Then and now

More reflections on the 13 year old me, and what I've become. I wish, I wish so much, I could've been braver, dared to be myself. Maybe, then, I wouldn't have completely screwed three lives up, mine, my ex's and my daughter's. The child who never should have been, had I not been such a fucking coward.

Love & best wishes to all
Sammy B

Time machine

I read something earlier this morning, a story of a 'coming of age' experience, which initially had the old clichés about 'if I had my time over', 'if I knew then what I know now', and the like, springing to mind. But I quickly realised that I almost certainly wouldn't do it differently, even if I could cheat the laws of physics and find myself a time machine to take me back to being 13. Because the boy who sat in a cubicle in my school toilets literally shaking with fear at the consequences of anyone finding out he liked boys and not girls is still living in my head today, and that same scared boy has made more or less all of the decisions in my emotional life in the intervening forty-odd years. Fear and happiness are pretty much mutually exclusive.

Love & best wishes to all
Sammy B

Untermensch?

Not long after I'd left work at lunchtime, I found myself on a bus, sitting opposite a delightful little boy - and little is the operative word, he was only 4 or 5 - pretty, blond hair, cheeky smile, full of life, chattering away nineteen to the dozen to his mother. The only thing is, the chatter was in some Eastern European language (Polish, I think). Given their current triumphalism after the European elections, it made me wonder what Farage and his bunch of fascist xenophobes would have made of the little guy - probably would have wanted to have him and his mother summarily deported, given half a chance, after Farage's comments about Romanians in the runup to the elections. What these people seem blissfully unaware of (or maybe deliberately choose to ignore) is that everyone in this country is, ultimately, of immigrant stock, given that Britain was effectively uninhabited at the end of the last Ice Age, and the vast majority of those immigrants came here for what can be called 'economic' reasons, to try and build a better life for themselves and their families. As I said to K when I phoned her a short while ago, if UKIP and their ilk ever come to power, it will be time to leave the country.

Love & best wishes to all
Sammy B

Life is full of new experiences

Nothing too mindblowing, but new, nonetheless. I've spent the past three-quarters of an hour in my local, listening to my favourite album of all time on YouTube, namely The Piper at the Gates of Dawn by Pink Floyd. I can't remember ever listening to a complete album on YouTube before, and certainly not in the pub. No doubt there was some kind of copyright infraction involved, but I do own two copies of the album, so I don't feel like too much of a criminal!
I arrived here a couple of hours ago, looking for a lift of some sort, given that I wasn't feeling all that cheerful - I have to admit that I was hoping to see 'smiling boy', but that was never a realistic option - but losing myself in music has been a reasonable 'second best'. Whatever gets you through the day can't be all bad.

Love & best wishes to all
Sammy B

Geographically challenged? And a resemblance

According to some Serbian Orthodox Church functionary, the severe floods affecting his country at the moment are God's judgment on Conchita Wurst winning the Eurovision Song Contest. Given that Wurst is an Austrian, does this mean the supposedly omniscient sky fairy isn't actually all that well up on Central European geography, given that Serbia is 300-odd miles south east of Austria?
And speaking of (at least potentially) dangerous buffoons, I saw Nigel Farage, the leader of UKIP, being interviewed on the BBC News channel while I was on my break at work this morning (although I did have the foresight to have muted the sound, so I didn't actually have to listen to the pillock), and I was struck by his resemblance to Homer Simpson. That a party of xenophobic morons should have picked someone who looks like a legendarily stupid cartoon character as their leader strikes me as pretty appropriate, really.

Love & best wishes to all
Sammy B

Three beautiful boys

In one afternoon, two in the same place (a pub, surprise, surprise). The first, and oldest, although still only 12 or so, was sheltering from a thunderstorm in the entrance of a tube station which the bus I was on stopped outside, and was very reminiscent of the mega-beauty I saw on my way to work the week before last. The other two were younger, spotted in the pub where I had my encounter with Jake last month, the one who pinched my seat (at his mother's behest) while I was at the bar being particularly delightful, albeit much too young to do anything other than coo over. As ever, I'm sure the 'moral guardians' will hate me for even looking, but it's a bit of hard luck they're having, because I don't care, frankly, about their disapprobation.
And, in more good news, my internet connection appears to have returned to relative normality after the issues of the past few days, suggesting that it was a network hiccup, rather than a hardware problem at this end. My cup runneth over.

Love & best wishes to all
Sammy B

Wednesday evening in the North

In the Ultima Thule north of Greater London, that is, in the suburb where my local is, the last place before you fall out of the Oystercard zone and into the darkness of the shire counties. There was some shouting and bawling before, fuelled by an excess of alcohol, needless to say, but it's quietened down again now. Daniel is here, the first time I've seen him for a fortnight or more, wearing a wig - which doesn't suit him at all - in connection, seemingly, with some sort of charity event that was happening before I got here, but he's ignoring me, hardly a surprise. Another ghost, albeit in a slightly different way than usual. Now there are blue lights flashing outside, maybe the row that was going on in here before has spilled onto the street, but I can't see or hear what's going on, and, frankly, I don't care. All human life - and some subhuman life, apparently - is here.

Love & best wishes to all
Sammy B