A Slight Change of Emphasis.

I'm endeavouring to see Donald Trump differently. He remains as undesirable as ever as he lumbers around farting his rancid, overblown ego into the face of anyone who disobeys or disagrees with him, but I'm trying to see him as a phenomenon.

I tell myself, you see, that I'm letting myself down by ignoring his ignorant and ignoble approach to the rest of humanity. I've long held the view that my role in this life is to observe and learn, and you can't do that by judging too harshly. So I should try hard to see D Trump as an Interesting Phenomenon.

 

I tell myself that he's probably mentally ill, and I tell myself that he usually fails in the end despite the bluster, lies, and empty rhetoric, and I tell myself that he will die one day anyway because everybody does. It helps a bit.

A Reason to Feel Uncomfortable.

I often emphasised during the early years of writing this blog how much I wanted to stay in this locality. It’s set in the southern foothills of the Pennine massif as they gradually give way to the flat land of the Trent valley to the south. It’s a patchwork vista of trees, copses, bigger woods, hedgerows, pasture land, plough land, hay meadows, low hills, and a river valley. As such, it’s not so rugged as to make life tough, and not so flat as to make it tedious. It’s as near perfect as you could wish and a delight to the senses. The problem with living here is not the location, but the house I live in.

It’s not particularly old by European standards – a little over 100 years and therefore Edwardian – but it has a lot of shortcomings which make it uncomfortable at times, especially during high winds, heavy rain, and in the winter. Such difficulties I’ve largely learned to live with and accept for the benefit bestowed by the wider environment, but I’ve often been led to wonder whether there’s a more speculative issue in play.

In common with the style of the Edwardian period, there’s no hallway at the bottom of the stairs. Instead, the stairs are accessed from the living room, and there’s a door at the bottom of them which can be closed in the winter to stop the heat from an open fire escaping upstairs. What I found odd when I first moved here was that the door to the stairs had a bolt fitted on the living room side, the purpose of which could only be to stop somebody upstairs from coming downstairs. That has something of a mad-woman-in-the-attic feel about it, I would say, and I was led to wonder whether there was something dark in the history of the house.

And there have been occasions when I’ve woken up in the early hours and felt a presence in the bedroom. Sometimes I’ve even fancied I could see a figure, slightly darker than the darkness, standing in the corner of the room. I realise, of course, that this can be put down to a simple mental aberration and I’ve always been able to go back to sleep easily enough.

But what about those times when I’ve woken in the night feeling chilled, even when there seems to be no reason for it? It happened again last night. I awoke feeling chilled, and when I moved my legs the sheets were icy cold. And this was on a mild night in August with the temperature perfectly normal for the time of year. I woke up again later and the bed was warm again.

More latterly I’ve been more concerned about my waking state. I feel utterly exhausted both physically and mentally nearly every morning when I wake up. My legs struggle to carry me weakly to the door, and my mental state is all for giving up on this life. It improves to some extent as the day wears on, but it has begun to have me wondering whether some vampiric entity is draining my life force at night. Naturally I’m inclined to dismiss such a speculative suggestion, but times are changing and perceptions of reality are changing with it. The fact that a range of health conditions began shortly after moving here may be put down to the simple matter of ageing.

Put all these factors together, however, and it should come as no surprise that I don’t feel entirely comfortable here. I wonder whether houses and other buildings really do have a genius loci, and whether the one attached to this place doesn’t like me for some reason. Or maybe it’s a previous tenant who’s reluctant to move on and objects to being invaded. Or maybe I’m simply being fanciful and overly imaginative. My nature has always been a little strange, no matter how hard I’ve tried to hide it.

So should I tolerate it or seek to move? Well, moving house requires a lot of time, trouble, and effort, and I would find it more than merely difficult to raise the will and energy to do so. If I had a partner to share the load it would probably be feasible, but since I don’t the answer should be obvious.

Nonsense for the Sake of It.

Flowers will be blooming in Sydney today.

I wanted to post that because it reminded me of an old Brit TV show called Candid Camera, in which silly scenarios were visited on unsuspecting members of the public while a hidden camera looked on. I think they still produce such a programme, but with a different name. The only one I remember had a man sidling furtively up to a shopper and saying quietly: 'Is the Count eating kippers with your mother-in-law tonight?'

I tried it in a branch of Argos once, at a time when they followed the practice of asking you for a password before they'd give you the goods. The assistant at the counter didn't smile one inch, but frowned and said: 'I'm sorry?' Different generation, I suppose. And when I related the fact on an early blog post, somebody commented: 'What are kippers?' That was when I realised that the joke was all but lost.

I did half of the toughest job in the garden today. When I finished it, my energy level had achieved a negative value. Such a situation can be quite alarming, yet here I still am. 

And then my daily daydream broke forth. I was speaking French fluently and rescuing an elderly lady, whose English was inadequate, from a false accusation of shoplifting in Sainsbury's. It reminded us both of something from a M Hulot film and we both giggled. I can be quite a nice guy in daydreams, you know. I can.

Tit for Tat.

It occurred to me today that it would be amusing if Canada acceded to Mr Trump's invitation to become the 51st state, and then waited until the next 4th July to issue a Declaration of Independence.

Another Little Coincidence.

According to one of my stats trackers I had a visit today from the District of Columbia. It appears I get lots of visits from lots of American states, but DC isn't even a state, is it? As I understand it, it's effectively just the city of Washington. And who lives in Washington when he isn't sunning himself in his back yard in Florida? If I spy a black limo parked by the little grassy triangle down the lane, or a couple of plastic-looking men eyeing up the house and environs, I'll let you know.

But that isn't the coincidence. The coincidence is that when I looked at today's page view count up to that point, it gave 1776. Where on earth is Mr Jung when you need him?

What Dreams May Come...

I was picked up early in the evening by a friend of mine and taken to a place out in the countryside which I'd visited during my years as a revenue inspector. But this was no belated, official visit, but the opportunity to go to a party.

It was held in a large, shed-like structure fully kitted out with tables and chairs, bright lights, a bar, and even toilet facilities. The music was loud and and the place full of revellers, and I spent my time in my usual way -- observing the multitude, sometimes from the side of the room and sometimes in the midst of the throng, and exchanging the odd pleasantry here and there.

It went on for several hours until the outer door opened and three or four young women entered. The room went quiet and we were told by the newcomers that the party was over and they'd been engaged to clean up the place. I looked for my friend who had brought me there, but he was nowhere to be found. He'd obviously left earlier and forgotten about me. I knew I would have to walk home and began the trek.

The lane ran downhill to a dip where water had gathered to form a shallow pond due to heavy rain, and I was forced to walk through it. As I began to continue uphill on the other side I became suddenly aware of a profound stillness which arrested my progress. No sound of wind and no perception of either temperature or my own tiredness. And then I opened my eyes and discovered that I was lying in my own bed in the dim light of early morning. For a second I felt mildly shocked, since the recollection of the party and the rational, hours-long process was fresh in my mind. I soon realised, of course, that it had all been a dream.

But was it merely a dream? If so, it was of a most unusual kind, so unusual that I would call it unique. It went on far, far longer than dreams usually do, and it was all totally realistic and lacking the fractured logic normally present in the recollection of dreams. So what should I make of it? A dream or some sort of shift into a different reality? Now that such and similar possibilities are being given credence by a few on the fringes of mainstream science, you have to wonder.

I decided not expend too much time on wondering, but instead feeling grateful that at least my feet were not cold and wet courtesy of a reluctant walk through a shallow pond.

Reprising the Destiny Thing.

I just encountered an old post of mine entitled It's a Destiny Thing, which got me thinking (thinking is one of my less comfortable habits.) So what did I think? Does destiny exist or doesn't it?

Well, if Determinist philosophy is right, it certainly does. If the block theory of the universe is correct, it probably does. If Professor Dumbledore is (was?) right, it certainly doesn't.

But several times during the film version of Harry Potter I was of the tentative persuasion that Dumbledore wasn't quite as wise as he thought he was, so...

Still don't know. (Best way, probably.)

And it's a long time since I made a post this late so maybe I'll still be alive when I wake up.

A Major Design Error.

There's one question that's troubled me most of my life: Why is it that nearly all animals are good looking, but the majority of humans aren't? Human children are mostly good looking, but soon they develop the mature look, and then the ugly look begins to take over, and when they grow old they become really ugly. It seems to me that whoever designed genes and built them into different expressions of appearance must have been in a pretty bad mood when he was working on the human one.

An Act of Sedition.

I was thinking earlier about one of my all time favourite films, Children of Heaven. It's the story of a little girl from a poor family who loses her only pair of shoes and has to try to hide the fact from her poor father. She does, however, have the help of her older brother. It's one the most human, poignant, and intelligently made films about the simple matter of life's priorities and their consequences I've ever seen. But it's Iranian.

And so I was led to wonder whether any cinema proprietor (or movie theater if you prefer) would dare show it in the USA. It wouldn't be shown in a mainstream theater, of course -- too deep for that. It would have to be screened in some kind of art establishment. But the real problem would be government disapproval. I imagine Plastic Pete's hair would melt, and Trump would lose so much hot air that a climate catastrophe might ensue. It would be deemed un-American, no doubt (or even 'left wing', heaven help us.)

And so I'm sure good Americans wouldn't be allowed to see it. Shame, eh?

Rain and Repartee.

Guess what we had in Ashbourne today: Rain! It was the first time in about three months that anything worthy of the term has fallen on this blighted land. We had three showers of heavy stuff, each lasting about five minutes, and people were running for cover under the awning outside Sainsbury's. 

As I was waiting for my transport, a woman in her fifties walked past and looked at me with a surprised expression. 'I wasn't expecting anything likes this,' she said. My occasional capacity for hyperbolic repartee -- a common style of humour in Britain -- took the stage. I said 'At your age I'm surprised you know what it is.' 

She was made up (a routine colloquialism among the working class British which simply means 'pleased' or 'made proud'.) I decided to nominate 19th August as: Being Nice to the Over Fifties Day. Once a year is quite enough, I think.

I've also had conversations with two attractive young women this week. I wonder whether that could be installed as a weekly event -- a kind of Sabbath for the young at heart.