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In an effort to avoid April showers I decided to make a fashion statement this month:

This Month I Will Be Wearing Tartan Pyjamas and Navy Blue Wellies
(I hope there are Fast Show fans out there!)

I have just returned from the West Indies again where we had a great time going over the topographical survey of our land and dreaming up ideas to build on it, and grow on it, in harmony with all its natural features. The original design concept is to make it a Buddha Land, incorporating all the core tenets of Buddhism. Such as essho funi – the oneness of self and environment, in that the way we experience and interact with the world around us is solely dependent on our perception at that moment in time.

If your life is in Hell State then that is how you see and interact with everyone and everything around you. Your environment reflects your view of being helpless, hopeless and trapped by your circumstances. Or if you are in Rapture State you experience everything around you as a source of transient happiness. A life state of greed would make us see all around us as something to exploit and spoil for personal gain and someone perceiving things from an angry life condition would want to egotistically control the environment, instead of working in harmony, each growing with and empowering the other.

I am trying to have the land, all that is on it, all that surrounds it, and everyone that comes to it, reflecting our Buddha state, that is, eternally creative and constructive and hopeful. So that everything around is a potential source of joy, gratitude and fulfilment.

This land and the climate are ideal for these purposes. It sings to your senses of sight, sound, touch, smell and taste and constantly feeds your consciousness with the proof of life’s unlimited abundance. Most importantly it illustrates the concept of karma (each action creating a cause and a simultaneous effect) very clearly. Unlike temperate climates where you have to wait ages between gestation, growth, flower, seed, die back, and further gestation of new seeds, this climatic environment is full on! Plants and trees both flower and seed at the same time - just like the Lotus, which is used in Buddhism to symbolise this theory of karma. This is that in each cause you make or “plant”, through thought, word or action lies the seed of the effect whether you can see it yet or not. Understanding this and living appropriately we can become masters of our destiny. We can change the things about our lives that make us suffer into sources of growth and fulfilment and we can freely build on and share those aspects of our karma that make us happy, without limitation.

So there we are. A tall order but I think we are up to the challenge. Now do you forgive me for being late again with the Newsletter? And which Life State were you in when you read this then?!!! Hell, Hunger, Animality, Anger, Rapture, Tranquillity, Learning, Realisation, Bohdisattva or Buddha?

Recipe for a Caribbean “Oil Down”.
1. Take one sunny Caribbean beach
2. At sun up take down some friends, some fishing rods and a cooking pot.
3. Park yourself under the shade of a coconut or sea almond (NOT a manchineel!) and build a fire down wind, under the tree, and sit the cooking pot on it.
4. Add a pack of Carib beer and distribute among your pals.
5. Bait and cast your fishing line
6. Throw your catch in the pot to cook along with all the other secret ingredients
7. Hang out fishing, eating and drinking until sundown and try to catch some land crabs for dinner on the way home….
Here are some ../pics of a Caribbean “oil down” on our beach.
Click each to enlarge.

me on rock

lighting fire

under the tree

caught a fish

Web News
This glitch was down to a misunderstanding between Sheridan Wall, the web designer, and I. I thought Sheridan would put it up while I was away and he wanted me to see it first. Anyhow, this will be remedied this month. If it does not go up I will give you his email address so you can set on him personally. They say that patience has its own rewards…We’ll see.

Q and A e.awards

Question: Dash (More Dash Than Cash?) from ? thinks I have the “easiest” and “tidiest” Website. Thanks, that’s neat. He/she wants to know where they can get the sheet music of “Tell The Boys.”

Answer: This was one of the final songs for the selection of UK’s Eurovision 67 entry. I recorded it as a B-side and also on an EP. Recorded in Spanish, it was a big hit in Espana, as, “A Los Chicos Las Diras”. Lots of you seem to think it should have been the follow up single to Puppet. Ho Hum…It was written by Mitch Murray and Peter Calendar. For the sheet music, contact the publisher credited on the album sleeve. Or try The Music Publishers Association or Performing Rights Society or the PPL registration Website - all based in London, UK. Have fun with it!

Question: James from Mull of Kintyre (I bet its freezing up there) is being nosy and wants to know who was in the photo of my birthday party. Your cheekiness will be rewarded.

Answer: In the photo appears my brainiest girlfriend, Indra, my daughters Grace and Amie, Mark my personal assistant, Josie who I have known since she was sweet sixteen, a brilliant TV writer and dramatist, Alessandro, whose amazing cooking you have heard about in previous newsletters – and – a waiter.

Question: Guido from Italy keeps asking me lots of things.

Answer: No, I am sorry Guido. I cannot visit Naples in May although I am sure it is beautiful and so are you.

Fan Poll Top Thirty
Well printing that sent you all in a flurry of emails didn’t it? There are even more interesting selections to be added to the list. If you keep going like this we will have a Top Forty. Keep sending those votes in, your top three favourites if you can, if not top five or whatever you can manage. Brilliant! Thanks! I’ll up-date the list for you in next May’s Newsletter.

Until then here is the proud owner of a rampant wisteria – wearing this month’s fashion statement, of course.


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