HOW ELECTRICITY WORKS: PART 1

The other day, a friend of mine was talking about how difficult it had been to understand or describe electricity and how it works.

I went a bit red. Even with a degree in physics I didn't really think I'd be able to help, as for me, the same mental blocks had kicked in early on, and I remembered what that felt like. What's impedance? Why don't I understand what voltage is? What's DC? What's AC? If I switch the plug socket on is it constantly on, or does electricity only work when something is plugged into it? Am I really stupid for not understanding it? It was a big issue for me.

So I had a think, and I reckon I've come up with a nifty analogy. This would have been useful to me, when I needed to know it - but I don't remember the text books being all that helpful. So, here's me reminding myself how electricity works, written as I would have liked it aged 13. We'll call it part 1.

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How Electricity Works - Part 1

You can think of electricity as water to help you understand what might be happening in an electrical circuit. That's an okay comparison because electricity is really just a flow of tiny charged particles. They flow, they move, they sweep downstream and they do stuff. So let's start there...

Current (I) - Current is a measure of how fast the electricity is flowing, just like a flow-rate tells you the speed of a river or stream. The unit of measuring electrical current is the Ampere or Amp for short. A high current means the flow is moving faster.

Voltage (V) - this is a bit like the water pressure, or a measure of how much energy the flow carries in a certain volume of water. Voltage is measured in Volts. The higher the voltage, the faster the flow - just as a river flows faster if the hill is steeper, or is being pumped by something upstream.

Resistance (R) - this is a measure of how good a particular material is at stopping or reducing the flow. For example, a sponge is a really good resistor: it slows down the current, and it reduces the pressure. High resistance means a lower current.

Also, the size of the water-pipe might affect how much water can flow through it at any one time. So a smaller pipe lets less water through per second than a wider one will. The smaller the pipe, the greater the resistance. Electrical Resistance is measured in Ohms.

Ohm's Law

Ohm was a German physicist who worked out exactly how resistance affects the flow of electricity: "Ohm's law" tells you how current, voltage and resistance work together.

For example:

Imagine you have a tank of water with a pipe or a hose attached to it.

If you increase the water-pressure in the tank, the speed at which it spurts out of the pipe goes up, just like squeezing a lemonade bottle or a tube of toothpaste. You could increase the pressure in the tank by forcing the water out so that it's got nowhere else to go but through the hosepipe! What happens to the current (how fast the flow is) when the pressure goes up?

This is Ohm's law. It states that the current is faster when the voltage is high and the resistance is low. Or, the opposite: that the flow is slower when either the resistance is high or the voltage is low. It's usually written like this:

V = I x R

Circuits

A circuit is a complete system, usually with a 'load' in it, for example, a water wheel or a light bulb. The load is the bit that moves or lights up or does something as a result of the flow. Loads are the useful bit.

You can measure how much energy is produced by a system, by watching the load. Water-wheels used to turn machinery that ground flour in old mills. If the river flooded upstream and it moved faster, the wheel turned more quickly and generated more power. If there was a drought and the river slowed down or stopped, it was bad news for the miller and everyone who liked bread. The power of the system depended on the current.

A higher flow of electricity (current), or a greater pressure (voltage) generates more energy for whatever load the circuit is powering. Similarly to a water-wheel in a river, a light bulb in a circuit gets brighter as the amount of power increases.

Power is directly related to how much voltage (pressure) there is, and how fast the current is flowing. Power (W) is measured in Watts.

W = V x I

Power is the product of the voltage and the current of a system. You might notice that light bulbs have a rating that's measured in Watts. That's a direct indication of how much energy they use, and therefore how bright they are when you plug them in.

So, the more energy you have, the brighter you can be. That's why you should eat good food, by the way.

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Would that have helped? Does it make sense? Is it even right? It's probably obvious, but it was worth a go. I reckon in Part 2, I could talk about AC and DC and maybe even a bit more about how those mysterious electrons carry charge, and why.

Though obviously I'll have to figure it out first.

TOO EARLY FOR LIGHTS

I’m sitting in the car on the evening of the first Monday after the clocks go back. 

It’s winter now, I think. You can feel the wind biting, and the flecks of drizzle in the air nestling into your face like snowflakes.

In a few weeks’ time, my neighbours along this street will start putting up their Christmas decorations. The houses here glow at Christmastime, with flashing yellows and neon blues. There are fairy lights swinging from the gutters; there will be bulbous inflatable Santas lit up in cream and orange, and strings of bulbs spiralling around the trees. There are reindeer and parachutes and elves and penguins. It’s an electric paradise of tacky wonder. I really like it.

I know, right. Even last year I might have said otherwise. And in general, I do find outdoor festive decorations ridiculous. I wouldn’t do it myself for all the tea in china in fact, but... I do like driving home to see other people turning their houses into festive runways. I find it weirdly comforting. The feeling is starting to remind me of home. This home.

So much so in fact, that I’m sitting in the street looking at these dark houses now, wishing it was early December.

Is it possible that my brain is already forging memories for me to look back to? I didn’t know that happened at this age. Or is it just that I moved here in a December, and ever since then the houses have only ever looked right for one twelfth of the time? Could be that. Either way, my clever old mind has persuaded me to like something I previously detested.

But I race on. There are no decorations up quite yet. Well, not outside of the department stores and garden centres anyway. And certainly not in this road! It won’t be long though, I’d wager.

I’m kind of looking forward to it.

MY HEART IS LIKE THE OCEAN

There are a few deep things going on in me at the moment, that are hard to describe. I’ve learned I think, not to try, when that happens. Instead I wrote a poem that gets close.

My Heart is Like The Ocean

My heart is like the ocean,

Wide and free and deep...

And full of unknown icky stuff

And monsters half-asleep.

And raging like a winter storm

Or icy cold, or clear and warm

A foamy mass of spongey form, my

heart is like an ocean

Wide and free and deep

My heart is like the ocean,

Lit by summer’s glow!

Where cheery ships go sailing by

As feelings come and go

They catch the wind with billowed sail

And cut the breeze of my travail

Where mighty shark and gentle whale

Unfathomable ocean, that is

Deeper than I know

My heart is like an ocean

I feel it, more yet more

But even I can’t figure what that

Icky stuff is for.

The rattle over flat, wet stones

The pounding water in these bones

The crash, the roar, the monsters groan, this

Heart is like an ocean

Lost upon the shore

THE END OF BRITISH SUMMER TIME

The weather changed a bit today. As if to simulate the end of British Summer Time, it went from a bright, sunny, Autumn morning into a cold, drizzly, winter’s afternoon.

The clocks go back of course, which is great news for the one in my car that I forgot to change in March. Tomorrow it’ll be back to being correct, and I can stop mentally reminding myself that it’s an hour out.

It’s not so good for the one in the bathroom though, which is happily stuck in summer all the year round. All I need now is one of those daylight bulbs and that little sauna of happiness will be an oasis of holiday in the midst of the bleak midwinter, just an hour ahead.

I went to the Co-Op in the sunshine. They have all their ugly Halloween dolls dangling from the roof, swinging between pumpkins as though they’ve been hanged at a weird fruit fayre. This season is grizzly and horrid. Apparently, my Aunty had to take her granddaughter screaming out of the Co-Op the other day, just at the sight of those awful things. It made me wonder what the whole point of it was.

Anyway, I like to avoid the pumpkin season by using the end of October as my first milestone for practising Christmas carols. And so I did.

It is, I’m afraid, the lot of every musician (and their neighbours) to do this early. I see it as fighting back the darkness with a little sparkle, and reminding anything evil out there that Hope is coming.

So, back go the clocks anyway, and out comes the mead and the hot-buttered toast and the towelling-robe dressing gown. The jumpers of course, are already out, after the other night when I wore them all at once. And I’ve sorted the heaters out a bit. I’m getting there.

I watched the rain spatter lightly on the kitchen window. The trees in the park blew and the leaves twisted through the air. Clouds raced, dog walkers wrapped coats around themselves, and the rain moistened the concrete paths until they shimmered. Out beyond the green, the benches I sit on in summer were empty and wet. I doubt I’ll be out there for some time. And that’s okay.

I’ll been in here, sorting my life out a bit while practising Good King Wenceslas and God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen. God rest you, indeed. Happy winter, everybody.

THE SAINSBURY’S GNOME

This isn’t a hint for anybody to do anything, but I actually don’t think I’m capable of looking after myself.

That was my thought in the middle of the supermarket. I froze, like a little Sainsbury’s gnome in the dairy aisle. Hood up, eyes closed, rucksack on both shoulders, counting on my fingers:

“Chopped tomatoes, mushrooms, garlic, cheese... butter... that’s about it.”

I recounted, listing the contents of my fridge from memory.

That is not a feast; I don’t even like mushrooms! So there I stood, meditating on any quick simple thing I could have with at least some of that, to make a half decent Friday-night dinner at the end of an exhausting week.

A very pretty lady looked at me and quickly did a 180-swerve away from me with her trolley. Avoid the Sainsbury’s Gnome, people, for he muttereth to himself by the Lurpaks.

My friend Sarah helped me make a food diary and a shopping plan a while ago. I was, and am still very grateful. And yet... I don’t seem to have the discipline to make it work. Am I incapable, or scatter-brained, or just lazy? And which of those is worst?

Meanwhile, my Mum believes that the reason I got sick this week was that I didn’t eat anything on Tuesday other than a bowl of porridge and some Fry’s Chocolate Creams. When she (made me) put it like that, it was tough to argue.

What happens is that I keep changing my plans, because, at the end of the day (in every sense) I actually don’t think I like being on my own. And if I were better at that, I could build change into the plan, so that I don’t end up with a fridge of decaying vegetables.

Well, anyway, I cobbled some Italianish gloop together and ate it, listening to the latest Just a Minute on the radio. Then I played the piano for a bit, warmed up the heaters, and felt a lot better.

I can do this, right? I mean, I can overcome this! I can plan and tidy, and cook and eat, and sleep and work, like a normal person, can’t I?

I believe so. I have to.

Maybe this was a hint for somebody to do something, after all! Me.

GOOD LUCK, EDMOND DE BELLAMY

Portrait of Edmond de Bellamy

Well I'm back at work and asking daft questions in meetings again. Everyone's thrilled, let me tell you.

Speaking of meetings, I did wonder today, whether I might have the tiniest fear of them. And I mean all of them. They seem to make me... what's the word... a bit... stressy? I think it's the lighting. Or maybe the tone. Or maybe it's just those brainstorming, discussion meetings when I have to master the art of neither saying too much, nor offering too little.

Hmm.

Meanwhile, Clive's just told me about something called Generative Adversarial Networks. It was all in the context of how neural networks (AIs) are generating art, actual real art, by machine-learning from thousands of examples of portraits painted between the Fourteenth and Seventeenth Century.

Imagine that! Artificial Intelligence is now learning how to create original artworks! In fact, today, for the first time, a piece of generative art, this portrait of the fictional Edmond de Bellamy, is being auctioned for what could be thousands of Euros.

Clive told me how it works.

It is, apparently, two neural networks who act as a team. One learns ideas and comes up with a new way to do something; the other validates it and checks whether it will work and passes the quality test. Both learn together, from each other, both create ideas, and both submit. As I say, they call it a Generative (it produces something) Adversarial (from the natural tension) Network (of the team).

That's a great way for a team to work, isn't it? I wonder why we humans let our nature get in the way; in our 'adversarial networks' we often refuse to listen to people we don't respect, we subjugate ourselves to dominance, and we blindly recoil when our pride gets damaged. It takes a lot of character to work in a team, sometimes, even in a network of two.

I'm not qualified to talk about marriage, but it does occur to me that there's a lot to be said for a rotating relationship of learning, discussion, and creativity. After all, the family unit ought to be the original basis for 'generative' art. But even outside of that incredible unit, there's a lot of power in forming a network, don't you think?

I reckon my problem with meetings is that they're not especially designed for creatives - and even when they are, creative people are really difficult to keep on track.

"My brain's just not wired up to think that way," I heard myself say, tapping my pen on the table. I quickly realised I had to try a bit of short-circuiting so that the science-bit of my thinking kicked in, but it wasn't easy. And it turned out to be stressful.

Which might be why I like the idea of Generative Adversarial Networks. So, I think it's a great thing, and I hope it sells for lots of money, as the first of its kind. Meanwhile, I ought to try to be better behaved in meetings I suppose. At least until the computers take over.

Good luck, Edmond de Bellamy.

SHIVERY AND ABSENT

Turns out I was shivering with more than just the cold. I’m ill.

There’s a uselessness to being ill. It’s free time, but free time you can’t use for anything other than lying in bed with a temperature. After disrobing all my jumpers and shuddering under the duvet, I tried lying ram-rod straight, all my muscles and sinews stretched to maximum, to see if that would quell the shivers.

Before long I realised I wasn’t quite right.

So here I am, drinking pomegranate juice, and thinking about all the things I could be doing, knowing of course that all the things I would be doing, I’m not doing anyway - like work, where presumably my team are having a super productive time, without me there interrupting and asking questions I could easily find the answers to.

I never used to get sick. I had a 100% attendance record at school, which would have come as a surprise to no-one at the time. As an adult though, I seem much more prone to a bug or two most years, and in most jobs. Maybe the world is harsher; maybe I’m old and my immunity is failing. Or maybe I’m just less bothered about being absent.

I emailed in. My boss said what every boss says in this situation: wrap up warm, get some rest, drink plenty of fluids, see you tomorrow.

I’m not really even sure what’s wrong with me. I just feel a bit upside-down and shivery. I might try some toast in a bit.

ICICLES

I ammm a man wh..o sssserious-ly needs to sort his h-heating out.

And it’s only October! There are atoms in this flat that are teetering on the brink of Absolute Zero; my milk has lumps in it, and I’m sure I can see icicles on the lampshades.

It’s my fault. I set the timers to come on too late. And it’s also my fault for not having proper central heating yet. That’s why this winter looks like an iceberg ahead - my inability to sort my life out!

But I promised I wouldn’t complain about that again. At least until I’ve done something about it.

And tonight, that means dressing like the Michelin Man and waddling around the place, in all my conceivable jumpers, until my portable heaters get their act together.

I suppose I could stick my head in the freezer, you know just to warm up.

Brrr.

TALL

So, I forgot to say yesterday, that that poem (The Invisible Man) is not aimed at anyone specific! It really isn’t; I was trying to express an emotion simply, that I’ve felt before, and I thought it was relatable.

Today’s however, is aimed at someone specific. And I think it might be the longest poem I’ve written. Yesterday’s wasn’t personal; today’s is very much so. But don’t panic. It’s about me, this one, struggling and writing a letter to God about it.

Tall

Dear God of creation

I thought I should write

To tell you that I am...

Well I’m really, alright...

With the way you designed

Me, I’m thankful, you see

Cos I think that you did

A good job,

making me.

I’m okay with this nose

And my sparkling eyes,

And my fun sense of humour

And love of surprise,

And I love how you made

Me, quite smart on the whole

With a rhythmical heart

And a musical soul

But God there’s a something

I wondered about

That gets me, sometimes

And it causes me doubt.

See, I’m given to thinking

Well. I’ve often thought,

Did you really intend me

To be quite...

this

short?

Oh God of creation

I’m sorry if I

Am complaining or

Draining the tears from my eye,

But it’s just that in photos

I look really small!

As I’m beaming away

Under metres of wall!

And my friends who were there,

Seemed the same height as me!

But somehow it seems

They were all six foot three!

Did you really design

This condition at all?

Was it your great intention

To not make me tall?

Did you mean me to

Feel so embarrassed, so red

When the lads used to natter

Right over my head?

Oh God of all comfort!

It’s never seemed right

When jokers and pokers

Make fun of my height

So I reach for the mugs and 

I stretch on my toes

For the top of the cupboard

Where crockery goes

And I can’t see in concerts

Or work out who scored

When the crowd go bananas

I can’t see the board.

Oh I can’t look... imposing

I wish I could choose!

But I just look so silly

In big clumpy shoes.

So God, I was thinking

If it’s okay with you...

Could I wake up tomorrow

And be six foot two?

Could I suddenly shoot

Like a flower in spring?

Could I grow just a bit

Oh, would that be the thing?

Hmm

I guess I should somehow

Remember that you

Have always been perfect

In all that you do.

Like David, I know that

I’m never alone,

I’m broken and chosen,

A smooth river-stone,

And maybe the lesson

You’d like to impart

Is less about measures

And more about heart

So God will you help me

To see like you see?

To know there are giants

Still shorter than me?

To walk with the kindness

That grows with this love

That reaches the earth

And yet soars high above

And God of creation

High over it all, I’ll

Be really grateful

That I can

walk tall

SIMPLICITY AND INVISIBILITY

It was bright and warm like a late summer’s day today. These are the days in which the sky is cool and cloudlessly blue, the coloured trees cast long shadows, and the sun hangs low and golden over the crisp, green grass.

I decided to go to the park for my lunch - probably for the last visit of the year. I took sandwiches, a packet of Fry’s chocolate creams, and a bottle of lucozade, and I sat out in the lovely sunshine. 

There’s a great simplicity to those moments. The sun just shines, the sky just glistens, and the world just is. Simple! And although I haven’t mastered it, I happen to be a huge fan of simplicity! 

In fact, here’s a poem that’s aiming to say something simple - the feeling you get when you know you can really be useful to someone, but they don’t seem to see it; in fact they don’t seem to see you at all.

The Invisible Man

I think I could help you;

I’d quite like to try

I’ve got what you need,

What you need to get by

But you are frustrated

For reasons, I see

That could be placated

If you should ask me.

But I am transparent:

A fracture of glass.

And I’ll never offer

And you’ll never ask, so

You might never know that

I’d help to the end,

And love you forever,

Forever your friend

Told you it was simple, even if it’s kind of deep. Oh to be deep and simple. I have got to stop over-complicating everything.

THE SICKNESS OF THE MIDDLE OF THE NIGHT

I’m not sick. Just to be clear. But it is the middle of the night and I do feel something.

Perhaps it’s oppression. The stifled world out there is deathly quiet, and of course, most of the people who matter to me are asleep. I watched the President land in Arizona, and climb out of his helicopter for a rally. A sea of red hats whooped and hollered, chanting “USA, USA, USA...” as he made his way through the hangar. The crowd reached fever pitch.

It hasn’t helped me sleep. With a gig tomorrow night and a full day on Sunday, I’m not sure how I’m going to make it. People should be asleep at 3 o’clock in the morning; I should be, and I’m not and I feel a bit sick about that.

I don’t have anything to eat. I can’t play the piano, and the Internet is dull, save for President Business whipping up a frenzy in an aircraft hangar in Arizona. He wants to put America first; I just want to go to sleep.

Perhaps it’s a sort of small-hours-loneliness. I’ll feel better about things tomorrow when there are people around and messages to reply to, when I can fill the air with music, or nip out to get some bread. Lying here in the dark is just plain boring, with a sprinkling of pale, weak, heartless sickliness.

Reading is making my eyes go funny and my brain hurt. I need darkness to sweep over me and the moon to sing me to slumber. I need to leave my thoughts behind. I need to stop writing.

“What do you hope he talks about?” asked the reporter before the rally. The large man in a baseball cap, pushed his hand over his sizeable chin and his eyes moved uncomfortably around the room as the microphone wobbled in his face.

“Oh, everythin’ important,” he said in a drawling Southern accent. The reporter smiled, unwilling to ask him to narrow that vapid response down to anything specific inside the known universe. I wonder sometimes whether large crowds of people are truly able to think critically at all, the same way that individuals or small groups can. Maybe that’s why politicians like large-scale, sweeping rallies. Perhaps the more people are around us, the safer we feel expressing our opinions. It’s alone in the dark where our deepest fears and thoughts try to get the better of us.

I really need to go to sleep now.

BOXES

Boxes

Oh! Boxes are great

For putting stuff in

For packing and stacking

And storing within

Four sides and a lid

With a label applied?

Compartments of joy

For the wonders inside!

And boxes are fun

When they’re empty of things

For the astronaut’s

Shuttle that flies without wings

So why in the world

Do they say to discard

All the boxes I’ve loved

Whether paper or card?

All for ‘thinking outside

That box’ in your mind?

When boxes are awesome

At helping me find,

All my filing, adventures

The stuff in my brain!

Nope I’ve thought it all through,

And my boxes remain.

For, boxes are great!

For putting stuff in

For sorting and porting

And moving a thing

Four sides and a lid!

What treasures are bound!

I wonder, inside

The boxes I’ve found?

WORKING FROM HOME #27

I’m working from home today, for the first time since May-the-somethingth. Still undecided about whether I like it or not.

This morning, the sun poured in and warmed the study. I put the Jurassic Park soundtrack on Spotify, and I flew through my tasks like a velociraptor in the long grass. I dialled into a meeting in my pyjamas, with hair looking like a box of springs had just exploded, eyes bleary and unspectacled. No-one knew.

I even went to Waitrose for lunch - a piping macaroni affair in ciabatta breadcrumbs, with a side of pensioners sipping lattes and talking about the troubles of their grandchildren. I wasn’t there long.

The thing is, it’s work but sort of without the good bit - the people bit.

Oh there’s Skype. But you lose the all-important tone and body-language somehow. People you’re friends with seem more brusque and disconnected.

There are emails too! But my attempts to be humorous by email seem to fall conspicuously flat without that polite (humour me) chuckle you sometimes get.

And don’t talk to me about Slack. I’m in trouble because I asked why Cluedo doesn’t count as a ‘proper’ board game. I’d love a game of Cluedo! And it is a game... with a board. Slack, where developers talk about steam trains and coding repositories, does not agree.

So, my washing spins in the tub and my computer beeps happily to itself as the notifications roll in. There’s nothing controversial to get riled-up about, and no cake or biscuits in the kitchen (other than my own packet of Oreos, which seems to have dissolved into crumbs somehow). It’s all good.

Maybe I should work at home more often. It has its charms.

POINTLESS POLARISERS

One of the news headlines today, in the actual news, is that a famous actress won’t let her child watch Cinderella.

What I imagine is an editor somewhere sitting at a polished wooden table, wafting a pen through the air as though conducting an orchestra of hipsters and MacBooks.

“So we run with it. Half the room go left... she’s a terrible Mum and if it was good enough for us as kids then it’s good enough for hers, yada yada yada... and the other half go right: empowering her children, she’s rewriting the narrative of gender stereotypes and she should be applauded, eck cetera.”

“Wait. Why do we care? I mean isn’t it up to her how she runs her family. Why should the nation w...”

“Because, powder-brain, the nation loves it. They love a debate, an argument, a noise. Trust me. For some reason it’ll go nuts on Twitter, and we’ll get a gazillion hits, either way.”

Meanwhile, I notice, the rest of the news, the actual news, is pretty awful, whether it polarises the nation or not, as seems to be popular these days.

Anyway, I reckon it’s okay to show your kids Cinderella and Snow White and The Little Mermaid, but of course, obviously, absolutely reinforce the truths that girls don’t need rescuing by boys on horses, that it is never okay to kiss a sleeping stranger, and that your voice is as important as your heart.

But don’t just copy some Hollywood celebrity. And don’t get mad at her either. It’s nobody’s business but hers after all. That is kind of the point, whether the media and that room full of MacBooks want us arguing over it or not.

READING OUT LOUD

The other day I had the privilege of reading a story book to some children. Not my Niblings - they're all a bit beyond that, although the littlest one does like to read the My First Numbers book, out loud, from memory.

I did the voices. You bet I did the voices. And every glossy page I turned over seemed like a brand new adventure for me, and for them, so I added intonations and pauses wherever I saw them.

It's a lovely thing to do, reading out loud to people. I wonder why we stop reading to each other? Perhaps we imagine that someday our proficiency in the art of deciphering writing has reached the level where it's no longer required. The learning is over?

Tosh.

If it's poetry, we recite it - certainly my Mum likes that; it kept her smiling in hospital when I took in some of my silly poems about trees, flamingos, and cathedrals. She likes to hear me express things.

And audio-books are popular too. That is definitely somebody reading something to you, for hours on end.

I just think there's something sweet about reading something for someone else, that helps you appreciate the language. I'd do it with Shakespeare if I could! But the Niblings wouldn't last through Act I, Scene I... of anything... before they'd be itching to get playing Fortnite or Minecraft. And anyway, there's no way I could do it justice.

Of course, there is definitely something special about children encountering stories for the first time too. There's a kind of wide-eyed wonder to that moment that affects you all, even when you know what's coming.

Plus, for the briefest of moments the other day, my mind was absorbed in a world that was way outside of my phone, my inbox and my anxieties. Nothing in the world could have dragged me back. There's magic in well-crafted words, I reckon. And it often feels like the world needs a bit of that.

SAYING GOODBYE ON THE PHONE

You know in films, why don’t people say goodbye when they put the phone down?

If it’s dramatic news, they silently lower the receiver and gaze into the middle distance so that we (and all the other actors in the room) have a chance to ask what’s wrong, and move the story along.

If it’s an outrageous plot twist, they might swear violently, and then slam the phone down like a blacksmith’s hammer. But most of the time they just click off the call, snap a cell phone shut, or end the conversation abruptly. Just like that.

I’m asking because I had a phone call from my old pal Tom today. We had a lovely long chat about writing, about being a priest (him, not me) and about studying, song writing, life, and potty-training (again, him not me. And not him either really; he’s a father of two).

Anyway, I heard myself end the call in the least Hollywood-fashion imaginable. I went full on ‘dad’ for some reason:

“Yeah thanks bless you bye now bye, cheerio, God bless goodbye... [whispered] bye...”

How come you never see that in your summer blockbuster big-budget flicks?

“Mr President, all our efforts have failed. The time for that decision has come sir, with due respect. The Russians are about to strike, sir. We need to act. What are our orders? Sir? Sir?”

Furtive glances round the Oval Office. The president sighs deeply and removes his spectacles, resting his head in his one free hand. A steely gaze as he breathes deeply and speaks into the receiver...

“Launch, colonel, launch it. And may God have mercy on our souls. ‘Kay thanks yep speak soon, god bless now, yep love to your family, cheers now, bye. Yeah bye...”

Admittedly, I don’t get a lot of phone calls. I don’t make a lot either. My last few seem to have been to old friends I haven’t seen in a while, or the Intrepids to tell them I’m on the way over and that they should pop the kettle on.

Maybe I’m out of practice. In the text-based-world, where WhatsApp and Messenger are replacing SMS faster than you can say “What’s a Text Message?” the conversations do just sort of peter out, reaching natural endpoints, as people go to sleep or simply stop responding, or can only find a suitable ‘lol’, ‘x’, or relevant emoji.

It’s entirely possible that telephone conversations are so old-fashioned and so definitely abrupt that we don’t always know how to end them effectively.

Maybe Hollywood has it right then? Perhaps the most efficient thing is to hang up when you’ve simply both finished what you were saying. But isn’t that just the same as wandering away from someone mid-chat? I can’t be the only person who finds that sometimes excruciating to work out! And on the phone, there are even fewer clues that that’s the thing to do.

The trouble is, I’m English, and I’m plagued by the imps of politeness that have long dwelt in these foggy isles of Anglia. I’m not sure those imps are ready to let go yet. At least not without a protracted handshake, a ‘catch you later’ or a ‘cheerio old bean, yeah bye now take care bye...’

IN BATH ABBEY

I had the rarest opportunity to sit in Bath Abbey the other day, right in the middle of my university city.

I heard Christmas carols floating on the air, from eighteen Christmases ago. Catherine squeezed my hand as the choir sang, and voices fluttered into the magnificent vaulted roof. Joyful all ye nations rise, through the stained-glass window skies, above the clouds and down the years, to find me, back in tears.

A kindly woman with a dog-collar on smiled at me. I smiled back and blinked the moistness out of my eyes.

There’s always an atmosphere in cathedrals. And especially this one. The prayer-soaked stones seem to radiate the history, the power and the anointing of hundreds of years of worship. The delicate craftsmanship of columns, arches, naves, vaults and windows, calls out from the excellence of men who gave their all to build them. Polished brass sparkles, mahogany glimmers, and the cavernous light is infused with a medieval sort of glory. I love it.

I loved it. That Christmas, the night air was full of a strange sort of hope too. It was the year of the Millennium, and assuming we would all survive Y2K, we were going to graduate, and the Twenty First Century would open out for us, with all its opportunity, and all its promise.

Bath reminds me of all of that, whenever I go back. But just as the memories come back, so does the realisation that no-one is there to know me any more. They’ve gone, and for me, they were the beating heart of the city, and without them, all that’s left is a sort of empty silence.

An empty silence. Catherine looked at me strangely, as though I’d just created the awkwardness out of thin air at the bus stop. I knew in that moment what the score was; I knew the conversation that was coming. I breathed through the silence. The abbey was illuminated with floodlights, each flying buttress casting a deep shadow on those lovely old stones. A yellow clock hung, suspended almost, like the moon, above the west portico.

I sighed. The clock is still there. That temporary bus stop though, is now a full plastic shelter. The grey sky replaced the Christmas night, just as grey hair replaces the dark. The ancient stones were a little more blackened, a little more weathered, and that end-of-Century-I-can-do-anything hope, the unswervable mood of a row of graduating students singing Christmas carols on the cusp of a new millennium, has changed a bit too.

And yet, these stones have seen so much more. My short time is just a blink in the abbey’s long history - just a moment, set against thousands of stories, hundreds of millions of prayers, under billions of gently rolling stars.

THE SIXTH DESK MOVE

Yep, after just under a year of this one, the Medium-Sized Cheeses (not the Big Cheeses) have decided we're on the move again.

Only this time, it's everyone. For some reason, lost in the notes of a managers' meeting, we've all got to shuffle round like the moving parts of one of those sliding puzzles.

So, that means I'm about to cart my things off to my Seventh Desk here, potentially in the middle of a row at the other end of the office, near Desk#1 and Desk#5 but not exactly in the same spot as either.

"I wonder how many hours they've spent discussing it," I said to Clive. I don't even like to think of the managers sending round Excel spreadsheets and emails, meeting in huddled chats or discussions in meeting rooms. Hours and hours and hours have gone into this cabinet reshuffle: the politics of who goes where, who doesn't want to move, and who's been here long enough to get their way, and then who moves when! And at the end of it, when we're all plugged in again, all we get is the lovely privilege of doing what we were all doing before - in exactly the same the way.

I'm just sitting here, waiting to be told to pack up my plastic pirate, my nanoblocks mini-piano, and my pile of dictionaries.

Seven is the number of perfection. Hopefully, my new desk will come with its own halo and (ideally) a harp. My guess is though that getting there will involve all the chaos of sixty engineers moving desks at once. I'll have earned the harp at least.