How to be incredibly popular, like me

Sociably anti-social or anti-socially sociable?

I used to copy Joe Dunmore. I don’t know how he put up with me for so long. I’d have been totally freaked out if the roles were reversed.

I used to copy the tutors at Art College. I thought I had a licence to critique other people’s work, so I’d go round the class as the tutor did.

How to turn an entire year against you.

I copied the comedians at the production company. That didn’t go down well either.

I can judge an atmosphere in a room but I can’t pick up on social mores. The rules, in other words.

I was overfamiliar at the first stonemasonry workshop I worked at. Not very wise. There was a Lord of The Flies-style pecking order there so people hated me.

They were wankers anyway.

What is going on?

I don’t have Borderline Personality Disorder.

Do I have Autism and/or ADHD? This would seem the most probable.

I’ve masked and copied for years, stared out of the window or even watched the laundry churn around in the washing machine when I was little for tens of minutes at a time. 

I wanted to be liked so I copied other kids, always chasing the most popular kids, hanging by their coat tails.

I always maintained when I was being assembled they took my frontal lobe out of a skip. It's gone from bad to worse with FTD.

I could never revise. I would dust my bedroom meticulously with a 1/2” wide flat paintbrush instead.

Boring lesson? Most of them are. Why pay attention when you can look out of the window and watch Ernie the caretaker hypnotically going up and down mowing the grass?

In my twenties I'd flip from being scared of my own shadow to periods of intense confidence, so pleased in my own skin I’d be frequently approached by women in pubs and clubs.

It wasn’t an act - I really did feel that confident. Borderline arrogance.

And then it left. 

Thankfully for the best part these days, I am confident, or rather, adequate, in my own skin. I am me. It’s taken so long to get to know me, to even like me.

Those first few (four!) decades were more difficult than I’d have liked. And no person or mechanism to label and treat those symptoms, unlike today.

But I think it’s flipped over - harsh lessons learned stay for your entire life. If you wrap someone in cotton wool they never really learn and may expect the world to bend over backwards to accommodate them.

We do the young no favours by doing this. You still have to go out there, try, fail, get up and get on with it and learn in the process.

No one else is going to do it for you.

The 80s

Yuppies, vulgarity, venality, shoulder pads, shaggy perms with highlights, spoilers on Ford Escorts, greed is god, white stilettos, aerobics, ankle warmers, headbands, bubblegum pop, mullets, flicks, drum machines, Reagan, Thatcher, trickle-down, ra-ra skirts, deely-boppers, smiley faces, Tennants Extra, Marlboro cigarettes, pop videos, acid house, Falklands War, Miners’ Strike, Arthur Scargill, Neil Kinnock, Noel Edmunds, ITV, Blind Date, Duran Duran, Essex, Spandau Ballet, gold lamé, Wham, Goth, trendy, rasta, mod, casual, new romantic, punk, met’ler, psychobilly, hippy, skin, raver, Testarossa, Sierra, A-Team, Transformers, He-Man, Dynasty, Dallas, Care Bears, Kylie and Jason, Neighbours, Eastenders, Joan Collins, Roland Rat, I’m all right Jack.

You think this is cool????

Yuck.

Thank god the 90s came immediately afterwards to take the taste away.

Winchester

I visited my old friend Rupert, his refrigerator-sized son (my godson), Sophie and daughter.

On Tuesday Rupert and I left Sophie and the kids (who don't like old stuff) and went to Winchester. I’d last been there 6 or 7 years ago on a weekend with J. 

It’s quintessentially English in a Country Life or This England way. You’d bring North American friends here, Bath and The Cotswolds.

Ancient, civilised, tranquil, refined, orderly, quaint, pleasant. So much architectural history everywhere.

We had lunch in a lovely old pub called the Wykeham Arms. Great pint of Dark Star Hop Head (3.4%) - perfectly kept beer. 

Then the Cathedral itself. Wonderful hotch-potch of architecture. Thankfully the diocese had run out of money transforming the Romanesque into early English, so it just stops half way through. So much wonderful work there - frescos and polychomatic stone all over the place. Great to see the puritans didn't get to everything.

Lierne vaulting - NOT fan vaulting!

Romanesque period: built 1079 - 1150s. 

These are only 16" high. Amazing.

Wonky Winchester - it sank at one end.

The RoodScreen - keep you lot out!

Gurt nave.

18th century marble statuary

Gurt wall painting.

Saxon?

This is an effigy of God - seriously. There are about 4 in the UK

Romanesque, innit?

Lovely door - great colour combi 

Pisspoor repair.

Gurt flying buttresses.

The Easter Murders

Goodbye (moron)!

While walking through the market I met a couple I thought I knew relatively well enough for conversational purposes. 

I was explaining I'd just had my ears syringed and mentioned TWICE how the brain quickly comes to terms with deafness, compensates with hearing and balance, and was currently in the process of dealing with a clear ear'ole again.

Such was my amazement at the process and results of said ear de-gungification, they’d already said goodbye and walked off!

People cut the conversation short these days. Not all the time, but when it happens I'm still compos mentis enough to notice.

Several possible explanations come to mind:

1. I'm becoming [even] more tedious
2. Because I have dementia (=Alzheimers to most people) I won't remember how the conversation started or how long it's gone on for, so they can end it any time and no offence will be taken by yours truly.
3. I was always a complete twat and not worth any interaction with.

I can understand any or all of those. I don't even get offended, just curious as to what's really at the heart of a quick volte face from a potential conversation.

So I followed them for a while, and then I murdered* them.

That's just me though. 

You may react differently and that's your prerogative.

I blame it on the FTD. 

Unconscious whistling

I was walking up the High Street with Tomos the other morning, just like any other day, and a sweet old lady said “It’s so lovely to hear someone whistling. One never hears it anymore.”

But I wasn’t whistling at all, you deranged crone!

Oh shit - I’m not even noticing it now. Damn.

Rather like Austin Powers when he awakens in that scene, my internal monologue is now - intermittently - no longer reliably internal.  

This could lead to some complicated situations. Luckily at the time of writing, most people just see a mad person (me) warbling along and rightly ignore me.

Let’s just hope it stays that way for as long as possible.

Welsh-born

I just read an article on the BBC website referring to actor Matthew Rhys as 'Welsh-born.'

A few years ago I wrote an email to the curator of a particularly shit exhibition of photographs at the National Portrait Gallery featuring a number of performers at The Glastonbury Festival. One of them was of singer Tom Jones - the caption of which described him as 'Welsh-born'. 

I asked why the writer of the guff next to the images couldn't say 'Welsh'. The reply was that he'd spent so long in America that he wasn't really Welsh anymore.

Poppycock.

You see this as a Celt quite often. It's as though despite being relatively sub-human as a Welshy, an individual who's done rather well has transcended into a fully-formed human being and shuffled off the cloak of Welshness. 

They could even be English.

It would never occur to these people to refer to Michael Caine as English-born, would it? Or Hugh Laurie, James Mason, Helen Mirren or countless other English actors who earned or are earning their living in the US. 

Drives me nuts.

I murdered them an’ all.

The Time Team

My favourite programme of all time. All experts - all geeks - all passionate about archeology. Not a treasure-hunt, but an unpeeling of time to show how the land was used by people biologically and neurologically the same as us, but with the knowledge and beliefs of that specific time.

Endlessly fascinating, it ran from 1994 to 2012.

Most episodes are available on YouTube. The original characters were Tony Robinson the actor who presented, Professor Mick Aston in his rainbow jumper and black country accent, field archaeologist Phil Harding with his Wiltshire burr, Stuart the landscape archeology specialist, Victor Ambrus the historical illustrator, Carenza, Helen Geake, Mick the Dig etc. 

Wessex chic

It's charming,  gentle, funny at times and ultimately educational. These are real people who are able to communicate their passion and knowledge to the audience.

I wish I'd been an archeologist. 

Edwardian band names

Algernon and the Danglers

Forthright Bertie and the Pong

Marvellous Mucus Machine

Dr McGuthry's Vomitous Vituperations 

Billy Bolax and the Deep Dibbler 5

Gravel in't Gravy

Ebenezer and the Sneezer Geezer

Whoops! Where's me wobbler?

Jonathan Putrid and the Scrumping Guns

The Undesirable Altercation

Gladstone's Gallstones

Gene Splicer and the Mutations

*not really! 

...But I would say that, wouldn't I...?