UNKNOCKABLE PRESAMPLE

My cousin gave me a packet of marmalade-on-toast flavour, chocolate, digestive biscuits.

They're unimaginably delicious. I don't know why the boffins in the biscuit factory thought it up; I've absolutely no idea how they make it happen, but the result is a spectacular combination of orange, chocolate, biscuit and toast crumbs. It's delightful.

Not everyone I tell agrees. But with a cup of hot chocolate and a couple of dunks, it's like a toasty melt-in-the-mouth breakfast.

"Don't knock it until you've tried it," I heard myself saying.

Is that really a good idea though? After all, last week, my friend Luke was exhorting the values of eating yoghurt with Marmite. Does that fall into the unknockable presamples? Is it reasonable to predict that that will be just horrible? Or should I believe my friend's insistence and give it a go?

Then there are safe choices that sound delicious, and in fact you know will go together without the need for an experiment: strawberries and caramel, elderflower cordial in a glass of apple juice. You might not have ever tried it, but you can sort of already see how a safe choice might work.

It's the grey area between the safe choices and the horrible ones that's interesting isn't it? Who'd have believed bacon goes with syrup? Or pineapples with tabasco? Or mangoes with a nice brie? I once poured orange juice on my cornflakes because I saw it in an advert, and I was nearly sick trying to eat them.

Anyway, marmalade-on-toast flavour biscuits are actually pretty nice, even if for you they fall into that grey group of recoilable foods you don't feel the need to try. I suppose you'll either believe me or you won't, which really, puts me in the same category as Luke with his Marmitey-yoghurt suggestion.

Will I try it? Will I mix up a little full fat Greek yoghurt with a teaspoon of the yeast extract? Will the tangy Marmite balance out of the smooth, inoffensive swirls of yoghurt?

"You like Marmite?" he said. I nodded.

"And you like yoghurt?" Yes. Though I also like lasagna and roller coasters. I'm not sure that argument always holds up.

I suppose the difference is that nobody out there has produced a Marmite-Yoghurt-Corner, whereas they have made (hopefully with significant investment) marmalade-on-toast flavour chocolate digestives - so somebody must have done the research into whether it works as an unknockable presample. They've concluded so. And that's good enough for me.

     

LOVE LETTER

Love Letter

You were in my heart

Before the world began

Before a word was heard aloud

I held you in my hand

You were in my heart

When Moses split the sea

Before the law, before the stones

I held you close to me

You were in my heart

When prophets spoke to kings

When armies stood in fearsome stead

I held you in my wings

And you were in my heart

When darkness took the sky

As splintered blood poured down the cross

Your beauty took my eye

You were in my heart

And always there shall be

The pulse of life inside my veins:

The thought of you with me

HOW TO CHANGE YOUR MIND: PART 2

In Part 1, I was thinking about how difficult it seems to be to change your mind about something - especially if you tweeted it, posted it, *ahem* blogged about it, or just said it out loud on the public record.

Churchill for example, changed his mind about views he held earlier in his life, but is still boxed up in Parliament Square due to the awfulness of those opinions. I made the point that many famous people have had to deal with old tweets in their heartfelt apologies to stop their careers being torpedoed. We're quick to judge them.

My (maybe slightly controversial) theory is that: behaviour invites a label, and labels can become a lifestyle. Let me explain:

Imagine you go out with friends to a swanky restaurant. A particular vegetarian dish catches your eye and you, even though you eat meat often at home, decide that you'll order it.

"Didn't know you were a veggie?" muses a friend. You explain that you're not, but you just liked the look of that particular dish. And it does indeed turn out to be delicious.

You go again a few weeks later; same group of people, same establishment. Still enamoured with the succelent flavours you encountered before, you decide to try the other vegetarian option from the menu this time. And once again, it is an incredible dish.

"Are you sure you're not a vegetarian?" asks your pal while you're tucking in.

You're really not, but your friend raises an eyebrow.

Your behaviour is inviting a label. If you repeat that behaviour, it becomes harder and harder to reject the label of 'vegetarian' in the eyes of everyone you know.

What's more, there's every chance you'll keep exploring how delicious vegetables can be, and start cooking more with them at home. Gradually, meat starts disappearing out of your diet, until it's altogether gone.

Question: Are you a vegetarian? At what point did you become one?

The label and the behaviour might well have led to a lifestyle choice. You don't eat meat any more - it might not be for ethical or health reasons, but the effect is just the same. You can protest, but your friends are probably right aren't they, in assuming that the label, your new label, really is 'vegetarian'. And they'll be quick to bring you down if they see you scoffing a burger.

There are all sorts of labels. In our quest to understand each other, we've become exceptional at slapping them on, and expecting conformity with our ingrained expectations. 'Socialists' support the Palestinians and run the risk of being antisemitic - we don't exactly know why, but it's all there in the label. 'Republicans' adore the straight-talking shoot-from-the-hip-jingoism of their leader, and consider themselves the only true American patriots. 'Tories' are lying scumbags who only care about making big bucks for themselves and their Eton cronies. 'Environmentalists' are green hippies, 'Democrats' are pro-choice radical liberals, 'Emos' are depressed, 'Goths' listen to Satanic music, 'Christians' are meek, 'Germans' are efficient, and 'writers who call themselves wordsmiths' are precocious... apparently. You get the idea.

I'm sure you see how dangerous and how topical this labelling actually is. It's probably worth reminding ourselves that life is much more subtle and nuanced than the boxes we're being asked to fit into.

In fact, the only labels you were really given are the ones that tell the world about who you are as an individual, as a person - the ones that are quite unique to you. Why not find out what those things are?

I think it's good to change your mind about what you think, what you've been trained to think, from time-to-time. Believing that you can't do that will only reinforce your dogmatic allegiance to your boxes, and your behaviour will start to align to that label, and then the label will become your lifestyle choice.

So ask yourself questions, and start ditching some of those unnecessary labels. It's okay to like vegetarian dishes without being a vegetarian - and it's great not to eat meat, just like it's good to get some of that juicy protein from a steak sometimes - it's up to you what you eat, but you don't have to wear the label, especially if it didn't come from you.

Next, deliberately make friends with people who might be wearing a different label. That's the beauty of a modern society, actually - Democrats can be friends with Republicans just like stars fit next to stripes; Free-Market Conservatives can go for a drink with Marxists, and still disagree about everything, but with absolute kindness, respect and honour. It doesn't have to be so bitter and so tribal. It can be done. And when you see it, it's beautiful.

And if you spot ugly behaviour that tempts you to apply a label to someone that defines their lifestyle, maybe think twice. It might be that their current uninformed view, their lack of education, or even a hard-wired, invisible prejudice, have all overflowed into their momentary behaviour. Well, they have the power to change their minds too. It'll just take a little time, and a little kindness. 

ISOLATION DIARIES PART 43: DON’T THROW IN THE TOWEL

Another hot one, and once again the talk of the town is the hundreds, if not thousands of people flocking to Dorset for a beach day.

Bournemouth beach was ram-packed today with sunseekers, doing about as much social distancing as mushy peas in a tin. 

The photo doing the rounds looked like a crowd at a festival, sprawled across the sand and in the shallows of the sea. Amity Island was back, and so was the chance of running into the monster in the deep, the virus.

“And what will you do if people come too close?” asked a news reporter, hovering over a sunbaked man. His tattoos rolled across his bare arms as he shrugged.

“Just tell ‘em to move back!” he exclaimed, crossly. Humans can be breathtakingly selfish sometimes. But you don’t need me to tell you that.

Some had driven from Birmingham - over two hundred miles. Others had presumably hoped that if they got a decent spot early enough, put up a windbreak or two and spread out blankets, they could enjoy the beach and still be safe. But really? Who’s enjoying a beach that’s so full of people you can’t move? Who wants to be stuck right in the middle of a noisy, impolite, sun-scorched sea of buckets and bathing towels? And who wants to be there... during a pandemic that is literally killing people by close proximity? What’s the point?

Someone tried to link it to the race thing. It isn’t to do with that. Someone tried to blame the police - not their fault either. More poured scorn on the government. But this is about all of us being a bit more sensible, and a lot less self-centred. At its heart, this feels like a problem of responsibility, and making sacrifices for each other for the good of our friends and our families.

But I’m an idealist. And we get disillusioned easily, I know. When the rule-breakers get away with it, and are allowed to, it gets much harder not to throw in the towel. Sticking to the rules feels a bit like taking ages to sort out your recycling and then realising that China have built another power station since you last took the bins out. Pointless.

Well. Don’t risk it. Use your head, don’t follow the crowd, stick with the sense. You don’t need to grab everything at the expense of everybody else. It’s toilet rolls all over again otherwise. So don’t throw in the towel. Save it for better beach days. We’re depending on you.

HOT DAYS

Well it's super hot today. In fact, we're having a little wave of baking days; days where you can feel the heat moving as you walk through it, where the pavement cracks under the sun, and sweat pours through your cardigan.* Though this is supposed to be the last one, followed by a cooler, rainier Friday.

The evenings are alright though. I sat in the park at sunset last night and it was beautifully warm and breezy.

And the night before that, I went to a barbecue! I know - lockdown hasn't permitted such things, but there were the approved six of us in a small garden, sitting apart on wooden garden chairs, chewing the fat. It was my friend Matt's birthday.

It was ever so nice to be reminded of a normal life. Real people I'd only seen on Zoom recently, laughed and joked around me under a fading blue sky and the wispy smoke of a grill.

I have another friend (not present this time) who's fond of saying that you should "pay attention to what fills your tank, and also what drains it". This little party was a tank-filler and no mistake.

With the weather, there have been a lot more barbecues of course. You can sometimes hear the garden-chatter, the sprishing open of cans, and the sound of meat sizzling happily. You can smell it too - bacon and beef, chicken and pork, wafting deliciously over the fences around the village. And of course all the alpha males are out in their aprons, regressing to cavemen, with the meat, the fire and the fresh air tingling in their DNA.

Anyway it's almost hot enough to do away with the flames and just use the sun.

-

I was expecting a parcel today. I won't tell you the name of the delivery company, but at 12:17 they texted me to say that my package was 'out for delivery'. I liked the language of this:

"Delivery will be attempted between 11:00 and 13:00 today," they said. 

Attempted. As in, the driver could just lazily lob the parcel into the garden, and that would cover them. "At least we told you we'd attempt it," they'd protest perhaps.

And anyway, it seems a little strange to give someone a delivery window, halfway through that delivery window. I rolled my eyes and sighed, clocking that I'd have to stay in for an hour - which, given the heat actually, was no bother at all.

I didn't have much time to think about it though, because at 12:19, the driver knocked my door and left the parcel on my doorstep. I presumed it had been him who had texted me from the van.

"Cheers," I said, closing the door behind me as he ploughed through the heat back to the road. It's really warm out there, and I definitely don't need to be wearing this cardigan.*

*This is of course, a joke.

 

   

ISOLATION DIARIES PART 42: RICH TEA FINGERS

There's a significant chance that I'm going to be unable to do any work at all without snacking, from now on. It feels as though I've trained my body to run on biscuits.

When they finally tell us we can go back to the office, I'm going to need a truckload of rich tea fingers to make myself feel at home.

I exaggerate. Though, with no sign of the gym reopening, I do feel as though this might not be the cleverest of situations.

Everything else is getting there though. In a couple of weeks' time we'll be able to go to pubs, restaurants and cafes, get our hair cuts again, and visit attractions like museums and cinemas - even the two-metre rule is going, reduced to what the Prime Minister is calling '1m Plus' from July 4th. Though of course, masks and face coverings are required for the foreseeable future.

Probably until there's a (whisper it) vaccine.

We had a survey last week on our current working situation. Less than half of us (40%) are looking forward to returning to the office, apparently, even with the safety measures in place. I'm not surprised. It wasn't my first choice: stringent safety policies on how to use the bathrooms, kitchen probably out of bounds, and all of us working in stuffy masks and face coverings.

But then, here I am, in the middle of Week 15, eating rich tea fingers. Roll on.

MAIWAND

Maiwand

A long forgotten war

Was fitfully remembered

By lion's silent roar

In the middle of the park

Where shadows of the past

Were like memory, dismembered

They scarred upon the grass

With the coming of the dark

A stirring in the trees

Still silver in their daylight

A shout upon the breeze

Echoed louder from the stones

A lurking spirit barked

As a shadow in the sunlight

Awoken in the park yet

A world we hadn't known

I looked upon the lion

So furious, so raw

A statue cased in iron, but

What use had been that roar?

A hundred years of fury for

The fallen and the few

When evil came upon us,

Maiwand lion, where were you?

The night fell on the park,

Still flashing blue and white

And I prayed into the dark

On that dreadful summer night

Then

A voice I knew so well

Whispered softly through the tears

With a heartbeat I could tell would

Whisper peace to rolling fear,

And the Lion and the Lamb

Showed me all that He could see

From injustice in the land

To the chains of slavery

From oppresion of the poor

By the rich who didn't care

To the ravages of war

And the wake of that despair

"For all of this oppression,

You have taken silence too.

You were the Maiwand lion,

When it mattered, where were you?"

A long forgotten war

Was fitfully remembered

By lions' silent roar,

In the middle of the park

Where shadows of the past

Were like memory, dismembered

They scarred upon the grass

With the coming of the dark

ISOLATION DIARIES PART 41: CHEMISTRY

There are definitely moments when being in the office would be a lot better. Conflicts for example. With a sigh, I have to admit that conflicts are not escapable, and remote conflicts are even harder to avoid.

In fact, I'd go so far as to say that trying to make conflicts inevitable, actually makes them much more likely - which means rather than just storing up your troubles like a pressure cooker, you may as well just face them when they come.

I'm not very good at this part of my job. I'm just saying. I have the tendency to do three things which are like chemicals combining into a toxic reaction.

1. I think I'm right. No harm in that really, I guess we all do when we have an opinion - a pretty normal mixture in the grand scheme of things. But it's only helpful if I'm not fixed on the idea that I always have to be right. I need to be flexible enough to say, I'm right but I might be wrong.

2. I'm defensive. There's great skill in being able to defend your argument, and if you think you're right, being able to explain your view is important. But my attitude burns holes through my argument sometimes and I'm fully aware that I can be a bit like a hedgehog being poked with a stick. That's not good.

3. I take it all too personally. Pride in your work is important; but wrapping your own skill up in your opinion is like pouring acid into a paper cup. There's a fragility in the paper that will be evaporated by the criticism - and if you're inseparable from your output, it'll be you that gets burned open. And that is painful.

So these chemicals have to be treated very cautiously, I think. I felt them mix together yesterday when my opinion was under threat. Being at home, invisible to the other people in the chat, made it tough to know how to respond to people openly telling me I'm wrong about a thing I'm supposed to be the expert in. There was an effervescence about the conversation, corroding my pride and eating away at my competence. I reflected on it later with my manager.

I'm going to do a learning course on conflict, I think. I have the access to one. It'll be interesting to see whether I can apply some safeguards to help the chemistry of 1,2 and 3, work for me, instead of eating me up.

What I did yesterday (and I hope I'm learning) was to ask a lot of questions, explain that I was trying to understand, and then say thanks to the person who was boiling me. I figured gratitude, clarity, and teachability might go some way to helping diffuse the situation.

I do think this would be a lot easier in person though. Still some way to go before those days are back.

HOW TO CHANGE YOUR MIND: PART 1

The other day I was lamenting the lack of proper debate, having watched a good one in It Wasn't About Banana Milkshake. In that debate, the audience swung 34% in favour of one side of the house, with hundreds of undecideds making up their mind, having heard all of the arguments.

But it wasn't just the undecideds who carried the motion. A large proportion of one side actually changed their minds during the course of the evening. That means they started with one opinion, and ended with the exact opposite.

Admittedly, this was in the era before social media was quite so toxic, but even so, I found myself asking: Does that really happen any more? Are people allowed to change their minds?

Let's take Twitter for example. There have been a cluster of people now, celebrities, who tweeted some vile things when they were younger. Before they shot to fame, their relative anonymity, youth and naivety in a sea of noise protected them from enormous repercussions. So they went on from that drunken moment of hatred, forgot all about it, and subsequently shot to fame.

Then, years later, snoopers with clever alogorithms went digging and they found those old tweets - even the deleted ones somehow - and they shamed those celebrities into apologies and career-crashes.

I'm not saying they should be let off the hook! We all have things in our history we might need to atone for. But should people really be vilified for views they once held but genuinely no longer do? Is there grace to be able to change your mind? Is there forgiveness? 

Secondly, let's think about the current societal situation. We're (rightly) being asked to grow, learn, change, mature, be educated about the impact of white privilege. And I think some of us are finding it excruciatingly difficult - which is a good thing - it should be a painful metamorphosis; a refining by fire that results in a better world, after all.

But it will only result in a better world if we're able to transform, renew, and change our minds. And what I'm saying is that these days, society hasn't exactly encouraged us to do that. Instead it's pushed us into trenches and then labelled us indelibly with the banner that flies above each one.

    

So, how do we change our minds? In Part 2, I'd like to go a bit deeper into this idea of labels, behaviours, and lifestyles. The truth is you don't have to be entrenched, you don't actually have to stick to what you wrote so passionately on flumpbook three weeks ago, and even if you're called a hypocrite in the process, you can grow, you can adapt, and you really can change your mind.

 

SUMMER STORM

There was a summer storm today. It raged across the South of England and crept into our part of the world just after 4pm.

Dark skies. It always starts with dark skies - the still air that somehow manages to muster a breeze. A distant rumble, a dog, a car engine, the gentle flicker of something far off beyond the horizon.

Then the rain. Thick, white and heavy it fell, until I couldn't see the street. The window rattled. The air shook. The thunder growled.

It's formed by difference - an electrical difference between the earth and the sky, like two ends of a battery. Each lightning strike is nature's way of correcting that differential, bringing the state of things back to some sort of equilibrium, some sort of relief. I'm fascinated that sometimes it takes a storm to do that.

The difference between cloud and soil is hard to spot before the lightning. You can sort of feel it in the air: a charged-up scintillation, the hairs on the back of your neck, or perhaps just an intuitive glance at the sky. It's there, electric in the atmosphere, but we're okay with it, we tell ourselves; we're okay to go about our usual routines and our work while that pressure builds.

But every now and again, it takes a lightning bolt of correction to show us the need for the storm. Hundreds of thousands of volts, ancient and terrible, snaking through the air in less than half a second, burning plus to minus, earth to sky. It's no wonder the ancients thought Zeus had a temper.

The still, humid air is electrified into a wave of sound - a pulse of rapidly heating molecules warping themselves into a peal of thunder, rolling, crashing, grumbling their discontent across the valleys, the towns and the glistening rooftops.

It was soon over. Blue sky was back and the evening sun glistened from the cars and the lamppost. Gentle summer clouds hung above, where the darkness had been, and the rain steadied into barely a drip from the open window. There'll be another time for potential difference, and another storm to bring balance, certainly. 

But for the moment, the world breathed, and so did I. It smelled delicious.

DIFFERENT TRAJECTORIES

I saw my friend Paul today. We met like ships in the... car park. I was heading back to my car with a trolley-load of shopping; he was taking an item in a cardboard box in as a product return.

I miss him. It's not that we're not friends any more - I think we always will be. It's more that over the course of the last few years, life has pulled us in different directions. His trajectory, though bright and brilliant, sad and hopeful, is not mine.

"Where's your ride?" he asked in his cool, smart way.

"I er, I don't know," I said, vaguely gesturing to where I thought I'd left it, "Over there somewhere." I happened to glance at my trolley, laden as it was with packets of biscuits and snacks hiding the vegetables. He smiled. Perfect smile, keen sparkling eyes.

We did a lot. There are countless young adults out there who were only kids when we met them. We helped them, taught them about how to follow Jesus, how to be the best they could be. We played football with them, we loved them, and we took all the insults and the flak from them, sometimes with crushed souls and broken windows.

One girl, I remember so well, was struggling with life in a broken home. She's now a leader in a big church in Canada. Others (not all) went on to have families, ministries, worlds of their own to make a difference in. They're bus drivers and personal trainers and credit controllers and stylists and nurses and bosses, and mothers, and fathers these days. I hope they're good ones.

I gave all of my twenties to that effort, and my reflection knows it.

"I was going to call you the other day, find out how you are," he said warmly. I told him the same, which is true, but it wasn't supposed to be a comment on the fact that he didn't, nor an indicator that I'd thought about it either. It would be nice to chat - though how I can tell him how I feel about everything right now, I don't know. I can't even begin to explain my reaction to this ugly world, even to myself. Trajectories are tough to connect, with each broadening degree.

Paul made his way to the shop. I made my way to my 'ride'. Turns out he'd parked his sleek, shiny BMW next to my little jalopy without realising. Different trajectories. I miss my friend. I'll call him soon.

THE RECTANGULAR CAVE OF ICY WONDER

I was surprised to learn today (from Google of course) that you should probably defrost your fridge "once or twice a year" and not... "when there's so much ice around the freezer box that the light doesn't work and you can no longer shut the fridge door".

Hmm. So far it's taken me all day to thaw out *ahem* four and a half years of ice. I have a feeling the actual Ice Age might have melted faster.

It's one of those jobs I never even really thought about; I just went on using my fridge until the icebox wouldn't open (by which point I had an actual freezer anyway) and forgot all about it.

Then this week I noticed that everything in the fridge was suspiciously cold and wet, and yes, the door wasn't closing properly. The lid of the butter for example had collected a reservoir of snow-melt, the carrots were damp, and the fresh pasta (still in its bag) looked like it had been outside in the rain.

So today, in a noble effort to do something about it, I took everything out of the fridge, disposed of the indescribable black vegetable mulch that had slipped down at the back (at some point in March 2018 according to the use-by date), cleaned the entire fridge, switched it to zero, and left the door open.

It's still going.

Drippety drip, keeping me awake. I've stuffed towels in the bottom, angled the glass plate so that all the drips run off into the vegetable tray, and I'm now letting nature take its melty course.

After a while, the ice around the push-in button that toggles the lightbulb melted and in a familiar glow, the lovely old fridge-light came on! That was a treat - proved at least that my fridge still works - kind of.

Then, a little later when I'd gaffa-taped the switch up to preserve the bulb (the door's been open for about ten hours), the freezer box lid suddenly fell open. Finally free of the ice that had cased it shut for months and months, it sprang open like an emergency hatch, to reveal what I can only describe as a rectangular cave of icy wonder.

I say a cave, but of course the entire freezer box was (and sort of still is) a single lump of solid white ice. I really needed to have done this ages ago. 

So this afternoon, I watched as the thaw continued slowly in the freezer box. A flap of something green appeared first. This must be the excitement that archaeologists have when digging through ancient glaciers, I thought, The tip of a spear, the tooth of a mammoth? 

The edge of a packet of peas. Perfectly preserved in there since 2017 AD: a simpler time for us hunter-gatherers. There's something else in there too, but it hasn't fully shown itself yet - a cardboard pack with the words '2 for 1' printed on it. What will it be? A lasagna ready meal for emergencies? A packet of three-year-old sausages? We, like many a glacial-archaeologist, must wait for the thaw to continue, to find out what treasures were buried in that long forgotten ice age.

So the drippage continues. I made toasted bagels under the grill and then held the hot grill pan underneath the drip-tray. It helped a little bit, but the Narnia-level enchantment was still thick. I must leave the fridge-ice overnight to make the long and leaky phase transition from solid back to liquid, and hope that there's not more ice-water than the vegetable tray can carry. I may wake up to a flood.

Twice a year! You know I can't help feel there's a lesson in there for me about doing a thing quicker and more often. Oh well. At least I'll be able to make ice cubes again.

I DO WONDER

Well I've had to come off flumpbook again - at least for the time being. I can't really go into the reason why. I went back there because isolation felt like exactly the time to be 'around the campfire' - just like in 2007 actually, when it was a new thing for everyone, and a fun way to keep in contact.

But campfires need good maintenance, and sensible people - otherwise it's only a matter of time before we all start pushing each other into the flames. I want no part of that. And it certainly is getting flamey out there. I just didn't expect it to happen so quickly.

Anyway. I wrote a poem for a flumpbook group, and forgot to put it up here as well. Someone commented and said it was peaceful and thoughtful, and ideal for times like these. So, here it is. It's only short. Enjoy. 

I Do Wonder

I do wonder,

Said the ocean to the stars,

Which of us deeper

In this universe of ours?

Is it you in all your glory

Shining bright above the sea?

Or with dark and brooding passion

Oh I wonder, is it me?

I do wonder,

Said the stars in soft reply,

Which of us higher

In the chasm of the sky?

Is it you with endless waters

Stretching wild across the sea?

Or with melodies of angels

In the heavens, is it me?

I do wonder,

Said the Maker from above 

I span the stars with silver

And I fashioned you with love

As the waters came together

And the stars first lit the sea

I was always doing wonder

And the wonder I will be

DREAM KITCHENS

I don't know why I'm writing lots of poems this week. Something in the water? I don't drink enough of that. Maybe I just hit a mood. Well anyway, this one came out of an advert I saw featuring celebrities cooking. Obviously, they're all at home during the lockdown too, so over the last twelve weeks or so, we've actually been able to see right into their homes while they do their thing online. Some of them have very nice looking kitchens. It's been a good reminder to be grateful, though, a hard reminder sometimes. Anyway, this is what came of that thought. Oh, and if it's not obvious, you have to read it with an accent...

Dream Kitchens

Look at them celebrity kitchens

Fancy hobs 'n lighting

Silver fridges, granite tops

And room to spend the night in

Look at them airy windows

What let in all the light

Breakfast bars as big as cars

All shimmery and white

Look at me tiny two-bed.

My kitchen in its place.

Toaster, kettle, microwave

Takes up the counter space

Just look at me little worktop

With leaking fridge below

There ain't no room for skype or zoom

Where would the camera go?

Look at them celebrities' kitchens

Chrome and new and smooth

One looked like she peered at mine

And suggested I could just move

"Oh this could all be yours!"

She said, or seemed to say, with glee

"You could still make a lucky break

If you worked hard like me"

But look at me tiny kitchen.

I worked as well as I could,

I didn't sing nor sleep me way

To live in Hollywood

I didn't ever ask for more

Than somewhere of me own!

So it's okay, for me today

It's nice to feel at home

Yeah look at this little kitchen

Go on, have a good look

Running water, storage space

And food that I can cook

Cos somewhere on this planet

There's millions unseen

They'll not believe that somehow we've

Been living in this dream

ISOLATION DIARIES PART 40: BUBBLES AND SPHERES

We're at the stage now I think, where the questions, 'How are you?' or 'How's it going?' are tough to reply to with anything interesting.

Hmm. Meh. Yeah. Same old. Not sure what else to say really.

As far as my little sphere of biscuits is concerned, I don't have much going on. I've eaten. I've stayed logged on. I've done this bit of work. I've thought about this, I've washed up that. I've looked at the park through the rain. I've played Scrabble on my phone.

Easyjet have emailed me, urging me to book a flight somewhere, anywhere, in 2021. They seem confident. Of course the gamble for them is 'money now, maybe put planes in the air later'; - they want me flying with them. Ironic isn't it, that it should be their passengers who keep them afloat? 

Meanwhile, outside my sphere, the world continues to melt down. A statue of a reprehensible man was drowned in Bristol harbour, shifting the debate, subtly, from racism to slavery, and then back again. Now all those 18th and 19th Century statues of former slave-owners are at risk of a righteous dunking from the angry mob. Oh and they've taken Gone With the Wind off the telly. I'm not commenting either way, by the way, just (as I always try to do) observing.

Meanwhile the Prime Minister continues to ease the lockdown. Apparently, single dwellers can now meet and stay with another household in a 'bubble' (as from Saturday) - he says he appreciates how difficult it's been for those of us who live alone. Mind you, if anyone in the bubble goes down with the symptoms, that's you self-isolating with them for fourteen days. Choose your bubbles wisely, single people.

I'll stick to my sphere, I think, in all its biscuity glory.

CALLOUS

More poetry. This one's a thought about the sadness and the loneliness of being hard-hearted. I'm one of those people who don't try to hold on to things like this, so it might be worth saying, this is not really me - you'll have to imagine it's someone else, like I did when I wrote it. Definitely don't read too much into it.

I do think though there's at least some relevance for all of us at the moment. Our human nature sometimes threatens to take us here, perhaps from an initially good and noble cause, perhaps from firmly held ideas or beliefs. Listen. Don't go. Whatever it is, let those things go before you get here. This is called Callous...

Callous

Tough skin hardens

Round the corners of my heart

On the frozen throne of justice

Where the coldest feelings start

And the hall of things unspoken

Ices over from within:

Tough stuff hardens

On the inside of my skin

Eyes grow narrow

In this castle made of stone

Where a king I never wanted

Made a callous heart a home

And the bitter wind of silence

Blew from unrepentant skies

Tough skin hardened

In the corners of my eyes

Fist clenched tighter

In the winter of defence

With a prejudice and pride

That bears no rationale or sense

In this opulent resentment

In these unforgiving bones

Tough skin hardens

Like a wall of solid stone

Tough skin hardens

From the pain I can't release

As it twists into each finger

Print, and leaves me free of peace

It's a palace made of calluses

Where light and freedom part

Tough skin hardens

Round the corners of my heart

IT WASN'T ABOUT BANANA MILKSHAKE

I just watched a full on broadcast debate from years ago. Two speakers for; two against the motion. Let's say it's "Banana is the best flavoured milkshake". Typically the speakers would be notable experts in the field, or opinionated individuals who have some sort of stake in either side of the discussion.

Two thousand people in the audience, one neutral moderator, no real politics - just purely polite, reasoned, intelligent debate.

Here's how it works:

The audience vote at the start, just before the debate begins. Is banana the best flavour? Yes, or no?

Then each speaker has exactly 10 minutes to make their case. Bananas are awesome. Other flavours are evil. Actually hardly anyone likes bananas, look at the statistics. Strawberries for the win. Put your bananas away. The idea is that it's balanced, fair and eloquent. There are no interruptions (though there was some applause) and no comments until all the speakers have used their 10 minutes. 

Once done, the audience then get a chance to ask questions. Being an audience of humans of course, most of them wanted to score points instead of ask anything, but the moderator briskly got them through it.

The speakers answer each question as well as they can, while the moderator tries to balance that tricky section. Then the audience is asked to vote once again, and the moderator reads out the final result to see whether anyone has changed their mind about banana milkshakes, and in which direction.

We tried it once in Sixth Form. That was my memory, and I don't think we did it anywhere near as well. I remember being on a panel, trying to talk about a very controversial subject without being fully aware that it was extremely poignant to several people in the room. I was young and naive - I had zeal, conviction, passion and not-quite-enough-knowledge; but I had very little wisdom and perhaps even less empathy. I was picked to pieces, demolished in a roomful of peers and shouted into humiliation. Our deputy head of sixth form didn't really know how to moderate the debate that day, as I recall.

But tonight, I looked on at the 'banana milkshake' debate with a little envy. I'd have loved to have had another go. Perhaps with some preparation, some understanding of what would come flying my way, I'd have become much better at it. Perhaps I would have enjoyed it the second time? It does seem to involve a whole bunch of skills I think I might be okay at these days: research, writing, delivery, presentation, coverage, creativity, conviction, empathy, kindness. Maybe even some wisdom acquired since I was 16 - you never know.

But we never did it again. And I was under so much fire from the first emotive debate, I might not have wanted to sign up for more. I wasn't inflamed by the idea that debate might actually be able to help influence opinions, that voices engaged in argument might actually change the world. I had no idea that this exactly how parliament is supposed to work. I was 16.

Nowadays, ordinary debate happens in microcosms - tiny conversations buried in the comments on social media. It happens in snippeted conversations, or email exchanges, or WhatsApps. The disagreeables fire back until one unfriends the other, or likes everything.

Then all you're left with is people who think like you do - and that's just like our banana milkshake audience, raising a hand to make a point about what they think, to back you up - but actually adding nothing. Where are the questions in the echo chamber?

Well anyway, the motion against banana managed to swing the audience a massive 34% to their opinion. You could call that a win. The moderator thanked everybody, then they all went home.

I wonder why we don't do more formal debating? There's no doubt at all that we're just as opinionated as ever, if not more than ever, actually. But it's that swing that interests me - how did so many people, 34% of 2000 people, go home, having actually changed their minds? Were they thinking about some of the more subtle, nuanced cases they might have previously dismissed? If that debate happened now, would most people be so entrenched, so wedged into this post-truth era, that they simply wouldn't budge their opinions at all?

Or do we live in a world now where everyone's been given a megaphone, and with the greatest double irony as we sit here quietly raging behind our keyboards... none of us can actually hear each other over all the noise?

Well I don't know. And that's okay, but it's on that point, I think it might be prudent if I stop talking.

POLLEN DIARIES: PART 19

I really don’t like it when I sneeze and my whole body gets involved. I just volleyed off what felt like a record number of explosive sneezes, and I felt my self contorting with every explosion.

Famously, your eyes clamp shut to protect the eyeballs from flying out of your sockets at a hundred miles an hour (I haven’t checked that with a medical professional but we’ve all heard it haven’t we? Bound to be true). Of course with hay fever, your scratchy old eyes are already red and sore, so squeezing them together makes them weep all the more, across your bright red face. So it looks like you’re crying your eyes out after a sneezing fit.

Your back convulses, your limbs swing into motion to make sure you’re splurging info your arm, or, better, a tissue (which you can’t see because your eyes are locked shut).

Your legs bounce up with the tightening of the vertebrae, and smash into whatever’s in the way (desk, fridge, coffee table, steering wheel) and pain ensues. I’ve grazed my knee this week (through my jeans) doing exactly this. There’s no time to say ‘ow’ though; the next snot burst is coming and your nose tingles like a warning bell.

Your head snaps back and forth with your neck as you sneeze. It can’t do you any good, that. Your shoulders shake, your toes curl, your mouth gulps in a load of new air (and pollen) and your brain sinks into depression.

Eventually, tear-stained and hot-faced, you sit back (or lie back) and it feels like you’ve given all your earthly strength to throwing the ring into the fires of Mordor and there’s nothing left of you to give. Oh and your knee’s bleeding and you’re clutching a sopping tissue.

I tried stuffing my nostrils with toilet paper tonight. Well no-one would see me; I figured it’s okay to look a little mad if nobody’s there to witness it. It actually reminded me of the time I was looking after my sister’s cats and had to deal with (what I might have described at the time as) a ‘litter tray situation’ - though tonight minus the rubber gloves. Just the old TP up the nose.

It didn’t work. I was still breathing in the grass seed somehow, and before long my eyes were streaming, and my papered nostrils were twitching with the pre-sneeze tickle.

Sleep will help. And this week is statistically the worst of it, I reckon. So I’ve doused myself with cold water, given my nose a kind of Armageddon trumpet blow, and gone to bed.

FRAGMENTS

A broken scar

In alabaster

Shatter-line of white

It snakes its way

That ugly fracture

Cracked beneath the light

A lightning bolt

Of darkened fear that

Struck the heart alone

The thunder grows

In silence here

Across this polished stone

This broken scar

In alabaster

Shattered black on white

The fragments of

Its deadly fracture

Cracked beneath the light

NO FULL STOPS ON THE TELLY

The clouds look heavy today. After weeks of sunshine, it's refreshing to see the billows of thick grey drift across the sky. I wish I were up there, flying through them on my way to somewhere nice.

But rather than fly through them, our lot is to live under them at the moment. And they look like they might yet rain on us.

I'm finding it hard to be happy this week. I'm not going to pretend that I am; I'd much rather be real. And yes, as I said the other day, it might be down to the news; it might be the awful times we live in, and the hopelessness they bring. But I don't think so. Not really.

I watched a TV news interview today (repeated on YouTube). It was a masterclass in not-listening. The interviewer, armed with an agenda of 'simple' questions would not let the the guest speak. Meanwhile the guest, armed with an agenda of bullet points to stick to, would not stop speaking. Each kept interrupting each other in a sort of escalating war of propaganda, squeezed into a certain amount of minutes. It was like an obstacle course - only absolutely exhausting to watch. But you know this. This is every day now, on every station, and it's everywhere.

What happens is that we go away with an impression of the answer, or the obfuscation of the answer, that informs our narrative about that person and the viewpoint they represent.

So-and-so got angry very quickly; what's he got to hide? Why was she so desperate to change the subject? What is the answer to that simple question? Why can't they just say sorry?

It's depressing. You know what Right-Wing-Joe is going to say before he begins, and you already know what Left-Leaning-Lionel is about. They'll defend their team, even when their team is in the wrong and they know it, because that's their team and you don't ever change your team, even if your team captain happens to have shot the spectators, or was caught on tape swearing like a sailor.

If you ask me (and to be fair, nobody is) it's the teams that aren't helping us here. It paints the narrative that you must take sides, protect your side (and in lots of cases their livelihoods), and attack, attack, attack everyone from the other perspective.

I don't know if there's a word for that - where large groups of people start attacking their enemies and defending their own, based on a disparity of strong, ideological entrenchments?

Wouldn't it be better if we learned how to listen? "Quick to listen," says James, "slow to speak, slow to anger."

But the guest wouldn't stop talking, and the interviewer wouldn't stop interrupting. There wasn't time to let it fizzle out; you can't have those selah moments of dead air to let the audience make up their own mind in a fast-paced news broadcast. There are no full stops on telly any more - just interrupted sentences - hang-on-a-second, let-me-jump-in-there, with-all-due-respect-minister - hyphenated interpositions that don't seem to do much good. And all of it paints the narrative for us that the world is divided.

Well it doesn't have to be; not if we take the time to stop talking and listen - I mean really listen. Otherwise, what are we doing? We're just perpetuating the same old stuff over and over again. And anyone who's lived through this week knows that we really shouldn't be doing that.

No rain as yet then, from those dark, heavy clouds. I guess it will come eventually.  

ISOLATION DIARIES PART 39: YEREVAN DAVE

Today, IT are migrating my account, remotely, from Armenia. I can’t help feel that their estimate of 30 minutes might have been a little optimistic.

There’s no way to contact them while it’s happening, or to let them know I can’t log back in whenever it gets to a login page - as to do so would require being logged in. So that leaves me with the option of sitting here at home, watching the spinning wheel... spin.

I always get the feeling that it’s somehow my fault too; that I’ve done something that’s caused the problem. Invariably that isn’t the case, but still, Yerevan Dave (that isn’t his real name) is probably holding his head in his hands right now.

I think of IT support like specialist mechanics. They have knowledge and skills about a thing I use every day. They’re problem solvers and bad news bringers. They tell us to pop open the bonnet, to start the engine, to test the wipers and flash the lights. It’s just that they do all of that... from Armenia now. I miss the days when I could wander over to Tom’s desk with my laptop half open, or longer ago when Nell used to laugh at me. I’ve never met Yerevan Dave.

He did send a group chat though, to everyone currently in this spinning wheel process, shortly before it happened. Instead of ‘Dear all’ he addressed us as ‘Dears’ - like an elderly aunt might her nephews and nieces. Lost in translation.

I wonder why I always feel like I’ve broken it? Am I a meddler, a twiddler of the engine who has a too much of ‘a little knowledge’ and hasn’t worked out that that’s ‘a dangerous thing’? Perhaps it’s just a sort of guilt complex? Though I don’t necessarily do it with other things.

Anyway, I’ve got to remember that this is Yerevan Dave’s job today, so all I can do is sit here and watch it happen until he fixes it, or talks me through what to do.

Quite why they’ve chosen to do this while we’re all stuck at home, I’ve no idea. But then, Armenia is still in Armenia isn’t it? And it would have to have happened at some time or other. I guess it would just be nice to know if I’m not the only one with the spinning wheel. And I don’t think he’s going to tell me that.

MY FIELD

I'm very tense today. I don't think it's specifically tiredness. It could be the state of the world, or perhaps a sense of horrific despair that's tightening my muscles. But I don't really want to get into all of that.

For one thing, there's so much noise - the complexity of racism and anti-racism; lack of comprehension, historical and cultural narratives that are tough to understand unless you've lived it; empathy, woke-generated empathy, perception of woke-generated empathy, and then the collective reaction to it all. It's hard to compute what to say, or how to feel, or what to say and how to feel about not knowing what to say or how to feel. Out come the memes about not staying silent. Out come the memes about people saying too much. Out comes the guilt. Out comes the fury. Meanwhile America burns.

And then President Business appears holding a Bible upside-down in front of a church - a church that's just been cleared of peaceful protestors and medical aid workers by rubber bullets and tear gas, so that he could have his photo opportunity. It's all very apocalyptic - like something out of Left Behind. The Bible - used as a political weapon by a man who probably doesn't know much about what's inside. He could do worse than read it.

I say that carefully. I don't want to judge, and I (as I hope countless American Evangelicals do too) don't wish to be deceived. But it's way too complex a field for me.

What's more my field, is sitting in the park with a Bible of my own, wondering why the Moon takes a U-shaped trajectory over the trees. My field is memorising the Psalms and looking at the big daisies and wondering where all the little ones went. It's thinking about the dog who brought me a tennis ball, dropped it at my feet and then looked at me with sad eyes when I didn't pick it up and throw it.

"He does that to everyone," said the lady walking over, "Except me."

I laughed.

"It's not funny really," she said. I stopped laughing, abruptly. She came to scoop up the tennis ball while the dog switched focus between me, and her, and the ball scooper.

"Sorry to get so close," she said.

"That's okay," I said, suddenly remembering that despite it all, we're still in a pandemic. It probably wasn't okay though. Ah well. She lobbed the ball into the long grass and the dog bounded after it, tail wagging in the sunset.

I looked up at the Moon: bright and hopeful against the evening sky. We're all responsible for how we react to the world. I can't allow my fury to obscure my kindness. I can't allow my indignation to cloud my respect. I can't allow my tears to stop the flow of my joy. And all of that's down to me. That, if anything is my only field.

A RIBBON OF TOMORROW

It’s getting light out there. The horizon’s a sort of amber colour, a ribbon of tomorrow, no - today... creeping up into the dark blue sky, pushing back the night.

I haven’t been to sleep yet. This is the worst night for a while - and I’m not even sure why. I’m hot. The air is scratchy with pollen. My head’s woozy and it feels a bit like my heart might be beating too fast. No nausea though. I’m not ill. Well, other than the allergies I mean.

What are you supposed to do on nights like this? Tomorrow, I mean today, is Monday and I ought to be leaping to it later to kick off week 12. It could be a tricky day.

So, do I just try to stay awake now (virtually guaranteeing that I’ll fall asleep and not wake up until 10am)? Or do I stop writing, close my eyes and let the dawn fold around me like a blanket (virtually guaranteeing that I’ll be awake until my alarm goes off, at which point I’ll fall sound asleep and wake up at 10am)?

And then there’s the day itself. Can I navigate through the grumpy ride ahead? Will I have the energy for it? Will I make it to 4:30pm tomo-this afternoon without being accidentally snappy and troublesome? In fact, how does anybody do that? Will I make it?

I don’t think I’ve seen this sky for a while. Pretty soon the birds will spot it and the dawn chorus will begin. I’ll be alright, I guess. Just need to make sure I keep my head down.