Posted in July 2010 …

Jul 27 2010
2 Comments
General, Jimmy Made

Back to my roots…

Just a quickie to say that on my friend gally’s recommendation, I have gotten rid of the old splash page. I have also taken the liberty of moving Jameses.org away from it’s long standing /home/ and to the root folder; that is, www.jameses.org

I have put a redirect page at the old location so even if you go there by habit/mistake (this is more for me than anyone else) you’ll be redirected to the new address – you wouldn’t even know you were lost.

There should be no change for email subscribers or anyone for that matter, but if you stumble on an as-yet-undiscovered quirk, please let me know.

I guess the googlebots might be a bit confused with the new set-up but fortunately I’m not faced with too many competitors in the Google ‘Jameses’ term stakes…

Thanks to the people who provided feedback on the ‘Week Without’ or as Cathy proposed the ‘week with’ – which has a decidedly more positive spin and advocates filling your week with positive activities and tidbits, rather than remove things that are ‘bad’… both sides of the same coin I guess…

Oh, and lastly, I’ve been invited to interview for the Senior Policy Officer pool at my current work. In fact, my current job will be drawn out of said pool (due to restructure). So thankfully, I’m not so shit that they won’t consider me for my own job! ;)

Much love…

Jul 25 2010
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Observations

A Week Without

I’ve just gone for a week without booze (one more in the Dry (arse-end-of) July to go)… it wasn’t very hard but it was something I’d been meaning to do for a while. After all, I had the feeling I was ‘the guy’ that you hit up if you felt like a few Friday beers, because it was evident that, week in, week out, I’d be up for a pint (or 4). Now that may not change in the long run (after all, one week is… one week) and I do need a good alternative plan for Fridays so that I’m not around when the ice-cold roll call goes out; however it was a start. And one that got me thinking…

If I can do a ‘week without’ booze. What else can I go for a week without…? What are the activities that I feel are relatively indispensable in my daily and weekly routine…? Could I go without them with relative ease…? If I can’t, can I go without them at all? And, might I learn a thing or two if I try a weekly schedule of abstention from a range of things…. Let me just get it out of the way early – this does not relate to sexual activities, nor to activities that I never do, and thus would be very easy to refrain from doing…

So some options are: ‘a week without’-
* caffeine;
* hitting the snooze button;
* swearing;
* asking for a favour from someone;
* making a promise i don’t keep;
* making excuses to not do something;
* take-away or dining out;
* leaving the kitchen untidied after meals; and, lastly
* eating food that has been processed in any way.

I’d be interested to hear if anyone has any other ideas for stuff to try. I think the last one would be very, very difficult. Think of almost all the foods you eat beyond fresh fruit and veg. Dairy, pastas, white rice, cereals, bread, sauces, oil, condiments, meats, etc… the list is nigh on endless. Even something as benign as soy sauce or milk would be off the list. I’m not even sure if lentils or other dried beans that could’ve been used in a soup would pass the test, on the basis that they’ve presumably been dried by some artificial process. (I’m ignoring the fact that picking fruit and slicing meat from a bone is also a process).

It’d be a boring old week: wholegrain rice with fresh vegetables; salt and chilli to taste; potato and corn as my other carbs; and fruit. But one that makes you think, if only for a fleeting moment, about just how far removed our existence is from eating natural foods.