Not My Style.

I search my name on Google sometimes, mainly to see whether there are any references I ought to know about concerning my stories or the publications they’re in. Tonight I came across one JJ Beazley referring to a published article on case studies into the diagnosis and treatment of bilateral pisotriquetral loose bodies.

It wasn’t me.

The Transit of Venus.

Do you know how the TV people kept referring to Venus?

Earth’s evil twin.

I just might write and complain! They also said that life is unlikely to occur there because it’s too hot and acidic. Oh, I don’t know. Isn’t that the origin of the expression ‘Men are from Mars, women are from Venus?’

Anyway, she begins her transit of the sun in a little under an hour, apparently. Americans, Chinese and Australians can watch it, we in Europe can’t. It’s night here. No sun. We get a brief glimpse at 0537 BST tomorrow morning. My bathroom window faces east, so in the unlikely event of me needing the loo just at that time. I’ll wave. Otherwise, Bon Voyage, madam.

Oh, the Text Message.

I just read an interesting article, courtesy of Andrea, on the texting epidemic currently afflicting young people (yes, I regard it as being akin to a disease.) It seems to me that the various modes of communication open to us in the modern world may be seen as being analogous to:

Face to Face:

Being in a richly coloured garden during the summer.

Phone:

Seeing a still picture of the same garden.

E-mail/Letter:

Seeing the same picture, but in black and white.

Text:

Having the garden described to you by somebody who is not only colour blind, but also generally deficient in language skills.

Texting is fine for small scale practical stuff like ‘I’ve arrived at the coffee shop.’ That’s about it.

And now I'm going to watch a TV programme about Venus transitting the sun. It's the least I can do, considering how faithfully she kept me company during the winter.

When Our Best Isn't Good Enough.

I have a lone neurosis. I call it, as people with neuroses often do, my ‘demon.’ I talked about him a lot last summer when he was horribly active and giving me a bad time.

He first made his appearance when I was nineteen, and I’ve no idea where he came from; I certainly didn’t invite him in. And he hasn’t aged with me. He’s as fit, strong and nasty now as he ever was. So this is what bugs me:

There have been situations in which I’ve had to explain him to people (certain individuals, that is) because his presence threatened to destroy something which I – and the individual concerned – held to be valuable. I’ve had to point out that he needed to accommodated, which actually meant that he needed to be kept quiet. The response I often received was:

‘No, I won’t accommodate him. You can beat this thing.’

‘Sorry, but I can’t. He’s too strong.’

‘Rubbish! Nothing is too strong. You can beat anything if you want to.’

Do you know what I would like to do with people who say ‘you can beat anything if you want to?’ I would like to drop them into the sea in the vicinity of a man-eating Great White, or leave them alone in the Canadian wilderness with a hungry grizzly bear, and say ‘OK, beat that.’ You might argue that the analogy is a bad one, since the shark and the bear are external things over which we have no control. I know, but it makes no difference. Sometimes there are internal things, too, over which we effectively have no control – or at least have never managed to find the means, in spite of all the effort so to do!

I’ve beaten a lot of things in my life, but the fact has to be faced that we can beat most things, but not necessarily all of them. However big and strong we are, there’s always something bigger and stronger. Many of us never encounter it, but those who do have only three options: submit, run away, or get torn to shreds. And getting torn to shreds doesn’t usually help much.

An Open Request...

...to those who are hiding:

I don’t want to see you smile. I need to see you laugh, and giggle, and cry.

I don’t want to see an impassive face. I need to see joy, and wonderment, and horror.

I don’t want you to be in control. I need you to rant, get angry, rail at me, even hit me if you like.

I don’t want you to be polite or politically correct. I need to know how you feel about things, how you see the world, how you see yourself, how you see me.

How else can I know you? How else can I return the compliment?

I Waited and You Didn't Come.

... I kept anticipating your arrival, but deep down I knew you wouldn’t show.

Some things affect me deeply. Cameron discussing the Eurozone doesn’t; the Queen’s Jubilee doesn’t; how the English football team fares at Euro 2012 doesn’t.

This does. This is human at its most poignant, and arguably its most profound. The waiting and the failure can be present in many situations, but the underlying principle always has the cold touch of tragedy about it. 

 

Addendum December 2025 

 

I just read this again more than thirteen years later. I remember it well. I consider it one of my life's most memorable tragedies. If only she'd said 'I'd like you to be there' instead of asking 'Are you likely to be attending...' But she didn't, and so I wasn't. It still hurts.

With Peace, Good Humour and Irony.

The big Jubilee event yesterday was a pageant of boats sailing down the Thames led by the Queen’s barge. Among the heaving crowd of flag waving, pro-royalist onlookers was a small demonstration by republican activists, and a heated discussion broke out between them.

One of the royalists was a 70-year-old woman called Gloria Brown, who taunted the opposition with a personal rendering of God Save the Queen. The republicans were so impressed, apparently, that they applauded her and chanted ‘Gloria for President.’

There were no wrecks and nobody drownded, and that’s one aspect of Britishness with which I’m happy to associate.

Another Name Question.

We’ve got a Labour Peer in Britain called Lord Adonis (he’s currently making waves about the controversial high speed rail link – the wrong sort of waves, in my opinion.)

Where the hell did he get a title like that? Surely it can’t be his surname. Adonis? Nah.

Sounds a bit pretentious, doesn’t it? It suggests someone with rippling muscles, gelled hair, and reeking of aftershave. I would google him if I could be bothered.

(And why am I using ‘to google’ as a generic verb?)

Just So You Know.

Thought I might explain why the posts are thin on the ground at the moment. I feel a wreck. My best guesses as to the cause are:

a) An escalation of the fatigue problem caused by overdoing the gardening last week.

b) A blood deficiency.

c) Some sort of nasty virus.

d) A heart problem.

e) None of the above.

There are still two days of holiday to be got through, courtesy of our Queer Old Dean’s 60^th. If there’s no improvement by Wednesday, maybe I’ll seek the advice of my trusty old Hebridean doctor. He’s one of the old school.

It’s at times like this when being a loner isn’t such a good idea, but one has to take the bad with the good.

I want to know who’s coming into my Feedjit as ‘Stockport.’

The Benefits of Alcohol.

When people know you drink, life gets easier. You can bare your soul at 2.30 in the morning, and then the next day you can say ‘Sorry, I was drunk,’ and they say ‘Oh. That’s all right, then.’

Sorted.

I’ll come back tomorrow, Mel, if I’m still alive. It’s been a strange night.