Get Ready

Get Ready

So …….

you have a hunger for fame;

you want to be successful;

you have a passion for stardom;

you believe you should be recognised as ‘special’;

Or maybe you fall into that category of people who think of themselves as “realists”;

I know my limitations;

I’m too old, too young, too fat, too thin, too ugly, too …. ;

It’s too late, too early, not the right time, its not fashionable….;

If only I was …10 years younger, 10 years older, 40 pounds lighter…;

Whatever the phrase that is used the thought behind it is generally,

“If only!”

It is a simple fact that it is an easy get out and can be combined with a multitude of other words or phrases which result in “great excuses”.

If only ……

……… I had a year off
……… I had more money

……… I had more resources
……… I had a decent computer

..……. I had some decent equipment

………. someone else hadn’t stolen my idea

If you really want to make it in any field If onlys have to be discarded and replaced with “In spite of!” Read Rudyard Kiplings’ poem “If “

If you can make one heap of all your winnings
And risk it all on one turn of pitch-and-toss,
And lose, and start again at your beginnings
And never breath a word about your loss;

Whatever you goal , your wish, your hope try repeating,

“I will succeed IN SPITE OF …. being 72, having no money, the weather turning cloudy, the timing being wrong.”

Do you get the picture?

Whatever comes your way you must deal with it as it arrives….. and never lose sight of what your goal is. Remember if you plan a journey you normally know in advance where your start point is and what your destination is.

Let’s begin and take an in-depth look at your road to success, to the achievement of your goals!

For some people the road to success may, if only for a short time, become a road to hell and as we all know that road is paved with good intentions. Though why good intentions should lead to hell and exactly what size and shape paving slabs they make I am at a loss to imagine.

I have conducted an intense survey on this topic with many people who have a reliable background in road building or the laying of assorted paths. As a result I can state that of the sample interviewed (over 33 people) some 18.1818% recurring have actually been supplied with good intentions, the shapes and sizes varying dramatically and having no direct correlation to any known facts. On further examination these good intentions were available from many suppliers, wholesalers and manufacturers, but a good sample proved hard to track down.

It seems to me that if these slabs are so illusive it could pay one to guard them ferociously and to only lay them sparingly and to the best effect. Furthermore perhaps a GPS system should be used to avoid the merest hint of being led in the direction of hell, wherever that may be.

For many people the road to success can be traced back to childhood. Perhaps it all started for you as a small child standing in front of a mirror or an appreciative family audience, strutting your stuff to the sounds of the latest song, impersonating your hero or heroine, imitating their actions and mannerisms. Or maybe your inspiration came from a different starting place, a movie star or a TV personality, even a real life exemplar. Whatever or whoever your source of inspiration, it is more than likely that the focus of your admiration would have had many supporters, some of whom would be affected in the same way, others who would simply enjoy the moment and pass on to other destinies.

However, something inside of you clicked and you made a decision, whether conscious or not, to take on board the lessons learnt and to expound on them, introducing your own idiosyncrasies in an effort to reach your own zenith.

The foregoing explanations may seem a little starchy. After all, whilst all these things were going on your true feelings would not be as analytical. They would possibly take more of the form of;

“Wow! He’s incredible! They’re out of this world. So original. So cool. So ace. So …..”

Well I’m sure you get the picture. These feelings can materialise as a sudden intuitive leap of understanding, goose bumps on the arms, the hairs on the back of your neck standing up, a light in your brain clicking on abruptly. On the other hand they may take time to develop. They may creep up on you like a thief in the night. However the feelings dawn, the end result is like a hunger for hot curries (if you really, really enjoy them) or a thirst for a cold beer on a hot day. Your tastes may be for fried eggs or cool lemonade, but there’s no getting away from the glorious feeling of satisfaction that comes from indulging your desires.

With some of us, our desires can be sated vicariously. For others these desires create a need to emulate the performances. This is the point at which we start our journey.

Let’s imagine that we are in a supermarket. After parking our car in the enormous car park… normally quite a good place but, however did we cope before their advent? There would have to have been a shop on every corner so that we could simply walk to buy our groceries. Ha ha what a crazy idea ……. Ah so that’s why it’s called a car park, it’s where people can park their cars. It’s not that there are swings and slides and merry go rounds for the use of cars only. One has to be so careful with language sometimes, especially English.

So we enter the store through those giant revolving doors, hoping they won’t stop when we’re in there. If we time it right we exit the doors and enter a world of delights. If we events are mistimed we simply go round again and get a second chance to enter the emporium of delights.

Mushy Peas or Tapioca Pudding?

On entering we are greeted by what in essence is an enormous open space full of shelves containing every delight available. Somewhere at the back of my mind I can hear the engines of a jumbo jet starting up. Maybe there’s one parked in aisle 39 just waiting for a gap in the checkout queues before it can roll out to take off and disappear into the blue skies heading for Hamburg or Paris or Melbourne.

At a push I am sure that these supermarkets are missing out on a potential market here. Deliveries of our global intake would be made so much easier and just imagine the benefits of being able to fly from your local supermarket to your holiday destination. Last minute shopping would be great and on your return you could pickup a pizza for tea. Is it possible that most of the technology is already in place? One can normally find in excess of 20 or 30 fully computerised checkouts (or are they checkins?) in these gargantuan hangars. Although the internal workings may be suitable and the ‘out of town’ location may be right the lack of runways could cause a slight problem. Perhaps they are just waiting for the advent of VTOL passenger jets to fulfil their potential?

The aroma of freshly baked bread wafts to our nostrils, perhaps a melange of fragrances from the fresh herbs. Other senses are bombarded, with multi coloured displays of special offers, seemingly never ending rows of produce from all over the world, in tins and cartons, boxes and packets our senses are assailed by enticing packaging with logos, phrases and words designed to motivate us to reach out and pluck at least one if not two of the not to be missed products, (BOGOFS perhaps the simplest promotion ever invented).

Let’s turn our attention to one section of goodies, the tinned produce. Tins or cans are a marvellous invention. They enable us to take wonderful fresh produce and process it in a factory and then preserve a portion inside the tin with a use by date of months if not years after it has been cultivated. These tins can then be packaged up into cases, (of 24 normally) and shipped (or planed) to all parts of the world. It can be fun to read the labels and find out the origin of the goods. East Indies, USA, China, Australia even sometimes The UK. We have the whole world represented on the shelves of stores from Southend to Solihull.

Now if you stop and think for just a moment about the labels on the tins it may dawn upon you that they are quite an important element of the tinned produce. The labels serve several purposes.

1. They are designed to enhance the appeal.
2. They provide information about ingredients.
3. They give details of daily consumption values.
4. And perhaps most importantly they identify what the contents are.

As far as I can see there are two types of label. One is intrinsic to the tin, where the tins are actually printed and second is a printed label which is secured to the tin, normally by glue.

Whichever method is used it ensures that the product inside, whether it be baked beans or pacific salmon, is not liable to have an identity crisis. Just imagine if these tins were not labelled. The world would be in pandemonium. We could have gungo peas screaming in anguish next to pilchards which would think they were crabs. Juicy prunes would not know how good they were for regularity and custard would be at a loss to understand their purpose in life.

11 June 12.37am

When one thinks a little on the potential problems we quickly see the pitfalls. What happens if a label falls off a tin of mushy peas? Now that’s an amazing transformation, mushy peas. How do they do that? Do they pour the peas into a big vat full of bare footed people who march around squashing the perfect pea shaped peas into a squelchy mass? Maybe they have some technical method, like errr .. cooking, which breaks down the pea shapedness. Whatever they do they sure taste good with chips which are perfectly cooked in beef dripping and salt and vinegar. Yum Yum. But it has to be real malt vinegar not the acetic acid which burns holes in your nostrils, and real fine salt, not that imitation Lo-Salt salt that tastes like sawdust sprinkled on your food or the ground salt that gets stuck in your teeth.

Anyway, is a tin which has the label peeled off like a tree that falls in the forest when nobody is there? Do the consequences only come to light when a human being interfaces with the tin?

Let’s follow the contents of a tin, say, baked beans, back to their origin and examine the journey on which they go in order to reach the shelves of our major superstores/hyperstores/ megastores? where next? And from there get transported to our homes, heated up and poured over some nice, thick, crusty, buttered toast.

The common baked beans, as we know them, in tomato sauce, are actually haricot beans also known as Boston Beans or Navy Beans, a variety of Phaseolus vulgaris which surprisingly enough is not a vegetable but a seed or fruit.

The haricot bean is a variety of kidney bean, rich in iron, magnesium and zinc originating in Central and South America and they were probably brought to Europe in the 16th century. The name haricot derives from the French stew or haricot. They are useful in casseroles, purees and salads but are delicious as baked bean in tomato sauce.

One day a farmer labours in the fields, planting, and some months later there are some nice plump juicy bean pods which are taken and transformed through the miracle of science and art, courtesy of a great company like H J Heinz into a delicious feast in a rich tomatoey sauce. The sauce is sweetened with brown sugar, perhaps flavoured with onions and the final product is canned and labelled and then sent to all corners of the earth.

Now all through this process the humble bean has never had any crisis of personality. It has always known from its inception that it was a bean. However when it left the tender care of the farmer and was sold to the baked bean company it went through a transformation indeed one might say a catharsis. Life up till then had been simple. The wonders of genetics ensured that the beans’ identity was safe and secure. After processing and canning it became necessary to label the tin to ensure that everybody who came into contact with the tin could correctly identify the contents.

On arrival at the store the tins will be displayed in the best way possible to ensure a speedy sale. Unfortunately for some baked beans their journey from field to table will be interrupted. Indeed it may come to a sudden halt as a result of their fine suit of clothes becoming detached thereby losing what has become an important part of their identity.

When I was younger there would always be a special display of unlabelled tins, normally in a big basket or a trolley with a big sign declaring “Assorted Tinned Goods Only 10p”. There would be tins of all shapes and sizes and I spent many a happy time rummaging through the tins, shaking them next to my ear hoping to gain a clue as to their contents. Finally after selecting some bargain tins I would quickly go home, looking forward to a surprise repast,…. Yes. Sad, very sad. But unless you have opened an unlabelled tin thinking you will find pilchards in tomato sauce and actually found some beautiful Atlantic salmon, you just haven’t lived!

Part 5

Of course it sometimes went the other way and thinking I had discovered a tin of prime stewed steak I would open the tin to find sago pudding, bluuur, yuk. Life can be so hard sometimes.

The point of all these ramblings is to offer some important words of wisdom. Whatever you are it will pay you to identify and label your skill or talent. Discover what you are or what you have and like the humble bean, declare to the world,

I am baked beans ….. in tomato sauce! (or preferably what you are)

Inferring that you are tapioca pudding and turning out to be mushy peas might cause a few problems. Always remember that the world is full of people and that some people will adore mushy peas others will hate them. Some will love tapioca pudding others will throw up at the mere mention of the frog spawn like food. Whatever you are don’t be undressed, make sure you have the right label.

On a cultural note it may be of some significance that beans have performed an important role in such classical areas as Matt Goening’s The Simpsons and Stephen King’s The Dark Tower.

Their role is highlighted in these well known lyrics as performed by Bart Simpson and Zolton The Raven in The Gunslinger by Stephen King;

Beans, beans, the musical fruit.
The more you eat, the more you toot.
The more you toot, the better you feel.
So let's eat beans for every meal!

OR

Beans, beans, they're good for your heart.
The more you eat, the more you fart.
The more you fart, the better you feel.
So let's eat beans for every meal!

OR

Beans, beans, the magical fruit.
The more you eat, the more you toot.
The more you toot, the better you feel.
So lift your leg, and let them squeal!