The sadness of a twittering twat!

There are a million individuals following Stephen Fry on Twitter, a man lovingly referred to as a 'national treasure' in Britain.  Such an accolade, no matter how much he may humbly deny it, is well deserved, and with very good reason.

In a world that has become largely selfish and self-centred, where a culture of greed persists, Stephen Fry's talent, technological curiosity, and refusal to take himself seriously, in addition to moving us off our arses to rise up in bloody annoyance at ignorant journalists and the shenanigans of dubious corporate activity, makes him unusual in many ways.

I have a following relationship with Stephen Fry, in that I follow his tweets.  Sometimes I will respond to a comment he has made.  Recently when he visited Nuremberg, Germany I twittered him and suggested he visit my favourite restruarant.  At no time during my following of Stephen Fry, has he responded or replied to anything I may have commented on or suggested to him; nor for that matter have I expected him to.

I am filled with horror that Stephen, a kindly soul, generous with the limited time available to him, keeps us delightfully amused with his 140 characters.  And yet he finds himself attacked by a moronic twitter accusing him of being boring.  This is completely outrageous and the individual responsible for uttering such banal profanities should be strung up by the balls, hung like a dead rat, and drowned in a bucket of foul smelling baby's diapers.

To Stephen I would say this: the world rejoices in you being there, because of who you are.  To abandon twitter because of some mealy mouthed jackass, who possesses less brain cells than an amoeba, simply gives the cretin his undeserved 15 minutes of infamy.

Please stay with those that care, and who enormously enjoy your company.

Halloween

Halloween tonight, ghosts, spooks, bad spirits up to no good, and generally everyone involved having a whoopee good time.

As always it'll pass me by, not because I'm against it, far from it, but it strikes me that, like Xmas, it's a time when children can be children and enjoy the swift passing of the bogey man.  You can't but smile at cherubic faces, fully unaware that roaming the streets, hiding in dark corners, flying through the skies, are very unpleasant people, or things, just waiting to ponce on a unsuspecting tasty meal.

I'm joking of course, but it's Halloween and the one time of the year that parents, relatives and adult friends can scare the living daylights of kids and nobody thinks bad of them.  Maybe adults secretly enjoy the witching hours, enabling them to let off steam, laugh and if only for a short time to rid themselves of pent up stress.  That and getting involved with carving out grotesque faces in pumpkins, tricking kids and peers, and hiding treats in the most ridiculous places, normally found reasonably quickly by children; children largely faced with adults who've forgotten that kids have a wonderful nose and gift for delicious goodies to be eaten without guilt, or the same adults telling them that the same scrumptious delights are bad for their health and waistline the rest of the year.

No matter if you're an adult, enjoy the childish pranks and let the few hours wash over you in pure joy, especially if you're with children.  Remember that kids grow up and if you're too nasty to them, scare the crap out of them, they'll have their revenge.

You'll end up in a home filled with the living dead, occasionally being drained of blood by people wearing white coats sticking long stakes into you.  HAHAHA!

3 friends...a cabrio...& a baked potato!

Today's one of those days, where there's a very warm glow to the face.  No doubt due to the rarity of a complete lunatic of a friend, who for all his weird and wonderful idiosyncrasies, completely outdid himself earlier tonight.

In the middle of cooking the evening meal of baked potatoes, I've been on a change of diet for the past few weeks, my body seems to be straining at the leash to persuade me to indulge myself in something wickedly sweet, high in calories, and oh so disastrously sinful, he calls me on the phone.  Nothing unusual in that, until I hear the tone of his voice, which slightly resembles that of a child who is up to no good, and enjoying every single moment of it.

My friend's voice is cheerfully urgent, as though slightly possessed by the innocence of a cherub, and the heart of a devilish plastic garden gnome, all of a glee because it had overheard something being said by the lady of the house, in response to the gardener's explanation of how he gets his cucumbers to grow so big.  I digress, completely off the point, but you've got the idea.

'Be downstairs' he says 'and make sure you're wearing your woolly hat'.  Naturally, with the tatties in the oven, dressed in jogging pants and a sweatshirt, part of the much preferred dress code, I ask 'why?'  A perfectly reasonable question I thought.  'Just do it...be outside your door in three minutes.'

Now there's no point in trying to reason with him when he's so insistent, so I go downstairs and living on a street where it's one-way to traffic, I look up the road.  No more than a few seconds later, I watch this pair of headlights coming towards me.  I'm fully expecting his blue Audi, so didn't pay much attention, but upon seeing me the driver of the car slows down.  As I'm between minds, potatoes getting a crispy tan in the oven and the garden gnome on his way, I find the car's behaviour a bit strange.  Maybe cars today, run as they are by computers, had a malicious virus causing it to hate strange idiots loitering about doorways, especially when said car sees a strange man wearing jogging pants and sweatshirt, bottomed off with no socks and wearing slippers.  No matter, even if it's slightly unnerving, not much damage would have been inflicted had the car suddenly sped up and hit me; after all I'm fairly well endowed with enough padding to soak up the bump.  Which goes a little way to explain why I'm eating more healthily, the downside is that the loo is unhealthily overworked.  Yes, I know.  That was far too much information, but if I'm suffering from choccy withdrawal symptoms, the rest of the world can jolly well suffer along with me.

So nice white cabriolet pulls up besides me, with my friend full of the joys of an Indian summer.  I cannot believe my eyes, the top is down.  Now, should anyone care to take a peek at their calender they will notice that we're just a few days away from November, and the last time I heard November in Germany isn't known for being the warmest of places, especially in the evening.  But this is my friend.  How his particular mind works would be beyond the genius of Darwin, but evolved it has to a level of wondrous delight and mirth making; which is why, and he'll hate me for saying it, he's dearly loved; life would be immeasurably poorer without his particular 'moments.'

The 'boy with the nice, roofless, toy' wants to go for a spin around town.  Fetching my coat, we set off a few moments later.  We stop to pick up another friend, also male, on the way.  So there's my friend driving in his Hugo Boss suit, I know how that sounds but we can forgive him.  I'm sitting next to him in the passenger seat, wearing my winter coat, jogging pants, and the other friend in the back dressed sensibly in jeans etc.  Well, in for a penny, in for a pound as they say.

I have to say that there's moments when you find it almost impossible not to enjoy the absurdity of the situation you find yourself in.  The looks from people, seeing the three of us driving around with the top down, so close to November, was pure delight.  The chilly air disappeared, replaced by the warmth of friendship, simply doing something harmlessly stupid, in the good sense of the meaning.

And the sun tanned potatoes?  They were scrumptious, going down a treat.

Perceptions

Originating as I do from the UK, for many years I was lumbered with a concrete overcoat, which has always been a wearisome burden, that of having culturally indoctrinated perceptions.  Such things as class, gender, sexuality were always dogmatic and cast in stone.  And as I grew up, it was always about 'knowing your place', which in my case was very working class, very homophobic, and doffing my non-existent cloth cap to 'my betters'.

Upon such 'wonderful' foundations, moulded and shaped by centuries of unremitting ridiculous propaganda, the fog eventually lifted from the no longer young shoulders, the blindness healed by a highly intelligent and immensely beautiful, inside and out, individual, who it was my incredibly good fortune to meet at college.  This truly delightful individual began to teach me the 'essence of value'.  Prior to this my one guiding light was my dearly missed, and utterly beloved dad, who departed this life some 39 years ago; an exceptional man who's loss still remains painful, the more so having only blessed this earth for 36 years.  At the age of 14 I lost the one role model, full of wisdom and strength, that's so vital to curbing the excessive zeal of the troublesome teens, that often sees many fall by the wayside.

For many years, too many in hindsight, life was a struggle in every sense of the word, the lack of what many would call 'success', of never knowing what my particular potential was, of drifting aimlessly through life, never really having any direction in which to head.  When I occasionally headed off to what might be  euphemistically called  'life with a sense of purpose', I inevitably found nothing of the sort.  All that I found was more of the same that I was trying to escape from in the first place.  Maybe that has something to do with a 'self-fulfilling prophesy' in part, but I'm more inclined to believe it's got more to do with the perception others have had of me, and almost certainly still do.

Time, however short it is, still leaves its indelible mark in some way.  Thus it comes as no real surprise that the vast majority can only cope with that brief amount of time by shoving everything into a box of one label or another.  This is not to say that we shouldn't have an opinion about things that matter to us, passion comes from that, but to simply 'label' someone because they're different, because they don't cosily fit into a certain perception is wrong.  I say wrong because 'labelling' does more to cause conflict and unhappiness in the world than anything else I know, or ever have known.

Let me for a moment turn to myself and say this about my character.  Because I'm quiet, reserved, even introspective, some will say I'm odd, antisocial, and cold.  Yet the opposite can be far truer, for it's been said by others, when I'm occasionally in company, that I'm very funny, easy to get on with, good company.  I make people smile, laugh and feel good.  Yet, I'm still me, reserved, introspective, strange, with very little to say verbally.  Then there's the challenge that I'm not passionate, or filled with passion.  If by that it's meant that I don't jump up and down like some demented banana high on crack cocaine, then they would be perfectly correct.  Yet my paintings are full of passion, my writing has its moments.  I've seen the destructiveness of passion, the hurt it causes, the damage it inflicts, and the pain it leaves behind.  But still the world swallows the notion that without the outward show of a 'belly filled with fire', then all else is, by definition, boring. to be avoided; a sad misconception if ever there was one.

For example, I had this exchange on Twitter Saturday, with an individual, who is often forthright in her own particular 'world view.'  I don't know this individual personally, nor am I ever likely to because we both move in 'different' worlds.  Out of respect, and because I'd find it personally an unacceptable invasion of privacy to say who the individual is, I'll simply refer to them as 'Lady K'.

Lady K: 'I really don't care about $ or men with $..I LOVE men with TALENT and abundant life force..most men over 40 go comatose..just my observation'....who went on to add...


'I don't want a man who "listens" and is "calm" grrrr...I want a man who is on fire and is wild and funny and is BRAVE..I love BRAVE men'

Toni Bryan: 'Strange how many women have been abandoned by 'wild' men, but cry on the shoulder of a man who listens & is calm.'

Lady K: 'OK..TRUER words were never spoken..'

It's all in the perception!

And so to bring this up to date, my dear, dear friends look at me and no doubt despair of me at times, and yet though all of us are immensely different in many ways, each of us accepts the other for who they are.  We don't look at the 'label', we look at the individual.  I somehow think that the world would be a better place if we took the time to remove our heads from where the sun never shines, and started seeing the daylight a little more often.

Freedom of speech

I'm in a more serious mood today, for no other reason than the world around me seems hostile.  I refer to the British press and their subjective reporting, tainted by their political bias, and need to see who can be either the most controversial, or the more vitriolic in their comments.  It seems that the storm of condemnation, towards Nick Griffin, leader of the BNP, and the Daily Mail colunmist, Jan Moir, has reached the point of hysteria, whereby calls for restraints on the freedom of speech should be brought into effect.

This I find worrisome, in particular because both Griffin & Moir are exercising their right to free speech, an ideal which underpins the very foundations of a democracy.  Without free speech there is no democracy, there is only a totalitarian nightmare, something George Orwell expressed all too well in '1984'.  I personally find both Griffin's political ideology, and Moir's condemnation of Stephan Gately, offensive for the very reason they offend my own personal views of the world.  Yet, whilst I would heartily disagree with them, nevertheless I would never presume that my own 'world view' is any more less offensive to either them, or to many others that live in the world.

The very basis of free speech, will always mean that there will views we find personally offensive.  Such views may cause us to rise in anger, to express our own views forcefully, and in the extreme cause us to break the law in some way.  Yet we cannot have a muted version of free speech.  You can only have a freedom of speech, which allows for every view, however reprehensible you find that view.

I fully understand the distaste individuals find in the views held by Griffin & Moir.  Such views are against what I, and many others, would consider fair, just, and plain sensible.  Yet, paradoxically, their views, unpleasant though they are, strengthen the very fragility of a freedom of speech in a democracy.  Divergent views are a necessary framework to ensure that freedom of speech survives, unmolested by those who wish to be rid of that freedom.  There is no halfway house.  If there is to be the freedom of speech, then we must accept all have the right to say what they truly believe, even if we find ourselves angered and deeply divided by those beliefs.

We would do well to remember that once you begin to deny the individual the right to a freedom of speech, then you begin to deny the right to belief, the right to association.  You begin to impose censorship, you curtail the right to freely read, write, watch, listen and enjoy a diversity of life.  In other words, deny the right to free speech and you allow those in positions of power to carry out the worst excesses of human behaviour.

A belief is to be protected, and providing such a belief does no harm, other than annoy the hell out of us, then we should argue against it through discussion.  And if the majority uphold that belief, then the minority must be able to freely oppose it without fear.  Beliefs that are wholly intent on causing pain and injury against children, have no place in a democracy, no fair minded individual would ever condone abuses against children.  But healthy passionate debate does, because this is the only way we can protect ourselves, and those we disagree with, from something far more horrific, totalitarianism.

Finally, it seems to me that life has become about extremes of one kind or another.  Perhaps the human species has become lost, disjointed, and disempowered.  Maybe the only explanation to life is to express views, which are the result of disenfranchisement from society and politics.  Perhaps life has become an unachievable dream, and this is immensely frustrating, leading to conflict.  I have no great answers to the pain of conflict, which seems to surround me; except one.

If everyone managed to make someone smile every day, then the world would be a better place to live in.  Try it :-)

An abnormally normal day!

After yesterday's somewhat strange dream, today was verging on the normal.  I'm often confused by the term 'normal', as I've never really been able to pin it down with any accuracy.  Perhaps, thinking about it, we should ask those very fine lexicographers, at the Oxford English Dictionary, to banish it, along with that other nonsensical, all encompassing, word of fuzziness, 'fine'.

This morning started with an 8am meeting with my future employment adviser, which took over 80 minutes, no doubt due to the language barrier, she spoke in German, my dear friend spoke in German and English, and I was left with very little to say.  Had I actually said anything remotely normal, I would have declared myself insane.  My brain is apt to remain asleep for at least 4 hours after I've got out of bed.  Until such time that my mouth connects with my grey matter, I envy the wonderful babblings spoken by babies.

The meeting eventually ended, and I was told in no uncertain terms that I must improve my German, as I write this I can now say Ein, Zwei, Drei und Vier, hopefully I will have advanced to Fünf und repeated Sex several times tomorrow.  I suppose by Christmas Day I'll have learnt to count up to 20, what happens after that, I've no answer; I'll have run out of thumbs, fingers and toes.  As far as learning even the most basic German, I think I'd be far more successful taking up knitting, which I also can't do but at least my fingers would have something to do after I finish counting up to 10 in German.

On the way home I stopped for a coffee at Starbucks.  By now my fingers had succumbed to the cold autumn air, but at least the sun had its woolly hat on and the sky was a cheerful blue.  Coffee was its normal self, piping hot, served in a large mug, and fairly tasteless, which is normal for Starbucks.  Thankfully I don't go there to drink good coffee, I go for the ambiance and the opportunity to chill out.  After an unsuccessful attempt to draw a chair, I doodled 2 more sketches before happily leaving, warm, arty, and fingers happily back to normal.

The rest of the morning was spent on the Internet, surfing for the hidden delights of a German integration course.  You can imagine my ecstatic delight to find the German language pot overflowing with tempting morsels of 'der', 'die', 'das'.  This now means I'll be 'Der Mann', She'll be 'Die Frau', and das is as far as I've got.  Thank god there's only 'THE' in English, it makes life so much easier.

After a sandwich for lunch I strolled back into town for an ink catridge, arriving back home at 6pm with more than I went out for.  The first pair of gloves of the season were bought, not that I'm going to buy anymore.  Walking around town, my heart dropped several feet upon seeing Christmas window displays.  I find it so depressing seeing Christmas in the third week of October; but then I find Christmas depressing on Christmas Day.  I think it would be a wonderful idea to Twitter our political servants, demanding that Christmas shopping be banned until December 1st at the very earliest.  No, I'm not being miserable, I just wish it would stay where it's supposed to, December.

On that note I'll disappear before Mr. Claus blacklists me.  All in all, an abnormally normal day.

What a lovely chilly morning.

Having gone to bed at 3.30am, I awoke at 6; this was no doubt caused by the very weird, but enjoyable, dream I was having about Patsy Cline who was performing on a very large stage across the way from me. She was singing 'Sorry', which in the cold light of day I've no idea if that's the title of the song...ok...I know I could lazily move the mouse up to the Wiki search box, but I'm not very motivated this morning, sorry. Anyway, why I was thinking about Patsy Cline I've no idea as Country & Western music is probably bottom of my eclectic music tastes, nevertheless, thinking of her I was even though she'd be the last one I'd be dreaming of.

Getting out of bed at 6, after being very cosily and snugly swaddled in the continental quilt, the windows being open and sleeping in the altogether, the blast of freezing air hit me with enough force to repel an army of drunken ants, who'd been out on the forest floor imbibing copious amounts of cherry juice; although the thought of hooligan ants, staggering around on 6 legs, bumping into each and everything has nothing to do with the dream about Patsy Cline. The shock woke me from my normal muddled headed state, which in turn caused me to head for the loo, some 12ft away from the bedroom. Reaching the bathroom I was further greeted by Jack Frost's half brother, who mockingly laughed at my nakedness, and in that fine myth taking way of being the butt of someone's cruel merriment I turned into an hermaphrodite, asexual, undignified by the attainment of 2 splendid rock-hard nipples and the disappearance of everything below the equator.

Am I to blame the delightful Patsy, who woke me in the first place, or should I blame myself for leaving the windows open now the earth's had enough and turned its back on the developed world and headed to warmer climes in the south? I've no idea, all I do know is that whilst it's nice to go to bed when all around you have long been tucked up in bed, it's not so nice to accept that the chilly autumn air has a far more sobering truth to pass on; I'm getting older, less able to do without sleep, and whatever I believed to be naturally magnificent was, in fact, self delusional.

Now that could explain why Patsy was warbling 'Sorry'.

I've been away far too long :-(

Being away for so long is simply a sign that I was utterly stuck in another world & it took over everything, including the time I should've spent here writing. However, whether it's good news or bad. the world of paid employment has decided it's better off without me! Oh, it was nothing I've done to warrant such treatment, nothing more than a response to the economic climate I & a vast many others find themselves in at the present time.

Am I worried? Curiously I'm stuck between thinking it's a bad thing, shallow response to materialism, & it's a very good thing, hearty response to spiritual enlightenment. Perhaps the latter is slightly more worrying than the former, yet I remain hopeful that I'll have the courage of my hidden convictions and treat this as a wonderful opportunity to do something for myself, that will in its own way make some kind of sense of the barbarity of the economic climate.

I do find it very strange, even perverse, and have always done so that those responsible for causing so much misery, potential or otherwise, always appear to walk away from their appalling negligence, greed and wilful behaviour without much in the way of discomfort. let alone held accountable for their actions. Yet I'm not alone in such thoughts, and there are often press reports of excessive behaviour by certain companies, executives, even MPs, who seem to believe in a god given right to pick the ripest cherries. Not being alone in those thoughts, and often listening to a deafening crescendo of vitriol and condemnation against the selfish disregard exhibited by certain individuals, sadly I find myself surrounded by hollow calls that easily dissipate with the merest wisp of wind.

I may be entirely wrong of course, but it seems that the present economic climate was wholly caused by a financial sector that was out of control, and even after the various governments of the developed world bankrolled and bailed out the financial sector, those governments failed to take the opportunity to come down heavily on those individuals who have caused such widespread misery around the world. The upshot being that those hardworking people, who daily toil away to make a living will continue to be punished by the very same system that gladly seems to look favourably upon reprehensible miscreants and ne'er do wells, and which looks for any reason possible to forgive, or forget, deeds that would normally land decent people in court and possibly jail.

Perhaps the time has arrived when those decent hardworking folk should rise up and Twitter the hell out of their elected representatives, suggesting that they do the job they're supposed to and legislate against those individuals who have caused the devestation they clearly have.

Having got that out of my system, and facing the prospect of unemployment in a few weeks time, I look forward to the future and having the opportunity to seek my own fortune, not that I'd want to earn one because that brings with it almost the same amount of problems that being poor does albeit in much different ways. No, not fortune in terms of having an excess of wealth, but fortune in terms of being independent and at least having some control over what I do. I'm perhaps fortunate that I have no dependents, no mortgage, no car, have no debts and in a position where I can afford to take a risk. I realise that I'm far better off than many individuals, but equally I have no money in the bank to tide me over, so it will be a risk whatever I do.

Maybe I've slowly come to realise that I've never had any real control over my life, let others dictate the control. Maybe that's been the way because I've never been able to see through the fog that all too often surrounds us on a daily basis. Whatever comes from my little foray into the unknown, and fully understanding the risks there are, I go forward much happier than I've ever been. And that's no bad thing!