I'D RATHER BE A LIGHTHOUSE KEEPER

I'm wearing a stripy jumper (horizontal stripes) and a black woolly hat today. The hat is because it's freezing and the aircon is on, and HR are all still in Cardiff where they can't tell me it's not appropriate office-wear (and they wouldn't anyway). And besides, I just haven't taken it off.

A few moments ago, I saw my reflection in the vending machine.

Jamie walked into the kitchen while I was making faces at myself.

"Alright?" he said.

"I'm wearing a stripy jumper," I said, thoughtfully, "and a woolly hat."

He looked puzzled. I don't know - maybe he was expecting some work-chat, or a banterish-commentary on the snow we're all expecting later. In hindsight, it does seem at best a quirky opener, but then I've never really been one for convention in these things.

He paused for a moment by the water cooler, glass in hand, with half-a-second of raised eyebrow.

"I look like a burglar," I said, finishing the thought.

He laughed.

It's an update to looking like a lighthouse keeper. Sometimes if the beard is a few months in, and I've not managed to find time to go through the Shaving Rigmarole (that's one for another time), I accidentally forget that a thick jumper, a waterproof coat and a warm woolly hat make me look exactly like I should be living at sea on the lonely rocks.

So here I am anyway, looking more like the Hamburglar on the lookout for Ronald McDonald.

I think I'd rather be a lighthouse keeper. I mean sure, the connotation is that you're sort of cut off from the mainland like a salt-spattered old hermit, but at least you're doing something positive. Lighthouses are beautiful structures, reminding us of the presence of both danger and hope - and the one who gets to climb up, and light the lamp could be the last defender of many souls before they're splintered to smithereens on the treacherous rocks. Seems rather noble to me.

Nobler than accidentally dressing up as a cartoon burglar anyway.

GRAND OLD PIER BUILDING

I was sitting in a freezing meeting room. Posh water jugs, tumblers, hotel notepaper, a glossy programme of events, and a scattering of pens were spread before me, over the large round white-clad table. Right in the middle was a fancy feature, a tall plastic decoration, lit blue from a tiny LED in its base.

And all around the room, identical white tables of colleagues chewing pens, steepling their fingers under their chins and resting elbows on tables, while the suited speakers talked numbers and mission statements and annual returning revenues.

Out beyond the window was Cardiff Bay, doing its best to prove that we were indeed, in Cardiff. I’ve been here before - if you remember, I was ... over there, beyond the bay, on the other side, by the grand old pier building. And behind it, the city.

There had been a lovely exhibition in that red-bricked building. Black and white footage of a bustling dockyard, full of men in flat caps, horses, cargo, train carriages, and the tall masts and funnels of ships from long ago. These days it’s a sort of trendy regenerated wharf - and it was very much on the other side of the bay to the posh hotel in which we were sitting on a cold Tuesday morning.

“Vision is where you want to be,” said the speaker, flashing up an animated PowerPoint slide, “Mission is what you’re doing now, and your strategy is how you get from here to your vision.”

The water looked cold.

On the plus side though, it really was a plush hotel; five stars I think - certainly, when your room has its own conservatory and a sea-view balcony, it’s more than fancy. When I arrived I went through my usual hotel routine - shoes and socks off, curl toes into the carpet, put on classical music on Spotify and boil the kettle. I seemed weirdly out of place in that grand room, listening to the hiss of boiling water and Mozart’s 4th Horn Concerto as I usually do; a wild-haired, barefoot loon in a palatial hotel room.

Then, this morning, before the dawn, I stood out on the balcony watching the lights ripple on the bay. I leaned on the cold rail like a captain on the deck. Even if you don’t feel like you belong in a place, I suppose it’s okay to pretend you do.

The pier building was bathed in a soft white light. It looked like it too was out of place, like a museum item, belonging to a different time, encapsulated by the wash of floodlamps, forming a brilliant display case around its delightful red bricks and its grand old Victorian clock-face. Those things would have been hidden by soot years ago. Now here they were; out of place, old, forgotten, and yet illuminated.

I closed the door behind me. At least for today there’d be a bunch of meetings, and I’d once again be sitting in a freezing meeting room, gazing out across the bay.

PLUTINO

My friend invented a planet today. He said sometimes it’s best not to know certain stuff that’s going on, and to just live out-of-the-loop, on Plutino.

I have the wisest friends. Plutino is a world where you don’t have to pretend or play politics. It’s a planet of happy people, far beyond the murky reaches of the social media solar system, where it’s much easier to treat people at face value.

We really don’t have to know everything, even if technology makes that more possible. Some news is best discovered face to face, or at just the right time - when the signal reaches us on Plutino. I genuinely recommend being out-of-the-loop on most things. It’s really wonderful.

“I guess whatever happens anywhere-except-Plutino, stays anywhere-but-Plutino,” I texted. He sent me back an alien emoji.

I don’t miss flim-flam-book at all. Not even close. But then why would I? Things are blissfully ignorant out here on Plutino.

THE PRELUDE TO SEVERAL HANGOVERS

Next door are having a party again. Only it sounds more like a sort of massacre. Every now and then they all shout together in unison and then there’s a thud that makes the walls shake.

Actually, I think it might be a drinking game. Someone’s just started making noises like a monkey. It’s three seconds between each scream and thud.

It sounds like there are thirty people in there! If the flat’s the same shape as mine, then that is not a lot of space for that many people to be making that much noise.

The guys are raising their voices in the way that only young intoxicated human males do. The ladies are using what you might call ‘Anglo-Saxon consonants’ - it’s all very unbecoming. Some R&B grime is burbling out of the stereo and seeping through the walls. I feel like I’m listening to the prelude to several hangovers.

It’s kind of funny how different we all are. I never went to house parties like that - I heard about them afterwards, sure, but somehow I didn’t ever want to go. I could never imagine what was fun about them - especially as I was trying to live to a set of principles that were at odds with the main reasons that made those parties so apparently enjoyable for others. That environment has never been for me.

A lot of people say that hangovers are caused by dehydration, which is exacerbated with ethanol. Something chemical happens anyhow. As Eminem blasts through these muffled walls and they all rap along to prove that they know the words, I wonder whether it’s a balance that’s worth it. Will the equation be different in the morning? It isn’t really my place to wonder that. We all get to make that call for ourselves.

What I need to decide is how to get to sleep, because I have a feeling that for the next hour or so, that will be very difficult. And I definitely don’t need to be grumpy, clutching a headache, or unkempt in the morning. That would just be too ironic.

NOT QUITE RIGHT

It’s late. The clock ticks. It has a lovely gentle click: soft, regular, familiar. The rest is silence.

I’m tired. Specifically, I’m tired of being ‘not quite right’. I don’t feel like myself, more like a sort of shadow tonight - a person resembling the composite version of me the world expects, but inside, not really me at all - a different me, a sort of older, more anxious me - who doesn’t like it very much, but can’t do anything about it.

That’s not the only benchmark though. I feel like I don’t live up to people’s expectations either. I want to live adventurously, radically, out there, doing the stuff. But I sit behind a desk and blog about Mars Bars. I want to write songs and psalms and poetry that moves and sparks and soars like the sound of inspiration on the wind! But I just mess around on the piano and slide into blues more often than not.

Then there’s the thought that I might have wisdom, which is often tempered by me doing something so unwise I can barely believe it.

By the way, Sammy told me that I could have swiped any of my four things with my gloves still on, and the machine in Sainsbury’s would have recognised it without me needing to press the ‘Start’ button. I tried it today. It’s true! I didn’t know. I’m so far inside the box I’ve forgotten that there might even be an outside.

Then there’s being a bit nerdy. A month or so ago, in a town that’s not my own, a person leaned across a table in a restaurant, right in the middle of a big group chat, and asked me about what I watch on television.

“You’ll think me a square,” said I, smiling, “But I don’t actually have a TV!”

Before I could process the eye-rolls, one of the ladies around the table looked me straight in the face and said,

“You’re not a square, Matt; you’re a nerd.”

And she might be right! Lost between ‘wordy’ and ‘needy’, too old to be cool enough watching Doctor Who, not cool enough for graphic novels and anime. Listens to Vivaldi and The Lighthouse Family, while unable to move from help instructions and the rigmarole of agile documentation - geeky, but by no means Millennial. Longing for justice, freedom, and adventure! But apparently looking for a quiet, safe and easy life too.

Well. I’m tired of all that. I am dissatisfied. I want to be an adventure person, much braver than this timid exterior would have you believe. I don’t want to be colourblind or squeamish or silly or hypocritical; I want to be watching sunsets, climbing mountains, breathing in the fresh morning air of the pine forest, standing under the crisp pink dawn, fully knowing, and being fully known, like men of strength and integrity always are.

Well. The clock is still ticking, soft and low into the small hours of the night. There’s so much more in me than all of this. I just have to figure out how to let it out.

GAFFER TAPE MAN

Email:

Hi. If anyone has borrowed the brown parcel tape gun from reception, could they please return it.

Many thanks.

Short story idea: Keith Kettering, a teenager working in a stationery shop in Milton Keynes, gets caught up in the middle of a plot to take over the world, devised by Biron, an evil ruler of a distant galaxy, who is slowly stealing all our pens, taking over the factories that make them, with hostile acquisitions, and threatening to subdue humanity by disabling our technology. With no pens, the world is poised for the taking! Meanwhile, Keith Kettering tracks down a brown parcel tape gun missing from his inventory, to Biron's lair and gets caught in its radioactive beam of tape, suddenly giving him amazing, super sticky powers! In his quest to stop Biron, Keith discovers how to use those powers for good, defeats the enemy (using his sticky powers, an array of stationery products, and a creative approach to blu-tac and hole-punching), and amidst a volley of a ticker-tape hero's return, he becomes... Gaffer Tape Man.

He's not the hero the world needs or wants... unless the world wants to stick some stuff to some other stuff, and Spider-Man isn't available.

I know, right. You're thinking - why isn't Matt working in Hollywood already with that kind of dynamite?

Well. Closer to earth, I've been staring at a Mars Bar for half an hour. I nipped over to get it from the café a while ago, and I'm now using it to practise self-control.

You should see it: 960KJ of chunky chocolate and caramel, glistening under the plasma lighting, just waiting to be eaten. No-one would stop me! There's no reason I couldn't or shouldn't; I could just rip into that thin wrapper and feel the delicate milk and nougat crack between my teeth as I chomp into its soft skin. Yet there it is, unbroken, wrapped. I resist.

I'm a terrible writer! Aren't we supposed to scoff biscuits and type off the back of empty whisky barrels? "I can resist everything except temptation," said Oscar Wilde, famously. "I can resist Mars Bars," I replied, peering across my desk, just now. Whoop-de-do. 

I reckon the last sentence of Gaffer Tape Man, Volume 1 ought to be something like this:

-

As the laughter faded, she stopped and turned with a puzzled look, and gazed at Keith for just a moment, a new thought forming on her lips.

"Why didn't we all just use pencils instead?" she said.

The End.

-

They have Mars Bars in California right? Sign me up!

THE CONTEXT FOR SILLY

As cold as it was yesterday, this morning it was worse. The ground was icy, the night was dark, the wind was bitter, and the moon was a brilliant white disc in the twinkling sky. It was like walking through a picture of winter.

I don't actually mind it when I'm togged up. Somehow, layering on my waterproofs and hiking boots makes it seem like much more of an adventure. And of course, when it's icy, it is an adventure. I nearly tumbled a couple of times this morning.

I was reflecting on the concept (and the context) of silliness.

I've always been amused at my own reaction to it - sometimes I like it; other times I don't at all, and I wondered what made the difference. When is it appropriate to be silly? What's the right context for it? Or is it subjective - is one person's fun and freedom another person's 'silliness'?

I looked it up when I got to work. It turns out that the word's etymology sort of covers both ideas - originally coming from a Saxon word (salig) meaning 'happy' or 'blissful'. At some point (let's blame the Dark Ages shall we?) 'silly' seems to have evolved from meaning 'happy' to 'pious' (there's a connection there: 'blessed' means both of those things) and then from 'blessed' to 'innocent' (children are still more inclined to be silly in both senses) and finally, to 'pitiable' or even 'foolish'. It does seem to depend on who and how then, as I suspected, while walking through the cold morning. How interesting.

So. When do I like silliness? I think I've narrowed it down to any-occasion-where-I-don't-have-to-be-sensible. But even then, it has boundaries. And the need to be sensible is hard to suspend indefinitely - I can't race around the house with my three-year old nephew for long, without the return of the sensibles.

And when do I not like silliness? It's tougher to define, but I think it's whenever I don't think it's particularly appropriate - in other words, if there really is a need to be sensible! I can't do funny voices in a weekly team meeting any more than I can mess around while driving up the motorway. The trouble is, it's not always unambiguous.

And that's the point - recognising the difference is about maturity. As grown-ups we ebb and we flow with the context, realising the atmosphere we're in, and doing our best to be appropriate - whether that's silly or sensible. And yes, sometimes that does mean being silly, deliberately lapsing into the fun and the freedom that's so easily misunderstood! It can be tricky to see the context. Do we get it right all the time?

Yesterday I nosed the self-service till in Sainsbury's. Of course we don't.

The ice was slippier on the roads beneath the trees, so I carefully tried navigating between the dry bits while the cars swooshed by. I wondered whether I was afraid of falling over. I don't think a child would make much of that - seems the older we get, the more we convince ourselves that looking 'silly' is a thing to be feared, whether through failure, circumstance, or dressing up and joining the circus.

But perhaps it isn't. Not really. Perhaps it really can be fun and freedom - especially if we're usually overcome with the sensibles. It's a strange fear, really. It strikes me that we've made that up.

A SMALL COLLECTION OF FOUR AWKWARD THINGS

And another evening getting weird looks in the supermarket.

I forgot to take my bag-for-life. That was the first mistake. I don’t like buying new bags because I’m not certain that 5p is enough to save a turtle from choking, so I was left with the option of balancing my small collection of four awkward things I’d bought, in my arms.

I was wearing gloves too - thick woolly ones because...  it’s absolutely freezing in there! I mean properly cold; the wind whips down the aisles and gets right into your bones in Sainsbury’s - I don’t know why.

So I cradled my shopping in my begloved arms and made my way to the self-service tills.

Now, you might be aware of this phenomenon, but for some material reason, you can’t operate a smart screen through normal woolly gloves - something to do with heat or lack of friction I guess; I don’t know the science of it. So anyway, to save myself some time, I made what you might describe as an impulse decision, and opted for quickly and carefully... bopping the touch-screen ‘Start’ button... with my nose.

I know.

Hindsight.

I should have (1) put the four items down (I was going to have to scan them anyway, wasn’t I?) and (2) taken my gloves off! That would have been the action of any sensible person. But I thought it would save time to just, well, you know... conk it.

Of course, I happen to have worse nose-eye co-ordination than a blindfolded elephant, so I missed the ‘Start’ button altogether, stood up straight and sighed to myself, just in time to see a guy looking at me as though he’d spotted a weirdo kissing a till in the middle of Sainsbury’s!

Which of course, he sort of had. I quickly put down my shopping and whipped off my gloves. Beep went the ‘Start’ button.

-

It was so cold outside! The air was frozen stiff as I waddled through it, still clutching my four things - a carton of pomegranate juice, some pasta (tagliatelle), chopped tomatoes, and a box of Linda McCartney’s pulled pork burgers. It was like walking through the polar ice caps. If... they’d built a Sainsbury’s car park on the polar ice caps of course. I shivered my way to the car.

Now, for some reason these days, I’ve started putting my keys in my left coat pocket... instead of  my right. It’s a recent thing this, although I’ve no idea when it began. However, it is actually quite useful! I’m better at carrying things in my right hand than my left, and much better at unlocking things with my left hand than I am at unlocking things with my right if I’m already carrying something with my left... if you see what I mean. It’s an okay system.

The trouble is, my brain hasn’t quite caught up with it. So as I approached the car, which was glinting in the freezing lamplight, I precariously transferred all my stuff to my left hand (tomatoes, pasta, juice, burgers) and took off my right glove, ready to fish around in my right coat pocket for my keys. Which weren’t there.

Then I transferred it all back and pulled out my keys from the other pocket. Then my phone buzzed unexpectedly, and I dropped the can of chopped tomatoes, which rolled, quite perfectly, right underneath the car.

It would have been worth the 5p bag wouldn’t it? That was what I thought as I groped around the frozen wet tarmac. If I kept it hidden away somewhere forever, maybe it would never endanger a turtle.

“Lost your keys?” said a nice lady.

“Um, no, tomatoes!” I said, as though that would be less weird and not more so. She didn’t know what to say I suppose, so she wandered back to her own car.

I got it. The can rolled out; I triumphantly slung it in with the tagliatelle, the burgers, and the pomegranate juice on the passenger seat, and got in, shutting the door behind me. Unbelievable.

The dashboard thermometer said it was -1 degree. No temperature to be scrabbling around under a Ford Focus for some chopped tomatoes is it?

Emmie had whatsapped me from Canada, my phone informed me. Apparently in Toronto it was -20 with a real-feel of -33 with the wind-chill! And there’s me complaining about -1! 

“That’s practically summer!” she said.

Had I been there, I wagered, it would have been a different story.

I really must remember my bag-for-life next time.

EXPLODED MICROWAVE

Another classic bit of English understatement. An apologetic lady has just said this to me:

“I’m ever so sorry sir, but we’re unable to make you soup after all, as our microwave has just blown up.”

Now, rest easy, Rest-of-the-World! The kitchen’s not on fire, nobody’s running around screaming, and there is no fireball sweeping through the café. I’m not being showered with rubble, and the sound of sirens is not rushing in from a gaping hole in the brickwork where the microwave used to be.

Neither has the microwave-oven suddenly inflated itself, ballooning its way into the room, knocking over tables and chairs and OAPs like a giant blimp. At least if it has, there’s no panic behind the counter. And you’d imagine there would be.

No, my guess is that it just sort of... stopped working, presumably with a half-heated bowl of tomato and basil soup in it. Maybe a fuse; maybe the klystron, or whatever it is that does the magic. Maybe the bulb went! The microwave was working; then it wasn’t. That’s the story.

It’s weird how she communicated it and I understood it without questioning. It’s almost as though she deliberately exaggerated the drama behind the scenes, in order to placate any drama I may have had in front of them, at the sudden unavailability of my tomato and basil soup. I can’t really blame her.

They’ve brought me a cheese and onion sandwich to make up for what they think is my disappointment. Truth is I’m not actually all that bothered - I’m not even sure I like tomato soup.

I’VE SAID TOO MUCH

I’ve been in a few meetings this week where I’ve had to debate whether or not to say anything. I don’t mean I was angry and worried about exploding; I rarely explode, and never (I hope) in public.

What I mean is that my thoughts were racing. It’s happened a lot this week, and it’s been a really good test of self-control. Typically, a discussion swims into focus around the table. Opinions follow: some based in experience, some not; some from emotion, some dispassionate and brutally honest.

I don’t know why, but there’s something in me that’s always searching for the meta-conversation in those meetings - the supertext of clashing fears, emotions, politics, hidden agendas. You can read it in the body language, feel it in the air, even sense it in the spirit sometimes. And for some reason, I constantly find myself working out how to speak into both realms at the same time - above and below, detail and context, natural, and yes, supernatural. And it’s very difficult.

So this week, as I’ve sat silently at the end of a table, I’ve been trying to focus and listen and watch. Perhaps you do the same? It’s fun, interesting, and tense; the tension coming from wanting to contribute, smooth it out, or use words to appear as wise or apposite but refraining. There I’ve been, like a wizard in a corner, silently going mad with thinking.

Of course, I’ve failed, mostly. I’ve said something after all (irresistibly) and it’s come out like a garbled mess, seven steps out of sync with where the rapid-moving conversation has gone amongst my peers. 

And swiftly moved on, they have.

Well, as I say, it’s very difficult. The Bible extols silence though - Proverbs 17 says that ‘even fools are thought wise if they keep silent’ - which is wisdom indeed! A lot of foolishness spews from garrulous talk, and the art of holding the tongue, the email, the Slack comment, in a room of booming voices, is dwindling.

So maybe I’m on the right lines? Maybe silence is golden, even when you feel as though you have an important thing to say and your heart is bursting for a space to say it. Or maybe it’s about being strategic, patient, determined, observant.

I’ve got it wrong this week - loads of times. I’ve seen reactions from both the discussion and the meta-conversation, flaring up, lighting up, smoothing down and running over. And it’s made me stop and wonder.

Which is okay. Isn’t it?

DUCKS OUT OF WATER

And breathe out.

Yesterday I stood watching the rain through the Venetian blinds. I was contemplating how bad a thing it was to prefer the idea of ‘being out there getting drenched’, to actually being inside, lit by the plasticky yellow glow of the office. I pinched the slats and watched the ducks on the lake. They were having a lovely time, and the maths was simple; I was not. 

I can’t really talk about why yesterday and today were such dreadful work days. I’m sure though, we’ve all had those Venetian blind moments, when in a heartbeat we’d have chosen a miserable, sopping walk around a lake, over actually tackling the stuff on our desks and in our inboxes. It’s that shared knowledge that makes me certain I need say no more.

-

“Any holidays comin’ up, bud?” he said, styling his hair in the mirror.

“Yeah. Me and the misses are goin’ to Marbella in May.”

“Aw nice. Can’t argue with that.”

I agreed, silently, eavesdropping in the gym. No argument here either. In fact it’s quite a popular idea, going on holiday, so I’ve heard.

“Yeah, not too shabby.”

“That why you been hittin’ the gym so hard this week?” laughed mirror-man.

“Yeah man. Can’t go on holiday looking sloppy.”

“Ha. Definitely.”

I caught my own reflection in the mirror. Sloppy seemed like such a funny word, suddenly. Sloppy! Sa-loppy! Sssloppy! Ha! Mirror-man stared carefully at his own face, rather like a sculptor eyes the marble. His eyes met mine in the reflection. He was big enough to punch me through the wall, I reckoned. My eyes flicked back to me, quickly. I looked very sloppy.

-

I can’t believe I was jealous of some ducks! That’s a new low, I think - beating the previous record of envying the lady who dusts and polishes the plastic plants in the lobby. I’d like to justify it by saying we’re all equipped with a natural sense of our design and the ducks are just doing the one thing they know how to do while we humans have become much better at suspending that freedom and forgetting that fun... but no, I think I was actually just jealous of the ducks. Plus, I noted, the ducks were making no attempt at all at getting into the building to do a sneaky bit of software engineering! Therein lies the tale.

Meanwhile (and this is weird) I personally don’t have any desire to get ripped and go to Marbella, either! For the guys in the gym though, the thought of that kind of thing would drive them up early every morning for months. In their world, sloppiness is not really acceptable in Marbella.

Well, anyway, it’s been difficult. And I stood there in the office kitchen, watching the rain through the slats of the Venetian blinds.

Some colleagues scooted in and started talking code, and repos, and builds, and unit tests, and plugins. I took my leave and went back to my desk, my world, and my inbox.

Quackety quack.

THE CONFUSION OF POPE GREGORY

Now. You're all anxious for an update, so I'm sure you'll be interested, if not suitably elated, to know that they have finally taken the Christmas Tree down.

Yes, China is growing cotton on the Moon. Sure, the US President bought three hundred hamburgers (for some reason), and of course, the fabric of the UK might change forever today, but hey, the Engineers have packed up the tinsel and stuffed the Christmas Tree back into the book cupboard. That's where the real news is at, people.

Sooo. 15th of January. Is that really all it is? The tree's only ten days late for the box - yet this month has already seemed to drag on interminably. It feels like that thing's been up for months. It feels like January's been going on for weeks.

I reckon that's how the year's designed: long, long January, short Feb, then the rest of it races away like a hamster in a go-kart. Let's blame the Romans. Julius Caesar. Or Pope Gregory, who presumably got a bit fed up with it being too warm in March and made up the calendar system so he could still go out in September without a coat on.

Thinking of calendar-changes-made-to-match-the-imperfect-journey-of-the-Earth-around-the-Sun, I discovered today that Earth's magnetic poles are moving!

Well. I didn't discover it; I can't claim that. That was some geologists working on the World Magnetic Model - I just read about it in Nature. And apparently, it happens all the time - in fact, roughly every 750,000 years, the poles actually flip over! This time Magnetic North is just casually drifting toward Siberia, thanks to weakening core fields somewhere under Canada.

"Is there anything to worry about?" boomed the article. It turns out there isn't, not really. Only you might have to go somewhere else to see the Northern Lights. And perhaps not Caversham, as my Dad once suggested.

I'd be alright with that; it would brighten up the long January nights anyway. It would have properly confused Pope Gregory though.

OWLS IN THE PARK

I can hear owls tonight. I wish I knew which kind. They’re calling to each other in the park. It’s a very gentle sound; a kind of lilting two note song. He sings terwit, she sings to-woo, on silvery wing, as owls often do.

I like owls. I like their massive eyes and their bushy eyebrows. I like the way their feather patterns make it sometimes look like they’re smiling, and I like the little beak that could be a wise old nose for a pair of spectacles. I like their folded wings and the way they stretch out like fingers when they fly. Oh and the silent, masterful flight! Through trees and woods, circling over fields by moonlight, waiting for just that tiny shimmer of silver grass below.

There’s an old story that Genghis Khan avoided death because an owl perched on a tree he was hiding in. So they’re still lucky in Mongolia. Although, as far as I know, Genghis Khan, the Twelfth Century ruler of the Mongol Empire which ravished the known world and most of Eastern Europe, is now dead regardless.

Here in the west of course, owls are more a symbol of wisdom than of death. I’m taking their night-time courting song as a sign that wisdom would be a good thing for me to ask for. And indeed it would!

Difficult day today. I have to do a presentation on something I’m just not confident about; it’ll be fine, just one of those ones with a lot of unknowns in it. I like talking about things I know about. I don’t much like facing barbed questions and having to pretend I’m okay with not knowing the answers.

“What do you mean you don’t know?” I imagine somebody asking, incredulously.

“Well I can do my best to find out!” I say, forcing a cheery smile onto my otherwise sheepish face. Trouble is, it’s always the face that gives me away. I’d be a terrible choice for the next Bond actor. Although clearly, not just because I get flustered in tricky presentations.

Owls don’t get flustered do they. They’re out there, cool-headed hunters, dark eyes glistening in the trees, calling each other, carefully, strategically planning their next move. They are the lions of the trees! Invincibles of the night! The graceful kings and white-crowned queens of the woodland: elegant, silent, beautiful, deadly, and wise.

I rather like the idea of being that level-headed and silent, in situations where the most sensible thing to do is to shut up and listen. Sometimes that really is the wisest strategy.

Speaking of which...

SUNRISE TRUTH

It’s super windy out there tonight. I can hear it sweeping and roaring through the trees in the park. A small part of me wants to run out there in my pyjamas and fling my arms wide to the elements.

Don’t worry. It’s drowned out by the rest of me, which quite likes the warmth, the brightness, and the navy rum hot chocolate of an indoor Sunday night. The only thing sweeping over me will be the folds of the duvet, and Sounds of the Tropical Rainforest Volume 5.

A peculiar day today. You know how some truths are like lightbulb moments that switch on in the dark? Well, it seems others are much more like sunrises. You get a gradual sense that the sky is lightening, there’s a faint band of something bright on the horizon, and all that remains is the dawn, the waiting for the sun to paint the day.

I think I’m discovering a sunrise truth - about myself, I suppose. I sense it, though I can’t articulate it; I feel it, though I can’t see it. It is coming; and I will have to face up to the fact that, well:

I might have lost hope in my dreams.

Through hurt, through disappointment, through confusion, through trying to do the right thing, through laziness perhaps. But there we are. I need to start dreaming again, but it does seem like the most painful of things to do. I’m afraid of dreaming. Maybe I’ll articulate that better one of these days.

Meanwhile, what it turns out I can articulate, is jazz chords! After practising some licks and riffs from a few standards yesterday, I completely forgot to switch my jazz-brain off in church this morning, and ended up introducing the congregation to some funky major 9ths and diminished blue-note piano runs. I don’t think anyone noticed (I hid it well), but I was a bit annoyed that I couldn’t seem to stop doing it. A few people might be ready for Loungeroom Hymns and Swingtime Spiritual Songs, but not all. By no means all.

After that, I went to the Intrepids’ where my sister asked me to give my usual weekly run-down of exactly how my life is going. I gave her the synopsis, and then my nephew wanted to listen to Uncle Matthew FM, an impromptu radio station which now includes News from Around the World (different accents), Grandmum’s Weather Update, and a selection of classic hits chosen by our usual correspondent, Mr Jeremiah Shed, who once again picked Everything is Awesome from The Lego Movie. See? That sounds like much more fun than summarising your life into a weekly soundbite, doesn’t it?

The niblings went home and my Dad wanted to watch Columbo, so I slept through that and then ate Jaffa Cakes. Then I went home myself, trying to work out what the optimum number of Jaffa Cakes might be for a Sunday afternoon. I’m guessing it’s somewhere around n-5, where n = however many I’d eaten.

I don’t think anyone should be worried about me being afraid to dream. It’ll come right, and new things will flicker their way into my heart. I guess it’s a combination of hope and faith, and that sort of wide-eyed ability to look at things as though anything is possible - which, it sort of is. I just need to let go of a load of things and let the dreams rush over me like the sounds of the rainforest, the buffeting wind, and eventually the gentle sun that rises and smiles on the next set of adventures.

TRAJECTORIES

I’m not out trying to be King of the Boy Racers tonight, so I’m just at home, reflecting on my least favourite day of the week. Number of face-to-face human-to-human interactions? zero. Number of humorous or noteworthy events? None. Situation? Saturday.

So, with nothing particular happening other than rubber gloves splashing in the toilet, and the doors draped in drying duvet covers, I went back to writing some poetry today.

This one’s about knowing things before they happen, and not liking it - which also seems to be a thing that happens when nothing else happens. I’ll get to the bottom of it one day.

Trajectories

I sometimes wish

I couldn’t see

The shape of a trajectory

Or calculate

Geometries

Of words in silent flight

I often stare

As missiles fly

Through dotted lines

And blueprint sky

And helpless, see

Them rocket by

The watches of the night

A keyboard rattles,

Rages burn

And fiery sages

Fail to learn,

But all in caps, they

launch, in turn

To justify them right

An unrequited

Love’s desire? It

Turns to ice

Within the fire,

Now fury pushes

Tempers higher

Rockets burning bright

And there I think

I’d yet mistake 

Those vector paths

Projectiles take

I wish I couldn’t see

Their shape,

Or trail-blazing light

I’d much prefer

To never know

Trajectories

And where they go

I wish I wouldn’t

Fear it so

I wish I wasn’t right!

But me, of course

(The world agrees)

I have my own

Trajectories

And I am sure

They all can see

The pathways of my flight

Parabolas and

Bending curves

That angle up

And dip and swerve

I wish that I

Could well observe

Trajectories tonight

THE RETURN OF THE INTERDIMENSIONAL OMNIBUS

I caught the legendary Interdimensional Omnibus today. Last time I tried, I got on the wrong one and ended up in the town centre, where I had to catch a train (of all things) to get back to my own timeline and reality.

I was more awake this time. The Number Fifteen came rattling along the road, squeaked to a stop, and I got on board.

I don't really understand how it took me longer to get to work than it would have taken to walk it. Somehow or other the route is actually longer through the wormhole.

There was a notice about Stockholmhaven on the bus today. It advised us to:

"... please remember that large items may not be accepted on this bus. Check with the driver before buying."

How are you supposed to do that? I wondered. Could I text him, or do I have to bring the driver around the store with me? I can't imagine him appreciating either option. And if I rush out of Stockholmhaven and ask him whether he'll let me bring Kallax, or Hemnes, or Skatval, aboard the Interdimensional Omnibus, and then rush back in to actually buy it, what happens if he drives off and I have to wait for the next one? Would she, the new driver, have any idea what I was going on about?

Anyway, the bus shuffled downhill through the traffic, arrived at Stockholmhaven (where it terminates) and I jumped out and walked the rest of the way over the motorway, through the village, and into work.

I'm not sure it's worth it - it's £2 per trip and the only thing I've saved is my energy (and even then, I think I've walked at least half the distance I would normally have walked anyway). And mysteriously, all of that took longer than strapping into my hiking boots and striding the whole way myself.

However, as is often the case with travelling between overlapping dimensions through an Einstein-Rosen bridge, I reckon I might be glad of it going uphill.

MYSTIFIED BY A FAILED REVOLUTION

Clive's just told me a story that trumps my 'boy-racers-doughnutted-me-out-of-the-car-park' tale.

Apparently, he got back to his car in a car park somewhere, and some random guy swung in to the space next to him in an old banger, then repeatedly flung open the driver side door, in an attempt to deliberately dent Clive's car, just because it was nicer.

"Does this sort of thing really happen?" I asked incredulously.

Of course it does. Spiteful people out there sometimes have no idea what they're doing - if my life's terrible, they think, why not make everyone else's life terrible too?

"Where's the logic in that?" My eyes were wide with disbelief. Presumably, you see someone with a nicer car than yours and you rail against the organised-universe by kicking the door in? Maybe in a twisted attempt at classical Communism, you believe that kind of revolution to be the easiest way to create a fairer world - the have-nots rise up to pull the haves down to their level and then we're all in the same, miserable boat together? It's dreadful, yes - but at least it's everybody?

Clive was alright about it. The cars were parked far enough apart for there to be no damage done (although apparently the guy also tried the sole of his boot). We did talk about how to respond to such selfish, irrational vandalism though. I was still mystified.

"I think I'd just want to know why," I said. "I'd ask why he did that - what was the point? What was really the problem? What did he hope to achieve?" Clive had a more direct approach. He didn't believe I'd get an answer to that question, no matter how fiery I was while asking it.

I wanted to know why Mr Skyline felt the need to be King of the Boy Racers too, the other night. I thought I knew - bravado, getting a kick out of trying something skillful and visually intimidating - showing off to the girls. There were reasons after all, I thought.

But this was a bit more of a stumper - a man in his thirties committing a mindless act of criminal damage in a parking space, on his own, in broad daylight? For what?

There is absolutely no way to make the world a better place by making it worse for others. It might feel like it, it might look like it, it might seem as though the world deserves it, but it always fails and it always backfires: whether it's an isolationist approach to climate change, detaining people on your borders, dumping your white goods in the forest, or just leaving your leftovers for someone else to tidy up.

I'm naive enough to believe that, just as I'm naive enough not to know that there are incredibly selfish people out there. But kindness, self-sacrifice, and ultimately love, seem to me like the only ways to redress the balance of unfairness.

And I guess I'm still mystified that that isn't blindingly obvious to all of us.

WALLS

Are walls for protecting
The people within, or
Rejecting the people without?
Are fences preventing
Escaping, invading?
What are those dividers about?

Are barriers barring
The enemy charge, or
A prison for princes and kings?
Should ramparts repel
Or defend and expel
Whatever those strangers might bring?

I wonder if walls
Are built on our fear
Our barriers form our defence?
But it isn't my call
To be sided at all, when I'm
Sitting right here on the fence

PIXIES

It's still up. Only now, management have got involved by humorously suggesting it stays decorated until Candlemas (February 2nd) so as not to let the tree-pixies out - which is of course, their way of politely asking someone to pack it away please.

The tree is defiant.

Apparently though, that is a thing - some ancient belief that if you dispose of your tree before Christmas has ended, you let out the fairies, who then ruin your harvest. Some cultures believe that Christmas lasts until Candlemas, so that's your next opportunity to do it if you miss Epiphany. (Yes, I have wikipedia too.) I needn't point out of course, that the Engineering Tree... is made of synthetic plastics. The only place the polymer pixies are headed is the dark recesses of the book cupboard. Or, maybe not - the saga continues.

Meanwhile, the air conditioning units have decided that enough is enough with the winter-hibernation, and have agreed to kick in, all together, all at once, with some lovely ice-cold air to cool us all down. Consequently, I'm sitting here with my coat on and a woolly hat.

I'm a classy professional, me.

I walked in this morning. The dawn sky was pink, scored with lines of vapour-trails. Far above the silhouetted black trees of the allotment, the last few stars still twinkled, and the breeze was deliciously icy. You don't get that when you're driving.

I smiled to myself as I passed an enormous pile of discarded Christmas trees in the corner. The smell of the pine needles prickled my nose like baked cinnamon and spices. I wish I'd known then of course, that that was probably the tree pixies escaping. Roll on Candlemas.

TREE OUT OF SEASON

The streets always look a little less cheery at the beginning of January. But there was one house I saw yesterday, as I walked past, that had blown festive raspberries at the Twelfth Night Rule. In the twilight, it suddenly stood out, with its windows full of twinkling lights: a beacon of cheery warmth, lighting up a cold, dark road.

"Good for you!" I said, out loud... to the actual house. I quickly checked to see whether anyone else was in earshot, then pretended to be on my phone just in case.

Meanwhile, back in the office, and still in my eyeline, is the fully-decorated Engineering Tree, bristling with silver tinsel, old compact discs, computer chips, and ethernet cables. No-one seems to have the time to take it down and shove it all back in the book-cupboard for the next eleven months. So there it is.

I'm finding it strange how I can't say "good for you," to the tree. I wonder what the difference is? Maybe the house with lights just looked warm and welcoming in the dark yesterday? As though I could have knocked on the door and been invited in for mince pies. Whereas here, in this plasma-lit, soul-vacuum, the shabby-looking Christmas tree over there just seems out-of-place... and almost offensive; as though it's taunting us about the holidays we've just had.

It is true though of course, that good things must come to an end at some point - and everything has its season. I always thought it would be weird if Wizzard's 1973 Christmas wish came true: we'd have stopped the kids from singing, and the band would have had their instruments plugged-up with old socks by now, if it really could be Christmas every day. What an awful idea! But don't get me started on that - it's truly messed up to say that the ‘snowman brings the snow’, and I can’t get past it.

In the Philippines of course, it’s still going on. And they started in September; their Christmas lasts for months! And in Russia, where they use the Julian calendar, it is Christmas today. One of the orthodox patriarchs was on Twitter this morning, delivering his Christmas message from behind a long white beard and a fireplace.

“Good for you,” I said to the screen.

I think mostly the prevailing attitude in the office has been, “That was fun, now let’s get on with distracting ourselves with work.” It’s a flurry of good intentions, and I’m not sure I expect it to last at that pace, or with that much enthusiasm. However, there it is, swirling busily around, and entirely ignoring the tree out of season.

So anyway, it is necessary of course, for the streets to go dark again for a while. I guess soon it’ll slowly feel like the evenings are getting brighter, and there might be whispers of Spring on the wind. Maybe we’ll catch a glimpse of the dryads and the hamadryads stirring from their sleep. Perhaps the fawns will play and the smell of cherry blossom will fill the air, and we’ll catch a glimpse of Aslan through the trees... or however you want to imagine lovely Springtime pouring from the earth.

I do hope the engineers have put that tacky old Christmas tree away by then.

THE FAST AND THE SPURIOUS

The recycling bin was overflowing again so I took it all up to the recycle banks at Sainsbury’s tonight.

The recycle banks are at the back of the car park, which of course is pretty empty on a cold Saturday night. I swung the car in and sorted through the sack of rubbish for ‘mixed card and paper’, for ‘plastics’, and for cans and bottles. I’ve always liked the way the glass shatters and echoes inside the recycle bin.

I got back in my car. My phone beeped so I read the message, then started to write a reply, sitting there in my car at the far end of the car park, lit blue from my phone screen. I didn’t see the headlights approaching. I wasn’t paying attention to the squeal of tires on concrete or the faint smell of brake dust in the night air. Not at first.

What I had forgotten of course is that 9:30pm on a Saturday night (and possibly every night) is the exact time that the local Fast and Spurious Crew bring their shiny boy-racer-machines up to Sainsbury’s car park to show off. I’ve seen them before - they’re young men mostly, fuelled by testosterone and petrol fumes. They race each other around the car park and then stand around their headlights, smoking, and trying to out-Vin-Diesel each other. When they’ve brought girls with them, they’re much, much worse.

I looked up from my phone. A sleek black Nissan Skyline was staring me down, watched on by a silver lawnmower with tinted windows and a spoiler. I switched on my engine and my lights, and then carefully buckled my seatbelt.

My car chugged into life like Thomas the Tank Engine, naively unaware of the Bullet Train opposite, which was now roaring loudly and threateningly. It was definitely time for me and Thomas to go.

But... I couldn’t. For some reason the deranged young driver of the Skyline had suddenly decided to intimidate me, and started to do doughnuts around my car - circular hand brake turns! Round and round and round he went, circling and squealing and burning his tires and his clutch. His head was out of the window, whooping like a Native American encircling a caravan in a Western.

“Please don’t hit me, please don’t hit me, please don’t hit me,” I heard myself repeat as the smoke billowed from his screaming wheels. I was calm though - even in that moment. He wouldn’t risk a collision; he had far more to lose, and after six or seven revolutions, each with a radius of a few feet, it seemed less likely to me that he’d let that happen, as idiotic a thing as it was to do. He needed to stay in control. 

My foot hovered over the accelerator, though there was no way I would introduce even more velocity into such a dangerous equation. I’m not stupid - that would have almost guaranteed an incident.

He of course, got bored and sped off across the car park eventually. I left, cautiously at first, in case Dick Dastardly in the silver lawnmower over there was prepared to be even more imbecilic. Then, with the recycling banks disappearing behind me, I gradually sped up towards the road, shaking a little as I went.

I get it. It’s a territory thing. It’s machismo and showing off and proving a point and rebelling and in no small part, nastiness. I’ve seen all those things before - the need for control, for assertion, for self-confidence-building through a powerful machine and the perception of the skill required to operate it. There was a deeper fear in his eyes than there was in mine.

Anyway, my car and I remained unscathed, and no doubt, Mr Skyline roared supremely back to his concrete kingdom, through the smell of burning rubber, to the high-fives and subjugation of the rest of the Fast and Spurious Vin Diesels out there. One thing’s for sure: new tires on that machine will cost a fortune.

I might just avoid going to those particular recycling banks late at night though. I think I like a more gentle approach to my recycling adventures.

PHONES AND SOCKS

I think my gym bag might be magic.

After racking my brain for ages, I can’t come to a single other explanation for how one of the socks I packed late last night changed colour by the time I got it out of the magic bag this morning! I’m currently sporting oddies - one with a green heel and toe, the other with bright blue! I’ve been feeling asymmetrical... all morning!

It’s not particularly useful, having a magic bag that can change the colour of your socks - even less so, when it only works on one at a time. It might have been better if it had turned out to be a bit more Mary Poppinsy, with room for more than just the usual gym stuff, or maybe a pair of spectacles that helps you see colours properly when you’re packing your things.

I could do without the lack of symmetry though. Sure, my feet are safely laced into my trainers and nobody can tell. But I can, and it’s hard to forget the secret imbalance of my feet! Plus I’m on a special mission this morning, trying to find a phone case for a Huawei Mate 20. The last thing I want to be is unbalanced.

Say what you like about the shiny cats at Apple HQ, at least the accessories for their stuff are easy to find! Rows and rows of coloured iPhone cases fill the racks in the phone-stores of the town.

“Your best bet’s on Amazon,” said one tattooed assistant, scratching his hipster beard in front of the small selection of Samsung Galaxy cases underneath the iPhone shelf. Alas, my nephew’s birthday is tomorrow, and I was already late with the idea.

“Cheers,” said I, a little despondently.

So it is then that I’m back in the metropolis of our town centre, wishing it had been a longer gap since the last time. I have found what I need - the Huawei Mate 20 phone cases, but I don’t know whether my nephew has the Lite or the Pro, and a helpful man in a t-shirt showed me the difference with a dismissive chuckle. I don’t much like this world sometimes.

So, I’ve texted everyone I can think of who might know which it is (Lite or Pro) and I’m now in a freezing Caffè Nero with a large tea, waiting for one of them to reply.

Phones should be standard sizes, with universal chargers - that’s my view. But that’s probably why I don’t work for Apple.

Come to think of it, socks ought to be standardised too! At least mine should, maybe even could be - all black, plain, cotton, boring, predictable, safe. Though there’s no predicting what the magic gym bag might do next time. Is there?