Exceedingly odd

Like most people I've had plenty of odd experiences in my life. To list a few:

Being on a tube train going through Kings Cross station, London, in 1987 minutes before the station was engulfed in a massive fire.

My first day at work. In 1965 smoking in offices was normal and I virtually suffocated from the thick fug of tobacco smoke. Alarmingly, I soon got used to it.

A very informal interview for the Guardian in 1970. It took place in the local greasy spoon over bacon sandwiches. I didn't get the job.

Having food poisoning on a flight to Australia and finding the woman beside me also had food poisoning. So we were able to pinpoint the source - we had both had an egg sandwich at Costa, Heathrow.

Losing my sense of smell. No idea when that first happened, but it was well before covid so that wasn't the cause.

Being with a rather drunk girl friend (not Jenny) when she lost control of the car and drove into a field. Luckily neither of us was injured.

I could go on but I won't.

Hung up on celebs

I'm always intrigued by those people who get totally hung up on celebrities - following their every move, absorbing every little detail about their lives, copying their tastes and preferences, lavishing them with constant praise and adulation.

Personally I might have a high opinion of a singer or novelist or artist, but I don't worship the ground they tread on. I see them as another human being, talented in some ways but probably deeply flawed in other ways.

There's a general tendency to idealise celebrities and put them on a pedestal as if they're somehow far superior to the rest of us.

Even when the celebrity is dead, the worship goes on. There are hundreds of people who dress like Elvis and perform like Elvis. Why oh why?

As for those people deluded enough to think they have a romantic relationship with the celebrity and badger them non-stop with love letters, I feel for the person who's on the receiving end of it all.

Meanwhile Taylor Swift mania has passed me by. What's all the fuss about?

Looking forward

One of the things that makes life worth living is having something to look forward to.

In my case:

• My monthly book group
• My weekly class on Early Victorian Britain
• Waking up next to Jenny
• The leaves changing colour as they fall
• Art exhibitions
• Well-written and captivating novels
• Playing CDs
• Chocolate
• The garden coming alive in the spring
• Scrabble

And plenty of other things I can't recall off the top of my head.

I can't imagine how miserable you must be if you have little to look forward to and you're just aimlessly dragging out the days.

My days go so fast I'm astonished to find that another month or another year have somehow sped by.

All those things I'm looking forward to are really eating up the calendar.

Early waking

I gave up on the idea of regular sleeping patterns long ago. They might be regular if you're a child but once you're an adult it's a different story.

The reality is that my body wakes me up any time it feels like it between 4 am and 7 am. I used to fuss and fret about this physical anarchy and wonder why I couldn't control my own body.

Now I've given up trying to fix my sleeping patterns and I just go with the flow. If I wake at 4 am, no problem, I simply make a cup of tea and read for a while.

I never take sleeping pills. They don't work and just make me feel weird.

Believe it or not, I can have a completely coherent conversation with Jenny while I'm asleep, and not remember a word of it the next day.

Going to sleep on the other hand couldn't be easier. I nod off in about ten minutes and that's that - unless I'm away from home somewhere, in which case falling asleep will probably take longer.

Once I'm asleep I sleep pretty soundly. There are no children to wake me, no pets to wake me, little background noise of any sort.

But I never sleep on planes. There's too much going on around me for me to settle down sufficiently.

I used to find it easy to get out of bed in the morning, but that's not so any more. Quite often I don't want to get up at all, I just want to stay in my warm, cosy bed for as long as possible.

Or better still, hibernate until the spring.

Over the top

People do make mountains out of molehills, don't they (and that includes me, I can be just as bad, given one of my many hobby horses)?

A few months ago I was very worked up about bi-lingual road signs. What was the point, I asked, when only a small minority of the NI public speak Irish and the daily language usually spoken is English.

Now I'm much more sanguine on the issue. So what if road signs are single or dual language? What harm are they doing to anybody? There are more important issues to get worked up about.

Likewise I used to get very agitated about all the union jacks flown on lamp posts and outside houses. But hang on, all they're doing is marking out territory and declaring patriotism. Flags can't be violent or anti-social (though their owners might be).

So now I'm no longer bothered by them, they're just part of the scenery.

But people do get unnecessarily steamed up about all sorts of issues - traffic jams, internet glitches, bad table manners, someone sniffing, having to queue, rude shop assistants, to name but a few.

People don't just say, that's annoying. They explode with anger and impatience as if something utterly appalling has occurred. Why oh why? We all need to be more philosophical about life's minor irritations.

Clutter, what clutter?

When I think of decluttering, I conclude that we don't really have much clutter, most things in the house are things we need and are in regular use. But is that really true?

It's startling to recall that when I lived in bedsits from 1973 to 1981 I had virtually no possessions. I simply had no room for unnecessary stuff.

Now I have many times the number of possessions I had then. So if I could survive okay in my bedsits how come I need so many belongings now?

We have many things that are purely decorative, like ornaments and paintings. We have around 1000 books. We have six tables, twelve chairs and a sofa. We have a piano. We have several CD players.

In my bedsits I had a bed and a chair and that was it. Compared with that spartan arrangement, our present set-up seems totally excessive, even though 90 per cent of our possessions are regularly used (apart from all the books sitting on shelves gathering dust).

When I lived in my bedsits, I never felt deprived of anything, I was perfectly happy with my small space and my one or two bits and pieces. Now of course it seems like an extraordinary hardship I must have reluctantly endured.

No, we don't have any clutter, just what you might call household items.

Tell me more

I've said before that I don't like the uncertainty about my future. I want to know what's coming down the line so I can prepare for it.

I know a lot of people (such as Jenny) like that uncertainty about the future and don't want to know about it in advance. They want to be constantly surprised by events, they find that exciting rather than frustrating.

But I want to know what's in store. I have lots of unanswered questions. How long will I live? How much money will I need? How healthy will I be? Who will die first, me or Jenny? What shape will the public services be in? What sort of government will we have?

I would feel a lot more secure and confident if I knew what's lined up for me. I could plan my life a bit better, allow for disasters or triumphs, create a smoother path for myself. I wouldn't be suddenly overwhelmed by some unexpected catastrophe and be left floundering.

It's curious that I'm so bothered by uncertainty this late in life, when my future is relatively short. When I was young and my future stretched ahead of me for endless decades, the much greater uncertainty didn't faze me at all. I just sailed along blithely, unheeding of what the next day would bring.

For me, this walking into the unknown is quite disconcerting. It makes the rest of my life too nebulous, too hazy.

But it feels right

One of the major topics these days is polarisation, the way people take up sharply opposed views and simply won't contemplate changing them.

The one big thing that drives polarisation is surely the big increase in self-righteousness, the conviction that a person's beliefs and attitudes are the only correct ones and other people's beliefs and attitudes are obviously wrong.

I see this all the time in relation to immigration, transgender, vaccinations, welfare benefits and all sorts of political and social issues.

People are shedding the customary idea that differences of opinion should be resolved through intelligent debate and fact-finding, and are taking up opinions because they "feel right" or it's what their friends think or it's what someone said on the telly.

But what can be done to restore rational debate and open-mindedness? I'm not sure anything can be done, self-righteousness is now so prevalent and common sense so often absent. Once a bandwagon starts rolling and a dubious opinion gets wide approval it's hard to stop it.

What can you do when someone is adamant that you can change sex, or immigrants are all criminals and sex-offenders, or vaccinations are killing thousands of people, or workshy layabouts are sponging off welfare benefits?

It's an uphill task to convince them otherwise.

Not grumpy

Many years ago I said that I refused to conform to the grumpy old man stereotype and was going to stay optimistic and philosophical about whatever life threw at me.

I listed all the bad habits I wouldn't adopt. I think most of them still apply. Not sure about not believing everything was better in the old days. With the British economy on the skids and world war three in the offing things look pretty grim right now. Anyhow this was the list:

I refuse to moan and groan.
I refuse to become a grumpy old man.
I refuse to let the world's problems get me down.
I refuse to make mountains out of molehills.
I refuse to turn petty irritations into causes célèbres.
I refuse to complain about my bodily deficiencies.
I refuse to denigrate other people's lives.
I refuse to tell other people what to do.*
I refuse to rant and rave.
I refuse to demonise young people.
I refuse to be cynical.
I refuse to be paranoid.
I refuse to see the worst in people.
I refuse to be nostalgic.
I refuse to believe everything was better in the old days.
I refuse to think that I know best.
I refuse to think life's conspiring against me.
I refuse to be offended by bad manners.
I refuse to be offended.
I refuse to over-react.

I don't want to be one of those dour-faced old geezers who has nothing good to say about anything and thinks the whole world is going to hell in a handcart. There are still plenty of things to appreciate or even celebrate. Just keep on trucking!

*except politicians and bankers obviously

Keeping watch

I still possess a wrist watch, even though the trend is to check the time on your mobile. I like being able to check the time instantly, at a quick glance, rather than turning my phone on. Not that I use my watch very often, only if I'm attending some function or other or I'm on holiday.

Also when you're in company it's easier to take a furtive look at your watch than seem rude by pulling out your mobile phone.

I've only had two wrist watches in my entire life. My father bought me my first one in the sixties; I think it cost about seven guineas from Harrods. It finally stopped working in the noughties, after around 40 years. Not bad, huh?

Then I bought my second watch, which has been working for about 20 years. I expect it'll see me out.

Surprisingly enough, I've never done anything to ruin my watches. I've never dropped them into the bath water or into a bowl of soup. Of course having said that I'll probably drop my watch into a bowl of soup tomorrow. Oh, and I've never left my watch anywhere.

I didn't know that to begin with wrist watches were almost exclusively worn by women, while men used pocket watches until the early 20th century. Wrist watches were first worn by military men towards the end of the 19th century, to synchronise manoeuvres during war.

Just out of curiosity, do any of my blog friends still own a wrist watch?

Put a sock in it

There are proposals in England for new laws to stop people playing music and videos out loud on their phones on public transport.

Many people find such behaviour intrusive and provocative when they're hoping for a few minutes' peace and quiet on their way to work or wherever.

In most cases people are either nervous about confronting the noisy person or if they do they're likely to get a mouthful of abuse and told to fuck off.

Personally I'm not much bothered by noisy individuals but I can see that others might be thoroughly exasperated by such inconsiderate actions.

At least they're not having intensely personal conversations that are better aired in some more private location. I mean, do you really want the whole carriage to know that your wife is divorcing you or you've just been sacked? Suddenly a bit of restraint takes over.

Other people's quirky behaviour on buses and trains isn't a big issue for me - unless they're stripping off or puking or screaming. I'm more concerned that they go where I want them to go, they're frequent, they come at the advertised time, and there are seats available.

The days when it was customary for train carriages to be in stony silence as the passengers scrutinised their copy of the Times are long gone. Nowadays you expect a fair amount of background noise on your journey.

No more cars?

Every now and then some daft politician or politico will declare that we should all give up our cars to "protect the environ-ment" or "get more exercise" or whatever. It doesn't seem to occur to them that for a lot of people cars are absolutely essential.

We don't use our car very often -  mainly for the weekly supermarket shop - but there are many things a car is vital for, especially if you're in a family.

If public transport is poor or non-existent, if you need to move something heavy and bulky, if you're taking your kids to school or to out-of-school activities, if you're visiting your parents or relatives in some out-of-the-way location, if you're visiting someone in hospital, and for all sorts of other awkward journeys, how would you get by without a car?

Taxis are okay for short journeys, but too dear for long journeys. You could cadge lifts but you can't do that too often.

We've used our car to take things to the recycling centre, to get to beauty spots, to bring home large purchases like furniture and plants, to take visitors for an outing or to the airport, to give people lifts in bad weather, to look at property for sale, and numerous other purposes.

It could be of course that the anti-car politicians don't seriously want us all to give up our cars. They're just looking for cheap headlines to keep them in the public eye. But most people will simply snort with disbelief and ask what planet they're living on.

Rush to judgment

I'm always a bit sceptical of court case verdicts. They're generally treated as hard fact, although in reality they're merely the considered opinion of a judge or jury.

The media in particular treat all verdicts as gospel, and deliver screaming headlines on the basis of judgments that may or may not be the ultimate truth.

Many many people who have been found guilty by a court turn out to be innocent years later, often after they've been in prison for lengthy periods.

I'm thinking right now of Lucy Letby, the nurse who was convicted of the murder of seven infants and the attempted murder of seven others. She was sentenced to life imprisonment, but many commentators have questioned the verdict and want a retrial on the basis of evidence that wasn't produced at the court. So was she guilty or has this been a miscarriage of justice? The arguments continue.

It seems to me that at the end of the day the soundness of the verdict isn't a question of  whether it was reached by a judge or a jury. The crucial factor is surely the strength of the evidence presented by each side. If the prosecution evidence is strongest, they win. Ditto the defence evidence.

I've been on a jury twice, and it seemed very clear to me that it's the strength of the evidence that counts. My first case was a black guy accused of assaulting a police officer. We started off thinking he was innocent but after a long deliberation decided he was guilty. Of course I've no idea if he was actually guilty or not. Only he knows the answer to that.

The fact is that supposedly solid "final" verdicts are regularly overturned as "unsafe".

To pee or not to pee

You'd think there would be plenty of public toilets in Belfast city centre. With so many people coming and going, including an increasing number of tourists, that seems like an obvious thing to offer.

In fact you'd be hard-pressed to find a public toilet anywhere in the city centre. If I need a toilet, I know of just one council-provided one - in the city hall. Otherwise my only option is commercial premises - like Marks and Spencer or a coffee shop. Or maybe a hotel.

There are lots of people with medical issues that call for rapid access to a toilet, but they must have kittens trying to find one.

Lots of councils have closed their public toilets to save money - and maybe because they're often used for drug-dealing.

Raymond Martin, Director of the British Toilet Association (yes, really) is trying to reverse this trend and persuade councils to reopen toilets they've closed, or even open new ones. I'm not sure he'll get very far in the current economic climate, but he's plugging away nonetheless.

He's also touring the country inspecting public toilets and giving them a star rating. The best ones (smart, hygienic, accessible etc) get five stars, the worst one star (if they're lucky).

With thousands of people pouring into Belfast from cruise ships, I would have thought there's an urgent need for more public toilets, but clearly Belfast Council is unconvinced.

Oops daisy

Some people not only hate to make mistakes, but hate other people to know they've made mistakes. They'll do anything to cover up their cock-ups, even if that involves fingering innocent people.

Politicians and public bodies do it all the time of course, but so do many ordinary individuals who hate to be caught out in any way.

I left my last job after my boss accused me of releasing confidential documents to a civil servant. I pointed out that the documents were already freely available on our website, but he wouldn't listen. He sent me a three-page email accusing me of not doing my job properly, not obeying instructions and so on.

If only he could have admitted I was right and he was wrong, there wouldn't have been any problem. But no, he had to insist I was the one who'd screwed up.

The famous neurosurgeon Henry Marsh admits that in his early days as a brain surgeon he was somewhat arrogant and self-satisfied and wouldn't admit he'd been at fault at all. It was only later on in his career that he admitted making mistakes or misjudgments, and his ex-patients appreciated his honesty.

My prostate operation apparently went very well, but if it hadn't and the surgeon had made some bad mistake, I would have expected him to be frank with me, and not cover up and pretend everything went fine (if he'd done so, I probably would have smelt a rat anyway).

What exactly is wrong with admitting mistakes? It's only by freely examining your mistakes that you learn lessons and become a better person. I'm happy to acknowledge my mistakes and whatever they might teach me.

Pic: Henry Marsh

How are your eyes?

The British government plans to tighten up on road safety, in particular introducing vision tests for older drivers, who are responsible for a large number of road casualties.

We're one of only three European countries to rely on self-reporting of eyesight problems that affect driving. As I'm over 70, I have to renew my driving licence every three years, and eyesight wise, all I have to do is declare that my eyesight is good enough for driving. I don't need to pass any official test, whatever I say is assumed to be totally honest.

I'm all in favour of a compulsory eye test. There must be lots of elderly drivers falsely claiming adequate vision, and they may be causing horrific accidents. People who live deep in the countryside and have little or no public transport may very well lie about their vision because they're very car-dependent.

Still, it's not something I need worry about just yet. I have to renew my licence next March and nothing is likely to change before then. I needn't worry again about my vision for another three years, by which time I may very well have decided to stop driving anyway. Also the new laws might only apply in England and Wales.

And because there are so many people in rural parts of Northern Ireland who're dependent on their cars but might fail an eye test, there could be pressure on the NI government not to introduce one, however much it's needed.

Manchester

Jenny and I have been in Manchester for a week. We had heard good things about the city so we thought we'd suss it out. We had high expectations but in the end it was disappointing.

We thought it had no individuality, no character, nothing to distinguish it. We could have been in any big city anywhere. Lots of people, lots of shops, lots of skyscrapers, and that was it.

The only things that stood out were the museums and art galleries, which had lots of interesting stuff in them. And the friendliness of everyone we spoke to.

Our first day wasn't too promising. It was pouring with rain in the morning and some of the tram stops were suspended. There was a bus replacement service but it didn't go anywhere near our destination, the Imperial War Museum, so we had to walk the rest of the way in steady rain. At least the rest of the week was dry and sunny.

On Wednesday we met some old friends of ours in Chester for a catch-up. which was most enjoyable. Chester actually has more character than Manchester, what with the river and the city walls.

One very noticeable thing about Manchester is the multiculturalism. There were masses of brown and black faces and (apparently) nobody seeing it as anything unusual. Quite a contrast with the rest of the UK where there's still a lot of violent racism.

But we won't be going back to Manchester. It was too anonymous, too functional. We'll stick to our old haunts in future.

A short break

Back soon!

Nick at what remains of the Berlin Wall

August 2014

Off sick

I had an amazingly good attendance record at my various workplaces. I never needed to take any time off sick, except for a week's sick leave after my prostate operation.

I simply was never ill enough to go off sick. And I never feigned illness to avoid going to work. It helped that I always enjoyed my work and had no impulse to "throw a sickie" as most people do from time to time.

Which probably made me a tiresome goody-goody who embarrassed the genuinely sick and made them look as if they were faking it.

There are people out there who take pride in turning up at work even if they're at death's door, but I wouldn't have gone that far myself. Why flog yourself for the sake of appearances?

My lack of sick leave doesn't mean I'm in favour of tight restrictions on sick leave. People can't help falling ill. Allowance should obviously be made for major illness, especially serious female illnesses like endometriosis and fibromyalgia, or for severe period pain. Too often women are expected to just "put up with a bit of pain".

And of course companies should provide for sick leave. The increasing tendency for some firms to deny holiday leave or sick pay is outrageous.

Immensely grateful

How immensely grateful I am for being in a (more or less) secure, civilised, democratic, peaceful country. How immensely grateful I am for having a warm, comfortable, safe home.

How immensely grateful I am for not

• Starving to death
• Being relentlessly bombed
• Fleeing a despotic regime
• Being trafficked
• Being tortured
• Being jailed for insulting the King
• Being conscripted
• Being a slave

How immensely sad it is that all these horrific things are going on around the world and so little is being done to stop them. How immensely sad it is that those with enormous power are not using their power more wisely.

How immensely shocking it is that a dubious embrace at a Coldplay concert gets as much attention as the destruction of Gaza. How immensely shocking it is that a film star's revealing dress gets as much attention as the bombing of Ukraine.

How immensely envious I am of those young children who know nothing of all this and still believe the world to be a kind and altruistic place.

Memory lapses

Along with my poor memory I have a tendency to remember the good things that have happened to me and forget the bad things. Which is a great advantage.

While some people remember the bad things very clearly and nurse extreme grudges for years on end, I seldom remember the bad things for long enough for a grudge to take root.

I'm sure there are many occasions on which people have insulted me or rejected me or belittled me or done me out of something, but they rapidly vanish from my memory and are mere water under the bridge.

I'll remember the enjoyable parts of a holiday, but the negative things - the disappointing hotel rooms or the flight delays or the dreadful weather - just fade away as if they never happened.

I only remember the bad things if they're especially bad and especially memorable, like the mattress in our San Francisco hotel that was the creakiest mattress we've ever encountered, or the food poisoning I had on a flight to Australia.

It means I can look back on my life and think it has generally gone well, because I forget all the things that would make me think otherwise.

The flaming row I had with my boss in 2015? What flaming row? I thought we got on rather well....

Language barrier

There are many dual language (English and Irish) road signs in Northern Ireland, but they never cease to be controversial. Some of them go up only after angry protests from the locals.

I must say I don't see the point of Irish signs in a country where the everyday language is English and only a minority of the population speak Irish fluently. But if that's what some people want, it doesn't really bother me one way or the other.

People justify dual language signs on the basis that they promote linguistic diversity, they encourage people to learn Irish and they recognise our close ties to the Republic of Ireland.

But there are only 72,000 Irish speakers in Northern Ireland out of a population of two million, so I wouldn't have thought dual language signs were a high priority.

And why only road signs? What about all the other signs on public buildings? Shouldn't they also be dual language?

There's a big lobby to have dual language signs on the new Grand Central Station, and an equally big lobby not to. I await the outcome with interest.

Personally I have no desire to learn Irish, especially as it's a famously hard language to learn. Jenny has been learning Irish for some time despite all its oddities and its fiendish pronunciation. But fluency is still a long way off.

Left handed

My father was left handed. How that happened I have no idea, he never explained. Was he copying a parent? Or copying a teacher? Who knows? But he never encouraged me to be left handed, so I became right handed like most people.

I never had any urge to be left handed. I was taught to be right handed and that was fine by me. I don't remember any left handed pupils at my two schools, but maybe I was very unobservant!

Jenny's mother was left handed, but again Jenny never had any urge to be the same. Though Jenny does do some things with her left hand, like brushing her teeth.

Roughly 10 per cent of the population are left handed. I didn't realise it was that many (that's 7 million in the UK). I don't really notice if someone is right or left handed.

Luckily we live in an enlightened age in which (on the whole) left handedness is an unremarkable personal trait. But throughout history it has been given negative associations. Into the 20th and even the 21st century, left handed children in Uganda were beaten by teachers or parents for writing with their left hand, or had their left hands tied behind their backs to force them to write with their right hand. In the Soviet school system, all left handed children were compelled to write with their right hand.

International Left Handers Day is held annually on August 13. Right handers are encouraged to try out left handed objects to see how awkward it can feel doing things the "wrong way round".

Sick as dogs

I'm lucky to have been hit by food poisoning very few times in my life. I can remember three instances very vividly. No doubt there were some other occasions but they escape my memory.

An old girlfriend Patricia and I were living in a shared flat with a bunch of other people. One night someone volunteered to cook a meal for everyone. Soon after the meal both Patricia and I were violently ill. Clearly the cook had not been sufficiently hygienic. We just shrugged it off as a typical shared-flat situation.

Another time Jenny and I were at a friend's wedding, and we gorged ourselves at the wedding reception afterwards. When we got home later we were both sick as dogs. Of course we didn't tell our friend about the food poisoning, she would have felt very guilty and it would have spoilt the day for her. I imagine some of the other guests must have had food poisoning as well, but when we saw the friend later she never mentioned it.

Then I got food poisoning on a flight to Australia. By a weird coincidence, the woman sitting next to me also had food poisoning, so we were able to deduce the cause - the egg sandwiches we had at Costa Heathrow. Boy, was I glad when that flight was over!

I love peanut butter and eat loads of it, but I read that peanut butter can easily be contaminated by salmonella, either during the growing period or during later processing. There are regular recalls of peanut butter in the States. Well, I've never heard of a peanut butter recall in the UK, so I guess it's safe for me to go on eating the stuff.

Being beautiful

One thing I'm grateful for is that as a boy I didn't grow up amid a torrent of "beautiful boy" images and given the message that if I didn't look like one of these beautiful boys, I was therefore unattractive or even ugly, and I needed to make myself more like them.

We boys never even discussed our bodies or whether we were attractive or not (not even comparing willies!). We just took our bodies for granted whatever they looked like and that was that.

Young girls on the other hand are having a terrible time of it, bombarded on all sides by "beautiful woman" images and by men's endless criticism of female bodies.

Many succumb to the pressure and do their best to make themselves more "attractive", changing their appearance in any way possible, from different make-up to cosmetic surgery. Only those with very strong wills can ignore all this pressure and accept themselves just as they are.

As far as I remember my sister was never influenced by all the focus on beautiful women (which when she was growing up was nothing like as rampant as it is now). She accepted herself as she was and never got hung-up on what she looked like.

I've never had the slightest desire to remodel myself as some beautiful man. I'm very positive about my body and have no urge to change any part of it. I am what I am.

Battling covid

Jenny and I have both had covid for around ten days now. It's my second dose and it's a lot worse than my first dose, which just seemed like a slight cold.

Both Jenny and I are feeling totally exhausted and in the grip of brain fog. It's all we can do to drag ourselves through the daily chores. I have to stop in the middle of washing up to regain some energy. Just a 30 minute walk round the neighbourhood is absurdly draining. I did manage to get to the MOT (car inspection) centre on Friday to get the car passed as roadworthy.

All I can say is, I hope I can shake this thing off before too long. It's no fun staggering through the day in a mental haze. But it can take anything up to 12 weeks for a full recovery, which is a depressing thought.

Of course I wonder if I might be getting long covid, which affects at least two million people in the UK and can be sufficiently debilitating to prevent many people from working. Luckily I'm retired so I don't need to worry about that.

The risk of getting long covid has dropped to about 3.5 per cent among vaccinated people (which includes me), but that's still a significant number of people.

Watch this space....

Party time

It's reported that young people are very keen on birthday parties for their dogs and cats, spending an average of £120 on birthday cakes, special gifts, favourite foods and new toys.

Well, time for me to dust off my party pooper hat and wonder why on earth cats and dogs need birthday parties. Do they actually appreciate them? Do they know why all these people are hovering around them? Do they like all the fuss and bother?

Why isn't it enough to mark your dog's birthday by giving them lots of fondles and extra grooming, taking them for extra walks or just giving them lots of attention and affection? Some cats and dogs are actually quite shy and might hate all the inexplicable commotion.

Surely birthday parties for pets are more for the benefit of their owners than the pets themselves? They're partly to show how much their owners care about them. But where will it end? Sooner or late it'll become competitive (if it hasn't already) and people will want their birthday party for Fido to be more lavish than their neighbour's birthday party for Rover.

Probably all Fido wants on his birthday is to curl up somewhere warm and cosy and ignore the rest of the world. But his owners may have other ideas.

.....................................................................................

Pet owners are complaining that veterinary fees have risen so steeply that some of them have had to put their pets down rather than incur fees of thousands of pounds for medical treatment.

Best avoided

I have no bright ideas for a blog post this morning, so I'm falling back on an old post about things that aren't worth wasting time on, things that don't add to my life.

Yes, life's too short to:

Pretend I'm someone I'm not. It's so easy to respond to what others expect of me, and hide my real self. But it just leaves people with a phoney idea of who I am.

Exhaust myself in a gym. Natural forms of exercise like hill-walking are more fun and more scenic. Why struggle with machines in a sweaty gym?

Listen to moaners. The hours I've wasted listening to people moaning away about their workplace, their neighbours, their relatives.

Think about the Royal Family. I couldn't care less about the royals. They're just a bunch of parasites sponging off the rest of us and giving little in return.

Idealise politicians. I no longer kid myself that politicians who promise a bright new future mean what they say. I've seen too many false dawns.

Bear grudges. Better to let bygones be bygones rather than brood over old grievances that will never be put right. Simmering over something for years only makes us sour.

Dwell on things I can't control. There's no point in harping on about things I have little influence over. Like drink-driving or homophobia or religious fanatics.

Keep the house spotless. I'm not one of those houseproud obsessives who clean and sweep non-stop. As long as the place is presentable, that's enough for me.

Shop till I drop. I can't stand shopping. I do it only when I absolutely have to. Spending time in a shopping centre, assaulted by endless Musak, is my idea of hell.

Worry about my failings. Like everyone, I make mistakes and I upset people. There's no point in fretting over it. I do what I can to make things right, and then I move on.

Misrepresented

Shocking scenes in Ballymena and Portadown, Northern Ireland in the last few days as rioting mobs targeted anyone who wasn't "local" i.e. anyone from another country. And families from elsewhere who have lived here for many years were still seen as "not local" and fit to be intimidated and told to leave their homes.

In general Northern Irish folk are quite welcoming to people from other nationalities, but there's a hard core of racists who do their best to stir up hatred and intolerance, either for political reasons or because they enjoy a bit of violence and disorder.

Most of the Ballymena and Portadown residents must have been horrified by the rioting and wanted no part of it. They are sleepy little towns were normally nothing very dramatic happens and the biggest sensation is a new set of traffic lights.

The rioting paints a negative picture of Northern Ireland that completely misrepresents the reality of sensible, peace-loving folk who just want to get on with their lives. Tourists must be wondering if the rioting might spread to Belfast or other parts of the country. Fortunately there's no sign of that as yet.

As usual, the rioting was encouraged by numerous social media posts, that no doubt included a lot of false information about foreigners getting "preferential treatment" while locals miss out.

Hopefully the rioters have already got tired of rioting and Ballymena and Portadown will return to their normal uneventful daily lives.

Suitably masculine

I do envy women the wide range of clothes they can wear, while as a  man I'm limited to a small list of clothing that's considered suitably "masculine".

Basically I'm confined to suits, jackets, shirts and trousers. Anything else would cause disapproval and dismay. But such a limited selection is horribly boring and restrictive.

I know some female clothing is absurdly uncomfortable and impractical, like shapewear or high heels, but at least women have the choice of whether to wear them or not wear them. They can be as flamboyant or dazzling as they wish and nobody will object (except in an office of course).

The irony is that every item of so-called female clothing has been worn by men at some time in the past - high heels, corsets, tights, skirts, whatever (men wore high heels for centuries before they were gradually reborn as female footwear).

Men do tend to stick to recognisably "masculine" clothes, and recoil violently from anything that's deemed "feminine". The very idea of wearing anything "feminine" is seen as humiliating or belittling or just weird.

Those men who want to cross-dress either have to do it in private, out of the public eye, or simply stifle their desire and pretend they're happy with a suit and tie. Unfortunately wives of cross-dressers are not always supportive. They often react with horror when they learn of their husband's "abnormal" inclination.

Granny's advice

I'm not an angry person. I'm more of the "Keep calm and carry on" persuasion. I believe that anger is pointless and usually self-defeating.

Some of you may remember from earlier posts that at the age of ten my grandma urged me not to be like my father - habitually bad-tempered and out of control. I took her advice and I've been remarkably even-tempered ever since.

On the rare occasion that something riles me enough to make me angry, other people are taken by surprise. They're so used to me having a cool and measured approach to whatever situation I'm confronted with that they wonder what on earth's going on.

Of course some people say that anger is one of our basic emotions, the emotion that brings us to life, and that never being angry is a bit abnormal. On the contrary, I think anger is as negative as guilt or jealousy or bitterness. Someone who is regularly angry just makes other people wary and defensive.

Anger is very fashionable at the moment. Look at a newspaper or go online and there are any number of people getting furiously angry about something or other. Where they get the energy from I can't imagine.

I also resist anger because it so often leads to violence, especially misogynistic violence. Once you allow anger to flow freely, it easily morphs into something much more dangerous. Keep a lid on it, I say.

PS: Several blogmates have suggested I'm bottling up my emotions and that expressing anger is a normal human trait that I'm lacking. Well, expressing anger may be the psychological norm but norms don't apply to everyone and to my mind it's also normal to be an un-angry outlier. I've never felt that I'm bottling up my emotions, I just hardly ever feel angry.

Coin stuffing

Tourists don't always respect the place they're visiting and many of them commit what can only be called acts of vandalism. The Giants Causeway on the north coast of Northern Ireland has been one of the victims.

Visitors are jamming tiny coins into the gaps between the stones, and these coins are discolouring the stones as iron, nickel and copper leach out of them. There's a copycat element as people see others shoving coins between the stones and do the same themselves.

It's hard to see what the motive is for this "coin stuffing". They'll never see the coins again and probably will have forgotten all about them a week later. Tour guides warn visitors not to leave coins, but the problem persists.

Unfortunately tourist vandalism is very common. Graffiti, love locks, stealing cobblestones, carving names on ancient monuments. There's a general lack of respect for the places they're visiting and too much mindless self-indulgence.

It would be a shame if popular tourist sites are routinely closed to the public because vandalism has got out of hand. A spectacular canyon in Iceland, featured in Game of Thrones, is now closed to visitors after a huge influx of tourists has damaged vegetation and trails. Iceland as a whole is now so fashionable it's buckling under the same tourist deluge as many other places.

Where will it all end?

Pic: the Giants Causeway

Giving up

Since Jenny and I gave up alcohol several months ago we're surprised how little we even think about alcohol. We never have any hankering for a glass of wine, and we can easily ignore the alcohol sections at the supermarkets. We just don't miss it.

It's strange that we've abandoned alcohol so easily, since we'd been drinking regularly from before we first met. We'd been cutting back a bit from our earlier days together when we'd consume a bottle of wine or more in an evening. But it never occurred to us to stop drinking, especially when all our friends drank.

Then one day in the spring we both realised that alcohol just wasn't doing anything for us any more, so why were we still guzzling it? Why not give it up? So we did. We were expecting it to be a bit of a struggle but we were amazed at how effortless it was.

It's saving us a lot of money of course, which is an added bonus. It was expensive enough just for the two of us, but if you're buying a round in the pub the cost is crazy.

Nobody has suggested that we're missing out by giving up alcohol, that we're party-poopers or strait-laced puritans. I suppose it helps that a lot of young people have gone teetotal, either for the health benefits or to save money or because they don't like being drunk. So rejecting alcohol has become somewhat fashionable.

Cheers!

Downsizing

Every so often someone suggests giving people in so-called over-large houses some sort of incentive to downsize to a smaller property.

It happened again yesterday on the TV programme Question Time, when someone debating the possibility of reducing the state pension proposed that if more people downsized they could manage on a smaller pension.

He suggested that people in very spacious houses like our own could be given an incentive to move to somewhere smaller - presumably some sort of financial grant.

Well, I enjoy living in a large house and I don't see why people like us should be singled out for our preference, especially when there are thousands of empty houses around the country that could be targeted instead. And how could you ensure that an "over-large" house went to a family and not another space-loving couple like us?

In any case, even a sizeable financial grant wouldn't make up for all the upheaval and hard work and stress of moving house.

We space-lovers are being turned into scapegoats for the continuing shortage of new homes. We're supposed to feel guilty for not "making do" with a much smaller house.

And if family-size houses are so badly needed, how come so many tiny apartments are being built?

Doggie devotion

It's still true that many people find their pets more soothing and reassuring than other people - maybe even their partners. A survey of 31,299 pet owners reveals 58 per cent of people find cats and dogs more comforting than people at stressful times, outranking spouses, friends and kids.

If you're going through some sort of crisis, the average dog won't give you a load of unasked-for advice, won't pretend to be sympathetic when they're not, won't tell you it's not as bad as you think, and won't tell you everything's going to be fine and just hang on in there.

The average dog will simply give you lots of love and affection until you're no longer at sixes and sevens and have sorted things out.

Of course there's a downside to such reliable devotion. A dog might wake you at 4 am demanding food. Or might empty your dinner plate when you're not looking. Or it might jump all over your visitors. And it won't do the washing-up.

Well, that's what I'm told at any rate. We don't actually have a dog so we can't tell you if all that's true or not. But I can certainly testify to a dog's unwavering love and affection, having experienced it many times when dogs are about. In fact a dog will give me enthusiastic affection even if we've never met before. 

A dog may not speak but it has many other virtues.

Now it's our turn

Over-tourism has come to Belfast. It took a while because (for obvious reasons) Belfast wasn't a popular tourist destination till a few years ago.

I was in the city centre last weekend and I noticed it was a lot more crowded than it used to be - too crowded. Many of those wandering around were clearly tourists and there were plenty of tourist coaches and sightseeing buses.

Belfast city centre isn't that big, unlike other cities. It soon fills up with people. Suddenly I'm having to negotiate large numbers of people rather than just walking along the street.

And it's only May, when you would expect the city centre still to be quite quiet. At this rate the peak tourist period of July and August is going to be even more crowded. How many more visitors can we comfortably accommodate?

This year we're due to receive 150 cruise ships, and a brand new cruise ship terminal is being built.

Naturally the tourist authority and the NI government want to see as many tourists as possible because it's good for the economy, and they don't really care if the city is being over-run.

But at least it's good to know that the outdated media image of Belfast (paramiltaries, bombs, guns etc) is no longer putting people off because they know Belfast has become a normal, thriving city with its trendy restaurants and coffee shops. Life moves on.

Pic: a walking tour outside (an unusually quiet) Belfast City Hall

A careless child

The recent slight damage to a £42 million Rothko painting in a Rotterdam museum by a careless child has once again led to debate about whether children should be allowed in art galleries.

Well, of course they should. It's always possible that an impulsive child will touch a painting or sculpture without thinking, and it's always possible that the art work will be immensely valuable and need careful restoration.

But that very remote possibility is insignificant compared to the mental and emotional benefits that children get by experiencing art, especially from an artistic genre they're unfamiliar with - like abstract art or surrealism or cubism.

Galleries themselves usually give children a warm welcome and are happy to let them appreciate famous and valuable art works. They're very forgiving on the odd occasion that a child accidentally damages something.

Like the four-year-old boy who last year smashed a priceless 3,500 year old vase to pieces at a gallery in Israel. Far from being outraged, the Hecht Museum invited the child back to the museum with his family for an organised tour. And there was no question of the family being asked to pay anything towards repairing the vase.

In my experience gallery attendants are very quick to stop anyone (both children and adults) from getting too near the exhibits, so the chance of something getting damaged is pretty remote.

Pic: Gray, Orange on Maroon by Mark Rothko

No aversion

Hannah suggests I have an aversion to children.

Not so. I have nothing against children, and in general I'm very tolerant of them. After all, I was a child myself once upon a time. But I have an aversion to children who behave badly, just as I have an aversion to oldies who behave badly. If a child is being rude or demanding endless attention or throwing things, of course I don't like it and I'll want them to be better behaved.

There are four children in the house next door and I have no problem with them. They're very well-behaved and mostly don't bother us in any way. The only minor annoyance is from the oldest son, who regularly kicks footballs into our garden. We chuck them back and that's that.

Grown adults can be much more tiresome, making tedious complaints about parking or dog mess or litter or bin emptying. You can't say, oh they're just having fun, you know what children are like, because they aren't children. They're meant to be intelligent and interesting, not a lot of dreary whingers and moaners.

Children come up with all sorts of intriguing ideas and observations. They're full of life and bubbly curiosity. Why would I have an aversion to them?

Fastidious, moi?

It's often said that oldies are more fastidious than the young, constantly complaining about this, that and the other thing.

I don't think that's true at all. Children are just as fastidious as the old, they simply fuss about different things.

They want a certain brand of trainers, or there's half a dozen foods they refuse to eat, or they hate certain colours, or their hair has got to be just so. Children can be so fussy over so many things that their parents despair.

In fact I have the impression kids are getting more fastidious by the day. They seem even more demanding and even keener to keep up with what their friends are doing and wearing and enthusing about. Or is that a mistaken impression?

Certainly when I was a kid I don't remember being especially demanding about anything at all. Most of the time I just did what my parents expected me to do. I ate what was put in front of me and I wore what my mother bought for me and I was polite and adaptable. My docility seems a bit pathetic by today's standards but I didn't find it abnormal at the time.

My personal fastidiousness is mainly centred on cleanliness and tidiness. I couldn't stand a house that was filthy dirty or full of clutter. Luckily Jenny is the same. A girlfriend and I once shared a flat with people who seemed oblivious to the increasing grubbiness and disorder and did nothing about it. After several exasperating weeks, we moved out.

Of course nobody likes to be described as fastidious. No, no, we just have our standards and we stick to them.

So much for reason

When I was young I believed people were basically rational and the world was run on a rational basis.

As I got older I realised this wasn't so. A lot of the time reason didn't come into it at all and all sorts of irrational considerations came into play.

I optimistically thought poverty could be ended easily if governments took more money from the wealthy and gave it to the poor.

Eventually it dawned on me that it wasn't so simple. Politicians were reluctant to tax the wealthy (especially if they were wealthy themselves). Some thought the poor should find their own way out of poverty and shouldn't need government help. Others thought the supposed poor weren't really poor at all and had hidden sources of income. And so on.

Likewise building more homes or increasing people's salaries or dealing with greedy landlords. What seems like the obvious solution is stymied by irrational objections that prevent any real progress.

Nowadays I tend to be a bit cynical about any grand plans announced by politicians. Instantly I envisage a flood of half-baked protests likely to stall those grand plans for years on end.

And meanwhile, despite endless pledges to abolish poverty for good, it gets worse. And worse.

A search to remember

Jenny and I have had a few occasions when we couldn't quite remember where we had parked the car, but we've always found it after a few minutes of wandering around looking for it. The initial panic quickly gives way to relief.

But imagine what it's like for someone who has absolutely no idea where he/she parked the car and spends the next three weeks (yes, three weeks) searching for it, getting more and more frustrated and bewildered.

Kieran (last name not known) had been to a stag party in Cork and couldn't find his wine-coloured Skoda Superb. He hadn't noted the road it was parked in so he had little to go on.

All he knew was that he had parked on an estate. So he methodically visited 59 different estates in the Cork suburbs - but to no avail.

Then he offered a €200 (£171) reward to anyone who could locate his car. And finally, he was in luck. A woman had seen the car on her estate in Ballyphehane.

That's certainly a stag party he won't forget in a hurry. "But sure I met the best people and had great craic" he said. And even greater craic after the party!

If Jenny and I park in some unfamiliar location, we always note the road it's in, and maybe some landmark the locals could identify and direct us to.

It was a routine problem in London, where parking spaces are scarce and often we had to park well away from the venue we were attending. Luckily we always found our car afterwards. So not much craic to be found there.

Pic: not Kieran!

Skirts only

You would think that by the year 2025 schoolgirls would be allowed to wear trousers instead of skirts, but there are still quite a few schools that insist on skirts, including the three schools near our house.

Now two Northern Irish students are pushing for a change in uniform rules.

Astrid Knox and Rhea Flood from Enniskillen have launched a campaign calling for girls to be allowed to wear trousers at school.

"You can learn the same in trousers as in skirts" said Rhea.

I don't understand why schools still insist on girls wearing skirts, and not giving them the choice of skirts or trousers. Trousers are obviously more sensible and easier to move around in.

Skirts are sometimes justified on the basis that they're "traditional". Well, bikinis and high heels are traditional, but we don't expect to see them on schoolgirls.

There was no uniform to speak of at my two schools. A shirt, jacket and trousers were all I needed, though my prep school required the official school blazer with its blue and white stripes. It still does (and I noticed in passing that the girls are wearing skirts).

If schools insist on having a uniform (and there are arguments for and against) they might at least require one that's comfortable and practical.

NB: The photo is from an advert, so I assume she was happy for her photo to be circulated.

A spot of ginger

There is still a lot of prejudice against people with ginger hair. There doesn't seem to be any particular reason, simply blind prejudice.

Mainly it just involves teasing and poking fun, but sometimes it can get violent. Some years ago a 14-year-old boy in Lincoln had his right arm broken and his head stamped on by three men who attacked him "just because he had red hair". The three men were later jailed for a combined total of ten years and one month for the attack.

What is it about someone's hair colour that causes such negative reactions? It's not as if ginger-haired people turn out to be murderers or rapists. They just happen to have ginger hair.

There are odd beliefs about red heads. That they have fiery tempers and sharp tongues. That they're highly sexed. That they're Jewish.

In the Middle Ages red heads were thought to be vampires and witches, and it was believed that burning them and scattering the ashes would produce a good harvest.

But there have also been periods when ginger hair was prized. Queen Elizabeth the First was a red head and the hair colour became very fashionable during her reign. How come the fashion didn't last?

Personally I love ginger hair. It makes such a vivid impression compared with blonde and dark hair. Which makes me wonder if the prejudice is based on jealousy. Maybe the bullies would secretly like to have such dramatic hair.

(Thanks to Wikipedia)

So much clutter

Apparently despite all those TV programmes and media articles about decluttering, if anything the problem's getting worse.

Studies show that a third of the possessions in a typical UK home aren't used. Not only that but many people have forgotten they owned the items in the first place.

Garages are used more and more not for housing cars but storing all those items we can't fit into the house.

Jenny and I are pretty ruthless about getting rid of unwanted items, but even so there are still a few surplus items that could swiftly be disposed of. But it's easy to find bogus reasons for hanging onto things.

When I met Jenny I was living in a tiny bedsit, and I simply couldn't buy very much because there was absolutely no storage space. As we moved up the property ladder to bigger flats and then bigger houses, of course we acquired lots of bits and pieces to fill the extra room. So if we got rid of too much there would just be a lot of strange empty spaces.

Our biggest possession is books. We must have at least a thousand but we chuck our very few because we fully intend to re-read most of them. In reality most of them don't get re-read, they just sit there gathering dust or sometimes they're so old they simply fall to pieces.

Some of you will recall that my mother was a chronic hoarder. Luckily I haven't inherited that particular trait.

Hard to say

Social anxiety is a bit of a bugger, isn't it?

There I am at another routine social event, confronted by some total stranger, wondering what the hell to say to her or him. And my mind goes completely blank.

I search my mind for suitable topics. The strange turn in the weather? The political crisis? The price of olive oil? Electric cars?

For some reason no subject seems suitable.

They'll think I'm weird if I talk about something obscure.

But they'll also think I'm weird if I say nothing at all.

I'd love to be one of those natural chatterboxes who can not only effortlessly start a conversation but keep it going for a good half hour.

How do they do it?

My tongue-tied stance comes from my family. Almost every one of them is and was fiercely taciturn. Speaking is only permitted if there's something very important or urgent to say. Otherwise lips are sealed.

So I'm just very out of practice at this chattering lark.

I need one of those ear-phones TV presenters wear, so someone can feed me suitable comments and questions.

Or maybe I just need a badge that says "Ask me an awkward question".

How on earth....

One thing that's mystified me for many many years is how someone is able to kill another person - or even thousands of people - without any regret or remorse or guilt or shame or any of the normal emotions that would prevent most of us from doing something so appalling.

They might even brag about what they're doing as if it's something to be proud of - like Nicholas Prosper, who wanted to commit the biggest school massacre ever (and luckily was stopped in his tracks).

They just don't see their victims as human beings but as worthless objects to be "dealt with" in the name of some sort of personal grudge or grievance or festering hostility. Something has obviously gone horribly wrong in their upbringing.

I couldn't possibly injure another person, let alone kill them. I couldn't possibly do something with such horrendous consequences both for me and for the other person - no to mention for their family and friends. How could I possibly justify my action? Likewise I couldn't bring myself to commit suicide.

As for those individuals who're happy to start wars and kill thousands or even millions of people - I can't imagine how they manage to sleep at night, how they're able to continue with their duties as if nothing unusual is happening.

It just stupefies me. The mental state of someone who can do such things is so far removed from my own mental state that the gap is unbridgeable. I can't even begin to understand what's going through their mind. Can anyone?

One thing it makes very clear - you can never know what's going on in someone else's head. Maybe something wonderful. Or maybe something utterly hideous.