There are some things in life that you just have to put up with.
Paying taxes. Catching a cold. Working for idiots (for peanuts). Bruce Forsythe.
These things are just never going to go away. They are always there. The rough with the smooth. If you want the positives (i.e. local amenities, immunity to millions of bacteria, money to enjoy and... er... Tess Daly) then you just have to put up with the negatives.
So I understand why, if I want to enjoy broadband connectivity with the World Wide Web, I need to have an anti-virus program installed. And since first going online in 2000 I have never been without one. Although I initially bumped for McAfee I have, by and large, for the last 9 years stuck with Norton.
And it has increasingly irritated the shit out of me.
It has got more and more invasive. Rather like a virus itself actually.
It hogs resources. It does things behind my back. Things like “idle time scans”. It slows and frequently stalls my machine – particularly when I’m in a rush to do something – to the point where sometimes the whole thing just freezes and I have to initiate a “hard reboot”. Of course the scandisk thing then kicks in. And although you can press a key (any key) to opt out of this, you just know that paranoia will get the better of you in the end. So you let it scan.
And it finds errors. Invalid entries. Truncated files. Misreported file sizes. Files with names that no homo sapiens would ever come up with in a million years. And these files all originate from the Norton program folder.
Because Norton was doing something that I hadn’t asked it to do and the hard reboot messed it all up.
*Sigh*
I’ve started to hate my anti-virus program with a passion.
I know it is only doing its best to protect me. That it’s looking out for my best interests.
But really.
It’s like hiring a security guard to protect your house and then finding yourself barred from the kitchen when you want to make a meal.
“Sorry sir, you can’t come in. I’m scanning the kitchen for malicious equipment.”
“But... I’m hungry. I need to eat. Can’t you do this later?”
“Sorry sir. Got to be done now. The procedure can’t be interrupted once it’s been started.”
“But I only want to make a sandwich. I’ve somewhere I need to be in half an hour. I have to eat now or I won’t eat at all.”
“Sorry sir. Your security comes first. You’ll have to wait.”
“But... but it’s my bloody kitchen!”
And it’s my bloody computer!
I don’t want Norton to initiate idle time scans without my permission. If my computer is being idle leave it damn well alone. Let it be idle and receptive to my commands! I want it to be ready to do what I want it to do!
And I don’t want to have to have a Master’s Degree in computer programming just to be able to make Norton behave. I want Norton to have one button which says “Steve, you are my master” which I can press and then relax in the knowledge that my computer that I bought with my own money and operate daily does so under my command and not at the behest of a group of faceless computer geeks based in America writing program code that takes over every computer it is installed upon under the guise of doing the owner a favour.
Anti-virus?
Yeah. Half right.
Wednesday, September 30, 2009
Monday, September 28, 2009
Stepping Outside The Barricades
The first time we put Tom into his cot it dwarfed him. He looked like a peanut in an empty warehouse. We filled the space with soft toys and spare blankets but still he looked lost.
Somehow, over the last year or so, despite our watching him intently he’s managed to sneak the act of growing past our eagle eyes. He’s grown stronger, sturdier, more self willed and determined. And longer.
And the cot has slowly shrunk around him. First it reduced itself from warehouse to wrestling ring – allowing Tom to charge around its railed edges in an endless game of ring o’ roses. And then it shrank further still. It became a one child pay pen. At full stretch Tom was practically touching the far edges with his toes.
And then, inexplicably, it became a pleasant prison. One he never complained about being inside – thankfully Tom has always loved his bed – but one he suddenly began to try and escape from a couple of mornings ago. The early signs were there. Tom was gearing himself up to “go over the walls” (as opposed to smuggling himself out with the laundry).
Such activity sounded the death knell for the cot. The drop down to the floor was such that Tom would be likely to suffer a broken neck or at the very least broken limbs.
Such a likelihood was simply unacceptable.
So the cot was dismantled yesterday afternoon and reconfigured into a proper bed. Tom’s first.
I must admit I felt... sad, regretful. There was something comforting about bedding Tom down in his cot each night. He was safe and secure. Contained. He could come to no harm and no harm could come to him.
He was also still my little baby boy.
Now, suddenly, I have had to re-adjust my thinking. Accept that he is no longer a baby. He is a very active, singularly determined toddler. He’s a proper little boy.
After we’d rearranged the bedroom yesterday afternoon we allowed Tom a little playtime in it. This proved to be a good move. He was very excited by the changes and his frequent squeals of “ooh look” indicated he was pleased with the new arrangements.
The test was bedtime of course. Rather sagely we managed to wear him out so that he’d be less reluctant to get out of bed and it seemed to work. He was tucked in and snuggled down. All his usual furry toys were there.
I snuck up to see him after half an hour and found him sprawled on top of the bed – the blanket kicked off as usual – sound asleep. Mission accomplished.
This morning he was up at 6.10am, running around the bedroom, dipping his little fingers into all this amazing stuff that Ben leaves lying around in the room they share. He loved it. So much so he really didn’t want to go downstairs today and only did so under duress.
So. Another developmental stage has been encountered and passed. The baby has gone. And I shall miss him dearly. But the boy that has appeared in his place more than makes up for the loss. I daresay as his confidence grows his morning wanderings will take him to the stair-gate at the top of the stairs or to the bathroom and all its myriad opportunities for mischief... I suspect I shall not get much of a lie-in for the next week or two...
But despite and perhaps because of that I feel immensely proud.
Welcome to a little bit more of the world, son.
Somehow, over the last year or so, despite our watching him intently he’s managed to sneak the act of growing past our eagle eyes. He’s grown stronger, sturdier, more self willed and determined. And longer.
And the cot has slowly shrunk around him. First it reduced itself from warehouse to wrestling ring – allowing Tom to charge around its railed edges in an endless game of ring o’ roses. And then it shrank further still. It became a one child pay pen. At full stretch Tom was practically touching the far edges with his toes.
And then, inexplicably, it became a pleasant prison. One he never complained about being inside – thankfully Tom has always loved his bed – but one he suddenly began to try and escape from a couple of mornings ago. The early signs were there. Tom was gearing himself up to “go over the walls” (as opposed to smuggling himself out with the laundry).
Such activity sounded the death knell for the cot. The drop down to the floor was such that Tom would be likely to suffer a broken neck or at the very least broken limbs.
Such a likelihood was simply unacceptable.
So the cot was dismantled yesterday afternoon and reconfigured into a proper bed. Tom’s first.
I must admit I felt... sad, regretful. There was something comforting about bedding Tom down in his cot each night. He was safe and secure. Contained. He could come to no harm and no harm could come to him.
He was also still my little baby boy.
Now, suddenly, I have had to re-adjust my thinking. Accept that he is no longer a baby. He is a very active, singularly determined toddler. He’s a proper little boy.
After we’d rearranged the bedroom yesterday afternoon we allowed Tom a little playtime in it. This proved to be a good move. He was very excited by the changes and his frequent squeals of “ooh look” indicated he was pleased with the new arrangements.
The test was bedtime of course. Rather sagely we managed to wear him out so that he’d be less reluctant to get out of bed and it seemed to work. He was tucked in and snuggled down. All his usual furry toys were there.
I snuck up to see him after half an hour and found him sprawled on top of the bed – the blanket kicked off as usual – sound asleep. Mission accomplished.
This morning he was up at 6.10am, running around the bedroom, dipping his little fingers into all this amazing stuff that Ben leaves lying around in the room they share. He loved it. So much so he really didn’t want to go downstairs today and only did so under duress.
So. Another developmental stage has been encountered and passed. The baby has gone. And I shall miss him dearly. But the boy that has appeared in his place more than makes up for the loss. I daresay as his confidence grows his morning wanderings will take him to the stair-gate at the top of the stairs or to the bathroom and all its myriad opportunities for mischief... I suspect I shall not get much of a lie-in for the next week or two...
But despite and perhaps because of that I feel immensely proud.
Welcome to a little bit more of the world, son.
Wednesday, September 23, 2009
Making New Cheese Out Of Old Cheese
They’re bringing back Knight Rider.
Re-made, re-cast and possibly retro-fitted, Michael Knight and his camp Kit car are already gearing up to turbo-boost back onto our TV screens sometime this Autumn.
And I feel nothing but dismay.
Some things are just best left alone.
Most of the TV shows from the eighties being a case in point.
Although I have fond memories of Knight Rider, The A-Team and Airwolf et al, they are time-locked into a small, blessedly sealed, period of my teenage years and that is where I’d prefer them to remain.
My teenage years weren’t great. I was shy, geeky and nerdy and not particularly a success with the ladies. I lived most of the time in my head, my imagination fuelled by the shows above, my morals and political outlook to a degree informed by the heroes who machine gunned their way to justice and democracy for all. In my innocence I bought unthinkingly into the American way.
Yes folks. I wanted to be Michael Knight. I wanted to be David Hasselhoff.
Oh the shame. And I’d rather not have to relive it.
Well, to be honest, I never wanted to actually be Michael / David. But I did covet the car. I coveted the car in a big way. Yes, I wanted a car that looked butch but was, at heart, gay... Though that gayness is only apparent in retrospect. At the time it wasn’t so obvious. Kit was, well, just Kit. Just as C3PO was just C3PO (and not a metallic version of Charles Hawtrey – which he plainly is).
Looking back on it it’s plain to see why I was such a messed up teen.
But that aside, I’m just sick of this regurgitation of the eighties. It’s lazy. Nostalgia is nice when it is infrequent but not as a permanent mindset. And nostalgia certainly isn’t an art form worth spending money on.
But plainly I’m wrong.
Some TV money man somewhere obviously feels Knight Rider is good for a few bucks more. So they’re wheeling it back out of the scrap yard only this time without the Hoff.
Which surely is a bit like having The A-Team without Mr T?
Or Star Trek without Shatner?
Er...
OK.
That last point wasn’t argued so well but even so...
It’s just not going to be the same. It’s like – having mentioned Hawtrey above – trying to remake the Carry On films. It cannot be done. Sure you can emulate all the physical / visible ingredients. But what you can’t recreate is the original time frame. Nostalgia just cannot be contemporized.
Now, maybe I’m being unfair. Maybe they will inject a whole new ethos into it. New blood into old wine skins, etc, or whatever the saying is. But why bother when you can buy the originals of every bloody series from the eighties on Amazon?
I mean, can people not write anything new anymore?
What are they going to remake next?
Street Hawk (remember that anyone)?
Whizz Kids (anybody)?
CHiPs?
Geez. CHiPs. Please, please don’t get me started on Eric Estrada...
Monday, September 21, 2009
The Mystical Toilet
Aside from the boyhood / manhood pleasure of blasting your urine around the rim like you're strafing an invisible enemy army, there is the magic of the disappearing water.
You pull / push the flusher and all that water shoots down and disappears... where?
As an adult, of course, the toilet is downgraded to merely a mechanical appliance that is (quite literally) always at your unthinking convenience but as a kid... they're akin to dragons and unicorns. Eerie, intriguing, frightening beasts of indeterminate morality.
My eldest boy, Ben, was always a little scared of the toilet and overcoming that fear was a major factor in getting him properly toilet trained... making that big step from carelessly filling his nappy to anticipating the demands of his bladder and making a pre-emptive strike at the portal of the big white telephone. He got a toy car every time he successfully made it to the toilet. Even now those cars are referred to as "poo cars". But his initial fear is understandable. That wide open mouth... The chasm down to deep waters... The porcelain abyss with it's strange smell even when the water is clean... It's a big thing to park your bum over it for the first time and relax enough to let nature take its course.
That fear is also greatly increased when the toilet has eaten one of your toys.
Ben once accidentally dropped a favourite toy down the loo when he flushed it. Of course it went the way of all small solid things trapped beneath the flush cycle.
And that only added to the mystique of the toilet. It transports things elsewhere... Elsewhere via dark underground water chutes. Through the sewers, through vast underground caves... out, out, far out to sea. Or so I used to think as a kid. It's a bit disappointing to learn as an adult that everything actually ends up in some huge sediment tank at a nearby water treatment plant where all the muck is literally sucked out of it. God knows where that toy is now but it's certainly not floating around the Atlantic as Finding Nemo would have you believe.
Anyway, my youngest, Tom, is displaying early signs of having an interest in the toilet. When he has a bath (or a "splish splash splosh" as it is known in my house) he likes to have a quick peak over the rim to see what's down there. I'm hoping this bodes well for future potty training and isn't an early indication of his entire Duplo brick collection making a bid for the Pacific sometime soon.
But regardless of erroneous submersibles and unlikely submarines, it's comforting to know that his toilet rites of passage will begin soon. That he too, in time, will embrace the mystique of the toilet.
Enemy in sight. Release safety catch. Open fire...! Ra-ta-ta-ta-ta...!
Magic.
Friday, September 18, 2009
Birds, Bees And Tee-Hees
We were talking about comedians at work this week and being a shallow lot the discussion quickly moved on from merely which ones we thought were funny to those we thought were attractive. And it quickly became apparent – certainly from the males – that if they found a female comedienne attractive they tended not to find her very funny. But this was OK. This lack of comedy skill was forgiven totally provided there was the redeeming presence of a nice face, or nice tits, or a nice arse. Eye candy made up for all the comedy shortcomings.
And yet those comedians we (the men) deemed to be masters of laughter were all unanimously declared – by male and female alike – to be Hound Headed Troglodytes From Planet Ugly.
Or at the very least Plain Janes and Joe Averages.
Such a judgment seemed rather sweeping.
And it got me to thinking. Is it true across the board?
On the face of it, it seems to be. A quick example: I think Frankie Boyle and David Mitchell are the funniest things on the comedy circuit period. Witty, sharp, intelligent and frequently thought provoking. Everything I could desire in a comedian. But attractive? To anybody?
Surely not (though some of you may prove me wrong). Frankie Boyle by his own admission looks like one of The Proclaimers (which isn’t a good look even for a corpse) and David Mitchell is, well, er, very funny.
As for comediennes I find attractive, Lucy Porter would be top of my list. Petite, brunette, curvy, vaguely elfin in an early Kate Bush kind of way... she’s hot hot hot. I like watching her.
But she doesn’t make me laugh. Much. She raises the occasional smile and something else but that’s about all.
Jo Brand, however, I think is much funnier and well, there you go. Argument proved.
Or is it?
I think the possible explanation for this rather sexist dissection of who is good and who is not good at comedy is centered around gender politics in a different way. Being heterosexual I don’t, by and large, find other blokes attractive. Sorry, I just don’t. Instead I seek out other admirable traits in men. Intelligence, wit, a certain coolness, etc. As for women, well, I know what I like and I gravitate towards it.
But women’s humour is just different from men’s. Stand-up comedy isn’t as broad as people think. It’s the old French & Saunders thing. Women (mostly) found them very funny while us men (mostly) just didn’t get the joke. Because it was from a strong female perspective. It just wasn’t meant or pitched for us.
Is the converse true though? Do women not get bloke jokes?
Plainly they do. So are male comedians pitching their gags to a more universal audience while female comediennes pitch theirs to a stronger female demographic?
I’m confused. Maybe there is no clearly defined right or wrong answer.
It was interesting to note, however, that some of my female colleagues found Frankie Boyle and co. not only “not funny” but also not very attractive as well. They lost out on both counts.
How funny.
I guess there’s no accounting for taste.
But as long as everybody is happy and getting their laughter injections somewhere, does any of it really matter?
Thursday, September 17, 2009
Fair Or Foul?
This singularly rare occurrence was caused by Kirstie Allsopp.
It seems that my employers were taking part in the new Keep Britain Tidy campaign that was about to be fired up and were asking for volunteers to take part in a special lunch time litter pick. How was Kirstie involved? Well, this new national campaign was being figure-headed by the particularly luscious Kirstie who I mistakenly thought was going to be personally throwing her lust-inducing weight behind the endeavour.
I was all prepared to wear rubber gloves and rubber boots (in fact rubber everything), give up my lunch break and get stuck in to the man made mountains of mess that regularly besmirch my home town of Leamington Spa. Not only was I prepared to invest in my own litter picker (which I’d be quite prepared to let Kirstie handle) but I was actually plotting to shovel extra detritus around the district’s footpaths and byways just so I could present my bulging sacks to Kirstie at the end of the event to show her what a tip-top litter picker-upper I really am.
I just know she’d have been impressed and would have whisked me off for a mochaccino somewhere to say a private thank you.
I had it all planned.
Sadly, once I tore my eyes from her picture and actually read the article on my work’s intranet properly it transpired that Kirstie would not be present at the actual Leamington Spa event. Instead she’d be at the official launch in London. What? Get your bleeding priorities right, Kirstie!
It seems all we’d get in L Spa was my big boss in his marigolds.
Not exactly a crowd puller. Needless to say I spurned the litter pick and moodily ate my sandwiches in the park and begrudgingly threw my crisp packet into the bin afterwards.
This is the story of my life. To not exactly brush fame as to see it smeared across someone else about 100 miles away.
Not that we don’t get to meet famous people through special events organized by my employers...
Only last month I could have taken part in an anti dog fouling campaign and met (not necessarily shaken hands with) Ricky Tomlinson who was taking a personal interest in the campaign and actually come down to Leamington Spa to throw his lust-repelling weight behind the launch.
Now I’m not knocking this campaign at all. Speaking as someone whose shoe soles seem to be permanent turd magnets I wholeheartedly approve of any endeavour to remove dog logs from our streets.
But Ricky Tomlinson? Posing next to a dog turd bin? It didn’t exactly get the juices of my enthusiasm flowing.
Kirstie, you’ve broken my heart.
P.S. Would anyone like to purchase a second hand litter picker? Unused. Clean. Grip handle squeezed only once. Going cheap.
Tuesday, September 15, 2009
A Fence Is The Best Defence
The Bloggertropolis security compound was strengthened and fortified against all rogue incursions of the canine variety over the weekend.
A sterling local company of fencing experts who go by the name of ID Fencing descended on the ol’ homestead early Saturday morning and disgorged enough woodery and nailery from the back of their flatbed truck to construct a fully functioning watchtower complete with machine gun posts and sniper slits.
Alas, such an item of garden furniture was beyond their remit to build and so instead they worked like Trojan’s to put up a 6ft fence that greatly diminishes the possibility of anything larger than a squirrel ever gaining access to the inner sanctum of my lawn and herbaceous borders.
I’m proud to say my backyard is now tighter than a gnat’s arse.
We’ve even seen a drop-off in the amount of cat poo that normally bullet-holes the lawn which, as far as I’m concerned, is an added bonus.
Although we’ve lost a little bit of view and the illusion of space the good definitely outweighs the bad. For the first time ever we feel safe and private in our garden. And more importantly we feel that the kids are safe. Our troublesome neighbours with their rampaging rottweiler left over a month ago but we decided to push on with the fence plans regardless. You never know who might be moving in after them – a wild cat maniac, a boxing kangaroo aficionado or even a man in a cloth cap with a penchant for cock fighting. It’s better to be safe than sorry.
As it happens the fence was a wise move.
The fencing boys – being local lads – were able to inform us that the garden that abuts onto the bottom of ours belongs to a “half way house” of indeterminate variety.
Marvellous. And I thought we lived in a nice area. Hyacinth Bucket as opposed to Onslow and Rose.
Seems I was wrong.
Seems we have the Gallagher’s living at the bottom of the garden. Or to be exact, rejects from the Jeremy Kyle show. During bouts of weekend gardening Karen has been able to eavesdrop on drunken protestations of love and drunken death threats should one or other of the rehabilitatees veer from the path of physical faithfulness and exclusive intimacy. Not so much the course of true love as the coarse...
Anyway, Mr and Mrs Ex-Jailbird own a ruddy great pit-bull.
*Sigh*
I’m wondering if there is still time to electrify the fence and build that watchtower...
A sterling local company of fencing experts who go by the name of ID Fencing descended on the ol’ homestead early Saturday morning and disgorged enough woodery and nailery from the back of their flatbed truck to construct a fully functioning watchtower complete with machine gun posts and sniper slits.
Alas, such an item of garden furniture was beyond their remit to build and so instead they worked like Trojan’s to put up a 6ft fence that greatly diminishes the possibility of anything larger than a squirrel ever gaining access to the inner sanctum of my lawn and herbaceous borders.
I’m proud to say my backyard is now tighter than a gnat’s arse.
We’ve even seen a drop-off in the amount of cat poo that normally bullet-holes the lawn which, as far as I’m concerned, is an added bonus.
Although we’ve lost a little bit of view and the illusion of space the good definitely outweighs the bad. For the first time ever we feel safe and private in our garden. And more importantly we feel that the kids are safe. Our troublesome neighbours with their rampaging rottweiler left over a month ago but we decided to push on with the fence plans regardless. You never know who might be moving in after them – a wild cat maniac, a boxing kangaroo aficionado or even a man in a cloth cap with a penchant for cock fighting. It’s better to be safe than sorry.
As it happens the fence was a wise move.
The fencing boys – being local lads – were able to inform us that the garden that abuts onto the bottom of ours belongs to a “half way house” of indeterminate variety.
Marvellous. And I thought we lived in a nice area. Hyacinth Bucket as opposed to Onslow and Rose.
Seems I was wrong.
Seems we have the Gallagher’s living at the bottom of the garden. Or to be exact, rejects from the Jeremy Kyle show. During bouts of weekend gardening Karen has been able to eavesdrop on drunken protestations of love and drunken death threats should one or other of the rehabilitatees veer from the path of physical faithfulness and exclusive intimacy. Not so much the course of true love as the coarse...
Anyway, Mr and Mrs Ex-Jailbird own a ruddy great pit-bull.
*Sigh*
I’m wondering if there is still time to electrify the fence and build that watchtower...
Friday, September 11, 2009
Some People And Me
Three items on the bugbear list this morning.
First off – a flagrant disregard for child safety.
I took the boys into school / nursery this morning as Karen is in Birmingham on an accountancy training course. On the way we passed one of Tom’s nursery mates being walked to school by her dad. Well, I’m assuming it was her dad and not her uncle. Whoever he was he obviously wished he was doing something else. There were frequent exhortations to “come on” and “hurry up”.
Bear in mind his ward is a wide-eyed 2 year old.
Now Tom loves walking. He finds it a great delight and no doubt feels very grown up doing it. Unfortunately, at just under 2 he just does not understand how important it is to hold mummy or daddy’s hand when busy roads are nearby. So he gets strapped into the pushchair. He’s fine with this thankfully. It’s still fun to be out and about even without the ability to perambulate freely. But even if he complained I’m afraid he’d still be stuck in the pushchair regardless.
I’d rather have him crying and safe than laughing one minute and forever silent the next.
So it was with horror that I watched this poor girl almost run out into the road when a car was coming and then get hollered back onto the pavement at the last minute.
For God sake man keep a grip of your child!
This would be bad enough in isolation but my wife witnessed a similar incident with the same family a few afternoons ago when she picked Tom up from nursery. Again the kid ran out into the road and was only hauled in at the last moment. The poor motorist who was almost involved looked ashen as they drove away.
It’s an accident just waiting to happen.
What is wrong with some people?
Secondly – cleanliness.
Due to blocked drains I’ve been flush testing all the toilets in the building this morning. As I was doing this someone came into the toilets after me. Now, I don’t know why, but I instinctively stood still and kept quiet and out of sight in the cubicle. I instinctively became furtive. Bizarre when I wasn’t even doing anything that involved the lesser-loved bodily functions. But there you go. Maybe I was a pervert in another life? Please keep your responses to this to yourself.
Now I know for a fact that, due to the location of these toilets, they are mostly used by the catering staff.
So imagine my disgust when I heard the urinal being used and then the “urinee” head straight back out without even a cursory swill under the taps.
This is someone who literally has his fingers in every pie going. Not to mention casseroles and stews. And a whole menagerie of sandwiches. On a daily basis.
How can you do that? How can you “point Percy at porcelain” and then not even wave your dannies under a bit of running water?
Folks, there’s a lot to be said for preparing your own packed lunch every day.
Lastly – my own self deprecation.
The other night I assisted some work colleagues who were having difficulty alarming their department at the end of the working day.
When such difficulties arise and seem to be insurmountable I always recommend that staff ring the local CCTV guys and ask them to keep an especial eye on the building. It’s a little extra security measure that probably acts as nothing more than a mental placebo.
I was asked if I had the number to hand.
I did. It was in my head instantly.
My head is full of useful numbers and codes and passwords. I make no effort to memorize them. They’re just there. They stick. It’s a natural facility. When I used to work at British Telecom I found I could give out a lot of the numbers to people without referring to the computer records at all. I had them off by heart. Only the frequently asked for ones I hasten to add. I’m not one of these people that make a living (or a living death) out of memorizing phone books.
But instead of just giving out the number I made a pretence of thinking hard about it. Pretending to strain as I fired up the old memory engine. Why did I do that?
It’s like I was embarrassed to have the necessary knowledge so ready to hand. Was I afraid of appearing sad and nerdy as opposed to just damned efficient?
Why hide my light under a bushel?
Some people, eh?
First off – a flagrant disregard for child safety.
I took the boys into school / nursery this morning as Karen is in Birmingham on an accountancy training course. On the way we passed one of Tom’s nursery mates being walked to school by her dad. Well, I’m assuming it was her dad and not her uncle. Whoever he was he obviously wished he was doing something else. There were frequent exhortations to “come on” and “hurry up”.
Bear in mind his ward is a wide-eyed 2 year old.
Now Tom loves walking. He finds it a great delight and no doubt feels very grown up doing it. Unfortunately, at just under 2 he just does not understand how important it is to hold mummy or daddy’s hand when busy roads are nearby. So he gets strapped into the pushchair. He’s fine with this thankfully. It’s still fun to be out and about even without the ability to perambulate freely. But even if he complained I’m afraid he’d still be stuck in the pushchair regardless.
I’d rather have him crying and safe than laughing one minute and forever silent the next.
So it was with horror that I watched this poor girl almost run out into the road when a car was coming and then get hollered back onto the pavement at the last minute.
For God sake man keep a grip of your child!
This would be bad enough in isolation but my wife witnessed a similar incident with the same family a few afternoons ago when she picked Tom up from nursery. Again the kid ran out into the road and was only hauled in at the last moment. The poor motorist who was almost involved looked ashen as they drove away.
It’s an accident just waiting to happen.
What is wrong with some people?
Secondly – cleanliness.
Due to blocked drains I’ve been flush testing all the toilets in the building this morning. As I was doing this someone came into the toilets after me. Now, I don’t know why, but I instinctively stood still and kept quiet and out of sight in the cubicle. I instinctively became furtive. Bizarre when I wasn’t even doing anything that involved the lesser-loved bodily functions. But there you go. Maybe I was a pervert in another life? Please keep your responses to this to yourself.
Now I know for a fact that, due to the location of these toilets, they are mostly used by the catering staff.
So imagine my disgust when I heard the urinal being used and then the “urinee” head straight back out without even a cursory swill under the taps.
This is someone who literally has his fingers in every pie going. Not to mention casseroles and stews. And a whole menagerie of sandwiches. On a daily basis.
How can you do that? How can you “point Percy at porcelain” and then not even wave your dannies under a bit of running water?
Folks, there’s a lot to be said for preparing your own packed lunch every day.
Lastly – my own self deprecation.
The other night I assisted some work colleagues who were having difficulty alarming their department at the end of the working day.
When such difficulties arise and seem to be insurmountable I always recommend that staff ring the local CCTV guys and ask them to keep an especial eye on the building. It’s a little extra security measure that probably acts as nothing more than a mental placebo.
I was asked if I had the number to hand.
I did. It was in my head instantly.
My head is full of useful numbers and codes and passwords. I make no effort to memorize them. They’re just there. They stick. It’s a natural facility. When I used to work at British Telecom I found I could give out a lot of the numbers to people without referring to the computer records at all. I had them off by heart. Only the frequently asked for ones I hasten to add. I’m not one of these people that make a living (or a living death) out of memorizing phone books.
But instead of just giving out the number I made a pretence of thinking hard about it. Pretending to strain as I fired up the old memory engine. Why did I do that?
It’s like I was embarrassed to have the necessary knowledge so ready to hand. Was I afraid of appearing sad and nerdy as opposed to just damned efficient?
Why hide my light under a bushel?
Some people, eh?
Wednesday, September 09, 2009
Just A Small Sample
I had to remove a little bit of me and insert it into a plastic tube last night.
A part of me that has been succoured on my blood and the food I intake daily. I’ve walked around with it. Slept with it. Worked hard and played hard with it (according to my old school Principal’s motto).
And then this morning I dropped it off at the Doctor’s reception desk without even a fond farewell or a by-your-leave. We didn’t even exchange a hug.
Abandoned. Orphaned. Destined for some white coated scientist’s lab... Some Uni post grad who’ll dissect it, analyse it, microscope it and then... gulp... see if something grows on it. I have sent it out into the big wide world with neither my protection nor my blessing.
Well. It was beginning to be more trouble than it was worth. And at the end of the day dodgy toenails are notoriously hard to love.
Over the years it had become ridged, thick and ugly looking. More like a dog’s dewclaw than a toenail. By and large I ignored it. I clipped it along with its brothers same as usual but bestowed no special fondness upon it.
I was a bit ashamed of it really. Least said soonest mended.
But then the discoloration began. A dark browniness. A yellowing. A muddy blackening of parts.
It was undoubtedly a dirty protest.
An ignored child seeking bad attention.
It was a foolish manoeuvre because now things have been set in motion that I just can’t stop. The doctor requested a sample. A clipping. I had no choice but to separate us.
It all now depends on the lab results which could take 5 to 8 weeks to come back. There’s a possibility that it is merely dystrophic / atrophic growth – I can’t remember exactly what she said as I was hypnotized by the small wooden airplane that was hanging down from her ceiling on a wire. If that’s the case there is nothing she, the doctor, can do. I’ll just have to live with it and embrace my ability to climb tall trees in my bare feet. Think of the fruit I could gather for my kids!
But there is a real possibility that it is a fungal infection. Something unwholesome living off the fruits of my body’s labour. If that’s the case then it’ll mean 3 months of medication. What exactly I don’t know. But she mentioned “possible side effects”. Again, what I don’t know. And I didn’t think to ask. Curse that damned airplane!
I’m betting it’s not a sudden ability to climb walls with my hands and feet and swing from skyscrapers with webs that I can magically produce from glands in my wrists.
It’ll be constipation. Or sleeplessness. Or itchiness. Or all three.
*Sigh*
Take care of your toenails, people, before they take care of you...
A part of me that has been succoured on my blood and the food I intake daily. I’ve walked around with it. Slept with it. Worked hard and played hard with it (according to my old school Principal’s motto).
And then this morning I dropped it off at the Doctor’s reception desk without even a fond farewell or a by-your-leave. We didn’t even exchange a hug.
Abandoned. Orphaned. Destined for some white coated scientist’s lab... Some Uni post grad who’ll dissect it, analyse it, microscope it and then... gulp... see if something grows on it. I have sent it out into the big wide world with neither my protection nor my blessing.
Well. It was beginning to be more trouble than it was worth. And at the end of the day dodgy toenails are notoriously hard to love.
Over the years it had become ridged, thick and ugly looking. More like a dog’s dewclaw than a toenail. By and large I ignored it. I clipped it along with its brothers same as usual but bestowed no special fondness upon it.
I was a bit ashamed of it really. Least said soonest mended.
But then the discoloration began. A dark browniness. A yellowing. A muddy blackening of parts.
It was undoubtedly a dirty protest.
An ignored child seeking bad attention.
It was a foolish manoeuvre because now things have been set in motion that I just can’t stop. The doctor requested a sample. A clipping. I had no choice but to separate us.
It all now depends on the lab results which could take 5 to 8 weeks to come back. There’s a possibility that it is merely dystrophic / atrophic growth – I can’t remember exactly what she said as I was hypnotized by the small wooden airplane that was hanging down from her ceiling on a wire. If that’s the case there is nothing she, the doctor, can do. I’ll just have to live with it and embrace my ability to climb tall trees in my bare feet. Think of the fruit I could gather for my kids!
But there is a real possibility that it is a fungal infection. Something unwholesome living off the fruits of my body’s labour. If that’s the case then it’ll mean 3 months of medication. What exactly I don’t know. But she mentioned “possible side effects”. Again, what I don’t know. And I didn’t think to ask. Curse that damned airplane!
I’m betting it’s not a sudden ability to climb walls with my hands and feet and swing from skyscrapers with webs that I can magically produce from glands in my wrists.
It’ll be constipation. Or sleeplessness. Or itchiness. Or all three.
*Sigh*
Take care of your toenails, people, before they take care of you...
Monday, September 07, 2009
Domestic Violence
It shames me to admit that, this weekend, I have been the victim of this.
You know how it goes. You get too close. You don’t give someone enough space. You press the wrong buttons.
Suddenly something gives.
Something snaps.
A sudden quick movement.
Physical contact is made.
You’re left reeling. Shocked. In pain...
There is blood.
After Tom headbutted me he gave me a funny look – a look that said why were you trying to kiss the top of my head when I was playing with my Duplo Police Car anyway? Couldn’t you see I was busy?
He seemed uninjured by the encounter and carried on watching Cbeebies as if nothing had happened. Meanwhile I ran to the kitchen sink and spat the blood from my split lip down the plughole and checked my teeth. Thankfully they were all still there. Just a bit wonky but that’s normal.
Today I have a pout that is both scabby and bruised. I look like I’ve been Botoxed by a scheister.
I’m sure the Scottish contingent of my family will be smiling mawkishly at this story. Ah bless the wee bairn. His first Glasgow Kiss!
Harrumph!
All I can say is, it effing hurt!
However after a quick counselling session Tom and I are fine again. We’ve talked it through using Gestalt therapy techniques and have come up with a relationship work plan which should prevent such acts of violence from ever occurring again...
I’m going to give him a bit more space when he’s playing and Tom... well, Tom, is going to carry on as normal.
Cos he’s just perfect as he is.
You know how it goes. You get too close. You don’t give someone enough space. You press the wrong buttons.
Suddenly something gives.
Something snaps.
A sudden quick movement.
Physical contact is made.
You’re left reeling. Shocked. In pain...
There is blood.
After Tom headbutted me he gave me a funny look – a look that said why were you trying to kiss the top of my head when I was playing with my Duplo Police Car anyway? Couldn’t you see I was busy?
He seemed uninjured by the encounter and carried on watching Cbeebies as if nothing had happened. Meanwhile I ran to the kitchen sink and spat the blood from my split lip down the plughole and checked my teeth. Thankfully they were all still there. Just a bit wonky but that’s normal.
Today I have a pout that is both scabby and bruised. I look like I’ve been Botoxed by a scheister.
I’m sure the Scottish contingent of my family will be smiling mawkishly at this story. Ah bless the wee bairn. His first Glasgow Kiss!
Harrumph!
All I can say is, it effing hurt!
However after a quick counselling session Tom and I are fine again. We’ve talked it through using Gestalt therapy techniques and have come up with a relationship work plan which should prevent such acts of violence from ever occurring again...
I’m going to give him a bit more space when he’s playing and Tom... well, Tom, is going to carry on as normal.
Cos he’s just perfect as he is.
Wednesday, September 02, 2009
The Fame Game
And by “the kids” I, of course, mean our kids specifically rather than “the kids” generally. I’m afraid the days when I’d sit on a park bench necking back a bottle of Diamond White with the local yobbery are far behind me. There are, after all, only so many cars that you can nick, joyride and leave burning by the roadside while you hold up the nearby petrol station before it all becomes a tad boring.
Ennui totally killed crime for me. My low boredom threshold made a straight man of me in the end.
So we’re feeding the ducks and some of it is reaching the birds and 33% of it is going into Tom’s mouth as he can’t bear to part with his share and we pass what looks like Russell Howard on a park bench.
For those of you who don’t know Russell Howard is an up-and-coming comedian who appears regularly on the BBC’s Mock The Week programme and is extremely funny – and I apologize to my overseas readers as Russell Howard and Mock The Week will undoubtedly mean absolutely nothing to you but the experience I’m about to recount possibly will so bear with me.
Anyway, Mr H is neither swigging Diamond White nor getting down with the kids but is doing his best to look unobtrusive and unremarkable while he talks to someone rather earnestly on his mobile phone. He is, in effect, blending in.
And indeed he would have got away with it but for an uncanny act of synchronicity... I’d bought Karen Mr H’s comedy DVD for Christmas last year but as we’re working our way through an immense DVD backlog we’d only got round to watching it the day before our visit to the park. The “Extras” package on the DVD features footage of Russell in civilian mode where he looks oddly unrecognizable from the bouncy persona he presents on TV and stage... but having seen it we were able to see through his “blending in” tactics and pick him out immediately.
It was him. On a park bench in Leamington. Him off the telly. A real life famous person. Him. Him there.
It’s funny but I always thought I’d be unfazed by a close encounter with a famous person. That I’d play it cool. Nonchalant. They are, after all, only people. Same as you and me. No big thing. Autograph hunting is for saddoes. Etc.
And yet I cannot deny there was a small part of me wanting to run up to Russell, shake his hand, say hello and act like his best mate in a manner that would have resulted in the rest of my life being spent trying to overcome the subsequent sense of shame and wince-worthy degradation.
The impulse was so strong.
But I was saved by his mobile phone. Fame be damned. There was etiquette to think of! One cannot just interrupt a phone conversation for the sake of self gratification! It’s bad form! It would be un-English Goddamnit!
So we fed the ducks and left Russell Howard in peace and he – no doubt feeling the sniper glare of our distant attention beginning to bear down on his shoulders – soon got up and walked away from us, looking smaller than he does on the telly and disappointingly un-star-like and disappeared into the milling Bank Holiday crowds of Leamington Spa.
When we got home we did a quick Google search... you know, just to see if he was playing any gigs locally which would explain his presence in the park and found this (check out the last question at the bottom of the page).
Yep. Russell it seems lives locally. He’s moved in. He’s become a Leamingtonian.
He and me are practically brothers!
Welcome to Leamington Spa, Russell! Hope you like it here. But next time you’re walking around town, keep your mobile phone handy, eh?
For both our sakes.
Sunday, August 30, 2009
Call Social Services!
It has been intimated this week that I am a bad parent. That my adherence to the rule that my eldest son tidies his room once a week is evidence that I do not love him and that I would rather put him through extreme trauma than nurture him as a proper father should.
Maybe I am over simplifying things (Lord knows there is enough of that around)... but I received some comments on my previous post that genuinely upset and offended me.
Now, it is not my intention to start a blogging war but I am upset enough to cast this debate open to my "wider audience". Because, who knows? Maybe I am wrong. Maybe I am being over sensitive? Maybe I am reading things into the comments that are just not there? But I would genuinely be interested to hear other people's take on things.
If the thought of tidying his room makes my son have tantrums should we persist in such a rule? Does his possible aspergers diagnosis mean that different rules should be applied? Should we avoid all scenarios that he dislikes and completely avoid any possible upset and cause for tantrum?
I'm going to keep this post short as your response to it will very much depend on you reading the last 11 comments or so on the previous post. Now some of you may know the other blogger involved. Some of you may not. Either way I would ask that comments are kept polite and respectful and I apologize if there are any divided loyalties. But, in this case, I feel the issue is of more importance that the individual bloggers.
Thank you.
Maybe I am over simplifying things (Lord knows there is enough of that around)... but I received some comments on my previous post that genuinely upset and offended me.
Now, it is not my intention to start a blogging war but I am upset enough to cast this debate open to my "wider audience". Because, who knows? Maybe I am wrong. Maybe I am being over sensitive? Maybe I am reading things into the comments that are just not there? But I would genuinely be interested to hear other people's take on things.
If the thought of tidying his room makes my son have tantrums should we persist in such a rule? Does his possible aspergers diagnosis mean that different rules should be applied? Should we avoid all scenarios that he dislikes and completely avoid any possible upset and cause for tantrum?
I'm going to keep this post short as your response to it will very much depend on you reading the last 11 comments or so on the previous post. Now some of you may know the other blogger involved. Some of you may not. Either way I would ask that comments are kept polite and respectful and I apologize if there are any divided loyalties. But, in this case, I feel the issue is of more importance that the individual bloggers.
Thank you.
Wednesday, August 26, 2009
Cleansing
Karen and I are off for the week enjoying another money saving Staycation holiday. Rather than just laze about (which, let’s face it, is what any normal person would do) we’ve elected to give the house something of a cleaning blitz.
Shampoo the carpets. De-web and de-mould the windowsills. That kind of thing.
It’s a big job and trying to do it with 2 very active children makes it harder still. After all a 2 year old does not appreciate the dictat of not walking on a freshly shampood carpet for a couple of hours until it is dry. And the 8 year old doesn’t give a damn; making a rendezvous with his PlayStation is of a much higher priority.
It is stressful, all this “deep pore” cleaning. And I can now appreciate why my mother used to get so irrate with me and my two sisters on “hoover days” during the summer holidays.
My mother would, without fail, hoover the house twice a week. Mondays would be a “light” day – sitting room and hall only. But Fridays would be the big “all over” day. Upstairs and downstairs. The whole Shebang.
There is something about adults performing cleaning chores that, I swear, just makes kids behaviourally uncooperative. We’d inevitably play up and earn the short, quick arm of my mother’s temper. If we were particularly bad a phone call to my Nan would be in order and she’d speak to us on the phone. Never to tell us off. I don’t think I ever saw or heard my Nan angry but the shame of knowing my Nan felt the slightest disappointment in us was usually enough to bring us all back into line.
God, but I wish she was still alive and on the other end of the phone today.
With the carpets shampood yesterday we all elected to go outside for the afternoon. For the little one this is actually a bonus. He loves being outside in the garden. Rain or snow he loves it. The 8 year old, however, has more of an ambivalent attitude. The garden is great in theory but he’d much rather be inside plugged into his PlayStation or his Nintendo DS.
Except he managed to break the latter in a horrendous fit of temper on Sunday evening.
Every Sunday he has but one chore to perform:
Clean his room.
And, my God, is it a performance. A 2 hour job (at the most) usually ends up taking over the whole day and the whole house. Karen and I have to put more energy into getting him to do it than the job itself would actually take if we were to do it ourselves. But there is a principal at stake here so we persist.
There will be tantrums. There will be wailing. There will be gnashing of teeth. There will be shouting. There will be playing with his toys rather than just tidying them away. There will be miniscule attempts at cleaning and then a million “tea breaks” to recover. And then there will be naggings to get on with the job and get it finished and then the whole cycle will start all over again.
Usually the threat of “no gaming” until the room is tidy ensures the job is eventually completed. With the absence of my Nan on the end of the phone it is the only and best alternative.
This Sunday, however, was different. This Sunday he was told he’d be banned from the DS unless he tidied his room. He said he’d done it and promptly started playing. When we checked we found that the sneaky little so-and-so had merely covered the mess up with his duvet. So gaming was duly banned.
This was when the temper kicked in. And I mean Temper. We’re talking Zeus hurling flaming thunderbolts. We’re talking The Incredible Hulk throwing Chieftain tanks into massive military fuel dumps. Two large tubs of Lego got overturned – 1000+ pieces all over the floor. And then the DS got thrown across the room. £120 quid’s worth of kit broken in a fit of pique.
Karen and I were not impressed. My Nan would have been speechless.
We cannot afford to replace such equipment willy-nilly. So the boy is now Nintendo-less.
The boy of course was distraught. And showed it by having an even bigger tantrum. And then realizing he’d be spending the next 24 hours picking up ALL the Lego from his room before he’d be allowed the ameliorative powers of the PlayStation had another even bigger tantrum.
This was Sunday. And Monday. And part of Tuesday.
The Lego wasn’t completely tidied away until yesterday afternoon after 2 days of sheer hell. Tantrums, complaints, shouts and more attempts at merely concealing the mess rather than actually cleaning it properly.
Karen and I are both exhausted.
Apparently the 8 year old is only possibly on the “borderline of the Aspergers spectrum” according to our local GP.
Christ. I pity those parents with kids who have the full blown version.
The carpet of my mind now needs a deep clean. My mind needs a shampoo.
A good scrub all over please someone.
Shampoo the carpets. De-web and de-mould the windowsills. That kind of thing.
It’s a big job and trying to do it with 2 very active children makes it harder still. After all a 2 year old does not appreciate the dictat of not walking on a freshly shampood carpet for a couple of hours until it is dry. And the 8 year old doesn’t give a damn; making a rendezvous with his PlayStation is of a much higher priority.
It is stressful, all this “deep pore” cleaning. And I can now appreciate why my mother used to get so irrate with me and my two sisters on “hoover days” during the summer holidays.
My mother would, without fail, hoover the house twice a week. Mondays would be a “light” day – sitting room and hall only. But Fridays would be the big “all over” day. Upstairs and downstairs. The whole Shebang.
There is something about adults performing cleaning chores that, I swear, just makes kids behaviourally uncooperative. We’d inevitably play up and earn the short, quick arm of my mother’s temper. If we were particularly bad a phone call to my Nan would be in order and she’d speak to us on the phone. Never to tell us off. I don’t think I ever saw or heard my Nan angry but the shame of knowing my Nan felt the slightest disappointment in us was usually enough to bring us all back into line.
God, but I wish she was still alive and on the other end of the phone today.
With the carpets shampood yesterday we all elected to go outside for the afternoon. For the little one this is actually a bonus. He loves being outside in the garden. Rain or snow he loves it. The 8 year old, however, has more of an ambivalent attitude. The garden is great in theory but he’d much rather be inside plugged into his PlayStation or his Nintendo DS.
Except he managed to break the latter in a horrendous fit of temper on Sunday evening.
Every Sunday he has but one chore to perform:
Clean his room.
And, my God, is it a performance. A 2 hour job (at the most) usually ends up taking over the whole day and the whole house. Karen and I have to put more energy into getting him to do it than the job itself would actually take if we were to do it ourselves. But there is a principal at stake here so we persist.
There will be tantrums. There will be wailing. There will be gnashing of teeth. There will be shouting. There will be playing with his toys rather than just tidying them away. There will be miniscule attempts at cleaning and then a million “tea breaks” to recover. And then there will be naggings to get on with the job and get it finished and then the whole cycle will start all over again.
Usually the threat of “no gaming” until the room is tidy ensures the job is eventually completed. With the absence of my Nan on the end of the phone it is the only and best alternative.
This Sunday, however, was different. This Sunday he was told he’d be banned from the DS unless he tidied his room. He said he’d done it and promptly started playing. When we checked we found that the sneaky little so-and-so had merely covered the mess up with his duvet. So gaming was duly banned.
This was when the temper kicked in. And I mean Temper. We’re talking Zeus hurling flaming thunderbolts. We’re talking The Incredible Hulk throwing Chieftain tanks into massive military fuel dumps. Two large tubs of Lego got overturned – 1000+ pieces all over the floor. And then the DS got thrown across the room. £120 quid’s worth of kit broken in a fit of pique.
Karen and I were not impressed. My Nan would have been speechless.
We cannot afford to replace such equipment willy-nilly. So the boy is now Nintendo-less.
The boy of course was distraught. And showed it by having an even bigger tantrum. And then realizing he’d be spending the next 24 hours picking up ALL the Lego from his room before he’d be allowed the ameliorative powers of the PlayStation had another even bigger tantrum.
This was Sunday. And Monday. And part of Tuesday.
The Lego wasn’t completely tidied away until yesterday afternoon after 2 days of sheer hell. Tantrums, complaints, shouts and more attempts at merely concealing the mess rather than actually cleaning it properly.
Karen and I are both exhausted.
Apparently the 8 year old is only possibly on the “borderline of the Aspergers spectrum” according to our local GP.
Christ. I pity those parents with kids who have the full blown version.
The carpet of my mind now needs a deep clean. My mind needs a shampoo.
A good scrub all over please someone.
Friday, August 21, 2009
Didn’t You Get My Message?
Read receipts.
Evidence of extreme efficiency or a level of neurosis that should be treated with industrial strength horse tranquilizers?
I only ask because I received an email this week that bullied me into sending a read receipt when I opened it, prodded me to send another receipt when I closed it and then poked me to send yet another when I deleted the damned thing.
It wasn’t even an important email. The message was totally banal.
The security of this nation did not depend on me reading this email. Neither were billions of pounds in global investments riding on its arrival in my Inbox.
Why the panic? Why would someone give a shit about me deleting it?
Did they erupt into hysterical sobs when they got that particular receipt? He... he deleted it?! He deleted it! I can’t believe it! How could he do such a thing...? Is the originator of the email going to be found hanging from a lampshade in their office, life extinguished by the plastic flex to the kettle? Is their death going to be on my hands?
I don’t want this responsibility.
I just want to receive emails and delete them without having to account for my actions. After all, once they’re in my Inbox they’re mine and I can do what I bloody well like with them. I’ll delete them, forward them, reply to them – sometimes even maliciously modify them – as and when I see fit.
Who invited the email Nazi’s to the party anyway?
I mean when you post a letter to someone you don’t ring them up and ask have you opened it yet? Do you? You don’t demand to know if they’ve binned the envelope or worse still run the letter through the shredder. Why all this panic about emails?
Plainly it is a case of some kind of inferiority / superiority complex. I send you an email and refuse to relinquish control of it. I demand to know every stage of its journey and I demand to know exactly what you do with it. Because I refuse to be ignored. You will acknowledge my email. You will acknowledge the reading and the deleting of it. You will acknowledge me, me, me and the power I have over you.
Bullshit.
The sender has requested a read receipt be sent when the message is read. Do you want to send a receipt? Yes / No.
No.
No. No. Effing no.
I think you’ll find that it is me – me, me, me – who truly has the power...
Evidence of extreme efficiency or a level of neurosis that should be treated with industrial strength horse tranquilizers?
I only ask because I received an email this week that bullied me into sending a read receipt when I opened it, prodded me to send another receipt when I closed it and then poked me to send yet another when I deleted the damned thing.
It wasn’t even an important email. The message was totally banal.
The security of this nation did not depend on me reading this email. Neither were billions of pounds in global investments riding on its arrival in my Inbox.
Why the panic? Why would someone give a shit about me deleting it?
Did they erupt into hysterical sobs when they got that particular receipt? He... he deleted it?! He deleted it! I can’t believe it! How could he do such a thing...? Is the originator of the email going to be found hanging from a lampshade in their office, life extinguished by the plastic flex to the kettle? Is their death going to be on my hands?
I don’t want this responsibility.
I just want to receive emails and delete them without having to account for my actions. After all, once they’re in my Inbox they’re mine and I can do what I bloody well like with them. I’ll delete them, forward them, reply to them – sometimes even maliciously modify them – as and when I see fit.
Who invited the email Nazi’s to the party anyway?
I mean when you post a letter to someone you don’t ring them up and ask have you opened it yet? Do you? You don’t demand to know if they’ve binned the envelope or worse still run the letter through the shredder. Why all this panic about emails?
Plainly it is a case of some kind of inferiority / superiority complex. I send you an email and refuse to relinquish control of it. I demand to know every stage of its journey and I demand to know exactly what you do with it. Because I refuse to be ignored. You will acknowledge my email. You will acknowledge the reading and the deleting of it. You will acknowledge me, me, me and the power I have over you.
Bullshit.
The sender has requested a read receipt be sent when the message is read. Do you want to send a receipt? Yes / No.
No.
No. No. Effing no.
I think you’ll find that it is me – me, me, me – who truly has the power...
Wednesday, August 19, 2009
May I Orate Your Meal For You?
For my birthday last week Karen took me out for a fabulous lunch time meal at the Leamington branch of Café Rouge.
We’ve been to Café Rouge a number of times and for a restaurant chain they’re pretty damned good. Decent food, decent atmosphere and decent service. I’ve got no complaints.
But it’s a pity they don’t vet their clientele a little more.
We’d just despatched the starter when a young couple sat down at the table behind us. Graduate types. Young go-getters that type of thing.
The woman was fine. Softly spoken, quite sensible and socially sensitive from what I could hear. So quite what she was doing with Mr Soapbox Hooray Henry I don’t know.
He had one of those voices that could be used to drive ailing ships away from hidden coastal reefs. Imagine a rutting gnu that can enunciate in clear Home Counties English and you’re pretty much there.
Couple this natural propensity for volume with a youthfully inaccurate belief that everything – and I mean everything – he had to say had to be heard by everyone else within a 5 mile radius and you can imagine how the delicately romantic conversation that was taking place between me and Mrs Bloggertropolis was constantly peppered with the blunderbuss protestations from Mr Everybody Listen To Me.
“Oh ya, my last girlfriend, she just wanted too much from me, you know? Too much emotional stuff. The sex was great but I had to let her go... only thing I could do... I sometimes miss her but not much...”
“Ya, I’ve just come back from Africa... got off with a lovely girl there... blonde... very blonde, not a local girl... all my girlfriends are blonde in fact... I only ever go for blondes... white and blonde...”
“And the groom was like: I’d never known what love was until I met my wife and I was like, Oh God, this is atrociously wet, let’s hope the best man’s speech is better and then he stood up and was all like: ya, I’d never seen true love before until I saw these two together... and it was like awful, worse wedding ever, thank God for the free booze!”
A real charmer right? As it was he’d already blown his chances of getting into his female’s friend’s knickers in the first few seconds of their conversation with this absolutely classic opener:
“You’re looking really well – have you recently lost weight?”
By the end of the meal, his gargantuan sound bites had become the unasked for entertainment for a number of tables in our part of the restaurant and many a mirthful look was exchanged between complete strangers and ourselves as we masticated our dauphinoise potatoes.
He, however, was in complete ignorance. Which amazed me. How could he not realize how loud he was being? I’d be mortified if I thought I was being that boorish. I’m sure we’ve all done the youthful thing of recounting a joke or an anecdote a little too loudly in the mistaken belief that it’s comedy gold and a passing television producer might be in the vicinity who will want to push television stardom our way... but to roar an entire conversation?
Is there such a thing as the Town Crier gene?
Would I have been totally out or order if I’d performed an emergency tracheotomy with a fish fork?
Shout your answers to me from wherever you are; the Poulet Suprême au Roquefort is far too quiet for my taste.
We’ve been to Café Rouge a number of times and for a restaurant chain they’re pretty damned good. Decent food, decent atmosphere and decent service. I’ve got no complaints.
But it’s a pity they don’t vet their clientele a little more.
We’d just despatched the starter when a young couple sat down at the table behind us. Graduate types. Young go-getters that type of thing.
The woman was fine. Softly spoken, quite sensible and socially sensitive from what I could hear. So quite what she was doing with Mr Soapbox Hooray Henry I don’t know.
He had one of those voices that could be used to drive ailing ships away from hidden coastal reefs. Imagine a rutting gnu that can enunciate in clear Home Counties English and you’re pretty much there.
Couple this natural propensity for volume with a youthfully inaccurate belief that everything – and I mean everything – he had to say had to be heard by everyone else within a 5 mile radius and you can imagine how the delicately romantic conversation that was taking place between me and Mrs Bloggertropolis was constantly peppered with the blunderbuss protestations from Mr Everybody Listen To Me.
“Oh ya, my last girlfriend, she just wanted too much from me, you know? Too much emotional stuff. The sex was great but I had to let her go... only thing I could do... I sometimes miss her but not much...”
“Ya, I’ve just come back from Africa... got off with a lovely girl there... blonde... very blonde, not a local girl... all my girlfriends are blonde in fact... I only ever go for blondes... white and blonde...”
“And the groom was like: I’d never known what love was until I met my wife and I was like, Oh God, this is atrociously wet, let’s hope the best man’s speech is better and then he stood up and was all like: ya, I’d never seen true love before until I saw these two together... and it was like awful, worse wedding ever, thank God for the free booze!”
A real charmer right? As it was he’d already blown his chances of getting into his female’s friend’s knickers in the first few seconds of their conversation with this absolutely classic opener:
“You’re looking really well – have you recently lost weight?”
By the end of the meal, his gargantuan sound bites had become the unasked for entertainment for a number of tables in our part of the restaurant and many a mirthful look was exchanged between complete strangers and ourselves as we masticated our dauphinoise potatoes.
He, however, was in complete ignorance. Which amazed me. How could he not realize how loud he was being? I’d be mortified if I thought I was being that boorish. I’m sure we’ve all done the youthful thing of recounting a joke or an anecdote a little too loudly in the mistaken belief that it’s comedy gold and a passing television producer might be in the vicinity who will want to push television stardom our way... but to roar an entire conversation?
Is there such a thing as the Town Crier gene?
Would I have been totally out or order if I’d performed an emergency tracheotomy with a fish fork?
Shout your answers to me from wherever you are; the Poulet Suprême au Roquefort is far too quiet for my taste.
Monday, August 17, 2009
A Load Of Rubbish
Seeing the windy streets of Leamington Spa at this time in the morning as I wended my way home was something of a revelation.
Or rather like something out of Revelations.
I don’t think I have ever seen so much rubbish and stomach lining spread over so much surface area of one town before.
It looked like someone had disemboweled a rubbish cart at 15,000ft and let the contents fall to earth in a 10 mile radius.
It was horrendous. Chip paper. Newspaper. Polystyrene burger cartons. Styrofoam cups. Half chewed chips and chicken nuggets. Shredded lettuce. The ubiquitous McDonalds paper bag. The entire gherkin crop of Bulgaria. All of it knee-deep.
I swear I saw pigeons re-enacting the trash compactor scene from Star Wars.
Worst of all though was the vomit.
We are talking vast, half congealed porridgy oceans of the stuff.
And it was multicoloured.
My worst encounter was under the seat of the bus shelter right outside the Parish Church. It was pink with red bits in it, flecked with the odd strangulated shard of green. Someone had either thrown up a chicken tikka or had crawled home minus their entire stomach and the taste of their lower intestines dissolving on their tongue like a rubbery alka seltzer.
If this is the morning after the night before I’m glad I no longer frequent pubs or go out drinking as a social pastime.
What disgusting selfish creatures we are.
All this waste. All this mess. And it probably happens every Thursday / Friday / Saturday night of every week of every year in most towns across the Western world.
Here are major contributions towards global warming for you. Here are carbon footprints that smell as bad as they look.
As I picked my way home through the detritus the litter pickers and street cleaners were already hard at work picking, sifting, lifting and hoovering up the evidence of a single night’s pleasure seeking.
I felt sorry for them. Sorry that such thankless work is plainly necessary.
Oh I know it gives them a job. A friend of mine once threw litter quite deliberately onto the street and justified it by saying "it gave someone a job and allowed them to earn a living”.
Well, as I said at the time, such a stupid argument could also be used to justify rape, child abuse and murder but I’m sure the police and the support workers and the attendant counsellors would all rather be doing something else if they could ever express a choice about it.
Forget dubious employment opportunities, what this billowing carnage said to me was the majority of our species just don’t have any true thought or respect for their own environment or the people they share it with. That maybe too many of us justify appalling behaviour and antisocial activity under the guise of “just having a laugh” and “just having a drink after a hard week at work”.
That maybe going out and getting yourself absolutely twatted on a Saturday night is not so much an innocent way to let off steam and de-stress but a way of proclaiming to the world that you really just don’t give a toss about anyone or anything that exists outside your own little sphere of beer-goggled selfishness.
What a load of utter garbage.
Our street cleaners are unsung heroes.
We’d all be dead or dying of cholera, typhoid and bubonic plague by now if not for their sterling efforts.
Gentleman and ladies of the broom, I salute you.
Friday, August 14, 2009
Life Begins
At forty apparently.
I’ve heard this expression a number of times over the last 24 hours. My birthday yesterday has, of course, provoked, a number of responses from my friends which have ranged from “you’re only as old as the woman you feel” to “you poor old bugger”. I’m not sure in what light either of these apply to my wife.
By far though the most common has been “life begins at forty” or even (in-line with current fashion) “forty is the new twenty”.
Well, I certainly hope not as my twenties were absolutely crap. However this had little to do with my age and more to do with my wallflower attitude to life. I’m pleased to say I’m a bit more assertive and “go-getting” these days. So who knows? Maybe life begins will prove to be rather apt after all?
I certainly don’t feel any different. By different I, of course, mean decrepit and dysfunctional.
I don’t suddenly feel the full horrid weight of my forty years pressing down on me like a huge millstone of wasted opportunity and misdemeanour. My legs are not suddenly bowed with the sheer tonnage of my life up to his point.
No more than is normal for a full time working dad of two writing a novel in his spare time anyway.
But then it hasn’t really sunk in.
40? 40?
It’s just a number at the moment. I keep having to tell myself that it applies to me because mentally it’s just not sticking.
It took me a whole year to get used to being 39 so I doubt that 40 will be any different.
I’ll admit I’ve had a passing thought that maybe, just maybe it’s now time for me to grow up a bit and start acting more sensibly.
But then my next thought was yah-boo sucks to that.
I think being 40 is going to be a cinch.
I’ve heard this expression a number of times over the last 24 hours. My birthday yesterday has, of course, provoked, a number of responses from my friends which have ranged from “you’re only as old as the woman you feel” to “you poor old bugger”. I’m not sure in what light either of these apply to my wife.
By far though the most common has been “life begins at forty” or even (in-line with current fashion) “forty is the new twenty”.
Well, I certainly hope not as my twenties were absolutely crap. However this had little to do with my age and more to do with my wallflower attitude to life. I’m pleased to say I’m a bit more assertive and “go-getting” these days. So who knows? Maybe life begins will prove to be rather apt after all?
I certainly don’t feel any different. By different I, of course, mean decrepit and dysfunctional.
I don’t suddenly feel the full horrid weight of my forty years pressing down on me like a huge millstone of wasted opportunity and misdemeanour. My legs are not suddenly bowed with the sheer tonnage of my life up to his point.
No more than is normal for a full time working dad of two writing a novel in his spare time anyway.
But then it hasn’t really sunk in.
40? 40?
It’s just a number at the moment. I keep having to tell myself that it applies to me because mentally it’s just not sticking.
It took me a whole year to get used to being 39 so I doubt that 40 will be any different.
I’ll admit I’ve had a passing thought that maybe, just maybe it’s now time for me to grow up a bit and start acting more sensibly.
But then my next thought was yah-boo sucks to that.
I think being 40 is going to be a cinch.
Monday, August 10, 2009
The Troublefone
It has been a black weekend with the telephone.
Normally it sits – not exactly loved but tolerated – on a shelf in the corner of the room and disturbs us but rarely. A polite ring every Friday evening from my mother to stay in touch. The odd call from work that may elicit a sigh or two. On occasion, when the phone is being a very naughty boy, it allows call centres to sneak through and sully my family quality time. On such occasions it gets a curled lip as its reward and its receiver banged down unceremoniously into its cradle.
Bad phone. BAD phone!
This weekend though it became a true delinquent. I’ve lost count of how many times it rang and always, always, always with crap news:
My granddad had a mini collapse on Friday and has ended up in hospital with diarrhea...
A false fire alarm activation early Sunday morning saw me stuck at work from 02.30 am to 07.30 am...
We were then plagued by endless phone calls after these events from people chasing their own tails for "more up-to-date information..."
A seemingly endless klaxon of ringing.
So not a lot of sleep was had over the weekend.
I returned home Sunday morning like a zombie, in time for breakfast and to find the kids were already up and bouncing off the walls.
Trying to catch up on sleep was a joke.
Every time I tried to chill and get my head down the phone would go yet again with more updates about my granddad or work colleagues enquiring about the fire alarms.
The phone seemed to sense just when my eyes were closing and my head beginning to nod...
Ring! Ring!
Ring! Ring!
Aaaargh!
Anyway my granddad is stable and relatively OK. That’s the most important thing. He’s having various tests done this morning but is quite chatty and has some of his old feistiness back.
Which is more than can be said for me.
I feel like a wet rag tossed into an inanimate pool of pre-primordial soup. It’s not a good look.
*Sigh*
Anybody want to buy a telephone?
One careful owner. Shotgun pellets come imbedded as standard.
Normally it sits – not exactly loved but tolerated – on a shelf in the corner of the room and disturbs us but rarely. A polite ring every Friday evening from my mother to stay in touch. The odd call from work that may elicit a sigh or two. On occasion, when the phone is being a very naughty boy, it allows call centres to sneak through and sully my family quality time. On such occasions it gets a curled lip as its reward and its receiver banged down unceremoniously into its cradle.
Bad phone. BAD phone!
This weekend though it became a true delinquent. I’ve lost count of how many times it rang and always, always, always with crap news:
My granddad had a mini collapse on Friday and has ended up in hospital with diarrhea...
A false fire alarm activation early Sunday morning saw me stuck at work from 02.30 am to 07.30 am...
We were then plagued by endless phone calls after these events from people chasing their own tails for "more up-to-date information..."
A seemingly endless klaxon of ringing.
So not a lot of sleep was had over the weekend.
I returned home Sunday morning like a zombie, in time for breakfast and to find the kids were already up and bouncing off the walls.
Trying to catch up on sleep was a joke.
Every time I tried to chill and get my head down the phone would go yet again with more updates about my granddad or work colleagues enquiring about the fire alarms.
The phone seemed to sense just when my eyes were closing and my head beginning to nod...
Ring! Ring!
Ring! Ring!
Aaaargh!
Anyway my granddad is stable and relatively OK. That’s the most important thing. He’s having various tests done this morning but is quite chatty and has some of his old feistiness back.
Which is more than can be said for me.
I feel like a wet rag tossed into an inanimate pool of pre-primordial soup. It’s not a good look.
*Sigh*
Anybody want to buy a telephone?
One careful owner. Shotgun pellets come imbedded as standard.
Thursday, August 06, 2009
The Death Of Magic
At the time the occult section of Waterstones (now, I believe, respectably entitled “Health, Body and Spirit” or some such) was bursting at its magical seams with middle class grimoires from the likes of Laurie Cabot and other darker tomes from the late, great and dangerous-to-know Aleister Crowley, who is in fact a fellow Leamingtonian.
I have to say I was swept along more by the theory than the practice though I do recall once going into an “alternative” shop in York and buying a wand that looked like a Native American phallus. All dangly feathers and a ruddy great bulbous crystal sprouting from the end of it. It languished under my bed for years until I offloaded it onto a kooky ex back in 2003. I don’t miss it at all.
As for Crowley... well I was never tempted to try out any of his Magick™, beleaguered as it was with demons, drugs and downright moral depravity but I did purchase a lot of his books. I got about 2 thirds through his immense autohagiography (for those of you who don’t know an autohagiography is supposedly the biography of a saint) before getting bogged down in lengthy "he said / she said" transcripts of various conversations Aleister had enjoyed in various privileged gentleman’s clubs across Europe. It all got a bit stuffy. I just wanted the salacious bedroom exploits and the otherworldly descriptions of the Abyss not the scripts from an Open University staff meeting.
I still own the books and have a few rarities too including a copy of his very dirty poem “Leah Sublime” (which in the modern age is no worse than a 6th form Rugby song).
I keep them now not out or any respect for magical lore but as interesting historical documents. As a figure Aleister Crowley has, I think, stood the test of time. The magical theories, I’m afraid, I now view as complete bunkum. It’s plainly obvious that Crowley was doped to his eyeballs most of the time on heroin and cocaine and various other Victorian opiates and spent a great deal of his time reading esoteric texts and then hallucinating as a direct consequence.
One story from the autohag is a case in point:
Aleister recounts an occasion when he saved a man servant’s life by wrestling a demon to the ground. It’s one of the signature notes of his autohag and makes a great read. However, that same man servant later independently recounts Aleister taking various drugs and then suddenly attacking him. The man servant was lucky to get away with his life, his dignity and his virtue intact. Enough said.
But there was more to Aleister than the dodgy magic. There was philosophy, literature, appalling poetry and a rock and roll lifestyle a good 60 years before rock and roll was even invented. He’s a genuinely interesting character and I may write more about him in the future but don’t have the room or the time now.
Laurie Cabot – an American white witch – is another case entirely. Stephen Fry met her earlier this year during one of his televised road trips across the States and she came across as an aging nutter who spent her time living in a yurt for the tourists and touting feather-based love charms for the sad, lonely and financially incontinent.
I can’t believe I ever fell for any of that crap. It all seems utterly ridiculous now.
Me and magic have, alas, parted company. I’m no longer a believer.
Which isn’t to say I don’t keep an open mind on ghosts, UFOs, and other paranormal oddities.
But magic... magic I’d like to believe in but sadly just don’t anymore. I’ve grown out of it. It’s a young man’s dream, borne out of ignorance and wishful thinking; a desire to control the uncontrollable.
Nowadays I’m more accepting of the uncontrollable. In fact part of me is rather glad that there are some things beyond my control – I can take neither responsibility nor blame for them. It’s an immense relief.
And yet...
...and yet there is a tiny part of me that is sad that I have lost this wide eyed belief in magic. The world seems a little smaller, a little greyer as a consequence. It’s like figuring out the true identity of Father Christmas. You still get the presents. Nothing physically changes in the world.
But the magic has gone.
Tuesday, August 04, 2009
The Littlest Shoplifter
I’d like to make it clear that, as a rule, we do not hold the Artful Dodger or Fagin in high regard in my house. We do not concur with the ethos that you “have to pick a pocket or two” to make it in this world and, with this is mind, we do our best, Karen and me, to instill good manners, the twin virtues of honesty and integrity and an all encompassing high moral outlook into our children so that they may one day bloom into fine, upstanding citizens of the future global community.
So it was a shock to find out that one of them is, by nature, a shoplifter.
We’d nipped into town on Saturday afternoon to run a few boring errands. These lasted a mere hour but seemed interminably forever to Ben and Tom so on the way back to the car we elected to nip into a neat little newsagent en route to purchase some sweetie treats for us all.
Tom was completely ensconced in his pushchair by this point, with the clear plastic rain cover fastened down tight over him to protect him from the lashings of a particularly vicious rain shower.
We were no more than 2 minutes in the shop. Just enough time for me to buy four packets of Cadbury’s Giant Chocolate Buttons (I heartily recommend them for a mid afternoon snack) and clear the moths out of my wallet to pay for them.
We then headed back to the car with our well-gotten gains...
...only to find when we extricated Tom from his little plastic bubble that the little monkey had somehow unfastened one side of the cover and had managed to half-inch a huge birthday badge from the newsagent without either them or us noticing. He’d also managed to remove it from its cardboard packaging and undo the safety pin at the back.
The badge – an ironic comment I’m sure on his father’s approaching 40th birthday in 2 week’s time – read in large bold letters: HAPPY 80th!
We weren’t sure whether to laugh or... well, not cry exactly, but at the very least give Tom the “angry face”. As it was we really didn’t have the heart to do the latter. He looked far too cute and innocent to be flogged for the sake of a £1.39 badge.
And I’m afraid we also failed in our civic duty to return the badge to the premises from which it was so illegally wrested and restore our previously unblemished characters. We were too knackered and far too wet and just wanted to return home as quickly as possible.
So Tom got his chocolate without a frown and the badge was shoved into a drawer that has now been enshrined as “Tom’s First Haul”.
Next week we’re taking him to the bank to see how he gets on with the ATM’s and possibly visiting a high class jeweller afterwards.
All being well when I next blog to you all I shall be doing so from a plush apartment in St Moritz.
After all...
Why should we break our backs
Stupidly paying tax?
Better get some untaxed income
Better to pick-a-pocket or two...
I love a good musical, me.
So it was a shock to find out that one of them is, by nature, a shoplifter.
We’d nipped into town on Saturday afternoon to run a few boring errands. These lasted a mere hour but seemed interminably forever to Ben and Tom so on the way back to the car we elected to nip into a neat little newsagent en route to purchase some sweetie treats for us all.
Tom was completely ensconced in his pushchair by this point, with the clear plastic rain cover fastened down tight over him to protect him from the lashings of a particularly vicious rain shower.
We were no more than 2 minutes in the shop. Just enough time for me to buy four packets of Cadbury’s Giant Chocolate Buttons (I heartily recommend them for a mid afternoon snack) and clear the moths out of my wallet to pay for them.
We then headed back to the car with our well-gotten gains...
...only to find when we extricated Tom from his little plastic bubble that the little monkey had somehow unfastened one side of the cover and had managed to half-inch a huge birthday badge from the newsagent without either them or us noticing. He’d also managed to remove it from its cardboard packaging and undo the safety pin at the back.
The badge – an ironic comment I’m sure on his father’s approaching 40th birthday in 2 week’s time – read in large bold letters: HAPPY 80th!
We weren’t sure whether to laugh or... well, not cry exactly, but at the very least give Tom the “angry face”. As it was we really didn’t have the heart to do the latter. He looked far too cute and innocent to be flogged for the sake of a £1.39 badge.
And I’m afraid we also failed in our civic duty to return the badge to the premises from which it was so illegally wrested and restore our previously unblemished characters. We were too knackered and far too wet and just wanted to return home as quickly as possible.
So Tom got his chocolate without a frown and the badge was shoved into a drawer that has now been enshrined as “Tom’s First Haul”.
Next week we’re taking him to the bank to see how he gets on with the ATM’s and possibly visiting a high class jeweller afterwards.
All being well when I next blog to you all I shall be doing so from a plush apartment in St Moritz.
After all...
Why should we break our backs
Stupidly paying tax?
Better get some untaxed income
Better to pick-a-pocket or two...
I love a good musical, me.
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