Goodbye, Magpie

I am sure that venting my spleen and gnashing my teeth on the mundainity of life is of no interest to any one, so I thought I change my tact.

People love films, books, games, records and the like and I am no different.

So, I'm going to write about those things instead.

Bye, bye magpie - sleep easy.

New Year, New stuff etc (season 2, episode 1)

2009 is here and just like other years is promises to be interesting.  So, I have resolved to try and keep a blog for one year and see how it all turns out.

Went to our friends house last night to see in the new year - pretty dull, really.  I guess it dosen't mean as much as it used to.  Sat about drinking beer, making small talk and committing the most cardinal of crimes as a guest - falling asleep!!  Woke up in time for the fireworks and then we all left - at least I left some beer behind by way of an apology for my lack lustre appearance.

Woke up nice and late, had breakfast/lunch and played games with Alexia and the kids.

Oh, we made a clown costume for Peter's drama homework - he looks - interesting, if I can put it that way.  Black afro wig sprayed red, striped t-shirt with stuff stapled to it and a pair wellington boots.  Very camp, but then I guess that was the point.

More laying about and doing nothing.  Rang my mother and father to wish them a happy new year but they weren't in - probably out ass kissing my niece.  No doubt that will feature over the year.......

Episode 35 - Hardy Kruger - South African?

My wife is on the laptop in the kitchen - doing a forensic degree case.

I'm in the lounge, glugging my way through a bottle of Hardy's wine (I care not what type it is - Merlot? maybe...)

Anyhoo, hence the Hardy Kruger reference.

Strange - Hardy Kruger played a kaffir hating mercenary in Wild Geese (film) who died for a black man, eventually. Why am I mentioning this? Well, its a Hardy thing.

Judge the man (or woman) by his (her) deeds, not by anything else. Talking bollocks is easily done. The guy in Wild Geese did the right thing in the circumstances - see that? circumstances - "c" sounding like an "s" - sircumstances, hard becoming snake like in its "ssss". After all, you don't say sunt in the height of displeasure, do you?

No, you say c**t.

English is so strange, Here endeth the lesson.

G'night.

Interlude - Should you or shouldn't you?

I've just had an e-mail froma complete stranger, to which I responded.

No harm, I suppose but they could be mad? Chating can't harm, eh?

Just finished delivering human resource training in work. Am I the dullest man alive?

Possibly, but not as dull as the twats I've dealing with for the last three weeks.

Episode 34 - New Horizons?

Doing this blog has been interesting so far. Cathartic.

It has helped me express myself and it has helped me focus, too.

If anything the future has more in store for me on a creative level than it ever did. I'm not saying that I'm going to be the next this or that, but I am saying that I've rediscovered a bit of me that has laid dormant for too long.

Happiness is creativity. Its part of the human condition. We create and we are pleased with what we have done - hence happiness. We can't all be Rembrandt or Tchaikovsky, or Anthony Hopkins or Richard Burton, David Baily or Henry Moore. But in our own small ways we can reach out to others by our ability to create.

Yes, I'm waffling. But I see the way ahead is clear and I know what I must do.

And to top it off, I spent a pleasant day with my daughter - and I can't put a price on that. When my daughter and my three boys are with me I feel a sense of completeness.

Episode 33 - Crushed By The Wheels Of Industry

Stayed up late last night - sleep as elusive as the Scarlet Pimpernel. As sometimes happens to me, I paced my lounge up and down, nervously contemplating the next day at work.

I am really growing to hate my job with a passion that few can muster.

Eventually I crawl into bed and slow slip off into dream land. The usual suspects drift like mist inside my sleeping world - freedom, escape, loads of cash and no desk job. But before you know it, the alarm rings, its half past five and time to wash, dry and pour myself into my clothes, stuff my mouth with toast/flakes/tea/whatever and drag my semi conscious body behind the wheel of my C3 and point it in the direction of Swansea and the mountain of paper-work/figures/shit that no doubt awaits.

I'm spending the next two weeks putting a training regime together for my colleagues and I don't give a fuck. The day drags on and eventually its time to leave and its at this point that I briefly feel alive - a pause in my zombie like working trance.

Clunk-click and I'm strapped into my commuter-mobile and pointing away from Swansea and back home. Pancakes for tea and out again, children in tow to the local hall where they teach gymnastics. The children make shapes with their arms and legs for an hour whilst I look for the meaning of life in the nearby library.

Haven't found it yet, but I did find a book about DNA - seriously.

I return to the hall and children are bending like reeds in the breeze. Soon we are home again. A bed they go and the day peters out. I am numb with fatigue but the worry about tomorrow is soon revisited.

I seek salvation.

Episode 32 - Luck, Luck, Lucky!?

Like most fat and contented Westerners, I moan about the littlest things. Ooh, my PC has crashed, or there's no semi-skimmed milk in the fridge.

I've spent consecutive evenings watching films set in Africa - Blood Diamonds and Hotel Rwanda. Now, it struck me that for a lot of Africans life is pretty tough - getting killed by gun wielding psycho's, being ignored by well meaning whites and so forth. Not once did anyone moan about anything regarding semi-skimmed milk or fucked up personal computers.

Those two films, told me a bit about Africa, but not much. I am, after all, an ignorant European who for the most part concerns himself with consumerism and other crap. Nothing that I worry about really comes down to a life or death situation - I've got my health and a wide screen TV.

But what struck me is this. I ended up occupying the flesh and bones that envelope me this very day, but who is to say that I would not have ended up a Tutsi, or a man trying to find his family in the middle of some civil war, where life is cheap?

Yes, I moan like the next person but in essence I am a very lucky person - I just don't appreciate it very much.