Family values

Politicians are fond of extolling "family values" and lamenting how they're not as well observed as they used to be.

Well, they might be observed a bit more if anyone could agree what "family values" actually are. The phrase is so vague that everyone gives it a different meaning. The dictionary definition refers to high moral standards and discipline, but other things might be mentioned like decency, loyalty, stability, clean living, and care and affection.

It was understood in the past that "family values" referred to a heterosexual couple, and didn't include gay couples, childless couples or single-parent households, who were beyond the pale. All possible family arrangements are now included in the term, and presumably are deemed capable of family values, whatever they might be.

Perhaps we should forget about "family values", however they're defined, and emphasise something more specific like "parenting values", which people might understand more easily. Or we could call for "civilised values", a term that would include everyone, whether or not they count as a family.

Unfortunately the term "family values" is flung about quite hypocritically by politicians and others. How often some politician who goes banging on about family values turns out to have a mistress, a drug habit, a sexual fetish or something that gives the lie to his (and it's usually his) sanctimonious public utterances. It happens so frequently that whenever a politician mentions family values nowadays, I instantly wonder what he's trying to hide.

"Family values" is just another phrase that's used as a handy smear, to suggest that your political opponents have no such values and are hedonistic rabble lacking moral standards or civilised behaviour.

Certainly Jenny and I never mention family values, which to my mind definitely implies children. But we still aspire to high moral standards.

When Christmas was banned

Not many people know that Christmas was once banned in England. If you tried to celebrate it you could be fined up to five shillings (or £26 in today's currency).

In the 1600s Protestants throughout Europe were suspicious of Christmas celebrations. They were too closely associated with Catholicism, there was no mention of such a thing in the Bible, and they thought the festivities had become too drunken and debauched.

In 1645 Parliament declared that Christmas, Easter and other such festivals were no longer to be observed with special services or celebrations, and an outright ban followed in 1647. The ban was unpopular - there were riots in Kent and elsewhere the same year. But in 1652 the ban was strengthened when shops were ordered to stay open on Christmas Day.

However by 1656 many people were ignoring the ban, and even in London shops stayed shut and festivities continued, with MPs kept awake by the sound of Christmas parties next to their lodgings. An attempt at further legislation quickly failed.

Like many "moral" bans, the ban on Christmas was largely unenforceable, particularly without the machinery of modern government or even a police force.

The ban is especially ironic nowadays, when Christmas celebrations are not just permissible but almost compulsory. If you don't have all the expected trimmings and trappings - presents, decorations, turkey dinner, festive sweaters, festive movies, Christmas cards etc etc - you're clearly some miserable party-pooper who needs to lighten up and get with the programme.

There must be plenty of exhausted parents out there (especially women) who rather like the idea of a ban on Christmas. But it'll have to remain a private dream. Christmas is here to stay.

* Many thanks to the Oliver Cromwell Museum, Huntingdon, Cambridgeshire, for details of the ban

Inherently evil?

Although I still believe that human beings are basically good-natured and kind, and only turn nasty if they've been badly mistreated in some way, there are still many who believe some people are intrinsically evil and nothing can be done to change that.

Yes, there are monsters from middle-class backgrounds, people who've apparently had loving and devoted parents, but their childhood might not have been as healthy as it seems. Their parents may have been so wrapped up in their work or otherwise self-absorbed that they never gave their children the attention they needed.

Like 16 year old William Cornick from Leeds, who murdered his teacher in 2014, and came from a respectable middle-class home. His mother was a human resources manager and his father was a council executive. All those who knew him were baffled that he could have done something so dreadful.

But if you look closely at the background of hardened criminals, you often find a history of ill-treatment. Many serial killers are abused - physically, psychologically, sexually - as children by a close family member.

Children can easily be damaged by their home life. Years of poverty and deprivation, squalid housing, or parents with drug or alcohol issues, can leave a child with a deep-rooted bitterness about the unfairness of life, and that can lead to them lashing out in unpredictable ways.

I just can't believe that some people are inherently evil. It seems like a very cynical and negative view that ignores the huge influence of childhood experience on impressionable young brains. I'm sure good-natured children can easily become vicious and destructive if they're exposed to uncaring parents for long enough.

But perhaps I have a slightly rose-tinted outlook that defies reality.

So much hatred

Why do some people hate other people so much?

I think it's largely because they're unable (or unwilling) to put themselves in the shoes of the person they hate.

How can you hate immigrants when you know something about the circumstances they're fleeing from (civil war, famine, discrimination, economic failure, dictatorship) and how gruelling was the journey to a more civilised country? What would you have done in the same situation as them? Wouldn't you also decide life could be better somewhere else?

How can you hate a bullying employer who maybe has money problems, has mental health issues, has a crumbling marriage, has difficult children, has a parent with dementia? Would you not have sympathy for a person who's facing so much adversity on so many fronts? There but for the grace of God etc.

How can you hate the unemployed when there may be good reasons why they're unemployed - they have a serious illness, they lack the necessary skills, employers are prejudiced against black people or women or ex-prisoners. But the assumption is that the unemployed must be work-shy layabouts.

Of course hatred can be based on many things. It can also be based on jealousy - resentment against those who seem to be having better lives. It rankles intolerably that other people have more luck, or are especially talented, or just know how to climb the greasy pole. But again, are those people having the fabulous lives you credit them with? Or are their private lives a disaster?

You don't have to hate people. You can still dislike them and you can still be annoyed by them. Isn't that enough?

Pic: a work-shy layabout

Can I die now?

I'm all in favour of assisted dying, meaning dying at a time of my choosing rather than waiting for my death to occur naturally, perhaps with a terminal illness and after months of agony, incontinence, dehydration and other awful complications.

Baroness Meacher tried in 2022 to change the law to allow assisted dying, but she didn't manage to do it before the end of the parliamentary term, when it fell by the wayside.

The actor Diana Rigg strongly supported assisted dying before she herself died of severe cancer in 2022, after months of miserable suffering. She didn't understand why people were expected to go through such suffering rather than dying at the earliest opportunity.

Of course there are people who fear that a law permitting assisted dying would be exploited by those with bad intentions like wanting to get their hands on someone's money. But they would surely be a tiny minority, and appropriate safeguards would be built into the legislation.

There is clearly widespread support for assisted dying. A 2019 poll of over 5000 UK adults found that 84 per cent supported some form of assisted dying. In which case MPs should stop dragging their feet and legislate for it.

I would hate to have to be looked after for months while I waited in agony for my death to arrive. Being permanently incapacitated for no good reason except "allowing nature to take its course" would be dreadful.

I'd just want to say goodbye to my wrecked and ravaged body.

Pic: Diana Rigg

Odds and sods

• I won't leave any great achievements when I die. I shall simply vanish into the ether. I have no problem with that.
• I'm used to doing things on my own. If other people are hovering, I get flustered (if they're hoovering I get even more flustered).
• Most cats find me frightening. They rush off when they see me. But some cats are extra friendly and want lots of stroking.
• I shouldn't judge by appearances but I do. I like to think I can suss someone out. Usually my assumptions are quite wrong.
• Sometimes I have no patience whatever and get instantly exasperated. At other times I have boundless patience. There's no logic to it.
• I'm not easily duped or scammed. I have a pretty acute shit-detector that alerts me fast. In fact I'm a bit too sceptical for my own good.
• How handy it would be if toenails and fingernails stopped growing once they reached their normal size. Why do they keep growing??
• Flying doesn't scare me. Planes are incredibly well-maintained and very safe. After all, the pilots and crew want to stay alive.
• I may be six foot, but I don't feel tall unless I look in the mirror. I imagine I'm a similar height to other people.
• I'm compulsively polite. I hate arguing with people, so I always try to smooth things over with some bland comments.
• It's strange that I've never seen myself walking down the street. Do I have a funny walk? Do I look like an old codger?
• If I try to do two things at once I just get confused. I have zero aptitude for multi-tasking.
• I'm not a drama queen. When people turn some minor incident into a frantic uproar, I just stay calm and dignified.

(You might remember some of these from earlier posts)

Politics? No way!

There are many reasons why I always ruled out becoming a politician. It's been suggested a few times that I would be an excellent one, but goodness knows why. The very idea is laughable.

The most compelling reason was the constant clash between what I would want to do, what my constituents would want me to do, and what the party line happened to be.

To have to keep deciding between those three things must be hugely stressful. If for example I thought it was sensible to close a local hospital and transfer all its services to a new and better equipped hospital a couple of miles away, but my constituents wanted the local hospital to stay open, and the party line was something different again, what would I go with?

Then there's the mounting hostility towards politicians generally, for being out of touch with their constituents, pursuing expensive vanity projects and lining their own pockets. Female politicians especially are subject to a never-ending torrent of abuse, personal attacks and death threats. Many politicians have been forced to install elaborate security systems simply for their own safety.

And despite threadbare knowledge of the subjects I would be legislating on or making decisions about, I would have to add my shaky opinions to what might already be some totally misguided measures, with who knows what unforeseen consequences. What do I know about interest rates or planning applications or carbon emissions? No more than the average person-in-the-street.

No, I just couldn't have done it. I wouldn't have lasted six months.

Keeping up appearances

I know I've said this before, but I'm constantly baffled by the extent of people's dislike of their bodies - and their appearance generally.

The market for physical improvements seems to be growing all the time, as people find parts of their body deficient and seek ways of making them perfect.

Botox, fillers, cosmetic surgery, shapewear, hormones, steroids, workouts, you name it. So many people just aren't happy with the way they look, even if their friends say they're fine just as they are. They'll take all sorts of risks to change the offending item - even going abroad to dodgy clinics they've never heard of before.

I've never been bothered by my appearance, and not just because I'm a man and less critical of my body than a lot of women. Apparently men are getting just as self-critical and more and more of them want to improve some body part they're unhappy with.

I suppose one reason I'm quite okay with my body is that my favourite activity is abstract thinking and that tends to exclude any thoughts about my appearance. I'm more likely to disapprove of some politician's nonsensical utterance than the shape of my nose or the size of my bottom.

One exception though - I do dislike facial and body hair and prefer hairless bodies, even though getting rid of the stuff can be an expensive and tedious business that many women object to. I've never understood why so many men grow beards and moustaches under the impression that these masculine adornments are a huge turn-on for women. Well, they might be or they might not.

So I won't be chucking thousands of pounds at some greedy cosmetic surgeon any time soon.

Allergic to Christmas

Most of us find preparing for Christmas pretty straightforward. But spare a thought for people who're allergic to Christmas - or rather allergic to the common ingredients of Christmas food.

Anne Murray, from Lanark, Scotland, is allergic to things like citrus and cinnamon. As she has severe asthma any exposure to these ingredients could kill her without immediate medical treatment.

She almost died in November 2016 when she smelt "pine cones impregnated with citrus" in a garden centre. Fighting to breathe, she grabbed her inhaler and ran out of the garden centre. Two days later she was still struggling to breathe and needed hospital treatment.

"I can't be anywhere near things that smell of Christmas, or eat anything Christmassy like mince pies or stollen cake" she says. "Just smelling a mince pie could kill me."

I assume I can eat whatever I like without falling violently ill. At Christmas especially I want to tuck into anything that's going without having to steer clear. It's tragic that some people can't be so free-and-easy.

Allergies generally seem to be increasing, both in childhood and in adulthood. Many adults are developing allergies they never had in childhood and despite a lot of research the cause is still unknown. There's a wide range of allergens, including soya beans, sesame, and tree nuts like almonds, walnuts and pecans.

Buying any food products must always be risky. You have to assume food labels are 100 per cent accurate about what is or isn't in the product and there are no inadvertent mistakes. Two women died after eating mislabelled food from Pret a Manger, which led to tighter food labelling laws.

It's easy for those of us without allergies* to take for granted our less complicated lives.

*I tell a lie. I have a slight allergy to wheat. If I eat anything containing wheat my nose starts running.

Lonely or what?

There's still a lot of talk about the "epidemic of loneliness" and what can be done about it. The general conclusion is that lonely people need to get out more and spend more time with other people. But I don't think it's nearly that simple.

My own view of loneliness is quite complex. For me, I would say boredom is more of a problem than loneliness. If I'm totally absorbed in something then I don't feel lonely because I'm just not thinking about other people.

A feeling of loneliness is said to arise if you can't find people who're on the same wavelength as you, but I don't expect people to be on my wavelength. Society is now so fragmented into umpteen tiny groups of like-minded people that the chance of my happening to meet someone I see eye to eye with is pretty slim.

If I'm not on the same wavelength as other people, that makes me feel isolated or unusual but not lonely. But then I was brought up in a family who had very different views to myself, so I'm used to being out on a limb.

What I really need isn't people on the same wavelength but people who can give me useful advice about how to deal with life's problems. That's where I feel a lack. Like someone who can diagnose a faulty washing machine or fill in a complicated application form or just give me a more optimistic view of the horrifying world we now live in.

There's more to loneliness than meets the eye.

Could I pass?

Fifty six years on, I sometimes wonder if I could still pass the driving test, given all the changes there have been to the Highway Code and given there is now a theory test I never had to contend with.

I just tried a sample theory test and answered 38 out of 50 questions correctly - or 76 per cent. The pass mark is actually 86 per cent, so if I were taking it again I'd need to do some serious swotting. But I suppose for a first try, having never done a theory test before, that's not too embarrassing.

Some of the questions seem to have little to do with driving ability though. Like "How can you avoid wasting fuel?" or "How can you stop your car radio being stolen?" or "Where should you not park?" But you still have to know the answers.

You also have to be familiar with the Highway Code, which runs to 162 pages. I know it's been updated numerous times, to cover things like giving way to pedestrians and allowing for cyclists, so there'd be more swotting required.

As for the practical side, my ability to drive a car might not be what it used to be. I passed my driving test first time but no doubt my standards have slipped a bit since then. There must be a natural tendency to become a bit careless over the years and not drive quite as safely. Dodging traffic lights, speeding, driving too close to another vehicle, risky overtaking. I have to say I'm guilty of all those. So whether I could still satisfy a driving examiner is debatable.

Still, as yet I've never had a serious accident, so I must be doing something right.

PS: I've just discovered there are two parts to the theory test - multiple choice and hazard perception. If you fail one part that's a total fail and you have retake the whole theory test.

So much misery

Misery memoirs (recalling the writer's terrible childhood with all its cruelty and abuse) seem to be as popular as ever.

Britney Spears is the latest person to have recalled not only her childhood misery but her adult misery as well. How she was harassed, taunted and belittled by her husband, how her heavy-drinking father had legal control of her life for over 13 years, and so on.

I suppose some people would argue that there's no need to recount all this negativity at such length, that lots of people have been exposed to childhood misery of one type or another, who needs to be told about it yet again?

I disagree. The more we know about the appalling way some people have been treated as a child, the more incentive there is to ensure children grow up with caring and supportive parents who encourage them to make the most of their lives.

Mind you, that's assuming all those misery memoirs are truthful in the first place, and haven't been somewhat embellished and exaggerated to attract more readers.

The English barrister Constance Briscoe successfully defended herself against her mother Carmen's accusations that her "true story of a loveless childhood" was "a piece of fiction".

But Kathy O' Beirne's story of abuse in a Catholic institution, Don't Ever Tell, was denounced as unreliable by her family, while James Frey was discredited for his fictionalised autobiography A Million Little Pieces.

I'm surprised people feel the need to exaggerate their experiences, which are probably horrifyingly awful in the first place. I would say the more misery memoirs we read, the more we know the truth about the dreadful childhoods some people have endured.

Pic: Constance Briscoe

A swamp of pomp

Americans (and others) must be quite bemused by the absurd pomp and ceremony of the British State Opening of Parliament, which took place on Tuesday. But the archaic rituals and traditions are faithfully clung to and nobody suggests it's about time for something much simpler and cheaper.

The essence of what happens is very basic. The King and Queen arrive at Parliament and the King gives a speech announcing what the government intends to do in the next year.

If that's all he did, easy peasy. But along with that goes all the overblown grandiosity that hardly anybody dares to question.

• The King and Queen travel to Parliament in a horse-drawn golden coach
• When they arrive, the national anthem is played and a gun salute is sounded in Green Park
• Sarah Clarke, the Black Rod, has to summon MPs to hear the speech
• The Serjeant at Arms leads the procession of MPs with a ceremonial mace
• The King and Queen wear ceremonial crowns and outfits
• Various other items of royal regalia like the Great Sword of State are used in the state opening

Nobody has the nerve to say, hold on a minute, why all this palaver, why can't the King just rock up at Parliament, give his speech and then nip back to Buck House for a snifter? Job done.

I can't imagine the King himself enjoys all this unnecessary baloney. Probably he gets back to the Palace and says to Camilla "Thank God that's over. All that theatrical rigmarole. Pass the gin, darling."

I long for some amusing glitch in the proceedings. Like the crown falling off the King's head or him having a coughing fit in mid-speech. But no such luck.

Pic: King Charles looks forward to his G and T

Gas guzzlers

When parents drop off their kids at the two nearby schools, more and more of their cars are those massive, gas-guzzling sport utility vehicles (SUVs). Usually there's only two people in them - parent and child - and I wonder why such huge cars are necessary.

SUVs are increasingly popular in the UK, despite being so bad for the environment. By early 2023 more than half of all new car sales in Europe were SUVs or the like. Why oh why?

Jenny and I still have our humble nine-year-old Renault Clio. It gets us from A to B and that's all we need. If we had had children we might have acquired something bigger, but what would be the point?

When I was young, most people drove bog-standard saloon cars, as they were then called, and strangely enough children still got to school and parents got to the supermarket. Nobody hankered after vehicles more suitable to pot-holed rural farm tracks.

My parents didn't even own a car, so I walked to school and back every day. Cheaper and healthier than being driven there.

Clearly the SUV drivers don't care about the enormous carbon emissions, hefty fuel consumption and danger to children (I read that children are eight times more likely to die when struck by an SUV compared with an average passenger car).

What is it with these fashionable monsters?

PS: I realise some of you may actually own an SUV. Do tell me why, I'm always open to debate!

After death

A lot of people make requests about what should happen after their death. Sometimes their requests are followed to the letter, sometimes they're totally ignored.

Would I follow Jenny's requests after her death? Would she follow mine? I suppose it depends partly on the nature of the requests. Routine ones like scattering ashes in the local park are easy enough to comply with. But I imagine crazy ones like erecting a tombstone in the Outer Hebrides* would be ignored by most relatives.

My mum never made any after-death requests as far as I know. We opted for a simple cremation and that was that. I've never drawn up any after-death requests and neither has Jenny. If I die first (which is likely because I'm ten years older) Jenny can do whatever she wants with my mortal remains. I won't be capable of either approving or disapproving.

Mind you, I do carry an organ donor card that allows the harvesting of any useful organs after I die, so I guess that counts as one after-death request.

If I had a second after-death request, it might be that people think well of me and forgive all my failings. Or even declare me a national treasure. That would be much better than a Scottish tombstone.

It annoys me when people try to read the dead person's mind and say that Aunt Emma would have wanted this or wanted that. Obviously they can't possibly know what she would have wanted so they're probably talking nonsense.

So when Nick dies, how about throwing the wildest party ever? It's what he would have wanted.

* Outer Hebrides - a series of islands off the west coast of Scotland

Infinite clutter

I'm fascinated by hoarders and why they start hoarding - and why they can't stop. It's a complex mental process that psychologists themselves can't really explain.

As my regulars will know, my mum was a compulsive hoarder. After she died, huge amounts of junk and clutter had to be cleared out of her flat. There were newspapers and bank statements and travel brochures going back years.

When my brother in law tried on one occasion to remove some of he accumulated clutter, my mum was furious and forbad him to remove anything. Even when she was warned that the state of the flat was a fire and safety hazard, she took no notice. I've no idea why she was attached to all this stuff. I can only assume it comforted or reassured her in some way.

Just recently I encountered another hoarder, whose flat was equally full of junk - a lot of it brand-new items that had never been used. She did at least accept that the hoarding was out of control and she needed to have a serious clear-out.

Jenny and I are the opposite. We like neat and tidy surroundings and we discard or recycle as much stuff as we possibly can. We can't imagine the house being so cluttered we'd find it difficult simply to move around or do everyday tasks.

Psychologists struggle to explain the hoarding urge - why people get so emotionally attached to things that they have to keep them, and get so angry when anyone suggests parting with some of them.

Just how does it start? Were their parents hoarders? Did their parents throw away things they treasured? Did their parents encourage spending sprees? Were their parents afraid of discarding something vital by mistake? Whatever the cause, psychologists are still very much in the dark.

Waning wanderlust

I'm of two minds about travel. On the one hand, it can broaden your mind, undermine prejudices, give you novel experiences, show you how other people live. On the other hand, planes and cruise ships are massively polluting and many popular cities are plagued by over-tourism.

I've got the point where, for now at any rate, having travelled all over the world, I've had my fill of travelling and I'm quite happy to stay at home and enjoy my own city and my own country. People who're perpetually travelling find this sudden lack of wanderlust strange and try to persuade us to keep on the move.

It doesn't help that air travel is becoming such a complicated business, fraught with unexpected difficulties like computer failures, strikes, staff shortages, lost baggage, cancelled flights and unforeseen extra charges. I could do without all the hassle and stress and uncertainty.

And then there's the hefty charge for travel insurance. Once you're over 75 and you have one or two medical conditions, the cost of insurance goes through the roof. Is it worth paying such huge sums?

As for travel broadening the mind, I didn't see much evidence of that in my parents, even though they visited Italy many times. My mum professed to love Italy, but she also disliked Italian food. Pizza, pasta, tiramisu, whatever, she wasn't a fan. She still preferred traditional English food.

So for the time being I'm staying at home and marvelling at all those hardened travellers who'll put up with anything the airline throws at them to get their two weeks in some exotic location. Rather them than me.

The F word

Most people nowadays take a very laid-back attitude to swearing. So what if someone swears? It's a good way of letting off steam and much healthier than bottling up your feelings and letting them fester.

I've never been a natural swearer. I'll get annoyed or frustrated about something but I don't swear, mainly because the usual swearword these days is "fucking" and I would rather be more inventive than saying fuck this or fuck that every five minutes.

Also I'm aware there are still plenty of people who avoid using swearwords as being a lazy way of talking, so I tend not to use swearwords myself in case someone starts bristling.

When I was young "fucking" was never used as a swearword. It was merely a colloquial word for sex that was frowned upon by the grown-ups as being in very bad taste and NOT TO BE USED.

But we had plenty of swearwords and disparaging remarks, far more than we have today, some of them quite original and colourful - like "jump off a cliff" or "get stuffed" or "you're a waste of space".

I keep expecting the word "fucking" to lose its allure and gradually fall out of use, but on the contrary it's as popular as ever. It looks like it's fucking well with us for years to come.

Rival attraction

Journalist Christa Ackroyd aims to raise £600,000 to restore the house near Bradford where the Brontë sisters were born and turn it into a major tourist attraction. She sees it as a rival to the house in Haworth six miles away where Charlotte, Anne and Emily lived with their father, which gets a million visitors a year.

She thinks the house would inspire other would-be writers as well as encouraging people to follow their dreams.

Personally I don't understand why the places where famous people were born or used to live have such fascination. Surely what's compelling is what they've produced - books, music, art, plays or whatever.

Wandering round a house gawping at the fixtures and fittings is hardly likely to inspire someone to write a brilliant novel. Either you have literary talent or you don't and I don't see how looking at someone's choice of curtains and wallpaper is going to inspire anything except a fleeting desire to update your own interior furnishings.

I'm sure the Brontë sisters themselves would be baffled as to why millions of people would think it worthwhile to traipse round the houses they used to inhabit, exclaiming at this or that domestic item.

I'm sure some of it is just naked one up manship. How impressive to say you spent the day treading the same floorboards as the Brontë sisters rather than moaning about the bus service in Caffè Nero.

I'd much rather spend an hour or two browsing in Waterstones than check out Charlotte Brontë's ironing board.

Pic: Charlotte Brontë

Over and done with

People sometimes ask me if I have any regrets in my life, and my answer is always the same - no, no regrets, I simply do my best in any situation, and if things don't work out, I just move on.

Regrets seldom achieve anything positive. They only make you feel bad and stupid and thoughtless. And usually the thing you regret is over and done with and you can't rewrite the past.

I don't have any regrets, but there are many things I'd like to have done but didn't, which is rather different. And I don't wish I had done those things, I'm simply aware that I could have done them but for one reason or another I didn't. I don't see those things as a big failure in my life.

I'd like to have lived closer to my mum when she was going downhill mentally and physically. I'd like to have been able to drop in every day or two to see how she was doing. But I was 350 miles away in Belfast so that was impossible.

I'd like to have learnt to play a musical instrument, but I wasn't encouraged to do so and my first attempt at piano lessons went badly; my piano teacher declared me unteachable. But maybe if I'd tried again later in my childhood, it would have worked out.

I'd like to have been a successful novelist, but I simply didn't have the intellect or imagination or self-discipline to complete a novel. I did give it a try but after about 100 pages I hit total writer's block and couldn't get any further.

So I don't regret any of those lapses. I'm very philosophical about them. I could have done all sorts of things but for lack of talent or inclination or because of circumstances they never happened. So be it. Che sera sera.