The deed is done

I went into work an hour early today to sort out my application for the job back at 'home', and it has now winged its way, electronically, off to the HR mob in Manchester. The ball is now in the court of the Devon and Cornwall management of my employer, as to whether they think I'm the person they want for the job, or not. I have had a couple of wobbles since midweek about whether it was even worth me applying, given the way things have gone with this job in the past, but, as I said to my daughter earlier, I do ideally want to go back, if it's at all possible, so to not even try would have been something akin to a surrender.
Today's beginning of British Summer Time hasn't done anything to improve the weather - it snowed again as I was walking back from the station this evening, albeit only a brief flurry - but at least it marks the start of lighter evenings, which is never a bad thing in my book. I'm sure it will warm up, eventually - won't it?!

Love & best wishes to all
Sammy B

Contrasts, and a pretext

On the equivalent day of last year, the last Saturday in March, I was sitting outside 'work-town' Wetherspoons in shirtsleeves, catching some rays. Today, it snowed, albeit not for very long, but the precipitation was indicative of the temperature. There's been quite a lot of nonsense spoken about climate change as a result of the roughly 15°C difference in temperature from this time last year - this isn't climate, it's weather, which is not the same thing at all - but, for all that, this extension of winter, as I said a few days ago, isn't at all welcome.
Another contrast from twelve months ago is around my personal situation. Then, I was emotionally shot to pieces, in the fairly immediate aftermath of the infamous phone call, but relatively healthy physically, whereas today, I'm feeling almost diametrically opposite that position, my physical health is, frankly, crap, while my emotional state is pretty neutral, not an issue of much note at all.
While I was out and about this afternoon, on a bus route I hadn't travelled on before, I passed a pub. It just happened to be the pub where the start of this video was shot - I knew the pub was in London, but I was under the impression it was in a completely different area. Which gives me the pretext to post the video itself, and share one of my favourite records ever with the world.

Love & best wishes to all

Sammy B

Sleepless in Surrey

Not exactly a new rom-com, just me woken up, yet again, by a fit of coughing and unable to get back to sleep again. I would've needed to be up in half an hour or so, anyway, to get ready for work - it might be a Bank Holiday 'long weekend' for many in the UK, but I'm working right through until next Thursday, for my sins.
It's not all bad, though - while I was laying awake, coughing and intermittently attempting to refill my lungs, I've actually had an idea for my story, of how to get from where it is now towards the ending I already had in mind. So, a slew of new characters have already been born in my head, to be unleashed on an unsuspecting world whenever I get the time - and, given my sleep deprivation, the energy - to write some more.

Love & best wishes to all
Sammy B

Early days, but....

....there may be a chink of light at the end of the proverbial tunnel. Our internal vacancy list currently hosts a job I've been after since we first moved to Cornwall in 2000, and which I was effectively cheated out of, by a now departed manager, the last time it was advertised, and about which I was blatantly lied to by my former manager, when it wasn't advertised when I was told it would be during the time I last worked in Cornwall, so when my application goes in this time, as it will in the next few days, they're going to have to have a damn good reason not to give me the job, given that there's no possibility of anyone else with anywhere close to my background and experience applying - that's not me being self-aggrandising, that's just a fact - frankly, if they do try to give it to someone else, I'll take it through the grievance procedure, if necessary. And, of course, if I do get the job, I can go back to the part of the country I now think of as 'home', and be close to my daughter, as well, maybe even have her living with me formally. The fact that I could rent a smart two bedroom flat, with a sea view, no less, for less than the price of a grotty bedsit in my current 'work-town', after a brief perusal of property websites, isn't exactly an inhibiting factor, either. Given my, to say the least, chequered history in connection with this job, I'm not making any assumptions until I walk through the door of the place for my first day, but I'm absolutely determined to do anything in my power to make sure I do walk through that door.

Love & best wishes to all
Sammy B

Why would they need to advertise?

I've come into 'domicile-ville' town centre, for some lunch, a couple of beers, and some shopping - I didn't, for once, feel up to a day out in London, even though it's my last day off for a week and a half. On the way, I spotted a couple of adverts for a 'psychic fair' next week. If their 'product' was genuine, surely the ads are completely superfluous? They could simply 'broadcast' the details into the ether, and everyone who might be interested would turn up at the appropriate time and place. Wouldn't they?

Love & best wishes to all
Sammy B

Writing

Having been engrossed in the construction of my latest story in recent days has led me to thinking about the actual process of writing once again. I seem to have a few different approaches, depending on how the 'muse' takes me - I have written stories, like Valediction, that have come to me almost in 'one piece', and just require a fairly mechanical process of transfer from my brain to the screen, I have written others, such as Suadela and Quaesitum, which developed much more slowly, and still others, like Lucid, that have changed direction pretty radically from their original plot, midstream, as it were. Sometimes, though, the stories and their characters seem to become all-pervasive, almost taking over my life for long periods. Perihelion, and Pete and Ricky, its principal characters, has been the best example of that hitherto, but this new story, despite its first few paragraphs having sat neglected in draft for the best part of two years, seems to be surpassing even that experience. It's already the longest story I've written, and it isn't nearly finished yet, although I do have my ending in mind now. I know I keep going on about it, and I suppose I could be setting myself up for a big anticlimax, if it sinks without trace like most of my other stories, but I can't help myself. It's a love story, and one I'm in love with, I guess. And I know I'll continue to love it, even if no-one else does.

Love & best wishes to all
Sammy B

Struggling, and Xander (nearly) incarnate

I've been feeling really rotten for the past couple of days, still suffering, I think, from the effects of the chest infection I was off sick with at the end of last week. It's really slowed me down - I seem to find myself out of breath in no time, just doing fairly mundane things like walking to and from the station, things which, although I'm anything but super-fit, are normally no problem at all. I don't think the low temperatures of the past couple of days are helping much, either, the cold air seeming to make me even more prone to coughing fits than I have been. Falling to bits, there's no doubt about it.
My story is still progressing, another little chapter added before I set out for work at lunchtime. The 'juvenile lead' is based on the boy I saw on honeymoon, at least in terms of appearance, but I saw another boy, of around the same age, at 'work-town' station on my way back this evening who wasn't a million miles from my mental picture of Xander. Enough to take my mind off of my physiological ills, at least for a few moments!

Love & best wishes to all
Sammy B

Ugh!....

....snow, again! It's pretty wet, and not really settling in any organised way, at least yet, but I'm thoroughly fed up with this extended winter. I've got to leave for work in just over an hour, too, so I'm hoping my commute isn't going to be disrupted - perusal of the National Rail website a short while ago didn't show up any issues as yet, in this area, anyway, so I'll keep my fingers crossed. I don't want to go to work, especially for a late shift at a weekend, but I've got even less ambition to end up marooned somewhere by bad weather.
All in all, I'd rather stay here and spend some more time with my story, as I've been doing for the past couple of hours. Duty calls, though.

Love & best wishes to all
Sammy B

Some mistake, surely?

It began light-heartedly enough, in my head initially, then talking to my daughter earlier on. Bantering about the fact that in spite of yesterday's Budget, allegedly knocking a penny off of the price of a pint, the price of mine in 'work-town' Wetherspoons had gone up by ten pence since I was last in there on Sunday, and the fact that the first day of spring had brought a weather forecast that suggests that we're going to have a shedload of snow over the weekend.
The conversation with my daughter was the high point of my day, though, and the 'some mistake' meme has arrived back at base with me this evening. I've got back here feeling decidedly under the weather again, coughing like the proverbial trooper, feeling (and looking) old, and, once more, finding it hard to justify carrying on at all. Because it's all been a fiasco, from start to finish. Born, apparently, with a sexuality that is completely unrequitable, trying to do the 'right thing' instead, but only succeeding in fucking up three lives, ending up with this empty, pointless existence. If I go to sleep tonight and never wake up, the world wouldn't be the poorer by a jot. And neither would I.

Love & best wishes to all
Sammy B

Xandering and meandering

Up early again this morning, if not exactly bright - I was feeling thoroughly washed out by the time I got in from work at 10:30 last night, and not even the attractions of immersing myself once more in my fiction writing - 'Xander' is the name of one of the main characters in the story I've been working on of late, hence the post title - as I had yesterday morning, could keep me awake for long. The way my metabolism seems to work these days, though, I appear never to be capable of sleeping for more than about five and a half hours, so I was irrevocably awake before 6:00. I'll try and make the best of it, because it's my day off today, and I'm not working until tomorrow afternoon, so I'll make my way up to town again, once the rush hour has subsided somewhat, for my usual day-off diet of watching the world go by from bus windows, and maybe some liquid refreshment later on. I'm trying to convince myself to go and get my hair cut, too, but, as ever, my aversion to hairdressing might win out on that front. I'll have to see how brave I'm feeling later!

Love & best wishes to all
Sammy B

Scaremongering

The British press is obviously extremely worried about the regulatory body slated to come into being in the wake of the Leveson report into their ethics - or, more to the point, their lack of ethics. On a selection of front pages today, I've seen the proposed new body described as the manifestation of Orwell's 'Ministry of Truth', seen a full page picture of Churchill along with a quotation of his about the importance of a free press, and, in a transparent attempt to scare ordinary people into opposing the policy, suggestions that bloggers will face huge fines from the regulator if they publish anything deemed to be 'libellous'. Of course a free press, in the sense of being free of government decree as to what they can and cannot publish in the 'political' arena, is a vital defence against the possibility of totalitarianism, but the British press seem to want the freedom to publish anything at all, completely as they see fit, regardless of anyone's personal privacy, and irrespective, in many cases, of whether what they publish is true at all. It seems to me to be a classic example of the press oligarchy demanding 'power without responsibility', and throwing their toys out of the pram when there's the slightest suggestion that they shouldn't be allowed to have it.

Love & best wishes to all
Sammy B

A sense of duty, and its perils

Well, peril is probably a bit strong, really, but never mind! I dragged myself back into work today, but, in all honesty, if I'd known how the day was going to go, I might well have at least one more day on the sick list. Not that it was a particularly bad shift, just that I was still feeling pretty dismal, and the weather, particularly this afternoon when I was making my way into work, was vile, cold and wet. I got soaked, twice, once at either end of the commute, which I doubt will do much to speed my overall recovery. So much for being dutiful.
The first part of the day was better, though, as I managed to make yet more progress with my latest story. Despite the relatively late hour, I'm going to go back to it this evening, too - I've still got the bug, so I'm going to try and stick with it as long as I can. Whether it will mean that the story will ever be finished, though - well, that, as always with my writing, is another matter entirely!

Love & best wishes to all
Sammy B

Qualification

What I'm going to say is probably going to sound elitist, if not outright eugenicist, but I really think that people should have to pass some sort of qualification test before they're allowed to have children. I've finally managed to get out and about today, I'm up in London, and the dominant theme of the day so far seems to have been the number of parents I've seen who don't appear to have the slightest aptitude for dealing with their children. OK, parenting is a learning process, like most things, but, given the irreparable damage that can ensue if it's done wrong, those who want to reproduce should, in my opinion, be required to prove that they can, at least, offer a minimum standard of care and commitment, and understanding of the needs of a child. Not, of course, that I have the slightest expectation that any such curtailment of the 'right' to breed heedlessly would ever be seriously countenanced, it would doubtless be called everything from communism to fascism if any politician or pundit advocated it, but I believe that if every child was born to parents who both wanted them and were willing to take the trouble to learn how to look after them properly, the world in general, and the lives of children in particular, would be far better.

Love & best wishes to all
Sammy B

Making the best of a bad job

Despite my hopes to the contrary, I still didn't feel up to going out today, so I've spent another day 'within these walls', as it were. My original intention was to try to go back to work on Monday, but that's now rather in the balance - I'll wait to see how I feel in the morning before I decide.
In the event, I've spent a goodly part of the day writing - I've been working on one of the two drafts I've resurrected recently, but not, contrary to the buzz I had a few days back, on the Lucid/Lucent sequel, but on the other. It's showing signs of developing into a rather longer story than I'd originally envisaged, but whether its quality is on a par with its quantity is, to say the least, doubtful. I do quite like the two central characters, though, so, who knows, it might turn into something worthwhile, eventually.

Love & best wishes to all
Sammy B

Futurology

I've been sequestered indoors again today, still not feeling up to going out and about in the face of my less than robust health, especially as the weather hasn't been very appetising, rather cold and intermittently rainy. For once, though, I haven't entirely frittered my time away - I've been doing a little bit of research, online, of course, in terms of how I can help my daughter facilitate what she wants to do, education-wise, both at post-16 and post-18 levels. She's at a really good school now, which she enjoys, but they don't offer all of the A-Levels she needs to have a realistic chance of getting onto the university course she wants to do, at the particular university she's got in mind, so she's thinking of moving on after her GCSE's in the summer of next year. There are a few options, some in Cornwall, but more in the London area, to allow her to get the qualifications she wants and needs, and there could be the collateral advantage, from my perspective, that she could end up living with me within the next eighteen months, if not sooner. Her mother has already said that she wouldn't stand in the way of our daughter living with me - although my ex has de facto custody of the girl at the moment, that isn't because of some legal decree in connection with our divorce, it's simply the way circumstances have fallen - so there's no reason why it couldn't happen, and my daughter has said, this evening, actually, that she would be quite happy to live with me, if that was the best option, in overall terms. Accommodation-wise, the old adage of 'two can live as cheaply as one' isn't far from the truth, even in the more salubrious areas of London that I would prefer - in the area where my 'London local' is, not very far from where I work, an area I would be more than happy to call home, the average rent for a one bedroom flat is around £1000 a month, whereas a two bedroom place, which we would obviously need, is only around £200 a month more, while the issue of her still being eligible for the travel concessions I mentioned a few days ago would also be resolved if we were 'flat-sharing'. It's a long way from being decided yet, but the idea of my having a 'proper home' again, and one with my daughter in it as well, is certainly an appealing one.

Love & best wishes to all
Sammy B

Dissonance

It seems, in the wake of my latest fiction offering over at Nephelokokkygia, that one of the smattering of remaining followers of that blog has withdrawn. It is, of course, entirely the choice of the individual whether to follow my, or any other, blog, and whether to terminate that affiliation. Over the three years or so I've been in cyberspace, I've 'unfollowed' maybe two or three blogs, for reasons which seemed valid to me in the particular circumstances concerned. Why I'm commenting on this topic now, though, is that there still seems, because of the subject matter I write about most commonly, to be a dissonance in some minds around the boundaries of fiction and reality. Because Thomas Harris has written about the crimes of Hannibal Lecter, it doesn't make him a serial killer, and, indeed, because Shakespeare wrote about eyes being gouged out in King Lear and Titus Andronicus, it doesn't mean he was some kind of psychopath roaming the streets of Elizabethan London doing that very thing - not, I hasten to add, that I'm remotely comparing my literary abilities to either of those august figures. Apart from one specifically autobiographical story, Beached - and even that one had numerous details fictionalised - all the fiction I've posted in Nephelokokkygia is exactly that, fictional, completely a product of my imagination, not some thinly veiled description of activities I've taken part in, in real life. I'm fully aware that what I write is very unlikely to appeal to everyone, or, in some cases, anyone at all apart from me, but that doesn't mean I'm guilty of anything beyond having a vivid imagination.

Love & best wishes to all
Sammy B

0500, and I've succumbed

After laying awake for over an hour, coughing my lungs up, I've finally had to give best to this chesty thing I've been dragging around all week, and rung in sick. It's bloody frustrating, though, because I was due to be working a very straightforward overtime shift today, before being due a couple of days off anyway. When you can't even catch your breath getting to the shower room twenty yards away at the end of the corridor, though, it's probably safe to assume that your body is telling you something significant. Hopefully, I'll be able to get back to sleep at some point, to give my system some respite, and hopefully allow some recuperation. Meh!

Love & best wishes to all
Sammy B

Gutted

Over the past twelve months or so, since that fateful phone call, so much has changed, so much has been lost in my life. But, of all those things, few, if any, have upset me as much as something I discovered at work this morning. Through my job, I get travel concessions, in the form of reduced rate travel on trains and the London Underground. And my dependents also receive the same concessions, more or less. Obviously, now that we're divorced, my ex doesn't fall into that category anymore, but I was under the impression that my daughter would. And she does - but only until her 16th birthday next February. After that, under the rules of the scheme, she will be classed as a 'young person' rather than a 'dependent child', and for her to still qualify for the concessions, there are all sorts of terms and conditions, such as her being in full-time education. No problem there. But I didn't get that far, reading the small print on our work 'intranet' - because the very first condition is that the 'young person' must 'permanently reside with the employee' to retain the facility. While I would love her to 'permanently reside' with me, unless something highly unforeseen happens in the next eleven months, that simply isn't going to be an option. Just at the time that she's starting to use, and enjoy, the travel facilities, both to visit her far-flung friends, and, sometimes, just for the pleasure of travelling - she's evidently inherited her father's 'wanderlust' - she's going to have them taken away, through no fault of her own. I spoke to my ex earlier, to pass on a couple of things, including this news, but the girl herself doesn't know yet, and may not until tomorrow, because I don't whether I'll be able to speak to her tonight, because she's going straight from school to sing in a choir concert this evening, and won't be home until quite late. I know she's going to be so disappointed, which is why I was so upset. When I seem to be in a position to do so little for her these days, to not be able to help her in this way is just soul-destroying.

Love & best wishes to all
Sammy B

Conclave

There's been plenty of coverage, particularly on the BBC, of the beginning of the process to elect the new pope. However it's spun, though, the outcome is inevitable - Ratzinger will be replaced by another vile reactionary, espousing the same creed of repression and inequality, misogyny and homophobia, quite content to allow their adherents to breed themselves into poverty and die of preventable diseases, all in the name of their rapacious Bronze Age deity. And, of course, to maintain their own unearned and completely unjustified power and privilege.

Love & best wishes to all
Sammy B

Interaction and breathlessness

I finished my last night shift of what seemed like a pretty long week at 7:30 yesterday morning, and, given that I was back to the grind at 7:00 this morning, I decided to stay up at the London end for the day, rather than wasting three hours of my nominal day off on a round trip to my accommodation, before finally making my way back in the early evening. It didn't work out too badly, at least in fatigue terms - I managed an hour's sleep during my break at work, so I wasn't too weary. My overall health deteriorated rather during the day, though, and was, if anything, even worse this morning - I'm pretty sure I have got a chest infection, something which I've suspected for a few days, and which, taken with my heart arrhythmia, has left me somewhat short of breath from time to time over the past 24 hours. To be honest, I probably should have rung in sick this morning, but I find it hard to shake off the feeling that I'm letting other people down if I do. I'll monitor the situation, anyway, over the next day or two, and if I really need time off, or to see a doctor, or both, then that's what I'll do.
One thing that did brighten a minute or two of yesterday, though, was an interaction with a boy. An appropriate, 'good deed of the day' sort of interaction, rather than anything that will attract any more opprobrium - at least, I hope it won't. I'd just got on a tube at Baker Street in the early part of the afternoon, heading in the general direction of my 'London local', when a boy, fairly cute, around 12 or 13, approached the door of the train, looking a bit lost and uncertain. He got on the train, looked at the map, got off again, and went back to looking disoriented and unhappy. I caught his eye, and I must've looked trustworthy enough for him to speak to me, which he duly did, asking me which train he needed to get to his destination. It turned out to be the one I was on, so he thanked me and boarded. Sadly, I had to change at the next station, but I did at least have the satisfaction of being able to be helpful to just the sort of person I would choose to have some dealings with. Just as fleeting as all the others of his ilk that flit in and out of my life, really, but with just that smallest element of contact, for once.
If I earned a 'brownie point' yesterday, though, I'll probably lose several truckloads if I go ahead and write a new story that's been brewing in my head all day, after my alarm woke me from a certain dream this morning. To say that the subject matter wouldn't be to everyone's taste is a considerable understatement, I suspect.

Love & best wishes to all
Sammy B

The demon drink

I've seen the same 'meme', a Q & A thing, on three different blogs I follow in recent days. I've never posted one myself, and don't intend to start now - the answers to many of the questions are scattered about in this blog, and, to some extent, in the attitudes and opinions of some of my fictional characters in Nephelokokkygia, all fiction being autobiography, and all that! - but one question which I probably haven't really addressed directly is my relationship with what might be called 'chemical vices'. Two of the three items in the question concerned are simply and quickly answered - I've never taken any sort of 'recreational drug', and never wanted to, the consciousness I have is more than adequate, and I've never smoked, not even a single drag on a single cigarette, and, again, never wanted to - indeed, I tried to convince my parents, both of whom smoked, to give up, right back to when I was 6 or 7 years old.
The third element of the question, though, my dealings with and attitude towards alcohol, is rather a different matter. I first remember trying beer, a mere sip of my dad's pint at a horse show, of all things, probably the only horse show we ever went to, when I was about 7, and, predictably at that age, didn't like it at all. By the time I was around 12, though, I'd found a drink I did like, albeit that I only had it a few times, at family parties, Christmas and the like - port and lemonade. I was never allowed more than two, though, and my dad always made them suitably weak, so there was never any question of me being drunk at that age. The first time I can remember drinking enough to feel the effects of the alcohol was at a cousin's wedding reception when I was 14 - my dad was drinking lager, unusually for him, bitter was normally his thing, and I 'borrowed' quite a bit of it, probably drinking around three pints' worth over the course of the evening. Again, not enough to be drunk, but enough to get the 'buzz'. As I moved through my teens, I did drink from time to time, mostly at parties, but managed to avoid being drunk, mostly because I never had enough money, apart from one occasion, when I was 15, and went to a pub (as a customer) for the first time, with a school friend who had a part time job and more money than me. We were both big for our age, and had no trouble getting served in this particular back street local in our home town. I remember drinking four pints, and being distinctly wobbly when I got indoors - it took my mum all of about five seconds to deduce my condition! I went straight to bed, and woke up the next morning with my head spinning more than a little, but I wasn't deterred, and when I got a part time job of my own, eighteen months or so later, I have to admit that the greater part of my wages ended up being passed over various bars. It was at that age, around 17, and almost legally old enough to be served, that I started going out with my dad fairly regularly. He said he would have taken me with him earlier, but wanted me to be able to pay my own way, buy a round, which was a fair enough attitude. Maybe I've given the impression that my dad was a big drinker, but he wasn't, really - he went to the pub maybe two or three times a week, Sunday lunchtime being 'his' time, particularly, and almost never drank at home, something that stayed with me for a long time, well into my adult life, the idea that if you wanted a drink, you went out, the social side of pub life being more important an element than the mere consumption of alcohol.
As time went on, though, and I started my first full time job, I began to drink far more, and far more regularly, than my dad ever had. There was still, very often, though, a social element - like my dad, I almost never even kept alcohol at home, still less drank it there - I went out to meet up with friends, played darts, eventually became involved with pub quizzes, but I did consume more alcohol than almost anyone else I knew. There were occasions when I was drunk, even, rarely, to the point of being physically sick, and I was accused by various people, at different times, of being an alcoholic, but I didn't believe, and still don't, that was (or is) the case. I've only ever missed one day's work through the after-effects of alcohol, and that was after a completely unexpected meeting with an old friend who I'd not only not seen for several years, but who I'd actually thought was dead (he did, in fact, attempt suicide after his marriage broke up), I've never become violent through drinking, and I've never driven drunk, or even close to it. I did go through a phase, for quite a bit of the time I lived in Cornwall, of drinking at home, of habitually having beer and wine in the fridge, but that was largely instead of going to the pub, for reasons of cost, rather than in addition, and now that I'm on my own in Surrey, I've reverted to my earlier pattern, of going out for a drink, mostly on my days off up in London. There are doubtless still those who would say I drink too much, and they might well be right, certainly in relation to governmental guidelines on 'responsible' drinking, but, ultimately, I drink because I want to, because I enjoy it, rather than because I have to, in an addictive sense. And, after a 'dry' week this week, being on nights, I'll be very surprised if I don't find myself on licensed premises at some stage during my day off tomorrow. Cheers!

Love & best wishes to all
Sammy B

The muse, and its caprice

I've been fiddling about with a story for Nephelokokkygia for a couple of weeks now, and had begun to make a little, slow progress with it. But, since yesterday, that has been eclipsed by the resumption of an earlier story which had been moribund for nearly two years, although I had looked at it on occasions, and even had a fairly reasonable plot outline in mind. This story is probably - no, definitely - closer to my heart than the one I had been working on, though, because it features the main characters from what I still consider to be my best ever story, Lucent. Alex, in particular, is certainly my favourite of all the characters I've written about over the past three years, despite, oddly enough, being a complete invention, not even loosely based on anyone I know in reality. Needless to say, my sudden upturn in productivity doesn't, by any means, guarantee a completed story will appear any time soon, or, indeed, ever. The aforementioned capricious muse is with me at the moment, though, so we'll see.

Love & best wishes to all
Sammy B

Variety, jealousy and absurdity

I finished work this morning just in time to catch my more regular train back to 'domicile-ville' - I stepped aboard with literally fifteen seconds to spare - which, while it meant that I missed the opportunity to see the person I'd noticed a couple of times earlier this week, and I'm still not going to to say much more than that about him, for the reasons I gave yesterday, did mean that I was treated to a variety of 'eye candy' during my journey, given that the earlier train is used by many school-bound cuties. That journey, along with another boy I saw in 'domicile-ville' town centre when I made a brief grocery shopping trip before heading back to my accommodation, pretty much covered the full range of the objects of my attraction - there was a fragile looking little thing on the train, hardly looking old enough to be out on his own, maybe 11 or 12, until you saw his mischievous little smile when talking to his friends and realised there was probably a bit more about him than 'little boy' innocence, several around the 13/14 age range I like the most ('work-town station boy' also falls into that group, but there's something more that caught my attention in his case), while the town centre boy was a big, strapping, probably almost legal guy who certainly wouldn't have been out of place, physique-wise, in a rugby team, but who retained just enough hints of boyishness to still fall into the very top end of my 'window'. All academic, of course, because I didn't and don't expect anything more than visual contact with any of them. I can daydream, though.
Speaking of which, I watched a music video this morning that had been posted overnight, and which, initially, caused me a little confusion, because I thought I remembered seeing the video before, but didn't recall the song it was 'backing' at all. The mystery was soon solved, as I remembered where I'd seen it (I went there to check), and the fact that I had, for some reason, only watched the first minute or two of it, hence the song not ringing too many bells. One of the scenes in the video had me mouthing some not very complimentary things in the direction of one of its characters, though, on grounds of pure jealousy - there was a short sequence of a shirtless boy, right in the middle of my 'age of attraction', kissing a slightly older girl. I won't repeat the thoughts that went through my head, because they weren't very gentlemanly, but the gist of it was that I considered the girl was in the place I should have been occupying!
I've had an idea sloshing around in my head for a couple of months now, an idea for a new story in a completely different genre than anything I've considered or attempted before, a huge, sweeping epic, a sort of 'Genghis Khan in space' saga. All I really have at the moment is the idea, a very vague plot outline and a title, and not a single word committed to either paper or silicon. Why on earth I should think I've got either the capacity or the perseverance to embark on such a thing, given my lamentable record of not completing even short stories, is anyone's guess, but, as I said in the first parargraph, I suppose - I can daydream!

Love & best wishes to all
Sammy B

Too much of a....thing

I can't say 'good thing', because it involves work. I agreed to go in early last night to cover some emergency leave, and ended up working almost twelve and an half hours, leaving me pretty shattered by the time I got in this morning, more than fourteen hours after I'd set out. I slept reasonably well today, although I never seem to get quite enough sleep when I'm on nights, but that wasn't enough to encourage me to accept the offer of yet more overtime when the late turn shift manager rang me a short while ago, staying on tomorrow morning after the scheduled end of tonight's shift. I already feel like I'm coming down with some bug or other, possibly a chest infection - I'm coughing well, at the moment, whatever it is - and I really don't want to risk exacerbating that situation by ratcheting up my fatigue levels even further. I'm pretty resilient, normally, but even I have some limits.
Too much of another thing, too, in a way. I was tempted to write about a couple of encounters I've had in the past three mornings, strictly visual only, at 'work-town' station, facilitated by my catching a slightly later train back than I usually would, because of the position I've been covering this week, but I haven't got the energy or inclination to become embroiled in another round of recriminations like last week's. There are times when I'll accept the consequences of putting myself 'out there' to be shot at, and fight my corner accordingly, but now isn't one of those times.

Love & best wishes to all
Sammy B

Sadness, loss

Not, for once, around my personal situation, but a cyberspace loss I was reminded of earlier today. There is a significant milestone for this blog not too far into the future - within a few weeks, if nothing unforeseen happens - of which more as and when it arrives, and I've been considering how to mark the occasion. In that regard, I was reading a post which I wrote to celebrate, if that's the right word, a much earlier waypoint in my blog's history. What I hadn't realised was how close to that post were a series of others, along with some e-mails, which I wrote in response to an unfolding situation, which seems to me to have had long-term repercussions in 'our' little corner of cyberspace. I'm referring to the discovery that a blog that was central to both my decision to begin my own blogging journey, and to the online life of various other people, wasn't what it purported to be. With the benefit of hindsight, there was a considerable degree of naïvety among people, myself included, who really should have known better, but the saddest aspect was that a little 'community' of people, within which I was only a peripheral figure, not least because many of its members were so much younger than me, people who seemed to care for each other, and who had things in common, particularly that most of us were gay, or at least questioning, was virtually destroyed overnight by the deceit of (probably only) one person. Some of those involved were badly hurt, emotionally, by what happened, but what was most obviously lost, from my perspective, was trust. The first big emotional events in anyone's life, first love, first heartbreak, whatever, often stay with an individual for life, and the disillusionment and breach of trust that many felt over this affair seems to me to be one of those events. A huge hole was knocked in that group of people, from which it never, and possibly could never have, recovered. Proof, if any were needed, that it only takes one rotten apple to spoil the proverbial barrel. Now, almost three years on, I still find it hard to even think of forgiving that person, knowing what was lost.

Love & best wishes to all
Sammy B

'It's rubbish'

Planet Rock, the radio station I listen to almost exclusively, has a feature, 'The Trilogy', at 3:00 each weekday, where they play, logically enough, three songs by one band or artist. The tracks played on any given day are selected on the basis of what listeners have suggested over the previous 24 hours, subject to a few 'terms and conditions' - when Guns N' Roses are featured, which they are from time to time, It's So Easy is on the barred list, for example - and those listeners who 'vote' are also encouraged to say why they've made the selections they have, some of the 'opinion pieces' being read out on air. Today's featured act was David Bowie, and one of the comments read out opined about how Bowie's old stuff was far better than his newer material, describing his latest single as 'a load of rubbish'. I've no axe to grind here, because I'm not particularly a Bowie fan - there are certain of his tracks I like, one or two I like a lot, but I'm certainly not an afficionado - but I've heard the latest offering, and while I wouldn't say it's an instant classic, it isn't the the worst thing he's ever done, either. What the opinion did make me think of, though, was an interview I heard on BBC Radio 1 a very long time ago, probably the best part of thirty years back, featuring Jim Reid of the Jesus & Mary Chain. In their early days, when their music was seen as being pretty much 'out there', mostly because of the amount of feedback they employed, many 'music critics', amateur and professional, hated them. Jim referred to this in the interview in a way that has stuck with me, and is a kind of paraphrase of the G.B. Shaw quotation 'Those that can, do'. He said something along the lines of 'You may think our music is a load of crap, but if that's the case, do what we did. We didn't like any of the music we were hearing on the radio, so we went out and made our own.' It's easy to sit back and criticise others for what they do and how they do it, especially in what might loosely be described as 'creative' endeavours. It's far more difficult to actually go out and do better things yourself.

Love & best wishes to all
Sammy B

Supernumerary

There are days when I feel surplus to requirements, and today has been one of them. I'm starting my latest week of night shifts tonight, but I don't start work until 11:30, so I've been hanging around at my accommodation, not doing anything of any great consequence, only venturing out for a brief shopping trip in early afternoon. It could have been different - my daughter has been up in London today, taking advantage of a discounted travel offer she's currently entitled to, visiting a friend. I suggested, not that I should tag along as some sort of 'gooseberry' to impinge on her time with her friend, but just to meet her for a coffee, to spend half an hour or so with her, when she got back to the station to catch her train home, but she didn't even want to do that. I don't even know whether I'll get to see her during the next school holidays at Easter, because she's seemingly got plans to go to Scotland to see other friends, on the same cheap train fare offer. I'm all for her having her own life, and being independent, but, given my domestic situation, it would be nice to be able to see her at least occasionally. It just seems to accentuate my isolation, the pointlessness of a lot of my life these days. Going through the motions, as I've said before.

Love & best wishes to all
Sammy B

Crush

I've just spent a little time with my latest boy crush, a beautiful, blond, blue-eyed preteen. Before anyone feels the urge to rush to alert police or social services to my iniquity, though, let me make it clear that the boy in question doesn't actually exist, he's a character in an online story by the same author who created Leo, my all time favourite fictional boy. In reality, I'd never engage with such a young boy, even if the opportunity arose, partly, I'll admit, through motives of self-preservation, but also because I believe that few, if any boys of that age would ever be equipped to give what I would consider to be informed consent, something that, as far as I'm concerned, is an absolute prerequisite to any sexual relationship, regardless of the age and gender of the participants. It may well be that the sort of fully consensual relationship I want is literally impossible, unavailable in any circumstances, in which case, I'll have to come to terms, as I said in reply to a recent comment, with that terrifying word 'never'. Better, far better, for me to live with that than to hurt anyone else.

Love & best wishes to all
Sammy B

Sleepless and elitist

I made a substantial mistake last night - I decided that I was tired enough to warrant an early night, and was in bed by 10:45. I slept like the proverbial log - for about an hour and a half, before waking for the first of what seemed like innumerable times at 12:30, eventually giving up the fight at 5:30 when an attack of cramp in my calf convinced me that I wasn't fated to recharge my batteries in any meaningful way, and I got up feeling even more washed out than I had when I'd gone to bed. Not the ideal preparation for a twelve hour shift at work (which, after a little jiggery-pokery turned out to be ten and a half), but I did, at least, manage to get through the day without doing anything too deranged.
My earlier than anticipated escape from work has found me in 'domicile-ville' Wetherspoons on their busiest night of the week. I'm not a wild fan of the pub at the best of times, it's always more convenient than congenial, but when it's full of mouthy yobs and their blousy molls, it's even less palatable. Compared to what else is on offer in this benighted town, though, it's very much the best of a bad bunch. Given that there's no compulsion on me to be here, I guess I should swallow my intellectual snobbery and make the best of it!

Love & best wishes to all
Sammy B

Thank you, everyone

At 8:30 this evening, my blog received its 25000th pageview. Small beer by the standards of many places in cyberspace, but far more than I expected when I started. My sincere thanks to all of you kind enough to visit.

Love & best wishes to all
Sammy B

Well put

I just heard this song on the radio.

Ahh
I am the one, orgasmatron the outstretched grasping handMy image is of agony, my servants rape the landObsequious and arrogant, clandestine and vainTwo thousand years of misery of torture in my nameHypocrisy made paramount, paranoia the lawMy name is called religion, sadistic, sacred whore
I twist the truth, I rule the world, my crown is called deceitI am the emperor of lies, you grovel at my feetI rob you and I slaughter you, your downfall is my gainAnd still you play the sycophant and revel in my painAnd all my promises are lies, all my love is hateI am the politician and I decide your fate
I march before a martyred world, an army for the fightI speak of great heroic days, of victory and mightI hold a banner drenched in blood, I urge you to be braveI lead you to your destiny, I lead you to your graveYour bones will build my palace, your eyes will stud my crownFor I am Mars, the God of war and I will cut you down


Read more: MOTORHEAD - ORGASMATRON LYRICS 

I couldn't have said it better myself, Mr Kilmister and colleagues. Get rid of the politics and religion, and the god of war dies of starvation.

Love & best wishes to all
Sammy B