Fledging The Nest

We all know it has to happen sooner or later.

They grow up. They leave. They want to head off into the big wide world and leave behind the familiar safe comforts of home. The nest is suddenly too small to house their enthusiastic ambition. They say their goodbyes and head off into the brave new world.

I have been like a father to my student neighbours this year.

I have watched over them, my head shaking, as they have dumped enough beer cans and bottles on their front lawn to fill a landfill site the size of Wales.

I have laughed scornfully at their appalling dress sense, their idiotic facial hair furniture (ignoring my own) and the bizarre sound-bite posters they put on show in their bedroom windows.

I have gnashed my teeth and seethed through sleepless nights when the vibrations and noise from their industrial strength subwoofer has threatened to frack my entire street into Roman mosaic sized rubble. I have not understood their music. I have bewailed the tunelessness of it, the lyric ridiculousness; I have compared the endless beat and twisted synth moans to the meaningless noise emitted by a hippopotamus farting into a vuvuzela. It’s not proper music. Not like the music I used to listen to when I was their age; music that had a proper melody and lyrics that meant something that my dad nevertheless dismissed as meaningless noise.

I have shuddered every time they have slammed the front door, stomped up and down the stairs at all hours of the night and conducted loud and ebullient conversations about “how much beer, yeah, they can drink, yeah, in one sesh at the pub and still have room for a kebab, yeah, you get me?” at 4 effing a.m. in the morning.

Lord knows I’ve loved them. Lord knows I want the best for them given the amount of time, money and effort I have invested into their upbringing and education. But now that they are going, God forgive me, I can’t help but think “thank Christ, thank God it’s over”.

I wish them well. Of course I do. I wish them every success in whatever hare-brained pursuit they decide to follow.

But I consider my job to be done. I’m cutting the apron strings. I don’t want to see them back. Not ever. I’ll change the locks if I have to.

Go forth. Be men, my sons.

Go get some student kids of your own.

And then suffer as I have suffered, you little shits.

God bless.

Woofer

In truth I’m amazed this situation hasn’t risen before now.

For the last 5 or 6 years we have had an assortment of university students renting the house next door to ours. Each time a new troupe has taken possession of the house keys in September we have braced ourselves for what we thought would be the inevitable shockwaves of electronically amplified youth noise erupting through the intervening wall of our semi.

However, for the last 5 or 6 years the gods of white noise have smiled upon us and we have had relative peace. In fact I only recall being disturbed twice: once by some Asian girls to remove a rogue wasp from their bedroom (which was far too sweet to be at all erotic) and once by a guy last year who literally knocked on my door in an abashed fashion to ask for his ball back which had been kicked over the fence and into our back-garden.

This year, however, we have plainly angered the gods. Or they have just developed a taste for eardrum shattering drum and bass.

A couple of lads and a girl moved in a couple of weeks ago and right from the start, even when playing their accursed music “quietly”, it felt like we had an underground tube station suddenly routed beneath our feet. It was, however, bearable. They kept the volume low-ish and seemed to adhere to the unwritten “good neighbours 11am watershed for unwanted noise” rule.

Last Saturday though they had their first party.

I have to admit they diluted our wrath by bringing us a bottle of wine in the afternoon as a pre-emptive apology and giving us their mobile number so that we could advise them if things got “too noisy”.

“Too noisy” proved to be woefully inadequate but I was impressed with their attempts towards goodwill and to establish a decent dialogue. As my wife pointed out: their parents ought to be proud of them; they might be decibel terrorists but they are at least well mannered.

The noise of the party was quite frankly unbelievable. If I had been playing my own music at top volume it still would have been drowned out by the power outage of their industrial strength sub-woofer. I’m sure the baby gallstone that was forming in my kidneys was cured overnight just from the vibrations that tore through the walls and stirred up tsunamis on the other side of the planet. My youngest had a mini-freakout at the noise but thankfully was able to succumb to sleep and slept through the worst of the cacophony. My wife and I fared less well. I think I made a request around 1am for the volume to be reduced and received a text apology and notification that the sub-woofer had now been switched off. This cut down on the vibrations but not really the volume of the music and the weird screams and shouts from the back-garden. I think unconsciousness took me around 2am. My wife reported that party events were still unfolding at 5am.

We’ve spent the last couple of days feeling rather grainy eyed as we’ve slowly clawed back the sleep we lost.

I had another text from the boys next door yesterday apologizing again and hoping they didn’t keep us awake too long. I admitted we were shocked by the noise and my children had disturbed sleep but we appreciated the fact that they were talking to us about it; I was sure we could build on this and become good neighbours. They apologized again and admitted they would probably have another party “at some point” but would have a think as to how they could achieve a good time for their guests without disturbing us. I resisted the urge to suggest they hold the party in the next street. Or even that they have a “mime party”. I daresay sarcasm and charades are not a good mix.

So there we are. An uneasy détente.

Not sure where we go from here or what possible noise abating solution they can come up with before their next sonic hurricane disrupts the neighbourhood’s airwaves. If they start eating a lot of eggs I’ll know they are lining the walls with the boxes (apparently they act as very effective sound-proofing). Hell, I may even start making a few more omelettes myself.

Given the vibrations last weekend I have a box full that are already cracked.

The Power Of Nerd

I’m reading David Mitchell’s Back Story at the moment – one of my Christmas presents from Karen. I like David Mitchell. I like his sarcastic rants and his double sided logical approach to the many stupidities of life. His book makes for a thought provoking, enlightening read and both confirms and debunks many of the general perceptions that we probably all harbour regarding David Mitchell’s true self.

One of the things I found interesting was his discovery of comedy and theatre and how it completely shunted him off traditional academe and into the realm of Footlights and fame and performance... so much so that his academic studies were all but abandoned in favour of sketch and play writing.

Believe it or not I too had dreams of writing comedy when I was in my teens.

Indeed I dabbled quite extensively. I wrote scripts that myself and my sisters performed via rudimentary microphones onto C90 tape – I even performed my own foley work. I drew cartoons. Once I had improved my recording equipment my mate Dave and I ad libbed our way through many a Saturday night in the early 1990’s coming up with enough sketches, impressions and jokey songs to make our own radio programme.

Most of it was excruciatingly bad, of course. Teenage toilet humour, puerile sex jokes and brickbats of buffoonery that targeted the most obvious of social stereotypes. Hardly high comedy. But in amongst the swamp of post school-boy, clod-hopping satire there were a few nuggets of genuine comedy. Material that would actually make an outsider laugh and laugh for all the right reasons, i.e. laughing with us not at us (though technically laughing at us). Because we had done something deliberately funny and not just because we had made complete arses of ourselves.

What frustrates me the most now (aside from Katie McGrath not returning my emails) is how little I did with it. All that material I produced, all that energy I invested... and then I just let it all sit and mildew. My God, why didn’t I send it into the BBC or some farty little local radio station? They might have hated it. They might have hated it but nevertheless given us advice to improve it.

They might have loved it.

This laziness and lack of motivation even in the face of achieving your wildest dreams is not uncommon in teenagers. Even David Mitchell refers to interest he received from an agent very early in his nascent career but that he didn’t really follow through on or capitalize on. The agent merely asked David to keep in touch but David didn’t. And in the end the agent dropped his interest.

Of course in the end, it worked out for David. He continued with the dream, pursued it, lived it. Trod the boards so to speak.

Have I continued to tread the boards or did I give up on it? I’m really not sure how to answer that. I certainly don’t write sketches or plays anymore or sing comedy songs. But I have been known to inject my novels and even my blog posts with the odd heroin hit of humour.

But it’s not the same is it?

I often wonder what would have happened if I’d joined a theatre group or gone to university in my teens "when I was supposed to" rather than in my late twenties when I’d finally summoned up the nerve.

And that I think is the difference between me and Mr Mitchell. We’re both nerds – I’m sure he won’t object to me saying that – but he had more guts than I did and a hell of a lot more nerve. More nerve to turn his back on his academic studies and pursue a crazy dream despite the huge risk of failure.

My trouble is I’ve always played it safe.

And you’ll never play to a full house playing like that.

Liar Liar

First and foremost I’d like to point out that this post is not just a lame excuse to publish a saucy picture of the fulsomely lobed (cerebrally, naturally) Victoria Coren. OK? I would never stoop to such transparent tactics.

Am I lying? Well, just look into my eyes and tell me.

Am I? Am I?

You see, in my continued quest to ramp up my monthly earnings (and thus keep the wolves from my door) I have been reviewing all sorts of options to make a little bit on the side. To earn a little bit more. To acquire a little extra tin.

I’ve followed the normal roads of enquiry: a second job, the “work from home” ads in the Classifieds, selling stuff I don’t want on eBay, selling stuff I do want on eBay, selling stuff I need on eBay (do I really need 2 lungs for example?), the white slave trade and prostitution... but I either don’t have the energy, the time, the legs or the clean bill of health from a trustworthy GP to make these options viable.

So I’ve been looking into the B list. The B list is made up of dodgy, cat in hell’s chance, money making ideas. TV competitions. Pub quizzes. The Lottery. Betting on the horses. And, finally, playing poker.

And it reminded me that some people – some quite high profile people like the blondesome brainiac that is Victoria Coren – make a decentish living playing poker. I used to think the poker playing world was made up of swarthy, cut-throat types who wear sweaty white suits and those weird green visor thingies to try and hide the look of abject constipation in their eyes but Victoria Coren (courtesy of Google Images) and, indeed, the BBC’s Hustle assure me that actually the poker playing fraternity is made up of honest-to-God salt of the earth types who might actually surprise you with their choice of University degree.

Therefore this could plainly be a viable career move. And I reckon I could pull it off. I mean, I can keep my face straight whilst screaming inside with the best of them (I’ve been a local government employee for nearly 14 years).

The only problem is I don’t know how to play poker. I have never learnt. Whenever poker games appear in James Bond movies I shuffle uncomfortably because I just don’t understand all that 3 pairs, royal flush, aces high bollocks. I’m just guessing that the rules are nothing like Snap.

But I think I would be rather good at poker nonetheless. Because when it comes to card games at least (not so good with sneaky Friday nights at the pub) I am a damn good liar. I can remember playing Liar Liar* as a young twenty-something and outfoxing everyone. (Liar Liar is the game where you have to get rid of all your cards by announcing you have, for example, 3 twos – you then put down your 3 twos face down. The trick, of course, is to put down 3 cards (or however many) even if you don’t have enough of the same numerical amount to make a grouping. If people call you – by saying Liar Liar – and you are proven to have lied you have to pick up ALL the cards that have been previously put down.) I was a natural and people would frequently miss when I had lied and mistakenly accuse me of lying when I had in fact told the truth – thus earning the forfeit themselves. God, what a card-sharp, I was.

Those were the days.

Pity we weren’t playing for money. Or playing strip Liar Liar with Victoria Coren... those photos would go down a bundle on eBay.

So anyway... I can lie like a barrister when I have a deck of cards in my hand. I just need to be taught the rules of the game.

Any poker aficionados out there willing to take on an apprentice? I’ll split my winnings 70/30? Come on, that’s got to be a good deal! Money for practically nothing!

Victoria, if you’re reading this, I’ll make it 60/40 but you might have to lose a few items of clothing... (and you know I’m not lying).

Call me?

*Also known as Cheat.

Black Country Gold

Warwick University would have been too obvious - it's literally just down the road from me (well, a bus ride away), plus I graduated from there myself a mere handful of years ago. The connection would have been too blatant. Too strong. I can see that. She didn't want to give the game away. Flag things up to the media about her true intentions.

So Birmingham was the next logical choice. Close geographically but not too close. The connection is less obvious. She's a canny lass, that Dr Alice. Plainly keeping things close. Playing things sharp.

And I can dig that. I don't, after all, relish the thought of having the press crowding themselves onto my doorstep. Well, not until I find an agent for my novel anyway.

So Dr Alice Roberts has accepted the position of Birmingham University's first Professor of Public Engagement in Science. You can hear what the superlative TV scientist has to say about the appointment here:



You can, I am sure, read between the lines. This isn't about science or even bringing science to the masses. It's not about the grandeur of Birmingham University or even picking up "Birmingum's loveloi ax-sent".

It's about me. About moving closer to me.

You can tell this from everything she doesn't say. The way she doesn't mention that Birmingham is just a simple train journey away from me here in Leamington Spa. That I can be there for coffee and an iced bun in under 45 minutes (unless, of course, I catch a Virgin train in which case I'm looking at about 5 hours provided there isn't a leaf on the track). But you can read it all in her eyes... The barely suppressed excitement at our close proximity. We are like two planets coming into alignment. It's been written in the stars. Even Dr Professor Brian Cox mentioned our coming together in his Stargazing Live programmes for the BBC this week. Don't worry if you missed all the references. You would have had to have been a real science head to have picked them up.

A real science head like me.

See, Professor of Public Engagement in Science is just a dead giveaway. It is a personal clarion call to me. Une Lettre d'amour addressed to yours truly. I can handle a petre dish. I can caress a test tube. I can get a bunsen burner to glow white hot with just a casual flick of my fingers.

I can do science, me, in every sense.

If I'm not around to blog much next week it's because I have taken the fast train to Birmingham.

I am going to be engaging in science. Deeply, madly, truly. I have the goggles and everything.

Dr Alice, I'll meet you in the university cafeteria (or as they say in Birmingham: the caff). You bring your white coat and I'll bring my pipette.

P.S. Note to Stephen Hawking: don't you be getting any funny ideas, matey - I know how to deactivate the disabled chair lifts.

Suicidal Tendencies

No, don’t worry. I’m not thinking about attaching a hoover pipe to the car exhaust and gassing myself. Or indeed casting myself into the River Leam with my clothes left by the roadside accompanied by a note reading “goodbye cruel world”. (Given the Leam I’d be more likely to die by poisoning than drowning anyway).

I’m talking about that urge that most of us get at one time or another to stick your head above the parapet. To go “over the top” in World War I parlance. To deliberately step into the gun sights of assassins that you know are just waiting for an opportunity to take a pop at you.

For years, man and boy, I’ve been one of the shrinking violets. One of those conscientious people that, if alive 200 years ago, would have doffed their hat to Dorcas Lane and spoke in hushed tones of the quality toffs that lived in Candleford. I’d like to blame my working class upbringing. I know my place and all that crap. But actually that’s rubbish. When I was a kid being working class was already about cocking a snook at the middle and upper classes and speaking of them scathingly in the snug of the local pub.

But nevertheless I was brought up to respect those in authority over me. Not just to respect but also not to question. That’s quite a telling distinction.

I’ve never been able to rid myself of that whole thought process – that mind trap – until recently.

I don’t know what’s happened over the last few years – well, I do: I’ve had kids, finally got my University degree, had experience of running my own fledgling business – but suddenly that invidious bit of mind programming has been broken. The algorithms no longer work for me.

And the inherited fear that was part and parcel of that mindset has also dissipated.

I’m suddenly thinking so what? I’m suddenly questioning not just why but also why should I? Why me and nobody else?

And best of all: isn’t there something better? Why not do what I want to do?

It’s a heady brew all this jumping around with a big target painted on my chest. Years ago my natural sense of self preservation would have had me diving into the nearest Anderson Shelter. Now I want to just shit down the air-hole of everybody else’s.

I’m starting to realize that in some [bad] situations you actually have very little to lose if it all goes tits up. So why worry? Why care? Why take it?

Dangerous thinking.

But don’t worry. I might be mooning at the enemy troops out here in No Man’s Land but I have no intention of putting a pistol to my own head either.

I’m just saying that the smile on my face is a knowing one. Not an insane one.

Laters.

Spellchecker, You Big Fat Wuss!

So I open up Microsoft Word, my application of choice within whose electronic embrace I am writing my second novel, and it does that thing where it kind of pauses. The egg timer doesn’t appear but you can tell it’s working hard at something in the background. It calculates the number of words (11,801 if you want to know) and then the little animated spellchecker book in the status bar starts turning its pages like billy-o.

This is all par for the course. So I wait. And I wait.

And eventually a little dialogue box pops up. One I have never ever seen before in over 10 years of using Microsoft Office.

Apparently there are now “too many spelling and grammatical errors” in my novel for Spellchecker to continue working. So basically it isn’t going to. Spellchecker is going to stop. It’s going on strike and is putting its feet up. If I want Spellchecker to check my document in future I will need to press a button to activate it, i.e. I have to go out of my way and ask it nicely in future.

Great. I have broken Spellchecker. Me, little me, who prides himself on having a decent grasp of English. Sure, I occasionally slip up. The odd typo will appear now and then. I have sometimes, in the heat of the creative moment, written “your” instead of “you’re” but on the whole I like to think I can string a sentence together correctly.

Plainly those years at school and university, those years studying poetry and prose, those painful years writing it have been a waste. I am incompetent at using my own native language. Bill Gates has effectively told me so.

Well, sod you, Spellchecker. Especially as, typing this as I am in another Word document, you have underlined “sod” in blue because you don’t recognize it as a legitimate word, you know naff all about English. You know diddly-squat (there you go again – diddly gets a red underline) about how real people talk, about colloquialisms, about the realities of human speech and the creative literary process. You’re just a big list of rules and regulations and if something doesn’t quite match up with your limited parameters you spit the dummy.

Well, if you don’t want to Spellcheck my novel, fine. I don’t need you. I had a literary life before you came along and I’ll get along just fine without you now that you’ve turned your back on me. Yoo’ll see. I don’t need yoo anymoor. I can cope perfektly well wivout yoo, thank yoo very mutch. Take your stoopid Spellchecker and sod of.

We’ll see who has the biger kareer in inglish wont we?

An Easy Post To Comment On

Friday was the 5th wedding anniversary of yours truly and my good lady wife.

5 years! It feels something of a milestone, this half decade. So much has happened.

• Both my grandparents and my aunt died
• Karen and I lost two babies before succeeding with Tom who’ll be 3 in October
• I finally got my English degree
• Karen finally got her ACCA qualification
• I began this blog
• I wrote a novel
• We bought a house
• Karen totally renovated the garden to the point where we are now growing our own fruit and veg

And through it all Karen and I feel just as close as we always did. The magic is still there. Sure the magic might get buried occasionally under fatigue, work stresses, money worries, ill health, etc, but it’s still there bubbling away.

It’s funny to think that even just 10 years ago I would never have imagined myself as being where I actually am right now. Sure, I haven’t run a marathon, haven’t been into space or made a million with my home web design business but I’m still proud of what has been achieved and what has been survived over the last 5 years.

The ups have been up and the downs have been down.

I’m sure there’ll be challenges aplenty in the next 5 years but I can say with absolute certainly that I hope Karen and I are still together, working our way through them steadily in the not so far off year that is 2015.

And I hope to see all of you there too. Here’s to the next 5!

Meeting The Neighbours

It’s funny. Only two weeks ago I was lamenting to my wife, my friends and my work colleagues (anyone who would listen in fact) how much I missed university. The buzz. The creative atmosphere. The sense of higher learning and personal development that offered a sense of relief from the relentless toil of 9 to 5.

And then a week ago the university came back to me...

...in the shape of new neighbours: students.

Oh joy.

Now I might have had my gripes about our old neighbours – the Polish family – but really they were lovely and hardly any trouble at all (as long as you averted your eyes when Mr Daddy-Pole was squatting in front of his barbecue like a Sumo wrestler in shorts so tight his genitals appeared to have been shrink wrapped in cling film). They were quiet. Kept regular hours. And mowed their lawn occasionally.

They had a young family like us and so there was enough common ground for us to harbour mutual respect for each other’s home lives and need for private R&R time.

The same cannot be said for the party animals now living next-door.

OK. I’m being a bit harsh. I’ve had one disturbed night out of 7 but really, given that they’re going to be here for at least 9 months, the odds aren’t great for me maintaining my beauty sleep regime.

Friday night the loud music kicked off at 10.20pm. Not a constant thump-thump-thump (which would be bad enough) but a horrible start and stop track that seemed to be on a permanent loop. It was maddening. However, end-of-week exhaustion worked in my favour and I did manage to drop off... Only to be woken at 1.0am by the same track now being pumped so loudly out of a car parked out the front that I could hear the house bricks vaporizing with each thump of the bass.

And then the music was unbelievably drowned out by a sleep shattering barrage of giggling and shrieking and screamed conversations whose beginnings, middles and ends consisted solely off “yeah, man, like, yeah, like, yeah man...”

In the end I had to don trousers and coat (it only occurs to me now that I was in danger of adopting flasher chic) and go outside and politely hail them over the hedge. Tempted as I was to give them a mouthful (I’m only talking strong language here, OK?) I decided to keep it polite. I figured it might be wiser not to launch straight off into a war on my own doorstep. I asked them if they wouldn’t mind “keeping it down just a bit so that their neighbours could get some sleep?”

To be fair to them, they apologized and the music volume was instantly dropped. And within minutes they had all disbursed and gone back to their hashish bongs or whatever it is they’re called these days. And I was able to get back to sleep.

However I was tired and grumpy the next day. And I suddenly recalled all the things about Uni life that had begun to irritate me greatly when I was there.

Students and their fun and their music and their good times and their living life to the max and their craziness and their drinking and their inane loudness and their totally in your face youthfulness and ebullience.

Bah humbug!

Come back Mr Cling Film – all is forgiven!

Happy Endings

Friday was an odd day.

But for once the oddness was a good oddness.

Friday afternoon saw me and my lovely wife attending my graduation ceremony at Warwick University. For those of you that missed it, I achieved a 2:1 Hons degree in English And Cultural Studies, a degree that has taken me about 15 years to achieve (as I took 5 years off half way through).

Before I started the degree (back in '92) I'd already been visiting the University for a couple of years taking various Open Studies courses - so my association with the University has been a long and edifying one.

And I shall miss it.

This didn't really hit me until the ceremony was underway. I must admit I hadn't felt that excited about the ceremony at all. Karen was in far more of a tizz about it than me... but once I was there, once I had my gown and cap on and was seated amongst all the other similarly garbed graduates (or graduands) it finally hit home. I felt both relief that it was all over and sadness that it was all over.

The ceremony was amazing. The University put on quite a lavish affair. We had the University Choiresters and Musicians to entertain us and everything proceeded with a precision that was breathtaking. The University has been doing this sort of thing for 50 years so it should be well used to it by now I guess.

I remember very little about going up to collect my certificate - it all happened very fast - a good shove from a steward (given to all the students) sent me on my way and then it was a brief blur of lights, faces, handshakes, the certificate in my hand and then a dazed walk back to my seat.

I felt very flushed and very proud.

And discovered a burning desire to do an MA.

However, this will have to wait for at least 3 years. We just can't afford it right now. Maybe once Tom has started school things will be easier financially... until then my academic dreams are placed on hold.

Talking of finances though... the other bit of news I had on Friday was that finally finally the money from my aunt's estate has been paid out. I should be receiving a cheque early next week.

I'm not going to be crass and say how much - suffice it to say it's enough to pay off our debts (barring the mortgage), purchase a desperately needed garden fence, a new fridge freezer as our old one is on its last legs and maybe a little treat for the kids. The rest we shall save - a nice little nest egg that, God willing, will see us through the next three years of these uncertain times. We're still experiencing a financial shortfall so this safety net is invaluable. Hopefully, by being frugal, we shall still have a good portion of this windfall left when the good times begin to roll in again.

I hope so anyway.

At the moment it's just nice to have all the anxiety and worry brought to an end.

I feel like I can breathe again.

(Photography courtesy of Karen.)

Highs And Lows And Somewhere Stuck In-Between

Apologies for the ragbag nature of this post but (to well and truly mix my metaphors) that’s the way the cookie is crumbling today.

First up on the blog podium is the news that I have at last been awarded my degree. I finally got my results yesterday and have come through over 10 years of part time study to be granted a good 2:1 honours class English degree from Warwick University. And many, many thanks to French Fancy who was kind enough to ask after my results yesterday when the rest of you had clearly forgotten all about them *sniff sniff* I mean it’s not like you have lives or anything...

Second up – and just because you’d have to be dead or in a coma to have missed the news this morning – it seems that reports of Michael Jackson’s death have not been exaggerated... though part of me, the cynical part, is wondering if it’s all a scam and he’s faked his own death.

Isn’t that awful?

I must admit, although it’s sad to hear of his death – he was after all hugely talented (though even a hugely talentless person’s death is sad news) – the news reportage and media accolades are cheesing me off something rotten. This is the same media that only weeks ago was joyously slagging him off for his financial problems and his dodgy history of alleged misconduct with children whose parents were keen to have their kiddie-winks associated with the self proclaimed mega-rich King of Pop.

I mean at one point you couldn’t move on the telly without every celeb going taking a pot-shot at MJ’s rumoured paedophilia. The air waves were full of jokes along the lines of: does Michael like The Backstreet Boys or does he prefer Boyz To Men? And comedians even now still wheel out an obligatory Michael Jackson joke during their many and varied routines. Because let’s face it, it’s easy enough to do.

Suddenly though, today, the media world is full of po-faced accolades and high-falutin’ laurels from all and sundry announcing with fine gravitas that The King Of Pop – the Legend – is dead. Sob. Sob.

Spare me.

*sigh*

Oh I don’t know. If I’ve nothing good to say, maybe I ought to just play it safe and not say anything at all?

Lastly, it’s been a weird old week. I managed to get myself stuck in a lift at work yesterday. First time in my life it’s ever happened. There I am at Council HQ (which thankfully is only 4 storey’s high) and the lift cuts out between floors 3 and 4. From out of a tinny wall speaker I could hear Stephen Hawking announcing that the lift was “out of service”. It was good to have that pointed out.

I followed the instruction printed on the wall. I pressed the button for the operator. I didn’t panic. I kept calm. I spoke clearly. And most important of all I didn’t speak while the operator spoke. The instructions were very clear about that. It seems that in an emergency – although I am the one trapped – what she has to say takes precedence. Well fine. I know my place.

Stuck in a metal box no wider than 6ft and suspended tens of metres above bone shattering concrete.

It wasn’t the best 5 minutes of my life, I must admit, but my work colleagues had me out in a jiffy before I could entertain too many thoughts of making Hollywood style elevator escapes. I was thinking Speed. I was thinking The Matrix. Both of which oddly star Keanu Reeves.

So.

How to wrap this post up?

It’s obvious really.

The only way is up!

P.S. There is no spoon. ;-)

Exam Fever

Just a quickie I'm afraid as I am off work today with my youngest boy who is poorly - a high temperature all weekend culminating in nearly 40 degrees last night and a huge hot rash on his hip and leg which didn't blanch beneath a glass. This was far too alarming for Karen and I to even dream of sleeping comfortably last night and we rang the NHS Helpline number and spoke to a very nice nurse who asked us lots of pertinent questions which - much to our relief - ruled out meningitis.

It seems a ridiculous conclusion to have jumped to now but parenthood and panic seem to go hand-in-hand surprisingly often.

Good old Calpol did the trick and brought his temperature down to a more acceptable 38.5 - but still too high. The nurse advised us to get him to the doctor today so I have stayed home to see that all can be done.

He at last seems better now and is asleep in bed having finally eaten properly for the first time in over 24 hours. His temperature has at last dropped back to normal. The medical conclusion is that he'd picked up some sort of virus.

Well, isn't this always the case?

I'm just glad it wasn't the M word nor swine flu which apparently (according the NHS Helpline recorded message) has now hit the East Midlands with a vengeance.

So. This post was originally going to be about the exam I sat on Saturday - the final one for my degree course - and was going to be full of erudite wit and breath-taking insight. Alas, I am not up for such games at the moment. I feel drained.

Suffice it to say I survived and answered the questions to the best of my ability. Hopefully the waffle versus fact ratio was canted in favour of me getting a pass at the very least. I should get the results end of June - and then, all being well, I will finally graduate on July 17th.

Hard to believe that after 10 years+ my part-time degree is finally over.

It's a huge relief but pales into insignificance compared to the relief I feel to see my son sleeping peacefully and contentedly in his cot...

My Dreams Of Academia Are Over

Last week saw the beginning of the end of my life at University.

My final lecture was sat through. My final seminar was participated in.

I also completed my final essay – getting it finished a mere 6 days after the title choices were published (unlike my fellow students – the younglings – who will no doubt complete theirs a mere 6 hours before the final deadline).

I’ve waded through a reading list of 18 books this year and all have been codified and footnoted to within an inch of repetitive strain injury.

All that remains is a couple of revision seminars after Easter and my final exam sometime in May / June and then I’m done.

Although I’ve enjoyed taking this part-time degree, after 10 years of juggling study with full time work and full time life I’ve had enough. I hadn’t realized how exhausted I was feeling until I’d completed the essay and gradually woke up to the fact that I was effectively free. The sense of relief was amazing. The reality of being able to read what I want again for sheer pleasure is not to be underestimated. It’s wonderful and I’ve dived straight into some Philip K. Dick (Ubik) as an antidote to all the University texts that are swimming around in my head.

Don’t get me wrong, I will miss University. For all I’ve moaned about the other students – the non mature ones – it’s been interesting to hear what they have to say and how they view the world. It’s also been interesting to note how I’ve changed in how I interact with them. I started off feeling more like them than the other mature students I originally started with but now, here at the end, I truly feel a generation away from them. I’ve got older. And got older in my thinking. I’m not sure whether that scares me or not.

What I shall miss most of all though are the dreams.

I used to dream about school once in a while as a matter of course anyway. But while I’ve been back in the academic world my dreams about school have increased both in number and regularity.

And they’ve been great. I’ve never had a bad dream about school – even the obligatory “late for exam” dreams which I get but rarely have never been that bad. There’s always something fun about my school dreams (not sure why as I never found school particularly fun when I was actually there). But then there’s an added element to my school dreams... Somehow they have become inseparably fused with the world of Harry Potter.

No matter whether I am at Junior school, Secondary school, college or University, Harry Potter, Ron Weasley and Hermione Granger are regular colleagues. It’s bizarre. Yes I am a fan of the films and I’ve read the novels but it’s weird how and why this crossover has occurred.

Evidently the world of Harry Potter resonates deeply with my subconscious.

Possibly that says that even in curmudgeonly adulthood I still retain a childish need for escapism, and fantasy. I don’t at all see that as a bad thing.

But thank God I grew out of reading the Famous Five and Mallory Towers back when I was 9... at least Harry Potter has some adult themes! I’m not sure I could cope with having regular dreams about "midnight feasts" and friends who say "Golly gosh" all the time.

I much prefer "Expelliarmus" and chocolate frogs...

Google Gail

More earth shattering news this week from these greenly septred isles...

Oxford's Corpus Christi College, who stormed to victory a few weeks ago on the BBC’s University Challenge, have had their memorable victory wiped from the annals of the immortal, their victor’s trophy rudely snatched back from it’s silk pedestal (leaving a hole like a wound in the college’s trophy cabinet) and their academic street-cred irreversibly soiled.

It seems they fielded a ringer.

One of their team members, Sam Kay (no relation to Peter), was no longer a member of the college when the final was recorded and thus was illegible to take part.

Thus the sacrosanct rules of University Challenge were broken rather like the stone slab in The Lion, The Witch And The Wardrobe and now all the magic has been overturned.

Manchester University, who put up a good fight but were ultimately trounced have now been awarded a rather specious victory which, I’m sure, tastes just as much like ash in the mouth as their actual defeat.

I think it’s a great shame: (a) because Mr Kay pretty much did bugger all to secure Oxford the victory and (b) the real star and unbeatable information engine on the team was the legendary Gail Trimble whose intellectual superiority cannot be denied.

Her depth of knowledge was so all-encompassing she has now been nicknamed “Google Gail” and her hair flicks so enticing she has been approached by sundry lad’s mags to do “tasteful photo shoots” (which she has sadly – but probably wisely – declined).

A lot of people found Gail pompous and aloof. But I kind of liked her. She was intelligent. She was articulate. She was confident. Role model stuff. And she’d undoubtedly worked hard to get where she was and her team worked damned hard to win.

I actually think it’s wrong to strip them of their title.

I know, I know. Rules have to be adhered to... but really nobody is a winner in this situation. I bet Manchester are just as gutted by the circumstances as Oxford.

Why not just have a rematch? You can’t get fairer than that, surely?

I know it will cost money – film crews, studio time, Paxman to read out a few more brain-bashing questions, etc – but if the BBC can afford to pay Jonathan Ross £6 million they can afford one more episode of University Challenge.

Come on! Let’s give Trimble a chance!

And with more time in the limelight Nuts may yet make her an offer that she can’t refuse...

But For The Grace

I’ve been suffering from bear-with-a-sore-head syndrome for the last few weeks.

Not without cause I hasten to add: illness (still got a dodgy tummy), essays due in at Uni, the mad pre-Christmas rush to get loose ends tied up at work, my novel’s ground to a temporary standstill as other priorities take over, Tom has had a permanent head cold since starting at nursery which often leads to broken sleep for all of us, money worries, Christmas stress...

I believe the phrase is “at low ebb”.

But there are times when I am reminded of how damned lucky I am. My best mate’s youngest son is constantly in and out of hospital – some kind of chromosome defect has left him with poor eyesight, poor hearing, an inability to retain his balance and a host of other problems. He’s going to be in and out of hospital for the rest of his life I suspect. He’s only 5 and has already had it tougher than most.

Then there was the news item on TV this morning. Something like 10% of children in the UK are now thought to be subject to some kind of abuse – most of it carried out at home by family members.

I looked at Tom, sitting in his feeding chair, munching on a Malted Milk biscuit as yet another green line of snot wormed its way down to his biscuit encrusted top lip and I gave him a big hug. I got a “yum” back but this was probably a comment on the biscuit rather than the hug.

Life ain’t so bad.

Smells Like Teen Spirit

I’m getting old.

I can tell.

Not from the fact that my hair is going grey at the sides (though this is a definite indication of approaching decrepitude). Not from the fact it takes very little these days to give me a bad back. And not even from the fact that if I have to run anywhere I no longer take any pleasure in the sensation of getting there quicker.

I can tell I’m getting old because ‘young people’ annoy the living hell out of me.

Young adults. Youngsters. Teens... OK, OK. To be more exact: students.

I’m now into my last academic year of a part-time English degree that has taken me well over a decade to complete. When I started it back in the nineties I felt I had far more in common with the young full-time students who shared the seminars than the grouchy semi-retired mature part-timers. I felt I was still young and hip and wore my spring chicken-ness with pride along with my indie band t-shirts and my waist-length hair (oh yes, it’s all true).

Now I have short hair, wear sensible boots, clothes that don’t endorse anyone or anything at all and regularly armour myself with an unfashionable waterproof hill-walking jacket (hey, you just never know, right?) – and my trips to Uni make me so grouchy I must surely be walking around with a snarl big enough to make any student’s union rep wet their baggy-arsed trousers through to the gusset.

I can’t help it. They slouch around like they’ve got the whole effing day to waste (which they probably do) – while I’m having to rush around like a maniac to get to my seminars and then high-tail it back to work so that I don’t lose too many hours and therefore too much money. They punctuate every third word with “yeah?” and start every sentence with “Ok right...” They seem proud of the fact that they haven’t done the preparatory reading that I’ve slaved over for the last two days or attended the lecture that I panicked about getting to.

But most, most of all one of them actually complained the other day about getting up “early”. “Yeah, like, I woke up this morning at 8.30, yeah? And it was like, way too early, and I just thought, right, that I only had to be on campus for the New Lits lecture at 11, yeah? And I just thought, right, oh man, I just can’t be bothered, right? 8.30 is way, way too early so, like, I went back to sleep cos, like, I’d had about 7 pints the night before, right, at the union bar and I was totally wasted, it was too much...”

For the last week I’ve been regularly woken up at 5.20am by my eldest boy. I haven’t had a lie-in (i.e. slept past 7.0am) since 2003. Neither Karen nor I stop from the moment we get up until the moment the kids are both in bed in the evening. And we do it day after day after day. It’s no big thing really. It’s just life.

Now I realize I’m probably being unfair and knee-jerk and reactionary and an old fuddy-duddy but I just can’t deny my feelings. And if it makes it sound any better I can honestly say that – hand-on-heart – I didn’t particularly like other teenagers when I was a teenager. They annoyed me then and they annoy me now.

So maybe I’ve always been old?

Or maybe I’m not getting any older at all – I’m just staying the same while the world gets younger?

Who knows? But if these young whipper-snappers don’t learn to get out of my way when I’m walking about in a hurry I shall tan the backs of their hairless little legs with the rough end of my walking stick and no mistake! Harrumph!

A Bigger Grindstone

Define poverty.

Living on the streets?

Starving, having to steal food to survive?

Dying, having to sell your body to live?

Or just not earning enough money to be able to live decently?

Karen and I don’t particularly lead a profligate lifestyle. We’re not out partying every night (in fact although we went out for a meal Wednesday night to celebrate out wedding anniversary it was the first time we’d been out together in over 5 months). We don’t hit the shops every weekend in wild shopping splurges.

And yet, doing some sums and some short range financial forecasts we discovered that we’re pretty close to being in the crap. Karen needs to return to work in September as we simply can’t afford to have only one of us working indefinitely. This means paying for child care for Tom. Even if Karen only works school hours to try and relieve the burden of this we still need to find an extra £400 a month to cover the nursery costs.

We just do not have this money.

It’s ridiculous. We can’t afford to work. But can’t afford not to work. What are we supposed to do?

We only have three options.

1) Give up the rat race, claim benefits and hope we don’t lose our house as a consequence. Neither of us fancies this kind of lifestyle. This option is definitely out.

2) Bite the bullet and accept that over the next 4 years or so until Tom starts school we are going to slide inexorably into debt. Well. Not so much slide as bullet-train into debt.

3) Bite a bigger bullet and do all we can do slow that inexorable slide right down to a more manageable level. This means me getting an extra part-time job to bring in extra money to cover some of the child care costs. A morning or evening cleaning job most likely.

Karen isn’t happy about it (and I’m not exactly ecstatic) as she doesn’t want to see me flogging myself along the rocky road to a heart attack. But the alternative is a sizable debt that could totally destabilize us and take us decades to pay off. With the economy so shaky at the moment it seems to me some extra money coming into the house would not be a bad thing at all.

So. I am now officially looking for work. Even though I already have plenty. Full-time job. Part-time web design business. Novel on the go. One more year at University. Maintaining a wonderful home life.

Busy busy busy.

Sigh.

So does all this mean that I’m poor? Or just not poor enough?

Who knows? But at least I’m not sewing Nikes in a Kolkata sweat shop... or selling my body in an Essex lay-by.

On The HP

The definition of a good book: you don’t want it ever to end but you’re unable to stop yourself racing through at breakneck speed to the final page...

I completed Harry Potter And The Deathly Hallows over the weekend and I feel quite bereft now that it’s all over.

It sounds pathetic, doesn’t it? It’s just a kid’s book for Christ’s sake! And years ago I was one of those people who steered myself away from the HP books with an avidity that now seems ridiculous. There’s too much hype, I thought. Too much hysteria. Too many people rave about it therefore the books can’t possibly be any good.

That kind of thing.

Then I got into the movies.

I confess, I love them. They get better and better and I’m already excited about the new one that is currently in production. I’m a HP movie devotee.

But even up until the last film – The Order Of The Phoenix – I still refused to read the books. In fact on this here very blog I proudly pronounced that I would not read the books until the film franchise was fully completed.

What rot!

Once I spied the books on Amazon – the complete 7 in a nice embossed boxed set – I had to own them. And once I owned them... well. What’s the point of having books sitting around the house and not reading them?

So a number of weeks ago I pitched in with the first and kept at it until the final page of the final book...

And it’s been great. It’s been wonderful. Yes, they’re kid’s books but they’re not just kid’s books. They work on many different levels. I’m amazed at how deeply I was sucked into them. How intense the journey has been. Maybe I need to get out more but a series of books hasn’t gripped me like this since I was a teenager. I gave myself willingly to the entire HP world and was happy to lose myself there.

My respect for J.K. Rowling is immense. Speaking as someone who is three quarters of their way through their first novel I take my hat off to someone who can plot 7 so deftly and so completely and still keep the reader hanging on until the very end. It might not be Shakespeare. It might not be Rushdie. It might not be the stuff of a lot of “worthier”, more intellectual writers but you know what? I don’t care. There’s a lot to be said for a good story written so well that you actually wish it were real. For characters that you become emotionally attached to.

Harry Potter for kids? Pah! Why should kids get all the good stuff? It’s too good for ‘em I say.

For those of you who are still cynically resisting the lure of HP... give it a go. You will be surprised. For those of you who are already in the know. Well, just say hi and smile.

As for what I do now... well, I need to start prepping for my final Uni module next academic year. Vikram Seth’s “A Suitable Boy” is next on my reading list. Karen tells me it is excellent.

And I’m sure it is.

But my heart is still at Hogwarts...

Backlog And Block

Words, words everywhere and not a word to write.

Or something like that.

I can't even come up with anything remotely clever or "literary" today.

It's been a frustrating week. I haven't been able to do as much writing as I would have liked. The blog has suffered. My novel has suffered. I feel stretched in far too many different directions. I suspect the main reason is I have an essay to write for University and it's hanging over me like the sword of Damocles. In itself it's not too onerous a task to accomplish. 4000 words is pretty meagre by my wordy standards. A couple of days and it'll be done.

However, we've got to come up with our own essay titles.

Sounds a wonderful opportunity doesn't it?

But I'll be blowed if I can come up with a title that doesn't sound limp, lame or just plain lobotomized. I know what I want to write about but I just can't bring it all together into a neat, academically satisfying little package.

Not a global disaster by any means but I'm one of those sadsacks who cannot relax until a set task is completed. I hate having something hanging over me. Absolutely loathe it. Karen on the other hand is happy to leave things to the very last minute. How do people do this? I almost envy her the ability.

Anyway. I feel like I just can't relax and write anything properly or with any kind of enjoyment until the essay is completed... and I'm stumbling at the first hurdle: the title. It doesn't bode well.

As for the picture of Keeley Hawes...

Well. Eye candy. A spoonful of sugar and all that.

Completely unjustified and all the sweeter for it. Enjoy.

Square One

The smell of stale disinfectant in the foyer, the glum faces of everybody I meet, the mouldy hum of my office computer all tell me that Christmas is well and truly over. I’m back at work. Back earning the crust that allows me to maintain my precarious chocolate and Lego lifestyle. Back up to my hips in leaky pipes, malfunctioning machinery and air conditioning that patently cannot or will not air condition.

And am I glad to be here? Am I f***.

I’m quite shocked at how easily I dropped all thought of work over the last 10 days. It was like it never existed. I let go of all thought of university too, my web design business, even my novel... and just wallowed in relaxation and pleasure. So easy.

And so difficult to pick it all up again this morning. Demotivated. Not a good way to start the New Year but, in a way, really quite traditional.

And I suppose it could be worse. Work has its down points certainly but it does have a few pluses too. Mainly that it allows me the time and (just) enough energy to do other creative things – like my novel and university for example; the things that keep me relatively sane when the conservators are sobbing on my shoulder about a painting that has been doused in rain water due to a leaky roof...

Normally this compromise is enough. Normally this molecularly precise balance between the good things in my life and the crud is enough to keep me on an even keel. Enough to keep me content and satisfied and functioning.

But after a long break where the crud has largely been expunged it’s hard to accept it back into my life again now that the holiday period has drawn to a close.

Why should I compromise? Why should I accept any of life’s drudgery and trash?

Because it pays the bills. It pays the bills. It pays the bills.

This is the New Year song that kick-starts every new year for every single one of us I’m sure.

And as for resolutions...

Well, I’m not a believer in compiling a foot long list of things that I know I will never accomplish.

Last year I seem to remember I kept things simple: start a novel.

I did and am now 96,000 words through it. Mission accomplished.

This year my resolution will be to finish the novel.

Mission accepted.

And in the background, the bills will all, every single one of them, get paid...