Have I been wrong all this time? (Spoiler: No. Maybe, a little.)

I’ve always kind of hated text speak. ‘m8’? What the fuck? How hard is it to type ‘mate’? Useless cretins. I’ve only ever used ‘lol’ twice, and both times it was sarcastic for things that were decidedly unfunny. Emojis and all the associated pictures that you can add to your messages feel like an evolution of that text speak that annoys me so I don’t use them. I never mind it when other people use them, but because text speak always annoyed me, I’ve always refused to use them myself. They say a picture paints a thousand words. Well, give me the thousand words any day. Words can make you understood if you use them correctly. Words have immense power. Power to uplift, power to crush. Power to deceive (just ask most of the UK press).

I’ve tried at times to describe, a little, what it means to me to have Rach in my life, and how I might have turned out without her in older blog entries. Most people know a little about how it feels to be in love. About how having someone there to support, share and experience with makes everything make a little bit more sense. And because most of you know, I’ll not waste time trying to explain how she fills up my heart and soul with a warm glow every day, or how literally everything would be worse without her.

Instead I’ll come to the point (such as it is). She uses smiley faces, colourful heart pictures and other types of emojis in her texts to me. When she affectionately calls me a dork because I have to finish on the hour when doing overtime, not half-past or quarter-to, followed by a smiling face, or a kissing face and some hearts, it genuinely makes my day. I grin and have that little floating-on-air moment you have when you get confirmation that someone you love loves you in return. And I got it because of the emojis I refuse to use.

Still not doing text-speak. Always ‘you are’, or ‘you’re’, never ‘ure’. But knowing now how they can sometimes brighten a day, I may occasionally start using a picture or two. To be honest, the thumbs up in Skype is also a pretty useful thing when you’ve got nothing else to say, but saying nothing feels a little rude. So, maybe the occasional picture along with the words isn’t so bad after all.

Alone? Not alone.

I was anxious about climate change back in the ‘90s. I wondered why, if it will inevitably lead to global catastrophe, nobody in a position to do anything about it was bothering. Throughout the early 2000s it became increasingly clear that the monster campaign of disinformation and bribery backed by the fossil fuel industry, influencing policy and media coverage, was able convince the public that the threat was vague, possibly not even real, and climate scientists, while trying repeatedly to get the message across with no funding, no experience, no backing and only research on their side, were side-lined and maligned at every turn. Each year that went by increased my anxiety and my fear and while I did what I could, the obvious truth was and remains no matter how much we recycle, reuse and repurpose, we won’t stop the ecological collapse without either overcoming or securing the backing of the capitalist machine that holds the media and the governments of the world in useless limbo.

Recently it’s become ever more difficult. The anxiety has morphed into a constant terror, a dull thudding knot always with me in the pit of my stomach, ready to snatch away any peaceful moment of introspection, semi-regularly spilling over into extended periods of frantic hopelessness that drive out other thoughts, robbing me of sleep and causing me to snap at my children.

Why, when extreme weather events are becoming ever more consistent, are Exxon Mobil still allowed to flood social media with greenwashing about how they’re funding bullshit, untested technology about sucking carbon molecules out of the air, while continuing to invest millions in fossil fuels? Why, when wildfires spread further and burn for longer every summer are we (that’s the royal we, as in governments and people actually in a position to invest) not building more offshore windfarms when it’s a proven technology that could replace coal (wind currently accounts for about 22% of energy sources)? Why, when research says we are currently waving goodbye to our chance to limit warming to 1.5 degrees and coming up on multiple major climate tipping points that will push us beyond 3 degrees (which will affect us all, ruinously) are we still increasing the amount of carbon we shit into the atmosphere year on year?

It didn’t seem like anyone else was being affected in this way. It seemed like the frightening reports just kept coming to a collective shrug from everyone else, while I quietly fretted more and more. Well, it turns out I’m not alone. Inspired by a child, almost one tenth of the entire population of the world walked out on a Friday to protest the criminal lack of action from those in positions of power and influence around the world. It turns out millions and millions of other people are terrified, and want things to change. It doesn’t sound like a good thing, but it sure made me feel less alone.

Slowly, too slowly, the needle is turning. Even the global disinformation network has mostly stopped denying climate change exists and is caused by humans, although it is still trying to stop anything being done about it, and business as usual on this front possibly gives us barely a handful of years before widespread collapse (and as that article points out, in some places, the collapse is already happening in a smaller scale in some countries). So far this year 100% of academic papers agree on the science.

It was women that helped me to get up and carry on, as usual. The doom and gloom articles, trying to get me to give up hope completely are usually written by men. The global strike was triggered by a girl, and it is the female climate scientists that are largely inspiring me to not lose all hope and acknowledge that yes, while catastrophic warming is now largely inevitable, leading to an uncertain and shitty future for my kids and likely curtailed old age for me, extinction is not yet a foregone conclusion. In the not-too-distant future, we’re all going to have to make a choice: Extinction? Or Rebellion?

Not a traitor.

We’ll start with a Final Jeopardy question:

The irreparably corrupt convincing the (mostly) uninformed to demand the incompetent deliver the impossible.

Answers on a post card.

It was intimated to me not so long ago that not wanting to leave the EU meant that somehow I was a traitor to the UK, siding with the enemy. I suppose the first point is that when did the EU become our enemy? Secondly, I have long established my dislike of obsessive patriotism, how it’s little more than mild racism, and how one of the best things for us as a species in the long run would be to stop allowing lines drawn on a map dictate where we can and can’t go, drop this infantile tribalism and just, you know, treat each other as fellow humans rather than allowing the country of one’s birth or one’s parents’ or grandparents’ birth inform how worthy we think people are of basic respect.

Feeling sad while posh twats cheer a person declare an end to free movement with a smirk on her face does not make me a traitor.

Thinking it's bizarre that said person seems really pleased about introducing an 'Australian-style points system' under which her own family would have most likely been denied entry to the UK doesn't make me a traitor.

Feeling bereft that my children and their children (if the species lasts that long) will be denied the chance to work, live, love and settle in nearly 30 other countries as easily as getting on a train does not make me a traitor.

Wanting to be part of a larger international community working together to achieve positive outcomes, and not wanting to retreat to a more insular existence looking to a rose-tinted past does not make me a traitor.

Being worried about people I know having to deal with uncertainty regarding their right to stay in the place they’ve lived and worked for years and years does not make me a traitor.

Pointing out that the vote of 17 million people out of a country of 66 million doesn’t really give anyone carte blanche to do things that will take decades to recover from doesn’t make me a traitor.

Disagreeing with the assertion from the Daily Express that the said 17 million have been ignored, because the past three years has been almost nothing but an attempt to deliver this impossible thing you think you want does not make me a traitor.

Pointing out that about 1.5 million of them have died in the 3 years since, and that millions more now have a right to vote, making the original result somewhat out of date doesn’t make me a traitor.

Thinking that it’s strange that those in positions of influence advising we go ahead and leave without a deal stand to make £8.3 billion from their hedge fund speculations betting against the performance of UK companies because they know the country will be negatively affected isn’t reported more widely in the press doesn’t make me a traitor. (Eat, and I can’t stress this strongly enough, the rich.)

Feeling depressed when thinking about the sheer amount of good that could have been done year after year if dickheads didn't obsess over stupid shite don't make me no traitor.

Finding it hard to understand how non-racist leave voters don’t think that the massive level of support from racists and the sharp rise in racist violence the day the result was announced isn’t cause for concern and possibly a rethink doesn’t make me a traitor.

Pointing out that precisely nobody voted for no deal, which in fact highlights the profoundly unworkable nature of the original referendum, cursed from the outset, does not make me a traitor.

Being afraid for people who are dependent on drugs imported from other EU countries does not make me a traitor.

Saying that if you’re surprised that the ‘plan’ to take us out keeps falling apart when it comes up against the cold light of reality and long-established Parliamentary law means you’re not getting enough actual fact in your tabloid-fed bullshit does not make me a traitor. (As a starting point, try supplementing your red-top nonsense by following actual legal expert David Allen Green, if you can stand the hellscape Twitter has become.)

Thinking that ripping up over 4 decades of social, legal and economic integration without anything to replace it with is highly likely to cause recession, anxiety, social unrest, violence and the collapse of institutions and arrangements dependent on this integration (like, say, the NHS or the Good Friday Agreement) doesn’t make me a traitor.

Feeling impotent fury watching an old colleague’s record store go from a growing business to a stagnating one, barely afloat in the years since the referendum as stock imported from Europe rises steadily in cost due to a floundering and uncertain pound, and punters find themselves with less disposable income does not make me a traitor.

Repeat after me: NONE. OF. THESE. THINGS. MAKE. ME. A. TRAITOR.

I suppose you’ve still gotta hope, right?

There’s been a lot of stuff getting me down lately. Following the 2016 illegally fought and won advisory referendum on our membership of the most successful peace-project in human history (yeah, alright, I’m over-egging the pudding a bit; I know the EU isn’t perfect, but it’s a damn sight better than any possible outcome we’re now faced with), the UK press are still pushing for this fucking catastrophe and since then we’ve gone from ‘£350 million a week for the NHS’ to ‘People will have the food they need’ and ‘Nah, we won’t abide by the law if we don’t feel like it’. This is not the same thing.

Over the pond, people are still sending ‘thoughts and prayers’ to families of shooting victims, while at the same time making it easier for any Trump-inspired numpty to buy an automatic death machine.

Still no sign of governments anywhere doing anything to tackle climate change that might actually make an appreciable difference – no, setting fire to the Amazon rainforest doesn’t count. But, there might be reason here for hope. For young people all over the world are no longer content to sit back and watch their future burn and are fighting back. Awareness of the scale of the issue is increasing everywhere and rich old white men are working hard to discredit the movement by launching consistent personal attacks on young figurehead Greta Thunberg. So far, little significant change has happened, but the movement is gaining ground and if the tide turns, then maybe climate change won’t be the civilisation-ender it’s gearing up to be.

Too many powerful people with a vested interest in things staying the way they are preventing real change for there to be anything more than a tiny chance, but you never know, and I’m trying not to take the ‘it’s a lost cause, might as well give up’ route, like Jonathan Franzen, who, quite frankly, appears to be trying to convince people not to disrupt the status quo so he can live out the rest of his life not having to give a shit. (I'm not linking to his article, because it's the last thing he deserves, but I will link to this glorious counterpoint.) It’s hard and there are still days when all feels lost, but kids with a lot more to lose than I have (I’ve already had 40 years, they haven’t) and people much, much smarter than I am haven’t given up yet. I suppose I can do no less.

Occasional feature: Ending with a song loosely related to the post (or more like a lyric I can take out of context and loosely relate to the post):

The Strokes: Heart in a Cage: “So don’t teach me a lesson, ‘cause I’ve already learned; the sun will be shining and my children will burn.”

Sometimes, people aren’t so bad.

We all have days when things get on top of us, right? Days when there is just so much crap to wade through that you just want to find somewhere to hide (preferably somewhere cool in this ridiculous heat), and recalibrate by yourself for a while. Sometimes I’m lucky and am able to find the time to get away for a few minutes.

Not too long ago I found myself trying to de-stress a little by just spending a few minutes walking by myself. I got to a bridge that crossed the A442. I stopped for a while to watch the traffic going by underneath. I don’t suffer from depression. I am more and more anxious, hopeless and powerless about the future as the years go by, but unless you’re deliberately ignorant and purposefully stupid, so are you. (And if you are being deliberately ignorant and purposefully stupid? I can’t honestly say I care too much about you at this point and you frankly deserve what’s coming to us all.) But that’s not depression. That’s being reasonably aware of the state of the world, possessing a capacity for empathy and a basic understanding of science.

So, gazing at the traffic going by below me, standing on that bridge, I didn’t actually contemplate jumping in any serious way – perhaps as a mental exercise, but probably not even then. But I must have looked ready to end it all.

A couple pushing a baby in a pushchair walked by. There wasn’t anything out of the ordinary about them. As they walked past I ignored them and continued to gaze at the traffic. Then a surprising thing happened. The young man stopped, turned to me and asked: “You alright mate?” It was just the kind of voice/accent that it is incredibly difficult not to judge instantly – that kind of youth crossed with a mix of local accents mixed into something unique to the area. It can only be described as Telf. But that irritating accent didn’t prevent the concern of one human to another from coming through. It was weirdly moving. “I’m fine, thanks,” I responded. He nodded and we both set off in different directions.

Under other circumstances, I would probably judge him pretty harshly. He’s probably one of those deliberately ignorant people I mentioned earlier, ignorant of the larger picture. I said earlier, people like that deserve what’s coming. Does he, really? Perhaps not. The baby he was pushing along certainly doesn’t.

So yes, I need to sometimes re-evaluate what I think of people. Sometimes they can surprise you by being half decent humans under the surface.

Stop ruining things.

There was a field in my local town centre that always managed to lift my spirits as I went past it. It wasn’t very large and it was full of buttercups at the right time of year. It’s strange sometimes how small things can have a significant impact. This field wasn’t large or spectacular, but its yellow carpet throughout the summer months meant it always did a lot to improve my outlook when I drove past it (yes I know the fact that I drove past as I appreciated this field is possibly somewhat illogical, but its location meant that I would never be in a position to walk past it – if you’re local it’s by the M54 roundabout just up the hill from where Blockbusters used to be).

You might notice me talking in the past tense. That’s because they dug it up and concreted it over. It’s now yet another KFC and yet another Costa Coffee – there are already multiple instances of both brands throughout my town. Now driving past, the little lift I used to get has been replaced by another little tug dragging me down. Those little lifts are important – they help get you through the day, which helps get you through the week, which helps get you through the so on and so on. Without them, life has a little less colour, a little less joy, a little more…grey.

You could consider me lucky, because I still live in an area with a significant amount of greenery, but every time another meadow of flowers is ripped up and destroyed to build another copy of another brand we don’t need any more of, it gets harder and harder to stay positive.

How are we supposed to stop them? How soon will it be until they build a Costa on top of the Wrekin? Or on the Ironbridge? I don’t know. I’ve tried not going to them, but it doesn’t seem to make a difference, what with everybody else going to them.

Maybe eventually enough of us will realise what we’re losing with every new unnecessary church erected to the gods of capitalism and profit to make a difference, but I doubt that’ll happen in time.

Too late?

I’ve been banging on about climate change a lot lately. Well, I don’t intend to apologise for that. Just because too many of us are either not aware of what’s going to happen, or are ignoring it and choosing to carry on regardless, or, like me, carry on fully aware that everything I can do to reduce the damage I’m doing is like using a teaspoon to clean up an oil spill, it doesn’t mean the future we’ve decided for ourselves is something I can stop going on about.

Because I can take a pretty decent guess at how I think my kids are going to die. The latest IPCC report paints a pretty bleak picture of our future if major changes aren’t made yesterday. That bleak picture is actually pretty rosy compared to the likely reality, knowing full well as we do that those with the power to effect real change don’t have any intention of doing it. Keeping within 2 degrees of warming will merely mean the deaths of millions and the resettling of millions more. Not speaking for myself, we’ve always pretty much accepted this, because it will mostly be impoverished countries taking the brunt of it, so we’ll all be able to feel sorry for those poor folks living far away, maybe donate a bit to a charity and keep on pissing away the planet’s resources like we always have, assuming we can do enough to keep within 2 degrees.

But we’re not doing enough. It’s years too late. Maybe decades. But hey, this has only been known for 100 years or so in scientific circles, so it isn’t like we had enough time to change, you know? Murdoch, Koch and other names of very rich white men are continuing to push the discussion in other directions. The good we could have accomplished, and the progress we could have made if we hadn’t spent our time focusing on shite like leaving the E.U. (noticed how the Venn diagram for those heavily in favour of leaving and those that deny climate change is a clear and present threat (or even exists) pretty much overlaps?), abusing folks migrating from other countries (you have no idea of the shitshow coming if you think we’re overwhelmed now (which we’re not)) or countless other political pursuits that won’t mean anything in the long run if this isn’t tackled simultaneously breaks my heart and fills me with fury enough to, when I let it, stop me being of any use to anyone.

We’re currently banking on technology that hasn’t been invented yet to fix this mess at some point in the future. The truth is too ridiculous for parody. It’s like an American senator assuming praying will do a damn thing to stop idiots shooting schoolchildren so they can continue to do nothing (as with climate change, the lack of action by those with the power to affect change, leashed by the power of money, is now beyond reprehensible). There’s a Venn overlap again in there somewhere.

The increasingly likely outcome then is looking more and more like 8 degrees. That’s not ‘just’ the deaths of millions. That’s ecological collapse. That’s impossible to grow food (no, we can’t just switch to growing bananas and coconuts). That’s everybody dying. I’m guessing those on top of the economic tree using their influence to convince as many people as they can to keep the status quo and allow this to happen are assuming their money will protect them, and that they will somehow be able to profit off it. But sooner or later, food won’t just be expensive, it simply won’t be there.

And that’s why I’m worried I can take an educated guess as to how my kids might die. If it is, it’ll be the same way your kids will die. It might even be how I go out if I hold on long enough: starvation. Doesn’t seem possible at the moment does it? That’s why you listen to the people spending their lives in study of it telling you this could happen. It’s probably too late to swerve it, and we’re still going straight at it full throttle, ignoring the shouts of those telling us to change course.

Operation Don’t Die: Update

I’m 40 this year. In May. I wonder if I can use that. Currently, I’m a little slack in my efforts to unflab. An upcoming significant birthday might be the catalyst I need to refocus a little. So I’m planning a playlist for regular exercise session I can do at home (not about to join a gym). Rach has brought a book home with some ideas about what I can do.

I think something to aim for should go some way to help me. I can be quite good most of the time, but the problem with me is maintaining a regime for an extended period of time – quite frankly in my natural state I’m a lazy arse, and the laziness is always threatening to undo any progress I make.

Still, I would think that after 40, as I get older, my body is less and less likely to put up with my shite, leaving me open to heart disease, diabetes and other shitty conditions that are more likely to hit you if you’re unfit and overweight.

This isn’t about body positivity or anything for me – I’d look naff by most standards even at peak fitness, so it’s about living longer. I’m not big boned, I’m fat. So let’s see if I can make some progress before I turn the big 4-0.

A lasting impression I could do without.

Have you ever read a book or watched a film that you know is extremely good, but you still wish you’d never gone anywhere near it? I’ve done it twice now. The first was when we watched Grave of the Fireflies. Studio Ghibli has a body of work that pretty much nobody can touch for quality, save maybe Pixar. Grave of the Fireflies is a 1988 animated film directed by Isao Takahata which forms part of the Ghibli collection. It brings home the devastating cost of war by focusing on two children in Japan near the end of the second world war, who lose their parents and have to try to survive together in the face of starvation and the antipathy of a population numb to tragedy. Studio Ghibli films are not afraid to focus on hardship, loss and grief, but they are generally optimistic. When I had finished watching, I felt something I’d never felt in reaction to a film before or since; a physical pain. My heart was broken and I felt like I’d been kicked in the gut. The film is incredible; told with the same gift for character and astonishing artistry that is par for the course for Ghibli, but I don’t ever want to see it again and I can’t bring myself to recommend it to anyone. It was like having my heart stomped on by the one person I can usually expect to make it soar. I was in a funk for weeks afterwards, unable to shake the feeling of desperate hopelessness it left in me. Art that can do that is undeniably powerful, but all the same, I’d rather not feel like that.

I recently read Random Acts of Senseless Violence. Written by Jack Womack and published in 1993, it tells the story of Lola, a young teenage girl living in a in a well-to-do area of New York, while the world around her falls apart. When her parents can no longer find work and have to move to a more dangerous area, we follow Lola as she changes from private school girl to ruthless gangster, and it makes for such a depressing read. It’s very well done, but it is so infuriating to see this innocent girl have her life taken from her and her potential lost. Not just Lola, but a society that could’ve been so much more devolve into shadow of itself, beset by riots and greed. It felt the same way reading High Rise felt, this chilling feeling of a society making the decision to let itself topple from the cliff edge, and the sense of everything slowly going to hell, when with just a little more will, it might’ve pulled itself back from the brink. A bit like living in a UK forcing itself to leave the European Union even though it knows full well what the consequences are going to be, or like I would imagine living in the U.S. under President Cockwomble feels like.

This book has stuck with me not just because of that though, but because of something specific, and that’s the death of Lola’s father. No longer able to make ends meet as a screenwriter due to the volatile world the book is set in, he has no choice but to work extremely long hours in a job in which he is constantly under pressure and screamed at and berated for barely enough money to afford the rent on the crappy apartment the family have had to move to. There is a truly haunting scene in which poor Lola finds her father dead having had a heart attack in the middle of the night, and eventually, this is the thing that pushes Lola beyond the point of no return.

I’m not saying that the world in which I live and work is anywhere near as bad as the unfortunate Lola’s. But I am on that borderline between just managing financially and not managing. And I do work overtime. Since reading that book, the only thing on my mind when I get up at 6:15 on a Saturday morning to work overtime to supplement my wages while my family sleeps is that dreadful scene of Lola discovering her father’s body, after he worked and stressed himself to death trying play a rigged game just to keep his family safe and alive (he’d already given up on happy).

If this strikes you as overly melodramatic, well you’d be right. I actually quite enjoy my job. My family are, relatively speaking, safe and happy. While I do always feel like I don’t have enough money to get by, the truth is, we’ve managed it so far, so I expect we’ll be fine. But that’s the effect of well-made art on the psyche. We are going to have to deal with major crises over the coming decades because nobody has got the will to do a damn thing about climate change, but instead of the biggest emergency our species has ever had to deal with dominating the news and the political stage, we’re arguing about whether or not it’s a good idea to rip up the fragile Northern Ireland peace agreement so Lord Snooty (how can you not look at that snivelling weasel Rees-Mogg and think of anyone else?) can keep hold of his unearned, inherited, offshore tax-free millions and withdrawing from the agreement that ended the Cold War (good job America. Well done).

So it feels like, as in Random Acts of Senseless Violence, we are also a society deliberately deciding to step off into the abyss, and that’s why Lola and her father struck such a chord with me; forced to narrow their view and look out only for themselves, and as far as her father goes, eventually die trying.

Still. Chin up, eh?

Pointlessness.

I went to a well-known convenience store the other day. I walked around the shop and picked up what I needed to, joined the queue, had a few polite words with the cashier and after paying, made my way to the exit. Before I could leave the shop, however, there was a person standing by the exit with a clipboard. They also had a badge. The clipboard and badge combo was how I knew they were official and had the right to inconvenience shoppers.

They asked for a few minutes of my time to basically rate my experience in the store. I’d bought a loaf of bread and a few other items, so goodness knows what they were expecting. They asked me to rate the service I’d received out of 10. I’d figured everything had been entirely reasonable, so thinking of what I score films I like when writing about them, I figured an 8 was a decent score, reflecting a positive, yet common experience. The immediate response was “Why are you marking them down?”

“I’m not,” I replied, “I thought 8 was a good score.”

“We expect our staff to get 10.”

Many things went through my mind at this point, none of which I said to the person asking my opinion. The first and most oft repeated thought was this: If the only good score you will allow your staff is 10 out of 10, and everything else, up to and including 9, is unacceptable, then what the fuck is the point of marking out of 10? It’s a yes or no answer: was your service of an acceptable standard today?

To get a genuine 10 out of 10 – i.e. a perfect score, they’d have to give me my shopping for free, chuck me a winning lottery ticket on the way out and carry me home on a palanquin. 10 out of 10 should be almost impossible to get. 6-8 out of 10 service when popping to a corner shop is perfectly acceptable. So should I stick with my 8/10 and get the cashier into trouble, or give them a perfect score?

“Suppose I’d better say 10 then,” I responded.

I was asked a few more questions, equally as pointless, to which of course I had no choice but to score 10s for as well. Like most kinds of consumer polling like this then, it’s entirely pointless, and the company will be able to claim something stupid like ‘9 out of 10 customers rate us 10/10 for service!’ when actually it’s complete bullshit.

On the way out I very nearly reverted back to the 8 and gave the reason for ‘marking down’ as being stopped on my way out and asked to take part in a survey that is, at best, stupid and pointless and at worst downright dishonest. But I didn’t. But I will now have a clearer indication as to how big a lie the ‘customer satisfaction’ bollocks that companies use actually is.