‘Is it me, or are these humans not as devotional as perhaps they should be?’ Selene asked, her silver hair and exquisite face backlit by the sun, a glowing umbra around her body and diaphanous clothing.
‘I mean, they don’t seem to be awed by us at all’
Thor, who had been telling the story of how he had been fearless in battle, charging directly into a dark, chaotic horde of the jötnar; gave her a dirty look, he’d just been getting to the good part.
Selene ignored him, the sun was beginning the downward part of today’s journey, her skin would soon take on a faint glow and her eyes would become silver searchlights, bewildering men and inspiring their awe and devotion.
‘Just look at them, they’re so.
Fucking.
Vacant.’
Thor grimaced, he really, REALLY, wanted to finish his story, but she was right, these humans shouldn’t be able to look at him without crying out in terror and supplication.
‘WORSHIP ME! FALL TO YOUR KNEES, YOU HUMAN SCUM’, he bellowed it as he raised his hammer, Mjölnir above his head, arcs of blue lightning crashing to the heavens.
Selene laughed.
‘Nothing, see? They don’t care that the big, strong old god can flex his muscles, twirl his hair and make his hammer do tricks.’
She giggled.
‘It’s not like you’re actually dazzling them either are you girlie?’ Mars glowered at her from beneath a tree, his armour dazzling in the sunlight, his sword morphing between a bladed weapon and a ploughshare whenever the light changed.
Selene scowled at him.
‘No. And that’s the point, there’s something wrong here, not least the fact that you’re here and so’s that ginger thug’ -‘she gestured at Thor.
‘That we’re all here at the same time, in the same place, shouldn’t that tell you something? That it’s just wrong,and don’t get me started on the fucking humans…’ she tailed off, gesturing angrily at the assembled mouth breathers.
‘Who are you calling a thug, you fucking….’ Thor tailed off, realising that he’d been baited again.
‘She’s not wrong though.’ Murmured Persephone from the copse where Hades was nuzzling her neck. ‘We shouldn’t all be here at the same time. Our temples and followers aren’t supposed to be together, but they are.’
She waved airily at a line of golden and glowing temples that stretched as far as the eye could see.
Hades barely looked up from his ministrations, shrugged and carried on.
Then he frowned.
‘Can somebody shut those fucking dogs up please? I’m trying to concentrate.’
He resumed his nuzzling of Persephone’s neck, staring occasionally at the small, bat-eared dog and his slightly larger companion who were barking as if to announce the end of the world.
The dogs continued to bark and it seemed to Hades as if the words ‘get fucked’ could somehow be heard amongst the cacophony
‘Did y….’ He began, being drowned out by Thor’s bellow of ‘WHAT DID YOU FUCKING SAY? YOU CANINE RUNT’
Selene sighed.
‘Calm down, you ginger twat, the dog was only teasing y…… hang on. How come the dogs can understand us and the humans don’t even recognise us?’
Mars looked up from sharpening his sword – again.
‘I blame that priest and his plan to give me unlimited followers. I believed him, he told me I’d get a new temple to rival any other gods’ – he pointed his sword into the distance.
‘I did, but I’ve not seen a single follower since I got here, just all of you. And Selene’s correct, I shouldn’t be in the same place as a Norse thug with head injuries.’
Thor flexed his mighty arms, whirled his hammer and prepared to strike, lightning flashed, the sky grew dark and somewhere; the word Pansy was mixed in with dog barks.
He visibly deflated and then looked sharply at Mars.
‘Hang on. A priest? Old and wise looking, totally devoted to you ? Making you feel like the old times are coming back ?’
Mars nodded and both Hades and Persephone started shouting. Selene looked shocked.
‘So. That’s all of us. Mine was a priestess, kind and fair, she told me that the world was missing my wisdom and power, that I’d have visitors to my temple every day.’
‘We were all lured here, but why ? There’s no divine punishment, no eagles, no rocks up a hill, nothing. Just these idiot fucking humans staring at us all day’
A snigger came from the trees.
And a form emerged.
‘LOKIIIIIIIII’ Thor bellowed.
‘IS THIS YOUR DOING?’
Loki sighed.
‘I was bored and I read something about quantum entanglement’ – they all stared at him with varying degrees of vacuity.
The word ‘read’ had confused most of them.
‘And I thought it’d be fun to play with the various fabrics across the multiverse.’
He sat on the floor and smiled.
And so here you are, mighty heroes, warriors, goddesses who inspire complete devotion, you’re here because you wanted devotion from humans who’ve moved on from you and who worship humans who are usually more venal and stupid than they are.’
‘And I was bored.’
‘To be honest, I’m still bored, so after sundown tonight, I’m letting you all go. But before then, let me show you what they see out there.’
The air in front of him and the humans behind rippled and it looked for all the world as if the smaller of the two dogs was grinning nastily.
And a mirror of sorts appeared.
The temples were gone – replaced by small sheds.
And they.
They.
The mighty gods were gone.
Replaced by a group of donkeys.
A sign in front of their fence had all of their names along with the words, ‘Uncle Lowkey’s Donkey Sanctuary’
Loki’s laughter filled the air.
And.
The sun began to move towards the horizon and it seemed to the visitors as if the assembled donkeys all sighed at the same time before wandering into the field to vanish into an early evening mist.
The dogs sniffed the air, decided they were bored and pulled their leads towards the waiting car.
He’s a serial scavenger who robbed his clients of their savings over a long period of time.
The thieving bastard was their financial advisor and many of them thought of him as their friend.
But Andrew is a thief.
This is his defining characteristic, I don’t care if people thought he was a good man, I don’t care about any charitable work he may have done, I don’t care about anything apart from that one fact.
He abused his position of trust and stole from people who gave him their money to invest for a better future.
He stole that money from them, he kept it and spent it on fuck knows what.
Andrew lives in Benfleet, it’s not a very big house, so the money didn’t go on that.
I’ll probably never know.
The police have done an outstanding job in getting this bastard and in their investigation, they found that he’d stolen from my uncle.
He stole around £12k from a retired lorry driver in 2014 and spent it on things unknown.
The only reason I know this is that the detective leading the case expanded the threshold for moneys that were stolen and found the LOWER sums that were taken.
My uncle never knew, but this may explain how the other thief, mental and physical abuser and all round piece of shit; Susan Auckland managed to identify and target him.
He may have been more vulnerable than we knew or maybe it was an early sign of the dementia that eventually killed him.
I’ll never know.
But I do know about Andrew Pownall.
The predator.
The thief.
The betrayer.
Andrew was sentenced after pleading guilty to his crimes on Friday.
Hopefully I’ll know the result tomorrow, I hope it’s custodial and that he’s placed somewhere nice.
I hope so many things for him.
AND.
He was sentenced to Five Years and four months inside.
By the end of the day, I was glad that I’m not very emotional, every single person there had a story worse than mine / Arthur’s.
Why?
Because I managed to catch Susan in the act.
Because I took the fight to her.
I made her life a fucking misery.
At one point, she went to the police station with Arthur to say that she was scared that I was going to kidnap her.
They called me to tell me and ask where I was.
I was in Essex, at a friend’s.
We had a long chat and the police warned me not to trust ‘Nobby’ the cab driver.
I then gave them his real name, his address, the pub he drank in, the names of his brothers and a few other details.
It was a deliberate statement, I was pointing out that if I wanted to, I could take them all.
And yesterday, while listening to a series of horror stories where half the room was in tears at various points, I told them how I’d done it.
Stay within the law but take the fight to them, it’s a war and it may never stop.
But these fucking people are everywhere and it’s getting worse as it gets easier to get a Lasting Power of Attorney.
They’re scavengers, predators that haven’t got the courage for real crime, so they take the easy route and defraud their friends, neighbours and their parents.
So fucking many of those.
Sons and daughters stealing the fucking lot with almost no repercussions.
The various agencies are useless, there’s no specific law that’s ever been passed to tighten things up and there’s no central database for checking.
I made the point while we still had an MP dialled in from remote that a supermarket can issue me with a parking fine, but if I was a serial abuser of this type, my local council and police would never know – even if a complaint were made.
The day was grim.
But there were a large number of people who want to do something different, to take this on as a real fight, to become militant and generate both publicity and action.
I’ve signed up to help.
I met some amazing people yesterday, they’ve been fighting their cases for years and have spent fortunes trying to get their relatives free.
I’m good at some of this stuff and I hate people like Andrew David Pownall, thief and scavenger, I want them all to pay.
So, we’ll see.
This may be the thing that I’ll do once I tell my employer that I’m not renewing my contract in two weeks time.
Believe it or not, most of my interactions with the police during my life have been fairly positive.
That’s possibly because the police were more proactive and visible when I was younger and I was never more relieved in my life when two huge coppers stopped me and my friends from becoming statistics behind a Chinese restaurant in London.
I’ve been arrested once, when I was still in my early twenties on a case of mistaken identity.
It was quite amusing as there were cars, dogs and a load of coppers for me and a couple of mates who were on our way home from a night out.
I was arrested by a WDC and read my rights.
A tiny uniformed sergeant then decided that HE would take me in.
I was wedged between two monsters in the back seat and was then questioned.
After a minute or two, I said that I’d been told my rights and that I would now exercise my right to be silent.
This seemed to be a personal affront for him because he promised me a hard time in the cells.
Me being me, I couldn’t let that one go and I told him that I knew I was going to get a kicking but as long as he had the bottle to come into the cell alone, I’d take whatever was given when I finished with him.
I can still feel the shoulders twitching against mine as the two beasts in the back suppressed their giggles.
Nothing happened.
No charge, just very late home and straight into work.
That’s by the by.
The case of my Uncle, which went on for so many years and is all here –
Showed me the very best of the police, I can never thank them enough for the care and dedication that they showed.
The fact that Susan Auckland never went to prison wasn’t their fault, it was inter-force failings and it led to me writing my first ever letter to the Chief Constable of Cambridgeshire saying that his force had failed my uncle.
At some point I’ll be writing another letter to a CC, but for a different reason.
And I can’t say anything at all about the case, apart from the fact that it involves poor old Arthur again.
But, first a genuine question for you.
What’s worse:
Casual robbery – phone snatching, car theft, shoplifting etc.
Or deliberately defrauding the vulnerable?
For me, it’s the latter. Most small-time criminals are as thick as whale shit and once they’ve started down that path, I’d imagine that it’s hard to change.
White Collar fraudsters have had all the advantages that the phone thief never will and their crimes show a mindset that is beyond redemption.
Last week, I received a letter from another Police Force.
I wondered if I’d managed to speed in their patch before I opened it and was confused as I haven’t been through that county for years.
It turns out that before Susan got her hooks in, Arthur’s Financial Adviser had fleeced him and a large number of people for a LOT of money.
I rang the WDC who’d sent the letter and we had a good chat.
She had discovered Arthur’s part in the fraud by being diligent and good at her job, he fell below the threshold that the investigation was set at.
The fraudster has already been arrested and is likely to plead guilty at court, the CPS has the trial ready to go – more or less.
I’ll be there at the sentencing and I plan to make him far more famous than a simple court report ever could.
Properly famous.
The WDC gave me the details of the person at the company that this cunt worked for and they were fantastic.
At some point, they’ll pay the estate back what was stolen plus any dividends and interest that would be due.
Then the kicker.
The fraudster may have been doing this for THIRTY YEARS.
Like I said. He’ll he famous.
If you have vulnerable relatives, it may be worth checking in with them to make sure that they’re not being abused by somebody like this.
At some point, I’ll be giving more details and I’ll be writing to a Chief Constable to suggest that his officer gets an award.
There are notable exceptions but even those who claim not to dream probably do, they just don’t remember.
There’s no single unifying theory of why we dream or what the purpose is of dreaming at all.
Dreams seem to be connected to the brain’s offline work on memory and emotion and the content and presence of dreams can be linked (sometimes) .
But….. no theory fully explains why dreams take the forms they do, why most are forgotten, or why the subjective experience is necessary.
The studies have moved beyond the idea that dreams are pure random noise, but it’s not converged on one single purpose.
Sometimes we appear in other people’s dreams and only if they tell us, will we ever find out.
I appeared offstage and out of sight of a friend’s dream last night and she messaged me to tell me the strange details.
I ran the details through an AI and the results were rather sweet, they made me smile and I forwarded them to her and she agreed with the sweetness of the analysis- I have no idea about some of the details.
And this got me thinking, I quite often remember my dreams but I very rarely dream of real people that I know; and if I do, the results are usually surreal.
I’ve mentioned on here a number of times that I like writing, I like the process and usually let my mind stray while I’m writing, the results can be erratic.
Occasionally, I’ll take inspiration from others and the story below was a direct challenge from somebody to write about Autism.
I had a friend with a son who was very autistic and spent some time talking to the family to get an idea of how things might appear to him.
And then this came to mind.
With Thanks to Bram Stoker
Tim’s Audio Diary
Via Digital Recording
November 19th 2007 19:00
Hello.
Doctor John has asked me to talk to the digital recorder as a way of helping to improve my communication skills as part of my treatment. He says that the recordings will be completely confidential, but that’s obviously wrong if he’s going to listen to them. So I’ve changed the encryption algorithm to a 256 bit key that only I know, it is completely confidential now. I’m sure that this is helpful.
Doctor John wants me to talk about the way that I think about things so that he can understand better and help me and Mum more. He’s asked me to keep the recorder until December 24th, which is also Christmas Eve and 578016 as a number. I want to help Doctor John, he’s a nice man, but Mum has told me never to talk about The Plan with anybody, so I can’t tell him about that. Doctor John is trying to understand how I can do sums in my head faster than his calculator, but it’s annoying that he doesn’t understand me when I tell him that the numbers are shapes that make a new shape when they’re calculated. He knows that I can do computer stuff like changing the algorithm on the upload of the voice recorder to the PC really well, so he must understand that part otherwise he wouldn’t have told me about the completely confidential part of the recording unless he wanted me to change it.
Mum’s making fish fingers for Dinner tonight, I like fish fingers. I always have three and they are always in a triangle on my plate so that I can put beans in the middle. I like beans. Mum’s putting the plates and knives and forks and glasses on the table now and she’s waving at me to come and sit down.
Bye
Tim’s Audio Diary
Via Digital Recording
November 19th 2007 19:55
Hello.
I’ve finished Dinner now and Mum says that I can talk for a few minutes more before I get ready for bed. Dinner was very nice; the fish fingers were in a perfect triangle and were all the same colour, which is good. The beans filled up the middle and I ate those first, then I ate the fish fingers and then my bread and butter. I had milk; I like milk, especially the milk with the blue top.
Mum asked me to talk about the fish fingers which is still a silly name, everybody knows that fish don’t have fingers and even though I know that that’s what they’re called, I still think that it’s silly and that they should be called something else like fish rectangles or something.
Time for bed now.
Bye
The Audio Diary of Doctor John Seward M.D P.H.D
Via Digital Recording
November 19th 2007 19:00
I’m just transcribing my thoughts from today’s session with Tim Matthews and I confess that I still find myself perplexed by him. He presents all of the normal symptoms of a high-function autistic child with savant abilities. Tim is almost supernaturally fast at numeric calculation and seems to understand the native operating language of any electronic device that he’s exposed to. Brain scans show a great deal of right-brain activity, which, once again, is normal.
There’s something else going on though. He has a secret that he can’t or won’t share and I’m sure that this secret is the key to modifying his treatment to gain some real improvements.
I’ve given him an identical voice recorder to the one that I use myself and have asked him to talk about his thoughts when he wants to in the hope that he will talk about whatever the secret is that he’s withholding from me. I’m convinced that this will be of great help to both him and Jean, his mother. We’ve agreed that he’ll use it for a month and then hand it to me for review; I know that this is a long shot, but I’ve found myself that talking things out can be very helpful sometimes.
Tim’s Audio Diary
Via Digital Recording
November 25th 2007 18:54
Hello
Mum’s been really busy at work and I’ve been having my Dinner late for the past few days so that’s why I haven’t been talking to you for a while. Mum’s ordered Chinese food for Dinner tonight because she’s too tired to cook. I want to help her, but I don’t like the feel of some of the food and Mum says it makes it difficult for her to work around me.
I have to see Doctor John again on Tuesday and I really want to tell him about The Plan because he’s not doing things properly and it’s really annoying. Mum says that I can’t though and that NOBODY can ever know about The Plan. She gets the scared look on her face when she says that and I have to cuddle her to make it better.
Chinese food is nice and I like the little crackers that they put in the box even though Mum never orders them.
That’s the doorbell; I have to answer the door like a good boy.
Bye.
The Audio Diary of Doctor John Seward M.D P.H.D
Via Digital Recording
November 26th 2007 21:05
Today’s session with Tim was more confusing than usual. We did the normal exercises and he made a point of telling me that he’s been talking to his digital recorder. He even knew how many seconds of pause time he’d recorded. He was unusually tactile today and made a point of cuddling his mother twice during the session.
Lucy was observing the session as usual and saw that on both occasions that Tim cuddled his mum; she had looked worried for some reason just beforehand. I have to say that Lucy is becoming invaluable in these sessions as she can observe the parents’ reactions while I concentrate on the child. Her dark eyes seem to miss nothing.
When I replay the session in my mind, I can see that Tim seemed hesitant just before the cuddles and that I had the distinct impression that he wanted to tell me something.
This is becoming a very curious case.
Tim’s Audio Diary
Via Digital Recording
November 27th 2007 18:43
Hello.
I don’t want to talk today. I made Mum sad because I nearly told Doctor John about The Plan.
Bye.
Tim’s Audio Diary
Via Digital Recording
November 28th 2007 19:03
Hello.
I watched Batman on the DVD player after school today. I like Batman but don’t like Robin, he’s got a silly name and his costume is red and yellow and green. Yuck. Mum’s making spaghetti for Dinner tonight, I like spaghetti because it’s funny to eat and it makes a good mess around my mouth. Mum pretends that she’s annoyed by the mess, but she has a happy face when she thinks that I’m not looking at her.
I can stay up late tonight Mum says. I think that it’s because it’s been a year since Dad had to go away. That’s 365 days or eight thousand seven hundred and sixty hours or five hundred and twenty five thousand six hundred minutes or thirty one million five hundred and thirty six thousand seconds. Mum has a sad face now so I’m going to go and cuddle her.
Bye.
Tim’s Audio Diary
Via Digital Recording
November 29th 2007 19:03
Hello.
I don’t want to talk today. Mum’s crying.
Bye.
The Audio Diary of Doctor John Seward M.D P.H.D
Via Digital Recording
December 3rd 2007 22:30
A very frustrating session today. Tim was incommunicative and sullen and Lucy reports that his mother just looked at the floor. Lucy said that Jean looked as she’d been crying for days, but there were no clues to be gained from Tim at all. He had such an accusing look on his face for the whole session that I was vaguely disturbed. Tim is a big boy and possibly weighs as much as I do, I certainly wouldn’t want him to be so upset with me that it became physical.
Why did I say that?
Tim has never presented any symptoms of physical aggression to date; he’s actually one of the most affectionate patients that I’ve ever worked with.
Perhaps I’m just tired, my workload seems to be increasing and I’m having very vivid dreams at the moment.
Last night, I dreamed that I was out running with Lucy and that she climbed a tree, daring me to follow her. Her eyes were so alive and full of joy that I followed her without thinking, even though I don’t like heights during waking hours. I don’t know why I’m having these dreams; we have the most professional relationship that I know of, rarely discussing anything that isn’t related to work. I don’t know anything about her home life or even what she’s interested in outside work.
God! I’m rambling tonight, just as that other, fictional, John Seward who so inspired me so very much when I was younger, rambled on about his personal thoughts in the early stages of his voice recordings. He talked at length about a Lucy as well. Perhaps the unhappy outcome of that relationship is at the back of my mind.
Tim’s Audio Diary
Via Digital Recording
December 6th 2007 18:23
Hello.
We practiced for the nativity play at school today. I’m a sheep. Mrs Bradshaw says that I’m a good sheep because I do exactly what I’m told. The costume is itchy though and it’s very hot, but I’m a good boy and don’t scratch myself when other people are around anymore. Mum says that because I’ve been so good, I can watch Batman again before I go to bed and I can have three fish fingers, some beans and some chips for Dinner tonight. Batman is always good and he’s always right even though people don’t want him to do or say some things. Batman always has a plan to get important things done even when he’s not allowed to do anything himself. I don’t know if Batman likes fish fingers and beans though, but I do so perhaps he does too. Mum’s calling.
Bye.
The Audio Diary of Doctor John Seward M.D P.H.D
Via Digital Recording
December 10th 2007 23:47
So tired tonight, but I can’s seem to get any rest. I’ve tried taking a bath, listening to music and drinking the best part of a bottle of port left over from last Christmas. There’s so little to look forward to this year that I think that I’d rather be working. Some of my married friends have invited me over for lunch, but I get restless too easily at the moment and I’d only spoil it for them.
Tim’s session today was much the same as last week; he was only interested in talking about being a sheep. He’s a good sheep, he says. I have to confess that the thought makes me smile, I’m sure that he is, he seems to be able to do most things that he applies his mind to. I saw the look on Lucy’s face when Tim was talking about his costume and she had such a bittersweet expression that even now, hours later, I can feel my heart skip a beat. I think that I’m drunk.
The Audio Diary of Doctor John Seward M.D P.H.D
Via Digital Recording
December 10th 2007 23:59
Scratch that last comment. I am drunk, really, really drunk. I think that the combination of Christmas coming up and my complete lack of progress with Tim is affecting me. Who’d have thought all those years ago when Uncle George gave me that first edition copy of the book, signed by Stoker himself that it would have such an effect on my life. What a sick, sad, ironic joke. I’m a psychiatrist – check. I voice-record my diary- check. I have a patient that I really don’t understand- check. I’m obsessed with somebody who doesn’t know I exist – check.
Enough.
Tim’s Audio Diary
Via Digital Recording
December 14th 2007 19:33
Hello.
We did the nativity play today. I was a sheep. Mum was crying when the play finished, but she was smiling as well. I don’t really know that face very well; I’ll ask Doctor John what it means when I see him in three days. Except that it’s not really three days, it’s sixty eight hours from now. I need to tell Doctor John about The Plan because he’s doing it all wrong and that’s a Bad Thing. I’m having sausages for Dinner tonight; sausages are nice but not as nice as fish fingers. Mum says that because I was such a good sheep, I can watch Batman again before I go to bed. That’s a Good Thing. I’m going to cuddle Mum now.
Bye.
The Audio Diary of Doctor John Seward M.D P.H.D
Via Digital Recording
December 17h 2007 21:39
Tim’s session today was the most disturbing that we’ve had so far and I don’t know if it means that we’re making progress or if I’m uncovering other, deeper rooted problems. The session started normally, with Tim talking about his nativity play again, apparently it was last Friday and he was a good sheep. He then asked me why his Mum would smile when she was crying and I explained the concept of happy tears to him. I think that it may take a while for that concept to sink in.
We went on to talk about school, he’s still doing well in lessons and is top of the class in maths and computing, again no surprises there.
Then things changed.
I asked him if there was anything else that he wanted to share with me. I’m still convinced that he has another gift that he doesn’t discuss in our sessions and his face became very red and he suddenly started shouting at the top of his voice that I was doing it all wrong, that I would ruin it and it would be my fault. While I did my best to cope with the outburst, Lucy was watching Jean and saw something very worrying.
Jean was visibly terrified and was shrinking away from the boy as if she expected a blow at any moment. I hadn’t considered the issue of violence with Tim before as he’s always been a placid and affectionate boy, but I can see now that there is a potential for violence that can’t be overlooked. This may also explain why Jean always wears her jacket or long sleeved tops and blouses when she brings Tim to the sessions. I had originally thought that she was just being overly formal, but now I wonder, as does Lucy whether the sleeves are there to cover up bruises?
I have one more session before Christmas and I am very worried that something important is slipping away from me here.
Tim’s Audio Diary
Via Digital Recording
December 17th 2007 17:05
Hello.
Mum has got her scared face on again today. I don’t like that face. She’s calling me now.
Bye.
Tim’s Audio Diary
Via Digital Recording
December 17th 2007 19:18
Hello.
Mum has talked to me for a long time, it was fifty three minutes and forty two seconds and she’s asked me to make a promise, just like Batman did when his Mum and Dad were killed.. Except that Batman promised to become a crime fighter and I promised to never talk to Doctor John about The Plan. Mum had her scared face on again so I promised. I don’t like to see Mum with the sad or scared face. She thinks that we’ll be made to live in different houses. But Doctor John is doing it all wrong. I don’t know how to help with The Plan now because I can’t talk about it any more.
I’ve got cheese sandwiches and crisps for Dinner tonight. But no onions, I don’t like onions.
Bye.
Tim’s Audio Diary
Via Digital Recording
December 19th 2007 19:00
Hello.
Mum has put the Christmas tree up tonight and I helped her to decorate it. She said that I’m a good boy. Mum has put my list for Santa on the fireplace so that he knows what to bring me on Christmas Day. Santa will be here in seven thousand five hundred and one minutes and I’ll have presents when I wake up. I hope Santa brings a nice present for Mum.
Bye.
Tim’s Audio Diary
Via Digital Recording
December 23rd 2007 18:59
Hello.
Mum’s making fish fingers for Dinner again tonight because I’ve been a good boy. I like fish fingers, especially with beans. I have to go to see Doctor John tomorrow but I can’t talk about The Plan, even though he’s getting it all wrong still. I know what to do though, but after tomorrow I can never see Doctor John or Lucy again. I can see that I have a sad face when I look in the mirror.
Bye.
The Audio Diary of Doctor John Seward M.D P.H.D
Via Digital Recording
December 24th 2007 20:01
I don’t know what to say about Tim’s session today. It’s probably not a good idea to analyse it in depth tonight anyway. So much has happened so quickly and I still have much to do tonight. What I will say though is that when Tim suddenly leapt up from his chair and ran at Lucy with that strange light shining in his eyes; a much brighter light than the ambient lighting should have allowed, I was the most frightened that I have ever been in my life.
And yet.
And yet I ran to her side even though my legs hardly worked at all.
Enough of this, there’s too much to do and the doorbell is ringing. It’s probably the cab. I’m scared again.
Tim’s Audio Diary
Via Digital Recording
December 24th 2007 20:05
Hello.
Mum has a new face on tonight. I’ve never seen this one before and I can’t ask Doctor John what it means anymore because I’ll never see him or Lucy again. Doctor John forgot to ask for his digital recorder today and I’m a good boy and don’t steal things, so I’ll ask Mum to send it back to him in case he’s worried about it.
I made The Plan happen right today, just like Batman would do if he wasn’t allowed to talk about it. When Doctor John was asking me questions about what Santa was going to bring me and Lucy was watching Mum like she always does, I got up from my chair and ran to Lucy. The Plan was so clear in my head then that I could see all of it. Doctor John had a scared face on when I ran at Lucy and he ran to Lucy as well and he grabbed her hand to keep her away from me and then he wrapped his arms round her. And The Plan was good again.
I could see a really, really bright light, much brighter than the sun, when Doctor John grabbed Lucy’s hand and The Plan was really clear in my head, much clearer than usual. Doctor John is in a silver car right now and he’s going to where Lucy lives. That’s a Good Thing.
In one hundred and six thousand two hundred and sixty minutes, Doctor John and Lucy will get married.
On October the seventh two thousand and nine at eleven o clock in the morning, Doctor John will be a Dad and Lucy will be a Mum.
Their baby will be a girl, that’s called a daughter and not a son.
She is in The Plan and she is going to be SO important to everybody in the world in twenty eight years three months and eleven days or ten thousand three hundred and twenty eight hours.
I’ve been a good boy I think. I hope that Santa will still bring me my presents.
Merry Christmas.
Bye.
—————————————
After I showed my friends this story, they gave me a copy of the Curious Incident of the Dog in Night Time.
After reading it, I was quite pleased that my small hero wasn’t too far from a very well respected book in the way that I presented him.
Lucy in my story was a real person and the dream was as I wrote it. I still remember it to this day and I remember her fondly.
As for my friend, I find myself quite touched by her strange and surreal dream and the part (out of sight and offstage though it was) that I played in it.
I have a number of friends who are going through an absolutely horrible time and the only thing that I can do is to try to be there for them.
No quick fixes, no advice, just to support when I can.
It’s not much, but it’s the best I can do.
As for the rest of the components of my life, work is definitely losing any allure that it may have briefly had this year and I doubt that I’ll stay on past my contract date.
Probably.
It’s not all been bad though, I’ve done some things that I never thought I’d do, including hosting a dinner for people including US Space Force in Edinburgh Castle, renewing contacts with an old friend who lives in Bath and getting him too drunk to stand one evening when we had a splendid dinner and learning about our military satellite programme – after I’d retired.
It’s also given me enough cash for a new boiler, a new wood burning stove, new flooring downstairs , a load of necessary work on the roof and some new fencing behind the sheds to keep Cairo in.
And it paid for a week in a very expensive house so that I could have a proper holiday with the doglets. So I have nothing at all to complain about.
I had an arthroscopy on my right knee a little while ago, it’s failed, but I’m no worse off than I was, the knee still works, it just hurts – oh pooor me.
It’s a minor thing.
And I’ve been invited to this.
And that’s because I spent all that time working on the Arthur thing
And that person will be sentenced the day before the BBC thing.
And I’m going to try to make him properly famous so that he enjoys every minute of his jail time.
I’ve asked for a ticket to the BBC event and I’ve invited my sister-in-law to dinner in Simpsons. She’s got it far worse than me, her husband has early onset Alzheimer’s and the man that he was is gone.
So I’ll buy her a nice dinner and some wine and be a diversion for a few hours, because I really can’t help in any other way.
And I’ll start planning my second retirement.
Maybe.
But Milo’s seizures have slowed down dramatically since I got him on some meds, I still don’t know what’s wrong and I know that our good days aren’t promised.
But there are many good days.
Today was one, so was yesterday, Friday when I got home, Wednesday before I went to the Corsham office ( and Cheltenham where I had a few beers and dinner with one of the Feral Ponies ) and I’m hoping for another tomorrow.
And today, I’ve started making a batch of Tabasco Sauce with chilis from my own garden.
I’m sure it’ll be awesome.
But even if it’s not, half the fun is trying.
I don’t actually need reasons to be cheerful, but it doesn’t hurt to remind myself.
‘Maybe. You carry yourself differently, you watch everybody and you’re doing it now, but….’
‘But?’
There was a long pause, traffic moved on the road, people either ambled or hurried on, the traffic lights turned red, giving the wet road a new and luminous aspect.
And the silence continued.
The lights turned green again and finally he spoke.
‘You’re here but you’re apart, it’s the way that the spooks in particular look at things. Let me ask you a question and don’t look round.’
He looked at me, pale eyes in a lean weathered face, faded fatigues that were spotless, clean shaven, sober, articulate and very well read.
‘How many people are on the other side of the road, how many are obvious tourists, how many are sleeping in the doorways and how many are just shoppers?’
‘Twenty three, or there were anyway, eleven, two and around ten.’
‘Which one looks like they need the most help?’
I confessed that I had no idea.
‘Woman with three shopping bags, she’s tired and is just stood there, she was when you walked up.’
I’d been making a point of talking to this man for a while, giving him small sums of cash to help him buy food and pay for his laundry.
He was astonishingly well-read and could quote verbatim from philosophical works and broader, more accessible works. We had once had a conversation about De Montaigne and cabbages.
He spoke again.
‘You’re a decent bloke but you’re closed off, you somehow seem like you have a different first language and that you’re translating it in your head when people speak.’
I watched him as he rummaged in one of his packs, coming out with a paper bundle tied with string.
‘This is for you. I didn’t buy it, I found it, I’m pretty certain that all of the pieces are there. It’s a bowl, I reckon it was expensive, but it’s broken so they threw it out.’
I stared at him.
‘Don’t open it now, you might drop the pieces, take it back to your hotel room and if you decide to keep it, find somebody who can tell you about Kintsugi.’
He saw the look on my face and laughed.
‘Kintsugi, it’s not a fighting style. Look it up, I won’t be here for a month or so, so you won’t need to be embarrassed if you don’t do anything.’
He handed the oddly shaped package to me and went back to looking across the road, the woman with the bags was gone.
He smiled at me.
‘See you whenever.’
And so I walked awkwardly back to the hotel with my package of broken ceramic, feeling it grate together as I moved, until finally; I stood in my hotel room and dumped it into the bin.
And, feeling brave, I walked in the opposite direction to find a bar, drinking alone and playing with my phone. I’d given up trying to read my book, I was too preoccupied with replaying our conversation.
Sometimes I watched people and I decided he was wrong about me, I could spot the cracks in people from a mile off, their body language, the intonation of words, the glances in other directions.
The bastard.
I was cataloguing weakness.
It’s what I did.
Sometimes I’d help people but it wasn’t my default position.
I shrugged, fuck it.
I drank some more, went for an Indian meal that was mostly lager and went back to the hotel and my bed.
I slept badly, with strange and fractured dreams that made absolutely no sense, places and people blurring between time lines so that an event that occurred in Chennai was taking place in a garden in Essex, a dog crossing a river in Australia when he’d walked across that bridge in Cheshire.
I woke up early and disoriented, I had a long drive ahead of me and only a last minute afterthought made me take the package from the bin and put it in my rucksack.
Where it stayed for days.
I eventually unwrapped it while I was listening to somebody lie through their teeth on a conference call.
It was an earthenware bowl, a lustrous brown on the outside and a vivid red glaze on the inside.
There were a lot of pieces.
I put them onto my filing cabinet and left them there for a day or so before deciding to look up some YouTube Kintsugi videos.
They were fascinating, the concept of making something new from something broken seemingly uniquely Japanese.
I didn’t like the idea of having to have a special humidity controlled room though, nor having to source so many niche materials.
And so it was that Amazon was my friend.
There were a bewildering array of kits and I bought the best one that I could, IF I was going to do this, there was no point in doing it badly.
And so it was that on a quiet Monday afternoon, I started the process of trying to repair the bowl.
I sorted each piece and used a bit of masking tape for each one to laboriously find the matches, numbering each one until I had a completed bowl.
All the pieces were there, but the rim of the bowl seemed to be deliberately uneven, making me worry as to whether I’d got it right.
I did a search for the bowl.
£290.
Fuck me.
That was a lot of cash for a bowl. I wondered where he’d found it and how it came to be that there were no splinters missing at all.
But that didn’t matter, I was committed to having a go at this thing now, despite feeling that it was somehow performative and stupid, like shouting ‘Free Palestine’ at a bus.
I’d chosen gold as the colour of the adhesive rather than platinum as it seemed like the red would set it off best.
And so I fitted the first two pieces together, I’d cleaned the enamel with alcohol and lightly wiped the jagged edges before brushing a very faint layer of gold epoxy on both edges, holding them together for fifteen minutes or so.
Then I left the pieces in my office, had some dinner and a glass of wine before watching some crap TV and going to bed.
I didn’t read before bed that night and I crashed almost straight away.
And woke up sobbing at 4am.
I’d dreamt of every friend and relation that I’d loved and lost, to cancer, to aneurysms, to suicide, accidents, heart attacks and old age.
Every single one, back to my childhood, I felt broken and lost, and I didn’t sleep again that night.
I pretended to work during the next day, paying no attention to issues or people, the strange dream preying on my mind.
I fitted pieces three and four that afternoon, taking even more care, seeking perfection in the fitting of the jagged pieces.
And that night I dreamed of lost loves, those that I’d driven away and those that just left because they wanted someone else, someone that wasn’t me.
I dreamed of small, casual hurts, given and received, phrases that demeaned me for saying them and words that cut deep before being buried inside.
And I woke, scared and ashamed, not crying this time but filled with a bone-deep hurt for what I’d done and what I’d hidden deep away.
And the days blurred.
I know that I worked, I know that I must have made some sort of sense, but I had no recall of anything, even minutes after a call or meeting.
And I was starting to have waking dreams, my first dog walked beside me, being patted by my grandad as we wandered a field that existed only in memory.
And as the days went by, the bowl nearing completion at a steady, slow and inexorable pace, I felt as if I’d been fractured myself.
I could almost see the layers of armour that I’d built around myself, the bulletproof glass of the visor that I stared through at the world, and I wondered if I were going mad.
I was close to the end, but I was scared to finish, what if that would be the end of me?
A week went past, I was a ghost in my own life, haunted by my own past, visions of people and events going back so many years.
So, so many.
And so I fitted the last piece, drank myself into oblivion and waited for whatever horrors that I’d see in my dreams.
But there weren’t any.
And I awoke feeling….
I couldn’t describe it.
All of the events of my life were still there, but they were part of me now, not something buried.
I wondered what the fuck was going on and I resolved to talk to the soldier when I could.
If I could ever stop smiling..
A few weeks later, I waited for him to take his place on the cathedral steps, I was sat waiting for him with package.
He looked at me.
‘What’s that?’
I opened the package and showed him the finished bowl with its golden seams of new life, mounted in a lucite case.
‘I’ve put shockproof gel in here so it won’t hurt if you drop it.’
He smiled.
‘It’s your bowl, it always was, it just needed to be remade, speaking of which, you look different.’
‘I think I am.’
‘OK, same questions as before?’
‘Fourteen, eight, one and five. The man in the half length coat is struggling with a number of things.’
‘Did you talk to him?’
‘I did, he told me to fuck off.’
He laughed and laughed and laughed until I joined in, laughing until there were tears in both our eyes and I was doubled over.
This one is going to be a bit rambling, but bear with me, there’s a point in here somewhere.
It’s just been the anniversary of 9/11, twenty five years have gone, but some of the brave and awful and inspiring stories still have massive power.
Todd Beamer was on a call with an emergency operator from Flight 93 – these are the last words spoken.
‘Lisa: I’ll tell them. I promise, Todd.(Lisa patches in the FBI.)
Agent: Todd, your plane is on a course for Washington. Best guess is the White House or the Capitol.
Todd: I understand. I’ll be back.
Todd: Everyone knows this isn’t a normal hijacking. We have decided we will not be pawns in their plot.
Lisa: What are you going to do?
Todd: Four of us are going to rush the one with the bomb. Then the cockpit. A stewardess is getting boiling water. We’ll take them out.
Todd: Would you pray with me?They pray the Lord’s Prayer. Then: Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil, for thou art with me.
Todd: God help me. Jesus help me.Are you guys ready? Let’s Roll.’
Let’s Roll – and that was it.
We all wonder how we’d face death or the prospect of death, will we be brave and resolute, defiant and loud, will we cry, will we do things that are beyond bravery?
Unless you’ve been there, you can only hope that you carry yourself well.
I was once on a flight from Edinburgh to Stansted that was THE most scary flight I’ve been on, ever.
I was sat at the front and the plane was making moves that it really shouldn’t, we never found out what the issue was, but it was mechanical and pretty grim.
People were screaming and shouting behind me and the two stewardesses were quietly crying.
Bad huh.
This was over twenty years ago but I still remember the tracks that the tears were making in their makeup and how young they were.
I thought about it.
Were we going to die?
Maybe.
Could I do anything?
No.
Had it been a good life until then?
Yes.
So I closed my eyes and tried to relax.
The plane sorted itself a few minutes later and we landed safely with no issues.
I’ve had a few heart resets since, around 18 years ago and the first is the one where you have to accept that when they shock your heart to stop it, it may not restart.
No point being too scared, it’s outside your control and you just have to trust.
I didn’t die. Obvs.
Nor did I when they did it four more times until my issues were fixed.
I’d stopped worrying altogether by then.
Acceptance became a form of contempt, I actually made an afternoon appointment after the last reset.
That doesn’t mean that I’m brave, maybe just realistic or fatalistic. I don’t know.
Anyway, life went on, things changed, I went to a host of foreign places, drank and debauched myself stupid, danced with a god and dared the other gods to kill me during a monsoon in Thailand.
I was and remain committed to enjoying as much of life as I can, until it comes to a probably undignified stop.
But as much as I’ve mentioned Death, it’s Life that’s the thing that we should treasure, every minute, even the shit ones.
In April 2019, I began a new job and moved house on the same day, I was now renting a place with secure gates, a large garden and views across fields, all of which my landlord and next door neighbour owned.
So in August 2019 I did the thing that changed my life forever.
I went to meet Milo at Warrington Animal Welfare and decided that he was mine.
And so it was.
He presided over most aspects of my life, I now had to plan ahead, for he could never go back in a cage again and he had a few issues to deal with.
He’d been abused by a previous owner, I tracked him down but decided that no good could come from doing anything.
And so Milo wove himself into the fabric of my life, we went everywhere together, relationships came and went; particularly when it was clear that I meant it when I said that he was my top priority.
We went through COVID together and together, we ignored every fucking rule that there was.
I bought a car during that period just because I could and we drove hundreds of miles to see people or just because. Beaches and mountains, forests and little towns.
We lived
He had a couple of knee operations and developed a healthy hatred and fear of the vets which manifested itself on June 4th 2021 ( more on that later).
The stability that he’d made me embrace meant that I capitalised a fair amount of my pension and I bought the house and land that we live in today.
We have astonishing views, peace and quiet and a life that I’d never dreamed of as a child.
I’m sat here as a type this, I have beer and music, Milo’s asleep somewhere and Cairo has just managed to break into next door again, occasioning a hasty fence repair.
I retired for a while and now I’m at a crossroads as to whether to carry on working or go back to only doing things for me.
The money’s a nice little bonus and we’ll have a new log burner in a couple of days followed by flooring.
They’re only things though, what I treasure is the living elements of my life, the doglets, my friends and some of my work colleagues.
But nothing lasts forever and not all change is good.
My little warrior started to have seizures a month or so ago.
He doesn’t seem to know what’s happened afterwards so it’s scarier for me.
I got him to the vet for blood tests – he hates the vet.
It was inconclusive, they wanted a test that can only be done at Nantwich.
He HATES the Nantwich vet.
So I sedated him enough that he had to be carried in while in his little bed.
And that test was inconclusive.
My vet suggested a liver scan and we booked it.
But…..
I watched him sleep the night before and decided that I wasn’t going to take him somewhere to be scared, knocked out and tested – and if he lived, wake up in a fucking cage and be scared and alone.
So I emailed them to say no.
And a strange thing happened.
A minute after I pressed send, the specialist vet called me to essentially talk me out of it.
A battery of tests and physical samples of the liver and spleen.
He was actually happy that I’d already decided against, even though it was money on the hoof.
And we talked.
I told him that Milo had been kicked by Charlie the pony and I thought he’d died.
I bundled him into the car and took him to the vet, who met me, masked up against COVID in the car park.
Milo was awake and scared by then and then the vet said….
‘I’ll take him from here.’
I made it clear that if the last I saw of Milo, it would be me putting him on the table and that there was literally nothing that would stop me.
The vet saw reason.
Anyway.
Turns out that we’re sort of famous.
The date was 4th June 2021.
He had a cracked rib.
I told the vet that I’d pick him up.
They said that he’d stay overnight.
I said that they’d beg me to take him home by the end of the day and so it was that at two minutes past six that they rang me, saying please come and get him.
He wouldn’t let them near his cage.
I was glad that I’d talked to the specialist, it made things clearer.
And so I decided for both of us
No more tests.
Ask for anti-seizure meds.
See where we go.
And we’re nearly at the point that I said I was making
One more thing.
I let people know that he isn’t ok and they’ve been wonderful, I’ve been real-life messaging with somebody whose dog is almost at that point and they’ll never know how much our chats have helped me.
Milo’s meds may possibly be working, he’s had two fits in eight days rather than a couple a day sometimes, but the decision to give him the best I can rather than letting fear take over has ensured that every day is a new and wonderful thing.
This is from Tecumseh, it’s something that I’d like to aspire to, we’ll see.
‘So live your life that the fear of death can never enter your heart.
Trouble no one about their religion; respect others in their view, and demand that they respect yours.
Love your life, perfect your life, beautify all things in your life.
Seek to make your life long and its purpose in the service of your people.
Prepare a noble death song for the day when you go over the great divide.
When it comes your time to die, be not like those whose hearts are filled with the fear of death… Sing your death song and die like a hero going home.’
As for Milo, whenever it comes, we’ll know together and I’ll sit with him looking at our land and our views and I’ll sing to him as he goes.
Probably ‘Santa Fe’ by Jon Bon Jovi.
He likes that one, I used to sing it to him on car journeys.
‘They say that no man is an island And good things come to those who wait But the things I hear are there just to remind me Every dog will have his day
The spirits, they intoxicate me I watched them infiltrate my soul They try to say it’s too late for me Tell my guns I’m coming home
I swear I’m gonna live forever Tell my maker he can wait I’m riding somewhere south of Heaven I’m heading back to Santa Fe It’s judgement day in Santa Fe
Once I was promised absolution There’s only one solution for my sins You’ve gotta face your ghosts, and know with no illusions That only one of you is going home again
This summer and this year in general have flashed by – we’re nearly at the end of August and the good weather has returned for a while after a few days of torrential rain.
The doglets have been happy, I haven’t been away this week and apart from a scheduled arthroscopy on Wednesday afternoon, I’m going nowhere next week either.
I was away for work for two days on the 11th and 12th, going from working at an undisclosed location while armed soldiers walked the perimeter of the base around us and then spending the evening eating and drinking well whilst dipping into some philosophy.
A friend contacted me out of the blue on the 12th and we observed the eclipse before having dinner.
I met her in my new favourite bar, a little place that caters mostly to whisky and cocktails and we caught up on the various changes in our lives since we last saw each other in February, it was a good evening, although if anyone is thinking of eating in the Gordon Ramsay at the Hilton, don’t bother.
I’m spending my non-retirement wages on improving the house, so have had a new boiler fitted – with a new, upgraded wood burner to be installed next month.
New flooring will follow and I’ll see what the near future holds before making any other decisions.
There’s a dark cloud over work, it’s not on me personally, but it’ll determine whether I stop in December or renew for a while.
It’s a really dark and ominous cloud but it’s not mine and I’ll update in a few weeks.
I’ve been making sure that I get some larger home jobs sorted before my knee op, including filling a skip and climbing across a roof today to fix some minor leaks.
And I’ve made sure that the tiny (really, really tiny, almost nonexistent) pangs on my conscience are addressed as they arise.
I gave £20 to an ex soldier that I’ve seen a few times in Bath when he’s in town. He’s rough sleeping but doesn’t do drugs or booze, he’s scrupulously clean and at some point I’m going to ask his story.
He seems like a good man and it’s awful to see people like him on the streets.
I changed a wheel for an old lady in Morrison’s car park last week and was genuinely surprised that not one person asked to help at all, apart from one cunt who made a comment about how the jack could be better placed, given that the wheel was off by this point, I wasn’t impressed.
And I’ve walked the doglets in the mornings and patrolled the grounds with them in the evening.
They seem to be closer and I’ve caught them running around together a few times, looking both happy and somehow suspicious at the same time.
And I’ve cooked outside whenever possible, making the most of both the weather and the space to do things at any pace I like.
All in all, nothing much has happened and that’s rather lovely really.
No real dramas at all.
Apart from dinner on the 11th.
A lovely little Italian restaurant that offers self-cooking of steak.
On a really hot stone.
You have a choice of things to cook it with.
One of those is chili salt.
I pretty much cleared the restaurant and made it abundantly clear that I didn’t give a single fuck when anyone mentioned it on the way out of the door.
The State has dropped the pretence that this country is a democracy.
A new, fucking awful, Prime Minister has replaced the old, fucking awful, duly elected Prime Minister.
A soulless robot has been replaced by a soulless seaside amusement machine, fake engagement and deep fake belly laughs.
We get no say in this, just as we get no say in where this sit-com character spends our money.
£30,000 on a flight to Manchester for him alone, plus the costs of Met Security and the rail and hotel fares for the fucking imbeciles that he’s appointed to Cabinet.
We’re so fucked that our gaping orifice is visible from space.
Taxes will rise to pay for the daily invasion of criminals and rapists that our government could stop in a heartbeat- if they wanted to.
Crime is exponential, especially rape and sexual assault and all the while, if you dare to say a word, you’re a bigot, a racist, a right wing thug.
An old lady is brutally murdered in her own home and guess what ? There’s a political / terrorist angle.
Probably not the usual suspects this time, more likely the alphabet mafia of perverts and degenerates who feel that their fucking fetishes give them permission to invade women’s spaces whilst waving their girl-cocks.
And more about them later.
What does our wonderful government do?
They fabricate a mass-murder plot against Muslims and splash the news of it all over social media.
Except it wasn’t.
But that won’t get reported in the same way.
Our media is now so compromised and complicit that it’d make the Soviets envious, whatever the state wants reported will be the truth.
Taxes will go up again.
It’s a given.
We have huge amounts of our own, home grown wastrels and money sponges, let alone the thousands upon thousands of gimmigrants who have zero interest in working or paying taxes.
We’re so fucked that they can see the aftermath from Pluto.
Staffordshire fucking Police are defying the actual law and allowing men who identify as rapist women into female cells.
A Muslim woman who dresses so that only her fucking eyes are visible through a slit has won an award where she’s empowered women – how? Fuck knows.
We’re so fucked that we look like Bonnie Blue from Saturn. That’s not a coastline and sea, it’s a bukkake tsunami.
So, what do we do?
And that’s the question.
I was in Bath on Thursday evening, I had a couple* of drinks with an old friend and we had dinner in a very nice bar.
*I only know how many from the bill, it was a lot of martinis.
We chatted all evening about times past, friends and lovers lost and the sort of conversation that bounces from point to point but somehow stays on track.
Our waitress was just the right side of friendly and probably thought that she was subtly encouraging us to drink more, she did get a good cash tip from both of us for being fun and good company without trying to game us too much.
So we may have been a tiny bit pissed.
Can’t have been too bad though as I took that on the way back to the hotel .
While we were sat at the bar, a strange thing happened.
Two very obvious, older men in dresses came in, ordered a drink and went to table.
They weren’t ‘trans’ they were men. At least fifty years old but their clothes were sort of appropriate for their age.
Still.
A bit weird.
So when it turned out that somewhere between eight and ten of them were more or less opposite us a bit further down the restaurant, it seemed natural to discuss them.
We agreed that they were:
All blokes.
Not one could pass for a female, not even the 30ish youngest of them.
Not actually doing any harm and given that they were using the disabled toilet, being reasonable and respectful.
And we agreed that despite the fact that we thought that they were all deviants, they weren’t doing any harm.
And we didn’t care.
They looked as if they belonged in Royston Vasey – all of them.
But it wasn’t hurting us.
So we didn’t care.
This country is fucked.
Beyond all recognition.
Beyond saving.
So there’s the choice.
But before that.
Here’s a word from our sponsor.
Written in 1948.
‘The horrible thing about the Two Minutes Hate was not that one was obliged to act a part, but, on the contrary, that it was impossible to avoid joining in. Within thirty seconds any pretence was always unnecessary. A hideous ecstasy of fear and vindictiveness, a desire to kill, to torture, to smash faces in with a sledge-hammer, seemed to flow through the whole group of people like an electric current, turning one even against one’s will into a grimacing, screaming lunatic.’
We can join in with this, or we can turn it upon itself.
Give yourself a moment or so a day to hate.
Not any specific group, but THEM.
The people trying to shape your life, your opinions and even the government.
Spend the rest of the day looking for the positives wherever they may be.
Family, friends, lovers, work colleagues, random strangers, cab drivers, supermarket staff, books, TV and music.
I’m writing this before lunch on a Sunday because it’s just too hot to do anything that’s even like work.
Work in this case means cutting branches down and dragging them 200 metres for a fire – or jobs like that.
The work that’s paying for some home improvements like a new boiler that’s being installed on Tuesday is now split between my office and here.
In the shade of a pair of silver birch trees some distance from the office.
I’ve installed a mesh WiFi network and it’s lovely to do video calls with the leaves whispering in the breeze.
I was thirteen for the heatwave of 1976 and it was a time that I didn’t want to end.
My parents rented a maisonette from the council and we had a small, square back garden.
That my fucking dad concreted over.
Still.
That was a minor issue, the younger sister of the next door neighbour stayed for the summer holidays, she was the same age as me and we spent every night talking until late as the skies turned gold, purple and then black.
She was immensely smart, pretty in a way that I couldn’t describe at that time and was the first love of my life.
We wrote to each other for months when she returned home, but the inevitable happened as it will at that age.
She grew up faster than me and moved on.
I thought of her for the first time in fifty years or so yesterday and wherever she is, I hope that she’s had a wonderful life so far.
My parents moved us to a house a mile or so away when was fifteen and life changed again.
And so it went.
A life that picked up speed and somehow got faster, a blur of images from a high speed toboggan run.
All those people.
All those places.
So many that I can’t remember which Caribbean island holiday was which, what happened on a particular work trip to India or Australia or..
You get the idea.
I think that it’s only the weather that’s made me think of 1976 and those moments that felt as if we were frozen in warm amber as we talked until late every night, a little transistor radio providing the soundtrack.
My mum bringing drinks and biscuits out as it got cold, a blanket draped over her arm for us to share, then smiling and going back inside the house.
And now, I lie beneath a tree, typing about a boy whose emotions I can just about remember, his view of the world so different from mine that he could be somebody else entirely.
But a bit of him is still there, his romanticism has been readjusted, his optimism is still with me most of the time and his curiosity has never gone away.
Have I acquired layers of personality and experience over him or is it more complicated than that?
Am I / are we / one personality or a core that is mostly unchanging with a set of other personalities that can be swapped and changed?
This week I’m going to be a number of different people.
Today, I’m almost in neutral gear, listening to music while the dogs wander around – Milo has disappeared but Cairo is asleep under an apple tree next to me
I’m dipping in and out of reading a book while playing with my cameras and gradually getting an understanding of ‘oh. THAT’S how you do that.’
Tomorrow, I’ll be back in work mode along with being almost a passenger when I see a private consultant at 430 to look at my right knee.
Wednesday, I’ll be in full on bastard mode when I meet a 3rd party company to tell them exactly how they’re going to be delivering work for us until December, then I’ll join a senior management call before checking into a hotel.
Then I’ll be meeting a friend for drinks somewhere as it’s her birthday the next day.
It’s Cairo’s birthday the same day.
Remember the date.
After a few drinks, I’ll put my grown up face on and we’ll go for dinner at Simpsons in the Strand.
Maybe Soho after that -who knows? If so, I’ll put on a harder edge and become more or less unapproachable to the outside world.
I’ve blagged a free day off on Thursday, I’ll make a massive fuss of Cairo and probably do a pub lunch.
And I’ll be whatever the dogs want me to be.
But that’s mostly chilled, soft spoken and affectionate.
I’ll still be ‘me’ at the core of all this though.
The idealistic, romantic thirteen year old is somewhere in the mix along with the versions of him that learned a lifetime of lessons, some tough, some wonderful beyond belief.
I wonder what he’d think? Would this life be what he could have imagined? Would he have thought that when he was learning French or German that he’d have dinner with a Paris St Germain footballer or that he’d have some fantastic adventures while working in Berlin, that he’d live in India, meet a god, fly out to Thailand on a whim for a weekend and dare the gods to strike him down during a lightning storm and a monsoon, that he’d trawl the bars of London and Sydney, with dozens of cities in between, that he’d retire with two dogs that he adores, that he’d go back to work, do more travel, host a dinner in Edinburgh Castle for high ranking military officers from around the world, that the few friends that he’s developed over the years are amongst the best people in the world, that fifty years after he first fell in love, he still looks at life with wonder and gratitude.
That the various bits of his personality flow around each other like a kaleidoscope view.
