G is for Gloucester

OK. Gosh. I never thought this A-Z challenge would be easy but to be fair I didn't think it would be so hard either.

When you write for a living you learn to write through the bad times as well as the good ones.

But I can certainly say under normal circumstances I wouldn't be blogging tonight. Sleeping, albeit fitfully seems like a better idea. And maybe too I am detecting a lethargy from some of those fellow bloggers out there too who set off at such an enthusiastic clip. The initial following frenzy seems to have eased off. I just wish I had more time to read the blogs of all these new followers. Unfortunately blogging duty calls.

So, in terms of a marathon, 'g' is the bit where you realize you have lost your first wind, but there's still a long blog slog ahead and you want to save some of that energy for the end. My role as Michael Caine's body double in Zulu - that kind of thing.

I've never run a marathon but I've run a couple of half marathons, the first in Gloucester - cue clumsy cogs that turn slowly into the theme of today's blog.

I'm not really from anywhere. When Americans ask me I always say London because it was the last place I lived in Britain and, chances are they may have heard if. But if I'm from anywhere I'm from Gloucester where I lived for a good decade and went to school.

Gloucester's a funny place because it's frequently overlooked or written off as unappealing and industrial.

Yet if you shoved it in the middle of America, it would probably become a major tourist attraction. For a start it's historic. Its center The Cross, follows the lines of the original Roman city of Glevum built a few decades after the death of Christ.

Gloucester boasts a massive cathedral that has been a place of worship for 900 years, although it's not on the A list of Britain's cathedrals with Canterbury, Westminster Abbey, Salisbury, York Minster, Lincoln and Durham.

And hidden down a winding street in the cathedral close is the Tailor of Gloucester Beatrix Potter Museum and Shop, celebrating the author's book and sketches of the city.

Even the old docks that were rat infested and derelict warehouses when my family first moved to Gloucester have now been converted into waterside restaurants and antique stores.

Despite this my memories of growing up in Gloucester aren't sophisticated ones. They revolve around historic pubs that were frequented by louts with ill grown moustaches; they involve fights and stolen bicycles. They revolve and revolve until the room of some badly lit pool room starts to spin.

Gloucester had rugby and machismo, but there was little sophistication. It had a chip on the shoulder that's typical of provincial English market towns. While nearby Cheltenham had its grand Georgian boulevards, the literary festival and the races, Gloucester had shabby concrete shopping precincts with fountains that never worked.

I'd like to think I grew up watching art house movies in bijou venues but the reality was a bag of Wotsits on the broken seast of the Odeon which watching a Rocky movie with a girl who looked a lot better in the dark, although that didn't stop her trying to grab one's Wotsits.

Spiritualism didn't happen much on the streets of Gloucester but there were the occasional tranquil moments when I walked the cathedral cloisters in spendid isloation and wondered if I would have turned out differently if I hadn't gone to a comprehensive school but had instead been instructed in Latin at the fee paying cathedral school.

Perhaps because of the memories of so many queasy nights, I couldn't wait to escape from Gloucester.

But later when I worked in London for a number of papers, one was based in Gloucester. I went back and the old streets seemed familiar but strangely different, my old school shruken in stature while the weeds had grown, my old estate long past its 1970s prime and falling into disrepair.

Most disturbing of all, I saw a grubby guy begging in the streets of the city center. He looked disconcertingly familiar. As I walked past I realized I'd been looking at Gallager from my school, a kid who dropped out to sniff glue and take just about every substance known to man and Keith Richards.

Could it really be that while I had spend two decades working all over the country and seeing as much of the world I could afford to, he had been rotting away on the streets of Gloucester?

It made me think of a Smiths song but I'm not sure which one.

F is for Fairground

I can never think of fairgrounds without seeing Joan Osborne's video for One of Us in my mind's eye.

There's a large ferris wheel turning and clowns are putting their heads through holes against the wide open and bleak spaces of Coney Island.

Well if God is anywhere he's certainly not at the fun fair. Last weekend we drove into an unholy trap by the mall when we passed a small fun fair.

"Can we go? Can we go?" pleaded Zara. What could we do?

There's a place reserved in all of our childhoods for the memory of our first fairground. I remember vividly the ragged field we headed across with a wad of pound notes in our pockets where, beyond the waggon train of dirty caravans, the Waltzers and Dodgems thudded and banged and gaudy lights played on metal polls.

Even then we felt the sickly undercurrents, the smell of meat fried in too much lard, the septic blobs of candy floss and the toothless smiles of the men by the teddy bear stand.

The haunted house was the biggest attraction back then. It was little more than a dark truck container with a few plastic spiders and a nasty surprise at the end in the form of a man dressed as a beast who ran down the corridor roaring at the kids.

A year later there was a different surprise; an electric chair that you sat in which gave you an actual electric shock.

The memories served only to emphasis the gulf between adulthood and being a child.

While Zara ran excitedly from ride to ride clutching her over priced tokens and excitedly gave over $5 to win a cuddly toy at the dart store that surely retailed for $2.99, we looked around skeptically.

Under the flashy lights and neon signs fairground workers are a gaunt crowd. Women with black rings under their eyes gave the hard sell on the duck firing range; it almost made you want to part with another $5. A man balanced a cigarette lazily from his mouth and he turned on and off the switch for a ride.

You imagine the years punctuated by the clatter of the cars and those clattering years turning to decades with nothing to show. The long days on the road linked together by fast food chains, the cramped trailers and the days seasoned by the sickly smell of bad fat and curling onions.

Fun is a concept that's filtered out beyond the eyes of a child who is mesmerized by the dancing colors, the swirling bears, the spinning tea cups and the ferris wheel rising up into the evening sky.

Yet from time to time you let your mind wander; you get caught up in her joy as the wheel takes you up into the sky. You let youself rise above it all because deep down you miss being a child again, you miss the unfiltered pleasure.

You don't want the moment to end because you always want her to be this age. You don't want to deal with raging hormones and acne and boys, you really don't want to deal with boys.

But the ferris wheel comes down the ground before you want it to and you are staring at some fries smeared across the parking lot and trampled by indescriminate feet.

You thank the wheel operator and you notice the gaps where his teeth should be and the way there is nothing in his dark cadaver's eyes beyond the reflection of the waltzers gearing up for the next ride. And so the hollow and stomach churning cycle goes on.

So the fun fare is a con trick and it always has been. It's as sick a crowd pleaser as the elephant man.

But you don't want the ride to end and you don't want to get off. Because with its gaudy illusions and cheap thrills the fun fair is a bit like life.

E is for Emergency Room

The Emergency Room is the place I may find myself at soon after I dive out of the window to escape from the A-Z challenge.

It's an onerous kind of thing to blog every day because there are days when quite frankly I don't feel like blogging. Like today, tomorrow and the next.

Still the emergency room is a no brainer because I've made too many visits; even though it was called Casualty back home. There was even a show of the same name, although it wasn't the sort of drama that would attract George Clooney of ER. George Formby, more like.

I made my first visit to casualty when I was about two-years-old after my parents rather kindly left some shards from a broken bottle in the bath. They swear it was an oversight and social services were not called on. Still I never pass up the opportunity to remind them.

Although the cuts weren't severe I still remember a night of terror under artificial lights and butcherous figures milling around wearing green masks.

The second incident was during my adolscence when my Superman-style dive onto a bed ended in a good deal of Lois Lane. I don't want to elaborate on this one much given its embarrassing nature.

Incident three was during my first term at university. I had the advantage of a top floor room directly above my 'friend' Andy. This was particuarly handy because it meant every time he stuck his head out of the window, I could tip water from my plant jug on his head.

On one occasion, his head disappeared as if he had been shot shortly after I soaked him and there was a pounding on the stairs. Suddenly Andy was in my room, throwing a bucket of water at me. Expecting such a dirty trick I had refilled the jug. I chased him down the corridor. He closed the glass fire door. I went through it.

Bleeding profusely from the head and chest I retreated to the bathroom. Surinder, a medical student, saw my plight, laughed loudly and ran outside chuckling. He later landed a top job on Harley Street. I still bear the scars.

A good five years later I had my next brush with the emergency room. The scene was Wales on a windy day and we decided to tackle the mountain Snowdon the hard way along a narrow ridge.

We had sneakers and our belongings in a plastic supermarket bag. Our waterproof jackets cost about $10 each and we had no map. The only thing we were lacking was T-shirts reading: "I want to be a statistic."

Things went downhill fast, although not literally. Literally things went uphill and up a craggy peak called Crib Goch which apparently is a "knife edged" Arete; although I'd describe it more accurately as a big rocky pain in the backside.

After hanging over a sheer side as we inched over the rocks, we made it to a narrow and slippery ledge. The peak of Snowdon appeared to be miles away in the mist.

"This first part of the ridge is very exposed and serious, having resulted in several fatalities, even of experienced mountaineers," says Wikipedia, which wasn't much good because it wasn't around in those days.

Martin's cheap sneakers slipped at one point and an experienced climber with all the appropriate gear came across the ridge bemoaning the treacherous weather conditions. "Oh my God. I'm going to die," Martin said in a thick Scottish brogue, looking ruefully at his mildew encrusted sandwiches in a Tescos bag.

The thought of those sandwiches outliving Martin was too much.

Galvanized into a panic we decided to head down a steep slope to knee aching, backside scraping safety. After numerous cuts and scrapes we reached a path. Unfortunately at this point a huge gust of wind picked up my backpack and propelled me off the path. I saw a rock heading towards my face and tasted blood. I had enough time to think: "This is the end."

When I tried to get up I knew something was wrong. My left wrist had ballooned up and was clearly broken. We sat on the path in the driving rain wondering what way to return back. After about two minutes a man appeared, who turned out to be a ranger.

Salvation had shown up out of the mist but the walk to a van and the jolting drive in a vehicle full of climbers groaning about their fractures is something I will never forget. I resolved to take up less dangerous hobbies in future such as checking out tea rooms.

But every fracture has it's recompense. While Martin spent a windy night in a freezing campsite and saw the tent literally blown away I was in a warm hospital bed surrounded by nurses.

And when I was released for the rest of the trip with a plaster cast on my arm, my plight endured maximum sympathy from every Welsh person I met including ladies in lacy hats. And let's face it Welsh people, and ladies in lacy bonnets in particular, are not normally known for their kindness to the English.

I even had the satisfaction of getting Martin to tie my shoe laces. I made sure as many people as possible were watching.

Notwithstanding these few perks I'd rather keep up my record of no admissions to ER for the last 20 years, unless you include a badminton-related sprain. For one thing it invariably tends to hurt.

D is for Druids

D in many ways is a dark letter. It's disintegration and death; disease, danger and disaster. From a descent into doom to the direness of dismemberment 'd' can be a distrubed and deranged digit.

But after the darkness and despair at least there's the dawn. There's the sun that comes up in the east through the standing stones at Stonehenge.

And there's the Druids.

I have always been fascinated with Stonehenge and neolithic stone circles, although the place can quickly lose it's allure when you visit it. Although you imagine coming across Stonehenge in savage isolation on a windswept plane, the reality is you go through a tacky gift shop and a concrete tunnel. The stones are roped off and are smaller than you imagined.

Still the place retains just enough mystery to help you imagine it centuries ago.

And when the summer solstice is celebrated, it's innundated with modern day Druids and other new age types who have dispensed with their razors many years ago.

The idea of the Druids has always facinated me. Julius Caesar depicted them as both sophisticated and savage, a priestly class of Celts from Britain, Ireland and Gaul who apparently engaged in human sacrifice. The Druids left no written accounts leaving it to Roman and Greek historians to give us an idea of these mysterious people.

Stonehenge itself appears to have been built many years before the Druids by a people who brought these stones hundreds of miles away from a remote range of mountains in Wales.

Wales also became the stronghold of the Druids as the Romans consolidated their grip on Britain after their second landing in AD 43.

The Druids withdrew to the Island of  Anglesey which even today is a mournful place of empty beaches and windswept trees.

The Roman historian Tacitus gave a vivid account of the fear of the Roman army when it went to fight the Druids and the Celtic army on Anglesea.

On the far bank of the channel thousands of tribesmen had gathered. Whilst the Druids invoked dark forces on the invaders, the tribesmen beat their shields with the flat of their swords and cheered, jeered and insulted the Romans.

Shrieking woman covered in body paint danced naked through the irregular ranks and waved torches of fire to warm their men folk to the heat of battle. The melee must have sounded like the very harpies of Hades to the disciplined Roman troops, Tacitus noted.

Many of the Romans were riveted in terror, but those more seasoned veterans realized they must cross the Straits, make the shore – and only then would they be able to meet their enemy in battle. Tacitus recorded that many of the soldiery stood 'watching fearfully, their limbs shaking in terror'.

But the Roman General Paullinus drove his men on into their boats. And once they had reached the island, the Roman war machine sprung into action, scything a path through the savages.

History sometimes seeks to make a distinction between the lawlessness of the savages and the order of Rome. Afterall the Romans had democracy, cities, roads, central heating and bath houses,

But a pattern which saw Rome offering no mercy to its enemies as espoused by Caesar in his campaigns in Gaul, was also seen in Anglesea.

Once the Celts and Druids were driven back, the killing began in deadly earnest.  It is said the Romans spared none of their enemies on the battlefield. Men, women and children were slaughtered, butchered by an army spurred on by shame about its earlier fears. Many of the Druids and their followers were thrown into their sacred groves of oak and then burned alive. There were, it is said, few prisoners taken.

Ultimtely the Druids, who left no written evidence, were defined by their persecution, as the remnants of Britain's other ancient peoples would be by waves of subsequent invaders.

And in the gloom and murkeness of Welsh forests where the trees are twisted, eaten with lichen and heavy with rain, lies the fascinating mystery of the Druids.

C is for Chuck E.Cheese's

First the good news. I haven't been to Chuck E. Cheese's since the last time I went to Chuck E. Cheese's.

And that was a long time ago.

Now the bad news. I went there today.

This all came about due to a strange concept. Zara apparently has a friend and the aforementioned friend's parents suggested a rendezvous at Chuck E. Cheese's.

This development has been something of a surprise to me. I feel like taking her into a corner and telling her at her age I didn't have a single friend. I was a hopeless loner with the antisocial tendencies. What is she doing having a friend?

The truth is less stark. I had friends but they were all really weird.

Anyhow I did all the normal things to get out of my visit to Chuck E. Cheese's; feigned a sore throat and a cough, developed a sudden interest in American sports that meant I had to stay at home to see a game between two teams whose names I didn't recall. That kind of thing.

It was all to no avail. A couple of hours later the hideous ediface of Chuck E. Cheese's appeared like the Black Gate of Mordor, agape to swallow our money. As we approached Zara gave me a spiel about not embarassing her friend or her friend's parents, all of which I thought to be unnecessary for a six-year-old, before we got into a to-ing and fro-ing about whether Chuck E. was a mouse or a rat.

I swore it was a rat, although I realize deep down it's probably a mouse, because who'd name an establishment after the vicious carrier of the bubonic plague?

By the time we walked in my cough was getting worse. I think it was a sign that read: "Admission to the fun is always free" that set me off.

I mean what kind of skinflint is going to take their kids to a place where you put tokens into flashing and banging mechines and not pay a dime? Nor would you go to such a place not to feed the crazy machines.

We paid $10 for 50 tokens that disappeared in about 20 minutes. Then it was another $10 and the same again for a minute pizza that tasted of disinfectant.

Zara's friend's father said a watery beer cost about $5; the Catch 22 is the fact you need a beer to survive Chuck E's.

Fortunately the place seemed quieter than I remembered it last time but it was only 12.30 a.m. After I had been there for about an hour I went up to buy more tokens and realized I appeared to have left my ATM card at last night's restaurant.

I went outside to make a call and without realizing it I had left Chuck E's altogether and was driving home with a vague plan to check my jacket to see if the card was there.

My wife called to ask my whereabouts and why I hadn't called the restaurant and I said "good point." But by now I was stuck at a level crossing waiting for the world's longest and slowest train to pass. My wife called me to say my card was at the restaurant but by now I was almost home, so had to check my jacket anyway. Then there was a call to make to one of the neighbors and the quick task of translating the Bible into Chinese etc.

By the time I got back to Chuck E's, the place was considerably busier than before. I lost hope as a pleasant Sunday became a cacophany of banging, crashing, screeching, ringing, clashing and pinging, anything with -ing on the end, except knitting.

Those hundreds of tokens had all gone but in their place Zara had a great wadful of tickets which she could exchange for a gift. We carried them to the till through the waves of ADD addled kids, in an industrial sized dumpster and were told we had earned enough tickets for a pencil.

So the trip to Chuck E's ended on a sour note.

"What do you expect from a rat? "I told Zara

"He's a mouse."

B is for Busybodies

When Jackson attended a daycare closer to home I used to have time to drop into Starbucks. I didn't have much time but 30 minutes in the morning was a great interlude to chill with a book before work.

I like Starbucks, even though you can end up remortgaging your house to pay for a triple cherry, quadruple fluffed mattressochino if you are not careful.

I always order a small house coffee and make a beeline for the comfy chair. While Starbucks was seen as an extension of American cultural imperialism back in Britain because the company would take over all the nicest historic structures. over here it feels rather sophisticated and abstactly ethical for a chain.

However, Jackson's daycare was switched up a couple of months ago. I no longer pass Starbucks. The best I can hope for is a roadside 7-Eleven.

Now 7-Elven coffee is a strange concept. The first time I found one I was rather excited by the choices that include Colombian, Mountain Roast and a number of other exciting sounding brands.

It's only after trying them all that you come to the conclusion there's one basic flavor; and it's dessicated camel poo.

So now I am under no illusions. I am there for the caffeine fix; nothing more, nothing less.

Except the 7-Eleven I am frequenting in Suffolk has one other factor going against it, the resident busybody.

I'm moody enough knowing I'm going to work and am about to ingest camel poo. As if that weren't bad enough, this individual, a rangy middle aged employee with oversized hair, is always at the coffee counter with a rancid looking cloth in her hand, pretending to be doing something.

When I move to the left to grab a coffee pot she'll move to the left; when I move to the right, she'll move to the right. I daresay if I performed an amazing leap to the ceiling I'd find her blocking my way to the strip light.

"Oh, I'm not in your way am I?" she'll say as she again blocks my path to the stirring sticks and starts refilling them one by one with the speed of a tortiose coming out of hibernation.

"Not at all."

Of course I want to say: "Can't you sod off Doris and stack some mints somewhere else."

I don't actually know her name but if it's not Doris, it should be. That or Doreen, certainly not Paris.

Now my coffee coordination skills in the morning are not at their best as it is, mainly because I am caffeine deprived. I have to get out my notebook and draw a flow chart that links pouring to milk to lid etc. So imagine my consternation when the busybody is blocking Route One to the lids.

Yesterday she was grabbing the creamer container, mindlessly refilling it, even though it was almost full. A guy almost got into a circular kind of altercation with her as he pulled it one way and she pulled it back again.

I couldn't even dispose of my sugar wrapper down the chute without her throwing herself into my path with her manky old cloth, wiping the rim.

Note to self: Resist the urge to scream out 'please stop cleaning my hole'

I'm not sure what's with the 7-Elven busybody but I'm starting to get a complex that she lies in wait in some busybody recess and ambles over to the coffee counter as soon as she sees me getting out of my car. This is probably exess paranoia on my part but busybodies can do this to you.

I'm not sure if my definition of busybodies is the same as that of the national debate which seems to equate the term with liberals who are taking away our rights.

U.S. Senator Rand Paul’s toilets don’t work. And, he says, it’s the government’s fault, reports Bloomberg.com, for example.

This seems to relate to low energy flushes and efficient lightbulbs.

But frankly I don't care too much about that. I'd just like this infernal woman to stop getting between me and the miserable jar of coffee that might keep me awake for a couple of hours longer.

A is for Air Cadets

I know, I know. It isn't a traditional approach or a usual way to approach the A-Z blogging concept. Ie. A is for Apple – and where the creation story went wrong when Eve misled Adam with a pesky piece of fruit. And men were led down wrong paths by women ever since and snakes are always bad news.


But that is to say there is a traditional approach to an A-Z blogging concept. It’s a new idea, right? It’s a scary new idea, actually as the thought of blogging every day, except Sundays, for the whole month is starting to alarm me.

So why air cadets and am I seeking to resolve unresolved issues from my mixed up adolescence?

Perhaps because I never knew exactly what promoted me to join a pseudo military organization as a teenager beyond my love of aircraft, that failed to diminish when the model of a MIG 21 slipped its string on the ceiling of my bedroom and fell on my head. And to think I had spent so long getting those swing wings to work.

Whatever the reason something prompted me to accompany Aidan, the kid next door, who believed he was a character from a boy’s own war story, to go along to the Air Training Corps. We decamped to a Spartan hut on the edge of a shuttered RAF base where we met the CO (Commanding Officer), a diminutive man with red hair.

He had a model Spitfire on his desk. He casually mentioned he had been in the Battle of Britain. I could hardly believe a real war hero was here in this brightly lit hut on a Wednesday night on the edge of an old RAF supply base, surrounded by screwed up adolescents.

Seeing the cadets in their blue uniforms standing to attention didn’t inspire me to join. The idea terrified me. But I joined nonetheless and bought into the whole way of life, archaic blue books on air frames and map reading; saluting and drills on the parade ground, not to mention itchy trousers.

Then we’d go away on camp under the control of Corporal Earp who took his stripes so seriously that cadets from less regimented regiments would ridicule him relentlessly. There was nothing worse than sitting on the back seat next to Earp on the two hour trip home as his tormentors sang dirty songs about him and suggested in rather unsubtle terms that he was doing us in his tent. I should add that Earp wasn’t doing anything to any of us, apart from driving us crazy with his unmet power needs.

If Earp was embarrassing Sergeant Day was a menace. Although my family find this hard to believe I secured a reputation as the “bed pack king” of the squadron. When we were on camp we’d have to fold our sheets in a certain way at the end of our beds, so as they resembled a liquorice allsort.

Then we’d have to stand to attention while some officers inspected the tent, our bed packs and our boots. On one occasion, just minutes before inspection I was standing smugly next to the best bed pack in the whole world when Day marched in and snatched my bed pack. The officer came in and berated me for not having a bed pack. Of course it was bad form to tell tales on a Non Commissioned Officer so I endured the tongue lashing.

On another occasion Day informed me he wanted to see me outside the hut. He ordered me to stand to attention, punched me hard in the stomach twice and sauntered off.

We went to the ATC in or spare time. I was hanging out with the likes of Day and Earp adopting the dumb mantra of "drill, dress and discipline" when I could have been hanging out with girls instead. Scary girls, admittedly.

Eventually I earned stripes and got to bark at junior cadets on the parade ground. But by this time I was already becoming disaffected by the air cadets and the prospect of a life spent in half empty hangars writing supply orders.


Even the dream of flight belly flopped. The time we sat on the hard benches of a Hercules as it took off and landed 10 times, was the turning point. Each time we became more and more queasy. Then someone brought around the fizzy drinks. The CO was the first to reach for the sick bag (by this time the hero of the Battle of Britain had been replaced by an overweight nonentity who sold used cars for a living). He missed the bag, barfing on an NCO’s shoulder. That NCO promptly threw up and all down the line a barfing chain reaction erupted.

A few weeks after that episode an officer from outside the Squadron arrived to inspect us. This was the 80s which meant my hair was undergoing an unfortunate experiment. A bit like Flock of Seagulls without the courage to go all the way to a flock. A hint of seagull was more appropriate.

The officer stopped beside me on parade, eyed my hair skeptically and let rip a tirade.

It got me thinking about the mentality of grown men who spent their lives looking for blemishes on boots and bawling out adolescents with bad hair.

I walked out of the hut that evening and never returned.

Venture Advenure my bottom. I decided I'd rather hang out at parties and drink Thunderbird.

My trepidation over A-Z blogging month

I signed up to the April A-Z blogging challenge because I am....

A - certifiably stupid

B - competitive

C - don't like feeling excluded

But just a day away I am starting to get cold feet about the notion of blogging every day, on top of everything else. Let's just say I have an idea for A and B but after that it gets difficult.

A theme would be useful, but - like everything else in life - maybe I'll just wing it.

At least my challenge may not be as hard as that faced by one blogger out there.

"I'm going to blog about architectural elements that could be used in dungeons," he declared.

Well good luck with that. Sounds like a great read. But do excuse me if I fail to ever find your blog again.

In this life, anyhow.

Diagnosed with Facebook depression?

As Facebook seems to be taking over the world it was only a matter of time before Facebook Depression was diagnosed.


Researchers disagree on whether it's simply an extension of depression some kids feel in other circumstances, or a distinct condition linked with using the online site, MSNBC.com reports.

But apparently there are unique aspects of Facebook that can make it a particularly tough social landscape to navigate for kids already dealing with poor self-esteem, according Dr. Gwenn O'Keeffe, a Boston-area pediatrician.

One of the main causes of Facebook Depression it seems, are those smiley, happy updates.

With in-your-face friends' tallies, status updates and photos of happy-looking people having great times, Facebook pages can make some kids feel even worse if they think they don't measure up.

It can be more painful than sitting alone in a school cafeteria or other real-life encounters that can make kids feel down, O'Keeffe said, because Facebook provides a skewed view of what's really going on. Online, there's no way to see facial expressions or read body language that provide context.

I’m not sure why this study only concentrates on kids. What about adults for Facebook’s sake? I can bet my last moldy tea bag that on a cold wet day I’ll log onto Facebook to see somebody’s pictures of themselves lying on a beach on Hawaii.

They’ll be some comment added about how the Martinis were not quite as satisfying as hoped for.

This is usually a cue to go downstairs and do something almost, but not quite as satisfying, as sipping Martins in the sun. Cleaning up cat sick, for example.

And it’s not just holiday snaps from people wealthier than me, in other words everyone, that has the ability to frustrate and depress. Here’s some recent status updates for example....

Face facts.The lame duck England manager does not give two hoots. That's why he never talks to players, despite being criticised for it. He should be speaking face to face to players like Rio about the captaincy, but can't even phone. That's what he gets paid for. "I hope in the next weeks, I will meet Rio," he's just said. What is he doing? Now Gareth Barry is captain! Capello should just go.

OK but do we really give a rats, Martin…

is about to start "The Woman in White" and is hoping she'll be pleasantly surprised by it

You won’t Sally. It’s tedious. You’ll get more satisfaction from listening to Phil Collins. Well errr.

Changing brake pads...


A useful thing to do I’m sure, Rob. But do we really want to know about it?

What if there were no hypothetical questions?

Oh I actually like this one Tamara. Even if you are a Republican.

Good turnout at the Appraisal Fair...saw some great antiques!

Antiques at an appraisal? And I thought you’d gone there to see a duck billed platypus in heat.

crap day. we're all sick, a batch of leaky nappies mean i have to totally change j&o's clothes every hour or so & now our tyres have been slashed for 3rd time in residents-only garage after we complained to building company again about damp


Well thanks. At least this one doesn’t make me feel depressed about my own life in comparison.

OK, I am going to sleepnow. Been baning my head against my homework and the head really does hurt. But I go to sleep tonight knowing that my Rams (I graduated i q9-something) have done it. I go to sleep that the world knows where Richmond is. God love ya VCU and the Spiders. And let us NOT forget the women's games...The march from Richmond is once again upon the 'league' ...


Thanks Joe. I’m going to sleep a lot more soundly knowing you are asleep and not roaming the streets with your Spiders. And I knew where Richmond was anyhow.

Melting tapered candles in my wine bottles the day after makes my drinking trophies more classy and makes me look like less of an alcoholic.


I like this one. OK I have to say that because she’s likely to read this blog. But it’s definitely an upper, not least because it makes me feel less like an alcoholic.

Seamus Heaney and blackberry picking

The award of the Irish Times' Poetry Now prize to Seamus Heaney led me to catch up some of the work of one of the few great poets who are still living.

I was familiar with Two Lorries, a pastoral tale that becomes embroiled in the tragedy of Northern Ireland. But I hadn't read much else of Heaney's work.

Blackberry-Picking, for instance, reminds me of those half remembered childhood days when we would be dragged into the Gloucestershire countryside, plastic bucket in hand, to grapple with unyielding briars.

There was something rewarding about toiling for a couple of hours on those autumn evenings, as twlight settled on the soft contours of the Gloucestershire hills, the lonely and lovely escarpments and dells turning russet from drifting leaves in the fall evening.

And, in the words of the poet, is was usually a place where briars scratched and wet grass bleached our boots and a day when gentle gray clouds flirted with the prospect of rain.


Of course there was always the competition, for me to pick more blackberries than my sister. There were those muddy, dizzy and uncertain moments when we would reach too far to get the biggest blackberry in the hedgerow, that was always too high and out of reach.

Which is probably true of life. We'll only achieve the succulent rewards if we reach for the highest blackberry. And blackberries were a simpler concept in those days. They didn't entail downloading about 30 applications. Unfortunately there's no app. for downloading those blackberry picking experiences. I have to instead rely on those faltering memories.

And while I'm all for reaching for the stars but it's a difficult concept when it's a wet Sunday and there's rather a large cache of wine and beer that's ripe for being demolished downstairs in the kitchen. See this post or a variation of it at Rhyme and Reason.

Blackberry-Picking by Seamus Heaney

Late August, given heavy rain and sun
For a full week, the blackberries would ripen.
At first, just one, a glossy purple clot
Among others, red, green, hard as a knot.
You ate that first one and its flesh was sweet
Like thickened wine: summer's blood was in it
Leaving stains upon the tongue and lust for
Picking. Then red ones inked up and that hunger
Sent us out with milk cans, pea tins, jam-pots
Where briars scratched and wet grass bleached our boots.
Round hayfields, cornfields and potato-drills
We trekked and picked until the cans were full
Until the tinkling bottom had been covered
With green ones, and on top big dark blobs burned
Like a plate of eyes. Our hands were peppered
With thorn pricks, our palms sticky as Bluebeard's.
We hoarded the fresh berries in the byre.
But when the bath was filled we found a fur,
A rat-grey fungus, glutting on our cache.
The juice was stinking too. Once off the bush
The fruit fermented, the sweet flesh would turn sour.
I always felt like crying. It wasn't fair
That all the lovely canfuls smelt of rot.

Each year I hoped they'd keep, knew they would not.

Blog Guilt over my Frankenstein's Monster

Blog Guilt creeps up on me unawares. It normally sabotages me at the most unlikely times, unsually when I haven't posted for three or four days.

I'll be standing there watching the beautiful trajectory of a packet of Lays falling from the machine in the empty chambers at work where we used to talk and it will kick in, sending pain through my solar plexus. A co-worker may occasionally ask me if I'm OK.

"Blog guilt," I'll wheeze through the agony. "I'll be alright. If only I can...post."

But in this most taxing of weeks a recurring thought has been nagging and pulling at my subconscious. What if I run out of things to write? What if my week was so nondescript that it's not worth describing. What if I end up having to write a blog about how I can't write a blog?

Or - worse still. What if I have to blog about the efforts I go to to get out of scooping turds out of the cat box?

"Ah, ah, Catbox Back," I scream as I canter round the room holding my spine like one of Degas' dysfunctional ballet dancers.

Paradoxically it was easier back in the day when nobody read my blog.

Except for my four foot-six tall great auntie Agnes in Largs who'd tell me I wasn't too old to be slippered for using bad words.

Not that I had to invent fictitious aunts in those days. Blog Guilt has turned me into a pathological liar, although there was an aunt of that name back in the day. I can't remember much, except being clinically bored and admiring her collection of knitted ladies who sat on toilet rolls in her bathroom.

What was that all about anyhow? Imagine going on a date and being asked what you do for a living.

"I manufacture woollen ladies who sit on toilet rolls."

Blog Guilt is not just about posting. Now it's about not having time to post on other people's blogs. It also involves some degree of wondering why you are following people who blog about their cocaine smuggling and stripping experiences (presumably not at the same time, unless the men in uniform were lending a gloved hand).

I can only think having a blog is a bit like being a famous actor or actress, although a lot less glamorous and well paid. You are only as good as your last blog, just as an actor is only as good as his last role.

And seriously guys - who would have thought Dustin Hoffman would not have got even better after Rain Man or Hopkins would have peaked with Silence of the Lambs and how come Kevin Spacey didn't keep on being uber brilliant after American Beauty?

These questions don't keep me up and night but they make me think. Do all of us hit a peak that we can never again emulate? Does the manufacturer of woolly toilet roll ladies hit a peak of excellence when he whips off a brunette in a nice yellow floral number, who fits so snugy over the roll he knows he will never see her like again? Just wondering.

And like Frankenstein's Monster will these blogs we so deftly create turn around and kill us? To be fair Mary Shelley's protagonist had a fair idea all was not well when he created his monster.

"How can I describe my emotions at this catastrophe, or how delineate the wretch whom with such infinite pains and care I had endeavoured to form? His limbs were in proportion, and I had selected his features as beautiful. Beautiful! Great God! His yellow skin scarcely covered the work of muscles and arteries beneath; his hair was of a lustrous black, and flowing; his teeth of a pearly whiteness; but these luxuriances only formed a more horrid contrast with his watery eyes, that seemed almost of the same colour as the dun-white sockets in which they were set, his shrivelled complexion and straight black lips."

I've had mornings when I've looked like this myself, although those memories of parties that stopped when the sun came up are fast receeding.

Still the relief of the weekend, washed down by a couple of neat brandies, morphed into a crazy high speed cart ride round FarmFresh, with a six-year-old hanging off the back. After too many rushed lunches at greasy fast food joints, a craving for fruit kicked in and I recklessly unloaded the shelves of peaches and melons, sending geriatrics flying across the aisle in the wake of my reckless fruit quest.

By the time I reached the checkout my tiger blood had kicked in, with a satsuma trace. I could tell by the expression of the old biddy on the till, she knew I was winning.

But at my moment of greatest triumph as I held a pineapple aloft in my outstretched hand, I felt a spasm of pain ripple through my body and my tiger blood was transformed into that of a docile domestic cat. Blog Guilt had floored me again.