'lash

I watched the film “Whiplash” last night. It’s about a drummer, so I expected to be disappointed by the inaccuracies or jealous of the on-screen, on-skin technical prowess. In the end, I ignored the musical aspects of the film entirely and focussed on the story. If you haven’t seen it – and it was released in 2013, so I’m not going to worry about spoiling anything – it’s about a young drumming prodigy and his band leader who, maybe, pushes him too hard. I would guess film students would tell you it has undercurrents of a father/son relationship, a battle between good and evil intentions, and an investigation into whether there is ever ‘too much’ when it comes to inspiring youngsters towards greatness. I just liked it for its simplicity: Drummer wants to succeed; Teacher tries to get him to work harder; conflict ensues. I found the long-drawn-out end concert a tad overlong, and I’m not really a fan of jazz in the first place, but all-in-all it was a good watch.

Jesus – when did I start typing blogs like a pretentious wanky arts critic????

Good to be on a bit of a movie-watching run though. Now ‘the nights are pulling in’ (as we say in Norfolk) I’m able to fit an evening film in between Other Duties and Bedtime. Tonight’s offering was ‘Right At Your Door’ which was okay, but a lot less impressive than last night. If Whiplash was Buddy Rich, then this film was the drummer from Foo Fighters.

RC 30-8-19

Resurfacing

I see the depressing spectre of Brexit is making its way back into everyone’s conscience. That ‘will we, won’t we’ shit that dragged on through March and April was deliberately forgotten over Summer, I think. We’d all had such an unpleasant time that we chose to ignore the fact that it was only a postponement, and now we’re screaming towards September we’re all starting to think ‘shit, here we go again…’

I might stockpile loads of gin and just spend the next two months paralytic and away from it all. You can sober me up when it’s all done and dusted, whichever way it falls.

RC 28-8-19

Turnaround

Something I didn’t mention in my little recap about Sunday was the ridiculous scenario that played out over at Headingley. We had a gentle afternoon game of beach cricket while listening to the unfolding Ashes drama and even I, as a staunch Unpatriotic Unsupporter of most things sporting, was completely gripped. What an incredible effort by Ben Stokes. Listening to it all with a group of people who actually play the game (albeit at a small village level) really helped my enthusiasm and meant I got some really useful insights into what was happening when and why. I won’t try and sound as if I know what I’m typing about, but I can recognise how unlikely a win it was, especially when it came down to the last partnership. The atmosphere on the beach was amazing, so I can only guess what it must have been like at the match itself.

Hopefully my NFL experience at the Tottenham Stadium in October will be just as exciting and enthralling.

Elsewhere, it’s supposed to be slightly cooler tomorrow, thank God. It’s good to have a nice Bank Holiday weekend for a change, but when I booked the extra time off I had hoped to spend today sorting out some stuff in the garden and then drumming. Instead I spent most of the day naked, wafting myself with a £2 fan and trying to keep my infant son from overheating.

RC 27-8-19

Surf!

Absolutely exhausted this evening, but for a legitimate reason. Five hours on a sunny Suffolk beach in 30+Celsius takes it out of you, especially when you’re partaking in physical activities while you’re there.

I don’t know when this change happened, but I used to despise the thought of sitting on the sand and playing games with people. Nowadays, the highlights of my Summer are often days like today, when we meet up with other couples and families and just indulge in lots of silliness and regular dips in the cool sea. Like Saul on his way to persecute the Christians, I have had my moment of seeing the light and changed my ways. My own particular Road to Damascus was one that led to a beach.

Forgive the religious connotations on a Sunday, but I’m overheated, sunburnt and spiritually lifted, so strange things are appearing from my keyboard.

RC 25-8-19

Reflection

England Ashes cricket team bowled out for 67.

England women’s hockey team beaten 8-0 by the Netherlands.

Why is it that on the few occasions I show an interest in sport our national teams dive in a pit?

RC 24-8-19

Weakend

I am feeling incredibly tired tonight. Not that I can get myself distracted by little obsessions, but I seem to have set myself the task of plotting the rest of my working life in the space of a few days, while also catching up on the work I missed out on earlier in the week when I was first drifting into obsession. So, I’m a bit knackered.

(I’m so glad I’m not married to myself, it must be exhausting living with me….)

It’s a Bank Holiday weekend, of course, and the weather forecast is for heat and sunshine, so we took an absolute shedload of money through the tills today. Thank you, British people, for being so easily led by the Meteorological Office and so easy to predict, from a behaviour point of view. I ordered in extra charcoal, burgers and use-and-dispose BBQs and earned myself a nice little bonus by blowing last year’s comparative sales figures out of the window. I’m working tomorrow, but then off until Wednesday.

And that’s all for now.

RC 23-8-19

Rethink

I spent long parts of my day today looking back into the teaching thing. I still have 3 weeks to go before the training applications for 2019/20 close, so the timing seems great, BUT – Philippa is still off work as a mum and I don’t want to jump into something until I know for sure I want to do it. So it may be something I look into properly and aim to launch into this time next year. Who knows – by then we might have a clearer picture of what my current employers intend to do with their District Managers, or I may already be redundant, who knows?

But the act of looking into it, talking about it, and acknowledging it as something I’d like to consider has made me feel much better mentally, and work doesn’t seem so hard as a result.

Not that I’ve done any work today, but you see what I mean…..

RC 21-8-19

Forward-thinking

Well, today has felt long, weird and exhausting.

First of all, I must apologise for going back on what I said a few days ago and using another hyphenated blog title today. I’ve been trying to think of one word that would sum up the topic of what I’m about to write about, but I’ve hit a blank wall, so I’ve had to go with ‘forward-thinking’ and I can only hope you will forgive me.

Anyway – to the matter at hand.

I felt pretty good this morning, but work dragged me downhill quicker than a Ferrari could drag a feather. I know I’m not exactly full of the joys of worklife at the best of times, but recently it only seems to take one small comment from above or one poorly worded e-mail from suppliers to send me heading for recruitment websites. I’m hoping this recent lethargy will pass, but I think it’s fuelled by some of the things I can see going on in other parts of the company, and I can only see them taking the business one way, and that would involve yet more job cuts and yet more work for those left behind, so in that regard I’m not sure there’s anything I can do to change my attitude. Except leave.

So – with that in mind, I opened my heart to Philippa tonight about what’s going on and how I feel about it. She asked a few questions and then got about three hours of me rambling on at her and moaning and being all ‘poor me’ and ‘I’m unappreciated.’ I was even bored myself by the end of it, so God knows how she managed to sit through it all.

I felt better afterwards though, so I have to wonder why I’d kept all this shit bottled up instead of talking to her about it sooner. I just like torturing myself, I guess.

Anyway – far from being angry, disappointed, demonic, emotional, threatening or any of the other negative emotions I’d expected, she was very understanding and supportive. She pointed out that me taking the job in the first place was only ever a ‘try it and see’ scenario rather than me making a lifelong commitment to the position. She likes having evenings and weekends with me, but isn’t too bothered where I work, as long as I enjoy it.

I then mentioned something that I’ve been mulling over for a while, but haven’t mentioned to anyone, even you or my wife!

I said “What if I went back to the idea of teaching? Once you’re back at work, would you be happy to support us for a year while I did my PGCE?”

She said, “Absolutely. Yes.”

Just realised – I could have used the word ‘progressive.’

RC 20-8-19

Disaster

So, the roast meal that I had planned went a bit awry, mainly due to lack of practice. I forgot that I used to parboil the ‘tatoes before putting them in the oven, so they ended up slightly undercooked and not particularly crispy. I also got distracted by the opportunity to buy tickets for one of the NFL games in London this Autumn. I don’t know if this is a phenomenon you’ve experienced yourself – but it’s really easy to get lost online and keep bouncing form one website to another without acknowledging the passing of time, and then you suddenly realise it’s an hour later than you thought, prompted (in my case) by the smell of burning brisket emanating from your cooker.

My old method was to pot-roast meat, starting at a very high temperature and then reducing the heat after 30 mins or so, and frequently basting it with stock. I remembered the first bit of that method but then my mind wandered…

So our roast lunch, which in my head involved a 1pm serving time, perfectly prepared food and a nice bottle of non-alcoholic elderflower presse, became a patched-up, botched-together 2pm plate full of something resembling Jackson Pollock’s worst attempts at sculpture. Philippa politely struggled through it and said ‘I just appreciate the effort’ but it was a long way away from what I’d hoped for. Look at a map of the London Underground. You see how far apart Oakwood and Acton Town are? That’s a good representation of how far apart my intentions and my results were.

Under those circumstances, I chose not to tell Philippa I’m thinking of quitting work.

RC 18-8-19

Men!

I felt really tired all day today, so obviously my wife reacted by getting me to do all manner of physical tasks and then sending me off to get the shopping.  We’ve been married a while now, but today has been the first time where I felt like a husband. I don’t mean that in a good way, either. I mean that in the way of being ordered about and being treated as an employee with no real concern shown for my opinions or my wellbeing.  Off I pissed to the supermarket, where I was just one of a number of disgruntled, put-upon men – either pushing trolleys for their women or weighed down by a massive wife-written shopping list - who all looked like they’d much rather be sitting by the river fishing or sitting at home watching football.

Most of them seemed to be compensating for their unhappiness by buying lots of lager. I looked down my nose at them and then rewarded myself for my efforts by buying 4 custard doughnuts and “Godzilla: King of the Monsters” on DVD.

RC 17-8-19

Cooking

I’m going to cook Philippa a meal this weekend and then steer the topic of conversation towards me having a change of career. She might explode, or just see it as one of my little short-term obsessions and encourage me to let it pass, but I can’t get the thought out of my head by thinking about it, so I’m going to try and get rid of it by talking about it.

RC 16-8-19

Deep?

I’m often asked questions about the modern world, or international relations, or climate change, and I find it very hard to articulate my complicated thoughts in a simple way. I end up getting frustrated and wanting to punch people.

I’ve never considered myself a philosopher, but I came up with something today I’m quite proud of, so from now on I’m just going to say this:

“If goldfish drop out of their bowl, there’s no point them fighting over who owns the carpet they’ve landed on – they need to work together to get themselves back in the water.”

There.

RC 15-8-19

Searching

I’ve found myself looking for a new job. I don’t think I’m seriously wanting to move on, but I have been feeling restless, and I must confess to having a few fears about whether my current position will even exist in the near future. Lots of little changes are being instigated and the only possible endgame I can envisage would be a further amalgamation of the management sub-divisions in the local area. The company seems obsessed with streamlining, cost-cutting and wage reduction, and if the ‘four garages managed by one person’ experiment worked as well as it has, why wouldn’t they think that they can squeeze things even further? Why shouldn’t ‘sixteen garages managed by one person’ work? Most of what I do is pointless micro-management, and many of my clerical tasks could probably be carried out by cleverly written programmes and algorithms. No doubt there’s a 16-year-old gamer sitting in his bedroom right now who could make my existence redundant if he put down his gamepad and picked up a MacBook. Hopefully that gamer has the same levels of ambition and motivation as me, so they’ll never get their arse out of their gaming chair, but I still have to accept that the possibility is there, and growing by the day.

So I’m having a look around and seeing if there’s anything I like.

So far, I have to report, there isn’t.

RC 14-8-19

Calm

Been quite a nice day today. I feel like I haven’t been able to say that enough in recent weeks, so it’s good to type it today. I’ve had a bit of a change in attitude, I think, which has helped. It’s hard to see life as an enjoyable experience when every waking moment feels like a struggle to survive. With my ‘Glasses of Brightness’ on the world seems less threatening and more welcoming.

Mathew is a delight and remains my oasis of hope. I haven’t said much about him recently as I don’t want to turn into one of those annoying over-proud parents who clutter up the internet with their gurgling shite, and also because most of his life involves eating, shitting and sleeping, so a running commentary wouldn’t be particularly pleasant. But that doesn’t mean I’m not enjoying him immensely.

I think the weird hours he keeps are having an effect on us though. He seems determined to be awake at different times each day and I can’t remember the last time I slept through a night without disturbance. That probably explains my unsettled emotional state and my weird style of blogging in the past few weeks.

RC 13-8-19

Monday

Another week and another battle to stay enthusiastic about a job that has started to fill me with nothing more than contempt for my superiors and a hatred for every customer who comes my way.

Wow – that’s a pretty negative way to start a blog posting, right?

Let me try again:

Another week and another gloomy realisation that my life is drifting away from me at an increasingly rapid and increasingly alarming rate.

Hmm, that’s not much better.

Here’s Version 3:

Another week and another opportunity to start my life afresh, casting aside the negative thoughts of previous weeks and charging headlong into the future with renewed optimism and a determination not to let my own mind sabotage my chances of happiness.

There – that’s a bit better.

RC 12-8-19

Odd

God, I had a strange dream last night.

I was asked to give a talk about business to a room full of television executives. Don’t ask me why – it was a dream so it’s not going to make sense. I was sort-of a warm-up act for the main speaker, who was a well-known science broadcaster. I have no idea who she was in retrospect, but in the context of the dream she was familiar, and I was pleased to be working with her. Anyway, I went a bit off-topic and at the end of my speech I went on a rant about climate change and how everyone needs to change everything they’re doing, or we’ll ruin the planet for our grandchildren. I went on so long that the key speech didn’t start on time and the famous lady (whoever she was) got really annoyed. I couldn’t understand what the problem was until it was pointed out to me that the speeches were being broadcast live on BBC Radio 4 and because I’d gone on a bit, they had to cut away from the conference to play ‘The Archers.’

Make of that what you will.

RC 11-8-19

Blow

Today has been windier than the conference room at a curry convention. One of our neighbours is obsessed with weather and he informs me his anemometer registered 62 mph this afternoon. I was quite glad it’s been too rough to go outside, as I had to spend a few hours on the computer for work today. It’s my own fault, so I can’t complain. I should have finished this particular project by Wednesday, but I was too busy wallowing in a minor depression, so I lied to my superiors about having a staffing issue at one of the garages, and they agreed to extend my deadline until Monday. The bloody info will probably just get filed away on a hard drive somewhere and never even looked at, but I suppose asking me to do it justifies someone’s salary somewhere, so it had to be done.

Not been too bad, though. Mostly facts and figures and a few bits of data interpretation. Not exactly what I had in mind as a fun way to spend a Saturday, back when I was finishing off at uni, but that’s the modern world I guess. You have three choices with things you don’t like – accept them, get away from them or take drugs to help you endure them. With work issues I find it best to just get on with it, do as they ask, and then find nice ways to spend the money they give you for putting up with it all. With that in mind, I’m about to go shopping on eBay.

RC 10-8-19

Screened

My life seems to be taking place on the other side of a weird filter. You know hay fever makes you feel like you’re breathing through a mask? That’s how my head is right now. I’m thinking that maybe this is what happens when you’re not getting enough sleep, or just an after-effect of the general build-up of everything that happens with a baby and everything it means to be a parent. Normally I love the Summer and I enjoy cycling, walking, sitting in the garden and visiting new locations. None of that is really happening this year because of Mathew. I’m not resentful of that, or regretting being a dad, but my mind and body seem to be struggling to keep up with the changes. Part of me is thinking “I should be doing EXACTLY what I’ve done In Summer for the past ten years” and that’s making me feel unsettled. I don’t WANT to be doing the same old stuff again, but the muscle memories are trying to drag me that way and it’s hard to resist, and when I do it feels weird. I think this is a year where I have to be getting used to the new situations, and just going with it. Next year, it’ll all feel familiar because I’ve been through it once before, whereas this year it’s all new, and scary, and I feel inexperienced and unable to cope.

RC 6-8-19

Number-crunching

The modern world of business seems obsessed with statistics and data sheets.

It’s not just my company is it? Every day I seem to be drowning in pointless information and every week I seem to have to write another report or justify another set of numbers. Analysis has become an art form and bureaucracy has become big business.

I missed a trick somewhere, obviously. We all did, about ten years ago. Somebody, somewhere, put all this shit together and realised they could make an absolute fortune by convincing companies that they needed more information than they could possibly know what to do with. There are some very rich people around whose only step to success was writing an algorithm and buying a printer.

Bastards.

Now just for future reference, as far as my blog title challenge for August goes, hyphenated words do NOT count as one-word titles. I won’t change today’s name, but I know I’ve cheated slightly and it won’t happen again.

RC 5-8-19

Flashback

Did you enjoy school?

If you didn’t, then I imagine you’ll understand the feeling I’m about to describe:

It’s Sunday afternoon, probably sometime between 4 and 5pm. You’ve had a fun day with your friends, or been chilling at home, or seen some good TV, or read a good book, and life feels pretty good. You’re relaxed, you’re content and you’re settled. Then you start to get a weird discomfort rising in your stomach. You can’t place it exactly, but it’s as if someone has started pouring bad stuff into your body and it’s forcing all those good feelings out without you being able to stop it. You take a few deep breaths and then you realise what has caused this turn-around. Somewhere in your mind a thought has burst your bubble. That thought, subliminally, has cut a path through your happiness and dragged you back to reality before you even realised it had happened. That thought was this: “Don’t forget you’re back at school tomorrow!”

And now all that lovely contentment has evaporated. All that relaxation has been replaced by tension and anxiety. The weekend is over, 12 hours before it should be. Your own mind has sabotaged your own enjoyment and now, psychologically, you’re already back in the classroom instead of taking advantage of your last half-day being free. The Spectre Of School is looming, and you’re firmly stuck in its shadow.

Remember that feeling?

It just came back to me, when I remembered I’m back at work tomorrow morning.

RC 4-8-19

Challenge

Every blog I post in the month of August will have a one-word title.

RC 3-8-19

1900 BST

Dunkirk

I really enjoy Christopher Nolan films, but I do find his over-reliance on background music bloody annoying. I think music in films should be used to enhance what’s happening on screen, not be there to force you to feel a certain way or to make up for any shortcomings in the mise-en-scene.

Maybe it’s just a personal preference, but wouldn’t those wonderful sky-bound dogfighting shots in ‘Dunkirk’ be just as wonderful without the constant music underscoring it? Wouldn’t the tension of the men stuck in the hull of the boat be just as tense without Hans Zimmer’s composed efforts filling every available second?

Having said all that, I found it a remarkable piece of filmmaking.

On a similar, and yet dissimilar, note I watched ‘Furious 7’ last night. I was tired and needed to switch off from the real world, it happened to be on ITV2, and I simply couldn’t be bothered to pick up the remote control and turn over to something else. I hate myself for admitting this, but I actually enjoyed it. Let’s be honest here, it ain’t ‘Citizen Kane’ but then it wasn’t trying to be. I’ve always sneered at what I call ‘popcorn cinema’ which is completely unreal to the point of being embarrassing, but maybe I should give it more of a chance. If you go along with the ridiculousness (such as someone jumping from one car to another while they’re speeding in opposite directions, with no physical aftermath) then it’s quite good fun. I didn’t learn anything, it didn’t click any cultural buttons, it wasn’t well-made in any technical sense, the acting was awful, the script could have been written by a stoned 10-year-old and Vin Diesel is the least expressive human ever to appear in a movie, but so what? It made me smile and it took me away from my own thoughts for a couple of hours, so it did more than I could have hoped for.

RC 3-8-19

Wasp

I went for a nice bike ride this evening, to clear out the mental cobwebs of a long, tiring day of work. All was well, until I managed to slam into the only wasp that was out and about after 8pm, which then got stuck in the sleeve of my cycling jacket and promptly stuck its arse-based venom-laden sting-needle into my bicep. Now I have a swollen, smarting lump that I guarantee will now keep me awake tonight and then itch like hell for the next three days.

Bastard flying bastard stripy bastard.

RC 1-8-19