2019

In retrospect it looks as a somewhat languid year; as if I was already training for retirement.

Inevitably, it had its ups and downs. There were taxing and frustrating moments: teeth reconstruction, noisy neighbours, collapse of my old laptop, change of employment, being diagnosed with hypothyroidism, ...

… but mostly I kept going: the cancer didn’t reappear, I kept up with Tommy (getting a mail from whom always made my day), my old college friends (including a real drinking session again), and Rob; went on learning languages (and adding another one), … even the weather was comparatively mild.

Strangely though, on most days I visited a pub, an yet rarely got really drunk. Thus, I read dozens of books, several of them new to me (most notably The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time).

(Similarly in the outside world: Brexit dragged on and on, but Duncan Scott had some spectacular successes, and so on and so forth.)

So I guess it wasn’t a bad year, all things considered. Still, I do hope that I’ll achieve a bit more, and have a bit more fun, during the next one. Never say die.


(originally posted on WordPress)

James Robertson: And the Land Lay Still

Sometimes he’d walk for a mile or two out of town before catching the next bus, for the pleasure of being alone and in silence.

(about Don Lennie, p 206) 

As an adolescent I would do this when escaping from my parents’ back to college; later it became one of the reasons why I preferred, when possible, walking to work to using public transport.

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It would be good to have someone to talk to.

(Peter Bond, p 231) 

One of my most frequent complaints, in fact I wrote about it yesterday.

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[….] and then a pang of jealousy would come as he saw that once again he was in a state of limbo, inside and yet still an outsider. He was part of it and yet alienated.

(about Peter Bond, p 316)

For most of my life I felt like I didn’t really belong. Like the others were a group and I a mere guest of the group; often a well-liked one, but still just a guest none the less.

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Neither of them thought of a telephone as anything other than an instrument for communicating necessary information or for use in an emergency. The idea that you might phone somebody just to talk to them seemed absurd, extravagant.

(about Don & Liz Lennie, p 425) 

I like face-to-face conversation (with some people anyway) because of the physical proximity it involves, I like reading and writing letters and emails because of the possibility to think out properly what one wants to say and how to say it; phones provide neither. As far as I’m concerned, phones are there to arrange a later chat, rather than have one at the moment.

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If Mike liked someone enough to want to make sex, then he probably wanted more than sex with him.

(about Mike Pendreich, p 541)

One of the reasons I only got laid a few times was I never cared to have sex with anybody I wasn’t in love it, with anybody I was merely infatuated with.

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When had he last had a decent night’s sleep?

(about David Eddelstane, p 548)

  

Another of my ‘favourite’ complaints: I exaggerate a bit, but sometimes it does seem like I never get a chance to sleep until fully refreshed, seem that if the alarm clock doesn’t wake me up, then some noisy neighbour will.

(originally posted on WordPress)

 

 

'It's okay to be white'

John Swinney has reportedly said that stickers with this slogan, which appeared in Perth, were "atrocious" and had "no place in Perth or any other part of our country".

The way I see it, this is an atrocious and racist approach. Unless of course he would say the same thing if they read "It's okay to be black" or the like.

Oh, it's quite possible that the slogan has been appropriated by neo-Nazis. And? Would you say that praising socialism is "atrocious" because the term was appropriated by both the КПСС and the NSDAP?


(originally posted on WordPress)

Fraser

In my early forties, I was in an occasional Twitter-and-mail contact with a guy who, like me, was a Scottish Gaelic learner and an out gay. I enjoyed it, but not enough to really care when it eventually petered out: I didn’t know his age, but his words had a sort of teenage vibe.

This year I came across his Twitter account again, and to my surprise noticed he was actually only four years my junior.

Then again, when I come across something that I wrote in those days, it often feels rather adolescent as well. For all I know, he may have thought me a teenager and tried to humour me. 


(originally published on WordPress)

A. A. Milne: Winnie-the-Pooh

After all, one can’t complain. I have my friends. Somebody spoke to me only yesterday.

(Eeyore) 

I have around half a dozen friends so close we’re still friends years, even decades after the time we used to meet on a daily or at least weekly basis. The problem is we no longer do, and I have nobody to really talk to more often than every several months or so.

 

 

 

 

(originally posted probably on WordPress)

 

Xmas '19

As usual spent with my parents in their town. Like last year I went on Christmas Eve (not impressed by the new railway company: they only do seat reservation tickets, the PA system was far too loud, with English announcements in Americanese which moreover sounded a pretended, exaggerated one by some local to me), spent there Christmas Day and returned the day after.

The conversations were relaxed, even though we were probably sitting in silence with nobody knowing what to say next more often than the year before. My father seems to be losing it, but only very slightly so far; his cheeks were a bit sunken, but he still looked fairly healthy for a guy in his late seventies. Still, it was a wee bit disconcerting when during our goodbyes he mentioned no longer making any plans further than a year in advance.

Anyway, I survived and on Boxing Day afternoon my end-of-year time off finally began in earnest. (The pub proved to be closed, but maybe that was for the better.)

 

(originally posted on WordPress)

 

"Ok boomer"

I haven’t found a source that would stretch the definition of "baby boomer" far enough to cover my own birthday, and yet the "ok boomer" catchphrase somehow irritates me. Maybe because I perceive the 1960s (when baby boomers themselves were young) as the last time in the Western civilisation when young people, as a group, still believed they could change humankind for the better. All I can see in the following generations (ay, including mine) is punkers, yuppies, hipsters, and those desperate ones like Thunberg who can do no more than try to at least prevent a complete catastrophe.

Or maybe it annoys me simply because all my life I’ve been trying to be condescending neither to those older nor to those younger than me, while being patronised by my elders when young … and now that I’m old feeling patronised by the younger ones.


(originally posted on WordPress)

Coffee with sister

Like the year before, a few days before Christmas I met my sister in a café for a couple of hours of chatting. Pleasant and relaxed as usual; the only minor difference was that we talked a bit more about languages and a bit less about literature. (There were other topics too of course.) I wouldn’t mind if these meetings turned into a tradition, they sort of help me brace myself for the following visits to my parents.


(originally posted on WordPress)

Robert Louis Stevenson: New Arabian Nights

For all active and industrious pursuits, Harry was unfitted alike by nature and training.

(about Harry Hartley in "Story of the Bandbox") 

A really good job has three characteristics: it provides you with a reasonable living; it’s interesting enough for you to enjoy it; and you can be quite good at it. So far, I haven’t heard of one in which I could get two out of three.

(originally posted on WordPress)

The year’s last commute

My last shift ended on Saturday morning, and with the trams running sparsely I decided to try and find a pedestrian route.

It proved to be somewhat meandering and longish, a waste of time as an everyday exercise, but not bad for an occasional ramble like that early morning’s one: meeting hardly any people, quietly soliloquising, and while walking past the central cemetery smelling, after months, the beautiful fragrance of conifers. (For some reason it also reminded me nostalgically of returns from some bummels of my younger days.)

 

(originally published on WordPress)

Christmas party

I never liked company parties, but this wasn’t one. This was just a bunch of us oldish guys who’d once studied together using Christmas as an excuse to meet in a pub. And it was fine, although I could only stay for two coffees before leaving for a night shift.

What surprised me most* was that MM, whom I hadn’t seen since mid-90s, changed so little I recognised him immediately. To him the old joke “we’re no longer young and handsome, we’re simply handsome now” actually applies. He’s a year older but looks ten younger than me I guess.

It also seemed to me that, oddly, the guys who, unlike Falcon and me, never needed specs in our college days, were getting presbyopic much faster than the two of us. And that Black and maybe Köln were as hard of hearing as I am these days. (Or maybe I just speak lower than is customary in this country, who knows. The pub was as clamorous as the factory I work in, so we had to resort to shouting as well, and that’s not exactly my forte.)

My leaving was a wee bit frantic, as it would be in a teeming pub I’d never been to before, but never mind. I just hope the next time we meet I’ll be able to spend more time with them.

   

* There was a minor surprise along the way there: the central railway station is fully open again, after just a year or so under reconstruction. I had expected it would last several.

(originally published on WordPress)

GE '19

So it seems that after all I will live long enough to see Brexit actually happen. The unpleasant side effect is, of course, that we’re burdened with Tory rule for at least another five years. Well, rien n’est parfait, as the French say. Apparently the English electorate saw finishing the EU business as the primary topic of the election.

As for Labour, I guess that Corbyn’s problem wasn’t his stance on Brexit, but his seeming inability to decide what his stance really was. As for the SNP, their success showed yet again that the kingdom remains divided, whatever its name; just look at the maps. And as for the Lib Dems, including their leader herself, they probably fell victim to their own arrogance.

(originally posted on WordPress)

Un autre travail

Alors, j’étais dans mon nouveau travail pendant presque un mois, et il n’est pas mauvais. Pas trop facile, pas trop difficile. Il y avait une délusion quand la docteure m’a interdit de travailler en trois-huit (à cause de mon âge, le cancer et l’addiction), mais au moins elle m’a permit travailler les nuits. (Je n’avait pas eu d’équipe de nuit depuis trois ans, mais elles sont toujours plus confortable que les équipes de matin.)

Mais bien sûr, la chose la plus importante, c’est qu’il n’y a pas de radio pour m’énerver

 

(originally posted on WordPress)

Tobias Smollett: The Expedition of Humphry Clinker

I find my spirits and my health affect each other reciprocally that is to say, every thing that discomposes my mind, produces a correspondent disorder in my body; and my bodily complaints are remarkably mitigated by those considerations that dissipate the clouds of mental chagrin.

(Matthew Bramble) 

 

Some time ago I had concluded myself that a large majority of my own 'physical' medical problems are actually to a greater or smaller degree psychosomatic, their intensity or even mere appearance affected by my current levels of anxiety, depression, impatience and other usual feelings.



(originally posted on WordPress)

 

Insignificance

What’s hard to accept, especially for an avid reader like me, is that in my own book of life I may be the main character, but in the books of other people’s lives I’m at best only a very minor one. It’s not that my life is so uninteresting, it’s that I don’t belong to any community, that I have no one to share my joys and sorrows with …

 

(originally posted on WordPress)

Hypothyroidism

Early October blood tests having showed raised TSH (thyroid-stimulating hormone) level, I was referred for endocrinology. At the hospital whose ORL I visit they didn’t accept me at all, but recommended another place, which scheduled my appointment for early December.

After the 2-month wait, a 15-minute walk to a bus stop and a half-hour ride, it was a bit of a surprise when the visit itself turned out as a mere 10-minute interview including a quick ultrasound scan of the neck and a prescription of 50μg levothyroxine pills to be taken daily for 3 months.

But even though I had to go there between two night shifts, I don’t complain. I more or less enjoyed the bus rides on a nice, overcast day between autumn and winter (think John Atkinson Grimshaw), mostly through village-like suburbs and even woods, and the subsequent three pints in my howf (and then going on sleeping until the next shift).

The only trouble is that one’s expected to take the pill at the same time each day. With the irregularity of my waking hours possibly an unresolvable logistical problem.


(originally posted on WordPress)

Another 'bender' almost over

Hmm, ‘bender’ … Usually when I’m on the skite I just move between my bed and a pub or pubs, not even bothering to switch on my laptop or mobile. This time I was most of the days doing my language studies, following the news, checking my mailboxes and so on and so forth, even looking for and finding a new job. I just couldn’t help going to a pub for three to five pints almost daily (in fact more often than not twice in a day, first in the afternoon then at night). Well, the next week I’m on night shifts so I won’t be able to.

 

 

(originally posted on WordPress)

Sounds from jungle

Mind, of the four neighbours I’ve had so far in this place the current one is the least noisy, so I’d rather he didn’t hurry to move out. And being gay cured me, by and large, of racism decades ago. But since said neighbour moved in I can better understand the racism of former colonisers. The sounds he makes when speaking, even in English, and in particular when laughing, do sound to my ears (which otherwise rarely hear any other than European languages) as something from a David Attenborough programme.

 

(originally posted on WordPress)

Still Game

I never knew about the sitcom until the 7th series began reappearing on iPlayer late last year; I’ve seen all the episodes from that and the following series since then. As often as not the subtitles were missing, so I didn’t nearly get all the quips, but I learned to love it all the same.

There may actually be fewer jokes than in English sitcoms like Upstart Crow or Blackadder; on the other hand, there are serious moments throughout, not just at the very end of the final series. As a consequence, Jack, Victor and the others gradually become like characters from a ‘realistic’ film or book, more like real people than mere caricatures; somewhere towards the last episodes of the last series I realised I would miss them as one misses real-life persons he used to meet and have a good time with for some time.

What I didn’t expect was that at the very end of the very last episode (seen just a couple of hours ago), when most of the main characters, well, depart, I would have to struggle hard to contain my tears (the more so as they do so to Dylan’s Don’t Think Twice, It’s All Right). I think I didn’t actually shed any, but my eyes were so misty it took some time to realise the Clansman’s barman was still, despite the white hair, Boaby.

 

 

(originally posted on WordPress)

William McIlvanney: Laidlaw

 

His life had been spent acquiring compensatory qualities that weren’t natural to him but which enabled him to survive.

(about Harry Rayburn) 

When you’re a misfit you can do nothing else. Except maybe kill yourself.

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They weren’t talking, they were broadcasting.

(about three young men in a pub) 

Given that I can’t find this sense of the verb mentioned in any dictionary, it’s probably this book I’d picked it up from when reading it for the first time a few years ago.

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Tommy was where so many people wanted homosexuals to be, trapped in a ghetto of self-loathing.

(about Tommy Bryson)

When I was growing up it was this, rather than gay-bashing, that was the greatest danger: the possibility that you’d end up perceiving yourself as a morally inferior being simply on account of who you liked.

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He could think of nowhere to go but away.

(about Lennie Wilson) 

Many’s the time I moved flat, even town. With only a few exceptions I didn’t have much of an idea about the place I was going to (sometimes didn’t even look forward to getting there), but I couldn’t wait to get out of where I was.

(originally posted on WordPress)

 

 

Orra = all that?

During my years in Scotland I’ve often heard people say something which to in my ears sounded like “orra”, but none of the definitions given in the DSL (or anywhere else) seemed to make sense in whatever the context was at the moment.

Yesterday I’ve heard it again, a few times in fact, in this video. I decided to ask somebody about it, but rewatching it again today I finally had a moment of revelation: it must be “all that”, and the “r” sound I hear must be due to some phonological process similar to the one which makes some Scots pronounce “the” so that it sounds like “ra”.

 

(originally posted on WordPress)

 

The body image paradox

What’s strange is how on the one side you are bombarded by articles about how pictures in magazines and advertisements and so on drive the female part of the population into anorexia, and on the other hand by articles about how the whole population including its female part is steadily getting more overweight, even obese. If you didn’t go out you would almost think there are no women left who have no problem with their weight either way.

 

(originally posted on WordPress)

Iain Banks: The Crow Road

 

Kenneth had never given Freud much credence; maybe because he had looked as honestly into himself as he could, found much that was not to his taste, found a little that was even just plain bad, but nothing much that fitted with what Freud’s teachings said he ought to find.

 

Of course, I only have the popular knowledge of ‘according to Freud, deep down it’s all about sex’, which I found grossly exaggerated.

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You might imagine supporting them [people], talking with them when they needed to talk, trying to help, but you didn’t imagine that you would be the one desperate to talk (or the one too embarrased to talk, too ashamed or too proud to talk); you didn’t imagine you would be the one who needed help.

(of Fiona Urvill) 

For most of my life I was always ready to be ‘the shoulder to cry on’ for others, and needed none myself, but as I grow old I more and more often miss having one.

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Shit, original sin? What sick fuckwit thought that one up?

(Kenneth McHoan)

I never gave the concept much thought, it seemed so blatantly stupid, but considering that people were beguiled into believing it does make it quite repulsive as well.

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In Glasgow I had taken to sitting in churches. It was mostly just for the atmosphere.

(Prentice McHoan) 

I had occasionally sat in a church to ‘meditate’ before (never outwith Scotland though), but only after settling for some time in Glasgow did I begin doing this with any frequency.

(originally posted on WordPress)

 

 

Recovering

I don’t want to jinx myself, but it looks like after a month of often waking up in sweat, and a few days of runny nose, dry cough and general feebleness (sometimes combined with withdrawal), fought towards the end with antibiotics, nasal drops and dressing very warm (but not staying in bed or even indoors all the time), I’m finally almost all right again. Just in time for the oncoming medical check.

 

 (originally  posted on WordPress)

Beaucoup d'emplois

Intéressent. J’ai finalement dessaoulé, plus ou moins, j’ai commencé à chercher un nouvel emploi, et dans une semaine de la première demande j’ai eu une proposition. Mais j’ai trouvé qu’il était trop difficile d’atteindre l’endroit – et je buvais un peu plus de nouveau – bref, ça n’a pas marché.

Alors, j’ai dessaoulé une nouvelle fois (relativement vite), j’ai recommencé à chercher un emploi, et même plus tôt qu’avant j’ai reçu une nouvelle proposition. Il faut qu’il y a beaucoup d’emplois dans cette ville.

Cependant, j’espère que celle-ci va marché.

 

(à l'origine posté sur WordPress)

 

Two Unions

This post is of course long overdue; by this time hardly anybody argues about Brexit anymore, ordinary people just yell “Bring it on now!” and “Cancel it altogether!”, while politicians are unabashedly using any methods they can find for their own particular goals.

But while we still had a argument, as opposed to a shouting match, I found out that, while myself favouring Scotland out of the EU and out of the UK, I could understand better those who wanted Scotland in the UK and the UK in the EU than those who wanted it to stay in (whichever) one of these Unions but leave the other.

Because it seemed to me that the vast majority of people in these latter two groups were always waxing lyrical about the advantages of local government, when talking about the Union they didn’t like, and presaging economical doom and glory if leaving the Union they liked.

Many years ago I was present at a business meeting when at one point one negotiator accused his opponent, “But half an hour ago you were using the very opposite argument!” Upon which the latter, quite cooly and with just the ghost of a smile, retorted, “Sure, because it was convenient for me.” Immediately the atmosphere changed from tense to relaxed.

Trouble is, back then we weren’t discussing anything that would have any direct personal impact on any of us, so he could admit this use of double standards. After all, we were not presenting ourselves as paragons of wisdom and virtue either.

 

 (originally posted on Tumblr)

Faodaidh mi fònadh

'S lugha orm fònadh. Ach dar a fhuair mi litir o chompanaidh lìbhrigidh gun robh am pasgan thugam o Phoppy Scotland aca ach nach robh iad cinnteach às a' sheòladh agam, dh'fhòn mi ann, seach sgrìobhadh post-d – rud a chuir iongnadh orm fhìn. Ach shoirbhich mi, agus tha baidse is bann-dùirn ùra agam a-nis; agus dhearbh sin dhomsa gum faod mi fònadh fhathast – rud glè chudromach an-dràsta, 's mi an tòir air cosnadh eile.

 

(originally posted on WordPress)

James Robertson: To Be Continued

There’s a saying, ‘blood is thicker than water’. […] It’s like that other idiocy, ‘my country, right or wrong’. Blood is an excuse. It’s a reason not to face up to things and it is never a good reason.

(Rosalind Munlochy, p 256)

People sometimes find it hard to accept that several guys I met later in my life are much more important to me than my parents, although I hadn’t had an unhappy childhood. But I believe that how much you have in common with somebody (mentally), and how much (good and/or bad) intensely experienced stuff you’ve been through together, is much more important than mere genetical relation.



(originally posted probably on WordPress)

Ken Loach: Kes

I saw it two years ago; tonight I watched it again. This time I wasn’t disturbed so much by all the quarrels the characters were having, but I still found it most of all depressing. Masterly executed, very moving – but in the way which makes one despondent.

Had to watch a Burnistoun sketch a little later to get over it.

 

(originally published probably on Wordpress)

William Boyd: Any Human Heart

All these quotations are by the narrator, Logan Mountstuart.

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Every life is both ordinary and extraordinary – it is the respective proportions of those two categories that make life appear interesting or humdrum.

(p 5) 

I’ve had a quite dull, boring life full of routine. I’ve had a quite variable, unpredictable life full of change. Depends on what parts of it you look on.

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It’s true: lives do drift apart for no obvious reason. We’re all busy people, we can’t spend our time simply trying to stay in touch. The test of a friendship is if it can weather these inevitable gaps..

( p 140) 

 

I find it amazing that I still keep in touch, however irregular, with my old college friends, and with Tommy whom I haven’t seen for four years.

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The confirmation of the worst news does, paradoxically, clear the mind: at least the way ahead is obvious and people know what they have to do.

(p 206) 

It felt like that when I was diagnosed with cancer: no more false hopes, just concentrating on what could be done about it.

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Only sporadic bouts of masturbation testify to the fact that the libidinous side of my brain has not shut down entirely. What sick Victorian cleric dubbed the practice self-abuse? Self-help, more like, self-support, self-solace. Auto-eroticism keeps you sane.

( p 284)

In fact, the first OED quotations of the expression in this sense date to the beginning of the 18th century, but Mountstuart’s sentiment is correct. Masturbation does keep you sane (or, at least, saner) when you can’t have the real Mackay.

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Those were the years when I was truly happy. Knowing that is both a blessing and a curse. It’s good to acknowledge that you found true happiness in your life – in that sense your life has not been wasted. But to admit that you will never be happy like that again is hard.

(David, p 395) 

 

Ay, reminiscing about my college days and my years in Scotland can sometimes be bittersweet in the extreme.

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I don’t feel old, although I must confess the signs of ageing are everywhere.

(p 404) 

 

It’s odd how one feels closer to people who are much younger than to one’s coevals, although one has inevitably much more common with the latter . . ..

 

 

 

(originally posted probably on WordPress, or maybe on Tumblr)

 

 

Anki

Unemployment has its advantages. For several months I’ve been trying to cut down my Anki flashcards backlog, only managing to get (in a sort of two-steps-forward-one-step-back way) from 1,ooo+ cards in April to 600+ in mid-September. On 26th I got under 600, pushed on every day, and today I’ve eliminated it completely.

Time to start dealing determinedly with my other backlogs.

 

(originally posted probably on WordPress)

Beagan lag

Neònach. Cha do dh’òl mi cus o DhiMàirt, ach bidh mi a’ cur fallas dhìom nam chadal uaireannan fhathast, bidh fradharc ceòthach orm sa mhadainn uaireannan fhathast – agus as dèidh dhomh dìreach trì pinntean san taigh-seinnse is biadh aig an taigh a ghabhail feasgar an-diugh, bha agam ri dùsal a ghabhail mar an ceudna; rinn mi a’ mhòrchuid dhe na bha agam air fhàgail ri dhèanamh as a dhèidh, ach gun dìorras. ’S mathaid gu bheil mi beagan tinn, leis an teothachd air tuiteam cho luath …

 

(originally posted probably on WordPress or maybe on Tumblr)

Nederlands

Not so long ago I wondered whether I shouldn’t discontinue learning Swedish, beginning to suspect I just didn’t have the time to keep my Gaelic and French on the level already achieved while adding another language.

Today I began learning Dutch, basically just because I like how it sounds. I must be crazy.


(originally posted on WordPress)

Third time unlucky

When I was 35 and giving my notice to my then employer, I had three reasons, the second most important of which was no longer being able to stand the commercial radio blaring there.

A few jobs later, when I was 43 and giving my notice to my then employer, I had two equally important reasons, one of which was no longer being able to stand the commercial radio blaring there.

Several more jobs later, now I’m 51, I gave the other day my notice to my employer, primarily because I was no longer able to stand the commercial radio blaring there.

Of course, there were other reasons. I couldn’t properly get to grips with the machine they’d moved me to from my initial one; the jobs at the new one meant being all the time either frustrated by glitches or bored when there were none; I had to be on my feet all the time in the factory’s uncomfortable shoes; there was even a nascent guilt from half the time producing plastic products; . . .

. . . but at the end of the day it was the radio which one day turned into the last straw. Maybe the next time I should ask whether radio’s permitted on the premises before I even accept a job.


(originally posted probably on WordPress)

Malachy Tallack: The Valley at the Centre of the World

Then, the loneliness had been offset by busyness, by pride and by hope. Now, it was offset only by routine.

(about Mary, p 41) 

I was fairly lonely in my homeland but at least I was interested in what was going on around me. Here in my self-imposed exile, I just keep going on, thanks to inertia and defiance.

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After all, the point at which one becomes old is surely the point at which anticipation is overwhelmed by hindsight.

(Alice, p 188) 

Related to the above. Back then I was aging; now I’m aged.

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There was also the strange, simple fact that her life was no longer a shared event. Anticipation, it turned out, was more difficult to sustain alone. A sense of purpose, of direction, was more difficult to sustain alone. She had lost, almost entirely, that sense of moving forward, of progress. She had lost her own sense of narrative.

(Alice, p 188) 

That’s one of the hardest aspects: you can’t talk about the things, good or bad, which are important to you, because you don’t believe the people you would like to tell them to would care, and you’re still not in the stage where you’ll bore any stranger just to get them out of your system.

 

So you just blog, even if nobody reads it.

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It wasn’t up to him, he said. Nothing was ever up to him.

 

[….] He seemed so passive; not just today but always, as though his whole movement through life had been guided by decisions that were not his own. He was pushed this way and that, like a fictional character controlled by a malicious author.

(about Terry, p 322)

Story of my life. After all, I was brought up to be like that.

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So much of his life was dictated by habit, he sometimes thought. Habit, punctuated by the uncontrollable and the unpredictable.

(David, p 326) 

In fact my attempt at emigrating to my homeland was the only major attempt in my life to do more than just protect the status quo against unfavourable changes in circumstances making it even worse.

(originally posted probably on WordPress)

 

Hermiting again

I’ll savour the softness of summer
I’ll wrap up when winter blows

(The Waterboys: In Search of a Rose)

Since the 18 May I was in a pub daily (with the single exception of 5 Sep, when I finished work at 10pm and knew I’d have to be there again at 8am the following morning). Indeed, since the 10 Sep I visited what has become my favourite howf twice a day. But I’ve stopped that on Monday, managed to persevere, and today I finally haven’t gone there at all. In a sense a salutary effect of having quit my job I suppose.

And it actually wasn’t as hard as I’d thought it would be, although admittedly I was helped by the fact that after Tuesday’s pleasant, serene night there there were two when I had to sit down next to the door, with the consequent draught each time it opened.

Nevertheless I think that before I go to sleep I’ll reward myself with a dram of Glenlivet. 


(originally posted probably on WordPress)

Zen and multitasking

In his The Way of Zen, Alan Watts mentions several comparisons between the Western and Eastern attitudes towards life, philosophy, society and so on. It occurred to me there was one thing he hadn’t mentioned, maybe because it wasn’t so pronounced at that time: While the ‘Western’ corporate society perceives the ability to multitask as a prerequisite for a successful life, Zen claims that the way is the exact opposite: being able to fully concentrate on the one thing a person is doing at the particular moment.


(originally posted probably on WordPress)

Richard Morgan: The Steel Remains

It probably wasn’t a good idea, but he hadn’t been having many of those since he got back anyway.

(about Ringil Eskiath) 

Ever since I went into self-imposed exile where I’d once lived I seem to be simply carried on by inertia, old habits and past experience. Hardly having any goals I’ve hardly any ideas about achieving them, let alone good ones.

--------

She missed her home, with an abrupt, almost painful pang, now that she thought she might never see it again.

(about Archeth Indamaninarmal)

I love to see pictures of Scotland on the internet, in particular those of places I know first-hand, but occasionally upon seeing one I need to make an effort to prevent tears flowing from my eyes.



(originally posted probably on WordPress)

Addicted to a beer garden

Funny how sometimes one can get addicted to an alcohol-related habit, rather than to alcohol itself.

For almost three weeks now I would go after 2pm to a nearby pub’s beer garden, have a few pints, come back to my digs for a meal and some time at my laptop, then return to the pub to have a few more pints inside. But of course one can’t go on like this forever.

So I decided to stop my afternoon beer garden visits and only go to the pub at night. Today was the first day. Now I have enough beer and vodka in my digs to fight alcohol withdrawal, yet I’ve been listless all day simply on account of knowing I had to wait until the evening before going to the pub.

I’ve survived, but I still can’t wait to be there.


(originally posted probably on WordPress)

Kingsley Amis: Lucky Jim

This ride, unlike most of the things that happened to him, was something he’d rather have than not have. He’d got something he wanted, and whatever the cost in future embarrassment he was ready to meet it. He reflected that the Arab proverb urging this kind of policy was incomplete: to ‘take what you want and pay for it’ it should add ‘which is better than being forced to take what you don’t want and paying for that’.

The other day my sister asked me why I liked the book so much and I replied that it was on account of its cynicism, later enhanced by the fact that it was one of the first books I've read in the English original. A few weeks later another important reason occurred to me, however: Jim, like me, finds mere coping with life so demanding (in particular as regards social intercourse), that he has no energy left for ambition. This theme, without being expressly stated, runs throught he whole story. Whenever he achieves something, it's usually largely by simple good luck.

It's amazing how distractions one wouldn't have noticed in one's early days become absolutely shattering when one … grows older.

I've known - and loved - the novel since adolescence, and read it several times since then. It's interesting how the older I am, the more compassionate I feel for Professor Welch, because the more he reminds me of myself. Including the growing slowness in thinking, in reacting.

(originally posted probably on WordPress)

Paul Flynn: Good As You

Frankly, a disappointment. The author does warn the reader in the Prologue that he can only tell the story of gay liberation in Britain as he subjectively saw it unfold and I don’t blame him, but his likes and experiences are too different from mine. His is the world of clubbing, pop, big dreams, soap opera and so on; mine is the one of loneliness, depression, defiance, books and so forth. Suffice it to say that Peter Tatchell is mentioned nine times, while one of the ten chapters is basically all about Kylie Minogue.

Still, I did learn a lot: for instance the importance of Manchester in British GLBT history, and the fact that characters in soap operas can be as influential for the mindset of a TV-watchers as those in books for the mindset of a book-reader. And of course, it would be strange if there were no passages I could absolutely relate to, like:


Part of coming to terms with being gay is accepting that all your previous belief systems collapse.

(Greek Pete) 

Absolutely. Some say that a man’s mentality is basically completely formed by the beginning of adolescence, but I’m sure my frames of reference have changed almost beyond recognition during the years I was coming to terms with my sexuality.

[….] that subtle new ways of recalibrating the phrase ‘I am gay’ would have to be found in the perpetual motion of identification that accompanies coming out. Nobody tells you that you’ll have to do it over and over again, boring yourself with answers to a carousel of the same questions asked over and over for the first five years, before you’ve worked out subtler ways of short-circuiting this ritualistic moment in which your sexual fancy becomes other people’s property.

Quite so. You think you’ll tell a friend and the next day everybody’ll know, but no, you have to come out again and again … and again … and only gradually you learn how to do it right.

[….] the terror that sits at the heart of some homophobia – that we are only here to steal your brothers, husbands, cousins, sons [….].

I wouldn’t know about blood relatives, but I was always well liked by women who knew I was gay, probably because they felt they could be relaxed and open with me – with the exception of wifes and girlfriends of my (straight) male friends, the majority of whom were quite obviously jealous of every minute these friends might have spent with me without being ‘watched’ by them.

Programmed in my subconscious from very early on was the idea that I’m not safe.

(David Furnish)

But then this goes almost without saying for us gays of a certain generation.



(originally posted probably on WordPress)

Alone in an echo chamber

They tell you, to quote for instance Lexico (formerly Oxford Dictionaries Online), that an echo chamber is an ” environment in which a person encounters only beliefs or opinions that coincide with their own, so that their existing views are reinforced and alternative ideas are not considered”.

What they don’t tell you is that, contrariwise, if perchance you do have a particular opinion which differs from that of the other ‘members’ of the echo chamber, you only encounter views which don’t coincide with your own.

So that I’m following all these people who, like me, lean politically towards centre-left, are comparatively well educated, support gay equality, are anxious about climate change and so on and so on … and there doesn’t seem to be a single one who would, like me, support Brexit, and I only see it criticised.

Funny, in a way.


(originally posted probably on WordPress or maybe on Tumblr)

The Union and the Carpenter

Funny how from early April to early July I would visit the Union almost daily and the Carpenter only very rarely, and then all of a sudden, without ever intending to and for no apparent reason whatsoever, I began frequenting the latter and never returned to the former. The staff is equally good in both places; maybe I became subconsciously fed up with the Union’s piped music and clientele.


(originally posted on Tumblr or WordPress)

Hats Off

Just listened again – after a few years – to the whole Hats Off to the Buskers album by The View and still think it’s the best debut album ever released. (Well, there’s Traveling Wilburys Vol. 1, but that wasn’t a real debut album for any of the Wilburys involved).



(originally posted probably on Tumblr, or maybe on WordPress)

Citation: Georges Simenon: L'Étoile du Nord

Jamais il n'avait pensé avec impatience à la retraite.

(concernant le commissaire Maigret) 

Moi non plus. Je n’aime pas devoir à travailler mais j’ai peur que sans travailler je ne pourrai payer le loyer pour vivre seul dans une chambre.


(à l'origine posté sur Tumblr ou WordPress)

Oliver Burkeman: The Antidote: Happiness for People Who Can’t Stand Positive Thinking

"For [Ernest] Becker, mental illness is a malfunctioning of the internal death-denial machinery. Depressed people are depressed because they try but repeatedly fail to shield themselves, as others manage to do, from the truth that they are not, in reality, cosmically significant heroes – and that pretty soon they’re going to die." 

(p 182)

(originally posted probably on Tumblr or maybe on WordPress)

Mark Haddon: The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time

(All by the narrator, Christopher John Francis Boon.)


I decided to leave him alone because when I am sad I want to be left alone.

(p 21)

It takes me a long time to get used to people I do not know.

(p 35)

I don’t like swimming because I don’t like taking my clothes off.

(p 77)

I like it when it rains hard. It sounds like white noise everywhere, which is like silence but not empty.

(p 103)

And then I Formulated a Plan. And that made me feel better because there was something in my head that had an order and a pattern and I just had to follow the instructions one after the other.

(p 132)

And then the countryside started and there were fields and cows and horses and a bridge and a farm and more houses and lots of little roads with cars on. And that made me think that there must be millions of miles of train track in the world and they all go past houses and roads and rivers and fields, and that made me think how many people must be in the world and they all have houses and roads to travel on and cars and pets and clothes and all eat lunch and go to bed and have names and this made my head hurt, too.

(p 161)

These are just the best ones, there very many more which made me think “yes, that’s precise”!



(originally posted on Tumblr or WordPress)

Back to basics?

I’ve finally run out of patience with my new HP that I'd no doubt abused here earlier, and bought an Asus - a trademark I'd been satisfied with before. So it’s 'back to Asus', strictly speaking - but in a sense back to basics too: I'm not transferring my files wholesale as usual, only moving those I really want to keep and deleting the junk I've accumulated over the years.

As for the new machine, the first impression was disappointment, because unlike the picture it didn't come with a numeric keypad, but the speed is what I was used to before the HP, and that's what matters.

 (originally posted probably on Tumblr)

Essex

During my college years I once had a summer job consisting of six weeks picking strawberries and raspberries on a farm near Ardleigh. Since then, Essex has meant for me primarily the area north of the theoretical Witham-Clacton line.

A few months ago I’ve seen at least two BBC programmes ‘about Essex’ and was astonished to see that for their authors, the county seemed to hardly extend far enough from the immediate London vicinity to reach said hypothetical line. 

In fact, I still find it hard to digest the fact that the county town is Chelmsford (which I’ve never been to), rather than Colchester.


 (originally published on WordPress)

Terry Pratchett: The Fifth Elephant

There’s dwarf bars all over Ankh-Morpork, and they’ve got mining tools wired to the wall, and there’s dwarfs in ’em every night quaffing beer and singing sad songs about how they wish they were back in the mountains digging for gold. But if you said to them, fine, the gate’s open, off you go and send us a postcard, they’d say “Oh, well, yeah, I’d love to, but we’ve just got the new workshop finished … Maybe next year we’ll go to Uberwald."

(Sam Vimes, p 224) 

I can understand this, because I knew Poles like that in Scotland. Scotland sucked and Poland was the best country in the world, but when you asked them why they didn’t return there was always a ready excuse.


(originally posted on Tumblr)

Kindle Keyboard

At the turn of the month my first Kindle died at last. (More precisely, it’s screen did.) It’s been with me since 2011, and I used it a lot, so it’s no surprise (in fact I’d bought a Kindle Voyage as early as 2016 to have a spare one just in case this happened), but it took some time to get used to not being able to use it all the same. After all, eight years is a considerable time for an IT product to use on a virtually daily basis; it’s been with me during my 3 years in my homeland; and then again, while an older model, it was in general as good as the new one, either having some features lacking in the other.


(originally posted on Tumblr or WordPress)

23/7/19

Boris Johnson may have won the leadership-cum-premiership contest, but it was Duncan Scott who Britain could be most proud of yesterday.


(originally posted on Tumblr)

'89

1689 – the so-called Glorious Revolution in England.

1789 – the best known of all the so-called French Revolutions.

1989 – the so-called Velvet Revolution in the then Czechoslovakia.

What is it about ‘89 and ‘Revolutions’* and how come there was none in 1889?


(* put inside quotation marks as two of these are outside the scope of my definition of the word)


(originally published on Tumblr)

Vivaldi

Installed, tried and uninstalled. What use is a browser which doesn’t allow a multilingual literate guy disable spellchecking?


(originally posted on Tumblr)

(untitled)

Seems like the recent weeks, when the combination of frustration from my new laptop’s slowness, a fair amount of extra hours at work, and too frequent pub visits, is finally over, and I’m (however slowly) beginning to try and catch upon the backlog this caused.

And frankly I enjoy it; in fact I was becoming surfeited not only with the extra worktime, but even with the pubs, and missing the online world.

But it took the worst withdrawal I’ve had for a couple of years to actually start doing something about it.


(originally posted probably on Tumblr, or maybe on WordPress)

New laptop

It’s been two months now since the day my Acer Aspire died. I never liked it all that much, although it wasn’t its own fault (it had Windows 8 pre-installed like the others at that time, and I found that a step back rather than an improvement in comparison with Win7), and in fact it served me reasonably reliably for more than five years – longer than any of its predecessors.

It’s been two months now since the following day, when I bought a new device, a cheap HP, and I still can’t get used to how slow it is. Even opening a 20KB .rtf file takes it as long as the Acer needed to open a 1.3MB .odt file, and as for opening a few browser tabs at once … sometimes it feels like the sod thinks that multitasking simply means doing one task at a time, but remembering what to do next. I’ve learned that if I want to watch an iPlayer programme, I need to close almost every other programme to have at least a chance at avoiding a stop-start execution. (And of course, Win10 is even worse than Win8.)

But I was always good at finding the silver lining of a cloud. I console myself by admitting that like this I’m becoming less addicted to the internet. Readier to accept that I simply don’t have the time to read, watch, listen to, edit, write &c&c this or that.

I even began spending more time reading books again. For a lifelong bookworm, not such a bad deal.


(originally posted on Tumblr)

Silence is golden

Of course, there are always other problems to trouble one. But at least the bastard who’d lived next door for a month and had the TV on almost 24 hours a day (except when he was talking to someone or other, and that even louder) has apparently left a fortnight ago. So far nobody else has moved in, so at least I can relish comparatively quiet nights, even days. So far …


(originally posted on Tumblr)

(untitled)

Having returned from a back shift I found an email from Tommy in my mailbox. Which made my day as it always does … until I’ve read it. He seems to be more depressed than me at the moment, and being 990 miles away there’s nothing I can do to help him. Except write back of course; will have to mull over properly though what I’m gonnae say and how I’m gonnae say it


 (originally published on Tumblr)

(untitled)

Tommy’s 28th birthday. So I celebrated by creating this account. 


Note, 19/10/19: This was the first post on my Tumblr account which I later stopped using, transferring the posts here. Partly influenced by the fact that Tommy discontinued his account that I’d been following for years.


(originally posted on Tumblr, then with the note on WordPress)

An toiseach

Well, here goes. Let's see where it gets us.

(originally posted on Wordpress)