Comments for This Train is for Gourock

Comment on The return of sanity by Hunter

Hunter — Mon, 02 Nov 2009 06:31:05 +0000

Hi Andrew,

“Unhappy, tortured even.” If that’s the case, then I am not sure you ever bought Allen Carr’s argument properly. Is not his whole process based upon removing the desire to smoke itself? If we don’t do that, we will return to smoking.

Hence, after six months you were no longer physically addicted in the least to smoking, yet you still felt “Unhappy, tortured even.” However, you more or less admit that you still feel the same way, although now you feel “Unhappy, tortured even.” w/r/t to “declining health and general physical unwellness.”

Classic double-bind there.

Am interested, however, in your “solution.”

Hope all is well, otherwise.

Hunter

Comment on The return of sanity by andrewinscotland

andrewinscotland — Tue, 27 Oct 2009 20:25:19 +0000

Hi Hunter,
Oh it’s great to be back, and no concrete plan to stop again.
So why did I stop in the first place? Health. Not so much worry for my future, but concern about how unfit I was. The coughing in the morning is horrible. Out of breath so very easily. Feeling in a perpetual state of having been poisoned.
Everything else about smoking I love – it’s just that it’s rotton for the old bod.
I lasted for six months, but it was useless. Unhappy, tortured even. So now it’s about accepting mental wellbeing at the cost of declining health and general physical unwellness.
Or is it?
Stay tuned. I think I may have found a solution…

Comment on The return of sanity by Hunter

Hunter — Tue, 27 Oct 2009 07:46:47 +0000

Good to be back in what sense? I mean few smokers never to try to stop, and why is that? If smokers love it so much, and I certainly conned myself into thinking I did, then why ever stop? Makes no sense to quit.

My hunch, however, is that we all try to quit because we feel like shit when we wake up. We feel like shit for wasting money. We feel like shit . . . at odd times . . . picturing ourselves at that moment of lung cancer diagnosis (or pick your cancer).

For me it had be about these things because I did not mind being addicted to the drug in and of itself. I did not mind inhaling smoke. I did not mind dipping skoal. I did not mind, indeed always have loved, the smell of burning tobacco, though not the morning after smell.

ETC.

Therefore, since you desperately tried to quit, I wonder why you did so?

Interesting topic, this.

Comment on About by andrewinscotland

andrewinscotland — Mon, 26 Oct 2009 20:27:02 +0000

Hi Ken,
Welcome to the blog. Stay tuned for more on motorcycling, featuring, of course, the FZ1…

Comment on Children’s books by andrewinscotland

andrewinscotland — Mon, 26 Oct 2009 19:08:33 +0000

Hi Zoom,
Yeah, the classics persist. Some of them are indeed excellent.

As for Pat the bunny – you’re welcome! I hope I’ve enriched your experience…

Andrew

Comment on Quitting smoking with Allen Carr by andrewinscotland

andrewinscotland — Mon, 26 Oct 2009 18:19:56 +0000

Hi Hunter, Good for you! Keep at it. Myself, I started again. See the following post for details... The return of sanity

Comment on Quitting smoking with Allen Carr by Hunter

Hunter — Mon, 26 Oct 2009 06:45:59 +0000

Still not smoking andrew?

I used Allen Carr’s Easyway and it worked for me.

6 weeks so far.

Comment on Enter the Dragon by Emergency bike wash « This Train is for Gourock

Emergency bike wash « This Train is for Gourock — Sun, 25 Oct 2009 21:15:23 +0000

[...] washed the Dragon often and with due respect. Those lingering, soapy moments were perhaps my favourite thing about [...]

Comment on About by len taylor

len taylor — Sun, 18 Oct 2009 16:35:14 +0000

hi , great blog came across it by chance , via mcn

i,ve afz1 fazer , like you i,m a kawasaki man .

but made the jump across , an don,t regret it !

the high screen ( yamaha one ) is ok but the short one is better
a extra inch or two on the standard one an it would be prefect for me ( i,m 5ft 9 ” )

the rush from the enging once over 6000 rpm , is great i,m like a kid in a sweet shop !

to think nearly 30 yrs of riding an finenally the perfect bike !!

its so easy to speed an maintain it for miles , well at least 130miles before the fuel light comes on !

i,m going down the route like yourself of fairing , an luggage so it becomes more like a mini fjr 1300 .

wellgot done for speeding ! 105mph , actually 130mph but they saw i was slowing down !

so easy a bike to ride fast ! , my licence maybe under pressure again !

i,m like you in a way a scot in exile in england !

great writing style you,ve got , keep up the blog !

especially on the fz1 ( most people look at it an think , oh another bandit style bike ! )

if only they knew ! , rather than chase looks an speed .
over practical , q-bike style !

Comment on Children’s books by zoom

zoom — Sat, 17 Oct 2009 00:53:27 +0000

Excellent post. It brought my own son’s toddlerhood back into sharp focus. For example, I remember one of those awful silences which culminated in me finding him perched, kneeling, in an open 3rd story window, after having knocked the screen out. He’d climbed up there on some cardboard boxes, three hours after we’d moved into the new apartment. He was one and a half, just like Bruce.

I remember reading James some of the same books, only a quarter century earlier. Goodnight Moon was a classic. Thank you for opening my eyes to the undertones in Pat the Bunny – I guess that one sailed clear over my head all these years.