The Blog of Lone

Blog Update

While little is currently happening in my life, just the usual looking for jobs, applying for jobs, getting ignored by real jobs, getting accepted by hoax jobs, there has been activity on the Blog.

As the more observant Blog Monkeys may have noticed, there is now a new page (accessed above), entitled ‘Net Presence.  It basically contains a bunch of stuff I’ve written that people have decided to buy and stick up around the ‘net.  It’s by no means comprehensive, but more of a random sampling.   Sometimes people ask what kind of thing do I write, where does it end up, etc etc.  Because these people with their silly questions bore me, there’s now a handy place I can point them in the direction of.  Take a peek, it’s full of weird and random things.  I actually frightened myself a little by Googling my name and finding all the strange outpourings and things people have asked me to write over the years, and where they’ve ended up.

Anticipation

This week is going to be very dull.  But there is light at the end of the tunnel, sunshine coming up over the horizon, a wizard and bunch of Nordic horsemen coming over the hill.  Saturday, I’m off to Harps to party with the people.  Squire Dix is the wizard presiding over the proceedings, wearing his drinking thong of wisdom, while Riders of the Mark Daryl and Toby will no doubt be causing a ruckus in the corner, quaffing gin and manhandling the serving wenches.  The only person who won’t be out will be Big Dom who is confined to the barracks with extra homework, but I’m gonna go see him with my hangover the next day so we can chill and swap books.  I literally cannot wait.  As always full reports will be posted up on the Blog, and maybe, if you’re really lucky, photographic evidence as well.

Peace

Life/Thoughts

This week has mainly been very dull.  Sitting in front of the computer all day applying for jobs isn’t a healthy lifestyle.  Have been trying to make up for this by going down the gym, but it’s not something I enjoy.

At the gym there’s always guys, and girls, who watch you out of the corner of their eyes.  You can tell the ones.  They wear fashionable gym clothes, cut to show off their muscles/breasts/tight stomachs.  They mark you.  Mark the clothes you wear, the weights you lift, how much you sweat, what you drink.

For these people the gym isn’t about keeping fit, it’s a huge exercise in vanity.  They’re the worst kind of physical image Nazi, judging others by their own warped morals.  They pour scorn on the overweight people who are genuinely trying to get fit on the treadmills and hang out in their own toned, fashionable, tanned, bunches by the free weights.

Judging people by their looks is a bit of a personal bugbear of mine.  I’ve known gorgeous people who were intelligent and interesting, and an equal amount who were vacant and dull.  Same goes for those thought of as not traditionally gorgeous.  One of the most annoying things I can remember was when an article of mine on this topic was sold.  A few days later I checked up on it, and the guy who had bought it hacked it to pieces, keeping almost only the words such as ’sexy’, ‘gorgeous’, ‘attractive’, ‘beauty’ etc.  He then used it as the front page for a porn website.  Pleased, I was not.

Quiz

Went to a huge charity quiz tonight.  Was entertaining.  Only two things of note to report.

1:  The year’s supply of beer to be won would have lasted me two weeks at most.  Either this makes me a drunkard loser, or the organisers very stingy.

2. Out of the 500 people there, I was, literally, the only one to be able to recognise a picture of the current Poet Laurette, Carol Ann Duffy.  I’m not sure if this makes me a freak, or everyone else uncultured.

Work

Got to work tomorrow.  This isn’t a bad thing as I need something to entertain me, and working weddings can sometimes be entertaining, although I have a feeling this one will not be.  Terrible dresses, worse dancing, lots of free wine, and a total lack of inhibitions do often add up to much comedy viewing for the bloke who has to stand there and watch the guests while occasionally serving a few drinks.

Funny Links

Never trust your mates.

Ps.

Just want to say a big thank you to all the Blog Monkeys out there for reading, and especially those new to the Blog who have been leaving great comments.  Thanks to you guys the Blog is now 1458.62% more popular than it was last week.  Wow.

Peace and love.

Stuff

Been reading, and just finished, the new Iain Banks novel, ‘Transitions’.  As usual it’s a total masterpiece, a work of considerable art and intellect.  Unusually it’s a far cry from both his usual novels and his sci fi novels.  Multiple parallel realities, secret organisations, assassins.  It’s all terribly exciting and thought provoking at the same time.  Definitely recommended for fans of books that make you think, where the more you read into it, the more complex it becomes.  But then Banks is always the master of complex novel structure.  One of his recent novels, ‘Matter’, was about a hollow planet full of layers, and the novel reflected this with layered characters, spy, buffoon, prince, who he wrote about it layered styles, hi sci fi, Shakespearean tragi-comedy and political intrigue.  Of course then there were the layered races and philosophies, and I’m sure much more that I can’t currently recall.  But then, what else would you expect from a man who structured an entire novel to reflect the shapes and contours of his subject (’The Bridge’)?

Life

Went out for a few drinks earlier this week with my Bro, popping down the local to see my matey landlord.  Pleasant evening, fair amount drunk, Cat Stevens listened to.  Met up with some people from Bro’s work and went back to his boss’s (who was away) flat afterwards to watch tv and have a few more drinks with them.  Without going into too much detail, as you would expect from a gentleman, the lasting impression I got from that night is just how many lonely people there are in the world.  Lots.  All.  I can’t rightly say. 

Maybe we’re all lonely inside, maybe we all need someone to come and understand us and make us feel perfectly complete.  But somehow it never seems to work out that way, because none of us are perfect, we too have needs and the match is never complete, nor perfect.  Seems some people deal with it in different ways.  Some idolise and pine after someone, making them into something they’re not, making them the receptacle of all their hopes and the perceived means of their salvation.  But that doesn’t work, because, again, none of us are perfect, none of us are saints to be idolised.  Some people try and blot out their loneliness with lust, trying to bury it under the short blaze of passion.  This too doesn’t work, passion is by nature transitory, neither the body nor the mind can sustain it for long.  Always searching for someone to push it from your mind in a rush of desire and sensuality leaves you feeling just as dependant and lonely as before. 

There are plenty more ways people cope (or fail to) with loneliness, but I don’t want to bore or depress the BM’s out there.  Let’s just say there’s a lot of lonely people in the world, and just once in a while if you can reach out and do something, even if it is something insignificant and transitory, that makes a connection, well then, maybe it makes the world a little less lonely for a time.

Get to know Lone

10 Things On My Bookcases

1. A dead watch I wore across Canada.

2. A wooden carving of a hunched man given to me by my first real girlfriend.

3. A pile of old letters tied with a string, from back when friends and lovers used to write to one another.

4. A Snoopy cuddly toy my late Grandma gave me as a Christening gift.

5. An empty bottle of whiskey from Ben Nevis

6. Old diaries fitfully filled.

7. A copper statue of a dolphin (one of a pair) that used to be on my Grandma’s mantelpiece.

8. My bound Bachelor and Masters dissertations.

9. A lil’ fluffy kola toy my ex girlfriend brought back for me from her travels around Australia.

10. Books.  Hundreds of books.

Hanky waving, blacked up old folks, beards as far as the eye can see, wenches, men in drag, bells, stick fighting, hog roasts, fiddles and banjos.  It’s got to be a Folk Festival.

The Tenterden Folk Festival took over my little country town for the weekend.  Lots of odd people with pewter tankards tied to their belts, bells on their legs, beards on their chins, black on their faces and ribbons in their hair swarmed all over my normally quiet backwater in a riot of ale induced folkishness.  Not even my normally dead local pub was safe.  Friday night my local had some fairly decent folk singing going on, which bizarrely ranged from folk songs to Gregorian chant to blues.  It felt a bit odd having to fight for my usual seat at the bar when normally I’m the only person in the place.  Even Ruby the bar dog was all out of sorts.  Seeing as it was so busy my landlord mate asked me to work the next day, and never one to turn down work and a free ham sandwich I did.  Apart from having a whole troop of morris dancers practising first thing in the morning, it wasn’t too busy; it was actually a disappointingly dull day.

I got to watch the main procession of folk dancers, morris men, musicians and weirdos through the high street, which was nicely traditional, even down to a huge guy with a long beard dressed in a frilly pink frock with his hair in ponytails.  England is traditionally eccentric it seems.  Ale was drunk, songs were sung, feet tapped, and dances danced.

In totally unrelated news.

Also have recently got tenuously back in touch with someone who was for a very long time one of the most important parts of my life.  It’s nice to know that even if it is just via a few text messages, we can still be civil and nice to each other.  She has one of those good souls I was rambling about in the last post, and it’s good to know even after everything we put each other through we’re still able to remain true to ourselves and treat each other well.  It’s a poor reflection of what might have been, but a damn sight better than how things could have ended up.  I’m proud of us.

Funny Videos:

Pole Dancing, it’s not for everyone.

It’s not how I teach, but it seems to work.

Peace

No, it’s not the title of a new best selling novel  by some unknown, Kenyan born, London based, award winning, young and funky writer (not yet anyway), it’s something I’ve been thinking about this week.

I’ve had a lot of time to spend thinking.  Doing a job where you work for half an hour and then sit drinking tea for four hours gives you that luxury.  After 4 days straight of it you have nothing to say to your co workers, and quickly lose yourself in your own thoughts.

Got an email from a friend in Canada, someone I’ve not heard from for a long time.  Nothing special, no revelations or massive news, just a ‘how you doing’ kinda email.  But it was nice to get, nice to be thought of.  Set me off thinking about how some people you come across, even if you only share your lives together for a brief time, make an impact on you.  They rock your world, open your eyes, blow your mind and change your life.

These people you feel you just click with at a deep level, you know they have good souls and you understand them better in half an hour than someone with a dubious soul who you might have known for months.  (Dubious soul?  Someone ill at ease with themselves, someone who can’t see, or can’t stop their self destructive behaviour.  Someone who hurts others to create drama in order to feel like the centre of attention, someone who brings others down in order to make themselves feel better, someone who can’t see the harm they do themselves.)

I’ve recently known people of both sorts, the difference between that instinctive feeling of rightness and the gradual realisation that some one has a splintered and damaged soul is just worlds apart.  It’s not love at first sight, but it’s the feeling of two compatible people sharing their happiness such things are possible.

Think of your best friends, those that have been with you through the good times and the bad, those that ask nothing from you but that you be yourself.  Good souls.  Flaky friends who use you and cast you aside, people to whom you’re nothing more than a tool for making themselves feel better.  Bad souls.  (To quote a famous meerkat) Simples.

Peace

Earlier this week I happened to be late for work (something that happens almost daily) at the Music Museum where I serve tea and cakes to old dears and generally don’t do very much.  In my rush to get out of bed, showered, and ready in 10 minutes I made a mistake. A huge mistake.

I only post this in the hope that I can save others the pain and mental anguish I’ve gone through.

PUBLIC HEALTH WARNING: Never, ever, have a shave while you’re still half asleep.  It’s a foolish mistake to make, and it cost me a beard.

Now I have had a naked chin all week, and I don’t like it.  Sudden breezes catch me unawares and make my face shiver.  I look about 5 years younger than before.  I’ve spent the week mourning my lovely beard, the source of all my powers, and the best friend a chap could have had.

On a side note, after buying some bits and bobs from the US, I’ve finally got my camera up and running again (even if I can only charge it in the car).  So expect more photos and oddness on the photo page.  I would have taken one of my now beardless face, I’ve been asked to often enough, but, (as an effeminate elf once said) for me the pain is still too near.

Peace

So, my Bro has a week off work, and we were going to go on a random and last minute hiking/camping/fishing roadtrip to Wales.  Due to nasty weather etc we decided to postpone it until sometime next year.  So instead we went over to Canterbury Uni to party with the Hockey Club (which he used to be a big part of, and most of whom I’d met/drunk with before).

Wearing a hockey shirt that hadn’t been washing in 6 months (took it off after a while, it really stank) I threw myself into the whole uni experience all over again.  Freshers’ Week.  Snakebite.  Drinking circles.  Lots and lots of fun was had.  The best bit of all (for someone who has been feeling a bit lonely) was how friendly and insane the hockey people were.  You can’t really appreciate this until you’ve played ‘Bunnies’, ‘Yeehaa’ or any of their other crazy games.  So once the games and downing of snakebite was out the way, I got re-acquainted with some people I’d met before, and got to know lots of new people as well.  Incidentally, I’d forgotten just how gorgeous and, erm, welcoming, the hockey girls are.  A very good night was definately had by all.

Watch out for some photos of that evening going up, as well as some other random ones.

Bum Face