P is for Poppycock

poppycock (noun):  nonsense, foolish talk.

A lovely word, with a whole string of lovely synonyms:  hogwash, bunk, balderdash, malarkey, and codswallop.

The term actually originated from America in the mid-19th century and was derived from the Dutch word poppekak, which means “doll’s excrement”. 

It is also the name of a premium brand of gourmet candied popcorn sold in North America (often featuring almonds and pecans). 

Joy and Sadness

I went away on holiday after Christmas with my wife, and we ended up in the Netherlands, exploring the beautiful city of Rotterdam. It was very nice to immerse ourselves into a completely different culture for a while, leaving our worries and cares a whole country away...

Whilst I was away, I had the opportunity to catch up on satellite TV with a Pixar film called 'Inside Out' (2015), which I must admit I had avoided seeing at the time as I was a little unsure whether I would be able to enjoy it - or even endure it… Let me explain.

This animated film is set in the mind of a young girl named Riley (voiced by Kaitlyn Dias), where five personified emotions — Joy, Sadness, Anger, Fear, and Disgust - try to lead the girl through life.

As Riley grows up, her experiences become memories, which appear on screen as being stored in coloured orbs, which are sent into long-term memory each night. Her five most important 'core memories' start to form aspects of her personality which take the form of floating islands. Joy (Amy Poehler) acts as leader of her emotions, and since she and the other emotions do not understand Sadness's purpose, she tries to keep Sadness (Phyllis Smith) away from the main control console.

Everything starts going badly wrong when Riley and her parents (Diane Lane and Kyle MacLachlan) move from Minnesota to San Francisco… a series of unpleasant experiences from being so far out of her comfort zone affect Riley badly, and when Sadness causes Riley to cry in front of her school class, she creates Riley's first sad core memory. Joy tries to dispose of it quickly but accidentally knocks the other core memories loose during a struggle with Sadness, deactivating the personality islands. Joy, Sadness, and the core memories are then expelled out of Headquarters and sent to long-term memory storage.

By this stage in watching I was hooked. It was the only English language film on at the time, yet I felt  something deep inside myself wanting to turn it off (probably because it was getting a bit too close to home?). Could someone truly go through life without Joy or Sadness? It spoke to my inner me during one of my ‘bad days’. Days when I tend to emotionally switch off and simply ‘go through the motions’… deactivating the personality islands ... I was brave and kept going.

I won’t spoil the rest of it for you, but suffice it to say I literally ended up in tears by the end of the film.

I'll mention a couple of scenes in the film for you. At one point, Joy tries to prevent Sadness from having any influence on Riley by drawing a small chalk “circle of Sadness”, telling her to stay inside the circle. Apparently, psychologists call this type of behaviour 'emotional suppression' - that often something that leads to anxiety and depression. Finally, at the end of the film, Joy realises that she has to embrace the healthiest method for working with emotions: to accept Sadness for who she is. This is called 'mindfully embracing' an emotion.

This is something I need to learn in 2020. Hence, this rather personal blog post.

C is for Carrots

What colour are carrots?

The clue is in the picture. These are orange. In fact, I was brought up with the idea that carrots are orange. Modern day carrots are!

However, carrots can also exist in yellow, purple and white varieties.

There are many claims that Dutch growers specifically created orange carrots in the 17th Century to honour the Dutch flag at the time. However, there is a lack of convincing evidence for this. Many scientists simply say that is the way they have been cultivated over the centuries. The Dutch were at the forefront of agricultural innovation in the 17th Century, so may have favoured this variety, which produces a nicer tasting carrot - but they didn't create the orange carrot.

When checking this fact, I discovered the wonders of the Carrot Museum!

Check this out: http://www.carrotmuseum.co.uk/history5.html