Inside out

People say that if you've been married to someone for many years you know them inside out. You know how they'll react to any given situation, you know the thoughts that are running through their head, you know all their deepest secrets, you know what goes on under the public facade.

If you don't know the person that well, there's something a bit wrong with you. You're not really compatible, you're not in tune with each other.

Well, that degree of familiarity may be true of some people, but it certainly isn't true of Jenny and me. I can't be sure of her reactions, I don't always know what she's thinking, I doubt if I know her deepest secrets, and I don't always know what's behind the public persona.

That's not because we aren't compatible, it's simply because we're very different people and we're constantly surprised by each other.

So what's wrong with being surprised by each other? It makes life more interesting. It means we have complex characters that always leave more to be explored and understood.

And does anyone really know their partner inside out? They might think they do, but we all have parts of our personality that we keep to ourselves, however upfront and candid we might seem to be.

How often do you hear people say that something their partner has done or said seems quite out of character, a bolt from the blue? So they didn't know their partner so well after all.

I'd like to know Jenny inside out, but is it actually possible?

Moaning and groaning

As yet I haven't morphed into the typical grumpy old man. I still look on the bright side and take problems in my stride rather than moaning about them.

I haven't yet become "Disgusted of Tunbridge Wells", firing off angry letters to the media and haranguing everyone with my complaints about the bus service, litter louts, too much sex and violence on TV or the price of marmalade.

All that would do is turn me into a sour, bitter individual who takes no pleasure in life and just spoils other people's enjoyment.

I make a point of focusing on the positive things and working around the negatives rather than dwelling on them. There's little I can do about the price of marmalade or erratic buses so why bang on about such things?

I've worked with people who habitually moaned about everything in sight, and it's very tedious. Even if you suggest a more positive way of looking at life, they don't want to know. They're locked into a nothing's-good-enough mindset.

If I encounter something that makes no sense to me, my first reaction isn't complaint but curiosity. I want to know what underlies this oddity, what it's all about.

It's easy to get caught up in all the knee-jerk vilification that pours out of the media and not take a step back and look at things more thoughtfully.

Apart from anything else, incessant grumbling is exhausting. All that rage and condemnation takes it out of you. I'm all for an easy life.

Not sentimental

I'm not very sentimental, if that means I get highly emotional over things that have played a significant part in my life, things that have meant a lot to me.

Other people are much more sentimental, hanging on to things that have long since held any value except their emotional meaning.

My father was highly sentimental. He had scrapbooks of all his Italian holidays, crammed with every conceivable souvenir of the trip - postcards, train tickets, boarding passes, restaurant menus. Nothing was too trivial to be discarded.

But my attitude has always been that once something's past it's past and there's no point in developing big emotional attachments and reminiscences. I have no photos of my childhood, no scrapbooks, no shelves of souvenirs and mementos, no carefully-preserved old school uniform. I'm totally focused on the present and future rather than the past.

I suppose that makes me sound rather cold and detached, but that's the way I am. I prefer to be having new experiences rather than reliving old ones.

I do have photos of my brother in law, my sister and my niece, but that's mainly to make up for my not actually seeing them very often, since they live in southern England.

In any case all the significant events in my past - like my schooldays, my workplaces, my holidays, my various homes - are lodged vividly in my memory and easily retrievable. I don't need a scrapbook to remind me of my walks round the Venetian alleyways or the train ride through the Rocky Mountains. And if I did need a reminder, Google would soon fill in the gaps.

Jerry built

I can't imagine what it's like to move into what seems a perfect new home, only to find it's been jerry-built, it's full of serious defects, and the builder is trying to dodge any responsibility for putting them right.

Which is what happened to Dayle Dixon and Mark Lee in Ivybridge, Devon. If their house was in good order it would be worth about £350,000, but with all the faults it's worth no more than a token sum of £1. How distressing is that?

There's an ongoing scandal in the UK of new homes that haven't been properly built because they haven't been properly inspected by local planners and the builders can get away with shoddy workmanship.

This racket has been going on for many years without any serious attempt to put an end to it, which is why Jenny and I have deliberately steered clear of newly-built homes.

Our present home was built in 1949 so any major defects would have been discovered long ago. Buying a newly-built home is always risky because even if it looks fine on first viewing, major defects may only become apparent some time after moving in.

Did this couple ask a surveyor to check out the house? We have usually employed a surveyor to inspect whatever home we're thinking of buying. The second flat we took a chance on because it was a mansion block built in 1900 and looked rock solid from the outside. And so it turned out.

The builder must have known that some of their homes were badly-built and full of faults - maybe even potentially lethal ones like exposed electrical wiring. How can a builder leave a home in that state and just walk away?

Eccentric, moi?

When I was a boy, people were commonly seen as "eccentric" and such individuals stuck out a mile for their eccentricity - meaning their strange and unconventional conduct.

Nowadays the term has virtually lost all meaning, since eccentricity is commonplace. So many people - youngsters in particular - are now conspicuous by their strange clothes, strange behaviour, strange beliefs and strange aspirations that they just aren't remarkable any more.

It's routine for people to have elaborate tattoos, multiple piercings, flamboyant clothes and extreme political views. We think nothing of it, we see them as quite normal.

Oldies are more conventional and some will still stick out as eccentrics, like the moany old codger who hates the neighbours, and they're very noticeable oddballs. Oldies in general still go for a fairly orthodox appearance - no tattoos or piercings or tee shirts with controversial slogans.

It was unusual when I was young to see any kind of "eccentric". We might see the odd person talking to themself or cursing everyone in sight or collecting garden gnomes, but that was about it.

The only obvious eccentric I can think of in this immediate neighbourhood is the guy who walks down the street trailing a suitcase. Clearly he isn't heading for the airport because he appears with his suitcase every day. Which naturally sets us wondering what's in the suitcase. The proceeds of a bank robbery? His worldly possessions? The manuscript of a book?

Of course we can't possibly ask him, that would be most intrusive and impertinent. Maybe one day the suitcase will fall open and all will be revealed.

Give me fame

I always say that I wouldn't like to be famous, that I would hate the constant attention, I would hate being judged and found wanting, I would hate the lack of privacy - among other things.

So I was intrigued that actor Kevin Bacon tried going out in disguise - fake teeth, a fake nose and a pair of glasses - and rapidly discovered that he hated anonymity and much preferred being famous.

For a while he enjoyed the new freedom, but it didn't last long. "People were kind of pushing past me, not being nice. Nobody said, I love you. I had to wait in line to buy a fucking coffee or whatever. I was like, this sucks. I want to go back to being famous."

Presumably he loves all the attention and the resulting benefits. He's been famous for over 40 years so I guess suddenly being ordinary was quite a shock to the system.

I think the thing I would really hate about being famous is my shortcomings being so familiar to so many people. It's okay if my small circle of friends and relatives know my failings, but if potentially millions of people are aware of them, and constantly harping on them, that would be hard to cope with.

I would also hate all the fictitious tales being spun about me, all the derogatory and critical stories that were totally untrue but still went on circulating indefinitely. Reports that my marriage was in trouble or I'd had cosmetic surgery or I was a useless parent. Even if you deny these stories, they have a life of their own and usually just get repeated over and over.

Kevin Bacon is welcome to his fame. But I'm sure I would find it an awful burden.

Before smartphones

I was astonished to read that 91 per cent of 11 year olds have a smart phone, and 20 per cent of children own them by the age of four. A lot of parents try to prevent their children from owning a smart phone, because of all the obvious dangers, but that's hard when most of their school mates already have one.

It's hard to imagine what my schooldays would have been like if I had a smart phone. I didn't even have a landline never mind a smart phone. It meant that I very much lived in a boarding-house bubble, completely removed from the outside world. There was no TV or radio or newspapers so world events passed me by. We were discouraged from wandering around the adjacent town so there was little chance of making outside friends.

If I was at school now and I had a smart phone, above all that would connect me to the outside world. I could keep up with world events, check out websites that interested me, keep in touch with my family, get advice on personal problems. But at the same time I would have access to all sorts of undesirable websites promoting porn or anorexia or racism or dangerous drugs or simply plausible misinformation.

On balance I think that despite the deprivations I experienced I probably had a healthier childhood without a smart phone and without all the hazards it would have presented me with. I could enjoy simple pleasures like reading and walking without being glued to that beguiling little screen.

And there was something to be said for not being constantly in touch with my family and all their oddities.