Complet...

I really thought I had gotten rid of it. But just like the two chicken pox scars on my chest it is probably something that I will carry with me to the grave. It is nothing more than a trait, but it is an awfully annoying one. My inability to complete things I start.

It has been with me since I can remember. When I would think of something it would be with such enthusiasm that I would start with enjoyment and momentum. And then, just like that, the enthusiasm wavers and the enjoyment slowly trickles away and suddenly I’m grinding to a halt. I thought it was mostly because I was lazy and didn’t want to put in too much effort, the ideas were good but my focus was obviously ragged. This self made belief rested well with me for years, it was attaching something to the unknown that enabled me to shrug it off knowing full well that I am just too lazy to finish a difficult job. I think I formed it around about the same time I considered working part time in Blockbusters watching the latest films probably the best job in the world.

But just like the Pulp song “Something changed”. Obviously but completely unexpectedly I started to concentrate in improving my focus. This was fuelled by injustices of the world and closer to home which could not altered unless I took issues more seriously and thus develop the focus to finish mundane but necessary tasks, push through the barrier of uncertainty, when you sort of feel that you are not sure why you are doing this. In fact, I still do this quite a lot but even from doing it a few times I was beginning to finish things that I would have left without even thinking twice knowing full well that my initial belief of ‘it’s because I’m a slacker’ was justification and reason enough not to complete the task. This blog, is a good example. Although cajoled into starting one I soon realised that it was a virtual carte blanc for my ideas and inky fingers to get hold of. However, after a few months the gusto dwindled and ideas dried up faster than my contact lens do that I considered not bothering anymore. But with the morsel of improved focus I was able to push myself to type until the topics to write about retuned in abundance. It felt good writing but also good knowing that in a small way I had self improved. I no longer believed in this ‘well it’s because I’m a slacker’. Truth is I am not, or I am not one anymore and it felt good. I liked pushing myself a bit. But this did not settle my initial fear and loathing of not completing most things I started. In fact it reopened the wound in the same way you dig out an avocado pip, and it left me lost.

It dawned on me last week when I was thinking about the reasons why I shudder at completing things. It never was because I was lazy and ‘too cool to go to school’. That had been addressed, this was a stark realisation which kind of left me slightly cold but I’m pretty sure everyone gets that same feeling. The feeling of failure. Why bother finishing something if it ends up totally rubbish? You might as well cut your losses, call it a day. Consider it a learning experience and move onto something new. There is no point in completing something if you feel it will turn out to be a failure. My mind just wasn’t computing the concept of finishing something that would end as a disaster, so for years this was the true reason why I never finished things I started but managed to submerge it deep down in my subconscious.

I guess the reason for this entry and why I am writing out my thoughts to get to this point and then explain my point to myself (and you of course). I spent last Tuesday morning debating to start on the 3rd draft of my story. The 2nd draft took nearly 8 months to complete and there I found myself sitting in a café musing whether it was worth a 3rd draft. The story is basically done, it could stand alone but it is not finished. Supping on my coffee I realised that the 3rd draft would probably bring it to an end or at the very least bring me closer to being entirely happy with it. But what is stopping me is not the potential 8 months reading, rereading, writing, deleting and then reinserting again. I think I could cope with all that to a certain extent. It is the idea of spending all this time and energy writing something that in turn would end up being rubbish and a failure. It was strange moving my mindset to accept that I had finished my story just like that over a large Americano on a rainy grey Tuesday in February.

It took about thirty seconds before I reversed my decision. I had spent so much time, I mean since July 07 until now, piecing it all together, times where I was knackered but knew it was important to struggle on, times where I had been out drinking all night to come home and fire up the laptop because I thought of something new to add to the story. I would write in the rain, or in the blazing sun always adding to this crazy tapestry that was once a thought. I would write in various locations ranging from, the library, all sorts of cafes, on a toilet, the train, a beach, on grass, in bed, in the park, in the airport. Even at work I would occasionally get an idea and quickly cobble a paragraph together to refine later on that night. And then there are the people that took time out to read my 1st draft and give me feedback so I could write a better 2nd draft. And those that read the 2nd version who did the same to help me refine the next update, surely it is harsh on them and makes all their efforts redundant. And all the tunes I listened to whilst typing away, Sigur Ros, The Album Leaf, Air, Bjork, Babyshambles, Coldplay, Emiliana Torrini, Jamie T, Jose Gonzalez, Kanye West, The Killers, Kula Shaker, Lali Puna, M83, Madeliene Peryroux, Massive Attack, Oasis, Portishead, Psapp, Roni Size, Sebastien Tellier, The Thrills, Tricky, The Cardigans, Cat Power, The Eagles, Libertines, Metro Area… I could go on for ages, but I listened to all their music for help emotionally to write this thing, evoking memories or fuelling my imagination that kind of left me drained and it would be a waste, all of it, if I just considered it finished even though I know full well it is not.

I guess too much of me is involved in this thing now, even if I read it in ten years time and laughed embarrassingly to myself at what I wrote all those years ago. It doesn’t really matter does it? It is, at very least a reminder of just how I was and thought at that time and so it is important I finish it for myself. Correct the misuse of tense (and there are a lot of them), develop the characters and strengthen the main story line. And even if it is a failure and I read it afterwards with my head in my hands, it will have been completed and that in it self is some sort of achievement. Now, when I begin the 3rd draft is another matter.

The last stand of the early 90’s

I was lying on my bed aimlessly flicking through the television channels when something made me shake my head and lean my head forward (as if this was going to unveil more). There in front of me was an advert for Beverly Hills 902010. Surely, this was some kind of mistake I thought turning up the volume so I could hear the deep voiced man from E4 give his synopsis. And there it all became apparent, Beverly Hills 90210 had be remade for 2009. 90210, as it is now called will have its work cut out to achieve the success of its predecessor. I mean, for a start in the early nineties they were all donning white t-shirts with waist coats and ripped jeans (perhaps a symbolic gesture to the 80s). Would this new show revolve around twins and their honest family, only for the female twin to embroil herself with the local bad boy who looked 30 when he was supposed to look 18? The male twin who was the grounded down to earth one would spend his time pursuing his journalism career with the geek (but secretly well fit when she took of her glasses and dropped her hair) Andrea who was constantly searching for some travesty to uncover at the local high school. Surely this new version cannot compete, I thought. Or was I just being nostalgic and forgetting that sometimes when things are remade they are actually better. But then I remembered David Silver, the guy who was a year younger than the ‘cool lot’ and even though he tried always failed to get in with the gang. That was until he ‘allegedly’ spent one summer taking extra lessons for extra credit and found himself in their year a few seasons later. From then on he became accepted by the cool gang, neglected his best friend who subsequently shot himself, and epitomised ‘cool’ which was typified by his keyboard playing skills. Now, how about that for a story line! There is no doubt that 902109 for 2009 has its work cut out but this isn’t just the reason why I’m writing this now.

What I then began to realise was just how much things come full circle. When the original 90210 came out on TV Great Britain was in a receding economic environment and as we are in one now a revamped version of the American high school drama has made its way on to our screens. OK, it’s a tenuous link but then Gladiators was remade last year and I think that was launched way back in the early nineties. They even recruited an ex-footballer just like they did with John Fashanu way back in the day. Could it be that television reacts to the repetitive economic climates by regurgitating old shows from when we were all in a trough? I tired to think about the relationship about music and the recession and during that time Nirvana seemed to typify the current mood but I can’t think of anyone right now that is doing the same. But still music is a good way of discovering the general feeling. When the recession in the early nineties ended we entered a new era in full steam with indie band Oasis spearheading the ‘Britpop’ scene where it seemed everyone loved this type of music (well apart from America). It then moulded into ‘Cool Britannia’ and then the country was on a high for some apparent reason.

So this leaves me musing that in a couple of years time, say 2012, indie will make a come back and the forever young Jarvis Cocker will rise once again to take his throne as Britain comes out of the gloom. By 2014 everyone will be feeling great about living in ol’ blighty. Although I doubt it’ll be dubbed ‘Cool Britannia’ but am sure someone else will find a term to capture the moment. And a few years on from that when the economy begins to creak once more and the recession looms I’ll keep and eye out for 90210 Generation X Style but how I wish they would remake Rising Damp.

In other news, this snow is pretty intense. I tried to take the laid back approach but since the snow has turned into ice and I fell over I don’t like it anymore. Here are some pics before it all turned to slush.

Nothing Much

Thinking about it recently and particularly today, there’s nothing much been happening. Perhaps my life is nothing more than a bore or that I have lost the ability to remember things. Or maybe I’m just knackered. Ok, currently the snow has affected me by preventing a journey to work today but that didn’t give me the bug to scribble something down. What I had noticed about the white stuff was that it has managed to wrestle top spot on all the news agendas from the ever present ‘credit crunch’ saga. In fact I found myself sitting on my bottom step thinking who invented this term ‘credit crunch’. Was it said nonchalantly by an economist during a Channel 4 news interview? Or perhaps it was Nick Robinson the politics man for ITV (I’m sure he used to be on the BBC) who mentioned it one day in a broadcast. Or perhaps The Sun or The Mail paid someone to spend all day thinking of buzz words to encapsulate something so intricate and complicated that by saying the term everyone else will understand what they mean without knowing what they actually mean. If you know what I mean!

Have been ignoring television recently and I don’t know why. Seems like anything I want to watch is never on during a time I feel like watching television. Instead I have started to listen to some Radio 4. Some of it is boring (actually I find it hard to understand) but the good stuff is good. Currently I have been getting into listening to some Parliament show that’s on in the night. It’s just a recap of what happened in Parliament that day with clips of people debating with one another. I smirk every time I hear them say ‘My right honourable gentleman’ and then proceed to tear his/her argument apart by insinuating the party they belong to are nothing more than corrupt aristocrats who spend money at the same rate Jimmy Carr delivers controversial jokes. Still, I often find myself trying to put the faces to the voices and almost all the time there’s a vision of a fat balding man in a smart suit and if they are female it’s always a focussed power suited woman with intelligent eyes. I then sigh and realise that I truly have let my impressions be led by the ever enticing stereotype.

What I have been getting into recently are audio books. How I wished I discovered them earlier as this has become my favourite way to imbibe knowledge (by not actually concentrating and letting my subconscious do all the work). So far I have listened to the galvanising voice of Barack Obama talking about his experiences within the senate in The Audacity of Hope. Then there’s some narrator I have never heard of tell me the tale of A Tale of Two Cities. I have been listening to some Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix too. Ok, I’m not going to learn much from Harry Potter but it’s still entertaining. If you ever find yourself not sure what to bung on your iPod, go do a search for ‘audio books’ on iTunes and you’ll be in for a treat.

I’m going now, my tea bag has seemed to have dried up and want to wash it before it sticks to the base.

Visit to Kerouac's Scroll

In a Hartbeat

The news that Tony Hart had died didn’t quite register with me straight away. I was in my room when I heard something on the radio that Tony Hart had passed. At first, I thought I recognised the name but nothing more so I didn’t really register the brief 30 second encapsulation of his life achievements. So I carried on reading my book in peace not bothering to pay the news segment anymore attention. It was only when I turned on to News24 later in the evening and saw Morph that I thought something unusual was happening. Surely I hadn’t discovered a channel dedicated to the 80s. Then, the penny dropped and I realised that it was his creator who had died.

I absolutely adored Hartbeat when I was a young ‘un. I thought Tony Hart’s creations were immense. Whether they were a small painting using watercolours to larger projects where the viewer only sees certain segments in detail and only at the end does the camera zoom out to reveal some breathtaking landscape made from twigs, acorns and paints. It fuelled my curiosity in all things artistic. Teachers at school used to hate me when it came to art because I’d be hell bent on discovering a ‘new’ colour by mixing various paints together and then wasting all the brilliant blues, greens and reds only to produce some putrid quagmire that looked worse than it sounded. Still it was the eagerness of pushing those ‘artistic boundaries’ that I thought every Year 5 needed to make.

And then there was Morph. I was captivated by this little splodge of plastacine that used to cause no end of commotion. Never talking, just moving causing havoc with a few buttons and pens then cruising back to the comfort of home which was a pencil case. What I particular enjoyed was the link between Tony and Morph, how every now and then the camera would cut to Tony who would either tell Morph off or ask him a question. Then it would zoom in on the little plasticine man who would mumble something back that only Tony could understand. I loved it, making it seem almost plausible that Morph did actually exist.

This obviously led an impressionable young boy to try and create his own one. I was unable to convince my mother to buy me Play Doh or even the more authentic plasticine that seemed only to be sold in WHSmiths. So annoyed and digging around I finally found a packet of Blu-Tac and wasted the whole packet making my own FrankenMorph. I used a butter knife to give his head a dome look, screwed up two small pieces of paper into balls for eyes and used a pencil to engrave a smile. The result was a Morph suffering from pneumonia who had perhaps consumed one lead pencil too many . It was a disaster.

Hartbeat really influenced my life when I was a young so I thank you Tony Hart for all the enjoyment and encouragement you and your programme gave me.

Intelligentsia

Perhaps it isn’t the best time to write this as I’m suffering from a hangover. Still, it’s been on my mind the last week and has been lingering around in my head for quite sometime now.

What I find difficult to understand is how to quantify level of intelligence. I know it sounds stupid that I think of things like this but I do. At school we take exams to test our knowledge of a particular subject. Some actually concentrate more on playing the exam system which is probably a pretty clever thing to do in itself. Journalists and a lot of media outlets deem footballers thick and stupid especially Cristiano Ronaldo (at the moment). However, he speaks two languages, Portuguese and English. He even demonstrates his new learned language in television interviews broadcasted all over the country and on the internet. That’s something I’m sure not many people would do. And this is without mentioning his actual profession, surely he must have a high level of intelligence to understand the runs, plays and reactions required in anticipation of receiving the ball. However, I expect that he is no scholar of academia.

Academics themselves are pupils of their chosen expertise and generally accepted by all as intelligent human beings. They must be having past many exams in their life time and written papers that are printed in journals. But is it possible that sometimes they become so engrossed in their work that they forget about ‘basic’ intelligence to get through the day? I mean in the sense of perhaps conveying opinions on ‘mundane’ matters of what’s in the paper or just general conversation because they are too focussed on intricate algorithms or the latest experimental break through.

And what about those people that do not have high paid jobs? I spoke to a dustman on Wednesday and he began to tell me of his travels to Sri Lanka, his old job working as a clerk in India and learned how to cook a traditional Indian curry. And now he was currently studying A-Level biology at evening classes. And there it kind of dawned on me that although some people may not be deemed clever a lot must be said for those that strive to be. Ones that wish to better themselves to learn new things and gain experiences from places they didn’t expect. Even though he may obtain a recognised qualification in biology I still think he must be clever if he can cook a traditional curry.


I guess we are own judges of who is intelligent and what level they are at. Society does give us indicators by the type of job one has or how much they get paid. For me, and this will be different for others, it is wit. When I meet someone witty, genuine bona-fide unique wit I completely become in awe of them and listen to them intently. To think that quickly and deliver what they wish to say the way they do is nothing short of genius, in my humble opinion. True, it is unlikely a medical cure will come out of a great comic or orator. And yes, perhaps the bridges I walk on wouldn’t be as sturdy if they made them. Still, they do contribute to the enjoyment of life.

Come back to Radio 2 Russell Brand. I miss your chaotic wit and four syllable words.

In other news, it’s still freezing! Here are some photos of a frozen river and frost on my scarf from a short 5 minute walk to the shop.

Entry Number 100 and An Eyeful Tale

It is 7:23am and I’m standing in the bathroom trying to get my contact lenses in before heading out to work. The lens for the right slips in with aplomb but when it comes to the left one it does not sit well. I begin to blink which is an indication that my eye is screaming ‘get this out of here before I turn red’. I oblige and pull out the lens but before managing to bring it to the safety of my open palm it slips from my finger and begins to descend all the way down into the open toilet. Game over. Looking into the toilet I can see this lucid shape floating merrily along in loo water. I turn to my spare lenses but there are none that was my last set until my new batch arrive the end of this month. There was no point having the right one in either because it was like the Olsen twins, it doesn’t feel right when you see only one.

This occurrence shaped my whole day and not for the better. Only being able to see about two metres in front of me meant that I basically blanked everyone at work because I just didn’t recognise them causing the below to happen.

Email 10:02am

Them: What’s up?

Me: Nothing much just shattered. You good?

Them: Seriously, what’s wrong? Have I upset you?

Me: What are you on about?

Them: You blanked me when I walked past you this morning by the library.
Wanted to know what I’ve done wrong.

Me: Lol, don’t worry about it. I haven’t got any contacts in so I can’t see anything
today. Sorry if it looked like I blanked you.

Them: So you are sure nothing is wrong?

Me: Yeah.

Them: You aren’t feeding me crap because you blanked me?

Me: No. Relax, I didn’t intentionally blank you. I have not got my contacts in so
I can’t really see anyone within a two metre radius.

Them: But I was within 2 metres.

Me: Gosh, it’s an estimate. I’ve got a meeting. Speak to you later…

I didn’t have a meeting but I wanted to get out of that email conversation as soon as possible as I was beginning to get irate. It did however highlight just how important it was that I got a new pair of contacts as soon as possible. Unfortunately this was not as easy as I thought.

Phone conversation around 10:40am

Me: Hi, look my one of my contacts has fallen into the toilet and I haven’t got a
spare. Can you send me out a new set please?

Them: What type of account do you have sir?

Me: Erm, I don’t know. The one where I get lenses every couple of months.

Them: What’s your reference number?

Me: I don’t know. I haven’t got my reference number on me but surely you can
identify me from my date of birth, name and address.

Them: What’s your date of birth, name and first line of you address?

I proceed to tell him these details.

Them: That is all correct. Ok, how can I help you sir?

Me: What? Look I told you a few minutes ago I need you to send me a spare set
of contacts.

I hear the computer tapping for a few moments.

Them: Right you are due to have your next batch delivered at the end of this
month.

Me: I need them now, I can’t really see and it’s causing me havoc.

Silence

Them: Right… I cannot authorise this release. Can I call you back later after I
have spoken to someone?

Me: Yes!

Them: I will contact you on …

Me: Yeah that’s right. Now hurry up.

Click

Slightly frustrated at hitting a brick wall I spent the rest of the morning by my desk so that I didn’t encounter many people. The last thing I wanted to do was get more people emailing me. Around 11:30 I get a phone call back from the guy at the contact lens company who confirms he spoke to someone and that a set will be sent later today. A slight relief spreads through me knowing that I will not have to endure much more of this eye squinting and carefully trying to work out who people are by their movements, body shape and skin colour. Still there was time to offend someone else before the day was out. This time it was at the city when my phone buzzes with a message.

Them: Why’d you blank me?

Me: Soz, I can’t see I haven’t got my contacts in. How are you?

And they never replied. Ah well, I can’t wait to see properly again.

In other news, this is my one hundredth entry on here. I can’t really believe it but Blogger informed me this evening when it displayed all my other 99 entries. Well, I’m not sure if I’ll reach 200 but I’m really pleased at reaching this milestone considering it spawned from a drunken conversation many moons ago.