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Cadwell NOT Caldwell

Get out of jail, free

[ 5 minute read ] 

Talk to me

I needed to collect a prescription from the dispensing doctor's surgery in my village, yesterday. There was a woman, perhaps in her fifties or sixties, standing at the pharmacy counter; the customer or patient's side. No-one was on the pharmacists side.

       'Are you waiting to be seen?' I asked. Her body was shielding the bell that alerted the pharmacy staff that someone was waiting and I wanted to press it if she had not. Deciding whether I should need to explain to her that the bell was there, and it should be pressed, or asking her to move so I could press it, suddenly became important to me.

Haughtily she replied, 'Yes, I am being seen, thank you!' I was only asking. Her voice seemed disdainful. I felt she had looked me up and down without even moving her eyes or head. I am tempted to consider that she saw a man and that was enough for her to make a decision as to my internal make-up. It happens; a lot.

Of course, I have to recognise that I might have had a smell about me or my clothes were old or torn or something; but I was wearing expensive trousers and shirt, and I had bathed only an hour before. I admit my boots were a bit muddy, because I had cycled to the surgery, and the roads are a bit grubby sometimes; you know, spray from the front wheel in the rain.

She rather reminded me of the 'witch-nurse' who pretended to attend to the drunk man who had fallen over on the dual carriageway in my local city. She just hated me from the get-go. But, then I was the only male available in that scenario. In the surgery, a man was seated; invariably waiting for his prescription to be prepared. He was quite inconspicuous in his silence and lack of movement.

Someone appeared on the pharmacy side of the counter and asked if I wanted something. 'Are you waiting to be seen?'

       'Yes, please', I replied. I gave my name and she went away to search.

Once again, we three were left alone. Alone that is if I ignore the reception staff and the doctor's patients on the other side of the room. People came and left through the doors behind us, mostly elderly folk with umbrellas and accoutrement. I felt compelled to speak. I just do; it is a thing I have never been able to shake since I was hitch-hiking throughout Europe when I was in my twenties. I am, I suppose, naturally friendly. If I compare myself to many people in England I might consider myself open, confident and interesting. It is just cracking the shell of the nut that is someone else's reticence to engage with others that makes me appear to be desperate to interact. 

I am not desperate. I am merely giving my attention to other people. We might say, if we don't like someone, 'I wouldn't give them the time of day!' I do 'give people the time of day'; my cheap time. I would like to say that I am always mindful that many people don't get to have a conversation for days; they sit at home watching day-time television, and no-one calls them on the phone or visits. I never think that. I just talk to strangers, willy-nilly.

I turned to the waiting woman who was staring at my boots, 'I would happily grant foreigners...' She didn't look up at me. '...that England does have strange weather....' She looked at my face, realising that I was talking to her, to her for goodness sake! '.. It is too hot and then too much rain.' She coldly stared at me. She didn't say anything, just stared. The pharmacy person returned with my prescription.

       'What is the first line of your address?' I told her and ticked the boxes for a repeat prescription. I thanked her, 'Thank you ma'am'. She was quite young though but she didn't seem to react to being addressed as a madam.  When I turned to leave, I turned away from the frosty woman and noticed the seated man cleaning his glasses. I wear glasses, even though I don't need them to see perfectly, outside. On this occasion, I was still wearing the very weak reading glasses I use for computer work. They don't really affect my long distance vision because there are other things at play with my sight, like astigmatism.

       'I find that I have to wear reading glasses to see whether the glasses I am cleaning are actually clean.' I offered. He smiled and said, 'It's the rain spots.' I smiled, nodded and left. He had noted what I had said to the waiting woman and responded on the same subject.

Why did the man freely talk and the woman not? I might offer that I am of no use to the woman, whereas the man has never bothered to consider if any man is useful or not. Harshly, and almost certainly blindly, I might think that being a man, all men before me have marked my card when it comes to the expectations a woman may have of me. That is, many men have made mistakes and have otherwise been cruel, and I fit the mould. Treading on and trampling on someone's emotions is something that any one of us can do, and hope can die an agonising death if we are hurt too often. The thing is, it wasn't me that did it to all women; and it wasn't him who did it, or him, or him. I think I am highlighting the reciprocal of misogyny; I am talking 'misterogyny'. Just saying! (Like saying, 'just saying' absolves anyone of guilt!).

Here is a joke that might be funny: What do you call a female moth? A myth. In the recent context I have written in, it suddenly isn't. Females do exist. Sad isn't it, that the joke is now corrupted?

Anyway, there might be something else that I need to consider. Did the woman think I was trying to engage her in conversation simply because she is a woman? Was she tired of men doing this. I can't help but think if I was a woman she might have been more open to fleeting chat. After all, talking about the weather is still a British thing, right? 

Many people might think, 'Just leave people alone, why don't you?' Perhaps the woman is just miserable and she was waiting for medication to cheer her up. At our dispensing surgery we get text messages to tell us that our prescription is ready for collection. That means that we are not all waiting for them to be assembled out the back. Both the frigid woman and the quiet man were waiting longer than I had to. Inductive reasoning would tell me that they had not received a text (which happens) and they were expecting a re-issue of their on-going prescription. In those circumstances they might be feeling a little miffed, that could easily swell to irked, if they are spoken to. Sometimes, I just don't think in time.

I have a stock of medication that acts as a buffer. If these two people have the same experience as I, they would build up one too. Our dispensing surgery is known for its general incompetence. That is not to say the staff lack competence; it is more a general thing because there is a seriously high staff turnover there. Methinks, there is another issue at hand; a managerial problem? I have a strong idea on that.

Or, maybe the locals are just plain mean to everyone, including the pharmacy staff.

In the game 'Monopoly', players can randomly get a 'Get out of Jail Free' card. Would it be terribly weird if I handed them out to people to let them know that I know they are at fault, but I forgive them? I would, of course, give myself one, a golden one.

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Wait what?

[ 4 minute read ] 

Inevitably, you are wrong

I once won a bet in a pub that the word 'expostulate' is a word. Of course, we can make up words but 'expostulate' is in the dictionary as well as 'postulate'.

It was lunch-time and I had dropped into my village local for a pint. Every now and then, someone who had moved into the village might pop in but, but seemingly only once or twice a year. The local village pub rarely suited the strange people who moved into our village. One day, a chap I recognised came in. He didn't buy anything from the bar. He just came over to me, the only person in the pub and started chatting to me. Somehow or other, I must have used the word 'expostulate' and he was shocked. He was convinced I had made it up since he knew the word 'postulate' to mean something like, 'to claim' or 'to demand'. 

       'How can expostulate exist? You made it up!'

       'I bet you £5,' I challenged. He took the bet and since he lived just across the road told me he would go home and check his dictionary.

       'Expostulate is a word!'

       'I know. You owe me £5.' He looked crestfallen as though he expected that I would waive the penalty for not believing me. Reluctantly, he paid and our sunny conversation was over. I never saw him in the pub again.

I seem to think that 'postulate' and 'expostulate' mean precisely the same thing. Funnily though, I have never used either in a conversation since that quiet Summer. Of course, those people who recognise Latinate words would realise that the prefix 'ex' means something like, 'outward' (exit) or is more commonly used as denoting that something has come to pass such as 'ex-partner' or 'excommunicate'.

This, however, is not a lecture on the meaning of words or their roots, much as I am intrigued by words. This is a note that it does not pay to be too confident about what we know, and more importantly what we allow ourselves to believe simply because our brains fill in the gaps of our ignorance just so we can concentrate on actually living and progressing. Put another way, our minds make up stuff. Like some haughty armchair critic they postulate solutions to conundrums we haven't even realised exist. If I had the time, I would watch my brain and record everything it says, clipboard and time-piece in hand.

       'Just say that again, would you. I had a problem spelling some of those words. No? Did you make them up?'

This, of course, is covered by the adage that 'a little knowledge is worse than none at all'.

A long time ago, I got three books out of the library. I was suddenly interested in The Theory of Relativity and I needed to understand time a little better. It might have been Einstein's Special Theory of Relativity; who cares! In any case, a third year undergraduate remarked, during a conversation I was having with him, that I was talking as a third year Physics student might. Everything was fine if we never left the subject of time.

He may well have filled in some gaps and considered that I know physics. He is wrong; I was interested in why an observer would see the tail-lights of a passing rocket come on before the headlights, if it was travelling close to the speed of light and the pilot switched the lights on as they passed the observer. The question arose from another question I came across, which I suppose was just someone aimlessly pondering (probably stoned) in a magazine article (possibly 'New Scientist'); 'Since nothing can go faster than the speed of light, would the pilots of a rocket traveling at the speed of light, be able to see their way forward with their headlights? The question was asking if the (light) photons from the headlights would travel at twice the speed of light, or would the rocket catch up with them? An example of a thought-experiment, I think.

Off I went to the library to find out for myself. I still don't know and the 'question' of time-travel somehow got attached to my workings. I later asked a rocket scientist in The Netherlands about time-travel and he said if he could just eliminate mass he could make a time-machine. Later, I discovered that if anyone got into it and pressed 'Go' they would find themselves floating in space because Earth would, in a different time, be somewhere else, either in its orbit or in the solar system.

       'Roll up! Roll up! Try the time-machine and go to the time of your dreams. See the dinosaurs, the Battle of Hastings, or relive your first kiss. Come on, only two Shillings. Many people never want to come back! Meet the Neanderthals! Roll up! Roll up!'

I think I will stick to the Cake Walk.

How many of us would try a time-machine without checking that it would also move us laterally in space as well as temporally? Absent knowledge would NOT be filled by our brains filling in the gaps with invented stuff. All our brains would do is suggest that we might not be able to get back again, such as, 'If we go back in time will the time-machine disappear because it hasn't been invented yet? Neither have you! 

I had a similar, extremely short, conversation on a Creative Writing learning platform over the winter. I realised that it had taken me years to come up with just the one idea that if we don't move laterally through space at close to the speed of light to get to the place where Earth was or will be, we would be stuck in the time machine forever. To the world we would have vanished and to the time-traveller the world would have vanished. Eventually, we would need to use a toilet though.

No thanks. Time-travel sounds like agony.

       'Roll up! Roll up!.....'

       'Stop right there, you Victorian charlatan! You have to give us at least ten years to be able to find the right people to talk this through with.'

       'Go forward ten years and be in possession of the knowledge you need to make the right decisions. Roll up! Roll up!'

In my mind, the fairground hawker is expostulating a solution to an unfulfilled desire, and the responder is postulating a condition. My mind says that the 'ex' means that something is forceful, as in 'expel', 'excommunicate', 'expend' and 'expatriate'. Modern English language doesn't follow this idea though.

Here's a weird word I stumbled across while looking in my dictionary - 'eudemonic' meaning 'conducive to happiness' (Concise Oxford Dictionary, Oxford University Press, 1982). A bit of Greek there.....

I once said to a French woman in a supermarket, 'We English speak French, German, Latin and Greek, except we don't pronounce the words very well.'

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Not a middle finger

[ 4 minute read ] 

Hand communication

Years ago, I joined the Readers Digest Book Club. One could get heavily discounted books but if I remember correctly one had to order more and more books on a regular basis, or something like that. Sooner or later, I stopped ordering. I think I was a member twice though. I love books.

One of the first books I bought was 'Bodywatching - A field guide to the human species' by Desmond Morris. I was delighted to find a copy in the local telephone box library. The Encyclopaedia of Superstitions book sort of fell open on fingers and fingernails and I remembered the Bodywatching book, which I have on very long-term loan in my own library.

It seems that there are many obscene hand and finger gestures. I knew from years ago that the 'o' that we make with the forefinger and thumb on the same hand means 'arsehole' as an insult int he Arab world. I did not know that tapping one forefinger on the bunched tips of the digits of the other hand means 'You have five fathers' and is an insult that says among Arabs, 'Your mother has slept with many men'. (Bodywatching, 1985).

When the Japanese invaded China just before WWII the Japanese set up puppet banks and used Chinese engravers. One engraver decided to, instead of having the depiction of an elderly sage hold his hands in a reverent way, he showed his forefinger on one hand placed through an 'o' made by the thumb and forefinger of the other hand. Of course, this is a universal sign for copulation. The 'insult' went unnoticed at first but eventually the engraver was tracked down and publicly decapitated. (Bodywatching).

When I worked in orange groves in Greece, near Argos, sometimes the farmer would bring food and Retsina. Actually, most of the oranges were picked for pulp and juice and it was only the farmers who were picking quality oranges (keep the stalk and two leaves on it by cutting with secateurs) that provided food for the workers. On those farms central and northern European migrant workers worked alongside the regular Greek farm labourer or farmers son. On one occasion, and when I didn't really understand the local customs, we, us migrant workers and a couple of Greek labourers sat down to eat at lunchtime. I think it was some lamb and pearl barley. Retsina was served in little glasses. The Greek labourer next to me reached for something and his little finger dipped into my Retsina. Thinking he was wishing me good luck or something, I stuck my little finger in the Retsina in the glass he was holding and shook it a little. He was shocked but didn't say a word. I was never called to work there again though. Retsina is an alcoholic drink made with pine resin. Greek wine used to be sealed in amphorae with pine resin to prevent it spoiling; oxygenating really, and the resin infused the wine with its flavour. Greeks then began to deliberately make pine resin flavoured white wine.

My wife, of unknown origin, but definitely exotic with her black hair, stirs the sugar into the lemonade for our children with her ring finger when she makes it. She believes that nothing poisonous can touch it because it is directly connected to her heart. She always eyes me sideways as if to tell me that she never lets that finger touch me. The Romans called the ring finger digitus medicus - the medical digit. She also likes to take her wedding ring off her ring finger and repeatedly put it on and off her 'poison finger', her right hand fore-finger, in a suggestive manner. She looks at me alluringly when she does this. I know she is just playing; at least I hope she is. We think she is Armenian but she was orphaned and adopted by Romanians at a very young age.

A few times, a woman (not the same one) about to pass me on the stairs would turn around and go back. When I was younger, I used to think, 'I really must have more showers'. Apparently, some people think it is bad luck to pass people on the stairs. They could, of course, cross their fingers and that would avert the bad luck. I wonder if a 'Superstition' convention is ever held above the ground floor of a building. I suddenly realised that I would really like to go to a 'Superstition' convention, if they exist. People would have leaves pinned to them and be holding wet cats and keep touching different parts of their bodies as though they were dancing. I suspect there is a superstition about dancing though. I can't find one in my book on superstition. 

Desmond Morris, 1985, 'Bodywatching', London, Jonathon Cape Ltd

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It is all your fault

[ 8 minute read ] 1814 words

They're blown again!

I just plugged in a pair of speakers into the earphone socket of my laptop; I have done it before and there are even an identical set currently plugged into an identical laptop in the same way right now. The speakers I just reconnected had blown some months ago and one of the speakers had separated itself from its lead. However, I thought, before I throw these away I shall just test them one more time just to settle any doubts as to their usefulness. Since I don't have any music stored on the laptop I went to YouTube for The Who - 'Baba O'Riley'.

More often than not, these days, YouTube videos start with an advert. Everybody wants to monetise their videos so the video-makers click on 'Allow as many ads as possible' or something when they upload their video file to YouTube. Even though the first word of the ad I was subjected to did not start with a percussive sound, it was louder than the following words. My speaker because there are three volume levels to set (YouTube; laptop; and in-line speaker wire), which I did not monitor, was instantly blown. The only volume setting that was not at maximum was on the laptop (master volume, if you will). Whose fault is it that my speaker got blown? Law students studying Tort Law would recognise this sort of question in a heartbeat.

There is more though; but only because this is not a finite exam question. There is marketing and sociology lurking in the background.

Marketing: The key goal is to stand out from the competition or the rest or an environment, such as  by using 'foregrounding', 'framing' and 'contrast'.

Sociology: an acceptance of intrusive digital content AND heightened personal interactivity.

These, obviously, are not definitions of the subjects. They are only markers to signify where I am going with this. If this was an essay they would be in an introduction.

Romeo at the laundrette.

If you fall asleep watching Romeo and Juliet on your telly, and after a while Romeo starts talking about washing liquid lumps and Juliet responds with how wonderful her life is, and how white her clothes are because she uses those same washing liquid lumps, you probably won't wake up.

Advertisers need to jolt you awake, or at least change your mental attitude. Of course, if Romeo and Juliet did start talking about blobs of detergent it would be 'product placement' which is marketing by the back door, and foregrounding is not used. Foregrounding is when something is brought to the fore and the rest, the background, is left limping behind. I believe it to be 'contrasting' in the main.

That annoying chipper voice that we sometimes hear to advertise stuff is used to foreground the product. If we all spoke like that then it would be David Attenborough trying to sell us lawnmowers, power-tools and Dormeo mattresses. 

One of the easiest way to jolt us into paying attention is to use a raised voice. Consider a scene in a bedroom where a long married couple are in bed quietly discussing their day. Then, an advert comes on. If the volume is loud then we MUST pay attention, even if to just be annoyed at the interruption. That is what the advertisement on YouTube hoped to do when I tried to test my speakers by clicking on a 'The Who' video on YouTube, by starting with a very loud word, which gave no warning beforehand for me to turn down the volume settings on my set-up. 

Have technology, will use it?

In our current world nearly all of us have SmartPhones or at least mobile phones; some retro-style phones, such as the new Nokia 3310, launched in 2017 (originally September 2000), have 5G capability but no internet capability.

In recent marketing, most businesses decided to foreground themselves from their competitors by adding services. Once upon a time, we would order something and it would arrive and we, the customer, would be forgotten (except that the business needs to keep a record of its transactions for tax purposes). This record became an integral part in developing Customer Relationship Management or CRM. After-sales contact with customers had long been around before we all started to get texts to tell us nonsense about our purchase. If you bought a Rolls-Royce decades ago, perhaps even 100 years ago, the dealer would keep in contact with the customer, at least for a couple of years. This after-sales personal interaction is a 'value-added service'. 

In the modern world, we have no 'quibble returns' as a value-added service. But what else could a business do to add economic value to a product? They thought for a while over tea and biscuits and came up with, since nearly all of us have a phone, pre-emptive texting. They sent us a single text to say the order is on the way. They then, when they all started doing it, decided that they needed to foreground themselves from their competitors and so they sent us texts and emails to let us know precisely the stage at which our order was at. This isn't strictly true because when we order something it does not necessarily come from the business we ordered it. There is a chain of businesses, including financing businesses, the 'supply chain' that is involved in making sure we get what we order. Most of these are given our telephone number or email addresses so they too can tell us what they are about to do, or have done with our order. This, incidentally, is why we are always asked for our telephone number AND email address; because no-one in the supply chain knows what information another business in the supply chain needs to irritate us with their idea of a 'value-added service'.

A case in point: I ordered a replacement bank card. I received an email stating that the 'lost' card was cancelled. Great idea! I then received an email saying a new card has been ordered; and then another email saying the order has been received and it will be dispatched within seven days. Many of us might find all of this useful to know; even that it will be delivered to my home (which email included the full address). Whoops! An email that pertains to a bank card delivery that has my full name and address in it! Who among us missed the relevance of that amidst all the emails, and the medley of other emails that swathe us so tightly that we have no room to ponder or think? It is indicative of a supply chain (The bank doesn't make the card).

The Blame

Now then. In the modern world, in which we amalgamate ourselves with normal practices, we now have an expectation of a pre-emptive text as a warning or advisory comment before something happens. Should YouTube start every video with a short (two second) piece during which we can set the volume on our equipment?

Should the advertiser not start the advert with a very loud first word? But who are they to know whether their advertisement is the first thing that will be heard on a device that day? We might ask, 'Do they care about our equipment?' Definitely! They do not want potential customers to have bad experiences due to their business and advertising practices.

Should I use more expensive equipment when I know that it was an advert that was overly loud, that came on while I was watching a YouTube video, that destroyed the internal speakers on my laptop, that necessitated buying external speakers, which were blown the same way? That begs the question: Should there be an automatic volume limiter on all laptops?

Should I have made sure the master volume (laptop) was turned down before I started the YouTube video, when, used to not having to think for myself due to the constant stream of advisory texts and emails, I just clicked 'Go'? Have I been brainwashed into being a zombie? 

I am a victim of my environment

I am sometimes surprised that students ask questions in online forums when the answers are easily found within the course text. I am irritated when in Open University Forums contributors submit less than 100 words. 

I own three laptops. I frequently use two simultaneously. About once a month or so I will access all three simultaneously. They run different operating systems and have similar software on them. They can all access the internet via a hub. This means I can have three Open University web pages visible at the same time (four, because I also have an external monitor). Each laptop can have multiple Open University web pages open. Realistically, I only open or view up to six pages at the same time, though that is rare. The screen sizes are 15 inches and I use font-size 10 or 12 for normal work. I, obviously, have a keyboard, and a mouse, for each laptop. I can search the internet on one laptop and still view three Open University web pages. We might say that I am not constrained by either visibility or function.

It has become plain to me that my fellow students are using SmartPhones to study for a degree; and only SmartPhones. What made them think this is a good way to proceed? As contrast, I can see one static draft of my intended assignment submission, search the internet, type a new draft, and view the Open University guidance for the assignment simultaneously, while flicking through the Open University module books.

I used to consider that it is foolish to only use a SmartPhone to access a degree level module and, I suppose, write their assignments on. However, it is also foolish to start a YouTube video without checking the volume levels of my equipment. Let's face it; I have three areas which I could check and I only need to check one to save my speakers from being blown. I know marketing practices. I know YouTube videos are monetised and I know music videos are usually not interrupted by adverts so they are at the beginning of the music video.

How did I get here?

'And you may tell yourself, "This is not my beautiful house" 'And you may ask yourself, "Am I right, am I wrong?" [...] And you may say to yourself, "My God, what have I done?".'

Talking Heads, 'Once in a Lifetime', Written by: Brian Eno, David Byrne, Tina Weymouth, Jerry Harrison, Christopher Frantz, Sire Records, 1981.

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I am not on YouTube or social media

Helper or parasite

I thought of you and now I am richer

[ 5 minute read ]

For a couple of days I have been in a somewhat one-sided conversation with one of the local shop-keepers in the neighbouring village. I remarked that my young tomato plants are bigger than the ones he sells for the farmer next door to his shop. He, the shopkeeper, wanted to know what kind of tomato plants I have, 'Bush tomatoes?' I told him about the varieties I am growing. It turns out he wants vine tomatoes; specifically, he wants to have 'tomatoes on the vine', because he thinks they taste better than when they are not on the vine. I told him that tomatoes gain very little once the plant has decided to let them ripen and sealed them off at the node just before the stalk on the tomato and prevented nutrients in rest of the plant from reaching the fruit.

As they do, the shopkeepers suddenly vanish when another customer comes in and the next day he was replaced by his wife (also 'the' shopkeeper). I am used to that, so I just carried on as though they are the same person. 'It is likely that in the 1980s', I said, 'a buyer for M&S went to Italy on a tomato buying expedition and approached a farmer. It is faster, and better for the tomato, to cut the vine with the tomatoes on it than pick them individually, so when the buyer tasted the vine tomato variety, they were impressed with the flavour. Back home, they might have gushed, 'We simply must buy tomatoes on the vine; they taste wonderful.' When they should have said, 'Vine tomato varieties taste better than other tomatoes.' Since then, we, the housekeepers and home cooks and home sous-chefs, pay a premium for tomatoes that are picked in a fashion, not for flavour, but because it is logistically imperative to pick a crop quickly and efficiently without damaging the crop. One snip of a vine collects ten or more tomatoes in one go. Individual tomatoes are more expensive to pick and process than tomatoes left on the vine, I propose; not least because they are washed (note there are no stalks on the tomatoes). However, no stalks could also mean that those tomatoes were picked before they were ripe and the node above the stalk was not the 'break-off' point of the plant it should have been. In other words the tomato left the plant at the weakest point, the tomato/stalk junction. 'It ain't natural, I tell you.'

I needed to collect something from B&Q, the DIY superstore chain, but lack the appropriate transport, so I suggested trading some of my tomato plants with the shopkeeper in exchange for him picking up the item in the city. He was not keen and rinsed the conversation away with silence and reasons for not going to the city during weekends. Essentially, over the last few days he wanted to grow tomatoes on the vine but not if he had to put any effort into the project at any point in the process of attaining free tomatoes on the vine.

The shopkeeper in my own village has previously asked me to fix a bicycle for him. I freely did it and replaced one of the tyres with a slightly worn 'spare' tyre I had (no charge). Incidentally, because I use donor bicycles to keep two of my choice bicycles going I don't really have spare anything. Now, if I need a tyre it will cost me at least £20. I found it a bit curious that the shopkeeper asked me where to get some tyres for another bicycle he has. He has a SmartPhone so google it, I thought. No, that is not what he wanted. He said he would bring it in and I might take a look at it and then be able to help him. It transpires that he wanted me to give him tyres. I suspect that he had said to someone that he knows someone with tyres and he will give them a deal to have the tyres replaced. I, of course, would just be creating more future cost for myself while he reaped a financial reward. As it turns out, I have already given away all my 'spare' tyres to anyone who needed them.

A long time ago, I had a conversation with Sally, my next-door neighbour that revolved around her fetching a couple of baking trays / roasting dishes (Sunday Roast size) for me. I left  her some condiment for making salads on her doorste as a 'Thank you'; she had told me that she eats a lot of salads. I mentioned, in the following conversation, that the cost of Olive Oil prohibited me from including that in the gift package. I have always hated myself for not including it. This morning, I left a bottle of Filippo Berrio Extra Virgin Olive Oil on her door-step at 6:00 am.

Just as I was getting off my bicycle outside my home yesterday, a neighbour pulled up behind me in her car. 'Excuse me, have you got a moment?' I thought, 'Why are you being so formal?' It turns out that she wanted to thank me for letting her daughter ride my bike through a flood to save her feet and shoes from getting wet and muddy, about three months ago. She told me that her daughter was delighted with my chivalry and went about my bike being really big. My bicycle isn't big at all. It is really too small for me. She is about fifteen so she is not particularly small, and I had let the seat right down for her. Since then, this particular neighbour has been trying to thank me as I passed her house, but she said I cycle too fast for her to attract my attention in time.

I much prefer the last two interactions than the previous two. The shopkeepers for all their feigned community spirit are first and foremost money-gatherers.

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Give me an Idea

Arm Dancing

[ 3 minute read ]

When you have something to do and when you can't find a solution and need a strategy to make the plan work, is the time when many of us might 'sleep on it' or 'put it on the back-boiler'. These two expressions are, of course, idioms that smack of our parents advice. Many of us may feel so threatened by a deadline that we worry at the problem and cannot relax. I have been in just such a situation. The EMA (End of Module Assessment) is done; not as well as I would have liked but I still have a few days to re-submit a revised version. I made sure to get that out of the way. I ran out of vitamin supplements and started eating them again three days ago; for me, it is a fools errand to worry about finding a solution to a problem without at least trying to feed my brain properly.

I have been waiting for an idea; an idea that I have been hoping would just jump out of the hedge of confusion as I pass by. In that mental world, ideas have abounded, all sharp and jagged, and smooth, in all the wrong places. But each one never behaves as I like. They jump from one side of me to the other as they walk along beside me, chattering nonsense and reason alike in short staccato bursts. Then they ape my walk behind me and make their mocking clear by doing it ahead of me. I turn and make my thoughts change direction but the ideas change their style. Stifling smiles, they pretend to show remorse and act out listening poses to my responses as though they are compliant and care. But, I know that my questions on what I have failed to understand are mere gimcracks compared to their palace of priceless gems. My reasoning, oh so essential for progress, binds and circumvents brain-storming. My creativity needs to be unruly and wild. It needs to have free-rein sometimes, but if it comes up with nothing, I have to stop the crazy ghost-train, and erect sticky scaffolding for thoughts and concepts to stick.to.

Still bubbling away on the back-boiler in the kitchen of my mind is, of course, what drives me; what I am interested in. On occasion, I come across something out of the blue that just tickles me. Yesterday, I watched a YouTube video of Alanis Morissette performing 'Uninvited' at the Woodstock 1999 festival. She made an exceedingly good impression of Joe Cocker's arm-dance at the original 1969 festival during his performance of 'With a little help from my friends'. No, I mean, apart from the obvious physical differences, the song, and the voice, Alanis Morissette was Joe Cocker. I used to emulate Joe Cocker's Woodstock arm-dance on stage when I went to see local bands. Other people would try to get on the stage and would be stopped by the bouncers. I only did it to get the crowd dancing. Bands play better if they feel appreciated. As soon as a lot of people had put aside their embarrassment (they can't be as bad as the weirdo on stage) I would get off the stage and be normal again.

The arm-dance. If you imagine the tendons in your arms have tightened and bent your hands at the wrist and your arms flail around trying to play a stretchy guitar that moves from mid-thigh to in front of your chest while you are hamming up a death scene from poison, you might be able to make a good go at doing Joe Cocker's, Alanis Morissette's, and my local-stage arm-dance. Oh I forgot, you have to stagger a bit as though overwhelmed and stunned too.

A flurry of romping thoughts and absorption in music; ecstasy.

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I am better at cheating than you are!

I have no identity

[ 7 minute read ]

A few years ago, I contributed to a forum which required at least some substantiation from other sources. I am fairly lazy in that I probably spend only about an hour researching each point, or premise for any argument, I make. On this occasion, I was crass and found only a single reference and ran with that; I agreed with it (confirmation bias). It was a reference to a Wikipedia listing. When Wikipedia started up, anyone quoting its content was viewed with the same amount of skepticism that was also applied to the Wikipedia site and its contributors. 'Yeah, anyone can make stuff up and call themselves a contributor!' was the default cry of contempt, though this was also somewhat suppressed. These days, I have come across academics who have lightly referenced Wikipedia; perhaps they know the contributor in those instances. When I referenced Wikipedia a few years ago, there was a responding comment from a scornful and defensive person on the same forum. I say defensive because the commentator had contributed on the same forum without providing any references at all. I suspect that they were using a phone to make their forum contributions and it is, I presume, much more difficult to spend hours searching online for suitable content; copying and pasting it; and comparing numerous saved documents for common areas. This is how I fact-check, anyway. Of course, direct similarities mean that any obvious plagiarism must negate the documents as invalid. Defensive came across as an accusatory attacking approach, 'You used Wikipedia!' I did. I did because I already knew the subject and just needed to anchor it.

It is disappointing that, as an Open University student I have to ignore everything I know on a subject; that I learnt at school; that I learnt from books; that I learnt from exploring with my parents and grandparents; because I cannot include our knowledge in essays without referencing it. I had tutor feedback that included a statement that I should have cited and referenced the author of one of the chapters in an Open University book, because I included deductive reasoning and then induced a supposition from that. It was the same as the chapter writer's opinion; someone with a doctorate in their field. It must have seemed to my tutor that only someone with a doctorate would be able to come up with an opinion that I had independently formed without first reading any Open University content. I have been assured that while I didn't lose any marks for not citing and referencing appropriately, I also failed to gain any credit or credence for my perspicacity.

I am fortunate to be able to control my own work schedule and that means I can spent a great deal of time online. I watch quite a lot of YouTube videos; not the conspiracy theory types, or gain-saying opinion videos. I avoid them. 

I watched King Charles' speech at Congress this morning. I found it fascinating that the Congress-people kept giving him standing ovations throughout his speech every three or four minutes. In Britain, and I think, all across the world, we listen to what is being said, store it and compare it to what is subsequently said. We induce and deduce and extrapolate and test our understanding against further declarative statements, and then, and only when the speaker has finished and we are sure we have understood the message(s) we applaud and give standing ovation. If the speech was eloquent we applaud that. If the speech was penetrative, we applaud that. We spontaneously laugh at jokes and quickly calm down to allow the speaker to go on. We are all aware that speakers have timed their speeches.

After the King's speech at Congress, I drifted to clicking on one or two of the suggestions, as is my wont. I suggest that viewing a single video creates no structure for the forming of an opinion. Soon, there was a video suggested by  YouTube that was about how Britain has helped Ukraine. There were subtitles; I sometimes leave them on to check for A.I. generative software. Sure enough, the number 1,300 was speech synthesised to be 'one three hundred'. The comma in 1,300, trips up weak A.I. systems. Instant turn-off in my book; next video. Supposedly, this was Bill Clinton commenting on how Trump was infuriated by King Charles' speech at Congress; a still picture of Bill Clinton and a voice similar to what a impressionist might use to simulate Bill Clinton's voice. That one got only three seconds before I stopped it and moved on. YouTube, by the way, regards any video that plays for at least 30 seconds as a view of that video. The algorithm also punishes videos that are started and then left within those thirty seconds; the probability of being suggested is reduced.

It has long been an irritation to me that I recently read an oblique question on an Open University Forum on whether the use of A.I. generative software was allowed at any point before submitting an assignment. I know that the Open University has notices that say, 'No!' What really troubles me is that someone, more than one person, wants to get some kind of accreditation without being worthy of it. That is most definitely cheating. If, for example, I pass a Maths test and cannot even do addition, I must have cheated, right? My concern went on; and this really gets my goat, or gets my gander up, or gets on my wick, or just irks me until I am so miffed that I am spitting feathers; there were responses to the oblique question on using A.I. generative software. One of them said something like, 'Oh no! I have been using A.I. generative text for years at work.' I was gobsmacked for two reasons. First, the commentator is inadequate for the task they are employed to do; and second, that this person, by openly admitting to using A.I. generative software had no inkling that they are a fraud. Cheating is entirely normal for them.

I don't know anyone who uses Grammarly. If I did, I would instantly 'un-know' them. How dare people pretend to be something they are not? Charlatan! Fraud! Cheat! Away with you, ponce!

I suppose it is because I have spent tens, or hundreds, of thousands of hours learning my language that I am insulted when averaging software tells me I am wrong. There is something about homogeneity that makes my blood boil over and burn on the flames of rage. These days, any average person is indistinguishable from any other average person. In fact, people's IQ and EQ (emotional quotient) are now obsolete as evaluation metrics in, I suggest, most fields of existence. Even though I could have used dictionaries and thesauruses this morning I have had no need to. It saddens me that I am only as good as the person who cheats (There is no shame in using dictionaries and thesauruses to learn. The shame is in never looking in them.) It disappoints me that cheating is wholly and firmly positioned in the current hegemony as being not only normal and acceptable, but immeasurably desirable as a character attribute. 

The whole thing, to me, denigrates people with disabilities (which A.I. should, of course, be assisting). It is walking up wheel-chair ramps because we are too lazy to use steps; it is parking in disabled parking spots because we are too lazy to walk across a supermarket carpark; it is never bothering to pay attention in school because there is the internet and A.I. to instantly gives answers that do not make anyone understand anything. It is acting as though we are dyslexic. It is acting as though we are blind and using speech synthesis to read pages on the internet.

A long time ago, I used to get stoned. I didn't like it and stopped doing it and lost all my childhood friends by saying, 'No.' At that time, like many stoned people, stray ponderings would emerge. One of my former friends said, 'One day we will evolve so we only have to think about where we want to be and we will be there.' I immediately responded with, 'We are already there. Everything about a human serves the human brain. If we want to be somewhere we make our bodies take us there, it just takes a while to get there.' No-one responded. Today, the question of intelligence would never arise. Today, we are concerned about how we can cheat more effectively than we cheated yesterday and how we can show how more effectively we cheated today than we could demonstrate yesterday.

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Awake, awake!

Wake up, you drunkards and weep...

[ 9 minute read ] - 2150 words

Why is it that persons abbreviate words to their initial letters. I have seen Creative Writing written as CW by students of creative writing. For goodness sake, how can anyone studying creative writing be too lazy to write 'creative writing'? I had an idea to revise a bit on Immanuel Kant's Categorical Imperatives. I went to Stanford's 'Encyclopedia of Philosophy' which tellingly has a caveat at the top, 'First published Mon Feb 23, 2004; substantive revision Thu Oct 2, 2025'. Kant lived from 1724-1804, so I doubt if he has changed any of his ideas since 2004, so it must be a person who has come across the original publication of 2004 and decided to add their two penn'orth to it (a small or insubstantial contribution or opinion). 

Wherever the words 'Categorical Imperative' should be written, instead we have 'CI'. I understand that 'Categorical Imperative' will appear many times in an article that starts with 'Kant [...] argued that the supreme principle of morality is a principle of rationality that he dubbed the "Categorical Imperative" - and no-one really wants to keep typing the same words over and over again. But, so do computer software businesses recognise this which is why we have 'copy and paste'. Reducing these rather important two words to their initials is, in my mind, plainly done by someone with no respect for the subject and values only their own 'precious' time. Of course, I am somewhat biased in that I don't access the internet with a phone or send text messages using a tiny on-screen keyboard. I sometimes fail to understand that there are actually people who do not have a lap-top or home computer at home and use a phone to do their University studies. I can't quite believe that they write essays on them too, do they? Surely, there is no person who would revise an article on Immanuel Kant on a phone  and upload it from there, is there?

Of course, I have come across the odd one or two emails sent from a phone to me, in response to one I sent written on a lap-top. I feel insulted when I send a lengthy email and get a text message-length response. I won't be emailing that  person again. It is disrespectful to give a lazy response born from the problems that we have created for ourselves (not using a home computer or lap-top) by believing a phone will do. That is a poor attitude that has crept into every aspect of society I have the displeasure of experiencing...'It will do. It is boring and I have other things to do. It will do.' 

I believe in meritocracy. If you can't do the job then move away; don't apply for it. If you hate your job, get a different one. Just get out of the way of capable persons, I say. When I say 'capable' and 'apt' I mean that these attributes exist in a person who actually gives a damn about their job and other people, especially other people. Something I learnt, both by studying Customer Service and just because I picked it up because it is important to me to reciprocate good manners, is that if you get an email that addresses you by your first name, and the sender's first name is evident, you should reply using the sender's first name. If you get an email that addresses you by your last name....you get the picture (lazy me couldn't be bothered to finish the sentence. Actually no. I recognise that continuing the explanation would cause people who habitually read from phones to skip the ending anyway.) But just to over-egg the pudding, this reciprocation also applies to the signing off or closing salutation, 'Best Wishes' or 'Regards' or 'Cheers' or whatever. These are expressions that the sender is keen on and familiar with. Of course, they are also cultured to give a specific impression too. I notice a lack of reciprocation in emails and texts from habitual phone-users. 

From studying Business Administration, I recognise an hierarchy of communication (Somewhat bumpy and disjointed sentence, eh?).

For emergencies and for time-critical messages make a phone call.

For directions and pointers send a text.

For explanations send an email.

For legal and personal purposes send a letter. 

One should reciprocate in kind unless the circumstances become critical; time, personal or legal. 

Essentially, if we extrapolate from what I have been saying. If you get an email of some length, respond to it with an email addressing the points that were made, at some length. Never send a text message-length email unless it is either a correction, an acceptance or a refusal. Above all avoid being rude by thinking, 'That will do.' Just because it fits you it does not mean it fits the circumstance and especially the recipient. My sister used to send me a 'Happy Birthday' text. She actually held her phone in her hand! How rude! She was fulfilling her duty to send her regards and showed her displeasure in doing it. How rude!

The Open University provides Forums for its students. All OU students know this. I had a discussion with a tutor a while back. He expressed his desire to see more student interaction in the forums. I  also had the same tutor respond to one of my forum posts with a comment (on the forum) that I should expect more traction if I write shorter posts! It's a forum, not a dating site or social media snippy chat site. If you want more forum interaction ban the chatterers! There is only an expectation of rudeness delivered by persons posting text messages on forums; it is dismissive and disrespectful of contributors efforts. Contributors should make an argument with, of course more than one premise, and the responses should address the argument with either additional premises to support the argument or premises to discredit the argument. Yet, there are persons who just put their emotions in a comment and make no logical sense. In Rome, these people would be removed as drunken fools, back in the day. Yes, but this is not Ancient Rome. Things have changed. Nowadays, anything and everything will do. How could I tell the tutor who desired more student interaction in forums that he supported 'It will do' tactics that are only beneficial to persons using little to no logic and have no respect for the art of communication, or valid and fruitful discussion? Social media sites are not the same as academic study sites. It, of course, is quite impossible to convince tutors that their own inputs are detrimental because the tutors, it seems, have allowed the parameters of digital communication to blur and blend to make homogeneous messes. But that is hegemony for you; tutors must comply, and must do so without steering social change.

There is an exponential growth (I use that term tentatively because it is a term used by mathematicians and it may be as irritating to them when it is ill-used as it is to me when important words are reduced to their initials); there is an exponential growth in supporting a good work-life balance, even going so far as making sure everyone is happy at work. No, I mean joyous. It started with 'dress-down Friday' when office workers could wear casual clothes to work on Fridays. Many offices now don't insist on smart clothes. It will do. Where there was once a separation of attitudes and behaviour between social life and work, or corporate life, we have practically no such separation left in the rich Global North countries (I suggest). We no longer learn to curtail our feelings and get on with the job we are employed to do. We have our phones with us at work, for goodness sake. Why? people should be going to work to work, to do the very best they can in their role, to actually earn their wage. I suggest that the casual attitude we take to work has produced the 'It will do' attitude that is so prevalent in society. 

Every blooming business wants to build a personal profile of me so they can, presumably, better attend to my needs. I studied Marketing, Logistics and The Supply Chain, so I actually know what they are doing, or at least were doing. If a business sells ladders, for example, they are unlikely to stock many in an area where there are very few practically minded residents; only trades-persons buy ladders there, and because trades-persons only buy their tools infrequently they will travel some distance to buy them. No point in a business wasting shop-floor space with poorly selling products. Instead canny businesses apply the Pareto Principle (80% of profit or revenue comes from only 20% of the products sold, so they stock the fast moving products). In the case of mobile phone service and device providers, then want to know what my usage is and where I go online. 

I had a phone call from one of my mobile service providers to offer me a deal on a new phone or 'a reduction on my existing phone'. Whatever could he mean? Why would anyone reduce their phone? Did he want to make it smaller or deny me access to some of the software? I own my phone. I bought it outright with money from a shop. I don't rent my phone. Why would I pay to have a phone to do stuff that is entirely irrelevant? If I want to take photos I will buy a camera that does not access the internet. If I want to browse the internet I will use a device that I can restrict from uploading my voice pattern and contact list (a lap-top). This mobile service provider salesperson was working on the principle that I subscribe to the 'It Will Do' attitude as being a valid and useful position to take. Further to that, he made an assumption that I am stupid enough to continually pay to continue to live in that pigswill lifestyle. Everyone updates their phone! Not me. No need. I have maintained the separation of appropriate action that is essential for good living. My phone is for phone calls and texts; it never goes online or updates its software. One lap-top is for business use and studying. Another lap-top goes online for internet searches, including for study purposes; a third lap-top is a back-up device that I only really use to play DVDs (it never, ever goes online because I don't want the operating system to be corrupted by A.I.) I never take photographs of people or locations. 

What I find bewildering is that I got a text message on my phone from my doctor's surgery with a link to an online site that showed me the content of a digital letter that had the form of a real letter, including my name and address where it would be seen through the plastic window on an envelope. I never received the real letter, and there was an expectation that it is safe to access anything online with your name, address, and NHS number by entering your date of birth as a security password. Ridiculous and wholly irresponsible. What, pray, is the most secure way to send information? Yup! Through the post. The digital letter was prepared as a postal letter but never sent! I mean, really? What is wrong here? I am expected to use a device that is similar to the devices that almost everyone has their personal details on (family photos, contact numbers, recordings of their voice - oh yes! and internet history) to access a digital file that has my name and address on it. I bet you can guess that I carefully typed in the link on one of my lap-tops to access that letter online. You know what? I couldn't just read it. I had to download it , for goodness sake. That meant that my name and address is on my lap-top. Sure, you can delete it the download. But it isn't actually deleted, it is simply not recognised by the operating system as existing. It can still be accessed by bad actors. You have to move it to a removable device such as a flash drive to get it safely off your system. What a palaver! But sending a letter by digital means from a level of cyber-security incompetence will do. It will do.

Just like the salesperson who assumed that I rent a phone, all businesses seem to believe that we are stupid enough to open a link sent to us by text message. Do we know who actually sent the text message with a link in it, now that A.I. has ALL our details? Well, maybe not all my details.

What I am saying is: we should only be using passive devices; cameras that do not go online; SatNavs that only receive data from GPS sources; and phones with a duplex system (talk and listen at the same time) that have no internet capability. You know when you sometimes hear weird noises when people talk on their phones. Those phones are owned by people who have never switched off or denied automatic downloads and updates and have multiple apps on their phone. Convenience for them is the reward they get for having a 'That will do' attitude.

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[ 6 minute read ]

Something can see something in my home

Yesterday, I found the PIR (Passive Infra-Red) solar-charged security light I hid away two years ago. My neighbour gave it to me when I moved in ten years ago; no explanation and no conversational preamble. Certainly, I had never expressed a desire to light up anywhere when someone came near to somewhere. It's haunted. Well, it  isn't haunted; it just picks up hauntings or maybe aliens. I think it might have picked up Harrari, the abandoned alien who helped me when I lived in some woods for a Summer, or maybe it was Hakim, my personal avatar protector, whom I created when I was sixteen and severely brutalised by my brother. In any case, I have had some suspicion that there were movements in my home ever since I moved in.

Thanking my neighbour for the security light, I wondered what to do with it. I had never considered that any persons would approach my front door and needed to be illuminated to prevent them doing harm to me or my property, so I just tucked the light away. I suppose it was a few weeks later that I had the idea of lighting up my front garden when the badgers or foxes turned up. At the time, I didn't know there were strolling, now marauding, Muntjac deer around. I left the light laying among the flowers and heavy rain made sure that mud splashed back onto it. It has quite a long wire between the solar panel and the actual lamp (Think of the size of a small portable digital radio for each component connected by about twelve feet of wire) so I rapidly grew fed up with untangling the muddy wire and cleaning everything. Project failed; if it could be called one since I was still just fooling around with something I had no need for, or want of. I brought the light inside and after testing it in a random fashion grew bored of it. Then one evening, I have no idea why, I set the solar panel, which is also the detector part, in the hall and the lamp in my living room, and shut the door. Any movement in the darkened hall, it has no windows and all the doors were shut, would be detected and I would be alerted while the warm-bodied person would be unaware of being 'seen' by their heat signature or any light source they had with them, or was reflected from who knows where. 

After half an hour the light came on. It was about nine in the evening in Autumn. Something was outside my living room door. Swiftly, I leapt to the door and opened it; nobody there. An anomaly, I thought. After about an hour the light came on again. I crept to the door and opened it; nobody there. I gathered the whole device and barricaded the door. At the same time, I was aware that Harrari sometimes moved invisibly through my home. She is out of phase with our world and we can't see her, or hear her for that matter. In fact, nobody knows she is there unless she wants them to know. She does, however, 'guide' people's thinking; not as a guru or philosopher or something, more as an entity that directs thinking, such as, 'Turn around and walk the other way'; making people forget what they were about to do; and in my case on one occasion, soothing my troubled thoughts. I supposed that the PIR security light somehow picked her up as she moved around in the hall, bedroom, bathroom and up and down the stairs. Quite how she passes through shut doors is beyond me so I sometimes hold them open a bit longer than is necessary for me to pass through, in case she wants to sneak through after me.

Hakim, my personal avatar protector, with me since I manifested 'him' when I was sixteen, can pass through doors and walls and simply 'arrives' wherever he or, I suppose 'I' decide he ought to be. His role is to look out for threats to me. He would move around my home as part of his surveillance strategy. I make things easier for him and Harrari by never having visitors, hence there is no trace of their scent or any wisps of stale presence, so, like a camel thirsty in an arid desert, Hakim and Harrari can 'smell' people like the camel smells water.

I wasn't entirely sure that the security light was picking up friendly entities or not, so I put the whole thing away. Knowing that things could be super-safe or about to be ultra-ugly didn't help me relax. Having recently found the device, I am not about to test whether there are things that go bump in the night again. The chill of finding out too much and discovering I am ill-equipped to deal with whatever is happening is just too much for me. It is recharging on my bedroom window-sill and the reactive lamp is switched off.

In the bedroom, there are three tomato plants that I over-wintered. They are bearing fruits already; early in the year, no? I use an artists paintbrush to act as an insect to pollinate them. I think it works but I never see any pollen on the brush. Every day, I have to feel the soil or feel the weight of the soil to make sure the plants are properly watered. Because the soil originally came from outside and has been mixed with cutting compost there are, inevitably, creatures in the soil. Mostly, I come across the prehistoric wood-louse. I think it has not evolved any further from hundreds of millions of years ago. I suppose one climbed on my fingers and I touched my head shortly after. Usually, I wash my hands after playing with plants and soil and especially when the water in the bucket outside my front door for the outside plants gets on my hands. Yesterday, I must have just touched the soil and then came back to my lap-top to write or fill in spreadsheets. A series of tickles on my head drew my hand to the areas affected. Eventually, after about six visits by my hand the woodlouse, crushed, stuck to my fingers. I had killed it and repeatedly smeared it across my forehead.

If you are like me, you enjoy the satisfaction of removing a splinter for a lot longer than the moment of realisation that it has gone. I even look for more, hoping I will find one. The knowledge of the smeared woodlouse stayed with me until the afternoon, some hours later. I am no stranger to insects and creepy-crawlies; living in the woods for six months is a good way to get introduced to insects that bite, sting, tickle and scratch. I have even been bitten by two spiders (think mild bee sting or fifty ants).

I suppose I am waking up again after a quite long period of mental and spiritual slumber. The awakening has been brought on by having to consider the real world more often and for longer in the most recent days. If I could bottle the motivation from this, that is really instinct, I would make millions and I could go back to sleep. Hakim and Harrari would prowl around and insects would crawl on my face and I wouldn't care.

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[ 3 minute read ]

Court Me

Go on, have a good sniff

I have pieces of A3 and A4 paper stuck to three of my four living-room walls. Some people keep a diary to set their thoughts down and I suppose read it again one day. 'Oh Wow! I had forgotten her' or 'I was so unhappy then.' and 'I am glad I met......and went to .......' My walls do not speak to me in that way. They make dry comments about marketing and business strategies. 'Did you know, Martin that if you do this and this you can expect this?' My walls watch me disapprovingly with their arms crossed. The subtext is always the same, 'If I have told you once, I have told you a thousand times.' They scold me for being a lump.

'Get out of bed and seize the day,' I say to myself in response. 'Make a list. Look at where you are and where you need to be.' 'Go and get some love, for goodness sake'; well, for my own sake, obviously. It isn't that easy though. 'Did you know that my wall told me that.....' doesn't make anyone swoon. Do people swoon in the 2020s? I can't help thinking of Shakespeare's Twelfth Night in which Orsino's hard and thrusting determination to make Olivia swoon never worked. In my mind, if ever the passion was mutual between the two, when they meet only Olivia would swoon and while Orsino might be almost overwhelmed by her presence, he would not need to loosen his corset to breathe and let his racing heart beat freely. He would not swoon. So there; nobody swoons anymore. I sound almost wistful to myself, I think. I hope I am just a romantic and not instead wanting to notice women falling over when they spot good-looking and charming men and women. I would be aware that they never fall over when I am the only man in the room. In the modern day, thankfully, the 'room' does not join in with my penetrating walls at home, with their facts poking me in the eye every day, urging me to do better. Selfishly, I am so glad women no longer wear corsets.

I have just realised that it would be difficult for a woman, or indeed a man, in a corset to pick up a handkerchief because they can't bend their backs.Certainly, they cannot bow and so they must curtsy. I also happen to know that men at dances would stuff their own handkerchiefs under their armpits to absorb their sweat. At 'appropriate' moments they would flourish it in the air under the nose of a fancied woman to release their pheromones, in the hope of attracting lusty attention. I say I know that. It was a Morris Dancer who told me that. You know, prancing dance steps, waving handkerchiefs and clashing sticks. The striking sticks, she told me, were to scare away evil spirits. 'Morris Dancing is all about fertility, in farming and husbandry, as well as human procreation,' another one said. I suppose I am imaginatively wistful for the days when everyone signaled their feelings; waving handkerchiefs and swooning women. Of course, the people in the villages-past didn't need such accoutrements to signify their attraction for one another. It is no mistake that I used a French word there. Perhaps, I am egregiously conflating country bumpkin paganism with refined courts. I think the healthy, robust and strong farm-girl never said, 'Court me' to the bulky farm-lad. If she did, she was most certainly a lost spy in the countryside.

How about I do what my walls tell me and make lots of money? If I wave around my debit and credit cards instead of a handkerchief will I attract anyone? It doesn't take me long to recognise that I would rather 'court' a farm-girl than impress a courtesan. In any case, who likes plastic these days?

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[ 3 minute read ]

Eye the road

When I look out my window, I see in my neighbour's little pillar-box-red car. It is clean and bright but only after it has rained. Under the veneer of its shell I know it is fading. Parked over a grass and weed-ridden gravel drive the floor will soon give way. It never moves though. They hand-brake is pulled hard on and if someone one day starts the engine there will be instant wear. If it could talk, it would say, 'I tried, but you stopped loving me.'  It might then jealously eye my neighbour's black BMW next to it. The BMW is used; I can tell because the ruts in the drive where the gravel has been scraped away by its wide tyres get deeper and fill with muddier rainwater after every few times my neighbour aggressively brakes to a sudden stop.

The Ash tree on the other side of the road is only remembered to have been alive before the Summer of 2022. The people in the house want time to go backwards so they can water it at the right time. While they fruitlessly wait for magic to get lost and knock on their door, they are slowly realising that the thick, chunky, and heavily over-pruned smooth limbs will never again sprout small green twigs. Deemed to be too expensive to remove, it is a monument to despair.

Each weekday, four-year-old helmeted Hugo peddles past with his dad following on his bike. Hugo is so happy and curious, and thinks that everything I leave outside my house is for him alone. His parents have to police his free hands. One day, he saw that I had some toilet roll in my basket. I had just bought it from the shop. He thought that I should have shared it with him. Sometimes, I have to hide from him because I don't wear a helmet when I cycle, and he always asks me why not. He thinks I have a really bad memory.

If the right window is open I can hear a distant neighbour let his small motorbike tick over to warm it before he speeds past my house. Old ideas about engine oil seem stronger than recent knowledge of modern mineral oils to him. He often tries to menace me with his stormy face, by holding my nonchalant stare. If I was a woman I would fancy him. Except for his age, I am jealous.

At the bottom of the road, there lives a man blind in one eye from 'arc-eye'; he thought he could weld without a mask. At Christmas, he and his wife were the only ones in our road to have decorations on their lawn, Now, the elderly chap opposite them, with the new picket fence, and active middle-finger when he sees me, has some too. It is easy to forget what analogue candles and lanterns once looked like these days. I don't offer any contrast.

All my posts: https://learn1.open.ac.uk/mod/oublog/view.php?u=zw219551

or search for 'martin cadwell -caldwell' Take note of the position of the minus sign to eliminate caldwell returns or search for 'martin cadwell blog' in your browser.

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[ 2 minute read ]

Nonsense

I am left only with nursery rhymes

I woke up really lonely today. I had been having a dream that I was lonely and the caretakers and janitors who work in my mind were careless today and left some litter in my playground. I used to wake up and laugh, deliberately to chase away the demons still lunching on my past. They would just sit and chatter and occasionally reach down for another morsel that fell off a dream. My mind, once I had belly-laughed would be clear and I would greet the morning and the morning post with vigour and fortitude. 

     'Ah, here is one...brown envelope...plastic panel with my name and address showing through...what does it say...let's see. Oh! Look at that! The sky is going to fall in. Chicken Licken did you write this? You Rascal! Bit stinky though. Did you write this in the chicken coop again?'

     'Hello neighbours! Yes, I am intoxicated again.' They don't know what happy is.

Not today though. I have been deserted. My care-takers have gone run away or gone on strike and there is just one crumpled elderly one holding his scrawny hand out, 'Change! Change! I won't leave you. Change! Change!'

Maybe you will. Do they all want me to change, or just need me to provide a few more scraps of meagre succour to feed themselves with? More vitamin and mineral supplements perchance?'

I have been knocking the vitamin and mineral supplements on the head lately in case I was poisoning myself. It seems I am not. All the little creatures that make up my creativity are nestled under dry leaves and shed-fur burrows trying to enter hibernation. Well, we will see about that! Arise! Stand to order! Up! Up! Up! Let's be having you!'

Realistically, it takes about a week to rouse them all and get them in line and awake enough to pass a thought along and add to its value before it is packaged, sent and delivered to my consciousness.

Oh look! Another brown envelope on my doormat. 'Let's see!' 'Thomas Dolby told us to say to you: Give [us] your shoulder, [we] need a place to wait for morning... Please don't ask questions. [We] itch all over. Let [us] sleep.'

     'Hmmm. Thomas Dolby, Airwaves. You tapped into my memory.' I will trickle feed them.

Fortunately, I have a million pounds to live on. Which is the same million I have if I also have ten Level 3 qualifications and one of them is on hallucinating that I have nine others. My horse fell over on Saturday in the Grand National and I watched the riderless horse keep merrily jumping. Well done, horse. You are as much use as a Bitcoin account with a lost password. I am going to have to work again today, aren't I?

I shall just have to plant some flower seeds this week. Flowers are pretty and are good for the insects and for others to look at and smell. What's that, Naked Emperor, I should have a bath and wash some clothes? Cutting! Especially from you!