Disguised as a non-demented

Missing life much?

Watching endless YouTube clips on strange and unusual animals, Trump's America, the Epstein list, atheism vs theism, rugby league, Cab Calloway, Lindy Hopping, convergent evolution and some gaming channels.

I then look at the paper. The culture section looks interesting. I wonder what it would be like to go to the theatre. When was the last time I went to an art gallery?

I wish I could just pop out of this fug and rejoin society again.

Then I think, what the hell would I do? And I realise that with my inert executive functions I ultimately have no desire to do much of anything and would be of little use to anyone.

I felt normal

While walking Tomos in The Bishop's Fields I met a woman walking her dog, but she wasn't from round here and her dog was nervous in a new place. I assured her it was safe and it was fine to take the lead off.

So we made conversation and walked round the fields, letting the dogs play and meeting other dogs on the way. 

I went to Niche and acted normal.

No one suspected a thing!

No one suspects a thing.

Then I came home and  for the first time in ages and felt sad. 

Here I am, stuck here, unable to work, no will to do anything, missing the humans and the dogs (my god, I dream about the dogs!) and trying to keep my faculties as sharp as they can be.

For 95% of the time I barely feel any up or down emotions these days. 

That’s the Sertraline. 

If I’m stressed I come out in hives. 

Other than that, I’m so relaxed I’m almost supine.

Looking up

I look at the clouds and their shapes. Today cumulonimbus; yesterday, angels.

The modern system for classifying and naming clouds is largely based on the work of Luke Howard, a London pharmacist and amateur meteorologist, who proposed a system in 1802. 

I guess they were just ‘clouds’ up until this point.

It’s also round about this time that the apostrophe was introduced into English punctuation. 

Must have been the fashion to complicate stuff.

Anyway...

I look at the roof tops, the chimney stacks, the slates, the windows and their surrounds, the colours, the pointing, the brickwork or stonework or render. I look at the plants, the flowers, the trees, the people, the birds, the dogs, the shop windows, the floor; everything

I sniff the air (even through my rubbish sinuses) and try to concentrate on the scents of flowers to the smell of wet tarmac. 

I listen to everything - near and far - and try to decode it, picking out the distant hum of the jet planes and the cars, to the thudding and screeching of building work.

I look at the light and shadows on the land. I look up again at the sky to see if we are due shade or sunlight with any passing clouds.

I look at Tomos, and in my mind ask him to forgive me if I've been distracted. After all, I'm there to enjoy the moment with him, like he does every for every second of his life.

Inside 18th and 14th century brains

A couple of posts ago I mentioned Kubrick’s 1975 film, Barry Lyndon.

The critics at the time bemoaned its coldness  - or in 21st century parlance its lack of 'relatability'.

James Marriott wrote about the movie recently having - of course - researched this period very thoroughly. 

The 18th century was on the verge of the ages of industrialisation and enlightenment. 

It is an age of colossal wage disparity (rarely mentioned in those tedious costume dramas) where the majority of the population were agricultural labourers who starved for much of the time, and where the landed classes had astonishingly complex and unspoken rules of etiquette, where the distance you stood from each other, your bow, and in what order was a minefield. 

Laughter was considered impolite; an affected titter was all that was acceptable.

The elite viewed the those beneath them as sub-human, rather like the ultra-rich do today.

Life was cheap and random acts of cruelty were the order of the day. 

Putting cats on bonfires and hearing them scream was a popular past time, considered the height of hilarity.

Again, there has been a recent upsurge in the torture of cats, which is another strange correlation with the 18th century.

The coldness of the people in the film is a result of Kubrick’s exhaustive research. It was a period between the feudal and the industrial, and evidently very alien.

I’ve always loved a series called Inside the Medieval Mind which was originally on the Open University. 

One thing that stuck in my mind the Mapa Mundi - one of the oldest maps of the then known world. It it square, and has at its centre Jerusalem - the Holy Land being the centre of the world. On the perphery of the map are the dog-headed men.

Whether they existed was not the question - it was a given. 

The question of the day was do they have the soul of a dog or the soul of a man? 

If they have the souls of men, then they could be converted to Christianity and missionaries would be sent out to do so.

If they have the soul of a dog they can’t.

Their world was totally supernatural.

I sometimes imagine having the ability to go back in time. Even if we could speak as they did, how would we have navigated the unspoken societal rules?

I’d have been burned at the stake within hours of touch-down. 

That's enough Blues-Rock for one lifetime

At Wells Beer Festival on Friday. God it was loud, heavy meal pumping out from the speakers. 

I asked Jan as soon as I got there “Is this din going on all night?” 

Smiling, he said, “Yes.”

So I had my headphones on, and then the band started. ‘Fire’ by Jimi Hendrix, some Led-Zeppelin, some Cream, etc etc.

I loved this type of music from an early age, but I’ve really had enough of it.

60 years of this type of music being played by what seems like the majority of pub bands. 

I’m sick of second rate Zeppelin or Cream impersonators.

I hear other genres of music are available.

Great TV can also be trash

When I was in the 6th form at school, out of the 4 channels, Channel 4 could be relied on to provide interesting alternatives to the other 3.

One of the programmes they aired was The Gong Show, a late 70s US  - and it could only be the US that produced this particular programme - talent show which is still one of the craziest I’ve ever seen.

It features some of the most bizarre acts, with a live band (as they all did back in the day), a panel who physically beat a gong if the acts sucks, regulars such as The Unknown Comic and Gene Gene the Dancing Machine. 

The whole show was just a giant anarchic party. 

Such a tonic. 

When I watch it I have a fixed grin from start to finish. 

Howard's Way

Simon Park who composed and played this theme for the appalling 80s serial also did the Eastenders theme.

A great talent for viral irritation.

Here are the lyrics which must have been in Simon's head as he composed the shite.

Howard's way.

It's always Howard's way.

He always gets his way.

Bloody Howard's way....etc

You were having a dump

Righteous Singing

There was a style of singing in the 70s which was really earnest. Overtly passionate performances, not matched in any way by the lyrical content. 

The antithesis of Dylan, whose passion is all in the words.

Saying that, I love this. 

I too would be equally passionate if I too lived in a capital I in the middle of the sky.

The following on the other hand, sucks balls. Dean Friedman and Denise Marsa. One of the cheesiest songs ever. Friedman also demonstrates another weird vocal affectation of the time, with his voice pulsing in and out like Radio Luxembourg on medium wave (one for the Gen Xers).

A lack of enunciation on the consonants too.

Tsk tsk.

“Your enDEARing MOTHer called toDAYYY. “

Meaningless drivel. 

I would urge extreme caution before deciding to watch/listen.

I warned you.

Biggest Regret 

About 30 years ago, somewhere in central London - possibly Leicester Square/Piccadilly Circus - I was minding my own business, and I felt gentle hands on my shoulders and a soft 'Boo' in my ear.

Turning around, expecting to see a friend, I instead saw a complete stranger. A large but harmless fellow in a bright pink shellsuit.

in a Black Country accent, he lent in and said "I saw you then, and just wanted to come over and say 'Boo.'"

He then started walking towards another street and said "Hey, you’ve got to come and see this. This is brilliant."

I politely declined, but I've always wondered what it was he wanted to show me that was so important.

After all, he may have been God in disguise!

That happens.

Come away, child...

...from the detritus of sots, lollygaggers, socialists and druggies with their mange-ridden hogs.

High on cannabis and government hand-outs.

Burdening the state with their flat screen televisions and Dr Marten’s boots.

Small twigs left in their wake, their abandoned nests replete with cigarette butts, bottle tops, broken glass and syringes with perfectly good heroin still within - wasted on them.

Poo, Grandmama! What a smelly man!

Do not look upon them Petunia dear, for they will sully you with the odour of badger and the wanton behaviour of The Krankies and such like.

One never sees this at Wimbledon or Henley!

Can you imagine?

Never read the Daily Mail, let alone The Telegraph.

Only ever entered a church to steal its pews for firewood or to defecate in the font.

Gussets filled with yoghurt and compost.

Armpits oozing with peat.

Not a single Marks and Spencers cardigan in sight.

Shame on you!

Bring back National Service! 

No! This human is soiled.

Just shoot you in the head and be done with it!

That'll learn them!

"Don't be silly, Geraint."

The answer to everything I said when I was a child. 

Can I have a mint choc chip and raspberry ripple ice cream together? 

Can we get the musical instruments out of the cupboard please miss?

Can I put a curtain on the alcove to separate my bed from the rest of the room?

Can I buy some sweets please miss?

My feet hurt miss.

I don't believe in god.

Can I go to the toilet please?

I don't want to do dressing up. I don’t like it. 

I hate it here. It's rubbish!

I want a pair of red jeans.

I don't want to go there. They smell.

This is a girls' comic.

This book is shite.

Keep me cool, fatty

Bingo wings on Beryl Cook women, flapping away as they attempt - in vain - to shoo the wasps away. 

Not just in vain, but making the wasps angrier and angrier and more intent than ever on getting to their sugary crumbs.

At least the wind produced from their flappety arms is keeping me cool. 

I don’t mind the wasps: cheeky little punk rockers. 

In fact I admire their guile and tenacity!

The downside is those bingo wings are really putting me off my blancmange...

'Ere! Mind they wappsez!

So what exactly is matter with your brain, then?

Brain Shit

Mild reduced metabolic activity in parietal lobes bilaterally and prominent reduction in corpus callosum and anterior cingulate gyrus region bilaterally.

That's what the CT scan results said in October 2024. So as I never had a follow-up consultation, I went online for Google's AI to interpret it into some basic English I might understand.

I like colouring in cauliflowers. Do you?

The Corpus callosum is right at the base of the brain and it connects the two hemispheres. In my case it's atrophied, which means reduced comms between the 2 halves.

So what are the implications of that? 

Reduced cognitive and motor skills. Coordination and so forth between right and left hands for instance. 

Bad luck if you're a musician.

Well the coordination and balance was always shit, but I can type, and yes sir, I can boogie. So not much change there.

But the other symptoms include reduced executive functions (such as wanting to get up and do shit) and language processing and attention, the latter of which was always a D-.

The parietal lobes are processing sensory information, particularly related to touch, temperature, pain, and spatial awareness. They also play a role in language, attention, and certain aspects of memory.

This is why reading and assimilating received information is ever more difficult.

It's a double-whammy to the grey matter!

Cuppa-tea, cuppa-tea, cuppa-tea please

I go to Niche every day except Tuesdays when they’re closed.

It's very nice there. I can watch the madness unfold all around me, but I often have my headphones on and read or type or watch YouTube on my iPad.

They look after me in there.

Watching the cardigans go by.  

That's the second wheelchair-user in a row with a yellow cardigan - a particularly egregious one with silver Buitoni. 

Ghastly.

One day I'll be in a wheelchair but I won't be wearing a cardigan.

I'm very sensitive like that.

Give me worms

Smiling at every dog I see. 

I love animals more and more every day. 

I like the bitey insects and the hideous worms that live in the ocean. 

As an (honorary) member of the human race I feel a level of personal responsibility for the extinction of all these wonderful mammals, birds, reptiles, amphibians, not to mention all the invertebrates we killed with DTT and the other pesticides and our obsession with fossil fuels.

Where ever humans turned up large fauna disappeared. The Moa of New Zealand, the various large marsupials in Australasia; wolves and bears in Europe. 

God we're awful.

At the moment I am particularly fond of arachnids and cephalopods. 

The interdependency of it all. 

A single tree has thousands of species depending on it for survival. A single oak can support 2300 species with 300 being entirely dependant on it.

And new discoveries are revealing even the tiniest animals have sentience in some form.

Many people still don’t get it as they worship the accrual of money at the expense of everything that is good, believing the fallacy that it will bring them the happiness they crave.

Puppet Master

I remember a very pretty blonde woman called Shari Lewis in the early 70s, wearing an Alice band with a sock-puppet. 

The daughter of academics who taught at the Yeshiva University, she was extraordinarily talented, could sing and dance, wrote several children’s books and even one episode of the original Star Trek series.

However, she is most remembered for her puppet Lamp Chop, and being probably the best ventriloquist ever. 

Lamb Chop had a very distinct personality based on a 7 year old girl, and Shari put a ton of personality into her movements and facial expression.

We’re talking about a sock puppet here. 

I didn’t appreciate how clever and well observed Lamb Chop was at the time. But I’ve since re-watched her - or rather them - and they were a class act.

Mandy Patenkin 

This is one of the most powerful speeches on Gaza I’ve heard. It’s 2 1/2 minutes long and his speech is in the last half.

Quote of the week

'Putin really surprised a lot of people. He talked nice then bombs everyone in the evening.'

DJ Trump (historical figure).

Being Human

AI vs Reading and Writing

Another terrific article from James Marriott in The Times.

People aren’t reading. Especially kids.

Their attention spans can’t handle it. It’s social media of course.

University students are all using Chat GPT and its ilk to write their essays.

Since the 2010s every metric of intelligence testing is showing in the west we are getting dumber. 

And more unhappy.

Marriott: 

“Reading and writing are the cornerstones of thought: serious reading, I suspect, is the one habit that unites virtually every man and woman of genius who has ever lived. It may turn out that to abolish reading and writing is almost to abolish human genius.”

The ability to add, to take away, to alter, to delete - all part of the process of working through and developing complex ideas, arguments and  theories. It’s the reason Ancient Greece forged ahead above other iron age civilisations, and gave us the great stories, the great philosophers, the Olympic Games and baclava.

What does AI offer us? 

Well, all those bullshit jobs will be gone in 24 months. That’s what they say.

But we heard that from Keynes in the 30s who predicted a 15 hour week by 1980, so terrified of automation was he.

Several people predicted in the 1960s that by now we would have mostly leisure time.

Instead people worked longer hours in even more meaningless jobs. 

I’m sure AI will rise up  and engulf us, and today's bullshit jobs will be made to look as worthwhile as being a barrister or doctor by comparison.

The AI professor gives the following advice:

Opposable thumbs

I did some research on this. Pandas have pseudo-opposable thumbs - a boney protrusion from the wrist helps them grasp bamboo while they still have 5 fingers on each hand. Orang-utans and gorillas also have opposable thumbs. So do koalas and opossums which aren’t even primates.

Evolution is endlessly fascinating.

I blame the 80s (part 3)

The Fairlight in the 1980s was the start of making music without musicians. All that dreadful Trevor Horn-produced stuff with the screeches that’s aged particularly badly.

You know they’ve auto-tuned Freddie Mercury on the latest Queen re-releases?

It doesn’t even sound like him.

Perfection is not human.

It’s something to aim for, that’s always out of reach.

Being human is human.

Whatever that means.

Len’s Radio

I went to view a bedsit nearly 30 years ago.

I met the landlord and the present lodger. 

“Everything you see here is part of the room.” Said the landlord.

“Not the radio.” Whispered Len.

“No.” Agreed the landlord. “The radio is Len’s. Len will be taking his radio.” 

At that moment he looked at me as if I was coveting Len’s radio.

“That’s fine. I have a radio.”

“You must not play it loudly. There are other tenants in the house.”

“Yup. Sure.”

“So everything you see here is part of the rent.”

“Yes”

“But not the radio.”

It was Pinteresque I tell you.

PINTERESQUE!

Pure gold.

‘Me nan used to sell canoes…’

“Tell us your name and ONE interesting fact about you.” Said the young group facilitator.

“Geraint. Er... I used to be a stonemason.”

“Colin, and I used to bob-sled for Great Britain.”

“Martin. I was an armed robber until I got the teaching job.” 

“Janet. I love dancing. I’ve pilates on Wednesdays. Me favourite song’s shite but I’m going to play it anyway from my tinny iPhone through Zoom…wait for it…this bit coming up…no hang on…yeah that bit there; love that! Me daughter’s moved in down the road, well it’s actually Hever Close but we count it as down the road. I did the marathon in 2010. Did I tell you about my daughter? She’s a bilge engineer for the council and her aunt -that’s me husband’s sister not my sister - not my sister at all -  got her the job. I love goin’ on ‘oliday. Here’s me ‘oliday photos (again, from the iPhone). Here we are in Torremolinos. Oh no, I think that’s Lanzarote…pauses…shows several more. That’s not my son - that’s the waiter. Lovely lad - can’t remember his name…what was his name Les?...”

…continues until hell freezes over.

I

DON’T

FUCKING

CARE.

I needed therapy after the group therapy.

Turns out I have a zero-tolerance attitude towards any form of tolerance whatsoever.

Pound Notes to be redesigned

Generic as balls

So one of the categories for the new banknotes is 'Noteworthy Milestones.' 

Why not add 'Significant KPIs' and where is 'Positive Outcomes'?

Honestly, has this committee been doing any work at all?

“Everyone’s wanking but the biscuit remains dry.” 

Siegfried Sassoon, 1913. 

As pertinent today as it ever was.

What can I do that's more interesting, more appealing?

Barry Manilow Complex

I'm finding it increasingly hard to write these things.

I know, there has to be a god, you're thinking. 

But subject matter is ever more difficult to come by. 

Life has become more, easy, in a way. I now know more people to chat to in Wells, or at least say hello to. Takes a while. 

If it's me it does. 

Some people obviously avoid me like the plague. And who can blame them?

Me bombarding them with lewd phrases and a random 'ANUS' now and again. 

Telling people about the virtues of ear-syringing, or out of politeness they ask me about Dungeons and Dragons and I actually try to explain it to them. 

I'm not all Dungeons and Dragons you know. I also play Traveller and Pathfinder.

See? A man of many interests.

There are people I avoid too. Gregory Twat and Barry Tedious are 2 who spring to mind. 

I guess having the same day over and over again does that to you, as regards news. 

It's okay though.

Toilet Update

I love a good toilet me, as you know.  

And to me toilet is also a verb, as in to toilet.

I toilet, you toilet, she toilets, we toilette.

"Hold me bag Deirdre, I'm just going to have a toilet for a couple of hours."

Makes sense, huh?

Toilets in pubs are a thing too. In the old Slab House Inn  - a family pub up the road that was burnt to the ground and is now a housing development (the 2 are not related - ok? OKAY??) served great food but had pictures of nude ladies in the men's. 

It was really inappropriate. It was like the landlord showing you his dirty mag from under the counter when the Dorises weren't around.

"Look at that eh? Phwooorr!"

Well, I went for a walk with Richard and Charlotte, my fashionable new friends I shan't be introducing you to, and I took the opportunity to have a toilet, and this is what I encountered.

 Even the little boys (or dwarves) will get a complex.

I'm still in shock.

In the future...

In the last post I predicted that the human race is headed towards an aesthetic singularity. 

So it is now, with great confidence, that I predict that in the future everyone will look like Punky Meadows, from hot rock band, Angel.

"In the publicity photo, Punky can be seen with a beautiful shiny hairdo...."

Lip filler, botox, make-up, dyed hair, probably some plastic surgery too. 

It could equally be Aunty Val from Manchester, as she drunkenly tries to get off with some footballer in a nightclub.

It's where we're heading, folks.

Too bloody hot

During the last few days it’s been very hot. Too hot, in fact. 

Apparently it takes 2 weeks for the human body to acclimatise to different temperatures. Trouble is in the UK with a temperate climate it fluctuates all over the place, so we never have time to get used to shit, hence we’re always complaining  it’s too hot, too cold, we need the rain, it’s too wet, etc.

It’s gone from 30 yesterday to barely 20 today. This is great, as I can wear clothes again.

A relief for everyone. 

I am looking every bit my age now. Withered body, flabby breasts, pot-bellied, bald.

Reminds me of the bloke in the Contacts magazine from my friend's dad's colossal porn collection. One of the classifieds pictured a middle-aged bloke in his 50s with a black Brylcreemed comb-over, National Health glasses, full-length shot, standing in his Y-fronts.

"Ex-forces, gammy leg, looking for couples."

Who could resist such an Adonis?

I don't know why it stayed in my mind. Probably because I didn't know what a gammy leg was. 

And it was a very powerful image. 

Very, very powerful image...

So anyway, I need to rectify my revoltingness. 

Hopefully there's a pill or something.

What I have been mostly watching

Giff-gaffing doesn’t win you the moral argument. Ask Jordan Peterson, or the bloke down the pub who hands out Reform Party leaflets.

Jordan Peterson is the Canadian psychology professor who became a cultural phenomenon by telling young men to make their beds and take themselves more seriously. 

In other words all the stuff their mums had been telling them for years that they'd just ignored. 

He recently went to pieces on a 20 atheists vs one Christian show - he's gone all religious now, yet he denies it with obfuscation, deflection and word-salads as these clever young people tore him to shreds.

Enjoy! (as they say)

Adam Curtis is a film maker who follows in the seldom broadcast social and cultural analysis of Clive James, Jonathan Meades and even Jon Ronson, in showing us what’s really going on under the surface.

Shifty is a 5 part series chronicling life in the UK for the last 2 decades of the 20th century.

More like an essay than a the usual BBC documentaries; those of us who lived through it or know about the subject matter will not necessarily agree, but it all adds to the conversation or at least starts one.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episodes/m002d2jv/shifty

I'm afraid it's probably unavailable for those of you outside the UK.

My viewing figures are down

So what can I do?  

I know I go on. Same old stuff. I mean I'm quite content but at one point I was getting 200 views for every post, no it's down to just over 100. 

Did I become boring?

Was I was I always boring?

I should look to some popular people for advice.

I asked an old Welsh fellow what the trick is: 

Or should I be more like Drimble Wedge and The Vegetation? 

Treat 'em mean keep 'em keen. That kind of thing?

I think the latter is more me.

When was our zenith?

When did we peak?

I'm talking about human excellence. In the sciences, arts; creativity. What it is to be human. What we can achieve if the best minds and talents are nurtured, encouraged.

Very few people know who the engineer of the Burj Khalifa was. 

More people know what Kim Kardashion has for breakfast.

Great people of our age are pouting morons.

Exude Izzy! Exude!

I just watched a documentary on Stanley Kubrick, genius director. 

He picked the greatest hard-science fiction author of his age - Arthur C Clarke - to co-write the story with. Arthur C Clarke had an extensive background in science and predicted back in the early 60s the use of satellite technology for communications, so that a doctor in London could perform an operation on a patient in Calcutta.

What we now call a futurologist.

2001: A Space Odyssey (1968) features iPads , artificial intelligence, and asks fundamental questions about our place in the universe.

Unlike the great cultural milestone that was Sex in the City 2. 

Kubrick created a new standard of special effects, technologies and ways of shooting scenes by aiming for perfection, and encouraging and enabling excellent people to go and figure things out so they could contribute to his vision.

He used Zeiss lenses made for NASA which were F0.7, to shoot Barry Lyndon and lit the whole film by candlelight and no electric lights, having exhaustively studied English 18th century paintings. 

His films became fewer as he got older as the perfection he sought in preparing for his movies was increasingly exhaustive. For example, he employed his nephew to photograph every house in Commercial Road in Shoreditch, which entailed a separate shot up a ladder so there was zero perspective convergence. (This is all before digital cameras, let alone Google Streetview).

It took a year, and they made a huge Bayeux Tapestry of them all. 

Stanley said 'It sure beats going there, huh?'

In the end they made the front they needed on a film set. 

What's all this about then? 

I suggest we probably peaked 60ish years ago. 

We live in an age of homogeneity: botox and fillers and deadening hairdos with which people try to reach an aesthetic singularity, finished off with make-up techniques perfected by drag queens. 

Young men with absurd dental implants, bulging  biceps and shoulders, with the skin colour of pure creosote. Then covered in tattoos that look like any doodled notepad next to a telephone.

People no longer wish to be individual. This idea that for northern European women the upper lip should be as plump as the lower lip, despite having the wrong bone structure and skin colour to accommodate it.

Music that is so utterly banal and boring as to reduce me to sleep in seconds. Where people like Cowell talk about "The Product" rather than the song.

Scum.

That anyone creative is at the bottom of the pile. That English, art, drama and music are now the least popular subjects in state schools, leaving only kids from wealthy backgrounds with the opportunity to pursue careers in them.

The country that gave the word the most mongrel and elastic language ever, and the person who shows us who we are, now eschewing it all to turn us from a 1st rate Britain into a 3rd rate China.

The commodification of everything has put a stick in the spokes of what it is to be human. As Frank Zappa said, American culture can be summed up as “What’s the bottom line?”

So kids are driven to careers which will soon be swallowed up by the leviathan of AI, or A1 as US Education Secretary Linda McMahon calls it.

Yes, she of the WWE.

An art scene that is purely market-driven to decorate the foyers of large banks and the preposterous homes of those who toil in them, in order to show off their great taste they neither have nor are even interested in acquiring. 

"I mean, they must be good. I paid a fortune for them!"

Our differences which were fascinating and wonderful are eroding. Those old colloquialisms found all over the British Isles, subtly different accents from town to town, have become disappeared or are disappearing fast thanks to radio, TV and now the internet.

For example you rarely hear rural Buckingham or Kent accents any more. They've been replaced by estuary English.

Those almost incomprehensible accents I heard at school have softened to become a broad Mummerset.

I listened to a fantastic podcast the other day which explains how social media has essentially fucked us up. 

That it was all going so well and the future was rosy, until in 2006 Facebook introduced the Like button and Twitter the opportunity to retweet...

PICK YOUR BINARY SIDE AND START HURLING INSULTS!

It’s really worth listening to.

We live in a world where a narcissistic conman and reality TV star and who has aspirations to be an unenlightened despot more appropriate to Turkmenistan than a liberal democracy, is the leader of what used to be known as The Free World; enabled by immoral lickspittles whose CVs comprise solely of how far they can get their tongues up Jabba the Trump's anus.

In summary,, I'll leave you with this. 

And...breathe

So we arrive with nothing. We leave with nothing. 

It's the in between that's the difficult bit.

Well, I found it quite difficult anyway. 

My Dad who is quite wise said it's about picking where you want to be on a line with money at one end, and pleasure on the other. What are your priorities?

I think the old bugger's right.

"Hey Stud! Let's boogie!"

Went out with friends on Friday at 4pm. Came home around 10.30. I had a good time but I'm on the cusp of 56 and I don't want to have let myself down. I can be quite a show-off with a few beers inside of me, and quite dumb as well.

I think I had a good time. 

My key-demographic is now the horny pensioner. Thankfully nothing has happened in this department, and luckily with my diagnosis and living in the parental home, it should be a sufficient repellant.

Apart from that, I am running Dungeons and Dragons on Thursdays and the thrill-factor seems to be back on eleventy, which is where we want it.

We had 2 guest players this time and they enjoyed it too.

So that's good. We are back on track! Also playing Mondays, Wednesdays and the very occasional Friday.

Been playing BG3 - over a 1,000 hours just on the PC.

Reading the paper. Do you go to the columnists you either love or hate? I do. Nothing inbetween.

What's that about?

Here's something beautiful. Check out the harpsichord!

Trump - a footnote, from a YouTube commentator:

An Insurrectionist threatening to invoke the Insurrection Act??? A Draft dodger demanding he be honored with a military parade??? A Felon demanding law & order??? The irony is not lost.

An end to navel -gazing

"He was black, so he might have pulled a knife out"

I see racism's on the increase. Reform - the party for the modern Daily Express reader - seems to have more batshit crazy councillors than Labour and the Conservatives combined.

And with batshit populism on the rise everywhere, it seems to have gifted the bigoted and the dim with a green light to air their prejudices, all in the name of Free Speech.

The other day a dog walker told me her daughter lives in Bristol, and her dog was attacked by a larger dog, but because the owner was black he may have pulled a knife on her so she just had to back away.

Obviously a large out of control dog is one thing. Like the dogs in question, the owners are often a 'type' .

We think of drug-dealing gangsters, but again these can be of any ethnicity. 

Why she felt the need to mention his skin colour when the majority of knife crime is black on black, to me is just racism.

It's like when you hear the phrase 'black bastard', as though the blackness of the person's skin had any bearing on his bastardness.

That's why the police mentioned that it was a white man who drove into a crowd of Liverpool football fans, as with social media had it been even mentioned that it was a brown person, the racist mob may have descended into violence, like last summer when a disturbed teenager who it was rumoured was Muslim but it turned out was not, stabbed some children to death in a nursery in Southport. 

These are scary times we live in. It feels like we're in a powder keg and one spark on social media is all it ever needs.

And it's all part of free speech. 

Which should of course come with responsibility.

The Beautiful Cathedral City of Wells...

Wells is a proper old Medieval town - and one of the smallest cities in England. It gets its city status purely by having its own cathedral.

There are plenty of stonemasons earning a living in these here parts, so I wanted to show some of the utterly shite repairs.

Someone has presumably ticked the 'okay' box and paid money for these.

This joker's used a stone repair mix instead of mortar, and it's already failed

Same again.

Obviously some left in his bucket.

Nothing like having pride in your job is there? Could have used a sponge.

Yes, that is a Grade 1 listed 850 year old cathedral behind. But who cares?

Wrong colour, too wet, and then they just leave it.

When you can do something to a certain level of proficiency and you have pride in your work, to see crap like this, you just think "What's the point?"

What is the point of me having dedicated all these years, thousands of hours, into a craft when shit like this earns people a living?

My family are musicians. My Dad still can't understand how people who could barely play could make so much money in pop music. 

Why do a good job when the people signing it off either haven't a clue what they're looking at or just couldn't care less?

And the thing is it's everywhere. For example, look at some of the new builds and see how poor some of the bricklaying is.

It's not as difficult as you'd think to make something look right, but it does take time and concentration.

I've seen some shocking work be praised by people who should know better. Even awarded with OBEs (Other Buggers' Efforts) and conservation awards. 

What is the point, indeed.

DMing the kids at Pilton

This was hard work. I'm still pretty kernackered 5 days later. 

One and a half days of prep, then 2 days of running the game with a large group of 6 kids - age range 12-16. 

That's a big range if you think back to when you were that old.

And then throw in a bag of neuro-diversity.

The youngest had quite a high level of ADHD and by the end of the 2nd day he was really getting on the edge of everyone's tolerance, but we got through it.

I had a massive tension headache, then took one ibuprofen and slept for 11 hours. 

Ah well. It's what I live for...

Dancing?? on a Saturday???

Ugh! You bastard.

I admit, it was me, in the White Hart, last Saturday. 

Boppin' about like a right Bertie. 

I think it was grab a granny night, as we used to call them.

Some joker called me a pirate on the Facebook post. 

I can see why.

As lovely old Dick van Dyke said: 

'Sing like no one's listening; dance like no one's watching.'

Gyles Brandreth in The Times, said: 

“Stop thinking about yourself. I find this one hard. We’ve all turned our lives into one big selfie. Breaking the mirror won’t give you seven years’ bad luck; it’ll add seven years to your life because happy people live seven to ten years longer.”

Good advice I think.

But what the hell am I going to do now??

T-shirt of the week

The Disclaimer T

Summer Ranting (and worrying)

Enforced Enjoyment

People in cafés and pubs dictating how I react to their product.

They serve the food then qualify it with ‘Enjoy’.

An affectation which has crept insidiously into the service industry.

Is it an instruction? 

You MUST enjoy this mediocre sweetmeat! Or else!

Perhaps I should cheerfully wish you ‘death’ upon serving your knickerbocker glory?

Don’t you tell me what to ‘enjoy’. Who do you think you are? If it’s good I shall be in receipt of an enjoyment. 

That is an inevitability.

If not, I shan't be in receipt of any form of enjoyment.

‘Enjoy your boxers!’

Sure! Enjoy my deep loathing of you!

Jargon. Like ‘Going forward…’ 

Repeat any sentence ever spoken with that phrase but elide those 2 words, and see that it adds nothing.

Mindless.

Scum.

Hiding from the Hairdressers at The Dorchester

Many years ago...at possibly my lowest ebb - and if you read this blog you'll know I've had a few ebbs like that - I was working in the office of a hairdressing/day spa.

It hurts just to admit this, to type those words - 'day spa'.

It was fucking awful.

The grifter who ran it (and it is an industry of grifters) had bought rights to a big hairdressing expo, and he got a former employee who'd fled to America to run it. 

It was insane. 

Said person got a friend she'd met at the pub to assist her. Pub-person was unbelievably irritating, and had no clue how to use a computer. 

Me and the other person in the office were kept out of the loop.

On the day of the event at The Dorchester, grifter decided to destroy her seating plan, and scores of attendees went ballistic at her. She had a nervous breakdown. 

I later found out this was a pattern of behaviour for her - take a high-octane job from grifter, don't share it, then get hospitalised. 

Nuts.

So I then dealt with the hairdressers, who were so visually ludicrous and deluded of grandeur that I had to bite my cheek as I couldn't take any of them seriously. That made life very easy.

Ludicrous yet terrifying

The 8th floor of The Dorchester compared to the lower floors is like a dorm. It's like most hotels in London were in the 1970s - so in need of an update as to be a national embarrassment.

I hid under the bed for about 3-4 hours. People came in looking for me, I saw their feet and heard their conversations. 

I'm never one to shirk a party or a free drink, but I just couldn't bear these people.

It was one of the best decisions I've ever made, hiding under that bed. It was so nice and peaceful, as I didn't have to suffer the dumb conversations of coke-fueled twats. 

Organiser and her mate from the pub awarded themselves a suite each - £1,500/night? Pub irritant and her beige-suited, slip-on shoed boyfriend left with almost the entire contents of the room - bathrobes, towels, mini-bar etc.

They do actually bill you for these things.

I only mention this as I'd almost forgotten it until I mentioned it casually to my friend Mark.

I've always been a bit strange, I guess.

Empty days 

One day looks very much like the other. So much so I'm seldom writing in my diary anymore. 

Walked Tomos, ate porridge, caught up with YouTubers and Times, went to town, played D&D/went to pub as a daily routine gets a bit monotonous.

Then a couple of days ago I woke up (which is almost always a plus) and the world span, and I flopped down on the bed. 

I hadn't had a drop the previous night. Honest.

I wondered what the hell was going on. My first thought was, is it dementia-related?

Apparently poor balance is a late-stage of dementia. I'm not at a late stage.

So is it a stroke? Or something else neurological?

Later in the day hives would appear on my hands and feet - my post Sertraline guide to my stress-level.

A couple of days later I confided my dizziness to my sister - it's vertigo, most probably caused by calcium deposits which have come loose in the ear. 

I've made a doctor's appointment but due to the increased size of Wells's population, I'm having to wait a month!

So I lay down on the bed and rolled on both sides to find out which side I instigated the dizziness, did some exercises and it's helping. 

Phew.

At least I know it's not dementia-related. That made me sleep easier.

(And some of the hives go away.)

New D&D Campaign

I'm running a brand new Dungeons and Dragons campaign called Quests from the Infinite Staircase. It's essentially a bunch of 40+ year old modular adventures, all updated to the current 5th edition rules.

Under 18s, as I've found out from running said games at Pilton 6 times a year, don't like the old games so much. They're used to narrative and role-playing, and there is certainly less of that in the old adventures.

I'll explain. Old adventures had little plot. Most of the time you would chance upon them like an old tomb for instance, enter and open a series of rooms each of which would have a random monster in, kill the monster, nick its treasure, and repeat. There was almost zero logic to the randomness of the creatures, as to why they were there, what they did in downtime, where they prepared their food, where they went to the toilet, and a lack of communal areas or canteen where the gelatinous cubes, goblins and shadow demons (or whoever else might be in the dungeon) could get together to discuss their days or watch Countdown.

It was really like opening the door of an advent calendar, with a different result each time.

These are generally referred to now as 'funhouse' dungeons. There's no particular logic to them - they just exist.

Modern adventures tend to have an overarching narrative and structure, with the randomness excluded.

I'm trying to make the experience more visceral for the players by expanding on the written content with embellishments - personal quests such as looking for long-lost family members, heirlooms, or being on the run, which I've developed with the players - and trying to expand the personalities of the non-player characters or NPCs who the players will meet on their adventures, to make them real or at least 3 dimensional.

We had a terrific session zero where we worked on the characters, which will of course add to the fun when they are role-played by the players, because their motivations, flaws, traits and idiosyncrasies will  be more real, as opposed to say, playing a fighter who hits stuff and simply works for 'coin'.

I'm looking forward to Thursday.

And so is Nafas the genie, who runs the Infinite Staircase.