When you really need to know something, or communicate something important forget email or other written communications. Try your best to do it in person, ideally face to face.

Why?

Written communication of any sort can be frustratingly ineffective and have extremely negative results.

Say things face to face and you'll avoid misunderstandings

You send an email or write a letter asking questions of someone. They choose which – if any – of your questions to reply to. The answers aren’t what you expected. Maybe they didn’t tell you everything you wanted, or needed to know. Maybe they chose to ignore some of your questions completely. Maybe the answer they gave didn’t make sense to you – they interpreted the question in a different way than you wanted them to. Whichever applies, you’re not much further forward than when you started.

So you try again. Depending on whether it’s a formal or informal communication, to a friend or stranger, you start again. Maybe you ask further questions based on their previous answers, or maybe you have to rephrase your question or simply ask it again. And again, you may not get the reply you’re hoping for. Your questions may still be ignored or misinterpreted.

The problem is that you don’t know what’s happening. You don’t know if someone is deliberately avoiding answering your questions or whether you haven’t stated them clearly enough. And if you keep to written communication there’s a chance you’ll never find out, even if you go so far as to ask: ‘Why aren’t you answering my questions??’ In fact this strategy is likely to lead result in even less effective communications.

If you’re dealing with a business, chances are you’ll stop trying and look elsewhere for another company to work with. If you’ve got a complaint, failure to communicate effectively at this first level can easily escalate a simple matter into a more serious situation.

But if you can actually see the person you need information from it’s so much easier.

If your question isn’t answered or you don’t get enough information from the answer you can pursue it straight away. You can ask more questions or say things differently if you need to. And it’s easier to tell when someone is trying to avoid answering you – and deal with it. You’ve got the opportunity to ask them direct if there is a reason for their avoidance. And, in person, you can make sure you do this in a way that won’t upset or annoy them.

In person you have the benefit of body language and other non-verbal signs to better help you understand the conversation. Facial expressions, changes in posture or breathing: all these things contribute to the conversation, enriching it or signaling difficulties or concerns.

If you can’t see the person but you can speak to them, you don’t have as many advantages but you’re still far better placed than if you’re writing. Someone on the other end of a telephone line being asked a direct question has less chance to avoid it without being challenged. You need to proceed carefully to find out the reasons for avoidance, but you’re much more likely to succeed than if your contact is totally impersonal.

Sometimes it’s uncomfortable to be in that face to face situation, especially if your communication is likely to upset the other person. Ending a relationship, telling someone they’ve been unsuccessful at interview, sacking someone or making them redundant are all situations most people would prefer to avoid. Dealing with others’ emotions makes many people uncomfortable, even tongue-tied.

Avoiding things by falling back on written communications doesn’t really make it better. You either agonize over the content of the ‘letter’ or you make it brief, even abrupt, leaving out things you might want to say. But chances are you still say them – inside your head, acting out scenarios. You still go through the emotions whether you’re face to face or not. And you don’t know how the recipient will deal with your missive. You can’t soften the blow in any way, however hard you try with your words.

Uncomfortable as it might feel at the time, having the courage to take a face to face approach whenever you can will actually give you the more comfortable outcome with far less chance for lingering misunderstanding.

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I want it all, and I want it now!

The mantra of consumerist society.

Clever marketers have persuaded us to believe that we just can’t live without whatever new product they want to promote. Actually they know, and we know if we’re honest, that we can easily survive without that latest gizmo. But they’re skilled at making us believe that, if we don’t rush out to get it, we’ll somehow be inferior, out of step, out of touch.

It’s okay to have a different make or model of cellphone from your friend, so long as you’ve both got one that takes pictures, accesses the internet, holds more music than you could ever listen to and makes a fantastic latte. If you’re still walking about with something the thickness of a candy bar that only lets you make calls and send messages, you’re up there with the dinosaurs – even if the gadget does everything you want of it.

Expectations have been created in our children that there’s an electronic solution to everything, and that this is the best – even the correct – solution. Even toddlers can have their own play versions of laptops, cellphones, music and movie players. Those marketers are smart: hook them into the idea early and you’ve got them for life.

Look round at children in airports waiting for planes. How many of them are in some way hooked in to electronic machines? Teenagers and adults too. Dad gives his son a gizmo to keep him busy so he can check the ballgame results on the web in peace.

It’s not just entertainment. Satellite navigation is also being pushed as a ‘must have’, turning the traveller from a thinking machine into an automaton, responding to commands, even if these don’t seem to make sense (it looks like a dead end but if the satnav says to turn there, it must be right). Cars are becoming more dependent on computers that diagnose faults whose solution is usually to replace a part, rather than repair it.

We’re growing a generation of people who expect their every entertainment need to come from a shiny little box. Or a shiny big box hanging on a wall emitting larger than life pictures. A whole bunch of people who are being discouraged from thinking and acting for themselves, of making their own entertainment. People who don’t know how to do simple repairs, or even maintenance checks on equipment. A generation who believe that home-made bread comes out of a machine sitting on the kitchen counter, an hour or so after all the ingredients have been tossed together.

What sort of legacy is this for our children? For YOUR children?

If they always expect someone or something to provide a solution to their needs, be it entertainment, equipment problems and household repairs, or travel directions, they’ll go through life relying on others.

Do them a big favour and make sure they grow up with their own coping skills and resilience. Limit the amount of time spent on electronic games and computers and make sure your child has a variety of different stimuli that will develop different skills and abilities.

Here are some suggestions to get you started:

Use pen and paper based word and number puzzles to develop writing skills including spelling and grammar, as well as logic and reasoning.

Get them involved in practical tasks around the home to build practical skills and confidence. A cake baked at home gives much more satisfaction than one bought in a shop, even if the shop-bought one looks more attractive.

Teach stewardship. If something goes wrong or breaks, explore repair before replacement. Help your child to understand that we don’t live in a throw-away world.

Make sure they interact with others. Too many electronic games are played solo, or turn by turn, and even when there is more interaction it’s rarely face to face. Help your child build socializing skills, learn to give and take, and to win and lose in real life.

Invest your own time with your child so he can talk to adults as well as people closer to his own age. Discuss current affairs and encourage your child to express and explain his views. The more comfortable he is with talking, forming opinions and debating them, the better prepared he’ll be for the world of work. And he’ll be better able to discuss any personal issues that arise.

Encourage links between the generations. Many adults regret not knowing more about their family history. If there are elderly relatives in your family get them talking about their childhood but make it relevant for your child. Talk about the first television set, a rare trip somewhere, an eccentric or noteworthy ancestor.

Make sure your child reads regularly and not just off a screen. Make available books and magazines on things that interest her, and ask her to read things to you – a recipe while you’re baking, the instructions to set the DVD, anything that will make sure she’s seeing correct spelling and grammar, rather than only being exposed to the language of computers and cellphones.

On a car journey, take a map. Plan your own journey then see how it compares to your satnav one. Follow the satnav directions on your map. Look at the places you’re passing through: are there interesting things to see? Strange names for places? You can bet your satnav voice won’t be giving you a commentary about the country you’re going through.

The younger you can start this the more effective you can be. But for older children who have already become slaves to their electronic toys, only switching them off when there’s something they really must watch on television, the task is both urgent and important if you want them to develop self reliance rather than always looking to someone – or something – else to solve all their problems.

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Face your fears by imagining the very worst

A few days ago I got an email I’d been waiting for but I waited a further day before reading it. Why? Because I was worried about what it might say.

The email was from a friend and ex-work colleague who I was keen to keep in touch with when I left the UK, but our communications have been sporadic at best in the last 18 months. Every so often I sent chatty emails to which I rarely received a reply. And when I did get a mail it was often a non-event: an apology for not writing and a promise to write soon, which wasn’t followed up unless it was with a further apology. If he’d stopped apologizing and used the time to write a few lines of news I would have been happy.

In the end I sent him a sort of ultimatum, in as friendly a way as possible. I told him I didn’t want to lose touch, and suggested how we could stay in communication without it being onerous. I also acknowledged that he may not want to continue the contact, so gave him a ‘get out’ option. I hit ‘send’ and waited with trepidation.

It was a couple of weeks before I received a reply and, as I said earlier, I didn’t immediately look at it.

You’d have thought I was eager to hear from him – which I was – but I was worried that he might have accepted my ‘get out’ and that his email might just say ‘It’s been nice knowing you, have a good life, goodbye’. Although I’d offered this outcome I really didn’t want it to happen. And for a while I was afraid that, just by opening the email, that’s what I would find.

For me this would be very disappointing: the end to a 19 year friendship which I’d really valued. This was the person who first interviewed me for the company, the one who helped me work through my early doubts, the one who I kept returning to work with – and for – and who always made me smile just to see him. We’d been a strong partnership, working well together, almost instinctively at times, and achieved some notable successes.

We’d spent many hours putting the world – or at least our little bit of it – to rights over a couple of drinks. We’d had our disagreements and many long, drawn out discussions, but always remained friends. It was sad to think we might not ‘talk’ to one another again. I wondered what would happen if I met him on a visit back to England, how awkward it might be if we met somewhere, by accident or design.

I wondered if I had been right to send my email. We could have carried on as we were: granted I wouldn’t be getting any replies but by continuing to write I could make myself believe we were still in contact. But if we did end the contact I would have been the instigator.

It was done now. I couldn’t retract my action and his reply was waiting. If he told me he didn’t want to stay in touch I felt he would be rejecting me and there would be nothing I could do about it. Even if he offered understandable reasons for his decision I told myself it would really be because I wasn’t as important in his life as he was in mine; I wasn’t worth the 10 minutes it would take every few weeks to write me a few lines and hit ‘send’.

I put my imagination in top gear and really worked at it: building up all the negatives that I was sure would flow from his decision – which I felt sure would be negative as well.

But I couldn’t put it off forever, so I considered the worst outcome I might get. The worst that could happen is that he wanted nothing more to do with me and was telling me so. In fact the worst that could happen was a formalization of the present in that I wouldn’t hear from him, but with the addition that he didn’t want me to write to him either. The worst that could happen was to know…

His reply wasn’t long but it was friendly and chatty. A brief acknowledgement of his tardy communication habits was followed by a short update on what was happening in his life. My worst fears weren’t realized: He, too, wants to keep in touch. I know he won’t ever be a regular, lengthy writer, and I hope he knows I will look forward to his communications without being disappointed at the long intervals between them.

People are really good at visualizing bad things. Usually we’re better at the bad things than at imagining that good things might happen to us, and this can make us fearful of taking the action we need to take. Our internal dialog is more likely to rehearse a negative experience than a positive one:

If we want to ask the boss for a raise or for permission to do something we don’t normally do (he might refuse)

When we want to discuss something important with a loved one (she might want to leave me)

If we want to find out what’s troubling our children (she might be gay)

When we need to speak to a colleague about an aspect of work that isn’t going to plan (he might blame me for the problems)

If we want to complain about poor service (they might be uncooperative)

Face the fear by asking yourself the question:

What is the worst that could happen in this situation?

Make a picture of it in your mind. Play it through with pictures, sounds, feelings. Live through it in your imagination.

Then ask:

If this does happen, what will I do about it?

Think through different ways that you could move forward. If your daughter is gay will you reject her or seek to understand her choices? If your boss says ‘No’ you’ve still got a job, and you have the opportunity to ask when your salary is likely to be reviewed, or how you can get to work on new projects.

If my friend had called an end to future contact I would have put him on my Christmas letter list (his choice whether to read or reciprocate of course) and accepted that I’d still had the experience of a good relationship, and good memories to look back on.

Once you’ve identified positive ways that you can deal with the very worst you can imagine it puts you back in control. You know you can get through the worst, and so you will. You’ve faced up to your fear mentally and come out smiling.

Then go off and do it for real!

And always remember you’ve only considered one possibility – the worst you can imagine – but there could be many other outcomes, all of which must be better than the worst. Chances are it will be one of these in reality, as the worst thing we can imagine rarely happens to us.

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Have you ever watched children playing together?

Often they start off happily enough but after a while things start to go wrong. Maybe they both want to play with the same toy at the same time, maybe they both want to set the rules of the game. Whatever it is, they hit a point when they are no longer able to play successfully, so they part.

Parting may only mean turning their backs on each other, rather than actually going apart, but in effect it’s giving them some mental space from each other. They have time to focus on themselves and their own actions without thinking about anyone else.

If they stay in the same room, chances are this ‘time out’ may not last too long. After no more than a few minutes they may make tentative gestures to one another, non-verbal hints that they’re ready to get back together. And soon they’re playing happily again, as if nothing had happened.

And usually this is the case as far as the children are concerned. As an observer we know something did happen. We know there was a situation that caused them to break apart. But they have let this flow past them, out of their minds.

As we get older we seem less able to do this. We seem to need to hold on to the hurts and slurs. When we have a disagreement with someone, or something goes wrong in our lives, we need to pick it to pieces, to investigate and recreate in our minds, to rehearse different scenarios, maybe to apportion blame. Sadly the last thing we’re likely to do is put it fully behind us and ‘let bygones be bygones’.

The danger of this is that we carry this baggage around with us and, like, the stereotypical cavernous woman’s handbag that holds everything bar the kitchen sink, we can pull it out whenever we need it. So next time we see the person we disagreed with, rather than starting afresh we quickly recall the recent hurts, and our attitude and behavior is based on these.

Maybe we’ll try to avoid him or perhaps we’ll try to slip a pertinent remark into the conversation, just to make sure he knows we haven’t forgotten what happened.

If we have to work with her and the problem was about a previous work assignment, maybe we’ll feel the need to bring it up ‘just to make sure we don’t have that happening again’.

Depending on how the event was perceived and remembered by the other person, we may find we create a hostile situation where none needed to exist. Or maybe there’s embarrassment over a genuine error that they hoped was now in the past. Perhaps there will be ‘point scoring’: our opening volley is met with a reply of ‘Oh that; surely you’re not still letting that bother you’, making it clear that we’re the one who holds onto, and worries about things.

And sometimes we can meet genuine bewilderment from the other person. They’re still able to use that childhood knack of putting something completely behind them. There are no negative feelings attached to the experience, it’s still in their memory but filed away with all the other miscellaneous stimuli they receive, rather than in their ‘must remember and re-use in anger’ drawer. So when we bring it up they honestly don’t have a clue what we’re talking about. And if we pursue the matter chances are we’ll just make fools of ourselves and feel even worse about it all.

That childhood skill is a good one to learn. Life shouldn’t be made up of worries about things that really don’t matter, about imagined insults, about missed opportunities or misinterpreted ‘wrongs’.

Start practicing now:

Next time you encounter someone with whom you think you have some ‘baggage’ act as if you don’t. Make a fresh start; treat them like someone you’re meeting for the first time. Forget all those preconceptions and past impressions. Give them another chance and they’ll most likely respond in the same way.

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Multitasking can work, but only if you choose the right combination of activities

According to a recent study many people who multitask lack the skills needed to do it effectively.

The study looked specifically at people who multitask in terms of media use – those who choose to read email, watch television, engage in online chat, play online games, read news feeds and the like – all, or several, at the same time.

To find out how good they were at multitasking they were tested in a number of exercises related to memory and filtering out trivia, tasks that have been deemed important for multitasking, and their results compared to those of a group of non-multitaskers.

Those who didn’t engage in this type of media multitasking consistently scored better in the tests, suggesting that their ability to multitask is greater than those who actually do it.

All the multitasking activities seem to be of a similar type: taking in, processing and responding to information, whether this is from pictures, words, sounds or a combination of these. It seems obvious that if you’re jumping from one source of information input to another you’re less likely to retain everything accurately. And as you can only focus on one thought at a time, each time you focus on something new you inevitably lose focus on other things.

Just try thinking about 2 different things at once: what you want to eat tonight and where you want to go for your next vacation, for example, and you’ll understand what I mean. It’s not possible to think about them both at exactly the same time.

And if you’re browsing across several media at once you’re less likely to spot what is trivial than if you’re concentrating on one thing. So you collect more information than you might need.

Or think about how you revise for an exam. You may only spend half hour or so on a particular subject, but while you’re studying history that’s what you do: study history. You don’t suddenly jump to geography or math; you stick with one subject, maybe going over things a few times to make sure you’ve understood. To retain the information you need to give it your undivided attention.

And that’s what these multitaskers don’t do as they flit around the airwaves and the ether.

The researchers now want to find out whether the activity dumbs down the skills: were these people better at retaining things and spotting trivia before they got hooked on their multi-streamed information feed? Or maybe they’ll just find that some people are naturally better at juggling several activities than others.

When I think of multitasking I don’t think of people trying to juggle several different media inputs at the same time. I think of someone making the dinner, ironing the week’s laundry, and watching the television. Three very different tasks that require different skills and that can be done simultaneously.

At different times each requires the full focus of attention: when the casserole needs checking or a there’s a tricky bit to negotiate on a garment for instance. But at other times each activity can go on ‘autopilot’ for a while, getting less attention while you’re still aware of it in the background.

Think of any busy parent and you’ll see a successful multitasker in action. But you’ll also see clear evidence that the more tasks someone tries to handle at one time, the less successful they’re likely to be. Especially where these tasks make demands on the same skills at the same time. Whether it’s trying to think about 3 different things or perform 2 different practical tasks it just doesn’t work.

So how can you be an effective multitasker?

Combine activities that need different skills, not the same ones

Combine activities that need attention at different times, not all at once

Make use of ‘helpers’ such as checklists and automatic timers

Don’t try to juggle too much: do 2 things well rather than 3 things badly

Don’t try to multitask something that needs your undivided attention

Don’t try to multitask all the time – give yourself a break

Avoid multitasking when you’re dealing with people: make sure they get your full attention. Feeling that you’re just one of several balls being juggled does no-one’s self esteem any good.

And always avoid that most dangerous of all multitasking: using a cell phone while you’re driving. If you’re using a hands-free cell phone your hands may both be on the wheel, but only part of your mind is concentrating on the road. And it’s your mind that reacts to situations and tells your hands and feet what to do with the brakes and steering wheels….

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We’ve been doing some thinking lately.

Not that we don’t think all the time but, like many people, we have a tendency to get stuck into things and get on with them, not always stepping back and taking a look at the whole picture as often as we might.

A few days ago we sat down and had a discussion, the outcome of which was that we decided we aren’t too happy about some of the things that we’re doing:

Fail to revisit your goals regularly and you may get bogged down in unnecessary clutter

We’ve fallen into routines that have become stale and sometimes frustrating

We’re doing things not because we want to, but because we think we should

We’re losing focus on what really matters – to us!

We’re wasting a lot of time going down paths that aren’t leading us to where we want to be

We’re collecting a lot of resources that we’re unlikely to use

The upshot is that we agreed to take a break and spend some time thinking about what we really want to achieve in our lives, and how our current plans and activities fit in with this.

Inevitably there will be things we discard. These are things that, in hindsight, we no longer want to pursue. Things that don’t satisfy us or don’t contribute to our current goals. There’s nothing wrong with this. It’s not wise to set a goal ‘in stone’ as no-one knows what is likely to happen tomorrow or next week. Often circumstances will change meaning that the goal – or the steps planned towards it – needs to be modified. This is called REAL LIFE!

This doesn’t mean that setting goals should be entered into lightly, or not set at all. When we originally made our plans we were committed to them, and we set about translating the goals into actions methodically. Time moved on, things changed; these changes impacted on our original plans. We aren’t discarding things lightly either. We’ve had a lot of discussions about how and why things have changed, and what we should do about it.

The danger in this situation is that we could fail to make the changes we’ve now identified. After all, we’ve put an awful lot of time and effort into things over the last year. There’s a tendency to want to hang on, to retain things that have already been created even if they no longer fit into the picture, just because of the time and effort we’ve already invested in them. But this would be wrong. Unless we’re willing to discard and move on we won’t really move on.

One of the first actions we’re taking is to de-clutter. For us this is mostly a virtual de-clutter: sorting through all those computer-based resources we’ve accumulated and dumping those we don’t need (including those multiple copies of things we filed in several places so they’d always be handy!). This is a time investment that will eventually free up our time as it should be easier to find things. Plus, we can be more confident that the resources we’ve retained are things we will actually use. Then we just need to apply these excellent criteria to anything new that comes our way!

Once completed we’ll not only have a ‘lighter’ computer, we’ll have cleared some of the fluff from our minds and be ready and motivated to start afresh in a slightly different direction from that we were heading in before. And still on track to achieve our life goals.…

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We have friends who live about 90 minutes drive away on the opposite peninsula of the Peloponnese in southern Greece. They’ve been here longer than we have, first moving out from the UK when they were experiencing difficulties controlling a house build over such a distance and with language challenges. They’ve come through a lot over the past 3 or 4 years: legal issues, difficulties with builders, getting work re-done because it wasn’t up to standard, finding out the hard way that Greek standards and English ones can be very different. But they’ve come through it, and finally have a lovely, high spec home on the edge of a pretty village, with beautiful views over the Gulf of Messinia.

It’s no more than 6 months since they finally moved in to the home that finalized their dream of a new life in Greece. But they’ve already put it on the market and are planning to move back to England. Why? One of them misses family back in the UK, and has found it very difficult to settle.

Another couple we know have also had problems. In their case problems have been created by their ex-developer, whose interpretation of building permissions appears to have been somewhat on the generous side. What seemed like an ideal option: a small plot on the edge of town has turned into a battle over boundaries, access and even electricity supplies. The experience has soured this couple’s feelings about Greece in general, and they’re contemplating selling up and moving back to England – when they finally get everything sorted out, that is.

We’ve heard of another situation where a couple have legally split with their developer – in the middle of a build. So they’re left with a part-completed house, and again with bad feelings about the whole experience. Their initial dream has been shattered, in part by their own expectations coming up against reality, and in part by external factors such as the economic downturn forcing them to consider changes that they didn’t want. In this case we don’t know what the final outcome will be: will they too decide to sell up, or will a distancing period help them get a better perspective again?

All these people started out with a dream. Nothing at all wrong with that, of course. In fact if you don’t dare to dream, chances are you’ll never achieve anything. And without that dream none of these three couples would ever have left the UK.

But having a dream and realizing that dream are very different things. And the route from one to the other is not guaranteed to be smooth. Where that dream is too far from reality chances are that disappointment and disillusionment are just around the corner. All these people have suffered considerable stress and unhappiness from the situation they’ve found themselves in.

In neuro-linguistic programming there is a vital phase in the process of change called future pacing. Basically this means imagining you have already achieved what you want – your dream has become a reality – and checking out what it is actually like. You ask questions like:

How will life be different for me if I achieve what I want?

Who will I be sharing this new life with?

What will I be doing/feeling/thinking?

What will I lose from the life I have now, and am I willing to give these things up?

What could happen to stop me achieving what I want, and what can I do about it?

What will happen if I don’t achieve what I want?

Do I have all the resources I need (personal, financial, knowledge etc.) to achieve what I want? If not, what else do I need to acquire and how can I do this?

Whether it’s a move to a different country, or giving up smoking, asking these questions makes you face up to the reality of what you are planning. True, you can’t predict exactly what every aspect of realizing your dream will be like, but if you give yourself honest answers to the questions you can make sure you address the key issues for you.

If you can’t answer these questions, and demonstrate how you will deal with inevitable obstacles, you’re not ready to go for the dream. Telling yourself it will work out and you’ll worry about things when they happen, not before, may seem a calm, relaxed approach but it only works if you can remain calm and relaxed when things go wrong. This is possible if you are flexible about the finer details of your final outcome. But if your dream is one where every detail is fixed in stone, or your approach is ‘all or nothing’, then failing to future pace your dream is a big mistake.

Here’s an example of how it can be:

Another couple who moved to Greece over 5 years ago were unable to build their dream home immediately as their capital was tied up in a property elsewhere in Europe, which didn’t sell for 4 years. Finally this year they were ready to proceed, but then came the challenges:

Their chosen building company became unresponsive to their emails; a Greece-based alternative was sought but not found. Prices had escalated since their original plans were made, and basic foundation work was going to take a larger slice of their finds than they had bargained for. A couple of health challenges meant they were unlikely to be as actively involved in the construction process as they’d hoped, meaning they would have to pay more for labor costs.

In short, what could go wrong seemed to be going wrong.

But each time they hit a barrier or a new disappointment they stepped back, thought about things and looked for an alternative route. They soon realized their original dream wasn’t going to become their reality, but they reconciled themselves to this and sought alternatives. After waiting so long it must have been immensely disappointing to start the whole thinking and planning phase again, but they accepted this was what they must do, and just got on with it.

This couple had a finite, detailed dream – we’ve seen their building plans. But they were also prepared to make adjustments and to accept that there is more than one acceptable outcome to their plans. They too have found the situation stressful, but at the end of the day they will have a solution they’re comfortable with – and they’ll still be in Greece.

Failure to future pace can lead to a gap between dreams and reality

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Greece, like many other hot countries, suffers the trauma of fires each summer, when there has been no rain for months and the countryside is like a tinderbox just waiting for a flame.

Our first local fire was last Saturday. It started mid afternoon on the hillside behind us and by evening it had really taken hold, lighting up different parts of the hillside as it alternately flared up and calmed down. We watched it for quite a while in the darkness, as did friends across on the opposite peninsula, who had a clear view through their binoculars.

How can people justify doing this deliberately?

The fire was still burning on Sunday morning, though as soon as it was light the planes and helicopters could finally drop masses of sea water onto it, changing the bright flames into dense smoke.

From a safe distance both the fire and the attempts to put it out are impressive, but behind these incidents there is often a very different set of feelings.

Again, like in some other countries these fires do not always start naturally. In fact it’s a way to get around regulations that some people are willing to use, despite the devastation it causes. In Greece, land can be refused building permission if it is deemed to be forest land (i.e. largely covered in non-cultivated trees and shrubs). If you own such land and want to build on it, fire is a good way to get round the obstacles. Or if you just want to clear your land at someone else’s expense.

The problem is that fire, once started is difficult to control. And although the Greeks are well aware of the dangers, they are not usually willing to give up any land to create fire breaks that would limit this danger. They simply must have that extra row of olive trees.  Maybe the fact that the Greek government gives compensation for olive trees and grape vines lost to fire doesn’t help the situation.

Put this all together and you have a recipe for disaster:

People who put their own selfish desires above human life and property.

People who don’t care about the emotional, physical and financial devastation they create in the lives of others.

People who don’t care that the countryside takes years to recover, and that the fear of fires could discourage tourists, thus affecting the economy.

People who seem unafraid that their actions might actually kill people, and who would never see themselves as murderers.

And the sad fact is that, often, the identity of these life wreckers is known – people are pretty confident they know who the local arsonist is – and this isn’t his first time either. The Greek government has announced that they are planning to crack down on the arsonists. They are putting more money into human resources to investigate suspicious fires.

But it’s unlikely that local people will come forward to name the guilty ones. Maybe they fear reprisals; maybe they feel they don’t quite have the proof they need; or maybe they just don’t want to get involved.

How did we ever get to live in a world where some people believe it is acceptable to damage the lives and livelihood of other people in their own greedy desire to get on?

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Do you get caught up in the 'crowd' response to situations?

It was a surprise to hear Michael Jackson had died aged just 50. My partner saw it on an internet news site and we briefly read the story, skimming over the inevitable trawl through the more unattractive side of his unusual life. But that was it. Our curiosity about the cause of death was answered, and our interest was over, beyond remarking on the sadness of such an early death for anyone.

But almost immediately the ‘lemming mentality’ started to emerge.

People on Facebook (and doubtless other places) joining groups related to him that mostly didn’t exist the day before he died.

A download site showing that the most popular music and video downloads were suddenly all related to his work, when he hadn’t really featured previously.

On-line reportage encouraging people to leave comments and tributes.

Fans devastated by their grief.

And doubtless many more public outpourings if you choose to look.

Why does this happen?

If people really appreciated the ‘King of Pop’ why did they wait until he died to join these groups?

If they really liked his music and videos why didn’t they get them before he died?
Or maybe they already have copies, but somehow think one downloaded after his death will be different?

How did we ever evolve into a society where the death of a famous person has the power to generate such responses?

There are many examples of where people are motivated to take action by a sad or tragic event. The diagnosis with, or death of a loved one from, a known disease often prompts people into a frenzy of fund-raising for a cause they were never concerned about before.

I’m not an unfeeling person, but I just can’t understand why people have this need to join a cause or demonstrate public grief in this way. Killer diseases have been around for a long time, and funds for research and treatment have been needed. Celebrities have died young from all manner of expected and unexpected causes.

But it seems that there’s more kudos in jumping on the bandwagon after the event than showing support for that same cause, or in that celebrity, before it happens.

That same sort of crowd mentality creates many other unhelpful ‘lemming-like’ responses:

A rush to sell shares or withdraw money from a financial institution when someone in the media says things are getting bad, which then just makes things worse than they might have been;

Fears about the latest ‘killer’ disease so blown up by the media that normal people start over-reacting and taking extreme preventative action;

Newspapers and television full of doom and gloom stories of the economic woes, so that even those who are least affected begin to worry more than they need to;

People putting themselves into debt because they’ve been persuaded their life won’t be worth living without the latest designer product;

Parents who queue through the night for the latest book or game for their kids, convinced the child will ’suffer’ if they’re not the first to possess it;

Crazy hype about the world ending, or Y2K meltdown (remember that?) that result in otherwise sensible people stockpiling food and bottled water.

It seems the common denominator in all this is the media.

Years ago, when we just had daily newspapers and limited television and radio reportage, it was easier to keep things in perspective. You had time to think about what you were reading or hearing. You weren’t bombarded with a story from so many – usually negative – angles. There was far less sensationalizing about things. And, significantly, it took time to communicate.

In today’s ‘instant’ society, no sooner has something happened than the web is broadcasting it, all the media hacks are digging out and cross referencing every scrap of related – however dubiously – material to be re-worked. All of them want to be first; all of them want to say something different, all of them are silently screaming “read ME”, “watch ME” in a desperate need to get someone’s attention.

Nor will they leave it alone. Take Michael Jackson again. The death itself, the funeral, memorials, the start date of his planned world tour, are all occasions to repeat (with minute alterations) the stories.

Take my advice: do everything you can to jump off the bandwagon. Stop being seduced by the media, stop clinging on to the latest fashionable cause, and be your own person. Choose your own causes to support, in your own way, at your own time. Take back control of your own thoughts, reactions and emotions rather than responding to what others are saying you should be thinking, feeling and doing.

You’ll feel much better for it.

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You’ve heard the saying:

‘Fail to plan, plan to fail’.

Our recent excursion into growing our own vegetables is a good illustration of how this can work in practice. We haven’t failed, but we could have had more success than we’ve achieved so far.

It would be unfair to say we didn’t make any plans at all, but we weren’t really very systematic, nor did we base our plans on sound research. We’d grown some vegetables before in England, so we knew the basics: prepare your ground, sow your seeds or source your small plants, lay out your patch, feed, water, weed etc. And we knew what we wanted to grow, so set about acquiring seeds and plants to fulfill our desires.

But we didn’t pay that much attention to things like soil quality, growing seasons in a different country, compatibility of plants growing next to each other, growing habits of plants or weather conditions. We definitely went into this like amateurs!

Here are some of the things we did and what they taught us:

We were told we could choose anywhere on the plot for our vegetables, but didn’t consider the effects of sunlight and shade before settling on a plot. So we have an area that gets little natural shade and we’ve had to rig up some netting that goes a little way to cutting the glare of the sun. Our plants are getting strong sunlight for around 12 hours per day, which is too much for some of them. We’re feeling the effects in the need to water deeply and feed regularly, as the water quickly dilutes the nutrients in the feed. The netting also has to be adjusted as plants like sweetcorn grow higher, and we have to struggle under it to water, feed and weed, making us wander around the plot almost bent double.

We also didn’t consider the quality of the soil when we came to choose our plants. We’re working on a plot with quite heavy, clayey soil, which is sticky when wet, and cracks quickly as it dries out. Not the preferred environment of crops like carrots, but we still planted several rows. A recent inspection suggested that, although we have good top growth on the carrots, we’re likely to get small, stunted vegetables that won’t be worth peeling. Fortunately most of the things we’ve planted fruit above ground, but we’re hoping our red onions don’t suffer a similar fate to the carrots. Walking in this soil when it’s even slightly moist is a good way of picking up a few pounds of ballast on each foot. Good for strengthening the leg muscles if nothing else!

Despite our planning failures this carrot really tried to deliver for us!

But then those carrots shouldn’t have been in there anyway. After raising them from seed, and cheerfully planting them out, I got to wondering how long it would be until we were enjoying tasty carrots straight from the plot. So I decided to search the web for some guidance, only to find that carrots don’t like really hot weather, so in our climate should only be planted in spring or autumn. Another reason why we’re not expecting a bumper crop. And I can add several other items to the list of plants that don’t like the heat. In fact, we’ve planted more things that don’t like the heat than things that do! With some of these there’s a chance that they will develop fruit in the autumn, as the temperatures start to fall. So for now we’re just watering and hoping.

More than once we were advised to look at what local people were growing and copy them, to make sure that we had the right crops growing at the right time. That’s sound advice, which we followed to an extent. But the locals know when to get their crops in the ground, and when you find you’re months behind them you’re already on the back foot. Plus some of the plants look similar to each other, or, conversely, are difficult to recognize. Without going and interrogating the elderly men and women in their gardens – which is difficult when you have a language difference – we were stuck. A feeble excuse maybe, but the challenge of trying to communicate with that group of people least likely to have much command of English were compared against that of having a go and seeing what would happen. And the latter won.

When they’re in small pots, you can’t get an idea of how big things are going to grow. We were planting some things, like eggplant, zucchini and cucumber for the first time, and didn’t know about their growing habits either. Consequently we planted our zucchini too close together. As they developed we decided to stake them and let them grow upwards as there was more space for them this way. This worked fine until one plant broke off completely at the stem as we tried to harvest a couple of fairly large specimens.

When we placed our plants within the plot we did this with a hazy idea of what to put where. We didn’t consider space needs or accessibility. Nor did we think about plant heights and how these might help provide shade for other plants. So we have a fairly random layout where we could have had more order. Some plants are getting pushed aside as others take up more room than we expected. Taller plants aren’t offering any shade to others. Weeding is interesting: dancing around like a ballerina trying to avoid stepping on something. Eyes in the back of my head would be useful; eyes in my butt would be even more so!

We’ve got a nice row of sweetcorn, some of which is getting pretty high. Just the other day I read an article that said sweetcorn is wind pollinated and so it shouldn’t be planted in a single row. Whoops! All I can say is that the wind has often come from the direction that would blow along the row – that’s when it doesn’t just swirl around from all directions – so maybe we’ll be alright.

One food we were keen to grow was peas. We asked for seed at the local garden supplies centre, and were told the seed was not αρακάς (the word on packs of frozen peas), but μπριζέλι. According to our dictionary both words are Greek translations of ‘pea’, and we’d written both down on our list just in case, so we thought nothing of it. They looked like normal pea seeds, and they sprouted like normal pea seeds – growing so quickly we could almost see them. But these aren’t like any peas we’ve seen before. The pods don’t fatten out in the way we’re used to, nor do they go a noticeable green. But if they’re picked when they are still firm and a very pale green they taste like the peas we’re used to. So we’ve lost quite a few as we didn’t know what was happening and let the pods get brown and dry.

Succession planting – to give a longer harvesting season – is desirable to make sure we don’t have more vegetables than we can cope with at a time. But it’s proving difficult. It’s too hot to get any new plants started, and we began our gardening activities too late to follow the usual practice of sowing small numbers of plants at regular intervals. So we have cucumbers, zucchini and French beans – lots of them all at once – but only the odd tomato and pepper. Plan A was giving the surplus away, which our friends appreciate. Plan B is to learn how to preserve them so we can benefit from our own efforts later in the year.

As you can see we haven’t failed completely. In fact we can sometimes boast that there are more home-grown ingredients in our meals than shop-bought. But there are things we could have done differently that would have helped. Lessons that we’ve learned for the future and that we’ll use when we get onto our own plot. In fact we’re already doing this: noticing the soil condition, where the natural shade is, where there will be good drainage etc.

And we’re collecting lots of guidance from the web about growing in a hot climate. Plus as our language skills and confidence grow it will become easier to ask the locals and benefit from their replies.

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