Learning the Forgotten

It’s a skill that I have yet not become even remotely good at; in fact, I’m utterly rubbish at it. Although, even remembering to (or discovering) the importance of the art of learning the forgotten is a positive step. What I mean by this is learning something ages ago, storing it in your mind and then consequently forgetting it about five minutes later. Some of it is mundane, like buying a packet of Pork Scratchings back in 2000 and noting like they taste of gone off tripe with salt sprinkled on them. Only for last week to find myself in Sainsbury’s noticing a packet of Pork Scratchings hanging in between the wine and the cans of lager. Hmm, they look interesting, I wonder what they taste like? Next thing I’m doing is throwing in a packet into my basket and outside popping one of those dry curly pieces of saturated fat into my mouth. Rancid. And then I get the flash back of the first time I tasted them, after buying them from some garage outside Birmingham somewhere. Why didn’t I remember?

And then there’s things that help me with work and everyday life which I should of learned at school (and quite possibly did but forgot), like when is it appropriate to use semi colons. I learned about its use in 2006 when an employee of the local library picked up something I’d wrote, which I had left behind. As she ran towards me she must of glanced at what I had written because as she handed me back the piece of paper she told me, you need some semi colons in there. To which I replied that I haven’t got a clue about when I should use one. She then spent five minutes with me, explaining that it should be used when you want more emphasis than just a comma. Yet, I can tell you now I have pretty much totally forgotten about semi colons and where they should be applied. I just go off tapping away and inserting commas and full stops where I see fit and never consider that perhaps a semi colon should be used, until that is, someone points it out to me and I say, oh yeah, but inside I’m beating myself up for not learning/remembering hard enough the time the kind lady in the library explained it all.

Also, there are the aspects of emotion that I forget, even though at the time, it felt so good that I said to myself that I’d never forget how that feeling was. Only to forget, until I feel it again and it’s like bumping into an old chum, it all comes flooding back. A most recent example was the feeling of accomplishment. When I was being overwhelmed at work I was just sinking into the mire and so was beginning to think like this, starting to be closed minded as my body shutdown what it considered superfluous activities in order to save energy to get things done. And I remember thinking, this is crap, I don’t like feeling like this. Yet I have been in this situation and felt this way before. And when I finally complete my tasks and projects there is this superb feeling of elation of finishing but also at conquering what I thought was too difficult. I become reenergised and I note that the thing did not break me and so my capacity for accommodating stress has expanded a little further. I need to remember this because although I’m not out of the mire at the moment, I have one more big week and then I genuinely hope it will all be over and I can get that feeling of accomplishment.

But there are others, like telling someone who really deserves it to piss off. Regardless of the context of the situation, if someone deserves those words bequeathed to them, then when it’s delivered you should get a feeling of satisfaction that outweighs any repercussion. Whether it be in front of a tribunal or a severe head smacking, if they deserve it then you should still feel that justification for telling them so. Sometimes I forget that feeling of justification and satisfaction because of the context that surrounds the situation and the over riding notion, that we should not swear to each other because we are adults. Yeah right. I’ve told local hoodies to do this, as well as work colleagues (although years ago) and when I’ve said it I remember it feeling right. To me, it was a concise way of communicating what I wanted them to do and I shouldn’t forget that sometimes people need that conveyed.

So now I have discovered about learning the forgotten I’m hoping I can start to develop the skill of wrenching out stuff I learned ages ago and not have to learn them all over again. Or, what is more likely, that I will forget about this all and learning about the forgotten will sound nothing more than a 90’s Britpop album title. I guess that’s why I’ve posted it on the blog, before I forget!

In other news, I discovered this song for the first time on Friday afternoon. I immediately fell in love with it and knew my weekend was going to be good. Right, I'm off to get high on Peruvian coffee.

Lumley's Law

I thought it was really good to see a government back down from their original stance of not allowing Gurkha’s who had fought for Britain before 1997 UK residency. What I did pick up from all this was that you need a celebrity in order to do (or at the very least significantly contribute) to a campaign, otherwise the campaign only seems to get so far before it just loses a motion or is suffocated by other things happening. In the case for the Gurhka’s, they had a beautiful woman who was able to speak with a resonance that compelled even the politicians themselves.

It seems sad but in order for the government to hear you, you need a celebrity to attract attention. So, does this mean that those who wish to have speed cameras taken down should contact, The Hoff? I mean, what better ambassador? He could drive down the street in the sleek black car, whilst Kit blared out that all speed cameras should be taken down. When backed into a corner during a fierce debate with some dodgy politician, he could just whisper something into his black digital Casio and all of a sudden – in extremely slow motion and with a bionic sound effect – Kit could come crashing through the window and pull up in front of The Hoff before the both sped off down the M1.

Or, what about those that campaign against Airport expansion or construction, they could get Mr T. He hated flying, so surely he has no interest in airports being constructed. For every speech he did they could have an opening sequence of the various ways the rest of the A-Team managed to get him on a plane. Ranging from the spiking of his smoothie to the time he was somehow tricked into actually getting on a plane without him noticing. Also, all his speeches would be concise and to the point. And if any one disagreed I’m sure they’d face a knuckle sandwich. There could be special appearances from Murdoc or Face (I found out his full name was Templeton Peck the other day and cracked up laughing) to reaffirm the message.


I’m not trying to trivialise those that campaign because it’s something I feel strongly about (Although my last two paragraphs have suceeded in doing so). Yet, it seems that in order to be heard, the importance of a celebrity is weighty. Joanna Lumley also happens to show humility in defeat (when they originally lost the decision), never gave up hope and dealt with everything with aplomb. However, if she wasn’t there still attracting people after the original defeat, would it have been overturned?

In other news, Coldbrain sent me a link to a sighting of Mr Paddington himself (click on Street View). I’m now hopping onto a train to see if he wants to go for a pint.

Can I claim for that?

For me, it started off with a murmuring around the news agenda at the end of last year. A few sentences spoken on 5Live, a couple of columns worth in the newspapers about some MP from Balderdash who managed to claim back on expenses a new plasma television. Cheeky git, I remember telling myself and then totally forgetting all about it, just like I do with most of the news I hear or read.

The murmurings continued to grow, however, on a weekly basis with new MPs from Codswallop or Crudforth successfully making rather dubious claims from new garden decorations to toilet rolls. The public’s interest grew and the media licked its lips in anticipation of another scandal teetering on the brink of explosion. What made it all the more enchanting was that we were being dripped fed information because it was not being disclosed by the government. It smelt bad and the fact it was being hidden made us all the more suspicious as to who spent what on what. Maybe Gordon Brown had made an expense claim on a Rocket Propeller Grenade launcher to wipe out any threat both inside his party and out, or that’s what I like too have thought.

It seemed something was foul and it was being covered up. Yet, someone, either a civil servant or other government employee disagreed with the non-compliance, and decided to do something about it and started giving newspapers info. I hope it was the same 23 year old clerk how was blamed (as it was his/her fault) for all that data being lost on a CD sometime last year, thus ensuing public uproar.

And then The Daily Telegraph finally got the information released letting us all know what’s been going on. MPs had successfully claimed back on expenses things like, mortgage repayments for second homes, restoration of beams to a roof, a garden being redesigned and a moat being cleaned. A moat! Now that is abuse if I ever heard one. The fact it was a Conservative MP only reinforced the stereotypical image of what one has of a stereotypical MP. Still what made this all juicy was that it was all MPs from all the major parties that were abusing ‘the system’. I do believe that the Labour and Liberal Democrats looked worse from this, considering their ace card revolves around being ‘working class orientated’. So instead of blaming each other, they blamed ‘the system’. Along the lines of, I am perfectly within my rights to claim for those items because the system allows it.

Those justifications were as solid as Ian Hislop’s chances of winning on an episode of Have I got News For You. Everyday we all heard more stuff coming out in The Daily Telegraph about home improvements being claimed back but even worse, using ‘the system’ to make a profit on the housing market. Enraged and fuelled with righteous retribution they were all wrong, that was until someone said.

“Yeah, but what would you do if you were in that position. I mean, say you were new and your boss said ‘it’s alright, claim that new ipod touch on expenses, we all do it’, wouldn’t you?”

Shit I thought, I probably would and stayed silent as my conscious wrestled itself into submission. But then, my answer was honest and that made me look at things differently but still come up with the same conclusion, I really want an ipod touch. I would like to think that I wouldn’t make too many far out claims, perhaps buying Pret A Manager sandwiches instead of Boots ones or tipping the cab driver a few pound on the receipt. Definitely no moat being cleaned!

Some of those MPs did make a mistake and claiming for tea cloths is probably just about excusable whereas there were those that did realise exactly what they were doing. What has come out of this though will be a change in the expenses claim system which will hopefully eradicate the lavish and process the appropriate.

What I would like to do is thank the guy or gal who first discovered what was going on and started telling the press about it because without him or her doing that, none of us would have known what had been happening.

Readjusting

It’s been a while since I last posted. It’s not that TalesofEpoch has been forgotten. In fact, I think about the ol’ blog on a daily basis as it is my creative outlet. Each day I wait for a new entry idea to fall into my head. Sometimes it happens when I’m making coffee in the kitchen at work, just before I push the lever down on the hydroboil machine and scald my hand causing the instant freeze coffee to fly from my mug. Other times I’ll be reading a book in peace, either at home, in a coffee shop or the library and then the idea will just appear. Not daily, but quite frequently.

These ideas have been popping into my head less and less of late though. It’s like I am scraping the barrel of concepts and getting the dried leftover pulp. I mean what on earth were my last two blog entries about? They were shit. I reread them this evening and they made me snigger but I was overwhelmingly cringing at the lack of substance. Now I think the reason for my last two lacklustre entries was because I’ve been working my cotton socks off. Since mid March my working life has taken over all other aspects of life and has become my life. I have been starting work around 8:15am and finishing around 6pm which churns out nothing more than a haggard looking man who spends a further five minutes trying to untangle his earphones to listen to some music before exiting the building. After I finish work all I want to do is sleep and nothing more. Well apart from eating first. I’ve been trying the last couple of weeks to write something but both pieces resembled my last two entries and were duly deleted. Currently, work has regulated my life because all my energies are focussed there, it is begrudgingly because I want energy for myself to at the very least make breakfast in the morning and hold a decent conversation. Instead I’ve started saying uh-huh as a response to everything which when asked, is that report done yet, is perfectly appropriate but when asked, Please, I need your help, I think I’m going to have a breakdown isn’t really the response the recipient was hoping for.

I did have a couple of days off during the Bank Holiday and I remembered what it was like to be me which was great, especially when the red eye disappeared and I didn’t have to open Outlook. The time off also made me realise that I’ve got to readjust myself. Work life is always going only get harder and I’ve got to develop the skill to either get away with doing nothing, which I can’t do if I wanted because I actually strive for self actualisation (check me out getting some of Maslow’s hierarchy of needs in here). Or I develop the skill to cast work aside at a certain point and not let it flood my life. At the moment, I’m rubbish at this but at least I’ve realised that’s what I should do if I don’t want to turn into a complete bod.

And should I fail, I’m afraid I’ll write about more crap like how difficult I find it to cut my toe nails, or how I’ve got earring shrapnel in the top rim of my left ear which is now part of me as the skin has grown over it.

In other news, I got a juicer. No it wasn’t because I saw a Jason Vale advert. Two people completely unrelated to each other and on separate occasions advocated the benefits of buying a juicer so completely blindly taking their advice I went and got one. Now I can drink carrot, beetroot and radish all in one drink. How lovely.