A while ago Rach and I won an entirely imaginary 'Dumbest Parents' award (see this rather old blog: http://experiment627.blogspot.com/2010/04/and-award-for-dumbest-parents-goes-to.html) for letting Katie get heatstroke while in Swansea. Recently we cocked up this parenthood thing again, although not as badly, and I'm not even sure Katie noticed all that much. It did make us feel terrible though. It was the Christmas party at Katie's nursery. In our defence, we hadn't been told and Rach only happened to overhear someone mention it in passing a few days before, so with three month old Emily starting to teethe, it wasn't really at the forefront of our minds.
On the day, Katie wasn't due at nursery until the afternoon, and Rach had mentioned the party to me the night before, about how Katie will need to go in one of her dresses. In the course of the morning rush we, of course, forgot, and although I remembered briefly at one point during the morning, I didn't call Rach to remind her. Later that afternoon, I hear from Rach what had happened.
They turned up at nursery, the party forgotten, with Katie wearing jogging bottoms and a slightly dirty top. Don't judge us on that until you have some idea of the sheer mountain of washing you get through with two young kids and two adults. Well, they walked in on the party and Katie looked around at the girls in their party dresses. She stopped, looked down at her own rather shabby appearance, then looked at Rach with a slightly confused face, and went off to play. There is no explaining the pit that opens up in the middle of your stomach when the realisation of what you've put your child through dawns on you. Even hearing it second hand from Rach, it was awful.
After nursery, Katie was in high spirits, excited about her gift from Santa and she told us she had a really lovely time at the party. She didn't mention the difference in appearance between her and the other kids, and neither did we. I suppose we got lucky. She certainly didn't hold it against us, seeing as today out of the blue she told me she thought I was wonderful (her own words, with no prompting). It seems we're still doing something right.
Friday, December 17, 2010
Thursday, November 25, 2010
How hypocritical am I? Let me count the ways...
Hypocrisy is a strange thing. Being hypocritical is often considered evidence that one is a dreadful human being and should be punished as such. The shout of outrage at the hypocrisy of the politicians is often loud and heartfelt. The truth of the matter as I see it however, is that most people are in some ways hypocritical. The most hypocritical are the ones that complain loudest about others hypocrisy while trumpeting their own lack of it. I know when conservatives are championing smaller Government while crushing average people to protect corporate interests they are guilty of hypocrisy. A brief look at myself, however, will reveal that I am a bubbling cauldron of rank hypocrisy, and I suspect the same would be true of most people.
So, how am I a hypocrite? Let's see. First off, I think animal welfare is important and I support organisations that are passionate about it. I will genuinely be heartbroken if the coalition Government succeeds in re-legalising foxhunting. And yet, I am a meat eater. I know in some ways it's possible to eat meat and still support animal welfare - buy organic and free range, donate to charities and other things, and I do all of them. But if I truly support it, shouldn't I come off meat altogether? Yes, I should, and yet I don't. Blatant hypocrisy.
Another? Okay. Although it's not exactly possible for a man to be a feminist in the truest sense of the word (it's the penis) I do support the fight for equality and believe that women should be considered fellow humans of equal worth before they are considered women. I have many female friends who are much more than walking vaginas to me - they are people. Having said that, I have been guilty of allowing sexual attraction to over-ride most other considerations (not that I've ever acted on that (much), having married my college girlfriend). Again, blatant hypocrisy.
The most obvious one is that I know how to save our species. I know how to reduce our effect on the environment, how to reduce waste, greed, war and other things. We simply need to stop having so many kids and over-running our planet like cockroaches. There are already far too many of us, and in the not too distant future when fresh water, oil, living space and other things start to run out there will be even more of us, virtually guaranteeing a dreadful, near-apocalyptic future for all. And knowing this, I've had two kids. One might have been justifiable. Two is hypocrisy. Three, I know beyond all doubt, will never happen. I hope.
The most recent evidence of my hypocrisy came when we decided on which primary school to send Katie to. There are two local schools - the St. Georges Church of England Primary School (our catchment area) and Priorslee Primary School (just outside our catchment area). We've had a look around both of them, and they both seem really good. A look at the Ofsted reports on the two of them show that at both schools the children are largely happy, confident and eager to learn, which are the most important considerations - Katie being happy is first priority, always. Looking at it in further depth shows that Priorslee (outstanding Ofsted) has high expectations of the children and almost all of them achieve above average academically. However, some formal lessons do begin as early as the reception year and homework starts almost immediately (although it's mostly child-led play). When Katie starts school she won't long have turned four - will she really be old enough for that? A check of St. Georges (good Ofsted) reveals a first and second year that are not nearly so punishing, and it's biggest strength isn't high performing students, but it's helping under performing students improve up to the national average. How do we know whether Katie is going to be academically competent or not? So how can we decide which school is best? The crux of the matter is that the children are happy at both, so both are good enough, and the higher performance of Priorslee naturally causes us to lean in that direction.
Here's the hypocrisy. Recently, Priorslee was offered the chance to convert to academy status. Academies were started by the previous Labour Government to help poor performing schools. They are funded by the Government and are freed from Local Education Authority (LEA) control, allowing them to set their own curriculum, their own admittance procedure and manage their own budget. Money kept back by the LEAs to provide facilities for disabled access and other things for all local schools would go direct to the academy. It was a fairly controversial decision back then, but a look at the once-dreadful-now-fantastic Madeley Court School, granted academy status under Labour, shows that it can work well. When the coalition Government came to power, the focus was shifted away from poor performing schools and outstanding schools were invited to apply for academy status and all the benefits implied (although that offer is now open to all schools, provided they have the support of an outstanding one). The difference between the two ideologies is clear - Labour intended to help the schools having difficulties, the coalition want to offer the highest performers the chance to improve further. I can see both sides - help for those that need it and help the best be all they can be. There's no getting away from the idea that the former is designed to bring things closer and give everyone an equal chance, while the latter runs the risk of segregating communities. As most people know, I'm fairly left-leaning, so putting my daughter into one of the coalition's academies doesn't really sit well with me, and yet we applied to Priorslee anyway. More hypocrisy. However, this time I don't think it's my fault. We've objectively weighed up the strengths and weaknesses of both schools, visited them, talked to Katie and each other about it, and come to the conclusion that we prefer Priorslee, but we'd still be happy for her to go to St. Georges. So, because of my own principles I'm supposed to put my daughter into a school that I don't think is the best one in the local area? I'm not supposed to give her the best chance I can? The coalition Government has put me in this position, and although it makes me feel a little queasy, I've made what I think is the best decision for my daughter, but a decision which runs counter to my left wing ideology. After all, it's not her left wing ideology, and she deserves the chance to make up her own mind without being indoctrinated into anyone else's mindset, and it's education that will eventually allow her to make the choice for herself.
Now all I can do is cross my fingers and hope everything turns out okay...
So, how am I a hypocrite? Let's see. First off, I think animal welfare is important and I support organisations that are passionate about it. I will genuinely be heartbroken if the coalition Government succeeds in re-legalising foxhunting. And yet, I am a meat eater. I know in some ways it's possible to eat meat and still support animal welfare - buy organic and free range, donate to charities and other things, and I do all of them. But if I truly support it, shouldn't I come off meat altogether? Yes, I should, and yet I don't. Blatant hypocrisy.
Another? Okay. Although it's not exactly possible for a man to be a feminist in the truest sense of the word (it's the penis) I do support the fight for equality and believe that women should be considered fellow humans of equal worth before they are considered women. I have many female friends who are much more than walking vaginas to me - they are people. Having said that, I have been guilty of allowing sexual attraction to over-ride most other considerations (not that I've ever acted on that (much), having married my college girlfriend). Again, blatant hypocrisy.
The most obvious one is that I know how to save our species. I know how to reduce our effect on the environment, how to reduce waste, greed, war and other things. We simply need to stop having so many kids and over-running our planet like cockroaches. There are already far too many of us, and in the not too distant future when fresh water, oil, living space and other things start to run out there will be even more of us, virtually guaranteeing a dreadful, near-apocalyptic future for all. And knowing this, I've had two kids. One might have been justifiable. Two is hypocrisy. Three, I know beyond all doubt, will never happen. I hope.
The most recent evidence of my hypocrisy came when we decided on which primary school to send Katie to. There are two local schools - the St. Georges Church of England Primary School (our catchment area) and Priorslee Primary School (just outside our catchment area). We've had a look around both of them, and they both seem really good. A look at the Ofsted reports on the two of them show that at both schools the children are largely happy, confident and eager to learn, which are the most important considerations - Katie being happy is first priority, always. Looking at it in further depth shows that Priorslee (outstanding Ofsted) has high expectations of the children and almost all of them achieve above average academically. However, some formal lessons do begin as early as the reception year and homework starts almost immediately (although it's mostly child-led play). When Katie starts school she won't long have turned four - will she really be old enough for that? A check of St. Georges (good Ofsted) reveals a first and second year that are not nearly so punishing, and it's biggest strength isn't high performing students, but it's helping under performing students improve up to the national average. How do we know whether Katie is going to be academically competent or not? So how can we decide which school is best? The crux of the matter is that the children are happy at both, so both are good enough, and the higher performance of Priorslee naturally causes us to lean in that direction.
Here's the hypocrisy. Recently, Priorslee was offered the chance to convert to academy status. Academies were started by the previous Labour Government to help poor performing schools. They are funded by the Government and are freed from Local Education Authority (LEA) control, allowing them to set their own curriculum, their own admittance procedure and manage their own budget. Money kept back by the LEAs to provide facilities for disabled access and other things for all local schools would go direct to the academy. It was a fairly controversial decision back then, but a look at the once-dreadful-now-fantastic Madeley Court School, granted academy status under Labour, shows that it can work well. When the coalition Government came to power, the focus was shifted away from poor performing schools and outstanding schools were invited to apply for academy status and all the benefits implied (although that offer is now open to all schools, provided they have the support of an outstanding one). The difference between the two ideologies is clear - Labour intended to help the schools having difficulties, the coalition want to offer the highest performers the chance to improve further. I can see both sides - help for those that need it and help the best be all they can be. There's no getting away from the idea that the former is designed to bring things closer and give everyone an equal chance, while the latter runs the risk of segregating communities. As most people know, I'm fairly left-leaning, so putting my daughter into one of the coalition's academies doesn't really sit well with me, and yet we applied to Priorslee anyway. More hypocrisy. However, this time I don't think it's my fault. We've objectively weighed up the strengths and weaknesses of both schools, visited them, talked to Katie and each other about it, and come to the conclusion that we prefer Priorslee, but we'd still be happy for her to go to St. Georges. So, because of my own principles I'm supposed to put my daughter into a school that I don't think is the best one in the local area? I'm not supposed to give her the best chance I can? The coalition Government has put me in this position, and although it makes me feel a little queasy, I've made what I think is the best decision for my daughter, but a decision which runs counter to my left wing ideology. After all, it's not her left wing ideology, and she deserves the chance to make up her own mind without being indoctrinated into anyone else's mindset, and it's education that will eventually allow her to make the choice for herself.
Now all I can do is cross my fingers and hope everything turns out okay...
Wednesday, November 10, 2010
Science, souls and salvation: in which a person of limited intellect ponders universal truths that are far beyond him.
Recently, there was a post-doctorate position advertised at the International Space Science Institute in Switzerland. It got me thinking about myself as a young boy, constantly engrossed in books and encyclopedias about space, being obsessed over the subject and even spending time copying my books out word for word by pen and paper (yes, I was sad. I still am. I'm OK with it). If I had realised at that young age that there were occupations such as the one advertised, I wonder if I'd have worked tirelessly to be in a position to apply for it. I wonder if there is another Universe where a version of me is the successful candidate. I'd like to think there is. The harsh truth of the matter is I'm nowhere near intelligent enough, and probably wouldn't be no matter how diligently I applied myself.
However, not being smart enough to be a scientist has in no way diminished my love and enthusiasm for science. It is probably the most wondrous accomplishment of human intellect, and allows me, along with many others, to lift myself clear of the religious doctrine made up by humans who pretend to have answers in order to exert power and influence over others. Thanks to science, I know there is not a supreme being out there that suffers from acute homophobia, or one that favours one country over another (sorry right wing Americans, that's not the truth, it's just what you'd like your god to be). Thanks to science, I know there isn't a place for me furnished with virgins in the afterlife if only I could murder enough people of a different faith (why would virgins be such a turn-on anyway? They'd be shit at sex). Thanks to science, I have a grasp (however small) of the sheer size, scope and beauty of our incredible Universe, and I understand a little of where it (and therefore I, seeing as I am made of stars myself) came from. Thanks to science, I know the secrets of how all things are made up of atoms I can't see, and I have a good idea of the geological and biological history of our planet, which, it turns out, was not made by that homophobic supreme being at all.
There's an awful lot I can't comprehend and will likely never know - how life first came to be before it began to evolve (abiogenesis is fine in theory, but is unlikely to ever be proved), or even how the Universe began (again, the Big Bang Theory and the standard model of cosmology work OK, but have holes that will probably never be filled). What I do know is that even though I don't know the answers, I won't ever chalk them up to a creator made up by men in order to extend their influence over others. There's other stuff that I kind of understand, but have trouble wrapping my head around - Schrodinger's Cat and Entanglement are two elements of Quantum Theory I'll never really get a handle on for example, and dark matter and dark energy are at once both easy and impossible to understand, but that would be down to little old me and my limited intellect again. Then there's the other big thing I can't understand or explain - human sentience. I'm quite sure it's a natural process and one day it may well be explained by a clever chemist or biologist, and I have trouble accepting that it's proof of a soul, whatever a soul is supposed to be. 'Soul' is a simple word to define that which we can't really define, and will always be linked with the other religious arsegravy that organised religions spout while they tell you forces of good and evil are supposedly battling for yours. There is obviously something, for we have conscious thought and sentience, so for arguments sake we'll call it a soul, but there's nothing to salvage and I doubt very much it's a spirit version of a person that will live forever. I do have faith; I have faith in human ingenuity and faith that these kinds of questions may be answered. But I'm sure of one thing - they won't be answered by organised religion. So in a way, my soul (for lack of a better term) has been saved - science saved it, and saved me from worrying about what will happen to it after I'm dead. The idea of spending eternity in either heaven or hell horrifies me. Isn't 100 years of life (thanks to science that figure will probably increase dramatically in the coming decades; I just hope health and quality of life improves along with it) enough? I take comfort in knowing that the atoms that make up my body used to be part of a star, and will be absorbed and become something else after my death. I don't have to kneel before anyone to receive rewards and love in the afterlife, because I will not have an afterlife. I will forever be a part of this incredible Universe.
There is so much we're on the forefront of - many of the technological applications referred to in this piece for example: http://bigthink.com/ideas/20525 sound like the stuff of science fiction - cloaking devices, invisibility, time travel, teleportation? And yet, Quantum Theory, which no-one is even sure is true, is allowing research into these theoretical technologies to develop. Mind: blown.
This video sums things up more eloquently than I can: http://t.co/B51Ky3F. The line "I...stepped out of a supernova. And so did you" literally brought a tear to my eye.
If you do believe in a god, you have every right to. Just remember, I also have a right. A right to deduce what I see and come to a reasonable conclusion.
However, not being smart enough to be a scientist has in no way diminished my love and enthusiasm for science. It is probably the most wondrous accomplishment of human intellect, and allows me, along with many others, to lift myself clear of the religious doctrine made up by humans who pretend to have answers in order to exert power and influence over others. Thanks to science, I know there is not a supreme being out there that suffers from acute homophobia, or one that favours one country over another (sorry right wing Americans, that's not the truth, it's just what you'd like your god to be). Thanks to science, I know there isn't a place for me furnished with virgins in the afterlife if only I could murder enough people of a different faith (why would virgins be such a turn-on anyway? They'd be shit at sex). Thanks to science, I have a grasp (however small) of the sheer size, scope and beauty of our incredible Universe, and I understand a little of where it (and therefore I, seeing as I am made of stars myself) came from. Thanks to science, I know the secrets of how all things are made up of atoms I can't see, and I have a good idea of the geological and biological history of our planet, which, it turns out, was not made by that homophobic supreme being at all.
There's an awful lot I can't comprehend and will likely never know - how life first came to be before it began to evolve (abiogenesis is fine in theory, but is unlikely to ever be proved), or even how the Universe began (again, the Big Bang Theory and the standard model of cosmology work OK, but have holes that will probably never be filled). What I do know is that even though I don't know the answers, I won't ever chalk them up to a creator made up by men in order to extend their influence over others. There's other stuff that I kind of understand, but have trouble wrapping my head around - Schrodinger's Cat and Entanglement are two elements of Quantum Theory I'll never really get a handle on for example, and dark matter and dark energy are at once both easy and impossible to understand, but that would be down to little old me and my limited intellect again. Then there's the other big thing I can't understand or explain - human sentience. I'm quite sure it's a natural process and one day it may well be explained by a clever chemist or biologist, and I have trouble accepting that it's proof of a soul, whatever a soul is supposed to be. 'Soul' is a simple word to define that which we can't really define, and will always be linked with the other religious arsegravy that organised religions spout while they tell you forces of good and evil are supposedly battling for yours. There is obviously something, for we have conscious thought and sentience, so for arguments sake we'll call it a soul, but there's nothing to salvage and I doubt very much it's a spirit version of a person that will live forever. I do have faith; I have faith in human ingenuity and faith that these kinds of questions may be answered. But I'm sure of one thing - they won't be answered by organised religion. So in a way, my soul (for lack of a better term) has been saved - science saved it, and saved me from worrying about what will happen to it after I'm dead. The idea of spending eternity in either heaven or hell horrifies me. Isn't 100 years of life (thanks to science that figure will probably increase dramatically in the coming decades; I just hope health and quality of life improves along with it) enough? I take comfort in knowing that the atoms that make up my body used to be part of a star, and will be absorbed and become something else after my death. I don't have to kneel before anyone to receive rewards and love in the afterlife, because I will not have an afterlife. I will forever be a part of this incredible Universe.
There is so much we're on the forefront of - many of the technological applications referred to in this piece for example: http://bigthink.com/ideas/20525 sound like the stuff of science fiction - cloaking devices, invisibility, time travel, teleportation? And yet, Quantum Theory, which no-one is even sure is true, is allowing research into these theoretical technologies to develop. Mind: blown.
This video sums things up more eloquently than I can: http://t.co/B51Ky3F. The line "I...stepped out of a supernova. And so did you" literally brought a tear to my eye.
If you do believe in a god, you have every right to. Just remember, I also have a right. A right to deduce what I see and come to a reasonable conclusion.
Thursday, November 4, 2010
Perspective may change with age, but Joss Whedon will always be freakin’ brilliant.
There's an old argument that political beliefs change as a person ages - when you're young and hopeful you find yourself in the left wing camp, shouting for equality and wanting everyone to get a fair deal. As you age, you accumulate more wealth and feel that as you've earned it, you deserve to hold onto it - you become more right wing, defending the richer half of society, decrying the less fortunate as simply too lazy to achieve as you have done. This, while probably true in some cases, is largely bull crap and Roger Ebert, David Attenborough, Terry Pratchett, Ian McKellan and Stephen "I hate women" Fry are five names off the top of my head to illustrate it.
Be that as it may, in some matters perspective really does change with age. I'll give you two examples. Take Robert Jordan's Wheel of Time fantasy novel series (you may remember from this entry http://experiment627.blogspot.com/2010/07/stephen-donaldons-gap-sequence-how-far.html that I read very uncool fiction). The series of 13 (with one to go) books has many hundreds of characters, each with their own specific take on the world. There are the kids: Rand, Mat, Perrin, Egwene and Elayne - when, as a youngish person I first read those books it was to those characters I related the best and I got frustrated with the older characters holding things up and thinking they knew better. When I re-read it as an older person (and I know early 30s isn't that old, but it's older than a teenager and old enough for perspective to change) I found myself relating more to the older characters - Nyneave, Moiraine, Siuan and Gareth Bryne and sometimes found the impetuousness of the younger characters to be a little annoying. I suspect if I read the series again 15 years from now I'll find myself sympathetic to yet another point of view. Such was the impressive depth and skill of Jordan's writing that he was able to recreate the inner workings of a characters mind that the character automatically connects to a reader of a similar age. Jordan even wrote from a female perspective so well it led some readers to speculate that he was actually female (there are at least as many strongly developed and varied female characters in Wheel of Time as there are male ones, something of a rarity in this genre).
Another writer able to do such a thing is Joss Whedon. Rach and I have almost finished re-watching the seven season run of Buffy the Vampire Slayer, which is, frankly incredible and the defining TV show of a generation. When watching it the first time round, I distinctly remember having the following impressions: I was annoyed with Riley, because I found him a poor replacement for Angel, I was annoyed with Dawn for being a bit of a brat, I was annoyed with Buffy herself in season six for being miserable and shagging Spike all the time, and I totally loved Willow and her descent into darkness. I think maybe I felt that way because of my age. Watching it this time around, the Buffy and Angel arc got boring pretty quickly, because of all the moping and misery - it was a lot more fun when Angel turned evil. Because of this reaction, I didn't find Riley half as annoying. I don't know if it's anything to do with being a father, but I didn't think Dawn was treated very well and I think they should have done more for her, so when she started to act out I sympathised with her instead of getting annoyed. Buffy, in season six, has been dragged out of heaven by her friends into a world of death and demons, where she feels nothing and cannot bring herself to care for anyone or anything. It's no wonder she turns to Spike, seeing as he's the only one who could come close to understanding. This time, I kind of couldn't stand Willow and her selfish petulance and her increasing addiction to dark magic. I couldn't sympathise with her and felt she should have known better. It struck me as how being only a decade or so older, I could find myself seeing things in a completely different way. With both The Wheel of Time and Buffy it's the layered writing and detailed characterisation that allows this, and for me is the mark of a truly brilliant writer. Anyone wanting proof of Whedon's extraordinary ability as a TV writer and director need look no further that the Firefly episode Objects in Space (which contains philosophical musings on self awareness, and funny bits), or the Buffy episodes Hush (terrifying horror), Restless (lucid and fractured dreamscapes) and The Body (a perfect recreation of the overwhelming feelings of free fall, numbness, fear and sickness when confronted with the death of a loved one).
I wonder how I'll think by the time I'm 60..?
Be that as it may, in some matters perspective really does change with age. I'll give you two examples. Take Robert Jordan's Wheel of Time fantasy novel series (you may remember from this entry http://experiment627.blogspot.com/2010/07/stephen-donaldons-gap-sequence-how-far.html that I read very uncool fiction). The series of 13 (with one to go) books has many hundreds of characters, each with their own specific take on the world. There are the kids: Rand, Mat, Perrin, Egwene and Elayne - when, as a youngish person I first read those books it was to those characters I related the best and I got frustrated with the older characters holding things up and thinking they knew better. When I re-read it as an older person (and I know early 30s isn't that old, but it's older than a teenager and old enough for perspective to change) I found myself relating more to the older characters - Nyneave, Moiraine, Siuan and Gareth Bryne and sometimes found the impetuousness of the younger characters to be a little annoying. I suspect if I read the series again 15 years from now I'll find myself sympathetic to yet another point of view. Such was the impressive depth and skill of Jordan's writing that he was able to recreate the inner workings of a characters mind that the character automatically connects to a reader of a similar age. Jordan even wrote from a female perspective so well it led some readers to speculate that he was actually female (there are at least as many strongly developed and varied female characters in Wheel of Time as there are male ones, something of a rarity in this genre).
Another writer able to do such a thing is Joss Whedon. Rach and I have almost finished re-watching the seven season run of Buffy the Vampire Slayer, which is, frankly incredible and the defining TV show of a generation. When watching it the first time round, I distinctly remember having the following impressions: I was annoyed with Riley, because I found him a poor replacement for Angel, I was annoyed with Dawn for being a bit of a brat, I was annoyed with Buffy herself in season six for being miserable and shagging Spike all the time, and I totally loved Willow and her descent into darkness. I think maybe I felt that way because of my age. Watching it this time around, the Buffy and Angel arc got boring pretty quickly, because of all the moping and misery - it was a lot more fun when Angel turned evil. Because of this reaction, I didn't find Riley half as annoying. I don't know if it's anything to do with being a father, but I didn't think Dawn was treated very well and I think they should have done more for her, so when she started to act out I sympathised with her instead of getting annoyed. Buffy, in season six, has been dragged out of heaven by her friends into a world of death and demons, where she feels nothing and cannot bring herself to care for anyone or anything. It's no wonder she turns to Spike, seeing as he's the only one who could come close to understanding. This time, I kind of couldn't stand Willow and her selfish petulance and her increasing addiction to dark magic. I couldn't sympathise with her and felt she should have known better. It struck me as how being only a decade or so older, I could find myself seeing things in a completely different way. With both The Wheel of Time and Buffy it's the layered writing and detailed characterisation that allows this, and for me is the mark of a truly brilliant writer. Anyone wanting proof of Whedon's extraordinary ability as a TV writer and director need look no further that the Firefly episode Objects in Space (which contains philosophical musings on self awareness, and funny bits), or the Buffy episodes Hush (terrifying horror), Restless (lucid and fractured dreamscapes) and The Body (a perfect recreation of the overwhelming feelings of free fall, numbness, fear and sickness when confronted with the death of a loved one).
I wonder how I'll think by the time I'm 60..?
Friday, October 22, 2010
Adventures in A & E: my appendisectomy.
So, on a regular Wednesday afternoon I started getting some mild stomach pains. As afternoon turned to evening they got more intense, but not anything I hadn't felt before. Over the course of Wednesday night they got worse & stopped me from sleeping. I still wasn't unduly worried on Thursday morning, as they had wore off a little. Stupidly, I decided to go to work. By lunchtime I was suffering rather acutely. While I'd had similar stomach pains before, they had never gone on for quite this long. I managed to make it until 3pm before leaving work & headed for a drop-in centre. This is a doctor's office where you can just turn up without having to make an appointment with your own GP & they are super useful. For that reason I'm just waiting for the coalition Government to cut them. But I digress; the doc checked me out & prescribed me some co-codamol for the pain and some IBS drugs to settle my stomach down.
I was also warned to keep a close eye on where the pain was actually coming from. At the time it felt fairly general, but if it became localised down the right hand side, it could be the gall bladder or the appendix & I should get myself to A & E. No problem, I said; I'll keep checking. It seems as though merely ten minutes pass as I'm waiting for my prescription when I begin to notice the pain is concentrated more down the right hand side. The first instinct is to shrug this off as psychological - I'd been told to check for this & now I'm imagining I can feel it. The pain is so bad by now that I'm ready to weep or faint. Co-codamol to the rescue, then. The pain dims, but it doesn't disappear. Throughout the evening I continue to check on it & I am becoming more & more convinced that the pain is localising near my gall bladder or appendix. My wife remains skeptical. On Friday I wake up at about 6am & the pain is worse than ever. I stagger to the co-codamol and gulp it down. It is then I decide to go to A & E. After all, if I'm wrong, they'll just throw me out, won't they?
The first test is to explain things to the triage nurse, which I seem to pass because he admits me. Rach has to leave at this point, because she has to look after her dad as well as the kids. I change into a gown, pee into a cardboard container and wait for the doctor. He looks me over & sends me on for a surgical consult & x-ray. After the x-ray, I'm left in the corridor for a while as it's pretty busy. I overhear a consultation in a cubicle and am given my first slice of how bad things can be for other people. Talking to a doctor is a woman who has been admitted after having the crap beaten out of her by her boyfriend. She has a bruised eardrum & at least two cracked ribs. She is weeping, but is desperate to stop because the sobs rack her with pain. She talks in a thick Telford accent that makes her sound badly educated, which is a dreadful assumption to make based on only an accent, but it is difficult not to make it. It's like hearing a strong Southern US state accent and trying not to assume the one speaking is a pig-raping redneck. I don't make such assumptions about either accent, but only after giving the part of me that automatically jumps to conclusions a hard slap. She talks about how she doesn't want to involve the police, about how she hates her boyfriend but loves him as well, about how he's only been like this since he added steroids to his daily drug intake. Lying on my bed outside, I may only be suffering from mild abdominal pain, but my heart is breaking for that poor woman. The doctor, clearly knowing how limited his freedom to help her beyond treatment is, barely hesitates before offering advice and moving on. I wonder how he manages to cope being exposed to this routinely.
Next it's time to see a surgeon. I get wheeled into a little room where I wait. By now the painkillers I took at 6am should have long since worn off, but I still only have a mild discomfort where the pain used to be. I've heard that in cases of appendicitis that this is bad and means the appendix has burst. I still can't help feeling like I'm a fraud & wasting people's time when I'm not in any real pain. Then the surgeon comes in. Her name is Annabel. She is the chief surgeon today. She is outstandingly good looking. I am nervous when her hands are touching my skin only a few inches above my crotch while she is asking, in all seriousness, whether I feel anything. I tell her about the pain. She looks at me & says "I think it's time you said goodbye to your appendix, don't you?" As much as I loved Scrubs I knew that much of it wasn't true to life. It seems, however, that the bit about surgeons wanting to cut open every patient they see after a few minutes is absolutely true to life.
So I get taken to the surgical ward, being Ward 12 at the Princess Royal hospital in Telford, to await my fate. It's nil by mouth for me, so I get hooked up to a drip. Over the course of the afternoon I familiarise myself with the staff and patients on the ward. There's a guy recovering from a throat operation following a lifetime of smoking. Hooked up to a catheter and regularly replaced nicotine patches, he can barely speak & doesn't look comfortable. There's the guy that came in with penis pain & is now constantly leaking blood out of his pisser. The others are a collection of old guys who look rather checked out at the moment. The staff are, without exception, upbeat, friendly & clearly very busy trying to keep a lot of spinning plates going. Jackob is looking after me. He's possibly European, but his English is so good I can't be sure. He's assisting the nurses while training to be a paramedic. He's got a three month old daughter so we talk about our kids for a while. Around come the doctors for a brief examination & a quick chat with each patient. One guy has his operation delayed until Monday because his somethingorother levels are too high. Penis pain guy wants to speak to someone in charge because he's been bleeding for six hours & feels like nobody is doing anything about it. Then it's me. Another examination. Another chance for me to explain what's happened to me. He thinks my appendix might be stuck behind something like my colon, because the pain is a bit higher than it should be, but not high enough for the gall bladder. It might be some small thing that's next to my appendix, so they might make an additional incision. We'll do it this evening, ok? Sounds good I reply, while gulping. The final guy being seen is an old dude. As part of his examination, the doc has to explore his back passage for blockages or something. It sounds painful, with the poor old man shouting out and reduced to repeating cries of "Oh dear". You can't help but feel for the guy, for his pain & his loss of dignity. The doctors were as respectful as they could be under the circumstances, but the procedure had to be done. It is an unwelcome glimpse of the far future.
Annabel comes to see penis pain guy. He calmly (and quite reasonably) explains his complaint about feeling like he's been left on his bed to bleed while nobody does anything. Annabel tells him it's because there is no urology specialist qualified to treat him at Telford & she's spent much of the afternoon trying to get him a bed at Shrewsbury, but they are busy & reluctant to agree to the transfer. He still feels like there should be more that they can do. She explains a few procedures that may help to relieve him, but they are painful & probably won't work, which is why she didn't mention them before. She offers him the choice. He decides to wait. He feels better. She is marvellous. A few hours later, he's carted off to Shrewsbury.
10pm rolls by & I start to wonder when the whole thing is supposed to be happening. I've had no food & barely any drink since yesterday. I want it over with. A surgeon comes over to my bed & explains that it's not going to happen until tomorrow. An 81 year old guy has just been admitted whose small intestine has tied itself up in a knot, or something. Anyway, he will die soon without surgery, so my spot goes to him. They want to get to me as quickly as they can, because the longer it goes on, the more likely it is that my appendix will perforate and cause havoc. But for now, I can wait. He can't. It's a bit annoying, but hell, you've got to be pretty soulless to argue with that, haven't you? Imagine if someone you loved needed emergency surgery, but they died because someone having his appendix out got to go first. Not only that, but it was pretty damn cool of the surgeon in question to take the time to come up to see me to explain & apologise in person. So, I'm allowed a sandwich and a cup of tea before settling down to sleep. Back to nil by mouth in the morning.
The thing that's on my mind as well is worrying about how Rachel's going to cope looking after a three year old, a six week old, her father & me all at the same time. She's handling it magnificently, but the previous blog will tell you how I feel about her: http://experiment627.blogspot.com/2010/10/how-my-marriage-saved-my-life-and.html
It's the weekend so it's not surprising that the next patient in penis pain guy's bed is a drunken head injury & another example of the shit the less fortunate must wade through every day of their lives. He's chipper, friendly, drunkenly respectful & desperate to leave. He's pretty much a full-blown alcoholic & often sneaks off for drinks, forcing the staff to waste precious time finding him & taking him back to his bed. And yet, while this probably pisses them off no end, they continue to try to help him & not to condemn him. He signs a form to say he's checking out against medical advice & waits for his wife to pick him up. When she turns up she brings along an adorable little girl, which it turns out is one of two daughters this guy has. The sister (that's the badass nurse in charge) sits down with them & talks about what alcoholism can do to families & offers a number of ways to help him. By now he is a broken man in floods of tears, ashamed for risking the welfare of his family. As he leaves, you get the distinct impression that this has happened before & will happen again; that he has learnt nothing. And yet, the sister takes the time to continue to try. It seems important to her, as though the huge effort is somehow worth the negligible results.
The next guy on the bed is, yep, a drunken head wound. He wants to leave as soon as possible. He can barely focus, he can barely walk & he is contemptuous of any offer of help. Apparently he had about 30 pints last night, but a reliable source of information this guy is not. It transpires that he is a member of the armed forces and is based at Cosford. His CO calls & is apparently unimpressed. The guy still wants to leave and staggers around mumbling about this being a hospital not a prison, clearly in no fit state to go anywhere, with what look like seriously diminished mental and physical capabilities. The sister (the same one as before) cuts through the disrespect and pigheadedness to tell him in no uncertain terms that if he absconds against medical advice his career could be in serious trouble. She finally convinces him to go to sleep. As before, she perseveres with people who on the face of it don't seem to be worth the effort. It seems to be something that the people working here have in common.
And so, following a visit from the anaesthetist, who was nice & explained what was going to happen (and was the six millionth person to ask if I'm allergic to anything), my time comes. I get wheeled down to theatre. A couple of surgeons have a bit of a chat with me to help put my mind at ease. It's my first operation & my nervousness is clear to all. In goes the anaesthetic & it feels quite nice. I feel warm & like I'm on my fourth glass of wine. I'm asked to take six deep breaths. Not long after I pass out.
When I come to, one of the surgeons is checking me over. He asks me how I am. I am in pain. He gives me morphine. It doesn't seem to make a difference. I go back to sleep.
When I wake up again, Jackob is near. I'm back on the ward. He asks me how I am. I am still in pain. He can't give me anything more because I've already had a rather potent cocktail of painkillers. He checks my blood pressure, heart rate, breathing & asks me a few questions. They call it doing 'obs' or observations. He's a bit worried about how shallow my breathing is so he puts me on oxygen for a while. I spend the rest of Saturday afternoon drifting in & out of consciousness. I notice that Jackob is monitoring me very closely. At one point mom drops by. We chat for a bit, but I'm a little too dazed to really hold a conversation. I feel a bit uncomfortable, like my bladder is full, but I'm unable to pee. Jackob assures me it's normal & it's the last thing to start working again after an operation like this. I'm not allowed food yet, but I am allowed tea & water. Plus, I can have more painkillers. Rachel & Katie come to visit, but they can't stop long because Emily is in the car with nan outside - babies aren't allowed onto the ward. It's really good to see them. After they've gone I'm left with my book (Terry Pratchett's I Shall Wear Midnight - highly recommended) and my MP3 player. I settle down for the evening.
An old guy on the ward (the guy whose operation was delayed until Monday) complains about being in a lot of pain & feeling very sick. He is told they will sort his IV & painkillers out. He asks several more times during the next few hours. Finally he projectile vomits all over the bed, the floor & the guy who has just started his night shift. I guess this kind of thing is common in places like this, when everyone is so busy they just can't get to all the patients in time. Still, that wouldn't help me feel any less abandoned were I in his shoes. Eventually, he gets the help he needs.
I wake up in the middle of the night with terrible pains in my stomach - I'm sure it's because I desperately need to pee. The call button is on the desk behind my bed & so far I've only been able to get up twice with great difficulty. The pain is too much, so I force my way out of bed & press the button. I explain to the nurse, between gasps, what the problem is & what I think the reason is. She asks me to lie down on the bed so she can do a scan. It transpires that I am retaining 700ml in my bladder & that is definitely the reason for my pain. I am given a choice: get to the toilet & force myself to pee or have a catheter. I do not want a catheter. The nurse gives me the distinct impression that I am making a big deal out of nothing, so I suck it up & stumble slowly to the toilet where, third time lucky, I manage to pee. A little. It stops & starts a lot. I have to go about every 90 minutes or so for the rest of the night. The nurse was right - I was making a big deal out of nothing. If she'd mollycoddled me I might not have done it, so her approach, although it seemed a little harsh at the time, was exactly the right one. As with everyone working here, she knows exactly what she's doing.
Sunday morning. At breakfast time I begin the route to recovery by devouring cornflakes & toast. The drunken head injury in the other bed has been replaced by a guy who recently passed a kidney stone which, according to my mother is the most painful thing she's ever done. That would include childbirth. He's over the worst of it & is in good spirits. The doctors turn up then for the daily walk round. When they get to me they give me a little info on the operation. They were right about the appendix being behind the colon & one of them had their hand so far inside me trying to reach it that at one point it was buried up to the wrist. The guy is a junior doctor - not surprising as they probably cut their teeth on simple surgical procedures like mine. The scar is bigger than normal. The appendix had perforated as they feared it might, but the unusual location prevented many of the further complications that often arise as a result. I have about a 30% chance of infection. The way they were joking together and in such high spirits made me feel safe in their hands & reminded me again of Scrubs. I think maybe I watch that show too much.
I am moved, with kidney stone guy to a different part of the ward. We get chatting to an old man who in the 60s worked on the building of the Ironbridge power station. He has some fascinating stories. Talking to kidney stone guy later I hear about some of his experiences this weekend at A & E. At one point last night there were 12 ambulances lined up outside the entrance at once - a car crash I think he said. Earlier that day while he was reading his paper outside he saw a man & woman walk out of A & E. They stopped fairly close to him, where the woman said "It's your fault" to the man, to which he replied "No, it's your fault". They then proceeded to pound on each other as hard as they could until they were escorted off the premises by security. The rest of the day and night pass by uneventfully.
On Monday morning I am discharged. I have to wait in the discharge lounge for about five hours before the pharmacy can get my antibiotics and painkillers together. It's quite annoying, but not nearly enough to mar the gratitude I feel towards every single one of those people who helped me through this.
I'm a big believer in choosing the best person for a job & not choosing based on a statistic that says there must be a certain amount of each ethnicity to be sure it is fair. That is not equal opportunities to me, that is positive discrimination & it is crap. Having said that, there was a huge array of colours and nationalities working together over the weekend I stayed at Ward 12 of Telford hospital - English, Indian, Philippine, Asian; white, black & shades in between & never once did it become an issue for anyone. I'm so glad I live in a country that can employ talented immigrants alongside a qualified home-grown workforce within a medical organisation that is funded by taxpayers and run by the state. At the same time, I'm terrified at how the coalition Government & the bigoted Daily Mail appear to be succeeding in their attempts to undo it all. It's going to be a rough decade.
I was also warned to keep a close eye on where the pain was actually coming from. At the time it felt fairly general, but if it became localised down the right hand side, it could be the gall bladder or the appendix & I should get myself to A & E. No problem, I said; I'll keep checking. It seems as though merely ten minutes pass as I'm waiting for my prescription when I begin to notice the pain is concentrated more down the right hand side. The first instinct is to shrug this off as psychological - I'd been told to check for this & now I'm imagining I can feel it. The pain is so bad by now that I'm ready to weep or faint. Co-codamol to the rescue, then. The pain dims, but it doesn't disappear. Throughout the evening I continue to check on it & I am becoming more & more convinced that the pain is localising near my gall bladder or appendix. My wife remains skeptical. On Friday I wake up at about 6am & the pain is worse than ever. I stagger to the co-codamol and gulp it down. It is then I decide to go to A & E. After all, if I'm wrong, they'll just throw me out, won't they?
The first test is to explain things to the triage nurse, which I seem to pass because he admits me. Rach has to leave at this point, because she has to look after her dad as well as the kids. I change into a gown, pee into a cardboard container and wait for the doctor. He looks me over & sends me on for a surgical consult & x-ray. After the x-ray, I'm left in the corridor for a while as it's pretty busy. I overhear a consultation in a cubicle and am given my first slice of how bad things can be for other people. Talking to a doctor is a woman who has been admitted after having the crap beaten out of her by her boyfriend. She has a bruised eardrum & at least two cracked ribs. She is weeping, but is desperate to stop because the sobs rack her with pain. She talks in a thick Telford accent that makes her sound badly educated, which is a dreadful assumption to make based on only an accent, but it is difficult not to make it. It's like hearing a strong Southern US state accent and trying not to assume the one speaking is a pig-raping redneck. I don't make such assumptions about either accent, but only after giving the part of me that automatically jumps to conclusions a hard slap. She talks about how she doesn't want to involve the police, about how she hates her boyfriend but loves him as well, about how he's only been like this since he added steroids to his daily drug intake. Lying on my bed outside, I may only be suffering from mild abdominal pain, but my heart is breaking for that poor woman. The doctor, clearly knowing how limited his freedom to help her beyond treatment is, barely hesitates before offering advice and moving on. I wonder how he manages to cope being exposed to this routinely.
Next it's time to see a surgeon. I get wheeled into a little room where I wait. By now the painkillers I took at 6am should have long since worn off, but I still only have a mild discomfort where the pain used to be. I've heard that in cases of appendicitis that this is bad and means the appendix has burst. I still can't help feeling like I'm a fraud & wasting people's time when I'm not in any real pain. Then the surgeon comes in. Her name is Annabel. She is the chief surgeon today. She is outstandingly good looking. I am nervous when her hands are touching my skin only a few inches above my crotch while she is asking, in all seriousness, whether I feel anything. I tell her about the pain. She looks at me & says "I think it's time you said goodbye to your appendix, don't you?" As much as I loved Scrubs I knew that much of it wasn't true to life. It seems, however, that the bit about surgeons wanting to cut open every patient they see after a few minutes is absolutely true to life.
So I get taken to the surgical ward, being Ward 12 at the Princess Royal hospital in Telford, to await my fate. It's nil by mouth for me, so I get hooked up to a drip. Over the course of the afternoon I familiarise myself with the staff and patients on the ward. There's a guy recovering from a throat operation following a lifetime of smoking. Hooked up to a catheter and regularly replaced nicotine patches, he can barely speak & doesn't look comfortable. There's the guy that came in with penis pain & is now constantly leaking blood out of his pisser. The others are a collection of old guys who look rather checked out at the moment. The staff are, without exception, upbeat, friendly & clearly very busy trying to keep a lot of spinning plates going. Jackob is looking after me. He's possibly European, but his English is so good I can't be sure. He's assisting the nurses while training to be a paramedic. He's got a three month old daughter so we talk about our kids for a while. Around come the doctors for a brief examination & a quick chat with each patient. One guy has his operation delayed until Monday because his somethingorother levels are too high. Penis pain guy wants to speak to someone in charge because he's been bleeding for six hours & feels like nobody is doing anything about it. Then it's me. Another examination. Another chance for me to explain what's happened to me. He thinks my appendix might be stuck behind something like my colon, because the pain is a bit higher than it should be, but not high enough for the gall bladder. It might be some small thing that's next to my appendix, so they might make an additional incision. We'll do it this evening, ok? Sounds good I reply, while gulping. The final guy being seen is an old dude. As part of his examination, the doc has to explore his back passage for blockages or something. It sounds painful, with the poor old man shouting out and reduced to repeating cries of "Oh dear". You can't help but feel for the guy, for his pain & his loss of dignity. The doctors were as respectful as they could be under the circumstances, but the procedure had to be done. It is an unwelcome glimpse of the far future.
Annabel comes to see penis pain guy. He calmly (and quite reasonably) explains his complaint about feeling like he's been left on his bed to bleed while nobody does anything. Annabel tells him it's because there is no urology specialist qualified to treat him at Telford & she's spent much of the afternoon trying to get him a bed at Shrewsbury, but they are busy & reluctant to agree to the transfer. He still feels like there should be more that they can do. She explains a few procedures that may help to relieve him, but they are painful & probably won't work, which is why she didn't mention them before. She offers him the choice. He decides to wait. He feels better. She is marvellous. A few hours later, he's carted off to Shrewsbury.
10pm rolls by & I start to wonder when the whole thing is supposed to be happening. I've had no food & barely any drink since yesterday. I want it over with. A surgeon comes over to my bed & explains that it's not going to happen until tomorrow. An 81 year old guy has just been admitted whose small intestine has tied itself up in a knot, or something. Anyway, he will die soon without surgery, so my spot goes to him. They want to get to me as quickly as they can, because the longer it goes on, the more likely it is that my appendix will perforate and cause havoc. But for now, I can wait. He can't. It's a bit annoying, but hell, you've got to be pretty soulless to argue with that, haven't you? Imagine if someone you loved needed emergency surgery, but they died because someone having his appendix out got to go first. Not only that, but it was pretty damn cool of the surgeon in question to take the time to come up to see me to explain & apologise in person. So, I'm allowed a sandwich and a cup of tea before settling down to sleep. Back to nil by mouth in the morning.
The thing that's on my mind as well is worrying about how Rachel's going to cope looking after a three year old, a six week old, her father & me all at the same time. She's handling it magnificently, but the previous blog will tell you how I feel about her: http://experiment627.blogspot.com/2010/10/how-my-marriage-saved-my-life-and.html
It's the weekend so it's not surprising that the next patient in penis pain guy's bed is a drunken head injury & another example of the shit the less fortunate must wade through every day of their lives. He's chipper, friendly, drunkenly respectful & desperate to leave. He's pretty much a full-blown alcoholic & often sneaks off for drinks, forcing the staff to waste precious time finding him & taking him back to his bed. And yet, while this probably pisses them off no end, they continue to try to help him & not to condemn him. He signs a form to say he's checking out against medical advice & waits for his wife to pick him up. When she turns up she brings along an adorable little girl, which it turns out is one of two daughters this guy has. The sister (that's the badass nurse in charge) sits down with them & talks about what alcoholism can do to families & offers a number of ways to help him. By now he is a broken man in floods of tears, ashamed for risking the welfare of his family. As he leaves, you get the distinct impression that this has happened before & will happen again; that he has learnt nothing. And yet, the sister takes the time to continue to try. It seems important to her, as though the huge effort is somehow worth the negligible results.
The next guy on the bed is, yep, a drunken head wound. He wants to leave as soon as possible. He can barely focus, he can barely walk & he is contemptuous of any offer of help. Apparently he had about 30 pints last night, but a reliable source of information this guy is not. It transpires that he is a member of the armed forces and is based at Cosford. His CO calls & is apparently unimpressed. The guy still wants to leave and staggers around mumbling about this being a hospital not a prison, clearly in no fit state to go anywhere, with what look like seriously diminished mental and physical capabilities. The sister (the same one as before) cuts through the disrespect and pigheadedness to tell him in no uncertain terms that if he absconds against medical advice his career could be in serious trouble. She finally convinces him to go to sleep. As before, she perseveres with people who on the face of it don't seem to be worth the effort. It seems to be something that the people working here have in common.
And so, following a visit from the anaesthetist, who was nice & explained what was going to happen (and was the six millionth person to ask if I'm allergic to anything), my time comes. I get wheeled down to theatre. A couple of surgeons have a bit of a chat with me to help put my mind at ease. It's my first operation & my nervousness is clear to all. In goes the anaesthetic & it feels quite nice. I feel warm & like I'm on my fourth glass of wine. I'm asked to take six deep breaths. Not long after I pass out.
When I come to, one of the surgeons is checking me over. He asks me how I am. I am in pain. He gives me morphine. It doesn't seem to make a difference. I go back to sleep.
When I wake up again, Jackob is near. I'm back on the ward. He asks me how I am. I am still in pain. He can't give me anything more because I've already had a rather potent cocktail of painkillers. He checks my blood pressure, heart rate, breathing & asks me a few questions. They call it doing 'obs' or observations. He's a bit worried about how shallow my breathing is so he puts me on oxygen for a while. I spend the rest of Saturday afternoon drifting in & out of consciousness. I notice that Jackob is monitoring me very closely. At one point mom drops by. We chat for a bit, but I'm a little too dazed to really hold a conversation. I feel a bit uncomfortable, like my bladder is full, but I'm unable to pee. Jackob assures me it's normal & it's the last thing to start working again after an operation like this. I'm not allowed food yet, but I am allowed tea & water. Plus, I can have more painkillers. Rachel & Katie come to visit, but they can't stop long because Emily is in the car with nan outside - babies aren't allowed onto the ward. It's really good to see them. After they've gone I'm left with my book (Terry Pratchett's I Shall Wear Midnight - highly recommended) and my MP3 player. I settle down for the evening.
An old guy on the ward (the guy whose operation was delayed until Monday) complains about being in a lot of pain & feeling very sick. He is told they will sort his IV & painkillers out. He asks several more times during the next few hours. Finally he projectile vomits all over the bed, the floor & the guy who has just started his night shift. I guess this kind of thing is common in places like this, when everyone is so busy they just can't get to all the patients in time. Still, that wouldn't help me feel any less abandoned were I in his shoes. Eventually, he gets the help he needs.
I wake up in the middle of the night with terrible pains in my stomach - I'm sure it's because I desperately need to pee. The call button is on the desk behind my bed & so far I've only been able to get up twice with great difficulty. The pain is too much, so I force my way out of bed & press the button. I explain to the nurse, between gasps, what the problem is & what I think the reason is. She asks me to lie down on the bed so she can do a scan. It transpires that I am retaining 700ml in my bladder & that is definitely the reason for my pain. I am given a choice: get to the toilet & force myself to pee or have a catheter. I do not want a catheter. The nurse gives me the distinct impression that I am making a big deal out of nothing, so I suck it up & stumble slowly to the toilet where, third time lucky, I manage to pee. A little. It stops & starts a lot. I have to go about every 90 minutes or so for the rest of the night. The nurse was right - I was making a big deal out of nothing. If she'd mollycoddled me I might not have done it, so her approach, although it seemed a little harsh at the time, was exactly the right one. As with everyone working here, she knows exactly what she's doing.
Sunday morning. At breakfast time I begin the route to recovery by devouring cornflakes & toast. The drunken head injury in the other bed has been replaced by a guy who recently passed a kidney stone which, according to my mother is the most painful thing she's ever done. That would include childbirth. He's over the worst of it & is in good spirits. The doctors turn up then for the daily walk round. When they get to me they give me a little info on the operation. They were right about the appendix being behind the colon & one of them had their hand so far inside me trying to reach it that at one point it was buried up to the wrist. The guy is a junior doctor - not surprising as they probably cut their teeth on simple surgical procedures like mine. The scar is bigger than normal. The appendix had perforated as they feared it might, but the unusual location prevented many of the further complications that often arise as a result. I have about a 30% chance of infection. The way they were joking together and in such high spirits made me feel safe in their hands & reminded me again of Scrubs. I think maybe I watch that show too much.
I am moved, with kidney stone guy to a different part of the ward. We get chatting to an old man who in the 60s worked on the building of the Ironbridge power station. He has some fascinating stories. Talking to kidney stone guy later I hear about some of his experiences this weekend at A & E. At one point last night there were 12 ambulances lined up outside the entrance at once - a car crash I think he said. Earlier that day while he was reading his paper outside he saw a man & woman walk out of A & E. They stopped fairly close to him, where the woman said "It's your fault" to the man, to which he replied "No, it's your fault". They then proceeded to pound on each other as hard as they could until they were escorted off the premises by security. The rest of the day and night pass by uneventfully.
On Monday morning I am discharged. I have to wait in the discharge lounge for about five hours before the pharmacy can get my antibiotics and painkillers together. It's quite annoying, but not nearly enough to mar the gratitude I feel towards every single one of those people who helped me through this.
I'm a big believer in choosing the best person for a job & not choosing based on a statistic that says there must be a certain amount of each ethnicity to be sure it is fair. That is not equal opportunities to me, that is positive discrimination & it is crap. Having said that, there was a huge array of colours and nationalities working together over the weekend I stayed at Ward 12 of Telford hospital - English, Indian, Philippine, Asian; white, black & shades in between & never once did it become an issue for anyone. I'm so glad I live in a country that can employ talented immigrants alongside a qualified home-grown workforce within a medical organisation that is funded by taxpayers and run by the state. At the same time, I'm terrified at how the coalition Government & the bigoted Daily Mail appear to be succeeding in their attempts to undo it all. It's going to be a rough decade.
Tuesday, October 19, 2010
How my marriage saved my life and stopped me from becoming a self-hating wreck.
I've decided to write about how I am in awe of a woman. So in awe of her that I continue to be amazed she decided to marry me. Honestly, I still occasionally expect someone to tell me it's a big joke, as if anyone like her would ever settle for a douche like me. Obviously, as you'd expect, I think she's beautiful. As reasons why I love her so much go, however, that's a fairly poor one. I've known some gorgeous women (and men, for that matter) who have been complete bastards (and indeed, we've probably all come across an uggo with a heart of gold), so for the basis for forming a long term relationship it's no more than a starting point. Also, it's kind of on the subjective side, and there are no doubt people who genuinely wouldn't understand where I was coming from with the whole finding her beautiful thing. So, there's got to be more, right? Right.
Most people, at some point in their lives, hate themselves. They hate their own stupidity, they hate the way they look, the way they feel, or something. Well, I'm most people. If I was someone else, I don't think I'd really enjoy spending time with me. So if I hadn't met my wife and hadn't married her and started a family with her, where might I be? In reality, there's no answering that question, but I feel sure that it would be dreadful. Instead, I'm married with children. For a lot of people, this would be a nightmare, and like most people, I don't like kids very much. It is true what they say about it being different when they're your kids though. Loving my own children is (as it is in most people) an automatic genetic response to procreating (neither would I want to change that response even if I could). This is very different to the way I feel about my wife. She saved my life. To have the certain knowledge that, barring any utter catastrophe, the way I feel will be reciprocated for the majority of the rest of our lives is to be content. I'm still no big fan of myself, but when I consider that this amazing woman thinks I'm worth the effort of marrying, I remember to go a little easier on myself, because if she loves me, then I can't be all bad.
Most people, at some point in their lives, hate themselves. They hate their own stupidity, they hate the way they look, the way they feel, or something. Well, I'm most people. If I was someone else, I don't think I'd really enjoy spending time with me. So if I hadn't met my wife and hadn't married her and started a family with her, where might I be? In reality, there's no answering that question, but I feel sure that it would be dreadful. Instead, I'm married with children. For a lot of people, this would be a nightmare, and like most people, I don't like kids very much. It is true what they say about it being different when they're your kids though. Loving my own children is (as it is in most people) an automatic genetic response to procreating (neither would I want to change that response even if I could). This is very different to the way I feel about my wife. She saved my life. To have the certain knowledge that, barring any utter catastrophe, the way I feel will be reciprocated for the majority of the rest of our lives is to be content. I'm still no big fan of myself, but when I consider that this amazing woman thinks I'm worth the effort of marrying, I remember to go a little easier on myself, because if she loves me, then I can't be all bad.
Thursday, August 26, 2010
Sometimes technology is awesome.
Much of the time I'm a right old bastard when it comes to embracing the new. The prime example of this would be mobile phones, or mobile devices as they should be called nowadays, having evolved so far beyond simple phones as to be only one step away from taking over the world in an horrific trapper-keeper calamity. I still hate mobile phones, no matter how brilliant they undoubtedly are.
However, where I very much make an exception is in the way I'm beginning to consume music. For the longest time, online was anathema to how I thought music should be collected. I would always argue (rightly, I still think, in many cases) that there was no substitute for discovering music than spending an afternoon in a music store, browsing endless shelves of CDs. I arrived too late for LPs and I'm very glad of that fact, for they are shit. I like my noise crystal clear, thanks all the same. You know the 'warmth' those aficionados go on about? It's known by another name: poor quality. This attitude towards the humble LP would offer clues as to how I would come to embrace new technology in the future, but for the longest time I would not join the download bandwagon. In a way, I still haven't; I don't download music, I still buy CDs, but I no longer use music shops and NME (at least not exclusively, but I will forever be in debt to NME for turning me on to Polly Scattergood) to discover music I've never heard before.
Most bands still release music the old-fashioned way, but there are a few who've experimented with new ways of releasing music. Arctic Monkeys made a name for themselves largely through MySpace. Radiohead released the phenomenal In Rainbows online, allowing the buyer to choose their own purchase price. Ash have abandoned the old 'new record every two years, release a few singles, tour relentlessly, repeat' rut they had become stuck in, and are now almost at the end of their A-Z project, where they've released a new single online every month for 26 months.
But where the whole thing really came alive for me is upon the discovery of Blip (http://www.blip.fm/) via Twitter, and upon the receipt of an invite to join Spotify. Blip allows me to listen to other people's favourite music from around the world, and it's where I've discovered many previously unknown artists from The Veils to Mazzy Star, and countless weird and wonderful cover versions, like Blondie's amazing version of We Three Kings. It also allows me to interact with people the world over with similar tastes to mine (who would've thought there'd be an American who liked Echobelly as much as I do?) Spotify allows me to do similar things - I can tailor a radio station to my own tastes, I can share playlists with friends, and I can road-test albums before buying them (thank goodness I listened to the second Elastica album before wasting my money). I can see Spotify leading the way to future technology where CDs are extinct, and people listen to music by streaming it directly out of the ether, and when you find that rare gem of an album or song so good it changes your whole life for the better, you can share it with others who'll understand instantly, instead of just going on and on about it down the pub to people who aren't really that bothered. I would, of course, be sad to see my CD collection go, but I can honestly say I think it would be much better that way. Bring on the future!
The best example I have yet seen of how this technology can work happened recently, thanks to Twitter. Amanda Palmer, that most amazing woman from The Dresden Dolls, who is married to Neil Gaiman, that most amazing man who writes the most amazingly beautiful stories, was accosted by a young music student outside the Berklee College of Music. That's in Boston. The other side of the world from me. The young man was named Tristan Allen, and when he sat down in front of a piano in Amanda's house, proceeded to blow her away. She tweeted about it. She then went on to showcase Tristan's talent to the world via the live video streaming website UStream. The kid was genuinely incredible. He would take well known pieces like the Halloween theme or a Philip Glass song, and just improvise the hell out of them. Thanks to this technology, I was (via a computer monitor, obviously), in Amanda Fucking Palmer's house on the other side of the planet to the sofa I was sitting on, listening to an impromptu performance of genuine excellence by a teenage music student in real time. To be able to share in the goosebump moment with Amanda as she discovers something amazing for the first time is incredibly exciting. It's so far removed from meetings with record company executives and the suicide-inducing X-Factor that it was like a ray of perfect sunshine in the midst of a miserable day. See Amanda Palmer's blog about it, including the entire streamed performance, here: http://blog.amandapalmer.net/post/962861244/my-answer-to-grayson-chance-presenting-tristan. It's over an hour and a half long, so if you haven't got time to watch it all (although it is highly recommended), go to the duet at one hour twenty seconds and be as amazed as I was at the 10 minutes that follow.
This is the potential of this technology. This is the benefit of making everyone and everything connectable. This, hopefully, is the future of music.
However, where I very much make an exception is in the way I'm beginning to consume music. For the longest time, online was anathema to how I thought music should be collected. I would always argue (rightly, I still think, in many cases) that there was no substitute for discovering music than spending an afternoon in a music store, browsing endless shelves of CDs. I arrived too late for LPs and I'm very glad of that fact, for they are shit. I like my noise crystal clear, thanks all the same. You know the 'warmth' those aficionados go on about? It's known by another name: poor quality. This attitude towards the humble LP would offer clues as to how I would come to embrace new technology in the future, but for the longest time I would not join the download bandwagon. In a way, I still haven't; I don't download music, I still buy CDs, but I no longer use music shops and NME (at least not exclusively, but I will forever be in debt to NME for turning me on to Polly Scattergood) to discover music I've never heard before.
Most bands still release music the old-fashioned way, but there are a few who've experimented with new ways of releasing music. Arctic Monkeys made a name for themselves largely through MySpace. Radiohead released the phenomenal In Rainbows online, allowing the buyer to choose their own purchase price. Ash have abandoned the old 'new record every two years, release a few singles, tour relentlessly, repeat' rut they had become stuck in, and are now almost at the end of their A-Z project, where they've released a new single online every month for 26 months.
But where the whole thing really came alive for me is upon the discovery of Blip (http://www.blip.fm/) via Twitter, and upon the receipt of an invite to join Spotify. Blip allows me to listen to other people's favourite music from around the world, and it's where I've discovered many previously unknown artists from The Veils to Mazzy Star, and countless weird and wonderful cover versions, like Blondie's amazing version of We Three Kings. It also allows me to interact with people the world over with similar tastes to mine (who would've thought there'd be an American who liked Echobelly as much as I do?) Spotify allows me to do similar things - I can tailor a radio station to my own tastes, I can share playlists with friends, and I can road-test albums before buying them (thank goodness I listened to the second Elastica album before wasting my money). I can see Spotify leading the way to future technology where CDs are extinct, and people listen to music by streaming it directly out of the ether, and when you find that rare gem of an album or song so good it changes your whole life for the better, you can share it with others who'll understand instantly, instead of just going on and on about it down the pub to people who aren't really that bothered. I would, of course, be sad to see my CD collection go, but I can honestly say I think it would be much better that way. Bring on the future!
The best example I have yet seen of how this technology can work happened recently, thanks to Twitter. Amanda Palmer, that most amazing woman from The Dresden Dolls, who is married to Neil Gaiman, that most amazing man who writes the most amazingly beautiful stories, was accosted by a young music student outside the Berklee College of Music. That's in Boston. The other side of the world from me. The young man was named Tristan Allen, and when he sat down in front of a piano in Amanda's house, proceeded to blow her away. She tweeted about it. She then went on to showcase Tristan's talent to the world via the live video streaming website UStream. The kid was genuinely incredible. He would take well known pieces like the Halloween theme or a Philip Glass song, and just improvise the hell out of them. Thanks to this technology, I was (via a computer monitor, obviously), in Amanda Fucking Palmer's house on the other side of the planet to the sofa I was sitting on, listening to an impromptu performance of genuine excellence by a teenage music student in real time. To be able to share in the goosebump moment with Amanda as she discovers something amazing for the first time is incredibly exciting. It's so far removed from meetings with record company executives and the suicide-inducing X-Factor that it was like a ray of perfect sunshine in the midst of a miserable day. See Amanda Palmer's blog about it, including the entire streamed performance, here: http://blog.amandapalmer.net/post/962861244/my-answer-to-grayson-chance-presenting-tristan. It's over an hour and a half long, so if you haven't got time to watch it all (although it is highly recommended), go to the duet at one hour twenty seconds and be as amazed as I was at the 10 minutes that follow.
This is the potential of this technology. This is the benefit of making everyone and everything connectable. This, hopefully, is the future of music.
Sunday, August 15, 2010
Atheist or creationist? Still human, it turns out.
I read a piece online the other day written by a guy about losing his faith and becoming an atheist. The blog, to me, seemed a little bittersweet - I felt there was grief over the loss of the comfort of blind certainty that usually comes with a faith, and along with it the person he used to be, but it also had the feel of a man who was happy to have woken from a lifelong delusion and is able to see clearly for the first time. He now uses Twitter (@ZachsMind) to debate with people over their beliefs. Overall, he's usually pleasant and respectful towards the faithful and doesn't tend to criticise them personally, but he can get pretty disrespectful over their faith. I do share in his disdain for all religions, but where I occassionally disagree is where he sometimes insults people directly, particularly their (in his view) lack of intelligence. I don't feel that @ZachsMind does this to be malicious, but rather out of frustration when the set-in-their-ways creationists won't debate with him properly. But I do think a small number of Twitter atheists can be dicks. (If you're a Twitter atheist and are reading this: if I follow you, I'm not referring to you - I don't follow the dicks.)
Creationists (and all those of any faith), I can't deny, do believe in what I consider to be superstition and nonsense. As @ZachsMind likes to point out; if god does exist the sheer volume of unnecessary suffering and general shit in the world would prove beyond doubt that he is a dick and not worthy of worship. And yes, all those shitty religions are responsible in large part for many of the hateful attitudes in the world today - America's greed? That's because the bible told them to subdue the Earth. Violent Middle-Easterners? That's down to them being ridiculously caught up in the 'my god's better than your god...so I'm going to kill you' game. Homophobia? That's because god hated the gays. Obviously I'm simplifying a complex issue, and there are many, many people of every faith that don't completely misinterpret the message of their religion and try to live as decent folk. Like my christian mother or buddhist in-laws. And these people are not stupid. They usually have their faith because it's been ingrained upon them from a young age, and they cannot believe otherwise. It's not that believers are stupid, it's that it's human nature to take comfort from easy answers instead of really questioning the whole idea of a conscious, imaginary force providing your reward for you when you die. It's because the fear of death can become so palpable that telling yourself there is an everlasting existence for you in the beyond, or that you get to come back as something or someone else stops this fear from crushing you. Even the homophobic, Earth-subduing suicide bombers aren't really stupid, they're just conditioned from youth to think and to see the world in a certain way. When a person is conditioned in that way, it is almost impossible to break that conditioning later in life (making @ZachsMind's story a rarity, I think). At least, that's how I see it, although I base that entirely upon my own perception and not on anything actually researched, so I'm probably wrong.
So yeah, religion winds me up quite a bit. But it's not the individuals themselves. It's the pope making excuses for serial child-rapists. It's the educational systems that despite the fact that the answer to how we got here was answered completely and absolutely irrefutably by Charles Darwin over 200 years ago, won't teach evolution as the accepted scientific fact it is. It's the continued insistence of some faiths that women are somehow subhuman. It's a thousand other things that continue to hinder the development of a society based on free thinking, reason and true equality. You shouldn't behave like a decent human being because of some supposed god and his promise of an eternity of torture when you die if you don't, you should act like a decent human being because that's what decent human beings do.
However, atheists don't get off scot free either. Many atheists consider themselves superior because of their rejection of religion and have a nasty habit of personally insulting people of faith simply because they think differently. This is a typically human attitude, which is especially disappointing given their supposed rejection of unenlightened superstition and the acceptance of logic and reason. Insulting people of faith won't change them, it will them more stubborn and less open-minded. (Besides, the trend, as far as my limited research indicates, shows a general moving away from faith and towards atheism in the U.S. despite (or perhaps because of?) the idiotic Glenn Beck and Sarah Palin and their retarded take on christianity taking centre stage so often, so they might not need to worry about it for long. Oh, and by the way, purveyors of the special Beck 'n' Palin brand of christianity, opposing the ground zero mosque on the grounds that the 9/11 attacks were carried out by islamic extremists is a bit like saying the religion itself is to blame. Which is a bit like saying all muslims are terrorists. Which is a bit like saying all catholics are paedophiles. Which, in direct contradiction to my earlier point (hey, like the bible!), is fucking stupid.)
It's not really surprising that whatever the faith or lack thereof, there are people who are cool and there are people who are dicks. Because, regardless of belief/non-belief, people are still people.
Creationists (and all those of any faith), I can't deny, do believe in what I consider to be superstition and nonsense. As @ZachsMind likes to point out; if god does exist the sheer volume of unnecessary suffering and general shit in the world would prove beyond doubt that he is a dick and not worthy of worship. And yes, all those shitty religions are responsible in large part for many of the hateful attitudes in the world today - America's greed? That's because the bible told them to subdue the Earth. Violent Middle-Easterners? That's down to them being ridiculously caught up in the 'my god's better than your god...so I'm going to kill you' game. Homophobia? That's because god hated the gays. Obviously I'm simplifying a complex issue, and there are many, many people of every faith that don't completely misinterpret the message of their religion and try to live as decent folk. Like my christian mother or buddhist in-laws. And these people are not stupid. They usually have their faith because it's been ingrained upon them from a young age, and they cannot believe otherwise. It's not that believers are stupid, it's that it's human nature to take comfort from easy answers instead of really questioning the whole idea of a conscious, imaginary force providing your reward for you when you die. It's because the fear of death can become so palpable that telling yourself there is an everlasting existence for you in the beyond, or that you get to come back as something or someone else stops this fear from crushing you. Even the homophobic, Earth-subduing suicide bombers aren't really stupid, they're just conditioned from youth to think and to see the world in a certain way. When a person is conditioned in that way, it is almost impossible to break that conditioning later in life (making @ZachsMind's story a rarity, I think). At least, that's how I see it, although I base that entirely upon my own perception and not on anything actually researched, so I'm probably wrong.
So yeah, religion winds me up quite a bit. But it's not the individuals themselves. It's the pope making excuses for serial child-rapists. It's the educational systems that despite the fact that the answer to how we got here was answered completely and absolutely irrefutably by Charles Darwin over 200 years ago, won't teach evolution as the accepted scientific fact it is. It's the continued insistence of some faiths that women are somehow subhuman. It's a thousand other things that continue to hinder the development of a society based on free thinking, reason and true equality. You shouldn't behave like a decent human being because of some supposed god and his promise of an eternity of torture when you die if you don't, you should act like a decent human being because that's what decent human beings do.
However, atheists don't get off scot free either. Many atheists consider themselves superior because of their rejection of religion and have a nasty habit of personally insulting people of faith simply because they think differently. This is a typically human attitude, which is especially disappointing given their supposed rejection of unenlightened superstition and the acceptance of logic and reason. Insulting people of faith won't change them, it will them more stubborn and less open-minded. (Besides, the trend, as far as my limited research indicates, shows a general moving away from faith and towards atheism in the U.S. despite (or perhaps because of?) the idiotic Glenn Beck and Sarah Palin and their retarded take on christianity taking centre stage so often, so they might not need to worry about it for long. Oh, and by the way, purveyors of the special Beck 'n' Palin brand of christianity, opposing the ground zero mosque on the grounds that the 9/11 attacks were carried out by islamic extremists is a bit like saying the religion itself is to blame. Which is a bit like saying all muslims are terrorists. Which is a bit like saying all catholics are paedophiles. Which, in direct contradiction to my earlier point (hey, like the bible!), is fucking stupid.)
It's not really surprising that whatever the faith or lack thereof, there are people who are cool and there are people who are dicks. Because, regardless of belief/non-belief, people are still people.
Friday, August 6, 2010
Sometimes I do fit in.
This is a follow up to the entry called 'Sometimes I don't fit in', posted back in May, in which I have further problems with the same woman, only this time, I don't feel out of place for not lying to my child and making her believe that she's the only thing that matters in the entire world. Familarise yourself with that blog before looking through this one, because I can't be arsed to repeat myself: http://experiment627.blogspot.com/2010/05/sometimes-i-dont-fit-in.html
So, after that minor drunken altercation in which she expressed to me her feelings about the correct way to bring up a stable, balanced individual, I recently heard her talking to someone else about how she hates these parents who treat their kids as though they can't do any wrong, and how they act like they're all that matters. At first I didn't understand what had happened - had our conversation in the pub got to her and had she taken the things I said on board? Probably not. On second thoughts, I considered that it may have been that morning's Horoscope telling her how to act. As the conversation continues it seems she's stressed because some kid was giving her boys a hard time yesterday. It is this kid's parents she's referring to. She continues by declaring, in all seriousness, that she intends to kill the kid if he does it again today. Yep, she will murder a child if her kids have a couple of bad days with an older boy. It turns out they're all on an outing somewhere today. If anything happens to them, she also makes it known that she will kill the adult supervision. She is not joking.
Obviously, I would die to protect my daughter. Obviously nothing is more important. Obviously I don't want anyone to bully or pick on her. But this woman's loud declaration of her intention to murder a child for acting out of line as well as the adults charged with supervising her children as if it's an attitude to be proud of is a dangerous over-reaction, and is the very same thing she is complaining about in other parents. She is incapable of noticing behaviour like her own in others.
As it turns out, the person she was talking to thought this was all a bit of a twisted way to go about bringing kids up, so I didn't feel like the whole world had gone mad like I did the last time this came up. When she acts as though my own, less-crazy take on things is terrible parenting and dangerous to my child, I don't know whether to laugh, cry or scream in her face.
So, after that minor drunken altercation in which she expressed to me her feelings about the correct way to bring up a stable, balanced individual, I recently heard her talking to someone else about how she hates these parents who treat their kids as though they can't do any wrong, and how they act like they're all that matters. At first I didn't understand what had happened - had our conversation in the pub got to her and had she taken the things I said on board? Probably not. On second thoughts, I considered that it may have been that morning's Horoscope telling her how to act. As the conversation continues it seems she's stressed because some kid was giving her boys a hard time yesterday. It is this kid's parents she's referring to. She continues by declaring, in all seriousness, that she intends to kill the kid if he does it again today. Yep, she will murder a child if her kids have a couple of bad days with an older boy. It turns out they're all on an outing somewhere today. If anything happens to them, she also makes it known that she will kill the adult supervision. She is not joking.
Obviously, I would die to protect my daughter. Obviously nothing is more important. Obviously I don't want anyone to bully or pick on her. But this woman's loud declaration of her intention to murder a child for acting out of line as well as the adults charged with supervising her children as if it's an attitude to be proud of is a dangerous over-reaction, and is the very same thing she is complaining about in other parents. She is incapable of noticing behaviour like her own in others.
As it turns out, the person she was talking to thought this was all a bit of a twisted way to go about bringing kids up, so I didn't feel like the whole world had gone mad like I did the last time this came up. When she acts as though my own, less-crazy take on things is terrible parenting and dangerous to my child, I don't know whether to laugh, cry or scream in her face.
Saturday, July 10, 2010
Stephen Donaldson’s Gap Sequence – How far is too far?
Anyone who knows or speaks to me for more than a little while will learn that I am a reader of probably the least coolest fiction there is - sci-fi & fantasy. Although, and it's important to make these distinctions; not exclusively sci-fi & fantasy, and not shit sci-fi & fantasy - David Gemmell, I'm looking at you. When not shit, this type of storytelling can be extremely complex, and layered with multiple strands holding a distorted mirror to our own social and psychological issues. Try reading Iain M. Banks, Robert Jordan, Frank Herbert or (obviously) Tolkien, and then you'll see what I mean.
Sometimes, a series I read tends to be cleverer than I am (not, granted, a particularly difficult achievement), and I have trouble following all the nuances. A writer that often does this to me is Stephen Donaldson. I've recently finished Donaldson's Gap Sequence, which has troubled me somewhat. Donaldson is best known for his Thomas Covenant series, which caused me similar problems, although to a lesser degree than the Gap Sequence.
It's not that he's a bad writer - on the contrary, he's particularly impressive, which is why I can finish his novels despite my reaction. He tends to make his heroes a little more difficult to root for than your average. Which again, is usually not a problem, but I wonder if Donaldson takes it too far. Take Thomas Covenant for example, the hero in the Thomas Covenant series. In the first book Covenant is introduced as a recluse suffering from leprosy. He used to be a successful writer, but his wife and son have left him and he's looked at by most people with not a small amount of disgust. Donaldson's medical background (or possibly his father's - I can't remember at the moment and I don't have one of his books to hand) helps to give the character plenty of depth. Due to the standard magic/nonsense/event thing, Covenant finds himself in a fantasy land where his leprosy heals and upon retrieving the feeling in his nerves, one of his first acts is to rape a girl aged about 16 who was helping him. Now, there are two justifications for this in Covenant's own head - it's his first erection in years as well as the first time in years he's been able to touch or feel. In addition to this, his refusal to accept the place he's found himself in as real absolves him (in his own head) of responsibility. Clearly, this does not excuse him in the eyes of the reader, and over the course of a series of books, Covenant's unbelief crumbles and the consequences of the act are far-reaching and desperately tragic. He is not a man it's easy to come to like. This appears to be Donaldson's particular skill, or at least a recurring theme of his - no person or act is beyond redemption. As Covenant suffers under the consequences of his act, and as he attempts to undo the damage he caused, as the reader you do, slowly, come to empathise with him and accept him - even to like him. This is no small achievement of Donaldson's.
With the Gap Sequence I wonder if he went too far in the suffering he inflicted upon one of the main characters, if he made it too much of a stretch in his attempt to redeem one of the inflicters. The Gap Sequence is Donaldson's retelling of Wagner's Ring Cycle. Only the opera is retold in the form of a series of science fiction books. I told you some of these writers were clever. The character, Morn Hyland suffers more than any other character I could name - probably more than was really necessary. After the emergence of a previously unknown and uncontrollable condition causes the death of her father, Morn is captured by a truly reprehensible character and is repeatedly degraded, beaten and raped, sometimes in unpleasant detail. 'Detail' in this case doesn't mean so much the physical acts themselves, although that is sometimes there, but the emotional and psychological torment inflicted upon her. I think sometimes Donaldson loses sight of the point that fiction, particularly fantastical fiction, is supposed to entertain at least as much as it disturbs, and I very nearly decided to stop reading on a number of occasions. Upon engineering her own escape, Morn is abandoned by the very organisation she serves, and given as payment to a different, but equally horrid (possibly worse) character who continues the physical and mental abuse to the point where anyone would have lost their sanity. Indeed, Morn does, a least a little - for it to be otherwise would have been unrealistic. (Yes, I do note the irony of using the word 'unrealistic' when describing a science fiction story, but setting and characterisation are two very different things.) After these prolonged events, she is then, in her fragile state, expected to save her race and be a hero in the way these stories go. As talented a writer as Donaldson undoubtedly is, I questioned the need to put Morn through quite such an extended episode of horror. So damaged is she, that the happiest ending Donaldson can conceive for her is *SPOILER* to leave her weeping hysterically in a room by herself, struggling to gather the courage to face the world outside. Realistic, yes, but necessary? Both of the men involved have back stories and through them the reasons why they are the way they are become clear. As with Thomas Covenant, only ten-fold more, this does not excuse their actions. However, Donaldson continues his theme of redemption and one of the characters becomes a hero of sorts, someone to root for. After almost putting the series down so many times during the first two books, this was difficult to swallow, and made me not a little uncomfortable.
So why did Donaldson go so far with Morn? I don't think it's anything to do with him not understanding the trauma rape victims undergo, as the consequences and emotional states of those involved are realised in a way that clearly shows Donaldson understood the magnitude of what he was putting his characters through. I don't really know, but I can tell you that despite my best efforts, I kind of was rooting for this guy a little before the end. So maybe it comes down to Donaldson's continuing theme of redemption - anyone can be saved.
Or maybe I should shut up and think about something more useful.
Sometimes, a series I read tends to be cleverer than I am (not, granted, a particularly difficult achievement), and I have trouble following all the nuances. A writer that often does this to me is Stephen Donaldson. I've recently finished Donaldson's Gap Sequence, which has troubled me somewhat. Donaldson is best known for his Thomas Covenant series, which caused me similar problems, although to a lesser degree than the Gap Sequence.
It's not that he's a bad writer - on the contrary, he's particularly impressive, which is why I can finish his novels despite my reaction. He tends to make his heroes a little more difficult to root for than your average. Which again, is usually not a problem, but I wonder if Donaldson takes it too far. Take Thomas Covenant for example, the hero in the Thomas Covenant series. In the first book Covenant is introduced as a recluse suffering from leprosy. He used to be a successful writer, but his wife and son have left him and he's looked at by most people with not a small amount of disgust. Donaldson's medical background (or possibly his father's - I can't remember at the moment and I don't have one of his books to hand) helps to give the character plenty of depth. Due to the standard magic/nonsense/event thing, Covenant finds himself in a fantasy land where his leprosy heals and upon retrieving the feeling in his nerves, one of his first acts is to rape a girl aged about 16 who was helping him. Now, there are two justifications for this in Covenant's own head - it's his first erection in years as well as the first time in years he's been able to touch or feel. In addition to this, his refusal to accept the place he's found himself in as real absolves him (in his own head) of responsibility. Clearly, this does not excuse him in the eyes of the reader, and over the course of a series of books, Covenant's unbelief crumbles and the consequences of the act are far-reaching and desperately tragic. He is not a man it's easy to come to like. This appears to be Donaldson's particular skill, or at least a recurring theme of his - no person or act is beyond redemption. As Covenant suffers under the consequences of his act, and as he attempts to undo the damage he caused, as the reader you do, slowly, come to empathise with him and accept him - even to like him. This is no small achievement of Donaldson's.
With the Gap Sequence I wonder if he went too far in the suffering he inflicted upon one of the main characters, if he made it too much of a stretch in his attempt to redeem one of the inflicters. The Gap Sequence is Donaldson's retelling of Wagner's Ring Cycle. Only the opera is retold in the form of a series of science fiction books. I told you some of these writers were clever. The character, Morn Hyland suffers more than any other character I could name - probably more than was really necessary. After the emergence of a previously unknown and uncontrollable condition causes the death of her father, Morn is captured by a truly reprehensible character and is repeatedly degraded, beaten and raped, sometimes in unpleasant detail. 'Detail' in this case doesn't mean so much the physical acts themselves, although that is sometimes there, but the emotional and psychological torment inflicted upon her. I think sometimes Donaldson loses sight of the point that fiction, particularly fantastical fiction, is supposed to entertain at least as much as it disturbs, and I very nearly decided to stop reading on a number of occasions. Upon engineering her own escape, Morn is abandoned by the very organisation she serves, and given as payment to a different, but equally horrid (possibly worse) character who continues the physical and mental abuse to the point where anyone would have lost their sanity. Indeed, Morn does, a least a little - for it to be otherwise would have been unrealistic. (Yes, I do note the irony of using the word 'unrealistic' when describing a science fiction story, but setting and characterisation are two very different things.) After these prolonged events, she is then, in her fragile state, expected to save her race and be a hero in the way these stories go. As talented a writer as Donaldson undoubtedly is, I questioned the need to put Morn through quite such an extended episode of horror. So damaged is she, that the happiest ending Donaldson can conceive for her is *SPOILER* to leave her weeping hysterically in a room by herself, struggling to gather the courage to face the world outside. Realistic, yes, but necessary? Both of the men involved have back stories and through them the reasons why they are the way they are become clear. As with Thomas Covenant, only ten-fold more, this does not excuse their actions. However, Donaldson continues his theme of redemption and one of the characters becomes a hero of sorts, someone to root for. After almost putting the series down so many times during the first two books, this was difficult to swallow, and made me not a little uncomfortable.
So why did Donaldson go so far with Morn? I don't think it's anything to do with him not understanding the trauma rape victims undergo, as the consequences and emotional states of those involved are realised in a way that clearly shows Donaldson understood the magnitude of what he was putting his characters through. I don't really know, but I can tell you that despite my best efforts, I kind of was rooting for this guy a little before the end. So maybe it comes down to Donaldson's continuing theme of redemption - anyone can be saved.
Or maybe I should shut up and think about something more useful.
Sunday, July 4, 2010
Birmingham: sunny, bustling, multicultural; beautiful.
I went out with some friends this week to Birmingham to celebrate a birthday. Living in a backwater like Telford, the only places to really go out are Telford, Shrewsbury, Wolverhampton or Birmingham. Telford is, frankly, shit, so mostly we go to either Shrewsbury (also shit, but posh as well) or Wolverhampton (less shit, but not especially brilliant). Birmingham is generally too far away to make it worth the effort, and it also tended to be a bit shit as well. This time, we all took a Friday off work and got the train down at Midday.
To say I was pleasantly surprised is an understatement - the place has definitely had some work done since I was there last. I know it's always had its fair share of fantastic things; old record shops; the Waterstones that fills a huge five-storey building with books; the pub that has a theatre on the first floor. However, those things aside, it always seemed a bit, well, drab. Grey. Maybe it was the weather, because sunshine really can do wondrous things, but this time the architecture looked more impressive, colours seemed brighter, and the whole place seemed cleaner and better maintained. It didn't feel like Birmingham used to feel. It felt more like London.
People thronged every street, which normally pisses me off something awful, but here it just made everything brighter and more cheerful. Me, who hates football, found it not altogether dreadful to be in a bar showing the World Cup. The bars were all playing great music, from Happy Mondays and Suede, through Blur, Pulp and Kasabian and onto Ellie Goulding and Florence + the Machine. Only a few momentary blips with Nickleback and Maroon 5 soured the soundtrack. After sampling a number of places, we settled on a relatively newly developed area on a canal full of different bars and restaurants. Fairy lights draping the bridge over the canal came on as the Sun went down. A band turned up on a small bandstand and started playing. The weather was great, the bars were full, the atmosphere was...bohemian. Don't get me wrong: I know a lot of Birmingham is shitty, I'm not that naive, even though many of my older and more cynical friends tell me often that I am. Funnily enough, my younger and slightly naive friends think I'm a bit cynical.
What I loved most of all though, is that people were fully mixing and integrating regardless of age, sex, race, anything. In certain circles, and in certain classes, at least where I live and work, there is a casual, supposedly inoffensive attitude of racism, homophobia and sexism. The kind of people that don't see anything wrong with the Daily Mail. The kind of people that hold Richard Littlejohn up as a beacon of common sense. It's not that these hateful attitudes have disappeared in our so-called enlightened society, it's just that the milder, more subversive form has become the accepted norm in too many places. I find it distasteful in the extreme, and I sometimes despair and wonder if it's everywhere. Well, it wasn't in Birmingham last Friday. Indian and Caucasian girls walked arm in arm, clearly either lovers or the very best of friends. Long-haired metalheads walked around with their blonde leggy girlfriends. Young black guys and old white men talked and laughed over the football, discussing the dissolution of Brazil's World Cup dreams. One girl was the spitting image of Scarlett Johansson - and that, I don't mind telling you, made my night. She was left to enjoy her evening with her friend without being approached by a pissed up bloke showing off to his mates. All the drunken walking arguments-against-evolution were probably back in Telford, diligently bothering anything female on two legs in sight. This is what a modern city should be.
After wading through the sinister, Daily Mail-fed attitude of non-acceptance and segregation under the surface of too many corners of my world for so long, to witness all these people simply enjoying time together made my heart feel good. And if that makes me a naive, wishy-washy, fuzzy liberal do-gooder as the Mail might label me, well then I'm proud to be exactly that.
It was however, really fucking expensive.
To say I was pleasantly surprised is an understatement - the place has definitely had some work done since I was there last. I know it's always had its fair share of fantastic things; old record shops; the Waterstones that fills a huge five-storey building with books; the pub that has a theatre on the first floor. However, those things aside, it always seemed a bit, well, drab. Grey. Maybe it was the weather, because sunshine really can do wondrous things, but this time the architecture looked more impressive, colours seemed brighter, and the whole place seemed cleaner and better maintained. It didn't feel like Birmingham used to feel. It felt more like London.
People thronged every street, which normally pisses me off something awful, but here it just made everything brighter and more cheerful. Me, who hates football, found it not altogether dreadful to be in a bar showing the World Cup. The bars were all playing great music, from Happy Mondays and Suede, through Blur, Pulp and Kasabian and onto Ellie Goulding and Florence + the Machine. Only a few momentary blips with Nickleback and Maroon 5 soured the soundtrack. After sampling a number of places, we settled on a relatively newly developed area on a canal full of different bars and restaurants. Fairy lights draping the bridge over the canal came on as the Sun went down. A band turned up on a small bandstand and started playing. The weather was great, the bars were full, the atmosphere was...bohemian. Don't get me wrong: I know a lot of Birmingham is shitty, I'm not that naive, even though many of my older and more cynical friends tell me often that I am. Funnily enough, my younger and slightly naive friends think I'm a bit cynical.
What I loved most of all though, is that people were fully mixing and integrating regardless of age, sex, race, anything. In certain circles, and in certain classes, at least where I live and work, there is a casual, supposedly inoffensive attitude of racism, homophobia and sexism. The kind of people that don't see anything wrong with the Daily Mail. The kind of people that hold Richard Littlejohn up as a beacon of common sense. It's not that these hateful attitudes have disappeared in our so-called enlightened society, it's just that the milder, more subversive form has become the accepted norm in too many places. I find it distasteful in the extreme, and I sometimes despair and wonder if it's everywhere. Well, it wasn't in Birmingham last Friday. Indian and Caucasian girls walked arm in arm, clearly either lovers or the very best of friends. Long-haired metalheads walked around with their blonde leggy girlfriends. Young black guys and old white men talked and laughed over the football, discussing the dissolution of Brazil's World Cup dreams. One girl was the spitting image of Scarlett Johansson - and that, I don't mind telling you, made my night. She was left to enjoy her evening with her friend without being approached by a pissed up bloke showing off to his mates. All the drunken walking arguments-against-evolution were probably back in Telford, diligently bothering anything female on two legs in sight. This is what a modern city should be.
After wading through the sinister, Daily Mail-fed attitude of non-acceptance and segregation under the surface of too many corners of my world for so long, to witness all these people simply enjoying time together made my heart feel good. And if that makes me a naive, wishy-washy, fuzzy liberal do-gooder as the Mail might label me, well then I'm proud to be exactly that.
It was however, really fucking expensive.
Thursday, July 1, 2010
A lunch break spent in Hell.
Recently my cheap old mobile phone gave up the ghost, leaving me with the unpleasant prospect of buying a new one. The thing is, I hate mobile phones. Hate them. I hate the idea that I can never be truly out of reach (and I know I can just switch it off, but that's not the point), I hate the way texting has eroded the general populations ability to correctly type out even the simplest of sentences properly without resorting to switching the word 'to' to the number '2', and I hate the way that they're not only phones anymore, they're cameras, camcorders, MP3 players and tiny Internet providers, all in one. I very specifically make a point of owning a separate camera, MP3 player etc., so I just want a phone to use for calling people. Is that too much to ask? iPhone, my arse. If this wasn't enough, I hate mobile phone shops. It's never enough to just go in and get a relatively cheap pay as you go phone. I've always got to go through the same conversation with whatever dickhead is trying to sell to me about how it might be cheaper for me to get a contract. Listen very carefully. I don't fucking want a contract. That's why I haven't asked you for one. It is, in fact, why I specifically asked you for pay as you go.
So, resigned to the fact that I needed to get it over with, I head off in to town on my lunch break to get me a new phone. I get up to 2 hours (a benefit of flexi-time), so that should be plenty of time to get a new phone and eat lunch. In town, I soon find that there are about a million different phone shops, but the vast majority are for specific networks. Except the network I'm on. After a few minutes, I manage to find a Phones4U. I stand outside, looking at the text-speak logo (it's FOR YOU, you bunch of cockends!), attempting to swallow my instant hatred of the shop and all inside. I take a deep breath and cross the threshold. I take a straight path to the pay as you go display and start looking at the phones. At first, the only thing I look at is the price. There are some for under a fiver, but even I recognise that they look utter shit. I will not go over £50, however, not for a phone. I finally pick one that will do and I get approached. After I explain that I don't want any of the extra shite he's offering me, he tells me to hold on while he gets the phone. 10 minutes pass by. I'm conscious of the passing of my lunch break, like fine sand through my fingers. I see my guy wandering round at the back of the shop, looking lost. He's moving from desk to desk. He finally comes back, muttering that he's just looking for the keys to the cupboard, he won't be a minute. You've already been more than 10 I point out, in my head. Soon after, he finds the keys, only to open the cupboard and tell me they are out of stock. Have a look, see if there's another one I like, he says. I smile and nod politely before walking out of the store, ready to kill someone. Or at least someones phone.
By now, with all the wandering and choosing and waiting, almost half of my lunch break is up. I continue to search until I find a Carphone Warehouse. I feel slightly more confident here, as I dimly remember that this is where I got my previous phone. Plus, they can't be as bad as Cunts4U. As before, I head to the pay as you go section, to find a nice display area with a leaflet showing the phones available and their prices. I spend some time looking, before settling on one phone costing £30. The shop is empty other than me, with two staff, but I still have to walk up to the counter and stand there like a lemon before either one of them engages with me. While at the counter, I discover that there is a minimum top up of £10 for every phone. This is annoying, especially as Phones4U didn't have such measures in place. However, by now I just want to get the whole ordeal over with, so I acquiesce. The staff member offers me a way to save money - if I buy the phone on a different network, it will be £10 cheaper, and then I can just put my existing sim card in when I get home. For a while, I'm quite pleased.
The guy needs to take a few details - name, address, that kind of stuff. He types in the details I provide. Then he asks again. Then he looks confused at his screen and asks again. This goes on for what must have been 10 minutes or more, with much scratching of head and consulting with the other staff member. Surely he knows what to do when selling one of the phones I think to myself. It is a phone shop, after all. I don't think it's unreasonable to assume he knows how to sell a phone. Anyway, progress is finally made until he points out that on this phone the minimum top up is £20. It's probably because the phone is only £20, he informs me. So what was the point of offering me the phone £10 cheaper on a different network? I now have £20 on a sim I won't even use! The remaining time on my lunch break is now rapidly running out, and I just want to get out before I leap over the counter and pummel his stupid, empty face. With another 10 minutes or so of trying to put through a simple fucking sale, I finally leave, putting my new phone in my bag. I now have to rush to get back to work, and I will have to miss my lunch.
The only possible conclusion I can draw from this is that mobile phone shop assistants must be the dumbest bastards on this Earth. Apart from possibly HMV staff, but that's a whole different story...
So, resigned to the fact that I needed to get it over with, I head off in to town on my lunch break to get me a new phone. I get up to 2 hours (a benefit of flexi-time), so that should be plenty of time to get a new phone and eat lunch. In town, I soon find that there are about a million different phone shops, but the vast majority are for specific networks. Except the network I'm on. After a few minutes, I manage to find a Phones4U. I stand outside, looking at the text-speak logo (it's FOR YOU, you bunch of cockends!), attempting to swallow my instant hatred of the shop and all inside. I take a deep breath and cross the threshold. I take a straight path to the pay as you go display and start looking at the phones. At first, the only thing I look at is the price. There are some for under a fiver, but even I recognise that they look utter shit. I will not go over £50, however, not for a phone. I finally pick one that will do and I get approached. After I explain that I don't want any of the extra shite he's offering me, he tells me to hold on while he gets the phone. 10 minutes pass by. I'm conscious of the passing of my lunch break, like fine sand through my fingers. I see my guy wandering round at the back of the shop, looking lost. He's moving from desk to desk. He finally comes back, muttering that he's just looking for the keys to the cupboard, he won't be a minute. You've already been more than 10 I point out, in my head. Soon after, he finds the keys, only to open the cupboard and tell me they are out of stock. Have a look, see if there's another one I like, he says. I smile and nod politely before walking out of the store, ready to kill someone. Or at least someones phone.
By now, with all the wandering and choosing and waiting, almost half of my lunch break is up. I continue to search until I find a Carphone Warehouse. I feel slightly more confident here, as I dimly remember that this is where I got my previous phone. Plus, they can't be as bad as Cunts4U. As before, I head to the pay as you go section, to find a nice display area with a leaflet showing the phones available and their prices. I spend some time looking, before settling on one phone costing £30. The shop is empty other than me, with two staff, but I still have to walk up to the counter and stand there like a lemon before either one of them engages with me. While at the counter, I discover that there is a minimum top up of £10 for every phone. This is annoying, especially as Phones4U didn't have such measures in place. However, by now I just want to get the whole ordeal over with, so I acquiesce. The staff member offers me a way to save money - if I buy the phone on a different network, it will be £10 cheaper, and then I can just put my existing sim card in when I get home. For a while, I'm quite pleased.
The guy needs to take a few details - name, address, that kind of stuff. He types in the details I provide. Then he asks again. Then he looks confused at his screen and asks again. This goes on for what must have been 10 minutes or more, with much scratching of head and consulting with the other staff member. Surely he knows what to do when selling one of the phones I think to myself. It is a phone shop, after all. I don't think it's unreasonable to assume he knows how to sell a phone. Anyway, progress is finally made until he points out that on this phone the minimum top up is £20. It's probably because the phone is only £20, he informs me. So what was the point of offering me the phone £10 cheaper on a different network? I now have £20 on a sim I won't even use! The remaining time on my lunch break is now rapidly running out, and I just want to get out before I leap over the counter and pummel his stupid, empty face. With another 10 minutes or so of trying to put through a simple fucking sale, I finally leave, putting my new phone in my bag. I now have to rush to get back to work, and I will have to miss my lunch.
The only possible conclusion I can draw from this is that mobile phone shop assistants must be the dumbest bastards on this Earth. Apart from possibly HMV staff, but that's a whole different story...
Monday, June 21, 2010
A further attempt to understand why people like shite.
So, a friend of mine (who happens to be a gentleman somewhat older than myself) is a big fan of pop music, and I've taken it upon myself to try to find out why. At some point during a conversation, X-Factor came up. That's right - it's not just regular pop music he likes, like say, Lady Gaga who, previously in this blog I've confessed to and attempted to defend a liking of, but it's the empty headed, personality-less talent-holes who enter this glorified karaoke contest he calls himself a fan of.
"You can't deny that Leona Lewis has a great voice," he tells me, all knowing. Well, friend, just watch me. So she's technically proficient, but is that all it takes nowadays? If I close my eyes, I can hear all of them - Lewis, Alexandra Burke, um, erm. Ah. I was going to list others but I've forgotten them all. They're all clones of the standard wobbly-voiced diva. The originals - Whitney Houston, Mariah Carey, Celene Dion and similar are also horrific, but at least they're professionals. Leona Lewis just copied the template and managed to fool the morons who take the time to vote for these empty vessels.
Doesn't anyone want a bit of substance, a bit of feeling, or something more original? The breathless Polly Scattergood, the unique and astonishing Neko Case? Case's Deep Red Bells has a vocal that frankly shits all over Bleeding Love from a great height. You want a bigger range? The magnificent Florence Welch has a voice which is practically operatic. Unfortunately, my friend had not heard of any of these. Although, I'd wager he's probably heard of Florence and the Machine by now. OK, we'll go with someone well known then - Kate Bush. "Nah," he says. "She's weird."
It's at this point I give up. He, like so many others, prefers to wallow in the dull, repetitive world of mainstream pop, listening to music that was recorded to make money as opposed to being a timeless piece of art, dismissing anything with a hint of feeling or originality as 'weird'. Well, balls to him and all others like him.
"You can't deny that Leona Lewis has a great voice," he tells me, all knowing. Well, friend, just watch me. So she's technically proficient, but is that all it takes nowadays? If I close my eyes, I can hear all of them - Lewis, Alexandra Burke, um, erm. Ah. I was going to list others but I've forgotten them all. They're all clones of the standard wobbly-voiced diva. The originals - Whitney Houston, Mariah Carey, Celene Dion and similar are also horrific, but at least they're professionals. Leona Lewis just copied the template and managed to fool the morons who take the time to vote for these empty vessels.
Doesn't anyone want a bit of substance, a bit of feeling, or something more original? The breathless Polly Scattergood, the unique and astonishing Neko Case? Case's Deep Red Bells has a vocal that frankly shits all over Bleeding Love from a great height. You want a bigger range? The magnificent Florence Welch has a voice which is practically operatic. Unfortunately, my friend had not heard of any of these. Although, I'd wager he's probably heard of Florence and the Machine by now. OK, we'll go with someone well known then - Kate Bush. "Nah," he says. "She's weird."
It's at this point I give up. He, like so many others, prefers to wallow in the dull, repetitive world of mainstream pop, listening to music that was recorded to make money as opposed to being a timeless piece of art, dismissing anything with a hint of feeling or originality as 'weird'. Well, balls to him and all others like him.
Thursday, June 17, 2010
Impressions of Zakynthos.
The Greek islands are undoubtedly our favourite place to go on holiday. We've been to four so far - Kefalonia, Samos, Thassos and Skopelos, each one being quieter and more remote than the last. That's how we like it - not touristy, just secluded and peaceful, with long walks to lose ourselves in. This, obviously, was before we had Katie. We've recently been to Zakynthos, our fifth island, and it
wasn't what we were used to. It was actually a present from my parents, who also paid for my sister and her partner and their son, making eight of us all together. With small children to consider, we stayed in the resort of Alykanas on the North of the island. This resort is clearly designed with the family in mind - our complex had several pools, one of which had a slide, a park on site and was built literally on the edge of the beach - built to make things easier when managing a family. It's also very noisy, with the on site 'entertainment' echoing through the evenings and making it nearly impossible to enjoy a little quiet time on the balcony after Katie's gone to sleep. Greece is much more expensive now than it used to be as well, but the people are mostly just as lovely as ever.
The weather was odd, with the first week being cloudy for much of the time with occasional rain, and the second week being dry and consistently in the mid thirties. In a way, it worked out well, as the first week gave the kids a chance to acclimatise themselves to the heat before the scorching second week. The resort seemed to be designed with the intention of attracting a particular type of English family, and in fact during the second week almost every man I saw was shaven-headed, white, massive and covered in tattoos. Thanks to the World Cup (yawn) almost every bar had huge wide screen TVs blaring out tedious football matches. The way there were so many people on the streets trying to give you leaflets and attempting to get you into their bars and restaurants reminded me very much of a holiday a friend and I took in Ibiza in my dim and distant teenage years.
I knew that this was simply the way this resort had been designed and I knew that my Greece was still out there somewhere, but I couldn't help feeling like my Greek holiday experiences had been tainted a little. This all sounds extremely ungrateful for what was in essence a free holiday I know, but there was also much to recommend. Between all the noise there were many small moments of bliss when the Greece I know and love came back to me - the food was as 
outstanding as ever (backlavas - drool), and a day exploring the South of the island at Porto Zoro and Gerakas (where the turtles come) was a highlight, as was a trip by boat to the famous Zakynthos shipwreck - that beach is extraordinary.
Katie absolutely adored it and spent her time playing on the numerous parks, splashing about and swimming in the pools and the sea, digging holes and building sandcastles on the beach or scoffing her face with ice-cream and Greek salad. And this, I guess, is the point. Our holidays won't be for ourselves for many years yet - they'll be for Katie and soon Emily. Even though I've been fairly critical and I've pined for the Greek holidays I used to have, as long as Katie has so much fun, it's worth it.
wasn't what we were used to. It was actually a present from my parents, who also paid for my sister and her partner and their son, making eight of us all together. With small children to consider, we stayed in the resort of Alykanas on the North of the island. This resort is clearly designed with the family in mind - our complex had several pools, one of which had a slide, a park on site and was built literally on the edge of the beach - built to make things easier when managing a family. It's also very noisy, with the on site 'entertainment' echoing through the evenings and making it nearly impossible to enjoy a little quiet time on the balcony after Katie's gone to sleep. Greece is much more expensive now than it used to be as well, but the people are mostly just as lovely as ever.The weather was odd, with the first week being cloudy for much of the time with occasional rain, and the second week being dry and consistently in the mid thirties. In a way, it worked out well, as the first week gave the kids a chance to acclimatise themselves to the heat before the scorching second week. The resort seemed to be designed with the intention of attracting a particular type of English family, and in fact during the second week almost every man I saw was shaven-headed, white, massive and covered in tattoos. Thanks to the World Cup (yawn) almost every bar had huge wide screen TVs blaring out tedious football matches. The way there were so many people on the streets trying to give you leaflets and attempting to get you into their bars and restaurants reminded me very much of a holiday a friend and I took in Ibiza in my dim and distant teenage years.
I knew that this was simply the way this resort had been designed and I knew that my Greece was still out there somewhere, but I couldn't help feeling like my Greek holiday experiences had been tainted a little. This all sounds extremely ungrateful for what was in essence a free holiday I know, but there was also much to recommend. Between all the noise there were many small moments of bliss when the Greece I know and love came back to me - the food was as 
outstanding as ever (backlavas - drool), and a day exploring the South of the island at Porto Zoro and Gerakas (where the turtles come) was a highlight, as was a trip by boat to the famous Zakynthos shipwreck - that beach is extraordinary.Katie absolutely adored it and spent her time playing on the numerous parks, splashing about and swimming in the pools and the sea, digging holes and building sandcastles on the beach or scoffing her face with ice-cream and Greek salad. And this, I guess, is the point. Our holidays won't be for ourselves for many years yet - they'll be for Katie and soon Emily. Even though I've been fairly critical and I've pined for the Greek holidays I used to have, as long as Katie has so much fun, it's worth it.
Thursday, May 20, 2010
Sometimes I don’t fit in.
Granted, we were in the pub and both of us had been drinking fairly copiously, but still. I got into a conversation with a friend which showed quite clearly why humanity is failing as a species. It started with an off-hand comment of mine about astrology being bollocks (it is), and she started trying to explain to me why it wasn't. Apparently I'll never get it because I'm a typically stubborn Taurus. So, do all Taureans think astrology is bollocks then? She then offered 'proof' in the observation that the reason I don't see eye to eye with a certain other nameless friend is because of their sign and mine being incompatible. I always thought it was because this other person was a bit of a dick. She sure showed me.
The conversation then took a really weird turn. She advised me that I shouldn't get so worked over things, because they don't really matter that much. Worked up? Maybe a little, but no more than the average person, surely? She wisely informs me that we are both parents and therefore I will obviously see things as she does - when you have a child, she tells me, nothing else matters. Nothing else is important. When I tell her calmly and politely that I do not agree with that, she is flabbergasted and I feel a bit like I've told her that I'm a closet hamster rapist (or an unfit father, I couldn't tell which). Obviously, Katie is the most important person in my life, and nothing else is as important as her being given the opportunity to grow into a strong, happy and stable person, but to say that nothing else matters? That all other considerations, be they political, environmental, financial or of any kind are irrelevant? To me that is ridiculous. She turns to a friend and asks her what else matters after you have a child - "Nothing" came the instant reply, steeped in a seriousness that I gather was supposed to sound like she was wise and more knowledgeable than silly little me.
(As a side note, nothing infuriates me like older people talking at me as though I'm twelve and that when I'm their age I'll inevitably come round to their way of thinking. Fuck you, I'm over 30 with a mind of my own thank you very much, and if you can't see that then you're worth no more of my time.)
So, human rights abuses? The destruction of countless acres of natural habitat? Wars being fought for profit? Corrupting religious dogma spread by child-raping priests infecting Governments at the highest levels of power? Even something small like being unpleasant to someone you see on the street for no reason - as long as you're able to look after your own kid, all of that stuff is OK? And yet, this attitude of protecting the small family unit at the expense of all else is considered admirable by the majority of society. 'Families first' the political rhetoric goes. How about not being a dick first?
She tries another tack - I don't understand because I'm not a mother. She can fuck right off, as I happen to know that my wife and life partner of more than 12 years has the same point of view as me on this - yes, of course Katie is our number one priority, but to dismiss any other consideration as irrelevant is ludicrous and one of the reasons why our society is failing. If nothing else matters to you but your child's happiness, they will grow up believing that their own happiness really is all that matters, and will, I guarantee you, be hateful obnoxious assholes. And yet, trying to tell anyone this leaves them thinking you don't love your child. On the contrary - holding your offspring up as the only thing that matters in the Universe so they grow up believing that is only setting them up for inevitable disappointment and depression, and that is not the actions of a loving parent. That's choking them on love. Stop being so fucking cruel.
The conversation then took a really weird turn. She advised me that I shouldn't get so worked over things, because they don't really matter that much. Worked up? Maybe a little, but no more than the average person, surely? She wisely informs me that we are both parents and therefore I will obviously see things as she does - when you have a child, she tells me, nothing else matters. Nothing else is important. When I tell her calmly and politely that I do not agree with that, she is flabbergasted and I feel a bit like I've told her that I'm a closet hamster rapist (or an unfit father, I couldn't tell which). Obviously, Katie is the most important person in my life, and nothing else is as important as her being given the opportunity to grow into a strong, happy and stable person, but to say that nothing else matters? That all other considerations, be they political, environmental, financial or of any kind are irrelevant? To me that is ridiculous. She turns to a friend and asks her what else matters after you have a child - "Nothing" came the instant reply, steeped in a seriousness that I gather was supposed to sound like she was wise and more knowledgeable than silly little me.
(As a side note, nothing infuriates me like older people talking at me as though I'm twelve and that when I'm their age I'll inevitably come round to their way of thinking. Fuck you, I'm over 30 with a mind of my own thank you very much, and if you can't see that then you're worth no more of my time.)
So, human rights abuses? The destruction of countless acres of natural habitat? Wars being fought for profit? Corrupting religious dogma spread by child-raping priests infecting Governments at the highest levels of power? Even something small like being unpleasant to someone you see on the street for no reason - as long as you're able to look after your own kid, all of that stuff is OK? And yet, this attitude of protecting the small family unit at the expense of all else is considered admirable by the majority of society. 'Families first' the political rhetoric goes. How about not being a dick first?
She tries another tack - I don't understand because I'm not a mother. She can fuck right off, as I happen to know that my wife and life partner of more than 12 years has the same point of view as me on this - yes, of course Katie is our number one priority, but to dismiss any other consideration as irrelevant is ludicrous and one of the reasons why our society is failing. If nothing else matters to you but your child's happiness, they will grow up believing that their own happiness really is all that matters, and will, I guarantee you, be hateful obnoxious assholes. And yet, trying to tell anyone this leaves them thinking you don't love your child. On the contrary - holding your offspring up as the only thing that matters in the Universe so they grow up believing that is only setting them up for inevitable disappointment and depression, and that is not the actions of a loving parent. That's choking them on love. Stop being so fucking cruel.
Sunday, May 16, 2010
An attempt to understand why people like shite.
I've been trying to understand why the whole Twilight thing exploded. I don't know why I've been trying to understand this, I suppose it's because I have too much time on my hands and not enough interesting thoughts in my head to fill it with. The whole thing was passing me by, but recently my wife got caught up in it. Now, that's not to say she's a 'Twi-hard' - she doesn't scream at the mere mention of Rob Pattison, she's not planning on any tattoos or T-shirts to proudly advertise her obsession. Truth be told, she's a bit embarassed by it. However, like it and enjoy it she does.
I get most youth culture crazes, even if I don't share them. Take Harry Potter as an example. I can understand why so many fans got swept up in the books and the movies. I certainly didn't become a fan, per se, but I can acknolwedge that the books are very well written. The first few are most definitely written for kids - they've got that simplistic way about them, like a less sophisticated Roald Dahl. The idea is that the reader should be a similar age to the title character, allowing the books to increase in depth as the reader matures. As such, the writing style and the story increase in complexity with each book. The stories caught the attention of so many older readers because of the subtleness of Rowling's writing - simplistic enough for kids but with just enough underlying darkness and complexity to attract adults. As the books go on, the darkness is much less underlying and the 'for kids' moniker is left behind. In addition, the attraction of reading something that evokes how it felt to be a child is very strong for many readers.
The same is true of The Hobbit. It was also written for children, but with enough potential for expansion into more complex themes to attract adults. A potential that was realised with the writing of The Lord of the Rings, which has such a multitude of underlying themes and levels of depth that most who read it cannot ever leave it behind.
Another example is Star Wars, but this is more about remembering and attempting to relive childhood memories than hidden depth, because the last thing Star Wars is, is deep. Personally, I think it's completely over-rated and is nothing compared to the likes of Indiana Jones and Back to the Future. That's because I was late to the party - Star Wars was released two years before I was born. People love it because they love how they felt watching it as a kid. Those same people hate the prequels. The prequels are, granted, poor films, but so, I would contend, are the original ones. Those that hate them hate them because they were not children when they watched them, and were, therefore, not the target audience. They were not young enough, not simple enought to be taken in by that world. There is a whole generation out there that will tell you that their favourite Star Wars movie is Episode 1. That's entirely down to the age they were when they watched it.
When I attempt to apply that logic to Twilight, it falls apart. Yes, it's aimed at teenagers, and not women in their 30s, but the same is true for Harry Potter. The fact is, they are very badly written - Stephenie Meyer couldn't write her way out of a wet paper bag. You can see it in the writing - while Rowling writes in a way that children can relate to she creates a very vivid picture of a hidden alternative world in our heads. On the other hand, Meyer's style is simply dull, like a teenager with no imagination and an over-riding obession with a boy would write. I can tell Harry Potter is written for children by a talented adult. I can't tell if Twilight is written for teenagers, in the style of a teenager or by an actual teenager. When Rachel tried to explain to me why she liked it, she gave me a hint as to the actual reason why I couldn't understand. She said it made her feel like a teenager herself, reading Point Horror and Point Romance novels, and that while she knows the writing is unsophisticated, the feeling of nostalgia it evokes is more effective. So, the truth is, it's probably because I'm male and simply can't understand. Fair enough. But, to be honest, I think girls deserve better than this depthless, vacuous shite.
What baffles me further is that like many other Twilight fans, Rachel's now got into True Blood. True Blood is much better - smart, well-written novels and a surprisingly good TV series. It's almost like the reader grows up and moves from one to the other - kind of like when you first discover holding hands and then move on to sex. I can't understand how it's possible to be a fan of both (Twilight and True Blood, not holding hands and sex) - it's akin to liking both Mozart and The Wiggles.
Of course, there's no reason why I should care at all. People are obviously free to like whatever they like regardless of what I or anyone else thinks. It's frankly none of my business. Maybe I can't help thinking I'm missing out on something. I doubt it, though.
I get most youth culture crazes, even if I don't share them. Take Harry Potter as an example. I can understand why so many fans got swept up in the books and the movies. I certainly didn't become a fan, per se, but I can acknolwedge that the books are very well written. The first few are most definitely written for kids - they've got that simplistic way about them, like a less sophisticated Roald Dahl. The idea is that the reader should be a similar age to the title character, allowing the books to increase in depth as the reader matures. As such, the writing style and the story increase in complexity with each book. The stories caught the attention of so many older readers because of the subtleness of Rowling's writing - simplistic enough for kids but with just enough underlying darkness and complexity to attract adults. As the books go on, the darkness is much less underlying and the 'for kids' moniker is left behind. In addition, the attraction of reading something that evokes how it felt to be a child is very strong for many readers.
The same is true of The Hobbit. It was also written for children, but with enough potential for expansion into more complex themes to attract adults. A potential that was realised with the writing of The Lord of the Rings, which has such a multitude of underlying themes and levels of depth that most who read it cannot ever leave it behind.
Another example is Star Wars, but this is more about remembering and attempting to relive childhood memories than hidden depth, because the last thing Star Wars is, is deep. Personally, I think it's completely over-rated and is nothing compared to the likes of Indiana Jones and Back to the Future. That's because I was late to the party - Star Wars was released two years before I was born. People love it because they love how they felt watching it as a kid. Those same people hate the prequels. The prequels are, granted, poor films, but so, I would contend, are the original ones. Those that hate them hate them because they were not children when they watched them, and were, therefore, not the target audience. They were not young enough, not simple enought to be taken in by that world. There is a whole generation out there that will tell you that their favourite Star Wars movie is Episode 1. That's entirely down to the age they were when they watched it.
When I attempt to apply that logic to Twilight, it falls apart. Yes, it's aimed at teenagers, and not women in their 30s, but the same is true for Harry Potter. The fact is, they are very badly written - Stephenie Meyer couldn't write her way out of a wet paper bag. You can see it in the writing - while Rowling writes in a way that children can relate to she creates a very vivid picture of a hidden alternative world in our heads. On the other hand, Meyer's style is simply dull, like a teenager with no imagination and an over-riding obession with a boy would write. I can tell Harry Potter is written for children by a talented adult. I can't tell if Twilight is written for teenagers, in the style of a teenager or by an actual teenager. When Rachel tried to explain to me why she liked it, she gave me a hint as to the actual reason why I couldn't understand. She said it made her feel like a teenager herself, reading Point Horror and Point Romance novels, and that while she knows the writing is unsophisticated, the feeling of nostalgia it evokes is more effective. So, the truth is, it's probably because I'm male and simply can't understand. Fair enough. But, to be honest, I think girls deserve better than this depthless, vacuous shite.
What baffles me further is that like many other Twilight fans, Rachel's now got into True Blood. True Blood is much better - smart, well-written novels and a surprisingly good TV series. It's almost like the reader grows up and moves from one to the other - kind of like when you first discover holding hands and then move on to sex. I can't understand how it's possible to be a fan of both (Twilight and True Blood, not holding hands and sex) - it's akin to liking both Mozart and The Wiggles.
Of course, there's no reason why I should care at all. People are obviously free to like whatever they like regardless of what I or anyone else thinks. It's frankly none of my business. Maybe I can't help thinking I'm missing out on something. I doubt it, though.
Saturday, April 24, 2010
And the award for dumbest parents goes to...
So, it turns out that the other weekend we were pretty terrible parents. We went to stay in Swansea with some friends, so, naturally Katie was getting super excited for the seaside. So much so that she couldn't get to sleep until way after ten the night before, which puts her at least three hours down on the sleep she needs. Now, it's April and it's the UK. It's not gonna get that hot, right? So we don't pack sun cream or sun hats or anything like that. It turns out to be a great weekend weather-wise, but still not really that hot. Down to the beach on the first day, and Katie's already flagging due to missed sleep. We decide to continue anyway. As we reach the beach, I say to Rach: "Do you think we should get a hat for Katie?" "Nah," she replies, "she'll be alright. Besides, we haven't got one with us anyway." "Fair enough."
A few hours later, we're back at the house and Katie is really miserable, but won't eat or sleep. She's got a temperature and starts puking. She's gone and got heatstroke. Her weekend is pretty much ruined. Way to go mom and dad. Obviously, we feel like shite, but there's not a lot we can do, apart from offer her lots of water, affection and attention.
There's a lesson to be learnt here, but I'm still not quite sure what it is, apart from always take a hat. Parenthood, it turns out, is exactly like they tell you. Like nothing you can prepare for. There are moments of frustration like nothing you've ever known, but these are balanced with moments of ecstatic joy at witnessing the simplest of things - like just recently, she's started to spontaneously tell us she loves us, and she recently said the word 'anything' perfectly in context with the sentence she was speaking, and I have no idea where she picked up how to say it, let alone what it means. Don't get me wrong, generally I don't like kids at all, especially babies, who are stupid and annoying. But this is my little girl, and she ain't like all those other mewling brats out there. She's my mewling brat, and she's made of awesome.
So basically, when she's suffering and you know it's your fault and was entirely preventable like this recent heatstroke weekend, you feel so wretched that basically you'd tear your own heart out if it would help. In a way, it's good that it happened. We'll both of us from now on go out of our way to not feel like that again, so it's made us better parents. Until the next time we get it all wrong, of course.
A few hours later, we're back at the house and Katie is really miserable, but won't eat or sleep. She's got a temperature and starts puking. She's gone and got heatstroke. Her weekend is pretty much ruined. Way to go mom and dad. Obviously, we feel like shite, but there's not a lot we can do, apart from offer her lots of water, affection and attention.
There's a lesson to be learnt here, but I'm still not quite sure what it is, apart from always take a hat. Parenthood, it turns out, is exactly like they tell you. Like nothing you can prepare for. There are moments of frustration like nothing you've ever known, but these are balanced with moments of ecstatic joy at witnessing the simplest of things - like just recently, she's started to spontaneously tell us she loves us, and she recently said the word 'anything' perfectly in context with the sentence she was speaking, and I have no idea where she picked up how to say it, let alone what it means. Don't get me wrong, generally I don't like kids at all, especially babies, who are stupid and annoying. But this is my little girl, and she ain't like all those other mewling brats out there. She's my mewling brat, and she's made of awesome.
So basically, when she's suffering and you know it's your fault and was entirely preventable like this recent heatstroke weekend, you feel so wretched that basically you'd tear your own heart out if it would help. In a way, it's good that it happened. We'll both of us from now on go out of our way to not feel like that again, so it's made us better parents. Until the next time we get it all wrong, of course.
Monday, April 5, 2010
Who needs friends when you've got friends like these?
Something happened today which made me wonder a lot of things. It made me wonder why I have so many friends that I have nothing in common with. (If you are reading this and are one of my non-virtual friends, don't worry - to have even got this far means you are not one of the people I'm referring to). It made me wonder how many of them I would choose to become friends with if I met them tomorrow. It's said that friends are the family you get to choose, but frankly, most of my friends come to be my friends as a matter of circumstance - I don't project an aura of great self-confidence, and rather than seeking out people with mutual interests, I generally just become friends with the people I see on the most regular basis. I don't then select the people I like most to become friends with. The something that happened made me wonder if maybe I should.
The something in question happened while at a birthday party - the son of one of my wife's friends recently turned one. He's a pretty cool kid and on the day appeared to me to have the hairstyle and outfit of a 50 year-old. This may sound like an insult, but if you ask me the little dude looked awesome. Someone at the party switched on the Sky and put NME TV on for some background music. A rather odd choice for a kid's party, I'll grant you, but it was on quietly and nobody was paying much attention to it. The instant the remote was put down one of the other guests, who while not exactly a close friend, is a mutual acquaintance, loudly stated "I'm not having this on; I don't feel like slitting my wrists. Let's put something nice on", and promptly switched to Smash Hits. Now, with the house being full of little 'uns, this is clearly a more appropriate channel, and I would have no problem with the channel being changed for this reason. However, the person in question is a grown woman, and there is no doubt in my mind that she chose the music for herself, not the kids.
Isn't most pop music aimed squarely at a young audience? Isn't that why it's vacuous, asinine and repetitive? Once a person gets to a certain age, shouldn't they begin to realise this and develop a more mature and rounded taste? Why are so many adults still listening to this ear cancer?
I genuinely don't mind or judge you (too harshly) if you are the kind of person who listens to this, or watches Dancing on Ice, or enjoys reading Percy Jackson novels. The thing is, too many of the people I see as friends are almost exclusively into these things or similar. If I try to talk about, say, Radiohead, Catch-22, or maybe Dr. Strangelove, most of my friends won't know what the hell I'm talking about, being instead into Twilight or Boyzone or some other equally shit over-marketed commodity passing itself off as art.
How did I end up surrounded by friends I have nothing in common with? My wife generally skews much closer to my taste, and we often find ourselves unable to understand our friend's taste in music, film, art, politics and more. Should we say enough is enough and cut ties with these people, or continue to socialise for the sake of politeness? Should we retreat to our own world and exclude all others, or try to find new friends? Will I one day snap and find myself screaming "Why are you all so SHIT?" at them? Should I try harder to appreciate the TV they watch; is there a deeper meaning to Coronation Street and Britain's Got Talent that I'm missing?
The truth is I already kind of go through life not really paying attention to the majority of them, instead choosing to focus on my wife and daughter. Maybe when Katie's old enough I'll be able to influence her enough to allow her to broaden herself enough to become immersed in more meaningful avenues of interest, giving me a kindred spirit I'm unable to find in my friends. Knowing my luck, she'll probably get into Bratz.
The something in question happened while at a birthday party - the son of one of my wife's friends recently turned one. He's a pretty cool kid and on the day appeared to me to have the hairstyle and outfit of a 50 year-old. This may sound like an insult, but if you ask me the little dude looked awesome. Someone at the party switched on the Sky and put NME TV on for some background music. A rather odd choice for a kid's party, I'll grant you, but it was on quietly and nobody was paying much attention to it. The instant the remote was put down one of the other guests, who while not exactly a close friend, is a mutual acquaintance, loudly stated "I'm not having this on; I don't feel like slitting my wrists. Let's put something nice on", and promptly switched to Smash Hits. Now, with the house being full of little 'uns, this is clearly a more appropriate channel, and I would have no problem with the channel being changed for this reason. However, the person in question is a grown woman, and there is no doubt in my mind that she chose the music for herself, not the kids.
Isn't most pop music aimed squarely at a young audience? Isn't that why it's vacuous, asinine and repetitive? Once a person gets to a certain age, shouldn't they begin to realise this and develop a more mature and rounded taste? Why are so many adults still listening to this ear cancer?
I genuinely don't mind or judge you (too harshly) if you are the kind of person who listens to this, or watches Dancing on Ice, or enjoys reading Percy Jackson novels. The thing is, too many of the people I see as friends are almost exclusively into these things or similar. If I try to talk about, say, Radiohead, Catch-22, or maybe Dr. Strangelove, most of my friends won't know what the hell I'm talking about, being instead into Twilight or Boyzone or some other equally shit over-marketed commodity passing itself off as art.
How did I end up surrounded by friends I have nothing in common with? My wife generally skews much closer to my taste, and we often find ourselves unable to understand our friend's taste in music, film, art, politics and more. Should we say enough is enough and cut ties with these people, or continue to socialise for the sake of politeness? Should we retreat to our own world and exclude all others, or try to find new friends? Will I one day snap and find myself screaming "Why are you all so SHIT?" at them? Should I try harder to appreciate the TV they watch; is there a deeper meaning to Coronation Street and Britain's Got Talent that I'm missing?
The truth is I already kind of go through life not really paying attention to the majority of them, instead choosing to focus on my wife and daughter. Maybe when Katie's old enough I'll be able to influence her enough to allow her to broaden herself enough to become immersed in more meaningful avenues of interest, giving me a kindred spirit I'm unable to find in my friends. Knowing my luck, she'll probably get into Bratz.
Monday, March 29, 2010
A cycle of anger and guilt.
It's been a tough week for a colleague of mine. He's experienced just about the worst thing that can happen to a person. His 18 year old son has died, apparently by his own hand. I don't know any of the details, and it's not my place to enquire, just like it's not my place to reveal anything else about it to you. This single fact alone is enough to portray the magnitude of his personal tragedy. What I've gone and done is what almost any person tends to do - try to understand how he might feel by relating the experience to my own memories, but nothing has ever come close (and I fervently hope nothing ever will).
The only remotely relatable experience is a Boxing Day over 15 years ago when we heard that my 15 year old cousin had died of a previously unknown heart condition. Now, this was terrible news and dreadfully upsetting, but I was only just into my teens and didn't see Simon that often, so I was unable to grasp how my uncle must have felt, just like I can never understand how my colleague feels. Recently another cousin of the same family died due to drugs related problems - the uncle in question having now lost both sons has only a daughter left, a daughter who has herself recently given birth to a daughter - funny how life keeps going round like that, isn't it? In a similar vein, my grandad passed away just before my first daughter Katie Erin was born, and now that her sister Emily Karen is on the way, we've lost nan.
What's difficult to come to terms with is how angry I was at the pointlessness of my cousin's death. He was young, strong, smart and full of potential, and all he's done is cause untold grief to those who he loved and who loved him the most. While not on the same scale, there was a minor resurfacing of this anger when hearing the news of my colleague's tragedy. It seems careless to me to leave behind your loved ones with such a gaping hole in their lives. But, on further reflection it seems callous of me to judge them in such a way - in Christian's case, he never intended for the drugs to kill him, so he's worth remembering with love, not anger, and in my colleague's case, who am I to feel this way without having the slightest clue to this young man's circumstances and feelings?
So, guilt inevitably follows anger, but I can't stop these feelings any more than I can stop the events from taking place at all. It's a shite state of affairs probably best not ruminated on for too long. One thing that these tragedies do for certain is to convince me to squeeze every last drop out of life while I can, which is as good a lesson as any to take away, I guess.
The only remotely relatable experience is a Boxing Day over 15 years ago when we heard that my 15 year old cousin had died of a previously unknown heart condition. Now, this was terrible news and dreadfully upsetting, but I was only just into my teens and didn't see Simon that often, so I was unable to grasp how my uncle must have felt, just like I can never understand how my colleague feels. Recently another cousin of the same family died due to drugs related problems - the uncle in question having now lost both sons has only a daughter left, a daughter who has herself recently given birth to a daughter - funny how life keeps going round like that, isn't it? In a similar vein, my grandad passed away just before my first daughter Katie Erin was born, and now that her sister Emily Karen is on the way, we've lost nan.
What's difficult to come to terms with is how angry I was at the pointlessness of my cousin's death. He was young, strong, smart and full of potential, and all he's done is cause untold grief to those who he loved and who loved him the most. While not on the same scale, there was a minor resurfacing of this anger when hearing the news of my colleague's tragedy. It seems careless to me to leave behind your loved ones with such a gaping hole in their lives. But, on further reflection it seems callous of me to judge them in such a way - in Christian's case, he never intended for the drugs to kill him, so he's worth remembering with love, not anger, and in my colleague's case, who am I to feel this way without having the slightest clue to this young man's circumstances and feelings?
So, guilt inevitably follows anger, but I can't stop these feelings any more than I can stop the events from taking place at all. It's a shite state of affairs probably best not ruminated on for too long. One thing that these tragedies do for certain is to convince me to squeeze every last drop out of life while I can, which is as good a lesson as any to take away, I guess.
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