Nice And Simple

I need a new profile picture as the current one seems to be of a man who is very unsure of himself and life in general or has maybe just found something unpleasant in his pocket. New year, new profile pic. Out with the old, in with the new, and all that. Except I can’t find one that I like, none that I own anyway. I know which one I want though. A friend has it. It’s me in a black hoodie with a maniacal look in my eyes and a sky that wouldn’t look out of place over Mordor. Except the weather is probably better in Mordor since the photo was taken at Glastonbury Festival where God, for the last few years, seems to have taken exception to all of the pagan fun going on and has punished us with rain and mud.

Glastonbury is a long way off yet but I have to look forward in order to keep myself sane during the joyless month of January. If I could hibernate for just a few weeks I would, just until payday. I’d wake up and find that the mood of the nation had recovered from the post-Christmas comedown and its related cash flow issues and I’d be happy because then I could start socialising again. Not that I’m in a bad mood. I’m a bit hard up until I get paid and have settled nicely into doing nothing. I won’t entertain any notion of frivolity until January 28th. I have a friend who’s planning a birthday night out in London just after that time but I’ve declined my invitation even though it’ll be fun. Ask me again on the 28th. I’ll still say no though.

As it is I can generally be found sitting at home, reading. I’m already on my sixth book this year, such is my inertia right now. I’m reading Cormac McCarthy’s The Road and it’s brilliant. Apart from the heart-rending story itself I like the economy of language. I like it when writers resist the urge to show us how many smart words they know. That’s why I don’t really appreciate, for example, John Updike. I always get the feeling that he’s writing partly in order to show the world how clever he is. He makes me feel inferior so maybe the problem lies with my own self-esteem. That’s probably it, although I don’t feel so mediocre when I read Philip Roth. Or Paul Auster, even though he’s another smart-arse.

I’m really bored, can anyone tell? I’m sitting here, rambling on about nothing and no-one in a completely inconsequential manner. I feel compelled to write, but why? I have absolutely nothing to offer, it’s just the ramblings of a man lacking the wit to utilise his considerable thinking time in a creative manner. Sigh. Roll on February. My brain will start working then. You’ll see.

So. What fun things can I do this year? What can I start planning once January is banished? A few music festivals in the summer. A weekend in Iceland in the spring. I might buy a car. I haven’t had one for four years now. That’s about it and I’m happy with that. I don’t like having too many things to look forward to. I get nervous. I always worry about what will go wrong, and the more events I have planned then the more things there are to fret over. Best to keep things nice and simple. That’s me. Nice and simple.

EDIT

My good friend James has just emailed me the profile picture that I mentioned in the first paragraph. I didn't even ask him, he just read this yesterday and knew exactly which photo I meant. What a lovely guy, eh? My profile picture now shows me looking suitably diabolical. Excellent.

Espionage

I have a friend, a friend of a friend really, who has been behaving in quite an intriguing way. This is what is known about him or her:

His or her undergraduate degree studies took place in a few different countries. Then a master's degree was completed, also abroad.

He or she has a regular job that they are frequently absent from for long periods. When asked what their job entails there is a fair bit of umming and ahhing, as if he or she is unable or unwilling to talk about it.

During these long periods of absence from work he or she often goes abroad. Alone. Areas visited include unfashionable and recently war-stricken Baltic states, and China. China is an interesting destination since the person in question has previously expressed a distaste for that part of the world and its people (I'll leave aside the issue of how any enlightened person can possibly dislike an entire nation's people. I'll never understand that).

The question is: Is this person a spy?

One further point of interest is that this person had an interview with MI5 a while back. They claimed to be unsuccessful in their application for whatever is was they were interviewed for. Well, they would say that, wouldn't they? Exciting, huh?

I must admit to a feeling of apprehension right now. I don’t want to get anyone into trouble here but once I click on the "publish" button this piece will be out there the blogosphere for anyone to see. I don’t believe that intelligence agencies trawl the blogs of people like me looking for actionable information. In fact hardly anyone reads my trivial meanderings but what if I was to activate some kind of intelligence device, one of those things that are triggered when certain sensitive words are detected. Words like Mossad or Osama or Jihad or glorious revolution. That would probably do it. And I’ve already typed MI5 so I needn’t do that again. Oops, I just did. What then? This friend isn’t actually in my email address book or a Facebook friend but they could be one of my friend’s friends…

Might I be initiating a fantastically improbable chain of events that could lead to the overthrowing of a dictatorship? I’ve seen it in films, y’know. Probably. Maybe I might be keeping that dictatorship in power. Could I be endangering my friend’s career?

For the record, then, I’m really sorry if this piece causes the demise of a popular uprising or any submarine to be torpedoed or my friend to be poisoned by some exotic toxin administered via a needle cunningly hidden at the tip of an umbrella. I hope that’s okay.



I’m not enjoying 2008 yet. 2007 was possibly my happiest year ever, I was very rarely down. But since I woke on January 1st I’ve been miserable and this has to change. One factor is that I’m skint, as many of us are at this time of year. The other main reason, I think, is that I’ve promised myself that I’ll do all manner of positive things with my life this year and, basically, I’m scared. I’m going to have to leave my comfort zone and it’s a daunting prospect. I need some inspiration to get me started. Maybe I should read something motivational. But not today cos I’m looking forward to an early night with a DVD and a cup of tea. I’ll do it next week. Along with week one of sixteen of The Official British Army Fitness Program that came with The Guardian yesterday. Hmmm, actually there’s more chance of me getting home tonight to find Stevie Wonder playing a show in my living room than that happening, but the intention’s there nonetheless. That’s what counts and if I put my fingers in my ears then I can’t hear anyone telling me otherwise.

The Melancholy

Happiness is an overrated emotion. Advertisements in magazines and on billboards and television screens tell us that our lives are incomplete unless we pay out for their merchandise, that the ownership of shiny consumer goods and cosmetic products can rescue us from the futile existences that we are told we lead. These goods alone, in other words, can bring us happiness, and this demonstrates why we should at least be sceptical of that particular condition. It is empty. At its worst it is anti-productive and anti-intellectual. What’s the point of doing anything if you’re happy as you are? And contemplation is to be avoided at all costs if one is happy. Thinking for too long about anything is a sure-fire route to doubt and dread and fear and loathing.

Well, that’s a cheery Christmas Eve opening paragraph, isn’t it? I don’t really have a problem with happiness, though. I wish bucketfuls of it to everyone I know and also to everyone I don’t know. It’s nice thing to feel. What I really want to do here is write in praise of sadness.

Many people won’t understand my extolling sadness and may even find the idea quite disgusting. These are the kind of people for whom Coldplay songs articulate their deepest and innermost feelings, who believe that The Shawshank Redemption is cinema’s crowning achievement. These people will never understand why I, for example, love listening to Taillights Fade by Buffalo Tom despite it being the musical equivalent of proposing to your girlfriend only for her to tell you that she’s not really interested in you because you’re a bit of a loser actually. It’s a song that wrenches the heart from your chest and throws it against the wall and this is why I adore it so. I like feeling like this. It feels alive.

The reason I’m feeling like this today is that last night I watched Lost In Translation and fell in love with it. It made me ache with sadness and I wanted to watch it again immediately because of this (instead, I watched the Father Ted Christmas Special and laughed myself stupid). I had a feeling, though, that it might be a film that polarised opinion, that many people might not see its attraction at all and I was right. A quick visit to Amazon shows that the second most popular customer review, behind 5 stars, is 1 star. Lots of people just don’t get it and I pity them. They will never understand that melancholy is beautiful. Their life is emptier for this.

Those of us with melancholy in our hearts feel the world more acutely than others, both sorrow and happiness. We long to fall in love because we know no other way, even though we are aware that when it ends, which is inevitable with us, we will be feeling the pain forever. We like autumn. We smile when we see elderly couples holding hands. We see beauty in everything because we are the true romantics.

I’m happy right now. I’m not seeing my family this Christmas and have been adopted for the day by friends and I’m looking forward to it immensely. I’m going to have a really fun few days with people I love and when I return home I can watch Lost In Translation again on my own and feel a different kind of happiness, that exquisite happiness that only us chosen ones, the melancholy ones, are allowed to feel. Happy Christmas to us all!

The Day Phil Spector Saved My Saturday

Praising Phil Spector isn’t a particularly fashionable occupation these days. His contribution to popular music is undisputed but you don’t find too many commentators sticking up for him lest they be found guilty of eulogising a, erm, murderer, should he be found guilty. No-one really knows whether he did it, though. His only real crime might be the wearing of the worst hairpieces in Hollywood. Today, though, I love Phil Spector. I really, really love him and here is why:

I had a really crap day. I set off this morning to old London town in order to buy as many Christmas presents as I could for my loved ones. I know from experience that unless I have a pretty good idea of what I intend to buy I’m quite likely to come home with nothing, I am a man after all, so it might seem foolish that I had little idea of what I was going to get today. But, I reasoned, I’m going to London where everything in the world is sold so this won’t be an issue. Covent Garden! Soho! The entire West End! How could I possibly fail?

I failed miserably. Really miserably. After standing on a crowded Underground train for the entire hour of my journey into town I sustained a bad back that was to last the rest of the day. I walked miles around the busy streets of central London, often retracing my steps to return to shops just so I could decide not to buy whatever it was that I’d already decided not to buy in the first place. I really tried. I entered more shops than I ever have in one day and looked at more crap on shelves than ever before but just couldn’t find anything suitable and ended up buying just one measly present. And the amount of people! I shouldn’t whinge about the streets and shops being horribly crowded since this is only to be expected on the penultimate Saturday before Christmas in the West End and I may as well spend my time complaining that water is sometimes a bit too wet for my liking. But I’m going to whinge anyway. It was fucking horrible. And also very lonely.

As it became apparent that my expedition was to end in failure, I became more and more angry. I hated everyone in my path and, even more, I hated myself for lacking the wit and imagination to be able to buy gifts for those I care about. I ended up taking the weight off my feet in a pub (a pint of lager with a chaser of self-loathing please!), which only made me feel like I was wasting even more of everyone’s time. I felt like crap.

So, I wasn’t in a good mood as I took the train home but at least I had the knowledge that at the other end of the line was a pub where I could sit and watch the football. A Fulham win and beer would make everything okay. Well, that idea failed too. The match was dire and Fulham lost to the only goal after conceding a last minute penalty. Brilliant.

Outside the temperature hovered around freezing and I walked the mile and a half home into a biting wind whilst wishing that I’d worn more clothes and also not had most of my hair cut off the day before. I bought a takeaway and I’d just about have enough time to eat it when I got home before my friend Darren came round. What I really needed was someone to whom I could have a moan, someone with whom I could set the world to rights over a few more beers. Just as I finished a quite satisfying fish and chips Darren phoned. He was working late and couldn’t make it. I was quite disconsolate and seriously considered going straight to bed, anything to be rid of this wretched day.

It was then that I noticed some mail with my name on. One was a Christmas card and the other looked like a cd. I didn’t remember buying a cd. I opened the package and found to my utter delight that it was the Phil Spector Best Of and Christmas album double set that I’d ordered (for the princely sum of £5!) two weeks previously. I rushed to my room knowing exactly what I wanted to hear. Cd in, track 2, volume up loud, sprawl out on my bed and….boom, boom boom, BANG, boom, boom boom, BANG….The Ronettes’ Be My Baby starts and I’ve already forgotten that I’m supposed to be in a rotten mood. More than that, I have the sound of one of Pop’s all time great moments washing all over me and it felt beautiful. I lay on my back staring at the ceiling with a huge grin plastered all over my stupid face. And there was more to come.

Has there ever been a song more aptly titled than River Deep Mountain High? Tina Turner’s vocal is, for me, the greatest ever recorded and never was Spector’s Wall Of Sound production more effective. It does exactly what it says on the tin with a song that is almost elemental in its power. Here is music that could halt the flow of rivers and move mountains and, more importantly, make me feel triumphant on a Saturday night that would otherwise have been heading nowhere. Phil Spector had saved my Saturday.

Phil, putting aside this Lana Clarkson business, you know you’ve been quite beastly in the past to a number of people. But you’ve also created moments of transcendent beauty that the world can cherish long after you and your silly wig collection have left us and for that I am forever grateful.

Dread

I need a haircut. I don’t think I’ve had a haircut since summer and, while I like the effect of my hair framing my face, I really need to shear some of it off as I look a little too much like Charlie Brown wearing his pumpkin crash helmet. But I’m a bit scared of going to the hairdresser’s. It’s one of those fears that I’ve had since I was a kid and have never really grown out of. And it’s not confined to hairdresser’s shops either. It’s anyplace where I’ll have no option but to talk to someone I don’t know. Pathetic, isn’t it?

A similar fear in both its nature and its feebleness is my fear of phoning people I don’t know. Worse is that I, to a lesser extent, don’t even like phoning people I know. I normally have to psyche myself up to phone anyone apart from my immediate family and one or two others. What if they’re doing something and I interrupt them? No, I can’t be comfortable with that. The sad thing is that this stupid fear has actually cost me a very close friend who probably thought I was ignoring her on purpose but it was really because I was scared to phone her in case I woke her newborn daughter. And I still haven’t learnt, I still find it really hard to phone people. That’s unless it’s something important or necessary and then I seem to find it easy. I have no problem at all at work either. I have to phone unfamiliar people all of the time and it never bothers me. Sometimes I wonder why this is. And then I stop wondering why and get on with reading or surfing the web or doing anything rather than face my fear.

In the interests of balance, here are some things I’m not afraid of: Spiders, heights, my dad, the dark, death, public speaking, sex, open spaces, getting old, clowns and making fun of myself. That’s not a bad list and there are loads of other common fears that I have no problem with. And all I’m really scared of is two things: Rejection and failure. It’s just a shame that those two things are quite pervasive as far as life is concerned. They're probably at the root of my every unsuccessful episode.

Maybe I have Avoidant Personality Disorder. I can certainly identify with some of the symptoms. Or maybe I'm just a very weak man. Or, one more maybe, I could just be a normal human being. Aren't we all scared of something? Would I not be a complete freak if there was nothing in this big bad world that caused me to irrationally feel fear? I like that conclusion! I am only a little bit pathetic which makes me pretty much perfect! This is excellent. Now if I can just summon up the courage to go to the hairdresser's my life would be complete...

Everything Needs Rearranging is One Year Old!

Happy First Birthday to Everything Needs Rearranging! I feel it has developed a little since birth and its initial baby steps have matured into slightly more grown up steps. Not yet adult strides but there's plenty of time for that yet.

I still sometimes find myself struggling for ideas when sitting down to write entries here. Occasionally there'll be a news story that jumps out but, most of the time, I'm writing about my own life. This is all very well since I think my life is interesting enough to ensure that I have plenty to write about but I find that so much of it is unsuitable for publication (One pleasing development in this blog is that I'm not nearly as afraid as I was to regard my life as interesting enough to document. When I started I was writing almost solely about events as I observed them rather than events that I participated in). I don't want to embarrass or offend anyone (which is why I started another blog a while back although this has been mothballed for the time being). I'm very uncomfortable about writing things that might make me appear immodest. And I'm very wary of mentioning any romantic encounters. That's not to say that I have a massive catalogue of dalliances that I've kept secret. I haven't.

It is nice, though, to actually have something to do with my abundant spare time. I don't have kids or anything else that might take up a significant amount of this. It's something to put in the "Interests" section of my CV as well, along with reading and playing football and all those other interests that people always put. My sister puts "Bonsai" and "Scuba Diving" in hers which makes me quite jealous. I've also had some really pleasing feedback lately about my writing which is something I really need. So thanks for that, you know who you are.

I wish I had a funny birthday anecdote to put here but I don't. In the absence of a story, here is some other stuff:

- Christmas is on the horizon and I've just bought a couple of t-shirts for friends from my new favourite website. I might be spending Christmas on my own or just with my sister and her partner since my parents are miles away and I have no car.

- I am almost a full-time smoker again but haven't had a cigarette for two days now and I might try to continue not to have any. In fact that's what I'll definitely do.

- I received two of my best ever compliments last Friday night from two beautiful Polish girls who work in the mail room. I am "a really good looking guy" and also the possessor of "a really great arse" that they enjoy checking out whenever I'm around. I was so proud! No-one's ever told me I have a nice arse before! I know this seems to fall within the boundaries of stuff I don't write about as it may be construed as immodest but I can use it for two reasons - It's not my opinion and, more importantly, it really needs to be documented as it could be the pivotal point when my self-esteem took a turn for the better. It should also be understood just how good looking these girls are. One of them is probably the most beautiful girl I've ever been acquainted with. I literally went weak at the knees when she told me I was really good looking. I had to sit down for a minute to recover.

So there's not a great deal going on in my life right now but I hope that might change in the early months of next year as I plan to relocate and finally sort my career out. It's all rather daunting but has to be done as soon as possible before my brain turns to mush through under use. Wish me luck.

Trolley Cases, Drug of the Nation

I was introduced to my latest pet hate by my friend Alex but I’m being honest when I say I’d been feeling it on a subconscious level for a while. Alex just brought it into my consciousness and articulated it for me. I don’t feel guilty for appropriating his revulsion because I genuinely feel it myself. And so will anyone who has ever had to walk behind a particular type of person at a railway station or airport whilst hoping to move slightly more rapidly than a soporific Koala.

On Friday evening we were standing outside that pub that’s next to the platforms in Kings Cross Station when he pointed it out. Around every tenth person was pulling a suitcase behind them. A fine innovation in the field of hand luggage was the addition of wheels to a suitcase. Suitcases are often heavy and so this facility can be invaluable. These suitcases came first with a strap with which to pull them but the next innovation made the pulling easier and this was the retractable rigid handle.

The suitcases we saw at Kings Cross station were suitcases in form, sure, but they were mainly tiny. I've since discovered that they're called trolley cases and they're not a million miles removed from those bags that you see old women pulling behind them in the poorer parts of town, often decorated with a tartan of some description. The old women quite often smell of urine but that's neither here nor there right now. We’re talking about vessels that would struggle to house more than a couple of loaves of bread without having to really squeeze them and render them useless for sandwich making. They were generally smaller than the fairly dainty bag I was carrying on my shoulder, I swear people were pulling laptop-bag sized suitcases around behind them. Now I’m a live-and-let-live kinda guy and I believe people should be able to wear or carry whatever they please regardless of how stupid or pointless the accoutrement might be. It was only the next day, returning home after an enjoyable drunken night out, that I realised that these suitcases are an evil part of today’s society.

I disembarked from the underground train at Paddington Station and began the walk to the mainline train that would take me home. Ahead of me was a woman carrying, sorry, pulling a very small suitcase behind her. She headed towards the stairs. I followed and this is what happened:

She stopped at the foot of the stairs and pushed the retractable handle into the suitcase. She then picked up her suitcase and carried it up the stairs. At the top of the stairs she stopped, put her bag down, pulled out the handle and continued along the footbridge. At the end of the footbridge is the set of stairs that takes you back down to the other side of the platform. Before it she stopped, pushed the handle back in to the suitcase, picked the suitcase up and walked down the stairs towards the little horizontal walkway that comes before the stairs continue downwards. She went through the same sequence of actions a couple more times and each time she stopped the rage inside me built up a little further until I almost had to tell her at high volume and very close to her face exactly how anti-social her behaviour was. Which would have been ironic, I know.

I realised that this was something that had been making me angry for a few years but I was just putting it down to the bad mood that crowds of people in stations generally put you in. But it can all be avoided. What is wrong with us? Are we so lazy and pathetic and generally fucking useless that for many of us the effort of carrying a small bag is too great? And is it just a coincidence that many of these people are so self-absorbed that they don't even notice that they are getting in the way of other people going about their day? For me, these small suitcases are symptomatic of plenty that is wrong with modern life. They demonstrate that we are a bunch of lazy, selfish bastards.

It's at this point that I'd normally qualify my above statements by saying that I understand why people need to do this and sorry if I've offended anyone 'cos I'm a nice guy yadda yadda yadda, but this time I won't. I suggest that anyone reading this should take a few moments to consider whether they've ever held anyone up at the bottom of an escalator to pull the retractable handle from their tiny suitcase. If you have then could you please take stock of your life and your place on this planet?

And......exhale.

I actually had a fantastic weekend, believe it or not! I saw Delays on Thursday and the mighty Arcade Fire on Saturday with a Friday night of drunkenness and fun with friends thrown in as well. Delays, I've decided, are the best guitar pop band in the country. Every song is a proper pop gem without any of the pretensions that indie pop bands generally have, such as a baffling preoccupation with haircuts and shoes and Oasis and Paul Weller. Delays are aware that how cool your musical and fashion influences are is irrelevant, it's only the song that matters. It helps that the singer sounds fantastic.

Of the four times I've seen Arcade Fire this year this was my least favourite but this is no fault of the band. I was too far from the stage and was tired and had probably not calmed down from trolley case rage earlier in the day. Most importantly this wasn't a landmark gig for me - it wasn't the first time I'd seen them and it wasn't somewhere exotic like New York or, erm, Glastonbury. They were still magnificent. It's just a shame that it's now going to be two years before I get to see them again but absence makes the heart grow fonder, and all that...