Trying Times.

Here I am again, needful of writing something to the blog because the night is dark and entertainments are conspicuous by their absence.

It’s been a trying day today. All days are trying these days, but today was especially so courtesy of attempting to submit somebody’s tax return online. The whole online business is becoming really quite silly now. More and more barriers keep appearing as both the corporate world and the bureaucrats dive ever deeper into the mania of online communication and security hysteria.

The days when business was conducted using paper and telephone calls used to be so simple. Now we’re increasingly required to be masters of mental dexterity if we’re to negotiate the maze of user IDs, passwords, time-limited access codes, security questions, and so on and so forth. Even the need to have a mobile phone ready to hand gets pulled into the picture. Suppose you don’t have a mobile phone. (Suppose you don’t even have a computer. It’s less that ten years since I had a neighbour who had neither, but the whole messed up juggernaut of modern systems presumes you do.)

I wasn’t brought up in this world and I don’t relate easily to it. I’m also not quite as mentally dextrous as I used to be and I’m growing tired of climbing barriers. And today’s efforts were occasioned by the fact that somebody much younger than me is even less able to cope with online communication mania than I am.

And then there was the rain which chose to fall at the most inopportune time, as it has developed a habit of doing every day for the past week or so. It should come as no surprise that persistent rain causes me a problem which it causes very few other people. It’s all to do with my mechanic friend not knowing what’s wrong with the car and being disinclined to find out.

OK, I know, I’m complaining again. Sorry. It was either that or nothing.

But I forgot to mention that Sainsbury’s is getting busier now that they seem to be allowing more people in. Social distancing is becoming increasingly difficult in there, and just at a time when the Covid infection rate in this area has increased tenfold in the course of a week. Should I hope for a brighter tomorrow?

 

*  *  *

I’ve had my dinner, I’ve drunk my coffee, I’ve eaten a chocolate bar, I’ve written a blog post of sorts, and there’s still an hour to go before I can start trawling my YouTube recommendations and finding nothing but renditions of Bolero, self-styled gurus, cutesy animals, the-latest-from-the-government-on-Covid, Trump claiming he’s become Superman, and scantily dressed belly dancers for some inexplicable reason. Where on earth do they get them from?

Still resisting the scotch bottle.

Becoming Corpse-Like.

I was massaging my temples earlier and thought I detected a slightly increased depth there. Being highly conscious of the physical consequences of ageing, I’ve noticed that different people change in different ways.

As I understand it, the universal fact about ageing is that muscle and fat deposits move as you get older, but they do so in different ways. In some people they sag, producing fleshy jowls and sometimes thicker necks. In others they seem to move in waves and produce a plethora of deep wrinkles. The third type is characterised by a general sinking where fat deposits used to lie, producing hollower temples and cheeks. The actor Peter Cushing was a prime example of that type, and it’s the way I expect to go. We are the gaunt people, the ones to whom the adjective ‘cadaverous’ might be applied.

Well now, I’ve had a lot of adjectives applied to me through my life, some of them complimentary and some pejorative. I wonder whether ‘cadaverous’ will be the last of them. At least it has the benefit of being neutral.

 

*  *  *

I’m clean out of DVDs, you know, and I’ve finished the Paul Auster book. How am I going to wile away the long, dark evenings now except by finding inconsequential things to ramble about on this blog?

Rediscovering the Shire.

I gave my newly refurbished leg its sternest test yet today – to walk the field which climbs for about 400 yards from the low lying Mill Lane up to the creepy copse on Church Lane. Doesn’t sound much, does it, but three weeks ago I wouldn’t have had a chance of making a quarter of that distance on rough ground and with such an incline.

The legs did just fine. What didn’t do so well were my lungs. Seems the lack of exercise over the last year and a half has taken a severe toll on my fitness levels, and both heart and lungs were pounding to a disturbing degree by the time I got to the top. But at least I did it without stopping, and practice will hopefully improve the situation.

By way of pleasant compensation, I got to meet with some old friends on the way: two horses and a donkey which were happy to be fed handfuls of hay from my side of the gate. I wondered whether they remembered me from before the inactive time. Do horses and donkeys remember people who feed them fresh hay? I wouldn’t know, but it’s a nice thought that they might.

I’m seeing changes, though, most notably in the Harry Potter wood at the top of my lane. The sections of path which used to be narrow and almost blocked by wild summer growth are now much wider and clearer, presumably to allow easier access to those who like to spend their Saturday afternoons shooting pheasants. That’s a shame; I like pushing through wild growth and watching out for the man traps set by newly rooted brambles, and I much prefer to watch pheasants running free in the woods and fields than flying, panic stricken, into the path of shotguns greedy for the dispensing of death and injury.

The worst moment, however, came when I got to the end of the wood where it opens onto a track bordered by a field of crops. There are two very old and very big ash trees in the hedgerow there, the biggest of which I estimate to be around 300 years old. It’s long been one of my favourite trees, and you should know by now how fond I am of trees. All of its massive bulk above 10ft has now gone, ripped away by either the wind or a lightning strike. Only one side branch remains, and it was sad indeed to see the ignominy to which it has now been brought.

On a lighter note, did I ever explain why I call it the Harry Potter wood? There are two reasons: Firstly, it has a rich and magical atmosphere which reminds me of the wizarding world of Harry Potter and his associates. Secondly – and perhaps more significantly – it’s the place where the Lady B did her best Hermione Granger impersonation some years ago. It counted for a lot.

Being Led by a Headline.

There’s a video appeared on YouTube from the South China Post to the effect that Coronavirus can survive up to twenty eight days on certain materials.

I read effectively the same headline on the BBC News website this morning, only it wasn’t referring to Covid-19. It was about an earlier form of Coronavirus called Cov- 2 which caused the SARS outbreak some years ago.

So is this an example of the South China post doing a Donald Trump and trying to mislead the public by spurious means, or is it perhaps a shameless piece of clickbaiting?

You really can’t trust any public mouthpiece these days, can you? Maybe you never could.

Discarding the Ditty.

I find it interesting, and sometimes a little disturbing, that rhymes drop suddenly into my head from an unknown source. A recent example reads:

Mr Joshua Crum

Had a very big bum

It resembled two halves

Of a gigantic plum

 

I always feel constrained at such moments to extend these seminal insights into a ditty of substance, but I didn’t much like where this one was going so I stopped. 

On Blame and the Control Freak

Those familiar with the movie Dead Poets Society will no doubt remember the pivotal moment when Neil, a free-thinking student dominated by an intractable martinet of a father, commits suicide. We the audience are horrified by this, and are led by the writer to blame the bullying ways of his parent. The conservative school Establishment naturally takes a different view, preferring to massage the evidence so as to place the blame on Keating, the English master who encouraged Neil’s free-thinking nature. I’m on Keating’s side for my own reasons, of course: I hate any attempt to dominate me and despise any martinet who tries.

But it wasn’t always thus. I was born into a generation – not so very far behind Neil’s – which insinuated into boy children the view that the male is the dominant gender, and that firm, unbending control is the key to personal success and a harmonious society. We were taught that when we reached adulthood it was our right and duty to exercise firm control over women, children, animals, and anything else which moved. And this indoctrination went so deep that the old impulse occasionally comes to the surface in me even now.

I suppose I should be ashamed to admit the fact, and I am to a large extent. But conditioning of that sort is hard to excise completely because it sits at the base of perception, and how many times have I suggested that perception is the whole of the life experience?

You may rest assured that I now recognise the control imperative when it shows its ugly face and take whatever pains are necessary to reason myself away from it. And fortunately, it doesn’t happen often anyway. But it’s still there, and is why I find myself questioning whether responsibility for Neil’s predicament is quite as straightforward as it appears on the surface. And I’m often moved to ask the question: ‘What sort of innate quality do we need to possess in order to rid ourselves completely of unacceptable childhood conditioning.’

Yet More Random Thoughts.

I had a most unfamiliar sensation this morning: I felt, quite suddenly and with no obvious source of prompting, that I wanted to touch somebody. I wanted a woman of whom I approved to slip her arm through mine, or a man of whom I approved to shake my hand. This is odd because I’ve never been the touchy-feely sort, and it never occurred to me that the restrictions consequent upon the pandemic would cause me to miss it.

*  *  *

I saw a headline today in which the term ‘mental health’ was used in a way I deemed inappropriate. I think we’re becoming far too inclined these days to substitute ‘mental health’ for the simpler, more general, more accurate, and less emotive phrase ‘state of mind.’

*  *  *

I felt moved by the sight of the yellowing leaves while out on a walk today, and experienced a growing conviction that the individualised consciousness is driven by the same cyclical imperative as drives nearly all natural processes in the phenomenal universe. Metempsychosis is gaining ground.

*  *  *

And then an uninvited thought sprang into my own consciousness and advised me that the secret of Life, the Universe and Everything is contained within the phrase ‘even earthworms defecate.’ I frowned, but didn’t disagree.

A Foreign Body Down Under.

I strongly suspect, in fact I’m nearly certain of it, that I have a foreign body in my groin. (And just in case you think I’m being uncomfortably personal here, I should point out that it’s in the top part of my groin adjacent to where my left thigh pivots. It’s all to do with the procedure I had done a couple of weeks ago to get my left leg functioning again.)

I won’t bother to offer what evidence I have to support this suspicion, but it’s very strong and I don’t much like it, especially since the object is almost certainly green and made of plastic. This won’t do, will it? If it were a piece of shrapnel coloured gun metal grey I’d be able to hold my head up high in any company. I could even fly to Australia, and when the customs man asked the question which determines whether or not you’re a fit person to be allowed entry – do you like Vegemite, mate? – I could answer: ‘I really couldn’t say, my fine fellow, but I do have shrapnel.’ And then he would be duly impressed and reply: ‘Oh right, mate. That’s the next best thing. In you come and pick up your barbie vouchers by the door.’

But green and plastic? How can I possibly walk freely among my fellow creatures with a green plastic article loitering indecently off limits? And what about when I’ve shuffled off my very own mortal coil and been cremated? Some curious person might empty the ashes out onto an old newspaper or something and exclaim in a tone of disgust and disbelief: ‘Yerk! What’s this lump of green stuff, here?’ And then somebody from the assembled multitude in the room would offer: ‘Looks like a bit of melted plastic to me.’ And the rest would concur, and then I’d be too ashamed to haunt anybody ever again. 

On Spanners and a Single Blessing.

Today the cyber glitches came not as single spies but in battalions – glitches in Blogger, Skype, and my online bank account, all of which caused confusion, frustration and delays.

This afternoon I made three attempts to get some autumn gardening work done. I did so because I was encouraged by the light white cloud, the sunny periods, and the general air of calm and settled weather. Three times I got half way through the job when the black stuff appeared, closely followed by rain. On the third occasion the rain was heavy and driven by the sudden onrush of a gale force wind. It was also accompanied by a blizzard of falling leaves which seemed to take great delight in making clattering noises everywhere. That was when I yelled at the universe and asked it just how many spanners it had at its disposal to throw into the machinery of my life just because it can. I received no reply and I doubt it did any good.

That’s how my life is at the moment. Every day I get one or more spanners landing in the machinery of my activities and bringing matters to at least a temporary halt. It seems to be getting worse, and I’m certainly growing very tired of it.

*  *  *

But today there was one redeeming feature which blessed the occasion of my walk. The Lady B’s dear mama came down the road in her Audi (Audis seem to be catching on in that family), slowed, smiled and waved. It was the first time I’ve ever seen the Lady B’s dear mama drive an Audi, but it mattered little since she does have such a lovely smile. It even looks authentic, which I happen to consider important.

I like the Lady B’s mama, you know. I always have. I think she is now the only person in the whole wide world who may be relied upon to slow, smile and wave when she passes me in the car. She is also the only person currently domiciled in the Shire with whom I welcome a conversation. Having said which, there is of course the matter of Honourable Sister. I think I would very much like to have a conversation with her, too, but Honourable Sister occupies the inner sanctum of some remote and impenetrable part of the palace. One imagines a regiment of hardened personnel securing the labyrinthine approaches from the likes of me. Whether they be eunuchs or a detachment of the Praetorian Guard I couldn’t say, but I imagine it’s something along those lines.

A Change in Image.

Remember when fashion models looked like this:

 

 

I suppose the defining word would have to be something like ‘wholesome.’ Nowadays they look like this: 

 

 

If I may be excused for paraphrasing a well known line from Kind Hearts and Coronets, I should say that her mouth is just a little too full, her eyes a touch too widely spaced, and her nose perhaps a little too fleshy. But the defining difference is in the descriptor: 

Badass.

That’s the name of the game now. And what continues to amuse me is that people who wear top branded clothing which vaunts its name for all to see apparently give little if any thought to the fact that they’re paying large sums of money to give the company free advertising.