THE MAN WITH TWO WATCHES

Well would you believe it. Yet another day of nothing interesting or noteworthy happening at all.

There is precious little to write about. I was contemplating about describing in detail how my wheelie bin got blown over by the wind. But that is pretty much the whole story.

I also discovered this week that I don’t actually even generate enough rubbish for that bin to be given the full tip-up-into-truck treatment by the council. Nope, the yellow-jackets just flip open the lid, reach in, pull my two meagre black sacks of refuse out, and then throw them into the back of the trash-compacter. One of my neighbours, down the road at TwoBinsNumberThirty, came out and wheeled his brace of empty wheelie-bins back to his garden, just after the flashing yellow truck had rumbled off down the road. I bet we pay the same council tax.

Meanwhile, work is still like calculating the balance between the type of people who share cat-pics on Slack, and the type of people who demand a thing by email but never say thank you when you send it to them.

I did solve a tricky problem this week though! I tried explaining it to the Intrepids over our Pre-Advent-Candlelit-Dinner tonight, but I quickly realised I didn’t have the skill to simplify a complex piece of content-management and technical writing to make it understandable or interesting to a wider audience. Oh the irony.

The Pre-Advent-Candlelit-Dinner by the way, is when we have dinner by candlelight, just before Advent. Instead of an Advent Calendar (like any normal family might have), the Intrepids have an Advent Candle, which they light every dinner-time throughout December, until it fizzles to a smoking stub on Christmas Eve. Only, it’s obviously not December yet, so they burned through a bit of the reserve, backup Pre-Advent-Candle tonight while the actual Advent Candle stood waiting expectantly on the mantelpiece.

Also, I met a man wearing two watches today - one on each wrist! I didn’t have the social forwardness to ask him why, though it was (and is) a perplexing mystery. They were very different, but both chunky enough to be classified as classic men’s analog watches, plus, I noticed, both simultaneously suggesting that it was 8:17pm - which, in this hallowed time zone of GMT, it exactly was. Why?

And that’s it. Not much else to write about at all - just a wheelie bin, a slow-burning candle, and the Man With Two Watches. Maybe he just likes watches? Perhaps he’s a fan of time, the passage of the moments, the steady, gentle ticking seconds, the months, the years... as the candle flickers down and the half-empty wheelie bins get blown over by the wind like a treat for local foxes.

I must ask him next time I see him.

THREE TELL-TALE ITEMS

You can judge me later if you like, but tonight my little section of conveyor belt in the supermarket was replete with three tell-tale items:

1. one large vegetarian pizza
2. a 1.25L bottle of Zero Sugar Coca Cola
3. one copy of Solo: a Star Wars Story on DVD

The lady in the queue behind me reached past and grabbed the shopping divider (I still have no idea what the correct name for those things is) and excused herself as she thumped it between her shopping and mine. I apologised for not handing it to her, by explaining that I was a million miles away, which I was. She said that was okay... which I’m not sure it was.

I had been daydreaming about something or other, tired and somewhat socially unaware.

I’d been to a thing where I’d been immediately seconded into a quiz team, who had given me a sheet of paper with a picture round to work on. It took me a few minutes to realise it (I think I still had my coat on actually) but it suddenly occurred to me that this picture round.., was one of mine! I’d compiled it some months ago and nobody there knew!

I had to quickly work out what the right thing to do was. Little dilemmas like that are really difficult! Sometimes I handle those things well, sometimes I’m not so great.

And there I was in the supermarket, about to be ‘not so great’ to the man on the checkout; I just didn’t know it yet. Why is it always the little things that trip us up?

Anyway. The slow-boiling customer behind me wanted to divide her own shopping into two, presumably to pay with two different methods, and so before I realised it, she was reaching past me again, for the next divider. I smiled, knowing what was coming next. Sure enough, before I had a chance to intervene, she was off for a third time, to separate her own shopping from the customer’s behind her. I thought I’d make light of that by gently chuckling. Yeah. Not that funny was it?

She looked at my shopping and raised an eyebrow. It was suddenly my turn to have my three items checked and beeped by the man on the checkout.

“Alright?” he asked cheerily.

“Hello,” I said. He beeped the coke through and it tumbled to the end.

“How’s it going?”

“Yeah not bad.” Pizza was next. I was already looking for my nectar card in my wallet. He scanned the DVD.

“Oh cool! I really rated it!” he said, talking about the film.

“Oh excellent!” I replied, in anticipation.

“Yeah. Have you seen it?”

And then for some reason I don’t understand, the funny bit of my brain rifled through the filing cabinet of possible responses, flicked past all the options marked as ‘boring-small-talk’ ... and settled for:

“Well, erm, obviously not!”

Sarcasm. I’d gone for sarcasm. What was I thinking? He looked crestfallen, hurt even! And I immediately felt dreadful. I don’t blame him for trying to be friendly! Obviously it’s not unexpectable to like a film at the movies, or at someone’s house, and then months later, buy it from your local shop to watch it again. Way to go, brain. And then it was too late.

“You got a nectar card?” (gruff)

“Er yeah, sure.” (feeble)

“That’s your evening then is it?” he said, nodding at the three forlorn-looking items I was taking home to eat, guzzle and watch, clearly alone, clearly like some sort of asocial Star Wars loving nerd-hermit.

“Yeah,” I said, smiling weakly. The lady behind coughed impatiently.

“Have a good night then!” said the checkout guy, quickly thrusting pound coins and a receipt into my free hand.

“Yeah, um, you too!” I said as cheerily as I could muster. I hate that I had been sarcastic.

I did the quiz by the way, in case you were wondering how I solved that little dilemma. I figured it was okay to know stuff, regardless of how you know it, even if it just so happened that you only know it because you thought up the questions in the first place, as long as you did it from memory. I confessed to the team though.

And I went home, ate a whole vegetarian pizza and drank a whole bottle of Zero Sugar Coca Cola while watching Solo: a Star Wars Story. And I enjoyed it. And I think that too, might just about be fair enough.

The tired, antisocial daydreaming sarcastic reflex response though - I’m going to have to work on that.

COLLECTING EXCLAMATION MARKS

This week's Coffee-with-Mike-in-Stockholmhaven ended with me wandering around the store taking photographs of exclamation marks on various signs and notices.

"It's for something I'm doing on Instagram," I said, and then after a while thinking about it (and Mike asking me why) I heard myself say:

"I guess I just like to be a bit different."

Where does it come from, this desire to be different? And how can you tell it apart from someone who's just attention-seeking? And which one am I? And does it matter?

Actually, I think I've misunderstood myself a bit. What I would really like to be is me. And it just so happens that 'me' likes taking photographs of exclamation marks, among other things, and doesn't really care what anyone else thinks about that.

When I was about thirteen, Naff jackets were everywhere: I mean everyone had one - they were black, made out of shell-suit material, and on the back they had "NAFFCo54" printed in chunky coloured letters.

For about two terms, Naffs were in - despite looking like someone had embossed the dustbin liner and made a coat out of it. I'm not even sure anyone really got the irony of their name either, but I wasn't exactly in the crowd to know.

And that's the point. I remember walking to school behind a gaggle of Naff jackets, staring at those printed letters, amazed at how everybody was on some sort of quest to look exactly the same, and thought something like:

"Well isn't that silly?"

Never been one for fashion. Why would you want to look like everyone else?

Anyway, these days, in the ocean of digital media where we're all swimming in the tide, standing-out from the crowd is less 'ammunition-for-bullies' and much more 'the only way to be noticed'.

Well, that was always true of course, but finding a cool edge or a unique angle has somehow become the influencer's paradise. We celebrate difference so much now that we're actually encouraged to be weird and wonderful.

Don't get me wrong. Be weird and be wonderful - there is nothing at all wrong with that! I think what I've realised is that being weird and wonderful is good, but if it's artificial, it might not necessarily be enough. I mean it's hard to sustain. At least, that's how I find it.

I have a funny feeling that the first kid in our school to slip into a Naff jacket was weird and wonderful. The First Adopter. Just don't stand near any open flames - those things would have gone up in seconds.

It's much more important to be yourself, whether you're naturally a performer, an extrovert, a wallflower or a book-nerd who collects photographs of punctuation marks, or whoever you are deep-down. And don't let anybody tell you otherwise.

Mike thought it was funny, anyway. I'm still fascinated at how a line and a dot at the end of a sentence can change the sense of every word before it - it's powerful!

Just er.. just don't use more than one. But we've been here before, haven't we? And I know when to stop.

THE EIGHT OF DIAMONDS

Do you think people can be a bit like optical illusions?

This week, someone on Twitter pointed out (in a sort of reverse-snooty, 'how-old-were-you-when-you-first-realised' way) that the Eight-of-Diamonds card contains a hidden white figure-of-eight right in the middle.

One or two celebrities went nuts. Thousands of others joined in. I raised an eyebrow too; I'd never seen that before either, despite all my high-rolling days in Las Vegas.

Okay, only part of that last sentence was true; I honestly never saw that, and I've never been to Vegas. From now on though, whenever I have to play Rummy with the niblings, I'll look out for it, and once again raise my eyebrows as I look at that card differently.

Optical illusions like that have always been fascinating to me. I particularly like the ones where you can see two things at the same time, but your brain favours one over the other and then it's really hard to switch. The old woman/young woman picture is a good example of that, or perhaps those Escher-like drawings of rabbit-ducks or tessellating frogs.

I like art that changes while you look at it.

And that's why I've started to wonder today, whether people can be a bit like that too - optical illusions. There have been a few times when I've seen a person, watched how they behave in certain lights, and seen something brand new that I didn't quite appreciate before. It's so obvious once you see it! It can be a lovely revelation, that - a bit like when your niblings can recite the Greek alphabet or tell you what enzymes do in the oesophagus. I guess it could also be powerfully difficult, depending on what it is.

I also like the idea that the world isn't completely the way I thought it was! There are reds and purples in the rainbow; the Atlantic Ocean looks like a woman in an African hat, and there's a white '8' right in the middle of the Eight-of-Diamonds.

Of course. Diamonds. We're all multi-faceted, shimmering, sparkling diamonds - some more 'in the rough' than others. We all need the edges taken off, we all need a bit of cleaning up, we all need some underground pressure, and the right kind of light to capture us, and we all enjoy being appreciated in the fulness of who we actually are.

I was chatting to Winners about wisdom, and being appreciated, the other day. It suddenly occurred to me that the key might be giving away the thing you don't have, to receive the thing you need.

Winners said that that was 'deep'. I guess so, though to me it could look like more of a facile and cheap thing to quip. But perhaps that's one of my own optical illusions? I'm just grateful I have friends who see deep like that. After all, diamonds only sparkle in the light.

THE FIRST PHASE OF SECRET SANTA

“Ooh, looks like you’ve got a bit of a bump there too!” said my sister smiling at me. I walked into the room where my pregnant other sister was sipping a cup of tea.

“Only yours is probably a food baby,” she went on.

The air hung like the stillness before a storm. But I chose to find it funnier than thunderous, and burst out laughing. At least for that particular moment.

Before long, my Dad was putting his foot in it, and a third sister (for I have three) was regaling us with hilarious tales from the travelling community, and her fellow professional conspiracy theorists. We’re an unusual family in lots of respects.

I drank my tea and slowly and silently persuaded myself to get back to the gym. A food baby indeed! I could excuse myself by saying it’s a ‘tight-fitting’ t-shirt, but of course, that’s like saying it’s clouds that cause a shadow. A plate of doughnuts went round, and I shook my head and gripped my mug with both hands.

I’d have included some sort of early-warning system, I think, if I’d been designing the human body and it’s response to doughnuts. Like, your hands turn blue if you’ve had enough sugar. Or, if your stomach says no and your eyes widen to a yes, maybe your mouth could just clamp shut until your nose smells a carrot or something.

Of course, the Real Designer is much cleverer than me. And anyway, what kind of world would it be if all we could do everyday was nod silently at each other, then shake blue hands as we exchange bags of carrots? Ha! Like the Jumblies.

Anyway, we were there, together, my family and I, for the first phase of this year’s Secret Santa - the bit where you put your list in the hat, then pull out somebody else’s. I’ve commented before on how my Mum somehow works out who’s got whom - this year she’s right on it; it’s like a special Mum-Super-Power.

I’ve got someone who at least has made their request clear, and hasn’t just put “Amazon Vouchers”.

I too, thought up three nice things for my list. Though as usual, the best bit of this whole process is seeing the reactions of people to their Secret Santas across the room of flying wrapping paper, on Boxing Day. None of us really want anything, other than to make each other smile at Christmas, I guess.

We’re sweet like that, like The Waltons. Only one of us is a zany conspiracy theorist who lives with travellers, one keeps saying the wrong thing, one’s pregnant, and the other needs to stop writing, and remind himself to go to the gym first thing tomorrow morning.

TO TALK OF MANY THINGS

Today is this blog’s fifth birthday, if you can believe that. I started it in 2013 as part-journal, part-therapy, part-writing-practice, part nonsense. I don’t want to go on about that; it feels like I’ve spent hundreds of posts doing that.

One of the things I find happening a lot, is the desire to write about something specific, that I then find it impossible to be eloquent about, for some reason. I thought maybe I’d summarise them, as ineloquently as it may be done.

The last one of these (as in the latest) was the question about how, and why the world gets polarised into camps - left, right, red, blue, for this, against that, in this club, hating anyone in the other club. What can be done about that? We’re supposed to be reconcilers, and yet the dry earth snakes with drought-fractures between us until we’re left shouting into our echo chambers.

Then there’s swearing. I had this theory about a handful of words being locked away behind a Victorian picket fence, while all the ‘polite’ words milled around like the Henley Regatta. But I am a non-swearer. And I know that not everyone is, though I truly believe that Jesus-followers should do their best to be. My writing on that came across as condescending to say the least.

And of course, social media. My friend Matt asked me the other day whether I miss being on flumpbook. I was adamant that I did not miss it. Though, I did have to concede that I miss being invited to things. But do I miss seeing my friends and their friends tearing each other’s opinions and character apart in real-time in my feed? Do I miss the political shouting and the entrenched encampments? Do I miss the whole world trying to brand themselves? I do not.

And there are lots of other things I guess I could have waxed on about. I try to stay away from politics, though I do have opinions. I try not to use too much religious language because I know how alien that can feel, and I do try to make sure I pass the THINK test. There are lots of posts in draft because they would indirectly offend a bunch of people, and I don’t wish to do that.

Oh, and I don’t always talk about writing or blogging - I just think that’s a bit meta. Unless it’s the 18th of November and the earth has made a complete revolution of the sun since the last time I did that, and for some reason I think that’s okay. And that of course is where I started five years ago, like the weird combination of both the walrus and the carpenter I think I am.

THIS END OF THE WEEK

Made it to the end of the week. I also remembered not to get hot chocolate from Starbucks tonight, so it’s looking up.

I don’t know if there was any doubt that I would make it to the end of the week. Made it without what? Dying? Check. Crumbling into a nervous wreck? Check. Whining, and being generally ungrateful about my life and then having to apologise to God about it? Not quite, nooo.

So, limping across the line perhaps, here I am, ‘making it’ to the end of this week, in Starbucks, with a lovely hot ‘end-of-the-week’ cup of tea.

I think I might be more tired than I realised. I suddenly feel very drained and empty, as though all those missing breakfasts are ganging up on me. By the way, a lot of people have given me suggestions about how to reinvigorate my porridge, and you get a thank you from me for that! Switching to a bigger breakfast-based eating plan will take a while though.

No, I mean the tiredness of the week is with me, I think, here at the end of it. My brain’s been on overtime. I need a rest. So tonight I hope to microwave my coconut Thai curry (“Did you make it from scratch?” “Ha. I wish”) and just sort of flump into the weekend.

That’s got to be alright, hasn’t it?

EAT MORE BREAKFAST

Well. I've cheered myself up a bit. You know what I need to do?

Eat more breakfast.

It's occurred to me (my Mum pointed it out) that I don't eat breakfast, and I think (my Mum thinks) that might be having a huge impact on my mood.

Typically, I just leave the house. Well, you know, I don't just 'leave the house' - that would end with me arriving at work in my pyjamas, in turn, ending with me being sent back home in my pyjamas, I imagine. No, I get ready and leave the house and then slot straight into work like a cog in a giant game of Downfall, fully-clothed and almost indistinguishable from all the other slowly-whirring, caffeine-fuelled cogs around these here parts.

I sometimes have porridge at my desk of course, but I've gone off it lately, as easy as it is to make. It's sort of stodgy and boring.

What I need, I think (my Mum thinks), is a proper cup of English Breakfast Tea, maybe an egg or two on a muffin, or some marmalade toast, just before I sweep out of the house and lock the door behind me. That sounds swell to me. I could do that! But I'd need to be much more organised!

In fact, I wonder whether I should focus more on breakfast than dinner? What if the main meal of the day were the first one? What if you filled up before expending all your calories during the day, and then went to bed with nothing to burn off? Live full, sleep empty. Maybe that's it? Big breakfast, light lunch, simple supper? Sleep and repeat?

Maybe.

BALLOON, AND GAZEBOS OF TRUTH

Recently, I've had to hold on to some truths with the very tips of my fingers. Sometimes, those truths feel like gazebos in winter - out-of-season and blustering about in the storm, but nonetheless, still there, still pegged in, still true.

Then yesterday, as close to tears as I've been, I started to wonder whether I actually even like myself. It was the grammar thing that sparked me off; I had pomped in like a euphonium, nerding over things that don't really matter. It annoyed me that I'd let kindness get deafened by the brass section oom-pah-pahing about the third person plural. It annoyed me that I thought that was funny or witty. It annoyed me that I'm always quick to argue, quick to speak, and painfully slow to listen or be teachable. It annoyed me that I couldn't seem to get anything... right. I wished I could just get away from needing to be me for a while.

So this morning, when I woke up, I grabbed my phone and wrote a poem to try to capture how all that felt and where it led me.

Balloon

I'd love to fly away today
In an old hot-air balloon
To sail beneath the icy stars
And skip across the moon

I'd like to soar a thousand miles
And sing my freedom song
And feel that gentle, summer breeze
I've asked for, for so long

I'd race the surf on empty shores
I'd dance into the sea
Then fall at last to broken waves
If I could be so free

But work is calling, calling me
And life it sighs so sad
And no balloon is waiting for
Adventures to be had

And worst of all, I know too well
There is no sky for me
Those waves will not be able to
Remove myself from me

But of course, there are some gazebos of truth out there to hold on to, to hammer in, to shelter under. How do you teach yourself to like someone? Lots of ways, even if it's you! I need to start by listening to myself a bit better, then of course, by being kinder to me, and realising, remembering, being comfortable with who I am.

And this world is noisy. Social media is loud. People are on transmit much more than they're on receive, and I'm certainly not the only euphonium, pomping out there in the cacophany.

I reckon sometimes you just need to be still and listen.

THIRD PERSON PLURAL

“This machine is out of order. An engineer has been called and is on their way.”

I couldn’t take a photo of it at the time because my phone was out of battery, but this printed notice, blu-tacked to a petrol-station coffee-machine, intrigued me for a full five minutes the other day.

“is on... their way...” I mulled, tapping an unbought Bounty into the palm of my hand. 

There has to be a word for this PC-art of switching-pronouns-to-the-non-gender specific-third-person-plural-so-as-not-to-offend-anybody.

Granted, a female engineer might have turned up and been (rightly) off-put by the assumption that all engineers are men. “On ‘his’ way” would not have been right at all in the Twenty First Century, would it?

Similarly, “on ‘her’ way” would have been just as sexist, I think, or at best, somebody trying too hard to be forward-thinking. Of course it would also indicate that the person who had quickly typed that out and printed it onto A4 in size 30 Calibri, was fully aware that a definite, real, and expected, female engineer was already in the van, and weaving through the traffic to get there to fix it. In a way, I think I would have found ‘her’ more reassuring than ‘his’ for that reason, which, the more I think about it, might make me a little bit sexist too.

I don’t know who turned up to fix the coffee-machine. I was there for petrol and a Bounty, which by now was getting a bit deformed, and anyway, I wasn’t going to wait that long.

What I do know though, is that the third person plural, is usually, well, plural. The notion that one solo engineer could be on ‘their’ way suddenly didn’t seem right at all. Can an astronaut have their space shuttle? Can a teacher have their class? Can a grammar-nerd have their cake and eat it? Er... well, sort of yes. This is confusing.

The problem here I think is that ‘to be on one’s way’ is one of those idiomatic phrases that naturally includes a personal pronoun. “I am on my way” is most common, followed by “we are on our way” and so on. In each case, it’s very obvious who might be on whose way, and often in common usage, you’d be referring to a very specific person or persons and the pronouns would match.

“Where’s Geoff? He’s late again.”

“Oh don’t worry. He just texted; he’s on his way!”

Good old Geoff.

Here though, nobody is actually sure which engineer will turn up! They just phoned and asked for one, I imagine. It might be Geoff; it might be Debs. It might be Tarquin, Kelly, Linus, Dennis, Sue, or even Signor Lavazza himself for all we know. So the safest thing is to switch to ‘their’ and then we’ve got all the bases covered, right?

The Tech Author in me, who was surprisingly awake (and unwilling to plump for the he/she combination), came up with two solutions. The chances are you probably have too, or you’re more than likely just not that bothered.

Anyway, I would go for:

“The engineers have been called and are on their way” - eliminating the assumption that only one of them is coming and what gender they are. Or...

“An engineer has been called and is on the way.” - not specifying whether the engineer was on anybody’s particular way at all, but importantly, would still be able to fix the problem either way.

I paid for my petrol and my late-night Bounty and didn’t really think any more of it. Did it matter? Did anyone care so long as they could get a hot coffee with their tank of super unleaded?

That last question rattled around in my head for a while as I thought about it, word by word. Then I just laughed at myself in the rear view mirror, started the engine and drove off.

HOMEWARD

I happened to catch a glimpse of a tree lit-gold through frosted glass today. The sun painted that tree like fire as the leaves fell across the car park.

It was an impressionist moment: the clear,  bright, blue sky, the shimmering, translucent leaves, diffused through the window. I was struck by how beautiful, how silent, how natural it was. Each leaf, falling individually, tumbling in the breeze, distinct, yet diffuse.

Last night at the barn dance gig, my friend Tom sang a song in honour of it being remembrance, and the hundredth anniversary of the end of the Great War. Tom likes a folk song, and as he put it, he always feels ‘short changed’ at a dance with no song.

Well. What he sang to make up for that, was actually terrific and I thought I’d find the words. It’s a poem by a lady called Cecily Fox Smith, who I think had quite the way with words, writing as she did in the villages of Hampshire. She herself captures something quite golden about the falling leaves through the frosted glass.

Homeward

Cecily Fox Smith

Overseas in Flanders, the sun was dropping low,

With tramp and creak and jingle, I heard the gun teams go,

When something seemed to set me, a-dreaming as I lay

Of my own Hampshire village at the quiet end of day

Home, lads, home, all among the corn and clover

Home, lads, home, when the working day is over,

For there’s rest for horse and man when the longest day is done

And they’ll all go home together at the setting of the sun.

Brown thatch with garden blooming with lily and with rose

And the Meon running past them so quiet where it flows

Wide fields of oats and barley, and the elder flowers like foam

And the sky all gold with sunset, and the horses going home.

Oh Captain, Boxer, Traveller, I see them all so plain

With tasselled ear-caps nodding all along the leafy lane

And somewhere a bird is calling, and there’s swallows flying low

And the lads are sitting sideways and singing as they go.

Home, lads, home, all among the corn and clover

Home, lads, home, when the working day is over,

For there’s rest for horse and man when the longest day is done

And they’ll all go home together at the setting of the sun.

Well gone is many a lad now, and many a horse gone too,

Of all the lads and horses from those old fields I knew,

For Dick fell at Givenchy and Prince beside the guns

On that red road of glory, a mile or two from Mons.

Dead lads and shadowy horses, I see them all the same,

I see them and I know them and I call them each by name,

Riding down from Swanmore, when all the west’s aglow

And the lads all sitting sideways and singing as they go

Home, lads, home, all among the corn and clover

Home, lads, home, when the working day is over,

For there’s rest for horse and man when the longest day is done

And they’ll all go home together at the setting of the sun.

HOW ELECTRICITY WORKS: PART 2

If you’re reading this on a laptop that’s plugged in, the chances are that between the end of the cable that’s in the back of your computer and the plug that’s in the socket or the wall, there’s a box that gets hot enough to warm your feet up.

That’s what I use mine for sometimes, anyway. But have you ever wondered what that box in your charging cable actually does?

Last time, we looked at electricity in circuits, using water as an analogy for the flow of tiny charged particles called electrons. Each electron carries a small charge, so when lots of them flow very quickly, you get a current of charge that we call electricity.

Voltage is essentially a measure of how much energy they carry, and it can be thought of as the difference between two points on a circuit. For example, water flows faster down a steeper hill, so the greater the difference between the top and the bottom, the greater the current.

Lightning too, is the connection between two differently charged points. A flow of electrons streams across the voltage difference between the clouds and the earth, and ‘discharges’ a huge amount of energy on the way.

These are all examples of what we call direct current (DC). The electrons, the electricity, the flow and the current only ever moves in one direction - from the source (like a battery, for example) to the load. On the back of your laptop, just above where you plug in the charger, you might even be able to see where it says DC/IN or something similar.

That’s because laptops and stereos and powered alarm clocks and musical keyboards (just like the light bulbs we talked about last time) are powered on direct current.

But there’s a problem with direct current. The further away the source is from the load, the harder it is to get the current flowing fast enough to power anything when it gets there. In fact, it’s really difficult. The wires get hot as the electrons flow through them. Energy gets dissipated and lost, and (despite Thomas Edison trying hard to get it going in the 1880s) DC is just inefficient at getting energy from, say, a huge power station, all the way to your laptop. You need a current that DC can’t give you over long distances.

So, how do you get a low enough current to travel long distances, that’s somehow able to get to your home without blowing up the wires as it goes?

Remember Ohm’s law? It stated that:

V = I x R

where V is the voltage of a system, I is the current (flow) and R is the resistance encountered by that current.

If you need a low current to travel long distances through wires, you need a high voltage. Remember, for the equation to be true, if one of the quantities on the right goes down, the quantity on the left has to go up! In fact, the higher the voltage (V), the better, because the current will travel much more efficiently through those cables at a lower current.

This is where Alternating Current (AC) comes in! AC is carried along high voltage power lines (usually suspended by electricity pylons) and it arrives with a voltage of 250 Volts (120 Volts in the USA) at your plug socket.  It’s called Alternating Current because of the clever way it’s generated, which we’ll talk about next time. The high voltage of course, makes it potentially very dangerous - a little bit like the potential difference between those two points of a lightning strike. Or perhaps like standing in front of a water pistol (DC voltages), and standing in front of a fireman’s hose (AC).

That’s why you should never misuse or unwire a socket, or put anything in it other than a tested plug on a properly wired electrical device.

Speaking of electrical devices, your laptop runs on low voltage DC of course, so something between the wall and your computer needs to convert the high voltage AC that could fry your laptop and jolt you into the stratosphere... to low voltage DC which will let you get on with checking Facebook and sending emails instead.

And that’s exactly what that foot-warming box does. It’s called a ‘rectifier’ because it rectifies or converts alternating current into direct current in a very elaborate way. And it’s brilliant on cold nights when you can’t find your slippers.

HOT CHOCOLATE

Winter’s here so I’m swapping my usual Friday night tea in Starbucks for a hot chocolate.

“Would you like me to make it extra hot for you?”

“Oh, yes please!” I said, my eyes lighting up like Christmas lights. Last week, it was room temperature at best. And I don’t even have it with cream. This week I expected it to scald my lips and frazzle my fingers as I carried it to my usual table.

Well. Guess what? Lukewarm! I could down it (I’m not going to) without it barely tickling my throat. Presumably they make it with the same hot water they use for the tea... so what’s going on here? 

Health and safety I reckon. Seems a bit of a shame, and possibly a misleading diversion from the trades descriptions act. But then, nobody’s out there buying ‘tepid’ chocolate. Not a thing, is it? And, believe it or not, there are people out there buying hot cross buns. And those things aren’t even pretending to be cross, let alone hot!

So, in typical British fashion I’m going to sit here stewing over my lukewarm chocolate and do absolutely nothing about it. Well. I mean it’s not worth making a fuss over, is it? What’s the late-shift barista going to do anyway? Make me another one with exactly the same process? Put this one in the microwave for 45 seconds and burn her fingers trying to take it out? I can do that perfectly well at home. It just doesn’t seem worth messing up the end of her shift for her.

Nope. I’m just going to stop getting it, and go back to tea. You can’t go wrong with tea. Or perhaps I should fly round Sainsbury’s and get a pot of chocolate powder to take home myself. Then I can burn my own fingers. Maybe I’ll get a pack of toastable, cruciform-impressed buns while I’m at it.

MIXYMATOESIES

Apparently it’s not a normal thing. At least no-one I’ve asked so far seems to get it.

I’ve been experiencing it a lot recently. I’m not sure why; could be the cold, could be my general state of circulation, could just be me being weird.

“I think I might be a bit odd,” I said at tonight’s bonfire night. We were in the middle of burning Adam’s shed. Don’t worry, he had already dismantled it; I haven’t been to Arsonists Anonymous. Well maybe that’s the problem. The bonfire spat orange sparks into the trees.

“Yep,” said somebody. I ignored that.

“What’s up, Matt?”

“Well, I keep getting this thing where it feels like my toes are the wrong way round.”

“Er... what?”

“Just like, mixed up. Toes. No-one ever get that? Oh surely... when your fourth toe feels like it’s twisted over the third one? No?”

I think it might be cramp. My brain is probably interpreting it as crossed-wires but it seems unlikely that my toes would just sort of get twiddled around like that for no reason. I mean, they’re in my socks, inside my shoes! I don’t have tiny leprechauns messing around in my trainers! I hope!

Anyway, so far no-one seems to know what in the world I’m talking about.

Adam’s old shed burned hot into the black night as the flames licked around the smoking wood. For thousands of years, perhaps millions, fire has behaved in exactly the same unpredictable, dangerous, and utterly beautiful way. We stood watching, our faces illuminated and serious, as though we were characters from an old chiaroscuro painting, suddenly fascinated by the ancientness, the freshness, and the elegance of the dance.

Darkness and light, deepest shadow and brightest flame; warm hope, and cold November air.

And me hopping about with my toes in a muddle.

LIGHT SAIL OF THE ZARGONS

I feel like my life should be more exciting than sitting in Stockholmhaven, imagining what might happen to sci-fi once we finally make first contact with aliens.

Where would it go, when the fi bit becomes fa? Would there ever be another alien invasion blockbuster? Or would we look to adventure among the stars ourselves? Might be tricky if we’re enslaved by a race of superbeings from the planet Zarg though.

Anyway, here I am, among the beautiful young couples, the noisy kids and the bespectacled millennials with their screenplay of dreams behind their stickered MacBooks.

I’m waiting for Mike. We do tea and a catchup on Wednesdays sometimes, and in a few minutes he’ll be here to cheer me up and we can talk about whatever it is we talk about. I could use the company.

I suppose everything would change if the zargons found us. They might eat us, or keep us as pets. They might even hunt Americans for sport, through vast acres of protected wildernesss, then take photographs of themselves posing over the blood-spattered corpses, with a huge smile and a high powered assault weapon.

Or, they might teach us how to reach the stars, and reignite our sense of science-wonder as we work together to reach the galaxy.

This is in my mind because two Harvard astrophysicists have suggested this week, that a recently observed asteroid might have actually been a light sail from an alien civilisation. Might have. It’s based on the fact that it seemed propelled by the sun on its way out of the solar system, but didn’t appear to be an outgassing comet when it was near us.

No radio signals were detected though, so it seems unlikely that the zargons know we’re here.

That’s got to be a relief, right? I’m not being watched by ‘cool, keen intellects’ across the vast oceans of space, while I sit here, moody in Stockholmhaven? Or in fact, by anybody.

Mike’ll be here in a minute. Probably best stash away my stickered MacBook.

BRIGHTEN UP

Yesterday, which I thought was a pretty good day, a friend of mine asked me if I was okay, as I ‘didn’t quite seem’ myself.

There are only so many logical conclusions. Either my face paints a false picture of how I’m actually feeling, or, I have somehow deluded myself into believing I’m alright when I’m not. A third possibility of course is that my friend was trying to tell me something about themselves, hoping that I’d get the hint. If you don’t get why anyone would actually project their own feelings onto somebody else like that, then join the club. But I can see how that might be possible, if bizarre.

So, which is it? If it’s the first scenario then I need to work out how to brighten up, and let my face match my heart. But, given that I’m notoriously poor at hiding my facial expressions, it seems unlikely that it’s this.

If it’s the third one, and I was being projected onto like a canvas, then I’m really sorry I missed the opportunity to respond in kind. But, given the strength, job, and past-form of my friend in this case, I’m really not sure it can be this either.

So that leaves option two - the troubling probability that I am deluding myself about being ‘alright’, and my face is continuously overflowing with the news that I’m not.

Oh joy. I’m in trouble then, and not as consistent as I thought, and it’s obvious to the world. I don’t quite seem myself, and as it turns out, my self was the last to know.

I was thankful. Someone kind had taken time for me, and that means a lot. I was honest in response at least, thinking on my feet. I went on to say it might just be a lack of sunlight, possibly leading to what I called ‘seasonal depression’. We talked a bit about sun lamps and vitamin D.

So, how am I going to be more honest about how I’m feeling? That seems like a ridiculous question to ask the Internet, having written with my heart on my sleeve and a face that gives me away to everybody, but maybe that is part of it.

Also, my friend took a risk I rarely do, but it made all the difference yesterday. Perhaps I should get better at spotting when people aren’t quite themselves and checking that they’re okay; that seems like a kind, obvious thing to do, even if the risk there is that they just tell me to go away and mind my own business.

I believe that somehow trust, vulnerability and relationship are bound together, interflowing and reinforcing each other, growing and moving and changing. If I struggle with one, it affects the other two. And I can do better than that.

I can also maybe get a sun lamp and some vitamins and start brightening up from the outside, in. And I’m really thankful for that suggestion, and specifically the friendship that brought it to me.

POETRY NIGHT

Poetry night with the Intrepids tonight. My Dad found a whole load of funny limericks about people who end up inside lions or eat too many apples.

I was just trying to get my niece to appreciate poems, which is a tough sell for a teenager. Come to think of it, it’s pretty difficult for most people.

I can sort of see why. Poets can so easily come off as smug and condescending; sometimes you get to the last line and it feels as though the writer has tricked you, or has just left the room wanting you to know how clever he or she is. Or worse, how funny. And yes, I know I do do that. But I think my motive has always been to brighten up the room and leave it better than I found it. I hoped that the difference might shine through, but I appreciate that it is subtle.

So, she liked the limericks. She enjoyed The Jumblies and Adelstrop and Jabberwocky and Ozymandias. I read my poem about Boxes and The Invisible Man to my Mum and she said it was deep.

“They don’t all have to be funny,” she went on. Ah I suppose not.

Then, buried away in my phone, I found the start of something from a while ago that I’d forgotten about. It made me snort with laughter so I read it out, as though it was suddenly complete. And I suppose reading it out makes it so...

Mirror Mirror

Mirror mirror on the wall.

Sensible place to put it

Who’s the fairest of them all?

I’ve no idea. I’m a mirror.

My niece raised her eyebrows and then logged silently back into her phone and her life.

Honestly, I really only do it to brighten a room! It’s not my fault if I find the silliest things almost as funny as the Tumbleweed Moment that follows them. Is it? Right?

Is this thing on?