Tell me, who are you? (The Who)

In reverse order: likes and dislikes.

Scarily, a colleague alerted me to Marcus Buckingham YouTube video about strengths. He likens strengths to what we love doing. Check out the short clip. 



I liked his idea about heading up a page with two halves. I'm going to give this a go this week and get back to you - specifically my job related strengths on Baggy Trousers and other stuff on my next post here.

Actually, I've done this before - when I lived in England Jacky asked me why I loved it there so much, so I think I'll look for that in an old journal to start figuring out my brand.

None of that stuff gets thrown away.

Love and peace - Wozza 

No harbor was his home (Looking Glass)

According to Jon Westenberg, 'every single action you take and every single word you say, online and offline, is a part of your brand'.

There's no choice about it, and there's no opting out. Wozza accepts that.

Control of his brand is moot though. Jon says he can control his brand but he's less sure because Wozza can't help the associations people make and the picture they create of him based on these blogs.

The little posts are created and sent off into the wild blue blogosphere to fly on their own. Each one adds a special little something to the Wozza brand.

Long ago, I learnt that the impressions I have of Wozza are very different to that of my friends, my family, my colleagues, and the idle observer who comes across my blog on a dreary Tuesday afternoon.

Jon's suggestion is to 'define who you want to be'. This runs counter to Polonius' advice to his son - 'to thine own self be true'. I'm with that one - Polonius, not you, Jon.

My 'brand' has evolved out of who I am. I can't change that. 

So, who am I really?

Now that's a good question.

Chune in next time gentle reader, as I begin to peel back Wozza's layers.

Love and peace - Abu Keegan bin Graham

Mamma, don't go (John Lennon)

When your parents die, and leave you aching for their presence, it leaves a void.

If we live long enough, it's something most of us have to face. 

During the year, my Facebook friends often post commemorations of their parents passing. Often with photos, tributes, or poems.

If it's not the anniversary of their death, it's their wedding, or a birthday, so these poignant moments are sprinkled throughout the year.

Each one of us finds those moments tough, but we wouldn't be without them. In there is a link, something to cling to, something with meaning.

In my case, there's a kind of symmetry from their births - 23rd April (Dulcie Mary Adsett), 26th July (GNP), to their deaths on 21 Sept 2009 (GNP was 82), and 4 Nov 1983 (DMP was 53).  

In between, they married on 18th April - she was 23; he was 25.

Just like my Facebook friends, every year the dates roll around, and every year it is important to pause and think about their life.

Recently Jody's page posted a poem that her mum, Maureen, had written. I hope she doesn't mind if I reprint it here.

Love and peace - WNP

Outside was a happy place, every face had a smile like the golden face, for a second (The Human League)

MacKenzie Porter as Marcie in Travelers

Our recent Netflix adventures have included three shows that are really worth your while:

1 Seven Seconds - Only ten episodes and a deliberately slow pace but it's engrossing. Although the ending was on reflection a tad anti-climactic, it gets points for being different and thematically of the moment with its look at modern racism. 

2 Black Mirror - weird but rewarding most of the time. Each episode is stand alone and thematically linked via modern technology. More hit than miss. And when it hits it's amazing.

3 Travelers - starting season 2 and we're on board with this interesting sci-fi invasion-of-the-body-snatchers style concept. 

and three that we gave up on:

1 Altered Carbon - I can't remember why we stopped watching this during the second episode - maybe it was because it wasn't very memorable.

2 How to get away with murder - we didn't buy the loose morals of the central character and stopped after two episodes.

3 Wallander - the original Swedish TV show is gripping and quirky but the Kenneth Branagh version is too slow and mannered and we lost interest.

What's that? Oh, you're welcome.

Love and peace - Wozza

What were once vices are now habits (Doobie Brothers)

From the year after I was born, 1958

My name is Warren and I am a vinyl junkie (Goo Goo G'Joob provides proof if you needed it).

In a classic chicken and egg situation: I love records/ I love music.

Actually, scratch that, I know where my obsession started - music first (watching that Ed Sullivan Show with the Beatles in our living room at 18 Korma Rd., Royal Oak, Auckland, New Zealand did for me back in the mid sixties). 

Then vinyl.

Hard now to trace back to that very first one. Certainly, not my own first single purchases in 1970, instead it would have been exposure to records in Graham Purdy's collection. 

Those Dave Brubeck album covers and the heft of those records in particular are probably where it all started.

Long ago, it became engrained as habit.

Now I am drawn to vinyl. Even in second hand junk stores and their crappy collections of scratched James Last and Nana Mouskouri records.

You never know. There could be gold.

Love and peace - Wozza

Sounds like a lot of supernatural baloney to me.

In Stand By Me, the writer at the end types: 'I never had any friends later on like the ones I had when I was twelve. Jesus, does anyone?'

True, but as I enter my 7th decade I can re frame that as: 'I never had any friends earlier on like the ones I had when I was sixty. Jesus, does anyone?'

The ones that have lasted are true gold. They are the ones who know you and are still friends.

All the shorthand of a lifetime of friendship is there and it's so easy with each other.

There's no pretense and there's always implicit forgiveness. We know each other.

Like most people in the post Facebook world we live in, I have over 100 'friends' (119 actually, I just checked. The median number is 200 so I have room for growth I guess) - many of whom I never hear from (and they don't hear from me).

Facebook has redefined 'friendship' by mingling the layers from periphery to inner sanctum. 

One of my oldest friends gave me some vinyl recently. It included an album we both know inside and out - The Monkees' Head. 

Probably, an album only 5 other people know as well as we do. In fact, most people on planet Earth have no idea it even exists.

I have become the keeper of the flame of that particular memory: a true honour!

Only a friend of long standing knows what that means.

Love and peace and dandruff, dandruff - Wozza