Character Counts

When does a positive thing like a strong sense of morality become an apparently negative thing like moral outrage?

When is backing the truth turn into being a whistleblower or "not a team player"?

When is having character and confidence judged as arrogance?

The answer, of course, is when it suits some agenda to label it thus.

With the richness of the wordplay of the English language, it will depend on which side you take. 

Your fingers will dance over your choice of weapon like a Victorian duellist.

You will choose the flavour and concentration of wordplay to support your purpose whether that be to educate, to inform, to discuss, to insult, to hurt, to discredit or to destroy.

If you do it in a charming enough way, you could sell tea to China, get a villain back on the streets, talk your way out of a parking ticket or get away with murder.

With the power of words, comes great responsibility.

Someone needs to tell the politicians and teachers.

Someone needs to tell the doctors.

Someone needs to tell the lawyers.

Blog 500

Life is about control isn't it? 

It has to be to a degree.

It's about what you think you have control over, what you actually have control over, perhaps who you have control over, and in what environment those rules apply.

To not have control over some things is too, well too… out of control. And that is a feeling that might increase stress. Agreed?

We all have areas of knowledge, expertise, geography, hierarchy that we feel entitles us to a basic feeling of control.

But maybe you want to broaden your mind? 

Do you? Really? Think it over.

Maybe you think that travel will broaden your mind?

OK but come on… is that all you've got? A simple alteration of your personal geography as the secret of mind expansion? Really?

Imagine your world like a cartoon brain, pulsing with a regular frequency and a low background hum. Stretching to grow, then easing off for comfort. There are probably lots of sandpits you can go and play in, where you won't be in control. But why would you expect to enjoy it? 

Well you could keep it trivial... the aforementioned travel.... going on holiday isn't a huge mental mountain to climb.

And you might meet some people who appear on the surface to be nice (and may even be nice underneath. Nothing is impossible).

What about going back to school?

What about jacking it all in and trading up. Or down?

Oh... but imagine the stress. Imagine the loss of control.

All the things you thought you wanted, you never wanted after all. They turned out to be a bit hard. Pity. 

What is the option? Live in your current bubble. Yes that's it, nice and familiar. You don't really need it to be any bigger. It's not like the world is changing or anything. You could even push occasionally at the edges, to extend or reduce participation/control. 

Or how about this? Why not become a parent? Not only do you have genetic control, it's also legally enforceable.

An instant personal genetically obligated army. Well done.

You can rule the roost.

You can set the rules on dinnertime and everything.

Or why not run a company? Why not employ people?

They have to do what they're told, or you take away the biscuits at coffee break. Great! Imagine the fun.

But these complicated environments are still very simple examples of testing the edges of your bubble.

How far do you go?

Do you follow a specific coherent path (recommended) or many different lines (tricky).

When do you tire?

When do  you rest?

And when do you stop and just polish the bubble you have today?

Sledging With Sister Frankie

Today was the 'mental patient' scandal. Asda marketed a fancy dress with an image we've all seen from horror movies, forgetting that this is Britain in 2013 and patients with mental problems cannot a) be referred to as mental patients and b) the otherwise abstract association with bloodstained white outfits is currently considered offensive.

The comedian Frankie Boyle tweeted "ATOS examiners have killed a lot more people than mental patients".

Somewhat uncharitable, I thought. I braved a positive upbeat tweet back and soon Frankie replied...

"I'm sure sufferers will appreciate advice on dignity and worth. From some bigot with 12 followers"

So at let's call it "half-time", in this "debate", Frankie Boyle decides to call me a bigoted loser.

Loser because I have 12 followers (which in my book is 12 too many). And bigoted because, well I don't know... erm because he wants to bully me with a little name calling, I think.

So a controversial comedian whom I have (previously) liked and worked very hard in the past to get tickets to see (and succeeded), uses twitter to call a follower/stranger (who knows quite a bit about mental health) a nasty name. Uses Twitter to call me a bigoted loser.

That's Frankie Boyle.

It's sad isn't it?
Preserving freedom of speech for himself, resorting to name-calling, and using the thunderbolt of the celebrity tweet/troll to do it.

It's tough to talk truth to power. Because when he has thousands of loving followers, he is the power.

One or two of his fans joined in.. suggesting I'd been "owned" by Frankie or adding a sinister "hahahaha" (not a good "hahaha").

Nice isn't it? 

After all if Frankie did it, it must be okay.

I have one of his recent books in the room next door. I shan't read it now, but I think it mentions the concept of kindness (a concept many decide to discover when they hit middle age).

He doesn't have that quality. Though he'd like to think he does.

I've defended him in the past when he delivers a joke. 

But there was no joke.

There was just nastiness.

He just uses weapons even though he doesn't know their power, doesn't know when to deploy, doesn't know what harm it does and doesn't understand the complex subject he comments on. He doesn't have his wings. And on his page he calls himself a "Truth Diver". Maybe the nitrogen bubbles got to him.

So be careful with this Twitter.

If I did this every day, that sort of stuff would hurt.

It would tie a band around your brain like a belt and keep pulling. It would cause lives to be lost.

Frankie Boyle would have to power to do this. 

He is a well-known name. In fact, these are the only people who should use twitter. They have plenty of time on their hands and that's where a lot of nastiness grows from. Just engaging with it today has stolen a lot of time from me although has been a worthwhile social experiment.

If you have to engage with minutiae, it can make your head shrink and crunch so make sure you draw some contrast. You need to re-expand, reinflate, open your squeezebox. I turned on the TV and watched a bit of Horizon looking at the secrets of life on the planets. That's enough to put things in perspective. Chunk up. Chunk down. It's all very well testing the water, but don't forget to sniff the morning air.

I did add another tweet helpfully pointing out areas Frankie might look to improve.
In the last 10 minutes alone, it's been re-tweeted to 700 people. (Who needs your own followers?)

So sorry Frankie.

Twitter is like the Hokey Cokey. 

If you have to do it, put your left foot in and take it out again. 

If you must, put your right foot in and take it out again.

But really, unless you are selling, it's best not done at all.
I'm putting my feet up.

Flies, That's What.

You know flies? You are resting your eyes lying in a garden chair
And a fly lands on your hand.
It tickles.
You shake your hand? Right? You don't open your eyes.
You shake your hand. The particular effect of the presumed fly disappears.

Then a few seconds later the tickle returns.
You're a bit more irritated.
You have a right to be. You made the situation more than clear.
So you shake your hand again. More vigorously, this time.
But you are still resting so certainly don't open your eyes.
Now the fly could not possibly be confused.
He won't be back.

Except, a few seconds later the bloody thing lands again.
Three times.
Same place.
Why hasn't he got the message?
Your willingness to share or not share your space with the fly should have been fully understood by now. There was no room for doubt.

So now we have to.. we are forced to...open your eyes.
You shake even more vigorously.
Perhaps even raise your voice.
Consider a little fly spray or a rolled up newspaper.

And of course he doesn't come back.

But it wasn't the raising of the voice, the vigorous shaking, the considering of the newspaper, the inherent all-pervading threat of a face full of fly spray.
Of course not.
Because they are stupid.
When you think about it, it can only really be this. Flies try their luck three times.

They don't land three times because they're playing a psychological game with you.
They must land three times because three times is the times that they land.
Isn't that the real truth?
Isn't it?

Bloody flies.

The Empty Space

Life is about the empty spaces.
The one between your ears of course is well, the main one.
A mixture of neurones, axons, dendrites, synapses, white-matter, grey matter.
Little stars connected by little threads, highly fluid but poorly understood.

And the brain does seem like a star chart, like a map of space.
And what is space full of?
Well, it's full of... space. Largely. It's easy.

Except, of course, it isn't. Most of our universe is missing, unexplained, currently labelled 'Dark Matter'. And we were all probably born at the wrong time to ever understand what this will turn out to be.

Space screams to be filled, with theories, with unexplained matter, with spaceships, with building blocks, with heroin.
Nature abhors its vacuum. It screams for substance.. maybe bricks and mortar, maybe new ideas. Maybe vapour or dust or dirt.. or failing that, absolutely anything else at all. Whoever heard of a choosy vacuum? (Hoover, that's whoever).

From these spaces, of course, evolve new ideas, new interests, new relationships, a new job, a new direction. Limited, stupid human concepts that are the trivia of our lives.
But what else can we do?
Nobody can deal with too much space. It's overwhelming.
Nobody can deal with too little. For pretty much the same reason.
We exist in constant renegotiation.

So we are each a squeezebox.
Squeezing in to settle well loved ideas, right ones and wrong ones. Pack them tight enough and they become delusional. Pat them down too much and their energy bleeds away.
Then recharging our squeezebox by stretching it out, creating space and giving some thought to surrendering that space to some new thing.
Squeeze in, squeeze out. Repeat.

How much gusto you do this with depends on your personality.
Like a force of nature or a ripple by lake.

The challenge is... while you're at it, try to carry a tune.

Icons for Icons.

I was clearing out the family home recently with my brother.

We share little pools of pictures, of course. 

Little image-based memories.

Pictures that represent synapses permanently formed in the shape of those images.

But I don't mean furniture, the piano, the chest freezer.

I mean the empty tins of Meggezones and Phillips tape (although I never saw tape in the tin, just screws). I mean the wall clock which wasn't Louis XIV. It was plastic. It ran on a double-A battery (although it took me about 15 years to work that out).

Meggezones by the way were available up until April 2013, this year, according to Amazon. With reviewers appealing to the better nature of Merck Sharp & Dohme (rather than Meggeson, the now redundant name I see written inside the tin, and who used to add a line of heroin to their popular bronchitic mixtures). 

But all is not lost for the sore-throated. Those old pastilles now look a lot like the new Vocalzone Pastilles, as recommended by Tom Jones. Icons for icons.

There were bigger things of course such as the table tennis table.
And a final few games. But this time with the maturity not to play the decider (well, what are you going to do, he'd won the second game and there was a distinct possibility he was gaining momentum. And anyway, he knows I would have thrashed him).

None of these items were of real value, but the word we repeatedly used to describe them was.....iconic.

Pictures that were the iconic elements of our shared life.

It was the only word that could be used. Absolutely the correct word but none of the definitions in the dictionary adequately represented our use.

Iconic, unshakeable pictures.

I might even forget Meggezones were disgusting and reload my tin.

Quick Quick Slow

Life is getting quick.

We are quicker at shopping, quicker at making, we have quicker turnover, quicker paying.

When food isn't fast, it is still pretty quick, cut into portions for our convenience, vacuum packed.

But real engagement with life isn't quick. It has to be slow.

What, you never heard of a long engagement?

You only fully understand something when the process is considered. A meal carefully prepared, even if it's thrown into a slow cooker. A kipper slowly smoked. A whiskey tediously distilled.

A card that is handmade. A little something you designed and brought together yourself.

We need to get the balance right.

We've got pretty fast, pretty quick. But you only own something when you do it from first principles. You only have expertise when you can improvise from a foundation, when you can teach from experimentation as well as learn from it. 

That's what expertise is. 

If you apply that principle to the things of life, then that is life experience. 

It's a good thing. Something to be admired. A solid foundation. Not too many have it. 

Life experience isn't just experiencing life. (You get that just for turning up). It's becoming experienced through life. It is developing expertise at life. It is the difference between longevity and wisdom.

It is the reason you may not choose to be treated by an "experienced" doctor, who may have lost his way years ago. Whose foundation became redundant and whose "expert" improvisation continued unabated.

You're not a chef, just because you can microwave a ready meal.

You're not an artist, just because you can trace.

You are not a 'pathway'.

Fast is good, and, yes, slow seems to be a luxury. But it's not. It's a necessity which should be reinstalled, re-evaluated, and elevated, trusted and acknowledged.

Without recognising that balance, there is no foundation, there's no strength, there's no base or basis.

Iconic pop outfit 'Bucks Fizz' said it best.

"You gotta speed it up. 

Then you gotta slow it down".

Moments of Madness

Well, it's all the same news at the moment.. a season of mass shootings. We are hitting one per day at the moment.

And another sensitive actor takes his life. I didn't know Lee Thompson Young till I saw the news today, but he died a month ago.

Not drug addled and unemployed, but with a part in a major series.

He was in another major series a few years ago called Flash Forward.

This was a sci-fi series. (At the time, I tried the first episode but got bored. Others must have agreed as it was cancelled pretty quickly).

It messed around with time and characters could flash backwards and forwards.

His character was apparently destined to commit a terrible deed, and try to figure out desperately if there was any way he could change these events.

It's a familiar staple of the time travel plot.

But Young spoke about the role he played at the time...

"...everything in everyone else's flash forward seemed to be coming true, step-by-step. He was unable to sleep at night. He was depressed, frustrated, angry. He felt powerless. And, in the end, he finally decided that this is how he could change that".

His character commits suicide by jumping off a bridge to prevent the event happening.

Young, it appears, shot himself in the head.

There is a time for sensitivity, and a time for resilience.

A time to open the doors, and a time to slam shut.

People will try to open your doors for you. But they are your doors. 

There is no key.

Because. They. Are. Your. Doors.

No one opens them but you.

I wonder how responsibly the acting teachers assess the resilience of their students.

Whether Stanislavsky was deluded.

And how much method...is madness.

Yesterday, When I Was Young

As I was preparing to go out tonight, I turned on radio 2.
Well, what are you going to do when you want some music and no adverts.

In the evening at least there's a reasonable chance most of the more moronic DJs will have set up home, or being arrested by Operation Yewtree. (I am not fully sure that the Yewtree will recover from this latest blight)

And just to prove that I'm older than you might imagine, I stayed listening to Desmond Carrington, and almost missed my shower.

Yes, big Desmond Carrington fan, me.

What you've never heard of him? Well I don't have time for that now.

But he was playing a song. (Newsflash)

"Yesterday, When I Was Young".

I had never heard it. It could have been from the 60s, but I think I recognised Elton John's timbre  as more naughties Elton, 2000s Elton, or maybe a little more.

It had the breadth and depth and heart and soul that older singers grow.

And it was lovely.

But it was French.

Everybody has a love/hate relationsh with the French. Generally it's hate. That's why they're the French.

But the sweet chanson is something to behold.
The story of the chanteur is something to be treasured.
The silk of the chanteuse is something.... Which deserves some considerable thought.

It is, alas, romantic.
Simple and beautiful and sweet.

And this was the song I heard.

I don't how long it will last, but today...it's my favourite song.

The 80s

Why can't American movies from the 80s work now
Why can't we go down to the cinema to see a montage accompanied by a little bit of American heartbeat?
Why can't we feel a bit of yougoddagoforit?
Why can't we wistfully share a bit of teenage angst?

What's wrong with making the prom queen pregnant?
What's wrong with taking the class nerd in detention?

Is it because the guy who Rocky V fought died this week, of AIDS?
Is it because women just not allowed to.....  ....... feeeeel?

Why can't we have our emotional fallout accompanied by a little 80s rock?
Why can't we have heart?
Or Heart?

Anymore.

Nine things I'm right off

• Buttering a cracker (too risky)
  
• People who email me and haven't capitalised their own name
  
• Spelling hygienist (too risky)
  
• Simon Mayo
  
• Anybody who feels the need to dry their used teabags
  
• Biros that trick you into thinking they still work
  
• Accidentally sitting on the toilet when the seat is up
  
• Coffeemate sticking to the spoon
  
• That bit of the Tom Jones song when he goes "I think I'm going to dance now"
  

Quotable Me - 9

Strength isn't tall. It's wide.