I'm not really in the people-space at the moment

"I'm not really a person-person"

Tom, in The Rise and Fall of Reginald Perrin. A sit-com so profound in its concept and brilliant in its writing and characters that it had a huge impact on me from a young age.

A wonderful Ronnie Hazlehurst theme tune too.

If you don't know, it's about an executive having a nervous breakdown. An existential crisis.
Very 70s. People were questioning the nature of our societal structures, what humans actually need to be fulfilled.

Reggie

It started in the counter culture of the late 60s, fuelled by radical thinkers, and among other things spawned the self-sufficiency movement which was also the basis of The Good Life, another highly successful BBC sit-com, in the golden age of British TV.

Not really the stuff of comedy, you'd think.

But it's an amazing piece of writing, with astounding characters who are caricatures of people we all know - the super confident Tony, the bag of nerves who is David, the tyrannical Boss CJ and the annoying pseudo-intellectual son-in-law Tom, who dutifully delivers a sprout wine on visiting and pipe smokes while uttering comments on everything.

A bit like me but with a pipe...

"I didn't get where I am today without having champagne not much just enough"

“I didn't get where I am today by selling ice cream tasting of bookends, pumice stone and West Germany.”

It's just wonderful surreal, profound, maddening. A sitcom that takes you to a place few others would dare: an existential cliff-edge.

Perhaps “One foot in the grave” trod similar territory

Talking of the catchphrases, you can read them here

Anyway, all this is a segue from my own condition which has been to isolate myself over the last few days.

It goes like that in the dementia space. I have long periods where I’m relatively social, and then I pay the price where I just can’t handle other people.

Trying to break it down - you - YOU - people just get in the way, physically. When I’m walking down the street, or queueing. Big blobs of matter talking incessantly, not paying attention, dawdling and meandering.

Would you do that on a motorway?

Children having fun but screaming in excitement.

Dumb males with overly loud combustion-engined vehicles.

People asking me questions, or to do things when I’m having difficulty even completing a sentence.

Too hot - I’m just trying to keep cool, trying to maintain a breeze going through the room.

Too bright as well. Bring me the gloom any time.

Reseal the bunker!

“Can I sit here?”

Sure. As long as you don’t talk to me, and don’t you dare put your phone on speaker and have a loud conversation, you self-important shit.

I will attack you with hot liquids.

Bloody exhibitionist.

I'm forgetting more words and the brain-fog is getting more opaque.

Waitrose and Death

Obnoxious ignoramus at the supermarket. Wouldn't help me at the self-help queue. A pesky garlic was failing to declare itself in my shopping bag.

He ignored me for a while as I waved at him.

Eventually he came over and chided me for not knowing what to do.

"Thank you soooo much." I replied as he walked away.

"You're welcome."

Cheeky cxxt.

As I walked out he had his back to me. The temptation to headbutt him hard where the spine meets the base of his skull to cause him irreparable damage was quite powerful, but then I realised that in the future I will still need that lovely Nduja pasta sauce which only Waitrose do, so I thought better of it.


Genuine life-saver.

Games Night

Been DMing for 13 sessions of our new campaign. It’s modular (i.e. made up of separate smaller adventures) rather than a colossal epic-style single campaign and it certainly seems to be going down well.

We’ve increased the player numbers to 5 now. We may have special guest stars such as Richard Basehart or Karl Marlden now and again just for the odd session.

It takes longer to put together now, and I never feel 100% on top of it any more, like I used to. So I just go with it. I also write down encounters like “Worst bandits ever” and just use my roleplaying skills to improvise it and it seems to do the trick.

The next day is always a write-off though.

In fact this weekend and last and the one before that I’ve just slept for 10-11 hours straight on the Saturday and Sunday and been even more useless than normal.

I can still run a good game though. And that’s what keeps me going.

Sharing is caring

I’m still struggling…

All that sunlight, summer cape-dresses and ice cream. Ghastly.

Make it go away!

Crawl back to the coolness of the cave and its screens where I can kill things with impunity…

I got tired of throwing Marjory out of the window. She came back in and I thought what the hell.
She keeps herself to herself.

Very hairy legs though.

Call me old-fashioned.
I felt sorry for her.

Chivalry is not dead!

Marjory

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.

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.

Oh, to be a starfish...

Quantum decline

You take it for granted for ages. The “situation” in the background, you know, [whispers] dementia!

Then you go through a couple of days of a trough, which turns into 5 or 7, and you realise you’ve taken a small but significant step down in your abilities.

Concentration at an all time low. Every time I try to read and prepare for D&D the detail of most of it is lost, so much so at times that when it comes to running the game it feels like I’m reading the passage for the first time. 

My prep is like this: procrastinate, procrastinate, read half-heartedly, procrastinate, read thoroughly and make notes, do nothing on the day of the game, read the notes haphazardly in a hurry - eyes darting all over the page - ditto for the actual original text, then run game. 

It’s an effort. Fuck I wish it wasn’t like this. Am I getting away with it? 

I asked and one person said it was noticeable how I'm not as on it as I once was but it was still really good, and the other person said they hadn't detected any decline at all. 

I like to think I’m experienced enough to provide a decent experience for everyone - myself included.

Suffice to say this is the new reality. 

Also some occasional minor hallucinations: white objects like my Apple mouse which in my peripheral vision suddenly burst into view like a firing flash gun set at F2.

I’m going to have to up my dose of Sertraline from 100mgs to 150mgs for a while. Finding it all a bit difficult. The noise of busy pubs; sitting indoors, not finding any satisfaction in YouTube clips or much else for that matter. 

Like a smoker who can’t afford cigarettes, or the straight-jacketed man with itchy balls. 

Just restless: an unquenchable thirst for a drink that doesn’t exist. 

At least I can still string a sentence together, spot typos, grammar errors and punctuation errors (are they ever not errors these days?) with alarming speed - like Robocop spotting perps in his multiple cross-hairs.

My handwriting still receives compliments. 

Forgetting my multiplication times tables now. Had to think what 7x8s were. Known them off by heart since I was 9.

You lucky, lucky bastard.

And you 'n all.

Politics 

I still think I’m over-qualified for Trump's cabinet.

I’m not a rapist, or a tax evader, or a fraud of any kind. In fact I haven’t done anything to be pardoned by him yet. 

So no ambassadorships or secretary of state jobs.

I am completely unqualified for any post in government, which oddly enough would actually make me qualified in this (mad) instance.

I’m better informed than Tulsi Gabbard who repeats verbatim RT propaganda like a Talking Barbski doll-bot and of course RFK Jr who seems to be just a very damaged person through drug-use and personal trauma.

Despite my dementia I’d be much better than this shower.

Trouble is the MAGA crowd would accuse me of being a DEI pick and that wouldn’t be a good look for Trump or Project 2025.

Sod it then. It's CEO of the World Bank for me.

Plutocrats 

Just as Elon Musk spent hundreds of millions of dollars getting the stooge known as Trump back into office, the Reform Party is Musk's next project. They are of course natural bedfellows.

Another one in the mix is Nick Candy - the property developer, who in a Sunday Times interview today quite openly speaks about his fondness for Saudi Arabia and its society: its great quality of life and law and order.

Wow. Think about this for a moment. Saudi and many of the Emirates states have the most appalling human rights records, a catalogued history of indentured workforces, the scandal about the workers who built the Burj Khalifa and many other erectile dysfunction buildings in that part of the world.

But what amazes me these days is that somehow, at some point the concept of democracy became devalued. People now speak openly about appalling regimes and dictators as though these are great people running great societies. The MAGA movement led by Trump, Tucker Carlson, Tulsi Gabbard praising Victor Orban, Poot'n, Xi of China. All autocrats with appalling human rights records, especially for women and LGBTQ+.

I just can't believe how up-front they are about it too. There's almost no attempt to hide their undemocratic leanings. I assume they operate in echo-chambers for them to think this is 'normal'.

These billionaires who manipulate the media like never before are out to get even richer, dividing the wealth of the world up between themselves like the oligarchs they are, depending on ordinary people to vote them in.

Already Trump is pulling back on his promise to make groceries more affordable - one of the promises he made in the election.

I cannot believe we've come to this point. People died in the Peasant's Revolt, The Peterloo Massacre, Chartism, Trades unions and the suffragette movement, to have human rights, to be recognised by those holding power as fellow humans with a stake in society ie. the vote.

Is it that history has become irrelevant due to ignorance?

- Forget it G - that happened a long time ago. It's history.

- What, like Jesus?

If it looks like fascism smells like fascism and acts like fascism, it's probably fascism. 

I've lost friends who have swallowed this shit hook line and stinker. And I'm prepared to lose more any who fall into this vortex of bigotry and hatefulness.

They're laughing at us.

And finally...

Had to throw 2 pairs of pants out this week: structural integrity of the gusset. Quite the disappointment. These things all happen at the same time don’t they? Waves of exploding heels on socks, disintegrated gussets and holes in your favourite t-shirts. 

These things happen in clusters don't they?

One thing’s for sure, I shan’t be buying nylon pants ever again. 

Vote Wilbur!

 Wilbur - a Eulogy

I called J as I was passing the house. That happy/sad feeling of nostalgia. 

Like listening to an Abba song.

Wilbur ran out to see me, falling base over apex, but he recognised me instantly. I think we were both in shock at seeing each other again.

I was once contemplating setting up a website called Wilbur’s Shits, which rather like those swatches of marbles and granites would show the subtleties and differences from say yellow ochre to jet black with carrots in. 

I never did it of course but now I’ve given you the idea, haven’t I?

I’m good at that. Many of Rob Porteous’s commercials were my ideas.

I never did get that pint, Rob…

ROB!?

Anyway,  Wilbur was a year old when I met him. I didn't like him at first. He used to sleep on the bed, and I would shoo him off. He would try and eat everything. He would have these frond like hairs over his face that used to drive me nuts. 

I just thought it was slovenly.

Always one for the underdog, was Wilbur.

Over time, I gave up and actively encouraged him to sleep on our bed, made canapés for him, introduced him to the finest cheeses in the world, took him to D&D sessions, and shared bananas and other exotic foodstuffs with him. 

He rarely moved, choosing to teleport instead with pizza in his gob, out to the garden to munch it.

He would growl if you came near him - only when he got older.

I used to say he was the only one who was pleased to see me when I got home from work.

He came on games holiday with me. It all went wrong when he discovered the compost patch on the farm we were staying and after gorging himself on rotten apples barfed it all up at 2am in my room.

He was a puker and a shitter; that much is true.

In fact he was obsessed with food. Like a lot of show-cockers, he possessed an under-active thyroid and by the end was blind with cataracts, deaf, senile and had had some strokes.

I ended up loving Wilbur, and it was great to see him just before he shook off this mortal bone.

Dogs are just great. 

We see in them the kindness, honesty and unconditional love we wish we possessed as humans.

US Election and what now?

Some people don’t understand how you can get so embroiled in US politics when you don’t live there. 

I’d say the repercussions on the geo-politics of the world are going to be felt by everyone. 

Trump's policy of isolationism is going to affect the war in Ukraine, the world’s economies, Europe, the balance of power with India, China and Russia, not to mention Taiwan…

The tariffs alone will affect our GDP and growth. and Europe's even more.

(As an aside there has been a spike in search terms on Google for "What is a tariff?" and "Are tariffs good?" in swing states, after the election...)

Just watching the election post-mortems on YouTube, TV and in the paper. I know I know - these are ancient monoliths people have no time for anymore. 

Frank Zappa said American culture can be summed up in ‘what’s the bottom line?’ I recognise people hadn’t felt Biden’s policies had improved their cost of living, and the Democrats were talking or accused of being obsessed with identity politics. 

However, the economy is booming, more jobs have been created than in decades, people are - despite the prevailing zeitgeist - improving their standard of living. And yet and yet...

"They're poisoning the blood of our country."

"They're eating the dogs and cats; people's pets."

Blaming poor people and immigrants, the traditional methods of the far right.

Zappa also warned of America turning into a fascist theocracy in time, which most people of course ignored. 

Check out a guy called Doug Coe and an institution called “The Fellowship”. A covert organisation whose intention was to make Christianity at the heart of US politics, despite the Founding Fathers writing a deliberately secular constitution. 

You can see it all starting in the 80s with the Reagans. 

By the way, it’s intentionally non-publicity seeking.

So back to 2024, the Democrats went knocking door-to-door, but the data they were using wasn’t effective in targeting the people Trump’s team had already got through to using digital media.

What the electorate heard were (justifiable) attacks on Trump’s character rather than what would benefit them.

Democrats laughing at people who are clearly dumb and ignorant (MAGA) who don’t agree with you, didn’t help. 

It’s easy to see 5 minutes after the event some of what went wrong..

As Vlad Vexler pointed out, we live in a world of Post-Truth, authoritarian populists who disguise themselves in traditionally Conservative clothing.

They communicate disinformation repeatedly in 5-10 second bites on TikTok. No time for reasoned discussion. No time for journalism. 

Fox News, Rumble; 18 of the top 20 political podcasts are MAGA-supporting. The left or centre are losing the information war.

40 ex-high profile employees of Trump's previous administration have been vocal in their condemnation of Trump saying he is a fascist and utterly unsuited for the position of POTUS.  

Can you name any other president whose previous employees have done that?

What’s so good about democracy anyway?

I thought the whole point of modern democracy was we could get these guys out after 4/5 years get our guys in, and the whole system balances itself out over time.

That will not be the case anymore in many countries. Hungary and Turkey spring to mind immediately. 

In the 90s, after Apartheid and the Soviet Union had fallen, the world felt genuinely good. There was a visceral optimism about where the world was and where it was heading.

How naive we were!

Of course, it proved to be just a blip.

Move forward to 2024 

"Don't bring politics into this!"

Well, I will if you mention Christian nationalists in an anodyne context when they are in fact rather unpleasant people.

Maybe you could learn something by what I'm telling you rather than shoot it down in flames? After all in the 80s during Apartheid, people said the same thing.

"Politics shouldn't come into sport!"

Say that to black athletes not allowed to take part in the Olympics, rugby or cricket because of their skin colour.

Have we all forgotten this or are we simply unaware or uninterested in our most recent past?

When one is tired of Gurn', one is tired of life...

Well, Wells actually, but Gurn’ sounds better.

Jesus it’s small. I haven’t really established the social life I wanted here. Evenings spent inside, drinking, playing on the computer. Not ideal. 

Wandering up and down the barren streets, with the exception of market days when it's joyously bustling, 

An astonishingly acute case of gonorrhoea...

The people I know have busy lives and why should I expect them to make an effort when I haven’t with them prior to living here?

Cue trips away visiting friends. More reading and watching of substantial things. I no longer watch TV other than the news, partly because if something doesn’t grab me entirely - and I’m prepared to watch a couple of episodes - I’m going to drop it. 

I feel the content of most dramas is so lazy or algorhythmical that they just don’t merit watching.

"Oo, let's see how many willies we can get into this programme!" seems to be the remit for most programming.

And Michael Macintyre and Simon Cowell and their ilk must die. 

Trumpian I know...

 Of course, I should be more gregarious but what with the executive functions almost always offline, it’s difficult.  

Bath beckons. So even does Glastonbury, if only - like Camden Market - to remind myself why I haven’t been there for years, and therefore prevent any more silly deluded thoughts for another few years.

A-frolicking and a-prancing in Wells

Great British Breakfast

Marvellous breakfast. Coffee was terrific - perfect strength and oatmilk-to-coffee ratio. Left the extra-large blueberries in the honeyed porridge just long enough to slightly stew them and take the sharpness away.

Gurt lush.

Kemi Badenoch has just been declared Conservative party leader.  The party of Disraeli, Churchill, Macmillan, Thatcher and Truss have elected the first black leader of any main political party.

I don't think Labour will even elect a woman leader for decades. There are reasons for this, and the main of which is the dyed-in-the-wool sexism of Trade Unions who still select the candidates.

Matthew Syed of The Times wrote an article where he applied to become a Labour Party candidate. Articulate, intelligent, reasonable - yet to apply in Labour you have to be approved by each table representing different sections of the party. 

I guess he was a bit too posh for some.

By contrast Matthew Parris, also of The Times and a former Conservative MP, wrote that when it comes to defining The Conservative Party, it isn't ruled by political ideology but rather it defines itself by what it isn't. So they do it by saying 'we don't like what Labour is doing' so they push back against it.

I guess that's a bit like defining what Britishness is: we say what it isn't, which is why Trump disgusts us so much. 

He is the antithesis of Britishness at its best.

Halloween, Shmalloween...

Being a misery guts I don't do the American 6-week festival of Halloween. 

Rather like being oblivious of that tennis tournament in SW London every June/July when I was organising my 50th birthday party, when hotel prices go up to £900/night.

I didn't even think to do a Halloween-themed adventure for Dungeons and Dragons at Pilton this year,. 

It just passes me by. Rather like Harry Potter.

So this half-term thanks to Edspired Tutoring, I ran an oldie but a goody. 

Nice team of kids too. Smart, enthusiastic, friendly and funny.

I tried to prepare by reading and making notes but it just was not happening. I found it impossible to knuckle down and get stuck in to the text. 

So I winged it. Again, having picked an adventure which I'd run 3-4 times before it was much easier to just run straight out of the book.

It went really well.

I think.

Indulgence

Look at this. While the 6 week festival of Halloween drags on some bright sparks had the idea of making themed drinks. This is Northern Monk's Witches Fingers - that's their spelling not mine.

Yes, it is actually that colour.

It's just food colouring, rather than eye of newt and lark's vomit.

Friends Reunited

Sarah, The Arty Teacher. 

I realised that throughout my pretensions of trying to be cool, Sarah and I were actually quite similar. We were both bored by 80% of schoolwork and did pretty much the minimum. Well, if you've got Ernie going up and down the playing field mowing the grass, it's far more interesting and soothing (hypnotic even) than learning German grammar or balancing some equation or other.

Both of us found revision for exams almost impossible, and duly did badly in our A-Levels.

I wonder if we're similarly neurologically diverse?

Haven't changed in 30 years. Well, Sarah hasn't...

To think, it's 30 odd years ago. We reminded each other of things we found excruciatingly embarrassing we'd said or done when we were...kids, essentially. But having been in contact over the last few years again, this was the first time we'd seen each in the flesh. 

We did the Cathedral, Vicars' Close and Bishop's Palace. Proper tourists we were.

Sarah has a business in which she provides teaching resources to a global client base. 

Check out the website. It really is something else.

Shelley who is so tiny that if it wasn't for her glorious hair and smile she would not be visible to the human eye.

She has the health of about 3 normal humans. She glows with wellness.

We laugh a lot. I like making her laugh. 

I always did. 

Then she said she'd seen something really profound while on a school trip in Sierra Leone, and she communicated it in a way that I suddenly felt the profundity too. 

What was it? 

A little boy, malnourished, stopped and stared for about 10 minutes at children in a private school playing football. It was as though he realised with his little 7 year old mind that he would never be part of that world. 

Suddenly the mood had changed, and hearing the immortal words of Alan Partridge ('I want to keep it lite...') I said something dumb, and we were back to normal again. 

Phew. 

Clare is the adult who accompanies me from time-to-time. 

We went to a cafe and I saw it had Basque Cheesecake on the menu. OMG - last had that at Brat  years ago. Best cheesecake ever, and I AM AN EXPERT.

It was nearly £5 a slice and while it was delicious it was about half the portion we were expecting. 

Mmn. 

I felt that was a bit mean. We wandered around through the autumn leaves and got another coffee then walked home. 

Clare's dog passed away recently, which is very sad. She is very laid back (she always was) and I can't imagine the stress she's been under recently what with her dog, moving house and stuff.

We talked about the awful things women do to their bodies - Brazilian butt-lifts, botox, filler and other implants and injectifications. 

Big old ugly duck lips. 

One of the things that women often have conversations about is 'What would you change about your body?'

Talk about fuelling self-loathing.

I thought about it. As a bloke, you're paranoid about the size of your John Thomas, my head's too large, and I'm rather puny. But those are things I can't do anything about. 

Perhaps I should change my sense of anxiety to that of contentment - be accepting of who I am and how I look. 

Yes - contentment. That's the part I want to change. 

It's a brain-thing, not a body-thing.

This week made me realise that I spend too much time on my own. 

I need the company of people more than I realise.

Mods

A lot of computer-based - and lately console games - have become open-sourced (is that the right phrase?). That is, opening up the innards of their games allowing clever people to add code to enhance the gaming experience. 

For example, they will update the graphics and make them higher in resolution, or add bonus content to the site in the form of extra adventures or crazy daft things - one of which is turning dragons into Thomas the Tank Engines.

The modding community, on their way to work.

Skyrim is the most modded game of all time. It was released in 2011 and I thought it was amazing, but time has taken its toll and it looks very dated indeed with its blurry, dull graphics and limited voices (very few actors playing all the rolls) and dialogues. 

There's not much that can be done about the latter, but it is astonishing what modders have achieved (if you ignore some of the more teenaged attempts...) with additional plots and stories, the use of additional voice actors and all the graphics enhancements.

(Vanilla = original)

I know I should be doing the cleaning and stuff... 

I'm actually looking forward to playing D&D with other adults soon as we haven't done a proper session in over a MONTH!

Shocking.

But I want to end on this enigmatic photograph which I imagine was taken in either Regent's or St James's Park.

What does/can it mean?

Caption competition?

D&D-skilling

Being Boring

So I had this whole blogpost. And it was so boring; I didn't want to inflict it on you.

So you'll be pleased to learn I haven't.

I'm so interesting I have a series of novelty t-shirts. This is the latest:

My Mother does not approve

I have had many compliments from people in the pub. Well, it is the height of wit and sophistication, after all. 

That settles it: I shall buy some more.

I've always wanted a t-shirt that says 'The band on your t-shirt is crap.' You could have a whole load:

'All your opinions are rubbish'

'Why do you work at that place?'

'You're the Dungeon Master...' (I hear that a lot.)

'Why that outfit?'

They could really have an impact. Thought-provoking and fight-inducing Tees.

I should also write my guide-book for elderly - 'Around London in 13 toilets.' 

That's a good dollar, the toilet market.

Hampshire

I spent the weekend with friends in Hampshire. I'm very lucky to have friends like these - proper friends. Always there for each other.

Their dog Douglas is a golden Labrador and he is lovely. He's very calm and loving. 

I do love dogs as you know.

It's lovely to have them in your life. I've come to believe animals are nicer than humans. Well, I don't personally know any Komodo Dragons or stonefish, but you get what I mean.

Rupert (human) is very nice too. I keep calling him Wilbur (dog). I have no idea why.

Typing and flab

My typing is getting worse. Much worse. I'm having to correct so much of it as I go. I do have bad days and good days with these things.

In fact I've just raised the chair and I've already improved my typing...

But with FTD while you have ups and downs, your head will never be clear of the fog again.

So while the panic is over, I do notice decline in certain areas.

I'm properly flabby now too. 

Again.

So I am improving my breakfasts with porridge with seeds , berries and real honey. I had it this morning and it took almost the same time to make as toast. Easy. And delicious too.

I also need to borrow my sister's bike and ride around as my legs are like Crazy Legs Crane's.

Exhibit A

TV and Shit

So, as new TV series drip-drip through after the actors' strike in the US, here are some what I watched recently.

For All Mankind on Apple TV. Started off interestingly with an alternate history where the USSR beat NASA to the moon. It then focuses on the families of the astronauts. I started to fast forward through those bits to the actiony bits. This is not what sci-fi really is. I'd say it became rather like Eldorado in space. 5/10.

3 Body Problem on Netflix. Based on a 4 part series of sci-fi novels by Liu Cixin. It features lots of improbable cigarette smoking in Western offices and the Wow signal from 1977, which a Chinese scientist decoded and replied to, which turns out not to have been the best idea. It's interesting. I binged it over a couple of days so it must be good. 8/10

Fallout on Prime. Interesting and beautifully styled. But like a book I didn't watch it the next night and then 2 weeks passed. DO I care about the people in it? Not really. 6.5/10

The gaming bit you always ignore

On my 2-part session of DMing for the kids over Easter, I asked them in preparation to specifically use the old analogue method of character creation with dice, pen and paper: creating the character from concept, through to rolling for their ability scores, selecting their skills, abilities and spells, then methodically working them up to level 4, which makes them more powerful and involves some thought and some arithmetic.

2 of them did, and 3 didn't. 

The three who didn't just pressed go on the computer charactermancer and ended up with characters whose ability scores were random, so you can get a super intelligent barbarian who has the physicality of a middle-aged librarian, and the kids get frustrated because their characters are useless.

It's not much fun when you can't even pick up your battleaxe.

The modern world is all about labour-saving, shortcuts, saving time. The offshoot is deskilling: being oblivious to processes and ultimately being unable to fix or improve things.

We are reduced to pressing a button on a computer which number-crunches in microseconds, making the decisions for you.

The next session I run we are going to roll characters in the old way, which is actually part of the fun, but it does involve some thought.

I know reading big books can be a bore, but you really could force yourself to just read the bit that's applicable to your character. 

I made a late start to photography after buying a terrible digital camera in 2003, and then I went to college and learned photography using a totally manual, large-format camera and made expensive mistakes using 5"x4" Polaroids and film. 

I learned to use my own judgement when using any camera after that. 

Similarly with masonry - some people calling themselves masons can't use the hand-tools, and some places on site you can't get to with an angle-grinder - mallet and chisel is the only way.

We have deskilled ourselves over generations. Understandable as many of the jobs were exhausting and let's face it, horrible. 

But the upshot of this is we are becoming Eloi and Morlocks. And fast.

Conclusion: you can never learn too many skills. 

Icewind Dale

I'm currently preparing the above title for our next 8 month long Dungeons and Dragons adventure. Like Tomb of Annihilation it takes place in an extreme environment, and is epic in scale.

But what is slightly off-putting is the size of these adventures: this book is 300 pages long, and details new monsters, characters who the players will meet, environmental hazards, small quests, side-quests, the main quest(s). 

Let's play humans!

I can imagine this being very off-putting for new players/Dungeon Masters.

When I started 40 years ago, an adventure was 12-30 pages long, written by computer programmers (without being computer programs) and you needed to almost decode the entire adventure in order for it to make sense and be playable. 

But they were concise, the information was all there, and once you got used to them they were easy to run.

Now they're 10 times the size. That's a big difference.

But we started last Thursday and had a good time. The session zero was great - we fleshed out the characters and they are already very distinctive. 

Let's go!

2023 be damned!!

Lowlights of the year

The invasion of Ukraine continues in a First-World War-style meatgrinder-stalemate

Hamas butchers 1200 Israelis of all ages at a pop festival. Israel's reactionary government retaliates by flattening Gaza and killing over 10 times as many Palestinians

Despite him being a lying, narcissistic sociopath, Trump is getting more popular in the States and unless he is sent to prison in time, will be the next POTUS. Which of course will be a disaster not only for the US but globally.

Liberal democracy around the world is under attack from China, Iran, Russia and other half-witted regimes such as North Korea who sow misinformation on our social media, fuelling conspiracy theories.

The world seems to be getting even more stupid - ever more venal and corrupt politicians reaching either the wrong conclusion or just lining their own or their friends' pockets.

And they will be replaced by more of the same, as the people who should be our politicians have zero incentive to go into it.

So what's the bloody answer then?

One idea I feel very strongly about is abolish the post of Minister of Education. Every minister of Education who comes in says "I had a brilliant education - so everyone will have what I did" introduces another one-size-fits-all system, oblivious that most kids aren't academic.

As a result of Michael Gove's reforms English became a dissection class of fronted adverbials, which is enough to put almost everyone off the subject for good, when really a child's imagination is one of the most precious things in life, and as I've said before, the one thing that the education system pulverises.

Replace with a permanent committee of high profile educators and adopt a German style system (as Beveridge originally recommended) of grammar, technical and secondary schools. 

Stop trying to be a second rate China with this obsession with maths, and start being a first rate Britain. We're a really creative people in all aspects of life. After all, the wealthiest Chinese send all their children to Public schools here. Critical and independent thinking is what's needed, not a bunch of mindless automatons who have only been taught how to pass exams, instead of being educated.

And maybe abolish the internet. It's handy for the discussion of ideas and nonsense like this, but it's been fuelling stupidity and misinformation for 30 years or so. It's only effectively policed by totalitarian regimes, and it's just too easy to manipulate in liberal democracies.

I'm only scratching the surface here, but I should also stop NOW.

What about me???

In August I moved in with my parents who very kindly accommodated me. It wasn't as bad as any of us feared.

I've come to the realisation that I need to make a distance between my old life and new life, at least for the time being. I know time is a healer and certain enmities and suspicions that are harboured by both parties will gradually cool down.

I don't think it's worth the time and stress to talk over and over things we can't do anything about, despite the fact that modern life suggests this is the only way approach these things. 

When I have fallen out with people in the past and met them decades later, it's instantly water under the bridge  - it takes too much energy to keep enmities going for years at a time. And I spent years doing that with at least 2 people.

Saying that, there are people I don't want to see ever again of course. And some I wish were dead. And I have no qualms about that at all.

I miss the dogs and my friends. I miss being part of a family.

But I have made new friends here in Wells and reacquainted myself with old schoolmates.

Life for me is in the main, believe it or not, one of contentment. 

My Problem with booze

I've been drinking way too much. Drinking every night. I have a problem with alcohol. I can go without it but rarely do. The last time I drank was 3 days ago on the 30th.  In all, that day, I had 8 pints of strong beer: a UK gallon. I'm only small too.

A small Bailey's please.

So I think about going to the gym and getting really toned, but then I remembered I've had enough of gyms for one incarnation, so just walking loads and perhaps some swimming. I like flow-activities. Good for the brain.

I will have to stop buying booze at the supermarket. Get back into non-alcoholic beers. But only in pubs and bars.

So I guess that's my New Year's Resolution.

The boring bit about games

I'm really looking forward to playing RPGs 3 times per week or more. Katy's asked me to run a game for some teenagers in February on their half-term. I'm pretty sure I want to run the classic funhouse dungeon, White Plume Mountain.

1981 version

The session is intended to be a one-shot (completed in one session). That may be slightly ambitious with WPM, but it's full of puzzles, magic and combat. It makes no logical sense whatsoever - every room is entirely random - but if you can buy into this it's great fun. 

Like a D&D advent calendar.

I hope the kids like it - it's different to modern D&D as the new adventures are more focussed around a narrative.

I for one am loving being a player in Temple of Elemental Evil which we do on Wednesday afternoon/evening. It's so cool doing a Dungeon Crawl. It was also the second module (adventure) I bought in 1985. It blew my mind. It's great playing it.