Elmer in the rain

Friends like buses

Well, insofar as you don't see them for what seems like ages then they arrive in clumps.

Yes, CLUMPS of friends. That is the collective noun.

My old mucker Will and his partner Marie came down from Epping, where those noble patriots are currently protesting.

Will and I started a company called London Stonemasonry. Will bought me out as I am essentially not a businessman and Will is. 

It was quite an atomic split, but we have remained good pals in the fallout.

We did the Glastonbury thing on Saturday. It was a beautiful day and parked our car in Dod Lane. 

I spoke to a lady watering her plants and she said to look out for the fairies and not to annoy them, and that Chalice Hill was far more powerful than The Tor, but it's private land.

I thanked her for the advice and we headed on. 

Up the Tor we went. I wasn't out of breath but I quickly realised my thighs weren't used to inclines.

As you can see, our Chakras are happily realigned 

We then did the High Street; cafés, shops (we'd run out of crystals) and a brilliant art gallery called Heart of The Tribe showcasing some excellent artists - not the usual New Age rubbish you see in Glastonbury.

Beautiful Spanish hippy ladies everywhere. No idea why but I'm certainly not complaining.

On Sunday Will and Marie left to be replaced by stepson Ben & Dr Becks - who I met at Niche.

We had a big catch-up over lots of cake and coffee. They're both doing really well and are about to buy their first house in Oxfordshire. 

I'm really pleased they're doing so well - super bright hard workers and lovely people with it.

Hurrah for everyone!

Putting the cxxt in country-club

Once upon a time an invite came through the door to join a private country club. They’d obviously got my name from one of those lists and I’d no doubt just scraped into the bottom of their demographic.

2 of my former family were very excited. 

I was of course, appalled. 

Clubs like that are full of social climbers, all tidy and shit, talking about their boring jobs, waxing the corporate bollock, boasting about their exotic holidays and their A* kids, but how disappointed they are that Hattie is not as good as her sister in maths and that she’s only interested in music, drama and painting. 

Row after row of brand new black SUVs. 

The bottle-blonde Surrey wives judging everyone before you're deemed worthy of smalltalk and passing acquaintanceship.

I spent my life avoiding these people. Why the hell would I want to hang out with them, given the chance?

Sorry - living in SW London for 15 years just brings the worst out in me.

And all in a ‘Private,’ ‘Exclusive’ surroundings.

Talk about everything that’s wrong with society: the middle classes shutting the gate behind them as they ascend the social ladder.

Give me oddballs, weirdos and eccentrics any day of the week.

#socialdiver

Growing up in the 70s

Huge windows, short ceilings. 

Windows iced on the inside with wrapped towels on the sills.

Storage heaters.

Coal delivered Tuesdays

Vosene shampoo.

Rise and Shine (powdered orange juice).

Orange.

Lavender.

Dark Green.

Light blue.

Brown suits with yellow shirts.

Huge lapels, ties and flares.

Zip-up cardigans.

Big flowery typography on programmes about horses. 

Boxy, pointy cars with underpowered engines. 

Pull out the choke most mornings.

Walking everywhere. 

No single family owned those mansions.

Chopper bikes. 

Velour sportswear. 

Dunlop Green Flash.

Market knock-offs worn with pride.

First division football played in the mud.

Hairy adults and shocking hairdos.

Back before it gets dark.

Polyester slacks.

Gritty. 

Cheapness.

Vinyl seats and wooden dashboards.

Climb the tree.

No. I’ll die.

Children’s TV presenters in bright dungarees.

Marley tiled floors.

The last breath of formality.

Stone-fights.

Scrambling in the woods.

Matchbox cars and Tonka toys.

Big chunky Lego.

Avon Ladies.

Punk rockers.

Hairy metlers.

Colour TV.

Barely any fat people.

Doughnuts like Fanny’s. 

Bapspeak

I’ll retain it anally and we can exchange juices in a future pleasant. 

I like orange. It’s a pleasant colour and it tastes nice.

I air-dried my anus in a gentle breeze. T'was most pleasing.

Competent but hideous. 

My best friend’s Gary Stupid.

Skirting boards are gay.

Who's demented now??

London comes to me...

Me old cor-blimey geezers came up from that London: Gerry and Allen. 7 hour round trip. They met the old folks who thought they were wonderful (they don’t know them like I do).

Dad brought his fishing flies in as Gerry is a keen fly-fisherman too. He also cornered Allen to talk about cars - Allen was driving some huge Mercedes SUV.

My Dad - 'The Chatty Welshman'!

When they first arrived I was slightly discombobulated seeing familiar faces in my home environment - does anyone else get that or is it just me? People in their contexts or out of their contexts? A bit like a wedding where all the people compartmentalised in different parts of your life come together. Like a rabbit in headlights - felt slightly unreal, dream-like.

We did the Lambeth Walk through Wells - saw the cathedral, Vicar’s Close and Bishop’s Palace. I think they liked Vicar’s Close best. 

'Mad' Allen Osborn and Gerry 'Chopper' Boyle

A couple of Chelsea Smilers later we had lunch at the S&P. It was great. Lots of good-natured swearing and laughter. And also comparing notes about living in the sticks and the wacko racist nutjobs who do little or certainly less, to disguise their bigotry.

Really nice to see them. Much appreciated. 

...and I go to London

Despite the lovely day, I slept very badly that night. I just couldn’t get to sleep with underlying stress about travelling to London and so forth, and then I woke up way too early. 

I used to feel like that when I was running masonry jobs, thinking everything would go wrong. Lost a lot of sleep over a number of years.

Fell asleep several times on the coach trip on the way up. Each time I jolted awake, thinking I was about to pee myself. Anyone else get that?

Oh, okay then...

Got to Hammersmith pretty much on time. The MC on the coach has thankfully stopped making that joke about Ebaying lost property. Got out and jumped on the tube, to go to Piccadilly Circus.

Nice afternoon - but I had a heavy bag in tow.

The fashions in London at the moment are completely underwhelming. Baggy faded jeans, earth-shatteringly horrendous baggy woollen cardigans, beards and dresses, and ultimately look like you can only afford to dress out of a jumble sale.

Zero-style.

Ugly, unflattering clothes.

I walked to The Ralph Lauren flagship store. I'd recommend anyone to go in there. It really is something else. Like an Ivy League university from the 1930s in London.

As with all things, they’ve stopped making the one thing I always bought. In this case I was after RL Sullivan jeans, Buitoni-fly and no stretch. They even had a cardigan I was tempted by - half-jacket half cardigan. It was in cotton silk. 

I know, I know. Too many buitoni but they’re not plastic and at least it’s not regular soft fluffy wool. More like a jacket really.

Yes, that's what I will tell myself. It's not a cardigan, it's a jacket! 

(Remembers being admonished by upper middle class family 25 years ago: "It's not a sauce Geraint! It's a jus!")

I know, I know. Only £549.

Great plastic-surgery disasters of Mayfair

Filler here, filler there; filler everywhere. The unfeasibly rich doing their utmost to reclaim their former beauty and paying the price for their vanity.

Narcissus with botox.

Some are so grotesque they look like they're wearing a plastic mask. Demonic.

Body dysmorphia - must be.

No, you look great. Honestly...

Wimbledonia

That evening I stayed with Sophie and her daughter Olivia who I hadn’t seen for years, and who is now a confident young woman. 

All the young adults I knew as kids now seem more mature than me.

We had a lovely evening. I slept for 2 hours when I got to Sophie’s as I was shattered.

We had an amazing Chinese meal from Good Earth - a London chain. Just astonishingly good quality.

I felt like sending it to the 2 Chinese takeaways in Wells to show them how it SHOULD be done, rather than the care-free slop they produce which they then puke into the plastic containers.

I heard Sophie leave around 7.30 am. I had a shower, Oscar the lovely 12 year old brown lab was unresponsive at the top of the stairs, then had a banana and a cup of tea and left. What a beautiful road - huge bay windows - and front gardens. A conservation area too. Must have been built in the 1910s. Mostly occupied by families it seemed.

I looked up the house prices on Zoopla. Wow. 

The National Hospital for Neurology and Neurosurgery

Got into Russell Sq and did my usual of going to Pret for breakfast. Always a ton of foreign students around. Sat there and watched the world go by and do its thing.

Prof Warren said while I may or may NOT have dementia, the Semantic Variant diagnosis I originally had was incorrect.

I said I felt slightly fraudulent - so do I have dementia or not? My behaviour certainly changed and I got crazy angry until the Sertraline kicked in. And I do have problems with elision of words. My brain fog is as real as ever and despite my neuropsych tests it's increasingly opaque. 

He assured me it’s nothing to feel fraudulent about. The hospital is all about anomalous cases and they want to put me in a PET scan as the last MRI scans have shown the atrophy in my lobes has STABILISED!

There is something going on and they want to get to the bottom of it. 

A PET scan will show more the workings of my brain rather than just its volume, but is subsequently also prone to more of an interpretation - such is the complexity.

I did my yearly neuropsychology tests and was told it was pretty much the same as last year’s - it certainly felt harder. More brain fog, less cognisance that I’d got the right answers, and subsequently less confidence. 

I felt I was giving a best guess rather than knowing I'd got the right answer.

So who knows what I've got? 

And that was it for another year.

 

The (brain) fog is growing thicker, as am I

Weekend in London

Just come back. Left on a coach on Sunday morning, getting to Hammersmith at 12pm precisely, then met the players in the Willoughby as normal - or as normal used to be -  and played Soulbound RPG. It's a bit like D&D in a broken world of dread fantasy. It uses a simpler d6 system as opposed to a D20 system, so it's easier to pick up.

Adrian ran it and it was very good, even though my character got ripped to shreds at the end. 

It was a noble sacrifice. 

I then stayed at Adrian and Lisa's and had a lovely meal in the garden, and watched as Lisa pointed out a flying stag beetle in the sky above, which zipped past at 10pm, which are endangered thanks to humans.

I then went to bed early, zonking out at 11pm in the room with my amphibious and invertebrate buddies, croaking and hissing away. It's like falling asleep in a rainforest without the getting-eaten bit.

Morning: I'm incapable of logistics these days (one of the reasons my work became impossible) so I got to New Malden station to see Sacha and Alice, but then panicked about trains being late and missing my train home, so I texted my apologies and ran back onto the platform.

Nerys was at Castle Cary to pick me up at 2pm. And here I am. 

I am absolutely hanging inside - I feel like I need descaling from head to toe. I need to be abstemious for a while; my stomach is distended and I feel like shit. 

Let's try and bring myself back on the tracks.

Pond Life

You see, I've become almost completely reactive. Just watching YouTube clip after YouTube clip. 

Reading only a bit. 

Sat here in my man-cave looking out of the window then turning 90' back to my screen. My brace of views.

Going to the supermarket, walking Tomos. Taking one of my parents to the hospital or doctor what seems like twice a week.

Going to the pub. Drinking too much. 

When I walk Tomos I think dumb things, make up stupid names like Dame Hillary Frankensplurter or Cedric Mufflespart, Doris Minge...that kind of thing.

I resort to childish playground humour. 

(If you hadn't noticed.)

Walking in Waterloo station today, wearing a Mutley T-shirt, I felt I looked rather like a disabled - dressed funny by my mother - in contrast to all these stylish people walking past. 

What the well dressed man in Wells is wearing this season

Damn. I used to be stylish - more so than these buggers. I should try harder. 

You just don't get the gentlemen's outfitters in Wells.

You help your mates

It was nice to meet up with people this weekend. 

A lot of the gaming sessions have been cancelled recently for one reason or another, which is disappointing. Still, last week during half-term I had a call from my friend Katy, of Edspired Tutoring fame. She was running a game in Pilton Working Men's Club for the kids, and she was suffering with food poisoning. 

That morning, Jacqui and I had had a difficult but necessary meeting about our divorce, which I'm glad we had. I received the distress call from Katy in the form of a text-message at 10.43am midway through the meeting, and managed to get to Pilton by 12.30.

Katy was white as a sheet and really having a horrible time, so we co-ran the game  - the kids were really good actually - aged from about 9-14. Very sweet some of them. And they knew the game too. 

It was nice to help. Because that's what we do for each other.

Without that, what do we have?

This is one of my favourite YouTube clips. Because this guy is a real character and epitomises the phrase 'salt of the earth'.

Reasons to be cheerful

When you're having a bit of a lull in your abilities it's important to try and keep going and concentrate on the stuff you can do. I can a still run a game of D&D but I'm not all 'over it' like I used to be. What I mean is, I don't know it as vivdly as past adventures. The key parts haven't resonated in my mind like they used to. It's all a bit more hazy.

It's a combination of my deteriorating cognitive faculties and that this particular adventure is just more difficult to run. 

Well, anyway, whilst I can still do these things so that people don't notice, I won't be able to forever. Maybe one day I'll just say - 'I can't do it anymore' - and that day will come sooner or later. 

Shame, as I've got some really good Kickstarters due to arrive over the next 12 months that I may not be able to appreciate...

So, I've had some really nice times recently/ Meeting up with Tanith, Robin, Anita and Nerys, bumping into Aisha and having a gossip with her, meeting Matt and Floyd outside my house on their daily walks for a chat, catching up with Herb and his dog Daisy when I'm walking Tomos in the morning, and then looking forward to playing online on Monday evenings with Tim, Sacha, Eddie and Boyd, on Wednesdays with Larry, Callum and Ross, and on Thursdays in person with the Wells crew of Simon, Matt, Luke, Katy and Hannah, then the socials with Clare and everyone else.

And in the summer going to stay with Mat and Suzy and Rupert and Sophie, and more gaming and lounging and chatting and relaxing, and hopefully seeing Mark H and Will and Ben and Becks in Wells some time.

I'm conscious that I'm actually lucky to know so many people, have an active social life and have things to look forward to. Because some people don't, and I can't imagine how depressing that must be.

And also Helen Mirren.

Thank you, universe.

Put on your best pants, Major Tom

What the glitterati of mid-Somerset are wearing this season

Met my old friend Shelley for lunch on Friday at the Sheep and Penguin - I wore my finest pant and my Hong Kong Phooey T-shirt. 

I dress to impress.

It's rather akin to Vogue cover photos, where on the inside cover of the magazine they even tell you what perfume the model is wearing. ('Model' is a word that never looks right to me on the page - how about 'Moddle'?)

Hence knowing I have the McLaren of pants on and a highly sexy T-shirt - whilst never revealing said garments - is like wearing under armour before a rugby match. 

Like Clark Kent wearing his Superman outfit underneath his corporate suit.

I felt invincible!

These most fragrant of pants are my under armour, my scent, my most gussetted treasure.

My special occasion pant.

I can feel you gloating.

Damn I wish I'd bought more of the same.

I am also using beard oil to curl my magnificent whiskers (for I am the most pubic man in Wells). 

I can't wait for my whiskers to turn white as this will make me (even) more sexy.

I get the eye from the old ladies these days you see. My key demographic has changed.

Dementia Towers

Maybe we are all demented here. Dad forgot the surname (that's 'Last Name' to Millennials) of the guy opposite who's lived there for 50 years, and then forgot to put the carrots on.

It may just be tiredness.

I've often said I have dementia in a 10' radius. Come within my aura and you too will see; you will forget things which remained hitherto unforgettable. 

But, if we all have it (or early signs of it) where is this going and at what rate?

It could be like The League of Gentlemen, or The Texas Chainsaw Massacre. Although I see the latter Leatherface family walking their horrible dogs on The Bishop's Fields now and then, so they're already taken.

Like all these bridges, I shall cross them when they arrive 'neath my feet.

Food for thought though.

What I'm watching

Watching YouTube too much. But these are good things to subscribe to:

The Lincoln Project - Trump hates these guys. If you want any more reason, they make commercials to absolutely ruin him, often in answer to the ones his team have made. They are doing an invaluable service.

NRL - The greatest rugby tournament in the world is back next month. No kick-tennis here.

Vlad Vexler - London-based Russian philosopher and all-round intellectual giving his views on what's really going on with Putin and Russia, what their motivations and intentions are.

Netflix: biographical docs on Orson Welles, Quincy Jones, David Geffen. All really good. 

Televisual Offal

The Masked Arsehole - filmed in RetardoVision for the freshly lobotomised. 80s one-hit wonders and drug-addled soapstars who no one can remember and when unmasked everyone goes "Oh no - it's them!" but actually they don't have a clue who it is, because they've long been erased from everyone's' collective brainage for evolutionary purposes.

You can tell the budget goes on the panel 'talent' rather than the singers.

Utter, utter, utter shite.

"Take it off! Take it off!" chant the masses: the type of people who clap and miss.

And then on BBC breakfast they're interviewing Tiffany. Now if you don't know who Tiffany is, she was a teen popstar in the 80s who performed at shopping malls (those large derelict structures in middle America) and drew huge crowds, and had a hit with "I think we're alone now." It turned out her mother had forced her to perform and in an act of rebellion she posed nude for Playboy. 

Now why did I remember that?

Anyway, there she was on The Masked Anus - 40 years on from her fame - and everyone is acting surprised to see her. The reason they're surprised is because they haven't a clue who she is. And then - THEN - she is being interviewed on BBC Breakfast on Saturday morning.

No one bloody cares!

It all goes to prove my theory that the human species has peaked a few generations ago and we are now on a fast rewind back to our primal bollock stage.

Remembering Pronouns

2 teacher friends have recently told me of separate incidents. 

One, where at the end of a long term they called a pupil by their previous female name - cue sharp intakes of breath from the rest of the class. Having known this pupil by this previous name for 3 years and then having to adopt their new chosen name, it was an understandable brain slip. I mean anyone who knows teachers appreciates how exhausted they are at the end of a term, right?

The second was in D&D and one child called a biological female 'her'. Cue more sharp intakes of breath. Bear in mind that last year 'she' was a 'they', and now wishes to be referred to as a 'he'. It's very difficult to keep up with all this and for most part take it seriously. Most of us don't want to offend and are happy to go along with it, but we all secretly know that he is blatantly a she.

My solution to teachers when they are trying to avoid splitting the class up into boys and girls and avoiding modern sensitivities is this: 

"Vaginas to the left - penises to the right."

Done.

And no one will get offended at that!

I have already invoiced the Department of Education 30 guineas for my consultation services.

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.

Moving On

 Autumn is here with a vengeance

It was absurdly hot for way too long, and all of a sudden I can wear clothes again. For months all I could wear was a baggy t-shirt, shorts and flip-flops. Every day the same things. Anything else and I was a sweaty mess.

Then it just rained and dropped a few degrees, and all of a sudden it was Autumn. I find it to be reassuring in a way, that despite climate change we are at least in receipt of actual seasonal weather. 

We escaped the worst of the Storm Ciaran, as did most of the country...

Anyway, enough of the weather.

Actual Moving

So a couple of weeks ago I finally moved all my shit here. I was in London at J's (no longer 'home' which is peculiar as I spent 9 years calling it that) and hired a van in London as it's £50 a day as opposed to nearly £80 a day in Somerset. I packed my stuff, having worked out the volume (see picture).

Only a cubic metre out!

So I packed everything up , drove to Somerset, and unpacked it and set it all up, with some stuff in storage which I'm gradually forgetting about, which is not good. The thing is I had so much get up and go that week that I couldn't stop, so I achieved lots, DMing in Wells, then driving the van back the next day to off-hire it and play on the Sunday for the last time with Larry, Adrian and the crew. 

That's the end of an era, then.

Gaming 

Still, looking ahead at least we have Zoom and various other platforms to meet up on and play RPGs on. We're looking to move the Sunday session of Temple of Elemental Evil to a Wednesday afternoon/ evening online, which would be great.

I DM'd last weekend in Wells for an unprecedented  Saturday session in addition to the Thursday session. I DM'd for 5 hours. It was great -  it was a kitchen sink session with a dragon, going up a level, meeting a long lost sibling and in doing so fulfilling a personal quest, a trip to the astral plane and then off to the terribly hot land of Chult to battle zombies and dinosaurs in the jungle.

All in a day's work.

I've also lost days (97 hours so far) to Baldur's Gate 3, which is the most ambitious RPG computer game made to date. My iMac is struggling to cope with processing the data when in the setting of the city where there are scores of NPCs walking about talking, arguing and everyone has a name and a story. It is vast. An incredible achievement by Larian Studios.  

I have a girlfriend called Shadowheart who worships an evil god, but we don't talk about that. My other friends are Will who is a Sorlock , and Lae'zel, who is a mighty Githyanki warrior.

2023 Githyanki

1981 Githyanki

I should really be doing something more than gaming but it is so addictive because it's exciting and you are in the middle - at the heart - of the adventure.

At least I'm writing a blogpost at long last. I haven't even been writing diary entries (I have kept them going for over 35 years) as my life is so uneventful right now!

Man Cave

So yes, I have made a man-cave and am still constructing it. I'm taking Dad to Ikea on Thursday to look at options for his music room.  Dad is all about music, and can't visualise things, so I've shown him some options online and done a scale drawing of the room with possible variations for new furniture, but we'll need to see it physically to make the decisions.

I took the net curtains down in the room. Funny looking out of this huge 1960s window onto the road - the all-too familiar but changed houses opposite. My parents are among the last original owners of these houses when they were built in 1963/4. The people who've come and gone, remembering them , the cars, how things were back in the 1970s and 80s. It's kind of nice and sad at the same time.

Last week I made a desk extension. I'd looked into buying keyboard drawers but they were expensive and I didn't like the designs of them, using bulky clamps and things to attach, so I decided all I needed was some MDF which I would cut, paint and then place everything on top of. 

It's sturdy and impossible to tip due to physics. 

© Geraint Davies Desktop Solutions 

Just got to clear the arch of hideous clutter (Dad's) around it and I'm done. 

What now then?

Funny being here. People I haven't been in contact with and new people I need to befriend and make a social life with. I will go back to London more and more I think. Things with J are good and long may that continue. I walk Tomos every weekday morning, I play online with friends on a Monday, I'm in touch still with people. More online gaming with people would be good. And meeting more people in Wells with similar interests/outlook would be great.

I do, however, need to do more round the house and not get sucked into gaming all day.

And not forget about selling all that stuff in the lockup!

All Change!

 Communications Hub

Oh dear me. I seem to be the reason everyone is upset. Well I don't seem - I AM the reason. Having wanted to mitigate for any possible confrontation which I would have found unbearable to deal with, I decided to be the conduit of communications between J and my parents and sister while keeping everyone apart. 

Big mistake.

In my efforts to mitigate any potential conflict, I ended up getting rather confused and my worries became truths. 

For reasons I can't at present go into, it's been deemed best that I go to live in Wells for a bit with Mum and Dad. They are good, solid reasons too.

You may have gathered that I'm not very good at planning or thinking of the future in any way. It doesn't compute in my head and I also find when I visualise the future it's not a nice place. How can it be?

So a combination of panic about the future, trying to mitigate potential conflicts, and keeping people who should be talking apart has led to mistrust between people and a lot of hurt.

This was obviously not my intention, but I guess my declining cognitive faculties and general risk avoidance makes me the least appropriate Director of Comms there could be.

For example, when I explained things to my parents about 'the situation' at home, their natural reaction was to become very protective of me and side with me. Things at this point get a little muddy for me. I remember trying to explain the situation and everyone getting really uppity and adversarial. So I joined in too. I was scared and confused. So many things had been said, ideas and various solutions, which was the end one? My brain was scrambled. 

It also appears I am more fickle than I used to be.

Events cascaded until J suggested a Zoom call with everyone. The lead-up was very stressful as I was expecting fireworks, but it has quelled the storm and clear lines of communication have reopened, with me on the touchline cheering on. I still give my thoughts, but it's clear I'm not to be trusted! 

I don't even trust me anymore.

The Future

I am going to be living in Somerset for the next few months at the end of July/early August, to give everyone here a break. However I want to come back to Kingston every weekend to play D&D though, but it will mean staying in a Premier Inn or on someone's floor.

That's okay.

As long as I can get to see my friends  - I've lived in London for most of my life and the densest population of friends is here in and around London - I'll be happy. I have a couple of friends in Wells too, my sister and Mum and Dad, and other friends in Bristol and Cardiff. I shall have to jump on the train and visit them!

You have been warned...

But I will have to make a life in Wells too. There are gamers everywhere so it shouldn't be too difficult. I shall be upfront about my dementia, and I am still a good player and DM. And gamers are an inclusive bunch. 

I also have the games holiday to look forward to in October.

And it would still be nice to go on walking holidays with J and Ben and Dr Becks.

But I shall miss both my human and dog friends very much.

Fly Swatting Update

I have swatted dozens of flies now. I have divided them in 2 groups: alpha flies and rubbish flies. Rubbish flies hang around in the kitchen and are quite small. They are easy to swat. They are slow and congregate together. They are rubbish.

Alpha flies are big and very aggressively buzzy. They are large and black and very fast and agile. I lock myself in to a room with one and with Wilbur we hunt the varmint down. The great advantage of hunting with Wilbur is that once the fly has been swatted Wilbur then eats the fly. 

It does involve standing on chairs and sofas and bashing curtains to activate the flies from their slumber. NEVER GIVE THEM TIME TO REST! 

Yes, we're ALL Neurodivergent now

 What's your diagnosis?

Many of us have got a diagnosis these days. Lots of adults are being diagnosed rightly or wrongly with ADHD. There are lots of people on the autistic spectrum too. It seems to be getting larger. It's almost galactic in its proportions these days.

It's easy to dismiss all these things now as the latest hook to hang your coat on, as though we're all automatons devoid of free-will and and our neurological make-up is to blame for any discrepancies in our behaviour and societal misdeeds. 

Our behaviour is usually a mixture of nature and nurture, though we still have the fight or flight from our reptilian brain, there to keep us alive in extreme circumstances.

And while it's easy to mock the trendy new penchant for diagnoses later on in life, it doesn't half give you some relief. What I mean is, it can go someway to explain why you are who you are.

Disclaimer: I'm not a trans person. I've always been happy in my body and never for one moment doubted I was a male. However, I do exhibit a lot of classically non-masculine behaviours. Masking is one of them.

As a child I felt very awkward socially. What I said wouldn't go down well with the other kids - I was a follower not a leader. I was a cry-baby, and the following of others became outright copying.

A kid came to the school and I really wanted to be his friend. He seemed so confident and life was just easy for him - I thought. I don't know how he put up with me to be honest. I would have been a bit freaked out. The only things I didn't copy in the end were his taste in music (all that Goth crap!) and I couldn't get my hair to do what his did.

There were other kids I tried to be like too. But I wasn't tough or working-class or good at sport. So I didn't fit in with them either. 

I just wanted to draw things and play with Lego and play Dungeons and Dragons.

Why did I never fit in to one 'friendship group' as they call them now? To be honest I never saw the need for social cliques and I didn't really understand them, but I knew I ought to be in one. I would look at them and think - well, I like these people, and she's nice from that group - he's a nice person in that group, but you have to choose a group or you're an outsider. If you do choose a group you then like 3 of the people but the other 3 are arseholes and you just have to put up with them. 6 to one and all that.

So when I went to art school I reinvented myself with long hair (which I'd I'd always wanted) and trying to be cool, which tbh I wasn't very good at. I guess I was a late bloomer so when I was older (out of school) I was a lot more popular with the girls, which was nice. But it was all a bit of an act.

You're probably asking what does all this bollocks have to do with neurodiversity? Here's a list of my worst traits.

• Easily-distracted: can't concentrate on 70% of lessons, can't even start to revise, loathe exam times, can't read a book, 
• Lack of concentration: silly mistakes, lack of focus, 
• Copying others, behaviour, dress-sense, style,
• Oversharing, inappropriate information, too much information, wrong time, wrong place, faux-pas
• Inappropriate behaviour, saying the wrong thing, being outrageous, being obnoxious
• Oversensitive cry-baby, stress-monkey, worrisome, sleep-deprived, self-loathing
• Insensitive -smart-ass, gob-shite, harsh, hurtful

That's me. Now I'm not trained in any of this and I haven't had any diagnosis other than that of FTD, but I share a lot of the above traits with people with ADHD and those on the Autistic-Spectrum and seemingly always have done since I was little.

And while I may or may not have ADHD or be on the spectrum, at least by analysing myself and identifying the above, the elephant in the room is there for me to see it. Now I know its there I can train myself to be in the moment and identify when it is operating and either stop it or work around it. It's actually really handy for the person, not as an excuse as though to say "Yes, sorry I was being an arsehole - it's my neurodiversity" rather like the drunk would blame the bottle, but to acknowledge the signs and signifiers of behaviours and either mitigate for them or withdraw myself from a situation.

It's actually really pleasing to have this - it makes life easier and it makes liking myself a lot easier too. I'm kind and sweet-natured most of the time. I'm perceptive, a relatively original thinker and I am a very good judge of character. I'm an oddball and many of my friends are oddballs and characters. I'll help anyone who's a friend. I'm generous with my time and money. I'm all right in other words.

It's all right being a weirdo, oddball, nerd. In fact it's actually rather good.

The End of Dungeon Mastering

I've been running 2 campaigns for months and months. In fact, my Monday online group has been in the same campaign for over 2 years. But both are ending pretty much in the next couple of weeks, and I will be a player once more.

I'm a little worried that my brain will atrophy quicker now I will be sitting back letting someone else do all the hard work DMing, with all the planning, research and writing involved.

I have 2 new characters I want to use: a gnome wizard called Bibble Babble, and a Gloomstalker Ranger/Assassin for the longer in-person Sunday campaign.

Not to be confused with Babble Bibble!

I can't wait.

I will be back to DM though. It's been really good and I think I am a better Dungeon Master than I was before. You never stop learning, despite the fact you may have a leak in the knowledge banks...

Homophobic Messiahs and the Sinister Rise of Fences

Jesus “The” Christ

I’m back in Wells. My friend Mark is here visiting his Mum, sorting out her furniture and what to take and get rid of before the move to Portishead. We’ve decided to go to Glastonbury for the day - the town not the festival.

Both of us have a fondness for Glastonbury from our youth. For me it was the legendary shop Gothic Image, which sold Dungeons and Dragons accessories in the eighties, which I would cycle to on a Saturday morning or even after school and buy miniatures and even the odd adventure.

Well Gothic Image is long gone, and every shop now is an identikit of New Age tat.

Today Glastonbury is a rather unpleasant meeting of Middle-Classed New Age hippies (the ones who live on the foot of the Tor in beautiful houses with Buddhist names and electric 4x4s), acid-casualties and surly drug addicts, and the working class townies. A bit like Brighton as a village. Without the sea.

I realise you might find this monstrously reductive, but it’s what I do best.

So after witnessing a stand off between one middle-aged hippy and an OAP tourist, we wandered up the High Street to The Shambala Centre to bleed our chakras.

Ricky Gervais’s less attractive older brother

Anybody who’s ever claimed to be the reincarnation of Christ has almost always been up to no good, and so a friend then alerted me to the window display a few weeks ago that the Messiah was asked to take down by the police. What a very naughty boy! (Python reference.)

It’ll be interesting to see what happens to his shop front when Glastonbury Pride goes past in the coming weeks…

Fences 

When I was a little boy all the houses in the street were relatively new. A garage was an optional add-on to the house build, and was a separate building altogether. The back gardens were separated by 3 horizontal galvanised wires going through uprights every 4-5 feet. You could go in the garden and talk with your neighbours, and just step over the ‘fence’ if you wanted to, to play with the kids next door.

Come the eighties and 2 metre high fences enclosing everything was the norm. Fewer neighbourly chats and no admittance to hedgehogs, while rats, squirrels, cats and foxes were the only ones who could make it through.

I think it’s really sad. The older I get the more I’m aware what an innately social animal human beings are, yet money and delusions of status prohibit us from interacting naturally with each other.

In historical terms, 5 minutes ago we were operating in groups of 30 hunting and gathering, working 3 hours a day and socialising for the rest, telling stories, singing, eating, laughing, reminiscing - all ages. Then we started farming, destroying biodiversity, psychopaths and their hordes created tyrannical systems of government, the vast majority of us were oppressed for centuries, we fought and died for the  rights we now take completely for granted and here we all are, in an age of total misinformation and another terrifying technological revolution we’re now trying to put a lid on with AI, all the while having wiped out more species than any meteor impact in the history of the planet, and in doing so making it more uninhabitable as the climate changes.

No wonder we’ve never been visited by aliens. I think any ‘intelligent’ life-form would have wiped itself out of existence way before it could ever develop the means to escape its planet by its own selfish needs to ‘survive’.

And it all starts with fences.

Ommmmmmmmmm

That being said, I am really chilled at the moment (for me). I’m happy about myself, all my crimes and misdemeanours from my dim and distant past I beat myself up about I just laugh at now. It’s always a way to defeat your enemies - they taunt you and you laugh. When they know they aren’t getting the reaction they wanted they soon tire of it.

I actually like myself. I’m in a good place. I feel like I did when I first met J. I have a ton of friends. I have fun. It’s beautiful weather at last. I’m really chilled.

It’s so verdant everywhere - exacerbated by the blue, blue skies. The verges aren’t mown anymore to encourage wildlife. Great to see wild flowers everywhere. I’m going to Nerys’s for lunch. They have a puppy called Tomos I’m meeting for the first time.

Don’t let the voices get to you. I don’t.

Oom Shanka.

 

Mid-Somerset Ramble

BBC Rare Dementia Podcasts 

Firstly, the Radio 4 series on rare dementias what J and I were interviewed for back in whenever it was, was aired last week. People have been very positive about them. I thought Jo, the novelist with Semantic Dementia was the best programme of the lot.

Really worth listening to as a window into the different dementias. I hope this opens the door or rather plants the seeds for more programmes and education on rarer dementias.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m001kww0/episodes/player

Here’s a shortcut to my one with a totally fucking awful photo of yours truly:

https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m001kwvx

Time Stop

I’m in my childhood bedroom typing this. On this desk I did my homework and I wrote some of the most illogical yet super-creative Dungeons and Dragons adventures of all time. Amazing how many teenagers would fit in here back in the day.

(Sounds a bit weird saying that now.)

Teenagers under cultural circumstances

I’m hoping some of the creativity lives on as a morphic field, bound to the desk, and that I will be able to successfully convert a 42 year old first edition Descent into The Depths of The Earth to a 5th edition Dungeons and Dragons adventure for a party of 4 14th level adventurers. 

It’s a big ask, I’m sure you’ll agree. 

It’s taken me days just to read through the bafflingly Joycean prose of the original in the full awfulness of its tiny sans-serif justified type. As a friend said, early D&D was written by computer-programmers: it needs translating to human before digestion.

Is it a cold or hay fever? I’ll take an antihistamine (thank you spell-check) and find out.

Surrounding me are photos, books on golden ages of Welsh rugby, Ben’s Star Wars lego; outside old  neighbours who’ve been here nearly as long as my parents, multiple Ford Foci, and acres of regularly mown lawn. 

TIDY! As they say in Glamorgan. 

Here’s a word in Welsh: Hiraeth. No wonder we have King Arthur. 

I was always nostalgic. MAGA - is that an ugly version of Hiraeth? Something intangible that never was.

Properly rambling now.

Why I’m here

I’ve been asked to bugger off for a couple of weeks from Kingston, very nicely it must be said, and I was also willing. So I’m visiting my parents who are kindly eschewing Cash in The Attic on my my behalf due to my incapacity for noise. I’ve cooked for them a few times the wonderful food J cooks for me. 

‘Interesting’ was Dad’s verdict on the Butter Chicken and Black Dhal I cooked last night. That usually means ‘shite’ as far as I’m aware. He ate it all anyway. Mum’s off her food and found the tender-stem broccoli anything but.

Jesus - I could be a food writer. How difficult is this? Just wasn’t born a Coren or a Gill.

Meeting old friends

Met up with Franca, Tanith and Clare. It was nice to see them all. I have good chats with people but I’m also aware that I shouldn’t bug people like the saddo I really am. So keeping it to once a week while I’m down here, per person. 

Nice to chew the cud and have a laugh at other people’s expense. Visiting certain people is like meeting Huggy Bear in Starsky and Hutch. I’m getting the low-down from the street, baby.

John Hannam opposite asked where my van was. I told him about my dementia and that I’d had to give up. Mum and Dad haven’t told people obviously. I don’t blame them. Gossipy little place this. It’s enough for them to have to live with it without being constantly reminded of it by busy-bodies and the well-meaning.

Nerys has been busy with everything this week so I’ve seen very little of her, and Mark will be down to look after his mother from next Wednesday.

At least being Jonny-no-mates is a good incentive to sit down and write.

I miss the dogs and am starting to miss the female humans.

Atypical Dementia

It’s odd having an atypical of an atypical dementia diagnosis. When you’ve got it you don’t know what will happen next. What will be the next part of my self to go downhill. Being part of various support groups, I can see and hear people’s prose or speech degrade, to the point where they make less and less sense.

Mine is behavioural so I am just increasingly inappropriate. But, I’m not aware a lot of the time how. I have a little rule that I often - in the moment - fail to follow, and that is, if I think of something hilariously funny I should probably best not say it.

Many of the things I post now are quite outrageous I hear. I think they’re funny. 

But then again I’m a bit demented.