the brilliantly leaping gazelle

It was prophetic that LMS has, for part of her online school lessons, been reading ‘A Christmas Carol’ by some bloke whose name no-one can ever remember, these last few days. I write prophetic, but in the light of an announcement by the government yesterday, ought that have been profitic?

According to the BBC

Covid: Shops in England can open 24 hours a day over Christmas

Shops in England will be allowed to stay open for 24 hours a day in the run-up to Christmas and in January, the housing secretary has said.

Local authorities will be able to temporarily waive the rules restricting retail opening hours.

Of course the Beeb found time to get a reaction from the British Retial Consortium, who welcomed the move. What a shock that was! They also found the time to get the views from someone from UK Hospitality who complained that their industry was something and needed more government support.

Sadly a lack of time prevented them from getting the views of the Trade Unions Congress or any organisation that represents the views of the workers. You know, the workers that’ll actually enable the shoppers to shop.

‘What did you get for Christmas, Dave?’ ‘Time and a half’

Scrooge would’ve been so proud.

Maybe it’s just me, but don’t you ever feel that other people seem more grown up than you? That by some kind of unspeakably cruel twist of fate, rather like Harry Potter finding out he was a wizard and setting off to Hogwarts to learn how to unlock his potential, some people have learnt how navigate the various transitions that ageing continually presents us with.

No?

You’ve never felt that?

You’ve never felt that the mysterious ways of the grown up were part of a secret world, not so secret that you didn’t know it existed, but secret enough for you never to be admitted. Never felt that at any second you’d feel a hand on your shoulder and a stern voice saying ‘Come along now. Enough’s enough, you’ve had your fun.’ and you’d have to put the clothes back in the dressing up box.  Never felt that other people were just born with dormant grown up gene, and at a certain age it would activate and they’d become better at being a grown up? Like getting married, staying married, buying a house, that sort of thing.

As I’ve always maintained, I’m basically a fourteen old boy trapped in the body of an old man. So the opposite of some priests. See what I mean? No grown up would think to write that, but a deeply immature juvenile might. And that’s how immature I am, that when I go to supermarkets and see mature cheddar cheese, my first thought is always ‘Where’s the immature cheddar then?’ When I say his to friends, they wear a smile that says ‘Just humour him’. Them more grown up people. The sort of people who know what a stopcock is and don’t think it the name you give your Mum when you hear your hear her coming up the stairs when you’re masturbating and suddenly stop.

I was reminded of this yesterday when Joe and Marge had a visit from Marge’s sister-in-law. They had a proper grown up chat about grown up things, the sort of things that in the ‘50’s and ‘60’s, only men with mustard yellow cardigans and pipes were allowed to have. But equality being what it is, women can join in.

And then I remembered that before the brain injury, I was quite good at pretending to be grown up. I mean I never for one second thought I was one, but I did do a pretty convincing impersonation of one. People trusted me, they trusted me with really grown up things, things which, if they went wrong would’ve caused loss of life. I know. Fools!  After that performance ended, I somehow convinced grown ups who really should’ve known better, that I was the right person to help people cope with the worst experience of their life. Me?

It all seems like it happened to someone else. In point of fact it did. That person is gone, the only thing I have of his are his memories. And that memory of me isn’t shared by many other people now. It’s a bit like an old photograph, faded so much so that only a vague impression remains. If you don’t have a grown up job, don’t talk about grown up things, don’t have grown up hobbies, and don’t dress like a grown up, well other grown ups don’t see you as a grown up.

Instead, they’re the ones who might put a hand on my shoulder and with a stern voice says ‘Come along now. Enough’s enough, you’ve had your fun.’ 

One of the things I’ll miss when I leave here and return to North London is being able to play my music loud. Not that I’ve ever been able to play it really loud, you understand, but loud. Previous and present house-mates might take issue with my definition of loud and really loud, but firstly, Lauren Tate and secondly, they have all had quite questionable taste in music, so…

I had cause to reflect on this yesterday afternoon. Joe, Marge and LMS had gone outdoors to do whatever it is people go outside to do when it’s cold. Actually, I don’t think the weather made much of a difference one way or the other. They went somewhere out of the house. Marge asked if I’d join them. Resisting the temptation to exclaim that they looked as if their limbs and heads were securely attached, I made a noise that could easily have been misheard as ‘I might join you later’

But the voices in my head were screaming ‘Are you mad? Go outdoors? When if I stay indoors you’ll leave me alone in the house, with just me, my computer which when synced to my hi-fi means loud music therapy. Don’t let the door hit you on the way out’. Really? Pass up on the only opportunity I get to play music loud? When they’re all out of the house and there’s only me to please. Because I can’t convey exactly how fundamentally important music has been to me.

Always has. Ever since I was 13, and got a paper round just so I could save up enough money that I could afford a ghetto blaster one and persuade my Mum to let me have it in my room. It wasn’t long, thankfully, before I discovered pirate radio. It’s hard to convey just how little choice I had until that happy revelation. There was Radio One, Radio London and that was it. Chart based pop in the day and jangly guitar ear botheration at night. Great! My parent’s favourite album was ‘Distant Drums’ by Jim Reeves. You haven’t heard it? You’re lucky. Between him, ‘The Chieftains’’ and ‘The Dubliners’ my childhood was a sonic nightmare of Irish folk songs. Not that they used the stereogram that in the front room that much and when they did, I always associated it with the volume being turned down, never up. Even now I have a pathological resentment towards people who turn music down. Or talk over it. Or stop a track before it’s ended.

Anyway pirate radio. JFM, LWR, Solar, these were the big three. I fondly remember turning the radio’s tuning dial with the concentration and precision of a safecracker. The one thing that united the pirates was a deep and abiding love of the music, mostly funk and soul, then later a smattering of electro and early hip-hop, and their eagerness to share it. The next logical step was for me to buy a turntable to connect to the ghetto blaster so I could play the some of the records I’d heard on the radio. Buying them wasn’t a problem. I knew exactly what record shops to go to because they were name-checked by the D.J’s.

I’ve still got some the tapes I recorded off the pirates. And that’s the thing with music. The music you like, you might fall out of like with it, but the music you love, well…Its like an aural TARDIS, instantly transporting you back you that the time in your life when you first heard that song, that tune, who you were with, what you were doing, who you were doing. Or sometimes, it’s simply a great piece of music that needs to be played loud.

Which is odd, given as how Marge bought my speakers for me – I chose them – but she knew they’d be positioned directly under her room, perhaps she misguidedly thought it meant she could be all ambient police; enter the sitting room, declare the music was too loud and then leave. Not before turning the lights up. Or down.

But in North London I am reliably informed that my ‘offensively loud’ music will not be tolerated. Neighbours, apparently. I’ve never had to worry about them for over 30 years, having lived in places where that wasn’t a concern. Not that it would’ve affected the volume if I had, you understand, but still. Now I guess I’ll have to.

‘Offensively loud’. Is that even a thing?

Last night Marge told me that London was now under ‘Tier 2’ lockdown. Whatever that means. Marge did try and explain it me, but as she did, all I could think of was of football. Specifically, the football match between the Brits and the Germans on Christmas Day 1914. You know, the famous one, the one everyone goes on about, like it somehow meant something that some men took a break from trying to kill each other over some bit of land and had a kickabout on it instead.

I couldn’t help but think that the coronavirus isn’t going to give us a Christmas truce. It doesn’t care that we need a jolly. And it doesn’t care that we’re tired of it all, all of the this, all of the that, and especially tired of all of the other and we just want a few days off when we can just be.

If it did have a consciousness, it might conclude that the government’s scientific advisors have given their advice and the government had decided to do what is practicable and enforceable instead. That the government had looked back to last summer, the hordes of people swarming to the south coast in breach of the lockdown and decided, quite rationally that they didn’t want a repeat of people doing their own thing.

If Boris Johnson had wanted act statesmanlike, as if he was somehow above doing things based on political expediency but instead took the less popular but more courageous one, he could be fairly described acting like his political hero as Churchill, and acting in the national interest. Instead, he went for a quick win, and by so doing, inadvertently scored an own goal.

Yesterday’s post about guidelines also caused me to reflect on other non-words. By that I mean words that have a specific meaning when used in a specific context, but can also be used in a non-specific way, in a way that doesn’t commit the speaker to anything.

Goal is a textbook example of this. Used in relation to a specific context – a sports activity – a goal is the specific place that a team has to either attack or defend, lest their opponents manage to pass the ball through that space. If they do, they are said to have scored a goal, or earned a point. Fine. That makes sense. There’s no ambiguity about what a goal is that context. A goal is a goal.  However, when people talk about having a goal, it has an altogether different meaning. It is used to denote a target at which to aim or a point to be reached or an amount of something to be raised. Also if that goal is to achieved by collective endeavour, so much the better. It doesn’t imply that anyone is committed to undertake anything in pursuit of that goal. Nor is there a sense of having failed should that goal not be achieved. The fact that there was a goal is the important thing, not that it wasn’t attained.  

Same with ambition.  You hear a lot of talk about an ambition to achieve something.  Politicians use it all the time. An ambition is a good thing whether or not that ambition is ever translated into actual demonstrable results is another matter.  But it is enough that the ambition was there, the intention to do the thing, regardless if the thing was done or not.

Like is another example of a word having a specific meaning, to be keen on something or generally having positive feelings toward that it. But free of that contextual underpinning, it means nothing at all. Apart from someone feeling that they’ve said the right thing that is, and uttered a socially accepted form of bullshit. An example might be someone saying ‘I’d like to do x’ or ‘I’d really like if it…’ It doesn’t commit them to doing x or indeed ever making any attempts to achieve x.  The point is more that for the few seconds everyone feels good, the bullshitter and the person being bullshat.  The x isn’t important here. It can be anything at all. The fact that someone would life’ to do something is. They probably won’t.

But they’d like to.

I myself have exploited this linguistic loophole for wholly self-serving needs.  In a previous life one of my jobs involved dealing with, amongst other things people’s complaints.  So I quickly learnt that by saying ‘I’d like to say sorry for x’ was a neat way of not saying sorry at all.  Because they heard ‘sorry’ and I would say it with such an earnest and sorrowful look on my face, they never twigged that me saying I would like to do something wasn’t the same as me doing the thing.  I wasn’t saying sorry, just that I would like to say it. I wasn’t. And I had no intention of doing so either. But that was bye the bye, and almost always did pass them by.

So in that context ‘like’ has as much meaning as ‘guidelines’ as does ‘ambition’ as does ‘goal’. 

And wish. 

Not forgetting aspiration. 

Guidelines. It’s such a wonderfully opaque word isn’t it?  Guidelines don’t order, compel, or otherwise enforce compliance.  They’re basically advisory.  You can do this or not.  It’s up to you.  How you interpret them will differ to a greater or lesser extent than someone else. In most cases guidelines are wonderfully apt.

I receive personalisation to pay for my domestic care.  The great thing about this is that there are no hard and fast rules governing what my money can or can’t be spent on.  Yes there are guidelines, but social services haven’t seen fit to furnish me with these despite my continued requests.  Which leaves me with a pretty large grey area with which to play with. After all, if I haven’t seen the guidelines, it stands to reason that I can’t interpret them.

Therefore in some cases, interpreting guidelines according to one’s own needs is fine. As long as it has no detrimental effect on society, that is.

This isn’t true in a pandemic. Our actions are not consequence free. The interpretation of the guidelines by people last summer by vast swathes of people have bought us to this unfortunate yet preventable circumstance; one where yet more guidelines will be issued and which will be interpreted as before. Remember last summer? The crowded beaches? Of course people knew the guidelines said that they shouldn’t travel, but they also knew, they knew, even though it hadn’t been announced, that travel restrictions were going to be eased. Same with ‘Eat Out to Help Out’. The gastro-pub at the bottom of our road took part in this. On balmy summer evenings the street outside was chocca with people eating at tables. There wasn’t much evidence there of social distancing.

We are where we are because people interpret things according to their own needs and see no contradiction in blaming others for doing what they do.

This morning has gotten off to a truly dreadful start.  Appallingly bad, in fact.  I haven’t felt this low since… well I can’t recall but not for a long time anyway. 

I got up this morning and LMS made me a cup of tea.  I write ‘made’ but ‘made’ doesn’t cover the half of what she does. She makes tea in the same way a tailor makes a made to measure suit. Some people when they make a cup of tea turn the kettle on and then make a phone call or are otherwise distracted and then make the tea with water that boiled some minutes ago.  Or they make the tea, add the milk and the sugar, give it a stir and that’s it.  Or even worse, an unholy combination of the two. 

But not LMS, oh no. 

She waits by the kettle until it has boiled then a few seconds later she adds the boiling water to the cup.  Then she takes the teabag out and puts some milk in.  She then adds the sugar, which is where most people would stop and think their work here is done.  But no, she’s only just begun.  Like a chemist in a lab she carefully takes a sip of the tea from a teaspoon and decides if it needs more sugar or milk puts, the teaspoon down and if it dies, uses another teaspoon uses another one to add more sugar.  She gives that a stir, and repeats the testing element.  Sometimes, she will put the teabag back in and add more milk.  Her reasoning being that she wouldn’t serve me a tea that she wouldn’t herself drink.  Which is fine and dandy in my book. 

However, the reason I am so appalled this morning is because it has just dawned on me that the maker of consistently outstanding cups of tea will very soon be in a different part of the country to me.  Not an especially good start to the day.

Sherlock Holmes was given to remark that some of his problems were so fiendishly difficult to solve that he’d need three of pipes of cocaine to help him deduce. A three pipe problem, he’d call it. LMS has refined this so that making a cup of tea can become a three teaspoon problem.

If you’re anything like me, by that I mean cynical and not brain damaged, possibly you have occasionally wondered how on earth firms such as Capita, G4S, Serco et al, are continually awarded large government contracts which they fail to deliver on. Wonder no more, for this morning I was ‘treated’ to a front row seat of how to do things. Badly. Granted, it was only LMS having her first online lesson of this particular lockdown. But as a very small, very inconsequential example of how if this was massively up scaled to, oh I don’t know, test and trace, it gave me an insight of the truism I mentioned yesterday, namely ‘no plan survives contact with the enemy’

Any plan that has as a key component technology is already on the backfoot, moreso if it involves untrained people – in this case parents – using computers. The first problem was joining the session in the first place. This took while and I was given to idly contemplate that just because someone says something in a calm voice, it doesn’t make what they say calming. More importantly, I reflected on the fact that the school should’ve foreseen this as a potential problem and sorted this out. After all, it’s not as if they didn’t have any experience of hosting online lessons to call upon. They had earlier this year, when they did the same thing. They could, they should’ve learnt from this. But no.

It reminded me of Joe’s experience trying to give blood the other day. Blood plasma from people who’ve tested positive for cornavirus is valuable in developing a vaccine. Or something. I just know it has things in it that are important things and these things could help lead to other things, which might lead to something important. Anyway, the thing is that given how the government had bestowed some importance on this, and given for the whole thing to work it needed the people to give their blood plasma -incidentally not as straightforward as donating blood – given all that, one would imagine the process would be as simple as they could make it. You might well think it, but thinking it doesn’t make it so.

Joe was contacted and invited to a donation centre. Where they asked him a load of questions, eventually deeming him unsuitable for donating his plasma. Which is fine, there’s nothing wrong with being thorough. But the problem I have is that when they contacted him, there could easily have been given information about an online questionnaire, that could have informed him instantly if he was suitable or not, or if he’d need to turn up and provide additional information. But no.

That would’ve been too sensible and wouldn’t have wasted enough of time. That’s the thing, if the government – basically you and I, the taxpayers – are paying the bill, there’s no incentive do a thorough job. Indeed quite the opposite in fact because the same companies are rewarded for their woefully lamentable performance with yet more government contracts they fail to deliver on.

Granted, a schools ability or not to successfully organize an online lesson for sixty pupils, isn’t in and of itself that important. But the school receives taxpayer’s money and parents might reasonably have an expectation of competence. Same with the blood plasma fiasco.  They’re both indicative of a culture of taxpayer funded incompetence that seems be the single tangible result of outsourcing.

So, we’re in isolation and naturally, we’re following the governments guidelines regarding what you can and can’t do whilst in isolation. Well, we’re following them as most people are and applying to whatever seems to fit in with their lives at any given time, One of my housemates – and there’s a large caveat there – on hearing the news of LMS school closure and that we all in isolation, declared that as he hadn’t been in her company much recently, he was off for the weekend to help his ex with their childcare.

And that, in a nutshell, helps explains why we are where we are. Of course the government should impose regulations that curtail certain civil liberties on people if it will help protect the most fundamental civil liberty of all, the right to life. I mean we can all agree on that, can’t we? Can’t we? Because it seems to me that that whilst that theory works fine in theory, it is when it meets reality things go wrong. A famous Field Marshall once said ‘No plan ever survives contact with the enemy’ and what is true in war is also true in the fight against this pandemic it seems

I myself am not immune from the self-serving application of the rules. When Joe had a positive test for coronavirus a month ago, a week’s holiday suddenly vanished. Chuffed I was not. Although being fair to Joe, he did drive me to have a test and helped me complete it. But once it came back negative that was it. I was out of the house and making the most of the disappearing warm sun, thinking ‘No fucking way am I staying cooped up if I have to”

So whilst in theory we might agree with something, that agreement only applies to other people, not to us, we’re somehow exempt from the opprobrium we dole out to others. Talking about curtailing civil liberties, I’ve been summoned by LMS to inspect her den that she’s made with packing boxes.

It has windows now

The last couple of days have involved me having the rather disconcerting experience of me not being someone else. And why was I not Doris Svensonn this morning? Well the sound of a harmonica being played while I’m having my first cup of tea, the first cup of tea moreover, that the person playing the harmonica knows I like to enjoy in silence. A thought has just occurred to me: why is a harmonica called a harmonica, when the sound that comes out of it is so patently not?

Anyway, LMS continued on in the vein for what was too long until Joe asked her stop, which she did. Eventually. However, the silence couldn’t last and there were no thoughts of homicide in my mind whatsoever, no idle speculation of which of the items readily to hand could best be used as a murder weapon, when Joe suggested that LMS should try to play scales on it instead in a kind of weird parental amnesia.

This ear bedevilment was soon replaced by Joe suggesting that LMS should play the bongo’s. “Quietly, he said. Yes indeed he did! I had no idea that bongo’s came with volume settings, I just thought there was only one, bloody infuriating. With of course they are, one glorious exception:

From 1:46 on its just aural perfection. It just is.

Anyway, enough about me. How was your morning? Again, another thought has just popped into my head. Mine wasn’t so much a morning as a mourning.