Made, not born, part the zillionth

I'm rarely surprised by stories like this, and certainly not in this case, given its geographical provenance - it's not a part of the world renowned for its tolerance of 'the other', in whatever guise - but some cases are more egregious than others. Especially if you follow the link to the original BBC news item, and look at the particular version of the bible verse included on the worksheet. It's a wonder they didn't include a 'dummies guide to bullying and bigotry' in with the assignment. But, of course, all religions only preach peace and love for all. Except when they don't.

Love & best wishes to all
Sammy B

Chiaroscuro

The dark places in my head still seem to want to assert themselves, far more than usual, for what reason I don't know. Trying to exorcise them through fiction rather than action is the best I can come up with at the moment.
But there is a bright place, too - I've spent the last week or so, on and off, reediting Alexandrine, in an effort to weed out all the typos and awkwardly worded passages I keep finding. To make my perfect boy's story perfect, or as near to that point as, with my limited abilities, I can. So it can be the light to counterbalance my darknesses.

Love & best wishes to all
Sammy B

Drafting and Thanksgiving

Well, having read the analysis, as well as my limited, armchair fan knowledge, it looks like my team haven't done too badly in today's draft - we certainly needed a full forward, so let's hope the no.1 pick turns out to be a star in the making. The other draftees seem to fill obvious deficiencies, too, so I'm hopeful it's been a good day's work.
And I would like to wish my American readers a happy Thanksgiving Day - I hope you and yours enjoy the festivities.

Love & best wishes to all
Sammy B

Sorry, but I think you're wrong

There's so much propaganda, so much hatred directed towards boylovers from 'society' that, as I've said before, it's difficult not to succumb to it at times, maybe most of the time. But when you read something that comes from this side of the fence that parrots 'the party line', it's even more depressing. A foreword to an online story in which the author states 'I doubt that a relationship between a boy and an adult can ever rise above anything sexual'. Capitulation to the haters, and nothing else, as far as I'm concerned. The man is always a predator, the boy always a victim, that's exactly what they want you to believe, that you're selfish and vile and worthless. Well, I totally disagree. It is possible for a man to genuinely love a boy, and for the boy to love him back. And to have such a relationship where sex isn't involved at all. I know, because I've been there. I didn't choose my sexual orientation, so, as long as I don't force anything on anyone, I don't see why I should have to give up any chance of love forever, simply because of societal hysteria. Because love, ultimately, is what it's all about, what I want so badly.

Love & best wishes to all
Sammy B

Out late

Well, later than usual for me, at least, certainly in this neck of the woods. K is at a gig tonight, one she's been looking forward to for months (albeit that I have to admit that I've never heard of the artist concerned, except in so far as K has mentioned him), and I am, as arranged with my girl, around as a bit of 'insurance' to make sure she gets home safely, given that it will probably involve night buses. She's not a child, of course - she wouldn't have been going to the gig in the first place, otherwise - but a little reassurance (for both of us, if I'm being honest) doesn't do any harm.

Love & best wishes to all
Sammy B

The darkness within

Nearly four years ago, I wrote a story. Easily the darkest piece of fiction - and it really is fiction, no part of it has any real life analogue - I've ever written. It's said, though, that all fiction is autobiography, to some extent, and I think something that's happened this afternoon bears that out in this instance. I was on a bus, leaving the bus station in our local town centre, when I spotted a boy. A boy on his own, despite not being very old - perhaps 11, 12 at the most - who looked as though he really ought to have been in school, given the time of day. As the bus carried on its way, the boy was quickly out of sight, but certainly not out of mind. I spent the next few minutes lost in rather lurid fantasies of what I could do with such a boy - or, maybe more significantly, what I could do to him. I like to tell myself that I'd never coerce anyone sexually, but there are times when I doubt whether, if a genuine opportunity arose, I'd really be able to resist temptation. I can hope, of course, but I'd be blatantly lying if I said I could guarantee it. And that knowledge, the implacable knowledge of the dark places inside me, is why I find it so hard to live with myself, so much of the time.

Love & best wishes to all
Sammy B

How many more?

How many more children have to die before the US comes to its senses and divests itself of its ridiculous gun fetish? Last week, a 13 year old bleeding to death in his parents' arms in a hotel room after being shot in the head by a bullet 'accidentally discharged' in a neighbouring room, this week a 12 year old shot by police in a playground for the heinous crime of having a toy gun (I'm sure the fact that he had brown skin was a pure coincidence). FFS grow up, the fucking lot of you, and stop pretending you're living on the wild frontier. Guns have only one purpose - to kill. Consign them to the dustbin of history, where they belong. And those of you on the other side of the pond who might read this, and say that I'm just an effete Brit who doesn't understand your country - you're right, I don't understand. I don't understand how this carnage hasn't brought about change decades ago.

Love & best wishes to all
Sammy B

Cutie in the house!

Whenever I find myself in my local on a Saturday afternoon, I always hope I might see 'smiling boy', the one who raised my spirits so dramatically the first time I ever came in here when I was flat hunting in January. I never have seen him again, but, today, there's an absolutely gorgeous little guy on the premises, blond and beautiful in spades. Perhaps fortunately, he's out of sight from where I'm sitting, because I could very easily 'out' myself by gazing at him like a lovesick adolescent!

Love & best wishes to all
Sammy B

Waste of a good day off

I finished my latest run of night shifts at 7:00 this morning, and my intention was to head home, have breakfast, get ready and go out and about. Sadly, though, my metabolism wasn't having any of it, and I ended up asleep for three hours instead. By the time I did eventually drag myself into the outside world, it was almost 2:00, so, inadvisedly, I went looking for 'the boy on the bus'. Needless to say, I didn't find him, despite my timing not being too far off - there were a number of pupils from his school on the bus I caught - so, having nothing much else on my agenda, I headed straight for my local, where I've been ever since. Another day of spectacular underachievement. And, given that I'm off for eight of the next nine days, the first of many to come, I suspect.

Love & best wishes to all
Sammy B

The worst bit of good luck I've had for a while

I got away from work an hour early this morning, through various people being on overtime, and coming in early or staying on, which normally, of course, would be a thoroughly good thing. It didn't quite work out that way, though - I needed to go shopping on the way back (the supermarket I was heading for is one of the 24 hour opening variety), so that by the time I'd got there, and made my purchases, I emerged for my bus home right into the teeth of the rush hour, including 'travelling to school' time. I just missed one bus, the next one mysteriously failed to appear, despite being listed on the TfL 'countdown' app, so it was hardly surprising that when one did finally appear, it was ridiculously over-subscribed. To the extent that I had to go two stops beyond where I needed to go, because it was physically impossible for me, from my top deck position, to get off the bus before then, when numerous schoolkids alighted and reduced the crush to below 'cattle truck' level. The only saving grace was finding myself sitting a couple of rows of seats behind a very pretty boy - very young, only 9 or 10, so unequivocally in 'look but never touch' territory - and more than a little reminiscent of DBJ at that age, the age he was when I first saw him. A sweet taste, in the midst of an otherwise thoroughly frustrating couple of hours.

Love & best wishes to all
Sammy B

When the mask slips

I heard on the radio news that the UKIP candidate in tomorrow's Rochester by-election (an election necessitated by his own defection from the Tories) was in favour of EU migrants being told to leave the country if the UK leaves the organisation. Leaving aside that it would be an economic disaster for Britain to 'opt out' of Europe, the story gives the lie to UKIP's frequent claims not to be racist or xenophobic - frankly, xenophobia is the central plank of everything they stand for, the attitude that all of the UK's problems are the fault of 'Johnny Foreigner'. And the saddest thing is that such an attitude, and the demagoguery that has always gone with it, is what has convinced so many of the 'sheeple' to vote for them of late. What those dupes will largely be unaware of, and probably wouldn't care about if they did know, are some of UKIP's other policies - I found this article when I was checking the radio report online before launching into this post. Legalise handguns, have an 'American-style' health system, and admire Putin? Anyone espousing such stupidity should be a candidate for a psychiatric institution, not elected office. Farage and his scum should be nothing more than a joke, along the lines of the Monster Raving Loony Party. It speaks volumes about the political illiteracy of British voters that they're anything but at present.

Love & best wishes to all
Sammy B

If it ain't broke....

I'm absolutely not a Luddite, in any shape or form - I'm a complete advocate of science, and its practical applications in technology, innovation and experiment has brought us from being nothing more than marginally intelligent apes to where we are today, the most advanced known species of life anywhere. (Yes, I'm well aware that the path to where we are, and the way some of our intelligence and its products have been applied leaves very much to be desired, but that, as far as I'm concerned, is a sociological issue rather than anything inherent to the scientific process.) That said, though, there are times when I wonder why some things are deemed to need changing. This little story is, no doubt, a very trivial example of the phenomenon, but, I think, illustrative to the point I'm trying to make.
A few weeks back, K asked if we could have 'proper' roast potatoes as part of a Sunday dinner, something we hadn't had since she moved in with me. No problem, said I, except in one respect. Amongst the myriad things 'left behind' when it all fell to bits in 2012 was the potato peeler. A very simple piece of kitchen equipment, unchanged in basic design for my whole life, but essential to facilitate what my girl wanted. So, when I went shopping for the makings of the meal, I looked for a potato peeler in the local big supermarket. And they had one. But not of a design I'd ever seen before. But, as it was the only one they had, I bought it. When I got it home and tried to use it, though, it proved to be stupidly fiddly and ineffective. Technique, I suppose, or the lack of it, on my part no doubt had a bearing, but I couldn't help feeling anything but that the device had made a simple job unnecessarily difficult. So, when I went shopping in our local town centre yesterday, I managed to find a peeler of the type I'm used to - it was even described as a 'traditional vegetable peeler' on the packaging - at half the price I'd paid for the new-fangled version. and when I used it an hour or so ago to peel the remaining potatoes for this evening's meal, it took, literally, 10% of the time compared to the last, awkward, edition. The 'modern' peeler won't totally go to waste, though - K reckons she can use it for a craft project. Well, my girl, you're welcome. If it ain't broke, don't bloody try to fix it!

Love & best wishes to all
Sammy B

Saints and magpies

No, I haven't suddenly changed my AFL allegiance! I'm still the same masochist I ever was, and a member again for the first time in three years - I dropped out for financial reasons originally, and then, with all the upheavals in the intervening time, I hadn't got round to renewing. I've treated myself  - my Christmas present, if you like - to an international digital subscription, though, so I'll be able to watch all my beloved team's heavy defeats next season! The expensive unlimited broadband that only K seems to use to its full potential will soon be getting a good workout!
The 'magpies' reference was to do with the old rhyme, 'one for sorrow....', and all that. I saw four of the birds together in the communal garden when I was getting ready to go to work yesterday, and, as most doubtless know, it's 'four for a boy'. But it was K who got the boy, not me. It seems that she's well on the way to being 'an item' with yet another cutie - she showed me his picture on her phone - in her year at school, and who lives all of one bus stop away from us. I'm so bloody jealous! But not really, I just want her to be happy, of course. Although I can't help thinking that I wouldn't mind a little bit of happy for me, too.

Love & best wishes to all
Sammy B

The wrong kind of love

'Love is all you need', as the Beatles lyric has it. It has, so it seems, though, got to be the right sort of love to have the slightest chance of finding societal acceptance. Some comments on a blog post elsewhere that I've read this morning make that clear. Even those whose own version of love is widely vilified aren't immune from demonising the love of others. Shit flows downhill, as ever. Well, here's my twopennyworth - if it's shared, genuinely, by both (or all) parties concerned, without coercion of any kind, physical, emotional, psychological, then love can never be wrong. I dreamed about DBJ the night before last, for the first time in years, and the dream was of a shared love, nothing more. There never was love between us in reality, and almost certainly never could have been, but if he had known of my love for him, accepted it, and returned it, would it have been wrong, just because of the age difference? Not as far as I'm concerned. But then, I would say that, wouldn't I? Because I'm the lowest of the low, after all.

Love & best wishes to all
Sammy B

Chocky

I wrote recently about the new radio adaptation of The Chrysalids that I'd tripped over a couple of weeks ago, but, in the past few days, another dramatisation of a John Wyndham novel has come into my mind. While I was somewhat disappointed with the recent BBC radio offering, the earlier example, made as a children's TV series, was one that I very much enjoyed. I'd read Chocky several times before the TV series was made, and, as I tend to do, had my mental picture of the cast of characters and the settings pretty much ingrained, leaving me rather dubious about the prospects for the adaptation, all the more so because of its target audience - dumbing down was very much in my mind. In the event, though, the series was pretty faithful to the book, albeit time-shifted twenty years or so forward to be contemporary to the mid-eighties release date of the programmes. There was another reason I was such a fan of the series, too - the main character of the novel is a boy, and the young actor cast in the starring role, Andrew Ellams, was an utter cutie! Another of my boy crushes, immortalised forever by the magic of celluloid! And not just celluloid - a little 'research' the other night suggested that the series is available online, so I might well be reacquainting myself with 'digital Andrew' before too long!

Love & best wishes to all
Sammy B

I'll sleep when I'm dead

Or that's how it feels at the moment. After my 'one night stand' at work on Wednesday night, I was back to the grind five minutes short of 24 hours after I'd signed off - we are, technically, supposed to have a minimum of 24 hours plus a shift, i.e. 32 hours in my case, rest between duties involving a change of shift, but hey - via a 4:15 alarm call. More of the same tomorrow, then a late shift on Sunday, before I'm back on nights from Monday. I am, quite frankly, bloody exhausted, and apparently coming down with yet another cold into the bargain, but I've got to keep going, because I simply can't afford to be sick at the moment. With the outgoings for the flat, and making sure K has what she needs, as well as supporting my ex, losing an extra Sunday and the enhanced night rate just isn't an option. I know very well that I'm far from unique in being in thrall to the bills, but there are times, and this is one of them, when I feel like I'm killing myself for very scant reward.

Love & best wishes to all
Sammy B

Another anniversary

But one which, in contrast to my reaction to my cousin's birthday, raised barely an emotional ripple - in fact, I almost forgot about it altogether. It was a big deal not so long ago, though, albeit only ever to me, because the other person involved never remembered it, from beginning to end. Yesterday, November 12, marked the 23rd anniversary of the day I met my ex. I used to call it 'our alternative anniversary', and always bought her a little present and a card. This time, though, I didn't even think of it until about twenty minutes to midnight, more or less a third of the way through my one-off overtime night shift. I'm not sure whether my forgetting the day is good or bad - am I starting to get over what happened, or am I so dead inside that nothing matters anymore? I certainly don't know the answer to that question.

Love & best wishes to all
Sammy B

A birthday

A day that would've been marked, for more than half of my life, with my at least sending a card, and usually a phone call, but no more. My cousin's birthday. Last year, with the day falling so close to the meltdown between us, any regretful thoughts were overwhelmed by the nightmare that was those early weeks, but now, with rather more distance and perspective, I've been thinking about him more than a little. What happened can never be repaired, not least, and this is the most surprising, and maybe the most hurtful thing of all, because even if he approached me, I wouldn't feel able to trust him anymore. What I can't forget, though, is that he really has been the greatest love of my life. And now it's all gone. Like so much else.

Love & best wishes to all
Sammy B

The lunatics have taken over the asylum

No, not another one of my periodic diatribes about UKIP, but my reaction to a news story I saw in the Metro on the way to work earlier. A grandfather, the same age as me, coincidentally, took one of his grandchildren to a falconry centre near Bristol, and enjoyed the experience enough that he wanted to go again. So he went, on his own. And was turned away, on grounds of 'child protection'. The centre, and they're not unique, apparently, have a policy of refusing admission to unaccompanied adults. Now if this had been somewhere like one of the places we used to take K when she was small, with rides and attractions aimed at under-10s, a middle aged man turning up on his own would certainly have been incongruous, at the very least, but a falconry centre? Surely that's an unsurprising venue for a middle-aged man to attend? There might have been a bit of reductio ad absurdum creeping in, but I couldn't help wondering what the centre's reaction would've been if a gay couple had turned up. Would that be considered twice as dangerous, or would being a couple exempt such men from suspicion? What about an all-male group of twenty or thirty ornithology enthusiasts? What if this sort of policy became commonplace? There would be precious few places I'd be allowed to go, given that the prospects of my ever being anything other than single are somewhere between infinitesimal and zero. And what about public transport? Would I be obliged to get off the bus and put a paper bag over my head until any children had dispersed? I've commented often enough about 'paedo hysteria', but this seems to go even beyond that, to full-blown societal insanity. When is someone with influence going to stand up and say 'enough, this is completely out of control, we're going to be raising a generation incapable of any social interaction at all'? Not for the first time, I won't be holding my breath in expectation.

Love & best wishes to all
Sammy B

A cautionary tale

From my own subconscious, no less. I had one of the more vivid dreams of my recent past overnight, and it's illustrated that, even if I try to convince myself otherwise, sometimes - 'the boy on the bus', and all that - I know, if I'm honest with myself, what my future realistically holds. The dream involved a family - not one I recognised as having real-life analogues - I'd somehow befriended, including two brothers, 12-ish and 8-ish. Little bro was childishly affectionate and cuddly, but it was big bro who my dream self was drawn to. Not sexually, though, but wanting nothing beyond love and cuddles. When I did eventually get to hug him, though, he called it 'homo', and shied away. I was left to make abject apologies to him and his family, the dream ending with me looking down on him at a bus stop, as if I was in a helicopter, my heart aching. A psychological truth being told, I think - in this day and age, even friendship, never mind anything more, with a boy is out of my reach forever. That realisation hurts like hell, but if I believe anything else, it's simply delusion.

Love & best wishes to all
Sammy B

Not that I watch much TV....

....but this programme might find its way onto my 'unmissable' list, if it was available here. There's probably an element of schadenfreude involved, but to see the unthinkingly fundamentalist shredded by a breeze of cool reason would be more than entertaining. One admission, though - us Brits are almost as bad when it comes to 'foreign' languages, expecting everyone, anywhere, to be able to speak English. Mind you, in Scandinavia, not only do most people speak English, but a lot of them speak it considerably better than we do!

Love & best wishes
Sammy B

Easy go, but not so easy come

My return to work tomorrow will, including commuting time, cost me twelve hours of my life, and earn me around £150, give or take, after tax and National Insurance. Not bad for a day's work, it could be said, certainly compared to many. The irony is, though, that I spent almost exactly that much in five minutes in our local town centre at midday today, all on K - renewing her monthly bus pass, so she can get to school, topping up the pay-as-you-go element of her Oystercard, so she can tube around town, as is her wont, and making sure she had enough money for her weekend doings, including meeting up with a friend today, and for her dinner money and the like for next week. I don't begrudge her the cash for a moment, but the ease of my parting with it, as against the time it takes to earn it, is interesting, to say the least!

Love & best wishes to all
Sammy B

Same old

No boy on the bus, I contrived to miss him for the second time this week, K, after going off to a gig last night - and getting back very late, although, to be fair, she did get up in good time this morning with only a modicum of 'persuasion' - has gone over to her cute (is he, isn't he boy-)friend's place for the evening, so here I am, once more, in my local, sitting in the corner out of everyone's way. Invisible as ever. At least I've done one substantive thing today, in managing to drag myself (figuratively) kicking and screaming into the barber's for a necessary haircut. That's about it, though - not exactly a tale of major achievement, by anyone's standards. And in around 44 hours time, I'll be back at work. Wonderful.

Love & best wishes to all
Sammy B

Churning

Well, just for a change, I can't go through with it. The thoughts that have been roiling in my head for much of the evening need to be expressed, but I'm too much of a coward. My being introspective beyond reason isn't exactly a new phenomenon, but I'm really struggling with a specific issue at the moment. It ties in with the little post I made in Nephelokokkygia last night, prompted by my revulsion at even fictional boys being sexually coerced or mistreated, but I can't say what I want to say. because I'm too concerned about what 'they' would think. There may be limits to self-loathing, but I don't think I've plumbed those limits yet.

Love & best wishes to all
Sammy B

Rather disappointing

I found, by accident last night, that the BBC had aired a new radio adaptation of John Wyndham's The Chrysalids last month on one of their digital channels, and that it was still available on iPlayer. Given that the book is one of my all-time favourites, and that I first came across it as a radio serialisation in the summer holidays when I was 11, I couldn't resist giving it a listen. There had been another version on the radio a few years back, which I heard a few snippets of two or three years after it had been broadcast, and which I absolutely hated, not least because the voice cast sounded like they were strolling down to the posh bistro in some leafy Surrey commuter town rather than struggling to survive in post-apocalyptic Labrador. That issue, at least, was addressed to a degree by using UK regional, predominantly northern English accents for most of the characters, but I still didn't enjoy the adaptation as much as I hoped I would. I knew the story would be abridged, because the 'series' consisted of two hour-long episodes, but the way it was cut to fit the time slot left a lot to be desired - the ending, in particular, was ridiculously rushed, and left out a very important - to me, anyway - aspect of the plot (here comes a spoiler), namely Michael returning to 'fetch Rachel away', rather than just jumping on the Zealand flying machine and leaving her to her fate, something which underlined the 'think-togethers' loyalty to each other in the original. There were also some minor irritants, most notably Rosalind's father having his name changed from Angus to Matthew for no discernible reason, given that he's only ever referred to, rather than being a foreground character, even in the book, never mind the adaptation. I suppose that when you've lived with and loved the book for forty-odd years, any new version would have to be extraordinarily good to pass muster, but I still think it could have been so much better without undue effort. And I also think, particularly in this CGI age, when the mutations inherent to the story could be relatively easily portrayed, that it would make a fantastic film.
More disappointment this afternoon, too - I went looking for 'the boy on the bus', but ended up running ten minutes or so early, and missed him. There were some other cuties to admire a bit later on, but I still ended up feeling a bit down in the mouth. Another day, maybe.

Love & best wishes to all
Sammy B

Not helpful

I'm in 'second string' Wetherspoons, sitting close to a TV playing the BBC News Channel with the sound muted. They've just screened a lengthy report, which I surmise to have been about regional political autonomy, given the 'talking heads' in evidence, focusing on Cornwall. I recognised just about every scenery backdrop they showed, and all that was going through my head was 'home, home, home'. Most of the time, I can cope with most of what's been lost in the past two and a half years, but losing Cornwall, if I think about it too much, is very difficult to come to terms with. I'm feeling very homesick just now.

Love & best wishes to all
Sammy B

Tired, in spades

Well, I made it through the nights, just - on my way to work on Friday, I felt so rough I didn't think I had any chance of even getting through that shift, never mind its two successors - and now I'm into another week off. After a week of averaging about four and a half hours sleep a day, though, I'm so bloody shattered that I can hardly think. I usually manage nights fairly well, so why this particular week should have been such a struggle is a bit of a mystery - I certainly can't blame K's half-term holiday, because she was hardly at home all week, and she isn't exactly rowdy in any case. Maybe 35 years of shift work is finally starting to catch up with me.
I thought another crisis was in the process of descending yesterday, too - my laptop had a fit of refusing to load any web pages at all, despite the broadband working as it should. My finances are still sort-of, kind-of OK, but I certainly wouldn't want to be rushing off to PC World, or equivalent, to buy a replacement. Everything was, seemingly, back to normal this morning, though, so I'll just have to hope it was one of those unaccountable glitches us non-techies look at with glazed-over eyes, desperate that 'switching it off, and switching it back on again' works the oracle!

Love & best wishes to all
Sammy B

Pyromania

Now that Halloween is over for another year, we're immediately into the next 'season' that used, in my youth, to be a one day production, namely 'fireworks week', or Bonfire Night, as it used to be called. Rather than remembering November 5, Guy Fawkes, and all that, the pyrotechnic bonanza now lasts at least a week - I've seen adverts for organised events relatively locally beginning tonight and continuing until at least next Saturday. A real fireworks afficionado could probably find a display to go to every night in the interim, quite apart from the 'back garden' displays that many people still seem to want to undertake. Each to their own, of course, but I'm afraid I view fireworks as the literal embodiment of 'money going up in smoke'. Still, it keeps the sheeple happy for a day or two, so, no doubt, the government view it as a useful distraction from their incompetence.

Love & best wishes to all
Sammy B