Splendid Indifference

Just what am I on about this time?

Well, for once, or is it twice, I am not too sure.

Perhaps Clarity?

Life requires clarity.

Clarity is a rare and beautiful thing.

It is something to aspire to and to work towards throughout your life.

Once experienced, you feel the overwhelming urge to repeat the feeling time and time again, but the fog of normal living can and will rise quickly and obscure that wonderful view.

Clarity is like an extremely addictive drug but with no side effects, well none so far as I can tell.

Clarity is like reaching the top of the tallest peak after years of strenuous effort and having the whole of your life’s experiences and memories arrayed out in front of you.

The sum of all your life history, all the things that made you the person that you are.

Each and every painful, joyful, heart rending, soul destroying and spirit lifting step of the way from conception to that particular instant of time of absolute pure clarity.

None of it is all good, or all bad.

I see it as a series of ridges, hills, both large and small, and a diverse array of ravines, both narrow and broad valleys, where the ridges and hills define the sunlit uplands and the ravines and valleys the darknesses.

It is what you do with the knowledge you perceive that matters.

It is your choice and your choice alone how to interpret the knowledge exposed to you at that moment.

And yes, you really do have a choice on how to deal with what you see.

What is past is indeed past but it will have shaped you up until this moment and will continue to shape your future, if you let it or wish it to, or you can simply breath it in, understand it and let it go, thereby understanding who you are and what made you who you are

You can choose to acknowledge it and simply move on.

Mind you that is not always easy, not easy at all.

Some of the revealed knowledge, has the stickiest of tendrils, the clingiest most venomous of embraces and the sharpest of skin puncturing poisonous fangs.

Be careful of those, they are hardest to shift.

I struggled to get clear of those.

They hooked me, entangled me, poisoned my heart and mind, made my timeless feelings of cold self-loathing into a waterfall of utter bile that I stepped into willingly, time after time, because that is what I felt I deserved. The soundless screams of mental anguish clamped shut my mouth and closed down my mind.

For protection, I senselessly wrapped myself up into a cocoon of dark self-hatred. Thoughts incessantly pounding away at my sanity. Corrosive waves of black acid battered the light and the love of life within me, until life hung by a very slender thread.

I survived, though it was a close run thing,

A few things helped me recover,

it certainly wasn’t the drugs,

it wasn’t drink,

it wasn’t the mental institutions or their staff,

it was the simple unconditional love, care, thought, time and superhuman patience of my, “Bridget”....

Thank you.

If no Bridget or Bridget equivalent available here are some suggestions

Not in any particular order:

• Exercise, it does help, yes, get out of the house and walk and walk and walk, or run if you have to (I shudder at the thought). Movement really is good for mind and body, it’s a scientific fact.
• Mindfulness and yoga helped me, though it has taken a few years to make the yoga a habit.
• “Zen it out”, which is my terminology for using The Breath, Mindfulness and Yoga all at the same time to get you out of a downwards spiral.
• Know your Triggers,  
• The Breath (™) is a powerful tool in your box of tricks.
• Cut back or stop the drinking (be brave, it is possible). Sadly alcohol is a poison, but what a sweet and surreptitious siren she/he is; watch out for her/him (On the grounds of equality, the gender of the surreptitious siren can be whatever you want it to be.).
• Talk to people, talk maybe cheap, but it is proven to help (terms and conditions apply)
• Ask for help, you really, really are not alone, really, you are not! Did I mention that you are not alone?
• Build slippery shoulders, so that unhelpful thoughts can easily be dismissed out of your head, be made to roll off your shoulders and in one motion be kicked under the table; they deserve no time or energy from you at all (apart from a decent kick in their vitals), If all the bad thoughts cannot be found quivering with fear in the dark under the table (hmm, sounds a little like my childhood - ed) then you just haven’t kicked them quite hard enough. Get them out and each time they slip back, kick them out again. “Just say no”, to bad thoughts.
• Eat proper food, nope home-delivered pizzas are not proper food, even if they have pineapple strewn all over them.

Hmm, this list is getting a little bit long and prescriptive, so time to stop, this isn’t a self help blog I will have you know.

The Not The Alton 20mph Zone

Where can I possibly start, I guess with the words of my counsellor ringing in my ears I guess I have to start at the beginning,

I have a problem.

I am disappointed with a number of things in life (whoa there cowboy, how can that possibly be, you’re are as happy as Larry, and he is a gay old chap) and it is about time that I got one or two of them off my chest,

Well, this particular diatribe is about the 20 mph limit in Alton. (What, just that, you had me worried there for a moment old chap - deep dark secrets ed)

Alton, a small market town in Hampshire, England, United Kingdom, just off the European mainland, that is until we cut our ties and lifeline and sail off into the dark blue horizon of the mid-Atlantic, where storms abrew and the winds of trade are harsh and unforgiving; unlike the bosomy Germanic warmth  of the European Union, where they take our taxes and thanks us snidely in a host of magnificent but incomprehensible languages.

Ponder on my works ye mighty and despair.

Alton, or rather the Town Council in hand with that rapacious supermarket chain, Waitrose, or as it is seen from Alton Station WAITROSE, as the neon letters for rose have lost their lustre.

Many a-time I have stopped on the railway footbridge to WAIT as instructed, but then felt decidedly dim as all the other passengers carried on without waiting at all.

Perhaps I am the only one that noticed the lack of light in the sign and decided that I should wait, perhaps I am the one true acolyte of the great supermarket chain of “WAIT”.

Anyhow and whatever, with a little everwhat thrown in on the side, there was money to be had by the Town Council from allowing WAITROSE to build a unimpressive box like structure next to the station. This money was to be used to improve pedestrian, road and bus access to the Alton Railway station (location of a thousand sunrises and sunsets if you follow me on Instagram).

This would help Alton to become the, “Gateway To the South Downs”, or as the Waitrose management team were concerned, “Allow better access to our upmarket, expensive and did I mention expensively up its own wazoo store, conveniently located next to a busy London commuter station” (is there the slightest hint of cynicism there?)

Improvements.

Over the last year, and I guess what I mean is, through 2017 a number of improvements have in fact been made to transport in Alton, sadly none to the betterment of the pedestrian, where we still suffer with the short end of a very short pointy stick.

There is now the, “Yellow Brick Road”,  from the Town Centre to the station that will take all incomers from the station into the throbbing heart of the our wonderful Hampshire market town (and vice versa, but us commuters are not so easily pleased by the ephemera of yellow paving stones); where sly cafes marketing themselves as places where, “Jane Austen ate toasted tea cakes here”, emporia, will extract the hard earned Great British Pounds from unsuspecting visitors looking for the rides of Alton Towers

(Note; the railway station has taken down the sign that said, “If you are looking for Alton Towers you are at the wrong station” , now it simply says, “Looking for Alton Towers, then take a cab but stop off at the Not Alton Towers Themed play park and give us your cash”)

In reality Jane Austen lived in Chawton, a small village, on the wrong side of the A31, just outside of Alton, though if truth be told her brother did own (part own) a small bank in Alton; for a short while whilst she wrote a book or two.

She lived there at a time when banks were banks and not rapacious money grabbing, customer ignoring, tax defrauding, money laundering, worker ignoring, small business loan denying, lying, cheating businesses,

Though I am sure her brother acted with the greatest of probity being the brother of the greatest woman writer that Chawton and Alton have ever known.

Strangely, Hampshire and many, many other counties (apparently she, “Got about a bit”) are known as “Jane Austen” counties… somehow I expect the music of, “The Big Country”, to pop into my mind when I read that on various signs. Or perhaps I am thinking of the Magnificent Seven.

Did I mention 20mph zones (or back in the Zone)

Da Governmunt (™) changed the law a couple of years ago, allowing local councils to, without any recourse to Actual Democratic Oversight (™), change the speed limit in the town, villages, hamlets in their areas.

This has subsequently meant that a host (no Golden Daffodils were injured in the writing of this post) of Town Councils have introduced a,

“Lower Limit of no more than 20 you speeding, ignorant of the law morons”,

rather than increasing the,

“Already Too High Limit, that is 30mph, to a Substantially higher Pedestrian Lethal Limit of 40mph).

Why is this annoying me?

Well for one, (I suggest standing back from your screen as I may not be able to contain the number of spleens that I feel the need to vent [This has been a Spleen Explosion Warning (™) , brought to your courtesy of the  #PutPedestriansFirst movement] ...

...there was been absolutely not a jot, not a hint of a jot, not even a tease of a hint of a jot of Enforcement Of The F***** Limit. Apologies to those of a timid nature, but it has to be said. Said LOUDLY and OFTEN.

What is the point of the Town Council spending someone else’s money to improve access to the “Gateway to The South Downs” so as to make it a veritable pleasant experience walking to and from the train station leading to pedestrians in Alton being given First Class and safe experience, rather than the dangerous and fearful experience it was before the change and what is now simply exactly the same.

What am I saying.

The majority (and believe me I have stood and counted the cars going passed me in the So-Called-20mph Zone and there is absolutely no doubt that it is the vast majority) - are either Wilfully Ignorant, Really Not Paying Attention or simply Breaking the Speed Limit In Full Knowledge of their Actions, because the speed limit is well and truly not enforced by anyone.

The #PutPedestriansFirst movement (of which I am a founding member, treasurer, secretary and Grand Chairman) has been created to take back the speed limit from the police, the highways authorities and local councils and Enforce The Bleedin’ Law; as without the law, the Road Bullies, the Petrol Headed Fuckwits Who Know the Right Speed for all road Conditions will triumph and pedestrians will be stuck where there are today and have been since the introduction of the motor car, with the Short and Shitty End of the Stick,

As I walk to and from Alton Station I have taken my first steps in fighting back against the rising tide of wilful ignorance and I catch each driver in the eye (no, not with a stick, a stone or even a laser pen) and if they are driving within the limit, I give then a massive Thumbs Up and a Beaming Grin.  However, if they are breaking the limit, they get the same eye contact but a Thumbs Down, a rueful shake of the head and a sad face.

With these simple free tools, and until the movement burgeons and I can extract money from people (stage 2-5 require funding above and beyond what I alone can afford), we can start to take back control of the streets, roads and lanes of our beautiful country from the Vehicular Nazis who currently stalk it and try to make it a cleaner, greener and more pleasant land for all pedestrians. After all, when a motorist gets out of a car, they become pedestrians too.

Small aside

I drive a car and drive within the speed limit. What really did my head in recently was driving in the Alton 20mph zone and being overtaken by a Range Rover driving Knob Head,  as we came up to some humps in the road. The Eejut had memorably number plates (available on demand for all law enforcement agencies) and proceeded to speed his away (no doubt it was a he, could tell by the way he was holding his phone), through the chicanes designed to slow cars down and headed out into the 30mph zone doing significantly more than that speed as well.

My Kingdom for a Blog

As mentioned below, the start of this blog has been lost to posterity and the future, in that it was inadvertently deleted after a tussle between me, the keyboard and Google Docs, suffice to say that I lost with one fall and two submissions.

So the following part is, if I remember correctly me starting to rant about the “@” character and the double quote characters being misplaced on the keyboard, but….

…… some loss of information occurred here… please make up something that makes sense to you and fills in the gaps to make sense for you (for me I am heading towards the end of the post where the words and characters are huddled and hiding from this devious software that is wanting to stop the truth being told….

….

[sanity aside - your keyboard is defaulting to US rather than UK - simply select the appropriate keyboard and all will be well….. if only it were that simple.]

Now I am not technologically inept (you may type that but I couldn’t possibly comment - House of Cards ed), though at times I have massive doubts about that, but a certain curiosity and an unwillingness to give in to stupid stupid (did I mention stupid - questionable ed?) user interfaces, usually sees me through.

Though admittedly not after some moments of swearing at various bits of software encased as it is in its protective metal and plastic boxes like PC’s, smartphones and tablets. Software is such a slippery and frustrating entity.

What I Don’t Get

You might think that a door is a simple, non technical object, to use; if you think that you really do need to wake up and smell the roses.

There is either a handle (in which case grab the handle and pull) or no handle at all in which case the only thing that you can do is push…. and if and only if this were the case, life would be so, so (and as many other so’s you need to pull a thread - musical reference ed) much simpler.

Aldershot Station and The Bakewell Cafe Ltd (or confusing doors R us)

Some of you may know, by either talking to me (preferably not, I am quite a private person, though if you do post a comment on this blog, you will get a reply, sometime, and not very quickly and possibly unrelated to your comment but it’s the reply that counts - It’s Not The Circulation That Counts ed) or communicating with me in some unobtrusive fashion (snail mail is much preferred - but I leave it as a task to the reader to find the address -  my thought is that if you want to communicate that much you need to make an effort - I am not exactly unfindable - where there is a will there is a postal address to be found)....

….not quite sure where the above got to, brackets, italics, uppercase letters it’s  all very confusing…. however, where I am trying to get to is….

Is that some things in life leave me astounded, sometimes my jaw hits the floor, the door or the drawer, depending on where precisely I am standing when a, “I Am Totally Gobsmacked Event (™)”, occurs.

Aldershot Station, a South Western Railways customer drop off/collection point, as it is colloquially known; has a little cafe on the, “Town”, side, that is the entrance and exit to Kublai Khan’s Pleasure Dome - or Aldershot town centre as it is more accurately known.

This is usually womanned (the opposite or manned, I presume) by a couple of very helpful ladies and occasionally a gentleman.

It is only correct that I inform my reader, that from time to time, I do purchase a, “Bacon sandwich, brown bread, brown sauce, no butter and a double espresso”, from them on a perhaps weekly basis, but no more; the red smoked meat quotient is very very strict.

Sometimes the pull of the bacon is too strong for even a man of my inmate self deprivational abilities (do you mean self deprecational abilities? - ed)

The Bacon Is Strong with this cafe, one might be tempted to write - but no not I….

Back to the meandering point about doors and their difficulty.

As with many stations, the doors have been improved to allow those with  less able physical attributes to access said cafe. The result of this is that a door that was simply a door, has been improved; now it is an,  “Automatic Door”, in big black letters.

There is even a sign on the glass door that tells you that is an automatic door, so it leaves you in know doubt that some kind of automation has been applied (where and how is a totally different ball game ) to said door. With me so far? It gets much, so much harder… really it shouldn’t, but it does.

Now, being of unsound mind (hic, another glass of Dom Perignon did arrive but was ingested rather too suddenly causing a rather large belch, and Bridget one pod in front was heard to effuse, “Are you still drinking Champagne?” and in my best truthful manner, I could quite categorically say, “No, my Darling”, as I had finished drinking said Champagne and so was no longer technically “Drinking Champagne”, did I mentiond I love the English language? ),  well not exactly of unsound mind, but the start of this sentence has lead me astray... I had to get up mid-flow, as there was rather an acute bodily fluid crisis that needed to make full use of the word “flow” and my bodily fluids, nuff said  I think. On return, I have, as in many points in the past, absolutely no idea what I was about to write.

Just to let you know

From time to time, the keyboard on Google Docs goes into some strange mode, some sort of highlight mode, which is a bugger to get out of, and has unintentionally to my mind (bloody useless software in my opinion, as I have now lost the start of this witter… can’t seem to find the undo key combination, the previously backed up document to allow me to cut and paste the is now missing start of this post.. so am I furious, am I angry, have I started raging against the dying of the light… nope, the lovely Thai Hostess has just refilled my glass of Champagne again and so I will attempt to reconstruct the beginning of this post  - or maybe  and as most of you are all hugely aware, this is all a Stream of Unconsciousness Blog (™)  where it just flows forth with no rhyme or reason (Hit me with your rhythm stick - blockhead ed)

Back to the Door Into Consciousness (or I can’t believe its not butter)

So in November, after many entries and exits from the door into Bacon Sandwich Heaven, I was put under test, my abilities were put under the microscope and sadly I was found wanting. The door had changed.

For a start it was SHUT, with lots of capital and bold letters. As I had stepped off the train, been complimented on my Shirt of the Day (™) by the slightly Hippy Looking Gent with a Look of the Music about Him (™) . I can’t remember the exact shirt, but as you may or may not be aware I have moved into what is now know as, “Full Shirt Mode (™)” where every day is a colourful shirt day…. but more on that later, probably on another post to be called: The Shirt, The Shirt and Nothing but the Shirt, remove a letter and it could be all about Donald Trump (Shirt -> Shit for those challenged by my letter removal meme)

Back to the Door of Unintended Difficulty.

When presented with a shut door ( and with the voice of Larry Grayson echoing in my mind - really, yes, you do need to be of a certain age to get that really vague reference.), ones first thought might be  - is it a “Push” or “Pull” door, that is, if there is, “No Handle”, it has no option but to be a, “Push Door”, sadly even this fails to be true when it is an,  “Automatic Door”, i.e. it will open as you approach, without so much as a, “By Your Leave”.

So I stood in front of the door, it said, “Automatic Door”, I waited a moment or two and nothing happened ; so seeing that it had a handle on my side I “Pulled The Door Handle”, with the sure and certain reasoning that it would open towards me. It did not. It did nothing. The door stood there and in a slightly alarming way, grinned at me.

It tooks this was a challenge. I would not be beaten by a simple door. Inside the door the lovely, “Bacon sandwiches are available here, really”, ladies were waving and hooting strange noises. Perhaps, I needed an owl to help me.

A Fistful of Bacon Sandwiches

I looked worriedly around Aldershot station for any clue as to how to get into Bakewell Cafe Ltd. The ticket inspector, patrolling the automated gates, gave me a knowing look,

I intuited that I was not the first to be confounded by The Door Of Bacon Sandwich Hell  and that he might have the information that I was looking for.

I raised an eyebow (to shoot venomous arrows perhaps - ed) , ok eyebrow at him, he raised one back.

I raised another, he raised another back.

The ticket hall went quiet, if the passing train hadn’t moseyed through the station you would have been able to hear a pin drop.

As it was, everyone started watching us, the music to a, “Fistful of Dollars”, could be heard over the passing noisy train.

Tension rose, the music got louder, the inspector went for his pocket, I went for mine, a pair of gloves, a snood, a woolly hat pulled from my pockets was  simply no match for his lithe and practised movement.

He mimicked pushing the door.

It clicked. Not the door, but my brain,

The, “Automatic Door”, with the handle was a, “Push Me”, and not a, “Pull You”!

I waved a limp red snood in his general direction to acknowledge his superiority and there was a sigh of relief in the ticket hall, as the watching commuters exhaled and after a blood curdling standoff went about their secretive business.

I turned from the Ticket Inspector, and after a generous nod of appreciation, I pushed the door handle, it fought back momentarily and then leapt away from my hand as it opened automatically.

The ladies of the Bakewell Cafe Ltd broke out into spontaneous applause as another customer had fought through  the Door of Unintended Difficulty into the room of bacony delight.

As I approached the counter, the younger of the two ladies said, “You wouldn’t believe the number of people who are having a problem with that door!”. I nodded and sagely said, “A door once opened, can never be closed”.

I have no idea what I was talking about, but she took it as a fundamental truth and from that day has always asked me, “Is there more knowledge you seek to share with us mere bacon sandwich and coffee vendors?”, to which I generally reply, “Just what are you on about?”

Been a while

For those of you who have been paying attention, or for those of you who suffer from severe inattentiveness (probably most of you in these hectic internet enabled, instant gratification days of the second decade of the 21st Century), this is the first blog post for quite a considerable time. (This is factually incorrect, there have been many many blog posts, just that this is the first one by “me” for some time….)

Really, yes really, the last one was from the roof top of a wonderful B&B in Lecce (southern Italy, half way down the heel) at the tail end of September (I would have said arse end of September, but September as far as I understand it is not a month to take a pot shot at).  

Note for those of a particular nature, Lecce (Letchy) is not where older men go to look with longing eyes at Italian beauties (I would recommend Amsterdam and its plethora of Dutch beauties for that kind of reprehensible activity_)

You may ask why? Remember, the question, first blog in some time and my attempt to explain why,,,, do try and keep up...

If you did (ask why), I could ramble on about this, that, the other and expound with energy on the whys and wherefores. But (and against my usual veritable verbal diarrhoea-like writing style) the answer is plain and simple (much like my underwear - Really didn’t need to know ed)...

(Whilst we are on that subject I need to mention Bamboo socks and Bamboo pants - for my Alaskan reader - that is I believe underpants, shreddies, boxers, tidy whities - as you can tell I am totally au fait with all the right mots for the occasion.

They are simply the softest underwear you can buy (terms and conditions apply, this is not an advert for any particular product and if you get a pop-up ad offering you a deal on them, then BUY SOME - I get a small kickback (and sometimes just a small kickette in my vitals) that help to pay for the provision of food to orphans in Third world countries - or so I will tell you, after all if Trump can get away with large blatant lies then so can I)

...Oops, there was a short interruption between the above and this; followed by a large dose of “Where the Fuck did my saved document go”, and after 5 minutes of hell, thinking of what I just lost (and reading the above - not a great deal ed)

My anger (frustration, feelings of ineptitude, frank and honest feelings of worthlessness), abates as the recalcitrant document appears in an unexpected place (just below the foot rest of the seat in front of me, if you really wanted to know) and my Zen like calm is reapplied (Small 20ml pots of Zen Cream are available at a Chemist near you, just mentioned this blog and you will be charged a supplement as a penalty for reading said  blog).

Christ (BTW as it is December 25th, Happy Birthday), I do wonder how I have survived for so long without knowing about The Breath (™) and Zen cream products (available at all major pharmacies); I do suggest reading Black Dog (™)  a previous post to see how close a run thing life and death was at various points in my twaddle of a life.

Where am I, now that is a real question, I am glad you asked, apparently at 35,000 ft in a Royal Thai Silk Cut Class (or First Class I will have you know) seat (or space bigger than our house as is the actual fact) and the gorgeous Ladies and occasionally Gentlemen have just brought out dinner, which at about 13:30 is a trifle odd, but we are heading east at some speed and by the time we reach Bangkok (who’s name elicits a whole host of verbal inanities as you can/could imagine - and if not why not; Language is Just Pure Fun (™)).

So, Bridget has just moved from her pod to join me in my pod. No, pod is not a euphemism, it is just the gigantic size of seats (that do indeed turn into beds at the drop of a hat, well, not quite exactly, more a bit of fiddling with knobs - ooh err missus..)

General Aside (Major Cockup)

I have asked for,  and paid a small fee (2 shillings and sixpence in really really old money) and received special dispensation for a General Aside, as long as it takes no more than 200 words and is vetted in triplicate by the Editorial Board of Control (The EBC - as they’re less formally known - or bunch of nincompoops who wouldn’t know a smartphone if it leapt from its case and bit them on the arse, let alone the ramblings of an inane blogger… I ask you, where is the world going?)

Anyhow, the aside was about a conversation that was at the time reasonably funny (terms and conditions as always apply - ed).

Context

We regularly go to Fiona and Neal’s (possibly Neal and Fiona’s) for a meal, I would guess once every other quarter or so, and in between us visiting them, they visit us. This is always a very pleasant meal out (or “in” depending on the venue) and we have all been getting much much better at not over drinking (and about time too - Dr Ed)

(A small unassuming glass of Cuban rum, from Cuba, where you have just been on holiday, why would I say, “No, thanks, I’ve had enough, thank you”; the hangover the next day and quite surprisingly the day after as well; put into motion the, “Spirits, no thanks”, rule that was ensured that all “Meals out with friends”, do not turn into raging hangovers that make life simply unbearable even with copious amounts of drugs)

Where was I, aha, an aside, that is taking slightly longer than usual to get the point; but there is one, “Bear with me caller”.

Our last planned meal was the weekend before our, “Australia trip, or there and back again, Ozzie style”, not sure what that means yet, but if the force of words is with me, you will get to read about it.

Initially our meal was just the four of us, but as the date approached the number of attendees grew.

From the four of us to first six (Gillian and Neil, Fiona’s sister and her husband, also Neil but with a different spelling to allow us to differentiate the two of them) and then to eight (Jenn and Matt, or possibly Matt and Jenn, sometimes I struggle to work out which is the right way around).

Anyhow, and moving on with the aside [this is an interruption by the EBC, you are failing to get to the point of this so-called aside and we are having a meeting to decide whether we should revoke your “Asidal Rights”, please be warned you could be cut of at a moments….]

I am trying to get to the, “Ben Elton Is Gay”, highlight of the evening.

Now we were all chatting about the TV of our youth (and suffice to say that as we are all of an age 50+ (“Not me”,  the voice from the sofa pipes up) to be generous and fair; so the TV shows of the 70’s, when there were ONLY 3 TV channels and fourth choice was represented by the large off switch on the front of the large mechanical TV that took up all of the floor space in the front room; whereas today they (TVs) take up very little floor space but have taken to filling entire walls, so progress is from footprint to wall print, you just have to love technology!

(Remember computers used to take up enormous space and were incredibly unreliable, so were TV’s - but that was when TV meant television and not someone on an endless spectrum of physical attributes from Woman to Man and back again , so what do I know) ,

Everwhat or whatever, somehow Frankie Howard’s name cropped up, and someone, possibly Matt or maybe even Jenn (apologies it is unclear to me whether there are one or two N’s in Jenn - perhaps best represented by Jen(n)) told me that Frankie Howerd was “Gay”.

Now this was a major shock to me, as I have lived a sheltered life (not true  - but it makes for mildly entertaining reading; and if you have been to Reading, it is indeed mildly entertaining)

Naturally my instant …

(I say instant, I had been drinking as part of my personal drive to follow the Department of Health’s or is it Da Government (™)  “Drink Sensibly” policy - which I have unfortunately misunderstood, for comedic effect to be, “Drink until Insensible”, policy)

...riposte was, “You’ll be telling me that Elton John is gay next”; which as well all know is in fact the case; however, Neal (and not Neil) then piped up, “I never knew he was gay”; this caused much much amusement…

(remember we all had been drinking, therefore pretty much everything was funny - Theresa May is PM did cause a lot of hilarity until we realised it was in fact, true, a very sobering moment I will have you know).

...So we all were gobsmacked that Neal did not know “Our Elton” was not only Gay, but married with child. Neal’s confusion was unbelievable. Elton had been out for years.

So, as would have it, the conversation moved on to, sadly the Liar Blair and housing policy, after we are after all a well educated crowd, “Another tea for me Vicar!”, is our constant rejoinder.

(I am not sure what I mean by that, possibly a conflation (the opposite of inflation) of tea and wine with a passing remark about the Church of England - and long may she sail).

The evening wore on (as she is wont to do) and mellowness was all around (hic) - and Neal (and not Neil)

(Bridget and I needed to get to bed, as our ability to stay awake after 10pm is severely handicapped by our normal weekday waking up time of 5:30 am)

...suddenly piped up, whilst talking to Fiona about the evening, that had oh so delightfully passed said,

“I, for one, have learnt something this evening”,

to which we all chimed in;

“and what is that?”,

to which Neal in his infinite wisdom replied was,

”I never knew that Ben Elton was gay”.

Well, all of us apart from Neal fell about, well swayed in our seats with much over the top hilarity (remember we had been drinking).

So finally it came out, all the time we were being gobsmacked that Neal did not know that Elton was gay, he was thinking that we were talking about, “Ben Elton” and not “Elton John”.

Yes, I guess you had to be there to really get it.

Reading it back, it is not quite, if at all funny, however, I did think that it was worth capturing, as from now onwards, the 16th December will forever be known to us as, “Ben Elton is gay day’.

Here endeth the aside

So, I am in a plane at, 35,000 ft. Dinner has been eaten, the never ending supply of Dom Perignon Champagne has apparently dried up, as no-one has offered any more for at least an hour now, maybe I am supposed to be asleep, but the force is strong within me.

In actuality I have slept a lot over the last two days (been suffering from a mild case of Man Flu - but in my case, “The Drugs do work...” - , and many thanks for that. Aching joints and aching eye sockets have been in abeyance for quite a few hours now).

I believe that the copious (but not copious enough for my liking - Champagne Charlie ed) amounts of Champers have kept the aches as bay; well that is my story and I will stick with it.

Pointlessness

“Not sure”, pause a moment while I think about it some more, “Nope, still not sure”, why I have started the blog again.

Might be something about the 11 hours on a plane from Heathrow to Bangkok and then another large numbers of hours (8 1/2) to Sydney meant I had no excuse for postponing writing for the first time in a while.

Might be that I have a lot to write, given the paucity of output over the last few months.

Might be that the Man Flu is affecting my ability to read - and boy have I been reading of late.

Books a-go-go

More books about the Great Crash, and a massive range of other subjects that interest me, I will, (honestly I will - ed)  put up a list of books that I have read of late (over the last year, the Kindle has ensured that I can continue to read in the middle of the night when sleep eludes me)  and maybe, just maybe even recommend some that should be of interest to you too.

Off the top of my head, and I may need to go and find a link or two and get the name quite right are:

Doughnut Economics - best book on where we need to go economically and environmentally that I have ever read  - highlights the uselessness of GDP as a meaningful figure of wealth and or state of a nation or indeed the World.

Anything by Yanis Varoufakis (but not the one specifically for his daughter ), The Global Minotaur and the “Suffer the weak” one. The one about Adults in the Room is a real eye opener about where the power in the EU actually resides.

You will be so glad that Gordon Brown fought so hard against Tony Bliar to keep us out of the Euro. The UK would have been well and truly shafted if we had been a part of it in during the Great Recession.

“The Road to Somewhere” - by David Goodhart, All about the state of Britain (and as it happens other rich countries) and gives good reasons why there was a Brexit vote; certainly enlightening.

Sapiens by Yuval Noah Harari - wonderful wide ranging book about Homo Sapiens; bit biased at times but a rollickingly good read;  think

“Guns, Germs and Steel’ by Jared Diamond but over a much longer time period.

I would also suggest Nick Cohen book called “What’s Left”. It puts a lot of things about the “Left Wing” into an interesting perspective.