Saturday 31 October 2015

Pet hates

I have a few, and at least three of them come along more or less concurrently at this time of year. So, at the risk of being called a curmudgeon, or worse, and in chronological order:

1) Halloween. A totally unwelcome American import, as far as I'm concerned. And one which seems to be going the way of other 'marketing opportunity' dates, by expanding from a day to a week, to who knows how long in future - one local chain of bakeries began advertising Halloween-related products at least six weeks ago.

2) Bonfire Night. 'Remember, remember the fifth of November'. Except that it's been smeared out into the best part of a fortnight now, everywhere sounding like the Somme for days on end - there were fireworks, more than one lot, being set off around here last night, almost a week before the 'official' date, and I have no doubt they'll still be going off for several days after next Thursday, too. Apart from the spectacle of good money literally going up in smoke, never a year passes without people, often children, being seriously injured in firework accidents. Indefensible, in my opinion.

3) 'Poppy Day'. The one that would be most likely to earn me hate mail, but sobeit. There has been a tendency in recent years, perhaps as far back as the Falklands conflict, for those who choose not to wear the Royal British Legion's symbol of remembrance to be vilified as being disrespectful and unpatriotic, but since the Gulf Wars/Afghanistan conflict, that vilification has been ratcheted up to a disturbing degree. Barbara Windsor, that well-known fount of erudition, was quoted a couple of days ago as saying those who don't wear poppies should 'sod off'. As in get out of the country, presumably. Well, I've got news for you, Ms Windsor. I'm never going to wear a poppy, and I'm not going anywhere. And I'll readily tell you, or anyone else, the two linked sociopolitical reasons why. The first is to do with the way my dad, and thousands of others in his position, were treated in this country. My dad was a coal miner, starting work in one of the collieries of the now-defunct Kent coalfield in 1940, when he was 14. By the time he was 18, he'd effectively been 'conscripted' to continue in that line of work, as one of the so-called 'Bevin Boys', and wasn't 'demobbed' from that status until 1952, obviously well after the end of the Second World War. By that time, he knew nothing else, and eventually worked in the mine for 45 years, ruining his health and shortening his life by, perhaps, decades in the process. And what did he get for that lifetime of service on his retirement? Nothing. Not even a letter of appreciation. In fact, when he died, less than a year later, my mum was 'rewarded' further by having her free coal allowance stopped, because, being five years younger than my dad, she was still working, and apparently earned too much (in what, by today's standards, was very much a 'national minimum wage' job) to qualify for the 'perk'. 'A country fit for heroes'. Yeah, right. And how often are the 'Bevin Boys' mentioned around Remembrance Day, despite their vital contribution to the war effort? Never, as far as I can recall. The second element of my distaste for the shallow hagiography that the poppy represents for me is more overtly political. And it's this. Ultimately, wars are almost always fought, certainly in the modern era, exclusively by the poor to protect the power, wealth and privilege of the few, the social and cultural 'elites' and their sycophants. If casualties of those 'resource wars' need financial support, let the people who have reaped the financial rewards of the sacrifices of others foot the bill. A couple of percent on the tax rates of the richest in society would raise far more than the small change of the 'person in the street' being dropped into collection boxes. Johnson said 'patriotism is the last refuge of the scoundrel'. Especially, in my opinion, the kind of superficial uber-patriotism typified by Barbara Windsor's remarks.

Love & best wishes to all
Sammy B

Wednesday 28 October 2015

Friendly fire?

Over the past couple of days, I've been on the same shift as my relatively new, openly gay colleague - he's now finished the 'classroom' part of his training, and is into the 'on the job' familiarisation. He hasn't been the focus of as much hostility as I thought he might face, and I think part of that, at least, is because he's unashamed, quite rightly, of his sexuality, and more than ready to turn any snide remarks back on their authors. There was some 'banter' this afternoon about a supposedly 'boyish' female celebrity, and someone asked the gay guy 'would you?', or words to that effect. His reply, without a missed beat, was 'Why not just have a boy?'. Damn bloody right, I thought, and I wasn't far from saying so, although I'm sure his idea of a 'boy' is on the opposite side of the line of legality from mine. It's not the first time I've come close to outing myself by openly agreeing with something he's said, and it would be ironic indeed if I did just that in response to a comment from an 'ally' rather than an adversary.

Love & best wishes to all
Sammy B

Monday 26 October 2015

One foot in the grave

So, the World Health Organisation has apparently announced that sausages (and other processed meats) are as much as a risk factor for cancer as tobacco and asbestos. Guess what I'm having for lunch?!

Love & best wishes to all
Sammy B

Sunday 25 October 2015

I could easily have fallen in love

With the most adorable little guy on my train to work this afternoon. He was about the same age as Cammy, 8/9, cute without being supercute, but just so bubbly and happy, and bright with it - when his dad asked him if he was ready to get off (no, no, don't get off, was my unspoken reaction!) at their destination, his reply was 'I was born ready!', which undoubtedly took the man aback more than a little! Cynics might well disbelieve me, but the 'hook' wasn't sex, not for a moment. It was sheer personality. I wanted him to be my new best friend. Instead, of course, he'll be another 'ghost', and I'll never see him again, in any plausible circumstances. Life, don't talk to me about life, as Marvin memorably said.

Love & best wishes to all
Sammy B

Winter is here again

I guess I say this in some shape or form most years, but today is absolutely my least favourite day in the whole calendar - the day the clocks go back to GMT, as they did in the early hours of this morning, meaning that it will be dark at something like 5:00 this evening. Knowing that there are five whole months of dark evenings to endure really doesn't do anything for my spirits at all.

Love & best wishes to all
Sammy B

Friday 23 October 2015

Not fair!

In which I do my best Violet Elizabeth Bott impression, and stamp my little (OK, overly large) foot. Most schools are on their half term break next week (K actually finished yesterday, given that she doesn't have any timetabled lessons on a Friday, and has a dispensation to 'work from home' rather than having to go in just to get a tick in the register, albeit today's working from home consisted of her travelling to the Midlands to spend a long weekend with her mother), but I'm basically going to miss the whole bloody thing, because I'm working throughout, lates until Tuesday, then another four night shifts at the end of the week. All those cutie spotting opportunities, snatched from my grasp! That said, some schools seem already to have finished, because there were more than a few school age guys out and about in 'civvies' when I was on my way to work this afternoon, most notably a 13/14 lovely who looked like a cross between my cousin, my darling boy (apposite, given that I was writing about him, or his avatar, at least, at that very age in my ongoing work on my new story this morning) and R, who longer term readers might remember as my schoolfriend who was the first boy I ever fell in love with. Would that I could've spirited him away to the counterfactual near future of my fictional world, and lived happily ever after.

Love & best wishes to all
Sammy B

Tuesday 20 October 2015

It's taken a while....

....but I finally made it to my first Gresham College lecture today. I first came across the organisation, which, among other things, presents free public lectures on various academic subjects, about three years ago when I was searching online for potentially interesting things to do in London, and had looked several times at the forthcoming events section of their website, but, for one reason or another, I'd never actually got around to attending. Given the length of time I'd been planning to go, it was probably inevitable that actually doing it would be more or less impromptu, and that, indeed, was the case - I looked online yesterday to see if there was anything happening during my time off at the end of next month, only to find a lecture on Einstein's 1905 papers (including those on the photoelectric effect, for which he won his Nobel prize, and on Special Relativity) was scheduled for today. And very interesting it was, too, pitched at a 'general reader' rather than at an esoteric level, and while it didn't really teach me much I didn't already know, it did bring aspects of the subject together in a novel way. I certainly hope my first Gresham College moment won't be my last.

Love & best wishes to all
Sammy B

Monday 19 October 2015

Drowning in dysphoria

Back in my local after an eight day break - a sabbatical for my liver, if you will - militated by my having been on nights, and what has changed? How about nothing. My life is still the benighted mess it's been since I can't remember when, my nose rubbed in the realities when I was out and about earlier - it's been one of those days where there have been more than the average number of cuties around, even during the middle of the day when you might have expected them to have been in school, but all of them, of course, completely and permanently out of reach. There might be some point to all of this torture, but I'm afraid I can't see what it is.

Love & best wishes to all
Sammy B

Sunday 18 October 2015

Wow! And wow!!

This is probably going to seem anticlimactic in relation to the title, but I don't have a wildly interesting life, so anything out of the ordinary can merit an exclamation mark or two.
Just as I was getting ready to go to work last night, I heard a thorough 'blast from the past' on the radio. Gary Gilmore's Eyes by The Adverts. Not only a great song in itself, as far as I'm concerned, but a song that got me into the whole punk genre, my initial reaction to it, as the prog rocker I was then (and still am, I guess), having been more or less entirely negative. I wouldn't say I've never heard the song on the radio before, but it's a very long way from being an everyday occurrence. Back to 1977!
And then, when I got to 'worktown', leaving the station I came across a whole family of cuties. Three brothers (with dad), fairly obviously South African, given the rugby shirts and flags in evidence (their team were playing in the Word Cup quarter final yesterday afternoon). The two younger ones, 10 and 11/12, were cute enough, but 'big bro', 13/14, was just flat out gorgeous. He was wrapped up in a big national flag - would that it could've been my arms instead.

Love & best wishes to all
Sammy B

Wednesday 14 October 2015

Stasis and progress

Much as usual, the beginning of a night shift week has brought 'life', i.e. anything not connected to work, getting there and back, or sleeping and eating, pretty much to a standstill. With one exception. What little amount of free time I've had over the past three days has been devoted to my new story, and it certainly seems to be progressing. The scene is set, some of the main characters introduced, I'm fairly happy with those elements, and still more than keen to continue. I've wanted to write another long story ever since I finished Alexandrine, and this one could be it. The one potential fly in the ointment? I have literally no idea, as yet, of the 'final destination' of the tale, or even of how it could head in the direction of such a point. A moment of inspiration required, please!

Love & best wishes to all
Sammy B

Sunday 11 October 2015

My perfect boy?

In my local this evening, enjoying my last liquid anaesthetics for a week - I start nights tomorrow. Chilling pretty nicely, in keeping with the cold beer. And then a grenade lands in the middle of the pub. An extended family, three adult women, possibly sisters, and a veritable passel of kids. They were, to be as charitable as I can, more than a bit chavvy. It got a bit raucous, but not ridiculously so. Amongst it all, though, was Ryan. The oldest of the youngsters, 11/12, and seemingly a surrogate carer to some of the smaller siblings/cousins. He wasn't supercute, but he was a nice-looking boy, and, from conversation I heard, not a wide-eyed innocent. Knowing, was the adjective that came into my head. Cammy was here, too, although he didn't see me, and he's a very special little dude, but Ryan, just heading into puberty and beginning to be acquainted with 'the ways the world', would have been just the sort of guy I'd give my eye teeth to take home. Never going to happen in a million years, of course. FML.

Love & best wishes to all
Sammy B

Sounds like a good idea to me

I've applied to take the rest of my remaining leave for this year in one go, which, given that my next long weekend would be incorporated, could mean my being off work for almost three weeks at the end of next month and into December. I haven't been off for that long at a stretch since I ended up in hospital two and a half years ago. Twenty days off - I could get used to that! I've got to get in practice for retirement, after all!

Love & best wishes to all
Sammy B

Friday 9 October 2015

The best I've seen for a while

I spotted a flier while I was out and about earlier, stuck on a lamppost not far from Tottenham Court Road station. It was a picture of a badger, with a logo that read 'Save British wildlife, cull Tories'. Wish I'd thought of that one!

Love & best wishes to all
Sammy B

Thursday 8 October 2015

The benefits of being a parent

Certainly the parent of someone whose musical tastes overlap your own. K texted me at work this morning to tell me that The Jesus & Mary Chain are playing in London in March. I've seen them before, twice, but not since 1989, so her question (asked, I'm sure, with tongue in cheek) as to whether I might be interested was rather redundant. Damn right I'm interested! And so, it seems, is my girl. As I pointed out to her, she'll be 18 by the night of the gig, so we could have a very nice pre-concert soiree as well. I'll be on the hunt for tickets without delay!

2225 edit: Tickets booked, K and I will be off to see the gig a few months hence!

Love & best wishes to all
Sammy B

Tuesday 6 October 2015

Paranoia creeping up, again

I called in my local for a few liquid anaesthetics on my way back from work, as is my wont. All congenial enough, until it got better - a lot better. Cameron came in with his parents, the family sitting three or four tables away from me. The boy didn't see me for ten minutes or so, but when he did, he smiled and waved. I responded in kind, of course, and I was thrilled to bits, in the moment. But when I left, shortly afterwards - another 'stupid o'clock' beckons in the morning - tendrils of paranoia started to wrap themselves around me. My 'relationship', such as it is, with Cameron has, hitherto, been one of secret little smiles and the odd quiet exchange of 'Hi' and 'Bye'. I can't imagine, though, that his waving to me is the sort of thing that will go unnoticed by his parents for very long. Given his age, I wouldn't be in the least surprise if the first thing that came into their mind was my second least favourite word in the torturously misused English language - 'grooming'. The fact that I don't know his surname, where he lives, where he goes to school, that he doesn't know my name or that I've never seen him anywhere other than in the pub, and have no expectation of that situation changing, wouldn't cross their minds. Man interacting, even minimally, with an unrelated boy = predator. No shades of grey allowed. K thought I was being unduly pessimistic when I mentioned it to her after I got home. I hope she's right. I wouldn't stake my very meagre life savings on it, though.

Love & best wishes to all
Sammy B

Monday 5 October 2015

Another big story - maybe

Just occasionally, amongst my mostly abortive efforts, a story idea comes along that genuinely catches my imagination. Alexandrine is the most obvious example, along with the 'Cassie and Robin' series more recently. A dream I had in the early hours of this morning might just be the catalyst for another 'big venture'. I dreamt about my cousin, my darling boy (who now hates me, of course, passim) as he was at 12 or 13, but in a distinctly odd setting. For once, I remembered the dream in quite some detail, thought about it more on the way to work, and a basic framework began to assemble itself in my head. There are resonances with my all-time favourite online story, The Geppetto Project, a sort-of science-fictiony, counterfactual thread, and, already, two very cute boys, the avatar of my cousin, and another with dark curly hair and, shall we say, few inhibitions! As ever, who knows where the idea will go, if anywhere, but, if nothing else, burying myself in a congenial fictional world might distract me from my perceived woes.

Love & best wishes to all
Sammy B

Saturday 3 October 2015

Struggling again

The downs certainly seem to be outweighing the ups at the moment. I slipped back into the slough of despond I was inhabiting on Thursday, basically for the same reasons - fed up with my life, in just about all of its aspects. It was more difficult in another way today, as well - my brother and sister-in-law came up to London to go to the theatre, and I'd arranged to meet them for a pre-performance meal. I warned them when they arrived that I wasn't likely to be particularly sparkling company, and why, but, in the event, I did manage to avoid the worst excesses of antisocial self-pity, so it actually turned out to be a reasonably congenial late afternoon/early evening, even if the 'black dog' was never all that far from the surface. And so my time off comes to an end, and it's up a 'stupid o'clock' in the morning to go back to the den of fuckwittery masquerading as my workplace. I can hardly wait.

Love & best wishes to all
Sammy B

Friday 2 October 2015

Randomosity and serendipity

The last fully free day of my latest time off work - I'll need to have an early night tomorrow preparatory to getting up ridiculously early on Sunday - and, like most of its predecessors, my main occupation has been meandering, more randomly than usual. I took several unplanned twists and turns, had lunch at Borough Market when even going there hadn't originally crossed my mind, left Waterloo by train (for the most anorakish of reasons) when I'd decided I was going to stay in town, then heading even further into the outer suburbs by tube. And my reward for my aimlessness was seeing an absolute welter of cuties, most notably three, on two successive buses, within about twenty minutes, including - shock, horror - a girl!! The first of the three, though, was 'cutie of the day', a simply delicious boy of 11 or 12 with light brown hair, a lovely suntan and the most kissable looking lips I've seen in quite a while. He was sitting directly opposite me, too, good, for the most part, aside from having to resist the temptation to gaze at him too bloody obviously! Definitely a better day than yesterday - all I need now is for Cameron to come into my local with his family and give me one of his heart-melting smiles.

2120 edit: Back home, no Cammy. FML. At least Xander is always there for me - yes, I'm reading my magnum opus yet again.

Love & best wishes to all
Sammy B


Thursday 1 October 2015

Sad dog

I'm sure regular readers of this blog will be well aware that I have days when I feel revoltingly sorry for myself, and post accordingly. Today is one of those days. Switch off now if you've heard it all before. I really am totally fed up with the circumstances of my life. I've two more days off, before going back to 'stupid o'clock' starts on Sunday, back to a job and, with very few exceptions, a group of colleagues that I utterly despise (and who, I'm sure, feel the same way about me). I'm only still doing what I do because of my daughter, specifically for the good of her education, but even that justification is wearing pretty thin. Not because I don't care about her, she's absolutely the centre of my universe, but because, more than ever, what my sister-in-law said when I first split up with my ex, that there needed to be something in my 'new life' for me is, quite simply, a joke. There wasn't very much for me in my old life, but I could buy into the illusion that there was fulfillment in trying to provide for my family, at least to a point. But now, the absent positive, the knowledge that I'll never get what I want, in any foreseeable circumstances, is weighing me down almost to the extent of complete despair. I know most 'right-thinking' people would say that nothing and never is all I deserve. I'm sure they would feel better about themselves for thinking that, too. But then, they haven't had to live this life sentence, without hope of parole, since they were twelve years old.

Love & best wishes to all
Sammy B