In the meantime, I thought I would tell another story in-between. It bears no resemblance to the outside one, but I wanted to tell it anyhow. Look, you know the score. If you didn’t, you wouldn’t have even gotten this far.

OK, so maybe I am just old, but it is the instant reaction, the ‘something must be done RIGHT NOW’ of it all. For instance, and this is from personal experience, you get people praising a company, then when some minor thing goes wrong, they are all up in arms, jumping about, demanding something be done else they take their custom elsewhere. I am all for great customer service, but these people, oh no. They take their invective to twitter, RTed by the usual suspects, appealing to Stephen Fry to hold their hands.

Subterfuge. Intrigue. You know I am a master at these, mostly because I have the patience to out-wait anyone, and win in the end. But sometimes I hear of scams, and schemes, and am so disappointed I didn’t think of them first. Flash cookies were one, but this is about recruitment, agencies, jobs going and people looking.

When did everything get to be so….aggressive? So immediate? Even the mainstream media, stories spiral outwards, and the old talking heads are replaced by @internet_bum from Chiswick. Lazy journalists, too. Though that trend has been going on a while, where commentary has replaced story-searching, and even ‘send us your pictures’ has replaced photojournalism. The BBC’s Question Time is prime example. Steve Coogan (just for example, he isn’t the only one) shouted down some politician over what he said were facts, and the audience loved it, lapped it up and clapped. He won that. But it came out later that everything he said was wrong. Totally wrong. Dangerously wrong. There wasn’t a retraction (I don’t care about that), but all anyone will remember is that some halfwit comedian bested a politician (which, again, I am all for, but not if they trot out lazy half-truths wrapped in cod scientific validity). But that sums up the Left, the Right have a different set of problems.

I posted a job advert a while back, and use that to give to agents for a job spec, to save me repeating the same mantra to different ones over and over again. I still have to, but the more clued up ones, this helps. Anyhow, we haven’t filled the post, even after many, many agents getting in touch. This story is about one of those. He got in touch. He bought me coffee, although wasn’t as pleasing on the eye as a few of the other agents I have dealt with. But he was genuine, and I liked, and still like, him. I digress. A few days later, he sent me a CV.

Twitter has given a wider voice to the malcontents, and not the good sort. Companies are now wary of hostile hashtags being used against them. (Worse are the PR companies trying to shoehorn their own hashtags in to try and gain some youff cachet. Ugh.) And Facebook is the same: ‘fifteen hundred self-righteous twats signed a page to rail against potato printing as a method of reinforcing the patriarchy’. Why has there been a rush to give instant reaction to everything? There is no consideration, people stomp their feet and expect everything to fall the way they want it. And also, when did customer service become synonymous with giving people financial compensation? Segue that into tax avoidance. Some other chinless comedian got ‘caught’ avoiding tax, and apologised. Seriously, why? I wouldn’t have. Morals? What has that got to do with it? I pay what I need to, no more, no less. Or less if I could. I am drifting here…

And it was a perfect CV. Hit all the right tech, the right history, the right outside interests, the works. So I asked the agent to hook us up, mano-a-mano, so we can see what goes down. More so as one of the companies he worked for I knew the head honcho, and could check up on him at a later date. This is an important plot point, if this was some could-have-seen-this-coming-earlier film. The chap did a tech screening before even getting to me, and all was good. Then he went AWOL, with mucho apologies from the agent. This is fine, it is holiday season, things happen. It was only a day or two. No biggie. I am in a rush to fill this job, but was willing to wait a day or two to bag this one.

And we haven’t even discussed the trolls yet, either. Nor the whole push to ‘verify who you are before commenting’ nonsense. I don’t use my real name, nor will I ever. GooglePlus let me sign up without it, and that was one of their things, wasn’t it? Or maybe I got that wrong. Whatever. Sure, hiding behind an anonymous name to leave nasty comments is cowardly, and I am not going to say ‘man up’ about it, as there is nothing nice about being crudely harassed and bullied. But it is the people, not the medium. And the tools have given rise to the self-entitled, the self-righteous, the bully, the stalker, the sorts who have always been with us, that now reach a wider audience and are listened to more by the mainstream media.

Then I got an email. The subject line was ‘CRAZY NEWS’. It is probably best I quote what was written, in the hope the agent won’t mind. I am going to send him a link to this post, as there is nothing to identify him in here, in the hope he can also laugh.So, a quick update. Turns out ASK ME FOR THE MADE UP NAME doesn’t exist. I did a quick reference check once I realised he wasn’t getting back to me, and it transpires that he doesn’t exist, and his CV is a fake one planted by another recruitment consultancy, designed on getting leads out of chumps like me. Obviously I’m incredibly embarrassed by this, as it’s a waste of yours and my time, and makes me look like a bit of a mug. What’s bizarre is that I did a technical test with the candidate over the phone, and he passed with flying colours. I might not be much of a coder, but I can usually weed out someone who’s making it up as they go along. This guy was good. I mean…really? How good a scam is that?

Wait, that wasn’t anywhere near what I wanted to say. Really, all I wanted to say is for everyone to chill the hell out, relax, life isn’t serious. There are serious issues to sort out in the world, get mad over those. Pop culture must die. No, not that. Vacuous inane celebrity emulation must die. Actually, there is probably room for that, too. People, just relax. You are getting yourselves worked up over the wrong things, thinking of them in the wrong way, coming to the wrong conclusions and just being wrong.

The thing is, I got a few cold calls from agents I hadn’t dealt with, and I just wonder which one of them pulled this scam off. It was all so well constructed. They were fishing to see what positions were going, maybe to help their own candidates. Agents have such a good reputation, while this doesn’t seal it, it makes me laugh at the tricks they pull. That takes balls.

Grief, that was a total mess, even for me, but whatever. I used to be with IT but then they changed what IT was. Now what I’m with isn’t IT, and what’s IT seems scary and weird. It’ll happen to YOU!

I just want to take your photograph

Bedoin tribes ascending
From the egg into the flower,
Alpha information sending
State within the heaven shower
From disciples the unending
Subtleties of river power
They slip inside this house as they pass by

The age isn’t the thing, but the splintering of the family unit. My eldest leaves for university in a few months, and this, more than some point in my journey towards the grave, is hitting me more. We have been a family unit for so very long now, it ends with escaping the confines of the four walls we built around them. I did it. They will do it. Unavoidable. Inevitable.

If your limbs begin dissolving
In the water that you tread
All surroundings are evolving
In the stream that clears your head
Find yourself a caravan
Like Noah must have led
And slip inside this house as you pass by.
Slip inside this house as you pass by.

The balance will be different. The atmosphere will be changed. I suppose I should reflect on how well we did raising them, but what is the point in that? It is too late for us to change their past, or mine. We did what we could, which was never going to be good enough, or what we wanted to do. Time, money, the usual excuses. But we tried. Would I do things differently? Of course. I did them that way, and given the chance again, why not try something else?

True conception, knowing why
Brings even more than meets the eye
Slip inside this house as you pass by.

Our priorities were always the children, so it was a life lived for them, forgoing the holidays, the boozing, everything to make their life as best we could. Me, I forget, a life in service, but only I know that. Somewhere between all the theologies there is Truth. My truth, yours might, will, does, vary. And I am still, despite the years, always happy to sit somewhere and discuss this with you, gesticulate wildly, laugh, contradict myself, infuriate you but mostly just get to you realise I am right. And if you don’t realise it now, well, I have endless patience. You’ll catch up eventually.

In this dark we call creation
We can be and feel and know
From an effort, comfort station
That’s surviving on the go
There’s infinite survival in
The high baptismal glow.
Slip inside this house as you pass by.

People kept saying we should save for this, get a pension, buy this, go there. But we couldn’t. Have you ever lived whereby you have nothing left over? Where car breakdowns, house emergencies, whatnot, are dreaded as you can’t afford them to happen? Month to month? You can have your takeaways every week, we played boardgames we still had from our formative years. We traipsed through forests, fished by rivers, read together, played together, stayed together. I have been a father to my children way longer than mine was to me.

There is no season when you are grown
You are always risen from the seeds you’ve sown
There is no reason to rise alone
Other stories given have sages of their own.

Was it hard? Maybe. But fun is had in other ways, and I hope I gave my children some sense of wonder, of searching, laughing, thinking, trying. If not the finances to do other than bits and pieces. Should I have done this? Should I have done that? Irrelevant, too late now. Yes, I still hold sway over some parts of their lives, I have to, I am one of their parents, but they grow, up and hopefully not apart.

Live where your heart can be given
And your life starts to unfold
In the forms you envision
In this dream that’s ages old
On the river layer is the only sayer
You receive all you can hold
Like you’ve been told.

So this supposed waypoint in my life, where am I? Does it matter? I achieved stuff before, I’ll achieve stuff again. All stuff. Nothing to do with paid employ, either, that isn’t what I do. That is what keeps the roof over our heads, without the leeway to have gadgets and toys galore. I’ll achieve stuff that isn’t work, there are always schemes going on in my head, my shed and the world is a huge place, with plenty to explore. And learn. Got to keep learning, delving, evolving.

Every day’s another dawning
Give the morning winds a chance
Always catch your thunder yawning
Lift your mind into the dance
Sweep the shadows from your awning
Shrink the fourfold circumstance
That lies outside this house don’t pass it by.

Life is more than work, than gadgets. Reading quite a few neuroscience tomes recently (starting with the light, but ace, Lone Frank stuff, moving up to more abstract journals and some ludicrously wonderful nutjob email exchanges. I love the nutjobs, they always seem to talk to me.) It seems the world is realising what I have been saying for years. Winning the lottery (or inheriting a wad of cash) won’t make you happier. But I have been happy with my family for so very long now, the money would just give us a different comfort. But what happens when my eldest goes? I hope he thrives, is happy, but remembers. I am sure he will, I know he will. It won’t be easy, given he will not have his mother to pick up after him, but he’ll get by. I do hope he remembers.

Higher worlds that you uncover
Light the path you want to roam
You compare there and discover
You won’t need a shell of foam
Twice born gypsies care and keep
The nowhere of their former home
They slip inside this house as they pass by.
Slip inside this house as you pass by..

Remembers. I wonder what legacy I have given him, if any? Worthwhile? Pointless? Irrelevant? We don’t choose our children, they choose us. Did they make the right choice? And what when the next one leaves, then my only little girl? What is left? Well, something more than that which started it, as neither I nor Κασσάνδρα are the same people, if we ever were. If your children turn out well, you congratulate nature and nurture, if they don’t, you blame nature. You only get the one chance, I used it in my way. The way I was at the time.

You think you can’t, you wish you could
I know you can, I wish you would
Slip inside this house as you pass by

Is that more to the point? Rather than some life-beginning age, my work is done, or finishing. The only meaning of life is more life. And I fret about the legacy I have given them, if it is enough, too much, wrong-headed or any other thing. How they will think of me when they are older, how they will relate. (All this is, as ever, about me. I am not ignoring Κασσάνδρα, how could I, but this is different.) Or part of my life is done, and altering, morphing into something else. Another unknown, and what to make of it. I don’t know, as always, I’ll wing it. All teeth and charm.

Four and twenty birds of Maya
Baked into an atom you
Polarized into existence
Magnet heart from red to blue
To such extent the realm of dark
Within the picture it seems true
But slip inside this house and then decide..

I tend not to use my past for anything other than amusing anecdotes, as it has gone, and can’t be altered. Imprinting a child is different, too. I fret more over the mistakes, missed chances, direction I went with them than anything else. Not a regret, regret is pointless and wasteful, but a wistful musing on what might have/could have/should have been, given me not being me, not being broke, not being here.

All your lightning waits inside you
Travel it along your spine
Seven stars receive your visit
Seven seals remain divine
Seven churches filled with spirit,
Treasure from the angels’ mine
Slip inside this house as you pass by.
Slip inside this house as you pass by.

Though I am fiercely proud of my children, they are all fantastic. Happy (most of the time), clever (most of the time), fun, playful, engaging and balanced. I wonder what my mother made of me? When I left, when I was young, now. But what of myself? In my time on this planet, what have I done? Does it matter? Not in the slightest, my happiness is not dependent on producing some great theorem, some grand piece of literature, much as that would be great. My happiness is wrapped up with my original girl, my progeny, me. Everything else is ancillary. Everything. Sure, the ancillary stuff makes life easier, but it is still only an addition.

The space you make has your own laws
No longer human gods are cause
The center of this house will never die.

Time and life have both moved on without me, my children reach for their own lives. The world is a different place from when I started, I am not even in the same place. Proust was right, though there are other redemptive routes than his. But they converge. Crikey, this is even more obscurely rambling that I intended, the hidden meanings slightly more oblique than usual. Not that there has been a usual, my original (1999!) days of writing weblog posts at a rate have gone. Everything changes, when you think about it.

There is no season when you are grown
You are always risen from the seeds you’ve sown
There is no reason to rise alone
Other stories given have sages of their own.

So I do somewhat feel that my life is over, and something is starting again. It won’t totally start until my lil girl has left home, and then what happens? Do I need to get to know Κασσάνδρα again, in a context we left behind eighteen years ago? Then again, everyday is a new one, something else to read, to plan, to plot, the same people, new people, different conversations.

Draw from the well of unchanging
Its union nourishes on
In the right re-arranging
Till the last confusion is gone
Water-brothers trust in the ultimust
Of the always singing song they pass along.

I did, however, manage to get a black belt and run a half-marathon before I reached this age. Which other people have done earlier, and still more later. What of it? My yardsticks are different. My life meandered along, and meanders still. I can ruminate on all those things I never did, and won’t now. All the things I couldn’t do before, and can now. What happens next? Who knows, but the spiral of the past few years needs to change. Was that coincidental with my age? Doubtful, but there is a calling in the air, and sure hasn’t there always been?

One-eyed men aren’t really reigning
They just march in place until
Two-eyed men with mystery training
Finally feel the power fill
Three-eyed men are not complaining.
They can yo-yo where they will
They slip inside this house as they pass by.
Don’t pass it by.

Another year, another weblog post, same angst and spiralling way of thinking, writing, and speaking. Nothing changes but everything. Life. Don’t pass it by.

One day I’ll ask

Not many years later, we moved from the ever-present helicopters overhead to the country. A different arena, not one that lent itself (nor still does) to anything other than staunch conservatism. I remember the pickets when they opened the swimming pool on a Sunday, and that was well into the late 80s. Or the (successful) ban-this-sick-Satanic-filth-from-our town movement, to stop some band from playing. It was ELO. I laughed.

I laughed as my mother brought me up on music, playing me the Beatles, Bowie, Bolan, Cream, Pink Floyd and the like. (I don’t remember hearing any Stones, so not sure she was in to them. I should ask her.) So I have always listened to music, and fell in with the chick who worked in the record shop in the next town along, as we didn’t have one. She would order me in stuff I asked for, the one copy to sneak into this buckle in the Bible belt. I bought the NME every Thursday, as it took an extra day to reach the colony. So I was aware of the achingly hip skinny white blokes with guitars. For we are now sitting solidly in the mid-80s.

I even remember having my vinyl Dead Kennedys confiscated from me in school, to be given back to me at the end of the day. But that was later. I want to stick to the mid-80s. This area I lived in was pretty much a denim-and-bubble perm metal place. Which might, if you know me, make you realise why I (still) don’t like metal. As every one else loved it. Yes, I recall being told, while it being spun in a friend’s bedroom, that ‘Holy Diver’ was the pinnacle of music.

So here was me, a confused proto-indie kid in a backward, bigoted, discriminatory country, struggling to get the music he wanted. A few trips on the bus to the Big Smoke, and sure, there was more choice, and I brought new stuff back, but even so, it was all of an 80s English variety.

Let’s keep on ignoring chronology here, and leap around. Next you’ll find me in London, on my way to France, stopping at some motorway cafe. It was summer, bright, and my accent was woeful. Norn Iron accents really don’t travel too well. I don’t think anyone has ever called me backward, but there were quite a few raised eyebrows when me, on seeing, and hearing, some commotion on the grass wandered over. Poor little country mouse me, sauntering over to a group of urban, sophisticated, street-wise black girls, with ghetto blaster and attitude. I probably only caught every other word they said to me, and they even less of mine. But I wasn’t interested in flirting with them, I only wanted to know about the music. Sure, I had heard some of the more commercial hip-hop, but nothing as…raw as what they were listening to. It was, before I knew the term, a mix-tape.

Amid them laughing at me, not with me, as I was very much out of my depth, with no cultural context between us, I got to find out what the music was. As it turns out, they weren’t English, but American, Valley girls, and found me somewhat an odd proposition. As I amn’t English either. The outcome was they gave me one of their mix-tapes, all brutal (though it is probably all quite tame now) hip-hop, rap and beats.

That ended well, they ended up laughing with me, rather than at me. I think as I was paying no attention to any social norms they understood. As there was, in childish hand, the names of the groups on the inside of the tape, I was able, when getting home, to special order some of these, which annoyed many of my friends, for they didn’t understand the music at all. (If I were unkind, I had several friends whose musical tastes could only be described as ‘old’. Irish country music old.)

Let’s leap around the time lines a bit more, too. Let’s jump to the first night I moved to England, for my student years. I had arrived a week or so before term, for no other reason than the room was empty and they let me. And what does a boy do, on his own, first night in a new country, starting a new life? Sure, head in to town to see the big lights. But before I got there, I bumped in to a chap. Huge chap. Big shoulders, all baseball hightops and gang colours. With a ghetto blaster, pumping out a few tunes. Old tunes, five years old by that time.

It would have been remiss of me not to stop him, and chat about the excellence of the music. This….took him aback. But hell, what he was playing was what I had been given by the American chicks years before, and even though it was (relatively) obscure, the shock of a white bloke knowing it, and worse/better, a white bloke from the depths of a country stuck in the 1950s, didn’t stop him talking to me. Never saw him again, but for a few minutes, totally different cultures combined in the love of music. A cultural musical movement that really I have no claim to, other than in the general underdog way. My life experiences were different from theirs. But there is no hierarchy of victims

That encounter was also the first time I ever was bro-fisted, too. He showed me how, the follow up. It was a fine meeting, and a great way to start my English journey.

These days, of course, life isn’t any simpler, but it is easier to find out about trends on the other side of the world. But that makes it sound like I am trying to be a hipster, and I certainly amn’t. Does it tell me anything about the world, races mixing, music, life, or anything? God no, just a story from my bank of stories, a story from someone who doesn’t know better, and will generally talk to anyone. There doesn’t have to be a point. Live life, people, just live.

I am not sure what the point of this post was, I certainly amn’t bragging about being ahead of the curve, just also slightly round the corner from the mainstream. Which, given where I come from, was a bit more difficult.

What I can’t get

I would say I’m sorry
If I thought that it would change your mind
But I know that this time
I have said too much
Been too unkind

I have always been surrounded by pedants, always. These days, on that there intertubes thing, they get the epithet Nazi. You know all the usual variants: grammar-, code-, bus-, and on and on and on. I am not going to say the programming community has more of them than any other, as that would make me some sort of community Nazi, and some sort of elitist, but it doesn’t. (And I don’t mind the latter label there, as long as I get the chance to expound on that. What you mean by it and what I mean by it may differ. Everything comes down to cultural contextivity.)

I try to laugh about it
Cover it all up with lies
I try and laugh about it
Hiding the tears in my eyes
Because boys don’t cry
Boys don’t cry

And you know what? It doesn’t matter. If you get an apostrophe wrong here or there, what odds? Yes, good grammar is great, but you know something else? Their English is better than my Polish, their writing is more understandable than your haughty mannerisms. For you and your vapid friends to stand around and tut, laugh, and ridicule others is, well, odious. CD’s for sale? I know, you know, we all know what message they were trying to get across. And they did. So for you to belittle someone really just makes you that bit less tolerable. Oh, if only we all had your level of education, wouldn’t the world just be a better place?

I would break down at your feet
And beg forgiveness
Plead with you
But I know that it’s too late
And now there’s nothing I can do

But that is only tangential to why I wrote this. During my usual sparring session (literal, not verbal), a piece of music was playing, to which the chap beside me said ‘wow, that is a bit old skool’. I smiled, nodded, and said, yeah, I always thought it an odd choice of sample, but worked reasonably well. He looked at me oddly, so to save me a few sentences here, I explained it was originally from ‘Valerie’ by Stevie Winwood. (The tune also has an interesting video, of almost Benny Benassi proportions.)

So I try to laugh about it
Cover it all up with lies
I try to laugh about it
Hiding the tears in my eyes
Because boys don’t cry

Which reminded me of an argument I got into a while ago, of someone complaining their children were amazed that ‘some old dudes were doing those songs from Glee’. He was agog at this. When I wondered why this mattered, he was furious. I asked if he ever played those old dudes’ versions to his kids, and he said maybe, when they were very little. So how were they supposed to know they were covers? Sure, older types might realise Glee was built on covers (I think…I have never seen it, I am going on inferred intelligence here), but what of just standard chart hits these days that are covers? Would they know? Would you expect them to know? I wouldn’t. Would you expect them to hear a song, like it, then head to their favourite search engine to see who did it originally? Maybe they might find out it was originally recorded by someone else, maybe not.

I would tell you
That I loved you
If I thought that you would stay
But I know that it’s no use
That you’ve already
Gone away

But the sneering, superior sorts on the internet sneer in their superior way. ‘Look at those ignorant dullards, they can’t even tell that that was originally sang by insert some group that probably broke up before they were born here’. It doesn’t matter if it is grammar, or music, there is a constant, belligerent, sneering, and looking down the nose at people. And that always annoys me. Sure, I don’t make concessions when I am in agruments with my peers, but there is a way and a means in different situations. And to belittle people because you had the good fortune to have the genetic capability to retain a set of rules, well, good for you, but not everyone can.

Misjudged your limit
Pushed you too far
Took you for granted
I thought that you needed me more

A little civility, people. So others on the internet know less that you. Good for you to point it out to them. But someone doesn’t know how to use a comma? Don’t laugh, deriding their maternal line. Some never heard an original T-Rex song twenty years before they were born? Don’t deirde this generation for not knowing ‘good’ music. When all is scored and settled, it really, really doesn’t matter.

Now I would do most anything
To get you back by my side
But I just keep on laughing
Hiding the tears in my eyes
Because boys don’t cry
Boys don’t cry
Boys don’t cry

Just chill people. Your misplaced vitriol amounts to nothing. Educate if you must, but don’t fuss over it. No need to get your kicks by planting your size tens on their neck. Relax. Life is short, don’t make it harder for others to have any sense of self-worth. Just be excellent to one another.

What I can’t ask

Unlock my love
And set me free.
Come fill me up
With ecstasy.

That man and I have had the same, but different, conversation over and over since then, in different ways, in different bars, on different continents. He left for sandier shores not so long ago, but I’ll email him, and recommend he read Alain de Botton’s latest book, Religion for Atheists. That isn’t to say this is a tome to convert atheists, but rather a look at the crutches, supports, institutions and rituals have helped the faiths survive many different onslaughts. From the industrial revolution, to the Englightenment, to the Soviet empire.

Surround my heartbeat
with your fingertips.
Unbound my feet.
Untie my wrists.

I am not an atheist. Of all the positions to take, that one seems the most insane. It is easy for the science-knows-all brigade to froth at the mouth, point and laugh at the more degenerate of the fundies, but then again, I would take issues with them as well. I do feel quite sorry for those who refuse transcendance, those who try to deny anything above and beyond themselves. I have seen the shadows the mountains of the moon leave on her surface, I have watched solar flares uncoil from the life-giving sun, I have shown my wife the heart of Andromeda. And the universe is vast place. And we are at its centre. Why do scientists shy away from the anthropic principle, and find it distasteful?

Come into my world
Of loneliness,
And wickedness,
And bitterness.

But the faith of the fundies, the religion of the crazies, doesn’t interest me in the way it does them. It interests me in different ways, but that is for a different post, I was trying to make this a review of a book. And there is much to commend it, to atheists, agnostics and the faithful alike. Unlike much of the arguments I have heard Dawkins come out with (he could talk endless truth, and I would still dislike him, irrationally due to his overtly smug demeanour, that cloying middleclass English superiority), Dr de Botton at least notionally, if somewhat implicitly, realises a lot of it is culturally contextual, and doesn’t couch the argument is simplistic post-Enlightenment Western European Christian terms.

Unlock my love.

And in my trying to explain some of my wonder to my erstwhile verbal sparring partner, de Botton comes closest in what I try to get across. Not quite there yet (and given it is a book from an atheist’s point of view, I wouldn’t expect it to), but it does get close. And makes me think I should try to write the book I mean here, a sweep of theology from East to West (but mostly East shakes fist at Humbert), the philosophy that came before and after, the geography that shaped both and the science that never replaced them. Man will always look to beyond himself, and that is a good thing. Me writing a book, probably not so much a good thing.

Unsuffer me.
Take away the pain.
Unbruise,unbloody.
Wash away the stain.

I have always like de Botton’s writing style, ever since I first read ‘Status Anxiety’ many years ago. (Which, incidently, I bought for Κασάνδρα but she never read it, so I did.) I don’t know if it is his age, my age, his background, my context, but he has always resonated. Making me realise the whirl of thoughts that should never get vocalised aren’t unique to me. And ‘Religion for Atheists’ vocalises a train of thought, albeit on different tracks, from mine. Telling perhaps that this isn’t called ‘The Consolation of Religion’, or ‘The Sorrows of the Faithful’ or somesuch. I guess that wouldn’t get noticed by the congregation of the Dawkins Disciples.

Anoint my head
With your sweet kiss.
My joy is dead.
I long for bliss.

Even at that, there isn’t much I would disagree with. The concept of secular ‘temples’, places for people to connect (with art, each other, the world) seems sensible. Ignoring all that religion has done for the world, rejecting and ejecting it, isn’t just stupid, it it blinkered, crass and shows a disregard and misunderstanding of great swathes of history. And that is what de Botton does, he does’t jettison it, he takes what religions know, the reinforcement of ideas, the bonding (though I am hesitant to agree with his rendering of ἀγάπη, but that is me just being interested in how words transform, and how people say the same thing, but talk cross purposes, which most of the religion/science debate seems to do) the overall good and distills that for everyone.

I long for knowledge
Whispered in my ear.
Undo my logic.
Undo my fear.

Of course, my training is as a physicist, and this rankles with some whenever I have the religion/science debate. As I tend not to play that card at all, it is funny watching people make their assumptions, and worse, presuming from the off that I am stupid. de Botton never makes that mistake, he doesn’t talk down or around. There is no ambiguity to his position as an atheist, but this book isn’t exclusive. I didn’t feel the need to hurl it across the train at my fellow commuters (apart from that one guy, THAT ONE GUY, but he deserves to be smacked in the face for his poor taste in both literature and newspapers) and indeed, it was an annoyance to get to Liverpool Street and have to stop. Which isn’t quite the same as saying it was un-put-down-able, but reading it was like having a good discussion with a clever friend, you might not agree with everything he is saying, but it is great to hear, respond and build upon.

Unsuffer me.

It is a light read, but not fluff. I can’t imagine all those atheists I know will enjoy it, as it is more philosophical that polemical. It isn’t a knockout blow against religion, but it isn’t meant to be. It starts from a later point than that, presupposing religion is false, and doesn’t feel the need, thank goodness, to try to defend its viewpoint. And it is all the better for that. I can also imagine even me stating I am not an atheist will have meant quite a few will look at me a bit odder than normal. But don’t worry, I am still working through what everything means myself.

Unlock my love
And set me free.
Come fill me up
With ecstasy.

I think that is the underlying, and understated genius of it. It isn’t trying to promote some agenda, it isn’t trying to understand religion. It is trying to make our lives better, using tried and tested techniques pioneered by religions. It isn’t trying to make atheists religious. And I can see why there is vitriol against him for this book, because those vitriolic people are closed-minds, and refuse anything to do with faith at all. There is a universality about wanting to help others, to see beyond what we are, whether it is through art, in a temple, via instructions and rules. People need what religions offers, and de Botton makes his case for what people need from religion without religion well.

Unsuffer me.
Take away the pain.
Unbruise,unbloody.
Wash away the stain.

Could I pick holes in some of his arguments? I am not sure I would want to. To do so seems to me to deny being human. And, coincidently, I endorse his ‘what is education for?’ sections too, given as they somewhat overlap, ish, with what I was saying not so long ago. Which I wrote before I read his book, and which thought I haven’t quite finished with, which again straddles some of de Botton’s points in previous works. Sort of. It is also interesting looking at it within the sequence of books I read around it. Books on the history of debt, the history of the city, several shorter Runciman works, the hermitic influences on science and a lightweight theological digression of dubious baseness. All of those strands feed in to what de Botton says, and I do think there is more to be taken from religion to make secular life better. I wasn’t expecting him to cross continents, but he did, albeit briefly. Mostly as culture context, and the hows and whys of peoples’ thinking interests me.

Surround my heartbeat
with your fingertips.
Unbound my feet.
Untie my wrists.

As per usual, none of this has come out the way I wanted it to, but I always just let it go. It is fodder for pub debates, for sitting around in our front room fencing with ideas, for sitting around in others’ front rooms circling each other while I learn. As it all just helps me learn, and that is what I want. The Socratic method, dude. Dust. Wind. Princesses. I had wanted this to be a review, not another insight into the scrambled workings of my head. Just buy the book, and see what you think. If you are an atheist, run with it, get past your scoffing mockery and realise that the concepts he is talking about bring comfort to millions, if not billions. If you are one of the faithful, run with it, get past your dogma to realise that the concepts he is talking about can be abstracted and bring comfort to millions more.

Come into my world
Of loneliness,
And wickedness,
And bitterness.

Dawkins is missing a trick if he ignores the thrust of de Botton’s book. (I know some of his followers have decried it already, in shrill and irritating ways, but again, they miss the point, and there is a good point in there.) People need more than to be told there is nothing more than this. And if there is nothing more than this, they need support through it all, and de Botton’s blueprint, copying the tried-and-tested ways from religions, is a better bet than an atomised lifestyle.

Anoint my head
With your sweet kiss.
My joy is dead.
I long for bliss.

I would love to meet him in the Ἁγία Σοφία to discuss the philosophy of Proust and the Moomins, to have a beer with him and chatter about the nature of physics and our place in the world in some Andalucian chapel . And if he wants me to take photographs during his travels for his next book, I am available, though not cheap. As really, he needs better pictures, he always has.

I long for knowledge
Whispered in my ear.
Undo my logic.
Undo my fear.

Not a book to convert, but to listen to. Not a book to steamroller you, but to point out to others that which some take for granted. I am not an atheist, and I enjoyed it.

Unsuffer me.

I know why you don’t

Recently, I have been traipsing round universities with my eldest male child. Now, parsing that confuses me on many levels, the most obvious one being how did I get to the stage where I have a child who is anywhere near old enough to be thinking about this, meaning leaving home within the next six months or so. Invariably, one of the aspects all of them have focussed on has been benefits of their course and college on the future employablity of the student.

Nothing majorly untoward about that. I can wrap my scarf around my face, over my nose, and the ends still reach to my stomach, meaning I get maximum benefit. And then pulling my hoodie’s hood (hence the name, the hood part of it gives it away) over my head, means the scarf over my nose and mouth stays in place. All snuggled up, toastie warm, out of the carriage and down the platform I go.

This merely feeds in to something I have been considering for a while now, and I still get to wonder why I am so orthogonal to the perceived wisdom of the Age. What is the point of education? To enable you to be able to spend the next forty (or more) years of your life in the same arena? In order to top-load what I want to say (yeah, top-loading four paragraphs in, though only two in the non-italiacised sequence), I don’t believe in any way that the point of education is for it to be useful to your job prospects. (Now wait, I don’t wish to pepper this with caveats, what if someone isn’t academic, what if…this isn’t aimed at answering those questions. Live with it.) I will restate that: Time spent in education shouldn’t be forced to apply to the rest of your life. Use it in the rest of your life, or not.

At the barriers, it depends what sort of mood I am in whether I put my card in the machines, or just show it to the person on the gates to let me walk through. Paranoia never sleeps, and even though both the train operator (and the Gubbmint) have assured me the gates only let you through, and no journey-recording shennanigans are going on, I don’t believe them. If it were me, I would be recording all that stuff. Think of what you could do with all that data. But if they were recording it, the full force of my vitriol would be aimed towards them. For great justice.

You study to further yourself, to see what you are capable of, not the narrow-focussed grind you do to give you the resources to be what you want to be. You are not defined by what you do to get money to feed your family, you are more than that. When I am asked ‘what do you do?’, my usual response is ‘I am a husband, a father, a physicist, a photographer, a philosopher, a low-tech engineer, a high-tech fiddler, a theologian, a musician, a fighter, a runner. Oh, you meant what do I do to fund all that?)’)

Why would I study for any other reason? (Why do I still study, other than for that exact reason?) Your life outside of education is longer than that in it, and what you do end up being employed to do can, should, will, might bear no relation to those years in the books. But you will take it with you forever. Why spoil the whole experience with constant reminders that once you are set free, you will be shackled for a longer time in the daily grind.

At the barriers, then, preparing myself to sidle through (carrying my camera and all lenses with me at all times me I do need to sidle, no wide-load jokes, please), I was taken aback by someone addressing me. This is London, no one does that. Yes, I address people, but usually only because they need correcting on some point of theology or other. Wait, there is hi-vis involved in this, the signal of petty officaldom. Woop, woop, it was the sound of a police.

For years I have held interviews, and I work on the principle that it doesn’t matter what your background is. Be that education, personal, experience. If you come across well, have that elusive ‘spark’, and will be a cultural fit and get on with everyone, that counts for lots more. If you have that, chances are you can pick whatever you need up. And my working life has been like that, I have meandered amongst many different areas, none of which I was prepared for before I got there. It interested me, I applied, got the job. (I should say I do a good interview, if I am in the mood. Feel free to get in touch. Oh, you already have, and I turned several down, but that won’t go on much longer, though those are different stories.)

‘Where are you going?’ he asked. Well, see, the thing is, you shouldn’t take me by surprise. In any way. bosh Backfist to the head. But control means I stop short, having just seen it is you. Back to the police, though. ‘Where are you going?’ he asked. Only once, I am repeating it for literary effect.

So why the constant reinforcement of preparing for (working) life? Just like the ‘economy’ must always show growth. The older I get, the less and less I understand why the engine of the Western world is obsessed with this. Growth isn’t synonymous with progress, and progress isn’t synonymous with greed, and greed isn’t always good. This is not some hippy manifesto, I am not advocating we all move to Όρος Άθως (just me, maybe) and contemplate the universe, as much as I dislike trinkets, I do like a trinket. But I like my trinket to last, and as long as it is useful to me, it lasts. And my education has lasted with me, me now being out of education longer than I was in it.

I glanced up at him, my head at its usual he-is-thinking angle. ‘Interesting question, you know, I don’t really know. I have been asking myself that for a while. I have always drifted, not in any direction. Having said that, I am not sure I, or anyone, in the sense you mean, needs a direction…’

Why are we hung up on priming our children for being fed into the working world? There is more to get out of study than having the ‘skills to prove to an employer you should be hired’. Study for fun, study to expand yourself. Sure, if it helps you to get a job, that is a bonus. If you want to continue work in that field, then sure, a good idea. But why make it a focus? Are we all that shallow now that nothing else matters? Where is the surprise in life, the finding the nooks and crannys you didn’t know where there? Drifting isn’t aimless, or pointless. But why does anything need a point?

My response was cut if not short, pulled up, although not in any rude way, as the peeler laughed, looked at me again. ‘You have come down on the Cambridge train, right?’, smiled, and beckoned me on through, leaving me once again pondering on the meaning of direction, progress, growth, and why these are so important to post-Enlightenment Western culture.

It doesn’t help, though

But it stopped. Somewhat forced, somewhat my normal just cascading around without a plan. And I have never had a plan. And worse, that worried me. But better, I no longer feel the need to even have a plan.

Let me start all that again, I am way ahead in my head, and that didn’t make sense. It won’t make sense after I have finished here, but roll with it. If you have read anything I have written before, and are still reading at this point, you know what you are going to get. This will be written in one session, no stopping, no thinking. Maybe some spelling fixes, but I usually retrofit those when I see these words on the old weblog, in published form. Or imagine we are in a pub and you have, once again, successfully trolled me into giving an animated lecture. That sort of deal-io. Deal-io? Gotta stay ahead of those cats, man. Smoooooth.

Western society, since forever, and if I wanted to use the example of those damned Franks, it would still work, has been a growth and progress driven place. The mentality of more! bigger! better! is in the blood, always has been, always will be. It never sat totally well with me, even though I am still a degenerate anarcho-capitalist libertarian at heart. Or a piece of my heart is that, anyhow. Everyone needs to get their education, to get their better job, to get their better wife, to get their better house, to trade that house up to a bigger house, to make more money, to work more, to work harder, to…to what end?

I wasn’t completely caught up in it, mostly as I never had a plan. Sure, I got my education, and fell in to work. And ended up here. My CV is a progress, but not in a single industry. Each job tended to be somewhat…orthogonal to the last. (If you are unaware, I do a good interview.) I have blagged and charmed my way, but that was somewhat of a separate part of me. Given I have never been totally unhappy in employment, I could tick along, and when I started to feel uncreative, I moved on. And move on I did.

But moving up the pay scale does something different. I still didn’t get entangled in the rat race, but it started to wear on me. I wasn’t unhappy…just blocked. Feeling uncreative, obstructed, and unable to listen to the universe. A chance came up, and I jumped free. Reasonably bold step, as I still have the wife, the children, the two cars, the house. But I still have all them.

What I have gained in return for the jump is myself. I, of course, was employed within a few days, but it is different. I make less money. And this doesn’t bother me. I can still live, do all the things I used to do, and more. There are plenty of cliches for this, and I am only now finding out what everyone else knows. And I knew. I just got distracted for a while.

My main reason in life is the same, to provide first and foremost for my family. But the family unit needs to be a unit, and I feel I have missed some of it. Work isn’t everything, it isn’t even anything. A means to get money to keep a roof over our heads. Alas it needs to be of a certain renumeration to keep me here, but even so. Even so. I have never had money, never will. It doesn’t matter. You can’t take it with you, nor can you take your certificates, nor your progress. So why do we constantly strive upwards? We don’t need to. We need to be happy.

And I am, once again, almost happy.

That didn’t come out the way I wanted it to. I was tempted by a diatribe against materialism, but that isn’t what I wanted. If you want to gather, you gather. I was also tempted by an almost anti-progress (in the Enlightenment sense of the term) theory, but that isn’t what I wanted either, for I am interested in the pursuit of science. But I don’t think either of those matter. Attaining wealth or attaining knowledge, personally or culturally. What matters is your soul, being happy with yourself.

Now it is all going a bit too New Age and hippy like, which is definitely not what I wanted. Wend you path, but remember yourself. I had forgotten myself. And it took the removal from the invidious rat race (that I didn’t even know I was in) to make me remember.

I still don’t have a plan, I don’t care where my career goes. I just need to be happy, and with my family. I should probably remind them of that, too. Κασσάνδρα and I have been together for a long time, and while I know I drive her mad, and sometimes it does coast along in habit, when it is out of habit I am happiest. We remember, but look forward. And that is my only plan, the one where my family is happy, I have room to think and I can listen to the whispers in my ear. When was the last time I even considered ספר רזיאל המלאך?

The laughter of friends over a few dollars more? For sure. The conversation and wit of my children over reading work email in the evening? Always. Trying to soar above the domestic, the unavoidable intricacies of everyday life with my wife? Maybe, for we still need to make sure the daily grind is ground. But there is always more around it, and I want to make sure there is. I have a few committments I need to finish off, that keep me somewhat occupied some evenings, but I can see an end to those. My youngest wants me to show her the stars, so I save for a new telescope. Save, not credit. I still have outstanding debts, and if I could get rid of some of those, I could survive on less money, and be more creative. Or not, who knows? Not me, I am running an experiment here. I might update this with the progress, or better yet, come talk to me. I haven’t seen you in ages.

You know I could sum all that up with one word, balance. But even that isn’t what I mean. I want to tip the scales, and I have started to. To tip them towards me. What? You all already knew this? Why didn’t you tell me earlier? What? I am a thran bugger would never listens? Ack, sure I get there in the end. Just make sure you do, too.

I can hear again

How did I explain it? One was slow-moving breathe-and-muscle patterns, the other was kicking and punching and fighting. Of all my three offspring, only one showed an interest, and that interest wasn’t in the slow-moving breathe-and-muscle patterns one. In case you haven’t got it from my description, the ignored one was Tai Chi.

The other, as it happened, was Tae Kwondo. So second male child and I went along to our first lesson, which was the second of the just-opened TKD school. We missed very first one, if I recall correctly. But hit most of them since then. But I am getting ahead of myself.

You see, the thing is, I am not by any definition a natural at this sort of thing. Sure, I could play squash, I used to, decades ago, run, but this was different. Not only hand-eye coordination, but hand-foot coordination, and hand-hand-foot-foot coordination. But I, and second male child, enjoyed it, we really did. One class a week, all good fun. As ever the bumbling hacker stumbling along.

A few belt gradings on, still there, despite Κασσάνδρα thinking I wouldn’t last. I mean, me, of all people, having to bow, take instruction, all the usual things that, well, I am not very good at. But you watch the seniors, your instructor, and you give them respect, because, well, they deserve it. They earned it.

And after these few belt gradings, we started to do the workout and sparring class. Now that wasn’t easy. It still isn’t, but that is I always push myself further. Sparring. Actual contact fighting. Light contact mind, but even so. And the hardest part of that? I am not sure how to explain it, perhaps getting over the embarassment of it. Of moving. Whatever social constructs I had in my head, abandoning them. Moving. Got. To. Move.

And still we enjoyed it. The work and sparring adds another dimension to the traditional, classwork of patterns, linework and the like. And I got stronger. And I got fitter. And my stamina increased more and more. (Still haven’t got rid of the belly, godammit, but am lighter than I have been in years. And when Κασσάνδρα decided to take up running again, and I joined in after she had done a month, I could even do that. Easily. This….surprised me.)

A few more belt gradings on, and of the twenty-four odd who started with me, there were maybe half a dozen left. New people replaced them, time goes on, a few more originals leave. At this point, there are three of us there from the start. Myself, my second son, and another boy from his school. And we are progressing. I can see progress in myself.

But I am still, and won’t ever, be a natural at it. These days, I do four classes a week, and have to work hard at everything. Absolutely everything. Sure, I am faster, but not fast enough. Sure, I can stretch, but my box stretch is not 180°, and likely won’t ever be. But I push it, I keep trying. But I watch the others, who are naturals, and marvel at what they can do, and am happy for them and their awesomeness. I bumble onwards.

And eventually, as happens, I ran out of colour belts, and was up for my black belt. Now, I have to re-read that myself. Me. Up for a black belt. Me. ME. Each belt is a sign of progress, and to me, that is the sign of ultimate progress. Standards are high, very high, in the schools I train in. My instructor, the chief instructor, the new(er) instructors are all fantastic. I also wouldn’t want to let them done. Nor myself, but even so, all said and done, it is still just me.

As I type this, I have heard, earlier on, that I passed my black belt grading. I passed it. That makes me unbelievably pleased. I did, also, get a Distinction in my grading. 86%. I shall have to spell that out in case you missed it. EIGHTY SIX PERCENT. Me. I am…so very, very happy. But even so, in the coming times, I will still have to work at it. And never stop, running faster to even keep up with the walking pace of the others.

But I made it. It was a long time, and that long time taught me that if you want something, time is what it takes. I am, as I said, lighter. And I see all these diets promising weight loss quickly. And I scoff, as take it easy, a slow, steady downward pace. Build it up, work for it. Take you time.

Perseverance. One of the tenets of Tae Kwondo. Tae Kwondo. Of which martial art, unbelievably to me, I am a black belt.

And I give my thanks to all my instructors, in particular Mr Smith, whose class I started in, and who has trained me all the way to my black belt. To Mr Lapthorn, whose exacting standards we all have to live up to, and always fall short. Or I do. To all the students, gone, new and old, my thanks for the fun we have had, and the more we will have, and the friendships forged.

But me. I am a black belt now. And I am proud of myself for getting here. I still can’t quite believe it. How did that happen then?

I know I won’t ever get it from there

There have been many landmark records over the years, but for this post, I am only going to consider that oft-imitated, oft-derided, oft-celebrated decade, the 80s. Overblown hair-metal, dandy fops, depressed teenagers wearing black, throw-away pop and the genesis of many a genre.

But did any of the output in that vacuous ten years mean anything? Were there albums covering the big themes, the reason of living, the why-are-we-here perennial questions asked by the thinkers of old? There were, quite a few, but one of them stands out in its intensity, in its total philosophical outlook, in its wise and deep insights into the human soul and condition.

‘Heaven on Earth’, by Belinda Carlisle.

Before you splutter over the original vinyl pressing of some awful Morrisey dirge or other, let me explain. Ms Carlisle’s output might seem to be overtly chessy feel-good throwaway pop, but there is a message in there, underneath it, a vibrant, feminist, libertarian message, with nods to Socratic methodology and inquiry.

It doesn’t make sense in one way to take each song in turn, in order, as there is something cleverer underneath that (I will leave that as an exercise for the reader, for I think I still have one left somewhere), but for sake of non-shuffle, I will do them in the original placing.

1. Heaven Is A Place On Earth

A theological opening, the grand statement of intent. Affirming a life-stance, an outlook, that two people against everything else can make everything seem…better. Seem right. I reach for you/and you bring me home. Drawing inwards, realising we aren’t alone, and we can be made whole in another. In this world we are just beginning/to understand the miracle of living. No arrogance, a wonder at who we are and where we have come from, but underpinning it all, the acceptance that it is love is love comes first then the result will be heaven is a place one earth. And now all these three remain, faith, hope and love. And the greatest of these is love.

2. Circle In The Sand

After the, some might say, simplistic viewpoint of the opening track, which hides the fac that within it all the teachings of every major religion, we come to her reminding us that not only is life not easy, but we need each other in a deeper way than the joy of love. Something not quite so superficial. The bright sunshine of ‘Heaven on Earth’ becomes walking through the summer’s end. But although our love is all we need, and the ying/yang of I begin baby where you end, she knows she isn’t alone, but always on the edge of being reminded of her apparent position in society, with the final cry of can you hear me calling?

3. I Feel Free

So while on reading of ‘Circle in the Sand’ shows her possibility in the inferior position of the relationship (although it could be read from strength, but the ordering implies her journey through philosophy and theology, with the simplistic opening to a higher power, to the doubts over that, and indeed the balance inside the relationship) we have another affirmation. Yes, this is a cover version, but it fits the narrative at this point perfectly. A confident, all encompassing love, where I can walk down the street and there’s no one there/but the pavement is one huge crowd. Solid in her belief. But we have more to think of here, and looking back on the final refrain of the previous song, it now seems to be a search, looking for meaning in the world, and finding it somewhat in a religious experience. Mimicing the evolution of man, with the pure thrill in the primitive experience, the searching and seeking in the dark of childhood, and now the freedom only a true convert can feel. At this point, it is the description of her spiritual journey and awakening, a mystery feeling and how she is dealing with it.

4. Should I Let You In

Euphoria of the religious can, and mostly likely should, lead to some self-examination. Can you tell me/is it worth the risk anymore? A blatant cry for some validation, verification and vindication. The time, effort and portion of her very soul she has laid out, maybe now there are real doubts. There is still belief, in herself, but now, in growing up, it is a two-way relationship, and now she can see her tradiitonal role as inferior, but she knows she has a choice, and in the end, it has to be hers and hers alone.

5. World Without You

Most theological system of thought have been majorly influenced by their more aesthetic thinks, those who have removed themselves from worldly influences to ponder the nature of Man and God. But this denies that, and is a hymn to the world, but again, underpinned by the interaction with others. You know it would all be worthless/If you weren’t here with me. Almost anti-Platonic in tenor, and accepting of realities and hardships that could come, but still uplifting, darling if I had to/I would trade pleasure for pain, and in the end, completely anti-materialistic, I could have the world in my hands/but it wouldn’t mean a thing. The Eastern influence that has been creeping in from almost the beginning, despite her couching it in her own personal Western context, is gaining traction.

6. I Get Weak

Maturity, and her Bhuddistic stepping through the steps of meditiation, she has passed beyond adept. Letting her being move higher, ecstasy and enlightenment become mingled, I can’t speak when I look in your eyes. Not some submissive relationship, but as an equal, as that is the only way she could be eye to eye with her lover. A dangerous point in her spiritual life, as she has moved away from the pure love of light, into the loss of self in the here and now.

7. We Can Change

Given the dalliance of ‘I Get Weak’, the shift here is interesting, as there is the insight that things are now different, but no, nothing remains the same. This isn’t a Wittgenstein reversal, but a maturation. We can change the world/and make it better/but first we got to change together. Personal responsibility, no reliance on some central power. The roots of her almost Randian brand of libertarianism can be seen here, living all those years with our fears/and you wonder why. Questioning after the glow of physicality fades, there was a time when we had everything/we got to stop living in that dream. The time has come to put away childish things.

8. Fool For Love

With the first political awakenings comes the snap back to her original theological nature. I think overall, she is more a theological creature than a philosophically political one, despite the more overt nature of the next song. If not a frivolous reaction against her own questions, this is a reminder to herself of joy, perhaps even somewhat ironic. But still underneath the If I’m a fool for love/I don’t care is the inferrence that even so, she has still her own mind, a feministic streak despite her needing and wanting to be whole in the presence of a mutual lover.

9. Nobody Owns Me

This is the most blatant of her musings. A negation of all of Eastern esoteric philosophy, nobody own me is a bold statement of self, no journey to the negation of nirvana. Nobody owns me/nobody but you Now we have the switch. Laying out her individualistic tendancies, she reiterates she is also part of something more than herself. There is never an implication that she is alone, these lines are all in reference to others, and about her strength of mind, along with realising she is a social being. Here we can imagine she is reinforcing the value of the πόλις, all that entails, the self-reliance, the knowing that no person is an island, and we have to interact with others, but have to be afforded our own mind. In fact, this could almost be a speech as given by Περικλῆς on the eve of the Peloponnesian War. There is so much history and thought in this one song, we wonder what we have been hit with. There’s another side of me/that only you can see. A summation of all that has gone before, the initial flush of a new love, the doubts, the need, the want, the passion, but within that, the statement of self.

10. Love Never Dies

And we close with a companion piece to the opener, a mature musing on all she has considered up to now. A footnote to ‘Nobody Owns Me’, a day comes to end/and time moves on, but initial core of her belief, her belief in love conquering all, love lifting her to a higher plain, love as light and hope, has come along with her.

So maybe not quite the political take I initially thought, more a representation of mankind’s theology, from pre-historic times to the Desert Fathers with the nugget of all religions sewn in. Optimisitic yet realistic, grounded but non-materialistic, an hymnal example for everyone.

It isn’t something you do, but others will

I have wanted to write this for a while, a retrospective on Modesty Blaise. I wanted to write it when the only man to ever tell her stories passed away. It wasn’t easy, as Modesty Blaise means so much to me. And that is hard to articulate, to get across what I want to say.

When you were young
and on your own
How did it feel
to be alone?
I was always thinking
of games that I was playing.
Trying to make
the best of my time.

On the outside, people of a given age might remember the comic strip, that ran for years in the London Evening Standard, they might remember an awful film adaptation decades ago, they might even know the more recent, low-budget not-quite-awful film. They might even be aware there were novels, too. All of that is true, but none of it comes close to what Modesty Blaise was. Still is. And will always be to me.

I’ll start with the three-panel , black and white, comic strip, that started way before I was born. (I won’t fill in dates here, I am writing this in one sitting, without references to anything other than my heart and soul, my memory, impressions and feelings.) Those have been collected in TPB form, and they are still releasing them. I still buy them. There are decades to collate. PoD (as the author is affectionately known in the MB circles, of which I am in several) wrote them all, although he went through several artists, and everyone has their favourites. I am not going to go in to that, rather stick to the stories.

But only love
can break your heart
Try to be sure
right from the start
Yes only love
can break your heart
What if your world
should fall apart?

The stories are a whole. The comic strip came first, but in the end augment the novels, and you get the same characters acting in the same way, no disconnect, this is part of the story of their lives. I say their, as Modesty is more than herself, she has her partner. And not in any sexual way, it transcends that. But I am jumping in faster than I wanted, I’ll step back. The comic strip came first, and there are a series of (I think…without checking) eleven novels.

I recommend the novels first. Or the eponymous novel first, to get a flavour of what they are. But what are they, and why do they mean something to me? Sure, I first read the novels when I took them from my mother’s bookshelves as a child. Sure, I read the comic. But I did that for lots of books, what makes the MB books/comics so special?

I have a friend
I’ve never seen
He hides his head
inside a dream
Someone should call him
and see if he can come out.
Try to lose
the down that he’s found.

Trite to say, but it is the characters. You fall in love with them. You realise they are deep, complex and fantastically rendered. Really, it is the story of Modesty, ex-crime overlord, who ran a criminal empire, then retired, and Willie, her trusted sidekick, more than sidekick, ex-con, fighter, planner, and handyman. Even those definitions aren’t enough, and I have stopped myself spinning outwards to give examples of their traits. Like the first time Modesty sent Willie on a job, through to his holidays and creation of her necklace, the laughter between them. But they were deeper than lovers, and were never lovers, each completing the other in a more connected way.

More on the stories, then. Contemporary to Fleming’s James Bond, with spies and plots, scrapes and fights, but not the dark edge Commander Bond, nor the incompetence. People see these books, and comics, as fluff, pop culture spy novels, pre-cursor to Lara Croft. But oh how many points that misses. These are easy read, they are pacy, they are fun. They are moral, they are consistent, they are everything.

But only love
can break your heart
Try to be sure
right from the start
Yes only love
can break your heart
What if your world
should fall apart?

It crosses my mind to mention the short story collection, Cobra Trap, and that there are those who won’t read the story named after the book. I have, and it is heartbreaking, but more, it is transcendent too. And if you have been on the journey with Willie and Modesty, Sir Tarrant, Gabriel, Willie’s girlfriends, the locations, the inventions, the traps, the close calls, the dismay, the results, it does break your heart. It really does. But not in the way you might think.

Again, similar to the James Bond books (never seen the films, but I understand they are nothing like the books) there is a progression in character development, but it is different. Does every single action heroine owe her a debt? Hell yes. But even back then, she was never clichéd, never some addendum to some male. Feminist? Not sure, but she was written well, never a caricature of a busty girl in tight catsuits kicking her way through villains. She was a lady, a friend, clever, broken, tough. She was human, but beyond all that as well.

I have a friend
I’ve never seen
He hides his head
inside a dream
Yes, only love
can break your heart
Yes, only love
can break your heart

I haven’t even touched the surface. The unspoken bonds between Willie and Modesty, played out to a backdrop of kidnaps, heists, international travel, with the British Government feeding them jobs, but in no way is she the puppet. There is violence, but the books are never gratuitous. Never. Everyone I have ever tried to describe them too has looked at me like I have lost my mind, as this is very far out from my normal run of reading. Everyone I have ever lent a book to has also ended up loving them.

And everyone loves them for different reasons. Role models, maybe, adventures, for sure, entertainment, oh yes. Why people sneer at them I will never know. The are equal to the Bond novels, but they aren’t comparable. They are better than most other action genre books I have read, although to be fair I haven’t read many in the past two decades. They are very personal books, which I find strange, given their apparent throwaway nature. I spent my time pouring over obscure and what can sometimes, to others, seem bizarre and difficult tomes. This is not an antidote to those. Nothing of the kind, although I can see why it could be put like that. These mean something to me, and again, even after struggling to say it, I still can’t say it the way I want.

I have always loved Modesty Blaise. And I always will.

Everyone needs another lover

Sometime ago, way back when Cambridge-Town’s Platonists hadn’t annoyed me so, I was in my usual exploratory mode. You know, new city, wander around, see what there is in the dark and interesting corners. In this instance, I was intrigued by the austere flatness of it all. Of course, the flatness means any high points are fair game for fauxtographers.

Don’t get so distressed
If the good life won’t arrive
You’ve been reading S.O.S.
When it’s just your clock reading 5:05

Back in those days, my dalliance with Caitlin hadn’t started. It would soon, the reasons for which I will mention in a paragraph to come. Or maybe this one, I am not sure, I am, as per usual, doing the brane-to-finger-to-textbox flow of thoughts. Actually, this wasn’t in my first flush of Cambridgshire dealings, as I had moved from a necklace village north of the city to one in the south. Which explains why I was aware of the hill. It protruded into my journey to work.

And why are you so possessed
By the thought that she got free
And why are you figuring who’s the best
When just your luck ran out
and she chose me

Back to the story. As I didn’t have an awesome 70s sportscar with no roof, I was still on the motorbike. Full gear, all sleek and black, all power. Sometimes I wonder why I changed from the raw roar of a leather-and-chains chick to a stately lady. Sometimes I would like to go back. Or have both. A bit of rough and a bit of posh. Moving on…so I was on the bike. As it happens, it was taking me as long to get geared up as I was on the bike, which was the reason I fell in to the (topless) bosom of Caitlin. Ha! Explanation in the very next paragraph. At least there was an explanation, not that it was overtly interesting.

We do not lie side by side
and mock the thought of you
And I don’t take her hand and ask
Is this what he used to do?

Imagine then, if you will, a biker, in full gear, on a black-and-silver roaring rebel machine. With a heart filled with wide angle city images. While not particularly a classic Cambridge view, given it overlooks a school towards the hospital, from the layby at the top of Lilm Kiln Hill (or Limekiln Road as it is officially known, I think) affords an opportunity for some wideangled night long exposure shots. Therefore I loaded Amahlia, tripod, lenses and as much pretension as I could muster into my backpack and set off for work.

Cos I just want to free her from
Your jails of jealous dreams
‘Cos at least a house when it’s empty
Stays clean

Given this was late autumn, I knew it would be dark on the way home. Exactly the right conditions for the shots I wanted to get. Crisp atmosphere, dearth of streetlights around site, a nice panoramic view. Oh yes, I could hit quite a few cliches in one go. I mentioned my plans to a few people on my way out of the office, and a few eyebrows were raised. I just thought they were thinking I was being a beret-wearing pseud. But that has never stopped me before. I suffer for my art.

I won’t pretend
That I was simply swayed
It was a two way thing not a
Three day fling
No secrets kept, no truth betrayed

Off I go, leaving the office, one left turn and up the hill. Yes, it is a real actual hill. In Cambridge. I have cycled over it, too. Yes, it is more than a gentle incline. Honest. Up to the layby, park up the bike. that graphite sports can made quite the noise, oh yes. There are a few cars, two on the opposite side layby, one tucked in the corner of where I stopped. This is not unusual, I pass by that way every night and always see a car or two out there. I hop off the bike, and start to fiddle about setting up the camera. Changing lenses, extending tripod, the usual sort of thing.

And here’s the house that held
The nightmare that went on
And you’re sitting there wishing you’d never been born
With that self-inflicted crown of thorns

Then things got a bit…strange. The car on my side of the road flashed his lights, and the engines of the two on the other side started up, followed by the fzzzzzzzzz of electric windows winding down. There was some coughing, and doors opened. Again, the lights flashed at me, and I start to get concerned. More coughing, so I decide now is not the right time for this, pack up the camera gear and ride off, pondering on having come across a drugs deal or something. Last thing I wanted was to be caught up in some bust or other. (Oh look, he made an unintentional funny. Which makes sense second time round for you, perhaps.)

We do not lie side by side
and mock the thought of you
And I don’t take her hand and ask
Is this what he used to do?

I get to work the next day, and am relating my incredulity and this aborted escapade to my fellows in the office. No one is suprised. The more sniggers there are, the more I start to click. So it wasn’t a drugs bust, eh, and everyone around knows what that spot is used for. And it isn’t photography. Well, it is, but not the sort I wanted. At that point. Hohoho, all very hilarious. As an aside, while the top of Limekiln Road is the spot for walking the dog, the spot to take the mistress to (at three in the afternoon, apparently), is indeed the carpark at the place where I walk the dog.

Cos I just want to free her from
Your jails of jealous dreams
‘Cos at least a house when it’s empty
Stays clean

To bring this up to date, I wend the same path to a school sports hall on a Wednesday eve, to put the old bones through kicking contortions. This is a recent addition to the kicking contortion classes I do, so it hasn’t really been dark until now. Which can lead to only one thing, really, those sorts of bizarre exhibitionist come out again. Now, if that is what they want to do, fine, far be it for me to say they shouldn’t. Maybe not in a totally public place, but hey. Whatever turns you on.

I won’t pretend
That I’m the saviour of the innocent and bad
But put two withered old blooms in a couple of rooms
And they’ll behave like lunatics
and crave what makes them sad

But there are some things, some things, that shouldn’t really be done in public. Smoking while eating (on the bonnet of a car, to quote some prophetess from some film you won’t have seen), two young ladies servicing while the bloke is sipping from a can, several more wandering around in skimpies, all very base. Now, that sounds very common, but this is Cambridge, so the cars weren’t souped up Novas, but an A6, Volvo estate and some Land Rover behemoth, and the cans were probably filled with a fine 1982 port. And cigars, natch.The fact the layby is on a bend, so you sweep round with full beam on, doesn’t help. The whole scene in full relief. Another unintentional funny there, if you are a fan of 80s puppet standup.

So here’s a card that says
Happy twenty-second birthday and I wish you were dead
And here’s a house that held
a bevy of devils and an angel as well

Gosh. People are strange, no?

And you want what I’ve got
When all I’ve got is guilt
And a room that won’t stay still
Filled with pockets full of crumpled up money and
a mantelpiece littered with bills
‘Cos at least a house when it’s empty
Stays clean

(As for the obligatory lyrics, I was going to go with the glorious Emmylou, but that seemed a bit…obvious.)

I want to die on a sunny day

It so happened that I found myself in Cyprus. Work, free drink, 45°C temperatures. Most of those in the company just like the sun, sea, beach and booze. Me, going all that way, I had a better idea. A plan. I did pitch the plan to the whole company, and while many indicated they would love to do it, only five of us did.

And it was perfect. Five blokes, road trip. I guess it is best I do this in some sort of chronological order. Roll with it, it might make sense.

We picked the car up at 9 in the morning, with a list of Byzantine churches to go see. And off we went. Head to the mountains, a vague inkling of where we were going. The sun was out, the aircon was on, nothing was going to stop us. And it didn’t. It was one experience after another, one moment of transcendence followed by another. And a few U-turns.

Not long in to the journey, we approach the first stopping point. And, luckily, there were a few big coaches, indictating tourists. A bonus, we could start with some classic Eastern Orthodox tat. Byzantine theme park for history nerds.

But wait! Tourists, you say? Those don’t look like tourists…those are…pilgrims! Considering we are half way up a mountainside, with sweeping corners and VERY CLOSE EDGES THAT WE COULD FALL OFF, this is no tourist country. A monastry, a priest with an awesome Orthodox beard, and a bloke selling blessed apples from the back of his van. What was a boy to do, but take his hat off, cross himself and go in and kiss some Virgins.

I probably let myself down by going in the wrong order, but I was entranced by the gold, the icons, the frescos, and the quiet still devoutness on display. It was mentioned a few times why I wasn’t my usual, um, combative self, but I am pious when I need to be. Bearded or not. And I wasn’t bearded.

The interior of Eastern Orthodox churches. Inspired, totally different to those damned Latins, and just so much more of everything. You can feel the mystery, and feel the loss that we have in the West.

A nod to the priest later, and in to the car, to head up further into the hills. Winding switchback-laden single lane tracks, with signposts the just appear causing more U-turns. One more stop before lunch. A village nestling in a valley, long main street, single track doubling up as a two-way road. And park where you want. Corners, no problem.

So we park. Almost on a corner, beside a huge church, evidently currently still in use. Not the Byzantium we were looking for, just a quick bonus on the way to the church of the Archangel Michael. An impressive structure, what else would a boy do but wander around taking photographs? And what else would a boy do when he sees the old caretaker hobbling by but ask him if we could go inside?

Inside. What can prepare you for a building with a centre done, three stories high, pillars, and painted from floor to ceiling and back again. With the gold, the icons, the chandeliers. The seats, the books, the fresco hidden behind golden gates, which I am not sure we were supposed to pass. The quiet, the history, the something more than austere and dour Protestantism or the secondhand Byzantine pistache that is Catholicism. No incense was harmed in the making of this sacrilege.

Of course I left a donation on the plate. How could I not? I would have happily paid an entrance fee, to see that, to be there. Helpfully, old caretaker dude (with a disappointingly shaven upper lip) pointed us in the right direction, and we moved down the hill and back seven centuries.

Most of the Byzantium buildings didn’t allow photography inside, and the pictures were taken from the door, not inside. This tiny church, this tiny place, again, was something else. You can’t get craftmanship like that any more, and to think how long that has stood, and the colours still there, the damage of time and man barely noticeable in places.

We could have stopped after any single visit, and I would have been more than happy. That it kept getting better, well, it was just making me, and keeping me, happy. The company was great, kudos to NrG for the driving, despite my Cantabrigan aversion to anything more than a gentle incline. The weather was great, as was the aircon. I am sure there are better Byzantine examples, better scenery, better cars, but I was there, right there, right then, and it was everything it should have been. Everything is context, and cultural context at that, and this was a single point in my life. A shining single point. Could it have been better? No, it could have been different. Could it have been more? No, it could have been different. With different people (most noticably I would have loved to have done it with my squawks and heart of my heart) it would have been different. Better isn’t the word, and one day I will take them. It would be more complete for me, perhaps, or maybe better is the word.

But even blown minds need to continue, and continue on a full stomach. But who wants to eat in a village? Best to drive more into the mountains, and just stop somewhere, anywhere, just somewhere local. Where they barely speak English, and we barely speak (modern) Greek. Where they bring you food. Where this food was simple, but beyond plain. Absolutely glorious, so we ate, ate well, chatted and laughed, soaked the sun, looked over the valley, listened to the trees chatter in the wind and were sated of mind and body.

You can’t see everything in the single day we had, and there were obscure turnings we ignored, major sites we decided against, and went with the flow. From our base in the south west of the island, we wound our way up through the Trodos mountains, getting as far as the Turkish border, with many high vantage points to stop and look into the distance from.

Another church to see, but this time the bearded priest was resting outside, and the purported icon museum was closed. Even though it shouldn’t have been. But who was complaining? 7th century frescos, with the Gospels depicted with Crusader livery, the tree of Jesse stretching thirty feet up to the ceiling.

Who was complaining? I bought an icon from the priest, and a tenth of the price a different, similar one was at the airport. And this one was of an icon I saw in the church. Occlude, guidebook man extrodinaire, has a list of the names of all the places we did go to. I will make a google maps track from it at some point. Without the U-turns.

More villages, more Coke Light, more U-turns. More signs that lie, more hairpin bends, more Cypriot girls in those white dresses with rather fine tans. More melons, more Coke Light, more Pervoe FM. More Beach Bar!

There was now one major site we wanted to see, a collection of ruins containing an amphitheatre, a basillica, an agora and more. Sprawling on the coast, on our run back to the hotel. This was a paid-for place, and we had to part with a whole one Euro seventy. Remind me why I live in rip-off Britain?

By now the sun was setting. Can I hear you say orange light and magic hour? On Greco-Roman stone? This was a big site, with a bit of wandering around. We got to the limits just as the sun was disappearing behind the hills. Achilles’ house, with parts of the mosaics, we our limit. Quite literally. We could go no further, so wending our way back through the ruins in a different direction, perhaps we could catch different angles and columns.

But no, not a chance. A young lady with a badge and a mobile phone asked us to go, as the gates were closing in ten minutes. Quite insistent we leave. Well, we were in a good mood, so off we stroll, only stopping for a group-hug photograph. Little did we know she had a car, and bombs off away from us. We get to the main through road on the site, and some agitated Ruins Nazi winds down his window and veritably shouts at us, telling us to get to the gate now, and one of us run to the car and drive it down.

Mr NrG saunters to the car, we saunter down the hill to the gate. Big wooden gates. One closed, three people standing tapping their feet. So we stand too, doing the usual ribaldery and jocular cracking. Eventually, NrG arrives. Three minutes after they were due to close. Take that, Ruins Nazis! We win! And we did, being there at that time of day. Magic, magic hour.

Picking a route back (eventually), another drive along the coast, through the hills, the sun now gone and everything lit in a deep red just above the horizon, the Mediterranean darkening as we look at it.

You know what else added to it? I set this up with the express intent that it was all for me. I wasn’t sure that the others would really appreciate, or want, to drive for twelve hours around Cyprus looking at churches, ruins and roads. But they did. It was a fantastic excursion. Even though there was less religosity in them than me, it was appreciated, enjoyed, and that also makes me happy. A more than fine, a more than great, a more than day was had by all.

It was just…just…just right.

There is always a meaning

I was once told that the universe is bigger than my mind could hold. This is not true, the universe can’t hold all that my mind is. There is an edge to the universe, there isn’t an edge to me. And I love to stand on edges. The edge of the Iberian peninsula, looking across a boundless ocean and a limitless sky, the edge of the Fens, gazing north into nothing and everything, the edge of Western Europe, bounded in by a grey horizon. I love standing on the edges.

I was never told that I was anything, but as an angel once told me, I am everything to someone. I can’t quite get rid of my need for material things, as material things cover our heads and keep us warm. A trap of our own making, all the same. Sharper edges.

And the more I consider culture, context and edges, the more I can see. I love the idea of cultures being contemporary, in everything but time. I love the idea that upsets the arrogance of the late 19th century mindset (for that is still what we have), that we are some sort of pinnacle. We aren’t. Our science and our philosophy is just that, ours. Standing on the shoulders of giants? Sure, but don’t tell me it is more than any other culture, nor tell me it is better. You explain to me why there wasn’t the same depth perspective in pre-Enlightment painting. (Or even earlier, I guess.)

Oh laughing man, what have you won?
Don’t tell me what cannot be done.
My little mouth, my winter lungs,
don’t tell me what can’t be done.
Walking in the circle of a flashlight
someone starts to sing, to join in.

I used to write, in this place and others, of what was happening to me, around me, as seen by me. I don’t any more, probably one of the reasons my posting is sporadic. It all has to mean something, but not in the sense you imagine. εκ του κοσμου ουκ εισιν καθως εγω εκ του κοσμου ουκ ειμι if I was going to quote anything. Who are they? They that are with me, in body or spirit, they who are also not of this world. They who will be seven, but I have passed only five.

Yes, the more I think of context and culture, all I see are the edges. But not an edge to fall from, an edge to fall into. And edges are all space, time has nothing to do with. How is there anything other than space? For I loved you in a place, and I love you in this place. It is only space that separates us.

How can your mind not range, freed of life, escaping in the noise of nature, the silence enveloped by the noise, the edge cutting through the silent noise. It is all you can do not to stretch your arms out, arch your back, and salute.

Talk of loneliness in quiet voices.
I am shy but you can reach me.
Rowing on the lakes of Canada,
rowing on the lakes of Canada.

Everything is context, and I am tending to talk more in the abstract, to think more in abstracted connections, and make my speech, thinking and dealings even more rambling and convoluted than ever. This comes crashing down when my connections, my edges, range against others, who don’t like language, and what language means. Language and space. Our two edges.

She’s got perfect skin

I spend a lot of my time reading, and writing. None of the writing gets published here, the number of posts in draft is twice that I have posed over the past two years. Maintaining a weblog for over a decade, I just don’t feel the need. Or reason. This isn’t a swansong post, by any means, the first paragraph has just started that way.

I spend a lot of time reading. Mostly these days I read history, but usually nothing beyond the fall of Byzantium. And the more I read, the more it all falls in to place, history, people, place, time and disaster. There are several inferences in here, aimed even at some who don’t know I write here, some who don’t know me, some who do, some who lived before and some who will live after.

Yours is the first face that I saw
I think I was blind before I met you
Now I don’t know where I am
I don’t know where I’ve been
But I know where I want to go

History on its own is nothing, everything is context. And everything is a hero with a thousand faces. Do we believe it all, when everything is twisted around the same story core? From early times, to now, everything is the same. Can you see it? Campbell could, but was only taking mythology and theology. I think it is more than that, it is also life and history. Why is this woven in? I don’t know, my search continues, and those I journey with as well, if some know it more than others.

I haven’t been wrong about those I take on the trip, except I think recently the criteria relaxed, which folds into the thousand faces in and of itself, if you are awake to recognise it.

And so I thought I’d let you know
That these things take forever
I especially am slow
But I realize that I need you
And I wondered if I could come home

All of history pivots, and usually on stupidity or chance. Yes, no one remembers the names of those who built the pyramids, just those who ordered them to be built, and this is how it should be. But it breaks the heart. The white man does not have the monopoly on cruelty, but I still burn with a shame. And an anger.

The Crusades and the Trail of Tears are, to me, the two most indicative times. Everything before is echoed in it, and everything after will be. Not that these are a template, or indeed the worst, for others have suffered more, or different. There is no hierarchy of victims, just victims.

Pivotal points, where the wrong person gave the wrong answer, the right person didn’t reach the juncture in time to swing it all, the world just turned at the wrong angle, and everything changes.

Remember the time you drove all night
Just to meet me in the morning
And I thought it was strange you said everything changed
You felt as if you’d just woke up
And you said “this is the first day of my life
I’m glad I didn’t die before I met you
But now I don’t care I could go anywhere with you
And I’d probably be happy

Times change, that is all the ever do. Eras end, that is all they ever do. Who you take with you is the important part. Something went wrong, and I read the colours not quite correctly. This was a first, and I am still thinking about it, as if I was right, then another course leads to its own conclusions.

Even this post has been stripped, left like this, speaking only in tongues to some, and the gaps between unbridgeable. History doesn’t repeat itself, the mask of a thousand faces does.

So if you want to be with me
With these things there’s no telling
We just have to wait and see
But I’d rather be working for a paycheck
Than waiting to win the lottery
Besides maybe this time is different
I mean I really think you like me

The reasons to be elsewhere