Things I Love...Friday

Yes, yes, I know I'm a day late this week -- and I also know that I really should update more.  But without any further ado, it's Things I Love Thursday -- special Friday edition!  An idea shamelessly ripped off from Lulu, who in turn was inspired by Gala Darling.

The first item is an obvious one.  It's been

Bring me your nihilists, your anarchists and defeatists

Every morning on the Tube I see TFL's posters with inspirational quotes.  I have to give them points for effort -- I like the lengths they go to with culture on the tube, from displaying poetry in ad spaces, to these quotation posters that are extracts from a booklet of quotes for Piccadilly line staff share with passengers.

According to TFL's own press release the booklet "aims to generate a more positive atmosphere during peak times." It apparently also "encourages the many voices of the Tube’s staff to re-enter the environment of the network, bringing some of the personalities which have made it famous to the forefront once more. Coming from a wide range of philosophical, political and historical sources, the quotes provoke thought on life in the city, especially as heard on the London Underground."

My trouble with them though is that they are so safe, and uninteresting.  Gandhi.  Nelson Mandela.  Great men, but who can really argue with them?  Although I did actually meet a man recently who thought Gandhi was bad, but that's not really the point.

I appreciate that the quotes are meant to be uplifting, inspiring even, and optimistic -- but wouldn't it be more interesting if they could prompt some discussion?  Maybe they want to stay away from provoking debate when people are tired and packed into crowded trains that are frequently dirty and often subject to delays and mechanical failures.  Would you really want an argument breaking out in a stifling hot tube carriage when there is nowhere to escape?

At the bottom of the posters is a web site address where you can submit quotes.  I amuse myself thinking of inappropriate submissions of quotes from people like the radical Edward Abbey who offered thoughts that should be embroidered on cushions, like “Anarchism is founded on the observation that since few men are wise enough to rule themselves, even fewer are wise enough to rule others.” 

And who can forget the timeless wisdom of the great Hunter S. Thompson, the pioneer of "freak power"?  It is next to impossible to choose just one quote from the man who felt the same way about disco as he did about herpes, but my favourite is "When the going gets weird, the weird turn pro".

The author Chuck Palahniuk is one of my favourites, and he denies that he is a nihilist -- instead saying he is a romantic.  Either way, as a former journalist and compulsive blogger, I find this thought fitting: "The best way to waste your life, ... is by taking notes. The easiest way to avoid living is to just watch. Look for the details. Report. Don't participate.”

Also making my fantasy list of submissions would be:
"If I were a medical man, I should prescribe a holiday to any patient who considered his work important" Bertrand Russell
"Work is the refuge of people who have nothing better to do" Oscar Wilde

Wouldn't these give you something more to think about on your way to work each day?  So, share with me your quotes.  Not your uplifting and inspiring mantras -- but the unconventional, nihilistic and anarchic that wryly amuse you.

Things I Love Thursday

I've been bad at this recently, but we are back once more with "Things I Love Thursday" shamelessly ripped off from Lulu, who in turn lovingly borrowed it from Gala Darling.

The most obvious and most important thing I love this week: the girl is coming home.  After 4 months in exile and without pay, my favourite West Australian fisherman's daughter is coming back to England.  It's hard to believe after it took so long for her company's licence to sponsor her -- but her visa was approved within 24 hours of receipt of her passport, and a week on from there her flight back is booked.  We already have dinner plans for the day she comes home.  There's lots of songs like "Leaving on a Jet Plane" but are there an equally moving songs about people coming back?

What I also love this week is my hat.  It is big and furry and I feel happy when I wear it because I look so damn cool.  I bought it for myself two years ago as a Christmas present to myself.  It may not be a Mau Mau hat, and I could ideally do with having a larger head (since the hat only comes in one size) because it has a tendency to slip over my eyes when I'm walking, and I have no peripheral vision.

But none of these things matter because it is the absolute coolest hat in the world!  It keeps me so incredibly warm, and it is perfect for when you want to sleep on the train to work -- it gives my head padding against the train window, muffles the sound and I can pull it over my eyes.  What's not to like?  Also, it reminds me of this advert with Rich Hall.

I also love London this week.  It may not be the prettiest city in the world, and it might not have quite the charm of European cities like Paris, or Rome, or Barcelona, or Prague, or the original colonial style of some buildings in Australian cities I have seen -- but it has a charm and history that many modern cities lack, almost by definition.  As I mentioned in my last post, London has grown organically from various smaller towns and almost anywhere you go in the city you can turn a corner away from Starbucks and McDonald's and still find old cobbled streets and disused gas street lamps.   London has a personality and a history that is undeniable, and unrivalled.

I guess following on from my love of London is my love of Europe.  There are still vast areas of Europe I haven't seen, but I love living in Europe this week -- I love that I can call people in France, Germany, Belgium, Spain, Scandinavia and with the exception of the last one I can usually at least say "good morning" and with French and Spanish "Do you speak English?".  I speak to these people and see bookings for them travelling across Europe to come to London, and they think nothing of it.  Then I'll speak to someone in the north of England and they will balk at the idea of coming down to London for the day.  There is so much anti-Europe sentiment in England, but I embrace it -- how can you not, when you can drive in to a foreign country in less time that it takes to drive to places in Britain?

Finally what I love this week is being one of life's winners!  A competition I entered randomly one day, as I do so often, actually came through for me -- I got an unexpected email telling me that I had won a place, plus one, on the guest list to see Har Mar Superstar at the start of December.  Of course, I am taking the girl as my plus one since I know she likes his music, too, and it can be another celebration of her coming home.

And I guess that wraps her up this week -- not a vast list of things, but I think the first is quite important.  Followed, albeit at a distance, by a good looking hat.

Working late and walking late

Tonight I had to work late.

Almost every night of the week -- or, at least, the working week -- my company hosts events, which in turn means someone has to stay late to show the delegates where they are going as they arrive.  Tonight was my turn, but instead of showing them where they were going I was sending them away with a map to find the place where the event was being held.

This is the least interesting part of the post, I'm starting with this so that it will get better as you go along and you are rewarded for being dedicated readers.

I finished work.  Wrapped up in a coat and scarf, and set off down the street to the Tube station.  Except halfway to the Tube I decided I didn't want to get on it right away.  It wasn't that I didn't want to go home, it was just that there was no hurry.  The house is empty and nobody would know or care if I got home at 8, or 9, or even tomorrow morning, ten minutes before having to leave the house again for work.  I figured instead of taking the Tube three stops, I would walk.  It isn't far, it was mild for November, and it shouldn't be all that complicated...

You know at this point that if it wasn't difficult this would be a very short post.  I thought I was so clever.  I knew that if I walked one way I would be heading towards King's Cross which was the opposite way to where I wanted to be going, and if I went yet another way I would be heading more in the direction of Chancery Lane.  Again, not where I wanted to be.  Short of going back on myself, there was only one direction left that I could go.

Except it doesn't ever work like that, especially not in such an organic city as London.  London isn't so much a city as it is lots of small towns that have, over time, merged together -- so there's lots of different identities all melting together, and there are very rarely any roads that go in straight lines.  There's no grid patterns to be found here.  And there is rarely any sort of a sign that will tell you where you are -- or where you are going.

I enjoyed the walk, hell I need the exercise right now, and I had no particular place to be.  I liked crossing the streets where by now every third car was a cab, walking past the pubs full of city workers having a quick drink after work which must surely have turned into at least two or three by this time, the pizza restaurants where couples sat in the windows having early dinners, and other restaurants where the owners were standing outside to try and encourage people to come in.  I like those kinds of restaurants, it really makes you feel wanted when someone is that eager for your company.  Or your money.

After about half an hour of thinking I knew where I was going, in a roundabout sort of way, and not minding that it was taken much longer than it would have done if I had just got on the Tube, I recognised where I was.  I had unconsciously managed to walk 30 minutes just to end up 5 minutes away from where I started, outside the building we are meant to be moving to next week. 

I set off again, thinking this time I was definitely going the right way.  I turned down one side road, and I almost stopped at the bottom.  I could hear shouts, and possibly the sound of people running, and I wondered if this was something I wanted to walk out into.  As I came out of the street so cautiously, I saw a football pitch across the street.  It wasn't someone being chased by a mob at all, or groups of football hooligans meeting in the street -- just a friendly game of 5-a-side.

I looked for distinctive landmarks -- thinking I would surely be able to make out one office building or another near where I wanted to be, but any tall buildings with lights that I headed towards turned out to be ugly concrete tower blocks built in the 1960s.  After much too long I decided that my walking wasn't actually getting me anywhere, I was starting to get cold and hungry -- and even if I had been on the train that very minute, it would be at least an hour before I got home.

I headed directly to the first Tube stop I came to, and found I had only walked one stop further from where I worked.

It was in the right direction, though, so I consider it a success.

Daddy wouldn't buy me a Mau Mau

I am known in some circles as being something of a poetry groupie.

Ten years ago, when I was studying for my A-Level in English Literature, a friend told me that the year below us were being taken to a poetry conference -- where poets including Carol Ann Duffy and Simon Armitage would be reading some of their work.  Although their work wasn't being studied in class our year, some gentle persuasion got us included to go to the conference -- purely for pleasure.

I remember the confusion many of the students had that I would choose to go, that I wasn't studying these poets but instead read them for pleasure.  I even had copies of their books that I had brought along in the hope of getting them signed.

At the conference, I sat in the front row with one of my friends -- who was writing a book of poetry called Lusus Naturae.  She was one of those people who didn't just write poems, but compiled them into books, and gave friends readings from her collection.

After Simon Armitage read his poems, I told this girl that I was going to see if I could go "backstage" and meet him.  She dismissed the idea.  She said he would already be outside, smoking a cigarette in the rain, and would be gone in minutes.  Just the same, when the conference compere came back out to check something, I asked him to take me to meet Mr Armitage.  And he did.  Simon Armitage seemed shy and probably a little bewildered by this breathless poetry fan who was telling him was a big, big fan he was -- and I asked him to sign my copy of Book of Matches.

Instead of disappearing into the streets of London for the rest of the day -- as was normal behaviour for these conferences -- I sat and listened raptly to all the other poets, until my favourite, Carol Ann Duffy.  The sublime Ms Duffy is now the poet laureate.  I meant to write a post back when she was awarded the post about what this meant for England, and poetry, that all hope was not lost when an openly bisexual single mother from Scotland could the two fingered salute to the stuffy old men of the establishment.  But at the same time I couldn't see her writing poems on demand for royal weddings and anniversaries.

Anyway, I was taken to meet Ms Duffy like I had been before, and she in turn introduced me to the lovely UA Fanthorpe.  I was asked if I wrote poetry myself.  I replied I did, but probably that was going through a dry spell.  I later became much more prolific at university, writing poems that were funny or sad or sarcastic and reading them half drunk and semi wild at open mike evenings on both sides of the Atlantic ocean.  I hope sometime in the near future to find an open mike night in London and maybe dust off some of the better pieces.

Today I was thinking about the Alexei Sayle short story "The Mau Mau Hat" -- where a poet is kept from his work by a younger poet called Emmanuel Pollock (a reference to Coleridge's unwelcome visitor).  In the story, it is customary for older, established poets to have their younger contemporaries over to their houses for tea and cakes, which is how the man Pollock and his hat set off a chain of events and come to be such a distraction for the protagonist.

I still wonder if I could write to Carol Ann Duffy and request that I come to tea with her and discuss poetry.  I could also try writing to Alexei Sayle -- since if it's not a real custom then it's his idea, and even though he isn't a poet, he is funny and clever and brilliant and one of the finest minds of his generation.

I could tell him about the epic zombie novel I'm meant to be writing.

If you're alone and you got the shakes

I know.  I missed "Things I Love Thursday" this week, but being back in work makes it hard to update during the day (as well as seriously cutting down my reading time) -- this week I'll try and make a note each day of a couple of things I love, so that I have the raw bones of the post ready to go on Thursday.

But yes, work.  I am now back in the world of the gainfully employed; getting up at 0630 every day, jostling for position with the other commuters on the train station platform in the mornings, and sleeping on the journey into London.  One day in the near future, when my finances are straight again and so long as it won't impact on anything I'm saving towards, I am going to have to get myself some latest must-have gadget for the journey.  Music makes any ordinary journey seem like a movie, complete with soundtrack.  What I really want is a telepathic MP3 or Spotify player that will read my mind and know what music I want or need to hear -- choosing either to indulge me or challenge me, depending on the setting.

Work itself...is fine.  Just fine.  It's only been 3 days, and I've not yet really started on the "sales" part of my job -- which being a Sales Executive is kind of the big part.  I've done a lot of data entry, and I have started setting up social marketing by registering work accounts on various sites and am beginning very slowly to make friends and find followers of like minded people.  Part of me doesn't yet know what to make of the job, and part of me knows that it will be only what I make it -- if I do well or don't, love it or not, is entirely up to me.

Definitely in the plus column is the people I work with -- so far, everyone seems nice and nobody drives me mad.  I didn't meet the MD of the company until my first day in the job since she'd been in an accident recently (she was hit by a bus), but I have only positive impressions of her -- someone that genuinely cares about what they do, and seems like a cheerful, upbeat person.  It helps that I've also been taken to lunch twice.

Over a lunchtime pint on Friday I tried to sell her my photography printed on cavas for the new offices we're moving to.  She seemed interested, or just was being polite, so I have given her the link to my Photobox page where the items can be ordered.  It would be good if some sales were to come of it.  I've tried selling my pictures through Etsy in the past, but was never very successful -- at least with Photobox I don't have to pay for the service.

Somehow in the course of conversation with the MD and my other colleagues, we came around to PR and my background in it.  To cut out all the boring middle bit, I have volunteered to try and put together some sort of PR for the company.  It's a small company, but I'm increasingly passionate about what they (or we) do, and would like to see them get more recognition -- and, of course, more business.  Since it's not really my job to do this stuff, I'm going to have to approach it in very small measures so that it doesn't interefere with my "day job". With a lot of luck it could take off, and I could slowly move more towards this stuff than the sales side -- even helping them to set up their own internal PR department.  Alternatively, I might find the sales earn me plenty on their own and keep me happily busy so much that I don't care about their PR profile.  Or yet another option is I'll decide in 6 months this job really isn't for me and I'll go find something else.  But for now, it's earning a living like.

And I'll work on those plans for a telepathic MP3 player.

This is a call

It struck me this morning I don't have enough new music.  Or maybe what I mean is variety of music, music that is new to me, not necessarily "new".  If I had unlimited funds I could spend days or weeks filling in the gaps in my listening, seeking out artists I might like, albums I have missed.  And if they didn't do anything for me?  No matter, they could be given away again.  Paid forward.

The trouble is, of course, I don't have those unlimited funds -- and I expect even with an unexpected lottery win, filling out my music collection would end up fairly low on the list.

Instead, I am going to ask for your help -- anyone who might be reading.  I'm not asking for monetary donations to help me buy more music, instead I am asking for your creativity -- and giving you a choice.  Either you can make me a mix cd of your devising, paying as much or as little attention as you like to my own listenings.  Or, alternatively, if making an actual CD is a little too...2000 for you, why not make me a Spotify playlist instead.

Contact me for details on how to share these things.

The future is quite different to the present. One thing we have in common with the present is we still call it the present, even though it's the future.

I mentioned in the last post how I was rereading The Time Traveller's Wife, and as usual it's got me thinking about our past and future selves.  I've thought, and probably written about, a lot the idea of what we might say to our past selves, given a chance.  My main advice for my self would usually boil down to don't worry so much, and let things go.  Which is sound advice at any time.

But recently I got to thinking -- what if we were to meet our future selves on a regular basis?  I'm less interested in any tips for the future or any particular words of wisdom on how to deal with our present, but more in the personal relationship between our selves.

My main thought is really: would we like ourselves?  It is widely accepted that the traits we admire in others are the things we like about ourselves, and conversely the things that we dislike and the things that annoy us in other people are those that we dislike about ourselves.  With this in mind, would we by default like these future selves because they have all of the qualities we like?

Even if we can't be objective about our own personality and achievements, would meeting ourself as another person be far enough removed for us to like "them", or would we see all of our flaws?  What would it be like if there was mutual animosity with ourselves whenever we met?

What would you say?  "You need to be nicer to me?" 

Maybe such a meeting would be all we need to get a sense of perspective.  If we had no trouble being objective about this future self that we meet, being able to see that they try their hardest and have good intentions even if things don't always work out would we then be able to put into practice when thinking about ourselves?

It seems counter-intuitive to imagine that we could ever be hostile to a visiting future self.  If they turned up on our doorstep at 3am, naked and shivering with cold, and needing to be let in could we turn them away, knowing that it will literally be us that need that help in the future?  It might seem to detached from us, too hard to accept that it really would be us.  It's unlike if a future self met our present in need, since then they would remember their own kindness -- it is almost like you have to pay it forward, you do the right thing so that it comes back to you when you need it.

There's no real conclusion to be made -- but I'm interested to hear others thoughts on the idea, if it even makes any sense.  Do you like who you are?  Do you think if you met yourself you would like them, or would you seem them embodying all your insecurities?