Dust

That weird hinterland

I'm glad my last post about Mat went down well with those closest to him. I'm often told I'm too honest - say stuff that should remain unsaid. Too personal, too embarrassing to be shared. 

Maybe it's because some friends of mine when I was 18 said they didn't know me as I guess I didn't want to show any vulnerabilities. Since then I've tried to be more me. 

It's been a struggle, with my inclination to share the WRONG stuff.

(Apparently.)

At least I trod the correct path with the last post. Last thing I'd want to do is upset people, especially those who matter most to me. 

So now the wait for the funeral, which will be a huge affair. Mat was very popular. 

Mat wasn't a divisive figure in any way. He was very thoughtful, upfront and decent. He didn't suffer fools, but who of us do?

Tolerance? Mehhhh.

Funerals are weird things - Nervousness, sombreness, grief,  more grief, relief that that part of the day is over, then revelry - celebration of the life lived. 

The older I get the more I appreciate and understand the nature of funerals. There are many ways to deal with death - every culture has theirs. None of them I guess are 100% the correct answer, but at least they are a response and provide a collective grieving period, and a conduit for feelings and the many emotions, which is cathartic.

My world

...is shrinking ever more. Now I have 2 screens I would say I now only need half the space of my mancave. 

I've played over 600 hours of Baldur's Gate 3. That's a lot of hours. 

The other side of my room full of books and a nice chair to read in, is barely used. 

Perhaps I could rent it out?

The screens are too tempting. 

That's really rubbish. 

I'm also forgetting to write my diary every other night. Not that there's much to go in there, but pages are left blank. It's a catharsis thing as I never read them, but I have kept them all since 1986.

Philippa Perry in her book "How to stay sane" recommends keeping a diary and meditation. It's excellent advice, although I've dropped the meditation bit.

I let a friend of mine read my diary when I was at art college. She said "I wish I was you, Geraint."

She wasn't being sarcastic (I'm sure!), but I've always wondered what she meant by that.

I'm not reading anything either. I sat in a cafe to read "Vecna: Eve of Ruin" and read the first chapter. But it's taken me a week to get round to doing just that.

I am witness to certain faculties eroding.

On the upside...I completed my 5th or 6th run-through of Baldur's Gate 3 on the PC. Only 600 hours of my life has been spent playing this game.

Still, I'm a long way off Larry who has spent 7,650 hours of his life (10 and a half months) playing Lord of The Rings Online. 

There's a challenge...

Alchohol

The sad 60 year old sat at the bar embarrassing himself in his drunkeness, trying to flirt with the young bar staff and whom no one wishes to engage with.

The lost old guys who drink steadily from 11 till 4 everyday at Wetherspoon's. Resigned to their fates, they vacate their seats one at a time until they are entirely replaced by another group of unhappy old men.

I don't and I won't be any of those people.

I drank too much on Saturday night after a lovely evening with Nerys and Ben. I just stopped in at The White Hart on the way home and had probably 3 more drinks. I bumped into a nice person who'd just finished work. It was 12.30 when I got home.

The next day was a write-off.

I've pretty much disgusted myself at my own inability to stop once I start. So much so that I haven't drunk  for 3 days. I don't feel any compunction to do so either.

I usually have a couple of beers after DMing on a Thursday just to decompress after the event.

But it's too expensive to drink and it is doing my brain no good at all. That and ultra-processed food. 

(Probably.)

My mate, Mat

 When the good are taken too soon

You’ve probably heard that quote from Dickens’ ‘Hard Times’. The girl whose entire life is horses is asked to define a horse. She can’t. Then the teacher asks favourite know-it-all Bitzer who gives a dictionary definition: "Bovine quadruped. Graminivorous,. Forty teeth…."

"There you go girl!" snaps the teacher "Now you know what a horse is."

Charles Fort - 'one measures the circumference of a circle beginning anywhere.' 

So here is an impression of my dear old friend, starting....somewhere.

Random memories of my friend and erstwhile enemy, Matthew Hardyman.

Snippets of our lives which will be meaningless to most or maybe all of you.

Mat was going to be my new Power of Attorney. How ironic that he went before me.

I have to admit my guilt: while others would have broken down I slept after having been given the news, having been unable to process it on the day. I couldn't understand why I wasn't breaking down as everyone else would, as society expects? 

Is it even reality? You're hoping you're in some insane lucid dream that will end soon and everything will be back to normal, although you know. 

You know.

The mere incomprehensibility of Mat not being in my life - let alone his family's - anymore was enough. 

Another number to remove from the favourites of my iPhone. 

So that night I ran a game of D&D for my group in Wells. It’s a weekly commitment and I didn’t feel like staying in and beating myself up for not being all emotional. 

I came back in a good mood, then went to sleep.

In the morning the meaning of it all began to drip-drip in to my consciousness.

Matt and I off our heads in a pub in Green Lanes, Haringey in 1993, alternating hysterical laughter with appalling gut ache.

Racing down to Dorset in Mat’s Renault 5 GT Turbo to reach Mark who’d crashed his supremely dodgy mini van with retread tyres on the way to his first day at Bournemouth college.

We shared a flat for a few years. He’d use everything in the kitchen to make a meal, then go out leaving it all everywhere. He either didn’t understand what was wrong with leaving a mess, or didn’t care.

He could be quite arrogant.

Arguing about him not doing the washing up; Mat finally conceding after 2 hours that he didn’t really like doing the washing up.

His confidence at a young age to argue the facts with anyone. So much so that a garage he harangued so much (where his appallingly unreliable GT Turbo often ended up) were pissed off enough to send him an invoice addressed to “Matthew Hardlyaman”.

He was thick-skinned enough to laugh at it though. That was a trait which took me a long time to assimilate. 

He was a rock. More rational and forensic than anyone anyone else I knew, I would come to him with work or relationship dilemmas and he would always - clinically - lay the arguments flat out and analyse them. 

A complete, instant dissection.

In relationships I naturally accepted that everything was my fault, being the man. But Mat had that barrister’s gift of seeing through the guff and grasping the brass tacks of any given situation. And he did it with such a calm dismantling of the arguments. It was wonderful. If he had been a therapist he could have charged twice the going rate.

I always felt so much calmer and in fact, often rearmed for the next sortie in my many disastrous relationships.  

I don't have that cornerman any more. 

Phobias: Mat had a texture problem with wet wood, so wooden spoons and wooden chopsticks were no-gos.

When writing these eulogies they’re only ever the finished article for a few hours, then something else is remembered. I've been trying to write this for days and it will never be the finished article.

Ah yes, Mat’s fashion choices!

The leather waistcoat, white denim jacket, and some designer black t-shirt with red zips all over it. 

T-shirts always tucked in.

(Of course, all my fashion choices were great….)

Early 90s again; I was on a disastrous date complete with (I’m not kidding) a leper doing card tricks at our table (the gods were doing their utmost to keep me and the awful female from coupling up) and as a coup de grace they sent Mat along to ‘give me a hand.’ Despite me looking him squarely in the eye and telling him in no uncertain terms to 'eff off', he thought I was joking and stayed.

Mat’s incredulity that a nice but dim someone at his university had applied at the same time for the diplomatic service and had got in while he hadn’t even had an interview. Mat’s brilliant gift of the gab combined with his natural confidence made him a fortune doing telesales, but also drove him nuts, so he then applied for the Bar. 

I remember him saying that he couldn’t believe you could get paid for arguing.

Mat always wanted a family. After an unsuccessful first marriage, he then met Suzy. He was overjoyed when Freya arrived in their lives, and then Saffron. He now had a loving family and a dream house. 

Unlike me both Mat and Suzy did grown-up jobs, endlessly juggling duties and work with military-standard organisation.

I'm godfather to his youngest daughter who is a total headcase. 

Good. 

In an increasingly homogenised and commodified world, we need characters - people who are bold enough to stand out and be individuals

So much to say. But with the memories I have that play back in my mind, he’s not really gone. Because I’ll always have those to relive time and again.

Top 500 barrister, MJ Hardyman.

Batten down the hatches!

Looking out of the window

Essential for one’s piece of mind. The window I’m intermittently looking out of as I type this looks out onto acres of field, ponds, woodland, and giant sequoia trees. There are a few cirrus clouds on the horizon and the sun beats down. It’s thankfully not as hot as yesterday, and I’m shaded and cool in a very pleasant high-ceilinged drawing room.

Butterflies and dragonflies zip around the pond just out beyond the patio in their multicolours and tall dandelions shake in the cool breeze.

Back home I stare out of the window quite a lot too. It’s part nostalgic as it was always my bedroom when when I was a kid, and the window onto an extremely diminishing world for me.  I no longer have any glint of ambition other than for contentment, but I do feel some guilt that after my chores (which are pretty darn easy) I have the rest of the day to self-indulge. 

Just as well as my executive functions are often offline. 

To my neighbours I’m the weirdo who’s moved back to live with his elderly parents and who stares out of his window and occasionally screams out “ANUS” or any random set of words.

Mostly harmless though.

Meeting People

No. I’m not doing this anymore. Too many weirdos out there. Like the Von Ribbentrops I met in the pub a few times who only revealed themselves when they asked me why I didn’t think white people were being systematically replaced in Europe by brown/Muslim people.

Goodbye. Or in your case, Fuck off.

So for fear of meeting more batshit alt-right, far-right, fascists, crypto-fascists, neo-cons, objectivists,  paedos, boot-boys, Nigel Farages, Tommy Robinsons, Trumpers, Bible-thumpers, conspiracy nut-jobs and general wackos, I’m no longer going to the pub on my own. 

I thought I could just meet people at the pub. I did, but it also turns out to have been a terrible idea.

“Strangers are just friends you haven’t met yet.” (Smiley face.)

Er, bollocks.

Swimming

However, I did book some swimming sessions, in fact 4, and went to 2 as on the other days I was too flustered and busy. I really like swimming and it was lovely to go up and down the 25m pool. There was no lane but being as unfit as I am that didn't matter - I didn't want to draw  attention to myself by being pompous enough to ask for one then showing how crap I was once I'd got it.

So I went up and down, with a few breaks. I lost track of the lengths I'd swum/swam/swimmed and managed 40 minutes both times.

I'm an unfit male in his 50s so naturally I pushed myself like was 25. It was nice to come out shaking, knowing I'd given myself a proper workout. I felt tired but very Zen.

I managed to keep butterflying through my heart attack.

One day last week

(I wrote this last week.)

Took me 15 minutes just to get out for the house this morning. Keys, glasses, phone wallet. Er wrong trousers...Oh god.

I am so tired. I even slept the other day for 2 1/2 hours in the afternoon. I never sleep during the day. (No longer true.)

I had to pass up swimming as it was just too much. I'm falling asleep as I'm writing this.

I was really snappy last night at D&D when running the game. That's not on. 

Walked Tomos then did a food shop. Didn't go to the pool as I tend to push myself too hard, and my uselessness would be compounded by being even more tired, or 'tireder' as the kids say these days.

Kamala Harris and Tim Walz

A month ago someone shot at Donald Trump. And missed. 

I mean out of all the Yanks with too many guns the one guy who tries to take him out is lousy shot. What are the chances?

Then the iconic photo of Trump shouting ”Fight” with his arm aloft looking charismatic as Che Guevara in THAT photo...Biden stuttering and losing his train of thought, it all looked like a Trump landslide.

You couldn’t have staged it any better.

Then Trump chooses Weirdo JD Vance who years ago described Trump as Hitler and himself as a 'Never-Trumper.'

Well how times have changed. Then Biden drops out after pressure from Pelosi, Obama and the Clintons, so smiling, warm, Kamala Harris steps into the fray saying "We're not going back " in reaction to MAGA which is a great response to a deliberately opaque golden age which never existed for ALL Americans - what in Welsh is called "Hiraeth".

Tim Walz was a fantastic, genius pick. 24 years of service in the military, looks like someone's dad or favourite uncle, high school football coach, teacher, and has a great sense of humour. Both are natural with people, and he goes hunting and fishing. 

You may not like the last part, but that goes down really well with many Americans - and it makes him an everyman.  

Taylor Swift -whatever you think of her music - is no fan of Trump, and she has considerable leverage for young voters. Similarly Simone Biles has contributed a lot of money to Kamalsa Harris. Fox News and the right wing media which seems to comprise most of the media in the US, are up in arms trying to denigrate them.

Well Trump can have Kid Rock and Kanye (or 'Ye' as he wants to now be referred and his bizarre anti-semitism), and the Democrats can have Taylor Swift and almost everyone else in Hollywood. 

Fair deal I'd say.

New Computer

I've been umming and ahhing about this (as one does) for ages. Baldur’s Gate 3 is my favourite game. But the iMac which is not designed for gaming - has been struggling to run it - even at the game's lowest graphics setting.

So I bit the big one, and asked those awfully nice chaps at Microbitz in Wells, to make me one. It was ready in one week. 

It was as much as the Mac, but it's quite spectacular, and I only use it for gaming. I'm not really planning on doing any online stuff - just working through RPGs on my own.

It's quite a beast. Here is some techy stuff:

• Ryzen 7 7800X3D Processor
• Corsair 280MM CPU Liquid Cooling Loop
• MSI RTX 4070 Ventus 12GB
• MSI B650 Gaming Plus Wifi Motherboard
• 32GB DDR5 6400Mhz CL32 RAM
• Cooler Master TD 300 Mini Tower
• Cooler Master GX
• III Gold Rated Power supply
• 2TB SSD 
• Windows 11 Home

No, me neither.

Anyway, I'm now running BG3 at its highest level with blurring, shadows and all kinds of groovy stuff. The PC lights up multi coloured, I have a keyboard that pulses rainbow colours and a mouse which also has these crazy LED lights.

The new set up with new desklights. Less cluttered. 

That’s Mark Hardyman on the left. He’s a BAD person.

Yeah, well. You get the picture.

Apparently this all seems to be very de rigeur for the gaming community.

TBH it does add to the experience!

I even dress like a teenager now.

I may be demented but I'm the sanest person here

 The Dunning-Kruger Effect

I've always looked up to people more intelligent and better-read than myself, which is a huge portion of the planet.

With whatever it is I have (ADHD being the trendy excuse - or laziness in old money) I am more open to verbal persuasive evidence-based argument than reading stuff in a dusty old book.

I always wanted to be more intelligent than I am. Unfortunately, or fortunately, I'm not an academic. At the same time the memory is its own arbiter - it makes the decision of what is remembered and what is not. In my case it's a variety of not necessarily useful information.

I read something or remember something I heard, then can't remember all of it, but it moved me and resonated at the time. Damn - I can't explain why I have this opinion yet I know it's right!

That's me. I yearn to be super intelligent, but I ain't. I wish I had all this evidence to hand when in an argument or discussion with someone of opposing views. Maybe I did in certain subjects once upon a time. I certainly don't in most cases now. I find it very hard to draw on material now - it simply pops out of existence when I try to grab it from my mind, like memory-bubbles.

If someone asks a question I'll usually have a go at answering - I think this is because certain teachers or bosses I had would have a go at me if I didn't know something. So I feel I should know. 

These days I still give it a go but I am more willing to shrug my shoulders and say 'I dunno!'

I -  Geraint Davies -  am the Dunning-Kruger effect in person!

The Goebbels family from Droitwich 

That moment you sit down with people you've been introduced to who you spent a drunken evening with and you accidentally mention you were listening to News Agents USA and Page 94 on podcasts, and they end up being UK QAnon nutjobs and tear into George Soros (the Jewish Billionaire) and immigrants, even though the faceless billionaires who are paying The Telegraph and the Conservative Party to toe their line and keep bleating the message that poor people and immigrants are the problem, and then....

then...

then...

"You don't believe we're not being replaced?" 

I.e. you don't believe us white people are being replaced by browns/blacks/Muslims?

Goodbye, you conspiracy nutjobs. 

Let's analyse this. Who are the 'deep state'? Why would they do this? Why, in spite of your education, do you believe this?

Who is organising this replacement? How are they doing it? What is in it for them? Do you have names, societies, political parties? Any evidence whatsoever?

Of course not. It's circumstantial at best isn't it? And the gaps are knitted together in a Graham Hancock "I believe this..." type of way. 

Bollocks.

Educated, functional humans who, despite their clean, trendy, healthy outward appearance, and pleasant dispositions are actually as bigoted as it gets.

It's like John Carpenter's "They Live". 

Conspiracy theories are on the surface plausible arguments which serve to justify people's bigotry or low-self esteem, usually offering simple solutions to some very complicated issues.

Almost all fall by the wayside when challenged. But even when debunked, people return to them. 

Why, is another matter altogether.

And no matter which conspiracy hole you choose to go down, all conspiracies end up at the oldest one in the book - that the Jews are behind everything.

Games

I'm thinking of getting a gaming PC. I have a budget of about £2k but I'm umming and ahhing a bit.

I realise I should really go and take some exercise rather than just sitting on my backside in a virtual world for months at a time. 

I walk Tomos for at least an hour first thing every morning. But I should do more.

So I booked 3 sessions at the local public school for use of their pool during the summer hols. I haven't swum for years so I'll be very tired after that. It'll be good for me though. I love swimming and it's my favourite flow-activity.

Also coming up are the Pilton kids' sessions of D&D so I'll have to prep something for that. 

Maybe I can have both swimming and the PC. 

Yes! I want it all!!!

D&D tonight at Seager Hall. Must do some prep. Finding it harder to motivate myself these days. 

Flip-flops

I love the smell of new flip-flops. I guess it reminds me of summer holidays when I was a kid - smell is the most evocative of the senses.

Regard my flip-flops. Are they not magnificent?

Anyone who knows me will tell you I like a flip-flop. I seem to sublime these days from big winter boots to flip-flops. I guess my recent trainer acquisitions are the solution, but flipflops, are really where it's at.

I hear some people struggle with the flip-flop.

I for one do not.

I am an expert flip-flop wearer.

Dove Soap (rant)

How can it even exist? It's a mild detergent with 1/4 of oil. Eh? 

It's like trying to wash yourself with a Hag Fish. 

I have to use some WD40 and a wire brush to get the bloody stuff (Dove soap, not Hagfish) off my hands.

Just use a traditional soap and put the moisturiser on afterwards if you need it. 

Dove soap does not work. And apparently it's full of chemicals that your skin can have a bad reaction to. 

Bloody rubbish.

Music

No1 in the hit Parade, 1926. That was someone's act for 50 years.

My friend David used to go to the last Music Halls in the 1960s and knew these songs off by heart. I had to look this up. He knew all the lyrics. 

Those annoying songs with "Whoops" in the title, as they said on Blackadder goes Forth.

Have a good 'un me sonners, as they say in these 'ere parts.

Ranting for the beatified

Wells - Dithering capital of Britain (Warning: Rant)

I'm through with driving in Wells. I really am. The fannying about at junctions is just beyond the pale now. 

"Ooooohhh....should I go left or right, or right or left?? I don't know Margaret what do you think?"

...as the green goes to flashing amber.

Or someone twiddling their bits - 30 seconds of onanism at the lights - just can't help yourself can you?

I just don't get it. People who dither like this (cue monstrously reductive generalisation...) are invariably in micro minis or SUVs, looking to park, not reading signs, not paying attention and running through red traffic lights, or just stopping randomly. 

Balls to 'mirror - signal - manoeuvre'. Any form of adherence to the Highway Code is a sign of weakness.

Well I've had enough, okay?

I'm through with your private school mummy or daddy holding up the traffic to drop Chlamydia and Ptolemy right at the school gates in your SUV castle of entitled arrogance, or trying to park your spotless giant 4x4 you insist on owning - presumably because everyone in your upwardly mobile set has one - which has never even taken a B-road, into a hospital car parking bay and taking forever to park the thing, then you can't get out because the car's too wide.

Fuck fuck fuck.

You scum!!!!

Then you drive out of Wells and you're on an A-road all of which are single lane and for the best part impossible to overtake on, and the speed limit is 60MPH and there's someone up ahead in one these cars and they're holding everyone up doing 38MPH.

And you're stuck for miles, and the miles feel like a slow descent to hell.

And don't get me started on cyclists going the wrong way up the one way High Street. Their time will come.

Oh yes.

Their time will come.

And ...breathe...

Love me!

It’s a strange thing, but in some odd fantasy I imagine some of the popular kids at school get FTD or other rare dementias and join me on here and we become friends as I can help them and we also now have something in common.

Pathetic or what? Then I wake up and think, nah, fuck 'em.

Weird thing is the people I had beef with or who had beef with me, if I met them now on a superficial level at least, I'm sure we would get on. But when you do meet people from your past, it's as though  you pick up that unique group dynamic when you last left off.

The Hollywood director is still the class prat to us and the butt of friendly jibes.

The alpha male is now seen as a bit of a narcissist whose high opinion of himself is now reacted to with surreptitious smirks.

The paranoid one who was funny but volatile we now see as quite unhinged.

It's very easy to break back into those roles, or to suddenly have one's eyes opened with the wisdom of our years, to see someone for who they are, not who we thought they were.

As I've said before, I was not the easiest of people when I was younger. When I met J I was feeling pretty good - calm and kind, I like to think. I got ill a few years later and those dials of my character got moved around (think of your nan trying to find the volume control on an old cathode ray TV set, but moving everything else instead so the picture is now too contrasty, too brilliant, lacking in colour and way too loud) and well, the rest is history.

I know it can be difficult to think of your nan fiddling with nobs but I digress...

Why do I crave people's approval? I guess it all comes back to being socially awkward and wanting to fit in and be popular. It's also much easier when people are being kind and accommodating with each other as I'm not good at conflict.

Pathetic or what? 

Aren't we all, Deirdre? Aren't we all...

Recent purchase

They go with absolutely everything

Timmy Mallet goes to Pride. I love them. They're so out there that they really do go with nothing and at the same time (dualism) go with everything. I wear them with jeans, t-shirt and a buff on my head. I look like a court jester, with my big curly 'tache. 

It's a look I'm rocking. 

Dress how you want - balls to convention.

Life's too short innit?

Music

When I lived in London I got tickets to go and see Louis Cole live. I looked up the venue on YouTube and saw his last concert there. There he was playing this incredible music, with superb musicians and singers, and the crowd of people were just talking all the way through it. 

They were just there for a social occasion - oblivious to the amazing music. I decided I wouldn't go as with FTD I may have gone ballistic at them (this was pre-Sertraline) and get thrown out after headbutting them like dominos. 

An ex of mine told me she went to see her idol Stevie Wonder in Hyde Park, London. It was probably one of the last gigs he'd ever do and people were just talking all the way through it.

He's a living legend FFS!

Another phenomenon is people filming everything on their smartphones. So instead of taking in the entire concert in the present, you're instead being a videographer. Now, that's a different thing to being an audience member. All you end up with is a messy audio and the back of people's heads. 

There have been altercations in West end shows as people have come in drunk and have acted disgracefully (a bit like in Shakespeare's time).

I've gone to art-house cinemas and even there there are grown adults in the back row on their smartphones - you can see the lights of the screen in your peripheral vision. 

We seem to be becoming entirely REactive as a species - and it's all down to the addictive nature of social media. 

Here's an interesting video by musician and producer RIck Beato on the subject: 

Monstrous Elections

Goodbye venal 5th-rater scum, hello new government. 

However, thanks to our bizarre electoral system, Labour received just 34% of the national vote = 67% of the seats.  The worst served were the Reform Party who received 18% of the votes and got 5 MPs or just under 1% of the entire House of Commons.

(Sheds crocodile tear...)

Most Lib Dems ever - if you count them as the old Liberal Party, the most seats for 100 years or so. We went LibDem here, thank goodness.

The centre and left ganged up against the hard right in France to stop Le Pen.

I'm interested in what happens now to the Conservative Party and the battle which will ensue. There are so many factions  - did they lose because they weren't right wing enough? Or was it that the public had had enough of 14 years of a tanking economy compounded by the disaster that is Brexit, George Osborne's austerity for the poor, foodbanks, May's failure, Johnson's lies and deceit, partying during lockdown while his plutocrat buddies crammed their pockets full of taxpayers' money in order to deliver pisspoor PPE; Truss's disastrous 45 day premiership and the billions lost in that budget, and the shambles of venal 5th raters who are left?

Interesting times.

Very worrying with Biden now after THAT televised 'debate'. 

Gavin Newsom is the Democrat president-in-waiting direct from central casting. Can they persuade Sleepy Joe to go? 

The consequences are too dreadful to bear.

The world  - literally the world - holds its breath. 

I know Joe reads this blog and I will say this: 

Joe, please do the right thing and step aside. We (the world) need to beat Trump!

Thank you.

Ramblings, inanity and an ode

Glastonbury is off the menu....

Thankfully it's far enough away (4.3miles according to Waze) for us to not be affected by it, let alone be able to hear it. 

Certain roads are totally impassable over this long weekend at the world's biggest pop festival.

Last year my favourite artist Louis Cole played. He was one of the first acts on the West Holts stage on Friday. I had a look at the line-up this year: not a single jazz-orientated band or artist could I see. No Thundercat, Louis Cole, Kamasi Washington or whoever.

The rest of the line up I either didn't know or wouldn't get out of bed for. Lots of earnest and not-particularly-talented indie rockers, middle-classed punkers and has-beens. 

I read today Coldplay were good - but they are highly competent musicians who put on a proper show. 

Just saw a clip. So bland. Jesus. 

I'll interrogate friends who were there to see what acts were good, once they've returned to planet earth. 

I went to Glastonbury for the day in both 84 and '87. It was so different then. This was even before the ravers arrived, which was a big thing at the time as the old school hippies didn't want the festival to turn into an acid-house rave, which of course it did.

Wandering around semi-drunk on excruciatingly disgusting cider (malt vinegar with 'bits' in) looking at crap stalls and acts that really didn't do it. Wander off again. 

Back in the 80s the stalwarts were reggae bands like Black Uhuru and Burning Spear, indie bands like Spear of Destiny, Hawkwind and The Enid (for the hippies), and some other punk bands or post-punk like New Model Army and Killing Joke.

No corporate fields, no mega-stars, the sales pitch ringing out was 'Black hash, black hash!' and everything was overpriced as you were stuck there. 

I remember the anti-capitalist hedge-monkeys selling 25p cans of lager for £2 a pop. 

Yeah! Right on man!

Toilets with an Everest of human shit and flies poking through the seat. 

And the crowds! 

If it wasn't quite my thing then, with FTD it would be my worst nightmare.

Now you drive your Range Rover there, paint your face and act like a hippy for a weekend, leave the tent for some minion to dispose of, and drive back to your desk job at Slater Nazi in the City.

As you can tell, this curmudgeon never really understood festivals!

Sport

For or against? I like watching team sports - less good with other stuff. Found myself watching videos of Ronaldinho. He was wonderful. 

It's in stark contrast to the Euro Cup on at the moment. England have been so conservative and dull so far. I'm not a football fan, so has the game changed in the last 20 years to become in effect a possession -at-all-costs and zero risk affair? I get it that tournaments make all teams play differently, but the lack of creativity and flair is difficult to watch. 

Watching the NRL (Australia's Rugby League on the other hand is something else. I love the athleticism and warrior attitude of the players. The skill-set and bravery of the players is something else. Rarely is there a dull game.

And then Wimbledon is about to begin. Being a bit of a Joey I was crap at tennis. I have no interest in the game. 

Darts for the middle-classes.

Pseudo intellectual rambling

It was our monthly FTD group meeting the other day. Being a bunch of dementeds, there was a bit of confusion about the timing - 5pm in British Summer Time (BST)  or 5pm in Singapore Time Zone (SGT)?

I've always been fascinated by who I am, who I really am, who I want to be, and then trying to be at peace with who I actually am. And who truly knows themselves 100% even in an entire lifetime? 

Is anyone truly self-aware enough to realise how they impact the world around them in the present moment?

I throughly doubt it. But it's something to aim for.

Looking backwards and analysing a situation (self-reflection) is easier the older you get - and if you don't have an inkling of how you impact the world by the time you're 40 and are angry with the world because it's not exactly what you want it to be, then you're probably a lost cause.

I've always looked to myself as the problem and am highly self-critical, to my own detriment. I guess I want things to be perfect, not just good. 

I want to be witty and to have responded in a social situation with the best one-liner ever, but it fell flat or was cruel or just wasn't as funny as I thought. How can I avoid that? What should I have said?

Oh hindsight - what a bastard you are!

Story of my life. Some people just seem to find life really easy. Or they give that impression at least. I've never been one of them. I was always awkward at school. Saw the popular kids. Then similarly to girls with autism, I just tried to mask my insecurities and social spasticity by copying. 

Literally copying.

Who are we? Do we ever really know ourselves? Can we ever be honest enough to delve into the darker corners of ourselves and deal with what's there?

Probably not. 

But at any given moment, what is governing my actions? 

• Am I having a good or bad day with my dementia?
• Did I sleep well last night?
• Am I stressed or relaxed? 
• Why? Should I be?
• Did I drink too much last night?
• Have I drunk too much now?
• Am I annoying Blaise?
• Should I go home?

So many questions, so many variables. I'm glad I did a Mindfulness course to at least have the ammunition to realise the separation of SELF and STUFF. 

But the above bullet points I see like a bar chart or graphic equaliser, and try to quantify each metric in any given moment.

There's Geraint residing somewhere within my damaged brain, and then gravitating around me, my emotions, reactions, observations, motives, desires. Because I don't practice Mindfulness everyday I'm not as self-aware as I should be, but it's a good thing to at least have the knowledge of IT.

What was I saying again?

Gaming 

I ran Icewind Dale on Thursday for the Wells D&D crew. We missed Katy who has fled Pilton to avoid the festival influx (300,000?) on the village. 

I think it was a good game. I played a new wizard called Velynne. She is a posho who came to wizardry later in life, has had trauma evident in her shaking hands, talks about her débutante past with fondness, and is hanging out with the party. I like fleshing the characters out. It doesn't take much and it make s the role-playing part much more visceral and in fact easier.

On Wednesday I played Larry's Temple of Elemental Evil which was brilliant as ever - huge dungeon crawl and massive drawn-out fights. Very complicated they are, and great fun.

Monday's session with Sacha and the boys in D&G (D&D for dyslexics) was cancelled.

But Friday's fortnightly Pathfinder was a 4 hour session run by Stephen down in Rowden's Road. I like Pathfinder or 3.75 as it's known to role-players. It's a very catholic version of D&D to the rather puritan D&D 5.0. You get much more of everything - choices, special abilities, magic items - and as the DM describes it - it's more 'crunchy' -  as in number-crunching.

Because all games are essentially numbers disguised by scenarios. That's why the maths guys can 'break' a game - they scan the feats and abilities, take this that and the other, and not only can their character not be hit, it obliterates everything in front of them.

I like my witch - middle-aged lady who looks and talks a bit like 40 something Mary Beard, and hexes everything in sight. 

She used to have a stall in Camden Market.

We're doing okay in a system I used to play and which the others have never played. Good fun, and always interesting to pick up methods and tips from other game masters.

And now a poem what I wrote...

Ode to my winkle

Oh....my...winkle is a super

It came with a winkle hat

A surgeon hacked it off one day

Now what d'you think of that?

Oh my winkle is a-shrinking

It used to be magnif'

But after forty years of use

It's fallen off a cliff

Oh my winkle's short and wrinkled

It looks like a walnut whip

It's brown and short and stubby

with a light brown crusty tip

Now my winkle has retired

It got me from a to b

I liked my little winkle

But now it's just for wee.