We Band of Potterheads.

I walked up to the checkout of a shop today and noticed that there were four rows of T shirts hanging on a rail behind the till operator. The first was printed with a badge and the name Ravenclaw. The second was blank. The third had a different badge above the name Slytherin, and the fourth said Gryffindor.

I pointed to the blank T shirt and said ‘I assume that one has Hufflepuff printed on the other side.’ The young woman turned around and hurriedly re-arranged the errant T shirt which did, indeed, proclaim Hufflepuff. And then she beamed and said ‘I love Harry Potter.’ She rummaged in her bag and pulled out her phone, proudly enclosed in a Harry Potter case.

So then a convivial conversation ensued on the subject of the boy wizard and the effect he and his affairs have had on a very great many people. I imagine the person waiting in the queue behind me must have been quite irritated by the delay, she being an elderly lady who probably still dreams of Errol Flynn and his trusty rapier. Nowadays it could be argued that the wand is mightier than the sword.

And as I walked out of the shop it occurred to me that dog walking used to be considered the classic way to loosen the tongues of complete strangers. Now it seems all you have to do is mention the Chosen One and you have an instant friend. It’s happened to me several times over the past couple of months, and I can’t help wondering whether the habit might be cultivated to useful effect.

On Success and the Blueprint.

I watched a movie tonight which caused me – not for the first time – to question the definition of success. It’s a surprisingly complex subject, but let me start at the first thought that occurred to me.

I wondered how many times I’ve heard or read the statement: You can be whatever you want to be. Sorry, but I find this nothing more than the sort of nonsense dreamed up by writer’s of self-help books, professional motivational speakers, and amateur gurus. I have no time for any of them, so let’s move on.

It seems to me that each of us is born with a genetic blueprint settled firmly in every cell in our bodies, and we have no choice but to work within that blueprint. If you’re tone deaf you’ll never make a concert pianist. If your hands tend to shake under pressure you’ll never be a brain surgeon. If you can’t control a round piece of leather with your foot you’ll never be a top footballer. And so on. That much is self-evident. The blueprint is a restraining factor, but there’s plenty of room for manoeuvre within it in order to achieve what matters to the individual.

For that, or so it seems to me, is what success is all about. Success is a personal concept, not something to be dictated by teachers or bosses or parents or politicians or the culture in general.

So then I looked back over my life and considered the question of whether I have been successful. It occurred to me that if my genetic blueprint had given me the quality to be a leader, I would have striven to lead. But it didn’t. If I’d been born a follower, I would have followed. But I wasn’t. I was born to observe and to experience what my nature caused me to want to experience, and that’s what I’ve done. I didn’t think of it in those terms at the time; it just happened that way because I mostly stayed within the constraints of the blueprint. On the odd occasion when I strayed outside it, I failed. And that’s how it should be.

I’ve done some good things in my life and I’ve done some bad things. I’ve helped some people and I’ve hurt others. But I have to say that in nearly all cases where I hurt people, I didn’t do so for the sake of hurting them because it isn’t in my nature to want to hurt. They were victims of me following my blueprint and I suffered plenty of guilt in the process. I don’t mean to excuse my bad deeds by saying this, but here’s the irony: It was only through hurting people by following my natural inclinations that I learned the error of my ways and grew as a result. I didn’t stop at observing others, you see; I also observed myself and the consequences of my actions. And so I have learned, and I have grown, and I’m much better at helping people and not hurting them than I was when I was younger.

So does that represent a level of success every bit the equal of being a concert pianist, a brain surgeon or a Premiership footballer? I think so, but you decide. And could it be that success, when defined that way, is what life is really all about? Some would say it is, but I don’t know. You can decide that, too.

The Glumness of the Swede. A Retraction.

I think I’ve come up with a reasonable explanation for why the Swedes appear a little glum at times. My perception of them has now altered and I don’t think they’re glum at all. I was musing on people like Bergman and Garbo, and also the serial Black Lake and cop dramas like Wallander, and came to the tentative conclusion that Swedes are simply more aware of the human condition, with all its faults and frailties, than most people are. It’s probably their forte, and probably why 72% of Swedes have Masters degrees in psychology.

(OK, I made the number up, but it would probably be about right if only they’d put their mind to it instead of making Volvos and flat pack furniture and singing about the Battle of Waterloo.)

So, dear people of Sweden, I retract my earlier suspicion, apologise unreservedly, and applaud you. I might even consider coming to live there if only I could learn to say ‘OK’ with the correct inflection.

Epiphany in Fruit.

I was walking past a fruit shop today when I experienced a revelation. ‘Plum’ is an anagram of ‘lump’, so if you were to put a plum in your pocket and somebody asked ‘Do tell me, what is that unseemly protuberance?’ you could answer: ‘It’s a plum’ or ‘It’s a lump’ and they would both be correct. Isn’t it wonderful when the intricacies of life and language offer you fascinating alternatives?

And thank heaven for silly posts, I say.

On Matters Lavatorial.

I remember saying in one of my post-operative notes that those bodily functions which are never spoken about in polite company become everyday currency once you’re in a urology ward. I was musing on this recently and a thought occurred to me: common parlance has no expression for one of those functions which is not either twee or distinctly indelicate. I’m sure I don’t need to append a list. I’m sure you know what I’m talking about.

And then there’s the matter of the waking nightmare which has developed since those heady days last spring and summer. I expect even the most sheltered of ladies knows that when men wish to void their bladders in a public lavatory, they have to stand shoulder to shoulder with other men. This is now of some concern to me because I imagine that one day I shall find myself standing next to a man with hands the size of garden spades who is clearly struggling with something. He will turn to me and say:

‘That’s the trouble with having a big ’un, lad. It’s so hard to get the damn thing out. How big’s yours? Let’s have a look.’

I really don’t think I would survive unscathed from the assault on my refined sensibilities.

On Independence and Perception.

I have more hospital procedures coming up over the next few months and the prospect is starting to trouble me, so let’s go over old ground for a moment.

I dislike the attentions of doctors and I dislike having to go to hospitals for tests, procedures and treatment. It makes me feel like a fish with a hook in its mouth, swimming free for a while but being reeled in every so often and left gasping for air in an alien environment. In short, I feel tethered, and I don’t like that at all. I don’t want clinical persons hanging around me; I don’t generally feel the need to be cared for and I don’t want to be the centre of attention. What I want is to have the freedom and independence to do my own thing in my own way and my own time. I want to be a fully functioning member of the species and never be at anybody’s beck and call. It’s what worries me so much about the prospect of growing old.

But suppose I had Munchausen’s Syndrome (I believe they call it Factitious Disorder now.) I would feel quite the opposite way, wouldn’t I? I would want as much attendance by doctors as I could get, and it would probably be caused by the driving need to be cared for and be the centre of attention.

So does that mean I have my own condition which is the very opposite of Munchausen’s, or is it simply another example of my favourite maxim: perception is the whole of the life experience?

I don’t know, but what troubles me more is my third question: suppose there isn’t anything I particularly want to do? Where do I go from there?

The Glum Swedish Drama: Epilogue.

The drama is done. The denouement tied the loose ends together reasonably well but unfortunately descended to a level of implausibility which I find irritating. Still, Minnie made it (albeit with a nasty knife wound to her lower abdomen which meant she should really have bled to death) but Mr Viking didn’t. His knife wound was fatal, and he wasn’t the bad guy after all. I think that just about ties up the glum Swedish drama thread.

If you should want to watch it, it’s called Black Lake and is best viewed subsequent to overdoing the coke and being in need of a little grounding. It’s unremittingly glum until the very final scene when a Volvo drives up to the quayside. They’re so very reassuring, aren’t they, Volvos?

What on earth am I going to do with future Saturday nights?

Post Epilogue

I forgot to mention that after the Volvo had drawn up on the quayside, an Abba tribute band jumped out and began a spirited rendition of Mama Mia. I suspect I might have been hallucinating at that point because it's pretty cold in my living room. (You try watching a glum Swedish drama in a cold living room on a cold Saturday night in January and see whether you can manage to stay entirely on the rails.)

Mind in Control.

My brain has been concocting blog posts today but my mind won’t let me make them. I’m not sure why. Maybe it’s because the house is getting colder by the day and I find cold houses uncomfortable. Maybe it’s because the people I want to be contacted by are either entirely ignorant of the fact or decline the imposition. Maybe it’s because something somebody said in a recent episode of House caused me to have a disturbing dream, after which I woke up convinced that I would be dead before the end of the year.

We live life almost entirely in the mind, don’t we? Perception is the whole of the life experience. The majority of tonight’s episode of House consisted of the good doctor’s hallucinations after somebody shot him. At least, I think it did. All drama is the outpouring of somebody’s mind, so how can you be sure you’ve completely understood it unless you completely understand the mind of the writer?

And what if the whole of life is an hallucination anyway? Wiser men than me have said so often enough.

But now I’m going to watch the denouement of the glum Swedish drama. The synopsis suggests it’s going to be the glummest of the lot, and it’s 1½ hours long. Here’s to understanding.

On IQ, Shocks and Stars.

I needed to replace an old electrical extension lead yesterday (it was all to do with the fan heater which had burst into flames the previous night and which I mentioned on this blog.) Since the length of extension I needed wasn’t a regular one which you can buy complete, I bought the required amount of cable and set about re-wiring the plug at one end and the socket box at the other. I started with the socket box.

Having opened it and unscrewed the cables from the posts, there was a sudden flash and a loud bang which took me quite by surprise. It didn’t take me long to work out why. The other end of the cable was still plugged into the mains and I was holding the thin rubbery coating on exposed live wires. The two copper connections had obviously touched and short-circuited. Fortunately, I wasn’t touching the copper bits or else they would have short-circuited through me. I should have taken the plug out first, shouldn’t I?

So you see, this is the problem with having a high IQ. You tend to forget minor, insignificant things like turning the electricity off first. I was telling Mel tonight about the various times in my life when I got electric shocks or came very close to it. She was very kind and said: ‘Well, you’ve always been a bit adventurous, haven’t you?’

That isn’t it at all. If I can’t blame my high IQ, I reckon it must be due to my being a Sagittarian.

Regarding Rebecca.

I had to go back to Ashbourne today to get things I forgot yesterday. It was very different. Today was cold and sunny, which made a pleasant change from yesterday’s gloomy wet stuff. And it was marginally more interesting because I encountered the mysterious and mildly maddening Rebecca, sister of the oft-mentioned you-know-who.

I’ve mentioned her before on this blog. She’s quietly enigmatic and apparently given to a state of perpetual melancholy. Such a person begs to be known and understood to one such as me, but she never will be because she affords me no more than the most basic level of seemingly reluctant recognition. I find it all quite intriguing, but that’s life.

What was particularly interesting, however, was discovering that she has a new car. It’s a Volvo, and it struck me as a nice coincidence that a person who appears to be permanently glum – although she may very well not be to those who know her – should be driving a Swedish car.

Maybe it’s time I shut up about Sweden and glumness. It is, after all, only a harmless joke to fill up a space or two on the blog. And maybe it’s also time I allowed the enigmatic Mistress Rebecca to drift off into that remote corner of my consciousness which blog posts rarely reach. Whatever is driving her to live the life she is living is absolutely none of my business, and you can only explore those places you can reach.

Running on Empty.

On Sunday afternoon a poor tree was brought down by the gale force wind we were having at the time. It landed on a telephone cable and neither tree nor cable survived the encounter, in consequence of which I’ve had no internet connection for three days. It’s been driving me nuts because I live my largely reclusive lifestyle mostly through the internet these days, and I was unable to make any of the several posts which ran through my head during the enforced hiatus.

‘So,’ you might say with reasonable justification, ‘presumably you wrote them down and saved them for when you got reconnected.’

No I didn’t; I don’t do that sort of thing. It smacks too much of order and organisation and planning and seven fat years followed by seven lean and all that sort of thing. It’s not my way. If something flies by and I can use it, then use it I will. If I can’t, I let it continue its journey unmolested. Who knows, maybe it will land in somebody else’s head and he or she can write about it. Oddly, I don’t take this view with money, just ideas.

Anyway, the point is that now I’ve got my internet back I’ve got nothing to blog about. Ashbourne today was grey and wet. It was as glum as a Swedish melodrama but rather less interesting. The most interesting thing that happened in Ashbourne today was that Sainsbury’s were out of potato salad just when I wanted some, and that wouldn’t make much of a post.

Sorry. I’ll try to think of something to say before the next tree falls over.

(Oh, I just thought of something moderately interesting. The fan heater in my bathroom caught fire when I switched it on last night. Will that do to be going on with?)

It Was a Glum and Creepy Night.

Just a quick update on the last post:

I watched the glum Swedish drama as notified and now I’m glum. It wasn’t the concluding episode; there’s one more to come. I still don’t know whether Minnie is loopy or not, I still don’t know whether Mr Viking really is a bad egg (we know that he’s been cooking the books, but that just means he’s a fan of free market principles), and I still don’t know whether the creepy old housekeeper who clearly knows-something-but-isn’t-telling is complicit in the dastardly deed (whatever it may be) or merely a victim of her own glum history. But at least the frail little guy who never does anything but creep about creepily hasn’t shot anybody yet, even though he’s both the creepiest and glummest of the lot.

Oh well, here’s to next Saturday…

Meanwhile, my Blogger stats tracker reports that while I was away becoming glum, I had the strangest, most mysterious set of visits I’ve ever seen – thirteen of them, no less. Now, that is creepy. And the wind is moaning and howling even more than it does in glum Swedish dramas. Don't I just love atmosphere?

On Odd Numbers and the Swedish Question.

It’s an odd fact that while I know without thinking that 8+4 = 12, I have genuine difficulty remembering that 7+4 = 11 and 7+5 = 12. I think it must have something to do with odd numbers clashing with the oddness of my brain. And maybe that’s why I’m feeling ill for part of nearly every day at the moment. My current age is indivisible by 2, and that can’t be a good thing.

*  *  *

In a little over an hour I plan to settle into my uncomfortable armchair in my cold living room and watch the concluding part of the glum Swedish drama. I’m guessing that Minnie isn’t a loony after all, and that the heavily bearded Viking lookalike who runs the rehabilitation centre turns out be a bit of a bad egg. I never liked him. His excessively self-confident air and staring eyes always seemed like a dead giveaway to me, but I might be wrong.

And, as you might expect, the Viking lookalike has already had sex with dear, supposedly-a-bit-loopy Minnie. No surprises there, then. As Peter Cook famously said in the legendary Bloody Greta Garbo sketch: ‘You know what these bloody Swedes are like!’

Finally, I do hope that all Swedes reading these posts will excuse my apparent calumnies. I’m sure your personal qualities are of a high order, your virtues second to none, and your national characteristics something of which to be justly proud. But you must admit, you can be a bit glum at times.

Luxuries and Life.

I didn’t go to the coffee shop today. It’s my new resolution now that the house agent has increased my rent by more than the rate of inflation. I decided I need to economise, and that’s something I’m very good at because I’m well practiced and the methodology is really simple. You stop allowing yourself luxuries, and going to a coffee shop twice a week was my only luxury. I calculated that what cost me £2.10 in a coffee shop costs approximately 7p at home, so there’s no contest, is there? And having the will power to walk past the coffee shop is no problem either. That’s something else I’m very good at.

The good news is that I seem to be succumbing to a new condition. Last night I found myself thinking a lot about somebody I haven’t seen in Ashbourne for a couple of months. I kept imagining I would see her today, and you know what? I did – not once, but three times. How about that for a breakthrough? And it isn’t the first time it’s happened so it seems I’ve developed a chronic case of precognition. I definitely need Scully.

I also thought up a new metaphor for life today. Life is the water coming out of the shower head which runs over your body and then disappears down a drain at your feet. I seem to be becoming quite the collector of life analogies. Maybe I should invent a religion.

Empty.

I’m lacking material for a blog post. I’m tired of talking about House and Harry Potter. I’m tired of talking about meeting dogs on dark and dingy days in my little local market town. I’m tired of talking about matters relating to meaning, motivation and intimations of mortality. I can’t say any more about glum Swedish dramas until I watch the final episode on Saturday night and find out who did the dastardly deed, and I can’t reprise the old Lady B theme because my orbit has been entirely devoid of Lady Bs for quite a long time.

I thought I might make a post – or even a series of posts – about women-who-made-me-sad, but I’d only end up revealing things which are not fit for public consumption and become even more self-indulgent than I usually am in the process.

And then the light bulb flickered and inspiration fell upon me like a monsoon in Maharashtra. Why don’t I tell my life story in words without pictures? OK, here goes:

It was a dark and stormy night… Sorry; I’m not a beagle. Start again.

It was five minutes past five on a cold November morning in the year of our Lord 19-- (have you noticed how all old novels do that? They never give the actual year and I always wondered why. Now I know.) The place in which this tale begins was a cottage hospital situated in a northern English industrial city. The fifth chime of the geriatric clock in the old Victorian building had barely ceased its echo when the cry of a new born baby rent the silence of the ancient corridors (that was me.) Almost immediately, a male blackbird alighted on the window sill outside the room in which the new arrival was taking his first taste of antiseptic air. And then he began to sing.

Now, at this juncture I have to admit that such was my mother’s version of events and it must be questioned on the following grounds:

1. Blackbirds are rarely out of the roost as early as 5.05am in late November. Why would they be, since daylight is still a couple of hours in the future?

2. This is but the first reason to suspect that there’s a hint of a possible fiction going on here, the second being that blackbirds are not generally given to singing in November either. Singing is associated with the breeding season between late spring and early summer.

Then again, the blackbird might have been some angelic being in disguise, proclaiming the birth of a Very Special Personage for the enlightenment of coal miners, steelworkers, early-rising employees of the many ceramics factories in the neighbourhood, and insomniacs troubled by the density of soot particles in the smoky November air. (There weren’t many shepherds around where I was born. Sheep were known to be adversely affected by the smell.) If that is the case, sorry I failed.

And that’s just about my life in a nutshell. Maybe tomorrow will be kind and feed me some material worth talking about.

Going Backwards and Forwards.

The trouble with watching Harry Potter clips is that it’s bringing up that age old problem of mine – appreciating the now. It seems to me that by the time you comprehend what’s happening it’s already become dead history and so you’re constantly living on memories. It’s like taking a train trip, sitting at the rear and facing backwards. All you can see is what’s gone by and there’s no way of going back to it.

This proposition has its flaws, of course, but it’s how it appears to me. And I find it achingly poignant.

On the other hand…

I just did another of those silly YouTube quizzes, this time to find out what sort of dragon I am. Apparently I’m a hydra. Oh good. Now I can relax. I think I’ll do the What Kind of Angel Are You? next. It might give me a clue as to what sort of wings I should order. There’s nothing to beat looking ahead.

And I forgot to mention that I did the psychology thing and discovered that I’m an INFP. That puts me in the same category as Fox Mulder, which is probably about right. All I need now is a Scully for balance.

Seems she’s not likely to come from Algeria, though. The person who said I’m not only nice but really nice now tells me she’s a little weird. I think I could have guessed that. I like weird.

Catwalks and Stuff.

Tonight’s episode of House was probably the most hard-hitting to date because it centred around the subject of sexuality in several of its most cringeworthy forms. The main guest protagonist was a teenage female catwalk model whose illness turned out to have been caused by the fact that she was actually an undeveloped male. She was very, very upset by this revelation because she was proud of her babe status and desperate to continue her glamorous celebrity career as a catwalk model.

A number of aspects bothered me, the main one being the fact that of all the occupations available to the human species, employment as a catwalk model strikes me as the most pointless. In fact, if there’s one thing which illustrates the parlous state of the modern human condition, it is the very existence of the catwalk model.

*  *  *

I bought a new TV today, a small one by modern standards. As I was walking out of the shop one of the assistants asked me whether I would be OK carrying it to the car. It must have weighed about 7lbs at most. Has life and its facial lines really come to this? Can it really be true that the only way to stop yourself ageing is to die?

*  *  *

I learned quite a lot about Algeria earlier because somebody who comes from there thinks I’m not only nice, but really nice. It has a very rich and troubled history and is therefore quite interesting, but the names of tribes and towns and leaders made my eyes sore.

*  *  *

I wish I were interesting instead of just ageing. I wish I had something more interesting to say this evening, because what’s the point of writing a blog if you have nothing interesting to say? And I think Shakespeare might have got it wrong. What he should have written was:

All the world’s a catwalk

And all the men and women merely mannequins

*  *  *

I made friends with no dogs today, but I did learn that my new human friend, Christabel from the coffee shop, is leaving me for pastures new. She has a new job lined up as a care assistant. She’s going to be looking after old people, so I expect we’ll meet again before too long.

On Glumness and Being Interesting.

Do you know what Dr Onc said to Dr House tonight? He said:

‘You don’t like yourself, so you’re miserable. And you won’t let yourself change and stop being miserable because you fear that if you do you’ll stop being interesting. Being miserable doesn’t make you interesting, House; it just makes you miserable.’

That can’t be right, can it? Of course being miserable makes him interesting. Why else do we watch the damn programme?

*  *  *

So having put Dr Onc right, I watched the next instalment of the glum Swedish drama and discovered something else interesting. The Swedish term for OK is ‘OK.’ See what I mean? Give them something with a positive connection and they can’t even invent their own word for it.

And now they’re all having sex with each other, which isn’t surprising I suppose in the circumstances. Popular culture has always led us to believe that having sex is what the Swedes are best at when they’re not making Volvos and flat pack furniture or singing about the Battle of Waterloo. That’s why I was interested in one particular bit of dialogue.

‘Do you fancy having sex?’

Dunno. Will it make us any less glum?

‘Don’t suppose so. But it is what we’re best at when we’re not making Volvos and flat pack furniture or singing about the Battle of Waterloo.’

I see what you mean. OK.

Or it could be that I misread the subtitles at that point.

Questioning the Right.

I had a letter from the house agent today telling me he was putting the rent up. I did a simple calculation on my trusty calculator and found that the amount he was putting it up by was substantially greater than the inflation we’ve had since the last increase.

But of course, landlords and agents don’t take inflation into account when determining increases. They base it on current market norms. And who sets the current market norms? Landlords and agents do. How very convenient.

And so the landlords and agents get fatter and the poor tenants pay for it. Or, to put it more generally, the rich get richer on the back of the poor. It’s a simple example of the free market principle at work.

Now, if I were an American making this post, I’ve no doubt there would be plenty of my fellow Americans who would froth at the mouth and call me a ‘commie bastard’ or a ‘commie lefty’ or simply ‘damn commie.’ (I read a tweet recently in which one of those phrases was used of a newly-elected member of Congress because a film had emerged of her dancing back in her student days. It appears there’s a particularly enlightened brand of Republican who thinks that only dastardly Democrats and covert Communists dance.) And I’d lay odds-on that most of those who favour such calumny haven’t a clue what Communism actually is. It’s simply become a synonym for ‘undesirable.’ There goes that good old free market propaganda doing its job again.

I’m not a Communist because I’m not an anything-ist. I don’t join clubs. But I do like to keep an open mind because I find it’s the best route to understanding. Meanwhile, I’m trying to get the house agent to scale down the rent rise. It’s not about equality; it’s about egalitarianism.

*  *  *

Incidentally, my nightly need of a House fix is throwing up an interesting query. Do American doctors really assume the right to break into patients' houses in order to rummage through their bathroom cabinet? Dr House's team do it as a matter of routine.

A Short Note on the Sea Change.

It struck me while watching a video on YouTube that the first half of my life to date was characterised by facts, organisation and verbal debate, while the second half has been dominated by pictures, music and the written word. I wonder how that happened. (I also wonder whether somebody was pulling strings.)

Not Paranoia.

I’m still getting visits to the blog which Blogger stats record as coming from an ‘Unknown Region.’ I still find it hard to credit that there’s a region which is unknown to Google and I still have that vague feeling of being watched from behind a metaphorical tree. I’m definitely not paranoid; it only appears that way.

On Friendly Dogs and the Ego Thing.

I was standing by a bench in the town today, fiddling for something in my backpack, when I noticed a dog sitting with a human and wagging her tail. She was also looking at me with eyes that were nothing if not imploring. So I looked back at the dog and did the friendly face thing because I’d read somewhere that dogs are good at recognising friendly faces. The tail wagging became more frantic and the eyes more imploring.

I went to the human and said: ‘Excuse me. Your dog keeps telling me that she wants to make friends. Would you mind?’

‘Oh, her. She wants to be friends with everybody.’

Now, call me cynical if you like, but I read the subtext as being something like: ‘Don’t think you’re anything special.’

And that’s something else we Brits like to do – prick the balloon of a person’s ego if it appears to be inflating. I took it as indicating assent and made friends with the dog.

On Ageing and the Lack of Cool.

There was an elderly couple blocking the door as I made my way out of a shop today. The man saw me immediately and ushered his wife slowly out of the way, while she turned and looked at me with what appeared to be a mixture of alarm and apology. She said: ‘Sorry. I’m old.’

I said in a recent post that we Brits are noted for our compulsion to be polite, and we’re always apologising for one thing or another. Mostly that’s OK, but should a person feel the need to apologise for being old?

Shortly afterwards I was standing in the checkout queue at Sainsbury’s and realised that I was slouching a little. I thought back to when I was a very young man and slouching was a practiced habit because a minor slouch was considered cool. It seemed rebellious back then because it flew in the face of all those grown up authority figures who were always telling us to stand up straight. (Many of them remembered the days of Empire, you see, when military discipline was considered the bedrock of all things proper, and that included standing up straight.)

And it had its Romantic side. It possessed faint echoes of leaning against a wall surrounded by monochrome and melancholy chiaroscuro, smoking a cigarette held between the thumb and second finger while the dull glow from a mist-enshrouded street lamp cast your shadow weakly onto a wet and otherwise empty pavement. It went along with pulling the collar of your outer garment – whether you owned a trench coat or not – tighter against you neck, before flicking the cigarette idly into the gutter and walking away anonymously into the urban oblivion of a dark and dreary night.

But then I realised that no such condition now applies. The reason for the minor slouch now is the fact that my back muscles are growing a little tired of holding me up. These days it’s the habit of standing up straight which has to have practice applied to it.

One for the Hypochondriacs

I’m currently watching old episodes of House on a nightly basis and I have to say that it’s more horrific than most horror films. Who would have thought that something as seemingly innocuous as a runny nose could indicate the advanced stages of ten major conditions, all of them potentially fatal. I wonder how much the medical insurers paid them to make that show.

On Magical Kids and Mystical Animals.

I think I’ve mentioned before that I watch a lot of clip compilations from Harry Potter films on YouTube. (There are a vast number of them, and they’re endlessly inventive in combining clips with music to match the choice of theme.) And what I’ve noticed is that, for me, the irrepressible and universally loved Hermione Granger is at her most compelling at the start of the series when she is just 11 years old. So why is that?

It’s because at that age she didn’t need to learn magic. She was magic. She was the classic kid with character. Her voice alone was enough to arrest the attention, and so was her walk. Her emotional expression was free and captivatingly precocious. Her frown could freeze the milk in the churn, while her smile could melt an iceberg.

And then she grew up and became a magazine cover. As a boyfriend of my daughter’s said to her once: ‘Pretty girls are ten a penny. It’s character that counts.’ Yes indeed.

But that’s what humans do, isn’t it? They shake off the baby fat and enter the magical years when every gesture, facial expression and naïve statement projects character like a young stream in spate. And then it all fades as they start achieving things which the system tells them is the stuff of success, at which point they become ordinary and the magic is lost.

*  *  *

I just did one of those silly quizzes on YouTube. This one was to determine what my spirit animal is. I got panther.

It’s only partly right because my spirit animal changes according to the time of day, what mood I’m in, and whether I’ve had a drink or not. I get through spirit animals like I get through personality types. Well, almost. I reckon I’m a panther in the afternoon when I’m totally sober, but the rest of the time I’m mostly a bear.

But did I mention that I had an interesting dream recently in which I met a panther in the wood? We wrestled until we agreed on a tie and went our separate ways. Mel did tell me what meeting a panther means in mystical terms, but I don’t remember what it was. I reckon it’s all to do with the amount of cheese I eat.

Did I also mention that I’ve developed an addiction to cheese? I expect I did.

And I just realised that this is the first post of 2019.  Another step made, another milestone reached, another reason to seek madness or an ecstasy of longing which amounts to the same thing. (That's from a story I wrote in 2003. Doesn't time fly?)