East of Ipswich

Moved to tears

2008-11-05T12:16:00.002Z

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

2008-07-08T17:55:00.003Z

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

2008-05-16T12:39:00.002Z

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

2008-03-16T20:26:00.002Z

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

2008-03-05T07:40:00.002Z

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

2008-02-29T11:05:00.003Z

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

2008-02-21T09:11:00.003Z

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...

I join the armies of the undead

2008-02-15T07:22:00.002Z

Well, it's the end of my first week of commuting. Like many strange things in life - severe sadomasochistic sex, or golf - one wonders *why* do people do it ? I suppose because unlike both of my poorly-chosen examples, they have to - as do I at this moment in time.
And, as always, I have it easy. I am able to stay over in London 2 nights a week (although this week thanks to Valentine's, that hasn't happened) plus I feel it's a very strong possibility that I will be able to work from home 1 day a week. Also I can leave work early enough to get a train which gives me a seat. Last night the train was 90 minutes late - there were people standing for over 2 hours in the aisles. I would have stormed the 1st class compartment, but there again parts of me - the better parts - are more French than English.
This contract is only for 3 months - if they want an extension, it's going to be 2 days a week working from home. How *do* people do this long term ? I have joined the armies of the undead.

Another way of life

2008-02-08T07:45:00.000Z

I'm on the train (yes, I am, as I type this - I have a new laptop and a 3G card). I'm about to start my third day in gainful employment. And for the first time in just under 10 years, I am a commuter again - although this time it's for the first time 'proper' - for I have a job in London.
The good news is that it is both well-paid, and short-term. A 3 month contract that I can see spilling out to 4 months maybe, but no more. If they want to renew me after that, I will take at least 3 weeks off first.
It's strange to be working in London again. I did work here back in the 90s, before Darling One was born, but I was working on the King's Road, and staying in a hotel in Knightsbridge, so it wasn't real commuting. Not like this morning, up and on a train before 7. Still, I've had it so easy for so long, I can't really complain.
And I will be staying 2 nights a week in London as well - so only on a Monday will I do the "there and back" commute, which I think must be a soul- and body- destroying thing to do on a daily basis.
And London Bridge is beautiful to cross at night.
Everyone in London smokes though - the effect of the ban is that all the smokers are outside, blowing it all in your face.
And yes, I've still stopped smoking - nearly 5 weeks now. Atkins has gone by the board, so there's still all that weight to be lost, as Paul Simon said.
I'm not too unhappy to be working. The people there are OK and I feel I can do my job OK, at least I hope so. It's not too taxing.
And it's what a Dad does, isn't it, work to keep his kids in shoes - and I still love being a Dad more than ever.
In fact, I want more children.
Well, there's a confession for you.
But we'll see.

I have a dream

2008-01-18T09:05:00.000Z

Weight: 14 st 5.5
Cigarettes: what's a cigarette ?
Alcohol: there is no drink apart from water
Mood: Altered.

Day 5 now of the Atkins diet. It's...interesting. My body, used to copious amounts of sugar from fruit juices, chocolate and ice cream is suddenly going cold turkey, denied all carbs.

So I wake up this morning from a dream of stuffing ice cream and haribou sweets (why those - why not chocolate, which would have been much more satisfying ?) down my face. I think that's my first ever food cravings dream.

It's difficult to know what's affecting my mind the most - nicotine withdrawal symptoms or sugar cravings. Whatever, I feel like death. Still, I'm sure once I up the exercise regime, all this will be worthwhile - I just need to replace all the "bad" drugs with a massive kick of endorphins.

January is meant to be hell. Anyway, just over 6 weeks until March, and spring !

Welcome, 2008

2008-01-12T17:54:00.000Z

Weight: 14 st 11 (v.bad)
Cigarettes: 0 (v v good)
Calories: not counting
Alcohol units: 0
Drugs: 0

January 2008. Yes, Bridget-speak is v. passe, however as discovered Darling One, who is all of 11, reading Bridget Jones diary - which she got as a library book from school - have decided to employ it, if only in attempt to revitalise dead blog.
Horrified - almost - to see on page 4 of said book, the word "dildo". Even worse, 2 pages on, the assertion that nothing puts men off more than feminism. Unsure which subject, if any, to broach first with daughter.
New kitchen has been fitted in house. More debt, ha ha ha. Time now to revitalise carpet which frankly in places is shagged and think about replacing bannisters, which are also looking theadbare in places as they have been broken in a variety of ways. Then there's a new plasma screen to buy, and new sofas as the old ones are looking knackered and out of place.
Spend, spend, spend, for soon the credit will be withdrawn from us all.
In putting up new kitchen, had to dispose of old fridge freezer, and remove all the photos off it. Most of the good bits of the last 4 and a half years of my life were on there, either in photo form or in the fridge magnets holding them on. Venice, Prague, Amsterdam, Hong Kong, Berlin, Dominica, Nice, lots of places, photos full of familiar faces, money spent, time gone, is it time now, to move on ?
Sorry for sub-Streets style doggerel there.
But it has been strange to realise, as I have recently, that this is the longest I've ever lived in one place. And also longest that I have lived on my own; which I still love.

I've no idea what 2008 is going to bring. In many ways it looks set to be an incredible year for me. I wish I could say the same for some people I love; bad news being the main reason I haven't blogged for so long, which seems so self-indulgent in the wake of things happening to others I love right now.

I'm just glad that finally I've put an entry up which replaces at the top of this blog the diatribe - which I still stand by - against Sharia law.

Anyway, I'll be better at keeping the blog from now on. Promise.

Fuck Sharia Law

2007-11-30T16:35:00.000Z

According to the BBC website, a crowd of tens of thousands of Sudanese is now demanding the execution of a British schoolteacher who permitted one of the teddy bears in her class to be called Mohammed.

Wonderful.

It's time for the West to take a strong, unequivocal stance against Sharia law - the loose interpretation of the Koran which calls for the stoning to death of adulterers, enforces the dress code of the burqa, the all-encompassing garment that women have to wear (which is not mentioned in the Koran itself) and which was considered by the European Court of Human Rights as

"stable and invariable. Principles such as pluralism in the political sphere or the constant evolution of public freedoms have no place in it. […] It is difficult to declare one’s respect for democracy and human rights while at the same time supporting a regime based on sharia, which clearly diverges from Convention values, particularly with regard to its criminal law and criminal procedure, its rules on the legal status of women and the way it intervenes in all spheres of private and public life in accordance with religious precepts."

Sharia Law has no place in any civilised society, and the practise of it in the West should be as condemned.

Fuck Sharia law. Fuck those who practise it, those who preach it, those who dream of implementing it in the West. For all our manifold faults, in the West there is some semblance of human rights which must be protected against those who follow this blasphemous, inhuman, intolerant creed.

Toleration has gone far enough - it's time to make a stand.

Coding again

2007-11-29T19:38:00.001Z

I'm coding again for a living. Working from home, doing well financially. Yo me. However it just struck me that I have been coding for the last 27 years.

You think I'd be better at it by now...still...what I'm doing is fairly major for a one-man band.

But it's still just work. Life outside work could be better - not so much for me, but for many of those I love.

And things happen that shake you, and changes lives around you, and to a lessening degree your own. You are faced with situations beyond your control. And all of that puts so much into context.

However down I feel - and it varies, but right now it could be much better - I have it painfully, dreadfully, dreadfully easy, but I can't enjoy it as I should - ever - because of the guilt I feel. Guilt and contempt - a dreadful, toxic mixture.

Crashing out again

2007-11-22T01:05:00.000Z

Well, no Euro 2008 for us. So we'll sack the manager. Of course, that will change everything.

Since I've been alive England haven't played in a final. Let alone won one. And there have been *plenty* of managers since then. So maybe - just maybe - we're not very good as a team. Because regardless of the results they achieved, any England manager must have been, at some time, relatively good to even get picked for the job (although McClaren on tonight's performance does stretch the credibility of what I'm saying).

No, the simple, statistical fact is that we're not very good. I mean, if there was no manager *at all* would good footballers really play very badly ? Does a manager dictate whether the ball hits the back of the net, or the keeper save a goal ? Yes, their decisions might help to get the play that gets the striker in the area, but the ultimate test is in the skill of the players...can they pass a ball ? Can they, simply, do the business and be accurate in their ball control ?

Manager aside it just seems we're not very good. And it's too easy to blame it on clubs composed of foreign players. It's cheaper to produce home-grown talent. We still have 3 leagues of professional football where at least 40% of the players must be English. And it's more a modern phenomenon - we're talking 40 years since we've been in a final. Lots of managers. Lots of promises.

we're just not very good, and being English we can't take that fact. It's years since we won the war, and our expectant attitude that somehow we have a right to do well in the one sport we care about smacks too much of the over-heightened and unjustifiable attitude we have (I have as well - I am part of the 'we') to our position on the world stage, which is something that has got us (not me - I was opposed to it from the off) into the mess we're in overseas.

Yes, there is link between football and Iraq. We over-rate ourselves; we think we are significant, we're not. The evidence keeps going against us, but we're still delusional. We shouldn't claim a part on the world stage, because we're just another country now, and looking at the rest of Europe, they seem better off in terms of healthcare, education, transportation, crime prevention, drug use and having teenagers who don't get pregnant in large numbers. We shouldn't claim to have a chance of winning tournaments, because in 40 years we haven't even come close.

We are an amazing country in many ways, but most of those ways are historic. I used to feel we were better racially integrated than most countries, but I'm starting to feel that's falling apart. Ditto the respect the rest of the world had for us, which is based on history too rather than how we live today. We are who we are...

...and what we are not, nor have been since I've been born, is very good at football.

Update

2007-11-01T15:01:00.000Z

I
am
head
over
heels
in
love
with
her

even though when I left her alone with my PC for a few minutes yesterday she moderated my Blogger profile to include "gay rights" and "Kylie Minogue" as my interests on my profile...

The ignorant triumph

2007-10-26T19:20:00.001Z

as the mindless majority stay mute.

Earlier this evening, I went with Darling One to see Ratatouille. It's a great film, but sadly for me most of the film was ruined. Three young lads - around 12 I imagine - sat at the back and carried on talking throughout. Initially I glared at them (I was sitting 8 rows in front of them), finally I got up on my feet, walked up to them and asked them to be quiet (without, I hasten to add, swearing at them). Of course, they ignored me, as they did the only other person who complained, who merely called out about 10 minutes later "turn the bloody noise down". All the other patrons in the place did nothing.

Like I said, I was 8 rows in front of them; so around 30 (at least) other adults must have been as inconvenienced as I was. It was talking with no attempt to moderate volume, it ruined the film. I'm sure everyone felt as aggrieved as I did - but nothing was done. Had everyone have told them to shut up, it would have happened. But people suffered in silence, or rather not in silence but to the mindless gabble of louts-in-training, who will leave with the lesson that they can do what they want, because nobody cares and no-one will act.

And so, the majority suffer for the actions of the minority, and the ignorant triumph. What happened is a perfect illustration of why people feel frightened to walk the streets, why small sectors of the population (I was going to write "society" there but these people aren't really part of society as I would define it) fuck things up for the rest of us.

The answer isn't capital or corporal punishment, or national service, or anything more than basically the majority of us - who are good, decent people - refusing to put up with the actions of the minority. But it won't happen because the majority are all mute sheep who look to others to protect their way of life, without realising that they are themselves responsible for that protection - and liable to the consequences when they fail to act.

Oh well, one day I'll get my head kicked in and become mute. Until that day...

Is that it ?

2007-10-18T13:44:00.000Z

I've always loved that as a title of an autobiography (Bob Geldof's, in case you were wondering). Is that it ? Is it, after all, "just a bunch of things that happened".

God I feel aimless in life right now. I have everything, I have nothing. I think I know what the heights are, and I think in my own modest way I've seen them - never reached, but seen. And I acknowledge the twinkling lights in the valley, as well, the depths one can sink into.

But how far have I ever touched either ? How much am I just a thinking machine that believes it has emotions ?

Strange questions for an autumn Thursday afternoon. I'm getting like the Big Lebowski now - I had to work out what day it was, then...time I got a job. But I'm looking. But again in the words of the Smiths - "I was looking for a job, and then I found a job"...

I'm not miserable, I think the point is that I'm not anything. There are of course things to look forward to in life...but in what ways are they the echoes of past pleasures ? Is there anything new under the sun ? If there is, should it be sought ? Are there, after all, any answers ?

Hmm. More of this later, maybe. But I'm not unhappy - I need to put that on record. But in itself that's a terrible statement - "I'm not unhappy" is the corollary of "I don't dislike you".

To be continued...

I would have liked

2007-10-01T23:44:00.000Z

a Dad like me*.

Exiled Eldest got here (after I collected her) at 5:30pm

10pm. We're both fairly pissed.

"Let's go to Paris".

I book the hotel.

Tomorrow, we go to Paris for 3 nights.

I RULE as a dad ! Well, in lots of ways, no, but tonight - yes.

Seriously - she's really happy as she loves Paris, and so am I - as I love her so.

3 week's time she'll be living with me. I can't wait.

* - although my Dad was great. After all, I bought the same model of loudspeakers as he did, and how much closer can you get to someone than that ? And he did take me on a surprise holiday himself when I was a little older than Exiled Eldest. So I can't - and never would - complain.

"Thanks Guys"

2007-09-27T10:38:00.000Z

and with that the phone call finishes, marking a fairly subdued end to 8 year's employment.
Well, that's not entirely true - I have been working for xx major UK plc for the last 8 years, but I did have a break of a year in that period where I ran my own business. And in those 8 years I have been "employed" on 5 different contracts, so it's not 8 years of continuous service.
Crucially, they haven't employed me at all. I have been contracting in this time, so there is no relationship of employment between myself and xx plc at all.
But what is true is that my departure is very low-key. I have survived there much, much longer than most contractors, what with most of our work having gone to India, something which really does not bother me in the slightest. In my last post - unheard of for me - I haven't ever so much as gone for a drink with the people I've been working with; although by working from home, this hasn't been a major loss as any friendship with my colleagues at this point just hasn't been made.

But my time working for them is definitely up. It looks as if I will stay working in the same industry sector, probably, so who knows I could be back, but I need for the sake of my cv and my sanity to go elsewhere for a while.

I had a really good interview yesterday, so fingers and everything firmly crossed.

8 years though - my God, it's been a long time, that's suddenly crept up on me. Maybe I should do something to celebrate, but I don't feel like celebrating, commiserating or in fact doing anything to mark this. I have been lucky that work has taken a back seat in my life, and so although it's always been there, it's never been that important to me. It's just what we have to do, is all, and I am just exceptionally lucky that I can get paid very well without really giving of my life or my soul to my employer.

Long may that, at any rate, continue !

Dazed and confused

2007-09-24T22:54:00.000Z

I have a fridge magnet that was given to me. On it, it says "the years have been kind to you...it's the weekends that have done the damage". Obviously whoever it was gave it to me knows me well.

Another weekend has just finished. Yes, I know it's Monday night...but I had a "bonus day" given that I finish my contract this week, so I don't care about work, and O has just changed job and wasn't working today.

It's the third weekend O and I have had together.

Basically, they have been amazing ones. There's none of me left now, I'm drained and tired and worn out and it will take me another few days to recover - in time for the next weekend.

Happy, happy, happy days. Hedonism hurts...but sometimes, that pain is good

Sucking it down

2007-09-20T10:08:00.000Z

"For someone who supposedly has a good life, your blog isn't half full of your troubles". Someone (an Australian, you know who you are !) said that to me about the blog several months ago. And it's true, there's a lot of personal happiness (the last two weekends of my life, for instance) that I don't list on here - some things are just too personal, I guess.

However, I'm always happy to share the other stuff.

As of yesterday, I have an inhaler.

I really like my doctor; despite her refusal to prescribe me Ritalin, which I really think she should. So I was a bit perplexed with her yesterday when - in a consultation I had asked for to try and sort out a cough I've had for five weeks which hasn't responded to antibiotics - she said "well, you could call it asthma".

I'm still trying to work out what that means. You *could* call it Asthma...well, you *could* call anything Asthma, or Fred, or Holly Golightly, or whatever...it's what it *should* be called that interests me more.

Given that I saw her less than an hour after a wonderful 40 minute session on my cross-trainer, I was slightly bemused; but now I have an inhaler; and I'm coughing a little less.

I'll go back to her next week to see what it *is* called. I hope not Asthma. We'll see.

Oh, and I've also had my second session of counselling. When your counsellor tells you that you are, and I quote "fucked in the head", and these words echoed the exact phrase used by O (the new girlfriend) pretty much at the start of the relationship, you know that...you're fucked in the head. Or do you ? Fucked in the head *and* in the lungs...well, at least my heart is...
happy.

Six years on

2007-09-11T08:02:00.000Z

Six years ago today, I had a different life, in a different house, and the world was a different place to the one we inhabit today; how I hate the fact that the two "where were you when" moments of my generation are 9/11 and the death of Diana. However I think that until the end of my life, today's date will count as significant, probably the most significant date in my life, when a new 'war' began. There's no point in my trying to analyse the situation we find ourselves in from any prospective apart from a purely personal and indubitably ill-informed one; minds which far exceed my own which are dedicated to the research of global politics cannot provide an answer to the crises we are in, so how can I ? My thoughts, for what they are worth, are:

- the conspiracy theories about 9/11 such as "Loose change", fascinating as they are, fall down on one key point; there is no way in which such an action could have been organised by the US so successfully. At worst, they had an idea that something was going to happen, and let it happen, but I do not believe that 9/11 was in any way an "inside job";
- however I find it more credible that the continuing existence of Osama bin Laden, despite his CIA training, is more due to the need to have a Goldstein (read, for God's sake, and quickly, "1984" if you don't get that reference) amongst us to justify the demise of our civil liberties and freedoms - as well as the overwhelming unpopularity this "war" has cost us - because his capture would spell the end of the road in terms of the support for the actions of the US and the UK post 9/11.
- the decision to go into Iraq was not justified as a result of 9/11, but was able to be made due to the climate of fear that was ignited by 9/11 but then fanned by the Bush / Blair partnership. I bitterly opposed the war on the grounds that states must have self-determination at almost any price. The failure of the invasion of Iraq to make that country any better than it was - in fact, the somewhat incredible ability for us to have made the place more dangerous and wretched to live in - is precisely due to the fact that the Iraqis might have hated Saddam, but not enough to depose him themselves. Any regime relies on the compliance of the people to succeed, and time and again history shows us that when the population do rebel, change occurs. Without that internal desire for change, regime-change initiated externally is doomed to failure.
- the "War on Terror" and Iraq have diverted the attention away from other key issues such as the continuing inequity of the existence of a militaristic, colonising state supported by the US - Israel; and the change in world politic dynamics consequent of the rise of Putin and Russia's stranglehold over much of Europe, both West and East, due to their energy supplies.
- I don't expect another 9/11 style operation to be carried out by Al-Qaeda, words which might come back to haunt me...but the damage has been done and it would benefit no-one for such an attack to be repeated...now let's wait for me to be proved wrong, but how I hope not.

Ultimately though, although I can point out what we have done wrong, there is no solution as far as I can see that will actually put things right. Withdrawal from Iraq is going to become a political necessity, however that is not going to solve anything. The reality is that Iraq is yet another country which was held together by mutual dislike and fear of the ruler which, in the absence of that ruler, is going to split along what are almost tribal divisions, so troop withdrawal will probably make things worse, not better.

All one can say is "so it goes"...

She disappears from view

2007-09-05T08:03:00.000Z

It's the second day of the school term, it's just gone 9 o'clock and I haven't returned home from taking Darling One to school. From now on (whilst I continue to work in Suffolk, which is itself up for debate, my contract ending as it does at the end of this month) I'm only going to take her to school twice a week. She's now at Big School, so taking her to school does not entail us walking hand-in-hand to the gate and then having a kiss as she goes into the playground. Taking her now involves dropping her off near the school, and I'll get a kiss - if I'm lucky - for a bit longer, who knows how long though ?

She's disappearing from view, or rather her childhood is, and that's a good thing in many ways because it has to happen; but she's my last child, I won't be having any more children now and so a part of my life that is such a major one to me is going for ever. To feel the small hand in your own, to have the feeling of responsibility of life and death over them, to see for a few seconds the world through their eyes...as her childhood goes so this goes, this wonderful part of my being that I have been so privileged to see.

And the passing of it tears me inside, a hole so deep and wide that nothing could or would ever fill it. It has to be but my how I will miss it, how I miss already not seeing her every day, how I miss not having had with Exiled Eldest that I would have wanted, how in many ways I want to go back, and do it all again, better this time. My children disappear from view to come back as adults who will never see me again as Daddy, fount of all knowledge, but probably as a tiresome over-emotional old hippy who does, in his way, love them but who needs to be left behind as they strike out for unknown shores. As long as they always know I will always be behind them, in the lifeboat, waiting for their call.

Making the connection

2007-08-30T10:05:00.001Z

I've been in e-mail, and phone, and in several instances face-to-face contact with some new people lately. Yes, I'm Internet dating, no, I feel no shame about that.

It's a strange but somehow uplifting - although not always - process. It's fascinating to have a glimpse into people's lives; and I have been, in the main, privileged to be in communication with some wonderful, different people. I think the choice of site I have been using - no, not telling - has been responsible for my encountering people who have been able to stimulate that most important sexual organ - the brain.

But oh ! the sadness of our lives. The things that have been done to us; the mistakes we have made, the issues we have had to overcome. I have heard things that make me weep, and these are not the tales of victims; rather those of survivors who still believe that things can and will be better.

At some level I have made the connection with several women, had long phone calls not full of sweet nothings but talking about issues, beliefs, ambitions, pain, pleasure. The lyrics I've put up on the blog over the last few days have obviously been highly influenced by this process.

Whatever happens in terms of whether any of this will lead to a relationship, is still very up in the air. The fact that I've had this mental stimulation, been challenged, been moved, and hopefully challenged and moved others, is all that counts right now. There are people out there with the power to move me and I them; but oh the damage that has been done to us all - and the fact that we prevail and hopefully rise up is a testament to our powers of recovery and survival.

"Many's the time I've been mistaken
And many times confused
Yes, and often felt forsaken
And certainly misused
Oh, but I'm alright, I'm alright
I'm just weary to my bones
Still, you don't expect to be
Bright and bon vivant
So far away from home, so far away from home

I don't know a soul who's not been battered
I don't have a friend who feels at ease
I don't know a dream that's not been shattered
Or driven to its knees
Oh, but it's alright, it's alright
For we lived so well so long
Still, when I think of the
Road we're travelling on
I wonder what's gone wrong
I cant help it, I wonder what's gone wrong"

Yet more lyrics

2007-08-29T11:37:00.000Z

I heard this song again last weekend, and it's sticking in my mind right now. Sorry for the lack of anything more original than someone else's words, life is in yet another transitory stage at the moment and once I know where it's going, I'm happy to write about it. For now, ladies and gentlemen, I'll let George do the talking:

Kindness in your eyes
I guess you heard me cry
You smiled at me
Like Jesus to a child

I'm blessed, I know
Heaven sent and heaven stole
You smiled at me
Like Jesus to a child

And what have I learned
From all this pain?
I thought I'd never feel the same
About anyone
Or anything again

But now I know
When you find love
When you know that it exists
Then the lover that you miss
Will come to you
On those cold, cold nights

When you've been loved
When you know it holds such bliss
Then the lover that you kissed
Will comfort you
When there's no hope in sight

Sadness in my eyes
No one guessed, or no one tried
You smiled at me
Like Jesus to a child

Loveless and cold
With your last breath you saved my soul
You smiled at me
Like Jesus to a child

And what have I learned
From all these tears
I've waited for you all those years
And just when it began
He took your love away
But I still say

When you find love
When you know that it exists
Then the lover that you miss
Will come to you
On those cold, cold nights

When you've been loved
When you know it holds such bliss
Then the lover that you kissed
Will comfort you
When there's no hope in sight

So the words you could not say
I'll sing them for you
And the love we would have made
I'll make it for two
For every single memory
Has become a part of me

You will always be
My love

Well, I've been loved
So I know just what love is
And the lover that I kissed
Is always by my side

Oh the lover I still miss
Was Jesus to a child

This has been my theme tune for many long years

2007-08-27T20:08:00.001Z

I dreamed about you again last night
you never have the same face twice
but I always know it's you
and you're always looking better than you really do

and I walk around the whole next day
feeling like I've still got something to say
but I don't know what it is
and I don't know how to reach you even if i did

do I wanna hear that you forgive me?
do I wanna hear you're no good without me?
am I big enough to hear
that you never even think about me?
why should you ever think about me?

and I thought that I'd outgrown this kind of thing
tell me, aren't we supposed to mature or something?
I haven't found that yet,
is this as grown-up as we ever get?
maybe this is as good as it gets
years may go by,
but I think the heart remains a child
the mind may grow wise,
but the heart just sulks and it whines and remains a child
I think the heart remains a child

why don't you love me?

why don't you love me?

(c) Everything but the Girl - "The Heart Remains a Child" off Walking Wounded

Touched by the hand of...Bez

2007-08-21T11:30:00.000Z

Another weekend, another festival. This one "V" festival, which I approached with some trepidation. It had a fearsome reputation as being the most "commercial" (i.e. separate the scum from their money) festival, and badly-organised to boot.

All of this was in fact not the case. I was able to find and print off running times for the day, the free bus arrived within less than 30 minutes wait at Chelmsford station in the morning, the food and drink prices were reasonable, the sound quality was good, the event didn't seem too packed, even the toilets were good - a massive first at any such event I have attended.

Oh, but I went for the music, didn't I ? Well, the highlight for me was going into the Strongbow tent and dancing to Bez's set and actually touching knuckles with the great man himself.

Last night, watching "24 hour party people" that seemed quite poignant.

So, I have been touched by the hand of Bez. It must have done something to me, because I'm off in several hours to the South of France for an unscheduled visit.

And why not ?

More on my return...

Sales and lying

2007-08-16T23:41:00.001Z

I couldn't work in sales. OK, I worked in PR for a while, but I couldn't work in sales. To me it seems to involve (and apologies for what is a gross "tar with the same brush" statement here) basically lying for a living. Or at best, mis-representing. And when allied with finances, selling has the power to really muck people's lives up. Pensions mis-selling used to be endemic in this country, where salesmen (and it's mostly men, to be honest) would persuade people to switch their pension into something which promised much, and delivered very little. Their false promises cost people the security in old age they had worked for. Sure, there are good financial advisers and I have met them - but in the main the desire for commission outweighs the need to give accurate and honest advice for most salespeople.

I bring this up because I read the BBC News article on why the stock markets around the world are falling. I've cut and pasted the relevant paragraphs that have bought this anti-sales diatribe about. I have nothing against sales, but everything against commission when it is earnt by hyping property values, or financial products, and feel that until it is made illegal, events like the following will continue to take place:

What are the markets worried about?

The underlying fear relates to the collapse of the so-called sub-prime mortgage market in the US.

In the past five years, extraordinarily low interest rates in the US have led banks and other financial institutions to lend substantial sums of money to people with poor or no credit histories.

The idea was that, even if they eventually couldn't pay, the banks could recoup any losses by repossessing and reselling the houses - and in any case, house price rises would cushion the blow. [My comment - what a *bastard* idea. The ratfinks who came up with this should go to hell]

In the most extreme cases, mortgage brokers were handing out what came to be known as "Ninja" loans, to people with no income and no job or assets.

Often the loans were "no-doc", where the borrower did not have to provide proof of how much they earned. Recent research suggests that in many if not most of these, borrowers (or their brokers) lied about their income. [No surprise there then]

But now as interest rates have risen, so have repossessions. The US housing market has collapsed and the banks find themselves saddled with a lot of bad debts.

However, it is not just a problem for US banks.

Globalisation has meant that much of this mortgage debt has been sliced up into small pieces, repackaged as "collaterised mortgage obligations" and sold on to financial institutions and individual investors around the world.

And now, no one, including the central banks, is certain how much of these bad debt financial institutions or individuals are holding.

Wonderful.

Strange compulsion

2007-08-16T09:30:00.000Z

Sometimes you see or hear things that you have to see or hear again and again because they are so bizarre that they exercise a strange compulsion on you. There's lots of stuff on YouTube, and most of it is dreck, but this is genius:

The story is: apparently there used to in the States a chain of pizza restaurants which had in them the animatronic setup shown above. The characters would sing songs like "Happy Birthday" at kid's parties, although I have seen in a promotional clip them doing a mean Led Zeppelin. Someone in the US has got hold of one of these, and is re-programming it to do lots of songs - Champagne Supernova is his latest, his name is Christhrash if you want to do a search for his stuff.

But the above is just strangely...mad. I can't put it into words, and will probably get bored of it very soon, but I have to keep watching it for the moment...just *one* more time...

Dance, monkeyboy, DANCE

2007-08-14T08:56:00.000Z

Ha ha ha. My dancing at the Shapeshifters gig is captured for eternity. I'm the bloke with the brown T shirt on and water bottle held hand in the air. You can see me quite clearly about 1 minute in, soaked, happy, HAVING IT. What a sad old raver I have become...

Yes ! Result !

2007-08-13T08:51:00.001Z

No, not the 4-1 victory of Ipswich on Saturday - I'm getting too old and cynical to see a good start to the season as a stepping stone to promotion. Instead, the news this morning that my project has been extended for 3 weeks. As regular readers (do I have any ?) know, work is far from the most important thing in my life, but it *does* pay the bills (numerous after the Bank of Dad was raided heavily in last week's holiday). And a delay to the project (and it's *not* my fault) means an extension to my contract, almost certainly.

It also means I don't have to manage the project on Saturday whilst attending V...something I wasn't really looking forward to...

If I wasn't feeling so wretched this morning (physically - mentally and emotionally, it's Up Up and Away) this would be the cause to crack open the champers. Although even for me, before 10am is a little excessive. Maybe I'll just put on the Paul Van Dyk and dance for a while instead (one day, my heart is just going to explode).

A good start to the week, my second post in two days on the blog, a great family holiday just concluded and the sun shines outside...hmm, perhaps everything is on the up. Watch this space...

Sensory summer

2007-08-12T09:54:00.000Z

Firstly, if anyone is still there, apologies for the lack of posts recently. There's an incredible discrepancy between having a blog and not wanting to write about your personal life, but although I'm happy to use this space to detail the good things in my life, when events occur which aren't so happy, I think that for the sake of the "other party" a discreet veil needs to be drawn. Anyway, back to - well, not normality, of course, but to detailing some of the happier moments of the past weeks.

A few weeks ago I attended Global Gathering near my birthplace, just outside Stratford on Avon. Of course, this was during the Summer of Rain, so it was an exceptionally muddy affair and also very nearly ruined by the insensitive behaviour of a group of would-be musicians who had a tent about 20ft away from where I was camped; but I want to talk about the good bits. About being in a field with thousands of others when Faithless played "God is a DJ" and the words "This is my church; this is where I heal my hurt" lifting me up, up and away. To try and describe the feeling of euphoria, of ecstasy, at that moment would exceed my linguistic capabilities - but it really was at that time a meeting of like-minded souls, happy people (for whatever chemically enhanced reasons) of all ages and races gathering in one spot to listen to good music and dance. Spending seven hours dancing in wellies, with the Shapeshifters set blowing me away, dancing outside in the rain and almost howling with joy when they finished their set with Lola's Theme:

"I'm a different person
Turn my world around"

One of those events that will stay with me for ever, in that it's changed me in some way. I've always loved to dance, and to be with like-minded souls all locked into the beat was wonderful. I want to do it again ! During the Shapeshifters set a muscular man, stripped to the torso with some impressive tattoos, turned round to me whilst I was cavorting and said " Fucking HAVE IT big man" which has somehow become one of the best things said to me this year. Yes, I fucking had it, big time, and I want it again and I want it now !

I've just come back from a family holiday in Calafell. It was the first time I've ever returned to a location for a holiday (family visits excepted) as we went back to the same house on the beach I rented two years ago. Ice-creams and arcades and amusement parks and games of cards late at night, Darling One laughing like a drain, Exiled Eldest and Darling One becoming closer as sisters, with the youngest taking make-up lessons from the eldest, and the two of them disappearing to have Girl Conversations.

As we left the house yesterday on the long journey back, both children told me they want to return there next year - which is as good a validation of the holiday as one can have.

So far, the summer has contained the best of all worlds - time spent enjoying myself in a variety of different ways, with family and friends. So, despite the atrocious weather, hopefully the summer of 2007 will be remembered by me as being a good one, despite the start to it which thankfully is rapidly entering the unremembered past.

Vanity Fair

2007-06-25T11:12:00.000Z

And so, after some stressful weeks which I need to put behind me, off to Bournemouth via (for work reasons) Birmingham, to see my friend Tancredi and step into "Vanity Fair" - an updated version of the book, not the magazine.

Tancredi is someone I would need to invent if he did not exist. Half Italian, he takes photographs of beautiful women as a job. Someone has to do it, I suppose, and if anyone has to do it, it should be him, a wonderful warm and generous person - like most of my friends.

For the sake of convenience, his studio is above a pub, so we meet up there but shortly de-camp to the cramped flat of a friend of his. A pleasant evening is spent talking to complete strangers, drinking wine and having a few lines. I get chatting to Charis, a 24 year old psychology graduate who is going in a few months back to Gambia, where her father has settled after falling in love with the place after a family holiday there some years ago. We talk and talk and talk; at the start of the evening, our host told us he was kicking us out at 3am, which was then 6 hours off, and I didn't think we would still be there at that time, but we are, and get a taxi back to Tancredi's flat. Charis comes with us, and we stay up till 6am chatting away. Thanks to my friend's abhorrence of curtains, plus the lines, sleeping is difficult but I attempt it anyway.

On the Saturday evening, we go to a bar which is mainly full of single people hoping that tonight will be lucky enough for them to never have to come back to the bar again. As ever, I am amazed at the age range of people in this situation - tanned teenage girls wearing white shorts queue for the bar alongside people old enough to be their parents. The way some men are dressed, there's no wondering why they are single, more why if they can afford to drink here, they have walked in looking as if they have dressed at whatever the male equivalent of Primark is - or maybe Primark stock men's clothes...it sounds snobby I know, but why the hell turn up looking like that - style doesn't cost money. Anyway.

For an hour we sit in virtual silence, people-watching. Then our company for the evening walks in, two sisters (24 and 26), the eldest one Tancredi's ex-girlfriend who I know quite well. They have spent the last 2 hours getting ready, hence the lateness, but it was worth it; they look like something off a Roxy Music album cover (but not the one with the statuesque Germans in their underwear). The youngest one is - wait for it - a psychology graduate, so this is obviously my weekend for meeting attractive 24 year old psychology graduates. It could be worse. Red Bulls, Ciprianis, Long Island Ice Teas. We get in another taxi, to another club. Dance; flit in and out of the VIP area, where two girls presumably not paid by the management to do so but one can never be sure frug against each other for the delectation of the males in the room. We dance. Champagne, Ciprianis, Champagne. Even before the drinks, the two girls we are with are the most attractive in the room, and although it's all strictly platonic, the other buggers don't know that. Home, the two of us. Bed and breakfast next day in a cafe called Norwegian Wood, which looks as if it hasn't been altered for the last 40 years and wonderful as a result. Then the long drive home.

It is "Vanity Fair" updated. Style and not so much substance, but substances. A life I couldn't, wouldn't want to live 24/7 but which is wonderful for dipping into. And back now to whatever the next stage (my life has more stages than Glastonbury) brings.

Day tripper

2007-05-31T22:59:00.000Z

And so, Hong Kong...

Travel's so wonderful. Curse Al Gore and "An Inconvenient Truth" (more, much more on this another time) because I *love* travelling. A long-haul flight is like magic, one enters a metal tube and emerges, hours later, into a different world. A world in this case of heat (31 C) and smells, sights and sounds. The hotel we're in (I'm here with Exiled Eldest) is great - in Kowloon rather than on the island, but next to its own shopping mall, and having paid out for the Executive suite, we have our own club room with food, drinks and the Internet all thrown in, so Exiled is in 7th heaven.

Thanks to the long flight, we both felt that the ground beneath us was still moving after we landed, and neither of us had slept particularly well, so last night going through the shopping mall, complete with colour-changing stairs, the longest escalators in the world and a barrage of sights and sounds was very very trippy for both of us - the sensation of our feet not being on terra firma, plus the sensory overload, was incredible. Back to the club room for the last drinks and snacks of the evening, and then to bed.

I love Exiled Eldest so - we're having wonderful conversations. She's so wise and just - great. Last night surrounded by the trappings of luxury - obsequeous (sp) waiters for our every whim - she felt pangs of guilt, rather than revelling in it like a natural birthright. But we are enjoying ourselves despite the opulence, and are planning to go on the ferry to Hong Kong island after breakfast, and after that, who knows ? Today might not be as trippy as last night - probably a good thing too - but it still promises to be a magical mystery tour. And being with my eldest daughter makes it all just so - well, words fail me - so right, and happy.

I *love* being a dad.

Doh ! A deer (or: Who killed Bambi ?)

2007-05-24T10:51:00.000Z

It's 8:30, and I'm driving to a meeting in Birmingham. I'm not late, I am a little whoozy after the night before, when I'd been watching the football (Champions League final) with a friend; although I made the decision to stop drinking at 11, I still didn't sleep too well and so I've already drunk a can of Red Bull. I've just overtaken a line of cars taking the exit off the A14 into Bury St Edmunds, so despite the time of day the road is fairly quiet. I'm doing about 85 when...I notice something. It's a deer, it's just crossed the other side of the road, now it's jumping over the central reservation...and I hit it.

The whole thing happens in a split second; as far as I can remember, the time frame from the thought process of what is it ? a deer ? it's coming this way ! thump is over in under a second. I see as if in slow motion (a hackneyed phrase but a true one) the deer leap over the central reservation barrier, then I hit it. I can't remember if I even touched the brakes, if I did it wasn't a "slamming on the anchors" move. The car didn't even seem to wobble as I hit it. As I refuse to use my own car for work, it wasn't Christine but a hire car that got it, a Vectra with less than 500 miles on the clock.

I pull in at the side of the road at the next available parking place. The car drives OK to get me there, it's about 0.5 miles from where the accident took place, which is now out of sight round a small bend. Until I got out of the car and looked at the damage, I felt I might be able to carry on with my journey, but the light assembly is smashed, a light is trailing by a wire on the road, portions of the bumper are missing, the washer tank is on display...

Fortunately the road hasn't stopped moving. I call the rescue services and the police. I'm not breathalysed - although sure I would have been OK if I had have been - and within 2 hours I'm back home.

Whilst I waited for the truck, I was writing this blog in my head. I knew within moments what an exceptionally lucky escape I had had. If I had have hit the deer whilst it was in the air as it leapt over that barrier, I would I think be dead or at least in a major accident; like I said I wasn't sure that I even touched my brakes, so I don't know what would have happened. I'm actually feeling very very shaken now I come to recount this. I want to ring my mum up. I nearly died today. I don't know what it means - nothing I suppose, it's just "something that happens". I nearly died today, and I didn't see it happening, and there was nothing I could do about it, by the grace of God I am here, but also by the grace of God I hit the bloody thing, and it has to mean something and of course it means nothing.

By the way, the deer is dead. I saw it by the side of the road as the tow truck took me back.It looked at peace. I am very very very sorry for what I did - but the whole point of this is - I had no control.

Blinded by the lights

2007-05-18T15:54:00.000Z

I sweat; my pupils are large. I feel simultaneously unable to stand up but capable of, in fact compelled to carry on, dancing. The beat pumps on and on, many of us are jumping up and down. More and more hands are placed in the air. My hair, my body feel like they have been under a shower. I can't touch my face; it's as if the sweat pouring off me has created some sort of friction-less coating on my skin, so my fingers slide off as I put them to my cheeks. I'm so hot. I've been drinking water for ages as well. I wish I could escape the pain from my knees, from my shins, from my heels, from my elbow, from my teeth. I wonder if I will ever be without some sort of pain ever again. But I refuse to sit down, in fact I'm jumping up and down quite a lot really. 5 different drugs plus whatever they put into Red Bull are fighting for control of my body. It's a top night; although I am spending too much time writing this blog up in my head, analysing, analysing.

Nothing's happening when the band stop playing. We hang around for a few minutes, but the music's stopped and the lights are on. Staff start ordering us out of the venue. We walk out, the night air so refreshing. We follow a small crowd as we're told that there's a party somewhere. Eventually the crowd go to the train station car park, and get in their cars. No way am I going into a stranger's car at this time of night, at this time in my life. We wander back to my friend's flat and stay up until 2 talking, even though he puts on several Captain Beefheart numbers.

Am I saying "goodbye" to that sort of life ? Will I carry on ? This has been my first "heavy session" evening all year. Do I still like it - hell yes. Is this what a man of 40 is meant to be doing ? I don't know, maybe not.

The Madding Crowd

2007-05-17T16:11:00.000Z

Enough.For Christ's sake enough with the histrionics over the abduction of Madeleine McCann. What on earth has gone wrong with everyone ?

Obviously what's happened to her is terrible, every parent's worst nightmare. But when I've heard / read that MPs are festooned in yellow ribbons, and the England cricket team are wearing the same; I wonder what they think such an act will achieve.

When the first ribbons were worn - for the AIDS campaign - I could see the point. AIDS was at the time both something regarded with fear and suspicion and something that felt like it had the potential to kill millions of people. It did, but as the deaths occur in Africa, rather than in West, we don't wear the red ribbon any more. The point is though that at the time, publicity was needed for the campaign and by wearing a ribbon, one could demonstrate support for the victims of AIDS and raise money for AIDS research.

By wearing a yellow ribbon you are showing support for one family. One family who it could be argued are being given a very easy ride for leaving three young children unattended. If they were not so white and middle class, one can imagine them having their remaining children taken into care. But this has not happened - not that I would wish it on them - and instead they have been taken Into Our Hearts and there is a collection being raised.

A collection for what though ? "To fund the search" apparently, although I never knew the police in Portugal were "pay and display". And with both the missing child's parents being doctors, I can't imagine that they need the money in order to stay on in Portugal for a few weeks longer.

I hope this whole thing gets resolved quickly for the sake of the family. However there is *nothing* any of us can do to help this, and wearing yellow ribbons is just grief (or rather pre-emptive grief) tourism - where's the sense of proportion in this...what HAS gone wrong with everybody ?

Now the party's over, I'm so tired...

2007-05-08T13:26:00.000Z

Well. That was a weekend, that was.

You see, I turned 40 on Saturday. And the party I had been planning for the last 6 months happened. Over 70 people from 5 countries turned up to see little old me...

And what a night it was. I hired a local bar, we had two bands playing plus a singer / songwriter opening the evening. The champagne flowed, the food was eaten, lots of people came up to me and said what a wonderful party it was. And it was. But the party wasn't great because of the venue, or the food or drink, or even because of the musicians (although they were all wonderful).

The event was so good because of the people who were there. And it's thanks to them that my life is how it is, thanks to them that I am who I am, thanks to them that I have so much more happiness in my life now than I did at the time of my last "big" birthday at 21.

So, it's onward and hopefully upwards for the next ?? years - but it was a great way to celebrate the end of one period of my life, and the start of the next.

If you've got to go, then you had better go now. Go now. Go now. Go now

2007-05-01T17:34:00.000Z

In response to the Observer editorial you can find here

Sir

Following your editorial on how Tony Blair has made Britain a better place, it's hard to think of how a newspaper has worse misjudged the opinion of the public, save perhaps for Liverpudlian Sun readers the morning after Hillsborough.

It's exceptionally difficult to see how the legacy of Tony Blair has enriched our lives; seldom in political history can a leader have squandered the mandate he was given so carelessly, succeeding as he did one despised government to lead a government which has become more despised still.

Without looking at the obvious targets first, let's consider the scorn poured on the Tory party, with its odour of "sleaze", which pervaded its latter years. Then consider that Blair sacked, then re-admitted, then sacked again two individuals (Blunkett and Mandelson) who together mis-used their office for sexual and financial gain. And these were two of Tony's closest allies. Consider how much Prescott gets paid to do what, exactly ? And how several of the PM's appointees were old friends or mentors; and how finally Blair himself has come closer than any PM to being arrested, following the "cash for honours" scandal. Any assertion that this government has been "cleaner" than the previous administration would be mis-judged and based on optimism rather than actuality. Any MPs who appear to have any moral fibre - Claire Short, Robin Cook and Tony Banks - all left the Cabinet rather than continue working for someone who they patently distrusted and disliked, a viewpoint clearly shared by Blair's successor, Gordon Brown, who one imagines has only stayed "on message" for his almost certainly brief period at the helm.

Then consider the concept that "Britain is better" under New Labour. Firstly, the country has never been less "Britain", with Scotland looking to devolve from the Union. No-one is "British" any more, and although the regional Assemblies in Wales and Scotland may be popular with the inhabitants of those areas of Great Britain, they have left those in England struggling to understand how both those regions can afford higher student grants and free care for the elderly and the English cannot. The mass admittance of members of Eastern Europe to the UK has undoubtedly increased racist sentiments, with the estimates made of the immigration numbers woefully adrift. Britain, its inhabitants feel, is hardly "Great" any more.

We're not the only ones to think it. Thanks to Iraq, we are now the second-most disliked country on the planet. We have aligned ourselves with a government of dubious legitimacy and highly questionable aims and morality, engaging in an illegal occupation that has made Iraq ten times worse than it was before we "liberated" its peoples. We have defended the illegal detention without trial of hundreds of people - that we know about - and been complicit in what we would judge war crimes had they been carried out by another country. There is no clear way out of the situation we find ourselves in, which is increasing the ever-present instability in the Middle East and increasing the chances of more reprisal attacks on our citizens or our soldiers. The suggestion in your editorial that Blair had no choice but to go to war is dismissed by the facts that we know of surrounding the so-called "intelligence" that took us - without parliamentary mandate and with unprecedented public opposition - into this mess of our own making which we will find it hard to extricate ourselves from.

Your editorial mentions the success of the economy as a positive legacy, but again I take issue with this. Certainly, we have neither had recession nor "boom and bust" for the last ten years, but the economy has been sustained by a combination of increased debt, for both individuals, corporations and the government itself, and the increased demand for housing that has largely funded the debt habit that the citizens of the UK have fallen victim to. The record profits of the financial institutions are witness to the price we are all paying to continue the consumerist merry-go-round of spending, debt and equity release that has funded the economy for so long. The reality behind our "buoyant economy" is that it will be paid for for generations to come with the amounts of debt held by individuals at unsustainable levels. As soon as consumer confidence is lost - which with rising inflation and interest rates, cannot be very far away - the house of cards will come tumbling down.

Finally, to the issue of public services. Yes, much has been done to improve matters, but the NHS is still top-heavy with managers, the doctors are probably more aggrieved with New Labour than they were with the Conservatives, which given the amounts of money they have been given is quite an achievement in itself. Waiting lists have improved, but by sleight-of-hand as much as by increased resources, and white elephants like the IT programme for the NHS have taken funds away from core services. As to the state of the nation's teeth - where are the NHS dentists ? Education has also received large amounts of funding, but the targets set by the government for achievement have never been met, and according to a recent survey our children are the most discontented anywhere bar the US.

Tony Blair leaves Britain with fuller prisons, higher drug and alcohol use and now the increased ability to gamble. "Great" Britain we no longer are; and the cheers of delight when he leaves office will reflect on the legacy he has left us with.

Silver Machine

2007-04-23T13:37:00.000Z

Sod it, enough of these Pink Floyd song titles...let's switch to Hawkwind instead.

Anyway...I was going to write about lots of things, but a feature on BBC News got me going back...way back in time; back to the days of squidy keyboards, weird noises like a horde of angry insects, and a wait that went on forever - back to the days of the ZX Spectrum - which is 25 years old today.

I was old enough, at 14 and 3/4s, to travel to a computer fair and be there for the launch weekend of the Spectrum. When more processing power - much, much more - is currently available on a £20 phone, it's impossible to convey the sense of excitement for a computer that could operate in colour for the low, low sum of £125 (16K version), £175 (48K version).
I took a flyer leaflet when at the computer fair. Studied it endlessly (years later I was to do the same for a Golf convertible) and scrapped together all the cash I could: wages from babysitting, my paper round and the National Savings book that swallowed (without my connivance, thanks to my mother's desire to make me save) all my birthday money. And sent off the cheque - which was soon cashed. And waited. And waited. And waited.

The adverts all mentioned 28 days delivery. This didn't happen. Like a fool, or rather like a boy with no experience of the cruel world we live in, I expected the computer within a week of sending the money off - rather like one does now. It didn't happen. Reader, I waited OVER THREE MONTHS until it came. And when it did arrive, of course one plugged it in and like any computer - nothing happened, or rather nothing happened "out of the box". There was just the on-off flash of the cursor to indicate that it was functional. I think I had one game for it - a version of Defender. Given that for each 8 x 8 pixel block it could only display two colours, and didn't have either sprites or a sound control that could be used without freezing the CPU up for the duration of the note played, games for the Spectrum were never that good to start with, until games like "Manic Miner" and "Saboteur" showed what could be done by thinking "outside the box".

And that in a nutshell was the appeal of the Spectrum - you had to get "thinking outside the box" to make anything of it - and hordes of us did. Yes, I coded on it, I even came very very close to learning machine code, but despite falling at that hurdle, it still taught me skills I use to this day, even though my programming years are behind me. It changed my life - brought me employment and the ability to understand how computers work. And it meant more to me than I think a PS2 ever will to my children's generation; simply because owning one *before* any half-decent games came out meant that an entire generation learnt to code out of sheer desperation.

So, thanks Sir Clive for changing my life - and ruining my posture and eyesight forever !

Speak to me (redux)

2007-04-11T16:54:00.000Z

Well, this is the post that should have been, yesterday, after I finally got my brain in gear and worked out what I *did* want to type about, instead of the sorry excuse for a post submitted yesterday.

In my paranoid / lucid moments, I suspect that the government are actually having some sort of private bet on how dystopian they can make the UK before they get slung out by the next lot. It would hardly take a genius to work out that you can only stay in power for 3 terms, so in the third term you might as well let rip with the really silly ideas. It's a bit like the England World Cup team in 1998, I think it was, putting in as many song titles as they could into the responses they gave journalists, e.g. "That's the name of the game, Brian" and similar. In the same fashion, this government has decided to implement as many of the social policies foretold in 1984 as possible in some sort of back-handed tribute to Orwell's genius - that really is the only way of looking at it that makes any sort of sense. Certainly, it might explain the introduction of talking CCTV cameras to Ipswich later this year.

Yes, the cameras will talk. Just as Winston Smith was admonished during the compulsory P.E. session one morning for not putting his back into it, so the citizens of this glorious town will be told off for anti-social actions by the CCTV cameras which monitor our every move.

However, the real genius stroke is that the lectures will not come from the CCTV operator - no, they will be delivered via pre-recorded message in a child's voice.

One struggles to work out either the benefit of this or the method of operation. One envisages a control room, buried somewhere in the heart of the metropolis, staffed by some poor bastard on the minimum wage. At eye-level, a bank of monitors showing the good people of Ipswich going about their business; at his fingers, the equivalent of a mini Casio keyboard, with buttons on marked "litter", "piss", "mugging" and possibly "unfashionable clothing" or "fat bastard". As the camera spots an infraction, so the CCTV operator will press the button, and a child's voice will ring out in the street. Yet again, there's a Pink Floyd reference to be made out of this - it's like the Wall "Hey, Teacher, leave that kid alone" or "You - yes, you behind the bike shed. STAND STILL LADDIE".

Who knows what the voices will say. One thing for sure is that, given that the police only arrest one person a month (or so I read somewhere the other day, God knows if it's true or not, I can't be bothered to find out), any enterprising citizen, should, when the talking cameras are installed, try and ascertain the full repertoire of the admonishments on offer. There has to be some crime which can be committed in full view of the cameras that has not been anticipated by the pre-recorded messages and so will leave it impotently crying out "stop that - it's naughty" without specifically mentioning what the crime is. Even better, maybe one of these new-fangled flash mobs could descend on the talking camera site and everyone could commit, at a pre-arranged signal, a minor but different crime, so that when the voice calls out "stop it" everyone turns to the camera and mouths "Do you mean me ?" and looks innocent.

One way or another, these devices need to be made impotent, either by their encouraging crime rather than reducing it, or by the more simple method of their being destroyed repeatedly until the are no longer installed. The technology behind spoken warnings has been around for several decades now - I can remember my father's car calling out in French various warnings about black ice and so on - but doesn't feature on modern cars for a very good reason, vis it really pisses everyone off. I predict that these cameras will have the same effect, and I for one in the sure knowledge that the police neither have my mug-shot or fingerprints on file (for now) will make a point of going down to the camera location, and taunting it repeatedly when it's installed.

Speak to me

2007-04-10T21:15:00.000Z

It's getting hard, finding apposite Pink Floyd song titles to match to blog posts, but it has to be done. So the one above refers to the nearly 2 weeks since my last post; well, that's my excuse.

Since the last post I have finished work (for now); seen the Australian Pink Floyd, who played a song from the Final Cut - and I managed not to cry. I must be hardening up, gradually. Exiled Eldest was home for Easter, Darling One went on her first holiday alone, to stay with my sister in Cassis, and that *did* make me cry. I thought of many Orwellian things to say about the government trying to establish a Ministry of Justice, and failed to put them down on the blog. It's now less than a month to my birthday, the big 4-0, and have I either learnt a song to play on guitar *or* got a killer body for it; no, I'm as musically illiterate as ever and putting on weight. I haven't had a cigarette all year though. This is good. My relationship with L goes well, although my driving puts a strain on it. Christine is still intact, and as wonderful as ever.

So, that's the update on my life.

In terms of my uninformed opinions on public affairs, I think it was an absolute disgrace that the sailors thanked the Iranian president and then came home to sell their stories. This makes me sound like Richard Littlejohn but fuck it. I can't wait for Blair to go; I can't imagine America electing either a woman or a black man as president, which could potentially mean another 4 years of Republicanism, although surely that's not going to happen, please God.

And so, that's it from me for tonight - worth waiting for - doubtless not, so why not read one of the blogs I recommend on the right of this page instead ?

See Emily Play

2007-03-27T08:44:00.000Z

It's the first full day of summertime, or at least summer time, with the streets still bathed in soft sunlight at 6:30 in the evening. There's still a slight chill, but it's perfectly comfortable being outside, and the roads are silent as I walk through this part of East Ipswich. Only one thing is missing though - where are the children ? The streets resembled Chitty Chitty Bang Bang after the child-snatcher had been to visit.

A report yesterday stated that the majority of parents won't buy their kids a bike because they are scared to let them out onto the road. This despite the fact that my street, and most of the surrounding streets, appear to be free of traffic the vast majority of the time.

So, as the nights get shorter, the weather gets warmer and we spend more time in the garden, it's unlikely that we'll hear the sound of children playing; just the sound of chairs and trousers creaking with the strain as the little ones become not-so-little in front of the PS2 - safe and secure for now, but probably crippled and / or diabetic in the future.

A saucerful of secrets

2007-03-23T10:40:00.000Z

Darling one is ill today, or rather she is not really that ill. At the moment, she is upstairs doing the classic "how much longer" shtick of childhood - I've banished her to bed until 11:30, because "if you're too ill to go to school, you can go to bed" - how cruel I am. Possibly, this cruelty will be recalled in an anonymous autobiography in a few years time, the cover showing a wide-eyed, unhappy child peering out under their fringe, the title of the book written beneath in a jagged hand - "No, Daddy, stop it" or something equally harrowing. Having just been in Tesco's - the horror, the horror - and wandered down the book aisle, it seems as if every other book is now recalling an abusive childhood.
I cannot question the desire for people to write the accounts of an unhappy childhood, if that desire is motivated by the need for "closure"; certainly there is no need to write to bring to the attention of the public the horrors of child abuse, for this is something we have been aware since before this oeuvre of confessionals became in vogue. No, the real question is why the hell would anyone want to read it ? When one reads stories that involve childhood suffering, this might be incidental to the tale being told; however these books make it absolutely clear that the abuse is not a part of the book, but the very raison d'etre of the publication. Does one need to read a graphic account of a child's pain ? What kind of person would ever buy more than one book written in that vein ? All questions without answers, but one wonders how much more detailed and prurient - if that's an appropriate word to use - these accounts are going to have to get in future to be published; and when the first book will be published by an abuser, rather than a victim. NB if such a book has been published - and nothing would surprise me - I'd really rather not know.

Take Up Thy Stethoscope and Walk

2007-03-21T19:14:00.000Z

Poor old cannabis. What a bad, what a dreadfully bad press it's getting. Within the past fortnight, there have been two front-page articles (in the Guardian and the Independent) both damning the drug, with the Indy re-canting their 1997 call for legalisation.

So, what's changed ? Lots of reports - note, reports, not hard data - about the increasing numbers of people, mainly young people, with mental health problems directly relating to cannabis use. Well, "allegedly" relating to cannabis use. A professor claims that 25,000 people have been turned schizophrenics by using cannabis. All of this is apparently down to the use of "skunk", cannabis high in THC content which is rotting young minds. Additionally, the price of cannabis is down to £43/ounce, encouraging its use.

Hmmm. Here's my viewpoint:

(a) Cannabis is a Bad Thing. It's true, getting stoned is bad for you - if you do it all the time. In that way, it's like anything else. And I'm sure that if all you did, day in, day out, was smoke weed, then you would get fairly fucked up fairly quickly. However, you can substitute virtually anything for "smoke weed" in that last sentence and the same would apply. There's nothing, not even water, which if taken to excess doesn't have the capacity to cause you harm;

(b) Skunk was around at the time of the Independent's pro-cannabis editorial, so they are being coy, to say that least, to claim that the preponderance of skunk has lead to the reversal of their opinion. However, skunk is not as all-pervasive as they make out - neither is the price of skunk the £43 / ounce quoted. I live not 10 miles away from the largest port in the country; and not that far from London. Dope should be really cheap around here. Actually, I'll end up paying around £140 / ounce at the moment. Sure, you can buy cannabis for much less, but this is "soap" - resin that's generally been cut, not something I choose to smoke. "Green" cannabis like skunk has always cost more. Guess which type of cannabis young people generally smoke - yes, the cheapest - soap or other forms of resin.

(c) There is always an associated danger with cannabis. For years, it was that cannabis was a "Gateway" drug - start smoking it, and you'd end up on heroin. That was the angle taken when I was young, and it's obviously bollocks. Now, terms which would have been laughed at, like "cannabis addiction" are being bandied round like no tomorrow. There's no such thing as cannabis addiction, and this has been proved time after time after time - not in terms of addictions to other drugs such as cocaine, heroin and alcohol, not forgetting of course nicotine. However, young people's "addiction" to cannabis is causing them mental problems. This is the current anti-cannabis propaganda. More likely, smoking cigarettes is not as "cool", thankfully, as it was, but smoking joints is - so kids are probably on 20 joints a day, which admittedly isn't going to do them any good.

(d) Where is the non-anecdotal evidence to support all these claims ? There will always be parents who, sadly, report accounts that their Jonny or Judith has "lost their life" due to cannabis. Of course, this is not a medical diagnosis. Their child has developed mental problems in their late teens, which is sadly not an unusual occurrence. Cannabis is blamed - because of course, mental illness is so upsetting that it had to be preventable and there had to be a cause. Given the fact that 80% of kids must smoke cannabis at some time in their teens, UNLESS THERE IS A DIAGNOSED LINK BETWEEN THEIR CHILD SMOKING CANNABIS AND THEM GOING MAD, IT'S JUST CO-INCIDENTAL. Sorry to shout there; but you might as well blame it on them having one too many WKDs one night; or drinking coffee; or having sex. Why isn't this cannabis-related mental illness occurring everywhere else ?

Because - it isn't. This report here is from Holland and denies such a link. Neither does this report.

So, once again the weed is derided. Sure, it's not a great thing for people to take before 18. Sure, smoking it all day will probably fuck you up. But when you compare it to the damage done by alcohol, it still - and will always, no matter how strong the cannabis, no matter how widespread the usage - is probably the most benign drug going.

On the turning away

2007-03-17T10:17:00.000Z

An interesting week. Last week my boss announced he was leaving the project, this week two other key members of the team did likewise. I had been offered a contract renewal until the end of May - a 2 month extension - on the grounds that I was going to get a further extension thereafter. However, a verbal promise is not worth the paper etc etc and if the person who made that promise was no longer around...then well, it was time to be off. So, I rejected the extension - now, that's a first - and after 6 months (shortest contract ever) will find myself at the end of this month unemployed.

Oh well, it was fun while it lasted and so on and so forth. Time to move on though - possibly away from this one employer I've been with since 1999. Big steps maybe - but in reality, chances are I will stay there because it's just so convenient; just find another post somewhere else within this large organisation.

And even though this news affects me really not at all, and even though I'm very happy at the moment, I put on "The Final Cut" as I type this and try and resist the temptation to weep. What a drama queen I am. Why ? Why ? Why ?

Sheep

2007-03-09T22:47:00.000Z

Sometimes, it's very depressing to read the 'Most Recommended' comments in the "Your say" section of the BBC News website. Sometimes it isn't - as per the calls to legalise all drugs earlier in the week on the site - but today's question, about should murderers have shorter sentences (now, I always thought that was spelt sentance when talking about a jail term, but apparently not. Strange. I've been wrong all these years - again !!!) brought forth a predictable tirade of comments saying yes, the sentences should be a lot shorter, and should be terminated by the prisoner's execution. These were the most popular on the site by some factor.

Ignoring the many reported cases of wrongful execution, the concept that punishment works as a deterrent is really, really stupid. The more stupid - whether congenitally or by choice - someone is, the less likely they are to think about the consequences of their actions. Take my driving, for example. In Christine, I regularly drive way, way over the speed limit. That's my choice, but it's partly motivated by the fact that I am aware that there are consequences, I just don't think they will apply to me. That is, of course, my stupidity. And I'm meant to be clever - well, you can be both clever and dumb, and I'll plead guilty to that combination.

It's not as if when capital punishment did exist - and for many more crimes than simply murder - it stopped people offending. After some digging on the Internet, I've managed to find data which backs up something I've said many times in the past - that the "upstanding" Victorians (as well as banging tarts something rotten, as per the "French Lieutenant's Woman") were more likely to commit murder than we are. The figures can be found here but for those of you not bothered to look them up, the figures per million of the population were 17 in 1860 and 14 in 1997 (the latest figures I could find, not on the website linked to).

So, capital punishment does not act as a deterrent. But this is hardly news - this quote is taken from the wonderful "Utopia" by Sir Thomas More:

"One day, when I was dining with him, there happened to be at table one of the English lawyers, who took occasion to run out in a high commendation of the severe execution of justice upon thieves, ‘who,’ as he said, ‘were then hanged so fast that there were sometimes twenty on one gibbet!’ and, upon that, he said, ‘he could not wonder enough how it came to pass that, since so few escaped, there were yet so many thieves left, who were still robbing in all places.’

Upon this, I (who took the boldness to speak freely before the Cardinal) said, ‘There was no reason to wonder at the matter, since this way of punishing thieves was neither just in itself nor good for the public; for, as the severity was too great, so the remedy was not effectual; simple theft not being so great a crime that it ought to cost a man his life; no punishment, how severe soever, being able to restrain those from robbing who can find out no other way of livelihood. In this,’ said I, ‘not only you in England, but a great part of the world, imitate some ill masters, that are readier to chastise their scholars than to teach them. There are dreadful punishments enacted against thieves, but it were much better to make such good provisions by which every man might be put in a method how to live, and so be preserved from the fatal necessity of stealing and of dying for it.’ "

Still, there will always be sheep who are happy to bleat out the same lines that somehow by hanging murderers, flogging robbers and putting all our teenagers into National Service, things will get better. I was reading "Inside Out" by Nick Mason of Pink Floyd today, who remembered that back in the 60s when they were first playing at ballroom venues up and down the country, there would be a rain of broken glass coming from "dancers" who were basically there for a good old scrap. Makes the antics of Begbie in "Trainspotting" look quite placid really. Just think, all those young people back then are the same pensioners now - or near enough - who are bitterly complaining about the amount of drunken brawls going on on a Saturday night.

Truly, nothing changes, apart from each generation gets old and starts complaining about behaviour which they themselves carried out, and start seeking for draconian solutions that they feel will somehow solve an insoluble problem; namely that as well as being sheep, people can be dogs, wolves, rats and most of all human - nasty, violent and not disposed to consider the consequences of their actions, no matter how dire those consequences might be.

Interstellar Overdrive

2007-03-08T11:25:00.000Z

As promised, my post about Iain (M) Banks and the disposal of his fleet of cars.

Years ago, Iain Banks was one of my favourite writers - he was so good that I even read, and enjoyed, his science fiction books which he wrote under the name of Iain M Banks. In recent years however his output has decreased - in my view - in its quality, so much so that the last book he wrote (as Iain Banks) "Dead Air" was almost unreadable. No, that's not quite true, it was readable, it just wasn't very good at all. When Banks' narratives included frequent references to drugs, pop music, left-wing politics and sex in earlier works like "Complicity" and "The Crow Road" it was fine as it felt edgy, modern, relevant and added to the story. "Dead Air" just felt formulaic . As one reviewer on Amazon put it: "This book doesn't really go anywhere. It starts with a radio shock-jock drinking, taking drugs and shagging around and ends with a radio shock-jock drinking, taking drugs and shagging around".

Anyway, Iain Banks has a new book out "The Steep Approach to Garbadale". And co-incidentally, just as the book is published, he rushes to tell us all how he has gone green. An extract from a "Times" article tells us:

"Since 2000, Banks has lavished more than £150,000 on cars, including expensive upgrades. His fleet included a bottle green 3.2 litre Porsche Boxster and a burgundy 911 Turbo with a top speed of about 190mph. He also had a 3.8 litre Mark II Jaguar, similar to the type driven by the television detective Inspector Morse, and a 5 litre black BMW. Banks’s “work-horse” vehicle was a diesel Land Rover Defender whose power he had boosted by about 50%"

He has now apparently sold the lot and bought a Lexus Hybrid (which still only does <30mpg). And somehow, this is going green ?!?

Consider:

a) he is one man, who could not have possibly driven all the cars he owned at the same time. If you have 5 cars, but only use one at a time, then the carbon damage done is not nearly as bad as then selling those 5 cars, which will then presumably be bought by 5 different people, who will then use them to pollute the environment. Better, surely, to keep them and convert them to run on LPG (you use less fuel) or bioethanol.
b) Buying a hybrid car does not save the environment. The production of the exceptionally complex battery and electrical systems required by the car is an ecological nightmare in itself, consuming much more carbon than is "saved" by the car occasionally not using petrol for propulsion. Banks lives in the countryside in Scotland, and so will typically be doing long drives where the electrically-powered element of the car will be going nothing but recharging. Only in town traffic is a hybrid "green".

So, it was disappointing to see the "sacrifice" hailed as anything meaningful. Or more than a PR stunt to gain interest in the publication of his next book. Sadly, I fear we are due many more incidents of Banks-like thinking emerging from the celebrity world as everyone tries to become "greener than thou" without actually having the impact of their actions analysed for any positive effect.

Coming back to life

2007-03-05T18:06:00.000Z

In an analogy I have employed far too often, life is like a series of spinning plates - you rush around from one to the other, correcting here, compensating there. Some plates spin fast due to your constant touch, so need little attention (even though they are the ones you spend most time on) - others teeter from side to side, wobbling alarmingly as you become distracted elsewhere.

Work has been a plate I have let wobble, as much as I can, for a little while now. Not long, in fact, but long enough. I'm skilled in the ability to know exactly how much is enough, and that's what I've been doing for a while now. However today I got a major piece of work finished, one that had been bugging me for days, and then attended a meeting where - thanks to feeling a little bit better about work as a result of having done something for once - turned on a little bit of the "old me", the person who is, actually, some of the time, pretty good at what he does. After several minutes of speaking, I stopped, and then listened as my colleagues told me how good my plan - which I had extemporised as I was talking - was.

Wow. Big deal. Look at me, the cleverest kid in the class with my hand in the air.

Anyway, it felt good to be back. All I have to do now is keep that level of ability up for the next 4 months, and the project might just get / keep on track. I just hope the other plates currently spinning don't suffer as a result.

Welcome to the Machine

2007-02-28T13:57:00.000Z

I was going to blog about Iain (M) Banks and his ridiculous disposal of his fleet of cars, but that will come later. Bet you can't wait...instead, I'm blogging about those bastards at Microsoft.

Yes, I use Microsoft software. I'm sort-of impressed that L manages to get by without using any more than the OS, using Open Office instead of MS Office, but as my PC is used for work more than anything else (are you listening, Mr Taxman ?) I have to have MS software on it; which is why, by dint of using the Microsoft Partner scheme, for a measly £200 / year I get all the MS software delivered to me as it is released; well, all bar the games.

So, although I had Vista on launch day, I didn't install; but what I *did* do was install Office 2007. Because it looked really good; the first major overhaul of Office for a very long time, and it's a good piece of software...or so it would seem.

Two things really irritate me right now. One is minor, one is bloody major.

The minor one is that text formatting - specifically turning the colour of the text red - in Project 2007 isn't kept when saving the document in 2003 format. Why, one asks, when it's such a simple thing to want to do. That's just really pants.

The major one is that installing Office 2007 knackers your Outlook Express dictionary. It's turned mine French, honest. And according to Microsoft - tough.

So, they release a new, and good, version of Office, but if you are still using Outlook Express, it will knacker your spell-checker - which is after all quite a useful thing to have on your e-mail software. It's actually quite hilarious to read their account of this which can be found here:

SUMMARY
If you install the 2007 Microsoft Office system, you no longer have spell checking capabilities in some languages when you use Outlook Express 6.0.
MORE INFORMATION
When you upgrade earlier versions of Office to the 2007 Office system, the old spelling checker files are removed for some languages. These files are replaced with newer versions that are included in the 2007 Office system. The new files are incompatible with Outlook Express.

There are a variety of third-party free spell-checking programs available on the Internet. You can learn about available programs by visiting the Microsoft Communities site. This site lets you obtain advice from other users and from Microsoft Most Valuable Professionals (MVPs).

In English, that means:

- we fucked up;
- we can't fix it;
- go onto a forum if you want a work-around, because frankly we won't or can't find one.

Way to go, Microsoft. At least I'm only paying £200 / annum to use your software - pity those people who actually pay the going rate for code which obviously hasn't gone near a proper QA process

Wish you were here

2007-02-26T10:24:00.000Z

Another weekend gone, consigned to the inaccuracies of memory...on Friday, there was a small party here, or gathering, whatever one wants to call it...anyway, to have four singer / songwriters in the room at once was to say the least rather wonderful. A splendid time was guaranteed for all, we went to bed at 2 whilst there were still two people playing downstairs, the Volcano got everyone blasted with 2 joint's worth of gear, so *that's* a great purchase...it's all good.

Might I commend to my readers several songs from the night:

http://www.myspace.com/litmus99 - just listen to the track "Badger" and tell me that your heart isn't lost to this wonderful, wonderful tune...

http://www.myspace.com/hayzeuk - "Make back time" - this band are really 'taking it to the next level'.

So everyone who wasn't here on Friday - wish you were - but both bands are appearing at my birthday party, so be there !

Brain damage

2007-02-21T11:51:00.000Z

Well, my excuse is that throughout much of the globe, yesterday was Carnival. This justified having some friends over, having a meal, hearing some very good news, and getting drunk and Volcano'd. I still managed to cook an OK-ish meal though despite being pixellated when it was time to cook the pancakes, which in true show-off style I flambéed.

In fact, I think it's time I started using some recipe books and tried to "take my cooking to the next level". I really enjoy cooking, I've decided, and it makes other people happy as well. To have my cooking praised makes me go pink with pleasure. I don't fish for compliments, I just really enjoy the whole planning / shopping / providing thing. So I'll be a bit more adventurous I think - my problem is I tend to find or make up certain recipes and then add them to my limited repertoire. I do want to learn to cook more veggie food - I'm still not happy about cooking with meat most of the time, although fish is OK.

I just wish now I didn't feel as bad as I do thanks to the excesses (relative) of the night before. It really does feel as if my brain / body interface is somewhat fractured - somehow the instructions are getting through from the brain to the fingers to enable me to type, but it's touch-and-go stuff. And tomorrow night Eric, my brother, comes to stay. Life is full of pleasure, but it's hard on my body sometimes ! Still, like Radiohead said "you do it to yourself, you do" and I can't argue with that...

However, life is also very very happy right now. Introducing L to people seems easy, we seem very well matched and last night it was so pleasing to hear, as I was cooking away in the kitchen, the sounds of contented laughter coming from the dining room. Love, laughter, friends, food, wine and music...it might not have been Carnival, but it was good enough for me...

Sorrow

2007-02-17T20:47:00.000Z

A good day today, a lovely walk in the sunshine with a friend, and then on my own, 10 miles or more covered and my body feeling it this evening. Some painting done, but not enough. All is well.

Why then tonight's depression ? Reading the biography of Dirk Bogarde probably doesn't help. It's a good read, about an actor who I know from his books, not his films, whose autobiographies have been read by my family for years. However, I'm at this bit where his partner, Tony Forwood, has just died. They were together for 40 years; and I realise, now, at nearly 40 myself, that I will never have a relationship that lasts that long - that my history is fragmented, and from the ages of 19-27 largely missing. I'm happy with life but somehow I want to start over again with the knowledge I have now. This way of living; this inability to hold onto the past, to constantly be moving and changing and evolving - is very good in many ways, but it places my past beyond reach. Sometimes I forget who I was, and I have no-one to remind me, or so it seems. I fear the loss of the past, I fear loss, I fear loss. I want to build a history with L, but such things take time, and ultimately we both have a lot of past which we can never fully share or comprehend, as it took place without the other. Sometimes, like now, I realise that no-one fully knows me, there has been no-one there who has seen all of it, or even seen all of my adult life. Self-pitying crap - there are many worse things to worry about it, and I don't worry about it; sorry dear reader, tonight's entry is for my benefit, not yours. I don't worry about it, but I'm just aware. I won't get to dance the anniversary waltz; I won't be able to sing "We've been together now for 40 years and it don't seem a day too long" or however it goes; my past is left behind me and there's no-one there to pick it up. O tempores ! O mores ! O tempores !

And then one day you find
Ten years have got behind you
No-one told you when to run
You missed the starting gun

I haven't missed the signal to start running - I've done well in the human race, more by luck than through any effort on my behalf. But I have missed the presence of the spectator in the stands, the person who can tell me how I ran and where I was going to. My fault, my fault, mea culpa, mea maxima culpa. I am where I am because I want to be here. But sometimes, there's a sorrow - in knowing that despite the numerous kith and kin, friends and family, ultimately, ultimately, there's just me, a me I sometimes fail to recognise, who's growing old and losing the recollection of what was left behind.

In the Flesh ?

2007-02-16T09:31:00.000Z

Another crisis, another pop concert. It's been announced this morning that "Live Earth" concerts will be held across the world to remind us that basically the planet's fucked, it's our fault, and our children will grow up in a world devoid of resources because guess what - we and our parents have had the lot. Sorry kids, but our jet-set lifestyle and rampant consumerism means that you won't be going ski-ing, and you'll probably go swimming in Ipswich-on-Sea come 2040. But there we go - at least in 2007 we held a pop concert to change things.

I had my doubts about Live 8 at the time, as per my blog report on the day (can't be arsed to find the hyperlink) and yes, one wonders what it achieved However, even Live 8 had a better chance of success than Live Earth. Examine it - it will involve musicians being flown around the world to perform, it will involve people travelling to the gig using some form of carbon-emitting transportation, and will be watched by the millions on their TVs. Yes, I can see how the energy spent on producing and then viewing the concerts will be justified...

Only when we are rationed to produce and consume less - by having, say, the shops close every other day, or even better limited to the goods they can sell so that we can't get strawberries all year round, or be faced by 100 different types of coffee - will any difference be made to the situation. And this needs to happen worldwide, and happen yesterday. And it won't, not until it is way way way too late.

So, let's dance while the planet starts literally burning up. Let's hold concerts, and wash our hands, and pretend to be concerned, whilst we shop and fly and take take take out of the mouths of generations to come.

And yes, my guilt is as big as anyone's, if not more. But apart from going carbon-neutral, I'm doing jack shit else because, really, the horse has bolted, the die is cast and whatever we do now is too little, too late. So I'm going to carry on dancing, but just keep my eyes cast down, for fear of what I'll find if I look ahead.

Welcome to the machine

2007-02-15T21:59:00.000Z

To Fleet, in Hampshire, for a meeting. Words spoken at meeting divided by time taken to travel to meeting and back = 1 word per 20 minutes of travel. I am asked to the meeting not to contribute, but to act as some sort of deterrent against non-delivery by the various teams of coders working on the programme I help manage. Somehow, the design teams have got it into their head that by having me attend meetings or calls, the coders come into line and play ball; I am the ju-ju they need to obtain acquiescence to their plans. So I sit at the front of the meeting, typing furiously and paying less than one-tenth attention to the world around me, apart from lifting my head from time to time like a retired gun dog at the backfiring of an exhaust when I seem to gather that all is not well, or casting a baleful eye at any attendees who start private conversations whilst being the gathering is being addressed by one of the delegates.

The car I hired to get to the meeting had built-in SatNav, and not only that, but it got traffic updates as well - so when it told me to go off the M25 and I ignored it, I wasn't sure if I detected an air of smugness when 2 minutes later it warned me "stationary traffic ahead". Its utterances became quite philosophical - "Keep to the route planned" and "Stay on the main road" seemed like admonitions to get my life in order rather than simple driving instructions. However, it did at one point get the route wrong, and at another point advise me to do a manoeuvre which even I with my virtually complete disregard for the rules of the road felt was unsafe and possibly terminal. Still, together we made it home, and somehow I have to feel that the day was well spent, even if in reality after the last few weeks, and with L ski-ing at present, my life seems very quiet right now...which of course, won't last...I'll see to that.

Set the controls for the heart of the sun...

2007-02-14T09:19:00.000Z

My new toy - a vapouriser - arrived yesterday. You can I imagine guess what it is used for.

It works. My God, it works. It takes 5 minutes to heat up, and then the balloon fills up with wonderful THC straight from the herb, no combustion involved. I inhaled half the bag - and within 5 minutes was laughing like a loon. According to the forums I have read, one joint's worth of herb can be used for 5-7 bags. So, it saves money in the end...although the main benefit for me was that I didn't feel at all like smoking afterwards, as the inhalation method is not like smoking at all, so the same habitual processes that make joint smoking lead (for me) to normal smoking haven't come into play.

So, my house is now officially a non-smoking house. Guests are welcome to use the Volcano, as the vapouriser is called, but for anything else - outside. This might be the thing that keeps me a non-smoker, in fact I think it will be. 6 weeks now and it's all OK...fingers crossed, fingers crossed.

Up with the kids

2007-02-12T13:05:00.000Z

Well, Exiled Eldest and boyfriend turned up on Saturday, and together with Darling One and L we had a lovely evening - the cards came out, there was lots of laughter (OK, there was some sulking before L's arrival, but I managed to deal with it) and happiness. It's been a while since there's been a family evening like it, to be honest, what with E.E. not coming here at Christmas, and it was great fun, with L taking to the kids and vice versa.

So, a change of heart from my last post. As proved by this "which retro video game character would you be" result which I commend to my readers:

I am a Light Cycle.

I drive fast, I turn fast, I do everything fast. I even breakfast. I tend to confuse people with my sudden changes of heart. Sometimes I even confuse myself, which tends to cause problems. What Video Game Character Are You?

Down with the kids

2007-02-09T22:53:00.000Z

I shouldn't be posting now - I'm tired, beyond tired in fact, so my faculties aren't what they should be and I'm going to be in a grouch mood anyway.

I love my children, God knows, and as I don't live with them, I have no right at all to complain about them and their behaviour. Anyway, here goes.

Exiled Eldest was due to come and stay tonight - so I get in plenty of fatted calf (WKD Blue and Walker's "Sensations" crisps) and re-organise my weekend accordingly. She only asked if she could come over last Sunday, so I did have to re-arrange things, which was fine; well, actually at the time no, it wasn't fine, but there we go. She has to come first. And she hasn't showed up here - again. This happens maybe every other time she arranges to come and stay here.

Meanwhile, Darling One is getting ever more truculent when she hears the word "no". She wanted a swig of Red Bull tonight (which I was drinking to stay conscious) and when I said "no", just ignored me and went for the can anyway. I hate the fact I argue with her more and more nowadays, even though I understand that in its own way, it's as much a part of her development as me teaching her to swim or ride a bike. It's just now both children are in that "awkward" stage (by which one means - not beholden, grateful, respectful or considerate); one child entering it, the other leaving it. Both unable to really appreciate much beyond their own emotional requirements (but there again, who else can ?). Both adorable when they want to be, but also capable of delivering some low punches as and when they feel like it.

I wonder how they'll view me in say 15 year's time, when they are both women. My money is with a healthy disrespect, and a good dose of love attached. They will still be able to wrap me around their little finger, and still probably be competitive between themselves, although I hope not. My wish is really that they become close to each other and leave the rivalry behind, but they will both have to solve their own issues first. If they unite against me in some Learite plot, their unity would be more important to me than the consequence of any action - which I don't fear, as I know they both love me dearly.

So, instead of a house full of fun and family, I have Darling One reading Terry Pratchett in bed, whilst I decorate downstairs for an hour or so. No matter what they do or say to me, I'll always miss them - I can never, never stay down with my kids for long at all. I need them so.

Back home

2007-02-06T12:41:00.000Z

Well, I'm back. The first leg of the flight home was a nightmare; not only was I hung over, which in the heat and humidity wasn't the best idea, but the flight out of Dominica to Antigua was over an hour late. Then, I had to fill in about 3 forms in Antigua airport as my luggage couldn't be checked in at Dominica to go all the way through to Gatwick - I had to pick it up, and re-check it in at the Virgin desk. I made the flight with about 10 minutes to go before it closed; but this was to my advantage; the flight was full with one exception - the seat next to me.

I didn't manage to sleep on the flight back, and so drove to my mother's and had a quick nap there - then back in the car to drive for a family lunch with Exiled Eldest, who is now 19 ! It was a lovely, happy meal, and afterwards I drove back to home, then round for a meal with L, who I had missed so much over the previous week...so despite the cold, the resumption of work and the lack of sunlight, it's good to be back.

Et in Arcadia Ego

2007-02-01T20:40:00.000Z

I've experienced so much since my last post that to do everything justice would require me to be chained to this keyboard for the next 2 hours, so it will have to be edited highlights only.

On Tuesday I started the day with the same 5.5 mile walk I had done the previous day, this time not stopping the entire time and doing it in a shade under 1 hour 20; an incredible start to the day, the exhilaration of being able to force my body to the max. Then, in the afternoon, Steve took me scuba diving for the first time in my life.

I saw a turtle; I saw a spotted Eagle Ray which glided through the water; I swam in schools of fish 40ft beneath the ocean floor; I loved it, I loved it, I was lost in awe and wonder; then afterwards to a beach bar, listening to Steve who's had a varied and interesting life, drinking beer as the sun went down.

Yesterday the three of us together with Augustin, an incredibly knowledgeable Rasta guide, hiked through the rainforest for nearly 6 hours, again the only people on the trail, which was a little-known one. I don't have the linguistic gifts to put it into words; wading through a mountain river waist deep, the canopy of green that was almost constant save for the frequent streams we crossed, the beauty all around, the purity of the air. I hardly took any photos, because how can you do it justice ? Augustin was such a good guide; a Rasta, as opposed to a Dread, has a passionate belief in an "Ital" existence - an organic vegetarian diet, knowledge of the symbiosis within nature, which we are a part of - and he spoke lucidly and passionately about an eco-system he clearly loved.

When we came home, although I was tired, I ended up dancing on the verandah to my MP3 player, I was feeling so alive. Then the three of us went to Screws - on the way there, Steve said that Screws was one of his top 10 favourite locations on the island, and I soon saw why. Similarly to St Lucia, there's a strong sulpher smell on many parts of the island, and on the hike you could see the brown tide-marks on the rocks in many of the streams we crossed. At Screws , there are hot springs that feed into 4 pools - and again, we had the place to ourselves so could stay in the largest, and hottest, pool, which must have been 10 metres by 3 metres at least (dear reader, I'm using metric measurements - unheard of for me, am I getting old ?).

I leave it to you to try and imagine what it's like, holding a rum punch in one hand, to walk into what feels like every child's dream (and this adult's) - a bath big enough to swim in. It was incredible, soothed the muscles used on that day's hike, and even though I was cooking like a lobster, I didn't want to get out.

But eventually we did stumble out, I was given a complimentary second rum punch just for paying the bill by the genial owner, who I really had to work on to take my money (and he comp'd us the drinks) and then we went to eat at a roadside restaurant, where I had a wonderful Shrimp Creole, and then back into Roseau.

Since Carnival opened (although real Carnival isn't of course until the Monday / Tuesday before Lent, in several week's time) there has been some sort of free music going on at the dockside in Roseau every night. We arrived at 7:45, as a steel band were playing, and it's no exaggeration to say that the three of us were the only audience, so of course my clapping at the end of every number sounded almost worse than no applause at all - but gradually people came along, and by the time the band finished - and my God, they were excellent - there were maybe 150 people in the crowd.

All day, a song I had heard at the weekend had been going through my head: "Let There Be Light", a calypso number by the current King of Calypso, Dice. The song is not based on Genesis, but instead castigates the local power company for their pricing policies; and lo and behold, Dice came on stage and played it. The music was great, I had a beer in my hand - it was (yet again) the perfect end to a perfect, perfect day.

Paradise Found

2007-01-30T13:50:00.000Z

I continue to have a wonderful time in Dominica...

After the incredibly full-on first day here, Sunday was more restrained. We went for a short walk on a little-frequented trail with Simon, a friend of my hosts, who was celebrating 20 years on the island - he'd arrived here as a VSO volunteer at 26, thinking he was only staying for 2 years. I can see why he changed his plans ! His house has a large verandah on two sides, with a hammock where Simon can work, given he has ADSL and wireless. Hummingbirds populate the garden - click the picture above for a bigger image of one.

After the hike, there was a small party to celebrate his 20 years on the island. Mostly attended by ex-pats, the conversation was lively, amusing, enlightening. These are the people who made their dreams happen; who have managed to escape - and there was much laughter and talk as the night fell.

On Monday, I started the day hungover and so did a 5.5 mile walk in the early morning - I'm waking up at 5 every day - in penance. The weather here is amazing - not a drop of rain so far and it's a very wet island - and by the time my walk was finishing - with a 1.5 mile walk uphill back to the house - it was already in the 80s. Squeels and I went shopping in town later in the morning - and as always, I pick the most expensive things to buy without even realising it. 3 cartons of V8 juice at £5 a carton. A bottle of rum here is, by the way £3. Home for a lunch of avocado on toast, and then out to the beach. The first beach we went to was completely deserted; OK the sand is volcanic black, rather than coral white, but what the hell - the water is 27C here, the waves imperceptible, I floated under a hot sky in perfect peace and contentment - and did quite a bit of swimming as well, swimming maybe 0.25 miles out, happy, happy, happy.

We then drove to a snorkelling location where just yards from shore was a coral reef, where maybe 30 different types of fish, some sparkling blue, wandered and fed just out of reach. It was incredible, and we spent some time just gazing down onto the ocean floor with the profusion of life beneath us. I followed a large fish (comparatively - it was probably about a foot long) as it darted and meandered as the mood took it, completely captivated. And again, no-one else was there the entire time we were. It was completely magical; and rounded off afterwards by rum punch at a beach-side cafe as the sun completed its quick descent into the sea.

I am having the holiday of a lifetime - but I will, I will return.

Wired to the max

2007-01-28T12:12:00.000Z

Yesterday was one of the best days of my life.

I'm here in Dominica visiting my friend Squeels and her husband; I arrived here on Friday evening.

I woke up early - very early - yesterday morning, and when it started to get light I got out of bed, showered and dressed and stood on the balcony to greet the dawn, listening to the Beloved "Sun Rising"; to my right, the town sloping down to the sea, to my left the green pitons. Despite not having slept much (although I seem to be getting used to that) I felt so alive - so I quietly left the house at 7am and walked down into Roseau, the capital, with the aim of getting to the sea.

The walk was all downhill - being a volcanic island, almost every walk in Dominica is up or downhill. As I got closer to Roseau, I started seeing people; young lads off to football practise, people making the opposite journey to me and trudging uphill to work. Cars would trundle by - I'm still not really sure what side of the road people drive on here - many of them with visor strips along the top of the windscreen with 70's style "Daz and Sharon" names plastered on them. In the town I quickly located the market - people selling the produce they had grown, bananas and unidentifiable bunches of greenery; women waving clothes to keep the flies off the huge hunks of fish, tuna or marlin, that the men were cutting up with long cutlass-style blades. Passing through the market, I got as close to the sea as I could, sitting on the dock of the bay, passing time, feeling the sun on me like a blanket as I stared out over the wide Sargasso sea. OK, it might not have been the Sargasso, but Jean Rhys who wrote that book had lived in Roseau (pronounced Rose-O) so forgive me the dramatic touch.

I turned round and made for home, which of course was quite a slog uphill. I normally lack the courage to go out exploring, as I'm so good at getting lost, but I found my way back without any problems and felt quite proud at walking the entire way back without needing to stop, as it really was quite a steep unrelenting climb. Certainly when I got back Squeels and Steve, her husband, were surprised - they hadn't seen my note and assumed that I was still asleep - and even more surprised that I done the walk I had.

An hour later after a light breakfast Squeels and I set off for the day, leaving Steve behind, as he is finishing his first draft of a travel book on the island; how lucky is it to be staying with hosts who are not only kind and attentive and relaxed but also so knowledgable about where they live.

Our first destination was Middleham Falls. I can't tell how wonderful it felt, already charged up after a brisk start to the day, to be sitting in the car, windows down, sun blazing, driving up and down through the sparsely-habited island. Considering this time of year is meant to be peak season for tourists, there was nobody around; ours was the only car in the car park, and we saw no-one else on the 35 minute walk to the falls, only an Irish couple who were on the observation platform in front of the waterfall who left shortly after we got there. The walk was, of course, very up and down, mostly up, and I just ran up most of the steps, the sheer exuberance of being on holiday, of being estatically happy with life and being completely in the moment making me feel like a young child.

The waterfall was worth the journey - 150 foot drop into a large pool, a rainbox ever-present in the mist as the water thundered down.

Squeels had told me to pack my costume, but what I wasn't expecting that it was so we could swim in the pool itself at the foot of the waterfall. I was fairly hot and sticky, having got there so quickly thanks to my goat-like leaps up and down the wooden sleepers that made up the path, and on arrival at the waterfall had wondered whether it was possible to swim the pool - so to be told that's what we were going to do was fantastic, especially as I had never done that before.

I thought it was going to be so much colder than it was, but it was just pure refreshment rather than any sort of physical challenge. I swam as close to the waterfall as I dared, given the strong currents that were obviously in place, and got within less than 10 foot of the base of it. I almost didn't want to get out, the smile on my face must have let in several pints of water. It wasn't even 11am and my day was just perfect, incredible. Both of us were shouting in exuberance - I was calling out "I'm alive, I'm alive" in jubilation.

After walking back to the car - crossing a stream by precariously jumping from stone to stone and managing not to fall in - we then drove to Fresh Water Lake, where we bought a sandwich - again the place was virtuallu deserted, one other table occupied by a family whose mother / grandmother let out the most enormous roar of laughter at one point that echoed round the site. After we finished eating, the manager of the site first tried to persuade us to take a romantic boat ride round the lake ("Dere is a spot you can go where no-one can see you - is called 'Inquisitive Bay' as people try and look in and say 'what's going on in dere'") and then drink a substance called "East West" which in the course of a frankly unbelievable but very entertaining talk was revealed to be an afrodisiac of positively mythic status. We explained that no, we were just good friends, and then left to walk round the lake. I had expected a lake side walk to be on the flat, but no, this is Dominica, and we did some incredible climbing round the steep hills at the side of the lake, and I saw my first hummingbird. There is only one word you can use for the sight, and it is "irridescent" because the colour was so vivid as to be unnatural - why one wonders ? They are also incredibly small, three inches maybe, so at first glance I thought it was a butterfly, until it started at muy presence and flew rapidly away.

On the walk, it was possible to see the sea on both sides - the island at that point is less than 7 miles wide - and the vegetation on the surrounding hills was so lush and prolific that not an inch of ground could be seen anywhere, just trees, ferns, fronds and palm leaves. Delicate purple flowers were either side of the path, and red and yellow flowers like firecrackers glowed through the greenswade. Again, I charged up the hillside taking steps two at a time, laughing and sweaty and alive, so so alive.

Finally, we drove to Trafalgar Falls, where the tourists go when a cruise ship is on the island, as it is a much shorter walk - 10 minutes - to see two waterfalls side by side. The park warden was surprised when Squeels told him what we'd already done that day, but the weather was so unprecendently favourable - Squeels had never see Fresh Water Lake so clear, normally it was surrounded by low cloud giving it the appearance of a Scottish loch - that we had to make the most of it. On the way to the waterfall, we passed a warm stream where the rocks had been turned brown at the water's edge thanks to the sulpher contained in the water.

After the Falls, we decided it was time for a drink, and stopped off at a roadside bar - again, deserted - for a rum punch. Bang ! Squeels, who was driving, gave me most of hers and I was basically - having not really eaten much all day and my God having worked off that which I had eaten - clattered by the time we left. The barman closed up as we went and got a lift with us back to Roseau; after dropping him off we went home, I showered, had several slices of toast to try and sober up a little, before all of us - Steve having stopped work for the day - went into Roseau for the pre-carnival procession.

It was basically a rehearsal for Carnival itself, and all I can say about the evening is if that is how they rehearse, the carnival itself must be incredible. Because they had been going for four hours before they passed the spot where we were standing - just before the end of the route - some of the younger participants were visibly wilting, but when the huge trailer featuring the local "pop" group WCK who play a style of repetitive but effective "bouyon" the crowd - and I - were jumping. The trailer was so tall, the people at the top of it had to manoeuvre the phone lines that hung across the street over their heads as it inched down the road.

When the procession finished - and several beers later - we went to the outside of the local stadium, where inside the Prime Minister was giving an address that was thankfully inaudible. We bought some barbequed chicken and I found somewhere that sold some wicked rum punch, punch so good only a repeat order could repay the debt I felt to its maker. Rum punch - it's like something out of "Vanity Fair" but unlike poor Jos Sedley it made me mad in an exuberant way. The day had already made me high as a kite from the energy in it - and now fueled up I was unstoppable, bullet-proof.

To get into the stadium required tickets, tickets being sold from a window cut into a huge container - as in the ones transported on freight ships. And in front of the window was crowd composed of over a hundred young Dominicans pressing forward in a mass of humanity desparate to get the tickets. Squeels suggested waiting, but no, I was in full-on mode and waded into the crowd, packed in tighter than a train in rush hour Japan, and emerged literally 5 minutes later and after several shouts of "white boy" by the crowd (because yes, there were not that many of us there - I saw maybe 10 white people all night) with the tickets in my hand, much to the amazement of Squeels and Steve.

Steve had elected not to come in - I think he's heard enough of WCK to last him a lifetime - so Squeels and I had to endure another, incredible, crush to get into the stadium. Normally I would hate being so enclosed as I was in a swaying, compressed bunch of strangers ("White boy ! Stop all de pushin'" - "I'm not pushing, some raasclat's pushin me") but it just seemed like fun, a game like British Bulldog being played in a phone box. When we emerged, the stadium was not packed at all, the crowd half-watching some talks by all the potential Carnival Queens, some delivered with considerable vim and self-confidence by young girls barely in their teens. We had more chicken, and more drink. Then I went and got more drink. I should explain that I had changed into a T-shirt labelled "Interpol" - the name of a band I should add. So when, pissed, I was queuing at the bar, smelt a familiar smell and said loudly "Who's got the gear then - is there any to sell ?" several locals looked at me - white guy, short hair - with a degree of suspicion. I explained that no, if I was under-cover, I wouldn't have the T shirt on, and I bought some grass for around 3 pounds, had a quick toke on the dealer's joint, and then, dear reader, I was away, because the music started and I danced. Like a loon; like someone being electrocuted. And the crowd around me gaped to see the white boy just losing it to the sounds of "WCK", the insistent rhythm acting on me together with the rum and the herb. They smiled, they laughed but I was in paradise. A woman grabbed me, we danced together, both our hands locked in a "push me, pull you" dance as the crowd cleared around us. By now I was at the very front of the crowd, and I stood with my hands on the barrier, jumping up and down as the band did their stuff. Several times other women grabbed me and I felt bodies being rubbed against me but I needed, wanted none of it, I had surrendered myself to the beat, and before the concert ended Squeels had found me - I think I was fairly easy to spot at that time - and we left together just as the last song finished. It was, unbelievable, not yet 10 o clock, and we walked, staggered uphill, singing Simon and Garfunkel in a not entirely harmonious manner, the perfect end to a perfect day - finished by my switching the phone on and receiving several messages from someone who had been in my thoughts all day, the presence of whom in my life enriches it and makes me as happy as I had been made on this, one of the best days of my life.

Dirty hands despite carbon neutrality

2007-01-25T12:32:00.000Z

Yesterday's "Guardian" had an article on calculating one's carbon footprint. It's worth a read - you can find it here

Despite using Good Energy which meant my electricity use has no carbon footprint, my total CO2 usage clocked in at a shade over 12 tonnes. To put that in perspective, although it's 6 tonnes less than the average American's, it's still 12 times the amount needed for sustainability.

A third of my usage is coming from the flight I take tomorrow (and the one back 10 days later) to Dominica. My car doesn't help either, as does the fact I live alone.

In expiation I have "neutralised" my carbon footprint via the World Land Trust but this is sophistry, really. My hands are dirty, and no amount of hand-wringing or forest preservation can make them clean. Until I and all of us reading this severely scale down our consumption, it's re-arranging deckchairs on the Titanic. But will I ?

No, I won't, out of sheer selfishness.

My happiness is marred

2007-01-23T09:17:00.000Z

by the fact that for many people I know, January is being a hard month, and not just financially. When I feel that this year has started better than any has done previously for me, it's news I want to share...but of course that is tempered when you realise that people you are close to are far from being in the same boat.

So it's pleasing when I spoke to the Mad Mother this morning to find out that her January has been great, like mine, albeit for different reasons. Like me, she fears that such a flying start to the year can't be maintained, but is keen to enjoy it while she can, so at least one person I know is "on the up" and if it had to be anybody, I'd want it to be her because God knows it's overdue in her case.

Christine and I are still getting on well; like any hot chick, she demands servicing. When I bought the car 200 miles ago, the dashboard display said "Service in 14000 miles" when I switched on. Now it's saying "Service in 13650 miles". Hmm, I feel I'm going to find out fairly soon exactly how "TLC" the MINI service warranty is...could it be the way she is being driven. Possibly, but she loves it, the dirty so-and-so, as do I. Still, she's only coming second on the list of things that make me happy at the moment, which shows that what is making me happiest must be very good indeed; as I believe it to be...

I should be on my knees with tiredness at the moment

2007-01-20T12:55:00.000Z

as Friday started early - after the 4 hour's sleep my body seems to have decided is all it wants at the moment - with a long drive to a meeting where instead of the 5 people I expected, there were literally 85. Most of whom - and this is no exaggeration - wanted a decision from me about the project. It's lovely to feel important enough to have people constantly at your shoulder asking you to tell them what to do, but there was also the knowledge that every decision made had to be the right one. Time will tell on that count; hope to God I got them all right. And I do feel a fraud sometimes - how much knowledge do I really have ? Is it all bluster ? Am I right ?

Anyway, enough about work; suffice to say that when it finished and I came home, I had a very pleasant evening thank you very much, and feel today not the sleep-deprived wretch I should but rather as if there is a piece of sky between my feet and the ground I walk upon.

Things you find out when you stop smoking

2007-01-18T00:01:00.000Z

and have to do other things with your hands (number 1 in a series):

I have 52 pairs of socks. No, I wasn't so bored I emptied my wardrobe out and counted them, quite the opposite - I collated all the singleton socks in the bottom of my ironing pile, made them into pairs, put them into the wardrobe, counting as I did. Too many pairs ? Possibly.

Celebrity Big Brother

No, I haven't seen any of it. I swear on the book of Kells I have seen less than 1 hour of Big Brother (any format) since it began. When I think of the show I think of all the electricity that could be harnessed from George Orwell spinning in his grave every time the phrase he created is attached to this Bedlam-like display of the vacuous and charmless which worryingly seems to grip the nation.

However, at least discussion of the show produces some gems on Popbitch, like this:

As l've said before, to much derision;

it's the wave of anti-intellectualism that is the natural comfort zone of a nation that's having its education system deconstructed for the fiscal benefit of an already educated generation, and is having any innate semblance of wit eroded by a media designed to shock and desensatise them into feeling worthless enough to buy any product that is shoved at them. Fuck, we really are screwed.

judy_in_disguise Wed 17 Jan 23:28,

and really, I couldn't have put that as well myself.

If I get a terminal illness, maybe it's not Murdoch I should take out, but Endemol. Decisions, decisions...

A new day, a new morning

2007-01-17T07:32:00.000Z

and the world outside my window hasn't changed one iota.
Within me things have slowly, gently, shifted
Going forward into a new day
With the promise of happiness
I'm not dancing yet
But I have a tentative swirl
To greet the dawn

Being wanted

2007-01-16T15:15:00.000Z

Above: the new love of my life.
"I was born with an enormous need for affection, and a terrible need to give it"

So said a fellow Taurean, Audrey Hepburn - it's a statement I increasingly realise is true of my own existence. I need to be wanted, in some way shape or form; as Darling One becomes older the need she has for me diminishes, so that this morning when she gave me a hug in the car, it was because she could see I needed one - after our nth argument - rather than because of the need on her side.

However as well as affection, I need to be wanted, to be useful - which is why I try and solve computer problems for people (sorry Dad about the wireless network - but there is a reason why I have gone hard-wired at home !) and generally, in that over-used phrase, "be there" for people if and when possible.

So, I was happy recently - very happy - when my boss told me that he will resign from the project I am working on with him should my contract not be renewed in several month's time. So, I'm obviously doing something right. Working from home as I do now all the time, I don't get feedback - of any kind - on how I'm doing. So to be felt valued is worth so much to me, especially at this time in my life where despite the presence of lots of new and exciting things, there is also a loss and gap in my life which I feel every day.

I've also been told by both children - re Christine - not to kill myself behind the wheel, as they need me. The Mad Mother has told me the same thing, vis-a-vis her children. So I do feel wanted; however there is a lack in my life - "To be both wanted, and desired" as the song British Racing Green by Black Box Recorder puts it.

Still, everything comes etc etc etc

Christine enters my life

2007-01-14T16:11:00.000Z

I've never given a car a name. Much as I have loved several cars of mine for differing reasons, they have never been name-worthy. Yesterday, all that changed with the arrival of Christine, a Black-Eye Purple (with white stripes on the bonnet) Mini Cooper S Convertible.

If Christine was anthropomorphised she would be a rock chick with black hair, a speed habit and a trail of broken men and marriages behind her. Yes, that might sound like my ideal woman, but you are wrong, wrong, wrong. However in her current incarnation as a mode of transport, I love her, although with a touch (much more than a touch, in fact) of fear behind that love.

The sound she makes when you floor the accelerator is an eldritch howl, when that is it can be heard above the whimperings of the passengers and the cackles from my good self as we are propelled forwards at a rate of knots far exceeding those achieved by any vehicle I've driven or owned.

I love driving at speed but even I think there is something wrong about doing 50mph in Tesco's car park. Or doing 130 down the A12 at night in the wet. So I will, I will, I will - once I have assured myself depressing the accelerator down hard all the time is not mandatory - slow down.

Christine, like all rock chicks, does not care a hoot for tomorrow; and so she drinks at a fiendish pace. Keeping this woman in drink and boots (OK, tyres, I am stretching the analogy I know) is going to cost me a fortune...and help global warming not one iota; and as always, this is not the way I intended things to happen. Please God, I try to be good. I order a really boring, middle-aged and environmentally better car (although any car purchase is like buying cigarettes - how much difference does low-tar actually make ?) and then, one day before I was due to collect it, I get a call from the dealer saying they've got the wrong spec. car for me; this after I waited 5 weeks past the initial collection date. So I had to cancel; so I had to buy a car quickly; and so I was forced, forced I tell you to get a Mini. To get Christine.

What with that and my forthcoming trip to the Caribbean, I had better start planting lots and lots of trees.

And if you can't work out why I've called her Christine, then look up Christine and Stephen King on the Internet. It's also short for "Christ" as in "Christ, she's fast".

Still, if I die behind the wheel, my smile will have to be surgically removed. She's amazing. I'm in lurrve.

Back to being a dad

2007-01-11T10:40:00.000Z

The worst consequence of not having a car for the past few weeks has been not seeing Darling One every morning to take her to school; so it was wonderful last night to catch the bus and go round to her house for a meal.

She had volunteered to make some cakes to sell at school today to raise funds for water filters for the Third World, so her mum and I helped mix the ingredients and produce the finished products. I hadn't been there since Christmas, and it felt good to be back. I admired the new hamster - "Fudge" which my cat Moppet seems keen to tuck into, so Fudge was being fairly reticent, although having her is obviously a source of delight to my daughter. I beat Darling One at Top Trumps; and she will be staying with me here tonight while Mum is off at an exhibition in London, so I'm getting back into being a dad.

And then, when I got home, I had a long conversation with Exiled Eldest, so my cup runneth over. Goodness me though, for an 18 year old she gives incredible advice. We both agreed, mournfully, that we are good at giving advice to others and rubbish at giving the same advice to ourselves. It was so good to talk to her; I'm going to have to ask her to call me at least once a fortnight - I have no pride, I just need to hear her voice.

Now all I need is a car. Exiled Eldest wants me to get a Mini Cooper Convertible and stuff the safe, boring, middle-aged car I have plumbed for. She is of course, right - decisions, decisions...

I start the day in tears

2007-01-10T10:49:00.000Z

but of the best sort (whoever is thinking of the Phoenix Night's line of "bringing a tear to my Jap's Eye" - leave the room. Now).

I was sent this link by M:

http://blogs.bootsnall.com/conor/?p=330#more-330

As you know, I went to visit M in Nepal in 2004 - 3 weeks which changed my life. I would have stayed there, if it wasn't for my children.

Read the account of what someone did who went there in 2004 and who has now moved there to work with the orphans. Please, please, find the time to read the entry, and then visit the site at the foot of the blog to make a donation via PayPal.

The entry is one of the most moving things I have ever read. There is some good in the world - if you are feeling at all jaundiced by the lack of it that is visible, read something that shows how lives can be changed forever by the application of care and compassion.

God puts a smug bastard down a peg...

2007-01-08T10:16:00.000Z

Saturday. Darling One and I go shopping in Ipswich.

Darling One asks if she can have a Burger King. "It's been soooo long since I had one, Dad" she says, and like a fool I agree, although with the proviso that I don't have to eat anything myself.

God, fried food does smell good. It took lots of will-power not to order myself some food, but I sat opposite her, stealing a couple of chips, while she had her chicken nuggets.

I looked around the room. This is going to sound snobbish and judgemental however I write it, because it is both snobbish and judgemental, but the clientèle in there...yes, it's not full of Guardian or Independent readers, that's for sure. I felt bad about making the distinction, but obviously not so bad that I didn't make it. I kept silent as Darling One ate her food irritatingly slowly.

The couple at the next table finish their meal. They are in their sixties, and I feel - again being judgemental - that this is a strange sort of location for them to be in.

"Excuse me, but can you spell" the man asks me.

Naturally, I'm feeling superior here.

"Yes, my spelling's quite good"

The man hands me a piece of paper with the word WHISKY on it in shaky block capitals.

"It's for a silver thing to go round a decanter" he says. "But I'm not sure how it's spelt, and neither was the jeweller."

"There's an 'E' in there between the 'K' and the 'Y'" I say.

"Thanks" he says, and replaces the paper back in his wallet.

In my defence, I only drink Irish whiskey, rather than Scotch Whisky.

I feel really bad though at being so convinced I was right, when I wasn't. Again.

Snob. Fool.

Simpsons-related wisdom

2007-01-07T22:44:00.000Z

Season 12, Episode 9

Synopsis: Homer has found out that his stupidity is caused by a crayon lodged in his brain. He gets the crayon removed, but doesn't find happiness. He goes to talk to Lisa, who he is now bonding with as never before:

Lisa "Dad, as intelligence goes up, happiness goes down. In fact, I made a graph"

she shows Homer a graph, showing the sliding scale of happiness to intelligence

Lisa (ruefully): "I make a lot of graphs"

Homer (still depressed): "Well, what gets you through the day ?"

Lisa: "Oh, many things: Tai T'chi, Chai Tea, but I find when I can't keep the unhappy thoughts from swirling in my brain, the best thing is usually a nice long walk"

I've done lots of walking this week.

Carless

2007-01-04T10:16:00.000Z

My new car is taking a while to get here.

What a worry to have ! Anyway, it means that I am carless for another 10 days, until I can get up to Sheffield to collect it.

I was so, so tempted to cancel it and buy the car I really wanted for myself; a Mini Cooper S convertible. Much more "me" than the car I am buying - a Megane cabriolet. So why not ?

Well, I was very reluctant to buy a new car in the first place. I wanted (see previous posts) to keep the car I had until it was no longer viable. That state was reached in December (told you it was a bad month) and so I had to make a decision to replace it, and quickly.

I wanted something more eco-friendly, so a diesel looked like the only option. The problem with the Prius (Toyota's battery / petrol hybrid) is that it actually costs more in environmental terms to produce than it saves through low emissions.

A diesel cabriolet gave me limited options. The Megane looked like the best option - sure, there is a Beetle convertible available as a diesel, but I haven't had the best of luck with VWs. And I could get a great deal by importing the Megane - saving so much off the list price that buying second-hand really didn't make much sense.

However, everyone has said to me that the Megane is not the car for me. Not the image they have of me. Which is fair enough; I think they are right.

However, 50mpg makes up for that - not only will motoring cost me a lot less, but by using less fuel there should be less impact on the planet. A Particulate Filter takes care of the "nasties" thrown out by use of diesel fuel.

It's been strange not having a car for a while. The main reason I have for buying one now is so I can continue to take Darling One to school every day; as I work from home, and live near town, it would be possible to do without one otherwise; although I would need to hire one from time to time, as public transport in this neck of the woods means every journey has to be routed via London.

Ecologically, individual car ownership has to be on the way out. I really hope this is the last fossil-fuel car I ever buy. Ideally, in 10 year's time, we should all be car-sharing electric vehicles. I hope so, I really do.

A night on the rack

2007-01-03T08:50:00.000Z

It feels like something out of "Trainspotting": my body contorts, sweat is pouring off me, I can't sleep and all I need now is to see a dead baby crawling along the ceiling to complete the picture.

Yes, it's the first night of a non-smoking day. Highlights to come include sore throat, more sleeplessness, a vile taste in the mouth, hyper-irritability and possible weight gain.

Life however could be much worse. It could be like "This Life" - last night's "10 year's on" episode was not worth the wait. It was so badly written and so predictable that I would rather have not seen it. And with that mundane thought, I leave you for the day - what do you expect; I've hardly slept !

Happy New Year !

2007-01-01T20:29:00.000Z

Well, December 2006 is behind me. Thank God for that.

So far this year has started really well; sorry I'm not going into details about certain areas of my life right now, but I have if not a smile on my face then a cautious grin. Some of that happiness of course is due to Ipswich winning today...some isn't.

I'm looking forward to my life being different this year. I want to achieve quite a few things on my own; I'm not going to list what they are here, I'd rather do them first then talk about them later.

I'm going to try and be a better Blogger, I promise. I've been struck this Christmas with people saying that they used to read my blog, when I updated it; so I'll try and think of stuff to put on here. Correction: I will put the stuff on here I think about putting on here, rather than not doing so, which has been my habit of late. Apologies; but trust me, December 2006 is best *not* being documented.

So best wishes dear Readers, and hang on for what (I hope) will be an enlightening 2007.

Happy endings ?

2006-12-30T09:29:00.000Z

I have had, dear Blog, the worst December on record.

But tonight, instead of listing the reasons why, I am happy.

It's 2:20. The band are here, I have heard wonderful new music and some old songs.

We're all happy.

With friends, anything can be overcome - or at worst, forgotten for a while.

The gift of intelligence

2006-10-15T10:47:00.000Z

I value intelligence greatly, probably because it is the only in-built "gift" I possess. It is a gift; nothing I have done has produced my intelligence, it's just the luck of the genetic draw.

It's something I appear to have passed on to my children. The other week Exiled Eldest admitted that she got AAB in her A levels (and missed out on the final A by 0.25%) without really working hard beforehand (something I could attest to, never having seen her revise when with me), and this week when I saw Darling One's teacher, she said that DO was the brightest girl in her class.

What a lucky man I am...of course, there are many things I think more important than intelligence. Happiness is one, and possibly the more one thinks about things, the harder happiness is to attain. Compassion is another, and again intelligent people can live in their own world too much and not think enough about other people. These are the things I try and "train" my daughters in; as well as to understand that what they have in their intelligence is a gift from God / fate / whatever and that they should treat it as such; be grateful for it, but not act as if it is something they have got by anything other than luck, and use it for the benefit of others as well as for themselves.

I hope I live up to what I demand from them !

Tonight's the night

2006-09-28T09:08:00.001Z

"Tonight's the night" I said, after some thought, to Leo as we stood in the pub.

He looked at me quizically. Even he, used as he is to my frequently gnomic utterances after 9 years of friendship, couldn't understand what I was trying to allude to. There was a flicker of fear in his eyes; possibly he was thinking that now, after he had been living with me for the past few weeks, some dreadful price had to be paid.
The more he questioned me about the meaning of what I was, saying, the more I just repeated the phrase. Then, finally, he understood.
"Oh, it's tonight, is it..." he said, and the gleam came into his eye. "I bet you're excited".

"Yes, let's drink these up, go shopping, and then go home straight away".

I pondered what to drink. Part of me wanted the cold bottle of rose in the fridge very very badly. I swatted the thought away, settled for a diet Red Bull and vodka, heavy on the ice.

We sat downstairs. My fingers had not forgotten what to do. One, two, three papers, arranged, folded, licked, packed, rolled, ignited, inhaled.

After I had smoked half of the joint, I passed it on to Leo. Within 10 seconds of doing so, I could hear the unused half of the cigarette I had cannabilised to make the joint calling to me. Somewhat startled, I ignored it. Swigged some more drink. I was suddenly aware that the nicotine / cannabis / caffeine / alcohol combination was affecting me. I didn't like it.

I carried on. Smoked the other half of the cigarette, after a while. Made another joint. Throughout all of this though pervaded a sense not of failure - I had completed, after all, the month's abstenance away from the weed as promised - but a sense of dislike. I wasn't somehow happy with this. The company was cool, the visuals ("Baraka") and sounds superb, but it wasn't, somehow, me.

I woke up this morning feeling awful. There was a taste in my mouth I wanted to irradicate. I felt half-asleep, as if parts of my brain couldn't, wouldn't get into gear. After I dropped Darling One off at school, I didn't feel happy as I often do, but depressed. I wanted to bury my head in someone's (well, M's to be honest) chest and howl and snuffle.

What the hell is going on ? I have loved toking for the past 21 years. But today something feels wrong, and I start thinking about the forthcoming trip to Amsterdam at the end of November as something to be endured rather than anticipated (although I know that when I get there that will not be the case).

The words from a New Order song go round and round in my head

"Tell me now, how do I feel ?
Tell me now, how do I feel ?"

and it's a question I can't answer. Is normal service going to be resumed ? What is normal, anyway ? What do I want ? The last month without cannabis was so much harder than I anticipated, much much much harder than for instance doing Lent without alcohol. And now the fast is over, and I am more unhappy than before. Tell me now, how do I feel ?

Just Stop

2006-09-26T08:33:00.000Z

"Just Stop" she said. I made myself as still as possible. There was no need for further explanation.
I closed my eyes. Felt the warmth of the sun on my eyelids. Devoid of pictures, my brain concentrated on the sounds that surrounded me. The dry, raspy note of leaves brushing against each other. Birds calling each other.
I opened my eyes again. Saw the rich chocolate loam of the freshly-ploughed field. Saw that although it appeared to be a still day, the tops of the trees swayed as though being stroked by an invisible hand. Saw the harmonies of green inside the coppice. Realised that this place had been before my grandparents existed, and would hopefully remain for many years after my death.

I turned my head, and saw the first leaf of autumn slowly drift down.

Gradually, we came to and moved on. For a few brief moments, it had felt like a religious experience. Into my mind had come the words "Be Still and know that I am God". I also thought about the lines from Faithless "This is my Church - this is where I heal my hurt".
"You know" I said as we walked away, "if you stayed there for several hours in silence, you'd probably fix any problems that you had".

It was only a field. But for those moments, we were aware that for once, we could hear no man-made sound.

The power of football

2006-07-05T09:04:00.000Z

I was brought up to dislike the Germans. Born barely 20 years since the end of WW2, anti-Germany sentiment was drip-fed to us via the interminable war films that seemed to dominate the TV schedules. I could practically recite "The Great Escape" by the time I was 10. Having a German friend at school and visiting Germany to stay with his family made no difference. If anything, every visit to Germany I have had has made things worse, culminating in a visit to Berlin four years ago when in the space of 48 hours we were fined €80 and had a purse stolen.

So, given the above, one would expect that I would be gloating in the defeat of the hosts in last night's semi-final match. After all, to lose 2 minutes before the end of a thrilling 2 hour game, with penalties virtually in their sights, could not be a crueller defeat. The 1999 Manchester United Champions League final was the nearest comparable match where a German team snatched defeat from the jaws of victory, and God I laughed then.

However, something has changed. I feel genuinely, really, absolutely sorry for Germany in their defeat. I think they have hosted a brilliant World Cup, from speaking to several people who went over there. It's a real shame the journey ended at that point for them.

Strangely enough, I had a conference call with several Germans today and was able to commiserate with them. Hopefully they didn't think that English bastard is laughing inside because I wasn't.

After being massively disillusioned with football after seeing England's series of disappointing performances as well as the obligatory red card for a petulant player, last night was a breath of fresh air. The best game I have seen in my life, with only 2 yellow cards and no real signs of acting, diving or cheating. Great play from both sides, a wonderful advert for football.

And most of all, it might just have cured me of my Germano-phobic ways.

So, well done Germany - you have hosted a brilliant World Cup, and I'm sorry you're not in it anymore. Maybe for once the hype is right - football can bring us together.

Half year report

2006-07-03T13:22:00.000Z

Well, it's now the second half of 2006. Time to sum up life.

On the good side, I am happy. I have a good relationship, and a very easy life. Two wonderful children. Lots of friends. A great family I see more of now than ever.

On the bad side, I had yet another hospital appointment on Friday. Another round of blood tests. Another consult. Yet again, no answers. Is it arthritis ? My doctor says probably not, the immunologist also thinks it unlikely.

I walked two miles on Saturday. It hurt. My body is still basically knackered. 14 months on from when it first started, and I'm no nearer an answer to why. I can vaguely remember climbing Snowdon 6 months ago. No way could I do it now. I've had so many blood tests now there can't be many things I haven't been tested for, bar senile dementia and pregnancy.

I'm overweight, unhappy with it.

Smoking.

Who knows what the next 6 months hold. Hopefully, an answer. I just want two things: diagnosis and prognosis. If I can't get better, fair enough, I have no rights to anything, I already have far more than most.

I just WANT TO KNOW.

At last, I have something to say

2006-06-22T00:16:00.000Z

Actually, I have been thinking about blog articles almost every day. Lots has happened that has been good since my last post - going to France to see my first nephew, seeing live performances (4 different and unique experiences that make me appreciate artists of any kind so much) and a continuing, strengthening relationship with M - and some stuff has happened that's been not so good (still unable to exercise, smoking partly as a result, my job going - again). What a long sentence. Anyway, I've wanted to write it all down but never did. Torpor is a problem right now.

Tonight though, I was deleting spam (I get about 200-300 spams a day...) and the title of one of them jumped out at me "Be young again".

No, I couldn't. I've had a lucky, great life but I don't think I could go through it all again. The knowledge I have now, and the inner strength to be able to deal with life that gives me is something I couldn't lose.

I watched "Scrubs" earlier. My brother has got me into it, and it's great for an American sitcom. Try it. Anyway, I'm on season 4 now and one of the key actresses who is I imagine my age is basically Botox'd to facial rigidity; the futile price for the perception of youth.

The price of my knowledge - age - is starting to show. I still surprise people by having an 18 year old daughter, I do look young for my age but the grey hairs are coming through at an increasing rate. I think I can get my body back into shape (i.e. less bulbous, rather than toned) if I can ever exercise, but that's a hope rather than a certainty. My brain is losing a bit of its edge (I had to go back and replace the word "age" with "edge" when I typed that. QED. But it is late, I have had 3 hours sleep in the last 40. But even so). Everything hurts or creaks.

But that's the price to pay. I haven't got the ability to fuck up a bit less than previously from anything other than fucking up, fucking up again, fucking up again and eventually learning. That's how we all get it. I can't hope to spare my children more than one cycle of fucking up from the inevitable issues they will encounter. It happens to us all. We don't listen to the voice of experience, and probably rightly so; we pay to get experience with our mistakes, and sadly often make other people pay for it as well.

I couldn't be young again; I couldn't do what I've done to myself and to others in the past. It's no big deal, I've just been human, but really that's no excuse. It was OK then - well, if not OK, at least partially forgiveable. But it wouldn't be any more. Youth and experience just don't go together. And I'm getting old. And now, suddenly, I think that's OK. I'll always be me, which does involve still living a life which isn't exactly normal, it's just now the mistakes are less major, the dramas much less dramatic.

I love life. I love being the age I am. "Be young again" has the same chance as working on me as a spam for breast enlargement.

I am happy in the now.

Not in front of the children

2006-05-18T09:26:00.000Z

I don't wake up to Radio 4, but instead to Leftfield "Release the Pressure" that starts off:

"I've got to stand and fight
In this creation
Vanity I know
Can't guide I alone
I'm searching to find
A love that lasts all time
I've just got to find
Peace and unity"

Then, the drums kick in - which either means I get up, or stretch out an arm to switch over to Radio 4, which gradually fades in as consciousness is restored.

This morning, after a late night watching the Arsenal Champions League Final with a friend, I came to hearing a report on the thousands of Africans who make the dangerous journey to the nearest part of Europe to them - the Canary Islands. In desparately ill-equipped and overcrowded boats, they arrive, if they are lucky, dehydrated and collapse on the beach.

In front of the foreign tourists there for the luxury of some winter sun.

Tourists, who complained about the situation, saying "It's not what we come on holiday for" and "How do we explain this to our children"

It's a surreal way to wake up: to hear Johnny Englishman abroad whining about the eyesore of people who would probably sacrifice a limb to have the passport he's carelessly stuffed into his top pocket. Who have the gall to risk their lives to reach some volcanic islands that represent the prospect of a better life. Who offend children due to being unkempt wretches.

I love humanity, it's people I can't stand, as many people have said. Sometimes I wish I never woke up to be thrust into this sea of selfish veniality that I am a part of.

Check-out compassion

2006-05-15T08:52:00.000Z

They aren't causing any offence. Two men, one white, one black. The black one has bloodshot eyes, the white one has dark glasses on, and a curious bandage around his face holding a large wad of material under his nose. They are both probably considerably younger than they look. One of them carries their purchases - two bottles of "white" cider. This is the stuff you drink to get trollied, smashed, fucked, shit-faced, out of it. There might, just possibly, be people who drink strong beer because they like the taste more than the effect. There are many of us who can drink spirits in complete moderation. I refuse to believe that anyone drinks over-proof cider for anything other than its ability to get you very drunk at a bargain price.

Another check-out queue opens. Both men go into it, and are asked (this being a Co-Op) for their share number. They don't have one, and turn round to me. "What's your number,mate" they say, so they could "give" me the points value of their purchase. I don't have one. They pay, saying their "please" and "thank-yous" and move on.

Once they've left the shop, the assistant on the check-out says "stand back" and then gets out a deodourant spray. Yes, the guys smelt, very strongly, an odour that has stayed behind as they have left.

The check-out girl grins. The other customers grin. I say nothing.

I hate their complicit smiles. Those men have made everyone feel better - on the ladder of life, they are about as far down as you can go and still be allowed in the shop. We are of course, better than they are.

I think of the two men; they did not look bad, or aggressive. They tried to be friendly. They behaved well. But their addiction - something which I am convinced is a genetic disorder, having seen alcoholism run in families - puts them beneath us all. I think of how their lives are, in thrall to the bottle. Not a life anyone would willingly seek.

In youth I judged, in age I appreciate that in so many cases "there but by the grace of God go I". I wish I had mentioned this to the smiling faces in the queue, grinning at the tragedy of other people's lives.

My living will

2006-05-12T08:22:00.000Z

I am heartened by the fact that when I speak to friends and family, many of them view this blog. Even though I write here for me, and not for you, it's a privilege to be read, especially when I generally type too much self-obsessed bilge.

In that vein, prompted by the House of Lord's debate on the assisted dying issue, I'd like to write down in here a living will. God knows what, if any, legal status this will have, but if ever the worst happened, I would trust that those who love me could try and find a way of executing my wishes.

Incidentally, I feel fine right now, am entirely "clean and sober" and am not intending this to be put into effect in the immediate future although who knows what could happen when I next walk out of the door.

Right, my basic standard is that as soon as I lose the ability to communicate with the outside world and to understand communication aimed at me, I would prefer not to continue with life. If I was unable to tell those around me how much I cared for them, and to communicate my desires, why would I want to continue ? Hell for me would be stuck in a hospital bed, unable to say to someone "for God's sake turn that television off".

Obviously, if such a condition was temporary, then I'd want to carry on in the hope that it could be reversed; but if it was permanent, that would be it for me. Denying me food and water would be cruel, but how much crueller to be and yet not be alive.

And that's it, really. I trust that if I could communicate, I could make my wishes known. If I can't, then effectively speaking the "me" that makes me has disappeared. Whatever people think of me, I'm sure they'd say that my ability to communicate (despite my mumbling) is a large part of who I am. Once I can't raise a laugh or smile - I am no more, just a hulking physical shell and a suffering spirit.

Right, well that's a really cheery communique, isn't it ?!?

BUT I AM ALIVE AND VERY VERY HAPPY RIGHT NOW.

Marginally more interesting

2006-05-10T17:03:00.000Z

than the fact that I share the same birthday as Withnail aka Richard E Grant, is the news from my doctor. Yes, boring medical post ahoy: I went along to the doctor's, armed as always with a Snickers bar for her delectation (although for all I know she bins the things as possibly tainted, but she asked for one some visits ago and so now it's part of the ritual). I went as my Polish dentist told me in her charmingly fractured English that my immune system was shot, after I had severe gum infection for the nth time running (see previous posts, but if I were you I wouldn't bother).

It's the first time I've seen the doctor since the diagnosis of Artie, so there was much to discuss. While she was preparing the form for yet another blood sample (always good to do my "feel a little prick" joke) I asked what were the results of the last battery of tests I had had several months before.

She looked at the screen.

"I'd say you haven't got psoriatic arthritis, you know. These readings are not as they should be. It could be something else completely; a virus, for example."

Well, knock me sideways. A virus. A virus ??? How on earth ? How, firstly, could any virus survive the battery of anti-biotics I have taken in the last 12 months ? Secondly, what virus ? Ebola ? E Coli ? Chicken pox ?

I leave with yet another blood sample form to take to hospital. This one says "please test for immune deficiency as you see fit". God knows what tests I won't have had once all this is over.

How do I feel now ? Confused...my fingers and toes aren't as they should be. Something is not right in the state of Denmark. If not Artie, then what ? And is it not Arthritis ? As there is no test as such for psoriatic arthritis, how the feel can I find out ?

Right, I promise not to blog about this again until I know what the hell is wrong with me, or unless the conditions break out so badly I look like something out of the Singing Detective.

To be continued....

Exercise kills

2006-05-09T16:42:00.000Z

Well, it killed the man who invented "jogging"; and Atkins, of the diet fame.

Today, the sun shining, I decided to walk down to town to deposit a cheque. Music-plugged-in via giant Sennheiser headphones, I did not so much as walk as woosh through the lunchtime throng. On the way back, I did some shopping. Stopping at Waterstone's to pick up a book made sense. Stopping at Argos to buy some weights did not.

Carrying 15 kilos of weights for over a mile in less than 12 minutes is not recommended. I got home, somehow, in time for my 2pm call. Then felt like dying.

Exercise kills. I just hope I put those weights to good use.

Happiness is bouncing

2006-05-04T13:34:00.000Z

Free from pain at last (although I have got to go to the dentist's again tonight, so maybe I shouldn't speak so soon); and so, freed, I can enjoy life. As it's a Wednesday, I spend the evening at Darling One's house, and after we have eaten we play outside for an hour on the trampoline. We bounce, we achieve temporary weightlessness, under a canopy of blossom in the garden. The weather is perfect, the evening long enough to spend time out in the light, to the accompaniment of much laughter and some breathlessness.

And that - combined with a lunch in the park with M this lunchtime - is what the good life, that I'm so lucky to live, is all about. It's strange to veer from abject misery to pure happiness and contentment so quickly, but I know which part of me is real and which has been imposed. From now on, hopefully, everything gets better, and stays that way.

Second time unlucky

2006-04-30T09:59:00.000Z

Well, this is now the second weekend on the trot where all plans are off. This weekend, I should have been walking in the Derbyshire Peaks with my beloved. Instead, I'm home alone nursing the tooth pain from hell. Again. A tooth which the dentist has worked on on 3 separate occasions now in the last 4 weeks is, surprise surprise, infected.

So, the last 24 hours have been spent in a mess of pain and drugs - legitimate ones, sadly. It's a battle as to which ones win. Last night at 4am the pain was definitely winning, until a near OD of codeine brought relief (although it does make my eyes feel like Marty Feldman's). Including anti-biotics I must have swallowed 24 pills in the last 24 hours, too much by far but I've still been in severe pain for most of the time.

Two weekends wasted. Still, on both weekends I have been able to watch the snooker, so all is not lost.

It's been a year now of pain and although I can and do count many blessings, it's as boring to live through as it is to read about. It's my birthday on Friday - here's hoping the day which last year dramatically brought the onset of my health issues marks the point at which things start getting back to "normal", whatever that is.

I love fair play

2006-04-27T09:09:00.000Z

I was talking about football last night to my French French teacher - the topic came up as I explained why I had postponed Tuesday night's lesson to allow me to watch the bore-fest that was the 0-0 Arsenal Villareal game.

Strangely, for someone who used to play it, she can't stand the game and was indifferent to her country's victories in the 1998 and 2000 tournaments. I told her that I had come late to an appreciation of football, which came like an epiphany when I saw David Johnson miss a penalty for Ipswich and not get racially abused. Suddenly I saw the crowd as something I wanted to be a part of, although this season my attendance has dropped away somewhat as watching Ipswich has seemed more like penance than pleasure.

What drew me back into the game was the concept of "fair play". Although I enjoy watching football, the atrocious dives of players, the outright cheating that goes on is starting to ruin the game for me. It's money-based, of course, a victory can be worth millions nowadays and so there are no limits to what the players and managers will do to achieve it.

However, in one sport, money has not changed everything.

I know it's nearly my birthday when the World Snooker is on at the Crucible. Although I can't understand the excitement of being at the Crucible to watch a game (surely you'd need binoculars to appreciate the play) it's good television and something that appealed to me since my childhood and the days of Eddie Charlton, Kirk Stevens, Cliff Thorburn and Ray Reardon. Then, the arrival of the young guns (as they were then) Steve Davies and Jimmy White just made things more interesting - matches would finish in less than 30 minutes !

What didn't change was the concept of sportsmanship. If a player fouled, they would admit it straight away, even if undetected by the referee. And they were fulsome in their praise of the victorious opponent (apart from Stephen Hendry, who I never liked as a result). My favourite snooker memory was seeing Joe Johnson win the 1986 final as a rank 150-1 outsider and see Steve Davis rushing to congratulate him, genuinely happy that the underdog won.

So, as the football season finishes, I'm looking forward to catching some of the snooker, and listening again to the hushed voices of the commentators describing the beautiful game.

Things can only get better

2006-04-24T15:12:00.000Z

Well, this weekend (one of the worst on record for me, which involved for reasons too personal to explain here an unexpected 24 hour sojourn in a grotty hotel in Tours) was capped off by a portion of my tooth breaking, which put me in quite severe pain last night, so I was unable to sleep until 5am; then waking up at 7:25 with the alarm. I shouldn't complain really as I was able to stay in bed and get to sleep again, and have an emergency appointment with the dentist today to get the tooth sorted.On Friday, I sold my last remaining asset, this has just about enabled me to square my debts and pay a year's worth of maintenance in advance. Literally nothing is left however. I am "all square" and grateful for it, but not exactly in the plush.So, the only way is up. I've been in all sorts of pain this weekend, some worse than physical, all wholly unexpected and to be honest undeserved. However, I come back to the love of a good woman, I come back to my children who make up my life, I come back to the promise of spring and a fresh beginning. Love is in my life in many ways, and isn't that more important than anything else ?

Her first steps

2006-04-16T12:54:00.000Z

I get Darling One off the computer where she has been playing a Dungeons and Dragons type game for several hours, by getting her to assemble the model car she brought with her. I help at tricky moments, but finally it's done, bar the roof rails, which she wants to paint with the silver enamel that's come with the kit. I have no small paint brush.

I send her out to the newsagents to buy a brush. It's the sort of thing they will have. This involves crossing two main roads (at a crossroads), which will mean using the button and waiting until the lights have changed.

She's nearly 10, it's about time she made this sort of journey. But it's a first for her, crossing a "big" road. The road itself is fairly quiet, traffic doesn't zoom along it, especially at lunchtime on Easter Sunday. But it's a risk, of course.

However, I have to expose her to the risk. I have to trust that she will have the sense to go there, buy the paintbrush, come back. That she won't go with a stranger, run across the road, go another way.

So here I sit, typing away, knowing that I must not be at the door waiting for her, but waiting nonetheless for the sound of the gate clanging to let me know she is home safely.

I must stop taking drugs (fairly soon)

2006-04-12T20:47:00.000Z

I've spent far too much of the last 2 weeks in a blur. But I can explain.

It started off I suppose a little over a month ago. I had my first joint with tobacco in it.

I don't think there's much need really to say anything else. The inevitable happened - no, not taking up smoking again, thank God, and I really really don't think that that's likely to happen. I do, with hand on heart, find the habit completely repulsive and also somewhat mystifying. Apart from, of course, the fact it feeds a nicotine habit.

Which is what I have done. The habit, actually, needs little feeding. So, I haven't been smoking 20 joints a day (although, at the weekend, who knows. Maybe I did ?). But I have had, every day bar a couple, a joint with tobacco in for the last 2 weeks.

Wicked, stupid child.

On the other hand, smoking moderate amounts of cannabis is very nice. And I really don't need a lot (of dope) to be hammered; and I do prefer reality. So, all of this will stop. But I said that last night, and here I am again. In defence, since the weekend, there's been no tobacco in the house (and last weekend's was brought in by guests). And I won't buy any; so there won't be any here over Easter. Cold turkey for Easter then. Wonderful.

Living with Artie

2006-04-07T10:08:00.000Z

Artie comes and artie goes; right now, it seems to be coming back (a little) but whether it's there or not, it's not something I can forget.

This was brought back to me with some force when I went shopping at M & S yesterday. My work was kind enough, recently, to give me £100 of M & S vouchers. So, I had to go in and spend them, somehow. Some more towels, a kitchen apron and a fitted bedsheet took care of half of the vouchers, then I went into the food section.

Normally, pre-Artie, I would have spent the rest on fine food. Now, however, all the things I used to buy are off-limits. Prawns, alcohol, cheese; the list went on. I think the most depressing moment was when I caught sight of some oranges, went to put them in my basket, and realised - no, I can't even have those. I came out with (for personal consumption) two tubs of bean salad. Wow.

In time, I'm sure I'll get used to this new life; at the moment, it's all a strange new world. I can't work out whether the re-emergence of Artie is due to eating a prawn sandwich last week, a few late nights on the trot, a lack of real exercise over the past week or eating a small bowl of chili I cooked which of course has tomatoes in. Really, it could be anything; there seems little rhyme nor reason. It's not that I'm moaning about the condition - honestly, I'm not, it could be so so much worse - but more just being acclimatised to it.

Still, on the good news front, Exiled Eldest and boyfriend were here this week, and return at Easter. And - the best bit of all - she tidied up the house for me. It wasn't that untidy when they got here, but coming back from work and finding it pristine - wow. Hard to say why, exactly, but it meant an awful lot to me. As did just being with her, as always. And Darling One returns tomorrow night after ski-ing. Tonight Tancredi comes for a weekend of (mild) hedonism; all's well with the world; even with Artie in it.

I must be getting old(er)

2006-03-31T10:49:00.000Z

With the coming of the spring comes not Sweeney to Mrs Porter but the end of my 12 month mobile phone contract. I've had a mobile since I went into contracting, back in 1997. Motorola, Nokia, LG, Ericsson, I've had 'em all. My current phone is the Samsung 720, and it beats all previous phones as...wait for it...it has probably the second-best battery life of any phone I've had. Surprisingly, actually being able to use my mobile to call / text people is why I have it. All other fripperies like cameras and MP3 players aren't as important as being able to make that call. There's nothing like going away for a weekend and not having to take your charger, because you know that if your phone is fulled charged on the Friday, it will still have 1 battery bar left on Sunday evening's drive home. Unlike the hideous "3" phone from LG that was definitely Worst Phone Ever.

So, I'm happy with my mobile, in function and in size, and the only Samsung-made replacement for it doesn't look as good, and crucially has poor battery life. So that's a no-no.

As a result, for the first time ever, I'm keeping my old phone for another year. And this has paid in big-time for me. I've re-negotiated my deal with O2 which was costing me £33 / month (basic) for 250 minutes 50 texts, and got a new 12 month deal at £20/month for 300 minutes and 150 texts. Result. I've also got £100 credited to my account, for not wanting a new phone. So, in theory that means no bills for 5/12ths of the year. On paper, my mobile bill has gone down from >£360 pa to £140. Wait ! That's £220 saved ! Surely I can find something to buy to celebrate such a saving !!!

It also shows one the real cost of the so-called "free" upgrades...

Not the most exciting post to this blog, I know, but saving money as a concept is an alien one to me, but one I think I need to get wise to, fast.

Die like an Eyptian

2006-03-29T08:42:00.000Z

Interesting article on the BBC News site this morning about the increasing popularity of being buried with...your mobile phone. Apparently (I'm never sure how much to believe some of these hearsay stories) a businessman was recently buried with his phone, his Blackberry, and his laptop. I'm surprised he didn't ask for his PA to be immolated at the same time...

What does this mean ? In the case of the mythical businessman, this can't be the fear of being buried alive; what was he going to do if he had been, and woke up ? Call for help on the mobile, then catch up with his e-mails and start on a new presentation ? Goes against the grain of the old saying "No-one ever died wishing they'd spent more time at the office".

I would like to be burnt on a funeral pyre in Kathmandu, although this is a whimsical notion and not one I would want to inflict on my descendants, unless by happy circumstance I happen to die in Nepal. Interestingly, there are now more open-air cremations happening in the UK, as by some legal loophole these can take place on private ground. This seems to me a sensible way to die, there just isn't enough space to bury us all. I'd much prefer to be transported to a field somewhere in a cardboard coffin by my friends and then burnt, rather than end up in an anonymous crematorium somewhere.

But whatever happens, I don't think I need my mobile on me when it's time to go. For one thing, if my phone's half-decent, then at least one of my daughters would want it...

System failure

2006-03-28T15:26:00.000Z

It’s hardly big news when Microsoft issue a warning about security issues with their operating systems or software, but perhaps it should be. Today (28th January) they issued warnings about "holes" in Internet Explorer which if exploited, would allow remote control of a user’s PC (presumably by allowing a small file to be downloaded without the user’s consent, which then opens a backdoor to a controlling server on the Net).
These holes will be fixed on an update being realised on the 11th April – a fortnight’s time.
I would imagine any good firewall would prevent the software operating properly, and other software such as anti-virus or anti-spyware, that gets updated fairly frequently, could also detect that the software had been installed; but without either of those measures being in place, computers could be at risk.
As a society, we are relying more and more on the PC in the home. It’s our communication conduit, entertainment centre, financial management tool, shopping channel and (for quite a few) source of sexual gratification. Surfing is starting to beat television as our favourite pastime, a good thing (n my view), but not if the PCs are – unlike the TV – capable of being hi-jacked remotely to open up our bank accounts. Even if financial details aren’t intercepted, hi-jacked computers are the main source of the cursed spam, or Denial of Service attacks issued against commercial sites by the modern-day equivalent of a Capone extortion racket – people able to remotely activate a network of hi-jacked PCs if the money isn’t paid over, which can take sites off-line.
Two weeks is a long time to leave such a known vulnerability open. The fact that the vulnerabilities exist in the first place is due not to hacker ingenuity, but Microsoft ineptness, in creating an operating system and browsing environment so open to attack. The problem is that although alternatives to both the OS and the browser exist, using them is not without its problems, largely because most sites and software have been optimised to use them.
The combination of our reliance on PCs and the ease in which they can be hi-jacked, together with the general lack of knowledge of all of a PCs "little ways" is potentially disastrous. Why should people need the level of PC skills required to have any hope of keeping your system secure ?
I’d like to hope that in 10 year’s time we’re not all as dependent on Microsoft. They have been significantly behind the times in the last few years, leading to the situation we have now, and with our reliance on the technology only likely to increase, it would be nice if we could all use the computer without incurring personal risk…but I bet in 2016 we’re on Windows Ultimate (version 3, service pack 7).

Ipswich in the spotlight

2006-03-24T10:19:00.000Z

Most people know very little about Ipswich. For a county town, close to London, it has little presence; no cathedral (hence it's a town), no university (although that is I think, due to change) and little to differentiate itself from other southern county towns.

Last night, Ipswich was the home of "Question Time", the weekly BBC programme that allows the audience to question politicians and pundits on the issues of the day.

I watched, via the BBC "Watch again" service - it's quite an acceptable picture via broadband - and was impressed at how my town came across. It was an interesting issue of the programme - a high profile New Labour minister had pulled out of appearing shortly before, leaving Tony Benn to represent "old Labour", and well he did it. The questions asked were good, the audience contribution worth listening to (bar one inarticulate teenager), to the extent that at the end Boris Johnson (I'm *sure* his hair is artificially given that "pulled through a hedge look" but my God, he's more honest than many politicians, confessing and apologising for getting it wrong on Iraq) actually thanked the audience at the end for their questions, and rightly so.

It's not such a bad place to live, here (even when the rain is streaming down on a cold, grey Friday) - I would never have thought this would become "home" but it has done.

Strange (but good) to say - I like it here. And hopefully the proposed University, and the "Snoasis" project, might put Ipswich on the map a little more; maybe it deserves it.

Battered and bloody

2006-03-23T19:01:00.000Z

I'm aware that this blog is becoming too much concerned with my medical woes, but too bad, I have had a shedful this year.
Today I had an operation to remove two teeth, one set of roots, and a "mysterious foreign body" from my gums. Basically, if a mouth has four corners, three out of those four corners are now gaping, semi-stitched disaster zones. Nice. And I think that the gaps in my teeth are now going to create a lisp. Thmathing; in fact, thuper !

Try eating with just your front teeth. It's fun. I had to eat before I could leave the hospital today - so I shucked down smoked salmon salad virtually whole. People have accused me of having a big mouth in the past, I guess it has its uses.

Every cloud has a silver lining. This one is that I feel justified, despite my Lenten fast, to eat ice-cream and several other "banned" items in the next 24 hours.

I had to lie to the hospital to get released. There should be someone at home with me, but M had already booked a flight to Germany to see the family. Again, the silver lining - much as I'd like her here, I will go downstairs to my "den" in a minute, watch loads of DVDs and comfort eat for England. So, if I don't make it through the night, it will be as a result of greasy degeneration rather than any other cause !