Fifty Shades of so what's the problem?

So, while I’m waiting to wash off my fake tan (which, in retrospect, was probably a mistake – I look decidedly weird) I’ve been thinking… about Fifty Shades of Grey. Yes, I know I'm late to the party but everywhere I look it seems like it’s the book (or set of books) that everyone loves to hate.  Ye gods, I haven’t seen so much vitriol slathered all over a novel since, well, Twilight.  And you know what?  I liked Twilight.  So stick that in your pipe and smoke it. :-) 


Anyhow.  I must have been in a bunker or something because I hadn’t even heard of FSOG.  And, when I did, I thought it was some kind of hair dye.  Honestly.  Then I mentioned to Kim (Jewell) that maybe I should dust off poor old Samael (my deeply unwanted YA novel), up the age of the protagonist and make it more sexy and she said, ‘What, like Fifty Shades of Grey?’ and I frowned and she explained so I nabbed a copy. 

‘The writing’s awful,’ she warned. ‘But it’s kinda fun.’  No kidding.  Sure it ain’t high art, great literature, but so fecking what?  It’s a romp.  It’s a great big stupidly ludicrously sexy pile of total trashy nonsense.  It’s huge fun and I’ve been lapping it up, so to speak.  

Is it ‘anti-feminist’?  Does it oppress women?  Nah, I don’t think so, not for one moment.  So the protagonist discovers she rather enjoys being tied up and slapped on the backside?  So what?  Nobody’s forcing her. What is feminist sex anyhow?  Women feeling okay about themselves?  Well, Ana seems pretty sorted actually.  And, as the tale unfolds (and yes, there is some progression; it’s not quite just a series of sex scenes strung together like, er... pearls or fake diamonds – though, has to be said, there ain’t a whole lot of plot involved) it transpires that her ‘dominant’ lover isn’t quite so secure and in control.  He’s seen the other side of the coin, so to speak and, in fact, it's really sweet virginal Ana who wields the whip (sorry). 

The whole thing about BDSM (having known a lot of people who’re into it) is that it’s all consensual.  Nobody does or has done anything they don’t want.  So, really, what’s the problem?  Why’s everyone getting so hot under the collar? Maybe it’s plain sour grapes mixed with wishful thinking – sheer envy that these (fictional) bods are having such a fecking awesome time in the sack (and in the lift and in the car and the kitchen and the restaurant and right across the top of the grand piano and so on and so forth)? 

Then there’s the ‘oh but it’s so unrealistic’ argument.  Like, how come she has a monster orgasm on her first fuck?  And comes at the drop of a word each and every time?  Not to mention the small facts that, a) he’s filthy rich and, b) he has the body of an Adonis and a penis that should be called 'Ever Ready'.  Well, lucky cow is all I can say.  Were it real.


Cos, let’s just remember something here.  This is Not Real Life.  It’s like movie sex:  if it were played out in real time with every realistic squelch and tooth clash and wilting erection and badly timed case of cramp, we’d all be bored flaccid.  Yes, it might all be deeper and more ‘meaningful’ and 'literary' if they were civil servants from Croydon but…yawn.

You know what I think?  I reckon everyone’s just jealous as hell that they didn’t do it; that they aren’t raking in the bucks.  And boy is she raking in the bucks!  Cos half the people bitching about it haven’t even read it.  Sheesh, even a reviewer in a glossy mag hadn’t read it.  She rolled her eyes over the ‘bored housewife’ MC – er, nope – she’s a young student actually.  Yes, it’s neck deep in cliché, yes the writing’s repetitive.  But it kept me reading alright.  So I say, get over yourselves!  If you don’t like that kind of malarkey, the choice is easy – don’t read it.  If, on the other hand, you fancy a harmless frisson or two – then go for it (and go buy yourself a set of Ben Wa balls while you’re at it!). 

She was gone, gone...

So. That was then. This is now. Well, sort of...  And today (well, three days ago actually - I'm writing this in the past for the future present) - I'm packing my bag again.  This time adding a passport.  I’m getting on a train this evening (let's just accept that it's this evening, right? Well, probably) and will spend half the night wandering around Gatwick, so if anyone fancies joining me for a vigil?  Then (God willing) I'll hop on a plane to Greece.  
Why?  Well...

You know how you meet some people online and just know?  Well, I have this weird idea that the Internet is a conduit, that it’s allowing us to meet up with our..what would you call them?  Soul brethren?  Psychic tribe?  Hell, I dunno.  But I do know that there are some people I meet online and just know…that we’re linked in some way.  I don't always get it right, of course. Sometimes I get it more than a bit wrong. When I say this to my friend Jane, she just raises an eyebrow and says, 'Random Twitter Guy' and we both fall about laughing.  But, hey, he was never one of mine - he was my offering to her. But, actually, I don't get it wrong that often.  And not with Kim.  At least, I don't think so. 


Anyhow, I met Kim (randomly) on Twitter and we shared a daft sense of word play.  Don’t know why but got talking a bit deeper than one normally would with a total stranger. Went on from there and now she’s one of a very very small handful of people I trust.  Yeah, I have trust issues. 

Anyhow, she runs a company called Serenity Retreat.  Based on the Greek island of Lefkada (just above Kefalonia) it offers ‘retreat style holidays for solo travellers on a spiritual or self-development path. It’s about finding some personal space to simply ‘be’.’    

It sounded (and still sounds)…delicious.  Not to mention warm. And, hey, Greece needs our support, right?  But – old story – couldn’t afford it.  Couldn’t even justify going away really…the bills are mounting, the credit cards are squeaking…you know the score.  But then I thought, sod it.  If it’s meant to be, it’s meant to be.  Let's give Fate another chance, huh?  So I fired off an email to a travel editor on one of the nationals.  
And he said…Yes.   
Huh?  I mean...HUH??? 
And the fee will cover my costs just perfectly.  But then I felt guilty about not even trying to earn any money in a week (like I have this crazy idea that, as long as I'm sitting at my desk worrying about not earning anything, it's okay?).  Until another very lovely editor I’d pitched it to said, sorry, I can’t pay for travel pieces (you probably don’t know this but the majority of the travel features you read in magazines are written by the staff who get a freebie holiday for writing up a piece) but how about if I commission you to write a couple of other features to make up the shortfall?  And I said, that’ll do nicely, thank you very much.  


And I did.  And so here I am/was/will be. And there I will be. God willing. Jeez, these scheduled posts are more worry than they're worth.  The tense-ion. :-)

Of course, if you wanna come too, just jump or hop or clamber onto a plane; or walk or swim or crawl or whatever... and I’ll see you on the beach. Hopefully being serene.  Ish.  :-)

Serenity Retreat: www.serenityretreat.co.uk

 PS. Okay, so I haven't quite gone, gone quite yet after all. Forgot to say... of course, you know where the title for this post comes from, right?  Yeah..our Syd...

This was yesterday, btw, and the day before that this pinged up on my screen and made me smile...another version of the same old song... Teenage White Riding Voldemort  hits the hi know? :-)  Sink row nicety, huh?

And now (yesterday) I really am gone...

What do publishers really really want?

In a white room...

When away from home my life is decided by my iPhone. My total control-freakery, weirdo nutjob iPhone. Arbitrarily it decides whom I shall see and whom I shan’t; whom I should talk to and whom I shouldn't. Whole lotta whoms here, huh? 


Sometimes it will cheerily download my emails; sometimes it has a hissy fit and refuses access.  If it does let me on, it often decides – quite off its own back – that my responses (time-consumingly tip-tapped onto its tiny screen – torture for touch typists) should not be delivered.  Ditto Twitter – sometimes it will deliver tweets and DMs, sometimes not.  Facebook?  Don’t even go there.

So, when I was in London, I saw some friends but not others; certain publishers but not others. I caught some PRs while others must have thought me exceedingly rude.  I had hoped to catch my old friend Sam Baker and couldn’t quite figure out why she hadn’t responded to my nudges, and then – finally – I realized it was because she hadn’t received my missives.  Sigh.  But - who knows? – maybe there is method in its madness. Maybe I saw the people I needed to see…rather than those I just really really wanted to see.

I did learn some interesting things though, from those I saw.  That sentence bothers me too, but never mind.  Like, apparently a review on a good blog can be worth more than a review in a national paper or glossy mag in terms of sales. Now - although I am a firm believer in the power of social media - that still surprised me.  But one PR cited the instance of a page feature in the Daily Mail drawing in far less response than a blog post. Amazing.  In my own experience (as both a blogger and a journalist) many PR companies are still sniffy about blogging.  But maybe that is changing. 

And, you know how people all whitter on about What Publishers Want?  And Which Way the Market is Going?  The wannabe authors amongst us, that is (cos the others, frankly, don't give a shit). Well, hey, guess what?  The publishers haven’t got a clue what’s going on either. We’re all of us together, paddling blindly in circles. Honest.  I popped in to see an old friend who is now a head honcho at one of the Big Six.  ‘We used to know our customers,’ she said wistfully, leaning back on her comfy sofa in her big corner office.  ‘Y’know, Waterstone's, Smiths, Borders etc.  We knew what they wanted; we knew who they were.  But now…’  She shrugged eloquently. ‘We haven’t got the foggiest. Our customers are now the public, and we don’t know them, not remotely.

‘Celebrity still sells,’ she said with an eye roll. ‘But the rest is wide open. Wide wide open.  And content is key.’

What about self-publishing, I asked her. ‘Hell yes, of course,’ she said.  Really?  
‘We can’t come anywhere close to offering the royalties Amazon do,' she said sadly. 'We just can’t afford it.’ 
But surely, I mused, people still want – or should want – a traditional publishing contract?  She looked deeply unconvinced. ‘Why? Sure we can get them a good cover and good editing but, really, you can get that yourself if you know where to look.  What we do do well is to hold people’s hands – we look after authors a lot more now, we’re much better at it. We have to be.’

As I walked away I got the impression of leaving a huge rudderless supertanker gyrating slowly in the middle of a vast ocean.

It was pretty much the same story when I had lunch with a much smaller, more niche publisher.

‘What are you looking for?’ I asked.  He shrugged and mopped up some hummus with a bit of bread. 
‘It’s easier to say what we’re not looking for,’ he said.  Paused, swallowed, and shook his head. ‘No, actually that doesn’t work either. It’s wide, wide open.  We just don’t know really; nobody does.’

And as I looked round the big bookshops in London I could see what they meant.  There are no real trends; no discernible patterns.  Which, actually, I found rather comforting.  
‘It comes down to passion,’ said Mr Small but Perfectly Formed. ‘If a book has real passion behind it, it can be a surprise bestseller.’ 

He also said that they were shamelessly watching to see which self-published books were making the grade and stepping in to offer deals.  Does that mean we get great new talent plucked out of nowhere?  Not necessarily. As everyone who's ever self-published knows, you don't just need a decent product, you also need uber-marketing skills - or a shitload of luck. 

‘I’m looking at our backlist,’ said Mrs Big but Vulnerable. ‘There are some real gems there which I’d like to see polished off and brought back.’ Ah, that’s rather comforting too. 

But how, I asked them both, do we (the customer, the public) choose books - with the sheer volume out there right now? How can we discover the real gems and avoid the cowpats?  Mr Small reckons like-minded communities are the answer – online forums. Interesting.  Mrs Big cheerily admitted she really didn’t know. ‘Amazon sure as hell can’t do it – their algorithms aren’t sophisticated enough.’  

I said the one thing I did like about Waterstones was their ‘favourite books’ lists and staff recommendations.   Because they seemed to like a lot of the books I'd already read and loved, I took a chance on Pema Chodron, figuring she might be good too.  And she was. 


And Mrs Big agreed.  But then, she would.  :-)


But seriously.  Word of mouth.  Which is maybe where we turn full circle and look at the value of blogs and social media again.    We're in a world of too many authors and not enough readers, with the big publishers generally no longer acting as decent gatekeepers.  The mainstream press doesn't really help either - they play the celebrity game and, to be fair, are simply overwhelmed by Too Many Books.  So perhaps this is where blogs and Twitter and so on come into their own.  Except...hmm... they're clogged up with people shouting about their own books.  Aaaghhh.  


Maybe we all just gyrate in a sea of more and more books? 


Anyhow, I wrote this a while back and it made sense at the time but, reading it back now, I haven't got a clue what I'm going on about.  what do you think?  Do we know where we're going to?  Does it matter?  


'What do you want to write next?' asked both Mrs Big and Mr Small.
'Not the foggiest,' I said.   :-) 

In which I am undone by love

It’s no secret that I love ila products.  In a world of fudges and half-truths and compromises, this stuff shines out pure and clear with integrity and authenticity. Okay, it’s not cheap but then, more and more I think I’d rather have one truly wonderful thing than a whole bunch of cheap bits of nonsense.  In the field of beauty we’re sold so much crap, truly we are. So many lies.  Anyhow, this isn’t a sales pitch – like I’ve said before, they don’t pay me. There are just some businesses that so chime with me that I love to shout about them. 

But, funny thing, I’d never had an ila treatment.  

‘Let’s fix that,’ said Philly Vass, their adorable PR.  Okay, I can hear your thoughts - you think all PRs are grasping bitches who only love you when you’re a columnist on a daily?  Well, mainly you have a good point but Philly really is different.  She turns down lucrative accounts if they don’t chime with her core values. And she’s stuck with me over my year of being entirely bonkers.  Plus she has a pug puppy.  Enough said.

‘You have to see Holly.’ 

‘I do?’

‘Yes.’ 

‘Okay.’

So we had a coffee at Paul in Marylebone and then she walked me to Gielly Green (one of those slightly intimidating hairdressing places) and introduced me to Holly who was about half my size and not remotely intimidating.

‘My job is done,’ said Philly with a knowing smile, and left us together.  
I felt nurtured before I’d even taken off my boots. If you’re a spa or massage virgin, I beg you, please, go see Holly.  One thing I think so many therapists and spas get wrong is that they don’t tell you exactly what to do.  And I figure that’s what puts a lot of people off.  But with Holly, there is no guesswork involved. There is no need to do anything in fact except let go and just be.

Her room was a small temple, a womb-like cocoon of sensory soothing. Softly lit, warm, embracing. Scents enveloped me – some familiar, some not so. And music, one of the gently captivating ila CDs that I love so much.

As I sat swathed in a thick towel, she knelt and bathed my feet in such a rapt honouring that it almost brought tears to my eyes. It put me in mind of Mary washing the feet of Christ.  Her attention was totally there – I felt noticed and blessed – elevated yet humbled. Then I lied me down on the couch, naked under the softest, warmest fluffy towels (honestly, you don’t feel exposed or weird, trust me on this) and she started the ‘kundalini’ massage.

I’ll be honest, I’m not sure what I expected but it wasn’t this.  She didn’t say a word, just started touching my back, so so gently.

No! 

I wanted to beg her to go harder, dig deeper. As I've said before, I like my massage hard and tough: it’s why I tend to prefer male bodyworkers. But then the fight just kind of went out of me and I was simply slayed by gentleness, beguiled by softness.

It felt like some kind of initiation into an ancient feminine mystery. A benediction. A soft yet insistent teasing apart of all the toughness, a dismantling of all the harsh walls. She got under my defences, not by smashing them down but by soft insistent love. 

Strange images flashed up.  At one point I ‘saw’ her extract some horrible insect. It was so clear and visceral I nearly started off the couch. And oh,when she touched my heart area, there were deep stabs of pain - not from her hands, but oh so deep inside. I was undone. Tears rose and then quietly dispersed.

When she was finally finished (oh too soon, too soon) and I sat sipping a glass of water, she looked at me with huge compassion.

‘Tell me,’ I whispered. ‘Tell me.’

‘You’re so guarded,’ she said softly. ‘Your poor, poor heart.’

I nodded. ‘I know.’

And as I sat on the top of the 73 bus on the way back to Jane’s flat, I felt a wave of sadness wash over me - like the rain outside. And no, don’t start thinking, ‘Oh, poor Jane, how awful’ because really it was lovely. An opening up.  A softening. Because I’d been building up my carapace again, thinking I needed to be oh so tough; to not feel, not trust, not dare to open. And something a friend had said had been worrying at me. She said she was trying to think more like a man, to compartmentalize, to attach less importance to the whole experience of relating. And while I understand that, I felt, very strongly it wasn’t the path for me.

I have been oh so masculine in so many ways in my life, oh so tough. So in control. I’ve dismissed and diminished the soft feminine, the woman in me. Maybe it’s time for her to smile shyly and emerge from the shadows. 

“In the midst of loneliness, in the midst of fear, in the middle of feeling misunderstood and rejected, is the heartbeat of all things, the genuine heart of sadness… We think that by protecting ourselves from suffering, we are being kind to ourselves. The truth is, we only become more fearful, more hardened, and more alienated.”  The love that will not die, Pema Chodron. 

In which I make a woman retch up a hair ball

I’m standing outside a smart house just off Wimpole Street, round the corner from Harley Street. I check the number again. There’s no sign, not even a discrete brass plaque.  I press the intercom. 

‘Hello,’ says the tinny voice. 

‘Er, is this Inner Sound? ‘

‘Yes.’

Warm and fuzzy, huh?  Well two can play at that game. 

‘Jane Alexander.’

Bzzzzzz. 

I walk in, footsteps echoing.  It’s like the Marie Celeste.  Wend my way up the stairs and finally see someone, a youngish man at a desk.  I walk over, say hello and stick out my hand.  He shakes it half-heartedly, looking pointedly at my feet.

‘Could you change out of your boots please? There are slippers out there.’ He points back the way I came.  ‘Er, sure…’  I wander back and see there’s a (small) sign instructing the shift.  It isn’t the best of starts and the guy behind the desk really definitely doesn't get my inner sounds humming happily. 

This is the Inner Sound Foundation and I’m here to check out a Qi treatment.  Apparently it’s an ancient Korean technique in which the ‘Master’ presses acupressure points in your body while using a breathing technique to transmit energy via sound. It has good results, I’m told, with all manner of ailments, including insomnia, arthritis, stress, back pain, ME (have you noticed how it's okay to call it ME again?) and intolerances. Intolerances eh? I have a few of those.

  

I’m given a form to fill in and offered tea, juice or water…there’s lots of fruit everywhere too. It's all very...abundant. But I’m still not feeling the love.

Then Master Kim comes out to fetch me. She could be any age, wearing a long blue skirt and a gleaming white linen shirt.  Her room is all very girly, with pink cushions and embroidered coasters but my eye keeps getting drawn to the large box of tissues in a frilly lacey case that puts me in mind of Aunty Dot’s loo roll holder.  

‘Do people cry?’ I say, eyeing the frills.

‘Oh yes,’ she beams. ‘Lots.’

We sit down (her on a chair, me on the sofa next to the frilly tissues) and she shuts her eyes.  She looks pained.  Actually she looks in severe pain.  She yawns. She swallows. She twitches.  And then she burps loudly.

‘This is quite serious,’ she says, shaking her head at me. I feel an overwhelming urge to apologise. I’ve made this serene erstwhile smiling woman burp in anguish.  Her eyes shut and off we go again. Sigh. Yawn. Swallow. Twitch. Burp. Very loudly.

‘Oh dear.’

What?  

Turns out I’m a bad case of appallingly low energy.  Eyes, liver, kidneys, digestion – all screwed basically.  But why, I ask?  

She smiles pityingly.  ‘Emotional pain. Deep emotional pain.’

Okay.  

Then I’m on the couch, fully clothed for once.  Does that make it any less intense?  Er, no.  She starts on my stomach and, eee, aaaa, ooooo, uuuuughghghgh.  That HURTS.  She prods deep into the area around my navel and her burping and yawning intensifies.  I, meanwhile, am fighting a strong urge to fart in a companionable way – a kind of symphony of body noises?  As if reading my mind, she ups the ante and goes in for some deep throat retching, like a cat coughing up a hair ball.  I clench my buttocks and keep quiet.  I made a woman retch??  She moves all over my body – it’s a firm but (apart from the stomach bit) not painful touch, an insistent rubbing and pushing, all accompanied by a whooshing sound that comes from her stomach.

Treatments are usually swift – usually around 15 minutes – but this seems to be going on for a long, long time.  Is time stretching?  But when I check my watch I see an hour has passed.  I’m obviously a really serious case. Oh dear indeed.

She explains that my vital energy is so low that I cannot digest food properly.  It will also affect my sleep, my concentration and my sense of emotional peace. 

‘Are you cold?’ she asks.  Er, is the pope Catholic?  I nod meekly.

‘Oh dear. Oh dear, oh dear.’

She gazes at me and I feel like a six year old.  ‘You’re very lovely,’ she says, by way of a consolation prize. ‘Very lovely. Just so so tired. What is your nationality?’

Huh?  That came out of left-field. ‘Er, sort of English I suppose.’

‘Interesting.’

‘Er, why? What did you think I was?’

‘Well, the Irish are very friendly people.’

This is becoming more blissfully weird by the moment.  I ask her what I need to do to stop being so tired and Irish.

‘More treatment,’ she says firmly.  ‘I can’t recharge your battery in just one session.’ 

I resist the urge to burp in agreement.

PS - thanks to Anonymous for posting a link to this report on InnerSound (formerly Ki Health), claiming that it had brain-washed people into handing over huge sums of money.  That kinda explains a lot. 

My other terrier

Have I told you about my friend Liz?  Maybe, in passing, but not really.  Is it odd that my two oldest dearest friends are both lawyers?

Curiously enough, what passed for careers advice when I was at school (some kind of questionnaire which arbitrarily spat out job choices) suggested I should become a barrister.  But then again it also offered up industrial relations, hotel management and, er, journalism.  Anyhow…

Liz is a solicitor, one of London’s top divorce lawyers as it happens. Don’t believe me?  Google her. Liz Vernon.  Liz ‘The Terrier’ Vernon as dubbed by The Sun, if I recall.   And, y’know, they’ve got a point – she IS like a terrier, a sort of Asbo but way brighter, less neurotic and with much sweeter breath.

She was on Diana’s divorce team at Mishcon de Reya but now she’s a partner at Clintons, handling the break-ups of the likes of Karen Parlour (wife of footballer Ray, which became a landmark case), Shane Ritchie and Slavica Ecclestone (wife of Bernie). 

And if I were facing a potentially messy divorce, I know who I’d want on my side. Yup, The Terrier.  Why?  Well, first up, because she’s sharp as a whip with one of those razor-bright brains… No, forget razors, let’s go for scalpels.  But then, like a terrier, she doesn’t think just in straight lines; she makes quantum jumps. 

Once she gets her teeth into something, she doesn’t let go. She shakes and shakes it until it gives in. And she digs. She’ll uncover things even your spouse didn’t know about him or herself – honestly, the delight she takes in delving is plain…frightening.

She’s deceptive.  Look at her, all five foot nothing of her, and you’d think, Oh sweet little munchkin.  But, please, fight the urge to pat her on the head.  Many a person (men in particular) has been taken in by her stature, her pretty face, her disarmingly charming manner.  But foolish is the man or woman who fecklessly underestimates or patronises her.  For if need be, she bites – hard and sharp and fast.  Trust me, you’d need tetanus shots.  I’ve heard her in action and it made me quake – and I wasn’t even on the receiving end of the bark and bite.

Yet, also like a terrier, she is loyal as feck. If she’s on your side, you won’t ever feel alone.  She looks after people, and she really cares. I’ve often been there, when she’s off duty, relaxing – and then her mobile phone rings and she excuses herself and I hear the tone of her voice shift – alternating between calm  reassurance and firm ‘you can do this’ cheerleading.  Then, even though I can’t hear the words, I detect the tone fall into total empathy.  Because Liz knows, first-hand, what divorce can feel like. She’s been through it herself, and gutty it was too. So she knows, she really truly knows.  ‘Hey,’ I said once. ‘It’s 11pm on a Saturday night – can’t you just turn off your phone?’  She shook her head. ‘Not everyone needs it,’ she said. ‘And I don’t always do it, by any means. But it’s part of my job. I’m as much a counselor as a lawyer, sometimes. And I do understand.  Anyhow, nine to five doesn't always cut it - you don't always arrange to have your wobble during office hours.’  Fair point well made.

I adore her. From the moment she moved into my house and my life, along with Snuff the cat, flamenco shoes, furry handcuffs and Learn Russian tapes, I knew we’d be friends for life.  She’s not only smart and kind and honest, but she’s got a brilliant sense of humour, a filthy dirty laugh and she tells it like it is…she doesn’t pull her punches and that’s exactly what you need from your true friends (and your lawyers, come to that).

We don’t see each other than much, sadly. But it doesn’t matter – we just pick up right where we left off – and seeing her in London was sublime.  She took me for lunch on the South Bank and we talked long and hard and silly and sensible.  We laughed like drains and came close to tears.  What did we say?  Oh, what did we say?  I couldn’t possibly divulge. That’s between me and my terrier. 

But, seriously.  If you do ever find yourself in the unfortunate position of needing a shit-hot divorce lawyer, then my considered opinion, m’lud, is that you should nab The Terrier fast.  Before your spouse does…

Okay, so that’s not terribly Buddhist, huh?   Though, hang about…I open Pema at random and read… “Wanting situations and relationships to be solid, permanent, and graspable obscures the pith of the matter, which is that things are fundamentally groundless.”   :-)

My body fesses up to Ben Barnett

‘You’ve got to see Ben Barnett,’ said Nicky Hughes. ‘You really have.’ She’d done a session of Theta Healing with me, removing past blockages, re-setting my DNA and blasting out the bit of me that believes poverty is cool and that I’m not eminently lovable (allegedly). So, after all that, I still wasn’t clean and clear as a whistle?  Sheesh, does it never end?  But then I know the answer to that.  We go up and up, climbing those ladders…  We think we’ve reached some kind of understanding, that we’ve ‘made it’ and then…whoosh…down the snake we go, tumbling head over heels to that bloody START square all over again.

Every time you think you’ve ‘got it’ is the time to watch out, to be on guard.  Because, or so I’ve found, that’s when you’re in the biggest danger of all.  Your ego gets all smug and – no matter how spiritual and pure and elevated you may think you’re being – it’s bullshit.  And then, if you’re lucky, SLAM, you trip up and slide.  You know nothing again. You’re back to being a beginner.  Isn’t it wonderful?  As my new favourite Buddhist Pema Chodron says, ‘To be fully alive, fully human and completely awake is to be continually thrown out of the nest.’ 

Anyhow.  I was in Somerset and Ben was in London. I was broke and Ben is expensive. I figured I’d have to do without his magic.  Make do and mend.  But then, ka-ching, I found I was going to London and had spare time – a lot of spare time, as it happened. And I asked a magazine I write for if they’d like a review of his treatment and they said oooh, go on, so I suggested a trade to Ben and he was cool about that so – there you go.

He’s got big plans, has Ben.  He has a book in mind and would like to get his stuff out on TV.  And, you know, I think he’ll do it.  He’s good-looking, charming, talks a mile a minute and has that supreme self-confidence that says anything is possible.    He’s had celeb clients too (and yes, that does matter if you want to get a book or TV deal nowadays) – mostly, like the majority of good therapists, he won’t name names but Kylie has raved about him in print so she’s good for a name check.

‘How did you come to do massage?’ I asked, cos it always strikes me as an odd career. He laughed. ‘I studied engineering at university, then became a professional footballer player.’ Eh, what?  ‘Who did you play for?  He laughed.  ‘Barnet.  Yeah, Ben Barnett for Barnet. Great, huh? I kinda wished my Mum had had Inter Milan as her surname.’  

He didn’t want to turn into ‘an alcoholic footballer’ so, because of an interest in physiology, he took a massage course and was instantly hooked. ‘I had this sudden Aha moment of,  “Oh, okay, this is what I’m supposed to be doing.”  He had a classical training in Swedish and remedial massage but then came across Hydrotherm which at the time was newly developed by John Holman. It’s a water-filled segmented pad that lies across the massage couch allowing a full body massage without the need to lie on your back. So no nose in the hole, no pressure on the chest, no turning over mid-stream, so to speak.  ‘Being on water, you become far more aware of your body and I can also feel far more easily where it is relaxed and where it’s being protective,’ Ben explains, also pointing out that it’s brilliant for pregnancy and for older people too.

It’s fascinating stuff. Ben says that assumptions sit in the body and that often our assumptions aren’t even current or conscious – they’re based on the past; on our past experiences which we then turn into universal truths.  ‘People often have protective responses and that’s fine but you have to ask, is the reason for that protection current? Is it still appropriate? Often the protective response is bigger than the pain itself.’

Interesting. He also firmly believes that bodies talk far louder than words and that is something I have always believed – that we hold our history in our bones, fascia, muscles, ligaments, skin, organs, not just in our heads.  As he works, he listens to the body under his hands – and he talks – or rather he talks on behalf of the body.  ‘I found early on that I had a compulsion to talk during treatment,’ he says. ‘Using my voice as a third hand. I just get a very clear feeling of what needs to be said – it’s as if I’m channeling your body.’ So, effectively, your body is talking to him and he’s just relaying it all back to your mind. If you feel what I’m thinking.

It was, to put it mildly, an interesting experience. If you’re unused to massage, I’d warn that you might find it  challenging. Ben – like most serious bodyworkers - prefers to work on a totally naked body (and yes, I know that’s an issue for a lot of people) but really, think about it…you don’t bat an eye if a doctor wants to examine your body; and if a gynecologist asks you to spread your legs, you don’t assume they want to give you one, do you?  Do you?  Yet we get coy around people whose job is to release tension in the body.  *shrug*

‘I do work on the chest area,’ he said. ‘But I always ask people if they feel comfortable with that or not.  Generally though, by the time I get there, people are usually so relaxed they don’t give a damn where I work.’

His touch is deep and assured.  Usually I tend to float off during bodywork but I became intrigued by what he was saying, my mind puzzling at the narrative.  He’d asked me to give him two words – how I would want to feel as I left the session and, eventually I had decided on Free and Clear.  Yes, I know I said in an earlier blog that I was going for Wild and Free but at the last minute I’d switched Clarity for Wild as Wild had seemed a bit wanton somehow.  I told Ben and he laughed – ‘Wild may come along for the ride,’ he said.

He also frequently reminds you to breath, something else I often forget to do and that, too, kept me in the present, in the body, rather than wafting out into space.  

‘The body is capable of miraculous things,’ he said. ‘This is all about using your body to unlock the potential in your life.’

It’s a great mix of the purely physiological and the spiritual.  Psyche and soma. It’s a bit like having an intense psychotherapy session without having to say a word, bypassing the need for rational thought; for guarded thought.  The body doesn’t lie – it cuts straight to the chase. For years I've believed we should be  moving towards this – the synthesis of talk and touch therapies. Biodynamic therapy did it to a degree and, actually, it’s something all good intuitive bodyworkers probably do anyhow – just without advertising it.

And what did my body say to him?  Did it spill?  Did it give up all its deep dark dirty secrets?  Hmm, yes, quite a few actually.  Quite freakily so.  Am I going to tell you?  Hell no! Go see Ben and talk to your own body!