Pity poor Tom

I wrote my first begging letter yesterday.  Well, actually it was an email, and although plaintive in tone, it was actually a request for instruction and advice, not food and/or money.

I wrote to an instrument maker who lives and works not too far from my home.  I bought one of his mandolins about ten years ago, from a shop in central London.  I then had occasion to visit him a while later to have some work done on it.  I was struck by what a wonderful way to earn a living it must be, to produce these lovely objects professionally.  He told me that he and his wife drive to southern Spain every year for several weeks to source quality woods.  They then transport it home, and he spends the rest of the year making stringed instruments of various kinds.

I want to break free of the pointless process of modern office work.  One gets so little done that's of tangible benefit that it wears you down.  I have an urge to be useful, and not being so is denuding my humanity.  It's also making me hate myself, which leads to all sorts of unpleasant possibilities.  In short I need to have a reason to get up in the mornings.

I suppose having children does this for people, but I always rather looked upon that as the quid pro quo for having basically given up on oneself.  And I'm not quite at that point yet.

Son of whither goest thou

Right, it's day 2 of my quest to find myself by picking through the smouldering wreckage of my actions for clues.  So, what did I do last night, and what does it tell me about myself?  Let's see...

I rode home, washed-up, packed a bag for our cycling trip to The Netherlands tomorrow, helped the missus prepare the tea, popped out for a couple of drinks, watched some cycling, played the guitar a bit.  Hmm...much like the evening before.  I can only conclude from this that I should retire.  Still, this is a mid-term project.  Frome wasn't built in a day.

Quo Vadis?

As part of my ongoing quest for self-knowledge and professional satisfaction, I've decided to monitor all my extra-curricular activity for a week or so.  The rationale behind this move is that an analysis of those activities should then be my guide as to what I do with the rest of my life.  A sort of your-actions-speak-louder-than-your-words thang.  A stunt like this was pulled by psychologists at Harvard to help baffled undergraduates decide on their majors.  It's very common apparently for there to be quite a degree of what's known as cognitive dissonance between what one says one wants and what one's actions say one wants.

That's what I'm hoping anyway.  I hope my diary will make it clear to me in stark terms what it is I should be doing.  The Reverend Sydney Smith summarised the situation neatly: 

"Whatever you are by nature, keep to it; never desert your line of talent.  Be what nature intended you for, and you will succeed."

So, let's begin.  Last night (Tuesday 25th August 2015) I rode home, cooked supper (chillied fish), did the washing up, went out for a couple of drinks, watched the tour of Spain coverage, washed-up again, posted some comments on Facebook, did some exercise (press-ups).

Not sure what this suggests...personal trainer/chef?  Early days I suppose.

I'll get back to you.

The great outside

We went camping this weekend.  We do this this every year, and generally try to seek out a different campsite each time if possible.  Only mentalists keep going back to the same place year after year, let's face it.  And we found a belter this time.  It's pulled off the neat trick of being sufficiently animated and not too uptight, whilst at the same time not resembling the last days of the Roman Empire in man-made fabrics.  They also allowed fire pits, which is a joy.  Ray Mears, the survival expert, says the secret to getting through alfresco hardships is to build a fire as soon as one is able, before finding shelter or anything.  The fire gives one a source of heat, of light, somewhere to cook food and some protection of course, but it's the spiritual and psychological benefits it affords that make it so important.  Nothing steels the sinew and resolve of the world-weary camper like watching a fire take hold.  You feel hope surging through you veins as the flames leap higher.

We needed this primaeval fillip because the weather was decidedly schizophrenic over the weekend.  We arrived at the site on Saturday in ninety degree heat, literally.  The temperatures in the south east of England were breaking all sorts of records at the weekend.  But as quickly as it arrived, the tropical weather revised its plans and pissed off.  Just twenty-four hours later it was very chilly as soon as the sun went down.  So after dinner on Sunday, we all sat around the burning hearth and exchanged ribald stories about our collective youth.

Disaster averted.  Thanks, Ray.

Off with his heading

I haven't posted for a few days, which is something I dislike.  I try to avoid leaving gaps in my shit pensées.  Well, there's history to think of, isn't there?  The reason for the vide is that I've had a book review to write.  I do this for work from time-to-time.  It's usually a pleasure.  I get sent a book about a sport I may or may not be particularly interested in.  I read it; pen 350 words about it and post it off.  It's quite good fun.  It's also a useful discipline.  Sport is inherently dramatic, so unless the book's premise is so thin, it's transparent or it's been written by a primate, there's usually some literally succour to be had.

Occasionally though I have to plough through a stinker of a book.  It's only really happened once in my journalistic career.  When it does though, it's torture.  To have to read a book you dislike is a mediaeval cruelty.  It's especially so for someone like me, who's not in the first flush of youth.  I only have so many books left to me in my life.  I don't want to be wasting one on a bot-boiler.  Unfortunately, the book I've just finished is an absolutely stinker - boring, overlong...crap basically.

The worst aspect of this prose failure is that the subject matter should be fascinating.  But the author mistakenly thought that research would make up for any shortcomings in his writing ability.  It won't of course, not unless he's trying to have a PhD dissertation accepted.

Despite this, the book could have been redeemed.  A descent editor would have set the writer straight in a heartbeat.  Unfortunately, most publishing houses have decided that editors are superfluous to requirements.  The spurious reasoning behind this move is that editors are expensive, it being a skilled trade, and they slow the process of the book to the marketplace.  Also, all the shit on the web that people clamour to read hasn't been proofed and/or tweaked, has it?  People don't care about that stuff these days.  We've moved on.  It's Hammertime - get with the programme.

Yes, but I don't pay £12.99 for access to a single web site, do I?  And, believe me, if I did, I'd expect it to be expertly written and proof.  

Just like the guff I set down.

Summer dubbin

The evenings have started drawing here in England.  It's undeniable.  And so one is forced to review the summer as it enters the home straight.  It's been a fairly shit one - no real heat, plenty of rain and wind.  This is troubling as the winters in this neck of the global wood are long and dull, like episodes of Gardeners' World, and the idea of entering one without a tan is troubling.  Even we northern hobbits are human and need to feel the sun on our backs from time to time.

I'm luckier than most in that I get away on holiday quite frequently, but even I've only got one more trip south in the diary this year, and that one's quite late in the season.  We're off to Andalusia right at the end of September.  It should still be hot, but we're only going for a long weekend, so it's a bit hit and miss.  And I need some sun and some snorkeling.  Really need it.  I haven't snorkeled once this year.  How the fack did that happen?

Whither soccer?

I was toying with the idea of popping to my first football match of the season tomorrow.  Orient (peace be upon them) are playing at Dagenham & Redbridge.  That's a local derby, and so merits a visit.  Unfortunately I have it on good authority from a colleague, who's also an Os supporter, that it's already sold out.  Orient will turn up mob-handed tomorrow as it's only a couple of miles down the road, and traditionally away games are always much more fun than home ones.  Also, the Daggers' ground is the size of a unfurled tarpaulin.  It was always going to sell out therefore.  Oh, well.

I'm feeling rather disaffected with football at the moment anyway.  I used to enjoy playing the game, but watching it as it's played in this country bores me rigid.  I much prefer the continental game.  English football is unculture, artless and as ugly as sin.  It is played at breakneck speed, but then it has to be or no bugger would pay good money to watch it.

I've also noticed a worrying change of atmosphere at Orient games over the last couple of years.  Things are getting more right wing and menacing.  It feels like it did in the 80s.  I could live without a reprise of that, thank-you very much.  I've decided instead to start following another gang of east London underachievers this year - Clapton FC.  There are other non-league outfits closer to home I could follow instead, but Clapton's supporters are famously (somewhat) anti-racist, anti-fascist and generally good eggs.  The emphasis at home games is on inclusion and fun.  You're not going to get much succour from events on the pitch, let's face it, not in The Essex Senior League, so you might as well have a beer, a sing-song and a convivial chat with your fellow supporters.

I actually played at the club as a boy.  My under-12 Sunday league team played there in 1980.  It wasn't very anti-fascist then, believe me.  It was a shaven-headed, violent bear pit of a place.  I hated it.  How things change.

Polly Ticking

A friend on Facebook (don't grimace - he is an actual friend too) alerted me to the following piece on The Guardian web site today (http://www.theguardian.com/politics/2015/aug/12/could-you-build-new-part-of-the-left-labour-jeremy-corbyn?CMP=share_btn_fb).  It's about the journalist's attempts to build a new party of the left.

He takes soundings from many sources: former and current politicians, strategists, media advisers etc., and after a few false dawns alights on the idea of forming a coalition of the left, based on shared core beliefs: the NHS and old-skool choons like that.

I think this is a winner.  My belief has always been that the left in this country (England) has never got over the New Right administration of Mrs Thatcher doing away with the post-War consensus.  The PWC, for those of you under 40) was a set of sacred policy cows that all the parliamentary parties tacitly agreed to maintain to enforce when in power.  These policies were specifically to maintain and defend social justice and equality.  So for example, education and health care would be free for all those who wished to avail of it.

It seems strange now that The Conservative Party would sign-up to this, but it's not if you consider the seismic changes that The Right has undergone in 35 years.  Conservatives used to believe the state as vehemently as did those on the left.  They believed also in free health care and education for all.  Yes, they wanted to keep their inherited wealth and property for themselves, but they also felt a duty of care to those who were born without these privileges.  The Left of course wanted to wrest a larger slice of the opportunities available by abolishing private education and health care.  Only then they argued would these services by of the optimal quality and guaranteed to survive and flourish.

This Conservative notion of paternalistic benevolence was swept away by Thatcher.  Since then, the Tory Party has developed a phobia about The State.  The State is a necessary evil at the moment, but with careful fiscal management, it can be atrophied to almost nothing, which is (oddly) quite an anarchic idea.  The Left reacted by breaking apart into those that went along with this (the-people-have-spoken-we-must-listen) and those that wish to see a return to the pre-Thatcherite days of cross-party belief in the social benefits of the PWC.  Jeremy Corbyn is I'm guessing a firm believer in the PWC, whilst Liz Kendall is not.  And like all siblings who fall out over something instinsic and important, they're really fcuking hate each other.

A fork in the road

Decisions, decisions...I've got to make a major one, and I'm wretched at being decisive.  I always have been.  I think I've mentioned before my maniacal fear of faits acomplis.  Whenever I happen across a decision tree in life and am forced at gunpoint to favour one path over another, I spend the next five years fruitlessly musing on what I might be missing.  I'm no Bertrand Russell, am I?

My problem at pres is that I need to change jobs.  I'm not being 'let go' or anything, but I am on the cusp of self-harming due to boredom.  So it's time to jolly off.  This is complicated by the fact that I don't want simply to swap one desk-bound, Kafkaesque McJob for another.  I need to do something with what remains of my life and sanity; I need to be able to behold the tangible fruits of my labours at the end of hard day.  Is that too much to ask, Britain?

When I was 15, I had a careers interview at school.  I didn't know what I wanted to do other than avoid drudgery.  This was more difficult than it sounded.  My people don't have careers; careers are for the middle-classes.  We had jobs, and the one thing that unified these jobs was our hatred of them.  Jobs were boring, exhausting and poorly-rewarded.

What muddied the waters further was the fact that I was good at academic subjects and was slated to sit a lot of exams at the end of my compulsory schooling.  The careers adviser, not unreasonably, suggested I might like to take up a profession.  I hummed and hawed at this.  I said I would consider it if one could be found that involved a practical element.  I even then wanted to do something on a physical plane.

But, no, I was dragooned into becoming a be-suited functionary.  I was able to ignore the existential angst this caused me for years, but the pressure's built up and is now becoming intolerable.  I need to change tack.

Prepare to jibe.

I'll not drink to that

I need to rein in my drinking.  It's getting tiresome.  The reason for this is twofold: Firstly, I'm bored at work, which engenders frustration and the desire to drink.  Secondly, I'm a slave to routine in matters like this.  I can't imagine the day-to-day without the well-worn path of routine to guide me through it.  This includes a nightly sharpener.

It's odd this because I hate routine.  That's why I'm bad a sticking to things; I quickly grow jaded of the routine and yearn for change.  So why do I slavishly cling to harmful habits and repeated behaviours?  Because I'm lazy.  One doesn't have to think when the routine is ingrained.  You just go with it.

But drink is a narcotic, of course, and as such has a self-preservation instinct, so one needs to demonstrate discipline.  So a new habit needs to be introduced.  This won't be easy.  As I say, I'm bad at routine.

Don't worry. Be happy

God, I'm in a fug at present - a slough of despond if you prefer.  I've been furiously reassessing my direction in life.  I've reached that alarming age when one finally realises that planning for life is life is like arguing about how many angels can dance on the head of a pin.  The future is now, which sounds like the strap line for a mobile phone advert.  It's true though.

I need some direction and change.  Problem is I'm middle-aged and designation comes with some conservative baggage.  One starts to mistrust and dislike change.  That places one in a quandary: dissatisfaction with the status quo and dread fear of its ending.  That's the crux of The Fall And Rise Of Reginald Perrin.  Reggie realised his life was pointless, but then so was his desire to change it.  The only option available to him then was absurdism.  I suppose I shall descend into the absurd too.  

I suppose it keeps one off the streets.

Funk to funky

It looks at time of going to press that England are in imminent danger of winning The Ashes.  This is doubly amazing as...

(a) Australia are supposed to be effortlessly superior to England in all departments

...and...

(b) It's only day two of the 4th test.  There's another one to play after this.

Before the series kicked-off the best England fans were told to hope for was not losing five:nil.  When they won the first test, everyone was fearful that all we'd done was anger the Aussies.  They duly won the next one at a canter.  Okay, we're in for a hiding.  But, no, we then beat them for fun.  Ditto in this match - well, all but damn it.

It's Friday; the sun is shining and England are about to win The Ashes.

Good day in the morning.

Fatigue is a feminist issue

Gawd 'elp us, I'm tired at the moment.  Since returning from the Cambridge Folk Festival, I've been unable to lasso any decent shut-eye.  I drop off okay, but then seem to slip into some kind of sleep limbo or purgatory.  In this wretched hinterland, one can see restful sleep but not quite reach it.  I spend the nights then like a bag-eyed Tantalus.  Not conducive to productive days, let me tell you.

But at least it's Thursday, which means the torment is nearly at an end.  And this weekend is one of those low pressure affairs that involves plenty of to-ing and fro-ing, but which cannot be said to be stressful.  On Saturday I'm spiriting the missus away for a night in a hotel somewhere in London.  I know where it is, obviously, but I'm keeping her on tenterhooks.  And from there on Sunday morning we're off to The Globe for a matinee of Richard II.

That'll be done by 4pm, which leaves us the evening for gadding and larks.  Thank the lord for that.  I need larks.

Not the bird.

The all-seeing Iris

The missus and I popped to the cinema last night, which is rare during the week, but we're decompressing after this year's Cambridge Folk Festival.  The few days immediately post-festival are always hard.  One is unused to the ebb and flow of workaday bourgeois life, so a few jollies are in order.

I went to see 'Iris', a documentary about 93-year-old New York designer, fashion-icon and all-round-good-egg Iris Apfel.  Iris and her 100-year-old husband, Carl, spend their dotage gadding about the place and generally being splendid.

Iris is famous for dressing flamboyantly, and Carl is no slouch either.  That's not to say though that they don whatever shite comes off the catwalk, irrespective of how well or poorly designed it might be (are you listening, Donatella Versace?).  Instead Iris trawls thrift shops, haberdashers and draperies all over the world looking for inspiration.  And she a very exacting eye for what works.  Consequently she and Carl look superb, always stylish and stylish on their own terms.  No-one dresses quite like them, as indeed no-one should.  That would be to miss the point of their endeavours.

Along with their redoubted professional achievements, both are charm personified.  They're both possessed of youthful joy, wit and sparkle that would shame most people a third of their age.  A combination of interest in the world around you and pure hard work is clearly the way to live long prosper.  Forget gluten-free and all that faddy garbage.  Get interested in something and apply yourself to it.

It was an inspiration being allowed to glimpse their quotidian lives for 90 minutes.  Sadly, I believe Carl passed away shortly after the film was made.  But what a life.  One could not possibly mourn the end of a tenure as rich as his - but simply salute it.  Cheers!

Back to life. Back to the here and now yeah.

Well, darling reader, where to begin?  I've been away at the Cambridge Folk Festival, that annual celebration of all that is good and civilised in life.  And it's been a belter this year, even by the rarefied standards of that esteemed shindig.  The weather was spectacular, which helped no end.  It was hot and sunny during the days and yet cool enough for restful sleep at night.  Add to this a liberal helping of good friends, good beer, a waterproof tent and some musical instruments, and you've got yourself a recipe for the perfect long weekend.

The professional music on offer was impeccable too - as it generally is.  You don't get to strap on a gee-tar at Cambridge unless you know your stuff.  The high-water mark this year, and indeed of all the years I've been attending, was hit by Pennsylvanian bluegrass trio "The Stray Birds" (http://www.thestraybirds.com/)

Bluegrass is a music that is hard for all but the most cynical heart to resist.  It's life-affirming, unpretentious and accessible.  That's a good start, but The Stray Birds took it somewhere different, elevated the genre to new heights.  I saw them the Brian McNeill session on Saturday morning.  This Cambridge tradition showcases a dozen or so of the acts at the festival along with a troupe of talented young Scottish musicians.  It's a laid back affair.  You sit, reading the paper and nursing a coffee while the music swirls around you.  The Stray Birds were simply one of the acts.  They played two tracks, and on the strength of this alone, I rushed over to the music concession and bought all the albums of theirs I could find.  That's how good they were.

I saw them twice more after that, and each time they were brilliant.  They use the old bluegrass technique of singing into the same microphone.  This is dangerous territory for a live act.  Each musician has to rely on his or her ear to judge the mix of the sound going to the house.  The sound engineer would usually take care of this mix these days.  They did the same with the instruments.  The band plugged only the double bass into the desk and PA.  The other instruments were mixed ambiantly during the show by the band.  You move away from the mic to lower the mix and wander up to it to bring that instrument up in the mix.  It takes huge talent to be able to do this.  They were brilliant at it.  I watched the terrified road crew set them up for one of their performances.  They had to explain to the sound engineer twice what they were doing as he didn't believe it the first time.

Just superb.