Say it with pictures

Is there anything more naff than emojis? I’d always thought they were about the lowest form of communication known to man. But…

I was wrong. Perhaps it’s my recent trip to Japan – but saying it in pictures sometimes says it better than words.

This was my week:

πŸ“₯πŸ“πŸ“―πŸ“¨πŸ“€πŸšœπŸ’©πŸ“πŸ’£πŸ‘΄πŸ‘΅πŸ’€πŸ‘ƒπŸƒβŒšοΈπŸ πŸŒ΅πŸŒ›πŸ”™πŸ”œβ‰οΈ

Probably only one other person in the world truly knows what this means. But the laughter we shared on opposite ends of mobile phones puts emojis on a par with poetry.

As Aristotle almost said, perhaps sometimes the job of the poet is to say something transcendent and universal about the human condition – in no more or less emojis than are needed…

πŸ”š

Pulling Teeth

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Needle jabs
And again
And again
A chill spreads
Then
Pins and needles
Before wheeeeee
And
Grrrrrzzzz
And pop
And CRACK
And heave
And ho!
And stitch
And pull
And tie
And knot
And swill
And cottonwool
And pills
And bill
Then tingle
And dribble
And blood
In a trickle
Then chemist
Then bus
Then home
To a nice fuss

It is done. After 25 years of dodging the dentist – and with a mighty and reverberating crack – my wisdom tooth is no more.

A cropped top and two roots lay on the slab in a forlorn trio. Pain is due in less than an hour, but I’m nearly home for tea – and hopefully some sympathy.

More Sun than Shivers

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Rainy day
Heading away
Patch of blue
Half way through
Arrive at the coast
Prosecco toast
Beautiful view
Before Barbecue
A day on the beach
Tasty Cornish pasty
Bucket and spade
Castles made
Splashing in the surf
Sun kissed
And wind tousled
Uphill hike
Chilli spike
Before a greyer day
To harbour throng
Ferry wait
Great escape
Walk in the dunes
Steep hill conquered
Happy son
New sword won
And the day is done
Bright again
Beach beckons
Serious boy splashing
Brave girl surfing
She manages standing
Despite hard landings
My job’s to potter
From one to the other
Wiling away
Another sunny day
The next is duller
Overcast overhead
Family fun and games
On steam trains
Boating and putting
A fair few laughs
Despite it being naff
Final day
Clifftop ramble
Among pretty brambles
Perilous steps
Precipitous edge
Stunning view
Sea more black than blue
Then
Footling around
Stomach grumbling
Waiting for orders
Before
Late lunch outdoors
Sword fight
With small knight
Fish on the beach
End is in reach
Sun sinks
A sky of all pinks
No more drinks
Pack up the car
Final hurrah
More sun than shivers
Cornwall delivers.

Deux Mille Treize

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Early start
Car packed out
Road hit squarely
Awake barely
Channel tunnel
Bridges and viaducts
Coffee machines and petrol stops
A1 French roads
Reduce down to
Salt pans and mussels
Over water
Paradise lost
Paradise found
Dream campsite
Canvas, clams and camp loos
Washing up and hammocks
Sun, sea and cycling
Then en route encore
To sunflowers and cooling towers,
Overnight stop in
Rural splendour, with mozzies and Aussie
Toulouse trek
Arizona valley
The long and winding road
To
Swimming pool, shutters and searing sun
Pain, cheese and ham
Bendy roads and supermarkets
Barbecues and rosΓ©
Hot and bitten, but not bothered
Splashing and laughing
Pink, then pinker then browned
Before lassitude and food fatigue set in
Le depΓ‘rt
Massif drive and sick bags full to
Paris, pool and parking
Kir, Cupole and walking
Metro, dodo
Tour Eiffel and boat trip
Montmartre then long marche
Auchan, duck and Chunnel
“I spy something beginning with…”
Cars.
Blighty, black clouds, driving rain
Before Home, sweet same old Home
Triumph, acclaim, then bedtime
A fine vintage
Deux Mille Treize

Avoid Big Egos in Small Numbers

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A recent if obvious discovery (all the best ones are), is the very worst things in working life happen behind closed doors, in small numbers. Here’s some verse, to keep reminding me of that.

Avoid closed doors
Between rocks and hard places.
Unreasonable wants
And impossible asks
Come together in confined spaces

The acceptable is found
Not by arm-wrestling,
Shutting down or going to ground.
But by careful crowd-sourcing
And sharing the love around.

When being pressed to do something you don’t think is right, won’t work or will go wrong, it often feels like it would be worse in the company of others. But I’m finding if you can get others in, get it out and let the task hang in the air a moment – very often, the reasonable middle ground prevails.

The art is to fight the instinct to defend, avoid or close down. When bad things look likely to happen, it pays to ensure there are others in the room. Sometimes it seems, the more egos the better.

So my new motto is: ‘avoid big egos in small numbers’, one-to-one being the very worst format of all. Share the love around.