City Screen, Coney St., York

Coffee House: City Screen, Coney Street, York

Drink: Latte

Cake: None 

 

Order & Chaos. 

I filled in one of those Facebook apps recently, this one gave you your characteristics based on your forename. Scientific, I know. So the letter N came up as Neat. One of the few that were accurate. I am a neat person (in the tidy sense. In the day 'neat' also meant 'cool' which is very transient concept), increasingly so as the years go by as the, mainly male(?), OCD trait becomes more prominent in me.

I think I've always been pretty tidy, something that has surprised friends/acquaintances over the years as they have associated my periodic unconventional attire/lifestyle with an unkempt/untidy personal environment. If I have ever looked 'scruffy' it was by design rather than accident. I do like things to be in order in my life. For periods of time in any case. I do like change as well so am quite happy to throw everything up in the air for a while before I start to put things back in their correct place

So, I reckon I'm a tidy/neat person. I had assumed for many years that us males were the untidy ones. I'm the youngest of 6 sons which created a lot of untidiness with my mother, the sole female, tasked with trying to maintain a resemblance of order. No criticism of current and past female friends/lovers but I have been, initially, shocked and then disappointed and now resigned to the fact (I think it is a fact but happy to be proved wrong) that women as generally untidy soles. Exhibit 1 being the contents of any handbag. Anyway, as mentioned earlier, the old git syndrome of excessive tidiness helps to balance it all in a feng shui sort of way

Another misapprehension  of acquaintances is that I am a socialist or at least believe in democracy. Certainly seems to be the dominant philosophy amongst musicians. 

The thing I have with democracy is that I don't think I believe in the principal of it and even if I did, we don't have it here or in any other western country. To clarify the last point first - democracy surely means that the views/votes of the majority dictate the actions/policy of the whole. When what we have under our system is that everyone gets to vote for a person who is supposed to represent all of their views and then if that person is elected then they, along with a lot of other people, make up the rules. Hard to see how that is democratic. Obviously it's better than having a group of people making up the rules in isolation i.e. I don't favour a dictatorial system either.

My problem with democracy as a principal is that I don't want the majority of people telling me what I can or can't do. Most of the time there isn't a conflict - I'm not inclined to steal, maim or murder anyone and don't want that happening to others so we're all agreed on that. But what about when the majority come up with a rule that the minority dislike. Maybe to the extent where the minority are actually been negatively affected by the rule. In my lifetime people's sexuality for instance has been judged as good or bad where at one time it was a crime to express yourself as gay to where now two people can get married whoever they are. 

All along there should have been a principal of live and let live rather than a majority view on what everyone should do. 

So Order & Chaos. One of the main reasons for having government of any shape/persuasion must be to ensure that large groups of people can live together reasonably well and cooperate to bring the benefits of size. Be difficult for a small band of people to create road networks, provide access to intellectual resources etc. The problem is size does matter in terms of living together, as the larger the grouping the more potential for conflict/chaos without common/shared rules. I can't see how you can have a large group of people living in a city/country without something resembling a government tasked with creating order. Whether it's voted in or not it'll be a tiny group of people's views determining what the larger group does or doesn't do

All good if everything is working out broadly fine for yourself of course but what about when you're in the minority and things are looking bleak. It would be nice to think that Angela Davis' rally cry to support the 'downtrodden' “If they come for me in the morning, they will come for you in the night.” rings true with the majority but I doubt if most people give the world outside their window a lot of thought when it comes down to it.

Not sure what the answer is after saying all of the above. Even for me. It would probably mean living in a cabin in Utah but I love living in cities/21st Century too much. So I'll just keep on keeping on and try to keep out of trouble and avoid being caught out too much by the ongoing restrictions to our daily lives. "To live outside the law you know you must be honest" That's the answer. Always ask the question 'What would Bob do?' :-)

 

  

Fossgate Social, Fossgate. York

Coffee House: Fossgate Social, Fossgate, York

Drink: Latte

Cake: Tosca Cake

Time, Life & Stuff - The Theory of Everything. 

'Tis the time of year for the annual handing out of trophies at the BAFTAs, Grammys, Academy Awards etc. (Nice to see that Bob had a long chat at the Musicares Award night btw) A way of marking the passing of time and, especially for the recipients, a moment of heightened awareness of the 'now'

My pet saying (which I mainly quote to myself) is that 'even rocket science isn't rocket science'. Nothing is truly difficult when it comes to solving things, doing stuff which are intellectual rather than physical. Lots of physical stuff is hard of course. Which is why lots of us avoid it by jumping the hoops in school/university to get a job that means we minimise doing manual/hard work

Now answering questions related to the beginning of the universe and the relationship between time and space etc are truly hard to answer I would say and a few of the truly smart people such as Albert Einstein and Stephen Hawkins had or are having a good go at trying to answer the problem. For the rest of us it's just a question of navigating through this world and doing stuff along the way

You do hear people on occasions say things like 'time is precious', 'time flies', 'life's too short' etc but I reckon that our lives, ultimately the only measure of time, are way too long. If you go back far enough, people lived very short lives in terms of years. 30/40/50 maybe. As we've grown in numbers and organisation we've extended most people's lives up to 70/80/90 and the likelihood well beyond that later in the century. 

The danger is that life just stops being worthwhile after we've lived essentially a lifetime (of 50 or so years). We mainly keep moving on through it though because of our inbuilt need to survive, at any costs. I imagine it's almost impossible to commit suicide by drowning in a bucket of water for instance as some automatic response would fight back to save you. You see lots of people living truly miserable lives and it's amazing that they keep carrying on. It's heroic. Especially if they're helping others on the way. 

The other pet saying I have (not mine this time) is 'It's not the despair, it's the hope'. We just can't help being optimistic at some point. And that optimism makes us want to give it a go for a bit longer, because you never know. I'm still buying a Lotto ticket most weeks, because you never know. 

So, we have potentially a very long life to live and it'll be difficult to bail out early. So what's the trick to make it reasonably fulfilling and not feel utterly bored with it all for the last 20/30 years? 

Well, the first thing is to be reasonably healthy of course and not too destituted. Then I think it's about rebooting your time line regularly. As a longtime comic book fan (I fell in love with DC and then Marvel Comics in the early 60s) you get used to the concept of bringing new life into a character by tricks such as a new comic title, new origin, starting all over again with Year 1. It tends to work and brings new readers on board and it all goes on until the next reboot

I  think that's what we do all of the time in our own lives and I reckon the trick to making life feel fresh, interesting, worthwhile is to make sure that we don't leave it too long between reboots

I'm not suggesting that we all do a 'Reggie Perrin' on a regular basis, walk away from our old life and start anew. I have done that on a number of occasions and it is intoxicatingly invigorating but only doable in certain circumstances unless you are happy being seen as a complete selfish bastard. I did this on a regular basis in my early twenties, walking away from things I didn't want to do and more recently did it when I retired. I can't remember ever feeling better than I did when I left the office knowing I'd never need to work another day again

So there are a few big reboots per lifetime when there's a big change of direction but the key probably is to engineer smaller ones to bring a new view of the world and thereby restart the clock. 

With me there's been a few over the last few years - moving to York, getting back into music and, a biggy, meeting and marrying Ann. All smart moves I'd say :-)

Coffee - pretty fair. Cake - little bit disappointing. Aiming for a slightly better review than that of my life when I'm looking back at the end of all this

Me & Mrs Fisher, Lord Mayor's Walk, York

Coffee House: Me & Mrs Fisher, Lord Mayor's Walk, York

Drink: Latte

Cake: Red Velvet

 

Coffee and cake (v.nice) before my guitar lesson. Trying to get to grips with lead guitar. Always seemed a black art to me. Totally unfathomable. Anyway Joe is trying to shine some light into it all for me, patience of Job 

I hate learning stuff. Don't know why but I always have. There are very few days from school which I remember with fondness, related to academic stuff anyway. Quite liked going out to the pub at lunchtime in the minivan but beyond that it was all so painful. Mind numbingly boring for 13/14 years whatever. Murderers get off with shorter sentences. I could have escaped it when I was 18 but did crap in my A levels (two grade 'E's) and didn't have a clue what to do workwise so stayed on another year to retake them. Same grades again :-) 

So where a more sensible person would have said goodbye to education and moved into the world of work I decided to go to college. My anti-education/establishment bias meant I refused to apply to universities (laughable of course as my grades were so lousy) and applied to, those long forgotten institutions, Polytechnics. Got into Lanchester Poly (now Coventry University) to study (ho ho) BSc Building. To cut a longish story short, went to some of the classes, drank lots of beer, played lots of table football, passed the exams, went on work experience and quit.

Next year applied and got into Chester Teachers Training College (now Chester University) to study Secondary School Maths & Biology. Went to some of the classes, drank lots of beer, played lots of table football, passed the exams, went on work experience and quit.

So education/learning. Wasn't really for me. Certainly at the time. Went back to college (Liverpool Poly now Liverpool John Moores University see a pattern here?) when I was 30 and bored with manual jobs and being on the dole (quite liked driving trucks for a while) Studied BSc Applied Statistics & Computing. Passed on the drinking lots of beer and playing table football this time and did the work. All seemed pretty easy as I detected that the first year at least was geared up to helping a load of people straight from school who were keen on drinking lots of beer etc. and therefore the pace was very gentle. 

Anyway, my point here was the only time that I've sort of liked learning when was I had a need for it (getting a good job) and was good at the subject. Was only later, well into my 'career' as a management bod in IT that someone pointed out that I was actually really smart. I was genuinely surprised. Never considered myself in those terms as I was so crap at jumping the hurdles that the education system puts in front of you. 

So, now I'm attempting to learn the theory and practise of playing lead guitar. Have to say that I'm struggling to get into it even though I would like to be able to do it. I'll hang in there though so I at least have the basics and then I can just blunder along as I have with most things (including my acoustic guitar playing) and make a go of it anyway.

Springsteen comes to mind here "we learned more in a three minute record than we ever learned in school"

Bison Coffee, Heslington Rd, York

Coffee House: Bison Coffee, Heslington Rd, York

Drink: Latte

Cake: White Choc Fudge Brownie

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While I remember - apparently this year's YO1 festival is canceled as it clashes with the Tour de Yorkshire doobrie. Pity, was hoping we might have been able to play the Bison Coffee stage. Maybe next year

So on the way to Bison Coffee (bumped into Vinnie and had a chat) I picked up Ann's gloves that we'd left at 1331 on Sunday night (notice how I've done the collective responsibility thing there. What a guy :-)) 

Got me thinking about memory - there's the 'forgot to do something' type e.g. gloves in restaurant,  which usually just means there's other things distracting you. 

Then there's the 'mental block' sort. I came home via Morrisons where I picked up some tins of steam puddings. Do you know it's almost impossible to buy steam puddings in tins anymore. They're all the small ones in plastic pots. Why aren't they talking about this sort of stuff in Parliament rather than wasting time chatting about education, health and stuff. Anyway, I digress (but haven't lost the thread) I arrived home and thought I'd have a steam pudding for tea later (I'm allowed to say tea rather than dinner when I'm not with Ann) Decided to have one of the smaller ones I'd bought previously, the plastic pot kind. Looked in the cupboard. Nothing. Looked again, nothing. Wracked my memory of where I could have put them. Distinctly remember buying two packs and some pots of custard. Nowhere to be seen. Then tried to recall which shop I'd bought them from and whether I had or just imagined it. No, I was pretty confident that I had bought them. So when did I? After another root through my brain I came up with the answer. I'd bought them a few hours earlier from Tesco after dropping Ann off at work and left them in the back of the car. Doh!

Then there's the 'false memory' kind. I suppose, did I buy steam pudding could have been a false memory but would have been a particularly weird and pretty unspectacular one. One I think I may have relates to Niagara Falls. I first went to the States (notice how people talk of the 'US' now? Well it'll always be the States to me) in 1979 I flew into Chicago (I think, Michigan certainly) and stayed for a week or so at a girl's farm who'd I'd met in Israel the previous year. We then drove west to Washington State, down the coast, across to Vegas, the Grand Canyon (I was totally unimpressed with it at the time. 'Yes it's big but so what'. Ah, the arrogance of Youth) and said goodbye in Denver (there's a whole blog/book in this trip but I'll park it here) 

Anyway. I have this memory of going to Niagara Falls, feeling the mist on my face etc. and the only time I could have gone would have been that trip but I can't see how I could have as it's in the opposite direction to our route. So I think it's a dream from the past that ended up being a memory. It might have happened but I can't verify it either way as I've never been in touch with Sue Doty since (I can remember her name which always impresses me) 

So memory. An amazing thing. Without it we'd have to tattoo our bodies with messages ala Memento which would be tiresome. Never seen the attraction in tattoos, was mad keen to have an earring but stopped there with bodily mutilation. At the time, 1974, there was me, Keith Richards and David Essex with earrings. Now every old bugger has one. And they all go to Glastonbury.....

Not overly keen on fudge brownies I've decided. Now brownie brownies I like. Used to quite like the more exotic sort but have put all those vices behind me, though I quite fancy starting smoking again if/when we make it to France.

Au revoir

Spring, Fossgate, York

Coffee House: Spring, Fossgate, York

Drink: Latte

Cake: Plum & Almond Tart

First off - note to self. Don't wear long johns, even if it is freezing out, if there's a chance you may go and try on some skinny jeans. Which are all you seem to be able to buy now. Or slim fit which are marginally less welded to your skin. Even if they did look good on me (didn't look that bad as it happened) I would have to put on a stone or chop two inches off my legs. Can't get 30w/34l for love nor money. oh well

Second off - well that's it. Spent ages working out/reminding myself how to create the blog. So no great insights today. I was about to write something about Galtres (our local version of Glastonbury) but decided I'd keep out of the war which looks like is about to break out with the for and agin camps

Nice coffee and cake by the way :-)