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I’ve had to take the unprecedented step of leaving the Kate Bush Fan Club Facebook page.

Actually, it’s not unprecedented at all. I’ve left loads of pages on Facebook. When it comes to nixing FB related things I’m like Charles Bronson at the start of Once Upon A Time In The West. Sweaty, bristly, breath like Chicken Fajitas but with a lightning fast trigger finger.

And the Kate Bush Fan Club page, well, they brought too many horses (true Western fans will get that reference).

It was the whinging. The whining. The petty schoolyard arguments:

“I haven’t got a ticket to her live show and it’s so unfair ‘cos I’m her number one fan and all the touts who aren’t fans have got the tickets are selling them for the price of a Heston Blumenthal 3 course meal”.

“I have got tickets and I want to witter on and on about what songs she might sing and what songs I want her to sing and what songs do you think she will sing?”

“I haven’t got tickets and I don’t want to hear about what songs you think she might sing ‘cos I want to die for the entire duration of her shows so that I don’t have to live in a world where I don’t have tickets to see her.”

“Hello I’m new to the group and I want to show you a picture of a Kate Bush 7 inch single I bought from a flea market in Birmingham and ask if it is worth anything and does anybody have any spare tickets to sell, I heard she is going to play some live dates in September…?”

On and on and on.

Now I’m a fan. I’m up there with the most devoted and delusional of any of them. I can trace my Kate Bush pedigree back to the early 80’s – none of this “been a fan since Aerial” malarkey. I have all her records. I have tickets not only to her show but also to the hospitality party beforehand. I’m convinced she is going to personally serve me canapés and share her champagne with me in the toilets. And ask me to help compose the lyrics to her next album. It is meant to be.

But I know how galling it is to not have tickets. For 2 days I was in deep dudgeon because despite having early access to the fan only tickets I still missed out and felt that the general release was merely going to give me a cat in hell’s chance. I can remember the excoriating feeling of “I’m going to miss out on a truly rare event”. I know it came good for me in the end but I still retain the muscle memory of that previous failure. Like Frodo forever feeling the burning loss of his ring. Or something like that.

But joking aside it is not the end of the world or even the start of it. If I hadn’t got tickets I would have felt gutted but I would have moved on. I still have Kate’s music to enjoy and stalking is a perfectly acceptable pastime these days.

But the petty nit-picking and childish sourness of the Facebook group was too much. I know people are just people… but really! I expected more from Kate Bush fans. And I know how stupid and vapid that sounds. As if liking Kate Bush immediately bestows wisdom and first class mental health onto the patron. But it was like being back at school. The old “I’m a bigger fan than you are – no you’re not, I am” kind of thing.

I felt besmirched. I felt like I was a kid again and not in a good way.

Do adults really behave like this without being aware of it?

Plainly they do.

So I did the adult thing. I didn’t castigate everyone in the group for being pathetic; I didn’t lob a sarky grenade into the status box and then run for cover. I just revoked my own membership, left forever and instantly felt calm again.

See, I don’t need the others. I don’t need to be part of a big group or a gang. I don’t need to be part of a happening or “a thing”.

Kate and me, we’ve got our own thing going on. A special relationship.

She’s hired a private policeman just for me.

At least that’s what my lawyer has told me.

Blackheads Revisited

Secondary school is a world unto itself.

Inhabited by creatures whose brains are being rewired to such an extent that they no longer resemble other human beings on the planet. Fizzing human bombs (© Danielle Dax) whose hormone levels explode like weapons grade plutonium within the space of a few months and then pulse with a seedy half life that lasts for the next 30 years (if they’re lucky).

I remember it as a callous no-man’s land that delighted in alienating the weak or the different or (rarest of all) those who retained a modicum of human compassion. I felt alone and “outside” for most of my secondary school career. Hey. Why pull the punch? I felt dis-included for ALL of my secondary school career.

It could not be changed. It had to be borne. It had to be endured. And it was a horrifically lonely journey.

My eldest boy has suddenly found himself immersed in that same world. Curriculums might change. Teaching methods might be revolutionized. But the world of the geeky teenager remains essentially the same. The rites of passage that you largely walk alone.

He doesn’t make friends easily. He has trouble “getting” other people. He doesn’t connect well. He swings from ultra negative to overpowering positive without touching the middle ground in an instant; switches from totally controlling teen-god one minute to uber-victim the next who is unable to take responsibility for anyone or anything and thus finds himself always hopelessly disempowered.

Karen and I are at a loss as to how to help him beyond giving advice, helpful practical hints and trying to keep home life as secure as possible.

Because the simple truth is, unless you are one of the lucky ones, secondary school life starts off being diabolically damaging and only gets marginally better with each passing year. End of story.

How do you deal with the sniping comments of others? How do you deal with the bullying tactics of the playground – both overt and secretly snide? How do you deal with people who you once thought of as friends but now decide to ostracise you and leave you out in the cold at every opportunity?

What possible advice can I give to an 11 year old to combat all these issues when they are problems that, 28 years after leaving secondary school and now in full time employment, I still come up against and struggle with every week if not every day?

Because the sad fact is, although Secondary school is a world unto itself that isn’t meant to last forever, for some people (both good and ill), it bloody does.

Blessed Are Those Whose Anger Flowers Early

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

But the bottle cannot hold it forever.

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

The effect is a nuclear countdown that cannot be deactivated.

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

Tick. Tick. Tick. Tick. Tick.