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SMART goals

So this was originally something I came across while working in the civil service. I came across it years ago at the beginning of my career after leaving university and it’s actually over 40 years old, but still we have people not doing this! I have also come across it in a CBT context for setting goals for self-help.

This post is mostly some rough notes after reading through a short chapter on setting SMART goals. THIS IS NOT MEANT TO BE COMPLETE BY ANY STRETCH OF THE IMAGINATION. For me, it is simply evidence I covered this material at some point and it’s something I can look back at to jog my memory from time to time.

Smart goals was not invented as part of CBT, but it reflects an appropriate approach to goal setting which is a useful tool in achieving the positive changes brought about by CBT. While CBT might help us decide the relevant goal, using SMART allows us to make sure the goal has every chance of being positive for us rather than a rod to beat ourselves with when we fail.

Like many tools, SMART is an acronym. Originally it stood for

Specific
Measurable
Assignable (this has changed over the years)
Relevant
Time-bound

To make a goal positive, it is good to ask if it meets each of these criteria and if necessary, to restructure it so that it does.

Assignable and Relevant? That’s not what I heard!

Now this was obviously for a workplace, so “assignable” was in there. One would ask themselves, can I set this goal for someone else to do easily? But now 40 years later we normally use these goals for personal goals so “Assignable” is no longer relevant. It is common to change it to Attainable.

Relevant is also often changed to realistic because no longer are we making sure it is relevant to company needs as the SMART goals tool is being self-applied to self-set goals rather than applied by a manager to assignable goals. I am not a fan of “realistic” as a goal, because I think that attainable has mostly the same impact and “relevant” could be used to ask if the goal is relevant to our main objectives in life even though there is no company in this consideration. Sometimes it is rendered as “resource-efficient” which is a good question to ask, but relevant can also cover that. If it is an inefficient use of resources to achieve relevant goals, then we meet the criteria of relevant. Finally, it is sometimes rendered results-based. Again I’m going to throw that out because if something is specific, measurable and relevant then it is going to be results-based.

Questions I should ask myself when setting goals

So to make SMART goals we should ask ourselves the following questions:

Specific

Is this goal specific? Can I easily tell if it was achieved or not achieved? If any of these questions is answered “no”, how can this goal be restructured so the answer will be yes?

Measurable

Is this goal Measurable? Can it be qualified with numbers or a black-and-white line? Will the success or failure be fact rather than a matter of opinion? If any of these questions is answered “no”, how can this goal be restructured so the answer will be yes?

Attainable

Is this goal Attainable? Is it realistic that I could achieve this goal with the resources I have, in the time I have available? Will this goal be difficult to achieve? Am I more likely to scold myself for failing than praise myself for achieve it? If I am likely to fail to achieve the goal then it could have a negative impact. This means that it could discourage employees, clients or ourselves rather than encourage them/us. If so can we divide the goal into manageable pieces that are more easily attainable? How else can we make this attainable? Can we obtain other resources or people to help us finish the goal?

Relevant

Is this goal relevant to your long-term goals for yourself? Will it help you in the long run? Is it short-term? If it is long term is it relevant to a goal that is likely to change? Could there be changes that effect this goal politically, economically, socially, technologically, legally or environmentally which could render this goal pointless? How could it be adjusted to be more relevant and less potentially pointless?

Time-Bound

When do I want to achieve this goal by? Is it going to drag on? Could I set a shorter goal which is closer to 1-2 weeks? Often if we have a goal hanging around for a while uncompleted it feels like we failed for the whole time leading up to it being completed, even before we ran out of time we are already feeling like we failed, is that going to happen here? How do we avoid that happening? Is there a way to adjust the goal so it won’t drag on. I often feel like short-term goals should be set for 1 week to prevent us spending forever setting goals, but longer term goals still should not be longer than a month. Ideally 2 weeks works which is why so many companies have 2 week sprints.

Conclusion

This has formed a small part of my CBT training. Setting positive achievable goals which are relevant is really helpful to us. Having uncompleted goals hanging around for months and months or stuff we can’t get on with, makes it very difficult for us to stay positive and often drains us. In CBT we often have a lot of work to do to change natural patterns in our brains and learn new patterns which are more beneficial. Using Smart goals enables us to chip away at that work one goal at a time.

Computer Games!

So I decided to blog what was going on with my life right now and what I have achieved recently. Well, it’s not been a time of massive accomplishments. I’ve set up a residency in North London for Drag Bingo which has required a great deal of effort, but is quite fragile and transient. If you’re around Palmer’s Green check out drag bingo in the Fox.

However for years I have banned myself from buying video games until I have played to death the games I already have. Recently, I took up that challenge, but I started with some of my first ever video games.

I completed:

• Sonic the hedgehog
• Sonic 2
• Sonic 3
• Sonic 2 & Knuckles
• Sonic 3 & Knuckles (with Knuckles as character)
• Mickey Mouse in Castle of Illusion
• Mickey Mouse and Donald Duck in World of Illusion
• Sonic Spinball

Confidence

So people used to tell me to be more confident. I often get quite defensive about this. Because frankly I feel quite a lot of confidence. As I look back over myself I think I acted with loads of confidence. I went and did a Law degree with little to no evidence I would be able to do well in a subject that is not geared towards my strengths. I showed up a board games club I had never been to alone not knowing anyone there and made friends. I have done the same with kink events. Pretty confident thing to do if you ask some people. So what was encouraging people to suggest this? Well, my hang ups about my body were a significant part. I ended up wondering what people were referring to and listening to audiobooks and online Youtube videos about how to meet their expectations. I wondered if a person could write a pathway to confidence.

I have been confident in my career I think. I totally changed my career when I was in a dead end and felt held up by people. I up and left a job where they failed to honour my contract properly with nothing to go to, but I successfully got another job within 3 days. I have led sprint reviews and sprint planning sessions. Hell, I started a company and this was after Brexit and it was going to depend on tourism. Thinking about it that might have been a dumb action if it weren’t for the minimal start up costs, but it worked out and it definitely took guts. I have thrown myself into a shitty costume with mild make up skills and performed in drag despite reservations about my skill. That took guts too!

So what exactly am I doing that makes people think I’m not confident? Should I even care? My inability to accept compliments about my body was a huge part. Interesting how it is something we think of as so vain and superficial, but it is the only part of myself I used to be not confident about and people focused on that. Are we that shallow as a society? Perhaps it was just me, but it is them as well. I think it is the one thing I have been pulled up about since before my age was double digits. Their focus on the physical and visible. I could work on my body and I am doing that, but I should I really be pandering to what other people think? Is that even confident at all?

I am a big guy and not very physically fit, but I took up a martial art which I kept at for quite a while! I climbed to the top of the tallest mountain in Wales with little evidence I would be able to do it and I was scared I was going to end up needing to be rescued somewhere, but I felt the fear and did it anyway. We didn’t even do the easiest route to avoid the crowds. I am fat and despite continually failing to lose weight since I was a child, guess what I am doing? I’m trying despite all the evidence technically suggesting that I will fail like nearly every attempt before. I am ignoring my prior failures and going for it. Is that not pretty damn confident? But apparently I don’t come across that way because superficially people focused on my difficulties with my body. One small and insignificant part of me, the head of the iceberg.

Despite being overweight I am posting provocative pictures in certain places where some of my peers can see them. Suddenly, people think I am confident. It feels so superficial, but it does help me, but I feel like it shouldn’t.

I went through an audiobook and came to the end of it really wondering if “confidence” as far as some people see it, is something we truly need. James Smith the author of the audiobook “How to be confident” describes a time he had nearly sold out an entire room of people for a seminar he hadn’t even written yet. Now I have left things to the deadline before, but I would never do this. I would be concerned that those people deserve better than a half-arse written seminar done at the last minute. I am confident in my ability to deliver high quality and I hold myself to that standard because I believe I can do a higher than average standard if I put my mind to it. If cobbling a talk together in an hour and charging for it is what the world defines as confident, I do not want any part of it.

My mind instantly goes to the number of difficult situations caused by sales guys who over sold a feature that wasn’t finished yet and suddenly a development team needs to rush to put out a low quality product. Some people call this confidence. I call this lack of confidence in the product to be suitable for the customers needs as it is, followed by anxiety of losing the sale. That anxiety and lack of confidence caused the salesperson to lie. If this is what the world is calling confidence then I don’t want any part of it. I am confident being supposedly “unconfident”.

I recognise that I am not what other people want to call confident some of the time. Their honest views of me, not being confident no longer affects me. Their opinion before bothered me that I wasn’t what other people expected for a time. But as I investigated, I discovered that sometimes they can’t agree about what is needed to be confident, sometimes their idea of confidence is superficial, or acted rather than felt. Sometimes their idea of confidence is actually what I would call short changing people and something I don’t want associated with my brand. Sometimes it is being so anxious, and de facto unconfident, that you have to lie about something with the confidence that other people will make up the gaps later thereby dropping other people in the mud. I have decided that I am good how I am and if that is what they think of as confident, it is not something I need. Shirking off other people’s opinions rather than trying to live up to them, is me finally, truly behind confident.

I have one last effort to vamp up the supposed confidence impression I leave with people and that’s the Teach Yourself Confidence Workbook and I might see if I can write a coaching course off the back of it that I can use with clients, but frankly it’s at the back of the pile right now. I am confident I don’t need it!

CBT Certificate

My old CBT certificate had expired so I worked through a Udemy course to get a new one. Not the best course in my opinion, but it newed my certificate so I am pleased.

When I first approached Cognative Behavioural Therapy I was originally put in a group session to learn about it back in 2012. It was going to take some time before I could get 1-2-1 CBT and in the mean time I wanted to get a headstart on the process. I had really enjoyed working my way through many books “for dummies”, many “Complete idiot’s guide to” books and many “Teach Yourself” books so I looked through the options. Satisfied with Teach Yourself Cognitive Behavioural Therapy, I began to work through the exercises and had huge success. By the time I was in 1-2-1 CBT, I knew a vague outline of the process and could make the most out of the sessions focusing on the stuff that could not be dealt with by knowing a basic outline of CBT, the stuff that really needed a therapist. I saw other people who were annoyed that they were put into group therapy. They sadly became despondent and did not want to engage. By the time they were in a 1-2-1 session they had already declared that CBT didn’t work for them.

I never actually finished Teach Yourself Cognitive Behaviour Therapy and my 1-2-1 session led me to focus on more specific exercises to my needs. Trying to clear out my bookshelves, I thought after finishing my recent course, I will skim my way through the book as well to cement my knowledge and just enjoy the parts of the book which were helpful before. More than anything I hope this to be an exercise in celebrating how far I have come by engaging with the tool that Cognitive Behavioural Therapy has given me.

As I run through I’m going to leave a trail of notes here. THESE ARE NOT MEANT TO BE COMPLETE BY ANY STRETCH OF THE IMAGINATION.

What is Cognitive Behavioural Therapy?

• Often it is not the events in our lives that makes us happy or sad, but instead out reaction to them.
• Some of the happiest people on earth don’t necessarily have circumstances that reflect this.
• CBT is a combination of Behavioural therapy and Cognitive or learning approach.
• Sometimes the Behavioural approach is almost like fake it till you make it when it comes to the practice. Changing the behaviour which impacts the internal.
• Cognitive is more focused on learning.
• In CBT it is common to look at how Beliefs impact the consequences of our experiences. Frequently we go from an experience to an emotion, but the emotion is impacted by a belief. If through the cognitive approach we can change the belief our emotion can be impacted. For example, if a persons believes “many people ignore me because I have low value” when they experience a person blank them, they will likely fall into low mood. If however they regulate that thought by saying, “maybe they blanked me because they had headphones in and didn’t hear me.” “Maybe they were too focused on something so see me” “maybe they just didn’t see or hear me” then the belief is assuaged. Suddenly the emotional reaction is more realistic because it might not be that they were deliberately ignored due to a perceived low value, but it could be any number of situations. Now the belief is changed. This might be done in a diary session afterwards so the initial emotional event might not be avoided, but the process can teach the patient or coachee to use the new belief if they face a similar event in future.

As part of this book I covered SMART Goals, but this seemed worth putting down as a separate article since as it stands alone quite nicely. See SMART Goals.

The next chapter looks a little bit at cognitive distortions. Cognitive distortions are ways of thinking which are prone to errors. This is a unique area because sometimes thinking like this is actually helpful or accurate for us, but you know what they say about a broken clock, it too is accurate twice a day. It’s important to unlearn unhelpful habits otherwise our emotions will frequently reflect information that is inaccurate or prone to errors.

Normally examples of this are mind-reading (presuming the subject knows what someone else is thinking), catastrophizing, negative filter or negative automatic thoughts (NATs), Overgeneralization, Exaggeration, Misfortune telling (assuming you know the future and particularly making it negative), black-and-white thinking and more.

I noticed one which is really important, but I hadn’t noticed it as much before. It reads as follows “blaming other people for your feelings”. This is a special one for me. I often say to people “I blame myself for everything”. This can be terrible a lot of the time, but at least when I blame myself I look at what I could have done differently and I improve rather than not changing how I act and expecting the world to be different. I know other people who never change because they always blame the world. A lot of the time I get very upset with the council for the stuff I am dealing with where I live because I feel the council “should” act a certain way, and I continually surprise myself when it doesn’t. I let the council constantly affect my mood by setting unreasonable expectations of it. That’s my bad. Now the council is truly terrible and should be doing certain things, but I do not have the power to change them and well if we think about the serenity prayer… It should be acting with the wisdom to know that the council will not change unless it is forced to and so I need to have the serenity to accept the things I can’t change.

Serenity prayer – This is a prayer which is addressed to god, but it need not be a request to god only a recognise of health attitudes. It is said as follows: God grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, the power to change the things I can change and the wisdom to know the difference Amen. This means not messing around trying to change broken systems which we are powerless to change and focusing on the things within our power.

The Importance of Our Own Judgements

An important chapter notes how the same thing happens to 3 people. While no two people’s experiences are identical it provides a clear example about how our reaction to things can give rise to our feelings. 3 people are “chewed out” by their boss about some recent work. The first person was deeply unset. They believe their boss never appreciates the effort that went into the work or how difficult the work was. He only looks at the final result which they admit wasn’t great. They feel unappreciated and like their own work is poor, so they feel unable and inadequate to improve the situation. It feels hopeless. The second person blames their boss. They believe their boss has bad mornings sometimes, he did not pay attention to the work and needed to chew someone out. He did not think he deserved it and he was angry at his boss. He thinks his work is perfect, but his boss is unable to admit that, so he squarely blames his boss and feels anger. Finally, the third person has a more balanced thought process. They recognise that this is not their best work, but also, that their boss can’t read their mind, so their boss doesn’t know the difficulties they faced. They also know that most of the time they have a good working relationship with their boss and it is possible that this situation is not their fault as they have seen their boss “chew someone out” when it wasn’t that person’s fault before, so they are trying not to take it personally. They are disappointed in the situation but think they could make it better. They know should make sure their boss is aware of the hurdles they have overcome. They also recognise that their boss would like to know those hurdles are not going to be an issue going forward, so they also came up with a plan as a good way to overcome similar hurdles in the future. They hope to give the boss a few hours to calm down, they will then present to their boss the difficulties they had, and what they plan to do in the future to improve the situation. They feel disappointed in themself, disappointed that their boss did not ask questions considering how good their work normally is, but they don’t feel hopeless, they have a plan to improve the situation.

You see these three people had very different feelings about the situation that reflected their thoughts. The first and second person had very strong feelings and felt helpless/hopeless. The third person still had negative feelings that reflected the situation, but their feelings were more accurate because they were more aware of all the possible angles. They also had a plan to sort it out.

If I were person 1 who entirely felt the failure was theirs, but that their boss did not consider effort only results, I would need to sit back and consider the possibility that their boss might consider effort if they knew what effort went into it. They also need to remember that although the work might not be their best, there was still some effort in there whether or not it was recognised. The failure to recognise the work does not mean the effort vanishes. They also need to consider the possibility their boss might be wrong and hadn’t considered the positives. Then they might have a more balanced fully considered mindset and their feelings might better reflect this. They also would benefit from having a plan to approach this matter going forward.

If I were person 2, who entirely felt this was my bosses fault, I would question whether my work needed improvement and perhaps my boss might be right about somethings even though he doesn’t always get it right. This means my feelings would be more balanced and because I recognised that at least some of the failure was in my court then I could finally think about what I could do about it.

The Flow of Effect

When experiencing an event which gives rise to emotion there’s a number of stages involved. Firstly, an event happens to this often gives rise to thoughts from existing beliefs held. The person then forms their own personal judgement of the situation and what it means about the things important to them. This judgement then gives rise to feelings and Bodily Sensations, for example sadness and feeling tired, happy and energised, guilty and heavy or something else.

By altering our judgements of situations and making sure we select judgements which are helpful which consider a whole situation we can control the feelings and sensations we experience. This sometimes means taking a second to think about things. Over time as we practice this, forming better judgements becomes easier. We also form beliefs that better guide our natural judgements of the situation.

Identifying Issues

Often this exercise works as a diary entering rows into this table at the end of each day. This enables you to identify the bigger and smaller issues in your life. It is often considered bad advice to go after the bigger issues first. It is better to increase your CBT skills working with smaller issues rather than the deep-set ones first. You need to learn how best to perform the technique before tackling the more difficult situations and often removing highly damaging beliefs is like trying to pull up a tree with deep roots. Those deep roots are going to be very difficult to pull up, but if you can loosen some of the soil around them first then you’re going to find it a lot easier. In fact, you might spend so long removing all the small issues that there is nothing holding those big heavy roots any more than the tree just falls on its own. This is like when you remove all the small events which confirm your deep-set negative beliefs and then you begin to realise that you no longer actually believe a very damaging things any more and suddenly loads of emotional issues vanish at once.

I have provided an example of the table here.

Weight Loss

I recently hit my biggest weight ever. I was actually going hiking once a month and going to the gym three times a week, but I was still eating trash and I managed to weight gain. Some of it will have been muscle, but it feels like I would be kidding myself if I put down all my weight gain to that. I do seem to be loosing belly (albeit very slowly), but I was getting heavier. So I thought I would change up my diet a bit again try intermittent fasting and keep a track of it here.

I used to maintain 105kg while doing 2-4 hours of kung fu a week, so this seems like a good starting aim. If I got there and was quite muscular I would be happy with my results. Technically that is still obese according to bmi but if I have a low fat to body ratio it does kind of blow bmi out of the water.

My heaviest is 145kg after 2 weeks of intermittent fasting I am 141.2kg.

Who I am?

Okay so this is a blurb for the Life Coach page, but to describe myself in a nutshell here’s what I have to say.

What I can tell you about me is: that I am gay, I am pro-trans-rights and generally, my political leanings are left. You don’t need to be any of these things to use my services. I am neuro-diverse so I am very open to people being unqiue and different, in fact I often prefer people who are happy to present and enjoy what makes them special. I can be very logical and rational because of my unique brain so often I like to use CBT techniques to compartmentalise things, refine our mentalities around stuff and reintergrate them into a better holistic world view that supports us reaching our goals! You don’t need to be neuro-diverse to use my services, but if you are neurodiverse what better can you expect from a coach than someone who understands what it’s like to have your thinking so different from those around you.

I am a massive geek. When I was kid I played video games before it was cool. While I don’t do this as much these days, my youth was so ingrained in that culture that I still get it today and most of my friends draw me back into it from time to time! I have watched Star Trek, Star Wars, Stargate and Starship Troopers, so if that’s your jam I might actually know what you’re talking about. Other coaches might go cross-eyed when you try to man-splain Battlestar Galactica’s politics to them, but not me. I am far more likely to talk to you in video game analogies than sports analogies, but I can still adapt to you if neither of these are your cup of tea. Life for me is about playing games and having fun. This seems to rub off on clients and their approach to life is a more fun one. Achievements are great, but not worth sacrificing your happiness for, otherwise what’s the point?

I am fat. I have been told I was fat since I was 13 years old and with a renewed effort I am doing something about it. I am what is called a bear in the gay world which means I am always surrounded by people who love my thicker figure (other members of the bear community), but I am still trying to better myself, mostly for my health. I have never been the best at this and I certainly can’t advise you on what’s the best gym routine, but I can help you keep on top of yours using the methods that helped me maintain mine. I can help you with your weight loss plan, but with 0 jugement when you de-rail it because I know what it is like to fail at this. During the pandemic, I put on an additional third of my weight. I used to weigh 75% of what I weighed a few weeks ago! Finally, I committed to lose it. So far I have lost 5%, but I have 20% more to go! I believe in me and in you and your ability to do it, but I can’t judge you if you slipped up, had a korma and missed two zumba classes, because I know I was probably there 3-4 months ago!

I love my old movies and television. I recently went to a Solve-Along Murder She Wrote and Golden Girls is one of my favourite background tv programs when I am cleaning. I have seen them all, but still love them. Nostalgic movies from the 80s is one of my most common ways to recover my energy. Don’t judge me, but Flight of the Navigator, Short Circuit, Batteries Not Included, The Haunting [1960] and Dune are DVDs in my house which never collect dust. (Yes I still have DVDs; not everything is on Prime quite yet).

I have done drag and love it, but the greatest fantasy I am already living. I love to sing, perform, give banter and my stand-up routines have nearly killed someone. They couldn’t breathe because they were laughing too much. Yes I you could say I totally slayed, but more like Buffy the Vampire Slayer than like Rupaul.

My spirituality is an important part of me, but I also recognise spirituality is not the be all and end all. I believe the universe is made of pure joy and we often have things in the way to stop us experiencing it. One of the things that can stop us is trying to reach for some more spirituality sometimes. I love the Buddha, but I think he was wrong… suffering is not the nature of the universe, suffering is the delusion we surround ourselves with that stops us experiencing the ecstasy of pure being. But what’s the point in experiencing pure being? It might feel good, but sometimes so does walking into the office in the most fashion forward outfit possible. Spirituality is just another experience why should it be treated like its better than other experiences? Frankly, it takes a lot of effort and if you would rather go Bowling with your friends, it’s your choice and just as valid an experience. Too many spiritual people are too hauty because of their belief or practices, they think they’re better. This is just another form of materialism… it’s spiritual materialism. In fact I rarely believe anything, I just practice to obtain different experiences, but sometimes when I see people really happy for wanting to collect every type of Nike sneaker then I wish I could be so easily made happy rather than committing to meditation and ritual.

Anyway. That’s me in a nutshell and there’s a whole lot more to love hunny. Come meet me and find out!

Qualified Mental Health First Aider

I got myself qualified in mental health first aid.

Learn Mobile Photography Technologies For Incredible Photos

I just completed a great course on Udemy. I have been learning how to build my body confidence with posing for photos. Some people just seem to take better photos than me and often the pictures I take do not build my confidence as much as I would like, so I decided to undertake this course which is focused on Samsung phones.

I had a Samsung when I started but to be honest I am a Pixel customer now. The course was incredible and showed me some fantastic techniques. I am going to try my best to use the course content to take some fantastic photos, one for each technique. I will say however that my hope was to learn how to pose for camera and the course was mostly focused on backgrounds, leading lines, sunsets etc. Not posing people so it did not hit the exact need criteria of creating confident, well-posed pictures. There is always more to learn.

https://www.udemy.com/share/1044Kk3@OqhEvkPyGEZlCWM1O5HbGfuKfqw_2XxyxMgS2PyzswOje2c2LojWFYWV2fQgchma9Q==/

So with the picture above I was trying to use the trees and the over hanging branch to create a framing effect. It might be more successful if I trimmed off the right bit of with the blue sky. But it was very picture-esque anyway. It kind of says to me how far one can get from the city without leaving Croydon.

This was a bit of a failure. I was trying to capture Dobbie my dog in the foreground and go close to the ground to get more foreground, but unfortunately she doesn’t hold still for very long. She ended up not quite on the edge of the third and not quite in the centre. The the darkness of tree draws the eyes in with the footpath’s leading lines so there is almost something ominous about that big tree in what was supposed to be the background but seems to create a second layer of foreground.

This was done on someone else’s phone so I could not get the colour quite right and it was immediately interrupted by other family members getting to the shot and doing whatever they wanted before I could truly get my mum posed properly. But by sheer luck truly, one picture truly encapsulated the beauty of her outfit. It really shocks me how my mum can so often espouse so many personality types traditionally reserved for men in the mass media to the point where you might cease to think of her as a woman, but then she pulls out such a beautiful outfit such as this and truly embraces her femininity.

Kindness Method

I am currently working through a book called “the Kindness Method” with the help of a friend. This is an incredible book! Shahroo Izadi takes ideas, which in hindsight seem really simple and obvious, but which are so heavily neglected in so much Life Coaching.

Her work includes exercises to help the individual remember the attitude that fuels their desire to achieve change. Exercises in her book, help the client maintain awareness of what they have already achieved. They finally have loosely structured ways to remember what helped them achieve their goals and what derailed their efforts so they make sure they are planted in the most fertilized soil to achieve the growth that they want. Now, when you’re trying to achieve your goals you can make sure your life is helping you and not hindering you. Your life can be turned into a vehicle for driving that self-improvement. This is similar to the work I did with the

Suddenly, a Life Coaching session is relevant again!!! I can’t express enough how disappointed I was during previous Life Coaching sessions, where my plans for my life and goals were ignored and I was led to discuss different things that weren’t relevant to what I wanted to achieve in my life because the Life Coach was trying to fit it in with their system, for example: NLP, Jungian Archtypes or, in one case, the Psycho-Analysis of Freud.

My friend and I, have been working very deeply on our snapshot letters and maps. I am shock with how deep it has allowed us to go. In the words of Blanche from Golden Girls “I am stunned. I. AM. STUNNED. ‘Stunned’ is the only way to describe how stunned I am” with the sheer amount of hell we humans can put ourselves through. So embarrassed about our failures, we hide them from other people and then we do not have the support we need to actually do something about it. We force ourselves to bare this load alone. Why would we hurt ourselves and our chances at recovery by doing this? How horrible we are! And who is the victim? Ourselves!

I have to say I am so proud of my map of things I am proud of. I feel like I have been working on this for 11 years since my initial CBT work as a client. I won’t share it here, it’s kind of private, but I am so proud of it. Maybe if I feel it’s worth it at some point I might make a public one but, this very blog is a small homage to creating a list of successes to encourage myself. I was deliberately doing for years before I got Shahroo’s sexy light blue book.

Shahroo Izadi has her readers paying attention to the things that help them achieve and see what screws you over. In my own coaching, I tend to address the issues that prevented us after the fact so setting it up at the beginning is a novel idea! Imagine a type of coaching that is

Did you find this book interesting but reading is difficult for you? Trust me this book is easy to get through. Short to the point chapters. I also got the audible book because, I even as a gay man, I love a woman with a beautiful London accent and her confident air really adds to the experience. I don’t get any more from making any of these referals, I just think this is a great book and I want more people to get benefit from it!

Audible Audio book

Working through this book with a friend and having her do the exercises really lit a fire under me for Life Coaching again. I want to jump back into the saddle, which I was interested in from 2017, but needed to focus on my programming career because that was needed if I was ever going to have any chance of moving to London in positive position and afford some sort of mortgage to hopefully sort out potential retirement wealth before I run out of time. Maybe I could use it to make some more money to help me pay off my new bathroom and save money to repair the kitchen. It would be great to use my Civil Service Coaching training, my CBT training, keep developing my Hypnosis skills and NLP skills. I could even offer Tarot reading sessions and Witchy training to support people whose goals align more with that and would benefit from what I can teach them.

At present, I only use these skills in my job and with certain friends, but if I could supplement my income to help me clear my credit cards, do some of the work on the house I want to do and pay back my folks for the money they loaned me to pay the deposit.

WiX Toolset Course

So the WiX Toolset consists of 5 tools used to help software developers move easily between written code and windows installers. It consists of:

The compiler – candle.exe
The linker – light.exe
The Bootstrapper – burn.exe
The Harvester – heat.exe
The Decompiler – dark.exe

msiexec – is the application that reads and installs msi files.

The MSI file mainly consists of a relational database with files.

The installation process is divided into two main parts which are called “server-side” and “client-side”. The serverside seems to me to be the part which actually installs and is sometimes called “execute” phase. I wonder if this occurs within the msiexec application itself or whether this a client which reaches to something else. The client-side provides the UI support. Server side has elevated privileges.

Be careful with the XML it’s very case-sensitive. Nearly all the names for the tags and attributes begin with a capital letter. It is similar to PascalCase for example the “UpgradeCode” attribute.

Properties

Properties are like variables used during the install process. Public properties are shared between “server-side” and “client-side” parts of the installation process. In order to make a property public just make sure all its letters are capitals, private properties must contain lower case letters.

Properties get added to the property table of the relational database when and only if they are assigned a non-null value.

When logging the properties can be dumped to the log file so don’t store secrets.

The following properties are required:

• Product Code
• Product Language
• Product Name
• Product Manufacturer
• Product Version

Upgrade Code should also be included so upgrades are possible in future.

There are usually on the Product tag inside the Wix tag

<Wix xmlns="http://schemas.microsoft.com/wix/2006/wi"
 xmlns:util="http://schemas.microsoft.com/wix/UtilExtension">
    <Product Id="*" Name="My App" Language="1033" Version="1.0.1.0"
           Manufacturer="Graeme Inc" UpgradeCode="000121DF-ABCD-4684-C1EF-FEC86B738909">
...
     </Product>
</Wix>

Features and Components

Features are essentially containers of components that should be installed togther.

Features appear in the feature tree in the UI.

There must be at least one feature.

Components are things that should be installed together. Each one is a registry key, a file or shortcut.

Features can have an attribute of Absent set to disallow to prevent a user from being able to disable a feature. For example if you were installing Microsoft Word then being able to install with support for East Asian languages being absent is fine, but you should not be able to install and have the Word Processor absent.

<Wix xmlns="http://schemas.microsoft.com/wix/2006/wi"
 xmlns:util="http://schemas.microsoft.com/wix/UtilExtension">
    <Product Id="*" Name="My App" Language="1033" Version="1.0.1.0"
           Manufacturer="Graeme Inc" UpgradeCode="000121DF-ABCD-4684-C1EF-FEC86B738909">
        <Feature Id="FeatureA" Title="Word Processor" Level="1" Absent="disallow">
            <ComponentRef Id="ModuleA" />
        </Feature>
        <Feature Id="FeatureB" Title="Support for East Asian Languages" Level="1">
            <ComponentRef Id="ModuleB" />
        </Feature>
    </Product>
</Wix>

Sequences

Actions and components are installed in order.

There is a couple of tables such as the InstallUISequence table and InstallExecuteSequence which have an order of things in each sequence. (these sequences ae different for the admin install (network installing) and the adversative installing.

Conditions

Is evaluated to a boolean value to determine if a line in the sequence table runs or not.

Operators: =, <>, <=, >=, < and >.

• contains >< (“hand” >< “handsome” evaluates to true)
• starts with <<
• ends with >>
• case insensitive equals ~= (“A ~= “a” TRUE, “A” = “a” FALSE (Case sensitive comparison))

“A” < “B” evaluates to true.

Binary Operators AND, OR, XOR (either but not both), EQV (both true or both false), IMP (left is false or right is true)

If a condition has just a property in it then it is true if that property has been given a value, false if undefined.

%Name = environment variable called Name

• $Mycomponent = action state of specified component. What state it will be in when finished.
• ?Mycomponent = installer state of specified component. What state it is currently in.
• &MyFeature = action state of specified feature. What state it will be in when finished.
• !MyFeature = intaller state of specified feature. What state it is currently in.

The above all resolve to an integer -1 to 4.
-1 – no action
1 – Advertised Feature
2 – Not present Component / Featre
3 – Locally found
4 – In remote location

Formatted Strings (Interpolated strings)

Use [] to put variable in your strings for example:

"A newer version of [ProductName] is already installed."

\[ and \] can be used to escape the characters and prevent this happening.

Directories

<Wix xmlns="http://schemas.microsoft.com/wix/2006/wi"
 xmlns:util="http://schemas.microsoft.com/wix/UtilExtension">
    <Product Id="*" Name="My App" Language="1033" Version="1.0.1.0"
           Manufacturer="Graeme Inc" UpgradeCode="000121DF-ABCD-4684-C1EF-FEC86B738909">
        <Directory Id="TARGETDIR" Name="SourceDir">
            <Directory Id="ProgramFilesFolder">
                <Directory Id="INSTALLFOLDER" Name="My App">
                </Directory>
            </Directory>
        </Directory>
    </Product>
</Wix>

The TARGETDIR Directory tag is part of the MSI file structure so the Wix XML reflects this, but this does not map directly to an actual logical directory on the drive.

The Tag with Id ProgramFilesFolder maps directly to the ProgramFiles Folder for non 64-bit applications. This folder is usually called “Program Files (x86)” on newer versions of Windows. This can alternatively be replaced with the Id ProgramFiles64Folder for the Program Files folder for 64-bit applications. This is normally called “Program Files” on newer versions of Windows.

Embed the cab file

<Wix xmlns="http://schemas.microsoft.com/wix/2006/wi"
 xmlns:util="http://schemas.microsoft.com/wix/UtilExtension">
    <Product Id="*" Name="My App" Language="1033" Version="1.0.1.0"
           Manufacturer="Graeme Inc" UpgradeCode="000121DF-ABCD-4684-C1EF-FEC86B738909">
        <MetaTemplate EmbedCab="yes" />
    </Product>
</Wix>

Msi files store the data in cab files (cabinet files) however to make it easier you can embed the cab in the msi file so you only have one file to install the application. I recommend doing this, so that they cannot become separate as easily. This is done by adding the MetaTemplate with EmbedCab set to “yes” as above.

UI bits

In order to use any of these features you need to include the WiXUIExtention

If you add a UIRef in the Product tag this can be used to add parts of a UI. Adding a UIRef with Id WixUI_FeatureTree will add multiple pages not just the feature selection page. In fact, this is a full UI with a start page, a page that has the license agreement, a customize dialog that has a feature tree which allows the user to select which features they would like installed and displays the file size, a browse button which allows the user to select a folder and checks disk space before attempting to install.

For example

<Wix xmlns="http://schemas.microsoft.com/wix/2006/wi"
 xmlns:util="http://schemas.microsoft.com/wix/UtilExtension">
    <Product Id="*" Name="My App" Language="1033" Version="1.0.1.0"
           Manufacturer="Graeme Inc" UpgradeCode="000121DF-ABCD-4684-C1EF-FEC86B738909">
        <UIRef Id="WixUI_FeatureTree" />
    </Product>
</Wix>

One of the projects I worked on we had to create a unique set of dialogues, which did not already exist and I had to add to it. As far as I can tell the people who worked on it before used Publish tags to select which dialogues were used and to determine what happens when the buttons on them are pressed.

In my case, I created a whole new dialogue rather than using publishing and configuring an existing one, because the others did not meet the needs of the client. My boss kindly pointed me to this list of existing dialogs so that I could easily create one which fits with the existing dialogs. https://github.com/wixtoolset/wix3/tree/c02e48ec301a60eba88a3b519d47e88eeaa4c978/src/ext/UIExtension/wixlib

<Wix ...>
    <Product ...>
        <UI>
	    <UIRef Id="WixUI_CustomizeMyOrgUI" />
	</UI>
    </Product>
    <Fragment>
        <UI Id="WixUI_CustomizeMyOrgUI">
	    <TextStyle Id="WixUI_Font_Normal" FaceName="Tahoma" Size="8" />
	    <TextStyle Id="WixUI_Font_Bigger" FaceName="Tahoma" Size="12" />
	    <TextStyle Id="WixUI_Font_Title" FaceName="Tahoma" Size="9" Bold="yes" />
	    <Property Id="DefaultUIFont" Value="WixUI_Font_Normal" />
	    <Property Id="WixUI_Mode" Value="InstallDir" />
	    <DialogRef Id="BrowseDlg" />
	    <DialogRef Id="DiskCostDlg" />
	    <DialogRef Id="ErrorDlg" />
	    <DialogRef Id="FatalError" />
	    <DialogRef Id="FilesInUse" />
	    <DialogRef Id="MsiRMFilesInUse" />
	    <DialogRef Id="PrepareDlg" />
	    <DialogRef Id="ProgressDlg" />
	    <DialogRef Id="ResumeDlg" />
	    <DialogRef Id="UserExit" />
	    <Publish
                Dialog="BrowseDlg"
                Control="OK"
                Event="DoAction"
                Value="WixUIValidatePath"
                Order="3">1</Publish>
            <Publish
                Dialog="BrowseDlg"
                Control="OK"
                Event="SpawnDialog"
                Value="InvalidDirDlg"
                Order="4">
                <![CDATA[NOT WIXUI_DONTVALIDATEPATH AND WIXUI_INSTALLDIR_VALID<>"1"]]>
            </Publish>
            <Publish
                Dialog="ExitDialog"
                Control="Finish"
                Event="EndDialog"
                Value="Return"
                Order="999">1</Publish>
            <Publish
                Dialog="WelcomeDlg"
                Control="Next"
                Event="NewDialog"
                Value="SelectAutoUpdate">NOT Installed</Publish>
            <Publish
                Dialog="WelcomeDlg"
                Control="Next"
                Event="NewDialog"
                Value="VerifyReadyDlg">Installed AND PATCH</Publish>
            <Publish
                Dialog="InstallDirDlg"
                Control="Back"
                Event="NewDialog"
                Value="SelectAutoUpdate">1</Publish>
            <Publish
                Dialog="InstallDirDlg"
                Control="Next"
                Event="SetTargetPath"
                Value="[WIXUI_INSTALLDIR]"
                Order="1">1</Publish>
            <Publish
                Dialog="InstallDirDlg"
                Control="Next"
                Event="DoAction"
                Value="WixUIValidatePath"
                Order="2">NOT WIXUI_DONTVALIDATEPATH</Publish>
            <Publish
                Dialog="InstallDirDlg"
                Control="Next"
                Event="SpawnDialog"
                Value="InvalidDirDlg"
                Order="3">
		<![CDATA[NOT WIXUI_DONTVALIDATEPATH AND WIXUI_INSTALLDIR_VALID<>"1"]]>
            </Publish>
            <Publish
                Dialog="InstallDirDlg"
                Control="Next"
                Event="NewDialog"
                Value="VerifyReadyDlg"
                Order="4">WIXUI_DONTVALIDATEPATH OR WIXUI_INSTALLDIR_VALID="1"</Publish>
            <Publish
                Dialog="InstallDirDlg"
                Control="ChangeFolder"
                Property="_BrowseProperty"
                Value="[WIXUI_INSTALLDIR]" Order="1">1</Publish>
            <Publish
                Dialog="InstallDirDlg"
                Control="ChangeFolder"
                Event="SpawnDialog"
                Value="BrowseDlg" Order="2">1</Publish>
            <Publish
                Dialog="VerifyReadyDlg"
                Control="Back"
                Event="NewDialog"
                Value="InstallDirDlg"
                Order="1">NOT Installed</Publish>
            <Publish
                Dialog="VerifyReadyDlg"
                Control="Back"
                Event="NewDialog"
                Value="MaintenanceTypeDlg"
                Order="2">Installed AND NOT PATCH</Publish>
            <Publish
                Dialog="VerifyReadyDlg"
                Control="Back"
                Event="NewDialog"
                Value="WelcomeDlg"
                Order="2">Installed AND PATCH</Publish>
            <Publish
                Dialog="MaintenanceWelcomeDlg"
                Control="Next"
                Event="NewDialog"
                Value="MaintenanceTypeDlg">1</Publish>
            <Publish
                Dialog="MaintenanceTypeDlg"
                Control="RepairButton"
                Event="NewDialog"
                Value="VerifyReadyDlg">1</Publish>
            <Publish
                Dialog="MaintenanceTypeDlg"
                Control="RemoveButton"
                Event="NewDialog"
                Value="VerifyReadyDlg">1</Publish>
            <Publish
                Dialog="MaintenanceTypeDlg"
                Control="Back"
                Event="NewDialog"
                Value="MaintenanceWelcomeDlg">1</Publish>
            <Property
                Id="ARPNOMODIFY"
                Value="1" />
            <Dialog
                Id="SelectAutoUpdate"
                Width="370"
                Height="270"
                Title="Auto Update">
                <Control
                    Id="BannerBitmap"
                    Type="Bitmap"
                    X="0"
                    Y="0"
                    Width="370"
                    Height="44"
                    TabSkip="no"
                    Text="!(loc.BrowseDlgBannerBitmap)" />
                <Control
                    Id="BannerLine"
                    Type="Line"
                    X="0"
                    Y="44"
                    Width="370"
                    Height="0" />
                <Control
                    Id="BottomLine"
                    Type="Line"
                    X="0"
                    Y="234"
                    Width="370"
                    Height="0" />
                <Control
                    Id="Description"
                    Type="Text"
                    X="25"
                    Y="23"
                    Width="280"
                    Height="15"
                    Transparent="yes"
                    NoPrefix="yes"
                    Text="You can select whether to turn on automatic updates." />
                <Control
                    Id="Title"
                    Type="Text"
                    X="15"
                    Y="6"
                    Width="200"
                    Height="15"
                    Transparent="yes"
                    NoPrefix="yes"
                    Text="Autoupdates" />
                <Control
                    Id="Autoupdatecheckbox"
                    Type="CheckBox"
                    X="25"
                    Y="50"
                    Width="290"
                    Height="17"
                    Property="AUTOUPDATE"
                    CheckBoxValue="1"
                    Text="Autoupdate" />
                <Control
                    Id="Next"
                    Type="PushButton"
                    X="236"
                    Y="243"
                    Width="56"
                    Height="17"
                    Default="yes"
                    Text="!(loc.WixUINext)">
                    <Publish
                        Event="NewDialog"
                        Value="InstallDirDlg">1</Publish>
                </Control>
                <Control
                    Id="Back"
                    Type="PushButton"
                    X="180"
                    Y="243"
                    Width="56"
                    Height="17"
                    Text="!(loc.WixUIBack)">
                    <Publish
                        Event="NewDialog"
                        Value="WelcomeDlg">1</Publish>
                </Control>
                <Control
                    Id="Cancel"
                    Type="PushButton"
                    X="304"
                    Y="243"
                    Width="56"
                    Height="17"
                    Cancel="yes"
                    Text="!(loc.WixUICancel)">
                    <Publish
                        Event="SpawnDialog"
                        Value="CancelDlg">1</Publish>
                </Control>
            </Dialog>
        </UI>
        <UIRef Id="WixUI_Common" />
    </Fragment>
</Wix>

Searches

These can be used for check pre-requisits. You can run AppSearch to check if there is a application installed and to find their installation directory.

Other options:

• DirectorySearch – search for existence of folders
• FileSearch
• RegistrySearch
• ComponentSearch – search for windows component
• IniFileSearch – search inside .ini files

<Property Id="VALUETOBESET">
    <DirectorySearch Id="myDirSearch" Path="C:\foo\bar">
    </DirectorySearch>
</Property>
<Property Id="REQUIREDVALUE" ComplianceCheck="yes">
    <DirectorySearch Id="mySecondDirSearch" Path="C:\David\Bowie\Labrinth">
    </DirectorySearch>
</Property>

If C:\foo\bar folder is found, then the global property called VALUETOBESET is set to the full path name C:\foo\bar otherwise it remains null.

If you want to prevent installation should a folder not be found you can add a ComplianceCheck to the Property so if it does not have have a certain folder it will not go through with the installation. The end result would be this error message which isn’t very descriptive

Alternatively you could remove the attribute above and use a launch condition in a condition tag which simply says:

<Condition Message="Before installing this product please make sure the Folder C:\David\Bowie\Labrinth exists first!">
     <![CDATA[Installed OR REQUIREDVALUE]] />
</Condition>

This allows you to display the full message if the REQUIREDVALUE is null AND the product is not already installed. Obviously, if it is already installed and we are uninstalling we don’t want this message to appear.

I believe <![CADTA[…]] /> allows for you to type names which might be null without it being invalid XML.

You can also do a FileSearch, but this must be inside a DirectorySearch which should be in property.

<Property Id="VALUETOBESET">
    <DirectorySearch Id="myDirSearch" Path="C:\foo">

        <FileSearch Id="barFileSearch" Path="bar.txt">
        </FileSearch>
    </DirectorySearch>
</Property>

The window registry is as far as I see it an attempt to centralise .INI files which were key value pair files with sections and subsections.

RegistrySearches seek values which are stored in 4 roots:

1. HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT (HKCR)
2. HKEY_CURRENT_USER (HKCU)
3. HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE (HKLM)
4. HKEY_USERS (HKU)

The key attribute is the full address which follows the root in making the path to the value for example: “SOFTWARE/Microsoft/Windows NT/CurrentVersion”.

Learning Italian

Learning Catalan went incredible well. I reached 150 days of doing it on DuoLingo just before going on holiday. I was pleased to be able to speak to some shop owners and waitresses in Catalan. They seemed very pleased too, in fact, one thought I was living there and couldn’t believe I was just there on holiday or that I had only been learning for a few months. Either that or, more likely, he was just being polite. But I feel it is less than polite to show up in Catalonia and speak Spanish, the language of what they view as technically a different country, a country that repressed and claimed to own them, particularly in a time when there is growing support for Catalonian independence.

After getting back from Barcelona and Sitges, I switched to studying Italian, which my Dad and Sister are learning on Duolingo. At present, my Italian vocabulary is around 3000 words. My aim is about 10,000 which is my approximation of relative foreign-language fluency in a European language. I am lucky to have a few Italian study books and tools floating around for me to use. For example, I have a huge box of vocab cards. A cursory glance over the vocab cards and I already knew around 2 fifths of them, nearly half. Perhaps having a few cards on the go to read through each day would have me build toward that goal and a Practice Makes Perfect Italian vocabulary book to help cement that knowledge. I will let you know soon how I’m getting on.

Keeping Kung-fu stretching consistent

I want to get back on top of my kung fu game and I have wanted to do so for while now. I made a few recordings for me to listen to in order to make sure I’m working at a consistent rate and not forgetting anything.

Completed Clean Coding in C#

I completed the course Clean Coding in C# outside of work hours.

https://app.pluralsight.com/achievements/share/0ba09b69-61bb-458f-8db3-28d982780b42

Learning Catalan on DuoLingo

I have always loved language learning and frankly, I want a job programming for language learning applications. The only reason I haven’t gone and got one is basically I live in the wrong country for Rosetta Stone, MindSnacks, DuoLingo and Memrise don’t seem to be interested in me. Well, it’s their loss really because there’s a level of enthusiasm and can-do attitude that is essentially unparalleled among my peers.

But since I booked a trip to Barcelona I decided to learn Catalan on DuoLinguo and I have now reached 90 days yay!!! Unfortunately Catalan for English speakers isn’t available so I have been learning it from Spanish which can be confusing. I often don’t know if I am answering something in Spanish or Catalan!!!

I should be able to hit 150 days on the day I fly to Barcelona on 2nd September 2022. I’ll see how far I can get on the app this month, but I’m going to switch to Complete Catalan (part of the teach yourself series for August for more dialogues and grammar) and just maintain the course that I have learned so far on DuoLingo.

Then when I get back from Spain I have a trip to Rhodes a month and a bit later so I might switch to Greek, but my Dad and Sister are hitting 80 days of consistent Italian learning so that might be something to learn soon or after Greek.

C# Development Fundamentals Path Pluralsight

I really did not need to do this course. In fact, I teach it in person to my juniors better than this course teaches it. But while I have a Pluralsight subscription, I figured I might as well put it on in the background and see if I learn something. It was better than listening to Heart FM while I work, I tell myself.

It is not very practical as far as courses go. These days a lot of people are coming to C# as their first programming language and well it’s not a good introduction because programmers tend to be very practical. Especially those that are learning through a course like this and not at university. I have juniors write me text-based games to start. So they’re actually doing coding rather than hearing about it. I actually don’t know a coder who learns better from hearing than they learn from doing. It works because it is very practical. Before long, I am asking them to “research” how to generate a random number in C#, so not only do they learn how to program, but also how to be independent. It’s a very practical process and uses the skills they would use in the field, but this course has you sit and watch the teacher do it. I don’t think that is best suited to the audience. I think this course would be a lot better if it were practical. I note to the contrary that the Introduction to Types has some downloadable exercise code so there is stuff you can do, I just think a few more structured exercises would be better.

It was a good opportunity to look at structs and records since I hardly use these, but with 5 years’ experience and having worked for an architect who got me to read the language specification, there was little in the course I didn’t know already. It’s funny how you learn all these structures and statements and then there never seems to be an opportunity to use them. I get excited when there’s actually a chance to use a do-while loop or more commonly a select statement. Something so fundamental yet often just ends up referenced as a for-loop or while-loop.

I did actually learn something I hadn’t come across before since we are using a newer C# version. I learned target-typed new expressions. This is where if you use a specifically typed variable like myObject below, which is specifically typed to be MyClass, you can omit the type when calling the constructor with the new keyword.

MyClass myObject = new(parameter);
// instead of
MyClass myObject = new MyClass(parameter);

LGB Alliance included in National Lottery Community

I am very concerned about the inclusion of the LGB Alliance in the National Lottery fund. So far it has only received £9000. It is a charity whose funds are frequently used in an attempt to defend transphobic people, who lose their jobs due to expressing trans-hate in the workplace. Yes, this group promotes transphobia in the workplace particularly as their leader was dismissed from her Chambres for transphobic comments. Their slogans seek to exclude trans people and promote hate toward trans people.

I’ve written a very short email that you’re welcome to send to the national lottery and you can flesh it out if you like. If you click below it will be automatically done for you.

Suggested email is as follows:

To: customer.services@tnlcommunityfund.org.uk
Subject: Inclusion of trans hate group in community fund

To whom it may concern,

I write to raise concerns. I have been made aware that the National Lottery Community Fund has donated £9000 to the LGB Alliance. This is a group that actively tries to damage trans rights and therefore human rights in this country. I write to ask you to cease contributing funds to the LGB Alliance affective immediately.

Thank you,
A concerned member of the public

Drag Idol

Dolores appeared in Drag Idol! It was quite a nightmare to get ready for and very nerve-wracking to perform in front of peers. But it was done and achieved, she received some good feedback, but did not get far in the competition.

Alternatively, the artist formerly known as Evangelina Holie, now Letitia Delish got through, not only to the venue final, but also to the semi final and we will follow her closely.

For some samples of Dolores’s Drag Idol performances check here.

https://www.instagram.com/p/CdpD4gmoK9h/
https://www.instagram.com/p/Cdo_QoeoKcU/
https://www.instagram.com/dodaydrag/