Its not all as it seems

It is not often that some external influence inspires me to write a post but today is one of those days. I watched a video on social media from the excellent Aaron Lambo, it came up on my feed and I figured it was worth a view. The video in question was aimed at ‘those who think I have everything’ and in it Aaron toured his home and noted the absence of a family and, most critically, his children. He went on to explain that he still eats with his youngest child’s baby spoon, that touched a nerve.

The thing that struck me in this is how many ‘successful’ and ‘happy’ guys that I know, have worked with and serve on a daily basis. How does this balance with the horrific level of male suicide in this country? If we are all so happy and successful then why the loss of life? After all society knows how tough it is for a single mother and how men just shrug it all off, after all a guy is a guy right?

So I think that this view is fundamentally wrong, not just from my perspective but from observing the fathers and grandfathers around me. Some of us are a different breed, we were bred not to show weakness and to ‘soldier’ on and as society continues to soften men they look on their peers as success, wrongly so. If all of us take the time to use whatever media we inhabit, be that speech, text, blog or print to tell the world how it is we could save one young man from taking his life because he feels like he is a failure its got to be worth a go…

So here is mine, I hope it helps/counsels/inspires somebody I guess.

I am Gav, I am a ‘successful’ Engineer and I own a pub. I have my ‘dream’ a lovely happy pub on the Isle of Wight. This is what I have worked my life for and it is here, it’s a great life and it is where I always wanted to be. I am also a father to two wonderful children, I know that I didn’t give birth to them but I would see every ounce of my blood spilled before a hair on their heads was harmed. I was not the cause of the break up of my marriage, as much as I don’t believe that has any relevance here I still feel the need to make it clear because society views guys harshly.

So when you leave my pub and I retire upstairs let me tell you what I do. I look, longingly, into each of the bedrooms (which normally have made up beds) and wonder what my children are doing. I still look at a pictures of my children daily, I stalk their social media for the chance of a conversation. Every birthday and Christmas it breaks my heart that we are at the ‘send me some money’ stage.

I adore my children and I live every day in hope that some sort of mysterious ‘karma’ will reward the sacrifices, the pain and the effort with a relationship with the two most important people ‘in’ my life. I would not just give ‘everything’ I would give every limb and every last breath to cuddle the angels that are my children they are a love beyond love.  But the beds are as empty as life, that is how it is and it is not in my power to change it.

So the happy bloke you see, he misses his kids. The fella enjoying life, he wonders where his kids are right now. The happy-go-lucky fella, he hates the solitude of ‘home’.

This is not shared for sympathy, I don’t need it, don’t want it and frankly despise it. I share this so that you may think that of the half-dozen pals that you were in the pub with probably 4 wished that they were at home with their kids. We are not what you see by choice but, rather, by a series of choices we are not always responsible for. We were bred to work, to push, to ‘succeed’, it’s what we do. Would you rather we sat and wept for hours on end? would that change anything? of course not we are guys we lose its what we do but we will fight on with what we have because…… well because that’s what we do.

If every ‘absent’* father shares his life this week then this pub alone can save lives.

*I detest this phrase

 

 

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Pain, praise & sandy smiles

Well firstly a thank you to all of those of you who are following me into 2016, its going to be an epic year.

For those of you who know me from the real world where I was a half sensible engineer and actually had a real job, I would like to share the oddest compliment that I received today. I had an issue with my post mix machine air locking on one line which I called into tech services before receiving the obligatory call back. The thing with Coke is that they have to have a go with a desk engineer first before you get a guy out.

In this case ‘Sarah’ called me and talked me through priming the system, although I had already done this I followed the steps again as requested. After ten minutes Sarah called me back and I asked why the system should have randomly developed an air lock “oh sometimes it just happens” was the eloquent and experienced answer, God bless you Sarah the desktop engineer. Since the issues was now resolved, in the short term, I thanked Sarah and she congratulated me with “well done you for fixing that”. Yes, genuinely, the Coke ‘engineer’ congratulated me on priming a syrup line!

If your children ever ask what the saying ‘how the mighty have fallen means’ you now have an example. I was actually too ashamed to take the praise and put the phone down in mumbled thanks. I really have fallen so far from heavy engineering that to solve an air lock is worthy of praise. Before you look away to the other screen and study an important Catia model or some design calculations let me share with you one other thing. A guy came into the bar on New Years day who had been sent here by my very good friend Andy Brod to see how I was doing.

I didn’t get a lot of time with this fella (sorry Andy I didn’t get a name) but I did manage to give him the public tour. Once again I was met with incredulity at just how big my little pub is, she really isn’t that small, which weighs heavily on my shoulders whenever I hear the words. The important thing though is the message that I gave my visitor before he left, I told him to tell Andy that it was the best decision that I ever made after all I have the best job in the world.

For all the hard work, long hours and silliness I love this old pub and I love being here. On New Years eve I had the opportunity to walk along the sea front for the first time in months and it instantly reminded me of the amazing beauty of the place that I call home.

In other news I was rather disturbed when a customer picked up on my arthritis the other day, it does make one feel rather old all of a sudden. The indicator that this person had picked up on was that I don’t present a flat hand, my relaxed position is with a curve to my fingers. I do constantly exercise and push my hands flat to maintain what flexibility I have (post accident) but I guess tiredness lends itself to the lazy path.

Both wrists are complaining bitterly about the Winter but I am taking as much notice of them as you would expect. The one that I cannot so readily ignore is my shoulder since I continue to lie on it during the night in some sort of odd sub concious battle. Every morning, without fail, I wake up and say “ouch” before commencing the battle to get this joint back into functioning use. You would have though that by no I would have overcome the strange stubbornness that makes me sleep on this side but no I still do it.

 

Accidental precision, the trouble with hair and who ate my tracks?

I spent some time recently doing some jewellery repairs, it’s not something that I am particularly experienced at but I do enjoy it. The whole process of making joints, preparing the surfaces and then encouraging the, often reluctant, silver to adhere is quite cathartic. Obviously I don’t perform this work in a workshop or an Industrial environment, I do it in my kitchen. I always carry out a thorough risk assessment though before carrying out such work and it usually reminds me to cover the counter top and sometimes even have water on standby.

Since my hair has been less keen to stay with me since the accident i have now taken to applying a baseball cap to restrain my hair. In days of old the smell of burning hair could be shrugged off but when combined with moulting the maths really doesn’t make sense. It would appear that I hadn’t thought all of the possibilities through though and my interaction with the gas torch did not go fully as planned. There is a dark spot on the peak of my cap where it got in the way of the flame but it was not the only casualty. I have to say in the battle of hair verses flame, flame certainly won and I am now sporting a stripe of missing eyebrow! Once again I am astounded by the clinical precision that can come with a mistake, I couldn’t have lanced a neater strip of hair removal if I had actually tried. Obviously I am looking forward to explaining the balding badger look to all that I meet but I thought that I would kick off with you guys. I am hoping that the curse of prodigious eyebrows shows its positive side by filling in the gap post haste, bloody hair its nowt but trouble!

In other news I was victim to a scary new tactic from the New Delhi call centre mob yesterday whilst dealing with my broadband contract. Obviously there was the expected repeat loops of explaining the issue to various idiots and getting nowhere but in the end we concluded that the account would all come right on the next invoice. I felt moved to ask mahatmacoat whether he thought that this was right, if I am wrong then I need to make payment immediately but they can correct later. After a couple of goes he agreed that it seemed somewhat unfair but “that’s how it is”. It was then that he launched his latest tactic, doubtless learnt during the festive break, “would you allow me to inject some humour into our conversation?”

I was taken aback, certainly there had been no humour this far but the question caught me unaware. It turned out that the question was rhetorical and for a moment I thought that I was to be treated to a stand up routine, alas it was not to be. I allowed him 1 line of what seemed like a philosophy quote before I hung up. I warn you all this is not humour, please don’t get your hopes up it is just a ploy to keep you on the phone.

Finally I would like to ask you all a question, what is the purpose of I-Tunes? From what I have seen it appears to exist for the purpose of randomly deleting tracks from my library and generating new albums and strange artist names. It seems incapable of understanding that a disc contains an album and so reguarly generates new albums to hide single tracks in. The whole system seems less reliable than the Lotto and is as far from convenience as an Indian call centre! When I open I-Tunes and select an album I know that I will be surprised to see half the tracks missing and then will need to delete said album and reload it, from my CD, what’s the bloody point?

The only thing that the sour apple seems to do for me is to give me album artwork, which looks very nice on my IPod. The thing is that I already have the artwork, its on the disc case, and I have never known a song fall of a CD it just doesn’t happen. After another few hours of yelling at the incompetent apple monster and asking where it had hidden tracks 4,7,11&13 of an AC-DC album I gave up. That is it Mr Apple, you have broken me congratulations. I have downloaded Winamp which looks like an 80’s car stereo, they tell me that it can interface with all of my crab apple toys but frankly I couldn’t care less. In the two days that this has been installed it has not eaten any tracks, not recreated albums in its own image and well in truth it has not done anything that I haven’t asked it to do. It doesn’t offer me the option of including artwork which is a shame but based on experience this was a step too far anyway. If anyone can tell me why on earth we should be burdened with such poorly performing garbage software then please burn your explanation moot a CD and I will feed it to I-Tunes.

Victoria’s other secret

For those not in the UK please remember that we are obsessed with watching people cook on the TV. We have more shows on cooking than any other subject and I am convinced they grow at a rate closely linked to the growth in ready meals sales. In short we are a nation that likes to eat rubbish whilst watching people cook good food! One such show that has ‘inspired’ us is a baking contest.

I suggest that the pundits are incorrect, the cause of the surge in baking is not the tanned judge of said show it is frustration. Not just any frustration but sexual frustration and, like so many things, it’s a ‘girl thing’. Obviously I am not female and so I can only establish this case ‘dream wife’ from observation, I will leave you to draw your own conclusions. Three good friends, including, rather alarmingly, my ‘dream wife’ have demonstrated my case.

All three women bake a lot despite not being big cake eaters. In the more severe of cases this has developed into marmalade and jam production on a near industrial scale. Now you may think that this was inspired by the TV, a desire to return to homemade food or even a domestic challenge but that is why you don’t understand women*. Don’t think that this is a male only post though because guess what girls? You don’t understand yourselves either! The reason underlying this prolific baking is, in all three cases, sexual frustration. Nobody can explain the link between the two subjects and I am assured it’s not a flour fetish.

Whilst this is a small sample it does demonstrate a 100% link between frustration and baking and that makes for an interesting world. You know when that person brings home baked cakes into the office? There’s way more to that than meets the eye. The guys that believe ‘blondes have more fun’ way off the mark fella, go find yourself a girl with a fresh baked Victoria sponge and you’ll be walking with a limp for weeks! For me, as a people watcher, this is great as it’s another window into people’s lives. Like every other great discovery this one can be extended and it generates some interesting results.

The guy that brings home baked cakes in to work in his packed lunch, don’t be envious his Mrs is climbing the walls. The married lad that ‘does a bit of baking’ over the weekend, he does that because he got cold shouldered. And for the women out there, when you’re at the school fete and you see the woman with the store brought fairy cakes? Don’t snear at her for her lack of baking skills, that ladies is a slut. Whilst you were baking she was hanging off the light fittings in a cat suit.

Like I said you can draw your own conclusions but next time you see home baked cake remember this post.

*the author makes no claim, either express or implied, that he understands women