I read a study recently that had found that women were more likely to find a man attractive if he is the moody, brooding type. I can’t say I was surprised really, a quiet man with smouldering eyes and a grim, slightly thoughtful and wounded look on his face is phenomenally attractive. Just look at Humphrey Bogart in Casablanca – a man hurt and abandoned by the love of his life, emotions locked inside to protect himself, difficult to get close to – this surely just makes him more attractive, more of a challenge? In real life, if you were to go on a date with Rick from Casablanca (if you could even get him to that stage) he would probably be silent for the most part and trying to get him to open up would probably go from being a challenge to a pain in the bum. That’s the sad truth of it isn’t it? If mean and moody men lived up to their image, they would just not be relationship material.
I’ve always had an attraction to the ‘still waters run deep’ sort of man but for me, just being the brooding type was never enough – I have to have brains as well. No, not in a zombie-esque way, in the sense that not only does the man have to be tortured passionate type but if he has a great deal of intelligence too, for me there is nothing more attractive. I have always valued intelligence as the most attractive trait over all others. I, myself am hardly the sharpest tool in the box but I due to my OCD I think a lot and whilst they may not always be helpful thoughts, it helps to have someone to discuss thoughts with who will have other ideas to bat around. My husband can happily take this as a compliment.
It seems I am not alone in this admiration of intellect and the moody male. How many more fans did Hugh Laurie garner when he displayed not only his intellect but his ability to be the grumpy, manipulative, emotionally challenged Dr. House? Would his character be more attractive if he was happy? Go on, try it, who is the more attractive character – Bertie Wooster or Gregory House? Alec Baldwin played a happy-go-lucky character in Friends and all that his happy demeanour did was lead to Phoebe break up with him as she couldn’t cope with his optimism. Is this what we are really like, wanting a man to be eternally miserable as that is what makes him attractive?
The thing is that this just isn’t true in real life, a man such as House in real life would probably never be able to sustain a real relationship and if you were to date him he would no doubt be more hassle than it’s worth. I suppose that is the beauty of fantasy, it doesn’t have to bear any resemblance to reality.
The reason i have been thinking about this is, after the showing of the recent ‘Sherlock’ series two episodes I have been reading some of the comments on forums about the likely explanation for the end of the series events and there are so many comments relating to the attractiveness of Sherlock himself. Yeah, there were quite a few people alluding to the suave, handsome Benedict Cumberbatch but there were a great deal of comments on the attractiveness of the twisted, tormented genius that underlines the performance. I fully admit to finding intellectual characters jolly fine, I have read many books where the lead character has been this sort of handsome anti-hero and i have found myself rooting for him rather than the good guy – maybe that’s just me...
Look at James Bond; never particularly happy, downright grumpy at times, self-sufficient, intelligent – always gets the women, on screen and off. Although I often find the baddie more attractive but again, that’s probably just me...
The character can be as flawed as possible yet, strangely we’re drawn to them. For example, look at Fitz from ‘Cracker’ – not exactly a happy chap; a boozing, gambling, chain smoking Doctor who was frankly no good advertisement for the position. Then again, what he didn’t know about the human mind probably wasn’t worth knowing. He had a wry sense of humour and a smooth Scottish burr that could charm the pants off anyone, and he used it to his advantage and did everything in excess. Underneath all of this chaos was a sensitive soul, you just knew it, some part of him that loved his family and yet the thrill of the chase and the desire to get to the bottom of a person’s psyche made him an unlikely pin up.
Perhaps that it’s the passion behind the troubled man that is most appealing – like Heathcliff in Wuthering Heights, a never-ending longing for someone or something twisting the person mentally with smouldering fervour? Again, in real life, relationship material? Not so much. Living in someone’s or something’s shadow would be akin to being in ‘Rebecca’ by Daphne Du Maurier – now there’s another moody man.
Could it be confidence? In the case of Sherlock, being right pretty much all the time yet still a flawed human being? There’s a fine line between confidence and arrogance and Sherlock seems to walk it like a tightrope at times but his confidence in his logic and reasoning appears almost unshakeable. His lack of personal skills actually seems to take the edge off the smug exterior and reminds you that inside, there are emotions to be struggled with and boy are there a lot of women who wouldn’t mind helping him untangle them.
It even came through a little with David Tennant’s Doctor, that huge brain but having lost everyone dear to him – those subjects led to some of the most compelling parts of Doctor Who for me. Those huge chocolate brown haunted eyes glistening with unwept tears having seen so much and so many terrible things. Intelligence and torment again.
Whilst the image of the anguished anti-hero is very much all the rage, so to speak, these days there is still room for the happy, contented and intelligent man. Variety is after all the spice of life.
Thursday 2 February 2012
Fear of Commitment?
Everywhere I turn these days it seems like companies are desperate to sign me up to a subscription to something, anything. I mean, I understand why, the companies want a steady income and I get that but I myself do not exactly have a steady income so it’s a bit tricky to get me to commit to anything when I don’t know what my financial status will be like in 24 months. I’m learning to take risks at the moment as part of my therapy but I am not going to sign up to something that I may regret in a few months.
Don’t get me wrong, I’m not exactly afraid of commitment – I’m married, I have had the same mobile phone number for about 10 years on the same network (Pay As You Go admittedly but I have idly toyed with the idea of starting a contract with them from time to time), I steadfastly refuse to have a touchscreen phone as I have the least conductive fingers in the world it seems and I loyally stick by my big buttoned phone. My husband and I have been with the same broadband provider for years. All of these things should show that I’m not afraid of committing to the essential services but i really can’t seem to escape offers to sign up for credit cards, subscriptions to satellite TV, music services etc.
There is a small element of fear for me when it comes to subscriptions, I once decided to join a gym and just went along to check it out and see if I wanted to sign up. The gym itself was fantastic, the customer service was amazing and the facilities were not lacking but I ended up signing up for a gym membership that cost a hefty amount per month without really thinking it through. I’m sure a lot of people have found themselves in this position. Unlike the typical ‘go a few times then give up’ I was a paragon of gym virtue – I tried out pretty much every class (summary was that accidentally attending Body Blitz when only in my first week of getting fit was possibly a mistake and that Pilates was hard and made me feel like I needed a cigarette when trying to relax and with Yoga I kept getting my breathing ‘wrong’ causing a few dizziness incidents in the class), I used the machines, I swam in the pool, I even went to the beauty salon and hair salon. Oddly the only things I didn’t do were use the tanning booths (I burn easily with my pale skin) and go to the smoothie bar (this just seemed far too virtuous and I feared that if I were to get a drink from there that I would be lost forever to a world of fitness). When I went to check out the gym at first I was shown around and then, probably the same as everyone else, I felt like i might as well wear a sign around my neck that said ‘I don’t care about my health’ if I didn’t sign up. The politeness inside of me welled up and I blindly signed up, this was no fault of the staff, I just felt good knowing I was doing something to improve my fitness – without considering my financial health. I won’t go into how much it cost but I signed up to the membership that gave me the most freedom and with much power comes much financial responsibility it appears and the contract was so watertight that you could only cancel it after exactly 12 months and if you failed to cancel it 30 days before that day in 12 months time, it rolled over for another 12 months and you were pretty much stuck with it. Anyway, after a few months I was made redundant from work, but that was ok as you could minimise the membership by paying only a few pounds a month but the 12 month contract would be extended and you couldn’t use the gym again until you started paying for full membership again. It was ok as I got a new job fairly quickly. I decided to cancel it after 12 months but I missed the deadline by a day and so it rolled over. Now, my OCD became really bad and I started having panic attacks when going outside so I couldn’t go to the gym anyway so I was paying the few pounds a month to sustain the contract but eventually, through a set of complicated procedures I managed to end the contract and the gym was very good about it recognising my plight. I don’t know what other people’s experiences are with gym memberships but I decided there and then that I will never sign up to anything at all if I can really help it.
Last year I had to help my father sort out a mobile contract that he had inadvertently agreed to, despite not wanting the product at all. It took three days and a series of letters, emails and Facebook messages before it was finally sorted. I think that the general rule is – even when faced with something new and shiny, if you think you may struggle with the payments it’s probably best to go away and think about it before signing up.
Even mobile phone contracts can be a hassle to cancel, even when you go through the right procedures. Despite cancelling a phone contract using the correct measures advised by the company, I still found myself owing them £75 for which it was no fault of mine. I eventually sorted the problem but it was not at all easy to solve and involved a fair bit of anxiety. I understand that the companies want you to sign up to the subscription to ensure that they get the money every month but locking yourself into a contract for 24 months or more in the current economic climate is so hard.
My credit score is probably regrettably low so when I get a phonecall, email asking if I want to sign up for something I generally try to politely say that I don’t want whatever product I’m being encouraged to purchase but if they start being pushy i tell them that I have a poor credit score and the sad thing is that this doesn’t always deter them! At this current point in my life I have no credit cards, no mobile phone contract, no loans and I am sort of intent on keeping it that way if I can help it. I’ve been financially foolish in the past and these days I consider long and hard whether i want something so bad that I have to have it there and then. I save up for things, I’m beyond disgustingly organised when it comes to saving for Christmas. I had filed my tax return for the previous year on about the 4th April and had the tax readily available to pay them. I don’t mess around with money at all these days, if i don’t have the money I don’t get the item. To be honest this is something that I have learned from my husband as frankly I was terrible at money management before I met him.
It’s almost like there is a central computer somewhere which has a note of our address and the fact that I don’t have any subscriptions and the various companies are trying to be the first to get me to sign up to them. Despite being pretty much reclusive at the moment I still get around 4-5 phonecalls a day. If I don’t recognise the number, I don’t answer the phone, it’s as simple as that. I don’t answer the door and I politely let sales assistants know that I don’t want a store card - mainly by half-jokingly claiming that ‘I spend too much as it is!’.
It’s all about switching as well these days – switching gas, electricity, broadband provider etc. I’m regularly being told to keep up to date with which prices are best and to switch to save money. To do so I think would be quite a task. It’s quite a competitive place out there for the old utility companies eh? They think they have a good relationship with you but little do they realise that you are being romanced behind the scenes, other companies flirting coyly with you and telling you that their prices and services are better. It actually starts to get a bit claustrophobic knowing that everyone wants you, your business, your money. And yet strangely we feel like we are the ones who are not in control, with prices going up we feel helpless to stop the rise when really we are in an enviable position most of the time. Then again, we both need each other and I really don’t fancy trying to eat my dinner by candlelight because I’ve managed to annoy all of the energy providers. If you switch from one company to another then go back, is there someone in customer services laughing and saying ‘I knew you’d come back’ with a sense of smug satisfaction ‘You tried their wares but you knew they couldn’t compare to us. Come back to us, come back’. What a weird job that would be, what would it be called, ‘Chief Gloater’ or something? Do they see it like that or do they just shrug, say ‘meh’ and reconnect you?
Some subscriptions are definitely good value and if you have the finances to cover them then it’s all good. I think that I’m just a little jaded with my experience of trying to get out of subscriptions even after the allotted time is up. I tend to bristle at the mere mention of anything with payments per month. I respect the fact that some contracts can be jolly good value – paying a small sum once a month to get an expensive smart phone without shelling out a fortune upfront and you get lots of minutes and texts free is definitely appealing. Cinema passes too, are often terrifically good value if you go to the cinema more than once a month. I’m not anti-subscription, I just don’t see why I have to be interrupted by emails, phonecalls, texts etc telling me that I should sign up to this that and the other every day when I don’t exactly have the finances to cover them.
I once got a phonecall from an insistent salesperson who was determined to make me sign up for a mobile phone contract and he asked me which phone I had at that time. I told him and he proceeded to offer me an older model of the phone. As I was working with mobile phones at the time I pointed out that it wasn’t a good deal as I already had a phone that was more up to date than what he was offering as well as the fact that the phone wasn’t exactly a top model anyway but he still tried to get me to sign up!
Even last night I was watching a consumer advice programme where a lady had signed up for what she thought was a trial of a face cream for £3 and it ended up costing £500 as there’s a possibility that she didn’t read some small print and she kept getting sent the face cream on a contract basis.
I think that the point I am trying to make is, always read the small print. A friend of mine said recently ‘well, no one really reads contracts do they?’ and my reply was ‘Yes, yes they do or they end up in a sticky situation’. Most of us have done it, signed up for something without thinking it through and it’s definitely something that I will never do again. So it’s not really fear of commitment, just a healthy fear of overstretching my financial limits.
Do I know what my financial status will be in 24 months time? Nope, probably best stop gazing at those shiny new gadgets then :)
Don’t get me wrong, I’m not exactly afraid of commitment – I’m married, I have had the same mobile phone number for about 10 years on the same network (Pay As You Go admittedly but I have idly toyed with the idea of starting a contract with them from time to time), I steadfastly refuse to have a touchscreen phone as I have the least conductive fingers in the world it seems and I loyally stick by my big buttoned phone. My husband and I have been with the same broadband provider for years. All of these things should show that I’m not afraid of committing to the essential services but i really can’t seem to escape offers to sign up for credit cards, subscriptions to satellite TV, music services etc.
There is a small element of fear for me when it comes to subscriptions, I once decided to join a gym and just went along to check it out and see if I wanted to sign up. The gym itself was fantastic, the customer service was amazing and the facilities were not lacking but I ended up signing up for a gym membership that cost a hefty amount per month without really thinking it through. I’m sure a lot of people have found themselves in this position. Unlike the typical ‘go a few times then give up’ I was a paragon of gym virtue – I tried out pretty much every class (summary was that accidentally attending Body Blitz when only in my first week of getting fit was possibly a mistake and that Pilates was hard and made me feel like I needed a cigarette when trying to relax and with Yoga I kept getting my breathing ‘wrong’ causing a few dizziness incidents in the class), I used the machines, I swam in the pool, I even went to the beauty salon and hair salon. Oddly the only things I didn’t do were use the tanning booths (I burn easily with my pale skin) and go to the smoothie bar (this just seemed far too virtuous and I feared that if I were to get a drink from there that I would be lost forever to a world of fitness). When I went to check out the gym at first I was shown around and then, probably the same as everyone else, I felt like i might as well wear a sign around my neck that said ‘I don’t care about my health’ if I didn’t sign up. The politeness inside of me welled up and I blindly signed up, this was no fault of the staff, I just felt good knowing I was doing something to improve my fitness – without considering my financial health. I won’t go into how much it cost but I signed up to the membership that gave me the most freedom and with much power comes much financial responsibility it appears and the contract was so watertight that you could only cancel it after exactly 12 months and if you failed to cancel it 30 days before that day in 12 months time, it rolled over for another 12 months and you were pretty much stuck with it. Anyway, after a few months I was made redundant from work, but that was ok as you could minimise the membership by paying only a few pounds a month but the 12 month contract would be extended and you couldn’t use the gym again until you started paying for full membership again. It was ok as I got a new job fairly quickly. I decided to cancel it after 12 months but I missed the deadline by a day and so it rolled over. Now, my OCD became really bad and I started having panic attacks when going outside so I couldn’t go to the gym anyway so I was paying the few pounds a month to sustain the contract but eventually, through a set of complicated procedures I managed to end the contract and the gym was very good about it recognising my plight. I don’t know what other people’s experiences are with gym memberships but I decided there and then that I will never sign up to anything at all if I can really help it.
Last year I had to help my father sort out a mobile contract that he had inadvertently agreed to, despite not wanting the product at all. It took three days and a series of letters, emails and Facebook messages before it was finally sorted. I think that the general rule is – even when faced with something new and shiny, if you think you may struggle with the payments it’s probably best to go away and think about it before signing up.
Even mobile phone contracts can be a hassle to cancel, even when you go through the right procedures. Despite cancelling a phone contract using the correct measures advised by the company, I still found myself owing them £75 for which it was no fault of mine. I eventually sorted the problem but it was not at all easy to solve and involved a fair bit of anxiety. I understand that the companies want you to sign up to the subscription to ensure that they get the money every month but locking yourself into a contract for 24 months or more in the current economic climate is so hard.
My credit score is probably regrettably low so when I get a phonecall, email asking if I want to sign up for something I generally try to politely say that I don’t want whatever product I’m being encouraged to purchase but if they start being pushy i tell them that I have a poor credit score and the sad thing is that this doesn’t always deter them! At this current point in my life I have no credit cards, no mobile phone contract, no loans and I am sort of intent on keeping it that way if I can help it. I’ve been financially foolish in the past and these days I consider long and hard whether i want something so bad that I have to have it there and then. I save up for things, I’m beyond disgustingly organised when it comes to saving for Christmas. I had filed my tax return for the previous year on about the 4th April and had the tax readily available to pay them. I don’t mess around with money at all these days, if i don’t have the money I don’t get the item. To be honest this is something that I have learned from my husband as frankly I was terrible at money management before I met him.
It’s almost like there is a central computer somewhere which has a note of our address and the fact that I don’t have any subscriptions and the various companies are trying to be the first to get me to sign up to them. Despite being pretty much reclusive at the moment I still get around 4-5 phonecalls a day. If I don’t recognise the number, I don’t answer the phone, it’s as simple as that. I don’t answer the door and I politely let sales assistants know that I don’t want a store card - mainly by half-jokingly claiming that ‘I spend too much as it is!’.
It’s all about switching as well these days – switching gas, electricity, broadband provider etc. I’m regularly being told to keep up to date with which prices are best and to switch to save money. To do so I think would be quite a task. It’s quite a competitive place out there for the old utility companies eh? They think they have a good relationship with you but little do they realise that you are being romanced behind the scenes, other companies flirting coyly with you and telling you that their prices and services are better. It actually starts to get a bit claustrophobic knowing that everyone wants you, your business, your money. And yet strangely we feel like we are the ones who are not in control, with prices going up we feel helpless to stop the rise when really we are in an enviable position most of the time. Then again, we both need each other and I really don’t fancy trying to eat my dinner by candlelight because I’ve managed to annoy all of the energy providers. If you switch from one company to another then go back, is there someone in customer services laughing and saying ‘I knew you’d come back’ with a sense of smug satisfaction ‘You tried their wares but you knew they couldn’t compare to us. Come back to us, come back’. What a weird job that would be, what would it be called, ‘Chief Gloater’ or something? Do they see it like that or do they just shrug, say ‘meh’ and reconnect you?
Some subscriptions are definitely good value and if you have the finances to cover them then it’s all good. I think that I’m just a little jaded with my experience of trying to get out of subscriptions even after the allotted time is up. I tend to bristle at the mere mention of anything with payments per month. I respect the fact that some contracts can be jolly good value – paying a small sum once a month to get an expensive smart phone without shelling out a fortune upfront and you get lots of minutes and texts free is definitely appealing. Cinema passes too, are often terrifically good value if you go to the cinema more than once a month. I’m not anti-subscription, I just don’t see why I have to be interrupted by emails, phonecalls, texts etc telling me that I should sign up to this that and the other every day when I don’t exactly have the finances to cover them.
I once got a phonecall from an insistent salesperson who was determined to make me sign up for a mobile phone contract and he asked me which phone I had at that time. I told him and he proceeded to offer me an older model of the phone. As I was working with mobile phones at the time I pointed out that it wasn’t a good deal as I already had a phone that was more up to date than what he was offering as well as the fact that the phone wasn’t exactly a top model anyway but he still tried to get me to sign up!
Even last night I was watching a consumer advice programme where a lady had signed up for what she thought was a trial of a face cream for £3 and it ended up costing £500 as there’s a possibility that she didn’t read some small print and she kept getting sent the face cream on a contract basis.
I think that the point I am trying to make is, always read the small print. A friend of mine said recently ‘well, no one really reads contracts do they?’ and my reply was ‘Yes, yes they do or they end up in a sticky situation’. Most of us have done it, signed up for something without thinking it through and it’s definitely something that I will never do again. So it’s not really fear of commitment, just a healthy fear of overstretching my financial limits.
Do I know what my financial status will be in 24 months time? Nope, probably best stop gazing at those shiny new gadgets then :)
Monday 15 August 2011
Thirty Faux Pas
It’s my birthday this week. I used to really look forward to birthdays but now I just view them as a horrific reminder of the passing of time. People say to me “You’re only as old as you feel” – really? I feel about 100 so that’s not going to really give me an accurate assessment of how old I am eh? Apparently it is not polite to ask a lady how old she is but I am going to be possibly impolite and tell you all that I will be 34 this week. 34! I remember being 16 and thinking that everyone who is over 20 was decrepit! In my twenties I viewed anyone in their thirties as ancient. Now I’m in my thirties I have considerably altered my perception of age. For example, due to ‘old age’ I managed to tear my Achilles tendon last year by walking...just walking...not doing anything too strenuous, I wasn’t sprinting or anything or even larking about – I just walked and it tore! I thought that this was just due to me being particularly unlucky and clumsy but then I found out that my husband who is ten months younger than me tore a muscle in his neck when he was drying his hair after a shower! Again, he wasn’t doing anything he hadn’t done a million times before and he is fairly fit but while rubbing his head lightly with a towel he managed to tear a neck muscle! Terrifying stuff. This would never have happened in our twenties!
It’s funny as my dad is 65 and he doesn’t moan half as much as me about getting older. He is more mobile than me and given the slightest opportunity he is up ladders, drilling things and dashing up and down stairs with cupboards and so forth, stopping only for a cigarette and a cup of tea.
There are just little hints everyday that tell me I’m getting older, aside from the random injuries performing simple tasks. For example, during a rare shopping trip yesterday I picked up a pair of boots and said to my husband “What lovely boots, with the low heel I bet they’re really comfy” and within a moment I realised that gone are the days when I would pick up a huge pair of boots with metal heels and flames up the side and think – ‘they’re probably really uncomfortable but they’ll look great!’. I haven’t worn a dress in around a year as I just can’t be doing with faffing around with stockings or even worse – tights. Plus, if I have to wear high heels I spend most of the sitting time sliding them off under the table as I find heels so uncomfortable due to the whole Achilles tendon soreness that still persists over a year after the injury.
I find myself getting grumpier by the day. Yesterday while getting off the bus a lady who was waiting to get on the bus stood right in the middle of the doorway so attempting to get past her was ridiculously tricky. Why do people do that?!?! She could see that there were people trying to get off the bus so she made herself as big as possible to prevent it from happening! Almost deliberately! I’m not going to elaborate on the thoughts that crossed my mind – those are between me and my psychologist – but I was perhaps irrationally cross over something very small.
In my youth I was always up to date with what was in the charts, always. Music is important to me and I always followed the music charts. Over the past few years however I have found myself getting further and further out of touch until I genuinely couldn’t tell you what is Number One in the charts these days. I probably couldn’t name five songs in the charts. I could name a few artists but not the songs. As I type I am listening to a music station on the internet that solely plays music from the 50’s and 60’s and I wasn’t even born in those decades. The current track is by Pat Boone.
I bought a pair of slippers yesterday in the aforementioned shopping trip, to keep my feet cosy. They’re not the novelty style of slipper – no Bart Simpson with the feet holes in his mouth – these are sturdy, comfortable slippers that even had a label on them reading ‘full support’. I can’t help but think that I’m forcing old age upon myself. I sigh with pleasure upon seating myself in a comfy chair. I don’t like going out when it’s raining. Parts of me make cracking noises when I stand, twist open a bottle or turn over in bed. I don’t like going out on a Saturday night to the pub as it’s too busy – plus I can’t drink alcohol at the moment which is a little frustrating if everyone is drinking around me and I am the only sober person.
When I see something I really like, instead of just going out and purchasing it on a whim I now consider if I really want the product or need it, I then consider what else I could do with the money if I don’t buy it and then I look up reviews on the internet to see how good it is and look into other brands, models etc to see which is the best product to buy; A far cry from the random purchases of my twenties. This is something that my husband routinely did even before knowing me so I lay the blame for this piece of behaviour squarely on his shoulders. The thing is that it is good behaviour, it means I don’t go wild and buy something on credit that I will regret later – which, believe me, is something I did several times in my youth. I may lack spending spontaneity these days but I don’t have half as much junk as I used to have.
I worry about pensions these days when ten years ago I was carefree, well as carefree as you can get with OCD. To be honest I didn’t think I would make it past my thirties, I’m not sure why, I just always thought that my anxiety, smoking and bad diet would finish me off before anything else got me so I rarely thought past my third decade. And now I am there I have distinctly started worrying about pensions and mortgages and all of the financial shenanigans that I never thought I would face. I never thought that I would get married so I surprised myself there – it is my third wedding anniversary this week also which, according to Wikipedia, means that we are to give each other leather gifts. This makes me think of the leather trousers I used to have in my twenties. And the Scarlet red PVC trousers that I had that made my boss remark that I looked like I had stepped out of a bondage catalogue, although how he knows that remains a mystery :)
I’m just not ready to give up some of the fervour of my youth. I still sing loudly in the shower, I recently purchased a pair of shoes that look very similar to the ruby slippers in ‘The Wizard of Oz’ and I intend to wear them with something that probably clashes enormously like I did in the olden days. I still enjoy putting up the Christmas tree and I get almost sick with excitement on Christmas Eve.
What’s more, I still get a little excited as time veers towards my birthday so hopefully I can muster up the energy to celebrate my birthday in style. That’s if I can be bothered to organise anything :)
It’s funny as my dad is 65 and he doesn’t moan half as much as me about getting older. He is more mobile than me and given the slightest opportunity he is up ladders, drilling things and dashing up and down stairs with cupboards and so forth, stopping only for a cigarette and a cup of tea.
There are just little hints everyday that tell me I’m getting older, aside from the random injuries performing simple tasks. For example, during a rare shopping trip yesterday I picked up a pair of boots and said to my husband “What lovely boots, with the low heel I bet they’re really comfy” and within a moment I realised that gone are the days when I would pick up a huge pair of boots with metal heels and flames up the side and think – ‘they’re probably really uncomfortable but they’ll look great!’. I haven’t worn a dress in around a year as I just can’t be doing with faffing around with stockings or even worse – tights. Plus, if I have to wear high heels I spend most of the sitting time sliding them off under the table as I find heels so uncomfortable due to the whole Achilles tendon soreness that still persists over a year after the injury.
I find myself getting grumpier by the day. Yesterday while getting off the bus a lady who was waiting to get on the bus stood right in the middle of the doorway so attempting to get past her was ridiculously tricky. Why do people do that?!?! She could see that there were people trying to get off the bus so she made herself as big as possible to prevent it from happening! Almost deliberately! I’m not going to elaborate on the thoughts that crossed my mind – those are between me and my psychologist – but I was perhaps irrationally cross over something very small.
In my youth I was always up to date with what was in the charts, always. Music is important to me and I always followed the music charts. Over the past few years however I have found myself getting further and further out of touch until I genuinely couldn’t tell you what is Number One in the charts these days. I probably couldn’t name five songs in the charts. I could name a few artists but not the songs. As I type I am listening to a music station on the internet that solely plays music from the 50’s and 60’s and I wasn’t even born in those decades. The current track is by Pat Boone.
I bought a pair of slippers yesterday in the aforementioned shopping trip, to keep my feet cosy. They’re not the novelty style of slipper – no Bart Simpson with the feet holes in his mouth – these are sturdy, comfortable slippers that even had a label on them reading ‘full support’. I can’t help but think that I’m forcing old age upon myself. I sigh with pleasure upon seating myself in a comfy chair. I don’t like going out when it’s raining. Parts of me make cracking noises when I stand, twist open a bottle or turn over in bed. I don’t like going out on a Saturday night to the pub as it’s too busy – plus I can’t drink alcohol at the moment which is a little frustrating if everyone is drinking around me and I am the only sober person.
When I see something I really like, instead of just going out and purchasing it on a whim I now consider if I really want the product or need it, I then consider what else I could do with the money if I don’t buy it and then I look up reviews on the internet to see how good it is and look into other brands, models etc to see which is the best product to buy; A far cry from the random purchases of my twenties. This is something that my husband routinely did even before knowing me so I lay the blame for this piece of behaviour squarely on his shoulders. The thing is that it is good behaviour, it means I don’t go wild and buy something on credit that I will regret later – which, believe me, is something I did several times in my youth. I may lack spending spontaneity these days but I don’t have half as much junk as I used to have.
I worry about pensions these days when ten years ago I was carefree, well as carefree as you can get with OCD. To be honest I didn’t think I would make it past my thirties, I’m not sure why, I just always thought that my anxiety, smoking and bad diet would finish me off before anything else got me so I rarely thought past my third decade. And now I am there I have distinctly started worrying about pensions and mortgages and all of the financial shenanigans that I never thought I would face. I never thought that I would get married so I surprised myself there – it is my third wedding anniversary this week also which, according to Wikipedia, means that we are to give each other leather gifts. This makes me think of the leather trousers I used to have in my twenties. And the Scarlet red PVC trousers that I had that made my boss remark that I looked like I had stepped out of a bondage catalogue, although how he knows that remains a mystery :)
I’m just not ready to give up some of the fervour of my youth. I still sing loudly in the shower, I recently purchased a pair of shoes that look very similar to the ruby slippers in ‘The Wizard of Oz’ and I intend to wear them with something that probably clashes enormously like I did in the olden days. I still enjoy putting up the Christmas tree and I get almost sick with excitement on Christmas Eve.
What’s more, I still get a little excited as time veers towards my birthday so hopefully I can muster up the energy to celebrate my birthday in style. That’s if I can be bothered to organise anything :)
Friday 12 August 2011
On the fringe of The Fringe
Every year the Edinburgh Festival comes around in a blaze of enormous posters announcing delights of every kind, all jostling for your attention; every taste seems to be catered for. Whether you like your Classic Shakespeare or puppet shows involving parts of the body or cheeky burlesque shows or raucous comedy or fine art – there’s something for you.
Except, for me, every year it is the same story. Every year I say ‘Next time I’m definitely going to see some shows at the Festival’. This usually occurs just after the festival is finished or at the start of the year. I mention it periodically during the course of the months leading up to around June when schedules are being announced. ‘I’ll take a look at the events sometime soon’ I think to myself. Then, as this year and every year, I suddenly find myself in the middle of August and I have neither seen nor booked anything and by then I just don’t have the impetus to go to anything. I can honestly say that during the entire 15 years I have lived in Edinburgh I have seen about 5 shows in the Edinburgh Fringe Festival. Which is pretty poor actually when you consider how many shows take place over the course of that month each year.
I can’t decide what it is that most puts me off. I’m not a big fan of crowds, especially after a Faithless gig in Princes Street Gardens. A good friend and I went to see Faithless many years ago and as it was outside and Princes Street Gardens is perilously steep when standing at certain angles, I was precariously placed as it was. The music was playing, the beer was flowing (not for me if I remember correctly) and everyone was having a good time. I was in the thick of the crowd which I wasn’t too happy about but I was coping. Suddenly this guy started leaping around, I mean fair play it was a concert but before long he turned into Zebedee on a trampoline (would that work?) and after knocking into me several times he punched me square in the back of my head. Whether he meant to do this or not makes little difference as the impact sent me sprawling into the crowd and, as I am not the tallest of people, I suddenly became lost in this maze of calves and ankles. Yep, probably doesn’t sound much to the seasoned gig goer but I was scared I was going to get trampled. At first I protected my head then I just got scared and held my arm as high into the air as I could manage as I could hear my friend shouting my name. A hand gripped my wrist then my hand and I was pulled free of the crowd by my friend who put his arm around me and led me to a safe spot. I won’t deny that I said a few choice words about the eejit who caused my pounding head (It wasn’t just the music) but after a wee while I was feeling a bit better and managed to enjoy the rest of the concert. I know this probably doesn’t sound much when you say it out loud but coupled with having my leg stamped on during a high intensity song on the dancefloor of a popular nightclub – I’m not a big fan of being in crowds. If you have ever been to Edinburgh during the festival you will be able to testify that the city is usually crowded with happy people enjoying the festival and that’s great – I applaud the fact that people have actually bothered to make it out, usually in the rain sadly, to enjoy the enchantments the festival has to offer. But for me, I just don’t like being in large groups of people, it makes me feel claustrophobic and the hypervigilance that comes as part and parcel of my OCD gives me sensory overload trying to ensure that everyone around me is ok. I end up feeling exhausted in even a short period of time in a crowd.
The next thing that puts me off is the rain, sounds a bit lame but for some reason it generally seems to absolutely pour down in August. I haven’t had a dry birthday for many years – a few years ago on the way to cinema to meet my friends on my birthday I had to keep sheltering in various places and I was still soaked through when I got to the cinema which was 10 minutes away from my flat. Rain is good, without it we would suffer greatly and I’m grateful for its appearance but its greatest hits seem to regularly coincide with the festival. Even as I type, we have just had days of hard rain and flooding in some areas – I am reliably informed that some rivers are swollen and my husband was wearing inappropriate footwear which has left his feet very wet and I was forced to nag him again to wear his ‘rain shoes’...anyway...I never know which coat to wear when I go out. Do I wear my big rain coat and feel too hot or my little summer coat that although waterproof wont adequately protect most of my body if it were to turn into serious rain. Edinburgh does appear to have a peculiar weather system, I’ve seen it snow, rain, hail, sunshine and the wind to be ferocious all in one day, possibly one afternoon. After googling the weather in Scotland it came up with the phrase "If you don't like the weather, wait twenty minutes and it'll change." And for Edinburgh this is pretty much right most of the time.
Cost is usually another factor in what to see at the Festival. There are so many things to go and see and if you were to go to every event that took your fancy you may end up sorely out of pocket. In saying that, there are some very good free shows on and I can happily say that I attended a free comedy show in the Jekyll and Hyde pub a few years ago. The comedian had OCD too and it was interesting to hear his take on life with OCD – like I said, there something for everyone.
I’ve known people take a week off work in August and spend as much time as possible seeing as many shows as possible. While I think this is a valiant effort, I think I would like to just see a few shows to be able to process what I have seen and enjoy it – quality over quantity perhaps.
There are often some amazing art shows at the festival and I particularly enjoy a good art exhibition. I went to see an exhibition of surrealist art at some point over the past year – I really can’t remember when, that’s what being stuck in the flat does to you, just bends time and makes it seem so fluid so you never really know how long it has been since this and that. Anyway, the exhibition was astounding and there were some truly fascinating pieces. We also went to see an Impressionists exhibition which I thought was ok but I wasn’t as enamoured with that as I was the surrealist exhibition.
Edinburgh is literally bursting with culture, exhibitions, and shows of every kind. It should be able to put a smile on everyone’s face. The thing is, when you live here, after a few years it can become just a bit mundane – perhaps I am just being a grumpy old sod but during the festival, even going to an appointment always takes longer due to the enormous amount of people in the town at that time. Now, don’t get me wrong, I have nothing against tourists – Edinburgh’s rich diversity benefits from the influx of people from all over the globe and the tourism brings a lot of money into the capital. However, the volume of people in the city going up means more people on the public transport and more people in the streets generally stopping still right in front of me as I am walking somewhere quickly causing me to almost collide with them. I know, I know, I don’t own the streets and everyone should be able to do what they want with their holidays but suddenly standing still to take photos in the middle of the pavement without realising there are people behind you is something that has gotten on my nerves for as long as I can remember. I’m a courteous person and as polite as it is possible to be without having a meltdown but something within me burns with rage if someone is walking at my pace in front of me and they suddenly stop and due to the sheer quantity of people on the street it is hard to swerve to avoid them without crashing into someone else. Everyone has their Achilles heel and this is mine, I’m so hypervigilant, trying to be as well mannered as possible and show consideration to my fellow pedestrians that if someone is more free and easy with ‘the walking rules’, it truly infuriates me. As you can imagine, even after walking a short distance, attempting to evade the groups of ‘sudden stoppers’ and large groups of people who seem to stop and chat in the narrowest areas of the pavement so everyone else has to press themselves against shop windows to pass (and from inside the shop this can be a strange and compelling sight) and the people passing out flyers not realising my OCD will make me draw my hands in and making me feel impolite for not taking them...oooh don’t get me started!
I think what I am trying to say is that, if you live somewhere for a long time you don’t tend to do the touristy things anymore – if you ever did – and the simple task of getting from one place to another during the festival starts to make you feel irrationally angry with everyone so when I get to my destination I’m generally in a massive grump. I only went to visit the Castle a few years ago! Sometimes it is great to do all the touristy things you can in the city you live, its fun to pretend you’re on holiday :) Perhaps I’m just jealous that everyone seems to be on holiday and I’m struggling to get to the dentists or hospital or to work.
I’ve heard that the Edinburgh Tattoo is amazing; every night during the festival we hear the rush of fireworks over the castle. Once during the festival a friend and I were climbing the mound on our way back to my flat and suddenly the sky was lit up with a multitude of beautiful fireworks, it was a Saturday and the fireworks went on for a few minutes and in the green, blue, red hued light cast over my friend’s face we both smiled and it was such a perfect moment. A moment that makes you feel glad to be alive, glad to live in Edinburgh, glad to live in a city burgeoning with talent, beauty, wildlife, wild night life and entertainment. One day maybe I will go to see the Edinburgh Tattoo instead of being cross when I can’t get anywhere near the Royal Mile during the festival.
Of the few shows I have seen at the festival, some things have really stood out.
Several years I went to a book reading by Rich Hall during the festival. It was held in a small, darkened room and he wandered on stage from behind a piece of cloth that could be called a curtain if I were feeling generous. Rich Hall is an amazingly intelligent and amusing fellow; he was a joy to watch. He spoke to the crowd and talked as if he were talking to us individually. Initially he introduced himself and sat down in the battered comfy looking armchair that had been provided for him. After opening his new book he said dryly ‘Did you think this was going to be a reading out loud?’ before flipping the page and laughing to himself for a moment or two – the crowd laughed heartily and he started talking and the event was thoroughly enjoyable from start to finish.
I saw a truly fantastic play, starring one of my friends, last year called ‘The Dress Affair’. It was a play about prudence and passion, predator and prey, pleasure and pain; it was wonderful. The acting was accomplished and even in the dimly lit room the play oozed seductive style, drawing you in. I smiled, I bit my lip in anticipation, I stifled the emotion bubbling within me – it was truly a breathtaking piece of theatre.
We went to see Ed Byrne during the festival 3 years ago and he asked if anyone was recently married – coincidentally my husband and I had married the previous week. I put up my hand, as did a lady at the other side of the stage. He asked the lady how long she had been married and she said several months. He then asked me and I shouted ‘Five days!’ at which point he proclaimed that while sweet that we were seeing him on our honeymoon, should we not be on holiday somewhere? We never did get around to having a honeymoon holiday, we will at some point. He was actually very nice and asked us a few questions and at the end of the gig he leaned forward into the crowd, as we were only a few rows from the front, and he shook both my hand and my husband’s hand and wished us the best. That actually made my night :)
So you see, there have been several great things at the festival and I would probably have seen a lot more had I organised myself a little better. The fireworks at the end of the festival are always remarkable too. I doubt that I will be going to see anything this year considering my current health and financial status.
Definitely next time I will see some shows at the Edinburgh Festival...
Except, for me, every year it is the same story. Every year I say ‘Next time I’m definitely going to see some shows at the Festival’. This usually occurs just after the festival is finished or at the start of the year. I mention it periodically during the course of the months leading up to around June when schedules are being announced. ‘I’ll take a look at the events sometime soon’ I think to myself. Then, as this year and every year, I suddenly find myself in the middle of August and I have neither seen nor booked anything and by then I just don’t have the impetus to go to anything. I can honestly say that during the entire 15 years I have lived in Edinburgh I have seen about 5 shows in the Edinburgh Fringe Festival. Which is pretty poor actually when you consider how many shows take place over the course of that month each year.
I can’t decide what it is that most puts me off. I’m not a big fan of crowds, especially after a Faithless gig in Princes Street Gardens. A good friend and I went to see Faithless many years ago and as it was outside and Princes Street Gardens is perilously steep when standing at certain angles, I was precariously placed as it was. The music was playing, the beer was flowing (not for me if I remember correctly) and everyone was having a good time. I was in the thick of the crowd which I wasn’t too happy about but I was coping. Suddenly this guy started leaping around, I mean fair play it was a concert but before long he turned into Zebedee on a trampoline (would that work?) and after knocking into me several times he punched me square in the back of my head. Whether he meant to do this or not makes little difference as the impact sent me sprawling into the crowd and, as I am not the tallest of people, I suddenly became lost in this maze of calves and ankles. Yep, probably doesn’t sound much to the seasoned gig goer but I was scared I was going to get trampled. At first I protected my head then I just got scared and held my arm as high into the air as I could manage as I could hear my friend shouting my name. A hand gripped my wrist then my hand and I was pulled free of the crowd by my friend who put his arm around me and led me to a safe spot. I won’t deny that I said a few choice words about the eejit who caused my pounding head (It wasn’t just the music) but after a wee while I was feeling a bit better and managed to enjoy the rest of the concert. I know this probably doesn’t sound much when you say it out loud but coupled with having my leg stamped on during a high intensity song on the dancefloor of a popular nightclub – I’m not a big fan of being in crowds. If you have ever been to Edinburgh during the festival you will be able to testify that the city is usually crowded with happy people enjoying the festival and that’s great – I applaud the fact that people have actually bothered to make it out, usually in the rain sadly, to enjoy the enchantments the festival has to offer. But for me, I just don’t like being in large groups of people, it makes me feel claustrophobic and the hypervigilance that comes as part and parcel of my OCD gives me sensory overload trying to ensure that everyone around me is ok. I end up feeling exhausted in even a short period of time in a crowd.
The next thing that puts me off is the rain, sounds a bit lame but for some reason it generally seems to absolutely pour down in August. I haven’t had a dry birthday for many years – a few years ago on the way to cinema to meet my friends on my birthday I had to keep sheltering in various places and I was still soaked through when I got to the cinema which was 10 minutes away from my flat. Rain is good, without it we would suffer greatly and I’m grateful for its appearance but its greatest hits seem to regularly coincide with the festival. Even as I type, we have just had days of hard rain and flooding in some areas – I am reliably informed that some rivers are swollen and my husband was wearing inappropriate footwear which has left his feet very wet and I was forced to nag him again to wear his ‘rain shoes’...anyway...I never know which coat to wear when I go out. Do I wear my big rain coat and feel too hot or my little summer coat that although waterproof wont adequately protect most of my body if it were to turn into serious rain. Edinburgh does appear to have a peculiar weather system, I’ve seen it snow, rain, hail, sunshine and the wind to be ferocious all in one day, possibly one afternoon. After googling the weather in Scotland it came up with the phrase "If you don't like the weather, wait twenty minutes and it'll change." And for Edinburgh this is pretty much right most of the time.
Cost is usually another factor in what to see at the Festival. There are so many things to go and see and if you were to go to every event that took your fancy you may end up sorely out of pocket. In saying that, there are some very good free shows on and I can happily say that I attended a free comedy show in the Jekyll and Hyde pub a few years ago. The comedian had OCD too and it was interesting to hear his take on life with OCD – like I said, there something for everyone.
I’ve known people take a week off work in August and spend as much time as possible seeing as many shows as possible. While I think this is a valiant effort, I think I would like to just see a few shows to be able to process what I have seen and enjoy it – quality over quantity perhaps.
There are often some amazing art shows at the festival and I particularly enjoy a good art exhibition. I went to see an exhibition of surrealist art at some point over the past year – I really can’t remember when, that’s what being stuck in the flat does to you, just bends time and makes it seem so fluid so you never really know how long it has been since this and that. Anyway, the exhibition was astounding and there were some truly fascinating pieces. We also went to see an Impressionists exhibition which I thought was ok but I wasn’t as enamoured with that as I was the surrealist exhibition.
Edinburgh is literally bursting with culture, exhibitions, and shows of every kind. It should be able to put a smile on everyone’s face. The thing is, when you live here, after a few years it can become just a bit mundane – perhaps I am just being a grumpy old sod but during the festival, even going to an appointment always takes longer due to the enormous amount of people in the town at that time. Now, don’t get me wrong, I have nothing against tourists – Edinburgh’s rich diversity benefits from the influx of people from all over the globe and the tourism brings a lot of money into the capital. However, the volume of people in the city going up means more people on the public transport and more people in the streets generally stopping still right in front of me as I am walking somewhere quickly causing me to almost collide with them. I know, I know, I don’t own the streets and everyone should be able to do what they want with their holidays but suddenly standing still to take photos in the middle of the pavement without realising there are people behind you is something that has gotten on my nerves for as long as I can remember. I’m a courteous person and as polite as it is possible to be without having a meltdown but something within me burns with rage if someone is walking at my pace in front of me and they suddenly stop and due to the sheer quantity of people on the street it is hard to swerve to avoid them without crashing into someone else. Everyone has their Achilles heel and this is mine, I’m so hypervigilant, trying to be as well mannered as possible and show consideration to my fellow pedestrians that if someone is more free and easy with ‘the walking rules’, it truly infuriates me. As you can imagine, even after walking a short distance, attempting to evade the groups of ‘sudden stoppers’ and large groups of people who seem to stop and chat in the narrowest areas of the pavement so everyone else has to press themselves against shop windows to pass (and from inside the shop this can be a strange and compelling sight) and the people passing out flyers not realising my OCD will make me draw my hands in and making me feel impolite for not taking them...oooh don’t get me started!
I think what I am trying to say is that, if you live somewhere for a long time you don’t tend to do the touristy things anymore – if you ever did – and the simple task of getting from one place to another during the festival starts to make you feel irrationally angry with everyone so when I get to my destination I’m generally in a massive grump. I only went to visit the Castle a few years ago! Sometimes it is great to do all the touristy things you can in the city you live, its fun to pretend you’re on holiday :) Perhaps I’m just jealous that everyone seems to be on holiday and I’m struggling to get to the dentists or hospital or to work.
I’ve heard that the Edinburgh Tattoo is amazing; every night during the festival we hear the rush of fireworks over the castle. Once during the festival a friend and I were climbing the mound on our way back to my flat and suddenly the sky was lit up with a multitude of beautiful fireworks, it was a Saturday and the fireworks went on for a few minutes and in the green, blue, red hued light cast over my friend’s face we both smiled and it was such a perfect moment. A moment that makes you feel glad to be alive, glad to live in Edinburgh, glad to live in a city burgeoning with talent, beauty, wildlife, wild night life and entertainment. One day maybe I will go to see the Edinburgh Tattoo instead of being cross when I can’t get anywhere near the Royal Mile during the festival.
Of the few shows I have seen at the festival, some things have really stood out.
Several years I went to a book reading by Rich Hall during the festival. It was held in a small, darkened room and he wandered on stage from behind a piece of cloth that could be called a curtain if I were feeling generous. Rich Hall is an amazingly intelligent and amusing fellow; he was a joy to watch. He spoke to the crowd and talked as if he were talking to us individually. Initially he introduced himself and sat down in the battered comfy looking armchair that had been provided for him. After opening his new book he said dryly ‘Did you think this was going to be a reading out loud?’ before flipping the page and laughing to himself for a moment or two – the crowd laughed heartily and he started talking and the event was thoroughly enjoyable from start to finish.
I saw a truly fantastic play, starring one of my friends, last year called ‘The Dress Affair’. It was a play about prudence and passion, predator and prey, pleasure and pain; it was wonderful. The acting was accomplished and even in the dimly lit room the play oozed seductive style, drawing you in. I smiled, I bit my lip in anticipation, I stifled the emotion bubbling within me – it was truly a breathtaking piece of theatre.
We went to see Ed Byrne during the festival 3 years ago and he asked if anyone was recently married – coincidentally my husband and I had married the previous week. I put up my hand, as did a lady at the other side of the stage. He asked the lady how long she had been married and she said several months. He then asked me and I shouted ‘Five days!’ at which point he proclaimed that while sweet that we were seeing him on our honeymoon, should we not be on holiday somewhere? We never did get around to having a honeymoon holiday, we will at some point. He was actually very nice and asked us a few questions and at the end of the gig he leaned forward into the crowd, as we were only a few rows from the front, and he shook both my hand and my husband’s hand and wished us the best. That actually made my night :)
So you see, there have been several great things at the festival and I would probably have seen a lot more had I organised myself a little better. The fireworks at the end of the festival are always remarkable too. I doubt that I will be going to see anything this year considering my current health and financial status.
Definitely next time I will see some shows at the Edinburgh Festival...
Thursday 11 August 2011
Riots
I was saddened greatly at the recent riots in England. What seemed to develop during the peaceful protesting against the death of Mark Duggan culminated in riots, the deaths of at least four other people, destruction and theft of a vast amount of property and probable injury of many other people judging by the weapons being used and glass, fire etc. Were the consequences really worth the actions? Did the rioters achieve what they set out to achieve?
Like everyone else, I can only speculate as to what caused a percentage of the population of England to take to the streets and express their anger, but no one has the answer, not really. Even in a large group of people, everyone still has their own mind and acts an individual, even if encouraged or pressured by someone else. Every single person those nights will have had their own reason for doing what they did and subsequently they will have to live with the consequences of their own actions.
And that’s all we have left now – consequences, the aftermath of these riots.
No one can change what happened, any of it, as much as they may want to. As my OCD brain seems to spend a great deal of time thinking and fretting about consequences, I started to think about some of the consequences of the past few days.
One of the main consequences of the riots is that, it is probably going to take a lot of money, effort and time to rebuild the things that were destroyed. Apparently there are some insurance policies that do not cover acts of riot and so property owners are being told that they may be able to claim the money from the already cash strapped police force. As well as there being a global recession, even if people have insurance, due to the large amount of claims that are undoubtedly pouring into insurers right now, it may take time for assessments and for the money to be made available to the property owners. Some burnt out properties may be considered crime scenes so police will have to attend to them which mean perhaps forensics etc and if this is the case, the cost may rise further. One unexpected consequence I suppose is that the insurers and police may have to employ more people to deal with all this.
For those who have to rebuild their businesses or houses, this prospect must be so daunting and my heart really goes out to these people. Having your business looted or your house destroyed by fire must be heartbreaking, working towards making a success of things and having that taken away from you – it’s not surprising that these people are angry and to be honest, it would be easy to feel the need to retaliate but, as the saying goes "An eye for an eye makes the whole world blind." And after feeling the effects of these riots – why on earth would they want to put someone else through that?
What are the consequences then for the perpetrators of the violence, looting etc.? I’ve tried to imagine what it must have been like; breaking into shops, smashing things up, stealing expensive things, wrecking peoples livelihoods, running with the gang, ‘sticking it to the rich’ as has been bandied about. The feelings must have been intense – anger, frustration, adrenaline pumping, fear, excitement. Now, it is the next day, back to reality and, as graffiti in my old hometown read ‘much has happened, little has changed’. Sure, you might have a new Xbox or jewellery or a new phone but was it really worth it? Has anything really changed other than there is some destruction and devastated people? Is a criminal record really worth whatever was stolen? And as for the – ‘sticking it to the rich’ motive, the thing is, that this hasn’t really affected ‘the rich’ a great deal has it? Yeah, a few big shops have been looted but they can probably claim it on their insurance making it more of an inconvenience really.
The people who are really hurting are those with small businesses during this recession struggling to make ends meet who saw their livelihoods torn apart. The families of the people who have died during the riots. People whose homes were damaged by fire and violence. People who were innocently walking home and were either injured or prevented from getting home safely. The parents of the people who took part in the riots. Maybe even the people who took part in the riots themselves and now regret it.
Don’t get me wrong, you may think ‘well it’s easy for you to say this sitting up in Scotland where there hasn’t been any confirmed rioting’ and I suppose you’d be right, I’m no more qualified than anyone else to talk about this, but perhaps I’m saying all this as there but for the grace of God go I?
I’ve been watching the news these past few days, agoraphobia has led me to watching rolling news, and so many possible explanations have been given as to why this has happened. One was the ‘single parent family’ argument – this often gets up my nose as my parents are divorced so both my sister and I come from a ‘broken home’ and I have never been a violent person. My sister is well dressed, has a good job and is one of the nicest people you could meet. I don’t know how you would describe me but before my illness I was a (hopefully) successful software tester – a role I hope to return to – I wasn’t particularly well dressed but that’s due to my general lack of fashion sense and I hope that my friends would consider me not a bad person.
I have many of the features that the people on the news described as risk factors for wanting to be involved in rioting and looting – I came from humble beginnings; my parents were in no way rich, we weren’t destitute but there were a lot of things that I wanted in my childhood that my parents could not afford. I come from a ‘broken home’. I grew up on a council estate. I was told by several people that I would never make anything of myself.
I spend a lot of time alone and often feel disaffected, alienated from people. I live in an area where I don’t know any of my neighbours or indeed anyone in my community – apart from my husband obviously. I have been made redundant several times, I cannot even get a job at the moment as I can’t leave my home alone so I am forced to exist on benefits and the kindness of my husband. I’m depressed that my life is this way at the moment. I don’t feel like I have much control over anything.
Isn’t that one of the main causes of unhappiness in human beings? When there is a lack of control or perception of lack of control in a person’s life they are more likely to lash out or become depressed? I’ve always had a problem with lack of control, unfortunately when I have a lack of control of anything in my life I tend to end up taking it out on myself. With the control factor in mind – did the rioters feel like this was the only way they could gain control over something in life?
The problem with this is that, effectively what you’re doing is throwing your toys out of the pram which may get attention but it may not be the attention you wanted. If the rioters did this to get attention it certainly worked admittedly – the news was saturated with coverage – but the short lived attention hasn’t really turned anything around. Momentary control, that didn’t really get any solid message across or offer any sort of solution to aid the cries for help,. If people were reaching out to be heard, to be noticed, have their plight told – did anyone really get the message? Perhaps this outpouring of anger and frustration was a way to say ‘help me’?
And therein lies the sadness – if all of this really was a cry for help, all it has resulted in are anger, destruction and punishment.
Was the reason of everyone on those streets those nights to avenge the death of Mark Duggan in Tottenham? Was the case investigated quicker? Whatever the circumstances of the man’s death – would he have wanted such behaviour to take place in his name? His family have reportedly said they do not condone the violence. His brother reportedly said that he didn’t want the riots to be about his brother’s life as Mark was a good man.
Or for many people, was it just opportunistic? Some people stole sweets and beer rather than high price items. Would you really steal given the opportunity? I tried thinking about this – if I had the opportunity to steal something and no one would know, I wouldn’t be caught and I would have something I really wanted – would I steal it? The answer is no, really, I wouldn’t do it. Because I know it is wrong – I’ve had it drummed into me, all of my life that stealing is wrong. So, given the opportunity, would you really steal something if you thought you wouldn’t get caught. Maybe you would but would you feel ok about it afterwards?
Surely there are ways to get your message across without violence and devastation, if there are enough people with the same problems, surely they can be addressed without chaos? As a child you learn that having a tantrum often does not help you get what you want or need – but can you really put hundreds of people on a theoretical naughty step and will it help? I know that things are pretty terrible at the moment but surely violence just makes it worse?
In the wake of the riots, social networking has been under scrutiny for easing the communication of the rioters in order to gather large groups of people quickly but surely social networking sites are not responsible for what people do with them? You can give someone access to a social networking site but what they choose to do with it is their choice – personal responsibility has to come into this somewhere – I know everyone is looking for someone to blame but ultimately, if you choose to loot or riot, unless someone literally is threatening your life if you don’t do it, you have a choice to walk away. I know that there is peer pressure and people can get bullied into doing things – perhaps I don’t really have a full understanding of what drove the rioters that night but whatever they did, responsibility has to be taken. There really is no excuse for breaking into buildings, violence, threatening behaviour and stealing.
I’m saddened by the unseen consequences – the psychological affect on both the rioters and the victims of the events. Dealing with what you have done is a burden on its own, even those seeming to lack conscience will be justifying what has happened to themselves and as you get older you often find it more difficult to believe your justifications. And for the victims of the wreckage, they may never feel safe in their own home or business again. What if someone decides to give up their business as they feel they can no longer cope? Will depression rates go up? What will be the long term effects on those people?
People may move away from the areas where the riots occurred – fearing for their safety and the safety of their loved ones. Insurance premiums may go up in those areas due to perceived heightened risk and this could have knock on effects. Will property prices in those areas go down? Will people want to invest in those areas? How will people pay to repair and rebuild their shattered buildings and community? Perhaps community spirit will prevail and fellow citizens will assist each other?
There are so many other consequences that I suspect that the rioters never even considered but may have occurred. During the riots, how did ambulances get through the melee? What if you were pregnant and trying to get through the streets in an ambulance to give birth in the hospital? Was anyone’s life endangered because the emergency services were dealing with the rioting and looting? What if a doctor’s car was torched, preventing them reaching their patients? There is video footage of one poor young man being helped to his feet and subsequently mugged – how many other people did this happen to?
How much money was lost as people could not travel safely to work and could not do their jobs? How many people were injured by glass and other debris? Did the injured rioters seek medical assistance for their injuries? If not they would be risking possible infection or bleeding to death. If you were a rioter and are sent to prison, if you have family who is going to take care of them? I understand that one of the girls in court had a six week old baby.
And what about the opinion of the rest of the world? After the events of those nights – who will want to visit the cities affected? Tourism may go down and I understand that funds from tourism are important to us. What will the global opinion do to our economy? Is the rest of the world disgusted with us for not being able to maintain order in our country?
The clock can’t be turned back, what is done is done. It’s dealing with the aftermath that is going to be the challenge now. Whatever the reason for the riots, let’s hope that they don’t happen again and if we can’t find a solution to all the problems that exist in the U.K. – at least please let us try, together, to make things better?
Like everyone else, I can only speculate as to what caused a percentage of the population of England to take to the streets and express their anger, but no one has the answer, not really. Even in a large group of people, everyone still has their own mind and acts an individual, even if encouraged or pressured by someone else. Every single person those nights will have had their own reason for doing what they did and subsequently they will have to live with the consequences of their own actions.
And that’s all we have left now – consequences, the aftermath of these riots.
No one can change what happened, any of it, as much as they may want to. As my OCD brain seems to spend a great deal of time thinking and fretting about consequences, I started to think about some of the consequences of the past few days.
One of the main consequences of the riots is that, it is probably going to take a lot of money, effort and time to rebuild the things that were destroyed. Apparently there are some insurance policies that do not cover acts of riot and so property owners are being told that they may be able to claim the money from the already cash strapped police force. As well as there being a global recession, even if people have insurance, due to the large amount of claims that are undoubtedly pouring into insurers right now, it may take time for assessments and for the money to be made available to the property owners. Some burnt out properties may be considered crime scenes so police will have to attend to them which mean perhaps forensics etc and if this is the case, the cost may rise further. One unexpected consequence I suppose is that the insurers and police may have to employ more people to deal with all this.
For those who have to rebuild their businesses or houses, this prospect must be so daunting and my heart really goes out to these people. Having your business looted or your house destroyed by fire must be heartbreaking, working towards making a success of things and having that taken away from you – it’s not surprising that these people are angry and to be honest, it would be easy to feel the need to retaliate but, as the saying goes "An eye for an eye makes the whole world blind." And after feeling the effects of these riots – why on earth would they want to put someone else through that?
What are the consequences then for the perpetrators of the violence, looting etc.? I’ve tried to imagine what it must have been like; breaking into shops, smashing things up, stealing expensive things, wrecking peoples livelihoods, running with the gang, ‘sticking it to the rich’ as has been bandied about. The feelings must have been intense – anger, frustration, adrenaline pumping, fear, excitement. Now, it is the next day, back to reality and, as graffiti in my old hometown read ‘much has happened, little has changed’. Sure, you might have a new Xbox or jewellery or a new phone but was it really worth it? Has anything really changed other than there is some destruction and devastated people? Is a criminal record really worth whatever was stolen? And as for the – ‘sticking it to the rich’ motive, the thing is, that this hasn’t really affected ‘the rich’ a great deal has it? Yeah, a few big shops have been looted but they can probably claim it on their insurance making it more of an inconvenience really.
The people who are really hurting are those with small businesses during this recession struggling to make ends meet who saw their livelihoods torn apart. The families of the people who have died during the riots. People whose homes were damaged by fire and violence. People who were innocently walking home and were either injured or prevented from getting home safely. The parents of the people who took part in the riots. Maybe even the people who took part in the riots themselves and now regret it.
Don’t get me wrong, you may think ‘well it’s easy for you to say this sitting up in Scotland where there hasn’t been any confirmed rioting’ and I suppose you’d be right, I’m no more qualified than anyone else to talk about this, but perhaps I’m saying all this as there but for the grace of God go I?
I’ve been watching the news these past few days, agoraphobia has led me to watching rolling news, and so many possible explanations have been given as to why this has happened. One was the ‘single parent family’ argument – this often gets up my nose as my parents are divorced so both my sister and I come from a ‘broken home’ and I have never been a violent person. My sister is well dressed, has a good job and is one of the nicest people you could meet. I don’t know how you would describe me but before my illness I was a (hopefully) successful software tester – a role I hope to return to – I wasn’t particularly well dressed but that’s due to my general lack of fashion sense and I hope that my friends would consider me not a bad person.
I have many of the features that the people on the news described as risk factors for wanting to be involved in rioting and looting – I came from humble beginnings; my parents were in no way rich, we weren’t destitute but there were a lot of things that I wanted in my childhood that my parents could not afford. I come from a ‘broken home’. I grew up on a council estate. I was told by several people that I would never make anything of myself.
I spend a lot of time alone and often feel disaffected, alienated from people. I live in an area where I don’t know any of my neighbours or indeed anyone in my community – apart from my husband obviously. I have been made redundant several times, I cannot even get a job at the moment as I can’t leave my home alone so I am forced to exist on benefits and the kindness of my husband. I’m depressed that my life is this way at the moment. I don’t feel like I have much control over anything.
Isn’t that one of the main causes of unhappiness in human beings? When there is a lack of control or perception of lack of control in a person’s life they are more likely to lash out or become depressed? I’ve always had a problem with lack of control, unfortunately when I have a lack of control of anything in my life I tend to end up taking it out on myself. With the control factor in mind – did the rioters feel like this was the only way they could gain control over something in life?
The problem with this is that, effectively what you’re doing is throwing your toys out of the pram which may get attention but it may not be the attention you wanted. If the rioters did this to get attention it certainly worked admittedly – the news was saturated with coverage – but the short lived attention hasn’t really turned anything around. Momentary control, that didn’t really get any solid message across or offer any sort of solution to aid the cries for help,. If people were reaching out to be heard, to be noticed, have their plight told – did anyone really get the message? Perhaps this outpouring of anger and frustration was a way to say ‘help me’?
And therein lies the sadness – if all of this really was a cry for help, all it has resulted in are anger, destruction and punishment.
Was the reason of everyone on those streets those nights to avenge the death of Mark Duggan in Tottenham? Was the case investigated quicker? Whatever the circumstances of the man’s death – would he have wanted such behaviour to take place in his name? His family have reportedly said they do not condone the violence. His brother reportedly said that he didn’t want the riots to be about his brother’s life as Mark was a good man.
Or for many people, was it just opportunistic? Some people stole sweets and beer rather than high price items. Would you really steal given the opportunity? I tried thinking about this – if I had the opportunity to steal something and no one would know, I wouldn’t be caught and I would have something I really wanted – would I steal it? The answer is no, really, I wouldn’t do it. Because I know it is wrong – I’ve had it drummed into me, all of my life that stealing is wrong. So, given the opportunity, would you really steal something if you thought you wouldn’t get caught. Maybe you would but would you feel ok about it afterwards?
Surely there are ways to get your message across without violence and devastation, if there are enough people with the same problems, surely they can be addressed without chaos? As a child you learn that having a tantrum often does not help you get what you want or need – but can you really put hundreds of people on a theoretical naughty step and will it help? I know that things are pretty terrible at the moment but surely violence just makes it worse?
In the wake of the riots, social networking has been under scrutiny for easing the communication of the rioters in order to gather large groups of people quickly but surely social networking sites are not responsible for what people do with them? You can give someone access to a social networking site but what they choose to do with it is their choice – personal responsibility has to come into this somewhere – I know everyone is looking for someone to blame but ultimately, if you choose to loot or riot, unless someone literally is threatening your life if you don’t do it, you have a choice to walk away. I know that there is peer pressure and people can get bullied into doing things – perhaps I don’t really have a full understanding of what drove the rioters that night but whatever they did, responsibility has to be taken. There really is no excuse for breaking into buildings, violence, threatening behaviour and stealing.
I’m saddened by the unseen consequences – the psychological affect on both the rioters and the victims of the events. Dealing with what you have done is a burden on its own, even those seeming to lack conscience will be justifying what has happened to themselves and as you get older you often find it more difficult to believe your justifications. And for the victims of the wreckage, they may never feel safe in their own home or business again. What if someone decides to give up their business as they feel they can no longer cope? Will depression rates go up? What will be the long term effects on those people?
People may move away from the areas where the riots occurred – fearing for their safety and the safety of their loved ones. Insurance premiums may go up in those areas due to perceived heightened risk and this could have knock on effects. Will property prices in those areas go down? Will people want to invest in those areas? How will people pay to repair and rebuild their shattered buildings and community? Perhaps community spirit will prevail and fellow citizens will assist each other?
There are so many other consequences that I suspect that the rioters never even considered but may have occurred. During the riots, how did ambulances get through the melee? What if you were pregnant and trying to get through the streets in an ambulance to give birth in the hospital? Was anyone’s life endangered because the emergency services were dealing with the rioting and looting? What if a doctor’s car was torched, preventing them reaching their patients? There is video footage of one poor young man being helped to his feet and subsequently mugged – how many other people did this happen to?
How much money was lost as people could not travel safely to work and could not do their jobs? How many people were injured by glass and other debris? Did the injured rioters seek medical assistance for their injuries? If not they would be risking possible infection or bleeding to death. If you were a rioter and are sent to prison, if you have family who is going to take care of them? I understand that one of the girls in court had a six week old baby.
And what about the opinion of the rest of the world? After the events of those nights – who will want to visit the cities affected? Tourism may go down and I understand that funds from tourism are important to us. What will the global opinion do to our economy? Is the rest of the world disgusted with us for not being able to maintain order in our country?
The clock can’t be turned back, what is done is done. It’s dealing with the aftermath that is going to be the challenge now. Whatever the reason for the riots, let’s hope that they don’t happen again and if we can’t find a solution to all the problems that exist in the U.K. – at least please let us try, together, to make things better?
Friday 5 August 2011
Country Girl?
My husband yearns to live in the countryside. He longs to look out of the window and see green fields, babbling brooks, happy tweeting birds and busy bees merrily bobbing from one burgeoning flower to another. Now, I have nothing against the countryside, per se, but I have considerably more problems with the countryside than my husband. In theory for me the countryside sounds idyllic, the smell of fresh grass and corn fields blowing gently in the breeze; the problem is that a) I have raging OCD and b) I’m ultimately a City Girl.
My husband grew up in a house which is both beautiful and in the middle of nowhere, with nearby farms with sheep and cows and horses and little woods in which to adventure. It’s a great place for kids to grow up and I’m not surprised my mother-in-law and father-in-law chose to live and bring up their kids in such perfect surroundings. I, on the other hand, grew up on a council estate in the North East of England, surrounded by industry, grey buildings and graffitied back alleys. As children, if we congregated on the only green patches on the estate to play football or just hang out we invariably terrified the locals, were complained at or had people come over and say ‘I know where you live, I’m going to tell your Mum you’re misbehaving!’ and so as we entered the 1990’s we developed a sort of pavlovian reaction to grass and greenery – it meant one thing, that we were probably going to get complained at. Even my childhood beach experiences involved frolicking in the sand and sea only to look over at the factories and chemical works on the other side of the coast. At one point we used to go to the field at the back of the secondary school we went to and play in the sandpit for the long jump! Even the local park was next to a railway and the fear of the passing trains was pretty intense for me. Also, there was the whole ‘stranger danger’ thing going on at the time so each time we went to the park it was in large groups and inevitably if any adults walked towards the park we would all flee, whooping and screaming. Don’t get me wrong, it wasn’t a bad place to live, it just could have had a bit more countryside. As my OCD developed as a child I became terrified of certain plants and trees for fear of poisoning and every dog I saw I was terrified would give me rabies. Therefore the countryside became something to fear and shy away from.
So you see my childhood experiences differ somewhat from those of my husband. The countryside leaves him feeling refreshed and relaxed. For me it’s just a catastrophe of toxic plants, bitey insects and scary farming machinery.
I’ve always been used to densely populated areas, as I’ve explained before I lived 19 years in the North East of England and 15 so far in Scotland. When I first came to Edinburgh I was astonished at how big everything was compared to where I lived before. The houses, shops and buildings seemed gigantic and I was surprised at the size of everything. I never really adventured into Edinburgh’s grassy areas until a few years ago. You see, I’m very much a city girl; I can’t cope without knowing there is a shop nearby or a supermarket within 5 miles of where I am staying. Every day I look out of the window to see other tenement flats and I’m sort of fine with that. I like to know that I can buy make up nearby, even if I don’t wear it at the moment. I like to know that there is a good restaurant or take away nearby. I also can’t drive so I like to know there is a good bus service or train station wherever I am. Essentially, when it comes to where to live or go on holiday, I’m a complete pain in the bottom.
Whenever I stay in the countryside, it is eerily silent outside and I inescapably find it almost impossible to sleep. Mainly because I’m used to lots of noise – I’m used to squawking seagulls, delivery vans, drunks shouting in the streets, dance music filtering through the air, the laughter of our neighbours and other multifarious cacophonies. This is what I’m used to and so faced with total silence my brain can’t handle it and therefore continues to witter on to no one in particular all night and so all I get is a string of intrusive thoughts and tinnitus which for peaceful sleep does not make.
There are a lot of downsides to living in the city obviously; the aforementioned noise, it can be a little expensive as is demonstrated in my Dad’s face every time he comes to visit and claims he has to take out a mortgage to buy a meal (he is prone to exaggeration on this matter of course), it seems a little more polluted than the countryside, it’s noisy (I realise that I’ve said this twice but I feel that it needs further emphasis). However, you just don’t seem to get 24 hour shops in the countryside and whilst I rarely need anything at 2am, it’s always nice to know that I could if I wanted to.
I have never been camping and the idea terrifies me. The closest I have ever come to camping was falling asleep in a sun tent thingy that my Nanna had when I was a child – and that was pitched in her back garden...and it was during the day. I think it would be fantastic if I had the guts to go camping but I just don’t. I don’t like the idea that I would have nowhere to wash my hands or go to the loo. I would be terrified that every touch of a plant would lead to my demise. I would be worried that I’d be savaged by a hedgehog in the night. Anxious that any camp fire I had would cause a raging forest fire for which I would be responsible.
My husband hankers after a barge; he loves boats of all kinds. Now, I’ve been to the canal and I know that the water is not very deep but I just couldn’t bring myself to sleep in anything floating in water – no matter how shallow. It took quite a lot to even get me on a boat but eventually I managed to actually feel comfortable enough on a boat that I don’t freak out every 5 minutes and think I’m going to fall over the side (Although on my last boat ride I had such bad vertigo that I almost did fall over the side!). I even got married on a small island forcing me to get on a boat – despite not being able to drive I was permitted to take the wheel for a while, sailing a boat wearing a wedding dress and veil is fun but no easy feat :)
As I get older I find nature more and more fascinating and this had led to me venturing into some of the greener areas of Edinburgh to spot wildlife. For years I didn’t realise what a rich variety of wildlife we have in Edinburgh alone. The first time I saw a heron I was in awe of this vast stealthy bird, creeping through the water searching for a fishy treat. In the past few years, when I have been able to get out and about, I have spent long periods of time, standing silently with my camera, taking photos of wildlife and I love it. I love the feeling that I have just seen an animal or bird that I previously hadn’t. I have learned that not every brown bird is a sparrow, that robins are territorial and fight with other robins when nearby, that some geese eat grass, that there seem to be bunny rabbits everywhere! Things i just wouldn’t have really paid much attention to before. My most recent find is a group of Eider ducks – I’d never seen an Eider duck before and on hearing their ‘ooooooh!!’ call I was instantly smitten and they are now to be known in my head as ‘The oooooh birds’.
I always used to think that most people probably don’t really change a great deal over the course of their lives, it seems like once you get to a certain stage where your personality is shaped then that is how you’ll be. I never expected to make the transition between rambunctious twenty year old and domesticated thirty year old but lo and behold it appears to have happened while I wasn’t looking. Maybe there is room in my life for the countryside after all. While out on a nature walk a few weeks ago I turned to my husband and said humorously I thought “This is your fault!”. He looked at me understandably puzzled and I continued “I never used to be like this before I met you; you’ve made me really into nature and domesticity! And it’s weird!”. The thing is, it’s not weird, not really and it’s not his fault. I have spent my whole life trying to work out where I fit in the world, what I like, what I want to be and it turns out that all I had to do was buy a camera and find the nearest canal, pond or nature park to find something I truly and thoroughly enjoy doing.
I don’t think photography is something I could ever do as a job and I’m not great at it but I adore it. After a day taking photos I can’t wait to go home and look at them. Perhaps when my OCD and vertigo have eased I may get to other parts of the country to spot other wildlife. I may always be a city girl at heart but perhaps there is a little room for the country girl at weekends :)
My husband grew up in a house which is both beautiful and in the middle of nowhere, with nearby farms with sheep and cows and horses and little woods in which to adventure. It’s a great place for kids to grow up and I’m not surprised my mother-in-law and father-in-law chose to live and bring up their kids in such perfect surroundings. I, on the other hand, grew up on a council estate in the North East of England, surrounded by industry, grey buildings and graffitied back alleys. As children, if we congregated on the only green patches on the estate to play football or just hang out we invariably terrified the locals, were complained at or had people come over and say ‘I know where you live, I’m going to tell your Mum you’re misbehaving!’ and so as we entered the 1990’s we developed a sort of pavlovian reaction to grass and greenery – it meant one thing, that we were probably going to get complained at. Even my childhood beach experiences involved frolicking in the sand and sea only to look over at the factories and chemical works on the other side of the coast. At one point we used to go to the field at the back of the secondary school we went to and play in the sandpit for the long jump! Even the local park was next to a railway and the fear of the passing trains was pretty intense for me. Also, there was the whole ‘stranger danger’ thing going on at the time so each time we went to the park it was in large groups and inevitably if any adults walked towards the park we would all flee, whooping and screaming. Don’t get me wrong, it wasn’t a bad place to live, it just could have had a bit more countryside. As my OCD developed as a child I became terrified of certain plants and trees for fear of poisoning and every dog I saw I was terrified would give me rabies. Therefore the countryside became something to fear and shy away from.
So you see my childhood experiences differ somewhat from those of my husband. The countryside leaves him feeling refreshed and relaxed. For me it’s just a catastrophe of toxic plants, bitey insects and scary farming machinery.
I’ve always been used to densely populated areas, as I’ve explained before I lived 19 years in the North East of England and 15 so far in Scotland. When I first came to Edinburgh I was astonished at how big everything was compared to where I lived before. The houses, shops and buildings seemed gigantic and I was surprised at the size of everything. I never really adventured into Edinburgh’s grassy areas until a few years ago. You see, I’m very much a city girl; I can’t cope without knowing there is a shop nearby or a supermarket within 5 miles of where I am staying. Every day I look out of the window to see other tenement flats and I’m sort of fine with that. I like to know that I can buy make up nearby, even if I don’t wear it at the moment. I like to know that there is a good restaurant or take away nearby. I also can’t drive so I like to know there is a good bus service or train station wherever I am. Essentially, when it comes to where to live or go on holiday, I’m a complete pain in the bottom.
Whenever I stay in the countryside, it is eerily silent outside and I inescapably find it almost impossible to sleep. Mainly because I’m used to lots of noise – I’m used to squawking seagulls, delivery vans, drunks shouting in the streets, dance music filtering through the air, the laughter of our neighbours and other multifarious cacophonies. This is what I’m used to and so faced with total silence my brain can’t handle it and therefore continues to witter on to no one in particular all night and so all I get is a string of intrusive thoughts and tinnitus which for peaceful sleep does not make.
There are a lot of downsides to living in the city obviously; the aforementioned noise, it can be a little expensive as is demonstrated in my Dad’s face every time he comes to visit and claims he has to take out a mortgage to buy a meal (he is prone to exaggeration on this matter of course), it seems a little more polluted than the countryside, it’s noisy (I realise that I’ve said this twice but I feel that it needs further emphasis). However, you just don’t seem to get 24 hour shops in the countryside and whilst I rarely need anything at 2am, it’s always nice to know that I could if I wanted to.
I have never been camping and the idea terrifies me. The closest I have ever come to camping was falling asleep in a sun tent thingy that my Nanna had when I was a child – and that was pitched in her back garden...and it was during the day. I think it would be fantastic if I had the guts to go camping but I just don’t. I don’t like the idea that I would have nowhere to wash my hands or go to the loo. I would be terrified that every touch of a plant would lead to my demise. I would be worried that I’d be savaged by a hedgehog in the night. Anxious that any camp fire I had would cause a raging forest fire for which I would be responsible.
My husband hankers after a barge; he loves boats of all kinds. Now, I’ve been to the canal and I know that the water is not very deep but I just couldn’t bring myself to sleep in anything floating in water – no matter how shallow. It took quite a lot to even get me on a boat but eventually I managed to actually feel comfortable enough on a boat that I don’t freak out every 5 minutes and think I’m going to fall over the side (Although on my last boat ride I had such bad vertigo that I almost did fall over the side!). I even got married on a small island forcing me to get on a boat – despite not being able to drive I was permitted to take the wheel for a while, sailing a boat wearing a wedding dress and veil is fun but no easy feat :)
As I get older I find nature more and more fascinating and this had led to me venturing into some of the greener areas of Edinburgh to spot wildlife. For years I didn’t realise what a rich variety of wildlife we have in Edinburgh alone. The first time I saw a heron I was in awe of this vast stealthy bird, creeping through the water searching for a fishy treat. In the past few years, when I have been able to get out and about, I have spent long periods of time, standing silently with my camera, taking photos of wildlife and I love it. I love the feeling that I have just seen an animal or bird that I previously hadn’t. I have learned that not every brown bird is a sparrow, that robins are territorial and fight with other robins when nearby, that some geese eat grass, that there seem to be bunny rabbits everywhere! Things i just wouldn’t have really paid much attention to before. My most recent find is a group of Eider ducks – I’d never seen an Eider duck before and on hearing their ‘ooooooh!!’ call I was instantly smitten and they are now to be known in my head as ‘The oooooh birds’.
I always used to think that most people probably don’t really change a great deal over the course of their lives, it seems like once you get to a certain stage where your personality is shaped then that is how you’ll be. I never expected to make the transition between rambunctious twenty year old and domesticated thirty year old but lo and behold it appears to have happened while I wasn’t looking. Maybe there is room in my life for the countryside after all. While out on a nature walk a few weeks ago I turned to my husband and said humorously I thought “This is your fault!”. He looked at me understandably puzzled and I continued “I never used to be like this before I met you; you’ve made me really into nature and domesticity! And it’s weird!”. The thing is, it’s not weird, not really and it’s not his fault. I have spent my whole life trying to work out where I fit in the world, what I like, what I want to be and it turns out that all I had to do was buy a camera and find the nearest canal, pond or nature park to find something I truly and thoroughly enjoy doing.
I don’t think photography is something I could ever do as a job and I’m not great at it but I adore it. After a day taking photos I can’t wait to go home and look at them. Perhaps when my OCD and vertigo have eased I may get to other parts of the country to spot other wildlife. I may always be a city girl at heart but perhaps there is a little room for the country girl at weekends :)
Tuesday 2 August 2011
A Novel Question
Last night my husband and I were discussing how many books we have read in our lives and it was a somewhat tricky question. This was due to watching ‘The Stewart Lee Comedy Vehicle’ where he explained that the English Polymath Thomas Young read all of the books published in his lifetime. His lifetime was from 1773–1829 and while I am not sure how many books were published during that time, it’s a fair assumption that so many books have been published in my lifetime that the chances of me reading all of them is ridiculously slim. Already feeling slightly depressed at this prospect I attempted to look up how many books have been published between 1977 and 2011 and even the internet could not seem to answer my question, giving me a series of results telling me how many Stephen King books have been published and various other authors but no concrete number of the books published in my lifetime. I felt cheered slightly by the prospect that, in not even attempting to read all the books in my lifetime, there are certain books I will never have to struggle through. When I say struggle I don’t mean due to my reading ability, I just mean the books that I haven’t been able to truly appreciate in my life and would therefore never want to have to read them.
A controversial choice in the ‘books I just couldn’t get through’ seems to be Catch 22 by Joseph Heller. I know, I know, you may say “But it’s a classic” and I’m sure it is but I couldn’t make it past about three chapters. I have a sort of three chapter guideline with novels – grip me, excite me, interest me, draw me in within three chapters and I am hooked. If I am not interested in the book after three chapters I try a little longer but I invariably find that I don’t enjoy the rest of the book. It may seem a little restrictive but I do find that a book that grips me within three chapters generally will keep me reading long after I am supposed to be in bed, meet someone, get off the bus etc. This doesn’t apply to every book as some books have very short chapters and I do relax my guideline for this. This may seem a little harsh but I have read too many books where I reached the end and felt that I had wasted three or four hours of my life that I will never get back and so, with the vast amount of books that I want to read, I need to whittle down the list where possible. Anyway, back to Catch 22 – I tried to read it, I read and read and tried hard to concentrate but I just found myself drifting mentally and eventually I put it down. Later I started again, determined to get through it but again I just couldn’t build up the impetus to get through it. Don’t worry; many people have admonished me for not giving it a chance but to no avail. Not everybody enjoys everything and I just couldn’t read the whole book. I’m not insulting it, in fact it could be viewed as a book that was too good for me and that I was the one worse off for not having read it to completion.
I went through a phase several years ago where I decided to read as many of the classic books as I could as there were lots of classic literature to which I had just never gotten around. I read Nineteen Eighty Four and Animal Farm by George Orwell, Catcher in the Rye by J.D. Salinger, Moby Dick by Herman Melville, Brave New World by Aldous Huxley, Rebecca by Daphne Du Maurier among others. I read the philosophies of Descartes and Nietzsche, I read Jean Paul Sartre, I read Freud and Jung all topped off with a helping of A Brief History of Time (more about this later) by Stephen Hawking. Now don’t get me wrong, I read some good books, I read some turgid books and while I think it was something that I originally wanted to do – like a child having eaten a whole birthday cake alone, I felt bloated, consumed, and sick of reading. Perhaps not so oddly, after this period of nonstop obsession reading, the idea of even a thin book, even a wafer thin mint of a book, had me metaphorically pushing away my plate and holding my hand to my mouth – no more, at least for a while.
After a period of rest I started to read Will Self books which in retrospect were possibly a mistake at the time. In my humble opinion dear reader, Will Self is an amazing author but I found that I regularly needed a dictionary by my side; the words he used were almost musical in content, I actually found myself writing notes while reading his books. Like an inexperienced reader he seemed to take my hand and led me into a world of language as well as entertaining me, making me look into myself and around me at the world. Anyway, I read one particular book by Will Self where I spent most of the book finding that I identified, at least in part, with the main character only to find out his true nature at the end and I didn’t like his true nature at all. Hopefully the lack of detail doesn’t spoil the book for anyone who chooses to read it but the book really made me think. As I hadn’t been diagnosed with OCD at this time I had no one to really discuss my thoughts and worries with and I worried that I was like the character. Years later I can look back at this and have even read the book again without fear and it was truly thought provoking. I also read The Picture of Dorian Gray by Oscar Wilde and Dorian by Will Self around the same time and both books were amazing.
As is my obsession, once I start doing something I tend to find that I need to consume everything concerned with it. I started reading Robert Rankin books as recommended by a good friend of mine and before I knew it I had read pretty much every book he had written, finding me bereft waiting for the next. I was the same with Terry Pratchett books too at one time. I read books from many genres; I read chick lit, fantasy, crime, science fiction. I read the Dan Brown books, enjoyed the Harry Potter books from J.K. Rowling (despite the books being for kids I have scarcely met an adult who hasn’t read them). Ultimately I realised that, I just can’t read everything I want to, it’s just too much.
When I was a child I was a voracious reader, there was barely a time when I didn’t have at least one book on the go. I read in bed, I read on the loo, I read in the bath (That’s how Halloween got soaked and the pages were stiff and yellow :( ), I read in the garden (It’s scary reading Silence of The Lambs by Thomas Harris when birds keep squawking unexpectedly!). I read most of the books in the kids section in our local library and got books for Christmas and birthdays. I truly loved reading.
In my teenage years I read A Brief History of Time by Stephen Hawking, I then read it again...and again...and again. I read that book in total five times and I still can’t get my head around some of the concepts. I was determined not to let that book beat me, it wasn’t the reading of it that was causing me issue, it was understanding it. I think I pretty much decided there and then that I was never to be a scientist or a mathematician – although to be fair my degree is a Bachelor of Science so strictly speaking I am a scientist...of sorts :)
The thing that often put me off reading as a teenager was being required to read specific books at secondary school, I don’t remember us getting much of a choice as to whether or not we read Lord of the Flies by William Golding. Spoiler alert for those who haven’t read it and want to, I’m about to reveal something concerning one of the characters so if you don’t want to know, skip to the next paragraph. I was determined not to read it, in my teenage rebellion, as I didn’t want to be forced to read a book that I didn’t think I would enjoy. I know, I know but come on! I was a teenager, that’s how we roll. Anyway, we were supposed to read a chapter every week or some such thing and then during one of the English literature lessons the teacher said “What was the significance of the events surrounding Piggy’s death?” (you were warned) and my first thought was ‘Piggy died?!?! I didn’t know that!’ and I had a pretty hard lesson trying to get out of that question. I did read it after all and, sadly as I suspected, I didn’t enjoy it – whether it was the being forced to read it for my own educational sake or the fact that it was about a group of boys running amok on an island challenging the concepts of human nature, it just didn’t spark anything inside me. The thing is, that if I say today that I didn’t enjoy the book, people seem to get cross with me telling me that it is a classic and that I just didn’t appreciate it; this may be the case but I just didn’t enjoy it either way and as everyone am entitled to my opinion.
When I was a child I read a book about a king who was terrified of being poisoned and so requested that he was given a goblet made from a unicorn’s horn. It was a beautiful book with intricate illustrations but to this day I haven’t been able to find out what it was called and as I was a child I can’t remember what it was called so I have never been able to view it again which is a real shame. I remember reading The Demon Headmaster and The Prime Minister’s Brain both by Gillian Cross as a child and for a while was convinced that people were trying to hypnotise me :)
In these modern times I have both an eBook reader and a Kindle as, due to my OCD, I physically can’t touch books anymore due to my mysophobia (fear of contamination and germs) but I do miss the feel, the smell of a book. My husband steadfastly refuses to read electronic books, as if being disloyal to the beauty of a book. I’ve suggested buying eBooks for him several times only to have him shudder and say “I’d rather have a real book”, apparently he agrees with Douglas Adams in that any technology invented after you are 35 is unnatural – despite the fact that he is not 35 yet, this doesn’t seem to waver him from this opinion. I have only just managed to get him onto a social networking site. Considering he is in I.T. he has some very conflicting opinions!
We had a discussion last night about whether eBooks will wipe out physical books eventually and whether it is ironic that companies online set up to sell books may or may not lead to the death of the physical book by selling eBooks too. I hope not. There is something so exquisite about books and book stores; walking into a bookstore is such an experience – so much knowledge burgeoning out to meet you and it can be yours if you choose – I don’t get the same feeling shopping online for eBooks. Thumbing the book spines, smoothly gliding a book from its shelf and leisurely reading the synopsis on the back – it’s a tactile, tangible, palpable experience which cannot be elicited by browsing eBooks. It may be more environmentally friendly to have an eBook reader seeing as there is no real paper involved, eBooks are available wherever you are (especially on the Kindle), you can carry thousands of tomes around with you and you’re not likely to get a paper cut from an eBook reader but somehow without a physical book, it just isn’t as ‘real’.
All that being said; I do love my eBooks readers as they allow this OCD and agoraphobic to read whatever I want, whenever I want and for that I am enormously grateful.
So, back to the question of how many books I have read in my life? Who knows, it could be hundreds, it could be thousands. There are lots of people who will have read more than me and lots who have read less. It should really be quality over quantity when it comes to books and I have had a mix of the two. What is true is that I hope there’ll be lots more books I’ll read in my lifetime.
I might even give A Brief History of Time another read :)
A controversial choice in the ‘books I just couldn’t get through’ seems to be Catch 22 by Joseph Heller. I know, I know, you may say “But it’s a classic” and I’m sure it is but I couldn’t make it past about three chapters. I have a sort of three chapter guideline with novels – grip me, excite me, interest me, draw me in within three chapters and I am hooked. If I am not interested in the book after three chapters I try a little longer but I invariably find that I don’t enjoy the rest of the book. It may seem a little restrictive but I do find that a book that grips me within three chapters generally will keep me reading long after I am supposed to be in bed, meet someone, get off the bus etc. This doesn’t apply to every book as some books have very short chapters and I do relax my guideline for this. This may seem a little harsh but I have read too many books where I reached the end and felt that I had wasted three or four hours of my life that I will never get back and so, with the vast amount of books that I want to read, I need to whittle down the list where possible. Anyway, back to Catch 22 – I tried to read it, I read and read and tried hard to concentrate but I just found myself drifting mentally and eventually I put it down. Later I started again, determined to get through it but again I just couldn’t build up the impetus to get through it. Don’t worry; many people have admonished me for not giving it a chance but to no avail. Not everybody enjoys everything and I just couldn’t read the whole book. I’m not insulting it, in fact it could be viewed as a book that was too good for me and that I was the one worse off for not having read it to completion.
I went through a phase several years ago where I decided to read as many of the classic books as I could as there were lots of classic literature to which I had just never gotten around. I read Nineteen Eighty Four and Animal Farm by George Orwell, Catcher in the Rye by J.D. Salinger, Moby Dick by Herman Melville, Brave New World by Aldous Huxley, Rebecca by Daphne Du Maurier among others. I read the philosophies of Descartes and Nietzsche, I read Jean Paul Sartre, I read Freud and Jung all topped off with a helping of A Brief History of Time (more about this later) by Stephen Hawking. Now don’t get me wrong, I read some good books, I read some turgid books and while I think it was something that I originally wanted to do – like a child having eaten a whole birthday cake alone, I felt bloated, consumed, and sick of reading. Perhaps not so oddly, after this period of nonstop obsession reading, the idea of even a thin book, even a wafer thin mint of a book, had me metaphorically pushing away my plate and holding my hand to my mouth – no more, at least for a while.
After a period of rest I started to read Will Self books which in retrospect were possibly a mistake at the time. In my humble opinion dear reader, Will Self is an amazing author but I found that I regularly needed a dictionary by my side; the words he used were almost musical in content, I actually found myself writing notes while reading his books. Like an inexperienced reader he seemed to take my hand and led me into a world of language as well as entertaining me, making me look into myself and around me at the world. Anyway, I read one particular book by Will Self where I spent most of the book finding that I identified, at least in part, with the main character only to find out his true nature at the end and I didn’t like his true nature at all. Hopefully the lack of detail doesn’t spoil the book for anyone who chooses to read it but the book really made me think. As I hadn’t been diagnosed with OCD at this time I had no one to really discuss my thoughts and worries with and I worried that I was like the character. Years later I can look back at this and have even read the book again without fear and it was truly thought provoking. I also read The Picture of Dorian Gray by Oscar Wilde and Dorian by Will Self around the same time and both books were amazing.
As is my obsession, once I start doing something I tend to find that I need to consume everything concerned with it. I started reading Robert Rankin books as recommended by a good friend of mine and before I knew it I had read pretty much every book he had written, finding me bereft waiting for the next. I was the same with Terry Pratchett books too at one time. I read books from many genres; I read chick lit, fantasy, crime, science fiction. I read the Dan Brown books, enjoyed the Harry Potter books from J.K. Rowling (despite the books being for kids I have scarcely met an adult who hasn’t read them). Ultimately I realised that, I just can’t read everything I want to, it’s just too much.
When I was a child I was a voracious reader, there was barely a time when I didn’t have at least one book on the go. I read in bed, I read on the loo, I read in the bath (That’s how Halloween got soaked and the pages were stiff and yellow :( ), I read in the garden (It’s scary reading Silence of The Lambs by Thomas Harris when birds keep squawking unexpectedly!). I read most of the books in the kids section in our local library and got books for Christmas and birthdays. I truly loved reading.
In my teenage years I read A Brief History of Time by Stephen Hawking, I then read it again...and again...and again. I read that book in total five times and I still can’t get my head around some of the concepts. I was determined not to let that book beat me, it wasn’t the reading of it that was causing me issue, it was understanding it. I think I pretty much decided there and then that I was never to be a scientist or a mathematician – although to be fair my degree is a Bachelor of Science so strictly speaking I am a scientist...of sorts :)
The thing that often put me off reading as a teenager was being required to read specific books at secondary school, I don’t remember us getting much of a choice as to whether or not we read Lord of the Flies by William Golding. Spoiler alert for those who haven’t read it and want to, I’m about to reveal something concerning one of the characters so if you don’t want to know, skip to the next paragraph. I was determined not to read it, in my teenage rebellion, as I didn’t want to be forced to read a book that I didn’t think I would enjoy. I know, I know but come on! I was a teenager, that’s how we roll. Anyway, we were supposed to read a chapter every week or some such thing and then during one of the English literature lessons the teacher said “What was the significance of the events surrounding Piggy’s death?” (you were warned) and my first thought was ‘Piggy died?!?! I didn’t know that!’ and I had a pretty hard lesson trying to get out of that question. I did read it after all and, sadly as I suspected, I didn’t enjoy it – whether it was the being forced to read it for my own educational sake or the fact that it was about a group of boys running amok on an island challenging the concepts of human nature, it just didn’t spark anything inside me. The thing is, that if I say today that I didn’t enjoy the book, people seem to get cross with me telling me that it is a classic and that I just didn’t appreciate it; this may be the case but I just didn’t enjoy it either way and as everyone am entitled to my opinion.
When I was a child I read a book about a king who was terrified of being poisoned and so requested that he was given a goblet made from a unicorn’s horn. It was a beautiful book with intricate illustrations but to this day I haven’t been able to find out what it was called and as I was a child I can’t remember what it was called so I have never been able to view it again which is a real shame. I remember reading The Demon Headmaster and The Prime Minister’s Brain both by Gillian Cross as a child and for a while was convinced that people were trying to hypnotise me :)
In these modern times I have both an eBook reader and a Kindle as, due to my OCD, I physically can’t touch books anymore due to my mysophobia (fear of contamination and germs) but I do miss the feel, the smell of a book. My husband steadfastly refuses to read electronic books, as if being disloyal to the beauty of a book. I’ve suggested buying eBooks for him several times only to have him shudder and say “I’d rather have a real book”, apparently he agrees with Douglas Adams in that any technology invented after you are 35 is unnatural – despite the fact that he is not 35 yet, this doesn’t seem to waver him from this opinion. I have only just managed to get him onto a social networking site. Considering he is in I.T. he has some very conflicting opinions!
We had a discussion last night about whether eBooks will wipe out physical books eventually and whether it is ironic that companies online set up to sell books may or may not lead to the death of the physical book by selling eBooks too. I hope not. There is something so exquisite about books and book stores; walking into a bookstore is such an experience – so much knowledge burgeoning out to meet you and it can be yours if you choose – I don’t get the same feeling shopping online for eBooks. Thumbing the book spines, smoothly gliding a book from its shelf and leisurely reading the synopsis on the back – it’s a tactile, tangible, palpable experience which cannot be elicited by browsing eBooks. It may be more environmentally friendly to have an eBook reader seeing as there is no real paper involved, eBooks are available wherever you are (especially on the Kindle), you can carry thousands of tomes around with you and you’re not likely to get a paper cut from an eBook reader but somehow without a physical book, it just isn’t as ‘real’.
All that being said; I do love my eBooks readers as they allow this OCD and agoraphobic to read whatever I want, whenever I want and for that I am enormously grateful.
So, back to the question of how many books I have read in my life? Who knows, it could be hundreds, it could be thousands. There are lots of people who will have read more than me and lots who have read less. It should really be quality over quantity when it comes to books and I have had a mix of the two. What is true is that I hope there’ll be lots more books I’ll read in my lifetime.
I might even give A Brief History of Time another read :)
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