I Never Said it was Clever

Ha! I made something, from raw materials and tools, and it turned out the way it was supposed to. Imagine that!

Ok, so what I made involved 2 wooden boards, a pair of hinges and a handful of nuts and bolts. If your average 13 year old handed it in as a CDT (or whatever the hell they call it these days) project they'd be lucky to get a passing mark. But that doesn't matter to me, because I made it, all by myself, and it works. Even more.. I went into a timber shop and came out with the materials I wanted, without at any moment stuttering or making myself look or feel like an idiot. This means I broke a barrier, I did something I was previously afraid to do. Like the first time you walk into a music shop and see those mocking eyes look at you, because you're an idiot and they are experts. Like the first time you ask a girl out, and she doesn't laugh in your face (one day).

I understand how pathetic all this is for a 30 year old man. But y'know, baby steps. 

I've been enjoying actually doing stuff quite a lot recently, getting my teeth stuck into my work, waking up each morning and making a list of things to do, then just doing them, no excuses. It's good. Makes you feel better. When you know you've done a good full days work you can relax better (no you can't), you can switch your brain off (from everything except what you've been working on), you feel energised (I'm fucked). It's good though, definitely good.

My Old Man's a Dustman

Like most of the world, I'm sat watching the results of the US Presidential Election coming in and waiting for them to announce the first black President in history. But as important and as significant as everything about this election might be, I can't help but thinking about the two guys running for the job, and why the hell they are doing it.

They've worked relentlessly for months, even years to get to this place, they've spent everything they have in terms of finances, energy, thoughts and emotions, and tomorrow morning, the winner... note the term 'winner', wakes up with all the responsibilities of the world on his shoulders... for at least 4 years!

I'll be honest, I get a bit sweaty palmed if I have to remember to buy milk on the way home (speaking of which, I forgot to buy milk on the way home), but this guy will be responsible for the lives of millions of people, thousands of which are in the middle of wars, and that's just one issue he'll have to deal with before dinner. Power, immortality, sense of achievement and the will to improve or affect the world are all well and good, but why would any human being put themselves under that kind of pressure? To take a job where you will make not only life & death decisions, both on a massive scale and a personal one, but you could feasibly make a mistake that would end the world, either in the long term, or very short term.

Not a chance mate, not a chance.

A Little Less Conversation

I used to enjoy tests at school, and I get a kick out of playing the fancy new electronic quiz machines they put in drinking holes these days. It occurred to me today that I treat conversations as if they were one of these things too. I comment quite often on how I'll rarely start or lead a conversation, and I haven't got the faintest idea how or why people think to talk about the things they do. It's a puzzle, it really is. But anyway, I forget my point. Wait. Gimme a second.

Yeah, conversations, as if they were a quiz, a game even. I enjoy reacting to what's said to me, listening to what is said and trying to respond in the way that will get the best reaction. Usually I'll be aiming for laughter, as it's a rare day that I'll find myself embroiled in a discussion about anything that actually means something. But sometimes it's just a smile you want, a smile that indicates you've solved a problem, or shown an alternative perspective, or made someone feel better about themselves. Sometimes you want a different reaction entirely, but that depends what particular game you're playing, and who you're playing it with.

The games have rules too, you can't just say what you think people want to hear, because you have to factor in honesty, and a bigger picture. Sometimes the games are short term and simple and all you want to do is get that laugh, at any expense. Sometimes they're more complex and can happen over a period, or several periods, of time and you might have to force some negative effects to get a bigger positive.

Sometimes the prize is different, it could be information, or objects, or actions. Or all of the above, but even then, you know you can score the bonus points by bringing in some more human results, more personal results, as fringe benefits to the exchange.

I don't think I'm gonna win any prizes for incision with this little blog. But I've enjoyed thinking about building blocks for a bit.

A Frightful Affair.

I'm bored of waffling on about being 30 now. That is so last week. And it turns out, nobody gives a shit. I say 'turns out', I can't really complain that fact has taken me by surprise can I, not when I've built a large portion of my personality based on the assumption that nobody gives a shit. But y'know, this was about me, you'd have thought people would have made an exception.

So what's happened? As usual, everything and nothing. My clock ticket forward a number and the one on the wall clicked back a number, so we all spent an extra hour in bed and thought about the beds we'd rather be in. Then had a shower, tidied the flat and ate a lot of crap till bedtime again. As it was written, so it shall pass.

The big news is, I got a new iPod. Aside from all the disgusting lavish connotations that the phrase 'new iPod' comes with, this is a brilliant piece of news. First, it was bought by my friends (i have friends, sod off), who had it inscribed, thus making it a significant historical artefact and warming my cockles. Secondly it is big enough to hold my entire music collection, or at least everything I have digitised, which is both mesmerising and liberating. Although it does provide me with a little too much choice, and we all know how I feel about choice and it's life complicating properties. But that's ok because.. thirdly.. it includes the iTunes Genius function (look it up you lazy shit) which means only have to make one choice a day.. choose one song and one only, and that does the rest for me. I cannot tell you how much this will enhance my life. Now all I need to do is find someone or something that will perform the roll of Life Genius for me, and contentment is but a stones throw away.

In other news, last night was incredible. Our Halloween party, which has evolved over the past 3 years into one of the most impressive things I've ever been involved in, and what makes it impressive is not its size or scale. It's the commitment that is put into it from all sides. A night where everybody involved makes the extra effort for the common good. Something happens to the atmosphere in a place where everybody has put themselves out to dress in theme, or act in theme, or just to join in. Sure Halloween is becoming as commercial as Christmas and more so every year, but if that's the price we have to pay for the feeling of community you get when everybody is united in the same goal for a short time. I reckon that's ok.

Fuck me I'm becoming a hippy, a capitalist hippy of course, but a dirty stinking hippy none-the-less. Who wants to come to Mothercare and push some toddlers over?

Of Course

I'm still foolish enough to stay up writing nonsense till 4am when I know I have a long, busy day tomorrow. So I guess I shouldn't be too worried about growing up quite yet.

It Had to Happen Some Day

So, we've come to this point then. In 24 hours my age will be two digits and begin with a 3. Even Babbage's Difference Engine couldn't make that maths cool. Nope. 

It probably comes as no surprise to anyone that when I was 15 this isn't how I pictured my life would be by the time my age had doubled. Im pretty sure that's just standard procedure. I'm not even sure I ever imagined myself turning 30 at all, it was just too far in the future. I knew for a fact that once I'd finished my schooling, including Degree, Masters and whatever professional qualification I needed to be a Q.C. Barrister or top flight Journalist, or whatever I chose, that within a a few years I'd be settled with a big house in the city, maybe one in the country too, and all the trappings that came with that, including the stunning girl of my dreams, and maybe even a rug-rat or two to complete the scene. I figured it would be likely I'd have my own chat show or something too, because people would obviously want to get as much of me as they could. 

I knew these things would happen of course because I was without doubt the smartest person in at least the county, apart from Jenny Cochrane of course. And despite possessing a personality that somehow managed to combine arrogance with crippling shyness and an almost complete lack of social skills, and a face that, well, wasn't gonna win £10 in Monopoly any time soon, I knew for a fact it was only a matter of time before I became irresistible to girls, all of them. How could I possibly fail to achieve all my dreams at an impressively young age?

Kids are stupid aren't they. Especially when they're me.

Even if in my more humble moments I could have admitted some of these certainties were a little far fetched, I don't think I would ever have said that, on my 30th birthday, I'd be a single man earning his money playing records to 18 year olds, living in a rented flat and spending much of his days sitting around in his pants watching Top Gear repeats. Even less so that I'd be quite happy with that.

I'm not a success. Not in any of the ways the younger me would have defined success. I don't have my own house and a large nest egg, there's no better half, not even on the horizon, I'm in absolutely no danger of being surprised by the Big Red Book anytime soon, I haven't changed the world in any significant way, I don't have an Olympic Medal or a Man of Steel trophy gathering dust, and if I was to pop my clogs tomorrow nobody would declare a national holiday, all they'd do is redirect my credit card bills to my mum.

But despite an excessive amount of time on the sofa, I've done some stuff. I've found a way to make a living doing something I enjoy and giving me all the free time I could need, for now anyway. I did things instead of talking about them, I created something and built it into a locally recognised thing, I got involved in a community and, for a short while at least, made a difference to it. Whether what I did was positive or negative I can't say, but at least I did it, and I tried to do things as right as I could understand. I was in a band, a decent band, and by being in that band I got to do things that not everyone gets to do, things that my nephew will probably be impressed by once he's old enough to understand what they were, and other things he'll find far from impressive but that will stay with me for as long as I'm young enough to remember what they were. I've been in a relationships, or whatever you call them, with some amazing girls (and I saw them naked!), a couple of them even claimed to love me for a moment. I've had close friends, and kept them. I've been to some incredible places in the world, and taken part in adrenaline soaked activities such as skiing, parachuting, and having my hair cut. And, it's only a small thing, and something everybody does now and again, but on occasions, I've made people laugh, I'm not sure there's anything better a person can do that that.

Of course it is worth noting how most, if not all, of the last paragraph is in the past tense. If I were the reader, I'd probably read into that, that's what readers do you see, saves the writer pointing it out. Lazy bloody writers.

It's all good though. 30 isn't an ending, it's a beginning, Disney provide our children with a totally realistic view of the world, and we're all invited to the Father Christmas & Easter Bunny wedding next week. 

Mmm... Nachos.

(This somewhat soppy blog was brough to you be the Numbers 3 & 0, and the Letter I.)

How do you top a Geyser? (Iceland Part 2)

Geysers are pretty impressive things. The first impressive thing about them is that you're stood outside and the temperature is at zero, it says so on the flashy read out things that are everywhere you look (mostly the bus), yet you're looking at a pool of water bubbling away in front of you. It's not connected to any wires, it's just sat there in a hole in the ground going "Look at me, I'm at boiling point and you're freezing, how impressive am I?" and the only answer is "Quite". This could be an optical illusion of course, so it is important to stick your hand in it, then to quickly remove your hand before you fingers fall off from the rapid temperature change. The danger is worth it though, proof positive that the water is hot.

Then, without warning, it explodes. A jet of water and steam shoots 15 feet into the air and the crowd, understandably, gasps. 

In the hope of warning future geyser witnesses against repeating my mistakes I think it is important to say that, standing downwind of the geyser as it went off, was not my smartest move of the day. Spending the rest of the afternoon feeling my clothes turn to ice around me wasn't the most pleasant experience I've ever, well, experienced. 

So in short, geysers are impressive, very impressive in fact. So it seemed odd to me that they would be the first thing we saw on our two part trip, and that they were to be followed by, wait for it, a waterfall. I'm not saying waterfalls aren't impressive, we've all seen them on the tele, if not in person, and they are dramatic and mighty things indeed. But they are not magical like the temperature defying exploding water holes. They are, no matter how tall or wide, simply water falling down a cliff. I didn't hold up much hope for the second part of the trip. Even less so when they kicked us off the bus, pointed, said "Waterfall down there, meet back here in 30mins". But what did I know, eh.

There was a viewing point of the waterfall at one side, where you got covered in freezing spray, had a gander, and found it quirky that the mists had coated even individual blades of grass in a shell of ice. Even the rope around the edge of the cliff was encased in a thick layer of the cold see-through stuff. But this is no more than expected really, so everyone heads down the slope towards the bit right at the edge of the fall where you can get a really good look.

Tum tee tum tee tum.

It is a mite concerning at this point that the only thing between your path to the waterfall, and the actual canyon the water falls into, is a slack frozen rope about three feet high, but no matter, it's all very safe and touristy.

Then... bang! The floor is suddenly more ice than path and I'm on my arse sliding quickly towards said rope and the watery death beyond. Shit.

It's ok, of course, I come to a halt before I get to the rope and look around to see how much of my dignity is intact, the laughing pair of girl shaped tourists above me suggest that it's not much. So I regain my feet and edge down, regretting my decision to take this trek in a pair of worn out Adidas Gazelles, and no gloves.

A few metres ahead a bunch of us realise that we are in a bit of a predicament. The floor is ice and we can barely stand on it, the rope is slack, wobbly, and again, coated in ice. Moving downwards towards the fall is difficult. Moving back the way we came, up hill, is pretty much unthinkable. We're not sure if there is another way up and back to the bus from the bottom of the path.

After much deliberation, and offering up our last prayers, we hope against hope that there is another way to safety and head, slowly and carefully, and in my case, often on my arse, to the bottom of the hill.

It goes without saying that there was no way up the other side. Or at least no man made way.

Obviously nobody died or I wouldn't be writing this in such a jovial manner, so I'll save any further indulgent description. But needless to say that finding myself stood on basically an ice sheet above a gorge that freezing water was pummelling into at a rate of knots, kept 'safe' by only a rope that was too cold to hold and too high to stop a sliding body, with the only marked way to safety being essentially a hill made of ice, and electing to instead climb the rock face to return to the bus, well, I haven't felt a buzz like that in a long time. Living in a country with health and safety rules created by compensation claims may keep you alive longer, but it does have its drawbacks if you want an adrenaline rush every so often. And as for the group of happy faced school kids I saw heading towards the waterfall as we departed, well, lets just say I've been checking the news.

Oh yeah, and all this happened against the back drop of a glacier which began on the horizon.

The journey home taught us a couple of things. Icelanders are too lazy to pick and sell their plentiful supplies of blueberries and mushrooms., sheep are illiterate, so can't read 'no sheep allowed' signs, and as such are ruining the lush green countryside. We also saw the place where two continental plates are colliding, forcing one high into the air and causing 'hundreds' of earthquakes a day. Not bad for a bus trip home really.

So home, warm, a few more drinks, a final band and it's time to get our heads down ready for the long trip home the next day. Via the Blue Lagoon.

The Blue Lagoon is basically a big naturally heating swimming pool, next to a geo-thermal power station, with all the usual spa type facilities built around it for you to enjoy. Very relaxing, pretty impressive, but not particularly exciting, except of course, for its location.

Now, the map says it's in Iceland, just a little south of Keflavik. But I don't believe that. Despite us heading there in a minibus, and it taking the time to travel that the maps suggested it would, there is nothing that will convince me that the Blue Lagoon is anywhere else but on The Moon. The landscape (lava field) is just unbelievable, and that a perfectly blue naturally heated pool can be situated in the middle of such a baron and alien wasteland just doesn't make sense to a boy who's grown up just outside Manchester. Then to find yourself swimming, outdoors, quite happily, while snow falls on your face. You don't get that in Avenham.

Hvar er Damon? (Iceland Part 1)

By the time we'd checked in at the hotel it was 2am, it was dark, and all the nearby streets seemed deserted. So the only sensible thing to do was get our shoes on and head in search of the party. Fortunately 2.30am in Reykjavik is a perfectly reasonable time to walk into pretty much any pub or bar, and in the 3 hours that followed we found ourselves most welcome in several places, even managed to see a band and got caught up while a disco formed in what should really have been a cafe. Everything wound up just in time to catch breakfast back at the hotel and get the energies up for a stroll down the sea-front in the fresh sunlight and grab a cuppa back in town with full intentions of getting day two off to a rolling start. Of course it shortly after this we had to admit to being a little over optimistic and submit to an hour or two shut-eye to punctuate the days. But regardless of this, we had arrived.

The best way I can think of to describe Reykjavik is by asking you to take picturesque English waterside town, say Windermere or even St. Ives, then imagine that is the capital city of the country, with all the facilities for entertainment and out lying industrial and commercial districts that would bring, but with the essence of the downtown area only really being changed by filling it with the ultra-fashionable youth of the land, and keeping it all open later. Quaint and cool seem to sit hand in hand as if they were childhood sweet-hearts. It's a nice place to be, and clearly a place it's nice to be seen.

As confessed Blur fans, with Alex James' book offering much of the initial inspiration for visiting Iceland, the first stop of the day had to be the Kaffibarinn, famously 'part-owned' by Damon Albarn and his director mate Baltasar Kormakur (101 Reykjavik) it seems to be the 'coolest' cafe/bar in town with impenetrable queues outside all Friday and Saturday night. Getting in there around dinner time though, it's just staff, who are quite happy to chat as you sit by the bar. Tell you about the places to go, deny the Damon myth ("he was involved for a bit, but just about 1%, all publicity, now the owners are the creators of the Airwaves festival you've come here for"), and feed you plenty of peanuts. 

But we couldn't sit around playing Britpop tourists all day and the pink bands on our wrists kept reminding us we'd come for a music festival and this was the last day of it. So a wander round, bands playing in store gigs, artists taking over empty shops to plug their wares and sell the most impressive t-shirt ever seen (to be displayed soon on a Russ near you), and all the fun of the musical fair. Culminating in 4 hours spent being incredibly impressed by the temporary, but perfect, venue set up in the Reykjavik Art Museum and enjoying Dikte, Boys in a Band, CSS and Vampire Weekend, and just how much effort people had put into their clothes, even if they didn't put anywhere near as much effort into not barging into you as they walked past, before calling it a night, tired, so very tired, but fulfilled.

And that was just the first 24 hours...

B.M.I.

"Here's a booklet on healthy eating. Not for you weight, that's fine, just for your health."

Just for you health? Just your health. You don't really need to worry Sir, your weight, the real concern, is fine, just that niggling detail of your health. 

Surely the only reason my weight should even be a concern is BECAUSE it effects my health. Actually being heavy isn't really a problem to me at all, unless I'm planning on jumping really high, or walking on thin ice. If anything, heavy is an advantage, I'm less likely to be knocked over, or to float away, and in a flood situation, I'll be an asset to those around me. This eating thing should always be about my health rather than my weight, surely?

It's a bit of a worry that weight in itself has been demonised so much in our world that even trained medical professionals will make slips of the brain like that. No wonder teenage girls (and boys) are, well... being quite silly to say the least.

In other sad news, it seems a shame that newspaper promo shorthand has lead to phrases such as 'mum of four' causing the heart to sink immediately.

Whores will have their trinkets.

Ok. Maybe time for an actual diary entry. Last night was a work night, first week back after being sick, and, without wanting to trip into the melodramatic, it excelled in its averageness. No strong negatives about it and a smattering of mild positives. It perked up a bit at the end when a friend I don't see as much as I liked insisted on my company for an hour or so, so in the great marking system of life I'll give the night a C+, maybe a B. Good, but not in the top ten or anything.

Then today was more of the same really, productive but not ground-breaking, a few frustrations but mostly just plugging away. Then out for a few hours. We go out because it has more potential than staying in, but strangely once out I stop thinking about why I was motivated to be there and slip into a safer world of routine and avoidance. Maybe that's something to work on this weekend, after all, anything can happen in a weekend.

I'm not so happy with this blog, it lacks in much point and isn't particularly readable on any level, but I'm glad I had the discipline to do it, hopefully I'm at the bottom of a mountain rather than on a dried up river bank. We'll see.

Law of Averages.

There's gonna be more than a few days in life where you wake up, for whatever reason, feeling like you just want to stay in bed, maybe make a few sarcastic comments on the internet, but beyond that not really get involved in the day.

If on those days you can find yourself spending time with 3 different sets of friends, who all ask for your company, and while with each set end up talking to people orbiting the situation. You can't help but feel reassured that it really is worth getting out of bed each day. No matter what else, small or large,  happens when you do take that risk.

It's easy to forget.

You have to write a diary every day I thought. It's the only way you'll get back into practice at it I thought. Doesn't matter if nothing happens, or if it's only a few sentences, just have some discipline about it.

So, a month of nothing, I'm ever so proud. 

I've had loads of thoughts as well. Loads of them. Obviously I've forgotten them all now, but some of them were almost interesting, I can assure you that.

At least stuff has been done, there was a music festival, and a home town gig, then the band split up. I guess I really should have written a long and sentimental blog about letting go of something that has been a focus of your life for 5 years. That's longer than my longest relationship and I could fill all the paper in Office World (it will never be Staples) about that little nugget of experience. But, as with when most things end, I'd let go of the band long before it let go of me, so it went with a whimper and not a bang.

Then there was Edinburgh and the Fringe. So I got to spend a week standing on the patch of this planet where I feel most comfortable, and romanticised the everyday sentences in my head. I also watched a stand up comedy show on top of an extinct volcano, take that bingo card of life!

And now we're in the busiest time of my year, so it stands to reason I start blogging again, the 4 weeks that determine the path my next 9 months will take. Let's see what happens.

Brief history of £20.

Well, I didn't spend it last night. But i did take £20 out of the bank. So I'm effectively £40 down now, and it's only Day 2. Things are not looking good.

And erm, I'm off to the pub now.

Cheap flowers from a garage.

You think you haven't had a very interesting day. Then you realise you're just not looking right.

Today started before I did really. I'd cursed under my breath as my phone went off with a call and two text messages, people wanting my attention, people thinking of me and deciding they need to contact me. That's a pretty big deal really, I'd had an effect on 3 peoples lives, and all I was doing was lying face down in my own dribble whilst dreaming about being in compromising positions with the girl I saw at the bus stop last Thursday. Unfortunately, non of the messages were from her.

Then came the first challenge of the day. Well, the 2nd really, the first was going for a number two (that's slang for 'poo' kids) and having to apply a degree of concentration to make sure I finished the task completely with only the few sheets of toilet paper left. But you don't want to hear about that. So. The first challenge of the day was going to pop my wages in the bank, using one of those new fancy cash counting deposit machines that knows the difference between each note and is really just a couple of turtles inside a plastic box. Anyway. After spending time carefully budgeting how much I needed to put in the bank and how much I could keep for 'Funs Funds', I lobbed my wad (not a euphemism) into the machine and let it do its stuff. All fine and dandy apart from one pesky note that won't be accepted, must have been rude to a turtle or something. Try as a might it won't go in.

Now, I am aware that story isn't particularly interesting. But none the less, like most mundane things, it is important, as this now means I have £20 pounds, in cash, on my person, that I really shouldn't spend this week. This is going to effect every action I make for the whole week. Trying to ignore the fact it is there, trying not to think of new and exciting uses for it. Quite frankly it's going to be a blasted pain in the neck.

The sensible person would have dealt with it by seeking assistance, getting it changed, making sure some how it was given to the damn bank. But I am not a sensible person, and let's be honest, life is nothing without challenges. I shall report back how I got on.

Just now, on my way home from the shop (I bought a Mars Bar, 2 packets of Transform-A-Snack and some plain Seabrooks, I have eaten all but one pair of Transform-A-Snacks already, I may eat that as a reward when I finish this.) I saw a bunch of rotten roses trodden into the floor. I took a picture on my phone but bluetooth is not my friend today. I'm aware they probably just fell out of a bin when the Bin Men came... and by the way, you note how some feMales will complain when you say Police Man or Fire Man, yet nobody ever complains when you say Bin Man, odd I guess.. but anyway, I'm going to have some fun imagining how they might have ended up there anyway.

Obviously when I went for my second number two of the day, there was no toilet paper left.

I can feel it in my bones.

Is it possible to get old over night? As last night wore on my left leg started to ache, as has seemed to be the trend recently, I figured I'd stood on it a lot recently and there's probably moisture in the air or something so nothing too much to worry about. Then, waking up this morning , every joint on my left hand side is registering some kind of pain. 

I've even been drinking more milk recently.

Perhaps it was that vitamin pill I took the other day, it may have been out of date. Or can you overdose on potatoes? The mysteries of the human body know no bounds.

Oops.

I accidentally deleted all my saved text messages today. All the messages I've received over the last year or so that, for whatever reason, meant enough to me that I wanted to keep them to reread when I was feeling low. Gone.

Diary's are cool.

The dreams are getting weirder, and more real. They can be both things. Shut up. Problem is, I'm not remembering them. This is probably part of a bigger problem, but I'll come to that later, if I remember. Thing is though, I'm waking up angry at people, sometimes people I haven't spoke to in weeks. This must mean that people are dicks in my dreams. Admittedly, most of them are dicks in real life, but that's why I spend time with them, puts my own dickery into perspective in my head. And dickery should always be placed firmly in perspective, otherwise you'd end up confused between the small dickery, and the far away dickery. I'm going to stop writing the word dickery now.

What on earth was I nobbing on about? Oh yeah, a message to my brother. If you're going to buy a new car, in my dream, don't park it on a beach at low tide, in my dream, then leave me to guard it, in my dream. I know I'm an impressive man, but I cannot control the tides. Yet.

Idiot!

Bump

So I do what I planned and I go to the random word generator and challenge myself to write something not entirely sleep inducing about whatever word it spits out. Maybe i’ll have to write about some form of food, or an activity that i’ve done in the past, maybe i’ll really luck out and get a big topic that i’ve spent a lot of time thinking about, like love, or hope, or even bridges.

’Bump.

There it is, the minute the page loads up, ‘Bump’.

Right. Well..erm.. yeah.

Now for some reason all that settles into mind is Mr Bump, a childhood favourite for me as I recall, after Mr Tickle of course, who could get his own breakfast in bed. Maybe it was in the tale of this little blue bandaged sphere that I found the kindling for my great love of schadenfruede. Who can’t be entertained by what is essentially a fat, smurf that walks into things and falls down holes. It’s the learning to read equivalent of watching a toddler drop his ice cream on the floor. Then of course the whole thing goes all Taoist on our backsides when the clumsy critter takes decides to work with, rather than struggle against, his disability, and of course now we’re in the 21st century we can recognise his tendency towards accidental injury as a disability, when back in the 20th century he would simply have been thought of as somewhere between unlucky and foolish. In fact if we think about it nowadays he would be viewed, depending on which newspaper you read, either as somebody with an unfortunate condition that should be understood, treated, and used as an excuse for not doing so well in his GCSEs or as a con man of the highest order with Legal Vultures 4 U on speed dial.

Wait, I did a tangent. Yeah our beach ball shaped chum goes and gets himself a job walking into trees in an orchard and causing the apples to fall down. Now you can call me a monster of you like and set the Society for the Patronisation of Clumsy People on me, but I can’t for the life of me think of a better job than as Security Camera Operator at that orchard. Watching Bumpy go about his daily business, tottering into a tree, falling back on his bum rubbing his forehead as the apple smacks him on the bonce.

I’d never be late for work.

All in one

Dear Sir,

The above vehicle, registered in your name, was recently observed on the 20th January 2008 @ 08.20hrs with glove box wide open / sat nav also on display therefore rendering the vehicle vulnerable.

yours faithfully, The Police

——

translated

Dr Mr Idiot,

If you’re gonna leave your sat nav on display inside your car on one of the crappiest streets in Preston don’t come crying to us when it gets nicked. We have better things to do that wipe your arse for you.

yours after they made me trog round on Dimwit Patrol first thing on a Sunday morning, Your Friendly Local Bobby

——

Now, i’m all for preventative policing, even if it is sponsored by Halfords (they offer details of the store and a couple of security product suggestions within the letter), and I can’t fault the police at all for taking the initiative and trying to save them, and me, time, money and inconvenience in this way, it is, on a very practical level, the right thing to do.

But I am left uncomfortable by how this action highlights the further shifting of the responsibility for crime away from the purpetrator and onto the victim. We’ve already had the right to make mistakes or to have accidents taken away from us by no win no fee blame and cash in culture but now we’re being encouraged to do away with our right to trust. I’d rather have my stuff nicked a hundred times and continue to act in a way that suggests i trust the people I live amongst than to assume everyone the enemy and live permanently on guard.

Don’t get me wrong, i’m not some ridiculous hippy that believes everyone is full of warming goodness and should be treated as a brother and welcomed into our homes for cookies and milk. I believe firmly in having spaces and possessions that are exclusively ours and i’m fully aware that the human being is a despicable thing capable of the most remorseless horror. And I know that if i do not take precautions against being bitten on the arse, i will at some point be bitten on the arse.

But i fear if you erode our ability to trust too far then there is no way back.

I was going to write about the party I went to last night before i got that letter. I may do later, it was a strange experience for me, the buffet included radishes, there was some kind of cheese sauce on the celery and 5 different kinds of cheese on offer to be consumed with biscuits and wine. There was also an amusing incident with a muffin, and i was introduced to the concept of ‘toe cleavage’. A good time was had, unexpected laughter was brought to the floor and time actually did what they say it does when you’re having fun and ‘flew’. However there was also unpoliced karaoke in a contained space which i think we can all agree is a much greater threat to our lives than having our sat nav swiped.

This is not cable-stayed

Everyone seems to be blogging this week. Maybe it’s because the party has finally worn off, the floods have subsided and we’re all feeling a bit more reflective. Maybe it’s just cos there’s nothing good on TV. Either way, i’ve been meaning to get back into it and there’s nothing like a crowd to follow for spurring people into action so may as well join in.

I’ve started and scrapped several blogs over the past months, mostly because it became apparent a few long winded paragraphs in that i didn’t really have anything to write about. You see, the thing with a blog, is it’s like a diary, people write about what they’re up to and how they are doing and such things, and in order to do this to to a level interesting enough to waste your eyesight it requires a fair degree of openness and sensitivity and other such hippy crap that has never really been my bag. I’ve built up some pretty impressive walls which i’m hoping to eventually roof and then apply for classification as a listed structure so i’m damned if i’m gonna start taking bricks out without a bloody good reason.

I considered bypassing this by writing about ‘topics’ and such, i even found a web based ‘random word generator’ and considered setting myself the challenge of writing each day about whatever word crops up. I may still do this to be honest, because the reason i write blogs isn’t because i’m under the misguided notion that anyone actually wants to know anything about me or mine, but more just for the exercise of writing, i like the sound of my own fingers, and it reassures me that my brain hasn’t fallen apart at the seams completely and i can still at least string words together in a way what is good a bit.

I just got distracted by Jeremy Clarkson in a day glo ski jacket. What the hell was I wittering about? Oh yeah, if you haven’t fallen asleep yet I was saying i’d given up writing any blogs because i’m an emotional miser who would generally rather give you a fiver than a feeling. This of course isn’t true in the slightest but we all have our self portraits to preserve, no matter how much of a scribble they are.

But frankly not blogging in the traditional manner through a lack of desire to reveal a chink in the armor (i was sure armor had a u in it) is paramount to not leaving the bed through fear of standing on slug, it’s no way to live your life.

So here goes. My copy of Blogging for Dummies tells me that a Classic Blog should start with a paragraph on how the writer is feeling at the moment. This would of course be much easier if I was of the lying kind, but as honesty is probably the only virtue i do possess it’s gonna be a matter of sucking it up and getting on with it really.

Right this minute I’m feeling pretty ashamed of myself in the most part. I was drunk last night and i was very inconsiderate and selfish towards a friend. So now not only do I have a relationship to rebuild, but I have a friend who is feeling crappy that I can’t help. ‘Sorry’ doesn’t cut it when you break a trust like that. And people only ever say ‘sorry’ to make themselves feel better anyway. On the positive side (and every single cloud does have a silver lining, and if you ever need me to show you it i gladly will) this happening and me feeling bad about it has brought into focus that it’s something that’s been happening to lesser degrees altogether too much recently, and something I need to sort out. Hopefully it will also have encouraged them to punch me in the face in future, preferably with words rather than a fist, when I deserve it.

But obviously we don’t only have one feeling inside us at once, if that was the case girls wouldn’t have anything to think themselves into a state about. So on a smaller scale i’m feeling fairly proud of myself, because i’m writing this instead of playing pro evo, though i am aware that not only is my pro evo training suffering by this choice but that i could be doing something far more worthwhile with my time, like getting those basslines practiced, or feeding the hungry, or conversing over dinner with a friend, or making love with a beautiful woman. But y’know, we can’t be doing everything all the time.

What does the manual say I have to do next? Right, what have i been up to since the last blog. well that was in.... August, that recent? wow. I’m practically prolific. Ok so, since the end of august what have I done. I jumped out of a plane. Always good to start with something dramatic I think. Although, once you’ve said it you’ve said it, there isn’t really any follow up information, the parachute obviously opened, and nobody really wants to know about the end cell closure or the slightly botched landing, besides, everyones done it these days, some people use it as an alternative to public transport on the commute to work. So what else have I done in the last 5 months.

Erm.

Er.. see, here is the problem. The most significant activity of the winter months for me has been watching a lot of TV programs about bridges, and some about tunnels, and this one about the Panama Canal, and this great boat that Brunel built that cost shit loads and never made a voyage. And in terms of blogging readability, that doesn’t really cut the mustard, you may as well just read wikipedia. But it is significant for me you see, because it’s revealed to me that i’m actually interested in something, i actually feel the need to learn about these materials and techniques and designs. Which is quite a big thing, because it’s very rare i’m interested in anything much beyond where my next meal or my next kiss is coming from. And let’s face it, everybody needs a hobby, because boredom is not a desirable long term lifestyle choice.

Of course this isn’t all i’ve done, i’ve been out, i’ve had fun with friends, i’ve had drunken nights and hungover days, i’ve played music, i’ve seen family, i’ve driven, i’ve eaten and i’ve slept. But we all do this, every day, so in very real terms, it’s nothing to write home about. I haven’t fallen in love, I haven’t changed the world, i’ve just trundled through each day doing whatever i needed to do to get to the next one and hopefully have a laugh on the way.

These ‘ere instructions tell me it’s best to close a blog with a short piece about your plans and hopes and dreams for the future. But i’m not sure about that, i’m not big on hopes and dreams, the origin of suffering is desire, or attachment, or money, or women, or last nights doner kebab, or cats, or myspace, or something. But yeah, i don’t like to talk about stuff that’s planned, incase it jinxes it, or someone steals it, or you change your mind and don’t do it and then look like a flakey fool. So i’m not gonna do that, and to be honest, this blog is far too long as it is, and I have to have a shower or i won’t be allowed into the castle for the princess’ debut.

Adios for now.