Adrian Scott Counsellor Supervisor MBACP Accred

Another celebrity takes their own life. A female presenter of popular TV shows with a girl next door image under pressure. Intrusion

The pact which celebrities make with the world of celebrity is unpredicatble and uncontrollable. Public interest in celebrities requires more knowledge and intrusion into the celebrity’s life for the press to write about. Ordinary people and their families put under extraordinary pressures of scrutiny.
Combined with a lack of privacy unimaginable to a population wanting to know more and more.

Unmonitored social media making comments cut off from feeling for the impact on the celebrity. Misogyny and mistrust towards women part of the normal discourse in the public arena and media.

What is the relationship to celebrity in 2020? Love Hate? An avoidance at looking inwards to our own lives?
A marketing ploy to sell us products? We form parasocial relationships with celebrities which are not reciprocal, like pets. We can project ourselves into a fairy tale life with the celebrity. Does this alleviate the dullness of everyday life. To imagine another life we can escape our own lives of repetition, ordinariness, & struggle?

Is there a lack of capacity populations of modern western economies have to live in their own lives?
Is this because we get what we want but not what we need? Is a life dominated by neo-liberal captialism so bad for humans? Too unbearable that we have to be somewhere else in our heads.

Perhaps it has always been so. But not as extreme?

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Disclaimer: This weblog is the view of the writer and for general information only
This article is designed to provoke argument and critique

Fathers and Women have an impact on their children. Not what they say but what they do around women. How they treat them. How they objectify women. Children learn through modelling. Boys and Men might judge other boys and men on the way they treat women.

Men who have lots of relationships with women are curious to other men and women. Stereotypically men might like to be like them, women find them attractive. Or men hate them cos they make them look unkind, and women treat them like a threat.

In this example the Father is a romantic figure. Rushing to witness the birth of his kids he drives his Citroen SM (great car but unique and expensive to maintain) fast down the motorway oblivious to the fuel gauge. The car ran out of petrol so he too ran the rest of the way!

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Disclaimer: This weblog is the view of the writer and for general information only
This article is designed to provoke argument and critique

Shrewsbury Cathedral has rejuvinated its bells after 50 years of not ringing. 
The controversy is that there is an automated digital system which rings the bells without the aid of bell ringers. Digital Peal

Bell Ringers seen as a volunteer force up and down the country drawing the congregations of Middle England to church. More than this they are part of the community supporting the Church but not necessarily religious.

Metaphorically the opposite of the digital world. Gentle Musical Rythmical Mechanical Natural.
No Screen Beep Button Press or Symbol. Digital Peal

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Disclaimer: This weblog is the view of the writer and for general information only
This article is designed to provoke argument and critique

The Prime Minister was missing at Brexit on the day the UK left the European Union. He was nowhere to be seen. 
Was this to be seen as not crowing about his Brexit victory? Was he being nice to Remainers? As the vote was so close he wants to keep the Electorate united and together?

The idea that the Prime Minister is a remainer makes more sense. Apparently he hates the B word. Never wants to hear it. Brexit was a game. He never believed people would believe what he said. Look at his face on Brexit morning. The horror of what he had achieved had dawned on him.

Another idea from Ken Clarke (27mins 53secs) is populist leaders are not politicians. They have no political mandate or direction. They have charisma and values which are against the establishment and political processes. There are many people in the general population like this. So they have a lot of support.

The main theme that the UK and the US share is that its disenfranchised populations want their countries to return to an era where they felt important. To live in communities with work.
Missing at Brexit

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Disclaimer: This weblog is the view of the writer and for general information only
This article is designed to provoke argument and critique

Defenestration – the act of throwing somebody or something out of a window. But more of an act of political dissent most notably the Defenestrations of Prague in 1419 and 1618.

There is an urban legend that during the 1929 stock market crash in the US many Wall Street Investors autodefenestrated themselves. This may not have been a political act: but an escape.

Garry Hoy was trying to demonstrate the strength of the window glass, so accidentally threw himself out of a window to his death. The law firm couldn’t get over his death and closed. 

The Terror Attacks on the Twin Tower World Trade Centre , and Abraham Lincoln who in 1840 jumped out of a window as a political gesture to prevent the closing of the Illinois State Bank – another two examples of Defrenestration.

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Disclaimer: This weblog is the view of the writer and for general information only
This article is designed to provoke argument and critique

When of the enduring questions for the left and centre is how Populist politicians are so attractive to the electorate? One answer might be the rise of measurement and its administration leading to a culture of Proceduralism.

The increase of rules, excel sheets, quality reviews, & audits all done in the medium of powerpoint has created a management class at odds with the workers trying to provide services. Those service workers generally see society as a network of human relationships. Those who manage the workers as a set of rules in organisations and institutions.

This sets workers and managers apart. The idea that managers are overpaid and that their salaries could fund services is not new. But the culture of work is overtaken by this culture of measurement to create social classes with these ambitions. This started with Thatcherism and is continued and prospered with both the left and right political parties in the Uk. This obsession with paperwork and filling forms is most prevelant in the Uk. 312k accountants and 150k lawyers make up a large part of the Uk workforce.

This might help explain the attraction of populist politicians. Even if they come across as shambolic and impulsive they radiate a can do attitude. Cut through the Proceduralism and get it done!
This idea of cutting through the red tape of the management class goes to the heart of life in the Uk.
It is attractive to think that Populist politicians can bypass this management culture.
It looks like this is what the new Uk government is going to try to do.

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Disclaimer: This weblog is the view of the writer and for general information only
This article is designed to provoke argument and critique

There is a theory that the planet is heading for a Green Apocalypse. The end of the world. Not enough people are bothered or care enough about the planet to save it. In the last election the Labour Party was congratulated for its Green Manifesto. But it was too complicated, too middle class and didn’t resonate with working class voters.

Extinction Rebellion XR is an activist political movement trying to agitate governments to promise green legislation. Intent on disruption but in danger of alienating people’s support.

And the planet keeps dying.
The idea of Apocalypse isn’t new. It is part of many religions and belief systems. Is there a kind of relief in the end? Could it be reassuring? Perhaps we loathe ourselves so much that we think humans ought to die in this way? Is this yearning for the apocalypse freezing the human race into inaction?

Freud and his theory of the death instinct also add to this idea that we are more comfortable with the idea of the end and death. All of life leads to death. So why not include ourselves and the planet?
Green Apocalypse

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Disclaimer: This weblog is the view of the writer and for general information only
This article is designed to provoke argument and critique

Apricity meaning from the warmth of the sun in the season of winter. The word used to describe a very specific phenomenon – the sun’s warmth on a cold winter’s day. 

The word’s origin comes from the Latin apricus representing a sunny day but in a random way used to describe objects warmed by the sun. The Modern Italian language derived apricot from the same Latin word, but really it describes an outdoors position that is clear, bright and serene.

The other word originating from this Latin root is apricate, a verb, meaning a basking, warming up, in the sun.

In the modern world words like this are lost, in our culture of the indoors divorced from nature. This is a nature word to describe a state of mind of being in the moment and appreciating a beauty that is given and free. The moment that the physical world is bigger than us. A moment of luxury of being cold but warmed by the rays of the sun. 

Through awareness Apricity is easily used. Next time when out and about in nature or even on the way to work. Point out to a colleague the beauty of Apricity. 

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Disclaimer: This weblog is the view of the writer and for general information only
This article is designed to provoke argument and critique

So Labour have lost the election again. They have only two elections in the last 50 years.
Brexit has muddled British Politics. Usual Labour voters voted Conservative to Get Brexit Done

One way of thinking about the political scene is to see it as an exercise in non representation. Cameron introduced the Brexit Referendum, to appease the Tory Right. Johnson represents an elite who benefit from Brexit by corporate profit. Corbyn represents Brexit (but couldn’t say so) to benefit left wing idealogue.
Public School Boys Games

The common theme is that they are each representing themselves. Not who they are elected or paid to represent. This is an expression of a political system that is unrepresentative.
If the system is unrepresentative, the people in it are also going to be unrepresentative.

If Cameron had looked outside the Westminster Bubble he would have seen the signs. If Corbyn had reached out to the dessimated working classes in the North, he might have had a clearer Brexit Mandate. Both decent?, well meaning? men who looked in rather than out.

While Johnson immoral, and unscrupulous, flexing any way to gain advantage. Win or Lose. The unrepresentative system creates a vacuum, for the immoral to work their schemes. Whatever works to their advantage is used. There is no base or platform that can predict behaviours except to see the behaviours through the lens of advantage. Johnson doesn’t know who Johnson is. Like Blair who doesn’t know who Blair is. Both suceeded in ruling the UK to their own advantage.

This all begins at Public School. A training ground setting up young boys to compete, and win. The intensity of the Public School Experience creates a bubble of expectation. Where winners are winners, and there is no way you want to be a loser. Losing is what is to be avoided. Not the joy of winning. The competition is so intense that young boys have to create a winning persona. Away from the more stabilsing effects of family and community.

Detached from themselves to win. This creates a dangerous, devious and highly intelligent individual mainly bound for the City or Politics.
Public School Boys Games

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Disclaimer: This weblog is the view of the writer and for general information only
This article is designed to provoke argument and critique

Under a week to go until a second election this year, the electorate is being tested. A more positive spin on the political scene is that we are coming to the end. The smell of decay abounds.
Dying Order. 

First started by Reagan and Thatcher Neo Liberalism was a dismantling of the state, and a push to self-reliance and the rise of the entrepreneur. With austerity this has extended to all parts of life, with the denial that it is all about debt. Paying back for past spending. 
 
Brexit looms. With no constitution in place. Big decisions being made for the UK by party political issues. The Extinction Rebellion generation is gathering momentum with increased awareness around climate change, and the fragility of the planet. More people are not eating meat. Challenging habits of a lifetime.
There is change in the air.

Copyright Adrian Scott North London Counsellor Blog 2019            
All rights reserved
Disclaimer: This weblog is the view of the writer and for general information only
This article is designed to provoke argument and critique