My last two remaining vices are the hardest to shake off: English tea and sugar in the form of chocolate or biscuits. I don’t pig out on sugary stuff, but there are times every day when if I don’t have it I get narky. But, having gotten coffee, alcohol, spliffs, tobacco and salt off the roster, I reckon I’m doing pretty well.
You’d think that summertime in Spain is poco-conducive to tea drinking, and you’d be right. My cuppa leaves me coursing with sweat for a good 20-minutes afterwards! But, it’s soo good…I crave it. I get The Taste, as my friend Mat used to say.

How does one eliminate a much-loved beverage such as tea, with it’s “healthy” antioxidants? Well, I happened upon the solution quite by accident this weekend. I take my tea with honey and soya milk. Gasp! soya?? Yes, there are many who say that soy is about as good for you and the environment as beef. Read Dr. Mercola’s summary of soya here. (He’s pretty polemic, you don’t need to believe everything he says…) I personally believe that soya can be part of a healthy diet, but cannot be used to replace meat and thus consumed willy-nilly every day in highly processed burgers/suasages/ice cream etc. But a little soy milk surely can’t hurt, as long as you make sure your soy bean crop didn’t replace old-growth hardwood forest in the Amazon (!) So anyway, on Saturday night I ran out of soy milk and this being Spain, on Sunday the shops aren’t open. So I took my tea with lemon and honey, which I don’t really enjoy the way I enjoy a hot, creamy cuppa with soy. And you know what? I only had two cups of tea all day! That’s a 50% reduction in my caffeine intake! This morning, upon waking, I certainly had a less puffy face. Not that I suffer from puffiness, but a little “morning face” I’ve come to regard as normal, even though it’s not. I think I’ll have a nice biscuit to celebrate

This evening I gave 2 massages at the hotel. The gentleman is a regular visitor to China, and lived there for some years before returning to Spain. He is a connoisseur of massage and told me that my massage is really very, very good. Smile!

The BBC reports here that “wrong bras” can damage breasts. Very interesting stuff.  One of my pet peeves about Spain is the women’s underwear.  Firstly, it’s all nylon!!  Secondly, the sizing is rubbish.  If you don’t want a plate-armor granny bra, but you’ve got a cup size bigger than a B, you’re pretty much stuffed.  And all the bras have that horrible foam reinforcement that makes your boobs look all boyish and smushed.  Woebetide you find a pretty cotton bra in various cup sizes.  In the Shopping centre in Benidorm (La Marina), there a whole lingerie shop that sells bras only in B-cups.  What?  LIke every woman in Spain wears a B-cup?

At least it’s better than Italy, where they do the sizing like this:  1,2,3,4,5,6 etc. each number corresponds to a certain width at the ribs and on the bust.  So what happens if you have a big ribcage and small boobs?  Or big boobs and narrow chest?  At least in Italy they have cotton underwear.

For my money, the UK has better women’s underclothing  than either Spain or Italy.  I mean, everyday, comfortable, supportive underwear.  It has to do with feminism and women’s roles in society, I reckon.  The more male-dominated society, the more boobs are treated as objects of lust, trussed up but unloved.   The more that woman are self-defined, the less need they have to endure discomfort in order to be deemed worthy.  But don’t get me started on high heels and the City of London!!!

Ladies, free your bodies, love your selves.

Here’s something you don’t expect to see in stuffy old Europe.  Lackadaisical Thailand perhaps, corrupt India almost certainly, but modern Spain, member of the EU, spender of the Euro?  I don’t think so!  Whassat you say?  Well this morning I popped out to get a cup of tea - badly in need after a night up with the baby.  In the cafe there were only two or three tables, one of them occupied by two local policemen, in uniform and obviously on duty.  Both were smoking fags and both had a bottle of beer!  This was 11:45 AM, people, and the cops are drinking BEER on the beat! But you know what happens next don’t you?  Guess…go on, guess.  Yep, they finish up, put on their sunglasses and get on their motorcycles to patrol the streets!! So I go back to work exclaming my surprise and you know what the receptionist says?  “Oh yeah, they’re there every day”.  Jeezus and I avoid the cops cos they’re unpredictable…but under the influence?  Hmmm…

I’ve just watched it.  Holy Shit.  I am tingling.  That is the most subversive, eye-opening thing I’ve seen in years.  Watch it.  Then watch it again.  zeitgeistmovie.com

Check out the new entry in the recipes section: Veggie Spring Rolls. Yum yum.

Working as a masseur in a hotel, I meet a lot of different people.  For a brief moment we enter each other’s lives.  Some are talkers, most are quiet.  My hands do the talking and I take everything in because like it or not we who work in natural health are constantly diagnosing -looking at the skin, the eyes, the hair, the nails, smelling, feeling, sensing.  It becomes second nature.  Sometimes you get in wrong but mostly you get the vibe.

This weekend I saw a couple of people twice.  When someone presents with a big, recent scar on their body it’s only professional to inquire as to its origin.  “A year and a half ago, colon cancer.  What a scare, all better now.” Whew, I think.  “So you’re looking after yourself, eating plenty of fiber?”

As I work I  get that cigarette smell you detect on smokers even if they’re washed and haven’t had a fag in hours.  There’s a staleness in the skin and breath.  You just know.  And sure enough  I saw the gentleman, fag in hand, upon my return to work today.

It makes me wonder, what makes us do it? I am a reformed smoker, and we are always the worst.  But we are this way because we know that once you really want to quit it’s not so hard. I reckon that most smokers smoke because they like it and are addicted, and that’s all there is to it.  It’s subtracting something pleasurable to eliminate cigarettes from your life(style).  But surely if you’ve had cancer, undergone the horrible treatments of surgery and radiation and/or chemotherapy, that would be incentive enough to stop smoking?  I mean, how clear a message do you need?

I remember the day (night) that I decided to stop taking drugs.  I started experimenting in my mid-teens and moved with a crowd where drug-taking was considered both normal and substantially risk-free.  I carried on with peaks and troughs until New Year’s Eve 1998-1999.  I had been clubbing like crazy in London for over 18 months, sleeping little imbibing lots. Weekends turned to weekdays…it was messy at times.  And then one night the whole world went brown.  I was at a house party, I got paranoid, it was NYE so getting home was impossible, I was trapped, high, unhappy.  At first light I started walking. I got home about 4 hours later (think Queen’s Park to Clapham Junction).  I put on the electric fire, dragged my eiderdown into the living room and drank tea and rang friends in Canada.  It was not a great day.  But you know what?  I stopped taking drugs.  I stopped drinking and I stopped smoking.  Like that.

So if that’s enough to stop me killing myself slowly with chemicals, surely cancer is enough to stop an educated, intelligent mature man from smoking himself to the oncology clinic?  Or is it?

The Lymphatic Research Foundation has posted a video in which the lymphatic system and its’ diseases are discussed.

Today I chickened out.  Thinking that I ought to profit from my day off, I rashly decided that I would busk a few songs and earn a few pesos.  But facing the moment of truth, I turned away.

I can’t quite understand what it is that renders me unable to perform in the street.  I have no such fear of the stage.  Only the street.  I think that it’s the “in your face” nature of busking.  Like, people are just sitting there having a coffee and suddenly along comes me with my guitar.  I play a few songs then stick my hand out and ask for money.  It’s not that far removed from begging really.

Maybe that’s why I can’t do it:  it seems debased, makes me out as a pauper.  When you’re on stage, you know that your audience has come to listen to you, to hear your music.  You’re there on the stage with everyone paying attention. You are respected.  There is reverence (sometimes!)  You have their attention.  On the street you compete with traffic and passersby.  No one came to hear you play, you might be an intrusion, an annoyance, in the way.  So it’s not really fear of playing that paralyses me, it’s fear of the reaction to/perception of my performance.

Perhaps there are people who enjoy the challenge of winning over an apathetic cluster of coffee drinkers.  Maybe there are those who believe that they will put a smile on their faces and brighten their day.  Perhaps there are some who are hungry enough to have to play and that’s the sole motivation they need.  I guess that I don’t believe in myself enough to credit the idea that I could brighten a bored stranger’s day.  I guess I’m not hungry enough.  I don’t need to do it, so I have the bail-out-the-backdoor option…and today I took it.

Do I feel ashamed?  No.  I do many things well and can’t expect to excel at everything.  Disappointed?  Yes.  I’d have likes to write about the coins collected, the boogie woogie dance I did, the applause and appreciation.  But certainly I feel optimistic because I know that I shall overcome this block and sing in the street this summer.  For no reason other than to prove that the talents God gave me - my voice, my joy,  my love of music - increase the happiness in this world, if only by a fraction.  Sat Nam.

I’ve updated the Inspiration section of the site with a few musings about positive thoughts. Ciao!