There was a young hinny from Byker
And i must say i really quite liked her
So i got on my knees
and said “marry me, please”
But she snubbed me for the Newcastle Striker
My Pictures
“Its not hard to make decisions once you know what your values are” – Roy Disney.
Do you agree with this? And if so what values result in the best decisions?
Redefine me
Please
So that i might make sense of my self
Make sense of my world
And find a place and a peace within it.
Show me
Please
The beauty of ordinary things
A new way of seeing;
Being
A new heart and new connections
A whole new description
And new hope.
Wouldn’t it be great if buses ran slightly early whenever you were in a rush, and slightly late when you were a bit tardy? And wouldn’t it be great if it only ever rained when you were at work, and only snowed when you’d already travelled home for Christmas?
And wouldn’t it be amazing if you woke up one morning and poverty had been eradicated and the AIDS epidemic had been halted in its tracks and the cure for cancer dropped onto your doormat along with the bills and the pre-approved credit card application forms and the flyer for the new pizza place down the road. Just like that. Without any effort or struggle or involvement from you whatsoever.
And wouldn’t it be fantastic if people always behaved the way that you wanted them to, and always listened to all your problems without ever moaning or grumbling or interrupting, so that the entire conversation panned out exactly how you planned and you got to say everything that you had wanted to express? And wouldn’t it be wonderful if everyone always did whatever you told them to and never disagreed with you or had different feelings so that you were never surprised or challenged by someone else’s behaviour?
And what if you were always brilliant at everything you turned your hand to without even trying, so that you never had to grit your teeth or overcome obstacles or finally achieve something that had taken you ages to learn? And how about you always got whatever you wanted, how about you had total control over everything that ever happened to you, so that you never lacked for anything and never had to work for anything and never had to exercise judgement or make choices or learn from experiences or grow or change or have any kind of story to tell or any sense of satisfaction or any taste of unexpected success or any sense of teamwork or any true friendship or any freely given love.
How about that?
It’s good to have another sister in the world
And that’s a reassuring touch
A head upon my shoulder is an unfamiliar pleasure
Can you ever have too much of something good?
Oh little sisters don’t come cheap
I want to hold on to you
Oh baby don’t you weep
I don’t belong to you
Well can you have your fairy cake and eat it
Can you hold what you don’t have?
Don’t pretend and don’t repeat it
Wake up cold and wish you had your time back
Oh little sisters don’t come cheap
I want to hold on to you
Oh baby don’t you weep
I don’t belong to you
This isn’t fair on him this isn’t fair on me this isn’t fair on you
This isn’t fair at all
Lean in close or lean away?
They say you reap what you sow
Is it ok to act this way?
I don’t want to know how lonely it will feel to let you go.
Oh little sisters don’t come cheap
I want to hold on to you
Oh baby don’t you weep
I don’t belong to you
This is all brotherly affection
That’s all you want and all you’re getting
I didn’t want this to be awkward
And oh my god I’ve overthought it
There’s no way to sort it out now.
Am I wise or just afraid?
Oh little sisters don’t come cheap
I want to hold on to you
Oh baby don’t you weep
I don’t belong to you.
What’s the one thing in life you’re absolutely most terrified of?
Hope seeps back into the world
Like the first light of dawn
And life is bathed in a new light; glowing
Golden, tangential, like the evening sun
Spring has sprung me from my gloomy cell
That which seemed dead, resurrects,
And proves itself eternal.
Possibility abounds.
This week, i have been mostly playing hockey* and jazz**. Its a priveledge in both cases. And the other morning, whilst meditating on possible long corner routines to try at training on tuesday night it struck me that, perhaps contrary to first impressions, there are some real similarities between these my two main recreational activities of choice***:
Both are team games. Sure, you can play Jazz on your own, but really, what’s the point?
Both require and reward practice geared towards performance
Both are a delicate blend of individual skill and collaborative effort.
Both form character, teach you about yourself and the wider world, expand your horizons.
Both feel unbelievably good when they go well.
And in both cases, its easy for me sometimes to feel a bit insecure. Insecurity lurks for me even in the things i love most, sometimes even with some of the people i love most. Insecurity is something i am learning to beat.
In hockey i’m not a natural, really. I didn’t play much as a kid, I don’t have a lot of pace. I’m what people refer to as a player who can “come in and do a job”. In other words, its graft, not guile. Its unglamorous. I try not to make mistakes, try to play the percentages, try to be solid. I don’t always make the first team.
In Jazz, i’m the non-musical musician. I like to say i just hit things. I didn’t play much as a kid (jazz, i mean. I started learning drums when i was about 10). I try not to make mistakes. There’s been times when i’ve thought bands would have been better off without me. I hate the very idea of solos – insecurity on insecurity. Sometimes, in a hockey match, when things aren’t going well, i actively don’t want the responsibility of being passed the ball.
But Jazz is a team game, and so is hockey, and i’m grateful for the people who have been team-mates – who have trained and played with me, who have encouraged me, who have shared good and bad performances with me. Every team needs a guy who will try to be solid, who will try to keep the beat. Every team has one or two solo-ists who can thrive on that structure, whose skill and knowledge can draw the best out of the rest and drag the collective performance up a notch or two. And with the right encouragement, insecurity is an enemy i can beat.
Right now i am playing for the first team. And i’m playing with an excellent band. Last weekend, i helped set up the winning goal. And then the next day we had our best jam session yet.
Both feel unbelievably good when they go well.
And i’m grateful when things go well. I’m excited when things go well. I’m all eager to find out what happens next.
Today is the big match. Not just cos its today’s match (you always want to be excited, whenever possible in life, about what is happening right now), but also cos today’s match is against the medics. Just like in music there’s the big gig you look forward to – a venue you love to play, an album launch, a really good line-up you’re honoured to be part of; Sport, too, throws up the event that means that little bit more. The medics are Sunderland to our Newcastle, Madrid to our Barcelona. Its the match you look for when the fixture list comes out, the match you want to win more than any other, the one you can taste before you even get to the game – the one i can taste right now. I can’t wait. I’ll let you know how it goes.
*proper hockey, that is – with a ball, on astroturf. Not the Dancing on Ice version they play over in the New World.
** Proper Jazz: Billie Holliday, Fats Domino, Billy Stewart’s version of Summertime. All that Jazz.
*** If you don’t count reading and the occasional splurge of creativity with words on here, that is, and i dont, because they almost feel more like necessary bodily functions than a choice of leisure time activity.
Its not like last Sunday was a slow news day: The city of Homs in Syria was under heavy artillery attack, Greek MPs were voting on austerity measures, Luis Saurez was not shaking Patrice Evra’s hand, and not yet apologising for not shaking Patrice Evra’s hand. The future of the NHS was being debated and the Turkish air force was bombing the sovereign nation of Iraq. Kurdish bit of Iraq, to be precise. Oh, and an American celebrity was found dead.
This last, of course, was the most important story; the only story in many ways. Everything else was pushed to one side so that someone’s death could be reported.
The thing about death is that it is not affected by media coverage. No amount of reportage will bring the dead back to life, or comfort those closest to the deceased. On the contrary it only confirms the unchangeable, and must surely often twist a knife that is already causing unimaginable pain.
Whereas good journalism and public outcry and genuine debate might yet have an effect on Syrian oppression and NHS reform, it will have no effect on Death. Death is not deterred by sanctions and does not need to seek re-election. Death is in no way transformed by the Journalist’s spotlight, and yet Death seems somehow to hog so much of it. Not just any death of course; only celebrity death.
At the very bottom of the BBC news homepage last Sunday, there was the story of an 18 year old man, arrested over the death by strangulation of a 17 year old girl in East London. But this did not matter as much, because neither of them were famous.
The other 150,000 or so people who died last Sunday around the world didn’t get a mention on the BBC news homepage at all. They do not matter to us. Very few of the 7 billion people who did not die last Sunday got a mention either. Where are the tributes to them; the outpourings of love? Maybe if we celebrated our own lives like we celebrate the lives of the recently deceased, the world would be a better place. Maybe we should pay our respects to the living. Maybe everyone should have the right to access their own obituary online.
—
Today was the celebrity’s funeral. BBC radio yesterday announced that close friends and family had asked for a private ceremony and then BBC radio proceeded to interview many of the people who didn’t know her personally but had nevertheless turned up out of “respect”. Live video coverage of friends and family arriving at this private ceremony is the third highest story on the BBC News homepage as i write these words.
The fifth highest story on the BBC news homepage is also about a funeral. In Syria. This in itself is not news; there are lots of funerals in Syria. Torture, too. This funeral only became news because the mourners followed the example of the young men they mourned and became protesters, and then further followed the example of the young men they mourned in being shot at by “security forces”. Now its news. But its only the fifth most important news story because this kind of thing happens in Syria all the time right now and its not every day that the family and friends of a bona fide global star attempt to bury her with dignity and in privacy. I suppose they should be glad the assembled media were only shooting footage, and not semi-automatics: Small mercies.
I’d tell you the names of the young men they were burying in Syria, only the article didn’t bother to mention them.
In fairness to the Beeb, it put the Syria story first on another of its news pages (World news), with celebrity death second. Google’s news feed had the American celebrity top even on its UK edition. On the US edition, the celebrity is top and the Syria story is currently Sixth, two places below a feature on Jeremy Lin, a basketball player. In both editions of the Google feed, the news that Iran has sent warships into the Mediterranean has been relegated to the world news section at the bottom of the page, and it doesn’t even get a mention on the Beeb’s world news homepage. Goodness knows what else has been going on in the world today that we don’t know about cos we’re too busy invading the privacy of people trying to mourn their daughter/sister/mother/friend.
There was no mention today of the lass from East London, or her family, or the man who was arrested. They do not matter to us any more.
And for all her fame, tomorrow, the American celebrity will not be news any more. For most of us at least. Within a week or so the massive spike in sales of her music will fade back down to normal background levels, and the obituaries and tributes and retrospectives and features will be so many chip wrappers. Someone else will matter instead.
Of course, for her family, her death will still be the top news story. For a while, it will be the only story. And i can only assume that the intrusion and subsequent fickle disinterest of the media will add an unwelcome edge to disarming grief.
—
When my Dad died, it did not make the BBC news homepage, if there even was one then. He was not famous and he was not murdered, so it did not matter to us.
Except, of course, it did, and it does.
It will always matter. It does not define me, i hope. But it will always be a part of who i am, that i lost my father when i did; that for a long time the top story, the only story, was that he had died.
It used to hit me at the moment of waking. Before i remembered my name, or what day it was. It would hit me like the first chime of Big Ben’s clock on the old ITN Ten O’Clock News, where Trevor McDonald would anounce the headlines, one after each chime.
BONG.
Dad’s dead.
And then the rest of who I was and whatever day it was would flood in, and we would get on with whatever it was that faced us that day, but every day would start like this and every day, all day, this would be the top story; in many ways the only story.
It isn’t like that any more; there is no awful, fresh announcement. But its still there on the news feed; it’s still an important story, an important part of my story. It always will be.
—
There is a family at the centre of this, and close friends, and deep, gut-wrenching grief. No-one else has a right to any real part of it right now, and nothing that anyone outside of that group can do can bring any comfort yet. Certainly nothing can change the facts.
Meanwhile, Syria, and Iran, and a girl in East London, and 150,000 people mourned today and 7 Billion lives worth living.
I’m no saint, its true
but in fairness, neither were most of the saints
i guess you have to find your succour where you can
and thirst for meaning
open the door that presents itself and saunter through.
Help yourself to confidence and a first impression.
Hello, i’m James. Who are you?
Linusandco 