Perchance to Dream

Miserably failed to post a blog yesterday. In fairness I have slept very little the last three nights, and I don't know why. Don't think there is anything on my mind.

I have these episodes about once a year - where for a week or two I can only get about 3 hours a night. Usually no reason, and they go as quickly as they come. As I get older I find it harder to deal with them though - I feel like death warmed up today. This is a pity because I am off this evening for a weekend of singing with Voxcetera - doing the groundwork for our concert on 20th March at St Sepulchre. I will get a lot more out of it if I am not yawning through it.

Plus got invited to do quite a bit of other singing stuff from March through to June yesterday. Have to see if the diary can take it!

Am not going to talk about last night's Question Time - with Dorries and some bloke called Nuttall from UKIP it was always going to be heavy on the irritation front. (I thought @fleetstreetfox was excellent though.) But staying tuned in for This Week only to find that the guest was Katie Hopkins was just too much to bear.

So, I will try to blog when mobile later while travelling; if not - well I will write them anyway - may just have to wait until Monday to post. Hope your weekend is as good as mine promises to be.

The Christmas cake is no more

Not sure if doing something twice, other than perhaps crystal meth, could be deemed a habit, but two lunchtimes back at work and two blogs written. Although Blogger does have an IPad App, I’m not confident in getting everything right with it, so I type the text into email, mail it to myself and then correct /format, tag and post on the desktop machine. At the weekend I shall be away from a computer for 48 hours so will be forced into posting direct – let’s see how it goes.

Yesterday I was both quasi-jet lagged (going from getting up about 9am and going to bed past midnight to having to be up at 6:30) and on day one of my 5:2 eating plan (not using the ‘D’ word). Result was that by about 7:30 I was really lacking in energy. This may need a rethink – how am I going to manage the gym and not eating? Obvious answer is to shift the two days to non-gym, so likely Tuesday and Thursday. But that feels unbalanced. My immediate concern with the 5:2 would be that I'd just go crazy on the next day and eat twice as much. It's early, but at the moment the desire to get a benefit in return for yesterday's hunger is holding sway.

Still, hot bath, in bed by 10, asleep not to long after, and a good night’s rest, followed by the last (small) piece of Christmas cake for breakfast, and I feel much brighter today. And that’s just as well, because I have my first Voxcetera rehearsal of the year tonight. We are starting to work for our March concert – the Mozart Requiem, Britten’s AMDG, Purcell and Essenvalds (no – I haven’t either). Can’t wait.

Back to Life, Back to Reality

I’m sure many of you had a similar experience this morning when the alarm went off at 6:30 or similar. Can it really be this dark/cold and windy? Oh yes.

I was pleased that my train was only a couple of minutes late, and reasonably quiet – the posh schools either had an inset or a late start.

Today is apparently Blue Monday - the most miserable of the year (copyright all newspapers) as people face up to the never-ending bleakness of January and being skint etc. I was actually quite looking forward to today – my first in work since 20^th December, so I've had the same holiday as most school kids. And I feel much refreshed for it, but did feel that I was starting to drift. Yes I was making it to the gym etc, but I probably got to diminishing returns by about New Years Day. So this morning (I write this in a snatched early lunch-break) has been about trying to figure out what is urgent and what is important, and how I should be spending my time over the next couple of weeks. I have that horrible feeling that there is something really urgent that I should be doing but haven’t remembered.

Oh well, it will probably occur to me this afternoon.

Elsewhere, I rather enjoyed Sherlock last night – my only criticism after last week’s trains farce being that I wish Benedict could have mimed playing the violin a bit better – using perhaps two strings and a little hand movement. But a nice episode that wandered seemingly aimlessly, before coalescing around a rather nifty plot. The programme was called “The Sign of Three”. There is a Holmes short called “The Sign of Four” which I haven’t read for years, but the name Sholto and killing at a (temporal) distance rang a bell – not sure much else did, but correct me if I am wrong. (I have tried to write this obscurely enough to avoid spoilers.)

And today is my first day of 5:2 dieting – after so many friends and work colleagues have extolled it. I am skeptical (of course) – as much of my willpower as anything else. I eat healthily anyway, but like Goldie the Blue Peter dog, do not know when to stop.

I won’t be writing a blow-by-blow diet blog but will let you know how it is (and I am) shaping up as we progress. 

I'm building an ark

The rain continues, and B&Q has reported a run on gopher wood. Also, whilst we do have two gerbils, the fact that we only have two gerbils suggests they are of the same sex. And what good is a future world populated only by gerbils anyway. We would need a smaller ark though, I guess.

I've left lots of return to work (and return to school) stuff until the last minute, and I now have to go out to sort out train tickets, collection of clothes from dry cleaners and first trip to charity shop with clothes (result of research- have gone with Salvation Army - overly and overtly Christian, but do a great job and I'm a sucker for silver bands and Guys 'n' Dolls).

So today's blog is being composed whilst waiting for a break in the clouds.

I can heartily recommend Martin Stephenson & the Daintees' 1990 album Salutation Road which is today's blogging soundtrack.  I don't know how to describe his music style - there are elements of soul, blues and gospel in there but also something definitively of the North East of England. It's like a less pretentious Prefab Sprout. (Don't get me wrong - I do love Paddy McAloon, but there are times when he tries very hard.)

Last night, I finished reading the last (so far) of the Game of Thrones books. I started these about six months ago as airport reading and, like other writing of this genre, it has at times been close to unputdownable. (Sorry, spellcheck - as far as I am concerned unputdownable is a real word.) Not watched much of the TV series, which I think is somewhat more, shall we say, graphic, but I like the way the books are written - with each chapter written from the point of view of a different character. They drift in and out of the story as events come to pass. So, whilst most of us think - "Ewww - fantasy" it isn't that bad. I do wish he'd stop killing off all the characters I feel any attachment to though.

As with many series, the books have got longer and more complex as they have gone on - so book six may prove to be a 2,000 page behemoth which a good editor could have got down to 500 pages*, but we will have to wait and see.

Anyway, a dove bearing an olive branch is tapping on my study window, so it's time to don the coat and hit Balham. Until tomorrow dear blog!

UPDATE: it has rightly been pointed out that the series of books is of course "A Song of Ice and Fire" of which "A Game of Thrones" is book one. Happy to correct this.


*Yes JK Rowling, I am thinking of you as I write this.

On consumerism

In the post-festivity and pre-work lull of the last couple of days, I had my normal "spring" clean (well the weather is mild right now).

Having noticed that drawers are getting harder to close and my wardrobe is so full it's hard to get stuff out, I thought I would change tack this year. Normally I chuck out all the stuff that is too old or tatty to wear. This is usually not very much - maybe one bag-for-life's worth for a charity shop, and one for the rag bin. Groaning rails evidence that my clothing input is much greater than this.

So I went a bit further - what haven't I worn, and just can't see myself wearing? What is a bit tatty but. in my normal view would do for a while longer? What did I buy - in a sale or online usually - wear once (if that) and thought nope, but is too good to throw out?

The result: Still only one bag that is fit for the recycling/rag bin. But a minor mountain of decent stuff that I am not going to wear. Judging on the space I now have reclaimed, about two foot of hanging rail and one 3 foot wide drawer's worth. And I think I probably still have too much, but didn't want to be too ruthless yet.

This makes me feel really quite uneasy. I don't see myself as a big shopper, and yet over the years I have obviously bought so much stuff that I haven't needed. This amounts to a huge waste of resources - and cash - though I feel worse about the environmental aspects of all this right now.

So, a new regime begins today. No new clothes are to be bought without a demonstrable need. Something has to fall apart before I can consider a replacement, and even then, particularly when it comes to shirts etc., I should wait. In fact, waiting is the key. I think that a month or two needs to pass to give the item a decent burial and if I am finding myself short of stuff I will buy.

As my cull came from a desire to free up space, I know there is more I could do, but with much less effect. I think I wear a tie about once a month, but I have about 30. Well - they don't go off, and I used to wear one five days a week. So that could come down. Something for a cold February evening.

Now I have a clothing pile to go to charity, I need to figure out which of the local shops to take it to. The nearest and most convenient is one for a local Steiner School. I don't know much about their education ideas, but Steiner himself had some unusual beliefs, which are as hard to swallow as they are to say - see Anthroposophy here. And he had the charming idea that plants grow better according to the phase of the moon when you plant them. Looks like a duck, sounds like a duck? Yes - it's probably a quack of some variety.

Which got me thinking, rather than viewing a charity shop as a way to dump my decent older clothes, I should be favouring the one(s) that I agree the most with. Oh dear, that means the pile of clothes is going to have to stay there for a while until I do some research.

No Accounting for Taste

I am delighted by my decision to take a full two weeks off work at Christmas time this year. Looking in a leisurely fashion at the articles on line about "what you have missed over the holidays" when I don't have to get back on the train until Monday has proved as much of a boost as the holiday itself.

But reality and normality do have to bite at some stage, and this morning's little nip was sitting down to straighten out my accounts for the last days of 2013. Ouch - I spent a lot of money in December. None of it on me (except for a couple of books and a new pair of headphones for a tenner) but a lot of cash swam out the door in the run up to Christmas.

Anyone who knows me will gather that I am quite picky about tracking these things - I've kept proper accounts for my life since about 1995 - originally through MS Money (a great program - why did they discontinue it?) but latterly through spreadsheets. I usually sit down on a Sunday morning, sort out any bills that need to be paid, and check account balances etc. Bank statements and credit card bills get filed away and the next week can safely begin.

Writing this down makes it seem slightly weird behaviour - mildly OCD'ish I guess. But its roots are from being a student and (genuinely) forgetting about cheques written and bills due and spending the money twice.

By the way - I come from a time when there were no student loans. Tuition was free and there was a grant / and or parental contribution for maintenance. Everyone moaned about how much the value of the grant had been eroded, and it would have been hard to live on the grant alone. (Well, not hard to live - hard to live as a student would want to.) But I graduated with a modest amount of overdraft debt. About £600 I think. Even with inflation, that is some way short of £27,000 for tuition alone.

Then, on joining the working world, I needed stuff - like suits and shiny shoes, and flat deposits. And I wanted stuff as a reward for being a working man - like a car (1982 Ford Escort 1.3L in canary yellow since you ask) and a synthesiser.

Easy, I thought. Get a loan, deal with the OD and get the cash for the car etc. My bank was delighted to lend it to me.

Then I wanted (not needed) more stuff (a Commodore Amiga to link to the synthesiser), and was starting to want to go out and spend cash on just going out (student living was all about cheap beer, and cheap clubs - not so much of this dressing up and spending monstrous amounts on drinks with umbrellas*). So I started getting into a bit of debt at the end of the month, then the middle, and then got to that point where I was in the black for about two days when I was paid.

Easy I thought (again). Rework the loan, borrow some more and I'll be fine. So I went to see the bank (Midland Bank in Ipswich). And I got to see the manager, who much to my surprise said "No". I remember the conversation even today. "You can't borrow your way out of trouble" she said. "You need to learn to budget and live within it". And then she said that "you can find other people who will lend you money, but you need to learn to save up for things".

And I listened. And I had about three months where I spent very little and straightened myself out. And started to understand where my money went, and what I could and couldn't control.

Result: I learned to budget, and avoided a debt trap that so many others have fallen into, almost solely because of a bank manager with a more old-fashioned attitude to lending. I can't imagine her career went terribly well in the lending-target-driven 1990s and 2000s. But she helped me to learn a healthy and prudent attitude to money. And if my accounts-driven partial OCD comes with that, it feels a reasonable price to pay.


* I never actually drank any drinks with umbrellas OK? Allow me some artistic licence here.

The year just gone

Given that the idea of blogging for the year is in itself clichéd, I am going to maintain the cliché level by reviewing last year.

This is purely from my perspective of course. I recognise it wasn’t a very good year for people in countless areas of the world, or for people forced out of their homes by the bedroom tax. And, moving a little closer to home, I am now of an age where a number of friends’ parents are dying.

Compared to any of these people’s situation the word to sum up my year is probably “trivial”. But it’s my year, and so that’s what I am writing about.

Overall I had a pretty good year in 2013. Not everything in my life is great, by any means, but generally I look back on the year with some satisfaction, and I think I am in a much better place now than I was a year ago.

Music

Music is important to me, increasingly so each year, and I’ll write about why in a future blog.

Totting it up, and I might well have missed something, I sang in twelve concerts in 2013. I think this amounts to about 40,000 people. Admittedly, playing the Albert Hall seven times (three different shows) amounts to 95% of this, but it’s still an impressive number.  I also, for the first time, did some proper big band gigs – alone in front of an audience with only seventeen fabulously talented instrumentalists. When they kick into gear six feet behind you, the sound is incredible.

By no means the biggest gig of the year, but the one I am proudest of, was with the Voxcetera Chamber Choir. Looking for further challenge I joined this fabulous group of singers in September and our Christmas concert was an incredibly special event for me.

Life and Health

After years of trying, I think I’ve finally got into the habit of going to the gym. Not sure I am doing exactly the right stuff when I am there, but it’s a step in the right direction. There’s a new and cheap gym opening opposite work in a month’s time, so I am hoping this will allow me to continue to get healthier.

Alcohol (the cause of - and solution to - all life’s problems – Homer J Simpson) and I have a bit of a chequered history, worthy of its own blog, but from a long-term perspective, my decisions here have definitely been the most beneficial.

On other life matters – I will only quote Tracey Thorn (and yes – I know Danny Whitten wrote it). Ho hum.

Holidays

I took my kids away for a big holiday for the first (and, given their ages, increasing self-reliance, and my bank balance, probably last) time. Orlando probably isn’t my dream destination, but they loved it, and I enjoyed two weeks with them, with no greater pressures than deciding what and where to eat that night. Plus I got to see the Space Shuttle!!!!!

As the boys reach adulthood, I don’t think I love them any differently, but we relate to each other now as adults, and that’s a big plus for me.

The other benefit of the holiday was that I got to read lots of…..

Books

I used to read a huge amount. In terms of amount but also breadth of stuff. And over the years it really tailed off. Lack of time, tiredness – lots of things played a part. Two weeks of fairly solid reading reminded me of what I have missed, and I have been busy catching up ever since. There is so much cheap stuff available on the Kindle store.

Work

A really busy year. I’ve vowed this isn’t a blog about work stuff, but that doesn’t stop me from saying that it has been really tough at times – great fun on lots of occasions, and frustrating on others. I do find myself thinking – worrying really, that I’m not sure I can, or want to, go at this pace for too much longer. Partly because I am an overweight middle-aged male, so am entering prime heart attack territory, but mostly because there is so much more I want to do with my life, and I need the time and energy to do it.

So I don’t foresee any changes right now, but am going to start thinking about what else I could do to pay the bills and make me a little less time-poor.

Friends

I don’t have lots and lots of friends. I don’t want lots and lots of friends either. But I do have some very good friends, and (cliche-ometer to max) they really are what life is about. You know who you are - thank you.