It was meant to be a vehicle for witty and insightful observations on life, but following events in my personal life it became a journal for self indulgent analysis.

I’ve reached a point where I’m tired of looking inwardly and now ready to embrace life again. Introspection is fine for a while, but it does tend to become stifling.

I probably won’t be posting for a while unless I see something that interests me.

Well that’s exactly what I did for the last 10 days, revisited Las Vegas, capital of excess, after an absence of over 4 years, with a group of like minded friends.

That’s not to say that my expectations were hopelessly crushed. Far from it, I’d gone to play poker and I certainly played a lot of poker, without, it has to be said a whole lot of success, a lot of which can be attributed to the bad luck that all poker players suffer from (and are invariably keen to tell you about!). I’m a better than average poker player, but know that I’m not a great poker player, but that’s OK. I realise what I like about live poker is the comforting amiability of the poker table and the ephemeral relationships that you form with your fellow poker players. I experience a whole range of emotions when playing poker; boredom when not in a hand for some time, elation when winning a pot, anxiety when not sure what to do, right through to self loathing when making a bad play. All of these emotions are surprisingly addictive, even the negative ones.

Las Vegas this time round seems a little jaded, or perhaps that’s just me. There are some new developments on the strip, Aria, Cosmopolitan and the new Crystals City Centre Plaza and by Vegas standards they can be considered as stylish and glamorous, but anywhere else they would be viewed as gauche and vulgar. What did surprise me is the presence of an original Henry Moore sculpture innocuously placed between Crystals and Aria, a beautiful piece, largely ignored by all that pass it by. There’s also an original piece by British sculptor Tony Cragg in the lobby of Aria itself.

Henry Moore Sculpture at Crystals, Las Vegas

Apparently it’s all part of the first major permanent collection of art in Las Vegas to be integrated into a public space, and one of the world’s largest and most ambitious corporate collections in existence today. The art ranges from sculpture to large-scale installations; it features work by 15 acclaimed painters, sculptors and visionaries, including Maya Lin, Jenny Holzer, Nancy Rubins, and Frank Stella, among others.

Tony Cragg sculpture at Aria, Las Vegas

Laudable, but Vegas is what it is, a shrine to non stop gambling and shopping. I think the display of Jimmy Choo Icons in Crystals and the Lamborghini parked at Aria garnered more attention than the sculptures.

It’s the relentlessness about Vegas, that this time I found wearing. There is absolutely nowhere to find stillness and tranquility and, being on my own for the large part of the time I was there, that was precisely what I craved at times. On occasions I felt like I was in a ‘stop motion’ video, where I was moving slowly and everything and everyone around me was a blur of sound and movement.

I did manage to find the space and time to read a couple of books, one of which was Jonathan Franzen’s, Freedom, a really good book that is described as ‘a story about the human heart, and what it leads us to do to ourselves and each other’. It also touches on the environmental irresponsibility of the world in general, and Americans in particular, when one of the main protagonists becomes involved in a project to save territory to preserve one particular bird’s breeding grounds. It was apposite reading it in Vegas, surrounded as I was by ample evidence of over consumption. I missed the book once I’d finished it, it was so absorbing and it touched me.

I only observed one other person reading a book in Vegas. That didn’t surprise me. People don’t come here to read, that’s for sure!

I’m home now. My digestive system thanks me for that. It was a welcome break from reality. Will I go back? Not sure. Maybe Italy next year. Better food, more stylish and probably less taxing on the wallet!

I love reading about other people’s work setups, I really do. It’s one of my guilty pleasures.

I’ll read about another blogger’s computer setup, or what kind of notebook and pen he uses, or how he works standing up or on a treadmill or while doing handstand pushups and growing a vegetable garden.

And when I read about some cool setup someone else has, some cool new way of working, I inevitably want to try it. I’m only human.

You’ve done this too, probably. You might read a review of some new software that will help you create, or a new fashion style or some cool shoes or beautiful furniture or the newest iPad, or the latest iPhone app. Or maybe you’re a minimalist and read someone’s barefoot running article, or how they’re living out of a backpack, and want to try that.

It’s a trap.

We’re endlessly looking at how others do things, for inspiration and ideas … but we end up wanting to try those things too. That sounds harmless until you realize that you’ll buy almost anything because someone wrote about it and made it sound amazing. You’ll live a life of an endless series of purchases because of what other people are doing. And it never ends.

Even if you don’t buy stuff, you’ll change your life endlessly, based on what others are doing. You’ll give up your couch, you’ll stop buying Ikea furniture, then give up your cell phone, then give up your computer, then start doing yoga, then become a Zen monk, then create a tech startup. Those things are amazing, sure … but when does it ever end?

When do we ever feel content with the life we’re living?

If you look to the lives of others,
you’ll always find yourself lacking.
Look instead at what you have,
and be grateful.

Reduce your needs,
and be content.
And your life of striving
for perfection, for the future,
will become a life of balance
the moment, of inner peace.

He said he’d lost his wife Edna 2 years ago and how he’d sold his house in Rochdale and now lived in a caravan near Blackpool, but that he couldn’t live there all year round and had to spend 6 weeks of the year living in the hotel we were sat in.

86 he was and he talked about the business he’d set up in the 60s with his business partners tuning cars on rolling roads, long before the advent of on board in car diagnostic computers. How rally teams used to drive down over night from Scotland in convoy to use their services, arriving in the early morning light.

He talked lovingly about how he and Edna had travelled on the Orient Express to Venice and how they’d fallen in love with Venice, how he’d looked at property there, but couldn’t afford any.

He talked about how he’d almost moved the business to Canada, but how the ill health of one of his partners had made that a non starter. How his life might have been different if he had. He certainly wouldn’t have been sat in a hotel in Blackpool on a cold and windy February day.

He explained how his father had sworn him to temperance when he was young and that he’d never drunk alcohol since except for unknowingly once, on VJ day, when someone spiked his drink. He’d served in Simla in Northern India during World War II.

He loved train journeys and talked about his plans for going up to Scotland in the summer with a female friend that he had. We talked at length, or rather I listened. He clearly wanted to talk.

I suspect that his life was far from perfect and that he missed the life that he once had, but in a strange way I admired him. He’d lost someone that he was devoted to, quite clearly he was a bit lonely, but he’d made a life for himself, maybe a life less complete than he’d hoped for, but a life nonetheless.

I leave my home this week, prompted by circumstances beyond my control to embark on a life much different than the one I once envisaged, but I draw inspiration from the old man who smiled and shared his life with me that day.

My resolution partly inspired by this blog post by Tommy Angelo is to do less, to not have goals, not have to do lists, avoid meaningless meetings, not look forward too much, stop looking back and generally try and be more happy with me. (Note: A good source of tips on happiness check Gretchen Rubin’s Happiness Project)

I have to admit that I’m a glass half empty sort of guy and find myself sometimes either playing the ‘what if’ game with my past or playing future scenarios in my head about things that actually never happen or if they do they’re never as bad as I imagined. My goal is to spend more time in the moment, to do nothing but sit and stare and dream, smile wistfully and all the time not feel guilty about it.

I’m also reading the new expanded Four Hour Work Week by Tim Ferris. Having read the original I am still struck by the insights in the book, particularly how Pareto’s 80/20 Principle applies to so much in life. I need to stop ‘being’ 80% of what I am!

If I did want goals I would probably go with Tim’s dreamlining to achieve things. Detailed instructions for how to do this are contained in the book in the chapter “System Reset: Being Unreasonable and Unambiguous,” but you can get a good idea with the following worksheets:

Sample 6-Month Dreamline and Blank Dreamline
Dreamlining Calculators and Worksheet

Tim suggests creating two timelines—six months and twelve months—and list up to five things you dream of having (including, but not limited to, material wants: house, car, clothing, etc.), being (be a great cook, be fluent in Chinese, etc.), and doing (visiting Thailand, tracing your roots overseas, racing ostriches, etc.), in that order. Read more about Tim’s approach to this at his blog.

That’s not to say I don’t have goals for this year. For instance my daughter gets married in June and, sure, I would like to be a couple of stone lighter and I know how to do that. Eat less, exercise more. But if I don’t achieve that – hey – will my daughter love me less? I’m guessing not. The only downside is we’ll need a bigger suit!

My philosophy to goal setting can probably be better summed up by this quote by the Danish philosopher Soren Kierkegaard: ‘If I were to wish for anything, I should not wish for wealth and power, but for the passionate sense of the potential, for the eye which, ever young and ardent, sees the possible. Pleasure disappoints, possibility never. And what wine is so sparkling, what so fragrant, what so intoxicating, as possibility!’

What I do want to do this year is feed my soul, read more, learn things, love more generously, shun ‘stuff’, grow vegetables, shop locally, avoid negativity, plan less, be happier!

There! They all look pretty vague and undefined and that’s just the way I like my resolutions! Here’s to an interesting and unstructured 2010 full of limitless possibility!

Now I, in response to my aging and the weariness with which I approach my 50 hour working week (even though I predominantly enjoy what I do!) have long dreamed of living ‘off grid’ in something like a yurt or maybe a log cabin and tilling the soil and rearing chickens and pigs for meat. My paternal great grandfather Zaccheous (what a biblical name!) was a sheep farmer in South Wales, but left in the 1890s to seek his fortune in London.

This phenonmenon was repeated throughout the country (and ultimately throughout the Western world) as the Industrial Revolution promised to offer a better life in the cities. What happened instead is that people, instead of working in communities, worked in factories, owned by Industrialists, for six or seven days a week and became defined by what they did rather than having the broader range of skills that were necessary in an agrarian economy.

I will readily admit I don’t understand economics, but given recent events I’m not sure bankers or economists understand much more! What I do know is that now, we make very little as at first, imperialism and then globalisation sought cheaper and cheaper costs of production and moved to countries where labour costs were much lower (because they are primarily agrarian too). This ultimately, surely, is unsustainable as won’t we ultimately end up running out of sources of cheap labour? And is it right? Isn’t it just imperialism dressed up as global economics? And how good is it for the overall society of the country that loses these jobs? We can’t all work in service jobs, surely we have to make something and grow something. I despair to hear of communities  in the UK that once were miners, steelworkers, car makers where now three generations of families have never worked. Ever.

In the West, we grow less and less of the food that we eat and again I can’t fathom how sustainable this can be, so maybe the community in the Valle degli Elfi is a sort of model for the future and that industrialisation proves to be largely, in social terms, a failure. I know I want to live a life that is not wasteful of the world’s resources and supports local producers of both goods (where possible!) and food.

There’s not much in English about this community on the web, but there is this account from someone who visited it which I reproduce here.

“At Valle degli Elfi we could stay at the part that is called Aldaia. Around 15 people (small and big) live here in two houses, a wooden hut and a yurt.
Further more there is communal garden with vegetables, a shed for the cow, a hen house and a fenced area for the geese. All around are trees who at this time were dropping lots of walnuts and chestnuts.

In one of the houses there is daily a school for the smaller children (primary school) where in turns some of the adults of the Valle give classes. In the other house there is a kitchen/living room that functions as a social meeting space where lots of people gather to cook, eat, talk, play, read, make music etc…. Around lunch and diner time people come together to share a delicious cooked meal. Especially at diner time it is sometimes really crowded with happy and chaotic children, adults, cats and dogs running around (sometimes the geese, chickens and even cow Brigitte try to take part and sneak in….).

During our stay there were always other visitors around and since the moment we arrived we were welcomed as part of the family. It was sometimes difficult for me to really take part in conversations as the main language is Italian. Anyway I could help out in daily activities and in this way get to know the people, animals and area. The surroundings are amazingly beautiful: in the mountains, Forrest everywhere and almost no roads. Most settlements of the Valle are only reachable via little forest roads by foot. Most of the materials and foods are collected and grown locally or brought by wheelbarrow or carried by hand.”

I know that I would miss the Internet. And health care. And central heating. And my 3 hour commute to work (NOT!)

I know Nice attracts a lot of tourists, but is there any excuse for a waiter sneezing at your table as he’s about to take your order, or for not clearing away the debris from the first course while your eating your second? I won’t name the restaurant, but it is one of Nice’s landmark seafood restaurants.

Cote Marais Restuarant, Nice

However for food that lifts the soul and satisfies the heart, look no further than the tiny, cash only, Cote Marais restaurant on Rue Du Pontin, in the old city of Nice. (Closed Wednesday). They have a three course ‘formule’ of around 6 starters and 6 main courses (TIP: avoid restaurants with huge extensive menus) which includes a special of the day for €31 (prices corect September 2009)

My wife and I dined here last year at the recommendation of another restaurateur and enjoyed it so much that we were anticipating our return, hoping that the food was still superb. We were not disappointed!

I started with the Scallops (Noix de  Saint Jacques poelees, endives caramelisees), followed by the Filet de Boeuf (cooked medium, which would be medium rare to rare in any other country!) with dauphinoise potatoes and a beautiful jus. My wife had the entree du jour, which was a portion of pot au feu in aspic served with mayonnaise followed by several huge prawns with a delicate vanilla broth (Gambas sauvages a la veritable vanille) and pommes puree (mash to you and me). This was all washed down with a gorgeous bottle of 2006 Faugeres.

If you’re ever in Nice and fancy a night of sublime eating pleasure visit Cote Marais. Reservations are recommended as it fills up very quickly. Tel: 0033.493.80.95.39.

Enjoy!

Built in 1912, overlooking the famous Bay of Angels (Baie des Anges), and classified as a National Historic Monument in 1974, the Hotel Negresco is one of the few remaining privately owned palaces still existing in the world.

Henri NEGRESCO, born in 1868, constructed the hotel in 1912. The son of a Rumanian innkeeper, he left his home at the age of 15 in order to travel around Europe. From Paris he went to Monaco and then to Nice where he became director of the Municipal Casino. At this time he was already quite famous and heads of state, princes and the American “kings” of finance, the Rockefellers, the Vanderbildts and the Singers had all heard of Negresco !

His dream was to build a palace worthy of his prestigious clients and he entrusted the construction of his “palace” to one of the most talented architects of that time, Edouard Niermans.

Since 1957 the hotel has been owned by Jeanne AUGIER who has put all her energy into creating a museum-hotel that has become a veritable showcase of French art for her international visitors.

The Med from Cap Ferrat

I’m sitting in one of the most beautiful places in the world, Nice in the South of France where most of the most prominent 20th Century artists came because of the superb light. The apartment has Wi-Fi and Internet and I’m carrying a Samsung netbook and my iPhone 3G so can keep up with news and sport at home. Running Skype too so can keep in touch with friends, family and work whilst enjoying the 30 degree sun.

I took this photo from Mme Ephrussi de Rothschild’s Villa and Gardens at Cap Ferrat. It’s a stunning place! Through the art dealers and experts she befriended, she sought out artworks all over the world, transforming the Villa at Saint-Jean-Cap-Ferrat into a collector’s paradise. Between sea and sky, overlooking the bay of Villefranche, the nine heavenly gardens are adorned with patios, fountains, ponds, flowered and shaded paths

Despite my occasional propensity to gloom (which I attribute to the Celt in me) what a blessed life I have compared to many.