No thanks and the blame game

A young couple in the pub on Saturday night were questioning the last train home. They were not teenagers but his jeans looked like they had been attacked by a threshing machine and were 3 sizes to big. I have learnt that ridiculous looking clothing is a sure indication of “young”. Having decided that they had time for another drink they took to talking to some locals about the area and said that they were considering moving.

Apparently they lived in Chelmsford, a nearby town, and were not impressed. After glowing praise from the locals they hit the inevitable down side which is that there is no work so “if you can get to work from here”. This is another indication of age difference, we all assume that people have to work I guess you could call it senior naivety. Oh no they proclaimed “we don’t work” and went on to explain that they had 6 children and 3 grandchildren. Apparently the ‘viewing’ had involved visiting all of the pubs in town to see how they liked them.

If a single politician in this country should ever have a desire to know what is wrong, I hold out little hope, they wouldn’t go far wrong speaking to this couple. A state sponsored breeding machine who believes that they deserve to live somewhere nicer and whose priorities are the pubs! There are many reasons why it is nice where I live and one of them is that these people were only visiting.

I would also like to share with you a classic example of female logic (sorry girls). A woman got on the train today with a wheeled suitcase but it was upside down so she was dragging the case and the wheels were in free air. As she struggled with the case she didn’t once pause to look at what was causing the increased friction, she carried on cursing the case. Ladies next time you question men’s understanding of you think back to this, if an inanimate object gets blamed what hope do we have?

I have succeeded in not burning up once this weekend and only twice last week, neither associated with alcohol. I have taken to swallowing anti-histamines before visiting the pub but I think I will stop this next weekend as I am not convinced of the link. Thankfully I am seeing my doctor on Friday and not his lunatic colleague so perhaps we will make some headway.

In other news the exercising is clearly working as I have developed a small tear on lefty’s scar tethering. Because the scars grow into the muscle they are anchored to it rather than floating over the top as skin is supposed to. When the muscle works and grows it pulls at this tethering and the scar rises as it is irritated. I like to think that this is an indication of success.

Once again it has been lovely to watch my gorgeous isle as the sun nurtures trade and visitors. Watching local businesses emerging from the stark winter and discarding memories of floods. My twitter feed has been full of beautiful pictures and even sad farewells from solent crossings. I very much look forward to being a more active part of island life just as soon as I can.

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Hyenas, heels, and the avoidance of a creeping dawn

Having had a long day yesterday I retired early, in affect taking my seat for the theatre of a Saturday night. I have lived between the town and the ‘late pub’ for so many years that I see this as entertainment rather than annoyance, well mostly. Around 11pm the walk started and I know it would be a busy night. The two young women walking unsteadily past would need to move from shots to juice if they intended to retain what faculties they had. But behind them, like some unbalanced stalker, came a group of men discussing the merits of their view. It would seem that the drunken lurches synchronise so that, to the drunks, they seem sober.

Then came the couples, the second time around couples that is. Overweight older men with slim younger women who have clearly never studied physics. They can’t support the weight of their partner when he lurches into them but years of experience has taught them to roll with him, rather a bruise than a broken heel. Common sense would say it was far better to call it a night but these women know that they can enjoy the rest of their evening while the men disintegrate in a corner.

The youth quintet were keen to declare their love to each other. Not the insincere proclamations of lotharios or the heartfelt statements of lovers but the over earnest pledges of groups of girls. Nothing could break these bonds, no man could come between them, sisters against the world, for now….

Bringing up the rear a trio of confused pre-loaders. Already drunk they were still convinced that they needed more alcohol to avoid the costs ahead. Despite the desperate protestations of juvenile livers they necked retail alcohol rapidly, discarding bottles like a trail of breadcrumbs to be followed home later. I would point out that I didn’t sit and study the crowds, these were just the voices that made me look up over my book.

There are some nights when I hear a returning group, after closing, and smile. There are some nights when I hear a returning group and growl. Just occasionally there are the nights when I feel the need to check off the groups, last night was such a ‘bingo’ night. In ascending order of proximity to dawn, the scale will make sense later, I watched them return and alcohol was no longer their friend. By the early hours of the morning alcohol was the voice at the back of their head that scorned them for losing all their money or for not keeping up, laughed at them for the stains on their clothes and spun their internal compass at every opportunity.

The early young girls were in a bigger group in the return. The hair, makeup and clothes that had taken so long to prepare for the evening now disheveled and streaked. Hanging on to each other they stumbled forward avoiding the more lewd comments from their drunken stalkers. Whilst clinging to their strength in numbers they were clearly not as emboldened as they once were, eyes forward they marched on ignoring the calls.

The stalkers, for their part, were more confused than emboldened. Like a scene from Cinderella the pretty girls who they had been buying drinks for and dancing with had become a crowd and disappeared as the lights came up and the bar closed. Having convinced themselves that they were making inroads they were each convinced that if they could get ‘their’ girl alone she would stay with them. Of course whilst this made sense to drunken minds it looked like a pack of drunken hyenas looking for any sign of weakness in the pack.

The youth quintet was next but now as two groups. Stopping regularly to exchange abuse and yell at each other about lost money and dancing with ex partners. The proclamations of sisterhood distant memories as they offered to tear faces off and ridiculed each other’s dress. Their tantrums will either be forgotten in the cafe in the morning or will develop into a growing chasm as they feed an anger based on nothing more than confusion.

I nearly missed the pre-loaders as they crawled along the sea wall but then the sound of vomiting alerted me to them. Like an assassin with hiccups they slid along the shadows of the sea wall to avoid contact with other people. Successfully hiding from the fight club that the quintet had become until their stomach let way and, as if caught in a searchlight, all eyes turned to them. Brilliantly fight club was too drunk for much more than a leer and some shouts, if they had crossed the road I’m not sure that they could have made it back!

The couples, older so always last to leave stopped outside my flat. Holding their shoes protectively the women tried to convince the men to get a cab. They may as well have asked the tide to change direction, drunk men always dial up the macho after all. None of the men were prepared to acknowledge that the stroll home was too much for them and they set off at a lurch again. Not quite at the running stage but at the point where the kerbstone seems to be at least two foot high.

As the street scene quietened I settled down for the night listening to the uninterrupted sounds of the ocean. I was awake at 6am to a glorious breaking dawn and I realised then that I had missed one of the returners. One of the two young women that I had seen early I had not been in the crowd. Was this my photographic memory at work or some subconscious ‘lassie’ call that somebody was in trouble? No it was the hurried but wobbly footsteps rushing past the flat, the walk of shame. No makeup, hair a mess, last nights clothes and shoes in hand the need not to see anyone was almost palpable. Somebody didn’t switch to juice, somebody didn’t wake up in a happy place or certainly not a place they could stay.

David Attenborough could get a series out of my views of the world from here. For me it suffices to watch the ocean and the disappearing back of that young lady, drink my coffee and say a silent thanks for not being young anymore.

Strange adverts and hidden chapters

I would like to start the day with a rant. On my long walk to work in the morning, you know the deal this is the place that I go to in order to pay my taxes, I pass an odd building. I have taken to pondering what the building is, in fairness the clues were always there:

• It is a rather nondescript and ugly building
• It has NHS signage but no obvious mention of purpose
• The doors and windows are high security
• Bizarrely the lift travels two floors higher than the building extends

Yesterday two specific things provided my answer. For dramatic affect I shall detail them in reverse order. The last was as I passed yesterday I observed several of the centre’s clients outside, they were all jovial and deeply tanned as they smoked and passed their time outside. Before that, on the way to work early in the morning, when the building is shut I had noticed a small notice confirming that it was a dependency unit. Whilst I don’t believe in hiding people away this is a terrible advert to our young. Imagine the scene as some drug or booze baron directs his new advertisement*. The camera follows the hot and sweaty man trudging along the pavement with his rucksack and intones “They tell you that work is the only way”. Then the shot pans slowly as if the cameraman has just heard the laughter and is searching out the source. The shot comes to rest on the laughing, sun bronzed smokers, and nothing is said as a tag line rises from the bottom of the screen “your dealer says there is another way”

Catching sight of an unusual tattoo yesterday moved me to some memories from a younger time that I would like to share. When I was a young man, as an apprentice, I commuted to work. The journey was long but because I was a railway apprentice it was virtually free. Where possible I would align my journey to the ‘boat train’ since this allowed me to avail myself of the hospitality of the old style railway stewards. For a penniless apprentice a free cup of tea or bacon roll made all the difference and it was nice to feel part of something. The old buffet cars were like a bar; people had their specific seats and locations and service was offered in a pre-ordained order of preference.

As a young man I was befriended by a group that was mostly young men and one older gentleman. These people were city workers back in the day when all that conjured up was money and success. They were entertained by the growing ink that adorned me and would comment on how restrictive that would be in my career. I would respond that I never tattooed below my wrist and hey I was a manual worker they were the office types. They were genuinely nice people and would refuse any opportunity to reciprocate generosity simply because ‘we can afford it you on the other hand cannot’. It felt like two worlds coming together, I would never inhabit an office; my destiny was dirty hands and physical labour, they on the other hand would understand their car or get dirty hands simply because they didn’t need to. I think we all understood that the restrictions that they placed upon themselves were their choice for their career. On sunny days a three-piece suit cannot compare with the freedom of a T-shirt but then champagne is a very efficient means of cooling if you can afford it.

The older gent, it transpired, was the mentor of the group and very much respected amongst his young charges. After a couple of years of this routine the older fella decided to retire early and was happy to tell me in a conspiring whisper that it was because he “had too much money to spend”. By this time I was an irregular commuter but agreed that we would have to have a drink before he retired. And so it was that I found myself one Friday evening engaged in an impromptu party on the 19:00 service. Some beers in, the tattoo debate raised itself, as it usually did, and again I was told that such decoration would prevent me having a ‘proper’ career. The difference on this occasion was that the retiree, in his late 50s rose and unbuttoned his shirt. Opening his shirt he revealed a full and luxurious Japanese body suit, for those that are not familiar this is chest, back, upper arms and legs fully covered. It was clear to me that this was not an example of childhood silliness and when asked he explained it had been finished only three years previously. He turned to the younger group, who were aghast, and carefully explained that there are many pages to a book and they are rarely seen from viewing only the cover. His parting words to me were that, in his opinion I would be a success because of my ability to cross barriers and interact with all groups.

Sitting in my office this week and knowing the near collapse of the financial sector I wonder if those guys have started repairing their own cars yet…….

*Don’t believe that it will happen, check out the E-cigarettes being promoted in shopping centres now in the same manner as traditional cigarettes were before being banned.

Carbon firbre apron strings

They say that youth is wasted on the young but they must be deaf because they are not hearing it.  The hardest working and most grounded youngsters that I know seem permanently worried about finances and futures, all far too early. It is as if they look to their parents and aspire no further which is a crying shame. What your parents have achieved was the result of the point in time at which they hit certain points in life. Their accomplishments come from life and experience you can’t borrow or copy that you have to make your own.

I was talking to a young lady recently who, whilst enjoying her job, was bemoaning the lack of consistency and money. This is a young lady who is, to all intents and purposes, young free and single. The apparent desire to become as her parents seems to have limited her ambition. I see this in lots of youngsters and I struggle with where the drive to succeed has gone. There is no real employment where I live but it seems people can’t see forward enough to make sacrifices today. Sure it is a lovely place to live, the downside is a few hours commuting to earn a living wage. Yes travel is expensive but if you earn more, albeit spending it on travelling, you grow and become more employable. I recently discovered what the mad, space obsessed, commuter does for a living. He works as a shop assistant in Waterstones in town, the commuting alone must wipe out his salary. I am sure that he has some deal carried over from a previous owner but nonetheless he is spending most of his salary on travel costs. I just don’t see youngsters prepared to sacrifice the time, money and effort that they need to just to get a start in a hard world.

I would love to be in the carefree state years so that I could disappear for a year to sunnier climbs and work to live. In your younger years you should use the lack of responsibilities to allow you to explore. You don’t need to make a great deal of money or look to the future just pay your rent and your beer tab. It is those experiences and the fact that you made the effort to go and have them that distinguishes you from the crowd and helps you grow. The Kiwis have the right idea here, travel is a rite of passage for them, everybody spends a couple of years in the bigger world. I have worked alongside business heirs and sons of wealthy families who have been pushed out into the world to grow and experience the world.

The world doesn’t dance to your tune and wont bring opportunity to your door. You have to go out and grab opportunity and experiences, you have to write your story. There must be some way in this nanny state to mandate that youth are young while they can be, old age and responsibility finds you no matter how hard you hide.

If that’s you who is this?

I would like to apologise to anybody that I failed to acknowledge yesterday. It was not that I didn’t recognise you it was that I almost recognised you and that just isn’t enough. Is it just me that gets those days? when almost everywhere you see people who are almost people who you know. I am not talking about a one-off doppelgänger but a veritable community of look a likes. I must have seen six people who were near replicas of friends but, on the double take, were not quite right.

I am sure that the Payntrix will have an explanation for this but I am between two ideas. Either I am in some sort of parallel universe where everyone has taken slightly different paths so look slightly different. If this theory is correct then they must also think that I look very similar to somebody that they know, I shall check this next time. The alternative is that either my brain or my eyes have adopted a fuzzy filter hence the apology at the beginning. I have posted before about human facial shape recognition which I see everywhere but this is something else. Yesterday was akin to watching a revival of an old movie, sure I know that’s Batman but he isn’t quite right.

In other news technology turned on me yesterday but it is ok we are friends again now. Last weekend I replaced my router at home, the old one was not performing. Given the relative cost of these devices I was left with little choice other than to buy the all singing all dancing one, honestly its true. So I now have the fastest wireless connection available to a broadband service that is uses spiders to carry the data packets to the exchange (even they have to take a break). Last night I settled down to some work, this involves logging on through my router with my work laptop, oh it sounds so easy. This has never been a problem before but last night it would connect but I still couldn’t see anything. Having rebooted windows the obligatory 4 times and repeated the same problem  I decided that it had to be the super complicated router. Out came the old router and all associated connections were made, conflicts resolved and…. the same result. Having reset everything to where it started and confirmed the issue still existed I cracked a beer and turned the TV on. This morning everything is ok, I wish I knew how my IT people know when I have new kit and why they always chose that precise time to have an issue.

Having shared the delightful young tomboy on the train (as wrong as that sounds) I have to share the young couple that I observed at the station yesterday. The young couple (early twenties) came complete with a small child in a buggy, said buggy being weighed down with shopping. Having arrived at the bench next to me on the station the young lady fished through the shopping and produced chocolate for the child and a pregnancy kit which I presumed wasn’t for the child. The young lady studied the box for a while, I have never understood this step surely they all say “pee on the stick”, and concluded it was what she expected. At this stage step forward her partner, ever chivalrous he wasn’t going to expect his Mrs to perform the test in public was he. Oh no our man had a better idea “there’s a thing down there go behind that”, the thing in question was a signal location box so think smaller than a standard wardrobe.

They looked reasonably pleased with the result but what if it is positive? Do they name their child Platform One ‘cos that’s where we found out init’. Imagine the stories when the child is older ‘we went up town and robbed a test outa savers, that’s when we knew that little Nike was getting a brother or sister’. I know that I am old but I am alone in finding it sad that we seem to have lost the magic of parenthood.

A final note, more of a reminder really. I awoke at 5 am this morning grabbed a cup of tea and turned the PC on to get some bits done and I have to thank Sean. The Driftwood webcam (link below) showed that most glorious beach empty and peaceful and I have kept a studious eye on it as it wakes up. Thanks mate, wont be long till my Appley.

 (http://driftwoodbeachbar.com/webcam/)

If only you knew

I hope that I have reached an age where I can look at younger girls in a fatherly way. If I am wrong in my hopes then I apologise to the young lady on my train today. I am sure that she didn’t notice my observation but if she did I can confirm they were not inappropriate.

The young lady in question was dressed in a very masculine manner and carried a skateboard. A tiny thing, her clothing was baggy and she sported a cap pulled low. To all intents and purposes this was what we commonly refer to as a tomboy. I have no doubt that she spends her time being one of the lads.

What struck me today was her actions, clearly every tomboy has a girl at heart. I watched as she studiously and carefully applied a vast array of makeup. This was applied with a light but serious touch, clearly she knew the effect she wanted but was not so experienced in its application. The various make up tools and products were not massively worn nor were they held with the comfort that comes with experience.

Makeup duly applied the equipment was stowed in an internal pocket of her beaten up rucksack. The cap was removed and her hair carefully teased into a precise model of unruly rebellion. Even the resetting of the cap needed a mirror to confirm the affect. Clothes were carefully straightened and any errant threads dispatched.

I have no idea who this little tomboy was meeting. No idea who she wanted to see her as more than ‘one of the boys’. I doubt very much that the target of her efforts has any idea how much energy she has applied. I hope that he notices the feminine gem smiling from under the cap and I hope that he deserves the effort.

The thing is though, at my age, I also hope that somewhere a dad realises that his tomboy is growing into a girl.

Unexpected pillows and odd dreams

There are things that we are meant to do in public, there are things our children should or could see, sleeping is not one of them. Public transport is designed, albeit inadvertently, to make sleeping an unpleasant choice. The seats on most stock allow that most hated experience, body roll. We have all experienced this at some point whether as the recipient or, much worse, the unintended roller.

For me there is nothing quite so bad as knowing that your falling asleep and that your going to get close to your companion but not being able to control it. I have bitten chunks out of my cheek and pinched my leg to the point of bleeding to try and prevent sleep and head nodding. On todays train a young girl was travelling with her mother who decided on a nap. I watched with some mirth as the young lady kept levering mum back up and pointing her at the window. One of the oddities of body roll is that it always veers to a person rather than a solid surface.

Having eventually settled mum on the window the daughter went to reach something from her bag and was aghast at what she saw. Yep, mum had assumed the standard open mouthed, dribbling pose that every commuter knows. What made me laugh was that, whilst scowling, she slammed mothers jaw up. It wasn’t a punch or a slap but I clearly heard the teeth coming together. What a way to wake up, I have no idea what dream mum was having or how the crack of her teeth was written in to it but I can report that she stayed awake for the rest of the journey.

As I wrote this I was reminded of a good body roll experience I had as a young man. I used to commute on old stock that had tables years ago. My preference is for the isle seat, having been boxed in unpleasantly in the past. As the train sat at Colchester a very pretty young lady asked to sit next to me and I gladly stood to allow her in. At this point I was comfortable going to sleep since nobody would disturb me for the other seat.

When I awoke something was immediately wrong, in true spy style I opened one eye to asses the situation. I knew that I was on a train and it was still moving but my vision was all wrong. It was, in fact, vertical! I was laying down, I could see the underside of the table and a pair of knees opposite. Struggling to draw the facts together I opened my other eye and heard “oh your awake” looking up I saw the underside of a delightful female chest and a happy face smiling down at me.

I lifted my head up, noticing the small damp patch of dribble on my ‘pillow’s’ skirt and stumbled through an apology. The young lady smiled sweetly and said “oh you started sliding, then you sort of fell but you looked so peaceful it seemed wrong to disturb you”. The great thing about being a young man is that even today I can recall my biggest regret was sleeping through the whole experience!