To blog or not to blog

nor·mal (nôr?m?l)

adjective

Conforming with or constituting an accepted standard, model, or pattern; esp., corresponding to the median or average of a large group in type, appearance, achievement, function, development, etc.; natural; usual; standard; regular

Oh to be normal, to look normal, to feel normal, to ooze normality. An odd request, maybe, and one which begs the question, “what IS ‘normal?” to which I can only answer, “not me.”

All my life I have felt segregate, especially at school – usually for reasons beyond my control: a different accent to my peers, a non-standard height, gay not straight – being a petite posh puff was no primary school picnic in the park! Being picked last for football became the norm, so much so that the act itself almost became more of a joke than I was. No amount of logical reasoning can counter the illogic of a mob of pre-pubescent peers and ‘pick on the poof’ was the preferred playground pastime. Too often those differences have been used against me, so maybe it is not unexpected that I would quite welcome the disappearance into the monotone of normality. Age and growing tolerance have improved things greatly of course. There has been a massive normalising of gay relationships for a start, and that is brilliant. That is evidence of how a perceived extreme has been absorbed into the mainstream, well, mostly absorbed – I think we are still a way off a time where David and I could kiss in Tescos without raising an eye – but there again, I don’t think it is necessarily right for anyone to be snogging by the Deli counter, as were a straight couple I saw the other day.

Our society has such a confused way of dealing with anything it sees as different; it is either ridiculed or revered, dreadful or desirable – sometimes both at the same time and maybe it is just fashion which dictates what is in vogue at any one time.  Twenty years ago being a puff was akin to having leprosy but today we are the ‘must-have’ fashion accessory. No street is complete without its resident gay couple. We have become the token blacks. But that is a lot better than I ever dared dream would happen and I’m not complaining.

Maybe ‘normal’ is a somewhat utopian ideal, unattainable for a species as diverse as ours, which relies on mutation for development and praises those who break the mould. The Guinness Book of Records would hardly include “the most normal person in the UK” or list all the names of those “of most average height” – instead we hail the tallest, the shortest, the fastest, the thinnest (I can feel a song coming on here…) Survival of the fittest and the basic concepts of Darwinian adaptability means that some must be less fit and, to borrow from Mr Orwell, maybe it has to be that some animals are more equal than others. It isn’t normality that pushes at the edges of social, scientific or medical understanding.  Frontiers are only explored by the exceptional. But it is still normality that I crave.

Many, I am sure, would think of ‘normal’ as boring, homogenised, lacking in diversity, individuality or creativity. The gay community, as a subset of humankind, is a great example of the conundrum we face – on one hand wanting the level playing field of equality and on the other, our desires to retain our separate identity. We want to be treated as normal people but still be different, ab-normal – after all, does ‘queer’  not mean ‘strange and unusual’? But we all judge ourselves against the concept of normal all the time; are we too fat, to thin, too tall, too short, too loud, too quiet, too active, too sedentary?  Does my bum look big in this? Is my hair style fashionable? Am I behaving in an appropriate way? Do I fit in?

I’ve never regarded myself as anything other than a misfit; that tends to happen when you are significantly below average height, need glasses, and have hair that, if left unshaved, looks something akin to an explosion in a wire wool factory.  I’m the next best thing to a hobbit, except they are generally cuter. I hide behind humour, proclaiming myself to be “unlanky” or “not really short, just further away than you think I am”.  But I have always tried to take care of my body, after all it came with a non-exchange clause and, whilst some spare parts may be available, a whole body transplant remains the gift of Time Lords and I have yet to master the finer points of reincarnation (besides, I’d probably come back as Sylvester McCoy and Who’d want to do that?)  So, one makes the most of the raw materials available, without falling foul of fanatical fashion or the need to buy enough male grooming products to keep Cliniqué in business for the next decade. I will never tread the path of the Adonis, the male model or ‘dreamboat’.  I hold no aspirations of winning the Mr Universe competition, and, even if through some galactic irony, I did end up in the final alongside a Slitheen, Judoon, Sontaran and the inner squidgy bits of a Dalek, I’d settle for fifth place and the train fare home.  If beauty really is in the eye of the beholder then I thank whatever higher force there may be that I fell for someone who is short-sighted, colour blind, has monocular vision and a lazy eye. But that said, I’m no troll either. I may have fallen out of the ugly tree but I managed to miss a few of the most severe branches on the way down.

I have such a tempestuous relationship with my body image, largely based on the prejudices of society against someone who doesn’t quite fit the standardised concept of ‘normal’ and I have talked at length in previous blog entries about the difficulty of finding clothes or shoes that fit. You learn to be less fussy when the choice is ‘this or nothing’ and any sense of a clothing ‘look’ I might have is based entirely on availability rather than design.  There are a few exceptions to that rule and a couple of ‘outfits’ that I think DO suit me, but none of them fit me anymore and so I shuffle around in my scruffs.

One of the hardest things about the last 18 months has been seeing the changes to my body shape, and for two main reasons. Firstly, it has taken me even further away from the ‘body beautiful’ and that goal of fitting the norm, or even being ‘acceptable’ and secondly because it is such a visual, unequivocal representation of how Ill I have been. I’ve always tried to convince myself that looks don’t matter, but they do. People judge. People make snap decisions based on physical appearance. We all do it, we’ve all made assumptions about a person because they tended towards a more extreme body shape.  I read on the BBC site the other day a story about the growth and spread (pardon the choice of words) of ‘fattism’ and of overweight people being subjected to unprovoked physical and verbal attacks. But what is really frightening is when you make such negative judgements about yourself, when you don’t just hate your appearance, but you hate yourself for looking like that.  The most terrifying thing for me, when I was in hospital last year, was not the being diagnosed with cancer, not the having months of horrible treatments ahead of me, not even the pain, but the first time I saw myself naked in a mirror. I had lost 40% of my body weight, dropping from ten stone to just under six. I looked like I had aged 30 years and someone had shrunk-wrapped my skin to my skeleton, in much the same way as you can buy supermarket joints of meat with plastic suctioned to every contour.  Slap a bar-code on my bum and sell me as a Tescos Value Person.  Flabby I was not. The cancer had been so advanced that it was using all my energy, all my fat and muscle reserves and more – my body was taking more than I could give it.  The person looking back at me from that mirror was unrecognisable, an imposter – not me, not the face I had grown up with. The body in the reflection belonged to a third world, emaciated, starving, wretch.  The hobbit had turned into Gollum. And that was more frightening than I can ever describe.   I cried for nearly 12 hours solid. Because I didn’t want to be that person and I didn’t want the people I loved to have to look at him either.

I think that was the turning point for me, the point when I decided that I had better get better. I knew for sure that I didn’t want anyone’s last image of me to be the skeletal wraith I had become.

Getting back out among people I knew before has been really hard, and on more than one occasion I have bottled out, opting for the safety of a more reclusive stance; Gollum back in his cave. Sometimes that has been to try to protect others from seeing me in such a state but more often the motivation has been selfish, born of fear. The really good friends have been fine, supportive and kind. Family will love me regardless of how I look. But that only accounts for a handful of people and the challenge is dealing with the ones who see you and judge. The ones who make assumptions. The ones who whisper and point when they think you are not looking.  I don’t blame them, it is human nature.  I still find myself doing it to others almost without thinking and that is something I need to change.

I suppose we all have an inner desire to stand out from the crowd, but we want to do that on our own terms, based on traits, looks or accomplishments that we feel to be worthwhile and positive. We don’t want to stand out as objects of ridicule, but of praise. There is a fine line between gorgeous and gruesome.  I think of people who have taken things just a bit too far and tipped the balance. That one extra facelift that saw the sea change from classic beauty to grotesque gargoyle, the body builder who went from muscle to monster.

I’m getting better, my body is slowly returning from horror to human, but there’s still a long way to go and I pine for the return of the shape I used to inhabit. And so ‘normal’ seems quite a desirable state to be in. Average would be wonderful. I could buy clothes in a range of styles. I could be unremarkable and un-remarked-upon, ordinary, usual, unostentatious.

When I was at school, one of the poems we studied for O’Level (yes I AM that old) was Philip Larkin’s “Born Yesterday” and it caused me some consternation as I couldn’t get my head around what exactly it meant.  I understand now.

Born Yesterday
for Sally Amis

Tightly-folded bud,
I have wished you something
None of the others would:
Not the usual stuff
About being beautiful,
Or running off a spring
Of innocence and love -
They will all wish you that,
And should it prove possible,
Well, you’re a lucky girl.

But if it shouldn’t, then
May you be ordinary;
Have, like other women,
An average of talents:
Not ugly, not good-looking,
Nothing uncustomary
To pull you off your balance,
That, unworkable itself,
Stops all the rest from working.
In fact, may you be dull -
If that is what a skilled,
Vigilant, flexible,
Unemphasised, enthralled
Catching of happiness is called.

Welcome to Friday 13^th.

Now I wouldn’t say that I am an especially superstitious person, and I didn’t wake up this morning with a feeling of impending doom, as some may have done, overwhelmed by the sinister stigma of the date.  My relationship with superstition is pretty much on a par to my relationship with religion. I can’t say I’m a fully paid-up card-carrying member, by any stretch, but by the same token, I’m not going to shit on a crucifix ether.

I tend to not believe that burning ears mean someone is talking about you; there is almost always a more scientific explanation, like you just fell asleep with your head against the radiator.

Some so-called superstitions are really just a way of wrapping up common sense advice, like not walking under a ladder for fear of something dropping on your head – paint, nails, slates, window cleaners, lesbians with power tools etc. Not stepping on the cracks in pavements is logical – with the state of British paths these days they are fraught with tripping hazards and badly laid slabs are just a liability. See a pin, pick it up and all day long you’ll have less chance of standing on a pin.

Some are more sinister. Literally. The idea of throwing spilt salt over the shoulder is to ward off the Devil, who is said to sit at your left side. Why the left shoulder? The Romans used to march with the regimented left, right, left, right chant we recognise in modern soldiers, but the Roman words were ‘sinister, dexter, sinister, dexter’ and hence the word has taken on its evil undertone.

Opening  umbrellas indoors is seen as an unlucky thing to do, but that probably stems back to the times of ancient Egypt where umbrellas were used to provide shade from the sun; opening them indoors was seen as an insult to Ra the sun God, who would punish the offender. You really wouldn’t want to upset Ra, or his wife, She-Ra.

Why is Friday 13^th also considered unlucky? Friday was execution day in ancient Rome and therefore Christ is thought to have been crucified on that day. Following the trend, Friday used to be Hangman’s Day in Britain and some believe it was the day God threw Adam and Eve out of the Garden of Eden (although the National Trust say there is no specific reason why a garden should be closed on a Friday so that is a largely unsubstantiated claim). There were 13 people at the Last Supper and the 13^th Tarot card is Death.  Oh, and Margaret Thatcher was born on Friday 13^th, so that seems as good a reason as any to fear the worst.

Amusingly (or not) the houses on our side of the street take the odd numbers, so 1, 3, 5 etc and next door to us one way is number 11, meaning that we SHOULD live at number 13. Our house is actually 15 and to the other side is 17. Somebody thought ill enough of the number 13 to miss it out although I can’t help but wonder if this is a bit like the premise of the Final Destination films – trying to skip the number is flawed logic and the bad luck will happen anyway. Would we have bought this house if we had realised it was really number 13? I am not so sure.

I’ve never held with the idea that having a bird poo on you is lucky though – seems damned UNlucky to me (especially if the bird in question is a forty-something, thick-set, heavy-hipped Brummie called Barbara). The whole bird poo thing just smacks of being one of those things that an anguished parent once said to a distressed child who had just been targeted by a defecating duck. Parents say some terrible things to their kids and should be ashamed of themselves.  If you eat apple pips a tree will grow in your tummy. If you swallow chewing gum it will get wrapped around your lungs and suffocate you. If you keep shaking your sister her head will fall off (it never did). They still do it these days too – apparently if you eat runner beans you will turn into a runner and if you eat Green Giant sweetcorn you will turn into a slightly camp version of the Incredible Hulk.  Telling a child that ‘if the wind changes, your face will stay like that’ is just pure evil. As is the notion that picking your nose will cause your head to cave in.  It hasn’t, despite many a pleasurable rake out.  It is however, a well-known biological fact that if you unscrew your belly button your bum will fall off. Warts are a sure sign you have kissed a frog (despite the fact that kissing frogs is the only way to snare yourself a prince – methinks Camilla was a vivacious herpetologist in days gone by).  Don’t get me started on Santa, the Easter Bunny, the Bogeyman or the tooth fairy. Any parent who tells their offspring such lies should be put away for inflicting mental cruelty, although I guess it could be argued that these are just preparing kids for the adult equivalents, the lies and concoctions that society throws at us every day – politics, weather forecasts, DFS sales, train timetables and religion.

Some superstitions are mostly harmless – I see no point in NOT saying hello to a magpie, and touching wood is a useful ‘just in case’ tactic.

We have a horseshoe above the front door, but that is just to counteract the fact we should be number 13. (I figure that IF these things are to be believed, one should neutralise the other and thus we can carry on with life untouched).

A specific superstition that I know to be true however is one that I was introduced to at school and has stayed with me ever since. It isn’t really a superstition, more a complex conspiracy theory, woven in a mesh of misinformation and sprinkled with just a little secrecy to keep things interesting. The enchantment goes as follows: If you sneeze three times in succession and nobody says ‘bless you’, you can be taken by the fairies. I feel the time is right to now expose the full truth of this spell, and that the world is in fact ready to know of our master plan. This is the way that the homosexual community has been recruiting for millennia. Three sneezes and you become a fairy. Forget all your theories about genetics or environmental conditioning.  Forget biological predisposition, familial tendencies or possibilities that early trauma causes people to be gay.  None of that is correct. It just takes three sneezes without a ‘bless you’ and you are ours! We can come and get you at any time. We don’t always convert you straight away, of course. That would mean a disproportionate recruitment peak in flu season (we invented flu too, by the way, just to make you sneeze more. And pollen) – no, you just get tagged and we can take you any time we want. We find this method of recruitment to be much more effective than TV commercials, newspaper campaigns or leaflet drops. So don’t say you haven’t been warned.

Graham Norton used to be married with three kids you know, until he sniffed a particularly pollen-filled tulip, and look what we turned HIM into. John Barrowman used to be a dustman.  Sandi Totsvik and Sue Perkins were both straight porn stars in their youth – Sandi, you may recall, also performing as the stunt double for Jessica Rabbit many moons ago. Yet, one squirt of Fabreeze too many and they were sneezing like troopers.  (We do apologise for the Touch And Go “Poo at Paul’s” commercial, but we needed to attract a younger apprenticeship and those things really do make people honk out some hefty sneezes).

Matt Lucas used to be a bricklayer from Luton and, prior to initiation, Julian Clary was a docker called Pete. Don’t think that marriage will protect you either. Elton John was, after all, a happily married heterosexual man, as was David Beckham (you’ll see what I mean when he eventually ‘comes out’).

You will have noticed the increase in gay activity in your neighbourhood of course, as we further our plans of world domination. Although we have to be careful. The last time we tried anything on this scale was way back in the 1660s when one particularly enthusiastic boffin tried to make a new type of sneeze-enhancer distribution system, which was to be deployed by miniature percussion cartridges strapped to the back of rats (working on the assumption that no person is ever more than 10 meters away from a rat). Sadly the spray was too potent and ended up causing some nasty side effects. We covered it all up, of course, by calling it bubonic plague, and setting fire to London as a distraction, but it was a close call!

In case you were wondering, yes, swine flu is ours, as was its precursor, bird flu but we’ve not quite got the dosages right yet and we’re rethinking the whole animal deployment programme, mainly because such schemes seem less effective on vegetarians. If ever you see pink Pepsi though, remember, you heard it here first.

If you mention any of this to anyone, we will deny it, and you have no proof. But watch out next time you pass through the perfume section in Debenhams – it isn’t always eau de toilet that they spray and it is best to travel in pairs so you have a ‘bless you buddy’ just in case. On puff and you’re ours!

I’m so sorry. Really, I am. I’d meant to send you a Christmas card, and get you a gift, maybe even invite you round for a festive glass of wine, but it is too late now. Christmas has passed and all I can do is wish you Happy New Year.   In my defence, I hadn’t expected Christmas to happen so soon. I’d assumed it would take place on December 25^th as usual, not the second weekend in November. We didn’t even get the decorations up this year, or a tree. But you see, I just didn’t realise that the whole shebang had been brought forward, well, not until I was watching TV last Friday and by then it was too late to do anything.

It’s my own fault. I should have realised, what with the Christmas adverts starting in September, and all the extra catalogues we’ve been getting through the door for seasonal reductions on everything from bras to beds, sofas to sandwich makers.  I’m just a bit slow on the uptake these days. The clues were there, of course, with all the decorations up in town and even the most mundane product packaging redesigned with a festive feel. Holly on your toilet roll – a more likely combination has yet to be conceived.

But the chocolate penny finally dropped at the end of last week when I saw an advert on telly for a joint of beef. And thank heavens I saw it, or Christmas would have passed me by totally, without so much as a mince pie or turkey sandwich.  The advert in question came from Morrisons (to whom I shall be forever indebted) and took me by surprise. With the jingle of bells and the generic Christmas tune the short ad promoted their special Christmas offer of outstanding value on their joints of beef. An offer which ends today, 9^th November. A Christmas offer that ends in November. Well, by extrapolation I could only conclude then that Christmas occurred this past weekend, if an offer promoted as being for Christmas finishes today, that must mean that Christmas has happened, surely?

Or maybe Morrisons are blatantly exploiting an extraordinarily debatable proximity to Yuletide in a way that I find offensive in the extreme and deeply worrying.

I am not a card-carrying religious zealot by any means and my relationship with church is very much of the ‘hatch, match and dispatch’ variety, but I really do think things are getting out of hand. Christmas now seems to take up a quarter of the year in terms of its commercial exploitation, and more so if you consider the ongoing debts that linger way past the last remnants of turkey.

Has the spirit of Christmas not mutated beyond recognition to a beast of commercialism and the house of prayer become a den of unscrupulous thieves, forcing us to bow to an entirely different deity?

I understand that it is the most profitable time for retail and that in a recession shops need to tout for all the business they can get, but how on earth can anyone justify a “Christmas Special” that runs for a week in November? This is not the spirit of Christmas. And I’m not talking a Dickensian ideal, I know that the world changes and Christmas is now a very different beast.  In a multicultural society maybe we have to find a common thread to such celebrations to make them palatable for all, but we seem to be trying to take the Christ out of Christmas and perverting everything about it. I wonder what the impact would be if we tried to reinvent some of the other religious festivals to the same extent. What of Ramadan or Diwali, Yom Kippur or Hanukkah? The suggestion of renaming the December holiday to “Wintermas” is no more ridiculous than the invented concepts of Mothers’/Fathers’/Valentines’ day (known as Hallmark Holidays because they were invented largely for commercial purposes).

Part of me wishes that the emphasis were more aligned with the little drummer boy than the wise men and their expensive gifts. Christmas isn’t about the birth of Christ anymore and has been rebranded almost beyond recognition. The pagan worship of the winter solstice was smothered by the Christian festival which in turn has become more a celebration of Santa Clause than anything else. And I fear that in recent years even that concept has been bastardised and corrupted to leave us with little beyond the hollow shell of commercialisation.

Our economy seems to now rely on this season and appears determined to stretch the run-up to Christmas further and further each year.  It is a con. Does Morrisons really need to cite Christmas as the reason they are reducing a joint of meat for a few days in the autumn, and does the fact that they are doing it not diminish and devalue any meaning left in the advent period? It feels like bullying, increasing pressure to pay more and more, give bigger and better, spend, spend, spend and to hell with the consequences. Apparently my Christmas won’t have any value unless I buy a new settee, TV, kitchen or bike. What on earth would make me think that I need a new shower to be able to celebrate the nativity? “And Mary laid the baby Jesus in a whirlpool bath while the three wise men dressed in the latest fashion gave gifts of iPods, digital cameras and a new Sat Nav which proclaimed “at the next Star of David turn right and you will have reached your destination.”’

We are bombarded with offers and discounts and bargains and wrapped up in linguistic tricks that advertisers think we won’t notice.  There is an ad at the moment for a printer. It asks, “have you stopped printing because it costs too much for replacement ink?”  And suggests you should “buy an all-in-one printer and save over £100 a year.”  Now I’m no mathematician but let’s do some sums. I’m spending nothing on printing at the moment. I have to buy a new printer and paper. I will have to buy more inks for that printer. How do I end up spending less than zero in all this? It is the same as these seemingly endless sofa sales (the price reductions being endless, not the sofas) where we move from the Christmas sale into the New Year sale which leads into the Spring and Easter and Summer sales and so on round the calendar: it is just a way to mislead us into thinking we are getting a bargain. I don’t particularly need a new sofa, so no, DFS, buying a new one from you will NOT save me £500 it will COST me £700 and I also see your ‘get out of jail free’ small print that says your pledge of guaranteed delivery before Christmas is “available on some models” but probably not the ones anyone actually wants. I’m not saying that regulations are being breached but there is an underlying trend towards ambiguity. Retail is about creating desire but we are being manipulated to live beyond our means.

Where is the civic responsibility in that? I don’t claim to be an economist, but surely there must be a tipping point? Sooner or later this is all going to back-fire. I’m sure I oversimplify when I wonder when our buy-now-pay-later culture really is going to implode, and more than it has in this recession. How much more can the banks be propped up, when will the gold reserves finally run out? I can understand the principals of needing a healthy retail sector which generates demand for products and then benefits manufacturing, which can go on to produce more products more efficiently and at lower cost. I can see that our economy needs to be competitive and attract foreign investment but are we not also at risk of the beast becoming too hungry and devouring everything?  Yes, Christmas will aid retail, but with public debt at £800 billion can we really carry on like this? I quote from the Times Online – 19^th September 2009:

Britain is clocking up debt at a rate of £6,017 per second. Net borrowing for the first five months of the financial year stood at £65.3 billion, compared with £26.1 billion at the same stage last year. Total borrowing soared past the £800 billion mark for the first time and total state debt as a proportion of national output reached 57.5 per cent.

Just to pay the interest on its ballooning debts the Government must find more than £30 billion a year — about £500 for every man, woman and child in the country.

I won’t be getting into further debt this Christmas. I just can’t do it. I’m not sorry about that either – maybe I should be, maybe I’m a bad person for not being prepared to spend hundreds of pounds on gifts for my parents, my partner, my nieces, my friends. Maybe I’m not helping prop up our economy by injecting it with its Christmas fix. The Ads on telly seem to work on our sense of guilt and greed in equal measure but I refuse to be bullied like this anymore.  I am tempted to not send any cards this Christmas – I can come up with a dozen good reasons for that from ecological to financial but when I think about it I send the majority of cards for the wrong reasons anyway. If I really cared about Michael from College I’d write to him throughout the year. I just don’t want him to think badly of me for not sending. And that is the trap. Do I really need to send a card to my Mum? We speak every evening on the phone. What does a card add to that relationship? And why should David and I feel obliged to buy each other cards to proclaim our love when we do that every day through our words, our actions and our deeds? We’ve all fallen for the bait set by the commercial conglomerates who have built up such a ritualistic dependency that we don’t know how to break free.

The circle has to be broken.  Not sending a card does not mean I think any less of you – it’s just that I spent the money on a bargain joint of beef in November instead.   Now then, where does a chap buy an Easter Egg around here?

• On the first day of Wintermas the shops all gave to me a “buy one get one free”
• On the second day of Wintermas the shops all gave to me, two discount vouchers and a “buy one get one free”
• On the third day of Wintermas the shops all gave to me three months to pay, two discount vouchers and a “buy one get one free”
• On the forth day of Wintermas the shops all gave to me four credit coupons, three months to pay, two discount vouchers and a “buy one get one free”
• On the fifth day of Wintermas the shops all gave to me  five late bills, four credit coupons, three months to pay, two discount vouchers and a “buy one get one free”
• On the sixth day of Wintermas the shops all gave to me, six visa statements, five late bills, four credit coupons, three months to pay, two discount vouchers and a “buy one get one free”
• On the seventh day of Wintermas the shops all gave to me seven default notices, six visa statements, five late bills, four credit coupons, three months to pay, two discount vouchers and a “buy one get one free”
• On the eigth day of Wintermas the shops all gave to me eight debt management programmes, seven default notices, six visa statements, five late bills, four credit coupons, three months to pay, two discount vouchers and a “buy one get one free”
• On the ninth day of Wintermas the shops all gave to me nine county court judgements, eight debt management programmes, seven default notices, six visa statements, five late bills, four credit coupons, three months to pay, two discount vouchers and a “buy one get one free”
• On the tenth day of Wintermas the ships all gave to me ten IVAs, me nine county court judgements, eight debt management programmes, seven default notices, six visa statements, five late bills, four credit coupons, three months to pay, two discount vouchers and a “buy one get one free”
• On the eleventh day of Wintermas the shops all gave to me a file for bankruptcy, ten IVAs, nine county court judgements, eight debt management programmes, seven default notices, six visa statements, five late bills, four credit coupons, three months to pay, two discount vouchers and a “buy one get one free”
• On the twelth day of Wintermas the shops all gave to me a shattered global economy, a file for bankruptcy, ten IVAs, nine county court judgements, eight debt management programmes, seven default notices, six visa statements, five late bills, four credit coupons, three months to pay, two discount vouchers and a “buy one get one free”

It’s been a while now since I updated my blog; life, the universe and everything has somehow intervened as I hopelessly hurdle the haphazard highway as I hitchhike through life.  We’ve been abroad: Northern Ireland to be precise. And yes, for all your pedants, I know that Belfast isn’t technically abroad, but consider this:

• We went in a plane; the plane was delayed
• We crossed the sea
• We needed our passports (or other appropriate photo ID, opened at the photo page) to get into the country
• They use a different money over there (you try paying for anything in England with a NI £5 note!)
• And they speak a different language, so they do.

I think that pretty much ticks all the boxes for ‘abroad’ in my ”Eye-spy book of holidays”.

We went there because David’s brother, Allen, is a trained sports physiotherapist and had offered to give me some treatment aimed at reducing the pain I have in my left leg and foot. It is hard to explain the pain; the closest is to say it is like the feeling you get when you step into a bath of just-too-hot water. It isn’t so bad that you are prepared to look a pratt and jump out hopping in burning beetroot agony, but you do find yourself wishing for the immediate presence (prescience?) of the Jedi Knight in charge of such matters:  Luke Warmwater.  As the Americans would say, “May the forcep be with you”.

During his trial, Guy Fawkes was tortured. In a letter dated 6 November, King James I stated:

The gentler tortours [tortures] are to be first used unto him, et sic per gradus ad maiora tenditur [and thus by steps extended to greater ones], and so God speed your good work

I mention this, not only because Guy Fawkes Night is but a moon away, but also to note that Allen bypassed ‘the gentler tortours’ and went straight for the full barrage of agonizing instrumentation at his disposal. Now, you will have to remember, I was lying half naked on a bench with my face through a hole (breathing being the only luxury allowed), so could only rely on the sense of sound and touch to build up my picture of the events, and the fog of pain may have clouded my memory a little. I think there may have been a rack involved, although I seem no taller (bugger!). If there were thumbscrews, manacles or an iron maiden then I was passed out at that point and have no recollection, but I do remember several beatings and poundings over the weekend as my back was bashed, broddled, banged, battered and bruised with the intention of shifting my snaking spine from the graceful ‘S’ shape it has adopted back into the more conventional straight-line model favoured by most pain-free persons.  He used a special machine which helps free the joints in the vertebrae through increasing pressure and vibration. According to the website (http://www.tamars.co.uk/en-GB/Default.aspx) it is also great for treating whiplash and dowagers hump (if you are kinky enough to have experienced a widowed dominatrix I suppose – maybe that is where the thumbscrews and manacles come in).I do Allen a disservice; he took great care of me and actually the treatment wasn’t half as bad as I had expected, although sitting on steel benches at the airport while our return flight was delayed for three hours was not the ideal after-care regime and I shall never tenderise a steak again!

Once back in England’s green and pleasant land we hunkered down ready for the biannual temporal shift that sees us wave goodbye to British Summer Time and plunge headfirst into the commercial cornucopia that heralds the Season of mists and mellow fruitfulness. Changing the clocks is such a nuisance, and there’s always one we forget. You try telling two feisty felines that they have to wait an extra hour for their Felix Fishy Flakes!

And so, hello to All Hallows Eve, and remarkably we only had one premature Halloweener, who, I’m guessing still confused by the clock change, arrived a day early to receive neither trick nor treat.  This year David had a cunning plan (well, maybe not cunning, but appropriately evil for the spirit of the occasion) and instead of sweets or money we gave the trick-or-treaters each an apple.  And, again appropriately, this gleaned looks of pure horror beyond anything we could have accomplished by wearing ghost costumes and carrying plastic skulls! “An apple?!” they protested, as if David was offering them a turd on a plate. It seems that kids today expect nothing less than a fiver or something sticky that comprises at least 150% of their RDA of sugar.  But this year, in the spirit of apple bobbing and toffee apples they were met at the door by a fruit!

We move ever closer to November 5^th and I’m surprised that we have yet to be besieged by the usual pilgrimage of spotty yoofs banging on the door (with the degradation in GCSE difficulty they have yet to master the complexities of a doorbell) and demanding, “Penny for the guy”. Ironically they would feel somewhat short-changed if offered only a penny and I’ve yet to see any evidence of the aforementioned (and integral , as far as I am concerned), effigy of Mr Fawkes.  Incidentally, we should probably call him Guido Fawkes, as this was the name he used when signing his confession, having adopted the more European version while fighting alongside the Spanish against the Dutch. But that just doesn’t sound English enough and heaven forbid that any major figure in English history should have overseas associations. I mean, that’d be like outsourcing the Monarchy to somewhere like, I don’t know, Germany maybe.

I know I’m getting old now though because my allegiances have tipped over into the ‘ban public sale of fireworks’ camp. I’ve held my share of firework parties, and I have no problem with organised displays, but what rationale says it is sensible, safe or sane to make explosive products available over-the-counter to people who, if their brains were gunpowder, wouldn’t have enough to blow their hats off?

Maybe my damning demeanour is a product of a disappointing and disastrous dalliance with fireworks in my tender years. Before I progress I must say, for legislative reasons, that no animals were harmed in the making of this anecdote although several children were emotionally scarred for life in scenes that some viewers may find upsetting.

Many years ago in a land far, far away (well, Suffolk actually), there lived a young boy and his sister. These were ancient times, before the MacDonald clan had invaded England all but destroying their Wimpy rivals, before the internet ensnared us in its web and when “Wizard” meant Paul Daniels and not a software install program. Simple times of custom and folklore, where the villagers observed such traditions as ‘early closing on a Wednesday’ and ‘shops shut on the Sabbath’.  Chips were made out of potato, not silicon and ‘gay’ still meant ‘happy’.  The boy and his sister had been saving their pocket-money for weeks, cherishing the coins, each the size of a saucer and pound notes that were big enough to sheet a bed. Doing odd jobs around the house, to earn a few extra pennies, forgoing sweets and treats with the promise of something better, something magical, to come. Each night they counted their earnings, spurred on by their excitement and anticipation. And, when the day finally arrived they handed their money over to the Elder who took it off to market and returned with a box of the biggest, the brightest and the best fireworks ever. There were sparklers and Catherine wheels, rockets and roman candles.  A party was arranged and all the children for miles around were invited to watch the display. They brought fireworks too, Jumping Jacks and Bangers, with exotic names like ‘Mount Vesuvius’ and ‘Star Seeker’, ‘Diablo’ and ‘Spitfire’.  All the little tubes of delight were gathered up and placed in a metal box, safety being the mantra of the day. They would be safe there and dry. The Elder was wise; he knew to not play with fireworks. He knew the ancient words: Never return to a firework once it has been lit. The young ones were ushered into an awaiting caravan where they could watch in wide-eyed wonder cocooned and closeted in complete comfort.  The countdown commenced and silence settled as the Elder lit a safety taper, took one of the middle-sized pyramids of pleasure from its metal incarceration and set it down on a stable surface. “Light the blue touch-paper and retreat” we mouthed from our ‘safe distance’ caravan.  And it started: the culmination of all that saving, the planning, and the suffering without chocolate. The firework burst into life with a shower of stars and sparkles. Stars and sparkles which, carried on a light breeze, floated straight over to the metal box which stood lidless close by.

Now you might expect that such a collection of explosives, when simultaneously ignited, would produce a glorious display. But no, not when tightly packed into a metal box. Their splendour was turned in on itself, and the proverbial explosion in a fireworks factory yielded little more than an ear-splitting bang and a cloud of smoke dense enough to  cut and serve in slices with the hot dogs and jacket potatoes, leaving in its wake another metal box, full of crying inconsolable infants.  So the fireworks and several of my hard-earned friendships went up in smoke and I soon realised that the Elder was in fact also the Village Idiot.

I’m a forgiving person, but some crimes really do deserve pretty harsh punishment and on that night there was another guy who, in my eyes, should have been hanged, drawn and quartered for treason.  So, this year, if you MUST have a firework party, be careful, be safe and don’t forget to put the lid back on, for Fawkes’ sake!