If you lived in America in one of those dusty little one horse towns on that famed highway Route 66, you could stand in the middle of the road and look towards Chicago, Illinois in one direction or Los Angeles, California in the other. How many young people have done exactly that and dreamed of a better life or the excitement and adventure lying down the road. Although I haven't stood in the middle of it and it's nowhere near as romantic, my particular 'Route 66' is the M1.
I grew up in Watford not far from the junction of the A41 and the M1. I can remember trundling around in the back of my parents' Morris Traveller and being aware of this mighty road that went south to London and north towards Birmingham where they spoke in a strange language and everyone lived in caves. As I grew older, I can remember going to London with my friends to visit all those places I had heard about never been. After I passed my own driving test I remember flying up the motorway to see where it went. It was all uncharted territory as far as I was concerned. In case you were wondering, I ended up in Coventry Cathedral, it's very nice.
Most of my family live a stone's throw from the motorway. When I got married I lived right beside it and when I got divorced and moved north, I travelled down it to collect my son each week. I still live just minutes away from the junction. I have used it to commute for a while and to go on holiday both in this country and abroad as both my local airports are close to it. Now I travel north on it to see my Grandson.
I'm not emotionally attached to this particular road or have fond memories of it, it's just that it has always been there, like the gateway to the rest of the world. The constant, muted, rumble of traffic whenever I sit in the garden or open the windows on a warm night, so ever-present that I don't notice it now. I expect everyone has their own 'Route 66' whether it is the road that takes them home or the country lane that runs past their window. It doesn't have to be a big road or paved in yellow bricks like Dorothy's famous highway, it's just the road that connects you to the rest of your life.
For those of you with a social conscience who haven't been north, you will be pleased to know that the people of Birmingham don't still live in caves. In fact some people from Wolverhampton even have houses, I know because I've been in one. How did I get there? Up the M1.
Apparently there is a new evil lurking in our midst. It's to do with the middle classes' subversive habit of drinking wine at home in secret. |It's believed there are many people drinking at home beyond the safe limits which will potentially lead to problems in the future for the health service and their own well-being. The government is very concerned and have produced adverts giving the appropriate advice to these wayward people for their own good...... Hold on minute.
Are these reprobates the same people who get up every morning to go to work without complaint to keep the country going and whose taxes pay for the unemployed, the disabled, the NHS and defence budgets? The very people who provide the funds for MPs to have their duck ponds cleaned and the EU gravy train? Could these delinquents be the same people whose entrepreneurial skills the government is relying upon to bail us out of the financial mire their raging incompetence has managed to get us into? Surely they can't be the wanton villains who put their houses on the line and often work seven days a week to make a crust trying to improve themselves or perhaps the people suffering increasing workloads and mounting stress levels because there's no money and 'we are all in it together' whose only oasis of calm is the evenings at home? The people who celebrate another day of not being killed on the roads, injured in a random accident or not contracting one of a thousand deadly diseases and preparing to do it all again tomorrow for no thanks?
Picture the scene if you can, a trench in WW1 with British soldiers caked in mud; tired, weary and frightened.
Colonel; Hello Tommy.
Tommy; Morning sir.
Colonel; Tommy, those chaps from the Home Office have put their heads together and decided that all that strong, sweet tea the lads drink isn't good for them. All that tannin, caffeine and sugar makes them jittery and their teeth will fall out.
Tommy; Yes sir, well they would know best sir.
Colonel; Exactly Tommy so they have changed your supplies to reflect this. You do realise it's for your own good?
Tommy; Yes of course sir. It's nice to know they have our best interests at heart sir.
Colonel; Excellent, I'm sure you'll find the ginseng and peppermint replacement beneficial. Now when you've finished your tea break, you and the lads will need to pop over the top to face a hail of red hot, deadly German lead.
To add insult to injury, the implication is that these misguided fools are shutting their curtains and indulging in their sordid, guilty little secret away from prying eyes, I think not. Are they all surreptitously brewing moonshine in the garden shed? No, they are getting it from Tesco and Morrisons' the same as everyone else and paying the relevant exorbitant tax. It's no secret. We are even pressured to put the empty bottles out for the bin man so your neighbours can pop out for a count up to see how they compare. Trying to lay a guilt trip on the very people who are the givers to society rather than the takers seems like a clumsy and desperate attempt at social engineering, but to what purpose?
The only reason that I can think of for the Government being interested in the contents of my fridge or wine rack is because of potential future savings to the NHS should I fall ill in later years due to alcohol related illness. I would respectfully suggest that they consider more pressing needs that need their attention such as NHS tourism or whole towns laid waste by unemployment and endemic drugs culture with the resulting physical and mental illnesses that result. Have they considered the impact of diseases brought in by immigrants such as TB which we eradicated years ago but are now re-emerging. Have they thought about the impact of all the people now attending A&E for minor ailments because they can't see a GP or the amount of time taken up by all the emergency services because of their failure to deliver adequate ' care in the community' for the most needy. All these issues are far beyond the government will or capability to deal with so they have gone for the 'shooting a fish in a barrel' approach instead. A few glossy posters and honeyed words in the ears of people who actually bother to watch the news and, hey presto, we have a health policy.
What the government are saying is that having a night off from drinking is good for you. In my view the world is a dangerous and unhealthy place where terrible things happen to people for no reason at all. When push comes to shove, the fact I abstained on a Tuesday and Thursday will make no difference at all the same way that buying a lottery ticket each week doesn't mean you'll ever win it. And, if you did win the abstinence lottery, what's the reward?
An extra few years dribbling down your shirt in a care home. If they are serious about saving money they would be well advised to close down all those 'nanny' departments offering good advice and spend it on social services or extra GP's.
Anyone who knows me knows I like a drink and I'm not advocating drinking every night. However, if that's what you need to get out of bed and go 'over the top' every day. If it doesn't affect your short term health or relationships with your family then who are the government to send you on a guilt trip about it. They may have grounds to nose around in the fridges and cupboards of those on benefits to see what they're spending their money on but if you're paying your way and not breaking the law or harming anyone else (I've never heard of passive drinking) then they should focus on the more pressing matters, in my view, it's a fridge too far.
'With acknowledgement to the Simpsons for the title'
Unfortunately there won't be a blog this week, I can't think of what to write about. I haven't made any incisive observations and have no humorous anecdotes to recount. My good friend Steve thinks that writer's block is caused by having an idea but not knowing where to start. The answer is to put one word in front of the other and it will come out eventually. He is probably right.
Talking about Steve I went to see him in Southampton area last week and we recorded a most excellent reggae influenced version of The Beatles 'Come Together'. I say we, actually I twatted about on the guitar, bashed a frog and whacked some curtain poles and Steve did all the serious hard work. I had left to travel down early in the morning as I wanted to miss the rush hour traffic at my end but didn't want to get there too early. Fortunately I got slightly lost which took up fifteen minutes.
I managed to kill another twenty minutes by calling into the services for a Macdonalds' and to use the facilities. The breakfast wrap was as limp and insipid as expected but still had more charm and charisma than the girl behind the till. There was another member of staff with one of those long-handled dustpan and brush gadgets clearing round the tables, calling everyone sir and rushing to clear the tables when they got up to leave. He was a silver haired gent and looked as if he had been a council pen-pusher or accountant in a previous life. He didn't seem to have any mental health issues but carried out his function with almost excessive enthusiasm. I thanked my lucky stars that I didn't have to do that job. My pride would never have let me do it with more than grudging surliness.
I went to use the gentleman's facilities on the way out but it was closed. A handwritten note apologised for any inconvenience and invited to me to use the ladies instead. I decided I didn't need to go that badly and declined their offer, some would say chickened out.
My friend Steve also had a 'shall I, shan't I moment of a much more serious nature recently when he discovered three burglars in his house. He decided to tackle them, a fight ensued where he was sprayed with an acidic substance and threatened with a knife but he managed to chase them off suffering only severe bumps and bruises. He has been in the local paper and is a bit of a local 'have a go hero' now. It's one of those things that you never know how you will react until it happens. I hope in the same instance I would be equally as brave but being as I even declined to use the ladies toilets my bravery credentials are questionable.
So there you have it. It's been an interesting week but due to writers block I can't think of anything to write about. My wittiness and sharp perception have deserted me so you can all have a week off. I apologise for any inconvenience but your interest is important so please continue to hold until next week. Alternatively you can use the ladies.
Sometimes I cycle to work; it seems almost glamorous on a hot, sunny day. Fortunately we have showers at work so I can don my skimpiest shorts which show off my muscular thighs and my figure hugging T shirt. I can demonstrate my athletic prowess as I glide effortless along looking tanned and vibrant. I'm sure to attract some admiring female glances. Alas, it's not actually like that at all.
As anyone who cycles will tell you, that gentle breeze teasing the tops of the trees turns in to a vicious headwind when you are cycling along, particularly when going uphill and my route to work is all uphill. It's like riding with lead weights in your backpack. People who drive everywhere could be forgiven for believing the world is flat; it's not. It's made up of inclines of various degrees to test the cyclists' stamina and resolve. They are generally of two types, the gentle sloping ones that seem to go on for ever and drain your muscles or the short sharp ones that make you crawl up them gasping for air. On the plus side the route home is all downhill and it's a least five minutes quicker.
It's not only the terrain that causes issues, there's the wildlife. Those tiny flies are a real menace, if they're not getting in your eyes they're disappearing down your throat. Hedgehogs, rabbits and rats have all run out in front of me as I am hurtling down the tracks. So far I have managed to avoid any accidents but it's been close. I've had dogs chase me and knock me off on a particularly steep hill, the same dog more than once. Old people and mums with buggies tend to wander along oblivious to the rest of the universe and block the cycle paths. I've tried using my bell but they just stand in the middle of the road looking confused so I have to stop anyway.
My route to work takes me through the outskirts of the shopping centre where I cruise along avoiding the pedestrians and reversing cars that are oblivious to my presence. Sometimes I catch sight of myself in the shop windows and instead of looking effortlessly cool and athletic, I appear to be an overweight middle aged man with a red face and puffing slightly and looking faintly ridiculous. Not at all the image I was hoping to project.
Once I get to work, I'll be parking my cycle in the bike sheds and a colleague will wander past, look up at the sun, look back at me and say in a slightly envious tone 'lovely day for it'. They clearly don't cycle. Then I head off to the showers to get my breath back and wash away the dried sweat and dead bugs. Still, I feel better for it in myself and I'm sure it's good for me. That's one thing about cycling, once you've nearly been knocked off by a rabbit or run down by a car, you certainly know you're alive.
In my normal day to day job I work shifts. This means that I am no slave to the alarm clock and that I am quite often at home when the rest of the family are at work; bliss. Some people like to have the TV chattering to itself in the background for 'company' or the radio on listening to a talk show with people moaning or the latest pop tripe. Personally, I prefer the silence.
I put this love of silence down to the fact that I'm a tortured artistic genius and I find background noise tends to disturb my train of thought. How people can study or work listening to death metal raging in their ears is beyond me yet many people seem to manage it. If I'm doing the housework or ironing then no problem, I'll put some music on but when I'm trying to be creative, noise is to be avoided, especially telephone sales people.
It begs the question as to whether Michelangelo would have had music on in the background while he was painting the Sistine Chapel. They didn't have radios in those days of course but he might have had a tame lute player running thought the current hits and golden oldies to while away the time. I don't think it would have improved his concentration. Did Damien Hirst chop up his famous cow to the strains of The Archers or Women's Hour, I expect we will never know for sure; unless we ask him. It seems unlikely that Stephen Hawking would have developed his theories of gravitational singularity while listening to the Terry Wogan Breakfast Show. Lucky old Albert Einstein didn't have any of these distractions back in the 1920s.
My own particular creative endeavours demand silence so that I can pace up and down lost in my train of thought while muttering to myself and looking 'Byronesque'. Alternatively, I'll be hunched over my guitar trying to magic up an original chord sequence and melody line out of thin air. The incursion of any other music into this delicate process is like someone trampling all over the wet concrete you have just laid. Maybe others like to work with background noise but for me silence is golden.
