tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-17501208636473735202024-03-21T13:18:16.596+00:00swisslet52% intelligent. 9% modest. More monkey than bear.swisslethttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16708248700851998044noreply@blogger.comBlogger3012125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1750120863647373520.post-5265245348464186692022-09-15T20:35:00.000+01:002022-09-15T20:35:01.277+01:00Thumbs (a glimmer)<p><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhxIEQIz5qp_9Fak9k9weEH2JeYyhkMPSnGXbpEm3mxvo6cLMQ9qFiHoR4eJ9Ay4w2O6lLZDtb22OIUrIcYaoGQ5h8usm9PQ_a_oE4-xseMjHRoHdwrqTnGq2J8ngthJUldneKE_YqZHvBE1E4NBBGv62rRvhqBVDW-Z502yN_QuK5Dm4dZQWi-Rt3c/s4032/IMG_8760.HEIC" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3024" data-original-width="4032" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhxIEQIz5qp_9Fak9k9weEH2JeYyhkMPSnGXbpEm3mxvo6cLMQ9qFiHoR4eJ9Ay4w2O6lLZDtb22OIUrIcYaoGQ5h8usm9PQ_a_oE4-xseMjHRoHdwrqTnGq2J8ngthJUldneKE_YqZHvBE1E4NBBGv62rRvhqBVDW-Z502yN_QuK5Dm4dZQWi-Rt3c/w400-h300/IMG_8760.HEIC" width="400" /></a></p><p>
As the ancient Chinese curse apparently has it, “may you live in interesting times”. While sounding superficially like a blessing, of course it’s nothing of the sort. When it really comes down to it, although we all talk a good game about wanting to lead exciting lives, don’t most of us just want to live out our time quietly in uninteresting times of peace and tranquillity? I suppose it all depends upon your definition of “interesting”. Some people like to do sudokus and to watch reality TV. <i>Chacun à son gout</i>, I suppose. Each to their own taste. </p><p>Besides, the last five years or so have demonstrated quite nicely that we live in anything but tranquil times. Brexit. Trump. Johnson. Ukraine. Rampant inflation. Fuel poverty. Climate change. Mass migration. Wildfires. Mass extinctions. Police brutality. Race riots. Islamic State. Do I need to go on? Our certainty in the inexorable advance of liberal ideas has been suddenly badly shaken and right to abortion, the right to be gay or non-binary, the right to freedom of expression and even the right to freedom of speech all seem much less certain than they were not so very long ago. And as if all that wasn’t enough, the very foundations of British life were shaken to their core last week by the death of the Queen. Even mourning, it seems, is now a source of controversy. </p><p>It’s a lot. </p><p>Perhaps then it is entirely in keeping with these turbulent times that the expression “may you live in interesting times” has no equivalent in Chinese, no Chinese source has ever been produced for its origins and it is mostly likely to have sprung up sometime around the late nineteenth century. Still, a superficially authentic sounding aphorism that is widely known but turns out to be entirely apocryphal seems somehow appropriate, doesn’t it? Still, who fact checks anything these days?
It's easy to be angry with the world at the moment, and much harder to take a breath and to see the beauty that is still around us. Amidst all the noise, it’s easy to forget that the majority of people are just like you and me. Decent. Kind. </p><p>I was reminded of this at a music festival a couple of weeks ago. Festivals like this are bubbles at the best of times, but End of the Road is perhaps more cosy than most. It takes place in Larmer Tree Gardens in Dorset and is small enough to feel intimate, with stages surrounded by trees and with peacock walking around amongst the crowds. Glastonbury it is not. It’s a comforting thing to be surrounded by people who are a lot like you and probably share a lot of the same opinions, even if only for a long weekend. Just to forget about the troubles of the world for a few days to drink cider in the sunshine and watch some live music. </p><p>On the Sunday evening, we made our way to the Garden Stage. As the name suggests, this is a natural amphitheatre surrounded by trees and gardens. It has a relatively small capacity of perhaps two or three thousand people, and when we arrived at about 7pm, it was nowhere near full and the grass around the stage was covered with people just sitting with their friends, quietly drinking wine and waiting for the next act. We sat down on the grass towards the back. After a few minutes, a man perhaps a little older than me made his way into the space just behind us and set up three little chairs, before sitting down in his own chair and settling in for the evening. The next act was a singer called Lucy Dacus, I wasn’t familiar with her music, but she’s an American singer/songwriter and basically performed on her own with an acoustic guitar. It quickly became clear as she drew me in that she was really good, my musical highlight of the festival. At some point, the man sitting behind us was joined by two girls, each maybe about twenty years old, who sat down with him in the other chairs. I didn’t spend a great deal of time thinking about it, and I certainly wasn’t about to turn around and start staring, but I thought that one of the girls was this chap’s daughter, and the other was maybe her girlfriend. As Lucy Dacus played on and I became more absorbed in her music, I realised that her lyrical content was quite intimate and confessional. At one point, she warmly addressed the crowd and asked if any of the audience were gay and here with their partners. From the crowd reaction, it seemed that a lot of people there were (I subsequently learned that Lucy Dacus herself identifies as “queer”). Now, I’m a 48-year-old man and I was at the festival with my wife, but I’d also been wearing rainbow shoelaces on my shoes and rainbow wristbands on my wrists all weekend. I think inclusion is so important and it costs me very little to signal that I’m an ally. I know that I was in a bubble at this festival and maybe even as part of this crowd, but it’s a bubble that made me feel warm and happy in an angry, uncertain world. </p><p>As the music continued, the two girls got up from their seats and came to stand just in front of me so that they could get a better view. It was now getting dark, and at one point, they were beautifully framed by the stage lights, gently holding hands and leaning into each other. It was a beautiful sight. I glanced behind me and saw that the man in his seat had seen what I had seen and was taking the opportunity to take a photo of the two girls as they were silhouetted in the stage light, lost in the music and in each other. He caught my eye and we exchanged a smile. What a beautiful thing that this guy was at the festival with his daughter and her girlfriend and that he was gently bursting with pride about this. It was a lovely moment. </p><p>The moment stuck in my mind too because of the song that Lucy Dacus was playing. It’s called “Thumbs” and it’s about two people (lovers?) talking about the return of an abusive father. The final verse goes like this: </p><div style="text-align: left;">I wanna take your face between my hands and say </div><div style="text-align: left;">“You two are connected by a pure coincidence </div><div style="text-align: left;"> Bound to him by blood, but baby it’s all relative </div><div style="text-align: left;">You’ve been in his fist ever since you were a kid </div><div style="text-align: left;">But you don’t owe him shit even if he said you did </div><div style="text-align: left;">You don’t owe him shit even if he said you did”
</div><p>It’s a powerful lyric, but at the same time, it’s almost impossibly tender. Watching the two girls in front of me together sharing that moment together, and me sharing that moment with the watching father behind me, was wonderful and filled me with renewed hope. When there’s love in the world like that, how can you not feel optimistic? However dark it seems, there’s always a glimmer of light. That was my glimmer.
</p>swisslethttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16708248700851998044noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1750120863647373520.post-11334912062357227422022-06-07T07:50:00.001+01:002022-06-07T09:27:35.237+01:00think of all the things we could discuss...<p>I make no claim to any superpowers. </p><p>None of the really good ones, anyway. I can’t fly; I’m not the world’s greatest detective; I can’t climb walls and I certainly don’t have super-strength. I do seem to have an unusual empathy though; an ability to really connect with another creature.
I don’t mean humans. God! Not humans! Humans are illogical and unpredictable. Who would want to have any special insight into that? </p><p>My wife tells me that my special power is to make people want to feed me; she tells me that I have a “please love me” smile that it entirely irresistible to ladies of a certain age. Well, perhaps that’s true. And if it is, surely there are worse talents to have. But I’m not sure that I agree. People I can pretty much take or leave. I’m here for the animals. </p><p>I’m not sure when this first started, but I’ve always seemed to have the ability to connect with animals. They seem drawn to me, and I’m certainly drawn to them. It probably started out the usual way, with cats and dogs. My grandmother used to have a particularly spiteful cat called Twiggy. Twiggy was a farm cat who had lost her tail at some point in the course of her long life. I don’t know if this misfortune was the cause of Twiggy’s bad temper, but she was famously vicious; the kind of cat who would scratch your hand as you put her dinner plate down. As a result, every gave her a wide berth, which probably suited Twiggy just fine. I liked Twiggy. I wouldn’t say that we were best friends, but 5-year-old me and 15-year-old Twiggy rubbed along alright, much to everyone else’s amazement. Mind you, I liked all animals, Twiggy was just one of the first in a long and growing list. There’s a picture of me from about this time, sitting outdoors with my feet up, reading with one hand reaching behind me to tickle a dog. I think that’s still me in a single picture. <br /></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEic1Zp_j6w4dKOM9-dvbkWFOIFbboAu4WQUlFnZOiLGFV8Ou82n1gNQVhp2vdKaqr9ZSficHnM6Wh2bl2tjPzjAIvHnzgK4_2oGz620VdtcgNd7QkiH86AuHvT_Atai6ASfTUwIfjWL02EhhWgyNUU4ees_HyO46XwBNkMF1vLylZymr6ctGBnl0Uw-/s4032/IMG_3429.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="4032" data-original-width="3024" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEic1Zp_j6w4dKOM9-dvbkWFOIFbboAu4WQUlFnZOiLGFV8Ou82n1gNQVhp2vdKaqr9ZSficHnM6Wh2bl2tjPzjAIvHnzgK4_2oGz620VdtcgNd7QkiH86AuHvT_Atai6ASfTUwIfjWL02EhhWgyNUU4ees_HyO46XwBNkMF1vLylZymr6ctGBnl0Uw-/s320/IMG_3429.JPG" width="240" /></a></div><br /> Growing up, I was a member of the Young Ornithologists Club, the Tufty Club and pretty much anything else that involved animals. Well, okay, the Tufty Club was about crossing roads safely, but who wouldn’t want to be in a gang with Tufty Fluffytail, Minnie Mole, Willie Weasel, Harry Hare and Policeman Badger? I still have the badge… <p></p><p>Did you know that every spider is Scottish and speaks with a broad Scots accent? Wherever they might be found in the world, they originally came from Scotland and migrated. None of them have lost their native accents. They’re all exactly as Scottish as Groundskeeper Willie in the Simpsons. We have a really big one that lives in our house. She’s so large that you can hear her footsteps when she walks on bare floorboards. She only has seven legs too, having lost one somewhere along the way in her adventures. Perhaps wisely, the cat gives her a wide berth. She’s called Aragog, and whenever I see her, muttering in her distinctive accent as she goes about her business, I’m certain that she’s the wisest creature in the house. </p><p>Most animals have names. </p><p>How I know this, I couldn’t say, but these names are definitely not my invention because that would be ridiculous. Every wood pigeon calls themselves Joe Cool and the only words they say, Groot-like, are Joe Cool.
“Joe Cool? Joe Cool” </p><p>A blackbird is called “Un oiseau noir avec un bec jaune”. A female blackbird is called “madame oiseau noir avec un bec jaune” (the French for Blackbird is actually “Merle”, but what do they know?). </p><p>Robins are all called Winter George. </p><p>Gray Squirrels are all known as “Fatty Lumpkins”. This one is based on how they can be seen every autumn gorging themselves on hedgerow fruits, but it suits them all year round. I do know a squirrel called “Lazarus”, but that’s because he rose from the dead and chose a more appropriate name for himself.
Dogs have a variety of names, depending on personality rather than on breed: scuttlebutt, waggles, side-eye, soft-as-shite… that kind of thing. There are also a few dogs that can clearly talk, and probably have a library filled with leather-bound books and a smell of rich mahogany. One or two smoke a pipe. </p><p>I think you probably get the picture. </p><p>It is, of course, extremely rude to walk past an animal of any kind without saying hello in an appropriate tone of voice. If accompanied by a human, it is always the animal that should be addressed first. </p><p>Please don’t think that I’m alone in my madness: my wife was brought up in France as a child and was taught to hiss at cats. These days, she has learned to approach them respectfully, address them by name and offer the appropriate courtesy to see if they deign to acknowledge her presence. And you can’t blame my good influences for the change, either. Her mother tells me that, when she was a child, my wife couldn’t walk past a herd of cows without giving them a cheery “Bonjour madames les vaches!”. Obviously, we both do this to this day. After all, we’re not savages. Did you know that rabbits are actually “lapin d’affaires” and often run successful businesses from their warrens? No? Well, not a lot of people do, because they’ve never taken the time to ask. </p><p>Perhaps I’ve said too much. I don’t want to betray any confidences. </p><p>I’m told that I have a particular soft spot for the animals that no one else loves: vultures, rats, hyena… In the Serengeti a few years ago, we came across a pack of hyena sitting rather sadly underneath the carcass of a gazelle that a leopard had stashed in the fork of a tree that they couldn’t quite reach. One was sitting very sadly with is head resting on his paws, and, as we passed by in our jeep, he turned to look at us and he was missing an eye, presenting us with a rather grizzly, empty socket. Of course, I thought this was marvellous and just loved him all the more. </p><p>Lots of people love animals, I know. But how many talk to them? Really talk to them, I mean. And how many of them listen to the answers? You should take a tip from me and try it sometime. It’s surprising what you can learn, and your lunchtime walk will never be the same again.
</p>swisslethttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16708248700851998044noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1750120863647373520.post-86331515422499679402022-05-13T18:27:00.005+01:002022-05-13T18:37:22.399+01:00blood on the tracks...<p><b>TRIGGER WARNING</b>: if you’re squeamish, you might want to sit this one out. <br /></p><p>--<br /></p><p>I’ve been intermittently self-catheterising for a few years now. For those not in the know, this is where you take a lubricated, 40cm long plastic tube and insert it into your urethra until it reaches your bladder, at which point your bladder drains. Why do I do this? Well, one of my least favourite things about multiple sclerosis is that the nerve damage it causes has affected the wiring between my brain and my bladder. What this means for me is that my brain tells me that I need to pee much more often than I actually do need to pee, but also means that my bladder doesn’t completely empty when I do pee. This is a pretty toxic combination, because retained urine can cause infection and also because it means that you can’t trust the signals from your brain telling you that you need to pee. Annoyingly, on top of this, I also get sudden bladder urgency, where I will go from not needing to pee at all, to desperately needing to go in the space of about 60 seconds. </p><p>Annoying, right? </p><p>Well, one solution to this is self-catheterisation. If you catheterise, you are absolutely guaranteeing that you have completely emptied your bladder. This means both that there is no unpleasant retained urine, but also you can know for a fact that any signal from your brain that you need to pee is a false flag. </p><p>It might not sound ideal to be shoving a really-quite-long tube down what was previously a strictly one-way deal, but it’s amazing what you can get used to if you have to. </p><p>Now, sticking that tube down isn’t actually that big a deal: it’s lubricated and there aren’t too many nerves down there to mean that you feel anything. You feel a little bit of resistance as you push through the prostate, but if you persevere then you’re pretty much there. You do need to be slightly careful to make sure that your hands are clean and that you keep the risk of infection as low as possible, but that’s not too much bother. I initially only did this once a day, just before bed. Just recently, I’ve started doing it a little more often than that, but it’s not really a big deal and it’s worth it just to be comfortable. The catheters are supplied to me free of charge, to my door by the NHS and it’s all good. </p><p>Well. Until it’s not. </p><p>On Wednesday this week, I decided I would cath before heading out to a choir practice. I felt a little bit of resistance a little higher than usual, but I was in a bit of a rush, so I just pressed on, pushing until I had reached and drained my bladder. As I pulled the catheter out, I caught sight of a tiny drop of blood flicking into the toilet, but I didn’t really think much more of it. By the time I got home a few hours later, there was blood inside my pants. </p><p>Yes, it is a little alarming to be bleeding from the tip of your penis. The next morning, when I peed, my stream was a deep, bloody colour with a few clots before running clear. Nice, huh? I was pretty sure that all I’d done was to scrape my urethra and that it likely wasn’t all that serious… but even so, right? I rang the continence clinic before guiding my friend Alan on a 4.5 mile run, and they told me to head to the hospital. I completed my run, did a couple of hours of work and then headed into City Hospital, where they were expecting me on one of the wards. </p><p>As has almost entirely been my experience of the NHS, all the staff were fantastic. I had to wait around for a bit, watching with a terrible interest as the doctor explained to the nice old gentleman at the bed opposite that the bladder normally has a capacity of about 1.5l before it starts to be in danger of bursting, and that they had just drained over 2l from his… </p><p>It turned out that the doctors were more concerned about the dangers of me possibly retaining urine than they were about the bleeding. Had I catheterised since I’d started bleeding? Well, no. I was peeing normally. Bloody, but otherwise normal. I wasn’t in a hurry to shove another catheter down there until I knew that I wouldn’t be causing any further damage. After a consultation with the registrar, I was offered a catheter – something that I would have to wear, full-time, for the next two weeks. Not my 40cm tubes, but the whole nine yards with bags and everything. This would give my urethra a chance to heal whilst making sure that I wasn’t retaining any urine that might cause infection. </p><p>Look, if I felt it was necessary, I would have worn the catheter. Hell, the day may come when I can’t avoid one… but I didn’t feel that this was the time. I catheterise mostly because I don’t want to be going to the toilet every half hour, not because I am in serious medical danger of an infection. Not yet, anyway. I have the luxury of being able to choose whether I catheterise or not; I find it helpful, but I don’t think it’s a medical necessity for me. I gently pushed the doctor back, and after consulting with his registrar, he agreed to let me go if I self-catheterised successfully before leaving the ward. Reassured that it was likely to be okay to do so and that I wasn’t about to reopen my wound and start bleeding profusely again, I happily did that and then we all agreed I could go home. On the way out, I poked my head around the door of the staff room to thank my doctor, who had been lovely throughout. It was a pretty small room, and it was filled by about six junior doctors (including mine) with their heads buried in textbooks, cramming for their exams. Sheesh. Who’d want to be a doctor? </p><p>Thirty-six hours after the initial incident, I’d stopped bleeding and everything seemed to be back to normal, which I will admit is something of a relief. However, I have learned (or been reminded) of few important things: </p><p> - The NHS is an amazing and precious thing. It was there when I needed it and helped me without question or charge. The staff are hard-pressed, under-rewarded and yet somehow (on the whole) manage to retain their grace <br /></p><p> - It’s amazing what you can get used to. A younger me would find the idea of self-catheterising awful, never mind the idea that I might one day find myself to be oddly calm and rational about finding blood in my pants (or that I might also have a wife who was equally calm and reassuring at the sight of the same. Although, to be honest, younger me might just be astonished that I have a wife at all. Does that mean I’m maybe having me some sex too?)</p><p>- If you find yourself self-catheterising and you encounter some resistance (above and beyond what you’d expect from your prostate), don’t push! </p><p>The tl/dr version of this is that self-catheterising can be scary but it's really good.</p><p>I wasn't going to blog about this, but <a href="https://itsashitbusiness.blogspot.com/">Steve</a> had someone comment on an old post of his about self-catheterisation just the other day, and it occurred to me that this sort of information might be useful to someone in the future. There's a lot of unhelpful and often just plain negative stuff about MS online, which is one of the reasons why I've been determined to be honest but up-beat in the first place. If you have stumbled across this, I hope you found it useful and not frightening. MS can be a lot to take in, but I'm pretty sure you've got this. Feel free to drop me a line if you want to discuss anything I've talked about here. </p><p>I mean, clearly, I have no boundaries.<br /></p>swisslethttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16708248700851998044noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1750120863647373520.post-10893090436384681982022-02-09T17:42:00.003+00:002022-02-10T11:52:48.114+00:00can't trace time...<p>Over the last couple of years, my MS has been steadily getting worse. <br /></p><p>Every time I sit down to write about this, I always seems to fall into a kind of relentless optimism. Perhaps this is a defence mechanism, but I think it's actually how I feel most of the time. As I've said many times before, I honestly don't see the point in wasting my time and my emotional energy railing against something that I'm not going to be able to change. It is what it is. No one knows where this is going, and sitting down and crying about it simply isn't going to achieve anything.</p><p>Of course, that's not to say that I sometimes don't feel like crying about it...</p><p>On my last visit to the neurologist, I was told that I was a shining example of acceptance of my diagnosis. I think this is because I acknowledge that I have multiple sclerosis and that my disease is progressing, but I try not to let this get in the way of going about my business the best I can.</p><p>I suppose this is best illustrated in my running. I ran a bit before my diagnosis, but for whatever reason, started taking it a lot more seriously afterwards. I've run six marathons and countless other events since. My MS has weakened my left side and my left ankle is slowly losing its flexibility. This makes running harder, but thanks to the support of my MS team, I have been able to keep running using a series of different strategies, insoles and orthotic devices. The most recent of these is a pretty snazzy piece of kit that adds some spring-back into my ankle and seems to have stopped me from falling over.<br /></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEicb_fOs7T0Ky-AEI5BKYP_z5XIecYkNWAYIkZlYYMZ_MG-ANdvVk6iXwBNGrPtHxV53DAOc6bmXGvpQCat2Y8QwhMqHS1ednpvAzHuVlLwUuZGOHPJCHUVEyVdx4Yo5DfffXo-pGsyhiZT6-GNscCX5a4St3F_eWGlKShgf2jPVY13w0BDJbz0n1ER=s4032" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="4032" data-original-width="3024" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEicb_fOs7T0Ky-AEI5BKYP_z5XIecYkNWAYIkZlYYMZ_MG-ANdvVk6iXwBNGrPtHxV53DAOc6bmXGvpQCat2Y8QwhMqHS1ednpvAzHuVlLwUuZGOHPJCHUVEyVdx4Yo5DfffXo-pGsyhiZT6-GNscCX5a4St3F_eWGlKShgf2jPVY13w0BDJbz0n1ER=s320" width="240" /></a></div><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEhgqbA0PUf2ZdCP7JEPLORENsS9z9qS1LjhUNjA2ig272ifZYQNisZQs6paZlUgJxXyPiVph-jGyl09bxOcncGzNrj1fBM54GYdtbTIsHQUdCrij0ucnDuuAyot1RrPQPIjpR_fCQtPeDI5w4e49lptZ3poGIi5CvA9iCU7c7vnn78nMeDCfDDY8CzQ=s3024" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3024" data-original-width="2923" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEhgqbA0PUf2ZdCP7JEPLORENsS9z9qS1LjhUNjA2ig272ifZYQNisZQs6paZlUgJxXyPiVph-jGyl09bxOcncGzNrj1fBM54GYdtbTIsHQUdCrij0ucnDuuAyot1RrPQPIjpR_fCQtPeDI5w4e49lptZ3poGIi5CvA9iCU7c7vnn78nMeDCfDDY8CzQ=s320" width="309" /></a></div><p></p><p>Before this, I was falling over so often whilst running that I was beginning to cause myself some real damage. This brace works well enough that I've been able to go out running without wearing the wrist guards and kneepads.</p><p> Even so, I'm basically fighting a losing battle. </p><p>A consulant surgeon who specialises in sport (and who is a runner himself) told me about ten years ago that it probably wouldn't be my MS that ultimately stopped me from running; it was likely to be as a result of some of the compromises my body was being forced to make to compensate for weakness elsewhere. It seems that is likely to be the case for me. As well as the creeping stiffness in my ankle and the muscles of my leg, I'm told that the weakness in my left hip now means that my running gait has changed. Apparently, instead of driving my left leg through my running stride normally, I now "throw" it in front of myself because I lack the fine muscle control required. </p><p>Running is hard and has got a lot harder over the last couple of years. My last marathon was in April 2019, and it now feels unrealistic to think that I could put my body through that kind of a distance, never mind the hundreds of miles of training. Perhaps more importantly, I'm not sure I have the kind of determination you need. Instead, I've found a joy in just being out and running at all. I can't run as far or as fast as I did before. Usually, at this time of the year, I'd be out with my club taking part in a local series of cross country runs. I've never been very quick, but they're very inclusive events and they are a lot of fun to run. There's a certain joy, I've discovered, in the mud and the hills. This year, I've sat them out. I just don't think it's realistic to put my body through that kind of stress and I'm just not confident that I'm strong enough to pick up my left leg over that kind of terrain for a 10km race.</p><p>All these things make me feel a bit sad, but I'm also determined to continue to focus on what I can do, rather than to dwell too much on the things I might have lost. </p><p>I suppose this is what my neurologist means by acceptance.</p><p>He also told me that my MS progression was quite unusual: it is not at all normal for patients this far after their diagnosis to be as fit and healthy as I am (my first symptoms were in 2005 and my diagnosis was in 2009). This is obviously good, but it's also a bit depressing. Yes, I've been lucky, but I suddenly have a real sense that the sand is running out of my timer.</p><p>Over the last two years, my condition has progressed. I haven't really developed any new symptoms, but the symptoms I do have are getting worse and are affecting me much more in my daily life. I take drugs to help manage my bladder urges and I self-catheterise every night. I also take muscle relaxants to try and control the muscle spasms in my legs that have woken me up at night for a little while, but are now starting to affect the way that I walk and even make it hard for me to sit still in the evening. I walk stiffly and can feel that I swing my legs from the hip as I walk because I tire easily and don't have the strength to drive them through normally. I wouldn't be all that surprised if I needed to walk with a stick at some point in the relatively near future (I actually find walking a lot harder than running).</p><p>I am relentlessly positive about these changes, but that doesn't mean that they aren't on my mind. I am really disciplined about not allowing myself to wallow in where this journey might end. No one knows the answer to that one, whether they have MS or not. But.... it does make me a little bit sad.</p><p>I reckon I'm pretty strong and resilient, on the whole and maybe I am a shining example of disease acceptance...but these changes are still a lot to take in. </p><p>Well, I'm doing my best.<br /></p><p><br /></p>swisslethttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16708248700851998044noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1750120863647373520.post-38508534871082433992022-01-11T09:31:00.001+00:002022-01-11T09:31:52.958+00:00the law won<p>I wrote to my MP again.</p><p>Ruth Edwards replaced Kenneth Clarke in this constituency in 2019 and has been notably compliant with the Government whip on every vote. She's ambitious and doesn't want to do anything to rock the boat that might jeopordise her career in Parliament. I can actually understand that. I don't agree with her on almost anything and some of her voting has been ridiculous: she talks of her love and concern for the environment and then votes to allow the dumping of raw sewage into our waterways.... but still, this is how our democracy works. She can vote as she sees fit, and my recourse is at the ballot box.</p><p>I am genuinely interested to see how she lines up to defend this latest affront to common decency. <br /></p><p>-- <br /></p><p>Dear Ruth Edwards,<br /><br />I wrote to you in May 2020 about Dominic Cummings' trip to Barnard Castle with his family. You replied on 27/05/20, telling me how you were angry when you heard about it, but that<br /><br />"<i>As I listened to his media conference on Monday afternoon, I was struck by the level of detail and explanation offered by Mr Cummings, as well as the time he took to answer questions from the media. His performance was not polished or flowing, they were the words of a husband and father who had tried to do the best for his family in very stressful circumstances. Mr Cummings made clear that he had taken steps to remain isolated throughout his journey and once he arrived at his parent’s farm. I can understand why he thought it best to isolate himself, his wife and child where help was available to him should he need it and where accessing that help posed the least danger to other people</i>".<br /><br />You concluded that you felt that Cummings had acted reasonably, but added:<br /><br />"<i>Like any other individual, Mr Cummings is entitled to this due process and also to equality before the law. If he has stepped outside of those lockdown rules (which should be equally applied to everyone), then the process for investigating breaches of those rules must also be applied with the same equality.</i>"<br /><br />I wrote to you again in December 2021 to express my anger at news of the Downing Street Christmas parties in 2020. Again, you expressed your shock and anger at what seemed like a flagrant disregard of the rules that we had all been following. I told you I hadn't been able to see my elderly mother with Parkinsons and you told me about the sacrifices you had made:<br /><br />"<i>We did it because we were following the rules we had asked everyone else to follow and because we believed it was the right thing to do. I know many other people also faced significant challenges of adjusting their business model to allow people to work remotely and of trying to cover both work and childcare when schools were closed. We all missed the camaraderie and friendship from working together in person with our colleagues</i>".<br /><br />Now, on the back of the news from a couple of weeks ago about a gathering in the garden in Downing Street (a 'work meeting', we were told), it seems that there was another drinks party in the garden on 25 May 2020. The invitation to this event, sent to 100 people, makes it clear that it was a social event with alcohol. It may have been socially distanced, but it was also clearly in contravention to the guidelines that were in place at the time. Matt Hancock made a point in one of that week's press conferences that we should resist the tempation to enjoy the good weather with our friends because we all had to do the right thing. Except it's clear that not everyone seemed to be clear what that meant. Whilst thousands of people were seeing their families through the windows of care homes, or attending strictly limited funerals, or washing their shopping and worrying about whether they were allowed out for a walk with their family if they had already taken some exercise that day, it seems that other people thought it was acceptable to have a garden party with alcohol.<br /><br />I wonder what the Prime Minister's excuse will be this time; I wonder how he will try to duck responsibility or shift the blame onto someone else. What seems clear to me is that you and I are both being treated as fools. We followed the rules, and even as we were being urged to follow them, they were being egregiously broken by the very people giving us the instructions. What particularly galls me is that this particular party (and who knows, there may have been others we don't yet know about) is that it took place in the days immediately before that pious defence of Dominic Cummings by the government and many Conservative MPs, including yourself. That Rose Garden press conference took place within hours of this most recently revealed party, that defence of Cummings was masterminded by people who knew the party had taken place, and still they lectured us about rules.<br /><br />How do you feel now about you defence of Cummings? Do you feel you have been taken for as much of a fool by these people as I do? When did you find out about these parties? At what point will you stop trying to defend them and start to represent the outrage of your constituents? We simply cannot tolerate a government or a society where there seems to be one rule for them and another rule for everyone else. I agree entirely with what you said in May 2020, <i>"If he has stepped outside of those lockdown rules (which should be
equally applied to everyone), then the process for investigating
breaches of those rules must also be applied with the same equality.</i>"<br /><br />The rules should be equally applied to everybody. </p><p>Everybody.<br /></p><p>I look forward to hearing your views on this,<br /><br /><br />Yours sincerely,<br /><br />swisslet.<br /></p>swisslethttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16708248700851998044noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1750120863647373520.post-65953832858100126292021-09-30T13:09:00.001+01:002021-09-30T13:09:00.314+01:00somebody I used to know...<p>For most of the time I've been in my monthly writing group, I've been doing a lot of "magical realism" style of fiction. I seem drawn to things like talking animals and a world that's like ours, only slightly different. In an attempt to try and get away from this, and in a style that's probably familiar to long-time readers of this blog, I've been delving deeper into my memories and dredging out things that I've never articulated before. It's been a rewarding and also occasionally alarming process. Cathartic, I think.</p><p>Anyway, here's something I wrote over the summer. It's all true, albeit obviously only viewed from my perspective. It's the story of somebody I used to know: Hugo.<br /></p><p>--</p><p>To most people, Boris Johnson must seem like a character out of a book: he’s Billy Bunter made flesh; he’s Just William, he’s Flashman. It’s present in the ruffled hair, the snatches of Latin and in the classical references that pepper every speech. You can even see it in the way that, although he is clearly dressed expensively, he still somehow looks as though he’s been dragged through a hedge backwards. It takes a lot of money to look that scruffy. Yes. Johnson – Alexander Boris de Pfeffel Johnson – is every bit the caricature of the English public schoolboy of popular imagination. </p><p>We should probably be used to this by now: since Robert Walpole became the first, Britain has been served by fifty-five prime ministers. Nearly all of those enjoyed a private education, and fully twenty of them (starting with Walpole himself and finishing with the present incumbent) were educated at Eton. Is it really any wonder that people with this sort of educational background often seem entitled, or that most of us think it’s normal to be governed by people like this? The history of our democracy tells us that both these things are true. </p><p>Johnson likes to present himself as a man of the people. He loves to visit factories and warehouses and to dress up in the clothes of the normal working people of this country, to pretend that he’s just like us, when clearly, he is nothing like us. Can you actually imagine going out to a pub for a drink with Boris Johnson and trying to have a normal conversation with him? He doesn’t seem like a real person at all, does he? </p><p>He might seem like an alien to many people, but he’s all too familiar to me, because I went to school with people like Johnson and I’ve seen this kind of easy, unearned self-confidence before. </p><p>I first met Hugo when we were both thirteen and were being shown around our boarding house on the first day of term at our new school. It’s quite an overwhelming experience. Both of us had been to boarding schools before but being dropped off by your parents and being left alone with the eighteen-year-old prefects is legitimately terrifying. I’d been a pretty big fish in the small pond of my prep school: literally. As well as being head boy, a growth spurt also meant that I was also comfortably the tallest pupil in the school. That first afternoon being shown around my new school by two members of the school first XV rugby team (flanker and second row forward) was a pretty clear demonstration that I wasn’t in Kansas anymore. </p><p>There were fourteen of us in my year and Hugo didn’t make an immediate impression on me. I’m sure he didn’t make much of me, either. Probably we were both just overwhelmed by the whole experience. A handful of the other boys had been at my prep school, so I likely gravitated towards the people I knew. Likewise, one of the other new boys had been at Hugo’s old school, and I’m sure the two of them were drawn to each other as we tried to take it all in without drawing anybody’s attention. Now was a time for blending in, not sticking out. No one is that confident. </p><p>It didn’t take too long after that for Hugo to make his mark. He was one of those boys who seemed to be full of boisterous energy and enthusiasm. He wasn’t as tall as me, but he was still a pretty big lad. At the age of thirteen, like a puppy, Hugo seemed to have huge paws, a massive head and a general lack of coordination, but he was also very physical and liked a bit of rough-and-tumble. He was pretty thoughtless and never really seemed to give any thought to any possible consequences, but he seemed to lack malice. He would act on impulse, get into trouble, but then be so charming that he always seemed to get away with it. </p><p>It was hard to dislike Hugo. </p><p>I liked him. <br />Everyone liked him. </p><p>The environment at a school like this means that you spend an awful lot of time with the people in your house, and none more so than the people in your year. From that very first day onward, we would spend almost every waking hour of every day together, including weekends. We weren’t necessarily in the same classes, but we would eat together, play sport together, muck about together and sleep in the same dormitories. Over the course of five years living in each other’s pockets like this, you really get to know someone, for better and for worse. To make things even more interesting and to spice up the mix, most people also go through a lot of physical and emotional changes between the ages of thirteen and eighteen. There was very little privacy here and nowhere to hide. You learn to bury your emotions deep in an environment like this lest you show anything that makes you seem weak or makes you vulnerable. </p><p>Hugo and I knocked along pretty well. We were very different people: neither of us were particularly good at sport, but I was pretty academic, and we tended to hang out with very different groups of friends. I spent a lot of time listening to music, reading and making a few, really good friends (many of whom are still my very closest friends today). Now I think if it, I can’t actually remember Hugo having any particularly good friends, but he was popular enough, and was certainly better-known around the wider school. As I said, there were fourteen people in my year in my House, around 100 people in total in my House and something like 900 people in the school as a whole. It was quite self-contained little galaxy of overlapping orbits. If Hugo hadn’t been in my year in my House, I’m not sure I would have had any reason to know him, and might actually have actively avoided him, but as things were, we spent a lot of time together and got on without ever really being bosom-buddies. At one point, we actually shared a two-bed dormitory. </p><p>I think it was the arrival of the girls that changed everything. At our school, the first three years were entirely single sex, but as you entered the sixth form, girls were allowed to join the school (lucky them!). They had their own boarding houses, of course, but they joined our classes and they were assigned a boys’ boarding house for their meals. To the fourteen of us in my year in my house, now aged around seventeen, we now suddenly had four girls join us at mealtimes. It’s a bit of a shock for all concerned. It’s overly simplistic to say that it was the very presence of the girls that brought about the change in our relationships, but I think it’s fair to say that they were a prism that revealed a side of our characters that we’d never really been forced to look at too closely before. </p><p>Like most teenage boys, we talked about girls all the time. Most of us had been at almost entirely single-sex boarding schools since the age of seven or eight, so we had no practical experience to speak of. The arrival of girls into our everyday lives was like the arrival of a foreign species. I can only imagine how bizarre an experience this must have been for the girls. For us boys, we suddenly saw these people with whom we had shared nearly every waking moment of the last three years, and thought that we knew pretty well, suddenly start to behave quite differently. </p><p>For myself, I had very little idea how to begin to talk to these strange creatures, but I did have a fairly strong sense of how I did not want to behave. Hugo, who had often regaled us in the dormitory after lights out with tales of his supposed success with women, had a very different sense of how he wanted to behave. Not to put too fine a point on it, he was a predator; women were not people in their own right but they were something to be pursued, consumed and then dropped. He was pretty cold-blooded about it too. I remember one poor girl, Alice, who soaked up the full focus of his charm. She was a year younger than us, seventeen, when he wooed her. She thought she loved him. Eventually, he got what he wanted and he more-or-less came charging out of his study to tell us all about it. He left her in tears and never spoke to her again. It felt wrong then and it feels even worse now I type those words. That is literally what he did, and I found it impossible to consider him charming when I knew that he was capable of this sort of behaviour. </p><p>I haven’t spoken to Hugo since the day we finished our A-levels and left the school to head off to University. We have friends in common, of course, and he has sporadically tried to make contact with me over social media, but I’ve always declined. I think he has kids now, but after leaving school, he seems to have drifted through life on a sea of privilege and lack of consequence. As far as I’m aware, he hasn’t had to work too hard for anything that has come his way in life. Perhaps he’s changed. Perhaps he hasn’t. </p><p>There were a lot of people like Hugo at my school. </p><p>Barack Obama observed of David Cameron in his autobiography that he had “the easy confidence of someone who’d never been pressed too hard by life.” That phrase really resonated with me. I know far too many people from my school days to whom that phrase could be equally applied, not least Hugo. Many ended up working in banking in places like Hong Kong and Sydney. None, as far as I’m aware, have gone into politics, but whenever I see Boris Johnson, I can’t help but think of Hugo and how much collateral damage someone like that is capable of causing to the people around them.
</p>swisslethttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16708248700851998044noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1750120863647373520.post-70556465501818869572021-09-17T18:49:00.008+01:002021-09-17T18:53:38.458+01:00Epizeuxis, Epizeuxis, Epizeuxis, Epizeuxis....<p> It's been a little while, so how about we have a go at one of these?</p><h3 style="text-align: left;"><b>Earworms of the Week</b></h3><p><b>"<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T88fbHOmvRk" target="_blank">Summer Breeze</a>" - The Isley Brothers</b></p><p>To be honest we never really got too much of a summer, did we? I don't actually mind the changing seasons, and I quite like it when the nights draw in and we start heading into the cooler, crisper weather. It is nice to see a bit of sun though, eh? I'm hardly a sun seeker, so it's not that I've been pining for a beach holiday or anything like that... it's just nice, isn't it? Mind you, given that we've not really had much super-nice weather this year, and given that I'm almost always wearing some sort of hat, I still seem to be getting mottled, sun-damaged skin on my shaved head. Go figure. Another one of the manifold indignities of ageing, I suppose. <br /></p><p><b>"<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9OpMYuBMUBk" target="_blank">Don't Let the Night Divide Us</a>" - Manic Street Preachers</b></p><p>For a band that once said they would break up after releasing their very first record, this is now the fourteenth studio album by the dear old Manics. I hopped on board right at the beginning with copied cassette version of Generation Terrorists (NatWest! NatWest BarclaysMidlandsLloyds! Black horse apocalypse!) and I've been pretty firmly on board ever since. I'd still passionately say that The Holy Bible is probably still in my top three records. Some people say they've been dialling it in for years, but I actually love the way that their music has opened out and become more melancholic and elegaic as time has gone on. I've only listened to this album in full a couple of times, but it actually started to come to life for me when I was listening to some of the <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2n1kF5LAoyM" target="_blank">Nicky Wire demos on the bonus material</a>. This song probabaly isn't the best on the album by any stretch of the imagination, and the "boys from Eton" lyric is maybe a bit obvious now, but the passion in Wire's demo really struck a chord with me and the song lodged itself in my cranium. You can't argue with that after all this time, eh?</p><p><b>"<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fKEMBn_JdCE" target="_blank">Never Enough</a>" - Greatest Showman / "<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=afzmwAKUppU" target="_blank">Be Our Guest</a>" - Beauty and the Beast</b></p><p>I have never watched the Greatest Showman. I have no interest in watching The Greatest Showman. </p><p>I have never watched Beauty and the Beast. I have no interest in watching Beauty and the Beast.<br /></p><p>During lockdown and throughout the pandemic, my choir has been meeting on zoom and we've been recording tracks together, recording our own parts in our rooms at home, sending them in and then having the pleasure of listening to our work put together as a full choir. It's been brilliant and I've really enjoyed it. In the past, we've often done songs that I'm not that big a fan of, but they've almost always been great fun to sing. This last season, we've been singing medleys from the musicals: Mary Poppins (including a comedy cockey accent on the Bert bits), Les Mis, Jesus Christ Superstar. None are particularly to my taste, but they've been tremendous fun to learn and to sing. As well as those three, we've also been doing a Greatest Showman medley and a Beauty and the Beast medley. When I mention the former, people tend to get very excited and ask me which songs we're doing and if we're doing this or that particular tune. The answer, I'm afraid, is that I don't know because I haven't watched the film, don't know what the songs are called and couldn't tell you if the one you're thinking of is included or not. It's fun to sing, but please don't push me on this. When the weather was a bit hotter, we had some work done in our garden as the decking needed replacing. I was super-aware of the fact that I had my window open and was trying to record my part for Beauty and the Beast and was very, very conscious of the fact that this was probably shattering any delusions I may have had about being cool as a cod-French accent drifted out as I played the part of a singing candlestick (or whatever. Again, don't ask me as I've never seen it). <br /></p><p><b>"<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g9Krvl7AEAs" target="_blank">The First Big Weekend</a>" / "<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yI2lNVqBpHk">Compersion, Pt 1</a>"- Arab Strap </b></p><p>We attended the End of the Road festival a couple of weeks ago and it was magical. Even if I hadn't seen a single band, it still would have been worth it just to spend some time outdoors in glorious weather drinking cider with friends. As it was, I did see plenty of bands that I really enjoyed and we won the pop quiz by an embarassingly wide margin. On the journey down to the Dorset/Wiltshire border, we listened to the EOTR playlist on spotify and I discovered that I really like Arab Strap. There's just something about Aidan Moffat's soft, Scottish accent telling stories over music. We watched them at the garden stage on Sunday night, a natural bowl in the woodland at Lammas Gardens, and they were great. </p><p style="text-align: left;">"<i>My Pollyanna loves poetry, she thinks my heaven is hell<br />I come on strong with a limerick, she knocks me back with a villanelle<br />She has only one confidant, a psychosexual shrink<br />I think she's wasting her money, I think we just need a drink</i>"</p><p style="text-align: left;"> Excellent. They also finished the gig with a cheery "fuck the Tories", which is also something more people should adopt. I know I have.<br /></p><p><b>"<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iKcbSOjIzjQ" target="_blank">Mork n Mindy</a>" Sleaford Mods feat. Billy No Mates </b></p><p>Sleaford Mods were headlining EOTR on the Saturday night and Billy No Mates played on Sunday afternoon. Both were excellent. Sleaford Mods in particular have been a real breath of fresh air for me over the last couple of years; a really disintictive and powerful voice for the times. I think it also helps that Jason now lives just around the corner from us and we often see him out and about. When she was still commuting to work, my wife used to see him out walking his kids to school. She started nodding good morning to him because she thought she knew him, so he started nodding back, presumably thinking the same as she was nodding at him. Now they're just on nodding terms, probably with neither quite knowing why. It's a lovely thing.<br /></p><p><b> "<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=46IQu0yuJzU" target="_blank">Til I Die</a>" - The Beach Boys</b></p><p>Surf's Up is an absolutely beauty of a record. Tasked with writing a hit, Brian Wilson must have caused a few confused faces when he turns in this cheerful little ditty.</p><p><i>I'm a cork on the ocean<br />Floating over the raging sea<br />How deep is the ocean?<br />How deep is the ocean?<br />I've lost my way<br />Hey hey hey.</i></p><p>It's just wonderful and beautiful. I've included this on the latest birthday CD I did for a friend's daughter. I was asked to start doing this when she was turning 5 and she's just turned 13. Well, you're never too young for some Beach Boys, eh?<br /></p><p><b>"<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LOZuxwVk7TU" target="_blank">Toxic</a>" - Britney Spears</b><br /></p><p> The Guardian has just published a countdown of the <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/music/2021/sep/16/britney-spears-30-greatest-songs-ranked" target="_blank">30 best Britney Spears songs</a>. This isn't at number one and this is just plain wrong. As someone pointed out in the comments, "<i>Yes. In this particular case, I would have it at number 1 and then left
spaces 2-15 empty for breathing room to accurately reflect the chasm
between that song and the rest of the Spears catalogue</i>."</p><p>Fact. <br /></p><p><b>"<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WA4iX5D9Z64" target="_blank">We Are Never Ever Ever Getting Back Together</a>" - Taylor Swift </b><br /></p><p>Speaking of bangers.</p><p>In my long festival going career, I've never really ever had the energy to get up to anything much after midnight. Even more so recently, I've had to be quite careful with how I manage my energy, and my bed is usually calling me long before any of the nighttime stuff really kicks off after the headliners have finished their sets. This year, not only did I make it to the silent disco, but we stayed until about 03:30! There are two channels on the headphones, and it's really fun to watch the crowd give the two DJs almost instantaneous feedback about which one is 'winning' in the way that they respond to each song. You only have to listen to know which one is working best as you can hear everyone just singing along. I had a lovely moment at some point after 02:30 where I realised that everyone I was with was dancing along to "You've Got The Love" or "Loaded" or some other stone cold classic like that, and I was grooving along to TayTay. </p><p>I'm not even sorry. History will prove me right.</p><p>As a sidenote, the very best t-shirt that I saw at the festival was <a href="https://exclaim.ca/images/hipster3.jpg" target="_blank">a mock up of the Sonic Youth album cover for Goo, featuring Taylor Swift and a cat in sunglasses</a>. I want that t-shirt so badly.<br /></p><p><b>"<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DvgOeNEBeFY" target="_blank">Rhetorical Figure</a>" - John Grant</b></p><p><b></b></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><b><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-Zrc9CpuH0tQ/YUTVrxKhGAI/AAAAAAAAInQ/8GoAErcQN70DhjNZAewzxdY1Pjak0SBrACLcBGAsYHQ/s2048/JG.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2048" data-original-width="1536" height="320" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-Zrc9CpuH0tQ/YUTVrxKhGAI/AAAAAAAAInQ/8GoAErcQN70DhjNZAewzxdY1Pjak0SBrACLcBGAsYHQ/s320/JG.jpg" width="240" /></a></b></div><b><br /> </b>John Grant was headlining the Garden Stage at EOTR on the Friday night and he was on magnificent form. As it happens, I also had tickets to his rescheduled gig at Rock City on Thursday this week. He played a different set, but he was absolutely superb again. It was a little strange to be back in an enclosed indoor space with a crowd of a few hundred people, but Rock City wasn't sold out so it wasn't too oppressive and the music is just so good. Of the stuff from his new album, this one stood out at both gigs because Grant clearly loves singing it live and feeding off the energy of the crowd. He's a unique voice and an artist to be cherished.<br /><p></p><p><b>"<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8AHCfZTRGiI" target="_blank">Hurt</a>" - Johnny Cash</b><br /></p><p>I've had the opportunity to sign-up to record a track solo with our choir master. I had a long think about what song to choose, and although I nearly chose "<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2jhXIDoXf7k" target="_blank">Marz</a>" by John Grant, I settled on this. Cash has long been my go-to karaoke choice and sits sweetly in my register, but this song is just something else. Cash's performance is obviously iconic, and I'm not sure I could ever hope to live up to that... but I'm going to have a go. Watch this space, I guess.</p><p>--<br /></p><p>Here we go, Reggie. A little later than promised, but these Earworms are dedicated to you.</p>swisslethttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16708248700851998044noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1750120863647373520.post-34357276321551265522021-07-01T15:26:00.002+01:002021-07-01T15:26:21.400+01:00all greek...<p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-8cH3GWd2Jak/YN3PiPSGVLI/AAAAAAAAIkk/DB5EPO3WF5U5i1Lyw12lRTgVCLz8YiMlACLcBGAsYHQ/s2048/grandma%2Band%2Bgrandad%2Bbeachb.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1536" data-original-width="2048" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-8cH3GWd2Jak/YN3PiPSGVLI/AAAAAAAAIkk/DB5EPO3WF5U5i1Lyw12lRTgVCLz8YiMlACLcBGAsYHQ/s320/grandma%2Band%2Bgrandad%2Bbeachb.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><p></p><p>
The way I remember things, I breezed through my school years. Academically, at least. </p><p>I might still bear the emotional scars of every other part of my education, but I’ve always believed that I found the actual learning stuff part of it pretty easy. Well, apart from maths. I’ve always been weirdly, hopelessly - pathetically - bad at maths. I’m good with words but hopeless with numbers and always have been. Until, one day, maths suddenly became less about numbers and more about understanding and manipulating formulae, at which point the fog started to lift. Luckily for me, this was also the point at which the serious exams started. If you know how formulas work and you know how to use a calculator, you’re laughing. I went from set 5 (out of 6) to an A grade and a possible a-level almost overnight. <br /></p><p>These days, this cackhandedness with numbers only really annoys me when it comes to Scrabble and crosswords: when you’re good with language, you’d imagine that turning a jumble of letters into words would be simple, right? Wrong. It’s disappointingly mathematical.
But I digress. </p><p>I’m not a genius by any means, but I am curious, was blessed with a good memory and had a priceless ability to be good at the types of exams we use to assess our children. It’s no accident that, as my education proceeded, I increasingly specialised in essay subjects. It’s not a skill that’s been all that much use to me in my adult life, I must say, but I always seem to have been able to put together coherent arguments in long form writing under pressure. Lucky me, as my exam results all the way through to my Masters degree will testify. </p><p>Throughout my schooling, at the end of every term, I would be sent home to my parents with a trunk full of dirty laundry and a little report booklet. This booklet would contain a handwritten update from every one of my teachers for every subject detailing my progress for the term. I’m sure lots of people dread this kind of feedback (and I’m fairly sure all teachers everywhere must find this to be a terrible chore and it’s no wonder many resort to tired old cliches. MUST. TRY. HARDER). I used to love it. How could I not? As I remember it, this was mostly a succession of accounts of how remarkable I was: top of the class and on track for great things. Who wouldn’t want their parents to see this? </p><p>Except in Maths, obviously. Until the age of about 14, my maths reports mostly remained a succession of tired and frustrated teachers not understanding why they couldn’t be the one to unlock my potential in the subject. Then, at the end of my first school year before the run into GCSEs began in earnest, I completed a 90-minute maths paper in about 40 minutes. A bored (and surprised) teacher began marking it on the spot as the rest of the class completed their papers. He put my score up on the board behind him when he finished the marking: 98%. Everyone else, still working their way through their exam papers just groaned. My response? To ask what I got wrong. You can only imagine how much the rest of my class hated me in that moment. My maths reports got better after that. </p><p>Anyway. </p><p>I was at my parents’ house a little while ago and they had a box of various bits and pieces on the kitchen table. I think they’d been looking for some old photos, but, for some reason, this box contained one of those old report booklets. I picked it up to have a closer look as I have two brothers and, sure enough, it turned out to be one of mine. It was the report for the Christmas term of 1986. I was in the scholarship stream at this point, being prepared for a set of exams that would ultimately mean that my parents got a fairly hefty discount off the bill for my next school when I was awarded an academic scholarship (my prize? I got to have my name in capital letters in the school directory and to be cordially hated by almost everyone else in a school not famed for its academic achievement and where the highest social status was reserved for the members of the school rugby team). I eagerly rifled through this report in its distinctive yellow binding, hoping to be able to show my wife what an intolerable swot I was at the age of twelve (she’d understand because she was, and remains to this day, by her own account, much worse). </p><p>I quickly passed over all the good ones and came to rest on a report for Ancient Greek. Now, I only studied Greek because I had jumped a year at this school and was now in my second year of the sixth form, and the headmaster (who taught classics) wanted to give me as much intellectual stimulation as he could. </p><p>At some point over the last thirty-five years, I have pushed this memory somewhere back into one of the dustier corners of my mind. Seeing this single, nearly transparent little piece of report paper brought it all flooding back to me. You remember I mentioned that I was inexplicably bad at maths? Well, I think I was worse at Greek. It was… well… it was all Greek to me. I remember sitting in that classroom on a dark winter evening and just failing to get my mind wrapped around this strange language that didn’t even use the same alphabet. It started promisingly when I learned by rote how to recite the alphabet. It’s something I can still do today and this skill has been surprisingly and unexpectedly useful to keep track of COVID-19 variants. That was as good as it got. When it came to writing that alphabet down, I couldn’t even get past epsilon, will all its preposterous curls. This single report told the whole sorry story, with this kindly and patient headmaster expressing his frustration that I seemed to have developed a mental block and was refusing to process any of the information he was trying to teach me. His frustration clearly came, not because he believed I wasn’t capable of learning Greek, just that I’d decided that I couldn’t and therefore wouldn’t. He finished by saying that, if this continued for much longer, he was going to have to – with great reluctance – remove me from the class. Not long after, this was exactly what happened. I remember feeling only relief at being put out of my misery. </p><p>Reading this old report at my mum and dad’s table brought those memories back into focus. They aren’t unpleasant memories, by any means, but now they were challenging my long and somewhat proudly-held view of myself as having a more-or-less unblemished record of academic success throughout my school years. This is a key component of my image of myself and now it turns out to be not true. It’s not exactly untrue, and maths was probably all the evidence anybody needed to deflate that particular argument anyway. In fact, I’d say that it remains mostly true. </p><p>That’s almost the same thing, isn’t it? Given some rounding to the nearest significant figure. That’s close enough for jazz, as my old maths teacher used to say. </p><p> --</p><p>[written for my monthly writing group, June 2021] <br /></p>swisslethttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16708248700851998044noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1750120863647373520.post-17959942434173587742021-04-30T12:02:00.003+01:002021-04-30T12:06:58.877+01:00snapshot in the family album...<p></p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-aE4yl9HFU_4/YIviEeE6hLI/AAAAAAAAIfY/qwH7JtOyvvkM_3AMcWxlR6bgL6w-IUv1gCLcBGAsYHQ/s1317/1981.png" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1189" data-original-width="1317" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-aE4yl9HFU_4/YIviEeE6hLI/AAAAAAAAIfY/qwH7JtOyvvkM_3AMcWxlR6bgL6w-IUv1gCLcBGAsYHQ/s320/1981.png" width="320" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: x-small;"><i>Me, the same month I started boarding</i></span><br /></td></tr></tbody></table> <p></p><p>Have you ever wondered what it’s like to go to a boarding school? I bet you have, haven’t you? Maybe you’ve read Harry Potter and you like the idea of having banquets in a big dining room or having a house common room where you can snuggle down in your pyjamas and chat with your friends in front of a roaring fire before heading off to bed to continue the chat after lights out. </p><p>It’s nothing like that. </p><p>Well, maybe it is a bit. </p><p>My parents sent me away to boarding school when I was 7 years old. One warm, sunny afternoon in September, I was loaded into the car with a trunk and driven for about an hour to the school where I was to spend the next six years. In my memory, with forty long years of distance, this came completely out of the blue: one minute I was playing at home and the next, I’m being sent away, never really to return before I moved out for good. That can’t be right though. I’m sure I must have known it was coming, because that trunk in the car was packed with a school uniform and towels and things like that, all with my name tape sewn neatly into them so they wouldn’t get lost in the school laundry. I must surely have visited the school itself too, although I have no memory of that either. All I remember is playing happily by myself all afternoon before being packed into the car and then, about an hour later, being dropped off at my new school. </p><p>I was a pretty young seven, to be honest. I’m six foot five now, but I was small and nervous then, with NHS glasses and crooked teeth. I can still remember that first night so clearly. I was assigned to a dormitory called “Irving” with all the other new arrivals and my bed was right up against the window. There were around fourteen of us, all around seven or eight years old. The old, iron-framed beds had squeaky springs and were spaced about 2m apart. We were allowed our own duvet covers (I must have learned how to make the bed at some point over the summer too, as this is not something I had ever done before). If my memory isn’t playing tricks on me, the two covers I had brought with me were a union jack and a Peanuts cartoon featuring Snoopy, Charlie Brown, Linus and the gang. Lights went out on a strict timetable and we were left alone in the dark. A few people in the room started to sob. I think we’d been warned by the kindly matron or housemaster that some of us might feel homesick. I had wondered what that was, and now I was listening to the quiet sobbing of children missing their own families and their own beds, I still wasn’t sure. I hadn’t been away from home on my own before; this was all new, strange and a little frightening, but I still didn’t feel like crying. Perhaps I should be grateful that I never experienced home sickness in my time at school, but I do remember wondering at the time why I didn’t feel like that. Was something wrong with me? Shouldn’t I be missing my parents? </p><p>We didn’t talk much after lights out, but none of us were really ready to sleep yet, so I suppose a bit of chatter was inevitable (if you weren’t crying yourself to sleep). I discovered that I could talk to the boy on the other end of the window if we both stuck out heads behind the curtain and whispered along the windowsill. I spent nearly every day of the next six years with most of those boys, but I don’t think I’m still in contact with a single one of them. I can still remember their names: Robert Munn was the boy across the other side of the window; Tim Smithson was the most homesick. In fact, Tim wasn’t able to shake off that homesickness in all the time he was at that school and he cried most nights. It seems a peculiar kind of torture to inflict on a small boy, doesn’t it? It’s character building, I suppose. Perhaps it’s far stranger for a seven-year-old separated from his parents to remain entirely unmoved. </p><p>Now I’m older, I wonder how hard this must have been for my parents, especially my mother. To take your seven-year-old son – and I was a very young seven - and to drop him off at a boarding school for weeks at a time when you have never previously spent a night away from them? How much of a wrench must that be? You can console yourself all you like with thoughts that you’re doing the best thing for them in the long run, that this is going to be the education that gives them the greatest opportunities in life, that this will be the making of them… but on a very human level, you’re wrenching your own flesh and blood away from your side and leaving them to sink or swim in an alien environment that’s a long, long way from home. Mind you, I suppose that if not every boy was crying themselves to sleep with homesickness every night, it stands to reason that not every parent was sobbing over their lost babies either. Some families, after all, have been doing this for generations. It never did me any harm, etc. </p><p>All my life, I’ve felt a kind of low-grade shame about my educational background. Obviously, it’s not something that I ever had any say in, but even now, I feel embarrassed about my schooling and I’m quite happy if it never comes up on conversation. I hate people’s preconceptions and I hate having them applied to me. Again, they’re not really my problem and they’re not something I can control, but if I can drift through life without anyone guessing that I had a private education, then so much the better. I’m happy to wear this invisibility on my sleeve as a badge of honour, which given how much my education cost, seems a bit of a strange reaction to say the least. </p><p>As far as I’m aware, nobody in our family went to a fee-paying school before me and my brothers (I’m the middle of three. My elder brother started at this school on the same day as I did). My father is the child of publicans from Plymouth and he was never expected to go to university, never mind to medical school. The grades he got would be nowhere near good enough now to get him anywhere near a degree in medicine, but he studied at Barts Hospital in London, met my mum who was a student nurse and became a GP on the Northamptonshire/Buckinghamshire border. Fairly quickly, my mum gave up work to become a full-time parent and my dad became a GP in a busy rural practice. Clearly, to send all of your kids to a private school, they must have been doing alright, but I don’t remember us being especially affluent. We didn’t have fancy cars (not as fancy as most of the other parents’ cars in the school car park when we were picked up for half term, anyway) and we never went abroad on holiday. At the start of every winter term, kids would be talking about how they had been to Disneyland or wherever, and I’d probably spent a week in wales with my mum’s parents and a maybe also a week in Devon above my dad’s parent’s pub. Oddly, this never bothered me. I’ve never wanted to go to Disneyland. </p><p>Maybe I should care more. My parents clearly made enormous sacrifices to send their children to boarding schools. For a fifteen-year period from 1981, my mum and dad put three sons through a private education. They did this to try and give their kids what they thought was the best possible start in life. They sacrificed their money and they sacrificed watching their children growing up. For what? For me to spend my time pretending that it never happened and, worse than that, telling them to their faces that there is no way on God’s green earth that I would put any child of mine through the same treatment.
What an ungrateful little shit I am. </p><p>-- <br /></p><p>I wrote this for my writing group in April 2021. I usually write some magical reality type stuff with talking animals and things, but I'd just finished <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/books/2020/mar/05/broken-greek-pete-paphides-review">Pete Paphides' "Broken Greek",</a> and was inspired to write something a whole lot closer to home. Since I wrote this, there seems to have been a spate of people writing about their own experiences of boarding school, the complete opposite to how you imagine someone like Boris Johnson talks about his schooling. Lots of damaged adults still suffering the emotionsl repercussions. I'm not sure if that's exactly my story, but I did think that I had a story to tell. So here we are.<br /></p><p><br /></p>
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<p><a href="https://vimeo.com/383943444">Sent Away</a> from <a href="https://vimeo.com/rosafisher">Rosa Fisher</a> on <a href="https://vimeo.com">Vimeo</a>.</p>swisslethttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16708248700851998044noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1750120863647373520.post-33484378874929322452021-04-01T16:30:00.008+01:002021-04-01T16:34:49.748+01:00like a monkey with a miniature cymbal...<p>You’d imagine that the first time you die is something that you’ll never forget. Well, to be perfectly honest with you, all of my early deaths have mostly just dissolved into one big blur. After a while, you just stop keeping count and the details seem far less important. It’s probably for the best, all things considered. There’s only so much pain and suffering and loss that anyone can be expected to put up with before it becomes overwhelming. Mind you, if it does become overwhelming, what exactly are you going to do? Kill yourself? In a very real way, that just compounds your problem. If you think that life is pain, then you clearly haven’t died often enough. </p><p>I’m okay with most of the later deaths. I can remember them just fine, but that really isn’t very impressive because the plain fact is that the documentation is simply better these days. If you can’t quite remember the details of exactly how you shuffled off this mortal coil last time around, it’s now the kind of thing you can always just look up. </p><p>Maybe it’s my age, but looking back over my deaths now, old and new, I find that I’ve actually become a little nostalgic about the good old days. Everything is so clinical now. Oh for sure, nobody in their right mind would be sentimental about massive rates of child mortality, plagues, constant, blood-soaked warfare and a medical profession that killed more people than it cured, but there was something almost romantic about the way people died back then. </p><p>Life might have been solitary, poor, nasty, brutish and short, but people still died of a broken heart, or passed away from old age peacefully in their sleep. These days, you might live to be one hundred and twenty years old, but medical science will now know exactly what it was that finally carried you off. One of a thousand different cancers, perhaps; the failure of a particular valve in a particular chamber of your heart or maybe something rather less banal like an untreated dose of parasitic visceral leishmaniasis (I don’t recommend it). Some people probably think that this makes the Dictionary of National Biography infinitely more interesting to read, but I disagree. What’s life – or death - without a little romance? </p><p> I suppose it all amounts to the same thing in the end. Well, for most people. Hashtag YOLO. </p><p>I sometimes wonder what it would be like to live just one life. I’m not asking to live forever (although I do think that might be a lot simpler), I’m just becoming a little tired of this endless cycle of life and then death. Perhaps this happens to everyone? Maybe most people just forget and I’m doomed to remember. Well, to remember most of it, anyway. </p><p>It’s not as though I’ve learned anything really useful, either. Nothing that I can really benefit from, anyway. Stock tips don’t work this way around and there’s only so many times that any one person should have to go through adolescence. Trying to wisely share the benefits of your lifetimes’ worth of experience with someone who has instant access to the entirety of the world’s knowledge via their mobile phone is a complete waste of time. It’s not that they could just look it up faster than you can tell them, it’s that they’re so bloody busy on Twitter that they’re probably not even really listening. You’re wasting your breath. </p><p>So what have I learned? All this time and all those lives; what have I actually learned? Well, I I’ve been rich and I’ve been poor; I’ve been virtuous and I’ve been dissolute; I’ve been famous and I’ve been utterly anonymous; I’ve lived long lives and I’ve died within a single heartbeat. What have I learned? </p><p>As Hubert Selby Jr once said, “<i>I knew that someday I was going to die. And just before I died two things would happen; Number 1: I would regret my entire life. Number 2: I would want to live my life over again</i>.”
Well, be careful what you wish for. That’s what I’ve learned. </p><p>[for writing group session, March 2021] </p>swisslethttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16708248700851998044noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1750120863647373520.post-9602206609459174262021-03-05T14:56:00.001+00:002021-03-05T14:56:11.413+00:00the distant future...<p>After fifteen years of sterling service, we said goodbye to our first ever dishwasher last week. </p><p>As a slimline, MFI own-brand ("Diplomat") that came as part of our extremely cheap kitchen overhaul more than a decade ago, it's fair to say that this appliance vastly exceeded my expectations (just as the kitchen did itself. RIP MFI). Not only did it do a perfectly acceptable job cleaning the dishes, but it also displayed a surprising longevity.</p><p>As with many things, I didn't know quite how much this had become a part of our lives until its seals failed and we were suddenly forced to handwash everything. It's not that I especially mind doing the dishes, it's just that I'd forgotten quite how much they pile up when you can't just stack them into the machine out of sight.</p><p>A friend was telling me last week that he knows someone who doesn't even bother having cupboards in his kitchen any more; he just has two dishwashers and uses one for storing dirty dishes, and the other for storing clean. I suppose you have to admire that sort of commitment to minimalism, even if it's probably not for everyone. My wife, for some reason, doesn't even subscribe to the idea that a dishwasher dries everything well enough that you can just put them straight into the cupboard and insists on a wipedown. I roll my shoulders and agree to this, on the understanding that she realises I don't bother doing this when she's not in the room.<br /></p><p>A replacement appliance was pretty easy to source, even during a pandemic. John Lewis quickly came round with a new machine, installed it and took the old one away for recycling. </p><p>So long and thanks for all the clean dishes.</p><p>As you'd expect, the new one works in much the same way as the old one, although the shelves aren't shaped the same way and I haven't yet quite worked out the most efficient way of stacking things as they don't fit in the same places in the same way as they used to. This is a very small, albeit mildly vexing, problem.<br /></p><p>What's really taken me aback though is the fact that this new device is connected to the internet. As the keen owner of a brand new appliance, I dutifully connected it to my WIFI and can now contemplate at leisure the wisdom of this... who knew that there would be a need to receive so many push notifications about the salt and rinse aid status of my new machine, or that I would need to know, to the second, what stage the cleaning cycle was at and when it would be due to finish? It also projects a HAL-like red light onto the floor when it is in operation, so you don't distrub it by opening it before its work is done.<br /></p><p>When the machines take over, as they surely will, I for one will be amongst the first to welcome our new robot masters.</p><p>I should do more middle class consumer reviews here, no?<br /></p>swisslethttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16708248700851998044noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1750120863647373520.post-75203862507441953262021-02-18T13:12:00.002+00:002021-02-18T13:15:07.748+00:00a vine that can strangle life from a tree...<p>I’ve never really been particularly sporty. I quite enjoyed playing team sports when I was at school, but there was never any sign of great talent. I wasn’t being picked last for our playground games of football, but I definitely wasn’t being picked first either. Running, however, I loathed. Every week, I think on a Tuesday or Wednesday, we would be sent out on a cross country run. Whatever the weather, we would run three or four miles across muddy fields and along the footpaths out around the school. I say run, but really, as long as I was fairly sure that there was no one looking, I would walk. I absolutely hated slogging my way through the mud and wanted no part of it. It would have been over more quickly if I’d run, but it all just seemed too difficult and too painful. Far better to trudge along miserably in the rain. If I thought I could have got away with hiding in a bush just out of sight, I probably would have done it. The idea that anyone might do this sort of thing for fun just seemed utterly ridiculous. </p><p>Fast forward thirty years, and now it’s the idea that I might have to stop running that really scares me. I sort of fell into running when I stopped playing organised sport and started drinking beer. Popping out once a week for a rather laboured jog was a purely defensive measure designed to stave off an incipient beer belly. </p><p>I didn’t actually start running more seriously until I was diagnosed with multiple sclerosis in 2009. My journey towards that diagnosis began one morning in July 2005, when I woke up with a numb hand. Over the course of the next few weeks, that numbness spread through my body and down through my legs and feet. Running when you can’t really feel your feet is an unnerving experience: you feel with every stride that you might miss your step and break a leg. I thought then that I might have to give up running, but it’s amazing how adaptable the brain is and how quickly you can get used to something that seemed insurmountable. </p><p>As well as a loss of sensation, one of the most common symptoms of MS is fatigue. It sounds counterintuitive, but I discovered that going for a run was incredibly helpful at helping to shake off this fatigue. When you’ve been running, at least you know why you’re tired. Running made me feel better about myself. MS is a chronic illness with no cure and with uncertain outcomes, but running gave me a sense of control. Visiting an MS clinic at the hospital is a sobering experience; to be surrounded by people in wheelchairs, struggling to speak or to swallow is to be confronted by a possible future. I can’t predict or control how my MS might affect me, but I found that to be a powerful motivation to work my body whilst I can. I joined a running group and began to run with other people. I still wasn’t particularly quick, but it’s funny how running with other people makes you run faster than you thought might be possible. </p><p>MS affects everyone differently. In my case, as well as the numbness and pins & needles, I have a loss of strength on my left-hand-side and a loss of dorsiflexion in my left ankle. This didn’t stop me from running, but as I quickly learned as I began to run more often, this changed my gait and made me more susceptible to injury as my body tried to compensate for the loss of strength and power. The further I run, the more I drop my left side and the more susceptible I am to falling over. A sports specialist consultant surgeon told me that I would probably struggle to run much more than 10km and that, although it might not be my MS that stopped me from running, the compromises my body was making probably would. Naturally, I ignored him and kept running. </p><p>In 2015, I ran my first marathon. </p><p>To be honest, the 26.2 miles itself wasn’t my biggest concern: I was worried how my body would hold up to the 500 miles of training and the load of running 5 or 6 times a week. I didn’t set the world on fire, but running side-by-side with my wife, we made it round and raised a pile of cash for the MS Trust (we’ve raised around £40,000 in total, an amount that mainly humbles me because of the support and generosity of our friends). </p><p>Since that day, I’ve run another 5 marathons. At Chester in 2018, I even dipped below the magical 4 hour mark (a 22 minute PB!). I’ve joined an athletics club, picked up my coaching qualifications and taken enormous pride in the achievements of the athletes I coach as they have worked their way from a couch to 5km programme to running competitive cross-country races and half marathons. </p><p>Meanwhile, slowly and remorselessly, my MS has got worse. My legs and left ankle have slowly stiffened; I take a muscle relaxant at night to help me to sleep and I now fall over so often that I run wearing knee pads and wrist guards; my pace has slowed and my shuffling, uneven gait is causing me problems elsewhere in my body (as that specialist predicted). Stopping, you might think, may be the obvious thing to do. </p><p>I’m not going to stop. </p><p>Running is part of who I am. My friends are runners. Running is something that I do together with my wife. It’s vital for my mental wellbeing every bit as much as my physical wellbeing. I’m not just going to stop. </p><p>Sure, I wish I was faster. What runner doesn’t? </p><p>I wish I didn’t fall over so much, but really, what choice do I have? </p><p>Do I want to stop and feel sorry for myself and the things that I’ve lost, or do I want to keep on going as best as I’m able? Is that really even a question? Precisely because it’s become harder for me, I am more aware now than I have ever been of exactly how much running means to me and I cherish every single time I get out. It’s not the falling over that’s the most important thing to consider, it’s the getting back up again. </p><p>I have a tattoo on my weaker left ankle by the Japanese novelist and marathon runner, Haruki Murakami: pain is inevitable, suffering is optional. </p><p>The full quote, from “What I think about when I think about running” is: </p><p>“Pain is inevitable. Suffering is optional. Say you’re running and you think, ‘Man, this hurts, I can’t take it anymore. The ‘hurt’ part is an unavoidable reality, but whether or not you can stand anymore is up to the runner himself.” </p><p>This runner can stand the pain and isn’t done quite yet.
</p>swisslethttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16708248700851998044noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1750120863647373520.post-75508279357642448322021-01-17T18:17:00.003+00:002021-01-17T18:18:35.794+00:00bushs and briars...<p>It's been a while, eh? How's your 2021? Seems so far to be pretty much the same as 2020, so I can't really say that I'm a fan... but it's early days.</p><p>Although I've been pretty slack with my writing generally, I do have a monthly zoom meetup with some of the guys from my creative writing course in 2019. One of the things that I enjoyed the most on that course was - surprisingly - listening to other people reading their own work. I still really enjoy listening to these guys reading whatever they've written over the last few months, whether it's a poem or a short story or the next chapter in an ongoing work. The meeting has also been a good spur for me to pull my finger ou and at least create something every month. </p><p>Here's one of them:</p><p> -</p><p><b>Briars </b><br /></p><p>
It was one of those dank, gloomy September days; the kind of day that is oddly grey from dawn until dusk, as if the darkness has refused to fully retreat and is just biding its time until it can seize control again. </p><p>The little girl didn’t seem to mind. </p><p>She left her house towards the end of the afternoon and made her way towards the forest. In those parts and in those times, you were never far from the forest. Everything for miles around was dominated by those gnarled trees. It was ancient, so they said, and looking at those huge, gnarled trunks with their grasping branches, that was very easy to believe. Man came late to these parts and was not welcome.
As the girl approached the treeline, tendrils of fog seemed to reach out of the forest and wrap themselves around her, pulling her in. Even before she had reached the trees, the forest seemed to grasp her claim her as their own. She quickly disappeared from view. </p><p>If there was a path, there was little obvious sign, but the girl strode between the trees confidently and without any hesitation. The leaf litter lay thick upon the ground, the branches almost bare, but still no light penetrated through to the forest floor. Sound seemed muffled here, just the gentle swoosh of the leaves piled on the ground as the little girl walked through.
She was watched as she walked: squirrels paused in the burying of their nuts to stare at her curiously with their liquid eyes, crows watched her without comment, their judgment plain. If there were songbirds here, there were none to be heard. If this troubled the girl, she showed no sign of it, walking purposefully through the wood. </p><p>After a while, the path – such as it was – seemed to split in two. A junction. Neither way looked inviting and both seemed dark and overgrown. But the little girl did not hesitate: she choose the left-hand fork without blinking. Before long, she faced another fork, then another, each time making her choice without a heartbeat of hesitation as she worked her way deeper and deeper into the forest. By now, in spite of the chill of the late autumnal day, the press of the trees around her must surely have felt claustrophobic. In the gathering darkness, anything could have been watching; anything could have been waiting for this guileless child. Still she went on, plunging deeper and deeper into the gloom. </p><p>Who (or what) lived in this forest? Wolves? Bear? Grumpkins? It was often whispered in warm, safe rooms filled with light that those who entered the wood carelessly were sometimes never seen again. Witches? Maybe so. Perhaps their cottages can still be found nestled deep within the trees, all made of gingerbread and with hot ovens ready to roast any child careless enough to wander too far from the safety of home. Perhaps this child?
She walked on, steadily and without a hint of haste. She never looked anxiously over her shoulder to see what might be following or scanned the treeline for eyes tracking her progress. She walked steadily on into the forest. </p><p>After some time, the girl came across a briar patch that stretched across the path. So thick had it grown that there seemed no way through, with thickly layered, thorn-covered tendrils tangled across the way.
The girl stopped. Surely now, this must mean the end of her journey. No matter how determined she might be, there was now surely no way forward. She must turn back and leave the forest before the night closed in and abandoned her, all alone amongst those dark and forbidding trees and all the horrors that they might conceal. </p><p>The girl did not flee; she did not turn on her heel to escape the oppressive darkness of the wood and to seek the safety of the warmth and the light. No. Carefully, and with no haste at all, she calmly and methodically began instead to reach into the briar thicket to pluck the ripe and juicy fruit to be found there.
There would be blackberry crumble when she got home. With custard. Perhaps enough for bramble chutney too. </p><p>Next week, she would return for the sloes. </p><p>The forest was bountiful.
</p>swisslethttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16708248700851998044noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1750120863647373520.post-32279833702005837202020-11-18T13:30:00.001+00:002020-11-18T13:30:07.371+00:00marching on...<p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-4NrFPMi-l9Y/X7UTNyYcbSI/AAAAAAAAIao/KDoGUtgqh_cxc_VR43njqhRblEFwbPCqgCLcBGAsYHQ/s2048/me.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1356" data-original-width="2048" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-4NrFPMi-l9Y/X7UTNyYcbSI/AAAAAAAAIao/KDoGUtgqh_cxc_VR43njqhRblEFwbPCqgCLcBGAsYHQ/s320/me.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><br />Long time readers will likely know a couple of things about me:<p></p><p>1) I like to run</p><p>2) I have been very lucky with my MS to be able to continue running.</p><p>I try not to take it for granted. I actually only really began taking my running seriously after my diagnosis. I think there was something in my head that made me more determined than ever to stay active. Multiple sclerosis is not something that I can really control; I can't change the way that my legs feel or the other ways that the condition is affecting me, but I do have some degree of control over my own determination to get out and to exercise. </p><p>My first marathon was in 2015, and I've run six in total. My high watermark of this madness was between April 2018 and April 2019. In that time, I ran four marathons. At the beginning of October 2018, I ran the Chester marathon in a time of 3:58... that was a PB of something like 22 minutes. My last marathon was a glorious day spent accompanying my wife to a personal best at the Vienna marathon in April 2019. We got married in the city in 2007 and have some wonderful friends there, so it was a joy from start to finish. I haven't retired from running marathons and half intended to get one booked for 2020, but.... well, lockdown happened.</p><p>Actually, more than lockdown happened. MS seems to have taken more of a grip on me over the last few months. Since my symptoms first appeared in 2005, I've always had a certain level of loss of sensation/pins and needles in my legs and feet. It does feel weird to run on legs like that, but it's amazing what the brain gets used to. Over the years, I've increasingly had problems with cramp in my legs. Initially this was in my calves, but it's slowly spread so that I was getting muscle spasms in my thighs. There's also a fair amount of stiffness. I've been accustomed to staggering around a bit like an old man when I've been sitting at my desk for a while, but now this seems to be happening more and more often. After resisting for many years, I now take a very small dose of baclofen (a muscle relaxant) before I go to bed. I may need to start taking a higher dose soon.<br /></p><p>I'm falling over a lot more too. The loss of flexibility in my left ankle and strength in my left side has always made me a bit prone to this. I drop my left side as I get tired and start scuffing my left foot, which leads to stumbles. This is happening more and more often, meaning that I now go out running wearing knee and wrist guards (my knees have taken a frightful pounding from this and are now sore most of the time). </p><p>I could stop running, but I don't want to. In fact, although I might be running more slowly at the moment, I'm actually doing more miles in lockdown than I think I've ever done before. I managed about 1220 miles in 2019 and I've done 1382 so far this year with 7 weeks still to go. I'll probably go comfortably over 1500 miles for the year. I'm still capable of running more quickly, but my default pace now seems to be a rather sorry plod because I don't really trust my legs any more.</p><p>I'm not telling you any of this looking for sympathy. It's just that I'm starting to acknowledge something that I've tried to ignore for more than a decade now: my MS is progressing. The official shift in my diagnosis from relapsing-remitting to secondary progressive a few weeks ago was recognition of that simple fact.</p><p>My own sense of self and wellbeing is bound up in my ability to run. For better or for worse. I'm going to keep running. Of course I'm going to keep running. I'm just slowly starting the process of coming to terms with the fact that I'm not bulletproof and that I can't control the progress of this godawful condition.</p><p> You adapt, though. What other choice do you have? I'll always have that 3:58 marathon, eh?<br /></p>swisslethttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16708248700851998044noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1750120863647373520.post-41979443430296182532020-11-12T16:59:00.005+00:002020-11-12T16:59:47.110+00:00potatoes...<p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-kk1Qrgzbxtw/X61pn3seaGI/AAAAAAAAIaI/TftDzMWNgL4l3F3BErYXAJIzQLWBMsaTgCLcBGAsYHQ/s1600/volcano.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1600" data-original-width="1200" height="320" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-kk1Qrgzbxtw/X61pn3seaGI/AAAAAAAAIaI/TftDzMWNgL4l3F3BErYXAJIzQLWBMsaTgCLcBGAsYHQ/s320/volcano.JPG" /></a></div><br />I don’t really believe in bucket lists. I’m not a fan of keeping lists of things I want to do before I die. Partly, this is because it seems a nonsense, as the simple truth is that no one knows when they’re going to die. If you could die tomorrow, why are you writing a list instead of getting out of the door? Mostly though, my objection probably comes from how lucky I am to have done some incredible things in my life, so a bucket list seems kind of redundant. <p></p><p> I’ve swum in the chilly waters off Kaikoura in New Zealand as hundreds of dusky dolphins swam around me and leapt over me. I was told that you need to sing to them through your snorkel to keep them interested in you and to stop them just swimming off when they get bored. As a result, I’ve discovered that they’re big fans of “Bad Romance” by Lady Gaga. </p><p>I’ve skydived from 10,000m above the Skeleton Coast in Namibia, where the big dunes of the Namib desert meet the ocean, freefalling for a seemingly endless 30 seconds before the parachute opened, surprisingly filling me with mild disappointment. Here I learned that it’s okay to pack your main parachute up in a slightly slapdash way as long as you’re careful with the reserve as that’s the really important one. </p><p>I’ve done a lot of diving too: on the Great Barrier Reef in Australia, in the Maldives with giant Manta Ray doing a graceful dance together no more than a meter above my head, or along the edge of a canyon into the deep ocean surrounded by literally three hundred sharks, all bigger than me and a few casually swimming along behind me as if to see if I was worth the effort of a closer look. It’s at moments like these when you really begin to appreciate your place on the food chain. </p><p>I’ve walked with lions and wolves, seen sperm whale, humpback and orca, kayaked with baby seal, stood within 2m of an adult male grizzly bear, watched dawn breaking above the jungle temples of Ankor Wat… So there’s no question that I’ve been very lucky. </p><p>All this brings perspective; when you experience the elemental beauty of nature first-hand like this, it’s not hard to understand your own existence as comparatively insignificant, in the most wonderful way. All our sound and fury ultimately signifies nothing, and that’s okay. </p><p>The time I felt this most acutely was standing on the sides of Mount Tungurahua in Ecuador as it erupted. Ecuador is a small country, barely the size of the UK, but it contains in that space an enormous diversity of landscapes, from high Andean paramo all the way through to Amazonian jungles (not to mention the Galapagos Islands). We were on a three-week trip and wanted to cram in as much of this as we reasonably could. We hiked the high Andes up to about 5000m, we watched hummingbirds feed, fished for piranha in tiny jungle rivers, brushed tarantula off the benches before sitting down to dinner, drank fresh passionfruit juice and picked coffee berries straight from the tree. Banos is a city in the middle of the country and is renowned for its hot springs and adventure activities. I’ve never seen the appeal of bungee jumping, but we did mountain bike along mountain gorges and, on our first evening in town, we took a trip up the town’s volcano (as our guide would say, the hot springs are not for free) Now, when you think about active volcanos, the chances are that you’re thinking of Pompeii or Krakatoa, but not all volcanos are quite that explosive. Tungurahua means “throat of fire” in Quichua, and although it is erupting and you actually have to drive over the pyroclastic flows that have poured over the road to reach the town itself, you’re not seriously in danger of being overrun by lava. The town does have volcano warning alarms, but apparently the lava moves so slowly that you will have around three days to actually leave the town before you’re really in trouble. Mind you, the volcano dominates the skyline and, as you drive into the town, you can see the column of smoke and ash it produces from a hundred miles away. It’s quite an impressive sight. </p><p>That first evening, we drove up the volcano before it got dark. It’s quite steep and narrow in places, and as we slowly wound our way up the narrow, wooded tracks, we came across a tiny, wizened old lady dressed in the traditional costume of the region, complete with natty woollen Spanish-style trilby hat (a legacy of the Spanish colonisation). There’s only one path up or down the mountain, so we stopped and – through our guide – offered this lady a lift, which she gratefully accepted. As we continued up the mountain, we began to be aware of the rumbling of the erupting mountain. “Ah,” said this tiny, birdlike lady, cackling delightedly, “Mother Tungurahua is putting baked potatoes into the oven for her children”. </p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-YeiDdZVN64Y/X61p2jpCsyI/AAAAAAAAIaM/83L0jrcZM9MbGqgLcsBB33WKRF2tJFrSQCLcBGAsYHQ/s1600/volc2.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1600" data-original-width="1200" height="320" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-YeiDdZVN64Y/X61p2jpCsyI/AAAAAAAAIaM/83L0jrcZM9MbGqgLcsBB33WKRF2tJFrSQCLcBGAsYHQ/s320/volc2.JPG" /></a></div> Before long, we dropped her off to make her own way, and as she smiled and waved, we continued up the mountain. Not long after that, I was standing in the gathering dusk, listening to the sound of an erupting volcano and feeling the ground rumbling beneath my feet. I have never before in my life felt quite so connected with our planet whilst also feeling utterly insignificant. It was, in the most literal way possible, awe inspiring. <p></p><p>Our precious planet is huge and beautiful and life is short. Later that day, I ate guinea pig for the first time. I don’t recommend it. Tarantula is nicer and neither are a patch on crickets fried in sesame oil served as a bar snack. Travel really does broaden the mind… as well as the palate.
</p>swisslethttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16708248700851998044noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1750120863647373520.post-83216229210032811552020-11-05T13:12:00.004+00:002020-11-05T13:12:38.471+00:00burn baby, burn...<p>I posted this here <a href="https://www.swisslet.com/2019/08/remember-remember.html">last year</a>, but it seems apt to repost it on Bonfire Night. Please forgive the self-indulgence.</p><p>--</p><p><b>On a page in your journal, answer one of Neil’s questions from A
Calendar of Tales. Now write a story from this answer. This can be as
long or short as you like. </b><br />
<br />
<i>“What would you burn in November, if you could?”</i><br />
<i><br /></i>
</p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<i><br /></i>
Whatever happened to duffel coats? The question popped into Joel’s mind
one warm, November morning as he walked towards the bus stop on his way
into work. Joel was one of those people who always seemed to be cold,
but the morning had been so warm and clear that even he had been forced
to seriously consider leaving the house without a coat. He’d grabbed one
on the way out, of course, but the short walk up the high street was
already causing the first prickles of a sweat to bead on his forehead
and to trickle down the small of his back.<br />
<br />
Novembers didn’t used to be like this, did they? Joel certainly
remembered duffel coats. Not the trendy, designer label ones that you
occasionally see in the Sunday paper (‘This Season’s Must-Have
Overcoats’), but the heavy, distinctly unfashionable ones that your mum
used to make you wear with horn toggles and that covered you from head
to knees and had a tartan patterned lining. They might even have been
part of the official school uniform as everybody seemed to have one. If
you tried wearing one of those on a day like today, you’d melt. Maybe
that was why you don’t see them so much anymore.<br />
<br />
And it used to be colder, didn’t it? Cold, crisp November mornings where
you could see your own breath on the air and where the frost would
sparkle as it reflected the thin, end-of-year sunlight onto the grass.
Joel couldn’t even remember the last time he saw a frost. In February
maybe? Only once so far this year? The world was warmer now.<br />
<br />
As he neared his bus stop, Joel saw a pram dumped next to the old toy
shop. As he got closer, he realised that it wasn’t a pram and but was,
in fact, a strange contraption fashioned from ancient pram wheels and
old crates. A go-cart! Good lord! Joel could scarcely believe his eyes.
When was the last time you saw an honest-to-goodness go-cart? In the age
of the micro scooter, it seemed like a glorious relic from a bygone
age, yet here it was. Was it possible that… Joel got a little closer and
peered inside. Yes! There it was! A pile of stuffed sacks dressed in
raggedy clothes, with a painted-on face and a hat at a jaunty angle.
Hanging around this approximately man-shaped pile was a cardboard sign
with a simple, scrawled request:<br />
“Penny for the Guy?”<br />
<br />
As a cub scout, Joel could remember spending cold early-November
evenings with the rest of his pack putting their Guy together. The best
would be proudly pulled around town in a go-cart before being hoisted up
onto the bonfire for burning. But when was the last time anyone saw a
Guy? And what good was a penny going to do anyone anyway? The local
Rotary Club or Round Table was surely going to need more money than
that. Inflation meant that you couldn’t even buy a penny chew for 1p
nowadays.<br />
<br />
Almost without thinking, Joel began to smile and moved in for a closer look at this relic from his childhood.<br />
“Alright”<br />
Joel leapt back in astonishment, wrenching the headphones from his ears.
Perhaps he was imagining it, but he could have sworn that the…<br />
“Wotchoo looking at?”<br />
The Guy was speaking to him, its twisted facsimile of a face didn’t
appear to be moving, but he was definitely being addressed. Joel quickly
looked around him, but the street was still deserted this early in the
morning.<br />
“Um…. Hello?”<br />
This was pretty much as good as he could manage under the circumstances,
all the while looking around the doorway and underneath the go-cart and
the Guy to see if there might just be someone hiding under there,
playing a desperately unfunny joke. There was nobody there.<br />
<br />
“I’ve got a problem”. <br />
Joel blinked, swallowed and then, for want of anything better to do, opted for a somewhat tentative reply. “Oh yes?”<br />
“Yeah. I need a bonfire. I got to get burned, you see.”<br />
Thousands of questions flooded through Joel’s mind all at one. He only managed to get one of them out. “Why?”<br />
“Well ain’t that a stupid question? I’m a Guy. Guys get burned. It’s what we do. It’s what we’re for”.<br />
Joel’s head swam as his reality began to collapse inwards. He shook his
head and started to think that perhaps he should just walk away from
this hallucination and just get on with his day. He began edging away.<br />
“Where do you think you’re going? I’m talking to you and I need your help. I need to get burned.”<br />
Joel froze and, a little reluctantly, turned his head back towards the Guy. “Well, how can I help? What can I do?”<br />
“You need to find me a nice, big bonfire and you’ve got to slap me right onto the top of it and then I’ve got to burn”.<br />
“Um. Okay. Can I do this later? It’s just that I really need to be
getting to work now and my bus will be along any minute now…”<br />
“Do I look like I can wait?”<br />
<br />
And so it was that, somewhat against his better judgement and definitely
confounding all his expectations for the morning, Joel found himself
skipping work and instead hauling an old go-cart down to the river and
the site of the weekend’s scheduled bonfire and firework display. The
Guy didn’t really say very much now. Perhaps he’d said his piece. The
day was really heating up now, so Joel had removed his jacket and, for a
want of anywhere else to put it, had wrapped it around the sloping
shoulders of the Guy.<br />
<br />
As he sweated his way down along the riverbanks, Joel reflected how
profoundly strange a tradition it was to burn the effigy of a Catholic
on a bonfire every year. Perhaps it was an instinctive understanding of
this that had led to the slow withering of the tradition. Perhaps it was
just that the burning of the Guy was a late addition to an older, far
more ancient fire ritual anyway, from a time when people huddled around
bonfires to stay warm but also, more importantly, to stay away from the
dark. Darkness was pretty hard to find now, real darkness, anyway. But
even so, people still had bonfires and they still had fireworks at this
tie of the year, even when the nights were warmer and the celebration of
the torture and death of a Seventeenth Century Catholic was fading from
memory. Oh, for sure, it was still called Guy Fawkes Night by some
people, but mostly it was just Bonfire Night, and people turned up to
bob apples and to watch the fireworks regardless.<br />
<br />
The Guy spoke only once more as Joel hauled the effigy up the pallets
and branches of the bonfire site at the rugby club. “You need to keep
the spark alive for the long winter to come. To ward off the darkness”.<br />
<br />
Joel reflected on this as he caught the bus into work at lunchtime,
rolling up his shirt sleeves as the day grew ever hotter, and only then
realising that he must have left his coat on the bonfire.
swisslethttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16708248700851998044noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1750120863647373520.post-14188859504474012832020-10-07T14:56:00.000+01:002020-10-07T14:56:08.254+01:00in the midst of life...<p>A spot of fiction for a change of pace? I wrote this last month for the little writing group I'm in. You'll have to do your own accent....</p><p>- <br /></p><p>Life is a sexually transmitted disease, so they say. Invariably fatal. Well, I suppose that all depends upon your definition of life...and your definition of death. In a world where gender is no longer binary, it’s curious that people remain so stubbornly binary about something as fundamental as life and death. It’s not as though the undead are easy to avoid, either: vampires are everywhere. In fiction, anyway. I can’t speak with any certainty beyond that. Dracula was published in 1897 and the undead have been in vogue more or less ever since, up to and including an honest-to-goodness, glittering-in-the-sunshine Edward Cullen. Lazarus, of course, was raised up some time before that. How does that work? One minute your friends are all wailing and gnashing their teeth at your passing, and the next you’re back up and about. Where do you go from there? Can you go back to life as it was before? It’s got to be more than just a talking point, hasn’t it? Being brought back from the dead? You can hardly blame people for wanting to talk about it, can you? Alive one day, dead the next, alive again the day after and then back to the office as though nothing has happened? I’d imagine that might make some people a bit stand-offish. “I am the resurrection and the life. Whoever believes in me, though he die, yet shall he live, and everyone who lives and believes in me shall never die.” I mean, that’s quite a lot to take in, isn’t it? What’s in the small print? </p><p>Could you be alive and identify as dead? You’d imagine it’s easier that way around than to be dead and identify as alive, but who can say for sure? People talk about the will to live, but could your will be stronger than your actual death? </p><p>What about the Grim Reaper? Death himself. Does he come to collect you at the moment of your death? Does he play an active part in your demise, or is he just a voyeur, waiting for it to happen so that he can show you what happens next? What’s that scythe for, if not for cutting that mortal thread? Perhaps it’s just for show, like all those hourglasses he must have squirrelled away in his robes. </p><p>You might think that I’m unusually preoccupied with these matters, but these are strange times and death is all around us. The world is getting hotter, wars are raging and disease stalks the land. But, if you think about it, when isn’t death all around us? Is there really anything all that strange about spending your life preoccupied with your death? Do you smoke? Do you drink? Do you avoid saturated fats and wear a seatbelt? Isn’t that really part of the same thing? The same fascination? Another cliché: you’re dying from the moment you’re born; your thread is spooling out from the very beginning. You can take all the supplements you want and spend a fortune on face creams and cosmetic surgery, but simple fact of the matter is that you’re decaying from the very beginning; rotting away in plain sight. </p><p>You’re pulling a face. I’m sorry if you find this distasteful, but there we are. We used to be more connected to death than this; we used to put the effigies of rotting corpses into the carvings on our tombs; we used to have skulls as momento mori in our houses to remind us that to live was to die. When did we forget this? Is that progress? We might live for longer now, but we’re just as likely to die. Have you heard about those rich people who have themselves frozen so that they can be brought back to life at some point in the future when we have the technology. Have they really thought this through, do you think? Do they get frozen before they die, or do they think that we’re going to develop a cure for death at some point? Can you imagine? Would you like to wake up at some point in the future, thawing out on a table somewhere, to find that you’ve been returned to a world you no longer recognise and where everyone and everything you’ve ever know is long dead? No thanks. I don’t like being cold, for one thing. And no, I don’t fancy being uploaded into a computer either. I’ve seen too much sci-fi to ever believe that can turn out well. Better to die sooner and decrease the surplus population. </p><p>Anyway. Here we are. Yeah. Contactless, if you don’t mind. There’s some hand sanitiser there too, just to your right. Yeah, that’s it. Thanks for wearing your mask too. They get a bit hot, don’t they? Still, what can you do? Bye now. Have a nice day and stay safe!
</p>swisslethttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16708248700851998044noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1750120863647373520.post-82451219022754044432020-09-18T19:01:00.001+01:002020-09-18T19:01:18.438+01:00don't stop moving...<p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-8g6BYR2er5o/X2T1hBkUslI/AAAAAAAAIYo/37h71Ixb5VM7t4MyEwfyh5jOkqyxrzX2QCLcBGAsYHQ/s2048/IMG_7514.HEIC" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2048" data-original-width="1539" height="320" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-8g6BYR2er5o/X2T1hBkUslI/AAAAAAAAIYo/37h71Ixb5VM7t4MyEwfyh5jOkqyxrzX2QCLcBGAsYHQ/s320/IMG_7514.HEIC" /></a></div><br />As they're obviously trying to keep (potentially vulnerable) people away from the clinic at QMC at the moment, I had my annual consultation with my neurologist over the phone today. Actually, it was a surprisingly effective way of doing it and was probably as helpful as any of the sessions I've had at clinic since I first started getting symptoms. <p></p><p>The long and the short of it is that my disability has been slowly increasing over the last few months/years and today they've shifted my diagnosis from 'relapsing-remitting' MS to 'secondary progressive' MS. </p><p>I think this sounds more significant than it is. Ultimately, it's just a label to describe the way my disease is progressing. Most people with MS have a series of relapses, each relapse bringing new symptoms and new problems which get a bit easier with time (without ever completely disappearing), before the next relapse arrives and starts the cycle again. Almost all the treaments for MS are designed try and slow down the frequency with which you have relapses, thus slowing the progress of the disease and increasing disability. There isn't a cure. </p><p>I've never really had relapses and have just seen a slow, but steady increase in the severity of my existing symptoms. I haven't been on a disease modifying therapy for a couple of years now, so shifting my diagnosis is really only an acknowledgement of the way my MS seems to be progressing: I'm not expecting relapses, but I am expecting my legs to get stiffer (amongst other things). The shift closes the door to lots of treatment options, but may open the door to others. </p><p>It's only a label... but at the same time, it can't help but feel like a significant moment. It sounds significant. </p><p>Still, I have much to be thankful for: we're off on an 11 mile run tomorrow morning and I've run a little over 1,100 miles so far this year. Very little of that has been as fast as I would like, but I know that I'm still capable of running quickly when I really want to, and I was only a few seconds off my mile PB a few weeks ago. Whilst I now don't trust my legs to the extent that I won't go out without knee pads and wrist guards, running remains at least as important to me now as it ever has done and I cherish what I can still do. </p><p>Every run, no matter how long or how fast, still feels like sticking two fingers up at this diease. Long may it continue.</p>swisslethttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16708248700851998044noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1750120863647373520.post-71935325163389051392020-08-17T19:47:00.050+01:002020-08-17T20:06:15.215+01:00remote control...<p>Not surprisingly, I've been thinking over the last few days about my own exam results. Of course, unlike this year's pupils, I was lucky enough to sit my exams in the usual way and to then receive my results at some point later in the summer. I got the grades I needed, so I went to my first choice University. It was pretty simple.</p><p>Then I thought about my experience a bit harder.</p><p>I expected to go to University. I was good at exams and therefore had a pretty crucial advantage that this was the preferred way of assessing someone's academic merit and deciding their future, both in the immediate term and almost certainly in the longer term too. But I expected to go.<br /></p><p>My expectation went much deeper than simply expecting to get the results that would enable me to study the course I wanted at the institution I wanted: I just assumed that the way my life was mapped out, I would drift from school to University to job. Oh, sure, there were all sorts of uncertainties for me along the way and my exact future was clouded... but never for one second did I consider that my path lay away from further education. </p><p>Of course, I didn't stop to think about this for a moment. I just went with the flow.</p><p>This privilege and expectation was a new in my family. My father was the son of a publican who ran a pub in the Plymouth naval docks. Dad didn't get especially good grades in his exams, but he was determined to be a doctor, and St. Bartholemew's hospital in London took a chance on him. By his own admission, he'd be nowhere near getting the grades he would need now, so the medical profession would have been deprived of 50 years of selfless service, with thousands of hours given not just to the NHS but volunteering for St John's Ambulance (apparently he used to do their pandemic response planning!). Even now he's retired and in his 70s, of course my dad put his name forward to volunteer as we went into lockdown. For my dad, this education was a gift and he's cherished it for his whole life (he's got a stack of letters after his name that often requires a second line on his latest certificates).</p><p>He wanted this gift for his children, of course he did. We didn't grow up wealthy, so my parents saved every penny they had to put their children through a private education. I was on a scholarship, but even so, for three kids, this was an absolutely collosal investment. The staycation is not a new concept for my family, that's for sure.</p><p>So, barely 25 years after my father became the first in his family to grasp at a further education, I was already drifting into it. He read Medicine and became a doctor, I read for a BA in Modern European and Renaissance History and then drifted into an MA in Medieval Studies and only didn't drift into a DPhil because I had the realisation that wanting to be called "Doctor" wasn't anywhere near a good enough reason to do four years of research into something that ultimately no one would care about, never mind to fund.</p><p>So I drifted through University. After 11 years at boarding school, being away from home wasn't a new or revelatory experience for me, and I actually found it a bit boring that so many people thought that it was. It was mainly an examined degree, so being good at exams was still an advantage for me, and I got a decent result without ever really throwing my heart and soul into it, whilst probably not being as good as I could or should have achieved (I ended up right on the cusp of a First Class degree). I can actually remember a conversation I had with the tutor who supervised my Masters dissertation ("Historical Precedent and the Deposition of Henry VI in 1471" - a page turner that showed the rise of parliamentary power in the sucessive removal of Edward II, Richard II and Henry VI). I can write and I was interested in my subject, but this tutor could see that I was only really interested in doing a good job, not an exceptional one and he helped me to achieve that. Looking back, I can not only see his mild disappointment at this wasted opportunity, but I share it. If I was to go to University again, this time around I would approach it very differently... as more than just another box to be ticked as I drifted through life.</p><p>This privileged drifting seems all the more infuriating as I'd already rejected a lot of the behaviour of many of the people that I'd been to school with. I had a massive, visceral reaction against the kind of arsehole that we now see running the country, swanning around as if they owned the place and everybody else in it. I also hated the idea of going to Oxbridge. My intellectual vanity did mean that I ended up applying to Oxford, but I received zero guidance from my very expensive school, refused to sit the fourth term entry exam (remember, I was good at exams) because I didn't see why they thought they were so special.... and then ended up applying to a college where I was pretty much the only person who hadn't done the exam. Nice job, everyone. My dad actually had a close friend who was the admissions tutor of a Cambridge College, and he arranged a meeting. Rather than see this as a priceless opportunity, my takeaway was that this guy had spent the whole time trying to boast about how every undergraduate was a published author. In my teenaged stupidity and arrogance, I rejected this (perceived) bullshit by applying blind to Oxford. What a prat.</p><p>I do think that not going to Oxbridge after 11 years in private education was very good for me. Warwick and York are both excellent universities in their own right, their history courses arguably better than their Oxbridge equivalents, but they are also much more socially mixed, and I'm sure it was good for me to breath some different air. I had a girlfriend from Stockport, for goodness sake. Imagine that! (she's now a lecuturer at King's College, London, I'm told. Another person who took their education more seriously than me).</p><p>So yes, I look at the scandal of this algorithim that advantages pupils from private schools and I think fuck them and fuck the system that perpetuates their preeminence. They --- I --- have had every possible advantage in their lives to date and they don't need a leg up when there are plenty of other people who just want an even crack of the whip. Of course <b>this</b> government didn't see anything wrong with this approach: they've benefitted from this system every single day of their lives for generations. </p><p>If privilege can be that corrosive in the course of 25 years and one generation, imagine how destructive it must be over 250 years and 10 generations; over 500 years; over a millennia. This country is dying under the weight of all this privilege and has been for centuries. The very idea of British exceptionalism is ridiculous and an insult to all the people and countries and cultures we've pillaged as we tried to claw ourselves out of the mire by standing on everyone else. If we now want to jump back in, it's probably best to just let us go.</p><p>Just let us go.<br /></p>swisslethttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16708248700851998044noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1750120863647373520.post-66710629107765075162020-08-11T17:14:00.000+01:002020-08-11T17:14:10.074+01:00be brave...<p>For as long as I can remember, I’ve been called cynical. Cynical, negative and pessimistic. For a time, I was called it so often that I almost believed it myself and began to build my sense of self around it. </p><p>The cynic. </p><p>To be honest, I’m not sure that this has ever really been the case. It certainly is true that, as a younger man, I would throw stones and would criticise without feeling the need to offer up anything constructive. I’m pretty sure I’m not alone in going through that phase. It’s also true that, when feeling frustrated or powerless at work (annoyingly often), I would sometimes deliberately seek to tear people down in a way that was ultimately self-destructive…. But I was young and stupid and I don’t work there anymore (which is probably just as well: some people choose never to forget the person you were fifteen years ago, even if you’ve long since changed). </p><p>I think it probably boils down to this: I like to ask questions. These days, it’s usually to genuinely try to understand something because I’m curious. The problem is that lots of people don’t like to be asked questions; they don’t like to be challenged by someone because, if you don’t know the answers or you aren’t very secure in your opinion, it can feel as though you’re being criticised. No one likes to be criticised, right? I try not to be threatening about it, but nobody’s perfect and I’m probably not the finished article even now. </p><p>I think my MS has changed me, actually. Or maybe it’s just revealed another side to my personality. Nobody knows what causes MS, nobody knows if it will progress for me or what my outcome will be. There’s very little that I can do to change any of these things. I’m not really one for serenity prayers, but I do think that this has taught me acceptance. To paraphrase Kipling, to meet with Triumph and Disaster and to treat those two imposters just the same. I’m calmer, more relaxed and better able to approach life on an even-keel (whilst also remaining perfectly capable of frothing in indignation watching the news. Nobody is perfect. My wife is doubtless scoffing as she reads this). </p><p>What’s the point in being pessimistic? I’m well aware what MS might do to me and I know all too well what it’s already done. I simply don’t see how dwelling on either of those things does me any good at all. MS pages on Facebook seem full of people wrapped up in their own invisible pain and suffering. I don’t doubt that they suffer, but I simply don’t understand the attitude because I try never to allow myself to think like that. Perhaps that’s easy for me to say, but I hope it’s a philosophy that will stay with me, whatever happens. “The Road not Taken” by Robert Frost is one of my favourite poems; my interpretation of it is that you should never waste time regretting the path you didn’t take. </p><p>They say that a pessimist is never disappointed. I think they’re always disappointed.
Besides, I’m a runner, and as Kipling also said: </p><i>If you can fill the unforgiving minute <br />With sixty seconds’ worth of distance run, <br />Yours is the Earth and everything that’s in it, <br />And—which is more—you’ll be a Man, my son! </i><p>Well, I can definitely do that. Maybe not as fast as I use to be able to do it… but I can still do it.
</p>swisslethttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16708248700851998044noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1750120863647373520.post-25523173000172739682020-07-21T19:07:00.002+01:002020-07-21T19:15:28.967+01:00what a waste, what a waste, what a waste of time...<div><br /></div><div>As the great email clear-up continues, I find myself in 2011 and with the first draft of a blog post. Just reading through it is a reminder of why I never want to find myself working for this sort of company ever again. Just look at this nonsense. It's surely a form of low-level psychological abuse. For some reason, I put up with this for more than 20 years!</div><div><br /></div><div>"Intellectually intimidating"? Imagine giving someone that feeback, ffs.<br /></div><div><br /></div><div>--<br /></div><div><br /></div><div><i>As the financial year ends, I'm finding that the usually serene progress
of my working day (**ahem**) is being somewhat interrupted by the sour
inevitability of year-end performance reviews. A particular favourite
of mine is the 'consistency forum', where the senior people in my
department try to objectively compare the populations of each grade to
decide who has exceeded expectations, who has met expectations and who
has fallen short based upon a combination of what people have achieved
over the year and their "behaviours". <br /></i>
<i><br />
Unfortunately, the outcome of this forum is important because it
determines the size of any pay rise or slice of bonus that we get.
Objectivity is, of course, impossible. I'm not even sure they really
even aim for it, to be honest, as each manager tries to get their own
people into the top right hand "exceed" box at the expense of everyone
else. When it comes to the "behaviours" score, in particular,
perception is king. Your customers might all think that you are the
best thing since sliced bread, but that's not as important as the
impression you've made on the colleagues who are judging you. You are
supposedly only being ranked on your performance in the last twelve
months, but in practice, this is cobblers: there's no time limit on the
judgement these people have made on you and there's certainly no measure
<br /></i>
<i><br />
Take me as an example: coming out of my consistency forum, I was told
that although my behaviours had improved markedly over the last six
months, I was still scoring slightly lower there because of the time
before that. <br /></i>
<i><br />
Um. But I've only been back at work for six months after taking most of last year off. So, what am I being judged on, exactly?<br /></i>
<i><br />
I actually did quite well in my forum, and yet they've still managed to find a way to piss me off.<br /></i>
<i><br />
One other piece of feedback I got out of my session was that I am
apparently "intellectually intimidating". I'm not sure what I'm
supposed to do with that, to be honest. Is that something I should be
actioning? Is it even a criticism?</i></div><div><br /></div><div>-</div><div>We waste our lives, we really do.</div><div><br /></div><div>Speaking of the sort of nonsense people waster their time and money on in a work environment.... I saw someone on an MS charity's Facebook page today kick off a poll to see what myers-briggs personality types we all had to try to assess if there's a link between personality type (specifically the way we handle stress) and multiple sclerosis. <br /></div><div><br /></div><div><b>...OF COURSE THERE ISN'T!</b></div><div><br /></div><div>It's all made up, pseudo-scientific nonsense where people use confirmation bias to try and pick out how much their profile really reflects their true personality. There's no link between a myers-briggs personality type and your personality, so there's hardly likely to be a link with the severity of your MS, is there?</div><div>Sheesh.<br /></div>swisslethttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16708248700851998044noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1750120863647373520.post-2217599460881484062020-07-06T17:50:00.001+01:002020-07-06T17:50:18.377+01:00round and around...<div><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; background-color: white; color: #222222; display: inline !important; float: none; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: small; font-style: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-weight: 400; letter-spacing: normal; orphans: 2; text-align: start; text-decoration-color: initial; text-decoration-style: initial; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px;">In the process of clearing out the 10,000 surplus emails in my inbox, I've come across another post that I wrote for someone else (in 2009). As I'm loathe to let good(?) content go to waste, and because I find it interesting (even if no-one else does).... I'm (re-)posting it here. Enjoy. I still have a soft spot for Nik Kershaw.</span></div><div><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; background-color: white; color: #222222; display: inline !important; float: none; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: small; font-style: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-weight: 400; letter-spacing: normal; orphans: 2; text-align: start; text-decoration-color: initial; text-decoration-style: initial; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; background-color: white; color: #222222; display: inline !important; float: none; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: small; font-style: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-weight: 400; letter-spacing: normal; orphans: 2; text-align: start; text-decoration-color: initial; text-decoration-style: initial; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px;">---<br /></span></div><div><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; background-color: white; color: #222222; display: inline !important; float: none; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: small; font-style: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-weight: 400; letter-spacing: normal; orphans: 2; text-align: start; text-decoration-color: initial; text-decoration-style: initial; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; background-color: white; color: #222222; display: inline !important; float: none; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: small; font-style: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-weight: 400; letter-spacing: normal; orphans: 2; text-align: start; text-decoration-color: initial; text-decoration-style: initial; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px;"><b>Memories Can't Wait</b>.... a song that reminds me of a friend (originally written for Ben on <a href="https://silentwordsspeakloudest.blogspot.com/">Silent Words Speak Loudest</a>, or possibly <a href="http://the-art-of-noise.blogspot.com/">The Art Of Noise</a>. I can't remember)<br /></span></div><div><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; background-color: white; color: #222222; display: inline !important; float: none; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: small; font-style: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-weight: 400; letter-spacing: normal; orphans: 2; text-align: start; text-decoration-color: initial; text-decoration-style: initial; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; background-color: white; color: #222222; display: inline !important; float: none; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: small; font-style: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-weight: 400; letter-spacing: normal; orphans: 2; text-align: start; text-decoration-color: initial; text-decoration-style: initial; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px;">I didn't grow up in an especially musical household. Neither of my parents are particularly into music and because it had never formed a large part of their lives, it was only natural that my two brothers and I didn't initially form much of an interest ourselves. I've always found it a little hard to understand how two people, both just five or six years younger than Paul McCartney and presumably slap bang in the prime demographic for the Beatles, could have both have missed out on such a vibrant period of British music, but miss it they did. My mum tells me that she owned a copy of Revolver and my dad had a pile of "Top of the Pops" LPs that he had inherited from his father's pub, but their hearts weren't in it and our house was largely devoid of background music.</span></div><br style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: small; font-style: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-weight: 400; letter-spacing: normal; orphans: 2; text-align: start; text-decoration-color: initial; text-decoration-style: initial; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px;" /><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; background-color: white; color: #222222; display: inline !important; float: none; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: small; font-style: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-weight: 400; letter-spacing: normal; orphans: 2; text-align: start; text-decoration-color: initial; text-decoration-style: initial; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px;">My first real musical exposure, then, came instead from regular visits to the house of a friend just down the road. Like me, Will had two siblings, although where I was a middle child, he was the youngest by several years. I don't know if his parents were especially into music, but his dad worked for Rotel, manufacturers of high quality stereo equipment, and their house was naturally filled with top-notch hi-fis. Although we spent a lot of our time together mucking about with computer games, playing with our Star Wars figures and riding our bikes outdoors, we did occasionally mess around with the record player and with his brother and sisters' 12" singles. Although I can remember listening to the likes of Murray Head's "One Night in Bangkok", a bit of Level 42 and "Hole in My Shoe" by Neil from the Young Ones, the artist that always stood out the most for me was Nik Kershaw. Both "Human Racing" and "The Riddle" were released in 1984, and we used to sit entranced by songs such as "I Won't Let the Sun Go Down on Me", "Human Racing", "Wouldn't It Be Good", "Wide Boy" and - especially - "The Riddle". Our listening coincided with our reading of "Masquerade", the book of illustrations for children by Kit Williams that concealed clues to the location of a golden hare hidden somewhere in the UK. The book was first published in 1979, but the hare had only (apparently) been discovered in 1982, so the idea of riddles was fresh in our minds as we tried to work out what on earth Nik Kershaw was trying to tell us when he spoke of trees by rivers, holes in the ground and old men of Arran.</span><br style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: small; font-style: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-weight: 400; letter-spacing: normal; orphans: 2; text-align: start; text-decoration-color: initial; text-decoration-style: initial; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px;" /><br style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: small; font-style: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-weight: 400; letter-spacing: normal; orphans: 2; text-align: start; text-decoration-color: initial; text-decoration-style: initial; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px;" /><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; background-color: white; color: #222222; display: inline !important; float: none; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: small; font-style: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-weight: 400; letter-spacing: normal; orphans: 2; text-align: start; text-decoration-color: initial; text-decoration-style: initial; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px;">Kershaw has, of course, subsequently revealed that there is no meaning to "The Riddle" at all, but to our ten year old minds it was a puzzle well worth trying to solve. Besides, it was (and remains) a fantastic record, and through it I began to discover a love of music that has stayed with me to this day. I can't say that I listen to Kershaw very much any more, but he has the proud distinction of being the artist who created the first two albums that I ever bought with my own money. Better yet, whenever I think of him, I can't help but think of the letter that I wrote to Jimmy Savile in the summer of 1984 asking if he could fix it for me and for my best friend Will to meet our hero. Saville never wrote back, sadly, and he certainly never fixed it for me. Although his parents still live down the road from my folks, I lost touch with Will a few years ago after we both went to University. Musically we had drifted apart, with him baffled by my love of heavy metal and me a touch confused by his love of Lenny Kravitz. We'll always have Nik Kershaw though, and whenever I hear the chiming opening chords of "The Riddle", I'm reminded of my first best friend.</span>swisslethttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16708248700851998044noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1750120863647373520.post-40555766090009233952020-07-02T14:02:00.003+01:002020-07-02T14:02:45.467+01:00here's mud in your eye...In the process of clearing out about 10,000 emails (I'm not even joking) from my account, I stumbled across this review I wrote of Glastonbury 2009 for one of my old blogging friends, Postculturist aka Queenie, aka Lizzie aka Urban Fox. Her website doesn't seem to exist anymore, and it's sort-of topical and kind of interesting, so I thought I'd reproduce it in full here before expunging the email into the digital void forever.<br />
<br />
---<br />
<b><u>"Here's mud in your eye".</u></b><br />
<br />
If Worthy Farm's Ministry of Propaganda has anything to do with it, and they were at it from the very first day, then the 2009 Glastonbury Festival will be hailed as the best ever. This is the view that will be slavishly be repeated in the rapturous reviews that will now be appearing across all available media outlets, print, broadcast and online.<br />
<br />
Perhaps we've all been seduced by an affable 73 year old farmer and his Utopian ideals and charitable work, but of all the festivals, Glastonbury is the one that is most readily given a critical pass. Yes, Glastonbury has raised millions of pounds for charities like Oxfam, Water Aid and Greenpeace, but this is no hippy idyll and big corporations are everywhere you look: the beer is provided by Carlsberg; the mobile phone partner for the Festival is Orange; The Guardian and Q Magazine are the official print media partners and both have their own venues on the site. In case you missed their saturation coverage by actually being at the Festival, the BBC are all over Glastonbury like a rash, sending more than 400 employees and flooding their networks with saturation coverage. I actually thought that Steve Lamacq might be stalking me at one point this year, so often did I run into him.<br />
<br />
Those parts of the site that made the Festival different are slowly bur surely disappearing: Lost Vagueness disappeared after 2007, The Leftfield Stage, run by the Unions and a place for campaigning, watching Billy Bragg play and Tony Benn speak, disappeared after 2008. As long as the Green Fields still exist and the Glade is still hosting endless gigs by Ozric Tentacles and Gong, then I suppose there's still hope. There can't be many people that really miss the drug dealers selling Class A narcotics on the bridges between the two main stages, but surely there's no denying that the individuality and anarchic edge of the festival is slowly disappearing, to be replaced by something altogether more corporate and conventional. There are now even special entrances for hospitality pass holders at the pedestrian gates, for goodness sake.<br />
<br />
Given that I consider it essential to take a flask of homemade Mojitos and a cool bag filled with ice and fresh mint, I can hardly complain about the festival becoming middle class, but I do I like to think that I was at least a little less middle class than the couple carrying the flag proudly proclaiming that they were "<a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/sabbat1cal/3672525911/">Tougher than the Rest</a>" because they'd got married in Italy and were honeymooning at the Festival. Tougher than the rest of the tennis club maybe. To steal a line from Jimmy Carr, they're not so much hard as 'al dente'. The Festival has become a place to be seen, something that you do to say that you've done it, somewhere you go with your mates to celebrate a stag or a hen do.<br />
<br />
As a relative veteran of eight Glastonbury's since 1993, including several very wet ones, I tend to pack for the worst and hope for the best, I expect the toilets to be a little more basic than the one I have at home and I make do without a shower for a few days. I find it amazing to see people moaning to their friends as they struggle through the mud in their flip-flops and pull faces in the queues for the toilets as they push toilet tissue up their noses to try and avoid the smell. I know it's not something you would normally do, but does your shit not stink? Do you really need to straighten your hair, curl your eyelashes and have room for your own shower tent at your campsite? Is life not worth living if you don't bring your own stereo system into the campsite at a music festival?<br />
<br />
Perhaps I'm just grumpy because it took me more than 8 hours on Wednesday afternoon to drive the last 25 miles onto site; because it inevitably started to pour with rain on my first full day on the site; because I barely saw a dozen bands over the whole weekend that I really enjoyed; because I found myself drawn to the main stages again instead of making a bit more of an effort to get around the rest of the site; because the sound at Maximo Park at the Queen's Head on Thursday was so appalling; because the crowd trying to see Rolf Harris at the Jazz World stage was so predictably large and so un-stewarded that we couldn't even get close; because I fell asleep during the much anticipated, but ultimately very uncompromising set by Bruce Springsteen on Saturday night (frankly, I can't top Dorian Lynskey's simile <a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/music/2009/jun/28/bruce-springsteen-glastonbury-festival-review">in the Guardian</a> that watching the Boss play the Pyramid was "<span style="font-style: italic;">like someone standing in front of a magic-eye picture and being told that, if he stares long enough, he will see the Statue of Liberty but who finds, two-and-a-half hours later, that it's still just squiggly lines</span>")<br />
<br />
Was this the best Festival ever? Well according to such backstage luminaries as Harry Enfield and Peaches Geldof, then it certainly was.<br />
<br />
Me? I'm not so sure.<br />
<br />
Still, although it might not have been a classic Glastonbury, that's not to say that I didn't enjoy myself. Highlights for me included: finally arriving onsite after 12 hours in the car, that first pint of Burrow Hill cider at the Cider Bus, getting to wear my fedora for four days solid, Neil Young's seemingly endless false endings to "Rockin' In The Free World", listening to the early morning rain on my tent, the Fleet Foxes, that ridiculous rumour that Michael Jackson was dead, Lily Allen - yes, Lily Allen - on the Pyramid, watching the British and Irish Lions on a big screen in the blazing sunshine, Status Quo, Tom Jones, Nick Cave ripping the heads off a sleepy Sunday afternoon crowd with a coruscating rendition of "The Mercy Seat", Blur's stately rendition of those beautiful sad, slow songs in the middle of their set.....<br />
<br />
My absolute favourite moment? Standing in a massive crowd in front of the Pyramid Stage on Sunday afternoon, surrounded by all of my friends for perhaps the only time in the whole festival, singing and dancing along to Madness. I love Madness. They're one of first bands that I can remember, and I haven't seen them performing live since Madstock in 1994, when they were supported by A Guy Called Gerald, Aswad and Ian Dury & the Blockheads. They have a new album to promote, but essentially they gave the crowd exactly what they wanted and played all the old songs we remember: One Step Beyond, The Prince, Night Boat to Cairo, Embarrassment, House of Fun, My Girl, Baggy Trousers, Wings of a Dove, Shut Up, Grey Day, Bed & Breakfast Man.... when they played Our House, I looked around to see (<a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/sabbat1cal/3674781648/">almost</a>) everyone singing and dancing their hearts out with huge smiles on their faces, and found myself uncontrollably welling up with tears. It's a nostalgic song, and I was filled with nostalgia for my childhood, for the friends around me and for this moment at this brilliant festival. I pushed my sunglasses back down onto my face, turned back to the stage and continued to dance happily as the band brought their families out onto the stage to share the moment with them and with us.<br />
<br />
Same time next year?<br />
<br />
--<br />
<br />
Though I say so myself, I think that stands up okay!<br />
<br />
My last visit to the Glastonbury festival was 2016, the year I heard the result to the referendum when my phone pushed an update in the early hours of the morning in my tent. I actually haven't missed it all that much, to be honest. I enjoyed watching this year's virtual festival, watching some iconic sets that I actually attended on tv for the first time. Will I be hurrying back? Well, never say never, but - whisper it quietly - I've discovered that smaller festivals are actually more fun. Not that it's easy to imagine attending any kind of large gathering of people ever again, given our current situation.<br />
<br />
Ah. Great days, crazy nights (not that I've ever been one for partying the night away at a festival, to be honest. And now I'm old, so.....).<br />
<br />
I've often said it, but nostalgia ain't what it used to be.swisslethttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16708248700851998044noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1750120863647373520.post-36296156379303473882020-06-24T12:36:00.001+01:002020-06-24T12:36:31.659+01:00something changed...I was made redundant a little over a year ago. <div>
<br /></div>
<div>
Even with all the various ins-and-outs of my career, outsourcing, insourcing and all the rest of it, it still felt like a pretty significant moment. After all, I first walked through the doors on 15 September 1997 as a graduate trainee and finally left on 7 June 2019. </div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
That's nearly 22 years. </div>
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<br /></div>
<div>
An awful lot happened in that 22 years that had nothing at all to do with work. Apart from anything else, in that time, I lost something like 40kg in weight and most of my hair and I gained a house, cat and wife (not in that order or in that order of importance). I was 23 years old when I arrived and 45 years old when I left. </div>
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<br /></div>
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Given that I spent nearly half my life to that point working there, it was amazing how quickly I put it all behind me. If they hadn't made me redundant, I'd probably still be there now and still taking their salary.... but almost immediately, it became clear that they had done me a massive favour. Even if my departure hadn't been sweetened by a pretty hefty payment, this would still definitely have been the case.</div>
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I wasn't sure when I left what I wanted to do. The money meant that I didn't have to rush into anything, and I spent a good few weeks just decompressing from a job that, by the end, was sucking up a good 11 or 12 hours of my life every weekday and also involved out of hours and weekend cover. </div>
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No one made me work those hours, but it's amazing how, when you stop working them, you realise how absurd it all is. Every single day of the working week, I was cycling to work, showering and getting to my desk by 07:15, often not leaving to cycle home until after 18:00.</div>
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That's ridiculous.</div>
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My last job was probably the one in which I made the biggest contribution to the business and where I got the most satisfaction.... but as soon as I stopped doing it, it all disappeared in my rearview mirror and I didn't give it a backwards glance. I'm sure they didn't miss me either.</div>
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I'm now back in work. This wasn't a given, but I ultimately decided I wanted to do something and the right thing came along. I work three days a week over four days, and I now can't imagine working full time. In an ideal world, I'd be doing more volunteering, but the pandemic has put almost all of that on hold. When a more normal life returns, I'll have the space to resume that stuff. It's all good.</div>
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I'm healthier and happier. Even during a lockdown, I feel like my life is much more balanced than it was before.</div>
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So what have I learned in the last year since that redundancy? Something that I should have known all along: that life is short and time is precious. Do things that make you happy. No matter how important you think that job is, I bet there are thousands of better things you could be doing with your time that create more good in the world. </div>
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Go and do them.</div>
swisslethttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16708248700851998044noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1750120863647373520.post-60821844275178680082020-06-01T18:56:00.000+01:002020-06-01T18:56:02.067+01:00if I surround myself with positive things...<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<br />
It was World MS Day on Saturday.<br />
<br />
I woke up at about 03:30 to find my whole lower body in spasm. from the muscles of my lower stomach down through my legs to my feet. I've been getting cramps in my legs for some time, but this is different, it's not a sudden clenching of the muscles but something that lasts for longer. It's not as intensely painful, but it is uncomfortable and has a halo effect that lingers in the muscles for some hours afterwards, as a deep-set stiffness in the muscles.<br />
<br />
As I often do when this happens, I got up and walked very stiffly to the bathroom. This is partly to ease the muscles off, but also I'm now pretty entrenched in the habit of emptying my unreliable bladder when it is convenient. I catheterise myself every night before bed to ensure I sleep with a completely empty bladder and take a drug every day to help resist bladder urge, but as I was awake it was a way to kill two birds with one stone. It was already pretty light outside and the dawn chorus was really starting to get underway. It was really quite a lovely.<br />
<br />
That done, I staggered back to the bedroom to try to get some more sleep, popping an ibuprofen along the way in the hopes of waking up with a bit less muscle pain.<br />
<br />
This is my new routine.<br />
<br />
We already know that the problems with my bladder are related to my MS: my brain isn't able to reliably empty my bladder completely, and I will often get the urge to pee even if I've only just been, whether my bladder is empty or not. It's likely that the muscle spasms in my lower body are MS-related too. There are drugs you can take to chemically relax these muscles and to try and get a good night's sleep, but I'm reluctant to take them. <br />
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After all, I'm a runner.<br />
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Running keeps me sane. This was true before the lockdown, and it's doubly true now. My ability to get out of the house and clear my head on a run is precious to me. I'm probably getting slower as I get older, but the speed I run is not nearly as important to me as my ability to run at all. As things stand, I don't want to compromise the ability of my legs to carry me and so, if the spasms are the price I need to pay if I want to keep running... well, then it's a cost I'm prepared to pay.<br />
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Mind you, I have been doing quite a lot of running recently: I covered 145 miles in May, almost all of it side-by-side with my wife, who hasn't run as far in a month, even when she was training for her marathons. Quite a lot of this mileage has been slow, on stiff legs. Where the speed of my wife used to be our limiting factor, these days, it's more likely that she's waiting for me. It's not that I can't run fast any more - I'm doing at least one set of intervals a week where I try to let the brakes off - it's just that I'm really just happy to be moving at all; delighted just to get out of the house in this beautiful weather and to enjoy the fresh air and the flourishing spring around us.<br />
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On Saturday, after another couple of hours of sleep, I got up and went out for a 5km run. It wasn't fast and it wasn't pretty, but I like to think that it helped to stretch some of that stiffness out of my legs. Maybe, maybe not. Either way, it definitely made me feel better.<br />
<br />
I was diagnosed with MS in 2009 after 4 years of symptoms. It's an incurable condition with uncertain outcomes, so it's a frightening thing to be labelled with. Maybe I'm one of the lucky ones, but I do firmly believe that MS only has as much control of your life as you allow it.<br />
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As this film from World MS day a few years ago shows beautifully, a diagnosis with multiple sclerosis does not have to mean the end. Life is what you make of it, and other cliches.<br />
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<iframe allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="270" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/NJzyfR6dbT8" width="480"></iframe><br />
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I think I'm much stronger and kinder now than I was in 2009, and I thank MS for that.swisslethttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16708248700851998044noreply@blogger.com0