Day 6 - Mrs. Baum and the Shouting Booth

While having a drink after the theatre she proposed an unusual plan: to shout our lungs out somewhere in the South Bank on our way home... "Interesting" I thought. We did, and it felt quite good to be honest, although I must admit that I was really worried someone will take me for a thief or possibly something worse after she had had a go.

A Business idea popped into my mind. Shouting your lungs out is quite stress-relieving (try it if you haven't). But in a city it is not easy to have a go (requires an empty space and quite a lot of courage... plus complete disregard to fellow citizens in the comfort of their beds). So why not install "shouting booths"?

For £2 you could get into an exclusive booth from which you could contemplate everything around you yet no one would be able to see you. It would be completely soundproof and the idea would be for you to have 5 minutes to yourself to shout as loud as you want without having to worry about anyone else. Once you are finished (you can't do this for 5 minutes, believe me) you would push a button and a soothing music would help you wind down.

I am sure people would love it and, in a world where stress is the number one threat to the workforce, I think this booths should be funded by the NHS!

Day 5 - 2008 (1984 redux)

Was Orwell a visionary with his masterpiece 1984 or is it just that things in Britain have not really changed since he wrote the book?

People do things because they fear the "Big Brother" who is actually watching them through myriad CCTV cameras that control anything from who entered a shopping centre on what date and time to who did or did not pay the bloody congestion charge.

I often think that Brits are more civilized and more law abiding (to a certain extent) than us Spaniards but if this is mainly driven through fear of being punished it might not necessarily be something to admire them for (can this be considered Doublethink?)

Day 4 - Subtleties of Art

What went wrong? How did we get from the impressionists' magnificent revolution in art as a reaction to the invention of the camera in the mid 19th century to Duchamp installing a urinal in a museum in the early 1900's?

Day 3 - Ephemeral Kay

When I woke up it was dark. I could see nothing but could sense she was lying beside me in bed. I could hear her gentle breathing, smell the warm fragrance emanating from her body.

I couldn't help but smile thinking myself lucky. I had met Lucy a couple of weeks before, at a dinner party organized by a friend that owns a contemporary art gallery in North London. I hadn't planned to go to the event originally. Work was keeping me quite busy these days and that, coupled with the fact that the weekly commute between Madrid and London was to say the least tiring, meant my social life was certainly taking the hit.

In the end however I decided to drag myself to the party. And there she was, a gorgeous brunette with the most beautiful smile I had seen in my life, her green eyes sparkling intensely with life and her character so cheerful, like that of a child that is yet to loose her innocence. We connected immediately and the following two weeks were, without a doubt, the happiest of my life.

Still with the smile on my face and inner peace of that who knows things can't possibly get any better in life, I reached for the bedside lamp to turn the light on. I turned around to contemplate Lucy's beauty only to find there was no one there...

I woke up sweating, my heart heavily pounding, alone in my bed. It was dark and it was to remain so for a while.

Day 2 - Essence

What are we made of? Is it just atoms really? (or quarks for the more advanced). Come on, I don´t buy the "21 grams" theory either but are we really just a combination of particles?

If we are I have an interesting hypothesis that I have been thinking about for some time now and I need help solving:

Assumption: humans (you and I included) are made solely of atoms.

Now imagine a day in the distant (or not so distant) future in which we humans are able to replicate any configuration of atoms. Anyone can imagine a future in which we can get a pencil, analyze it´s structure and composition and create another exact copy.

So, if we can do this with a pencil, could we do it with someone? Well, with the above assumption the simple answer should be: "Yes".

But if I was to create an exact copy of you, and you were only made of atoms, then who would you be: "John Doe" or "John Doe 2.0" (the newly created version: same bugs, same features). Would your thoughts and experiences diverge at that point? Certainly, but which would YOU experience?

It has got me pretty confused, maybe we are not just atoms. I think I need help to sort this one out.

"Dear Professor Hawkins,

What are we made of?..."

Day 1 - The awakening

I finally made the decision today to start a blog... My partner, if I had one, will certainly know nothing about it, at least not at this early stage.

It is about time you might argue but hey, who can keep up with technology & the web these days?

You have to have uploaded a couple of clips in YouTube; have an account in Facebook or any other social networking site; be LinkedIn; have a personalized google web page with news updates, your email summary and live stock market updates; you must periodically share your pictures online with family and friends (using Flickr, Picassa or Kodak Gallery among others); have your own up to date blog / photoblog; have an online CV and, hey why not? an account in Second Life, ... and this is just for starters. The alternative of course is to have an online presence close to zero and be out of touch with the new reality.

God, this is hard work. Especially if like me, you are a dyslexic 85 year old granny from East Anglia.

That's it for today, I'd better go feed the cat before I call it a day.
Good nite