Suicide Prevention Week

International Suicide Prevention Awareness Week – 4-10 September 2006

A work colleague has been handing out info about this worthwhile event, and I’m wearing the rather colourful promotional wristband. I hope you’ll give your support. Just go to www.chooselife.net for more information.

Holiday reading

While on holiday in Bulgaria, I took to read:

Fear: A Cultural History by Joanna Bourke

A book which looks at how fears such as phobias, nuclear holocaust, terrorism and war have developed and changed in social consciousness in the last 150 years. I’ve not yet finished it, but it’s well worth a look.

And of course I took some fantasy and science fiction:

The Physiognomy by Jeffrey Ford
A peculiar, extremely well written and gripping weird fantasy about a physiognomist who determines character from taking measurements of their bodies (for example, width between the eyes, nose to top lip) and acts as a sort of government investigator to uncover criminals or potential criminals through his art. I also recommend Mr Ford’s shorter work, in particular, The Empire of Ice Cream, which you can read online. But I also hope you will help him feed his family buy buying his terrific books.

Pandora’s Star and Judas Unchained by Peter F. Hamilton
I love a good space opera. And this two-parter, while hugely long at around 3,000 pages, combine multiple storylines that will appeal to lovers of science fiction, crime, westerns, romance, horror, and outdoor adventure (a la Jack London). Hamilton manages to mash together a host of genres seamlessly. Impressive stuff. Oh, and I loved one of the central conceits. How do you get from one planet to another in across a vast galactic commonwealth? By train, naturally. Only a British writer could come up with that one. You can also listen to a postcast review with Peter atwww.dragonpage.com.

A blog delayed

Guilty. I haven’t fed my blog for months. Time to start doing something about it.

I’ve just returned from holiday in Bulgaria, where we have a house. It’s a lovely country and warmer, friendlier people you could hardly imagine. Being in a place where people are quite poor, and only got free of Communism in the last twenty years, gives me a fresh perspective on life. My wife and I have met people very little money and who live simply who insist on giving us meals, gifts and (always) lots of Rakia to drink. Even if I had nothing I feel neighbours would help out, no matter how little they had themselves.

Knowing next to nothing about what the Bulgarians went through under the Communist regime I nevertheless got a strong sense of their ability to survive anything. In our village a young local priest was shot by the Communists, and the beautiful but rundown chapel there serves as a reminder and a monument to that event.

In light of what I seek to do as a counsellor, some of the Bulgarians I have met would make good role models. I try to help people I am counselling to recognise their inner strength and to use it to help them overcome even the most difficult issues. Many Bulgarians I know seem to have done just that, not just on a personal level, but on a larger, cultural and political scale. This must be true of other countries and peoples who have had to withstand the onslaught of oppressive leadership, but this is the first time I’ve had first-hand accounts.