Ramblings, inanity and an ode

Glastonbury is off the menu....

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

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

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

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

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

Just saw a clip. So bland. Jesus. 

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

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

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

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

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

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

Yeah! Right on man!

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

And the crowds! 

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

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

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

Sport

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

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

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

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

Darts for the middle-classes.

Pseudo intellectual rambling

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Oh hindsight - what a bastard you are!

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

Literally copying.

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

Probably not. 

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

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

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

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

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

What was I saying again?

Gaming 

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

She used to have a stall in Camden Market.

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

And now a poem what I wrote...

Ode to my winkle

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

It came with a winkle hat

A surgeon hacked it off one day

Now what d'you think of that?

Oh my winkle is a-shrinking

It used to be magnif'

But after forty years of use

It's fallen off a cliff

Oh my winkle's short and wrinkled

It looks like a walnut whip

It's brown and short and stubby

with a light brown crusty tip

Now my winkle has retired

It got me from a to b

I liked my little winkle

But now it's just for wee.

I find you very puerile...

Sympathy for the Beige

Spare a thought for dull celebrities. I know I know, they make a lot of money. 

'He's a great bloke. He's got loads of money.' 

Yes, unlike that lovely old pensioner down the road living on government handouts. Evil witch.

Anyway, I digress...

These people are efficient yet dull: human Mars bars.

Ronan Keating of Boyzone fame

One such person is Ronan from Boyzone. They sang banal covers of sugary, forgotten 70s popsongs. They resurrected these hideous things like the terpsichorean necromancers they were.

Then they got old and wretched and Ronan found himself on daytime TV. 

He has no sense of humour and nothing interesting to say. Just wallpaper. Suits the medium I guess.

But when he sang in the group he affected this weird speech impediment. His handlers must have advised him to. 

"Ronan" they said, "you're almost see-through. Lose a leg or something. The viewers barely notice you!"

So rather than becoming the world's first quadriplegic pin-up he bottled it and instead developed this weird speech impediment.

'Say' became 'Shay' or even 'ßay'.

That's the lengths beige people have to go to to be interesting. 

So sad.

Another is Dermot O'Leary, or rather, Dermot O'Dreary. The girls loved him. But if you just listen to him without looking at his front-head you'll see what I mean. 

Years ago I was driving on the M4 and turned the FM radio on. All I could get was Radio 2 and inbetween the dull music - where even Elbow are considered too out-there to be on the playlist - he was bloody presenting this radio show.

 Just muttering endlessly about absolutely fuck-all. I felt myself nodding off - it was more effective than sleep songs or ambient music on The Calm App or chloroform.

It was actually dangerous - no one should have let him on there because it was hazardous to motorists.

And then he presents X-Factor or Britain's got no talent whatsoever, with the Great Satan and Death Becomes Her. More banality for the masses.

I mean how bloody beige can you get?

He's professional and efficient and dull. The Chartered Accountant of television presenting. 

Actually that would be Sophie Raworth. 

I feel bad for them all. I really do.

Poor bastards.

Talking of accents...

I was assisting a photographer friend of mine once upon a time. I set up the lights, and tried to make the subjects feel at ease. 

One lad  - posh Edinburgh - had just joined the particular accountancy firm we were doing the shoot at, and was nervous. He had a big round head and a chubby body, bursting out of a fashionably tight suit. It wasn't the greatest styling.

Anyway, I asked him what he'd done recently, just to take his mind off things.

"I went to the cinemahh with some friends."

Oh, what did you see?

"Ted."

Did you like it?

"I found it very puerile."

I had to stop myself laughing - there's something about that accent that's so snooty and dismissive and of course so funny. 

Of course Ted is puerile - that's the whole point. 

I'd seen it too and thought it was hilarious. But then, I am its target audience.

It's a Miss Jean Brodie accent. In my mind somewhere between Denis Law and Fyfe Robertson with an altogether disdainful tone, and best spoken with nostrils flared.

Ayn Rand down the pub (who's been banned for 2 weeks - ha ha) speaks like that too. Can't wait to see him again when he's taking court with his bitches, spewing his plutocratic nonsense for the whole pub to hear, and talking of 'silly, opinionated women.'

Yes, how dare they...

I shall challenge the fucka. And then write about it HERE! John Otway will guide my debating style:

Lots of dot dot dots...

Yes. Punctuation. There's a thing. 

For or against?

The apostrophe was always a problem. Brought in to the English language by the Georgians, apparently most people have a problem with it.

Well, I say most people are DUMB!

Get over it and LEARN THE RULES!

That's why I'm the world's worst teacher. Doing it for them or hitting them over the head with a travel-anvil because they don't get it.

What are you up to these days, Geraint?

I'm glad you asked me that, Clarence. 

I'm writing in a posh Edinburgh accent as you can tell. 

My days are spent reading and weaning myself off of 'what's Trump said now?' videos on YouTube.

I walk Tomos every day. I speak to the dog-walkers who don't mind my presence - getting fewer by the day, restraining-orders being what they are.

I shop at Waitrose and Tescos. I sometimes meet up with people one-on-one. I see my sister. 

I need to get away at weekends more and see friends out and about.

I sometimes wash.

(Only joking.)

I cleaned the bathroom the other day - I had to be asked even though I knew it needed to be done.

I should mow the grass but I like seeing the dandelions and daisies. I remember buttercups too - don't see those anymore.

Everyone has to have a uniform lawn here. But no one ever wrote a poem about a lawn. But meadows seemed to inspire lots of people.

Oh lawny lawn,

Oh lawny lawny.

Come to me,

I'm really horny

Doesn't work.

End. 

(E.E.Cummings, aged 12 and a half.)

Oh, I ended up watching - bingeing - Fallout on Prime. It was wonderful. 9/10.

Our hero.