Lions vs humans

There has been a lot of outrage over the case of an American dentist who shot a lion in Zimbabwe. And I have to say I agree, in principle. I think hunting animals for sport is a particularly vile thing to do, given the power imbalance in the situation - if the lion could shoot back, or the fox set a pack of half-starved dogs on the red-coated 'unspeakable', I doubt the homo sapiens involved would be as enthusiastic about the pastime. That said, though, there are people over here at the moment openly advocating that the migrants trying to get into the UK via the Channel Tunnel be shot on sight. The unfortunate lion had been anthropomorphised by being given a name. The people looking for a better life for themselves and their families are being dehumanised to the point of being seen as vermin to be wiped out. Skewed priorities, maybe?

Love & best wishes to all
Sammy B

23 and out

Finally, a whole day off! Two, actually, and most of a third, too, as I'm not working again until Sunday night. My cup runneth over! Well, not quite - having done ten straight early turns up to yesterday, it was no surprise at all when I woke up at the crack of dawn this morning, less than an hour later than my alarm had been set for during the run of 'stupid o'clocks'. Still, it's a nice day, and I'll be getting ready and going out into it before too long. First port of call will be the local Royal Mail delivery office, to pick up a parcel which they tried to deliver yesterday. A bit of an impulse buy, I have to admit, but I think it'll be worthwhile. I've bought a second laptop. Only a refurbished (second-hand!) one, but one with a large screen, so I can watch the various streaming sport channels I subscribe to while still using this laptop for other things at the same time - blogging, for instance!
The other thing to look forward to today is K's return from the north - she's been away visiting friends in Scotland since Tuesday. I need to get used to her not being around, though, because it's only just over a year until she'll be off to uni. To that end, I did a bit of internet house-hunting yesterday, for both of us, finding a small, but nice-looking place in 'worktown' that would do for me, and student accommodation in the uni town that's top of K's shortlist, for a combined price only around £100 a month more than we're paying now. Of course, neither is likely to be on the market twelve months hence, but at least it gives me an idea of what might be available, and at what cost.
Then tomorrow, I've got one of my few and far between 'socials' - my brother and sister-in-law are coming up to London for the day. We'll have to avoid the centre of 'town', though - much of it is shut to traffic, all weekend, for the Ride London cycling event. I'm all for cyclists having good access to the city - less cars - but I do wish the powers-that-be could find a way of doing it that was less disruptive to everyone else. The biggest problem is that so many of the Thames bridges are closed, effectively cutting London in half - I had all sorts of problems getting to work for an early turn on the equivalent Sunday last year, but this year, at least, being on nights means that I'll be travelling after the event has finished. Be thankful for small mercies, and all that!

Love & best wishes to all
Sammy B

No-one knows what it's like

No-one knows what it's like

To be hated

To be fated

To telling only lies

From Behind Blue Eyes by The Who. My eyes aren't blue, but I will certainly support the main assertion of the song. If you're not a boy (or girl) lover, you can't possibly imagine what it's like to be at the centre of the maelstrom of hatred such attractions engender. Like at work yesterday, when, in the midst of yet another torrent of bigotry (mostly misogynistic, as it happened), the conversation suddenly veered off into 'paedo' this and 'kiddie-fiddler' that. I looked at the ceiling and mouthed 'fuck off, fuck off, you have no idea what you're talking about', but, of course, I couldn't speak out, given, sadly, that I still need the benighted fucking job to finance K's education, so, yet again, I was telling lies, of omission, at least. If anyone ever tells me to my face that my sexuality is a 'choice', they'd be very likely to get a smack in the mouth.

Love & best wishes to all

Sammy B

All talked out

For the moment, at least. I've long pondered and introspected about my life and its issues ad nauseam, of course, but I seem to be in a deeper rut than usual at the moment, and there really isn't anything of value to add, anything that might make the blog a more interesting, for others, or worthwhile, for me, place to inhabit. The blog certainly isn't closed - if something significant happened in an hour's time, I'd doubtless write about it - and there's another 'Cassie and Robin' story in the works at Nephelokokkygia, but unless and until something comes along to nudge me out of my inertia, I'm going to abide by the 'if you've got nothing to say, say nothing' maxim.

Love & best wishes to all
Sammy B

As predicted

In my local, and I've just seen (and been served by) Daniel for the first time since last week's 'closing time' conversation. And to say that he looked right through me would be a considerable understatement. He's too old for me, anyway, especially when compared to the unspeakably gorgeous boy I saw when I left work at lunchtime, 11/12, tall for his age, shaggy blond hair, insanely desirable. But out of reach, always out of reach. Just like Daniel.

Love & best wishes to all
Sammy B

It's going to be a long summer

And a 'double-edged sword' one, if today is anything to go by. It's my one day off in the middle of the current run of more than three weeks of otherwise consecutive shifts (if you can call it a day off, given that I didn't finish my Sunday shift until 7:00 this morning), and, coincidentally, the first day of the school summer holidays for many (K finishes tomorrow). And notwithstanding the fact that it's been grey and intermittently drizzly, the cuties have been out in swarms! All very nice to see, from my perspective, but there's a dark side, too, epitomised by one of the very first boys I saw after leaving the flat this morning. He was on his own, and notably young to be so in this day and age, on the bus that began my meanderings. There was a little bit of eye contact, and an exchange of smiles, when we both changed buses at the same stop, although he wasn't, as it turned out, taking the same 'next bus' as me. That didn't stop the 'What if....?' demons from sticking their heads above the parapet, though - my rational self knows, 100%, that boys like him should be sacrosanct, untouchable, but given a particular permutation of temptation and opportunity....? As ever, I'm left with no more than hope that I would do the 'right thing'. Would that I could guarantee it.

Love & best wishes to all
Sammy B

Virtue?

I don't quite know how this post is going to come out - I've been thinking about it for more than 24 hours, and I've struggled to find not only the right words, but the right tone.
It began in my thinking about an online story I've been re-reading, albeit on a different site from its first incarnation. It's a man-boy story, set in England, slightly unusually, but it's a story I found rather frustrating first time around, and this second experience of it hasn't changed my feelings about it at all, really. The author, a number of whose stories I've read and enjoyed, seems to have resorted in this case to some implausible and tortuous plot twists to prevent his main characters from 'consummating' their loving relationship. To what end? That was the question I've asked myself several times, and, after giving it considerable thought, and standing to be corrected if I'm wrong, it seems to me that the author's principal aim was to establish his own 'VirPed' credentials.
I came across the 'Virtuous Pedophiles' site a year, maybe 18 months ago. Any site whose goals include trying to provide some kind of support to boy and girl lovers is certainly worthy of examination, but I'm not convinced by the VirPed manifesto, I'm afraid. By the letter of the law, they say the 'right' things, the things that 'society' would want them to say - absolutely no sexual contact with anyone underage, in any circumstances, albeit while trying to encourage that society to accept that not all those attracted to younger people are necessarily slavering rapists, or rapists in waiting, that, in fact, that some 'pedophiles' abide by the law and pose no threat to anyone, of any age. Well, good luck to them on that front, especially being based in the US, as they are (hence my using the American spelling of my least favourite word in this post) - they're fighting against mountains of negative publicity, and a world that simply doesn't want to listen to any voice that doesn't cast the 'paedo' as the blackest embodiment of absolute evil. I couldn't possibly, in any way that would be true to myself, ever make an absolute promise of eternal celibacy. All I can do is to try and continue to do what I've done for decades, and not to do anything that would hurt anyone in any way, and not to do anything without not only consent, but informed consent, where any potential partner not only agrees to any activity, but understands, in so far as I'm able to judge, what they're agreeing to. Does that make me virtuous? Almost certainly not, but it's the best I can do.

Love & best wishes to all
Sammy B

Not on his watch

I've just read an article about the newly elected leader of the Liberal Democrats, the political party I've voted for pretty much for the whole of my adult life. And it turns out that he's an evangelical Christian who believes in the literal truth of every word in the bible. So, as a gay atheist, am I going to vote for someone who thinks I should be stoned to death? What is remotely 'democratic' about biblical literalism, still less 'liberal'? The chances of me ever voting LibDem while Farron is in charge are precisely nil.

Love & best wishes to all
Sammy B

Like being savaged by a dead sheep

Famously said in the 1970s by Labour politician Dennis Healey of his Tory contemporary Geoffrey Howe, but it was equally appropriate for what happened at the end of my first night shift this morning. My boss was in early, as he often is, and said he wanted to see me in his office before I went home. I had a pretty good idea of what it was about, and it proved that I was right, a real 'nothing' incident, if what happened can even be honoured with the word 'incident' - if anything, it was a clash of personality with someone I really don't have any time for at all - but my boss decided he needed to speak to me about it. To say it was a one-sided conversation was an understatement - I did think I was in the right, and said so, robustly - but the dithering, weak to the point of being almost pathetic, effort of my boss was frankly embarrassing, or certainly would have embarrassed me if the positions had been reversed. Still, it won't happen again - I knew my boss was due to 'move on' to a new job within the company, but it turns out today was his last day. His replacement is one of my former colleagues who moved into supervisory and then management grades a couple of years back, who, while he is a slightly stronger personality - he could hardly be otherwise - was always pretty clueless about actually doing the job when he was on the 'front line'. It always seems to be the way with management in our industry - and maybe others - that the people who end up in those positions always seem to be square pegs in round holes, in some, if not all respects. I'll stay as a 'foot soldier', thanks.

Love & best wishes to all
Sammy B

Well, a little chat....

....and a goodnight, twice, as well as an enquiry as to when I might be in again. With Daniel, cute barman at my local, for those not familiar with previous mentions of the thoroughly legal, but still 'boyish enough for my tastes' young man. I still can't conceive that anything could ever happen, but I certainly wouldn't mind being proved wrong.

Love & best wishes to all
Sammy B

Another day in Bigotland

This afternoon's shift at work was notably quiet and straightforward, which left plenty of scope for chitchat amongst some of my colleagues. And given that the 'archbigot' was there, as well as another guy whose views are almost as egregious, some of the conversation was of the kind that makes me despair to have to be part of the same species as these people. For once, the 'homophobia quotient' was relatively low, racism and xenophobia seemingly being the order of the day, but it was no less depressing for that. It's telling that no-one ever seems to canvass my opinions on such subjects - I think they might have worked out that they'd get some extremely sharp answers. One of these days, they might just get those answers, solicited or not.

Love & best wishes to all
Sammy B

Nose to the grindstone, yet again

I've rather stumbled into it, this time, but it's turned out that I'm in one of my periodic 'working all hours' phases. Having seen the roster that starts on Sunday week today, and knowing already what I'll be working the week after, I'm a seventh of the way through a run of 21 shifts in 22 days, and I'll be paid for the one day off, too, because it's a working day on the base roster, but we're not allowed to work more than 13 days in a row, so the company are obliged to pay me for staying at home! Or going to the pub, as the case may be! Would that every day was like that!
By the time I get to the end of the run, the school holidays will have started. Six weeks of all day eye candy! My cup runneth over!

Love & best wishes to all
Sammy B

There's only me left, now

Or so it seems, after a post I read just over an hour ago. The only one from our happy, friendly little corner of cyberspace that imploded nearly five years ago who's still bloody-minded enough to carry on here in Blogland. And imploded is the right word, the exact word, because the centre of that world proved to be a vacuum, devoid of anything it purported to be. Over the last little while, I've thought of so many things I wanted to say, but most of them can't be said, even pseudonymously, because of the effect they might have on others, and on one person in particular. The one I've always cared for, far more than anyone else in cyberspace. Even saying that is probably too much, and I'm sorry if it's misconstrued in any way. But I really did care, and I still do. Not that my sentiments will ever help, not one iota. But they are genuine, I promise.

Love & best wishes to all
Sammy B

Slough of apathy

I'm finding it difficult to drum up any enthusiasm for anything much today. My life seems to be in a 'same old, same old' phase at the moment, nothing changing, and few prospects. Mind you, if I could take the boy (who I've seen a few times before, here in my local, and who looks nearly as fed up as me at the moment) who's just walked past home with me, I'm sure things would start looking up, in more ways than one.

Love & best wishes to all
Sammy B

Remembrance of nothings past

It's amazing, sometimes, how things that failed to happen, things, of course, that are as implacably immutable as those that did, can haunt you just as much, and have consequences as real, as the actualities. I hadn't thought of C for years before yesterday, but the 'broken bridge' (one of my occasional allusions for the Nabokovians out there) that brought him to mind has set off an avalanche of regret and surmise (another small literary allusion which has nothing whatever to do with V.N.). C and I did get along pretty well, he was certainly a cutie, if not a supercutie, at 14 (and still is now, in his mid-twenties, to judge by his profile picture, although maybe that's just me looking and seeing the echoes of the boy I knew), and that evening, walking back from the village pub, with the rest of his family mere feet away, he truly was desperate to get me in his bedroom (please, please, he said, yes, he really did say that). But I shit out, too scared of potential consequences. No doubt leaving him feeling horribly rejected, even if the excuse I used, of having to get up stupidly early for work the following morning, was factually accurate. And the last chance I've had to this day, maybe the last of my whole life, to be with a boy was gone. What a fucking moron I was, and am.

Love & best wishes to all
Sammy B

Off to the seaside!

But not yet! Six weeks tomorrow, to be exact. K and I, after discussing our accommodation options, have settled on, booked and had the booking confirmed for a two bedroom ground floor flat in a South Coast seaside town. It might seem a bit of an odd choice, but K is getting rather too old to want to share a hotel room with me, and booking two single rooms is an expensive hobby, given that single rooms always tend to cost more, pro rata, than a double, so getting a whole property, two bedrooms, living room, kitchen, bathroom, even a washing machine, in the unlikely event of either of us suddenly feeling domestically inclined, for around the price of a decent quality B & B double strikes me as a good deal. It'll be self-catering, of course, so the cost of food will have to be factored in, but, even so, it's still the best option in the circumstances, as far as I'm concerned. One day, probably, will be taken up with K's trip to her potential 'uni town', but the rest of the time should be free for 'outing and abouting'. Should be a good trip!
Just as an aside, a face from my past came to mind while I was writing this post. Our former next door neighbour boy from when we first moved to Cornwall, the one who might very well have been not only willing, but eager to engage with me when he was around 14, had I not been too scared to go through with it, went to the same university that K is looking at. And, unless I've seriously misconstrued something I found when I did a web search for him a few minutes ago, he's got a boyfriend/male partner. If only I could go back to that summer evening in Cornwall, and have the chance to react to his implicit invitation differently. Hindsight, as I've said more than once, is the most useless commodity known to man. *Sigh*

1645 edit: K has corrected me, so my link was a spurious one - there are two universities in the town concerned, and K is looking at the one that our former neighbour didn't go to. Doesn't change the fact that I wish I'd been braver in 2003, though. :(

Love & best wishes to all
Sammy B

Too much weather, and a holiday (kinda, sorta....)

Our recent heatwave ended with, literally, a bang last night, in the shape of a series of thunderstorms - plenty of flashes, rumbles, and torrents of rain. It's sunny again this morning, though, so maybe summer isn't over quite yet!
And much to my surprise, given the relatively short notice of my application and our desperate shortage of staff, I've managed to get almost a week off in the middle of next month. K and I may be going away for a few days, if we can find suitable accommodation at a sensible price, possibly to the area where one of the universities she's seriously considering applying to is located. It's a coastal area, too, so it could be the best of both worlds - some practical stuff in terms of looking at potential student flats and facilities, but a bit of seaside time, too. And quality time with my girl, of course.

Love & best wishes to all
Sammy B

Heat, pills, tiredness

Today was reputedly going to be the warmest in this country for a decade - yes, the UK is in the throes of one of its very occasional 'heatwaves'. And, of course, in our inimitable fashion, people are moaning and groaning about it, just as fervently as they moan about our normal 'Great British Summer', i.e. days of grey skies and pouring rain. As far as I'm concerned, it can stay this warm until the end of September - I love it! The only downside is that, being on nights this week, I'm pretty much missing out on the benefits of the sunny days, having barely enough time between shifts and their concomitant bouts of commuting to even get enough sleep, still less anything else. Especially today, when I had a doctor's appointment on my way back from work and didn't get indoors until 10:00, despite having left work at 7:00. The appointment wasn't even something I'd initiated, simply a 'medication review' the practice wanted me to have before they'd issue me with another prescription for my heart meds. The outcome was totally predictable - my medication was left unchanged after a desultory ten minute consultation with a doctor I'd never seen before, and may well never see again. The only tangible effect was to rob me of an hour's sleep, leaving me to face heading back to work this evening even more tired than 24 hours ago. Thanks a bundle!

Love & best wishes to all
Sammy B