One Man's Notes

Pretty Pictures

There’s a few new sets of pictures in my Photo Album, if anyone’s interested.

And yes, Mac geeks, this does mean that I’ve paid for .mac. I think it’s a really good suite of services for the price.


The Grim Reaper

I’d like, if I may, to talk about death.

Right, for both of you that are still reading after that little announcement, I’ll explain why I’m broaching that taboo subject. After 29 years of cheerfully avoiding any real experience of death, the grim reaper has come knocking on my doorstep twice in the last year. The second time, he came to my doorstep quite literally: a man perished just outside my front door a week ago.

Lorna and I were heading down the A12 on our way back to London, when Mum called on Lorna’s mobile. She was a little panicked, because she’d heard that the road I live on had been closed, right where my flat is. She was worried that we’d got home quickly and been caught in an accident. As it turned out, about 11am that Sunday morning, a 50-something man had come hurtling down my road at a great rate of knots, lost control of the car, hit the post box just outside my flat, skidded to a halt with his car upside down on the pavement and died of his injuries shortly thereafter.

By the time I got into my flat (I dropped Lorna off at her place first) the evidence was all but gone. All that was left was a demolished post box. a small piece of headlight and a steadily growing shrine of flowers to the dead man. The newsagent down the road filled me in on the details of what happened a few days later.

Now, the reason I was travelling down the A12 that day (still following?) was that the day after would have been my Dad’s 66th birthday. His death, of course, was my first direct experience of death. His corpse, lying cold and still on the double bed in my parents' home, was my first experience of a dead human body. The thought of how cold it was an hour after he died still chills me slightly and brings tears to my eyes.

My Dad was blessed in a way: he never lost anyone close to him through death during his life. He was the first person I lost, yet I was utterly unprepared for it. Why? Because no-one talks about it. No-one talks about what it’s actually like when a relative or loved one dies, or how they feel about their own impending mortality. Even religion these days seems to focus (with some justification) on the process of living in faith rather than what happens when you die.

My mother was the only person who had dealt with bereavement before. Her mother died just before she and Dad got married 40 years ago. She was the only one with a language to deal with what had happened and, despite the fact that she was hardest hit by Dad’s death, she guidance me and Mark through those early days of grief.

My point is, I think, that death is all around us, yet we studiously ignore its impact much of the time, leaving ourselves unprepared to deal with it when it hits. And like that man who died on my doorstep proved, we never know when death will be at our doors, for us or for those we love. Perhaps our society needs to open a dialogue about bereavement once more, so we can better support those who are going through it.

As I walk home tonight, and stare at that shrine of flowers building by my door, I’ll wonder yet again if this is really the best we, as a society, can do to remember one of our own who has passed away from us.


Fighting for wakefulness.

Well here I am, stuck in a press conference, desperatly trying to stay awake. The speaker is a man of unrelenting tedium. It’s a hot, warm room and I didn’t get much sleep last night. The subject is harly gripping. This is a recipe for disaster. Luckily, the whole thing is rapidly drawing to a close, so I can get out of here and relax somewhere cool. Will this stuff make it into the mag? I doubt it. What a waste of time.


The Sound of Silence...

…will not be heard anywhere near my keyboard. I’m going to be flat out this week, so don’t be expecting regular updates from me. Ha. Like you do anyway. The reason for this is an occasion on Friday which offers me the chance of great success and a reputation boost or major humiliation, and not in the interesting sexual sense, either. More about that (possibly) soon. For now, though, I’ve got to get a feature done prior to a press conference.

Anyway, for those of you who are curious as to how the boat trip went, you can peer at the photos here.


By way of an explanation

For those of you who were wondering about my previous and rather mysterious entry, I was testing out a way of posting to Livejournal from AvantGo on my Handspring Visor. It seems to work, so lots of mobile posting for me. Hurrah!


Test

Nothing to see here. Move along please.


We Are Sailing

Management here at the UK’s Leading Property Magazine (First Choice For Property Information) have decreed that tonight, we socialise. And where are we going to be socialising? Why, on a boat sailing up and down the Thames, of course.

At first glance, this might sound like an attractive concept. Free food and free booze on a boat, with some of the loveliest urban riverscape in the country on either side. Well, that’s true enough. However, journalists being journalist have seen through this veneer of pleasure and spotted the unpalpable truth of the situation. We have to spend five hours with our “colleagues” in ad sales and web databases with NO HOPE OF ESCAPE.

Eeek.

Well, I’ve got the digicam and a few magazine with me if worst comes to worst. Oh, and the voucher for six free drinks might ease the pain a little.


Colour me amused that Sinfest’s July 4th strip has lyrics written by a pair of Brits as its core message. Irony at its best.

Happy 4th of July to the Americans anyway. :-)


A Day of Much Randomness

Me again.

Back in electronic form, free of charge and with no prospect of a subscription to access my archive. I’m free, baby, so come and take me.

So, what’s on my mind? Well, someone chopped Mrs Thatcher’s head off. Ok, technically she’s Baroness Thatcher and it was a statue not the real thing, but I find the story quite fascinating. Why? Well, because not a single one of our current politicians generates that sort of passion in people. Sure, you might have passionately disagreed with many of her policies, and I did, but you have to respect the fact that she had a vision and a desire to change society. Blair? He just wants to stay in power.


It isn't easy being green

Want to see some stupid pictures of this Livejournaler?

homepage.mac.com/adders/Ph…

Enjoy!


Back, yet away

Been a little while since I posted. Why? I got sick. I spent three or four days with the world falling out of my bottom and it was no fun at all. I needed a few days to recover from that, as one might imagine. The doctor called it gasteroentiritis (and I may well have misspelt that). I just called it Hell and left it at that.

Since then life has been insanely busy, so much so that I’ve barely had time to e-mail let alone write LiveJournal entries. Right now, though, I’m chilling out in an internet cafe in Manchester, so I thought I’d drop by and say “hi”.

Hi.


Calming Americans Down

I found a fascinating article written by an American living in Europe that sums up where I stand pretty well. My only criticism of it is that the author points out that Britain stands somewhere between America and Europe in its attitudes, and goes on to back that up in the footnotes, but then forgets that point several times in his argument.

Well worth a read, if you have the time.


In Turkey, the keyboards fall silent.

What is “lying news”? How do you fancy the idea of submitting your website for Government approval before you can upload an update? Those are dilemmas that Turkey’s netizens are facing right now, and it could effectively strangle the internet, the last bastion of free speech, in the country.

That’s Turkey off my holiday destination list.


In case anyone didn’t catch this in ’s journal, Holywood is up to some rather worrying legal moves that could profoundly cripple the way technology develops over the next few years. Read, consider and, if you can, complain.


How To Make Myself Unpoular Amongst Americans (Part 1)

There’s often an assumption, usually found amongst the residents of the United States of America, that the UK and the US share a broadly similar frame of cultural context. This is, quite frankly, bollocks.

Take a quick look at this story: UK wants music embassy in the US. The key points are scattered through the story, but they come down to (a) virtually no British music is having an impact on the US charts and (b) the US is the most parochial music market in the world, bar Pakistan (which is currently edging the world towards nuclear war and thus is not a country to look up to).

Now, why is this important? Surely the good citizens of the US are entitled to listen to whatever music they want to? Of course they are. Indeed, I listen to quite a lot of American music and enjoy it throughly. The point isn’t that, it’s that many Americans are simply unaware of their degree of cultural isolationism at the moment. The British chart is a mix of British, American and European artists. The US chart is largely US artists. The cultural infulences at work there are purely American.

They are equally unware of the degree of cultural Imperialism that goes on. People outside America don’t mind it that much - they’re quite happy to use good American products that come their way. But the asymmetric nature of the exchange makes some non-Americans uneasy.

Many US writers in Livejournals, Blogs and newspapers are turning their attention to Europe and the rest of the world in a way they haven’t since probably the Second World War. George W Bush has been forced to play a bigger part on the world stage than he would have if left to his own devices. We all remembers some of the simply daft things he said about foreign countries in his election campaign. This change of focus is an inevitable consequence of September 11th, but one that makes the rest of us a little nervous. Why? It’s because suddenly Americans are commenting on things they have very little real understanding of. Sure, there are some well-informed commentators out there saying interesting things. But there’s an awful lot of people espousing a jingoistic belief in the inherent superiority of the American way, without truly understanding the cultures and philosophies of those lands. They haven’t seen their TV, watched their films and listened to their music. They haven’t read their books or skimmed their magazines. They see everything through glasses with the stars and stripes printed on them. Indeed, many seem genuinely surprised when they discover that people hold different views from them and promptly set out to persuade the poor, ignorant natives.

I freely admit that not every American is guilty of this, but there’s enough of them out there to make web browsing an increasingly uncomfortable experience. The really curious thing is that the attitude I’m describing here reminds me powerfully of the attitudes of the British in the 19th Century. Any chance of learning from our mistakes?


Monday Afternoon Doldrums

While the Americans that make up the majority of my readership (with apologies to jackslack, ladyjestyr and eyebeams) are busy enjoying Dead American Soldier day, I’m labouring away in the office in a desperate attempt to get ahead. Next week, you see, we have two days' holiday to celebrate the Queen’s Golden Jubilee. Now, that would be a cause for rejoicing in most quarters, but for us poor devils on weekly magazines it means doing five days' work in three. Pah. Humbug.

I’ve done quite a bit to get ahead, so I’ve been passing that mid-afternoon lull coming up with stupid ideas for the real names of major holidays with ladyjestyr:

Small Furry Subterranean Mammal Superstition Commemoration Day

Day Co-opted From Ancient Religious and Spiritual Traditions and Now Hijacked To Represent The Alleged Birth of a Judeo-Christian Iconic Personality

Day That Those Ungrateful Colonials Celebrate Their Treachery In Kicking Their Rightful Lords and Masters Out of The UK’s American Colonies

Day That Those Ungrateful Colonials Celebrate Their Treachery In Kicking Their Rightful Lords and Masters Out of The UK’s Australian Colonies, Except The Governmental Apparatus, Because Quite Frankly If You Let Australians Elect Their Head Of State You’d Get A Bloody Rugby League Player for President.


Hurray for Latvia!

Lativa have won this year’s Eurovision Song Contest with a rather upbeat Latin number. Hurrah for them.

Britain came in a respectable third equal with Estonia. We beat the French!


Friday afternoon in the office

You know, there’s only really two important bits of tech a journalist needs: the PC and the phone.

We’ve been without our office phones for four hours now. It’s been a pretty relaxed afternoon here at work. Mind you, it’s always pretty relaxed on a Friday. The news team barely ever put in an appearance, as the issue’s already gone to bed. That just leaves us dedicated features types bashing out our 1k+ of insightful prose. Hell, by early afternoon we loose the production folks to the pub.

I’m teetotal boy this evening though, as it’s the Suffolk drive for me. Vive l’iPod!


A very brief word on Attack of the Clones

The new Star Wars movie? Tremendous fun. I enjoyed myself thoroughly.

That’s all I have to say on the subject. It’s just a mass market movie. It’s really not worth all the words that have been devoted to it in Blogs, magazines, Livejournals and papers. But it is worth a few quid and a couple of hours of your time.


Attack of the Mobile Phone Thieves

I wish it noted that there are good day in life and there are bad days in life. A day which starts with your mobile phone being nicked from your bad while walking from the gym to a meeting has all the makings of a bad day. However, I’m seeing Lorna for the first time since Sunday tonight, so I’m rather hoping it’ll evolve into a good day. Let’s hope, eh?

We’re meeting up in London tonight to see (you guessed it) Attack of the Clones. Lorna is quite excessively excited and I can’t help but be carried along in her wave of enthusiasm.

In the meantime, people might like to read this spoiler-free interview with George Lucas, from the UK’s The Guardian newspaper. I think it makes some very interesting points about what he’s trying to achieve.


False alarm, of sorts

After four hours in Ipswich hospital, we have learned that Mum does not have a problem with her retina. She merely has Posterior Vitreous Detachment, which means the jelly that makes up her eye is shrinking. The problems she’s been getting are the result of the shrinking jelly tugging on the retina and optic nerve. All should be well again in six to eight weeks. Back to London this afternoon, but for now it’s off to the pub for lunch!


Home, sweet home

After a two hour drive through the driving rain, I’m here in Suffolk. It’s odd to be here on a weekday evening again, but not unpleasant. Mum’s gone to bed, and I’m bashing out a feature for the magazine, as I won’t be in the office to do it tomorrow.

The iPod was a marvel on the way up. Hook it up to the cassette that comes with Dr Bot’s iPod Connection Kit, put that in the stereo and then put the iPod on random play, and the driving tunes are sorted. It made a difficult drive in the dark and pouring rain much, much easier.

My brother is proving that he is his mother’s son by getting increasingly panicky about tomorrow. He’s really scared about a repeat of last year, which seem out of proportion given what’s actually wrong with Mum. Still, the poor boy’s under a lot of stress right now (self-inflicted admittedly) and I think it’s getting to him. The financial stretch of doing up this house is making him insecure and the last thing he needs is another threat to his family. Just as well it’s only a retina problem.

Hmm. Better get some sleep. I need to drive to the hospital at 8am tomorrow.


Oh, what fun

Looks like I have an impromptu trip to Suffolk ahead of me tonight. Mum has a problem with a partially detached retina. She may need operating on, so it’s off to Suffolk I go. Let’s hope it all goes easily.


DeBagged

This is a bloody good idea, and what’s more, it came from Ireland.

Let’s recycle those bags!


And for the American audience

This is a better site for people in the US.