More on Being Noticed.

It is happening again.

(That’s one of my favourite lines from Twin Peaks. Back in the early nineties I lived in Twin Peaks for the duration of its run on British TV. It matched the many and varied energies filling my life at the time perfectly, so the transition from the gloom of Northumberland to the dark and danger – and occasional hilarious absurdity – of Washington State was easy. And before you ask, the answer to your question is Donna.)

But back to the beginning: what is happening again?

Women apparently noticing me. I was idly browsing (I seem to spend my life these days idly browsing) the reduced lines in Tesco today. There was a young woman in front of me – at a perfectly respectful distance I should point out – and after a few minutes she turned to look at me and then moved away. But she’d only walked about three paces before she turned to look at me again, and a hint of a smile appeared on her lips. So what was that about? What is it about me that is worth an amused double take?

After that I went into another store where a young woman was on her knees arranging the merchandise on a lower shelf. She looked up at me and smiled broadly, and repeated the action at least three more times while I was (guess what) idly browsing the shower curtains. And when I decided that none of the shower curtains would do and made to leave, she did it again. (I didn’t return her smile that time. I felt there was a level of presumption creeping into this young woman’s behaviour of which I did not entirely approve.)

I really don’t understand this. As far as I’m concerned, the only remarkable thing about me is the difference in age between what I see staring back at me from mirrors and shop windows, and how I feel inside. It’s about thirty years, give or take a few. But it appears there’s something else of which I’m unaware.

I wonder whether it’s the fact that I have Daniel Craig-style high cheekbones and a similar head shape. Maybe they think I’m James Bond’s older brother. Or maybe it’s my hair which is overdue for a cut. Maybe I look like a cartoon character.

I do wish one of them would have the courage to come over and explain:

‘Excuse me, but did you know that your nose is a really silly shape?’

And then at least I’d know, wouldn’t I?

The Frowner.

I have a feeling that if ever the priestess and I do meet, she’s not going to like me.

‘You don’t look like Gregory House, do you?’ she asked me tonight. ‘He frowns a lot.’

How do I explain to her that no, I don’t look like Gregory House, and neither do I frown a lot. The fact is that I never stop frowning. I can’t because I’m a keenly aware and highly sensitive individual who has lived a chequered and somewhat unconventional life, the upshot of which has been that my frown lines began early and grew exponentially as each year passed wearily by. My frown lines now look like Clapham Junction from the air and there’s nothing I can do about it.

I do try, you know. Sometimes I look in the mirror and try to ameliorate them by stretching my forehead sideways, but trains could still run on them with consummate ease. They’ve even got points to ensure that the Eastbourne trains don’t accidentally end up in Southampton.

I suspect the only solution might be to treat them with embalming fluid, but I doubt such a product is easily purchased over the counter. Maybe I’ll pay a visit to the Co-op funeral parlour in Uttoxeter and ask whether they might decant a few fluid ounces into the little urine sample bottle I’ve had in my backpack ever since last year’s health issues were in full swing. I think it might be advisable to wait until the priestess’s visit is imminent, however. I hate to think that some unsuspecting funeral parlour receptionist might come over all queer when faced with such an unconventional request unless the balance of interests warranted it.

And all this does make me wonder just what other strange things people carry around in their bags. The next time I see somebody I know, maybe I should ask them:

‘Have you got anything strange in your bag?’

‘What sort of strange?’

‘Well, I’ve got a urine sample pot in mine. I’m keeping it in case I should need a little embalming fluid.’

Minor Speculation.

My Hotmail inbox frequently gets polluted by those cheap, click bait adverts which Microsoft chooses to allow in its infinite wisdom. One of the current ones shows a picture of an insect, appended with the message:

This is not an ordinary bug.

If you see one…

Well, I’m never going to get to the punch line, am I, because I’m not the sort to be susceptible to click bait? So I thought I’d speculate a little, since it’s late and I’ve got nothing better to do.

This is not an ordinary bug. If you see one…

Eat it.

Call a vet.

Call a doctor.

Call a psychiatrist.

Don’t eat it.

Put it in an envelope and send it to your worst enemy.

Invite the neighbours to a bug appreciation party.

Lay off the liquor.

Kiss it and hope for the best.

This blog is not what it once was. I think I’m drying up.

Why Yorkshire?

The priestess asked me tonight whether I have a Yorkshire accent. That’s an unusual question to come from an Australian. Why on earth would she ask me that? Is it significant in some way? Does she know what a Yorkshire accent sounds like? Is this the beginning of my doom?

I told her that I don’t have a Yorkshire accent, and pointed out that there are several different accents in Yorkshire anyway. My accent – such as it is – comes somewhere close to English RP. It’s the nearest excuse I can manufacture to persuade myself that I’m a gentleman after all, even though I don’t really believe it.

And did I ever mention that a radio producer once suggested I should consider doing a late night jazz programme? The way other people see you can be quite intriguing at times, can’t it? Fortunately, I have little to no interest in jazz.

Being Reminded.

I just watched the episode of Sherlock in which the intrepid detective attends John Watson’s wedding as best man. At the end of the episode we find ourselves at the post-reception hooley. The PA is playing a Bee Gees song and the attractive young woman who has been paying Sherlock so much attention all day is now dancing with another man. Sherlock realises that he is alone in a room full of people having fun, and leaves.

I’ve been there several times. It’s what comes of being a bit different and you get used to it. And it brought to mind an insignificant but mildly amusing memory.

It was in a city centre nightclub back in the days when I was younger than Sherlock Holmes. The DJ was playing lots of Bee Gees tracks that night. Marie Harrison was young, blonde and wearing a cheesecloth dress. She paid me a lot of attention all evening, and then disappeared.

The following day I pieced together what little she had told me about herself and set about tracking her down. I gate-crashed her next engagement and waited for her to notice me. Eventually she did, and then she approached me with peevish eyes and said ‘What the hell are you doing here? Would you like to come and meet my husband?’ Whoops.

It’s interesting to note that it was through that little adventure that I met the woman I was subsequently to marry. Doesn’t life weave interesting patterns? And the only interesting thing I subsequently discovered about Marie Harrison’s husband was that he liked his rice pudding served cold.

A Case of Criminal Pollution.

You know what those soulless nerds at Google are doing now? They’re interrupting longer pieces of music with adverts. Mid bar. No natural break. No warning. Nothing. There you are being swept along by a piece of exquisite piano playing when some woman with a chirpy and mumbled American accent suddenly starts trying to sell you a pair of shoes.

I do understand why the people at Google feel entitled to throw adverts at you, but not in the middle of a piece of music for heaven’s sake. Where is the law when you need it? Why are Google not fined 10% of annual pre-tax profits every time they commit such a crime. For crime is what it is. No argument.

Staying Quiet.

I hit a minor free-flow patch last night, but tonight I’m struggling to find anything to say. It might have something to do with being preoccupied with the priestess. She was a little upset, poor thing, and needed an ear to burn. I got chosen.

I suppose I might mention that I was accused of being ‘typical of the liberal left’ on YouTube tonight. A short, pithy (and moderately clever) reply came rapidly to mind (which is unusual for me) but I decided that:

a. If he didn't understand the point I was making, he probably wouldn’t have understood the joke. So there was no point.

b. It would have amounted to a projection of ego, and that wouldn’t do. I might still be a fan of Oscar Wilde’s and Dorothy Parker’s capacity for the ready and witty retort, but I’m trying to be a better person.

Which makes me feel noble… Damn. You really can’t win in this life, can you?

A One-Sided Expression.

The phrase ‘reduced to tears’ is commonly used because tears are often evoked by sorrowful situations when a person is brought low. But what about tears of joy or relief when a person is lifted to a state of euphoria? Why do we never use the expression ‘elevated to tears’?

When YouTube Plays Off Key.

I’m on YouTube and click on a song by Daiching Tana. It’s a slow, ethereal piece carrying more than a hint of oriental mystery. My mood matches, which is why I selected it. But what does Google give me as a preamble?

It gives me a shot of a pair of voluptuous mammary glands encased in something blue, frilly and shiny. And it carries the message: Why are women so in love with this bra?

The word ‘incongruous’ immediately presents itself, closely followed by ‘bloody maddening.’ I don’t expect a commercial organisation to possess anything approximating to soul, but do they have to so readily betray their complete paucity of taste or any appreciation of life’s finer values?

A Note on a Name.

One of my favourite authors is the English short story writer, Algernon Blackwood. And it occurred to me today that, as far as I'm aware, I have never met anyone called Algernon.

I wondered why that should be. Certain old, long-established names like Edward and Thomas have maintained a regular presence in the lexicon of English forenames, but Algernon has disappeared. And then I remembered that Rupert Bear had a friend called Algernon, only they didn’t call him Algernon. They used the diminutive, Algie.

And that gave me the clue. Algie sounds a lot like algae, and algae are green, slimy growths which float on top of water and suffocate the fish. So if you were called Algernon it would be very likely that you would go into work and people would say things like: ‘There’s nothing green about you, is there Algie?’ and ‘Hey, Algie. Suffocated any fish today?’ and things like that. And that wouldn’t very nice, would it?

A Little Self-Praise.

I’ve decided to be honest and own up to the fact that I’m really quite a nice person.

Remember me saying in an earlier post that I always make for the checkout where the youngest and prettiest of the female operators is working? It’s not always true. If I see a new checkout operator who is young, female and ugly, I make a point of going through her aisle and engaging her in friendly conversation because I don’t suppose many people do. I mean, it can’t be very nice being young, female and ugly, can it?

And that’s how I do my bit to help the disadvantaged feel they belong, which just goes to demonstrate that I’m not the lecherous ne’er-do-well that some people might imagine. Not that my mother would agree with that assessment. I don’t remember many of my mother’s statements verbatim, but one which stuck in my head was:

‘I saw how you looked at that girl in the fairground at Great Yarmouth. Just like yer bloody father!’

I put it down to the fact that my father’s ancestry was Irish on the male side, whereas my mother’s had more of a Welsh component. The Welsh are traditionally chapel people, you see, which they feel gives them the moral high ground over the more Catholic-oriented Irish. That’s the difference.

(And I'm doing my level best to be inflamatory here. Somebody yell at me, please.)

Being Ahab and Stuff.

The priestess has resurrected the idea of visiting me some time before Christmas. Seriously.

I’m happy to consent, but there’s something tantalisingly surreal about it. Here is a woman who, for nearly ten years, has invisibly occupied the centre of a triangle composed of equal parts myth, imagination and mundane reality, suddenly rising out of the depths like Moby Dick on a mission. Will it happen? Will I survive? Or will I play the tortured and vengeful sea captain, waving without volition as he is taken away to an alien dimension. 

In my case, however, the dimension might be anything but alien. I have no idea, but it’s exciting, isn’t it?

*  *  *

And I’ve come to the conclusion that I dislike gurus. People who claim to know what life is about and expect me to listen to them make me fractious.

*  *  *

My computer, my computer printer, and my TV all exhibited strange malfunctions this morning. I wondered whether the matrix was surely crumbling, but settled instead for blaming the heavy rain we were having at the time. Or maybe it was Mercury suffering a toothache. I know nothing.

*  *  *

Am I talking tripe? Do tell me.

(For those who don’t know, tripe is boiled cow’s stomach. It used to be a staple of the British working class because nobody with the money to afford proper meat would eat it, and so it was cheap. It’s become a byword for ‘rubbish.’ Feel free.)

On Demure Drinking.

You know, it’s only recently that I’ve noticed how many people look like they’re trying to eat the mug when they’re drinking hot drinks. They shove as much of it as possible into their oversized mouths and indulge in the act of excessive gulping while part of their necks rise and fall in time with their lower jaws. It’s disgusting. How can a world which produces such creatures possibly expect me to be a part of it?

Whatever happened to the days when we were taught that hot drinks should be sipped demurely, with only the minimum of necessary physical communion between lip and cup? If my mother and sophisticated Chinese ladies know that, why doesn’t everybody?

Uttoxeter's Older Women.

I was standing outside a charity shop in Uttoxeter today, idly browsing the selection of DVDs in the wire mesh basket, when a middle aged woman came up to me and said ‘Hello, luv.’ She was wearing green trousers. I was inclined to answer ‘I’m sorry, do I know you?’ but such language is rarely spoken in Uttoxeter so I simply said ‘hello’ back. And then she proceeded to tell me where I could get a good time in one of the nearby villages, and it transpired that the kind of good time to which she was referring involved a show farm and demonstrations of wood turning. (Hopes of finding a surreptitious Soho were soon dashed.) I said ‘thank you’ and she walked away with a self-satisfied smile. Such things don’t happen in Ashbourne.

So then I went to another charity shop and was idly browsing the merchandise laid out on narrow tables, when another middle aged woman – one of the assistants, no less – sidled past me and, in so doing, brushed her bottom against my hand. Well, what does a gentleman do when a woman brushes her bottom against his hand? He remains silent, of course. But then she complicated matters by saying ‘Sorry, darlin’. I do apologise.’ Being a gentleman, I felt the need to respond. ‘Don’t mention it,’ I offered, and was immediately struck by the absurdity of such a response because she already had. Nevertheless, she walked away with a self-satisfied smile and went about her business. Things like that don’t happen in Ashbourne, either.

You might think that the link here is charity shops, but no: the next stop was the coffee shop where the toast-and-Americano lady was sitting with her toast and Americano while her nondescript husband munched his own toast absentmindedly. I sat at the next table, and was a little disturbed when the lady suddenly broke into a fit of wailing and sobbing (and squeaked quite a lot, too) while her husband regarded her absentmindedly (he’d finished his toast by then.) Eventually the dear old lady ceased her sobbing and all was well, and then they left. I omitted to notice whether any self-satisfied smiles were in evidence on either visage, but I doubt it.

This is Uttoxeter, you understand. Uttoxeter is very different from Ashbourne where the keyword is reserve in all things.

Next stop was the B&Q store on the retail park where I selected the best specialist gardening knife they had on offer (because I’m tired of struggling with the little old pen knife which used to be my brother’s and is both as old and as blunt as me) and made for the checkout. I did what I always do: chose the checkout operated by the youngest and prettiest of the female operators. (It’s what all men do, isn’t it? Isn’t it?) When it came to my turn to pay, the young and pretty operator deserted her post and was replaced by a grizzled and grumpy-looking middle aged woman. Isn’t it always the way?

‘Did she see me coming?’ I asked the grizzled and grumpy-looking one.

‘No, she was dealing with another customer. Since you’re buying a knife, however, I have to be sure you’re over eighteen. Are you?’

For heaven’s sake, Jeffrey, life is challenging you to find a witty response. I need notice of such a challenge. My mind doesn’t work as quickly as it used to. Erm…

‘Well, my mother died twenty four years ago, so I suppose I must be.’

That wasn’t so bad, Jeffrey. Well done.

The G&G one was suitably amused, and so I forgave her for being there. She even called me darlin’, so there you are. And it was Uttoxeter after all.

Last stop Tesco, where another middle aged woman gave valuable assistance (despite omitting to call me either luv or darlin’) when the self-service till I’d selected chose to have a strop. They do, you know. Uttoxeter Tesco’s self-service tills are legendary for their moodiness. Every week there are several which stand glaring at you with one hand thrust firmly onto the hip while a big notice on the screen reads ‘Don’t you dare come near me with your stupid shopping or I’ll scratch your eyes out.’ You think I’m joking? Come to Uttoxeter and try them some time. Ashbourne Sainbury’s self-service tills, on the other hand, are much different – more sedate, more self-effacing, and infinitely more reliable. Reserve in all things, you see.

But it’s Uttoxeter which has the characters while dear old Ashbourne does prosperous and smug exceedingly well. And this is the sort of stuff which really should be in the guide books, but never is.

*  *  *

I just listened to a song on YouTube called Calls Me Home by some woman called Shannon LaBrie. It was really nice. I wonder whether she’s young and attractive and fancies a job in B&Q.

On Porridge and Punishment.

I decided to step into the void and have an adventure today. Instead of having the usual pastry with my coffee in Costa, I had a small pot of porridge instead. What’s even more outlandish is that I used the excess cream in the pot I ordered with my coffee to pour onto the porridge. I did think of asking permission to do that, since the improper use of cream might have attracted dire retribution from the serving wenches, or at least harsh stares and sibilant whispers, but I decided to be the devil that I’m not and just do it anyway. I even sprinkled sugar on the whole confection. It was the most exciting thing I’ve done in years (that’s if you exclude six-hour operations, frequent cystoscopies and several CT scans.) Should this make me sad, I wonder?

And talking of retribution, I had a lapse of concentration today which resulted in the back end of my car making contact with a steel rail. It was a fairly light contact, but enough to break part of the plastic cover on one of the tail lights. I felt stupid and angry with myself, and when I feel stupid and angry with myself I proceed to feel guilty, and when I feel guilty I become mildly consumed with the expectation of punishment. That’s because I was punished for mistakes and misdemeanours quite a lot as a child – sometimes even for things I didn’t do or which weren’t my fault – and the expectation of punishment becomes ingrained after a while and never fully goes. I apologised to the car, of course, but sometimes an apology just isn’t enough.

And then tonight I watched the penultimate episode of Series 2 of Broadchurch. The last words before the credits rolled came from the Clerk of the Court who asked the jury foreperson: ‘Do you find the defendant guilty or not guilty?’ The defendant’s face filled the screen…

I think today’s theme must be obvious by now.

Here's Another Fine Mess...

I said in a recent blog post that ‘it is easy to argue that nothing is beautiful in an objective sense.’ It now occurs to me to say that ‘no physical thing is beautiful in an objective sense,’ because what about a random act of kindness? Isn’t that beautiful?

Well, yes and no. I would suggest that there is nothing beautiful about the act; it’s the kindness which is beautiful, and kindness is a product of the mind, and matters of the mind are abstract. And if some bystander witnesses the act and gets a lift from it, it becomes a matter of perception. And don’t I keep saying that perception is the whole of the life experience?

Ah, but maybe I now have to revise that dictum because it doesn’t take account of the person who committed the random act. Maybe it should now read ‘Perception and intent are the whole of the life experience.’

So now it begins to get complicated, especially so because we haven’t yet considered the fundamental question of semantics.

And now I ask myself why I’m bothering to write this, and further, why I even bother to think about it? I really don’t have the patience, the commitment, the attention span or the mental dexterity to be a philosopher. I just want to find the place where the unicorns live so I can go and say hello. And if only I could go through life a somnambulist like most people, life would be so much easier.

But I can’t because I was born to think, and some congenital chains have to be borne bravely no matter how old you get. So think is what I do (along with a few other things.)

Am currently listening to some beautiful music, except that it isn’t beautiful. It’s simply a succession of wavelengths which evokes a sense of beauty in me. And now I really must shut up and top up the tumbler. Going to bed fully sober would be little short of offensive.

Nurture vs Nature.

I have an appointment to see my doctor this afternoon to discuss a somewhat contentious issue.

I’m a little nervous about this because I was conditioned by my mother from my earliest recollection to regard the doctor as the ultimate authority figure whose orders must be obeyed in every circumstance. Resistance is not only useless, but very nearly a capital crime where the doctor is concerned.

This doesn’t sit easily with me. I dislike authority figures in all circumstances, and mostly I’m congenitally inclined to distrust them. And that causes conflict.

Sometimes I wonder whether I’m being weak and giving in too easily. At other times I wonder whether I’m being unreasonably bloody-minded and refusing for the sake of refusing. Making a sensible, informed decision isn’t easy when there’s a battle raging inside your head and you’re desperate to quieten the maddening noise of a howitzer battery.

And so the stresses go on and life doesn’t get any easier.

*  *  *

And a little side note:

I was in a charity shop yesterday, browsing the random mix of sundry, ‘pre-loved’ items laid out and waiting for a home. A young woman with long hair came walking towards me and said:

‘Did you want to pay for something?’ At this point I realised that my inquisitor was, in fact, a young man. At least I think it was.

I’m sorry? I asked quizzically.

‘Did you want to pay for something?’

No.

And then he (I think) walked away and continued with whatever business he (apparently) was engaged in. And people call me strange.

The Wrong Way Round.

I’ve noticed a trend on YouTube lately. Comments I make get relegated over the space of a few days from top of the list to somewhere around number 52. And while people who utter such profundities as ‘WOW!’ and ‘OMG!’ get 100+ likes, I get none. I’m coming to suspect that the average YouTube viewer has a different sense of humour to me.

And I saw a young Chinese woman with her little girl in Uttoxeter today. The mother was a picture of prettiness, but the kid wasn’t. I think this must be a Chinese thing because it’s almost unfailingly the other way round in Uttoxeter.

A Few More Nondescript Notes.

Today was intended to be something of a red letter day – the first time that my daughter had been to my house since I moved here over thirteen years ago. The plan was thwarted in consequence of somebody being hit by a train somewhere between Crewe and Derby. Disappointed though I was, my sympathy lay with the person who probably came off worst in their contact with several tons of fast moving metal.

*  *  *

So did I have any interesting encounters today? No.

What did I have for lunch? A vegan sausage roll and a piece of bread pudding.

Am I a vegan? No, merely a standard vegetarian. And I do realise that a standard vegetarian is no longer regarded as a member of the lunatic fringe, but has become the culinary equivalent of the bourgeoisie – despised by peasant and aristocrat alike. Oddly, I don’t entirely disagree.

*  *  *

And it occurred to me to wonder how many people there are around the world who know nothing of the English language except the words Harry and Potter. And then I wondered how many of them always get the words in the right order. And when I transposed them it further occurred to me that Mr Potter’s ancestors might well have come from the area where I grew up, only he didn’t because he’s fictional. (Having said which, I now wonder how many people know he’s fictional.)

*  *  *

This pointless ramble has to end somewhere. Better sooner than later.

I ’gin to be a-weary of the sun

Another Ramble on Self.

I’ve referred a lot lately to the question: Who am I? I’ve talked about grappling with the notion that what I see in the mirror isn’t me, but simply a vehicle in which the real me travels the road of a material life. I’m more or less of the opinion that the sense of self is effectively flawed, or at least incomplete, since I’m very nearly convinced that none of us are what we see in the mirror. What we are is mind, nothing more and nothing less.

Perception is the whole of the life experience. Everything of value in this life is ultimately traceable to the mind and is therefore abstract. Maybe I’m stating the obvious.

But let me for a moment expand the sense of self to include that which we see in the mirror. I can accept that, but in my case there’s more. My sense of self does include what I see the mirror, but it also includes my environment – my house, my garden, and the landscape beyond – and it does so at a surprisingly deep level. They are a part of me just as my body is a part of me. When I stand on the lane beyond the bottom of my garden at twilight when the atmosphere is just right, I don’t merely enjoy what I’m seeing, and neither do I simply feel connected with it. I feel an integral part of it. I think it would be impossible to describe the feeling further.

I had a visit today from Mel, my ex and best friend. It was pleasant sitting outside in the gentle September sunshine with tea and cake, talking over matters of current interest to us. And yet after she’d gone I experienced something that I’ve experienced a few times lately. I felt uncomfortable, and when I investigated the feeling I realised that my sense of self felt fractured because another entity had been sharing its space and shaking the components about.

And now I really don’t know where I go from here because I seem to be contradicting myself. It's that old business of logic reaching the edge of a continental shelf...

I just noticed that the first line of another favourite song by Daiching Tana is translated as: The moon rises in the silent sky. Does it rise? Or does it hang, or does it float, or does it sail, or does it take up station? It’s all about perception because none of them are literally true. And so the coming of full circle confuses me.

The priestess told me recently that she became aware of other layers of reality co-existing with the one we take for granted as the real one. She felt herself dissolving and saw life as death. I was quite envious. And now I need a drink.

A Short Note on Generations.

It’s an odd fact that every time I read a biography of somebody on Wiki and discover that they were born later than me, I get an odd sense of being in limbo.

I grew up with people older than me and now they’re all dead. So who are all these younger people who’ve taken their place? And what am I supposed to do with them?

On Chinese Women and Creamless Coffee.

A new trend appears have started at the Costa Coffee shop in Ashbourne. Women who may be categorised as Chinese women who look as though they don’t belong in Ashbourne have begun to appear there in substantial numbers. (Well, two actually, but that’s a lot for Ashbourne.)

The first appeared around two weeks ago. She had long, wavy, henna-coloured hair and a Bohemian style of dress. This is most unusual for Ashbourne because the closest thing you’re ever likely to find there which might be described as Bohemian is the odd vinyl recording of something by Smetana or Dvorak in a charity shop. Ashbourne doesn’t do Bohemian; Ashbourne does waxed jackets, Hunter wellies and shooting sticks. Ashbourne is a true blue Tory town, and the woman in question looked like a walking representation of a rainbow. The fact that she spent a whole ten minutes in the toilet refreshing her make-up might or might not be significant. I chose to style her Ms Taiwan.

Today’s woman was completely different. She was even wearing blue. She was very smart, almost businesslike you might say, but in a way that was different than the way in which British business women look businesslike. It was a Chinese sort of way – smart black trousers, dark blue blouse, and wearing her long, silky black hair in a pony tail held tightly against her head with a matching blue band. I spent the whole time while drinking my double shot Americano (more of which later) trying not to reveal the fact that I was fixated on her. I so wanted to go over and say ‘Do excuse my presumption madam, but may I say how splendid you look and how splendidly Chinese to boot.’ Eventually I decided not to because she had the type of Chinese eyes which, lovely as they were in general terms, had a certain fierceness about them and I feared she might hurl one of those sharp twirly things at me like they do in the films. I chose instead to style her Ms Hong Kong and then consign her to my mental photo album for posterity.

*  *  *

Now, to change the subject…

I walked up to the counter and said to the first serving wench:

‘Medium Americano with cream, please.’

‘Medium Americano with cream,’ said the first serving wench to the second serving wench, who promptly disappeared into the back. She returned empty handed a few minutes later and said to the first serving wench:

‘They didn’t deliver the cream this morning.’

‘Oh my God!’ said the first serving wench, falling into a stunned silence. The second serving wench turned to me and said apologetically:

‘We haven’t got any cream.’

‘No cream?’ I intoned with a downcast air. ‘I suppose I’d better have milk then.’

‘Do you want full cream milk, semi-skimmed or skimmed?’

Now, I ask you. Would a man who is clearly lamenting the fact that he is being denied cream in his coffee really want to insult said beverage with skimmed milk instead? No, he wouldn’t. How fortunate, therefore, that there was a Chinese woman who looked like she didn’t belong in Ashbourne sitting a few feet away to distract me from my sense of destitution. I think it was probably a fair exchange.

Hermione's Hair.

It is a mildly interesting fact that Hermione Granger only wears a fringe in the first two Harry Potter movies. Once she starts growing up it disappears.

This indicates to me that the showing of the forehead is something of a rites of passage experience in the world of women. I wonder whether it has anything to do with ancient mating rituals. And should I assume that the move from centre parting to side parting indicates something even deeper?

Counting On Experience.

I keep a portable electric fan heater in my office for use on cold winter nights when the wall-mounted storage heater is coming to the end of its diurnal tether. The one I have at the moment was cheap and isn’t very good, so I decided to be prepared for the dark time and buy a better one.

And so I searched the Argos website because I know from past experience that they have a comprehensive range of products running the price spectrum from ridiculously cheap to extortionately expensive, and in the process of so doing I read some of the customer reviews. I mean, what better way is there to assess the likely quality of a thing than by hearing from those who have used it?

It didn’t quite work out that way. I hadn’t realised that the mental faculties possessed by those who write reviews for Argos products are a little less than encouraging. In fact, I admit to a suspicion that they are probably drawn from the ranks of the YouTube rejects, and low doesn’t get much lower than that. I offer three examples to demonstrate my point:

Person A said: It gives out plenty of heat but I wish it wouldn’t keep melting the plug and making it stick to the wall socket.

Person B said: The heater is fine but the cable isn’t very long and it won’t work with an extension lead.

Person C said: This is an excellent product. I haven’t used it yet but I’m sure it will be fine.

I’m not making this up. That really is what they said. So now I offer it to a voting process to decide which of the three should be given the Useless Product Review of the Year Award. Being something of a rationalist at heart, I think I have to go for Person C, though the picture engendered by Person A is clearly the funniest. As for my final choice of heater, I will clearly have to prepare myself for yet another of life’s leaps into the dark.

Multiplying the Skill Base.

I remember a time not so very long ago when the ability to type proficiently was a skill possessed by a relatively small number of professionals. People went to college to learn it, while the rest of us were generally categorised as one-finger typists. Now we have the internet, and especially the social networking facilities, and everybody but the most diehard reactionary has become a typist.

What interests me most, though, comes from watching young people doing what most young people seem to be doing most of the time these days – typing on a smart phone while being oblivious to the world passing them by and even their own forward progress in some situations. They do it by resting the phone across the fingers of both hands while pressing the keys with their thumbs, and they do so with remarkable speed for an action which is not ergonomically sound.

So now we’ve stopped being a nation of one-finger typists and become a nation of two-thumb typists. I suppose an increase of 100% has to be considered progress of sorts.

Celebrity Quest.

Everybody who reads this blog must know my opinion of celebrities by now, at least the majority of them.

(‘Are you allergic to anything?’ they always ask me at the hospital.

Politicians and celebrities I always answer.

‘But not latex?’ they reply, trying commendably hard not to look exasperated.

No.

And it’s all true.)

Anyway, I’ve finally found one that I’d like to spend time with. Not simply meet, you understand, because there wouldn’t be any point in that; but spend time with, talk to, explore, possibly even connect with.

The fact is, however, that she isn’t really a celebrity in the conventional sense. She’s only famous to a relatively small number of people. I’d never heard of her until she came up in my YouTube recommendations last night. She sings exquisite songs exquisitely, and her band makes exquisite music to match. But I suppose that’s only my taste manifesting itself.

Nevertheless, there might be a few kindred souls out there who might have similar taste, so I thought I’d kick my depression out of the way for a few moments and post one of her shorter songs. Her name is Daiqing Tana and I believe she comes from Inner Mongolia (which is a province of China, unsurprisingly.) And this is she:

 

I’ve engaged in a new exercise routine lately. I look at my image in the mirror and try to convince myself that what I’m seeing isn’t me, but just a biological machine I’ve been occupying for a few decades. I haven’t quite achieved the desired result yet, but the quest will go on because…

You gotta have a quest

If you don’t have a quest

How you gonna welcome the inevitable

My left leg is currently numb and I have a toothache. And Australia won the Ashes.

Late Conflicts.

I’m constantly being reminded that there are wars going on all over the place these days. Wars between the liberals and conservatives, the rebels and the governments, the idealists and the pragmatists, those who want a better tomorrow and those who want to preserve yesterday, and most of all those who think Hermione should have married Harry and those who think Ron was the perfect match. Reading the news and watching YouTube is becoming quite dispiriting.

One more small one and then it’s off to become unconscious. You’d think I’d relax when I’m unconscious, wouldn’t you? I don’t. I have dreams about certain women playing conflicting roles in my life and wake up wrecked.

Issues Ancient and Current.

I watched the documentary on King Ramses II as previously reported. It was made for the History Channel and I wasn’t impressed. The main problem was that they used Leonard Nimoy to do the commentary, and therein lies a problem for me.

British historical documentaries generally use accredited historians to tell historical tales, which means they have an air of authority about them even if they do occasionally talk nonsense. The problem with having a well known actor do the job means that it is tainted with a sense of the fictional because that’s what well known actors are normally associated with. Besides, I found his voice a constant irritant. I didn’t when he was playing Spock, but I did when he was trying to teach me historical fact. It didn’t sit right with me, but maybe I just dislike the Boston accent. And when another actor did the voice-over for a quotation from the great Ramses, he sounded like a character from The Flintstones.

*  *  *

I had a blood test today in connection with my leg problem. I wanted to ask the nurse doing the letting whether they might use the residue to make black pudding so it didn’t get wasted, but I never had the chance because we were too busy discussing mixed ethnicity and Seborrheic Kerotoses. Her name was Fernandez.

*  *  *

When I look into my likely future I don’t relish what I see and am reluctant to go there. Oddly, however, I don’t want to die yet. That’s the issue I’m currently wrestling with.

Searching in the Dark.

Tonight I began to sense that some of the people who have been so important to me over the past few years were merely hallucinations. My brain didn’t think so, but something deep in my consciousness felt it. Is this yet another sign of incipient insanity or a further glimpse of the true nature of reality?

Maybe it was due to the fact that I felt ill in a way that is difficult to describe. No physical symptoms, just ill. I felt like a light bulb working on reduced voltage.

It caused me to think of death again, and I wondered whether most people in developed cultures see only darkness for a time because our materially-obsessed societies don’t prepare us for the awakening.

How can I know? How can any of us really know? While preachers, sages and gurus strut their didactic stuff, all I can do is wait patiently and ramble inanely in the meantime. I was a preacher once. Not any more.

Today somebody said ‘thank you’ to me three times. I think that’s a record for one day, and wholly undeserved.

Clay Man Cometh.

I’m happy to report that I followed nearly every scene of tonight’s X Files.

No doubt it’s because it featured a Golem terrorising the bad guys, and I like Golems every bit as much as I dislike zombies. The thing is, you see, Golems and zombies have a lot in common, but there’s one major difference and it’s critical: the walk.

I’ve watched a few zombie films in my time. In fact, I do believe that the first horror film I ever saw at the cinema when I was doing the underage viewing thing (I did a lot of underage things when I was young enough to do so) was a Hammer film called… erm… something or other.

But it didn’t take me long to theorise that when the director called auditions for the crowd scenes, he did so with the express intention of picking the very worst actors so he could say: ‘Right, you’re now marching menacingly towards the prospective victims and I want you to do the silliest walk you can possibly imagine.’ And so they did, and every director of a zombie film since has followed the same ludicrous template, and generations of dumbass filmgoers have grown up thinking that silly walks are the epitome of cinematic horror (which makes me wonder whether zombies were deliberately designed to hold a mirror up to dumbass filmgoers. Clever, eh?)

But golems are different. They’re made of clay and silly walks don’t really sit well with things made of clay. They don’t have body parts either, so the studio saves money by not needing make up artists to make it look like they’re falling off. Clever, eh?

Shaun of the Dead is an exception, of course, because the whole thing is deliberately silly.

DVD Dearth.

I’m running out of DVDs to wile away the lonely hours from the time when I stop communing with bats and trees to the time when I surprise myself by making it up the stairs en route to bed in one go. That’s about six hours at the moment and climbing.

I have only 20 minutes of The IT Crowd Series 6 left and there isn’t a Series 7. I have quite a few episodes of X Files still to watch, but I have a problem with X Files. American actors, especially the male ones, tend to mumble, and they compound the problem by doing so with an American accent. All of which means that much of the time I haven’t really got a clue what’s going on, so I’m watching it mostly for the visual effects – like the disembodied head rising out of the bathtub full of blood which Mulder found in the apartment of a man who had died six years earlier, but kept turning up to murder people so he could steal and eat their cancers. (Mulder did explain the rationale for that one, but he was mumbling too much so I didn’t quite catch it. If only they would dub the show into Urdu and add English subtitles the lonely hours would be a lot easier for me. The head floated, by the way. Do heads float? Cows’ heads don’t. I saw some looking up at me from the shallow water at the edge of a loch in Scotland once. I was eating my lunch at the time.)

And then there’s the documentary about Pharaoh Ramses II, which is also quite short at 45 minutes. I have high hopes that I might find loopholes in it which will give me some blogging material, but my fear is that there will be so many that the post will grow into an essay and I’ll give up halfway through. Apart from that I only have the second series of Broadchurch on the shelf, and Mel says it isn’t as good as the first.

Talking of which, I have an embarrassing task to perform in the coffee shop tomorrow and it’s all Mel’s fault. Have you noticed that women have a nice way of asking ‘could you do me a favour?’ and men always end up replying ‘oh, all right’?

Mysteries Ancient and Modern.

I bought a DVD today, a 45 minute documentary about the legendary Egyptian pharaoh Ramses II.

I will watch it with circumspection, of course. We all know that the popular presentation of history is riddled with much that is speculative but given as fact, and I’ve watched too many historical documentaries containing obvious absurdities to simply believe what I’m being told. And some of it is even born of ignorance. Here’s an example:

At the time of Julius Caesar, the Roman Empire stretched from North Africa in the south to Hadrian’s Wall in the north.

That’s a precise quotation from a TV documentary about Queen Cleopatra, even though every schoolboy in Britain who’s been taking notice knows that Britain was never a Roman province during Julius Caesar’s life, and that Hadrian’s Wall wasn’t constructed until long after his death. See what I mean? And there’s plenty more where that came from.

But I’m sure it will keep me amused for a while during some long and lonely evening, and I’m sure I will watch it with the right balance of interest and cynicism. The frustrating thing is that I’m sure it won’t tell me what I really want to know, which is:

How do we know that his name was Ramses?

I’m fairly sure I’m right in saying that the ancient Egyptians didn’t keep records written in Latin script. They used pictograms showing things like beetles, birds and topless maidens in see-through skirts. Presumably, therefore, somebody must have taken the great Pharaoh’s name so written and converted it into a form recognisable to modern Europeans. I assume they could only do that by knowing that it was pronounced Ram’seez.

So how could they know that? Could somebody please tell me because I assume there must be an answer? The best guess I can come up with is that some literate Greek or Roman wrote it down when one of the Ptolemys was lording it over the Nile. Is that it?

And another mystery: Why does my back ache so much tonight? I can’t think of anything I’ve done today which could have caused it, and it’s bothering me much more than the Ramses question.

Indulging a Healthy Imagination.

It all began when I was in an art gallery perusing a portrait of JS Bach. I turned to the young Chinese woman with the Tiger Lily haircut who had been standing at my shoulder staring quietly but intensely into my face for the past ten minutes, and said…

Ah, but first a picture I took of her using my imaginary iPhone:

 

… I said:

‘It must have taken hours every morning to style his hair like that.’

‘That’s not his hair,’ she replied earnestly. ‘It’s a wig.’

‘A wig?’

‘Yes. A powdered wig.’

‘A powdered wig? Good heavens. Whoever would have thought it? Thank you for telling me.’

She tilted her head slightly to indicate grateful humility for my kindness, as young Chinese women do in such circumstances, and then continued to look into my eyes. At no point did she smile or betray any hint of emotion; it seemed she just wanted to look at me, and did so with a level of unwavering calmness that was a little unnerving.

I felt the most urgent need to breach this shell of inscrutability and engaged her in conversation, during which I discovered that her name was Wei Pong, that she came from somewhere in America, and that she worked for NASA as a rocket scientist.

Questions about her name provided the most fertile ground for my enquiry, as you might imagine. I asked her, for example, whether she was one of the Pennsylvania Pongs, but she didn’t get that joke either. Eventually I grew tired of using humour – and at her expense, I’m sorry to say – to break the ice between us and invited her for coffee.

She consented, but then caused me some minor discomfort by pouring the whole of the small pot of cream into her coffee, leaving me with a cup of black stuff which needed lightening up a bit. Not wishing to cause her any embarrassment which might have shattered her immaculate inscrutability, I decided to fetch another pot. But when I looked at the counter and saw the queue extending through the door and beyond, I changed my mind. My coffee would have been cold by the time I achieved my objective, and so I decided to let the reverie fade and watch an episode of The IT Crowd instead.

So now you know how I occupy my mind when the world is dark, the curtains are drawn, company is notable by its absence, and the tea bag is brewing in my trusty mug with a picture of an Indian elephant on the side.

And this post is made in lieu of a more serious one about why my posts are more than a little self-obsessed lately. I did think of another one earlier, but try as I might I can’t remember what it was about. Later, maybe.

The Truth is Out There.

'Have you ever had a hallucination?' asks the psychiatrist.

How can you answer that? It’s in the nature of a hallucination that it appears unequivocally real, so for all you know the psychiatrist himself might be a hallucination, and what he’s saying might be words your mind has put into his unreal mouth. How can you know what’s a hallucination and what isn’t? Come to that, your whole life might be one long hallucination. There are those who claim it is.

So if the psychiatrist says 'that strange experience you had was certainly a hallucination', how can you trust him? You can’t even trust him if he says 'in my opinion you’re completely sane.' It might just be that you’re creating a phantasm in order to hear what you want to hear.

That’s why I tend towards circumspection in all things, even when it comes to the question of whether there is any such thing as a hallucination.

*  *  *

Incidentally, I didn’t find any loopholes in tonight’s episode of X Files because I hadn’t a clue what was going on. And now I’m listening to the LSO playing Nimrod (in Japan.)

Thought Progression.

I was going to make a post today on why memories are worthless. I didn’t do so because as soon as I started putting the words together I realised that it’s actually a surprisingly complex question. I realised that there are different sorts of memories; that some are useful and some aren’t, while in the case of others it all depends on how you look at it. And that led me to consider, very briefly, whether I should analyse the different types of memories and then enumerate them using bullet points. I decided against it because that’s the sort of thing which young people and academics do and I’m neither. The IQ is willing but the will is weak.

So then I progressed to the connection between guilt and regret, and that one was easy. Regret is irrational but guilt is part of the learning process. That’s that one done.

And then I remembered how relaxed and positive I was last Tuesday, and how the opposite was true on Wednesday. I wondered whether I might be bipolar after all (which somebody suggested in a blog comment once, only I still used the old term ‘manic-depressive’ and thought that ‘bipolar’ might be the post-gay term for homosexual. My reply must have made me look pretty bloody silly.)

From there I went onto the reason why I have always declined to take anti-stress medication. It’s because life is feeling; feeling is life; without feeling there is no life, and I never found zombies anything other than laughable. (The same applies to Daleks, come to that.) Perception is the whole of the life experience. Subdue it and you might as well be Madeline Usher.

And all this led me to the final question: Is Munchausen’s Syndrome contagious? If it is, you see, I could do with catching it so I could find all these bloody visits to doctors and hospitals delightfully pleasant instead of being driven by them into a pit without a pendulum.

That’s three references to Edgar Allan Poe in one week.

Another thing I realised today was that none of the adults to whom I was exposed as a child – parents, teachers, youth leaders etc, etc – ever seemed to notice that I was subtly different from the other kids.

Off to watch more X Files now. Looking for loopholes.

Seeing Through the Soapsuds.

I’m currently watching Series 4 of X Files, the boxed set of which I picked up for the knock-down price of £2.99 from a charity shop.

You know, back in the day I was an avid fan of X Files, but it’s only while watching it now that I realise just how many glaring plot holes it contained. Is that because I’m twenty or so years older and disposed to look for loopholes with the benefit of a more cynical outlook? Or is it because I’ve largely left the world behind and see the relative positions of trees better for being outside the wood?

I don’t know, but it is interesting to realise how easily a well made film or TV show can drag you along with a compelling plot so completely that you fail to spot the absurdities contained within it. I’m finding this with nearly everything I re-watch these days.

I did think of watching some episodes of The Magic Roundabout on YouTube, but maybe I won’t. Some childhood memories are better left intact.