Cry songs.

I’ve mentioned before on here about how since having kids I cry much more easily now, usually at films. Along with a lot of other people, I think sometimes I feel like crying in general. But I've noticed recently that certain types of songs will also make me cry. They all seem to have something in common as well: regret. That’s what gets me about, for example, Magnolia. Man, that hits hard.

I think that’s my emotional Achilles’ Heel. Looking back on a life of promise unfulfilled. I don’t really feel that about my own life. I have a lot to be grateful for, not least a house I love, a wife I love even more, job, family – all the stuff that’s supposed to show you’re doing ok. Of course, I think generally using a metric like that to measure success is bullshit – it’s perfectly easy to be content without any of that. But my point, I think, is I’m not sure why this theme of regret hits me so hard. I think it’s also a wider theme – now I’m getting older it feels like the idea of looking back over a life evoked by music and film strikes a strong chord.

There’s something quite satisfying about being induced to have a proper cry as well, a kind of emotional release, so I do find myself fairly frequently revisiting the songs that trigger that reaction in me. Is that weird? I dunno, maybe.

The current crop of cry songs I keep going back to then:

The Kinks, Come Dancing. An ode to a long-demolished dancehall that was the centrepiece of an older sister’s happiest memories. “The day they knocked down the palais, my sister stood and cried. The day they knocked down the palais, part of my childhood died.”

Bruce Springsteen, The River. A life lived in a poor conservative working class America that went from few prospects to none at all for the sake of a fleeting moment of love and happiness. “All them things that seemed so important? Well mister they vanished right into the air. Now I just act like I don’t remember, and Mary acts like she don’t care.”

Joni Mitchell, Come in from the Cold. Feels like a cry from everyone who ever felt isolated and without love. Genuinely a wreck before the end of the first chorus. “We really thought we had a purpose, we were so anxious to achieve. We had hope, the world held promise, for a slave to liberty.”

Lana Del Ray, Gods and Monsters. Feels like a life deliberately thrown away just because of an inability to conceive of anything better. “You got that medicine I need, dope shoot it up, straight to the heart please. I don’t really wanna know what’s good for me, god’s dead? I say: ‘Baby that’s alright with me’.”

Operation Don’t Die: Update.

Previously on this kind of update I’ve talked about being too fat. Turns out that’s not really what I meant, and it has taken observing my kids to realise that. Driven (I am assuming as I don’t use the same kind of vernacular) by peers and social media and popular culture, the youngest has taken to using ‘fat’ as an insult. Not just in terms of body types, but as a general insult – she has before now used the term ‘fat brain’, not only directed at her sibling, but also herself. We are frequently pointing out to her that fat is not a negative, that thinness isn’t an indication of health and there are many mitigating factors that show higher weight isn’t necessarily indicative of poorer health.

We’re not currently getting through to her – both of my kids are at that age where the influence of parents is low compared to other places and getting lower. It did however, give me cause to think about how on previous ‘Operation Don’t Die’ updates I tended to pile insults onto myself about being fat.

Previously when I actually lost weight, it occurred to me that I was in a job in retail preparing for Christmas, working 80-hour weeks and skipping at least one meal a day. Everyone told me how good I looked at the time, and that positive reinforcement I think stuck with me, linking not eating properly and losing weight because of that being a good thing. Clearly that isn’t healthy.

Another time when I pretty much cut out sugar and bread and left everything else the same I also got a great deal of positive comments. I didn’t lose as much weight as I did during the stressful meal-skipping period, but I did drop a few centimetres off the belly, just not so much that I wouldn’t still have considered myself overweight.

I am not one of those people that have used this lockdown period to turn myself into a godlike specimen of human physicality (well-played those of you that have managed to do just that). But it isn’t the larger waist that should be concerning me; it’s the lack of exercise. I no longer walk to work, at least for now, and finding the time to replace even that amount of cardiac exercise has proven problematic. Between not feeling like I’m giving enough attention to my kids, as well as not being able to spend as much time ‘at work’ in the little study in the corner of the house, taking out an hour or more each day to go off and walk for my own health feels selfish, although nobody else at home or work would think so.

So things to work on then, both physically and mentally. Only thing to do is keep trying I guess.

Sometimes hypocrisy isn't hypocritical.

Some things are hypocritical. Being President of the U.S.A. saluting the military while doing nothing about Russia putting bounties on the heads of American soldiers? That’s hypocrisy. Getting yourself elected on the promise of an ‘oven-ready’ deal, when months later it’s clear there’s no such thing? That’s hypocrisy. Living as a migrant in a foreign country for 6 months of the year, voting to prevent migration to your home country and then being outraged that the result prevents you migrating to your holiday home? That’s hypocrisy. And idiocy, to boot.

There are some things that get called hypocrisy, but aren’t. Or if they are, they are a different kind altogether than the examples mentioned above. Feeling distraught because you see signs of a collapsing ecology everywhere, desperate for governments, politicians, billionaires and companies everywhere to actually stop this course we’re on that leads to the literal destruction of all, and then buying a product from one of those companies? Not hypocrisy.

It's an argument that gets used too often. ‘Oh, you want to live in a fairer society without the devastating effects of rampant unchecked capitalism? Why are you spending money on products then?’ Following such an inanity, these people then tend to leave the conversation with an air of smugness. Where would I end up if I just decided to not ‘take part’? Fucking homeless, that’s where. That doesn’t prevent me from putting forward an argument that the current system, that I have no choice but to take part in, is unfair and in its current form, will lead to the ruin of all.

Jeff Bezos has enough money to end world hunger, and every day chooses not to. I can’t even imagine having that kind of power and simply not doing it. Between them, a mere 100 companies could have prevented the utter climate destruction that will soon be unavoidable at any point in the last 30 years. Every day for those 30 years they chose, and continue to choose, not to. Jeff Bezos, and billionaires like him, instead keep the money that they could not spend on material items in 10 lifetimes, to themselves. Pointing out that that makes them awful, awful people – proper Bond villain stuff, while watching Amazon Prime, is not hypocrisy.

I don’t want to destroy society, so I still choose to partake in it. That doesn’t mean I don’t want it to be fairer and less destructive.

On statues and history.

I appreciate that destruction of public monuments is considered a bad thing. A worse thing, in my own humble opinion, is deliberately misunderstanding a point or a situation to allow you to argue for maintaining an untenable status quo.

Statues are erected to celebrate people, erected by people that admire them. Statues are not 3D history lessons. That’s why there’s a statue of Jim Henson (pictured below), and not a statue of Hitler or Jimmy Saville. I don’t think we’re in danger of forgetting about them though are we? Arguing that pulling down the statue of Edward Colston is erasing the more troubling aspects of our history is inaccurate. I had no idea who Edward Colston was until his statue was pulled down and dumped in the water, and I’m willing to bet that almost none of you did either.

The man traded people as if they were goods and was responsible for the deaths of thousands of them. That’s mass murder. Whatever else he might have done, it will not erase that stain. There are many, many more suitable ways to ensure this unpleasant part of our history isn’t lost than maintaining a statue in devotion to him. Teaching it as part of history in schools, colleges and universities would be one. A museum would be another. Frankly the idea that he should be immortalised in statue form can get in the bin. Or the Bristol Channel, either’s fine.

Just try to imagine. Centuries of it, going back as far as you can imagine. First not being treated as though you’re even human. All these years later and you’re still treated as second class citizens. Frequently denied even basic courtesy, all the while those that continue to oppress you complaining it isn’t fair when someone gives you a job or a promotion. It’s insidious and it’s hidden in plain view everywhere. It is 100% true that to the privileged, equality feels like oppression. I don’t blame the protestors at all for dragging Colston’s murdering ass down.

Perhaps it would have been better, or more acceptable to campaign for the removal of the statue? I agree, and it turns out that it seems they’ve been trying for years, but were refused. Even the request to change the wording on it was vetoed. A bit like when kneeling during the National Anthem in the states was met with outrage, so when real anger came out following yet more needless deaths it was all ‘Why can’t you protest peacefully and respectfully?’ Being civil didn’t work.

Perhaps, if universities weren’t reducing their history departments through lack of funding, teaching the public about people like Edward Colston wouldn’t be the job of tributes in the form of statues. Maybe if they taught some of the less pleasant parts of our history, like the looting of Africa, or the Opium Wars, and stop pretending our history starts and stops with WWI and WWII, we wouldn’t grow up with a vastly inflated sense of our own importance and vote to do silly things like leave the EU. We like to think we’re big damn heroes since the ‘40s, but we were still torturing people in Kenya for not wanting to be under British rule in the '50s. I understand a significant amount of this cutting back of history in education was accomplished under the previous Labour government, which while not as awful as the Iraq war, was still a crappy thing to do, if you think I’m dividing this along party lines.

The argument that without that statue and statues of other slavers, we’d all just forget that Britain was heavily involved in slavery is a false one. Nobody ever stopped to look at that statue of Edward Colston and thought, while looking up at him like a supplicant, ‘My, he was a terrible man, I’m glad this statue’s here so we can ruminate on some of the terrible things Britain got up to in the past. Well, moving on, what’s for lunch?’

Statues ain’t history, history is history, and as long as culture, honest media, libraries, museums and quality education exists, it won’t be forgotten if the statues are binned.

Fragile things.

It’s not always easy to imagine our world crumbling away before our eyes. It all seems so sturdy. Or rather, it did. It all seems a bit more fragile at the moment. When I was younger it all seemed so obvious. Racism is not a good thing. That seems obvious doesn’t it? And yet… And yet.

Whether you like to admit it or not, the primary reason we’re leaving the EU is racism. We’ve been fed the narrative that 'the other' is here to take everything we’ve got, and so we must build walls around ourselves to keep them out, not noticing for a moment that some poor folks coming over from Poland, Romania or wherever to pick fruit or work as hospital porters don’t actually take anything from us, and on balance provide more for the country in labour and taxes than they take out in benefits. And the ones feeding us this narrative are the ones in charge of the companies, newspapers and banks that divert billions that should be fed into our national coffers and hide it away offshore. But no, let’s all get angry at the fruit pickers because they speak more than one language.

But oh my is it ever worse in America. The place seems like a genuine hellscape at the moment. It’s never really been safe to be black over there, but a counterfeit $20? That’s something that requires having your neck kneeled on until you’re dead? The police force in America appear to be uncivil to murderous extremes. I’m not surprised at all that angry protests have sprung up everywhere, which has, of course, caused the police to go in hard to disperse, which has of course, caused the protests to turn violent, which allows right wing white political commentators and politicians to now blame black people, reinforcing the racist narrative.

The video evidence coming out of America at the moment showing excessive use of force against peaceful protests, stacks of bricks conveniently placed near protest sites and white fools destroying property and police cars while black protesters beg them to stop also shows that blame for the rioting cannot simply be laid at the door of black communities. You’ve got cops flashing ‘white power’ symbols, you’ve got journalists and FBI agents being arrested on the street because they’re black, you’ve got reporters being shot in the eye with rubber bullets indiscriminately, you’ve got children being pepper sprayed, you’ve got people being thrown to the ground and kicked even while doing what they are being told to do. All of it white the aggressor, black the oppressed.

Compare that to a week or two ago, where white folks protesting efforts being made to keep them alive (and oh boy both the UK and US in for a resurgence of The Virus), all angry, tooled up with guns and forcing their way into government buildings. You simply cannot look at those two extremes and tell me white people are not ridiculously privileged. Well, you can, but you’d be a liar and a racist. And possibly president.

It's almost as if a persistent pushing of the narrative that non-white people and journalists are somehow the enemy of the people and deserve to be treated violently has given the police cause to treat journalists and black people violently. Funny how that works, isn’t it?

And if you think having sympathy for journalists here doesn’t chime with me complaining about the press elsewhere, you and I both know there is a difference between a reporter on the ground trying to capture events as they happen and the billionaire offshore account holding owners of Fox News, The Daily Mail and The Telegraph.

Just stop killing black people, and stop treating them as less than people, and stop replying to #BlackLivesMatter with #AllLivesMatter because your deliberate misunderstanding of the problem just shows a severe lack of empathy. Because how can all lives matter when black lives are treated as though they don’t?

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):

Bruce Springsteen: American Skin (41 Shots): “It ain’t no secret, no secret my friend. You can get killed just for living in your American skin.”

The things I miss the most.

It’s not easy being shut away most days is it? I mean, some things are lovely. Spending time in my house or my garden when usually I’d be away from it most of the time, working to ensure I can afford it. Working from home does mean I spend a lot of time shut away in one corner of the house, but it’s not a long walk to the garden or the kettle when I need a break.

Spending all my days in the company of my wife still hasn’t gotten old, and I can’t see that it ever will. For me. Can’t speak for her. Sure my kids are testing my patience to varying degrees of extremity every day, but for at least part of every day there are good times. They do miss their friends and I’m sure the cat would rather us be gone for the day so she can sleep in peace, but generally it’s not so bad.

There are some things I’m missing though. I want to go and see people in my family that aren’t in my immediate household. And not from 2 or more metres away – I want to hug them. I want to go to the pub and spend too much money on an average meal and sip overpriced wine. I am missing interaction with colleagues at work. All of that, I’m missing about as much as I expected to, but there’s something I miss more than I thought I would: cinema.

I mean, I didn’t even go that often, and when I did it was usually to watch kids’ films; the last two times before this kicked off I went to see Sonic the Hedgehog and Pixar’s Onward. But always having the option to go if the opportunity arose; that it was there should I need it. That’s what I miss. Laughing loudly at Jumanji: The Next Level with my eldest. Being utterly transfixed by Blade Runner 2049. Watching the breathless final hour of Avengers: Endgame play out (that link contains spoilers, for info). Having my brain melted by the sheer impossibility of the stunt work of Mad Max: Fury Road. I’ve started to go further back, remembering fondly the first times watching Avatar, Lord of the Rings, Jurassic Park, Indiana Jones & The Last Crusade or (in what I think might have been my first ever cinema trip) E.T. I’m positively misty eyed at the thought of going to see Dune later this year.

This is the thing I want to come back the most of all. All hail the Picture House.

The good old days...

Worst single-day death toll in all of Europe. Seems quite possible we’re still weeks away from the peak. The people that caught The Virus from the people that went to Cheltenham and to see the Stereophonics are going to be amongst those dying in the coming weeks. It’s hard not to be freaked out and afraid. Still no sign of the mass testing and tracing that the countries successful at limiting the spread were using from the start. This isn’t going away any time soon it seems.

Seems the magic money tree did exist after all. It seems inevitable that this will cause a change in the way this and other countries are run, doesn’t it? Seems like all those important jobs like, I dunno, hedge fund speculation, can all be done at home, or even not done at all, and the ones that don’t pay enough to live on are the jobs that are actually important, doesn’t it? Seems like this minor trial run of the climate change-led catastrophe-laden future that is already underway might make folks think twice about continuing on this path, doesn’t it?

If I might offer a brief cold shower? The propaganda shat out by the press and social media trolls and bots have successfully caused us to lurch further and further to the right-wing, destroying, piece by piece, the very institutions we are all now reliant on for our lives and the lives of our loved ones. Truth means nothing. Sensationalist journalism and viral social media has made absolutely sure of that.

When the daily death toll in Italy was going up to 700, 800, 900 it was reported like the disastrous tragedy is was. It took us a couple of weeks longer to put similar (but less effective) measures in place, and now when our own death toll has exceeded Italy’s worst day, The Sun declared it really was Good Friday, focusing only on the fortunes of one man. As the Prime Minister, it’s quite an important man whether you voted for him or not to be fair, but the uplifting positivity in the face of all that potentially preventable tragedy is exactly what The Sun and papers like it do. Nearly a thousand people dead in one day, and it’s framed like a good news story.

I’m afraid, therefore, I don’t think this inevitable sea change that others see is necessarily on the cards. I’m afraid, I can see all too clearly all that’s happened being left behind for the continued quest for a Britain of the past that never really existed. It's currently 'not the time' to question or criticise apparently. But then it'll be 'why bring up the past? Move on' when questions are asked afterwards. They’ll continue to lead us ever onwards, telling us burning all of our relationships with Europe (like, I don’t know, telling them to piss off when they offered to help us source desperately-needed ventilators) will bring back the good old days.

Let’s hope I’m full of shit. Let’s hope the worst is behind us, The Virus is defeated and we actually put in place decent pay for nursing staff and think about how amazing all these places around the world look without smog and put in place all the technology that already exists and build an infrastructure that isn’t built on making people rich at the expense of, well, absolutely everything.

But let’s not kid ourselves that it’s an inevitability, because The Sun (and others) are going make damn sure we continue on our path into headlong destruction.

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 Libertines: Good Old Days: “It chars my heart to always hear you calling, calling for the good old days. ‘Cause there were no good old days.”