Category life

Mar 5 2013

A state of war now exists between our two countries

Falkland Islands

Falkland Islands (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Camping in the Forest of Dean during a chilly April in 1982 was not my idea of fun. Some people like to be at one with nature. I’m not one of them. I like my accommodation to have stars (the more the merrier), central heating and a bed. Preferably with some soft down pillows that you can just sink into.

When we arrived, there was a list of jobs waiting for us. The first thing to do was to put up the tent. It was massive. We were not. It was a struggle. Then we had to make a drying rack out of whatever we could find. If you know we’re going to need a drying rack, why not pack one.

Then one night, everything changed. The word went out. Something big was about to happen. We crowded into the only tent with a radio. The Prime Minister, Margaret Thatcher, made a live broadcast. Her tone was sombre. Her words were deadly serious. The Argentinians had invaded the Falkland Islands. Britain would put together a task force to retake them. “Where are the Falkland Islands?” someone asked. “Just off Scotland.” someone replied sagely. It felt like the most momentous event ever.

After the radio broadcast, some gurus came on and discussed what that meant. We then learned that the Falkland Islands were not just off Scotland. They were a very long way away indeed. Our task force had a very long journey ahead. It would be weeks before they arrived. America tried to broker a peaceful deal between the two countries in the intervening time, but to no avail.

War should always be a last resort, but there was a certain purity of purpose about the conflict that has sometimes been missing from later engagements. Argentina invaded because they though they owned the islands. We retook the islands because we disagreed. You could argue about who’s right and who’s wrong, but there is no doubt about why each country behaved the way it did.

Apart from the abortive diplomacy efforts by the Americans, there were only two parties involved. There was a definite trigger and the conflict came to a definitive end with nearly a thousand people dying in the process. The argument still rumbles on because both sides feel they are right. Funnily enough, a state of war was never officially declared.

A small garrison remains there to this day. The cost of this presence equates to over $30K per year per islander. If we spent as much for everyone in the UK, our defence budget would rocket by nearly $2 trillion!

I wonder if we had this clarity of purpose about the Iraq and the Afghanistan conflicts, would they have taken so long and cost so much? Would they have achieved more?

Would they have even started?

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Feb 16 2013

Broken, battered and bruised

Automobile crossing rope bridge

Automobile crossing rope bridge (Photo credit: The Field Museum Library)

Buying your first car is a rite of passage so it seemed fitting that Dad came with me to help me make a sensible choice. I don’t know why this made so much sense at the time because all of Dad’s cars came from that twilight zone between bangerdom and the crusher. Every crap car from British Leyland and Ford had broken down with us in it, usually during the journey to or from our holiday destination. Nevertheless, armed with a thousand of my own hard borrowed pounds, we made the pilgrimage round the classifieds in search of the perfect vehicle.

Car after car didn’t make the grade as Dad carefully looked over them. A superb looking Mini Clubman with sporty spotlights was dismissed as too sporty. Another car went because there was more rust than car. Some cars were too big. None were too small. At the end of our trail, we found the Goldilocks car, a white Renault 5. It was the rock bottom, bargain basement, base model. It didn’t even have the most essential item of equipment in it, a stereo. It had an 850cc engine which had just about enough power to make the thing move and it cornered on its wing mirrors (or it would if it had any wing mirrors).

An awful lot happened in that car. A few weeks after I bought it, I drove along a residential street. I wasn’t going very fast because the Renault didn’t do fast. From in between two parked cars out came a football bouncing into the road. In the time it took my brain to make the connection that it might be followed by a child, a terrified boy appeared spread-eagled on my bonnet before he bounced off. I think it’s the only time I’ve ever hurt anyone. After the police disappeared and the boy went off in an ambulance, I got back in my car, shaking like a leaf. Before I drove off, I noted with sadness that the child’s mates were still playing football in the road despite the earlier accident and the fact that a football field lay on the other side of the road.

Various bits fell off the car and just about everything failed. The brakes failed when I came down Midland Hill once. The car in front of me braked and came to a stop, indicating to turn off. I braked and my car didn’t stop at all. In the end, I had to drive up the bank at the side of the road. The clutch failed when I went to college. I dropped it over at the clutch garage one September morning and made my way to college. That was the day that the hurricane hit the UK. Late afternoon, I gave them a call to see if it would be ready to take me home.

“Errr… we’ve been having a few problems today mate. Was it the Renault?”

His use of the past tense alarmed me.

“You see, the roof’s fallen on it and we’re still digging it out.”

I really appreciated all the time my Dad took to help me choose the right car, but when I bought my second car, I went alone.

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Feb 9 2013

Tastes like chicken

As a child, I wasn’t very keen on eating meat. It was nothing spiritual, I just didn’t like the taste or the texture. I quickly worked out that our family dog had no such qualms. I used to slip my chunks of meat to him through the crack between the table and the wall. It made for a happy partnership. He got to eat something better than dog food and I managed to clear my plate, thus not incurring the displeasure of my mother.

Public domain photograph of various meats. (Be...

Public domain photograph of various meats. (Beef, pork, chicken.) Source: http://visualsonline.cancer.gov/details.cfm?imageid=2402 (via http://geekphilosopher.com/bkg/foodMeat.htm) Public domain declaration: http://visualsonline.cancer.gov/about.cfm (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

It was only when I joined BP, where the staff restaurant served up 3 course gourmet lunches for the princely sum of 5p, that I started to experiment. As I could pick and choose what I wanted and no-one cared if I left it because I didn’t like it. I found that I enjoyed eating some meat, providing it’s thinly cut and not too fatty. I like meat to have the right form factor. I get very suspicious when the meat chunks are perfect polyhedrons or the edges are perfectly rounded like the chicken you sometimes get in a Chinese take away.

Anyone following the news in the UK will have seen the unfolding scandal of irregular discoveries in the testing of meat and meat based products. Supplier and retailer alike have fallen foul of the DNA tests carried out by food inspectors. Time and again, where one would expect to find beef, the inspectors have found horse. In one particular case, they found pork in supposedly halal meat supplied to a prison. The problem seems to have stretched throughout the supply chain and has probably been going on for some time.

All this makes my toes curl. It’s not so much about eating horse. What else have they been putting into these products? It’s bad enough that sometimes I start looking around for a hungry dog when I think about eating meat. I sincerely hope that the perpetrators are found and harshly punished. Misrepresenting foodstuffs is a low act. If I had my way, they would be sent to prison where they would be fed on a diet of mystery pies filled with all manner of dead flesh. Each day, they would be told they were eating beef.

Maybe it’s no coincidence that the word “hamburgers” is an anagram of Shergar bum or “dodgy beef” is an anagram of “feed by dog”

 

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Jan 29 2013

Kicked out of the Disneyland bar

Disney

Disney (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

I’m not a fan of Walt Disney. Despite this, Julie keeps threatening to take me to Disneyland with our nephews and nieces. The thing is, I’ve already been to both Disneyland and Disneyworld. It seems bizarre to me that companies select these as conference venues. Techy nerds and Businessmen are hardly the demographic that Walt had in mind. I’m sure there are people who are big fans of these temples to the great Mouse God who go again and again, but there wasn’t much there that appealed to me.

I once saw a documentary about how they train people for a life in the service of the largest media conglomerate in the world. Apparently, they even teach their employees how to smile. Either the receptionist who served me was yet to go on the course or she had forgotten how to do it. I was tired. I’d been travelling for nigh on 18 hours and I really wanted check in to be smooth. I gave her my reservation number which she couldn’t find on the computer. As far as she was concerned, that was that. It took some stamping of my feet and some holding of breath before she gave me a room. To be fair, the room was amazing with more beds than we had in our house at the time.

Whilst we’re looking at the bright side, breakfast was excellent. I loved the spicy house potatoes and the service was superb. I happily tucked into my breakfast whilst reading the complimentary newspaper. I was in a world of my own, so it took a while to notice something moving around in my peripheral vision. There was something dark bobbing around trying to catch my attention. I slowly looked up and came face to face with Goofy. His nose was inches from mine and he gave his trademark guffaw. I told him to go and find some kids.

I went out for a walk. The pretty pastel pathways and the twee music playing from just about everywhere got on my nerves. In the middle of the complex was the bar. In the middle of the bar was my boss. We sat together in the sunshine and had a beer whilst discussing the conference so far. It wasn’t long before some other delegates sat at a nearby table. After a short delay, they waved us over to join them. As the night went on, the conversation became more and more lively. Suddenly two of the girls decided to kiss each other. My boss turned to me and said “I’ll have some of that” and joined in. The rest of us looked on in shock at the three-way kiss.

It was certainly an icebreaker but it didn’t last long. An enormous black man in full blue uniform arrived, only distinguishable from one of LAPD’s finest by the tiny set of Mickey Mouse ear epaulettes on each shoulder. He sounded like a very angry James Earl Jones and he made himself heard.

“Hey! This is not a sex show.” Then in a softer voice, laden with pride “This is Disneyland.”

He ejected us from the bar and we walked back to the hotel. My boss left the elevator first. One of the ladies decided she wanted to go with him. In the resultant tussle, they fell over, breaking his rib in the process. Not a great souvenir as his journey home was agonising.

One way or another, looks like one day, I might be savouring the delights of Disneyland once again. Let’s hope it’s less eventful next time.

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Jan 20 2013

Snow, why does it have to be snow? I hate snow.

2013-01-19 11.16.03

There’s a bit in Raiders of the Lost Ark where our illustrious hero, Indiana Jones, peers down into the pit he’s about to enter. He spies a writhing mass of reptilian flesh before collapsing back, ashen faced. “Snakes, why does it have to be snakes?” That’s exactly how I feel about snow. The very sight of the stuff makes me feel bitterly cold to my core.

I explained my prejudices to Maisie, to which she responded “Yes Uncle Martin. Let’s go out and make snow babies!” So either she is already not listening to a word I say at the age of 3 or her aching, burning desire to have fun in the snow trumps my need to avoid frostbite. What exactly is a snow baby anyway? When I grew up, snow creatures only had one gender and they were always grown up.

She wouldn’t take no for an answer and before long we were playing in the snow. I started rolling a ball of snow in an attempt to make a snowman. The snow was far too powdery, and as soon as the ball reached any kind of respectable size, it collapsed in on itself. Maisie was not impressed. I tried to convince her of the inferior quality of the snow, but something in the look she gave me dispelled any notion that she might have believed me.

“Let’s go sledging” I said. In the absence of a purpose-built sledge, I reasoned that the lid of the recycling bin was roughly sledge shaped. Up the hill we trudged. When we got to the top, I gave Maisie a hearty shove. Her progress down the hill was much like that of a reluctant mule. The bin lid travelled slowly and stuttered to a stop with annoying regularity.

2013-01-19 14.45.02Drastic action was needed. A trip to the sledge shop was in order. The man at the shop mentally sized Maisie up before proposing a lime green plastic sledge with a lever on each side to control the brakes. Maisie’s face lit up. “My sledge has brakes!” In her mind, she already owned it. A short while later and we were back on the slopes.

This time, when we reached the top of the hill, a shove wasn’t needed. It was all we could do to hold the sledge in place. Once released, it flew down the hill like a rocket with Maisie squealing with delight. Did it soften my stance towards the cold stuff? No. But I might have secretly had a tiny bit of fun. Just don’t tell anyone.

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Jan 12 2013

A hurricane in the North Sea?

Esbjerg PedestrianArea

Esbjerg PedestrianArea (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

We hadn’t been told where we were going. The best man told us where to turn up and to pack for a few days away. Eventually, our coach, packed with rogues and vagabonds, turned up at a port. The terminal was chaotic. The departure boards told us our destination, Esbjerg. “Where the hell’s Esbjerg” asked Bob the Fish.

Eventually we boarded, an hour late, and made our way to the bar. Although the vessel was a glorified ferry, the operators had cruise ship aspirations and there was a full entertainment programme. The compere was a dead ringer for Dale Winton, just a little more camp. He took a shine to us and kept coming over to our table. Someone suggested he fancied Bob the Fish, although I doubt anyone believed that.

The crossing was rough and our drinks slid around on the ringed table. Although much of it slopped over the sides, we consumed enough to ensure a good night’s sleep in our tiny cabins. When we awoke, the ship  had docked and we made our way into town. We had a look around, but found ourselves inexorably drawn to Esbjerg’s only Irish bar, Hairy Mary’s.

The following morning, there was a compulsory sightseeing trip whilst they cleaned the ship. Our party split into those who were hung over enough to insist on staying on board  (including the groom to be) and those who went sightseeing (including myself and the best man). The tour guide introduced himself and the itinerary. It didn’t sound exciting.

“What do you think of my English?” he asked. The coach replied with a chorus of “very good” and “yes”. He explained that Danish children study English from the age of 5, but don’t start learning German until they reach 11. “You might think this is strange, as the only country we border is Germany. This is because we hate the Germans!”

He pointed out Esbjerg’s tallest building (which had burned down) and 3 enormous statues. He asked us if we liked them. Again, a chorus of “very nice” and “yes” from the coach. “We hate them” he said. “They were a gift from the German government.” He took us to a fish museum (which was more interesting than it sounds). Bob the Fish was in his element.

We eventually found ourselves in a quaint Danish village, when I received a phone call. It was the groom-to-be. He told me that the ship would not sail in the morning as planned so they were going to jump on a train over to Copenhagen and fly home. I passed him over to the best man and they had a blazing row.

When returned to Esbjerg, a storm had really taken hold. It was difficult to stand. It was even more difficult after a night in Hairy Mary’s. Making our way back to the ship involved leaning into the wind at a 45 degree angle. At one point, I turned my back to the wind and was astonished to see the road we’d just traversed submerged in water. The cars from the adjacent car park floated into the sea.

Panic reigned inside the terminal building. An angry mob had assembled at the enquiries desk. A German man at the front screamed at the lady behind the counter “You told me my car would be safe!”, every syllable punctuated by his fist slamming on the desk. Somehow, we managed to blag a flight home in the morning  for which we swore not to tell a soul and made our way onto the ship.

We told Dale Winton our story. He told the ship. A TV crew came on board to film the passengers. They interviewed us and Bob the Fish announced our free flights home on Danish TV. As we left to catch our flight, Dale Winton handed the best man a tape. He’d recorded our interview for us. He joked that recorded over his favourite porno. The best man looked very nervous heading through customs.

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Jan 8 2013

But we’ve only got one bed

English: Buccleuch Dock, Barrow-in-Furness

English: Buccleuch Dock, Barrow-in-Furness (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Mum used to take in lodgers. It was great to have someone different around the house and they helped to pay the bills. One day, Two quirky young guys from Barrow-in-Furness knocked at the door. “We’ve come about the room” they said in a heavy Northern accent. Each of them held a large kit bag with a spirit level sticking out the top. One had a mop of curly blond hair. The other had long hair and bad skin. 

Mum explained that we only had a single room. They looked crestfallen and pleaded with mum to let them stay but she was resolute. After a short pause, one of them asked if they could at least leave their heavy kit bags at our house whilst they went off to find somewhere else to stay. Something about them made mum acquiesce and off they went without their bags.

A few hours later, they knocked at the door again, obviously drunk. “It’s too late to go anywhere else now and our bags have caused you no bother and neither will we – one of us can sleep on the floor. Go on – please!” For some reason, mum agreed and allowed them to stay, but just for one night. I can’t remember exactly how long they stayed with us, but it was a few months.

Their names escape me now, but at the time they spent a lot of their social time with me and my younger brother. They were great fun, but they were a bit of a handful. If they ever saw a police car driving past, they would insist on flashing their bare buttocks regardless of their state of sobriety.

One day, one of them invited up to Barrow-in-Furness for the weekend. If I shared the travel costs, his mum would put me up when we got there. His mum’s expression when she saw me on the doorstep suggested that she hadn’t been consulted.

It was an eventful weekend.

The first night, he took me into the local town to meet his girlfriend, Rose. Barrow-in-Furness is one of several towns in the UK that lays claim to having more pubs than any other so it was lively. Within half an hour, they had a blazing row in the street. He stormed off. Rose proceeded to rip off all her jewellery (which took some time) before storming off in the other direction.

I stood in the middle of a strange town on a Friday night, holding a large pile of jewellery and the only two people who knew his mum’s address had buggered off. A policeman noticed me standing there and approached. “This had better be good sunshine” he said. Luckily, the boyfriend returned as I clumsily tried to explain the train of events.

The following day, we joined a load of his friends to drive around the lake district. At one point, the convoy of cars screeched to a halt and everyone jumped out and ran down the hill. I ran down after them and found them urinating in a river, laughing maniacally the whole time. They were still laughing when they drove off. A few hundred yards further on, the source of their amusement became clear. Around the corner people drank from the river thinking it had healing properties. 

They were two of the most colourful characters I’ve met and I wonder what they are up to now.

The sort of characters that would be good in a story…

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Jan 6 2013

Freezing cold folklore

English: A tree branch completely en-globed in...

English: A tree branch completely en-globed in freezing rain. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

For some reason, my internal thermostat is completely broken. I’m the one that is thinking about maybe removing my jacket if it gets any warmer whilst the people around me are dripping in sweat. As a result, I really suffer from feeling the cold, which in this country, at this time of year, is no fun. Luckily December this year has been lovely and mild, but as we head into January, as sure as ice is ice, things are going to get a lot colder before they get warmer.

For the past few years, this country has had a really hard winter. I know that there are people out there who look at our 12 inches of snow and laugh because they are used to much hardier weather, but for us, it’s a big deal. I hate snow, because just looking at the stuff makes me feel cold. People ask me if I’ve ever been skiing, but the thought of hurtling down a hill on two flimsy bits of fibreglass in the freezing cold is not my idea of a good time.

I don’t know what’s made me this way. Maybe it’s because of some of the things people told me about the cold when I was growing up. “You can’t go out wearing that or you’ll catch your death” or “you need to dry your hair before you go out or you’ll freeze to death”. Despite ignoring both these sage pieces of advice, I don’t remember any near death experiences.

“You need to wear a hat, because 90% of body heat escapes through your head.” Really? Why am I bothering with all these clothes then? I’d be better off going out in just a hat. Somehow, I don’t believe a word of it. Even if I do put a hat on, it doesn’t stop me from shivering – it just means my ears are warm.

When I used to come in from the cold, I’d take my shoes off and rest my feet up against the radiator. “You don’t want to be doing that – you’ll get chilblains”. “You will – you know! And you don’t want chilblains!” Again, despite these warnings, I have never had a chilblain and I don’t know anyone who has.

My favourite has to be “It’s too cold to snow”. Really? Where did all that snow and ice at the North and South Poles come from then? I’m glad I’m writing this sitting next to a radiator, because otherwise, my teeth would start chattering.

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Dec 26 2012

Her Majesty in 3D

Queen of United Kingdom (as well as Canada, Au...

Queen of United Kingdom (as well as Canada, Australia, and other Commonwealth realms) (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

British history has to be among the richest in the world. There’s murder, betrayal and revolution (and that’s just Henry the 8th. Quite how my history teacher at school managed to bore me to tears about it is beyond me. She could take the most fascinating events in British History and reduce them to a boring monotonous drone. As a teenager, some pretty exciting stuff fought for my attention, so it was no surprise that I switched off during her lessons.

Since leaving school, the games I play mean that I have a renewed interest in history and there has never been a better time to be a history buff than today. There are some fine period dramas and some great historical documentaries to say nothing of the rich literature literally falling off the shelves.

Yesterday, in Buckingham Palace, Her Majesty made history. Every year, as she has done for 60 years, she gives her traditional Christmas address. For many British families, it is something that is intricately woven into the tapestry of Christmas. An essential part of the yuletide celebrations, life pauses at 3PM for 15 minutes to sit down with a glass of sherry and listen to what the Queen has to say.

Whilst the monarchy ceased to hold any political power, she is still a big part in Politicians’ lives. As all Prime Ministers before him, David Cameron has to go and see the Queen once a week to talk about how things are going. It all happens behind closed doors and details of any discussions are strictly confidential. I imagine there have been some pretty tense moments over the silverware during some of the more fraught political events of the past.

So, to David Cameron, seeing the Queen in 3D is a weekly event and although she remains outwardly neutral, I bet it’s at the back of his mind that he doesn’t want to do anything to incur her displeasure. After all, she retains the ability to dismiss governments should she ever consider it necessary.

I can think of many things which would benefit from being broadcast in 3D. The swooping and diving of Avatar for example, the fast paced car chases from James Bond or the sweeping vistas of scenery in a wildlife documentary from some far away land. The Palace said they wanted to do something different during the Queen’s diamond jubilee year and far be it from me as her humble subject to criticise, but I think the Queen has more than enough gravitas without such gimmicks.

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Dec 18 2012

A year in blogging

Nations: A Simulation Game in International Po...

Nations: A Simulation Game in International Politics (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

I am an eternal optimist. Depending on whether you share my outlook, you will either think this is a blessing of a curse. I always tend to look on the bright side and I always think that the next 12 months will be better than the last. Even in the face of a few knocks, I tend to dust myself off, take a deep breath and carry on.

This is the year I started this blog. I already had a blog on finextra.com and an internal blog with my employer, but I set this up as a playground to write what I wanted and hopefully improve my writing skills. After 8 months, 123 blog posts, an estimated 60,000 words, 100 comments and 300 likes has it been a success?

The fact that I still love blogging is a good sign. In general, my interests tend to have a short, intensive life before they burn out in a fit of apathy. The only exception up until now was playing games which has lasted for decades. I am glad to have doubled my hobbies. In general, I spend about 6 hours a week writing blogs (and probably the same again thinking about what I’m going to write).

Although I’m probably not the best judge, I feel that my writing has improved. The style checker used to have a field day underlining my initial efforts. These days, there are fewer suggestions for improvement. Whereas I used to struggle with the dreaded passive voice, these days I now understand what it is, instinctively avoid it and I’m comfortable with where I use it – something I never thought I’d get the hang of.

WordPress is an amazing platform. The way they use game mechanics to encourage bloggers to keep going is a brilliant piece of design. I still get excited when I receive notifications. It is also an unbeatable way of finding other interesting blogs to read on a diverse set of subjects.

Everything I read about being a good writer tells me that I should read more. I’ve read more books this year than ever and it does help with both style and imagination. I’ve been careful to challenge myself with what i read as well – avoiding the usual tropes and going for books I would not have chosen before.

So what next? I would like to have a go at something a little more substantial – a novella perhaps rather than a short story. Hopefully that will be the stepping stone up to a book of some description. I would also like to have a go at getting something professionally published. Although I have dabbled this year, I will make a more concerted effort in the next 12 months.

I would like to thank all those who take the time to read my posts. To those who go further and make comments, click on the like button or share my posts with a wider audience – I appreciate it.

Have a great Christmas and here’s to a great next 12 months.

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