"It's How He Would Have Wanted To Go"

How would you like to die?

From heart failure brought on by an overdose of Class A drugs, suffered whilst enjoying carnal relations with Girls Aloud?

From multiple organ failure after a high speed crash sustained whilst competing in a Formula 1 race?

In the arms of the person you love the most?

These are the romantic ideals. Okay, two of them are romantic. Dying of a drugs overdose whilst shagging Girls Aloud might just be wishful thinking on the part of some misguided souls, and certainly my top choice of the three, but what that notion has in common with the other two is that the protagonist has passed away whilst doing something that made them happy.

A little while ago I wrote of how the only thing I need to do before I die is see Stevie Wonder play live. In 36 days I will be seeing Stevie Wonder play live. Does this mean that I can die on the way home and be happy about it? I'll leave to one side the horrible journey home from the O2 Arena, something that might make me want to hurt myself if I can't find someone else to lash out at. Would I really like to die after seeing Stevie Wonder play live? I don't think I would.

Here are some of the things that I believe I'll be feeling during my journey home in 36 days time: Happiness. Elation. And that's about it, really. I expect to feel deliriously happy, the kind of happiness that I normally only experience when with my friends at a particularly good Glastonbury. The world will be mine, I'll feel unbeatable. I'll believe that I can do anything. It will feel very, very good.

One thing I won't feel like doing at this time is dying. No Sirree, Bob. For a few fleeting hours I'll feel like I want to live forever. Dying is the very last thing I'll feel like doing. Who on earth would want to die when they're at their happiest? That makes no sense.

In conversation with my flatmate two minutes ago he said that he actually would like to die doing something that made him happy. He cited as an example the time he went powerboat racing and thought he really might die. He also thought that if he was going to die he might as well go in this way because then his family and friends would be consoled with the knowledge that he died doing something he loved, which is a good point and makes my belief appear selfish. Which is exactly what it is.

If you Google the title of this post you'll find links to stories about the deaths of famous or noteworthy people. Somewhere in each of these stories you'll find a family member or friend quoted, saying "It's the way....". When someone has died and there's a quote saying that it's the way they would have wanted to die, who is coming out with that statement? It's not the person who has just died, is it? No, it's someone who loved them, someone who is grieving. Someone who wants the hurt to go away, someone who wants to rationalise an irrational situation. Roger Daltrey said it about John Entwistle. I can quite believe that Entwistle felt this way, but wouldn't he have liked to have done it some time in the future so he could have done a bit more of what made him happy? Of course he would. When someone is taken from us prematurely, or when they're enjoying life, it's always a tragedy and no amount of pontificating about the nobility of their death can change that. "It's how he would have wanted to go" makes sense only to those who are still alive.



In a bed.
On my own.
Quietly.
In my sleep.
After being made redundant from a job I love.
Then discovering that my wife is having an affair with my best friend.
Who also happens to be the man who made me redundant.
And then accidently running my dog over as I drove home after that discovery.
Feeling that life is terrible and will not ever get any better.
Having recently told my all of my family and friends that I love them.



That's how I'd like to go.

Babies

I upset my friend Kirsty yesterday. She said she didn't care but I know she was just saying that because she's a tough girl and doesn't like to show that anything gets to her. Just the previous afternoon I walked past as she was telling someone that I was her best friend at work. She ran up to me and hugged me as if to prove it. This is the memory that struck me the very moment I looked at her face just a second or two after I'd told her to shut up.

She's a good girl, is Kirsty. Talks too much, but I get on with girls that talk. Always have. I'm a good listener. They talk, I listen, everyone's a winner. She's had to deal with far more adversity in her short life than I have in my longer one, and is more interesting for it. She's young, 20 or 21, and very attractive. She's tall, slim and pretty. She has ambitions of being a glamour model and had her boobs done just a few months ago to further her chances in that field. I'd probably fancy her if I was ten years younger. But I'm not and I don't, honest. But I can't deny that it's nice having having a pretty young girl come and sit on my desk every day. Me being an old git, and all that.

I'd arrived at work that morning in a foul mood. The first two shops I stopped my car at on the way to work were out of Guardians. This annoyed me and made me a little bit late. I don't like being late. My pc hadn't even had time to boot up when Kirsty came into my office and started talking to me about her friend's baby that she'd seen for the first time the previous evening. I'd already heard about this baby. The father cleared off six months into the pregnancy and reappeared as the mother went into labour. She wanted to call the boy Shadon. Yes, that's right. Shadon. I could write a lot about this but can't be bothered. He wanted to call his son Nathaniel. Kirsty thought that he gave up the right to any input because he'd buggered off and, after all, he wasn't the one who had to carry the baby all those months. I had let that last comment go, feeling it churlish to point out that that would preclude any man from ever having a say in naming his children.

Apparently this baby makes cute gurgling noises. He goes a bit cross-eyed and looks confused and smiles when you make a funny face. He grabs your finger really tightly. It's a cute baby. I heard all about the conversations that this baby's mother had with her mother-in-law, the usual stuff where the mother-in-law keeps butting in and doing things that are unnecessary and the mother wants her to stop doing whatever it is she's doing but doesn't want to cause a scene or upset the mother-in-law who is only trying to be helpful and pass on the wisdom gained from having loads of kids a long time ago.

I heard all of this and a lot more and it was all too much. I don't care about babies. They're no use to me unless they can walk and talk. Until then they hold little interest. This applies to pretty much all babies. If and when my sister has one then it will be different. I'll care about that one but even then I might not be interested in the noises it makes and the faces it pulls. All babies do this. If a baby didn't do that, then that would be something. That would be interesting. I'd like to meet a baby that raised a sardonic eyebrow in reaction to all those people making funny faces at it. Like Stewie from Family Guy, but preferably without the psychosis. That's a baby I could get on with. But, failing that, I'm not interested. And I'm especially not interested if the baby in question has just been born to someone I don't know and I'm in a bad mood after an annoying journey to work. And this, after enduring ten ceaseless minutes of information about this baby and it's dysfunctional family, is what I explained to Kirsty:

"I'm going to have to stop you, Kirsty. I'm really sorry, but I'm in a shitty mood and can do without having to hear all about some fucking baby of some friend of yours who I've neither met nor will ever meet nor will ever care about. I'm sorry." It was at this point I saw the shocked look on Kirsty's face. "Oh God, I'm sorry I said that. I'm sorry."

She stood silent for a few seconds, apparently in disbelief. I'd never spoken to her like that before and I felt bad but the damage couldn't be undone. She left the room. I went to her desk about a half hour later and told her I was sorry I'd spoken like that, to which she said she didn't care, but I know she did. And I wasn't sorry really. I mean, I was sorry that I'd hurt her feelings, not that I'd said what I'd said. Given the same circumstances I'd do the same every time.

Babies are inherently uninteresting. No, that's not right. People find them interesting so they must be interesting. What I mean is that they are quite homogeneous. Admittedly, I haven't been paying much attention, but don't they all look similar and do the same stuff? Of course, they're special to their mother and fathers and families but to the rest of us....the CIA reckons that over 350000 children are born every day. How can something that happens that often remain a source of wonder? Still, I know I'm in quite a substantial minority with these views and am certain that I'll turn into a blubbering, gushing mess should the miracle of childbirth occur as a result of my actions.

Glastonbury 08 - The Sun Returns

These days I find it difficult to set off for Glastonbury Festival carrying only excitement and a sunny disposition. Along with the heavy rucksack and tent and beers and various other festival consumables there is also fear and trepidation and the feeling that, should the weather be shit again, this could be my last one. Having fun has been tough in recent years, and I have friends for whom another festival spent trying to navigate knee-deep mud would definitely be the final straw. The weather forecast wasn't bad. Wasn't good either. Could go either way. Fuck it, let's just have fun and forget about it, yeah?

We arrive. We set up camp and it's all good. Sun's out. We hug we laugh we drink we smoke and say hello to new friends. We go to the Brothers' Bar and we can sit on the grass and drink pear cider and it's brilliant and we laugh some more. We wander about and see the same stuff that we see every year but it's still feels new and wonderful. Eat. Back to the camp. Fire. Giggling. More drink. The sun goes down and our spirits are up and it's been a long day so we go to bed early. Jesus, my tent's small. My head hurts, I must sleep soon. But there's no sleep just this thud thud thudding and I feel like I'm being squeezed in a vice and I'm so cold. Shit. Is that the sun rising? I haven't slept and here comes the dread and the knowledge that the next few days are to be endured rather than enjoyed cos I'm gonna be one achey and miserable motherfucker. The next day starts and I've had no rest, no coda to the previous day and no intro to the next. It's gonna be a long one and I feel like crap. The others go out. I stay and try to sleep but that's just a cop-out. Must try to have fun but it's such an effort. Fill myself full of healthy food and drink and it seems to do the job. I still hurt all over but I'm happy and it's back to the Brothers' bar and everything's fun in the sun again. Hello lovely Katy! Hi Becca hi Dafydd hi John. Everything's looking up. Back to the camp. What shall we do tonight? Fuck all, because here comes the rain and everything's gone grey, most of all our moods and we're all depressed and experiencing a horrible deja vu and I'm going to bed cos I'm so so so tired but my tent's carrying water and my clothes are wet but I just don't care anymore because I finally sleep for a couple of hours but only until 2am. Get up. See my new friends. Cheer up. Tomorrow will be good. I don't care that I see the sun rising before I sleep again. Tomorrow will be good...

...But it's grey and it's muddy no-one can be bothered to do anything and the sound of Kate Nash warbling her pointless ditties only darkens the mood. But. But, let's get out there. That's what we're here to do. Vampire Weekend. Hmm. Young Knives, Hot Summer, Hot Hot Summer. It's not really working but well done for trying. This fucking rain. Mud everywhere now, not as bad as in previous years but surely only a matter of time. My friends resigned to leaving early. Had enough. Just can't take it, not again. On my own now, a long walk on my own to see Franz and the rain has stopped and the evening air is warm and things are looking up again especially after a blast of oxygen that clears the sinuses and energises the brain and I'm ready for anything now and so are Franz and they're brilliant and my mood is definitely, defiantly good once again. Spirits are high back at the camp and me and Smith know we're not gonna be sleeping for a long time but Smith overdoes it a bit and I see the sun come up in my tent again but Smith sees it whilst sat bolt upright in a chair next to a campfire that has long since ceased to burn...

...Less than ten hours' sleep in three days, not much food and a lot of drink, how can I be in a good mood? Why don't I want to die? I thank the recuperative effects of breathing pure oxygen and make a mental note to breath in that stuff as often as I can. Today's the day, the main event and everything will go well. I just know it. British Sea Power are all Waving Flags now and the sun's properly out and here to stay and nothing bad will happen now, I know it. Sitting in the Jazzworld field with all of my friends and we're all so happy and I just want this to last forever and it feels like it can. Can't it? Anything feels possible right now, we're invincible. Meet Katy at Elbow and they're lovely. One day like this a year would see me right, that's true, so true. Now I'm on my own again but it's still all good. Over and over and over and over and over like a monkey with a miniature cymbal, oh yes! But now I have to find the others, I need company, this will be special. Back to the camp, back out again, don't want to miss anything. The anticipation is incredible. If it ain't broke don't fix it. Jay-Z? No chance. I'm not having hip-hop at Glastonbury. It's wrong. Fuck off Noel, you fucking luddite. For those of you who didn't get the memo I'm Jay-Z and I'm pretty fucking awesome. Oh you are, you so are. You own this place, you absolutely fucking own it and everyone in it and I feel so privileged like I'm watching the world's greatest performer and fuck it, I'm getting wasted again. Why not? This is my last night here. We're going home tomorrow, I don't care if I don't sleep again. Tonight we party. Tomorrow we go home...

...I wake up and I still feel good, this is amazing! Today is less manic, not much on the schedule and there's a measure of relief that we've chosen to leave early, relief that we won't have to queue for eight hours to get out tomorrow. I say goodbye to my new friends and watch some bands and wander some more, drink some more, sit around and laugh some more. The last act I see is Neil Diamond and he looks as happy as I do, as happy as we all are. Sweet Caroline brings happy tears rolling down my cheeks and now it's time to go. Bye bye, until next year.

Things To Do Before I Die

I don't imagine that my parents grew up with this kind of notion. It seems to be a modern phenomenon, a symptom of the affluent times we find ourselves in whereby our aims in life often seem to revolve more around seeing things rather than changing things. Rewind fifty years, and the idea of a list of things to do involving travelling the world (because that's what Things To Do Before You Die generally involves) would seem impossibly bourgeois. Which is precisely what it is. Picture it:

Wife - Don't you ever feel that we should do more with our lives, Ronald? It just seems that we do the same things year after year. Maybe we could do something really different.

Husband - Are you unhappy, Celia? You know my wages as a bank clerk don't really amount to a great deal. And no wife of mine is going to work, that's for sure! Besides, I thought you quite liked our yearly holiday in Weston-super-Mare. You don't mean...you actually want us to buy a caravan instead of renting one? I'll have to save for years!

Wife - I think was thinking a little further afield, a bit more ambitious. Ronald, I really feel that I have to see Machu Picchu before I can consider my life a worthwhile one. And I absolutely have to swim with dolphins before i die!

It surely didn't happen, did it? These days you're probably viewed with some suspicion if you don't aim to take a road trip across America at some point, or go scuba diving on the Great Barrier Reef. It's unambitious, and people who are unambitious have no place in the great scheme of things. No sir. They're just taking up space and, God forbid!, they might even be content with life as it is. These people are obviously communists or communists-in-waiting and need to be hunted down. And shot.

What of those people who actually do those Things To Do Before They Die? Can they then die happily? That can't be how it is. What I think happens is that they must have a really fantastic time but not so fantastic that it elevates them to some higher plane of consciousness, just the same fulfillment that they might get from something else they enjoy multiplied by a factor of...something. And then they're unfulfilled again. A boring person who fulfills their ambition to skydive remains a boring person, but with the added ability to further bore people with the story of when they went skydiving.

All this stuff is just a way of justifying why we do jobs we hate, isn't it? If we can convince ourselves that all this drudgery is necessary then the drudgery is justified. But then I suppose that that logic can be applied to many things; we have to find ways of justifying doing all manner of things that we might not enjoy. I'm being over-cynical, just for a change. Things To Do Before You Die is the carrot that we dangle in front of us to keep us going. And we all need to do it.

Here's my list:

- See Stevie Wonder play live.

Not very ambitious, is it? Maybe a more ambitious version would have me hoping, by virtue of some as yet uninvented time travel device, to see Stevie when he toured England on the Tamla Motown Revue with Diana Ross, Martha Reeves and Smokey Robinson back in 1965. But it's the only thing I feel I need to do. It will make me extremely happy. And yesterday tickets went on sale for Stevie's first English tour in many years. This would be a cause for celebration were it not for the fact that it sold out immediately without my knowledge. A second date was then added and sold out, also without my knowledge. Then a third date, for which tickets are still available as I type, does have some tickets left but these tickets come with the warning that people who suffer from a fear of heights should steer clear of them. I'm not scared of heights but I am unwilling to watch my musical hero from a distance. I want to be close up.

So, it looks like I'll have to line a tout's pocket to see Stevie but if that's what I need to do then that's what I'll do. Then I can die happily.

Untogether

I'm unable to walk past a football without kicking it. If the opportunity is there I'll take it. Do a few keep-ups or something. If I'm out and see others playing football my attention is drawn to the ball and away from whomever I might be with. I can't stop thinking about it. I mentally rehearse what I'll do should the ball come my way. Obviously I'll control it and pass it back from whence it came. But between the control and the passing back might come a few bonus moves. Yes, a few keep-ups, but maybe also a few more specialised moves, my favourite being the one where I kick the ball above my head and then, as it lands between my feet, step over it and use my right heel to flick it back over my head onto my left foot to continue the juggling. The difficulty of the move depends on a few different factors:

- My footwear
- Underfoot conditions
- Who I'm with
- Who is playing football (the less threatening-looking the players, the more likely I am to be a bit flash. Little kids offer the best opportunity to show off. They're easily impressed)

As often as not the ball will come my way and I'll get to kick it. I'll then feel a little bit of a warm glow and am normally unable to suppress a smile. I'm happy, just for a while. I'm doing that which comes naturally to me and it feels right. Having a football at my feet generally makes me feel that way, in any circumstance. This is a constant, I've never felt any different. I don't attain the same feelings of comfort from any other activity, with the possible exception of being at Glastonbury festival (less than four weeks away!!!).

The above is just a laboured preamble to what I really want to say here, which is that I don't get those feelings of comfort and satisfaction from writing. It's a struggle. The words rarely, if ever, flow with any kind of ease or confidence. When I play football there are normally a few who have to try harder than the others to get even the basics right. This is how feel when I'm writing and I don't like it.

This is my first post for over two months. Since that time I've wasted many, many hours doing next to nothing when I could have been writing. There are prison inmates with less free time than me, yet I haven't written a thing. I've logged on to Blogger about six times with the intention of writing, yet have only actually written anything on two of those occasions. Those two occasions have harvested a total of about sixty (promptly aborted) words, even though there's been no lack of worthy topics about which to write. I've had a good idea for a story but it remains in my head and nowhere else. It's like walking to the sink, turning on the tap and having nothing come out. It makes me feel quite useless.

So, here I am, reduced to writing about not being able to write. It's the best I can do right now. All this would be of little worry to me were it not for the fact that writing is my only creative outlet. I no longer play football competitively. I have no children. There's very little scope for creativity at my work. I've never built anything. I contribute very, very little to this world. That isn't to say that my writing contributes anything to anyone other than me, more that, as a human being, there is an imperative to bring things into being, to shape our environment in whatever tiny way we're able. It's one thing that separates us from animals. I'm creating nothing and what that says about me isn't something I like to ponder for too long.

Writing this, however, hasn't been too difficult and it hasn't been unenjoyable, although this is probably due to its cathartic effect rather than simply for the joy of writing. Still, it's been quite nice, like a small weight has been lifted. I think I'll be back.

And how weird is this? I'm just about to hit "publish" when I get a text message. A friend is starting up a football team, do I want to play? Too fucking right, I do! There's a word for this, I'm sure. Is it serendipitous? I think it might be. Whatever it is, I don't care, I'm quite excited.

Man, that's strange.

Village People

Yesterday, Good Friday, I didn't leave the flat until nearly 6pm. If someone asked me what I'd done all day I would have said I'd done nothing. By that I don't mean I pottered about the place, did a bit of housework or caught up with some paperwork. I mean I did as close to nothing as it's possible to do for an able bodied person in a flat in the western world. It was a crap day.

So, I left the flat at six. I needed milk to put in my tea. I find tea and lethargy go hand in hand - Hmm, what shall I do? Shall I do something? I'll just have a cup of tea and a fag while I think about it. It was bitterly cold outside and the road, which was still wet from the hail and sleet storms we'd had earlier, reflected the low sun's harsh light into my eyes. I was glad I was wearing some some extra layers and wrapped my scarf higher about my face.

As I turned the corner I noticed a man standing by the road. Actually, he was standing in the road, only stepping back onto the path when a car approached. As he did so he held an item of clothing out to display to the passing drivers, a blue shirt. Once the car had passed he stepped into the road again and held the shirt out until another car passed and forced him back onto the path again. As I got closer I saw a familiar tag hanging from the neck of the shirt. I don't know which particular shop it was from but it would definitely have been one of the charity shops that thrive in the local town centre. This man was attempting to sell a single item of second-hand clothing by the roadside. In the freezing cold, as the light was fading. In 21st century suburban England.

He wore ill-fitting jeans and a denim jacket that would have provided little protection from the elements. His greying hair and beard made him look older than I guessed he was. He was probably not much older than me. I prepared to give him a smile as I walked past but he kept his eyes on the approaching cars. I carried on towards the village convenience store, wondering what kind of life he thought he might have in England before he left Poland or Bosnia or wherever it was he arrived from. He might have planned owning his own business or maybe he had a trade that he wanted to apply here. Or he might have just assumed that the streets here were paved with gold.

I went to the shop and bought milk and a newspaper and left, hoping that the man would have moved on by the time I walked back past his pitch. I heard a noise to my right and looked over to see a man leaving the pub. He shut the door behind him and tried to walk off but couldn't. His legs wouldn't work. He held on to a lamppost for a second or two before setting off again. His first step was solid enough but this must have used up all of his powers of concentration since on his second his foot just gave way as if it had been planted on ice. He tried to grab on to a wall but missed and succeeded only in making himself look even more ridiculous. His elbow made a loud thud as it hit the concrete and he would have been in a lot of pain had he not been anaesthetised with alcohol.

I'm not good in these situations. I want to help but also know that some people in some situations don't want to be helped. I would probably want to be left alone. My next move was easy then - I crossed the road and went towards him since it was almost the direction I was going anyway and I could just walk on past if he seemed hostile. Yes, I'm pathetic. He saw me approaching and I started to ask him whether he was alright. I only got a word or two out before he started shouting at me and waving a fist. I walked on past. I'd barely gone a few yards before wondering whether his hostility was actually that. Maybe he'd tried to say, "Hi, I'm in need of assistance. Would you please take my hand and help me up?", and with his motor skills seriously impaired it had just come out wrong. I kept on walking. He's be okay.

The man selling the shirt was still there. There was little natural light and it was barely possible to see what he was holding out in front of the cars that, by now, all had their headlights on. How long would he stay there? Had he actually sold anything? Maybe he'd go hungry until he sold the shirt. For a split-second I considered buying it from him. Then I reverted to type and walked on past him and went home and had a cup of tea and a fag.

Did you just type Cheeky Girls into Google?

Cheeky Girls. If you've arrived at this page having typed those two words into Google or, even worse, Google images then you are very probably a sad, sad man. You aren't a fan of their work, are you? No. You were looking for pictures, weren't you? Yes. Why don't you just look at some porn? Proper stuff. Not the Cheeky Girls, please.

The Cheeky Girls, you see, are responsible for most of the traffic that arrives at my blog. Courtesy of a website called Feedburner, I am able to see not only how many people view my blog but also where they are in the world, the website that referred them, their internet browser, how long they stayed and also, if they arrived via a search engine, what they typed into that search engine. The most common term that people who who view my blog have used is Cheeky Girls. In fact it's probably true to say that most of the people who find it have been looking for stuff about the terrible Transylvanian twins and have arrived here because of a post I wrote back in 2006 that mentioned them.

I'm grateful that anyone reads my words. It's especially nice when I see that someone from the other side of the world has spent time here. It's also a little bit dispiriting, not to mention slightly demeaning, when I discover that they're not at all interested in what I've written but have actually clicked on a link and then quickly clicked the back button when they've not found any pictures of the girls wearing something skin tight.

Whilst typing Cheeky Girls into Google may be the most popular way of finding my blog there are also many other popular search terms that might lead you here. Someone, somewhere in the world, once found my blog after typing the following words into Google: Moustached man turkey porn. Just take some time to consider this. What on earth were they actually looking for? My best guess is that they were looking for a Turkish porn star. With a 'tache. I hope that my guess is correct since the alternative, that someone was searching for a Burt Reynolds lookalike engaged in relations with a turkey, is too horrible to contemplate. Each to their own, I suppose.

If you found this page having typed Cheeky Girls and are still reading this, a full four paragraphs later, then thanks. I really appreciate it. And also give yourself a pat on the back. I take it you're aware that part of your soul was evaporating into the ether every time you clicked on another Cheeky Girls link. Of course you're aware. You are, after all, the one feeling pathetic and inadequate. Well, having read this far redeems you just a little bit. Well done. You're not beyond saving just yet.