Defining moments

It's always revealing when you ask someone what were the defining moments in their life - the things that made a huge impression on them, or set them on a totally new path in life, or caused them to radically rethink something.

If you asked me what were the defining moments or events in my own life, I would come up with the following:

• Meeting Jenny when my life was somewhat stalled. We've achieved so many things together and had such amazing experiences.
• My first English teacher, John Fraser, who gave me a love of the English language and linguistic skills that were a lasting asset job-wise.
• My school friend David who gave me a copy of the Communist Manifesto and prompted a life-long belief in socialism and an egalitarian society.
• My first bookshop job and the immediate feeling that this was something I could enjoy doing for many years. Which I did.
• Buying our present house. For a long time we assumed we could never afford a house, but circumstances conspired to make it possible. This is our second house and it ticks all the boxes!
• My first trip to Australia. It was extraordinary landing in Hobart and being on the other side of the world in such a spectacular country.
• Moving from my cold and spartan bedsit in Abbey Road, London, my home for 6½ years, to a slightly better bedsit.
• Moving from London to Belfast. We both liked Northern Ireland and decided to take a massive gamble, ditch our existing jobs and move there. It's been a big success and we've never regretted our decision.
• Hearing that my tiny trace of prostate cancer had vanished of its own accord.
• Retiring from paid employment 2½ years ago after 53 years of working. I don't miss work and I'm having a great time.

Will there be more defining moments? Who knows what the future will bring?

Way out of line

I don't think I could be "normal" if I tried. My thoughts and feelings are so way out of line with what passes as "normal", I'm reconciled to the idea that I'm thoroughly eccentric. Or at the very least "different".

I feel profoundly sad about things other people don't even notice. I feel totally unmoved by what utterly enrages them. I get absurdly anxious about supposedly routine events. I adore things that others find incomprehensible.

I've never wanted children, or wanted to live in the suburbs, or wanted a high-flying job, or wanted two weeks on a beach at Torremolinos.

I feel really peculiar wearing a suit and tie, or reading a mass-market tabloid. I haven't eaten meat for nearly 40 years. I hate fizzy drinks, instant coffee and beer. Fashions in clothing totally pass me by.

I've always been a socialist, even when half the population was besotted with Mrs Thatcher and socialists were seen as "the lunatic fringe", "the reds under the bed" and "the enemy within". I was abnormal with bells on.

Of course "normal" is impossible to define anyway. It means different things to different people,and every survey of "normal" behaviour comes up with a different formula. It's one of those nebulous ideas that keeps slithering out of your grasp like a bar of soap.

So I think I'll just carry on as usual, even if it makes other people feel uncomfortable. Or bemused. Or censorious. Better that than running round in circles chasing an ever-moving target. As Popeye said, I yam what I yam.

The meaning of life

I spend a lot of time thinking about the meaning of life. Especially as I've been on this planet for 64 years and the meaning doesn't get any clearer. In particular, what the hell is the meaning of so much violence, poverty, torture, ill-health and general misery and hardship?

There are a number of possibilities:

1) They're a test. To see how much we can endure, how much crap we can tolerate, without going completely mad and wanting to top ourselves.

2) God got bored with peace and harmony and thought, Soddit, I'll chuck in some murder and mayhem to spice things up a bit.

3) We've brought it on ourselves by our own thoughtless behaviour and our inability to challenge corrupt and useless governments.

4) God created a perfect world but then left the day-to-day maintenance to a sub-contractor who predictably screwed up.

5) God's computer was infected by a virus, and the IT staff were away on a training course at the time.

6) It's the inevitable consequence of the shitty capitalist system, comrade, and only full-bloodied socialism can wipe it out and bring about a truly democratic society that gives proper respect and dignity to every citizen.

I must say I rather incline to number six, but number two appeals to me as well. I'm sure God doesn't want to be seen as a tight-arsed goodie-goodie any more than the rest of us, so he has to chuck some pure evil in the mix occasionally.

God's only human after all.

PS: As you all probably know, God made me an atheist. I refer to Him purely as a literary device.

Useful coppers

Reading about Leah's whole-hearted support for the police reminded me that I support the police pretty strongly myself, a view people might not expect from a fervent socialist.

Well, socialist I may be, but I also believe that if we don't let the police deal firmly with crime and anti-social behaviour, we would quickly decline into an anarchist, anything-goes nightmare.

In the sixties when it was very fashionable among the young to criticise not just police excesses but the police themselves, I can remember me and my friends cheerfully screaming "Pigs, pigs" every time we passed a copper, and thinking we were being deliciously rebellious and right-on.

As the years rolled by, however, I came to realise that there are an awful lot of vicious, heartless, ruthless people out there who need to be kept under control not just to protect everyone else but to protect them from their own self-destructiveness. If the police don't do it, who will?

I'd be the first to admit that the police often make big mistakes and go wildly over the top in their actions. There's a long list of people who've been wrongly arrested, secretly beaten, jumped on for utterly trivial offences, or fitted up. That sort of behaviour seriously discredits the police and needs to be stopped.

But the fact remains that most of the time police are doing an absolutely essential job in keeping criminals in check and enabling the rest of us to feel safer and less vulnerable.

I would like to ask anyone who really thinks the police are unnecessary or useless - what would you put in their place? Vigilantes? Paramilitaries? Private security forces? Lynch mobs? Whatever the alternative, it would be a lot less pleasant than a few bent coppers who get carried away and forget their professional ethics. It would be rough justice indeed.