Nets Vs Hooks

To inform your view of the world, you need to cast a net.

But... 

you could choose to cast a hook.

A hook, of course, could merely target the one thing that you think you most want.

It might be an idea, perhaps one that already supports your current position regardless of whether it's right or wrong, complete or incomplete.

It might be a person. 

It might be a protocol. 

But the operation will be clean. Neater. More closed. 

Less noisy.

Casting a net into the silt will pick up mud and twigs and unpolished stones.

They will need to be filtered and panned and cleaned.

Tapping the side of the net may dump a good deal of the mud. But still, sigh...as there is a lot more work that will need to be done.

Eventually, one thing in your net will jump out at you, appear to have a shine or character of its own. 

You could polish it, share it, perhaps even hang it on your hook.

Your new item of knowledge or commitment or relationship will have back story. It will have value, merit. It will have been hard-earned, rather than presented to you in it's cellophane.

That's not to say that casting a hook may not be a long challenging journey in its own way.

But it will be so much less full. There will be so much investment in that target that, should it fail to match your hopes, it will be more difficult to swap out. 

Still completing that great game you were going to code for the ZX Spectrum? 

Still finishing that novel?

Perhaps your target is fuller assimilation and indoctrination in a belief system. 

Well, it is a brave man who can spend years looking for such a thing, manipulating other steadier ideas to fit it in, allow it and support it, and then, ultimately, admit to himself that he has succumbed to affectation and untruth. Been Hoodwinked. 

As somebody famous [ok ,it was Mr Spock in Amok Time] once said, "After a while you may find that 'having' is not nearly so pleasing a thing as wanting". 

The prospect of repeating such a journey may be too much to bear.

Hook-Man could change into Net-Man.  

But by now, with the years intervening, the idea of starting with a net may be too hopelessly distant, confusing or degrading. He may decide he is too tired to start such a journey, too depressed even to consider it, and generally unable to imagine an end.

And all the while, the trawlers will be casting their nets shaking off the mud, picking, filtering, deciding, polishing, presenting and eventually exchanging, discarding, upgrading and iterating.

Muddy Nets.

Or shiny sharp hooks.

The decision. 

Is yours.

The Cavalry

People continually devour material that supports, bolsters and puffs
up their own opinion.
They reinforce rather than challenge their own biases.
You can argue whether this is good or bad or indifferent but it's a
very middle-class argument.

Look at it from a sub-mezzo viewpoint.
Imagine if you were really struggling to even be able to contemplate
that the world cares about you.

Wouldn't it be genuinely wonderful to find a well-articulated opinion
that seems to understand your point of view either by agreeing with it
or embellishing or just by respecting that view and adding something.
Or not.

It may be a hero, a celebrity with a nice turn of phrase and a genuine
soul. I don't mean that you have to find £9.99 to pickup Ruby Wax's
latest way to make money out of depression. But we can find material
nowadays all over the place. We don't have to wait for it to be
transmitted.

You might stumble across a program with an interview with somebody you admire.
It might be a podcast. Maybe a repeat of an old show on Radio 4 Extra.
Some sort of interview. Or a quote from the Matrix.

It's not a crime to take a little time to find somebody who resonates with you.
It could save your life.
In an ideal world, someone would help you find such an intervention
before they prescribe pharmacology.
They would find a linguistic key, and pick the literary lock.
They would find the right steps to your dance. And drop footmarks to
show where you need to step. They would stand by your side, and offer
an arm.

When there are people on the Internet who manage to agree to get
together to maim, kill or just hook up and eat each other's flesh,
whatever you have in your head has to be considerably less extreme.

Believe me, the world is full of people who share your view.
Find somebody who resonates with you. Just so you can breathe out.
Then breathe in.

You are not alone.

Braking Bad

I have discovered when I'm trying to get things done that the problem
is that there is only one of me.
Which is strange, because that's what most people consider to be my
best feature.

But where are all the characters?
Where have they all gone?
Where are the people who are daring to be different, claiming to be
original, flamboyant even?

I can tell you this.
They are not wearing hipster beards with moustaches looped up at the ends
They are not the students so bewilderingly keen to "free the nipple"
from some sort of presumed anti-nipple tyranny.
They are not the people from different races telling us that we are
all racist, instead of learning how to celebrate our differences in a
country which is largely colourblind.

The racepeddlers will still be able to argue in 100 years time that
Britain is racist, if they want. And it seems as though they do want.
Or we can just jolly-well let it go.
In a great many sub-societies of the UK, race isn't an issue. You
cannot blame the other 1%, and you cannot convert them.
I live in a major city and I haven't seen a single racist act in the
cities I've lived in in my entire life and I have spent years in the
seamier quarters of the city.
That isn't coincidence. It is reality.

Our differences are what makes us strong and unique. It would be time
to celebrate them had they not been all but erased by modern
lifestyles.
What happened to ...Vive la difference.
For a difference to vive, it has to exist first.
Character isn't homogeny.

Black subculture brings a huge artistic contribution to the world
(despite basing so much of its hip-hop on violence and sexism).
America has an entertainment channel exclusively for Black
entertainment. Awards for blacks only. Is that racist? Well of course
it is. But we don't worry about it.
Black comedians do largely race related material. But they're not
breaking any taboos. It is 2016.
It's just boring. Let the racial stuff go guys. We don't need your
trite stereotypies. Turn an examining eye to character and culture
instead. There is a rich seam of differences which exist in different
proportions in different subcultures, backgrounds and origins.

But this obsession with skin colour....it's ridiculous.
Not all white people are bad. Not all black people are good. Get over it.
I don't like Lenny Henry because he hasn't been funny in 30 years.
I do like George Alagiah and I never miss a Denzel Washington movie.
That doesn't make me a 33% racist.

Worse...we have got to the stage now where these regurgitations are
now teaching racism, teaching it to a bunch of people living in a
cosmopolitan, inclusive country to whom it simply would not have
occurred.
And that means it's gone too far. It's as gutless as it is witless. It
isn't brave or unique.
Stop already.
Stop teaching our children bad things and instead inspire them to grow
some unique qualities and celebrate their differences.
We need them to develop their own identities before they end up on the
psychologist's couch. They'll need to be brave to find their voice,
pick up the conch and start communicating.

The future is about character and culture.
Colour is a red herring.

Social Snoring

I recently met a man who was a snorer.... a "social" snorer.
You can apparently be a social smoker.
So why not a social snorer?
I'm thinking about offering him a social uvulopalatopharyngoplasty.

But I'm a bit worried what his friends will think about it.

The Endemic Epidemic

One of the things that you will see most commonly when GPs go into the written form, and usually after a list of moans, groans and gripes, is the tired claim that being a GP is the "best job in the world".

This sort of affirmation is a sign of somebody hanging onto the last fragment of a delusion.

They say on paper what they wouldn't say out loud.

And they say it so that they can still try to believe it's true.

They will probably imply in their recitation that it is a "well-known fact".

For example, by saying that it STILL the best job in the world.

They will use it to introduce us to their missive or to sign off on it in what, to me, is a "faux upbeat".

And, even in these well accepted days of evidence-based medicine,  they will fail to back up their comment with any data whatsoever. 

And we know the most extreme comments require the highest level of evidence.

It is shtick-ing plaster for the masses.

You might expect these comments to drivel out of anybody in the position of President or GP spokesman because they are paid to be in that position. 

What else would they say? 

Roll out a cheap, empty pick-me-up to engage the troops. 

It is a comment delivered by people who have never done any massively dissimilar job in their working lives. (This is more likely in medicine than possibly than any other subject due to its singular requirements). In other words, it is a comment made by the people least qualified to make it.

Apply a tourniquet over the wound and send the soldiers back out over the top. 

I can tell you that being a GP is NOT the best job in the world. 

It's a privilege. It is a challenge. It's worthwhile. 

But the best? Good heavens. 

Not by a long chalk.

But worse than that, it is a massive failure of imagination to suggest otherwise.

And those doctors experiencing such a breakdown of imagination, and ultimately such a failure of hope, are going to be of limited use. The complex dynamics of the possible power in, and of, the consultation rests in the deployment of that imagination. 

Stagnant doctors. 

Stagnant technique. 

Not bad people but nevertheless…if you don't have the power to flex the consultation, the best you're going to be is average.

And the best job in the world deserves something better than "average", don't you think? 

Maybe it even deserves the best. 

Why not?

A GP publicly externalising their internal affirmations is a long way on the road to a lie. 

Saying it. And living it.

It is likely that the compromise will harm them mentally and, because the mind and body are linked,  (they are, see any previous blog!) ….physically.

Square pegs. Round holes

A London service recently set up for stressed doctors has just warned that "soaring levels of ill health and addiction among doctors could 'destroy the NHS' ".

It has seen 3000 doctors - 10% of all London doctors. 

Not 1%. 

Not 0.1%. 

But 10% !!

7.7 % is "epidemic"

10% is endemic.

10% who have actually gone out "help-seeking", despite being doctors. Despite the stigma.

The health service has now been identified as an 'occupational health hazard' for doctors.

Their problems? "Burnout, depression, anxiety, and a syndrome indistinguishable from post traumatic stress disorder. The remaining third are doctors with addiction"'

I imagine only about 10% of professional sufferers would actually go to a service like that. 

But if that were the case, that would mean 100% of doctors were suffering.

Saying it's the best job in the world is a statement that is delusional. But it is also deliberately misguided. 

And, worse… it's unhelpful.

It implies wrongly that you are already at your peak potential and you should jolly well just get back to the front line, perhaps after a little counselling.

Here is the thing.

You don't need to do that if you don't want to.

Remember when you were totipotential human beings.

That's not an invite to reminisce. 

It's an instruction.

You can still do anything you want. 

Buckle up.

Honesty. 

Begins at home.

Off he went with a trumpety trump. Trump. Trump. Trump.

It's goodbye to the circus.

I don't know why everyone is so surprised that American made a radical choice. 

It is the first time in history that they were given a radical choice.

And if the Land of the Free can't raise a candidate to take that on, it deserves to have the status quo upset.

Here's a tip. 

Stop making it the "Battle of the Entitled 70-year-olds".

Newsflash  - 70 years old is too old to run the free world with fresh ideas.

It's not an entitlement that comes with bad hips.

Any 40-year-old would have won the public vote on an Anti-Sanatogen ticket. Look at Canada.

Some of us won a little money on this election. All you had to do was park your own delusions, look into the eyes of the people and hear what they keep telling you over and over and over again. 

"Stop. Look. Listen" as my old PE teacher / self-appointed drill sergeant used to scream. He was ginger which seemed to make it particularly abrasive.

The circus is in town

Take your seats.

Or step up.

And for electoral historians, here is your take-home message:

It's the economy.

And you're not stupid. 

Street Food

Utterly famished?

Don't make the mistake I just did by visiting Ted Baker and asking them, more than politely, for a Cornish pasty and a currant square.

It is a racing certainty that the miserable sods'll say they don't have any.

Window Lean

Have you noticed how it is a lot easier to get a streak-free shine on your windows ...than it is to get a streak-free shine on your Windows ?

That's computer spellchecks for you.

National Treasures

I have a terrible admission to make.

I usually don't watch David Attenborough programs all the way through.

I know. Not very British. (I'm English)

These are the programs that are supposed to be worth the licence fee alone.

What can I say! 

Well, two things really. I'm very sorry. And get over it, mugwump.

I did catch a bit of tonight's. 

Planet Earth Eleven, it's called.

They kept harking on about how difficult it was to film so I thought they would appreciate my support..

(Next time I'm trying to get a streak-free shine on my windows perhaps they'll return the favour. What I'm saying is that we is that we all have challenges).

After turning off some fairly dull sloths, trying "Britain's Next Great Magician" which was criminally shit (and I like magic), I returned towards the end.

Penguins!

Great!.

Really! 

(That cynicism is yours so take a good look at yourself).

Who doesn't love a penguin!

But the story really came alive in the "extra" last 10 minutes (after the main program had finished) when we follow the camera crew through their filming challenges in Antarctica.

Now that was exciting.

Yes, there were the usual hipsters wearing their beard uniform. But you know what, they are simple folk who need to belong and they were in Antarctica so I gave them slight break on that.

Seeing, through their eyes and perils, the live volcano crawling with penguins blooded (bloodied?) from battle, mothers guarding chicks from predators, hopeful for the return of their troubeld warriors from the cruel breakers, it connected with me much more than all the slow-mo, high def, 1000 frames per second schtick. 

Animals are amazing . This planet is amazing. And I suspect a lot of people who are not amazing watch these amazing programs for that alone. 

But some of us and I don't know how many it is  (30%, 70%, 2%, 90%)  are seeing it in 3-D.

We're seeing it in high-definition another and not because our TV says so.

We are asking what in this struggle applies to humanity.

And not because we are simply sharing the same planet's changing environment.

We are animals.

But we are not all animals.

We are the human animal. With our necessarily human lens.

I enjoyed that extra segment more than the others. 

Because we are the context of our own lives.

And even though that was the point I was aiming to make, I don't know if my little epiphany is profound or idiotically obvious.

You can decide.

I am going to have a Penguin.

Double Standards

You get a lot of topless ladies at the beach, but not at the swimming pool.

What's all that about?

Quotable Me #47

In the game of life, you can either be one of the players. 

Or one of the pieces.

The Seesaw of the Nerds

The opposite of belief isn't disbelief.

Disbelief is a quaint starry-eyed quality usually prefixed by the word "utter" which adds even more charm, and is rather a nice word in itself. It might easily, for example, describe a child's eyes the first time they saw Frozen.

'People' would have the opposite of belief to be something actually very negative. So disbelief doesn't cut muster.

The people I'm talking about of course are those who want to have their minds closed by belief. Locked in infinite walls of lead. Let's call them believers. You don't hear so much from them nowadays since the argument was convincingly won and the Pope started punching people on planes, but nevertheless, bear with me.

The believers would not wish to face disbelief. Because disbelief is too strong a concept. It's too "aghast"  at what you are thinking. So much so that really only pity can follow.

The believers would prefer to face "non-believers". Because they can define them in that way by looking down on them. They can give them a face. Let's say, oh I don't know, Thomas's for example.  And then they have an off-the-peg script ready to go that their rigid brains can relay.

The problem is that this isn't a seesaw.  At least not a balanced one with the fulcrum in the middle.

If you want to believe in supernatural fairies, gods, unicorns and celestial teapots, then you are very much going to be on a 1% seesaw. And you are on the shitty end.
You are very much not going to like the fact that the burden of proof is very much on you. 
Very much.

No, you're not going to like that at all. So you'd need to change the rules so that you can look down on other people and reassure yourself so you can feel that your argument is something other than clinically deluded. And that there must be something wrong with "them".

But the open-minded people with whom you have such a problem are.. nice. 

They're nice people. 

A bit speccy and greasy perhaps but they don't give you disbelief.  Even if they had pity they would probably be kind enough not to tell you in case it upset you. Unless you really wound them up of course. Actually you might wish to take a note from that.

They are kindly, harmless, rational clear-thinkers who subscribe to scientific method and the endeavour of human observation.
Nerds!
Yes, they might wear black T-shirts, claim to like bands from the 70s, watch too many show starring the dead, sport unfashionably lanky hair and generally be a bit socially awkward. But they are good people.

They are people for whom suspending disbelief is their stock in trade.  Being open-minded is how they do "being".  That's why they own the middle ground, which by any measure, gives them 99% of the seesaw. And this is the same middle ground that the religious delusion probably frames as Limbo or Purgatory or some equally harmful metaphor.

They own the seesaw and offer you kindness.
And you offer them a shitload of damnation.
And still the disbelief that you have more than earned, they suspend.

And if you fancied a game of Risk or Carcasonne, they wouldn't even bring it up. 

They are doing God's work.
Allahu akbar.

Rich Text

How much more leaked information must we bear? 

How many more files testifying to political corruption?

How many more dodgy documents?

How many more historic archives detailing the abuses of the past?

You'd think by now, the government would have clamped down on PDFs, wouldn't you?

Quotable Me #46

You don't reap what you sow in life. Other people do. 

That's how sowing works.

Question Time

I just met a person who as an opening gambit asked me... 

Which building are you in?

I wasn't genuinely trying to be unhelpful, but I was a little thrown.

I knew the context of where I was somewhat, but I just didn't fully understand the question.

And it wasn't one I could easily bat away.

All my easy comically dismissive answers seemed more dismissive than comic, and actually pretty unhelpful to the process of small talk. So I didn't use them.I just looked a bit bewildered and pathetic for a bit, until somebody else took pity on me and told her. It's not just university people who are doing this.

It turns out that this is the sort of question you get when you're teaching at a University.

The building clearly represents the contract or specialty in which you may be doing research or teaching. But more accurately it appears it represents your identity in that sphere.

I remember being asked a question some years ago in Edinburgh that caught me out for a second

Are you in the business?

What business ?

I should have known . I was in the entertainers' bar chatting to two entertainers, one of which was Paul Zenon, the excellently sceptical magician, who was pointing out to me Rich Hall just behind him.

Of course the business was show business. There's no business like it.

I just wasn't expecting the question.

I'm intending that this sort of thing won't happen again.

But the fact is I'm not sure which building I am in. 

And I'm not even sure if I'm in the business.

Bargains Galore

There's an unprecedented sale on at Waitrose.

For a limited period they are lowering the cost of as many as half a dozen of their most popular items, all the way down to that of their highest priced competitor.

So if's it is a price-matched Hazelnut and Radish Salad Dressing you're after,  it is your lucky day.

Head right over and start counting those savings.

For the avoidance of doubt, I think Waitrose is quite expensive.

Quotable Me #45

Take the torch from those who've inspired you. 

Then shine a light in both directions

The Future of Words

It's all very well having international songs.

But how is a song about Georgia supposed to connect with me, an Englishman?

I can go for a bit of New York New York.

We know New York from the movies, and from the work of Sinatra and Al Qaeda.

But these days it's all about taking global... local.

Power is being surrendered (at least in easy inexpensive gestures). Everything is moving out.

There are local assemblies. 

Local news.

And now local satellite channels.

Why not local lyrics?

Filey. Filey.The whole day through

Just an old sweet song

Keeps Filey on my mind

Now I can connect the dots..... What's wrong with that?

 

He's leaving 

(Leaving)

On that midnight train to Barnsley. 

That's more like it, isn't it? 

Now I know where I am.

Sweet Home Market Weighton?

Why not?

There she stood in the doorway

I heard the mission bell

And I was thinking to myself

'This could be heaven or this could be Hell

Then she lit up a candle and she showed me the way

There were voices down the corridor

I thought I heard them say

Welcome to the Travelodge Wolverhampton

It's a genuine improvement isn't it?

Do You Know the Way to Stoke-On-Trent ? 

Knutsford City Limits?

Each and every one a massive improvement.

You are with me on this, aren't you?

Start spreading the news.

Standards

It's one thing going in for tattoos and piercings and instagram but try to get the basics right.

Good grammar, for example, is how you should end all your sentences with.

Give Over

Later, baby

It is the curse of the talent contest soundbite.

You often hear that contestants are on their " last chance". They might use this phrase whether there are 20 years old or 90.

They tell you that they need to "make it or break it".

But after many years of obfuscating for one reason or another, this is now the time "for them".

Of course it isn't.

These are lies we tell ourselves, and paraded to an Adele instrumental for our snack soul food.

The truth is closer to..

You need to make it or hey… make it later.

Make it or make it differently.

Make it or make something else

Make it or make something else later

I could make a whole library of binary.

Or I might do it later.

The ineffectuals

What would we do without the intellectuals?
You too can study at the University of Aberdeen for £9000 per year

The Untertainers

Do you remember when we had really excellent comedic entertainers?

When a stand-up comic had learned, the hard way, to deliver a series of (largely stolen) jokes rather than relate some lame story from their life?

When a sitcom had an Eric Chapple behind it and Yorkshire television owned national comedy?

When a Wise had a Morecambe, both forged in the fires of the business.

Do you remember when a comic drama had an Ian La Frenais?

When the cast of a Yes, Minister could just as effortlessly have performed Brecht.

And now we are faced with endless casts of stupid people from Essex in so-called augmented reality who can barely do breakfast without dribbling.

Do you remember when quiz shows had a Bob Monkhouse or a Bruce Forsyth?

And now we have a Ben Shepherd and a Nick Knowles.

I'm not recommending Fanny Craddock. But I'd still take her over Greg Wallace any day.

Do you remember when dating was about three daft questions and a lorra laughs rather than standing naked  in front of your selector?

Do you remember when we had En-tertainment.

Not UN-tertainment

Not now

There was a time when being on the spectrum meant you were back from school and trying to get to Level 3 on Manic Miner. 

Deluding

I think people really admire me for loosening up and bravely stepping
into whatever the future holds.

It was only the other day that I noticed, out of the corner of my ear,
a familiar couple chatting and pointing me out with whatever
discretion they could contain.
I could just make out what they were saying.
"He's really let himself go", one of them uttered, sotto voce.

And so can you!

Stitch in Time

As I was shaking hands with a girl today I noted how soft her hands were.

For the uninitiated that's the sort of thing you do with girls.. comment on a pretty frock, ask her what her Dad does for a living, and follow-up with a few questions about knitting.

If her reply should give you the idea that she doesn't know what a frock is (never mind own one), that she doesn't know who her father is, and given the choice between pearling one and stitching one she'd probably punch you and go to the pub... then you can wish her and her many tattoos a pleasant evening, tug your forelock, tip your cap and put her on a carriage home, slapping the horses rear end with whatever velocity your cane can manage. You already have all the information you need. 

"You have lovely soft hands", I said. "That's because you've never done a day's honest work in your life", I embellished.

She was a lawyer so I don't think there was any factual discrepancy but I have to tell you that she took some offence to this.

Being a polite sort of a chap, I immediately took it upon myself to backtrack and said that I meant to say that her hands were actually quite rough.

"I've never been so insulted in all my life" she replied again, almost as though I were making this up.

This was to be the last Metafit class on a Monday as it is being replaced by the more lucrative Boxercize which I still have to consider whether to join, attacking people in the direction of the head not being my usual "thing".
But, as a streetwise sort of fellow I'm quite handy with a bit of punchy-punchy but then again, these classes are mainly female. So I explained to the same girl that when I hit a woman, it's rarely in public and never in the face.

But did she find it reassuring?

Well, I think you know what she's like by now.

Being a polite sort of a chap, I immediately took it upon myself to backtrack and said that I meant to say, "If". I emphasised again "IF..IF..I hit a woman, it's rarely in public and never in the face.

Fortunately that put her mind at rest and we are going out to the pictures on Tuesday.

It really is a minefield, isn't it?

The Full I Am

Do you know why you admire the entertainers you do?

If you're a woman who watches TV on a Sunday night then it's easy. 

You admire pretty men shot in nice lighting, who take their shirts off. 

Well done girls. 

I know it's all about emancipation nowadays but the ratings don't lie and I forgive you need for pornography. Men are shits.

I'm really speaking to the more discerning sort.

Not men. 

Because it you're a "man" who fulfils his destiny and watches Sky sports, then you admire morons who kick a ball about. I'm not saying the occasional footballer didn't get an O level, but generally...

The first of these two groups have never done it for me. If Poldark manages to keep his shirt on for the full 60 then I'm good with that.

There was a time when Newcastle United made me party to the second but not anymore. There's no inspirational Bobby Robson, no Kevin Keegan.

There's a fat man who exploits and abuses 17,000 employees, and for some reason isn't in jail. He owns the footballers who entertain you. 

Ask me to admire him. 

Go on. 

I dare you.

And I think I have just realised why they don't impress me much. 

There is no risk.

Barring the occasional penalty taker, they put nothing on the line.

It leaves the footballers with plenty of time to concentrate on their vanity, Vanity, and Hello magazine photo shoots. (Forgive me the Oxford comma...I've never used one before... and the joke seemed to require it).

Their designer T-shirts should really read "I had one job".

They're not to be admired, any more than the politician who has never done a day's serious work in their life in any sort of business. Ever. 

But then of course worshipping politicians is not something we suffer from.

Is it, Keith Vaz?

The people I admire are the artists. The risk-takers. 

They actually risk too much. 

The ones who strip themselves to the bone. Who expose themselves to the world. They take a hit on their soul, to their mental health, and on their sense of identity.

They don't always get it right.

Many shouldn't try.

Yes, there is vanity, and yes some things should not make it to the stage. 

Some things should be left in a diary. Not all forms of expression are interchangeable.

But in its purest form, there's more truth in theatrical entertainment than anywhere else.

Watch our entertainers.

Naked and alert.

Taking little (generally), and yielding all (frequently).

Going against the flow but surrendering to a ripple.

Support our entertainment in all its forms. 

It is not just the trapeze artist who puts it all on the line... for you.

And if you haven't seen it, catch the remake of Are You Being Served? on iPlayer.

It's a hoot.

Quotable Me 22

Go for Life. 

Before Life comes for you.

None

Maybe we move in different circles.

But I haven't seen a nun for ages

Hard times

It turns out that strippers don't take credit notes.
Even ones that promise to pay the barer on demand.

Re-Entropy Into the Atmosphere

Modern life, eh?

It's complicated, isn't it?

The decisions we take. 

The decisions that take us.

But what are we really doing?

In a word, I think...

in one single word...

..connecting.

Or choosing not to.

But there are rules of connecting. Aren't there?

No?

Yes?

What are yours?

It used to be simple... to avoid religion or politics.

But you're not so dim that you still think that will do? Are you? 

Tell me you are not.

Maybe you don't even think that is true?

Or have you never given it a moment's thought?

Oh god...you haven't, haven't you?

Oh, sweet Lord, no. You're a monster.

Theres is too much work to do than  I can cover here.

Please. Start. Somewhere.

You won't.  But you should.

Connecting is a note, a decision, a gift.

You create molecules, matter. Something that is more than the sum of its parts.

But there is a cost to that that the laws of the Universe demand.

The cost is risk...standing, credibility, vanity, love or whatever you may define as any or all of those.

That is the cost of risking connection.

Because that is what it takes to obey the Universe.

It is inescapable.

It is the price of creating a beautiful thing from absolutely nothing, say it again. 

It is the price of reversing entropy.

The only remaining question is...who is prepared to pay it?

One hand, one bounce

I've just seen a video of somebody playing French cricket ( Prince Harry actually)

What an utterly joyful game. That takes me back.

Skittish fun, with minimal chance of a concussion or getting your teeth knocked out.

Anybody fancy a game?

The Human 'art

The sensitivity in the artist is the price of seeing the world and playing it back.

Assimilating and re-offering it rather than excluding it.

Normally, this sort of exposure would make your skin leathery and tough. 

But the artist surrenders their innate resistance. 

Oft unwisely.

They may try to remember that being strong and being hard are different things.

It's not work-life balance. That's far too simplistic. 

It's wading in the world without getting sucked in, up or under.

Many fade, give up or resist. They build barricades. 

We all do in the end.

Your charitable thoughts may persist but you may outsource them to a registered organisation...someone to do the caring for you. Someone who will invite you to a ball.

I am not going to beat anyone up about it as long as they start to be honest with themselves.

Resistance isn't futile. 

It's sound survival strategy.

1sT Place

There's been a lot written about tea down the years, as a compass of tradition or as a counsellor, or lifter of spirits.

It's trashy badboy brother 'coffee' has tried to compete by claiming every bogus benefit from preventing diabetes to curing cancer. All nonsense curated by those who respond to the mild stimulant.

Tea wins. 

Beacuse at the end of the day, tea is the difference between immorality and immortality.

The Pursuit of Cake

How do you like to talk?

I like all types of talky talky.

But I think I really need occasional deep conversation that I can acquit in an apparently trivial way.

Thickies, of course are going to glaze over at this point. 

Don't get me wrong. I like the thick. Mainly because they don't know who they are. Which is fait-accompli-funny. They may be lawyers, teachers, doctors....but let's face it, they are lawyers mainly. The other jobs come with little free entitlement and have to process people rather than positions. They have to be more humble, more human. Don't tell the lawyers that..because they won't understand (And it's not even all lawyers, more usually it's their friends).

Go deep. And unwise people get deep on you. People not capable of remaining trivial (and so really should not be let loose in public).

So go trivial with them. 

Don't bring up anything too challenging. 

You get more cake that way. 

Because that's the way trivia works

Little by Skittle

Life is about pushing through and pressing on.

The things you knock over should be skittles not safety blocks.

You may decide you're the sort of person who doesn't stop but you still have to know when to turn. 

Ninety...

One eighty...

Three sixty...

All different decisions.

If you drill through plaster, you should know where the cables are.

That's why the same rules don't work for everybody.

People who succeed with the 'safety on' are just lucky.

But luck is informed.

The moment of luck has been prepared for.

When you walk through life with purpose and drive, then drive carefully.

It's about being a force of nature. 

Not a weapon of mass destruction.

Odd? Get Even!

Things I like

Half price tickets

Things I don't like

2-4-1 tickets  - useless if you are 1,3,5,7 or 9 people. 

I could go on!

The Connected

I have just heard the first ice cream van come down my street in possibly a decade. 

If this is Brexit, bring it on. It cannot be coincidence.

So I was barely able to disguise my joy when one of the students went out and bought herself a 99. Particular as I saw what she was wearing.

Appropriately enough, Mind That Student was writ large on the back of his van up against some Disney characters, likely uncleared by the corporation.

I'm so glad he made a sale.

Particularly as I had just had a lolly myself. A Rocket, since you ask, that I've recently taken to purchasing and storing in my own freezer.

But the spontaneous simplicity of a 99, is something even I would struggle to replicate in my otherwise highly efficient kitchen set-up.

I was pleased he made a sale. It meant he might be back and who knows.. I may take up the opportunity.

An opportunity for him of course would be to expand into Vodka, nitrous and menthol fags, and would it kill him to throw in a free pack of poppadoms for no reason at all?

No. This is the warm familiar feeling of a retro experience.

We are the connected. Social Media, 24 hour news, hearing and feeling your own phone when it hasn't rung.

But when you are connected you feel every tremor, you shake as everyone else's nerves jangle.

Everything is closer to real. 

Close and too real.

We may choose to expose ourselves to more fear if it's our wont, controlled or otherwise.

Or perhaps do everything we can to avoid it, cross our fingers that the world isn't really a changeable place and enjoy a bubble we have some influence over. 

And who can blame us?

LOLling ourselves into a false sense of security.

The Bastille

I sent a joke to a stranger earlier on today.

I was buying a bit of flooring on the Internet.... 'like you do'. Do you remember when people said that a lot?

The joke was of a mildly Carry-On risque flavour based on an accident which had changed my carpenter's name from Laycock to Lovecock. So as you can imagine a joke was overdue, and with a local Pride march happening within the next 24 hours, I had the perfect frame for it.

I want to live in a world where you can still make a joke without too much fear so I pretend this is that world.

I tempered it a little, by phrasing it with a little pomposity to increase the humour.

(This wasn't my first rodeo, readers)

And I was blessed with a quick reply which said "Oh ...you have made my day".

I re-read what I had sent and have to admit it was a pretty good joke.

In theory, there was nothing in that for me.

Just a little chance taken to brighten somebody's day.

But I will let you into the thought processes:

Chance of it meeting some humourless half-dead vacuum - maybe 20%.

Chance of it being taken wrongly: maybe 15%.

Chance of it being received well but nobody letting me know.. maybe 50%.

My assessment: WTR - Worth the risk

Outcome: the best possible, because it met with a kindly soul (and I may have mentioned, it was a pretty good joke)

So what was that ..a little exercise for the human spirit, a little boost of adrenaline. A smile for someone 300 miles away at the end of a long Friday in a likely-boring job, doing invoices for laminate.

But many is the joke unsaid. 

Many is the gift ungiven.

The 84 dead people who were mowed over by a Tunisian lorry driver this Nice morning won't make any more jokes.

They won't get to face my trivial decision-making process.

Yet too many of the living have surrendered that right and duty early.

We are fragile. 

We have bones like Wispa bars. Our underflesh is like mallow. Our sensory organs are some of the most fragile tissues in creation.

And it's because we are so fragile that we tell ourselves that we are strong.

Through our culture. In our movies and books. In Holbein and on Instagram.

We even rewrote the original verse of our traditional nursery rhymes - the ones that reminded us how brittle our bones were and how tasty our flesh might be to others.

"Little Johnny on the railway line, picking up stones, along came the engine, and broke poor Johnny's bones".

We need to tell ourselves that we are strong. 

Because we are not.

It's a story.

Stories aren't true but we need them to survive. They are oxygen. They are food. 

And hope.

For better days ahead.

"Oh!" said Johnny, "That's not fair." 

"Oh!" said the engine.

"I don't care"

The Real Deal

You know how people tell you to to "Keep it Real"

That's quite a limiting belief don't you think, keeping it real?

Don't you think we have enough Real?

Don't you think we have slightly more Real than is absolutely needed at the moment?

And if so, have you balanced it out with more Unreal, or are you in a negative balance? 

Are you in a downward spiral? 

In deficit?

I suppose these well-meaning hipsters must be meaning to encourage you in a little more honesty, a little more letting people know who you are.

Well, at least one of those is unnecessary and at least one is a given. 

So why do we need to keep instructing each other to "Keep it Real".

Surely to push, strive and achieve, you need to keep it slightly unreal. 

You need to ignore the edges, erase the lines and blur the edges of possibility. 

You don't just need to "Keep Real", you need to make more Real by crossing over those boundaries.

Keeping it Real is really just maintaining the status quo and the last thing we need more of is Status Quo.  

"Keep it Surreal" if you have to. At least that is considerably more interesting.

But if that's too much of a leap for you, I say "Keep it slightly Unreal".

I will even suffix a  "…, Man !"  on the end if you feel you need it.

Yes..And...

Do you think love is the strongest emotion?

Perhaps you think jealousy is? That's a different topic…(and  a short story in waiting…)

What about caring?… oh sorry…am I boring you…?

CARING…you do know what that is, don't you? You have given this some thought? Oh God, please tell me that you have.

Sorry, I should explain. I mean caring for other people.. 

People other than you.

OTHERS!

So who do you care about? 

Your social network? 

Your family? 

Your first-degree relatives?

Because I will put this to you. 

Anybody in your life that you think you care about…. if you don't know whether or not they are alive or dead…. then you do NOT care about them.

You're busy, self-centred ambition makes that impossible.

Maybe you'll go to their funeral…but it's not really them that is dead, is it?

And if LOVE is supposed to be something elevated ABOVE care, then you have a real problem. Because when you can't recognise care, then any concept of love becomes a simple numbers game, a contractual negotiation on top of some basic fundamental, grey, dirty, concrete, underpinnings of minimum-wage "care".

Well, I'm going to tell you something.

Care isn't an underpinning. It isn't minimum-wage, (even when it is).

It isn't cheap….it's rich.

It may cost nothing, or next to nothing….but it's done by heroes which means… for the avoidance of doubt …. not every member of the human race.

It's rare. It's beautiful. But it's more tacky Old Kent Road than spritzy Mayfair.

It may fall to echelons of society that are considered lower, (and I'm not claiming they are all the correct souls  for it…because some some of them need equalizing)... 

But it's not easy to find a Captain of personal industry when there is no reward.

It doesn't come with cocktail parties. 

It doesn't come with dinners. 

It doesn't come with awards, or thanks or LBDs. 

It likely comes with spit and shit and abuse.

How much of that would you think someone as repulsive as Michael Mansfield would tolerate on his cravat? 

5 seconds? 

10?

50 hours a week?

When care is considered basic…when it can even be prefixed with the word "basic", how offensive is that?

How would you prepare your private company's "tender" to provide "basic" care?

Are there even two  words more oxymoronic than 'basic' and 'care'.

Tell me.

I'm asking.

Care isn't a foundation. Or at least an expectation of one isn't foundation alone. 

It may be fundamental, but it's not trivial and it's not automatic.

Care is a battle.

It's a right.

It's a duty and it's a privilege.

But it doesn't come from an ITV2 advert from Irwin Mitchell.

It doesn't come from a pension plan from Michael Parkinson.

These are greedy morons who don't understand what care is.

Care may be a carefully placed decoration on top of a cake, as much as it is a basic right to £7 an hour.

It is a touch, a thought. It is an e-mail. 

It is a phone call, a Christmas card with a personal message rather than a signature or Best Wishes in a single inverted comma. 

Why bother sending a card to somebody once a year? For pity's sake….. open your eyes.

Those that really care may…may… care enough to forego, reframe or observe any selfish modern interpretation of love as one of modern hypocrisy and convenience.

And if you've glazed over or don't recognise what I'm talking about, then you can't care. 

So don't tell me you can love.

Because between me and the happy rich divorce lawyers, only one of those is getting paid to believe you.

That's OK, it's not me you have to convince. And I have no ego about this… I know I'm irrelevant. 

But you don't.

You may not recognise a truth when it's said. Or written.

Caring is an emotion that is so much more strong.

Maybe you have the capacity to do it for your own children but maybe even that is a strain!

Lord…. 1, 2 or 3 persons out of 8 billion. 

That's poor.

There are some who do it for everybody who brushes through their life. 

Every time they have an opportunity.

Every time they can offer a kind word.

Every time they can bake a cake.

I reckon there may be used to be more of them than there are now.

I will let you decide when then was, because a country has decided that our over-twittered bloated souls haven't yet died.

They have another chance to bring all our lives in line, to pull us all together.

That 'then' is here again.

That care is back.  But only if you want. 

That's democracy.

Call this a rant if it makes you feel better. 

Consider it meaningless.

Forget it.  

Live your life. 

Feel better.

And make tomorrow the same as today. 

Or don't.

Candy Fags

We now buy our cigarettes in "plain" packaging.

But we still can't buy Sweet Cigarettes at all !

What a world!

Hashtag That

I'm not worried about the demise of the pound.

How can I be when the Americans think # is a 'pound sign ....when of course it is...

a) octothorp  

b) a readily planted drug in the Southern states, if Smokey and the Bandit is anything to go by.

Must go ... have to kill a fly ....I'm trying to  stop muttering to them "Tell your friends..." as I watch over their last wing beats.

But it's hard.

Doh!

Men, it's important when you're in a relationship to be needy.

You have heard the old adage that people get what they need in life not what they want.

That is the case also in relationships because ultimately that's what they will learn to look for.

Of course people will ask them what they are looking for, what they "want".

But in reality they will ultimately need to search for what they need, unless like a rollercoaster has a never-ending appeal.

They'll look for a fun loving go-getter, a cheeky charmer with a great sense of humour.

But after they've married a couple of those, and divorced them in between, they'll say they got it all wrong. Charmers are leopards.

But they didn't get it all wrong.

They just got what they wanted, not what  they needed.

People need to need. And they need to be needed.

So if you want to be needed, you need somebody who's needy.

It's a paradox, like most of life, but this trail has been successfully blazed by better men than me. Even at its most  elementary level of not doing the washing up very well. Essentially it's quite a sophisticated technique.

Learn it well.

Some of us have developed not to be over needy.

Some of us are not nearly needy enough.

That's a mistake. 

It's too late for me. 

But for the sake of humanity, act now. 

Save yourselves.

Three Sixties

Firstly Jazz..

then it was Horseradish...

And now I'm already reversing my position on a third thing in life.

Three!! 

In as many decades.

I know.... sloppy! But this is more development of personal taste rather than incorrectitude itself.

Coleslaw!!

Admittedly Iceland's Luxury Coleslaw - (no rubbish) - but nevertheless.

It makes up a worthy triumvirate.

Today we welcome you, Coleslaw.

In small doses, and preferably with sushi.

Quotable Me 30

If you think you're always ahead of the game, leading from the front, one step ahead of the pack, open your eyes a little wider....

Maybe you're the one causing the tailback.

Ten Hut

Hypothetical:

There may be an advantage to being an outlier.

Always assuming, of course, that there is a growth and projection of worthy, interesting, exciting principles that are based on something solid.

An advantage, I mean, other than the romantic idea of a soul original in thought and uncompromising in direction and deed.

An advantage other than the black-and-white appeal of someone who is not a sell-out. 

That doesn't mean they have the satisfaction to the owner. 

Quite the reverse, most probably.

And if you just want to be good at what you do then maybe that's enough. That's why they call it 'good enough'.

But if you are a good person who is good at what they do, do you really get good rewards?

Or do you actually get little reward or recognition, or perhaps none at all?

What good is good?

And if good isn't even good? What the hell good is 'good enough'?

Start as an outlier and you are outside that game.

You don't play that game.

Your starting position is the opportunity to be outstanding.

It is inevitable that being an outlier is a subset... a requirement,  of being outstanding.

So why wait? 

Well for one thing, the trouble is you start without a safety net.

But do you really want to wait for somebody else to break the shell of your egg?

They are just as likely to do it with a heavy foot and damage the contents.

They are just as likely not to do it at all and let you auto-digest yourself.

Take the lead. 

Choose the corners you want to look round.

If timing is everything, then go by your watch.

Take action. 

Be your own revolution.

And time the rebellion.

June

If you want to be part of something august....

don't leave it till September.

All the Single Ladies

The good news is that there is somebody out there for you.

The bad news is they're out there.

Life Sentences

I was just reading a User Review on IMDB of a 1970s television series... children's sci-fi ...the sort of scares you could air when it was OK to give kids a fright as well as a treat. You could give them a supernatural thrill at 4:20 PM as long as you also promoted breakfast that provided central heating (for kids ) and a toothpaste that would give them a ring of confidence.

The viewer was commenting about a long forgotten TV series called Sky which I seem to remember trying to watch but when it didn't grab me in the first episode I didn't bother again. Maybe I will have grown into it by now

But the reviewer comments 

"Unfortunately, my parents chose to have a row during the last episode and switched the TV off ! The series was repeated and I watched again only for there to be a power cut when the last episode was due to broadcast" 

And there we have it. 

Conditions from a bygone age. 

Cruel lessons for children to negotiate.

Miss your opportunity and you are left with a lifetime of questions.

(But witness a show without the sort of spoilers that are so in-your-face today and something could shock the living daylights out of you. I'm thinking of the final scene of Blakes 7. You can think of your own).

Parents can be a tricky thing for children to manage. I distinctly remember my Dad on several occasions banning my brother and I (probably mainly me) from watching television just because he had lost an argument. But I remember particularly vividly when he went out on Saturday night and took the crucial aerial cable with him, making a bending of that imposition utterly impossible. Nowadays of course I can think of 100 ways of watching a program but in those days that was that.

You just missed it. And when you had no aerial your could not even use the VCR.

If it was something that you needed to see, missing it would live with you forever, possibly until a DVD release 35 years later. 

A 35 year punishment... what do people generally get for killing somebody nowadays... 7?

And they get all the TV they can watch.

I know from many retro TV and radio shows, and countless stand-up comedians, that I wasn't the only one who would record themes on tape cassette. There was a shared consciousness amongst the generation of presumably males wearing down and repairing their C90s for repeated battle. Of course I was using my Dad's Dolby double decker, so he probably felt entitled to march into the living room, make a big loud noise, exclaim loudly, and shake, rattle and roll the paper at the very moment that I was recording the 45 seconds it took to get the Dukes of Hazard theme down. And every time from then on that I listened to my tape,  I heard him do it again, over and over and over.

Inconsiderate! 

It's not like a wife, of course, you can tell one of those to shut up for 45 seconds because you are a master of the household.

But my own father was filling that role himself at the time. 

Which brings me to the user's second observation.... the power cut. The reviewer bought the DVD release in 2014 of his TV series because the power cut prevented him watching it in . I think therefore a number of other people must have suffered a similar plight. I certainly had. It was during those few years when there were a lot of three episode miniseries coming out of America, usually 3x 90 minutes. I was staying up late watching quite a racy miniseries called Studs Lonigan at Grandma's house. It was episode 3 and I'd watched the other two. Power cut! They promised they would retransmit it but if they ever did, they never told me. Thanks to the National Grid, I only caught the third and final episode last year. 

If this 10-year-old boy could have seen Stud's transition from goodhearted boy to embittered, physically shattered alcoholic, what sort of a different life might I have led?

Goodthing

What has to happen for one to embrace a member of the opposite sex, and for her to raise one foot in the air?

Is it a timelessly heady concoction of French champagne, Cary Grant & Audrey Hepburn. Or of flowery dresses, Vespas and a lilting chanson. 

Or simply instinctive expression... or mother-daughter training from the days when a lady would thank a gentleman for a pleasing sojourn out.

I hope so.

It can't just be plantar fasciitis.

Quotable Me: Point Zero

I have noticed  something recently - it's just a subtlety. You would probably dismiss it and you probably should. I wouldn't give you any argument.

I should give you a bit of background.. I'm considered to be a "professional person" but nobody really cares about that. 

I care. 

But in all honesty pretty much nobody else does.

I work in a profession, one that has been largely usurped by people who don't work in the "profession". That's fine. It's the way it is. I don't lose sleep about it.

The strange thing is that people do have an interest in my profession - it covers 50% of the TV schedules - it's just that they don't care about the professional aspect of it. 

They don't know or understand or bleed what it takes. I don't expect them to.

I don't lose sleep about it.

As for the "person" bit, well... it's unprofessional for professionals to care that someone cares who they are. As Mr Mitchell, my old school French teacher, used to say when he was teaching us to correctly spell the French word for teacher.. singularly Foolish, doubly Stupid..

Suffice to say that I don't come home to a hallway full of flowers.

This reality is more a result of the profession than of me. And the system in the country I have spent my life in. Which I wouldn't change.

I actually do think what I do has value. But I have never been able to prove it...by even the lowest levels of proof acceptable to any independent observer. 

And so... it doesn't. It doesn't have value. 

The free market system, the outsourcing companies, the Zeitgeist.. everything.... means it doesn't.

Don't get me wrong. That doesn't excessively trouble me. 

I simply observe that it is true and I make an adjustment in my next sidestep.

I factor it in to future decisions and directions.

I regret my worthlessness, but I strive for better.

And still I wouldn't change anything that brought me here.

But I've noticed something recently...just say in the past few months... let's call it, oh, I don't know....2016.

The people I noticed this from are, I suppose, the sort of people you might term 'semi-close' relationships. 

Not close, because most of those have long dismissed me.

Not far away, because all of those have long dismissed me.

But semi-close, some getting closer, some staying, some coming by.

And what I've noticed is this.

I'm. Getting. Quoted.

I say this with some self-cynicism (there must be a word for that) because I have ironically long included a section on this decaying blog called Quotable Me.

What happens is this. I notice my own words coming back at me -  my own words being repeated within my own earshot.

One a few days ago was an improvised suggestion I made around six weeks ago, (also in the earshot of somebody else who recognised its source).

It's fascinating hearing a story for the first time that you know the words to.

Ownership of words is a strange thing. It only takes three or four words for my brain to know the end to the sentence it is responsible for inventing. 

In this case I could have punched the date and punched the time of when those words were said in that order, likely for the first time in human history.

It's actually a nice thing. I don't copyright my thoughts. I offer them freely. And for free. I just prefer not to be knifed for them.  (It's a preference, not a rule) 

So I appreciate that six weeks ago something hit home, got remembered, and I was around when it got repeated. 

It's... funny ....and make no mistake... funny is always good.... Remind your sad acquaintances of that if they ever try to score points against you're funny. And don't spend time in their company again.

But this is not the point I'm making.

In, say, the last three months, I have had somebody look me in the eye and tell me, perhaps a total of ten times, "It's like [you] say". 'you' means 'my name, usually abbreviated' 

And then they quote me.

Now that is an extraordinary thing. It's never happened before.

It's..interesting. 

Nothing more. I'm not used to any deference. I am trained in being a punchbag.

But when something undervalued, becomes valued, in some dark corner of a semi-strangers mind, then that is something, isn't it?

Something that is not nothing.

Perhaps ...even something special.

Being Binary

It's important when debating, or perhaps even arguing, not to allow things to become too personal, particularly in the domestic situation.

I would propose to this end that we employed a little more dispassionate, binary logic.

Now I assume you can already anticipate the difficulties with how this would work with a woman, but let's walk this through anyway and see where we end up.

One of the advantages is responding with brevity is so things don't get too heated.

I will give you an example.

Her: "It's your turn to take the bins out"

Your response "Error"

 

Do you see how simple and succinct this approach is? 

You don't need to engage further, just carry on reading the paper and you have sorted the issue.

Again..

"I'm not your hashtag slavegirl, you know"

Your response: "Syntax error". 

This brief volley not only corrects poor use of the English language but also re-establishes your role in the relationship. Not out of the woods but job done for now and time to spare.

"Your children are badly behaved"

Your response: "Misrepresentation of data retrieval".

This example takes quite the assumption that the children are shared, at least in terms of DNA. But it not only explains to the woman in question exactly where the errors in her statement contribute to the problem situation, it also points out some specific areas she needs to work on.

"If you don't like it, you should iron your own shirts"

Anything in this territory can be countered simply with: "An invalid argument was encountered".

You don't even need to look up from the TV to offer it.

In fact, I would go as far as to suggest, you'd be well advised not to.

Quotable Me 29

Don't wait for somebody to thank you.

Be the one doing the thanking.

Magic

But where is magic in this modern world? 

Is there is even place for it?

Does it have a location?

Do we get directions?

And if we do, will it disappear as we get closer?

In science, the answer is No, because everything we stare at long enough becomes more interesting.

But the science of everyday life isn't yet a science at all. It's an art and generally not yet a fine one. It's a young one, a fighting one. It's a crying child and a cruel lesson. It is many battles. It's a war for seven ages.

And along our road, we will look for magic. I don't mean tricks. There is more to magic than tricks that we don't follow. (Though who but the magicmen and tricksters take the opportunity to deliver such magical moments?)

If we accept there is nothing new under the sunset, then shadows of a long evening may be cast on what we have cast out. Witchcraft. Worship of deities. Sugary drinks and miniskirts. And before we know it everything is reborn. Everything can be returned, regenerated, rewrapped and resold.

And even as the magical thinking now panders to long discredited pseudosciences (nutrition theory, homoeopathy, fad diets, anything Gwyneth Paltrow promotes), even as we rebrand the spiritual age with a small 's' and continue our search for the humanity that progress and politics excised…even as this happens, even as all this renews, what has receded … is re-seeded. 

And the magic we were looking for still lies where it always has - in the four-chambered metaphor that is the human heart.

Stepping Out

You have to get out into the world a bit. 

Stretch, scratch at the walls,peel at the paper, poke your finger through the cracks.

And you have to keep getting out there.

You have to keep stepping on. 

Stepping up. 

Stepping out.

Our basic childhood training for this is usually (in the West at least) a set of "off-the-shelf" goals - passing exams, getting your fire-lighting badge, surviving a questionable piece of casting in the school nativity play … whatever. Not everybody can carry it off but when you've played the Mother of the Saviour of the human race in a all-boys school… well…everything else is a sideways step.

But these goals are just warmups to get used to the idea of the beginning, middle and end.

And eventually those goals are complete. Or at the very least, in the past. Either way they are over.

Of course you can continue in the same vein.

More exams, more certificates.

You can find new goals to tackle in the same way.

Or new goals to tackle in a new way.

And that new way can be one that somebody else has already invented or an iteration that you innovate yourself.

That's your job.

That's it.

To find what motivates you, and use your techniques of learning to survive. Finding teachers when you need them and guiding teachers when they come up short.

And while you are doing that, you can use it to get out into the world and make sure the world doesn't close in on you.

Take Permission and Commission a Position

There's a thing about writing and not writing. 

There's a thing about reading and not reading. 

There is a thing about exposure and processing and communication. 

And it's this.

The doing of these things gives you permission.

Imagine the scene from a sitcom and a line from a low-status character to a Captain Mannering, or to Captain Blackadder for that matter.

"Permission to observe, Sir".

Permission to observe. That's what this sort of engagement gives you. Writing in particular.

Permission to mind the gap between doing and not doing.

And permission to consider where exactly that ends, and where duty to act begins.

Ones and Zeros

There are two types of people in this world – people who want to have children, and people who want to continue to be able to swear out loud while driving.

Chatty Man

Do you like talking about serious topics?

Because I kind of do. 

I don't claim to be an expert at any of them and I can  always talk about movie sequels and who is going into the Big Brother house if you want.

But sometimes you can move beyond Batman v Superman to discuss whether they should build a wall between Mexico and the United States or a new Silk Road between China and the Mediterranean or just about anything else that is dark and interesting.

Of course n as we are no longer living in a country with free speech, controversial territory increasingly puts people on edge but the edges are where the interesting stuff happens.

The problem of course is that you have to be careful who you enter into these conversations with.

You have got to know your enemy, whether you'll be picked up on finishing your sentences with a preposition or lambasted for being a something-ist.

It can easily become not very enjoyable at all.

You can easily end up talking to somebody as though you stepped into a time machine and awoke in the sixth form common room.

Somebody who is a fully subscribed socialist or tie-wearing Tory – it makes little difference. 

The more narrowminded they are, the less interesting conversations are going to be.

What happens then is that you will end up being the story. Disaster. 

The reason serious conversations are okay it because it's okay to be funny about them.

You can use the same sense of humour as you would if you are commenting on a Strictly elimination.

You can express an opinion and tart up with a little bit of froth to make people feel better about themselves.

You can use a lightness of touch.

And ram it down their throats.

Ghetto Truths

I is not a typo !

Figmentaton

Radio 4 this morning announced the cure for grey hair.

Well that's what we always think in our minds when somebody has discovered a relevant gene.

And okay, the gene only applied to South Americans but what the hell!

Maybe a very fine nibbed pen could stick a few highlights on it anyway.

If you don't yet know the format of the Today programme - two people get invited to bat it out for 2 or 3 min.

So who do you get?

Well in this case, you get the scientist behind the research. 

And some old dear from Saga.

Up first, the scientist carefully explained about finding the gene behind the pigment.

And the riposte from the old dear from Saga followed

"With it being melatonin, the scientist might well be able to cure grey hair but perhaps nobody would get any sleep".

"Not melatonin.... melanin", he gently corrected, with the tone of voice that seemed to recommended a Rich Tea biscuit and an episode of Call the Midwife before bed.

She also noted the unfairness of men getting even sexier as the Silver Fox years approach. It was almost enough to make me cancel my Just For Men subscription.

Almost.

Crisis in Reality Television

A new emergency was reported today threatening the future of all television reality programs.

Excessive demand has meant that  75% of TV production companies have run out of pizzicato music.

Localised pockets of low supply were ignored and have led to a disaster of Rolfian proportions.

The cheery resource, designed to punctuate a quirky scene, or introduce a couple of new characters walking up a street, or somebody arriving with a bunch of flowers at an unexpected door, or a little bit of something going a little bit wrong, or just about anything else has come as an absolute surprise to clueless executives.

The musical form previously reserved exclusively for Polkas has undergone such a resurgence in recent years that it has become a firm friend of Gordon Ramsay's Kitchens  and Duncan Bannatyne's Dens. 

The tinkly incidental pretty much follows Alex Polizzi wherever she goes.

Hillary DeVey (pronounced like Bouquet and certainly not  like Deevy) was quoted as saying. "It makes my foot itch how nobody saw this shortage coming".

So next time you see your gazpacho starter scoring 6/10, or watch somebody finding a spider under the duvet, pity the poor old pizzicato players.

There are only three currently licensed in this country.

And two of them have been off with stress since the Christmas specials.

Quotable Me 101

There is no intelligence.

We are all jokes... waiting for a punchline

Patents Pending

Come on guys... this is the age of light emitting diodes and fibreoptics...

..can somebody please invent the illuminated toothpick and let me know when you have done it.

Thank you. I'll be here.

The Price of Admission

I know it's wrong to dream of more CCTV, but I wish there was a camera on my local swimming pool.

Just on the pool mind, not as I recently read about the sort of cameras that are in changing rooms in thousands of schools around the UK.

It's not because it would be relaxing to see a local pool on my computer screen. 

Not even because it will be motivating.

I just want to know when there are the fewest possible people in so I can go.

Come on everybody.

 Let's live our life on camera.

Do I mind being peeped on myself?

No.

Let them look.

The Danger of Designer Babies

We are getting a lot of Frankenstein science nowadays... but to  artificially create offspring from Karl Lagerfeld and Mary Portas...really..is that wise?

The Choices You Have And the Choices You Don't.

I had an e-mail from a friend yesterday in Hollywood.

I had mentioned about the growth of anxiety in the UK, which worries me.#

It doesn't make me anxious. It just worries me.

Mainly because I'm thinking exactly what I can do about it.

But then that's me.

Not my job to solve the world's anxiety problems? 

Really?

Well, if it is not mine, whose is it?

I have a few solutions I won't trouble you with at the moment.

But she asked me what the cause of it was  - she notices the same thing on the far border of the Americas.

So I gave her three or four paragraphs of....well the sort of stuff that I do... the sort of stuff that if I speak out loud people often smile and dismiss. This sort of stuff.

So I won't cut and paste that here but she was kind enough to say in response... "Moving words...Sir my name"

Today though I will give you a one word answer to the same question.

What is causing the anxiety?

Not three paragraphs. But one word.

Okay then... three words. Here they are.

Safety. Loss of.

I think that's the secret to the cause of anxiety.

I'll get back to you with the answer.

You can choose your own on June 26.

But please...do so for the greater good.

Dell A. Meetree

One of the more active decisions that you make as you get older is to ascribe the numbers of your age to some other quality.

People may choose to typically ascribe it to "quality" but it certainly doesn't mean that. (I am meaning quality in a different sense to my previous use of the word when I was just using it as a category. Here I mean the quality that is "quality"...you know..merit... distinction... excellence...that sort of crap.

Many people had better qualities when they were 17 than 37. Or 47. Or 67.

They may typically ascribe the increasing number  to experience but I have spoken before about that being confused with longevity - a fairly empty and unuseful description of time passing. Experience may be of  something outdated, redundant, incorrect, stuck in its ways. If you're talking about providing maintenance on a steam engine... I'm with you. If not, you may find yourself out in the cold.

You may choose to ascribe this prime number to a vector... a direction.

In which case I will offer you two choices.

Get ready because here they come.

Go deeper.

Or go shallower.

In so many ways those are your principal options. There are no wrong answers.

So think about it freely.

In everything.

Ride that harmonic wave, feel the zeitgeist, dip in and surf, or wax your board and ready it carefully, shake the blanket.... 

Choose the timing of your own peaks.

And roll with it.

Boundaries

Why do we need to drink tea out of ceramic but water really must be out of glass?

Handles for hot things... yes.. but… even so, tried the other way round, it buffets our comfort zones.

Tuning Out

Even though there are stations on Freeview which can make ends meet even if they only sell healing crystals or paper for your craft project, we now know that the British Broadcasting Corporation can't or won't afford to run its channels and pay for Alan Yentob's inflated salary.

But then it's always good to have a new place not to watch BBC3.

Fru T Bunn

There's a bunch of people who have sold their soul to the devil.

A bunch of people who are never without immediate access to an agency which publishes sexism and racism and facilitates terrorism and sex crimes on a daily basis.

A bunch of people who became advertising space when the clock struck 13. 

These are the empty headed Facebook users of 2016.

And then there's a bunch of people who like a joke.

Enjoy a titter, a chuckle.

And a patiently elegant, retro-styled cartoon.

These are the Viz readers of 2016.

Mutually exclusive groups? 

Well...yes.

Because Facebook has deleted the Viz page.

Censored. 

Was it the flatulence-based feature "Donald Trump's World of Pumps" that did it? 

We just don't know.

Double entendre has been swapped for doublethink.

If you can laugh, then you can't feel angry.

Laughs flicker and breathe.

Poison lingers and bleeds.

A smile doesn't stain so laughs don't sell. 

Vitriol is forever.

"If you want a picture of the future imagine a boot stamping on a human face forever".

I am not even asking you to look behind you.

I'm not asking you to look around you.

Just look straight ahead and open your eyes.

You didn't even see it coming. 

Look in the mirror and see the pricetag tucked into in your hat. 

See what you sold out for and guess how far down the rabbit hole you are.

Try to remember.

If satire wasn't silenced after Charlie Hebdo, what chance do think you have, Zuckerberg?

There is a group of people who have sold their soul to the devil.

Hello.

Do Cheese

I received a cheese making kit at Christmas.

I know. That's what I thought.

But unbelievably in a fit of unparalleled commitment, I actually did choose a cheese from the recipe booklet to make shortly after the festivities.

I chose a goat's cheese.

But I did make the error of not buying goat's milk.

Somehow hoping the process itself would add goat.

Perhaps with... I don't know...a shimmy of my muslin cloth. 

Or adding in the citric acid like Ainsley Harriet might add a little bit of Percy Pepper.

I decided to add a few herbs to make it look like a ricotta and I'm pleased to report that I managed to finish most of it before it the attractions of non-recyclable bin day came round.

That is all.

Quotable Me 25

You don't follow dreams - they follow you.

You drive dreams. 

Then they drive you.

I'm not claiming any meteorological prowess but

I've just seen on the news that the weather is brought to us by Bridgestone Tyres and nPower.

I'm pretty sure it's not.

Memo

Note to SKY TV:

When you offer people "a chance to see the programmes everyone's talking about... like True Detective Season 2" ...make sure they are not talking about them because they are crap.

WasHer DryHer

These new washing machines with baby cycles....I do not agree with it.

It's no way to wash a baby.

Although ....

...these engineers can't be idiots... I might give it a go ...maybe start on a Silks setting with a short spin.

That can't do any harm.

I assume they put the childproof lock on the inside. 

Yes I think I'm ready for a dry run...now where's that cat ?

Ten things that have arrived on my tits

• Anybody who eats anything in any cinema screening I attend (I'm not a maniac. I have no problem with the other 99.999% of screenings)
• Putting soap in the softener drawer (Clown!) 
• Chicken-flavoured crisps - hardly a sapictive phenomenon - they are the the waste of a taste bud, readied and primed for an experience.
• The response of the 999 operator when you tell them you have put soap in the softener drawer.
• People who say Happy Monday to you (or any other day of the week. This isn't 1984. I'm okay with any festival-related greeting though. I'm not a maniac)
• Lyme disease
• How irons are filled.
• Re-released albums (Pleeease! This isn't 1983)
• American Mother's Day (that's caused me more than it's fair share of confusion and guilt)
• People who don't take the door from you when you hold it open for them (usually pregnant women or utter bastards)

Changing Fashions

Look like I'm behind the times again... time to update my knicker drawer.

A4 Gone - Conclusion

Come on now...

I know you've raced to the sliding trapdoor.

You might even have reached for the mains source.

You might have pressed the red button or Cancel or anything for three seconds or more....

But...

Has anybody ever successfully cancelled a printing job...ever?

We should be told.

Advice

I am just writing my appraisal submission..

I am currently backing up the section on 'Communication, partnership and teamwork' with that highest level of evidence...the personal self-interested assertion.

You do lose your perspective after a while writing all this guff so just to check...there's nothing wrong with this sentence is there?

"I treat all patients as equals, even the women".

After a while you just not sure if your 'eye' is still in, if you are still riding the crest of that guff-writing flow state.

Now I see it written down it looks fine. 

I'm not going to even bother mentioning the Mexicans.

Wog on the Prog

The fashion for limited "event" series in the wake of our successes.. so here we are for a limited run.

For many of us, there wasn't a time when Terry Wogan wasn't a part of our lives.

An original who appeared to do things his own way retaining an edginess with a mattress of double entendre.

As useless on a TV chat show as he was brilliant on the radio, I spent time part of my childhood laughing in hysterics at the comic antics on Blankety Blank.

We are living in a time where the changing of the guard is more palpable every day.

I'm worried that the new uniforms don't fit the new incumbents particularly well. The material isn't quite made of the same quality and the texture is cheap.

A world which waits for tributes from Scott Mills and Nick 'Grimmy' Grimshaw is a sad, pathetic and desperate one.

Terry's Old Geezers represented the mature bunch who hadn't lost their sense of humour, who could still laugh at life while enjoying all of its rich tapestry and idiocy, keeping their brains alive with a generosity of spirit, a glass of port and strong core values, even as their body fails.

The simple overriding fact is a cliche.

We won't see their like again.

It's not that they got it all right.

I went to see Doug Richard in a theatre a couple of years ago talking about start-ups and business. He was a Dragon from California in the first two series of Dragon's Den.

I don't think he has even been required to sign up to the sex offender's list for having sex with a 13-year-old girl who weighed less than six stone, despite giving her money for it (not payment of course, a gift to reflect the good times they shared).

This is a legal loophole for sex with children known as "reasonable belief" [that she was 16, and therefore an ideal partner for 57-year-old "family" man]. 

Laws made by lawyers. Idiots running the asylum.

Don't you think he knew his defence before it was required?

Legal sexual abuse of children on our high street paid for my millionaire TV celebrities. And not just once in his case but hundreds of times.

There is no prison sentence for this. Not even a slap on the wrist.

He could still run for President.

But don't be alarmed. He's getting therapy to treat his addiction. 

Praise the Lord.

The guard is changing. Richard must've been flustered to see that his birthright to buy and sell children had been challenged. After all he had plenty of money. What could possibly be the problem?

Ethics and decency are squeezed every day by people who prize instant gratification above all things.

But at least once upon a time, there was Radio 2.

And we still have Ken.