HALF DEAD AND DANCING

ALL GOOD THINGS

2012-01-08T16:39:00.019Z

“Ends are not bad things, they just mean that something else is about to begin. And there are many things that don't really end, anyway, they just begin again in a new way. Ends are not bad and many ends aren't really an ending; some things are never-ending.” C. JoyBell C.

“Everything has to come to an end, sometime.” L. Frank Baum, The Marvelous Land of Oz

I have decided it is time to 'call time' on this tale of mine. Am I done yet? not really, but then I don't think I ever will be. I have not had a 'quiet life' by any stretch of the imagination, and the more I write, the more I remember, this tale has been feeding itself since I decided to start it's telling and it is in danger of becoming obese.

As my mother use to say to me when I was a boy "Know when enough is enough David"

I intend to go on, for many years yet and certainly my spirit of adventure is far from extinguished, but now is a good time to withdraw from the keyboard and wrap things up on HALF DEAD AND DANCING I have already extended my tale somewhat, from thirty five to fourty one.

Some of you may have questions... and in some cases I feel that I have barely touched upon certain things, certain people, certain years..have missed important dominoes. But fixating on what was is unhealthy, and wastes time that could be spent fixating on what could be.

My past is behind me.

The square pegs of yesterday have been replaced with the square pegs of today, and i'll give a nod just now to Tim, Carl, Billy, Kenny, Dean and Ian who have become my latter day Fringe people, the new square peg Elite.

There have been numerous adventures that have not been mentioned on these virtual pages, a multitude of highs and lows that will remain unmentioned. An amalgamation of Happenings and mishappenings that may well deserve a book of their very own, but they are not a part of this one and were never meant to be.

I continue to evolve, as do we all, as each new dominoe we meet topples into us and sends off on our journey. The direction is not really something we choose, just something we choose to enjoy or fear.

Bill Hicks hit the nail on the head when he said...

"The world is like a ride at an amusement park. It goes up and down and round and round. It has thrills and chills and it's very brightly coloured and it's very loud and it's fun, for a while. Some people have been on the ride for a long time, and they begin to question: Is this real, or is this just a ride? And other people have remembered, and they come back to us, they say, "Hey - don't worry, don't be afraid, ever, because, this is just a ride..."

It has been said that to be a blogger you need to be fairly Narcissistic. I am fairly Narcissistic, but I never entered into this tale with a 'Look at me' attitude. Indeed, for the first few posts it remained in a private state, unreadable by anyone but me. I decided to start writing about my life in a humourous way to help me deal with what was possibly the most difficult period of my life to date.

It was therapy.

I was encouraged to share by friends, and reluctantly at first, opened it up to the world. I am glad that I did, because the feedback I have been left by readers has been great...and I want to thank everyone that took the time to leave a few words for me.

This story is done. It has run it's course and I am happy with what lies before me here on these virtual pages.

The next step for me will be to turn the virtual into the actual, and I hope to be holding a bound copy of HALF DEAD AND DANCING in my hands before this year is out...before December if it's going to be the end of the world!.

Thankyou for allowing me to share with you, and for being so kind and gentle with your feedback.

Although I most likely do not know you, and just as likely never will...I wish you and those you love all the best.

There's a wink for those of you who think you may be Square pegs (If you think you may be..then you are) and there's a smile for those of you already living hapilly on the fringes of society.

Remember what Bill said, it really is a ride and you need to enjoy it.

And most of all..remember that people are like Dominoes, all of us are colliding with eachother and toppling off in random directions. Every interraction has value and every meeting, no mater how brief should be valued. It is always beter to have loved and lost than never to have loved at all and cherish the rough times, because they define us far far more than the smooth.

http://halfdeadanddancing.blogspot.com/

IT'S THE END OF THE WORLD AS WE KNOW IT.

2012-01-04T20:08:00.002Z

January 13 – January 22 – The first Winter Youth Olympics will be held in Innsbruck, Austria.
February 6 – Diamond Jubilee of Queen Elizabeth II, marking the 60th anniversary of her accession
to the thrones of the United Kingdom, Canada, Australia & New Zealand, and the 60th anniversary of her becoming Head of the Commonwealth.
May 12 – August 12 – The 2012 World Expo is to be held in Yeosu, South Korea.
June 6 – The second and last solar transit of Venus of the century. The next pair is predicted to occur in 2117 and 2125.
July 27 – August 12 – 2012 Summer Olympics held in London.
August 6 – August 20 – Mars Science Laboratory also known as the Curiosity rover is scheduled to land on Mars

December 21 – The Mesoamerican Long Count calendar, notably used by the pre-Columbian Mayan civilization among others, completes a "great cycle" of thirteen b'ak'tuns (periods of 144,000 days each) since the mythical creation date of the calendar's current era....and the world apparently ends.

Well I for one will certainly be holding off buying any Christmas presents until the 22nd this year.

That's 2011 done and dusted and exiled to the dusty halls of history. I wonder what we will remember it for if and when we look back and reflect. I'll remember it for the birth of my son I think, the deaths of some good people. Some close, some not so close but still good and bugger all else really.

Despite the hugely expensive and extravagent fireworks display in London, 2011's passing and 2012's arrival was just as bland and unexciting as it always is once you pass a 'certain age'. I am actually having trouble spotting the difference betwen the two just now, everything seems exactly the same. So much wider world rubbish has been carried over from one year to the next that it's hard to feel positive about a new start or a clean sheet. It's like the drawing paper has run out and we've used both sides, so now we're having to rub out the pencil drawings on the first side and draw over the top of them..it's all very messy. Fortunately if the world is about to end this year, then we'll not have to worry about re-using the paper for much longer.

That said, i'll not be a hugely happy little bunny if the world does end this year. Personally I am far from being sick of life yet, and without having the security of a make believe beter place to go to when I die where everything is so much blody better and everyone has wings and can fly and stuff, the outlook is bleak.

Who'd be an Atheist eh?

But ending or not, 2012 has started, so all of us will probably just have to 'get on with shit' for the meantime. Searching for the jewels amidst the rubbish, savouring those sumer holidays, watching our kids grow up whilst hiding them from the bad things for as long as we can and drinking that bloody awful coffee from the office machine.

When it isn't broken.

I don't think the Mayans actually thought the world was going to end in 2012, I think they just figured that all the good shit would be done by then and decided to do something else instead until the Spanish turned up to kill them all. Civilisations come and go, that's for sure..and perhaps that's what will happen this year, but the world goes on and on, and is likely to until the sun goes out I think.

If Civilisation ends, well that's survivable if your'e smart, and I reckon i'm smart enough to keep my familly together to scrape a living from the deserted wastelands of a post apocalyptic disaster world with a handfull of other people smart enough to do the same.

And while we are on the subject of epic endings.....

KILLING SANTA

2011-12-18T16:36:00.000Z

There was a large debate the other day. One of those 'got a bit out of hand' social networking debates that ends up with mass deletion of posts and friends lists.

I started it.

I had been reading a comment about the damage of giving children false expectations, namely fat red-suit wearing house breakers...strangers who are 'ok to talk to'. And it started me thinking that it may actually be beter to kill Santa Claus rather than feed his evil lying soul.

What could be wrong with a child knowing that his presents came from mumy and daddy because they loved him or her? Wouldn't it be beter for him to see that than think that some complete stranger gave more of a toss about him or her than his own flesh and blood? Wouldn't we be giving them a beter idea of why it's good to work if they could understand that Daddy and Mummy worked hard to get the money to buy those presents? surely this would sow the seeds of a basic understanding of graft for cash?

And what about the damage in conditioning our children to accept without question the popular lie? Does Santa just pave the way for Jesus..and then the lies told to us by our Government? By setting up an acceptance of certain untruths are we not just setting them up to be abused by the world later on? Are we not giving them their first social handicap?

Studies have shown that high numbers of children lost trust in their own parents after discovering that Santa was'nt real. Why would we actively lie to our kids? Surely as the ones they should trust above all others, we have a duty to be the only ones who never lie to them.

It's worth thinking about. Isn't it?

My plan is to raise a child with an understanding of religion and Christmas..to know the myths of all those things including Santa and the little baby Jesus for whome there is also no historical evidence.
I want Sam to know his mum and dad, and wider family love him, and buy him presents for being a good boy and working hard at school. I don't want him thinking that some fat guy turns up and just gives him stuff because it's bloody Christmas, or Yule or 'The happy holiday season'.
I want him to understand that Daddy ate shit all year so that he could buy those presents, and that you need to eat shit to get stuff. I want him to understand that I sold my soul to the Corporate Devil in order to provide for him!

I AM NOT LETTING SOME FAT BASTARD IN A RED SUIT TAKE ALL THE CREDIT!

It shouldn't even be a Red suit..but i'll let the Coca Cola marketing scumbags explain that one to you.

I don't want to kill Santa, I just want to kick him in the balls and wipe that smug little grin off of his fat face. I am not having him wander into my house once a year and buy love and affection off of my child and leave me looking like some tight arse shit parent who only moans about untidy rooms and bad spelling!

Of course, Christians are more than happy to fund my war on Santa..because they don't want the discovery that he's not real to lead to little children suddenly asking questions about Jesus...I will share this with you,I found it very funny.

"The extent and depth of the damage of the Santa Lie to the innocent minds of little children is non-researched and unknown.
Spiritually, when a parent teaches their Child the Santa Lie, they are shattering their very first faith and belief system. The parent also shatters their own Credibility. The Child realizes, "if my parents lied to me about Santa, maybe JESUS is also a lie? After all, they are both connected to the same day, DEC 25th, Christmas.
A Child who has been deceived by The Santa Lie not only doubts the Truth about JESUS but everything else a parent tells them from smoking and drugs are bad to sex outside of marriage is harmful. After all, why should a child believe a bonified LIAR who has lied to them about Santa for at least five years of their young lives."

You can read the rest of this tosh at: http://satansrapture.com/damage.htm

Of course we wouldn't want one lie endangering another would we????
Is sex outside of marriage really dangerous? I know that sex outside of marriage while married can be quite dangerous..but sex outside of marriage as in before marriage or in between marriage..is that ACTUALLY harmful?

But I digress...

There's some food for thought here too: ttp://atheism.about.com/od/christmasholidayseason/p/SantaMyth.htm

My point is...I don't think I want to lie to my son. Not just about Santa or Jesus or about bad people always getting their just deserts. I want to be the one person he absolutely trusts and if that means killing Santa, then so be it....

MMXI A BAD YEAR FOR DICTATORS

2011-12-18T13:04:00.000Z

January 24 – 37 people are killed and more than 180 others wounded in a bombing at Domodedovo International Airport in Moscow, Russia.
February 11 – Arab Spring: Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak resigns after widespread protests calling for his departure, leaving control of Egypt in the hands of the military until a general election can be held.
March 11 – A 9.1-magnitude earthquake and subsequent tsunami hit the east of Japan, killing 15,840
April 29 – An estimated two billion people watch the wedding of Prince William, Duke of Cambridge and Catherine Middleton
May 1 – U.S. President Barack Obama announces that Osama bin Laden, the founder and leader of the militant group Al-Qaeda, has been killed during an American military operation in Pakistan.
June 4 – Chile's Puyehue volcano erupts, causing air traffic cancellations across South America, New Zealand, Australia and forcing over 3,000 people to evacuate.
July 22 – 76 people are killed in twin terrorist attacks in Norway after a bombing in the Regjeringskvartalet
August 20–28 – Arab Spring and the Libyan civil war: In the Battle of Tripoli, Libyan rebels took control the nation's capital effectively overthrowing the government of Muammar Gaddafi
September 5 – India and Bangladesh sign a pact to end their 40-year border demarcation dispute
October 20 Arab Spring and the Libyan civil war: Former Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi is killed in Sirte
November 26 – The Mars Science Laboratory rover Curiosity, the most elaborate Martian exploration vehicle to date, is launched from the Kennedy Space Center. It is slated to land on Mars on August 5, 2012
December 15 – The United States formally declares an end to the Iraq War

It's been a busy old year.

My updates have been few and far between these days, things have been busy in the smaller world too. It's almost Christmas and I am scheduled to make the journey down South to visit what remains of my kin.

I am not replacing them as quickly as they are vanishing.

My wife Alison and my son Samael will be joining me as we endure the journey. Thankfully there is no snow yet, so at least one of the perils we would face looks likely to be out of the way. The other, of course, is assholes. Asshole drivers are always out there, waiting to turn Christmas into a funeral for someone, and I feel a deep dread at the prospect of having to travel from one end of this little island nation to the other constantly on the lookout for the maniac who got his or her driving licence out of last years Christmas cracker.
Wicket will be spending the festive season in kennels, I admit to feeling some guilt about leaving her behind as she is most definately another child..perhaps not first born, but first adopted and I would have liked her to be around to sit with us and channel hop from one absolutely rubbish programme to another on Christmas day...and Boxing day...and possibly right up until the new year when the regular rubbish programming returns.

Sam now has two teeth, both at the bottom and has moved on to rusks and baby rice. I have no idea how I have produced such a smiley happy child given the effect the last 40 odd years have had on my general demeanour but he posesses a smile that could melt the polar ice caps. No matter how bloody awful the rest of the year may have been..his arrival has definately taken the edge off it.

The financil chaos that the world is apparently in has not had any real impact on me or mine..or anyone I know, and if it wasn't for the news constantly telling me how bad things are, I'd probably have been completely unaware of it. I do not pretend to understand any of it. I also do not pretend to care.
Whilst the greater planet has been exploding, flooding, burning and killing with gay abandon..the rest of us have been getting on with the routine of every day life. It's almost like there are two worlds..the one I live in, and the one on the TV. I would worry about the sort of world Sam is going to grow up in, but so long as the two stay apart from eachother I doubt he'll have to worry about much.

Lots of 'Bad' people are dead now that the year is drawing it's last breaths, but I am not sure that the removal of said bad people will not just lead to the installment of new bad people. In all honesty, given the power of the media..I am not even absolutely sure who the bad people really are these days. We only get one side of the story. Our troops come home in body bags as heroes and we bury them with full military honours and the required respect. I wonder if this happens over there in the places where the 'Bad people' live. Do they not have heroes? Are we truly fighting on the side of right for the right reasons? or am I just being spoon fed whatever it is I am meant to believe?

That's perhaps a little deep for the usual post, so i'm gona leave it there. Christmas is here, and none of my familly got shot or blown up or bombed or placed in Guantanamo bay or anything. None of them were taken by a tsunami or a volcanic erruption. In my world the people I love just grow old and eventually stop being there.

LET ME TELL YOU ABOUT MY MOTHER

2011-10-14T20:03:00.010+01:00

The formative period for building character for eternity is in the nursery. The mother is queen of that realm and sways a scepter more potent than that of kings or priests. ~Author Unknown

With boys you always know where you stand. Right in the path of a hurricane. It's all there. The fruit flies hovering over their waste can, the hamster trying to escape to cleaner air, the bedrooms decorated in Early Bus Station Restroom. ~Erma Bombek 'Mothers and sons'

Holden: Describe in single words only the good things that come into your mind about... your mother.
Leon: My mother?
Holden: Yeah.
Leon: Let me tell you about my mother.
[Leon shoots Holden with a gun he had pulled out under the table] ~BLADE RUNNER

Like poles repel, opposite poles attract. This universal fact does not only apply to Magnets as some of you may believe...it often applies to people. The difference between magnets and people is that the fact remains constant and unchangeable for the magnet. Other people, usually very old ones these days, will say that Birds of a feather flock together...I am not sure if this ancient wisdom is as valuable as the majority of the rest of the ancient wisdom that is oft handed to us by Grandparents and Great Grandparents.

My mother and I are like poles.

I want to state right at the start of this chapter that we no longer repel, thus my comment about it not being a universal constant where people are concerned. We are now, probably the best buddies we have ever been.

But back in the day we were repelling each other like it was an Olympic sport and anyone caught in the flux between us needed to practise 'Duck and cover' quickly and effectively if they were to survive!

Adventurous, outspoken, stubborn, artistic, opinionated, argumentative...I think it's fair to say that my mother and I share these traits along with, to differing degrees, Easily bored, rebellious, mischievous and quick tempered. If you were to look at both myself and my sister and then to my parents..every single one of you, when asked, would place my sister with my father and myself with my mother. I am my mothers son, without a Shadow of a doubt. There are differences of course, some subtle, some less so. My mother is extremely artistic, can paint and draw in any medium..I can imagine and write (Well I like to believe I can I have several unfinished novels lying up in the loft) but I can't paint or draw for toffee.

There is a reason for this post, not to say there is no reason for all the others, but this post in particular has been prompted by the fact that my newest follower is the above mentioned mother. After a recent visit to see her new Grandson Sam, to check out our house, to meet our loyal black Lab Wicket and to be sure I am getting fed right..my mother found her way one evening to my blog.

Ruth was of course already aware that I was throwing the contents of my life bag across the internet with little care or concern for my own reputation and had previously voiced concerns for everyone else's reputation, but had not as far as I am aware, read very much of it at all. However, things are different now, we have been through some tough times, mum more so than me..I have recently lost A father and a Grandfather, but mum has lost a Husband and a Father..the two most important things in most girl's lives I believe. These losses had helped bring us even closer together, although in truth we had started drifting back towards each other when dad's illness first got diagnosed.

Looking back over past events with eyes that are now old enough to see things from more than one extremely narrow angle, I understand her infinitely better...and I think she gets me just a bit more these days than she did back then. I can't blame the generation gap, there isn't one..in truth at times, we could be the same age..such are our similarities and behaviours, although I often despair at mothers ongoing struggle with the internet, texting from phones and most other modern gadgetry. In truth, she's chilled out a fair bit..and I've gotten a little bit more serious.

We've met in the middle, something that 20 years ago if it had been suggested to either of us we would have told you to bugger off.

Anyway...welcome to my story Mother...I guess you have every right to read it, seeing as how you instigated the whole thing, set the wheels in motion, waved the chequered flag and what have you. Everyone else, panic not for my tale will loose no steam, it will continue as it has for a while yet, though I can see the end in the distance.

It's not over just yet.

TOGETHER,WE CAN RULE THE GALAXY AS FATHER AND SON!

2011-10-03T18:45:00.009+01:00

Darth Vader: Obi-Wan never told you what happened to your father.
Luke: He told me enough! He told me you killed him!
Darth Vader: No. I am your father.
Luke: No. No. That's not true. That's impossible!
Darth Vader: Search your feelings, you know it to be true!
Luke: [anguished] No! No!

It is easy for a father to have children than for children to have a real father. ~Pope John XXIII

There are three stages of a man's life: He believes in Santa Claus, he doesn't believe in Santa Claus, he is Santa Claus. ~Author Unknown

Why are men reluctant to become fathers? They aren't through being children. ~Cindy Garner

_______________________________________________________________

Now that I have a son and heir, I need to start worrying about what kind of man I help him develop in to...it's worth a good worry, because do it wrong and you can end up like old Darth and Luke. There's a fine balance between a steer and a push, and pushing never works.
I am not particularly concerned WHAT he does, provided he does it well...'half arsed' is so very unrewarding in the long run, but difficult to stop once you get good at it.

The list of what I don't want for my boy is far more extensive than the list that says what I do, as far as careers go.

I DO want a gentleman, that's important. The whole 'walk on the outside of a lady' 'hold the door open' thing...that's a must. I do want honesty..except where being so is clearly the dumbest idea ever. Integrity's good too, in moderation (yes the two things are different). I don't mind him being able to look after himself, but i'll not stand for a bully...never throw the first punch is the rule, and ideally his words should be his weapon, as has been the way of Sewell men for many generations. It is completely possible to win a fight armed only with Sarcasm..I have done it on several ocassions, and the victory is so much sweeter than if a fist is thrown.

I don't want a son interested in DANCE, or HAIRDRESSING, but I don't see that it is my place to actively prevent the career...if it gets as far as the application form then my efforts at careful guidance will have failed long before that point. I will attempt to guide my son along the more 'manly' path in life, but will not put him up against the wall and stone him if he should choose a different path.

He should be well travelled, savvy, able to function on his own and adapt to circumstance. I can help with all those things. I want him to be able to express himself in word and voice, to be able to confidently speak, and speak his mind.

He will not be religious.
I will ensure, no matter how wrong the sheep may feel it is, that he sees the danger of organised religion, that he is aware that is a divider of men, not something that brings them together...this will be the one thing I will not stand down from, the one thing I will attempt to program into him. If it's brainwash via a church or brainwash via a school or brainwash via me...then I know that 'via me' is the best outcome when it comes to matters of a religious nature. I won't expect him to hiss when he sees a Vicar a Rabbi or a Priest, but i'll expect him to think 'twat' and smile smugly at his own ability to avoid indoctrination. Science is the way forward..and it can only move forward a step for each step religion takes back into the shadows. It may be the science of father and son duels with Light sabres, it may be the science of smug homosexual droids and giant floating Battle stations...but it's science that will see the Human race off of this planet before we eventually screw it up beyond the point where a few quid in the 'Green peace collection box' can save everything.

It's a scary prospect..being given a blank Human canvas and being the first to paint on it. It requires considerable self reflection and a rigourous process of elimination when it comes to what is and is not painted..but to not paint at all is like throwing your offspring to the lions...if we are not here to learn and pass on shit..then why the Hell would we be here at all?

A SON AND HEIR

2011-10-01T19:45:00.008+01:00

Absence diminishes mediocre passions and increases great ones, as the wind extinguishes candles and fans fires. (Francois de La Rochefoucauld)

It's been 4 months since I last added anything to the epic tale of my life...4 very busy months, so I make no apologies for my lapse in sharing myself with you the anonymous reader. It is my hope that Frenchy (above) was correct and not talking out of his arse, if he is correct then my absence should have you all salivating like mad dogs for my posts.
Anyone who has persisted with my tale will know that it tends to jump about a bit, it swings from then to now and back to then again like a pendulum with little or no respect for continuity, and it's away to do it again. It's not 2008 anymore, it's 2011 and we have left the newly wed me behind in Belfast to join the me that has been married for almost three years.

It is the 14th of July and I am now dressed in 'scrubs' and sitting in a chair in the operating theatre of Ninewells hospital's Labour ward. My wife and I are at the end of a 46 hour marathon. Alison is, finally, perfectly relaxed..but then with 50% of your body paralized by a spinal block, it's hard to feel uncomfortable.

Our son is about to arrive.

Much like his father, he showed early signs of not doing anything unless he felt like it, and no amount of coaxing, birthing pools, birthing balls, gas, curses or tears were going to force him to make an appearence. In the end...force was required, as has oft been the case with his father.

Samael Vincent was finally dragged head first into the world clamped firmly in the grip of forceps at 01:16 pm on the 16th of July 2011.

1223 – Louis VIII becomes King of France upon the death of his father, Philip II of France.

1789 – French Revolution: citizens of Paris storm the Bastille.
1881 – Billy the Kid is shot and killed by Pat Garrett outside Fort Sumner.
1958 – Iraqi Revolution: in Iraq the monarchy is overthrown by forces led by Abdul Karim Kassem.
1965 – The Mariner 4 flyby of Mars takes the first close-up photos of another planet.

A son.

It's hard to express how I felt when he finally decided to show face, but at the moment he was delivered I was so extremely happy that I couldn't cry. Strange that. I wanted to, a tear formed but then the happiness was so intense that my whole face seemed to lock up. Finally I had an heir, someone to carry on the name for another generation.
My father's name was Vincent. Vincent Herbert George to be precise, but everyone knew him as Sam. There's a story to that, but it's not for sharing..it's his tale and he's no longer here to tell it. I wanted to pay tribute to Dad, and the biggest tribute I could pay was to give my son two of his names.

I chose Samael not just for it's shorthand nod to my father, but also because I like the story behind the name. The Biblical story of a rogue angel, a bit of a bad boy..who despite his poor behaviour remains in the big guy's favour because..well, everyone loves a rogue don't they.
Samael is said to have picked up with Lillith, Adam's first wife who was cast out of Eden for refusing to be a slave to the dopey prick and for giving God the finger when he ordered her to get back into the metaphorical kitchen. I always liked Lillith and she clearly would'nt pick up with any dopey old twat..Samael must've been quite the charmer.

I think it's important to give your child it's own identity, whilst still avoiding 'Beckhamism' (the art of giving your child massively pretentious names because you think it's cool) Naming your child after yourself, or after your favourite actor or actress when the name has already been used to death by everyone else who saw Star wars and loved it, or wanted to hit the hay with Brad Pitt shows a lack of care..a lack of imagination. Trawling popular names lists is also bloody uninventive and downright lazy. You'll not find Samael on the top 100 names list..possibly not the top 1000. It's unique enough that he'll more than likely be the only Samael he'll meet. At least this is my hope.

Anyway..I digress. The little chap weighed in at 7lb 1oz and he was every bit as perfect as I had hoped for. We were home as soon as Alison had handed over enough urine samples to fill the Albert Hall, and I managed to revive our now starving dog before drifting off into a much earned sleep.

All was not well in the world, all is never well in the world, but within the confines of the four walls that I own..things could not have been better if they were sprinkled with the magical tears of Jesus himself.

NEVER MIND THE JACOBITES

2011-06-12T16:26:00.001+01:00

Woodvale Presbyterian Church on the corner of Woodvale road has been about since 1899, waiting quietly and keeping it's head down during the 'troubles' so that it could host a very special wedding in 2008.
It's previously barricaded windows now uncovered and with a new jet washed facelift the premises were perfect for our big day.

So was the man who was to join us in Holy Matrimony. You may have already guessed that I am no fan of religion, any of them..i'm not picky, and you may well be saying "why get married in a church then?" if you are saying that, then clearly you don't get it and should be asking the question "Why get married at all?" Marriage is an act of commitment, the marriage 'ceremony' is ceremonial..and as such, a church is pretty much part of that ceremony. Most women want the full package when it comes to wedings, and why shouldn't they?

But back to our Minister, one Reverend Ken Doherty.

The reason's why I dislike religion are usually upheld and enhanced by the people who represent that religion. The Reverend Doherty did not follow that particular constant. He was kind, and his face had clearly developed around a genuine and constant kindness. He was approachable, unasuming and non judgemental.

Clearly he knew the situation with me, had rules he was required to follow, and moreover believed in..but he was not the spitting madman I had previously witnessed at another church, he was not tearing out pages of his particular Bible and force feeding me them . Right away I liked him, and that is usually exactly the opposite of what happens when I meet those of a religious vocation.

His church was pretty, but simple. It was not the hideous Gold draped red velvet monstrosity that I had often witnessed as a boy when atending church with either one of my parents, although usually, and I have to say this, the Catholic church tends to have less issue with being 'In your face' gold and finery' my mothers Church could step up to the plate when a show of force was required.

Woodvale looked like a place you would go to speak with your God if you needed to, it didn't look rich and it didn't look poor. It was friendly and functional, modest and humble and it's custodian and mouthpiece was similarly easy to get along with.

That was perfect for me, and a date was set for the sixth of December 2008, the anniversary of the retreat of Charles Edward Stewart's army during the second Jacobite Rising back in 1745...that was an accident and not intentional.

Malone House in Belfast was to be the location for the Wedding Reception..the Castle was already booked, but the change was in no way a compromise...nor was it any cheaper.

Alison went over earlier than me in the car via ferry, and I was to fly out from Dundee airport nearer the time with my best man Ian and some other guests. My familly were to be flown from Stansted airport to Belfast and then put up in the same hotel as myself, my best man and my usher Farees.

I don't want to write page after page about the wedding, so suffice to say that the day was indeed as perfect as we had hoped it would be and by Sunday the 7th of December 2008 I had myself a wife.

Alison was more than my wife though, she was my smile..I said so to all present during my weding speech, and I meant every word of it...I had a reason to smile again, a reason to stand tall and get back in the ring again.

Redemption for me was a strawberry blonde from Belfast with sparkling eyes and a heart like a TARDIS...

GETTING MARRIED, MAKE CHEQUES PAYABLE TO..

2011-06-12T13:49:00.004+01:00

It's mildly Ironic after, all that has happened ,that I get a letter from my bank offering me financial advice when I go mildly overdrawn at the end of the month. My bank recently got handed it's share of a £37 bn bail out for not being able to manage it's own finances...and yet I dip into my agred overdraught and all of a sudden i'm in need of help. Im paying to clear off their debts, you'd think they could say thankyou by not charging me £5 a month just to have an account at their bank.

I say this because my next step after Paris, or rather OUR next step after paris was to arrange our wedding. Costly things weddings. Having been molly-coddled and handheld through my first marriage arangements by both sets of parents, I had little idea of how much this was going to cost...Alison's plans were specific, and had clearly been worked on and improved over many years in readiness for this day.

One thing that I was particularly set on was that we receive no gifts. I didn't want to celebrate our marriage and commitment to eachother by geting STUFF, it's not about the stuff you get. Stuff is all that is left when marriages break down. Stuff confuses the issue and dilutes the union. How can you celebrate something like a lifetime promise to another Human being by asking for or willingly receiving financial and material gifts?

BOB AND HARRIET ARE GETTING MARRIED. PLEASE GIVE GENEROUSLY.
TOM AND TINA LOVE EACHOTHER. NEED NEW MICROWAVE AND CUTLERY.
SIMON AND SUE BECOME ONE. NEED CASH FOR NEW HOUSE AND CAR.

It just seems so bloody wrong to me.

With my Dad now passed away, and Alison's ill and unable to attend any wedding due to severe Alzheimers we decided to direct those commited to spending money on us to a charity site set up to recieve donations for Prostate Cancer research and Alzheimers. We had our own page, with pictures of us both and a nice little message. It worked well for us and Alison's acceptance of the idea without any reservations just served to further convince me that she was definately the one.

There was only mild resistance to the idea..and after everything was done, we managed to raise a fair bit of cash for both charities.

The venue was sorted, Dresses ordered from the States, suits arranged, cars..photographer, menues, entertainment, flights and of course the when and where of the ceremony.

I think my Brother in law and sister in law to be would have wanted us to be married at their church by their minister..but as I have already mentioned, he was (when viewed outside of the distorted bubble of his church) quite clearly mental. He had a strange little sidekick too...the whole thing was spooky and frankly I would have rather been marrried by Herman from the Munsters and Cousin IT.
The church, and Minister we settled on were perfect. I was required to have a discussion initially with the minister, and then possibly later with a pannel of 'judges' who would decide if I was able to be married in their church given that I was a Divorcee.

It transpired that being a Divorcee is a pretty bad thing. Marriage is for life, not just for Christmas..and initially I was worried that I may have to settle for a Registry office ceremony because of my Evil and Ungodly status as a divorced man.

It turns out though, and I thank the Bible in it's many forms for it's narrrow minded hate mungering, that one of the few things more evil and unworthy than a divorced man or woman, is a Gay one!! talk about get out of Jail free..my sins were not just lessened but I was all of a sudden a VICTIM of an agent of evil! There was a point where I thought that the whole event was going to be paid for by the church and that I may just get made a saint into the bargain. There was no need to see any jury or pannel, and the wedding was a go! If I had not chosen to share my suffering at the hands of the great evil that was my ex wife with the Minister..who knows what would have happened.

Now all we had to do was pay for everything. Surprisingly, we did..just the two of us, ourselves. And although we felt poorer by the end of it..it felt damn good. It was a 'Proper' wedding, because we designed it, and we paid for it. I took out a small bank loan just prior to the big day to settle a few outstanding bills, but apart from that..we had settled everything. And although I do say so myself, the event was no 'quiet affair' we did nothing on the cheap and nor would I have wanted to.

Alison deserved the day she had dreamed of, and If I had had to rob banks to fund it, I would have...no real harm there, the banks had clearly been robbing us for years and are clearly going to continue to do so. I'll discuss them again perhaps when I tell you about how we moved from the rented penthouse apartment on the Hill town to a mortgaged home of our own...

A WETTER KIND OF BEAUTIFUL

2011-06-12T12:12:00.003+01:00

It was raining when we arrived and it was raining when we left..but Paris in the rain is just a wetter kind of beautiful
The 'Hôtel de la Place du Louvre' in Paris is where we chose to stay, and I would recommend it to any of you thinking of a cheeky trip to the City of art and attitude. It's located in front of the Saint Germain l’Auxerrois church and you could spit on the Louvre from the front doors if you were inclined to do so.

We flew in and grabbed the Metro to where we thought would be the closest stop to the Hotel, it wasn't but it gave us the opportunity to have a nosey around the city whilst stress testing the little plastic wheels with a mind of their own that were attached to the bottom of our budget cases.

I was under the impression that Parisian's were a rude bunch. This was one of the many false impressions that was foisted on me from early on by society. I have since learned that much of what I was told about 'Foreigners' is untrue. They didn't smell particularly bad either, not to me, but then at the time I was a heavy smoker and the Malboro may have lessened the impact somewhat...so I can't completely rule out the possibility that they smell bad. A return trip may be required now that I have quit the habbit. But, the rudeness is definately not true. I found those I had to communicate with more than polite and quite tollerant of yet another English speaking tourist using makey up words to ask for a beer and a pie.

It was nice to get away and feel that mild discomfort and inferiority you get when you are abroad, it's far nicer than the mild discomfort and inferiority you feel when your'e at home, and there's new stuff to look at and explore.

We did the Louvre, and I have to say that it was less than I had expected, full of tourists and extremely difficult to get out of. I have never before spent so long following exit signs without actuallty finding the way out of a place, it was definately no accident and I am sure that the confusion was deliberately designed by the staff to give them something to laugh at. Art museums must be rather short of laughs. We didn't do the Moulin Rouge because it was a fair treck on the Metro by my reckoning and most likely filled with homosexuals..another misconception foisted on me by the society I grew up in.

The Eiffel Tower was fun, for me at least. It was perhaps less fun for Alison with her fear of heights but I convinced her that she could not come to Paris and be satisfied with staring up at it from the ground...and forced her to climb the stairs all the way to the first level. I left her there when we arrived and continued up a bit further, but not wanting to pay the price of a small car for a lift ride to the very top, I soon returned and we grabbed an overpriced coffee before coming back down.

There were other trips..Notre Dame, the Latin quater and meals out in 'posh places'. All in all we had a good old explore the two of us.

The end of our little trip was marked by the arrival of 2007, and we decided to pop up the old Champs-Élysées and join the main celebrations. That idea changed early on.

Paris does not hide the fact that it has problems, I don't suppose there is any reason to expect that it should..but it's Paris and you kind of expect NOT to see dead tramps, hoardes of armed police, emergency roadside hospitals and umpteen riot vans several hours prior to the celebrations for new year. By the time we had seen all the above, we decided to return to our 'local' eating place on the banks of the Seine and watch the fireworks from a safe distance. When we arrived, we were advised that we had made a good choice, as the celebrations nearly always end up in a riot.

We had a really good time, and both of us were quite sad to have to return from our little 'engagement adventure' But there were things to plan now, wedding things..future things and I was excited to have the opportunity to be in a position to be planning them again, this time with someone truly special.

Two thousand and Seven smelled good as it arrived with cool rain and a fresh Parissian breeze fanfared by hundreds of tooting car horns and illuminated by fireworks. To me it smelled of second chances.

NEW BEGININGS. PARIS IN THE RAIN

2011-05-29T16:33:00.002+01:00

Shortly after that first meeting in London Nightclub, Alison moved into my swish apartment on the Hilltown.

She had been paying the rent on a three bedroom place that had once been shared by herself and two friends when they had all been studying, and at over £300 each month, it was a hugely unnecessary financial burden. The risks involved with moving in with a mildly unhinged thirty something soon to be divorcee with a fridge full of Jack Daniels and Pot Noodle were outweighed by the huge savings. Fortunately for me.

It wasn't long before there was proper food in my cupboards and the oven was being used for something other than drying out wet boots. I was extremely gaunt at that time, and pale and Alison set about turning Casper the friendly mess into something that more resembled a healthy human being. We were officially a couple, and it worked amazingly well. There were no real flash points, no clear barriers to harmony in such a small space and the two of us seemed to just slot together like missing pieces of an old jigsaw.

We decorated, pepped up and generally spruced the flat as best we could, and it became far more of a home than it had been for me. We pooled resources and joined forces me and her and when the time eventually came for me to file for divorce, Alison was there to confirm that I had indeed been apart from the ex wife for a period of two years.

It's a requirment, or at least it was then, that two people be apart for 2 years before being able to proceed with a divorce unless one or the other agreed to 'Unreasonable behaviour'. I was offered this fast track split option at the begining but saw no good reason why I should lower myself in such a maner to suit my wife. Unreasonable behaviour? if I had tied her up and beaten her with a wet fish every friday for the last ten years of our marriage I doubt that would have been anywhere close to being as unreasonable as being a secret Lesbian for thirteen years of marriage and then doing a bunk with the genetic proceedes of the fraudulent union in order to secure a comfortable cash injection every month for several years thereafter.

Incidentally, I pay almost £400 a month to my ex wife to support the children. I am paying for pedigree dogs and trips to Iceland to visit frosty lesbians with a taste for raw fish. And they wonder why men dress up as Superman and hang themselves from bridges in protest at the Child Support Agency.

Anyway..I digress..the Decree absolute arrived in due course, and I was a free man. A free man with 45k of debt still hanging around his neck, but a free man none the less. Like BC and AD a new period of my life was begining..I was in to my AD (After Divorce) and it felt good.

There were problems ahead though. I was a divorcee, considered by those of a religious persuasion, a kind of low-life pond feeding God hating Siner. I proposed to Alison just before we left to see in the new year in Paris during the last days of 2006. I intended to do it there, that was the idea, but it proved impossible to secure her ring size without asking her...so I proposed just before. It works better that way, what you lose on surprise and initial impact, you make up for by geting the right ring in the right size.

I had already met my future Brother and Sister in law and their children, before I decided to pop the question to Alison. They had visited not long after we had moved in together and we shared a snowy Christmas with them in Dundee making Snowmen and sizing eachother up.

Religion played a key part in her family, although Alison herself was fortunately immune to it's blinkered siren call, and it was religion that was causing some issues with regards to me being accepted into the family. My future mother in law was not happy with Alison's choice of life partner..I was not acceptable for numerous reasons, but the main one was of course my status as a Divorcee. I never received any attitude from my Brother in law to be or his Wife,although there was to be some mild nudging towards their church later, after I had been accepted..but this was not substantial and was dismissed out of hand by myself after witnessing the madness of a certain Churchman as he sprayed spit and brimstone over his congregation during an attack on the evils of a University education.

It's very hard to try and sell your religion when the man fronting it in your local place of worship is clearly a complete and utter lunatic.

Anyway...Paris in the rain...

THE DIRECTORS CUT (PREVIOUSLY UNSEEN MATERIAL)

2011-05-29T14:50:00.002+01:00

That's my Job in a nutshell. And it's a glimpse of what goes on in my head.

If you have been following my tale, you may feel that the more recent entries, after the 2 year break, are less entertaining. You may be missing the square pegs..the seven minute men and the regular visits from my pal the Reaper. I make no apologies for this. Half Dead and Dancing was only meant to be a tale of a man from zero to thiry five...a brief overview of the more prominent highs and lows of one life, an introduction to Domino theory and an opportunity to find new worth in your own existence through my own admittied failings and screwups if you so chose.
I have decided to bring you the 'Directors Cut' and in keeping with Directors Cut rules, it may not be to everyone's taste, it may even for some, detract from the original...but there'll be bits in it you were not intended to see, bits that got removed for good reason. Lap it up, it's not going to cost you any more, and you may just come to love it.

As I take on more years I stay afloat by loosing the ballast that is patience.

These days there seems to be far more to get angry about, but the majority are quite happy to get angry about the wrong things...and that makes me angry. People are missing the plot, they are being distracted by all the pretty things and not realising what's going on. They get on the phone and threaten murder over a late delivery or missing potato chips and yet they don't bat an eyelid when their local hospital spends thousands on a special ambulance to transport obese people to get their toenails cut.
The same people will drive their children to school when walking would have been easier, and moan about the cost of fuel all the way there. But they don't care what rubbish their children are being told or how they are being fed popular lies and programed inside the building .

Political correctness tells us we can't even say what we want anymore, we can't express a preference we can't speak our minds because someone somewhere will be offended. We are not meant to stand up and express displeasure.

It's funy how we look at places like Egypt where everyone gathered in Tahrir Square to protest against President Hosni Mubarak and his government recently. How terrible it all was, those people fighting with bricks and poles..and a camel on one ocassion, in order to overthrow their corrupt government.

Wake up...that wasn't terrible

What is terrible is that if you even managed to gather enough people to fill a square, you could never pull off anything like that over here. And we look on them as the poor opressed. How stupid are we?? They managed to unite and actively remove the common threat. I'll make a large bet that you'll not be seeing the same sort of progress outside your window any time soon.

We don't care about eachother, we care about what we can get..we have submitted to rule, and we are no longer concerned about who is ruling. The illusion of Democracy helps us sleep at night, the wealth of our country keeps us distracted with shiny toys and bangles and junk food and sitcoms. Ignorance is bliss. How easy has it been to excuse all the atrocities our Governments have commited? How easy is it to justify the unjustifiable..to accept what we see on the tv when those jets fly low across that convoy of trucks and burn everyone inside them to death. Shock and awe those Motherfuckers HELL YEAH, lets wave some flags brother.

Monkeys with guns.

We don't want to see what we have become a part of, we don't want to see how we endorse murder wih an X on a piece of paper. How we go home after Church on a Sunday and watch our 'protectors' burn down some 'Cultists' in a compound on tv so we can feel safer...that's what happens when you chose the WRONG cult. We continue to celebrate Easter and Christmas and don't see that we may as well have flown the planes into the twin towers ourselves by doing so..we are perpetuating the hate, reinforcing the divisions.

Perhaps if more of US started dying for our religious beliefs we'd be less likely to sign up in the first place, and if less people signed up then less people would die. But religion is such a popular crutch. We don't want to die..wer'e having such a bloody good time..so we choose to behave like blinkered fools and perpatuate the promise of an afterlife at the cost of progress. And the blood keeps flowing.

Freedom fighters and Terrorists both existed once upon a time, now only Terrorists remain because all the power is controlled by far fewer people. The winners and loosers have been decided already, freedom for the majority is established and safe, so those who fight against it canot be fighting for freedom and therefore must be terrorists. Simple as ABC. Eceryone that is not us is them. And it's all about us and them, always has been always will be.
Nobody even stops to think what a Terrorist is? The French resistance were terrorists you know..to Germany. But our side won, so they will always be remembered as Freedom Fighters.

A terrorist is a man or group of men who do not have the resources to defend what they believe openly in large scale conflict.

"There is no universally agreed, legally binding, criminal law definition of terrorism. Common definitions of terrorism refer only to those violent acts which are intended to create fear (terror), are perpetrated for a religious, political or ideological goal, deliberately target or disregard the safety of non-combatants (civilians), and are committed by non-government agencies"

Sounds like shock and awe, sounds like off-target Patriot missiles, sounds like Hiroshima, Nagasaki, the Black hole of Calcuta and a slew of other incidents and accidents.Ahhh..but there's the get out of jail free card...Non Government Agencies. Ask yourself why and how did that bit get added in there?

Anger. There's a lot of it about and I have my share.

I don't want this tale of mine to turn into some kind of Rage against the machine, and I have no illusions that it matters at all to the majority of readers what I get angry about.

I just wanted to delve under the skin for a brief moment with this and the last post..to try and share some concerns and frustrations. I want to flesh the 'present me' out just a little bit, now that the past me is on display.It was not the initial plan, but like I said...this is the Directors cut.

MUST TRY HARDER.

2011-05-26T13:13:00.003+01:00

Commitment

Focus

Direction

Responsibility

Maturity

Restraint

Ambition

It's a list of things that have eluded me on and off for the better part of 40 years. Some of those things have constantly managed to stay outside my reach, others I have chased down and grappled on the dusty ground with on ocassion before they inevitably manage to slip out of my headlock and escape.

"Alright, listen up, people. Maturity and Responsibility have been on the run for ninety minutes. Average foot speed over uneven ground barring injuries is 4 miles-per-hour. That gives us a radius of six miles. What I want from each and every one of you is a hard-target search of every gas station, residence, warehouse, farmhouse, henhouse, outhouse and doghouse in that area. Checkpoints go up at fifteen miles."

That's pretty much how it is.

I have made some significant headway with Responsibility and Commitment, but it's hard to be sure without the valuable feedback of a 'school report' I think my best excuse for not reaching my full potential is the absence of someone constantly feeding back to me just how much better I could have done. I miss having MUST TRY HARDER written on my homework...I miss 5/10 'see me'.

As soon as you escape from the rather short sighted and hobbled together experience that is compulsory education you are expected to self manage. After years of being told what to do, how to do it and why you are no good at doing it and never will be...suddenly you need to tell yourself those things.

My problem was that the 'voices' in me, had no issues with my lack of focus, attention to the bigger picture or my rampant immaturity and carefree nature..I was pulling straight 'A's according to them, 10/10..on you go son. I never aspired to be a spaceman, or a teacher or a bloody train driver..I never aspired to be anything really, never have. I tended, as has already been covered, to let the Devil do the driving and take me wherever he felt like it. He doesn't drive very often these days, but the damage is done..i'm so far away from the road I may as well just keep on bouncing over the rough terrain of 'should have tried harder'.

I'm not really complaining. There are distinct benefits to my inherant deficiencies.

For one, I can still spot an asshole a mile off, and am still able to tell them that I think theyr'e an asshole without feeling uncomfortable.

I still feel uncomfortable around dishonesty and what has become the acceptable lie of the workplace, whereby you are expected to sell an idea or a practise that is detrimental to many in order to secure, ultimately, better share prices for the investor.

Injustice bothers me, acceptable everyday injustice bothers me more.

I could go on, because the list of things is long. I see more of certain things because I didn't 'try harder' to ignore them. I didn't sell my soul in order to secure a higher pay packet, there's the lack of Ambition for you. I didn't spend all of my life behind a desk and miss the adventure that only belongs to youth..there's the lack of Direction for you. I don't find it hard to get along with children, they don't remind me of how old I am and they are not alien creatures to me, in fact nobody plays hide and seek better than me! there's the lack of Maturity for you.

Sure it's a trade off, Im never going to own a yacht..or have a holiday home abroad. I'll always be a bit strapped for cash, and it's unlikely that i'll leave much of a legacy behind me. But I will always know an asshole when I see one, will always wince at the use of the word 'Genre' and I will always be proud to stand up and say out loud...2001 space odyssey was a shit film...it was so far up it's own arse that I could barely see the soles of it's spaceboots.

I am irresponsible as often as possible, Driven to avoid Drive, commited to choosing the wrong direction and focused on avoiding maturity for as long as is humanly possible.

I'll not be handing the car keys over to the Devil any time soon...there's no need.
He taught me how to drive.

NEGATIVE FOURTY

2011-05-15T17:29:00.004+01:00

Negative Fourty is the unique temperature at which the Fahrenheit and Celsius scales correspond;
that is, −40°F = −40°C. It is referred to as either "minus forty" or "forty below".

I am Fourty years old.

Im going to see if the Internet has anything positive and uplifiting about being 40....

And that pretty much sums it up in a nutshell.

40 isn't cool, it isn't trendy. No amount of telling ourselves it is is going to change that.

It's not, nor will it ever be the new Thirty.

The Quran says that a person is only fully grown when they reach the age of 40 and it is also the code for direct dial international phone calls to Romania.

Like it or not though, i'm here for a few years yet..in the land of fourty something, and in order to try and negate it''s famous ageing qualities..I have quit smoking and started running 5 miles every other day. This Decade has always been concern for me, even when it was still a distant thing, because for me..it marked definate Adulthood It was my personal point f no return.

Some small comfort should be taken from the fact that having lost all of the things one is supposed to have amassed by this age..I have regained them all just in time. The house, the car, the dog, the Wife and soon..the child. It's all back in place in time for inspection. And, it's better this time round. Not only because crippling debt was one thing I managed not to replace, but also because I managed not to select a partner who has yet to decide upon their sexual identity.

Good skills. Pat me on the back, give me a Banana.

I have nothing to moan about really, not compared to some people, but being 40 just doesnt feel fun. I don't feel old, in fact I still feel like I am twenty...but my hair's much greyer and it's in my nose and ears now too.

I am capable of a high level of maturity and compassion these days..much more than when I was half this age, but it still doesn't come naturally..I still prefer to be a kid, to shun all but the most vital acts of a responsible adult. I still read comics, I still look at the toy aisle in the supermarket...and I still think 'Mum jokes' are extremely funny.

I have, as it goes, made the delivery of the 'Mum Joke' into an art form, even if I do say so myself...and I never miss the opportunity to deliver a quick "That's what your mum said" or "I (insert relevant statement here) your mum last night" Each sucsessful delivery is a joy to me.

But...I am not a kid any more. I am perhaps, at best, a reluctant adult, wading against the current and trying not to slip on the rocks beneath my feet. A modern day Don Quixote, armed with a shield of Humour and poking the windmill of old age with a sharp mum joke.

And I shall continue to poke at that windmill...because I'll be damned if I am going into my 50's without a fight!

THE TROUBLE WITH DEITIES.

2011-05-13T22:08:00.002+01:00

Never discuss religion or politics. That's what they say.Whoever they are.

Sadly..they are probably the two most important things that we should be discussing, despite the discomfort that comes with daring to do so.

My interest in religion was kick started by Miss Green, my Religious Education teacher at Secondary school. I tried to argue with her in class once and got my arse handed to me. I knew nothing about religion she told me, had no idea what it really was, and possibly had never read more than the front cover of the Bible. She told me to stop showing off and wind my neck in.

The way she so easilly put down the argument that I had presented, made me determined to learn more so that I could get my own back. I never did get revenge though because Miss Green got sacked for reading from the Bible in her Religious Education class...how do you like them apples?

"And Onan knew that the seed should not be his; and it came to pass, when he went in unto his brother's wife, that he spilled [it] on the ground, lest that he should give seed to his brother."

The reading of that particular passage was all it took for her to be removed from her position. Strange to think that a book, that is apparently the word of God...is not deemed suitable for 14 year old students.

My interest had been fired up however and the more I read, the more I wanted to read..I searched for 'removed' texts and passages 'Original un-altered' translations, unbias versions of books and accounts, historical proof, historical disproof..and the book of Enoch. The book of Enoch is something else.
Parts of it were found amongst the 'Dead sea scrolls' and have been dated to around the time that 'Jesus' would have been around, if he had in fact been around at all. Not that someone called Jesus wouldn't have been around, but not the carpenter's son of world renown..that Jesus, I am afraid to have to say, Wasn't actually a real living breathing person..he was propoganda, an idea, a myth and a means to an end.

I appreciate that to some, that will not sit well..but I assure you it's actually the truth..There are no independent historical first person confirmations of Jesus' existence. When Jesus would have been alive, there was a wealth of writers: Pliny the Elder, Plutarch, Juvenal, Senecca, Martial, Pausanius, Ptolomy, Philo and Justus of Tiberias. None of them mention him, his followers or his activities. The Prefect of Judea, based in Jerusalem, Pontius Pilate would have been legally required to keep records of what happened in his province. He does not mention Jesus or his trial.

The damage that has been done in his name since though, has been recorded well..and continues to be recorded today. Almost every single day as a matter of fact.

This blog is about me, not just what iv'e done, or done to people, or had done to me..but also about what's been done to my world..and how I percieve it since the very first time I was able to percieve anything for myself. As I have said earlier, we are an amalgamation of experiences and outside influences. How we deal with those 'dominoes' when they topple into us it was moulds us as a constantly evolving product..my world has been shaped and moulded by the perpetuation of a multitude of religious beliefs, I have grown up with popular lies and acceptable hatreds as a result of this.
It is not my intention to offend anyone..if you are truly religious and you find my position offensive..then forgive me (it's what you are meant to do) and then stop reading. Religions have a huge impact on the world around me, and will have the same impact on the world my children grow up in. With so much blood spilled and so many atrocities carried out in the various names of religion..it's not about letting God into my life..it's about fitting new locks and a 'beware of the dog' sign to ensure he doesn't even contemplate coming up the path...
Science takes us into space...religion takes us via passenger plane into the side of a building.
Common misconception is that that was Terrorism..it wasn't, it was religion.

BLOOD, SWEAT AND TEARS...IT'S 2005

2011-05-08T13:55:00.005+01:00

2005

January 20 – George W. Bush is inaugurated in Washington, D.C. for his second term as the 43rd President of the United States

February 9 – An ETA car bomb injures at least 40 people at a conference centre in Madrid

February 10 – North Korea announces that it possesses nuclear weapons as a protection against the hostility it feels from the United States

February 19 – Suicide bombers kill more than 30 people in Iraq as Shia Muslims mark Ashura, their holiest day

April 2 – Pope John Paul II dies; over 4 million people travel to the Vatican to mourn him

May 17 – Kuwaiti women are granted the right to vote

July 7 – Four terror attacks (3 on the London Underground and 1 on a bus) rock the transport network in London, killing 52 (not including the 4 bombers) and injuring over 700

The world population by 2005 was 6,453,628,000, the first few months of the year probably saw it drop significantly though. It was a bloody year and is probably sitting back in the lounge at the retirement home with the rest of the old years, repeatedly washing it's hands and wailing "Out, damn'd spot! out, I say!" so much blood was shed that year, it'll be a bitch to get the stains out.

Where was I when all this was happening? I was on the Hilltown, where the sirens actually stopping is what causes people to lift their head and go "Huh?...wassup?"

I was alone, because single men are far less interesting to certain peope than married ones, and because if you then seek comfort in the arms of someone else who is just as fragile as yourself and then you fuck them over in your struggle to survive..they leave too.

I flailed around like a drowning man for a bit, after I came off the happy pills, after Dad had gone home shaking his head at my impossible debt situation and after Mum had returned to watch him slowly fade away, having had a revelation regarding 'Her boy' previously an angel but now..perhaps significantly less than one.

I managed to rent a one bedroom flat above the 'Snug' public house just off the main road down the 'Hilltown' You could still hear the sirens stopping from there, but it was quieter. The number of fights outside my front window was far less than it would have been if I'd rented a place on the main road...but then i'd not have had any windows to look through.

I haven't yet met Alison in London Nightclub, I am still drinking Jack Daniels too much and living off of Pot Noodle. The house has been sold, there were no funds left after the solicitors fees were paid, and I am back at work after a short break to be a bit mental for a while.

Aside from Alison, who inspires levels of affection and loyalty that previously had been 'acted ' rather than truly felt, there were, if I am honest, few Significant women in my life. I am not including my mother, or any Grandparents in the 'significant' bracket, as I am talking about 'Partners' long term or otherwise.

I have not had a huge number of partners, and only the one 'one night stand' (a very surreal and awkward experience for one not use to casual sex and never repeated.) Most of my early couplings lasted a couple of years..my marriage at 21, lasted 13 years (two small affairs during the last 2 years) then after a short time alone, having a bit of a breakdown and drinking too much..Alison arrived on the scene.

There was one person, out of them all however, whome..could I change things, I would not have treated so poorly during my own personal crisis. I would not have selfishly looked them up, I would not have offered them and their daughter somewhere to stay so that I could have company, only to pull the rug out from under them and leave them with no choice other than the homeless shelter when I moved out of what had been the family home. I would not have played 'daddy' no matter how briefly, to the little girl and given her any hint of a calm during their own personal storm.

I have done mildly cruel things during my life, who hasn't? but very few have I regretted as much as the way I treated this person in particular. Nothing I did was consciously cruel or designed to hurt her...it just went that way. It happened though, and the impact of my actions was severe. I am happy to carry that particular guilt around with me, because it will remind me never to make the same mistake again...although with any luck I will never have to. I even feel a bit of a wanker for mentioning it here..as if it makes any difference at all to the woman or her daughter, like it's going to make everything better because iv'e admitted I was a prick. It doesn't. All I really want to do is ensure that she gets a mention. I am not going to tell you her name, there's no need. But I do hope she managed to survive her own personal crisis and the extra one I selfishly gave her. I admired her devotion to her daughter, She was like a Lioness with her cub at times, and would have done anything to secure a better life for her. I am sure she has managed to turn things around, I like to think she has done as well as I have..that she has found someone to care for her and the cub, found some stability and security. She helped me keep my sanity for a while, we linked hands and stopped eachother from falling over the edge and loosing the plot completely. Both newly seperated, both left with bugger all..it worked fine until I decide to let go and make a grab for the safety rope.

I was a dangerous Domino back then, and I was sending people in some poor directions as I toppled into them. Unlike dogs, who will hide any weakness or injury from the rest of the pack less they be abandoned..we Humans scream and cry and wail and moan so the whole bloody world can hear. Also unlike dogs, our love is seldom unconditional.

SAY IT WITH INK..IT LASTS LONGER THAN FLOWERS.

2011-05-07T15:43:00.008+01:00

My first ever tattoo was applied with Indian ink and a large darning needle. I did it myself at a rather rowdy party, and it actually came out extremely well. It was a small heart with an arrow through it with the letter D in the top right and the letter C in the bottom left. It was for Christine, my adored motorcycle and it remains on my left forearm still, almost as clear as it was the day my mother saw it and went critical quicker than a Japanese Nuclear power station.

"Go and wash that off now..whatever do you look like?!"
"Mum..It doesn't wash off"
"What do you mean? don't be silly..go and scrub it off"
"Mum..it's a tattoo, I did it with Indian ink"
KABOOOOOOOOOM!!!

My second Tattoo followed shortly after, and was applied again by myself using the same methods. A large 'A' in a circle (The symbol for Anarchy) with the letters B and D either side, spelling out 'BAD'. It was also a roaring sucsess, a near perfect circle and clear lettering. This tattoo was in memory of the square pegs, Jim, Dave and myself..and again, it reamins clear on my upper left arm.

I like tattoos, but only if they actually mean something. These people who run out and get random Bulldogs and Dragons smeared all over their skin for no good reason, or those who think it's cool to have a footballer's name up an arm, spider webs around their neck or half a book recreated on their back..in my opinion..only manage to advertise that their general level of intelligence is much lower than it should be.
Tattoos should tell a story, your story..I guess it's their skin, if they want to fill it up with unrelated junk that's their choice. At least it serves to give advanced warning that conversation with such a person is unlikely to be of any real benefit and that where possible breeding should be discouraged.

My Third Tattoo was a real one..the purple yellow and black of my Company flash. Beneath it, in small script C (ESSEX) COY. I had it done shortly before they changed our colours, and not long before I departed the loving arms of C Company forever. I still wear it with pride today, although it could use a touch up.

My Ink represents key moments in my development, stages of life, and up to having my colours added..it was pretty much risk free. That all changed not long after I met Alison.
I wanted to prove my loyalty, it was not required, she had taken me on despite my history but I wanted to do something to prove without a shadow of doubt that she was special.

And so the coat of arms for Essex, the three curved scimitars on a red shield, were added permanently to the flesh of my right upper arm...and right in the middle, the Red hand of Ulster stood proud.

I am hugely proud to be from Essex, the land of the East Saxons. Essex was the home of the Peasant revolution, led by Wat Tyler and I do not consider myself English. There is no England, in reality it's just an 'Idea' of a place...each area that makes it up has it's own rich history, you can be FROM any of those places...but you can't really be from England. To consider yourself English, is to throw away your heritage, your history. As for the Red hand, well any Loyalist knows the pride it envokes, the story behind it, and the struggle it symbolises. Right or wrong, and i'm not interested in having a political debate, it is a strong symbol and an equal to my three swords. And so, I pledged my loyalty to Alison with the addition of this new tattoo.

Next came the Ambigram. The letters A,L and I designed in such a way that they read the same up-side down and back to front. ALI of course being an abbreviation of Alison. This I had placed squarely in the centre of my chest a few months later. Big and Bold and Black..it said "I commit"

Then, after our wedding in 2008, I had a very simple tattoo added, just above the shield but below my company flash. BELFAST 06/12/08 in fancy script. For that was the date of the wedding. My best man, Ian, celebrated the occasion by having the very same tattoo. It was his first visit to Belfast, and his first time as Best man. I shall talk more about my 'adopted brother' later, for that is what he had come to be but it isn't time just yet.

And my latest addition was a small Ghecko, the symbol of the island of Ibiza, a place that I truly adore. Not as you may be forgiven for thinking, for the clubs, the booze and the lights..but for it's more peacefull side..across the island in and around the area of Santa Eulalia. The island has become a special place for Alison and I, and the addition of it's symbol to my right forearm reminds me of the great times we have had there.

I have already picked a space for my next tattoo, and I will be proud as punch to have the name of our son added to my skin-story as soon as he arrives...

And that particular arrival is, as I type this, imminent.

"KISS ME HARDY" & OTHER POPULAR MYTHS

2011-05-06T21:51:00.002+01:00

Nelson, England's greatest naval hero, died at the Battle of Trafalgar, 21st October 1805. He was hit by a musket ball, fired from a French ship, at about 1.15pm and died below decks at about 4.30pm. His body was preserved in a barrel of brandy.

Kiss me Hardy or Kismet Hardy? the Jury's still out on this one. Either way, neither were the last words of this great man. The last words were somewhat different, and will strike a cord with those of a more mundane existance...like you and me. Nelson's final words (as related by 3 written accounts of those who were with Nelson when he died) were "Thank God I have done my duty", which he repeated until he became unable to speak.

"Another day, another dollar." was actually "Another day, another dolor," meaning "another depressing day." (Dolor is Spanish for pain).

And Just for good measure,

Rodrigo de Triana (born 1469 in Seville, Spain) was a sailor and the first European since the Vikings known to have seen America. On October 12, 1492, while on Christopher Columbus's ship La Pinta, he was the first to sight America, and as such was the true Discoverer of the land. Triana went without the reward promised by Columbus and the credit for this find. He moved to Africa and converted to Islam following his epic shafting.

It seems to me that as a species, we have a habbit of changing things we don't like into things that sound better. So many of the things we believe to be true are not actually true..Religion is certainly not the only popular lie, we have systematically changed anything that would help us sleep easier if it was different. Who want's America to be discovered by anyone other than the great Christopher Columbus?? Who want's to believe we just die and then that's all she wrote? Who wants to believe that after almost thirteen years of marriage it all fell apart because your partner realised that they were actually gay and not straight.

Nobody.

I certainly didn't want to believe that. Not, I must add, that I am in any way unhappy with the way things eventually turned out, but it's really not an easy thing to accept. 'Another man' would have been a far more pallatable reason for it all coming tumbling down.

I am under no illusion that the facts were changed to help several people sleep better at night in my ex wife's camp, based on the initial abuse I received from my ex father in law and the attitudes displayed from those who I had once called family. I also have few doubts that my daughters understanding of the events that ultimately led to them loosing a parent were re-written to ease slumber and to save on awkward conversations.

I did try to maintain contact with both of my daughters..."Trying's not good enough" I can hear some of you saying, but in truth, the bigger the less damaging thing to do was to eventually walk away. Less damaging for me. For my eldest daughter, entering her teenage years, I was something that got in the way of her social activities every other week..an inconvenience that needed to be tollerated. Eventually the relationship just became too awkward for me. I walked away from it. I also walked away from my youngest daughter, and there was no good reason for that. I would add at this point, that I do, and always have paid the required upkeep without argument. I want no medal for this, but neither do I want anyone associating me with those men who refuse to take any responsibility for the financial support of their offspring. Withdrawing emotional support is one thing, starving them is something else.

It's been a couple of years now, or close to it, since I last saw them, and it has gone beyond the point of no return. There was some brief contact with my eldest via some social networking sites I found her on for a while, a few late night conversations about nothing and everything..but they stopped months ago. I have no idea why, but they did.

I could have changed the truth, blamed the influences of my ex wife for everything, blamed my hours of work for the sparse contact..changed it all to help me sleep better at night. I gave it serious thought. And in the end decided to just allow the nagging guilt to rumble around in the background. And there it remains, surfacing every once in a while and forcing me to swallow a lump in the throat and hold back uncommon tears.

My ex wife never stopped me seeing the girls.
I stopped me seeing the girls.
I did it because it was easier for me.
I have assumed it is easier for them, but it is an assumption and nothing more.

I have a nack for surviving over disaster, in fact my minor breakdown was the first and only time to date that I have not managed to hold it all together and work out an escape plan, or a counter attack. It may seem to the casual observer that my actions were harsh and uncaring. I don't doubt that I would be stoned by the audience if I was appearing on Oprah or Kilroy..or any of those 'oh so awful' judgement productions. But try not to judge me. It's about survival, it's about 'another day another dolor'

It's about doing your duty to yourself over and over and over again until you can speak no longer. I have survived my Trafalgar, I almost preserved myself with several bottles of Jack Daniels (Not Brandy) and what I said has not been changed to make it easier to accept.

I said "Goodbye"
And I walked away.

A MOMENTARY GLIMPSE OF NOW

2011-05-06T13:09:00.001+01:00

06/05/2011

As I sit here sipping my coffee, Judgement day is only just around the corner.

Apparently it's going to happen on the 21st. That's a Saturday, so i'll probably be up early enough to catch it as I work every single Saturday. This is quite good, because Judgement day is a pretty big thing, and i'd not want to sleep through it and miss it.

After Judgement day (which by the way, came for one Osama Bin Laden only a few days ago on the second) there's the End of the world on October the 21st. That's probably going to be hard to miss, working or not. That's on a Friday.

I thought i'd jump to NOW with this blog post. Of course, it will only be NOW for a few hours, before falling into history, so for those of you who do not hang on my every post..I apologise that the now for you is actually a then.

With a child on the way, I have to worry about the kind of world he's going to grow up in. Mine was, on the whole, not that bad as a child. 1970 to 1990 could have been far far worse than they were if I am being honest, and using the last few years as a comparison, they could have actually been a complete nightmare.
I have consiparcy theories running around in my head almost all the time these days, what with bombings, invasions, illegal wars, natural disatsers, hunts for supposed terrorists in places we know they aren't hiding, bombings on buses, hijackings, missing bits of space on Google sky and so on and so forth....it's quite a worry.

And if the bloody Mayan's had just bothered to carry their calender on for a few more centuries, I would have missed all this commotion. Damn those pesky Mayan calender makers and their 'work to rule' attitude.

I have no idea why Bin Laden was killed now, I am not even sure if he was given all the palava surrounding the event, but it worries me that it may be the lead up to more disinformation and confusion. Possibly not the end of the world, or Judgement day even..but I can't help feeling like there are black clouds on the Horizon.

I am 40 years old, I have been off the cigarettes for over two weeks now, I have a job that pays the bills, a wonderful wife, a loyal dog and a Son on the way. It'll be a cold day in Hell before any Judging gets done, any end of the world gets started or any of that Malarky...I didn't come this far up the river of life to find myself lying on the rocks like an exhausted Salmon..no siree! The Mayan's the Al Qaeda, the Cia, Fbi and MI5 can all just take a long walk off a short pier with the Illuminati and all the religious nutjobs..because it ain't happening.

I have lots more to do before I shuffle off of this mortal coil...and it's going to get done!

The serious note here is that as 'little people' square pegs or round ones, we need to wake up and smell the coffee a bit more. We need to quit listening to bullshit stories about terrorism, cataclysm and all those other nasty ism's that are out there. We need to think more for ourselves, make our own decisions and peer through all the lies in order to keep a grip on reality and a smile on our faces.

It's a good world...it has the potential to be a great one if we can all take it back from the few who are spoiling it for everyone else.

Ok..I'm done, back to the normal flow of Half Dead and Dancing.

LIKE A PHOENIX FROM THE FLAMES (PART 3)

2011-05-05T13:55:00.001+01:00

While mother was visitng me, we gained a new understanding of eachother. We talked, we shared and we worried together. Mum was obviously trying hard to maintain her composure faced with the black news that her Husband was not likely to live for very much longer. In some part her visit to me was 'early prep' for being alone. She was easing herself slowly into doing the things that Dad would normally do...booking tickets, flying all the way to Scotland to rescue the wayward son...and so on and so forth. Slowly over the next weeks and months she was to learn all the important things that Sam usually did, and it couldn't have been easy for her.

We had a good time over those couple of days. I showed her the sights and sounds of Dundee, we even attended a university Degree show together where I introduced her to a girl who was, well for want of any better or kinder phrase 'A safety net' ...a crash bumper...an emergency chute if you will. She had, in honesty arrived on the scene shortly before the end of my marriage, and I will allow you to make assumptions as to her role. I am not going to mention her name, for fear of legal reprisals and because it's not that important...wether or not I mention anything else about her I have yet to decide, it may be the first 'minor happening' that I choose to omit from my tale. There are feelings at stake here other than my own, and while I bravely throw my history down on these virtual pages, I must also try to respect the feelings of those I care about and love now..and those I used simply to survive back then.

Anyway, mum eventually returned home and left me with a fully stocked refrigerator and freezer. I got myself some pills for 'Nervous anxiety' and some time of work and spent the next few days sitting on the arm of a chair staring at the sky until it turned off for the night. The full understanding of my debt (A debt apparently, that could not possibly be shared despite the fact it was jointly accumulated) had tipped me dangerously close to a proper breakdown...I wasn't suicidal or anything, but I was definately not at my best.

I remained 'not particularly at my best' right up to, and just beyond my chance meeting with a certain Belfast girl in London Nightclub. But, I am jumping forwards again.

"What happened to the debt?" I hear you cry

Sam happened to the debt, and it was a tribute to his genius with figures and his reluctance to do anything dishonest, he arranged things so that his passing away was my second chance. He secured my freedom knowing that his own demise was the only stipulation. Some carefully purchased policies, some large loans, some more expensive policies..and bingo! I was free from debt, and every loan provider and policy vendor was paid off..by themselves, which didn't make some of them very happy. However, when the legality of what Dad had done was challenged, and it was, everything was found to be completely above board. Legitimate. They just never figured on anyone coming up with such a beautiful work around.

I promised my father when he was still alive, that I would..when I got out of my debt, never get in it again. I have never since owned a credit card, and have kept full details of my finances from that very day, running my own books, keeping reciepts, managing my internet banking.

It was one of the few promises that I have made in my 40 years that I feel compelled to keep, the very least that I can do. I know it seems silly, it does to me as I type this, but I worry that the old man wished himself away quickly so that I could be bailed out, that had I not been so irresponsible he may just have hung around a bit longer.

LIKE A PHOENIX FROM THE FLAMES (PART 2)

2011-05-05T09:22:00.003+01:00

After admitting that what I actually knew about my father would fit on the back of a postcard, do I feel ashamed? I'll answer that question with another. Do you?.

By my reckoning a good 50% of fathers die massively unappreciated and virtual strangers to their offspring. It's a socially acceptable ignorance though, 'Culturally endorsed disinterest', so we wear our neglect much easier than if any real emphasis had been put on actually knowing the person behind the daddy mask as we grow. The more comfortable our position, the better the society the more likely it is our fathers start and remain one dimensional.

Do something about it while you can.

Anyway, after admitting that what I actually knew about my father would fit on the back of a postcard, one thing I was certain of was his Honesty. It was never in question.

Raised a good Catholic boy, by nuns and the only child of good Catholic parents who naturally behaved like nuns..it's a miracle he ever arrived screaming into this world, but he did..and from that point on he did exceptionally well. By the time I had amassed a crippling debt and delivered the first divorce in the familly history he had retired with mum to a rather big little house in the country. His arthritis was no longer arthritis, but actually bone cancer that had originated from Prostate cancer that had managed to get 'in and comfortable' using more stealth than Osama Bin Laden in Pakistan.

I remember the look on his face when the level of financial mess I was in became apparent. Dad had a special 'Worried' pose that he would adopt when things were seriously FUBAR...It may have been a special pose just for me. In fact I am pretty sure very few other people ever warranted it.

The moment he adopted the pose, palm to forhead, head slightly bowed..I knew I was in shit. Not ass whooping shit, dad was never a 'beat the respect into the boy' kind of dad..because he was educated, because he was often away on business for much of my upbringing, and because he was much much smaller than me. That pose meant it worried Sam, and if Sam was worried...it was bad.

He had dragged his bones, what remained of them, up to Scotland to assess the damage after the 'split' and sat with me in the kitchen trying to establish what was owed to who and for how long. Dad was good with all things numbers. Graduate of the London school of Economics and previously well placed in the Standard Chatered Bank, he could 'do sums'. I never could 'do sums' even with extra out of school tuition in how to 'do sums' I still only managed a CSE grade 4 for Maths. You get one of those for putting your name on the paper.

Anyway...he took everything he could find that reeked of debt past or present and returned home to the little big house in the country (They call bungalows small houses, but this bungalow really wasn't that small..they had just taken the upstairs off and added it to the downstairs increasing volume outwards rather than upwards.)

I was left to await his report. In the mean time, mum visited and barely resisted the urge to whoop my debt ridden irresponsible ass all over the place. Mum was also educated..she just knew the value of an ass whooping.

LIKE A PHOENIX FROM THE FLAMES.

2011-04-17T17:35:00.104+01:00

"Everything is in constant flux. Nothing is ever still, even when it feels like it is. Life never ever slows down, there are just those rare and beautiful times when you can run at the same speed...this gives the illusion of calm." The Author 2011

It's funny how things can change so rapidly, and yet when they are not going well we get all defeated and depressed. "When will it ever end?" we ask ourselves "Why me?" But it always does get better, the bad stuff goes away to regroup and we get some good stuff. In 2005 the bad stuff went away to regroup and I found myself in an oasis of calm. In fact, 2005 was possibly my 'The Empire Strikes back' it was a clear second part to the trilogy of me. 1970 to 2005 was my "Star Wars" and the exploding Death star that was my first marriage signalled the end of that particular movie.

So much time has elapsed since I regularly added to this blog that I have lost touch with it, the best way to describe how it feels is by saying that it is like trying to do up duffle coat toggles with mittens on. Things are generally calmer these days, less frantic..less 'Death star trench run' and it's harder for me to find the right rhythm again. I must face the possibility that it may evolve into a different creature entirely from here on in if I can't regain that feeling of mild desperation and panic that drove me to put finger to keypad in the first place...but I shall continue anyway.

The arrival of Alison into my life was possibly one of the greatest catalysts for change on a personal level that I had (and have to date) had. People tend to be able to look back over 30 or 40 years and pick out two or three major events by that time that shaped them significantly, I was lucky enough to have been able to stretch my childhood beyond 15 and into my 30's, and although there were obviously some defining moments, as I have tried to convey on these virtual pages, they were not particularly Earth shattering and did not lead to any major changes in WHO I was.

My father was massively under appreciated by me, and when he died I realised just how sparsely I knew the man, how much I had taken him and his 'being there' as an eternal truth. I wasted him like we, the privileged, waste water. I have no intention of banging on about my dad, and how great he was for two or three chapters..but allow me to continue for just a little longer if you will.

After the dust settled in the crater left behind by my first marriage and the 'dish' that was my first wife had ditched the 'spoon' that was me for 'another dish' I was left with a black Labrador named Willow, a letter from the ex wife's solicitor advising me that I could have 'the black Labrador named Willow' and more debt than you could shake a stick at. Quite a few thousand pounds worth of debt in fact and I wasn't a bank so could not expect a bail out from the Government. As I have said before..there is a point to this..so stay with me....

DICTATORS, DISASTERS AND DOMINOES (A.K.A CHAPTER 60)

2011-04-17T12:15:00.010+01:00

Sunday, 18 January 2009

The Gaza war ended, when Israel first declared a unilateral ceasefire, followed by Hamas' announcing a one-week ceasefire twelve hours later. Israel completed its withdrawal on January 21st.

Slumdog Millionaire was at the top of the US and Uk Box Office

And I decided to kill off 'Half dead and dancing'

You will have to excuse me if I ramble for a couple of posts, it has been a long time since I added anything to the epic tale that is 'My life' and I am a little rusty. I have neglected my more creative urges to the point of almost extinction since my decision to quit the blog.

Since we last met here...wars have come and gone, dictators have been toppled, there have been epic and frequent natural disasters and the Reaper, although still unable to claim my immortal soul, has taken those of One Father, One Grandfather and two in laws.

It's been a busy few years.

I think the best place to start would be 'London Nightclub' circa 2005. That's not a nightclub in London, it's the nightclub called London in Dundee. At the time it was less of a dive than most of them and naturally lent itself to being my usual drinking hole given my origins. I may add at this point that I still consider myself an Essex Boy, despite the fact that my place of birth has now been consumed by and redesignated as a part of London. East London.

So..it's some time in 2005 and I have, as was the normal routine, just finished work and made my way down the road into town to have a few beers with one of my regular drinking buddies Andy.

It was on this particular night that I was to meet my future wife and when the derailed out of control Locomotive that was pulling me through Life managed to get itself back on the tracks only seconds before it was due to crash and burn.

The 'Domino effect' was once again to send me off in a completely, and not unpleasant direction. The domino in question was called Alison and she had just returned from a holiday in Bulgaria with a few quid left in her pocket for a night out with her friend Steff. Steff was a boy, not a girl..although he liked boys, not girls and he was a huge character who has since vanished entirely from view.

It was probably on or about Midnight, I was on my second drink and had found a good position looking over the dance floor in the 'Urban' area of the club. Andy was off visiting the gents and returned with 'an old mate' enter Steff stage right. After a brief nod and the necessary polite conversation he buggered off and Andy and I returned to watching the dance floor. I knew right away he was the kind of man that didn't like ladies and had kept my conversation to a minimum based on preconceptions and prejudices handed to me by society.

Steff was gay and he was away.

He came back shortly though, after going back to his companion for the evening and advising her that he had just met 'her team leader'. I was not her team leader, nor had I ever been, but Alison was not to know that, and she returned with Steff to say hi.

"That's not my team leader" was, if I recall, the first thing I heard her say. I believe that there was some mild disappointment in the tone and delivery at the time, but I don't recall it bothering me. I wasn't a lot of people's team leader..it's not like she was saying "That's not the Messiah" or anything.

Everyone was introduced, and we decided to 'group up' for the rest of the evening. Andy and Steff had some catching up to do, and my Homointollerance didn't predispose me to force my way into their conversation. As a result Alison and I were forced to kick the small talk ball around together. It was more like 'small loud talk' given that we had to fight with the bass being thumped out from the other side of the dance floor.

Several drinks later and the small loud talk was no longer small loud talk but had evolved into interesting loud conversation. We were actually getting on very well, and I found her honesty and openness refreshing. At some point the 'Flower' man had visited, and Steff had purchased a single rose for Alison (possibly a thankyou for the fact that she was again funding his social life out of her own purse) and she was clutching it in one hand as we stood having loud interesting conversation.

It was clutched thusly for some time until it suddenly appeared in 'My Pint glass' along with what remained of my lager. We were getting along extremely well, and this 'mild Irish flirting' would have been a welcome development if it had not been for the fact that 'My pint glass' was not in fact mine but belonged to the simian looking brute sitting beside us....I looked at the pint, looked back at my slightly inebriated company, looked back at the pint and then up at Mr genetically challenged...who was looking from his flower adorned pint to me and back to his pint again.

It was an awkward moment, and resolution seemed to be impossible via the non violent 'me getting punched' route..but I decided to go with 'Casual correction of error' and try to escape unscathed none the less.
I jammed my fingers into the pint glass, removed the offending flora and then returned to my conversation as if nothing had happened. The expected punch never landed, and when I looked around again..Harry had gone off to find the Hendersons. It was, as they say in my neck of the woods, a result.

I would add at this point, that despite almost getting me hospitalised the first time we met, Alison has actually been keeping me out of trouble ever since.

I think I began to 'fall' for this Northern Irish troublemaker almost right away, but I definately knew by the end of the evening after watching her dance to "I'll tell my ma"
The tune ignited something in her and she was away, dancing like a dervish to a tune that said "Home" to her. It said "This is what I am..and I am proud" It was in her blood and being fiercely proud of what I am and where I am from...it was a joy to watch. We were cut from similar cloth, if not entirely the same. She wasn't Irish..she was Northern Irish..she was Loyal and flame haired, she was full of life and she was independant. She required nobody to fawn over her or bring home the bacon..she was doing everything for herself.

And that's how we met. There was a kiss at the end of the evening. A gentlemanly walk home..no going in for coffee or tea, or anyother beverage that is code for sex...I simply walked her home talking all the way, gave her my mobile number and then walked myself home.

My mother would have been proud had she witnessed it.

BACK ONCE AGAIN WITH THE RENEGADE MASTER....

2011-04-16T19:53:00.003+01:00

It's the 16th of April, year of our Lord two thousand and eleven.

I was forty back in October 2010.
I celebrated my second wedding anniversary in December 2010

Second anniversary, second wedding.

I am older than when I started this blog..older, and perhaps wiser. Bits of me ache more frequently these days and there's more grey about than I would really like.

By a miracle this 'lost blog' seems to have returned, and I now pick it back up a good 5 years after it should have been finished. Thirty five years of an ordinary man in ordinary words looks set to become forty years.

So much has happened during the 'quiet time', and I am going to have to go back over the old posts and see where exactly we were when I left without saying my goodbyes.

As mentioned, I am now remarried, to a beautiful Belfast girl named Alison, and as we speak it is only three months until the arrival of our first child. A boy....Samael Vincent. The name is a nod to my father, who sadly passed away a couple of years back another victim of Cancer.

We have our own place and are back on the mortgage ladder with a nice little 3 bed mid terrace place in one of the quieter areas of the 'city of Discovery'. New car (well new for us) and a new dog. Sadly 'Willow' fell victim to my divorce, and had to be re-housed when everything got sawn in half or sold off. The flat I ended up in at the time was pet unfriendly, despite the extortionate rent. Wicket now fills the four legged gap left by Willow, and she has proven to be every bit 'Man's best friend' another crazy Labrador who's more human than canine...at times spookilly so.

I spend my days working at the same place I have been for the last ten years, same shift..14:30 to 23:00 with Mondays and Tuesdays off for good behaviour...nothing has changed there, and I have no doubt that nothing ever will change there, so deeply ingrained are the attitudes and perspectives of those who could, if they had more vision, change things, that it would take a modern miracle to see even the slightest deviation from course.

I have made a few what I would call 'real' friends...and we often pack up and vanish into the Cairngorm mountains or other wild areas of Scotland for a couple of days to de-stress and leave the madness of the real world behind us. Nothing is more soothing to a damaged soul than the solitude of Glen Doll.

Except maybe for a large Jack Daniels.

It is my intention to pick this blog up again and carry it on, in it's usual disjointed and haphazard format. I like it that way, and as I explained many many posts ago...it reflects how life is for me..haphazard, disjointed, random and generally a bit of a bugger to keep track of.

Likely, once I have re-read my old posts, I will hate them..but I intend to leave them there. After all..it was not ME that wrote them...that was someone else, someone a few years younger...less gray..still reeling from a messy divorce and the loss of his dog. I may revisit those old topics, and embellish them a tad, add a little more reflection or I may just ramble on up the path from here.

I am still only half dead....and I am still dancing.

THE GRASS IS ALWAYS GREENER..

2009-01-18T15:20:00.002Z

1999

(MCMXCIX)

January 1 - Euro is established.

February 7 - King Hussein of Jordan dies from cancer

March 12 - Hungary, Poland and the Czech Republic join NATO.

March 24 - NATO launches air strikes against the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia

April 20 - Columbine High School massacre

July 22 - The first version of MSN Messenger is released by Microsoft.

October 12 - World population reaches 6 billion

December 31 - Boris Yeltsin resigns as President of Russia

A few years have passed now since the two of us were joined in Holy matrimony. I can't be sure if i'm getting the whole 'passage of time' thing across adequately as I write. Forgive me if I have not. Things were not bad, they weren't particularly good either though. We had been scraping by on two fairly average wages until 'first daughter' arrived, at that point it was just my fairly average wage. Credit cards snuck in somewhere, disguised cleverly as an answer to a multitude of problems, and we embraced them with open arms, invited them in for a cup of tea and they ended up staying.

Credit Cards are Evil. Fact. Don't let anyone tell you otherwise, unless you are extremely strong in the 'Force' you will succumb to their dark side and forever will it dominate your destiny.

As our unmonitored debts accumulated and my inability to apply myself to anything that did not require a gun worsened, we decided to force change. We announced that we were moving to Scotland. It's June or July 1999. The plan was to stay with Her parents until we managed to secure jobs and somewhere to stay, be it rented or mortgaged. The in-laws came down and we had a hired van ready to fill with our worldly posessions, the whole thing was over in the blink of an eye, and to the casual observer, and my family, it must have looked like we had the Devil on our heels given the speed of the whole exercise.

We were running.

The problem was that we were not running from the dead end job, debt, bad neighbours or a family feud. We were running from the very thing we were taking with us. Eachother. We just didn't know it at the time.

We moved in to her parents place out in the small village of Alyth and initially all was rosy in the new garden. It wasn't long before the cracks started to show though, with two grown men under the same roof and a small child. And when we did finally move into our own place, it was a relief for all involved. We no longer had 'Billy the dog', he had decided to begin a dirty-protest as soon as our daughter had arrived home with her mum from the hospital. The formerly good natured little bundle of fir became a snarling, crap dropping monster. So we handed him over to my parents, who were more than happy to adopt him, and for whome he instantly reverted to the loveable Billydog once more.

My first job in Dundee was an agency position working for 'National Rail enquiries' from two in the afternoon until midnight. I would spend the entire shift sitting in front of a vdu, dishing out train times and ticket information to anyone wishing to travel by train. It was a soul destroying job, the epitome of a call centre (contact centre if you prefer) with all the agents lined up in rows, row upon row, bathed in artificial light like battery-hens. Battery humans. Words cannot accurately describe how mind numbingly dull the work was, there were no perks to be had, no opportunities to relax for a while...Hell you even had to register with a team leader if you needed to take a leak! I survived approximately one year at N.R.E.S before I secured my next job, and, as I write this..i'm still there. All be it at times hanging by a thread.

To be continued...

ATTITUDE PROBLEM

2009-01-17T17:43:00.002Z

I got dismissed from Senate Electrical, I should mention that. I was asked to leave by Geoff after I punched a lad in the face for calling me a 'C***'. I hate that word more than any other. To me, it is the only expletive left that still 'cuts' it's a dirty, gutter level word that eats it's own excrement and never washes. It's an unshaven, uneducated, born out of wedlock, young offender kind of word. The 'Hoodie' of insults. And I punched Anthony for calling me it.
Geoff gave me a lift home that day, and he was genuinely upset that our love/hate relationship had reached it's conclusion.

I don't recall if I was out of work for long...I don't think I was, back then, if you wanted to work..there was work and I secured a job at a Bonded warehouse out in the sticks...that didn't last long and I moved on to the position of Warehouse Manager for a company that stocked and sold vending machines. The company was in it's death throws..but nobody knew it at the time, and fortunately for me..it died a couple of months after I left (by choice) to move to Scotland...but i'm running ahead of myself a little here. Rewind.

Not too long after my first daughter was born we moved across the road. Literally, we moved across the road into one of the new 2 bedroom places that completed 'Phase three' of the Tattersalls Chase development in Southminster. The three of us, and Billy the dog, moved all of 15 feet with all of our worldly posessions and settled down in a 'Big house'.

The neighbours were real 'salt of the earth people' and that really means that they were Gippo's without the caravan. Mr and Mrs 'speak too loud, play our music too loud, row too loud' But we got along ok with them. By now, much of Tattersalls chase was full of the kind of people it had been trying NOT to appeal to. The problem was, the Yuppies never came, I guess nobody thought to tell them that the railway line now went straight from Southminster to London Liverpool Street station. If they did..I guess that alone was not enough to entice them to move out into the so-called country, buy a landrover before realising that there really was no point in having one because there was nowhere worth driving too that could possibly justify the endless hours spent crawling along at a snail's pace behind a tractor being driven by farmer 'I don't give a shit for townies'.

Good break for us that those darned Yuppies never did come..or we'd not have managed to end up in a place that really should have been beyond our means. In truth, it was beyond our means, but my parents helped substantially with the purchase. Say no more.
We got to know all the neighbours, not just the Gippo's next door, but 'Disfunctional Pete' over the road, and 'Mr and Mrs Would be snobs' at the end of the row and the 'Slutty Northern divorcee' that lived next door to Disfunctional Pete, and who he was desperately trying to get into bed with. I believe, eventually he did achieve that particular personal goal.

Lovely people, and I can't help wondering what they called me. Viewing myself then, from here and now, I shudder to think what mildly humourous mainly insulting name I had rightfully earned and I am glad I never got to hear it. At least it wasn't Gippo, of that I can be sure, I was too concerned about other people's opinions back then to have slipped into the Gippo bracket. My over privalleged childhood had encouraged some mild social snobbery within me that had not be worn away by the fact that I was 'Blue collar and low income'. My 'Fuck you mate..my old man is pals with John Major' attitude was a long way away from being binned as excess to requirements. Coupled with my 'Bloody Civvies' attitude towards anyone who hadn't earned the right to dress in camoflage print, or spent a night freezing in a ditch and been shot at by someone on the same side, and you had, I am sure, a wonderfully engaging personality that everyone wanted to be close to (For those who may have missed that..it was sarcasm.)

So there we were in our new house, and me with another two jobs under my belt and a brand new attitude problem. My time with E-wing had awoken something in me, a new confidence and self belief, but it had also given me somewhere to channel my anger and agression..it had allowed me to turn what would have been bottled up anger INTO agression, and that was great as far as the job was concerned, but it was not so good 'outside' in the real world. In the real world we are expected to bottle everything up until we have a stroke, a breakdown or both. We accept it because we know no better, because the constraints of society do not allow us to do anything other than accept and move on. Not a real problem, until you've seen the alternative to quietly seething.

To be continued...

INTRODUCING E-WING

2009-01-11T16:27:00.003Z

The whole 'catch a round in the headgear' thing, did wonders for the Sardo myth and to wind that story up..I got to keep 'the one with my name on it' and wore it on a chain around my neck for many years. On the day, my Boss had advised me that the incident had been 'God sending me a message' (The sardo thing was well known by now, as was my aversion to religion) I had replied by saying that it was not..but was instead a fine example of the Devil taking care of his own. We moved on.

Now..Sardo was by no means the 'only' or the 'biggest' player in our company. We were all characters, all famous for something, all 'up for a fight' be it on the battlefield or down the pub after. We worked hard and we played hard. We were loyal to a fault, would have gone anywhere and done anything..and many of the gang still are. As I write this, Robbo and Ryan are out in Afghanistan risking their necks for Queen and country, and i'd ask you to spare a thought for them..they obviously may not be there when you read this, mayhap they have left the army..or have gone to somewhere else where we have surfed on the shirt tails of America into another sandy fight. But think of them anyway, just for a second.

As we all developed, so did the overall reputation. I forget who it was that first used the name 'E-wing' to describe us, but it stuck. We had gotten a name for ourselves as always being up for the job, and that no job was too dirty or too hard for us.

E-wing is apparently a particular part of a particular prison where they kept the really 'nasty' inmates. I think it may have been meant as an insult, but we loved it. And we became known (unofficially) as E-wing. Those who would do the dirty job, and enjoy it. Individually we were well known, but combined as E-wing, we became Extremely well known. Often, 'E-wing' would be called up to do a particular job, or to go on a particular type of patrol, or wade down some freezing particularly-polluted river to get a particularly nasty job done. And every time we did it without complaint, we moaned amongst ourselves of course, but never outside of the group. Before I left, I had the company 'flash' tatoo'd on my right arm..just where it would sit on my uniform, and exactly the same size. Those colours don't exist any more, the regiment got merged and re-named, but the colours, the E-wing colours, Sardo's colours, will always remain on my arm.

I have so many tales to tell about my time with E-wing, and I never tire of doing so, but if I allowed myself to put on my 'comfy slippers' pull a chair up infront of the crackling fire and begin to recite them..then I fear I would never stop. I would love to tell the tale of 'E-wing and the Scud missile' or 'Gibsy, Sardo and the Elephant', perhaps even 'Bus Theft made easy' but seriously, I can't. Ask me later if we ever meet, buy me a pint somewhere nice and quiet with wood panelling and horse brasses, and I shall take you away with me, back in time..to one of the few places I remember like it was yesterday. I will even show you each and every one of the scars I earned if you make it two pints and a Jack Daniels chaser.

We need to move on though, another thing I learned during my 'Military days' was that momentum is everything..loose IT and you loose EVERYTHING...so on we go. There's a family at home at the moment, and we need to pop in and check on them.

To be continued...

TRADING THE SYTHE FOR 5.56MM AMMUNITION

2009-01-11T16:17:00.003Z

Just so as you don't forget like I did...I still have a family at home. They are still going about their business and i'm still being a selfish pig...I will get back to them, but stay with me if you will, while I continue with the tale of Sardo...

SARDO STOPS A BULLET

It was a live firing exercise. A big one, Battalion level if I recall correctly. We had mortars, milan, and SF. Real bangs, live rounds and much shouting. I recall finding myself pushing up with Westy to the left and slightly back from me. Westy was voted 'Most likely to accidentally discharge' by the rest of the company. By discharge of course, I mean his weapon. I was twitching with every round that left his weapon as we made our way up the simulated battlefield. And, as it turns out..I had reson to twitch that day, but the tool of my intended demise was not poor Westy. My old friend the Grim reaper, had plans for me, but had also deemed my brother in arms too unreliable to be the means of my dispatch.
The push was quite slow, and as we moved, paused, moved, paused..Westy soon ended up somewhere else making someone else twitch. As the exercise picked up so did the pace. There was constant SF fire down the left and right sides of the battle field, and we had been told quite bluntly "Move too far that way or that way...and you will die. Understood?" We had all nodded with much enthusiasm..trying to face off with a G.P.M.G, of Jimpy as we fondly referred to them..was a bad idea. The Jimpy ate stuff..all stuff. It ate bricks and mortar, it ate trees, it ate cars and it loved to eat people. It was so fond of eating, so completely, that the UN tried to have it banned. It was just too good at eating stuff.
Being good at killing is not always considered a good thing. The Jimpy would kill a man without a blink..stone dead. And if the man's stone dead..his mates will 'theoretically' step over the bits Jimpy left and carry on the advance. But...a small 5.56mm round will 'down' the man and leave him screaming. Then his mates will stop to get him out...thus taking two to three men out of the battle. Makes sense. Anyway..I digress.
The push sped up, and eventually we were 'running and gunning' stopping to take aim, letting off a few rounds and then moving off again. Up and down 'like whores drawers' as my Great Grandmother would have said. During the run, I took an unexpected tumble, pitched forward..regained some balance before I hit dirt and managed to keep going. Not another thought about it.
It was only when we next stopped, and I slumped down in a dry river bed next to Donny (another of the crew) that things became bone-chillingly clear.
"Wassat in your lid?" Donny asked, as I sat there trying to gather my breath and deciding if trying to sneak a quick smoke was a stupid idea. I looked at him like he was stupid. My Kevlar was dressed with camoflage, bits of bracken, grass common to the battlefield, tucked into the bands sewn into the helmet cover. "Cam you twat" I replied. I liked Donny, but it was a stupid question.
"Nah..it aint" He said, and began to tug at the rear of my Headwear.
"Fuck off!" I rebuked him. And then stopped as he looked at me with eyes as big as saucers.
"Fucking hell Sardo..youv'e been shot."
"What?"
"Youv'e been shot in the fucking head." Donny smiled, obviously this was great.
I reached around to the back of my Kevlar and felt there. Something foreign was indeed protruding from the back of the Helmet. I pulled at it and it came free. I looked down at the object in my hand. A 5.56mm tracer round.
Donny began to laugh. I did not. "Fucking Hell" Was all I managed to say. The safety staff were on us in a second..faces as pale as my own. There was some hushed discussion, and then a halt to the entire exercise. This was bad shit.
Now...while all this went on, a shrouded figure, head hung in dispair and trailing a sythe along the ground shuffled away back down the range completely un-noticed by the army coloured people. Nobody was close enough to hear his rasping sigh or to share his sorrow. And slowly he faded away into the smoke.
To be continued...

ENDEX

2009-01-11T13:01:00.002Z

"Strategy without tactics is the slowest route to victory. Tactics without strategy is the noise before defeat." Sun Tzu

Their faces were an absolute picture as I opened up on them, and before they could react I legged it off again. There was a complete sewer system beneath the village, and I found the nearest entry point and got under ground. Once satisfied I was safe, I lit up a smoke and chilled for a while before moving on. The sewer ran all around the village, with little points here and there you could climb out. I wasn't sure where I was exactly when I decided to climb out, but figured I'd be safe to pop my head up and have a little look around...

I was a casualty the moment I climbed up...right in the middle of the street in the thick of a firefight between two houses. I was tapped on the shoulder and advised to lay down as I was 'Fucking dead' by one of the Ds's. Endex for me.

When it was all over there was the debrief, and then the endless chore of tidying up and 'collecting the brass'. Every single case that had hit the ground during the exercise had to be collected..every old smoke cannister, every ammo box..the lot, and this was by far, the worst part of any exercise.

The debrief was run of the mill, pleanty of blah blah blah, some valid points, some laughter and some serious comments to take heed of that may well keep you alive if you ever did it for real. It was at the end when the Officer giving the debrief piped up with "And who was that Madman who threw himself out of the window??"

I shrunk. Please, nobody say a word. Of course, i'd already shared my moment at the window with the rest of the gang, but right here and right now..I didn't want to take a public dressing down for the action that, for the sake of reputation, I had advised was deliberate and intentional rather than the accident it was.

"Sardo!" several of the gang piped up and pointed at me, grinning with an evil joy. I nodded respectfully and even managed a small smile...praying that this would be clean and quick.

"Well done lad! bloody well done, that's the spirit!"

I was stunned, and as the pats on the back and the brief cheering subsided I thanked the God I didn't believe in for the mercy he had shown. And so...having learned how to fly, Sardo began to evolve, he was 'crazy' had little or no concern for his own personal safety and was definately happy to muck in. There was no backing out now, I would have to become the thing that they had made me, and I, by accident had helped them imagine.

We cleared up, moved out and the exercise was over. The first of many, and for me..the begining of one Hell of a ride. From that point on I was 'in the door' quicker than I deserved, by accident and not through skill, but in the door none the less. I knuckled down and learned what I could, pushed myself and listened to those who knew far more than me about things I hoped I would never actually see. And as the days and weeks turned into months, so the Character of Sardo developed. And, unknown to me..my old friend the Reaper was making plans for his third attempt at collecting my mortal soul.

To be continued...

THE SEVEN MINUTE MEN (CONTINUED)

2009-01-11T11:01:00.002Z

( From Left to right: Sarge, Gibsy, Westy, Robbo, Ryan and Tibble.)

As plans go, it wasn't particularly cunning or subtle. But as far as effective plans go, it was a blinder. "Even the best laid plans do not survive first contact" and that quote being true, the most likely plans to go 'as planned' are the ones that just get made up on the spot.
The next bad guy to walk in the room got accosted from behind. Goodey was on him in a blink, one hand over his mouth, head pulled back as far as was safe, his other hand released the magazine from the man's rifle to prevent him from squeezing off a round..it was a gamble there wasn't one 'up the spout' but a fairly safe gamble on a training exercise, when the man in question has taken a cushy little job at the back of the fight guarding prisoners who generally just want to sit it out and have a smoke and a blether.

"Sssh..just stop fucking wiggling and shut the fuck up and everything will be fine, piss about and I might accidentally hurt you." Goodey whispered in the man's ear. At this point, I honestly believe the soldier soiled himself..and if I continue to be honest..I would have too. Standing where I was, and knowing Goodey like I did, I was pretty sure that 'shutting the fuck up and not pissing about' was a definate 'must do'. The accidental hurting thing may have been a lie. I doubt it would have been an accident.By now I had the man's rifle, and it was loaded and ready to go. I nodded at Goodey.

"Right Sardo, wer'e just gonna walk out of here nice and calm." He said in a very confident matter-of-fact way. So that's what we attempted to do. Goodey went first using soldier X as a shield/hostage and I followed with my weapon ready as we hit the first set of stairs.

We got half way down before a Rupert from the enemy forces stepped out of a side room. He saw us, blinked and then raised his own weapon.

"Easy!" Goodey said, and turned so that he was all but obscured by the pale little soldier he had in his grip. "Wer'e just leaving, and your'e just gonna let us mate..or your man here gets it."

Rupert smiled "We don't play that way i'm afraid" and with those words, we knew things had gone 'Pear shaped'. there was a quick exchange of looks between Goodey and myself before Rupert decided to make some noise.

I split back up the stairs.

I ran past the room we'd just come from, took a sharp right into another room full of 'bad guys' sharing a smoke and a quick brew..winked and said "Gents" before jumping out of the window.

Now, there was no glass in the window..these houses were built to train in, and lacked that sort of level of comfort. However, a two story house with no windows is still as tall as a two story house with windows and jumping out of an upstairs window from either is considered a pretty stupid thing to do. In my defence, it's only truly stupid if you had the opportunity to think about your actions first. I fell a fair way, and fortunately for me, landed on a small pile of sand that had been used to fill up the sandbags earlier, the breath was jarred out of me as I landed, and it felt like someone punched the top of my skull from the inside as, i guess, my brain temporarily found itself in the wrong place. But nothing broke.

I gathered myself up and managed to get around the corner just as the first shots rang out from the window I had just exited from. I was running on adrenaline, and later, when it wore off, I did ache in more than a couple of places...but at that moment, I was grinning like a fool. I pulled up short of the end of the wall and peeked around the corner from a prone position. There were bad guys in the street, hanging back and waiting to be called up to clear the next house.

I checked my rifle, switched to automatic and ran out onto the street....

To be continued...

THE SEVEN MINUTE MEN.

2009-01-10T13:36:00.002Z

Once in, the attack needs to keep momentum. If you slow down for one minute..the defenders will take you out, move position or..if possible, bug out of the building completely and regroup elsewhere. So when they kicked in our front door...the set about us like there was no tomorrow. Life expectancy in a FIBUA environment is minutes at best, perhaps 7 or 8, but it can be seconds once you enter the house. We did our very best to make it seconds rather than minutes.

We put down as much fire as we could, held our floor for as long as we could, but when the Chorley's started bouncing around we had to get our heads down, and that was all it took for them to get up the stairs and establish a foot on the ground. Now they commanded the landing and we were forced back into our room to await the inevitable. I can't remember how, but unusually I ended up being taken prisoner rather than adding to the enemy dead after our room was stormed...perhaps i'd used all my ammo, and in that situation, it's better to get taken prisoner because you become a burden on the attacking force. Going down in a blaze of glory is of no real value to the rest of your unit. Stay alive..stay a problem. And so, I became the 'prisoner to be processed' and played the part as well as I could. I cursed, swore, refused to move and eventually got manhandled out of the house and away to a holding area in a house that was already cleared and under enemy control.

Robbo fought to the death I believe. In a hail of expletives and smoke. One of the benefits to being 'dead' was that you got to chill out and have a smoke. Robbo would never miss an opportunity to chill out and smoke..except for the one time when he ended up on a roof with Ryan, playing 'cricket' with Chorleys as they were thrown up at them by the attacking Gurkhas. Great story..and his, not mine. Truly great story.

It was there that I was reunited with Goodey. "Alright Sardo?" He beamed, as I was shoved into the small room by one of the 'bad guys'. "Yeah." I replied, taking a seat on the concrete floor. Goodey was grinning like a Cheshire cat, something was amiss. Then he carefully showed me the full magazine of 30 rounds that he'd manage to hide when he'd been searched. I grinned back at him. Being 'training only' and given that we were all responsible for our own rifles, they were rarely taken from us. We were however stripped of all ammunition, magazines and pyro that we had. He scooted it across to me and nodded for me to 'mag up'. Clearly we were about to make a break for it..despite the odds being massively stacked against us.

But...as was the norm, Goodey had a plan to even the odds a little.

To be continued...

FIGHTING IN BUILT UP AREAS

2009-01-10T12:17:00.002Z

1996

January 9–20 - Serious fighting breaks out between Russian soldiers and rebel fighters in Chechnya.

January 20 - Yasser Arafat is re-elected president of the Palestinian Authority.

January 29 - President Jacques Chirac announces a "definitive end" to French nuclear testing.

January 29 - Fire destroys La Fenice, Venice's opera house.

February 8 - An IRA ceasefire ends with a half-tonne bomb in London's Canary Wharf District, killing 2 and causing over £85 million worth of damage.

February 18 - An IRA briefcase bomb in a bus kills the bomber and injures 9 in the West End of London.

February 25 - Two suicide bombs in Israel kill 27 and injure 80; Hamas claims responsibility.

March 6 - Chechen rebels attack the Russian government headquarters in Grozny.

March 13 - Dunblane Massacre: Unemployed former shopkeeper Thomas Hamilton walks into the Dunblane Primary School in Scotland and opens fire, killing 16 students and 1 teacher before fatally shooting himself.

March 20 - The British Government announces that Bovine spongiform encephalopathy has been likely transmitted to people. Mad cow disease makes burgers dangerous!

'96 was a messy year. Actually, the 90's were a messy decade and the 80's weren't much better. I guess I should count myself lucky that the mess I grew up in wasn't that of a world war, but the mess that greeted my first screams and that looks set to follow me through to my last feeble gasp, is a new, simmering, ugly mess pretending not to be a mess at all. It's a 'covert' mess, a media-managed mess. Played down, or just so common place that it's as familiar to us as our favourite tv programme and just slides by on the tail of the 'acceptable' commet and thus avoids being noticed as a Mess.

I was busy learning how to deal with the mess' if and when' the mess required me and the 'chosen men' to deal with it. And I was getting quite good at it. It's difficult for me to know what to write and what to leave out here, for a defining moment in my life, it deserves good coverage, and yet if I fail to edit it correctly, you will leave me..stop reading to go and do something less boring instead. Of course...there is my Third meeting with the Reaper, and i'll get around to that shortly, and there are some great little tales to tell that will paint a picture for you. I'll cover these bits, like a movie montage, and then i'll leave the rest out.

So...where to start?...

'SARDO LEARNS TO FLY'

Somewhere in England, a Military training area, D.I.B.U.A. Last Light.

Wev'e had most of the day to set up the defences in the village. Wriggly tin, barbed wire, old doors...anything we could lay our hands on had been used to barricade ourselves in, to deny access and slow down the inevitable attack. Ammo boxes were filled with sand and used to turn rooms into single file mazes of death, chicken wire at the windows ensured that thrown 'chorley' grenades would bounce back and send the attackers scattering for cover...and stairs were covered with anything we could find to turn them in to nightmare obstacles.

And the best bit was, once you were barricaded in, there was nothing to do but chill, smoke and relax until it all kicked off.

When it did kick off, it kicked off in style with a simulated bombardment of the village. Carefully placed pyrotechnics were detonated in the small hours of the next morning, and the explosions woke us all immediately. Cars began to burn in the streets and the flicker of flames danced across the walls of the houses in the street to the sound of all Hell breaking loose. The moment the simulated bombardment was over, the gunfire started..distant from where I was and I could tell where the attackers had chosen to punch in. "It's Kicking off!' Someone said, if my memory serves me well it was Robbo. "Fuck yeah!" was the reply, as we checked our weapons, lit up one last hasty cigarette and pushed the sleep from our eyes.

House by house, street by street is the way it goes. The entry team would run up to the first house under cover of sustained fire, keeping heads out of windows. Ladders, grappling hooks would be used where possible, and if not, then the house would be cleared from the ground up.

We had 'Disruption patrols' out..small groups of two to three men, well armed and carrying no excess weight, their job was to harass the attackers, to cause instant casualties and to generally give them a random pain in the arse to contend with. They had no rules to play by, just pop up..cause some casualties, do some quick damage and then scarper...only to pop up somewhere else a few minutes later. One of these patrols streaked by our house, and we shouted some support to them as they vanished into the surrounding foliage "Fuck 'em up boys!"

By now your nerves are dancing, and your adrenaline is pumping around your body..your waiting for the sounds to get closer..closer..closer, until it's your front door that's coming in, or your roof the footsteps are on. The battle raged on for an eternity, and it should be pointed out that house to house fighting is no quick thing..the casualty rates for the attackers are huge, command and control is a headache and ammunition vanishes at a rate of knots, it was some time before our front door started taking a pounding.

First the 'thump thump thump' at the door, then some rapid fire, the resounding boom of a chorley grenade and the shout "Theyr'e Fucking in!!" followed by more fire, automatic, more Chorleys and then the shouting was that of the attackers..barked orders, calls for entry teams to move up, shouted reports of "Room clear! door to my left, window to my front, one enemy dead!"

To be continued...

THIS IS CHAPTER 50

2009-01-09T19:13:00.002Z

"What's in a name? That which we call a rose By any other name would smell as sweet." Romeo and Juliet

"The beginning of wisdom is to call things by their right names" Chinese proverb

"Tigers die and leave their skins; people die and leave their names" Chinese proverb

"If the Chinese were so smart to have (supposedly) invented so much first, why didn't they invent a camera to prove it?" Question posted on 'Yahoo Answers'

CHAPTER FIFTY...The birth of Sardo.

As you may have noticed by now I do not do 'sub headings' or give exciting chapter names, but...on this one ocassion I am going to break with tradition. There are defining moments during the passage of time, moments when you cease to be what you were and become something else entirely, save for some mild carried over baggage, disposable stuff..more the kind of baggage you'd take on the plane rather than put it in the hold. Hand luggage is perhaps a better way of describing what remains of the old you when you hit your first real defining moment. When Sardo sprang into existence he had kept only the smallest overnight bag from the man that vanished.

F.I.B.U.A (Fighting in built up areas) is now called O.B.U.A. (Operations in built up areas)...apparently now we operate rather than fight. We called it F.I.S.H (Fighting in someone's house). The other side was D.I.B.U.A (Defence in built up areas) and we use to call that D.A.F.T (Defending a foreign town). It was during some F.I.S.H that Sardo was born, it was my first proper exercise with my platoon on Salisbury plain training area. It was cold, I remember that..it may well have been wet as well, it was nearly always cold and wet. We'd been in the FIBUA village for a while and set up in groups in several of the purpose built training houses there and had a while to sort out our kit before new orders. There was a strict 'No light' policy in place, so as to avoid enemy recce patrols from gaining information as to what houses were manned and what ones were empty, how many of us there were and so on and so forth. And there I was, wet behind the ears FNG, kit in very poor order and desperate to take some time to sort myself out. To "Get my admin sorted". I had overpacked..like most fng's do before they learn how little fun it is to attack an enemy position with the kitchen sink on ones back, but amongst my over packing were some candles..a whole bag of tea light candles to be precise, and I set about finding a room with no windows and proceeded to create a little ring of light where I could sit in the middle and see what I was doing. The biggest fear is that you will fail others, once you join the rest of the platoon, the fear is always about letting them down, failing them, being a dead weight or a constant casualty.
I was sitting in my circle of light, fearing and sorting my admin out when one of the gang waltzed in and saw me. It was Cpl Tibble. Now I said that I was trying to avoid using surnames..and on the whole that won't be difficult, except that Tibble was Cpl Tibble, Tibbs or C**t (behind his back) when he asked us to do shit we didn't want to do. He didn't have a 'nickname' as such. "Oi, boys..we gotta a bloody Devil worshiper in here!..it's Sardo bleedin' Numspa" those words, that innocent little joke was to set me on a path that would forever change me, they were the fanfare to my 'Defining moment'. And, give him his due, it must have looked a tad strange. But the giving of the name..that was my invite. I was Sardo, I had earned my nickname early and by mistake, but I had it none the less. I did gain the temporary nickname of 'Cowboy' during training, for reasons I'll not go into, but it didn't stick. From that moment on, Sardo only had to prove himself. Im not sure if Tibbs deliberately gave me an 'in', much as I have grown to love the guy (in a purely manly way) I do not believe he had the capacity for such compassion at the time. I think he left the door open by accident, but my gratitude is in no way diminished for the lack of heart. I was at his second wedding in 2008, and although he was still Cpl Tibble, he was clearly something much more humane, more compassionate and dare I say more loving to his new wife. I think perhaps his story would be a good read, and I may have to encourage him to put finger to keyboard. Although he'd likely tell me to "fuck off sloth".
Anyway, I am veering of course again. From then on, I ensured I did everything that needed to be done with all the agression and professionalism I could muster. I built on the whole 'Sardo' thing, became what I needed to become to secure my place amongst the best of the best.
We were one Hell of a team.
There was 'Rivers' so named because he was that little bit older than the rest 'old man river'. His surname wasn't Rivers or any variation of Rivers, but you can see how we got the nickname. There was Westy, loveable admin disaster area, with more brains than many of us. Robbo, or Jock as he was also known, or 'SLOTH' to Tibbs, Gibsy..the man who always spoke of Savoury meat products, ginsters sausage rolls and scotch eggs when we were about as far away from eating as a human being could possibly get. Ryan, the scary guy with eyebrows that not only met in the middle, but grew into eachother, became self aware and formed a community on his forhead. Pug, later cpl pug..devoid of any non-military interests and eager as a beaver to impress, but lacked a commanding presence. Tibbs..of course there was Tibbs, Cpl Tibble, wise cracking, always armed with a scathing comment laced with sarcasm for any situation, and ready to make a situation if one didn't present itself rather than waste a good sarcastic comment. Cpl Goode, fine man who reminded me of tv's Sharpe, and who often laughingly referred to us as Chosen men and didnt much care for airs and graces. Goodey was a full screw (two stripes), you had two types, lance jack and full screw and you called them both corpral, although a lance jack (lance corpral) only has one stripe..the first rung of the career ladder. Sgt Dawson, had everything that counted, but with added 'reservation'. Cpl Borne, brick shit house on legs, solid bloke and a good laugh, Cpl 'Mick', absolute class guy, great sense of humour and a short fuse who had jokes for every ocassion and tall storys you never tired of hearing. Cpl Head..an aquired taste and not someone to fuck with (not fuck as in fornicate, but fuck as in 'push your luck'). SgtMaj 'Cullen' who inspired loyalty and fear at the same time, he had his own way of resolving things, and it usually hurt but cost nothing. Costing nothing is good. The list could go on and on, and I admit to feeling a little guilty for not allowing it to do so, but the key players have been mentioned and that will suffice for the telling of my tale.
To be continued...

F.N.G

2008-11-26T20:56:00.002Z

F.N.G. Fuckin' New Guy. Term still used in the western English-speaking armed forces of the west (primarily United States, Australia, United Kingdom and Canada) to denote a new soldier fresh off his basic training.
(c)Urban Dictionary.com

"I am not a number — I am a free man!"
The Prisoner.BBC (C)1960

"Forget your current definitions of tired, hungry, freezing, pissed off and hurting...when you thought you were..you weren't"
(c)Me

We all ran together, ran and ran until the soles of our feet started to burn. Like a huge Olive -drab snake we wound our way around the course, heads spinning and struggling to get enough air in our lungs. I wore a number. Front and back I no longer remember that number, I was issued with another much longer number later and to this day I remember it perfectly. The number on that day was important, but especially important for 'The run' as the PTI's chose likely loosers from the line up of new guys and their numbers were taken down for an in-house lottery. If your chosen number( The recruit it was attached to), threw up during the run..you won the pot. I am guessing their was a fair sum of money in the pot that day.
Many years later it was decided that running on concrete in boots was rather bad for the knees, and trainers were issued for this sort of thing. Great news for future knees, not so good for mine, who these days regularly complain at me when it gets a bit cold or a tad steep.

"Using Military Boots The likelihood is that you do not wear heavy leather boots in your civilian life and your feet are probably more used to the comfort and ease of a trainer. Although it would be sensible for you to break a pair of combat boots in and try to harden the soles of your feet a little, this is achieved by walking around in combat boots for a couple of hours here and there, and by polishing the leather to help soften it up. There is really no need to start doing physical training while wearing boots, which may even cause injuries in a worst case scenario. The physical side of Recruit Training is structured specifically to be progressive, so we will not start you running in boots as soon as you arrive. This will be a gradual process to make sure we avoid any injuries. "
Official quote from Knee-awareness division H.M armed forces.

It's funny looking back, just how eager we were to accept the pain, the sleep deprivation, the abuse (and there was more than a liberal helping of it) just to prove a point to ourselves. Most of us were there to prove a point. And almost all of us proved it by the end of the training. There were some casualties, faces that were there one day and gone the next, and generally they weren't the faces you would have put money on if you were a gambling man. I expect money would have been put on me...and im happy and contented to know that whoever put it down, lost it all.

My first ever 'live firing' scared the living hell out of me. The thought that one little mistake could kill someone, that I was walking around with and thirty rounds of 5.56mm live ammunition put the fear of God into me. I can't remember my first ever range scores, but I have no doubt that they were bloody awful. Of course, over time, it becomes second nature. You trust yourself enough to waltz around fully locked and loaded safe in the knowlege that you are not going to accidentally blow the face off someone..but it takes time, and I never did loose the habbit of regularly checking the safety catch with my thumb.

There are actually a lot of habbits I never lost..even all these years later. Take a walk in the countryside, and i'll find myself looking for good 'op's' (Observation posts) where one could set up and watch a nearby road or village. Standing 'At ease' rather than just standing when in a meeting or at a funeral/ wedding... ironing finger-cutting creases into my shirts..'bulling' up my work shoes..when nobody cares one iota how fucking shiny they are any more..and so on and so forth. The list is pretty huge. The conditioning was well embedded.

Anyway, enough about being one of Pavlov's dogs.

Ivan Petrovich Pavlov
Иван Петрович Павлов

Training was NOT the hardest part. Getting soaked in a Belgian pine forest, choking on CS gas, being so tired my eyes and head felt like they would burst and resorting to rolling up forest floor detritus in a Rizzla paper because I had run out of smokes....no, that was easy. The hardest point is joining your regiment proper, joining your platoon as an FNG.

To be continued...

BLUE IS FOR BOYS

2008-11-26T19:46:00.002Z

"A young man who does not have what it takes to perform military service is not likely to have what it takes to make a living." John F. Kennedy

"Every man thinks meanly of himself for not having been a soldier." Samuel Johnson

"Every citizen should be a soldier. This was the case with the Greeks and Romans, and must be that of every free state." Thomas Jefferson

"I don't know what effect these men will have upon the enemy, but, by God, they frighten me. " The Duke of Wellington

Stereotypes have a lot to answer for. Pink for Girls, Blue for boys, Barbie for her, Action man for him. It's all programming and it's just building up deep rooted self worth issues and personality defects that will bite you in the backside later in life. Usually at the worst time possible. But...("Never start a sentence with the word 'but'" an English teacher once said to me...why not?) .. it was stereotype-driven self worth issues that drove me to the gates of a certain Battalion of a certain regiment one wet and windy wednesday night many moons ago.

The building loomed against the uninspiring skyline like a big brick-red dare.

The same way it loomed when i'd been in the same place one week before..and then driven away quietly. If I had had a tail, it would have been between my legs that night. There were guards at the gate, weapons slung, straight backed and serious. They were looking over at me in my parked car, if I continued to sit there fighting with my sterotype-driven self worth issues..they were going to come over and ask what I was up to. It was get out or get home time again. My tail wagged slightly.

I got out.

I was watched all the way to the gates, where I announced that I had come to join up. If I recall correctly, and it's likely that I do not, one of them laughed a little. The gate was opened, and I was escorted up the main road towards the big brick-red dare of a building. My heart was thumping in my chest..this wasn't the boy scouts..this wasn't joining a book club or a gym. This was the Army.

Now..before I continue, I need to make it clear that official secrets act aside, I have no intention of naming the regiment. I think I could, pretty much sure I could, but out of a respect and pride that has never dwindled since I first joined them..I have no intention of my humourous tales giving a poor view of my regiment. I will share with you, openly, and this will only be possible if I can do so without fear of embarassing them. They are proud, with damn good reason and respected for the same damn good reasons and my humourous tales are simply snap-shots, moments in time and as such could not convey to you the levels of discipline, commitment, determination and professionalism that they are rightly proud of and noted for. For some..there may be a clue on this page..maybe.

So there I was, driven by a belief that I was not a real man and the need to get out of the house. Fuelled by the newly-dawned understanding of what parenthood required and desperately trying to cling to my childhood like Leonardo DiCaprio clung to that bit of wood in the movie Titanic. And my grip was also slipping. However, mixed with the fear was a newly born pride that mingled with the stronger emotion and toned it down..much like a dash of ginger ale in a shot of whisky...the big red-brick dare wasn't quite so cocky as I walked up to it with my armed escort.

To be continued....

SARDO NUMSPA IS BORN

2008-11-18T21:58:00.002Z

BRAND NEW BABES, SLEEPING AIDS & A POCKET FULL OF HAND GRENADES

"When the going gets tough the tough get going when the going gets rough the tough get rough Hey, hey, hey, hey, heyOoooh baby" Billy Ocean
"Oi, boys..we gotta a bloody Devil worshiper in here!..it's Sardo bleedin' Numspa" Cpl Pat 'Tibbs' Tibble.

Where to go from here is not a simple as it may appear. That rhymes, but unintentionally so. I could flood you with baby stories, fill you with tales that are full to the brim with detail and the blinkered pride of a new father..but to be honest, one baby story is the same as the next, with minor differences in the telling. Do you want to hear about first teeth, first steps..first words? probably not, you may have your own, or your own yet to come..mine simply aren't interesting. Like the holiday photos that friends drag out when you pop round to see them, or the wedding videos of weddings you weren't at full of people you'll never meet and wouldn't really care to. That said, i'll not burden you with the detail.
The question is..and I can see it on your lips...how did he cope with being a father? This boy/man thing, wet behind the ears and not long married. How did he adjust to his partner growing up without him? how did he deal with this new responsibility..one he couldn't pass on to someone else to sort out? How indeed. Well, ultimately I sought refuge in the camoflaged arms of Her Majesty's Armed Forces. Ultimately, after several noteable tantrums, some behaviour befitting of a spoiled child that on one particular ocassion resulted in an accidentally broken window and a late night visit from a mobile glazier paid for by my father. I became seperated from the new family of three (four if you count the dog..and really you should count the dog, lets face it...often they are more of a friend than those linked by blood and walking on two limbs rather than four.) I closed myself off, refused to change my self oriented routines, pretended to be asleep when the late night cries woke us both up, and complained profusely when my poor acting skills were not enough to spare me the chore of bottle feeding when the rest of the sane world was sleeping. My wife could have left me during those months, without blame or guilt..could have walked away from me with her head held high and only one side to the story.
She didn't leave. And future events aside, she deserves a medal for not doing so. I have never really apologised for my behaviour back then, not through pride, but through the knowlege that no matter what people say..some things can never be apologised for.
To be continued...

RESPONSIBILITY..AND HOW TO AVOID IT

2008-10-15T20:27:00.003+01:00

1995

January 1 - Austria, Finland and Sweden enter the European Union.

January 9 - Valeri Polyakov completes 366 days in space while aboard the Mir space station, breaking a duration record.

January 17 - A magnitude 7.3 earthquake called the "Great Hanshin earthquake" occurs near Kobe, Japan, causing great property damage and killing 6,434 people.

January 25 - The Norwegian rocket incident: A rocket launched from the space exploration centre at Andøya, Norway is briefly interpreted by the Russians as an incoming attack.

February 26 - The United Kingdom's oldest investment banking firm, Barings Bank, collapses after securities broker Nick Leeson loses $1.4 billion by speculating on the Tokyo Stock Exchange.

March 24 - For the first time in 26 years, no British soldiers patrol the streets of Belfast, Northern Ireland.

Initially, nothing changed. Life continued as it always had, but slowly, as the days turned to weeks and then months my wife changed shape, got tired earlier, got hungry at daft times of the day and night but more importantly, she grew up. It was like a switch somewhere inside her had been flicked, and the slightly silly, immature girl that was married to the slightly immature and silly boy turned into the mature and far more focused woman married to the slightly silly and immature boy.

No change for me, no flicked switch...nothing.

It didn't matter to start with, didn't matter for quite some time as it happens, it was long after the first steps, long after the first words that it began to have an impact. You see, without major biological upheaval...I wasn't going to evolve at the same rate. In fact, my evolution as a fully functioning adult seemed pretty much stalled until the eventual demise of our marriage and the chaos that ensued. I guess for women, adulthood is a biological thing, and for men it's something that is crisis dependant...find a man who hasn't had a major crisis in his life and i'll show you a boy doing a good impression of a man. But there will be time for this discussion later, for now I want to continue with the tale of my first daughter...

Forgive me if I don't tell you all, but the world we live in is not a sane one, not a pleasant one and not one where you give away too much detail about your siblings. The when and where of her birth is not important to you, suffice to say that she was born inEssex, and that's enough detail to carry the story. The pregnancy had gone well, I hadn't really known what to expect, but had conjured up something that, as it turned out, was far more dramatic than the truth. Stephanie carried well, and really suited pregnancy (you hear people say that, and I always use to laugh at the comment..but it's true..some people really don't suit it, others seem to glow.) There were no real cravings, little sickness and only mild backache. The birth itself was obviously very easy for me, but more importantly, was apparently 'very easy' for my wife..it was over fairly quickly and there was ample gas and air mix for the both of us. I believe I repeated a rather poor 'Darth Vader' impression with the breath mask one time too many whilst my better half struggled with contractions, but aside from that I think I managed to be less of a pain in the arse than some fathers-to-be.
To be continued...

THE BIOLOGICAL IMPERATIVE

2008-09-16T20:58:00.002+01:00

"Twenty years from now you will be more disappointed by the things you didn't do than by the ones you did do. So throw off the bowlines. Sail away from the safe harbor. Catch the trade winds in your sails. Explore. Dream. Discover."Mark Twain:

It took me several photos to get the whole climb in, and for a long time they sat in our photo album so we could share not just the tale of our miraculous escape but also capitalise on the 'Visual gasp' when friends came round. Not that Friends really came round much. There was Alison, the girl who sang at our wedding and Eddie, who turned up regularly with a smile, a tale and, on one ocassion a car load of freshly 'appropriated' games consoles. And that was the regular guest list. We existed, for the main, as a fairly isolated couple. We kept ourselves to ourselves and enjoyed our own company for the first few years of married life, until..inevitably..we decided that it was time to increase the family size. Backed with the wisdom of my Grandmother "If you wait until you can afford children, you'll never have any children." We decided to make one and one equal three.

"Youth is a wonderful thing. What a crime to waste it on children."
George Bernard Shaw

To say we wasted OUR youth on having children is not exactly fair, however that particular interpretation of the above quote is closer to the truth, but before you verbally stone me from the comfort of your armchair, train seat, plane seat or other chosen seat of reading let me expand..
I was still working at Senate Electrical when Stephanie became pregnant with what was to be our first daughter, Rachael Violet Elizabeth. We took Grannie's advice and we didn't wait until we could afford her, and credit where it is due, if we had..she'd never have arrived on this strange little blue green planet.

We were both at work when 'the test' was taken...and I remember it well. Originally the girls from the office upstairs had all gathered in the powder room to see if one of their member was pregnant...not Stephanie. It was, however, My wife that emerged from the room with a look of joy and fear on her face, and not the intended victim. The stork had decided to visit our house that day.
What goes through a man's head at that precise moment? or more accurately, What goes through the head of a young man, ex square peg Elite and still wet behind the proverbial ears at that precise moment? Strangely..not very much. There's a rush of 'Yeah!' followed by a mental silence during which imaginary tumbleweeds blow past just behind the unblinking eyes. You can't see the bigger picture the first time, there's no previous experience, no fear, no concerns, and even the joy is mildly tainted because it doesn't know if it should be there or not...but Joy is generally the only emotion that shows any real enthusiasm initially. To say there was 'numbness' would be wrong, the shock is limited because there's no reference point, there's just this 'pause' where nothing much happens while the last echoes of the imagined 'Yeah!' die away.
Does that convey it well enough?
The seconds stretch out a bit, and then the motor starts up again..the tumbleweeds pass on and once again you are permitted to sit in the driving seat of your own head. Then there's a smile, a hug and a kiss..then there's work again. The grind never goes away for long..it snaps back with the ferocity of a hungry Great white shark and reminds you that no matter what the ocassion..you are here to work until you retire..there are bills to pay! The girls giggled their way back upstairs and as I recall I went back to unloading a lorry load of assorted electrical components. I can't really berate the grind, it grounds us..keeps us focused and moored to reality. The real focus of the Grind is to stop us retreating into our imagination and never coming out again. What would any of us be without it?
I don't recall much more. There were, without doubt, calls to parents when we got home but I do not remember them. We certainly would have spoken about it together. I do remember the rather lengthy and arduous process of choosing a name, that in itself lasted right up until the moment of birth, upon which it was decided unanimously. My only insistance was the spelling of Rachael...I wanted it spelled that way, it felt 'cleaner' and 'crisper' than Rachel. The next nine months or so were mostly average, at least for me being the non-load carrying member of the relationship. Pregnancy is a doddle for us men. It's after that bit that we get our pain.
To be continued....

WATCH WHERE YOU SWING THAT SYTHE!

2008-09-12T22:14:00.002+01:00

"For as long as but a hundred of us remain alive, never will we on any conditions be brought under English rule. It is in truth not for glory, nor riches, nor honours that we are fighting but for freedom - for that alone, which no honest man gives up but with life itself." The Declaration of Arbroath, 1320

Scotland, for me, is a place of stark beauty and the kind of sadness that jabs at your heart even though you shouldn't care. Once a land of proud fighters and brave weather beaten clansmen it now sits at the top of the island and licks it's wounds. All the blue battle paint has washed away and the only claymores hang in dusty old castles. The pride is still there..not really in the people, that's just adopted fabricated pride, passionless passion, watered down anger that has been passed from generation to generation like a burden that just 'has' to be carried. No. The pride is in the rocks that soaked it up when it was real, in the hills, in the streams and in the mountains that have stood through Scotland's bravest hours and will stand despite its meekest. The land is alive in Scotland, and , having travelled a generous amount, I am confident in saying that in most other countries that make up Great Britain the land is very much dead. The people are no better or worse anywhere else, don't get me wrong, but for some reason it feels a greater crime that the Scots are not something more.

But how I love the land.

I wrote some of my best poems on the beach at Embo, had the finest father-son moment I was ever to have on one of the many striking mountains and was ultimately blessed with two daughters courtesy of one of the many daughters of Scotland.

Anyway...There we were, at the top of Scotland, just round and a little to the left of the Nuclear power station. When we woke up, with bleary eyes and aching backs that morning, unzipped the tent and looked out over the grey of the North sea, neither of us had any idea that in a few hours time we'd be fighting against gravity as the Reaper watched us one hand eagerly clasping his sythe.
We went to visit smoo cave that day. The sun came out quite early on beat down on us eagerly, perhaps it had prior knowlege of what was to come and was intent on giving us one last perfect day. Or perhaps my imagination is a little over active. Either way, we parked the car atop the cliff and walked down the long wooden steps to the beach and the entrance to the cave. Im not going to bore you with details of said cave, won't linger over it's cavernous interior or elaborate on the waterfall within. If you want to see it for yourself..go there and do it. Some things are only worth seeing first hand, and loose almost everything in translation.
Once the cave was seen, it was back up to the car and then off for some dinner at a local pub we had spotted the night before. But how to get back up? the stairs provided seemed rather dull when compared to the cliffs that surrounded the small beach, and for some reason...unknown to me to this day, I decided that we should take the cliff. From the ground, it seemed like a fairly gentle climb, nothing that would be of even the slightest interest to Sir Edmund Hillary.

The start of the climb went well, and I was at least half way up, stefanie just below me, when I suddenly felt 'wrong'. I risked a look back down over my shoulder...and what had felt like a fairly gentle incline laughed back at me vertical. The drop was straight down. My wife looked back up at me, and her face said it all, she had obviously already looked and the fear in her eyes confirmed that it wasn't just me. It was at this point that I think the Reaper decided to intervene, small rocks, little more than pebbles with attitude started to drop on me, handfulls of dirt started to drop as I reached up for the next hand hold, and with every step I showered my new bride with bits of cliff. I can't accurately convey my fear at that moment, up was a long way off and down was just as far ending at a rock strewn beach. There was a crowd watching us now, a handful of people at the mouth of the cave..pointing and more atop the cliff, where the car was..also pointing.
"This is how stupid people die" I thought to myself "Im one of those idiots from the tv programmes about real life drama" I was going to fall and die. I was certain of it. I could feel Death as he followed me up, his bony hands digging into the cliff and hauling his skeletal body up at the same rate as me..could almost hear him whispering to me "Well Dave, you managed to make a fool of me last time...managed to spoil my plans for your demise, but this time..well..this time I think you are pretty much fucked...you and your little wife there."

I began to scrabble at the rock face, reaching for a hand hold, grabbing it, scrabbling for another as it came away in my hand..I set my eyes on the top of the cliff and the green grass that waved at me in the breeze. I am ashamed to admit that I thought little of Stefanie as she struggled below me, my plan, if it could be called that, was to reach the top and then haul her up right away, but given that I was now sending generous amounts of mud and stone down towards her, it was perhaps a rather over-optomistic plan.

"Billy's in the car!!" Stefanie wailed from below "What will happen to him if we don't go back?!!"

'If we don't go back?' Might as well have said 'we are going to die here...you know that don't you!' It was that little cry that spurred me on, the understanding that our demise was inevitable to her, and that in that moment of certainty..she was upset about the dog.
The rest of the climb is a blur, but I remember the feeling of complete joy that washed over me as I hauled myself up over the lip of the cliff. Stefanie was only seconds behind me, and as she collapsed by my side we both cried and laughed at the same time. I was soaked with sweat and the cool breeze made me shiver as I lay there. Eventually the sobs subsided and all that remained was laughter. The kind of mad, unhinged laughter that an evil scientist might display in any given horror film. I was so overjoyed that I was still alive, so completely relieved to lie there beneath the beating sun, that I never even noticed the Reaper as he sloped off, dragging his sythe behind him.

Two nil to the boy from Essex.

To be continued...

INTRODUCING 'THE DUKE'

2008-08-29T21:07:00.002+01:00

Before we were mature enough to have children we had children, but just before that we had some laughs, stayed up late on many a night playing the guitar and the Harmonica drunk on wine and cheap lager. We went on walks, ran up some mild credit card debt and went on a camping trip around the top of scotland...

It was on said trip that my friend the reaper decided to make a second attempt at harvesting my soul.

Camping is great. There are few sounds more comforting than the sound of the wind and the rain against canvas, the Sssssshhhh of the sea as waves break against the beach and wash up it just a few feet away and the odd cry of a gull. The sound of automatic gunfire in the distance and the muted, wind carried shouts of men barking orders and target locations comes a close second though.
It may be a man-thing, but for me, a night under canvas is hard to beat..the fire, eating beans from the tin, warm beer and shared tales of times gone by..lightly embellished for dramatic effect makes me feel warm inside. Jack Daniels makes me feel warm inside too, but it lacks all the other things and generally makes me morose.

I was lucky in as much as that Stephanie also enjoyed camping and was more than happy to join me on what had become a pilgrimage to my favourite place. Embo, a small, almost dead fishing village where nobody fishes anymore because the fish get fished elsewhere these days in boats that would dwarf the ones that use to nestle in the local bay, loaded with nets that can haul in what was a weeks worth of fish in one night. The village teeters on the top of dunes that roll down to a perfect golden beach that in turn slips into the icy cold waters of the North sea. The whole scene is looked over by the first Duke of Sutherland atop Ben Bhraggie, 1300ft above sea level and almost permanently caressed by low, off-white clouds.
Me and 'The Duke' go back a long way, and it's become, as I said, a pilgrimage for me that I make at least once a year. I like to stay at Embo, just up the coast from Dornoch..of 'Madonna's wedding' fame. I set up my tent, wander on the beach and generally spend the first day just sizing the duke up from the beach. He looks at me, I look at him..he dares me to visit him again..and I take the bet. So far, I have been thwarted three times, but have been victorious many more.

That particualr holiday I beat him again, and my new wife beat him for the first time.

I remember, with a heavy heart, attempting to reach the summit with my father many years ago. Things at home had been bad, mum was not well and I had finished with Cheryl for the umpteenth time (Remember..it was a stormy relationship when it wasn't a steamy relationship). Dad took me away..right away, for the first time ever. We'd been to football matches, wathed Billericay Town FC play at Wembley, but this was the first time ever that we went REALLY away, just the two of us. Had I known at the time it was to be the first and the last time we would be so alone together, I think I would have never come back, never would have let it end.

Me and dad hit the mountain nice and early It had been snowing the night before, and everything was frosted and dusted with a light coating of snow. At least, that's how it was at the bottom. As we climbed the weather became worse, and by the time we broke the treeline two thirds of the way up..things were positively arctic. Driving snow soon obscured everything, and it was difficult to see eachother even though we were huddled together like roosting sparrows. Dad's glasses became iced over and the Duke was nowhere to be seen. Needless to say, my father being the sensible man he was, abandoned the climb and we descended for the comfort of a warm pub and alcohol. The Duke had beaten us.
But, (An old English teacher of mine once said that one should never start a sentance with the word but) the Duke did not defeat my new wife and I when we set about the climb, and so far, he has not defeated me since. We camped at Embo for a few nights, I am not telling you where in fear that it'll become too popular and that hoardes of screeming children and lines of oversized mobile homes turn my Holy place into a Hell hole. After Embo we drove North, to visit John O'Groats and then west a little, to camp at a place called Durness and to visit Smoo Cave.

To be continued...

HONEYMOON OF THE LIVING DEAD

2008-08-23T10:42:00.002+01:00

"Old age isn't so bad when you consider the alternative."

Maurice Chevalier

There has been 'Day of the Dead', 'Night of the Living Dead', 'Return of the Living Dead' and 'City of the living Dead' to name but a few, but so far the Silver Screen has been devoid of 'Holiday of the Living Dead.' If they did decide to film it...they should go to Benalmadina in January and cash in on a ready made cast.

.
We arrived still shellshocked from the day before with pockets full of confetti. The first thing I wanted to do upon reaching the hotel was scrub my teeth..I had a bad case of 'traveller's mouth' and it needed to be resolved before anything else got done. That's when we realised we had no toothpaste and that we had no idea what toothpaste was in Spanish.

I do know now, thanks to GOOGLE..it's Dentífrico, pasta de dientes or pasta dentífrica.

."No problem" Says I, and out I pop to 'knock up' the neighbours. I waited for a fair while before the door was opened by a long time saga holiday patron. I smiled politely and explained my problem to the gentleman, who smiled back at me until I had finished.

"I don't have my own teeth son, nor does the wife...we don't need toothpaste i'm afraid."

I could tell he enjoyed saying that. I thanked him for his time and stormed back to our room, traveller's mouth intact.

And so we spent our first few hours on our Honeymoon searching for a chemist so that we could by some bloody toothpaste.

During the week we walked plenty, found a British bar that served chicken curry for breakfast and a damn fine one at that. Lilly Langtry's was the name of the bar, and the couple that owned it were really nice. We went up in to the mountains, and managed to get harassed by time share sharks from Liverpool. Now, the very sound of a Scouse accent makes me see red and I am pretty sure it's not only me that it happens to, so why on God's Earth did anyone think it was a good idea to employ Mr and Mrs Scouse to sell timeshare to tourists who are obviously abroad because they wanted to get away from things for a while?? Beggars belief.

It took us a good half hour to shake them off. Persistent little buggers. After that we went back down the mountain and got followed about by a stray dog. I was concerned about Rabies, but to be honest, the dog was better company than the two Scousers, so we tolerated it until it ran off to savage a local on a bike..we made a swift run for it as he shouted something that clearly did not require any translation and shot us a look that could have killed.

What is Spanish for "It's not our dog..honest!" ?

Anyway, on the last night we sat and watched the sun set over the harbour in the shadow of Elizabeth Taylor's yacht 'Cosmopolitan lady' and I took off my lucky horseshoe ring, I placed a kiss upon it and gestured for her to do the same..she did..and then I hurled it out to sea.

"What was that for?" The new wife asked, smiling.

"That'll be down there with our kisses on it forever" says I "And as long as it is...I reckon we'll be ok." We hugged..went for an evening curry at Lillie's and then headed back to the hotel.

Possibly the single most romantic moment of our thirteen year marriage was that little 'spur of the moment' ring thing. We were young and naive, but we really did think we'd do ok..that'd we'd grow old and die together. The ring is most likely still down there to this day, I don't think Gold rusts. The harbour is certainly still there, and I like to think that Lilly Langtry's is still there serving chicken curry for breakfast. Perhaps even the two annoying Scousers are still there trying desperately to sell 'as yet unbuilt' holiday homes to anyone who is unlucky enough to find them lurking in the last place you would expect them to be..half way up a mountain.

At some point I think the two kisses got washed away. Yeah..that's what went wrong.

To be continued...

BISH BASH BOSH..JOB DONE.

2008-08-12T11:14:00.002+01:00

We arrived only a few moments before the photographer, and were instantly posed, arranged and displayed for what would be our wedding album. The photos were great, taken by Jim, an ex-Para and friend of the new wife's parents. I liked Jim, never really spoke to him much..or saw him often enough to either, but I felt a bond with him from the first time I met him.
After the photos it was time to 'pipe in the guests' and we lined up outside the dining room, along with both sets of parents and the rest of the Bridal party to exchange kisses and handshakes to the wail of the pipes.
I don't want to rush the moment, but there's not any real benefit to me blandly reciting every single moment of the day, and so we'll skip to 'all seated and time to eat'. The Reverand said grace, and it went like this:

Some hae meat and canna eat,
And some wad eat that want it;
But we hae meat, and we can eat,
Sae let the Lord be thankit.

It's called the Selkirk grace, and I loved it for it's simplicity. Im not big on bowing and scraping, or thanking the lord for the breath in my Malboro-polluted lungs and the songbird in the tree..so his choice sat more than well with me that day. It also meant that the starving guests got to eat quicker and crowd control did not become an issue.
The meal was great, and i'm sure it was expensive...everybody was relaxed and happy, and when it came to the speeches, they were well received by all. Not too long, and not too short..and I gave a good account of myself, even if I do say so..finishing off with a toast to 'the luckiest man I know'..me, for having secured Stephanie as my wife. They all toasted me with a smile, but I am sure that many of them were cursing my cocky attitude beneath their breath.

Flowers for the mothers initiated tears, gifts for the bridesmaids harvested smiles, alcohol opened the door to much merryment and the night just carried itself off effortlessly. I shook more hands than a politician on a vote-gaining tour of Britain, and sadly never managed to consume enough alcohol to get drunk.

Then...almost as soon as it had begun, it was all over and we were climbing in to our trusty vehicle to drive to the Stakkis Glasgow where we would spend the night prior to jetting off on a week's honeymoon to Benalmadina. Our trusty vehicle at the time was a two litre Toyota Celica XT liftback...MPE 702W..and I loved that car to bits. She was all black with a walnut dash and more clocks and dials than a space shuttle.

That night she was also adorned with banners proclaiming 'just married', cans and condoms. We said our goodbyes and started the long drive to glasgow, approximately ninety five miles. By the time we arrived all we wanted to do was sleep, and so, the stereotypical 'wedding night' was forgone for a few hours kip before the flight.

The next morning the wake up call roused us from our slumber and we crawled from our confetti covered bed (Lord only knows how so much confetti worked it's way into our clothes but somehow it did) and we struggled to dress through bleary eyes before getting a taxi to the airport. By the time the less than talkative Glaswegian cabbie had dropped us off we were still more than a little shell shocked.

To be continued...

DOING IT THE RIGHT WAY..

2008-08-12T10:05:00.002+01:00

We had done it properly though, unlike a growing number of people who had started the trend of having their own children present at their wedding..and if possible, children of a different ethnicity to the groom. Classy.

No..there were no shotguns at our wedding that was for sure. Had there been, the shooter would never have gotten into the church anyway with the number of Police present. No shotguns, but we did have a Piper.
Now..perhaps it's just me, but no matter what is played on the Bagpipes..it always sounds sad to me. I wouldn't have picked a piper for the wedding, but then..I didn't really have anything to do with the wedding, so I couldn't grumble. Besides, it was in Scotland. Two things you can count of with a Scottish wedding..Bagpipes and Kilts.
I arrived at the Church a little early, and was soon up a ladder replacing Halogen light bulbs in top hat and tails. Eddie held the ladder for me, and given that I was only hours away from marrying the girl he loved..it gave me no comfort.

What does a Groom do when he's waiting for the first guests to arrive?..he smokes, that is what he does, like a chimney. He also swears under his breath a pleanty and begins to feel mildly uneasy with the whole thing. This is where the best man should do more than simply chuckle and hum 'here comes the bride'. Soon the guests started turning up, having driven the long haul from wherever they came from to 'the end of the road at the bottom of the hill just past the sleepy village and over the burn' The men all wanted to shake my hand and the women all wanted to kiss me, this is the way of things. Eddies father, however, did neither, and I felt a cold respect for the man as he stood firm to his belief that I was a scumbag roughneck girlfriend stealing English prick. You have to admire an 'unswayable' man..there are not many of them left these days.

In fact, the domino that was Eddie's father is no longer with us any more. He passed away some time later, Eddie found him. I forget many of the details but I remember that Eddie found him. The unswayable man was gone and the number of them left in the world possibly dipped to levels where, should they have been wild animals, they would have become a protected species.

Eddie's dad was possibly his most influential Domino, and Ed had spun this way and that as he tried to avoid falling the way his father intended. He also gave my own Domino a small nudge, only the lightest of nudges but enough to make me look at his son, Eddie, just that little bit more..to look at the man and not just glance at the friend. If you were to look hard at Eddie back then, you would need to have looked hard and fast and then look away again. Or you would possibly cry. There was a thinly veiled sadness in Eddie, easy to 'not see' if you are the kind who naturally 'doesn't look'..and let's face it most of us are, or at least were, when we were young.
The Domino that was Eddie's father made me see that sadness, and I..being the survivor I was, slowly disengaged from my best man shortly after the wedding. Baby steps at first..then bigger ones, until finally he was gone and I didn't have to look at that sadness any more.

But I am going off track yet again...where was I?..

Guests were arriving, had arrived, and I took my place at the front of the Church with Eddie to my right. The copper in charge of making a video of the big day, video'd me as I stood, swaying slightly and taking deep breaths in those 'endless minutes' after the guests are all seated and before the Bride's arrival is announced with the first musical note in a long line of musical notes that will end with two people standing before a man in a frock.

That all happened and I was before the frocked man in the blink of an eye although at the time it seemed like an eternity. People were seated, hymns were sung, people were unseated and seated again, then knelt, raised, seated again and then..finally..vows were exchanged, rings were given and taken and I stood facing my wife.
I have no idea what I should have felt at that moment..after the "All that I am I give to you's" and the "Love, honour and obey's" but what I did feel was a kind of uneasy-ease, like a ceasfire..do you understand? Like the long straight bit on a rollercoaster after you have already been down a couple of drops and just before the really big one...that feeling? It was not a moment where I realised the depth of 'our love' nor did my heart fill with joy at the prospect of spending the rest of my life with this woman called wife now standing beside me as we make the carefully timed walk to the little room to sign the big book.

As we signed the big book Alison began to sing. Her voice had a haunting quality, and the acoustics of the Church gave it strength. I believe even Elvis would have been proud of her rendition of 'Can't help falling in love'.

"Like a river flows surely to the sea
Darling so it goes
Some things are meant to be
Take my hand, take my whole life too
For I cant help falling in love with you"

When the big book was signed we left. It's weird when you walk out of that little side room, or any side room I guess, and as the Groom you face the assembled guests for the first time. The Bride has already had to walk past them all on the way in as they sigh politely, comment on how beautiful they look, or simply blow their noses into little silk hankies..but the Groom...this is the first time I have had to face them all, and now many of them have gained the 'IN LAW' title.
I felt more than a little uneasy as we walked towards them all, the wailing of the pipes carried on the fairly icy breeze from outside and reminded me that outside was a car. Not just any car, but the Rolls Royce from 'Octopussy' no less!. I began to march out of the church, clasping the hand of my new wife tightly and forcing her to walk at a pace that her dress was not designed for. There was no pause for photographs...it makes me smile as I type this, because I remember that the only photo taken of the two of us at the church was one as we drove away. They used that picture in the paper too.

As soon as we were moving both Bride and Groom lit up. Gasping for a cigarette I was, absolutely gasping. And as husband and wife we sat back and smoked our Marlboro as our driver hurtled along narrow country roads with a frankly disturbing lack of concern for safety.
Next stop Edzell and the reception at the Glenesk Hotel.

By the way...just in case you cared, the driver was in a rush because the whole wedding had been 'booked on the sly'. Turns out the actual boss was on holiday and our driver had taken the booking himself as an ideal opportunity for a few extra bucks. Technically the car we were in, and the cars for the more important guests, were all stolen. The whole thing went to court some time later and I remember my Father in law being less than amused.

To be continued...

TILL DEATH US DO PART?

2008-08-06T20:51:00.002+01:00

"A life spent making mistakes is not only more honorable, but more useful than a life spent doing nothing. " George Bernard Shaw (1856 - 1950)

"Nowadays most people die of a sort of creeping common sense, and discover when it is too late that the only things one never regrets are one's mistakes." Oscar Wilde (1854 - 1900)

St Drostan's Episcopal Church lies on the west side of Tarfside, the only significant settlement in Glen Esk. It was built in 1879 by Lord Forbes in memory of his brother Alexander Penrose Forbes, Bishop of Brechin, who had died in 1875. On the fourth of January nineteen ninety two it was also the location for the marriage of a couple of square pegs.
Naturally there were considerable logistical issues with getting everyone from my side of the family up to the middle of nowhere in Scotland, but we managed to get it all arranged without too many tears. During the arrangements I turned twenty one, it was a low key affair..a dinner at the local Indian restaurant with my parents and my wife to be. Claude was there also. Claude was one of my Father's collegues who worked in India, and who's father was the author of 'The diary of a secret policeman' and who had served as bodguard to Ghandi. Not at the time of his assasination I might add, or I am sure the book would never have seen print. He was a model of good manners, softly spoken and he carried himself with all the grace of a nobleman. I liked Claude and had met him a couple of times prior when he had been over visiting the London Branch of the bank. Not essential to my tale, but interesting enough for me to share it with you.
That particular meal was the first time I tried a 'Phall' curry. For those of you who don't do 'Hot' let me explain that Phall is surely Indian for 'Bloody stupid' and I am in no doubt whatsoever that none of them would eat it themselves. The roof of my mouth has never been the same since, and yet..almost every time I find myself eating in an Indian restaurant...Phall is my chosen dish "Masochistic" I hear you mumble. (In 1905, Sigmund Freud described "Masochism" in his Drei Abhandlungen zur Sexualtheorie ("Three papers on Sexual Theory") as a disease developing from an incorrect development of the child psyche). Who would have thought that my choice of curry would reveal so much about my disfunctional childhood?
The band was booked and Alison (an old friend of Stephanie's and adopted daughter of one Reverand McAusland who was to marry us both ) was going to sing a version of 'I can't help falling in love with you' as we signed the register. Funny, looking back, that the line 'wise men say only fools rush in' was more than a little apt. Problem was..there were no wise men about to point out that we were courting disaster, and the wisdom in 'parental form' was not dispensed. They seemed more than happy to watch us marry off...I still have difficulties believing that they didn't see the possibilities for a train wreck later on., given that i'm younger now than they were then..and I can't believe how I didn't see it.
It's not easy writing about this particular episode in the story of my life, Firstly because I am acutely aware that it has the ability to make me look bitter and secondly because I am now in another relationship, and it feels like a betrayal to speak in depth about a previous partner and a previous marriage. It feels somehow disloyal..do you understand? Either way, I have to continue..I promised myself that it'd be the whole truth, the whole story..or no damn story at all.
The cars were booked, flowers, favours, photographer, video...the full nine yards. There was even a snow plough commandeered by Tayside Police's finest, just in case the roads to the church were blocked on the big day...and while we are on the subject of the long arm of the law...may as well mention my stag night. It was at a bar called 'Sinatra's' in Dundee, no prizes for guessing who it was named after..but the theme was more 'Z cars' than 'ole blue eyes'. At my stag night there were more Police than could shake a stick at, a Chief superintendant, my brother in law to be (Mike) and my Father in law to be (Jim). My own Father couldn't make it, couldn't really have been expected to given that he'd just driven five hundred miles with a car full of family to be at my wedding and was (at the time) lying semi-concious and exhausted on a hotel bed in Edzel.
It's always a good idea to find out who the Chief superintendant is before you go speaking to just anyone about the joys of your mis-spent youth. There's a tip for you, should you wind up in a similarly surreal situation. I didn't find out first...and it didn't go down particularly well.
To be continued...

1991 THE YEAR OF THE MISSILE

2008-08-01T22:11:00.002+01:00

"Marriage is our last, best chance to grow up."

Joseph Barth

13th of October, year of our Lord nineteen ninety one.

My Twenty first birthday and my last few months as a single man.

1991 is designated in the Chinese calendar the Year of the Sheep

January 11 - Soviet forces storm Vilnius to stop Lithuanian independence.

January 13 - Soviet troops assault the Vilnius TV tower in Lithuania and kill 14 civilians

January 16 - Gulf War: Operation Desert Storm begins with air strikes against Iraq.

January 19 - Twenty-nine people are injured by a SCUD attack on Tel Aviv.

January 22 - Three SCUDs and one Patriot missile hit Ramat Gan in Israel, injuring 96 people

February 7 - Prov Irish Republican Army launches a mortar attack on 10 Downing Street

February 13 - Two laser-guided "smart bombs" destroy an underground bunker in Baghdad, killing hundreds of Iraqis

The year 1991 should be re-designated as the year of the missile.

I can't tell you the date of my marriage proposal, don't remember it any more. Girls tend to remember stuff like that, I've always had problems with birthdays and anniversaries. I have a great memory for 'Junk', useless information that entertains at parties..but the important stuff just won't stick. It's a curse I have learned to live with...these days, every year, my mother sends me a new calendar to hang up. It has all that stuff written down on it.

I did not really get involved with the wedding...Stephanie's parents were happy to work with her at the arrangements. I just carried on as normal. The suits were my sole responsibility.

Things generally took care of themselves from that point on as far as the wedding was concerned, and life at home remained as mundane as it had always been. I worked, came home, wasted evenings doing nothing in particular and rinsed and repeated the next day and the next and the next. We moved from our rented house into an 'apartment' in Southminster at some stage. A quiet little village just 3 miles up the road from Burnham on Crouch. It was our first proper 'home' and our first real debt in the form of a mortgage. It was a compact little flat in a new complex named Tattersalls chase right by the village station. The idea in the developer's head at the time of it's construction was that so called 'Yuppies' would flock to the area with the new connection from Southminster to London. So...they built it, landscaped it and gave it a posh name. The Yuppies never came and as a result the prices dropped like a lead baloon until the likes of me could afford one of the smaller properties. Both my Great Grandparents and my grandparents on my father's side were now gone, and I had inherited some money that was passed on to use as a deposit on my first home, dad had carefully held on to this because he knew what would have happened to it if I had been given it sooner..I had not even been aware of it's existence up to that point. I recently looked (out of curiosity) on the web to see if there were any properties for sale there now..and my own flat was up for sale at £75k....

I'm not sure that we paid seventy five thousand for it at the time, but given the change in house prices since back then, the current price tag would suggest that the 'Yuppies' have still not flocked to the sleepy little village.
So..there we were, pending joining in Holy matrimony, mortgaged, employed and with a small dog in tow. Almost a stereotypical family unit. Almost. There were visits to Dundee, to arrange this and that, conversations here and there to tweak the details and time slipped by us like a Ninja in the dark..unseen, unfelt and unimportant. Time is always unimportant when you are young, it's not until much later you start to worry about it's rapid passage, the marks it's left on your face, the colour it stole from your hair and the people it's taken from you whilst you weren't paying attention.

To be continued...

WHAT DID WE DO BEFORE TV?

2008-07-31T22:32:00.002+01:00

"I talk to him when I'm lonesome like; and I'm sure he understands. When he looks at me so attentively, and gently licks my hands; then he rubs his nose on my tailored clothes, but I never say naught thereat. For the good Lord knows I can buy more clothes, but never a friend like that." ~W. Dayton Wedgefarth
"In order to really enjoy a dog, one doesn't merely try to train him to be semi human. The point of it is to open oneself to the possibility of becoming partly a dog." ~Edward Hoagland
I want to stay with our four legged friend for a while longer, because they have always been very special to me. I have never met a dog I didn't like, nor have I met one that didn't like me...if they didn't, they certainly never said as much. However, I have met many Humans that I have not been overly partial to, and no doubt I will meet more. There have also been more than a handful of Humans that have been less than pleased to meet me.
After patchy there was Billy..as you know..and after Billy was Willow. There were others, much loved..but not truly MY dogs..there were Folly, Nipper and Bonnie..owned by my parents and Ginty owned by Stephanie but cared for after her move down South by her less than chuffed parents who had never had the urge to own a dog.
Willow was very special..and was with me through the toughest time of my life. She was 'officially designated' as mine by my wife's solicitor during the divorce process, although she was referred to as 'The family dog' and she joined me on many drunken midnight wanders, half drunk herself. Willow could read me like a book, she could tell in an instant what mood I was in and during the chaos that was my divorce..she was there for me with a wag, or a lick..even a smile. True..she had an unusually expressive face for a Labrador and she could definately smile.
The hardest thing I ever had to do was give her away to another family. When the time came to sell the house and move into rented accomodation...there was no room anywhere for a dog. Now, I had held Ginty in my arms when the vet had had to put her down, had held her close and kissed her until she faded away..had felt a loss greater than anything to that point..but it was easier by far than giving Willow away. Easier because it gave 'Closure'. Death always provides closure. It's considerate that way. Giving Willow to another family was different, and even now it still manages to hurt. Just a little.
I can't help but wonder how she's doing these days..is she happy? well fed? Is she coping with an alcohol free life? I know she's better off, that life with me in a one bedroom rented apartment would have been no fun for her...but giving her away still seems wrong.
Anyway..and so it came about that we inherited a dog, and by doing so, staved off the biological imperative for a little while longer..besides, there was the little issue of marriage to attend to before we went there.
And marriage was just a blink away...or, if you like, just one game of chess away.
We didn't have a TV back then..strange huh? what's really strange is that we functioned perfectly well without one..no withdrawal symptoms, no unbearable boredom..nothing like that. It wasn't there, glowering at us from the corner of the room, begging us to avoid conversation and tempting us with endless re-runs of period dramas or spewing forth third rate recycled slap stick comedy with the face of David Jason. And we managed fine. We talked, walked and ocassionally played chess.
It was during a game of chess that I decided that I would ask her if she would marry me. I'd heard the whispered conversations between Stephanie and her mother or Stephanie and Joyce. My own mother had started asking when I was going to 'Make an honest woman of her' and to be honest, asking her was the easier option...my mother can be very persistent, that has never changed. So I did..just up'd and out'd with it. It was mildly romantic..but not worthy of Hollywood. She was suitably moved by my proposal..and grabbed the phone to tell her mother and father. I heard her dad 'scream' from where I was sitting, and for a moment the blood in my veins turned to ice water... until a smile from Stephanie advised me that it was a 'good' scream and not a 'bad' scream. To be honest, by now we'd built up a fairly good relationship, me and the father in law to be, and I was fairly confident he'd be happy.
To be continued...

MAN'S BEST FRIEND

2008-07-31T19:53:00.002+01:00

Four legs a tail and bad breath. A tale of unconditional love.

Eventually, after the required amount of time..we inherited our first dog. Not MY first, nor was it Stephanie's first..but as a couple it was a first of the canine kind.

His name was Billy...and he was thrust upon me like some people receive greatness. A small (even for a Yorkshire terrier) scruffy, tangled little bundle of teeth and attitude.

After a while, a married couple will (Usually) do one of two things. They will either reproduce or they will fill the need/desire/biological urge for a child with a dog. We chose the second option. I say 'chose', but in fact there was little real choice in the matter...let me explain..

I was driving for Senate Electrical at that time, frequently burning out clutches in the traffic of London, Grays and in and about Essex. Once I even removed an entire transit roof under the jaws of an excavator..perhaps i'll tell you that story another time, perhaps I wont.

Anyway...regularly I would stop to fill up the van at a little service station just outside Ingatestone, a quiet little village that huddled like a frightened child between the ogre that was Chelmsford and the Troll that was Brentwood, clinging to it's rural charm as the grass was ever more devoured by concrete, tarmac and old Kebab wrappers. The service station was little more than a shack with a couple of weather beaten pumps and was a little bit out of the way...but the lady who ran it was a good laugh, and I tended, and still do, to float towards people who have more consistency to them than cardboard.

The lady owned a small Yorkshire terrier named Billy, who always danced for me when I stepped out of my van. A happy little 'on lead' dance, front paws scrabbling at the air whilst a squashed little bark emitted from behind a row of needle teeth. I would give him a bit of fuss, and then pop in for a chat and to pay for the fuel before heading back to the warehouse. This was almost a daily ritual for me. Anyway...one day, much the same as most of the others, I had fussed Billy and was in speaking with the garage lady (I have to refer to her like that, as I don't recall if I ever did know her name) It was then that she advised me that the garage was to close and she was going into sheltered accomodation...and they didn't allow dogs. Did I mention that she was an 'older' lady?. Anyway..long story short...I ended up saying that i'd take Billy if she couldn't find anyone else, her tale had hit me in the soft part of my heart (I do have one..and dogs get there easily, I always cry when Lassie is on the tv) She was delighted, as she knew I had become somewhat attached to the little furry thing, and I guess she'd also sussed that I wasn't likely to be an 'animal hater'. And so....I inherited a dog.

After just one week we were telephoned by the lady..well the lady's husband..she was distraught and wanted Billy back. This hurt...quite a bit, but I was unusually grown-up about the whole thing. Stephanie cried..and I told them to just come on round and collect him. "Theyv'e had him for a long time" I said to Stephanie "We've only had him for a week and it hurts to let him go..try and think how she must be feeling." Very mature. They arrived, apologised and left in a blur and

We sat numb for the rest of the evening.

They called back two days later, and advised us we could have OUR dog back. Turns out, Billy had made up his mind, and had spent the last fourty eight hours growling at them from behind a chair...he had made his choice..and it was us. They arrived, dropped him off and left in a blur.

We sat smiling for the rest of the evening

And that was that...Billy was ours and a part of the 'family'. Of course, the sub title of this chapter would suggest that I am about to tell tale of other four legged friends...and the sub title is correct in so suggesting. Before Billy there was Patchy. Patchy was bought at Clacton on, or very close to, my first birthday. A puppy with the look of 'His master's voice' white, with a single brown patch over one eye. A mix of breeds, and as such, the best kind. Patch was always with me..always at my heel..loyal, loving and completely devoid of any 'bad temper' even in old age, and as children we pulled her about, dressed her up and generally hauled her everywhere like kids do.Never once did she growl, snarl or nip. She ended up with a hip held together with pins, and a rather round little belly from 'too much of what she shouldn't eat'

Patchy remained with me for thirteen years (that's 91 years for a dog) . And here is where I tell you that I BELIEVE IN GHOSTS, because of Patchy. I was just thirteen, or possibly a dwindling twelve..it was early evening and Patchy had been sitting on my coat all day over the woods as the whole family in it's entirity had been out picking chestnuts. We often did that, all of us..it was a kind of tradition that eventually ended up little more than a fading memory. I remember it, because it was when our family was still big, and together and before the hardest things had found their way into our world and begun to eat away us all. Anyway...that evening Patchy was sick..very sick and everywhere. Dad took my sister and I up to bed and assured us that Patchy would be ok.

When he got back downstairs and after stopping us both from sobbing, he called the emergency vet and took Patch to visit him. She never came back. Apparently it was a burst stomach ulcer and the kindest thing to do at her age was to put her down. And so it was done.

And here's the strange part. I remember it like it was yesterday. I was in bed, awake..possibly still snivelling quietly when the door opened and Patchy padded in. I didn't see her, but I knew it was her when she jumped up on the bed like she use to and settled on my legs. I remember the smell of her..I remember reaching down and stroking her wiry old fur. I remember thinking 'Patchy's alright' before going to sleep.

She was dead by then.

True story..straight up. I shit you not. Believe it if you will, call me a liar if you prefer, but if you chose to go with the latter..then I would advise you to read my tale no further, because you'll come to doubt more of what I say, and where's the point in reading if you can't believe i'm being straight with you?

That is why I believe in ghosts..not because I have seen a 'Headless horseman' or a floating White lady..or heard moaning or the chanting of long dead monks...but because my dead dog came to say goodbye.

To be continued....

TWO AGAINST THE WORLD

2008-07-24T20:23:00.002+01:00

And so it began. We stayed at my parents for a while and after Stephanie secured a job at a printers on the same industrial estate as me, we looked for somewhere to rent. Our speedy exit from beneath the secure and almost 'rent-free' roof of my parents house was necessitated by my mother's illness. As I have already said, talking about that particular aspect of my life is not something I want to do in any real depth, but it was the reason why we left and you should know that.
We rented a 3 bedroom house in a place called Burnham-on-crouch, which is in Essex but a good half hour's drive from my parents place and our respective places of work. It was the only one we saw that we both liked and could afford..so the journey had to be accepted.

As I recall the first thing we did when we moved in was have a food fight.

Sitting at the unnecessarily large dining table that came with the house eating some spaghetti bolognase that my mother had kindly made for us..I threw the first forkfull, I put my hand up to that. She retaliated and then it just became a shower of mince and pasta strings. It was everywhere and we laughed like a couple of hyenas until we were forced to stop for breath or loose conciousness. Other than my brief stay at Jason Close, this was my first real stint of 'Living on my own', except of course..I wasn't on my own. Neither of us were. It would be many years before I really was living on my own, and it was to be no food fighting funfair when it arrived.

We took walks in the evening, sat down by the harbour and ate chips out of the bag..we didn't watch TV, we lacked that particular modern conversation stopper, but we were strangely happy without it. Mum and dad visited us a few times, as did Stephanie's parents..and we tried hard to show that we were all grown up and responsible when they were about, but the truth showed through and I heard her dad make the "Just bloody kids" comment on more than one ocassion.
Initially..we got on well. As TWO against the rest of the world, we had enough cash between us to be comfortable, and the extra comfort that upper-middle class children get, of well-off parents behind them that would not want to see their dependants in financial trouble. But....there was something missing, even this early on...and it was the 'va-va-voom', there was no real 'passion' in the relationship, no swinging from the chandeliers (and not just because we didn't actually have any...had we, they still would not have been swung on) No random acts of lust, no 9 1/2 weeks. In those early days it didn't matter much, but eventually it would. Eventually it would spell disaster.
We kept working, and eventually Stephanie managed to secure a job at the same place as me..Senate electrical, as a secretary to the boss, his name was Geoff . Geoff was a strange character...an unfortunate mix of the best and worst you could imagine in a boss. A frenchman, from a well to do family..well educated and terribly rude at the same time. He had a big heart and was capable of acts of extreme kindness, but in the next beat of the same heart he could be blunt as a house brick and as cold as a polar bear's belly. He was a yo-yo of a man. The type of Domino that spun when it toppled and sent as many other domino's flying as it could.
I locked horns with him on more than one ocassion, but never could truly dislike the man. The same was true, as far as I can tell, regarding his feelings towards me. There was mutual respect, like two opposing military commanders facing one another before the battle. In truth, he would have been forgiven for dismissing me from his employ on more than a couple of ocassions, and yet he never did..not until the end...when he had no other choice, and even then I think it hurt him more than it did me. But that's for later.
He 'more than liked' stephanie, and made it clear to me that he didn't think I really deserved a girl like her. He was, however, a gentleman..that could never be denied, and his behaviour was typically French as far as manners towards the ladies were concerned. It was all good, because she ended up on a better wage than me, and as far as I can remember, seemed to be exempt from his bad mood swings and tantrums.

Life, early on, was very simple. We didn't think far ahead, we purchased things we didn't need and we took on as little responsibility as we could. Kids playing at grownups.

To be continued...

IT'S A FOUR LETTER WORD YOU KNOW..

2008-07-23T13:37:00.002+01:00

"Love is an irresistible desire to be irresistibly desired."
Robert Frost
"Love is the triumph of imagination over intelligence."
Henry Louis Mencken
"The Grand essentials of happiness are: something to do, something to love, and something to hope for."
Allan K Chalmers
"The demand to be loved is the greatest of all arrogant presumptions"
Friedrich Nietzsche
" Sometimes I wonder if men and women really suit each other. Perhaps they should live next door and just visit now and then."
Katharine Hepburn

"These days I am driven to be more than what I am before what I am is dust." Me
Narcissistic. That's a word that could be used to describe me, but...and this bit is important...Sigmund Freud believed that some narcissism is an essential part of all of us from birth. I may have, a little more than the stated dose, but I firmly believe that a fully fledged Narcissistic personality disorder is still a safe distance away. I like to be liked, and have used my sense of humour to achieve that goal. Always have. The 'being liked' thing is easy, the problem comes as you get older and it becomes more important to be 'liked' in a different way. A good sense of humour never fades, never looses it's edge..and usually gets better as one ages and experiences life at it's best and worst..possibly it's the worst that develops the humour better, in fact, there's no 'possibly' about it..it's always the bad times that improve it.
But looks....they fade, and loving your own reflection in the water doesn't do what it should to convince you that you've still 'got it'...that's when Narcissus needs a different kind of approval. Being a funny guy, the life and soul of the party...it matters less as you get older...eventually it ceases to matter at all.
All that's not massively important right now, but remember I said it...because it is important later. It does have a part to play in how Stefanie and I ended up getting married and more than a little part to play in how we ended up getting un-married thirteen years later.
You can have a need to be loved even if you have no idea what it really is.

People get married for many many reasons..we all know this, it's not a special revelation from me. We have seen the list of 101 reasons to say 'I do'. However....'Boredom' is not included on that list, and I think it should be.
Anyway....eventually it was decided that Stephanie would move down permanently. This was greeted with mild dismay from her parents but I don't recall how mine took it, can't even remember talking about it, but we must have..she was staying with us. Stephanie had no job in Dundee and I was working, so it made sense for her to move to my end of the island. And that was that. From letters to day trips to letters again and then to co-habiting in a few easy months. There was a plan. Of course. We'd find Stephanie a job, look for a nice little place to rent and then.....I guess the 'And then' part was left out. We hadn't thought about it to be honest. To be even more honest..I hadn't even thought about the 'moving down to be with me' part of it, I had just allowed it to happen.
My future wife was driven down by her mother and father, eager to meet my parents and to check where their little daughter was making her new home. Understandable really. When they did arrive, mum was not in the 'best of conditions' and the hours we spent together engaging in general small talk were a little uncomfortable. More so for me, because I anticipated the worst from my mother. Fortunately she avoided saying or doing anything that had a lasting impact, although Stefanie's parents left with perhaps one more concern besides the fact that I had an ear ring.
To be continued....

PAUL FITZGERALD..YOU OWE ME MONEY!

2008-07-23T12:51:00.002+01:00

"We are young, heartache to heartache we stand No promises, no demands Love is a battlefield We are strong, no one can tell us were wrong Searchin our hearts for so long, both of us knowing Love is a battlefield."

PAT BENATAR. LOVE IS A BATTLEFIELD

We had held hands. That was all...and it was the day that she was to return to Dundee. Self reflection is good, I wholeheartedly recommend it, but it can throw up some things that are difficult to see. Like my problem with 'more than physical' relationships. Now, after my relationship with Cheryl, there was little I did not know about the 'act' of love. We shall refer to it like that because it's easier to type, easier to say and generally more acceptable than referring to it as 'Sex'.

I had no problem with participating in the 'act' of love..never have. I like it, like most men..and like most men, possibly spend a little too much time preoccupied with it. It's good. But when it comes to relationships that are not wholly played out between the sheets, that is where I stumble. Strange, because I have been called a hopeless romantic, a gentleman, a charmer..and yet when I am in a relationship that is 'More' it becomes difficult to express myself, difficult to know 'who' to be. I tend to go with the 'Ten commandments' of Hollywood Love, much as I despise the idea, and I have already said as much, it does give a guide to the emotionally stunted.

Where was I?...oh yes, held hands but never kissed.

It was on the last day that she asked me if I was ever going to kiss her. Standing by the door to what had been her room, me standing at the door to what was mine. She asked. I guess it had gotten to the point where it was either ask..or let the weirdness remain. The truth is, I hadn't really known when to, if I should or even if I wanted to. I didn't really fancy her. There, I said it..and I know it sounds awful. I liked her as a person, enjoyed her company..but she didn't do very much for me. I guess, this was the beginning of something for me, that has taken a long time to understand and resolve. I began to seperate sex and love, and once you start doing that, it becomes very hard to join the two back together again...I wasn't quite twenty years old then..and at this point in time..the real here and now, I am thirty seven and have just managed to sort it all out. Very difficult indeed.

Anyway..without cutting a short story long, we kissed. Had to be done, and was not unpleasant by any stretch of the imagination. It felt weird, but that was because..friends don't kiss friends like that...of course, I didn't see it that way at the time, I just swept away the nagging at the back of my mind and got on with the job in hand. It had to be done in order to 'close the deal'. We were officially a couple from that point on.
I take no pleasure in admitting that my first kiss with my future wife was the least impressive, that it withered away to nothing when compared to my first EVER kiss with Vikki...or Terri...or Andrea or Cheryl. But then, with the exception of Vikki's kiss...the other's were 'Sex kisses', kisses born of hormones. This kiss was for a different reason..and it was flat...one dimensional.

I realise how all this must sound, and I make no apology for my honesty. This is not 'Kiss and tell' and if it could be seen as such in any way at all..then it is only telling of me.

She went back to Dundee. I saw her off at the station, waved until she was gone from view, and made my way back home through a London that had once more become a grey, dirty, uninspiring frown-infested city.
We continued to write to eachother, possibly more than before, and the letters were that little bit more personal. Shortly it would be my turn to visit Dundee, to be directed around the 'best bits' and to meet her family. Having been told that her father had referred to me as 'The one with the earring' when he had discovered that his daughter was 'seeing' me, filled me with anxiety. He was a grumpy looking man, and a Police constable to boot....but go I would. And go I did.

To be honest, although many writers fall back on 'Padding' to add pages to their work...my visit to Dundee would add little more than pages, certainly you wouldn't be interested in hearing about it..and if truth be told, I don't remember much of it. That said, if it is all the same with you, i'll skip it..suffice to say I went, it was cool, I met everyone and they liked me then I came back home.
There was a gig...Stefanie was guitarist in a band called 'American Excess' with a guy named Paul, a real self absorbed kind of guy with dellusions of grandeur and eyes set on the life of a pop star. I remember wondering if the two of them had ever 'hit the sack' together, or been an item, and there was a brief moment of anger laced jealousy. They had not, as I learned later. The gig was quite good, and Stefanie could definately play the guitar. That was the high point of my visit.

Paul owes me money. Has done for God alone knows how many years, and I suspect that he will not be paying it any time soon. I doubt if that particular Domino will ever topple my way again.

To be continued....

WAT TYLER & THE ART OF RIOT

2008-07-12T14:01:00.002+01:00

"If you can't move to this Then you probably are dead So wave your hands in the air Bust throught the moves run your fingers through your hair This is it for a winner Dance to this and you're gonna get thinner Move slide your rump Just for a minute let's all do the bump Bump bump bump yeah!" MC Hammer

January 3 – Manuel Noriega, the former leader of Panama, surrenders to American forces.

January 31 – The first McDonald's in Moscow, Russia opens.

February 11 – Nelson Mandela is released from Victor Verster Prison, near Cape Town.

March 9 – Police seal off Brixton in South London after more protests against the poll tax.

March 15 – Iraq hangs British journalist Farzad Bazoft for spying.

March 31 – "The Second Battle of Trafalgar": A massive anti-poll tax demonstration in Trafalgar Square, London, turns into a riot; 471 people are injured, and 341 arrested.

Everyone needs a Hero.... someone to look up to, to admire for certain traits, deeds or words. Mine was Wat Tyler. Wat Tyler 'The brave and good' as he was referred to in 'Life and adventures of Wat Tyler' published 1851.

Wat was an Essex boy, although there is some mild dispute with Kent regarding this, but nobody cares for the grumbles of Kentish man these days (Kent is a 'Disaster blackspot' anyone who lives there or watches the evening news will know this). Wat was the leader of the peasant's revolt of 1381, and was the first one to 'Kick off' about the Poll tax. He was at the battle of Crecy' and fought along side the 'Black Prince'. He was also cited for bravery at the battle of Poitiers and a number of Naval engagements with the Spanish and the French. He was an Essex boy through and through, and despite retiring to the life of a blacksmith after his military adventures, he just couldn't keep his trap shut when the Poll tax arrived to ruin everyone's day.

This isn't the tale of Walter Tyler. It's my tale..but you should know that I hold said man in very high esteem a good few hundred years after he invented the 'Riot'. I also smiled and thought of him as Trafalgar square shook under the 'new poll tax riots' of 1990.

Mr Tyler would have approved of the events of that March in 1990 wholeheartedly. Me, the ocassional reader of 'Classwar' magazine and sporting the trademark 'circled A' for anarchy in Indian ink on my left Bicep, approved of it also. Yes. You read that correctly, at this point in my life I am sporting two Indian Ink home made tattoos. One for Christine, a heart with an arrow through it and the letters D and C top left and lower right...the other, a big fat Anarchy sign with a 'B' on the left of it and a 'D' on the right to spell out BAD. Fortunately for me, being fairly artistic they both turned out very well indeed...lucky considering that they are there for the rest of my life.

I was to turn twenty in October 1990...by the age of twenty one I would be married.

Steff came to visit as planned. I picked her up at the station when her train arrived, and, with hindsight, that was the first incling that things were not as they should be..but me being young, I brushed it aside because that was easier to do. I had a memory of my time in Dundee and some old photographs to go on, a bunch of letters and a few late night telephone conversations. I was looking for the wrong girl and when I finally did see her, I felt my heart sink a little. Now I don't want to seem shallow, but I was, so dodging the issue serves no purpose if my tale is to be truthfull. When I set eyes on the girl with the case she was not blonde any more, her hair was longer and she was more pear shaped than I remembered. There was less glamour about her and I was instantly disappointed.
I covered it up well and smiled warmly as I walked over to help her, there was a hug..but no kiss that I recall, it was awkward..but not overly so. We began to talk right away, having learned much about eachother from long distance letters and conversations and that part of us was very comfortable. Soon we were on the London underground system, and it was the girl from Dundee's first ever experience of 'tube' trains. I enjoyed sharing her wonder at it all, at the hustle and bustle of a London I had grown to dispise.
Over the next few days I shared my world..at least the tourist parts of it, with her. The natural history museum, Madam Tussauds and the London Dungeon...the Queen Mary (my old haunt) and the rain, and despite the fact it was'nt new to me, I also enjoyed it from her perspective. We had a good time.

She met my parents, and grandparents and all approved. Cheryl, remember her?, had not been popular..and this new, less 'slutty' more 'womanly' companion was far more acceptable to my upper middle class family. I might add here that that was the case for all of my family with the exception of my Grandmother 'Molly'. Molly was different, she had an understanding of my generation that time gave her an allowance to be devoid of. She had not had an 'issue' with Cheryl, and I was to discover later that she knew far more about me than I ever did..that she was in tune with me, could read me like a book. My mother had a 'gift' to know when something was not right with me, I have already touched on that..she could 'sense' trouble. But her gift was random, unfocused...her mother's, my grandmother's, was something more..always right, and much more than a feeling. When my marriage finally did start to slide the wrong side of blissfull..she knew. She knew, but she remained quiet, asked only what she should, and gave hint enough to let me know that she KNEW.

I don't know if my sister has any such gift, iv'e certainly seen no sign, and perhaps, as it is often said, these kind of things 'skip' a generation.

Stephanie was well received, and by the time she had to return home...many had decided that she was my future wife. Decided quielty amongst themselves, not openly to me, but decided none the less. Looking back, I can't say how we ended up getting married. It is true that we got on well, that we could talk for hours, that we both enjoyed being young enough to do stupid things and had many common interests in music, film and the written word. We had a strong friendship...and that was ultimately the problem.

To be continued....

EXTRA/SUPER NUMERARY TEETH

2008-07-12T08:59:00.002+01:00

"I never think of the future - it comes soon enough. "
Albert Einstein (1879 - 1955)

Cheryl was gone. I mentioned that, we split up not long before the trip to Dundee with Ed. I had lived with her and her family for a brief time, I didn't mention that. It was just prior to my Father's decision to move me into the bedsit in 'Jason close' Brentwood, and while I recovered from a hernia operation after tearing my stomach muscles heaving truck tyres about whilst still on the rim for A.T.S (The Tyre people).

Hernia's are not much fun. Especially if you leave them for ages before you get them fixed thinking that it might just go away if you ignore it. It didn't go away..and I ended up in 'The Nuffield' hospital getting stitched up. My second 'proper' stay in hospital. The first was when I had my 'third set' of teeth removed. That's right, did I not mention that mildly freakish event? As my second teeth began to arrive, they arrived in tandem. I wore a brace for almost all of my time at Secondary school after having been admitted to hospital to have teeth removed from places that teeth shouldn't be coming through, my jawbone 'trimmed' and my mouth generally reorganised. And they gave me CORNFLAKES for breakfast the next day. Cornflakes and TOAST for the boy with stitches from behind his top front teeth to the back of his pallette...and this was not even on the National Health Service...this was private.

Extra/super-numerary teeth that's what they call them.

Anyway, enough of teeth and Hernias. I am tempting fate here, but apart from those two incidents my visits to hospital have been virtually non-existant. I prefer to self help wherever I can, can't abide hospitals. There have been a few trips to the casualty departments of the odd hospital here and there, but nothing life threatening. I have broken my nose (or been assisted with the breaking) so far four times..but to look you'd not really know. I fixed it myself each time. I have a slight crack in the front of my skull, and if I run my finger over the old scar I can feel it under the skin...result of the odd high impact here and there during life's journey, and you may hear about them as we continue with my tale. Iv'e had broken knuckles, the broken ankle I already told you about..and a broken cheekbone. None of these things required a Doctor. I can pretty much keep myself ticking over when it comes to it.

But....moving swiftly on.

I received the first letter from Stephanie at some point, I don't remember when but it was possibly just a couple of weeks after my return to Essex. I wrote back, nothing heavy..just chatty 'how are you' kind of stuff. That was the start of it really, the letters kept coming and I kept replying and by the time we had decided that she should come down and visit London for a few days..we knew eachother pretty well. Really we did. The problem with knowing eachother really well at the age of twenty one is that you can pretty much guarantee that the person you know really well will be gone by the age of Thirty at best. IF there is a time where we ever stop changing, and I say IF because i'm not sure that it happens, then it is a good while after we just fell out of our teens. This is the sort of aquired wisdom that we could all use a damn site better if we got it a damn site earlier...why is it the most useful things you learn, you only learn when theyr'e no longer any use?

Anyway, it was decided that Stephanie would come visit and the date was set. She would get a train to London Kings Cross and I would meet her there. I was nearing the end of my Country Village years, and about to embark on the adventure that is marriage. I didn't know it at the time of course, but it was just around the corner as 1989 gave way gracefully to 1990 and the world failed to end yet again.

To be continued...

TED BUNDY GETS A SHOCK

2008-07-10T20:22:00.002+01:00

"Oh think twice, its another day forYou and me in paradise. Oh think twice, its just another day for you,You and me in paradise" Another day in Paradise. Phil Collins.

January 4 - Gulf of Sidra incident (1989): two Libyan MiG-23 "Floggers" are engaged and shot down by two US Navy F-14 Tomcats.
January 7 - Showa period ends with the death of Emperor Hirohito.
January 10 - Cuban troops begin withdrawing from Angola.
January 16-January 18 - Race riots occur in Overtown, Miami.
January 20 - George H. W. Bush succeeds Ronald Reagan as the 41st President of the United States of America.
January 24 - Serial killer Theodore Bundy is executed in Florida's electric chair.

Nineteen Eighty Nine was busy from the start...

I was home again, living with mum, dad and my sister in Essex. I no longer worked for the London Weekly Advertiser, but had instead traded the high-pressure life of advertising sales for the 'check the pressure' life of a tyre fitter on one of the many grey and depressing Industrial Estates that connected one town to the next. The job was 'Dead man's boots', I had applied for a position without knowing that it was only vacant because the original owner had been killed whilst trying to change a wheel on an articulated lorry on the motorway. Apparently he'd been crushed between his van and the lorry when a member of the general public had 'left' the carriageway and ploughed into the two parked vehicles. I was not popular there for the first few weeks...with nobody else to blame, and because the guy had been popular...it was decided that I should be blamed for the incident unnoficially.

So. There I am..see me? in my blue overalls, Malboro hanging from the corner of my mouth as I struggle to change the exhaust on an old Volvo that really should have been condemned to the scrap heap several years ago whilst it leaks various essential fluids onto me from above?

Behind me lay an average secondary education, a failed attempt at further education, a spectacularly 'quit' job with Eagle star insurance and a recently 'quit' job with a fairly popular London based magazine. Hardly 'my father's son the sucsess' but my father's son none the less. I don't believe for one minute that dad would have changed it, or me...but with hindsight, I certainly would have. I failed to mention that I had taken an interview at the Standard Chartered Bank..the workplace eternal of my father. I failed the math test because calculators were not permitted. I still possibly could have had the job, my father being who he was...but it wasn't for me, and I remember turning down the offer when it came. Honesty time....I didn't just fail the math test...I got the lowest score they had ever seen to that point. I left school with a grade 3 CSE in maths, and that was after 'out of hours' tuition with a man who charged my father by the hour for many many hours. I guess..when it comes to Maths, some people just aren't meant to 'get it'.

By the end of the year I will be nineteen years old (The average age of the combat soldier in Vietnam according to Paul Hardcastle, who managed to do pretty well in the charts with his catchy little tune about death, lost innocence and general misery) and i'm out in the 'big wide world' earning money in the workplace and spending it in the local public house. The Eagle and Child, or Bird and baby as we called it, was my chosen watering hole back then..it had been my chosen watering hole since the age of fifteen. It's still there now, passed from father to son, but it's gone all 'Carvery' I hate it when that happens, when a quality drinking establishment gets infected with the carvery bug, when it decides to wave heat-lamp warm meat at Grandma and Grandpa as they leave the church on Sunday. It's a sad thing is 'Carvery syndrome' and it invariably heralds the end of something good. A decent 'local' is hard to find at the best of times.

I can't for the life of me remember what I did on my eighteenth birthday, and that bothers me somewhat. Eighteen is an 'official' birthday, you get 'Unlocks'. I like that . You know what 'Unlocks' are if you have kids, or play on the Xbox or Playstation yourself...it's when you 'beat the boss' or reach a certain level...you get something special for doing it, and that's called an 'Unlock'. Well the age of Sixteen gets you 'Unlocks' as does Eighteen and Twenty one..after that you can play the game as much as you bloody like, but there are no more unlocks. Not official ones anyway. At sixteen..the Unlock is 'Legal age to participate in Sexual activity', that's a cool unlock, but most people cheat and get that achievement early.

What the Hell..that was last year. At least 'Last year' as far as this tale is concerned...significantly longer ago as I sit here typing this in 'Now'. I am sure I would have done something for the ocassion.

To be continued...

THE 29TH CHAPTER

2008-07-10T19:30:00.002+01:00

Now, nobody likes to admit that they are, or were, a shallow person. It's not endearing. I know that beauty is only skin deep, that you should never judge a book by it's cover and that a bird in the hand is worth two in the bush. But when the Bride turned up...I looked over at Mike, whome I had been sharing drinks with only the night before, and I saw someone completely different.

Perhaps it was desperation, perhaps Lonliness...who knows what drove him to the altar that day, but whatever it was that saw him there it was not the beauty of the bride. I had already picked up a 'vibe' an 'air' of quiet displeasure from the Groom's family and later I was to understand the bigger picture. The bride was no oil painting...unless it was a Picasso, but I suspect that even Pablo would have discarded this particular canvas. Joyce was more 'Dora Maar au Chat ' than she was Mona Lisa, and if wer'e going to be honest with eachother here...Mona isn't much to look at either.

Anyway, she made her way to the front of the church to join her husband-to-be and the ceremony began. I recall little of it. I shuffled in my pew, stacked and unstacked Hymn books, sang when required and pretended to pray when I was meant to be praying and eventually we were allowed to leave. I was outside quickly to satisfy my addiction to Nicotine.

Soon after, as the embers of my Malboro were extinguished under foot amidst rain soaked confetti, I was approached by The girl in the hat. Stefanie. There was some brief small talk before she invited me back to her parents house for the reception. I looked beyond her, over her shoulder, at the scowling face of her Police constable father. He wasn't scowling at me, but the scowl was there none the less. I looked from him to Dora Maar and then back to Stefanie whereby I declined her invitation politely.

She tried to convince me to attend, but I again politely declined, stating that I was not invited. Eventually she left to ask her Father if it was ok. And was advised that it was not really ok. No.

I left and decided to discover the delights of the City of discovery on my own until Eddie returned from the reception.

I wandered around the city centre for longer than it felt comfortable to do so...Strange how although there is nothing wrong with wandering around shops for hours, if you do so knowing that you are not there to purchase anything, you feel like you are doing something wrong.

Perhaps it's just me.

I eventually returned to Ed's place and we had dinner. Another silent affair for myself and Ed's mother, whilst Ed's father took a final opportunity to talk down to his son and generally disaprove of everything he did. We were to leave the next morning and drive back home.

And...the next morning we did just that, but only after a phonecall. A phonecall that changed the friendship between Ed and myself and set me on a path that was to devour close to fifteen years of my life and bring about the existence of two new human beings. The blue touchpaper of my Firework marriage was lit.

The phone rang. Eddie's mum answered it. Eddie's mum peered around the wall at us and said

"It's Stephanie"

Ed smiled...

"For David"

Ed ceased smiling..

I felt more than mildly awkward and somewhat confused before making my way to the outstretched phone. I could see the neon sign above my head glowing with the word 'Judas', could hear it buzzing in my ears.

"Hello?" I say

"Hi..there's someone here who wants to talk to you.." It's the voice of Dora Marr, bride of Frankenstein. There's some mumbled converstaion, a giggle, and then Stefanie is on the phone.

"Hi..it's Stefanie....Mike's sister"

"Uh-huh"

"I was wondering if we could...er..write to eachother?"

"I guess, yeah that'd be cool"

I dish out my parents address and we say our goodbyes. A metaphorical dagger is protruding from between my shoulder blades as I replace the handset and return to the kitchen.

And that's how it was. The first hour of the journey was uncomfortably quiet, but one thing I will say for Eddie, he was accustomed to being unlucky, acclimatized to drawing the short straw and soon he had compartmentalized his anguish and was ready to move on.

It was not my fault, I had done nothing to encourage the phone call, in fact I learned later that Joyce had dialled the number herself after Stephanie had mentioned that she 'fancied Ed's pal Dave' Joyce had dialled, and then forced the phone into her hand with the words "Just talk to him".

Plenty of Domino's collided that day and for the most part they toppled off in directions that, had there been an element of choice, they would not have chosen to topple in. But there is no element of choice. That's Domino's for you.

To be continued...

THE CITY OF DISCOVERY

2008-07-09T22:12:00.002+01:00

We settled in as well as we could, and after an awkward virtually silent meal, Ed and I met up with Mike..the groom, for a few beers on the town.

Now, they call Dundee the 'City of discovery' and there's good reason for that. ONE good reason and no others. The boat...RRS DISCOVERY is harboured eternally there, the ship once Captained by Scott himself through the perils of the Antarctic is now moored beside the banks of the river tay. Once heralded as the 'Silvery Tay' for reasons lost to time. In the ten years or so I have been here, I have discovered little of any note about the City of Discovery other than that I should have moved on eight years ago. But..being a City that boasts two universities, it has more than it's fair share of drinking establishments, fast food outlets, nightclubs and alcoholic fat people who can't dance.

The last being a bi-product of the other three.

We made our way to the first one of the above mentioned establishments, and after brief introductions, set about having a "wee drink" to celebrate the big event of the next day. Mike had a strong accent and it was difficult for me at first to catch much of what he said, later..after several pints I stopped caring and made random assumptions as to the conversation...later still, all I could hear was my own heart thumping in my ears as Dundee defied gravity and spun around like a top. Drunks do not stand out in Dundee like they might elsewhere in the world. In Dundee, Drunks are the norm, so my staggering was uninterrupted allowing me to collide with many of the fine buildings of the town centre and some of the City's spinning, alcoholic fat people as they made their way to one of the clubs to 'not dance particularly well'.

And that was pretty much it. I went back to Ed's parents place and slept it off. In the morning I was to meet the Girl of Eddies dreams who was, by a cruel quirk of fate and a nudge from a Domino named Joyce, to become my wife.

We had a decent breakfast, and I managed a brief but enjoyable conversation with Ed's mum. (There was an interesting lady locked away behind the subserviant and 'in your place' exterior). When Ed was ready, we made our way to the church in his latest car, a Ford Orion I believe it was, if my memory serves me well.

Upon arrival I loitered awkwardly on the periphery as hands were shaken, kisses exchanged and general pre-wedding banter bantered. Ed vanished somewhere.

A moment or so later I was approached by a young girl wearing a big hat.

This was Stephanie..sister of the Groom and object of Ed's secret affection for a good few years. I had met her briefly when we had collected Mike from his parents house the night before..her first words to me were "Anyone like a drink?" I asked what there was and she replied "Tenannts or Mcewans"..I chose Tennants and we left shortly after. I later, many years later, drank some McEwans lager that was a good four years out of date. Her Father gave it to me one evening, perhaps one Christmas evening. It is my belief that this was the McEwans that I chose NOT to drink that very night.

The year is 1989. I am nineteen years old, a boy walking like a man with a headfull of junk and no clear direction. There's this girl infront of me with a big hat, a hint of bottle blonde peeking out from beneath the brim. She's made up, looks very proper and she's smiling at me...

"Hi" she says. "Alright" Says I.

She goes on to tell me that because she knows I don't know anyone atall, she's arranged for me to sit with some friends of hers. They are family of neither. Neutral. "They'll look after you" she says. And then, with another smile she's away to join the melee'. I file in and find my place with the 'Blood neutral' brigade.

Im not particularly comfortable in church, don't like the places. They seem, at least to me, to be places full of broken people, desperate people, sad people, old people and ill people. People who, for whatever reason, now need to believe in God and the afterlife more than they did when they had a head full of comic books, fairy tales and music. They are places of disguised fear, desperate hope and guilt. There's no comfort in seeing just how many people need to find some comfort.

But..weddings are different. The building still radiates sorrow, but it's drowned out with the happy optimism of a new marriage, people in big hats and the chatter of family members catching up after years of not really bothering about eachother.

I sit and get smiled at by another girl in a big hat and her mother, also in a big hat. Then we begin the wait for the bride. There's Mike and Eddie, over to the right, leaning towards eachother and whispering. Half grins like naughty children on their faces. There's Mike's sister..with her mum and her dad. She spots me and smiles..one of those 'Period drama' polite yet not disinterested smiles. I could read it. The object of Eddie's affection was smiling at me in a way she didn't normally smile at people.

To be continued...

INITIATING DISASTER..13 YEARS AND COUNTING

2008-07-04T21:18:00.002+01:00

It began like a John Hughes movie and ended like a train wreck. There are those who say that marriage is a great institution, if you are ready, that is, to be put in an institution. There are others who run from the merest mention of the word and others still who rush from their childhhod with heads full of romance to seek it out.

I stumbled into mine half man half boy. Actually it was more like a 60/30 split in favour of the boy.

It was pretty much just me and Eddie at that time. Eddie was a square peg, a fringe person, a strange mix of Swiss-German and Scottish with a love of driving, a certain Thai sauna in Turnpike Lane London and money. The pair of us rattled about together doing as close to nothing of interest as two young men could get without loosing the will to live.
Oh yeah, there were moments..meeting Triads in some dingy Irish pub in central London, swearing at celebrities, racing up and down the A127 wearing blue jumpers and fake traffic police hats in a hired car flashing our lights at other drivers and getting them to pull over before sticking two fingers up at them and racing away...moments, but they were few and far between. Mostly we just drifted.

One day Eddie was, as was normally the case, behind the wheel of his latest vehicle and I was, as normal, sitting beside him smoking and half listening to him as he rumbled on about this and that. "Fancy coming to a wedding?" he asked, it peaked my interest and I asked when it was. Ed explained that his best mate 'Mike' up in Dundee was away to get married and he was to be the best man. I snorted "What..hasn't he got any other mates?" I think Ed replied with a dry "Fuck off" or something similar. I agreed that a trip to Dundee was certainly a good idea, and that i'd sort out the time off. I had recently finished with Cheryl, much to Ed's joy. (He hated the girl with a passion.) and the trip would do me good.

And that was how it began. The Domino that was named Edward set me off towards the Domino that was to be my wife and mother of my two children.

Some time later, not much, but I don't recall exactly how long, we set off on a 500 mile road trip to the fair city of Dundee. Ed drove it all. The journey was uneventful, and I remember nothing, not even the gloomy half-awake world of the motorway service stations we must have stopped at for fuel, cheap cd's full of remixed sounds from a yesterday most people have forgotten and more cigarettes.
I do remember Eddie telling me of Mike's sister..Stephanie, and how he'd always fancied her even when they were kids. He decided en-route that he was going to finally ask her out, and I, being the mildly supportive journey tired creature that I was, mumbled that he should "Go for it mate". He was referring to my future wife.

I forget if it was light or dark, rainy or dry when we got there. I only recall the 'greyness' of it all. Dundee is Grey. Slate grey, flecked with the ocassional brilliant orange brick of newly built business parks waiting for businesses to park in them. Gray, and cold.
Eddies mum met us at the door, she was a tiny woman as I recall, with a very mousy way of moving..she oozed opression and subserviance and when I met his father I understood why. Eddie's father was tall. Tall, trimmed, clipped, polished, combed, buffed and sterner than the sternest Teacher my mind could conjur up. He was Victorian and should have only been displayed in sepia tones.

Immediately I was concerned that agreeing to stay for free at Ed's place had been a poor decision, and then on the back of that realization I realized that I was there for Eddie's sake, not the sake of my wallet..staying at a cheap hotel had never been an option.
We were welcomed in by his mother and 'watched' in by his father and within a few short minutes Ed was being interrogated about his job, his savings, his weight...his very existence.
They wanted him to come home, and clearly it was an effort for him to say no, to dare to tell his father that he was doing fine and was just peachy down south a good five hundred miles away thankyou very much.
I was asked some low level questions, there was some frowning, a little more questioning and then I was allowed to go. I was not the kind of friend that Victorian Father wanted to see his only son knocking about with.

Someone should have told him "Accidents happen".

To be continued...

FRED AND MUFFIN GET MURDERED

2008-07-04T00:23:00.002+01:00

When I was a small child my best friends were stuffed. There was Fred and there was Muffin. Fred was a small, wire framed, straw filled dog with a lolling red tongue and soft floppy ears. Muffin was a knitted mule, dark brown with a tan underside and a permanently slightly sad look on his face. We would have adventures beneath the sheets at night before sleep would take hold of me and slowly close my eyes. During the day we would play pirates on ships built in the back garden from planks, buckets and cardboard flying the skull and crossbones, painted on an old bed sheet by mum. Or we would fly into space in deckchair rockets and fight invisible aliens with wooden ray guns. We were inseperable.

Until we were not.

Fred and Muffin were eventually snuck away from me as I slept and added to a bonfire at the bottom of the garden. Mum said that Fred had "Things living in him" and that I was "Too grown up for Teddies."
This is not less sombre or less morbid, I mention it only because after telling of the demise of Christine the memory of Fred and Muffin came forward as if subconsiously queued. Two of my most vivid losses. That is all I need to say on Fred and Muffin.

As I neared the end of my Teenage years my best friends were less than. Less than Jim, less than Dave. Less than the Square pegs of my school days. Not bad people, not shallow people, not even uninteresting people. Just Less than. Am I making any sense? Surely you know the less than's ? You work with them perhaps, spend most of your day with them, laugh, joke, eat and sweat with them. Possibly you even socialize with them. But they are not enough, they are missing something. Less than what they need to be. 1988 to 1991 was a fog of less than. Little happened of any note, of any significance, I drifted by choice. I drank a little, danced halfheartedly, discussed bland things and worked. I was an insurance clerk, a trainee accounts clerk and a tyre fitter. I lived alone in a bedsit paid for by my father. I moved home at new years eve 1989 after a less than reunion where the more than's failed to attend...apart from Elaine, she was there and she was more than, but she was with the man who was to be her husband. As couples hugged and danced to the chimes of Big Ben, I called my Mother, wished her happy new year and asked if I could come home. There were tears, and I went home.By now, Cheryl was gone and I was a singular creature again.

It was good to be home again. I remember when I first walked in I was smoking. Openly. I'd been rumbled before, but this time..after my necessary bedsit incarceration, it was official and out there. Dad wasn't too comfortable with me being home. Mum was not 'better' yet, and he was aware of the explosive potential of having us both under the one roof again. I would add at this point that my mother, Ruth, knows I am writing this book and she does not whole heartedly approve. I understand her concerns and have promised her that the tale is mine, and that I will respect her by not digging up or detailing her illness. It is here, you know of it and if you are adult then you will understand all you need to understand without embellishment from me.

As I write this it is July 2008, right now, I am a man..in a seat by a window, looking over the City of Dundee and blogging my life on the internet at two thirty in the morning. It is July 2008 and what is done is done so far as the conflict between my mother and I is concerned, I love her more now than I ever did as a child and young adult and I understand her infinately better.

I once said, casually, that I had Loved my Father his entire life and yet never really knew him and that I had known my mother my entire life but never really loved her. It was said casually at the time, and at the time it was fairly close to true...I would change it slightly now though..because much can change in a few short years. What I said about my father remains unaltered. I loved him so very much, and yet...by the time I realised I didn't really know 'the man' there was no time to know the man. But what I said about my mother was wrong. I didn't know her, I assumed I did. I know her now, and if fate is on my side I will have ample time to enjoy knowing her..had I known her for who she was when I made that casual remark...I would have said i'd always Loved her.

This is all I need to say, it should suffice..it should tell you that she has nothing to be ashamed of and nothing to be forgiven for. She was ill and she got well..she won through because of who she was, because there was too much Ruth to drown out. She'll not thank me for lingering on the matter, but I have said to you that I will tell my tale without exception or embellishment. I mentioned that my mother had battled with Alcoholism, and that is all I will do. Her tale is not mine, I am skirting that issue..because I owe it to her and you don't need to hear it. Draw your own conclusions from what you read, if I have done this half as well as I hope to..you will be reading me, and if my mother the Domino has had any effect on the man you read, then you will see all you need to.

I intend to tell you more of my mother, of Ruth, because she has become something of an inspiration to me these past few years. I admire her strength, her endless fire, her love for my father and her parents and the sacarifices she has made with such uncommon ease. Truly, I shit you not, she is the most amazing woman.

To be continued...

PERSISTANT LITTLE BUGGER..THE REAPER RETURNS

2008-07-03T22:52:00.002+01:00

What happened to Christine? What became of the trusty steed...the blur of Red White and blue on one wheel? I can hear you asking...and it is time to tell.

We were only together for a little over a year, but it seemed like forever. Together we toured the highways and byways of Essex. We cut through the night, not as man an machine, but as a perfect blend of the two. We became part of eachother. I knew how she was feeling as soon as I turned the key and she coughed awake, I could tell if she was in the mood to just drive and drive, or if she'd rather just go home..because she was cold, or overworked. Every turn, every bump, every rut or pit in the road we felt as one.

I wasn't on her when she died, but I felt it none the less. Although she had thrown me clear, we remained connected just long enough. It may sound strange to a non-biker, but for a moment after you dismount...there's still a connection, take a few steps away..and it's gone. Aura perhaps. call it what you will. I felt the impact as she hit the side of the truck, felt the sudden deceleration, the numbing punch. I felt the tiny gravel teeth of the tarmac as they grazed her side and the pressure of the trucks rear wheels as they bore down on her metal body.

Then I was too far behind, and the invisible umbilical broke. All I felt then was my own pain, and it was shamefully mild.

The truck stopped. Christine did not come out the other side.
I killed her. Not some non descript articulated vehicle. Me.

Just a few hours earlier myself and my companions had been working on her. They were 'scooterists' the evolution of the species known once as Mods. Normally, they would have looked upon a bike like her with scorn, but Christine had not only won a place in their hearts, but a space on the road next to them when they rode out. They helped me upgrade her, improve her..were the ones responsible for her trademark 'rearing up' when the clutch was first let out. She was too powerful for her frame. I think I mentioned that earlier. That day we had made some further engine upgrades and I had been told to "Take it easy" for several miles, I forget how many but it was a precise number. I was meant to 'run her in'. I had been told that failure to do so, failure to keep her at low speeds could cause the engine to sieze. And that would be bad.

I had left, thanked the boys, and started the journey home from Doddinghurst to Shenfield...but she had sounded so different, and had felt so much more than she was. The merest twist of the throttle and she snatched me up and lurched forwards..it was instant, seemless. She no longer purred..she was growling, a deep, proud, addictive growl. A growl she was never meant to have. That noise, coupled with the power made me keep driving, through Shenfield and out towards Billericay. The straight road I found myself on was there to be eaten up, like a child gobbles up a bar of chocolate without pausing for breath or to savour the taste..the road was asking to be scoffed, bolted, wolfed...devoured. And I broke the rules, ignored the warning and snapped the throttle back all the way.

It was the briefest but most glorious of rides. She lifted as we accelerated, only slightly but enough to be noticeable and her growl filled my ears. I remember I laughed out loud, and hugged her tight between my thighs, sliding back and down a little as we flew. And oh did we fly.

Then something changed

She slowed, picked up, slowed again..she felt wrong, the engine started to sound different and then she just locked up. The lorry was on it's way out of a side road, i'd seen it...but would have been passed it in time. Would have been. I squeezed on the brake and the back wheel slid out violently. She dipped to the left..too low too fast and my elbow made contact with the road...

I felt her slide away from me. Gently. Then she was gone..
I wasn't on her when she died, but I felt it none the less.

The driver helped me remove her from beneath his truck. There were no angry words. He didn't blame me, had seen what happened. I did not blame him as I knew what had happened. I had killed Christine.
I forget how I got home. How we got home. Somehow we did.
Christine spent several months in the garage. I tried to do something, but there was nothing to be done. She was twisted, bent and broken. Footpegs were missing, side panels had been ripped off and melted by the friction. Her tank was creased almost to the point of splitting and cables that had been torn from clutch levers and brake levers hung like torn sinews. There was no life in her, no little green light at the turn of the key to say there was anything left, her engine was locked solid.

Eventually a local scrap merchant took her away at the request of my mother. I was not there when it happened.

And there you have it. That is what became of Christine. I have told you of the first time the Reaper came looking for me, and I said there were to be others, but this was not one of them. He was there that day, but he came for her not me. The reaper came specially for Christine because she had a soul. Men bond with cars and bikes, it's what we do..and to an extent I think women do also, but on the whole it is a bond from pride and appreciation . My bond was different, because Christine was different. Never have I felt it since, not with any form of transport..and I have had more cars than most. Christine was something more.

And so I feel it is time to move on, to things less sombre, less morbid. There's more to tell and I am eager to be on with it.

To be continued...

CHAPTER 24 "HOW TO INSULT CELEBRITIES"

2008-06-24T19:17:00.002+01:00

I only remember my father raising his hand to me once.
I asked for it.
We both regretted it, but more so myself..as it was I who retaliated with a closed fist not an open one and almost knocked him down the stairs. The only time I hit my father and one of my biggest regrets. I apologised for it many years later at my wedding. It stayed with me, and it is still there to this day. I wouldn't change much about my life, everything that has happened has been necessary in the creation of the man that is now busilly typing his life story. But I would change that one moment. At the drop of a hat. In the blink of an eye.

My relationship with my mother was poor during the mid eighties through to about '93. My adolecense and her alcoholism made for an explosive mix. Eventually I ended up living in a bedsit paid for by my father to keep us apart. Dealing with an angry youth was the easier option..he knew I would go, and I did. You can't make a deal with an alcoholic. By that time I was working for the London weekly advertiser in South Woodford, London.

Christine was dead by then, as was my first car..the little blue 'V' registration Ford Fiesta, and I was travelling from Essex to South Woodford in a battered old Datsun 120y. My first real doer-upperer, or at least that was the plan, the Hurricane put a stop to that idea.

The 'great storm' of October 1987 was the worst to affect the south east of England since 1703. I was driving home in it when it was reaching it's peak. A roof slate hit the front of the car, bounced and took out the windscreen and almost removed the frame on the driver's side. I was pelted with little pieces of shattered glass, and somehow it managed to get into my eyes. Fortunately I was not travelling particularly fast, and I was able to pull over using 'the force'. I got my eyes clear, and was relieved to find that I could see, although the inside of my eyelids had been cut and there was blood running down my cheeks creating a real nightmare of a face. Needless to say, the rest of the drive was a nightmare..no front windscreen, wind blowing in my face, rain soaking everything and assorted twigs, leaves, dirt and the like being thrown at me at high speed. The car was eventually written off as 'Beyond economical repair'.

The car isn't important, nor is the tale of the 'Great storm', I added them merely because they happened and I remember them well. As storms go, I am sure it was fairly unimpressive when compared with other places less fortunate than this Island nation, but it was bad for us and has not been so bad since. Touch wood.

Back to more mundane things, like my job in South Woodford. It was selling advertising space, commission based..and I, with my gift for talking, took to it like a duck to water. I also took to the liquid lunches and the evenings out on the town...

Almost always we would end up at the Queen Mary on Victoria Embankment. Back in those days she was one of the most popular meeting places for the young crowd, with a great restaurant, pleanty of bars and regular 'Tequilla nights'. I had some great nights there with the 'gang' from the office. There was John H..a giant of a guy with a dry sense of humour, John O', an Irishman who'd made his way to London with nothing more than a desire for a better life and an escape from 'the troubles' Lisa, a plucky Irish Lass who'd done the same thing as John'O but seperately, Sonny, a phillapino lad with friends in the Triads and 'Cod' as we called him (short for Quadri) an Indian pool hustler who kept us in beer almost every night. There was one other guy, who was eventually to be the best man at my wedding. Eddie. Eddie was everybody's driver. He didn't drink..he just showed up, drove us about and generally got ignored in between. I felt bad about the way he was used as transport and we struck up a friendship. I was with Eddie the night I called Richard Gere a 'wanker'. That was a great night.

We had been driving around London, just the two of us, when there was suddenly a crowd in the road..just stepped right out infront of the car without so much as a wave of the hand. Eddie hit the brakes and we stopped just short of them. My driver hit the horn and cursed to himself, I wound down the window and stuck my head out. Some guy was being buzzed around by a decent sized crowd, he looked up at the instant I unleashed my expletive.

"You fucking wanker!" I bellowed, more out of the car than in it. Some of the crowd looked, and that was when I saw cameras, then Richard Gere looked over..right at me. I smiled, sat back in the car and looked at Ed. "I just called Richard Gere a wanker" I said. Then we almost wet ourselves laughing. Turns out he had just been to the premier of 'Pretty Woman'.

To be continued...

FAMILY

2008-06-24T10:47:00.002+01:00

So there you have it. My compulsory years of education covered, my brief relationship with further education and four girlfriends all shared and returned to the dusty shelves at the back of my memory after twenty two 'not quite' chapters. Could I have expanded? yes. Would it have been an interesting read? most likely not. Where to next I hear you ask? or perhaps I don't..perhaps you don't care.

I want to take a look around the ME of nineteen eighty seven, at the people that were constant, under appreciated and regularly taken for granted. Those linked by blood.
Funny thing Family. We are expected to be fiercely loyal to them and yet we have no choice in who we get, didn't pick them like we pick our friends and strangely almost always seem to get along with them despite the fact that if they were the same people but not family..we probably wouldn't care very much for them. I often wonder if my mother would think so highly of me today if all that has come to pass had come to pass but I was not her son. One thing is for certain, if it were not for blood I would have considerably less guilt and regret to carry around with me on my shoulders.

My father was doing well. Extremely well. It was only in his last few years that I came to understand exactly how clever he was..highlight one regret. I remember his new company car, a Volkswagen Scirocco Scala (limited edition) that boasted a top speed of 120mph. I remember how I was trusted to borrow it.....

I remember the smell of the engine. An engine that had barely been pushed beyond 50mph, I remember the sound as she picked up...

hurtling along the M25 at 2am. The motorway was empty, all mine..a huge runway.
The needle on the speedometer edged ever upwards, clockwise...the wind forced it's way in through the open windows, ruffled my hair playfully and settled in the back seat...Greasy-yellow street lights sped past fast enough to become a single undulating line. And that smell...the smell of NEW, the smell of speed, power and danger. She 'topped out' at one hundred and twenty miles per hour, but she wasn't screaming in pain..she was shrieking with pleasure. I eased off, and let her slow to around eighty. I was grinning like a fool.
Then there were the lights of another vehicle behind me, closing. My foot eased down on the accelerator pedal and again I was enveloped in the hot smell of newness. And the lights dropped back...My foot stayed down until we reached top speed again, and remained there for a fair while..I only slowed when the sign for Junction 28 flashed by me..my off ramp to Brentwood and home. I was doing a sedate 50 when the blue lights danced across the inside vinyl roof of the car, and winked at me from my rear view mirror. My heart skipped a couple of beats and my stomach turned over. The siren sounded to highlight the fact that these blue lights were for my benefit and reluctantly I slowed further and pulled in at the next layby.

That night..I slowly made my way upstairs to see if Dad was awake. He was. Reading. I smiled nervously at him and he knew right away something was up..
"Do you want the good news or the bad news?" I asked.
"Oh Jesus." He sighed and put the book away "Good news?"
"Your car really does do one hundred and twenty miles an hour"
A tired little sigh, a raise of one bushy eyebrow "Bad news?"
"The old Bill can verify it."
"Oh shit".

I remember the trip to Brentwwod Magistrates court with dad. Can still see him reaching for his cheque book to pay the £180 fine and £30 costs. A look of calm acceptance on his face.

A small man in front of a big desk.

I stood behind him, in his shadow and I belonged there. My father was to rescue me many many times over the remainder of his life. And one last time from his grave. A good Catholic, only child of Herbert and Ada, schooled privately and graduate from the London school of Economics with honours. Treasurer, then Controller of overseas and International banking for a well known Bank. Completer of numerous crosswords in more 'intellectual' broadsheet newspapers and Cashpoint cum 'get out of jail free' card for one misguided, reckless, and generally ungrateful son.

I could write what I really know about my father on a postcard.

Sadly, my memories of my father tend to be memories of what he did for me. Holidays in the sun, first motorbike, first car, expensive presents at Christmas and birthdays...most of what he was was what he gave. I am at a loss to adequately explain how deeply I regret wasting the man. And, not wanting to send this epic tale of my life down a very dark and gloomy path, I shall refrain from even attempting to do so.

I cannot recall my father ever doing anything even mildly dodgy...except one time when he was given a ticket and some points on his licence for driving over the speed limit when towing a trailer..the limit being around 50/55 mph and he was JUST over. I know nothing of his childhood and teenage years. In fact, I know nothing pre-me. He had a sense of humour, much like mine but less cruel. He was mischiefous, I remember that. I was told by my grandmother that after my uncle Terry (my father's best friend as a kid and who eventually married my mother's sister Mary) had spent hours carefully fitting a phone extension for my father's parents, and tacking it down neatly along the skirting board, he then called up his own parents and advised his mother that he was from the telephone exchange and that they had "Too much slack cable" at their end. He persuaded his mother to grab hold of the newly fitted cable and pull hard until he told her to stop. Every inch of the cable was pulled away from the wall before Ada was advised that the slack had been taken up. Terry, naturally, was distraught when he was informed later by Ada that there had been a call from 'the telephone people'. One thing I do remember about dad. He was not a practical man. He didn't build stuff. Avoided fitting shelves, the use of power tools and changing lightbulbs. It was not his forte and would usually end in disaster if he attempted to turn his hand to it. No, dad was a thinker, a solver of problems not a DIY kind of man. Hence why Terry was fitting the new extension for his mother and father, and not him.
He loved his garden and was often in it when he wasn't working. He loved his cricket, and his football and was responsible for taking me with him to Wembly to watch Billericay Town FC play there. And he loved to read. My father had an impressive library. When he passed away, my mother gave all of his books to charity. Personally, I wouldn't have..those books WERE dad, and had I had the room and a place of my own...I would have taken them all rather than see them go.

To be continued...

FLYING LESSONS

2008-06-20T12:35:00.002+01:00

And now continue...

I said that I would very much like to do the upstairs thing, and we went upstairs. I consider myself a gentleman, and because of that, and also because I cannot abide depictions of sexual activity in any novel (I find it the very lowest form of padding) what transpired over the next hour will not be discussed. I have already mentioned my passage from boy to man, and if you have been paying attention, then you should already know that THAT could not have happened upstairs that night.

There was angry shouting from downstairs some time later, the door slamed, there were expletives and screams. Something was kicking off. I made my way down the stairs in time to see the front door part company with it's hinges and fall on the girl this side of it. I saw two of my mates..one of the Vespas and Mr Lambretta leap over her squealing door covered form and launch themselves at the unseen demolition man.

My first and only thought was for Christine. I too, made my way out, grabbing a bottle of wine on the way.

Outside there was a gang of around eight youths standing in the road. Vespa and Lambretta stood at the garden gate, squared up and ready to test the 8-2 theory. I checked Christine over and was relieved that she had not been damaged during the initial attack. Then, being full of cut price lager and Andrea's affection..I joined my friends at the gate and upgraded 8-2 to 8-3 and an empty wine bottle.
There was much shouting, gesturing and general chest beating. The neighbours became annoyed enough to come out of their still intact front doors to see what was going on. I threw the wine bottle...it flew well and shattered just a foot or so from the group of eight. Vespa and Lambretta took several steps forward and snarled more viciously. I realsied that I had just become the one that the neighbours were paying attention to. The lanky youth in faded denim. The guy who threw the bottle. I realised that this was perhaps the kind of little detail that they were likely to remember should the police arrive..and I realised right after that, that it was very likely the police would arrive now that bottles were immitating motar rounds.
Thinking on my feet, and with a brain marinaded in Tennants Lager, I decided that if I were the one to fetch the police, perhaps the little bottle thing would go unmentioned and so I mounted Christine, kicked her into life and drove out onto the road, knocking her up through the gears as swiftly as possible and widening the gap between me and the eight promptly.
There was, just round the corner and up the road, a small police station..this was my destination. Had I been thinking clearly I would have remembered that it was a 'part time' station. Not manned out of hours. As it was, I drove all the way there before I remembered.
The only options were to go home, or go back to the party.
Going home would definately look bad, and Andrea was bound to be unimpresssed by such a lack of character. So back to the party it was. I opened up the throttle and pushed Christine to her limit, the night air cold in my face and my heart pounding at what lay ahead.

I didn't see the car. not at any point.

Not until after. There was a loud bang and I was airborne, one of the strangest sensations I have had to date, I'm moving out and up, but the ground is above me and the sky below. There's the gloomy yellow of the streetlamps then tarmac then stars then the breath in my lungs is knocked out of me as I hit something hard. And my flight is over.
I can hear Christine screaming somewhere, her throttle must be wedged open, there's a man shouting, something is hurting my back. Slowly my addled brain makes sense of the situation, deciphers up from down and starts the post flight checks.

The thing hurting my back is a signpost declaring a 30mph speed limit. It's bent so badly that what was the top of the pole is almost touching the pavement. I am resting right up against it. That's when the signals from my ankle tell my brain that something is not as it should be and my brain translates this kindly as pain. My ankle is broken. There's still a man shouting, I cant see him though. I raise my head and look up and about..and there's the shouting man. He seems pretty unhappy. He also looks very drunk.
I omitted to mention that it is now the first of January. The party was for the new year.
"You bloody little idiot!" He says. He said pleanty of stuff, but that's the only complete sentance i remember. I can smell the alcohol on his breath, I think I said something about Christine, he said something nasty about Christine then the Police arrived.
Lovely
Soon there's a Bobby beside me, checking i'm ok, he's asking me stuff. I ask him to stop Christine screaming and he does. I like this copper. Not that I think it is going to save my skin, I am most certainly in some deep water. But I like him.
"Your bike seems ok." He says. "He's drunk" Says I "So are you" He replies.
The man with the car is calming down, think he just had a similar conversation with Cop 2.
"You may have a broken ankle" The P.C with me seems tired.
"It's ok...there's a fight at a party" I reply
"We were just there. There's not any more."
"I was coming to get you"
"Well it looks like we beat you to it" He smiles a tired little smile. Fuck being him at new year.
My details are taken. The shouting man's details are taken. He gets back in his car and drives away. "But he's drunk!" I'm getting to my feet now, and my ankle is screaming at me not to. PC Nice helps me up "You need to go to hospital, we'll take you there"
No bloody chance. "It's ok..honestly" I quickly reply
"It's broken" He says firmly
"Nah..it's not..it'll be ok"
Iv'e given him less work. He knows it. He nods. "Well get it seen to."
I promise to get it looked at and limp over to Christine. Christine being Christine (And this will be hard for you to believe) was unscathed save for some minor scuffing to the side pannels and a slightly offset front wheel. Later, when my father receievd the bill for the damage to Mr Gowland's Granada, it was clear that his chosen form of transport had faired less well.Broken headlight, new bonnet(plus re-spray) and windscreen. It was expensive. For my old man.
Somewhere that night, in the confusion I had apparently admitted fault for the accident. That was what it had said in the letter. Turns out that Shouting man was a friend of the local constabulary, hence the lack of any drink related charges for either of us. I get the bill and no charges are pressed.
.
Fair deal, everyone's a winner. Except for my Father...
And the Reaper.
It'd be six years before he'd return to try again.

To be continued...

THE REAPER COMES A CALLING

2008-06-19T11:09:00.002+01:00

I thought the hardest thing about writing this would be sharing the truth with strangers. Turns out, the hardest thing about writing this is sharing it with myself.
The more I write, the more things I remember, the more difficult and uncomfortable it becomes. Should I stop?.

Not just yet I think.

Andrea. Now there was a girl to die for. I can't believe I was about to rush through 1986 and 1987 without even mentioning her and the night I learned to fly. The night I evaded the cold and bony arms of the Reaper for the first time. As you have read, my youth was, by choice, not a particularly safe one at times as a member of the Square Peg Elite. I had done some dangerous things, ranging from the plain stupid to the downright idiotic, but the Grim Reaper had been happy to just sit and watch. On the night of Andrea..he decided to make a lunge for me..he was quick, no warning was given....and without further ado, let me dispense my tale on these virtual pages.

Wer'e jumping through time again, but not far just a little bit back down the track, just before the domino named Cheryl. There's a house with no parents in it, they are away on a holiday. A house that still holds a teenager and expensive stuff. The stuff I mentioned earlier that married couples collect. Not DVD players or High definition digital widescreen tv's..that kind of stuff was yet to be invented..but stuff none the less. The father's favourite chair was still cooling down and the ink on the handwritten instructions from mother was still wet when the first party guests arrived. Arrived with short skirts, denim jackets, alcohol and attitude. Arrived by taxi, motorcycle and on foot.

It was par for the course. Parents go away on holiday..kids left behind throw party. I turned up on Christine along with several vespas and a Lambretta. They parked on the pavement outside the front gate..I wheeled Christine in and left her on the more secure grass of the front lawn. Christine could not be disrespected by being left out on the street. I forget the name of the hostess, she was the friend of a friend. Somehow i'd gotten invited and an invite is an invite no matter how far down the chain it arrives from.

It was not long before everyone was sporting alcoholic grins and exaggerated libidos. The music set the mood and was kept by the hostess at a level that would annoy the neighbours but not to the extent that they would feel the need to come a knocking. I was enjoying just sitting and watching the evening play out from behind a tin of cheap lager when I was interrupted by her. Andrea. She was amazingly hot, and had, if I recall only recently moved to the area, having joined our school a year before it was time for us all to leave. She was a Brummie, and she was beautiful. She made a b-line for me and to this day I cannot fathom why. We talked, we laughed and she asked me if I wanted to go upstairs with her.

With text, one cannot pause for dramatic effect, but please add one here as you read this.

To be continued...