Categories
Culture Eating Out NLP Travels

Wait and See. All good things come to those that wait.

When I was a small boy, living with my mother and father in the English town of Chasetown, we would sit at the dining table for the long gone traditional family meal.

The best part of the meal for me would be the pudding, sweat or dessert, and I would ask my mother, “what’s for pudding Mom?” and she would inevitably reply “Wait and See”.

All sorts of images, pictures of exotic puddings would be conjured up in my mind, I had no idea what it could be. It was not apple pie, Bakewell tart, rhubarb and custard, I knew those. But “Wait and See”?

Today, is a day of rest. I have done my Income, Self Assessment, Tax, reasonably caught-up with my emails and post, I have nothing to do. I had a quiet breakfast, looking out into a clear blue sky, which at this time of the year means a cold crispy day.

What is going to happen today, what am I going to do?

My mind went back, reliving those days sitting at the dinning table, eagerly awaiting the pudding. Was it going to be a pudding that the lady two doors away, Mrs Grice, was promising to cook for my friend Brian Bradbury and myself, Spotted Dick? I had visions in my head of a pudding shaped like a Dalmatian dog, white with black spots on it, and what it tasted of I had no idea.

Again and again I would ask, “what’s for pudding” and I would get the same reply “Wait and See”, or another saying, “All good things come to those that wait“.

Strange how we put our vivid hallucinations onto what people tell us. My mothers “Wait and See” created a pudding in my mind, so I conjured up a make believe exotic pudding to fit the context of the conversation, as Mrs Grice’s Spotted Dick painted another picture.

When the puddings came, they were nothing more than I had eaten before, the apple tarts, etc. What I had created in my head for “Wait and See”, was not a new pudding, but just wait a while, you will see what will be served to you. The Spotted Dick was nothing more than a traditional British suet pastry, rolled into a sausage shape, representing a dog, with dried fruits, mostly being currents, making the spots, served with custard.


spotted dick pudding with custard
 Spotted Dick pudding


Today I will “Wait and See” what happens, because as I have waited over the years, I have had the exotic puddings, the baklava from the Turkish cuisine, the Ice Kacang from South East Asia and China.


Baklava Turkish cuisine  
Baklava Turkish cuisine

Ice Kacang
 Ice Kacang S.E. Asia



The good things will come if you can just wait.

RETURN to NEW BASIL DINER article click here

Categories
English Sayings

You cannot change a leopards spots

You cannot change a leopards spots, is a British saying, (click to understand what is meant by English, British and UK), used to describe someone who will not change.

It is usually used when some one is doing something wrong, unethical, unreasonable, to others or their surroundings. 

A leopard has a coat of fur which has many spots, and these spots never change throughout its’ life.

                                                                    You cannot change a leopards spots

Therefore, when this saying is used towards another person who is doing something we do not like or is wrong, it means that they will not stop doing it, will continue doing it now and in future events. 

When someone is saying or doing something, an observer may say a leopard never changes his spots, this is enough for a listener to understand who the saying is directed towards.

Categories
English Sayings

What goes around comes around

I mentioned in my blog “Under Stress(click) a number of sayings we have in the UK which will describe something. somebody or situation or state, and I had a couple of people contact me to explain their meaning.

Over the next few days, I will give some of the sayings we have here in the UK, and explain them, so those of you who will come on my courses in your country will have an understanding of what I am or have been talking about.

Click on the English Sayings in the left hand column of Category Archives to see a full list.

If you have sayings or need to understand one, please let me know.

   What goes around comes around.

This is a saying that people will use when someone does something wrong intentionally, and says that what that person has done or doing, will happen to them also in the future.

We sometimes add on the saying, ten fold. This means that it will be ten times worse than that, that they are doing now.

There will be variations of this saying.

See more English sayings.
Categories
Travels

Under Stress


Over the last few days I have been rather stressed. Why? too much to do and it is taxing.

There are a number of people who want my time, now, not tomorrow, but now.

Then there is the British Inland Revenue, the Tax people who require that non PAYE (Pay As You Earn) tax payers have to submit their self assessment tax returns by the 31st January, else face a fine of £100 and interest to pay on any unpaid tax.

I usually leave my return, working out my income and expenditure, calculating profit and loss, until the very last day, and at 2300 hours, submit by the web my return.

This I needed to complete my self assessment forms early, I did not want to leave it to the last moment. I did it today. But I still went under stress as if it was the last day.

I am curious about how many other British self assessment workers go under the same stress. Is it worth it?

If I had a say in the running of a country’s income strategy, I think I would abolish income tax, and put the tax on purchases. Instead of the British VAT (Value Added Tax) of 17% on purchases, put it up to 25%. Then those that spend pay the tax, encouraging people to save.

The best advantage would be I would not have to fill in the tax return and get under stress this time every year.

Categories
NLP Travels

It’s a Small World. What goes Around, Comes Around.


I have been lucky with my work, in that it has allowed me to meet many people, cultures, and go to so many different countries, and experienced so many different things.

Way back in the 1980’s, working in Saudi Arabia for Saudi Computer Services / Texas Instruments, I was asked as Software Manager to go to the main offices of TI in Austin in Texas, USA, and the courses etc would require me to be there for three weeks.

My American counterparts, fellow colleagues were very friendly and hospitable, but at the weekends they would have finished their meetings and travel back to their families, leaving me by myself.

Nobody loved me, even then.

So, on the Friday night I flew off to Orlando to Walt Disney’s World. During the evening I planned my tour of the park, which rides I wanted to be on and experience, which rides would attract the biggest queues, choosing these first before the crowds built-up. I think I was first in the queue when the gates opened.

One of the rides I went on was It’s a Small World. You sit in a small boat, and float around a circuit.

The Walt Disney promotion says:-

“Take the legendary boat ride around the globe on this musical tour of nations. Hundreds of international dolls sing and dance to the famous “it’s a small world” medley. After it’s over, just try to get that tune out of your head.”

To this day I cannot get that tune out of my head, (click to hear), as we past dancing dolls, dressed in the traditional costumes of differing nations, singing that stupid song. Over and over again.

And it is a small world.

Yesterday I had a meeting in a small pub (public house, selling beer, drinks and food), called the Old Swan, right next to the River Thames in a small village near my home called Thames Ditton.

I am to travel to Bahrain in February, to deliver some courses for The Maker Over Experience (click to visit web site), run and owned by Dr Leila and Phil Edwards, and we were to finalize arrangements for the courses.

During the conversation, it became apparent that Leila and I had crossed paths before. It’s a small world. Maybe we did not meet face to face, but we had common associations, people and companies that we had done business or worked with.

As we swapped stories, it became apparent that our experiences with these organisations and people were similar if not the same.

We had done work for people, and despite heart rendering promises, they had failed to pay our fees, or deliver the goods they promised.

Some of the people we had worked with and for, had promoted themselves as having done this and that, having this qualification or that, having links with this person or that organisation, saying that they can do this or that, in other words, making wild promotional statements about themselves and their work.

It was after you had been pulled into their world, into the their spiders web, that you found that all the boasts, all the things they were saying, all the promises that had been made, were false.

It has become apparent to me that these sort of people can only see short term gains, they do not see the long term, also they use people for their own gain.

Sure enough, these people and organisations are no longer in business, they have in some cases gone bankrupt. Some have created new companies, new ventures, but like the dolls they sing the same song, they do the same thing. In English we have a saying that you cannot change a leopards spots.

In English we have another saying, an elephant never forgets. I cannot forget those dolls singing that song, It’s a Small World. It is strange the number of people I meet from different parts of the world who have had the same experiences with the same people.

A couple of other sayings we have in England, you get back what you give out, or what goes around, comes around.

Do not believe everything you read or see on a web site. Companies will advertise course dates that they will not run, and trainers who would not or will not consider working with that company.

Readers beware.

Categories
NLP

Expectations of Participants

Often when I am giving a course, I am asked what are they going to gain from the course and what is the content.

This request usually comes from potential participants who have some idea of the subject matter or who have attended another course from another trainer.

This is a difficult answer to give, as I do not know the standard of training nor the content of previous courses, or what the potential participants has taken in, learned, retained from a course or a book.

I try and give content, but when in the course, I find that the participants already know and are competent, there is no point in rerunning and wasting time, also, if I find that there is a subject matter which can be explained better by introducing a new concept, I will cover it, not leave it out just because it is not on the “list”.

On occasions I have had participants who have sat in the course, with a list of expected content, and ticked each element as it was covered. If it was not named explicitly, then they left cheated.

Upon noticing this list, probably obtained from other trainers or course providers, I would have to look at it and tick off for them what we had covered, renaming some of the content so that it would fulfill their needs. Perhaps the word “pilot” for example would be a subject, but on their list it was “aviator“. Different “cat on the mat“.

I noticed that these people never added on the extra content I taught to their list.

I teach pure subjects, direct from the originators, Richard Bandler, John Ginder, Paul Scheele, Tony Buzan, Win Wenger, Ormond Mcgill, Graham Alexander, NGH, etc those from whom I have learned by being with them learning directly, not from their books, not from someone else, who learned from someone else who heard it from someone else. Where required, offering a license, a certificate from the appropriate organisation, The Society of NLP, the NGH, from Learning Strategies

What will they gain? It is up to them.

See courses offered www.nlpnow.net

Categories
NLP Travels

You never know until you get Feedback

For nearly a year now I have been putting my thoughts, my ideas, my observations down in this blog. Some of my offerings have been to help readers to understand aspects of items from my courses (click to see Mind Map), other offerings have been how I have seen the world from my eyes (index).

I have had one or two comments of how the blog is received, but I never really knew, is it good, is it bad.

How can you know? I have a counter that tells me how many “hits” per page I get, but is it accurate? I subscribed to another counter which gave details of where people lived, how long they stayed, what operating system they were using, what they had for breakfast. But that hit counter gave me a completely different count.

I gave up the idea of relying on these forms of reports, they are an indication only, a pointer to the real thing. If I took the first counter I was unhappy, but take the second counter, I was “over the moon”, extremely happy.

I just did what I enjoyed, I wrote, attached some photographs to describe my world, Phillip Holt’s World, knowing that some people would be unhappy with what I wrote, whilst others would be more than happy.

I was not out to, I do not set out to make people upset, what ever they read they will go on their transderivational search, put their cat on the mat, their understanding onto what I am saying.

If I say “car“, what do you see in your minds eye? Probably your car and where it is parked right now. But there are hundreds of makes and models of cars, and certainly different parking lots as I have readers from so many different countries. So we all get different messages. Read my blog on George Miller, 7 /- 2.

Yesterday was a down day for me. It was extra hot here in Bukit Mertajam, Malaysia, and it was raining one minute, sunny the next, thunderstorms, the humidity was high along with the temperature, my emails are not working, a modem  had installed was not working, my plans for the day were thrown out due to the arrival of relatives, I had an accident in the hire car. Big oh poo poo day.

I put together a blog on my travel across to the Island of Penang, (Crossing over to Penang Island), just a 15 minute drive away. I was not happy with the result, but it was what I wanted.

This morning I received a comment (click to read) from one of my ex translators, Deniz, who is living and working in Paris.

Her comments made me happy, made me realise that people appreciate what I write.

How often do you give feedback to people? (insert the word positive please).

So to Asu, thank you for the wedding photographsof Murat you sent last night , and your little black dress, you look glamorous.

To Sahika, Mehpare, and Leila, sorry for not getting back to you re dates of courses.

To Rory, yes we will hold the next Stage Hypnosis course in the Royal National Hotel London, this March.

To all I have not mentioned, thank you for you support and feedback. I appreciate it.                                index

Categories
Travels

Crossing over to Penang Island

One of the great joys I had whilst giving training in Istanbul, is to cross the Bosphorus, the stretch of water that separates Europe from Asia, West Istanbul from East Istanbul, and the water that joins the Black Sea to the Marmara Sea. Sitting on the ferry, or crossing one of the two Bosphorus Bridges, watching the worlds shipping slide past.

See video of dolphins. Dolphins in the Bosphorus, Istanbul, Turkey

Crossing from mainland Malaysia to the Island of Penang is not as glamorous as crossing the Bosphorus, although the stretch of water is much wider, with the existing bridge being just over 8 miles (13.5 km), and the first Bosphorus Bridge being 1175 yards (1074 meters) long between its’ two pillars.


     
Penang Bridge 13.5km                                 Bosphorus Bridge 1074 meters


The ferry are different with the Penang Ferry sails to and from George Town (Penang Island) and Butterworth, and takes about 10 minutes to make the crossing, so no time for a cup of tea, which you can take on the Bosphorus ferries as the have various crossings taking about 20 minutes.


Penang Ferry            Bosphuros Ferry
Penang Ferry                                                                        Bosphorus Ferry


The sea trade in Penang is now it seems very small, compared to the forever movement of ships up and down the waters of the Bosphorus.

Categories
Travels

Other Places of worship in Bukit Mertajam, Penang

Within a few minutes of the house in Bukit Mertajam are other places of worship of other beliefs than the Buddhist Goddess of Mercy Temple, Kek Loc Si, (click to see) , Christian, Hindu and Muslim, and all co-exist happily together.

            Mosque with small mineretes    Mosque with small minaret’s
          
            Saint Annes Curch, Bukit Mertajam Saint Anne’s Church, Bukit Mertajam.

            Hindu Temple near to Desa Palma, Alma, BM  Hindu Temple near to Desa Palma, Alma, BM.
                Hindu Temple near to Desa Palma, Alma, BM.  Hindu Temple near to Desa Palma, Alma, BM

The minarets on the Islamic Mosques in Malaysia tend to be much smaller than those in other Islamic countries such as Turkey, which have tall thin minarets. The domes on this mosque are of a shiny gold.

St Anne’s Church in Bukit Mertajam, was started in 1846 and the church completed in 1888. A new church was added seen on the left, above, and opened in 2002 able to sit 1,200 people, which is by far exceeded on the feast of St. Anne., when many thousands of worshipers from South Asia flock to the church.

At this time I have not been able to contact anyone about the Hindu Temple.

Categories
Travels

Goddess Of Mercy Temple (Kek Lok Si), Penang


In life it is sometimes good to escape, to find some place, some thing which has some serenity, peacefulness, calm.

I used to find that when I was a scuba diver. To float in the warm waters of the Red Sea at 60 feet (20 meters) depth, with the colourful fish of all sizes slowly swimming past, going about their business, and the coral, like an English country garden. click to see pictures 

Another place I find peacefulness is on the Island of Penang in Malaysia, situated in (H)Air Itam, a suburb of Georgetown. This is the Buddhist Goddess of Mercy Temple, also known as Quan Yin, Kuan Yin, Avalokiteshvara, or Kek Lok Si (Hokkien for “Temple of Supreme Bliss”).

Malaysia is not just Chinese as my writings may indicate, but is multi cultural, being a people mixture of Malaysian, Chinese, and Indian, along with their own cultures, beliefs, food and religions, Islam, Buddhism, Hindu plus Christian. I think I am a mixture of all, having exposure to all of them. Click here to read the entry Other Places of worship in Bukit Mertajam, Penang.

High on the side of Air Itam are the buildings of the temple. Many years ago I remember only a couple of large buildings, I presume for accommodation, plus the pagoda, turtles and Buddhas. The site has expanded so much with many more large buildings having and being built.

Kek Lo Si with it's Pagoda 
Kek Lok Si with it’s Pagoda (right) and build works

Parking at the foot of the hill, it is a steep climb up a covered winding flight of stairs with stalls either side selling the inevitable tourist goods, teeshirts, toys, replicas of the temple in plastic or what should be jade, and me being a non Easterner, a prime target to be sold to, the same as happens in Turkey. Do I look so British?

Turtles in Liberation Pool Kek Lok Si, Penang

Turtles in Liberation Pool Kek Lok Si, Penang

The first real part of the Temple is the Turtle Pool known as Liberation Pool, where the turtles are supposed to be released into freedom, hundreds of turtles swimming around in rather dirty water, waiting for food sold to the visitors by enterprising stall holders. The turtles grow to quite a size, and I think of my one of my Turkish translators, Asu, and her turtle, if hers grows this big, oh poo poo.

Ascend further up the stairs, more shops and restaurants, you enter into the multiple buildings of the Kek Lok Si Temple, so colourful with Buddhas everywhere, some encased in glass, giant gold leafed statues.

Glass encased Laughing Buddha, the Goddess of Mercy Penang,

Glass encased Laughing Buddha, the Goddess of Mercy Penang,

Glass encased underworld gods Goddess of Mercy

Various rooms are set aside for prayers, with joss sticks smoking away. Anyone can enter the altars after removing their shoes.

Temple rooms Kek Lok Si

Prayer rooms Kek Lok Si

Temple rooms Kek Lok Si

Prayer rooms Kek Lok Si
Temple rooms Kek Lok Si

Prayer rooms Kek Lok Si  

Even higher-up the hill taking the Incline Lift, a small glass box lift being pulled up the hill, takes you to more new buildings with the giant new bronze statue of the Goddess of Mercy.

The Goddess of Mercy Kek Lok Si Penang
The Goddess of Mercy Kek Lok Si

The original old statue was made out of resin, and did not last long, as bits and pieces fell off as the resin deterioration, leaving only the head still on display.

Old resin head of the Goddess of Mercy, Penang
Old resin head of the Goddess of Mercy

Work still continues on the bronze statue with the installation of a giant roof supported by eight sculptured columns.

Kek Lok Si is a place I can spend time in reflection, contemplating my life, it happens each time I visit the site.

The thing is, will I act upon my insights?