Taken on the way to Pilgrim practice last week.
Taken on the way to Pilgrim practice last week.
In the UK, if you’re caught speeding by not-too-much, you may be offered the opportunity to pay attend a speed awareness course instead of receive a fine with points on your licence. This means you can avoid any increase in insurance (good), but you do need to take the time out of your day to attend (bad). The really good thing about the course (and the general aim) is that normally conscientious drivers might learn new things and be pulled back onto the path of righteousness, and the otherwise un-brilliant drivers might be persuaded that speeding’s not really a good option. Generally a positive thing.
What worried me was someone repeating a nugget of information given in a speed awareness course that knew had a high probability of being false, and I had to question it. It’s the idea that “SLOW” on a road is actually an acronym for “Speed Low Observe Warnings”, and this was given as a fact by the lecturer. Stop and engage brain for just a moment, even a few seconds and you can see through this.
Obvious issues:
Hang on, there’s more.
Some people are told in these courses that 112 is better as an emergency number as it alone passes your GPS co-ordinates to the emergency services (which attendees were told was not the case with 999). Again, simply not true. As it happens, the idea that either number magically transmits GPS information is bizarre in the first place. Trust me, my phone doesn’t. What actually happens is your phone is located using phone mast triangulation.
This idiocy is then passed out in normally sensible newspapers (https://www.independent.co.uk/…/i-was-invited-to-attend-a-s…).
There are two issues with this:
1. By saying things that are clearly and demonstrably untrue, the *real* information is tainted. Honestly, why should I believe any instructor who treats me like such as idiot?
2. There’s also the risk that actually dangerous information will be spread, believed in and acted upon.
I know this is a really minor peeve of mine, but it can drive me to distraction on the train.
Sniffing.
If I find myself with any runniness in my nose in the morning, I take tissues with me so I can blow my nose, but there are plenty who don’t. Come the cold season(s), people sniff on the train. I suppose now’s a hayfever season which may be why a chap near me RIGHT NOW is sniffing.
AAARRRGGHHHHH!
As a Morris Dancer, I danced at May Day Dawn for a whole load of years, at university with Yare Valley Morris on Mousehold Heath, then in Guildford with Pilgrm Morris at St. Martha’s. There was a break in all of this when I was in Thailand, back in 199x. I still managed to see in the dawn though, in a slightly different manner.
I was staying in Sudokai, a town with a pretty old ruined temple complex, and I’d decided that was the place to see the sun rise. I asked the owner of the guest house how to get there in time, and he told me of a bus (well, a large tuk-tuk style vehicle) used by locals to get to work, and miraculously I managed to both get up and catch it. I wandered into the complex in the not-quite dark, and found a raised area with a Buddha where I thought to wait for sunrise. All well and good. Save, that is, for the groups of stray dogs who also lived in the area. I’ve never liked dogs, and they’ve never liked me. My dislike had been intensified far earlier on in my trip when a dog decided to run out of a house I was walking past, bite me on my leg and then run back in. So there I was in the dim light of the early morning, totally alone save for a small group of dogs of unknown nature, hunger and health. Naturally I wanted to not be bitten or generally harassed, and the solution that came to me was to whirl a length of chain around me to force them to keep their distance. Looking back, I’m very happy that I didn’t hit any of them, but at the time I’m sure I was more concerned with my own well being. I really don’t quite know why I was carrying a length of chain with me though…
Wuthering Heights is a fantastic song, but hardly soothing to hear from a busker as you wander into a Waterloo Station in the throes of train delay hell…
This year I’ve found out that two young people I know have recently suffered mental health issues severe enough to require a hospital stay. I’ve had a colleague at work similarly affected, and I know another person who ended up killing themselves. Another colleague of mine has lost two family members to suicide, and themselves suffered mental health issues. I know loads of people who’ve had issues for which medication has been prescribed.
I too have had major problems, enough to inspire medication and time off work.
On the surface though, we hide these problems, we get on, we cope. The mask we wear is to require show we aren’t weak, to stop people worrying about us, perhaps to delude ourselves that all is well. We, us? I, myself.
No no, don’t worry, I’m fine right now. That’s what I say, both to myself and to you. It’s okay. (Actually, right now it’s not terrible – yes, I have life-long issues which I’m honestly working to address, but the cloud over me is not all around me, encompassing, enveloping).
My point is this – mental health problems are incredibly common, and very often well-hidden. This post is inspired by a young person who’s suffered (and is suffering) with a real and horrible issue, and is working through their recovery. Hopefully their strength will help others, and hopefully my post will be the first I make which might help others too.
This is probably the first real test of this blog – a post after a short break.
I suppose the very first test was the second post, the one after the obligatory “here’s by blog” comment, or prehaps, the first posts after the first real one. Actually getting started after the initial “wow, I have a blog” stage.
I’ve been keeping going thus far by having some drafts (or even entire posts) worked on, so it’s easier to publish something (anything, forsooth!) in the morning while sitting on the train, but now? Now I’ve had a weekend’s break, so I’ve lost momentum.
So, a new post on a Monday morning. Not a pre-prepared draft (although one of those is certainly waiting i the wings), but immediate and fresh text. About this blog. How self-involved, how meta-, how very blog.
My fairly cheap Superdrug (that’s SuperDRUG, not-DRY) glasses broke last week, and I’ve yet to replace them. I’ve worked quite nicely without, as I’m only -2.00 in my worse eye, so screen use is generally okay. The only issues I’ve encountered have been seeing who’s down the end of the corridor, and reading information screens at the station.
Now, a fair old while ago I tried contacts again for a friend’s daughter’s 16th birthday party (the first time being for my wedding, many years ago now), and I’m tying with the idea of giving disposables again. I wore them for a day over the weekend, and the only issues were insertion and removal, both of which sucked. The main things that tempted me were that my old glasses were always a bit skewiff, the cost (and slight faff) of buying nice glasses, and that I do prefer my appearance without glasses. A nice wee extra was that a colleague told me I looked younger without glasses…
How old are you?
How close to death are you?
I’m probably (hopefully) something like half way through my life, and I think sometimes about all the people I know who’ve died already.
Relations of far older generations, some more distant memory than others. People of my parents’ generation, some who dies a while ago, some more recently. Friends, neighbours, employers, acquaintances. Public faces, both famous and infamous.
All people, all animals, all tubes of flesh. All dead, and where they’ve gone we all follow.
Oops, that turned out as little more morbid that I’d intended, and that’s with a fairly dark starting point. But, while I’m here – isn’t it the case? And beyond these people we know, and can identify to some degree, all those who we’ve just heard about, either as individuals (“a death on the line”, “a fatal car crash”, those inconveniences that keep us from getting home on time), groups (victims of bombing in the news, or of outbreaks of disease, or perhaps a plane crash), and then the swathes killed in military actions and atrocities abroad. The million or so murdered in Rwanda.
Each and every one, a person, a life. A fleshy existence doomed to death maybe, but each one with the potential for good things. Each one with love.
There’s nothing that can stop our ultimate fate, but it’s up to us what we do with our lives. There will always be degrees of constraint, even if we can change them a little, but within those constraints we have the choice of how we approach life and death.
Typing this on my lovely Lenovo X220.
I bought this on Ebay for £110, and immediately installed CentOS (Linux, very much like Red Hat Enterprise Linux), and it’s a dream. Has 4GB RAM and an SSD, and feels pretty zippy.
Good points include:
…and the down sides?