I ain't done nuffin...

The problem with asking some of the questions I have to ask during my daily round of joy is I already know the answers I'm going to get.
Example,
If I'm asking the question "You see someone stealing from the warehouse you work in. What would you do?"
Let me point some things out before we continue.
The questions I'm asking have been written by people who've never seen a warehouse let alone had to ask that very question to people who've been sacked from warehouses for doing that very thing.
Answers always range from "I'm in on it" to " I'm not a fucking grass" followed by a hard stare  as if I'm actually challenging them on their real life past or their whole moral outlook on life.

I then have to go on  to explain that in the sensible and grown up world, the one where the present government want them to be gainfully employed, people will kind of expect them to go for the reasonable answer that relates to them protecting company property and having company interests at heart. It's a shock for them but what can you do? In all honesty, I couldn't really give a shit what they'd do.

Convincing malcontents that the path to social redemption lies in them  being honest about witnessing warehouse based crime and instantly reporting it to their superiors, as in a set out question written by right thinking types in distant offices, isn't something that I'm fully in line with. Persuading them that  filling a wagon full of stolen electrical cable, whilst being parked under a security camera, and then wondering why they got sacked from previously said warehouse, perhaps wasn't the best decision they've ever made, is something I'd rather spend time in bringing to their attentions. Crime pays when you're good at it. How many more times?
It's all relative.

This of course is just an example of the questions I am responsible for the asking of in an ordinary day's setting. Some of them do actually make some sort of sense. Some are just ridiculous and reflect the gap between those that write them and those they're aimed at. The difference in moving through a life with some structure and an idea of what you want to be and a life that's.....different.

To be honest, I always enjoy the stories that come out of me asking these questions. They give an unforgettable insight into the real lives of some of the more interesting people I get to meet.

When someone tells you that they did three days down the block for an errant Manchester Tart liberated from a prison kitchen, you kind of know a made up question aimed at testing their knowledge of  how to behave just isn't going to make much difference.

They already know what they'll do...I already know the answer.... 

The train now arriving....

Travelling sitting facing backwards on a train feels like being fired from a rifle without ever leaving the barrel.
You get the sense of moving, of the great amount of speed but you can see where you're moving from more than where you're moving to. Lift your feet off the floor and it's as though you're being pushed by some unseen mighty hand, holding you up and literally thrusting you into your future.

Bring it back to reality and it's seats and aisles that are just a bit too narrow, the clicky click of laptops and The World's biggest selection of ring tones. The conversations that people have with those they work and live with, overheard by everyone. The important things that keep us all on the right track and let us continue with the everyday so that we don't fall off the edge of sensible and into the dark chasm of the unknown and uncertain. All this hurtling towards one decaying city centre after the other on a daily basis.

Stations that look like outposts of some post disaster world where things stopped around the mid eighties. Pebble dash, looking more like rotting bone now, and faded paint declaring the names of cities that have the same looking centre but with different shop names. Ideas of the planner and the architect, constructed when new meant ripping down the old and rebuilding it without any acknowledgement of where things came from, what people might of felt. Now these places echo with the sounds of the discontented and the displaced. Each one has, somewhere, an unsteady and unkempt figure who lurches around a karaoke system set on instrumental, sending out tremulous and heartfelt words of longing to some forgotten love, hoping that this will pull the heartstrings of  those around him enough, the fellow lost, the lonely,so they'll put their hands in their pockets and give him enough so he can afford to forget what ever he wants to forget for just long enough.

It's no surprise when we really look at the way some of the people have been crammed together and just left to become a stain on society. Left to become the scape goats of the system we love so much. Left to their cigarettes, their shit diets ,their low expectations and their lives we can scorn them for living. We do this partly because they don't make any money and mostly because they just don't give a shit which, as  we all know, is something you just have to give. Add this to miserable grey cafes, too many charity shops and the overwhelming feeling that it's all just holding on through sheer willpower, you get to see why people just give up on moving at all and surrender to living as they do.

The trains keep moving, we all keep queueing. We all sit staring at the small screens and tapping, we all keep talking into the little boxes or we stare at others doing it or we
just stare out of the window as the future becomes the past.

We all stick on our own side of the tracks but some of us will always be on the wrong side....

until we switch the signals.     

R.I.P Mr Pratchett

For all the magic, all the colours and the chaos.

For giving us The Night Watch, The Small Gods and the wonderful ladies of Lancre.

 For writing about people are in a way that most others cannot even touch.

Thank you

The turtle moves...

remains..

She went down

Somewhere in the middle of a three day storm

All hands lost

The space that was left

Nature and habit filled

Love brought grieving

Friendship found drunken tears and slack mouths

Words of comfort given about the mysteries of God’s ways

Hymns sung

Sent to unsettle the dust on high rafters

At the back of the church yard small wooden crosses

In this at least

Flowers could be left somewhere

And memories could be held

But no goodbyes ever got said

No personal belongings were ever held

No wedding rings, watches, the everyday that fills pockets

To be kept in drawers

No dead faces turned to stone touched

No last kisses for hollowed cheeks  

No remains