remote control...

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.

Then I thought about my experience a bit harder.

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.

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. 

Of course, I didn't stop to think about this for a moment. I just went with the flow.

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).

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.

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.

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.

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.

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).

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 this government didn't see anything wrong with this approach: they've benefitted from this system every single day of their lives for generations. 

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.

Just let us go.

be brave...

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. 

The cynic. 

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). 

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. 

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). 

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. 

They say that a pessimist is never disappointed. I think they’re always disappointed. Besides, I’m a runner, and as Kipling also said:

If you can fill the unforgiving minute 
With sixty seconds’ worth of distance run, 
Yours is the Earth and everything that’s in it, 
And—which is more—you’ll be a Man, my son! 

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.

open up my mouth, air comes rushing out...

Perhaps it's my age, but I find myself becoming irrationally angry when I see a child on a motorised scooter or mini-buggy or something. It's becoming increasingly common to see them on the paths and playing fields around the river near me. The council have recently built a lovely little mini-roadway around there, complete with pedestrian crossings and traffic signals, designed to help kids become more road aware on their bikes and things. Yesterday, seeing a little girl motoring around there on a scooter with an engine just made me feel cross and a bit sad.

Don't get me wrong, I'm sure I would have absolutely loved to have one of these when I was a kid... but not having one meant I was forced to get out on my pushbike under my own steam, and I'm pretty sure that didn't do me any harm in the long run.

That girl on the mini-roadway wasn't paying any attention to the traffic lights, either... and I hope she never takes that scooter out onto the roads.

Tsk.

Is it any wonder, I found myself chuntering to a friend as we were doing a warm-up before an interval session on the playing fields, watching a slightly tubby child driving around on a miniature four-wheeled, motorised truck, that type 2 diabetes is such a plague and that our kids are growing up fat?

**Pause for reflection**

.... rather than just growing up skinny and judgmental like me.

think think about it....

I found myself shouting at the radio yesterday morning. I was up slightly later than normal, so when I turned the radio on in the bathroom, it was a phone-in rather than the usual breakfast news programme.  The show had obviously been on for a little while, and the debate was already well underway.  As I started to listen, I quickly gathered that the subject under discussion was Labour's shift in policy position on Britain's exit from the European Union: in a clear change of direction, the party announced on Sunday that Labour would support full participation in the EU single market and customs union during a lengthy “transitional period” that it believes could last between two and four years after the day of Britain's departure from the EU [read all about it here].

In case you hadn't noticed over the course of the fourteen months or so since the referendum, Britain's exit from the EU is a subject that continues to divide the nation.  Rarely has so much ignorance been so loudly displayed by so many people (on both sides of the debate) over such a long period of time.  Unfortunately for me, I was in the shower long enough to hear several callers give the listening audience the benefit of their opinions on the subject.

I realise that the station was actively selecting the people they put on the air and were well aware of their views and what they were likely to say, but even so, I was found it infuriating.  The callers all sounded at the older end of the station's demographic, and they all, without exception, were very firmly of the view that this change in direction seemed specifically designed to somehow sabotage the democratic will of the people to break every single possible tie to Europe.  Those Europeans have been holding us back, you see.  We've stood alone for centuries, but in the last sixty years, these people have been slowly emasculating us and robbing us of our greatness.  We need to stand alone and stand proud; people are queuing up to do trade deals with us! Obama said we would be at the back of the queue, but now Donald Trump says we will be at the front! The Ivory Coast has said what a favourable deal we could get on cocoa! We could single-handedly save the economy of Africa! (seriously... someone did actually make that point about the enormous potential of a cocoa deal with the Ivory Coast).

Ignoring the entirety of human experience for a moment, how can people be so certain in their views when they seem to know so little about the subject?

Look: I understand that more people voted to leave the EU in the referendum than voted to stay. Although I think this is an act of wilful self-harm, I'm not one of those people who thinks we should ignore the result of the vote entirely.  In fact, listening to these callers rather reinforced my view that, even if we were to stage the referendum again now, I think the leave vote would be even larger second time around.

It's just that people have read far more into the result than was on the ballot paper.

We weren't asked for our views on immigration or on the single market or the customs union or on the European Court of Justice....just on whether we wanted to be in or out of the European Union.  The fact that these are separate things is a distinction lost on most, not that this stops people sounding off about it.  Or, indeed, most of our elected politicians washing their hands of taking any real responsibility for this bloody mess.

Everyone is entitled to their own opinions of course, but that doesn't mean that I have to believe that all opinions are created equal.  At least try and present a cogent, reasoned argument.  Or, come to that, present an emotional one, but don't try and dress it up with absolute nonsense. Don't talk to me about how democracy has spoken; don't tell me that my Brexit must be 'hard'  and that the people have spoken; and above all, don't trumpet your ignorance on a national radio phone-in when I'm showering. I can accept that people have different opinions to me, but try and think about them at least a little bit, eh?

You made me shout at the radio and definitely harshed my bank holiday mellow.

Ugh. What's wrong with people?

wanna hear you echo...

The internet is an echo chamber.

I realise I’m not saying anything new here, but it seems that pretty much everything I read now has people commenting underneath it, slinging alternative viewpoints at each other, with neither one listening to the other. I’ve just been reading an article on the bicycle helmets and whether or not they make a cyclist safer. It’s an interesting, balanced article presenting evidence on both sides of the debate. The comments are predictable.

“It’s safer”
“No it isn’t”
“Shut up”
“No, you shut up”

etc.

No one is listening to anyone (and, in some cases, aren’t even bothering to read the article they’re commenting on).

I’m as guilty of this as anyone, and I’m seldom able to walk past something on Facebook when I think I can try and talk some sense into someone using a carefully thought-out, nuanced argument. It never works. Brexit was a bit of an eye-opener when the passion of the debate revealed that my comfortable, self-selecting bubble of like-minded liberals was punctured by some friends who actually believed that leaving the EU would be a good thing. They were wrong, of course, and I tried to talk some sense into them and to question the basis of their beliefs… but I was wasting my breath. Did I listen to any of their arguments? Well, of course not. They didn’t make any sense to me, so why should I? …oh. That’s the problem in a nutshell, isn’t it?

I was listening to an MP talking on the radio yesterday in the aftermath of the attacks on Westminster. He was saying that people seem to forget that MPs from all the different parties may have diametrically opposed views politically, but they spend a lot of time together and often form friendships across party lines. Mhairi Black has spoken about how her Westminster “boyfriend” is the somewhat unlikely figure of Jacob Rees-Mogg. Those guys in my feed who supported Brexit? They're not idiots and they're still my friends.... they just hold a different view to me.

I'm just tired of all the bullshit and all the arguing and all the negative energy.  I can't keep living like this.

Whether we’re thinking about Trump or Brexit or ISIS or even cycle helmets, it’s helpful to remember, as the murdered MP Jo Cox pointed out, we have far more in common than divides us. Before you despair entirely at the state of the world, or before you roll up your sleeves to wade into a pointless online battle with an anonymous adversary, just remember that. Most people are, I think, basically decent… whatever the internet may lead you to believe.

Not very insightful and definitely a touch sanctimonious, but there you are.  Be the change you want to see in the world, and all that.

Besides, this post gives me an excuse to link to this, undeniably one of the best clips on the whole of the internet.  No arguments: R. Kelly explains Echo.

one too many overreactions...

I got unexpectedly called a racist over the weekend.  By a white guy.

It was on the internet, obviously.

I'm a member of a very friendly sci-fi group on Facebook.  I didn't ask to join, but someone added me and it's been a pretty good source of reliably interesting links and friendly chatter by like-minded people... so I've stayed.

The post that caused all the fuss was a discussion on the apparent plan to remake Dirty Rotten Scoundrels with Anne Hathaway and Rebel Wilson in the lead roles.  The Michael Caine and Steve Martin film that most people know was itself a remake, but that wasn't really the issue  There was some chat about the specific casting plans - Rebel Wilson in particular seems to divide people - but mostly about the whole idea of remaking with a gender switch.  You might remember that the rebooted Ghostbusters last year faced similar criticism.

Anyway.  This was the post that triggered me to get involved in the discussion, and you can perhaps be the judge as to whether I said anything particularly provocative.....

I've kept the spelling as it was in the original, but I've modified the c*bomb that suddenly appeared.

---

Angry White Guy on Facebook: I have a problem with REMAKING shit for the sake of it . I have a problem with people not doing things right when they do and this modern era rehash political statement gender swap for the sake of it bollocks . Its fucking stupid lazy and dumb . Sjws radical feminists and black lives matter are the reason trump is in the white house . The next person to say white privilidge needs to be taken out and shot . That shit is fucking offensive . Fuck the supergirl tv series

Me: Because white men have always been the most overlooked and persecuted minority throughout history? I agree that we shouldn't be token about this sort of stuff, but let's not pretend that white heterosexual men have had it bad. They might have failed in the execution (I haven't seen it), but I don't see anything inherently bad about re-imagining Ghostbusters with a female cast. Apart from anything else, I applaud that four 40-something women, one of whom is black and one of whom is gay, got the opportunity to top the billing. I don't think that was only because they were female, black or gay, I think that's because they are talented. For so much of cinema history, the default casting position (and indeed, audience assumption) has been white, straight men. I also humbly suggest (and I know I started this by mentioning Mike Pence) that we keep politics out of this as much as possible.

Angry White Guy on Facebook: Ghost busters remake was the worst film of the past year by far  Stop fucking with things

Angry White Guy on Facebook: Lets not pretend white males have had it bad ? Are you fucking kidding me ?

Me: A shit film is a shit film, Angry White Guy. I won't argue with that. I didn't watch it after that disastrous trailer. It's a good idea, but if that's your ONLY idea, then you're in trouble.

Me: Angry White Guy - not being able to see that is the very definition of white privilege, I'm afraid.

Angry White Guy on Facebook: Swisslet where are you from ?

Me: I'm in middle class, white, suburban Nottingham, mate. Let's not fall out over this, yeah?

Sensible Guy intervenes: Watch Dogs 2 really brought home to me how deeply ingrained my expectation that everyone in media represents me, and when they don't, I'm confused. It brought home how frustrating it must be to not be represented in media (games, movies, tv, stage plays, dance, whatever), and I finally understood what being privileged meant in this regard. Representation does matter, and I am privileged, and it's not right....and by frustrating, I mean, utterly soul destroying in the long run.

Angry White Guy on Facebook: Im leaving this group i cant stand preachy white middle class liberals passing judgement on the world like they know any fucking thing about anyone .

Sensible Guy: Sorry to hear that - I was simply talking about myself, which I'm pretty sure is one area of knowledge I am an expert in. You've got a picture celebrating Carrie Fisher on your wall Angry White Guy, maybe worth having a read of some of her stuff, she's a classic example of why representation is key. Ghostbusters (the remake) didn't suck because of the all female cast, it sucked because it couldn't decide if it wanted to be a homage, a sequel, a reboot, or something different entirely, and it fell down the crack of confusion.

Me: Only one person passing judgement here. Sorry we can't just enjoy a shared love of Star Wars and comics and stuff.

Another Angry White Guy: Swisslet thinks it's unreasonable for anyone to state that anyone has been privileged without knowing that person. But I agree this group is about what unites us our love of Sci Fi peace to all. Even klingons

Angry White Guy on Facebook: The term white privilidge is racist . Anyone who uses it is nothing but an ignorant racist stupid [C*BOMB!] . The end

---

Well, that escalated quickly, didn't it?

So, apparently I'm a racist.

Ugh.

(It's also worth noting as a footnote to this that Angry White Guy on Facebook has not left the group up to now, but I"m seriously thinking about it because I just don't need this shit... what's wrong with people?)

I also sent the guy this picture.  I hope he liked it.

There's only one rule you need for life: don't be a dick.

it's the only thing that there's just too little of...

I've been thinking a lot about anger this week.

Well, to be honest, I've been angry quite a lot this week.  I was angry as a teenager, but I think I've actually grown up to be quite even-tempered.  It might sometimes appear to be otherwise, but I loathe conflict and will go well out of my way to avoid it.

But this week has nearly broken me.  I'm angry and ashamed at the state of my own country.  It's bad enough that a majority of people voted in the referendum to leave the EU, but what's happened since then has been just awful. Most depressing has been the rise of racism and the plummeting descent of national debate into the gutter.  This hasn't come completely out of the blue, and we had a taste of this in the last General Election, but watching people hurling abuse and hatred and suspicion at refugees and also at the people who dare to show them an ounce of compassion has been depressing in the extreme.  52% of voters in the referendum voted to leave the EU, but that doesn't make the other 48% traitors or remove their right to speak up.

Ugh. I can feel my blood pressure rising just thinking about it.

But, you know what?  This is no good.

John Lydon famously said that "Anger is an energy", and maybe it is, but it's not a positive energy.  One of the best pieces of advice I've ever received is to try to worry about the things that you can control.  I find this incredibly helpful when thinking about my health in particular, but maybe that's something I might be wise to try and apply here too.  I can't change the result of the referendum.  I tried debating with people who were thinking of voting leave, and essentially nothing that I said was ever going to change their minds.  I was wasting my time. I'm not sure that anything I say now is likely to change anything either.  It might upset and annoy me that people feel this way, and I find it very hard to understand, but getting angry about it doesn't help anyone... and it definitely doesn't help me, because it just makes me feel impotent.

Buddha apparently said "holding onto anger is like drinking poison and expecting the other person to die".

I think maybe he's right.

Why don't we try just being kind to people? I'm not asking you to be reasonable in the face of someone idiot racist calling you a traitorous bremoaner, but you can just be a little nicer to the people around you... whether that be at home, at work, on the bus or wherever.  I'm going to give it a try.  It can't hurt, can it?  I want to try and do something positive, because I'm sick and tired of all the anger and all the negativity. I can be in control of that.

...although, it's so hard because they are *such* arseholes.

how can we win when fools can be kings?

"Brad and Angelina are divorcing?"

Apparently the Russians have started dropping 'bunker buster' bombs on Aleppo as they wage war on behalf of Assad. They are bombs that weigh more than a tonne and can penetrate through 2m of reinforced concrete.  They're designed to destroy military installations; they're being used to decimate people's homes.

“Are we in the era of technology and civilisation?” said a resident of eastern Aleppo. “Is this Russian civilisation and democracy? The killing of children, women and elderly people?”

I know these bombs were (allegedly) dropped by Russia, but I can't help but think back to the vote 10 months ago in the House of Commons to decide if Britain should join in the bombings.

Remember Hilary Benn's much-lauded speech?

“We are here faced by fascists – not just their calculated brutality, but their belief that they are superior to every single one of us in the chamber tonight, and the people we represent. They hold us in contempt. They hold our values in contempt. They hold our belief in tolerance and decency in contempt. They hold our democracy, the means by which we will make our decision tonight, in contempt. And what we know about fascists is that they need to be defeated.”

The motion was passed by 174 votes, and Jeremy Corbyn was widely criticised for his view that there wasn't a good enough case to send our planes to join the bombings.  Here's some of what he said at the time:

"In the past week I have aimed to give a lead to the growing opposition to Cameron’s bombing plans – in the country, in parliament and in the Labour party. Rejection of 14 years of disastrous wars in the wider Middle East was a key part of the platform on which I was elected Labour leader. However bumpy a ride that has been in parliament, it is essential to learn the lessons of those wars. In the light of that record of western military interventions, UK bombing of Syria risks yet more of what President Obama called “unintended consequences”. The prime minister said he wanted a consensus behind the military action he wants to take. He has achieved nothing of the kind. After Iraq, Afghanistan and Libya, MPs thinking of voting for bombing should bear in mind how terrible those consequences can be."

Unintended consequences.  No kidding. Although, if you drop military hardware like that on cities, does the killing of civilians really count as an unintended consequence?

I had an argument with someone the other day who was opposed to Corbyn and his leadership of the Labour Party.  His position was that he believed it was worth surrendering 50% of his principles if that meant he could get into power and implement the other 50%; he called my position hopelessly idealistic.  My position was that, if the principles you were prepared to sacrifice included things like an opposition to the renewal of Trident and opposing the bombings in the Middle East, then - for me - you've given up something fundamentally important.  These are red-line issues for me and I can't understand why anyone would be prepared to give them up in an attempt to make themselves more electable.

Don't get me wrong: I'm not blind to Corbyn's faults.  I've worked for people like him before, and I can well understand how infuriating and difficult it must be.... but my sympathy stops when these apparently grown-up, responsible adults - elected to represent us, don't forget - can't bring themselves to see a bigger picture or work through their differences to provide meaningful leadership.  We could use a functioning Opposition at the moment, no? They've tried to get rid of Corbyn over the summer and failed spectacularly; they have no credible alternative on offer, no desire (perhaps on either side) to compromise and apparently no understanding of the way their own party is changing around them.  Apart from anything else, the behaviour of the Parliamentary Labour Party does nothing more than provide Corbyn with a handy excuse of blaming them for all of his party's (many) failings.

Someone asked me if I would be voting for Corbyn in the leadership election.  No.  I'm not a member of the Labour Party.  I've thought about joining a lot over the last couple of years, and I've had the sign-up page open on my computer several times... but I just can't get past the thought that they're all a shower of bastards and I'd be wasting my time. I don't think they want me as a member anyway.

I look at that picture of that man in the massive crater, and I think about the mess we've helped to make in the Middle East... and then I look at the pathetic arguments that are taking place in British politics at the moment, and I feel like despairing.

We deserve better, don't we?

Maybe not.

no education...

Just another normal weekend in Nottingham.

I don't care what everyone says: I think that there's nothing wrong with Britian. Education is important, but fulfilling Britians (it hurts just to type it) E-Cigarette needs is clearly importanter.

C's argument was that this shop is Danish.  I'm not sure the smiley face at the end is quite enough to cover up for that little horror.  It went down like a damp squid with me, let me tell you...

*deep sigh*.

They've actually had this sign professionally made, you know.  Sidebar: are they going to specialise in news on JME when they open?  Also, will they still take DHL parcels like the last one?  It's just around the corner from us, so that would be pretty handy.

Maybe all of these shops are owned by European immigrants living it large at this country's expense? VOTE BREXIT SO OUR SHOPS HAVE SIGNS THAT ARE GRAMMATICALLY CORRECT.

That is the main thrust of their campaign, isn't it? Although I suppose it's possible that I've missed some nuances.

confound their politics....

Here’s a question for you: how well do you know the British National anthem?

My reason for asking, of course, is because the new leader of Her Majesty’s Opposition, Jeremy Corbyn, has been the centre of a storm over the fact that he chose not to sing the words of the National Anthem at a memorial service to honour those who fought and died in the Battle of Britain. He didn’t “refuse” to sing, he just elected not to.

He’s long on record as an atheist and a republican; if he had decided to sing the song, then he would have been betraying some of his principles and would have been guilty of being exactly the same as every other politician we have who don’t say or do what they actually believe, but instead say what they think we want to hear and will get them elected. Maybe he should pick his battles more carefully and could afford to have avoided giving his enemies a stick to beat him with by mouthing along… but actually I think more highly of him for not doing so. This is what makes him different. Apart from anything else, his presence at the memorial service was paying respect to people who made the ultimate sacrifice to preserve our freedoms, including our freedom not to sing the National Anthem. In fact, he paid a warm tribute to those servicemen:

“My mum served as an air raid warden and my dad in the Home Guard. Like that whole generation, they showed tremendous courage and determination to defeat fascism. The heroism of the Royal Air Force in the Battle of Britain is something to which we all owe a enormous debt of gratitude. The loss of life – both civilian and military – should be commemorated so that we both honour their lives and do all that we can to ensure future generations are spared the horrors of war.”

Do you see anything offensive or controversial in that? No. Me neither.

Let’s not forget too what our Prime Minister thinks is appropriate at a memorial service.

Apparently, there’s a school of thought that Corbyn should show some respect to our head of state now that he’s leader of the Opposition. Really? Exactly what kind of a hold does the Queen have over our elected Parliament? She’s the only person in the world who isn’t allowed to set foot in the chamber of the House of Commons. She has no power here: never forget that in 1649, Charles I was executed on the orders of Parliament. We did it once, we could technically do it again. In fact, maybe it would be a mercy….she’s had a good innings and doesn’t look happy.

Why should any MP be expected to slavishly bend the knee and sing this servile nonsense if they don’t want to? It’s a dirge. Compare this to something as brilliantly vibrant and defiant as La Marseillaise. My wife’s father was born in England but has lived in France for many years; he refuses to sing God Save the Queen, but used to make the family stand up for the French anthem. Better, he says, to be a citizen of a Republic, even a rubbish one, than to be a subject of her Gracious Majesty.

This brings me back to the lyrics. How well do you know it? It has six verses, for starters:

1. God save our gracious Queen
Long live our noble Queen
God save the Queen
Send her victorious
Happy and glorious
Long to reign over us
God save the Queen

2. O Lord our God arise
Scatter her enemies
And make them fall
Confound their politics
Frustrate their knavish tricks
On Thee our hopes we fix
God save us all

3. Thy choicest gifts in store
On her be pleased to pour
Long may she reign
May she defend our laws
And ever give us cause
To sing with heart and voice
God save the Queen

4. Not in this land alone
But be God's mercies known
From shore to shore
Lord make the nations see
That men should brothers be
And form one family
The wide world over

5. From every latent foe,
From the assassins blow,
God save the Queen!
O'er her thine arm extend,
For Britain's sake defend,
Our mother, prince, and friend,
God save the Queen!

6. Lord grant that Marshal Wade
May by thy mighty aid
Victory bring.
May he sedition hush,
And like a torrent rush,
Rebellious Scots to crush.
God save the Queen!

What utter nonsense. I’m English, and I think it’s rubbish enough…. imagine being Scottish. “Rebellious Scots to crush”? Is it any wonder they want shot of us? “Thy choicest gifts in store, on her be pleased to pour”? Even if you can get past the hideously contrived meter, what the hell is that supposed to mean? You could refuse to sing this rubbish on aesthetic grounds alone, never mind anything else. If you’re a republican or an atheist, it’s a nightmare. I don’t sing it, and I certainly won’t criticise Jeremy Corbyn for not singing it either.  Haven't we got more important things to be talking about?

Meanwhile, whilst this is the hot news in the papers, the Conservative government today put their plan to cut Working Tax credits before Parliament, where it was passed by 35 votes. This makes working people on lower-wages poorer. As the Labour MP, Frank Field said today “In one single move [the chancellor] has destroyed his 2020 election strategy because we heard the very powerful speeches the chancellor made saying the Conservative party was in favour of those individuals who got up in the morning, who did grotty jobs for very low pay and they passed the windows of their neighbours whose curtains were still drawn, who were on benefits. Those individuals who still rise to the work motive in this country, which is so important for both economic and human advance, will know as they pass those windows with the curtains drawn they do so on average with £1,300 a year less in their pocket.”

And we get outraged at someone not singing a stupid, irrelevant song as these trolls gleefully set about making the poorest people in this country poorer. For shame.

The Queen's views on this are unknown. So are God's.

yin yang...

I’ve taken a dislike to the man who has the locker next to mine in the changing rooms at work (this is, by the way, the celebrity section of the locker room: Craig Davids and Richard Curtis are both located here). This might seem unreasonable, given that we haven’t exchanged a single word in the year since he moved in, but to my mind, it’s completely justified.

Let me put forward the case for the prosecution:

- He wears full lycra and cleats for his commute. To be fair to him, I have no idea how far he cycles every morning. Maybe it’s miles and miles and this is by far the most practical gear for his journey…. but this brings me to point 2

- He usually doesn’t shower. He comes in, wipes himself down and gets changed into his work gear… in spite of the fact that we have perfectly good showers in the changing rooms and he keeps a towel here. I put it to you that, if he doesn’t cycle hard enough to need a shower, then he definitely doesn’t need to wear full lycra and cleats. You can’t have it both ways

My locker, this evening.  His locker is behind the open door... but it's okay: he'd already gone.

- He’s very possessive of the space around his locker. If my locker door is open when he arrives, even if it isn’t open to the point where it’s over the front of his locker, he pushes it shut. If I have a towel or something hanging in the door of my locker on a hanger, he will move it so it’s hooked up and away from being anywhere near his locker. I wouldn’t mind this so much, except that he doesn’t mind hanging stuff over his own locker and apparently doesn’t see the contradiction

- I don’t like his face. Well, not his actual face as much as the picture on the ID card that’s on the front of every locker. Well, alright, I’m not a massive fan of his actual face either – he seems a bit humourless to me – but his picture is even worse, and I see it every single day even if he’s not actually in the locker room getting changed.

I know I sometimes come across here as excessively stoical and generally seem to possess an aura a little like a modern-day Buddha, but as you can see, I’m actually fairly petty and childish.

Yin and Yang, innit?

feet don't fail me now...

Back in 2008, Glastonbury announced that Jay-Z would be headlining the Pyramid Stage on the Saturday night of the festival.  Cue uproar, with no less an authority than Noel Gallagher acting as spokesman for the rest of the world by saying 'I'm sorry, but Jay-Z? No chance. Glastonbury has the tradition of guitar music ... I'm not having hip-hop at Glastonbury. It's wrong.'

Well, given that the worst headliners I have seen at Glastonbury in all the years I've been going were Oasis, this seemed ironic.... and of course Jay-Z made fools of the naysayers from the moment he burst onto stage and played a fusion of "Wonderwall" and "99 Problems".  He absolutely slayed it that night in front of a packed crowd.

I was there that night.  I'm not really a fan of Jay-Z but I am a fan of music, and I was keen to watch one of the world's biggest acts at the top of his game.  And you know what? He was really good and I was thoroughly entertained throughout.  You'd think if this whole affair showed us anything, it showed us how entirely pointless it is to complain that a band somehow doesn't belong at an event, especially an event like Glastonbury.

The Glastonbury Festival sells out within an hour or so of tickets going on-sale.  At that point, the people buying tickets have absolutely no idea who is going to be playing the event and won't know for at least another six months.  And no one cares.  You're not going to Glastonbury just to see the bands.  They don't pay headliners as much as other festivals, and in the past they've forged something of a reputation for giving up-and-coming bands an early chance to headline (Coldplay in 2002 being an excellent example).  Of all the festivals in the UK, Glastonbury is the one that is about so much more than the music: there are 175,000 people on a 900 acre site with a perimeter fence that covers nearly nine miles; there are something like 40 music stages, a theatre, a circus, a craft field, tipis.... you definitely don't need to be sucked down to the main stage every night to watch the headliners.  In fact, you could easily argue that, if that's all you do, then you're missing out on the best parts.  Almost all of my favourite Glastonbury memories come from when I wasn't at the Pyramid Stage.

The fuss about the headliner was new in 2008, but it's subsequently become a tediously predictable part of the festival.  Look at the fuss when Metallica played in 2014.  They're one of the biggest bands in the world and a phenomenally good live act, and yet people got their knickers in a twist about how they somehow "didn't belong" at Glastonbury.  Nonsense, of course.

And now it's Kanye West.

There's a petition to stop him playing that has nearly 50,000 signatures.  There's also a Tumblr called "White People Angry About Kanye", mocking the ridiculous response to the announcement.

Kanye West is clearly an idiot.  I don't really like his music and I like all the bullshit around him even less.  But you know what?  I'll just do something else that night instead.  The end.  It's not as though anyone is making me watch him, is it?  Anyone who has a ticket to the festival who doesn't want to watch him can do exactly the same thing and vote with their feet.  You could drink real ale at the tent by the Acoustic Stage, you could sit up in the Stone Circle.... or you could just have an early night reading a book.  You could do pretty much anything.

I guarantee you that no one will be returning their ticket over this, and the fuss about the booking is utterly tedious.  It says far more about the people complaining than it does about Kanye West and they should just shut the hell up.

Besides, what could be a more appropriate environment to see a centaur in the wild in wellington boots than at the Glastonbury Festival?

Well, it will make a change from the usual, common-or-garden unicorns, anyway......

everybody feels entitled...

I'm cross.

Cycling home from work this evening, I came over the Suspension Bridge at the Trent and headed down on the final half-mile stretch towards home.  There's a corner here where the road turns and joins the much larger road that heads over Trent Bridge.  The traffic flow is to the left, and to turn right, you have to cross the road at some traffic lights.  To get to those lights (and also to a pedestrian crossing), you have to hop onto a little stretch of pavement and head around the corner.

As I came off the bridge and up onto the pavement there, I could see a lady with a toddler and a pushchair coming in my direction.  I'm lit up like a Christmas tree with lights and fluorescent clothing at this time of year, but she had nothing to mark her out.  Still, I saw her and immediately slowed down and moved right across the pavement to take up as little room as possible and to be as far out of her way as possible.  As I passed, she paused to remonstrate with me for riding on the pavement.  She was pompous in her manner and used suitably patronising hand gestures as she told me in no uncertain terms that I had no business riding on the pavement.

To some extent, I understand where she's coming from, especially with a toddler in tow and a pushchair.  I get it.  The thing that's riled me is that:

a) She was absurdly pompous
and
b) Actually she's wrong: the pavement is dropped here *precisely* to keep cyclists off the road on a dangerous corner with traffic on the main road flowing in the main direction.

I didn't bother starting the debate with her and just kept going, swearing under my breath.

I saw her, assessed the danger, slowed down and gave her as much room as possible on a piece of pavement I have every right to be cycling on.  Maybe there are reckless cyclists around here, but I honestly don't think that I'm the problem here.  Be sure to have a lovely evening though, you sour-faced, supercilious cockwomble.

Grrr.

dulce et decorum est.

I've already written once about this year's batch of Christmas adverts, and before we're even halfway through November, here I am again.  My reason for picking up the subject is that I've just seen the Sainsburys ad.



It's a beautiful piece of filmmaking, depicting the 1914 Christmas ceasefire at the trenches.  This year marks the 100th anniversary of the start of the First World War, and this is pretty powerful and timely imagery.  You can see just how seriously Sainsburys were committed to getting this right by the fact that they have made the advert in partnership with the Royal British Legion.  It's a powerful piece of advertising.

But it makes me feel deeply uncomfortable.

Why?  Because it is a piece of advertising.  It's masquerading as something more significant than that, but for all of it's message about how Christmas is for sharing and why-can't-we-all-just-get-along, what it's really trying to get you to do is to spend your money in their shop rather than in another one.  Yes, yes.... so you can buy the chocolate bar featured in the advert for £1 (which compares rather nicely with the £95 that John Lewis are charging for Monty the Penguin), and all of the profits from that are going to the British Legion (with precisely none of the Monty the Penguin money going to charity).  Well done everyone, you've knocked John Lewis into a cocked hat.  Except that John Lewis aren't really pretending to be anything more than a retailer in their advert.  Yes, they're manipulating your emotions and trying to make you feel all warm and fuzzy about a little boy and his CGI penguin, but they're not trying to hide that fact, are they? We buy into that: we want to believe that Christmas is more than just a festival of greed and consumption.  We sing songs about silent nights and peace every year, and it's maybe even true... for a few days, people seem a bit nicer to each other.  You might get a bit ratty with your parents and your family, but basically people do try and see the people closest to them.  It's all an illusion, of course.  People are still cold and hungry on the streets; people are still being murdered and wars don't stop.

And that's the thing: wars don't stop and this is what makes this Sainsburys advert so awful.  You remember that famous scene in Blackadder Goes Forth where they're all about to go over the top and the guns stop firing.  Just for a moment, they think the war might be over:

Captain Darling: I say, listen - our guns have stopped.
Lieutenant George: You don't think...
Private Baldrick: Perhaps the war's over. Perhaps it's peace.
Captain Darling: Thank God. We lived through it. The Great War, 1914 to 1917....

There was a ceasefire in the trenches at Christmas in 1914, and troops from both sides met in No Man's Land and played football.  Then, a few hours later, they were back to trying to kill each other and continued to try until the war was over in 1918.  Nothing changed.  Then we did the whole thing again in 1939 and in who-knows how many other wars.  Yes, we are all just people and yes, it's clearly insane to try and settle our disputes through force of arms.... but that hasn't stopped us.  I find it unbearably poignant watching this advert and seeing the two young soldiers from opposite sides introducing themselves.  When they know each others' names, how can they possibly go back to killing each other?  But they do.  Whilst Sainsburys doesn't show us Otto viciously bayonetting Jim or Jim blowing the top off his chum Otto's head, it happened.

Happy Christmas, old boy.

Well done with the advert, Sainsburys, but don't you think that imagery like this should be used more carefully than just to deliver an emotional punch to a Christmas advert for a grocer?  Don't you think we owe the fallen a greater respect than this?

This advert is tasteless and cynical.
--

MCMXIV (1964) by Phillip Larkin

Those long uneven lines
Standing as patiently
As if they were stretched outside
The Oval or Villa Park,
The crowns of hats, the sun
On moustached archaic faces
Grinning as if it were all
An August Bank Holiday lark;

And the shut shops, the bleached
Established names on the sunblinds,
The farthings and sovereigns,
And dark-clothed children at play
Called after kings and queens,
The tin advertisements
For cocoa and twist, and the pubs
Wide open all day;

And the countryside not caring:
The place-names all hazed over
With flowering grasses, and fields
Shadowing Domesday lines
Under wheat’s restless silence;
The differently-dressed servants
With tiny rooms in huge houses,
The dust behind limousines;

Never such innocence,
Never before or since,
As changed itself to past
Without a word – the men
Leaving the gardens tidy,
The thousands of marriages,
Lasting a little while longer:
Never such innocence again.

--

On a completely different note, am I the only one who watched this advert and thought of the video for Pipes of Peace?

[It seems that The Guardian doesn't much like this either:
"In helping to launch the ad today, the legion’s head of fundraising praised the film’s historical accuracy and attention to detail. How true can this be? While there were certainly varying conditions on the frontline from place to place and year to year, reading contemporary accounts from either side of the trenches, in the poetry of Owen and Sassoon or the prose of Remarque, the details that stick in the mind are horrific. Nowhere in the new advert do we see the blood and entrails, the vomit and faeces, the rats feasting on body parts. The response might be “well they can hardly put that in a Christmas advert can they?” and that would be entirely true. Which is why the scene is entirely inappropriate for a Christmas advert in the first place."]

just try and have a little patience....

I was in Dublin with work on Tuesday. Since we’re not allowed overnight stops, this entailed a 04:45 start to drive to Birmingham to catch a flight. It was a productive day, but as I actually didn’t get back through my own front door until a little after 9pm, it was also a very long one.

It probably didn’t help that our return flight was delayed. We were all boarded on time, but didn’t move until, about ten minutes after our scheduled departure time, four people boarded the aircraft with a load of shopping bags and made their way to their seats. As they were clearly the cause of our delay, their arrival was met with death stares from all the other passengers I didn’t join in. I was as anxious as everyone else to be on the way home, but I remembered a story that someone once told me:
This person was on another flight that was held up in similar circumstances, and when a very flustered lady finally got onto the plane and made her way to her seat, she joined in with the hate lasers. As the lady was about to sit down, the elderly gentleman in the seat behind her spoke up:

“Are you okay? You look like you’ve had a tough day”

This simple flash of humanity stood in stark contrast to everyone else’s petty impatience over a delay of a few small minutes.

I try to remember this, just as, when I’m stuck in traffic, I always try to remember that someone at the front may well be having a much worse day than me (we once sat completely stationary on the M1, grumbling, when an air ambulance landed on the road ahead. When the traffic finally started moving, the firemen were still cutting someone out of the wreckage.)

So, I kept that in mind as these four latecomers took their seats on the plane.

When we got off at the other end, the colleague that I’d been travelling with, who had been sitting in another row, waited for me on the bus before we went through passport control.

“You know when those four guys got onto the plane late? Did you see the bloke sitting next to me?”
“No. Why?”
“He was going absolutely mental. Apparently, he travels on this flight every week, and every single week those four same people hold up the plane. He was absolutely furious”

Ah. Sympathy withdrawn. They’re just selfish arseholes then.

Now that I think of it, they didn’t look particularly flustered or apologetic about the whole thing either. They also appeared to have been doing a lot of shopping, although quite why you would travel from Birmingham to shop at New Look and River Island in Dublin when you might just as easily have popped to the Bullring is beyond me.  Take your time, eh?  It's not like you're keeping anyone waiting.

So much for my patient, zen-like stoicism, eh?

(if you want it)

I did this as part of the #GAZANAMES project.  The idea is to remind people that the victims of this war are not merely statistics or collateral damage, they are human beings.  Rezeq Abu Taha was killed in Rafah on Saturday along with three other members of his family in an airstrike.  He was two months old.

I was so moved by a feeling of anger and helplessness whilst reading about the conflict and looking at the images of terribly wounded Palestinian children that I actually took some direct action.  It might not be much, but writing to the British Foreign Minister and Ken Clarke, my own MP, seemed like the very least I could do.  Only once before have I written to Ken, and that was in the wake of the invasion of Iraq.

Here's what I sent Ken over the weekend:

Dear Kenneth Clarke,

Like everyone else, I've been appalled by the footage that I've seen from Gaza. The final straw for writing to you is the latest news about the shelling of the UN school. This quote from Pierre Krähenbühl, commissioner-general of the UN agency for Palestinian refugees, UNRWA, really jumped out at me and brought tears to my eyes:

"Last night, children were killed as they slept next to their parents on the floor of a classroom in a UN-designated shelter in Gaza. Children killed in their sleep; this is an affront to all of us, a source of universal shame. Today the world stands disgraced."

He's right: I feel shocked, ashamed and angry. I've just written to Phillip Hammond, expressing my anger and asking if we as a nation could do more to put an end to this senseless slaughter of innocents, and now I'm writing to you.

You're my local MP, your office is at the end of my street and I frequently see you at Trent Bridge, where I am a member. I wrote to you many years ago expressing similar anger about the war on Iraq, and was very impressed by your full and thoughtful response. I appeal to you as my representative to represent my anger at this slaughter. I know that we're not standing by and doing nothing in the face of this crisis, but I appeal to you to push, asking if there isn't more that we can do.

I'm sure you're as appalled as I am, so I won't go on... but I did want to let you know my feelings and to ask that you represent them in parliament with the government.

Thanks for listening.

Yours sincerely, etc.

You can email your own MP from here, and you can mail the Foreign Office from here.  It only takes a moment and it will add your voice to the press of people calling for our government to do more.  It's got to be better than doing nothing, hasn't it?

I'll leave you with a couple of quotes.

'Empathizing w/ Gaza does NOT make me anti-Semitic, nor pro-Hamas or anti-Israel. It makes me human" David Harris Gershon

UN Chief Ban Ki-moon described the latest attacks on a UN school as a “moral outrage and a criminal act...yet another gross violation of international humanitarian law, which clearly requires protection by both parties of Palestinian civilians, UN staff and UN premises, among other civilian facilities....those responsible [must be] held accountable. It is a moral outrage and a criminal act.”
That's pretty strong for the UN, wouldn't you say?
[although, in fairness, it must be said that Palestinian weapons caches have been found in three of the six schools attacked]

I know that this is a complex issue, with atrocities committed by both sides.  In addition, I'm very aware that much of the public outrage is driven by the coverage we see on our television screens, when other atrocities in the globe are going far less reported.  That said, why do we need to get into the rights and wrongs of who is killing who and for what reason?  Isn't it enough that innocent people - children - are being killed?  The Israeli spokesperson who said that "nearly half" of the 1,800 or so Palestinian dead were combatants was spectacularly missing the point (as well as exaggerating the figures: the UN estimate is closer to 15%).  Even so, that figure still leaves 1,000 or so innocent civilians dead, doesn't it?  How can that ever be justified?  (and before you speak, let me first point you at this excellent blog post too: Everything is justified, because Hamas)

We must do more.

and the mercy seat is waiting....

"You can judge a society by how well it treats its prisoners" - Fyodor Dostoyevsky.

On Wednesday evening, it took the State of Arizona an hour and fifty-eight minutes to carry out the execution of a prisoner.  As the Guardian reported:

"Joseph Wood took an hour and 58 minutes to die after he was injected with a relatively untested combination of the sedative midazolam and painkiller hydromorphone. The procedure took so long that his lawyers had time to file an emergency court motion in an attempt to have it stopped. For more than an hour, he was seen to be “gasping and snorting”, according to the court filing".

Wood was sentenced to death in 1989 after the double-murder of his girlfriend and her father.  Apparently, after the injection was administered, Wood continued to gasp and snort for over an hour.  An eye-witness to the execution reported that he counted no fewer than 660 gulps and gasps from the condemned man as he lay strapped to a gurney.  The execution began at 1.52pm and Wood was finally declared dead at 3.49pm.  They're using untested cocktails of drugs on human patients to see what works.  The EU actually started to ban the export of these drugs to the USA because it objects to the their use in executions... the ban created shortages (because they are no longer made domestically), and some correctional institutions are now using out of date drugs that they have stockpiled. As the New Statesman reported, "In Oklahoma in January this year, 38-year-old Michael Lee Wilson, convicted of beating a convenience store manager to death in 1995, was executed in what appeared to be considerable distress. His last words, 20 seconds after the execution began, were: “I feel my whole body burning.” It begins to sound like a cruel or unusual punishment"... Cruel and unusual punishment  by the way, is specifically forbidden under the Eighth Amendment to the Constitution of the United States of America.

Predictably, the relatives of Joseph Wood's victims were unmoved by the manner of his passing: "What I saw today with him being executed, it is nothing compared to what happened on Aug. 7, 1989," Jeanne Brown, Debra Dietz's sister, told a reporter after the execution. "What's excruciating is seeing your father lying there in a pool of blood, seeing your sister lying in a pool of blood."

I suppose you can understand that view.  But at the same time, how can anyone call this a civilised response? What does it say about a society that treats a human being -- whatever he might have been guilty of -- in this way?  Eye for an eye?  Well, that was specifically refuted by big JC himself, wasn't it?
(Matthew 5:38, if you're interested. I'm an atheist myself, but if you're going to go around slinging the Bible at people....)

Funny how the sanctity of human life can be such a selectively applied principle, eh?  Look around the world: Gaza, Ukraine, Death Row.... life seems pretty cheap to me.

I've been locked out....

I've been cycling to work for nearly a year now, and in all that time, I think I've only used my car to get to the office twice - both times when I had to get to an appointment in the middle of the day.  We're pretty lucky with the facilities at my office, to be honest: as well as a changing room with a decent set of showers and my own locker, we've also got a secure bike shed that requires a pass to open the shuttered door and contains metal loops bolted and concreted into the floor to lock your bike against.  

At this time of year, as you'd expect with the nicer weather, there are quite a few more people cycling to work.... but as there's plenty of room, this hasn't really been a problem.  I usually arrive at around 07:30, well before most people, so I have my pick of spots to lock up my bike.  When the place gets busy and you have to share a post, the form is for bikes to top and tail on either side so that you get as little in the way of other cyclists as possible.  It's just common sense, right?  Some people are clearly a little possessive of "their" post, and leave their locks on them all the time, but there's nothing really wrong with that, and generally it's a pretty harmonious community of cyclists feeling smug when the traffic is appalling to get offsite in rush hour.

Imagine my surprise when I went to the bike shed to cycle home the other day at around 18:30 and found another bike chained to the frame of my bike.  Not around the post, just around my bike.  I looked at it for a moment, not quite believing what I was seeing.  I then actually unlocked my bike from the post, as though somehow I thought that I would be able to take it out and ride home.  Sadly, no.  Some idiot had managed to lock their bike directly to mine and make it impossible for me to cycle home.  Brilliant.  I imagine it was an accident, but that didn't stop me trying to work out what I had done to warrant such an act of antisocial stupidity (my bike was a lot bigger than the one locked to it, so I assume only a moron would want to come back to the bike shed to find an enraged much larger man waiting for them).

My options seemed somewhat limited: wait for the guy to turn up and move his bike? Walk home? Ugh.  What a massive pain.  More in hope than expectation, I went round to reception before they closed and explained my predicament.  They called security.  Security turned up with bolt cutters.  They checked my ID - presumably to make sure that I wasn't a splendidly inventive thief - and then spent the next five minutes cutting through the cable of the bike locked to mine (I guess those locks have improved over the years, huh?).  They then put the bike into their truck and took it away.

Well that escalated quickly.

On the one hand, I'm delighted with the result and the idiot had it coming.  But I can't help but feel a little bit bad about what must have gone through his head when he knocked off work, changed to ride home and found his bike had completely disappeared.  

Well, let's not overdo the sympathy though, eh?  What a plum.

[This kind of post is the reason you read this blog, right?  Insightful, funny, thoughtful, challenging..... none of these things.  It's not even quite an amusing middle-class problem.  Well, look... I nearly wrote about how awesome Metallica are.  Again.  So count your blessings.  I've saved that for tomorrow instead.  Something to look forward to]

space age, road rage, fast lane....

I've been cycling to work for about ten months now.  It's only four miles to work, give or take, but it soon adds up, and I've already got something like 1,500 miles on the clock already.  When you put it like that, it suddenly seems so much more worthwhile that I pulled my finger out and stopped driving to work.  Not to mention the thousands of additional calories that I've burned that I don't really need to burn.....

I enjoy it in the main, even if the vicissitudes of the British climate mean that I have got wetter in the last few weeks than I did throughout the whole of winter.

I have noticed that motorists don't really like cyclists, though.

Most of my commute is actually on cycle paths and away from roads, but it's not at all unusual to be abused by a car driver.  In the last seven days alone, I've been sworn at twice:  the first time was a driver swearing and gesticulating at me as I patiently waited for him to work his way through a section of roadworks that had closed one half of the road.  My light had turned green some time before, but as there was a queue of cars jumping the lights at the other end, I had no real option but to wait for them to get through.  This guy was the very last in the queue of about five who ran the red light, and he was clearly annoyed an embarrassed that everyone in front of him had filtered through so slowly, exposing him as a light-jumping idiot of the highest order. To conceal his embarrassment, he decided to swear vociferously at me through his windscreen, waving his hands wildly.  I stared at him impassively.

The second time was just yesterday: I was in the right hand lane at a set of lights at a junction.  The lights there are sequenced so the left hand lane has a filter that allows them to set off before the lights for the right hand lane change.  I was sat patiently waiting for my light to change, about eight cars down the queue.  I glanced over my shoulder briefly when a huge truck zoomed about six inches past me in the other lane, and I think the car behind that assumed I was about to jump out of my lane and into theirs.  That's the only thing I can think of that might have upset them.  Whatever she thought I was doing, as she drove past me, waiting at the lights, the driver leaned out of her window and shouted "TWAT" at me.

Charming, right?

It's not just car drivers either.  I had a cyclist come past me the other day muttering swear words under her breath in my general direction, apparently irritated that I had inconvenienced her by being on the path where she wanted to be as she swung round a corner, even though I was on my side of the track.

Some people, eh?

To quote Roger the Shrubber, "Oh, what sad times are these when passing ruffians can say Ni at will to old ladies. There is a pestilence upon this land, nothing is sacred. Even those who arrange and design shrubberies are under considerable economic stress in this period in history".

Why can't we all just get along?

he said, she said....

A friend of mine commented on Facebook last night that she had just shattered the screen of her iPhone.  It's not the most earth-shattering update, but the social media revolution is all about the mundanities of life, so it seemed about par for the course.  Then the comments started:

"That's what happens when you get a shitty iPhone hahahah"
"Over rated anyway. You are better off with a Sony Xperia Z. With a cutting-edge camera, a super-slim design and the ability to withstand life's knocks and bumps"

etc. etc.

Harmless enough banter, I suppose, but I'm heartily sick of all of this lazy Apple bashing.  As if iPhones are the only phones that sometimes break if you drop them.

Look.  I buy Apple stuff, but I freely admit that the people who go on and on about this company being the most amazing thing ever are extremely boring.  Yes, they do get an awful lot of fawning coverage in the press.  Yes, I'm sick of the sight of idiots in their sleeping bags queuing up for a chance to get a gold phone before anyone else.  Yes, I'm tired of the drip-drip-drip of speculation about the next model.  Frankly, who isn't?

But you know what?  The people who go out of their way to slag Apple products off are even worse.  If you think that Android is a better operating system and you're convinced that you get better value out of your Samsung phone, then I'm happy for you.  Why isn't that enough for you?  Why do you feel the need to desperately sneer at everyone else?  Yes, £700-odd is a lot to pay for a phone, but it's worth what people are prepared to pay, isn't it?  I wouldn't queue up all night to get one, and I'm actually thinking of keeping my iPhone 4 for another year, but each to their own.  Different strokes and all that.

Have Apple jumped the shark?  Have they lost their edge since Steve Jobs died?  I don't know and I don't really care, but knee-jerk opinions from blow-hards on the internet are not very likely to change my mind either way.  I don't want hagiography, but neither do I want trolling... and the pointless my-dad-is-better-than-your-dad arguments are just pathetic and childish.

As it happens, I have an iPhone an (old) iPad and a Macbook Pro and I'm very happy with all of them.  They work for me.  Funnily enough, I actually spend a fair bit of time in my professional life railing against people automatically choosing Apple products for work when they are more expensive to buy, more difficult to support and not resilient enough for a retail environment.  I know they are cool-looking, but sometimes that isn't nearly enough.  You see how it's possible to have a nuanced position on these things?

A nuanced opinion on the internet?  Imagine that.

Why can't we all just get along?