This is a bad sign: I've lost my appetite. I've hardly eaten anything over the last few days and I don't feel hungry.
It's usually accompanied by low mood. Or rather, I should say, I can imagine myself eating well when I'm happiest - and so the converse is that loss of appetite is now subconsciously linked to feeling down in the dumps.
The kitchen's a mess again. I've failed to manage the tiny space and so there is stuff everywhere. Meanwhile the fridge is full of slowly rotting vegetables - which make me feel guilty. I'll have a clear-out tonight.
To make matters worse, it's Wednesday - the day when the pop-up truck arrives to pollute the local environment with its foul aroma of sizzling buttermilk chicken. I'm not even sure I can go outside.
I often get the feeling that I could eat something but can't calculate what. My brain flicks through the options like an imaginary recipe book. Lasagne, roast chicken, pasta bake, beef wellington, spanish omelette, pizz...ah... no, linguine, ooh lemon tuna, chicken chasseur, sweet-potato-wedges, risotto... and then the invisible book closes and I don't want any of it.
Instead of eating last night, I sat out in the park for the latest sunset. It was golden. Clouds bubbled up from the horizon, pink and purple, and the low-angled sun picked out their edges in absolute splendour. I watched the sky change as the clouds slowly rotated across the sky and the last beams of sunlight disappeared below the trees.
I thought about travelling, out there in the twilight. My manager had asked me again when I'm next going to Italy, and I'd said I didn't know. Then there's Rory who's off to New Zealand for a month. I'd love to be able to do that.
And then there's that adventurous thought of the journey - waking up on a train that's pulling through snow-capped mountains, or standing alone in a vast chasm, listening to the roar of a gigantic waterfall; sitting by a sparkling blue Italian lake, darting through the backstreets of a dusty marketplace, joining a carnival parade with a thousand colours swirling in every direction, or just lying back under the milky way with the warm Coromell and the sound of cicadas.
Hmm. How much of this just a latent desire to escape everything? And how much is a genuine longing for something wider, deeper, happier and more fulfilling? And what is the real problem I'm trying to solve?
I think I'm going to try a jacket potato with beans and cheese from the café. It might help me feel a bit brighter I suppose.
Wednesday, 31 May 2017
Tuesday, 30 May 2017
A CONFLICT ESCALATES
"Is that my mug?" asked Luke, peering at me.
"I don't know," I said. I was carefully weighing up the probability of me knowing the answer, versus the probability of him knowing. It took half a second.
The other half of the second was used to process what to do about this escalating conflict.
"I just pulled it out of the cupboard," I said, innocently. It is true - as far as I know, that is the form: mugs in the cupboard are kind of free-for-all.
Well it is Luke's mug, of course. Looking at it, I wouldn't have chosen it: it's got two cartoon characters sticking up their middle fingers at each other and the message underneath reads: Peace Among Worlds. I don't really get it.
"Look, don't worry," I said, putting on my most concerned face, "I'll wash it up and get it back to your desk."
He smiled, said, "Okay, cool, thanks," and skipped back to his desk.
What's happened here of course, is that on Friday, Luke left this mug out and the cleaners whisked it off, pushed it through the dishwasher and then put it back in the cupboard like they do with every mug they find at the end of the day. It's not a big deal though, really, is it? I mean they actually smashed mine some time ago and I've been fishing in the cupboard for free-for-all mugs ever since.
Still, the conflict is easily sorted, right? I mean there's always room for 'peace among worlds.'
"I don't know," I said. I was carefully weighing up the probability of me knowing the answer, versus the probability of him knowing. It took half a second.
The other half of the second was used to process what to do about this escalating conflict.
"I just pulled it out of the cupboard," I said, innocently. It is true - as far as I know, that is the form: mugs in the cupboard are kind of free-for-all.
Well it is Luke's mug, of course. Looking at it, I wouldn't have chosen it: it's got two cartoon characters sticking up their middle fingers at each other and the message underneath reads: Peace Among Worlds. I don't really get it.
"Look, don't worry," I said, putting on my most concerned face, "I'll wash it up and get it back to your desk."
He smiled, said, "Okay, cool, thanks," and skipped back to his desk.
What's happened here of course, is that on Friday, Luke left this mug out and the cleaners whisked it off, pushed it through the dishwasher and then put it back in the cupboard like they do with every mug they find at the end of the day. It's not a big deal though, really, is it? I mean they actually smashed mine some time ago and I've been fishing in the cupboard for free-for-all mugs ever since.
Still, the conflict is easily sorted, right? I mean there's always room for 'peace among worlds.'
Sunday, 28 May 2017
CLOUDED OVER
Tonight's sunset is clouded over. That hasn't happened for a while. I expect the sky will just gradually darken and the trees will turn to silhouettes.
I'm feeling kind of sad. I don't know why. My eyes are itching with the first bloom of the hay fever season, a herald perhaps of what's to come over the next few weeks, making this nightly ritual more like torture. But it's not that.
I'm worried about a project I'm involved in, including at least three really difficult conversations. But it's not that either. I think that'll be okay.
I think I'm sad because I feel ancient. And the older a thing is, the more melancholy an atmosphere surrounds it. Time whispers in long strands.
Being naturally melancholy is doubly awful sometimes: joyful people might carry your solution, but they don't want to be around you. Well-meaners would like you to pull yourself together but don't seem to have grasped that the bits of you to grab hold of are already too heavy for the pulling.
Meanwhile, you turn out to be your own worst enemy.
There's a break in the clouds now. Light blue sky between the purple, cracked and jagged like a rip in the universe. The birds have fallen silent and there are lights twinkling in the valley.
I must learn not to dwell in melancholy - it's a pathway that spirals into the woods. I carry joy, hidden deep within, and I can choose what I whisper to myself out here on this bench in this park.
Somewhere, beyond the clouds, the golden sun sinks majestically beneath the horizon - bold, beautiful and ancient, ready to rise the same tomorrow just as it always has.
Friday, 26 May 2017
LUNCH ATMOSPHERE
For the first time in a long time I decided to join the regular crew for Friday pub-lunch today.
Well, the weather was nice, the workload was low and the general bonhomie around the office was such that the usual suspects were happy enough to invite me along to the beer garden in The Crown.
I had forgotten. I sat there, in front of a jacket potato and a pint of Pepsi while the euphemisms and filthy in-jokes flew around the table. Some things I understood; some things I didn't. One thing was clear though - I was uncomfortable.
They knew it too. After a while it became a bit of a thing, and one of them said:
"I bet you're sorry you came out after all now..."
... which wasn't quite as true as my face was showing. The truth is that if somebody says something appalling, my face reacts before my head has had a chance to adapt and respond. I sat, wondering whether Jesus would get up and walk back to work on his own or whether he would show his unique mastery by accepting people where they were at - but by the time those thoughts had flicked by, my face had already given way to shock and disgust in all its eyebrow-raising-red-cheeked embarrassment.
At one point I just said, "That is so distasteful," in response to something that was actually far worse than distasteful, and which wild horses would not drag me to repeat. Ever.
They knew it was too; I could tell by the reaction.
I don't know what Jesus would have done. He might have challenged what he saw, speaking right to the heart of what goes on underneath the subtext. He might have stayed, he might have said something outrageous, he might have been kind, angry, silent or ready for a parable. It struck me as interesting that I didn't really know.
I stayed. I listened and observed at the end of the table, hoping that integrity would win the day, even if today was not that day.
On the way back, I chatted with one of them, mostly about work-stuff. The sun was blistering through the sky and the air was roasting. It occurred to me suddenly, that this person simply would not be able to say the things to me that they had been saying twenty minutes before. It would have been inconceivable to them, given the new tone of our conversation, one-to-one.
I also knew somehow that it would have been inconceivable to all of them - I thought around the table - every one would have been the same on the way back to the office. Yet together...
I found that at least a little bit comforting. I might not have been able to directly change the atmosphere in the same way Jesus would have done it; I certainly don't think I'd be as courageous or as controversial. I might not have made the right decision to go in the first place, but given that I had, I thought I'd done okay.
Would I go again next time? Not without thinking more carefully about it. Can I change the atmosphere? Of course, even if it has to happen one-to-one, face-to-face, one atmosphere at a time. I do hope that came across.
Well, the weather was nice, the workload was low and the general bonhomie around the office was such that the usual suspects were happy enough to invite me along to the beer garden in The Crown.
I had forgotten. I sat there, in front of a jacket potato and a pint of Pepsi while the euphemisms and filthy in-jokes flew around the table. Some things I understood; some things I didn't. One thing was clear though - I was uncomfortable.
They knew it too. After a while it became a bit of a thing, and one of them said:
"I bet you're sorry you came out after all now..."
... which wasn't quite as true as my face was showing. The truth is that if somebody says something appalling, my face reacts before my head has had a chance to adapt and respond. I sat, wondering whether Jesus would get up and walk back to work on his own or whether he would show his unique mastery by accepting people where they were at - but by the time those thoughts had flicked by, my face had already given way to shock and disgust in all its eyebrow-raising-red-cheeked embarrassment.
At one point I just said, "That is so distasteful," in response to something that was actually far worse than distasteful, and which wild horses would not drag me to repeat. Ever.
They knew it was too; I could tell by the reaction.
I don't know what Jesus would have done. He might have challenged what he saw, speaking right to the heart of what goes on underneath the subtext. He might have stayed, he might have said something outrageous, he might have been kind, angry, silent or ready for a parable. It struck me as interesting that I didn't really know.
I stayed. I listened and observed at the end of the table, hoping that integrity would win the day, even if today was not that day.
On the way back, I chatted with one of them, mostly about work-stuff. The sun was blistering through the sky and the air was roasting. It occurred to me suddenly, that this person simply would not be able to say the things to me that they had been saying twenty minutes before. It would have been inconceivable to them, given the new tone of our conversation, one-to-one.
I also knew somehow that it would have been inconceivable to all of them - I thought around the table - every one would have been the same on the way back to the office. Yet together...
I found that at least a little bit comforting. I might not have been able to directly change the atmosphere in the same way Jesus would have done it; I certainly don't think I'd be as courageous or as controversial. I might not have made the right decision to go in the first place, but given that I had, I thought I'd done okay.
Would I go again next time? Not without thinking more carefully about it. Can I change the atmosphere? Of course, even if it has to happen one-to-one, face-to-face, one atmosphere at a time. I do hope that came across.
MAKING UP WORDS
I told my friend Sarah recently that I thought all words were 'borrowed'.
Well. Perhaps not all words. I think you can make up your own and start using them - the trouble is, unless you establish some sort of context, it'll be difficult to communicate exactly what you mean. So you may as well borrow words and change their context if you're going to try it.
Then I started thinking - what if I did start making up my own words and then deliberately slipped them into conversations? What could I get away with? And would I ever get to the point when I heard someone else using one back to me without them realising?
I'd definitely be one of the cool kids...
Could I manage to get a word, a real made-up clunker of a word ingrained into the vocabulary of people around me and then even further afield? What if I heard it on the radio?
I rubbed my hands together gleefully in the manner of a cartoon villain. This is a special kind of nefarious wizardry isn't it? Changing the English language without anybody even noticing? Could it be done?
About a minute later, I remembered in a flash that I also have the best friends in the world - and as polite and as charming as they are, I don't believe any of them would ever let me get away with this dastardly scheme.
Nope. Every one of them would eventually pull me up, ask me to define it, or look at me weirdly as though I've been assimilated by aliens. Either that, or they'd just ignore me altogether and attribute it to me being weird.
So maybe it's about persistence - making up a word and using it over and over again, always with a consistent context, and an easily-pronounceable collection of phonemes. Perhaps if it sounds like it's a real word, and you're on the edge of a dream that you've sort of heard it before, it will embed itself slowly into your mind and slip out eventually in an appropriate situation. You won't even think about looking it up afterwards!
Or alternatively like my excellent friends, you'll realise that I'm making it up as I go along and you'll distwindle yourself from my Machiavellian scheme.
I might give it a go. But I won't tell you when I'm doing it, obviously!
Mwoohaha.
Well. Perhaps not all words. I think you can make up your own and start using them - the trouble is, unless you establish some sort of context, it'll be difficult to communicate exactly what you mean. So you may as well borrow words and change their context if you're going to try it.
Then I started thinking - what if I did start making up my own words and then deliberately slipped them into conversations? What could I get away with? And would I ever get to the point when I heard someone else using one back to me without them realising?
I'd definitely be one of the cool kids...
Could I manage to get a word, a real made-up clunker of a word ingrained into the vocabulary of people around me and then even further afield? What if I heard it on the radio?
I rubbed my hands together gleefully in the manner of a cartoon villain. This is a special kind of nefarious wizardry isn't it? Changing the English language without anybody even noticing? Could it be done?
About a minute later, I remembered in a flash that I also have the best friends in the world - and as polite and as charming as they are, I don't believe any of them would ever let me get away with this dastardly scheme.
Nope. Every one of them would eventually pull me up, ask me to define it, or look at me weirdly as though I've been assimilated by aliens. Either that, or they'd just ignore me altogether and attribute it to me being weird.
So maybe it's about persistence - making up a word and using it over and over again, always with a consistent context, and an easily-pronounceable collection of phonemes. Perhaps if it sounds like it's a real word, and you're on the edge of a dream that you've sort of heard it before, it will embed itself slowly into your mind and slip out eventually in an appropriate situation. You won't even think about looking it up afterwards!
Or alternatively like my excellent friends, you'll realise that I'm making it up as I go along and you'll distwindle yourself from my Machiavellian scheme.
I might give it a go. But I won't tell you when I'm doing it, obviously!
Mwoohaha.
Thursday, 25 May 2017
BRAIN FREEZE
Some days my brain doesn't work. Alex was trying to tell me that sundials are configured the other way round in the Southern Hemisphere. I just couldn't work out why.
I don't know why my head is like this. I'm good at remembering lots of simple things - capital cities, heights of mountains, Olympic hosts and how to spell 'manoeuvre'. Yet when applying spatial reasoning to hypothetical puzzles, I'm lost.
Marie launched into her fact about the Coriolis Effect and water going down the plughole. Alex was still busy thinking about what happens to shadows on the Equator.
I sipped my tea, thoughtfully. Marie was wrong (I saw it on QI) but I wasn't in the mood to point it out. After a while the conversation had turned to typewriters being designed deliberately to slow down typists.
Does any of this really matter? Why did we delve into this brain-melting thought-tank? Is it a defence, a folly against talking about deeper, more real and emotional matters? Is it advanced kitchen chit chat? Or are we all just engineers who can't let go of something until we've fixed it?
I sometimes feel as though I belong in the gap between these two worlds. I enjoy a puzzle, but I love people. I like machines and code and sceptical analysis, but I also love the unpredictability of human reaction, our unlimited creativity, and a God who plays hide and seek with scientists.
I know people who switch off when their brain doesn't work. They deliberately change the subject, get bored or wander off. I felt the temptation to do that while Alex was explaining the tilt of the planet, its spin and the sunlight hitting it. Later he emailed me a link.
If I am to exist as an otherworldly portal to both worlds, I think I'm going to need to learn to hide my facial expressions in one as well as recognise others' in the other. Sure I can waffle on about how printing press capital letters were actually stored in an 'upper' case. I can also link that stuff back to the things that matter in the real world - people themselves.
At least, I think I can. Most of the time I'm not sure my brain is working properly at all.
Tuesday, 23 May 2017
FIRE WARDEN
"Matt, you're responsible; you can be a fire warden," said Peter.
"What? No initiation ceremony? No handing over of the yellow luminous jacket? Not even a ceremony?"
And so it was, on this the Twenty Third day of the Month, I became officially responsible for the lives of my colleagues in the event of an office fire breaking out and threatening to burn us all to death... but only on a day when Peter's away.
"I think it's because out of all of us..." said Jamie thoughtfully, "You'd be the only one who's overly bothered about any of the rest of us making it out."
I came close to telling them I already had a collection of photographs of fire hydrants. I stopped myself.
"Actually," said Peter, "It's because you're in the middle of the room and you can see everyone. In truth, all you have to do is make sure everybody leaves the building during a fire drill... and wear the jacket to point at the fire exit."
"I see," I said. "Well with great power comes great responsibility. I hope I don't let it go to my head."
Peter smiled.
"I'll send the tailor down and organise the cat-handling, ladder-positioning module," he said, winking.
"What? No initiation ceremony? No handing over of the yellow luminous jacket? Not even a ceremony?"
And so it was, on this the Twenty Third day of the Month, I became officially responsible for the lives of my colleagues in the event of an office fire breaking out and threatening to burn us all to death... but only on a day when Peter's away.
"I think it's because out of all of us..." said Jamie thoughtfully, "You'd be the only one who's overly bothered about any of the rest of us making it out."
I came close to telling them I already had a collection of photographs of fire hydrants. I stopped myself.
"Actually," said Peter, "It's because you're in the middle of the room and you can see everyone. In truth, all you have to do is make sure everybody leaves the building during a fire drill... and wear the jacket to point at the fire exit."
"I see," I said. "Well with great power comes great responsibility. I hope I don't let it go to my head."
Peter smiled.
"I'll send the tailor down and organise the cat-handling, ladder-positioning module," he said, winking.
I GET A TEXT MESSAGE
"Hi Matthew, great news, your mobile plan is getting even better!"
Don't you love it when the excitement of getting a text is replaced with that sudden realisation that it's your service provider?
"From 15th June [what, no 'of'?] you'll get free EU roaming. You'll be able to take all your UK data, minutes and texts to use anywhere in the EU at no extra cost. Perfect if you want to post a selfie from the beach [oh how do you know me so well?] or find your way around with maps [oh, you actually do]..."
I don't like this trend. I'm not saying it's not useful - I'm always getting lost and a little help from good old Google Maps is usually very welcome.
What I am saying is that I don't like the idea of being connected to everything while I'm on holiday - which is exactly what my service provider seems to be suggesting.
It's not just the good people who collect my phone bill every month! My employer too, seems to have a 'dream' where his whole department are able to log in from the beach. I know this because an image depicting that precise utopia appeared in a recent slideshow.
Only it's not utopia is it? You get sand in your laptop, the sun blinds your view of the screen, it's impossible to concentrate and oh yes... you're on HOLIDAY.
Blurring the lines between work and play seems like a truly terrible idea to me, yet society is pushing us all down the holistic route where anyone can call you, email you, IM you, anywhere, any time.
Personally, I think there's something rather magnificent about being able to say that your phone wasn't able to connect to the local wireless network, or that you couldn't get enough signal from the coconut bar.
"I did try to Skype into that big meeting but VPN kept kicking me out," I imagine myself saying, looking woeful. Now, what goes in a pina colada again?
I haven't been abroad for a while, but when I did I switched my phone off. Like, properly off for the whole week. There were no loops I felt left out of and there was nothing I could do about it if there were. Though, admittedly I did get lost a few times in Sorrento.
So perhaps, what we need is a kind of flexible Internet:
Yes I'm in a backstreet in Marakech where it feels like I'm about to be abducted by Moroccan carpet-makers, and yes I'd quite like to find my way out of this.
No, I don't want to know what Tim had for dinner or how far he cycled in an attempt to work it off. And I definitely don't want to think about the minutes of a meeting that I missed where everyone decided to assign all the actions to me.
So turn all that bit off, as though it's all quietly in airplane mode, and just turn Maps and Wikipedia and Expedia and Notes and Blogger on.
Oh and maybe Teach Yourself Emergency Arabic.
That has to be possible, right, service providers?
While we're at it, could you get my phone to self-destruct if it's ever used to take a selfie on the beach?
Don't you love it when the excitement of getting a text is replaced with that sudden realisation that it's your service provider?
"From 15th June [what, no 'of'?] you'll get free EU roaming. You'll be able to take all your UK data, minutes and texts to use anywhere in the EU at no extra cost. Perfect if you want to post a selfie from the beach [oh how do you know me so well?] or find your way around with maps [oh, you actually do]..."
I don't like this trend. I'm not saying it's not useful - I'm always getting lost and a little help from good old Google Maps is usually very welcome.
What I am saying is that I don't like the idea of being connected to everything while I'm on holiday - which is exactly what my service provider seems to be suggesting.
It's not just the good people who collect my phone bill every month! My employer too, seems to have a 'dream' where his whole department are able to log in from the beach. I know this because an image depicting that precise utopia appeared in a recent slideshow.
Only it's not utopia is it? You get sand in your laptop, the sun blinds your view of the screen, it's impossible to concentrate and oh yes... you're on HOLIDAY.
Blurring the lines between work and play seems like a truly terrible idea to me, yet society is pushing us all down the holistic route where anyone can call you, email you, IM you, anywhere, any time.
Personally, I think there's something rather magnificent about being able to say that your phone wasn't able to connect to the local wireless network, or that you couldn't get enough signal from the coconut bar.
"I did try to Skype into that big meeting but VPN kept kicking me out," I imagine myself saying, looking woeful. Now, what goes in a pina colada again?
I haven't been abroad for a while, but when I did I switched my phone off. Like, properly off for the whole week. There were no loops I felt left out of and there was nothing I could do about it if there were. Though, admittedly I did get lost a few times in Sorrento.
So perhaps, what we need is a kind of flexible Internet:
Yes I'm in a backstreet in Marakech where it feels like I'm about to be abducted by Moroccan carpet-makers, and yes I'd quite like to find my way out of this.
No, I don't want to know what Tim had for dinner or how far he cycled in an attempt to work it off. And I definitely don't want to think about the minutes of a meeting that I missed where everyone decided to assign all the actions to me.
So turn all that bit off, as though it's all quietly in airplane mode, and just turn Maps and Wikipedia and Expedia and Notes and Blogger on.
Oh and maybe Teach Yourself Emergency Arabic.
That has to be possible, right, service providers?
While we're at it, could you get my phone to self-destruct if it's ever used to take a selfie on the beach?
Monday, 22 May 2017
THE FIRST OF THIS YEAR'S SUNSETS
Summer evenings are back. I'm in the park for another sunset.
The birds are loving it. I can hear sparrows and starlings and the call of a wood-pigeon.
The sky is hazy with the last wisps of cloud and there's a band of gold painted just above the darkening trees. I like that moment when the sun has sunk below the horizon and the church spires and tall poplars and the distant horizon, are all just black silhouettes against the sky.
I'm out here tonight because it's too nice not to be. I haven't eaten, I've got loads to do, I have to get up early and I'm already tired, but I'm in the park, drawn by beauty like a moth to a flickering flame.
I wonder whether it's okay to let that creative attraction overwhelm your common sense? It would have seemed very grown-up, very responsible to tell myself I ought to stay in and wash up. The child in me pleads for fresh air and starlight, somehow knowing the brevity of those moments. I sit out here, irresponsibly defying the adult me who knows how exhausted I'll be, struggling through tomorrow. Which of us is right?
On the flip side I also paid my gas bill today, so, you know, swings and roundabouts.
Ooh swings and roundabouts! I'm in a park... surely there are...
Well, irresponsibility is one thing I guess. I'm also conscious that there are some things I just can't do.
Anyway, it's pleasant enough out here under the steadily fading light and the chilled wind. A dog barks in the stillness, the gold turns to purple and pink, and the wood-pigeon finds a mate who echoes his call from a different tree.
I go home feeling content.
The birds are loving it. I can hear sparrows and starlings and the call of a wood-pigeon.
The sky is hazy with the last wisps of cloud and there's a band of gold painted just above the darkening trees. I like that moment when the sun has sunk below the horizon and the church spires and tall poplars and the distant horizon, are all just black silhouettes against the sky.
I'm out here tonight because it's too nice not to be. I haven't eaten, I've got loads to do, I have to get up early and I'm already tired, but I'm in the park, drawn by beauty like a moth to a flickering flame.
I wonder whether it's okay to let that creative attraction overwhelm your common sense? It would have seemed very grown-up, very responsible to tell myself I ought to stay in and wash up. The child in me pleads for fresh air and starlight, somehow knowing the brevity of those moments. I sit out here, irresponsibly defying the adult me who knows how exhausted I'll be, struggling through tomorrow. Which of us is right?
On the flip side I also paid my gas bill today, so, you know, swings and roundabouts.
Ooh swings and roundabouts! I'm in a park... surely there are...
Well, irresponsibility is one thing I guess. I'm also conscious that there are some things I just can't do.
Anyway, it's pleasant enough out here under the steadily fading light and the chilled wind. A dog barks in the stillness, the gold turns to purple and pink, and the wood-pigeon finds a mate who echoes his call from a different tree.
I go home feeling content.
WEEKEND COOL
"Good weekend?" asked Nell, busily setting up a computer next to me.
I thought back through it. Then I told her that I'd sat in the park, drinking tea from a flask like an old man.
I am so cool.
I did actually do a few cool things. For example, I played at a gig on Saturday.
Okay it was another barn dance, and yes, the music is designed for what we used to call 'English Country Dancing' at Primary School, but it's still cool, right?
"How are you man?" asked Tom (the drummer) when I arrived.
"I'm good," I said, cheerily lofting my boot open.
"I can never tell from your Twitter feed," he continued, "whether or not you're on the edge of some sort of breakdown."
I stood there wide-eyed for a while. Nothing like telling it like it is eh, I thought to myself.
The gig itself was a classic party-dance. George Lucas and Kenny Rogers swung around the polished floor with Aunt Bessie and Mrs Beeton, while kids in cowboy hats got dizzy on lemonade and did knee-slides at the back of the hall.
Laurel and Hardy were there too, drunkenly trying to 'impress the ladies'.
"Swing your neighbour's partner!" cried the caller at one point.
"I didn't know it was that kind of party," said Hardy to a smattering of awkward laughs.
After a while of course, when everyone else is getting the hang of the dancing, fooling about stops being funny and starts looking idiotic - much like telling the same jokes over and over again, it wears thin - as Laurel and Hardy always do eventually.
I drove home in the early hours of the morning, eyes glaring into the headlamp beams and country lanes.
A breakdown? I thought, rumbling over Tom's honesty. I'd like to be as far away from a breakdown as possible! What does that even mean? I'd been going for deep and slightly surreal. How had I ended up on the edge of sanity?
-
I was up early on Sunday morning, ready to play at church. I got there and realised I wasn't on the rota this week.
That was a moment.
I think I cooled it out though: I stuck around and helped David set up the keyboards.
After church I went home and tidied up for a bit, before accidentally falling asleep while making my bed.
Then I sat drinking tea in the park like an old man.
Nell laughed and went back to plugging in a docking station.
I thought back through it. Then I told her that I'd sat in the park, drinking tea from a flask like an old man.
I am so cool.
I did actually do a few cool things. For example, I played at a gig on Saturday.
Okay it was another barn dance, and yes, the music is designed for what we used to call 'English Country Dancing' at Primary School, but it's still cool, right?
"How are you man?" asked Tom (the drummer) when I arrived.
"I'm good," I said, cheerily lofting my boot open.
"I can never tell from your Twitter feed," he continued, "whether or not you're on the edge of some sort of breakdown."
I stood there wide-eyed for a while. Nothing like telling it like it is eh, I thought to myself.
The gig itself was a classic party-dance. George Lucas and Kenny Rogers swung around the polished floor with Aunt Bessie and Mrs Beeton, while kids in cowboy hats got dizzy on lemonade and did knee-slides at the back of the hall.
Laurel and Hardy were there too, drunkenly trying to 'impress the ladies'.
"Swing your neighbour's partner!" cried the caller at one point.
"I didn't know it was that kind of party," said Hardy to a smattering of awkward laughs.
After a while of course, when everyone else is getting the hang of the dancing, fooling about stops being funny and starts looking idiotic - much like telling the same jokes over and over again, it wears thin - as Laurel and Hardy always do eventually.
I drove home in the early hours of the morning, eyes glaring into the headlamp beams and country lanes.
A breakdown? I thought, rumbling over Tom's honesty. I'd like to be as far away from a breakdown as possible! What does that even mean? I'd been going for deep and slightly surreal. How had I ended up on the edge of sanity?
-
I was up early on Sunday morning, ready to play at church. I got there and realised I wasn't on the rota this week.
That was a moment.
I think I cooled it out though: I stuck around and helped David set up the keyboards.
After church I went home and tidied up for a bit, before accidentally falling asleep while making my bed.
Then I sat drinking tea in the park like an old man.
Nell laughed and went back to plugging in a docking station.
Wednesday, 17 May 2017
POP-UP TRUCKS
Even the rain wasn't enough to suppress the awful smell of the pop-up Korean burger van today.
It's acrid like fumes, yet somehow still sticky and sweet-smelling - a toxic mix of sizzled, barbecued, battered gloop, steaming into the air and pervading through the damp drizzle.
I watched as people came back smiling under their hoods, carrying cardboard trays of towered burgers and chips. I felt sick.
Here's my thought: forget conventional weaponry in contentious military operations, let's send in the pop-up Korean burger van instead.
Oh not just one, rumbling over the sands of Afghanistan! A whole fleet, a caravan of chicken-battering, meat-sizzling pop-up-Korean burger vans infiltrating the last hideouts of the Taliban, or whoever else it is we're fighting these days.
They'll be screaming out of the Tora-Bora caves and laying down their weapons in no time, their eyes watering and their nostrils flaring with the potent stench of deep-fried buttermilk and barbecue gunge.
Oh and there'd be no need to worry about North Korea! The rolling pop-up trucks would fit right in to the Pyongyang Nuclear Development and Volleyball Complex where they'd unfold their plastic gazebos, slip on their aprons and get grilling the sloppy gloop, ready to knock out all the flat-topped scientists who've been chained to their laboratory work-benches.
The program would grind to a halt in a single lunch-time, or at least before the president can lift a pair of heavy binoculars to figure out what's happened anyway.
Soon the Americans will want to be in on it, cooking up their own blend of noxious fried meat and shipping it into conflict situations. They'll test it in the Nevada desert, shortly before President Business tells the Russians exactly how they did it.
Well, anyway. I stood in the lobby, watching the rain rolling the down windows, unable to go outside. I don't know why people eat that stuff.
In the end, I went back to my desk and ate my sandwiches.
It's acrid like fumes, yet somehow still sticky and sweet-smelling - a toxic mix of sizzled, barbecued, battered gloop, steaming into the air and pervading through the damp drizzle.
I watched as people came back smiling under their hoods, carrying cardboard trays of towered burgers and chips. I felt sick.
Here's my thought: forget conventional weaponry in contentious military operations, let's send in the pop-up Korean burger van instead.
Oh not just one, rumbling over the sands of Afghanistan! A whole fleet, a caravan of chicken-battering, meat-sizzling pop-up-Korean burger vans infiltrating the last hideouts of the Taliban, or whoever else it is we're fighting these days.
They'll be screaming out of the Tora-Bora caves and laying down their weapons in no time, their eyes watering and their nostrils flaring with the potent stench of deep-fried buttermilk and barbecue gunge.
Oh and there'd be no need to worry about North Korea! The rolling pop-up trucks would fit right in to the Pyongyang Nuclear Development and Volleyball Complex where they'd unfold their plastic gazebos, slip on their aprons and get grilling the sloppy gloop, ready to knock out all the flat-topped scientists who've been chained to their laboratory work-benches.
The program would grind to a halt in a single lunch-time, or at least before the president can lift a pair of heavy binoculars to figure out what's happened anyway.
Soon the Americans will want to be in on it, cooking up their own blend of noxious fried meat and shipping it into conflict situations. They'll test it in the Nevada desert, shortly before President Business tells the Russians exactly how they did it.
Well, anyway. I stood in the lobby, watching the rain rolling the down windows, unable to go outside. I don't know why people eat that stuff.
In the end, I went back to my desk and ate my sandwiches.
Monday, 15 May 2017
BEN AND LIAM SAVE THE WORLD
Although, in one of the quieter moments, the Over-friendly Barista came over, clutching a broom. He asked me how I was, while he swept under my table.
"I'm really good thanks," I said, glancing up from typing.
"Can I get you anything else? Any drinks?" he asked, smiling.
"I wouldn't mind another cup of tea," I said. He nodded and duly went to make it.
That doesn't usually happen in Noisy Starbucks, so that was a positive.
-
When that second tea was drained, I closed up my iPad and went to see the Intrepids, who were preparing for the weekly onslaught of the Niblings.
It's a little bit like watching footage of Americans who've just heard that a hurricane is on the way.
Anyway, shortly after the winds picked up and the front door blew open, I found myself being chased around the coffee table, choked with 'the force' and being pestered for a game of giant snakes and ladders.
Ben wanted to draw a comic book, and I thought that was such a great idea that I helped him. It's called Ben and Liam Save the World and it's about how Ben and his cousin Liam, fight off PacMan with laser swords in a UFO, and then have a massive party.
It's quite something.
All of this left me feeling radiant about family, which I guess is how it's supposed to be.
I haven't always felt this way, but some things change with age, don't they? The chances are I won't be a father, but being a crazy uncle seems a wonderful next-best thing.
-
I went home, put some washing on and played the piano for a while, my hood up, playing scales like a true Jazz-Jedi. I kind of wish I could be 'force-choked' more often. I chuckled to myself at the thought of miniature Sith Niblings attacking me while I played Dixieland or Brubeck or something.
Nonetheless, I think I have a great life.
Ha! Maybe Ben and Liam really do save the world!
Sunday, 14 May 2017
LOCKED INSIDE MYSELF
I sometimes feel a bit like I'm locked inside myself.
Yes, go on then, roll your eyes while I dive into another self-indulgent introspection. I'll keep writing though, if it's all the same with you.
What I mean is that I sometimes feel like me, the real me, is sort of prisoner to the me that everyone expects me to be. In fact, he's buried so far inside the murky dungeon that I'm not sure that even I remember who he is.
I bet I'm not alone.
This thought started yesterday. We had a recording day at church, and as often happens when we get musically intense, I found myself being asked lots of questions about what I was hearing as though I'm something of an expert.
Outer Me loves being asked questions about music. He's patched together things he knows, sandwiched it between things he likes, and now waffles on about how he thinks it should be done, as though he knows what he's talking about. But I was listening too deeply yesterday, and in the quieter moments, Outer Me heard a faint voice from the deepest depths calling for help.
Inner Me has no idea what he's doing and he's scared that this whole sham is becoming blatantly obvious to everyone around.
"I think it's a trade off between capturing the essence of the sound and playing to time," said Outer Me, authoritatively. Inner Me didn't really know whether that was right or not.
Work is the other place that Outer Me gets pompous. He seems to know about technical documentation and bullet lists and drop-downs and HTTP proxies and cascading style sheets. He rattles off things he's heard as though they were his own brilliant thoughts. Inner Me knows that essentially we're both winging it, every single day.
So, I wandered around yesterday, trying to listen while my friends practised. I had my hood over my head, presumably to look like some sort of Jazz-Jedi - an image almost perfectly reflected by the off-screen of my iPad, which showed a grey beard beneath a dark hood.
If I am locked inside myself, I thought, I probably ought to do something to let the real me, Inner Me, out. He's a cool, nervous artist clutching a pencil; he's a teenager sitting at his grandma's piano; he's a smiling student with a packet of biscuits, an old guitar and a song about fruit he wrote when he should have been revising. He's actually pretty funny.
But Outer Me isn't all that bad either. He's not exactly a jailer, anyway - he's just the victim of circumstances, defence mechanisms and cakefuls of pride. I think it might just be that if Outer Me lets Inner Me out, he might find a lot of things to help me be more of a whole person. If he's brave enough to do it.
Okay, you can stop rolling your eyes now; my self-centred reflecting is over for today. I'm off for a cup of tea at Noisy Starbucks.
Thursday, 11 May 2017
SALTED CARAMEL AND THE UNIVERSE
I was joking about the Nigerian Ambassador, obviously. In case you hadn't cottoned on.
Not about the tea though! Hoho no! No-one jokes about tea.
Today's variety from the sample pack was 'Salted Caramel'.
"Salted Caramel is a wonderful contradiction of sweet and salty which is rich and smooth," says the packet.
Urgh. Imagine someone had somehow melted a Werther's Original and poured it through an old sock. Then, like some cruel, malevolent prankster, they had gradually dripped the resultant slop into a vat of old tea-leaves, and had stuffed them into tea bags.
A contradiction indeed - smells like toffee, tastes like cats.
I have never eaten a cat. Just want to make that absolutely clear.
-
I'm in a strange mood today. Though, actually, if I say that more often than 50% of the time, then it can't really be true, can it?
I think it's because I ate too many biscuits yesterday.
My friend Chris came round with some root beers, and I cracked open the shortbread. He talked; I listened. Then I talked and he listened. Then his wife phoned up and told him to go home because it was late and the kids were still up. I closed up the pack of shortbread crumbs and went to bed.
Do you reckon too much sugar can send you loopy? Of course it can. I spent lunchtime trying to calculate the balance between the odds of life emerging on a planet in a potential fourteen billion year-old universe, and it not happening at all, anywhere.
I was beginning a thought about whether it takes more faith to be an atheist than it does to believe in a Creator.
I'll continue that thought. But first methinks I need a cup of tea.
A cup of nice tea, that is of course. And probably no biscuits.
Not about the tea though! Hoho no! No-one jokes about tea.
Today's variety from the sample pack was 'Salted Caramel'.
"Salted Caramel is a wonderful contradiction of sweet and salty which is rich and smooth," says the packet.
Urgh. Imagine someone had somehow melted a Werther's Original and poured it through an old sock. Then, like some cruel, malevolent prankster, they had gradually dripped the resultant slop into a vat of old tea-leaves, and had stuffed them into tea bags.
A contradiction indeed - smells like toffee, tastes like cats.
I have never eaten a cat. Just want to make that absolutely clear.
-
I'm in a strange mood today. Though, actually, if I say that more often than 50% of the time, then it can't really be true, can it?
I think it's because I ate too many biscuits yesterday.
My friend Chris came round with some root beers, and I cracked open the shortbread. He talked; I listened. Then I talked and he listened. Then his wife phoned up and told him to go home because it was late and the kids were still up. I closed up the pack of shortbread crumbs and went to bed.
Do you reckon too much sugar can send you loopy? Of course it can. I spent lunchtime trying to calculate the balance between the odds of life emerging on a planet in a potential fourteen billion year-old universe, and it not happening at all, anywhere.
I was beginning a thought about whether it takes more faith to be an atheist than it does to believe in a Creator.
I'll continue that thought. But first methinks I need a cup of tea.
A cup of nice tea, that is of course. And probably no biscuits.
Wednesday, 10 May 2017
PHISH AND GINGERBREAD
I very nearly fell for a phishing scam today. It was close: I got an email from PayPal saying that failbook (of all things) had charged me £48.71.
Obviously that's ridiculous so I clicked through the links and then stopped to think when it started asking me for all my personal details.
Erm...no.
This kind of thing is awful isn't it? I bet, right now, more-vulnerable people are entering their bank details into websites out of panic that someone's fraudulently tried to scam them - only to be scammed in their effort to avoid a scam. It makes me feel a bit sick, that kind of thing - like watching videos of smooth-oiled sales people in pensioners' homes with a winning smile and a portfolio full of nothing, ready to steal those poor people's hard-earned central-heating money. What's wrong with the world?
So...
Always, always, always check the URL. Make sure that it matches the URL for the real site and doesn't have any unusual characters in it. Never panic, don't enter anything into an HTTPS site without a padlock symbol next to it, and be suspicious of anything that addresses you as 'user' or 'customer' or #1389045j
-
In similar fashion, I did actually fall for another scam earlier: I drank a Twinings Gingerbread Green tea.
I'd forgotten that flavoured infusions annoy me by being a thousand times weaker than they smell. But there were free samples in the kitchen, so the old nose-for-a-bargain kicked in.
The old nose-for-a-bargain also thought it would be in for that full rich taste of gingerbread, as promised by the potent aroma steaming from the mug, and the words printed on the promotional material.
It was tea with a hint of ginger - as though someone had wafted a stem of the stuff over the teabag in the factory.
I checked the box afterwards:
"Gingerbread green tea," it said, "will remind you of your favourite cake shop."
Yes, and then laugh in your face when all the cakes turn out to be made of plasticine and plastic.
Don't fall for it people. Stick to the real stuff and don't let yourselves be scammed.
Now, if you'll excuse me I have a Nigerian Ambassador emailing me with a rather lucrative proposal involving a foreign bank account...
Obviously that's ridiculous so I clicked through the links and then stopped to think when it started asking me for all my personal details.
Erm...no.
This kind of thing is awful isn't it? I bet, right now, more-vulnerable people are entering their bank details into websites out of panic that someone's fraudulently tried to scam them - only to be scammed in their effort to avoid a scam. It makes me feel a bit sick, that kind of thing - like watching videos of smooth-oiled sales people in pensioners' homes with a winning smile and a portfolio full of nothing, ready to steal those poor people's hard-earned central-heating money. What's wrong with the world?
So...
Always, always, always check the URL. Make sure that it matches the URL for the real site and doesn't have any unusual characters in it. Never panic, don't enter anything into an HTTPS site without a padlock symbol next to it, and be suspicious of anything that addresses you as 'user' or 'customer' or #1389045j
-
In similar fashion, I did actually fall for another scam earlier: I drank a Twinings Gingerbread Green tea.
I'd forgotten that flavoured infusions annoy me by being a thousand times weaker than they smell. But there were free samples in the kitchen, so the old nose-for-a-bargain kicked in.
The old nose-for-a-bargain also thought it would be in for that full rich taste of gingerbread, as promised by the potent aroma steaming from the mug, and the words printed on the promotional material.
It was tea with a hint of ginger - as though someone had wafted a stem of the stuff over the teabag in the factory.
I checked the box afterwards:
"Gingerbread green tea," it said, "will remind you of your favourite cake shop."
Yes, and then laugh in your face when all the cakes turn out to be made of plasticine and plastic.
Don't fall for it people. Stick to the real stuff and don't let yourselves be scammed.
Now, if you'll excuse me I have a Nigerian Ambassador emailing me with a rather lucrative proposal involving a foreign bank account...
Tuesday, 9 May 2017
GETTING BETTER AT FRUIT
I walked past the vending machine today. I'm pretty sure that the KitKat Chunkys have developed telepathy, and were today, calling my name.
Thankfully, pesky KitKats, I have no coins.
How long do you reckon it will be before vending machines everywhere are cash-free? The technology's already there, surely, for contactless card payments. Imagine a world where you can just wave your card over a screen, and crisps and chocolate fall out of their spiral cages and into the tray!
I hope it's a long way off; I'm done for with that kind of thing in the world. The only thing to stop me would be my rapidly expanding mass, putting me off wobbling to the machine. Clearly I need better self-control.
Funny. In the Bible, self-control is called a 'fruit' of the Holy Spirit. I think that means that it's supposed to be a sort of natural byproduct of having good roots and solid nutrition.
I actually don't think that healthy trees can help producing fruit! First come the flowers of spring, then second, when the time is right, out pops the fruit, whether the tree is trying or not. The pressure's off.
So it is with self-control then. Oh, plus - it occurs to me now - I didn't have a smoothie today. That may have something to do with it.
I really need to get better at fruit.
Thankfully, pesky KitKats, I have no coins.
How long do you reckon it will be before vending machines everywhere are cash-free? The technology's already there, surely, for contactless card payments. Imagine a world where you can just wave your card over a screen, and crisps and chocolate fall out of their spiral cages and into the tray!
I hope it's a long way off; I'm done for with that kind of thing in the world. The only thing to stop me would be my rapidly expanding mass, putting me off wobbling to the machine. Clearly I need better self-control.
Funny. In the Bible, self-control is called a 'fruit' of the Holy Spirit. I think that means that it's supposed to be a sort of natural byproduct of having good roots and solid nutrition.
I actually don't think that healthy trees can help producing fruit! First come the flowers of spring, then second, when the time is right, out pops the fruit, whether the tree is trying or not. The pressure's off.
So it is with self-control then. Oh, plus - it occurs to me now - I didn't have a smoothie today. That may have something to do with it.
I really need to get better at fruit.
Friday, 5 May 2017
THE CONFIDENCE JUMPER
Today I'm wearing the Confidence Jumper.
Hey listen, I don't know why it is, but it seems that whenever I wear the Confidence Jumper, I feel super-confident and cool. There's nothing special about the jumper - it's quite ordinary to look at. It's made of wool, it's kind of a deep dark green, it's a little bit scratchy, and it's not noteworthy in any way at all.
Yet when I slip it over my head and push my arms into its sleeves, I'm suddenly like Superman - un-dentable, un-flappable, cool, collected, and invincibly funny.
Yes, funny. Not the kind of funny that gets my teenage niece to roll her eyes, slow-clap and say "Hil-ar-ious" as sarcastically as possible; not the kind of funny that's met with tumbleweed or indifference in response to a jokey email - I'm talking about the kind of thing that makes people chuckle in the kitchen, or cover their mouth with their hand while they shake uncontrollably. And weirdly, it isn't my sense of humour that's changed - at least I don't think so. Same jokes, same me, same old material. Cool.
It's all down to the Jumper.
I wonder though, why all my clothes can't be like the Confidence Jumper? Where are the Trousers of Excellence or the Socks of Sensitivity? Where is the Happiness T-Shirt or the Popularity Jacket? And what about the Shoes of...Peace...oh...
Hmm. Perhaps it's not that original an idea. After all, St Paul wrote about this kind of thing a long time ago. Maybe it's deeper than the jumper.
Hey listen, I don't know why it is, but it seems that whenever I wear the Confidence Jumper, I feel super-confident and cool. There's nothing special about the jumper - it's quite ordinary to look at. It's made of wool, it's kind of a deep dark green, it's a little bit scratchy, and it's not noteworthy in any way at all.
Yet when I slip it over my head and push my arms into its sleeves, I'm suddenly like Superman - un-dentable, un-flappable, cool, collected, and invincibly funny.
Yes, funny. Not the kind of funny that gets my teenage niece to roll her eyes, slow-clap and say "Hil-ar-ious" as sarcastically as possible; not the kind of funny that's met with tumbleweed or indifference in response to a jokey email - I'm talking about the kind of thing that makes people chuckle in the kitchen, or cover their mouth with their hand while they shake uncontrollably. And weirdly, it isn't my sense of humour that's changed - at least I don't think so. Same jokes, same me, same old material. Cool.
It's all down to the Jumper.
I wonder though, why all my clothes can't be like the Confidence Jumper? Where are the Trousers of Excellence or the Socks of Sensitivity? Where is the Happiness T-Shirt or the Popularity Jacket? And what about the Shoes of...Peace...oh...
Hmm. Perhaps it's not that original an idea. After all, St Paul wrote about this kind of thing a long time ago. Maybe it's deeper than the jumper.
Thursday, 4 May 2017
EARLY SUMMER AND THE SIX SEASONS
I really like this time of year. The horse chestnuts are in blossom and seeing the white candles and green leaves reminds me of summer days on The Field, playing rounders and kicking a football about.
There's a kind of wild, warm uncertain breeze, ruffling the trees, making you question whether or not you need a coat. Then there's the young sunshine, gathering just enough strength to force a shadow. It's hopeful, at least.
I've thought for a while now that there ought to be more than four seasons.
Back in the Autumn I split the long end of the year into what I called Keats's Fall and Hood's Autumn, after two famous poems. I was trying to delineate the boundary between mellow fruitfulness and soggy drizzle and as it happens, I think that switch happens somewhere at the end of October.
But, thinking it over today in the buzzing air of May, there might be more than one type of summer too.
If so, then this 'darling buds of May' season we're in at the moment is definitely Early Summer. Early Summer begins with the bluebells and ends with the school holidays, and I love it - everything really comes to life. The only downside is the hay fever it naturally brings with it. Thankfully that hasn't started for me yet - although it's only a matter of time before the grass starts getting ideas.
Late Summer then, would start at the end of July and last right up to Keats's Fall in mid-September. It's characterised by heatwaves, downpours, browned grass and long, lazy afternoons.
It's an interesting theory. It means that there are six seasons, rather than four. And you could probably split them further if you thought about it too much.
The whole thing works like this I think:
Winter: Christmas to Snowdrops (8 weeks)
Spring: Snowdrops to Bluebells (6 weeks)
Early Summer: Bluebells to Holidays (12 weeks)
Late Summer: Holidays to Harvest (10 weeks)
Keats's Fall: Harvest to Halloween (6 weeks)
Hood's Autumn: Halloween to Christmas (8 weeks)
Of course in this country, you could probably argue that the season changes daily, and perhaps even more frequently than that. It wasn't that long ago after all, that we were sheltering from hail, and listening to reports of snow in Oxford. Today the sun is beaming and the world is as bright as ever it was.
Well, whatever the season, I really quite like this pre-hay-fever, pre-heatwave, warmth and uncertainty. Even if I can't work out whether I need a coat or not.
There's a kind of wild, warm uncertain breeze, ruffling the trees, making you question whether or not you need a coat. Then there's the young sunshine, gathering just enough strength to force a shadow. It's hopeful, at least.
I've thought for a while now that there ought to be more than four seasons.
Back in the Autumn I split the long end of the year into what I called Keats's Fall and Hood's Autumn, after two famous poems. I was trying to delineate the boundary between mellow fruitfulness and soggy drizzle and as it happens, I think that switch happens somewhere at the end of October.
But, thinking it over today in the buzzing air of May, there might be more than one type of summer too.
If so, then this 'darling buds of May' season we're in at the moment is definitely Early Summer. Early Summer begins with the bluebells and ends with the school holidays, and I love it - everything really comes to life. The only downside is the hay fever it naturally brings with it. Thankfully that hasn't started for me yet - although it's only a matter of time before the grass starts getting ideas.
Late Summer then, would start at the end of July and last right up to Keats's Fall in mid-September. It's characterised by heatwaves, downpours, browned grass and long, lazy afternoons.
It's an interesting theory. It means that there are six seasons, rather than four. And you could probably split them further if you thought about it too much.
The whole thing works like this I think:
Winter: Christmas to Snowdrops (8 weeks)
Spring: Snowdrops to Bluebells (6 weeks)
Early Summer: Bluebells to Holidays (12 weeks)
Late Summer: Holidays to Harvest (10 weeks)
Keats's Fall: Harvest to Halloween (6 weeks)
Hood's Autumn: Halloween to Christmas (8 weeks)
Of course in this country, you could probably argue that the season changes daily, and perhaps even more frequently than that. It wasn't that long ago after all, that we were sheltering from hail, and listening to reports of snow in Oxford. Today the sun is beaming and the world is as bright as ever it was.
Well, whatever the season, I really quite like this pre-hay-fever, pre-heatwave, warmth and uncertainty. Even if I can't work out whether I need a coat or not.
Wednesday, 3 May 2017
CRUISING
The Intrepids are off to Norway soon - on a cruise of the fjords.
That's nice.
I know I called it a 'floating Butlins' the other day, but there is something about life on a ship that rather appeals. The steady lilt from side-to-side, the kind of old-fashioned sense of adventure, out there, adrift on the oceans of the world - maybe even the ready-made community of passengers who wander from deck-to-deck, peering out across the impenetrable blue sea.
It's a curious thing though, when you think about it - a mode of transport that is predominantly accommodation...
You don't get flying hotels, and you'd only go to sleep on a train out of real necessity. Yet it's extremely popular (and luxuriant) to climb aboard a large sea-faring bus, unpack your things into a windowless cupboard that rocks from port to starboard, sink a few travel-sickness pills, and call the whole thing home for a few weeks.
Despite my cynicism, I've often said I'd do it - as a musician of course. I imagine myself with a wardrobe full of tuxedos, ready to tinkle the ivories every night in a jazz and blues combo for the delight of the blue-rinse club.
I think you have to be very good though to get to do that kind of thing.
Anyway, the Intrepids are sailing back into the Arctic Circle, where the Northern Lights dance across the stars and the meltwater tumbles down pine-laden mountains into icy waters.
I will be here, tapping nonsense that no-one reads into a computer.
That's nice.
I know I called it a 'floating Butlins' the other day, but there is something about life on a ship that rather appeals. The steady lilt from side-to-side, the kind of old-fashioned sense of adventure, out there, adrift on the oceans of the world - maybe even the ready-made community of passengers who wander from deck-to-deck, peering out across the impenetrable blue sea.
It's a curious thing though, when you think about it - a mode of transport that is predominantly accommodation...
You don't get flying hotels, and you'd only go to sleep on a train out of real necessity. Yet it's extremely popular (and luxuriant) to climb aboard a large sea-faring bus, unpack your things into a windowless cupboard that rocks from port to starboard, sink a few travel-sickness pills, and call the whole thing home for a few weeks.
Despite my cynicism, I've often said I'd do it - as a musician of course. I imagine myself with a wardrobe full of tuxedos, ready to tinkle the ivories every night in a jazz and blues combo for the delight of the blue-rinse club.
I think you have to be very good though to get to do that kind of thing.
Anyway, the Intrepids are sailing back into the Arctic Circle, where the Northern Lights dance across the stars and the meltwater tumbles down pine-laden mountains into icy waters.
I will be here, tapping nonsense that no-one reads into a computer.
FINITE IDEAS
Do you reckon there is a finite number of ideas? I'm only asking because all of social media seems to be a clamour for that new, interesting angle that no-one's thought of yet. Anything to feel clever, funny, new, different, quirky. What happens if there are no more angles left?
It won't have escaped your notice that this idea too is an angle, and that it's being preached at you from a blog, the original unabridged form of social media. I sigh to myself, wearily (is there any other way?) Ah well. I guess I should go back to talking about my day, the one thing I really do have an angle on.
I tried to put up a coat rack in my hall. I botched it. The drill slipped, the holes are too big and the screws don't go all the way into the raw plugs. Oh and I knocked the tub of tiny screws, plugs and spare drill bits over the shoe rack. They went everywhere - into the tongues, eyelets and lace holes, rattling down under the insoles. Putting my shoes on tomorrow will be risky, as will hanging my coat up - an activity that could rip out a metric tonne of plaster, and cover my rucksacks in brick dust.
I also had another moment of defeat at work. Defeat and deflation seem to hang around together - rendering me unable to speak, because the next permutation of moves always results in checkmate, and with me continually feeling pathetic at not being able to explain it. It happens to me a lot, that.
I told the new sales girl about my DIY exploits. She is French. She looked at me as though I were speaking a different language.
It is like chess then. There is a finite number of ideas and that number is massive, so huge you could never find all of them... but you can still end up in checkmate in any number of ways.
I will try again with the coat rack. Maybe new holes half a centimetre lower, and maybe a little deeper. Or maybe I'll just call one of the half-dozen people in my phone book who could help me do it without feeling defeated or deflated.
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