This Is This

It’s a pretty big universe, OK? There might be life on it somewhere else, there might not. Maybe we are a fluke. Maybe it’s the exception to the rule that we crawled from the slime and evoluted into humans and invented computers and phones and hooked them up together and share knowledge and here we are. But what beautiful luck.

Just for a moment, adopt the arrogance that we have nearly figured it out. Not the life on other planets part or the reason for our existence, but absolute truth about the birth of the universe and our place it in. Imagine that, very soon, within your and my lifetime, we figure out at least that. For some people that’s the only mystery that needs answering.

On the one hand, it’s a useless answer. On the other it is everything. It would show that while we are insignificant in the universe, we understand how we came to be. Not for any purpose, but we will get it. It will tell us alot of what we already know, which is what happens a theory is proven, but there’s a far more emotional response, like when the atom was actually split, or someone really did sail around the earth, or you grew your first houseplant or put your first fingers on a D chord like the one in the diagram and strummed.

The emotional response to the birth of the universe will be acceptance. When you have not other options and panic does you no good, you go straight past the other stages. Acceptance is the “Free Parking” on the Monopoly board of the human heart. Sometimes you pay out, sometimes you collect, sometimes you take a card and just hope for the best. Free Parking is just knowing how you got there and being there without reasoning.

And the Free Parking is: we are tiny. Our patch of the heavens is infinitely small and the Earth within that teensy weeny incy and humans up on it are even moreso. But for all the luck or purpose of our existence, even though we can’t see our destiny, will know our origins. And we will have figured it out for no other reason than to know. How small and mighty is mankind - as wonderful as it is perhaps insignificant - so merely exceptional. We try, we continue and we thrive.

If you look at yourself, and see everyone else as the planets in our universe and you are the Earth, you will feel insignificant. Who are you? Just some person? Nothing important? Someone reading a blog, right? Yes, and no. But if you look at the numbers, you have better odds of standing out on this planet than Mother Earth did in the universe, and she’s done OK for herself.
If there is life out there, they are probably unaware that we are here, but as far as I can see, Earth fucking rocks. No reason why you can’t be the same on your patch now is there? There may be people who do the same as you, or do it better, but there are more who can’t, and even more who don’t try.

I’m not saying don’t give up. Hell, give up if you want to - more for the rest of us - but I’m saying if you decide to give it a shot, then give it your best and don’t think about your significance so much. You just might surprise yourself. And even if you don’t, you might make some people happy.

No more posts for about a week. I’m off for a week in the woods, then back to jokes about poo, cool words and what I’ve been thinking about saying to people who wind me up, with the odd mixture of the above.

I took a day holiday last week, told everyone who needed to know, and different people from work called me four times. Eez crezeh, non?

In other news, my dad now knows I have this weblog and he plans on visiting. Which is cool, my Dad rocks.

Just ixnay on the ugsdray, right?

I’m probably a smartypants. Several times now I have noticed people try to posh-up their talking when they speak to me. The neighbour puts “hs” (”Aitches”?, “hhhhhhhs”? - no idea how to write this, thus a smartypants I might be, although people who say “thus” probably are) where they shouldn’t be. She says: “My husband and I are the hopposite” and I can tell I’m reeling and hope she doesn’t notice, because as cockneys they probably know someone who could could break my leg for a monkey (that’s £500 to you and me).

I don’t want to be a smartypants. They put everyone off ease. I want to be dumbslacks, or at least a dimtrousers.

Today a mate was describing a product which would “cater for whatever you are interested in from guns to theatre.”

Other mate: “Guns and theatre? That’s a strange mix.” Laughter from surrounding mates.

Me: “That’s what Lincoln said.” No laughter from anyone, mates or otherwise. I’m not saying I’m brighter than anyone, but it was probably a wise-ass thing to say.

So I am a smartypants, but to dumb myself down would be sound insulting to anyone listening who knew what a smartypants I am.

I need a big slice of humble pie. With loads of ice cream. More ice cream than anyone else has on their pie. See how it much bigger than yours. Actually, it’s a tarte a humilite…

Someone was talking to me this week about the Koran. She was a posh white English woman in her mid-40s who tried to be really well spoken and pronounced the Arabic words in an Arabic accent. I thought it sounded authentic, but I also thought “oh puhr-leeeese”. She’s like those people that have to say the names of pastas in really bad “Shaddupa Yo Face” accents.

She went on: “And some passages about Mughhkhhhamhedd are written just like many Christian phrases.” Except that she didn’t pronounce Christian with a Hebrew accent. To an Arab, her bad Arabic accent, probably would have sounded like an English person trying to sound like an Arab. It was really off-putting. If you’re talking English, you should pronounce things the way you speak English. You dont have to go all Maurice Chevalier when you say “cul de sac” and you don’t have to say “zeitgeist” in a comedy German accent. In fact, you shouldn’t say “zeitgeist” at all. Just say it how you talk.

No one is impressed that you know the origin of words. You just sound mental. These words are in the English language. Some say they were given to us, some say they were nicked. I like to think we are holding them for safekeeping, Elgin marbles style. What matters is they are ours now.
I’m not saying you need to pronounce Paris as Pareee, but draw a line between authenticity and parody. When you talk about places in India, don’t try and do the accent. You will end up sounding like Peter Sellers or a racist.

Also, newsreaders now say “Newcastle” with a Geordie accent. Why? Do they have to pronounce things in their native accent. Do we have to say “Nu Yoik”, “Meheeco Seety”, “Brisbin” or “Noi Zilund”? It doesn’t make it more authentic, it makes it incredulous bollocks*.

I’m sure broadcasters on Tyneside they don’t pronounce the nation’s capital as “Laaaahndon”, because that’s how Cockneys say it. Talk how you talk, we’ll get what you mean.

*not to be confused with Incredulus Bolax - the state bird of Tasmania

I was looking at my stats the other day - I think it’s interesting how people stumble upon this site.

Yesterday, someone came surfing in from Google yesterday on the crest of a how to say stupid in lituanian search.

Sorry I couldn’t have been of more help, but thanks for dropping by.

Be taves as numirsiu! …Galu gale. *

*I will die without you! …Eventually

The Byrds Feeder
Jangly hippy melodies infused with Britrock

The Bee Gee Fugees
Screechy-voiced disco hits with a rootsy hip hop feel

Marylin Hanson
Candy-coated nuggets kiddy pop with a dark centre

Van Halen Morrison
The Belfast Cowboy with blistering axe riffs and spandex posing

Porno for Pixies (the searches I’m going to get now…)
A bizarre shouty circus of loud guitars and conceptual lyrics

Buffalo Tom Jones
Welsh hipswivvelling college rock

Michael Jackson Browne
The oddball King of Pop sings protest songs.

The Police Cars
Eclectic post-punk kings of the hook meet 80’s be-shaded MTV popstars

The Foo Bangles
The funniest band name yet and I’ve no idea why. Hits include Manic Generator and the controversial Learn to Fly Like An Egyptian.

Not as funny as Part 1 or Part 2

Simply Red Hot Chilli Peppers
California funk-rocker play money-spinning kitchen sink ditties including Money (Give It Away Now)

REM Speedwagon
Lame soft rock meets southern-fried alt-folk rocksters

The Rolling Joss Stones
R&B sensations play a back catalogue of drug-fuelled bluesy hits.

Kenny Rogers & Hammerstein
The golden age of the Hollywood musican in a country and western style. One for the ladies.

The Dead Nigel Kennedys
Vivaldi meets the moshpit. Hits include “Holiday in Cambodia (Spring)”

Al Green Day
Smooth soul and blazing punk

Bing Crosby Stills and Nash
Pot-laced harmonies of fireside classics

Talking Radioheads
Quirky arthouse band meets whiney indie die-hards

Like this post? No? Read Part 1 here.

Jay Peg and the Bitmaps
System Exception and the Illegal Commands
The Gifs
The Control Panel
The Blue Screens
The Narrow Band

Can we get one thing straight? Buildings and cities are evacuated, not people. People can be evacuees, ie. the subject of an evacuation, but if you want to see a person evacuated, there are plenty of websites other than this one who can cater to your tastes.

Day 12, and Tuesday’s been replaced with some iced gems and a spatula. Meanwhile, dinner is served aboard the Mir Space Station and someone’s not planed their Shiva.

1. I found a good site over the weekend.
2. The writer shares three things every day that make her smile.
3. That’s it.

Three Beautiful Things

Age 30-present, 2002-

Until the gift of hindsight kicks in, I’d be clutching at straws to name songs that stand out, but here are a few. No More Running Away by the Ben Taylor Band, Bedsprung by Keane, Triple Trouble by The Beastie Boys.

A bit of classical? I’m saying Arron Copland’s Appalachian Spring to you. Talk about your bangs and whimpers - this is it, and it still qualifies as a song, since in weighs in a just under 25 minutes.

I’ve always returned to singer/songwriter stuff through all my fickle whims of tunesmithery. Pete Atkin (My Dreams Are Troubled) was a recent and late discovery. Colin Hay remains most ignored exponent, if not the least acknowledged. He was the frontman of global Aussie popsters Men At Work and today writes songs of which you’ve never heard the like. He’s also a great lyricist and gives me as good a place as any to end. Cheers all and thanks for listening.

I Just Don’t Think I’ll Ever Get Over You - Colin Hay

I drink good coffee every morning
Comes from a place that’s far away
And when I’m done I feel like talking
Without you here there is less to say

I don’t want you thinking I’m unhappy
What is closer to the truth
Is if I lived till I was 102
I just don’t think I’ll ever get over you

I’m no longer moved to drink strong whisky
‘Cause I shook the hand of time and I knew
That if I lived till I could no longer climb my stairs
I just don’t think I’ll ever get over you

Your face it dances and it haunts me
Your laughter’s still ringing in my ears
I still find pieces of your presence here
Even after all these years

But I don’t want you thinking I don’t get asked to dinner
Cause I’m here to say that I sometimes do
Even though I may soon feel the touch of love
I just don’t think I’ll ever get over you

If I lived till I was 102
I just don’t think I’ll ever get over you

I like the way Scottish people talk and how they say “situation”. “Sitcheeyayshun.” And Welsh people, the way they say “hyur” for “here”.

My dad’s really good at accents. He can pin down a lilt or drawl after a couple of minutes. He guesses where my friends have lived even if they were only there for a few years. It’s scary. It’s like when Hannibal Lector says to Clarice Starling that she sometimes wears whatever perfume, and adds: “but not today.”

I can tell some accents. Americans are always impressed that I can tell if they come from Philadelphia, because some of them think they sound like everyone else, except they say “churre” for “cherry” and “snoewww” for “snow”. People from New Orleans say “ahl” for “oil”, which kills me.

But recognising accents is all about where you are from. People from Manchester can recognise people from Salford. I can tell the difference between someone from where I live and someone from a town 20 miles away. Ask someone from Bristol to say “purple” and you’ll get a totally different accent from someone from Bath. I bet people from San Francisco can spot an Oakland accent, but I wouldn’t know.

Twenty years ago, everyone on TV spoke the same. They all had the newsreader Oxford and Cambridge long vowels and spoke like they did on the BEEEEEE BEEEEEE CEEEEEEEE. Chech-Nyaaaaaaah. Pahhhhkiistaaaaahn. Now, you hear accents from all over the UK but there remain some exceptions. You don’t hear many Liverpudlian accents on TV, at least not in a position of authority. I can’t imagine a newsreader saying “All right, la. Tons of them French folks been out looking for werk this arvo after the collapse of the moby maaaahrket which made the CAC index drop like a wet cossie. Everyting’s sound here, doh” or “Hozzie staff say they are overwhelmed following scraps involving dockers and bizzies. While the unions were gutted, many of the rozzers were said to be ‘made up’.”

Age 25-30, 1997-2002

All of the above. It’s probably a sign of growing old when we continue to listen to what we listened to when we were twenty. But I take some comfort that people who are in their twenties listen to bands that sound a lot like the stuff I listened to ten years ago. I mean, Coldplay sounds a lot like Counting Crows, Dave Matthews Band sounds a lot like Crowded House.

I made some rediscoveries, like Manic Street Preachers did it again with “Everything Must Go”, a blistering ode (in my mind at least) to impermanence and consumerism. Foo Fighters’ Learn to Fly does melodic rock better than anything I’ve heard.

I started listening to different types of music, like country (Look Heart, No Hands by Randy Travis, Dixieland by Steve Earle And The Del McCoury Band), zydeco (Beast of Burden by Buckwheat Zydeco or anything by the Bluerunners), Bluegrass (Foggy Mountain Breakdown by Lester Flatt and Earl Scruggs), marrabenta, the rhythmic guitar music of West Africa (Aids by Mabulu), rock steady (Get Out Of My Life Woman, Byron Lee and the Dragonaires).

My dad last weekend:

“You know, you see skaterboarders on TV these days, they’re all grown men. Policemen seem to be getting younger, but skateboarders are getting older.”

I totally think like him, and more than ever I realise I will carry him on in me long after he is gone. I know this as sure as I am the aware that in 10 years time you’ll have policekids in uniforms handing out tickets to skate-rat pensioners. Skate Patrol 2016 - just try and keep up with me, sonny.

Fuck me, didn’t we liberate their country 15 years ago?

What the hell were we doing defending a country where women couldn’t even vote?

And now they are proud to announce they have been dragged kicking and screaming into allowing women to vote for their own government?!? What’s next, trial by fucking jury?

And I was so relaxed after the weekend.

Age 20-25, 1992-1997

Grunge hit me hard. The first real grunge I heard was probably Dinosaur Jr’s Freakscene or L7’s Pretend We’re Dead. Smashing Pumpkins (Rhinoceros), Sugar (A Good Idea), Jane’s Addiction (Been Caught Stealing), Soundgarden (Black Hole Sun), I had time for all of them. I was kind of into Nirvana (Lithium) but not as much as Pearl Jam (Release), who I thought had more to say with better showmanship.

I went retro too, getting into Jimmy Hendrix (Wind Cries Mary), Velvet Underground (Sweet Jane), classic blues (Bill Bill Broozy, Robert Johnson, Muddy Waters, John Lee Hooker), Canned Heat (Going Up The Country). I also got not a little mainstream with your Peter Gabriels, your Stings, your Crowded Houses. Distant Sun remains one of my most favourite songs of all time ever in the world.

Motorcycle Emptiness and Faster by Manic Street Preachers stands out, too (The Holy Bible remains a favourite album). The Beastie Boys were a rediscovery, but everything on Check Your Head was an instant classic and the opening riff of Gratitute is as hilarious and cool as they are.

I was at a garden centre this weekend and there among the signs identifying the plants and their favoured conditions was a notice that said “Mind your own business. Keep in a shady room.”

I can’t argue with that, so that’s my post today. In these days of psychopaths and ozone depletion, there’s a lesson there for us all.

Some photos by Son, who is five and loves taking pictures.
(cue Take Hart music)

Buddha in the window

The flurry of activity in Jones Towers
The picture file is saved as one word: “merecycling”, which looks like “mere cycling”, but is actually just “me recycling”.

Television

Cat 1 loves the camera

Cat 2 clearly doesn’t

Flannel panthers are easier to work with

I normally pay little mind to these things, although I do them a lot, so I can sneer and them and say “pah - WRONG!”. But this one was pretty accurate, although it takes in none of my bad points, of which I have my share. I’m not always a good listener, my memory is rubbish and spare time? Hello?!? I can also be stubborn as hell, don’t eat enough fruit, snore (apparently…) and for some reason unknown reason, I end a lot of my sentences with “-um” And conversations, come to think of it.

Age 15-20, 1987-1992

I left home for boarding school at 14 and embarked on a voyage to discover everything. From having no records to being among 200 kids that had plenty meant I was on a steep learning curve. I got into a lot of classic rock: The Beach Boys (Warmth of the Sun), The Beatles (Get Back), The Who (Babba O’Reilly), The Stones (Can’t You Hear Me Knocking), later Bruce Springsteen (Glory Days). I got into a lot of hippy stuff like The Band(The Weight) , JJ Cale (After Midnight), Joni Mitchell (Coyote). I thought Guns and Roses were a joke, but admitted to liking some songs.

I still listened to jazz, and liked some fusion like Steps Ahead, Weather Report, Spyro Gira and The Mahavishnu Orchestra. But nothing could have prepared me for Loose Tubes. They were a big band, at least 30 strong, with the harmonies hell-bent on a follicle awareness drive, wierd time signatures that actually work and the best arrangements I have ever heard. They were like Beck meets an orchestra of Beck meets Zappa via the Clash. But that makes it sound too cooly-cool-arty-but actually-crap. Like, “I’ll listen to this until they leave” cool music. But it wasn’t because it was great.

James Taylor. God I love James Taylor (Baby Buffalo, Traveling Star). The pure and honest warm tenor from the soul, made to bring his deceptively simple songs to life. He’s the I reason picked up a guitar and I learned by playing along to his records. Later I joined a band and met my wife and had kids - that sounds crazy, but that’s how it happened and it’s a lot to be thankful for. What I love about music starts and ends with James Taylor.

Now this is going to like pop psychology and it kind of is, but it’s not.

We have has some strange weather here in the South-East UK. Last weekend we had hailstones, the week before that it was so hot we went to the beach for a picnic. The southern English have a very narrow comfort zone, too. Heatwaves in the - oh, I don’t know - low 90’s prompt hosepipe bans and boardroom discussions about changing the dress code at work. A foot of snow causes the rail network to collapse and the stockpiling of tinned and dried food. I am not joking you, we are an island nation that has won two world wars and fought off numerous other invasions (Rome - you got lucky OK? Invading at teatime, the bloody cheek…) and we go weak at the knees at the sign of gritting vans.

That said, it’s June in nearly two weeks and it’s freezing. I got up this morning and it was cold. Try that sometime. Instead of thinking “I am cold”, just try: “it’s cold.” It takes the focus off you but makes you part of the experience. The weather is cold and you are in it. It’s more the point of view that you are a part of this cold weather, rather than you sitting there thinking how cold you are. Think about how you fit into what’s going on rather than dwell on you own condition and you’ll feel more involved in things and also more detatched from you own suffering.

Wrap up warm.

Age 10-15, 1982-1987

I left the US and moved to France, where my mother discovered Sasha Distel, Yves Montant and Nana Mouscouri. Not cool French singers, not the dramatic gitanes-smoking singers pouring it out from the depths of their soul like Jacques Brel, Edith Piaf or Serge Gainsbourg, but poor-quality dittifiers of the kind of songs that would be performed on Saturday night variety shows where people would clap along on the 1 and 3 beat instead of the 2 and 4. Like a granny claps, with each hand spending more time holding the other one instead of being in the air moving towards the next clap.

There were some good somewriters around then, Etienne Daho for decent pop, Francis Cabrel was a good folk-tinged guitarist with great heartfelt songs like Sarbacane and Animale, Laurent Voulzy wrote some good ballads like Belle Ile en Mer, Telephone were a bloody excellent rock band who did new wave/punk/pop/rock better than anyone I have ever heard. Listen to Ca C’est Vraiment Toi and try not to be blown away. If anyone was doing their stuff in English at the same time, they would be legendary by now.

As a ten year old, I didn’t have a record collection to speak of, so I discovered my dad’s records, which was a life-changing experience. Jazz. Bebop and freeform jazz. We had a live recording of Sonny Rollins playing Swing Low Sweet Chariot with a band that included bagpipes and it is incredible. One of his signature tunes is St. Thomas which will make you smile. Charlie Parker playing The Gipsy is still something that can stop me in my tracks, and Dizzy Gillespie playing with him on Caravan is something you can’t sit still to. All those guys, Ray Brown, Thelonius Monk, Buddy Rich, even big bands if they were hard enough - not Glen Miller, but the bold dissonance of Stan Kenton, the drive of Benny Goodman, the measured cool of Duke Ellington, the fiery arrangements of Count Basie.

I pretty much dispaired at the state of 1980’s pop, and while all the cool kids were listening to Echo and the Bunnymen and The Smiths (which I still don’t get, by the way) I was sneaking off with my dad to the Nice Jazz Festival, making bootleg recordings of people like Miles Davis (1980’s fusion-era You’re Under Arrest and Bitches Brew), Lionel Hampton (a legend in France, who’s Flying Home sounds like hope), Dave Brubeck (Take Five), Woody Herman, Keith Jarret, Herbie Hancock and Art Blakey.

These old and dead guys were my heroes, and not only was the festival so informal that I got to walk among them, I actually got to meet a few of them. Not only did I talk to Dizzy Gillespie over lunch - my lunch, not his; I was eating while HE spoke to ME - but he recognised me the next day. One minute I’m a face in the crowd, and the next Dizzy Gillespie is calling out to me: “Cliff! Cliff! My man the Cliff. How you doing?”

I never did get much into pop, but somewhere in the mid-to-late-80’s I discovered rock like Ace Freehley (but strangely not Kiss), ACDC, Quiet Riot and Led Zepplin. The Police rocked my world and still do. Duran Duran were cool because I liked harmonies in pop. Men at Work wrote some good songs - the Cargo album with It’s a Mistake and No Sign of Yesterday is great. They were overshadowed by their big hit Down Under, which hung over them. Overkill is another good song. Frontman Colin Hay continues to write stunning songs and deserves more attention.

There’s a pop psychology adage which says “Do something everyday that scares you”. Like most of these phrases, this is total rubbish. It looks good on the wall of a telephone sales department, in Script font with a backlit picture of someone skydiving over the Grand Canyon, but this is essentially useless advice.

Lots of things scare me, including train surfing, which I’m not stupid enough to have done. But if I were stupid enough to consider it, I reckon a slogan like this would probably put the idea in my head. And as I clambered out the window of the 0703 into London Paddington, I would quote this advice to other people. Other stupid people might take this on board, and when they get to the office, they might have sex with that hottie in Facilities, or order oysters on a Monday. In February. In a Turkish restaurant. Then they would think they were really living, eh? For a while, anyway.

They could get that exploding space candy and swallow it with a whole can of Coke just to find out if the urban myth is true.

And take up base jumping, or shoot spitwads at the boss.

Stupid people take note, and I say this in a caring way, because I know that there are some stupid people who read This Is This. (not you, obviously, by the other guy - there was this one bloke in here yesterday, jeez….). Use your common sense when it comes to pop psychology. Make a stand for common sense.

“If you deserve it, it will happen” I deserve a round of applause. See? Nothing.

“You have the power to make your every dream come true”. What about the dream where I’m being chased in my socks by wolves around a kitchen table on a heavily polished tiled floor?

“You can’t make an omlette without breaking a few eggs” What about powdered egg? In fact, I’m pretty sure powdered eggs were around during rationing, before this adage was invented.

“Laughter is the best medicine” Unless you’re asthmatic in which case it’s Ventolin.

Use your common sense folks and doubt everything you hear. Today may be the first day of the rest of you life, but it’s also the last day of your history.*

*This is also stupid.

Age 5-10, 1976-1981

I moved from the UK to the US and listened to a lot of mid-to-late-70’s American radio rock, which really I liked. Whether it was discovering music myself for the first time, or the songs around in those days, but something switched my ears on. If you’re going to get your first taste of music, there are worse places to do it than in Philadelphia in 1976. Glam rock and progressive rock totally passed me by (being largely English phenomena), and instead the airwaves were filled with Simon & Garfunkle and Billy Joel, who really grabbed me. Yeah, I know he’s not cool now and fresh evidence indicates that he probably did start the fire, but The Stranger remains an album etched into my ears.

Rolling Stones playing Start Me Up stands out because they played a massive gig at JFK Stadium and everyone knew someone who knew someone who was there. Bruce Springsteen’s Hungry Heart reminds me of pizza parties and has a great live feel that makes it sound like the best house band in the world. I don’t think anyone eats more pizza than an eight year old kid from Philly. John Lennon’s Starting Over was something else I loved and my mum used to play a lot of Barry White. McFadden and Whitehead’s Ain’t No Stopping Us Now was everywhere because they came from the city and it was adopted by its baseball team as the song to accompany them on their march to win the World Series over the Kansas City Royals.

I would stay glued to WIFI 92 and soak up the J Giles Band, Devo, Blondie, maybe a little Earth Wind and Fire, and local popsters Hall and Oats. Daryl Hall signed a birthday card of a girl in school. The first album I ever bought was Michael Jackson’s Off the Wall. I got it second hand at a garage sale and the first song damn near killed me. Quincy Jones’s arrangement of Don’t Stop Till You Get Enough was insane. Funky bass and guitar over disco strings and soul horns and this guy singing two octaves above anyone else - what’s not to like?

Click picture for full size

Age 0-5, 1971 to 1976

I remember my dad used to play me a lot of music. I mean a lot in quantity and variation. He always has the car stereo on and would make the effort to expose us as many to different styles as he could. I can’t recall most of what he played but I remember I used to ask for “The Donkey Music”, which was kind of clippy cloppy stuff you heard in westerns. He used to play Steve Wonder, too and tap on the steering wheel. I remember the music to Doctor Who used to terrify me.

My mother used to play Helen Reddy, Kenny Rogers, Abba and Roger Whitaker, and I still know a lot of their songs by heart even though I haven’t heard them since, which is the sign of an aural thinker. I liked The Jungle Book soundtrack which I used to play over and over on my tape player. It was one of those toploading things with a built in speaker and a handle. My dad used to play a lot of jazz, but more about that later.

Apologies to MiramarMike, who runs a fine blog down there.
This post inspired this post.

This morning

Teenage Girl 1: How was your weekend?
Teenage Girl 2: It was OK. It’s wierd not seeing him any more.
Teenage Girl 1: Yeah.
Teenage Girl 2: But then I don’t see anyone any more.
Teenage Girl 1: ‘Spose.

Most friends and family do not know I have a weblog, and for good reason.

One is that the if they knew what I was up to we would have nothing to talk about or I’d arrogantly assume that, as an avid reader of “This is this”, they had all the background to the topic I was about to launch into.

Another reason they don’t know about this is that they would probably leave messages like: “Wow Cliff, that’s really funny, but not as funny as the time you did poopies in the car park of Sesame Street on Ice”.

Not that I write alot about my family online. I think everyone’s got their privacy and their gripes. Not that my family give me gripes, but if they did I wouldn’t share them here. Don’t mix your web and your worries. Keep them separate. You know: “This is my site - this is my shite.”

I do not like the Post Office because:

1. I dislike standing in line

2. I don’t like talking to someone through a glass partition. This stems from my fear of going to jail.

3. The staff LOVE the fact that they know more than you, with their stupid brand names and metric system. “Well in that case, you should have asked for Parcelpost instead of Priority Mail.”

4. They try to sell you insurance which covers the item in case they lose it. Why can’t we just pay more in regular postage and they can take greater care not to lose the item?

Me and them (a true conversation. Some of the names have been changed.)
Them: Would you like insurance?
Me: Why? Are you going to lose it?
Them: We will try not to. But if we do, you will be covered if you take out our insurance.
Me: How likely are you to lose it?
Them: I can not answer that, Sir.
Me: Are you more likely to lose it if I do not pay insurance?
Them: No Sir, but it can happen.
Me: Can you please make sure it doesn’t.
Them: I can not do that, Sir.

5. They can not guarantee a morning or afternoon delivery. Can’t you at least pin it down to a 12 hour window?

6. They do not pay their staff enough and they train them at busy times when people are buying complicated things like a TV licence for a blind person on benefits. “Sorry, that’s for six months. I should have said.” (looks over shoulder at waiting customers and smiles apologectically)

7. I often get letters for other Joneses who live across town.

8. Postal workers leave rubber bands on my path because they can not be bothered to pick them up when they drop them.

9. They are always going on strike.

10. They are a monopoly.

11. Almost everything they sell, from travel insurance to stationery, is a rip off compared to what you can get elsewhere, but poor Mrs. Muggins picking up her widow’s pension with her one good arm isn’t going to know that.

In the UK people use the phrase “going postal” with the American sense meaning to embark on a (sometimes) metaphorical bloody rage against one’s colleagues after the US Postal workers penchant for violent crime in the workplace. This isn’t founded on any reality. Over here, the same phrase should be used to describe a co-worker who is just “being a little bit shit.”

Tomorrow: Actually going postal, then brightening up for the weekend.

There was a lady sitting next to me on the bus last night rubbing her eyes and sniffing occasionally. I thought she might have been crying. I hoped she wasn’t crying. What does that say about me? Not that I hoped she wasn’t sad - how happy can you be on the commute back from work? I just hoped she wasn’t crying, because then I would feel I had to say something and that’s a tough one. Do I ask what’s wrong? Do I ignore it? Do I try and make eye contact or would that be staring? Maybe she wants to talk. Maybe this is a cry for help. Maybe she won’t be on the bus the next morning. Then a week goes by, then a month without a trace. Could I have done something? Etc.

I once cried the whole way on a train from Manchester to Cornwall and I was desperate for someone to ask me what was wrong. Yeah - I’m not ashamed. I can admit that. I’m enough of well-rounded, sensitive individual to be honest about it. Lots of people go to Cornwall.

So this lady was rubbing her eyes and sniffing and the situation was getting uncomfortable. Then she yawned. And that cleared everything up. She had allergies and was tired. I’d never though of it before, but have you ever seen someone cry and then yawn, mid-blubber? It doesn’t happen. It’s one of those things.

After 33 years I am still finding out about about people.

Aliens reading this with a view copying our strange behaviour to blend in before attaining power and enslaving us as their minions, take note: yawning and crying at the same time is something we humans do not do. The two practices together will just arouse suspicion and are not a part of our Earthling ways.

I had a great post lined up to today, sparked off by something I saw this morning. As with most flights of fancy, it hinges on reality, but you wouldn’t believe me, so I’m not going to run with it.

There’s no point. I’d lose your trust and respect and that means too much to me. But here’s the truth of it:

This morning, I saw a number 666 bus.

See? Told you. It’s too perfect. The rest just writes itself - “oh how convenient,” you say….. (etc) And I hear you, believe me, but I did.

There is no 666 route in London. The driver was being trained in a car park, but London Transport had the number of the beast clearly displayed all over the bus.

I now have whole journal entries in my head:
1) A father and son buy a one way fare to hell.
2) Satan comes up to London for the day to endorse the 2012 Olympic Bid. “Oh sure - the Pope gets his own car, God can be everywhere at once and they give me a bus. I still haven’t gotten over the crawling on my belly punishment. One apple! I’m getting too old for this.”
3) Said 666 bus flips over, revealing the number 999, which a kid called Gabriel dials to get the emergency services, saving dozens of lives.
4) The bus conductor turns out to be Jesus undercover who wrestles the steering wheel from the claws of Satan the driver, hellbent on driving the vehicle into a convent

I even had a title for the story - “Beelzebus”.

But you wouldn’t have believed me about the 666 bus I saw in London this morning.

We went for a picnic with some of our friends yesterday out by the lake. It’s strange how I catch glimpses of my parents in me now.

Like when we’re sitting there in folding chairs talking about how to make pizza and one of the girls says how great it is having a kitchen again now that their extension is nearly finished. Occasionally I yell: “Don’t go too far kids!” before returning to the conversation.

But then at other times, I am unmistakably me - the old awkward goofy kid cracking jokes and trying to fit it.

One of us brought a badminton net, which we couldn’t really set up all that well in the sand but we played anyway. Crapminton, I called it. Over the last week Elliot had been volunteered by his wife to help out in her home-based curtain making business. So he’s been stuck behind a sewing machine most evenings. He was on my team and our opponent dubbed him “The Seamstress”.

When he would go to his the birdie, our friend on the other side of the net would shout this out to put him off. “The Seamstress!!! Oh and he misses!” and “It looks like this is curtains for The Seamstress” or “He is sew tired - his game is hanging by a thread”. I had to bite my lip, because Elliot was getting rattled by this and he was a team-mate, after all.

Our friend was trying to get me to join in, but my head was going: “Must…resist…..Can’t….joke…but…..tooo…….TEMPTING,” until eventually I couldn’t help myself. “Are you tired?” I asked, “Look dude, if you get a stitch, we can stop.”

At which point our friend on the other team nearly wet himself.

When he recovered, he said: “What is the mail equivalent of a seamstress anyway?”

“A seamster, I think,” I said.

Elliot, who should know about these things and is nuts about martial arts and Japanese fighting cartoons, agreed but said his official title was one of “Grand Seam Master”, which sounded fair enough.

Obviously I don’t post a lot about work, but some things do get a mention.

The other day I asked my team if they could smell burning. One of them was quick to impress me, as he said eagerly: “I can. B-U-R-N-I…”

You don’t have to be helpful to work here but it’s mad.