In The Right

The other day, I remembered a couple of childhood arguments I'd had with my friend Chris. I haven't spoken to Chris for a number of years, so I haven't been able to verify these. But I'm pretty sure they're correct. Traumatic events imprint themselves on the memory. If you were ever chained to a post box, I bet you'd remember what colour it was.

The arguments are impressively petty, but the main thing about them is that, at the time, I found both of them genuinely upsetting. They weren't just pointless wind-up-your-friends devil's-advocate debate-as-sport arguments. They were completely serious. In both cases, Chris was being unreasonable. (This might be libellous, so I should probably change his name.)

Edgar was being unreasonable. I'm perfectly sure of this, even though I can't remember who was on what side for the first one. I think these arguments might have contributed to my many psychological problems. If I had a therapist, she'd probably lay the blame exclusively at Chris's door. Or Edgar's door. In fact, they live together. It's his fault that I'm thirty-one and still have a panic attack whenever someone asks me for a lighter.

Argument One

I insightfully claimed that if you're both hungry and thirsty, you should eat an apple. Apples are food, but also contain enough juice to unparch even the driest of throats.

He said that was stupid. You should have both something to eat and something to drink separately. He thought that was the better solution.

Do you see how unreasonable he was?

Though, again, I'm not 100% sure which side of the argument I was on. I'm fairly sure I was pro-apple.

Argument Two

This argument came about because of a joke I made. Yes, even back then, I was churning out material. I was precocious as a boy. Precocious and covered in pips.

My joke was a companion piece to something I read in a joke book. The original joke book joke was as follows:

What goes ha-ha PLOP?
A man laughing his head off.

It's a joke. This was the marble from which my own joke was... carved? Do you carve marble?

I took the existing structure, but added a clever twist. It's a bit like the stuff I do now, but more carefully honed.

My version was:

What goes boo-hoo PLINK PLINK?
A man crying his eyes out.

Pretty excellent. It's obviously a great joke.

But bloody Edgar didn't see it that way. Not only did he not find it funny, but he said that it didn't work because eyeballs wouldn't make that sound. Eyeballs wouldn't go "PLINK".

I claimed that they would make that sound (or something similar). Especially if they were falling into water (the aforementioned tears). He argued against this with too much force, with the result that I was close to tears. But not so close that I was able to prove my point.

What does it matter, anyway?! Plink, plonk, plop, plip... The noise isn't important. It's not about content! It's about form!

Edgar. If you're reading this, I expect a written apology within the next month. If you're not reading this, I won't expect that.

I think the lesson to be learned here is that children don't have a very good sense of proportion. The most innocuous of conversations can burn with the heat of a thousand guns.

The other lesson to be learned is that I've always been really funny and knowledgeable about fruit.

I might have an apple right now.

Because I'm thirsty.

***

I was going to end there, but realised that my previous blog post also ended with a proclamation of my thirst.

I don't want my family thinking I've got dropsy. Especially with Christmas coming up.

Honestly, I'm fine.

Right to Left

OK. This is the last one, I promise. Number six. The final beginning. You can only make one first impression (as you'll see, if you keep reading).

The fifth attempt was a disaster.

I've always been better at finishing things than I have been at starting them.

When I played football at school, there was a good playground taunt for people who were unable to score goals. "He couldn't finish his dinner!" they'd say.

Because in the football terminology, "finishing" is scoring a goal. So the metaphor works by suggesting that - though the context is different - the player in question would be unable to finish something (dinner) that should in theory be quite easy to finish.

That's what the taunt meant.

But there's always an escalation in playground insults. I took it to the next level.

Whenever someone missed a good chance, I'd say "He couldn't start his dinner!"

They'd question me. "What?" they'd say.

"He couldn't start his dinner," I'd repeat. "He's so bad at football, that he... it's not that... I mean... he not only couldn't finish his dinner, he couldn't even start it! That's how bad he is! At football, I mean. He couldn't even... er... his mum couldn't even go to the shops to buy the... constituent parts... to make his dinner! The dinner wouldn't even exist in a sort-of embryonic form. In fact, the mechanic that built his mum's car couldn't even finish making the car! So she couldn't even drive to the shops to purchase the ingredients to make his dinner, which he wouldn't be able to start, let alone finish! Or his dad. You know, if his dad does the shopping instead of his mum. ... That's how bad he is at football. He's rubbish."

By that point, it was usually the end of lunch break and everyone had gone inside. Which is good, because my zinger was still electrifying the air.

Yes. This has been a proper opening to a blog post. This will go on top.

Except for a photo of Brad Guzan.

***

I just made four attempts at starting this blog post. This is number five. The first was depressing, the second sarcastic, the third derivative, and the fourth nonsensical. I'll just move them down the page and start properly here.

The internet seems to be very slow at the moment. Maybe I should have stuck with one of the original openings (as the actress said to the gored bishop).

Oh, OK. We've just had an email about it. "Internet connectivity issues." It's not just me. That's a relief.

I'd better just ride it out.

You don't need to know any of this. I need to learn to keep my thoughts to myself. Just because I'm typing, it doesn't mean that I have to channel all of my thinking through my fingers. Sometimes it's best to keep your monologue internal. Not all information is of equal value. There's nothing "authentic" about a stream of consciousness - it's just obnoxious.

Yes, this blog is a window into my inner life. But a window doesn't indiscriminately let everything through. There's a pane of glass there. You may be able to see me undressing, but you can't smell my perfume. Less is more. If the reader is partially kept in the dark, they'll be all the more astounded when I whip out a candle.

***

I just made three attempts at starting this blog post. In the third one, I explained about the first two, and also talked about Lou Reed.  But I realised it was too obvious to write about Reed. Many people have written proper things about him, and are proper experts on his life and works. My observations lack conviction, so I'll just move that blog segment down the page and write something here about cowboys.

I'd quite like to be a cowboy. You can make your own schedule. It's like being an ice cream man.

I could sleep in as late as I wanted, as long as I didn't have a showdown to attend. I'm not big on drinking or whoring or gambling or riding horses, but I do like the idea of wearing a belt. Just imagine...

I think I'd mainly like to be in the Old West if I still had knowledge of the future. I'd do much better than Marty McFly. I don't think I have any descendants with terrible accents living in cowboy town, so I'd avoid paradoxes.

It would be really fun to impress people with my knowledge of the future. I could tell them all about avocados. They'd dismiss me at first, but then I'd convince them with my specific knowledge.

"They're a fruit or vegetable!" I'd say. "They're only ripe for a day, and even then they're all bland and slimy. Future Folks refer to them as 'the avocado pear'".

Then I'd take out a photograph of an avocado to prove I was telling the truth.

"You can make a dip that we call 'guacamole', which is quite nice," I'd say. But I'd pronounce it "gwak-a-moley" because they wouldn't be able to understand Spanish.

They'd probably make me mayor, or at least give me a job at the mayor's office, where I could use my futuristic filing skills and astound anyone who came into the mayor's office.

"The avocado pear." I'd use hand gestures to paint a picture.

***

I just made two attempts at starting this blog post, but realised that the first was too depressing, and that the second (which was intended to provide a positive counterpoint to the first) just came across as really sarcastic. So I'll just move both of them down the page, and begin with something else.

Lou Reed is dead. That's a real shame. He wrote a lot of good songs. Also, it's really fun to impersonate his voice. It's basically just talking in an American accent, but a bit more tuneful.

Here's one of his songs. It's about a whale.



I wonder how many songs have "battery acid" in the lyrics. Not enough, I say.

***

I just made a start on this blog post, but realised that my observation was too depressing. So I'll just move it further down the page. Instead, my beginning will be unqualified positivity! A spoonful of sugar helps the misery go down!

What a beautiful day it is! The big storm has come and gone, and has left a clear blue sky and lots of sexy leaves everywhere! There were three "ands" in that sentence! Awesome!

***

I get older every time I look in the mirror. As long as time keeps going forward, that will continue to be true.

Not only that, but every time I look in the mirror, I'm even older than my reflection indicates. It takes the light some time to reach my eyes, so the image that's processed by my brain is of a younger me. I'm older than I look, and I'm older than I can see.

Off and On

My thirties have been awful so far.

To be fair, it has only been a couple of months. But those two months have contained more misery than the whole of my twenties. My twenties were great.

But, thinking about it, that seems to be the pattern of my life. I seem to be on a bad decade/good decade cycle. It's a convenient way of apportioning joy and despair. It makes for few surprises. It's the only sensible way to sort things out. It's like racial segregation: simple, sensible, and beneficial to everyone.

My first decade, from ages 0-10, was great. What's that decade called? My noughties? I never liked that. Let's call it my zeroes.

My zeroes were fantastic. There were a few years that I can't remember, but I assume they were fine. I spent most of the decade eating jam sandwiches cut into triangles, watching Puddle Lane, and wearing colourful pyjamas. It was a golden age. I think I even liked school at first.

All my laundry and shopping and sock purchases were taken care of by my parents. I lived like a prince.

In my teens, everything changed. Ages 10 to 20 were a dark time. My body began to develop into something strange and unwieldy. My neurosis developed along with it. School became painful. My peers were all cooler and swearier and more confident than me. My sandwiches were cut into authoritarian rectangles. My pyjamas became drab.  

My parents still took care of my laundry etc, but I was now of an age to feel guilty about it (and yet too lazy to take on any extra responsibility). Bleak, bleak times.

After the dark ages of my teens, my twenties were a renaissance. I'd survived my first year of university, and had developed many key skills (such as drinking and downloading mp3s). I had some friends. I even managed to ensnare a wonderful woman with my charms and actual snares.

The decade was a non-stop rollercoaster of fun, parties, satisfying creative endeavours and personal growth. If you've been reading this blog for a while, you might think that I complained all the time during my twenties. But that wasn't real complaining. I was just experimenting with gripery, just as some people experiment with ecstasy or making your own sandals. I was happy all the time, throughout my twenties.

Even the parade of dull jobs, the lack of money, and the weary, bleary, feary, teary, smeary film of fatigue, were all exciting and fresh.

I was now able to cut my sandwiches into any shape I wanted! I could go back to the triangles! (I never did, but I theoretically could. That was the important thing.)

My twenties were certainly roaring. And that's not just because I lived in a lion sanctuary for the whole of 2005.

Almost instantly after turning thirty, things became bleak once again. I was ill, then I moved house, then... well, that's it. But there are a million micropain (that's French for small bread) crumbs in the cracks.

Once again, my pyjamas are drab. In fact, I don't even have pyjamas. Before bed, I just cover myself in grey paint. The brush tickles, and my sheets need changing constantly.

It's a difficult time. But hope is around the corner. If this good decade/bad decade pattern continues, my forties are going to be fantastic!

Life begins at forty, they say. And ends at fifty. Then it begins again at sixty. Then, if you're still alive, you'll have an eighties to remember (dementia notwithstanding).

The natural world has a way of making everything predictably fantastic and awful. God bless science. Without it, our lives would just be a meaningless soup of triumphs, tragedies and Terry Joneses.

But now, thanks to whoever discovered it, we can live in clearly delineated troughs: one of saltwater, one of fresh. The only things mixed are our metaphors.

I'm optimistic about the future. And pessimistic.

I can't wait until I'm 100. 

Summons

We all hate it when our friends become successful as butlers.

Behind the pats on the back and the congratulationses and the happy-for-you smiles, the resentment is clear.

We say: "Well done!"

We mean: "It could have been me."

It's a cliché that all young boys aspire to be butlers. It's just one of those jobs that boys are aware of. It's simple and it's exciting. Fireman, policeman, builder, butler. They're just jobs that men do. It's ingrained in us with every butler book we read and every plastic Fisher Price champagne bucket we pretend to fill with ice.

It's not that there's a glamour to butlering, exactly. It's something more elemental than that. It's a job that is so obviously necessary, it almost seems like a genetic imperative. Food must be found. Shelter must be built. Doors need answering. Water is wet. Fire is hot.

I don't remember a point where I "decided" to become a butler. It seemed like the impulse had always been there. It was second nature.

It all seems very sexist when I write it like that. I'm sure there are women who wanted be butlers too. If my daughter told me that she wanted to become a butler, I'd support her wholeheartedly. The primacy of male butlers isn't something we have to go along with. As a society, we can choose a different path.

But, as a child, I didn't know any girls who wanted to be butlers. Whereas all the boys wanted to be butlers. We used to play butler-based games in the playground. The girls would watch us as though we were insane. And maybe we were.

All of the boys want to be butlers at that age. Maybe from around seven to twelve, butlering is one of those default ambitions. These ambitions are encoded in us, to provide an aspirational safety net for those with no imagination. If you haven't got the drive to become something interesting and original, you'll still have that as-standard urge to be a butler. Or a footballer. Or an explorer.

But mainly a butler.

After twelve, this tends to dissipate. Children become more individual. They're all taking in a wide variety of influences and experiences, and engaging in the complex emotional-chemical reaction that will eventually produce a person; each as unique as a snowflake.

The boys who only months previously had all been miming ironing or tidying away a broadsheet, might now be miming karate or optometry or abseiling into a volcano. When puberty begins, butlering loses some of its appeal for a lot of us. We become interested in girls (or boys), and start thinking about driving and electric guitars. It's not that we dislike the idea of being a butler. It's not even that being a butler has become uncool. It's just that it falls down our list of priorities. We don't even notice it. It might be our parents who are the ones to finally realise that we haven't polished the silverware for weeks.

Most boys don't become butlers.

But some do.

There are butlers. They exist. There's a butler in most households of a certain stature.

And when we see these butlers, we can tell that, somehow, they've won. They don't gloat or anything. There's no sneer or smug raised eyebrow. But there's an energy to them. There's a vitality. There's a sense - and it's unspoken; possibly subconscious - that they've been able to hold onto something. Something most of us lost long ago.

Two of my classmates from school are butlers. I wasn't close friends with them, and I still only see them occasionally. When I do, they're perfectly civil. They don't even bring up their work unless I do it first (of course, I always do).

My job involves working in an office, with computers and spreadsheets. I didn't dream of this when I was a boy. I didn't spend hours in the garden fantasising about database maintenance. Nobody does.

I was a child. I wasn't interested in admin. There was no part of me that strived for it. I didn't strive for anything really. Children don't have the foresight to strive. All they want is to reach tentatively into a world of magic. And I, like the majority of boys my age, did this by strolling around the garden, chastising imaginary kitchen staff for their tatty aprons.

I dreamed of being a butler. I was a butler at ten. In my own head, I was. It was important, it was right, and it was essential. But somewhere along the way, it began to disappear. And like all dreams, I began to forget it.

I don't want to be a butler. I know I don't. It's a silly, impractical idea. But when I see my butler friends, it... makes me sad.

I'm sad for what I've lost. They've managed to bottle some of that childhood magic. They're still able to see their imaginary friends. They still know that their toys are real and alive. They are able to see past the artifice of the adult world. They realise that - despite the notion contradicting everything we're told as adults - children are the ones who have the right priorities.

What's important isn't having a family and buying a house and making money and buying a car and a satellite dish and holidaying in Kephalonia. It's not. of course it's not.

What's important is to wear a smart suit, and to perform vital personal assistance to a rich person who doesn't know your first name.

They're butlers, dammit!

And I'm not a butler.

I said I don't want to be a butler. I stand by that. I don't. When I look at my successful butler friends, what I feel isn't envy. I don't wish to be in their place. I wouldn't enjoy butlering as a profession. I'd find it boring and stressful. I don't have the discipline for it. I wouldn't like the dress code, or the pay, or the hours.

I don't want to be a butler.

It's just that when I see the people they've become - the people they've always been - there's a kind of emptiness. It's not a yearning. It's a gap.

I don't want to be a butler.

What I want is to want to be a butler.

by Paul

"It's colder than a yesterday up in here!" - anybody in my office

I keep shivering. I need a jumper. Can I wear my hoodie at work? Will it make me look unprofessional? Hoods are for the unprofessional. Professionals can afford detachable headwear. It's one of the perks of being on top of things.

I have so much to tell you about! I'm wearing a shirt. And you?

No, I'm not wearing you. I was asking if you were wearing a shirt. The misunderstanding was perfectly misunderstandable.

Remember when you were a child, and they'd make you sit on the floor? What was that about? It was demeaning. The floor was hard, as well. We'd have to sit through long assemblies with a hard floor beneath our cheeks. A carpeted floor would have been fine.

I think it was a way for the adults to prove their superiority over us. "Think you're big shots?" was their implicit rhetorical question (all implicit questions are rhetorical - if you want an answer, you need to explicitise).

"You're not big shots," they'd continue. "You don't even have chairs. You're already smaller than us, but now we've made it undeniable. Irrefutable. Plain. We tower over you. So don't talk, or fight, or answer back. Don't ask questions. Questions are for the chaired. You're not chaired. You're the lowest of the low. Literally. Except for the children in the basement. And they're dead. DEAD."

They said all this with their eyes, but the meaning was clear.

That's why, when I'm  the headmaster of a school with all the proper permits, I'll insist that children are suspended on harnesses three hundred feet in the air. All of the teachers will be in pressurised chambers six hundred feet below sea level. Our assemblies will instil in our swaying, terrified children a sense of importance. They (the survivors) are our future. We are subordinates.

We can teach them about fire safety on Skype. The risks will be illustrated by the magma swirling around our staff room.

Mmm... magma. I could do with some of that right now. It would be a welcome relief from the cold.

OK. Well, it's nearly break time. Let's reconvene here in about... fifteen minutes? Get yourself something to drink, visit the lavatory, and be back here by twenty-to at the latest. That's right: twenty-to. Yes, it does look odd written down.

***

Great - thanks for being so punctual. Are we all here?

Where's Neighthan? Oh that's right - he has a music lesson. He's learning how to play any trombone.

The agenda from the second half is on page three of your handout. The first page is the agenda for the first half. The second page is the agenda for the first page.

Let's just check that we got through everything.

Talk about how cold it is? Check.

A thing about hoodies? Check.

Children on the floor? Check.

We didn't cover Austria, but we can come back to that at the end.

In this session, I'm hoping that we can deal with some of the issues that have arisen from being alive.

I'd like you to all draw a picture of me and then post it on the internet.

Split yourselves into groups. Now re-coagulate. Great.

***

Sorry about that up there. Remember my last entry? The one about depression? That was proper writing. It was on one topic, and made some arguments. So I can do it. It's just that, as I said earlier, it's pretty cold.

I'm reading a book at the moment. It's Freedom by Jonathan Franzen. It's a rare foray for me into modern fiction, and it's a bit depressing so far. All modern fiction is.

Anything happy is frivolous. And anything short. Short and happy is a disastrous combination for a successful writer. That's why Sandy Toksvig is considered bad luck in literary circles. They have to cross themselves whenever she enters the room, and refill their pens with fresh sorrow.

I'm only reading Freedom on the recommendation of a former colleague/"friend" (let's call her 'A'). I can see why she liked it because she was an IDIOT.

That's possibly a bit harsh on 'A', but for all you know, she could be fictional (just like 'S', '88' and 'Felicity').

All of my friends, and most of my "friends", are fictional. That's why I don't get invited to many weddings or sued for libel more often. It's a great way to live. I'd recommend it.

Sorry - this was originally going to be sensible, to make up for the nonsense above the asterisks (the creepy twin in the asterattic). But I lost my way. I'll write a proper review of the book when I've finished. It will be interminable and lacking in insight, but will feature a photograph of me holding the book, looking intense.

***

Oh, you're still here?

Sorry, I thought I'd published this. It can get a bit confusing. Sometimes I have three browser windows open at once, just in case. It's hard to keep track of what I've done and what I haven't, who I've ogled and who I haven't and why I've succeeded and why I haven't.

I'll get this onto the internet immediately. It's not something that people will flock to, I'll grant you that. But the photo I'm going to put at the top of it (which I've yet to choose) will raise a few smiles down at City Hall (or if British: the Council Offices).

The Nobility of Sloth

It's been nearly two weeks since my last proper blog post. I hope you can find it in your hearts to forgive me. Rest assured, I haven't just been sitting on my laurels. I have a smorgasbord of two exciting things to talk about. This will be like when your co-worker has been on holiday for two weeks, and they have so many things to tell you about that you have to move desks. "I hate the Maldives," you can shout from your new vantage point.

The first exciting thing is a small observation. Sometimes the smallest observations are the most exciting. The big ones are dull. Say you observed the horizon, for example? No-one would care.

My small observation is about the Paralympics. I've hardly watched any of the Paralympics, not because of a deep-held prejudice against the disabled (no matter what my parole officer says), but just because the football season has started. Football takes precedence against all other sport. It's my bread and butter. Anything else is... something I have less often than bread and butter.

Actually, I don't really have bread and butter that often. So maybe all other sport is my bread and butter, and football is my... something I do eat often. Sweetcorn, for example.

Football is my delicious regular sweetcorn.

The Paralympics (and Olympics and rugby and darts) is the nice, but unnecessary, bread and butter.

And I'll be damned if I'm going to eat bread and butter when there's sweetcorn on the plate. Unless I have a sweetcorn sandwich, but that's taking the analogy in an unproductive direction.

However, I did see a bit of the wheelchair basketball, which is always hugely impressive.

(Is it OK to say that? Is that patronising? I worry for the Paralympics broadcasters who have to walk a tightrope of being politically correct, admiring and yet not condescending. It's a necessary tightrope of course - all those considerations are important - but if I was in the commentary booth, I'd be terrified that I'd accidentally let slip a hate crime.)

I noticed one thing about the wheelchair basketball that amused me. In able-bodied basketball, whenever a player is fouled and has a free throw, there's weird little bit of etiquette that's always observed. After the first free throw is taken, whether the player scores or misses, his colleagues standing to the side of the key ALWAYS step towards him or her, and give a little supportive fist bump or hand slap. It's a way of saying "well done" or "never mind". Or, more accurately, it's saying "it doesn't matter how well you do - we're all behind you".

You can see an example of what I'm talking about here (you won't need to watch the whole thing):



I wonder where this ritual came from. Probably, it was an organic show of support that just happened one day. But now, everyone has to do it every time. What was originally a nice show of support has become routine. There can't be any thought behind it. It's just an obligation.

It's like saying "bless you" after someone sneezes. Originally thoughtful, but now a chore. The only reason to say "bless you" or give your team-mate a fist bump is because it would be rude not to do it.

What I noticed when watching the wheelchair basketball was that they do exactly the same thing. Of course they do - it's a convention of the sport. It's just that when you're in a wheelchair, it seems more like hard work to go over and touch hands. This pointless ritual requires valuable arm-strength. But they do it anyway, because that's just what happens.

Of course, me thinking this probably is patronising. Them rolling a few feet is as easy and natural as an able-bodied player walking. It's just part of the game.

I don't really think the convention is pointless. I mean, sport in itself is a pointless ritual. It would be weird to be annoyed at a pointless subset of it. It just shows (instinctive, meaningless) thoughtfulness and camaraderie. I think we can all admire that.

***

The second exciting thing I've thought about is how Matt Le Tissier has ruined my life.

I might sue him.

I'm a Southampton F.C. fan, and so Le Tiss was my hero growing up. He had an effortless talent that made everything he did look easy and beautiful. Here's a short illustration of his genius:



Le Tissier was notable for being:
a) fantastic, and
b) lazy

He didn't train hard, he wasn't in a amazing shape, he didn't run all over the pitch, he wasn't a bone-crunching tackler. He just wandered around like a pensioner kicking seashells until it was time to get the ball, skip past eight opponents and then rifle a shot into the corner of the net.

I think it was because of him that I valued the nobility of lazy genius.

It wasn't just him, in fact. I always preferred the louche, skillful enigma to the hard-grafting model pro. I'll always choose Cantona and Bergkamp over Keane and Viera.

The trouble was that this isn't a great lesson for a child to learn. The idea that, not only is laziness OK, but that it's preferable, to hard work isn't a good basis for future success.

That philosophy says: working hard is cheating; succeeding with minimal effort is ART.

If you work hard and achieve nothing, you've failed. If you don't work hard and achieve nothing... big deal - wake me for lunch.

I think this harmful idea must have grabbed me at some point. All of my school reports said the same thing: "Paul is bright, but needs to try harder", or... [I was going to write another example, but couldn't be bothered]

I don't really work hard at anything. I just hope that my natural talent will lead me down the path of glory. The trouble is, my natural talent is far from evident.

If you're a footballer, the nature of your talent is clear. You can be lazy if you do what's required of a footballer. If you don't work hard, but score goals and win matches, there's no problem.

But if your life is lived on those terms, it's not the same. You can't just be lazy in life, with no specific talent in any area. That's not lazy genius. That's just lazy.

I've been so caught up in with venerating the nobility of slothful brilliance that I've forgotten all about the brilliance.

In my head, sloth is worthy on its own terms. Genius would be nice, sure. But the sloth is key. One day, a talent may emerge to make this whole position justified.

"You see!" I'll say. "I was right to not try hard."

If it doesn't emerge, I can still say "Well, at least I had more sleep than you did. One-nil me!" and then die with a smile on my face (only because it's apparently less hard work than a frown).

It's Le Tissier's fault! I wanted to be like him! If I'd have grown up idolising Phil Neville, I'd probably have a lot more money, a lot more dress shoes and one hell of a well-tended garden.

This seems to suggest that I'm unhappy with my life. I'm not. I was just playing Neville's advocate. I totally believe the Le Tissier philosophy is worthy. With my potential locked away, there could be oceans of the stuff. If I release it, I might realise that I only have a pipette's worth of inspiration.

Trying hard is for chumps. Dedicated, respectable chumps.

It's better to burn out than fade away.

And even better than burning out is the idea that people will say: "I bet he's the kind of guy who could, hypothetically, burn out spectacularly".

***

Here's a bonus, related, exciting thing.

Ironically, the only thing that I actually have worked really hard at is football.

I have no natural talent at football whatsoever. As a child I struggled with this. Playing football is such a big part of developing into a well-adjusted WKD-drinking, deafening-car-stereo-hard-house playing, deadbeat 19-year-old dad. If you have no skill in that area, you're cut off from a whole social circle.

So I worked hard. I played it a lot. I practised on my own. I enjoyed it! I put in the hours and eventually, I turned myself from a footballer with no talent into a footballer with the bare minimum of talent. Whatever the smallest unit of football talent is called (I believe it might be "the Downing"), I had one of them.

I was still terrible. But I had just enough ability to play in a kick-about, complete a sloppy Cruyff turn, and not have to run away if an errant ball came my way in a park. All through hard work and dedication.

In the end, Phil Neville had the right idea.

"If you have an evident talent dearth // graft is a must, to show your worth."

He is a very wise man.

Self-Assessment

It's that time of year again.

***

I wrote that earlier on today, and I have no idea what it means. What time of year is it? March? Noon? Michelangelo's birthday? Will Eisner's birthday? Rufus Hound's birthday?

I didn't know any of those things until I looked them up on Wikipedia just now (except for March and noon, which I remember from school).

I was probably going nowhere.

That's probably what time of year it is: nowhere o'clock. I just looked at my watch and I don't have one, which proves my point.

I'm procrastinating today. I have my work appraisal this week, so I have to think about what my job is. It's very stressful. Nothing has changed since last year, but we're all supposed to have ideas and goals and objectives and opinions. I have some of those, but none are work-related. So instead of knuckling down, I'm knuckling up like 3 Ninjas, even though I only have a third as many knuckles.

The appraisal involves talking about my job, which I can handle. But there are also sections asking me to identify my strengths, what changes could be made to make my job better, what career aspirations I have, and what learning and development might be useful.

Filling in these sections is torture. But I'll do it here to get my brain working. I can then edit them for swearing, then copy and paste them into the actual form.

(I realise this is a public forum, so keep in mind that I've never mentioned where I work, and that even if I did, there could be hundreds of people with my same name and face.)

Strengths

Freestyle rapping, walking down bus stairs when the vehicle is in motion, random italicising, impersonating Rod Serling, looking tired.

I really have no strengths that can be applied to the world of work. Any actual useful traits I have are immediately cancelled out by my laziness. I always say that I'm a good problem solver. That's a nice vague strength to list. You can tell it's true because I've solved the problem of what strengths to invent.

Changes

I don't want things to change. I mean, I'd like more money and fewer hours. But I generally don't want to rock the boat. I'm stuck in a nice little rut here (in my boat), and changing things could lead to difficulties. Improving things inevitably leads to disappointment. Never improve, never evolve, never experiment. Just sit tight in your rut-boat and wait until you die of exposure. Which will be quite a while, because my rut is rather sheltered.

I think I should probably be asking for more responsibility. That's what a human would ask for, right? But I don't want responsibility. It's enough of a struggle trying to dress myself.

Oh, here's one change idea: FEWER APPRAISALS. They should be like the Olympics: one every four years, me dressed in Lycra, and a horrific accident in the steeplechase.

Career Aspirations

This one's the tough one. I've been in my job longer than pretty much everyone else in this office. I've never been promoted. I've never wanted to be promoted. But people must be wondering why I'm so happy to remain stationary.

...

Hang on a minute. This has all gotten a bit serious, hasn't it? I didn't intend this. I thought I'd use this to generate hilarious content, but I've ended up just whining. I'm not even that downbeat about it. I'm fine. My job is fine. I must just tend towards misery.

I'll try to right myself.

Career Aspirations

I think I'll say I want to be Pope. I'll insist that it's a realistic goal. I'll continue talking about it for far too long, monopolising the allotted meeting time. I'll go on long diversions. I'll ask for advice in achieving this goal. I'll expose my ignorance of the papacy, and my own atheism, but will continue to ramble on until long past bedtime.

Learning and Development

Some kind of martial art. I'll ask what's available. If no martial arts are being taught at my place of work, I'll teach one myself. It will involve dressing up as a pencil and drawing an offensive doodle on any would-be assailant. I'll offer to make pencil costumes for everyone.

I'll wear a pencil costume into the appraisal and not even mention it for the first three quarters of the meeting. I'll wear it all day. I'll be respected.

I'm wearing it right now. I am respected.

But people must be wondering why I'm so happy to remain stationery.

YES. I WENT WITH THAT.

***

When I was a child, I invented my own language. I think it's probably a common thing to do.

Children are bewildered by the world at first, and it takes a while to learn all the rules. You're buffeted from idea to idea, from experience to experience, with no grounding and no morality. You have to learn as you go. Your parents might help you, but they are only slightly less clueless than you, and they've forgotten what it's like to be young and have a fresher cluelessness.

But you struggle through. You learn the ropes. And then you want to take some measure of control. You want to be able to create. You want to be able to set the agenda. So you experiment.

Some kids invent an imaginary friend, or create personalities for their toys, or have a secret haven inside their own head. They've become gods. They can create their own worlds. You may not be able to drive or to smoke or to eat ice cream before dinner, but you can be the emperor of your own special realm.

Creating a language is part of the same trend. You want to have access to knowledge that no-one else does. If you create a secret code, it's your private playground. Even your parents don't have access to it.

You can share it with your friends or your siblings, but it's yours. You've planted your flag in reality, claiming a small area of mental space as your own.

So I invented a language.

I called it "Spanish".

I named it after the country Spain (which before 1989 spoke only Portuguese). It sounded silly, but I was only a child.

First of all, I invented some nouns. For example, "bordillo" was my word for "curb".

Then I branched out into verbs and adjectives and... those other words that aren't those things.

I shared it with my sister and some close friends.

Within two years, the entire country of Spain had adopted my language as its own. Other countries, including several Latin American ones, followed suit. Soon, "Spanish" was being taught in schools and used to write great works of literature. Even Don Quixote was translated into Spanish.

I was quite pleased by this, but grew a bit bored of it by the time I was twelve. I've forgotten most of my language now. I think "búfalo" is some kind of car.

Still, it just goes to show how children deal with the world. My desire to create something lead to a whole something something something something

***

For fun - for a game - try to identify the exact point I lost interest in that hilarious comedy idea. I think you'll be surprised by how early it was.

Have a lovely day.

Milk

When I was fourteen, nothing interesting happened.

I didn't realise at the time. My base level of interesting was all screwed up. Because nothing interesting had happened when I was twelve or thirteen. So I thought some of the things that happened when I was fourteen were interesting. But they weren't interesting.

I bought some shoes. Probably. And I probably thought that was interesting. I might have told people about it at the time. I might have told the anecdote with verve and creative flourishes. What was the salesperson like? What kind of socks was I wearing? Did I have any second thoughts?

But that's not interesting.

I was fourteen on December 13 1996. You probably don't remember what you were doing on that day, because nothing interesting happened.

It was my birthday. I found it interesting at the time; all the cake and bows and cards. But it wasn't interesting.

I'd have to wait until fifteen before anything interesting happened (I entered a pact with a milkman).

***

When I was fifteen, something interesting happened.

I realised it at the time. My base level of interesting was still all screwed up. Because nothing interesting had happened when I was twelve, thirteen or fourteen. But even so, I could tell that this particular thing was interesting. By anyone's standards (except perhaps Batman's or Roy Keane's).

I opened the front door to bring in the milk, which was in a white polystyrene box with a numbered dial on the front.

The polystyrene was (I assume) to keep the milk cold, no matter how hot the ambient temperature was. On this particular day, it was quite chilly. But there was no point in having a separate non-polystyrene milk container for cold days. No point at all. It would have been an annoyance.

The numbered dial could be moved around to indicate how many pints of milk we needed. Quite clever, really. No need to write a note every time. The late 90s was an exciting time for milk pint request indicator technology.

I opened the front door to bring in the milk (or bring the milk in, depending on your persuasion).

But the milk and its polystyrene container weren't the only things on our doorstep. There was also a man there. He was wearing an apron, and white overalls. He was the milkman. He had a beard. He might still have a beard for all I know.

He was sitting on the doorstep, and as I opened the door he looked up as though he'd been expecting me.

"Finally," he said.

"I'm sorry?" I said. (I don't think I actually said that. I was inarticulate and impolite as a fifteen year old. I probably said "What?")

"I've been waiting for ages. It's freezing out here."

In retrospect, I should have suggested he construct a man-sized white polystyrene storage box. That would keep the heat in. But I only thought of that later.

"I need your help," he said.

"Oh right. What do need?" I asked.

"Someone who can keep a secret."

"Oh. Right." I didn't know if I could keep a secret. But I didn't voice these doubts, which suggested I probably could.

"I need to tell you something."

"Why me?"

"You've got something about you."

This unnerved me, because 1) I didn't think he knew anything about me, and 2) he had a beard, which I had been conditioned to associate with sex offenders.

"I think you can understand," he continued. "I need someone I can trust."

"Oh." I didn't know if I was someone he could trust. But I'm writing about it now, which suggests I wasn't.

"You see these numbers?" he asked. "On the dial?"

I did see the numbers on the dial, on the white polystyrene milk bottle box, so I nodded.

"You see they go from one to four?"

"Yes," I said. I'd noticed that before. I'd wondered what would happen if you needed more than four pints of milk. If you were having a party or something.

"There's a secret number. No-one else knows about it. Just me. And in a minute: you."

"Oh," I said again. As I said, I wasn't very articulate as a teenager.

"Look," he said. He turned the wheel.

The mechanics of the wheel were like this: There was one white plastic circle with numbers printed on it. In front of this was an opaque blue plastic circle, blocking all of the white circle, except for a hole cut in it. As you turned the blue circle, the hole would reveal, and highlight, a specific number.

If you turned the blue circle until the hole was over the '3', for example, the milkman would be able to see the '3' and would leave three pints of milk. Simple, but ingenious.

So, as I said, he turned the wheel. It was over the '2', but he rotated it, revealing the '3' and then the '4'.

"You see?"

"Yeah." I had seen that before. I wasn't impressed.

But he continued to turn the wheel. The hole in the blue circle now revealed nothing but plain white plastic beneath. I felt a bit disappointed. I could have done this myself. But then, as the wheel had turned three quarters of a complete circle, a new number appeared.

"You see?"

"Yeah," I said - this time impressed.

I can't remember exactly what the number looked like. I think it was something like a funky 'H', but with some extra bits.

I looked up at the milkman, hoping for some more explanation. But something was different. He was... flickering.

I don't know how to describe it exactly, but his whole body was disappearing and reappearing at speed. A bit like a Star Trek effect. He was smiling. I wasn't.

I quickly turned the wheel back to '4', and the flickering stopped. "Are you OK?" I asked.

"Yes. I'm fine."

"What was that?"

"I think... I don't know, but I think... that the secret number transports milkmen to another dimension."

"Oh."

"I tried it before, and the same thing happened. I think it's some kind of magic. Or just science that seems like magic."

"Right."

"But I always turn the wheel back after a few seconds. I get scared."

"Yeah, I suppose you would."

"Can I trust you?"

"I think so."

"I want to go all the way to this new dimension. But I need someone here to man the number wheel. I just want fifteen minutes there. In that other world."


"But why me?"

"I told you. You've got something about you."

"I don't know what that means," I said, thinking about closing the door. "Haven't you got any friends or family that can help you?"

"I haven't got any friends. I haven't got any family. That's why I want to go to a new dimension."

"You think there's going to be friends in this new dimension?"

"I don't see why not."

I fiddled with the handle of the front door, thinking.

"So will you help me?" he said.

I was getting scared and bored, so I said "Yeah, OK".

"Just give me fifteen minutes," he said. "Then turn it back to 4 and I'll come back." He reached out his hand to shake mine.

I didn't move.

"Come on," he said. "It's a pact."

I shook his hand.

He steadied himself, dusted off his apron, and gave me the nod.

I rotated the wheel once more, to the strange new 'H'-ish number, and he began to flicker. Seconds passed and the flickering became faster. Strange particle ripples swept up and down his body, brightly coloured, faster and faster, until at last, with a smile on his face, he disappeared.

I checked my wrist (I wasn't wearing a watch) and went back inside.

But suddenly I remembered, and opened the door again.

I took the lid off the polystyrene box, and picked up the two pints of milk inside. I put the box lid back on and went back inside. My dad had been waiting ages for his Fruit 'n Fibre.

***

When I was sixteen, nothing interesting happened.

Clippers

Yesterday, a colleague of mine - let's call her 'S' - said that my head shape was unusual. I got my hair cut today.

These two things are not connected.

They genuinely weren't. In fact, I hesitated before having my hair cut because I thought just such a causal relationship would be assumed.

I was happy with my head shape. I'm not always happy with it - but I was yesterday.

When my hair is long, it goes through a cycle. When it's washed, it becomes fluffy and puffy and horrible. I look like an inflatable Lego man.

Then, it gradually gets greasier and greasier, and starts to look much better. The puff and the fluff is replaced by a ramshackle style. I look like I'm one of those sexy young people (bear with me), too busy to groom yourself properly, but too vain to stop worrying about it. That's where I was yesterday - all tousled and glamorous.

I don't know what affect this had on my head shape. I can only imagine it made it look pointer, flatter, 3Der, hairier or 8% Byzantine.

But this can't last forever. I'm not one of those people who can never wash their hair. You know which people I'm talking about: free-thinkers, free-lovers, children of the soil, Pagans, Carl Sagans, or students. I'm not one of those. So I had to wash it, and the brown cloud returned.

My hair was too long, and I had to destroy it. My head now looks considerably smaller.

But whilst 'S' and her cruel observations didn't force me into an unwanted haircut, people have done so in the past.

(I'm writing in a weird way today. It can't be helped. I have to be me.)

I remember when I was a young human (let's say I was 13), washing my hair. I don't think that was unusual, but the consequences were. I'm not sure if it was the length, the drying technique or the hair-care product in use, but my hair puffed out like a mushroom cloud. My puffy-fluffy 'fro had emerged.

It's not an Afro, or a Jewfro, as I'm not a member of either of those ethnic groups. And onequarterTrinidadChinesethreequarterscaucasianfro is a mouthful. But there it was.

I looked stupid and knew it.

It might have looked something like this:

This stupidness was confirmed at school the next day. An older boy laughed at my puffy hair-hat. There may even have been insults thrown. I don't remember the specifics. I've probably blocked them out.

Humiliated, I insisted that my mum take me to have my hair cut that night. I didn't want to face such a barrage again. She kindly took me, and I had my hair cut very short.

It might have looked something like this:

The following day at lunch, in the same seat, the same older boy laughed at my radically different, but equally stupid hair.

I'd learned an important lesson.

Don't kowtow to bullies - they will always find something to laugh at. Also, push them into traffic.

And so I did. That boy was laughing out the other side of his face. And peeing out the other side of his pelvis. I had the last laugh. He had his last solid meal.

Some of that isn't true. I think I lost the moral somewhere. It was probably about hair or the Manhattan Project.

Anyway, I now have short hair. My short hair doesn't go through a [Lego man > glamorous > filthbag > Lego man] loop. It will stay the same for some weeks. And my head shape will presumably stay quite consistent.

The life-cycle of my hair is fascinating. But no matter how much of it I send to David Attenborough, he's always to busy to cover it.

The story, not the hair.

My body hair is also hugely interesting, but the illustrative photos of that cycle have been confiscated by Thames Valley Police, along with the baseball bat I had earmarked for Sir Attenborough. It has a picture of his face on it, and is covered with my hair (and some of his I found in a scalp once).

I call it my Baseball Battenborough.

***

Stop writing...

NOW.

Firefly

I didn't play with matches as a child. I didn't pull the legs off insects. I didn't smoke behind the bike sheds. I didn't smoke at all. We didn't even have any bike sheds.

I didn't get anything pierced. I didn't shoplift. I didn't swear at strangers. I certainly didn't litter. I didn't spit in the street. Or at all. I never told my teacher to fuck off. I didn't skive off school.

I did listen to music with a lot of swearing in, but it was mostly in my bedroom at a reasonable volume. Certainly not blaring out of my headphones. Mobile phones weren't around, but if they had been, I would categorically not have played my music out loud at the back of the bus.

I didn't beat anyone up. I didn't do graffiti. I've never smashed a window.

I didn't get drunk before I was seventeen.

I've never been in trouble with the police. I was never suspended or expelled from school.

But...

but.


But every Monday, from the ages of twelve to eighteen, I would set fire to an old people's home.

Not the same one, obviously. I'd get caught. And burning down ashes is no fun.

I mixed things up. Sometimes I'd travel to another town, just for the thrill of it.

I didn't play with matches as a child. I mentioned that before. But I did play with a cigarette lighter and some petrol. I did dabble in the odd Molotov cocktail.

I don't think I caused more than five or six fatalities. The old people's homes were pretty well drilled - they usually got everyone out OK. It was only the odd heart attack or forgotten loner that felt the lick of the inferno.

They got more and more prepared as the burnings continued. My reputation grew. The Grey Flame, they used to call me. I think. I've lost my scrapbook, but I think that's not just a name I made up.

The Grey Flame.

Sometimes, when I was scouting my next geezer barbecue, I'd overhear the residents talking about me in hushed tones. They were afraid. "Who could do such a thing?" they wheezed. "What's the world coming to?"

The world was coming to smouldering rubble. But I didn't say that.

Show, don't tell.

Sometimes I'd rescue insects from the fires. I didn't burn the legs off insects. They'd done nothing wrong after all.

I've never smashed a window, but I've melted a few. The fire brigade smashed some, so perhaps I was partly responsible.

Eventually, I outgrew it. Like you outgrow Guns N' Roses.

The Grey Flame was extinguished, and the elderly residents of Southampton could rest easy in their starched beds. They'd get consumed by loneliness, which is colder than fire, but penetrates more deeply. And has thicker smoke.

No-one ever found out. Because I was nice to my teachers and didn't tattoo bus shelters.

I was a good little boy.

***

That certainly went in an interesting direction, didn't it? It started with an honest description of my goody-goody childhood, then became quite dark.

That's probably what happens if you don't smoke or spit as a child. The smokers and spitters probably write really cheerful blogs about how much they love their disgusting children.

Incidentally, I don't think fire engines should be called fire engines. It makes them seem like they're supporting the fire. Arsonists should drive fire engines.

Fire fighters should drive water engines.

Or ladder wagons.

Of course, ladder wagons are currently driven by people who repair tights.

It's counterintuitive.

Scare City

Because of the Internet, we can no longer think good.

So says IDIOTS.

There's a curious tendency amongst people from all over the political spectrum to be suspicious of modern technology and to question the implications it has for the way we think.

Our attention spans are too short. We can no longer form real relationships with people. There's too much out there and it's too easy to get hold of. Cats doing unlikely things aren't that funny.

Well, I agree on the last one.

Except for the really funny cats.

People say the Internet has changed the way we think. And this might well be true. There are lots of experiments on the subject. But it's never clear whether this is a change for the worst. It's just assumed that it is.

Do you think the general intelligence of the population is significantly lower than it used to be? Are today's children more isolated, emotionally disconnected, and unable to deal with sophisticated ideas?

I don't know. I think it's unlikely, though.

There's a strange impulse amongst adults to disenfranchise the young. Ours was the last true generation. Modern music is rubbish, exams are getting easier, playing video games kills your imagination, kids are obese, apathetic drones.

Not like it was in my day.

Of course in my day, the same arguments were going on. And I suspect they always have been.

People criticise new technology as a matter of course. Before video games were ruining our youth, television was. Before that, radio was.

People complained about the printing press. "Our children," they probably said, in clogs, "are going to be slaves to the printed word. What happened to remembering things? How can we expect our children to engage with the world if they have it stored in books instead of neurons (which haven't even been invented yet)?"

Surely we won't know the ramifications of technological change until we've lived with it for decades. This Luddite fear of the new is dangerous but seemingly inevitable.

I'd feel patronised and oppressed if I was a modern youth. Thinking the world is against you is a cliche of the rebellious teenager. But guess what? IT'S TRUE.

On the video game example, people are always talking about how it robs children of their imagination. They're just brain-dead automatons numbly shooting people with massive guns. This is the assumption made by people who have no idea what they're talking about. They don't like games, so assume they must be damaging.

But let me tell you, I played a lot of video games when I was growing up. And - whilst I may have a litany of other social, physical and mental disorders - lack of imagination has never been a problem.

The idea that there's too much information, too freely available is ridiculous to me. I think people remember their childhoods, where you had to wait a week for the next episode of your favourite programme, you had to search through record shops for the obscure new album you wanted, you had to write people letters.

[Stewart Lee made me think of this. I think he's amazing, but his attitude (or the attitude he presents) to the modern world annoys me. He's always making unfair comparisons; citing the things he liked as a young man - alternative, good, interesting art - and relating them to the most banal mainstream media of today. There's probably more to write about him, but I just thought I'd vent a little.]

I can see why people like the idea of things not being immediately presented to them. I like finding rare things in rare shops, I like collecting things. But this is still going on. The Internet doesn't mean the joy of the hunt is over - it's just taking place over a different landscape. People are still finding interesting art, niche sub-cultures and minority opinion, it's just that they're searching online rather than onfoot. And this is a global search.

Not only that, but people still do go to record shops and search out rarities in the physical world. The Stewart Lees of this generation are still going to record and comic shops, but they also have an huge world of possibility open to them online.

Too much possibility, some might say. But some are dicks.

Imagine this scenario: a thirteen-year-old is standing in the British Library. Almost all literature is available to her - more than she could ever hope to read in a lifetime. All manner of subjects and opinions, epic poems, classic novels, books on how to make the perfect fruit salad. Books are everywhere, and she has free reign to explore any avenue her mind presents to her.

Now is anyone imagining this situation and thinking: "That poor child."?

I hope not.

Scarcity is not inherently valuable. If your locked in a windowless room for your whole life, you may develop a deep understanding of the room. You may become an expert on skirting boards. You may be able to concentrate for long periods on a single picture-hook.

But it would be better to unlock that door.

The Internet is fantastic. Well actually, the Internet is neutral. But the possibilities are fantastic. Just as they are for all technology. As long as prissy middle-aged worriers don't keep shutting off these innumerable yellow brick roads just because they didn't have them as a child.

Yes, your childhood was magical.

So was mine.

And what's more - and I know this may be hard to take - the children right now, the youth of 2011, are having childhoods just as full of wonder, mystery and depth as yours were.

Childhood Stories & The Lost Bear

"Macho Man" Randy Savage died yesterday.

He pretended to punch people for a living,

For a short while his picture was just above Mark E Smith's on the Guardian homepage, but seems to have been replaced by a woman in a blanket or some delicious-looking honey and treacle cake.

Randy Savage was a strange fellow - perhaps the epitome of professional wrestling: intense, flamboyant, ridiculous, athletic, coked-up and utterly enthralling.

Thinking about him got me thinking about some other things. Which is dangerous. I'm not very disciplined in my thoughts (you may have noticed that from reading my blog before).

I don't like to follow sign-posts down a well-trodden woodland track. I get distracted by a blackbird in the distance and barrel off through the trees like a hopped-up Robert Frost: muddy footed, weary legged, my face whipped by branches. I lose not only the path, but the very concept of paths.

But I've thought about what I'm going to write about. This is a rarity for me.

So I'll try to stick to the diffuse points I'm trying to make.

(Hey, isn't it strange that defuse (as in "defuse the bomb") and diffuse (as in "diffuse the situation") come from different etymological roots, but both amount to a quelling of danger? What's that? Oh, right. I'm supposed to be on the path. Sorry.)

Some signposts on the way to my destination are 'the last day at the Dell', 'performance art', childhood imagination, comic books, and the time I was engulfed by a corduroy octopus.

Except the last one isn't true.

Let's get cracking.

[Hold the Cracking. I just want to offer a disclaimer: I've probably covered some of this before. If you're a fanatical Headscissors fan, you may find this frustrating, like a Simpsons nerd enduring a clip-show. Sorry. I'll be back with a new take on cormorants next week.]

Children like stories.

These stories can come from books or television, or they can be invented. But children like the idea of grand, alternate worlds.

The real world is full of rules and barriers. As you grow-up, you're constantly testing your limits, finding out what's possible, and being forced to conform to the reasonable standards of the world.

You don't get the full world of possibility opened up to you until you get older.

If you're reading about a strange fantastical world - the world of Harry Potter, for example - you get the fun of these rules and barriers being broken. The limits of possibility are different. People can fly, monsters exist, and - crucially - children have power.

In fact this power can be realised in a genuine way when children create their own fantastical worlds. If you have an imaginary friend, or a teddy bear, or a doll, or a pliant younger sibling, you can make them do whatever you want.

Maybe not everyone does this to the same extent, but I did it a lot. I created scenarios, characters, extensions of existing books (where I was usually the star, of course).

You create stories, and these stories are interwoven with the real world. They are important to you. Really, genuinely important.

When a child loses their favourite teddy bear isn't just the loss of a toy, it's the loss of a friend, and it's felt totally genuinely. The grief caused by the loss of this toy (whilst it probably won't last as long) is just as keenly felt as the loss of a real person.

And I'm just tickling the edges of the point here - Randy Savage can probably see me in the corner of his ridiculous glasses. But I'm not ready for him yet.

You see, the thing about these stories - and the vivid role that they have in our lives is... we grow up.

Well, we're supposed to.

As you get older and are dealing with real people on a more complex level, it's expected that the invisible friends will disappear for good and the teddy bears will go away into the toy chest.

You've got more important things to deal with. Like SATs. And friends. And motorbikes. And University. And spouses (spice). And mortgages. And The Archers. And then Death.

You don't have time for the world in which you're the world's richest robot musketeer. It's not practical when you're getting your car MOT'd.

But I was never very good at growing up (as I've discussed before). And whilst I have achieved some things that adults do (I have a job, I've built a shelf, I've bought a tie, I've bandaged my own head wounds from falling shelves [with a tie]), I've held on to some of these old worlds. Possibly to an unhealthy extent.

Of course, the joy of the internet is in finding thousands of people who are just like you. And thousands that are much more pathetic.

There are three key worlds that I'm most interested in, and have been (off-and-on) since I was a child. They are comic books, football and professional wrestling.

I think they key similarity between these three worlds is the scope of the narrative. I love big, long, epic stories. I love callbacks and references to earlier events. I love a sequel that refers to an event in the original film, or a last episode of a TV show that mimics the pilot.

I think I like this narrative because it provides a poetry and neatness that real life lacks. There's a justice and a romance to it. It rewards people who have been following the narrative all the way (perhaps because they don't have a girlfriend - who can say?).

And I think comic books, football and pro wrestling are all part of a longer narrative. They have all been continuous from my childhood to now, and started before I was born. They all stitch fictional or semi-fictional events to the real world, or (like a lost teddy bear) allow us to ascribe deep and genuine emotion to stuff that, in real terms, doesn't really matter.

Comic books, and specifically superhero comics, and even more specifically Marvel superhero comics, have been telling stories from the same universe for over seventy years. You can trace the histories of these characters through all that time, through world events, fashion, slang, thousands of writers and artists, various interpretations in different media, all the way up to today.

The Captain America I read about in a comic book each week is the same character that a child was reading about in 1941.

On a personal level, the characters I'm reading about now are the same as the ones I read about when I was seven. Whilst I didn't appreciate the sophistication of (some of) those stories then, I was still in the same narrative world.

So these characters mean something to me. They've been with me when I was in school, when I was a grumpy teenager, when I was a bamboozled university student, and when I'm a bearded blogger.

That continuity, that magic, that romance, that justice, is a constant companion. (Except for those ten years when I stopped reading them, but that ruins my point). These fictional characters and their fictional universe are to entwined with my real life, that they become real to me. And whilst I don't think I've ever had a hugely emotional response to events in comic books, it would be legitimate for me to do that.

Because I have had emotional responses to football. Sports are the more acceptable face of weird fanaticism for the silly things. It's a mainstream passion. People get angry and distraught and elated by football, and it's accepted. Even if it's just a bunch of whiny, overpaid prima donnas kicking a ball around a field.

Football is different of course, in that it isn't written. Its justice and beauty is temperamental and unreliable. It's manufactured by the framework of the game, rather than the determination of the events themselves.

But it has the same nostalgic bond to life. You might see an elderly fan seeing his club win a trophy for the first time ever and he'll have tears in his eyes.

And those tears won't just be happiness and the presentation of a silver cup. It will be tears for his middle-aged self who sat in the same stand with his kids, getting his hopes thwarted. It will be tears for his teenage self, who listened to the game in a French brothel before the war broke out.

It will be tears for the childhood him, who watched the same club take part in the same story - a story you can trace from now, to then, to 1880 - and wanted to see his heroes win the same meaningless trophy.

That's why the emotion is genuine. Comic books are a story. Football is a story. And we've been following it all our lives.

One of my favourite football memories was an example of the game seeming like it was written.

You always get people talking about 'fairytale moments' in sport, which usually just means a rubbish team beating a good team.

But there are times when it seems like it's been written, and your investment in such a frivolous thing is rewarded. It might be an player returning to his old club to score a last minute winner, or someone making amends for a costly mistake.

For me, it was the last game at The Dell.

The Dell was Southampton FCs stadium - the smallest in the Premiership by far - and was a bit of a tiny, cramped, shithole. There were awful trough urinals, our initial seats afforded an almost 5% visibility look at the pitch, and it was great.

We left for a our new (larger, brighter, friendlier, more boring) new ground in 2001. Anyway, in the last game of the season, we were drawing 2-2 with Arsenal and Matthew Le Tissier (idol and waning superstar) came on and scored a great last minute goal. He was the hero and scored the last (competitive) goal in the ground.

Here it is (you can skip to 4:12 to see the goal):



Everyone wanted him to do it. It made sense in terms of the narrative. Our greatest star, giving our home the appropriate send-off. So when it actually happened, it was incredible. It was like living - for just one afternoon - in a film. Even if it was a rubbish Sean Bean film, it was still a film!

It's always good when real life feels like fiction. As long as it's good fiction. I don't want my life to feel like Birds of a Feather.

(I'm wondering if I should go back and put some more jokes in this entry)

So, that's comic books and football. Which brings us to professional wrestling, which is where we started all those many words ago.

Pro wrestling is a weird combination of comic books and football. It has the form of sport, but the predetermined nature of fiction.

If an interest in comic books is about the characters seeming real through lengthy proximity, and football is about ascribing the conventions and attributes of characters to real people, what it wrestling?

It's both of those things and neither of them.

Wrestling has been in my life, more or less, since I was seven years old. It's also part of a story. In this fictional world, these people are really fighting for real championships; they're genuinely hating each other. And this fictional narrative isn't just followed by one company (like comic books), it's adhered to by companies from all over the world, with all their regional variations. It's been going since the early twentieth century, and will probably keep going in one form or another for a long time.

It's as though there's a global agreement to accept the validity of our imaginary friends, place them in the same universe, and totally accept them as real and important and worthy of attention.

Wrestling is a strange thing for me to like. I can see how 70% seems awful and hokey and its morality is hugely dubious. But when it's done right, it's the ideal combination of fiction and reality, preposterousness and real emotion.

I'm sad Randy Savage is dead. There are other wrestling deaths that have affected me more.

I think the reason they seem particularly difficult to take is that the line between the character and the performer is so blurred. My imaginary friend is the same as a real person in the real world with the same name and facial hair.

If we love a particular band, is it the musician or the music that we love? It probably varies. But even if you love the musician, you're not seeing them every week. Wrestlers wrestle all the time (which is why so many of them die young, I suppose). They become a part of my life.

The person playing the wrestler and the character/product he creates are inseparable. Where does Randall Poffo end and Randy Savage begin?

In wrestling, the artist IS the art.

This is probably true of things like ballet and other performance artists too - the human body becomes the canvass on which beautiful images are painted.

So when Randy Savage dies, I'm thinking of the seven-year-old me watching him hit someone with a sceptre, the ten-year-old me watching his gloriously emotional soap-opera reunion with his wife, the teenage me being thrilled by his insanity, or the current-day me watching him on Youtube shouting and emphasising seemingly RANDOM words.

Now that's very selfish. That's the child in me, being sad that his teddy bear was lost.

But there's the not insignificant fact that he was a real man with a real family, who will miss him in a very real way.

Here's a nice little tribute video:



As I said, I wasn't particularly upset about his death, it just sent me down this train of thought, and so I decided to write it down.

I'm quite pleased that I've managed to stick to this path and haven't staggered off the dusty trail to wallow with some hippopotamuses. I'm also glad I didn't abandon the trail as too long, even though it plainly is. And there are probably very few of my readers who are interested enough in comic books, football and wrestling to make this a worthy read.

Oh well. Rest In Peace Mr Savage.

As a tribute, I'll talk like you ALL day, yeah.

Bang Bang

Children like weapons.

I certainly did. Even though my parents weren't too keen on buying me any violent toys.

I can totally understand that impulse. Any good, liberal, humanist parent would like their children to grow up without knowing the feel of cold steel, or cold plastic steel-equivalent.

It's much better for children to grow up being interested in cars (environmental damage and crash-risk), stuffed animals (enslavement of living things) and sports (steroids and homophobia).

I probably wouldn't want my children playing with toy guns either. Violence begets violence. Guns beget guns. Knifes beget stylish ankle-holsters.

But they're just so cool.

A swashbuckling sword-fight is always going to be more fun than a teddy bears' picnic - unless the bears are mutants with Uzis (which will damage the fine china).

The trouble is that violence is a part of so much of our cultural history. Not just actual history, but myths and fairy tales and films and television. It would almost be impossible to keep children protected from violence.

But do I like that kind of reasoning? The idea that violence is 'natural'? Most people who appeal to nature do so to justify terrible atrocities. "Of course I kicked the dog into a load of stinging-nettles: it's human nature."

The pro-gun lobby use that kind of argument all the time.  And they're idiots. It's funny how people only use the "it's only natural" defence for things they like. So bible belt puritans can proclaim the inevitability and righteousness of gun ownership, but condemn masturbation as an 'unnatural' evil.

I suppose violence at a young age can be damaging, or could be a natural expression of fundamental human needs. The way children grow up is complicated.

I'm sure there are children that play violent video games and watch horrific films, but grow up to be real sweetie pies. And children who are forbidden television and end up shooting a policeman out of boredom.

Sweeping statements are almost always statements that should be swept into the bin and set fire to.

I remember going to Toys R Us with my mum, wanting to get a Marvel action figure. (This was my favourite thing - and my mum's least favourite thing - which shows how much she loved me).

There were two that I needed: The Punisher and Dr Doom.

But my mum thought they both sounded too horrible. So I didn't get either.

I'm sure she didn't refuse to buy them - but I could probably sense that she was suffering in the Cathedral of Plastic Capitalist Terror and didn't want to make things worse.

To be fair, she had a point about The Punisher

He 's a Vietnam veteran whose family was gunned down by mobsters, and started a one-man war on crime. I don't know if that's a suitable toy for a child.

I suppose heroes teach us important moral lessons. The Punisher might have taught the eight-year-old me that street punks deserve lethal justice. That's an important thing to learn as a child.

The moral of the Spider-Man stories is 'with great power comes great responsibility'.

The Punisher story teaches us 'with loads of guns comes a large amount of smoking, bloody justice - also: WEAR A SKULL'.

But still: 'CAP FIRING WEAPONS'? That sounds pretty fun.

Dr Doom, on the other hand, seems fine. I mean, he does have an ominous name. But that's not his fault. It's his name. He's called Victor Von Doom. If he was called Victor Von Smith, he'd be called Dr Smith.

But he wasn't. You can't ask a man to give up his heritage.

And look how jolly he looks! He's like a special gnome. With a steering wheel for some reason.

POWER DRIVEN WEAPONS too.

I don't know what that means, exactly. All weapons are driven by some sort of power. Except for the Spontaneous Knuckleduster, which works through magic.

Look at his little tunic! If I had a tunic as a child, I would probably have done better at school.

Also, Doom is the ruler of Latveria. He has his own country.



Children need to learn about diplomacy and handling responsibility and creating robot replicas of yourself and battling that accursed Reed Richards!

Even without these horrible toys, I found ways to be morally dubious. You can make a sword out of a big stick. You can make a Howitzer out of a complicated configuration of sticks.

But I think I have a rational and correct attitude to violence.

I don't slaughter criminal scum, I'm opposed to gun ownership, I admire swords on a purely aesthetic basis, and I have not yet killed a policeman.

You can't hide the ugly facts of life from children. But you can condition them to understand what ugliness is, and why compassion is preferable.

And if they don't understand?

Give 'em the belt.