Cold hands? Nothing for you then.

I heard an article on the radio today. Apparently, scientists have done a study on whether people holding a warm drink are more generous than people holding a cold drink. Seriously? The world is coming to a boil, there is a some form or economic armageddon taking place, disease is stalking the land (well, lots of people have flu), the sun rarely shines and THIS is what they choose to study? I give up.

It turns out, that if you are holding a warm drink you are more likely to think nicely of other people and to give them lovely presents. If you are holding a cup of ice you will hate everybody and hoard all the presents to yourself.

This seems like one of the more pointless studies ever carried out. How will it change the world? Are they suggesting that if we could only give Mugabe a nice warm cup of cocoa he would start feeding his starving population and hugging Bono? Does the russian army just need a cup of soup in order to start loving the Georgians? Would Nescafe have given Pol Pot a pause for thought and the urge to become best friends with Mother Theresa?

Now, I like a cup of coffee as much as the next person. I'm not saying it makes me feel all warm and fuzzy towards my neighbours, but the caffeine rush does make me feel slightly less deranged and on the verge of mass hysteria / murder. If I was instead given a cup of ice, I would probably think nasty thoughts towards the donor and reconsider our friendship. I don't have a science degree and a research budget of many thousands of pounds and I know this already.

I see no hope for the future of mankind if this is what the great brains are spending their time doing. Oh, hold on - I just made a cup of coffee. Perhaps they are right. I shall send them a large present and think nice things about them (until the mug goes cold that is).

Does Tesco carpark hold the Mystery of Life?

I'm not sure it is possible to be more tired than I am right now. Last night it was imperative that I had an early night as I had to be up at half past four in the morning to take my parents to the airport. The urgent need for sleep naturally meant that I had a bought of insomnia that kept me awake until 1.00 o'clock in the morning. 3 1/2 hours sleep followed by a 160 mile round trip today has not left me in the best of states.

Having got them to Manchester airport at some filthy hour of the morning I then had two hours to kill before I could go to my first meeting. I ended up sitting in a Tesco carpark dozing intermittently whilst listening to the radio and desperately trying to finish reading one of my book club novels. I can now say that Tesco car parks have very little merit on any front at all, other than their proximity to a supermarket that is.....

I finally staggered home and made it to the computer to discover that the book club for tomorrow night has been cancelled. This is intensely vexing having gagged my way through The Little White Horse (due to the vast quantity of mothers in the book club we have a childrens book section as well as a grown up book section), and also waded my way through 'What a Carve Up' whilst half asleep in the aforementioned car park. As this was a book which I thought was extremely irritating, badly plotted and massively overlong this was no mean feat. All that for nothing. Darn it. It is quite definitely going to be one of those days.....

During my tossing and turning in the depth of the nights there was a programme on Radio 4 about living in the moment. According to the guest they were interviewing, we should all live in the moment rather than constantly looking forwards, as it would lead us to discover "the wonderful mystery of life". Really, truly that is what he said.

He then went on to illustrate this point; apparently he once set off to go for a walk. He drove to the start of said ramble but when he got to the car park, he decided to 'be in the moment' instead of looking forward to his stroll. He promptly got so distracted being 'in the moment' and by the deep, meaningful beauty of a tarmaced car park that he never actually went for a walk but instead stood about like a loon, being overcome by the 'mystery of the moment' before turning round and going home.

Is he deranged? Is the mystery of life really going to be solved or even glimpsed in a car park? I spent two hours in one this morning and didn't even get a glimpse of a tiny Nancy Drew style mystery, let alone a mystery that affected my view of 'life, the universe and everything'. Perhaps he has found a better quality of car park than I have?

It did lead me to think though. It is incredibly hard not to have all your thoughts dominated by what is happening next, rather than what is happening now. (At the moment I am wondering how soon I can go to bed and get some sleep). I suppose that he did have a point about appreciating the now, rather than constantly planning for the future. There is one flaw in his plan though (ok, more than one flaw); he was forgetting that sometimes it is only the prospect of the promised sleep / cake / caffeine injection in my imminent future that gets me through the now..... Without that prospect I could quite possibly give up entirely and never leave the Tesco carpark......