I went for a walk today.
The idea is that exercise, fresh air, change of scene would ease the stress and - yes I will say it - chronic depression I've been feeling.
Part of my route took me past the playground on the village green. The playground where I used to take my girls when they were small. I'd sit on the bench watching them, or stand at the bottom of the slide with my arms spread. I'm not sure if the latter was for their benefit or mine.
As I walked past, I found myself hearing the laughter, the squeals of pleasure, the "just one more Daddy, pleeeeeease"es. I found myself wondering how, where those years had gone.
My girls are adults now. Approaching the end of their studies. They need me less and less and that is as it should be.
However nobody told me that as they need you less and less, you need them more and more. You need the simplicity, the unconditional love, the unadulterated and uncomplicated fun. You need the cuddles, the kisses, the 'I love you's that come not as a reply, a conditioned reflex, but just come because they do. I'm not saying they don't.
But it's not the same.
I walked past the playground and found my walk wasn't as theraputic as I'd hoped. But then I realised something.
Sadness is not the same as depression.
In the end, I will take consolation in the fact that the memories of those days will carry me forward and, I hope, carry them forward too. I hope they will be able to look back at them and smile.
As I am trying SO hard to do right now.
Saturday, 18 May 2013
Friday, 1 March 2013
Trulee Misérables
So, I finally got to see the movie version of Les Miserables
and I find myself in an ‘Emperor’s New Clothes’ position. Am I really alone in thinking this was truly
awful? Whilst freely admitting that I love the stage version, I have to say
that this was one of the most abysmal adaptions since the cartoon version of
Lord of the Rings.
Possibly worse.
One of the greatest strengths of the stage show is the power
of the voices and the music, something that was completely lost from this
production. OK, I fully understand the relationship that exists between the
money men and their need for box office ‘names’ to pull in the audiences, but
what on earth possessed them to cast such a group of untalented
performers? Not since Lee Marvin and Clint
Eastwood croaked their way through Paint Your Wagon have people been so
mis-cast. And at least Marvin and Eastwood
could get away with it as they weren’t MEANT to be singers.Possibly worse.
Wolverine can just about work his way through a song, although
it must be said some of the notes eluded him and you can see why Catwoman got
the Oscar for best performance by hair, but Gladiator couldn’t carry a tune in
a bucket and was about as plausible in his role as a toy Meer cat would be as
an Insurance broker. The debate before
his suicide was hardly Hamlet’s soliloquy – “To be or not to be. Oh what the heck, not to be. Arghhhhhhh-splat”. All delivered with the sincerity of a
politician on the hustings.
When you see the stage show, you are stunned by the sound and vision. The music, the singers, the harmonies and the imaginative use of scenery and lighting conjure up an image of a street battle that totally transcends the confines and restrictions of a small stage. So how I wonder, can a wide screen multi-million pound production with multiple cameras, shot on location, conjure up a SMALLER vision of revolution? Yet it succeeds in doing just that, reducing the power and emotions of the revolution to little more than a student demo.
“What do we want? Bread for all. When do we want it……”. All that was lacking were some ironically-spelled placards and Peter Tatchell.
And as for Ali G, how on earth did he come up with the idea of doing a parody of a character that is already a parody? Particularly interesting was the way that, as soon as he started his song – one of the seminal songs and probably the only light relief in what is an intense and emotional production (on stage at least) – he adopted an ‘Allo Allo’ mock French accent. However, I can only assume he had little time to practice this, as it would submerge and re-surface with the regularity of an asthmatic dolphin.
“ Leesten veree carefulleeee, ‘ee vill say zeese from teem
to teem”.When you see the stage show, you are stunned by the sound and vision. The music, the singers, the harmonies and the imaginative use of scenery and lighting conjure up an image of a street battle that totally transcends the confines and restrictions of a small stage. So how I wonder, can a wide screen multi-million pound production with multiple cameras, shot on location, conjure up a SMALLER vision of revolution? Yet it succeeds in doing just that, reducing the power and emotions of the revolution to little more than a student demo.
“What do we want? Bread for all. When do we want it……”. All that was lacking were some ironically-spelled placards and Peter Tatchell.
And as for Ali G, how on earth did he come up with the idea of doing a parody of a character that is already a parody? Particularly interesting was the way that, as soon as he started his song – one of the seminal songs and probably the only light relief in what is an intense and emotional production (on stage at least) – he adopted an ‘Allo Allo’ mock French accent. However, I can only assume he had little time to practice this, as it would submerge and re-surface with the regularity of an asthmatic dolphin.
When in the theatre, one is immersed in the power and emotion of the music, in a way that playing it through a set of home-stereo speakers either side of the screen simply didn’t recreate. Yet at the end, for the Finale, they invoke the power of surround-sound. Why on earth they waited until the end escapes me, but it reduced the music that should have been stirring your emotions to the effect of tunes over-spilling from someone’s ipod on the tube.
At the denouement, one is left caring little who (with the exception of little Gavroche, probably the one performance worthy of note) lived and who died. Indeed, one finds oneself wishing rather more of the population of Paris had descended into the sewers for Helena Bonham Carter, delivering her standard performance, to rob. Nice to see you can count on the dependable Ms BC to deliver a consistent performance. So consistent in fact that it’s hard to tell one character she plays from another.
I was warned to take tissues, as I would cry throughout. Cry? No, but I am in mourning. Mourning the brutal corruption of a show I love. I only hope that, when I see the show again (which I shall), it has not ruined it for me.
Thank goodness I only paid half-price for my tickets, so at least I didn’t have that to cry about.
Thursday, 5 July 2012
Henry
Many years ago, my father, who was an Accountant, had a book-keeper come to work for him.
Henry was a small, grey haired, bespectacled Jewish gentleman in his sixties. He was the sort of man who you would walk past without noticing, even if he was the only person you'd encountered on a desert island. The sort of man who made Mild-Mannered Clark Kent seem like a raging viking.
I would work for my Father during the holidays, so sometimes found myself working with Henry in the office. He was always polite, although not to the extent of referring to me as 'the young master', but reserved. You couldn't help but feel his life had passed by a little like the History of Mr Polly, not so much a series of adventures, of highs and lows; not so much a roller-coaster ride as a gentle walk across a flat and bland field.
Then one day, for reasons that escape me, the subject of the war in general, and the Holocaust in particular came up. Perhaps it was an anniversary, or an article in the press, but, one day when were alone in the office, it came up.
And slowly, Henry began to talk.
It turned out that mild, quiet, taciturn and shy Henry had been in the Army during the war. As a German speaker, he had been attached to an intelligence unit and was in the forefront of fighting across Europe.
It turned out that Henry, mild, quiet, taciturn and shy Henry had been attached to a Unit that had been involved in the liberation of one of the camps. My memory tells me it was Bergen-Belsen, but my memory is notoriously weak.
Unlike Henry's.
But then, I doubt, if I had seen what he had seen, that I would ever be able to remove it from the wide-screen of my memory.
Quietly, softly, he told me about how they entered the camp. He told me about being greeted by people who had clung to life like limpets on a storm-battered pier. He told me about the graves, about how the guards had been trying to shoot as many of the inmates as possible before the Allies arrived. About how, even afterwards, they continued to try.
He told me about how he and his colleagues reacted. He was not proud of his reactions towards the guards, but nor was he seeking any kind of recognition or absolution. He was simply telling me.
He told me about the way the people they were there to save were sick, so that even afterwards, many would be unlikely to survive.
He told me this with no pride, no agenda. I am not sure, to this day, whether he wanted to tell me so that I would know, or just because, for once, he wanted to talk about it. Perhaps, he simply wanted to help me attain the next level of maturity, to ensure that, if I should talk about this again, it would be with the benefit of a degree of insight.
I learned a lot that afternoon. A lot about the war, about the Holocaust, about what Man is capable of doing to his fellow human beings, in the process surrendering that very humanity. But most of all, I learned not to judge a man's history by his present, his soul from his demeanour. I learned that maybe, after a roller-coaster, a walk through the fields is all you yearn for, and that does make you any less relevant.
Compared to what Henry, and so many like him experienced, I am the one in the flat-lands. And I learned to be able to feel gratitude for that. Henry is long gone, but I remember him, as he remembered those for whom he was too late.
Thank you Henry
Henry was a small, grey haired, bespectacled Jewish gentleman in his sixties. He was the sort of man who you would walk past without noticing, even if he was the only person you'd encountered on a desert island. The sort of man who made Mild-Mannered Clark Kent seem like a raging viking.
I would work for my Father during the holidays, so sometimes found myself working with Henry in the office. He was always polite, although not to the extent of referring to me as 'the young master', but reserved. You couldn't help but feel his life had passed by a little like the History of Mr Polly, not so much a series of adventures, of highs and lows; not so much a roller-coaster ride as a gentle walk across a flat and bland field.
Then one day, for reasons that escape me, the subject of the war in general, and the Holocaust in particular came up. Perhaps it was an anniversary, or an article in the press, but, one day when were alone in the office, it came up.
And slowly, Henry began to talk.
It turned out that mild, quiet, taciturn and shy Henry had been in the Army during the war. As a German speaker, he had been attached to an intelligence unit and was in the forefront of fighting across Europe.
It turned out that Henry, mild, quiet, taciturn and shy Henry had been attached to a Unit that had been involved in the liberation of one of the camps. My memory tells me it was Bergen-Belsen, but my memory is notoriously weak.
Unlike Henry's.
But then, I doubt, if I had seen what he had seen, that I would ever be able to remove it from the wide-screen of my memory.
Quietly, softly, he told me about how they entered the camp. He told me about being greeted by people who had clung to life like limpets on a storm-battered pier. He told me about the graves, about how the guards had been trying to shoot as many of the inmates as possible before the Allies arrived. About how, even afterwards, they continued to try.
He told me about how he and his colleagues reacted. He was not proud of his reactions towards the guards, but nor was he seeking any kind of recognition or absolution. He was simply telling me.
He told me about the way the people they were there to save were sick, so that even afterwards, many would be unlikely to survive.
He told me this with no pride, no agenda. I am not sure, to this day, whether he wanted to tell me so that I would know, or just because, for once, he wanted to talk about it. Perhaps, he simply wanted to help me attain the next level of maturity, to ensure that, if I should talk about this again, it would be with the benefit of a degree of insight.
I learned a lot that afternoon. A lot about the war, about the Holocaust, about what Man is capable of doing to his fellow human beings, in the process surrendering that very humanity. But most of all, I learned not to judge a man's history by his present, his soul from his demeanour. I learned that maybe, after a roller-coaster, a walk through the fields is all you yearn for, and that does make you any less relevant.
Compared to what Henry, and so many like him experienced, I am the one in the flat-lands. And I learned to be able to feel gratitude for that. Henry is long gone, but I remember him, as he remembered those for whom he was too late.
Thank you Henry
Monday, 17 October 2011
Cold
Two red eyes, stare at me malevolently from the darkness, unblinking, unwavering, heartless.
I know in my heart they've been there, lurking throughout, but during the halcyon days, I have been able to put them out of my mind, my thoughts, almost convincing myself that they were gone, resigned to the fact they no longer had sway over me, that they no longer had relevance for me.
But I knew, in my heart they would be back. I knew I was not free.
So now I find myself locked into a optical stalemate, unwilling to break the gaze for fear of....well...for fear. Thoughts of Dr Who; don't blink, DO. NOT. BLINK. No wonder that episode had such resonance, plumbing such a primordial fear.
Maybe if I back away, slowly, carefully close the door, they will give up, go away, find some other place to haunt, some other person to torment. It has to be worth a try?
Doesn't it?
Fingers close on the edge of the door and so slowly, begin its arc, all the time maintaining a mantra of smooth...smooth..don't rush...don't slam...
Finally, the door is closed. Not shut fast, but close enough. Or not. For I find myself filled with the need to check. Are they still there? Do our fears only exist when the door is open? Are they no more than the light in the fridge?
I won't look.
I won't.
I don't want to. Please don't make me.
But I know I must. I must confront those two red eyes and know, once and for all if they are truly back.
I crack the door, just enough to dart my head forward, to see without being seen, and immediately wish I hadn't.
They stare back at me, confirming my deepest fears, knowing now, all doubts and uncertainty banished, replaced with the certainty of cold, of darkness, of pain, of the struggle to remember the days of light and laughter and warmth.
The red eyes stare at me, silently mocking me with the knowledge. The knowledge that winter is here and my central heating and hot water have come on.
I know in my heart they've been there, lurking throughout, but during the halcyon days, I have been able to put them out of my mind, my thoughts, almost convincing myself that they were gone, resigned to the fact they no longer had sway over me, that they no longer had relevance for me.
But I knew, in my heart they would be back. I knew I was not free.
So now I find myself locked into a optical stalemate, unwilling to break the gaze for fear of....well...for fear. Thoughts of Dr Who; don't blink, DO. NOT. BLINK. No wonder that episode had such resonance, plumbing such a primordial fear.
Maybe if I back away, slowly, carefully close the door, they will give up, go away, find some other place to haunt, some other person to torment. It has to be worth a try?
Doesn't it?
Fingers close on the edge of the door and so slowly, begin its arc, all the time maintaining a mantra of smooth...smooth..don't rush...don't slam...
Finally, the door is closed. Not shut fast, but close enough. Or not. For I find myself filled with the need to check. Are they still there? Do our fears only exist when the door is open? Are they no more than the light in the fridge?
I won't look.
I won't.
I don't want to. Please don't make me.
But I know I must. I must confront those two red eyes and know, once and for all if they are truly back.
I crack the door, just enough to dart my head forward, to see without being seen, and immediately wish I hadn't.
They stare back at me, confirming my deepest fears, knowing now, all doubts and uncertainty banished, replaced with the certainty of cold, of darkness, of pain, of the struggle to remember the days of light and laughter and warmth.
The red eyes stare at me, silently mocking me with the knowledge. The knowledge that winter is here and my central heating and hot water have come on.
Tuesday, 4 October 2011
Who IS that?
Have you ever looked at a picture and, for a moment, not realised that the person in it is you?
Have you ever found yourself looking back at a time and place and almost feeling that the memories, the emotions, the thoughts and feelings it evokes are almost a fiction, a narrative that happened to someone else?
I've been reading some of my posts and, apart from spotting some grammatical mistakes I either didn't notice or couldn't be bothered to correct at the time, I find myself almost detached from them, as if I'm reading the meanderings of another mind.
I dint know if this is normal, a side effect of the impulsive and unplanned nature of my jottings or whether it's the first signs of the reality I'd joked about - that my blog would act as a way for me to remember when my memory fades. Either way, I'm hoping I will enjoy what I read and, rather more importantly, if you come across this, that you enjoy reading it too.
Heck, if your memory goes too, I hope you enjoy reading it again and again!.
Have you ever found yourself looking back at a time and place and almost feeling that the memories, the emotions, the thoughts and feelings it evokes are almost a fiction, a narrative that happened to someone else?
I've been reading some of my posts and, apart from spotting some grammatical mistakes I either didn't notice or couldn't be bothered to correct at the time, I find myself almost detached from them, as if I'm reading the meanderings of another mind.
I dint know if this is normal, a side effect of the impulsive and unplanned nature of my jottings or whether it's the first signs of the reality I'd joked about - that my blog would act as a way for me to remember when my memory fades. Either way, I'm hoping I will enjoy what I read and, rather more importantly, if you come across this, that you enjoy reading it too.
Heck, if your memory goes too, I hope you enjoy reading it again and again!.
Monday, 3 October 2011
Have you ever
Have you ever pretended to be someone you're not?
I'm sure you have. All of us have at some point in our lives, whether that's pretending to be someone we're not in the school playground (I have a feeling that, for a while, I was Jacques Cousteau's son - not a good plan if you don't speak a word of French).
Or perhaps, in later life, in an interview. I remember once explaining that I had a PhD in the articulation of arthropod knees and it's potential application to the creation of hinged cricket stumps.
I didn't get the job which, I seem to remember, was for a trainee manager's position with HFC Bank.
Later still, some of you may have experienced the joy that is online dating. Many MANY people there pretend to be someone they're not. I know this from personal and anecdotal experience. I don't just mean the 'lop-a-couple-of-years-and/or-a-couple-of-pounds-off-the-profile' type creative accounting, but the full blown 'are-you-SURE-I-didn't-mention-my-three-wives-and-seventeen-kids' type creativity. My personal favourite was the chap who claimed to be a Squadron Leader in a Tornado squadron of the RAF. He turned up in full uniform on at least one occasion, used military jargon in all his emails and actually promised his girlfriend (a friend of mine) a flight.
He turned out to be an Estate Agent.
Still, if I were an estate agent, I'd probably lie too.
Of course, this can work to your benefit, as I'm becoming convinced that whatever you say about yourself, people now automatically add several years/pounds or deduct several..... what IS the collective noun for hairs?....... bushells? That'll do. Several bushells of hair. So when you actually ARE what you say, it can work to your benefit.
I hope.
But despite honesty in that arena, we all sometimes pretend to be someone we're not. I just did it. Just now. I've done it before, but this time it somehow hit me. Maybe it's "that" time of year. Whatever the reason, it's not something I felt good about.
I just sent my daughter an email with her motor insurance certificate.
I told her to check it carefully and let me know if anything was incorrect.
I told her to keep a copy with the car.
I signed it "Dad".
And it suddenly struck me.
I'm an imposter.
I'm not 'Dad'. Dad is Dad. I'm me. His son.
I feel all unsettled.
Think I need to go and talk to Dad.
I'm sure you have. All of us have at some point in our lives, whether that's pretending to be someone we're not in the school playground (I have a feeling that, for a while, I was Jacques Cousteau's son - not a good plan if you don't speak a word of French).
Or perhaps, in later life, in an interview. I remember once explaining that I had a PhD in the articulation of arthropod knees and it's potential application to the creation of hinged cricket stumps.
I didn't get the job which, I seem to remember, was for a trainee manager's position with HFC Bank.
Later still, some of you may have experienced the joy that is online dating. Many MANY people there pretend to be someone they're not. I know this from personal and anecdotal experience. I don't just mean the 'lop-a-couple-of-years-and/or-a-couple-of-pounds-off-the-profile' type creative accounting, but the full blown 'are-you-SURE-I-didn't-mention-my-three-wives-and-seventeen-kids' type creativity. My personal favourite was the chap who claimed to be a Squadron Leader in a Tornado squadron of the RAF. He turned up in full uniform on at least one occasion, used military jargon in all his emails and actually promised his girlfriend (a friend of mine) a flight.
He turned out to be an Estate Agent.
Still, if I were an estate agent, I'd probably lie too.
Of course, this can work to your benefit, as I'm becoming convinced that whatever you say about yourself, people now automatically add several years/pounds or deduct several..... what IS the collective noun for hairs?....... bushells? That'll do. Several bushells of hair. So when you actually ARE what you say, it can work to your benefit.
I hope.
But despite honesty in that arena, we all sometimes pretend to be someone we're not. I just did it. Just now. I've done it before, but this time it somehow hit me. Maybe it's "that" time of year. Whatever the reason, it's not something I felt good about.
I just sent my daughter an email with her motor insurance certificate.
I told her to check it carefully and let me know if anything was incorrect.
I told her to keep a copy with the car.
I signed it "Dad".
And it suddenly struck me.
I'm an imposter.
I'm not 'Dad'. Dad is Dad. I'm me. His son.
I feel all unsettled.
Think I need to go and talk to Dad.
Tuesday, 20 September 2011
The sound of silence
I think the silence is the worst thing.
It’s not just the absence of sound, but something that is almost physical, cloying, thickening the air around me and dampening all other noises so they seem unable to penetrate it,to break through. I hear noises and, for a second, I think she’s home, in her room, chatting excitedly on the phone in that tone of voice reserved exclusively for anyone who isn’t her parent.
But it’s not her and the silence almost seems to deepen in malicious, gleeful response.
Earlier, I stood at the foot of her bed, the duvet thrown back exactly as it had been when she’d got out of bed this morning, the pillow still bearing the indent of her head. I notice, with a vision grown suddenly acute, a stray hair on the pillow and resist the impulse to gather it up, hold it in my hand. G-d forbid I should smell it. My acute vision blurs, acuity lost as, once more, the tears well up unbidden, unresisted.
So much has changed in such a short time. Just hours ago my life, if not exactly revolving around her any more, was still constrained within the confines of her needs. Would she be home for dinner? Was she going to be with me at the weekend? Did she need a lift somewhere? This last despite the fact that she now had her car, the little purple monstrosity inherited from a generous Aunt that, in such a short time, became almost as much a financial drain as another child and even more demanding.
Oh yes, the car. It now sits, unloved and un-needed on my Mother’s drive, almost recriminating with me for not taking it shopping, to a party, out for pasta. Yet even if I drove it, I feel it wouldn’t respond to my silence, to the radio, missing the laughter, the shouting, the unique coded language that she and her friends shared, excluding anyone old enough to remember the days when social networking meant meeting people.
G-d but I hate this silence.
I make a mental note to see if I can reduce the number of channels on the cable TV package. It was only a matter of weeks since I proudly told her I’d extended them, giving her access to channels I knew she’d watch in 6 second bursts, as the remote control was punched repeatedly at the screen in some sort of cathode-ray gunfight at the OK Corral. I make a mental note to stop thinking of things on TV I need to tell her about, to stop buying DVDs we can watch together as we eat dinner off trays on our laps.
What to make for dinner? Suddenly I don’t have to worry about what she will want, whether she will like it. I don’t have to consider a menu that will entice her to spend an evening with me, rather than being out with her friends, although perhaps that would have, should have prepared me for this feeling of emptiness, of loneliness. For this terrible aching silence.
I dread the next Friday night dinner at my Mother’s, knowing that the empty chair, the un-set place will be a hole in the fabric of my life, sucking my gaze inexorably into it, almost believing if I stare hard enough, she will be there, a light at the end of the tunnel. I find myself wishing I had a tape of her voice, like the one I made for her when, terrified and crying, she went on her first school trip to York. I made a recording of our ritual goodnight and embedded it in a teddy bear, so it would be my proxy when she hugged it at night.
I could do with a hug. I really could do with a hug right now.
I think of where she has gone and, fleetingly, I wish I could have gone with her.
I should have. She shouldn’t have had to go there alone. No child should have to go through that without a loving father by her side.
But where she has gone, I can’t follow. My life has to continue on its own path, a path suddenly more bleak, yet I know in my heart she would not want me to be with her, she would want me to carry on with my own path and not deviate from it to be with her.
That is, after all, why she decided to go to University in Birmingham and move away from home. I was so excited when she got the place, even though I knew it would mean her moving out. To think, I was worried about how SHE would feel.
Who knew?
It’s not just the absence of sound, but something that is almost physical, cloying, thickening the air around me and dampening all other noises so they seem unable to penetrate it,to break through. I hear noises and, for a second, I think she’s home, in her room, chatting excitedly on the phone in that tone of voice reserved exclusively for anyone who isn’t her parent.
But it’s not her and the silence almost seems to deepen in malicious, gleeful response.
Earlier, I stood at the foot of her bed, the duvet thrown back exactly as it had been when she’d got out of bed this morning, the pillow still bearing the indent of her head. I notice, with a vision grown suddenly acute, a stray hair on the pillow and resist the impulse to gather it up, hold it in my hand. G-d forbid I should smell it. My acute vision blurs, acuity lost as, once more, the tears well up unbidden, unresisted.
So much has changed in such a short time. Just hours ago my life, if not exactly revolving around her any more, was still constrained within the confines of her needs. Would she be home for dinner? Was she going to be with me at the weekend? Did she need a lift somewhere? This last despite the fact that she now had her car, the little purple monstrosity inherited from a generous Aunt that, in such a short time, became almost as much a financial drain as another child and even more demanding.
Oh yes, the car. It now sits, unloved and un-needed on my Mother’s drive, almost recriminating with me for not taking it shopping, to a party, out for pasta. Yet even if I drove it, I feel it wouldn’t respond to my silence, to the radio, missing the laughter, the shouting, the unique coded language that she and her friends shared, excluding anyone old enough to remember the days when social networking meant meeting people.
G-d but I hate this silence.
I make a mental note to see if I can reduce the number of channels on the cable TV package. It was only a matter of weeks since I proudly told her I’d extended them, giving her access to channels I knew she’d watch in 6 second bursts, as the remote control was punched repeatedly at the screen in some sort of cathode-ray gunfight at the OK Corral. I make a mental note to stop thinking of things on TV I need to tell her about, to stop buying DVDs we can watch together as we eat dinner off trays on our laps.
What to make for dinner? Suddenly I don’t have to worry about what she will want, whether she will like it. I don’t have to consider a menu that will entice her to spend an evening with me, rather than being out with her friends, although perhaps that would have, should have prepared me for this feeling of emptiness, of loneliness. For this terrible aching silence.
I dread the next Friday night dinner at my Mother’s, knowing that the empty chair, the un-set place will be a hole in the fabric of my life, sucking my gaze inexorably into it, almost believing if I stare hard enough, she will be there, a light at the end of the tunnel. I find myself wishing I had a tape of her voice, like the one I made for her when, terrified and crying, she went on her first school trip to York. I made a recording of our ritual goodnight and embedded it in a teddy bear, so it would be my proxy when she hugged it at night.
I could do with a hug. I really could do with a hug right now.
I think of where she has gone and, fleetingly, I wish I could have gone with her.
I should have. She shouldn’t have had to go there alone. No child should have to go through that without a loving father by her side.
But where she has gone, I can’t follow. My life has to continue on its own path, a path suddenly more bleak, yet I know in my heart she would not want me to be with her, she would want me to carry on with my own path and not deviate from it to be with her.
That is, after all, why she decided to go to University in Birmingham and move away from home. I was so excited when she got the place, even though I knew it would mean her moving out. To think, I was worried about how SHE would feel.
Who knew?
Wednesday, 11 August 2010
Al Green
I wonder why it is that I only really feel the urge to 'Blog' at times of emotional excess? Loneliness, sadness, OK - embarrassment, joy (although I'll have to read back and see if there many of those), all seem to bring on the urge to write something here.
Perhaps it's because I don't really seem to have anyone else I can truly TALK to? I have friends, I have family.
In that order.
But do I really, honestly have someone I can TALK to. Someone who will listen without feeling the need to speak. Someone who will hear what I have to say without feeling the need to tell me I'm wrong?
No, not really.
I've never been good at 'friends'. I don't mean I'm incapable of having, and BEING a good friend, I'm not. To assorted people throughout my life, I have been a very good friend.
That may be part of my problem, but let's park that for now.
I think however that I am a victim of my parents. Don't get me wrong, they were superb parents and set an example to me in many ways that I will always struggle to live up to as a parent myself. I sometimes wonder if this is an aspect of my generation. Somehow, we just don't seem to be as 'grown up' as our parents were.
Maybe a war does that to you?
Or maybe it's just a perspective thing, and our own parents felt the same about theirs, viewing post-Victorian morals and mores as the sign of being adult, whilst they jived and jitterbugged and... OK, so my knowledge of dance is as limited as my knowledge of Psychology and self-insight, but that's what happens when you have two left feet.
However, my parents, whilst possessing a large social circle, often through various committees and groups, they only had a small circle of true friends. Growing up, we saw a lot of these people, so there never seemed any kind of vacuum, but I noticed that, once my Father had died, my Mother struggled and, sadly, many of these friends couldn't cope and deserted her. Over recent years, even more sadly, almost all of her closest friends have themselves passed away, leaving her increasingly isolated and angry.
We deal with this, supporting her as much as we can, but as I intimated above, friends and family are, largely, not interchangeable. She feels the gulf in her life and I find myself wondering if she regrets focusing on a small circle of true friends.
Perhaps it's not a choice we can make. Perhaps, in truth, it's the way we're wired as individuals, nature, or instilled in us from an early age. The eternal debate.
All I know is, I sit here today, conscious that, yet again, I feel so very alone. It's not helped by being a private person in some respects, or by being someone who doesn't really enjoy many of the group activities - football, drinking, team sports - that my peer group use to create and maintain social bondings, but I can't help feeling that I need to make a concerted effort to address this.
But it's not all about friendships, as I want so much more.
I am someone who has always invested heavily in relationships. Sometimes, many times, this has been to my detriment. Yet holding back doesn't seem to work for me either.
Bloody difficult.
I have been told I am a good person, a kind person. That hated term, a 'nice' person. I have been told that women don't like b@st@rds. I am told that even those women who blatantly DO like b@st@rds will, ultimately, see the error of their ways and will want a nice man.
This, it would seem, is b******s.
Maybe that's a generalisation, but I can only base it on my own experience. Of course I am aware that I have my own failings and that whether you consider being 'nice' to be one of them depends on your point of view. These other failings may perhaps outweigh niceness as a positive feature, but even so, I see no sign of it being more than a short-term attractant, almost a novelty or bit of light relief.
So I will have to change, become that which I despise. Overcome the nurture AND nature and focus on MY needs, MY desires and if they come at the expense of someone else's, well, so be it. I need to become selfish.
Yeah.
Right.
Not gonna happen.
I know that, in the unlikely event that I COULD do that, I would actually find that, the end result is that I wouldn't like myself. I realise that, actually, I like nice people and I like who I am, at least in that respect. If I have to change to be with someone, then I will be alone.
I don't want to date. I don't want to look back at each year past and tick off all the people I've been out with. I don't want to kiss a lot of frogs. I know I'm unlikely to have an 'eyes meeting across a crowded room' moment.
Not least because I'm not big on crowded rooms.
Or frog-ponds.
But I think this is something else I can blame on my Parents and, in particular, my Mother. I was brought up on a diet of 1940's and 50's romantic films, which has perhaps left me expecting exactly that, complete with the string section of a hidden orchestra and soft focus (much to my benefit). The fact that, once our eyes have met, I cannot glide across the floor to her like Fred Astaire is a slight hitch but one that, with lessons and appropriate footwear, I'm sure I can overcome to some extent.
Maybe the soft focus will help mask the two left feet?
Maybe not.
But how many other people my age can sing (OK, chant) the lyrics to "I hear music, and there's no-one there"? More to the point, how many people my age WANT to?
Not including those addicted to hallucinogenic drugs.
I'm feeling vulnerable and an element of self-pity at the moment, but with a few more cups of coffee, it will pass.
I'm sure what I want is no more than what most people want, but sometimes, just sometimes, I have a feeling that someone forgot to tell me one important piece of information.
That, of course, is rubbish.
So perhaps, for now, I need to take the advice my Grandmother gave me, which is that "when you can't find something, look for something else and you will find it".
Problem is, I can't find so many things: Car keys, wallet, inspiration, the £10 winning lottery ticket from a couple of months ago, the 'koyach' to make some of the phone calls I need to, the right words to say to my Mother, my Daughter, myself, that I'm running out of things I CAN look for.
So, I'm off to look for the Holy Grail, Unicorns and the Philosopher's Stone and, in the meantime, will leave behind something I could find.
I have always loved music, although it seems to weave in and out of my life, touching key events and times and leaving a footprint, like those in the cement of Hollywood Boulevard, indelible and permanent. A marker, saying "You were here then, and, at that moment, I was here with you".
A little like this Blog.
Perhaps it's because I don't really seem to have anyone else I can truly TALK to? I have friends, I have family.
In that order.
But do I really, honestly have someone I can TALK to. Someone who will listen without feeling the need to speak. Someone who will hear what I have to say without feeling the need to tell me I'm wrong?
No, not really.
I've never been good at 'friends'. I don't mean I'm incapable of having, and BEING a good friend, I'm not. To assorted people throughout my life, I have been a very good friend.
That may be part of my problem, but let's park that for now.
I think however that I am a victim of my parents. Don't get me wrong, they were superb parents and set an example to me in many ways that I will always struggle to live up to as a parent myself. I sometimes wonder if this is an aspect of my generation. Somehow, we just don't seem to be as 'grown up' as our parents were.
Maybe a war does that to you?
Or maybe it's just a perspective thing, and our own parents felt the same about theirs, viewing post-Victorian morals and mores as the sign of being adult, whilst they jived and jitterbugged and... OK, so my knowledge of dance is as limited as my knowledge of Psychology and self-insight, but that's what happens when you have two left feet.
However, my parents, whilst possessing a large social circle, often through various committees and groups, they only had a small circle of true friends. Growing up, we saw a lot of these people, so there never seemed any kind of vacuum, but I noticed that, once my Father had died, my Mother struggled and, sadly, many of these friends couldn't cope and deserted her. Over recent years, even more sadly, almost all of her closest friends have themselves passed away, leaving her increasingly isolated and angry.
We deal with this, supporting her as much as we can, but as I intimated above, friends and family are, largely, not interchangeable. She feels the gulf in her life and I find myself wondering if she regrets focusing on a small circle of true friends.
Perhaps it's not a choice we can make. Perhaps, in truth, it's the way we're wired as individuals, nature, or instilled in us from an early age. The eternal debate.
All I know is, I sit here today, conscious that, yet again, I feel so very alone. It's not helped by being a private person in some respects, or by being someone who doesn't really enjoy many of the group activities - football, drinking, team sports - that my peer group use to create and maintain social bondings, but I can't help feeling that I need to make a concerted effort to address this.
But it's not all about friendships, as I want so much more.
I am someone who has always invested heavily in relationships. Sometimes, many times, this has been to my detriment. Yet holding back doesn't seem to work for me either.
Bloody difficult.
I have been told I am a good person, a kind person. That hated term, a 'nice' person. I have been told that women don't like b@st@rds. I am told that even those women who blatantly DO like b@st@rds will, ultimately, see the error of their ways and will want a nice man.
This, it would seem, is b******s.
Maybe that's a generalisation, but I can only base it on my own experience. Of course I am aware that I have my own failings and that whether you consider being 'nice' to be one of them depends on your point of view. These other failings may perhaps outweigh niceness as a positive feature, but even so, I see no sign of it being more than a short-term attractant, almost a novelty or bit of light relief.
So I will have to change, become that which I despise. Overcome the nurture AND nature and focus on MY needs, MY desires and if they come at the expense of someone else's, well, so be it. I need to become selfish.
Yeah.
Right.
Not gonna happen.
I know that, in the unlikely event that I COULD do that, I would actually find that, the end result is that I wouldn't like myself. I realise that, actually, I like nice people and I like who I am, at least in that respect. If I have to change to be with someone, then I will be alone.
I don't want to date. I don't want to look back at each year past and tick off all the people I've been out with. I don't want to kiss a lot of frogs. I know I'm unlikely to have an 'eyes meeting across a crowded room' moment.
Not least because I'm not big on crowded rooms.
Or frog-ponds.
But I think this is something else I can blame on my Parents and, in particular, my Mother. I was brought up on a diet of 1940's and 50's romantic films, which has perhaps left me expecting exactly that, complete with the string section of a hidden orchestra and soft focus (much to my benefit). The fact that, once our eyes have met, I cannot glide across the floor to her like Fred Astaire is a slight hitch but one that, with lessons and appropriate footwear, I'm sure I can overcome to some extent.
Maybe the soft focus will help mask the two left feet?
Maybe not.
But how many other people my age can sing (OK, chant) the lyrics to "I hear music, and there's no-one there"? More to the point, how many people my age WANT to?
Not including those addicted to hallucinogenic drugs.
I'm feeling vulnerable and an element of self-pity at the moment, but with a few more cups of coffee, it will pass.
I'm sure what I want is no more than what most people want, but sometimes, just sometimes, I have a feeling that someone forgot to tell me one important piece of information.
That, of course, is rubbish.
So perhaps, for now, I need to take the advice my Grandmother gave me, which is that "when you can't find something, look for something else and you will find it".
Problem is, I can't find so many things: Car keys, wallet, inspiration, the £10 winning lottery ticket from a couple of months ago, the 'koyach' to make some of the phone calls I need to, the right words to say to my Mother, my Daughter, myself, that I'm running out of things I CAN look for.
So, I'm off to look for the Holy Grail, Unicorns and the Philosopher's Stone and, in the meantime, will leave behind something I could find.
I have always loved music, although it seems to weave in and out of my life, touching key events and times and leaving a footprint, like those in the cement of Hollywood Boulevard, indelible and permanent. A marker, saying "You were here then, and, at that moment, I was here with you".
A little like this Blog.
Wednesday, 14 April 2010
Musings on a Park Bench and a Blackberry
I sit on the bench, placed on a small area of green in an otherwise stony promenade, vain attempts at the mimicry of a Cote D'Colour otherwise doomed to failure by climate and psyche. But my bench, and it's small patch of natural green evoke the smells of my youth; cut grass, wind-borne salt, burgers.
Before me, a small-yacht marina. Row upon row of retirement fund dreams, weekend delusions of Kontiki or Captain Cook, whilst belowdecks the thoughts are more of Harvey Niki and Captain Bligh.
The wind stirs my grass and with it the furled rigging, metal implements that exist beyond my knowledge of name or purpose, striking the aluminium masts, creating an anvil chorus of a thousand effeminate dwarfish smiths.
The seafront is dead. Despite the sun sinking low in the sky in a denial of the stereotyped weather I had been promised, only a smattering of pattering trainer-clad feet pass my patch, theirs owners lost in the intricacies of music from distant shores, denying the cultural heritage proclaimed from every road sign.
In the distance, a clock tower lends it sonorous chimes to the dwarfs, a counterpoint and gentle admonishment, a teacher gently demonstrating without discouraging: then the moment is past and the Dwarfs continue their discordant song, but more quietly now, as they realise that only I and the small black dog are their audience, the former with no ear for their music, the latter's perhaps keen enough to hear their subtleties, or too polite to criticise by walking away.
My shadow lengthens, pointing the way back to my beautiful, luxurious, soulless and oh-so-lonely hotel, reminding me that a reverie can only ever be an interlude. An interlude now ended by youths in hats that, unaccountably, make me angry. Is this the sum of what I have become? A man who gets angry at hats?
The Sun continues to shine, but it's capacity to heat has long past, like an elderly body-builder, it is merely going through the motions, oblivious to the quiet scorn of the audience. It is time to return, to leave my patch and face my evening. Will I carry the memory of this patch with me, or will it fade like so much else, leaving just the distant sound of tiny anvils and the disdain of the small black dog?
Travel, they tell me, broadens the mind. New sights, sounds, sensations. But alone, they almost feel like a critique. Home is not wherever you lay your hat, but where it doesn't make you angry.
Before me, a small-yacht marina. Row upon row of retirement fund dreams, weekend delusions of Kontiki or Captain Cook, whilst belowdecks the thoughts are more of Harvey Niki and Captain Bligh.
The wind stirs my grass and with it the furled rigging, metal implements that exist beyond my knowledge of name or purpose, striking the aluminium masts, creating an anvil chorus of a thousand effeminate dwarfish smiths.
The seafront is dead. Despite the sun sinking low in the sky in a denial of the stereotyped weather I had been promised, only a smattering of pattering trainer-clad feet pass my patch, theirs owners lost in the intricacies of music from distant shores, denying the cultural heritage proclaimed from every road sign.
In the distance, a clock tower lends it sonorous chimes to the dwarfs, a counterpoint and gentle admonishment, a teacher gently demonstrating without discouraging: then the moment is past and the Dwarfs continue their discordant song, but more quietly now, as they realise that only I and the small black dog are their audience, the former with no ear for their music, the latter's perhaps keen enough to hear their subtleties, or too polite to criticise by walking away.
My shadow lengthens, pointing the way back to my beautiful, luxurious, soulless and oh-so-lonely hotel, reminding me that a reverie can only ever be an interlude. An interlude now ended by youths in hats that, unaccountably, make me angry. Is this the sum of what I have become? A man who gets angry at hats?
The Sun continues to shine, but it's capacity to heat has long past, like an elderly body-builder, it is merely going through the motions, oblivious to the quiet scorn of the audience. It is time to return, to leave my patch and face my evening. Will I carry the memory of this patch with me, or will it fade like so much else, leaving just the distant sound of tiny anvils and the disdain of the small black dog?
Travel, they tell me, broadens the mind. New sights, sounds, sensations. But alone, they almost feel like a critique. Home is not wherever you lay your hat, but where it doesn't make you angry.
Sunday, 28 February 2010
Two in the bush
Many people procrastinate.
I do.
Badly.
Normally, at this stage, I would crack the obvious joke, but on this occasion - being 3.10am - even I am going to avoid both a predilection to corny jokes and, ironically, to the topic of this post and will get to the point.
Many will consider that procrastination is simply the inability to make a decision and in many cases, this definition is probably adequate, but as I've just realised, not always.
Sometimes, there is more to it than that. Sometimes, it seems, you CAN make a decision, you just don't want to. Making a decision commits you to something, to a course of action. It closes doors, reduces or removes possibility, crystallises reality.
Whilst this means you can achieve success, it also means you run an enhanced risk of failure. It's a classic risk-reward calculation. If you don't try, you can't succeed, but you cannot fail either.
There is a joke about the man, in dire financial straits, who prays every week for G-d to let him win the lottery. Every week, he doesn't win and his prayers become more fervent, making promises of good deeds and charity, if G-d lets him win. Finally a voice comes from on high, exhorting the man to "at least meet me half way.......buy a TICKET!".
I buy a ticket - religiously - every week. However, I don't check it immediately. Days, sometimes even weeks will go by before I will check it. Why? Isn't winning important to me? Of course it is, but I am a realist (which is what an optimist calls a pessimist) and do not expect to win.
As long as I don't check my ticket, my chances of winning are better. Intellectually, I know that as soon as the draw has taken place, I have either won or I have not. There is a mathematical certainty of this. Yet I would rather have the hope, the potential of winning, than have the certainty of losing. For as long as I don't actually check, I somehow still have the potential of winning. I derive a warmth, a sense of hope carrying that ticket around with me. Once I have checked, that has gone. I may actually BE that millionaire that the adverts promise, but I am willing to sacrifice that small chance, at least temporarily, for the feeling of hope derived from carrying a ticket around with me, unchecked.
Yes, I know this is stupid.
I now recognise this in myself in many other ways. Somehow, the potential of something gives me a sense of security, of possibility and hope that the actualisation does not. So much of my life has passed in a haze of procrastination, so much opportunity missed, purely because, not as it may seem I have not wanted - or been scared - to make a decision, but rather because I simply didn't want to. Because it feels nicer to not make one and still have the possibility of success.
I sit here tonight with an opportunity. Not a great one perhaps, but an opportunity nonetheless. I have had an idea, a dream, for years. I need to act on it, commit myself to the action for once, but if I do, and I fail, then my cupboard of dreams may be left bare. Is not not better to have something there, a small investment of possibility, than to take my meagre capital and risk losing it all on a gamble?
Risk-reward. Is the risk of failure, worth the rewards of succeeding?
This is a rhetorical question.
I know what I should do. I know I should "but myself no buts".
But I'm scared.
I do.
Badly.
Normally, at this stage, I would crack the obvious joke, but on this occasion - being 3.10am - even I am going to avoid both a predilection to corny jokes and, ironically, to the topic of this post and will get to the point.
Many will consider that procrastination is simply the inability to make a decision and in many cases, this definition is probably adequate, but as I've just realised, not always.
Sometimes, there is more to it than that. Sometimes, it seems, you CAN make a decision, you just don't want to. Making a decision commits you to something, to a course of action. It closes doors, reduces or removes possibility, crystallises reality.
Whilst this means you can achieve success, it also means you run an enhanced risk of failure. It's a classic risk-reward calculation. If you don't try, you can't succeed, but you cannot fail either.
There is a joke about the man, in dire financial straits, who prays every week for G-d to let him win the lottery. Every week, he doesn't win and his prayers become more fervent, making promises of good deeds and charity, if G-d lets him win. Finally a voice comes from on high, exhorting the man to "at least meet me half way.......buy a TICKET!".
I buy a ticket - religiously - every week. However, I don't check it immediately. Days, sometimes even weeks will go by before I will check it. Why? Isn't winning important to me? Of course it is, but I am a realist (which is what an optimist calls a pessimist) and do not expect to win.
As long as I don't check my ticket, my chances of winning are better. Intellectually, I know that as soon as the draw has taken place, I have either won or I have not. There is a mathematical certainty of this. Yet I would rather have the hope, the potential of winning, than have the certainty of losing. For as long as I don't actually check, I somehow still have the potential of winning. I derive a warmth, a sense of hope carrying that ticket around with me. Once I have checked, that has gone. I may actually BE that millionaire that the adverts promise, but I am willing to sacrifice that small chance, at least temporarily, for the feeling of hope derived from carrying a ticket around with me, unchecked.
Yes, I know this is stupid.
I now recognise this in myself in many other ways. Somehow, the potential of something gives me a sense of security, of possibility and hope that the actualisation does not. So much of my life has passed in a haze of procrastination, so much opportunity missed, purely because, not as it may seem I have not wanted - or been scared - to make a decision, but rather because I simply didn't want to. Because it feels nicer to not make one and still have the possibility of success.
I sit here tonight with an opportunity. Not a great one perhaps, but an opportunity nonetheless. I have had an idea, a dream, for years. I need to act on it, commit myself to the action for once, but if I do, and I fail, then my cupboard of dreams may be left bare. Is not not better to have something there, a small investment of possibility, than to take my meagre capital and risk losing it all on a gamble?
Risk-reward. Is the risk of failure, worth the rewards of succeeding?
This is a rhetorical question.
I know what I should do. I know I should "but myself no buts".
But I'm scared.
Thursday, 12 November 2009
Shopping and Motorcycles
I am going, as always, to the Motorcycle Show at the NEC in Birmingham in a few days.
And, as always, I will be going in the car.
Now, this may seem strange for someone who professes to love bikes and for whom paying for parking is an irritation at best and anathema at worst. However, there is method to my madness, over and above a less than passionate love of the M6 on a winter's night and this is best explained by a post on the Motorcycle News forum after my last foray to the, much more convenient, London Show in February of this year:
"How the HELL....?
Ok, here's the thing.
I'm thinking of doing a bit of green-laning, partly as I may be going on a bike holiday that involves some off-roadish stuff, partly to improve my skills. So I thought I'd invest in some proper kit - nothing too expensive, until I know I like it, but enough to at least LOOK the part!
So, as I found myself with a few hours to spare unexpectedly this afternoon, I took myself off to the Excel show, see if I could pick up a bargain.
And I did, sort of.
I managed to get a nice Shark MX helmet quite cheap (although did rather fall in love with the new Arai Tour-X3, but couldn't justify the cost) and a pair of Oxtar MX boots.
However, when I got back to the bike, having congratulated myself for having the foresight to bring the Dulls, with it's panniers and top box, I made some interesting discoveries.
MX helmets are a different shape and take up a lot more room in a top box.
MX helmets don't fit into the pull out helmet section of an Oxford rucksack
You should always carry a cargo net or bungees
MX boots are bloody HUGE and don't bend. This means that they don't fit in a top box full of MX helmet
They also don't fit into the side panniers of a Dulls. To be honest, not much does.
So, bright idea time - put the Oxtars ON, and squeeze my ordinary, well worn and therefore flexible road boots into the top box.
Next interesting discovery. Trying to put on brand new and stiff MX boots, in a dark car park is a new meaning for the word 'fun'.
Finally, I managed to get everything squashed in, by which time it was completely dark and they were gritting the acccess roads.
So, off I went, out of the car park, onto the slip... or rather, as it's now gritted with appears to be fine sand.... slippery road, which is where I made my most interesting discovery.
MX boots are so big and clumpy, you cant' get your toes under the gear shift to change up.
No matter what I did, I couldn't change gear. Nor, for that matter, could I feel a bloody thing.
So, I have no idea whether this a feature of the Dullsville or whether I'm doing something wrong, but I rode home with two huge MX boots strapped to my back with a mixture of my back protector and the braces that hold my strides up.
If I'd come off, I would not only have hurt my back, but would have mooned the Emergency services.
So, HELP!
How the HELL are you supposed to ride in these things??????"
So, shopping or riding. Those who know me will understand............ no competition.
And, as always, I will be going in the car.
Now, this may seem strange for someone who professes to love bikes and for whom paying for parking is an irritation at best and anathema at worst. However, there is method to my madness, over and above a less than passionate love of the M6 on a winter's night and this is best explained by a post on the Motorcycle News forum after my last foray to the, much more convenient, London Show in February of this year:
"How the HELL....?
Ok, here's the thing.
I'm thinking of doing a bit of green-laning, partly as I may be going on a bike holiday that involves some off-roadish stuff, partly to improve my skills. So I thought I'd invest in some proper kit - nothing too expensive, until I know I like it, but enough to at least LOOK the part!
So, as I found myself with a few hours to spare unexpectedly this afternoon, I took myself off to the Excel show, see if I could pick up a bargain.
And I did, sort of.
I managed to get a nice Shark MX helmet quite cheap (although did rather fall in love with the new Arai Tour-X3, but couldn't justify the cost) and a pair of Oxtar MX boots.
However, when I got back to the bike, having congratulated myself for having the foresight to bring the Dulls, with it's panniers and top box, I made some interesting discoveries.
MX helmets are a different shape and take up a lot more room in a top box.
MX helmets don't fit into the pull out helmet section of an Oxford rucksack
You should always carry a cargo net or bungees
MX boots are bloody HUGE and don't bend. This means that they don't fit in a top box full of MX helmet
They also don't fit into the side panniers of a Dulls. To be honest, not much does.
So, bright idea time - put the Oxtars ON, and squeeze my ordinary, well worn and therefore flexible road boots into the top box.
Next interesting discovery. Trying to put on brand new and stiff MX boots, in a dark car park is a new meaning for the word 'fun'.
Finally, I managed to get everything squashed in, by which time it was completely dark and they were gritting the acccess roads.
So, off I went, out of the car park, onto the slip... or rather, as it's now gritted with appears to be fine sand.... slippery road, which is where I made my most interesting discovery.
MX boots are so big and clumpy, you cant' get your toes under the gear shift to change up.
No matter what I did, I couldn't change gear. Nor, for that matter, could I feel a bloody thing.
So, I have no idea whether this a feature of the Dullsville or whether I'm doing something wrong, but I rode home with two huge MX boots strapped to my back with a mixture of my back protector and the braces that hold my strides up.
If I'd come off, I would not only have hurt my back, but would have mooned the Emergency services.
So, HELP!
How the HELL are you supposed to ride in these things??????"
So, shopping or riding. Those who know me will understand............ no competition.
Thursday, 24 September 2009
Ergonomics
er⋅go⋅nom⋅ic
Dictionary.com defines Ergonomics as:
human engineering
–noun an applied science that coordinates the design of devices, systems, and physical working conditions with the capacities and requirements of the worker.
Voice of the Alter Ego defines it as:
The science of creating and deploying technology in such a way as to give yourself and your colleagues a really good laugh at somebody Else's expense.
An example of this is the loos at the hotel I'm currently at.
When you walk in, the lights sense movement and come on automatically.
When you wash your hands, the taps sense your hands beneath them and turn the water on automatically.
And naturally, not to mention hygienically, the toilet flush requires no physical contact, detecting the movement of your hand over a sensor on the wall and flushing automatically and, it must be said, vigorously.
This is, you may think, a demonstration of the perfect deployment of technology, and I would be inclined to agree with you.
However (and there is always a 'however'), this is where the Voice of the Alter Ego definition of Ergonomics comes in:
Ergonomics engineers decide that although the light sensor comes on when you open the door to the toilet on the way in......... it is less sensitive when you exit your cubicle to pitch darkness. There is always the alternative of playing basketball whilst using the facilities, but for a man, that would constitute multi-tasking.
We don't multi-task.
IF you are fortunate enough to guess what has happened, you will stand there in pitch darkness, waving your arms like a student of method acting 'being' a windmill. This is fine, unless someone walks in at that moment - triggering the light naturally - to find you standing there, wondering why you are pretending to swim in the middle of the toilet?
If you are not fortunate enough to guess what has happened, you will spend some time, fumbling round the walls in some sort of Fort Boyard type test, looking for a non-existent light switch. This seems to defeat the purpose, unless of course, you subscribe to the Voice's definition....
Ergonomics will also dictate that, as you cannot manually turn on or control the water, you will probably scald one hand, freeze the other and, in all probability, splash water down to the front of your trousers in that way that is so common, but so impossible to explain. This does not however prevent you from trying.
However, Ergonomic's greatest flash of brilliance is reserved for the flushing mechanism.
It is wonderfully clever to create a flush that merely requires you to wave your hand over a sensor on the wall, removing the need for physical contact with something that, almost by definition, will not be very hygienic.
It is truly INSPIRED however to mount it on the wall DIRECTLY above the toilet roll holder.
So, as you sit there (in all probability in pitch darkness), you reach for the paper and WHOOOOOSH. Your hand passes in front of the sensor and you are rewarded with the feeling that you have been sitting - commando - over the blow-hole of a Sperm Whale returning from a particularly arduous dive.
Oh, how they must be laughing at Acme Ergonomics Inc.
Oh what fun they must have, coming up with these wonderful ways to deploy technology.
I wonder if they have any jobs going?
Dictionary.com defines Ergonomics as:
human engineering
–noun an applied science that coordinates the design of devices, systems, and physical working conditions with the capacities and requirements of the worker.
Voice of the Alter Ego defines it as:
The science of creating and deploying technology in such a way as to give yourself and your colleagues a really good laugh at somebody Else's expense.
An example of this is the loos at the hotel I'm currently at.
When you walk in, the lights sense movement and come on automatically.
When you wash your hands, the taps sense your hands beneath them and turn the water on automatically.
And naturally, not to mention hygienically, the toilet flush requires no physical contact, detecting the movement of your hand over a sensor on the wall and flushing automatically and, it must be said, vigorously.
This is, you may think, a demonstration of the perfect deployment of technology, and I would be inclined to agree with you.
However (and there is always a 'however'), this is where the Voice of the Alter Ego definition of Ergonomics comes in:
Ergonomics engineers decide that although the light sensor comes on when you open the door to the toilet on the way in......... it is less sensitive when you exit your cubicle to pitch darkness. There is always the alternative of playing basketball whilst using the facilities, but for a man, that would constitute multi-tasking.
We don't multi-task.
IF you are fortunate enough to guess what has happened, you will stand there in pitch darkness, waving your arms like a student of method acting 'being' a windmill. This is fine, unless someone walks in at that moment - triggering the light naturally - to find you standing there, wondering why you are pretending to swim in the middle of the toilet?
If you are not fortunate enough to guess what has happened, you will spend some time, fumbling round the walls in some sort of Fort Boyard type test, looking for a non-existent light switch. This seems to defeat the purpose, unless of course, you subscribe to the Voice's definition....
Ergonomics will also dictate that, as you cannot manually turn on or control the water, you will probably scald one hand, freeze the other and, in all probability, splash water down to the front of your trousers in that way that is so common, but so impossible to explain. This does not however prevent you from trying.
However, Ergonomic's greatest flash of brilliance is reserved for the flushing mechanism.
It is wonderfully clever to create a flush that merely requires you to wave your hand over a sensor on the wall, removing the need for physical contact with something that, almost by definition, will not be very hygienic.
It is truly INSPIRED however to mount it on the wall DIRECTLY above the toilet roll holder.
So, as you sit there (in all probability in pitch darkness), you reach for the paper and WHOOOOOSH. Your hand passes in front of the sensor and you are rewarded with the feeling that you have been sitting - commando - over the blow-hole of a Sperm Whale returning from a particularly arduous dive.
Oh, how they must be laughing at Acme Ergonomics Inc.
Oh what fun they must have, coming up with these wonderful ways to deploy technology.
I wonder if they have any jobs going?
Tuesday, 25 August 2009
Progress
I've been trying to compile my list of 'Desert Island Discs' which is difficult for any number of reasons. For a start, what IS the protocol on the spelling of 'Disc'? Is it Disc for records (if you don't remember records, don't bother reading on) but Disk for computer media? Or vice versa?
For convention and out of an innate laziness, I'm going to stick with 'Disc' for now, not least because this post is not about discs.
Because it strikes me that any person or organisation that is willing to strand me on a desert island, with a means of playing discs, a favourite book (as well as the Bible and the Complete Works of Shakespere) and a luxury of my choice, can also stretch the envelope a little, and provide me with some means of playing videos.
This thought was prompted by an idle browsing of YouTube not, as is my normal wont, for videos of cats doing amusing things or people coming a cropper, often on motorcycles, but of music videos, and this, oddly, made me realise something.
The songs that move me are NOT necessarily the same as the videos that do.
For anyone who may not be familiar with the concept of Desert Island Discs, you can take eight songs with you, which is all the music you will have on your island, for an undefined period of time. If you're going to take eight songs and ONLY eight songs with you, they have to be songs that move you, or mean something to you.
I've already started compiling my Desert Island Discs on here, although I've hit a bit of a brick wall and I fully intend to continue with this. However, when I've looked at the videos - the proper videos, not someone's home mash-up or a kareoke soft-focus jobbie - I've often found myself un-moved. How odd. A song that can move me to tears - of sadness, joy, regret or simply rememberance - can leave me relatively cold when 'enhanced' by video. Yet songs which I like, but which I wouldn't consider as part of my desert island list strike that emotional nerve in much the same way as the end of ET or the old Post Office advert with the little girl and the birthday cards.
If music has charms to soothe the savage breast, then it would seem, videos have charms to make a middle-aged bloke well up.
This morning, for example, I watched Meatloaf's "Objects in the Rearview Mirror" (sic). Although my pedant warning was triggered by a deviance from the the lyric, replacing a car with a biplane, I have to say the emotion of the song got to me in a way I wasn't expecting. Although the story in no way relates to my own years as a child - my father never hit me, let alone again and again and again - I found myself mourning my lost youth, missed opportunities, friendships squandered, lessons not learned. I've always believed you cannot look back and yet, in truth, I do so more and more.
Hopefully, as I get older, my memory will continue to deteriorate and I won't do this so much.
Perhaps, in truth, this would not be a good song to take to the Island, for that very reason. It would not be sensible to sit there on the beach, mourning lost friendships and lost youth, when I should be out gathering coconuts.
So, over subsequent posts, it is my intention to identify other songs where the video enhances the experience for me, to the extent that it creates an emotional response. However, I have an subconcious worry that these will all tend toward the sad end of the spectrum, so I apologise for that in advance and will fully understand if you wish to skip these and look for content highlighting my innate inability to deal with the complexities of modern life, such as mobile phones and Facebook.
But do check out Meatloaf's video - just not when I'm around please, unless you like seeing a grown man cry.
For convention and out of an innate laziness, I'm going to stick with 'Disc' for now, not least because this post is not about discs.
Because it strikes me that any person or organisation that is willing to strand me on a desert island, with a means of playing discs, a favourite book (as well as the Bible and the Complete Works of Shakespere) and a luxury of my choice, can also stretch the envelope a little, and provide me with some means of playing videos.
This thought was prompted by an idle browsing of YouTube not, as is my normal wont, for videos of cats doing amusing things or people coming a cropper, often on motorcycles, but of music videos, and this, oddly, made me realise something.
The songs that move me are NOT necessarily the same as the videos that do.
For anyone who may not be familiar with the concept of Desert Island Discs, you can take eight songs with you, which is all the music you will have on your island, for an undefined period of time. If you're going to take eight songs and ONLY eight songs with you, they have to be songs that move you, or mean something to you.
I've already started compiling my Desert Island Discs on here, although I've hit a bit of a brick wall and I fully intend to continue with this. However, when I've looked at the videos - the proper videos, not someone's home mash-up or a kareoke soft-focus jobbie - I've often found myself un-moved. How odd. A song that can move me to tears - of sadness, joy, regret or simply rememberance - can leave me relatively cold when 'enhanced' by video. Yet songs which I like, but which I wouldn't consider as part of my desert island list strike that emotional nerve in much the same way as the end of ET or the old Post Office advert with the little girl and the birthday cards.
If music has charms to soothe the savage breast, then it would seem, videos have charms to make a middle-aged bloke well up.
This morning, for example, I watched Meatloaf's "Objects in the Rearview Mirror" (sic). Although my pedant warning was triggered by a deviance from the the lyric, replacing a car with a biplane, I have to say the emotion of the song got to me in a way I wasn't expecting. Although the story in no way relates to my own years as a child - my father never hit me, let alone again and again and again - I found myself mourning my lost youth, missed opportunities, friendships squandered, lessons not learned. I've always believed you cannot look back and yet, in truth, I do so more and more.
Hopefully, as I get older, my memory will continue to deteriorate and I won't do this so much.
Perhaps, in truth, this would not be a good song to take to the Island, for that very reason. It would not be sensible to sit there on the beach, mourning lost friendships and lost youth, when I should be out gathering coconuts.
So, over subsequent posts, it is my intention to identify other songs where the video enhances the experience for me, to the extent that it creates an emotional response. However, I have an subconcious worry that these will all tend toward the sad end of the spectrum, so I apologise for that in advance and will fully understand if you wish to skip these and look for content highlighting my innate inability to deal with the complexities of modern life, such as mobile phones and Facebook.
But do check out Meatloaf's video - just not when I'm around please, unless you like seeing a grown man cry.
Sunday, 16 August 2009
The Visit
This was first posted on Six Sentences, but has apparently been deleted, so I'm posting it here for posterity and posting it today because today is painful.
I visited my Father today.
It has been some time since my last visit as, over time, the demands of a frenetic lifestyle led to them becoming less and less frequent, filial duty replacing desire, obligation replacing need.
Originally, I would talk of many things, asking for advice and guidance, receiving none, regaling him with stories of the latest exploits of his granddaughters, as if he could not see for himself how they grow and yet, over time, the content dwindled proportionate to the visits, the intervals longer and longer, the words no longer flowing.
Today was different.
Today, as so many times before, I began as the mature adult, long absolved of the need for parental navigation through the exigencies of adult reality, began with the same hollow synopsis of complex lives and personalities, began to speak without talking.
Yet today, it was all stripped away from me, not layer by layer but at once, a magician’s reveal of my inner child and suddenly, I was not an adult fulfilling a social expectation or a student seeking tutorial guidance, but, with great wracking sobs, I was that child, needing the Daddy taken from him too soon.
I visited my Father today.
It has been some time since my last visit as, over time, the demands of a frenetic lifestyle led to them becoming less and less frequent, filial duty replacing desire, obligation replacing need.
Originally, I would talk of many things, asking for advice and guidance, receiving none, regaling him with stories of the latest exploits of his granddaughters, as if he could not see for himself how they grow and yet, over time, the content dwindled proportionate to the visits, the intervals longer and longer, the words no longer flowing.
Today was different.
Today, as so many times before, I began as the mature adult, long absolved of the need for parental navigation through the exigencies of adult reality, began with the same hollow synopsis of complex lives and personalities, began to speak without talking.
Yet today, it was all stripped away from me, not layer by layer but at once, a magician’s reveal of my inner child and suddenly, I was not an adult fulfilling a social expectation or a student seeking tutorial guidance, but, with great wracking sobs, I was that child, needing the Daddy taken from him too soon.
Wednesday, 12 August 2009
Hate
There are many, many things I hate.
Probably far too many than are healthy for me - certainly too many than are healthy for society. Many of these hatreds I can contain and, unless you are a devotee of Tim Roth's alleged use of 'micro-gestures', I would challenge most people to even be aware of them. This is odd, because I'm useless at Poker.
However, this is not always the case.
For example, there are circumstances that not only prevent the masking of hatreds, but, quite the opposite, seem to exacerbate and amplify them beyond reason (assuming of course that they are reasonable in the first place) to the extent that they take over. The most obvious of these circumstances in when I am encased in a small metal box, with an engine and controls supposedly designed to get me where I am meant to be more quickly.
More quickly than what? Teleportation? Have you SEEN the amount of traffic on the road these days, huge numbers with foreign number-plates so they can avoid paying road tax or.......
Ok, and breeeeeeath..........
However, this post is not about the hatreds that emerge when I'm driving. That would take too long and you'd never reach the end. No, this post is about the hatred that emerges when I am in bed.
(Before you leave, no, it's not about anything like that. This is a 12 certificate post).
This is my hatred of phones that ring in the night. Or rather, the three hatreds related to phones that ring in the night.
Firstly, I hate phones that ring in the wee hours. It is never good news. Never. It is never a long lost cousin in Tierre del Fuego telling you you have just inherited an estate in Monte Carlo and the Mona Lisa. So, when it rings, my heart plummets as, simultaneously, my stomach tries to escape through my sinuses. Not a nice feeling, although I could probably get a Cadbury's advert out of it if I could do it to order.
I had a call like this the night my Father died.
So, when the phone rings in the wee hours, I know I am not going to be pleased, whatever happens.
So, I hate it when the phone rings in the wee hours. That's number one.
Secondly, I hate when, having been jarred from, hopefully pleasant, dreams, you fumble for the phone, knocking glasses of water (sans teeth thank goodness), alarm clocks, pots of cufflinks and a pile of intellectually challenging books that you fully intend to read - one day - flying. I hate it even more when, along with the assorted detritus, you also knock the phone flying.
What I hate even more however is, when you finally find the phone, find which side and end is meant to be next to your ear and work out how to answer it, a process which seems to take hours, but in fact only takes a few dischordant rings, you manage to answer it, only for there to be no-one there.
Not, I stress, to find they have hung up. That is without doubt annoying, but no, this I would suggest, is worse.
What I hate is when you find that, having finally mastered the process of answering the phone, there is nobody there responding to you. You can tell the line is not dead - there are faint noises of speech in the background, but nobody responds to your increasingly shrill cries of "hello! HELLO!". Finally, as your voice reaches the pitch at which bats fall from the sky in distress, you hang up in discuss, place the phone back on the table, knocking it and any remaining accumulated rubbish to the floor, roll over and try, rather too hard, to recover the dream that, unusually, was rather vividly in your memory. I hate people who call in the middle of the night but don't speak to you.
However, what I think I hate most of all, is when the following morning, you remember the incident and determine to put your full investigative skills to work in tracking down the miscreant.
You find the phone amongst the rubbish on the floor.
You dial 1471 to find the last caller's number.
The robotic (yet strangely authoratitive) voice reads the number to you and, as always, you wonder if Stephen Hawking uses this as a chat-line?
You frown, vaguely recognising the mobile phone number you've been given. You dial 1471 a second time, to hear it again. Yes. You know it. You can't place it, but you know it. You run through a mental check-list. Kids. Nope. Mum. Look it up (she never turns it on so you never call it)- nope. Ex - nope. Brother - errr - nope.
So who IS it???
And then you remember.
You know why you never call this number.
It's because it's your number.
So, the thing I hate most about phones that ring in the night is when you leave your mobile on the bed and, in the throes of a dream, roll onto it, inciting it to ring the last number called. Your number. Last called because, as always, you couldn't find the landline handset.
The thing I hate most is when you roll onto your phone, call yourself in the wee hours, hears yourself saying "hello, HELLO!" in the background, and finally go back to sleep cursing yourself for your inconsideration.
So, I hate phones that ring in the night.
But I hate being a dingbat more.
Probably far too many than are healthy for me - certainly too many than are healthy for society. Many of these hatreds I can contain and, unless you are a devotee of Tim Roth's alleged use of 'micro-gestures', I would challenge most people to even be aware of them. This is odd, because I'm useless at Poker.
However, this is not always the case.
For example, there are circumstances that not only prevent the masking of hatreds, but, quite the opposite, seem to exacerbate and amplify them beyond reason (assuming of course that they are reasonable in the first place) to the extent that they take over. The most obvious of these circumstances in when I am encased in a small metal box, with an engine and controls supposedly designed to get me where I am meant to be more quickly.
More quickly than what? Teleportation? Have you SEEN the amount of traffic on the road these days, huge numbers with foreign number-plates so they can avoid paying road tax or.......
Ok, and breeeeeeath..........
However, this post is not about the hatreds that emerge when I'm driving. That would take too long and you'd never reach the end. No, this post is about the hatred that emerges when I am in bed.
(Before you leave, no, it's not about anything like that. This is a 12 certificate post).
This is my hatred of phones that ring in the night. Or rather, the three hatreds related to phones that ring in the night.
Firstly, I hate phones that ring in the wee hours. It is never good news. Never. It is never a long lost cousin in Tierre del Fuego telling you you have just inherited an estate in Monte Carlo and the Mona Lisa. So, when it rings, my heart plummets as, simultaneously, my stomach tries to escape through my sinuses. Not a nice feeling, although I could probably get a Cadbury's advert out of it if I could do it to order.
I had a call like this the night my Father died.
So, when the phone rings in the wee hours, I know I am not going to be pleased, whatever happens.
So, I hate it when the phone rings in the wee hours. That's number one.
Secondly, I hate when, having been jarred from, hopefully pleasant, dreams, you fumble for the phone, knocking glasses of water (sans teeth thank goodness), alarm clocks, pots of cufflinks and a pile of intellectually challenging books that you fully intend to read - one day - flying. I hate it even more when, along with the assorted detritus, you also knock the phone flying.
What I hate even more however is, when you finally find the phone, find which side and end is meant to be next to your ear and work out how to answer it, a process which seems to take hours, but in fact only takes a few dischordant rings, you manage to answer it, only for there to be no-one there.
Not, I stress, to find they have hung up. That is without doubt annoying, but no, this I would suggest, is worse.
What I hate is when you find that, having finally mastered the process of answering the phone, there is nobody there responding to you. You can tell the line is not dead - there are faint noises of speech in the background, but nobody responds to your increasingly shrill cries of "hello! HELLO!". Finally, as your voice reaches the pitch at which bats fall from the sky in distress, you hang up in discuss, place the phone back on the table, knocking it and any remaining accumulated rubbish to the floor, roll over and try, rather too hard, to recover the dream that, unusually, was rather vividly in your memory. I hate people who call in the middle of the night but don't speak to you.
However, what I think I hate most of all, is when the following morning, you remember the incident and determine to put your full investigative skills to work in tracking down the miscreant.
You find the phone amongst the rubbish on the floor.
You dial 1471 to find the last caller's number.
The robotic (yet strangely authoratitive) voice reads the number to you and, as always, you wonder if Stephen Hawking uses this as a chat-line?
You frown, vaguely recognising the mobile phone number you've been given. You dial 1471 a second time, to hear it again. Yes. You know it. You can't place it, but you know it. You run through a mental check-list. Kids. Nope. Mum. Look it up (she never turns it on so you never call it)- nope. Ex - nope. Brother - errr - nope.
So who IS it???
And then you remember.
You know why you never call this number.
It's because it's your number.
So, the thing I hate most about phones that ring in the night is when you leave your mobile on the bed and, in the throes of a dream, roll onto it, inciting it to ring the last number called. Your number. Last called because, as always, you couldn't find the landline handset.
The thing I hate most is when you roll onto your phone, call yourself in the wee hours, hears yourself saying "hello, HELLO!" in the background, and finally go back to sleep cursing yourself for your inconsideration.
So, I hate phones that ring in the night.
But I hate being a dingbat more.
Thursday, 6 August 2009
Friday, 21 November 2008
Welcome to 2001, a musical oddity
I have an i-pod.
Not ony do I have an i-pod, but I resist calling it an ipod (short 'eye') like some sort of pseudo-greek heroic tale, despite the urge to appear like some sort of High Court Judge saying "The Beatles?".
Apparently, it's a '4 gig nano'. I know this, because:
(a) It said so on the very neat and beautifully formed plastic box. Why is it that Apple can make money, despite spending more on designing small plastic boxes for their gadgets than Microsoft spent on designing Vista?
Oh, of course. Doh.
Anyway....
(b) I have teenagers. They fill in the gaps on a number of aspects of technology for me. Not the technical aspects - oddly, I can manage those - but the more important things, such as that wearing your headphones outside your clothes is really not on and you need to thread them like some sort of FBI sting inside your clothing, making the act of replying when spoken to a circus act of contortion. They tell me which gadgets are cool (Fonzie must be thrilled to still hear kids saying 'cool'. Or would be, except like me, he's probably going deaf).
Probably explains why I can't seem to get my i-pod loud enough.
However, after years of picking up i-pods in shops, turning them lovingly over and over in my hands, musing, then replacing them. After hours spent reading reviews of alternatives and deciding that they offered far better value for money, could play alternative formats, probably had greater longevity, as money was spent on function rather than form, I finally have an i-pod.
It was, of course, a gift.
You didn't think I would have ever made an actual DECISION about it, did you?
One of the factors that made me hesitate was music. I listen to music mostly in the car, which is where I seem to spend an inordinate amount of my life. I have a CD player in there, together with a wonderful device that plays random music, often things I've never heard before by artists I hope to never hear again. I have no control over the playing order, which is oddly satisfying, as it removes one decision-making requirement from the life of the man who defines procrastination. So for me, this 'radio' thingy is great.
However, in truth, most of what I listen to on the radio is actually speech, rather than music. Drama, comedy, discussion, education, phone-in's (why do I feel the need for an apostrophe there I wonder?).
So one of the hesitations over the i-pod issue was simply "would I have enough music to FILL four 'gigs'?
Incidentally, when was the crossover age? What was the year of birth for people who think a 'gig' is a measure of storage rather than a performance by a rather dodgy band in the back room of a pub?
I digress.
I do that a lot. Sorry.
So, there I was with this beautifully formed little sliver of metal and plastic, design screaming from every millimeter of brushed aluminium and carefully calculated curve, wondering what to put on it and when I would use it? The obvious answers were of course, everything I could find and at the gym.
Yes, well. It seems I can't find half of what I thought I had musically and I cancelled my Gym membership when they sent me a 'most profitable member' award for the third year running.
Then I was introduced to i-tunes.
I've had this thing on my pc for ages, but have always switched back to other media players, partly from a stiff-necked resistence to being part of the Apple 'crowd'. A technological version of Groucho Marx's comment about being a member of any club that would have him as a member perhaps, or maybe just a desire to cultivate an air of pseudo-luddite.
I really should have been a High Court Judge.
But with an i-pod, you have no choice. It is the only way to load the little bugger with the tunes that you haven't listened to for years but which, oddly, suddenly make it onto your 'Desert Island' list.
And no, I haven't forgotten....
And herein lies the problem, or rather, one of them.
Because i-tunes allows you to sort your tunes into 'playlists'. Songs can be grouped by artist, genre, album, category, year, style, composer, drummer, recording studio and roadie's inside leg amongst others.
For some people, this would be heaven. People who file papers. People who have tabs in their ring binders. People who sort their clothes by colour in the wardrobe.
People who know where their car keys are.
You know who you are.
For people like that, i-tunes and it's organisational capabilities are wonderful, ensuring the right tune is always on hand for a given mood or moment.
For people like me, it's merely another stress. Another element of decision making. Another thing on the 'list'.
Or would be, if I was organised enough to make a list.
And then it starts asking me if I want to sign on to download an album cover. Why would I want to do that? Is it that some people are simply unable to remember a track without the visual cue of an album that they've probably never owned, having downloaded the track, either legally or illegally? And I have to PAY for it too? Thank you, but no thank you.
Which, brings me to the issue of downloads. I seem to remember the days when people would be excited by the promise of the internet. It was going to liberate us, provide equality of information and knowledge, provide us with the leisure time to live, rather than exist. Now, listening to most people, it seems to revolve around the best way to breach copyright and download tunes either free or for a fraction of a dollar (it seems the dollar has become the default currency of intellectual property theft).
Well, that and porn of course.
Allegedly.
On top of all this, I have to learn not to cringe every time I write 'i-pod' or 'i-tunes' without capitalisation, as only then will I be a fully paid-up member of the modern age.
It's not going to happpen.
And then I discovered pod-casts. It seems I can download all sorts of content, free of charge. I can download speech, rather than music. Drama, comedy, discussion, education, phone-in's (why do I feel the need for an apostrophe there I wonder?).
So now, I can listen to the things I listen to in my car anywhere (well, anywhere except the Gym). My i-pod has liberated me from my car, in the sense that now, no matter where I am, I can feel as if I am driving somewhere. Now, truly, all my waking hours (and, thanks to the tiny earphones, many of my sleeping ones), can feel like my working life.
That's progress.
Not ony do I have an i-pod, but I resist calling it an ipod (short 'eye') like some sort of pseudo-greek heroic tale, despite the urge to appear like some sort of High Court Judge saying "The Beatles?".
Apparently, it's a '4 gig nano'. I know this, because:
(a) It said so on the very neat and beautifully formed plastic box. Why is it that Apple can make money, despite spending more on designing small plastic boxes for their gadgets than Microsoft spent on designing Vista?
Oh, of course. Doh.
Anyway....
(b) I have teenagers. They fill in the gaps on a number of aspects of technology for me. Not the technical aspects - oddly, I can manage those - but the more important things, such as that wearing your headphones outside your clothes is really not on and you need to thread them like some sort of FBI sting inside your clothing, making the act of replying when spoken to a circus act of contortion. They tell me which gadgets are cool (Fonzie must be thrilled to still hear kids saying 'cool'. Or would be, except like me, he's probably going deaf).
Probably explains why I can't seem to get my i-pod loud enough.
However, after years of picking up i-pods in shops, turning them lovingly over and over in my hands, musing, then replacing them. After hours spent reading reviews of alternatives and deciding that they offered far better value for money, could play alternative formats, probably had greater longevity, as money was spent on function rather than form, I finally have an i-pod.
It was, of course, a gift.
You didn't think I would have ever made an actual DECISION about it, did you?
One of the factors that made me hesitate was music. I listen to music mostly in the car, which is where I seem to spend an inordinate amount of my life. I have a CD player in there, together with a wonderful device that plays random music, often things I've never heard before by artists I hope to never hear again. I have no control over the playing order, which is oddly satisfying, as it removes one decision-making requirement from the life of the man who defines procrastination. So for me, this 'radio' thingy is great.
However, in truth, most of what I listen to on the radio is actually speech, rather than music. Drama, comedy, discussion, education, phone-in's (why do I feel the need for an apostrophe there I wonder?).
So one of the hesitations over the i-pod issue was simply "would I have enough music to FILL four 'gigs'?
Incidentally, when was the crossover age? What was the year of birth for people who think a 'gig' is a measure of storage rather than a performance by a rather dodgy band in the back room of a pub?
I digress.
I do that a lot. Sorry.
So, there I was with this beautifully formed little sliver of metal and plastic, design screaming from every millimeter of brushed aluminium and carefully calculated curve, wondering what to put on it and when I would use it? The obvious answers were of course, everything I could find and at the gym.
Yes, well. It seems I can't find half of what I thought I had musically and I cancelled my Gym membership when they sent me a 'most profitable member' award for the third year running.
Then I was introduced to i-tunes.
I've had this thing on my pc for ages, but have always switched back to other media players, partly from a stiff-necked resistence to being part of the Apple 'crowd'. A technological version of Groucho Marx's comment about being a member of any club that would have him as a member perhaps, or maybe just a desire to cultivate an air of pseudo-luddite.
I really should have been a High Court Judge.
But with an i-pod, you have no choice. It is the only way to load the little bugger with the tunes that you haven't listened to for years but which, oddly, suddenly make it onto your 'Desert Island' list.
And no, I haven't forgotten....
And herein lies the problem, or rather, one of them.
Because i-tunes allows you to sort your tunes into 'playlists'. Songs can be grouped by artist, genre, album, category, year, style, composer, drummer, recording studio and roadie's inside leg amongst others.
For some people, this would be heaven. People who file papers. People who have tabs in their ring binders. People who sort their clothes by colour in the wardrobe.
People who know where their car keys are.
You know who you are.
For people like that, i-tunes and it's organisational capabilities are wonderful, ensuring the right tune is always on hand for a given mood or moment.
For people like me, it's merely another stress. Another element of decision making. Another thing on the 'list'.
Or would be, if I was organised enough to make a list.
And then it starts asking me if I want to sign on to download an album cover. Why would I want to do that? Is it that some people are simply unable to remember a track without the visual cue of an album that they've probably never owned, having downloaded the track, either legally or illegally? And I have to PAY for it too? Thank you, but no thank you.
Which, brings me to the issue of downloads. I seem to remember the days when people would be excited by the promise of the internet. It was going to liberate us, provide equality of information and knowledge, provide us with the leisure time to live, rather than exist. Now, listening to most people, it seems to revolve around the best way to breach copyright and download tunes either free or for a fraction of a dollar (it seems the dollar has become the default currency of intellectual property theft).
Well, that and porn of course.
Allegedly.
On top of all this, I have to learn not to cringe every time I write 'i-pod' or 'i-tunes' without capitalisation, as only then will I be a fully paid-up member of the modern age.
It's not going to happpen.
And then I discovered pod-casts. It seems I can download all sorts of content, free of charge. I can download speech, rather than music. Drama, comedy, discussion, education, phone-in's (why do I feel the need for an apostrophe there I wonder?).
So now, I can listen to the things I listen to in my car anywhere (well, anywhere except the Gym). My i-pod has liberated me from my car, in the sense that now, no matter where I am, I can feel as if I am driving somewhere. Now, truly, all my waking hours (and, thanks to the tiny earphones, many of my sleeping ones), can feel like my working life.
That's progress.
Sunday, 4 May 2008
Inappropriate
Have you ever considered how our actions, or perhaps more accurately, our reactions, are inappropriate?
Sometimes, despite the situation, despite the logical response to set of circumstances, stimuli, our reactions are illogical and completely the opposite of what we would expect. An example that may be familiar to those of you with children, is the response to their safe escape from danger. The child who runs into the road, avoiding injury, or wanders off and is recovered safely, none the worse for their adventure. The logical response is relief, gratitude, perhaps a prayer to a normally-ignored deity. What often ensues of course, is a back-breaking hug, followed in quick succession with what my late Grandma would call a 'Chlop'.
I was 'Chlopped' more than once.
Oddly, this is not only something that moves downwards through the generations.
The distress of a parent struggling, their dependency, the helplessness we both feel, the solitude of responsibility created by being 'the one who's around', all conspire to create this dichotomy.
I should just feel compassion and my anger distresses me, engenders non-profitable guilt which in turn, amplifies the anger.
At least I know she won't remember my anger. I just hope she can remember me and what she means to me.
Sometimes, despite the situation, despite the logical response to set of circumstances, stimuli, our reactions are illogical and completely the opposite of what we would expect. An example that may be familiar to those of you with children, is the response to their safe escape from danger. The child who runs into the road, avoiding injury, or wanders off and is recovered safely, none the worse for their adventure. The logical response is relief, gratitude, perhaps a prayer to a normally-ignored deity. What often ensues of course, is a back-breaking hug, followed in quick succession with what my late Grandma would call a 'Chlop'.
I was 'Chlopped' more than once.
Oddly, this is not only something that moves downwards through the generations.
The distress of a parent struggling, their dependency, the helplessness we both feel, the solitude of responsibility created by being 'the one who's around', all conspire to create this dichotomy.
I should just feel compassion and my anger distresses me, engenders non-profitable guilt which in turn, amplifies the anger.
At least I know she won't remember my anger. I just hope she can remember me and what she means to me.
Just when you thought it couldn't get worse
Humph is dead.
Humphrey Littleton http://www.bbc.co.uk/comedy/people/humphrey_littleton_person_page.shtml died last week and with him, another voice, wit, humour was taken from my life. His sense of immpecable timing, his sarcasm, his ability to strike home with a razor-sharp barb, yet leave you rejoicing in the fact it left no scar.
If you don't know his work (his comedy work, rather than his gifted performance as a Jazz musician), then I encourage, indeed insist, that you find some. As host of I'm Sorry I Haven't a Clue, he was confronted by four of the greatest comedy minds of a number of generations. When Willy Rushton was taken from us, the original panel was supplemented by a guest, yet the standard never diminished. Confronted by such consumate skill, it would have been easy to recede, to become merely the 'host' and butt of jokes. http://www.bbc.co.uk/comedy/imsorryihaventaclue/
Yet 'Humph' did not baulk and his dry dead-pan delivery and masterful use of complete silence, allowing the audience to complete the joke for him to devastating effect. Indeed, just when you thought you'd completed the line, he would show you how your own comedic skills were inadequate, his use of words, intonation and timing a masterclass in how it should be done.
To have such skills as the second string to your bow could be intimidating. I never met Humph in person, yet he was a man who you felt would never be anything other than courteous and welcoming to someone who shared his passions.
I would listed to ISIHAC in my car and have been known more than once to arrive at my destination, yet refuse to leave the car until it was over. Someone once said to Oscar Wilde "I wish I'd said that", to which he replied "You will dear Boy, you will"
Humph's closing lines and double-entendres fall squarly into that bracket, but I don't think I will ever try to repeat them.
I just don't have the skill.
That won't stop me enjoying them though and a selection can be found here: http://www.g0akh.f2s.com/isihac/Humphs_Closing_Gems_Page.php
Thank you Humph.
Mornington Crescent.
Humphrey Littleton http://www.bbc.co.uk/comedy/people/humphrey_littleton_person_page.shtml died last week and with him, another voice, wit, humour was taken from my life. His sense of immpecable timing, his sarcasm, his ability to strike home with a razor-sharp barb, yet leave you rejoicing in the fact it left no scar.
If you don't know his work (his comedy work, rather than his gifted performance as a Jazz musician), then I encourage, indeed insist, that you find some. As host of I'm Sorry I Haven't a Clue, he was confronted by four of the greatest comedy minds of a number of generations. When Willy Rushton was taken from us, the original panel was supplemented by a guest, yet the standard never diminished. Confronted by such consumate skill, it would have been easy to recede, to become merely the 'host' and butt of jokes. http://www.bbc.co.uk/comedy/imsorryihaventaclue/
Yet 'Humph' did not baulk and his dry dead-pan delivery and masterful use of complete silence, allowing the audience to complete the joke for him to devastating effect. Indeed, just when you thought you'd completed the line, he would show you how your own comedic skills were inadequate, his use of words, intonation and timing a masterclass in how it should be done.
To have such skills as the second string to your bow could be intimidating. I never met Humph in person, yet he was a man who you felt would never be anything other than courteous and welcoming to someone who shared his passions.
I would listed to ISIHAC in my car and have been known more than once to arrive at my destination, yet refuse to leave the car until it was over. Someone once said to Oscar Wilde "I wish I'd said that", to which he replied "You will dear Boy, you will"
Humph's closing lines and double-entendres fall squarly into that bracket, but I don't think I will ever try to repeat them.
I just don't have the skill.
That won't stop me enjoying them though and a selection can be found here: http://www.g0akh.f2s.com/isihac/Humphs_Closing_Gems_Page.php
Thank you Humph.
Mornington Crescent.
Thursday, 20 March 2008
Kerplunk
This has not been a good week.
This week, four elements of my childhood have been taken from me, which is unpleasantly like growing up.
Firstly, Arthur C Clarke died. His predictions, his fiction, his desire to bring science to the masses and make it accessible made him seem a constant. Without him, I would not have shortened my middle name to HAL for a while. Without him, I wouldn't have known the joy of tunelessley blaring Also Sprach Zarathustra before jumping into a swimming pool. I've never really understood 2001, but thanks in part to Arthur, I understand science and, more importantly, I've learned to love the fact that there is so much I don't know, don't understand. Thank you Arthur, for my curiosity and the sense of awe.
Secondly, Paul Schofield. At 15, for English Literature, I studied 'A Man for all Seasons'. I enjoyed the play, the text and then, the film was run for us to watch. The story itself, the dramatisation, Robert Shaw as Henry, John Hurt playing a weak man on the downhill slope in the way only he can, all helped bring the text to life. But then I heard Paul Schofield speak. I heard him say the words that I had read on the one dimensional page, and my breath left my body. It may have been the most understated bravura performance I've ever seen, ever will see. Perhaps he understood the need for contrast against Shaw's Henry, knew he couldn't compete with that, but he conveyed a man's doubts, his anguish, his fear and his strength with nothing more than his eyes and his voice, both in the way he spoke the words and, importantly the way he didn't. His silence conveyed so much and only served to underline that wonderful, rich voice. Thank you Paul, for bringing a text to life and making the history live for me.
Thirdly, Brian Wilde. An unassuming actor, he was a key charecter in what to my mind is still one of the best situation comedies of it's time, indeed, of any time. Porridge. However, he is probably better known for the Last of the Summer Wine, in which he played the hapless 'Foggy', a man constantly trying to exceed his own reality and convince others he was more than the sum of his own parts. As the hapless Oliver Hardy to the Stan Laurels of Compo and Clegg, he would always be the butt of jokes and the scorn of his friends. Although not a great fan of the program itself however, three things remain with me from this - the wonderful scenery of that Yorkshire village, the gentle fun that three old men could have, wandering through it and the fact that, no matter what they had been through, at the end of each episode, they would be togther, friends. Thank you Brian, for making me less afraid of being old.
Finally, John Hewer. Most people will not know who he was. Although he'd been an actor for many many years, not many will know him. At least, not by that name. Yet millions of people would know him immediately by the name of his character - Captain Birdseye. For over 30 years, he was the figure who advertised Birdseye Fish Fingers. I have early memories of sitting in my friend Stephen's house, eating fish fingers, knowing they were good because the Cap'n said they were. I don't really have much to thank him for, but he's probab;y a larger part of my childhood than all of the others combined and, as such, I find myself saddened by his loss out of all proportion to his contribution.
Increasingly, my life feels like a game of cosmic Kerplunk. I sit at the top as, below me, the sticks of my past are pulled away, one by one.
One day, hopefully not too soon, the final stick will be pulled out and I will tumble down and each stick withdrawn makes me more aware of how tenuous my position is.
I can only hope that, when I do, someone will post the words "thank you" on their blog when they hear the news.
This week, four elements of my childhood have been taken from me, which is unpleasantly like growing up.
Firstly, Arthur C Clarke died. His predictions, his fiction, his desire to bring science to the masses and make it accessible made him seem a constant. Without him, I would not have shortened my middle name to HAL for a while. Without him, I wouldn't have known the joy of tunelessley blaring Also Sprach Zarathustra before jumping into a swimming pool. I've never really understood 2001, but thanks in part to Arthur, I understand science and, more importantly, I've learned to love the fact that there is so much I don't know, don't understand. Thank you Arthur, for my curiosity and the sense of awe.
Secondly, Paul Schofield. At 15, for English Literature, I studied 'A Man for all Seasons'. I enjoyed the play, the text and then, the film was run for us to watch. The story itself, the dramatisation, Robert Shaw as Henry, John Hurt playing a weak man on the downhill slope in the way only he can, all helped bring the text to life. But then I heard Paul Schofield speak. I heard him say the words that I had read on the one dimensional page, and my breath left my body. It may have been the most understated bravura performance I've ever seen, ever will see. Perhaps he understood the need for contrast against Shaw's Henry, knew he couldn't compete with that, but he conveyed a man's doubts, his anguish, his fear and his strength with nothing more than his eyes and his voice, both in the way he spoke the words and, importantly the way he didn't. His silence conveyed so much and only served to underline that wonderful, rich voice. Thank you Paul, for bringing a text to life and making the history live for me.
Thirdly, Brian Wilde. An unassuming actor, he was a key charecter in what to my mind is still one of the best situation comedies of it's time, indeed, of any time. Porridge. However, he is probably better known for the Last of the Summer Wine, in which he played the hapless 'Foggy', a man constantly trying to exceed his own reality and convince others he was more than the sum of his own parts. As the hapless Oliver Hardy to the Stan Laurels of Compo and Clegg, he would always be the butt of jokes and the scorn of his friends. Although not a great fan of the program itself however, three things remain with me from this - the wonderful scenery of that Yorkshire village, the gentle fun that three old men could have, wandering through it and the fact that, no matter what they had been through, at the end of each episode, they would be togther, friends. Thank you Brian, for making me less afraid of being old.
Finally, John Hewer. Most people will not know who he was. Although he'd been an actor for many many years, not many will know him. At least, not by that name. Yet millions of people would know him immediately by the name of his character - Captain Birdseye. For over 30 years, he was the figure who advertised Birdseye Fish Fingers. I have early memories of sitting in my friend Stephen's house, eating fish fingers, knowing they were good because the Cap'n said they were. I don't really have much to thank him for, but he's probab;y a larger part of my childhood than all of the others combined and, as such, I find myself saddened by his loss out of all proportion to his contribution.
Increasingly, my life feels like a game of cosmic Kerplunk. I sit at the top as, below me, the sticks of my past are pulled away, one by one.
One day, hopefully not too soon, the final stick will be pulled out and I will tumble down and each stick withdrawn makes me more aware of how tenuous my position is.
I can only hope that, when I do, someone will post the words "thank you" on their blog when they hear the news.
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