Big picture stuff – Brexit is no big deal (who needs an England, GB, UK, EU) or whatever arbitrary enclosure we create to keep people in or out – Small (but more important) picture stuff – Brexit could impact badly on those who already have crap lives.

I feel ashamed and disappointed in my generation. We have raised a flag of intolerance and selfishness that our children will have to live under. We have let the rivalry between two old Etonians (one led us to the cliff and one pushed us over) mess us up. (An “Eton Mess” he says with half-baked wit and more shame)

The next step is to try to ensure that the next government, of whatever geopolitical entity remains, prioritises those that have crap lives and leave those that don’t (all the readers of this blog) to suffer the excruciating torture of more expensive holidays, and the unbounded joys of fewer funny speaking neighbours to drag house prices down and steal those terrific agricultural jobs we are all so keen to take .

Compared to being stuck in a rubber boat in the Mediterranean with a bunch of pirates, being stuck in front of the telly watching Wimbledon while the politicians, bankers, quangos, kings, princes, priests, Etonians, academics, economists, technocrats, bureaucrats get into the most frightful muddle, seems like Nirvana.

Make sure we keep our eye on the ball and that means ensuring that those people, some of whom will have voted for Brexit, don’t become the victims of the dysfunctional elite that have fucked us up ever since the idea of bossing people about first occurred to those imaginative (no denying that) creators of god, jehova, mohammed, thor, zeus, and all those other fine examples of moderation, tolerance and love. Sorry to keep harping on about it but the current trifles really do stem from our absurd belief in the notion of an authority that has all the answers. Some of us believed Cameron, Farage, Corbyn, Johnson or some other expert to be right and duly followed them. There is no ‘right’ nor is there a ‘wrong’ there is only stuff and we need to ensure that the stuff is distributed evenly to all human beings whatever bit of the planet they happen to be standing on. Once everyone has the same amount of stuff, food, shelter, education, basic human rights, then they are free to decide on their own ‘right’ not the ‘right’ imposed by others.

ANARCHY ANARCHY ANARCHY – ra ra ra!!!!!!

Meanwhile. “Vince” our nomadic ginger cat is getting more confident. Arthur managed to get within a couple of metres of him by crawling. I think Vince was so surprised to see a furless, gigantic, cat in shorts, that it stopped him in his tracks. Bobby continues to pee liberally in the house although his atomizer drug therapy should be having some effect. Mitch has yet to really notice Vince and seems completely laid back, so I think he is absorbing the lions share of cat Pheromones due to his spectacular girth and thus catchment area capabilities. Brian our farmer neighbor with the hens has found the fox hole but happily his solutions seems to be that knowledge is power – ie he knows where the fox is so he reasons the fox will no longer venture across this knowledge/ power/ intellectual divide. Hmm?

Our new drone has ended up stuck up a tree after profiting from that part in manual we had not read, ‘when your drone goes out of range it will continue to follow the last instruction it receives’ – thus if last instruction is ‘fly away fast’ on losing contact, so it does, until it meets the Redwoods of Appleton Roebuck and lands with agility and a certain grace on the highest branch. The most fun was had when the neighborhood assembled to watch the spectacle of man and woman, whose species have flown to the moon, fail to invent technology sufficient to dislodge a toy airplane from a tree. There it now sits, its metaphorical tongue stuck out, an arboreal (is that a word for tree based) vault for the filmed highlight from our debacle, including that immortal lost shot of 4 flailing, fading, human-beings shouting recriminations at each other.

Despite weeks of tests and concerns my health is excellent – at least that is how I feel – apparently its not – but I choose to ignore that bit of statistical mumbo jumbo. I am more flexible than I have been for years. I can put my socks on like a sprightly 60 year old, pop in and out the bath like a rust corroded ‘Stanner’ and lift the surprised cat onto my shoulder after only 5 attempts. No I am lying, I am genuinely much, much, fitter.

The family are all flourishing enormously which makes me happy, happy, happy. Maria has Scarborough concert this week that I shall attend. Feels good to be the youngest person in the audience. The only thing is we have to stand for the queen at the end – honestly, really – I guess there might be the odd Brexiteer in the audience seeing as most of them are nearly dead and think standing for the queen is actually a requirement for a Thursday evening concert of light classical and show songs. Still I will do it as the alternative is to standing up for my principals, which I find more objectionable than standing up for the monarch.

I have significantly improved the sound quality and reliability of the phone box project. I now have a pan, tilt, zoom camera in place – admittedly mainly to track Vince.

Sorry  messed up – ignore last message

I was sent this as a link by Jane Baxter. I almost never reproduce stuff but I believe this to be the ‘let’s not Brexit’ Holy  grail and as it looks as if the vote could be close (shudder of utter disbelief and disgust) I would like you all to regard this as compulsory reading.

It’s is from here

https://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/johnny-rich/35-reasons-to-vote-leave_b_10322446.html 

Some people think it’s completely irrational to want to leave the EU. So, to avoid looking like you’re ignorant or incapable of understanding the issues, here’s a handy list of 30 excuses you can give for your position.

You don’t have to believe them all, just use whichever you feel comfortable with.

Contrary to the expert conclusions of every economic authority of note (OECD, World Bank, Bank of England, IFS, etc, etc, etc), Brexit will not be damaging to the British economy.
Experts don’t always get it right. In fact, because I can think of one example of an expert getting something wrong, I’m going to assume they’re all wrong on the economic consequences of leaving the EU.

I think English literature graduate Michael Gove has a better insight into global economics than the above experts and, in fact, Brexit will magically solve any and all problems in the British economy.

I believe that there aren’t enough jobs to go round for EU immigrants, despite the fact that more workers create a larger economy, creating more jobs as well as a higher tax take.

I believe foreign workers who fill jobs where there are skills shortages like nursing, construction and, erm, premiership football are adding nothing to society.

I believe leaving the EU will remove any moral obligation from the UK to support and welcome desperate people fleeing war and peril in the most troubled areas of the world as this country did before and during WWII.

I believe leaving the EU will make refugees who have already risked everything to get here decide not to bother after all.

I believe China (market size 1.2Bn) will offer just as good trading terms or better to the UK (market size 57Mn) as it does to the EU (market size 500Mn).

I believe the angle of curve of my bananas is something that the EU genuinely legislates on and that this is sufficiently important to me that I am willing to suffer economic hardship in order to protect the right to have access to the bent/straight bananas that I prefer.

I believe the Social Chapter is an affront to my right to oppress others and of those who would seek to oppress me.
I believe this country would wake up the day after leaving the EU and would suddenly find itself bathed in a glorious light of sovereignty, whatever that means. I don’t believe that in practice sovereignty is actually a pretty vague idea that actually can only be negotiated in relation to the wider world as part of international community and that no country gets to do exactly what it likes. Except perhaps North Korea. Yeah. I want to live in North Korea. They got sovereignty.

I believe that, contrary to intelligence experts, the UK would be safer from terrorists without pooling intelligence with other European countries, even though most of the 7/7 bombers were born and raised in, erm, the UK.

I believe we could pool intelligence with other European countries from outside the EU and they would be just as happy to share with us as they are now, but somehow, even though I believe the situation would be the same, that’s still a reason to leave the EU.

I believe I am better represented by the first-past-the-post elected parliamentarians in Westminster than the proportionally representative elected parliamentarians in Brussels and it’s got to be one or the other, rather than both.

I believe the supremacy of European Court of Human Rights (even though it isn’t actually an EU body) diminishes sovereignty in the UK and therefore somehow is less just even though, erm, I can’t think of any occasions when it has overruled British legislation except, oh yes, that thing about prisoners getting the vote, but, well, I suppose actually that might be quite just anyway, but still…

I believe the EU is all a Franco-German conspiracy and the best way of defeating it is to, erm, allow the Germans and French to get on with it.

I believe the EU is run by a bunch of faceless pen-pushing bureaucrats, completely unlike our own fine British civil service which has just exactly as much red tape as is necessary to ensure accountability and to counter corruption, and not a scrap more.

I don’t actually know whether Brussels government is any worse than UK government, but no one’s asking me about leaving the UK, but they have given me a chance to whinge that not everything is perfect in the world, so I’m taking it.

I don’t find Leave’s figure of £350Mn in payments to the EU a week remotely ridiculous, even though it takes no account of either the rebate or payments to the UK.

I believe that instead of spending £350Mn a week to the EU, if we left, we really would be able to spend it on the NHS ‘cause that’s really how economics does work. No, it is.

I believe Britain’s exit from the EU will bring the whole edifice tumbling down and I don’t like anyone else forming an international collaboration if we’re not part of it, even though, erm, I don’t want to be part of it.

I believe holidaying in Europe will be just as easy and no more expensive because they should be happy to have our fine British pounds, even though after Brexit they might be worth a lot less.

I believe that the imports from Europe that of course I will still be able to buy just as easily and just as cheaply will be just as safe and my consumer rights will be protected just as well, even though these are safeguards that are protected by EU legislation.

I’d like to be able to rip off music and videos, like they do in China and Russia, because they don’t have those pesky EU intellectual property controls which stop me stealing from artists whose work I like.

I believe people traffickers who operate outside the law anyway will be just as easy to track without transnational agreements and information sharing.

I believe an isolated UK will have more influence on a global stage because, well, we used to have an Empire you know. Just like, erm, Egypt, Mongolia and the Aztecs.

I’m a Scottish nationalist who wants to stay in Europe, but I hate those Sassenach Tories and this is probably my best way to get another chance to break up the United Kingdom.

I’m an Irish republican who wants Northern Ireland to be reunited with Eire and, erm, I’m not quite sure how that’s going to happen by leaving the EU, but if that Scottish guy thinks it’ll stuff the English, then I’m for it too.

I don’t mind my taxes supporting scroungers hundreds of miles away and with whom I have no connection so long as they’re this side of any sea, but I don’t want them supporting no foreign scroungers whose need might be even greater. After all, I do my bit by giving a fiver to Pudsy most years.

I just want to shove it to Cameron and Osborne.
Michael Gove is my anti-Establishment icon.

I don’t really want to leave the EU, but I want Boris as our next prime minister because he’s got silly hair and says wacky things – a bit like that awfully funny chap they’ve got in the US at the moment, who’s also ever-so keen on Brexit.

I liked it back in the olden days when frogs were frogs and Krauts were krauts.

I believe whatever the Daily Mail and Daily Express tell me to.
I genuinely feel no cultural connection to Abba, Archimedes, Aristotle, Bach, Beethoven, Brie, Cervantes, Chanel, Cicero, Croissant, Da Vinci, Einstein, Euclid, Goethe, the Grimms, Homer, Ibsen, Joyce, Leibniz, Michelangelo, Mozart, Pasta, Plato, Pythagoras, Rousseau, Schiller, Socrates, Tapas, Truffaut, Virgil, Zola or whatever, but on the other hand, I’ve got Morris dancing, Robert Burns, bara lafwr and the Orangemen in my veins.”

On the other hand, if every one of these reasons seems utterly, Trump-lovingly deluded, stop being a bloody idiot and vote #remain.

Follow Johnny Rich on Twitter: www.twitter.com/human_script

My wedding suit trousers fit, much to my surprise. Not only that but my hair has been “restyled” to accommodate Maria’s mowing so I am all set to shine at Avani’s mum and dads tomorrow and ED and Claudia’s wedding on Saturday. ‘Radiant and confident’  -like I have had a full Clinique makeover or got a new brand of toothpaste.

And…

I have a Spring, spring in my stride because I really believe (yes really ally) I have completed all the major technical challenges with the phone box installation as well as some challenges that only became major challenges once I had obsessed long and hard.

Now for a confession. I have been completely unable to concentrate on anything but this project for months now. The various nobbly, nitty, techy bits and pieces that needed doing really got under my skin and into my head. I don’t know how to describe the feeling. Maria gets it with sewing projects. She just has to keep going back and trying to improve what she has done. The improvements are invisible to the rest of the world but to her they are critical. I thought about my nobs when watching telly, driving, eating, and even sleeping. I am afraid I particularly thought about them when talking to other people about dull stuff. That is anything that I am not interested in. Which is almost everything that most people want to talk about. Why can’t there be more people like me in the world! It must have driven everybody mad. It has been a deep deep spell of preoccupation, like other people describe depression, only not sad, just impossible to break free of.

Of course the results are far from spectacular. I liken it to achieving nothing more than baking 6 good currant buns for tea. Something appreciated by just a very few and not appreciated that much. Something very quiet and missable. But utterly joyous none the less. The feeling of freedom to think about other things is just brilliant.

So now I won’t.

Granted some of the tasks were very tricky, not because of any integral programming complexity but because I have been trying to do things that no hardware and software combination has ever been designed to do. The mix of very old technology and new technology has led me to some extremely Heath Robinson solutions and these spaghetti junctions have snowballed into pile-ups further down the road. It’s been like making a bike from bits of a pram, a TV and carpet offcuts.

On the way I have resolved the content issue that has been bugging me for several months, ever since I launched the prototype and got that “something ain’t right” feeling that comes when an audience quite like something – but despite the applause you the author, director, actor don’t. I am now fairly confident I have the content concept ready to match the technical concept. It all comes down to whether or not to use the first person. “Who cares” you may ask. Who cares what a computer voice impersonating Chris would say in a 1937 telephone box. But if you can be bothered, and I suspect most of you cant, it is a very interesting problem. Even “hello” is problematic because the caller may say “hello” back and expect an answer, in this new manifestation this is sometimes possible but even so should an inanimate impersonating an animate say “hello” at all? Would A G Bell’s “ahoy” be more fitting, or funnier, or be somehow subliminally hinting at a historic telephone context, thus routing the piece in some sort of framework. These are very fine judgements that distinguish a piece as either – gently thought provoking, utterly incomprehensible or so comprehensible it’s hackneyed and cheap.. I am aiming for the first. The second is the easiest by far, and the last is where I usually end up. This is the sort of stuff that both keeps me awake and send me to sleep. This is my therapy.

I have not written much of the content yet but that should be the fun bit. I have made one more compromise to accessibility and you will be able to access the content of the installation from any landline by dialling a York number I will release in due course. The experience will be nothing like being in the box but it’s been fun to figure out how to do it. Turned out to be easy peasy. The hardest thing about a project like this is knowing where to start and of course when to stop.

Just as my own creative juices curdle, it seems my boys and my girl are on a roll. To add to my last outpouring of show-off I have just read a superb short piece by George (access to G’s writing is an extremely rare treat) that left me truly, truly gobsmacked. So on the strength of this, plus Arthur’s album and Avani’s news that I cannot talk about, I feel ready to die and pass on the mantle of genius through my genes. Only joking I am not going nowhere until I finish this flaming phone box and direct an opera at La Scala – so see ya for the next millennium bug.

The purpose of this post –

Does anyone know how to catch or deal with a Tom cat? He is really nice looking, quite small but he has very big ginger nuts and an enthusiasm for breaking and entering in order to daub his pungent and expressive pussy paint upon our walls, curtains, carpet and possibly our own timid pet pussies. We have resolved to adopt him and get him sorted on the ginger nut front. Hope he doesn’t belong to someone as they will be a bit surprised when he comes home nutless.

Trouble is my childhood experience of Tom Cats is they are a troublesome combo of scared shitless and scary. We could trap him by rigging the cat door to lock behind him but that will still involve yours truly impersonating St Francis communing with the savage beast. Or was that Daniel. I imagine the pongy savageness will be terrified to be communed with by a zealous old geezer bearing a cat basket and I am worried that he will hurt himself and me.

So any ideas?

If you are feeling down in the dumps this will make you feel worse as the Newell/Bovino/Shah family surge from strength to strength with nothing short of grandiose, smug, self-congratulatory excess. My goodness my family are the greatest thing ever! Hold onto your guts…..

Matthew Read Trio with Arthur Newell (Drums) now available from Amazon –

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Matthew-Read-Trio-Anecdotes/dp/B01F15RY16/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1463315657&sr=8-1&keywords=matthew+read+trio

We are electrified with parental pride at this achievement so don’t stint our inflated egos. Please make this the No 1 Jazz Album in Appleton Roebuck by purchasing it immediately. It’s REALLY Good!!! and very original in my humble and unbiased opinion. The only downside is that Matthew has to pack the Tsunami of orders himself which is causing him to panic (ahhh Artistes!)

Joke sourced from Album launch party venue – what’s the difference between an extra-large pizza and a jazz musician? An extra- large pizza can feed a family of four.

Other news – all good! – George and Avani have their own flat after 4 years of very happy communal living. They are both flourishing like the York City wall daffs. A double/treble gush of extreme pride.

My fountain lives again. It fell down twice. I broke it spectacularly with a hammer. I wasted tens of pounds on solutions that failed. Three lots of concrete, two wonky molds, one wrong length of aluminum tube, one wrong very expensive brass spout that could not be returned, two pumps, one gigantic sheet of plastic – all to no avail – but yesterday — behold – a spurting, gurgling birth of pretend stone babies.

Mr Fox got the hens which is sad but…. Mr Fox is beautiful, but so are the hens, and they didn’t deserve to be eaten any more than the fox deserved to go hungry. I suppose if Mr Fox was a slimy lizard then I would feel differently but in the past we have seen a whole Disney fox family messing about just outside their hole and they didn’t look like bad arse foxes looking forward to a killing spree, they looked like any other fox couple about pop to Homebase with the kids. The farmer kept the hens in for a whole month after the first kills. When he let them out, the fox got them again in less than an hour. Either he is local or incredibly patient. So no more hens just chubby foxes.

My numbers went quite bad (kidney function) and then came good again. It’s so nice when your body, which you have come to assume is a looser, the fat boy with glasses who is chosen last (in my case the thin boy with big ears who was chosen second to last, the fat boy was called Jonathan and he was my friend), turns out to have a bit of Leicester City in it – most surprising and rather encouraging. I feel very well, but retain an inordinate fondness for horizontal thinking with my eyes closed. Indeed I have just got up from some thinking.

The phone box continues to obsess. I keep thinking I have it as I want it when some other issue arises. This month I have had to defend it from hackers and find a way of increasing the transmission volume without resorting to further amplification. The answer to problem 1 (simple when you know) is the immortal line of code allowguest = no. the answer to problem 2. another line of code VOLUME(TX) = 4. All very well but in both cases rather than doing the right thing I pursued every possible wrong thing that included

• fiddling with the firewall
• resolving non existent IP conflicts
• replacing the receiver unit (internal) (breaking the phone receiver)
• replacing the whole phone
• fiddling with cable converters
• changing the sound drivers
• changing the sound card

Along with the fountain and the bakelite phone I also broke a marble chessboard that I had balanced on the fountain to level it. Maria had bought it for me from San Antonio. I glued it back together, ashamed and disgraced but forgiven, like the fox.

Two eggs to share.

First Arthur is in a trio and they are going on tour and they have an album so here is the promo – We are embarrassingly proud!

and the other is a seasonal greeting from me featuring my computer generated self impersonating Santa –

I am feeling particularly mellow, so no outrage to share – plenty in the air though (the Tory disability fiasco had me retching) so it just has to coalesce into a nice sticky pudding and I will chunder forth.

I am mellow because I have been completely obsessed with my telephone theatre. The piece above is just a trifling experiment with the voice manipulation but I have been working on a much more sophisticated way of interacting with the voice using an old dial phone and a telecoms server. I have had some amazing support from a retired GPO engineer who has built me a means to mix other audio into the telephone audio signal generated by Asterisk (he charged me nothing). However I am extremely stuck at the moment and cannot progress until I solve a stupid problem. Namely I can trigger the voice to produce speech specific to a dialed number, but I cannot get it to stop when the receiver is put down. How silly and a tad embarrassing!

Love Chris

Over the years I have developed an obsession for a piece of music by Monteverdi * that ends his opera Coronation of Poppea written in 1642.

Here it is. I love this recording, but it is 1 min 18 seconds into this video

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J2gwS6pawdU

What (I think) I know about this piece (no serious scholarship ever undertaken), and what makes it so fascinating to me is as follows: –

1. It is a love duet between Nero and his prostitute wife Poppea after she has contrived to ascend the throne of Rome leaving a trail of blood and misery. It is based on real events recounted by Tacitus.

2. The opera is framed by various goddesses, in articular ‘Amor’ the God of Love is set against the goddesses of Fortune and Virtue or Wisdom (I think). Amor intervenes directly in the action.

3*. It is said that this duet may have been the work of one of Monteverdi’s pupils (don’t think dopey nerd who knows a few power chords though). Cavalli is mentioned.

4. It is thought that the audience would both have known the story of the real events and may have also known that subsequent to the marriage Nero kicks Poppea to death in a jealous or drunken rage.

So my questions relate to the following possible scenarios

1. Audiences of the time just wanted a good happy ending and did not care about the story – so Monti provides just that.

2. Monteverdi was being incredibly modern and ironic in not musically hinting at us what a couple of bastards we have here.

3. The fact that ‘love trumps all’ is sufficient to justify an ending of such beauty and thus negates any need for musical subtext

4. Monteverdi’s pupil had not read the story and just churned out a crowd pleaser

5. Monteverdi lost the plot – he was very old

This duet seems to me like an ending unlike any other in the canon of the time (not that I know sod all – Charles help please) in so far as evil is truly triumphant, there is no moralising summation, no irony, no attempt to hint at anything other than a deep loving joy proclaimed by two of the nastiest characters in all opera.

Anyone prepared to do the reading necessary, listening, viewing to find out? I would really love to know what the most likely scenario was.

Significant achievements of the day

1) Stayed in bed till 1:30 feeling rough after a night of weeing but hurrah no puking
2) Got up feeling much better
3) However lay in front of telly? First time I have watched afternoon TV – so felt like a looser
4) Could not focus on anything challenging so read the circuit diagrams for my –A/B coin box – pleased that having read electronics for dummies could nearly make sense of it.
5) And …. figured out how to connect it to the exchange and a phone and much to my surprise it worked
6) Had to find some old coins that fitted it. The new decimal coins must be a different size despite being the same denomination
7) Revelled in the sound of the two gongs indicating the insertion of  10p and the 2p – oh unabated joy!
8) Riding this wave of triumph faced up to the grizzly prospect of injecting myself.
9) Decided to run at it, like a ski jump – no time to think about Vlad
10) Strode with purpose and resolve to fridge
11) Got my box of bristling goodies – like hedgehog freezopops.
12) Hurried to my room – did not want Maria to witness the display of raw courage tempered with shaky hands and loose bowels
13) Swabbed my belly and felt momentarily quite “Trainspotting” would have preferred a rubber hose in the teeth – rather than a rubber belly twixt thumbs
14) Remove cap from needle as instructed (pointing away from oneself) seems unnecessary as surely an accidental impalement is as good as a deliberate one – although injecting in the eyebrow or up the nose might not have the same benefits
15) Maintaining a ski jump velocity launched the quivering lance into the blubber
16) Blimey an absolute doddle
17) Emerge shining with delight to write this blog and cast Vlad to the wind.

Hurrah next week I start two weeks of treatment to harvest stem cells. I shall be quite ill.

In case I die, unlikely as it is not a dangerous procedure at all, but as death by some other means – excessive sloth, excessive gobbiness, assasination or excessive consumption of parma violet chocolates – made in York and unsurpassed in the canon of great choccies, is a distinct possibility, I thought I would supplement the well known ten commandments with some more of my own, updated to take into account my whims and changes of resolve. BTW – One of few things I find unacceptable about Jeremy Corbyn is his reluctance to change his mind – this is a dangerous characteristic he would do well to moderate. There is nothing like a good U-Turn to command my respect – only complete monsters are ‘not for turning’ and we don’t want anymore of those. Showing unassailable resolve only pleases the sort of nits who think the second word war ended in our favour because we had a leader in Winnie who showed resolve, conveniently forgetting about things like the Russian Front, American cash, the weather and luck.

While I remember – I have redesigned my main page to make it easier to access my wisdom – personal, professional and poetry – go to www.gravityisahat.com  to enjoy my many fruits.

A little navel gazing follows –

I apologise, I guess I really am a pompous old git now. No that’s not it, really – I just like being perverse. I promise I do actually really like most people, nearly everyone actually, but there is something about certainty, about believing stuff, that really rattles me and makes me want to shout at people and hate them. I can’t accept the idea that anything is beyond the reach of ridicule and debunking. Nothing is sacred, absolutely nothing – I could really offend (but I wont) by listing the things, people, ideas that are subliminally designated by the Appleton set (model for many other similar ghettos) no-go areas when it comes to a good arse kicking – I was recently reminded by  friends of a few I have already targeted that can be safely repeated; poppy day (the biggest changer of my blog), being charitable, social responsibility, earning a living, knowing stuff, doing stuff, owning your own house, sending birthday cards, jacuzzis, reading books, – seriously would you dare go to a friends house for dinner bearing a half decent bottle of prosecco from Waitrose and pronounce “Actually I encourage my children not to read as I can’t be bothered to read those poxy boring kiddie books with them.” – all I am saying is, that this view,  along with any other contrary view imaginable has more power to disrupt, to cause change, to entertain and to puncture complacency than the self congratulatory remarks we (especially me) made as competitive middle class parents about reading the complete works of Turgenev to our children when they were two. Its also massively more fun and fun is fun. Middle class social interaction requires that you spend a good part of your energies in constructing a persona who has a ‘very little brain,’ but is not half so appealing as Pooh Bear.

Things I still really care about – no U-Turns yet

• My beloved family and friends – without them the universe is nothing
• Speaking my mind – being ill has empowered me – I like the ill me so much more than the well me. Sadly others don’t.
• ‘Strictly Come Dancing’ – the passion that drives people to compete, perform and to care so fiercely – also the production standards are through the roof
• That all gods are bad news and we should learn to do without them
• That we need an equal gender divide in politics and all positions of power
• My cats and the hens that live in the field – not so much the ones I eat.
• That we could do without government all together
• That we need a government that taxes us fat-cats to blazes to pay for
• …the staff at the Magnolia Centre in York who look after me
• Vintage telecommunications applied to melodrama, music, opera and sound design
• That we don’t need borders, nations, races, genders or santa
• I really must finish my Teddy poems and my photography project.

Things I pretend to care about

• Socialism/politics
• Anyone beyond my family and friends and whoever catches my attention on the BBC news – come on lets face it if I really cared I would not devote my time to poetry, melodrama and old phones
• Cancer – I care to survive I don’t care to know or to revel.

Things I have wasted my time doing in the last 18 months

• Worrying – trouble is I’ve done it for 58 years probably can’t stop
• Fiddling with things beyond my capability – difficult programming requiring mathematical literacy, small mechanical items eg clocks – not got the brain, patience or dexterity
• Following plots eg. Dr Who, Endeavour, just about anything with more than two characters – utterly impossible
• Being nice to bigots who deserve to die
• Being angry with bigots who deserve to die
• Selling on Ebay – who cares about making money its only fun to spend it and buy stuff.
• Replying to e-mails that are headed ‘Staff development opportunity – coping with stress’ – just got one and can’t cope.
• Tracking my children using ‘findmyphone’ – really not healthy

Things I am really pleased with –

• My gorgeous family – this sounds sickly but they are the highest of earthly achievements a little bit thanks to me.
• My phone box – I love it and all it does for me – even when it hurt me badly
• This blog – I think its great. Naaahhhhh!

Sour and grumpy – this how I am characterized by our rapidly dwindling circle of friends – why – because, apparently, I don’t like christmas or new year. I say apparently, because it’s not an opinion I actually hold, rather it is one that has been applied to me by others. christmas, new year, birthdays, weddings, parties – all much of a muchness as far as I am concerned, like any other day of the year when you are obliged to do something you don’t want to do, like washing up or emptying the cats litter tray. Not exactly awful, but certainly not special, just occasions when jolliness is obligatory – but really most people would rather be reading a book, walking the dog, watching telly or sleeping. It’s the element of obligation that pisses me off. Why do we have to say ‘Merry Christmas’? It certainly does not make me merry to receive such vacuous banalities why should I give it. Same with ‘Happy New Year’, pulling frigging crackers, giving gifts, eating food, sitting together, talking, laughing, breathing – tiresome obligations!

So much more fun to give a gift when you fancy, to party when you fancy, laugh because its funny, talk and sit together because you like each other and like to watch the same thing on telly. To say ‘have a great day’ because you want someone’s day to be great, not because on December 25^th you must say it,  because everyone else is, because Dickens fans say it should be so, just because a baby was not born 2000 odd years ago on that day – HAPPY CHRIS’s CHRISTMAS! I love it.

PS. And I make no concessions for the ‘joy of wide-eyed children in the morning when they run down in their pink and blue jim-jams.’ The only childhood Christmas I remember finding even a bit special, was when my Nan gave me a gun with a real revolving magazine and bullets that had to be individually charged with gunpowder caps. A meticulous but worthwhile task with many misfires.