When did we stop being optimistic? I suspect it was a some point in the 1980s so, like many of my generation, I blame Thatcher. But I digress; when I was a kid, I read a lot of science fiction and, by and large, it told me that the future was going to be better. Reinforcing that view was a wonderful TV programme called Tomorrow's World, which basically showed you all the different ways in which life would be better in just a few years' time.
Robots would do our work; we would live on the moon; gradually we would work our way into space, settling on Mars, mining the asteroids. Technology would eradicate disease and suffering; hypersonic jets would cross the Atlantic in a couple of hours; better communications would usher in a new era of global peace.
Life, in short, would be better.
So, what happened? Sure, there were a few dystopian stories, a few Maltheusian nay-sayers, but we were optimistic, we were hopeful. I'm not saying that all those predictions were realistic or that they should have come true by now (although I am still impatiently awaiting my flying car) but the attitude nowadays has changed.
Now it's all doom and gloom; all we seem to have to look forward to is an overpopulated, overheated planet, with a devastated economy, where the poor have little option but to eat each other while the rich live on in splendid luxury and isolation. That's if the terrorists haven't blown us all to kingdom come, of course.
I miss the old, optimistic, days. They may not have been realistic but it was an awful lot more fun and I could sleep at night.
Tuesday, October 18, 2011
I'm okay... I guess?
Perhaps it's just me but I have this tendency to think that everyone is more together than I am. They are slightly better organised, slightly more sorted than I am. They know exactly where they're going and what they're doing whereas I'm just bumbling along, still trying to figure it all out.
It's nonsense, of course. Other people tend to be just as insecure and uncertain as I am - when it comes to having things figured out, I'm no better and no worse than anyone else. I don't want to imply that I enjoy other people's pain (I certainly don't) but it always comes as a bit of a relief to find that someone else, someone I thought had everything sorted, turns out to be a bit of a mess, too.
I wish I could remember that fact more than I do. It would only help to remember that we're all just trying to get along, as best we can.
It's nonsense, of course. Other people tend to be just as insecure and uncertain as I am - when it comes to having things figured out, I'm no better and no worse than anyone else. I don't want to imply that I enjoy other people's pain (I certainly don't) but it always comes as a bit of a relief to find that someone else, someone I thought had everything sorted, turns out to be a bit of a mess, too.
I wish I could remember that fact more than I do. It would only help to remember that we're all just trying to get along, as best we can.
Working
I'm a freelance trainer, which means I run those courses that are so beloved of most employees. No, wait - let me start again. I'm a freelance trainer, which means I help you with your business or personal development. No, that's not quite it, either. I'm a freelance trainer which means I am, to all intents and purposes, effectively unemployed. Yes, that's the one. Nailed it.
I jest, of course, but only just. Think of me like a tiny hotel, with one room to sell. Factoring out weekends, my room is available for about 250 nights of the year. Take out six weeks for high days and holidays and you're down to around 220. Even in a busy year, this little hotel is very unlikely to get anywhere near selling every night. In fact, it's doing very well if it can sell every other night, on average, so you're looking at a maximum of 110 nights, more or less. And that's a busy year. The last couple of years have been far from busy. So, for probably three quarters of the year, I don't work - which mostly means staying at home.
Which sort of sounds like fun until you experience it. As I'm single, and most of my friends live either at the other end of the country or another country entirely, it actually means spending the vast majority of my time alone.
I'm pretty good with my own company but only up to a point. When you realise that you've gone for five days without seeing or speaking to another human being, you begin to get a little stir-crazy. Or, at least, I do.
Which leads to a whole new question - one which I never thought I'd need to ask: as a middle-aged man, how does one go about making new friends and meeting new people?
I jest, of course, but only just. Think of me like a tiny hotel, with one room to sell. Factoring out weekends, my room is available for about 250 nights of the year. Take out six weeks for high days and holidays and you're down to around 220. Even in a busy year, this little hotel is very unlikely to get anywhere near selling every night. In fact, it's doing very well if it can sell every other night, on average, so you're looking at a maximum of 110 nights, more or less. And that's a busy year. The last couple of years have been far from busy. So, for probably three quarters of the year, I don't work - which mostly means staying at home.
Which sort of sounds like fun until you experience it. As I'm single, and most of my friends live either at the other end of the country or another country entirely, it actually means spending the vast majority of my time alone.
I'm pretty good with my own company but only up to a point. When you realise that you've gone for five days without seeing or speaking to another human being, you begin to get a little stir-crazy. Or, at least, I do.
Which leads to a whole new question - one which I never thought I'd need to ask: as a middle-aged man, how does one go about making new friends and meeting new people?
Monday, October 17, 2011
Sport
I've never been a big sports fan. Although I was a fairly handy goalkeeper when I was in school, I never really got the point of football and rugby was too much like organised rioting; being tall I was constantly pushed into basketball but lacked the hand to eye coordination to actually do anything - or, at least, so my PE teacher would wearily write on my reports, year after year. The one sport I got, the one sport I understood, was racing and, in particular, motor racing.
I could wax lyrical about the poetry of man and machine in harmony but that would be pretentious and, despite the subtitle of this blog, I try not to be pretentious too often. Suffice it to say that I grew up in the 1970s and 1980s, enthralled by the sight of Formula 1; watching the races (when they were on TV) and recreating them on Scalextric with my friend Rodney.
And then, in the 1990s, I watched in horror as Roland Ratzenberger and Ayrton Senna were killed at Imola and my taste for motor racing waned. Other things attracted my attention and, looking back, I think I was a little sickened by a sport that killed its participants. I came back to the sport in 1999, and my love for it was as fanatical as ever. I would watch every race. In the off season, I would recreate the races again but this time on a PS1, then a PS2. A few years later, I discovered Indy Racing and Champ Cars in the US, and fell in love with oval racing - the speed, the tension, the lead changes. I had tickets for the 2005 Indy 500 and, had G not left me a few months before, would have gone - I regret not going anyway.
It took a while but I got to know the personalities of the drivers - cheery Helio Catroneves and his habit of climbing the catch fencing after a win; surly Paul Tracy, seemingly always with a chip on his shoulder about something; matey, down-to-earth Gil de Ferran; talented, quick but somehow untrustworthy Sam Hornish Jr, the IRL's version of Nando. And then there was Dan Wheldon; the Brit done good in the US. The guy who always seemed cheerful, always seemed happy, with a smile on his face and a mid Atlantic accent that was charming.
Wheldon did well; he achieved a high degree of success in the sport, winning the Indy 500 twice - including the 2005 race that I nearly saw. Latterly, he had struggled to find a seat - Indy has its money problems like everyone else, and the sponsorship just hadn't been there - but he managed to get a few drives this year, including the Indy 500 (which he won in an astonishing race that actually left me hoarse at the end) and yesterday's season finale at Las Vegas.
Sure, I knew it was dangerous. I watched Kenny Brack's horrendous accident in Texas in 2003 and remember going to bed not knowing whether he had survived (he did, fortunately). But you get used to seeing drivers survive - in IRL and in F1. Robert Kubica and Mark Webber have both had horrendous accidents in the last few years which, in times past, would probably have killed them. I lost touch with IRL because of the later night timings of the races and Sky's sometimes patchy and rather poor showing, but I was upset when I heard that Paul Dana had been killed in a practice session in 2006.
And then there was last night.
I didn't know him but I'm genuinely sad about Dan. I feel sorry for his wife and his two young children and for his family and friends. Motor racing is a great sport but no one should die for a sport. I've seen the crash, before I knew that Wheldon had been killed, and I won't be watching it again; it's horrendous and I have no desire to see a man die. Those who say that they watch motor racing for the crashes are idiots and have no place in the sport. And, just as I did in 1994, I'm wondering whether I have any place in watching it anymore.
I could wax lyrical about the poetry of man and machine in harmony but that would be pretentious and, despite the subtitle of this blog, I try not to be pretentious too often. Suffice it to say that I grew up in the 1970s and 1980s, enthralled by the sight of Formula 1; watching the races (when they were on TV) and recreating them on Scalextric with my friend Rodney.
And then, in the 1990s, I watched in horror as Roland Ratzenberger and Ayrton Senna were killed at Imola and my taste for motor racing waned. Other things attracted my attention and, looking back, I think I was a little sickened by a sport that killed its participants. I came back to the sport in 1999, and my love for it was as fanatical as ever. I would watch every race. In the off season, I would recreate the races again but this time on a PS1, then a PS2. A few years later, I discovered Indy Racing and Champ Cars in the US, and fell in love with oval racing - the speed, the tension, the lead changes. I had tickets for the 2005 Indy 500 and, had G not left me a few months before, would have gone - I regret not going anyway.
It took a while but I got to know the personalities of the drivers - cheery Helio Catroneves and his habit of climbing the catch fencing after a win; surly Paul Tracy, seemingly always with a chip on his shoulder about something; matey, down-to-earth Gil de Ferran; talented, quick but somehow untrustworthy Sam Hornish Jr, the IRL's version of Nando. And then there was Dan Wheldon; the Brit done good in the US. The guy who always seemed cheerful, always seemed happy, with a smile on his face and a mid Atlantic accent that was charming.
Wheldon did well; he achieved a high degree of success in the sport, winning the Indy 500 twice - including the 2005 race that I nearly saw. Latterly, he had struggled to find a seat - Indy has its money problems like everyone else, and the sponsorship just hadn't been there - but he managed to get a few drives this year, including the Indy 500 (which he won in an astonishing race that actually left me hoarse at the end) and yesterday's season finale at Las Vegas.
Sure, I knew it was dangerous. I watched Kenny Brack's horrendous accident in Texas in 2003 and remember going to bed not knowing whether he had survived (he did, fortunately). But you get used to seeing drivers survive - in IRL and in F1. Robert Kubica and Mark Webber have both had horrendous accidents in the last few years which, in times past, would probably have killed them. I lost touch with IRL because of the later night timings of the races and Sky's sometimes patchy and rather poor showing, but I was upset when I heard that Paul Dana had been killed in a practice session in 2006.
And then there was last night.
I didn't know him but I'm genuinely sad about Dan. I feel sorry for his wife and his two young children and for his family and friends. Motor racing is a great sport but no one should die for a sport. I've seen the crash, before I knew that Wheldon had been killed, and I won't be watching it again; it's horrendous and I have no desire to see a man die. Those who say that they watch motor racing for the crashes are idiots and have no place in the sport. And, just as I did in 1994, I'm wondering whether I have any place in watching it anymore.
Wednesday, October 12, 2011
Rule Britannia
My family is originally from Denmark - my great-grandfather changed the family name from Rasmussen when he moved to Wales to work in the mines at the beginning of last century. As far as we know, he was an economic migrant - he came to the UK in search of a better life. It's a random accident and incidental to my identity but I've always been secretly proud if it. I'm also conscious that had my great-grandfather been from, say, Barbados then certain elements in this country would be trying to send me back.
Anyway, all this notwithstanding, I do like being British and something I heard on the radio perfectly illustrates why. I was listening to iPM and the ever-wonderful Eddie Mair was interviewing a woman who had recently recovered from a serious illness. At one point, she claimed, despite being in a coma she was aware of the doctors discussing the possibility of switching off her life-support machines and letting her die. She remembers being afraid of this and of not feeling ready to go and, shortly after, she emerged from her coma. Despite the doctors predicting that she would spend at least six months in hospital, recovering, she was actually able to leave after three weeks. She summed it up by saying, with a chuckle in her voice, that she was "too stupid" to realise how ill she was.
I laughed (I literally lolled) when I heard that and thought, how typically British. In the face of a life-threatening illness, after a near-death experience and an almost miraculous recovery, her response was wonderfully humorous and self-depricating. What other country in the world would respond in that way? I love them (well, some of them, anyway) but can you imagine an American saying the same thing in the same circumstances? Only the the UK, I'm certain...
Anyway, all this notwithstanding, I do like being British and something I heard on the radio perfectly illustrates why. I was listening to iPM and the ever-wonderful Eddie Mair was interviewing a woman who had recently recovered from a serious illness. At one point, she claimed, despite being in a coma she was aware of the doctors discussing the possibility of switching off her life-support machines and letting her die. She remembers being afraid of this and of not feeling ready to go and, shortly after, she emerged from her coma. Despite the doctors predicting that she would spend at least six months in hospital, recovering, she was actually able to leave after three weeks. She summed it up by saying, with a chuckle in her voice, that she was "too stupid" to realise how ill she was.
I laughed (I literally lolled) when I heard that and thought, how typically British. In the face of a life-threatening illness, after a near-death experience and an almost miraculous recovery, her response was wonderfully humorous and self-depricating. What other country in the world would respond in that way? I love them (well, some of them, anyway) but can you imagine an American saying the same thing in the same circumstances? Only the the UK, I'm certain...
Saturday, October 08, 2011
Revision
Yes, yes - I know I'm supposed to be revising. And I have been, I promise! I was awake at 4 o'clock this morning which was great because it meant that I was fully prepared for the F1 qualifying from Japan (which was a mahoosive disappointment) and also meant that I could get an early start on my revision.
I really don't know how to revise, though - not properly. I'm such a crap student that I forget to make notes as I go along and so I have to use the text books as revision aids. Instead, throughout the year, I've been recording myself reading selected bits of the text books and I've been listening to them and making notes, trying to condense everything and get it to stick in my head, at least until after Monday!
Oh well, it's worked the last couple of years and it only has to work one last time. I suppose I'd better get back to it. In the meantime, here's a picture, mostly to remind me that I'm lucky enough to sit in the middle of this Venn diagram when I'm working:
I really don't know how to revise, though - not properly. I'm such a crap student that I forget to make notes as I go along and so I have to use the text books as revision aids. Instead, throughout the year, I've been recording myself reading selected bits of the text books and I've been listening to them and making notes, trying to condense everything and get it to stick in my head, at least until after Monday!
Oh well, it's worked the last couple of years and it only has to work one last time. I suppose I'd better get back to it. In the meantime, here's a picture, mostly to remind me that I'm lucky enough to sit in the middle of this Venn diagram when I'm working:
Friday, October 07, 2011
Here's Johnny
I've got those back-from-Hong-Kong blues and today I'm mostly mooching around the house, feeling like it's seven hours later than it actually is, trying to revise and listening to Johnny Cash. Current favourite is "Hurt" and so here are the lyrics because, you know, I'm like that.
I hurt myself today
To see if I still feel
I focus on the pain
The only thing that's real
The needle tears a hole
The old familiar sting
Try to kill it all away
But I remember everything
[Chorus:]
What have I become
My sweetest friend
Everyone I know goes away
In the end
And you could have it all
My empire of dirt
I will let you down
I will make you hurt
I wear this crown of thorns
Upon my liar's chair
Full of broken thoughts
I cannot repair
Beneath the stains of time
The feelings disappear
You are someone else
I am still right here
[Chorus:]
What have I become
My sweetest friend
Everyone I know goes away
In the end
And you could have it all
My empire of dirt
I will let you down
I will make you hurt
If I could start again
A million miles away
I would keep myself
I would find a way
I hurt myself today
To see if I still feel
I focus on the pain
The only thing that's real
The needle tears a hole
The old familiar sting
Try to kill it all away
But I remember everything
[Chorus:]
What have I become
My sweetest friend
Everyone I know goes away
In the end
And you could have it all
My empire of dirt
I will let you down
I will make you hurt
I wear this crown of thorns
Upon my liar's chair
Full of broken thoughts
I cannot repair
Beneath the stains of time
The feelings disappear
You are someone else
I am still right here
[Chorus:]
What have I become
My sweetest friend
Everyone I know goes away
In the end
And you could have it all
My empire of dirt
I will let you down
I will make you hurt
If I could start again
A million miles away
I would keep myself
I would find a way
Thursday, October 06, 2011
Goodbye
So that's it, then. Goodbye to Hong Kong and goodbye to C. I don't want to say goodbye to either of them but sometimes you have to do stuff you don't want to do.
The situation with C, I suppose, is of my own making to a large extent. You reap what you sow in life and I guess that's what I'm doing now. As sad as it is, I can't really complain. I've been left before, had hopes evaporate before - I'm big enough and ugly enough to deal with it and it's not like I don't know the territory.
As for HK, I'm hoping the separation will be temporary. I'm back in January and then, all being well, I plan to make some bigger changes in 2012. They're long overdue and I believe they will make me happier; I just hope I have the courage to see the plans through. The good news, for me, is that I've got great friends in HK, who'll help me. Even though I feel like everything's all a bit shit at the moment (hey, I've just been dumped - cut me some slack!) I can get my head out of my backside long enough to recognise that.
The situation with C, I suppose, is of my own making to a large extent. You reap what you sow in life and I guess that's what I'm doing now. As sad as it is, I can't really complain. I've been left before, had hopes evaporate before - I'm big enough and ugly enough to deal with it and it's not like I don't know the territory.
As for HK, I'm hoping the separation will be temporary. I'm back in January and then, all being well, I plan to make some bigger changes in 2012. They're long overdue and I believe they will make me happier; I just hope I have the courage to see the plans through. The good news, for me, is that I've got great friends in HK, who'll help me. Even though I feel like everything's all a bit shit at the moment (hey, I've just been dumped - cut me some slack!) I can get my head out of my backside long enough to recognise that.
Wednesday, October 05, 2011
Maid in Taiwan
So, after lots of maybe/maybe nots, I booked my tickets and set off this week to visit C in Taipei. In the end, given that I was in the area to visit friends in HK, I settled on a two-day excursion. Not the longest of stays but enough to see C's home city and sample a bit if the culture. Not long enough for C, who accused me if putting my friends before her but more of that anon, perhaps.
My first impressions of Taiwan were not good. First, the national carrier EVA messed my flight up, chopping four hours off an already truncated trip. They then took 15 minutes to check me in and took off forty minutes late although, to be fair to them, they provided plenty of legroom and are the only carrier I know that has pot plants in their planes' toilets. Awaiting me at Taoyuan Airport was a vast immigration queue, serviced by an officious and unfriendly woman who moved at a glacially slow pace. The plaque she displayed which read "Priority Counter" was just a cruel joke!
This was followed by a queue for taxis which was truly biblical in proportion, inversely matched by the conspicuous absence of anything even vaguely taxi-like. Which, given that it was midnight by the time I escaped from the terminal, could possibly have been predicted. Having no obvious alternative, I joined the line and contemplated the possibility of spending my entire 40 hour trip to Taipei waiting for a taxi to complete the last ten miles of the trip.
Taipei was cold (unusually) and wet; grey and particularly charmless in a lot of ways. Perhaps I've been spoiled by HK and was expecting Taipei to be the same. It wasn't - lots of low-rise, blocky concrete buildings, covered in billboards. Where HK is narrow and twisting, hilly, Taipei is wide and flat, with broad roads and public squares.
It rained pretty much the whole time I was there; heavy, constant rain, occasionally blown sideways by howling gales that ripped the umbrella inside out and left us soaked in an instant. Given the weather, the sensible thing to do would probably to have switched the indoor activities - no, not that! I mean museums and art galleries. Instead, we trudged about in the rain, my feet squelching in sodden shoes, my mood gradually greying to match the weather.
My mood probably wasn't helped my the reason for my visit. C and I have been having difficulties and my trip, in part, was to give us the chance to talk and straighten things out. I'll draw a veil over that, if you don't mind. I might write about it later but for now I don't want to. It went okay but it still feels like there's something missing between us and since I got back things seems to have returned to "normal" - minimum, almost emotion-free contact. I wonder whether it was worth the trip.
My first impressions of Taiwan were not good. First, the national carrier EVA messed my flight up, chopping four hours off an already truncated trip. They then took 15 minutes to check me in and took off forty minutes late although, to be fair to them, they provided plenty of legroom and are the only carrier I know that has pot plants in their planes' toilets. Awaiting me at Taoyuan Airport was a vast immigration queue, serviced by an officious and unfriendly woman who moved at a glacially slow pace. The plaque she displayed which read "Priority Counter" was just a cruel joke!
This was followed by a queue for taxis which was truly biblical in proportion, inversely matched by the conspicuous absence of anything even vaguely taxi-like. Which, given that it was midnight by the time I escaped from the terminal, could possibly have been predicted. Having no obvious alternative, I joined the line and contemplated the possibility of spending my entire 40 hour trip to Taipei waiting for a taxi to complete the last ten miles of the trip.
Taipei was cold (unusually) and wet; grey and particularly charmless in a lot of ways. Perhaps I've been spoiled by HK and was expecting Taipei to be the same. It wasn't - lots of low-rise, blocky concrete buildings, covered in billboards. Where HK is narrow and twisting, hilly, Taipei is wide and flat, with broad roads and public squares.
It rained pretty much the whole time I was there; heavy, constant rain, occasionally blown sideways by howling gales that ripped the umbrella inside out and left us soaked in an instant. Given the weather, the sensible thing to do would probably to have switched the indoor activities - no, not that! I mean museums and art galleries. Instead, we trudged about in the rain, my feet squelching in sodden shoes, my mood gradually greying to match the weather.
My mood probably wasn't helped my the reason for my visit. C and I have been having difficulties and my trip, in part, was to give us the chance to talk and straighten things out. I'll draw a veil over that, if you don't mind. I might write about it later but for now I don't want to. It went okay but it still feels like there's something missing between us and since I got back things seems to have returned to "normal" - minimum, almost emotion-free contact. I wonder whether it was worth the trip.
Monday, October 03, 2011
Feet
As I think I may have mentioned before, Hong Kong (HK Island, at least) is somewhat hilly. Walking around it can take a bit of a toll on your feet/legs I don't know whether this is the actual reason but I like to think this is why there are so many pedicurists and foot massagers in HK.
Until my last visit, I'd never had a foot massage before and it took me about two minutes to become a complete convert. This time round, I had my first ever pedicure which was, again, quite heavenly. A very petite, very cute girl called Cecilia took about thirty minutes to convert my aching feet into works of art.
Perhaps it's because they don't get much attention usually, but I do enjoy having my feet felt. It's nothing sexual - I don't have a foot fetish or anything - it's just pure pleasure. The time passes far too quickly and I pull my socks back on with great regret. I'll be back.
Until my last visit, I'd never had a foot massage before and it took me about two minutes to become a complete convert. This time round, I had my first ever pedicure which was, again, quite heavenly. A very petite, very cute girl called Cecilia took about thirty minutes to convert my aching feet into works of art.
Perhaps it's because they don't get much attention usually, but I do enjoy having my feet felt. It's nothing sexual - I don't have a foot fetish or anything - it's just pure pleasure. The time passes far too quickly and I pull my socks back on with great regret. I'll be back.
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