PUDDLE-DRENCHED

I stood there, clutching my umbrella in shock.

It was as though someone had thrown a bucket of freezing water over me, and like a bedraggled Mary Poppins, I was sort of waiting for the wind to change.

Close.

A car had puddle-drenched me, top-to-bottom, while I walked by the library! It took me a second to realise what had happened.

Everything was shiny and wet - the front of my coat, my shoes, my fingers holding the umbrella handle, my face, everything. My steamed-up glasses dripped with out-of-focus droplets, and I found myself theatrically blowing... what can only be described as... a loud raspberry of indignation... to no-one in particular.

I think this is an offence isn't it? (The soaking, not the blowing of raspberries). Well, if it was deliberate it ought to be an offence! But how would anyone go about proving that? It was already too late to turn around by the time I came to my senses, too late, and too dark - there was very little I could have done.

So my mind started playing out a couple of different scenarios of the other side of the story.

In one, a carload of boy racers cackled and high-fived as they sloshed on down the road. Stereo blaring, beats-a-pumping. My hardwired sense of justice hoped they'd flooded their engine.

In the next, an older couple, on their way to a church group (I don't know why, don't ask me why) were having a heated conversation about how mortified they were. She told him they ought to go back and see if the guy they splashed was alright; he persuaded her it was a waste of time, it was only water, and anyway, they'd miss the coffee-time and the best doughnuts.

Or, perhaps more likely, whoever it was just didn't notice, and still doesn't have any idea what they did. In which case, fair enough - that (unfortunately) sounds like exactly the kind of thing that I would have done - though I seriously hope not.

Anyway. I squelched on down the road with a shiver and a shudder, the drizzle still hanging in the air under the lamplight. I was cold, soaking wet, and trying my best not to be fed up about it.

"Probably time I got a car then," said the sensible bit of my brain, catching up with... well pretty much everyone I know about three months ago. "Just don't puddle-drench anyone!"

Yes. Yes, indeed.

CATHEDRAL CITY HQ

Well the folks at Cathedral City have got me pegged.

Reel him in with the special offers, get him hooked on the good stuff. The more the better - get him melting it deliciously onto honeyseed loaf, or settling like a blanket on a beautiful veggie lasagna. Wait till he's raving about how succulently it slices into gorgeous yellow wedges, how it glistens, how it sings as it crackles under the grill, and how mellifluously it slips upon the tongue like a taste of a long-gone summer.

Then, when they've got me where they want me, those Big Cheeses round the shiny table at CCHQ jack up the price. Classic bait and switch! Will he pay £3? Could he stretch to £4? Their eyes sparkle. £4 for 400g of processed cattle effluent?

Oh but the taste!

Excellent, they say, steepling their fingers with delight. Excellent.

Come to think of it, aren't all cities 'cathedral cities'? I mean it's part of the definition isn't it? Sure, the Queen can decide to do what she likes, but traditionally, cities have cathedrals, right?

Also, a quick Google tells me that it's cheese from a place called Davidstow in Cornwall. I've driven through Davidstow - nobody sane would call a collection of large farms, high hedges, and some white painted houses a city, and there was definitely no cathedral! It smelled of manure.

I'd have thought Ely, or Wells, or Canterbury, or even St Davids would have been the archetypal 'Cathedral City' - small, quaint buildings, quietly nestling in the shadow of medieval towers and belfries.

Anyway, I bought it and ate it and it was as delicious as ever and I am a sap who can't go back to Co-Op cheapo grated cheese-mulch, and the bigwigs at Cathedral City HQ (wherever that is) absolutely know it.

I WROTE A LETTER TO THE BUS COMPANY

I reckon there’s a book idea in this: a compilation of letters people have sent to bus companies.

I’d have one to add today, after the Interdimensional Number Fifteen Omnibus was over an hour late and then one turned up and refused to let anybody on because the driver “needed a break”. I was bristling with irritation - which, you’ll admit, is at best, unbecoming. But he drove off and took his break in exactly the direction we were all going anyway.

I opened up a blank note and started writing.

There are two temptations to avoid with letters like this, I think. One is turning the sarcasm up to 11 as though you’re on Live At The Apollo. Don’t do this...

“While it filled me with rapturous joy to see the Number Fifteen splash past in the opposite direction with its many delighted commuters waving happily from those misty windows, I must say, I was less amused by the realisation that that meant I would spend forty more delightful minutes in the rain, wondering whether your buses were tumbling from the very edges of the flat Earth the people who plan your timetables believe in...”

For one thing that’s way too long a sentence. More importantly though, it’s rude, and not nearly as funny to read as you think it is.

The second trap is to go Defcon-1-Jack-Nicholson-Volcanic-With-Rage. Don’t do that either - nobody who’s not in an emergency responds well to being shouted at - swearing, exclamation marks, and over-emphasised words in capital letters get you and your cause absolutely nowhere.

Nonetheless, it would be interesting to see how people were creative in the way they complained to bus companies and the like.

I did write an email, but my tone was much more drizzle than sparkling wit, or Outraged-of-Tunbridge-Wells. I stated the facts without opinion or subtext, hoping that whoever read it would at least empathise with the situation. It read a bit like a report of a school trip by someone in Year 9. First the bus didn’t turn up, then the wrong one turned up, then we had to wait and it was cold and raining and... 

Anyway, it was a bit more sensible than that. I rounded off the facts like this...

“I appreciate that these things happen, and that traffic conditions make it difficult to predict timetables. What bothers me is just the lack of explanation. Think about it - a ten minute journey took two hours, and no-one can tell you why. A bus appears but the driver can’t explain why he can’t pick you up...”

“Could you tell me what’s going on with this, please? The service is usually much more reliable.”

I got a message back saying they’ll process it and reply, but I guess that doesn’t matter - what are they going to do? Send me a two-pound coin in the post? There was therapy in the writing anyway.

As often there is.

THE NON-SEQUITUR FILTER

I was talking to someone the other day about how I keep needing to provide context before talking about a thing. It’s a technical author trait, I guess - introduce the topic, explain the why, then funnel through the hows, before linking out to the ‘see alsos”...

Great for presentations! Not so great for fast-paced conversations. Yet I still think we all need to make sure we’re on the same page before we talk details. Don’t you?

With people you know, it’s a lot easier. You know that they know you. There’s history that does the context bit for you.

With people you don’t know, context is everything - without it you’re talking code comments and they’re still wondering why they’re there and what in the world you’re going on about.

It’s the window between them that’s tricky.  People you know a little, but not closely. Too much context with them, and you’re suddenly patronising them; not enough and they’ll just look puzzled.

It’s even more difficult if you’re an external processor! There’s no easy way to tell whether you’re just working stuff out by letting it tumble haphazardly out of your mouth, or that you’re giving them the information they need. You’re much more likely to spiral off into the detail and hope that the room follows your twisting train of thought round the mountain.

It won’t be a surprise to know then, that I’m more of a think-it-through-then-say-it kind of guy. At least, most of the time, when my brain is awake...

Because yesterday, I let myself wind internally along the mountain trail, and I blurted out a question that had nothing at all to do with where the conversation had gone! It was a complete Look-At-Me-Non-Sequitur. I just said:

“Do you think they took their shoes off?”

And immediately regretted it. The logic was there (in my head, but not in the room). It suddenly looked like I’d hijacked the whole thing with some deep and meaningful point, and wanted to show off about it.

Where was my Non-Sequitur-Filter? Where was the randomness blocker? Where was the bit of my brain that stops me from blurting out my daydreams? I of course, didn’t have a point. All I had was that one random question, and no answers, and no way to get any.

I think those bits of my thinking had shut down from tiredness. Like the Thames Barrier getting stuck in the open position, there was no way to control the flood.

Well. Today will be different. I’ll be with it today, and the filter will be back on.

By the way, I’ve thought about it and they almost certainly took their shoes off.

IN THE INTEREST OF SCIENCE

It turns out I can see better through the lower half of my glasses. I wandered along the high street, trying to tell whether that might be why I can look at my shoes, but not at the Christmas lights.

I booked an eye test too, while I was walking - just in case my prescription might be part of the problem. I actually think this might be multi-layered; not every problem has one single, detectable cause, after all.

It’s not advisable to attempt walking along the pavement with one eye closed.

In the interest of science, I was trying to find out if the visual jumpiness was happening in just one eye, or both of them trying to resolve the picture. Right eye closed, left eye open - I could roughly walk in a straight line. Left eye closed, right eye open felt really weird, as though I’d just stepped off a roller coaster and didn’t know where the ground was. I kept switching between the two along the street.

I sometimes think I have no self-awareness of what I look like. I’ve always been like that; I used to wander home from primary school looking at the Victorian facades above the shops, thinking about the clouds, or trying to work out how planes fly, or whether any Dodos could have survived extinction. My Mum used to wonder why it took me half an hour to walk ten minutes.

By the way, it’s funny how I sound, saying I used to walk home from primary school. That must sound as old-fashioned now as people saying they used to jump onto the horse-drawn milk cart. I guess most kids get picked up these days, rather than day-dreaming their way up the road.

“Are you alright?” asked a lady at the bus stop. It suddenly struck me that I must have looked a bit like a drunken weirdo, winking, and wobbling down the high street, one eye closed. There was no way to explain it, so I just smiled and said, "Fine thanks."

Einstein once said he had not talents outside his 'passionate curiosity' - I doubt that's strictly true somehow. And I suspect if he'd tried to cross the A4 and walk down a village high street with one eye closed, looking like he's about to fall over 'in the interest of science'... I reckon the world might have let him off.

STRENGTH

Strength today might just be knowing what’s coming and trusting that somehow it’ll all be alright. I’m not known to be the courageous hero type, but this battle just won’t be that of glittering armour on a glorious day, or a valiant fight in the arena. It’ll be the quiet reaction, the hard work, and the tears behind the scenes. Courage it takes. Strength is what I need today.

‘THE TIME HAS COME,’ THE WALRUS SAID

This blog is six today. That’s enough time to create a walking, talking, reading and writing human being, from scratch. Whatever that means.

If you’re interested, my word count estimate is around a quarter of a million words from over 1600 posts. That seems like a lot of words for a six year old. Though, most posts start with the word ‘I’ and feature ‘me’ an awful lot, so you know, quite like a real six year old, I guess.

I always like to reiterate what this blog is for, on these birthdays. In case you missed the other five occasions, I called it ‘Why the Sea is Boiling Hot’ because of the Lewis Carroll poem, ‘The Walrus and The Carpenter’ - which is a nonsense poem of the finest order.

It struck me in 2013 that I might end up writing a lot of nonsense (ping!) and that somehow that nonsense might have moments of wonder and whimsy (ping!) and maybe even the odd bit of unexpected depth to it (ping!). What never occurred to me until a lot later, was the idea that the Walrus might actually be a picture of me, walking hand in hand through the odd, the deep, the serious and the hilarious... with the Carpenter, the Real Carpenter (ping ping ping!)

It’s an accident, that, but I quite like it.

So, as the blog enters its seventh year, and it starts to get sassy and precocious (ha! Though I hope not), I also hope you’ll stick with it. Thank you for making it so far. The world is very different to the way it was in the beginning but I still think that life is varied and interesting and funny enough to talk about, at least from my point of view. That’s how I roll anyway, it seems. Er, much like a walrus I guess. Goo goo g’joob.

Wrong nonsense walrus reference innit. Oh well.

TWINKLE TWILIGHT

I had cause to be in town again. I know. Two Saturdays in a row - in the city of stuff. This time though, instead of the cold drizzly night and a pizza, I was there for the crisp late afternoon, the winter sunset, and the twilight of twinkling lights.

What would all this be like if it weren’t for Christmas? Kind of dreary, I’d wager. The shops would still look warm against the cold sky, but there’d be no sparkle, no glow of midwinter hope nor old-fashioned warmth that these decorations inspire. Or maybe we’d be gearing up for Saturnalia.

Having said all that, the contrast of the dark and light played havoc with my eyes today. Twilight was almost impossible to see through. I went down escalators wondering if this is what it’s like to be epileptic. I shuffled past hot chestnut stalls and brightly coloured neon reindeer, wondering whether I might have been drifting out of reality.

I’m scared. Not just of being unable to see, but also of being useless to this twinkling world. Are these really migraines? Should I be feeling like this? Should it all be lasting this long?

I thrust my cold hands into my coat pockets. I buried my nose into my scarf and found myself looking at my shoes, hitting the concrete one step at a time. Families and hand-holding couples swirled around me, chatting happily, living their lives and looking forward to the future under the twinkling lights. I couldn’t see them. I couldn’t see much at all.

MAX POWER

There is a reason why half the office have decided to call me Max Power, and it’s a bit complex.

Also, this happened:

“Oh it’s you!” said the lady behind the counter. “Where were you yesterday? Yesterday we had mango muffins!”

It would have been too long to have explained that I was at the hospital. And anyway, the second sentence had already grabbed my attention.

“Mango?” I inquired. I expect one eyebrow was raised.

“Mango!” she laughed. A sideways glance at the glass cabinet of shortbread, cookies, and flapjacks, told me that if indeed there had been mango muffins, they had not survived to today. I gulped.

“Are they... were they better than the tropical ones? ‘Cos you know the tropical ones are my absolute favourite?”

She curled her mouth into a delicious grin and beamed. She nodded.

“I had one straight from the oven,” she said, “Absolutely incredible. So nice.”

“But none today,” I observed.

“None today,” said she, unfadingly happily. “So what’ll it be instead?”

I reasoned that it might have been better if she’d not told me about the mango muffins - not even mentioned it; that would have seemed like the kind thing to do! The detail about eating one straight from the oven too, I felt was a tad unnecessary, as I swung my shortbread in a paper bag on my way back to the office.

Hmmm.

Oh yes. The office. Apparently there’s a Simpsons episode where Homer changes his name to Max Power and he becomes a bit of a dynamic go-getter, noticed by all who work at the nuclear power plant, especially Mr Burns. Erica thought it was a hilarious way to get me noticed by the big cheese (who definitely doesn’t know my name) so she suggested I rename myself ‘Max Power’ to boost my chances.

Someone else overheard it and within an hour I was suddenly being called Max Power by most of my colleagues, including, worryingly, the HR department.

For a while I did wonder whether it really was possible that the CEO would genuinely hear people talking about this Max Power guy downstairs (presumably in sector 7G), and come down to see who he was! Life imitating art in some circular way.

“There are three ways to do things!” says Homer in that episode, “The right way, the wrong way, and the Max Power way.”

“Isn’t that the wrong way?” asks Bart.

“Yeah,” says ‘Max’, “but faster!” And then he walks into a cactus.

I hope it doesn’t stick. Max Power indeed. But then, maybe the young, dynamic brilliant Max... would be much more successful at getting mango muffins?

Hmmm.

SMOKESCREEN

Pirouette,
Silhouette,
Caught behind a dream
But you just can't see
Beyond the smokescreen

Hide away
Find a way for
you to not be seen
But you still won't live
Beyond the smokescreen

Flicker doubt
Put it out,
Cry behind the scene,
But we never saw, you
Beyond the smoke screen

THE TENTH EYE TEST

One eye open. Look around the room. The open eye roves the ceiling, the lampshade, the curtain rings and the top of the wardrobe. All seems to be in focus.

I’m awake then, and warmly strapped into a duvet that smells of lemons. The late afternoon light angles in through the curtains, catching dancing dust in the beam.

The other eye creaks open. I’m alright. And I’m in the Intrepids’ spare room after the tenth eye test, the one in which the doctor told me for the last time that I have “perfectly healthy eyes”.

I could probably walk to the eye clinic without looking now - which is ironic in a way I can’t quite put my finger on, but there we are. I don’t have to go again. And importantly, I don’t have to have those drops that dilate your pupils...

“I’m really trying,” I said to the nurse, dabbing my eye with a tissue. My reflexes were auto-rejecting someone poking my eyeball with a teat-pipette. In the end, I just thought about something else and before I knew it my eyes were stinging in that way that makes your ears rush, and I was on my way back to the brightly lit waiting room.

I still think it’s worth saying how much I appreciate the NHS. My mind wobbles when I think how much these ten appointments would have cost - and I’m only really where I was a year ago: the doctor said I was probably on the right track with the diagnosis of ocular migraines. Nonetheless, this service, where all of us fund the care of all of us, is a wonder of the world. This is no political statement - just a thing that’s absolutely true, regardless of the bad press it sometimes gets.

“You should check with your GP about medication to treat or prevent those ocular migraines,” said the doctor, smiling. She was happier than the last doctor to comment outside her specialist subject (eyes) which was a relief.

I closed the blue door behind me, and headed out of the eye clinic for the last time. An hour later, I was asleep in the spare bedroom, with the curtains drawn, dreaming, while the dilation drops wore off and my eyesight returned to normal.

PLAYING ALONG WITH THE PANTO

I think the term might be ‘accompanying’ - yes, I think I’m ‘accompanying’ a pantomime.

That means I’m playing the piano for people to sing along to, during an amateur construct of stage-based theatrical entertainment that traditionally includes: a man dressed as a lady, a girl dressed as a boy, thigh-slappingly unfunny jokes, cringeworthy audience participation, a loose story line, and cartoon-like overacting.

That’s about right, fellow Brits, isn’t it? A sort of animated Victorian seaside postcard of a thing?*

Anyway, I’m playing along for this one. We had a rehearsal tonight, and as I sat there behind the piano, lit by the soft tones of an angle-poise lamp, I wondered whether anyone had ever thought of writing a pantomime about organising a pantomime - because it occurred to me that it is ripe for the taking.

This one’s based on Peter Pan - an Edwardian story of children who learn about growing up from a mischievous imp and his sparkly fairy, by pushing a sea captain off his boat while Native Americans do battle with soft-headed pirates. At the end, Wendy and the boys fly back to London with thirty straggly orphans... and the mother (instead of commenting on them all er, flying) says:

“Well done, I’m very proud of you, of course we’ll look after them.”

At which, I’m ashamed to say, I chortled out loud with incredulity, from the lamp-lit pianoforte. Typical - the least funny line in the whole thing! I think I might need to be a lot less grown up to get what JM Barrie was doing, capturing the wonder and magic of childhood. That is after all, his whole point, and essentially the point of pantomime, isn’t it? Other than provincial theatres raising enough money to put on the rest of their annual fare of loss-making hard-hitting dramas and plays.

It’ll all come together, the panto. And it’ll be most enjoyable. I played all the notes at the right cue, and mostly in the right order, so that was good. I think they were happy with my clunky old playing, so that’s also a win.

All I’ve got to do next is remember to laugh in the places  that are supposed to be funny, and not the ones that actually are by accident. That might be tricky.

*Well done if you said ‘oh no it isn’t’ but minus points if you actually said it out loud.

ACTUAL CHEESE WONDERLAND

The Co-Op had Cathedral City Extra Mature Cheese on special offer yesterday, so I bought a block of it.

I don’t want to turn this into an advert, (other cheeses are available) but I do feel as though I might have somehow floated on succulent wings into actual cheese wonderland.

Man alive this cheese is good!

It’s soft and subtle, potent and creamy, indescribably rich and sultry, like being gently caressed by angels while they sing you to sleep on a feather bed.

Last night I made cheese and tomato on toast. Lightly toasted slices of tomato on Warburtons bread, covered by thick flat wages of golden cheese. It melted just enough to hug the toast like a glistening blanket.

Then tonight I had it for supper again  - on a bed of Marmite and hot buttered toast. I may never be able to return to normal cheese again.

-

“Sorry I’m late,” I flustered. I threw off my coat and jacket and draped them over the back of my chair. I’d left the house so quickly I hadn’t even realised that I’d been wearing two jackets under my coat. Who does that?

Anyway, with the wait for buses, I was super-late for work, arriving at just the moment I was supposed to be presenting something to some Americans. My coat slipped off the chair and onto the floor as I switched on my laptop. Moments later, my head was inside PowerPoint and I was striding purposefully towards the meeting room.

I don’t recommend presenting stuff while your mind is still half dreaming about last night’s cheese supper. I was professional, of course, but also... not wholly there. Thankfully there were no yellow pie charts in my slide deck.

Later, someone told me in no uncertain terms that cheese has no effect on dreams. I really think it does. My mind was a whirligig this morning - a carousel of imagination. I have no idea what I dreamt but it was outlandish and beautiful and hilarious. Surely only cheese could have fired up the synapses like that?

“No, it’s all psychological, Matt.”

But if I can’t help being influenced when I eat cheese, I thought, what actually is the difference? Chemical in the cheese, or chemical in the brain that recognises the cheese? The effect is the same! And every time I eat cheese at night, I end up in wonderland.

Actual cheese wonderland. Oh my. I can still taste it. Washed down with a mug of Cadbury’s hot chocolate (no rum this winter) I feel as full as a medieval king.

Of course, medieval kings don’t have to get up the day after a banquet to present their work to visiting Americans. Neither do they have to run down the hill with indigestion, wearing a coat and two jackets because they overslept due to cheese-induced night-time imaginings. It occurs to me now that I really ought to make sure I’ve set my alarm properly.

A NIGHT BY THE ROUND TABLE

I went out to town for dinner tonight. Just felt like I needed cheering up, so, almost on a whim, I decided it would be a bit of a treat night.

Of course, a lot of people had thought of the same thing on a rainy November evening. Everywhere was packed. I ended up in a pizza place, where the aproned host sent me to a table by the wall. And she really did send me... by waving a hand at the little table sandwiched between the aforementioned wall, and a round table of ‘lads’.

Brilliant.

It hadn’t been exactly uplifting getting there either. Before the usual eye-roll at the posh Italian place when I asked for a table of one, before I got turned away from Bella Italia, and before I sighed and settled for pizza, I’d been stopped by teenage girls in the shopping centre.

“Excuse me,” said one, her mates sniggering behind her, “Can I get your Facebook; I think you’re lush.”

“No you don’t,” I said, and walked on. They followed me.

“Yeah we do, I’ve been searching for you, like all day!”

“So what is this?” I asked. “Some sort of dare?” I was feeling about a million years old. This kind of thing used to happen to me when I was their age, and I hated it then. I hated the subtext, I hated the embarrassment, and I hated the way it made me feel. Then and now.

They got bored in the end, and went off to bother someone else.

The lads were having a good time too, in the pizza place, it seemed. There were six of them, necking beers on the round table. Sir Tightshirt was illustrating fantastic goals he’d scored at football practice, while Sir QuiffHair and Sir Timberland were busy discussing recent ‘conquests’. The waitress came over to me...

“Are you waiting for someone?” said she, pulling a pencil and a pad from her apron.

“No,” I replied, doing my best to smile, “It’s just me.” She took my order and wheeled away to the kitchen.

“Nah! I’ve not been too busy today!” lauded Sir Poshington-Shirtsmith, loudly from the round table. “I’ve been shouting at energy companies down the phone.” 

Nobleness lives! Sir Tightshirt and Sir Gymalot laughed along, politely, I felt. Did they, like me, wonder... why was he shouting? What had caused him to be so volatile? I sometimes wish I couldn’t read the subtext. Bravado and machismo flowed around that table like free beer, but also, a youthful sort of insecurity. It was all muscles and t-shirts. But also children in suits of armour,

After she’d gone, I realised I’d put my raincoat on the back of the empty chair opposite me. That might explain why she thought I wasn’t alone. Though in every other respect, I really was.

FIREWORKS NIGHT INTROSPECTIVE

I have a migraine again. I think it’s because I haven’t eaten well, and, oh, for some reason, two nights ago I was awake until the time began with a 3.

What a way to start the weekend - lying down in a darkened room with just my thoughts. And the irony of that condition being both the cause, and the consequence!

I’m supposed to be going to see fireworks. That isn’t happening. Then tomorrow I’m playing two hymns at a wedding. That is happening, but only because it has to. Hoping I’ll be alright.

I don’t like feeling depleted. Sickness separates us, isolates us, forces us to be alone, one way or the other. I’m not great at managing it, and, as introverted as I am, I just can’t bear being alone sometimes.

I was thinking about that this morning. I often joke with my manager about how the big cheese (the CEO) doesn’t know my name. If he does, in seven years, he’s never used it. Passing him in the office is like passing an acquaintance you know you ought to acknowledge - a quick eyebrow raise and a half-smile will do, but we’re a long way from a wave, a grin, or (could you imagine) a real conversation!

“Maybe I should go on more company nights out!” I half-suggested to Erica. “He’d know who I was then, I guess?” She smiled, knowing as well as I did, that that wouldn’t work either. And that those nights are pretty awful for people like me - I end up sitting in the corner wondering why I don’t fit in. If I’m not going to fit in, wouldn’t it be better to not fit in at home instead of a noisy pub?

Well. Here I am doing that instead of fireworks, with jumpy eyes and a pack of ibuprofen capsules. It’s different, I know.

I also wish I were the kind of person who could gather up the courage to actually start that conversation! Not just with the big cheese, but with anybody really! But too many times I’ve been socially rejected by people. I’m sensitive to that kind of thing.

See, Myers Briggs tries to separate us into introverts and extroverts, but I’m not actually sure it can be done - not really. Here I am, a clear introvert, an I on the scale, going crazy at home, because I need to be around people! 

And how many self-labelled Es out there would sooner be watching Netflix, than clinking glasses with jabberers? There’s a lot of context missing from those labels.

I can hear distant rattles and booms, and every now and again the sky outside my window fizzles and flashes. The more I think about it, the more I think that not going to a fireworks party because of a migraine, might just have been the right idea. Even if the bit of me that feels like an extrovert doesn’t like it.

WHAT TO DO WITH DREAMS

I had a dream last night. Tiny droplets of water formed on the ceiling, just above my head. Then slowly, they ran together and started to drop, a steady stream at first, slowly, one, by, one, falling into my hair, as I watched them accelerate towards me in and then out of focus.

Things like this give me a dreadful feeling - like a heavy stone in the pit of my stomach, a sickly worry that imagines it’s my fault as well as my responsibility. I was quickly thinking about what to do (I don’t think I own a bucket, and who knows what I’ll find in the loft) when suddenly without warning, the plaster gaped wide open,  and a torrent of cold rainwater came crashing through the ceiling.

I woke up with a start.

The real ceiling was fine. I was fine. Everything was fine! Except.. it’s left me with that dreadful feeling. It really feels as though something, somewhere’s about to happen, and I’m not going to like it. Drips precede the torrent.

Well. Here’s my rationalisation this morning: I think dreams can come from three places, and there might be ways to tell which is most likely.

If a dream is from God, it’s often a clear warning - He’s good enough to be clear and not cryptic. At the moment, if it’s that, it’s not clear at all - just a feeling. So without any further confirmation or evidence (and I’m not closing myself off to that), I am ruling that out for now.

It’s also possible for the enemy, the old adversary, to manipulate our influences and cause us nightmares. The feeling is what he wants me to carry into the day, if it’s that. Unsettled, nervous, fearful. To the dark side these thoughts lead. So I’m kicking them out.

That leaves cheese dreams. Or, in this case I guess, just reading the news about flooding in the North, moments before going to bed. This the most likely reason for dreaming about being flooded, I reckon.

If I’m wrong, if something is about to happen, I don’t think I can do anything to stop it. At least, I don’t have the tools. And in that situation, adding worry to the pile of things, won’t change any of them.

If I’m being manipulated into fear by my emotions, I can grab hold of them and choose to believe something else about today.

And if, I’ve been tricked by my own brain attempting to regenerate my thoughts into a weirdly coherent jigsaw puzzle, then what’s happening is actually just chemical reactions. And they’re only scary when you have to write them out in a science exam.

So, basically, everything’s absolutely fine. Right?

DOODLES

“Did you draw that?” asked Marie, pointing to a cartoon ‘me’ I’d done on a post-it, and had stuck (rather egocentrically) to the corner of my monitor.

I smiled and nodded. “Sure! I’ve done loads of cartoons. Shuko has a whole bunch on her desk, though I think she’s taken them home...”

“It’s really good.”

“Thanks. I like doodling.”

I smiled while I thought of Cartoon Henry VIII and the Flytanic, and the Lion Bar, complete with drawings of pool-playing, beer-swilling felines.

“You’d be a great cartoonist...” said Marie.

 “Well, if you were funny that is.”

And with that, she wandered off.

HOW DO BIRDS MAKE DECISIONS?

I looked up from the bus stop.

Hundreds of birds were gathered in the tree on the other side of the road, loudly chirping and twittering in the morning sun. The wind ruffled the few remaining leaves, and the bare branches wavered against the blue sky. They were weighted with birds.

Then, as though their song had reached the double bars at the end of the score, they stopped singing, and then they flew off - all as one, leaving the silent tree shaking behind them!

Is that how it happens? Birds make group decisions by interweaving their melodies into a song? I can’t imagine making decisions by constantly singing over the top of people: it would just be chaos! And if this week has taught me anything, it’s that more than one simultaneous conversation is a bad idea if you don’t cope well with chaos.

And yet birds seem to be designed to do it - somehow a perfectly synchronised group-decision emerged from the chatter - no conductor, no facilitator, no encourager, no dictator, no leader, no queen. It was amazing!

Now, I totally get that bird song is complex. There might well have been a Type-1-Alpha-Bird counting down to lift-off in that tree. And those birds might well have been fully equipped to understand each different role as they sang together - there could have been conversations about which direction, about what to wait for, about who gets to sing 'go' or whatever. It's not for us to decipher - we make our decisions by a sort of clunky dance of listening and responding with words constructed into translated thoughts - it's a different world.

I did think for a while that this might be the pre-flight gathering for the annual winter journey to the South. The chatter seemed a bit like a holiday buzz - it had that excited feel to it. What a moment to witness - as soon as Type-1-Alpha-Bird hits that trill on a G flat, we're off for thousands of miles of ocean, and desert, and warm African winds.

Just as I was working out which way South was though, all the birds, the same passerine mass of twittering singers, circled back round through the blue sky, and landed back in the tree - where they immediately started singing once again. So I've no idea what that was all about.

It was lovely though.

OVERHEARD ON THE BUS

“You going to Reading, drive?”

“Newbury.”

“You got Central Reading on your side mate, that’s just why I’m asking.”

“Oh, thanks.”

“So you’re definitely going to Newbury?”

“Yeah, Newbury yeah.”

-

“He still had Central Reading on the side of the bus.”

“Oh really? Instead of...”

“Newbury.”

“Oh. Did he change it?”

“Yeah I think he changed it. I think it says ‘Newbury’ now.”

“Well he ought to have. Otherwise people might not have got on it. They might have thought it was going to Central Reading...”

“Yeah. That would have been awful.”

“... instead of Newbury... imagine.”

“Yeah... imagine.”

THE EPICENTRE OF FRUSTRATION

I don’t want to go into details, but for a little while tonight I was the epicentre of frustration for a whole bunch of people in different locations, all at the same time.

It takes some doing. And two of them were police officers.

Anyway. It all worked out okay. I just can’t cope with multiple stressful things all at the same time - especially when the components have no idea about each other being in the equation! Imagine being on two different phone calls at the same time, each of which demand your full attention and response. That is a disaster for me - a sure-fire way to end up annoying everybody. I just freeze up.

But sometimes it just happens anyway. And then there you are, the epicentre - unable to process, and yet very able to make it all a little bit worse. Ah well.

What’s more, I’m getting the feeling that I’m generally on the edge of something I’ve been on the edge of before, and I’m a little nervous of history repeating itself. Actually two things. There’s an opportunity that turned into a mess last time I took it. What if I’m still the same, and the outcome is... inevitable? I’m nervous about both.

Those things weigh heavy on my mind, and add tension to the epicentre. I bet that carries over into the equation. I bet that’s detectable.

One of my friends believes that randomness makes it almost impossible for history to exactly repeat itself. He argues that God sprinkled the universe with enough random systems that no experiment is exactly repeatable, that time itself is unpredictable, and, not wishing to crash a Calvinist’s computer, a lot of stuff just happens by accident.

I don’t know if he’s right. If he is though, it makes it unlikely that I’ll mess up either moment. I have another friend who reminds me often that you can’t step into the same river twice. I like that thought. I am different to the me of ten years ago, and to the me of two. Maybe it’ll be okay.

Either way, I think I need to learn how to gently end competing situations so that I can deal with them better, one at a time. It’s that cool rationalising bit that I lack in the heat of those moments. It has to be possible, and it has to be possible to do it gracefully, like a traffic officer in the middle of a junction.

That reminds me. I’m not in trouble with the police. They just wanted to know if I’d seen a red transit van and I took too long to answer because I was on the phone to two other people but they couldn’t know that because I had my headphones in, under my hood, and so they sped off in pursuit, their radio blaring several sets of instructions at them.

I don’t think I could do that job. I’ll stick to one conversation at a time, in future.

THE POWER OF OWNING AN INCIDENT

You know what I think is a shame? Well lots of things, but specifically today, that there are no more accidents.

Matt. That is a weird way to start a blog post.

Yes brain. Yes it is. But what I mean is that ‘accidents’ have become ‘incidents’ - and somehow or other, an incident means that there is fault, and there is blame. And therefore, somebody somewhere has to say sorry for something.

Only, one person demanding an apology is often met with the equal and opposite force of someone far-removed who just can’t give them that apology, for legal reasons, and so no real ‘sorry’ ensues. Because owning a mistake is also becoming culpable for it, and that can be stupendously expensive.

See. It’s a shame. Generations grow up in this new culture, where apologies are admissions of weakness and guilt, and so you can’t ever give one - even if you know what you did, and so do they.

But! If you need one, it hurts when you don’t get it, doesn’t it? That’s because that vulnerable moment of confession, repentance, culpability, whatever you call it, is so powerful at bringing people together, rather than pushing us apart. And wired into us, like source code, is the fact that we fear separation the most. It’s painful to drift from that lack of connection.

‘I am sorry’ means that my actions have hurt you, and that has made me sorrowful. It’s not about the object, but it is about the person, and the way we’re bound together. Sorry really matters. Putting it right is so important.

I’m not saying all this because I need an apology, or I need to give one. I think I’m just reflecting on some of the reasons why the world keeps wanting to pull itself apart. I’m also not great at this - sorry really does seem to be the hardest word, but I’d like to get better at using it. After all, I cause incidents all the time.

If we can teach young people the power of this in the face of a world that doesn’t understand it, I reckon we can do some serious good. President Business is probably never going to apologise for anything. Okay. That’s his problem. The tax dodging behemoths who sell us coffee and computers, they’re not going to say sorry. Neither are the fat cats who pump poison into the skies, or force poor people to choose between health and poverty. They will have to answer one day.

But you’re responsible for you. So if you’re at the root of an incident, or something you do, or don’t do, causes an accident, maybe show the world how to bring people together. It’ll cost us. Yes, yes it will. But if we can bring people together... it’ll be worth it, right?

Gulp.