It's Carl Jung's Colours Time Again!

Every now and then, we do Colours. It’s supposed to make us aware of each others' differing personal styles and so help us work better together. It was invented by C G Jung and is based on two scales: introversion – extraversion and intellectual – feeling.

It looks plausible and it’s fun. But it’s also based on a misleading concept of human action and personality. Here’s my take on it:

If I’m Cautious it’s because this is the kind of stuff that can wind me up in the shit , and I want to be sure I’m not going to wind up in the ….

If I’m Meticulous, it’s because wrong details will wind me up in the shit

I’m not Deliberate

If I’m Systematic, it’s because it saves effort when I have to do it again

I’m not Formal

If I’m Candid it’s because that’s what I think it might take to get the results I want

I’m Straightforward, because I’m a man

If I’m Single- minded, it’s because I want to get this shit done and out of my life

I’m not Purposeful

If I’m Persevering, it’s because this shit won’t go away so we may as well get done with it

If I’m Diplomatic, it’s because I think you’ve got thin skin or a bad sense of entitlement

I’m Nurturing, Supportive and Patient it’s because I’m a decent person, and you deserve it

I’m Dependable, because I’m a man, and you haven’t done anything to disqualify yourself

If I’m Impulsive, it’s because the sun is shining

I’m not Energetic, I just grind this shit out

I’m Optimistic when the odds justify it, which is not often

I’m not Lively

I’m Persuasive when I think you can be persuaded and I give a shit about whatever it is

People have styles, but these are superficial. The transition into adulthood is about living a life that is about achieving results, in a broad sense that includes raising children, making and nurturing friendships and having fun. So our actions are directed towards those ends, and the style with which we do them reflects the people with whom and the circumstances in which we’re doing them. We do what’s needed to get the job done. People who say “I can’t do that” or “I can’t be like that” might be having a childish moment, but mostly we say things like “Really? Is it worth it?” which is about risk/effort vs reward. That’s a very adult view of the world. So I’m meticulous when I need to be, but not otherwise, as are most people. Some people are just super-control freaky (I am meticulous, you are a little obsessed with details, he/she is a control freak) most of the time, and they have psychological problems. That’s why you need to be careful round them, not because they are detail freaks.

In other words, being an adult is exactly not about being at the mercy of whatever whimsical character genetics you were born with. It’s about transcending those to be someone who gets the shit they need doing, done. And Colours measure the residual stuff that we do when we’re not thinking about how we’re acting.

Sitting in Soho Square One Afternoon

Someone please tell me WTF is it with those huge tubs of nasty smelly noodles from Wasabi? The fuel of choice for people who treat food as fuel. She looks like such a nice girl otherwise. And when she stood up, those legs were very good.

Why I Stopped Drafting Resolutions for 2015

I started to jot some New Year’s Resolution during a particularly optional meeting. When I looked at them again after half an hour, I realised they were all fiddling wound with the basic shape of my life. NO. If I’m not prepared to set something like “Move into flat in Soho” or “Approach 30 girls” or “Visit (exotic location)”, I’m not going to make any resolutions for 2015. The previous year's resolutions have been fine-tuning. I can fine-tune my life on the fly just fine. I'm lacking ambition. I can live with that, but not with pretending that fine-tuning is actually ambition.

This photograph has nothing to do with anything. I just like the red flowers. Click for enlargement.

Blanca Bar, Leicester Square

Explanation: I'm posting these single pictures with cod captions Terry Richardson style because I keep drafting long posts I think mean something and then turn around and think it's a load of twaddle. So until I get back in the writing groove, this is what I'm doing.

Jersey Boys, Leicester Square

Piccadilly Theatre, Soho

September - November 2014 Review

Usually I have no problem writing these monthly reviews, but clearly something went on in September and October that I didn't want to look at, or at least took away the motivation. Sometimes I just have a duff few weeks.

I started September with some food poisoning over the first weekend. That always sets me up for a good week. I got another bout at the end of October, and had a couple of days off in November with the autumn cold that has lingered since. One Wednesday morning I coughed and put my lower back into spasm, and wound up with a £70 visit to the osteo. My left hamstring decided to tighten up, to the point where sitting was actually slightly painful, and that lead to a £55 visit to Petra the sports massuese. After the last episode of food poisoning, I'm no longer drinking coffee, or eating cheese or eggs. Breakfast is suddenly a lot simpler.

My trusty six-year old 15" MacBook Pro developed Flickering Graphic Card Syndrome in September. The guys down in the basement at Mac1 Spitalfields gave me a quote of around £350 + VAT to fix it. So I didn't do that. I have an Air, and that's enough for my needs. My Marantz CD 6003 decided it would throw a fault so obscure - “Sub Q error” - that nobody had heard of it. Since these faults cost almost as much to repair as an upgrade, I went for the upgrade, the Marantz CD6005, and very pleased I am as well. The £300 or so did get me the amazing CD6005. I collected a new pair of Silhouettes with varifocal lenses that cost £800. That's an indulgence, but a) the glasses look sharp, and b) the lenses are fantastic, especially when I keep them clean. I got round to finding a gardener to fix the back fence, re-cover the shed and remove some old grass that had become infested with moss and lay in some new stuff and fill in the vegetable patch I never really grew any vegetables in. VAT, Labour and materials came to about £600. And this time of year brings all the insurances, as well as the annual review of where to put my meagre money for the least awful return on it.

I spent about two weeks in September wading my way through Lee Smolin's book Time Reborn. Things like that make reading feel like a drudgery. Neville Shute's Round The Bend make it a pleasure again. I also read Horror in Architecture by Comaroff and Ong, Cortezar's Hopscotch, Hemingway’s Men Without Women, the Foundation Beyeker’s book on Odilion Redon, The Sochi Project: An Atlas of War and Tourism in the Caucuses, Daniel Lieberman's The Story of The Human Body, A Scream in Soho, Gil Scott Heron's memoir The Last Tour and his novel The Nigger Factory, the Edie Sedgwick biography Edie: An American Biography, Esther Perel’s Mating in Captivity, plus The Adobe Photoshop Lightroom 5 Book, Reproducible Research with R and R Studio, and A Man's Guide to Healthy Aging.

Movies were: A Most Wanted Man, Maps to the Stars, Human Capital, Life of Crime, The Equalizer, Gone Girl, The Judge, Mr Turner, Interstellar, The Imitation Game, Nightcrawler, The Drop and Citizen Four (which brings me up to date). My new Go-To Cinema is the Everyman Baker Street: not the cheapest in town, but pretty darn comfortable. I probably watched the first two series of Game of Thrones as well in this time. I also saw Sequence 8, Triz and Parabelo, the Thomas Ades See the Music, Hear the Dance, and Plateau Effect at Sadlers' Wells, with light suppers at Moro beforehand.

Sis and I dined at Ham Yard and Rules.

What I remember from this period is that I was still scuttling home after doing whatever it was I had gone out to do. I used to go out, for walks, to see films, go to meetings, or just for a coffee and a slice of cake and a browse round a bookshop, out of sheer restlessness. I am now, of course, no longer restless, and I miss it a little bit. I could blame the years, or I could just admit I'm getting lazy. And let's face it, if I hadn't had two bouts of food poisoning, it would have been a pretty darn good autumn.