A Fond Fairwell To Words

I was going to start off by jotting down some flippant comment about life being like a woman, but then thought better of it. Instead I will just write a fond farewell.

 

Writing a diary style blog is always a problematic enigma, with no easy answer.

 

If you have time to write it, then its probably that your life's too quiet and thus you have nothing worth writing about, or if you do have enough exciting stuff would reading about, then your too busy actually doing it them to find time to write, { unless you actually stop doing stuff you like to fit in time to write the darn thing }.

 

Normally things go in bouts, such as there is a glut of doing stuff and no writing, followed by a lull in anything to do which leaves time for a mammoth writing session, and then it swings back again. As I said, normally, this is how my life has worked.

 

However recently I have had precious little time to write, and even when I have it has been at the expense of either something I would enjoy doing more or something that really needed doing and was put to the back of the to-do-queue yet again.

 

Each time I switch my computer on, I have to battle and juggle the various temptations of surfing the net for the usual stuff, reading my mates blogs, invading countries in a WWII game, zapping some poor NPC on WOW, seeing if any of my friends are online to chat via messenger, see if my various profiles have viewed and/or been left a message and all of a sudden its 1am ... my eyes are red and stinging, I've missed another meal time and I have to struggle to get up and hope that yet another evenings slouching won't give me chronic back again, not to mention hoping that I can wake the following morning in time to shower and still catch my normal train.

 

Frustratingly, in my view the Internet has now replaced the TV for being the number one mind & time sucking monster device in my life. It's far too easy to switch on, get comfortable and then instead of flick flick flick with the remote, its click click click with a mouse.

 

As a hero in training I have to stand up and conquer my demons before I can face the epic journey of completing my set tasks. I have to be at the top of my game, mentally and physically fit, always able at the drop of a hat to perform some challenging feat, not taking a number or watching someone else do it on Youtube.

 

If time permits, while at work I will do a few minutes surfing or reading, and I might even get to type a few lines too, but right here and now I am temporarily trading in my writers hat in for a stretchy sweatband, swimming goggles and pair of weather worn running sneakers.

 

It won't be forever, but it will probably be until after I get back from my world wide trek, so best not expect too much or too frequent in the next two years. Two years ... it sounds a lot its true, but with so much other stuff to keep everyone occupied these days, I probably will be saying 'Hi' again before most people even realise I went away in the first place.

Busy Doing Nothing

This weekend I have been exceedingly busy doing nothing at all, and I feel that I am quite getting good at it.

On the socialising side, my lodger is away, my dad is tending a wounded wife ( domesticated pet attack, don't ask ! ), my close family had a day at the beach and all my good friends are busy making bread, trotting off up north to see old flames, watching planes go by, planning for weddings - you know, the usual sort of thing.

Each and every one a perfectly respectful and adequate reason to not want to see anyone this weekend but, well darn it the timing of all of them to be busy at the same time is not fair at all.

I could have done my own chores of course, to while away a perfectly good weekend, but I was lied to about the weather. If I had known that it was going to be glorious sunshine both days I would ignored the damaged cycle and gone right to repairing my garden fence.

If the weather had of been pelting down, then I would have been perfectly happy scrubbing the bathroom, shuffling paperwork or turning down the bed.

But as it was, with such a contrast of positive and negative aspects to what should have been, and indeed could have been a blinding weekend, I could only pluck up the interest to do no more than a few small bits around the house, watch a few movies, try to invade Germany as the USSR and read a few blog entries.

I didn't even manage to rouse myself into replying to a few emails that were semi urgent or finding my long lost A-level documents so that I could complete and return my recruitment agency from.

In the words of the 'now' Immortal Homer ... DOH

Two In As Many Days

Well, this is unusual, even for me!

 

In fact, if this keeps up I will have to re-evaluate my whole thinking of the old "milk of human kindness" being a load of old hogs wash.

 

Let me start at the beginning, as I've heard its a very good place to start.

 

This weekend, being unable to visit my dad due to bad timing and ill health, has meant that I was in possession of a costly return train ticket in excess of my current needs, and furthermore being a tight git at times, I had decided to return the ticket and claim a refund  { less a £10 admin charge }.

 

A few clicks of my online account and a refund was successfully registered as being requested, and then all that remained was me sending off the tickets to a postbox in Edinburgh.

 

Easier said than done, for I did not want to bend the tickets or send them by standard post { especially not at the moment with all the postal strike action } and my jacket pockets are not that wide or deep.

 

Sufficient to say that before I even reached the train platform on my way to work this morning, the entire envelope had fallen out of my pocket and left me red faced and aghast at the loss with my train due to arrive at any second.

 

Unwilling to head off into work being an envelope light, I retraced my route onto the street outside but with no luck, so slightly resigned I returned once more to the station.

 

Seeing no queue at the furthest tellers window I figured that I had nothing to lose by asking if it had been handed in and so I quickly nipped over and asked the very pretty and young female behind the counter.

 

As soon as I said it, her face lit up in a great beaming smile and she said that yes, one had been handed in just a few minutes ago, and without any delay or hesitation she passed it over to me.

 

Thanking her profusely, I felt a weight life from my mind, and I continued on down to the platform, passing another happy young guard who also smiled as she let me through the barriers, for of course my own ticket would not have worked on the automatic barriers so soon after my exiting to check the streets.

 

To make matters even better, my train was a few minutes late arriving but more than made up for the delay by the time it reached Victoria so I was able to walk calmly and happy into work, instead of being late and frustrated which is what I feared and felt the very moment I realised that the envelope was missing.

 

So many good things happening to me all at once, was too much and I couldn't resist the urge to smile and sing as I took the thirty minute stroll to my office. What a great start to my day, and at the same time being more than just one in the eye for those who say there are no decent people left in this old crazy world we live in!

Too Good To Be True !?!

Everyone over the age of ten must have heard the age old saying of, "If it looks { or sounds } too good to be true then it probably is".

 

In life there always have, and always will, be times when you either notice something, or more likely are presented with something, that at face value seems to be just too good to be true.

 

Some of the time { more or less depending on your own personality } your paranoia sounds like an alarm bell and you switch off without a seconds hesitation and then the situation is safely avoided.

 

Equally some of the time { again depending ... } your curiosity gets the better of you and stop to try and get a better perspective on things and see if you can spot the catch. Sometimes you spot something fishy and sometimes it just doesn't add up and so again you let it go and do nothing more.

 

But ... every now and again, you allow yourself to buy into the whole "it really is this good" line of spiel, and as the other saying goes ... " things start to happen when you say yes".

 

And why am I bringing this up ... well it happened to me the other month and because I was bored and at work I thought, why the hell not.

 

Oh, the scene, right, I forgot ... let's me start at the beginning.

 

It was a boring Thursday at work, and I'm busy as usual paper pushing a few excel printouts around my desk and desperately trying to look busy without actually doing anything. Then my desk phone goes and on the other end is some yank, banging on about that he is only phoning back as requested and as it's now my lunchtime, do I have time to complete a quick survey about our companies land line and mobile phone facilities.

 

Now, normally I'd not bother to waste my time as no matter how bored I am I still have no burning desire to squander any of my precious life minutes on something so unless, but then today is an extra long and boring day, and itis not like the survey could do me any harm so why not.

 

And then of course there was also the 'too-good-to-be-true' element as the guy is offering me £50 as an incentive for answering the survey.

 

Well ... I decided, what the hell, there's not really much to lose and what if I really did get the £50 for just saying a few yes's no's and maybe's, it wasn't like I was agreeing to switch provider or anything.

 

So I didn't just hang up or fob him off yet again, instead I dutifully answered his questions about how many staff we have? how often we call the states? how many staff took their blackberries abroad? and so on and so forth for about half an hour, and all the time I was waiting for the "thanks for your time and goodbye now" followed by a quick click as he hangs up, except it didn't happen.

 

Instead he asked me to give him my particulars so that he could forward my cheque, which I did of course, and only then did he thank me for my time and disconnect.

 

Now this was a few weeks ago now, so you can imagine my amazement when in the post today at work was a cheque in the sum of $154.00 made payable to "Mr D Springate". Gobsmacked was not the word.

 

It's a pity that my office is such a small and open planned affair as all the others in the accounts dept spotted it, and then pretty shamefully made me agree to take them all out to lunch on the proceeds if it actually cleared.

 

But even so, ignoring the £15 foreign currency charge I will have to pay, $154 is still £154, and if the cheque does clear without any fallout or unexpected repercussion then it will be a right result and my curiosity will never be the same again.

 

It's bad enough when my lifestyle seems to be based around the Avril Lavigne song "Anything but Ordinary", so when added with things like this happening to me all the time, is is any wonder I can't help but want to travel and do crazy things? it's like I was born into it !!!

 

 

Confusion

Just when I think that I have got a handle on women, they throw me yet another twist!

That has been the confused cry of billions of men all down throughout history, and is as true today as it was when William the Conqueror came over to England from France.

Thing is, in all this time, we still haven't managed to get any more idea of what they are doing, or why, and that's a pity.

It's a pity as it means that there will probably always likely be pointless arguements between man and his partner for all eternity.

For myself, I've given up trying to find a partner, or even trying to understand my female friends.

All I do now is enjoy the good companionship they grant me, try to experience as much that life has to offer, and hope more than anything that when things between me and them do go pear shaped { which they always do seem to do for one reason or another }  that the rift created will not be too deep and that before too long we can try to pick up the pieces and move on.

If anyone, male or female, has a better guaranteed way for me to try and view women / handle female friendships, then please let me know... { but send it to me privately so I can then announce it to the world publicly as my own and make a fortune in book sales, ha ha }

The Twelve Tasks of Dickonius

Ever since I wrote that first entry about becoming a hero I have not been able to think of anything else, and so the first thing I did when I got back home tonight was to do a bit of research on heroes.

Firstly, for the sake of the timing and metering, I will have to extend my name.. Heracles, Odysseus, Attila, Alexandra, Julius, Augustus, Asterix - all great men and all with names of more than two syllables.

Where as Dickon has but two syllables and just doesn't fit the bill properly. Hence forth, and for the sake of legend, I shall now be called Dickonius the Resourceful { just like my favourite hero, Odysseus - designer of the Trojan Horse }. I feel that this title is suitably apt as, just as what happened to my namesake, I seem to be dogged by terrible luck whenever I go travelling abroad.

{ I just hope that my final returning home doesn't strike a similar chord and end with me having to kill more than a dozen chav squatters in my house, as I've heard the local police aren't quite so willing to overlook multiple homicides these days! }

However, in labelling myself a hero, that is part of the problem. The heroes of yesteryear were most often than not rich and powerful warriors who commanded legions through a mixture of fear, experience and brute force.

But in today's slightly more delicate society these characteristics are not quite applauded as much as frowned upon, and it is much harder to acquire such wealth or social standing if not already born into it.

So I have to accept that my own heroic status will not be identical to those of my fore bearers, but perhaps I could still closely follow their achievements.

The Twelve Task { much abridged } of Heracles were :-

  1) Kill a lion { that is impervious to all man made weapons }

  2) Kill { with help} a many headed monster

  3) Capture a giant stag

  4) Capture a giant bear { and killed a friend while doing so }

  5) Clean out stables { requiring serious irrigation tunnels }

  6) Kill flock of giant birds { with aid of noise making castanets }

  7) Capture a giant bull

  8) Capture and tame 4 wild horses { and lost another friend while doing so }

  9) Fetch a woman's girdle { and killed the former owner by mistake } 

  10) Round up some cattle { and also killed the rightful owner, their pet dog and a shepherd }

  11) Fetch some apples { and swap places with a man who carried the weight of the world on his shoulders }

  12) Fetch a dog { from the land of the dead }

Reading back over the list, it seems that all the tasks set involved bringing something back and / or killing something or someone.

Thus, using only a modest amount of artistic licence { and skipping  the unnecessary death and slaughter wherever possible } I see no reason why it is not entirely possible for me to complete my own set of tasks based losely on the originals.

After all, I mean, how hard should it be to dig a trench, round up some farmyard animals, pick some fruit and play a musical instrument, if you don't have to worry about the messy killings and runs in with the local law enforcement agencies afterwards!?!

However, in all fairness, all these tasks took Heracles over eight years to complete, and I would have a hard time taking more than eight months out of my life without financially crippling myself, so the time scale will have to be much reduced.

Also all the tasks set were for the benefit of Heracles King and / or the local populace, and while I do not bear them any ill will I have not sworn an allegiance to "my god, my queen or my country" since I left the Kent Army Cadet Force almost two decades ago.

And so, as I am now too old to enlist in this countries army, I would like to plan and execute a modified set of tasks, to be completed within a year and starting next August.

As part of the preparation, I will have to save up enough funds to sustain my effort, complete my Spanish course enough to basic conversation level and also probably learn to drive an automobile, but this only adds to the fun and to the difficulty level of the tasks at hand.

Exactly where, and what, the tasks will be I am still debating, but if I can have them even remotely mirroring the originals and still fulfil my own hopes of saving the planet / environmental conservation, then I will return a very satisfied man and quite rightly deserve the title hero.

On a final note, I am aware that it is considered anathema to boast about ones charity work these days, and likewise it is only through the works of others that we know anything at all about the heroes of the past.

Certainly as far as recorded history is concerned, Julius Caesar did not keep a diary, and neither did Heracles or Odysseus.

So to keep the symmetry going, I do not intend for my own words to be those that are read in years to come by anyone researching Dickonius the Resourceful. Instead, consider my blog merely an attempt to jot down a few rough notes in order to help keep the later accredited authors works chronologically correct.

There, that about does it for now I think .... job done.

Becoming a real life hero

For those of you reading this who have been following my blog of late { and there must be a few of you out there cos I'm seeing feedback and extra hits on my counter } then you will be aware that after coming back from Colombia I've been a changed man.

I was thinking of just switching jobs and taking a different city job to try and get away from the rubbish and politics that surrounds my normal working life.

However, it then occurred to me that my office is no worse than most other offices, and indeed quite a bit better than some, so to simply switch my current desk for one in a different London office is not really going to made a blind bit of different.

Personally, I believe that I am destined for more than what I have been doing with the last 30 years of my life, almost as if it has just been a prelude to my REAL life, and the kind of person I imagine myself to be is much more a doer than a thinker.

Now it maybe that I am just trying to write something to look cool, or then again it may be just plain stupid, but after a decade of being an accountant { and part time poet / DIY repair man and overall good-guy to my nearest & dearest } I feel that I would much rather be out saving something, saving anything, than just helping to amass a huge pile of A$ lever-arched folders of the red, blue and yellow variety.

Money has never held me in awe of its power or ability to influence things, but I do accept that it is needed to do almost anything these days.

But being an accountant ... I mean, really ... what earthly good am I doing anyone by sitting at a desk, getting steadily fatter and older, bashing out numbers on a keyboard day-in day-out?

Soooooooooooooooooooo - how about I swap my solar powered calculator for some strong walking boots and then go out into the real world and see what good I can do.


I love to help people, I enjoy working with my hands, I get a thrill out of seeing a visible reward for my efforts, the outdoors has a strong pull for me, I cannot get enough of travel, I get bored easily doing the same thing and I feel extremely guilty for not doing more towards the many flora / fauna conservation causes that I strongly agree with.

So, right at this moment, there is nothing in life that I would rather do that try to settle things at home and then go off gallivanting around the world, tending to elderly elephants, planting trees, unearthing lost archaeological treasures, saving sea turtles, rebuilding tsunami wrecked villages and teaching basic English in third world countries.

It may seem cliche, it may be cliche, but I'm not doing this for the author rights or to get the girl { though if they both come then it would be a definite welcome added bonus }, I am doing this as I feel that I am going slightly mad and the thought of resigning myself to another decade of office tedium will finish me off completely.

However, it seems that every day people abroad are getting kidnapped in far flung places, and so I will have to plan and time my choice of volunteering work very carefully. After all, a dead peacekeeper is no good to anyone!

I will also not want to lose my house, my pension or the chance of getting a job when I come back, so I will have to save lots this year and make plenty of arrangements to cover for the time while I am away and for the most likely emergencies that would force me to come back prematurely.

Travelling

I seem to spend a lot of my time thinking about, reading about talking about and writing about travelling.

Only the other month I found out that I am not the first person in my family to visit Colombia, as my uncle and aunt went there a few years back.

Neither am I the only person I know who has made plans to travel around the world. Plenty of people I know have taken years out and went backpacking across entire continents, and one guy that I occasionally catch the same train home told me just last week that he had successfully made three world trips.

My friend David has been to Timbuktu, and one of the consultants at work is so well travelled that he has gone to USA over seventy times, that's three times more visiting just one country than all the countries I have even been to in my entire life.

Now admittedly all these other people are older than me, with my uncle and the consultants both well into their retirement, but the truth of the matter is, I will never be the most travelled person I know unless I become a hermit or devote my entire life to doing nothing but travelling for the next thirty years of my life.

Is this such a bad thing? No, not really. Life is not all about being the world best at anything, or at lest not for me, it is about the journey. I could give up everything I know and do nothing but travel until my feet drop off or I really do become the most travelled man on the planet, but what sort of warped achievement would that really be.

Unless I have some great stories to tell, a few cracking photos to display AND some good friends and family willing to listen to me, in the end what will it all have gotten me!?!

In 100 years time, who would care that Dickon Springate surpassed all other men and travelled to every country on the entire world?

Would I be hailed as a revolutionary and spiritual guru with big marble statues erected in my honour, or be ridiculed as a lonesome wandering bum never recorded as doing anything worthwhile except juggle a myriad of passports or be able to ask "At what time does the train leave?" in a dozen different languages?

No, as I have said before, for me life is a journey not a destination. I have always intended to enjoy the ride and get as much out of it as possible, but to make it the only thing in my life would be to have made a wasted journey.

And so, although I am not handing in my passport just yet, I am considering exchanging my wandering shoes for something a bit more comfortable.

And The List Goes On

Yet another day, yet another crazy event ... you think that I would be getting used to it by now, wouldn't you!

 

What was so special about today I hear you ask? Well it being the first Monday in the month normally means 'Comedy Club' night, and in this tonight was no exception.

 

We arrived a little earlier than normal { my sister, her boyfriend and I } as we were unable to get through on the telephones to book any tickets beforehand, and at the kiosk they said that the comedians had all agreed to pick on the folks sitting at the back and thus choosing to sit at the front was the only safe place to be.

 

"Oh how they lied", and with hindsight, "Oh how I bet they wish they had stuck to their word", as if they had then the night would have ended so differently.

 

The compare was the Australian that I recognised from a few months back, who was funny in places, poor in others but had enough stage presents to hold it all together.

 

Allowing myself to be an easy target for my name of Dickon { I STILL say only the pathetic or the wankers would take the piss out of someones name } I bought him a few laughs and finished off nicely with a few quips about being a travel writer, which would have been fine if he didn't try and go into so much detail and almost had me admitting that I was lying and was really an accountant.

 

The place was only half full and I hadn't had quite enough to drink when the third comedian came up and made a right hash up of it. He wasn't really confidence enough to be funny and died with almost every gag he did, but he gamely struggled on for about ten minutes before preparing to make an exit.

 

Then in a last bid effort to make us laugh he said a joke about Jesus and the people he met, which "including tax payers and prostitutes", and as he said this he fatefully waved in the general direction of a couple of women at the side of the stage, and latched onto one who seemed to think he was talking directly to her by adding "yes luv, I mean you".

 

"Whadda mistaka ta macka"

 

Now I'm not sure he has ever tried that gag before, but I doubt he will have the confidence to try it again for a long time to come, as the woman and her friend then began a five minute muttering tirade before going downstairs and making a complaint.

 

This caught the attention of all within earshot and some of her comments were a bit over the top, for what was just a bit of opportunistic name calling, however she eventually sat back down at her seat but with a look of pure evil intent in her eyes.

 

Next up came the main headline act, and this is where it all went topsy-turvey.

 

As he walked up onto the stage he took one look at her, noticed her scowling face and for some unknown reason decided to direct his entire entrance and first part of his act to making her feel as small as he could.

 

He could have ignored her completely, he could have made a few quick one liner gags to break the ice and get everyone else laughing, but instead he chose to verbally attack her, insult her and strongly suggest that she leave, albeit in a slightly humorous way

 

At this stage I was cringing and just wanting him to forget her or for her to be too embarrassed and leave, mainly anything to end it as quickly as possible as I hate confrontations. However ... it was not to be.

 

She steadfast refused to leave, although she did rise to the bate and throw a lot of comments back at him, he in turn refused to let it drop and tried { and succeeded with the majority } to get the audience to back him and heckle her into what he hoped was enough of an outrage to the stage. He even offered to reimburse her entrance fees if she would just fuck off.

 

After about ten minutes of this, with nether side backing down and the whole think degenerating into a two way slagging match, in a bad display of temper tantrum the headline act said it was either her or him, and as the organisers were unable to coerce her to leave, he left instead, which pretty much ended the show then and there.

 

I'd like to think that he did it to try and prove a point, but any such hope was lost as he ended up walking out and thus disappointing the entire rest of the audience, and although a few insults were hurled at the woman for not leaving but equally they asked for complain / suggestion cards to fill in on their way out of the building.

 

The only thing that raised a smile before the very end, was one of the other members of the audience quickly jumped on stage and speaking into the mike did my favourite gag, "A guy walks into a bar ... ouch!".

 

I was oh so tempted to get up and follow that up, as I was sitting at the next table, with my "Cecil is a spider" joke but the truth is, I was not expecting it, I had not had enough dutch courage and the whole episode had got me out of the mood for risking mucking it up.

 

I am sure that if I had started and then ended up collapsing in a fit of my silly sea lion laugh then it would have brought the house down, but equally I could have been booed off half way through the joke, which would have really got me down and made me never want to go back again.

 

Thus I sat debating on whether to do it or not until the moment passed, and with my hesitation died the chance to start a Mexican wave of rapid fire jokes from around the room, as then the rest of the audience began to leave.

 

Darn my drinking coke and J2O to start the night with, as if I had had two more alcoholic drinks earlier in the night, and was a fraction more focus on the ball, I am sure that something miraculous could have risen from the ashes of the headlining fiasco.

Kill Bill - Vol 2

I've just finished watching Kill Bill - Vol 2, which was showing on the tv tonight, for perhaps the fifth time. Each time the emotion, the energy, the action and the whole genre get me going, but also each time I cannot help but remember a time in my past when I was growing up.

 

My former step father ( deceased for over a decade ) and I shared very few happy moments together. He was not what I considered a good person, a good replacement father figure or someone that took a lot of attention on his step children.

 

He knew that we all us six children disliked him, for one reason or another, but it was the prolonged unemployment following to the closure of Chatham dockyard that I believe was his ultimate undoing.

 

Now it is not like me to speak ill of the dead, and here I will try to not make an exception. In fact, following watching Kill Bill, it brings back perhaps two of the only good moments we really did share together.

 

The first was the name "Masamune".

 

Although my step-father rarely displayed an active role in my childhood interests, he did seem to know that I likes swords and the samurai. I have no idea if it was a coincidence, but just as I got my first computer, an Acorn Electron, he watched a tv documentary on the subject of sword makers and then told me to always remember the name Masamune, as he was attributed to be the finest sword maker in all of history.

 

Not having any spare paper or books at hand, I grabbed a pencil and wrote on the grey keyboard the name above a row of keys. Later he asked me what had I done with the name, and I told him that I had wrote it on my keyboard. He mistook my very literal meaning and thought that I had quickly programmed it in somehow and that I could get the computer to search of come up with the answer if ever I asked it. Not wanting to disprove his theory, I let him believe this.

 

The second is that of me being tied up in knots.

 

Coming from a naval background, much like any other sailor my step father was exceedingly good with rope and knots. With my own youthful passion for magic and escapology I actually asked him on many occasions to try and tie me up, so that I may attempt to wriggle out and free myself from the bonds.

 

As I was aged about nine or ten at the time, I doubt now that he made a serious attempt to tie me as well as he could have, and was indeed only doing it so that I could feel like I was escaping. It must have amused him inwardly to see me wriggle on the ground and think that I was better at escaping that he was at rope knots all the while knowing that he wasn't actually trying to prevent me at all.

 

I can't remember now why I stopped asking to be tied up so that I could practice my escapes, but I suspect that it was after we had another one of our falling outs and thus I went into one of my many strops and gave everything the silent treatment.

 

However now with I think back on it, this is perhaps yet another link in the chain of me wanting a adventurous lifestyle, one where the bad guys tie you up and then I escape and battle my way to freedom.

 

On reflection, maybe I am not nuts as such, just forever living half in a dreamworld from which I prefer to live than the one I inhabit most days.