I'm No Dog Hater...

..but it's the owners who sometimes get on my wick.

So I'd arranged to go out with my mate P the other evening. I've known him for years and I suppose I'd probably class  him as my best friend, though I'm not sure if 53 year olds are allowed to have "best friends" these days.

And P has this dog, one of the small furry ones, called Robert (not his real name). Now really and sincerely I mean it when I say I'm not a dog, or any other animal for that matter, hater. No, they're okay to me. I don't go all gooey eyed with them, but nor do I treat them with scorn and derision, the way I treat lead singers.

Most of my relationships with cats and dogs have involved the two of us looking at each other with vague disinterest, perhaps the occasional stroke or pat on the head. And I'm quite happy and content with the status quo.

One of my business partners has owned (or been owned by) a dog for years and in our early days he used to bring him into the office everyday. I confess I remember that dog, Taffy, with some fondness.
We'd often kick a ball around together or I'd give him a slightly fond stroke, maybe tell it a little joke or anecdote or two.

But the thing I struggle with is these fellows who treat their dog as if it's a human. Or worse, as if it's a highly intelligent child. Let's face it, surely any animal that can be trained to sit or heel or that can get endless hours of fun from fetching a stick can't actually be very bright.

The average cat, a species I reckon is pretty bright, on attempting to be trained, just looks at you with a "fuck off, I'm not doing that" demeanour, then slopes off to its lair, like Jeeves but with a bit more attitude.

So anyhow, I digress. P emailed me yesterday to say that he had Robert with him so he suggested we take the mutt for a walk along the river then go for something to eat. Like a typical Brit, about 30 seconds later I'd replied saying that sounded great. Then I spent many hours afterwards thinking that I should have cancelled, for P with his dog is like a dog with a bone.

He turned up, with Robert on his tail, though P hasn't got a tail, but Robert has. Robert sniffed around my apartment, I assume because it was new to him. To be fair Robert is a pretty well behaved dog. There was no barking, histrionics or running around with saliva dripping everywhere. I managed to keep my cool, as did Robert.

After some chit chat we set off to take Robert for the walk before getting some dinner for ourselves. Now I hadn't decided that I wanted to join P and Robert on this walk, nor had I been given a choice, it was just assumed I'd happily go. This is what I mean. If I want to go for long walks with a dog, one who yaps at cyclists and all that, then I'd get myself one.

You know me. All those thoughts were going on in my head, but the rest of me just went along with things.

Dog owners have this thing, a way of interracting with each other and each other's dogs that freaks me out a bit. And every time we came across another dog, or its owner, there'd be that mutual admiration, laughing, smiling and "ooh look at us being members of the same tiny little club" thing going on between P and the other person. I was worried that the other owners might think I was the owner of Robert and therefore would expect me to join in the shenanigans, so more often than not I kept a suitable distance.

At one point Robert decided to have a shit in the grass, as I'm told animals do. I was pleased that P got out one of those dog poo bags from his pocket and did the decent thing, putting it in a nearby bin afterwards.

Finally we found ourselves in a dog friendly restaurant on the river. Waitresses were cooing over Robert and one brought out a bowl of water for him. P was very much the proud father and I sat there trying to look cool yet doing my utmost so that people didn't think me and P were a gay couple with their dog. Perhaps that's a bit homophobic, but I'm giving you some honesty, so please don't judge me too harshly.

For the next couple of hours P continued to fuss and fawn over Robert, as did quite a few staff and fellow diners. I just don't understand it and, though he did quite like some of the attention, Robert didn't really seem too fussed about it either. It was warm, he had a bowl of water and P told me that he had trained Robert not to be one of those dogs that drools at the table waiting for scraps of food.

I was very jittery at one point when P decided that we would share a mixed starter. It was all pitta bread and humus type stuff, you know, that mush that they serve in Lebanese places. I'm no hygiene obsessive but I was very concerned about the dog shit situation from earlier. Fortunately, with only seconds to spare, P announced to me that he was going to wash his hands so I exhaled happily.

We ate. Robert did his thing, which was pretty low maintenance, and then we left to go back to my apartment for a cup of tea, as our rock 'n' roll days are over.

Robert wandered around my place cheking things out for a bit, then settled on my doormat and lay there whilst P and myself drank tea. At one point P started to play with Robert, which resulted in him yapping and making dog noises and getting all excited about life. P was impressed with this, as if his only son had just been asked to head up NASA before he'd left school. I didn't share the enthusiasm and looked on trying my hardest to sound a little bit impressed.

And they left.

All in all I have to say that Robert was about as low maintenance as dogs get.

He's not my enemy, but he's not my child, and I just don't understand the fuss these fellows make.

Besides I don't think I've ever treated either of my kids the way these people treat dogs. Honestly.

I Want To Be A Nationalist

Whichever direction I glance in it seems that Nationalism is on the rise.

Be it Sinhala Buddhist Nationalism over your way, the good old US Trump flavoured Southern fried variety out West or the drink tea and keep calm we're British and let's get rid of all the foreigners and fuck the country in the process kind that we have over here, it's all the rage.

Of course, the intelligent types will tell you that it's always happened historically whenever there has been mass migration of people and I'm sure that's true. Hitler, Castro, Napoleon, Boris Johnson, all these truly powerful and mental leaders have used it as one of their weapons of choice.

So I was thinking the other day that I might give it a try. I'm fifty three and open to new ideas. I bought my first ever pair of raw denim jeans the other day so it must be true. To tell you the truth they do still hurt my balls a bit after about a month of wear but I'm persevering, with the knowledge that after merely a year they should feel like a second skin.

But the thing is I've realised that I don't think I can qualify to be a nationalist. Here in the UK I'm brown. Well I'm brown wherever I go but you know what I mean. I'm brown, with a proper South East England accent, the kind that no one understands in Sri Lanka.

If I was white, apart from my name, people here in the UK would never think I was a foreigner. But I'm brown, which I love by the way, and it means I can't really enrol into the whole Nationalism thing. Thai is somewhat counterbalanced by the fact I can wear many colours and I never look pasty and washed out and I have a decent sense of rhythm.

Then, in the motherland, I'm half Muslim and half Tamil, which well and truly fucks me up on all fronts.On top of that no one there ever thinks I even look Sri Lankan. I continually have arguments with tuk tuk drivers and the like when I tell them I'm Lankan and they insist that I can't be; that I must be Thai or Nepalese or something. 

So I'm a bit stuck on this one. Nationalism, that club that everyone wants to join, is not going to let me in.

But, the good news on thinking about it, is that my balls are hurting a bit less from these jeans now.

Perspectives

It was a normal Saturday morning in September 2015. Normal except for the fact that my Dad had just died. He actually passed at around 6am but, by the time all the official declarations had been done and the undertaker had arrived, it was around 9.30 when we carried his body out of the house into the hearse.

There was myself, both my brothers and the undertaker, who was giving us, the shocked sons, instructions on exactly how to negotiate two flights of stairs as well as a grieving wife, Granddaughter and daughter in law. My parents moved into that house when I was twelve, I know those stairs pretty intimately, as do my brothers, but that was the most challenging time I've descended down them.

Their house is opposite a small local shopping parade with a little car park attached and the hearse was parked directly in front of the house on the street. And one of the things I remember vividly is how, as we loaded my Dad into the vehicle, I looked around and saw people arriving in their cars, parking in the car park and walking to do their shopping.

I saw others come out of the shops with their goods, getting in their cars and driving off, maybe a bit pissed off because Tesco didn't have their favourite brand of butter. A few cars drove past us. We had just lost our Dad / Husband of fifty years / Grandfather and everyone else got on with their Saturday morning.

It has stayed with me; that massive lesson about perspectives and how every individual has their own universe that they inhabit. Some of us have overlapping bits, others don't.

The recent bombings in Sri Lanka have also illustrated this phenomenon in full. I got back to London last week on Thursday evening, four days after the attacks. In Sri Lanka, though thankfully I didn't suffer any loss of loved ones, I felt the pain and heartbreak that so many of you did. I still do.

But the mixed reactions I've had from different people in London have been another eye opener about perspectives.

Even the media seems to have largely stopped its reporting of the situation there. There are articles, obviously lots of us have our feeds tuned into Sri Lanka anyhow, but last week's attrocities in a brown country have become the electronic age's fish and chip wrapping very quickly.

Some people have been genuinely interested and empathetic with me about the situation. A few though, on hearing what happened and after expressing interest have then said "apart from that how was the holiday?"

Others, like a band mate last night, have listened and then just moved on to talking about the new guitar pedal they've got, as if what I was saying was just a topic of conversation, which it clearly was to them.

One person said to me that it just means that Sri Lanka is off his list of potential holiday destinations now. That was all it meant to him.

And that's the thing about the whole perspective business. Hardly anyone is wrong. They're all just different views of the same thing.

Makes me think though.

Conned?

I went off to watch a gig with a good friend on Saturday. My friend, we'll call him P, has a son who's a very good drummer and his band was playing in this kind of grungy indie festival.

I'd never heard of a festival taking place in a hotel before, but this was the score. This hotel, the kind in which you would normally see business people staying in, had been taken over by a mostly young crowd of middle class crusty kids.

I feared I would walk in looking like someone's Dad, which I both am and did, but it wasn't a problem as half the musicians looked the same; that old rock 'n' roll look with more creases on their face than in their jeans and giving off an air of "I nearly made it in the 80s you know".

And, worst of all, it was in Croydon. I need say no more.

So me and P trundled over to Croydon in his car. It's one of these Prius things, that I hear all the trendy people now drive, and I was fascinated by the tech in it. It's even got a camera that operates when he reverses, that's how bang up to date it is!

We got there, parked in a car park and walked out onto the street.

Within about 3 seconds of getting onto the street we heard a woman's voice saying "excuse me".

To our left was a slightly scary, extra from Game of Thrones type looking woman, heading towards us.

"Can you help me please?" she said.

Me and P are both old salespeople and any salesperson will tell you that the easiest person to sell to is a salesperson. Why? Because so often we end up buying crap we don't need simply because the salesperson has sold it to us well. You normal people think about details like whether you actually need something. But sell to a salesperson, give them a good ice breaker, some good questions and a decent presentation and we'll buy all sorts of shit we don't need.

And one of the things I learned as a young whippersnapping teleseller was that if you ask the receptionist or gatekeeper for help they will rarely refuse, as it's human nature to attempt help a fellow.

She was off to a good start, asking for help got our attention along with our sadly sexist old fashioned attitude of helping a woman in distress. Honestly, had it been a man, I think we both would have been less amenable. But I think I'm ok with that too.

Her story went something like this:

"I'm pregnant and was with my boyfriend but we had an argument and he's driven off and left me.

I need to get back home to Hove and have got no money on me and need £19 for the train fare. I wouldn't normally ask but I'm really desperate, do you think you can help me?"

P was quicker to respond that I. My mind was full of cynicism, sympathy, slight fear and also sheer confusion.

P said "I'm sorry I haven't got any cash on me", while my mind was thinking that if I.just give her a few quid that might suffice.

Her response to P was as quick as a tuk tuk driver turning off his meter when he sees me

"There's a cashpoint just there" and pointing about 20 yards away.

So she overcame P's objection and P caved.

He walked to the cashpoint, took out £20 and gave it to her.  I tried to contribute half but P wasn't having it.

On the short walk I asked her what exactly had happened to find her abandoned in Croydon. She explained in some detail that she'd been in the car with the BF, his phone had rung and it was a girl. She, being pregnant and hormonal (honestly that's exactly what she said) had reacted and slapped the BF. At that point he'd thrown her out of the car, saying that otherwise he was likely to punch her, and driven off.

She, who didn't look at all pregnant by the way but had some sort of long coat on so might well have been, took it, said some thank you I could kiss you thing and walked off.

P said that he wasn't sure if we'd been conned but even if she was just a local junkie, he'd done a good deed for the day and was ok with that.

Of course with hindsight I'm as sure as can be that we (or P if you want to split hairs) was totally and wholly conned, albeit rather beautifully.

A lone abandoned pregnant woman, needing help, asking for £19, conveniently not actually £20, telling us that she was hormonal and a bit violent. Then knowing that we were a short walk from a cashpoint.

Truly masterful.

Last Week

Voted online in the revoke article 50 thing, because if there are enough votes I believe it means it will have to be discussed in Parliament. Brexit is messing up the UK. Most people seem disillusioned, fed up and just want to know what will happen, anything. And I don't think that's a good way to look at it; that any news is good news.

The whole lot of British politicians have behaved like a shower of self serving tossers. There doesn't appear to be a single one who has put the interests of the country ahead of their own. or their party's.

Two Band Practices, two gigs, one of which I played in and one I was an audience member in.

Vintage Trouble; what a brilliant band from musicianship to showmanship.

Finally Apple announce a new Ipad Mini, which I'd struggle without, so I bought one. Now have to wait.

Wrote some blog posts. It's interesting how trying to blog a bit has already started to impact how I look at everyday things.

Finally got the new battery fitted in my car. I was scared to try it myself in case of losing all the settings. Turned out my trusted bloke didn't really have a clue either, but all was good.

Listened to the much awaited and anticipated new album from Sleeper, one of the best 80s Britpop bands. Great songs, strangely fuzzy production.

And I'm reading a book. That is written in short sentences.

Can you tell?

Pick Me

You know those niggling desires you have in nether regions of your mind? Those thoughts that pop up now and again until you put them to bed by doing the thing or somehow exorcising it.

Well for a while I've had one such thought and it's been about picking locks. I wouldn't say I've been fascinated by the topic, more that I've had a medium level of interest, a bit like a Madras curry to most Brits.

It's not even that I've considered shifting my career into burglary, merely a rumbling of a thought that it would be a nice and mostly useless thing to be able to do.

So of course, a few weeks ago I bought myself a "learn how to pick locks" kit online. It wasn't very expensive and the blurb promised me an extensive easy to understand written guide, two real locks made from transparent plastic to practice on as well as a sexy little tool kit with all the things an aspiring lock picker might need.

The package arrived. Somewhat ironically I found it quite hard to open, but once I dealt with that hurdle I got on with reading the guide. I'm that rare breed; a man who likes to read instructions before I start to play with the hardware.

At this point I realised that the instructions were most likely a literal translation from Chinese. Not only was the language nigh on impossible to figure out but I suspect it was running from back to front pagewise. I'm not one to be beaten easily, except when I give up, so I got on with things, trying my best to decipher the text, flick from page to page quickly and then start on the practical side.

The first half hour or so was a painful struggle. I'd translated sufficiently to figure out roughly what I needed to do with one padlock, but the instructions gave me very little idea of which actual tools to use out of the quite large number supplied. After much trial and error, mostly the latter, I got to a stage where I could open the padlock within around 30 - 50 seconds. I was quite pleased with this, even though it involved two tools and a little bit of brute force occasionally. I resolved to practice a bit every day before trying it out in a bank on my front door lock.

And so I did. For the next week or so I spent a small chunk of time every day working on my skills and I'm happy to tell you that, should the need arise, I can comfortably break open a clear plastic padlock, as long as I have the toolkit and some reading glasses with me, within about 10 seconds.

My mind evolved to the inevitable and I reckoned I was ready to try a real lock; one that isn't transparent and that has a door or similar attached to it. I had already put some thought into which specific lock would be my first real world attempt and had realised the only two options were my own front door or my neighbour's.

I suppose I'm old fashioned, or perhaps my neighbour is, but I figured he wouldn't be too impressed if he caught me practicing on his front door. There are not many ways I could think of to explain this one away and the truth seemed the worst idea. So last Thursday, whilst doing that 'working from home' thing that you kids do all the time, I went for it on my own front door.

I got the lock picking kit out, lay everything out on the floor, opened my front door fully, so to any passer by it would hopefully look like I was doing work on my door, and set to work. Confidence was oozing out of all my pores. After all if I can pick a clear teaching padlock in a few seconds every time surely half an hour, perhaps an hour for the virgin flight, would be wholly achievable.

Like fuck was it.

I tried every combination of tools. There are usually two involved; one to twist the twisting bit and the other to wiggle and move the wiggling bits, and I tried them all. Nothing, I mean sweet FA, I mean absofuckinglutely nothing, would budge even a fraction of a millimeter.

I kept at it for some time, maybe half an hour,  but nothing made any difference. As I told you earlier, I'm not one to be beaten easily, except when I give up. So I gave up. I reckon that's the end of my lockpicking career. If I'm honest the signs were there right at the beginning when I had such a struggle opening the package in the first place.

I'm just unsure if the career is fully over or whether it's a mere hiatus while I gather my thoughts, perhaps retrain. Hmmm....

Denim On Denim

About a year ago K, my youngest, gave me a denim shirt for Christmas. I don't think it was particularly expensive but I love it.

It's got that "aged" look, the one we all pay extra for because we can't be bothered to actually wait until our clothes really age. Which is only actually a few months as they're mostly made by young children in dodgy countries and cost less than the sandwich we eat for lunch.

It's been made to look as if one of its two breast pockets has been ripped off in its heavy lifetime, there are fake paint splodges in random places and it's faded like one of those old tattoos you see on proper working class fellows who had it done when they were in the Navy.

There are in fact hardly any bad things about it, though I wouldn't be in a hurry to wear it at a wedding or the like.

But, there is a problem, a fundamental one. It's denim, and for most of my life, when I'm not wearing a sarong, I'm wearing jeans. And I'm informed, by my Girls mostly, that wearing denim on denim is a no no.

It's on the same level of fashion disaster as slippers with socks or American tan tights or any number of those "new looks" I've seen Java Jones trying out on so many occasions.

So I rarely wear this shirt. It's not often I wear chinos or any other type of casual trousers and committing a fashion faux pas is something I try to avoid. And then last week I read something in a mens' mag. It was one of those deep and intellectual articles talking about denim, fashion and the latest in mens' wear and referred to the fact that to wear different denim articles of the same shade was the no no. But, by insinuation, it said that to wear denim of contrasting shades was entirely okay.

And of course that got me thinking. Can I therefore wear dark blue jeans with the lighter blue denim shirt?

Or would that still get me carted off in the fashion Police van?

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On Books, Tidying and Mindmapping

I've just signed another two year lease on my apartment and one of the things that cropped up in my mind as this was going on was the idea of a bit of a mass tidy up.

That's not to say my apartment is some sort of man's disaster area in terms of mess and dirt. Not at all, in fact I think I'm quite the new man. Just about everything has its place, there's not a vast amount of clutter and the general look is one that is fairly minimal.

But it has also become clear to me that I do have too much clutter and, in my five years in this place, have built up a bit of junk that needs sorting.

As with most of the good things in my life I started with a mindmap. I love a mindmap I do. In fact, excuse me if I've told you this before, I do a daily journal, have done for years, and for the last four or five years I've done it in the form of a daily mindmap. In the last three years I've used an app on the Ipad called iThoughts. Trust me, if you like mindmapping it's the best thing since, well, mindmapping itself.

I started a branch, or box for each room in the flat, there aren't that many, I'm not showing off here! And then I took a branch off for every tidyness issue I need to address in each room.

So, for example, off the "kitchen" box I had three more. They said "defrost freezer", "fix wood behind sink" and "go through cupboards, throw away rubbish". Cleverly this iThoughts allows me to set each of these as a task, that I can tick as I can complete which then gets greyed out.

The thing is, I don't want to sound like some kind of geek, raving to you about software, apps, tasklists and the like, that wasn't the purpose of this post. But when I did my "sitting room" box it became evident that one of the things I could do is to tidy my books.

Why, I hear you ask. For books maketh the man, women should never sleep with a fellow who has no books and all that other corny stuff.

Simply because I've built up a bit of a library, of books that fall into one of three categories:

1. Reference ones, with nice photographs (often Sri Lankan)
2. Fiction I've read 
3. Fiction I haven't read yet, probably won't (for reasons I'll explain)

It's the fiction that bothers me. Truth be told I'm now a firm and dedicated ebook reader, the Kindle app on the iPad specifically. I know it doesn't smell like a book, I know one can't "feel" the pages and they don't have the whole tactile connection people talk about. I know that I run the risk of getting beaten by most authors for saying it, beaten with pencils that is, not stylii.

But goddammit it's just so easy and convenient. I carry around my whole library of books wherever I want. I can read just about anywhere, I highlight things in my work related self development and managerial books and go back to them and they're generally cheaper to buy. And, probably best of all for me, I can go on a plane without the need to carry three books and a couple of magazines. 

So I've decided to get rid of my fiction at home, with the exception of a small handful of titles. There's David Blacker's book that he gave me himself with a little message he wrote and a few that are by other Sri Lankan authors that, as far as I know, aren't out as ebooks (yet).

I'll keep the "reference" type ones, the marvellous Sansoni and SL architectural ones and a few others. The rest are going though. Of course not thrown away, I'll give them to a charity bookshop, but they're going nonetheless. 

I feel a bit bad, for emotive not rational reasons, but I'm going to live with that. You live once only as I always like to say. Or YLOO as the kids are fond of.

And once it's done it means I can tick the "Clear away books" task on that mindmap too. 

Here, can anyone tell me how to defrost a freezer?

Keeping Things at Arm's Length

 I've noticed something in the last couple of years. Just about everyone I know, including me, has got to that "certain" age.

It's that certain age when our near vision starts to deteriorate, when we're all in denial and battling it. Which means that only a few actually possess reading glasses.

The rest of us, when presented with a page of print or something else to read, do the thing: the thing when we act as if our arm is an accordion, but quite a big one.

I was at a band practice the other day and we had to read something. Not one of us could hold it close up, we all had to strain our eyes and try to hold the piece of paper far away enough to read. But not too far, because then it just gets lost. I figured this might be the time to either join a younger band or get some reading glasses, perhaps both.

Reading instructions on bottles is a particular bane. I reckon they print them in tiny fonts just for a laugh. And kids rarely need medicines and stuff anyhow, so there's some kind of mad logic going on there.

Sometimes I mix with young people, like my kids, and they'll hand me something to read, presenting it to me about four or five inches away from my eyes. I have to move it away at the speed of light before the eye strain starts to hurt, causing a headache and rapid need to lie down with a warm drink.

Good God, what is wrong with you people?

Have you no idea?

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The Rising Thames

The view from my apartment. The top picture shows the normal level of the Thames, though snow is a rare occurrence in these parts. The second picture shows the wate level last week. It's about four foot higher.
Thankfully it looks like it's settled a bit today and there's another four or five foot to go before it gets to the level of my floor.
But it's not great.

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Hair Tomorrow, Gone Today...

Yes I'm vain. As are all my family to be honest. Anyone who know us knows it would be futile for me to even attempt to deny the charge.

And I've been battling my own mind on this for a while, but I've finally admitted it to myself; I'm bothered about baldness.

For the last few years I've had a decreasing amount of hair. Or an increasing amount of lack of hair.

It doesn't make rational sense. My rational mind knows that a forty eight year old bloke going a bit bald on top is no big deal, that hard heroic fellows like Bruce Willis, Jason Statham and David Blacker are responsible for making it look good and trendy.

My all encompassing and clever rational mind even knows that it's not that aggressive for me, that it's been a slow decline over the last seven or even more years and it's unlikely I'm going to wake up next Tuesday with an overnight total loss of hair.

But my emotional mind, the one that just feels things without having a need to justify them and back them up with logic and reason, thinks differently. It's bothered.

That mind feels that it would like a nice full head of hair, even if I then decide to wear it shaved. At least I'd be able to choose to grow some flowing locks. It would like to be able to use some hair product again, perhaps a comb, a brush or run my fingers through it.

My brothers and even my Dad, at eighty, have a full head of hair. Don't tell them but I do feel a bit jealous.

There's no baldness in my family at all on either side so I'm a bit pissed off with that. Maybe it's because I got the looks and intelligence and it's nature's way of evening things out, I'm not sure.

But I'm not just moaning and telling you some woes. I've decided to investigate a hair transplant. Seriously.

I've got an appointment booked for a "consultation" with one of these clinics in a couple of weeks' time.

I know that a "consultation" will more than likely be them trying to sell to me, but I'm sure I'll look into it in some detail before I make my decision.

Cost is of course a major factor, as is the potential outcome and even whether it's feasible for me at all.

I've decided on full disclosure, hence this post. I'm going to tell anyone and everyone who matters, though not to the point of boring you silly (I hope).

I just don't want to be one of those chaps who has a couple of days off sick, or a brief holiday, then arrives back with a previously undiscovered full head of hair, causing everyone to whisper and laugh.

Oh no. If I do it then I'll blog, tell people and be quite open about it.

Watch this bald patch.

PS - Happy Valentine's day to you

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The Consultant

So we've brought in a consultant at work in an attempt to sort out some issues we've been having and improve some other things.

By nature I'm cynical of consultants. Just the word makes me think of expense without return and people who swan around blowing hot air and theory but don't produce. I hope this chap will be different though. We've put considerable time and effort into our research and I hope we've learned from previous errors.

Perspectives and differing realities are, to me, a fascinating subject, one I've been thinking about as our consultant does his thing.

I've been observing people's reaction to him, how they behave and the impression they want to create.

Naturally they've all managed to go up a gear just because he's in the building. They're more friendly yet more serious, more hardworking and more smiley and friendly than they were a couple of days ago.

It's a recognised psychological phenomenon and I've read about it before. It's called the Hawthorne effect.

What I was thinking about specifically was that it must be the reality for these consultant types. In the same way traffic cops, if the only time they were on the road was when they were on duty, would think that most motorists abide by the rules just about all the time and always travel at about 1 mph under the speed limit.

I wonder how many of the consultants go into a company and think "what's the problem, they all seem motivated, eager and more hardworking than a Colombo 7 Domestic around the New Year."

Obviously there's a real life answer to this question. Good consultants know about psychology and good traffic cops, even bad ones actually, go out on the road when they're not on duty and know how people usually drive.

But it's bloody interesting watching people shift up a gear for no reason other than the fact they're being watched a bit.

Must rush, I can't let the fellow see me writing a blog post!

Awkward Coincidences

I had a gig last week with the Tina Turner tribute band I've been playing with for about a year now. It's not the most taxing gig in the world musically but I enjoy it and figure it's a step on my musical journey into obscurity.

On the afternoon of the gig I noticed that a friend of a friend (we're talking Facebook here so they're not real friends of course) had put up a link to the event. I glanced at the friend of a friend's profile and saw something strange; we had two mutual friends, one of whom was the singer in the Tina Turner band and entirely expected under the circs. The other though was a girl I used to go to school with, going back, and I hesitate before saying this, but I'm a man renowned for my bravery so I will anyhow, about 32 years.

This old school friend, for the purposes of this post, we'll refer to as FS. But, this being Facebook and virtual life, meant that of course I wasn't really a friend of hers at school even. No, she bunged me a friend request on FB some time ago, I responded in the affirmative and we've been mutual stalkers ever since, even though I'm not sure if we ever exchanged a word at school.

You see she was one of those sorts who hit puberty about twenty years before the rest of us did, around the first year when she must have been about twelve. There were about 4 or 5 girls who suddenly got breasts, high heels and boyfriends who had failed the audition for Grease, but only just. The rest of us were content to focus on our masturbatory careers and cultivate an interest in music. Things, I'm pleased to say, that have stayed with me all my life.

But the thing is, we just looked at these 4 or 5 girls with a mixture of lust and admiration, while they just looked at us with a mixture of scorn and, well, scorn. Then we left school and went on to live lives.

Fast forward to 32 years and some hours later...

We finished the first set and I went over to chat to the landlady of the pub. She was blonde and loud, she probably still is even five days later, and I had discovered that she was the person who put up the FB post, the one who knew FS.

"So how come you know FS?" I asked, in that making conversation sort of way that chaps like me are so good at.

"FS?" she said. "Do I know FS? Blimey, she's my niece."

She pointed to a bloke a few feet away and summoned him.

"B, he knows FS" she said, pointing to me.

B then told me that FS is his niece, that she was in the pub only last week and all sorts. They were actually around the same age and good friends, because of a long complicated story that I won't tell you.

I was fascinated by this coincidence and ready to finish the conversation and go off and retune my floor tom. You know how it is when you've put new heads on your toms but you're just not quite happy with the tuning.

Then, before you could say "Odel car park" B had pulled out his mobile and was calling FS. I held on to the vague hope that it was just to tell her the story, but it was just that; a vague hope. He handed me the phone, totally oblivious to the rabbit in the headlights look from me.

Well me and FS had a chat, both of us pretending that we had been friends at school, catching up on things that:

a - neither of us were really interested in
b - we more or less knew from FB anyhow

At one stage I even apologised to her, saying that I'd told B we weren't good friends and this is a bit embarrassing. Well at least I didn't go all British on her.

Surprisingly we didn't finish the phone call promising to keep in touch or go out next Wednesday.

But I did think that I should be a bit more careful about these things in future...

Back To The Grind

Monday morning and I'm back at my desk after a week in the motherland. Damn.

Yesterday was evidently my honeymoon period of being back. The weather was lovely in that very British clear blue sky with a crisp cold to the air way, I was pleased to see K, who popped round to see me and, though I missed C, I felt abundant about my two "home" countries. Which was nice.

I've reached a new mindset that helps me understand my thoughts and feelings about Sri Lanka. I can't tell you about it because it might offend you, but it's a mental framework that is enabling me to look at Sri Lanka, at how life goes on and people behave there (here), in a way that I accept things without getting wound up and pissed off by them.

Food is a funny old thing isn't it? Overall I'd take Lankan food over Brit food any day, yet there are definitely a few things I miss when in the Paradise Isle; a decent burger being one of them.

I still haven't tried one of Burger's King's highly rated offerings but other than that I think I've tried most of the well known ones. Last week it was the turn of the Sugar Bistro's famous Sugar Burger, a name I've always treated with suspicion for it just sounds wrong to me, the type 2 diabetic.

I was warned that I'd probably be disappointed by it when ordering,but felt that I needed to try it for myself. And, while the rest of the party tucked into some delicious looking and even more delicious tasting steak sandwiches, I tried my utmost to enjoy my Sugar Burger yet failed with huge success.

The problem? It was the burger or the beef bit itself. It was mushy and somewhat paste like and had none of the hearty meatiness that you find in burger patties here in the decent places. This might be to do with the local palate, as it's a phenomenon I've encountered frequently, I just don't know. The fillings were okay, no more, no less and the cheese was awful.

Enough complaining though. I had rice and curry that I can only dream of when I'm here in London, I gorged myself with string hoppers and prawn curry as if, well as if I was only going to have a week there before flying back home, I had one lunch that consisted of two Lamprais followed by chocolate biscuit pudding ( as a diabetic I have to hold back sometimes!) and I generally ate a delectable feast of food that I'll pine for as I steam into my Tesco's sandwich at lunchtime.

Bollocks.

 

Posted with Blogsy

New Year, New Post

Now that I've joined the ranks of infrequent bloggers, those chaps who crop up on your feed every now and again and you ignore anyhow, I struggle for inspiration in things to jot about.

It's definitely nothing to do with a lack of things going on in my, or your, world. There's plenty going on all over the show. Only a few hours ago we had this helicopter crash in central London and all the associated shenanigans. And of course if I'm ever really in need of a post I can always bung something out that either slags off Muslims or Islamaphobia. Either one works.

But no, it's just that I'm out of practice in the art of looking at life as it goes by and trying to pass on my observations to you, the reader. I'll keep trying, in this old fashioned blogging format that kids these days have only heard about from their grandparents.

I spent the best part of last week holed up in the recording studio of a rather famous band whilst The Breaks recorded an album of sorts too. We had a huge amount of fun and I learned loads of things about my own playing as well as things I need to work on.

The end result will be (touch wood) a mini album of eleven songs, all of which I know I'm going to be very proud of.

This was the third time I've been in a studio to record and for as many bands also. Was that a really crap sentence? I'm unsure. Anyhow, each time it's been a fairly major event for me and the people with me. I don't know if you've ever done it but I'll explain in case you're one of those that haven't.

You see first of all you bond in a way that famous touring bands get to do every day, or at least every day they're on tour. The thing is that most of us musician types aren't famous. We work, have families, jobs, mortgages and day to day shit to deal with and we fit in our passion for music around it all. So when we gig it's something that slots in between all the other stuff.

Going away for a few days with bandmates gives a rare chance to feel what it must be like to go on tour for an extended period when you're a proper music star. Except of course we don't have groupies and our choice of drugs was based around daily vitamin requirements, managing diabetes and dealing with morning headaches caused not so much by copious volumes of alcohol but by a couple of glasses of lager followed by one of wine.

And even after a few days, even though I'd have classed us all as pretty close friends anyhow beforehand, we became closer, more tight both personally and musically.

But really, it was fucking brilliant. Getting to record, to analyse my own playing in a studio environment, is so different to listening to and analysing a live recording. Gigs are moments in time that pass and are then left behind in history. Sure there might be a recording on a camera phone or a video of a gig but they're just images of moments gone by.

There's something different about recording songs in a studio. You want to do the absolute best you can for the sake of posterity. Whatever is on the final cut is there for eternity, or maybe even longer, and it's got to be good. That's just my opinion and others might differ, but I want my recordings to be good. Not perfect though. I'm not sure if I believe in perfection in music. One of the beauties in music is in the imperfections, the  gaps, the ever so slight shifts in tempo, the things that fall in the cracks rather than always on the beat.

And you also want to do your best for your bandmates. It's not spoken about as the sense of team overrides that of the individual by a large margin, but I'd be lying if I said there was no sense of competition. All of us wanted to get our individual parts done as competently and quickly as possible and no one wanted to be the class dunce, the one who just couldn't keep up to scratch. On this occasion we didn't have a class dunce. Next time it might be different.

I got back home on Sunday night and I'll confess that I felt a bit sad. All the others went back to their families; the wives and kids, to catch up on what they'd been doing, how their rugby and football, guitar lessons and things had gone. I attempted to make contact with my girls, who were both wholly uninterested in what I'd been doing anyhow, then rang my parents who bizarrely enough seemed the same. C was in Singapore and eight hours ahead so there was no chance of any interaction there. Long distance relationships would be so much easier if it wasn't for the long distance bit.

But that is one of the things I've observed about post divorce life for a mid forties bloke in London in a long distance relationship; everyone here has their nest, their castle and it's as if they're attached to it by a long piece of elastic. In Sri Lanka it's different and I know not for why. Perhaps the weather is a big factor. It's so much easier to go out and socialise if it's warm and sunny and you don't have to consider which overcoat to wear and how many layers you'll need underneath it all.

Still I booked a flight to the motherland the other day and can't wait to see so many people.

Isn't it funny. I spend the whole of my life living in London and all of a sudden I realise I have more friends in Sri Lanka, a country I've never actually lived in, than I do here.

Weird shit. Or vut to doo as you would say.

An Old Fashioned Blog Post

The Old Boy Cerno sent me a Tweet yesterday, well a message thing on Twitter at least. It linked to the first page of a blog and the page had some words that made me think:

"I blog because it’s as old fashioned and romantic as writing letters and using a typewriter and I hope I can chronicle my writing journey and tell you all about it, if you choose to listen"

Well for fuck's sake I ask you. Or tell you. Is that how the kids see blogging these days? As old fashioned and romantic?

I still like the idea of churning out a post every now and again, I still want to regale you with boring stories about everyday happenings in my life, tales of A and K, of C and moi. 

So I should. 

But coming back after an absence is harder than I'd imagined. It's cold, it's wintery and it's Christmassy here in London. We've got decorations up in every high street, Father Christmas' in every other shop and THAT Coca Cola ad on TV every few minutes. It's beginning to feel a lot like Christmas and I like it. 

And The Auf is back blogging too, though he's made up some new name. It sounds a bit weird. Someone called "Riza". Ha ha, how mad is that?

Yours sincerely

RD

Oh Hi, It's Me Again..

If I start this post with a lament on how it's been a long time since I wrote something, well, it's only going to sound like all my recent ones. So I won't. I'll just say sorry, for life has been busy, in a strange mental yet quiet sort of way.

What's going down?

Well the girls, A and K that is, are doing their thing, strutting their stuff like teenage girls do. A is now doing her gap year, working and trying to save money to pay for travels around the world, including Sri Lanka, in the early part of next year.

I'm not joking when I tell you that I honestly feel tremors in my stomach whenever I think of her travelling around the world, even with friends. If you love somebody set them free is all well and good, but I think it should have been "If you love somebody set them free and shit yourself a little bit". Still, what to do? She's going, she's eighteen and, in my humble one, one of the most important aspects of parenting is giving your advice, then watching kids go off and make mistakes and helping them when they do. Not that travelling is a mistake by any means.

And K is now at college, doing double maths and English. She's heavily into her music, which pleases me no end. Yesterday she sent me a text to ask about Audioslave and Soundgarden and Chris Cornell. I was pleased to reply and give her a brief rundown of their history. Of course, you already know it, so I won't patronise you by explaining it again. She's also a huge fan of the esteemed Mr Grohl. I like that.

C, that other woman in my life, is off working in Singapore. If you're one of those who sees her sporadically in Colombo and have been wondering where she is, well that's the answer. And it's also why I haven't hit the motherland for a few months. I'm at that pining stage now, missing the good things and putting the bad ones right to the back of my mind.

I've been doing a hell of a lot of drumming lately. Since we last spoke I've found that I'm playing for a Tina Turner tribute band. Well, I think I'm depping for the regular drummer but gigs have been quite frequent. It's a blast, playing good old fashioned R + B from the days when R + B was R + B not this bump 'n' grind  R +B that the kids know.

The punk band also continues, not without its frustrations. We'll see what happens to it, but I'm enjoying trying to play punk with authenticity. It's actually a challenge as all these punk bands from the late seventies and early eighties were just learning to play when they emerged. So, not that I'm any kind of expert player now, I have to consciously play as if I've still learning the ropes. I kid you not when I say it's a bit of a feat.

On top of that is the fact that many of these bands and musicians are currently out playing and on tour but are now some of the best musicians around. If you hear them playing a song now that was originally a hit in the heady days of punk it's usually with a level of finesse and musicianship that I can only dream of. I have to find a comfortable middle ground between the two extremes. Oh, and play really fast.

And The Breaks, the covers band, continues marching onwards and sideways. We plan to go into a studio sometime in January to bung down a demo of some sorts. We've decided on ten tracks, though I feel a little doubtful if we'll get that many down in two to three days. It will be total blast, of that I'm sure. I've been into studios with previous bands and each time we've ended up much closer as people and tighter as a band from the experience.

On the lesson side of things I've been studying Jazz. It's hard, as if the last fifteen years of playing have been spent learning one language and, all of a sudden, I'm told "now we're going to learn how to make cheese".

But I'm listening to it at every opportunity, trying to take it in by osmosis and feel the stuff, to think two and four instead of one and three, and to suddenly forget about the bass drum as the be all and end all of things. And you know how I like my right foot normally. My parents are huge Jazz fans and always have been so it feels as if I'm coming full circle to the music I grew up listening to. I only wish I'd paid a bit more attention to it as a kid.

Here in Londinium we've got proper Christmas weather, without the snow that is. I saw someone on Facebook say that she'd seen the Coca Cola ad on TV over the weekend, the true spirit of Christmas "Holidays are coming" one. I haven't witnessed it this year yet, but everyone knows it's the first sign of the season proper. It seems like a lifetime ago when we were all watching the Olympics and wearing T shirts, shorts and flip flops Hawaiinas.

My Mum is having kittens about the logistics and arrangements for Christmas, the shops are getting crowded and the autumnal colours and moving from the trees to the pavements.

It's all good.

Ah yes, I know what I was going to tell you; I tried making a chicken curry the other day, but used chorizo in the starting line up, frying little bits of it with the garlic, onions, rampe and curry leaves. Someone suggested it to me and it adds a interestingly reddish paprikaish twist to things. I'm sure it's not for everyone but I reckon I'll do it again.

Just saying.

I hope your week is a good one and happy birthday to my good friend David Blacker for yesterday.

Bless Those Working Classes!

There I was, like any good Brit, sitting in my local Indian restaurant quietly waiting for my takeaway. The door opened and in walked what can only be described as, well, a working class salt of the earth type of fellow. The sort of chap who you wouldn't want to meet in a dark, or even a well lit alley. But, this was an Indian so things were probably going to be friendly.

He sat down opposite me at the waiting for your takeaway and reading The Sun table. I was already seated and busy reading the Sun. There was working class muck all over him, the stuff that the blokes who work on building sites accumulate throughout the day. Plaster, brick dust, urine and the like.

The waiter tried to give him a menu and he said no, he knew what he wanted. I tried to look like I wasn't listening as he ordered.

"I'll have a chicken Buriyani, two naans. Yeah and some poppadums and a couple of bottles of lager please mate."

"They're quite large bottles" said the waiter. (660 ml, I've just googled it to check)

"Yeah that's fine, two please."

"Are they to takeaway?"

"No I'll have them while I wait."

He had my begrudging respect. I could drink two of these in a week and I'd be shitfaced. I had a slight feeling that the beers would turn up and he'd complain that they were too big but deep down I knew that wasn't going to happen.

The order was placed with the certainty of a man who eats a lot of Indian food (I should know). No menu was needed, any hesitation was merely because he was deciding what to eat, not what was on the menu. There are two characteristics of the traditional working class Brit; they hate foreigners and they know their Indian food.

So I was surprised, and remain it, to hear the next bit.

"Anything else Sir?"

The working class man, we'll call him Tarquin, thought for a bit.

"No that's okay, the buriyani comes with rice doesn't it?"

"Yes it does Sir"

"That's fine then."

All that certainty, yet he wanted to know if a buriyani "came with rice". What the fuck? I can't figure it out now even. I mean, if you didn't know what a buriyani is then fair enough. But he knew, he ordered one without looking at the menu. Mad.

Still, I sat, watched the waiter arrive with the two large bottles of Cobra and pour one out. Tarquin didn't bat the faintest of eyelids at the sight of all this lager and before I could say a word half a pint had gone down in one.

I finished reading my paper and offered it to him. It's always good to bond with these chaps just in case he decides to beat me up randomly one night then recognises me and changes his mind.

"Nah ta mate, it's just the usual crap in there, same everyday"

I nodded and replied, doing my best to sound quite common. I can't remember what I said but the sentence definitely contained the words "fuck" and "tits." And "Kate" too.

We bonded and had a chat about our future Queen. Tarquin said he thought it was a load of rubbish, they were tiny anyhow. Besides over in France they all go topless all the time anyhow. Then he got up, popped his head outside the door and spoke to a small thing. I realised it was his dog and wondered if I'd wondered into a Dickens novel. When he answered the call on his iPhone I figured it probably wasn't.

He proceeded to have a chat with someone. Most of it consisted of him telling the friend that he was talking to him from his new iPhone 5, that he got it a couple of days ago and was one of the first people to get it.

"Honestly mate, have I ever lied to you?" he said convincingly.

The call finished and I did my best to check out the new iPhone. It was old and dilapidated. If it was new, then it sure had taken a battering in two days. An even bigger achievement seeing as it wasn't even out two days ago.

Tarquin looked at me.

"Ha ha, I told the cunt that I've got one of those new iPhones and he believed me" I laughed with him, as you do. By now he was on his second full pint of lager while I was still finishing my first half.

We chatted some more. He did have an iPhone, just not a new one. I told him about my iPad, we moaned about the state of the world a bit and, in the time it took me to drink one pint, he'd sunk just over three and probably would have been good to drive.

Tarquin's meal came and he bid me goodnight. I said to him that I hope he enjoys his meal and him and dog strolled off into the night. I would have shaken his hand but I'm reasonably sure chaps like that don't wash so I gave it a miss.

Salt of the earth though. Just saying.

On Kate's Topless Photos

Kate, the Duchess of Cambridge, and her breasts have hit the headlines, as you're possibly aware. Unlike some, I'm not going to use the incident as an excuse to publish some topless pictures of various women. No, I'm not really against "modelling" of that sort, but neither am I an advocate of it.

Frankly I just think it's a bit sad that some women want to do it and that there's sufficient demand to make them want to do it. If there wasn't the demand then they wouldn't want to do it, if they didn't do it..... you get the picture.

But I'm surprised at the Royal Fam's reaction to the publication of these pictures. Every newscast and all the papers here are full of stories about various publications being taken to court by the Royal Family, threats of people being sent to the Tower of London and all.

And that reaction, the dismay and upset, has made the episode much bigger news than it ever was in the first place.

It seems to me that, had William and Kate just laughed it off with a shrug of the shoulders, then things would have been very different. I'm not defending the rather intrusive picture taking either. Even though they were taken (as far as I can make out) within the boundaries of law, albeit Italian law which is quite oxymoronic at the best of times, particularly as far as sexual behaviour and public figures goes, I still think that their privacy has been significantly intruded upon.

However, they are senior figures of the British Royal Family and one would think that this sort of thing is something they half expect. I'm told that topless sunbathing among some of these European women is quite the done thing, that beaches in parts of France are full to the brim with breasts and armpit hair. And in Italy it's compulsory for female TV presenters to wear nothing from the waist up.

Of course over here it's fine for Britain's biggest selling newspaper to have a "page 3" every day, just not fine for the Duchess of Cambridge to appear as if she's in training for it.

But my very serious view is that the Royals would have done much better to have just laughed it off. Maybe it would have been better if Prince William had made a statement along the lines of

"Well we're disappointed that these photographs have appeared but the Duchess is proud of her body and it's not a big deal."

Followed perhaps by her next public appearance wearing one of those fake boob body mask things.

Instead of all this court case and cutting off their head business, which had merely highlighted something that most people aren't fussed about anyhow.

On My Dad - A Nice Update

I first told you about my Dad's cancer here, about fourteen months ago. Well it's been a long old fourteen months, full of drama, pain, happiness and sadness. Not to mention drugs, wheelchairs, chemotherapy and tears.

And yesterday we were told by the Doctor that he's in full remission. It feels weird, in a good way. For the first time I can actually feel some tears coming to my eyes since hearing the news. I'm at work, it's 7.45 AM, so I need to man up a bit before staff begin to arrive.

"In full remission" is as good as things will be with Cancer. I don't think a patient will ever be told that they're completely cured as there's always the potential that there will be Cancer cells in the body, but this phrase, the three words, are the grail.

There wasn't a big fanfare, no grand announcement from the Doctor with a cake presented or anything like that. In fact we had to pretty much lever the information out of her. The Royal Marsden, the Cancer unit where my Dad has been / is being treated is totally fantastic. It has reinforced my belief and commitment to state healthcare, not that I ever doubted it. Why so many Americans are opposed to it is beyond me.

But one thing that has been a test is the way in which we've seen such a variety of Doctors. All of them would get full marks for effort, it's just hard when there isn't one continuous line, when often the Doctor has to sit there in the appointment and read through the history to "catch up".

I wonder how others deal with similar situations to this. I must admit I have pangs of guilt. I mean I want my Dad to live as long as possible but I know we're lucky compared to many. I'm forty six and both my parents are still alive. Totally mental but alive. I know so many people who have lost one of both parents at a much younger age and, from going to the Royal Marsden so often now, I've also seen many other Cancer patients who I know may not be as lucky as us.

I guess it's not about scarcity is it?

It's not really that my Dad has won this round at the expense of someone else.

I can't believe the shift in mindset. Last Christmas we had a big family one with all of us sitting there in party hats silently wondering if there'd be another. Now they're planning their next trip to the motherland, albeit a little more sedate and conservative than usual. He played his first game of snooker the other day. He used to play at least once a week before the Cancer struck and this was his first game since. Word on the street is that it was hard work, but it's so positive.

So well, there we are. It's all good and I thought I'd share it, just in case you're not one of my Facebook friends.

Thank you sincerely for the support, kind words, prayers and thoughts.

RD