Moved to tears

With more than half my life over, there have only been two political events that have moved me to tears. The first was the political revolution in South Africa, and with it the Truth and Reconciliation Commission - trying to heal the past through peace rather than through vengeance.
The second has taken place today. A black man is now the most powerful man in the world.
Being born when racism was legally and to a certain extent socially acceptable, what has happened is proof once again of the words of Ghandi:

"Whenever I despair, I remember that the way of truth and love has always won. There may be tyrants and murderers, and for a time, they may seem invincible, but in the end, they always fail. Think of it: always."

Please God let not this hope be left unfulfilled.

Turn it FUCKING DOWN

I love loud music, me. Love it love it love it. I've got speakers that look like they belong at Stonehenge, a subwoofer in the car, headphone galore. The fact that my hearing is going slightly may be as much due to loud music as to age.
This week, I've been separated from my wireless Bluetooth headphones. So on the train, I've had no protection against the other legions of headphone-wearers.

Although I love loud music, I hate anti-social behaviour. If I'm in the car and get stuck in traffic, I'll turn the stereo down so as not to disturb those around me. Ditto when I park the car at home. I had one complaint from a neighbour about the music once, one complaint and so I spent £800 on secondary glazing the room with the speakers in.

I used to say to those I sat next to on the train "let me know if the headphone noise annoys you" or words to that effect. I stopped after I realised that the 'phones are well enough made, and I use moderate enough volume, so the leakage of sound is minimal.

Today however I was near - not even next to, near, like 2 rows behind and across the aisle from - someone who was not so considerate. At that distance, even with the background noise of the train, I could hear his music clearly. Virtually every note. If I had been into brain-dead metal I could have named the "tunes".

So, after about 10 minutes of this, I went forward and smiling kindly, told him that his music was a little loud.

Then, nothing happened. No attempt to turn the noise down. It wasn't as if the guy looked like an ignorant idiot. He wasn't even particularly young.

So I endured it. More people joined the train. I had hoped when some poor woman sat next to him that she would ask him politely to turn it down. It really was incredibly, incredibly irritating.

I was wondering what to do next. I fumed. I got more and more irate. I considered making threats. In the end (after another 40 or so minutes of this torture), I got up and addressed him again.

"Excuse me, I asked you politely before. Could you please turn your music down. I'm sitting some distance from you and I can hear every note".

Childishly, the guy told me that I had interrupted his journey twice now, so we were "even". The logic behind this still escapes me. Then he made the error of saying I should be sitting in coach B, the "quiet" coach.

"Don't talk to me about coach B. It doesn't matter what coach you are sitting in, nothing gives you the right to inflict your noise on other people. Now, turn it down".

It got - slightly - turned down.

What the FUCK is wrong with someone that they don't turn it down on request ? I can understand - although I dislike them doing it - children and "youths" playing music out loud on their phones. It's a shitty thing to do, but hell, young people do shitty things. But adults ? Why ? Why ? Why ?

I can understand how neighbours get violent after endless noise. I would do so myself.

For the benefit of my sanity, I need my headphones back fast; and to live in a detached house.

Oh God, I think I'm going to be sick

and I blame it all on the cheap drinks on offer in the pub last night. With 2 large vodkas and 2 cans of Red Bull coming in at £7.50, the evening looked bad from the start; and got worse. Pitcher after pitcher of Vodka Red Bull and Cheeky Vimto went down. I went to bed stoned but unable to drift off for a while thanks to near-fatal amounts of caffeine in the bloodstream.

Not good for a school night, not good having to travel into work today simultaneously feeling tired, sick, like I've been beaten up and suffering flu. I have several key calls to run today and I'm chasing, chastising lots of people at the moment. Why oh why then get so bladdered ?

Just because...it hadn't been done for a while. And to celebrate my mate's band getting offered a deal with a subsidiary of EMI...and to celebrate my engagement this weekend. Yes, the split documented in the post I've deleted lasted a whole 24 hours. Note to self: don't update blog so quickly next time.

God I feel ill. Oh well, only a few hours of work to go before the delights of the train home...

Smoking and the silver screen

There's been a lot of furore over the proposed classification to an '18' rating of films containing smoking and I thought I would add my two-pennorth.

I was happy when the ban on smoking in public came in, even though I was smoking at the time, because it's an addiction I wanted the younger generation not to be enslaved to. Emotive language already - but as addictions go, it's the worst one there is. I have been spending ten years trying to stop smoking, because the logical side of my brain knows that it's stupid, stupid, stupid, unpleasant, expensive and potentially fatal. However the illogical side of my brain - i.e. that which remains addicted - has persuaded me that it's not so bad, really, and that I can handle "the occasional one". This is outright nonsense. I've only ever met one person - my father - who can handle having one cigarette a day, and forgoing it if necessary. For everyone else I've come across, nicotine is not an enjoyable habit, it's an enslavement. How many smokers say they would give up if they could ? Most, if not all. The fact that they can't, the fact that the giving up rates are so atrociously low, show how incredibly addictive smoking is. And it is - if you're not a smoker, you have no idea of what's it's like to stop smoking. Not just the initial agony period of the first week - not even the first month - but for months and months afterwards it's hard, exceptionally hard. Whenever there is a slight setback, any excuse to fall down, the addicted part of one's brain keeps whispering "just the one" and it's a constant battle to resist that.
You can speak to smokers who gave up decades ago and they will still say they miss the habit, even if it's something they know to be disgusting and fatal. That's the power of nicotine over one's mind.

So, should it be banned from films ? Potentially, yes.

Think of a James Bond film. The product placement in there is endless, as it is in most films, but of course the James Bond franchise started the ball rolling, pretty much. Companies spend millions to get their wares put on the screen where they are effectively advertised.

Now think of this image from a film that comes to mind - I don't know which film it is from, sadly. Samuel L Jackson - the epitome of cool - has just had to jump, or been pushed, from a moving car. His body rolls, hits the kerb, but he's not badly injured. Obviously, however, he is shaken up, Cue a long shot of him lighting a cigarette, luxuriating in it, inhaling deeply, looking at peace despite his woes.

That's a classic "cigarette moment" from a film, one that's been seen in films since they came out. The implication that smoking is cool, that smoking eases inner woes, comes just as much from the screen as it does from ones peer group.

In fact, smoking a cigarette stops, alters only one thing - the craving for a cigarette. Nothing more. As drugs go, and I'm repeating myself here, it's shit. No high (apart from oxygen loss from the first fag of the day), zip, nada, zilch. Just one long - until death - endless addiction.

So yes, take it off the screen - not retrospectively for films that are out there, but in future, don't show it. It adds - except in very rare cases - nothing to the action or story. It takes away two of the most important things there are - freedom and health.

Lost the music

Another morning, another day. Lots of work to do so I'm squinting at the screen on the train, taking a break to write this from making coding changes that have to go live today - my "other" job. The "real" one is challenging enough right now. Oh well.
Apart from my recently-adopted coffee habit (less than 2 cups a day at present, thank God - my mother's friends actually gave her a caffeine intervention, so I know how bad it can get) the thing that gets me going in the morning is music - largely the mixes that I've downloaded from some Internet friends of mine. Without it I couldn't function, I don't think - it's much more important than the coffee to me.
But she's lost the music. I want to smash my fists against the glass of this carriage in protest. She can't listen because the hell she's in means that it doesn't work, because the music to accompany her situation doesn't exist, couldn't exist. And it's all wrong, because this shouldn't be happening, and if it had to happen, not to her. I hope she doesn't mind me writing about this; but very little I do right now doesn't have me thinking about her, and him, and the frailty of it all and how intransigent life is. And so, back to work, sounds in my ears, but rage and grief in my heart.

My new route

from the hotel I stay in two nights a week into the office takes me out of Waterloo station and to the road the Old Vic is on. An established area of London, but look how much has changed in the last 100 years. The people are taller, and they are from all corners of the earth - I'm sharing the same space on the station as people from possibly, probably over 30 countries, all rushing like ants hither and thither. As I ride the escalator, moving images from flat screens advertise to me; most of the commuters have white wires leading to their ears, in their own Ipod universe. My headphones are wire-free, connected to a device which has more computational power and storage than existed in the world in the 1950s. In my backpack, a device which probably has more computational power and storage than existed in NASA in the 1960s. Times change, and we are in an affluent, active, accessorised world.
But as I walk past the Old Vic to work, there's a bunch of people (mostly men) waiting on the pavement. Some have blankets draped round them. All look older than their years. They wait, by the Waterloo Mission, just as they would have waited in George Orwell's day. The casualties of society, the mentally sick, the physically addicted, the broken, huddling together and waiting for the doors to open to a temporary shelter from the world outside.
Much has changed in London, much has stayed the same.

We are all prostitutes

Working in London is turning me slightly psychopathic. I think it's not London so much, more the fact that I have *no time*. Monday - London and back, then writing class. Tuesday - London, stay overnight. Wednesday - London, home, see Jasmine, sleep. Thursday - London, stay overnight. Friday, home, having drunk lots of Red Bull during the week and done no exercise. Thankfully I'm not drinking or smoking. And next week will, always, be better.
But I can't complain; I have a choice. I'm here to earn money, I could (possibly) get work without commuting, but at what income level I have no idea. I'm a prostitute, and a well-paid one.
However, my income as is naught compared to others. Today, British Gas, profits up from £93m to £532m - so, the 15% price rise is justified is it ? Where the fuck is the regulator who's meant to stop this from happening ? Funny how the unavoidable energy price rises have meant record profits for Shell, BP and now British Gas.
But what really makes my blood boil today is the announcement that J-Lo is going to charge $3m for pictures of her babies. Nothing like prostituting your own children out. "Posh Spice" also paraded her kids on stage this week - that would be the same Mrs Beckham who frequently tells the press to leave her children alone, would it ?
We are all prostitutes, but most of us do it because we have to. J-Lo doesn't need the cash - I hope her kids have a happy life achieved by abandoning their bitch of a mother as soon as they can crawl, suing her and living happily ever after.
Working in London is sending me slightly psychopathic...