The Power of Music

Today has been a rather slow one, which suits me! I don't react well to stress; my ideal sort of day is where I have plenty of stimulating work to do, but it's all straight forward with no hassle. I must feel that I have plenty of time to do the work and that there are going to be no problems with it; I need feel that I just have to work my way through it. In some ways I'm lazy, but I do like to keep busy and today I was busy, doing stuff that wasn't really important. My kind of a day! There was a problem but it wasn't my problem: we were running out of the Hovis Concentrate for the Hovis Digestives. I told the Key Op as soon as he came in and left the problem in his hands; I just made the most of the concentrate that we had left. It was quite fun actually. Unfortunately next week will not be fun, I'm mixing all week. For some reason the programme for next week is very busy meaning I've got to go downstairs to help with making the doughs, which I'm not too keen on because there is a lot of scope for screw-ups when mixing, which I have made plenty of in the past. I really hate the job but I don't really want to move to another job that is almost the same as the one I've got, and that's all I've found so far. What am I going to do?

During this week I have been wearing my old walkman while walking to and from work. This is not something I make a habit of doing, usually because I'm tight-fisted and don't want to waste batteries. However I recently bought a battery re-charger so now I have a never-ending supply of virtually free batteries meaning I have no reason not to use my walkman all the time (except that would be stupid!). There is something about the power of music to uplift the spirit and brighten the soul; I like to listen to music anytime I can and miss it when I can't. While writing these blogs I have to have no music so that I can concentrate on what I'm writing. I would much prefer to have something playing and I have tried it a couple of times but I really am better off without any music while writing, which breaks my heart.

There are some songs that really speak to my inner-most being and pull on those heart-strings. Just before starting this blog I put VH-1 on for a couple of minutes and Elton John's tribute to Diana was playing. That is one of those songs that really get to me. Just the imagery surrounding it is enough to set a somber note to the tune as everyone's mind goes back to that Sunday morning back in the summer of 1997 when we woke up to find out that Diana, Princess of Wales had died. The most poignant lines of the song for me are towards the end; they are:

Goodbye England's rose

From a country lost without your soul

Who'll miss the wings of your compassion

More than you'll ever know

This line just seems to sum up everything for me about the loss of Diana, that England (and by extension, the World) will miss her more than anyone, much less England itself, will ever know. The country lost a great soul that day and I don't think it will ever recover.

Other songs that make me cry (or at least put a lump in my throat) include "Forever Autumn" by Justin Hayward. I remember last summer I was listening to Jeff Wayne's War of the Worlds while driving to Wales to do some walking and when that song came up, even though I was driving, I could feel myself welling up. It took a lot of will power to ignore the song and concentrate on the road. Another song that gets to me is by a little known artist named Martyn Joseph who wrote a song called "Please Sir". It is another sad song, just like the other two songs I have highlighted, and is about a mining village that has seen all it's pits closed. The chorus goes:

Meanwhile little David takes his books off to school

And learns of the times gone past

When it comes to questions he puts up his hand

There's something that he just has to ask

Please sir can you give me an answer

Please sir you know it doesn't seem fair

Last night as I walked through the door

I thought I saw my father crying sat in his chair

These lines are so moving for me that they are getting to me now just by typing them out. I don't know what it is, whether it is the sense of utter loss or bewilderment or just the hopelessness of it all, but it's not the tune that sets me off. I've just tried reading all the words of the song from the beginning and I was crying before I got to the end of the chorus. Music has this power to cut deep into our soul and touch us at our deepest part.

I think this teaches us that we must be careful about what we listen to. If music is able to delve deep into our being we must be careful we don't allow music that will corrupt our spirit to take hold. The music that we listen to must not be destructive but that doesn't necessarily mean it must be up-lifting. We mustn't listen to music that will darken our mind and our thoughts making us think on things that are unwholesome. It depends entirely on the person which songs fall into that category; some Christians would say that they would only listen to Christian music, but I wouldn't go along with that, mostly because I think most Christian music is crap. If a song is not well-produced then it doesn't appeal to me and is unable to speak to me, no matter what the lyrics are about. A lot of Christian music is cheaply produced wallpaper music with barely Christian lyrics, no doubt designed to appeal to middle America. I listen to any music that I find appealing, which is usually songs with a strong melody and good production values, most importantly of all, the songs mustn't be destructive to the spirit.

The Return of the Blogger

After a couple of days absence I decided I should make an appearance on these hallowed pages lest you should think I'd abandoned you all. The truth is unfortunately rather mundane, it is merely the pressure of work. During this week I have been starting at 5.30 am necessitating early nights and so I have been unable to find the time to write something here. Work had been rather quiet for the last couple of days until today when I had to work downstairs and mix the biscuit dough, a really annoying job that I've been finding myself doing more and more over the last year. Today I was making Fruit Shortcake which are usually easy to make, you just throw everything in and the biscuits come out perfectly, but not today. I was getting complaints from the ovens that the dough was too soft, well what do they expect me to do about it? Some interfering manager had changed the recipe, considerably increasing the fat content; I reduced the fata little, but it didn't make much difference; maybe I should have gone back to the previous recipe to saw what happened. I know that if I asked my manager he'd tell me to take some water out, but there's hardly any water in it to begin with, it's all fat! Maybe the manager who'd fiddled with the recipe had come across the same problem and his solution had been to reduce the water and increase the fat to compensate. Unlikely, but if so, it didn't work, mate! I hate all this uncertainty about things. I had a scientific education, I like everything to be precise and fixed. Making biscuits is not a science, it's an art form. A recipe that makes perfect biscuits one week make crap biscuits the next for no apparent reason. I find that really annoying.

The top news story at the moment in Britain is the Court Martial of three soldiers in the Royal Regiment of Fusiliers for alleged abuse against Iraqi prisoners. The images that we've been seeing of the alleged abuses are sickening and what makes them even worse is that they were apparently done by British soldiers. What is the world coming to when we see what looks like soldiers abusing prisoners in this way. The soldiers claim that they were following orders, which is possible but it still looks like British Soldiers were not treating the Iraqi prisoners in a humane way. It's one thing to see American soldiers behaving like this; you almost expect that kind of thing from the Americans these days, but not from British soldiers who around the world are held with a much greater respect. This can only have a damaging effect on the reputation of the British Army, and on Britain in general. It is very distressing. Till next time...

The State of the World is just as worse

A quick look through the news sites reveals more tales of woe throughout the world. I see the British Museum has said that the US forces have damaged the ancient city of Babylon where they have an Army base. Well, of course they have, they're Americans, they aren't going to treat it with care even though that's what they were supposed to do. The American Army is the last people I'd ask to look after one of the greatest archaeological sites in the world. After reading the report I thought that I'd love to visit Babylon, but not after the Americans have finished with it, there'd hardly be anything left. Should have asked the British Army to look after it.

Also in the news I see that Gordon Brown has cancelled Mozambeque's debt to Britain and 10% of the debts of seventy other African countries owed to the World Bank. This is the start of the British government's previously mentioned concerted effort to abolish poverty in Africa. This is good news and I hope other rich countries will follow suit in relieving the huge debts of African countries because it will only be with the support of other countries that we will see any benefit from this initiative. Britain has dug into it's pocket (to the tune of £1 billion), now it's everyone else's turn.

The efforts to raise money for the Tsunami appeal continue. Many celebrities are doing their bit including George Clooney, Brad Pitt and other actors manning phones during a telethon in the US with other stars helping raise money for the stricken area. In Britain a concert is being organised for next weekend featuring many British acts such as the Manic Street Preachers, Stereophonics, Eric Clapton, Craig David and Embrace. Other fund-raising efforts include a DVD of comedy classics to be released and Monday will see Chris Evans back on the radio as part of the tsunami benefit show, UK Radio Aid, on more than 250 commercial radio stations across the country. Lots of great things going on, let's hope the money isn't wasted as the much needed aid goes into the stricken area.