Last Post ???

 What if all this was to come to an abrupt end on Friday?This is predicted in a calender, devised  by a wise and ancient people, who sometimes, used substances to make them think they were birds and animals and weren't adverse to ripping beating hearts out of people. That aside, if this was definitely the end of the world as we indeed know it, what would they put in "The Earth's top 100 moments"? 
Would they  do another one about the worst (insert number here ) moments? Would they have enough time?
Which one would be on after the X Factor? Is that still on ?

Who would host such a thing...? Some generic twenty something presenter . One of the multi-skilled  multi-purpose one size fits all ones we have a cluster of now. Imagine ending your days to the accompaniment of grinning, inane mediocrity. Most fitting for the bland years we in the west have chained ourselves to of late.

No that's no way to end. Turn off your Televisions and go outside. Greet the end of this broken, fragile,nonsensical, harsh, bitter-sweet, wonderfully, wonderfully colourful fucked up world we've been clinging too for the last 200,000 years and , if you're lucky enough to find a clear evening, stand beneath the stars and look up. Look and realise something. They, depending on your views on reality, will still be there afterwards. Those distant cold glints of blue, red and white will still go on regardless of whether we see the next day or not . After The Earth has stopped smoking, The Universe may well settle down and carry on its slow,steady journey to entropy.

It may well be the fate of us all..

Don't be sad my fellow travellers in times and spaces.Be heartened by the possibility that only one of the endless versions of you is coming to its end. The others may feel it, as we all do from time to time when something comes through. Don't feel affronted because you're the version about to meet an unfair and unwanted end, at the mercy of flaming chunks of rogue planet or such. Be at peace.  Technically, they're all you. Even if some of them are living the lives you really wanted to.

Lets face it,it'll probably be fine so we can go on and keep doing things to each other because of religion, politics, greed and all the other man made foolishness we enjoy. Of course, we will be able to do it via our smartphones and in ever increasingly higher definition.

Go outside and look at them anyway. They are endlessly beautiful.

Merry Christmas and a happy new year?

Gotta have soul...

I don't belong to anything, not really.

I've joined clubs and I take part in things but somehow, I always seem to end up doing something of a singular nature.
Saturday last,I did something for the first time. I attended an all nighter, a Northern Soul all nighter with my wife and her work friends. I don't particularly have any affection for the music and to be honest I didn't really know what to expect. For starters, I was with people I don't really know well. Always a difficult one that but you have to go with it. So I donned my cup of funk, slipped on my poets jacket and hit the town.  

What I got was one of my best nights ever. I found myself in the midst of people who, although follow a certain type of music that I don't, are as it turns out my natural companions in respect to attitudes to dancing. I've never been comfortable with the "expected" type of dancing that's present at weddings and any other number of gatherings where most people let themselves go in that traditional and half arsed way we do things."Look, I'm really enjoying myself  dancing to YMCA" yes. You wouldn't be enjoying it if you were living in one .  Sorry, That's probably unfair but it always feels that way to me.This was the complete opposite to the forced and cumbersome, this was natural, from the inside to the out.

I'm not about to become an Northern Soul fan, I don't feel that braces , cheesecloth and, quite frankly, the most amazing flared trousers I've ever come across, are really my thing. What I loved about it was their passion. When you're surrounded by people who obviously love something and it's a good love, then you get caught up in it. Add to that the fact that it's all about dancing how I dance, for yourself, how you want to and not for the faint of heart. My friends I was in like Flynn. I adjusted the angle to my cap funk to cool, strode on to the floor of The King's Hall and simply went for it. I spun, slid, twirled, raised my hands and closed my eyes. Safe in the knowledge that I would be accepted by those around me, I  surrendered to the aroma of talc , delighted in the sartorial use of the side burn and let go to the subtle undertones of both jazz and funk , hidden in the back ground of the Northern Soul classics that I didn't even know. A part of me had come home. Add  to this this purchase of fine a burger from the catering provided and the sight of gentlemen younger than myself relaxing at what would be their half time with a well earned cup of tea. It was as my friend Ben would put it, completely bad ass.

Unfortunately the all nighter didn't last all night, not for us. Weariness, vodka and coke and the desire for bed and my own cup of tea eventually won out .  At about 1.30 we were done for so made our way out in to the frosty star filled night to await our chariot home. But inside , the night continued.More and more arrived with overnight bags no doubt filled with fresh  vests, talc and  amazing flares. They were set on the 7 am finish. I salute them,each and everyone.

 The feeling I got from the entire night was so different from the one I get during my day to day struggle between wanting to help people and having to put up with ever increasing levels of bullshit. I'm tired of the thing my job has become, seen it change from a decent occupation in to a race for "quality" and "targets".  Should anyone be looking for a man who wants to help others realise their potential without the want to make him act almost like a salesman, I'm waiting for your call.

For the briefest time whilst with my unknown companions,masters of the spin and high kick, I felt something good. I felt alive. And for that, although they will never know it,they have won a place in my heart.

Have that strange sensation at the moment, that one where everything feels like it's being written about rather me writing about it. More than just a residue of the conversation I had  yesterday about the heart having its own memories about the past and the future. It's something I find fascinating and beautiful. To think that my heart remembers what will be, knows the future through its own precognition, holds the insight that gives me that oooh feeling about people and things. Turns out its a possible, well mainstream  science is starting to think about it so that makes it their discovery and the truth, for a while.Apparently, my brain is second in command and only gives me the impression that I'm making the decisions. There have been many times I've had the discussion between one and the other. Both have used me as a sounding board and some agreement has been met that has not always suited either the heart or the head.  

Add to this the conversation that lead to the conclusion that time as we see it is an illusion and that all things past, present and future happen simultaneously which got lodged firmly in my head and really set me up for an afternoon of dealing with training requests .  How am I supposed to function in my allotted role if I cant even accept what's in front of me as real? Add to that the possibility that consciousness is a shared and separate entity on its own and I was really in the mood for walking in to Sainsbury's and shouting "None of this is real"! I kind of feel that anyway. Somewhere, in my heart, I know it..don't I ?


This is the lot of a ponderer.... 

I haven't written for  a while . I've wanted to but in some misguided attempt to become more creative in other areas, I actually ended up doing basically nothing, not even reading. So, back to doing nothing but not doing nothing..if you get me. 

The everyday brings more wondrous and exciting surprises. About five years ago, I worked mainly with the 16 to 19 year age group. One day, I walked out of the room and never went back again, well not in my head, the burn out, or so I was told when I first started was twelve months fro a Basic Skills Tutor.I lasted four years. After some rather intense personal changes, I decided that I couldn't do it any more. It was too much of a constant battle dealing with the attitudes and misguided conceptions of the majority of my charges. I can deal with the quiet, shy, troubled and outcast but the smart arse has always been my default lose of patience switch. Some would say that this was a definite example of  Karma in action.

 As a younger me, I was perhaps something of one myself and as we know, what goes comes  back.

  So, Imagine my delight when faced with the prospect of having to deal with the  18 to 25 age group, on a regular basis. All emotions known to man have been prevalent over this last two weeks and decisions have been made as to how to deal with this new twist in the "this is the state of the business and what has to be done " everyday reality of the modern British workplace. To cut the long, I'm halfway through the second round of this adventure and so far I've been surprised at my reaction to it all. I'm older, They're older and perhaps that's the saving point to all this. The younger me might have lost it at some point but the older me is better at laying out stalls and not feeling that people need constant stimulation to be engaged in what's happening . What makes it a hassle these days is the those who don't involve themselves in delivery and want it to be a six hour slog, repeating the point every hour. Apparently, that's engaging people. Sorry, The real world is sometimes about waiting, and having to be self motivated enough to do things without constant direction and stimulation from external sources or being "engaged".

Lets face it, not matter how much we stimulate people, the fact is they're going to find out it's not all Willy Wonka's Chocolate Factory...especially if they get a job...

I've written nothing for ages.
 In an attempt to become more creative in other areas, I've actually done so much less than I usually would.

Counter productive, you betcha 

Life just runs away with us,

Before we know where we are, we're in next week, then next month, then the next year. Time somehow speeds up  when Summer ends. The dark edges of The Universe seem to hang around in the day time and the feeling of movement on a large scale is everywhere...

Riding the train into the  endless night  my friends....

next stop..... forever

The joy of learning...

Watching people sit in front of small screens showing moving pictures of smiling and helpful faces, directing and informing, the tinny sounding voice coming from their headphones. 
All  sat in a row, unconscious Air Traffic Controllers, misguiding flights of doomed knowledge to their flaming demise.

The sound of clicking buttons ,filling the air,akin to the beaks of caged pigeons that have worked out which response brings the reward, green light red light, but somewhere underneath it, the impression it's just automatic and will be forgotten by most  as soon as the cage door opens and the outside world beckons.

Some of these people could do this for the rest of their lives and still be in exactly the same position as they started.This doesn't meant they're in any way stupid, just strangers in a world where technology and progress have left behind those without interest or inclination.

 No matter how far the World moves away from what it may consider to be an old fashioned way of life, people still retain that basic quality of the old fashioned, at least in their attitudes  towards work and what they want from it. It would be great to think that everyone would actually be able to fit into the mapped out future that technology seems to be giving us but they won't, they don't want to. They want to be able to do what they did when they  were young and the world around them was easier and without the need to be IT savvy. It doesn't fit everyone's shape and why should it? Not everyone one is enthralled by the ever increasing need to be up to date with the touch screen and constant social media fix. For some, it is a daunting and worrisome prospect when faced with the computer or the unruly spirit that is The Internet. It only re-enforces their feelings of having been left behind and they despise it for doing so. They spit the words out like a venom and curse the day these miniature satanic mills were spawned. They are shackled to them and forced to learn about things they would rather not simply because the modern work place requires it to be so. This is the reality of the everyday for the forgotten and out of date.
 I watch as they struggle against their bonds, time and again they cry out for the simpler life of the pick and shovel and the honesty of the factory floor. I soothe them with soft words, tell them that this too shall pass and that they can only benefit from this short passage of discomfort, it is for their own good,it will help them. It is only learning something new. I tell them I  understand their need to return to the past but the present and hopefully the future is what we have. They can learn, I know they can. 

I have to believe this, because this in turn, is for my own good..

weekender...





Wandering around a cathedral town in The Sun and coming across someone reading  from The Bible. Quiet, unsure voice, stumbling but insistent. 


Standing in a field and being reminded just how big the sky can be. Huge rolling waves of clouds, in between bright sun and  sharp down pours. Sky galleons of colour from boiling grey to sunlit white.  If ever you needed a sense of perspective...on everything.


Spending the evening at my friends farm. No light pollution and The Milky Way above me. Staring in to forever....how can I not be part of something bigger than the every day..

Monday..

Grey tinged and humid, driving away from home and The Weekend.

Slotting back in to the organised crawl. Wiper blades, intermittent, hypnotic lulling me away from the stop start and the conversation on the radio, political.
 I try not to have an opinion.

Arrival,

I give half-hearted hellos and then look at the signing in sheet. Health and safety, not really for attendance. What would happen if I didn’t sign it? Would I cease to exist in the case of emergency?

I put my best scrawl in the box. I wish I cared about these things as I should.

Breathe in,

 I work on some files, putting the right things in the right boxes. I hide away so that there’s little chance of being bothered. I do alright for a while and then find myself suddenly staring at nothing. I’ve drifted; become the me under the work face again, daydreaming. I can’t do this for long without coming to a dead stop.
 I wonder about doing something else, being a more decisive person but it doesn’t last long.
 I’m not that person, too twisty in my thoughts and far too easily distracted by things. Traits not designed for the realm of decision makers.

I look at my watch; I’ve been rescued by dinner time and spend an hour looking at the world through on line eyes.  

Afternoon, people appear, damp, subdued and wearing the grey of the outside world.

It begins,

I sit with each one individually and give support but before too long, the whole thing somehow becomes a mismatch of ideas and subjects, random and as far removed from job searching as it can be. Relaxed attitude brings its own peril, or reward, dependant on how you look at it. On this subject I have no choice; it’s my nature to be so. We converse on common law, moon landing conspiracies and geometrical symbols. We touch on the subject of poisonous tap water and the quasi nature of birth certificates. It becomes a forum on the secret and unseen, the hidden truths that some of us only half suspect. I make myself return to the present only to find someone struggling against waves of meaningless job adverts. A small boat lost on the wide and untamed sea of too much information. I take the wheel and steer him toward the safer, calmer waters of “suitable vacancies”. 

I’ve been here so many times,

I have to leave the room for a moment, get away from the suddenly overbearing feelings brought on by the subjects we’ve raised. All of this makes me think about the younger me, him not so deadened by the office job and at home in the land of all things odd. Suddenly I feel tired and make me way down to the kitchen for cold water and some space. I look out of the window; trees are over grown because of the days of almost endless rain. Eyes wander and take in the roof, the pools of standing water and how quickly it all becomes green. For a second I shut out the sounds of traffic and I’m in that future I suspect will come, one day. No more boxes for things to fit in just nature left to run wild. I know my fellow Homo whatever we are at the moment and I have no place in that future. I’m saddened by this.

My thoughts are broken as my friend walks in to the room. The expression he wears tells me about his day so far. We discuss our experiences of it all and unsurprisingly they echo each other. The day has brought, as all of them do, a good dose of the ridiculous.

We move to the door, laughing as we do and just then he points at one of the window frames. Windows in the building are old and ill-fitting and rain comes through them like sweat through old skin. Recently painted white, to give the impression of newness and to comply with the importance of appearances. At the top there’s old broken wood showing, sharp like grey bone, sticking out from the new, fresh whiteness. A reminder of what lies beneath sometimes, things we cover up so that none will see them. We do it with everything, especially ourselves. We show others what we want to, very rarely what we are when we're really  being us.

Everywhere, underneath everything, there are things unseen..not least our futures. 

Not the best of weeks,


After Monday, I had the voice of Mr Waits going round in my head reminding me that when we're riding high in April, we are often seriously shot down in May. Terrible day, made worse by  being observed and having to perform some extra and long winded process based nonsense that just made an already overcrowded and tetchy group session all the more difficult. I just couldn't get it together and as the day progressed, I just wanted out of the whole thing. Funny how sometimes, you can have a really good run of something and then it just turns and becomes hell on earth. It didn't really help that some of the participants were a little unresponsive to my practical and as I thought, helpful advice on their apparent lack of luck in getting jobs. I wish I'd have just kept my mouth shut and agreed with them. Anyway, done now and thank God for that.


On a different note, but somehow connected, something that made me sit up and take notice has been the discovery on YouTube of a country song that goes by the name of Made in America. I say sit up because it did more than point out something that concerns me about how one thing can lead to another when issues of a Patriotic nature come to the fore. 


Things that sometimes come under the banner of Patriotism or whatever, call it want you want, I just don't get them.They always feel wrong. We live in a world where we know Politicians and Governments to be less than truthful and quite prepared to do what ever they want to maintain the good times. Recent events have shown though that  isn't as secure as it was once thought to be. 
For some who were at the front of the race, stumbling has occurred and brought about the need for a rethink as to how things actually are on the big world stage at the moment.
It seems to have upset some and their reaction to the current state of affairs is one that's slightly worrying. 



Flag waving and singing  while showing slow motion film of good old American Mid West families and assorted other stereotypical everyday average Joes standing in corn fields and  sitting in barns, whilst  staring into the middle distance and looking slightly upset and abashed because America is now full of "foreign cars" running on "gas that isn't ours" and then reassuring us that they aren't being prejudiced about all this it's simply the fact that  these people are "made in America" and these other things, being made somewhere else, are causing the problems for those that are. At this point I started thinking is that not being prejudiced like when someone tells me they're not being funny but...


 So, what is the problem then? the rest of The World encroaching, the unexpected erosion of a way of life and an economy once thought indestructible or the prospect of things having to change because guess what,nothing stays the same?


Welcome to the rest of The World... It happens to all of us.


Change in how the things around us work can be upsetting. The shift in where we stand in the running of things even more so. Assuming that these things aren't going to happen is something we can do as people. When they do, we can either rally against  them and run the risk of becoming something we don'r want to or see what we can make of them.
Either way, one thing we have to understand, no matter what colour our flag or our feelings towards any change,  nothing is ever "ours"... not really


And technically, isn't everyone in America, in some way, actually made somewhere else?

I wish I had something witty and rye to write. Some colourful collection of anecdotal whimsy that would make me sound clever and as though I  spend my days living a life full of endless shananagins  and the kind of excitement that would make skydiving sound like a trip to B and M Bargains...but I don't.

Today, I found myself yet again in an office block with those who were either nonplussed  by that which was going on around them or someone who was a manager, facilitating the  ever increasing stress filled atmosphere, by somehow being able to  make it look like they didn't actually agree on anything but did it anyway .
As I slowly get closer to the stage of my working life, that stage where Dave who I used to work with would fall asleep during staff meetings and NOBODY would say a fucking word, I am slowly realising with dread that it might not be as exciting a life as I once dreamed it would be. 

Ah you say  but you only get out what you put in, you know what shut up... just shut the fuck right up before you even go down that path. I haven't spent almost 40 years of my life being excellent at idleness and the knack of doing nothing and still having a rich and rewarding experience from it on a daily basis to be told that old  load. 

Just because we don't show it don't mean we don't think it, it's all in the head.If you have an imagination, moving around and getting career promotions don't really matter..what does matter though is just being left alone. I can't explain if you don't feel this way, you'll just see it as uncooperative behaviour. It's just something about having your space invaded, a feeling more than a sensible reaction. Honestly, I am really expected to give one about a company logo on everything? do I want all the notice boards in the building to look the same?  

To be honest though, I had my photo taken for the wanted list that hangs in reception and even I didn't realise just how far in to the kingdom of the "I don't care" I'd actually traversed. Far from the amiable chap I am, a countenance not unlike a Serbian war criminal stared back at me from the shiny photo paper. I look like someone that appears on Crimewatch or similar late evening worry making programmes. It's the beard. I shaved a while ago through spouse pressure but as my natural bent to not really give a shit about it kicked in again, I neglected my promise to keep clean. I have now gone through the merely unshaven to the possible trouble maker stage, a beard suggests crimes of free thought and that just won't do.

 It's typical. In an environment where the individual journey and development of someone is something I'm encouraged to bring about, the idea of any individuality with anything else is somehow always swept away in a sea of corporate indentikit  thinking, where it struggles for breath and slowly sinks beneath the waves of everything should look the same .

It's difficult to write sometimes,


Stuff gets carried around inside my head but can't make its way out. 
It feels like I have  a washing machine stuck on my shoulders  but there's no water in this tub, only thick wire wool.


The drum isn't completely full, there's enough space for the wool to roll , freely, so all it does is fill my head with noise of its scrape, makes me uptight and angry with the world. 


I can't think straight, all is jumble and frustration  .
Add the fact I have to sit through a short meeting about an inspection and I'm on spin cycle. 


bbbbbbrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr!!!!!


I have to get out, be away from it, wait for the grey spun sharpness that the flat 2D world fills me with to soften, lose its sharp feeling.


Let me connect  with  the all elusive flow again.... 

Shut up...


I hate to think about it but the world I work in has a really strong corporate side.
Why would I dislike it so much, why would I be surprised about this? after all, I knew the world I was moving into would be very different to my former one, more grown up, more responsible.
The essence of it is this. I do what I do because of the people I help. 
 I don't do it so that I can be without a personality and an imagination.
Inspections, the instruction that no personal things can be seen when being inspected , the insistence that all is the same.....this really does it for me. 
They might as well say that the inspectors won't be able  understand anything that doesn't have our name and logo on it, they'll  mark us down if you act like yourself, everybody stand in front of the company banner and sing.. Jesus.


Who am I kidding though, this is what the real world is about. The actual and the pretence.
The actual is what happens when nobody is threatened by the big bad inspection wolf and the money rolls in, pretence is when they want you to save every body's ass , especially theirs.


That's when this cog wants to stop and go backwards, feel the sharp judder of the machine backing up and stalling. It's a depressing fact that everything is increasingly  aimed at making money for boards and shareholders, the real reason for doing things has been lost somewhere 


My attitude and thought process do of course give me cause for concern. Why react in this way, why feel angry and uncooperative about all this. Really, the answer is simple, I don't think this way. I've never had a corporate bone in my body.


I do have  a want to meet and help people and a curious mind that makes me ask people about how they got where they are and what their lives are like and what they really need to get out of the shit they're in.


I don't need corporate mentality for that, just my own mind.


Now, everybody...sing

Interview Techniques...



I have to go back to work on Monday. I've been away from the fast paced and exciting world of training for a week and to be honest, I've only missed the people I work with, not the job. 
I'm envious of those who have always known what they wanted to be. I wanted to be a soldier at one point but thinking about it now, I was more in love with the look of the equipment and the idea of going on solo secret missions than the actual reality of army life. The perils of an over active imagination and  being a single child with time and plenty of space to use it in. 
The fact that at around 18 I started to grow my hair and fall out with the majority of society perhaps shows  my real character and not the one I thought I was.The hair is short now but I'm still pissed off at most of you, that hasn't changed.That said though, it did give me some idea of what to do when I find myself stranded after a plane crash in a forest.

 It's that drifting thing, not having any real ambition, well, not for anything run of the mill and having a naturally philosophical bent  that's the killer.Although I've done my job for 10 years, I suffer from the perpetual drifter/dreamer syndrome, at least that's my excuse. I know there's something in there, just waiting to find the thing that's going to make me go "Ah, this is who I'm meant to be" and everything will be fine, I'll have found my purpose, my quest.  I am terribly lazy though and continue to suffer the day in and day out, the mind numbing paperwork, the overwhelming details and foolishness of moneymakers who treat peoples' learning and support needs as a piggy bank .
Being a lazy Idealist is a terrible thing. You just feel out of joint  with everything sometimes and  when you can't be arsed to do anything about it, it's a double bubble nightmare.

Some may say that working with people who are in the situation that the people are that I do is a quest enough, maybe they're right and I just don't see it. Admittedly, there are moments of  unbridled joy. I can come across someone who gives me that feeling of purpose and I'm firing on all four, going on instinct and full of encouragement. Others just make me want to adopt the pose that Mr Thompson is above, show them the door, tell them"There is nothing here for you, I'm counting to three...good day".
 But that's the point, I keep doing doing it because of the ones who need it, the truly lost ones, the ones who are in some way....broken. 

Other than that, perhaps I should  just start shooting shit, see if I still care about purpose then...

I'm more convinced than ever  that The World needs something other than this worn out photcopy of a system we've made for ourselves. 
Right now, I'd welcome anything other than this living death we call "economic recovery"
rewind and replay.....
I am beset by empty lost souls who have little hope or have been thrown to the lions in the name of progress 21st century style.
 Not the problem of those who progress.


Everything about the material  world feels flat, grey and increasingly pound note shaped.


I need the beauty of  stars, the magic of the wrtten word and time with those I care about


Thank God I carry  them in my head...

Another weekend,


This one  will find me braving the elements in the north of Wales.
I keep hearing the words torrential, gales and most of rain. 
This matters little. 


Not matter what or where we find ourselves, we may well never have this time again, well, not here anyway.


Enjoy your freedom....others  would die for it

A Long Time Ago.......

 For a while now have wanted nothing more , than to be able to fall backwards into the arms of the past. To stay there and feel as I did at that exact time.


 A feeling came upon me, that was followed by  an Internet search,which led me to finding something that meant the eternal nine year old inside me would never be silenced until he was appeased . Endless looking and dreaming eventually led to a stilted conversation about paying an extortionate amount of money , for  what is basically a toy. I had backed my argument up with the well timed fact that my birthday is approaching ,41 not 9, and if that were to fail,I was prepared to go as far as to explain the abstract idea I've carried around in my head for over 30 years about one day building my own unique to scale version of the said item.
 I have before now imagined myself as one of those vaguely confused old men who would appear on Blue Peter with a 1:16th Bismark  or a fully working version of the Big Ben clock tower made from matchsticks. 
How long had they carried those ideas around with them ?
What conversations had taken place over their kitchen tables? How many patience of saints were tested by the those, whose desire to recreate or build something in the shed could no longer be denied?


As it turned out I needn't have worried.The foolishness was given the all clear, the circumstances, I've been informed, will always gall. Paying the same amount of money for a link to the past as we would for plastering that needs doing will never sit right. As I pointed out when sitting looking at my prize "I don't expect you to understand why I would want this, ever" . 
I was met with a simple but wonderful response"No, but I understand you" . 
The child  inside, the  one who would stand in the dark  by his Mum and Dad's bed, waiting for the sound of his breathing to wake them rather than speak still  sees himself as an island  a little too much sometimes. The fact that others understand me still surprises me.


All of this though, is still somehow in the background to the actual feelings I've been having.
Walking past an old friend's house the other evening, I was suddenly filled with  a great sense of loss and longing. The thought of saying his name over and over until he appeared came into my head . I've not seen him since he was 12 and I had heard that he'd died. I've never tried to find out, well not properly. I suppose the mixture of sunshine, living where I grew up and never really wanting to grow up sometimes catches me out. I am, at heart, a child. Not childish, I do actually have a responsible and useful job, but child like sometimes in my looking at life and how it works.There is a down side to this in that I always feel that my expectations and ideas about things are way out of proportion with what is actually possible in life.
To compensate. I have grown a hard shell over my Idealistic heart. 


As is my nature, the cost of the item doesn't concern me, I am a little frivolous at times when it comes to "grown up " realities, it's far outweighed by the sense of  delight and magic I get when I transport myself back to a certain time, a certain frame of mind that seems depressingly scarce in this adult world of concerns and problems we find thrust upon us.
 Too many of us associate being a child with being childish, it's not by any means. The ability to look at things and have that sense of wonder about it all, that sense of magic and connection with everything around you is far too rare. Life can grab people and smack them in the face until they give up. It doesn't take much sometimes and I've met many people  who would call me a fool for thinking as I do and rightly so.
 I have to ask the question though,would different circumstances make me a different person? Would a different upbringing have made me a different person or would I still have had that voice in my head that guides me...well,sometimes.


I can only suppose that I would be me what ever the situation. I'd hope so.


Any way, I'm off to do The Kessel Run again,  for old times sakes....   

SLACKERS OF THE WORLD UNITE!

Calling all slackers, idlers , loafers and thinkers. 

Now is the time to come forth and meet with other like minded souls, who share your lack of drive for socially expected forms of ambition and success. The day draws near for you  put aside the reasons/excuses for your continuing failure to burst forth into the world of the proactive "doers" and shuffle forward from the shadows of self doubt, disappointment in most things, general detachment of the observer and not really being bothered about anythingness. 

How many of  you  ponder and mull over ideas, thoughts, observations and theories on life that if they ever saw the light of day, would , as you know really but just can't be bothered to try and find out, turn the world of the every day  on its very head!

How many of you had that idea about the solar powered house  of the future, pondered the theory of space time, have stood beneath the majesty of the night sky and questioned life's true meaning or planned to conquer that towering peak only to be distracted by something shiny, got too drunk to stand up, ate too much or just decided to stay in bed instead?

Your time is now!

Whether you find yourself in a stifling office job you thought  would never  be your future or hide your true insights behind  a sarcastic contempt for the modern world and the money driven machine it has become you cannot stay hidden for much longer.

Tear your eyes from the television,throw down your gaming pads,don't open the last bottle of this nights four pack,

  rise from your settees, focus the scattered thoughts that crackle and spit around your minds like fireworks and come forth...

The World needs you!!!!

WANTED..

Cause to follow , fight to fight or something to believe in.

Would prefer something not  environment or World based, looking more for something people based

Size and condition not important.Will either  pick up or can be delivered, which ever is easiest.

In return will provide boost in confidence, help with recognition of abilities and the reassurance that you are  people who can do things they perhaps don't yet realise.

The unsure, the underdogs and the direction less need only apply......

Off to the land of Swedish flat pack furniture,


Heavy rain on the M6 and the wagons throw up great clouds of fizzing spray.
Rumbling on like huge blind beasts, competing for space and speed regardless of everything around them. The sound of their engines is their bellow. The small  almost unreadable signs on their back ends displaying the  the warning "If you can't see my mirrors then I can't see you" never fill me confidence but then again I suppose it's better than them saying "get  close enough to read  this and you'll be dead if anything goes wrong".  
The need to get past them is overwhelming.




Arrival at the big blue shed  with the yellow writing and I'm amazed at the number of people there. I'm on holiday, what are they doing? My years of working with the jobless kick in and I automatically make a comment about mass unemployment. I'm berated for this so  I  change tack and suggest the entire population of Mersyside and surrounding environs is enjoying a day off too. 


 After this overt judgement of my fellow man, I double up on the mistakes and  misjudge the slowly revolving door, narrowly avoiding being wedged  up against the door frame. That would  have been a day to remember, having to be freed by teenagers in yellow T shirts, whilst being scowled at by people wanting to get home so they can get started on putting together that new style defining TV cabinet or Japanese/Swedish influenced chair they've just purchased. In the real world,my wife, who turns to laugh at me, is already inside. Watching what I'm doing this time, I step into the wonderful world of endless lifestyle choices.


After  the obligatory toilet visits have been attended to and I've equipped myself with the necessary yellow bag, I find myself waiting and as I look around, I'm suddenly faced with a large map of The World, which for some reason,  has been stuck on the wall outside the toilets. I half expect to see little yellow flags dotted around it and a key to inform me of how many of the big blue sheds there are Worldwide and  how because of this, the indigenous peoples in remote parts of The World, can still enjoy a nomadic or more natural lifestyles than ours whilst being contemporary in their choice of Yurt or Long house soft furnishings. This isn't the case, so I busy myself looking for Tibet instead. Suddenly my wife is behind me and I am drawn back to the actual  the reason for being here,the desire to home improve.
 As we go through the big internal doors, I notice the sole occupant of the seated area designed for children. As there is some brash, day glo coloured noise coming from a flat screen on the wall I assume it must be for children . It isn't a child but is in fact a single adult male. He's the same shape as a toddler but the beard gives it away. He isn't watching the noisy mess, just staring slack jawed at his phone and  looking beaten. A casualty of the brightly colour kitchen ware wars I imagine, left behind by his squad. 


Before we start properly, food is suggested and I take the opportunity to test for myself the fabled meatballs I've heard tales of. After seating is found and I've stood and observed the people in front of me in the drinks queue,  the consuming begins. The verdict is unanimous. Should the rest of the day be nothing more than a tiring precursor to an argument, they are without doubt excellent and will be looked upon as a saving grace. Food done, real life continues


We're inside and the barrage begins. Woods, plastics and metal  beaten, bent and sculpted into every shape imaginable. Cupboards, side boards, storage solutions, lighting ideas all accompanied by the black and white images of those who have transformed their vision into these life enhancing, labour saving and above all else stylish necessities for modern life. Does putting the picture of the designer on something make it more accessible? I suspect it does. People will think  "they made this for me, if I own it, I'll be be owning part of someone's vision, something unique and....stylish".


As we walk around we come to my favourite part of the whole place, the mock ups of living areas. I love these, pretend  worlds that you can have as your own. The whole package of modern existence displayed for all to see. Every area needed for modern living in thirty five square metres,or less of space.Lives could be lived out in these little boxes, literally.
 What strikes me about them every time I see them is how much like the reality they are for people in some countries of The World and if not now, how they will be in the future.The amount of space used to display a possible life style, is the actual amount some people live in on a daily basis. Space for each of us is decreasing as we increase ourselves over and over. The desire for personal space and definition of character overrides the possibility of a cramped future.
 My tour of the imagination continues. I move into a fully modern styled kitchen constructed from metal and sculpted wood and suddenly I'm the only person on board a deep space flight to an unknown star system and then the illusion is shattered as I come across a couple from The Wirral with a baby buggy in tow discussing the bathroom I've walked into. The façade cracks and I'm back to find I'm needed to  discuss kitchen tables. 


I can be childish in my dealings with reality, I'm well aware of that but am I any more childish than those who see lifestyles as the answer to their problems? Perhaps that's just another assumption, I'm good at them.


The kitchen table is great by the way...

Don't.....






What is it about panic? Why do we seem to need to do it at every possible opportunity?
The notion of something happening that's going to affect the day to day continuation of everything is always going to bring out strong emotions from one area of the public or other, so when it's rumoured that fuel supplies are going to be in short supply  due to  impending  industrial action by those charged with supplying us, the notion of "Keep calm and carry on" just pus sticks and leaves Dodge .


I'm never sure if it's a national or indeed an international thing but the reaction to almost every rumour or any threat to the normal running of the whole show  is , well, panic.
Is it something we need to do? Something we just can't be human without. Do we,as creatures, have to have something to worry about?  Did my distant ancestor, sitting in his animal pelts, suddenly think one day "Shit, that's a big wall of ice moving really slowly towards me I better panic about it" or did he just work his way around the coming change it would bring?


It's easy to suspect that we may have lost something somewhere, some part of our coping mechanism that enables us to just think about it and decide to do something else rather than sit in our little metal boxes and join a line of slow panic. That's it though, we can't can we. We have to do this because we have no other way of being any more, cogs and wheels in the great big machine of the system that's slowly bleeding us dry. It's just not an option for us to say if it comes to not getting to work on time,or at all, then that's kind of the end of it. Everything is geared  towards us panicking. I myself found that I'd inadvertently joined a queue for petrol after turning in to the nearest Sainsbury's after work. Instantly I thought "I don't want to be queuing, I don't want to, I don't need to. All these people walking past now will think I'm one of those panic buyers aaarrrggghh"!  

There are many reasons why our reaction to things are the way they are. The obvious one is media coverage which  , for the main part , seems to enhance any situation like this in a totally unhelpful way. I don't think this is a new thing, it's just  more accessible in so many varied ways now. Years ago, people had to wait to find things out, now it's instant and  always updating, bombarding us with information and images we can't really process.  Too many pictures to see the big one.People have access to at least the rumour of a story before they know what it is or what to make of it.


 Possibly, the biggest influence on our reactions at the moment is what's happening around us on an economic and political scale. Along with the threats of strike ,redundancy, the demise of The Western World and all other possible unhappy endings, we have people in charge that just don't seem to get it, any of it. The men in suits seem to want to carry regardless of how it makes them look, doing the same old things and reacting to the challenges of government in the same old ways . For me, there's no one definite example of their misjudging of  life in modern Britain, except the"advice" one of them gave earlier this week about preparing for said fuel shortages by "Storing a jerry can of petrol in your garage". Top marks to the fellow  for assuming everyone in the country has a garage to store petrol in and for using the words "jerry can". I believe the last time I actually saw a jerry can was on the History Channel a couple of nights ago, on the back of a Jeep that was full of Americans who had just landed in Normandy. How I wish he 'd gone the whole hog and said "Get your driver to fill it next time he fills the Jag up " . The rest of their tomfoolery  is mainly based around attempts to show their understanding of the every day man and woman on the street by pretending to have even been near any form of hot pastry based fast food ,let alone eaten it, when they've made a fuck up of not really thinking about how to justify the VAT they now want stick on it or allowing themselves to be photographed taking part in activities at one of their childrens' private schools sports days as if it makes them any more a part of the ordinary things they're so obviously aren't.


All in all, it looks as though it's up to us to control our own panic, how we react to the ever increasing nonsense that's coming our way. These things won't stop and no mater who's steering the ship and which fools are crewing it, we will always suffer for their inability to solve our problems on such a large scale and our own expectations that somehow they can.


And if something does happen, remember ..... 

Nietzsche's eternal Bakewell.

Sitting in a cafe yesterday, I started listening to the couple next to us.


  Derek or Graham or insert name here, wasn't sure where his order was and when he finally got it, it wasn't what he asked for. Normally, I wouldn't pay that much attention but just at that moment, I'd started reading the first few pages of The Unbearable Lightness of Being, which I'd just bought from  a nearby charity shop. As Derek or Graham,  began to work at his sweet looking Danish Pastry "It's not a Bakewell,I asked for a Bakewell, they're over there at the front of the glass", It was at that exact moment my eyes were taking in the words on Nietzsche's idea of eternal return.Everything has happened and will happen again and again just as we have experienced it before, for ever and ever.


I was struck by  something as I sat and read. Over the past few years, I've been drawn to  reading books that seem to have in them the same sort of theory or something in the story has the same purpose or motif. Everything repeats, if not forever, then at least until some different path is taken at some point in the replay process, taking whoever, wherever they should be rightfully be. This can be on to some next level or different ending to this round of illusion  they're currently existing in. Ideas of life based on circles, replaying of past events, having to go through past lives until the right outcome is achieved.  Perhaps this explains my reluctance to do things at the Weekend, I've done it before and somewhere, deep inside my reoccurring memories, I know it wasn't really that good a day out thank you so I'd just as well not bother driving to Wales if it's all the same, we just fall out when we get there, believe me, I have to stop in and play Skyrim, it's what's supposed to happen.


The non circular point of all this is that Derek or Graham,should the above in fact be the case, has gone through the entire" Danish not a Bakewell" episode a million times, he'll go through it another million without realising it and his wife will have to look slightly embarrassed all over again while he goes through his making a fuss without wanting to make a fuss thing he was doing so well.


I did feel the impulse to say "Look,it's  a cake. It's possible you've done this over a million times and you'll do it all over again so just eat the bloody thing, enjoy it". I didn't of course  and in this round of here now, I never will . Saying things like that to people in small cafes/ delis in Cheshire can bring about unrest, at least I think it can, I don't really know, I've never done it..have I ?


 When next I sit near Derek or Graham , in the same cafe, reading the same words that make me sit up and think the same things for the first time, again, maybe I should act on the sudden impulse to say something, will I , am I supposed to?
Will the built up resonance of  endless replaying of  this event over timeless occasions finally burst through the wall of my concious mind and allow me to see what's really going on? Will my sudden interjection of "Derek...we've been here before, you don't get the Bakewell"! into the eternal replaying of this sweet pastry based incident lead to any change in his  looped life or indeed  my own?.Will it let us both move that little bit further forward towards our true and yet unknown destinies? Will it make Derek come to some startling life altering decision  or will it, as I suspect, lead to at least a stern rebuke, a look of incomprehsion or possibly into a fight with a disgruntled man from the Northwest who's reached the end of his cake tether? 


The question is,is it worth the Bakewell?
I have no way of knowing , at least , I don't think I do....


On the plus side, my scone was lovely, although, I would have preferred real cream as opposed to the squirty sort we got. 


I'll mention it next time around....

WHAT CAN YOU DO ?

Ordinary morning, people doing what they do.


Sudden raised voice cutting through the low level noise that fills the centre .
My feet do that thing where they take me towards somewhere I know the rest of me doesn't really need to go, my head tells me this more than once. 
The voice carries up the corridor followed by a softer one, explaining the present  situation but  in a tone that suggests it's aware that this conversation is going to be mostly one way. 


I'm in the door way by now and can now see the owner of the  voice that's being raised. A big furry Russian Tank Commanders hat sits atop a small red blotchy face, an angry imp of a man meets my stare, half in and half out of his chair.
"What can you do for me. I mean, what can you do for me"? Full on slur and pointing, demanding an answer.


It's been a while since we've had a "kick off". The mixture of frustration, breaking of the daily living in the pub based routine and a fair bit of drink all rolled into one tight malignant little ball. Welcome to the world as seen through the eyes of the alcoholic  long term unemployed. I'd like to put it a different way, make it sound softer but what's the point. My colleague is informing him that nothing is going to be done, not today, not while he's  like this.


Again "What can you do for me"? followed by  a clapping of his hands, as if to bring home his point. Then a question"Who's that"? as beady red eyes semi focus on me. He leaves his seat and is suddenly standing between us. 


We then coerce, via pleasant , reassuring talk and subtle hand co ordination, leading him away from the rest of the group, towards the stairs and the outside world. He still wants to know what we can do but now he's a bit rattled.
"What can you fucking well do for me? I'll tell you what, nothing, you're fucking useless all of you"!


Mumbling and stumbling, we continue this stale beer fumed, drunken ranting waltz until we're down the stairs and almost at the doors. He seems to realise this and starts again with his angry, hesitant and looped enquiring . I tell him that he needs to go home and come back when he feels better. I don't say what I want to say, that we can't do anything until he stops doing this to himself. Nothing until he want's to end his affair with the bottle. None of that comes out.


For now, we wait until he loses his thread, a gentle push and he's out into the early Spring sunshine.


For now.

The endless snapping of modern office life continues at my heels.
Ever more,  ways of convincing me that revering back to childhood would be a good move are thrust in front of me under the guise of being important. 


A warning for those on the edge of becoming a grown up, those who desire to be older...stop.Once you start, you cannot stop. You will never be able to get back to who you are now no matter how much you're convinced you can by those wanting to sell you lifestyles.You will learn too much and it will blight you. 


It is the grown up world and it will darken your soul....

Looking for Over Exposed..

The Peaks, it's Summer,




The weather is surprisingly hot and sunny  for this part of England which attracts rain and cloud like a  magnet and as a consequence, the normally sponge like hill that is Bleaklow is wearing a dried out crust. Instead of clinging wet peat, our boots are covered in a fine silvery dust that makes it look as though we're walking on the surface of The Moon. We've walked up from the Glossop side and along with the usual reasons for an extended day out on a hill, we have a another incentive to endure the swelter and discomfort of this most humid of days. Today, we're looking for something.


We walk down  into a grough  and before long, our line of sight in all directions is cut off by its
high sides. Peat groughs  always make me think of the trenches of The First World War  and I not for the first time, I expect us to come across a group of weary faced  Tommies preparing to go over the top for one last push. Disappointingly, as it always is, we don't, instead the sides quickly slope down and we're back in the open again.
 Time for a quick drink , a map stop and a discussion on how best to tackle the next part of the treasure hunt.We're close but because of the groughs  that scare the hill top, we could easily miss our prize.


We agree that it would be best to spread out, in a  straight line fifty feet or so apart. This we do and as  the search begins I'm reminded of the black and white  news reels I've seen of grim faced men searching for other things on the tops of these moors.This doesn't stay with me long though as the ground under my feet and the laughing and raised curses of the others brings me back to our own search. We continue on and because of the way the hill is, we soon start to lose sight of one another as one or more  of us descends into a gully or finds himself faced with a steep drop in to a dried up stream bed. 


Suddenly, we're all  in the open again and one of us is shouting and waving his arms. The rest of us hurry towards him  to see what he's making all the fuss about. Eventually, we all crowd around him and look to where he's pointing.There, at his feet, a piece of dull metal, aluminium, tarnished by age and the peat it's been lying in for over fifty years but unmistakable as part of what we've come looking for. As we glance around we see more, scattered all over ,shiny and twisted, contrasting against the dark greyness of the peat. We round the corner of a shallow rise and suddenly there it is,the thing we've come to find on the top of this desolate and isolated Peak District giant, the  last resting place of one of the largest aircraft of The Second World War , a B29 Super Fortress.


 As  I stand and look at it, I'm  struck by how much it looks like a ship wreck. The way the massive engine casings stand out from the peat  fills my head with grainy images of ships I've seen lying on the floor of The Ocean and how all these years after, they've become part of the ecosystem, colonised by its dwellers,new life all over them. This is where the biggest difference is with what's in front of me .
This is like looking at bones, bleached and dry sticking up through the earth. Exposed to the elements for over fifty years, there's no life springing out of the chaos of  these remains.


There's so much to take in. The more I look around the more I  can see. A large part of a wing,  a frame of a  chair with shreds of leather still attached, so many tiny pieces of silver bent out of shape by impact and the intense heat  the crash caused. Undercarriage, huge pieces of metal just lying half submerged in the peat . I  crouch down and my eye catches a strip of electrical cable with bare frayed ends of copper showing, still bright .I pick it up and it's still flexible and for a split second, I think about putting it in  my pocket. I don't , suddenly my mind is full of the tales I've heard about what as befallen those who've removed stones and so on from such places, the bad often terrible things that have happened to them until the item is returned.  I put it back and stand up.


 A couple of us are reading the words on the small memorial that's been built on the site. It's been visited regularly by the looks of it.Last November's poppy wreathes show that, along with several previous ones and various individual tokens of remembrance. The weather in The Peak District  on the other hand doesn't show respect to anyone so by now, they're all faded, bled out and scattered by indifferent winds.


I move towards the  remains of one of the engines and let my fingers trace over the pitted surface. As I do, I think about when this aircraft was alive, " Over Exposed" . She flew through the deep blue of Pacific skies and captured the image of the mushroom cloud, a first hand witness to the beginning of the Atomic Age. I'm struck ,again, by how events lead us to our final destination and what we do or don't on the way, what happens to us between the first and last breath. None of those on board her thought it would be their final flight but circumstance had other ideas.

I let my fingers linger on the decaying metal because I want to take something from it, some sense of a connection with the past. All things are connected, whether we can see it or not. Then affects the now and so on, not just the big happenings that The World sees but the small unnoticed things.We don't see them because we're too busy dealing with what's in front of us. I run my fingers around the opening of one of the piston chambers, my touch , like that of those before me, slowly wearing away the physical until nothing remains.


I go back to the rest and our conversation is affected by the place until laughter  brings us back to the present . We decide to sit and eat, spend some time here before we continue our struggle with this, the most unforgiving of all the hills.