2011 in the UK started with icy cold weather when daytime temperatures plummeted to minus 9.5 degrees. My 320 BMW transformed from being a great vehicle to a pile of useless metal throughout January. Mid month I escaped the freezing landscapes of Leeds and headed to Southern India to run a series of workshops with Andrew T Austin. I arrived at 3am after a 10 hour flight to a welcome 30 degrees. This was a wonderful trip and special thanks to Dr Abraham, Maya and all who came to the public and private events at the psychology departments. This was also the start of a larger project - see http://www.nlptrainingindia.com/. The mighty Austin was like Indiana Jones from Raiders of The Lost Ark involving us in all manner of adventures including appearing on Indian TV, fascinating day trips and crucially sampling the best Indian food I have ever tasted.

In April I focused on my UK clinics and started to plan for the annual May event with Frank Farrelly in Leeds. It’s also become noticeable that the UK economy is in serious trouble and notice from speaking to other well known trainers that bookings for all training events are understandably in decline. Interestingly, over 50% of all attendees for this UK Provocative Therapy workshop were from overseas, including France, Hungary, USA and India among other countries. This was one of the best Provocative Therapy trainings to date with a strong theme of “relationships” There were some memorable client sessions including Joseph Kao and a visitor from India who remains “provoked” many months on… We filmed the whole two days and may well release this footage on DVD in the future. Frank Farrelly came to stay at my house as usual and we managed over the course of three days to see the entire HBO series “Deadwood” with the unique achievement of watching a whole 15 hours on one single day! Frank remains a dear friend and colleague who has radically changed my thoughts on human communication. Discover XO marmite which makes this an even better month.

 I also first came across the rather daft ‘Nightingale Collaboration” a group of self proclaimed skeptics who delight in encouraging the public to endlessly complain to the ASA about what they deem to be “non scientific medicine” Their leader enthused about personally making hundreds of complaints against therapists he disapproved of.  I’m in favour of discrimination and common sense but this evangelistic style “scientific” thinking seems to be on the increase. There also seems to be a curious new outbreak of daft unsolicited e-mails including one I received promoting a wonderfully titled “Damsels in Distress” women only workshop to all my e-mail addresses. One of the largest training companies also formally went into liquidation owing significant sums of money to suppliers. The company was then phoenixed as a new concern with virtually the exact same name and the exact same website. Amazingly this “new company” continues to promote “business success” trainings not even taking the time to e amend its online terms and conditions which listed the liquidated company! This same company now charges “an admin fee” of £300 to transfer from one course to another which makes me wonder how much admin staff are paid! UK law seems to have little concern for such behaviours, which is no surprise to me as I saw this exact same nonsense unchallenged in my recruitment days.

 Throughout 2011 I continued to have wonderfully inspirational guitar lessons with Martin Simpson and finally getting to grips with many altered tunings for acoustic guitar. I purchased a private stock PRS Angelus Private Stock acoustic which woods chosen by Simpson himself. This was the first of two major guitar purchases in 2011 and with the economy going into freefall these purchases are increasingly looking like great investments as well as wonderful playing instruments. I also discovered my guitar teacher from 1990s John Dixon had passed away. He was occasionally brilliant and sometimes rather “unpredictable” Later that month I was contacted by Pete Windridge – France who wanted some coaching to swim the channel. I thought “What a great project!” and we began working together, with his channel swim planned for September.

 In June I spent 5 brilliant days back in New York, no work this time just pure holiday. Saw Glen Hansard and Eddie Vedder at The Beacon Theatre, both of whom were just fantastic. I also bought a new Asus eepad which is amazing and discovered the delight of “Angry Birds” truly daft, but great fun. I love NY and continue to spend time there each year whenever I can. J and R records, John Fluevog and B and H Photo stores continue to receive disposable income from me and Amy’s Bread is still the best breakfast in the Big Apple. The highlight in July for me was Steve Coogan on Newsnight attacking the News of The World policy of phone hacking, just brilliant - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SkeSJLgzG8k Little did we know at this point that NOTW was to disappear within months!

 In August I was delighted to once again be hosted by Steve and Connirae Andreas in Boulder to teach a 3 day PCW course before co training at the 4 day Advanced Mastery Training with Richard Bolstad and Steve Andreas. It was great to finally meet Richard, one of the good guys doing great work. Boulder is a wonderful place and Steve, Connirae and Mark are wonderful hosts. Some of this material was released on Provocative Change Works in the USA Part 2, available in PAL and NTSC formats - http://www.nickkemp.com/spartcart/product/provocative-change-works-live-in-the-usa-part-2.htm . Mark Andreas’s new book “Sweet Fruit from the Bitter Tree” is almost ready for publication (it’s out now) which is a wonderful selection of inspirational and thought provoking stories, BRAVO! While in Boulder I also met up with my wonderful Japanese organizer Kimiko to discuss the PCW workshops for Japan in 2012 as well as Katie Raver to talk about doing an event in Austin March 2013! I have always wanted to visit Austin, home of many of my favorite musicians.

Earlier in 2011 I was approached by Shelle Rose Charvet and Michael Hall to write a chapter on PCW for “Innovations in NLP”. I was pleasantly surprised that I managed to complete a 4000 word chapter ahead of the deadline; this being the first published printed material for Provocative Change Works. I have been known to be quite critical of many NLP behaviours (and make no apologies for this) but this book is actually a great example of a genuine collaboration. All proceeds go to the excellent NLP R and R project. On a personal level it’s also good to get something in print for PCW. If there were such things as gold stars in NLP, Shelle and Michael would be worthy recipients.

 I returned from the USA to riot strewn UK and I suspect with the current government more trouble awaits in the future. I still can’t see George Osborne without thinking about Lord Percy from Blackadder.  A few months later I noticed the following news item mentioning George

 STOP PRESS - One Direction star Harry Styles fails to light up Knutsford
“Fans of the boy band broke down in tears when they realised Chancellor George Osborne was switching on their Christmas lights instead of heartthrob Harry!”
I have no idea who Harry Styles is but the fans do have my full sympathy...

 On Sept 24^th Pete Windridge – France swam the channel in 17 hours 55 minutes, an amazing task from an amazing guy, BRAVO! I watched the whole thing on my laptop and was euphoric about his achievement. Mark Zaretti and I created a documentary about this amazing project that can be seen here - http://www.nickkemp.com/sports-performance-coaching.php Pete’s journey will be included in my book without doubt.

 October Frank Farrelly unwell and goes into hospital and cancels rest of 2011 courses and events for 2012, not good news…

 In November I collected my New World African Blackwood Sobell acoustic. I have been waiting two and a half years for this and the only other two in existence were made for Jackson Brown and Martin Simpson. Stefan Sobell is simply the best acoustic guitar builder on the planet, a pure genius and I rarely use that term! See http://www.sobellinstruments.com/en-gb/news.aspx I’m wholly convinced that these will be even more sought after in the future than at present where there is a long wait for each instrument which is handmade with the highest quality woods and precision. You can always tell when you come across a great guitar, because you just don’t want to put it down and this new acquisition is one such great example. November also took me back to Warsaw as well as the London NLP Conference. Both went really well and Warsaw was the best Polish event yet.

During this month I found myself engaged in an online discussion where a trainer kept asking me “What do you do when it’s not working for the client” Despite numerous requests some months on I am still awaiting a reply to what he means by “not working” Having given this some though I think it’s a bit of a poorly framed question and as such there’s no sensible reply that could be given! I decided to stop running any UK courses from Nov – March myself (I’m instead having others host me) and instead focus on editing the PCW book which currently stands at 900,000 words! Special thanks to the rather cheeky Alison Power for excellent transcribing on this project! I think X Mas chocolates may be forthcoming…In December UK temperatures dropped massively after a quite extraordinary Oct 1^st day which was like an Indian summer and as luck would have it, two dear friends from NY came to visit on that exact day. Cats now bored and decide to stay indoors day and night demanding that only Sheba cat food is good enough. Online internet behaviours continue to amuse me especially those folks who insist that everyone who posts on social media EXPLAIN THEMSELVES, perhaps forgetting that some of us have jobs and more important considerations to pay attention to!  In contrast a chance phone call with David Key from Auspicium results in what Baldrick may call “a cunning plan” to run a PCW event as part of his NLP Master Prac in Jan 2012. Demand for this has been excellent and this will be my  first PCW event in 2012 one of the few in the UK http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FvFltxrybXs I remain impressed that there are some NLP trainings in the UK that focus on skills development and this gives me some hope for the field. Also saw Moneyball at the cinema, screenplay by Aaron Sorkin and with Brad Pitt as main role, really excellent!

 Leeds weather continues to be like something from Blade Runner, time to stay indoors and keep warm. 2012 looks even busier with trips to Japan, India, USA, Hungary, Spain, France and Poland already in the diary. I also have some more video projects I am working on. It’s been an amazing year and special thanks to all friends, colleagues and anyone who has come to my events or bought products. 2012 is just round the corner and promises to be full of quite amazing adventures with Wishing all who are reading this a great holiday break and a healthy, happy and highly successful 2012.