Mummers, Maypoles and Milkmaids

The exhibition is amazing!

 The Horniman museum is like a smaller copy of the Natural History museum with all the stuffed animals right near the entrance. The kids as well It is lots of fun, if you like that sort of thing.

The exhibition itself was showing the modern traditions and celebrations in Britain. The funniest thing is that almost every picture was set in such a way as to have something incredibly common to the mundane monotonicity of our present lives and yet have some really archaic ritual or celebration happening right there, next to it.

Amazing. Definitely worth a visit.

Leading from the front: An autobiography by General Sir Richard Danatt

Amazon

Leading from the front

General Danatt has become a very outspoken Chief of General staff. As he says himself he has set out to describe his views in this book. It so happens that that to explain those views it has been necessary to go through most of his life experiences that have shaped those views.

Apart from a fascinating career and an amazing life, the thoughts the come out in this book for me:

• The operation level sitting between the strategic view and the tactical day to day activities is very important. It’s impossible to exceed in achieving the strategy without having the plans in place as to how the individual tactical actions move us closer to it. To have this one must know the strategy, know the operational level and only then the tactical decisions start moving us in the right direction. This is a communication mostly on the part of leadership, but individuals are there to take initiative as well
• One of the most important questions the army is asking all the time: how should we prepare for the future challenges. Is it just the army? I don’t think so. The main points here would be defining what the future will require from us. Another is to adjust the current investment and development to be relevant. The criteria of relevance is of uttermost importance.
• The leadership that sir Danatt has shown throughout his career has been laid down from very early on. It is this leadership, caring about the Army as a whole, his particular unit and doing his work as best as possible that has led him. Even during his first deployment the future general was already thinking that handling the peace effort in Northern Ireland required a more though-through and comprehensive approach than the «muddle through» advice he’s received.

On the whole it’s an amazing book, definitely worth reading. Especially because of the integrity in the generals views on all of the conflicts he’s been involved in. On how he tries to not blame the politicians for their poor choices.

The combination of personal views, historical realities seen through the eyes of a military man and the leadership lessons is very honest and quite invigorating – you just want to go away and make things better!

Meditation for Every Day

Book Info

Meditation for every day

Meditation for every day by Bill Anderton. Now who told you that meditation should be difficult? – apparently it isn’t or at least if you take your sweet time with it.

And although I am not even half way through this book, and have been going at it for almost a month. I can see the benefits already. This is really a textbook that anyone can use. I especially like the frequently asked questions section, since I have had all of those exact questions.

For example, why does the world go really loud when you are trying to concentrate on your inner self? Well the book quite logically suggests that you more suseptible to ourside distractions when your mind has already almost lost the focus on every day, but has not yet completely opened the eyes onto the subconscious.

The gradual introduction starts with a few easy basic breathing exercises, then moves on to simple visualization meditations. I found the pace really carefully balanced and there is enough text between the meditations to get you to understand what you are trying to achieve and get you motivated to actually go ahead and do it.

I usually work through the exercises alone, but remembering a sequence you have never done before and relaxing at the same time are impossible to do together. Especially if the meditation is quite lengthy. But if you dictate the text to say a phone, which is recommended by the book, then you can easily go through even the most verbose of the sequences. And you get extra points, when future meditations build on top of what you are doing now – no need to rerecord large chunks!

This book is pretty old. There was a originally released in 1995 and reprinted in 1998. But it is still possible to find it in libraries and second-hand shops or amazon. I would really recommend it.