Awards

It's that time of year: when the great and the good in the world of entertainment turn out on the red carpets and try to out-glam one another, when the winners try to look surprised and losers try not to look nauseous. Yes it's time for the Grammys, BRITs, Oscars, BAFTAs. It's awards season.

PPI

Welcome to the wonderful 21st Century. One of the most striking things about this brave new world is the adverts: "Have you had an accident that's not your fault?" (by the way, if it's an accident then it happened unintentionally and no-one is the aggressor, yet those adverts usually portray the other party as some kind of evil villain--they aren't evil, even if they are feckless).

The companies behind these adverts tend to present themselves as champions of the people, defending the little man against the big corporations, and yet many of us are able to see through the facade and label them 'ambulance chasers'. But these last couple of weeks have for me really shed some light on the truth behind these kinds of adverts.

I received a telephone call, informing me that I could be entitled to lots of money if I was missold Payment Protection Insurance.

Well, I knew something they didn't. I've never had a credit card, or car loan, and while I have had two mortgages, I claimed the PPI back on one and the other was in joint names with my ex-girlfriend. I was the least likely person to need their help.

"No, no," they assured me, "The banks have put billions aside for these kinds of cases, if you had PPI you could still claim, it's your right".

For whatever reason I went along with the call as they processed my information.

Interesting fact #1: I could be owed over £3,000, and my champions only want 30% for helping me get it.

The call ended, and I felt uneasy, something just wasn't right about it. Yes, I may have been missold insurance, yes I may be owed money that would come in very useful, but I'd benefitted from PPI. Without it, we may have ended up homeless when I lost my job.

I received about a dozen calls over the week, and instead of telling them that I wasn't interested I kept stalling. I admit I was being cowardly, perhaps hoping that they would get bored. Ha Ha.

Anyway, during one of these telephone calls they were doing some important form filling when the crucial question was asked.

"Your first mortgage, was that solely yours?"

It wasn't. I told them that it had been in joint names with my ex-partner. Hope glimmered, perhaps this was my opportunity to bow out gracefully.

There was a pause on the line, followed by: "And do you still get along with your ex-partner?"

I do not, I told them our split was acrimonious and we hadn't spoken for over seven years.

There was a longer pause: "Do you think she'd mind if you claimed."

She would, she most certainly would. I told them so.

"I just need to talk to my supervisor." I was put on hold, occupied by the Girl from Ipanema.

Eventually my representative came back on the line. "My supervisor says there's no problem. If you don't tell your ex then she'll never know."

Now, as I was the one to pay the mortgage over the course of our relationship, it could reasonably be argued that any monies paid over were mine, and it could further be argued that as we are no longer friends I owe her nothing, but even so, to say that there's no problem felt very unpleasant.

Interesting fact #2: my champions apply the rule that ignorance is bliss.

I ended the call with an unpleasant taste in my mouth. I think it was bile.

Transformation

Essentially 2011 was an awful year, yes there were some positives, but on a scale of one to ten 2011 was crap. I can help but feel that it happened for a reason though.

It really all started with my desperate desire to play the lead part in the local operatic society's production, I even prayed: let me get the part of Tevye, I NEED that part.

I got the part and my world started falling apart.

Now as I look back, I realise several things. Firstly, I survived everything that went badly; secondly the thing I had prayed for offered me no comfort when things did go wrong, and it lost its shine; thirdly, I am a stronger person than I had previously thought; and finally, adversity didn't change who I am, it helped me see who I really am and realise that potential.

As St. Paul said:

Do not conform any longer to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind.
[Romans 12.2]

It's happened. I have been transformed.

And to paraphrase David Warner in Mad Dogs, happiness isn't about gaining new things, it's about seeing what's already there. I was trying for years to achieve something, without knowing what it was--and that's foolish--when what I should have done was look inside and see what goodness already existed and help it to grow.

Spare Time

Let's consider the idea of spare time for a moment. It's one of those concepts that's so ingrained in our culture that we rarely stop and think about what it actually means.

Spare time: time which is leftover, extra, surplus, time which is unfilled with necessary things.

This is a notion that I'm struggling to make sense of, the idea that there are a number of things that we have to do and the rest of our time can be spent on leisure activities. Who came up with the distinction? Who decided what's a necessary activity and what's leisure?

There are 168 hours in a week, in this modern age many, if not most, people work full time, that's usually between 36 and 40 hours a week. Let's for argument's sake take an average of 38 hours, leaving 130 hours. We're encouraged to sleep for eight hours every night, (56 per week), which leaves 74 hours. How much of those 74 hours is filled with necessary jobs, and how much is leisure?

I would like to propose a suggestion: that dividing our time into' work' and 'leisure' is a human deceit, that we have somehow convinced ourselves that work is something we have to do in order to afford our leisure activities.

Now, I have four jobs, three children, a cat, a dog and a ridiculous amount of house work, we don't have much money so I tend to bake a lot of cakes and biscuits for packed lunches and snacks, we have a wood burning stove to heat our home, it's economical, but the wood needs collecting and chopping: spare time is a rare commodity for me.

Leisure is not rare however, because I enjoy most of what I do. For many years I had the mindset of the rest of the world: "what do I need to do today, what do I need to get over and done with, before I can enjoy myself". Now I see things differently: "What is there to enjoy, in what I'm doing now?"

That would be my fatherly advice to one and all: that there is no such thing as spare time, because it is our duty to make the most of what time we have, and to prevent our lives from becoming one long string of chores and misery, we should look for the positives in everything we do.