I want my life back

Another  cracker from the  “80s film random quote generator” much loved by the hedgehog. Until inconveniently corrected by authoritative references,  I used to couple it with “Your ass is grass and I’m a lawnmower”, but that is from an entirely different movie. And someone deep in my withery cortex lies the title, the retrieval of which shall make for a happy day sometime in the future.

I’m sure there is a cheating short cut to the answer, and while that would be entirely wrong for something ready to be winkled from analogue memory, it would – had it been available – have been invaluable during, or for preference just before, a crashette on my morning commute.

Car not bike. Five ton tractor ballasted by four mighty hay bales, not a clear road. Narrowing bridge barriered by armco, not forgiving ditch. Too much speed, not enough time. Too fast for the road, too slow when you’re late.

It was a moment of perfect irony as idle wonderment at the almost total lack of traffic on this unlined, twisty backroad morphed into wide eyed terror as my world was filled with high tyred immovable tonnage and not much else.  No way I was stopping in time – unless your definition of “in time” includes frontal impacts and mighty airbag action.

A small slither of blacktop looked too narrow an option for the mini-truck to squeeze through, but it was the only option presenting itself before Insurance and Hospitals became involved.

“Hit the brakes and he’ll fly right by” came unbidden to a mind with far more pressing issues to deal with including steering into the tiniest of gaps, bracing for impact and offering a small prayer to the God of Collisions*.

I nearly made it too, missed the tractor wheel by the width of a badger’s todger at the expense of carressing the barrier with the front wheel arch. Inch either side and I was deep in the cacky.**

I had – conveniently – shuddered to a noisy halt at the window of the impossibly sanguine farmer who offered me this from on high “You might want to take it a bit easy lad, third one I has this year and we had to remove the last daft bugger with a fork lift“. He was joking. Probably.

It occurred to me some fifteen shaken miles later that it wasn’t just speed that nearly lunched the X-Trail, more than that this is the route I’ve commuted on about fifty times which is sometimes enlivened playing chicken with wheeled agricultural machinery.  Because there is always room for a bike, and if there really isn’t a ditch works almost as well.

So some important consumer advice here; “Cars are wider than bikes“.  I expect the armco scrapings will probably polish out, but nothing short of H2S04 steamed through an industrial pressure washer will do the same for my pants.

Proper bottom clenching it was. More on this theme when I’m left alone long enough to tell great lies through the medium of photography and self serving text documenting our mountain trip.

And in case you’re still struggling to identify the film “Screw this up and you’ll be flying rubber dogshit out of Hong Kong“.  I find such missives comforting at times like this.

* “C’mon cut me some slack here. You KNOW how many times I’ve rammed trees on a mountain bike. I’m bloody well in credit”

** We’ve all been there lads. Easy mistake to make in the dark.

Not me. These rather nattily animated cartoons. Brilliant. And clever too, all done through text to speech which is a shed load harder that it sounds.

Only slightly less amusing was the extremely young Doctor apparently looking up my symptoms on Google this morning.  Honestly, get the old fella and you’ll be up to you earlobes in leeches but be nicely ignored by the Young ‘uns and it’s two clicks away from terminal cancer. I wasn’t sure whether to be aghast or hysterical when she openly admitted not being able to pronounce the name of a drug she was on the point of subscribing.

This all for a swollen finger that has has the lumpy misshapenness normally associated with a hammer blow. I’d ignore it as long as I could but once my gloves didn’t fit felt it was time to get the might of the medical profession involved. Not sure I should have bothered now.

Anyone know a good source of leeches? Or should I just hack the bloody thing off?

Well me, obviously. I was out testing new tyres on old trails with Tim “the Bling” H when feelings of intense confidence were replaced by feelings of significant pain.

Worth stating early on, that the tyres are entirely blameless here. Slow and Fat they may be* but my unplanned dismount was entirely the result of rider incompetence, wide bars and narrow trails. Specifically a sapling with on a whiplash kick. Pinged it with the bar, and it pinged me right back converting forward motion into kinetic energy and seated rider into unflinching tree.

“Stay there and catch your breath” Tim advised. Sage advice since  neither knee was keen to bear the weight of it’s groaning body. Still reconstructive surgery is a wonderful thing, because the rooty smack down impacted right on the stitch line of the doc’s finest work and it took it like a man. The rest of me was a bit more wobbly and lip trembly, but all was well once a damage report confirmed nothing but soreness to follow – so leaving holiday plans intact.

Dignity, however, that’s long gone.

43 then. If I may be allowed a “fuck me, how old?” that’d be welcome. At 25 I never expected to make 40. At 40 I wasn’t bustingly sure about it either. I notice that most of the government appear to be my age or younger, and they are allegedly running the entire country. How can this be? I know absolutely nothing and feel they may be the same only with better speechwriters. And since ageism is now running the rule over selection policy, it seems neither Beckham or I will be picked on the wing  for England.

So more than half my life over, a skeleton scarred by injuries mapping all the stupid stuff I’ve tried and often failed. A litany of aches, pains and general malaise that makes some kind of crane almost mandatory for getting out of bed in the morning. All of which has absolutely no bearing on how I shall continue to behave- essentially about 25 with a bit of a hangover. Age is merely a way of keeping score as your friends start dying before you. I reckon I’ve a few more years before hearts stop and that starts.

And those are years which are full of plans, stuff that has to be done now, things to define a little about what you did with those precious years. No regrets, no wondering how it might have been, no thinking big ideas but doing fuck all about it.  I’ve changed my mind about age being a way of keeping score, it’s way more than that – it’s about the best motivational kick up the arse you’ll ever get.

Bring it on

* Maybe it’s like pets. Riders start to resemble their tyres?

Pretty impressive huh? Certainly is close up and shakingly personal.  My preference – when reviewing my travel options – goes bike, foot, car, train, boat, “fuck I’m not leaving the surly bounds of earth thank you very much“, bar then plane. After a first helicopter trip, I’d insert the whirlybird somewhere between bike and car,  if someone were  kind enough to pop one into my garden after installing heli-pads at my places of work. An ambitious plan doomed to failure, and that’s a recurring theme in this post.

There’s a common misconception amongst my friends and family that I have a fear of flying. This is nothing more than a symptom of fabrication shadowing the cowardly cause which – while complex – can be distilled into a perfectly rationale terror of plunging to a fiery death, caught between screaming passengers and PA advocating calm and the brace position. And when some smug arsewipe trots out some hoary statistic proving that crossing the road is somehow more dangerous than an high velocity, high altitude airtight capsule built by the lowest cost bidder, it seems a good time to explain “I HAVE BEEN RUN OVER THREE TIMES YOU KNOW!“*

I feel people like that need to put in a little more research time if they’re trying to reassure the bag of nerves that I was, when stepping under the scything blades of something that clearly cannot fly. Even with a basic knowledge of aerodynamics, no one can look at a a few rotating carbon sticks without thinking “plummet-yes, fly, no”.

And yet it was surprisingly un-scary. Some of which is reduced brain function brought on by noise pollution, some more is a low speed/low altitude combo which gives much time for gawping at scenery and a conceit that – come the inevitable failure of gravity fooling – jumping out is a definite option.

The rest of the week was fairly standard, burned like a self-harmer given a flame thrower for Christmas on the only proper hot day, damp for longer periods, generally squiffy in the evenings, mostly relaxed, relatively sanguine. Then back to work, where it took almost 30 minutes befire laissez-faire holiday mode flipped to “fire up the chainsaw, there’s a staff morale issue to deal with”.

Clearly I need a holiday. And come next Friday, I’ll be embarking on a 3 day pass storming epic of the Pyrenees.  This unsupported yomp up and over two high passes will see five hardy souls ascend 5000 feet of rocky mountain on two consecutive days, before a payback of an approximately infinite descent on a track where many people have died. Well possibly, or that could be more of a prediction.

Our days will be book-ended with mountain huts where our carefully chosen race fuel shall be carefully measured out before the slamming begins. Having never done anything like this before, obviously I’ve decided to throw some money at the problem – specifically in the area of kit where it seems my legion of backpacks fail to match up to a difficult requirement of hauling a sleeping bag, spare socks, comedy hat and vat of alcohol over a couple of cheeky peaks.  I’ve been eyeing all sorts of stuff – much of which the purpose  is entirely lost on a man of my navigational incompetence – but have so far only purchased a Spork and earplugs.

More stuff in the bag, less room for schnapps, that’s pretty much my expedition policy. The trip coincides with yet another birthday, where we’d easily lose the whole morning if my request for a minutes silence to mark each passing year were approved, so it seems pretty damn clear I’d better get on with all this shit I promised myself at 30 while I’m still on the pedalling side of only mildly decrepit.  Although a serious professional carrying out a risk assessment of our quest would simply summarise “They’re all going to die falling off a mountain, ensure dental records are up to date“.

I’m mitigating any possible risk by taking a bike with two air shocks, some shed-based tubeless tyre system, a new set of brakes and knobbly new boots. All tested by rigourously riding up and down the road. Ambitious but doomed to failure? Maybe, but got to go out and do this stuff,  experience things now while I still can, tweak the nose of terror before it’s too late.

“Late”. H’mm maybe I could have chosen a better word.

* Once by a bike. To be fair he was trying to avoid running over mine and apparently I was easier** to bunnyhop.

** Not easy enough tho

Today’s little quiz? How many trains does it take to travel from Ledbury to Paddington? Come on, who said “One”? You’ve not enjoyed the legendary efficiencies of First Great Western I take it?  “Two”? Oh please, it’s nearly 150 miles and you cannot expect 40 year old rolling stock to bridge that distance with only two engines.

“Three?” Indeed. The first one failed squibly due to an electrical fault* apparently disabling the speedometer. Now these trains travel slowly enough to make any instrumentation relating to velocity largely irrelevant. If the driver hangs his head from the window and feels anything other than a small breeze, his reaction is to throttle back so as not to asphyxiate the customers in the cheap seats.

The second coming of the Cathedral Express put in a turn between Worcester and Oxford before expiring with some unspecified engine fault. I can only assume the hamster passed away, and no shoving of dylithium crystals up its bum could revive it.

This third train spent a useful twenty minutes idling in a siding while FGW appeared to forget that the Dead-Hamster Express was blocking all of Platform 1. The back-pressure from ever more cancellations means this carriage is full of tossers shouting their importance down mobile phones. My favourite so far is “I don’t give a fuck if it says 10 o’ clock, the meeting starts when I get there”.

And while I cannot relate to these self-aggrandising empathetic voids, I can entirely understand their frustration as we slow and stop again. The increasingly desperate train manager** explains a downstream train has arrived in the station with an open door, and we’re on a go-slow to ensure nothing has fallen out.

I suggest it’s probably some poor bastard who can take no more and has thrown himself from the train. Various curt nods and grunts put me in mind of the movie Falling Down, only with assault weapons being replaced by aggressive tutting.

Some days you know you are going to be tested every minute of every hour. And when I hear “we’re adding Slough to our itinerary” I know this to be one of those days. Apparently they have to change drivers, which is understandable considering the poor lad’s been at the controls for a good thirty minutes. I overhear a terse “fucking Trade Unionists” and that makes me smile.

Which was quickly replaced by a frown after being marooned in the seventh circle of hell that is Slough Central station for the last 20 minutes. The vox pop train manager is either hiding or has been hunted down and killed by an increasingly feral pack of sweary customers.

Still got the tube to look forward to if we ever get to London. I will certainly run out of life force way before FGW run out of trains. Apparently I am due a refund? What of? Getting out of bed at 5am? Being shuttled between broken bits of ageing and fading rolling stock? Bits of my life that could have been better spent doing almost anything else?

This can’t go on? Anyone know anything about SCRAM Jets?

* Which – in my world – is any engineering quandary that cannot be solved by smacking it with a mallet.

** Will someone – anyone – tell me what the hell was wrong with “Conductor” or “Guard”?

After only eighteen months, “Poultry Alcatraz” is finally complete.  Not complete as in properly finished, but sufficiently secure for a complete relocation of our six mad chickens to their new home of “much squawking”.

It may not look like over a years’ work, and of course it isn’t. Because we had to wait until the diggers moved out, the pond was drained, that area was laboriously cleared of mutant vegetation before even the ground could be dug up by a team of two with many other calls on their time. Two of them generally hanging around asking for food/money/toys/the other sister to be buried in a trench.

But, after a harsh lesson in rural animal husbandry, we took extra care this time with six foot of tightly meshed fence bolted firmly to stout posts.  Below ground another twelve inches* are dug in against fox attack.

All we’re missing is a roof and some motion sensing machine guns. Even this evening, I was shifting large logs in the proximity of the pen to prevent a possible roof assault. I did wonder if Fox’s now come equipped with grappling irons and wire cutters, or we were in thrall to an Olympic gymnast hiding a chicken rustling habit.

But better safe than, well, dead. And while the construction methods are somewhat rustic, all done by eye and then by hammer, the end result is chicken heaven right now. As we’ve left all the spiky vegetation that’s about head high and adding a few inches per day. Well it was but within a week, the greedy buggers will have reduced it to shrubbery swarf, so turning the entire area into first a dust bath and then a mud pile.

While recording this rather satisfying, if structually second rate, building of all our own work, I ran around in the summer rain shooting random garden scenes. A quick browse shows a pretty impressive transition from pea shingle to mostly garden via phases of four foot trenches, ten ton hardcore lorries, a week with a mini digger and six months from a man who came for a week to finish a single dry stone wall.

It makes me realise how much we’ve done, but also how much is left to do. And that’s before maintaining what we have. Next person who says “oh I wish I had a lovely big garden like this” shall be presented with a spade and a bucket and told to put their trowel where their mouth is.

Tomorrow I have to spend 18 hours travelling to and attending a “Developing your edge” course. Something I’ve only previously considered when sharpening disemboweling weapons. Apparently even for the lightly tinged self conscious individual, this is a very long day of gruesome toe-curling embarrassment.

I cannot tell you how much I am looking forward to it. I may be able, however, to explain exactly how much I enjoyed it on my return. Could be quite a short post I feel.

* I measured it and everything. Couldn’t help thinking “12 inches is always a bit more than you think”

Sometimes while you’re attempting to get on with your little life, something happens that makes you stop, take stock and wonder at the apparently ordinary.  Stuff that reinforces the whoosh of time passing with such force it’s almost panic-attack scary, events which hard stop a status-quo that felt comfortably never ending,  a couple of hours which shunts perception of what you think might be important onto a branch line and – for that brief time at least – instead a simple and rather melancholy cypher of the world stands front and centre.

It’s an innocent enough premise; the end of year school play which we’ve done before, but today was a little different. There would apparently be little fun on offer when paying to share a hot and humid village hall with a 100 excited and noisy kids* and their only slightly less manic parents. Locked in for 90 minutes with absolutely no chance of the large medicinal you’ve fervently self-prescribed, and viewing the whole shebang with a world weary intellectual snobbishness side-ordered with chore and boredom.

And that’s pretty disrespectful when you consider the entire school has forgone any real education since half term to learn a whole heap of songs, dialogue and dances. Yet I’ve been watching Verbal trying to hide behind scenery for six years; three times per annum she’d sweat over her one line before delivering it in a dull monotone while staring anywhere but the audience. And then run away.

Random has some “Dad Genes” going on and so can be seen mugging for all she is worth, but this is not her last time in primary school, she is not stepping up to a place where the difficult transition between child and adult takes place, it’s not the nine year old who is teetering on the precipice of puberty and all the confusion that this bring. And it seems Verbal realised all this in her own way, and found a way to stare stagefright right in the snozzle and still come out swinging.

First she was half of the dark undertaking duo – Snuffle and Rot – tendering to the recently deceased in the very Wild West town of Splodge City. She had some decent lines and delivered them with a level of confidence and timing little seen until tonight. The audience laughed, the kids fed off it and you’d have to have a heart of frozen lead not to melt a little when the tiny tots get up there and try and remember which way is right. Or wrong. It hardly matters.

The bigger children were ‘busting some moves’** while the plot unfolded with a certain predictability, some truly terribly corny jokes and much singing. I found myself genuinely engrossed by the whole thing; clearly huge amounts of work had been put in and the results were there to see. But we’d yet to see Verbal’s second character triumph.

Some of the more sophisticated of you out there may have witnessed powerful operatic performances by the world’s finest companys, been rocked and shocked by the best bands at a million watts or blown away by famous actors who command the largest stages, but I would contest that until you have seen  “Lightening the Wonder Horse”, you have seen nothing.

It may only be a heavy cloth fabrication of a the heroin’s noble steed, but let me tell you it is impossible not to fall about in more than a little mirth when this two part equine wonder begins to dance.  Okay I accept it’s not much of a speaking part but, even with parent’s understandable patronage of their own offspring, it not only stole the show, it galloped off with the bloody thing. No honestly – I guess you had to be there

So that’s that then. Last performance of Year Six and they definitely knew it. It’s also apparent many, if not all, of them can do stuff now beyond the likes of us. Not just the youthful veneer protecting them from the significant possibility of ritual humiliation, but also the trust, friendship and fun of being a group of confident and joyful humans clearly having a ball with absolutely no fear of failure. It’s wasted on the buggers, frankly.

And while I lament the passing of time, the realism of understanding no longer will Verbal only orbit your world, the shock of how-the-fuck-did-six-years-go-so-quickly?, I’m more than a bit delighted she went out on a high. The whole lot of them deserved the rich accolades and adulation they received as the curtain called, but I’m left with something a little more personal.

A week or so ago, I was going on a bit about how horrible London was, how hot I’d been in my suit while closeted with the tunnel rats, how there could be no place other than the surface of the sun which could be less pleasant when Verbal brought me to a premature halt with “Yeah Dad, but if you really want hot, try being the inside of a horse“.

Fair point. Well made.

* The little one behind us would howl every time a soloist performed their song. I couldn’t help thinking he has a bright future as a music critic.

** apparently. So I’ve been told. I’ve no idea what this means.

It has been made abundantly clear to me that I was fully consulted during the garden planning process. And yet, as part of my life strategy that – boiled down – is essentially blaming other people for everything, I beg to differ. Because I have wasted enough time, mucky spade in hand, to fully comprehend the horror that seven large flower-beds will bring.

Let me bring you with me here; if we exchange the couplet “flower bed” for “Weed Anarchy“, you begin to understand the futility in attempting to repel borders which are being over-run with an army of spikey green.

Somewhere in the dense jungle may be the expensive items we bought and carefully planted last year. But I’m not sure why we bothered, because if the long winter didn’t do for them, all sorts of unwanted aliens appear to be eating what’s left.

n the same way that life would be significantly fairer if lettuce had the taste and texture of sausages, weeds should not be allowed to grow faster than stuff you’d actually like to see.  And if we don’t tackle the rampant little buggers soon,they’ll became terrifyingly rocky horror show and impervious to anything short of Napalm.

Happily, I am rarely allowed to weed unaccompanied, or at least supported by detailed drawings of what needs ripping out and what cost a fiver and was recently buried on purpose. I have worked hard on being this useless, honing my techniques and asking “This thing here… yes this one with the flower on it… it’s a weed, yes? No? Oh I’ll put it back then. Or what’s left of it anyway”.

Carol has done a brilliant job sorting it out although somewhat tired of spending days being “Woman with Trowel”. However our efforts have lessened our focus on the bottom half of the garden mostly lost to trampolines, a half completed Poultry Alcatraz, a dry pond and weeds that are bristlingly face high. Honestly, if I don’t get that Chicken run finished soon, I’ll have Kevin Whasthisname from Grand Designs turning up and doing a head shaking piece to camera.

Obviously I have a solution. And just as obviously it’s grounded in creating the most amount of carnage for the least amount of effort. Enter petrol based powertools – a friend’s strimmer is barely disguised as Lucifer’s motorised hell on earth.  It even has a set of handlebars, which are probably designed to provide some form of control once the monster two stroke has spluttered noisily to life.

Largely pointless to be fair. Once it’s running so are you are an unwilling parter in a brutal, random and whirling tango . “Get the kids inside” I shouted over the cacophony of an unsilenced engine on full throttle* while fronting up to inch width nasties giving me the leafball**

The next twenty minutes were lost to a swathe cutting circuit of the garden scattering weeds, grass, plants and the odd fence post amok. Nothing could withstand the whirling death of the brushcutter including my now numbed hands and bleeding ears. I couldn’t stop tho, locked into a grisly dance with anything organic and having the temerity to sprout unasked.

A juddering stop revealed that such actions quickly drain a full tank of petrol, and a quick personal inventory had me laughing out loud at my now “greened up” complexion. Surveying my work, it was hard to independently assert that this part of our garden actually looked any better. One thing no-one could deny though, it was certainly lower.

One half cocked job completed, it was time to beef up the vegetable plot or “Insect Buffet” as I like to think of it. I can almost hear the stamping of impatient tiny feet and twitching of hungry proboscis as we carefully plant a whole raft of leafy goodness. I take a long hard look at natures’ bounty before reconciling myself to a chewed up wasteland some time in the near future. Maybe their is some work for the strimmer here on the insect harvesting front.

Still keen to do something strimmery,  disappointment was the chief emotion as my plea to use this somewhat blunt instrument in a surgical strike capacity is firmly turned down. While I backed my ability to sorts the weeds from the daffs, Carol felt my strimming talents could be used elsewhere. Anywhere really even if that meant barely controlled destruction some five miles down the road.

“No I don’t need the car, I’ll strim my way there” I cried. In the pantheon of manly powertools, this rates pretty close to the top, above the whacker plate but possibly still below the jackhammer. Apparently chainsaws are even better, but – let’s be honest about my abilities here – it’d be fun until someone lost a limb. Or a head.

Both Carol and I like gardens. We just don’t like maintaining them which makes me feel that – lovely as it is – the block paving approach didn’t receive sufficient consideration at the design stage. Still, at least it gives me the opportunity to tinker with more oily engines, and I’ve yet to rule out a nuclear upgrade.

* Really this is a proper bloke’s toy. It doesn’t really need a throttle. Unless it has a special “go to 11” setting.

** like an eyeball, only somehow more sinister

Not a nice bloke at all.  Famous in the 15th century for significant carnage and, well, general impaling. Also referred to as “Dracula“, “Ivan Lendl“*and now a mate of mine called “Geoff“. Or Geoff The Impaler as he clearly has a direct dynastic link to Mr “no time for a trial, run ‘em through with cold steel” himself.

Today was designated for chucking toy gliders off big Welsh hills. Apparently it was also scheduled for a short – yet still spinally tapping an 11 on the boredom meter – visit to the local garden festival which I’d conveniently forgotten about**. Anyway after a brief yet tough negotiation on proxying child-care, I chucked a whole load of foam, wood and GRP into the love-bus and made haste to Wales.

Where, on trudging to the slope edge entirely encumbered by silly toys, three things became obvious. Firstly I’d forgotten to bring any food (although I do now have a tea flask which makes me feel about 123 years old), secondly the wind had decided to ply its blustery trade elsewhere, and thirdly my pathetic riding attempts from last night had seamlessly transmogrified into rubbish attempts at missing the ground.

After two “arrivals” which charitably could be called landings only because the model was amazingly available for re-use, I wisely kept the expensive moulded rocket entirely un-built on the grounds I’d also forgotten a large black bag to collect  the remains.  So a third fling of a glider entirely built (and oft repaired) by my own personal fists of ham, enter stage left a post modern Vlad who ruthlessly upstaged a piece of the 3-D world I had been previously minding my own business in.

The result – as any amateur engineering student will tell you – of a large heavy object hitting something rather light and flimsy will be an explosive energy transfer similar to a high velocity bullet splatting a melon. Descendant of Impaler flew on largely undamaged, while “just flying along” had an airborne rekit of his model with the fusalage plummeting vertically in the manner of a GM lawn dart, and the wing spinning away towards some hard bark.

Not much you can do at this point other than try not to blub. Some 150 feet below us were the remains, and it took a while to collect the various pieces. Amazingly – especially since I built it – the fuz was largely undamaged after its’ sub soil examination of the local peat and the wing has another crease which is merely an addition to the many other repairs. Like Mountain Biking buddies, the fellas were very supportive suggesting some kind of electronically operated bilge hook for the next encounter and also softened the blow by agreeing “that was your best landing today”.

Could’ve been worse, could’ve been the garden show. Still at least we stuffed the Aussies at Rugby and saw off the American Part Timers at cheeseball eh?

* for younger readers of the Hedgehog, Ivan “The Count” Lendl was a tennis player of some renown although much of his success was directly linked to a physical manifestation of Vlad himself. Opponents would regularly find themselves exciting eviscerated  during changovers.

** Or if honestly was taking minutes, it would read “checked weather forecast, surely no one will risk holding an outdoor festival with a 10mph knob on Northerly with the prospect of stonking thermals later“. That’s the problem with honestly, it ruthlessly outs my inner geek.

… and tell me about your mother. Freud* was an odd bugger, of that there is no doubt, but less well known is the awesome nuttiness of his contemporary Carl Jung who – after a somewhat public falling out with his fellow couch-man – embarked on a project to categorise each and every one of us into a personality bucket. All of which he apparently achieved without assuming a default position of an Oedipus complex.

At which point, everyone who was anyone** ignored his dry and dusty research, instead flocking to the Freudmesiter and blaming their parents for everything. Frankly, that man has much to answer for based on the feedback I get from my own kids. Anyway, post war and with a bunch of people needing jobs that didn’t involve killing people, the US government funded a Mother/Daughter combination to resurrect Jung’s theories to be applied to the modern workplace.

Myers and Briggs have stalked vocational spaces ever since with their carefully cloistered sixteen boxes of people types explaining why some of us – when presented with an audience -  feel the irrepressible urge to moon while others are found hiding in cupboards.  As part of a “group grope” management bonding thing, one of the many delights included completing a questionnaire which, carefully analysed, would inform exactly what kind of nutter you are.

Not being terrible self aware, but having been repeatedly – and tediously – harranged for being too impulsive/too noisy/too direct/too just bloody annoying, it wasn’t exactly a cosmic shock to find what passes as my personality is essentially keen to party, especially if it’s a party where the centre of attention is forever me. What did somewhat prick my balloon of carefully crafted amusement and cynicism was the probable reason for my obsession with lists.

I don’t do lists; I love lists, love them in the way of the incurably OCD. Mere collections of tasks are nowhere near enough; firstly we weave in sub-lists, create lists of lists, assign priority stars, stab linkages, arrows and – I am quite proud of this -mark the first item in  BLOCK CAPITALS “Complete To-Do List”. When you’ve written “Find Dog” on a notepad, while said dog is probably playing with the traffic, it is absolutely clear that organisation and structure are mainstays of your life.

Except they’re not. My aspiration goals may be neatly documented but they are never completed. Frustration lies between those two points, especially if you have the ability to understand what needs to be done, but are far too lazy to actually do it. Yet I cannot sit down with a beer and a book in the garden, if the supporting chair has a weed in my slumped eye-line.  The reluctant conclusion from all this is that my basic slackness is infected with a work ethic itself  inkly verbalised in lists.

Because if I every finish this list, and that list, and the list I wrote at 2am while wide awake trying to order chaos, then I will be free to finally sit down, do fuck all and not feel guilty about it. Waste time without obsessing that it IS a waste of time, stop making changes because they represent a new start, give up on it trying for perfect and accept that good enough generally is. What I may have learned is that list is never going to be done, so I may as well try being a normal person to see how that feels.

Carol’s pretty normal – with the exception she had a rather large blind spot in terms of suitable husbands – and I was pretty damn sure her personality was pegged by my five minute skim of some fifty years of research. And I was mostly right, except for the tiny assumption that she loved planning, lists – natch – being organised and helping organise, sorting stuff out and getting things done right now. It appears I was 100% wrong there, which may explain some issues of domestic disharmony in the last fifteen years.

Slow learner, that’s me. There is no point profiling the kids as they are perfectly attuned to any personality trait most effective in annoying their parents. And don’t think by changing the rules that this will in any way wrong foot them, because they adapt way quicker than us old fuckers.  And the dog is essentially mad so he’s not getting done unless there’s some hidden category involving a mental type entirely predicated on stealing food, chasing the cat, and – in a perfect world – combining the two.

You cannot read too much into this shit, because we’re all different, yes? We don’t fit into virtual boxes dreamt up by people who apply statistical rigour to something so organically random it cannot be so simply categorised. But for all of that, it doesn’t stop it being mildly interesting if only to make you question just why mainlining the arsehole motherlode comes so naturally. So this weekend I shall organise nothing, my listing notebook shall remain unopened, I’ll let the spontaneous genie back out of the bottle and refuse to accept life will end if that door isn’t painted.

Beer for breakfast then.
* Sigmund. Not Clement although of the two, I felt old Clemmie was slightly more bonkers at the end

** Although by this time they’d been convinced they were somebody else. Probably a Pharaoh, unlikely to be a turn-of-the-domini street sweeper. I wonder what that is?