks (even if it's not really warm enough to wear them yet)

cafe no8

I've never written a restaurant review before, but then part of the beauty of having a blog is that you can do whatever the hell you like!

If you don't like this place, my suggestion is to get yourself a 'check-up from the neck up', as a former colleague would say. For me, it represents everything that is good about eating and relaxing. It's also an any-time-of-day kind of place, so - once you know it's there - you just have to wait for that 'Cafe No.8 urge' to descend upon you (it will) and, provided you're in the vicinity, you can try your luck and see if they've got a table.

There aren't many of them, mind you (tables, that is). I'd say about seven inside and a similar number arrayed around the delightfully overgrown back garden which lies within spitting distance of York's medieval walls. (Not that you're likely to get spat on here, given the largely genteel nature of the city.)

What the place lacks in size it more than makes up for in quality and atmosphere. While the kitchen itself is hardly large enough to swing a Spanish chorizo, its staff work diligently within its cramped confines to turn out food of consistently mouthwatering quality. Whether you stop by for a quick Masham sausage doorstop sandwich while reading the morning paper, or indulge in a full-blown meal, you're unlikely to leave disappointed.

If more fortification is required from your breakfast (perhaps before tackling a circuit of the ancient walls or hitting York's uniquely varied shopping scene), then go for the Full English, complete with Doreen's black pudding and creamy scrambled eggs. If you've already seen the sights and marvelled at the breathtaking Minster (conveniently situated just around the corner), then this is the place to seek out for a spot of well-earned R'n'R (those time-worn flagstones and cobbles can be hard on the feet, after all!). The daytime menu is served throughout the afternoon and features a tempting array of sandwiches, salads, risottos, bruschette and home-made burgers, as well as a choice of meat or fish dishes - the cod fishcakes with roast cherry tomatoes and smoked red wine, chorizo & butter bean sauce looked particularly tempting.

Yesterday, I took advantage of the 'lunch deal' (any two courses for £11.95, Monday to Friday), taking the chance to relax in the peaceful surrounds of the garden while soaking up the unexpectedly warm springtime sunshine. This proved to be time extremely well spent. To start, the Cafe No.8 deli plate (char grilled artichokes; sun blush tomatoes; olives; fresh anchovies; goats cheese and tomato pate; creamy hummus and toasted bread) made my good mood even better. In spite of the warm weather, I talked myself out of the goats cheese salad, feeling unable to resist the char grilled rump steak with chunky chips, slow roast tomatoes and Madeira sauce. I didn't regret it. The steak was as succulent and as tasty as any I can remember (cooked just to the point of bloodiness - 'a point', as the French would describe it). The hand-cut chips, meanwhile, were a thick cut above anything you would get in the best of Parisian bistrots or brasseries. The Madeira sauce and tiny shallots just brought all the flavours together beautifully, as did my large glass of very acceptable Chilean Merlot.

And that, I'm afraid, was me done. The raspberry and white chocolate cheesecake was, on this occasion, surplus to requirements. As was the banoffee pie and the rhubarb & custard pavlova. A small tip: if you really want to enjoy the cakes here, then pop in during the late afternoon so as not to be distracted by the rest of the menu.

The only drawback this place has is one of its most charming features - its diminutive size. So if you want to bag one of those seven tables in the evening, be sure to call ahead. The service, as you would expect from such a place, is courteous, friendly and informal. They didn't bother bringing my bill out to me yesterday afternoon, leaving me to enjoy my book and the birdsong in the garden. Now that's the kind of civilised, European attitude that we should see more of in this country.

Cafe No.8 - 8 Gillygate, York. Telephone 01904 653074. www.cafeno8.co.uk

memories of poon hill

At 3,193 metres in altitude (around ten-and-a-half thousand feet), Poon Hill is - by my reckoning - more of a mountain than a hill. But then this is Nepal, where the slightest protuberance seems to reach for the sky and where the landscape is viewed on an entirely different scale.

At any rate, it is one of the most famous viewpoints in the world, taking in two of the highest mountains in the world - Annapurna (8,091m) and Dhaulagiri (8,167m) - as well as one of the most strikingly beautiful - Macchapuchare or 'Fish Tail'. Even more impressive to me, though, was the sheer number of dramatic peaks arrayed in front of me, set in a jagged, icy arc across my entire field of vision. Such is the monumental scale of the panorama here that, despite a colossal 5,000-metre difference in height between me and the highest summit, it still felt as though these sublime marvels were almost within touching distance.

And so it is, that during the murky pre-dawn hours of every morning throughout the trekking season, a barely distinguishable line of human forms snakes its way up the hill like a column of ants, torchlights swaying to the rhythm of the climb. These trekkers are on a kind of pilgrimage on which they aim to witness a classic Himalayan moment. As the sun rises slowly to the east, the mighty peaks begin their dawn parade, changing colours by the second as the marvellous views open up.


My own experience of this, during an eight-day trek from the tiny airstrip at Jomsom, was no less special. I was so full of anticipation the night before that it felt like Christmas Eve had done as a small child. I remember having a recurring nightmare that I had overslept and missed the sunrise for which I had been waiting all week. So I was overjoyed to be freezing cold and wide awake at 5am, ready to wrap myself up in whatever clothes I had, before venturing outside the Ghorepani 'tea house' to begin the painstaking climb in the pitch dark of night.

Once at the summit, I could feel the brooding presence of these cold, grey towers of rock all around me, like enormous skyscrapers in a dense city fog. It was a bitterly cold, interminable wait for the sun to appear but, when it did, it lit the mountains up, one by one and shade by shade - first a rosy pink on the very pinnacle, then a gathering orange, then a glittering gold. Finally, a dazzling, sparkling, brilliant white stood out, almost unreal against the clear blue sky. Not something I am ever likely to forget.

the art of letting go

My new mantra is to 'let go'. Not a very original thought, I grant you, and perhaps one with overtones of cliched Sixties hippydom, but I don't care. If it works, it's good enough for me. The thing is, letting go is what I've always been singularly bad at. I sometimes find it practically impossible. I have an elephantine ability to recall the past, I am the unofficial World Champion List-Maker, and I have been known to display an almost pathological desire to finish things off.

This noxious habit has been driven, I suspect, by the same internal force which compels me to 'try harder', 'work things out' and avoid failure at all costs. Its language is full of the same 'musts', 'oughts' and 'shoulds' which command a life of fear, ruled by an uncompromising gestapo officer inside my own head.

But enough is enough. Just as I have now cleared the clutter from our house, it is time to vanquish the lingering poison from within my own head. But where to start? Unhelpful expectations, perhaps? Self-mortifying guilt? Brooding blame? Useless, painful and despicable fear? Just as important as recognising the truths of our past is our ability to move on.

Letting go isn't about laziness or an inability to face our problems. It is about looking our demons squarely in the eye and knowing them by name. It is about seeing the true reality of things so as not to get lost in the despairing cycle of negative rumination. Moreover, it is - for someone like me - a courageous act which seems to go against our very nature. It is making peace with uncertainty, and relinquishing the illusion of control over our lives. So simple to say, yet so very hard to do.

I'd like to explain it better, but I'm letting go now and going to bed! Instead I'll point you towards an article I unearthed on t'internet called The Art of Letting Go - A Taoist Approach by Amy Suplee, a Master of Traditional Chinese Medicine from Aspen, Colorado. I think it repays a couple of close readings, and I agree with pretty much every word she says.

coming alive in the dales

Although I know the Yorkshire Dales pretty well, I always think of them as the gentler, prettier cousin to the moody and magnificent Lakes, and the wild, rugged Moors. However, yesterday's wonderful walk in perhaps the loveliest, picture-perfect dale of them all - Wharfedale - made me think again. Beyond Bolton Abbey's day-trippers, the tea shops of Grassington and the riverside picnics of Burnsall lies a tough landscape of spectacular grandeur.

There is a gloomy beauty to Upper Wharfedale, as you head further up the valley from the charming village of Kettlewell towards Hubberholme, Cray and Yockenthwaite. Here is a land of eroded gulleys, known as hags, and wind-battered limestone crags. The route I took was enchanting and challenging in equal measure. It was also split into two distinct halves. First there was a long, flat meander by the River Wharfe along the valley bottom, characterised by vivid green fields of new-born lambs, glorious riverside paths and short detours to an odd village pub or two. The second half began with a bugger of a climb from the doorstep of the last of these, The White Lion in Cray, to ascend the hulking mass of Buckden Pike.

The Pike itself looks fairly innocuous from its base but, like many rounded hills, it is a trickster and a charlatan to the unsuspecting walker. The slope soon steepens and you reach a large area of peat moorland with some distinctly boggy patches, even in dry weather. Each summit turns out to be a fake which only reveals the next climb as soon as you reach it. The real summit lies at 702m and, once you finally get there, feels suitably bleak and windswept. It does, however, offer the fine compensation of a full 360-degree panorama: the Lake District's Conistone Fells, Helvellyn and Scafell Pike to the west; the Peak District and North York Moors to the south and east respectively, and - in the middle distance - Yorkshire's Three Peaks, Pen-y-ghent, Ingleborough and Whernside.

Around a kilometre south of the summit stands a memorial to a Polish aircrew whose Wellington bomber crashed here during a fierce snowstorm in January 1942. The sole survivor, who broke his leg, crawled away from the wreckage and followed a fox track downhill to the White Lion, where I had begun my ascent. The memorial is a mournful but touching reminder of the five airmen who lost their lives, with remnants of the plane scattered around its base alongside a fox's head in bronze. The story of Joe Fusniak, the survivor of the tragedy, is an astonishing tale of wartime survival in a land, and in circumstances, so far removed from the battlefront.

From here, it was a long and superbly scenic high-level return across open moorland to Cam Head, with spectacular views down Cam Gill towards Starbotton. Once on the long and straight Top Mere Road, I feasted on yet more tremendous views during the gradual descent to Kettlewell. The village remained hidden from view until I was virtually on top of it, and the gathering gloom alerted me to the fact that it was now almost 8pm, around two hours later than I had expected to finish! There was just time to say hello to the locals in the King's Head, and let my dog Molly crash out on the flagstone floor next to the open fire, before it was time to head reluctantly out of the Dales once more.

allowing the change

‘You must be ready to burn yourself in your own flame: how could you become new, if you had not first become ashes?’
NIETZCHE - THUS SPOKE ZARATHUSTRA

'I must be willing to give up what I am in order to become what I will be.'

ALBERT EINSTEIN

This recovery phase really does take time - more than I care to remember. The temptation is to think that, once I’ve crossed the void and can see the worst of depression receding in my rear-view mirror, that I can accelerate away and leave it for dead. Of course, this is another illusion of the mind. It hangs around, tailgating me for a while, and giving me the occasional flash of the headlights. It doesn’t want me to speed off to ‘Normal’, wherever ‘Normal’ is - it is not a place I should ever return to.

This phase is where I’ve been for a while now (where I was for a good while last time I was ill, if I care to remember accurately). It’s about achieving steadiness and consistency and - more than that - cultivating a certain state of mind which can help me over the months and years to come.

This state of mind is about awareness, about kindness and compassion to myself and about balance. It is also about independence, freedom and trust. I need to trust the deep-down feelings and instincts which I worked so hard to uncover and tune into, so that I can gradually leave all the props of therapy behind, go back to work and resume my existence in the ‘real’ world. The real world doesn’t allow me the luxury of time and space, of course, so it is even more important to feel ready for it; to have a sense that my priorities are clear and in order (as far as possible); and to feel like the tools of awareness are there for me to use when I need them - even if this isn’t quite as regularly as I would like.

It’s not the thought of returning to work which is now scary. It’s the prospect of returning to a fixed routine, where the best hours of my waking day are accounted for by someone else, and the lack of freedom this entails. Time has been my most precious commodity and, suddenly, I’m going to have a lot less of it - at least to do the things I enjoy and would like to do. It’s not the work itself which I resent (in general, I rather like it). It’s what it represents in my life and what it prevents me from doing. This is why it gradually becomes stifling, leaving me feeling trapped, and in physical and mental pain.

So, despite the constraints of reality when it returns, I cannot continue on my old path. I need to forge a new one. This is exciting and positive, and yet it is also quite frightening. It is about taking a leap into the unknown, while somehow keeping my feet on the ground. It is about building bridges towards a new life while keeping the old one going as far as I need to. And it is about making a plan, and following it through with a good deal of determination and discipline. As I sit here now, I’m not sure how I’m going to do it, but I know that I can do it, if I take the right approach.

What this is about is the part of the therapy process which has been missing in the past for me - change. All the best books on depression and therapy talk of this concept, but always in an abstract way, for very good reason. Change - like the illness itself - is as individual as the person in question. The ‘lessons’ from depression are as many and varied as those that have come through it, whether it be changing the way we think, live, love or work - or whether it is simply a coming-to-terms with our own truths.

These lessons, though, must be recognised and acted upon, otherwise the illness will stay lurking in the shadows, and will deliver a sharp whack around the head when they are ignored entirely.

'If you can cope with the nuclear winter of depression and come through it without committing suicide - the disease's most serious side effect - then, in my experience, depression can be a great friend. It says: the way you've been living is unbearable, it's not for you. And it teaches you slowly how to live in a way that suits you infinitely better. If you don't listen, of course, it comes back and knocks you out even harder the next time, until you get the point.'

SUNBATHING IN THE RAIN - GWYNETH LEWIS

The opportunity to change - along with better self-knowledge, clarity and a new perspective - is our gift from depression. While the other three gifts can gradually fade over time, the gift of ‘change’ - should we choose to accept it - is what keeps the other three alive and fresh. By taking what we have learned and experienced in order to embark on a different path, we are living the lessons and consequences of our illness. We are accepting it and respecting it, rather than shutting it out, suppressing and ignoring it, as we did with so many unwanted feelings in the past.

Are you brave enough to re-make your life?'

DANS PARIS - Film directed by Christophe Honoré, 2007

And change - real change - takes time. We must create the right conditions for it to emerge, thus allowing the change rather than 'making' it. This question of time is, to me, the key one: I have always tried to fit as much as I possibly could into the time available, and yet depression has taught me - on several occasions - that there is a new way of being, even when we are ‘busy’. I have always used the scattergun approach, whether it be with work, friendships or plans.

Now I need to cut things out of my life and simplify, simplify, simplify. I need to do less, not more. I need to prioritise and be occasionally ruthless. I need to say ‘no’ more, and feel satisfied in doing it, even if I can’t always enjoy it. Getting the most out of life isn’t about doing more and trying harder. It’s about being aware, staying focused and going with the flow. This is probably the greatest lesson I have learned from depression.

the wonder of the wolds

I tend not to repeat walks in the countryside too often, even those I consider to be my personal favourites. However, there is one simple loop in the midst of the Yorkshire Wolds which has become a regular haunt. Perhaps this is because it's only half an hour's drive from home, or perhaps due to the fact that it has become a reliable source of 'mental space' for me, but - at any rate - I return to it (with or without the wife, but always with the dog) with a great degree of regularity.

It begins from the fairly ramshackle and none-too-memorable village of Thixendale, situated in a steep-sided valley (or 'dale') of the same name. This single-street village has little to recommend it, apart from its position among some gloriously undiscovered scenery and a suitably down-at-heel pub, the Cross Keys. Confidently advertising itself as 'The Best Pub in Thixendale' (it has, after all, not a single rival), it boasts a wary welcome from licensees Paddy and Mary, and a quintessentially Yorkshire ambience of 'no nonsense'. There's a log fire in winter, pheasant pie on the specials board if you're lucky, and a comfortably worn carpet underfoot. Don't expect any airs or graces here, but the beer is always grand and you might just force a smile from Paddy's lips by the time you leave.

The route itself - no longer than four miles and a comfortable hour-and-a-half's stroll - begins by ascending a steep track up Beamer Hill before leading you across a succession of partially hidden and seemingly 'secret' valleys, following sections of both the Centenary Way and Wolds Way, before returning to Thixendale along the beautiful expanse of Water Dale. The scenery is typical of the landscapes so vividly depicted by David Hockney in his 'Year in Yorkshire' paintings from 2005/06, all of which were painted in plein-air style on a series of huge canvases.

The Yorkshire Wolds represent the northern edge of a continuous band of chalk uplands which extend across the country from Dorset and Salisbury Plain to the Wash. They are classic chalk country at its finest, a landscape of rolling hills through which glaciers once cut a series of deep, steep-sided, flat-bottomed valleys. The unusual topography results in an 'upside-down' farming system whereby the livestock graze the valleys while the hills above are used for crops.

The landscape conveys an almost prairie-like vastness to me (especially when conditions are deliciously bleak), and is punctuated by small areas of woodland, farms and scattered villages. Sparsely populated, this area has more of a timeless feel to it than the 'honey pot' attractions of the Dales and the North York Moors. There are mercifully few 'second homers' here, although there's nowt so certain as change, as the thoroughly engaging recent novel by Richard Benson, The Farm, engagingly describes.

clearing out the clutter

Getting rid of the rubbish feels like an important part of the process I'm going through. Recently, I've had this - at times - overwhelming urge to just 'get rid'. To get rid of all the unnecessary 'stuff' that has been getting in the way of what's important. So while I'm now making plans to get shot of all the unnecessary junk that has accumulated in various corners of our house, I can sense that I'm also going through a similar process inside my own head.

This is about ‘getting out of my own way’. I have long been in the habit of placing unnecessary and harmful demands on myself - demands which really only help me to avoid doing what’s truly important. I’ve always tried to busy myself with lots of things - with pretty much everything, in fact. In my (largely successful) efforts to become an ‘all rounder’ - choosing a career in marketing is perhaps a case in point - I had to suppress my far more natural desire to focus and become absorbed in something I love.

So this critical time - this time which cannot be rushed, in depression - is enabling me to find out what I need to get rid of, and what I want to change or keep in my life. I realise I can’t just chuck everything out or stomp through everything in hobnailed boots, tempting though this may be in time of despair. I need to take the time to sift through the debris of my former life, understand why it was there in the first place, see what purpose it serves now (if any), and move on.

Above all, I should take this opportunity to remove the pressure that this gradual accumulation of detritus has brought about, and give myself some space. I need to simplify, simplify, simplify. Where there’s focus and single-mindedness, there’s room for the flowers to grow and flourish. Where there’s compromise, conflict and confusion, the path is overgrown with weeds. It’s all about making choices, really. But these choices can be hard and I might need to be very determined once they're made, so I need to make them at the right time, at a pace that feels comfortable.

Less truly is more, and where there’s concentrated energy, there’s strength and power.