Good riddance

In the next few hours, UK time, 2012 will come to an end. Unless something completely unforeseen intervenes, I'll make it to the end of the year - which I'll be spending at work, appropriately enough, I suppose, given the amount of time I've spent there in the past 12 months - something which hasn't seemed to be guaranteed, or even probable, at various periods through its course. And, for all that I'm more than a little dubious about my prospects in 2013, as I said in my last post, I'll still be thoroughly glad to see the back of what has undoubtedly been the worst year of my life. I began 2012 in Cornwall, in a house which I owned, albeit precariously, in common with one other, with a family and its associated domestic life, possessions of one kind and another accumulated over the years, even a cat grudgingly acquiescing to my sharing her space. Now it's all gone, the house, virtually all of the possessions, life in Cornwall, my family, my marriage, even the poor bloody cat, leaving me in this single rented room in Surrey, with little but painful, regretful memories. And for what? I'm as far away as ever from the sort of connection I referred to in my post on this equivalent day of last year, or even of seeing how such a connection could ever come about in this current iteration of 'society'. Lose everything, gain nothing, yeah, good one, Sammy.
Whether or not 2013 is better, or even happens in any long-term way, for me, remains to be seen. I hope very much, though, that 2013 is a good year for everyone kind enough to visit here, and that things go to your individual and collective best advantage. Happy New Year to you all.

Love & best wishes to all
Sammy B

I don't know if I want to do 2013

That says it all, really. It came out in conversation with my daughter about 24 hours ago, and while it wasn't necessarily something she wanted to hear, and certainly wasn't said with any deliberate intention of upsetting her, she understood what I meant. Now that she's headed back to Cornwall, the feeling has, if anything, intensified. The pointlessness of my 'new life' is something I just can't shake off, the sense of simply going through the motions. I wrote a while back about having to be able to justify yourself and your situation to yourself, to be able to function in any meaningful way, and that justification really isn't there, at least at the moment. The blankness of the view to the horizon, the oppressive all-pervasiveness of that most terrifying of words, 'never', is becoming very difficult to deal with.

Love & best wishes to all
Sammy B

Dissolution

Arriving back at base at 10:00 this evening, after a good trip to London with my daughter, interesting visits to the Science Museum and the Wellcome Collection interspersed with meanderings around the big city by bus, and punctuated with plenty of laughter, I was met by a letter. The final nail in the coffin, as it were, the notification that as of yesterday, my marriage was formally dissolved. Not that I wasn't expecting that last piece in the process which began on February 29, but it certainly took the lustre off of what had been a thoroughly enjoyable day to that point.
So, there it is. I'm officially on my own again, although, realistically, I was before that fateful phone call had even ended. And, needless to say, given that what I want is as close to unobtainable as makes no difference, that means I'm on my own permanently. I've seen what settling for second best means, and I've absolutely no interest in going there again.

Love & best wishes to all
Sammy B

Crimes against humanity?

So, a Roman Catholic archbishop thinks gay rights are crimes against humanity, seemingly. That anyone associated with that appalling organisation, with even a shred of conscience, could make any accusation of such crimes, given their own vile record, from the Albigensian Crusade - 'Kill them all, God will know his own' - via the Spanish Inquisition to the support of the Third Reich, amongst myriad others, is hypocrisy of breathtaking proportions. I would venture to suggest that the Catholic Church has directly caused, or indirectly facilitated, the deaths of more human beings than almost any other organisation in world history, and that's aside from the pernicious effects of its teachings in exacerbating ignorance and poverty to this day. The whole rotten edifice should be abolished and outlawed, as far as I'm concerned.

Love & best wishes to all
Sammy B

Christmas starts here

Christmas, that is, in any sense of doing the family type of stuff that most people seem to find one of the more significant parts of the festive season. My daughter arrived at 2:30 this afternoon, and, perhaps more than at any time in all of the upheavals of 2012, I was delighted to see her. My manager, at work this morning, asked if I'd had a good Christmas, and, in the interests of honesty, I had to say, no, not really, because I hadn't. Now my girl is here, though, things have begun to look up - we went for a late pub lunch, enlivened by our customary repartee, compared cyberspace notes, and generally had a nice time. Tomorrow will be a 'trip to the big city' day, with museums and possibly shopping on the agenda, although Saturday will only be a semi-together day, because my daughter is going to another of her YouTubers' gatherings, but anything is better than nothing, as far as I'm concerned. During our post-lunch chat, I got a bit emotional, telling my girl she was pretty much all that was left for me amongst the wreckage of my life, but, in all honesty, that's not too far from the truth, so visits like the current one are to be treasured. After all, who knows how many more times like this there might be?

Love & best wishes to all
Sammy B

'Tis the season to be....

....bigoted and stupid, apparently. It's as predictable as anything could be that the Catholic Church, in the shape of the Archbishop of Westminster, should use his Christmas sermon for a spot of 'gay-bashing' - after all, his benighted organisation need plenty of good Catholic boys and girls to be born, so that they can grow up to give their hard-earned pay to subsidise his lifestyle and that of his cohorts - but when a High Court judge weighs in as well (http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-20842884), it strikes me as more than a little worrying. I really think that the authorities should consider his suitability for the role, because, apart from the fact that he's using his unelected position to try and subvert the democratic process, I don't think that I, or any other LGBT person, appearing in his court, would be unjustified in doubting his credentials as an impartial arbiter of the law, given his apparent contempt for our equality.
Meanwhile, on the stupidity front, I heard a mealy-mouthed spokeswoman for the Countryside Alliance on the radio, opining about how disgraceful it was that hunting with hounds is still illegal - despite, that is, of the fact that around 80% of the population support the ban - and how the law should be repealed forthwith. Well, how about this for a suggestion, Mrs Countryside Alliance - if you think being pursued across country by a pack of half-starved dogs, to be torn limb from limb when you finally collapse in terrified exhaustion, is such fun, why don't you volunteer to take the fox's place? No, I thought not. Wilde, a century and more ago, had it right when he described foxhunting as 'the unspeakable in pursuit of the uneatable'.

Love & best wishes to all
 Sammy B

So....

....here I am, in 'domicile-ville', on my own on Christmas Day. Although I worked away over a couple of Christmases seven or eight years ago, when I was working in Berkshire, and was thus away from my family, this is the first time, in my whole life, that I haven't had a 'home' that I knew I could return to, if not on Christmas Day itself, then a day or two later. I could have gone to my brother's, of course, and I'm very grateful for his kind offer, but had I done so, I would've been in his home, not my own, in the sense of either parental or familial homes. How do I feel? Not as upset as I thought I would, really. I'm not quite sure why - maybe it's because I know my daughter will be here in less than 48 hours (weather permitting - it was horribly wet this morning, although less so now, and any continuation of that kind of weather might screw up her travel options on Thursday), maybe because, although I'm far from drunk, I have had enough alcohol to numb the sense of loss a little, maybe because I've got some nice food to look forward to, even if I'm only cooking myself, for myself. Maybe, even, I might be coming to terms with my new situation. Things will never be the same again, but different, even if worse, doesn't have to be the end of the world. Or, maybe, it's the calm before the storm, and it will all hit me like a tidal wave later. Who knows?
Notwithstanding my issues, I hope all of you out there are having/have had a lovely Christmas. Enjoy!

Love & best wishes to all
Sammy B

Compliments of the season

Nearly there now, at least for us Brits, so I'd like to wish all of my readers, and particularly my followers, a very merry Christmas. I hope you all have a great time!

Love & best wishes to all
Sammy B

Persecution, it's persecution!

I try not to be judgmental about people, I really do. I don't always succeed, because I freely admit that there is a quite a broad streak of the 'not suffering fools gladly' syndrome in my personality. There are times, though, when it's difficult to avoid. Having been on earlies today, I decided to begin the Christmas festivities, such as they are, in my 'London local'. I'd only been in the pub for about twenty minutes when a family group descended on the table next to mine, a couple in their early twenties with three young children, a girl of around seven, a three or four year old boy and a baby. Here comes the prejudicial bit, I guess. They were chavs. No doubt. Poor white trash, in US speak. The kids ran riot, the adults couldn't have cared less, it appeared. What really got under my skin, though, was hearing the father talking to a friend who'd appeared. About how he 'never bought a ticket on the train', but had been caught by ticket inspectors the past two days. And talking about it in in such a way as to clearly illustrate that, in consequence, he saw himself as a victim. 'Why should I pay?', that's obviously only for mugs. Yeah, the mugs subsidising parasites like you, you arsehole. The capitalist system is very far from being perfect, but, if everyone took his attitude, the whole economic basis of society would collapse, and tribal anarchy would doubtless ensue. If you want stuff, be it a train ride or a Ferrari, be prepared to work and pay for it. The whole system falls to bits otherwise.

Love & best wishes to all
 Sammy B

A cultural mixed metaphor, probably

Having finished today's (admittedly very straightforward) shift at work an hour or so ago, I'm awarding myself a couple of beers before braving the madness of the supermarket to complete my Christmas grocery shopping. The shop, and thus the pub I'm in, are situated in what is seen as an upmarket South West London suburb, five miles or so from where I work, but on the way back to 'base', very much 'middle class and upwards' territory. And, inspired by a post I've recently been perusing on a new blog from an old friend, I've been listening to some music on YouTube that's about as far from the tastes of the 'blue rinse set' prevalent around here as could be imagined, namely Extreme Noise Terror. When, a few months back, I induced one of my work colleagues to listen to one of their tracks, his immediate reaction was 'that's just a fucking noise'. Yeah, but a what an exciting noise!

Love & best wishes
 Sammy B

There's no point

I was going to write a post about another session of throwaway bigotry by some of my work colleagues this afternoon, a deluge of opprobrium that, not for the first time, I felt I ought to be countering, fighting my corner, giving my side of the argument. But, realistically, what would it change? If they knew about the 'real' me, all I would face would be unadulterated hatred, for no gain. In their eyes, I would just be a 'paedo', the lowest of the low. No matter that I've lived my life for so long in such a way as to avoid causing harm, I would simply be condemned, as per the demise of my marriage, for what I am, rather than anything I've done. So I sit in silence, tears of frustration close behind my eyes, listening to the vilification, day in, day out. Sartre was right, hell is other people - some of them, at least.

Love & best wishes to all
Sammy B

End of the world news - December 22 update

Well, to the surprise, I would guess, of very few, we in GMT-land have got through the day of supposed Armageddon without any undue alarms, and the world seems to be continuing unabated. Just to prove that nothing much has changed, pretty much the last thing that happened to me on December 21 was having my pint stolen while I was in the toilet. Yes, the world is still full of arseholes. Business as usual.

Love & best wishes to all
 Sammy B

Falling apart in public

Well, nearly, anyway. I've found myself, as it were, in my 'London local' this evening after finishing on a long break at work. They have the BBC News channel playing on the various televisions around the bar, albeit with the sound turned down, and one of the main stories has been 'Sandy Hook one week on'. Anyone who has read my blog in recent days will know that I've been quite emotional, from time to time, about what happened, as much in anger as in distress, given some of the attitudes and opinions expressed by religionists and gun lobbyists in the aftermath. It happened, though, this evening, that I was talking to my daughter while a montage of photos of some of the young victims, and the perpetrator, was shown as part of the report. Whether it was because my parental instincts were piqued, I don't know, but I found myself, abruptly and unexpectedly, on the verge of a tearful meltdown. With a little help from my girl, I just about kept it together, but it was a close-run thing. Sometimes, things happen that really get under the skin. Last Friday's horror in Connecticut is undoubtedly one of those things.

Love & best wishes to all
 Sammy B

Me, thirty years ago

I'm in Wetherspoons in 'domicile-ville', and I've just seen someone who reminds me so much of my younger self. He was around 20, tall, but substantially overweight. Not otherwise bad looking, though, in conventional terms. He was with a group of friends, chatting to one and then another, drinking his pint pretty quickly while doing so. He smiled, appeared to be enjoying the company, but always seemed to be on the periphery of things. With them, but not of them. How many nights, in my late teens and early twenties, did I find myself in that kind of situation? Being on the edge of things, not feeling included, drinking more than was good for me? More, far more, than I care to remember. Maybe I was seeing what I wanted to see, projecting my issues onto an innocent bystander. I hope so, for his sake - I wouldn't wish my insecurities, past and present, on my worst enemy. Be happier than me, young man. I really mean that.

Love & best wishes to all
 Sammy B

End of the world news

If, as many seem to believe, the world is going to end tomorrow, how is it going to be arranged? If the world is destroyed as soon as any part of the world reaches December 21 (in around four hours time, by my reckoning), I will have been cheated of half of the penultimate day, and those to the left of me on the map cheated of even more. If the destruction happens at the other end of the December 21 spectrum, when the last place in the world leaves that day, it will already be December 22 everywhere else, so that, it seems to me, would have invalidated the prophecy, because December 22 wasn't supposed to have happened. My daughter said last night that she'd read somewhere it was supposed to be happening at 8:21 GMT. I'll await that moment with bated breath. Or not, as the case may be.

Love & best wishes to all
Sammy B

Yet another reason to ban it out of hand

Organised religion, that is. We want you to be as stupid as us, and if you won't submit to our stupidity, we'll kill you. And enforce a 'policy' that will inevitably kill or cripple many others into the bargain. Vile and unforgivable.

Love & best wishes to all
Sammy B

It's getting late....

....and I should be heading back to 'domicile-ville'. But for what? It's all getting a bit pointless, again, really.

Love & best wishes to all
Sammy B

The 'P'-word

I know I've said it before, somewhere in the history of this blog, but I feel the need to say it again. I hate the word, that pseudo-Greek abomination coined by a 19th century Austrian psychologist, hate everything about it, the way it's become an empty cypher, a generic insult, stripped of any worthwhile shade of meaning, and used by people, 99% of whom have no idea of its correct definition. But, most of all, I hate the way it's used to stifle discussion, even to suppress rational thought, to the point that anyone who so much as questions the received kneejerk reactions is vilified as, at the very least, a fellow-traveller of the predatory, if not culpable themselves.
Paedophile. The sooner it is consigned to the dustbin of history, the better.

Love & best wishes to all
 Sammy B

Moronic

'The only way to stop a madman with a gun is with another gun. The only solution is to arm the teachers.'
A soundbite I've heard on the radio news within the past hour, from the author of this book, referring, needless to say, to the Sandy Hook massacre. My immediate reaction was almost apoplectic anger, I actually said, out loud, 'STFU, you stupid, stupid man!' The only solution? To a country already awash with guns, is to inject even more guns? The only fucking solution? Well how about two immediate - or, at least, immediate once I'd calmed down a bit - flaws in his 'solution'. If I'm a gunman, bursting into a classroom, knowing the teacher is likely to be armed, what do I do? Shoot the teacher first, obviously. I doubt that the teacher would have a cocked and loaded firearm constantly in hand while endeavouring to impart knowledge to their charges. And what about the reaction to the first, and I would say inevitable, incident where a pupil got hold of a teacher's gun and turned it on classmates or the teacher themselves?
Some would doubtless say that I'm an effete, bleeding-heart European liberal who doesn't understand American culture. Mea culpa - I don't understand how an author, who doubtless considers himself part of the 'mainstream' can spout such utter, arrant imbecility. And given the other great American obsession, religion, how about this take on a well-known biblical quotation, attributed to Gandhi:

"An eye for an eye will make the whole world blind."

Love & best wishes to all

Sammy B

In his own image

'God created man in his own image', it says in Genesis. Some of the reaction to the Sandy Hook massacre has made me think the quotation should be reversed. When the spokesmen of the religious right claim that God allowed a classroom of children to be killed because of the lack of prayer in schools, it seems to me that man has made God in his image - at least, the image of a certain kind of man, the type who might very well own an assault rifle, puerile, immaturely vindictive, seeing themselves as entitled to respect just because of who they are, rather than what they do. Words can barely express my contempt for these people.

Love & best wishes to all
Sammy B

Metropolitan Saturday

Most of today so far has been spent in the big city, revolving around my daughter's doings. She arrived at 'domicile-ville' last night, with no great plans to do anything much beyond some supper and an early (by her standards!) night, because the focus of her visit was what was planned for today. She was due to be meeting some of her internet friends at midday, so, knowing that this morning would be pretty much all the time I was going to be with her this time around, we'd decided to treat ourselves to a nice breakfast. And nice it was, my online research having come across an establishment combining an upmarket butchers' shop with a restaurant where they showcase their merchandise, and where we had their version of 'the full English'. It wasn't cheap, but, as ever, you get what you pay for, and, in this instance, everything was very good quality, even down to the bread they used for the toast. Having thus fortified the inner man - and young lady! - we headed up to 'town'. We were running a bit early, so we took a side trip to a place I'd rediscovered recently, and which I suspected, correctly as it proved, that she'd enjoy - Denmark Street, once London's answer to 'Tin Pan Alley', and still full of music, particularly musical instrument, shops. We spent twenty minutes or so window shopping, my girl drooling over the various guitars and similar on display. We teetered on the brink of buying her a second-hand mandolin, an instrument she'd love to own, but it was eventually put on hold, because it would've been a bit cumbersome, given the rest of her plans for the day, and, indeed, the weekend as a whole.
From there, it was off to Hyde Park for my daughter to attend her 'gathering'. I dropped her off just before 12:00, as she got together with the photographer friend that she'd spent time with in Camden at half term. She met up with some old, and made some new friends in the three hours at her disposal, before I returned to meet her and get her across to Euston in time to catch her train to 'Weekend part 2', a visit to the North Midlands to see a gig with another friend, who she's staying with tonight before heading back to Cornwall tomorrow.
Once we'd gone our separate ways, I'm afraid I've rather reverted to type - I've been in what has become my 'London local', the Wetherspoons nearest but one to where I work, for a while now, and I probably won't be going back to base just yet. I'm back to work tomorrow afternoon, though, so it will be virtue perforce from then until Christmas!

Love & best wishes to all
 Sammy B

How many more?

How many more innocents will have to die before someone in the body politic in the US has the balls to say 'this must never happen again', and enacts some legislation to help to achieve that end? There is no reason at all, in my opinion, for any private citizen in a 21st century, first world democracy to own a firearm that can dispense 100 rounds in a short space of time, as was reported in the Sandy Hook incident today. Even that tired, old justification of 'protecting kith, kin and property' doesn't remotely hold water - who do these people claim is going to burgle their house, the fucking Chinese army? The constitutional right to bear arms is a total anachronism. Anyone who purports to need a weapon, especially a powerful, automatic type, should have to prove it, beyond doubt, before they're allowed to own it, and then only be allowed to do so under the most carefully controlled of conditions. Any gun lobbyist who disagrees should be made to justify their reasons to the parents and siblings of any of the children killed today, and explain to the siblings, in particular, why their brother or sister won't be coming home anymore.

Love & best wishes to all
Sammy B

"I'm a bit distracted at the moment"

A moment of admission in a way, the first time I've actually overtly confessed to being attracted to a specific boy in real time to anyone other than my daughter. My brother had a meeting in London today, so we arranged that I should meet up with him afterwards and head down to his place, where I'm staying overnight. The journey began routinely enough, but at one of the principal stations en route a goodly number of schoolboys joined the train. One of their number, given that the train was pretty busy, ended up standing in the doorway of the carriage, at which point my conversation faltered. Noticeably. My brother didn't actually say anything, but he was aware of the hiatus. Hence my uttering the words in the title of this post. "By the door?" he asked. What could I say? Apart from to tell the truth, of course. He was blond and very good looking, 14 or so, just my thing. My brother took it in his stride, to be fair, for which I'm very grateful, because many would, I suspect, have found it pretty embarrassing, at least, or totally unconscionable, at worst. The boy got off of the train a couple of stops later, and the moment passed, but that didn't change what had happened, and what it had meant. Not quite outing myself, given that he already knew, but confirmation, if any were needed, of who, and what I am.

Love & best wishes to all
Sammy B

Shorn

After weeks, if not months of prevarication, I finally did it at lunchtime today. I actually walked into a barber's shop and had my hair cut. Needless to say, it was all pretty painless, over and done in a few minutes, and left me feeling decidedly tidier. Why it took so long for me to bite the bullet and do it, though, is an interesting psychological conundrum - I do have a longstanding dislike, going back to when I was seven or eight years old, of having my hair cut, but it also has something to do with my difficulty in relating to people in situations outside of my 'comfort zone', and of my almost pathological fear of making a fool of myself, or, at least, what I perceive to be a fool of myself. I suppose it all comes down to self-esteem and self-image, and my dealings with those issues have always been rather fraught. Having been the butt of jokes/abuse about my appearance, about being fat, for as long as I can remember, any self-confidence I've ever possessed has always been inextricably linked to my intelligence, and anything that undermines that one 'good point' about me has always been extremely difficult for me to cope with. This will all sound rather deranged to some people, I would imagine, but it's all part of what makes me, me, for good or ill. You readers out there can take me or leave me as you wish, but I can't escape from the shackles of my psyche. Would that I could.

Love & best wishes to all
Sammy B

Stay away, stay away! And the passing of an icon

My early shift tomorrow will be my last of the week, needing as I do to use up my handful of remaining annual leave days. I had been waiting for some feedback from my cousin and best friend in Manchester regarding a plan to visit him this week, but, sadly, pressure of work prior to an almost two week Christmas and New Year shutdown at his workplace means that he won't be able to get a day off to carouse with me - hopefully we'll be able to sort something out for a get together next month. While I was on the phone with him, though, there was a rather unexpected 'encounter', lasting a couple of minutes, which has reinforced an earlier feeling on my part, originally engendered by a comment of his which was, probably, meant lightheartedly. His youngest son is now seven, although I haven't seen the boy since he was four. My cousin, on the earlier occasion, when I was supposed to be staying overnight with his family, a visit which fell through due to work commitments on both our parts, said something along the lines of 'You'd better not touch J'. OK, maybe I deserve such reprimands, given my proclivities, but a seven-year old? I don't think even I'm that benighted - or, at least, I didn't, until tonight. Because I spoke to the boy, just for a few minutes, and he reminded me so much of his father, at that age, and a little older, his voice, with the same accent, his confidence in speaking to an adult he barely knows, his wider than average vocabulary suggesting a substantial degree of intelligence, the memory of how pretty he was the last time I saw him, and the promise of how he might well look in the not too distant future, given that he takes after his father in that department too, all combining to suggest to me that I really wouldn't want to get too close to such a potentially perfect little guy. Yeah, of course, I know it's all about self-control and doing the right thing, but not putting myself in the way of temptation seems to me to be a pretty good policy in the circumstances.
The words 'legend' and 'icon' are bandied about pretty loosely these days, but sometimes there is rather more justification for such appellations. Patrick Moore has been a part of the landscape of British life for as long as I can remember, in fact, for longer than I've been alive. I can't imagine how many people, young and old, he encouraged to take an interest in astronomy, and science in general, but it must run into the tens or hundreds of thousands. Having read his autobiography a few years ago, I have to say that some of his political views were pretty unpalatable, from my point of view - he was mixed up in recent years with UKIP, a party of fascists, racists and xenophobes, as far as I'm concerned - but none of that, for me, detracts from his positive contributions to science and the broadcasting of science. A true original, and one that will be sadly missed.

Love & best wishes to all
Sammy B

Girls, boys, trains, heartache

Sixteen hours and five minutes it took in the end. My day trip to Plymouth to my daughter's Christmas concert. The actual travelling took over ten hours, the return journey in particular being decidedly tortuous, although that was my fault, up to a point - had I left a quarter of an hour earlier, I'd have been back well over an hour sooner, but I decided to stay with my daughter until the last possible moment. In fact, I was seriously considering staying overnight in Plymouth at one point - I'd found a hotel room online - but the knowledge that I would have had to get up ridiculously early to allow enough time to avoid running the risk of being late for work today eventually put paid to that scheme.
The concert itself was much as expected, lots of seasonally themed music and a few Christmas carols, all performed reasonably competently, including my daughter's little contribution, accompanying a Hawaiian-style song on her ukulele. There were aspects of the event I was uncomfortable with, though - the afternoon performance I attended, while open to parents and family, was more for the school itself, so I was one of only a smattering of adults, surrounded by umpteen 11-18 year old girls. Some would find that kind of thing enjoyable, no doubt, but it wasn't my thing, at all - I felt decidedly out of place. I found myself distinctly annoyed, too, about the overt attempts by the minister of the church where the concert was held to proselytise a captive audience of, largely, children, in his introductory speech - the school has a fair number of pupils from a non-Christian background, apart from anything else, as well as, presumably, more than one atheist parent, so for the 'message' to be pushed quite so shamelessly at what was supposed to be a secular event was something I found distasteful. One or two of the songs got under my skin on a more personal level, too - one in particular, sung as a solo by one of my daughter's friends, on the theme of love, home and family, left me aching inside, and fighting back tears. Amongst other things, it's left me doubtful about whether to take up my brother's invitation to spend Christmas with his family - I can envisage myself having another meltdown on the scale of the one I had when I was down at their place just before my birthday. The contrast between what they have, and what I've lost, might be too much to cope with, and I don't want to spoil their Christmas by moping around like a wet weekend. I'll probably have a chat with my brother over the next few days.
Apart from the obvious pleasure of seeing and spending time with my daughter, there were some other bright spots, mostly involving cute boys. Getting off of the same train as me when I arrived at lunchtime were a group of four boys, ranging in age from 15/16 down to 11/12. The youngest boy, in particular, was an absolute cutie, but I'd have quite happily taken all four of them on, simultaneously if necessary! That seemed to set the tone - apart from my time at the church, with its deluge of girls, my meanderings around the city centre offered plenty of very palatable eye candy, and even on the very last train of the day, at almost midnight, I shared a carriage for ten minutes or so with an older teen, maybe 18 or 19, a guitar case strapped to his back, who was more than a little eye-catching. Not, of course, that he'd have been remotely interested in an old fart like me, even in the unlikely event of his being gay, but still pleasant to observe.

Love & best wishes to all
Sammy B

It's so predictable

And bloody tedious. A dusting of snow, hardly enough to even cover the ground, most of which has now melted, and the rail network descends into chaos. Looks like I'm going to have to set out for work at least half an hour earlier than normal to stand any chance of arriving on time, and tomorrow's trip to see my daughter and her concert might be in jeopardy, too. It's as though we've never had any winter conditions, in the whole history of the country, the way we seem to be completely incapable of dealing with something which, after all, happens virtually every year, and several times many years. No wonder the industry is a national joke, if a rather sick joke. 'The wrong kind of snow'. That's any bloody kind, apparently.
And while we're on the subject of predictability, of an equally tedious kind, the religious right's reaction to the Scouts considering the introduction of a secular oath falls squarely into that category. Let's cling to our unearned privilege, fuelled by worthless mythology, at all costs.

Love & best wishes to all
Sammy B

Christmas come early for Cameron & Co

I bet the bunch of fat cat nest-featherers masquerading as our government can hardly believe their luck. A royal baby on the way, to fill the newspapers and act as the opium of the masses for the next seven months or thereabouts, followed by no doubt daily updates on the infant's progress, first tooth, first step, first words, and so ad nauseum. In the meantime the Tories can get on with the serious business of enriching themselves and their vile asset-stripping paymasters at everyone else's expense while most of the rest of the country is distracted, awaiting every update from the Palace with bated breath. Cynical, moi?

Love & best wishes to all
Sammy B

Living my life the best I can

I finished work on a long break this evening, and I've taken the opportunity of my early escape to indulge myself with a visit to the pub in 'domicile-ville'. I've just overheard a conversation, between a group of slightly inebriated customers, that has left me more than a little reflective. One of the group was being criticised by one of the others, seemingly about something he'd posted on Facebook. His reply was to say 'I don't need your advice, I'm living my life the best I can'. All well and good, if you remain within the boundaries that society is prepared to tolerate. Once you take the smallest of steps outside those boundaries, though, you're immediately persona non grata, regardless of how good a person you are intrinsically. I guess that I'll appear to merely be feeling sorry for myself again, but I do find it frustrating, to say the least, that I'm likely to be judged by what people assume I will be like, given my attractions, rather than by the way that I actually live my life. Living the best I can isn't good enough for some.

Love & best wishes to all
Sammy B

Role model?

One of my work colleagues approached me this evening, not long before the end of the shift. I've been aware for a few weeks that he's going through the breakdown of his own marriage, and he knows - it's fairly common knowledge at work, although no-one, of course, knows the reason why - I've been in the same position in recent months. What threw me, though, was the nature of his request - he wants, seemingly, for me to advise him on how to deal with some aspects of his situation. Me, of all people, the man whose emotional life has been one long car crash since I was 12 or 13 years old, and who, in all honesty, has never got much beyond that age in terms of emotional maturity. It's on a par with asking Vlad the Impaler for advice on the humane treatment of prisoners of war. And it's not even as if I'm particularly good friends with him - we get along adequately, but I don't see him as anything other than a colleague, and I had no expectation of his attitude towards me being any different. I did make a comment about me not being any sort of a role model, but it didn't seem to deter him. I'm going to be working with him for most of the week, it seems, and it's not a prospect I'm particularly looking forward to, now. I suppose I'll just have to make it up as I go along, and hope I don't say anything that does more harm than good - and that I don't contrive to out myself.
There is a little unexpected light on the horizon, though - it looks like I'll be able to get down to Plymouth to see my daughter play her ukulele as part of her school's Christmas concert on Thursday afternoon, She originally told me it was on Tuesday, but she turned out to be mistaken - luckily, because Thursday is my only day off this week. I should be able to spend a couple of hours with her after the event, as well, so it's a definite win-win.

Love & best wishes to all
Sammy B

What's the collective noun....

....for a group of cute boys? There must have been a 'Baker Day' in some of the schools in the area where I work, because there were quite a few school age youngsters out and about in 'civvies' when I finished at lunchtime, most notably a group of four boys coming out of the station as I was going in, who were all pretty damn gorgeous, if too young. A pulchritudity of boys, I suggest!
Something odd is happening in connection with my blog at the moment - the post 'Oddities', from about a week ago, has, ironically enough given its title, received fifty or more views in the past couple of days. It wasn't anything out of the ordinary, so I would guess some web crawler or similar has got its claws into the post. Each to their own, I suppose.

Love & best wishes to all
Sammy B

Lucky, lucky boy

Here's something that will surprise my regular readers (brave souls as you are!) - a post with some good news in it!
The tale actually began after I finished work yesterday evening. I needed a few grocery items, so I briefly called into a supermarket near the station on the way to catching my train back. I was short of time, and rushing a bit, but I still remembered by 'eco-friendly' credentials, and fished a carrier bag out of my backpack to reuse. I shovelled my purchases into the bag, and made a rapid exit to the station, arriving on the platform with about two minutes to spare. I rang my daughter as the train was running in, as I hadn't had the chance to speak to her earlier in the evening, and spent virtually the whole 30 minute journey chatting to her, only ringing off as the train was arriving at 'domicile-ville' station. I picked up my shopping - and realised my backpack was missing. I'd taken it off of my shoulders to get the carrier bag, put it on the floor by the checkout while I was packing my shopping, and forgotten, in my haste, to pick it up again, and hadn't noticed my mistake until that moment. I was mortified - my nearly-new Kindle was in the bag, grievous enough a loss, but, even more significantly, it contained my medication as well, a situation which had the potential to cause me serious problems. It was too late to ring the supermarket by that time, as they would already have closed, so there was little I could do apart from heading back to my accommodation, castigating myself every step of the way.
I had little expectation, having left my bag in a West London supermarket, that I would ever see it again, but I rang the shop shortly after their advertised opening time this morning. After being bounced through a series of options offered by a 'virtual switchboard', I found myself talking to a voicemail box. Great. I left my message and my contact details, and gave them a couple of hours to respond. When I hadn't heard anything by 10:00, I tried to ring again, ended up at the same voicemail stage, only to hear 'the inbox is full, you are unable to leave a message, goodbye'. End of call. Bloody marvellous! Needless to say, my opinion of the supermarket concerned, and my mood, were pretty low at that stage, but I decided, far more in hope than expectation, to leave for work half an hour earlier than usual and go to the shop, just on the off chance that the bag had been handed in. I walked into the shop, went to the customer service desk, and, after having struggled for a minute or two to explain my problem to an employee whose native language evidently wasn't English, spoke to another, seemingly slightly more senior employee, who said 'Yes, we have the bag'. Five minutes later, I was walking out of the store, reunited with my bag, and with its contents intact. To say I was amazed is an understatement, but I remembered to be grateful - I thanked the supermarket staff profusely - and relieved, too. It's one of the few pieces of good luck I've had in all of this traumatic year, and all the more welcome for that. After all, it gets pretty boring if you lose all the time!

Love & best wishes to all
Sammy B

Incurable

If only I could wish it away, I'd do it in a heartbeat. It's like dragging a millstone around in my soul, all the time. And still they call it a choice.
I'm a hopeless case, there's no doubt about it.

Love & best wishes to all
Sammy B

I want to go home

All very well, apart from the fact that I haven't got one.
It hasn't, in all honesty, been a very good day. It's the last day of my time off - I'm due to get up at stupid o'clock for early turn in the morning - the weather has been vile all day, cold and unrelentingly wet, and, even by my standards, I've felt very isolated. On top of that, I seem to have come across all the rude, selfish arseholes in the western world, London at its uncaring worst. To say I'm homesick for Cornwall is putting it mildly, underlined by a number of reminders of my adoptive county, including a group of rugby fans up for the England international from the Falmouth area, as I deduced from the placenames they were quoting, and even a holiday magazine in a shop with the headline 'Beach Heaven' referring to the area. I've no idea what I can realistically do about it, given that my job is here, and if I did go back, I'd be effectively homeless, but in the face of many more days like today, I'd be sorely tempted to just pull the plug and go for it.

Love & best wishes to all
Sammy B

Oddities

It's been a rather strange day, all in all. Not in terms of how it began, or how I planned to spend it - I woke up at least an hour earlier than I ideally would have liked, was unable to get back to sleep again, and then got ready, a little earlier than anticipated, to head up to London - but in terms of what I encountered while I was out and about.
A couple of religionists were among the most odd of the oddities. The first was, perhaps, not quite fully compos mentis, as he began loudly reciting biblical extracts on the top deck of a bus, from the seat immediately behind me, as it happened, before being engaged in conversation by another man who identified himself as a 'born-again Christian'. Given that they were so close to me, and that the volume of the exchange was hardly less than the initial declamation, I couldn't help but hear them agreeing on the literal truth of every word of the bible, and that the 'end times' were upon us. I was sorely tempted to turn and ask them when they had last eaten shellfish, or worn clothing made of mixed fibres, and why, in the reasonable expectation that it would have been recently, they hadn't been stoned to death, but I managed to restrain the impulse, largely out of self-interest, I have to say - I wasn't really in the mood for the sort of discussion that probably would have ensued. Then, little more than an hour later, and apropos of nothing at all, I was approached near Marble Arch by another man, who said 'Hello, Jesus loves you', before quickly walking away without giving me the chance to respond. Just as well again, really, because I doubt that what came to mind would have pleased him, namely that whatever Jesus may or may not have thought, even taking into consideration the dubious premise that he existed at all, evidence suggests that many of his followers would, in the face of my being both gay and a fairly outspoken atheist, advocate that I should be killed, not exactly indicative of any sort of love.
Then this evening, as I visited one of my regular licensed haunts on the way back to 'domicile-ville', I found myself in another unaccustomed position, being drawn towards, at least in the sense of looking at, and even making eye contact with, a male who was well beyond the age of consent. He did have a certain boyish look about him, but he wasn't even one of the 'barely legal' individuals I occasionally come across, he must have been at least five years the 'legal' side of the line. Not, of course, that anything came of it - I'm still old, fat and unattractive, at the end of the day - but it was the sort of thing that makes me wonder what might happen if a confluence of circumstances resulted in my having to make an actual decision along those lines. It has never, consciously, been what I want, but who knows what is bubbling under the surface, especially in the wake of recent upheavals. Strange times.

Love & best wishes to all
Sammy B

Inertia

Here I am, sitting reasonably comfortably a few feet away from a nice fire (albeit a 'flame-effect' gas fire), having had an enjoyable, if rather larger than anticipated meal and a few beers. Faced with the dilemma of it getting fairly late, and still needing to get back to my domicile at some point, but of finding my current situation more than a little congenial, I'm having difficulty in finding the incentive to leave. Especially as all that's waiting for me at 'home' is my 15 by 8 'cell', and solitude. Maybe, as I said to my daughter when I spoke to her a little earlier, I should just curl up and hibernate right here. Someone wake me in the spring, please!

Love & best wishes to all
Sammy B

Weekender

For the first time since my last visit to our old home in Cornwall, the best part of six months ago, I've spent more than one night away from my accommodation in 'domicile-ville' this weekend, staying with my brother and his family in Kent. The main object of the exercise was to take my brother and sister-in-law for their birthday meal, postponed from September, and that was achieved, albeit not quite in the way that was originally envisaged. It looked for most of yesterday morning as though the outing was going to have to be rearranged again, because my sister-in-law wasn't feeling too well, but after a little rest, she declared herself well enough to go out for lunch, rather than the evening meal we'd had in mind. This turned out to be the first of two pieces of serendipity, because, after some prevarication as to where to go, we found ourselves in a village pub ten or so minutes drive from their house, and which has recently reopened under new management and of whose food good reports had been starting to emerge. And they were right, for once - the food was excellent, and not by any means overly expensive. It turned out to be one of the best pub meals I've had in years, and, more importantly, given that it was my joint birthday present to them, my guests had much the same opinion.
The second piece of good fortune was linked to the first in more ways than one. My sister-in-law had wanted to eat at lunchtime because, given her indifferent health, she didn't think she'd be up to a late night, which left my brother and I free to go out yesterday evening, and arrangements were soon made for us to meet up with some old friends of ours who I hadn't seen for a couple of years, one of them being my closest (non-related) female friend. I was a bit nervous about how she might react to my divorce and the reasons behind it, but she was so lovely and supportive, as I should have expected, as was her husband, who's also one of my oldest and closest friends. The evening as a whole was thoroughly enjoyable, and something I very much hope to repeat, sooner rather than later. So as not to leave the connection to lunchtime hanging, the previous time I'd been in the village pub where we'd eaten, which was several years ago, was to play in a pub quiz which marked the final ever appearance of an almost perfect quiz team line-up, including myself and my female friend, perfect because as well as all being good 'quizzers' in our own right, we covered each others' weaknesses in the subjects we were individually strongest in. Not only did that team never lose, we never even came close to losing. Nevermore, though, as spake the raven, because one of our number emigrated to Australia shortly after that match, and it's a bit far to  commute to a quiz!
Today has been rather quieter, a family day whose centrepiece was a very, very good Sunday lunch cooked by my brother, all most enjoyable, especially in comparison to my now rather habitually solitary lifestyle. A good weekend, all in all.

Love & best wishes to all
Sammy B

Happy Birthday, David

I wish you all you would wish for yourself.

((Hugs))

Love & best wishes

Sammy B

Falling out of love

Or not, as the case may be. I woke 90 minutes or so ago from a dream of my ex-wife, a dream in which we had reconciled and were about to remarry. It will never happen in actuality, in any foreseeable circumstances, but it's illustrative of what's going on in my subconscious. I wish, in a way, that I could fall out of love with her, because it would make the process of adjustment to my new situation so much easier, but I just can't. It's hardly a surprise, though - as I might have said somewhere before, I've never really fallen out of love with any of the people in my life I've had strong feelings towards, so the fact that the person who had meant the most, for the longest time, in my life is still embedded so deeply in my psyche is pretty predictable, in all honesty.

Love & best wishes to all
Sammy B

Meeting and meandering

I met up with my brother in North London yesterday, close to where he's taking a work-related course this week. We went out for drinks and something to eat, and it was all very congenial. The conversation was fairly wide-ranging, although almost any conversation would fall into that bracket compared to what my circumstances usually entail, helping to resuscitate my sociability quotient somewhat. He seemed to be keen to repeat the dose, possibly as early as today, but it seems that the workload of the course is rather more than he expected, so I reverted to solitary-ish meandering instead. Even though it was a school day, it wasn't a completely eye-candy free zone - one bus I was on was swamped by a large group of French tween/teens, presumably on some sort of educational trip, and one or two of them were very cute. At least sticking to 'window shopping' doesn't involve having to overcome any language barriers!

Love & best wishes to all
Sammy B

Chinese Whispers

I had an interesting conversation while I was on my break at work yesterday afternoon. I rang my cousin and best friend, because yesterday was his birthday, and I wanted to pass on my good wishes. He knows, of course, about my divorce and the reasons behind it, and about most of where I am in the aftermath. Others of his branch of the family seem to have acquired a different picture of events, though. He told me that his uncle had asked him what he knew about me walking out on my wife and daughter to go and live with another man. Whaaat?!, as my daughter said when I mentioned it to her later in the evening. A little more background, though, shed some light on where such a tale might have originated. My sister, who I, frankly, loathe and haven't spoken to for several years, had seemingly visited Manchester for a wedding, and had stayed with some of our relatives up there. Who had told her about my marital breakdown I don't know, but it certainly wasn't me, and I'd lay pretty good odds on it not being my ex-wife, either, so it looks as though she's heard something from somewhere, added two and two, come up with a good deal more than four, then decided to spread her version around anyway. That apart, it was good to talk to my cousin again, for half an hour or so, and catch up with our real-life news as well as the product of the rumour mill. It's one of those 'talking a good fight' scenarios, given that it's been proposed several times over recent months, but we've provisionally arranged for me to go to Manchester in the middle of next month and actually get together. I hope the plans finally do come together this time, because although we do speak on the phone semi-regularly, it's more or less exactly three years since I've seen him face-to-face, and a couple of years since I've been to Manchester at all. I wouldn't say I actively miss the place, but it is, just, still the area where I've spent the largest chunk of my adult life - thirteen years, as against twelve for Cornwall - and I did have some good times there.

Love & best wishes to all
Sammy B

Downtime

Yesterday was the last of seven early turns in a row, and, predictably enough, I was left feeling pretty tired by last night. Still, I've just got one late shift to work today, and then I'm off work for nearly a fortnight. I have got one or two things planned - I'll be meeting up with my brother tomorrow, all being well, as he's on a course in London this coming week, and I'll be going down to his place next weekend to take him and my sister-in-law out for their birthday meal, postponed from seven or eight weeks ago - but, for the most part, I'm mostly looking forward to simply chilling out and recharging my batteries. Whether that will come to fruition remains to be seen, but that's the plan at present.
Given that I didn't have to get up too early this morning, I went out for a few drinks after work yesterday, and was rewarded, if that's the right word, by a little eye candy - there was even one who was indisputably legal, as he produced the requisite ID and was served at the bar at one place I visited, but still decidedly boyish looking. Not that he was any more accessible to me than my usual cuties - he was with a good looking young lady - but it was something a little different, by my standards. The 'eye candy of the day' award went to a much more predictable candidate, though - an 11/12 year old boy, waiting with his parents for the same train as me as I headed back to 'domicile-ville' last night. Blond, cute, playful, just irresistible, from my point of view. Irresistible, but as out of reach as if he lived on Mars. FML.

Love & best wishes to all
Sammy B

D - Day

D-i-v-o-r-c-e day, that is. As of around 10:00 this morning, I'm officially a single man again, after a couple of weeks short of 19½ years of marriage. I was at work when the deed was done, and I was really too busy to get overly stressed by the goings on 200 or so miles away in a Plymouth court, despite my fearing yesterday that I might end up having some sort of meltdown. Thinking about it rationally, who would have gained by my cracking up? No-one, as far as I can see. It certainly wouldn't have changed anything - my ex-wife, as she now is, had, with hindsight, decided within minutes, if not seconds, of my coming out to her in February that the marriage was over, and once she gets an idea in her head, it's virtually unshakable.
What none of the foregoing answers, though, is what I do now. The two things I want most are, in one case, as close to unobtainable as makes almost no difference, and in the other, could involve deeply upsetting, and possibly completely alienating, the one person I've now got left in my life to whom it really matters whether I live or die. I wish I had an easy answer, or even a relatively difficult one, rather than the intractable maze I seem to be trapped in at the moment.

Love & best wishes to all
Sammy B

Appalling

I don't comment on stories like this very often, because I'm well aware it leaves me open to charges of hypocrisy, but this case is one that I find just as horrifying as anyone else undoubtedly would. A young boy being abducted, abused and threatened in this way is atrocious, heartbreaking and unforgivable. I really hope the boy concerned (and also the girl who was abducted but seemingly not abused, to judge by the report) gets all the help he needs to recover from his trauma. It's difficult, in many cases, for me to castigate anyone, having the desires that I have, but I have nothing but revulsion for this offender and his crimes. This is the sort of case that adds fuel to the flames of hatred of anyone who is attracted to younger people, but I hope people can understand that few with those attractions would ever do anything like this. I know I'm part of the same 'spectrum' as this man, and many would say I was little, if at all, better than him, but the things he did to that boy are as far from anything I would ever want to do as I can imagine.

Love & best wishes to all
Sammy B

Who am I trying to convince?

Myself, probably. I've been thinking about the past week, and the time my daughter and I spent in and around London, and it occurred to me that many, if not most, of the cuties who caught my eye were decidedly at the younger end of my 'age of attraction' scale. There was one in particular, on Thursday morning in Regent Street, a boy of around 11, who, apart from his hair colour, which was a sort of autumnal reddish-brown, was so like DBJ at that age, utterly beautiful, but he was just the cream of a largish crop of boys of that age, and even a little younger, who I found my gaze drawn towards. When this sort of phase, and these things do seem, for whatever reason, to run in phases, has happened before, it has often led to my plumbing the depths of self-loathing, of buying into the propaganda and thinking of myself as nothing more than a totally worthless paedophile deserving of nothing other than revulsion and contempt. And there would be many people who, I have little doubt, would say that's exactly what I am, but, on this occasion, not myself. Because, ultimately, I'm only looking, with no conscious intention of enacting my desires. Maybe it's easy to say that in the absence of any more concrete temptation, of any access to a boy of that age, but I really believe that I wouldn't engage so young a boy sexually, both for his sake and mine, his because while I certainly would never, ever knowingly hurt a boy physically, I could and probably would hurt him emotionally, and I wouldn't ever want that, either, and mine, because I really have no ambition to spend my declining years in jail, as a member of the most hated, lowest of the low, class of criminal. I feel, despite what the haters might think, that I have a moral sense, and that includes not doing anything sexual without informed consent, consent derived from genuine knowledge of what was proposed and the motivations behind it. I still don't believe that a young person has to necessarily be 16 (based on the age of consent in this country) to be able to make that decision, but I can't imagine that more than a tiny handful of those as young as the beautiful boy I saw the other day would have the capacity to realistically weigh the issues and decide for themselves. So, as long as I just look, admire, but otherwise leave the objects of my attraction sacrosanct, while I'm not claiming to be a good person, I can't believe I'm irredeemably bad, either.

2300 edit: On my way back from work, I saw another mind-manglingly cute boy leaving 'worktown' station as I was arriving there. And, almost needless to say, he was another one around the 11-ish mark. This week certainly seems to have had a theme.

Love & best wishes to all
Sammy B

The last goodbye?

I've just seen my daughter off at the station, on her way back to Cornwall. It's unlikely, unless something unexpected happens, that I'll see her again this year. I suggested that she could come and stay with me at Christmas, but she's made it clear she doesn't want to. She might well be going to another meet-up with her internet friends on December 27, though, so it's obviously a case of knowing my place, and my significance to her. Much the same as her mother, really, keep my nose to the grindstone and keep the money rolling in, at least until the financial vultures get their grasping hands on it, or I drop dead, or both. And, at the risk of sounding revoltingly selfish, what do I get? Fuck all. As per usual. What the fuck do I carry on doing it for? Self-sacrifice is one thing, self-immolation is quite another.

Love & best wishes to all
Sammy B

Doing the right thing

My daughter and I were out and about in London again yesterday, doing a couple of things she wanted to do, more or less touristy things, and just meandering around seeing the sights. And talking. Which led to me doing what I try not to do when she's around, and falling into a very low moment, thinking about the 'What do I next?' question that's been in my mind for the past week or so. The problem is that whatever I do, someone is going to get hurt, badly. If I follow my heart, and go to Gran Canaria, my daughter is going to be hurt. If I follow my head, and stay, carrying on doing my well-paid but thoroughly unloved job, living alone in my hermit's cell, and with the possible additional issue of having most of whatever money I do earn taken away by the financial vultures, I'm undoubtedly going to be hurt, maybe to the point of finding it all intolerable, which would, of course, rebound on my daughter.
The specific thought that almost reduced me to tears yesterday afternoon was one of those unanswerable questions that sometimes spring to mind. How, despite trying for 20 years and more to do the right thing by those I love, of suppressing my real self and working myself to the point of ill-health, how, after all that, can it all have gone so wrong? And now, when there's almost nothing left, can I bring myself once more to sacrifice what I want for the benefit of someone else, albeit the person I love more than anyone in the world? I wish I knew the answer, because I most assuredly don't.

Love & best wishes to all
Sammy B

A rhetorical question answered, probably

I'd said to my daughter that I wanted to talk to her during her current stay about the implications of my possibly moving to Spain, and we did just that yesterday evening, once we'd met up again after her having spent the afternoon with one of her London-based internet friends. Her reaction was pretty clear, really - it was evident that she was quite upset by the idea of my disappearing over the horizon more or less permanently. While she doesn't have an absolute veto on my moving, which I made clear to her, she is really all that I've got left after the implosion of my life in recent months, and I love her to bits, so, although no irrevocable decisions have been made, it doesn't seem likely that I'll be leaving the country any time soon. Whether I carry on as I am, or try to find something more congenial here, most notably whether I can find a scenario that could see me move back to Cornwall, remains to be seen, but it looks like Gran Canaria is off the agenda, at least for now. Ironically enough, we went on from the pub where we had our chat to eat in a tapas bar, and very nice it was, too. A taste of Spain, if nothing else.

Love & best wishes to all
Sammy B

A long day, and a new toy

I've been on a long day trip to Cornwall today, leaving 'domicile-ville' before 8:00 this morning, and not arriving back until almost 6:00, simply to get hold of a prescription for my medication, given that I haven't got around to registering with a GP in Surrey yet. If I needed any further incentive, today's ten hour round trip has probably done the trick - it wasn't much fun at all. One of the few saving graces was a couple of Cornish cuties, including one utterly stunning 12/13 year old boy on the bus back to the mainline station for my return journey. If he'd had slightly darker hair, he could have been the 'model' for my mental picture of Cammy in Optimal and Diary. Breathtaking, literally, as he glanced at me as I was getting ready to get off the bus, no doubt having noticed that I was taking more than a passing interest in him on the journey.
The other item which rescued my trip today from being completely insufferable was my new toy. I haven't bought myself any 'new technology' for ages, apart from upgrading my phone a year or so ago, but that was pretty urgent, as the old one had started to crash randomly, and eventually died altogether, but I couldn't resist on this occasion, especially after I picked up a couple of hundred pounds more in my most recent pay packet last Friday than I was expecting. I went out yesterday and treated myself to a Kindle Fire HD, a sort of early Christmas present to myself, I suppose, and it's a pretty impressive piece of kit. The only downside is that it can only be connected to the net through WiFi, and while its performance when it is connected is most impressive, that's of no relevance when you haven't got access to WiFi, as is the case here at my accommodation. Still, I've no doubt it will be well used when I'm out and about - I've already got an account to use the free WiFi in Wetherspoons pubs, the deluge of junk e-mails I'll probably receive from them being a small price to pay for not ruining my eyesight still further by trying to read web content on the relatively tiny screen of my phone!
And my girl arrives in London in around 15 hours time. I can't wait!

Love & best wishes to all
Sammy B

Nearly there, and a traveller

This week of nights has dragged a bit, but it is finally coming to its conclusion, just tonight's shift (with a 'bonus' extra hour to work because of the clocks going back, oh joy!) to go before I get into my time off. The five day break will be pretty busy, though, because I have to make a flying visit to Cornwall on Monday, before meeting up with my daughter in London at lunchtime on Tuesday. My mileage is going to be rather dwarfed by hers this coming week, though, because the girl is currently in Birmingham, having travelled up there during the day today, staying overnight with her aunt before going on to Cumbria tomorrow morning. She'll be doing some extra miles when she's up there, too, because the friend she's staying with lives quite some distance away from the town where she's arriving - in a different county, in fact - so it's a good job she seems to have inherited my 'wanderlust' genes, and maybe my ability to navigate around railway timetables, too!

Love & best wishes to all
Sammy B

Cultural hysteria

This post appeared in my blog reading list overnight, and I saw it not long after it was published, being in the midst of a quiet few minutes at work as I was, so I've had plenty of time to consider its implications. It seems to me to be evidence of a degree of paranoia in society about the issue of 'paedophilia' (I use the word in quotes because I consider it to be, in terms of current usage as opposed to its correct dictionary definition, one of the most misused in the whole English language) which is rapidly becoming indistinguishable from cultural hysteria. A number of issues seem to me to be raised by the post, which I'll attempt to address separately - from my own perspective, of course.
First of all, the question raised by the post title, 'Is it the same as underage pornography?'. My understanding of the word 'pornography' is the definition given in Wikipedia, 'the explicit portrayal of sexual subject matter'. If that definition is accepted, then pictures of children playing football, or any other sport, are unequivocally not pornographic. If, however, the meaning of the word is extended to include any image that may conceivably be used by someone for purposes of 'sexual gratification' then, although this may be seen by some to be a reductio ad adsurdum, no image of any child in any situation is permissible, because there might always be a person that could use an image in that way. And that doesn't just mean photographs, it means any portrayal of a child in any film or television programme, any artwork, ancient or modern, even cartoons - it's already illegal in many jurisdictions, including the UK, to possess sexually explicit cartoon images of minors, even though the characters are completely fictional, do not exist and have never existed, except in an artist's imagination. Given that, amongst other things, attractive children are used by advertisers to attempt to induce people to buy everything from cat food to holidays, I can't imagine that such a broad definition of 'child pornography' is ever likely to be enacted, but if that's the case, who draws the arbitrary line between what constitutes pornography and what does not?
Another point regards the taking of 'unauthorised' images of children in public places, whether surreptitiously or openly. If this is deemed to be unacceptable, where does that leave the status of the literally millions of CCTV cameras monitoring seemingly everyone and everything in this country, some even, according to a recent report I read, installed in the changing rooms and toilets of certain UK schools? Is the suggestion that children should be prevented from appearing in public at all? Raising a generation of children and young people with no experience of interacting with the 'outside world' hardly seems to me to be conducive to a healthy society. As was stated in one of the comments to the original post, many children have been so inured with 'stranger danger' that they are terrified of any contact at all with any adult they don't know, and, conversely, many adults would never approach a child not known to them, no matter how great the danger or distress the child might be in, for fear of being accused of molestation. And the sad irony is that study after study has shown that around 90% of all sexual abuse of children is perpetrated by people, family members, friends and acquaintances, or authority figures, already known to the child.
Returning to the suggestion made in the original post that the sporting pictures were intended to be used for sexual gratification, even if the assertion is true, I would ask 'Who is harmed?'. If the children concerned are not aware of either the pictures being taken, or the 'nefarious' use to which they might be put, or both, in what way is any such child damaged? My daughter has posted (completely non-pornographic) pictures of herself in cyberspace. If someone saw them and used them to fuel a masturbation fantasy of some kind of which she was totally unaware, how would she be harmed? I've never taken pictures of children not personally known to me, but, given my status as a self-confessed boylover, I will admit to having used my 'mental photograph album', my memories, particularly of DBJ, in the privacy of my bedroom. Given that I never even approached him, still less molested him, in actuality, does this admission mean that I've violated him in some way? If so, how?
No-one, of any age or gender, should be subjected to unwanted sexual advances or any kind of non-consensual sexual contact, but the balance between protection and infringement of individual freedom seems to me to be in danger of tipping too far in the direction of the authoritarian, 'Big Brother', version of society. Freedoms are hard-won, and all too easily lost.

Love & best wishes to all
Sammy B

¿Debería ir allí?

The past 24 hours have found me musing at some length on that very question (albeit not in Spanish!). Should I, could I, given the impending renewal of my single status, do what I almost did a couple of months before I first met my wife, and go to Spain, specifically to Gran Canaria. But for one consideration, it might not be a very hard decision to make. I really haven't got very much left to hold me back - except, of course, my daughter. I don't see very much of her now, but it would be pretty difficult to put myself in a position where I effectively wouldn't see her at all. It's not something I'm going to be able to decide on overnight, and nor should I, but if there is going to be anything for me in any of this fiasco masquerading as my life, I definitely feel I might be more likely to find it on 'my desert island' than in this benighted country. Dare I?

Love & best wishes to all
Sammy B

Unreasonable behaviour

Guilty as charged, apparently. Not that I've actually been asked anything by anyone, apart from a few questions on a standard questionnaire, but this exhaustive judicial process has deemed that 'the facts found proved being the Respondent's unreasonable behaviour'. Unreasonably being faithful to my wife since the day I met her, unreasonably sticking to my marriage vows, unreasonably working all hours to provide for my wife and our daughter, unreasonably suppressing my real self for over twenty years. Sentenced, as of two weeks tomorrow, to becoming an ex-husband, nearly half of my life consigned to the dustbin of history.
I knew there was a reason why I should've stuck to boys.

Love & best wishes to all
Sammy B

Vividity, and resurrecting Resurrection

For no particularly obvious reason, I've been having a series of unconnected, but markedly vivid dreams over the past few days. I've dreamed of being involved in the filming of a Time Team-style programme in an old country house, of walking on a waterlogged path beside a unidentifiable preserved, steam hauled railway (a pretty unlikely scenario, given my lack of interest in steam trains, and even greater lack of interest in getting my feet wet!), and, oddest of all, perhaps, I had a very lengthy and detailed heterosexual erotic dream. Given my recent life experiences, I can't imagine much I would be less likely to get involved with at the moment than a sexual relationship with another woman. Dreams are unaccountable things, of course, but it seems that my subconscious is following some odd byways at the moment.
I have a story, in draft in the post list of Nephelokokkygia. It's been sloshing around, in one form or another, since before I even had a blog, something like three years. I keep going back to it, reading what I've written, tinkering about with minor bits and pieces, but never really progressing it beyond the 'middle' it reached something like two years ago. I'd really like to finish it, somehow. I have thought of a pretty major plot twist in the last 24 hours, but will it be enough to resurrect Resurrection? I'm not giving any written guarantees, that's for sure.

Love & best wishes to all
Sammy B

Crumbs from the table

As I prepare, in an hour or so, to leave for work to embark on another week of nights, I've been trying to look for the positives in my present situation. At the risk of descending into yet another misery fest, I have to say that there are precious few. The only potentially good thing in the near future is that when I finish my last night shift, next Sunday morning, I'll be heading into five days off, of which, unless there are any changes of plan, I'll be spending two and a half with my daughter - the current version of half term week sees her arriving in London (after her visit to Cumbria/Northumbria) mid-afternoon on Tuesday week, and heading back to Cornwall on Friday morning. That apart, things are as grey as the weather has been in recent days. Autumn in the air, matched by autumn in my life, seemingly. I guess I need to take what crumbs of comfort I can, because it looks like being a long winter, literally and figuratively.

Love & best wishes to all
Sammy B

Wreckage

On the way back from work this afternoon, less than five minutes away from my accommodation, I unexpectedly came upon a cute boy, 13 or 14. Why he wasn't in school, I don't know, but it was evidently 'official', because he was with a woman who appeared to be his mother. I looked at him, as is my wont, and he looked back, for a second or two, before quickly turning away. Not that I expected any more interest from him, but once I got indoors, and happened to see my reflection in the mirror, I could easily see why he would have averted his gaze. Looking back at me was an old, tired, unshaven face, wild-haired, given my aversion to haircuts, and looking haggard through insufficient sleep and the pain in my foot, another dose of gout having reared its head in the past 24 hours. I doubt the pain in my psyche helped the impression much, either, the look of a person whose spirit has more or less been broken by all that's happened in the recent past, but also going much further back, to the boy who could never dare to be himself, too afraid of the consequences, of what others would think, who chose instead to hide. But the one person you can never hide from is yourself. And then one day, you look in the mirror, and all that's left is the wreckage of a life, smashed beyond repair.

Love & best wishes to all
Sammy B

So much

It was nice seeing my daughter yesterday, and it will only be two weeks until I see her again, at half term. But it underlined, once more, where I am now. I miss her so much, I miss Cornwall so much, and, specific to this trip, I was hoping so much, slender as that hope might have been, to see DBJ. But that, I guess is typical of my life. So much lost, so much out of reach, forever.

Love & best wishes to all
Sammy B

Let's don't go there

Much as I'm looking forward to seeing my daughter on Sunday, I'm finding myself daydreaming as much, if not more, about the prospects of chancing upon DBJ. There are a number of reasons, if I'm rational about it, why this is a terrible idea. The most obvious is that it very probably won't happen, but there are others that might well come into play if I did see him - he'll be 15, going on 16 now, and my image of him as my perfect boy could be tarnished by seeing a more 'grown-up' version, and, even more likely, if I did find the opportunity and courage to speak to him, the result would be the kind of disinterested rejection that I dreamed, and blogged about ages ago. There's no reason, of course, why his reaction should be any different - even if he remembered/recognised me, there was never any real connection between us before, just my dreams and fantasies. For all that, though, it's so hard to let go of the tenuous hope that we could connect in some way. That's what unrequited love can do to you, I guess.

Love & best wishes to all
Sammy B

Impromptu

Half an hour or so ago, I was contemplating another Sunday mooching about rather aimlessly in London, but now I'm going to Cornwall to see my daughter instead. And not only that, I've booked accommodation for the night in the small town where I used to work, so there's always the slim, very slim hope that I might see DBJ, too. Whether seeing him would be positive or negative is difficult to say. It's probably academic, anyway, because I'm pretty sure he and his family have moved. Seeing my daughter will definitely be good, though, even if it is only for an afternoon.

Love & best wishes to all
Sammy B

Emptiness

I've been reflecting a little more on the implications of the stories I linked to yesterday, which seem to me to boil down to religionists attempting to impose their worldview on the next generation, if necessary by intimidation of or even death to any who dare to think for themselves. If conformity has to be enforced by fear, surely that is an admission by the enforcers that their philosophy is devoid of intrinsic merit, because if it was self-evidently 'the best way to live', then people would follow its tenets voluntarily. Atheists are often accused of living empty, pointless lives, but what is empty or pointless about using intelligence and reason to attempt to make sense of the universe, rather than relying on the infantilising credo of 'God did it, and that's just how it is, no need for further explanation', the philosophical equivalent of the parents' 'because I said so' justification for instructions to their offspring. Most of the advances made by humanity over the millennia have been instigated by individuals 'thinking outside the box', not by those slavishly following what went before. John Wyndham wrote this (of  'the Old People') in The Chrysalids: 'They learnt to co-operate constructively in small units; but only destructively in large units.'. That seems to me to be a pretty good summary of the deleterious effect of religion on society. Let it be consigned to the dustbin of history, in my opinion, and let's make a new, better thing, based on reason rather than blind faith.

Love & best wishes to all
Sammy B

Just when you thought they couldn't get any more insane....

....the fundamentalists prove you wrong. When I first read this post, I thought it had to be a spoof, but I followed one of the links, and did a follow-up Google search, and it appears to be genuine - at least, if it is a spoof, I'm not the only one to have fallen for it. As I think I've asked before somewhere, doesn't the US have laws against inciting violence, or to protect children from this kind of lunacy? If so, why isn't this cretin behind bars? And, in the ultimate irony, this politician is described in one of the articles I came across as 'pro-life'. Yeah, I know that phrase is a euphemism for 'treat women as chattels and brood mares, and certainly not as autonomous human beings', but still. I'd like to say 'utterly unbelievable', but, sadly, it's all too believable, and there will no doubt be many who would readily vote for nightmarish theocrats like this pitiful excuse for a human being.

1600 edit: And the very next post at the same site goes to show that Christianity has far from cornered the market in vile, dangerous fundamentalist stupidity.

Love & best wishes to all
Sammy B

What to say?

I'm in one of those moods that comes upon me from time to time, sitting in front of the computer keyboard, feeling that I want to write something, but not really knowing what. It's not as if I haven't discussed the issues that I find important in my life, fifty times over, I guess, pretty much ad nauseum, really. My life situation doesn't change substantively from day to day, not least because I don't engage in many activities, if any, that might facilitate such a change. The news of the day is that there is no news, because all I've done is work, staying on this morning to cover the first part of an early shift after one of my colleagues rang in sick, sleep, do my washing and cook myself a meal. Hardly earth shattering stuff. Routine. One of those insignificant, forgettable days, that make up many people's lives, I suppose, not just mine. It seems such a waste, really, given how pitifully short, in absolute terms, human lives are, that so many of our limited supply of days are taken up by nothing more than the mechanistic process of everyday life, and for what? To earn enough money to repeat the same, vapid experience tomorrow, next week, next month, next year. In those terms, it seems like a circular argument, a pointless exercise. But how to break the cycle, and make life more worthwhile, or at least to give the impression of being more worthwhile? I don't have the answer, because if I had, I would enact it. Or would I? Risk aversion is almost an instinct. Cling to the familiar, even if for no reason other than that it is familiar. Safe. The anodyne low road, but still a road that leads to the grave, ultimately.
The question is not just what to say, but what to do? The problem is that I don't know.

Love & best wishes to all
Sammy B

Quiet Sunday

After the 'outing and abouting' of the past few days, I've had a pretty quiet day today. I did venture along to the end of the road for some grocery shopping at lunchtime, but that has been the extent of my interaction with the outside world. Part of that is because I'm starting my latest night shift week tonight - I'll be leaving for work in just over an hour - but I was also pretty tired this morning, not helped by the fact that I was woken by a phone call from work at 7:00, asking me to go in for an extra shift. I blearily declined, not least because, without a car and with an engineering work closure affecting the train service until mid-afternoon, the round trip 'commute' would've taken about four hours! Unwelcome as my 'alarm call' was, though, it proved to have a hidden benefit in that I was able to top up my sleep this afternoon to the tune of around three hours, so I'll at least be starting the night week feeling reasonably fresh.
I spoke to my daughter earlier on, as we began to plan getting together during her half-term holiday at the end of the month. I've got most of the week off, so she'll probably come up here for a few days, although she has got the possibility of a visit to a friend in Northern England in the offing as well, so nothing has been finalised yet. I just hope I get to have a couple of days of quality time with her - of all the things that have been lost in this year's upheavals, not seeing my daughter on a regular basis has been perhaps the most difficult for me. Yes, I speak to her on the phone most days, but it's not the same.
I've posted another little story in Nephelokokkygia today, and its genesis was quite interesting, in a way. The train of thought that led to words on a computer screen was set in motion by nothing more than smelling a fragrance in a West London pub yesterday evening. Strange how these things work, sometimes.

Love & best wishes to all
Sammy B

If I could choose a friend....

....I came across a candidate this afternoon. I went on 'eye candy patrol' around West London after work, without a great deal of success, almost all of the cuties I saw being markedly too young, even for my tastes. One, though, caught my attention for reasons other than carnal. He was one of a group of three boys who joined the bus I was on a mere couple of hundred yards from where I used to live in my first sojourn in the metropolis, thirty years ago. They were all roughly the same age, 11-ish, but the one I noticed was the smallest, and possibly the youngest. He was without doubt, though, the leader of his little 'gang'. He had attitude, but in the right sort of way, full of bounce and self-confidence, maybe a hint of mischief and devilment, but nothing that seemed malicious. The sort of boy I really like, and not for any salacious reasons, but just simply because of the sense of joie de vivre, the capacity for fun that boys of that age can have in full measure. Not, needless to say, that it would ever happen, but I would have loved to have been able to make some sort of connection with him. Another ship passed in the night, or the afternoon, as the case may be.

Love & best wishes to all
Sammy B

Perspective

You think you're in a bad place, and maybe, in absolute terms, you are. But then you find out that someone you care very much about is in an even worse place. And it seems so selfish to think of your own issues. Oh, for a magic wand, or a genie's lamp, to make it all right. But they only exist in fairy tales. Real life is far crueller.

Love & best wishes to all, and most of all to David
Sammy B

Gone

My daughter's Tumblr has disappeared from cyberspace. She didn't mention it when I was talking to her an hour or so ago, so I don't know whether she's deleted it herself, or whether Tumblr have taken offence at something she's posted and nuked it. Her blog's demise seems to underline something I've been thinking about this afternoon and evening - I've been looking back through some of the early comments people left on my blog, going back to its first, 'Semicentennial', incarnation. Comments left by people, and about people, who are no longer around in Blogland, for various reasons. It's only two and a half years ago, but it almost seems like a whole different life, in some ways. It was all new to me then, and there seemed, at least with some people, to be a genuine sense of connection, of something greater than the sum of its parts, but that feeling began to wane, abruptly, with the realisation that one particular blog, rather central to 'our' corner of cyberspace, wasn't what it purported to be. 'Firsts' always tend to stick in the memory, for obvious reasons, I suppose - first love, first heartbreak....first betrayal. It's not the same now. Much that was worthwhile doesn't appear to me to be present anymore. Gone. But not forgotten.

Love & best wishes to all
Sammy B

War effort

I've just been reading Jay's latest post, about his dad and his wartime service. Jay is justifiably proud of his dad, and it's nice that their country has recognised the contribution his dad made. I couldn't help feeling a little bitterness, though, about the contrast between that story, and how my dad's contribution to the war effort, and his subsequent working life seems to have been viewed by 'the establishment' over here. My dad was a coal miner, from leaving school at the age of 14 until he took early retirement at 59. He began his career in 1940, and was then effectively 'conscripted' into the industry, with no option to leave and pursue any other career, until 1952, by which time, hardly surprisingly, knowing nothing else, he opted to stay on. When he retired in 1985, he didn't receive as much as a letter of thanks for his lifetime working underground, and when he died less than a year later, the final indignity was that my mum, because she was still working herself, and earning more than some arbitrary threshold, had her widow's free coal allowance taken away. My dad didn't seek any recognition for himself, he just saw himself as an average working man, but I'm still proud of him, quite apart from the fact that he was just about the nicest man I've ever met, even allowing for filial bias.

Love & best wishes to all
Sammy B

Two choices

If we accept you're not bad, then you must accept that you're mad. Not that great a bargain, in my opinion. A friend kindly sent me a link to this article, and while I have to admit that it's rather more empathetic than most written on the subject, I was disappointed that there was such a focus on the 'treatment' of a 'mental illness'. Why can't people accept that those like me, attracted to boys (or, by the same token, my counterparts attracted to girls) aren't necessarily either inherently bad or mentally ill. We're just people who, through some unfathomable permutation of nature and nurture, have to contend with desires that the vast majority of the world at large consider unconscionable. It isn't, certainly in my case, and I suspect in most, any sort of a choice, and it isn't something I can voluntarily change, because if I could, I most assuredly would. As the article suggested, there is mental illness, and there is suicide, but I believe that much of it comes from without rather than within, born of the relentless tide of hatred we face, the endless chorus accusing us of monstrosity and worthlessness. If you hear these things repeated day after day, year after year, from the likes of the pundit quoted in the article, the desire for us to be completely isolated from society, if not killed out of hand, it's pretty hard sometimes not to believe the propaganda. When even those who try to understand and search for solutions are subjected to hate mail, the chances of anything changing in any foreseeable future seem very remote indeed. And, as a result, those who are attracted to minors have no option but to hide, until, in some cases, the loneliness and frustration overwhelms the dams of self-control, and a child is hurt, or worse. The haters, often, have blood on their hands, in my opinion.

Love & best wishes to all
Sammy B

Right, wrong, and who decides?

Another news story has had widespread coverage in the past few days, of a 15 year old girl who appears to have 'eloped', to use an old fashioned word, to France with her maths teacher. Several issues seem to be raised by the case. There are obvious ones such as the age of consent and 'positions of trust', and these have and will be discussed at length, no doubt, but less superficial aspects have also come to my mind. If the girl was substantially younger, say 11 or 12, there would be very little moral ambiguity, but, to judge by the photograph I've seen of her on a news website this morning, this is far more a young woman than a child, certainly in a biological sense - I'd be very surprised indeed if she's not of 'child-bearing age'. And that reproductive maturity would have been enough, for much of human history, and, indeed, would still be in many contemporary societies, to legitimise the relationship. By the standards of this society, 21st century Britain, though, the relationship, even if completely consensual, is judged to be 'wrong', and I have very little doubt that if the man returns to the UK, he will be imprisoned in pretty short order, and probably dubbed a 'paedophile' to boot, even if that word bears no resemblance to the physiological realities of the situation. There is always talk of 'protecting children' in connection with this kind of case, and I have no reservation in saying that young people should be protected from unwanted sexual approaches, and certainly from anything non-consensual, but I often wonder how much of the 'outrage' expressed is really to do with protection - I rather think a lot of it, with young people of this age, is far more to do with control, with lèse-majesté, the parents' and other authority figures' assumed 'right' to dictate how their offspring/charges should live their lives. When I was in Norfolk the other weekend, and discussing the implications of my being a boylover with my friend, one of the arguments he put forward to support his assertion that my attractions, if expressed, were 'wrong' was of how I would feel if my daughter became involved with an older person. 'You would be livid' was his take on the matter. Well, no actually, certainly not automatically. While I would be furious if my daughter was subjected to anything to which she hadn't given consent - and equally furious if she instigated anything non-consensual herself, for example with someone younger - at her current age, closer to 15 than 14, and possessed of a considerable degree of maturity for that age, I have no doubt that she would be able, in many circumstances, to decide for herself what she wanted, and be able to say 'yes' or 'no' accordingly. I'm not suggesting for a moment that I would encourage her to have a sexual relationship at her age, but if it was clear that that was what she was intending to do, I would consider my duty of care to comprise not of locking her in her room in a chastity belt, but of trying to ensure that anything that did happen was undertaken as safely as possible. Yes, I would go and buy condoms, or whatever, for her, if that was what she needed. Ultimately, she's an individual, an autonomous person, and I view my parental role as that of caretaker, not dictator.
So, once again, a topic without easy answers, in my opinion. Whatever else, I hope that this young woman, and her older partner, end by being both safe, as a first priority, and happy. The latter, though, is much more doubtful, sadly.

Love & best wishes to all
Sammy B

Stereotypes

Everybody, virtually, is guilty of it. I know I am, when I think about certain groups of people. Having a stereotypical image of who they are, how they are likely to behave. One of my colleagues fell into the trap at work last night. He was talking about visiting a bar that he hadn't been to for some considerable time, to find that it had morphed into a gay meeting place. He said, as though utterly astonished by the revelation, 'they don't all wear leather caps and fake moustaches'. Straight away I thought, no, they don't - there's one sitting fifteen feet away from you, doing the same job, wearing his Aussie Rules polo shirt and jeans, and you've got no idea at all of what's beneath the surface. People are people, and one aspect of their life doesn't define who they are. And I would do as well to remember that as anyone else.

Love & best wishes to all
Sammy B