Under the influence

People are fond of saying "you must put the past behind you", but it's not as easy as you think. You can push away the past as much as you like, but it has a nasty habit of coming back to bite you.

I have a natural tendency to forget about experiences that were unpleasant, or at least to remember the experience but forget the negative emotions that went with it. If someone suggests I might have been very upset, I reflect for a second or two and think maybe I was. Maybe.

All those feelings of embarrassment or rage or shame or betrayal that stick in other people's minds evaporate from my own mind very quickly, as if they never occurred in the first place. It's a sort of mental de-cluttering mechanism that clears away stuff that's no use to me.

But whatever I remember or don't remember, those experiences are still a part of me and still affect me in all sorts of ways. For example, things people have said and done to undermine my confidence, perhaps way back in my childhood, can still dent my confidence even now.

However much I talk myself up and tell myself I'm an intelligent, experienced person who should be effortlessly confident in most situations, still there's this undercurrent of past experience that can lead to nagging self-doubt.

Saying you must put the past behind you is a bit like saying you must forget your gender. It's so embedded in your mind that it continues to have repercussions whether you like it or not.

The best thing you can do is stop the past being too much of a nuisance, like an over-energetic dog that keeps leaping all over you. If you can get it to lie quietly in a corner, not bothering you, you're doing well.

Risk assessment

My attitude to risk is very contradictory. Some highly risky things don't bother me at all. Others bother me a lot, probably more than they ought to.

I have no qualms about flying, even right across the world. I know there's always a risk of crashes, of fires, of hijacks. But statistically it's the safest form of travel and I have every confidence my next flight will be disaster-free.

I'm okay with driving too. I know that's a very dangerous form of travel, and that serious, possibly fatal, accidents occur all the time. But I'm confident that as long as I'm always alert and attentive, catastrophe is unlikely.

On the other hand, I'm very nervous about hospitals and operations. I'm aware that most operations are routine and successful, but I'm rather too aware of the small percentage that go horribly wrong and leave you in a worse state than before - or even dead. I mean, just suppose I'm one of that small percentage?

I'm also wary of financial risk. I keep my money in the bank and that's it. I'm suspicious of investments and fancy money-making schemes that may go suddenly pear-shaped, swallow up all my money and leave me penniless.

I can be very timid about making big changes in my life, be it a new job, a new home, even a new political allegiance. It might seem like a positive move, it might enhance my life, but what are the unforeseen consequences? Could I be making a reckless mistake, one I live to regret?

Oddly enough though, I was quite sure that moving from London to Belfast was the right thing to do, even though I had no job to go to, I had no relatives living there, and the peace process was only in its early stages. I somehow had confidence it would all work out, and it did.

Why am I quite nonchalant about some risks and over-anxious about others? Why am I so inconsistent? The vagaries of the human mind are a constant puzzle.

Pretentious, moi?

Am I pretent-ious? Do I try to impress people with all sorts of phoney tricks and gambits? Do I think the real me is too dull and too ordinary to interest people?

Sometimes I decide, yes, I'm totally pretentious, I'm trying to wow everyone with my superior education or my clever arguments or my worldliness or my political right-on-ness. I want them to think I'm a bit special, a bit remarkable, someone they'll remember when they've forgotten a hundred other people.

Then I think, no, that's utter crap, I'm not the slightest bit pretentious, I know my education was mediocre and most of my clever arguments are bullshit and I'm about as worldly as a dormouse and politically right-on as the weather forecast.

I know perfectly well I'm probably as dull and ordinary as the next person and there's no point in pretending otherwise. I might think I'm special but that's just my inflated opinion of all the personal clichés and platitudes that I fondle and caress in the privacy of my own ego.

At the end of the day, pretending to be more sophisticated than I am isn't going to fool anyone. People aren't that stupid, they can tell the difference between meaningless bollocks and emotional and psychological truth. They want to see the real me, however dull and ordinary and messy, they don't want some showy performance.

So no, I don't think I'm pretentious, but I may just want to think that, I may just want to convince myself I'm a regular guy with no airs and graces. Other people may be laughing like drains, ready to point out all my pompous pronouncements and vacuous statements and puncture my balloon of self-satisfaction.

Please do. Honest opinions are always welcome. You're not likely to dent my ego, which is about the size of a garden pea and has probably already slipped down the back of the sofa. Go on, tell me the truth. Pretentious, moi?

Flight into oblivion

I'm fascinated by the disapp-earance of Malaysian Airlines flight MH370. Five days on, not a single trace of the plane has been found, despite a massive search operation. What the hell happened to it?

Theories proliferate by the hour. Was it a terrorist attack? Did the pilot commit suicide? Did a structural fault cause the plane to decompress and break up? Was the co-pilot distracted by female passengers he invited into the cockpit? Was the plane sabotaged? Was it hijacked? Did one of the pilots have a mental breakdown? Was there a total electrical failure? Right now it's anyone's guess.

And I think of the 239 passengers and crew, assuming they were on a routine flight to Beijing, maybe looking forward to a holiday, or visiting families, or just getting back home. Relaxing, joking, watching movies, snoozing. Then all of a sudden, apparently with no warning whatever, thrown into oblivion.

Distraught relatives and friends clustered at the two airports, waiting frantically for news, hoping for a miracle but facing up to the grim reality. Wishing their loved ones had been on any flight except that one. Their lives abruptly shattered, all their expectations for the future thrown into disarray.

So what the hell went wrong? As one aviation expert said, "It's pretty baffling. Whatever happened on that flight deck, the pilots did not do what pilots do. They aviate, they navigate and they communicate. If something happens at altitude, the first thing they want to do is squawk emergency."

And the search for the remains of flight MH370 continues.

Pic: the long, long wait for news

Callous neglect

A new survey says the average British household owns 138 books, but less than half of them have been read. The others are poor lonely things that have been callously neglected.

Our own bookshelves have a lot more than 138 books - more like a thousand, I would say. But the unread portion is probably about right - something like half. So why are they unread, I hear you asking?

1) We know they're excellent books and we fully intend to read them when the time is ripe. When we're both retired maybe.
2) We read a few pages of the book, couldn't really get into it, but kept it in case we were more attuned at some later date.
3) We didn't know we even had the book. We must have bought it some time. Or maybe somebody gave it to us. We must read it.

One journalist* suggested "It would be a slightly scary household where every single book had been read." Indeed it would. It would suggest powers of concentration, determination and enthusiasm bordering on the miraculous.

It would be almost as scary if none of the books had been read, and the whole collection was merely an attempt to impress any well-read visitors. It would be awkward though if the visitor suddenly asked you what you thought of Jonathan Franzen's views on family dynamics.

The same journalist guessed that the volumes in the lavatory were most likely to be read, though probably not if you were busy vomiting at the time.

But there's something very cosy and reassuring about bookshelves, whether the books are read or unread. The mere fact that many of the books were written decades or even centuries ago gives a sense of continuity and permanence that soothes all those hovering anxieties.

That is, until one of your oldest paperbacks simply disintegrates as you're lovingly dusting it, and turns into a useless heap of confetti.

* Ben Milne of the BBC

Muck averse

I'm not good with muck. Filth. Unpleasant substances in general. I don't want to get anywhere near them if I can help it.

I'm too fastidious. A typical white-collar worker, bourgeois neat-freak, afraid of disturbing the pristine features of my sanitised existence.

The thought of working on a farm, say, sloshing through mud and manure and bog every day, fills me with horror. Likewise working on a hospital ward, mopping up all the messy excretions of the human body. Or cleaning out sewers or dealing with oil spills.

Mucky domestic chores are okay. That's muck on a manageable scale, something I can handle without too much cringing. But serious, everywhere-you-look levels of muck - I avoid it at all costs.

Friends and loved ones are exempt of course. Whether it's hangover vomit or the effects of serious illness, dealing with mess goes without saying, be it psychological, emotional or physical.

Country dwellers must laugh at dainty townies like myself, as they routinely splatter themselves with muck and slime and think nothing of it. The sight of besuited government ministers delicately wading through the floods in their brand-new wellies must have amused them greatly.

At boarding school I played rugby and by the end of a game I was often plastered with mud from head to toe. Which wasn't too bad as I looked forward to a hot shower and leaving all my filthy clothes with the laundry service (no, we didn't even wash our own clothes - spoilt brats or what?). But if I could find a good excuse not to play, I jumped at it.

So - no muck please, I'm far too squeamish.

Shocked

When I was younger, I used to say that nothing shocked me any more, that I'd seen and read so many horrifying things that nothing had the same impact as it used to.

But somewhere along the line something changed and now I find that an increasing number of things shock me profoundly. I don't know if it's because people's behaviour is genuinely becoming more extreme and outrageous, or because I've become more sensitive, or because I recoil from the sheer brutality and heartlessness of what's going on. But whatever it is, these are just some of the things that shock me:

1) Abusive social media campaigns. Like the one directed at Northern Ireland MLA* Anna Lo recently, thick with racism and sexism.

2) Extreme drunkenness in public, often requiring emergency hospital treatment and sometimes fatal.

3) Systematic bullying in workplaces, causing widespread stress and sickness.

4) Routine lying by politicians, leading to general disillusion with politics.

5) Withdrawal of welfare benefits to the poor and disabled, causing severe distress and hardship.

6) Mass shootings at schools, traumatising pupils and their families for years afterwards.

7) Female genital mutilation, on a huge scale in numerous countries.

8) Wholesale rape by soldiers as a military tactic and a display of power.

I'm getting used to being shocked. But I'm not getting used to the things I'm shocked by. And there seem to be more and more of them.

*MLA: Member of the Legislative Assembly. Our equivalent of an MP

Pink peeve

Mr Pinkie (for it is he) is a little exasp-erated that he's seen as some sort of spokesbear for pink bears in general.*

"All pink bears are different. I'm not speaking for anyone but myself" he says. "Just because I'm a celebrity hairdresser doesn't mean every pink bear wants to fiddle with people's hair. Other pink bears may find the whole idea repulsive. Some pink bears may prefer to do nothing more than sprawl on the sofa all day munching sweet-potato brownies.

"But every goddam journalist asks me these dumb-ass questions like, So what do pink bears think about cycling helmets? What do pink bears think about vitamin supplements? I mean, how the hell do I know what other pink bears think? Am I supposed to be some kind of mind-reader? Is there supposed to be some mysterious essence of pink bear I'm somehow secreting about my person? What total arseholes they are.

"I'm Mr Pinkie and that's my sole area of expertise,okay? Just do me a favour and stop seeing me as the Voice of Pinkness.

"Now if you'll excuse me, I'm way behind with Julie's highlights. And if you want a haircut, you'll have to wait six months like everyone else. I don't care how many banknotes you wave at me, I shall ignore them. Just get out of my hair."

* or even for soft, pink, fluffiness

More about Mr Pinkie here

Duty free

I have trouble with the idea of duty. To me it implies something compulsory, something I'm expected to do whether I like it or not because that's the custom. Whether I want to do it, whether I'll enjoy doing it, is irrelevant.

I'm sorry but I just refuse to do something I haven't freely chosen, simply because other people expect it of me. They can talk about "duty" as much as they like, but I prefer to decide for myself what's the right thing to do.

People talk about the "duty" to look after your elderly parents, fight for your country, report road accidents, pay taxes, give evidence in court, serve on a jury, or vote in elections. But is it always right to do these things? No, of course not. In many instances there are very good reasons for not doing them, and self-respect and the public interest demand that you refuse.

Should I look after my elderly parents if they never loved me, always behaved badly to me and were glad to see me gone? Should I fight for my country if I believe the war is pointless, brutal and unwinnable? Should I give evidence in court at the risk of facing hostile lawyers and reliving an emotional trauma?

The decision should be up to the person concerned. They shouldn't feel pushed into something they have deep reservations about. They shouldn't be doing it just to look good or to avoid public disapproval. They should be doing it because they genuinely believe it's the correct thing to do.

I've done jury service twice, but not because it was seen as my duty. I did it because I believe people should be tried by their peers, by people like them, and not by someone remote from their own lives. I did it because I wanted to see if the jury process was as fair and objective as it's made out to be (and the answer was yes). I felt I had done it for the right reasons and not the wrong ones.

Forget duty. How about passion and commitment?

"What destroys a man more quickly than to work, think and feel without inner necessity, without any deep personal desire, without pleasure - as a mere automaton of duty?" - Friedrich Nietzsche.

Pic: Witness Nicole Alvarez at the trial of Michael Jackson's physician.

Forever hurt

One of the saddest things is people who've been hurt so much in their life that feeling hurt becomes the default emotion, the one you sense constantly if you're with them for any length of time.

They've got into the habit of feeling hurt,and have lost the ability to be happy. They see everyone around them as potentially hurting them and are permanently on the defensive.

I remember one woman I worked with - let's call her Beth - who looked forever beaten-down and subdued, hurt leaking out of her like sweat, always waiting for the next wounding remark, always complaining about the way people treated her.

I never discovered why she felt so hurt, who had done what to her to fatally undermine her resilience and self-esteem. But the emotional damage, the crushed psyche, was plain to see.

It was hard to befriend her because she was so suspicious of people's intentions, so sure that sooner or later she would be treated badly yet again. All I could do was handle her as gently as possible and not do anything to confirm her suspicions.

I can recall several women who carried this strong sense of hurt, but I can't recall any such men. I'm sure there are men who have been hurt just as much but are conditioned to hide the hurt and not show any sign of it. They may be in acute emotional pain but they put on a sanguine demeanour that gives nothing away.

I'm sure my father was full of hurt, but he would never admit it. He thought it was okay to be angry, or jealous, or possessive - healthy masculine emotions - but hurt was strictly taboo. A feminine thing, something for cissies, something humiliating. He bottled it all up and thought we couldn't see it.

He went to his grave still hurting. Because he was too ashamed to tell us.

Cupid's arrow

Holy haddock! Jenny and I have been together for nearly 33 years. How did that happen? How come we're still so besotted, so enamoured, so captivated? How come we never derailed, how come the train never left the tracks and plunged down a cliff? How come Cupid's still cheering us on?

It's extraordinary really. Jenny's never left me for another man (or woman). I've never left her for another woman (or man). We haven't got bored with each other. We haven't had the mother and father of all blazing rows and split up the next morning. We haven't disappointed each other (much). We haven't decided the other is a waste of space. Neither of us have drunk ourselves to death or gone nuts or taken an overdose. We're still the best of pals, giggling behind the bike shed.

How come the usual pitfalls that other couples succumb to seem to have passed us by? What's the magic ingredient? What's our special formula for continued romantic bliss? Er, dunno really, I'll get back to you on that. I just have to consult my astrologer, my therapist, my relationship adviser and my feng-shui analyst. And then I'll feed all the results into my super-powered, algorhythmic, multi-permutational software app and get the definitive route map. Or possibly the perfect recipe for kidney bean chili if something screws up.

But wow, we've been round the block a few times. We've weathered so many crises together. Using the wrong toothbrush. Leaving the toilet seat up (or down). Running out of knickers. Finding a giant spider in the bath. Not finding the giant spider and hoping it's not hiding under the duvet. Wondering if that strange noise is a deranged burglar with a freshly-sharpened machete or a creaking floorboard. Telling the Jehovah's Witness we're both Druids. Somehow we've dealt with them all and lived to tell the tale.

So miraculously, incredibly, thrillingly, we're still together after all these years. How many more, I wonder?

Happy Valentine's Day to all my lovely blog buddies.

Hidden lives

We all know about Too Much Infor-mation. But what about Too Little Infor-mation? What about all those everyday things we'd love to ask people about but it's impossible to do so?

I'll see a woman in the street and I'll think, Does she have a boyfriend or a husband? Are they happy together? Are they unhappy? What do they love about each other? What do they dislike? Is she well-off? Is she broke? What's her favourite activity? What does she totally hate doing? What are her obsessions? What are her phobias?

I shall never know because I can't ask. She's a closed book, an enigma, just another person on the street I'll probably never even see again. The perpetual pang of unrequited curiosity.

Sometimes I feel other people are asking similar questions about me. They stare at me quizzically, appraisingly, as if there's something they're dying to know. I wonder what's going through their mind. But just as I can't question them, they can't question me.

Even when I'm alone with someone, they seldom tell me very much about themselves. Either they prefer to keep things private or they don't think I'm trustworthy or sympathetic enough. Unlike some people, who find that everywhere they go, they attract astonishingly intimate and heartfelt confessions. So much so, they start to think it might be less of a burden if they looked a bit more off-putting.

As it is, most of my information about other people comes from the media. I eagerly devour the agony columns, the gossipy interviews, the heartbreaking stories about refugees, flood victims, premature deaths. It's odd that I know more about all these complete strangers than I do about the next-door neighbour or the greengrocer. Or the sad, defeated-looking woman who just got off the bus.

PS: There's another explanation for people not confiding in me. They think I look over-sensitive and possibly easily upset by whatever harrowing story they might tell me. So they keep quiet.

A yen for risk

I'm fascinated by the way people crave risk as much as they crave safety. Human nature demands this strange contra-diction.

On the one hand we want safety. We want a home, a job, friends and family, things that make us feel protected and secure, things that ward off the horrors and uncertainties of the outside world.

But at the same time we don't want to feel too staid and set in our ways, we want a bit of excitement in our lives, so we also want risk. We drink too much, eat too much, drive recklessly and take dangerous drugs, busily compromising the very same safety and security we're striving for the rest of the time.

Some people go farther. The reliable bank clerk and home-owner who also has a yen for rock climbing, sky diving, bungee jumping or surfing. Or even a fervent desire to work in war-torn countries where they face death every day. They can only take so much safety and security before they crave the exact opposite, something that is physically threatening but gets the adrenaline going like nothing else.

Personally I have a strong yearning for safety, and I steer away from risk. I'm a timid soul who seldom does anything riskier than exceeding the speed limit or standing on a cliff-edge.

If I feel any sense of risk in my life, it's only the vicarious danger oozing from the media, with its screaming headlines about cancer epidemics, plane crashes, multiple pile-ups and mass shootings.

I guess that's one reason we're all such avid news-consumers. It gives us that exhilarating whiff of looming peril that livens up our usually predictable existence. It persuades us we're taking constant risks when in fact we've never been safer.

But I think I'll pass on the bungee-jumping for now, if that's all right with you.

True or false?

So - time for some fun. How well do you think you know Nick? Here are twenty statements about me. Which are true and which are false? If you want to make it easier, just name three things you think are correct. I'll give you the answers in due course....

And the answer is: I've been very mischievous. Every statement is false. There's not a shred of truth in any of them. As for number one, it didn't happen to me but it happened to my father. There were a lot of very sensible guesses though!

1) I was born with two thumbs on my left hand, and one of them was surgically removed.
2) I'm allergic to avocados.
3) I once shared a taxi with John Lennon.
4) I often dream of burning buildings.
5) I blush frequently.
6) I have a heart-shaped birthmark on my left thigh.
7) I'm prone to fainting.
8) I used to have a terrible stammer.
9) I swear profusely when I'm drunk.
10) I used to be anorexic.
11) I'm afraid of flying.
12) For my 40th birthday party, I wore a blue minidress, black tights and blue 3 inch heels.
13) I detest broccoli.
14) I once lost two stone in a month.
15) I've never had any pubic hair.
16) I used to sleepwalk.
17) I first had sex in a London tube train.
18) I once hiccupped non-stop for three hours.
19) I've read "Crime and Punishment" eleven times.
20) I bruise easily.

Pot shots

One of life's little mysteries is the way people condemn things out of hand. Things they don't understand and don't want to understand.

How can you decide that something is sinful or immoral or damaging purely on the basis of some knee-jerk reaction, some blind instinct totally detached from the facts?

People who slam a play without seeing it, or a book without reading it. People who condemn immigrants or refugees with no comprehension of the circumstances they find themselves in. People who sneer at alternative remedies or veganism or psychotherapy without knowing the first thing about them. People who knock teachers when they haven't set foot in a school in 40 years.

On the basis of a few tabloid headlines, or neighbourhood gossip, or a dinner-party anecdote, they casually let rip at anyone or anything they fancy, oblivious to the distress and alarm they might be causing to those on the receiving end. It never occurs to them that they might be totally misinformed, prejudiced, wrong-headed.

Personally I try not to condemn anything I know very well I'm ignorant about. If I'm not sure of the facts, I prefer to keep my mouth shut until such time as I am. I'm not going to pontificate simply to impress an audience.

If I don't understand something, I'll confess to being puzzled, or being uncertain, or being undecided, rather than feign knowledge I don't have. I'll try to find out a bit more about the subject and road-test whatever half-baked preconceptions and stereotypes are floating round my head.

But I think a lot of people actually feel embarrassed or uncomfortable at the idea that they're ignorant about something. Instead of admitting their ignorance, they parrot the latest fashionable opinion and hope nobody examines it too closely. All I can say is, I'd rather stay silent than talk out of my arse.

Ow, that hurts

I'm quite susceptible to little hurts. A dozen times a day I feel hurt that I've been rejected, or ignored, or slighted, or not appreciated, or not understood, or treated brusquely.

But they're only little hurts, a bit like nettle stings or pinpricks. They only last a minute or two and then they're forgotten. I'm too resilient to dwell on them for long. I don't magnify every little hurt into a tearful melodrama. I shrug them off as a trivial part of daily life, just a sign of the rough and tumble of a hectic world.

The big hurts are a different story. The sort of hurt when a long-time friend suddenly snubs me, or my professional competence is doubted, or someone questions my sincerity or integrity. That goes deeper, like a thorn in my flesh. It pierces through the usual resilience and lodges somewhere, constantly resurfacing in bursts of bewildered pain.

That's the sort of hurt that can't just be shrugged off, though I'm still able to see it philosophically as an unfortunate but inevitable part of being human. I'm not the type of person who deals with serious hurt by getting bitter and vengeful, trying to cause as much hurt as was done to me.

I know some people would say that's a cop-out, that I'm bottling up my feelings and it's far healthier to ease the hurt by flinging it back where it came from. But that's not the way I see it. I want to drain the hurt, not add to it. So I keep it to myself and let it run its natural course.

Then again there's the biggest hurt of all, which is grief. Luckily up till now I've never experienced major, all-consuming grief, and I hope I never have to. I can only imagine how I might cope with it. Very well? Very badly? Probably the latter. Such excruciating hurt would knock me for six.

A lick of paint

Why so much make-up? Why the unquest-ioned norm that a woman needs to be plastered with the stuff in order to look good? Why the constant assumption that a woman's natural face is so ugly, unsightly, off-putting that it needs a thick coating of expensive pastes and powders to be presentable?

A strategic dab of make-up here and there can be beneficial. A smear of lipstick. A smudge of mascara. But piling it on with a trowel until it becomes a kind of obliterating mask - what's the point?

When I see photos of celebs, they're always thick with make-up. To see them au naturelle would apparently be unthinkable, shocking, repulsive. Who would want to contemplate such a dreadful sight?

Yet to my mind, on the odd occasion when they're seen without their cosmetic veneer, they usually look much more real, much more interesting. Lady Gaga, for instance. Or Julia Roberts. Or Halle Berry.

Employers often expect women to wear make-up. Supposedly they look more professional, more trustworthy, more reassuring. A natural-looking woman would apparently frighten off the customers with some sort of unwholesome aura.

Personally I tend to see an employee in thick make-up as less trustworthy, not more. I associate a slick, glossy appearance, be it make-up, a flashy suit or a fancy hairdo, with phoneyness and sharp practice. Perverse maybe, but I'm sure I'm not the only one.

There was a brief feminist fashion in the seventies for going without make-up, or at least wearing the bare minimum. Unfortunately it didn't last, undermined by the combined pressures of advertising, gender stereotypes and self-aversion.

One thing's for sure - the cosmetics business is laughing all the way to the bank.

Wot, no kids?

Now and then I still feel a little embarr-assed that I don't have any children. Having children is seen so widely as the "normal" thing to do, that even after many years of being childless, and not in any way regretting it, I still feel it's a choice that needs to be somehow justified.

Nobody ever asks me why I don't have children, nobody ever gives any hint that it was an odd decision, but nonetheless I always feel slightly unusual, a bit of a maverick, a bit of a rebel.

I suppose it doesn't help that there are two schools close to our home, and twice a day dozens of children pour in and out of their parents' cars, the parents obviously doting on their little offspring and watching them protectively.

It also doesn't help that any woman who gets pregnant is promptly congratulated by all and sundry, everyone admires the gradually swelling belly, and when the baby finally appears, yet more congratulations are offered.

Unfortunately all the fervent enthusiasm and showers of baby-gifts, however natural they may seem, inevitably give the message that having a baby is much more impressive than not having one.

I can justify my child-free decision by pointing out how much extra cash I've had and how much that's improved my quality of life, but somehow that just makes me sound a little selfish and smug, as if other people's sacrifices for the sake of their children are worthless.

In fact being "selfish", not replenishing the human race but thinking only of our own pleasure, is what childless couples are often accused of. If I suggest that maybe the anticipated joy and reward of having children is itself a somewhat "selfish" desire, the reaction will be frosty to say the least.

I've never felt that I've missed out by not having the patter of tiny feet around the place. But it still seems a bit like the exception that proves the rule.

Bring it on

There's no such thing as Too Much Information. To my mind, the more information the better. I can never get too much of it. Information is always preferable to ignorance.

The more information I have, the more I know about the world, about other people's lives, about my own mind and emotions, about everything. The less I'm floundering about in a fog of confusion, speculation and misunderstandings.

I don't care if the information is outrageous, or obscene, or repulsive, or peculiar. I don't care if it upsets me, or embarrasses me, or alarms me. I can deal with my emotional reactions and I'm not going to push something away just because it temporarily unsettles me.

I'm an intensely curious person. I want to know. I need to know. I don't like being fobbed off with vague explanations and coy silences. What is so devastating, so shocking, that I mustn't know about it, I mustn't be exposed to such horror? There's not much in this world that's truly shocking, especially at the ripe old age of 66. Whatever you think would shake me to the core, probably would just leave me a bit puzzled.

Of course some people conceal things as being "Too Much Information" when what they really mean is that they're nervous of other people's reactions. They're afraid of being laughed at, or criticised, or simply facing a stunned silence. Which is understandable. I withhold certain facts about myself for just that reason.

But dismissing awkward topics as Too Much Information is absurdly squeamish. It's precisely those awkward or controversial remarks that give me precious insights into human nature and other people's complexities. Without them, my understanding of the world would be much more limited.

So tell me everything, I say. I don't care if it knocks me for six. I don't care how awful it is. To my mind, Too Much is always better than Too Little.

A tide of horror

I find the constant tide of violence and brutality and callousness pouring out of the world's media quite over-whelming at times.

I can only cope with it by siphoning off my emotions into some dark part of myself where they gradually dribble away and disappear.

If I allowed my feelings free rein, if I allowed the full weight of sadness and despair and sorrow to wash through me, I would soon be an emotional wreck.

I'm beyond shocked at the depraved and deranged things that human beings do to each other, apparently without a shred of remorse or guilt or self-loathing.

I'm endlessly amazed at those dogged individuals who still get up each day with a sense of optimism and self-belief despite years of harsh and degrading treatment. The Nelson Mandelas and Natascha Kampusches* of this world. And all those we've never heard of at all.

I can't share the cynicism and indifference of those people who shrug their shoulders, tell you it's just the way of the world and carry on with their daily activities as if it wasn't rape and slaughter they were responding to but a minor kitchen spillage.

And I cringe at all those governments that throw their hands up in horror but so often are unable to halt the barbarities going on in their country day in and day out.

We are not born violent and cruel. We are not born wanting to spill blood and spread terror. How does a child's tenderness get so casually crushed and replaced by something so malevolent?

* Natascha Kampusch was held in a secret cellar in Vienna by her kidnapper Wolfgang Priklopil for more than eight years