HOW COOL ARE THESE PLANET-SAVING TEES?!!!

Green has become the new mainstream. Admittedly it has taken us years to catch up to the treehuggers, Greenpeace and others who we may have thought to be radical at the time. And then along came Al Gore. He didn't crack being president of the most powerful country in the world. No. He went one better. He (and his team) helped make the whole world conscious of global warming. And he did it in the most charming and personal way. Who could not be touched by An Inconvenient Truth? And now along comes biggroovyworld.com. Not anywhere on the same scale, but a very sincere attempt to help ordinary people express what is important and to do so in the most positive way. So let's say goodbye to global warming and rather concentrate on how to make the world cool!

APOLOGIES AND SOME EXCITING NEWS (ABOUT T-SHIRTS, OF COURSE!)

First off, my apologies - it's been way too long since my last post and my very belated resolution for 2008 (well, one of them!) is to blog more regularly. I'm afraid work, a major operation and then further surgery after complications slowed things down a bit. Although still not great excuses since I had my new Macbook whilst I was resting up for the best part of six weeks so I could have been chatting away to you but my heart wasn't in it. Anyway, all better now, full of enthusiasm and cheek, and very excited to tell you about a new range of t-shirts created to save the world. Well, okay, made to change attitudes. That's where it all starts, doesn't it?

EVERYBODY'S A HERO SOMETIME!

We all have choices and, although we may make a plethora of wrong ones, sometimes we simply decide to do something because it is right. We perform an act of kindness, sacrifice some small pleasure for the sake of something noble and grand, or do something brave because taking care of someone else is more important than our own fears. Perhaps our issues are deeper and darker, and we have to combat disease or inhumane behaviour. Or perhaps our heroic deeds are simply the way in which we get through the day, how we love, and what we do for our family and friends. I leave that for you to decide. Of one thing I'm sure - you know someone who has done something great in the face of adversity, no matter how big or small that adversity may be. You know someone who deserves to wear one of these t-shirts. Or receive a Hero postcard. And every time you look in the mirror, you see a Hero. So get yourself a Hero t-shirt, cap or bag, give a few out to those you admire, and then wait to be hero worshipped!

WELL, AT LEAST THESE T-SHIRTS ARE WORTH WAITING FOR

Okay, you've waited an age for me to get back to writing to you and I apologise for my absence. In between other work, I have been putting together t-shirt designs for www.sweltermerchandise.com and two new t-shirt sites which I will do my damndest to launch before the end of the year.

In the meantime, here are some shirts for those of you who have waited way too long. Instead of cursing yourself for not acting sooner, get the shirt, wear it as a reminder, and move on with your life. Heck, she wasn't that great anyway. Now you can go out and play the field guilt free.

And for the ladies who have also hung in there and missed an opportunity or two, I'll be designing some shirts especially for you really soon. Of course, if you spot a guy wearing one of these shirts, move in on him. He is definitely available!

Good luck!

I'LL SAY "SORRY" ON A T-SHIRT

It's been awhile since I last wrote, for which my apologies. I got absorbed by my own busyness (which mainly involved business) and for a few spectacular moments, I felt on a high until I realized I was losing control of my own life. Which was probably why I got hit by a really nasty flu virus that has been hospitalizing thousands. And in between, the rest of our beautiful family emigrated to Australia. A sorry set of excuses, I know, but there we are. If you are at all like me (and I'm hoping you are in this one regard), then you have said "Sorry" (or felt it) so many times that you never want to say it again. Well, thanks to this ingenious (though I say so myself!) t-shirt, you never have to. Just one shirt pretty well apologises for everything. Leaving you free to get on with your life. Now that's a fair deal, I reckon.

If you can't read the words on the image, here they are:

SORRY
for what I did
for what I didn't do
for what I said
for what I didn't say
for speaking
without thinking
for thinking
without speaking
for being who I am
for not being me
for refusing to change
for changing too much
for saying sorry too often
for not sayng it often enough.
In short, sorry for everything.
Now can we move on, please?

GET READY FOR A GOOD FIGHT. DON A COOL BOXING T-SHIRT.

From where does all this aggression come? It's been around since the origin of man and is showing no sign of letting up. Even I, philosophically always the pacifist, show signs of aggression every now and then. For example, when someone cuts into my lane without the courtesy of indicating. When people are rude and disrespectful. When someone misuses their power. And on countless other occasions, too numerous to mention. What I need when I'm all worked up is a good thriller or really violent movie of some other kind. Which is why watching 300 for the first time yesterday was so good for me. Just watching all those glistening muscles and tight torsos thrusting their spears and slashing with their swords was enough to distract me from any of my own feelings of anger. (In truth, not so much anger as frustration - I've been battling with flu for a week and am tired of not operating at my usual peak.) So here I was watching 300 honour-bound Spartans warring against Persians and mythological beasts to protect their country. For them a fight to the death was the greatest sign of bravery and honour and they were all prepared to sacrifice themselves for their country. It's interesting that we can watch a dramatization of history, albeit it with reference to Frank Miller and Lynn Varley's amazing graphic novel, and see the Spartans as noble. Yet, within a contemporary context, when people sacrifice their lives and kill others because of a religious or patriotic belief, we don't think them as being noble, we see them as terrorists. I live in a country where many of the "terrorists/freedom fighters" now sit in government and they have been transformed into "heroes". History has been rewritten. Simplistically, it all depends on whose side you're on, and who feels most threatened, and this determines who we label as noble or who we want to see behind bars or worse. In my mind, violence is violence, and it doesn't matter which side is committing it for which cause. It is, I think, natural for us to be aggressive, even violent, at times, but it is our greater spiritual purpose not to be.

LIFE, THE UNIVERSE, T-SHIRTS AND BLOGGING

There was a line that Dennis Hopper uttered in Apocalypse Now that has stayed with me for over twenty years. It went something like this - "Have you noticed that in the middle of the word 'Life' is the word 'If'?" It's true, of course. Life is full of 'ifs'. If I had more money ... If I'd married someone else ... If I were slimmer ... If I were younger ... If I hadn't been running so late, I would have ... If I didn't need the money, I would be an .... If I had met you sooner ..., If you were younger, ... If you were older, .. If I'd taken the other road, ... And so on. It's a sign of our discontent, I suppose, that we look back on opportunities lost, or ahead at future possibilities, and we use one little word to explain to ourselves why we didn't take the path of our dreams, or why we can't take that giant leap forward and try something new, move somewhere different, change our career, our body shape, commit to someone, break with someone, commit to yourself. Used differently, that same little word can set our course to a much grander life. It can project our thoughts in a very positive direction - If I win the election, I will do my utmost to make sure that everyone in this country has a roof over their head; If I start up a practice, I will make sure that 20% of our work is pro bono; If I dedicate just one hour a day to writing, by the end of the year I will have written a book; If I start up a blog, I will be able to promote my t-shirts to more people and make a few new friends along the way. Ah, the power of 'If'. To excuse, blame or inspire. In truth, life is one long 'if'. It is the unknown. And that is the wonder of it. It's what stimulates curiosity, the urge to explore and learn, and the desire to pack in as much as we can into this dear life, because what lies behind, well, that's another big 'If'.