The Little Things

Does God have a plan for me? Is there a God? If there is a God, you'd like to think he has a plan for everyone. However, when you look at all the people out there with their mundane troubles. 'All the lonely people,' as the Beatles song goes. It's hard to imagine that being the case. Then again, I feel my own life is charged with meaning, so perhaps it's dismissive to think that other people's lives aren't rich with meaning and purpose as well.

It really is the little things that make a difference. We want our lives to be like a movie. Yet we forget, or fail to realise, that movies have power because they reflect back our own lives. A good romance brings to mind our own, much deeper felt, real world romance - or failed romance. Or unrequited love. Likewise, you could turn the camera on any individual, tell their story - be it a factory worker, lollipop lady, or anyone else - and make a meaningful movie of it. So maybe the world really is rich with meaning, and we just think it's largely meaningless because we can only focus our attention on one movie at a time. Usually our own. Perhaps it's our lack of omniscience that leaves us feeling that only a few people can be important. We can't focus our care and attention on this out of the way lonely person over there ..therefore God can't be that bothered either.

The problem is, the world is too full of meaning. It overwhelms us. Every individual person is living a life that is infinitely richer and deeper than any work of fiction.

And that's just the humans. That's before we get to all the other living creatures.

This is my thing at the moment..

Recently I've been watching the late 80s/early 90s British sitcom, You Rang, M'Lord? It's my guilty pleasure. I've even been paying £1.99 per episode to watch it on YouTube I'm that hooked. I've raced through Seasons One, Two and Three, and I'm now halfway through the final season, with just two and half episodes left 😬

I only started watching it as my mam had it on in the background the other week. It inspired very vague recollections from childhood when I saw it. It rang a bell, if you pardon the pun. My first thought was Hi-de-Hi!, but no, this was something different (though the main actors are the same).

I always hated Hi-de-Hi! as a kid. There was something garish about it. That era of British culture where the women all seemed to have short hair, like Thelma from The Likely Lads. Instinctively, through a child's eyes, it just looked so wrong and un-aesthetic. That weird seventies tackiness and dislocation from natural beauty. There was just a wrongness about it all.

Perhaps I'd like Hi-de-Hi! now if I rewatched it (I'm tempted to having watched this), but it just seemed so grating at the time. Meaning my knee jerk response to seeing the same cast on screen was terror. However, it only took another thirty seconds for me to get a little sucked in. If I'm honest, it was a scene with Miss Poppy and Mr Twelvetrees that got me. It reminded me of the girl at work I like, and my own frustration with being so teased. That's the thing though with the show. What I really like about it is all the little relationships. Even though it's a silly comedy it's imbued with notions of long term infatuation. There's a certain romance and tension. It may just be me getting older, but it feels like we don't see examples of 'tension building between two people' in modern media. (Perhaps it's because modern media is so quick and short attention span now.) So watching this felt somehow better. Like entering a world where love is actually real again.

[Note: I actually used this line, "It may just be me getting older," just a few months ago in my post about the song Somebody Else, where I discussed similar ideas. I really must be in a soppy mood at the moment.]

(Miss Poppy and James Twelvetrees)

The female characters in particular are brilliant. Su Pollard as the maid Ivy is great. Her acting is really playful, but you really feel it when she longs for Mr Twelvetrees. Miss Poppy is brilliant too, just so bubbly and expressive. Such a fun character. And her monocle-wearing sister, Cissy, looks great. I really love her persona and look. She has truly great aesthetics - in contrast to the anti-aesthetics of earlier. The whole show has a real charm.

I don't have too much else to say - I just wanted to express my liking of it and leave a review really - so I'll leave things there.

(Ivy and Miss Cissy)

(The monocled Miss Cissy)

(Excuse the quality of the images, but YouTube literally blocked my laptop from taking screenshots of the episodes, so I had to take pictures of the screen with my phone. And after I paid £1.99 per episode too!

At least it adds an ethereal nostalgia though.)

Free Books - Click Here !

The much talked of, but rarely seen book is finally becoming visible. We've now got a PDF version of BOOK I available to download - for free.

Yes, this is the fiction. Someone Else's Kingdom. It can be downloaded here.

https://drive.google.com - someone else's kingdom

(An ePub version can be download here: https://drive.google.com - epub )

If you want an online preview instead you can visit the blog page:

https://someoneelseskingdom.blogspot.com

Other Free PDFs

As I'm going to pin this post to the sidebar I may as well provide links for the non-fiction works too.

The Freckled Mashiach

https://drive.google.com - the freckled mashiach

Strawberry Jam is the Best Jam

https://drive.google.com - strawberry jam is the best jam

Civilisation Judas

https://drive.google.com - civilisation judas

BIRTH FAMILY TRIBE LOVE SEX APOTHEOSIS

https://drive.google.com - BFTLSA

Oink: A Phonetic Alphabet

https://drive.google.com - oink: a phonetic alphabet

The Internet - Back in the Old Days: Part IV - MYSPACE

I started using MySpace not so much as a personal social media platform, but more because it was a good way to promote music. This is circa 2005/2006 (I can't remember the exact year). I wasn't a huge user of the internet at the time, but a lad that was in another local band told me about it. "Just use MySpace," he said, nonchalantly, when I asked him how he was getting the word out. "What?" was my confused response. Anyway, duly noted, I went and set up an account for my own band ..and then started randomly annoying people.

(I was trying to get Grok to make a MySpace

related image. It doesn't make any sense, but I like it.)

The way it worked back then was that you could literally just search for people by age and location. So, you could set the search for people between the ages of eighteen and thirty, within a twenty mile radius of your hometown, and start adding people. You'd just sit there for an hour sending friend requests to everyone that looked like they might like your music. You'd add one hundred - maybe ten of them would view your profile page. If you were lucky a few might accept the request or listen to your music. Obviously, you were essentially just spamming people, but it was somewhat more innocent and sincere back then, and it did actually work. People would check out the music; some would like it, some would become actual fans. So spending a few hours just adding people was worth the effort.

Pretty soon you'd exhaust your local area though. So then you'd go further afield. You'd start adding people from London or Manchester, or even L.A. and New York. You'd go international.

I Got Bored

As ever my own curiosity took over. I got bored just adding people from the trendy areas, so started adding people from more exotic locations. Sweden, Germany, Iran, Brazil, anywhere. Just to see what would happen. Coming across other young people in foreign countries was quite interesting. Finding out that there were people into indie music, or even heavy metal, in places like Iran was quite a contrast to the worldview I'd gained from TV and popular culture.

Perhaps the weirdest thing was what happened when I started adding people from China though. First of all, there weren't too many Chinese people on MySpace at the time. Given the mega population I was expecting more, but it was quite sparse. Though, to be fair, at the time that was somewhat the case across the board. The internet was much more new back then. After all, I myself had only heard of MySpace a few months previously.

Anyway, the Chinese people that were on the platform, I started adding. Just as I had every other country I'd searched. But then I got a message telling me that my account had been hacked (as if someone other than me had hacked the account and started adding Chinese people randomly), and all the Chinese people I'd friended were automatically unfriended. That was the first time online where I thought, "Oh, China's different." I felt like I'd accidentally entered a restricted area I wasn't supposed to be in.

Conspiracy Content

Finally, the other thing I remember about MySpace is how it opened me up to a lot of new conspiracy type stuff. Back then there was this feature that was like the standard Twitter or Facebook feed, but it was more in the form of a group chat. At least that's how it felt to me - I felt like I was privy to some group conversation. You'd click on it and you'd see all the latest things the people you were friends with had shared. I'm not sure how I came across the conspiratorial stuff, given I'd originally started using it purely for music. I always had those leanings though, so I guess I must have (again, out of curiosity) friended some accounts.

Some of the stuff I'd see back then - though fairly standard now - was completely new to me at the time. I can remember how uncomfortable I felt reading (or listening to - sometimes links were shared) revisionist things about World War II. It wasn't outright Holocaust denial content, more stuff that argued that the German people had legitimate grievances, or that the Nazis didn't actually want war. I can remember having a feeling that I was doing something wrong by even consuming the content. My desire to hear the alternative points of view overrode that though.

I could've shied away, but I'm glad I didn't, as you do have to hear all sides to get a rounded view. Of course, the fact that the German people had hardships and legitimate grievances doesn't excuse ending democracy, invading other countries and putting people in concentration camps, but it does give a deeper explanation. Again, it's more the feeling I'm reminded of though. That you were going somewhere you weren't supposed to go. The internet really did feel like a wide uncharted, and sometimes dangerous, ocean back then. It's seemingly a much more managed and homogeneous space now.

The Internet - Back in the Old Days: Part III

Today I want to reminisce about how the advent of blocking on Twitter (X) lifted a veil from my eyes. It was a real OMG, "Wow!" moment.

Yes, it's an Internet - Back in the Old Days article. PART III: Shocked by the Block.

Unlike most humans these days, who are forever stuck in the latest online moment, I don't have the memory of a goldfish. So I can remember what Twitter was like back before everyone was blocking everybody else. So allow me to be a modern day Samuel Pepys, as I take you back through my experience of living through these times.

I'll start a little further back - on Facebook.

I started using Facebook around 2012. I was a late-comer to it given my age. From the get-go I'd been instinctively wary of it. Viewing it essentially as an evil MySpace (I may do a future post about MySpace).

Anyway, I only really started using it as I'd somehow managed to (miraculously) develop a social life. I started working in a newly-opened, Poundland-type shop and became friends with the people I worked with. Being normal, they all used Facebook. So, naturally, I got sucked in. I actually enjoyed the novel experience at first. I was like, "Oh, this isn't actually too bad. It's a fun way to keep in touch and joke around." The thing was though, being new to it, and not being the most natural socialiser anyway, I didn't fully understand the etiquette. The dos and don'ts. Plus, I didn't quite realise just how seriously everyone else took it; that it wasn't just a silly online space, but an extension of real, personal life for most people. So there were quite a few cringe-inducing moments where I embarrassed myself or put my foot in it.

This gets me to the blocking. There were two girls I worked with (one I liked - a lot), and sometimes there'd be drama. I'd make a cocky joke that didn't get taken the right way, or there'd be some daft work issue that I'd inadvertently find myself on the wrong side of, and I'd later go online to find myself BLOCKED! Sometimes by one of the two girls, but usually (given they were 'besties') both.

So there was this continual back and forth. They'd get in a mood with me for some reason and I'd be blocked. Then, a week later, I'd be back in the good books and unblocked. Then, after a period of grace, (sometimes as long as a whole month if I was lucky), there'd be some other minor drama and I'd find myself excommunicated once again. And so it would go on. In fact, the only time I've ever blocked someone online myself is when I blocked these two. I knew I'd fallen into the bad books, so I quickly went online and pre-emptively blocked them before they'd have a chance to block me. Just as a joke. I got some amusement watching the response that week.

This is the thing though, and going back to my lack of experience with social media at the time. The first time the girl I liked blocked me I was genuinely quite shocked. In my head blocking someone seemed like a really serious thing to do. Like something you'd only use when dealing with a literal stalker or borderline criminal. It seemed almost akin to calling the police on someone. So, that first time I thought, "She's actually blocked me! What a little drama queen." It seemed so extreme and over the top that it was actually funny to me. Though I was also a little wounded.

Of course, I pretty quickly came to realise that all this was fairly normal behaviour for females on Facebook. That when they bitchily fall out with each other they reach for the block button. That if they think a lad is being an arsehole, or just plain annoying, they block him. It's not a huge deal. It's just a common social tool. A school playground, "I'm not talking to you anymore," type thing.

Twitter..

Fast forward a few years later. Twitter was a more grown-up place (at least relative to Facebook). It wasn't real life gossip and drama, but politics, art, debate, and everything else. You didn't tend to see people blocking each other like it was the school playground.

..but then that started to change.

I can't remember the exact changes to platform that facilitated this, or the exact years when they came into effect (I guess I do have a goldfish brain), but I remember the furores. The general view whenever such changes came along (at least in my circles) was that it was a terrible development. Another step towards making the once free internet less free. But, nevertheless, things were slowly streamlined in that direction.

And people, that you'd expect to refrain from such behaviour, suddenly started engaging in it. Like it was just perfectly normal. The old ways quickly forgotten. The sense of embarrassment that a person should have - that they're using a tool brought about with the intention of making women safe online from serial harassers - completely absent. Just, "I don't like your tone; I don't like your attitude; How dare you disagree with me! You're exiled from my kingdom! BLOCK!"

Like a delicate brat or impatient king.

All of a sudden lots of people were behaving exactly like the cute, foot-stamping missy I worked with. Journalists, academics, people whose content I watched. People I actually liked and respected. They were all throwing tantrums like moody checkout girls. And in a much worse way, as at least the checkout girl used to unblock me once her tantrum had subsided. Plus, to be fair, I was annoying her in real life too at times. With the people on Twitter it was just a cold use of power. Like swatting a fly.

It was a real eye-opener. An actual disappointment. I already somewhat lacked faith in authority and talking heads, but this took it to another level, and completely shattered any remaining illusion I had. "Wow, these people - the people in suits; the people running the country or presenting the news - they're just as petty as the average shopworker or playground schoolgirl. They're just as emotional and delicate, and unable to deal with criticism." It was a bit like at the start of COVID, when it suddenly dawned on you that most of your neighbours would gladly lock you up without a second thought for breaking curfew. The scales lifted from the eyes. A realisation that your respect had been truly misplaced. These people were never your equals, you'd been too generous.

After seeing grown men behave in such a way you really can't go back. The thought that there might be actual grown-ups, acting like grown-ups, somewhere in some ivory tower, exiled from your mind like they exiled you. In many ways it's another blessing the internet has given us. Even with the ever-increasing incursions into the free flow of information it remains the great leveller. Humans are just humans. Is it any wonder governments so readily censor people when the average person does the exact same thing when you give them a little button saying, "Excommunication." The promise that it would only be used to stop "genuine harassment" disappearing in a little puff of ego or temper tantrum.

Gold vs Platinum

I've had a cold this week, so I've been lounging around a bit. As ever though, I always find that during these bouts of snotty lounging I tend to find new avenues of interest. This time it was platinum that got me thinking. So I've been listening to talks about platinum and PGMs (platinum group metals).

Twenty odd years ago platinum was twice as valuable as gold - largely in thanks to its use in catalytic converters. Today, (with the hype for electric cars in full swing), gold is three times as expensive as platinum. So it's been quite a flip around.

It was always one of those odd little bits of trivia back in childhood. You'd make some reference to gold being the most valuable metal, then some other kid would chime in, "No, it's platinum. Platinum is more expensive than gold. My dad said!" Intuitively it always felt wrong, you'd even naively argue back against it. How can the most precious metal not be gold? It's gold. We all know that gold is the best. That's what gold means. It's golden coloured. How can something be more gold-like than gold itself? This feeling would then be heightened when you actually saw a piece of platinum jewellery and it looked ..silver.

Now gold is king again order is seemingly restored. So kids growing up today won't have the same sense of dissonance.

Anyway, it was jewellery that got me thinking. With the gold price so high, (will it keep going higher?), jewellery is getting more expensive for the average person buying a wedding ring or anniversary gift. The natural alternative is silver. However, for some occasions silver just won't do, as it comes with connotations of 'second best'. A lot of women aren't going to be too happy with second best. It likewise comes with a sense of cheapness. This is especially the case today with the price difference between gold and silver so large. Once gold was ten or fifteen times more expensive than silver. Now it's one hundred times more expensive.

So I was thinking, as gold climbs ever higher, will platinum jewellery increasingly fill the void. It is indeed more rare than gold, so doesn't come with the same connotations of second best. And it's still expensive, in spite of its current price relationship to gold, so comes with the reputation of expensive exclusivity. Platinum jewellery is also very beautiful. Having a sheen and brightness that silver can't quite match.

This might be amplified by the fact that gold is so heavily associated with finance and materialism these days. Men want it more than women do. So platinum could regain a sense of romance. That it's now less associated in the public mind with car parts may help this natural rebranding.

Magpies and Moodylocks

I always count magpies on my way to work. It's the one superstition I have. Of course, I know it's a superstition, and that I shouldn't read too much into it, but still, it's hard not to. "One for sorrow, two for joy ..I've only seen one, so that means bad luck today. I better be on my guard." The rhyme said so. And it's an old rhyme, handed down from long ago. From a world that had different knowledge. My mam taught me it. She got it from somewhere else. No classroom was needed. Somehow it survived into secular modernity. A catchy jingle from more superstitious times.

One for sorrow, two for joy. Three for a girl, four for a boy. Five for silver, six for gold. Seven for a story never to be told.

Fortunately (luckily), I generally see a lot of magpies on my way to work; on my little semi-nature trek over the River Tees. So I'm sometimes far beyond seven. Well into the realms of the untold. I'm actually quite fond of magpies too. I think they're very beautiful birds. They tend to get a bad rap - seen as thieves that steal shiny things, and as predators that bully other birds. (Pretty much everyone I know hates them.) Perhaps they are troublemakers, but the crisp distinction of the black against the white always leaves me impressed by the neat artistry of nature. There's also a slight iridescent blue to their dark feathers when you see them up close. They're well-turned out birds. The fact that they tend to pair bond for life gives an added admiration.

I also sometimes see swans on my way to work. These remind me of Helen of Troy. The real Helen of Troy - the one that's turned my brain to goo recently. The one who can't be named except in simile. (I noted once before on here that I tend to get the inspiration but not the girl when it comes to love. She's definitely in the moody muse category. So I think the pattern is most certainly continuing. That I'm here writing this probably tells you that.) It's said that Helen had skin so fair it was like the shell of a swan's egg. The real version even looks like a little swan when she's sat huddled over her mobile phone in the office.

The other birds that catch my thoughts are the collared doves that hang out in the garden. The current two are like boyfriend and girlfriend, inseparable, sitting for hours on the fence or in the tree branches. Just there, with each other. Timelessly. I sometimes feel a little jealous when I see them. I'd like to reincarnate as one. The calm peace of an easy love. It reminds me of years ago when I used to see wild rabbits on my way to work when I worked in a factory. I'd always think, "What a life. Just bouncing around, eating ever-available grass and having sex." Again, with a similar feeling that the animals have it better than Man.

(It seems birds, being creatures of the air, are more symbolic of love than sex. Closer to the heavens; less weighed down by the material earth. So perhaps with age my thinking is getting more ethereal.)

Incidentally, I also sometimes see rabbits on my way home from work. Their little white tails bobbing through the dusk like little headlights. Innocent and cute, bringing to the world a sense of Eden.

It was my walk home last night that inspired me to post this morning. After a day of failure I was thinking it was time to put the moody one fully out of my thoughts and dreams. I like her too much, but the moment has passed, and she likes me ever less. Anyway, as I was walking home, at about ten o'clock, in the dark, I first heard, then saw, two magpies. They were chattering away, making quite a racket, in a tree above a parked car with its engine still on. Dimly lit by the glow of streetlights.

Normally I never see magpies at night. In fact, when I count them on my way to work I bear this in mind. Having seen one before work I could then hold out hope of seeing a second when I finish. Rescuing me from the misfortune. Given it's night when I leave work though I know this cannot be. So the cut off point for prognostication is when I enter the building and start my shift. Consequently, seeing two at night, with my head so full of defeat and failure, felt like something of an omen. Not necessarily of good or bad portent, but more with a feeling of, "Okay, this is part of life's meaningful odyssey."

And fittingly I've just started reading Homer's Odyssey. (I did fear to read it as I found Homer's Iliad so boring. However, it's actually excellent. It reads like a work of fiction, not like a long poem - as per the Iliad. It also has medieval fairy tale type elements too. Such as Penelope's devoted love to Odysseus, and how she unpicks the shroud she's weaving every night by firelight to buy herself more time before having to remarry. Upholding the troubadour ideal of true love as divine and time-conquering.)

In the Odyssey there's a bit where Zeus sends two eagles across the sky as an omen. This is then interpreted by an older man (Halitherses) who's experienced in "bird lore and soothsaying." It reminded me that fortune telling by birds was once a common thing. It also reminds me of the book, The Alchemist, another tale of an odyssey or journey with elements of bird divination.

As I go through life it's hard not to feel like an Odysseus type figure. Being both helped and tormented by the gods. Though I suspect I may be more the "auburn haired" Menelaus at this point.