I’ve had it with hibernation, even though snow arrived in London this weekend, it’s time for me to start moving and grooving again – Let’s do some work together!

I learned something really important in the last six months of last year: I’m really, really happy with this lifestyle – I like being in London, I like having a base here, but I also really like moving around the country a lot.  I also love working with people on what they’re doing.  Whether that’s facilitating large groups of people to get things done, or helping a smaller group to have interesting conversations (both of which I did at the recent UK GovCamp) or working with individuals one-to-one on what it is that they really want to do and supporting them in getting to do it, it’s the being there that is when I can be most valuable.

I’ve also really enjoyed performing.  I’ve done street busking again for the first time in a few years and I devised a show around last year’s American trip which I’ve done five or six times now.  I’ve got a new show that I’m trying out tomorrow night.

So that’s what I’d like to keep doing please, just with more cashflow associated with it

Give me a shout if you’d like my help with any of the following:

Facilitation for an unconference – I’m a very confident and competent holder of Open Space type events. According to Dave Briggs who hired me for GovCamp, I’m “a legend, a master facilitator and the most calming influence ever.“

I can do more structured and pre-planned stuff too, but I’m happiest working with people to create their own agenda on the day and help them do the amazing stuff that self-organising allows.  Maybe you should rethink one of the days of your upcoming team awayday?

One-to-one work – coaching, mentoring, business strategy, critical friendliness whatever you want to call it, I will spend a few hours with you regularly to help you get done what you need to do.  It’s not classic business coaching, we won’t create a rigid structure of visions, aims and goals and mechanical tasks to achieve them (I’ve seen that end in tears, including my own, too often) – I treat you as a human being and a peer and make gentle suggestions. Mike Oh of TechSuperPowers recently said “Yesterday, @lloyddavis helped me find the secret sauce for creating a ‘startup culture’ in my 20 year old company. Excellent session.“

I’d also like to try out “Human Scale Conversations” with some teams or groups within organisations.  It’s a development of this idea from a while back.  Again at GovCamp, Catherine Howe said “…I got a huge amount from his Human Scale conversation” and Martin Howitt said that the session “…challenged me in a completely unexpected way” and Philip McAllister stayed all day: “Thank you, that was enjoyable. It felt like a bold experiment and was really enriching.”  I think it’s most useful to people who spend their professional time trying to get others to talk to each other, or more generally people who’d like to improve their experience of being in meetings at work.

If you’d like me to come along and do a gig at your home or a local community venue, I’d love to talk to you about it, whether it’s straight ukulele and singing, “Please Look After This Englishman” or “All of Me“

I’m very happy to travel anywhere you need me as long as we can agree a fee and expenses. I’m not being as hardcore as before – I love staying with people I’m working with, but I’m happy to accept accommodation expenses if putting me up in someone’s home is too tricky.

PS this is not to say that I’m not open to anything else that you might have in mind for me, if you know what you want, talk to me.  If you don’t know what you want but think it might involve some “lloydness” talk to me. Just talk to me, I don’t growl or bite (if you call between the hours of 10am and 4pm).

Photo Credit: #ashroplad on Flickr

Originally posted on Lloyd’s posterous
]]> http://perfectpath.co.uk/2012/02/06/there-now-follows-a-promotional-message-on-behalf-of-lloyddavis/feed/ 0 Lloyd Davis 2012-govcamp-009 http://perfectpath.co.uk/2012/01/30/see-all-of-me-at-hub-westminster-feb-7th/ http://perfectpath.co.uk/2012/01/30/see-all-of-me-at-hub-westminster-feb-7th/#comments Mon, 30 Jan 2012 11:43:19 +0000 Lloyd Davis http://perfectpath.wordpress.com/?p=1695 ]]>

Originally posted on Lloyd’s posterous
]]> http://perfectpath.co.uk/2012/01/30/see-all-of-me-at-hub-westminster-feb-7th/feed/ 0 Lloyd Davis http://perfectpath.co.uk/2011/12/23/forty-seven/ http://perfectpath.co.uk/2011/12/23/forty-seven/#comments Fri, 23 Dec 2011 11:04:33 +0000 Lloyd Davis http://perfectpath.wordpress.com/?p=1693 ]]>

It’s just ridiculous, I come back to it every year, this numbering, this ever increasing number that is attached to me.  This morning it was suddenly 47.  What does it mean?  Everything and nothing it appears.

It does *feel* like a shift, I suppose it means “late forties” rather than “mid-forties” but still.  Anyway.

I’m just going to get on and enjoy another day, occasionally liking the lovely Wall posts on Facebook that remind me how wide and amazing my network of friends is; hanging out with a beautiful woman; watching “It’s a Wonderful Life”, because it is…

Originally posted on Lloyd’s posterous
]]> http://perfectpath.co.uk/2011/12/23/forty-seven/feed/ 1 Lloyd Davis http://perfectpath.co.uk/2011/12/13/reflections-a-self-portrait-e-book-llobo/ http://perfectpath.co.uk/2011/12/13/reflections-a-self-portrait-e-book-llobo/#comments Tue, 13 Dec 2011 17:00:56 +0000 Lloyd Davis http://perfectpath.wordpress.com/?p=1689 ]]>

Here’s something.  I wrote this last month when making the transition to settling in London for a couple of months.  In fact, writing it helped confirm the transition for me, it seemed to mark the end of something.

Enjoy. Pass it on to anyone who you think might get something from it.  Let me know what you think. etc.  I’ve made it available under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike licence so you can redistribute it, remix it, produce it in new formats, sample from it, whatever as long as you say where you got it from.

reflections.pdf Download this file

I’d like to make it available in other formats.  I need some collaborators to help me understand this self-publishing lark a bit better and to actually get it out of the door. If e-books and paper self-publishing is something you’ve done, and you’d like to help, give me a shout.

Originally posted on Lloyd’s posterous
]]> http://perfectpath.co.uk/2011/12/13/reflections-a-self-portrait-e-book-llobo/feed/ 0 Lloyd Davis http://perfectpath.co.uk/2011/12/12/hello-collaborators/ http://perfectpath.co.uk/2011/12/12/hello-collaborators/#comments Mon, 12 Dec 2011 15:43:06 +0000 Lloyd Davis http://perfectpath.wordpress.com/?p=1687 ]]>

I’ve been hanging around this place called the Centre for Creative Collaboration for a couple of years now.  I think I’m just about getting the message: you can dig deeper, bigger (and depending on your definition, more interesting) holes in the sand if you do it with other people. Doh!

The two big projects I’ve worked on while here: Tuttle2Texas and Please Look After This Englishman have been looking at generating a new kind of narrative, blurring the distinctions between audience, funders and participants and presenting the results in a variety of formats and media.

I want to take this a bit further, applying the general methodology that I’ve aspired to follow:

• come up with something interesting to do with interesting people;
• blog about it as you go taking some direction from people on the internet;
• create content in various media as you go;
• present what happened in some summary form or forms (a play, a book, a film, an e-book etc.)

So far, I’ve defaulted to doing things myself, although I’ve had some great collaborators, my tendency has been to keep it small and only ask for help when it was really really needed.  Now I want to open them up much wider and make collaboration the norm. 

I’ve at least three projects that have been bumbling around in my brain for a while that I want to apply this to.  I want to get going on them, but I don’t want to do them just by myself.  So I’m going to write up briefs for all of them and then ask for volunteers to help in the following areas (there may be more!):

• talking things through, open up hypotheses, react to the idea, tell us where it’s wrong, where it’s right, what you’d  do with it if you were able to give it time;
• looking at the themes that emerge, identify new audiences, funding streams, participants and other interested parties; 
• work on creating content, writing things up, shooting video, recording audio, taking pics, curating outside content relevant to the themes and writing about it on the blog;
• editing and producing said content;
• recruiting participants and building relationships with them;
• designing and producing “end content” ie taking what we have and productizing it;
• desiging ways of rewarding contributions in financial and other terms;
• managing all the bits and bobs: documenting decisions, managing cashflows, keeping track of contributors and remuneration; and
• reviewing and improving the process and overall methodology

My intention is to publish “Calls for Collaborators”  (an important principle is that collaborators needn’t necessarily be based in London or even the UK) and that we’ll refine this approach as we learn how it works.  In the meantime, your thoughts on all of this (ie your collaboration on the final bullet point of this last list) would be most welcome.  Talk to me, people.

Originally posted on Lloyd’s posterous
]]> http://perfectpath.co.uk/2011/12/12/hello-collaborators/feed/ 0 Lloyd Davis http://perfectpath.co.uk/2011/12/09/framing-what-i-do-again/ http://perfectpath.co.uk/2011/12/09/framing-what-i-do-again/#comments Fri, 09 Dec 2011 17:30:46 +0000 Lloyd Davis http://perfectpath.wordpress.com/?p=1685 ]]>

I applied for a job a week or so ago (I know!) As part of that I had to update my CV.  I’ve become a bit stupid about that, thinking I somehow didn’t need a CV, that my Linked-in profile was good enough, given I’m a forward-thinking social web geezer. Stupid, not only because you can never have good enough well-targeted, easy-to-read marketing materials, but also because the process of updating one’s CV is a valuable exercise in thinking about one’s experience and how to frame it, how it makes sense now that one is a little bit further down the road.

Anyway, I included the following under “Key Skills and Knowledge”.   They’re all important bits of what I can do, what I like to do, what I’m really good and well-practiced at.  And they’re all things that I shrug off because they’re easy and straightforward for me.  What I forget is that the things that are probably most valuable in my portfolio of talents are those things that I find easy but lots of otther people find very hard – duhh!

Breaking New Ground – comfortable at the edge of innovation and the dealing with the uncertainty of commercial and not-for-profit startup environments by iterative prototyping. Happiest doing those things that “everyone knows” can’t be done.

Facilitating Collaborative Work – a prodigious networker, relationship-builder and subtle facilitator. Creating, managing and developing highly effective inter-disciplinary teams. Coaching and mentoring individuals in personal productivity and effectiveness.

Building Inclusive Community – proactively managing relationships within an organisation as well as with customers, collaborators, service-users and wider stakeholders.

Originally posted on Lloyd’s posterous
]]> http://perfectpath.co.uk/2011/12/09/framing-what-i-do-again/feed/ 0 Lloyd Davis http://perfectpath.co.uk/2011/12/02/solve-it-while-im-settling-llobo/ http://perfectpath.co.uk/2011/12/02/solve-it-while-im-settling-llobo/#comments Fri, 02 Dec 2011 15:57:35 +0000 Lloyd Davis http://perfectpath.wordpress.com/?p=1683 ]]>

I’m going to be settled in SW17 at least until the end of January.  Let’s see how things are by then.  It’s a bit odd, I haven’t quite got my head round the idea that I’m not going anywhere else for 8 weeks or so.  I’m looking forward to continuing to have adventures even though I’m going back to the same bed every night.

I need your help with making sure that settling doesn’t fall into stagnation.  I need to continue to generate cashflow, my costs are relatively low, but my income is even lower  

You’ll have seen I’m working on a little book about my #llobo travels so far

I’m doing shows at #c4cc about Please Look After This Englishman which was a pre-cursor to #llobo

I have some community-minded documentary film-projects in mind to get going on.  Still at the waffly half-baked stage but watch this space.

I’m working on a bunch of slidedecks.  I’ve realised that I’m no longer in the habit of having presentations ready to take out and talk about what I do.  I’ve been doing some cool and fascinating, inspiring stuff in the last couple of years, but effectively I’ve been doing it all very very quietly – I want to get out and talk about #c4cc, #tuttle, #llobo and generally what I’ve learned more widely.  Let me know if you have a captive bunch of folk you’d like me to whip up into a frenzy, or something.

I’m looking at short-term artists residencies like the one I’ve done at #c4cc.

I’m available for shortish pieces of work in London and the South East  (and I suppose anywhere you like really) – if you don’t know what I do, then you haven’t been laughing hard enough at me struggling to explain it.  Have a look at my about page and my CV

Let me know if any of that makes you go “oh, hello, come and work with me”

Originally posted on Lloyd’s posterous
]]> http://perfectpath.co.uk/2011/12/02/solve-it-while-im-settling-llobo/feed/ 0 Lloyd Davis http://perfectpath.co.uk/2011/12/02/llobo-reflections-a-self-portrait/ http://perfectpath.co.uk/2011/12/02/llobo-reflections-a-self-portrait/#comments Fri, 02 Dec 2011 15:33:09 +0000 Lloyd Davis http://perfectpath.wordpress.com/?p=1681 ]]>

Originally posted on Lloyd’s posterous
]]> http://perfectpath.co.uk/2011/12/02/llobo-reflections-a-self-portrait/feed/ 0 Lloyd Davis http://perfectpath.co.uk/2011/11/30/last-minute-stories-ukulele-hazard-tape/ http://perfectpath.co.uk/2011/11/30/last-minute-stories-ukulele-hazard-tape/#comments Wed, 30 Nov 2011 15:35:50 +0000 Lloyd Davis http://perfectpath.wordpress.com/?p=1679 ]]>

Photo by Patrick Hadfield

I’ve got a last-minute slot to do my show about this year’s American trip at #C4CC again tomorrow night.  I’m working on some other dates too but if you’re around in London it would be great to see you, do bring a friend! And remember #C4CC can’t serve booze, so bring a beverage or two to keep you warm

Too late to be messing around with paid ticketing so just let me know you’re coming here: http://plateshow02.eventbrite.com I’ll be passing the hat for pecuniary contributions.

Originally posted on Lloyd’s posterous
]]> http://perfectpath.co.uk/2011/11/30/last-minute-stories-ukulele-hazard-tape/feed/ 0 Lloyd Davis http://perfectpath.co.uk/2011/11/26/vlomo11-5-seaford/ http://perfectpath.co.uk/2011/11/26/vlomo11-5-seaford/#comments Sat, 26 Nov 2011 18:40:34 +0000 Lloyd Davis http://perfectpath.wordpress.com/?p=1675 ]]>

VIDEO0010.3gp Watch on Posterous

Originally posted on Lloyd’s posterous
]]> http://perfectpath.co.uk/2011/11/26/vlomo11-5-seaford/feed/ 0 Lloyd Davis http://perfectpath.co.uk/2011/11/23/on-yer-marx/ http://perfectpath.co.uk/2011/11/23/on-yer-marx/#comments Wed, 23 Nov 2011 11:56:17 +0000 Lloyd Davis http://perfectpath.wordpress.com/?p=1673 ]]> I'm reading Bruce Chatwin's The Songlines, as #llobo's tend to do. Actually I'd avoided reading it till now because I didn't want it to unduly influence my thinking about my own wanderings.  Which it now is, of course, but that's another story.

Originally posted on Lloyd’s posterous
]]> http://perfectpath.co.uk/2011/11/23/on-yer-marx/feed/ 0 Lloyd Davis http://perfectpath.co.uk/2011/11/15/preparing-for-re-entry-llobo/ http://perfectpath.co.uk/2011/11/15/preparing-for-re-entry-llobo/#comments Tue, 15 Nov 2011 15:30:01 +0000 Lloyd Davis http://perfectpath.wordpress.com/2011/11/15/preparing-for-re-entry-llobo/ ]]>

Having raised the idea and let it percolate through me for a week or so, I know now that I really do want to settle for a while but I’m not sure how to do it.  I need to switch gear somehow and start doing things differently.  I trust that I’ll get direction by putting it through the same process that I’ve been using all along, which is to say here what I want and the options I can see, ask you all for help and go with what comes back.  On Friday night I was singing the praises of this process, which did get me all the way from San Francisco to New York City in a month with lots of fun and adventure along the way, but somehow I’d forgotten that it can be applied to whatever I’m doing.

So, what do I want?

I want somewhere to live in London for the next two or three months, starting as soon as possible (yes I could move in tomorrow) and on to mid-February at least.  After all, for the last two years, in March I’ve been setting out to conquer the USA, so that feels like a good window.  I also want a reliable income that covers my basic needs.

I’ve learned that there are certain minimum things that I need above and beyond a roof over my head:

• I’m not highly fussed about location as long as it’s safe, clean and warm.  I can live right in the middle of the city but have found that living any further out than Zone 3 means too much of a commute for me.  I use public transport a lot and I like the freedom of being able to purchase a weekly travelcard.  I do prefer being in the South and West of London because that’s where my beloved and a lot of my support network is, but I’m glad to say that in the last year I have shed much prejudice and strong attachment to the area in which I live.  Before, I felt very identified with having a postcode that started with W or SW…
• I need at least the privacy of a space with a door that I can close.  I live best when I can sleep when I need to and not feel obliged either to stay up later or to get up earlier than I feel like in the day.  I also live best when I can comfortably practice prayer and meditation in a private space.
• If there have to be animals around, then count me as a cat person.  I am not a dog hater, but I don’t really get them.  Dog-sitting would feel like very hard work to me.  To the best of my knowledge I have no allergies to any type of pet.
• Much of my work and social activity is internet-enabled.  Access to a stable, fast and relatively high-capacity internet connection, beyond that provided by my phone contract is important.
• I need regular exercise above and beyond walking.  I like to swim.  I’d love to be able to swim most days.
• I need to be able to make music and make a noise from time to time.  I get very cranky if I spend more than a few days without getting my ukulele out and singing without worrying about what the neighbours will think or whether I’m disturbing anyone.
• I have found in the last four months that I need an absolute minimum £2,100 (before tax) a month to live comfortably.  That includes travel and storage of my stuff, which would reduce if I were able to find a place to pause and unpack for a while, but it doesn’t include any rent or utility bills.  
• I have no regular income or savings at the moment, but I’m in that chicken and egg position of finding it difficult to commit to regular work without a regular home and vice versa.  So the opportunity to gain either one would help.

To me, the ideal solution sounds like a 2-3 month house-sit for someone who’s going somewhere for the winter and some work that provides me with a basic income but also time to write and create (I’ve got a whole bunch of stuff to download from my brain from the last few months!)  However, I know that my imagination in these circumstances can be severely limited, I’m up for all sorts of suggestions.

I’m going to stop worrying about this now and let you do your thing.

Originally posted on Lloyd’s posterous
]]> http://perfectpath.co.uk/2011/11/15/preparing-for-re-entry-llobo/feed/ 1 Lloyd Davis http://perfectpath.co.uk/2011/11/08/vlomo11-3/ http://perfectpath.co.uk/2011/11/08/vlomo11-3/#comments Tue, 08 Nov 2011 21:45:42 +0000 Lloyd Davis http://perfectpath.wordpress.com/2011/11/08/vlomo11-3/ ]]>

VIDEO0006.3gp Watch on Posterous

Originally posted on Lloyd’s posterous
]]> http://perfectpath.co.uk/2011/11/08/vlomo11-3/feed/ 0 Lloyd Davis http://perfectpath.co.uk/2011/11/06/being-brave/ http://perfectpath.co.uk/2011/11/06/being-brave/#comments Sun, 06 Nov 2011 12:21:16 +0000 Lloyd Davis http://perfectpath.wordpress.com/2011/11/06/being-brave/ ]]>

The other kids in our road, they all knew each other already.  I didn’t know how to introduce myself, how to find my way into their group.  How do you get people to play with you when they don’t know you and you’re completely convinced that they don’t want to play with you and anyway you don’t actually want to play with them, you were just pushed out of the front door by your mother and told to get out from under her feet and go and play with the other children?   You’re stuck.  Stuck between not being wanted in the house and not really having a place in the street.   How do you do it, how do you deal with being new and feeling different?  

Well if you’re me in 1970, and five years old, you choose “being brave”.  On the outside, being brave looks like quietly sitting there, on the edge, doing your own thing, watching, listening, making silent contact and then doing something outrageous and audacious to get other people’s attention, to make them laugh, most probably.  But on the inside, being brave means not showing how you’re really feeling, pu‌shing the fear and the worry and the desperate, clawing need to cry down, away, finding somewhere in your body to hide it, to hold onto it so that it doesn’t come shooting out.  Because if it comes out, it’s so awful that it will probably hurt someone or frighten them really badly.  It’s a really bad thing to let that stuff out.  

Above all being brave means that you must never, never, NEVER, cry in front of the other kids.  It’s pretty poor form to go and cry to mummy too, but they probably won’t find out about that.  It’s never a good idea to tell anyone about any of this – if you tell other boys, they’ll call you a sissy, if you tell girls, they’ll be sympathetic to your face but then they’ll go and tell the other girls that you’re a sissy, if you tell a grown-up, they’ll tell you to get out from under their feet and go and play now, please, don’t be a baby.

Being quiet and contained gets you respect and a kind of awe because they can’t quite work you out.  Boys must always be brave.  If girls are upset by anything, they will probably shout and scream and sit and whisper loudly to each other about it and then tell the teacher that it was that nasty boy’s fault.  But it’s a good thing to be a brave boy, that’s how to get love, acceptance and admiration and if you keep being a brave boy, eventually you’ll be a brave man, like Captain Scarlet or Robin Hood or Neil Armstrong.

So yeah, sit on the edge, perform audacious acts that nobody else would think of doing and never, ever show any signs of weakness.  And don’t even think about going home, your home’s out there now, sonny Jim, on the street.

Originally posted on Lloyd’s posterous
]]> http://perfectpath.co.uk/2011/11/06/being-brave/feed/ 1 Lloyd Davis http://perfectpath.co.uk/2011/11/05/untitled-2/ http://perfectpath.co.uk/2011/11/05/untitled-2/#comments Sat, 05 Nov 2011 08:32:33 +0000 Lloyd Davis http://perfectpath.wordpress.com/2011/11/05/untitled-2/ ]]>

VIDEO0005.3gp Watch on Posterous

Originally posted on Lloyd’s posterous
]]> http://perfectpath.co.uk/2011/11/05/untitled-2/feed/ 0 Lloyd Davis http://perfectpath.co.uk/2011/11/02/contemplating-a-plughole/ http://perfectpath.co.uk/2011/11/02/contemplating-a-plughole/#comments Wed, 02 Nov 2011 14:54:02 +0000 Lloyd Davis http://perfectpath.wordpress.com/2011/11/02/contemplating-a-plughole/ ]]>

I sat in the Bathtub That Must NOT Be Overfilled this morning and watched while the water ran away.  A tiny whirlpool formed above the plughole, but that wasn’t the first I noticed of it.  A single, bright, naked bulb shines above and slightly to the bather’s left (assuming that the bather assumes the traditional facing-the-taps seating position).  The tiny whirlpool casts a shadow on the grey enamel of the bath.  It looks like a black sun, or rather, the sun in total eclipse with a corona of slightly bent and focused light around it.  It throbs.  It flickers.  It circles around an area to the upper right hand side of the plughole.

I wonder.  

It really does look like a sun.  What if the sun, our sun, any sun, any star were just a shadow of a whirlpool somewhere else, at some distance?  A shadow cast by some much bigger, brighter, even more powerful light source somewhere over our left shoulder.  And then I remembered that the whirlpool itself is an effect caused by the rotation of the earth.   Even though it seems to float there on the surface of the water of my bath, occasionally sucking in bits of fluff and soap bubbles and thrusting them down the drain, it’s just a shadow of a much bigger event. This is derived from that.  That is derived from this.

Originally posted on Lloyd’s posterous
]]> http://perfectpath.co.uk/2011/11/02/contemplating-a-plughole/feed/ 0 Lloyd Davis http://perfectpath.co.uk/2011/10/27/llobo-clothing-inventory/ http://perfectpath.co.uk/2011/10/27/llobo-clothing-inventory/#comments Thu, 27 Oct 2011 11:40:29 +0000 Lloyd Davis http://perfectpath.wordpress.com/2011/10/27/llobo-clothing-inventory/ ]]>

I’ve just done a quick count of the clothes that I’m carrying with me.  I don’t know why I hadn’t done it before, but hadn’t.  I suppose I packed in a hurry, concentrating more  on getting stuff into storage than what I was taking with me.

So in my suitcase (plus what i’m wearing right now) I have:

11 pairs of underpants

14 pairs of socks and one odd one

14 t-shirts

7 shirts (2 of which are short-sleeved)

2 jumpers

2 pairs of jeans

a pair of shorts

swimming trunks

an anorak-type jacket

1 pair beach shoes

1 pair ordinary shoes

I generally only wear one shirt or t-shirt in a day, I can’t think of a time when I’ve had to change, apart from when I’ve been doing a lot of physical work during the day.  I change underpants and socks every day.  This means that I need to do a wash at least every 10 days and therefore at any time I have 10 shirts & t-shirts more than I need and 3 “spare” pairs of socks.

As it’s getting cold, I’m going to have to get my winter coat, cap and scarf out of storage.  I shall probably put a few shirts and t-shirts away and leave the jacket and beach shoes behind too.

Originally posted on Lloyd’s posterous
]]> http://perfectpath.co.uk/2011/10/27/llobo-clothing-inventory/feed/ 0 Lloyd Davis http://perfectpath.co.uk/2011/10/27/opening-up-for-collaborations/ http://perfectpath.co.uk/2011/10/27/opening-up-for-collaborations/#comments Thu, 27 Oct 2011 11:35:03 +0000 Lloyd Davis http://perfectpath.wordpress.com/2011/10/27/opening-up-for-collaborations/ ]]>

I’m writing lots of notes, but I’m not doing much with them because they’re not well-formed enough to be blog posts or brief enough to be status updates.  I’m not happy with how much I’m “producing”.  I don’t desperately need to fix that by producing more but I do feel the need to get a few more things done and at the same time, I’d like to be more able to collaborate with people online and face to face.  I have lots of ideas, little nuggets that get squirrelled away, that I get excited with with one person, but then I don’t have time to follow up or write up.  I’m also aware that my strength is in starting new things, doing them once and then moving on, but I’ve known for some time that that makes it difficult for people to buy what I’m doing, which in turn makes it difficult for me to keep doing things.

I was inspired the other day by seeing that Vinay has a public to-do list so that people can chip in.  I want to go a bit further – there won’t be much that I keep hidden away because I can’t think of anything that wouldn’t benefit from another pair of eyes.

So I’m going to try an experiment.  I’m going to start wikifying my notes and start leaving outlines, stubby bits, half-baked ideas, lazyweb requests for help etc lying around for others to muck around with if they feel like it.  I may well tweet little bits or point to things on the blog from time to time if I’m thinking I really, really want to work on this but don’t have anyone to play with.

The details of how it works will emerge – obviously if things turn into projects or products that get sold, then the people involved will have to negotiate how the work gets done and how any proceeds are shared.  I’m thinking that everything will be under a Creative Commons Attribution licence.  I reserve the right to change  my mind and stop doing anything at all at any time, but I hope that some of it may prove useful to someone, somehow, someday.

Not sure where I’ll put it, I’d rather host something myself than put it in the trust of pbworks or similar, but I’m open to suggestions on that.

Originally posted on Lloyd’s posterous
]]> http://perfectpath.co.uk/2011/10/27/opening-up-for-collaborations/feed/ 0 Lloyd Davis http://perfectpath.co.uk/2011/10/23/angry-birds-life-lessons/ http://perfectpath.co.uk/2011/10/23/angry-birds-life-lessons/#comments Sun, 23 Oct 2011 09:14:16 +0000 Lloyd Davis http://perfectpath.wordpress.com/2011/10/23/angry-birds-life-lessons/ ]]>

I’m playing Angry Birds a lot.  Well it’s a lot by my 21st Century standards – nothing like the 1990 Tetris life-takeover, I’m certainly not dreaming about flinging birds from a catapult… yet.

However, this lovely little (read highly addictive) game is reminding me a lot about how play helps us think about life.  Here are a few things (insights and prejudices confirmed) that have zipped through my head while playing.

• you work out your strategy by just firing stuff off.  You can think and think and think but until you try something, you really don’t know what’s going to happen.
• sometimes you have to keep doing steps 1, 2 and 3 in order to get to 4, because you keep screwing 4 up royally.
• things are rarely exactly repeatable, some things can be just close enough, other patterns are highly dependent on a previous state.
• lessons learned in one stage might or might not be applicable in another  - the corollary of this (I think) is that use of tools can be context dependent.
• there are elegant and beautiful solutions to most situations, but sometimes it’s most fun just to use brute force.
• sometimes you have to let go and stop thinking, let your body do the work without head or heart.  This is a gaming lesson I learned in about 1978, playing Star Wars on a Commodore Pet and hearing Obi Wan Kenobi’s voice saying “Use the force, Lloyd”.
• patience is a virtue.  you can sometimes just wait for a structure to crumble from a little undermining tap in the right place.
• if you do hit a structure at just the right/wrong spot, the results can be catastrophic (for the structure.
• there’s nothing so ugly as a smiling pig.

Originally posted on Lloyd’s posterous
]]> http://perfectpath.co.uk/2011/10/23/angry-birds-life-lessons/feed/ 0 Lloyd Davis http://perfectpath.co.uk/2011/10/14/where-to-sleep-tonight-you-decide-llobo/ http://perfectpath.co.uk/2011/10/14/where-to-sleep-tonight-you-decide-llobo/#comments Fri, 14 Oct 2011 17:30:30 +0000 Lloyd Davis http://perfectpath.wordpress.com/2011/10/14/where-to-sleep-tonight-you-decide-llobo/ ]]>

On my walk today I crossed two bridges both of which seemed like reasonable shelter for a #llobo tonight.  Trouble is I can’t decide which one – the big wooden one has my vote at the moment, there’s a lot more space and branches with plenty of foliage to help create my bed.  The concrete one won’t let the rain through though… Hmmmmm…. help me decide, folks.

Of course I jest!  My kids are always ribbing me that being a digital hobo means that i live under bridges and sell buttons and ribbons in order to get food.  Well I shall be tucked up tonight in my comfy bed with a big fat duvet as usual, never you mind.

It was a lovely walk though, about a 5 mile round-trip to the Chimney water meadows and the Thames (that’s the big wooden bridge over it).  I walked a little up the Thames Path too, but decided I’d had enough and it was time to turn back. On the way back I saw a signpost to a Bird Hide, so I found it and went in and sat for about 15 minutes in which time I saw some Great Tits and a Greater Spotted Woodpecker… you can’t make this stuff up…

Originally posted on Lloyd’s posterous
]]> http://perfectpath.co.uk/2011/10/14/where-to-sleep-tonight-you-decide-llobo/feed/ 0 Lloyd Davis http://perfectpath.co.uk/2011/10/13/shopping-trip/ http://perfectpath.co.uk/2011/10/13/shopping-trip/#comments Thu, 13 Oct 2011 22:32:38 +0000 Lloyd Davis http://perfectpath.wordpress.com/2011/10/13/shopping-trip/ ]]>

I arrived at the counter at Robert Dyas a few moments before an elderly woman.  Clearly, as far as she was concerned she arrived there a few moments before me, as she put her four light bulbs on the counter and started talking to the cashier while rooting in her purse for money.  That reads like there might have been some conflict between us, there wasn’t, I didn’t seem to exist to her.  The light bulbs came to £3.98.  ”Oh” she said, clearly surprised at how much it was “Oh well i suppose there are four of them”  She took out her change.  She had two pound coins, two 50p pieces and some smaller stuff.  So she had to go into her other bag where she keeps notes and after some more slow rooting she pulled out £20 and gave it to the cashier.  The woman behind the counter was, I think, trying to engage with me to apologise or make light of the situation.  I wasn’t perturbed deeply, I had plenty of time and I was ready to say so (I rehearsed it in my mind a few times in fact).  The twinge was more when she seemed to ignore me when we approached the check-out at the same time.  I just waited, and paid for my polyfilla.

I am aware that several people near to me have health problems at the moment.  I continue to be interested in what that means for me, what I make of it, how I react, the extent to which simply being present and listening to them talk about what’s happening for them seems to help.

OH: “You can’t have a toy *every* time we come into town”  I remember this.  I remember having to learn that there were limits to the family budget and that a trip to the shops didn’t always mean something fun for me.

In WH Smiths I wanted a bottle of Diet Coke.  The fridge is awkwardly in a corner so only one person can stand in front of it and take something at a time.   A young man, at most 18, I’d say got there first and was indecisive about what he would take.  There was an offer of any two bottles for £1.90 instead of a usual price of £1.54. It’s not clear to me always in that situation whether that means you can take one bottle of regular Coke and one of Diet.  Anyway he plumped for two regulars and got out of my way.  Having picked up two Diets myself, I went to the cash-desk.  The young man was in the queue with his friend.  What I hadn’t seen was that the queue extended behind him into one of the aisles another two or three people.  So I crossed in front of him to go around.  He was awkward in getting out of the way and so I accidentally kicked his foot, “Sorry”, “sorry”, “Sorry”.  I felt awkward at that age, like I was in the way, but not knowing how to move appropriately, over-aware of other people’s space and terrified of messing up and of course thinking that everyone was watching, taking note and forming a judgement about me.  I don’t know whether he was having that experience too, but it reminded me of me.  I could feel something crawling on my arm, I thought it was a money spider that I’d seen on me earlier, but it turned out to be a ladybird.  I grinned and laughed inside, refusing to brush it off and enjoying instead the tantalising tickling of its tiny feet through the hairs on my skin.  I was in the queue now and it was clear that there weren’t enough staff on the tills.  One of the two assistants came looking for something in the aisle I was in and she was surprised to see how long the queue was, so she rang the bell to call one of her colleagues to help.  ”Where is she?”, “She’s unpacking books on the shelves”.   An old lady in front of me admired a woman’s baby girl.  ”What’s her name?”, “Cynthia”, “Oh that’s a nice name”, “My daughter’s just called her girl Amelie, which is quite unusual” piped up her companion, who had a copy of every celebrity gossip magazine off the shelf. “Ah, and the vicar’s girl is called Ava.  not Eva, but Ava”.  I finally had to brush the ladybird off as it was climbing my neck towards my ear.  A red-headed boy came to help on the tills and I was soon out of there.

There was a group of young boys gathered near the market square.  It was odd because it was about 2pm and they weren’t in school uniform or looking anything like they were going to school. Two of them were sharing a phone call.  When I got closer it was clear that they were travellers, they were talking in that patois that sounds like you might be able to understand if you concentrated really hard.

Outside London, smiling at people in the street and saying hello to people you don’t know is a real option.  I enjoy it when I remember to do it.  It’s a good thing. Nonetheless, it’s something that I’m still having to practice consciously.  When I’m at my best, I’m a grinning fool all over town.

I’m mildly disturbed by the levels of obesity I see everywhere.  These are not happy fat people, they seem weighed down by the world and desperate for a lighter experience.

Markets *are* conversations, but sometimes traders appear to be talking to themselves.  They’re not, they’re just treading water until another customer comes along.

Originally posted on Lloyd’s posterous
]]> http://perfectpath.co.uk/2011/10/13/shopping-trip/feed/ 0 Lloyd Davis http://perfectpath.co.uk/2011/10/12/the-hobo-who-knew-too-much-lastnightsdreams/ http://perfectpath.co.uk/2011/10/12/the-hobo-who-knew-too-much-lastnightsdreams/#comments Wed, 12 Oct 2011 20:02:24 +0000 Lloyd Davis http://perfectpath.wordpress.com/2011/10/12/the-hobo-who-knew-too-much-lastnightsdreams/ ]]>

I had two fear-based dreams last night.  

In the first I had been the witness to some nefarious activity during which I had become involved with some police officers and now the criminals would be after me so I needed to stay hidden, keep off the street and have a police guard when I really needed to go out.  I felt like my life was over, that I’d made a small mistake, looking in the wrong direction when someone was up to no good, and now I was facing ridiculously harsh consequences.

A little later, I had another dream.  This time I was in a car with Ian Ricketts and some other person.  Ian taught me at Guildford School of Acting and is one of the singularly nicest men I’ve ever known.  Really, just impeccably lovely.  He was driving along with me in the passenger seat (although now I think about it, for some reason it was a left-hand drive).  Suddenly he went very fast and bumped another car.  We slowed down and stopped and then an automated voice said “Warning! Pedestrian attack imminent!” and sure enough a guy from the car we’d hit was coming round to the passenger-side wing, shouting and gesticulating.  He then took a dive onto the windscreen, covering it completely.  At this point Ian drove off, again, very quickly and then stopped suddenly so that the guy flew off the bonnet.  Again, I was a helpless witness to someone getting hurt. I woke up.

Originally posted on Lloyd’s posterous
]]> http://perfectpath.co.uk/2011/10/12/the-hobo-who-knew-too-much-lastnightsdreams/feed/ 0 Lloyd Davis http://perfectpath.co.uk/2011/10/12/stripping/ http://perfectpath.co.uk/2011/10/12/stripping/#comments Wed, 12 Oct 2011 19:43:46 +0000 Lloyd Davis http://perfectpath.wordpress.com/2011/10/12/stripping/ ]]>

I realised today that I really like this sort of thing.  Taking wallpaper off, removing layers of paint.  I’m not that wild about the filling of cracks, sanding down and painting bits of decorating, but I love stripping away the old stuff.

Sadly, the job I’ve got to do here this week only involves removing one layer of wallpaper but I’d really relish another go at something caked in years of DIY – I had the experience once, but the problem there was that I lived with other people who wanted it finished, nicely painted again.  They didn’t see the joy of removing old paint very, very slowly – seeing the different shades, the fashions in decoration emerge and then getting back down to the bare wood.

So yeah, in search of somewhere with lots of layers of paint that want removing… slowly, no rush (in fact the slower the better)

Originally posted on Lloyd’s posterous
]]> http://perfectpath.co.uk/2011/10/12/stripping/feed/ 0 Lloyd Davis http://perfectpath.co.uk/2011/10/11/wherever-you-go/ http://perfectpath.co.uk/2011/10/11/wherever-you-go/#comments Tue, 11 Oct 2011 19:04:29 +0000 Lloyd Davis http://perfectpath.wordpress.com/2011/10/11/wherever-you-go/ ]]>

… there you are.  

I couldn’t have done this hobo nomadic thing before now.  I guess I could, but it would have been very different.  Before it would have been about getting away from something or trying to find something I didn’t have.  I don’t feel like there’s anything I want to get away from or anywhere that I’m trying to get to today.  There are some things that I feel like I should do – some things that are just in my head and on scraps of notebook and stuff at the moment and it would be disappointing for them to stay there forever, but I feel like (at least for today) I’ve let go of the fantasy that “When I have X…” or “When I’m Y enough…” or “When I’ve done Z…” then I’ll be able to be happy etc.

One of the things that I’ve come to know better through wandering is the recognition that any turmoil, drama or crisis is happening within me, it’s not the outside circumstances, it’s not the people I’m hanging out with, it’s the story that I have playing in my head.  That’s what causes me any pain or disturbance.  Other people may be sharing in it, but they’re having a different experience, for different reasons and doubtless playing out a different drama.  And I’m 100% responsible for my own feelings about it. And that empowers me greatly, because then there’s something I can do about how I feel, I’m not dependent on anyone else for it.  I can look back at my early decisions about the world and see where I’m fighting to be right about something in the face of the present reality.  Because those feelings most often stem from wanting to be right about the world, wanting things to be as I’ve decided them.  Wanting them to be as I decided probably 40 years ago or more.

What sort of decisions am I talking about?  All sorts of things, but you can recognise them primarily by the toddler tone “I don’t need anyone’s help; Nobody loves me; Girls always steal your stuff and break it”.  They’re just a selection of my favourites.  

The ones that give me most pain now are things like “I don’t fit in, I’m not like everyone else, I’m not welcome here.”   I remember clearly when I thought that for the first time.  You see the big white van in the picture above?  In 1969, people didn’t park their cars up in front of their houses like that, all the houses had walls and front gardens.  But on that spot in front of the house that now has a white van, when I was four years old and newly arrived in the Croft, I went over to play with the kids from the street for the first time.  I was wearing a grey duffle coat.  I don’t know what happened really, some pushing, shoving, shouting? demands for money? a big push, a punch perhaps, tears?  - but I came away quite convinced that I didn’t fit in that I was not welcome.  And I strongly associated it with that spot.  Whenever I wanted to replay the episode to bolster my belief that I’m an outsider (probably with embellishment to suit the context) I saw the toggle on my duffle coat, the lichen on the garden wall, the cold greyness of the pavement.  These are the ways that we keep these things alive.  A strong association with a place.  And in time I’ve come to imagine that it’s still there, some remnant of the scuffle, the emotional upheaval, marking the spot in the road.

I went back there a week or so ago and knew that it wasn’t there at all.  It’s never been anywhere but in my head.  It’s just not there, it’s forgotten by all but me.  What if I was wrong in the initial formation of that decision, what if I was wrong in all of the evidence I’ve gathered over the years to support my belief in it?  What then?  How might I live differently then?

So here’s something about how wrong I can be.  When I was walking there, taking the picture above, I thought “Oh, they’ve moved that telegraph pole, it used to be on the other side of the road”  I was quite sure of it.  I thought it was very odd, I mean why would you move a telegraph pole just a few yards to the other side of the road?  You’d have to connect all the lines up again and everything, it doesn’t make sense, but my memory was very clear – after all, it was not just a telegraph pole in those days, it was the acky post and as such the centre of our communal lives through those long hot summers of childhood (us, you know the kids in the street, the ones that I didn’t get on with… or well at some point i must have…).  Anyway – so when I got back from my walk I got ready to write a post about the moving of the acky post and to provide proof of my discovery I went to look at this picture of my sister in about 1971 riding along that bit of pavement.  And of course I found that I was wrong.  The telegraph pole had always been in the same place.  The lamp-post has been modified and the paving slabs have been replaced with tarmac, but the telegraph pole is in just the same position as it was 40 years ago.  It was only ever somewhere else in my head.

Originally posted on Lloyd’s posterous
]]> http://perfectpath.co.uk/2011/10/11/wherever-you-go/feed/ 1 Lloyd Davis http://perfectpath.co.uk/2011/10/08/church-bells-catch-me-out-trying-to-record-them/ http://perfectpath.co.uk/2011/10/08/church-bells-catch-me-out-trying-to-record-them/#comments Sat, 08 Oct 2011 14:14:25 +0000 Lloyd Davis http://perfectpath.wordpress.com/2011/10/08/church-bells-catch-me-out-trying-to-record-them/ ]]>

http://boos.audioboo.fm/swf/fullsize_player.swfOriginally posted on Lloyd’s posterous
]]> http://perfectpath.co.uk/2011/10/08/church-bells-catch-me-out-trying-to-record-them/feed/ 0 Lloyd Davis Media_httpaudioboofmb_feyws