There Is No Debate

The beautiful game.

People, usually those blinded by their unquestioning Pavlovian devotion, still refer to football by this moniker. Perhaps 80 odd years ago when players still had full time jobs and played solely for the love of the contest the nametag was possibly true. I doubt it can be said to be so anymore.

I’ll admit I’m biased. I loathe football. Well, that’s what I say but it’s a kind of a misleading shorthand. The game itself is fine. No better or worse than tennis or cricket or hockey. What I loathe in reality is the culture of football. When I’ve dared to voice this opinion on various social networking platforms I am invariably shotdown by football stalwarts who take considerable time and energy to tell me, via lots of swearing and insults, of the marvellous community aspect of football, of how it makes people feel they belong, looks after and nurtures local talent, gives people a leg up and does a shedload of great charity work to boot. Oh and some footballers even have degrees thus disproving my cliched theory that all footballers are thickos who were only ever good at sport at school.

But all this changes nothing. I loathe the culture of football. The disproportionately large wages. The fast cars and the drivers who feel they have a right to drive them at 120mph and go hang the safety of other drivers. The attitude that they are God’s gift and their football stardom entitles them to behave like some rockstar behemoth – buying what and who they want, acquiring trophy girlfriends and trophy houses and extolling the chauvenistic ideals of sleeping around with whoever the hell they like. Nightclubs the country over are full of cocky young men who are earning far too much money for their own good and whose chat-up lines revolve solely around the fact that they are a “famous footballer”. All those around them are put there solely for their own entertainment and pleasure. Far too many of them see themselves as old world kings who own all that their eyes happen to fall upon.

Out of this culture we inevitably get people like Ched Evans.

I find it hard to countenance that there is even a debate about whether he should be allowed to return to a football career after he has been convicted of raping a 19 year old woman who was far too intoxicated to ever consciously consent to what was happening to her. The fact he has shown no remorse and refuses to apologize – indeed he refuses to accept that he did anything wrong – is testament to all that is wrong with footballing culture. The facts behind the case highlight the tawdriness and dehuminazing aspects of football social culture. Another player, Clayton McDonald, apparently sent Ched a text to say he had a “bird” lined up. Ched went round to McDonald’s hotel room and watched him bed the poor girl. Ched then decided he’d like a go too. CCTV footage reportedly shows not only how drunk the girl was but also various team mates of Ched watching from the sidelines as if they were at a spectator sport. No doubt braying and shouting slogans as if they were on the terraces; egging Ched on.

Let’s make it clear; there is no debate about the facts. Sleeping with someone who is too drunk to consent to the act is a crime. It is statuatory rape. End of. The fact that not only Ched and McDonald were a party to this but also others is a disgrace. Not one of them stopped to think how they would feel if this poor woman was their sister or daughter or other family member. So little empathy or respect for another human being – all burnt up in their unailienable rights to sate their own voracious desires. Because plainly their status means they own the world and can do whatever the hell they like.

To make it worse supporters of Ched – how can such a man have any? – have subesquently harrassed the poor woman so much so that she has had  to move house 5 times and go into hiding. She now cannot see her own family in case it blows her cover.

Again, this highlights all that is wrong with footballing culture. That a mere game is placed above not only the law but also all human decency. Defenders of Ched say he was punished with imprisonment not unemployment so should be allowed to return to professional football. It sounds a logical argument until you consider that the culture that has grown up around football and footballers created the circumstances that led to the rape in the first place. Acknowledge that and Ched’s return to football is impossible. Acknowledge that and you have to accept that it is not only Ched that needs to be punished, corrected and reeducated but a huge proportion of the profession itself. Plus those fans that still can see nothing wrong with Ched’s behaviour on that night.

Football – the players, the managers, the club owners and even the fans – need to take a long hard look at themselves. I’m sure there is plenty to celebrate about football but there is too much that needs to change. I’m sure many of the fans and players are decent people with good morals but as Ched and his team mates clearly show, there are too many with a highly inflated sense of entitlement that leads them to treat others as nothing more than pieces of meat, there to be used and then forgotten about. They and those fans that condone this kind of behaviour need to be educated to the contrary. A strong message needs to be sent out that this kind of behaviour is morally wrong and repugnant. It is a blight and a cancer and those on Twitter and elsewhere that think it Ok to harrass a victim of rape are as guilty as Ched. They all need to be eradicated from football completely. Expunged and exiled.

Maybe then, when footballers are proper role models that showcase respect and decency and even, dare I say it, chivalry for all, both on and off the pitch, then maybe, just maybe, football will truly be the beautiful game that so many of its fans desperately want it to be.

The Drugs Do Work

I've never really done drugs. I've always been too cautious, too constrained by my conscience and my many paranoias. Sure, I've had a puff on a cigarette and a couple of times tried marijuana... The cigarette was revolting; I couldn't see how it would ever be a pleasure and as for the weed, well, the first time had no effect whatsoever and the second just made me intensely incommunicative. Given my problem socially has always been a tendency to fall into the background and not say anything anyway I couldn't see any benefit from "loosening myself up" with a pot hit. Plus I just felt 12 times more paranoid the morning after than I normally would have done. I can remember immediately forcing myself to write a poem just to check that I hadn't lost any brain cells.

Yeah. That's how rock 'n' roll I am.

So drugs ain't for me and though I try not to attach any moral weight to that decision I can't help but fervently wish that my boys will steer well clear of such apothecarial dangers themselves and follow their father's route into abstemiousness and teetotalism.

My dreams always were impossible.

But other people can float their collective and individual boat how the hell they like.

Now, when I'm playing the man about town or just doing my day job I run into all sorts of people doing their thing around Leamington Spa. Most I now recognize on sight. The beardy homeless man. The sweary girl with her hair scraped up into a tortuous ponytail (council estate facelift). The Polish alcoholic ex-sniper guy (his story will have to wait for another time). And the little gnome-like hoody kid.

Last time I saw the hoody kid he was stoned out of his tiny skull, swaying in the wind outside the entrance doors of my workplace, with a blissed out expression on his face. He was so stoned he didn't even recognize that I was stone-cold sober and straight. He'd done enough blow for us both.

Normally he's a lippy, snarly little git but this day he was mellow. He was loved-up. I and everybody else was his mate. He looked at me with eyes hooded for once not with contempt but with languorous good vibes. He nodded and asked me if I'd ever smoked weed. Without waiting for my answer he went on to extol it's many virtues but without backing any of that up with biological fact. I was amused and merely told him to watch himself and suggested he might want to get himself to the privacy of his own home before the local rozzers picked him up.

I guess the weed had made us both kind of mellow and easier going that day.

Earlier this week, however, he was back. Sober. Straight. Back to his cocky, confrontational self. Standing a mere couple of inches from my face, staring silently into my eyes. Daring me to... What? I have no idea. Lamp him? Lay him out? Oh please. Not worth the time in the clink. This type of situation goes with the job and no longer bothers me as much as it used to. My ego is big enough to walk away from such obvious shite-hawking without suffering any loss of size.

But God was I tempted to go out and score him some skunk.

Some people are just far nicer when they disengage from their everyday personalities...

To Write About Nothing

2013 has not been a great year for this blog.

Several times I made the decision to stop writing but either through inherent inconsistency or perverse stubbornness (not sure which) I recanted and elected to continue.

In the lead up to 2013 my blog had suffered several attacks from work based sources (as a consequence I can no longer write about work issues) and also, most damagingly, was attacked by a close member of my family. A family member who dismissed this blog as self aggrandisement, self-publicity, a fantasy ego trip and bizarrely as a means of fencing memories and feelings that they plainly thought I had no right to air to the anonymous, fake "sycophants" who read every post that I write [I wish].

The aftermath of all this was that I began to question every flowering of inspiration, every issue that motivated me to write, every idea for a post that happened to impinge upon my brain.

I went from writing three posts a week to barely managing to cough up one.

I accept that for some of you that was a positive outcome.

For me it lead to a year when this blog stopped feeling like it was mine. When my voice was muted, censored, diminished. When it was no longer enough for a subject to be close to my heart in order for me to write about it; I had to somehow justify it to these "other voices" that had insidiously invaded my head and presented me with a list of rules and regulations that I had to obey.

It's taken me the best part 2013 to realize that these voices have no right to be in my head and I have no business at all to be listening to them.

In that sense 2013 has been a great year for this blog.

The blogging landscape has changed enormously since I began writing here in 2006. Many wonderful blogs have fallen by the wayside to be replaced by automated shop windows and market stalls. Blogging has become less about sharing the experience of the everyday (and sometimes the unusual) and more about selling product.

Call me a puritan but I believe the only thing that should truly be sold on a blog is the writing. The words. The language. [So do buy my books.]

The disappearance of wonderful bloggers means less wonderful readers around to comment and bolster the spirits of flagging writers. You few who visit here regularly are very definitely diamonds in the rough. I know there are amazing blogs out there but having tried to find them I can tell you it is like searching for a needle in a haystack that is made of straw pretending to be needles.

But I have come to realize that that too doesn't really matter. Chasing a readership is just another way of obeying a voice in one's head that has no right to be there.

So at the end of 2013 and the start of 2014 - at the end of 1000 posts and hopefully at the start of another 1000 - it is time to rededicate this blog.

Not grandly or overly ambitiously. Not fakely or servilely.

But honestly.

To write as I see fit about things that matter to me and mine. To share and not to impose.

If you don't want to be here then - please, in the nicest possibly way - don't be.

But if you want to stay then know that you are most welcome.

Happy 2014 to you all.

Sonic Doom

I don’t, as a rule, like other people’s music.
 
This is a conclusion I have reached through a lifetime of empiric research.
 
“Other people” – certainly in Leamington Spa – invariably have poor taste, play 'up' and 'slow' tempo songs at times that are not appropriate to my mood or are white and like to think that below the surface they are Dr Dre’s main man and spiritual bro.
 
The above facts, on the whole, do not impinge on my life too much or cause me to impinge on others.
 
Except when, as happened yesterday, I was walking down the street minding my own business when the keys in my trouser pocket began to oscillate to some kind of sonic disruption that was fast approaching me from the rear.
 
To my eternal regret it was neither Matt Smith with his Doctor Who screwdriver or Keeley Hawes with a vibrator. It was in fact some teenager’s third-rate pimp mobile from the bowels of which was emanating the kind of low level bass frequency normally associated with fracking operations in Canada.
 
I felt the car’s approach long before I heard the actual music and longer before I heard the tinplate rattle of the engine. I swear the air shimmered in a sort of heat haze halo around the extremities of the vehicle. Like some kind of vibrato field had been created that would pulp anything solid that dared to cross its boundaries. Anyone with gallstones in the immediate vicinity would have found themselves instantly cured.

I cannot for the life of me tell you what musical track the guy was playing. There was nothing but a solid, constant bass rumble. The sound a black hole makes when it incessantly sucks all matter and light around it into its greedy maw. And let me tell you that this guy’s music etiquette certainly sucked like a black hole. He didn’t give a damn about anyone else. He didn’t give a damn about the asphalt powdering beneath the shadow of his passing. He didn’t give a damn about the rivets and bolts that were undoubtedly being shaken loose from the engine of the very vehicle he was enveloped within. He didn’t give a damn that even when he had driven four hundred yards down the road from me, the recycling boxes that the good people of Leamington Spa had left out for the sake of eco-conservation were still audibly vibrating from the residual shockwaves he had left behind.
 
That last is a God's honest actual fact.
 
The whole episode just made me want to sneer out loud. In fact I probably did precisely that but nobody heard me, not with the blood still pouring out of their ears.
 
Why do people do this kind of thing? Why? It is invariably men that do it which leads me to think that testosterone is a contributing factor. Are these tectonic plate shifting mega-rumbles the human male’s equivalent to birdsong and stags flexing their bruising antlers? Are women attracted by the possibility of having their DNA granulated at the quantum level by the bass line of Showaddywaddy’s “Under The Moon Of Love” played at a decibel level that can actually be heard on the moon?
 
Is that what women go for these days? Having their atoms split open by a sonic scalpel?
 
Is this both safe sex and its soundtrack?
 
I don’t know.
 
Once my eardrums had returned to their normal concave state I really wasn’t sure if I was coming or going. I only knew that the earth had moved for me and I was still not at all satisfied.

Blessed Are Those Whose Anger Flowers Early

I believe the Italians have a saying: beware the anger of a patient man.

The reason being, I am sure, that the anger of someone with a short fuse who is prone to ignite at the merest whiff of a spark tends to be short-lived. It tends to be all noise and no fire. The damage radius remain relatively local.

I’m sure there are exceptions and I am at pains to point out that this is by no means an empirically proven thesis.

The corollary, however, is certainly true. The anger of a man who remains for years, if not decades, patient, calm, tolerant and tranquil must be devastating when it finally blows. We are talking thousand mega-tonne detonation. Something that wipes out half a continent. The collateral damage must be catastrophic.

I much regret being so tolerant, calm and level-headed. I regret being a patient man. Especially in the face of certain situations and circumstances over the years that when viewed logically and with perspective plainly call for someone to be given am almighty slap. I am, of course, talking metaphorically. I abhor all kinds of physical violence. (Unless it is done to my enemies).

Much better, much healthier to open the bottle a little every day and let out a small fizzing demon every now and then, as the need arises. The pressure is relieved. The beast has its moment in the sun and tires itself out. It retires and the bottle is resealed. All is made safe.

When this is not done, however, the beastie grows. It grows inside the bottle. It grows and grows. The bottle begins to chafe. The ever tightening constraints of the bottle then adds to the beasts anger. The pressure builds.

Until it get to the point where it is not ever safe to open it. The beast inside will run riot. The beast inside will tower over everything and level the entire city. It is much too strong now to be loosed upon the world. So the bottle top is tightened. You try to forget the demon is there but, of course, as is the way of things, the beast grows most quickly in the dark, most voluminously when it is ignored.

But the bottle cannot hold it forever.

The bottle is becoming more and more brittle with age. The will to keep the stopper held in place is become weaker, becoming compromised.

The effect is a nuclear countdown that cannot be deactivated.

You can cut the red wire, the blue wire or even the yellow but it will make no difference. If anything you will only speed up the clock.

Tick. Tick. Tick. Tick. Tick.

No I Am Not Going To Stop Talking Even Though You Are Talking

So what do you do when a client persistently, obliviously, ignorantly talks all over you at business meetings?

I mean what is the correct etiquette that one should follow? Is grabbing someone by the scruff off their neck and shaking them so hard their blood separates into its component parts socially acceptable? Is it de rigeur to pinch their nose hard and pull their head down to within an inch of the tabletop and quietly mutter death-threats in a voice not unlike Robert De Niro in any of his films?

I need to know because I swear to God I am going to pop a vein if I attempt to suppress my anger any longer.

I think what annoys me most is that, in the moment, I allow it to happen. I can’t seem to raise my voice to battle theirs. I mean, I know I can do it. I know I can summon up the volume; my lungs have the capacity. It’s just that – in the moment – that response seems lost to me. I keep talking. Starting, restarting, restarting, restarting until finally Little Miss Gob-Jockey finally grinds her tongue to a halt. Then I get to speak. Only what I have said doesn’t seem to be heard or acknowledged or valued because the Uber-tongue starts up yet again exactly where it left off.

My only consolation is that it isn’t just me who has this problem. It’s not personal. I’m not an isolated case.

But it feels personal when it happens. Damned personal.

Time was, years ago, I was quite a placid character. An easy-going guy. Wasn’t really in touch with my anger, all that jazz. But over recent years, me and my anger, we’ve started becoming better acquainted. We’re not leaving it so long between phone calls if you get my meaning. The satellite link up is experiencing less and less delay.

It used to be that I’d get talked over by Be’elzeblah and the anger would hit me a couple of hours later. There’d be a bit of a drag to it.

Now though we’re talking ten minutes max.

It’s catching up with the moment. And you can see what’s going to happen, can’t you? Soon, maybe not today, maybe not tomorrow, but soon and for the rest of my life my anger is going to be there right on the button.

And I need to know what is the most socially acceptable way of reacting. How far can I push the anger envelope and not have myself carted off to an anger management course?

Because part of me would just like to mutter “blah blah blah blah blah” continuously, unendingly... starting off real soft and low and slowly building to a crescendo that has everyone in the meeting, one by one, falling silent and looking my way. Another part of me would just like to be working class and just slam my palm down onto the tabletop and exclaim “fer fook’s sake, woman, will you please just shut yer fooking trap and let me fooking speak?” You know, the direct approach?

But there is another part of me – slightly unhinged with all this repressed fury – that just wants to scream “shut up shut up shut up shut up” into this person’s face and maybe spit a little bit into her mouth. ‘Cos – and this might come as a surprise to some of you – this situation is really starting to get on my goat.

Hey? Are you even listening to me?

Oi! Focus dagnammit! This is important!

Those Who Stand And Wait Will Not Serve Forever

So I haven’t seen this guy for a long time and he drops into my place of work and he gives me that look that says, God, you’re still here, why am I even surprised?

Now, maybe I’m reading too much into that look because I’m doing something menial like stacking chairs after a public event and this guy is swanking about in his big leather jacket and his new spotlessly clean spectacles (while mine are grimy with sweat within days) and he’s talking to colleagues about his current place of employment where he’s pretty much his own boss.

Yeah, he’s come a long way since we all used to muck-it together. He’s climbed the ladder. He’s greased the pole. He’s signed in blood for The Man.

And on the surface I think, yeah, good for you, if you’re doing what you want to do but it leaves me cold, mate. But still I get that look. That smug look. And he’s leaning on a pile of chairs that I need to stack and put away and he condescends to move only slightly to the side so I can do this and his look becomes – if possible – even smugger.

Still humping stuff about. That’s me. All the dirty jobs. All the fetching and carrying. All the backroom stuff. I’m just a grunt (no offense; none taken) – sorry, watched Aliens again yesterday – and he gives me that look... that look that contains so much more in it than just smugness or self assured superiority. It contains pity and disappointment (like he has a right to be disappointed in me!); it contains confusion and genuine puzzlement that someone, anyone, me specifically could settle for what I’m doing right now when there are lofty heights to be climbed like the miserable pedestal down from which he’s currently god-gazing from.

And I grit my teeth and I get on with the job. Because to me it is just a job. It puts bread on the table. I do not view it as a career. I don’t want it to be my pedestal. I’m still building that. I want my pedestal to be built out of the words that I write. The poetry, the novels, the articles and, yes, goddamit, the blogs. And I think screw you, hotshot, you know nothing about me; you don’t know that I write or that I’ve been doing so – pushing myself at it – for the last 30 years with varying degrees of success, refusing to give up the dream.

And it occurs to me that there are some people in this life who knock you over, who pull the rug out from beneath you, who break your confidence into little-bitty pieces just to watch you run around like a chicken trying to peck them all back up again. They are scum. They slow you down; they distract you and cause you to lose focus.

But then there are people like this guy. People, who despite the bile they might provoke, are to be welcomed. Because when I meet people like this I feel my focus – which I like to imagine as a blowtorch – become hotter, sharper, more accurate. The flame becomes blue, blue-white and then so hot that you can’t bear to look at it. And it makes me want to write more. It makes me want to write better. It makes me want to chase that dream down and make it mine. And when that day comes I swear to God that I will also hunt down people like this and I will laser-beam their smarmy little eyes out.