Bad Juju.

Did you ever have one of those days were everything goes wrong, the sort of day that defies logic and the natural order of things. I expect you have, I had one last week. It started when I went to the cupboard to get my trainers for the cycle to work; they weren't there. The cupboard is where they live and always are, except today. I didn't have much time for a good look so I had to put on my old, retired trainers with the holes in. Luckily I hadn't got round to putting them in the bin yet. I had noticed the previous evening that my beanie hat wasn't in my bag where it should be either. That's not such a loss as I look a twat in it but it did keep my ears warm. 

The cycle was uneventful and I had my shower at work in the normal manner, but standing there dripping wet, I discovered that I had forgotten my uniform work shirt. I am really pernickety about packing my backpack for exactly this reason. I make a point of counting the items in and double checking. I've been doing it for years with no mishap, until today. I even began to suspect a prank but then realised it was paranoia. I didn't have time to cycle home and couldn't sit there all day in my sweaty t shirt being ridiculed by my team mates. What to do? Fortunately it was a Saturday and Dearly Beloved was at home so I attempted to ring her to see if she would do an emergency dash and bring one down in the car. There followed a comedy of errors which included missed calls, voicemail messages, my phone ringing my good buddy instead which wouldn't allow me to disconnect and returned calls that my phone wouldn't allow me to accept no matter how many times I pressed the 'answer' button all topped off with some frantic texts. Eventually I managed to explain my predicament and she brought one down.

Unfortunately, the Tesco shopping delivery was due at exactly the time Dearly Beloved was rescuing me. I imaged her making phone calls trying to reorganise the delivery she had missed due to my stupidity. She wouldn't have been pleased. Fortunately, she made it back just in time. Unfortunately she didn't have a key as our youngest son had it so she couldn't get back in. She thought she would have to sit on the door step all day surrounded by shopping and waiting for me to cycle back home. In a rare flash of good luck, our middle son was late for work so he let her in. A minor disaster narrowly avoided.

As you would expect on such a day I was given my least favourite job at work which is currently going through some 'operational changes' leading to cock ups and confusion all round. By the time I left for the cycle home my head was spinning. I was trying to stick to my guns by not buying a bottle of red wine on the way but the cracks were showing. I managed to steel myself and avoided the shop but the day wasn't finished with me yet.

The light bulb in the kitchen has been playing up for a while and it finally went that night. However, then it came on again flickered of a while then went off again, then on again. The bulb was off, then I closed the back door and it came on again. By this time I'm taking the hint that this is probably an electrical fault rather than the bulb. You can't work on electrics in the dark so my next day off is going to be spent inspecting the circuitry and worrying how much a re-wire would cost. That's if the house doesn't burn down in the meantime. I was still resisting the draw of the red wine at the point but then came the coup- de- grace.  One of Shakespeare's witches rang our doorbell.

She rang it not once but four or five times, it sounded like the prelude to a police raid. I warily pulled open the door and did a comic double take, there was no-one there. I looked down and there she was sitting on my doorstep. I know of this lady, she is elderly with curly grey hair, she looks exactly like a witch complete with warts and wispy chin hair. She has that look that suggests she is not entirely with it. She likes to feign illness by sitting outside our local shops and looking poorly until some kind soul comes across and asks her if she is all-right. Sometimes she pretends to fall down so people run over and call an ambulance for her. When the ambulance arrives she makes a miraculous recovery and wanders off. She is well known to the local emergency services and here she was sitting on my doorstep. She looked up at me with plaintive, rheumy eyes, held out her unsteady stand and said 'buy a raffle ticket dearie?' 
'No thanks' I said closing the door on her in a manner which hopefully suggested that I was going to have no truck with her shenanigans and to make herself scarce. I waited five minutes before opening the door to check she had gone which she had. She has never done this before and hopefully she won't do it again.

By this time my resolve had dissolved and I was off down the local shop for a bottle of red wine. After the first glass the day's events disappeared in to history and no further mishaps occurred that day. I'm sure this is a normal day for some people out there but it had far too much drama for my liking. You will be pleased to know that the following day was uneventful and suitably chilled, mind you I still have the electrics to fix and I still haven't found my shoes.

Growing old Disgracefully.

If you go walking in the country and particularly by the coast, you will notice that people you pass will shout a greeting at you in cheerful manner. It's generally something like 'morning' or 'fine day isn't it and they seem even more enthusiastic if they are accompanied by a dog.' I always shout a cheery reply with additional gusto just for the humour value. By contrast, in our towns and cities, people never speak to you except to say 'sorry' for a minor pedestrian related inconvenience. They don't really mean it and never look you in the eye. However I have noticed a worrying trend recently, older people have started to try and engage me in conversation for no particular reason.

You have probably noticed how young children gravitate towards each other at parties or other social gatherings. It's as if they seek a kindred spirit away from the scary, confusing and very boring world of grownups. It's a safety in numbers kind of thing. Children who don't know each other soon fall into playing together and become oblivious of the adult world around them. Older folk are the same, they tend to naturally band together as if they share an unspoken common ground.

Over the last year I have had a couple of instances where an older person has made a tentative approach by sidling up to me in Tesco or similar and trying to engage me in conversation as if they have found an ally and sympathetic ear. I am neither of the above. They must look at me and think 'he looks like a friendly, harmless old duffer who I can swap hospital stories with.' Clearly my dashing good looks and 'flirting with the devil' air need a revamp; I seem to be losing my effortless street cred. I am at the age where I would like to be considered a dashing older man in the mode of a George Clooney rather than an escapee from a care home.

There's nothing wrong with old folk they are wonderful people by and large and of course it's all relative, I just don't want to be one quite yet. I could try shaving off all my hair and tattooing my face but I feel that might be a bit extreme. One things for sure though, the first young whippersnapper who gets up to offer me a seat is likely to get a punch on the hooter.

Men from Mars, Women from Venus? -The Evidence.

I thought you mighty blog readers would be interested in an item I found in the popular scientific journal 'The Periodical'. Apparently, an Archdeacon Ridcully, a faculty member from an obscure but well respected university, has unearthed some ancient Babylonian papyrus which he claims shows proof that men and women are from different planets.

For example, why are women generally shorter than men? It's because the atmospheric pressure on Venus is 92 times heavier than on earth whilst on Mars  the pressure is only 0.6. This effectively kept female average heights down whilst allowing men to sprout like trees. The Babylonians believed this squashing effect is what leads to women swelling in the hips and buttock region in later years. Conversely, due to the rarified atmosphere on Mars males had to put on extra ballast in the stomach region to ensure they were safely grounded.

In terms of climate Venus is Isothermal meaning it has a constant surface temperature, day or night and throughout all the seasons. Being as it's close to the sun this means is hot all the time. This is highlighted as the reason why women have a very low tolerance to temperature changes and are often cold. Mars on the other hand has huge temperature changes due to its distance from the sun and its elliptical orbit. Hence males are impervious to changes in heat and explains their incredulous disbelief when women say they are cold all the time. This also explains why men are hairier than woman as they required additional covering to prevent heat loss. There is no rainfall whatsoever on Venus which is said to account for women's intolerance to precipitation of any kind.

Another interesting variation is caused by the different day lengths of the planets.  A Mars day is approximately the same length as an Earth day. However, Venus spins so slowly (approximately 6.5 kilometres per hour) that one day takes 243 earth days. This has caused confusion over night and day among the female species and causes them to fall asleep at random times such as watching a DVD or to get up ridiculously early in the morning.

Venus has a high sulphur content and clouds of sulphuric acid plague the surface. The Babylonians pointed towards this as the reason women from ancient times could be so scolding and acerbic. Sulphur has also been recently linked to memory which may explain why women can remember things long forgotten by their male counterparts. Another interesting and telling fact is that there seems to be an unusually high methane content on Mars. It's generally considered that men are much more flatulent than women so could this stand as evidence? Man's obsession with size has often been remarked on but this concern doesn't seem to afflict the female population. However, Mars is about half the size of Venus and It's suggested that this fact has caused feelings of inferiority leading to a need to compensate, it's possible.

Over the years since the Babylonians made their initial observations the differences between the sexes have become less marked. Hairy, flatulent women are not uncommon and neither are temperature intolerant men who whinge about the rain playing havoc with their hair. Archdeacon Ridcully's conclusion is that both races found themselves on Earth although it's not clear if it was via space travel or a divine hand. He believes that by lucky fortune they discovered their reproductive organs were compatible and a new race was born, much in the way of a labradoodle. It's surmised that both races left their parent planets to set up home on a much prettier and more pleasant planet where you could hang curtains without them being eaten by acid and chop down trees or hunt animals in a manly way.

The truth has been lost in the mists of time. Modern scientists would tell you that the Babylonian papyrus is bunkum and probably an elaborate forgery but they have failed to come up with an adequate answer to these mysteries. Is the Archdeacon onto something? I think so. 

Lyrical Philosophy.

We only have one car in our family. Dearly Beloved generally walks to work and I often cycle but use the car when the weather is bad so we don't really need a second. Also, I'm too tight to pay for one. It just so happened that last Friday Dearly Beloved need the car for a rare visit to a client so I had no option but to cycle. Unfortunately, it was the same day that the god of comeuppances was tallying my record sheet, found me to be in the red and saw an opportunity to redress the balance. As it got closer to my departure time, the sky clouded over and the wind started to blow. By the time I left it was blowing a gale and the sky had darkened to an ugly black. Halfway there the rain began. I was struggling up a hill against a vicious head wind with the rain coming down in torrents, I was metaphorically shaking my fist at the sky and roundly cursing all the gods when a line from an old song come into my head that made my smile. I pressed on with the cycle with the song in my head and within a short time the rain had stopped and I was arriving at work with the promise of a hot shower. 

The line from the song was 'I'm never gonna stop the rain by complaining' from Raindrops Keep Falling on My Head. It's one of those songs lyrics that have stuck with me over the years as being inherently true. Often when I find myself  becoming irrationally annoyed at something I have no control over the song pops into my head to remind me to stop whinging and get on with it.

 I have a few of these lyrical gems such as the brilliantly worded 'the worlds your oyster but your future's a clam' from 'When You're Young' by The Jam'. Weller is right, no sooner do you reach an age where the world opens up than the financial commitments and personal responsibilities start piling in. I have always loved the line 'Life is just a bowl of All-bran, you wake up every morning and it's there' from the Small Faces' Happy Days Toy Town. It wonderfully conveys the humdrum ordinariness of life.

Another lyric that sticks with me is from The Who's 'Won't Get Fooled Again:' 'meet the new boss, same as the old boss.'  It just seems to sum up the inevitability of things, a little hiccup and it's back to business as usual. Should you have been around in 1977 you may well have heard of the band X-Ray Spex and their excellent singer Poly Styrene (well, it was punk). Their album included the track 'I can't do anything' which perfectly captures that lack of confidence and anxiety that strikes everyone from time to time. That feeling that you're going to be found out for a fraud at any moment. 

These are a few that have stuck with me over the years and there are many more. I've no doubt that anyone reading this would have their own bank of lyrics that struck a chord (as it were). Well go on then, what's your favourite?

The Left has Left.

I have never been a fan of Russell Brand; he's one of those celebrities who are particularly annoying. Just recently he has been doing the rounds touting his new book promoting socialist ideologies and generally slagging of the status quo (not the band). According to him, the BBC and all the other institutions are complicit in keeping us under the thumb so they can herd us like cattle and milk us for all our money thereby making the rich richer. This is, of course, an old argument and one which is naive and simplistic. Mr Brand believes that there are alternative forms of government and social models (not Kate Moss) that would be fairer. Whilst considering this, it occurred to me that you can't actually vote for socialism.

You can't vote for socialism the same way that you can't vote for compassion or faith. It's something you practice or experience. The great socialist movements came about by people banding together for the good of all in kind of giant self- help group, usually in the face of great adversity. Nobody voted for them. The true socialist's are the 'do gooders', those people who give up their time to help others for no reward. They don't have any political representation and perhaps wouldn't consider themselves political activists but they are. They are plugging the holes left by the current system that relies on their goodwill and selflessness to prevent the 'needy' falling through the gaps. How many people who consider themselves socialist give up their time to go and work in a soup kitchen or hand over some of their wages to a credit co-operative so the socially deprived don't have to go to the banks? Some, but not all. Instead of pointing at those that 'have' and demanding they hand over the cash, they should be looking at those that have less to see how they can help them.

It's quite possible to have a fairer more even handed society but it's got nothing to do with politicians. MP's who claim to want a fairer society should give up their seats and spend their time and energy promoting food banks, credit co-operatives, bartering systems, community assistance programs and enabling the disabled. Voting Labour doesn't make you a socialist. It seems to me that people who vote for socialist parties (if you can find one) are perpetuating the system they claim to despise and ducking their social responsibility. 'I'll vote for you and you can change the world for me because I can't be bothered.' Re -distribution of wealth doesn't work. Giving people money isn't social justice it just enables them to buy a bigger telly so they can join in with the rest of the capitalists but with less work. They don't need more money; they need less dependence on money. 

If you buy an IPad, that's capitalism. If you use the same money to chip in and buy someone a wheelchair who then repays you by helping you out once a week, that's socialism. It's the basis of all major religions and you can't vote for them either, at least not in this country. If everyone who voted Labour applied their natural talents and turned their back on materialism to aid their fellow man, social inequality could be seriously improved within a very short time frame. Politics can't bring about serious social change on its own. It has to come from society itself. In the words of Elvis (yes, that Elvis) "a little less conversation and little more action"

I'm clearly no political scientist but it seems quite simple, if people didn't buy things they didn't need there would be no capitalists and the rich wouldn't get richer. If all the people turned their backs on materialism and turned to bartering for goods or services there is not a damn thing the government could do about it. If everyone went out of their way to help each other then everyone would benefit and everyone could contribute. Mr Brand says it's the institutions holding us back and keeping us down, the mysterious 'them' scaring us into compliance. I think not, it's that there is no serious desire to change, no-one wants to roll up their sleeves and get their hands dirty no matter how much they moan about it. They are quite happy to let the unseen army of the selfless struggle on whilst planning what extravagance they can invest in at Christmas and do their bit by voting labour and sticking a few quid in the charity pot. They like it just the way it is. They don't want to be reminded how ugly the world is and the establishment are happy to oblige. 

Please feel free to shoot me down in flames, the only way to test a theory is to try and knock it down. If you're still talking to me that is. 

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Seating Psychology.

Dearly Beloved and I went to the cinema last week to see 'Gone Girl and I'm due to go again in couple of weeks with my good buddy and all round excellent fellow Neil to see something a little more manly. I must confess to being quite fussy about where I sit. I like an aisle seat so I can get in and out easily and I'm not boxed in, somewhere near the front so I don't have to look over peoples head's and to the side away from the slurping, chomping and general chit chat of the great unwashed. I think where you choose to sit says a lot about yourself.  

For example, a gregarious party person would probably sit right in the middle surrounded by cohorts and hangers on. The same would apply to any military dictator or mafia boss. It is a well-known fact that anyone up to no good would be sitting right at the back. This is a hangover from school days where the trouble makers, the talkers and the slackers all sat at the back of the class room or bus on school trips. It's a rule of thumb that anyone at the back is up to something they shouldn't be. This also applies to newly dating couples whose interest is more in each other than the film. 

Any wannabe celebrity would no doubt sit right in front thereby making sure that as many people could see them as possible and gain maximum exposure. On the other hand, a genuine 'A lister' would be sitting to the side by the door trying not to be recognised, Unfortunately this would also mean that they are sitting amongst the folk with weak bladders and persons who have to pop out for a nacho refill halfway through the film. Shy people wouldn't sit in the middle of a row because they would have to ask people to move if they needed the loo. Anyone sitting about a third of the way up and bang in the middle is probably using an illegal recording device. You can always spot the people with anxiety issues; they will be the ones sitting next to the fire exit.

The management have started a seat booking system now at our local cinema which is particularly annoying as I don't know where I want to sit until I'm in there. I like to sit away from other people if possible. On last week's trip we sat in the front block which was empty until four teenagers came in and sat immediately behind us. had they not had to pre-book the seats they would probably have sat further away. I can see cases of Seat Rage occurring when people start arguing about what seats they ought to be in. I can't even see any reason for it unless it's a prelude to charging extra for aisle seats and more leg room. 

I've no doubt that most people don't give a fig where they sit, wouldn't give it a moment's thought and just plonk themselves down randomly. Although it's possibly not as random as they think on a sub-conscious level. What my seating preference says about me is that I don't like crowds and would rather have the place to myself. Perhaps what this also says about me is that I would be better off at home with a DVD and a bottle of wine. 

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Crumbling Cookies

Dearly Beloved and I had a great day yesterday. We woke early in the morning with the sun streaming in through the window and the birds singing in the trees outside. We had our usual light continental breakfast at the large kitchen table washed down with a pot of tea and then she went outside to feed the geese and ducks and tend to her small cattery cum rescue home. She doesn't really make any money out of it but she enjoys it. I took the dog for a walk across the fields and didn't see another soul, just me, Bruno and the day. When I came back I went to my office to do my mornings writing which went really well. I always find the view across the valley from my office so inspiring, I never tire of it.

I finally emerged from my office about eleven thirty to the smell of fresh coffee coming from the kitchen and feeling quite pleased with my excellent day's work. The postman had been and brought another royalty cheque, this one for £250,000.I thought back to the days when money used to be an issue and felt quietly relieved that those days had gone forever. I feel quite sorry for Dave our postman because we have a drive that's about a 1/4 of a mile long. It deters the most intrepid of double glazing salesmen or Seventh Day Adventists from bothering, and just in case they don't get the hint, There is a large and particularly ominous 'beware of the dogs' sign with a picture of a spectacularly evil looking beast. Of course Bruno wouldn't hurt a fly but they aren't to know that. We also bought one of those new phones that recognises sales calls, answers it and then pretends it's you while automatically switching to a premium number. In a good month BT owe me money. 

The lads came round in the afternoon so Dearly Beloved went shopping with her best friend. We messed about in my music studio and knocked out a few numbers, recorded some drums and put the finishing touches to last week's track. We don't take it too seriously and it's just a laugh but I must confess to being quietly proud of some of the tracks. Apparently ours sons rang yesterday and spoke to their mother. The middle ones over the moon as the Hot Tub company he started as just made its first Million. No doubt there will be some ribbing between him and the eldest as he made his first million a couple of years ago in IT. We were even graced with a rare call from our youngest in LA.  He says they have renewed his contract in the hit HBO TV series so at least Dearly Beloved will be able to see him on TV each week even if not in person. 

There are several restaurants round our way we go in the evenings when I'm not committed doing local gigs. Last night we went Italian with Dom, Sally, Rachel and Angus, We had a brilliant time and I don't think I have laughed so much for months, in fact I think someone put a complaint in as we were a bit loud but I expect Gio ( Giovani, the owner) would have given them short shrift. 

We were back home by ten and I took Bruno for his evening walk, I love that time of the night when it's quiet, just the stars for company and the fields seem to go on forever and you are the only person alive. Bruno and I went back home, I did my evening routine and went to bed. I fell asleep with the full moon shining in my window and the hoot of owls somewhere in the distance.

I woke up this morning in my own bed in my own house in the middle of a housing estate to overcast skies and pouring rain with the prospect of another day at work before me. None of the above is true and even if I had the money, that's not the way the world works. Unfortunately, that isn't the way the cookie of life crumbles.