Author: Tom Gillies

Here I am sitting in an office in Central London taking a pause from a busy day. I have a lot that I want to finish today. I got presented with the challenge of a job which was started late, but the customer still wants to finish on time. I’m making progress, but the results are not going to be all that pretty.

Outside the sun is shining, and I am really looking forward to some things I’m going to do over the weekend. Wish me luck!

Oh dear woe is me (but it is funny, providing you are not me). For several years I have had what my doctor describes as an “umbilical hernia”. It hasn’t troubled me, and apart from making me take care when doing certain things it hasn’t inconvenienced me that much.

I’ve got a slight cold and yesterday I sneezed (loudly). Anyone who knows me, knows that I sneeze very loudly, almost violently. It’s something I can do nothing about, and which I seem to have inherited from my Father (who also sneezed loudly). Anyway, one sneeze seems to have undone years of care – now I’m in pain, and after a sleepless night, I visited the doctor today. “I’m afraid you need surgery”, he said; “nothing to worry about”, he reassured me. Well, I am reassured, I’m not worried, but I am in a little discomfort, and waiting for a secretary to ring me back about an appointment with a specialist. All because of one sneeze!
Regarding the title; it hurts all the time, but it hurts more when I laugh, or cough or sneeze.

I’m thinking about two things right now:

• How do I focus on finishing the report I’m writing?
• How do I get a client to focus of the issue we are trying to address, while showing empathy and avoiding trying to dominate the conversation? (they keep on rambling off in other directions).

Must go and do that &*()ed report!

A little while ago I wrote about “Minor Miracles“. I followed up with a little more research in the same place and found this from the clergyman I’m interested in:

THE Rev. Joseph Nettleton recently addressed a meeting of scholars on missions in Fiji, and described one of the chiefs who had seventy or eighty wives. The chairman catechised the children, and asked how many wives a man ought to have. ” One, sir,” was the ready answer. ” Now,” said he, ” I always teaoh youto give a Scripture reason for all your answers. Can you give me any text to show that a manought only to have one wife?” There was a long pause, and a little boy stretched out his hand. ” Well, my boy, I thought some one could give a passage of Scripture. What is it !””Please, sir, ‘ No man can serve two masters.’ ”

(The Brisbane Courier, Saturday 23 March 1878, p3)

Now I wouldn’t call that the funniest thing I’ve ever read (or even heard from the pulpit), but there is something touching about reading something like that which is over 130 years old.

By the way, because of an accident in the way the text has been subdivided, the story about Nettleton is attached at the bottom of another unrelated piece called “Down a silver mine”! (the other article is interesting, but nothing to do with my project)

I have an interesting hypnotherapy commission. The client (can hardly call them “patient” in this context) is a creative person who would like to be more successful at bringing the things he conceives to a successful conclusion. I think you might say that he wants to reinforce the “completer finisher” aspect of his personality. This should be an interesting challenge. In particular defining the “goal” in useful terms may be difficult.