100TWC - Day 26: Forever and a day

Try as I might I cannot get past the hyperbole of this topic. "Forever and a day" might only be "one of those sayings" to most people, but to a dyed-in-the-wool pedant like me it's an irritating reminder of how meaning is lost through overuse, or how casually words are thrown around without, it seems, conscious thought.

Forever is, by definition, infinite. It means the same as eternity. The whole of time. And, as with all infinite numbers, adding one to them doesn't make any difference. Forever and a day is, literally, no longer than forever. So while the massed populace thinks they're expressing something that means they're going the extra mile, doing something more, making a special effort, actually all they're communicating is their paucity of imagination or understanding.

Here's another: 110%.

I gave it 110%. No you didn't. You can't. If you've somehow managed to do more than you did last time, all that means is you gave less than 100% last time. Or alternatively, that your capacity to give was smaller back then, and you gave 100% at that time, and THIS time you have an increased output and you're giving 100% of that. In the same way that eternity, or forever, means the whole of time, 100% means the sum total of whatever it is you're talking about.

Imagine eating 110% of a cake. It's impossible, right? Once you've eaten 100% of the cake there is no more cake. Unless you've hidden a second cake somewhere and you've stuffed 10% of that down your gullet as well. But that's a different cake. It's not an extra 10% of the first cake. That would be like having your cake and eating it too. Which if I was feeling like writing another diatribe on physics might lead me on to a debate about the impossibility of creating (or destroying) matter (or energy). But I won't stray down that path.

In fact since I've been sitting here staring at the screen for the last two minutes with not even an extra 1% of an idea of where to take this argument next, it appears I'm not going to be straying down any path. Even the one I thought I was on. Maybe I should just call it a day. Since I've been arguing against ever saying "forever and a day" we could agree that the "day" we're going to call it is the day we've just subtracted from "forever and a day."

Makes no difference to me. Or you for that matter. Because in the same way you can't add a day to forever, you can't take one away either. Infinite numbers, eh? I could write about them forever...

100TWC - Day 23: Failure

I'm a few days ahead of myself with this challenge (always good to have a few posts in hand with something like this, in case of unforeseen eventualities) so by the time you read this a week will have passed since the closing ceremony of the Olympics and I expect by now, in the way of these things, it's all just a rapidly fading memory. Normal service has been resumed on all channels and maybe even the interminable post-mortems will have become terminable, or terminated.

But for me, it was just last night. A madcap three hours of social networking as friends from as far afield as the other side of the world and literally as close as next door came together in our living room while I sat with iPad in hand both reading and writing a staccato running commentary.

So as the glow of what has been heralded as the best Olympics ever fades, I wanted to say a word about failure. And it's a good job I did, because that's the theme for today!

In among the many superb golds, world and Olympic records, and personal bests that have been clocked up over the last 17 days, I've been struck by the number of athletes who didn't win, and having had a microphone shoved under their noses before they've even had chance to catch their breath, felt compelled to say how sorry they were that they'd failed and "let everybody down."

Dear Athlete, Gymnast, Swimmer, Competitor: In what sense can you be said to have failed? Have you stopped trying? OK, maybe this was your last chance at an Olympic medal. Coming round so rarely, in many sports competitors only have two or three attempts to "medal" (one of the many dire "new verbs" we've been introduced to recently). You may have set yourself the goal of gold, but not achieving your goal is not the same thing as failure. Your attempt at the gold medal depended on so much more than your own efforts. How can you allow for others' training, skill, talent and preparation? Wind conditions (a particular bugbear in the pole vault, and some throwing events)? The last minute sore throat or dodgy stomach? None of these things are under your control. All of them can prevent you winning a medal.

Did you do your best, perhaps even achieving a personal best? You haven't failed.
Did you even make the attempt in the first place, when most of us can only lift ourselves off the sofa long enough to fetch another beer? You haven't failed.
Did you inspire even one young person to visit their local sports club this week, who wouldn't have otherwise gone? You haven't failed.
Did you make one person shout out in support, make one heart skip a beat, make one tear fall for joy or hope or pride? You haven't failed.
Did you turn one person, even for only a moment, from the weary path of the cynic to the sunny broad track of the committed competitor?  You haven't failed. And on that basis alone I can tell you that none of you failed, because I was that cynic. And I was turned. If not into a believer then certainly, and perhaps only briefly, into an enthusiastic supporter.

Failure is a big word. And it is also, similar to opportunities and threats on which I wrote a few days ago, one of those things that can disguise itself very well. What might appear at first to be a failure could turn out to be nothing more than a stepping stone. A doorway to another future. A fork in the road. Or a bump.

Many people think fear of failure is a barrier to success, and it can be. What isn't often realised (except among coaches ;o)) is that an even bigger barrier is fear of success. At least that's one problem our Olympians don't have to worry about.

100TWC - Day 20: My Inspiration

For a long time I thought I got my inspiration from others.

When you work in the kind of high-tech, leading edge company that I did back in the 80s and early 90s (it's still the same company now, but I no longer think of it as leading edge. Even though it is still in the business of high tech), you become so familiar with being surrounded by people of enormous intellect that it's easy to feel almost less than normal. Or at least, below average.

Over the years I've heard anecdotes from ex-colleagues who left. They all shared a theme: no-one within the company really knows how good they are until, voluntarily or otherwise, they step outside it. Only when given the chance to compare oneself with regular people outside can one begin to appreciate the amazing talent that exists inside.

Without wishing to blow my own trumpet overmuch, it's true that in all the 34 years I've been there I have never been asked to do something that I couldn't, eventually, succeed at. And before the cynics among you start, I have been asked to do some pretty off-the-wall, technically challenging stuff. But even allowing for the fact that the staff in general were above average for "the marketplace" there were still some particular outstanding individuals that I looked up to, wanted to emulate, and who I thought of as a source of inspiration.

Outside the workplace, in common with a lot of people (at least those who don't allow their work life to grow so that it consumes their entire life) I got busy with private endeavours. More artistic endeavours. Here too I was lucky to meet people who I looked to for inspiration.

But in thinking of how I would approach this theme, it came to me that these people, almost to a man person, did not inspire me. I was confusing inspiration with aspiration. I aspired to emulate them in some way, either to be as clever, as resourceful, as knowledgeable, as inventive, as dedicated, whatever. But my inspiration - my source of ideas, or commitment - was not them.

It was me.

When I seek an idea for a story, or a poem, or a song, I don't go to people I respect or admire. I sit quietly, possibly listening to music (yes, also possibly, just possibly, playing Spider Solitaire) and I run ideas through my head. Or, more often, I wait for them to come to me. I open myself up to what ancient scholars would have called my Muse. And I've learned, more so in the last few years than at any time in my life, to trust it. If I let my mind free wheel, ideas come. It might only be a line of dialogue or it might be an entire conversation. My memory is so poor, and the ideas often so fleeting, that I have to write them down as quickly as I can. The trick there is not to start writing too soon. To let the idea ripen and develop until it feels "done." You could liken it to letting dough "prove" before baking. Only then can I write it down without losing it, and so that I don't lose it. Getting the timing of that right is quite a delicate balance, and I still miss regularly (mostly on the side of waiting too long and forgetting the important bits, unfortunately).

Of course when it's a song I'm writing I have the source of inspiration right there on my computer. The music. I can just let it play over and over on repeat until the words begin to suggest themselves. I've often referred to this as "letting the music tell me its story," and that's exactly how it feels.

The example I most commonly use to explain how this inspiration works when at its best, is the time I wrote Tumbleweed (one of the poems in my first collection - Well of Love - which is linked in the sidebar). It was a quiet weekend afternoon and I simply sat at my keyboard, opened up my mind and started writing. To my astonishment the words poured onto the screen, my thoughts flying so fast I could hardly type quickly enough to keep up with them. So fast, indeed, that I was hardly conscious of what they were saying. It was an exhilarating experience. At the end of that brief period of frantic typing I had well over 90% of a completed poem. The only missing parts were where I had felt my mind groping for a word or a phrase that was missing from the stream of consciousness I was recording. When that happened - only three or four places in what is quite a long poem - I simply skipped over the word or line, leaving a dash to mark the place.

Going back over the piece and replacing the dashes with real content was a matter of only half an hour or so. The words were there, it just felt as though they had somehow "got stuck" in the frenzied flow.

I can't explain it and it's probably silly to try. It has only happened once since, although on that occasion it was a deliberate experiment to see if I could repeat the experience - this time with a song rather than a poem. Contrarily perhaps, the fact that it worked a second time has made me reluctant to try again until and unless I reach a point in my writing where I absolutely need it. It's like a pure wellspring that I don't want to drink from too often for fear of tainting it. That probably sounds crazy, but

100TWC - Day 9: Death

Of all the things Not Spoken Of In Polite Company - I'm sure you can think of your own list - death will probably come at or close to the top of most people's. It's often been remarked that, despite it being one of the only certainties in life, one of the few things that everyone will experience, it's also one of the least discussed. And, in most cases, one of the least prepared for.

At least 50% of people die without making a will. They leave it up to the laws of whichever country they die in, to decide how to distribute their worldly goods when they're gone. True, there are those who may think they don't have a lot to leave, but at a time when home ownership - and the value of those homes - remains high, it's not unusual even for ordinary people to leave at least one item worth around a quarter of a million pounds. I don't know about you, but I don't want incompetent jobsworths in whatever government department deals with inheritance to decide on my behalf where that kind of money goes. It's even more complicated for those who don't have children, or for those who have more than one and one or more of them don't get on. Why would anyone want to saddle their offspring or near relatives with potentially years of bitter feuding, arguing and recrimination, for the sake of not taking an hour out to write down a simple will?

I guess it's looked upon as one of those things you'll get around to at some stage. But death doesn't always wait on your convenience. It doesn't sit there waiting for you to sign on the bottom line before swinging its scythe of doom. Without wanting to sound morbid (and there I go, veering off in the direction of the apology for even daring to consider it), death can come at any time. It'll surprise you. We don't all get to enjoy the "luxury" of a ripe old age, dying in our own beds surrounded by family and friends.

The various manners and means of alternative death (by which I mean the alternatives to that "ideal" death referred to above) are each in their own right awkward to even think about let alone talk about. Death through short- or long-term illness (cancer, heart disease, lung disease) is familiar to everyone, and a fairly high proportion of people will also know someone (or know someone who knows someone) who has died through sudden means of one sort or another. A fall, a car accident, or drowning for instance. And yet the single most often uttered comment, when faced with another's grief is: "I just didn't know what to say."

If death itself is rarely spoken of, its companion topic - Life After Death - is an even more unwelcome subject for polite after-dinner conversation. We generally steer clear of this. Perhaps because we think it's a foregone conclusion that it either does, or does not, exist, or through imagined embarrassment at admitting to either of those views. True, some people hold their view so closely to their hearts that no debate is possible, and any attempt is met with frosty disdain or heated argument, either of which is more than enough excuse to avoid the subject altogether. There are some opinions, it seems, that it is uncomfortable to air in the aforementioned polite company.

Which probably explains why those with strongly held beliefs tend to seek out like-minded individuals and even invent societies, closed clubs, cliques and organisations, along with their attendant rules, regulations and rituals. Some of these are so successful that they "enjoy" over a billion members and find themselves among the richest organisations the world has ever seen. But even then death is rarely discussed until it happens.

Another unwanted side effect of discussing the afterlife is ridicule. Even a slight misjudgement of audience on those rare occasions where one might feel moved to - for example - explain that one has proof of life after death will be met with ridicule more often than with interest, in a proportion of roughly 20 to 1. Little wonder the subject is avoided most of the time. Ridicule is, of course, often a smoke screen for embarrassment on the part of those doing the ridiculing. Are they embarrassed by their own beliefs - or lack of them? Or simply embarrassed to be associated with, or even listen to, someone who holds such beliefs. Does believing in life after death make you "other?" Or does the line become stepped over only when you decide to voice your beliefs. Or, indeed, write about them? Are such things so personal, so intimate, that they fall into the category of things that it is forbidden to speak of, along with what kind of sex you had last night and how often, or whether you secretly enjoy listening to Jimmy Carr.

The same old new start

I have a friend who is relentlessly upbeat. Already, only a day in to 2011, everything is better, more wonderful, more inspiring and fulfilling than that tired old 2010 ever was, and it all looks set to get even better. I don't know how she does it, and to be honest I often find it exhausting simply to read her posts. Matching that level of energy is a distant dream. Or nightmare.

I have another friend who's approach to the New Year has been decidedly - I might even say determinedly - more downbeat. While she admits the possibility of good things to come, the admission is almost buried under the weight of expectation that, mostly, 2011 will be full of shit.

I mention these two friends only to illustrate the extremes of approach to the "new start" that the New Year represents. As with most extremes, the reality will be somewhere in between. Very few years are entirely bad or good. Yet another friend has recently written her(*) traditional year-end meme in which the questions "what was the high point of the year?" and "what was the low point of the year?" both appear, and both have an answer. Every year has its highs and lows. Some years the lows may be subterranean and most years the highs won't reach the cosmic levels we may dream of, but as an old manager of mine used to say: "aim for the stars and you might hit the trees." And I'd rather be sitting in a treetop than grubbing around in the roots.

Trouble is, new starts are never really new are they? We always bring with us the baggage of our previous experience. It colours everything we do. Both of those extremes I mentioned above are to some extent coping strategies for that. Believing in the power of positive thinking, maintaining expectations of the best outcomes, and preparing in minute detail for success are the habits of successful people, but are also powerful defences against the suppressed small voice of our baggage. That apprehensive and cynical voice which would counsel us to expect failure, and which talks loudest in those who can't maintain their Patronus against the Dementor's Kiss of past experience.

So as always I'll try to walk the middle path between bright shining (and some would say unrealistic) optimism and dragging soul-sapping (and others would say self-destructive) pessimism. I'll try to do more of the positive stuff - writing, thinking, reading, planning, plotting, querying, singing - and less of the distractive - playing cards, or Farkle, or otherwise spinning my wheels. I expect I'll succeed at this on some days and fail on others. But as Kipling pointed out success and failure are both impostors. I might be lucky enough to be in the right place at the right time, and end up in that treetop or on a journey to the stars, or I might have to scratch around for a slightly less impressive "high point" for the year-end meme. Either way it'll be fun. It always is.

(*) Incidentally, I *do* have male friends too. The fact that all three of the quoted friends are of the female persuasion is pure coincidence. Well, maybe not a coincidence exactly. More a natural consequence of there being only a handful of the blokes I know who write blogs.

One Thing

I think I've discovered a natural law. One of those like Sod's Law, or Gunnersen's Law, or Sattinger's Law. I hesitate to name it Digger's Law, because I'm not certain it has remained undiscovered until now. But I could perhaps call it the Law of Single Omission.

It goes something like this. If there are a number of things to be done, where "things" can be any list of objects or tasks and "to be done" is the action you are performing on them, then if your concentration lapses at any point there will always be one thing left over at the end.

Thus there is always one thing left to wash up after you've let the water out of the sink. Probably sitting on the cooker behind you rather than on the draining board.

And after you've put that shopping list back in your pocket, assuming there are so few items left on it you'll be able to remember them all, you'll get home to find there's one thing left you didn't buy.

Congratulations to Robert Edwards

Bob Edwards' pioneering work into in-vitro fertilisation began in the 1950s, and its first fruit "ripened" (in the form of "test-tube baby" Louise Brown) in 1978. He must be delighted at today's news that he's been awarded the Nobel Prize for medicine, but I have to ask: why has it taken more than 30 years?

I suppose it could have been worse. At least the Nobel committee didn't leave it until he was dead, like his research colleague Patrick Steptoe. Their story contains all the traditional elements of small guys with a vision fighting against opposition from all sides - church, government, scientific establishment, holders of research funds - and not giving up in the face of continual adversity.

Ralph Waldo Emerson famously said "Nothing great was ever achieved without enthusiasm" but enthusiasm is only one facet of success. An even greater ingredient is tenacity. Something Edwards and Steptoe had in spades, and which is embodied in many other well-used quotes. My personal favourite is good old Thomas Edison and his approach to inventing the electric lightbulb. He didn't view his (perhaps apocryphal) 10,000 unsuccessful attempts as failures, but merely treated each as a discovery of one more way that didn't work. A stepping stone to eventual success.

So whether your particular challenge is getting a book published, or buying a house, or finding a job, or trying to manage the estate of a deceased relative makes no difference. Just keep on keeping on.

Silver Light

We attended a silver wedding event this evening for some friends, who also happen to be neighbours. One of the nicest families you could hope to meet, so it was an honour and a privilege to help them celebrate 25 years together, and a laugh to see all the old photos projected on the wall of the function room. That hair! That suit! That moustache! Etc. Well, it was 1985, and the eighties weren't exactly renowned for their fashions.

It occurred to me as we sat at the table and the conversation flowed around and through us, occasionally stopping to pick up some words and move on, like a verbal tram with an unpredictable timetable and a driver who may well have been R.P.McMurphy, that 1985 was also coincidentally the year I got married for the second time. Which means that, had I stuck it out, we too would be celebrating our silver wedding next month. Of course it's also true that, had I stuck it out, I would probably have been driving that tram, assuming I could have escaped the funny farm, so I think it's safe to say things have turned out for the best.

Our hosts being (reasonably) devout, we were "treated" to a blessing from "the father" at one point. Far be it from me to impose my beliefs and prejudices on anyone (although I hear fellow heretics shouting from the back "it never stops them!!"), but I could have happily done without hearing the message that the success of their marriage was actually nothing to do with their own efforts, but largely down to the beneficence of The Lord, who smiled down upon them from on high, probably on account of their having attended His Place of Worship on a regular basis.

Thankfully this drivel didn't go on for too long, as I was on the verge of converting to Dawkinism. I did wonder though, and not for the first time, exactly what credentials one requires to be a priest. Beyond the obvious predilection for... well... you know what I mean. By the look of the guy he must have been priesting for easily as long as our hosts have been married, and it wouldn't have surprised me to learn that he'd been at it twice that long. Yet in all that time he never found the time to actually learn the words of the blessing he delivered to the happy couple. Only a short passage, at most half the length of my introduction to this year's hotpot, which I learned in two weeks and delivered word-perfect on three occasions, and with many fewer polysyllabic utterances, but his years under the cloth had not provided sufficient opportunity to commit the simple homily to memory. He read it, falteringly it has to be said, from The Book, in a bored monotone utterly lacking in charisma or even any apparent interest. Apologies to Woody Allen but it made me think "those that can, do. Those that can't, teach. And those that can't teach, join the church."

Strangely quiet in the studio

After the rush (both temporal and emotional) we went through getting Weird and Wonderful out into the public domain, this week has been strangely anticlimactic.

I've likened it to an exciting train ride - a magical mystery trip if you like.

The train barrels into the station... and there's no-one there to meet you. You step down, the train pulls out with a blast of its whistle, and you're left standing on the platform. Suddenly there's no noise, or movement, or excitement. Just silence, emptiness, and a still, small feeling of expectation.

This could be the start of something. Or it could be another deserted whistle stop cafe in the long journey of life. Either way, I think it'll be a while before we can tell the difference.

Comestible confusion

As usual on my way to pick Nikki up from work today I was listening to Radio 4. The pundits were discussing research into links between diet and prostate cancer and when I joined the programme one guy was going on about how he has recognised that dairy foods carry an increased risk and that he's eliminated them from his diet completely.

Now I'm as worried about prostate cancer as the next man. Well, actually, it's probably the examination to check me out for prostate cancer that me and the next man are worried about, but anyway... a life without dairy? No butter? No ice-cream? No CHEESE? No thank you.

As the programme continued, the alternative viewpoint came from a lady researcher, who shot the guy's argument down in flames. That's my spin on her arguments anyway. "Dairy hater obliterated by gorgeous cream-loving temptress." Or something. Her counter-argument was beautifully executed as a pincer movement. From the North came the revelation that this "increased risk" to dairy-eating prostate owners was only 10%. So if 1 person in every 1,000 is at risk on average, among the dairy eaters the risk will be 1.1 people in 1,000. Or, to put it another way, 1 person in 900. (Presumably. Stats was never my strong point.) Wow. I'm so scared. But she wasn't done. Remember the pincer movement. From the South came marching the second offensive. That dairy foods have positive effects too. In particular their calcium-related compounds have been proven to reduce the chances of suffering from Alzheimer's disease.

So there we have it. In stark, tabloid terms: go mad and keep your man gland, or stay sane but lose the juice.

But of course it's not as simple as that. These things never are. Foods are remarkably complicated chemical and biological agents, which often have beneficial AND deleterious effects in combination. And as if that weren't hard enough to get your head around, those effects can be reduced or exacerbated by your individual susceptibilities, whether genetic, environmental, or behavioural. Research continues into the complex interplay of all these factors, but increasingly I find myself asking: what's the point?

I don't want to live in a world where I have to eat exactly this much of this and not more than that much of that, not more than once a week and certainly not after consuming the other. Where I'm instructed to have five-a-day, exercise three times a day for twenty minutes at something that elevates my heart rate by 50%, avoid dairy, saturated fat, barbecued food, strong alcohol, sugar, cholesterol, and on, and on, and on. Jeez I'd be so stressed with worrying whether I was doing the right thing at the right time, the very act of trying to stay healthy would make me ill!

No, the research is all very interesting an' all, but I'll carry on doing what I like, when I like, and avoiding what I don't like, when I don't like it. If that approach has consequences then that's no different from any other approach. There's more to life than how long it is. It may be an overused phrase in these days of multi-forwarded emails, but it's still true that life is not measured by the number of breaths we take, but by the moments that take our breath away.

The aged P

Took a day off work to visit Mum today. Our social calendar (at weekends, at least) has been, and is going to be, pretty hectic of late and it was the only way we could squeeze a visit in. I'd been feeling guilty at the amount of time that's elapsed since our last visit (first weekend of March) but I needn't have worried. Her memory is so bad now that I honestly don't think she knew how long it had been.

Example: I call to tell her we're coming for a visit on Friday and by the time she's walked from phone to calendar she's forgotten what I said, and writes it up as Saturday. So she wasn't expecting us until tomorrow.

It's frustrating, because for once we had a heap of news, but while I was telling her all about what we'd been doing and where we'd been going, you could almost see the words entering one ear and exiting the other. With a glazed expression in between, exhibiting no interest at all in what I was saying.

And it reminded me of a thought I've had a lot recently, regarding our sphere of influence and how it resembles a normal distribution curve. Babies and very young children know nothing of the world outside their immediate environment, and to a large extent the world outside their immediate environment knows nothing of them. As they grow and start to attend school, make friends and go out into the world, they take a greater interest and are in turn more well known and recognised by their peers. At the height of their career, in a small number of cases, they might influence and be known by a large percentage of the world's population, but even "regular" people follow world news and are known to maybe a couple of thousand others.

When you start down the other side of the curve, heading for old age, the reverse happens until, in most cases, you end up like my Mum: knowing or caring very little about what happens outside your four walls, and vice versa. Hope I die before I get old, sang The Who famously, and on the evidence before me today I have to say, they were bang on.

Reality check

I heard on the radio a couple of days ago - while listening to a programme about sustainable food, the impact of supermarkets on health, and that kind of thing - a startling statistic.

That cities take up 2% of the Earth's habitable surface, but their inhabitants are responsible for using up 75% of the world's annual resources.

It wasn't so long ago - a couple of hundred years or so - that cities didn't exist. The Industrial Revolution began the lemming-like rush of populations into urban environments and it's really only in this century that urban populations have exceeded rural ones. But the city as it was envisaged in the late 18th century is no longer a sustainable model. A city the size of London - with ~10 million inhabitants - masticates its way through 30 million meals a day and the vast majority of those millions of people neither know nor care where the food comes from.

As if we didn't have enough to worry about, we now need to work out what "city life" or "country life" will look like in 100 years' time. "Unrecognisable" is probably the answer.

A bugger's muddle

From the moment we're born - no, from the very moment we're conceived - there is only one thing that is absolutely certain about our lives: that they will end. Yes, death is the only certainty.

So why do we find it so hard to talk about? And more to the point, in the week where two high-profile cases of assisted suicide hit the news, why do we find it so hard to treat it rationally, sensitively, and humanely?

The case of Daniel James, who broke his neck in a rugby scrum and was paralysed from the chest down, and the more public (by virtue of it being the subject of a TV documentary that actually filmed and broadcast the moment of his death) but no less harrowing case of Craig Ewert, a sufferer from motor neurone disease who was not much older than me, have opened a tentative debate on the subject of a person's right to decide the time and manner of their death. Which at least in the latter case, was something the poor man had hoped to do.

So when is this fine, upstanding nation (allegedly) going to grasp this particular nettle and put an end to the typically British bugger's muddle that the law finds itself in at the moment? A situation where anyone who helps another to die risks prosecution and lengthy imprisonment (up to 14 years, as I understand it), and yet where increasing numbers of people are dragging themselves off to Switzerland, where a company called Dignitas are (legally) prepared to let them fulfil their wish to die. A situation where the CPS will examine each case on its merits, and in a majority of cases will elect NOT to prosecute, and yet where the threat of that prosecution hangs over the heads of all involved, and results in at least as many people deciding it's not worth the risk (it is estimated) as decide they will throw the dice and help their loved ones out of the terrible situation they find themselves in.

Situations like Daniel's. An energetic, athletic young man staring down the long dark tunnel of 40, 50, 60 years spent having someone else take care of him in the most intimate way, while he remained incapable of taking part in any of the activities that gave his life meaning. Or like Craig's. Facing the certain erosion of his ability to control his own movements until he reached the point where he would be completely unable to do anything for himself, including committing suicide.

Why are such people, already in desperate straits, forced to travel to another country to achieve their wish? Would it not be more fitting to allow them to die in familiar circumstances? At home, where as many family, friends and neighbours as they wish can be on hand to say that final farewell, where the surroundings are comforting rather than clinical, and where the absence of sufficient means to finance the final journey will not present yet another insurmountable barrier to their goal.

Yes, there are risks of abuse, coercion, of it becoming the expected thing. Yes, there are safeguards that must be put in place. But let's at least have the debate, and the maturity to realise that in the end, if no-one has the right to dictate how someone else lives, then no-one has the right to dictate how they die.

Birthday Boy

Happy Birthday to me. A time for reflection, and as luck would have it, I DO have time for reflection. So I'm reflecting. On another year gone by, family, friendships old and new, hearth and home, the world, the news. It would be easy to feel depressed, but I remain (a) philosophical and (b) upbeat. I'm relentlessly upbeat, me. Even in the face of having to spend my birthday in the office, and not receiving any birthday cards from my closest family. Again.

Nikki excepted, of course. Her card is perfect. It is undoubtedly the best birthday card I've ever had. Concisely expressing the most moving and touching of sentiments without being cloying, trite or juvenile. A grown-up card from one grown-up to another (we like to pretend). So thank you for that, my darling; it made my day.

Maybe I'm being needlessly old-fashioned. Maybe the tradition of sending cards is being gradually eroded, from both ends of the generational spectrum. From the aged P who can no longer get out to the shops, to the younger generation who have never been used to sending, or taught by example to send, cards. Instead they are supplanted with phone calls, email messages and scribbled notes on Facebook. But although that may be just dandy for geographically dispersed friends and acquaintances, somehow it just isn't the same when it comes to family. You can't beat the excitement of the plop on the mat, the attempt to guess who it's from by analysing the handwriting, slicing open the brightly coloured envelope and slipping out the contents to read the heartfelt message within.

Still, a happy smiley email is better than nothing I suppose. Anything is better than nothing.

Warning: philosophy alert

I've had this throat infection for two weeks now, and the antibiotics haven't really touched it. That is, I've stopped sweating, shivering and sleeping badly, but I'm still coughing. Perhaps it's an Aftermath. Anyway, with no remaining excuses (or, more pertinently, days left on my sick note), I went back to work yesterday. God, I'd almost forgotten how boring it is.

Still, it could be worse. It could be as bad as it was six years ago when I wrote this. Or, on a slightly more global scale, it could be Myanmar bad, or China bad. But we each have our own challenges to rise to, don't we? For some poor unfortunates, it's watching their bloated dead babies drift away on the outgoing tide, or wondering if they'll be able to catch enough rainwater off the roof to stop their family dying of thirst. On that kind of scale, my challenge - the challenge of dragging my sorry arse into work every day when I'd rather be at home writing - seems more like something I should be celebrating. And therefore: whinge over.

I could never be a project manager

I've known this for a long time of course, but it was brought home to me again today when my roofer called to check whether the scaffolders had been to take it down. No, they haven't. So off he went to chase them up. And there, right there, is the reason I don't make a very good project manager, and in a similar way, I would almost certainly make a lousy producer.

I totally and completely hate chasing people up to chivvy them along to do something they said they would, or that I asked them to, and haven't. In fact it took me years ("thirty years" probably ;o)) to realise that you needed to do that at all. Surely, I reasoned, if you'd asked someone to do something, especially if it was their JOB, they'd do it. And years of experience to the contrary were not sufficient to ram that message home: that you need to be on top of people, or across the situation, or whatever the latest term is, ALL the time to make sure it gets done, gets done right, and gets done on time.

Knowing that it's a necessary part of a job is still a mile away from doing it though, and I continue to avoid situations where I'd need to behave like this. Like most things, it's probably down to some childhood trauma. I certainly have a lifelong hatred of being told what to do and, even worse, reminded when it needs to be done by, which may well explain why I dislike doing the same thing to others.

Gifted

I was watching Channel 4's "Child Genius" tonight. A rather sad look at the lives of children with extremely high IQs - as in, the maximum score possible: 170. I'm not going to go into the details of the programme, but one aspect of it sticks in my mind. One of the super-bright kids' brother was being tested for the first time and the family waited with bated breath to see how he would do.

His result was 137. "Oh, good for him," his exceedingly intelligent elder brother scoffed, "he's quite bright." Difficult to know how he could possibly have invested that simple sentence with more disdain, tinged with relief that his brother hadn't bettered him (which, being "exceedingly intelligent" he should already have worked out was impossible given he already had a perfect score).

But I digress. My point is, the announcer declared 137 put the brother within the definition of "gifted." Who knew? When I was 12 my IQ was measured at 144. Hey - I'm gifted! Was I sent to a special school? Was I tutored at home? Did my parents fuss around me and make sure I had access to all sorts of mind-stretching and creative endeavour? The answer, as you may have guessed, is no. I just got on with it, like everyone else I knew.

Which, for me, begs two questions. One: how would life had panned out if I'd had more pushy (or maybe, more aware) parents, prepared to treat me differently on account of me being... different? (And from where I sit now, the answer to that - at least one potential answer - is very scary. I'm glad I grew up with something-approaching-normal socialisation, friends, mistakes, challenges and triumphs).

Two: how many more "gifted" children slip through the net, and end up not fulfilling their potential, simply because their parents never conceive of them being gifted, and their teachers are too hard-pressed to notice? That, perhaps, is the most scary thought of all.

Glastonbury

Paul arrived for a visit last Thursday and since he touched down, apart from a few meals out, we've been basically chillin'. For our first "real" holiday event of his trip, we'd booked a couple of nights in Glastonbury, leaving Manchester on Easter Sunday and returning home tonight.

Our journey down was extremely leisurely and took in Weston-super-Mare. As a result, we didn't arrive at our usual accommodation - the Who'd A Thought It inn - until mid-afternoon. This left us just enough time for a brief perambulation up and down the high street before beginning the important business of sinking some holiday ales, starting at that most impressive 15th century coaching inn, the George & Pilgrims, where they had a welcoming fire in the grate and a few pints of Butcombe Bitter to warm us up even further.

We dined the first evening in the Who'd. The food there is always top notch and the company is usually quite amusing too. Easter Sunday was no exception as the bar was occupied by a local wag who proceeded to regale anyone who would listen with countless stories, pausing every now and then to laugh uproariously at his own jokes.

The following day we set off for the Tor (with a small initial detour to a local coffee shop to while away half an hour having just missed the Tor bus) hoping the weather would hold. It did, and the views were magnificent, aided if anything by the wonderful cloud formations we were treated too. Our enjoyment was marred slightly by the grass protection measures the council had put in place. Apparently they removed the concrete slab at the top of the Tor a while back and have been trying to grow grass in its place with little success. Believing this to be due at least in part to the heavy foot traffic, they've erected a utilitarian wooden fence around 50% of the grass, leaving a narrow path around the top between the Tor and the brass directional plaque. This combined with the bitterly cold and blustery winds conspired to curtail our visit to what has in the past, for me, been a deeply spiritual place. On this visit, it seemed devoid of any special feeling. It was just cold and unwelcoming.

We caught the bus back down and around again to Chalice Well and once again, despite (or perhaps because of) this being off-season, this calm quiet place felt strangely bereft of magic. Two of the most powerful sites in what has in the past for me been a compelling and rejuvenating place to visit seemed to be utterly asleep and without energy, but it wasn't only them. The entire town had an aspect of being suspended awaiting the new season. Although many of the familiar crystal and incense shops were still open for business, many others along with cafes and restaurants had not survived the winter doldrums and displayed empty windows to the world, often with bailiffs' notices posted on their doors.

Overall Glastonbury had a sad, depressing feel to it on this visit, totally at odds with the vibrant and energised experience we've enjoyed on all our previous trips. In an effort to inject some buzz into the day, we headed off to Street for some retail therapy at the outlet mall, and a beer or two in the Bear. Many of the high season food choices being denied us (even if only by the unappealingly long walk to the other end of the High Street in the increasingly cold wind) we opted for the George & Pilgrims in which to dine on our last night, and were amazed to find our local colourful character from the previous night had made the same decision.

Today we bade goodbye to the subdued winter version of Glastonbury. I hope to be able to return at a later point in the year the next time we visit and see it thriving once again. Before we arrived this time around we had occasionally entertained the romantic notion of retiring down there amid the crystal gazers, poets and hippies. Having seen the place out of season it doesn't present such an appealing aspect and I think we all revised our opinion of it drastically.

We broke our return journey in Bath, spending an entertaining hour or so on the (open) top of a tour bus, which passed Poultney Bridge - seen here - several times during its convoluted passage around the ancient streets. Having completed the tour, we grabbed a swift pub lunch before heading northwards once again and arriving home shortly after 7pm. For this time of year, the weather had been uncommonly kind to us and we'd crammed a lot in, but we all agreed we were now ready for a couple of days "down" time.

Letter meme

This came to me from Chris, via Diane. I have to tell you about 10 things I love that start with the letter L. If you want to play along for yourself, leave a comment here and I'll assign you a letter so you can list your own 10 lovely things in your journal and start giving out letters of your own.

So here we go, in the order they occurred to me:

1. Lakes
Whether it's "The Lakes" - where we'll be spending a week with mates around the last bank holiday in May - or Lake Ontario - or any other large inland body of water, I love 'em. Even a reservoir has some of the attraction, if it's been landscaped.

2. Licorice
Not too keen on licorice allsorts, which tend to be too sweet, but I love the plain black stuff and the red stringy stuff is even better!

3. Love
It makes the world go round, you can't live without it, and the more you give it out the more you get back. I love the feeling of being in love, I love the company of loved ones. Lovely.

4. Legs
Some men are said to be "tit men" while others claim to be "bum men." I'm a leg man. A shapely leg, a glimpse of thigh as a skirt sways or parts, that tantalising shadow as legs are crossed and uncrossed. All will always set my pulse racing. Bare, for preference, and definitely none o' them nasty tights thengyoberrymuds.

5. Lightning
I could sit and watch it for hours, as well as the accompanying torrential rain and cracking thunderclaps. Nature's raw power. God's firework display. Dangerous, exciting, unpredictable.

6. Leaves
Swishing through the fallen ones in autumn, breathing in the heady scent of sweet decay, or listening to the wind through them, or watching the different shades of green flash and twist as they blow about. The smell of fresh rain on them. The multitude of shapes, sizes and colours. And, if you want to get technical, their bountiful offering of oxygen. There's a lot to like about leaves.

7. Laughter
I love to lie on my back and make myself laugh, but even more I like to laugh uncontrollably, helplessly, tear-rollingly, side-splittingly, until I gasp for breath. And even more than either of those, I love to make other people laugh. It can lighten your load, help your day move faster through its boring bits, and oil the wheels of friendship.

8. Lazy Sunday Afternoons
Sundays can be boring, but when you hit that sweet spot on a Sunday afternoon, when nothing needs doing and you can please yourself, and no-one will mind if you read a book, listen to some sounds, watch a movie or just have a nap, and there's the traditional English summer sounds of lawnmowers in the distant background and fat bees humming over the hollyhocks; that's when Sundays can be perfect.

9. Legends
I've always felt a particular affinity for the Arthurian legend, but legends in general intrigue and fascinate me.

10. Lindos
A bit of a cheat this one, because my favourite holiday spot is Pefkos, which is about 5km further south on Rhodes, but Lindos is a pretty little town and we've had some great times there, so it's not a total cheat.

Stormy Petrol

What is it with me and people who run out of petrol? You remember a while ago how I was accosted late one evening walking back to the car park by a woman who needed to buy a few of litres of fuel to get her home to Yorkshire?

Well last week it happened again. I was sitting in my car waiting for Nikki to come out of work when a guy approached me and gestured that I should wind my window down. He asked me if I had a petrol can, as he'd almost run out of fuel and neither of the two garages within walking distance had any for sale. I had to disappoint him. I don't carry a fuel can.

"Do you work here?" he asked
"No, I'm waiting for my wife." (so much easier and quicker, and less prone to misinterpretation than "partner")
"Could you possibly spare some cash for the petrol? Neither of these stations will take my fuel card either."
I fumbled in my wallet. I don't know what made me do it, but I figured petrol's expensive these days, he hadn't said how far he had to go, and to be honest he'd caught me by surprise and I wasn't really thinking straight. I gave him twenty quid.
"You're a life saver mate. Look - what's your number?"
He took out his mobile phone and entered my name and number.
"Right, I'll drop the money back here next week and call you to let you know it's here."
"OK. You can leave it with the security guard."
"Thanks again."
And with that, he was gone.

Did I really expect to get the money back? Well yes, actually. I mean, if I'd thought about it more carefully I might have given him a tenner rather than twenty - enough for a couple of gallons and therefore at least a 70 mile journey - but I would still have given him something. And even if I never see the money again, it's on his karma not mine. It won't stop me helping out some other poor sod who's stuck in the future. I won't think "nah, I've been stung once - maybe twice - now, I'm not falling for it again," because that could be the one time the person doing the asking is really in trouble. And you know what they say. There but for the grace of God, and all that. It could be me one day.

Still pisses me off though. That was last Wednesday, and the money hasn't turned up yet.