tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-46484356197369200242024-03-13T03:10:55.288+00:00Put up with rainMusings and thoughts on life, parenting, depression, music, food, books, and ferrets. May contain Balls. Tell me how I've damaged you @jessikart on twitterPut Up With Rainhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02293737831040832903noreply@blogger.comBlogger213125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4648435619736920024.post-91928514004489909942022-08-16T12:21:00.000+01:002022-08-16T12:21:27.665+01:00STFUIt turns out that the best way to get me to do something is to behave like an arsehole towards me. Last night I was told to ‘shut the fuck up’. I responded by not shutting the fuck up. I replied, at quite some length. And then I blogged, for the first time in years. About Dad.
Dad. We only get one. Or if you’re my eldest brother, you get two (my eldest brother was adopted, I didn’t meet him until I was well into my 30s). But I only got one shot at it, and I ended up with Dad, my dad, my make, Mac. <div><br /></div><div> Difficult, annoying, argumentative. Smoked too much, drank too much, fuelled by coffee and the need to be right. The need to know you had done the right thing, however hard it might be. Excruciatingly honest at times. Able to perform in public, but hating the limelight. Stupidly softhearted at others and hang on a minute I’m supposed to be writing about my dad, and I seem to have ended up talking about me instead. </div><div><br /></div><div>We were a bit too alike.
Which is why we argued, endlessly. Oh my god, did we argue. I am faintly proud that ‘doing a Jess’ has now passed into the family lexicon, meaning ‘to stand up during a heated discussion, tell the other party to fuck off, and then storm out’. I am very mature. Very. I can’t tell you how many times I did a Jess when I was with Dad. No, I literally can’t, it was kind of expected of me and I would have hated to disappoint him. Actually, thinking about it, I should have done it at his funeral. Bugger. </div><div><br /></div><div> We always worked things out though, eventually. Usually by him saying ‘I’m a stupid old git, I shouldn’t have said what I said. I love you to bits, make.’ And then we’d both get a bit tearful, and I’d call him a silly old arse, and get him a glass of Merlot so we could both have a bit of a weep without the other one seeing.
We were too alike. What he didn’t like in me was what he didn’t like in himself. </div><div><br /></div><div>What did he like in me? He liked my determination. He liked my honesty. He liked my refusal to back down when I knew I was right (aside from the whole ‘doing a Jess’ thing). He admired me for my strength, my intelligence, and my intuition. He loved that I can think around corners, that what seems so obvious to me is something that eludes others. He loved me for my voice, my love of words, and the joy I took in writing. He loved that I am, and always have been a contrary little bastard, and he regularly would tell me to move on to another subject when I’d got the best of him. Quite often by telling me to shut up. At which I would fold my arms, jut my chin out and say ‘No.’ </div><div><br /></div><div> So being told to ‘shut the fuck up’ last night was a bit like Dad re-emerging from um… his urn actually. I wish I could make that sound slightly more dramatic. Would it help if I knocked my ashtray over, to make it seem like some kind of spiritual apparition? I could pick the fag butts out, and then chuck the ash in the air with a bit of decent lighting. No? Ok. </div><div><br /></div><div> Shut the fuck up? No. You should know me better than that. Dad did. And if he were here now, he’d laugh & tell me to get another glass, give me a hug and tell me that he loves me, stupid twats that we both are. And I would give a shaky laugh, and it would be ok. It would all be ok. It doesn’t feel ok right now, but I have to have faith that it will be ok, somehow. I don’t know how, but it will be ok, because it has to be, because I have to be. It will become ok.
</div>Put Up With Rainhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02293737831040832903noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4648435619736920024.post-3111434316129952502022-08-15T22:21:00.000+01:002022-08-15T22:21:04.191+01:00DadMy dad died.
At some point I know I will be able to articulate that better. I’m still not really sure how to tell people that Mac isn’t around any longer. He died. Suddenly, horrifically. I’ve been spared much of the immediate pain, it has fallen entirely to my beautiful, kind, generous Doobs to deal with, my darling Biggus Sissus.
I’ve just been thinking a lot about Dad this weekend. Because this is exactly the type of weekend that Dad & I would have spent an afternoon having lunch together, getting gradually down units of alcohol, arguing, telling each other to fuck off, then him teaching me how to do crosswords, and being so kind, so encouraging, so proud when I got a clue right.
Eventually I would have tottered off home, having poured him into a taxi, having seen how out of breath just the 10 yard walk would make him. Then I’d get a text from him ‘hoho make, safely home. Love you to bits.’
I miss him. I miss him so much. I miss my dad. I regret every time I didn’t let him know how much I loved him, I regret not telling him to fuck off more, I regret not just holding his hand that little bit longer. I regret not protecting him, when I should have done.
But I look out across the people I know, and so many people are only families because of what Dad did. He had his children, his family, his friends who made me laugh so much at the wake. But he changed so many lives with what he did, and that is his legacy.
I just miss him so much. Hoho make. Safely home. Love you to bits.
Put Up With Rainhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02293737831040832903noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4648435619736920024.post-13271891749596765022019-02-04T21:40:00.000+00:002019-02-04T21:40:11.293+00:00Don't need a reason<br />
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
If she were here now,
she'd tell us to stop being such a puddle of wusses. If she were here
now, she'd tell us to rattle our dags and get the hell on with it. If
she were here now, she'd deliver the twitter equivalent of a clip
round the ear & tell me to get the bollocks on with writing
again. So that's what I'm doing.</div>
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br />
</div>
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
She's not here though.
Like an awful lot of people I woke up on Sunday morning to the news
that Dr Dianne Tillotson – or @hipbookfairy as many of us will
always think of her – had died. I cried a bit. I suspect I'm not
alone in that. If you didn't know her, then that loss is yours. If
you did know her, then that loss is ours. Because she was one of the
best people I've encountered on twitter. She was funny, she was
clever, she was kind, formidable, gentle, straight talking,
fascinating, full of knowledge, yet she always wore her learning
lightly, and despite being hugely appreciative of other people and
their work, never once do I have a memory of her showing off all that
she knew and had worked on. All she ever wanted to do was share her own
enthusiasm in the hope of encouraging others.</div>
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br />
</div>
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
And she did. She truly
did. It didn't matter to her how many letters you had after your name
or how many hours you'd spent in dusty archives researching esoteric
brasses or church crawling in ever increasing selfimportance,
she just cared that you cared. About anything. If it was important to
you, she took an interest, because despite her searing intelligence
and rock solid understanding of so many things, what fired her most
were people. I don't think there have been many I've come
across who were so joyfully engaged with people, regardless of
subject. There were no airs and graces, no pretensions, no false
front with Dianne. And she didn't entertain it from others either, her legendary bluntness coming to the fore as and when
required, but always with a gleam in her eye, and the unspoken
understanding that she would forgive you almost anything, but
wouldn't let you get away with much.</div>
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br />
</div>
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
She told me off a lot.
She told me off when I was being a brat. She told me off for swearing
too much. She told me off for being lazy, being silly, for being a
bit of a twat. But always with kindness, and always with generosity.</div>
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br />
</div>
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
Generous is the word that keeps coming to mind when I think of her. She gave so freely, so easily,
so simply that it never felt she was doing it as a favour or an
obligation. Her generosity was really altruism. She saw an opportunity
to help others, so she did. She never thought about receiving. Never
thought about what she got back from it, just a natural reflex to
help, and to make things better. And she did, she always did. The
number of word exchanged between us pales into insignificance when I
think about what they really meant. She was an absolute one off, one time,
one individual who took her own path and forever was drawn to those
who did the same. She inspired and encouraged so many others, and we
are all diminished by her loss. She was, in her own words, a
volunteer with attitude. I shall miss her, and I lack the eloquence
to truly pay tribute to her. All I can think is that if she meant so
much to me and others who never even met her, then how much did she
influence and shape the lives of those who really knew her best, who
benefited from her calm, witty, insightful wisdom?</div>
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<br />
</div>
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
A better person than I
reminded me last night that 'No one is actually dead until the
ripples they cause in the world die away'. With Dianne, those
ripples will continue into the foreseeable future, for at least as
long as I strive and endure. She pushed me forward whilst holding my
hand. I shall miss her presence, almost more than I can say, the kind consideration for everyone she came across, the humour, the biting wit and silliness that never once hid just how good a person she was, and just what a hinterland there was behind every insight.</div>
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br />
</div>
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
If she were here right
now, she'd be wagging a gently chiding finger at me, telling me to
write more, telling me that I have the same spirit in me, telling me
to put my boots on and kick the arse out of the things I can do to
make the world a better place. If she were here right now, I'd know
she was right. She always was. But she's not here, and won't be, so
instead I've written this. Mawkish and self-indulgent it may be, and
she'd almost certainly give me a good ticking off for it, but I know
the difference she made to so many of us. So I am writing this in my
most bright and colourful clothes, with my biggest boots on, flowers in my hair, being that 'spunky chick with attitood' that she said I was, because she
believed in me. And I never took the chance to tell her how much she
meant to me, and to so many others.</div>
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br />
</div>
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
RIP Dianne. We've lost
our irreplacable twitter fairy, so instead we've been calling angels down
to earth in your stead. Because I believe we need them.
</div>
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<br />Put Up With Rainhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02293737831040832903noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4648435619736920024.post-35643687339050264532019-01-11T21:58:00.000+00:002019-01-11T23:00:01.314+00:00Fearless Girl<br />
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
I think we've covered
how much fun I had over the festive period. If this were a film, we
would now cut to a montage of me crying, staying in bed, listening to
Madness on repeat, having an eight hour bender with my Mum the day after my birthday, opening
the fridge door & shrugging before closing it again,
chain-smoking, staying up into the wee small hours and then an
absolute storm surge of wine.</div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
And then, just at the
end, before it fades to darkness, one other little image would creep
in too. A little image of a little thing (no, not me). A small statue
that I've never seen in person, probably never will. A tiny thing, a
seemingly insignificant thing, a silent thing that nevertheless
speaks to me and holds my hand in the bleakest of moments.</div>
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<br /></div>
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<br /></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
Her. Fearless Girl. I
love this figure so, so, so, so SO much. I love her, just for being
her. I love her boot clad feet standing apart, her fists planted on
her hips, her chest out, her chin jutted up, the calm defiance of her
face. I love the way the billowing of her clothes suggests movement,
the sway of her ponytail. I love how even with that susurration of a
breeze doesn't distract from the fact that she is planted solidly,
ready to take on whatever is coming at her.</div>
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<br /></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
Then you do see
what is coming at her, or perhaps considering taking her on. Older
than her, bigger, stronger, heavier, seemingly more dangerous,
unpredictable & ferocious, harder, more powerful. The Bull of
Wall Street was there <a href="http://www.chargingbull.com/" target="_blank">first</a>, intended to represent all of those
aggressive, macho tendencies, that need to overpower and conquer, to
be ruthless and feared.</div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
This girl came along
with her <a href="https://www.atlasobscura.com/places/fearless-girl-statue" target="_blank">response</a>. To stand in front of something meant to intimidate
her, something she can have no hope of defeating, and her response is
instead to stand her ground and with every fibre of her being say
simply 'I am here.' In contrast to her small, slight frame, the bull
now looks clumsy, dull witted and lumbering, his body turned as if
he's no longer ready to charge, but is weighing up his options as
this girl stands there and says 'I am not afraid of you.'</div>
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
And somehow I know with
absolute certainty that if he did decide to run at her, she would
prevail. Either he would screech to a halt at the final moment or she
would neatly sidestep – possibly even with an arm flourish of
faux-politeness – and again, he would be the wrong-footed one, not
this bold girl facing down the world with no hint of fear, her dress
rippling, hair swinging, her boots linking her to the position she
defends. For all of her lack of stature, she is stronger than than
the Statue of Liberty, because she has freed herself of gestures and
of being scared. You could bounce rocks off her, but I doubt you'd
even consider it.</div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
I love her. She's
become iconic, and I also appreciate she's been controversial too.
Even as I write this, despite what I've just written about her
refusal to back down and move away, she is, ironically, doing just
that very thing and will no longer be facing her formidable foe. No
pasa nada. She'll still be out there <a href="https://nypost.com/2018/10/18/fearless-girl-is-heading-to-europe/" target="_blank">somewhere, </a>that spirit and
blithe determination living on, inspiring and encouraging others to
follow her lead. Her beauty lies not in her face, but in her power,
not in her size, but in her strength.</div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
When it comes to
fearsome vs fearless, I'll always back fearless. For she is small but
mighty.</div>
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<br />Put Up With Rainhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02293737831040832903noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4648435619736920024.post-61105025450076280352019-01-08T12:39:00.000+00:002019-01-08T12:39:15.219+00:00It must be love<br />
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The Blondies weren't
with me for Christmas. A bit longer than that, really. They left the
day before my birthday (which is 22<sup>nd</sup> December, just in
case you'd unaccountably forgotten to add it to your diary), and they
didn't come back until the 27<sup>th</sup>. That's an awfully long
time to be on your own, and a fairly painful one too.</div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
I'm not bleating in the
hope of sympathy. My family offered, in various ways, to host me, and
I refused all offers. Because if I can't be with those whom I love
most, then I don't want to be with anyone. Alone I can choose to
sleep or not, eat or not, get dressed or not, drink (yeah, there was
never going to be a 'not' attached to that one) or just sink into
misery and cry endlessly, sitting on the second bottom step of the
stairs, reflecting on everything that has, could, and will go wrong.
Again there is no 'not' attached to that scenario. It happened. Quite
a few times.</div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
But I tried not to let
it, or at least not to give into it too much. The temptation to
listen to tear jerking music so that I could descend into solo self
pitying snivelling was strong with this one. But I Jessed up as much
as I could, listened to endless podcasts, went into hiding on social
media because I didn't want pity. Trust me, I was already wallowing
in that. I attempted to only listen to happy, upbeat music instead,
to at least provide one less excuse for leaving discarded tissues all
over the house.</div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
Trying to stave off
insanity, I plunged headlong into madness. Divine Madness, the
soundtrack to my childhood and early teenage years, introduced to me
by my brother, and never unloved since. The first nine tracks take me
back to being 13, playing Sonic 2 on the megadrive with my best
friends, glasses of Ribena in front of us, right up to track 10. It's
such a simple song.</div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: center;">
<i> I never thought I'd
miss you</i></div>
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: center;">
<i>half as much as I
do.</i></div>
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: center;">
<i>And I never thought
I'd feel this way,</i></div>
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: center;">
<i>the way I feel about
you.</i></div>
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
I can't quite write
those words without having to swallow a bit too hard. Idiot. But
sometimes the simplest lines are – like love – the best. They
cut through pretentious, self-conscious referencing or airy-fairy
metaphors, to what is open, direct, honest. What is true. And
sometimes it is as easy as a hot knife slicing through butter.</div>
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
I could write on and on
about love, about how it feels, what it is, how it changes us
forever. I could tell you all of that, and god knows I have done in
the past, self-indulgently and at length. But it really is the
simplest of things that convey our truest feelings – a look, a
handhold, an understanding. An appreciation of what someone gives to
us, even unknowingly. It seems so little, yet means so much. But
being small doesn't mean it's not mighty.</div>
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
How can it be that we
can say so much without words? Because we know. Because when The
Blondies finally came home, they followed me around the house like a
pair of not so little turtle doves, gently cooing, and I quietly,
secretly rejoiced. Loves of my life, I don't need to say it, do I?
You know. You know what it must be. It is madness, to love you as
much as I do. But to me, it and you are divine. Promise.</div>
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<br /></div>
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<br />Put Up With Rainhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02293737831040832903noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4648435619736920024.post-31205743411545405152019-01-07T12:37:00.001+00:002019-01-07T12:37:54.877+00:00Time wounds all heals<br />
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
We went to Horsey Gap
to see the seals. Along with pretty much every other person in
Norfolk, or so it seemed. Christ, it was <i>mobbed</i>. The slowest
part was just inching down the track into the car park, and then
following the traipsing hordes up onto the dunes, where you're
securely held back by constantly having to sidestep family groups,
and are, in any case about half a mile from the seals. Compared to
Winterton or Blakeney Point, both of which have utterly captivated
us all over the years, this was decidedly underwhelming.</div>
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<br /></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
The Girl expressed this
most openly, by sulking and trudging and saying 'when can we just
GO?' because that always improves a situation, and makes everyone in
the vicinity radiate patience and joy. But not too long after this,
both Mum & I conceded she had a point and began the walk back to
the car, our route taking us past that familiar Norfolk landmark, a
coastal pillbox. Usually rubbish strewn, graffitied, left to moulder
away in the landscape, smelling of wee. This one was no exception.</div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-NOeJeim2lKg/XDNEWhLuzmI/AAAAAAAAmdE/SYbZdgt3wVYFtqUK5Uo7JpHNtwEponIpgCKgBGAs/s1600/20181230_151854.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="900" data-original-width="1600" height="180" src="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-NOeJeim2lKg/XDNEWhLuzmI/AAAAAAAAmdE/SYbZdgt3wVYFtqUK5Uo7JpHNtwEponIpgCKgBGAs/s320/20181230_151854.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
But maybe it was. Built
as a solid, squat, defensive structure, over 70 years on the Norfolk
coast had done its work, and the outer shell had been weathered and
beaten into submission, revealing the structure beneath, which again,
faced with the elements had begun to buckle and corrode, facing
outwards like an offensive weapon, not the protective construction it
was once supposed to offer.</div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-Os8zUonNDV0/XDNEc9wD57I/AAAAAAAAmdI/AmF55UtomtERQ-MLJp6f8Qz2ZWtALhQAACKgBGAs/s1600/20181230_152110.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="900" data-original-width="1600" height="180" src="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-Os8zUonNDV0/XDNEc9wD57I/AAAAAAAAmdI/AmF55UtomtERQ-MLJp6f8Qz2ZWtALhQAACKgBGAs/s320/20181230_152110.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
Sharp, curling, cruel
little spikes rippling metal, perfectly placed to take out the eye of
some unwary seal porn enthusiast, or catch on your coat, or scrape
the legs of those children whose parents thought it would be a
perfect #makingmemories photo opportunity and had hefted their
offspring up onto the roof of the pillbox without quite formulating a
plan as to how to get them down again (clue: not easily). Prongs
really, to hack into delicate flesh, to catch and harm. The hurt
beneath the benevolence, the steel beneath the outer skin. That which
is its strength and support is also that which damages.</div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-qMc8LIhNVb4/XDNEiSnJWHI/AAAAAAAAmdM/PcivCxSHd0kirpiGF_hzec9m6ZfeU_WVQCKgBGAs/s1600/20181230_152251.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="900" data-original-width="1600" height="180" src="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-qMc8LIhNVb4/XDNEiSnJWHI/AAAAAAAAmdM/PcivCxSHd0kirpiGF_hzec9m6ZfeU_WVQCKgBGAs/s320/20181230_152251.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
'Well now' I thought to
myself. 'there's a HANDY METAPHOR. That something that from a
distance looks blunt and solid has been so ravaged by time and
passing circumstance that when viewed up close proves to have scars
and open wounds that are in themselves capable of wounding. But you
have to be close enough to see that, to feel that. That's the only
way it will touch you, or you touch it, although everything in you
screeches 'noli mi tangere'. Or in my case JESUS CHRIST THE GIRL DON'T
PUT YOUR FACE THERE EVEN AS A JOKE.' Not that I'm anxious or anything.</div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-ilYWJ_dPS6o/XDNEvsC3prI/AAAAAAAAmdU/M3ZQAxOKKFMxApAv1bkLDtckxtD1WYERwCKgBGAs/s1600/20181230_152220.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="900" data-original-width="1600" height="180" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-ilYWJ_dPS6o/XDNEvsC3prI/AAAAAAAAmdU/M3ZQAxOKKFMxApAv1bkLDtckxtD1WYERwCKgBGAs/s320/20181230_152220.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
</div>
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
But it is a handy
metaphor. We hurt the ones to whom we are closest, or those we touch.
We let them in, or let them near, and they see us in our weather,
eroded state, the cracks showing, spikes and all. And that it why it
hurts, and that is why sometimes we are cautious – because we fear
being hurt again. And that's also why sometimes it's so familiar that
we forget the danger of not approaching things as delicately as we
should. We assume familiarity equals safety.</div>
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
You just know I'm
going to end this with some other kind of clunking great metaphor,
don't you? Yep. Because having tested if a certain prong was indeed
at a level certain to take her eye out, The Girl turned to me and said
scornfully 'It's totally blunt Mum. Not sharp at all. It just looks
like it should be.'</div>
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-TrApo_KLTF4/XDNEzGipmaI/AAAAAAAAmdY/21QOOpy34FgioSfDYG7FIRwEJpotLGq_QCKgBGAs/s1600/20181230_152210.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="900" data-original-width="1600" height="180" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-TrApo_KLTF4/XDNEzGipmaI/AAAAAAAAmdY/21QOOpy34FgioSfDYG7FIRwEJpotLGq_QCKgBGAs/s320/20181230_152210.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<br />Put Up With Rainhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02293737831040832903noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4648435619736920024.post-58312942685703976332018-12-13T23:04:00.000+00:002018-12-29T21:26:25.888+00:00The point at which we vanish<br />
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
I've held off writing
this for a while, deliberately. Partially because at the time, I
didn't have the time to do so. Mostly because I didn't want to
piggyback on what was someone else's moment – because it was their
moment. More than a moment really, it was their triumph. Whilst those
of us who were around during it had our own little moments, it was pretty
much down to one person that it even happened at all.</div>
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
If you follow me on
twitter or we're friends on facebook, you probably know I broke a
fairly prolonged period of silence in November to talk about an
exhibition that was open for some of those brief moments at St Peter
Hungate in Norwich – Vanishing Points, the landscapes, archaeology,
artefacts of the Western Front. It was supposed to be solely a
photographic exhibition, but like work, it expanded to fill the time
& space available, and instead became something far more
expansive, personal yet distancing, brutal yet sensitive, visceral
yet haunting, the ghosts still flitting past us out of the corner of
our eyes, just as long as we didn't watch, still moving.</div>
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
An awful lot of you
visited. It was like the biggest, longest tweet up that
Norwich/Norfolk/even further afield has ever known. I hugged a LOT of
people. Sometimes more than once. I grinned lots, I did a happy dance
more often in public than one should ever do, I even performed a
Charleston around the Visitor Book. I cried too. So many times.</div>
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
The comment that kept
coming up again and again from people was 'moving'. And it was.
Despite having been recruited to help with 'generally kicking arse',
having known pretty much every detail of every feature, of every
element – sometimes in the most nitpicky fashion – I still, when
first faced with it all, burst into tears. And I don't mean I got a bit
mimsy mouthed, and let one tear trickle down my face, artistically.
No. I properly went. That sort of involuntary response that makes
both hands fly up up in a gesture of prayer to cover your mouth, the
noise that comes out of your throat that can only accurately be
described as a strangled 'mmmpppfff!!', followed by an inevitable and
instinctive 'Sorry!' in a high-pitched quavering register that no one would
ever recognise as your voice. Twice, in two minutes, that happened,
before regaining control of myself, the back of my hand pressed
against my mouth to prevent further outbreaks.</div>
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
It has previously been
recorded, both here and in other places, that my emotions are never
far from the surface. I laugh easily, can be a mopey lachrymose twat
at the brush of a feather, bridle & swear with no provocation.
But in this case, I wasn't alone. For all of my irrational, fractured
behaviour, I am sometimes capable of being disciplined, and in this
case and place I was, assiduously totting up visitor numbers, and
people who, like me, cried.</div>
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
1,019 visitors came in
through the door in a little over 60 hours. On average, one person an
hour cried. Not including me, or anyone else making it a new reality
(I say 'new' reality, because it is/was always a reality, but
Vanishing Points gave it a new life). And some of those people who
cried, made me cry too, just seeing their responses, seeing what it
meant to them knowing what that response would mean to the person
responsible for it. Sometimes it was old men I can only describe as
Paul Whitehouse characters. Sometimes a relative of the deceased.
Sometimes when I saw people realise the reality of war is not
numbers, but stories.</div>
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
But the reactions,
despite me knowing how good the exhibition would be, despite
understanding it, despite doing my best to help – those reactions
took me aback. I realised again the power of stories. How one
storyteller can create a narrative that changes us, for the better. I
know that's not an entirely popular opinion, it hasn't hasn't found
favour with others, and the storyteller could not have done his job
without help, insight, and support from many others, playing their
parts in different ways. But I was there, as much as I could be, not
as much as I wanted to be, and I saw the impact that it had. People
who wandered in, smiling & laughing, before departing, slightly
hollow-eyed, tearful, and so obviously captivated by the words and
landscapes. It lingers in me still. I find it strange that those
hours of mine I so gladly gave are no longer so consumed by the
stories I wanted to be told, whether visually, with long
interpretation boards, or the starkest of words under a monochrome
sky, they're ghosts now too. Not just of the places they died in, but
the place where people came to meet them for the first time. I miss
them.</div>
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
I miss them, and I miss
talking to people about them, about lives and memories. That will
slip away so easily, if other people don't take up the baton of
carrying on memories and telling those tales. That was what Vanishing
Points did. It told stories, various stories, in various ways, and it
connected. It was beautiful and bone shaking, hilarious and
heartbreaking, terrible, yet terrific.</div>
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
So thank you, to those
who came (Hi Mum!). Thanks to those who kept me company and kept me
in coffee. Thanks to everyone who played a part. I owe a pint at
least to Julian S and Andrew 'no I'm not Nick' M A stupid &
ridiculous amount of thanks to Matt for all of the negotiating &
facilitating he had to do. Nick... mates, innit. I'd go to the cross
for you. Actually, I did, which was the first public snotting I did.
After all of the build up there he was, our predecessor in looking a
bit arsy, and fighting pointless battles. His spirit lives on, even
if the exhibition doesn't.</div>
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
Goodbye Francis.
Different stories took hold of different people. Yours will never let
me go, so I suppose it's not goodbye, not really. It's thank you. All
we have left of you are footprints, fragments, fingertips. But what
more can anyone hope for than to have left some kind of trace of
their story?</div>
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
Goodnight Poogy x</div>
<br />Put Up With Rainhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02293737831040832903noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4648435619736920024.post-68711497837064394542018-12-04T22:01:00.001+00:002018-12-04T22:01:30.013+00:00The Crucible<br />
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<i> 'Because it is my
name! Because I cannot have another in my life.'</i></div>
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br />
</div>
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
I was mooching about at
Norwich Cathedral last week, because apparently I don't spend enough
time hanging out in freezing cold medieval places of worship, taking
crap photos of graffiti on my phone. I could add a few examples of
these photos here, but you seem nice, and probably don't deserve
that.</div>
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br />
</div>
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
Anyway, as I lurked in
dark corners and stalked around cloisters and reflected that I
definitely do require a far more dramatic coat to make an impressive
entrance (my £20 much abused Primark overcoat is fantastically warm
& waterproof, but it does make me look a bit as though I'm
wearing half a sleeping bag intended for someone of more generous
proportions than I. Or, as my son put it 'Your legs look like two
pieces of string hanging out of a sack'), I snapped a few later bits
of graffiti too. Like this one.</div>
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br />
</div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/--sVdz8fEVCU/XAb39rEd5VI/AAAAAAAAmD0/XW4fQwtWxY0RkrkkossKa0zDRH1GoRvSgCKgBGAs/s1600/20181127_120723.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1600" data-original-width="900" height="320" src="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/--sVdz8fEVCU/XAb39rEd5VI/AAAAAAAAmD0/XW4fQwtWxY0RkrkkossKa0zDRH1GoRvSgCKgBGAs/s320/20181127_120723.jpg" width="180" /></a></div>
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br />
</div>
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
Lovely handiwork, I
think we can all agree. And because it's historic, it's <b>important</b>,
so most people assign it not to 'vandalism', but instead as a 'vital
record' or 'human heritage' or slightly less charitably (and almost
certainly wrongly) as 'bored choirboys/parishioners' etc. The same
people who would have a fit if 'J. Brown November 25th 2018' were to appear
next to it.</div>
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br />
</div>
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
As we know that's –
perhaps ironically – a modern attitude to have towards graffiti. As
we also know (shh, you do know, I've told you often enough)
'graffiti' only entered the language relatively recently, only
appearing because a term was required to describe the inscriptions
being found in Pompeii during its exhumation. It held no negative
connotations then, it was just a handy term for people leaving their
mark.Now, of course it's anti-social and a sign of how far society
has fallen. You know you live in a rough area if it's described as
'riddled with', 'covered in' or 'besmirched by' graffiti. In these times,
Banksy would surely replace Pestilence as one of the horsemen of the
apocalypse. Except that the pale horse traditionally featured
wouldn't be pale these days, but tagged to spray-painted
indecipherability, because That's The Way of The Modern World.</div>
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br />
</div>
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
And it is, to a greater
or lesser extent. Graffiti creators these days tend not to leave a
calling card of full name, date, or anything that could be considered
as personally identifying. Instead we have nameless political
statements, street art created by someone whose greatest identifier
is their alleged anonymity, endless tags. No one signs their name any
more.</div>
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br />
</div>
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<i> 'I mean to deny
nothing.'</i></div>
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br />
</div>
<div class="western" style="font-style: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
Seriously,
when was the last time you saw a piece of graffiti that was just a
simple entry in the visitor book of walls, that was in any meaningful
way 'recent'? A carving, pen stroke, or scrawl that actually states
nothing more than 'I was here'? If you want to make a 'Kilroy woz
'ere' joke right now, please do so only inside your own head.</div>
<div class="western" style="font-style: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br />
</div>
<div class="western" style="font-style: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
These
days, people leave only first names or initials or tell you whom they
love or hate. They make statements, or daub political slogans or tag
themselves to be seen, heard, read, left for as long as their message
is allowed to remain. Left behind, yet very rarely recording who they
are, or when, only where. Whether passing through in a brief moment,
leaving it to be seen by an intended audience, or just because it
gives them bragging rights over a location. Be seen on the scene as
The Young People almost certainly wouldn't term it, unless they're
hipster wankers who'd say it ironically at their pop up crowdfunded
start up heads up... thing.</div>
<div class="western" style="font-style: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br />
</div>
<div class="western" style="font-style: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
What
we don't get are things that mark out individuals, as people that
future generations might be able to trace. We are always told by
people these days that graffiti is antisocial. I, for once not trying
to be contrary, disagree. I think it's interesting that the rise in
people <b>viewing</b> graffiti as antisocial seems to coincide with
graffiti being seen as something subversive, a little bit naughty,
something to clutch your pearls over. It also coincides with people
becoming more anonymous in how they choose to communicate with a
wider, unknown and unknowing world.</div>
<div class="western" style="font-style: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br />
</div>
<div class="western" style="font-style: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br />
</div>
<div class="western" style="font-style: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
Yet still, graffiti is created, by & for people. Still people find
that texts, emails, blogs, forums, social media as a whole, is not
enough to say what matters to them, not if it can be traced back to
the author, if it leaves any kind of footprint that can be followed.
And that's even without considering the age old method of one person
making noises out of their mouth and those sound waves being received
into the pink and shell like area of another. Graffiti still retains
the honour of hiding its face from the world whilst shouting at it. Like a snooker player plotting the trajectory of a ball at The
Crucible, the end result is what matters, not who holds the cue.
Those who still leave these marks have told us what matters to them.
We don't always have to know their name to understand their message.</div>
<div class="western" style="font-style: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br />
</div>
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<i> 'I have given you my
soul; leave me my name!'</i></div>
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br />
</div>
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br />
</div>
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<i>(yes,
congratulations if you also had to study The Crucible at one point).</i></div>
<br />Put Up With Rainhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02293737831040832903noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4648435619736920024.post-6782442237208746912018-03-29T19:23:00.001+01:002018-03-29T22:09:53.126+01:00Black dog on my shoulder again<br />
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<i> There's a black dog
on my shoulder again.</i></div>
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<i> Licking my neck and
saying she's my friend</i>.</div>
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
She's not though. She
is very definitely not my friend. She is the Megabitch to my
Snotface, a Snotface without a Drop Dead Fred to lighten things. The
Megabitch who just won't shut up.</div>
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<i> Solitude the one
thing that I really miss.</i></div>
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
And it is. Because
she's always there, the black dog, the Megabitch, that persistent,
insistent voice just slightly behind me, growling poison into my ear
that becomes intolerable and impossible to ignore.</div>
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<i> Guess my life is a
compromise.</i></div>
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
Which is why she's here
again, the hound. I don't feel in control of anything, so I've let
the leash slip, and now she's running circles around me, making me
doubt myself, every thought, word, deed. I can't step forward because
I'm scared she'll trip me up as she runs so freely.</div>
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<i> There's a black dog
on my shoulder again</i></div>
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<i> I'm playing with it
but it's gone to my head.</i></div>
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
Not much seems to be
helping. I can throw a stick as far as I can humanly hurl anything,
but she always comes back to play some more, she never tires of this
game even after all of these years. If I get the chance, I'll chuck
her a treat or two, and then run REALLY fast in the opposite
direction, but...</div>
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<i> Like Carlito's Way
there are no exit signs.</i></div>
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
And the Megabitch is
there with me again, a faithful frenemy, whose loyalty I get so tired
of running away from that I stop and just give in to whatever
rough-housing she feels like inflicting.</div>
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<i> Freeze me there
until I'm numb.</i></div>
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
And that is what I
become. Whilst living in a constant state of fluttery, panicky
anxiety, I lose all motivation. I just stop. Everything grinds to a
standstill. I get nothing done, there is no maintenance carried out,
and I crumble, internally at first, before the cracks start to appear
on the exterior, as the Megabitch continues to run amok, chasing
cats, squatting everywhere, moulting and generally being a pain. And
I don't want to talk about it or look at it.</div>
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<i> My mouth is so dry,</i></div>
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<i> My eyes are shut
tight</i></div>
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
Because maybe if I
don't acknowledge her, she'll go away and find some other sap of an
owner who'll indulge her needly nuzzling, and I'll be left in peace.
If I don't look, she's not real. She is, though.</div>
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<i> Black dog is coming
tonight.</i></div>
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
She's always there,
really, but the nights are the worst. That's when I give in to her,
when she's too strong for this wee short arse to control. The
Megabitch stalks me all day, but it's night time when she pounces and
makes me entertain her, over and over again with the same old games.
Regret, jealousy, paranoia, guilt, fear, self-loathing, confusion,
sadness, anger, all her favourite toys and treats, that will keep her
happy as I sink lower into myself, wondering why other people don't
have this bloody black dog to take up so much of their time, or if
they do, they at least have it better trained than I do. That
constant feeling of not being good enough, not skilled or talented
enough, not being funny, or clever, or interesting, that everyone
else is better, worthier, more important, more cared about, so they
don't have to put up with their only companion being the black dog.</div>
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<i> My dilemma, but not
my choice.</i></div>
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
It isn't. I don't have
a choice in when she's going to reappear. I might be able to give her
the slip for a few days, weeks, months, even, but like the bloodhound
she is, she will always track me down and pin me to the floor. I
don't know what to do or how to do it, but I'm faced with something
that I can't control or influence, still less call to heel.</div>
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<i> Winston Churchill,
can you hear my voice?</i></div>
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
Probably not, because
he died before I was born, but he understood the black dog, he knew
how it feels to be the unwitting and unwilling host to the
Megabitch. How things that should be simple become overwhelming and
insurmountable.</div>
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<i> Melodrama there in
my kitchen sink.</i></div>
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
To give you some idea,
my kitchen sink has been blocked for over three weeks. I've tried to
sort it out repeatedly. Nothing's worked. I could – should – call
out the council to sort it out. But I can't. I physically can't. The
black dog is splashing about in my kitchen, having a great time
whilst I wobbly carry the washing up water upstairs to empty into the
bath. Because I don't want people in my house. I'm scared they will
judge me, accuse me, blame me, because the Megabitch is so out of
control that it's embarrassing.</div>
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<i> Double vision the
way it is</i>.</div>
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
And it is double
vision. I seem to see things as the Megabitch does, twisted and
confused, everything in an altered state, always with the worst
possible interpretation on events and actions, always the negative
to everyone else's Instagram. Her eyes become my eyes, misted with
self-pity and her unbearable weight on my back. But the thing is, I'm
still here too. I still see (in a screwed up, squinting fashion) who
and what I am, the stupid things I say and do under the pressure of
her, and I tell myself 'it's not me, it's HER' but I can't stay
clear-sighted enough to prevent her from behaving the way she does
and dragging me down with her as she basks in the mud. And I know
she's wrong with what she says, but she barks too loudly and
distractingly. She needs to be rehomed.</div>
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<i> Am I coming home to
you again?</i></div>
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
NO, but yes, but no.
She's still living here, but it's just not suitable any longer. My
circumstances have changed, I don't have the right kind of house, let
alone a garden, and I can't trust her around The Blondies. I can't
afford to keep her.</div>
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<i> Or am I stupid just
by design?</i></div>
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
See? That's her yapping
away again. I may have some fairly fundamental flaws in both my
personality and brain chemistry, but I'm not stupid, I'm not dense,
I'm not 'a wee bit dumb'. I do, just about have enough insight into
what is happening to me, and how I can try to escape it. That's the
worst part, I am not what she tells me I am, but whilst I host her, I
behave in ways that make me seem as awful as she tells me I am. Deep
down, I'm not.
</div>
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<i> Does it matter if
you really ever know?</i></div>
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
Yeah, it does. It does
matter that I keep telling myself I'm better than her. It does matter
to me that I remember that when she's bounding about. It does matter
to me that I try and stop her from pushing me into these awful
self-destructive figures of eight, where the only tail being chased is mine. It does matter to me that I don't
let her win, because I am better, and I've beaten her before. It does
matter, because I'm the only one fighting this, and because I can't
rely on anyone else to tell me, and being a responsible dog owner,
it's up to me to try and keep her under control. Except...</div>
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<i> This black dog is
out of control.</i></div>
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
Too fucking right mate.
And whilst I am going to try and take her to obedience and agility
classes to exercise her, eventually, I'm going to have to exorcise
her. She has me exhausted and angry, tearful without crying,
irrational and erratic, and I'm done with her. The Megabitch,
snuggling up to me and telling me she's my friend, briefly seeming
like she'd be good for me, only to turn and snap, sinking her teeth
down to my bones. I have to shake her off, my shadow, my shade, my
dark side, my black dog. She's not a pet, she's a parasite, eating
away at me and hollowing me out, destroying the foundations of things
I am trying to do. New beginnings, fresh starts, something I can call
my own, that only I can do, and be proud of, instead of being
unseemly, an embarrassment, a space of silence with no words, no
contributions, just an apathetic emptiness of a black dog that
overwhelms me, as her noise and frolics press me down into the waves.</div>
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
I am not the black dog.
She is not me. She is just my shadow, dogging my heels. But I will
put my boots on and kick her arse, and keep kicking it until she's
gone. I might lose the odd battle, but I will win the war. She is not
my friend, she is the Megabitch, and she might make me a bit
snotfaced at times. But I will write the fuck out of her. She can
howl all she wants, but I will roar the black dog down.</div>
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<br />
And just to add, as a PS... I'm ok, so don't worry about me. If I wasn't ok, this would have just stayed in the drafts folder, and never made it out to the wider world. The fact that I have kicked my arse into gear enough to blog is a good sign, promise. Even if it doesn't make for the most fun reading. It means the Megabitch is at least back on the lead again.Put Up With Rainhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02293737831040832903noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4648435619736920024.post-38524293633989870542018-01-27T20:42:00.002+00:002018-01-27T20:42:15.450+00:00Bee Day<div class="MsoNormal">
I cried the other night. That’s nothing especially out of the
ordinary. I cry a lot. But just over a week ago was a bit special. My
anniversary of adding yet another burden to an overpopulated planet that
urgently needs a Malthusian style cull in order to maintain the fragility of
life and ecosystems in order to survive, still less to thrive. Or, to put it
slightly more cheerily, it was The Boy’s 13<sup>th</sup> birthday.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
My Precious First Born is now a teenager. I can’t pretend I
wasn’t listening, head tilted and ear cocked as 06:59 ticked over to 07:00 to
see if The Curse of Kevin would kick in and my golden-fluffy haired moppet
would suddenly transform into a lank, greasy, groaning pile of BO, acne, and
hormones, swearing and seemingly having no control over how his arms swung. The
Fear was real indeed.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
In the event, the minute passed without incident, other than
realising that for the first time ever in his life he’d set an alarm on his
phone to make sure he was awake for the
momentous notification that he’d officially passed from childhood to the
terrible teens. Also, for the first time since he started school, a weekday
morning saw him sitting up in bed when I went in to his room.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Beautiful Boy. Far more beautiful now that he ever was as a
baby, although of course to me he was the cause of infinite gaze, admiring the delicate
perfection of his every millimetre. Growing more beautiful by the day, seeing
those features, so dear to me, develop and unfurl as he’s grown. That face,
those eyes, those hands that have held mine, those feet that have walked beside
mine for so long, and are bigger than mine now. The reassuring, solid comfort
of his hugs, the way he still leans his head against my arm for comfort. I’m
not sure how much longer that can last for now, because he’s barely an inch
shorter than me. So for now that’s still something to treasure, as long it is
there, as long as it’s a reminder that he’s my boy. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
A lifetime ago, or so it seems, I wrote about him growing
up, and growing away from me. That was my fear. That he would slip through my
fingers and I wouldn’t be able to hold onto him, that I would lose him as he
flourished. It seems odd to remember
that now. Because that’s not how it’s happened. Even allowing for the upheaval
and changes in our lives, that’s not how things have become. It could so easily have been the case, it
would have been so easy to make different decisions that placed barriers
between us and meant that I didn’t spend the first ten minutes of his 13<sup>th</sup>
birthday giggling and cuddling, and the two of us sharing silly memories and
words of happiness.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
It was a moment, just a moment, the same as millions of
moments that we have shared between us since the first time I saw his face. The
same as the moments when I’ve shouted, or he had a tantrum, or I changed his nappy,
or cooked a dinner he didn’t like, or walked him to school, or read him a
story, or made him groan with a terrible joke, or told him off, or cried with
pride over him, or had to listen in excruciating detail to something about
Pokemon. It was just another moment in the journey from infant to adult, with
me as a witness to his every triumph and disaster, every failure and
accomplishment. But those moments count, because each and every one adds up to
a life. A life I am privileged to share and know.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
And he hasn’t changed, not really. He is still that same
affectionate, loving, considerate, honest, tactile and thoughtful little person
I remember from the lunchtime he asked ‘Why doesn’t Mummy fucking need this at
the moment?’ I have no doubt that the next few years will be more trying than
those than preceded them. But those times too will eventually be no more than
moments either.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
And that is why I cried, then (bit choked right now, tbh).
All of those moments, hard, difficult, fun, loving, all of those moments brought me to the point where I looked
through his bedroom door to see him, my newly teenaged son sleeping as he always
has, in a state of utter abandonment, arms above his head, and I had my own
moment, like a slideshow on fast forward, seeing all of those moments together
condensed, concentrated, compacted, all of those precious, countless, forgotten
but unforgettable moments that have now added up to teenage years. Seeing it
all unfiltered, that life I could not be without, and those moments that have
made it this way.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Happy birthday for the other day, my beautiful boy. You are
what keeps me honest, because you don’t know any other way to be. You make me
brave, because you always are, and you never pretend not to be scared. You
remind me to be kind, because that’s all you know. You never hurt, because I
love you. You make me laugh, you make me proud, you make me cry, because I am
an embarrassing mum who threatens you with public displays of affection. I
could not ask for any more from you than just years more of moments together.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
You and me, Bee. I’ve
learnt more from you than I could ever teach you. Happy Bee Day – you brightened
my northern sky more than I could ever have known, and you make me want to be
the best I can, for you. I love you OBeeWanWookieBee. You are, and always have
been, as everyone tells me ‘such a lovely boy, he really is’. Please don’t turn into a little
shit now though. Fingertips, matey boy. Fingertips, always xx<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
</div>
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</div>
<o:p></o:p>Put Up With Rainhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02293737831040832903noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4648435619736920024.post-46727026269808869482017-06-20T21:45:00.001+01:002017-06-20T21:45:06.035+01:00Brexit means...<div class="MsoNormal">
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.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
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. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
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 <st1:country-region w:st="on">UK</st1:country-region>.
The things in the <st1:place w:st="on">UK</st1:place>
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 <st1:place w:st="on">UK</st1:place>
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.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Archaeology in the <st1:country-region w:st="on">UK</st1:country-region> 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 <st1:country-region w:st="on">UK</st1:country-region> 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.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
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.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
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.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
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 <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/science/2017/jun/20/trouble-brewing-british-archaeology" target="_blank">Guardian</a> 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.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
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.
</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
The demographic of volunteers is generally white skinned,
white haired, middle class, retired Brits. People living comfortable lives, in
comfortable middle <st1:place w:st="on">England</st1:place>,
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.</div>
Put Up With Rainhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02293737831040832903noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4648435619736920024.post-40541087480583449392017-05-02T21:29:00.000+01:002017-05-02T21:29:34.352+01:00Rounded Balls<div class="MsoNormal">
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 <a href="http://putupwithrain.blogspot.co.uk/2013/04/ed-balls.html" target="_blank">blogpost </a>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. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Err… I wasn’t, by the way. Just to be clear.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
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.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Except that there is an overlap. And it’s obvious. At least
to me. But then I would say that.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
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,
<i>actually</i>), 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 <st1:city w:st="on">Norwich</st1:city>’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.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
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 <st1:place w:st="on"><st1:placetype w:st="on">University</st1:placetype>
of <st1:placename w:st="on">East Anglia</st1:placename></st1:place>. 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.’</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
But like I said, the answer is obvious. I’m just a person.
And like most people, most <i>normal</i> 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.</div>
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<br /></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
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.<br />
<br />
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.</div>
Put Up With Rainhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02293737831040832903noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4648435619736920024.post-38620111980588144062017-04-26T21:40:00.001+01:002017-04-26T21:40:31.774+01:00I'm in your head<div class="MsoNormal">
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. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
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.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
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.</div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
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.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
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.</div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
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? </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
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.’</div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
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. </div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
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.</div>
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<br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
*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.</div>
Put Up With Rainhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02293737831040832903noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4648435619736920024.post-50809827920210474382017-04-24T21:37:00.001+01:002017-04-24T21:37:54.175+01:00Speech Marks<div class="MsoNormal">
</div>
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<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
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.</div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
As we know, my feelings changed. Quite quickly. Not overnight, but overday,
to be honest. Something shifted, clicked into place and I <i>got</i> 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.</div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
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<sup>th</sup> 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.</div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
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 <st1:city w:st="on">Pompeii</st1:city>.
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. </div>
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<br /></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
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?</div>
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Put Up With Rainhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02293737831040832903noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4648435619736920024.post-8293968989037779002017-04-12T21:09:00.000+01:002017-04-12T21:09:40.808+01:00Head desk<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<div class="MsoNormal">
</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
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.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
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 <strike>a glass of wine </strike>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.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
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).
</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
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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. </div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
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.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
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.</div>
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<o:p><br /></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
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 <i>awful.</i> 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.</div>
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<br />
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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 <i>hours</i>, 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.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-DHvYsvY1TXM/WO5cwIFQ5lI/AAAAAAAAdq4/OtBRnuS7GyIF5OGkbhOr99tL4KNg-4uBgCLcB/s1600/20170404_210242.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="180" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-DHvYsvY1TXM/WO5cwIFQ5lI/AAAAAAAAdq4/OtBRnuS7GyIF5OGkbhOr99tL4KNg-4uBgCLcB/s320/20170404_210242.JPG" width="320" /></a></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
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Put Up With Rainhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02293737831040832903noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4648435619736920024.post-18703332784390452532017-01-18T21:46:00.000+00:002017-01-18T21:46:00.793+00:00Warning shots<div class="MsoNormal">
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-a2jp0YhB0pw/WH9t9dvWJdI/AAAAAAAAcXw/P1FGLBUOS3cgA19w4e8QbuFfqgzhhsyPgCLcB/s1600/omen.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-a2jp0YhB0pw/WH9t9dvWJdI/AAAAAAAAcXw/P1FGLBUOS3cgA19w4e8QbuFfqgzhhsyPgCLcB/s320/omen.jpg" width="208" /></a></div>
<br />
<br />
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.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
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 <a href="http://putupwithrain.blogspot.co.uk/2014/11/lost-in-translation.html" target="_blank">before</a>. 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.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
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).</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
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. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
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.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
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.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
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.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
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.’</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
He regrets it now. But then I knew he would.</div>
Put Up With Rainhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02293737831040832903noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4648435619736920024.post-58727918518473900112016-12-21T21:13:00.002+00:002016-12-21T21:19:17.889+00:00Fighting Talk<div class="MsoNormal">
It’s my birthday tomorrow. I shall be 37, which feels like
an odd age to be. No, not ‘old’, I’m not one of those wankers who bleats about
feeling ancient because it’s their 23<sup>rd</sup> birthday (as an aside, fuck,
those people are annoying. The temptation to pat them on the head and say
‘really, poppet? Are you a bit too dense to realise the choice is aging or
death? Which would you prefer?’ can be a little overwhelming). Anyway, yeah,
birthday, me, 37. A strange age, no longer really young, but certainly not old. It’s not really one thing or another, which is kind of how my
life feels at the moment. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
I have more freedom in my life now than I have ever had, and
yet I seem to be incapable of actually using it. I banged on and on and bloody
on about how now I would have time to write, to really commit properly to
writing and throw myself into it and JUST FUCKING GO FOR IT like I’ve never
been able to. And, yes, you have guessed it, of course I bloody haven’t. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
I do write. I write every day. It comes out just like it
always used to, except that for the most part it never gets read by anyone, not
even me. I’ve filled over 30 notebooks so far this year with all sorts of
meandering bollocks and notes and ideas and just… stuff. And yet I haven’t
blogged since September, for fuck’s sake. I am frustrated with myself. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
I am frustrated because I know I’m just being lazy and doing
a bit of a halfarsed job on everything. The house is still only partly
furnished because I couldn’t afford to buy all the things we needed when we
moved in, and well, we seem to fill the space ok, so why bother to get
bookshelves? My sofabed is perfectly comfortable, so why bother to buy bed
slats and a mattress? The clothes I’ve been wearing since March are pretty much
my favourites, so why bother unpacking the other boxes piled up in the
wardrobe? No one ever comes round, so sod the mess on the living room table.
I’ve written what I wanted to say in my notebook, so what’s the point in adding
it to here, or emailing it to the person who should be reading it? It’s
lazyarseness, pure and simple.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
It is Not Good Enough, however. The Blondies deserve better,
Maisie* deserves better, I pissing well deserve better. Something I realised in
the long drawn out process of sorting our lives out is that I need something to
fight against. Whether that was the CPS, the disturbingly intense colour scheme
of our new home, or the utter carnage that was moving day, I need to be riled up and
fucked off and fierce and kickarse to achieve anything. Lately, I have been a
mopey, anxious twat who struggles just to leave the house. Because there hasn’t
been anything to motivate me. There hasn’t been anyone telling me that I can’t
do something, that it’d be too much for me, that there’s no point even in
trying. I haven't been galvanised into trying to prove someone wrong, I've had nothing to fight against, there is nothing to defeat.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Except that I’ve just realised there is. There’s me, telling
myself that. God, me can be a wanker at times. The type of wanker that really
pisses me off, a moany, droopy, energysponge. Bastard me, I will not let you win, just to spite you, you malignant arsehole. I can fucking do this. I can fucking sort Maisie
out, I can take this on, I can sit down and write and not just to myself. So
yeah. I’m fucking taking myself on and I’m going to fight myself to our mutual
death. And there will only be one winner. Me. 37 year old me.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
*Yes, <a href="http://putupwithrain.blogspot.co.uk/2016/04/southern-sky.html" target="_blank">my house has a name</a>, keep up at the back, and if you
think it’s naff, yes, it is, and I don’t give a toss what you think, so
actually, don’t keep up, sod off.</div>
Put Up With Rainhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02293737831040832903noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4648435619736920024.post-78926133573841615052016-09-09T20:48:00.002+01:002016-09-09T20:48:49.780+01:00Works like a charm<div class="MsoNormal">
When did we stop guarding against disaster and start hoping
to attract good fortune? Not me, obviously, I live life in a default BRACE!
BRACE! position, hoping that whatever comes next won’t leave permanent damage,
or at least the kind that can be artfully disguised. I mean ‘we’ in a broader
sense, people, them, us, you.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
As the type of person who loves folklore and superstitions
and bollocks like that, what has struck me lately is how much of the old lies
derived from fear. Fear of demons, witches, ill health, misfortune, all things people felt they needed protecting from. We don’t seem to cling to these
superstitions these days in the way I remember from not that long ago, even as recently as when I
was a child. Instead we have lucky things. A lucky scarf for football matches
in the hope of our team securing a win, we have our lucky jacket for
interviews, we may even have our lucky pants if on the pull. All of that is in
the hope of attracting good fortune, rather than avoiding bad. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
It’s a reflection of modern life, I suppose. For the most
part, illness can be treated, natural disasters can be anticipated and the
aftermath dealt with (not always very efficiently, obviously), curious natural
phenomena can be explained by the appliance of science. In the main, the world
is not something to be feared. And so, in the absence of fear, we allow hope to
enter instead. We hope that <st1:city w:st="on">Norwich</st1:city>
won’t crash and burn in the Championship, hope that we will get that job, hope
that tonight will be The Night. Even though we consider ourselves to be rational,
educated adults, there is still a part of us that clings to hope.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Why do we do this? Why, when in the cold raking light of
day, most would never admit to keeping to our private and personal little four leafed clovers?
We know (at least I hope you do) that not doing something, or not wearing
something will have absolutely no impact on the eventual outcome of a
situation. In the case of lucky pants, I’d say that revealing a saggy, faded
pair of Homer Simpson boxers, so ancient they’ve become almost crotchless is likely
to significantly <i>decrease</i> your
chances of being invited to reveal anything more. But yet, we hold on to these
things. We ignore the times our ‘lucky’ charm didn’t work, and only remember
the times when it did.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
I could be scathing about this tendency we have. I should
be. I should be logical, and rational, and I should point out how flawed our
(lack of) thought process is. But I won’t. What I will say is that we cannot
scoff and sneer at the beliefs of those who lived in the past, and the actions
they took to protect those closest to them, to avoid dangers they didn’t fully
understand. We ourselves are just as guilty, keeping things for sentimental
reasons that have no root in practicality. I should say that we, all of us,
have our own little set of private beliefs and superstitions, some founded in
our everyday lives and experiences, some that have arrived on the slightest of whims, but ones that we
observe religiously. I should say that we ought to abandon these silly little
charms, these hopes, but I won’t. Because it is those illogical and irrational
acts that make us, define us, what makes each of us the individuals we are. It is our beliefs, gathered over time, careworn yet precious, that truly reveal what we hold most dear.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
Not to mention that it would be utterly hypocritical of me
to rubbish old folk tales too, because since the morning of 4<sup>th</sup>
November 2015, I have worn around my neck a long thin piece of red ribbon,
attached to which is a Spiderman button badge. I haven’t taken it off once. And
although many triumphs and disasters have come my way since I first put it on,
nothing has been quite as terrible as the events that caused me to first start
wearing it. So on that flawed, unsound, sophistic basis, it stays. Because it
has kept me and mine safe, as all charms and superstitions should.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
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<a href="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-BdRyzWs4U3c/V9L6lvVhvII/AAAAAAAAZ88/whx084qdf1QBsdTG_z7N2vul7OVbzGUxgCLcB/s1600/spidey.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-BdRyzWs4U3c/V9L6lvVhvII/AAAAAAAAZ88/whx084qdf1QBsdTG_z7N2vul7OVbzGUxgCLcB/s320/spidey.jpg" width="296" /></a></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
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Put Up With Rainhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02293737831040832903noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4648435619736920024.post-65803692806237124192016-08-23T21:17:00.001+01:002016-08-23T21:17:54.901+01:00Tinned ravioli<div class="MsoNormal">
</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-8PNo-C4OtCE/V7ytNbaxcaI/AAAAAAAAZWA/q928lcQroTMvEVRMCAx6h9lZxgLD5BPiwCLcB/s1600/ravioli.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-8PNo-C4OtCE/V7ytNbaxcaI/AAAAAAAAZWA/q928lcQroTMvEVRMCAx6h9lZxgLD5BPiwCLcB/s1600/ravioli.jpg" /></a></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Here’s a story that will tell you how much of an over
empathic twat I am. When I was about eight or nine, dinner was quite often just
me on my own at the kitchen table for one night a week. My siblings were then
sidling along the paths of teenagehood, so were probably up to some kind of
illicit, forbidden behaviours, and my parents were the weird type of grown ups
who work all day and then ‘relax’ by being sporty and athletic. Playing tennis,
squash, that kind of odd, slightly worrying behaviour. One night, Mum, in a
rush, had grabbed something from the shelf of the local shop to give me dinner,
something that could just be heated up on the hob. Not something she’d bought
before, but thought it’d be ok. Tinned ravioli.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
I’m not going to lie. I’m not even going to exaggerate,
although you’ll think I am. It was disgusting. Flaccid, slimy mush. The type of
thing you’d perhaps offer to a six month old as their first Real Meal after a
week of baby rice, except that this food tasted preowned and definitely
preunloved. The shudder that engulfed me as the pasta pillow dissolved on my
tongue without me even having to chew is still ‘yeah, childbirth wasn’t great,
but was it as bad as…?’ vivid now. Then the full horror of rehydrated,
overhydrated mechanically recovered meat that was probably more eyelash and toenail
of ferret than farmyard.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Swallowing it was like downing a cup of cold sick. Keeping
it down marks as perhaps the greatest single triumph of my life. It was eating
as suicide because I no longer wanted to live in a world where such a food
could exist. The severity of it was such that I put my book down on the table
(unheard of behaviour), dropped the fork, and prepared to push the dish away, suppressing
the primal urge to hurl it into the back garden and kill it with fire. How
could this even happen? How could anyone come up with something so hideous? Had
no one thought to taste it before it was unleashed on an unknowing and
unsuspecting public? Had no one considered what could happen to a society where
such atrocities are committed on a daily basis? How the buggery bastarding hell
had this goatfuck of food been conceived, brought into existence, dressed in a
pretty picture, and ushered before, holding out its pleated skirt, smiling
shyly and waiting for me to express approval? Who was responsible for this and
how can I destroy them and all that they hol…</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
…d on a second. Someone, somewhere. This is their life. This is
their job. In some monstrosity of a factory somewhere, doubtless windowless,
airless, noisy and uncomfortable. Day in, day out, making this fetid slop,
knowing that a complete stranger will hate them to their grave for what they’ve
done. How terrible to have that on your conscience. How awful. That poor bastard. Tears filled my eyes. A
new realisation pricked my tear ducts harder. One day, they’re going to run out
of victims. One day, everyone will know what they’ve done, no one will buy
tinned ravioli, the factory will go out of business, they’ll lose their job,
their innocent children will suffer, they’ll end up homeless, they’ll actually
die of death. Because no one will buy tinned ravioli.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
This put a new light on my situation. Now I had to shoulder
some responsibility. As vomit-inducing as I found it, I could not accept the
blame for my rejected tinned ravioli tearing a family apart. I had to help, I
had no choice, it was my duty.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
‘How’s the ravioli?’ Mum asked as she swished past,
resplendent in polo shirt and tennis skirt.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
‘MMMMPPPFFF!’ Double thumbs up, mouth full, eyes rolled
heavenwards to indicate the ecstatic state I was in with this delicious tinned
pasta.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
‘Good! I thought I’d give it a go, something different for a
change. As it’s a hit, I’ll get it again.’</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
‘!!’ My enthusiastic whimper may have sounded like an
involuntary spasm of primal fear and distress, but I can assure you it was just
the dying whelp of my tinned ravioli foodgasm. Honest.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
And that is why for about six months I went without dinner
every Tuesday evening. I had to time my run carefully, and make sure I had
stuff to put over it once I’d silently scraped it into the bin (plastic spoons
are your friend in this situation). Even the dog wouldn’t eat it, and there
were times when he ate, variously, a whole packet of butter, a catering tin of
chicken fat, two frozen rolls, and most memorably to my eight year old self,
another dogs poo. So convinced was I that only I could secure the future of the
tinned ravioli factory, I gamely pretended, every week, that this meal was the
greatest treat of all. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
What a bloody twat. What an overly empathetic twat, and from
such a young age. I want elderly, grey-haired, saggy titted me as I am now to
go back and shake Young Me by the throat and bellow ‘STOP THIS MADNESS. You are
not responsible for the livelihoods of people working in a fecking tinned
ravioli factory. You hate this manure masquerading as food, and your sole
weekly tin will not have any impact on sales. CEASE.’</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Christ, ah, I wish I could. I wish I had. Because being
empathetic to the degree that I am is a right pain in the arse. For one thing,
I cry all the time, about everything, always, especially when it has nothing to
do with me. I cry at game shows. I cry when I see people shouting at their
children (although I still retain the ability to get shitty with The Blondies).
I cry at sports things sportingly sporting (one reason we don’t have a telly is
that I can barely cope with the radio commentary. Seeing athlete’s faces would
completely finish me off). I cry at architectural graffiti inscriptions. I even
– here’s a bucket to laughvomit into – cry when I see things like unused
playgrounds. ‘Where are the children?’ I sob. ‘Mr Happy Tree just wants the
children to play-ha-hay wiiiiiith hiiiim…’</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
Yeah, piss yourselves; I know I’m a twat. Twatty
Mactwatface. Thing is, as embarrassing as I am to be around, and as fucking annoying
as I can be, I am aware of other people in ways that perhaps most are not. And
life gets complicated when you’re like that. You are attuned to picking up
every possibility that someone may be feeling. And it’s far, far too easy to
forget that other people don’t see the world like that, that I’m the odd one,
that I’m not touchy feely by any stretch so keep your fucking hands where I can
see them, but I’m used to thinking about people with consideration. And when I
feel I don’t get that in return, it stings like a bitch. I deal better with
reassurance than rejection. Sometimes perspective is better than the moral high
ground. And absolutely fucking anything is better than tinned ravioli.</div>
Put Up With Rainhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02293737831040832903noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4648435619736920024.post-46075278236601911962016-08-02T17:10:00.002+01:002016-08-02T17:10:48.615+01:00The truth about love Part II<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<a href="http://putupwithrain.blogspot.com.es/2015/03/the-truth-about-love.html" target="_blank">The truth about love</a></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
I wrote that nearly 18 months ago. 'The
truth about love'. Seems a bit glib now. It was true, still is, in
some ways. There are no lies in it. But the truth as it is now, is
that it was based upon a false premise. I was not loved then, and I
am certainly not loved now. This is a hard truth. I could soften it
with mentions of The Blondies, my parents, friends who care, readers,
etc., all of whom play their part in understanding and encouraging
me. I cannot lie and pretend that this does not make my life richer
and more enjoyable. But the truth remains: I was not loved.</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br />
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
I may have been told it twenty times a
day 'loving you'. I may have received a text every few hours 'loving
you'.I may have been assured of it in the way his world was nothing
more than work and home, no friends, no outside interests, no
distractions or complications. But I was not loved.</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br />
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
Cared about? Then, yes. My welfare was
important. Consideration was given. Things that I did not request or
require were done 'for me'. He would 'let' me do certain things I
wanted to do, as long as I knew there would be a price to pay, a
reckoning, in my own fashion. He was a good father to The Blondies on
holidays, their interests and wants coinciding, allowing me the time
and space I jealously, selfishly need in order to write. I cannot say
he was wholly unsupportive in every way, because it would be unfair
and untrue. But I was not loved.</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br />
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
Love shows itself in unexpected and
unthought of ways. The ways in which I listed what love truly is are
still true, still what I believe, still what I will shout from the
rooftops (or just hammer out onto a laptop in Spain whilst The
Blondies are out with Mum for half an hour). And for that reason, I
know I was not loved.
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br />
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
Because with love comes care,
consideration, compassion. Love cannot be love when it involves
telling the world the other persons darkest secrets. Love was not
love when after it is over, you repeatedly fail to do the right
thing. Love was not love when you ignore the implications of your
past behaviour. Love was not love when within weeks of the end of the
relationship you move onto someone new, as you said you would.</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br />
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
Love was not love, for either of us. I
did not love him either, by the end. I don't know when it stopped.
Most likely, it ebbed away, a slow but pervasive drought of the delta
of a love I once thought defined my life, the little channels of the
same love that once spread so broadly, gradually being extinguished
as each stream became a trickle before dying, unnoticed until it was
too late. I too have my share of blame, and have apologised, felt
remorse, tried to make amends. I have received nothing in return,
only a freezing out by many, and certainly no apology from anyone. And
that it how I know I was not loved.</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br />
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
I know I was not loved because I still
care, yet receive no consideration. I was not loved, because I try to
help, yet receive no assistance. I know I was not loved, because I
cannot see myself ever allowing anyone close to me. And yet, I was
replaced, overnight, without a backward glance, discarded. I am happy
that he is happy, and that is what I wish for him. But lately I have
realised that I was not loved, and I mourn the loss of my innocent
belief that I was.</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br />
</div>
<br />
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
Love and I have many things in common,
it would seem. Recherché, elusive, unfathomable. Annoying,
difficult, impertinent. But love and I are strangers, it seems to me
now. Because I am not, never was, and probably never will be, loved.</div>
Put Up With Rainhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02293737831040832903noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4648435619736920024.post-38948016155000971962016-07-19T21:09:00.000+01:002016-07-19T21:09:43.440+01:00Historical Romance<div class="MsoNormal">
Hnnnyeah, it’s not for me. If I want history, I’ll read a
book by a historian. If I want romance… be grateful you can’t see my face right
now, because romance can fucking fuck off and do one as far as I’m concerned. I
am not at home to Mr Hopeless Romantic (that said, if anyone fancies wining and
dining, I’m more than happy to watch you eat whilst I sink a bottle of Chenin
Blanc). So no. No historical romance here, thank you.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
And no historical romance when it comes to the past either.
I’m bored with it. More than bored, actually. I’m tossily fecking pissed off
with it. There seems to be a strand of people who can’t accept that A Small Thing
is just A Small Thing. I’m talking mostly about graffiti, of course, because
that’s what I do, but you can apply it to pretty much any Old Thing that people
talk about. An old building can’t just be an old building, no; it has to have a
bedroom that <st1:place w:st="on">Elizabeth</st1:place>
I reputedly slept in. An old book can’t just be an old book; it has to have
reportedly once belonged to Shakespeare. Strange markings on church walls weren’t
caused by a dangling light pull installed in 1973, but instead hint at some
mysterious occult practises that may relate to tales of witchcraft in the
village during the 16<sup>th</sup> century.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
People often preface these evidenceless suppositions with
‘it is tempting to imagine…’ or ‘it is entirely possible that…’ or to put it
another way ‘I don’t like not knowing everything, so I’m going to make up some
complete bollocks, based on nothing other than a) my own inability to accept we’ll
probably never know the truth and b) that I insist on everything being
significant and important because I’m scared that I am myself insignificant and
unimportant’. Which would be a bit of a long-winded way to start a sentence to
be fair. I privately refer to these people as ‘Pritchards’, thanks to a certain
book [dark mutterings]<dark muttering=""></dark></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
I can understand why. People like certainty, facts, neat
little endings, and links to Big And Important Events. When they encounter a
piece of history that on the face of it isn’t clear cut or glamorous (in their
opinion), they feel a little disappointed and their mind issues an ‘…oh’. The
temptation to therefore make something seem more than it is appears to be
fairly universal. And nowhere is this more true than with graffiti. I’m going
to contradict myself slightly here by saying that all graffiti has meaning. All
of it, from the humblest spraypainted tag to the most beautiful and impressive
14<sup>th</sup> Century SHIP GRAFFITI!!! If it didn’t have any meaning, it
wouldn’t exist. If someone creates something by a deliberate action, it
intrinsically has meaning, even if that meaning is only known by the hand that
created it and the reasons behind it leave every other soul on the planet
baffled. So even just a pair of initials on a school playground wall has/had
meaning. Where the problems seem to arise is in determining what the meaning
is.</div>
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-o1e91MM09L4/V45zwnAn39I/AAAAAAAAX-A/zOwlunMaBuc7LIwfhT4MviVJ53G_SgRcQCEw/s1600/wall.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="239" src="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-o1e91MM09L4/V45zwnAn39I/AAAAAAAAX-A/zOwlunMaBuc7LIwfhT4MviVJ53G_SgRcQCEw/s320/wall.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
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<div class="MsoNormal">
Let’s take those initials, shall we? We can guess at the age
of them by how weathered and smooth the stone around them has become. We can
guess at the age of the person who carved them by how high they are, and the
fact that they’re in a school playground. We can observe that they are
surrounded on every side by similar initials, and nod sagely that yes, graffiti
attracts graffiti. Meaning? That’s a bit trickier. It’s just a very human thing
to do. To say, in the phrase I try to avoid but never bloody do, ‘I was here’.
There are other things we could add, about how people copy others, how it’s
‘just what you do’, we could speculate that the child who created it may
perhaps have been experiencing upheaval in their life and wanted to make some
part of themselves more permanent. But ultimately, it is just a pair of
initials on a wall. Does that make it any less interesting? Any less
meaningful? For me, no. For others, yes. For others still, it’s clearly the
sign of some cult that brainwashed children in the 1970s and forced them to
create physical damage to buildings associated with authority in an attempt to
bring down society to achieve anarchy in the <st1:country-region w:st="on">UK</st1:country-region>.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
I wish I was making that sort of bollocks up (I did, to be
honest), but it’s actually just an extension of so many comments and wild
speculating that I read again and again when it comes to graffiti. A cross
found in a church porch can’t be a straightforward as a record of a transaction
or agreement. It has to be related to pilgrims, even when there’s no record of
pilgrims ever visiting, or even a nearby shrine. A tally chart can’t just be a
basic tally chart of someone who needed a handy surface to keep a record on at
some point prior to 1500. No, it has to be the record of deaths from the plague
during an outbreak in the village in 1426. A drawing of someone in a hood is
actually a satirical representation of the Archbishop of Canterbury, based upon
one piece of marginalia written by someone hundreds of miles away at the time,
and whose handwriting is dodgy enough that it’s possible to read key words in
four different ways. Or, it’s just someone in a hood. A woman carved into the
walls of Norwich Castle isn’t just another carving of a person, she’s there for
good fortune, significance, importance, wild speculation, theories that make no
sense and are based upon no actual evidence other than the person who’s talking
about her determined to prove that actually it means more than that because ‘I’m
clever too, you know!’</div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Think I’m exaggerating? Here’s one I actually didn’t make
up. </div>
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<a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-5JtvbVMJ8WE/V45ykHcBkII/AAAAAAAAX9w/T-DJr1o9DEsmcYK2rvMxkosQ0BfgSHB9QCLcB/s1600/sodding%2Bhelmet.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-5JtvbVMJ8WE/V45ykHcBkII/AAAAAAAAX9w/T-DJr1o9DEsmcYK2rvMxkosQ0BfgSHB9QCLcB/s320/sodding%2Bhelmet.jpg" width="180" /></a></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Look! A graffito of a… hat. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-494xcS_3T9M/V45zI6Nv49I/AAAAAAAAX94/96iu1HlWlpszRnEsztoUaQU-bSi_hGl1gCLcB/s1600/bethhat.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-494xcS_3T9M/V45zI6Nv49I/AAAAAAAAX94/96iu1HlWlpszRnEsztoUaQU-bSi_hGl1gCLcB/s320/bethhat.jpg" width="180" /></a></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
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<div class="MsoNormal">
Here is another… hat. Clearly, they must be
linked. Except that one is in a church in Essex, and the other is in <st1:place w:st="on">Bethlehem</st1:place>. But, ‘it is
impossible to ignore the resemblance’, apparently. And to give you some idea of
the logic at work there, the first theory considered is that it might relate to
the Knights Templar. This happens quite a lot. Anything unusual or not
immediately explicable is very, very, very often assigned to Templars and some
kind of mysterious plot hidden from us that continues to this very day. They
are the generic fruit based listening device of graffiti theories by the bored
and ill informed, and they are also very tedious. The same author also decides
it’s ‘possible’ that <a href="http://putupwithrain.blogspot.co.uk/2016/07/wallflowers.html" target="_blank">daisywheels</a> represent badges of a religious or knightly
Order, and I’d better shut up now before I really go off on one (but before I
do, I’m just going to add that the text next to the first 'hat' reads ‘god help me’ which
I’d say is rather more interesting than FIVE PAGES of discussion of a hat which
is actually a knight’s helmet with a plume and not a hat at all).</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
Graffiti does have meaning beyond what is on the surface. It’s
never superficial. I can bore on for days about it (and as we know, frequently
do), but endlessly talking about it has to be grounded in what we actually see,
not what we think we know, or what we want to impress others with. Graffiti
always has meaning, is always important, simply by its existence. But what it
isn’t is a peg on which to hang your need to show off how much you know, nor is
it always going to mean more than anything mundane and simple. Some
inscriptions do. Some inscriptions require knowledge, experience, research and
a twatty blogger getting annoyed and saying ‘bollocks is it fuck’. Some
inscriptions we will never be able to understand wholly, and that’s fine. No
one is ever going to know everything. But sometimes, it is as simple as a child
carefully scratching their initials onto a wall in a playground. No more, no less.
And it’s important – just as important as the inscription itself – to not
overcomplicate our interpretation of it by automatically assuming it means anything beyond
the fact that it was created in the first place.</div>
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Put Up With Rainhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02293737831040832903noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4648435619736920024.post-4984999259396208152016-07-07T20:53:00.000+01:002016-07-07T20:53:22.731+01:00Wallflowers<div class="MsoNormal">
</div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-Uwd5Se1_sB0/V36v9BEQbMI/AAAAAAAAXmg/yTjeMgSUzX0uNxsE4_J4_uQSFvSh1KQsQCLcB/s1600/IMG_20160707_201105.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-Uwd5Se1_sB0/V36v9BEQbMI/AAAAAAAAXmg/yTjeMgSUzX0uNxsE4_J4_uQSFvSh1KQsQCLcB/s320/IMG_20160707_201105.jpg" width="180" /></a></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Look at that. It’s not much, is it? But whilst it certainly
hasn’t changed my life, unlike <a href="http://medieval-graffiti.blogspot.co.uk/2015/03/guest-blog-2-that-little-ship-by-jess.html" target="_blank">another little graffito</a> not so far away, it
perhaps explains why graffiti exerts such a hold on me. I don’t get out
graffiti hunting much, but I do see a lot of it and of what I see, it is the
simplest finds that seem to stay with me.</div>
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<a href="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-bfwP8hJot9g/V36xLOqIlCI/AAAAAAAAXmo/4iW4HU0dOc8ws_rgmyS8syXXjHAj5RZXgCLcB/s1600/typology.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="236" src="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-bfwP8hJot9g/V36xLOqIlCI/AAAAAAAAXmo/4iW4HU0dOc8ws_rgmyS8syXXjHAj5RZXgCLcB/s320/typology.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
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Daisywheels. If I was trying to impress you with just how
intelligent I am, I’d call them hexfoils, or compass drawn designs, and wank on
about principles of Euclidean geometry, but I’m not and it’d just be
embarrassing for all concerned, so I’ll stick to calling them daisywheels (also because it pains some people to see them called daisywheels, and I am cruel). The
idea behind them is relatively simple. Demons are all around us, stalking the
earth, bringing pain, suffering and death with them. Evil bastards, basically.
But also <i>stupid</i> bastards who are highly curious (yes, got there before you). If
they come across a line, they are compelled to follow it until it reaches an
end. If, however, the line is endless, then the demon must forever retrace
their steps and is effectively trapped within it forever. A simple idea, a
simple design, a simple solution.</div>
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<a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-o1TiK_t6NXA/V36xV48v3FI/AAAAAAAAXms/YZiSOcOEY84L6wTZLWhpeif-dDx8x8MNQCLcB/s1600/IMG_20160707_200707.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="314" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-o1TiK_t6NXA/V36xV48v3FI/AAAAAAAAXms/YZiSOcOEY84L6wTZLWhpeif-dDx8x8MNQCLcB/s320/IMG_20160707_200707.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<o:p><br /></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Daisywheels are one of the most common medieval graffiti
finds; most people who go hunting in even the most halfarsed way will probably
have found one. They don’t rank up there with the ‘WOW’ factor when you pit
them against the more unusual and intricate inscriptions. People don’t ooh and
aah and talk about how stunning they are, or devote time to talking about them
even, because they are simple, they’re common, and to most people, they are
dull.</div>
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-XmrPml1oZro/V36xf4M8dAI/AAAAAAAAXmw/HW-rs4nIT7IIlO3ThZHV511g8AUDSFyagCLcB/s1600/worlington.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="180" src="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-XmrPml1oZro/V36xf4M8dAI/AAAAAAAAXmw/HW-rs4nIT7IIlO3ThZHV511g8AUDSFyagCLcB/s320/worlington.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
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<o:p><br /></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
But because I am a softhearted contrary twat, I adore them.
Especially the simplest, most basic design, the Tesco Value of apotropaic
marks. The beauty of them is that they are balanced, whole, complete, and the
intention behind them is pure. To protect loved ones from harm. To turn aside
evil. They are a testament to the two emotions most likely to cause us to act –
love of someone, and the fear that harm may befall them. The fact that
daisywheels are so widespread and easily found bears eloquent silent witness
that so many people felt the way we do now about those who are special to us.
It’s not a great big shout of ‘look at me, look what I’ve made, aren’t I
great?’, but instead a gentle little whisper of hope and love. Something about
that bypasses my (admittedly limited) rationality and brings tears to my eyes.</div>
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<a href="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-gXbh7-aSo0o/V36xn5pt4UI/AAAAAAAAXm0/SH_plh2DsXAKuV-TVFsXD6xhDMoHK479QCLcB/s1600/IMG_20160707_200454.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-gXbh7-aSo0o/V36xn5pt4UI/AAAAAAAAXm0/SH_plh2DsXAKuV-TVFsXD6xhDMoHK479QCLcB/s320/IMG_20160707_200454.jpg" width="180" /></a></div>
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I’m such a twat about them that I even get a bit upset when
I see daisywheels that have gone a bit… wrong. I imagine the horror that the
creator would have felt at seeing something that had the best intentions do
exactly the opposite and the guilt they may have felt if Bad Things happened,
thinking that perhaps they had caused it by not being as careful as they might
have been. Or the pointed finger of judginess from others that It Was All Their
Fault And They Know It. Stupid, I know. I never claimed to be logical.</div>
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<a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-MMcdlfoQ0FQ/V36xx2z-5YI/AAAAAAAAXm4/21vgKuqw2Jsx4sayvFZ5EMvVTQkWABNhwCLcB/s1600/IMG_20160707_200619.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-MMcdlfoQ0FQ/V36xx2z-5YI/AAAAAAAAXm4/21vgKuqw2Jsx4sayvFZ5EMvVTQkWABNhwCLcB/s320/IMG_20160707_200619.jpg" width="297" /></a></div>
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<o:p><br /></o:p></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
If I’m honest, though, I just feel protective about
daisywheels. That people ignore them, and instead go after the big showy
treasures, the impressive stuff that’s guaranteed to gain attention. ‘Just some
daisywheels…’ is the disgruntled mutter of a thwarted graffiti hunter,
unimpressed by the thought of a love and intention that was etched into
stone centuries earlier. An intention that was shared by so many people, in so
many churches, a widespread belief and devotion that we see time and time
again. People overlook them in favour of the three ring circus things, in
favour of the stuff that was made with the intention of gaining attention,
quite often the graffiti that weren’t made with any real meaning or
significance behind them beyond showing off. That leaves me cold. I’m aware
that this means I’m not a true graffiti person, that I’m out of step with
pretty much everyone else on this because I’d rather think about wallflowers
than find a unique graffito of national significance. But wallflowers tell me
more about people than almost anything else. They’re nothing special. But then
most people aren’t either… except that we all are. And wallflowers remind me of
that. </div>
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Put Up With Rainhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02293737831040832903noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4648435619736920024.post-3056939650011175442016-06-29T20:30:00.000+01:002016-06-29T20:30:08.217+01:00Passing notes<div class="MsoNormal">
Quite a few months ago now, in what seems like a hideously
distorted dreamscape of events I’m no longer certain took place; I had a Very Bad
Day. One of my worst days, in fact. As bad a day as is possible, to the point
that it nearly was my last day. It took someone I’ve never met to make sure
that there weren’t local news reports starting with the words ‘A body has been
found…’ Yeah. That kind of bad. But, as I say, a very wise man was very wise
and very kind (‘and that’s how I got picked up by the Police from Beeston
Priory at one in the morning’ is usually how this story ends). So, with no
trace of hyperbole, I owe my life to the kindness of that person. He knows who
he is. And I hope he knows how his consideration that night kept me going in
the very tough weeks that followed.</div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
There was another stranger that day too. Although I was
trying to be discreet during my phone calls with Kind Man (or at least I think
I was, my memory is distinctly hazy) someone on the bus to Sheringham (yes, the
arse-aching glamour of my life) heard me sobbing and trying to explain why the
horror of everything had overwhelmed me and my mind had splintered. And they
obviously realised that they couldn’t do much to help, but as their bus stop
approached, they got up, took a few steps back to where I sat and handed me a
scrap of paper.</div>
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I’ve kept it. Of course I have. I put it in the notebook I
had with me, and I’ve kept it there ever since. I carried that notebook with me
for months, everywhere I went, although I haven’t written in it since that day
because I don’t want to be reminded of the words that were spilt into it. But I
did read that note a lot.</div>
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I didn’t take in anything about the person who gave it to
me. Male/female, old/young, alone/part of a group. All I remember is a
disembodied hand passing it to me. And me snotting everywhere because I was at
the point of knowing that these were my last few hours on earth, and there
would be no more days, let alone better ones.</div>
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I hadn’t planned to tell anyone about that stranger. It was
just going to be a moment between us. But I sort of feel like I have to now.
Because the world right now seems a bleak, empty, hopeless place. For family,
for friends, for strangers. And I feel utterly powerless to do anything about
it. Helpless. But I’m not, not completely. None of us are. We might not be able
to change much in a wider, more meaningful sense, we can't change what has happened, nor what will come, but we can each do small
things. Smiling at strangers, kind gestures, challenging people when they are
casually racist or discriminatory. Stepping in when abuse is happening in front of us. We can even pass a note to someone we know
is in distress. We don’t have much else, and even those small things can’t
change the terrifying and uncertain present we’re living through, still less
whatever it is the future holds for us. But if you see someone who needs helps,
offer it. Posturing and pontificating on social media is all very well, but it
doesn’t do very much to reassure people that they are welcome, they are cared
about, that they matter not because of who they are, but simply because they
are. Because they are, and we value that. Because they are, and we want them to be. Ignoring things only makes people
feel even more isolated, before we can start to think of a way forward
together. And come what may, we need to be together.</div>
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This isn't my usual stance. Normally I'd be shouting and RANTSWEARING and telling everyone just how soul-twistingly angry I am. I have been, doubtless will be again. But tonight I am just sad. Tonight I am alone. Tonight I am despairing that everything I see seems to be a relentless and unforgiving stretch of misery, bad news, and unkindness. </div>
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So be kind. Be brave. Be thoughtful. And not just to people
you know, but to anyone who needs it. It will be appreciated; I can assure you
of that. And to you, whoever you were, on that bus … I wish I could tell you
what that small gesture meant, and how I clung to it. Because if a stranger
cared enough about me to do that, then I allowed myself to dare to believe that
perhaps I was worth saving after all, despite everything. </div>
Put Up With Rainhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02293737831040832903noreply@blogger.com9tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4648435619736920024.post-45192649433627575022016-06-11T20:15:00.001+01:002016-06-11T20:27:33.487+01:00Memo to Turner<div class="MsoNormal">
I get it. He’s your friend, your son, your brother. He’s
been accused of doing something terrible. You don’t believe it. You can’t
believe it. You won’t believe it. That sweet boy with the blue eyes and blond
hair. The boy you knew, no, the boy you <i>know</i>,
he wouldn’t do that. You know he wouldn’t. You know him. He wouldn’t.</div>
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<div class="MsoNormal">
There must be some kind of misunderstanding. It couldn’t
have happened the way they say. He says it didn’t happen like that. He says he
didn’t do it. He says he was there, but it wasn’t like that, despite the
evidence. He denies it. You believe him. You accept his version. You don’t
question the parts that don’t make sense, the facts that exist. Blindly, you
believe what you see, that boy you say you know. You close ranks.</div>
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You close ranks, and you absolve him of any wrongdoing, any
responsibility, any guilt. You don’t make him look at himself and what he did. Easier
to blame someone else, everyone else, but not the boy you know. You weren’t
there, but you believe you know what happened.</div>
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Do you think you helped him? Do you think that your refusal
to accept there might be some truth in what other people said was wise? Do you
think that maybe if you’d considered that he wasn’t the innocent, ill-treated
victim, he might have thought about what he’d done? Have you thought that
people don’t often want to let their masks slip, that they lie about what they’ve
done? Or are you always going to stick to your belief in the boy you know?
Never doubt him, never question him, always defend him.</div>
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Never allow him to consider that what he did was wrong. What
he did, no one else. No one else did it. It wasn’t a big boy who ran away. It
wasn’t a series of events that went wrong. It wasn’t a misunderstanding. It was
what he did. But no, in your world, your family are entitled to behave as they
wish, and if anything goes wrong, you’ll bleat that it wasn’t your fault.
Nothing to do with you as parents, nothing to do with you as people, nothing to
do with the boy you know.</div>
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It is, though. And all you are doing through your misplaced
sense of loyalty to your son is reinforcing that he is always going to be that
golden haired, blue eyed boy who is never in the wrong. And because he’s never
in the wrong, he’ll never have to apologise, never express regret or remorse. He
won’t even be able to do the right thing, even now. Will you ever accept being
in the wrong yourselves? Because if you don’t, he can’t. And if he can’t grow
up and accept the blame, he’s always going to be that stunted little child who
lies his way out of trouble every time. That selfish and entitled man who puts
his needs and wants before anyone else. He will stay that boy, I promise you.
That boy you know. Except that you don’t know him at all. </div>
Put Up With Rainhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02293737831040832903noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4648435619736920024.post-27404511458141109992016-06-06T11:00:00.002+01:002016-06-06T11:00:28.690+01:00Daughter of time<div class="MsoNormal">
Happy 8<sup>th</sup> birthday, my delightful daughter. Happy
birthday, my darling.</div>
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I got it wrong, didn’t I? I’ve always said you’re tough,
resilient. I never worried about you in the way I did about your brother. You’ve
always been the strong one; the one who shrugged off upsets and insults, the
one who didn’t need reassurance.</div>
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But you do.</div>
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The problem is that you don’t like to admit it, and so I’ve
missed out, so many times in recent months, on being able to give you the time
and words that you’ve needed. Sometimes it’s been because I’ve just been too caught
up in everything else that’s going on, sometimes it’s because your brother has
got in first with his feelings and need for cuddles, but mostly it’s because
you hide your feelings too well. Your real feelings, I mean. You’re never
quiet, we always know when there’s a triumph or disaster unfolding, but you don’t
often open up to me. And that’s my fault.</div>
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I have always believed that of the two of you, The Boy is
the one most like me. Quiet, shy, reserved, so I’ve always given him more
attention to encourage his confidence. He gets my time because he’s always
asked for it. You never do. It’s taken me a long time – too long – to realise
that you are more like me than he will ever be, because you have that sheer bloody
minded refusal to depend on other people for help, and an iron will to Just Get
Stuff Done. Remember that time on the climbing frame a few weeks ago? When you
got stuck and panicked a bit? And I said to you, in exasperation ‘Why do you
always have to go on it, when you always get stuck?’ And your reply was ‘Because
I was determined I could do it on my own.’ Sums us both up…</div>
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It doesn’t have to be like that, though. Honestly,
sweetheart. It’s probably a bit late for me to change too much. But you’re so
young still, even as you seem to be racing through the years. It is ok to tell
me when you’re not ok. I’m your mum. I want to make the world as easy for you as
I can. Sometimes I won’t be able to help, but I’ll always listen. I can’t bear
it when I see your face crumple with disappointment and how you turn away to
hide that from me. The times when I see that you're upset, but you tell me that whatever's happened doesn't matter. You don’t have to live a life where the only person you can
rely on is yourself, please believe me. I will almost certainly let you down
without meaning to, because I’m just as human and fallible as everyone else,
but I am here, I love you, and I will do anything for you.</div>
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I treasure every moment I have with you. The hours we spend
in the grotty pub next to school, waiting for your brother to finally traipse
out of whatever after school club he’s doing. The times you come with me to the
shop in the evening, and carefully buy sweets with your pocket money, the pride
showing on your little pearl of a face. It touches me even more that you always
buy something for your brother too, unasked and unprompted. I am honoured when
you give me your notebook to read a story you’ve been writing. You are a
writer, my beautiful, precious girl; you have an almost unnatural talent
already. I know that one day your words will change the world of other people,
not just me. I am so proud of how you are, who you are, and what you will
become. I’m sorry that I cry over you as often as I do, but I don’t always have
the words to tell you how happy you make me.</div>
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So, today, on your birthday, I’m sorry I haven’t been able
to buy all of the presents you asked for. I wish I could have done. But I can
offer you something I haven’t been too good at doing up until now. I promise
you that I will be a better mother to you, in that I will make sure you know that you don’t have to do everything on your own. And I hope, in
time, you will give me the gift of telling me honestly your truth, and asking me to help you.</div>
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Put Up With Rainhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02293737831040832903noreply@blogger.com2