A stiff space-bar can take all the fun out of typing.

There are no take-aways in Bretherton, at least not that I can see, not even a chippy. So the people who live there have to plan their tea every day, or get in a car. That's a big responsibility to take on as a human being, to never be able to just 'not be arsed'. It's troubling.

My world is full of little nuggets like these, tit bits, if you will (should that be tid bits? tit bits sounds more fun). Little happenings or noticings that, while not being entirely uninteresting in themselves, are neither big nor developed enough to become a tale to tell. You can't entertain your mates or impress a girl by telling them that there are no take-aways in a village they've likely never heard of and that this makes you feel for the local residents. At very best it shows your compassionate side, at very least is tells them you're a fatty at heart, but whichever way, it's gonna have most people's eyes darting round the room looking for someone better to talk to.

For instance, just from today I could relate the tale of how the hesitations of a learner driver left me stranded at the lights and embarrassingly placed in the middle of a pedestrian crossing, or how I got replies to every text I'd sent during the day in the same 2 minute spell, whilst obviously I was driving. Or I could spin the saga of my seat-of-the-pants run to the loo roll shop and back that could have gone devastatingly wrong at any moment. This is all good solid stuff, for at least 2 sentences, but it's not going to win me a congratulatory pint or a journey to the centre of some knickers.

It's a shame.

I moved house recently, I guess that's probably the interesting thing I should talk about. I've moved house lots of times though, and as with most things in life, each repetition is less interesting than the last, less to learn, less surprises, pretty much just more humping stuff up and down stairs. I did rediscover my love for the feeling that physical labour gives you, and how much better that first pint at the end of the day feels when you've actually earned it, but that's really about as much blood as I can get from that particular stone.

What I have done is moved back in with myself, as opposed to sharing with a friend. Now it comes as no surprise that by-my-self is my natural state of living, as a great devotee of 'the easy life' it just seems the logical way to live. But I have to confess that it is taking a little getting used to this time round, and I'm very worried about my Pro Evo form suffering.


It's probably worth noting that while writing this I am also shouting at my TV screen. Grand Designs is the program, these people commissioned a beautiful layered wooden staircase that was built by an artist as a sculpture, took 4 months to build and cost £40,000. Then they painted it, matt white, the whole thing. If I'd been the artist I'd have torched it where it stood as soon as the first layer went on. Very annoying.

Somebody has painted the wooden beams in this flat too, the ones I continually bang my head against as I fail to get used to the fact that I now live in a slope-roofed loft conversion, that, whilst a very nice space to be in, can be hazardous for the tall and dim-witted. They've painted them a kind of stone colour though, so it's ok mostly, and the huge skylights that let me look at the moon, and anyone on the roof, more than make up for it. They've also left in a handy metal arch thing, should I ever feel the need to hang myself, which is nice.

Lost in the Supermarket

So I mentioned I'd been cooking. It's probably time to elaborate on that a little. 

I bought a couple of recipe books and I'm working my way though them, it's been a couple of weeks now and I've pulled off some decent efforts. Cottage pie, fancy hot salad, something with lamb and red wine vinegar, and a dish that was essentially vegetables in vegetable gravy, which was without doubt the healthiest thing I've ever put on a plate. I'd like to say I've added several dishes to my repertoire, but that would suggest that I can cook them from memory whenever I fancy, when we all know the only way I could cook them again would be with the same recipe in front of me, because otherwise I would have to store new information in my leaky mindbrain. 

As it happens, so far I haven't had to deal with too much out of my comfort zone in terms of ingredients or techniques, well until this week anyway. Let me be honest about this, it wasn't like I purposely decided to step things up a gear, that's not how I work. I should probably explain how I select the recipes. I get the internet to generate me a bunch of numbers corresponding to the pages available in the books, I then leaf through to the selected pages and choose whichever recipe in the book looks most appetising. If I wanted to wax on (wax off)* about having philosophies and make myself look like an interesting person, I'd say I do this because I believe in leaving life to the fates, to let chance guide you into strange and exciting places. But really, it's because decisions are hard. Anyway, so far, as you have seen, it's been quite reasonable in what it threw up. This week, Pad Thai, Polenta, and some kind of pitta bread wrap with cheese I've never heard of and vegetables from jars.

The actual cooking is not the most fearsome part of this, it's the ingredients. Buying ingredients you've never heard of from a supermarket shelf can be daunting, as it was today.

Now don't get me wrong, this blog isn't about to become an anti-shopping tirade. While in general I'm not a fan of the high street, I really do enjoy the supermarket 'big shop'. Ever since I stopped having to tag along while my parents did it anyway. It brings out the 8 year old in me. I love pretending the trolly is a racing car, i love pushing off and standing on the rail at the back, narrowly avoiding collisions. It's brilliant. As a student I used to love plundering my overdraft and dragging home an elephant's body weight in bags only to discover I hadn't actually bought anything I could make a meal from. I love trying to get a smile out of the check-out girl. And since I discovered the shopping list, I love the challenge of finding what you need in the most efficient way possible. 

Today's list however, was almost more of a challenge that I could handle. 

After grabbing the basics and the straight forward stuff, I found myself with several items on a list, some of which I had no idea where to find, some of which I had no idea what they were. In retrospect I probably should have taken the recipe book with me, it has pictures in you see. After 20 minutes of stubborn male searching I decided to ask a man. He obviously pointed me straight back to the aisle I'd spent 15 of those 20 minutes walking up and down, trying not to look like an illiterate in a library. Further searching commenced, googling on my phone for clues was resorted to, I was definitely getting in peoples way. It was getting dire, I was this close to dialling the phone and crying "Mum, I'm out of my depth, I want to come home.", and bless her she'd have had me a meal on the table when I arrived. 

But, readers, you'll be relieved to know, I persevered I did. And I found every last one of those ingredients. Well, excepted 'Sliced Roasted Aubergines in a Jar', which I think is probably a made up thing. I bought sliced gherkins and fresh aubergines instead, thinking I'd somehow combine them for the same effect. I'm not sure what I was thinking. But regardless, the day was won, as far as I'm concerned.

And on a day when the President of the USA, the new hope for the world, had to redo his inauguration vows, because they'd managed to cock it up the first time, as the whole world watched. I don't feel so bad for being a 30 year old mortal who had a bit of a struggle in Morrisons.

*Don't pretend that doesn't happen in your head too.

Don't touch me, I'm sick.

I read the news today oh boy, 4000.. something something something that rhymes with Lancashire. There's a problem down at the NHS, turns out that this week it has become unacceptable to have mixed sex wards in a hospital, some woman was worried that her recovery might be hindered by worrying about whether she looks good, or whether she was showing her bits to men she didn't know... like she'd never done that before. 

Now I can't help but think the NHS has better things to be worried about, life and death stuff, like life and death. To have to turn attention, resources and badly needed money to separating the sexes in wards, no doubt leading to badly needed beds going unused because they are in the wrong ward, along with all the admin and re-organisation costs going into it, because a few people are over-sensitive about who they sleep in the same room as, as a pretty sad thing to consider.

Obviously that people are self-centred is no surprise to any of us, but over tolerance of this is just as sickening. Bigger pictures are important, you're not the only person in the world, you're rarely the only person in the room. Of course, at this rate, soon you will be the only person in the room, all the time, every moment of every day, because your tolerance for the needs of others, for the needs of the many, have been whittled away by the indulgences of groups and institutions so scared of losing face, or court costs, that they'll let your germ-free, insular, arrogance dictate the way life happens around you until you finally die from rejecting your own personality.

Grown ups too.

Mid-Life Stasis

Life has changed since the end of 2008. It wasn't a deliberate, conscious change. There was no intervention, no epiphany, no dramatic decision that things just had to change. It just happened, though it was sudden, then gradual, but not slow. 

I couldn't sleep on Christmas Eve. This was the start. Well, I slept for 2 hours, then woke up and couldn't sleep again till the sun had come up. There was no reason for it, I wasn't excited about Santa, I didn't have an early appointment to meet, all I had to do was get up sometime before 3pm and drive 5 minutes down the road to be fed and watered, as is the tradition of the season.

But this persisted until New Years Eve, awake all night, asleep for the regular 8 hours, then awake all night again. I figured it might be because I was worried about something, or my mind was cluttered, so I figured I'd use the time eliminating all possible causes, I organised my life, completely. Every box, every CD, every piece of paper, every cable,  every computer file, everything. I discarded everything I didn't need and organised everything else, got up to date on my accounts, on my washing, on my planning. Everything. 

Then comes New Years Eve and the traditional obscene drinking that, despite being a semi-intelligent, almost self-aware, being, I didn't manage to opt out of this year. The resultant hang-over and paranoia, resulted in 24 hours in bed, missing entirely the first day of the year. Which, I'll be honest, wasn't a great start. But it did do something, sorted the sleeping patterns. Well, when I say 'sorted', it wasn't a return to the status quo of 4am bed, 2pm rise, it was actually a development to what is often considered 'normal sleeping patterns', up at 9/10, tired by 1/2, bloody crazy if you ask me.

And that wasn't the end of it.

No. Worse than that. I actually changed into one of those people. You know, those people who say "I woke up and couldn't get back to sleep". Those blithering idiots who clearly have a malfunctioning brain. After all, getting back to sleep in a morning is the easiest thing in the world. You wake up, you feel tired, you remember the all round horrors of being awake, you assume outside your window the weather is dismal, you recall the rather nice dream you were in the middle of, you roll over, and, zzzzZZZZ, in full on cartoon style. Well. Apparently. Not any bloody more. No. Eyes open, mind and body become alert. That's it. No choice, no option, no logical process resulting in a return to living in your glorious head. Nothing but... the start of the day. Ridiculous.

Now. Turns out, when you're getting up, awake and alert, in the AM after 7 hours sleep and you have a whole day at your disposal before the evening and the dark bring easy excuses for laziness and indulgence, there's a lot of hours to fill. Even more so, you're naturally 'on a roll' as it were. You may as well do some proper shopping for proper ingredients, you may as well look through some recipes and cook some real meals, with vegetables and everything. You may as well be a fully rounded human being who is choosing a natural vitamin enhanced life full of garden colours and omega bloody 3.

Well, you're doing that everyday, it's only right that you do some exercise too, maybe turn the TV off and catch up on your reading, bit o' fiction, bit o' fact, bit o' learnin'. If the TV is on, get yourselves some documentaries, check the news, figure out what a recession actual is and why it's happening. I even, and get this, had conversations with people. By golly. (Is that racist?). By something anyway.

Then, in a moment of pure nonsense, I applied for a job. I real one, with the council, in an office, with a salary, 9 to 5, responsibilities, shirt and tie. And I found, and still find, my self excited about the idea of doing it, if I'm lucky enough to be offered it.

I've been 17 years old for the last 13 years. Overnight I became 30.

Well, let's see what happens next.

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.