New Life

I started a new job today. For some, this would be a time of excitement, a new challenge to feast upon, a gateway into a world of new friends, new opportunities, new newy stuff. 

Indeed, I’ve always loved The New.  In my youth, there was the thrill of changing schools and hoping it’ll somehow make learning easier and there’ll be someone desperate to go out with you, as an adult, the buzz of a new job and the promise of becoming financially solvent, and throughout my life,  the unknown pleasure of discovering new booze. Although it’s been about a gazillion years since I finally worked my way through all known types of alcohol.  Verdict? Campari tastes like earwax. The rest of it is pretty palatable.   

The embarkation into the untouched is often accompanied by a smorgasbord of mental and emotional states, in much the same way as dropping acid, but with less vivid colours. A dash of nerves, a slice of worry, a side of eager anticipation. I like to believe it’s a hangover from our pre-historic ancestors, out in the savannah, wandering aimlessly into the unchartered in search of food, shelter and, latterly, fame.  They would’ve crossed deserts, traversed jungles, not knowing whether their journey would end in the discovery of a banquet of plenty, or becoming a banquet of plenty.

Partly I like to think this to remind myself we are connected, across millennia, though space and time, with that diaspora, starting in deepest Africa and forging its way into the world, into the East, into the Americas, into Milton Keynes. Partly I like to think of it for that fervent romantic idea, but mostly it’s to remind me that I believe in evolution, so I can feel intellectually smug, even if spiritually bereft. It’s a fair trade-off. 

Last night however, I felt none of these things.  I wasn’t brimming with happy suspense, like a cat in bag, nor edgily nervous, like the same cat. I was indifferent. I went to bed a little earlier, but that was my only concession.  And I slept pretty well. 

I suspect this means one of two things. Either I’m the endpoint of evolution, or, more likely, I’ve changed schools/jobs/addresses/cigarette brands so often that there is nothing new about The New. My fickle nature has killed the thrill of change.  Variety may be the spice of life, but even a diet of curry needs a plain nan. 

In order to counter this, I’ve decided to take drastic action.  I’m going to not leave my job, not pack up my troubles in a Berghaus kit bag, and not hit the hippy trail in India, nor the Inca trail in Peru. I’m heading for darkest dull routine.  It’s new for me. I’m quite excited.

When Worlds Collide

I've tried to avoid writing on the attacks on the World Trade Centre, because I didn't want offend anyone. But fuck it. I'm going to. Anyway. the rest of the Western World is at it, so why can't I?

It is well-known that when Dubya was informed about the attacks on the Twin Towers he was in classroom reading a book with some primary school children, an action for which he was widely criticised.  I think this is a little unfair.  If I had nearly read a whole book for the first time in my life, I’d be loathe to put it down because the country of which I was President was seemingly under attack and three thousand people had just died in downtown New York.  Besides, I bet he really wanted to know what was going to happen to that hungry little caterpillar, and the world could wait an hour or two while he finished the remaining few pages.

I remember when the towers were attacked that I found it surprising, and horrific, but not shocking.  Anyone outside of The States was aware that the world was at best ambivalent towards it* and quite often antagonistic. Ask the Vietnamese. Or Guatemalans. Or Palestinians. Or French film directors.  So when in the news, in the days following the attack, we saw footage of people celebrating, burning American flags and dancing like drunken monkeys, it seemed to me that this would be a good time for reflection.  A time to ask ‘ Why has this happened?’. A pertinent moment in history for the USA to consider its role in the recent global history.

What we got instead was a machismoid explosion of unblinking patriotism.  The mindless chant of Yoo-Ess-Ay, the If You’re Not With Us You’e A Satanic Fuckbag, the search for Someone To Blame.

It’s a common reaction. Maybe it’s instinctual, maybe it’s cultural. But when something bad happens to us, our first knee-jerk is often WhoTheFuckDidThat? Quite often followed by AndHowDoIFuckThemUp? On a personal level, this will most usually result in, at most, light swearing. Quite often under the breath, with inner dreams of bloody revenge against the person we think cut us up at the traffic lights. Or took the last disposable barbecue from Asda. Or that twat in the black on the field who fails to notice that Wales’ kicked goal was possibly between the posts. We look to blame, even though sometimes, shit just happens.

The problem Dubya and his gang of blamers faced was that there were people who were responsible for the murders of over three thousand people.  Unfortunately, those were people were dead. Short of attempting a mystical quest to the Underworld to persuading Hades to let him bang out some Extraordinary Rendition, there was nothing Dubs could do to those people. There was no-one to hit back at. This was a perfect opportunity for reflection.

Unless you realise that Dubya has logic which works beyond that of the common-or-garden human. I suspect he realised that he didn’t like the attackers, and he didn’t like the Taliban. Therefore, as these two have his dislike in common, they must be the same. Ergo, the Taliban, a group of militants based in the mountains of Afghanistan were the same as educated Saudis with pilots’ licences, a bag full of vague grievances and a fierce drive to get laid by virgins.

The rest is history. And the curse of humanity is that we are doomed to learn nothing from history. Ten years on, Afghanistan and Iraq are changed, but violently unstable, The States are more expectant of an attack than ever, and they are still held in uncertain ambivalence beyond their borders.

I’d like to dedicate this to anyone who died needlessly in those attacks, and anyone who has died needlessly as a result of reactions to those attacks.  Ten years on, at a time of remembrance, let this also be a time for reflection and realisation.  When you try to impose yourself and your beliefs on people, and especially if you do that with violence, your achievement is the same.  You become a monolith, and people want to bring you down.

Darth Vader realised this, when he finally chose to sacrifice himself to bring down the Empire he had helped create.  Let’s take a lesson from the book of Jedi. Fear and anger lead to the Dark Side, and it’s called the Dark Side for a reason. Because it’s dark. What we need to do is stay in the light. It’s shinier.

*I don’t know whether to treat The States as a singular or plural.  I’ll do whatever feels best. I’m a bit Ayn Rand like that.

Back to School

Over the land night is falling. It is falling over the dark central plain of Birmingham, the treeless hills of Wales, falling softly on the Manchester Ship Canal and, farther Northward, softly falling on the dark mutinous estates of Newcastle. And as it falls, the late summer evenings hang heavy with the threat of imminent endings. Children across the country are preparing themselves for a future pregnant with potential and possibility*. It’s Back to School time.

Although customers of certain supermarkets could be forgiven for thinking that the schools holidays finished about five weeks ago, because that’s when Asda started banging out their cheap school uniforms and unreliable stationery. And advertising these in massive signs greeting everyone at the entrance. Just to let any kid unfortunate enough to see them know that their freedom isn’t going to last forever, so don’t get carried away. You may feel footloose and fancy free now, children, but in five weeks, you’ll be back in the hard grind of dry academic routine. A bit like being given a picture of a tombstone when you’re twenty, just to let you know that it’s all going to come to massive grinding halt one day.

At least, that’s how I see it.

I must admit, I was decidedly ambivalent about the end of the summer of the holidays when I was younger. In July, that start of the six weeks holidays spread before me, a picnic blanket of opportunity, and I would have fizzy notions of a summer of fun, and love, and saxophone solos, a bit like an old Coke advert.

 In reality, what I’d mostly get was grey drizzle, a family argument in Blackpool and unfulfilled romances with girls I’d briefly met at Moss Side Swimming Pool, girls with names like Melody or Tracy.  Heady days.

The start of the fresh school year meant, for me, the chance to lose myself in learning, to re-invent myself anew to my classmates. The warm still evenings as summer began to dwindle still carried enough of that Coke advert atmosphere for post-school afternoons and evenings to have the buzz of frivolous youth. Admittedly, about two weeks in I’d be behind with most of my homework, my new pens would have all run out, and my new shiny haircut would be getting its familiar uncontrollable nylon-sheen curliness. But those first two weeks were a brave new world, a chance at a pivotal life-changing progression, a living dream.

It’s a reason I still love this time of the year.  The swan song of summer is starting, but Autumn is some way off yet.  The nostalgia of recent holidays and barbecues and beers is starting to solidify, and I feel like a new phase is about to Kick Out the Jams**. Tomorrow, I will get a haircut, and maybe even buy a new pen.

And this year, I won’t fall behind with my homework. I promise.

*Apart from the one’s who aren’t
**Motherfuckers