-26

i remember bunking in

in far flung corners of the world the journey from child to adult is marked by life changing events such as vision quests and scarification, in 70s west london it was a bit easier: going to the pub and ordering a pint.

thanks to a childhood living in pubs the local hostelries held no magic for me and by the time my contemporaries were ready for the mystic pint i had already given up on drink.

no my rite of passage was a cultural one and took place at the grenada cinema in harrow.

i can't exactly remember when my love affair started with films but it was at an early age. i fell in love with doris day thanks to calamity jane (a not so secret love), i giggled along to carry on movies (oo'er missus), respected john wayne (get off your horse). there was james bond, disney, dodgy film adaptations of favourite tv shows. if it wasn't the cinema for the latest release or a double bill second run, it was weekends sat in front of the tele watching old movies.

the ritual of adverts and trailers of films that i might never see because they were aa or x

(oh yes dear reader old school classifications) was always a key part of the experience. it was many years after seeing the trailers for films such as conquest of the planet of the apes or population growth zero that i would finally see them.

then one day i decided i could no longer wait to see those forbidden movies - it was time to prove myself a man and go and see an x movie.

i dressed in my most adult clothes – a hideous plaid jacket that would not have looked out of place in a blaxploitation movie, a kipper tie, and my smartest jeans (which meant they were clean and didn't have a patch in the arse repairing a hole). it was a mid week day and i wasn't at school (can't remember why) and so off i went. 140 bus from the green gates and into harrow. a short walk to the cinema, a casual glance at the running times and a tentative step into the foyer. ask for the ticket, holding the worry and fear back – hoping i wouldn't be asked my age, remembering what my adjusted birthday would be so that i could pass their interrogation, should it come. pleased that there was no quiver in my voice and shake to my hand.

ticket asked for.

ticket received.

head to the cinema, up the grand stairs, truly a picture palace worthy of the name.

into the comforting darkness that is the auditorium.

find a seat – no problems i am pretty much the only person there.

a brief wait, lights go down, curtains open.

adverts, trailers.

movie.

sit back and watch.

happy that i passed my rite of passage.

what did i see?

a glorious double bill of 'death wish', charlie bronson does revenge, and 'mean machine' burt reynolds just being so cool.

cinemas may have changed. films may have changed but the love has never faded.

-27

i remember the days of stories

my parents were tellers of tall tales. yarn spinners. a generous person would say they were fibbers, a truthful person might call them liars.

they both had their 'party' story of me as a young baby or child. both are probably fictions, but both are part of my childhood - real or imagined.

the first, normally told by mum, concerned the first word i ever said. you have to remember i grew up in an east end pub, while i may have had adoring parents they also dealt with 'characters'. being the baby of two important locals (they decided if you drank in the pub or not, they decided if you were staying for the late night lock-in) meant i got a fair share of attention. most of this would be the usual baby talk followed by a chin tickle and a smile as i cooed and giggled. some of it was encouragement to say my first word. it would nice to say that i was surrounded by political, social or visionaries and so the first word i said was 'liberty' or 'fraternity' something meaningful that point toward a wonderful future.
alas it was not.
the story goes that my first words to my astonished (yet happy) parents, my first words to them was not ma, pa, mama, papa, feed me, hello. no my first word was fuck.
yes gentle reader even before i knew the joy and power of swearing i had uttered my first cuss word.
i was a potty mouth to start and i remain a potty mouth today.

dad's story was of a night i was asleep in my cot.
my parents were in a room below smoking and drinking too much while they watched black and white tele, hey simple pleasures for a simple time. the pub below them locked up for the night. just another simple night where nothing special happened and nothing special was going to happen. (just for some variety there would be tellings of this tale where one or the other of them was doing ironing).
at some point of the night they were visited by the often talked about but rarely seen ghost. (look it was an east end pub in the early sixties - of course it had a ghost). while none of the tellings of this tale have then being much more than surprised - i can imagine that it would have been a little more than that but whatever all i can think of is my old man's mouth hanging wide open in an exaggerated oh my what on earth is going on here, but with the important detail of a senior service cigarette lit and dangling from a quivering lower lip.
the ghost was a friendly and helpful ghost.
he'd popped by to tell them to move the baby.
at which point they both rushed up the stairs to find me standing in the cot waving (i'd like to think in a graceful and regal manner, but probably more a simpleton trying for a high five). they picked me up and took me downstairs.
a few minutes later and almighty crash and the ceiling had fallen in on the cot. ghost getting lots of silent thanks ad my parents had a few more drinks to calm their nerves. me? i went back to sleep.

both parents stood by those stories - so what am i going to do? tell you they are lies? they are made up? fabricated?
of course not.
they are as true as the day is long, and i can still see them telling those stories now.
(cue mancry)

-28

i remember the day my mum bought the lottery

on the phone to my mum.

the usual you alright, i'm alright back and forth.

the lottery had been launched the week before. i hadn't bought a ticket. there was no moral angst about this was going to encourage gambling from me, more a case of i am not lucky, therefore i won't win, keep my money and spend it on something else (true the something else i would spend it on would be frivolous and wasteful but that is besides the point).

mum on the other hand was quite happy to get a ticket.

come the moment of the numbers being announced mum had discovered that she hadn't won anything no surprises there.

so she was telling me this and then she said, i am sure the ticket will win next week.

no mum, i patiently explained, you have to buy a new ticket next week.

what? another ticket?

yes a new ticket.

every week?

yes every week.

are you sure?

yes i am pretty sure you have to get a new ticket each week.

after that she was less thrilled with the lottery than she was before.

it didn't stop her dreaming about winning.

over the next many years conversations about anything would be interrupted by a well worn progression.

we might be talking about the weather – ah but wouldn't it be nice to win a £100 on the lottery?

we'd then talk about a problem with a neighbour – ah but i don't want much £500 win would be enough.

then we'd be talking about her bunions playing up – ah if only i could win £1000, that'd be good.

oh i heard from uncle paddy, he's doing fine – musha but £5000 on the lottery is all i need,

did you get caught in the rain yesterday? - mm what would i do with £10, 000 from the lottery?

can you get me some more books when you come over next? £25,000 would be a real nice amount to win.

was a bit nippy last night are you keeping yourself warm? £50,000 isn't too much to ask for is it?

my electricity bill was a bit much this time, i tell you i wouldn't sniff at a £100,000.

i see that nice bruce forsythe is in the news again, i'd settle for a quarter of a million pound, wouldn't you?

off to the doctor's tomorrow have you had a check up recently. half a million sounds nice doesn't .

sainsbury's didn't have what i wanted. i could do with a millions pound win.

did you hear from that nice girl? fancy winning five million.

as the lottery wins got higher so did her eventual end amount grow.

sadly for both of us she never won.

still every time i remember to do the lottery i can't help but think it would be nice to win a fiver.

a tenner,

fifty quid.

a ton.

a thousand pound.

half a million.

five million.

the 3 week roll-over jackpot.

unfortunately you can't spend wishes.

vote

democracy is a funny old thing.

for most of the western world it is a simple thing. every so often the public gets a chance to elect representatives to govern and lead us. in the uk, for better or worse, we live in a first past the post majority system: get more votes than the other people and you are in. bish bosh bang. job done.

simple.

easy.

understandable.

most importantly it works.

but a bit like freedom of speech or human rights there are those occasions when because people don't like the result they moan and complain but that isn't what was supposed to happen, this isn't the result we wanted can we change it?

for a time we could be smug about the whingey scots – the nationalists promised their independence vote would be a once in a generation vote. they lost. they waited a few days and then showed they were liars by demanding a second referendum.

but then we decided to call the european union referendum. david cameron's decision to fight off the encroaching power of ukip (which was only in the minds of nigel farage and the editors of a few newspapers) and the usual gang of eurosceptic nutters in the tory party called for the vote and the brexit debate was started.

sensible money said stay.

sensible isn't always sexy.

farage had begun to make noises that if the vote was close,say 51/52% stay 48/49% leave there should be a second referendum. essentially saying if we don't get the result we want we might want to do it again. (needless to say farage quietly dropped this 'too close' argument toot sweet.)

the in campaign tended to argue the economic good of staying in, relying partly on common sense and economic stability to win the day. ooops.

the outers played to the hearts and made many promises that it would quickly turn out that they knew they were never going to keep, the biggest of these being the £350 million a week to the nhs – which is quickly turning out to be an extra £2.49 and a packet of crisps if the nurses behave themselves.

the referendum was always couched, well to the best of my recollection, as in or out. stay or go. leave or remain. it was never what do you think? if you had a choice what you like to do? give us a clue as to what you think we should do? there was never a oh by the way your vote is just an indicator as to what we should do, or your vote gives us the terms of the debate we'll have in parliament and we'll let you know the outcome later.

it was always. yes/no. it was always which side got the most won the day.

that is how our democracy works.

simple, easy, understandable.

arguments were made and we the people had to make a choice with our collective crosses.

when the result came in as 52% leave and 48% stay, it was a bit of a disaster.

but that is what the people voted for.

all of a sudden a whole group of people become agitated and start claiming there were lies and that this was just an advisory vote blah blah. they wouldn't have been saying either if the vote had gone their way (and we can rest assured that the brexiters would have used pretty much the same arguments if they had lost in order to get a second vote).

one of the outcomes of exit was the labour party went into full slow motion meltdown which managed to combine the longest election ever with the most obvious result ever. the reason for the vote was that some of the labour mps were not happy with the leadership of jeremy corbyn. true he had not covered himself with glory and at a time when the tories were at their least impressive and still fighting over exit, corbyn seemed to be doing the impossible and making the tories guaranteed winners of the next general election, and possibly the one after as well.

problem was jeremy corbyn had revitalised labour's membership – making it the biggest party in the country, and all those new voters wanted jeremy to be leader. they were the corbynistas.

the simple solution to it all would have been for moderate labour supporters to put their hands in their pockets and pay to become members in order to vote – they didn't. they lost because the committed and engaged did, and they are the people who are going to attended local party meetings and council gatherings. they are the people who will use the tools and mechanisms of democracy to turn the labour party into something that will not get elected because the vast amount of labour voters are not interested in something that looks and smells a little like revolutionary socialism -if they did they could have voted for anyone of a number of such parties in the past, and just because now some of the members of those small parties can now pretend to be potential labour politicians it isn't going to happen.

ironically jeremy and friends are going to benefit from a very specific election while it seems ignoring the wishes of a much broader and probably more representative vote. the behind the scenes movers and shakers in labour, momentum group, are keen to deselect members of parliament who do not agree with the new vision of labour (red labour? nu old labour? swp labour?) and put people that do agree in their place – of course this means going against the wishes of the voters.

see that is the problem with democracy it involves too many people who do not see the world in quite the same way you do, it is why it is representative – we elect people to make decisions on out part, and generally we choose them based on the fact that they are most likely to agree with my point of view.

corby and co will not do the brave thing and call lots of by-elections to see if their candidate will triumph against the incumbents, while the sitting mp will not trigger a by-election in order to prove they have the mandate in the local area.

effectively this is labour out of power for the next two elections, even if they do well in local council elections, at the next general elections they may just be spectators.

just at the time an effective opposition is needed is just the moment we get one that is fractured by internal division and is potentially prepared to piss on the votes of the wider community in order to keep sweet the new membership. odd way to go about things.

that simple, effective thing called democracy hasn't had the best time of it in the uk in these last few months.

trolley

if there is one thing commuting is sure to do it is guaranteed to warp your outlook on modern life. to be fair it doesn't take much to get me whining but the current daily commute does give me much ammunition to curse modern life. not quite in the first world problem category but not far short of it. (i hasten to add that i would ban any and all users of 'oh that is such a first world problem' as a sneery put down that implies that your worry is somehow unworthy of merit because there is a leper with no running water and an inability to tune into the latest justin bieber song living on an island off the east african coast and until we are all living in the world of milk and honey you have no right to complain. sorry but a problem is a problem and if it is your problem then it is more important to you than the condition of water rights in venezuela).

anyway back to the moan.

my current moan about modern life is, if you can believe it, luggage.

yes you read that correctly: luggage,

i know – seriously what harm is there in luggage? (i mean other than in smuggling drugs and hiding dead bodies).

all i can say is that whoever invented the trolley bag i hope they were vastly compensated for their nifty piece of ingenuity. if there is cosmic and divine justice out there then this inventor has a ring of hell all to themselves. if they can navigate their way around the circle then they can leave hell – they just have survive the hordes of demons with trolley bags.

i get that this putting wheels on luggage makes life easier, after all why carry it when you can pull or push it. no straining muscles just glide along without a care in the world. now bags can be of any size, unlike in the past where they could only be as big as you could carry – now you can have more bags than you can shake a fanny pack at.

commuting and holiday making so much easier now.

(and while at this point of the moan – what is the deal with laptop trolley bags? just how lazy do you have to be not to carry your fucking laptop?)

nor would it surprise me to discover that somewhere out there events featuring different sized trolley bags are appearing in x-games events.

hold on a cotton picking minute pat – you seem to be praising them. yes i suppose i am. i guess i am taking the nla – national luggage association - point of view: it isn't luggage that causes problem but that it is the users.

look i just want to walk in the station getting to or from the train or tube without having to spend time looking out for someone who had a trolley bag drifting 5 feet behind them, or decides to change directions at the drop of a hat – but they have a turning circle of twenty feet because of a long handled bag they have little control over. or they walk really slowly and the bag drifts from their control so instead of taking up the space of one person all of a sudden they are a moving but variable barrier in the packed hustle and bustle of the station. users walk with all the purpose and lack of care as mobile phone users – that certainty that it is not their responsibility to watch where they are going – but it is down to you to watch where they are going and to take the necessary action in order to move out of the way, any collision is your fault. or they have two bags which they have to constantly change the hand that is control them (why) or they suddenly stop as if they realise that they are in the wrong place at the wrong time.

yeah i guess it isn't the bags that i detest but the selfish wankers who use them with little regard for others.

i could suggest that people who use them have to get a license and training to use the bags. that there should be checks on people before they are issued with a bag – are they competent to use the bags they are using. that there should be limitations on the bags that people can get based on height and strength, or the number each person can be in charge of at any one time.

sadly these sensible precautions would be shouted down by the nla and so any old fuckwit can go out and with little or no training can purchase a big arsed trolley bag and cause havoc in a crowded space. i have to face it the imbecile with the trolley bag is here to stay and i just have to adjust my life around it – modernity not all it is cracked up to be.

the inventor still deserves to go to hell!

conspiracy

it was fate.

a chance meeting, a chance conversation and a life changes.

sometimes for the better and sometimes for the trivial.

in my case it was for the trivial.

she was a nervous skittish alabaster skinned woman with a cut glass accent. there was a vulnerability about her, and that always brings out the white knight in me (which isn't code for i was lusting after her). we chatted for a bit. i was left intrigued, a few weeks later we bumped into each other in a famous burger chain.

we chatted some more.

this time i discovered why she appeared to be constantly looking over her shoulder (literally and metaphorically). her tale involved a plot to incapacitate her with clothes or money that had been doused in neurotoxins, a certain amount of brainwashing, the murder of her husband (married in secret and a man who may have had a past that involved the british secret service), there were honourable mentions for the illuminati, the cia and the kgb, not to mention the obligatory mr. big who was behind all of it.

i confess dear reader that i was agog, as such i didn't ask the relevant question: why?why was all this happening to her? why was she targeted?

i just went with the flow and tried my best not to let my jaw hit the floor.

remember that scene in the matrix where morpheus is offering neo the red or the blue pill, well this was a little bit like that. the difference being that i have swallowed the stupid pill and i have become hooked on conspiracy theories.

hooked.

we all know that there is much that happens in the world that is the result of decisions made beyond our knowledge, that there are people who pull the strings behind the scenes.

the illuminati, the new world order, the vampire cabal. call them what you will it is very easy to believe that there are people out there who if they don't know the secret know people who know people who know the secret.

it is one of the reasons why dan brown has been such a publishing success – he has tapped into subconscious belief in the secret powers that be. we experience every day when someone we know taps their nose and winks their eye and tells us in strictest confidence that they have been told a secret.

that is pretty much the nub of conspiracy theories. advocates and followers of conspiracies see themselves as awake while the rest of us are still asleep (we the sheeple). they know the of the secret of the shadow powers, they also know that plans of the cabal are not for our benefit, the end game of these plans is to further enslave us while making the controllers more powerful.

but the awake are trying their best to alert the rest of us – to take us from sheeple to people.

your choice red pill, blue pill – just don't think you are going to become neo – because that role has already been taken by (fill in the name of the conspiracy theorist you like the most).

the truthers, the liberty movement, the alt right, real liberals or whatever they choose to call themselves are not an homogeneous group – like religion (and extreme politics) there are factions and these factions believe different things, and in some cases never the twain shall meet while in others there is a certain amount of crossover. that said they are all in the brotherhood of mistrusting government (it will be better when they are in charge – they will free us and lead us in the right way).

the constitutionalist (the spirit of 1776) see freedom as a strict adherence to the words of the constitution and its amendments (well mostly those that say carry lots of guns and free speech). there are the evangelical conspirators, they believe in the word of the bible – but are also happy to read between the lines of the word to get to the places they want to be. they see the new world order attack as being one that wants to wipe god out, replace christianity with a one world religion and mark us all with the number of the beast (chip and pin our arses to use the french). there are alienists who see us controlled by aliens, and that we are central to a cosmos spanning war that we know little about but we are crucial to. closely allied to this is the technologist branch of conspiracy – these are the people who see a world that is full of hidden technologies that are hidden from the rest of us because we are not worthy of them. it is why we don't have all the works of tesla making our lives wonderful. the numerologists and symbologists who see clues to the next events in everyday media.

these and other groupings are not exclusive and more often than not intersect and share issues and concerns.

the main concern for the alt right/ truther movement is that they are the target of a controlled government that wants to take away their guns to make the inevitable invasion/take over of the usa that much easier.

gun owners and truth tellers are on a list that either signs them up for re-education or a short stay at a fema death camp.

in countries where guns are not so important (pretty much the rest of the world) it is about the increasing amount of surveillance we face.

for all there is the constant refrain that our freedom of speech is under attack and curtailed.

this sense of oppression is exacerbated by the fervent belief that the media is against them, not just ignoring them but wilfully spreading the message of the new world order. the news outlets are in their pockets. the large social media companies are

little more than agents of the cabal. when sports, movies and music are not actively spreading the message of the powers that be through subliminals and in your face symbols they are there to distract you from the encroaching take over that is going on. mass entertainment is there to turn us into sheeple.

it is an odd world they live in. all around them they see the clues that pass the rest of us by. they see the underlying reality. they see the future – and the future is not good: unless we listen to them and join with them, only then do we have a chance, only then can we throw off the yoke of the illuminati oppression.

because they are sometimes right about the pitfalls of globalisation they expect the rest of their analysis to be accepted wholesale. where you and i see coincidence they see plans within plans.

they live in a world of signs and warnings that we don't notice. their lives are dedicated to getting us to see that ads, movies and videos are crammed full of illuminati symbols and clues

– and if you spent some time analysing them you would see that the end of the world is just around the corner. they are prepping for it, and they will be kings of the new world.

so that is me hooked on the wacky worlds and words of david icke, alex jones, ritchie allen, rich d. hall, kev baker, lisa haven and many others.

the girl?

what happened to her?

didn't see her for a long time, was always looking out for her wondering if they got her or has she escaped their clutches (more than likely she has gone back on her meds).

then one day she walked in told me she had found the grave of her murdered husband and so there was closure there.

fate?

coincidence?

part of the plan?

you decide dear reader, i know what i think.

that's way i am hooked on the conspiracies.

vaz

i never understand why the media get so shocked when they discover that some one famous is doing something naughty.

just because you are famous doesn't mean you are any better than the rest of us, it might make it easier for them, and it certainly adds to the risks.

the media's outrage is a nice performance designed to get us to buy their offerings. they and the accused do a well rehearsed dance of claim, counter claim, pr campaign, contrite apology and wronged partner agreeing to forgive.

the irony of the weekend's revelation was that it wasn't the one that was supposed to be making the headlines – that was going to be a high level clergy being in a long term gay partnership. instead of being outed he broke the story himself and ruined the best laid plans of mice and editors.

at least with the clergy there was at least an 'in the public interest' argument given the church's stance of homosexuality. it justifies the invasion of privacy.

unlike the recent case of famous gay couple who have an arrangement for one of them to have extra marital sex. grown up adults, making grown up decisions in a grown up way. a couple who don't really make political statements and most of their influence would come from their charity work. so none of my business. none of your business. except the news media thinks it is – so will cram it down our throat (you choose the visual you want for that – but i think i can guess what it might be).

the public interest argument is a funny one in that it is supposed to be a justification for telling tales about well known people in order to generate revenue for the news organisation. just because someone is in the public eye doesn't make it in the public interest if they indulge in a bit of hanky panky – unless of course they have been an advocate for chastity or monogamy. then hypocrisy has to be uncovered.

which brings us on to keith vaz.

luckily for the papers their weekend didn't go scoopless because they had keith in the background, very convenient. i am sure there was nothing cynical about the timing and they always intended to hang keith out to dry at some point or another.

keith was filmed with some male prostitutes. they decided to film and sell their story when they recognised that mr vaz wasn't the lowly washing machine salesman he claimed to be – but a recognisable high profile politician.

mr. vaz was in charge of a select committee that was looking into whether or not prostitution should be legalised and to his credit he doesn't seem to have used the pete townshend defence: 'it was research'. it was his position on the committee that turned his sexual adventures from something that was between him and his family (wife standing by him – probably nothing to do with the family property fortune at all) and squeaking into the public interest.

there are two reasons why i think it counts. firstly he hadn't declared to the committee that he was a user of prostitutes. it really is time that the oldest profession is decriminalised. making it legal means you take away one of the main reasons for human trafficking. if brothels and prostitutes are legalised then they can be monitored to ensure they are lawful, they can be taxed (there is a lot of money in it) sure there are a lot of 'not in my backyarders' out there who would scream blue murder in order to stop it happening in their neighbourhood – but why it is already happening, this just makes it legal. and while making it legal might increase the number of men who visit a prostitute i doubt very much it will be by huge numbers.

because mr vaz hadn't declared he was a partaker of paid for sexual adventures he left himself open to accusations of bias – you are hardly going to make one of your favourite pastimes illegal are you?

but a second more important reason is that by hiding that sort of thing he created the opportunity to become the victim of blackmail.

for me that was the main problem mr vaz believed he was above such concerns, that he wouldn't get caught and their wouldn't be consequences to his actions.

and here comes my third reason why i think it counts.

pretty much if this had happened to a majority of mps i would have thought nothing of it, but keith vaz just rubs me the wrong way (though perhaps not the best choice of words in the circumstances). every time mr vaz appears i am shocked he is a labour politician, as he has enough smugness to place him on the same level as david cameron and george osbourne and that really is saying something.

in fact i suspect there were few calls to defend his privacy simply because so few people like him.

all i think he did wrong was keep it secret and that isn't a reflection on him but more a comment on the puritanical state that certain news organisations think we should be. ironically while mr vaz was heading up a powerful select committee whatever they may have suggested would have had to make it past the judgement of the unelected editors and owners of our national news organisations.

they are the real opinion formers, they are the establishment and judging by the amount of press we see about them being naughty boys and girls (virtually zilch) they are above reproach but we know that is bollocks. that is why i always find 'in the public interest' line so hypocritical because it is not applied to them.

but on the other hand it is keith vaz we are talking about.

so well played mass media.

heat

summer is not my favourite time of year.

i dread it.

i don't like the bight sun.

i don't like the heat. don't care if it is dry heat or wet heat i don't like it.

i don't like that everyone else is telling me how nice and how wonderful it is.

i hate it.

i positively loathe it when it becomes heatwave city and we get those last few dying days of summer that appear when the nights are closing in and we should be enjoying the joys of autumn leading to the sharp bracing pleasure of winter.

guess who hasn't enjoyed the last few days of our indian summer heatwave.

oh that would be me.

it is true that part of the problem is that i am a fat bastard.

a fat bastard who sweats a lot.

so sweltering sizzling weather is my enemy.

i have felt faint. i have felt like a sausage in a microwave ready to pop as i overcook. i have felt drained and heavy limbed as the sun bleached out energy. every movement a conscious effort, lethargic, woozy and short tempered a new, even more, unlikeable version of me: short tempered misery guts.

let us not forget the watery eyes and sneezy nose as i spend a week or two as the victim of hay fever, the nights of not being able to sleep because i am unable to get comfortable in the stifling heat that turns a place into a cheap sauna, when i do sleep i wake to oppressive heat already half dead knowing that when i go out the heat will punch me in the face like a sledgehammer bouncing off an anvil.

days spent longing for a break in the weather. a downpour of rain to freshen and cool the air, when it does come it is over in a flash and before you know the street is as dry as a bone again. reading news rags and wishing that the horror weather stories of the daily mail and daily express just for once contained a modicum of truth (little chance – on anything they write to be honest). looking to the skies and hoping that a lone cloud is a precursor to a storm.

yes i fucking hate summer.

not even the joyous pleasure of pretty women in skimpy clothes can take away from the fact that it is summer. in fact it is a cruel game on behalf of the creator that at the time when ladies strut and preen their stuff i am at my least interested. come winter when covered in puffa jackets and woollen jackets i am ready – but nothing to see.

then just when you think that is it – all over autumn here we get blistering indian summer.

and i fucking hate indian summers even more than regular summers.

currently not a happy bunny.

bring on wind, bring on rain, bring on snow, bring on winds.

bring on winter.

journey

the decision had been made, leave work at a vaguely sensible time catch night buses and train to get back to where i am staying.

check the tfl site. enter options and see the results. enter different options get different results. repeat. choose best course of action.

chosen: night bus, night tube and night train. by jings a winning combination.

mmm if i lock up now i can catch the bus that takes me to where i want to go.

get to stop in time.

check with driver it is going to hyde park corner. it does.

approaching hyde park corner i ding the bell

i stand by the door, ding the bell again.

bus goes past hyde park corner.

i give the driver a snidey comment – but polite.

when i get off at the next stop i sarcastically thank him for nothing. i feel a little better for doing that. that's me big man in the hood.

hoof it back to hyde park corner – normally i wouldn't be too bothered but i am trying to catch a train, they (mostly) stick to timetables. notice that the park itself is open which is pretty impressive and deserves to be investigated but not right now, train to catch.

mm something not right. station is closed. that's fucking wrong. all night tube blah blah. bastardising bus driver and now tfl website giving wrong information. fuckity fuck. maybe they've closed one entrance just to control the flow of people. try other entrance. closed. cock.

check web for details.

shit the bed i got out at the wrong fucking bus stop. didn't need hyde park, needed green park. wanky wank.

try find bus stop i need. check destinations, no sign of green park. why not? look bus going to picadilly jump on that. blink of an eye at green park.

on tube.

at victoria

need the 5.23 train, platform 9. twenty minutes. time to get porridge from macd

onalds and coffee from cafe nero. done. walk platform. front of train. press door button. nothing. press button again. still nothing. something not right. walk down the platform. no longer the 5.23 just an empty train. onto forecourt check the main boards – now it is the 5.38 from platform 18, should just make it.

need the front carriage.

longest train in the fucking world.

get on.

porridge cold.

coffee cold.

on the move.

arrive.

lessons learnt – write down relevant information, review relevant information, act on relevant information.

oh and don''t trust anything that southern say about their trains.

patterson

in the time it has taken me to write and post my last couple of blogs james patterson has written 4 novels, co-authored seven and plotted seventeen others while outlining the next two years worth of books that will bear his name. all while establishing a brand new format for reading

patterson found fame and fortune with his main character alex cross, a black private investigator who used to be part of the fbi. oddly if you look at the covers of the books there are times when you would be hard pressed to realise that the lead character was black – which says more about marketing than a host of books ever could.

i have only read the one alex cross novel. it was shit. i have read a couple of james patterson's other creations, both co-authored works and both shit. i might even be bold enough to state that james patterson is the worst writer that publishes and consistently and successfully.

patterson writes page turners. now some would say that the page turner genre is not worth the paper it is written on (see what i did there) but they are wrong. reading should be fun, it should be entertaining, it shouldn't be a chore.

one of the kings of the page turner is dan brown, the much maligned dan brown, and i am sure he cries himself to sleep at the poor reviews he receives from literary reviewers, just after he rolls naked in piles of dosh.

lots of people sneer at dan brown for being a poor writer but he knows how to keep you interested and he knows how to get you to keep turning the pages. trust me read a few of his pale imitators and you will see it is not as easy as it looks. his main trick is short chapters that end on a little cliffhanger making you want to know what happens next, because you know the next chapter is short you think ok just one more, but dan is wise to you and has switched viewpoints so you have to read another chapter. hooked. a page turner.

patterson on the other just has short chapters – the endings of which seem to be based on arbitrary factors such as he needed to go pee, he fancied a cup of coffee the cat jumped on his keyboard, in short they are not story driven they just occur willy nilly. while the chapters are short they are irritating because the just happen.

as pants as he is i hold james patterson in high regard. not only is he a beacon of hope to all us useless writers (he can, we can) he is, more importantly, getting people to read. he is involved in literacy programmes, he has put his name to initiatives to encourage reluctant readers. for that alone he has to be admired and praised.

i love books and i love reading. i will never have enough books and i will never read all the books that i have on my, rather long, must read list but that isn't going to stop me from trying,

there is a part of me that doesn't trust people who have no interest in reading – there is something odd about them.

i was lucky when it came to books – infant and junior schools i had teachers who encouraged reading, dad loved to read (i can't remember mum being much of a reader until later in her life) (both of them loved to tell tall tales or as they are more commonly referred to: lies), there were always books around. i had a curious jump from enid blyton to ed mcbain and ian fleming. a genre fan was born and a genre fan i remained.

i spent many happy hours in second hand bookshops looking for a james bond, a doc savage, a john carter warlord of mars or something new that would have me hooked and waiting for their next book. falling in love with science fiction and horror and imprints such as pan and new english library.

books i love them.

and i don't understand why there are some out there who just don't share my enjoyment of the written word. i just don't get why.

and for the work he has done to bring people to the written word a hat has to be doffed and a glass has to be raised in appreciation of the work that james patterson has done and will continue to do. praise him.

just don't ask me to read his books.

porridge

it is funny how tastes change. there was a time when i would sneer at the idea of porridge: what eat that upchuck? oh yeah i am quite the foodie.

oh well how wrong i was. since my recent bout of ill health i have become a bit more conscious about the food i eat: how much sugar? how much fat? you are shitting me! (and dear mr. sainsbury's you don't need the government to bring about healthier food – you are big enough to make the changes, just don't want to in case you lose money).

anyway there i was in pret a manger and i thought i really can't have any more cheese, oh ok let's give that porridge a go. whatta y'know i liked it, hell more than that i really liked it.

so now i eat porridge.

one of the many things i can't claim to be is a cook or even vaguely interested in the whole preparing meals process. as far as i am concern food technology has had only three major inventions: fire, sliced bread and the microwave.

but i still know stuff and the stuff i know includes that it shouldn't be impossible to make consistently decent porridge. you just need the right ratios of oats to milk/water or milk and water and cook for a certain length of time. oat so simple - see what i did there? (and that is the closest i will ever come to cooking.)

imagine my surprise when i rock up at gregs the bakers one morning and purchase their porridge. carton felt nice and hot. i was looking forward to it. i kept shaking the pot as i walked to stop it from congealing. i needn't have bothered. when i finally sat down to enjoy it what i was confronted with was a curious asian fusion dish that was miso meets oats. if i had wanted warm milk with bits in i would have asked for it. what i wanted was porridge – a dish that isn't hard to make, a dish that is almost perfect for fast food places to have on hand to dole out to hungry customers.

gregs have obviously decided that the humble porridge needs an upgraded and misoed the hell out of it.

no need to worry plenty of other places do it. there i am on victoria station, train is close to leaving, i know i will try the people at breadbox they are offering porridge. hand over the cash, get the goodies and helter skelter to catch the train. a bit of heavy breathing and adjusting bags and then popping open the porridge container.

oh.

oh

not quite porridge – what they are offering is a milky sweet gruel. sure you can hunt around and find some oats you can even try to stir it all up to see if those oats will expand with agitation and fill the carton magic bean style. you can do any number of things and you will still be left with a cooling gruel. i am not knocking gruel – it was the staple diet for many for a long time – it is just that when you a buying one thing and you get something that isn't quite that it is easy to be disappointed.

i was.

lesson learnt. stick to pret.

what macdonalds do porridge?

oh ok let's give them a go.

drugs

it wouldn't be an olympics if there was not a story or three about drugged up super athletes this year was made all the more spectacular by the banning of russian track and field competitors because of states sponsored doping. (interesting sidebar and a foreshadowing of a coming up future blog – the alt right (or conspiracy theorists) have argued that this is just a reaction to putin not playing the new world order game).

of course it wouldn't be a scandal if the governing body did what it was supposed to do, instead it fobbed the hard decision off on to various sporting federations. hey you get paid the big bucks to pass the big buck.

so drugs in sport! who would have thought it?

there was a time not so very long ago where i was totally anti-drug. those days have gone. it is not that i am now pro-drug, it is more that i am legalise and control drugs, let people use them and make money from the taxes. for social use i can only see benefits – drugs are exciting because they are illegal so kids want to try them: look at me i am so rebellious. that puts them in touch with a group of people who are just like any other business; they want to make money and they want them to buy more and more of their shit (to use old school parlance – like i know what the fuck i am talking about). like ciggies and booze some dabble and drop it, others become life long sensible users and a few become addicts.

making drugs available over the counter means they will quality controlled, they will be price regulated but more importantly the element of criminality will be removed.

more tax, less crime. winner.

solved the social issues of drugs, i shall now move on to drugs in sports. no messing about here.

pretty much all sports have had some sort of issue with drugs – whether it be their stars being caught using recreational drugs or turning into full blown disaster zones because of drug abuse. or there is the issue of performance enhancing drugs.

performance enhancers come in all shapes and sizes all with the express aim of making you better at what you do – whether it be running, riding, driving, jumping, thinking or just posing.

being clean and being a winner is what counts, and most champions are indeed that.

but are they really clean – have they taken painkillers/ blockers to allow them to compete? if they have then it can just be as easily argued that they have been 'enhanced'.

the thing is that drugs are becoming much more sophisticated and it is taking longer to find 'drug cheats', they are still testing samples from the beijing and london olympics and finding some were doped.

why bother?

the reasons why you would want to keep drugs out of sport are as follows: it isn't a level playing field and so doping is cheating. that it gives the impression that these athletes are different from the rest of us and we can't aspire to attain their levels of competitiveness. that by doping they are poor role models and, worse, poor walking billboards for advertising the wears of various high profile companies.

the main reason to take drugs? to win.

given that i come back to my question of why bother worrying.

look most of us are not going to become top line sportsmen, so it hardly matters to me if the upper echelons of sport juice themselves up with lawks knows what in order to get that extra yard out of themselves. ironically if doping was made legal then perhaps more people would be able to compete at higher levels.

if everyone had the choice to use drugs then the playing field is levelled and so cheating is no longer an issue. if you wanted to compete clean you could – usain bolt, among many others, has shown that to be the best you do not need to be injecting or pill popping. in fact you could have two classes of athlete clean and enhanced. the only one that would need checking would be the clean athlete.

if social drug use is made legal then the question of sportsmen being doped up is no longer a worry for them being role models, if we keep choosing to use them as such.

probably the key driver that keeps athletes on the straight and narrow is their endorsements – you put in all those hours of training, you might as well do all you can to make sure you keep the money you get from your many sponsors. you know when a tiger woods has fallen from grace – not by the lack of wins but by how many companies choose to release him from his contract to promote their brand.

now i would wager that the majority of fans just want to see the fastest, longest, highest, furthest. fans want to see the best, and they want to see the best win.

i would legalise drugs in sport, that sportsmen would have to declare if they were clean or enhanced and you would test only those who were clean. then see what market forces wanted – do the fans turn up to see serena sweep all before her because of talent and hard work or do they turn to the latest wunderkind who has taken a jamboree bag of pills to aid their rise to the top? do the fans protest the heavyweight championship because the winner is a reject from rocky 4?

once the fans have shown they accept their heroes are using drugs you will see the once very moral brands return to paying big money to their sports stars again.

sure there will be a few doped up guys who win, but the fans will know who they are and whether or not they want to support them. then we will see just what the public want – do they want clean or do they want to see the best being the best that they can possibly be. where the fans go, that is where the money goes and where the money goes the sports stars go.

if the public go for doped super athletes then it won't be long before drugs are made legal.

hypocrisy is beaten.

everyone happy.

sport's problem solved.

a societal problem solved.

sport

as the olympics comes to an end and the footie season begins in earnest my love hate relationship to sport continues.

there was a time when i was a contender to be a contender, all that stopped me was a mix of not quite enough talent, nowhere near enough dedication and little or no drive (oh and i was let down by my body deciding that while my peers were going to have a growth spurt upwards gaining 6 to 12 inches the only additional inches i was going to get were going on my waist) . if that sounds like a recipe for failure – it was. thing is you can get away with not having the dedication if you have the talent and you can compensate for no talent by just applying yourself and training hard. if you skip all three bits well you can look back on your glory days while you sit at your desk at work while you bore the tits off your colleagues about just how talented a footballer/rugby/tennis/modern pentathlete you were. (though on balance that is preferable to hearing about how blasted your workmate got over the weekend because they sank twenty pints, did two lines, got off with someone but can't remember much else about the weekend).

while my sporting heyday was fleeting it did give me an insight into the world of dedication, determination, sweat, tears, puke, time and sacrifice that is necessary to become good – moving to elite is another level altogether.

it follows then that i should be a keen fan, on the edge of my seat cheering on my guy/gal/team. living and dying by their success or failure, alas i am not. i used to be. many moons ago i was an avid fan of basketball. staying up late to watch highlights on channel 4 and itv, sitting through the night to watch full games. falling in love with the poetry of michael jordan in action. when i discovered a new british team was setting up in my area i became an instant fan. never missed a home game, jumped for joy when we won the cup and championship, had a sniffle when we were knocked out of the cup by manchester what i knew about basketball could be written on the head of a pin, my ability to play basketball was non-existent but i loved the ebb and flow, the speed, the power, the artistry that went into the game, some players were brutes hurtling down the court like an express train and slamming the ball into the net, others danced and pirouetted their way to scoring. it was magical, it was breathless entertainment, it was edge of your seat heart in your mouth count the seconds thrills and spills. i loved it

and then the team hit financial troubles. moved too far away. the nba was only available on satellite channels and the love died.

that was probably the start of the cynicism. curiously this was also the time when i fell for the wwe where cynicism is the name of the game – but it was all part of the shtick of sports entertainment so all fine and dandy.

what really tipped me over the edge was a combination of money and sportsmen as divas. eye watering financial rewards are only available in the 'elite' sports, those watched on more tv screens than the rest. more tv coverage means more advertising revenue, more advertising revenue means more tv coverage and that means more money. more money means greater rewards for the elite of the sport, and of course their agents.

as if the money wasn't enough we have had to suffer the celebritization of sport during which sports personalities have gone from being role models (not something that kicking a ball or riding fast necessarily makes you competent to do) to being people who have their everyday life played out in front us – sometimes as aspiration sometimes as tragedy.

in short the media have created monsters and we the public seem willing to go along with it,

the sport almost becomes second fiddle to hang other narratives on – such as sacrifice & legacy, good and bad.

of course fans themselves don't help. they pay money for the pleasure of watching their heroes and once you start paying a lot you start expecting a lot. more often than not those expectations run wild and create an in built failure. a pal of mine is a season ticket holder at a football club, a club that is there or thereabouts every season challenging for honours. as there are only 4 titles the club can win in any given season then the odds are not in their favour, but logic is not something the fans like. yet what my pal wants to see from them is that they care, that they do their jobs well. for him the complaint isn't that they lose it is that they don't try. now i may not be a great footballer but for a weekly salary that is far and away greater than the average annual salary i can guarantee i will run my tits off every time i get on the pitch. not so footballers – because they don't see their reward as being exceptional to them it is the norm.

when silly money comes into play it also seems to create a sense of entitlement on the part of the sports star – well i am being paid this much therefore i am important – in fact more important than the club and fans. how often do you hear someone say 'they need to match my level of ambition', though this mostly means pay me more money or i will find someone else to pay me. yet for all that ambition and desire you never hear them say – cut my wages and use the spare cash to improve.

meanwhile the publicly funded olympic athletes either want more to help them live their dreams. or they want more benefits such as free tickets to watch events or to invite their families. or they want us to appreciate their sacrifices. of course the rewards are theirs, it is the public that takes the risk.

there are students out there who have taken on huge debt to live their dreams – and in many cases these dreams are going to be of a bigger benefit to the general public than any number of medals won at sports events. yet we expect lawyers, doctors, social workers, teachers etc to fund their dreams themselves.

when it comes to sacrifices you only have to look around at the people working long hours for little reward and even less glory to understand that sacrifice comes in many shapes and shades – and for some it is a lifetime of sacrifice.

so yes dear reader i have fallen out of love with sport because of money and entitlement. yet i can't help myself i keep going back to it in the hope that i will be wowed and inspired again.

live in hope.

fashion

fashion is not my bag.

though bags do play a large part in my fashion choices.

i live by the jobs/zuckerberg school of dressing – i just throw a little more variety into it. instead of large walk in closets filled with numerous versions of the same style and colour tops, and bottoms of the same colour and style. i operate under the two bag system – one bag contains the clean clothes and the other contains the dirty clothes. a quick dive into the clean bag brings out the clean top, pants and socks for the day, the bottoms being used for several days. easy peasey. sadly i haven't invented a new style of computing or social media with all the time i have saved through my streamlined dressing).

(and no while i might look like i have dressed from the dirty bag, even i don't make that mistake.)

so me and fashion are not even close to being pals.

probably the last time i was in fashion was when i was in nappies, because nappies are pretty universal (and i am not talking about adult baby fantasy here). the last 54 years me and fashion have parted company.

of course my lack of fashion sense or interest doesn't stop me from looking at some fashion choices and think what the fuck, no really what the fuck.

seriously why has the low slung jeans/ trousers become a fashion staple, why did it ever become popular in the first place? most people who sport the fashion do not have the body for it and as they shuffle charlie chaplin like down the street doing the i have shat my pants waddle. of course if you are young and have a gym honed body then perhaps you can carry it off, and the makers of the pants you are wearing are pleased for the extra publicity. the majority of wears tend not to be like this and seemingly they don't necessarily want the pants either. in a large number of cases you are confronted low jeans, no pants and a flabby arse with a dirty crack of doom. trust me that isn't a look anyone wants to be having. more to the point it is a look that most of us don't want to see.

gents put your arses away and pull those strides up.

the current fashion craze i don't understand harks back to something i loved as a kid/teenager: ripped jeans. back when i had ripped jeans it was because i had done something to wear the material out, it was a badge of effort. those ripped knees were a sign you had been out being active. now such rips and tears are fashion statement – except it doesn't stop at rips and tears it is whole chunks of the jeans that are missing, and it isn't just one rip or tear it is loads of them, in some cases there are more holes than there is jeans.

why? what is so special about tramp chic? other than you are showing the world you have more money than sense and you can afford to dress shabbily and all your peer group and other fashionistas will congratulate you on your brand choice and admire your taste for looking just like them.

maybe that is the point – it is a signifier that you belong with the others who wear jeans that are torn to shreds and have large holes all over them (of maybe more accurately – they have a bit of jeans defining empty space of the fashion statement.

to me clothes are something i have to wear, so something easy, practical and comfortable to wear. no hassle, pluck it from the bag and put it on. i don't want to be navigating holes to make sure i don't rip the item any more than it already is, after all i wouldn't want to ruin the look of such stylish clothes.

maybe it is best that i stick with sensible bland clothing as i am pretty sure that old chubby blokes shouldn't be trying to make fashion statements.  ever.

fallout

going into the referendum there was a dream, a hope that result would have far reaching repercussions. oh how right we were.

only problem is they were not the repercussions i wanted.

ok here was my dream scenario. june 23^rd the votes would be cast and during the morning of june 24^th i would enjoy listening to the results being announced, early in the morning victory for remain would be declared so i could sleep. throughout the day we would be treated to the smug face of david cameron as he wittered on about how wonderful it was that remain had won the day and that the country had spoken and we were staying in europe. yays all round. over the weekend all those eurosceptic tories would kick up a fuss, rebel and basically make cameron's small majority virtually useless leading to a general election and us all happily dancing on the grave of the now fractured and useless tory party.

i can dream can''t i?

didn't quite happen that way.

boris switches sides, brexit campaigners indulge in a bit of number manipulation, much of the media was for leaving and there were a number of voters who decided that june 23^rd was time to give the government/ elites/ establishment a bit of a kicking so chose to vote against remain and for getting out of europe.

and come the early morning of june 24^th out of europe we were going.

david cameron resigns and for a brief glorious period it looked as if the tories were going to destroy themselves with infighting, but no a few scares and then bish bosh they have their leadership election and instead of boris, theresa may is handed the poison chalice of getting us through the article 50 negotiations.

already she looks like a steady eddie keeping the tories on an even keel and moving forward.

meanwhile over in the labour camp chaos rules.

in an effort to shake up the party and to weaken the unions ed milliband changed how the leader was elected: it was changed to one member one vote. all very democratic all very sensible.

fast forward to the election of a new leader and jeremy corbyn throwing his hat into the ring and suddenly there is a huge surge in membership and before you know it they have all gone and voted corbyn as leader.

road to hell, no good deed, unintended consequences – you choose.

corbyn wanting a new type of politics– a less combative style. the whole brexit debate was the end his honeymoon period, with many of the labour parliamentarians being disappointed at his half

hearted defence of european membership.

while he has the mass support of the new membership he does not have the support of his mps. an odd situation.

some are calling a coup (though some might argue that what the corbynistas have done has been a coup of the labour party), and if it is it is the slowest and most advertised in history, and weeks after the referendum we are still embroiled in what to many is a foregone conclusion: corbyn re-elected as leader of the labour party.

the danger of the corbyn leadership is that it is more interested in ideological purity than it is the practicalities of being elected, or even of being an effective opposition. just when the tories might have been at their weakest the labour party has decided to commit suicide. yet for some of them they will be happy that they haven't compromised their principles and ideals and instead of being a political force they are just as unelectable as the socialist workers party and others of that ilk (george galloway's respect party success being a unique case). reduced in effect to being a party of protest, slogans and banners.

my dream was we stayed in europe and tory party was in turmoil. instead i have the nightmare of an extended period of tory rule just because the labour party is prepared to immolate itself rather than work together to hold the tories to account.

still it does mean that the lib dems might get some votes at the next election.

constipated

not to get too personal (or too graphic) but i am constipated. i am bunged up – i can feel a very large chunk of turd loitering, but like a reluctant bride it isn't ready to come down the aisle just yet. i have a history of annoying bowel troubles – started young (and in a freudian jungian kleinian way probably explains many of my quirks), after all you try to recover from a trip to the doctors when you are still in short trousers only to have a finger inserted in your arse and then wiggled and before you cry abuse – he did lube up and give me a sweetie afterwards. and that doesn't sound much better does it.

this was followed by a course of visits from the district nurse who happily and joyfully (and perhaps a little too erotically – no just making that bit up, really, no really) administered a series of daily enemas.

which by the end of would clear me out – yet also plant the seeds of dark erotic leanings for the future and allow me to be sympathetic towards alien abductees who had been probed.

while this sorted out the immediate problem – my movements have never been what one could call regular.

every so often there would be a period where nothing would exit the back passage. even though i hadn't developed a phobia of probing district nurses and doctors with lubed fingers as i got older i was a little more reluctant to allow things to be inserted into my arse, some might call this probophobia i called it personal preference.

when confronted with another bout of constipation various remedies would be called upon. ex lax and senokot would be used, get the dose wrong and well you could be caught short dumping a load into your britches and doing the charlie chaplin shuffle. only happened a couple of times but that is still one time too many.

with the loss of medicines other avenues had to be investigated.

a change in diet to include pooh friendly foods, bananas for instance. an increase in high fibre food such as shreddies or all bran. stronger coffee (a personal fave – and no not as an enema, but one day maybe...).

next up is a change in lifestyle – some exercising just to get the body moving and churning the insides up and therefore (hopefully) out.

or the final option – move into the toilet with a stack of comics and books, sit down and wait for nature and gravity to do their thing and after an unspecified amount of time a whoosh slash and sigh – the sounds of mission accomplished. however as this would be a patient long game there would be no jumping to my feet and a loud yell of triumph – no that would have to wait until later, until i had recovered from the dead legs, until then i would have to continue my toilet bound ruminations of life and the price of coffee. of course i would be peeling myself off the toilet seat and as my arse would be melded to the toilet seat and when i finally get to my feet i would have an indentation of the toilet seat firmly embedded in my arse cheeks, for a few hours i would be a walking work of art ready for rachel whiteread to do a cast of the negative space of my arse and the toilet seat. (it would have won the turner prize – and who knows it might just happen).

i am still waiting for the whoosh splash sigh of a successful dump. i keep telling myself it will happen on my next visit to the throne room, as yet no real luck, a rabbit dropping here or there but no real dambuster style emptying.

every time i go in there to cogitate and read i am conscious of elvis’s last words and in the back of my mind the mad bad thought that the turd monster might get me and i would be found slumped clutching a copy of the latest instalment of the executioner series in my hand.

i hope that is this should happen i have remembered to have left a copy of moby dick or the complete poems of t h lawrence in there. just a bit of class.

portals

there is little that annoys me.

oh who am i kidding i am a man full of irk, so much so i irk more than miley twerks.

what makes me an irker is that that life is full of the little things that annoy, irritate and vex. in a way this is a good thing because there are so many causes of exasperation that i do not spend much time on each one worrying about how to revenge myself on the causes of my current beleaguered irk. no doubt if i fretted and gnawed at just one i would become obsessed and thus would begin the journey to serial killer.

yes! yes! i know, dear reader, you are keen to know just what it is that turns calm gentle pat into a raging seething giant sulk monster.

doors are simple things, their purpose summed up in a number of dualities: open/closed, locked/unlocked, in/out (occasionally a third purpose is applicable – but only in times of earthquakes where you can stand neither in or out, but within and be protected.

doors so simple, yet so crucial. they are transformational – you start out inside and with a stride and end up outside, or you are outside and with a step you are inside.

simple.

magic.

why then, i ask, is it so difficult for so many to grasp the concept of the door and use it properly?

are these people unfamiliar with doors coming from some primitive culture were there are no such portals and they live under the stars and need no protection from the elements, or are they from some some alien planet were doors do not exist because beings can materialise where they think they should be, or have the ability to turn themselves immaterial and thus pass through the very fabric of matter?

ah both of these would be lovely explanations and render my irk pointless – after all how can you be angry and annoyed at people who because they have no concept of door do not use the door properly. besides they would be strangers in a strange land and should be treated like guests.

alack and alas this is not the case – these door huggers, these door hangers are fully aware of the door principle they just don't think it applies to them. they believe they are more important than the door, that they are better than those who wish to benefit for the transformational properties of the door. it would not be so bad if when they saw someone approaching the door they acted like the red sea under moses's command. they don't. instead they stand their ground like a self important sentinel of the gap. really they are little more than irritating wastes of precious space who in a perfect world would be abducted by aliens and anally probed so that these space travellers could learn the right way to use doors.

to the best of my knowledge this does not happen – so we are left with the ritual of jostling and ignored 'excuse me, excuse me', pushing by and through ignorant arseholes who are busy looking at that oh so important text about what to do for lunch on their phone.

it is lucky i don't have a superpower as i suspect that these are the sort of people who would turn me into a villain who wreaked havoc on them, by turning them all into living hinges forever at the beck and call of the door.

as i say it is lucky i don't take these sort of things to heart.

tribute

this was a place holder - for a blog i never wrote – below is the basic idea of it and at the time i would have posted it in a fuller and more rounded form. but you should get the gist.
(posted august 2 2016)
essentially the blog was going to be about the differing coverage of two celebrity deaths that had just occurred.
on the one hand ronnie corbett's death was covered with acres of newsprint all pretty much praising him for being a giant of british comedy. when i used to watch the two ronnies it was always mr. barker that i thought was the funny one, years later i realised that mr. corbett contributed a great deal to the package and was funny in and of himself.
as a tv star he received the standard many page coverage extolling his virtues.

also dead around the same time was zaha hadid, a world renowned architect (in fact a starchitect) - most famous for her swooping lines and the aquatic centre at the london 2012 olympics. her death was accompanied by a few pages here and there.

while i was never a fan of her work it struck me that she deserved a bit more coverage than she got.

i am not sure that sexism was at the root of it, more that we are a celebrity driven culture and the celebrity we like are those who entertain.

the shame of the lack of coverage of hadid was that it meant that an interesting and important career, one that can bring fame and fortune, was glossed over.
that she was a woman would have been interesting in that it could have served to encourage more girls to study maths, science and engineering - all subjects we could do with more practitioners of whether they be male or female, rather than more contestants for reality shows.
even in death celebrity trumps achievement in other fields.
more needs to be done to make other choices just as interesting for kids to make.