Well, it's goodnight from me, and goodnight from him.

Take care. x

Putting something back

Crime and punishment. It's very black and white. The Justice system hauls you in, chews you up a bit and spits you out at a rate of knots, supposedly having turned you from Jack-the-Ripper-in-a-motor-car to driving Miss Daisy in one easy step.

Society has evolved into thinking that payment in kind is all to do with the Law and very little to do with actually trying to put right what you put wrong. Surely the best thing that could come out of a bad situation, is a lesson to stop it happening again? In my case, I am sure the public at large slept well knowing they were protected from me, whilst I resided at Number 1, block H of Durham (well, my bad jokes, most definately, but that's another blog entry...). Truth is, it wasn't 3 months having my freedom curtailed that stopped me driving like a prick. It isn't the memory of that that's keeping me on the straight and narrow now.

Seeing the scene of destruction, watching a man lying in the middle of the road, not breathing, thinking you've killed someone, that's the punishment. Not being able to help, not being able to fix the damage, that's what lives with you. Not a few months from a lifetime sitting in a cell with people who don't really care either way.

I'm not a doctor, biologist or millionaire, so trying to put straight my error isn't a simple task. It wasn't fixed by a year of Police investigation, interviews, court, prison, tagging or probation. There isn't an instruction manual in tidying up the enormous cluster fuck I created. So I've got to think creatively about how to make something good from something very bad. Like trying to turn a school dinner into a meal. Tough, but maybe not impossible.

One thing I can do, is tell the story to others. If that story stops one person going through the pain of the whole experience, it's been worth it. Giving something meaningful back is important, and that's what I'm going to do.

Take nothing for granted part II

And just when you thought it wasn't safe to leave the cupboard under the stairs, something happens to let you know you needn't have been there in the first place.

That smile you had hidden in the inside pocket of your deepest darkest winter jacket, can start escaping into the open like the you're The Joker on a family pack course of Valium. And it's contagious. Suddenly that thing that pisses you off every single day, that cretin driving at 2mph, makes you chuckle instead of wanting to jump out, run alongside and harpoon the coffin dodger.

Even a conversation with a call centre ends in 'goodbye' instead of 'fuck off and die'. Must be going soft in my old age. But it feels great. Like the opening, lighter nights as Winter's beaten into submission by a rampant Spring. But I draw the line at Parking Attendants. Yes, parking attendants- you're not Traffic Wardens, they're 15 steps up the evolutionary ladder compared to you, you parasitic non-jobbers-in-silly-hats-with-fat-arses.

Anyway, where was I? Ah, yes, happiness.

Never forget how good that moment feels, when your heart reimplodes with fireworks. It should be a daily occurrance, not a once in a while experience. Do what you have to do to maintain it. Make everyday another new experience and get excited all over again. Recycle the happiness, keep it up.

This one's dedicated to the Irish Sea, thanks for nothing! :)

Take nothing for granted

There you are, running at full speed towards you don't know what. Ups come, downs come and the world meanders along at a pace it's always been used to.

The faces in your life are a mixture of acquaintances, friends, rocks and family, in any given combination. You get used to them, you rely on some of them, you don't really need some and yes, you always take some for granted. Days, weeks, months and years go by and they're still there. They're the wallpaper on your life's walls.

Sometimes it's your choice to redecorate, change the wallpaper, new curtains, change the scene. It suits you, you need to do it. But sometimes, it's out of your hands. You turn around and that woodchip has been peeled off, not even to be replaced. The comfort in your surroundings can disappear faster than a pikey with your pushbike. And how you feel, I suppose, depends on where that comfort was on your radar.

That ground you didn't realise was supporting your feet, gives way, and the shock of the fall is only eclipsed by the pain of your heavy landing. And, for a while at least, you take stock, you evaluate and consider. A life moving at 27,000 miles an hour slows to a crawl and a moment of clarity is delivered like a parcel from the god of pragmatism. All those connections, wallpapers, suddenly mean so much to you, not to be taken for granted, not to be removed.

Don't let it ebb. Keep that considered clarity. Never wake up in a redecorated room regretting you never managed one last look at the old decorations. Accept it can happen any time, any place, probably when you want or expect it the least, but it's going to happen. Live as if it's going to, let the rocks, friends and family take their rightful place in your thoughts and when it happens, let that candle in your conscience burn for them without wavering.

Love isn't a weakness or a dependence, it's a strength and should be embraced. Embrace the ones you love and don't let go.

This one's dedicated to someone in pain right now. Celtic 1, Rangers 0, at least.

TV Licence Wankers

What is it with these people? I don't have a TV that can receive their shite. I don't want to pay them £12 a month for that shite, that I don't receive.

"Dear Mr Olley

Thank you for contacting us.

Our records show that the name on the TV Licence you have enquired about is not yours.  I am unable to inform a third party of the details concerning a particular person or address, as this would be in breach of the Data Protection Act.

Under the circumstances please ask the licence holder to contact us.

Yours sincerely

Sally
TV Licensing"


"Dear Sally

You're happy to take my fucking money, yet aren't willing to talk to me about it. You parasites are examples of what's wrong with this shithole of a country.

I woudn't mind, but I consciously do not spend any of my free time watching the mindless, worthless shite that is 'tv' because being patronised by left wing fucking idiots is not my preferred pastime.

For your information, I will use part of what is my one day off, to visit my bank and let them know to cut off my funding contribution to your nasty little nazi-on-a-stick empire, seeming you shower of cunts are unable to execute (good choice of word, considering the analogy- you wouldn't have got it had I not pointed it out) a simple but important request.

On a personal level, I'm sure you'll enjoy forwarding this message around the office in a sort of "let's laugh at this guy" kind of way. Let's at this point bear in mind you're the one who's the email jockey having to send out mindless, automated replies to people in response to the seemingly endless fuckwittery that is the tv licencing system.

I hope you feel a valued employee.

Have a nice day.

Dan"

Fuckers.

Hangover

When you're 18, the concept of the hangover is much less exciting than the concept of being drunk.

By the time I hit my 30s and, having experienced one or two of both (this is obviously like the rev counter on a car, you have to multiply to get the true figure), the concept of the hangover is looming large against the joy of being so drunk you're willing to have a conversation about 18th Century French Artists with your trousers.

If hangovers weren't bad enough, life, playing with it's big biology chemistry science set, then makes the cure for a hangover, more drink. It's not orange juice, coffee, gallons of water, enough paracetemol to euthanase Paris or a fried breakfast. It's plain old beer. Or spirits if you're feeling particularly racey. Hindsight, is never so strong as the morning after, when you question the value in your choice and quantity of drink from the night before. Was it really a good idea to drink 8 pints and 7 large Vodkas and that bottle of wine and the emergency aftershave you keep in the fridge? There's nobody as wise with drinking decisions of the past than the terminally hungover.

And those morning states can vary wildly, from a headache designed to kill rather than disable, to still being a bit drunk, dancing wildy around the living room to some stupidly loud music as if the night before is still in progress. Well, I suppose at that point, it is. Nothing better than a quick pause before resumption of festivities. Remember, you're not an alcoholic as long as you're enjoying yourself. Or something. Hic.

Is it worth it? Is the effort of depriving your bank account of funds to fill the urinal with funds of your own, really worth it? Sensible people will say 'no'. Sensible people will also be able to tell you the cast list of Coronation Street and know more about home improvements than is really ideal. So, mostly, it's a resounding 'yes'. The people you meet, the conversations you have, are all mechanicals functioned by the oil that is alcohol, in one way or another. It gets shit done.

Multi million pound business deals. Are they really done around the boardroom table? More likely, they're forged in the Lounge Bar, trying to play Whiskey top trumps 'till the wee hours, talking about that time they got caught by wife number 3 with their PA's legs wrapped around their neck and the resultant divorce. Atilla the Hun wasn't really a genocidal maniac intent on dominating the world. He was just pissed, most of the time. Waking up to find you've slaughtered hundreds of thousands of people and paracetamol hasn't ben invented yet must be a real hangover bitch from hell. 

So the hangover is just a byproduct of a necessary evil that gets shit done, makes the world go around and costs the NHS millions of pounds in treatments every single year. What's not to like?

Friends

No, not the TV program. You stupid fucker.

Real friends. People who will put their own shit a little further back on the conveyor belt of life, to scan and process yours. I never used to value the value of friends, until that day I really needed to use them as my mental zimmer frame.

And the great thing is, you find there are people out there who will listen, deal with and make sense of all your excrement, for free and, they mean it. It doesn't just speak volumes without talking, it means the whole world. Suddenly there's a realisation that there are people out there, that you would never consider having sex with, who can still mean the earth. Unloading enough of your shit to bury a small town, these friends absorb, listen, talk and advise. They might be as mad as a box of epileptic badgers, but the fact they're willing to listen and care means you'll put up with the paw prints.

What follows next? Enlightenment. That someone will do something so selfless for you, you then know how to do it for someone else. The slab of granite you've been leaning on, you want to be that slab for someone else, someone who needs it more than you. It's not about your own validation anymore, it's about making sure that friend is OK, that you're helping, that they won't let their crap envelope them like a duvet of depression. Most of people's shee-ite is short term, and they just need some binoculors to spot the wood from the trees. Provide that viewing aid, and you're doing the right thing.

Perspective is sometimes a skill, sometimes a gift, sometimes a curse. When it's a skill, use it. When it's a gift, give it. When it's a curse, use your friends.

I can only dedicate this one to my rock, they know who they are, and, thank you.

Gossip

We've all been talked about some time or another. Some of that talk is genuine; looking out for you, expressing concern, hoping you're all OK. Some of it, though, it's malicious. It's trying to create a show, a piece of entertainment for the benefit of anyone but you.

Then you have the accuracy. If you work for the BBC, you're at least grounded in some semblence of portraying reality. Small town gossip doesn't have this editorial constraint. If you're that way inclined, if your Coronation Street fix is not enough of an adrenaline rush, you can fuck about with the 'reality' around you until you create one. I swear, there are people who would really believe there was a giant pixie living up a tramps bum by the river, if the rumour was strong enough.

So you then get the validity. Validity arrives, delivered at lightning speed, by people with strong ears and weak minds, listening to every tittly tattly suggestion about that women across the road being a witch. Just because she wears black, goes to work on a broomstick and her next door neighbour suddenly turned into a frog, does not make her a witch. It makes her a person of questionable judgment with regards to choice of transport and neighbourhood, but not necessarily a witch. Surviving the trials by ordeals makes her a witch, but the gossips are too darned afraid to try that one. Or even ask someone to their face about whether something is true or not.

Why worry about the truth when the supposition suits?

At this point I should do the decent thing. Separate two types of gossip. Yes, there are at least two types:

1) Repeaters

Self explanatory. Often unable to think without the benefit of being told to do so, probably by some self appointed God figure associated with Bargain Hunt or any other daytime TV, whose only connection to friendship is sharing the air we breath with other humans. Likely to survive on a diet of self loathing and an attraction to doing absolutely fuck all worthwhile in life.

2) Originators

Now these cookies, they're special. Not content with 24/7 news channels, Facebook-speed addiction to the mundane goings on of a populace in obvious transitional depression, these fuckers want more. If someone's humped their pet pig, this slice of population needs them to have done it up the bum. Just life, isn't enough. These are the people who see you sneeze, and send you a leaflet on surviving AIDS, just before embarking on a World Tour of telling everyone about it.

Anyway, where was I?

Oh yes. Gossip. We know there are these people thinking it up, and these other people, spreading it around like a thin layer of snot across a hankerchief of ever decreasing virgin patches.

The thing to have in your pocket, apart from your wallet, keys and other obvious stuff you really shouldn't forget, is your weapons against gossip. Depending on the type of gossip we're talking about; the really insane stuff where you're related to Gary Glitter and shared South East Asian toddlers, or the mundane stuff where you're accused of eating too many blue Smarties, affects what those weapons should be.

The first one is easy. Your swinging cricket bat against the Originators, the fantasists who'd rather live in a dream world where the jam sandwich is food of choice, is to forget all about it and don't give it credibility. They say, that they'll get bored of it, if you ignore it. That's not true, they won't get bored. Made up stories, to them, are the equivalent of the bored zoo animal, checking out the cage's perimeter for the 50th time that day. They live, eat and breath that shit. No, you have to have the self confidence and belief to hit the gossip for six. The people who know you, who really know you, will know the truth or at least understand your explanation. The ones who don't, they don't matter. They can sit at home all day, rocking, humming, waiting for the result of the Jeremy Kyle DNA test. Most of all, fuck 'em.

The second one is harder. The one where something you're ashamed of is the subject. Something you'd rather wasn't bouncing acoustically off the walls like a fart-shit-fart in a desperation led assault on a motorway services' poo cubical. Those ones you shouldn't try and destroy with your self confidence, lies or, indeed, cricket bats. Sometimes, the defeat of defeat, is to admit defeat. Gossips hate, and I mean hate, more than having their self esteem torn to shreads by a person who isn't sadder than a weekend in Silloth, being told, straight faced, by the subject, the truth. Bite the bullet, show some grit and character. It's hard to make things up about someone prepared to admit their shit might just stink, afterall. You'll feel better for doing it, you'll be the better person for doing it and you might just have found a way of winning that battle.

Whatever you do, don't let yourself become consumed by the opinion of others. Less than half the people know anything about you, less than any of the people know everything about you. Keep it that way.


This one is dedicated to everyone, even if there's a pixie living up your bum (so someone told me).

Something short about music

I can arrive home, pissed off, pissed about, pissed, and not really know how to deal with myself. Enough things can happen during an average day (and especially a below average one) to make you question everything. From whether you should really be eating junk food for lunch to whether your place on this earth is justified.

Nothing should be off topic, nothing should be left on a shelf for another day, like that can of strange veg you really don't have a dish to put it into.

And that's when music kicks in.

You can party to the samba beats of a Brazilian partyathon or feel like the Sultan of Dire Straits' Swing or twang the Adagio For Strings; it can make you feel where you need to feel. If you can't use music to direct your position in life, at whatever time or occasion it needs to, you are missing out. Seriously.

Sitting, cross legged, listening to an Irish folk singer, telling a story about missing his recently passed Dad, the emotion in that passage of musically backed poetry in how it's sung. It's more than enough to bring out tears, and that's not a bad thing. I sit there, seriously resisting the urge to wipe the tears running down my cheeks, dropping saltily onto whatever is below. Society tells you to ignore emotion, to hide your weaknesses. They're not weaknesses. The weakness is in not believing or allowing that you have that emotion. You do.

To go from emotionally numb to so emotionally heightened that a Bluebottle smacking your bonnet could make you turn to religion obviously, helps. The trick is allowing it to have some freedom. Nelson Mandella your emotions (maybe without the early life terrorism, though). Guildford Four your emotions. Let yourself accept, cope and enjoy the sadness that might be in your life, in the same way you absorb the happiness.

If you don't appreciate those -5 winter mornings, you don't tend to apppreciate the 30 degree summer ones quite as much. Both have their place.

What's really amazing, though, is billions of people having passed through this small dot in the Universe, before us, telling their stories with music. For every situation, from the maniac who's been dumped by his duped lover, who happens to be a Labrador, to the insanely grief stricken lover about to take enough pills to kill a small horse as his love has died, in amazingly poignant circumstances, someone has been through, and described with great hilarity, angst orunexpected indiference, the situation you're going through, right now. It's like your favourite pick and mix with speakers and an amp.

Whatever you do, hide away; hide your fears, hide your anger, hide your porn under the bed but, whatever you do, don't hide your emotions. Let them out, let music be the conduit. Enjoy your fear, hopes and dreams equally.

This one is dedicated to the people who want to beat me up because they don't understand very much.

Ambition

I am not going to be a brain surgeon. Maybe it's because I didn't really like biology at school, maybe it's because I don't like bodily 'goo' and that I have the hand-eye coordination of a Parkinson's patient riding a bucking bronco?

Anyway. An operating theatre is not going to be my workplace.

You can have a lot of talents, a lot of skills. Climbing up difficult rock surfaces, talking people from jumping off bridges or flying people to Magaluf to get drunk and be sick somewhere warmer than normal. It all takes dedication and, as we all know, dedication is what you need, if you want to be a record breaker.

We don't all need to be record breakers, but you should have an aim in life. Even if that aim in life is to be slightly less fat than you are right now, you should have it. Without aims, what are you? You're a drifting dead satellite orbiting a universe full of disappointment. You're a dead labrador puppy enjoying the confines of that sack at the bottom of the canal.

Like Nutbush City, all people have limits. What they shouldn't do, is assume they know them yet. Most people are like an untested, glued joint. You assume there's strength there, but you're too afraid to test it. Go on, test it. What's the worst that can happen? Your No More Nails gives up the ghost and a dado rail needs resetting? Man has boarded the moon, walked over the highest mountains and sailed around the World unaided, and you're afraid of trying a recipe from a Gordon Ramsey book.

Cop out if you want. Live by a routine, never test yourself, let life drive you along until that day you go to work in a box and and people sing to you as you're wheeled into a rather large wood burner, never to risk anything again. That's easy.

Have amibition, and make sure you achieve it. If that ambition is to become a baby factory and spend your days breast feeding, and you do it, that's success. If your ambition is to rule the world, do it. Be happy when you get there and if you haven't got there yet, keep trying.

Whatever you do, don't live without ambition.

This one is dedicated to someone living across some water, a whole lot happier than they were being bullied closer to home.

Sense of place

You are what you eat. They say you should have a balanced diet. You eat McDonalds every day for a few months and, aside from looking like a cross between a pizzaface and a fat cow, your liver is going to be 2 days away from going on strike. You should like your liver. Mix your food, eat some shite, but have some greenery with it. Easy.

So why, isn't that the same advice given with your sense of place?

You become the result of two people getting frisky one night, and arrive in whatever place your parent(s) decided you should drop into, so to speak. It's not as if there was a choice on your behalf. Nobody poked a note into a very private place and asked you your choice of home town. "Oh, I have a choice? Great. If you wouldn't mind bobbing down to Biarritz once you feel like you're about to blow a gasket. Don't forget the Dom Perignon.".

No. You arrive where you arrive. It might be solitary confinement, it might be worse, it might be Silloth.

There you are, a few years and lollipops later, and you're doing a good job of being entrenched in your place. It feels right, because it's THE place you're used to. You're in a bigger comfort zone than a Scientologist in Hollywood. Primary school is a blur, but a blur with the comfort of familairity. Those same faces, you (want to, or just do) punch year in and year out. Every year is like rolling over and feeling the cold bit of the duvet you've been searching for.

Here's a challenge. You stay there for ever, and you have two choices; you're either going to be happy, knowing your existance was maybe meaningful to you in some way, but about as eventful in the grand scheme of things as a grain of sand in the Sahara, or you make a change. Leave that comfort blanket and run headlong into something that challenges you more than a Rubik's cube where some evil bastard has been swapping the stickers around.

And the best bit is, there's no wrong answer. It's your sense of place. One Man's lifelong challenge is another's spent condom. If where you are is really keeping you fulfilled, stick with it and relax like a Not Guilty verdict at a murder trial. If you're not sure, feeling like you're missing something, don't hesitate. Run like the wind, take every chance, just don't get so old you're trying to remember your way to the library, just to read those books about the far flung places you should have fucked off to long ago.

Facebook

Just when you think you've found every way to hear or create a rumour, there's Facebook, taking over the social lives of every corner of the internet. Dan likes this.

Every insecurity is amplified to the point of blowing your speakers off. Every mundane, average comment about how you're doing something no more interesting than wiping your arse, can be broadcast instantaneously, as if it's breaking on Sky News. Richard Keys would love it, had he not resigned.

So, there you are, with your earth shattering news, and you expect that quota of 'likes this' and at least 14 comments. And when it comes down to it, only 3 people in the world were online when you posted it, and two of them were actually searching for pornography involving some randy goats and hit Facebook by accident. Before you know it, your destiny changing thing has been buried by how some single mother has accidentally let her kid shat on his cornflakes before school or there's a link posted to a YouTube video of a pig riding a unicycle. Such is life.

Then you're left wondering how much should you really share online. Do you play it steady and just leave it to talking about things that'll make you gain brownie points at cool school, or do you cry about how life's so shit you're trying to choose between trial by fire or water? More to the point, who are you doing it for? And therein lies the rub. You write those little updates for someone else to read, and you're peddling so fast downhill that you're either going to hit rock bottom or Hell, take your pick. Write them for yourself.

Accept the Game Requests, Like the things you like, Comment on the things that deserve a comment, but don't rely on other people to validate your own thoughts.

Describing aspects of your life in text on the internet can give you an outlet and communication more instant and beneficial than anything that's gone before. Living your life out on the internet is more destructive than the cast of the Roly Polys invading a cake factory on an angry rampage.

You should feel free to share your life to anyone you want in any way you want but, make sure you're doing it for the right reasons in the right way.


This one's dedicated to the person reading this who thinks I don't know they are. ;)

Family

You arrive in this cushioned little community of people, no choice in the matter, and life has begun.

It runs from tight nit, fight the world from within, to disperate, don't talk anymore but, it's still family. They chose you (or maybe not 'chose'...), but you didn't choose them- but that's the way it is. No matter what you do, what you've done or what you're going to do, family provides. Stability, like holding on to railings when you're roller skating, has its value.

It can all be as mad as a box of angry badgers, yet you'd still cut off parts of your body you really need, just to help them out. Like a slightly dodgy album you bought almost by accident and forgot all about, you can pick up just where you left off years before, and no mention is made of it, and suddenly you appreciate it in a way you never did before.

There isn't a right or a wrong way to be with family. There's your way, and it's right. The love should be the same. Whether you go around for tea every night and make family the platform you live from, or you make the occasional 30 second phone call to prove you're not dead (yet) every 6 months, it should be the same.

From time to time, through  no carelessness of your own, you lose one or two. Maybe it's the human condition, maybe it's irony, like Alanis Morissette likes to talk about, but sometimes you only realise that unconditional, irrational, DNA based love, once that person has croaked. When you do realise it, it hurts like hell, because guilt is a powerful tool, more powerful than a Halfords Professional Socket Set at £89 with a tough, ABS plastic case. But you should never feel guilt, because the thing about family is, they know. They know you didn't choose them- it just happened. You were joined by one randy night between two (hopefully) consenting adults, and that's the way it is.

You can pretend you're falling in and out of love with family, to suit whatever mission you're on at that moment. Family can infuriate far more than it can please, some of the time. But nothing beats that feeling, knowing when you fall, and you're going to have the odd fall, there's a cushion on top of that concrete landing.

If you have family, stick with it. Eat the awful food, listen to the repetetive story about how uncle Frank once lost his underpants on the train to Bridlington, nod wisely at the right moments but, stick with it. As much as it seems they need you, you need them.

For those people who don't have family, it's shit and you're not missing anything. ;)


Maximum love and respect to Mum, Dad, Ben, Sarah, Granny (don't forget me in the Will- I mean it) and all the others I haven't spent enough time with.

Monday, 17th January

I'm off on a Monday. Always. There's a certain satisfaction in being off on that one day, when other people are begrugingly heading to work. I can go out on a Sunday, drink enough to kill a small horse or stay up until silly o'clock, and the worst thing I have to do is lie in bed wondering which way the bus went that hit me.

Waking up this morning, I realised something was wrong. Luckily, I didn't realise for too long- I had an appointment 15 miles away in 30 minutes. My moisturiser time was seriously compromised. Setting an alarm is obviously a stretch too far for your modern, Blackberry toting man. And me.

Get in car. Set music to volume 40 (Foo Fighters, Nothing Left To Lose album) and, finally, adjust mood to suit. This morning was a combination of rushed angst at being late and a desire to music the day away. What's not to like in that? There's a massive pleasure in piloting the LRB (Little Red Bastard- Citroen C1) on these occasions. It's got less power than Burkino Faso on the UN Security Council, less creature comforts than a night out being attacked by a group of angry students and the windows aren't even electric. It's like a car equivalent of a run down council house. But fucking hell, it's got character. Not as much as the Fonz, but enough to say you like it.

So it's me and the LRB, Penrith bound, Foo Fighters setting the world to rights, being not very Wayne's World but an awful lot Easy Rider. Just how I like it.

Penrith out of the way, and it's head back to Appleby. Or so I thought. The river Eamont runs alongside the A66 and it's a bit angry. Angry enough to have escaped the banks and be heading for anywhere but down the path it's supposed to, like some rebelling middle aged father bonking the 20 something barmaid, just because he bloody well can.

So what do I do?

Turn around and follow it back upstream, that's what. Ullswater, fathering the Eamont as it does, is a 'bit' high. As in the Road Closed signs are out and the road is about 10 inches from requiring the use of a yacht to navigate. Feels a bit naughty, but then it's just a Road Closed sign. It's not as if I'm in the frame for buggering Raul Moat or something. The Lakes in winter, especially on a closed road on a Monday morning, are a special delight. The sun's out, the hills are soaking wet and saturated with a colour you only see once in a while, the lake is high but not mighty; calm and settled in the valley like a mildly ruffled duvet.

Ullswater, Kirkstone, Ambleside, Wrynose, Hardknott. All the places that affirm life. You realise that this is all above any potential god. It's better than that- it's 100% non judgemental, natural and free from additives (well, except from the odd luminous octaganarian with walking poles and Land Rovers). If you don't like what you see in the Lakes, you're either missing humanity or you're David Blunkett.

Music, the scenery and the sense of place all go together so well. By this time there's a smattering of Jeff Buckly adorning the CD player and the clarity from feeling so close to such a wonderful place is as good as any adrenaline rush I can think of, just short of full on, no holds barred sex, I suppose.

So the return to Penrith, hunger in hand, was less than ideal.

KFC, home of grease laden fettered chicken related produce, is usually a reliable source of hunger fulfilment. Not today. For some reason, the management decided to employ someone I can only describe as a 'useless silly fat wanker'. This overleaden fat pleb is not only travelling at the speed of spud, but he's also about as attentive as a dead bat.

Mr KFC employee- if you're reading this (assuming you're not eating at the moment, of course), I do not expect you to put my food on a tray and give it to a 5' 4" balding man and his ugly wife, let them walk half way across the restaurant sneezing over it, only for you to realise you've been a bigger retard than your father and retrieve said food and put it into my fucking bag. I will not eat it. For you to put the excess back into the food lamp infested chicken coop of death for other people to get ill from, was unforgivable. That you were surprised that I asked you for my money back is only slightly less puzzling than the fact I had to ask twice.

So, in short, fuck you, fatty.

Anyway...

The stress of such a situation is easily relieved, in this case by the small marvel that is the Spar microwave meal. Seven minutes in the microwave is infinately less bothering than watching KFC Whale Boy juggle death chicken before my eyes.

I sit here writing this after an hour or two relaxing and recovering from the experience, in the company of friends in the local hostelry. Today my heart goes out to a close friend who's dealing with a tough situation he doesn't need right now. You know who you are and you know I'm there.

Keep well.

Perspective

Just when your head is about to explode, covering the nearby walls with enough red to require a fresh coat of magnolia, something comes along, taps on you the back and introduces a whole new school of thought.

I'd be lying if I said the past few months haven't, in the main, been a thinly veiled, self absorbed introspective. That can be fun, if you find your own mental torture more fun than trying to eat a bowl of Rice Krispies whilst riding a rollercoaster. Or it can be like being trapped in a lift with only yourself for company, and some absolute Bastard continually calling it up and down and never letting you get out.

They say (it's them again. Who the fuck are they?), when one door closes, another one opens. What isn't in the manual and isn't answered by the call centre in Delhi, is what happens when one door closes, and every door in the building swings right open? I now have a rough idea what happens- all the lunatics you had trapped behind those doors, suddenly take over the asylum. Now, when your asylum is about a cubic foot of grey matter and it was holding a lot of lunatics, it's going to make One Flew Over The Cuckoos Nest look like a trip to the library to borrow a book about shoes.

Whilst these lunatics are running amok, I dunno, pretending to be Napolean or eating the furniture or being suckered in enough to think they really do enjoy X Factor, I'm there, trying to work out which ones need dealing with first. It's true, you know. The quiet ones are the worst. The quiet ones are the ones who really need help at the scene of the accident, the ones who turn up one day and shoot someone just because they can, or like to get kinky and wear leathery stuff and put oranges in their mouths whilst being spanked by a midget in a firemans outfit. Or something.

Anyway. The analogy continues (you knew it was an analogy, right?)...

All these nutters (assuming you're allowed to call them that. Well, it's my blog, I call can call them what I  fecking like). All these nutters, running around, I've realised isn't a bad thing. The more you keep them locked up, the nuttier they get. Let them out, and they get less nutty. It's easy logic. Easier than, if you don't poke that angry tiger with a stick, he'll be less inclined to tear you into at least 7 or maybe 8 pieces.

Now the inmates have had a chance to run riot, jump on the furniture, urinate on the receptionist and do their animal impressions and they've calmed down rather a lot. My asylum is running smoothly, the doors are remaining open and I've introduced a new menu, as the old one sucked a lot of ass.

They say, what doesn't kill you makes you stronger. Now apart from the argument that drinking your bodyweight in Guinness might not kill you but it certainly won't make you any stronger, I think there might be some merit in it. Behind one of those doors (you remember, the ones that opened when the other one shut), was a tool I'd chosen to forget all about- Empathy.

By now you should be hoping I'm bringing this all back around to the beginning, otherwise you'll know I've either forgotten what I was on about or have joined the mentalists in burning down the asylum. Now I do like a good bonfire...

Okay, empathy.

You've gone through your whole life, it might be 10 years, might be a 100, and the doors of your asylum have never been opened. The lunatics have never escaped their rooms and you think you're running the best asylum there is. Other people, with their bad management, let their crazy bods escape all the time. You can't empathise with them, because you think you're the one doing the great job and they're sloppy and pathetic.

Then it happens to you, yours get out and run riot, completely unexpected and not by design. Talk about an epiphany. It's like Stevie Wonder suddenly being able to see and realising at times he's had the worst haircut possible. Then realising he can aim and shoot a gun, most possibly at his stylist of the time.

This epiphany (go on then, Google it if you're not sure), is that you were the one doing it wrong and the others were right. And once that's out of the way, you see in the faces of people, that there are problems out there beyond your wildest dreams. You think your resident lunatics are bad? There's always someone who can top trump you in the maddest asylum resident stakes. So you now know to respect that fact, to see that you're not a blemish in a world full of people's perfect lives. Almost everybody has shit going on. The question isn't whether the shit is there, it's how deep is it? Some people only have enough to stain their flip flops, some people have to snorkel through the bastarding stuff.

Maybe I have just little enough to keep my wellies from filling which, in the grand scheme of things, isn't really that bad. And that is the perspective. Being able to see in context what you could not before. Letting the little loonies run around your asylum is the best thing you could do.

Today my heart goes out to someone who, right at this moment, is probably one of those snorkelling through it, having to say goodbye to his daughter in a way a parent should never have to.

Welcome?

You've made the effort, you're here. That's a start, I suppose.

Does that sound a bit too world weary? Let's try again.

Hi! Thanks for coming!

Ah, that's much better altogether. Now, where was I? Ah yes, writing my blog entry.

They (whoever 'they' are- do you know them?) often say you should take each day at a time. Which is handy, because that's the order they tend to come in. Anyway, these days, coming one at a time, have a strange habit at the moment of being very up, and very down. Up, feeling like I've just started seeing Cameron Diaz and we're on her yacht in the Med (my yacht is in for service in Grimsby, not at all an 'up day' kind of scenario), playing twister, drinking, laughing at dwarfs and generally larking about. Down, when it turns out Cameron Diaz is crap at twister, can't handle her Peroni and is more interested in playing World Of Warcraft through the early hours instead of being rogered senseless by me.

So there are up days, and down days. Today, just to be awkward, is right bang in the middle. I suppose that means the day is open to suggestion. I could put on a Leonard Cohen track and start working out how to make the correct knot for a noose. For me, this is no mean feat, as when it comes to knots, folding stuff or generally being good at anything to do with material, I am utterly, utterly dyslexic. I am to knots what Stephen Hawking is to athletics. On the other hand, something good might happen. The cast of Glee might spontaneously combust or communist Vietnam could fall to a coup of angry cats, hell bent on establishing a free market economy whilst at the same time ensuring good supply of Go Cat for all. Who knows?

But for now, I'm fair to middling.

I can hear you asking, 'what is it that puts you up and down so much' (well, I'm assuming that's what you're asking, as I'm reliant on reading your mind, which is no mean feat, especially on a Saturday)? Well, that's a complex question with a fairly simple answer- just about anything and everything. If you'd asked me three months ago, I'd have told you splitting up with her was the root of it. If you ask me today, it might be that I'm anxious at the dearth of food items in my fridge, or that my OCD like obsession with fuel economy gets me pissed off when one bar of the fuel gauge returns 3 miles less than it does on average, or I could still blame her. Whatever.

If anything pisses me off at the moment though, it's eternal optimists.

"My legs have been blown off!"
"Think what you'll save on shoes"

Sometimes, you just have to admit to stuff being thoroughly crap- there are things that don't and can't have a positive side, like shitting the bed, being given a stupidly large hardback version of a book you're not interested in reading (yes, you know who you are, giving me that tat) or being told your dad is Gary Glitter. None of these things have positive sides. Mind you, I suppose I could use the book as an improvised weapon, or something.

But I digress. Let's just say, being a realist is better than being an eternal optimist.

So this is where I'm coming from. Nothing is going to change with me rambling on the internet. The price of beer won't fall, the sea levels won't rise causing catastrophic flooding in the South East (ha, ha) and cats probably won't invade communist Vietnam but, it might just make a bit of sense for me and, if I'm really lucky, might entertain one or two misguided souls.

Have fun.