Brexit means...

     Brexit means, according to our omnishambles of a Prime Minister, ‘Brexit’. Very good, well done. But what does it actually entail, in practical terms? So far, it seems to translate into the real world as loss of access to the single market, the end of freedom of movement, an explosion in hate crime, British farming possibly not being able to feed us, a reduction of 96% in EU residents applying to work in the NHS, people who have lived and worked in this country for decades being denied the right to live here, increased inflation with no real rise in income, the value of the pound dropping like a stone. A heavy stone. Oh, and did I mention the loss of jobs, lack of political stability, the potential end of the Good Friday Agreement, international companies leaving the UK in droves, and a widespread feeling that politicians are hellbent on making sure this country implodes in ever more unlikely ways? No? Oh well. You’re probably getting there yourself already.

     Aside from that, it’s all going swimmingly. As anyone caught in a riptide will tell you. There might be some positives from Brexit. I just honestly can’t see any and don’t even bloody START with bollocks about ‘taking back control’ or ‘funding our NHS’ or ‘making Britain great again’, because that’s just soundbite bollocks and I’m not going to listen to cheap little knock off  claptrap. I want facts and figures here, not the meaningless  slogans that translate no further than some kind of wispy belief that it’s all health and safety gone mad, and we have too many human rights and we should look after our own, and somehow being part of a wider community  weakens us so much more than standing on our own. The EU is a community, in just the same way that so many other things are, where we live, where we work, the people with whom we socialise, or come together to effect change.

     The thing that Vote Leave loved to bang on about during their campaign was telling us how much we pay in to the EU. That bloody £350 million… What they cannily avoided was mentioning how much of that comes back to the UK. The things in the UK that are solely funded by the EU kitty that we’ve paid into. Yes, some of our money goes to other countries. But we get money back in ways that so many were blissfully unaware of. In science, in arts & culture, in construction, in education, in collaboration, in so many Cinderella areas of study and research that the UK government overlooks. When you consider the value of being able to share ideas with almost an entire continent so freely, then we get that £350 million back in spades. Actual spades. And trowels. And all sorts of other stuff, but I’m going to bang on about archaeology for a bit, because that’s what I do.

     Archaeology in the UK receives 38% of its funding from the EU. 38%. Higher than any other discipline. Once Brexit actually is Brexit, as opposed to just meaning it, that funding is gone. We won’t be paying in, so we won’t get anything out. Losing 38% of funding is pretty much unsustainable for anything. So what that will mean – because I can actually define what words mean, rather than just repeat them – is that there will be scores of archaeology projects that will simply never happen, because there is no money for them. There will still be some funding available, in the form of UK based donations, loans, and grants, but effectively there will be the same number of people chasing money that has been reduced by over a third. Not hard to see where the bottom line is. Projects and groups will miss out. The prestigious organisations probably won’t. The esteemed universities and academics probably won’t. But the little fish in the big pond will, because they don’t have the back up or the cover or the funding. And of all the small fish in the pond, community archaeology is the tiddler.

     Community archaeology, where ordinary people with no previous experience or knowledge can get involved with little or no demand on their pockets. Where the guidance and expertise of professional archaeologists is needed to encourage and inspire people to get stuck in, to learn, to enjoy, to make a difference, not just to archaeology but to the  volunteers lives too as they become part of a community. Part of a community that’s not just the non-professionals having a go, and getting stuck in, making friends and having fun, but a broader, wider community of Historic Environment Record officers, of professional archaeologists giving up hours of their time to help plan and liaise a project before even a single civilian has been recruited, who organise and run the training events, the open days, who advise on funding and grant applications. Who are so often the ones steering and guiding even the most volunteer led community archaeology groups. The ones who actually have to deal with the information generated by groups. Volunteers may like to think of themselves as being the ones who make the difference (and god knows I’ve banged on about that enough), but without the support of so many people whose careers are rooted in archaeology, we’d be both useless and clueless (and I’m not even going to go into how having even just one Real & Proper Archaeology Person linked to something grants it legitimacy, invites respect and elevates it beyond simply a group of people with a shared interest. Oh piss off, I’m not being snobby. You know it’s true; if you’re good enough to have a professional working alongside you, you are considered in the eyes of others to have something special. See? Me not going on about it). But without funding, these experts won't be in any kind of position to make those vital contributions that allow archaeology to be open to you, me, them, us, everyone.

      Community archaeology has changed my life and many others too. But it’s going to wither away to almost nothing, or almost certainly require people to no longer be volunteers but paying customers instead, which is quite some shift. It’s already starting to happen. Crowdfunding to enable digs to go ahead. Paying for access to excavations or membership fees because in the age of austerity, every penny of funding counts, and it’s got to be spent wisely. As council budgets shrink, the museums services face cuts, the archaeology departments are outsourced, HERs are deployed ever more sparingly, and public outreach programmes to encourage participation are either mothballed or never even started in the first place.

     Because when that EU money shrivels up, when archaeology has to face this funding crisis, when archaeology is cut to the financial bone, then anything that doesn’t make money – and community archaeology really doesn’t – is going to be bottom of the pile when grants are handed out. If it isn’t economically viable, it has to go. And professional archaeologists, lovely and shiny and sweet as they can be, have to make a living somehow (although as today’s Guardian  points out, even those who are highly experienced and qualified struggle to do even that when working full time).  So they’ll either have to charge people to be part of the project, or the project will just never happen at all. Those communities of volunteers will never again be the same, or just won’t be created in the future.

     I make jokes about not being your average volunteer. Because I’m not. I don’t fit the demographic. Community archaeology has, for now but not much longer, been able to thrive thanks to an army of retired people who are far from being on the scrapheap, and want not only to keep busy, but also to make a contribution to the groups and places around them. Their communities.

     The demographic of volunteers is generally white skinned, white haired, middle class, retired Brits. People living comfortable lives, in comfortable middle England, comfortable lives that the EU barely impinges on in any real sense. The very same demographic who, by a majority, voted for Brexit, yet can’t tell us what Brexit means. The very same demographic who go out and give up their time to support history and heritage, yet fail to understand what is happening to archaeology. The very same demographic who gave life to community archaeology have effectively ensured that its demise is almost inevitable. They ‘won’ the referendum. Eventually, they may come to see that it was a Pyrrhic victory, when the projects they have been part of can no longer continue as they have done. So that’s one very narrow, very personally relevant, definition of what Brexit means to one small fish in one big pond. There will be a lot more small fish washing up.

Rounded Balls

     It’s going to be on my headstone, isn’t it? “Ed Balls, she totally would have”. Despite my best efforts, you lot are a load of filthy smut lovers and that remains my most popular blogpost by a fuckload. It’s also the most shambolic and chaotic I’ve ever posted, owing to my complete lack of blogging ability at the time. I’ve been telling myself for years to go back and tidy it up, cut out the dead links, make it look neat and tidy and slightly less frenzied, yet I can’t ever really be arsed. I think the crappiness of it lends it a certain charm/worryingly stalkerish air, as though my brain was so addled by Balls that I was typing with one hand.

     Err… I wasn’t, by the way. Just to be clear.

     It just won’t die, that post. Every few weeks it obviously gets stumbled across by someone looking at the dark underbelly of Balls, and it gets shared around a bit. And then, quite often, people are so horrified that they can’t look away from the screen and so they read other posts of mine and… well, I can imagine that it’s not quite what they expected. There’s no obvious overlap between Ed Balls and medieval graffiti, or cricket, or poetry, or music, or me swearing my fat white arse off about other bloggers, or detailing how it feels when your life explodes into the tiny fragments of a shattered mirror and you have to explain to your child why there’s blood on your face.

     Except that there is an overlap. And it’s obvious. At least to me. But then I would say that.

     Friday was a bit of a strange day, all told. For starters it was ED BALLS DAY (which I think you’ll find is an ancient Pagan tradition, actually), so Mumsnet Bloggers reshared That Blogpost, just in case anyone had been spared. My twitter notifications all day were a thing of joy and beauty, the nation uniting under The Balls. Sadly, I had to leave the celebrations for a few short hours to attend the launch event of Flintspiration, a weekend long celebration of the heritage of Norwich’s churches… What? And part of the launch was me giving a tour of the medieval graffiti at Norwich Cathedral, which I just sodding LOVE to do. I’m not much use in many other respects, but I know a bit about graffiti, the cathedral in particular. My contribution to actually finding graffiti there can be confined to one small cross, but I can talk about it for hours. And do.

     I had a LOVELY group to take round, who were full of interest and asked great questions and I really, really enjoyed it – you could say I’m still fairly pert and bouncy from it now, the equivalent of a graffiti hangover. The only thing was…. The assumption that I was something more than I am. That I must be something to do with the University of East Anglia. No? A freelance researcher? No? Working for the Museums Service? And each time, I just smiled and explained that I’m just a volunteer, no one special or important and each time I could see a slight frown develop, because it didn’t quite add up. I could almost read their thought process ‘But you seem so confident in your knowledge and explanation, you answered every question convincingly. You seem so passionate and excited to introduce us to graffiti. You can’t just be a volunteer with no qualifications or expertise.’

     But like I said, the answer is obvious. I’m just a person. And like most people, most normal people that is, I’m not a single issue fanatic with only one topic of conversation or interest. Loving medieval graffiti doesn’t exclude me from tweeting CAPS LOCK SWEARS during the cricket. Having a folder titled ‘Political Sex Faces’ on my laptop doesn’t mean I don’t know what it’s like to attempt suicide. Being RARGGGHHH and kickarse didn’t protect me from violence. Because that is the human condition. To be multifaceted, contradictory, interested, and hopefully interesting.

     When I think of the people who know me – and I mean really know me – they have seen all sides of me and accept me for who and what I am. It’s liberating, to know that there is no need for me to impress anyone, to prove my credentials, or claim legitimacy through links to other people who are considered Official. So if that means that sometimes I’m serious, sometimes I’m silly, sometimes I’m sobbing… I’m human. I’m healthy. I am as I should be. I am as I should be seen, as I am, as it is my personality which defines me, and it is my thoughts and interests that define my personality. Possibly not to universal taste, but there we are. I'm rounded, not superficial or one dimensional.

     People might think they know me for one thing, one article, one blogpost, one tweet. I’m more than that. Everyone is. We shouldn’t be afraid to show that, for fear of losing face. We shouldn’t tie ourselves to one subject to avoid standing alone. We should not claim to be something we are not. At least I think so.  But then I’m just an Ed Balls volunteer and I totally do medieval graffiti.

I'm in your head

     This is a truth I hold dear. Some people cannot write. In the same way that I cannot draw, some people cannot write. We can all have a game stab at it, throwing words out there into the world, but the truth remains: some people cannot write. Or rather, some people do not understand how writing works.

     When you read something – anything – whether it’s a book, an article or even just an email, the writer is inside your head as you absorb those words. Yes, I am inside your head right now. Hello! Bit dark in here, isn’t it? You are reading my words, and my written voice is inside your head, right here, right now. If you’ve unavoidably  failed to escape me in real life, then you might even be reading this imagining me actually speaking (for those of you who have been spared, my voice is actually quite small, bit of a Norwich accent, prone to breaking into a hooting laugh that’s as big as The Mane). I am writing these words to you, reader, whoever and wherever you are, distracting you from things you should really be paying more attention to. Sorry, I won’t keep you too long.

     I was hoping to get away with not writing this next bit, but I’m lazy and can’t think of a way round it. People, some people, tell me that I’m a good writer. And I’m not being a faux modest twat when I say that I don’t think that I am. Because to me there’s no magical process that takes place. I don’t struggle and slave over this stuff. If I say ‘I’ve written something, I’ll edit it later’ what I actually mean is that it’s all written in a notebook already, or that it’s there, fully formed in my head, I just need to be poked into actually typing it. I don’t have an angsty tortured relationship with The Muse, I don’t have a writing routine (other than really liking to write in a pub), I don’t spend hours writhing in agony waiting for inspiration to strike, and I very definitely don’t have a writing style. I just write the way I think.

     Yeah. It is honestly that simple. It doesn’t matter what I feel like writing about, or what thought has been bothering me, or what mood I’m in. I don’t rehearse it. I know I’m lucky in that I pretty much only have to write for me, I don’t have to consider an audience or use jargon or seek to flatter anyone. I’m not even writing for self-promotion, just for myself, just to verbalise whatever occurs to me. And sometimes it’s shit, to be honest. Sometimes it’s ok. Occasionally it touches a nerve with people and I get told I’m a Good Writer. Am I bollocks. I’m just honest.

     And whilst I’ve got you here, I’m going to be even more furtherly honest, and admit that I can be a bit of a wanker about writing and saying that I have to write and that I feel like me when I write and I’m a nightmare to deal with when I don’t. The difference in me since I was gifted my beloved desk is noticeable enough to be remarked upon. Also, it does rather feel like the pressure cooker has blown as a result, so I probably will do a lot of navel-gazing selfindulgent tosser blogposts … because I can, now. And before you sneer and say I’m no better than the shit writers I frequently rail against and that this type of writing is essentially mental wanking with my pen as a dildo…. Mate, you don’t have to read this. No one’s forcing you to. Just close the tab. Kthanksbye.

     One the biggest frustrations I have are pieces that…. Just sort of… well. Something that really annoys me is… I’m not sure. What do you think?

     Yes, people who don’t have the courage of their convictions. Who have an idea, but don’t let it blossom. Who have a voice, but deliberately stifle it, for fear of giving offence, or only appealing to a few people, so everything's a bit watery, or even more annoyingly, not fully fleshed out. I’ve said it before, I’ll say it again – no one is ever going to achieve universal popularity. Not even Michael Palin. So why seek it? If you care enough to write about something, then care enough to deliver your message in full. I’m going to end this paragraph now before I add a picture of a snowflake falling over a rainbow at sunrise whilst a unicorn races past a shower of glitter confetti with comic sans lettering urging you to ‘Be Yourself. There Is No One Else You Can Be.’

     Which sort of leads up to the point I was supposed to be making when I first started hammering this out. Writing only works when it’s honest and direct and written without a filter. I’ve spent far too much time in recent months reading pieces by Other People that leave me cold, unmoved, and frankly really rather bored. Because they are written always with an eye on who’s going to be reading, who do I want to see this, who do I want to impress? So the words fall down because they’re too carefully picked, or they’re not really what the writer was thinking, or they’re just strung together in a way that is too artificial.

     There is no magic guide to writing. None. All there is is the voice inside your head that decides what you think and feel, your inner narrator. And when you read the writing of others, you are giving them headspace. And when I write, when I can actually be arsed to share what I’ve written* then I am, briefly, inside your head, providing the voiceover. That is all that writing is. A voice inside your head.

     

*to prove my point, I wrote this about six months ago, and only found it again today, having forgotten all about it. This happens quite a lot.

Speech Marks

     

I say I’m a ‘bit obsessed with graffiti’. I may be slightly underselling my feelings there. I’m more than a bit obsessed. I am consumed by it. It started, a these things do innocently enough, with a bit of light reading and the odd like and retweet. I liked it, but there were other ore pressing matters at the time. Such as a blog about how my face melted in a sauna in edgefield once.

     As we know, my feelings changed. Quite quickly. Not overnight, but overday, to be honest. Something shifted, clicked into place and I got graffiti. It made sense to me. I felt as though I’d become fluent in a new mother tongue. I hadn’t, as I now cringingly realise. With the zealous passion of a neophyte, I made pronouncements, went off on half-cocked tangents and made probably more mistakes than things I got right. They’re all out there somewhere still, testament to my early excitement. I could go out and cover over those errors and embarrassments with the handy ‘delete?’ button, but I think we usually learn better from our mistakes, so have something of distrust for those who maintain a façade of faultless, blameless perfection. To err is human, to deny that is be dead behind the eyes. It’s instructive too, to go back and see the younger me, on the right track, trying out this new language, even if my lack of knowledge meant that sometimes my hovercraft was full of eels.

     But what graffiti meant to me then, and always will, is communication. It’s the impulse that causes someone to create it, whether that’s medieval daisywheel, a 17^th century memorial, or a tag on an underpass. All graffiti is created with the intention of being seen. That is the entire point of it. If the person making their mark didn’t intend for it to be seen by others, they wouldn’t do it in the first place, it would remain only a thought, a wish, a prayer even. I’m always wary of over interpreting things (which isn’t to say I don’t overthink EVERYTHING), but even the smallest, most plain and mundane graffito was created with feeling, by someone. For someone specifically? Perhaps. Possibly. Potentially. But always for an intended audience, whether as one individual to another or just as a message wider, unknowing and maybe uncaring world.

     The thing to remember though is that attitudes change. The word ‘graffiti’ wasn’t even coined until 1851, which rather suggests that before then it wasn’t needed. But it certainly existed before then – because the word came into being to describe the inscriptions that were being found on the walls of the newly discovered Pompeii. But until that point, graffiti had been considered as unremarkable as to almost never be remarked upon. And yet it was there, seen, registering with an audience, whether they were the direct targets or not, for as long as humans have been able to write and draw, they have left their ideas behind on the walls. We celebrate the historic graffiti, painstakingly record it, pin the butterfly to the board… but how much do we really think about those who created it and what they are still trying to tell us now? There is a story behind every graffito, it’s never mindless doodling or just a coincidence that it happens to be there.

     Graffiti today is considered unwelcome and illicit, something destructive and bad. That's precisely why artists create it in public spaces, people who feel sidelined, who feel out of kilter and don't feel that they have any other outlet to express their feelings. Whether they do it to claim  space for themselves, or to express their contempt for other people, whether they do it to be provocative, I can't claim to know. But their intention is to be seen, whatever the motivation. It's done to be provocative - either to create moral indignation at the fact that it exists, or a message to make the audience think. Creating it in any space is seen as naughty, subversive, and antisocial. But could anything be more personal, more touching, more human than the need to communicate with others? To leave a speech mark without words in a language everyone can read, but few seem able to understand?

Head desk

   

  I’ve always had a desk. Always. From the rickety little wooden toy school desk with lift up lid & fake inkwell, to the vast mahogany expanse of my teenage homework years of paper pile ups, discarded ink cartridges, and abandoned glasses of Ribena, the boardroom table of my first years in employment,  which dominated my office to the extent that no other furniture would bloody fit in the room, on to the flat pack laminated cheapy naffness of my 20s & early 30s that may also have been used as a babychange station for The Girl at times, and then finally, a much beloved bureau belonging to my parents that sat in the corner of the living room in my last home.

     Now, when I remember that desk, I feel guilty for not appreciating it more. It was a beautiful thing to look upon, golden walnut wood and black leather, with space for my laptop, notebook and a glass of wine cup of coffee. It had useful little shelves at the back to put photos and notes and special sentimental items (also, handy for The Blondies to stuff sweet wrappers and Chupa Chup sticks and bits of paper and all other sorts of fluff and crap I’d discover lurking on  the rare occasions that I deigned to flap some polish around). I did all sorts of things from that desk. My first real attempts at writing. My first tweet. Sitting at that desk, I made friends, had arguments, discovered things I’d never known, I opened up my world to a new perspective and understanding. I sent happy emails, sad ones, angry ones, silly ones. I saved photos and paid bills, I organised things, I changed the course of my life irrecoverably on so many occasions, sitting quietly at that desk in the corner over the space of four years. And I never really considered the desk at all. It was just there, being a handy piece of furniture that was useful in every area of my life.

     But it wasn’t mine. So when I moved, it did not. And in the general complete pigfuck that was the process of moving house, I had to jettison several items that could easily have been pressed into service as a flat surface on which to write (moving was a complete disaster. Maisie’s slightly quirky in that the front door is upstairs, meaning that all of the furniture for living room had to be taken down the very tight and winding spiral staircase. Or not, as it transpired, because hardly any of it would fit. Seriously, I lost all of my bookshelves, my beloved Indian dresser - the first piece of furniture I ever bought – my gorgeous six foot pine antique dining table… and then the crowning glory of not getting the sofabed down the staircase to the living room, which is why it got dumped in my bedroom instead, and I’m still sleeping on it now, a year later, and god, moving was a disaster. It should have taken three hours. It took nearly seven). 

     No desk? No problem. I’ll just use the kitchen table instead. Except that the kitchen table is a bit dodgy and has two wobbly legs. Fine for sitting and eating at, but rather unnerving when you’re typing away furiously, and the table lurches away and to the left of you as though it’s about to collapse in on itself, meaning you have to leap up and hold your laptop aloft every few minutes. 

Oh, and wifi in the kitchen is rubbish, so communication with the outside world is curtailed every few minutes, which is hugely frustrating and rather like living in North Norfolk.

     I thought I’d found a solution. The coffee table in the living room. Sturdy, hardwearing, dependable, and unlikely to develop an aversion to being close to me. Only problem is that it’s about 30cm off the floor, so to ‘sit’ at it, I had to arrange a couple of cushions on the floor and lean against the annoyingly prickly wicker sofa. Ever tried sitting like that? It’s fine for an hour or two. But adopting the same position for hours, day after day, for months at a time gets trying. It’s never wholly comfortable, leaves you with an aching back, pins and needles, and a persistent feeling that things could somehow be more enjoyable. A bit like a rubbish shag, to be honest.

     And because positioning myself like that became such a chore, writing stopped being enjoyable too. The only times I did write anything was in my notebook when I was in the pub, but the thought of then having to drape myself across the floor to transcribe those ciderfuelled scribbles onto my crappy laptop on a narrow table that was usually covered with magazines and books and craft projects and games and toys by The Blondies… It was just dispiriting, and made me feel like I wasn’t using the table so much as banging my head against it. But there was no other space in the house I could use. So I wasn't writing. And when I'm not writing, I'm... frankly awful. And the longer I went without writing, the more unhappy and full of doubts I became and felt as though I was never going to write again. Or, if I did attempt to write something, it would be utter shite. The world does not need more shite writing, trust me. There are already far too many people who can't even type a coherent sentence, let alone a piece that ebbs and flows and is funny or clever or thoughtful. I should know, I seem to end up reading most of their output and twitching as I do so. I felt like I couldn't even hoik my judgeypants at them though, because at least they were writing and being read, shared and valued. I wasn't even managing to come up with a single idea. I was sodding miserable without writing.

     Until last Tuesday. When that arrived. A desk. My desk. Mine. And it might not look like much to anyone, and it’s small, and it’s fairly plain, and inoffensive, but I love it. The first time I sat down at it I felt this ridiculous rush of happiness that made me laugh out loud for the first time in too long. It may seem such an insignificant thing, but it means the world to me. Not least because on the surface of it are ghosts of writing past. Tiny little fragments of words that have been written into the very fabric of the wood by another’s pen, pressing slightly too hard on the soft pine. ‘ighton’ and ‘what is PE?’, marks of doodles and zigzags, a deliberate graffito into the desk of ‘I heart B’ and hundreds and hundreds of jumbled up hours of other peoples lives and stories and homework and letters and admin and idle moments and times when inspiration  struck and days when despite staring out of the window for hours, not a single thing got done. All of those marks are there, from people writing at this desk, people making their mark. Perhaps, now that I have a desk, my desk, their desk, our desk, I can start writing again too. And make my own mark, in one way or another.

Warning shots

   

     We need a word. A word that means ‘that feeling of grim satisfaction when your warnings were ignored and things have gone tits up as you knew they would’. That inward sigh and tut of disapproval that accompanies an ‘I told you so’. That feeling of being both ever so slightly smug that you have been proven right, frustration that you weren’t listened to in the first place, and weariness that you’re going to have to deal with the fallout of a situation that you had already advised against.

     The thing with me is that I ‘get’ people. I can write a pen portrait of 500 words of pretty much most people, based on their twitter bio. Trust me, it’s a skill I have. I’ve written about it before. A natural curiosity, a lifetime of observation, and quietly, unintentionally processing what I see happening around me. I don’t try to understand people, I just do. It’s become innate.

     So bollocks doesn’t work on me. I know when people are dissembling, when they’re masking their true motives, even when people are lying. I know what you’re trying to achieve, or what you’re trying to hide (especially you reading this on your laptop with the guilty expression, you just tried to smother it with a half laugh and now your eyes are flickering from side to side. That’s it, take a swig from the drink next to you as you try and plan an escape route from my unintentional scrutiny…. But you should know that there is no escape).

     It sounds like this should make my life easy. That I can see behind every word, every action, every carefully constructed profile. Well, no. No, it really isn’t easy. It’s bloody hard. Because everything then becomes a process of evaluation. Why is this person lying? Who is that person trying to impress? He quite clearly fancies her, but she’s too shy to realise. Those two are shagging. That person is a single issue fanatic and not hiding it very well. That man is a selfish fucker and is very soon going to see the error of his ways.

     The problem I have is do I say something? Do I call the selfish fucker on their behaviour? Do I speak up when someone is lying? Do I warn others about something dodgy? Because the risk is twofold. Firstly saying ‘Look, I just have a feeling’ makes me sound like some kind of purple crystal woo bollocks purveyor who says we all have auras and trust your sixth sense and let’s all dwell by waterfalls and positive energy has healing properties. Someone, in short, not to be trusted. If I go the other way and try to explain what this feeling is based upon, the evidence is scantier than a crotchless lace g string. Because it is always based on tiny things. Teeny tiny, unimportant, unremarkable words, gestures, and actions. And to have observed, understood, and then filed away such mundane little moments makes me look like a creepy fucking single white female stalker nutjob, which also does not bestow an air of credibility upon me. Quite often the reverse of what I intended, usually – warning against a person or course of action – is achieved, and my warnee, as I might term them, very deliberately does the very thing I’m advising against, out of contrariness, a desire to prove me wrong, or just sheer fucking selfishness.

     And then of course, it does all go wrong, falls apart, gets to fuck. And in the smouldering wreckage of a perfectly avoidable calamity, in the hurt, confusion, and anger, I yearn to say ‘I told you this would happen.’ In some cases I actually want to grab people by the collar and snarl ‘Why the mascara arse did you think you knew better? How many times have I been right before? Why the buggery hell did you not just pause and consider what I was saying, instead of creating this?’ I don’t do that, obviously. It’s hardly likely to help an already difficult situation. The meal I warned you against eating has already given you food poisoning, and all I can hope for now is to ameliorate the effects.

     But I can do one other thing. Remind you that whoever you are in my life, whatever role or function I perform, whoever I am to you, you have chosen to have me there. Maybe you like me. Maybe you care a bit. Maybe you just have to tolerate my presence in order to achieve something for yourself. And if I am concerned enough to issue a warning, it means that I think my worst fears are going to be realised, and I am urging you, with every strand of The Mane, to listen to me. Because I know people, I know behaviour, I know how a sinkhole can open up in your life unexpectedly, and if I can avoid that, I will.

     So if I am worried, so should you be. If I am worried enough to tell you that I’m worried, listen the fuck up. Because as I said in an email to someone not so long ago ‘I will not discuss this further with you. I sincerely hope that this decision of yours will not come to be a cause for regret.’

     He regrets it now. But then I knew he would.