Believing ...

When I was a kid I genuinely thought I could influence the outcome of sporting events.  I used to watch a lot of test match cricket, and if England were doing badly, for example needed to take a wicket, I would convince myself I needed to leave the room for 5 minutes and it would happen. Sometimes it did happen, and if I had been having a wee when I was out of the room, I believed it was my wee that forced the outcome.

By the time of Headingley, 1981, when England did the unthinkable and came back from the brink to beat Australia I was drinking tea by the bucketful.  I did it for my country, pissing like a racehorse throughout the day, and I have to say I felt rather peeved when Botham and Willis grabbed all the headlines the next morning.

Same thing used to happen with football.  If it was a penalty against my team, I would shout loudly to anyone that would listen, "He is bound to score! 100% guaranteed!", whereas if it was my team taking it, I would proclaim "He's bound to miss! He never scores penalties!".  This reverse psychology occasionally worked in effecting the right outcome.  Onlookers thought I was a fool.  "You were wrong!" they would shout.  But I knew they were just idiots.  Little did they know that I was applying reverse psychology to the penalty kickers to influence the outcome my way.  Of course sometimes I failed, and the result went against my team and I felt sick, but at least I looked knowledgeable by making the right call.  

The worst thing was if it was a big sporting event of national importance where I was no longer in control.  If it was perhaps a big Euro Finals game, maybe a semi-final match for England, where people generally not associated with football would become interested as the whole country readied itself for the match, and many people not normally associated with football would often say "Oh England should win comfortably tonight against Germany", and I would look on angrily, muttering under my breath that this cockiness and arrogance was misplaced and was going to get us knocked out.  I would reply with a barrage of reasons why we would lose in the hope of cancelling out their ill-educated and misplaced optimism.  If England won, I had done it, if they lost, it was those cocky amateurs that spoiled the party for the entire nation.  

To think Stuart Pearce blasted high and wide because I hadn't had time to shout "He will miss!". He was crying and it was all my fault.  I barely slept a wink that night through guilt.  40+ years of hurt and still counting ...

I know it feels silly and stupid but I still do it.  When Alastair Cook carried his bat through to 160 not out on Saturday, I was watching the match on my iPad.  I have a large wired HD TV in the lounge, but Sunday morning I felt I should continue to watch the final day on my 10" iPad via dodgy WiFi.  I convinced myself that this was just silly superstition, and I settled down in front of the TV, only to see England fall apart, 5 wickets for 60 runs or something, who cares.  We lost, and I scolded myself, 'If only I had watched on my iPad' it might have been different.

Now let's pause for a moment at this point and reflect on this.  I am fairly sure every single one of us would agree that such behaviour is misguided, illogical, juvenile and rather silly.  We're all agreed, right?  We've probably all done it and then reprimanded ourselves afterwards. No?  Just me? 

I think today the establishment have a name for this condition.  I don't know what it is, but it's almost certainly a mental flaw, something related to paranoia perhaps.  To actually believe you can influence the outcome of an event 3,000 miles away in Ahmedabad from your settee in Buckinghamshire, simply by thought alone makes you look a bit silly. Fact.

I know it's ridiculous, and as I get older it becomes even more pathetic.  It's kind of endearing when an 8 yr old girl closes her eyes, crosses her fingers and makes a wish, but when a middle aged adult does it, it suggests mental health problems.  

And that's because it makes no logical sense.  If my neighbour does the opposite to me, do we cancel each other out?  If Germany have 50,000 people doing it but England only have 49,999 people doing it, does Stuart 'Psycho' Pearce miss? Of course not.

Call it superstition, call it belief, but whatever it is, it's certainly illogical.  I mean who do I think I am?  To have such talent I must, by deduction, be at the centre of the universe. I must actually be, or very closely connected to, God. There can be no other explanation unless you can put your faith into something we don't yet understand. "We don't know how it works, it just does" some might say, but that kind of suggests there is a God-like person, a superior something that we can't comprehend so it all comes back to the God argument anyway.

I think I might have mentioned before that I have a problem with religion.  Try as I may I struggle to believe in a monotheistic God.  I've tried but I just can't.  And yet, I look at nature, the wonder and absolute beauty of the universe, the sheer complexity of it all, how everything just works, everything comes together to make the world operate, and I think it can't be entirely accidental, there has to be something preceding it all, something must be in control.  Yet believing in a monotheistic God doesn't make any logical sense to me. 

I do admire, and genuinely respect religious people.  It must be nice to have that feeling of being overseen, of being protected.  I worry about death, I think many of us do, but religious people seem to be able to at least find peace with it, reconcile it somehow, and that must be great.  I just don't know how they do it.  

I think my biggest failing is that when confronted by religion I try to reduce everything down to logic and science instead of just applying faith.  Take prayer.  I'm not sure of the strict OED definition but prayer seems to be about communication with your God, one to one, private communication, but I can't see past the physics.  I don't understand how He hears prayers? How does He handle 2 billion people all praying at once?  Do your palms have to be together, fingers pointing upwards? Or can you cross your fingers?  Must your hands be touching?  Must you 'speak' your prayer or can you 'think' it? And if you can think it, what about all my other not-so-nice thoughts, does He hear those too? Uh-oh.

And how do you sign off from a prayer?  I normally use the word 'Cheers' on email but that sounds a bit rude, a bit casual for Him.  And are prayers assessed? Is there a criteria one has to pass or are they all answered?  Actually, I know they're not all answered because I have prayed and yet Barnsley still lost to Ipswich at Wembley, although I have to admit when Craig Hignett's goal went in I did for a brief moment think that maybe, just maybe, someone was up there listening.

And what if people involved in a war pray for a successful outcome for their side?  What about people on the other side of the war praying for the opposite outcome?  Are we back to the Germany v England scenario where biggest vote counts?  

I see athletes on the starting line making the sign of the cross.  So how does that work?  What if all 8 people on the 100m start line all pray, who wins then?  And anyway I've seen footballers make the sign of the cross as they stepped onto the pitch and they were shit. 

So is there really that much difference in me thinking that having a wee causes a wicket at the cricket, versus me praying for that wicket to happen?

Haircut ... One Hundred and Eighty!

I'm getting ready for a haircut.  I'm not very good at getting my hair cut. I can't ever decide when the time is right, so any eventual trim is usually preceded by 7-10 days of me pacing back and forth, looking in the mirror, trying to convince myself I don't need to have it done just yet ... or do I?

I worked out the other day - a haircut every 2 months for the last 30 years, that's 6 x 30 = 180 haircuts (my mum did it until I left home - see photo from "music" blog below).  It should be getting easier over time, but it's just as hard as it's ever been.

Haircut 100 ... + 80, see what I did there?

My fluctuating thought processes:

Odd Days (Monday, Wednesday, Friday, Sunday): 

"Don't get your hair cut.  Grow it for a change.  Be different.  You only live once.  Every middle aged man has the same haircut, why don't you just be individual?  You're going bald and you know it, don't encourage it by cutting away what little you have left for Chrissakes.  Branson looks good with long hair"

Even days (Tuesday, Thursday, Saturday):

"Look at you, you look ridiculous, you're in your 40s, get your hair cut FFS.  Don't you have any self respect? Think how nice it would be with short hair, you'd be sorted for the holidays.  Just get it done, it's 30 minutes and then it's all over, in and out"

I flit between the two states, stuck in this cycle until I realise I look nothing like Richard Branson and more like Hair Bear.  And my head is starting to itch.

>> At the Barbers <<

The barber(ess) and I sometimes make small talk - sport if its a bloke, holidays/weather/kids if its a woman.  I prefer women cutting my hair in the same way I prefer women doctors.  Women do all the talking and you just have to answer questions.  There's a hierarchy.  Women are just nicer.  With two blokes it's slightly awkward, slightly edgy.  Neither of you want to talk really but you feel obliged.  And if it is sport and he supports a shit team you start to dislike them and that's not helpful.  Or worst of all, they don't like sport - then what do you talk about?

Regardless of who is cutting my hair we usually start with this little charade:
"Hi"
"Hi"
"What would you like today?"
"Oh just a trim back and sides please, keep a bit of length on top" (going bald, ffs)
"How do you want the back? Straight or tapered?"

Straight or tapered?  I want to scream "Short!".  I don't understand that question.  I never have but it's too late to ask now.  I've been coming here for nigh on 15 years.  And I've never seen the back of my hair.  How do other people know how to answer that question?  Did I miss a lesson at school?

I usually just guess and hope they don't laugh.  I genuinely choose one at random ...

"Tapered please"
"Pffffft! are you serious?  Hey Kev, this bloke says he wants 'tapered', come, take a look!"

I have never had that response but I always expect it.  One of these days.

And then we're off.  I watch the clumps of grey hair fall onto my rubber/plastic cloak.  I always feel self conscious having my hands under there, especially if it's a female.  I don't want them to think I'm playing with myself, but if you have your hands folded in your lap, under a cape, it looks a bit dodgy doesn't it?

If it's a woman cutting my hair ...

"Going anywhere nice for your holidays this year?"
"Not sure.  Maybe Spain"
"Oooh I love Spain I go every year with my kids and my partner.  We go to Magaluf"
(Partner? Wow, I wonder if she's ...)
"Yeah, Steve, he's my partner, he loves the sun"
(Bollocks)
"Where do you go in Spain then?"
"Not sure, maybe fly to Alicante and find a villa"
"Oh that's lovely, do you have children?"
"Yeah, 3, one of each" ;-)

"3, one of each" is my favourite ever joke in response to "how many kids do you have?".  It's the sole reason I had 3 children.  I think I nicked it from Eric Morecambe, it's timeless.

"Aww that's so cute, how old are they?" [No reaction to my joke, whatsoever.  I feel slightly cross]

... and so the conversation continues until ...
 
(holds up mirror)
"How's that?"
(Oh God I look more like Chris Moyles by the day) "Yeah, that's fine"

My reflection

 And if it's a man cutting my hair ...
snip .... snip .... tick, tock
:
snip ... tick, tock ...
:
"See the game last night?"
"Yeah, Man Utd nicked it again, never a penalty, and it must have been in the 97th minute?"
"Man United are my team actually, you an Arsenal fan then?"
"No I'm not.  Sorry I should have guessed that by the accent.  You from Guildford?"
"No, Epsom.  Sounded like you were an Arsenal fan" {edgy}
"Not really, I just said I didn't like Man Utd" Ffs
{very edgy}
snip ... snip ... snip
:
"Do you play?"
(Oh here we go) "No.  Used to"
"What position?"
"Winger, bit like Martin Bullock ... I mean Giggsy"
snip ... {snigger} ... snip
{awkward}
:
{edgy}
:
"I play Saturday mornings for the first team, nearly turned pro once"
"Oh ....  really"
{I stifle a yawn}
"Yeah, I was with Watford.  Gaffer told me I was on the verge of the first team but then I broke my leg"
"And so you took up hairdressing?" Ffs ....
:
... and so the stilted, slightly tense, slightly edgy conversation continues until ...

(holds up mirror)

"How's that?"

(Oh Christ I look like Willie Carson, Ffs) "Yeah, that's fine"

Music (was my first love ...)

"Music was my first love,
and it will be my last,
music of the future,
and music of the past.
To live without my music,
would be impossible to do,
in this world of trouble,
my music pulls me through"

Those are the opening lines to John Miles epic song, simply titled "Music" http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_d4QY7UusFw.  I was about 12 when I fell in love with that song.  I had it on a cassette tape which I played on a portable cassette recorder which looked a bit like the one on the right.  I taped it off the radio, probably Radio 1, yes that's right kids, we used to listen to Radio 1 too, when it was full of perverts as it turns out.  Anyway, that cassette thing was a right ballache to handle.  Finding the start of a song if it was in the middle of the tape was an art in itself, you then had to rewind if you wanted to hear it again, but rewind I did, over and over and over and over.

This was one of my earliest memories of my obsessive personality. I remember I had the cassette recorder on the floor by the settee.  I watched, mesmerised as the left tape reel got fatter and the right tape reel got thinner as the song progressed.  After a while I could rewind first attempt to within 2 seconds of the start of that song.  I was that good at tape rewinding that if it had been an Olympic event I would have been in the 1978 Montreal Olympics representing the People's Republic of South Yorkshire in the Junior, nay, maybe even Adult, Tape Rewinding competition, gold medal nailed on.  Sadly it wasn't a recognised event and still isn't to this day and another of my talents lays undiscovered, tumbleweed blowing over it's rocky, unkempt grave in the land of make believe and what might have been.

Anyway, I digress.  This blog isn't about my tape rewinding abilities, it's about music.  That song by John Miles was one of my first obsessions, and there were many more to follow, and indeed some before.  But, and this is the important point, there are two kinds of music.

Aged just 9  - Sugar Baby Love by The Rubettes hit the charts.  I wanted to be in The Rubettes.  I didn't care much for the Bay City Rollers, you could shove them up your arse as far as I was concerned, and in fact many people did, allegedly, but for me it was The Rubettes and I wanted to be the lead singer, Alan Williams - check out this video http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3X7PvU6qYEA, he's the guy in front, and the photo on the left is me (Flamboro Caravan Park circa 1973/74), I was already cultivating the hair, not a bad likeness, you would have to agree.

Wanting to be in The Rubettes was me wanting an image.  Yes I liked their music but I liked the look, I was a genuine fan of the band.  When I hear Sugar Baby Love now, I don't just hear a 3 minute bubble gum pop song, I'm back in my bedroom in Roehampton Rise.  I vividly remember dancing to that song.  I remember where I was standing, I remember where my bed was at the time, bed was on the right, I was facing the door which was slightly ajar, window was to my left, wardrobe behind me.  I don't recall the song, I recall the experience. 

But there's a world of difference in Sugar Baby Love by The Rubettes and Music by John Miles.  I would argue we all have a Rubettes in us.  Everyone of you will remember a similar feeling whether it be The Osmonds, Bay City Rollers, Bowie or Justin Bieber, we all have our childhood infatuations.  It's the whole package we fall for - the sound, the look, the image, the impression, peer pressure, music in this context is almost incidental.  I love Sugar Baby Love because it brings back great memories, not because it's a great song.  It is a 3 minute pop song.

Music, by John Miles on the other hand, was musically special to me.  When John sings the first line of that rousing chorus "music was my first love" the hair on the back of my neck stands on end, and when the strings kick in, I want to cry, it's so beautiful.  I never knew what John Miles looked like, I never saw him on Top of the Pops, I never saw him on TV, nor ever read about him in magazines, talked about him to friends even.  This wasn't an image thing like The Rubettes were, this was really serious.  I found the song one night listening to Radio Luxemburg.  The Rubettes was all about image, this was about something else.  Listening to a good song hurts in the same way as love hurts.

Fast forward 20 years and the Cranberries released Linger.  1993, I was driving a silver coloured Vauxhall Astra on the V3 in Milton Keynes, heading south, it was a sunny day, it had just been raining and the roads were still shiny, Linger came on the radio.  I had to pull over and stop the car.  I was on my way to work but I took a detour into town and bought the CD single.  That night I stayed up the whole night and must have played Linger over a 100 times.  It hurt I loved it so much.  Everytime I played it I wanted to cry.  I felt like I had lead in my stomach.  I felt sad but I couldn't stop playing it.  It was so beautiful, but it hurt, like unrequited love. 

A couple of years later, Tracy Thorn from Everything But The Girl, collaborated with Massive Attack on Protection.  Unfckingbelievable.  http://youtu.be/Epgo8ixX6Wo.  Nearly 8 minutes long (original version) and still woefully short.  I can get lost in that song in the same way I imagine a Buddhist gets lost in meditation.  It takes me places I couldn't ever go otherwise.  "I stand in front of you, take the force of the blow, Protection".  I think I know what Tracy was trying to say, but I also have a hundred other ideas what it could mean, to me.  I like to listen to this song alone because I like to dance to it.  I don't dance well.  It's ugly, but it feels just right.  I do a kind of wobble from foot to foot and occasionally flail my arms. I become part of the music, part of the experience.  Six minutes into that song, the lyrics stop and we just hear this rhythmic, transcendental, melodic passage that repeats to fade - guitar, bass, piano.  And everytime the bass pulses, I pulse too.

Lloyd Cole wrote 'A Long Way Down' in 1990.  It's still one of my favourite songs of all time and I often play it to unsuspecting friends, often late into the night after a lot of drink has been consumed. I pick my victims carefully, I assess if they are ready yet for The Lloyd Experience and like Savile in a dressing room I go for it.  Incidentally, if my wife is still awake this is the point she leaves, sharpish.   I play the song with remote control in hand and pause at key points.  "Listen to those lyrics!" I scream.  "Walking with the devil's fine, just don't call, looking for sympathy" see what Lloyd did there?  Rolling Stones Sympathy for the Devil, geddit????"  "It's about drugs don't you see?"   And on and on I go.    Ironically, the line "And when it's 4am and baby you can't sleep, 'cos your bloods still pumping at cocaine speed" is lost on me, substitute the word 'cocaine' for 'booze' and I'm rumbled.  Quite often my friends just look at me pityingly and tell me it's OK, everything is fine but they're tired and really need to go to bed.

What I have learned is that these songs - Music, Protection, Long Way Down - they aren't meant to be shared.  Music isn't like that.  Whatever it is in Protection that makes me want to dance, whatever it is in Linger that makes me want to cry, whatever it is in Long Way Down that makes me want to write a novel, I don't think I will ever be able to extract that 'thing', bottle it, point at it and label it.  Nor will I ever be able to share it.

We are all unique and music fits us uniquely in the same way that books do.  Catcher In The Rye rocked my world when I was 23.  Perfume by Patrick Susskind was the most original book I had ever read.  World According to Garp made me cry.  Stan Barstow's trilogy made me want to return home to Yorkshire.  And for years I became frustrated if people didn't also 'get' my books.

I now know it doesn't work this way, and we should all be thankful for that, as the world would be a much duller place if we could all take a prescribed pill and be happy.  Life, and it's rich tapestry of experiences and emotions, present themselves when they're ready.  You almost always have to work at them, we certainly can't ever force them.  And that's why I must stop trying to persuade people to listen to my music and read my books.  It's arrogant, self centred and pointless and can only ever end in tears, usually mine. 

We have to find these things out for ourselves.

But before I go, just have a listen to this little beauty.  Just listen to them lyrics.  Call me, we must go for a drink sometime. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E6VEZtlCJsA

Halloween and dangerous bridges

I realised I haven't written in my blog for the whole month of October, and it's now 31st October, so if I don't write one today, I will have missed a whole calendar month and that's like stepping on the cracks or walking under ladders or something.

So here I am writing my October blog.  I am feeling quite gloomy today.  Not sure if it's the weather or because it's Halloween, or because it's half term, perhaps it's all three. 

I'm not very good at dealing with half term.  Part of the problem is I work from home.  That is when I'm not travelling, and I have to say that working from home is pretty good most of the time.  A bad daily commute usually amounts to me tripping over the dog who has taken to laying outside the bedroom door.  It's a dark corridor at the best of times and he's a black dog, so you can probably imagine the potential hazards I have to face, but I'm really not complaining.  My previous commute was to Slough. 

It took 2hrs to Slough, 2hrs each way, a 2 hr white knuckle drive through the back roads of SE England, trying to avoid traffic jams, but regularly bumping into other commuters using the same SatNav program as I.  I feel sorry for villages like Weston Turville that must have been quiet Hamlets back in the day, long before SatNavs told all and sundry that the quickest way from Leighton Buzzard to High Wycombe was to miss out Aylesbury and cut along Broughton Lane, past the inviting Dog House Pub http://www.doghouseinn.co.uk/, and over the narrow humped back bridge, so narrow in fact that there is only room for one car, and on account of the hump you can't see what's coming towards you. 

I always used to shout "Wooooooahhhhhhhh!!" as I went over that bridge, using my finest rollercoaster voice.  It was an adrenalin fuelled shout if I'm honest.  Dangerous isn't the word.  Actually dangerous is a very good word for that bridge on Broughton Lane nr the Dog House Pub nr Aylesbury, because you simply can't see what's coming towards you on account of the hump.  That wouldn't be too bad if it wasn't single lane. 

The best tactic, therefore, one adopted by many seasoned SatNav commuters, is to try and get behind another car along Broughton Lane.  You have to be right up their arse by the time you reach the pub, so that they led the charge over the top and acted like a shield, taking all the impacts from any oncoming collision. 

It was akin to Wacky races some days, with a snake of 7 or 8 cars all adopting the same tactic, less than 10mm between each other, all racing towards the bridge, and of course if the first one went for it you simply had to follow.  If you delayed, you risked an oncoming waiting car starting to sneak through and ruining all the good work the car in front had created.  You also incurred the wrath of the cars on your tail for failing to take the charge.  It wasn't uncommon for commuters who had suffered such a humiliation, to sell their car and get a new one, different colour, different model, on account of the shame and loss of honour from breaking the code.  Woe betide the driver who broke the chain and dared return to Broughton Lane bridge.

The Ying and Yang in all of this though, is that it was rubbish if you were coming the other way and the Wacky Races entourage was coming towards you and had beaten you to the bridge, as you then had to wait ages whilst Penelope Pitstop, Peter Perfect, Professor Pat Pending and the entire Ant Hill Mob snaked their way over the brow, smugly smiling at you as they passed, leaving you helplessly drumming your fingers on the steering wheel, wondering, always wondering, if that was the end of the snake, or whether there was one more to come.  That's it .. here we go ... Wooooooahhhhhhhh!!!!!

I don't like Halloween either and my family knows it.  They're quite good, they say I don't have to go trick-or-treating, but that means I get to stay at home and answer the bloody door all night, having to act all surprised when local kids ring the bell, demanding sweets or they'll kick the shit out of our house and slash the car tyres.

Of course the house is all decked out as my family like the spectacle of Halloween, so word gets out that No.4 is worth a visit. They think we're "up for it", what with all the decorations and all that, and they also expect to be greeted by a jolly ghoul.  Instead they get me, a rather grumpy, middle aged bloke on a Skype call to the USA, answering the door.

"Trick or treeeeaaaat!"
"Oh.  You look nice.  Very scary.  Is that an MK council recycling bin bag you're wearing? Here, have a sweet.  Just take one FFS!!!!"

Kids grabbing handfuls of bloody sweets that undoubtedly cost me a small fortune.  But the worst kind are the teenagers  - the 15/16/17yrs old in torn clothes.

"Hi, we're trick or treating"
"Oh. Right.  Here, have a sweetie" 

And there I am, all alone, handing sweets to a bunch of 16yr old girls on my own bloody doorstep, girls wearing make-up and a skimpy skirt with torn black stockings and I'm trying to entice them with a Haribo chew from my pumpkin container of condiments. 

Now then now then boys and girls, goodness gracious.  As it happens ...

You've got mail ...

I find mail stressful, it's generally bad news, unrelenting demands for money, tax returns, numerous guilt trips that expose my chronic lack of organisational wherewithall.  Paper mail (snail mail) is the worst as it's harder to ignore than electronic mail.

My pile of unread mail is like a window into my soul.   It's Dante's Inferno down there.  It's a view I try to keep buried deep within, not just from others, but from myself too.  I know I need to do a tax return, I worry about it every night.  I know I need to renew my insurance, I worry about that too, and so these rude, stark reminders in raw print thrust in front of me each morning just raise my levels of anxiety even further.   If I wore a heart rate monitor when I opened mail I am certain I would see a 20% increase in heart rate.  I don't need to exercise.  No climbing stairs or joining gyms for me, no siree, to raise my heart rate I just need a pile of unopened post and I know I will soon be sweating like a 10K runner crossing the finish line on a hot summer's day in July.

Sometimes it feels good to at least open the mail, like the act of merely opening the envelope was all I needed to do, and in a genie 'puff' of smoke, all my worries will be gone.  The next step is to file the letter, yes that feels good too.  But not file properly, in a ring binder, or scanned electronically into a folder on my laptop which is then backed up every 24hrs to a secure vault in the sky (I'm laughing as I type at just how far I am away from such an organised approach).  No, for me, merely placing the letter on a pile of other letters marked 'to be filed' is the best I can ever expect.  The pile isn't actually marked 'to be filed' as that would require some modicum of order and planning, no, mine is just a wobbly pile of papers teetering on the cormer of my desk that is now so high, so tall, so wobbly, that if I were a company I would have been closed down on the grounds of health & safety.

And once the offensive letter is placed atop the Everest pile in my office, I can then go back to ignoring all those unpleasant duties and return to procrastinating my way through life, an art I have honed to perfection over the past 40+ years.

It's ridiculous, I know that.  I'm a grown man, I am university edukayted for goodness sake, and I know that placing a piece of paper on a pile doesn't actually do anything - forms still need filling, cheques still need writing, standing orders need setting up and so on and so forth, but it's enough, just barely enough, to allow me to forget the Devil's work for a little while longer at least.

That is, until something happens, something like we need to get the car MOT'd, but we can't get it MOT'd unless we have a valid insurance.  I'm sure I have insurance cover - fcuk - surely - and so I make my way to my wobbly pile of papers, don my crash helmet and safety goggles and rifle through the pile like a cartoon villain, arms whirling like a dervish, A4 paper flying everywhere.  Even the dog hides.

Sometimes I find the insurance and yelp and roar like a US fan at The Ryder Cup after seeing Tiger Woods finally sink a fcuking putt for once, and I am full of goodwill and cheer as I make my way to the car garage proudly waving my insurance vowing NEVER to let this happen again.

But sometimes I'm not so lucky.  I once advised a close friend who had been through difficult times and found themselves on their own after a break-up.  She asked me for advice on home insurance as her partner always dealt with such matters in the past, so I talked her though the process over the phone as she logged on to a well known and immensely annoying comparison website, and after an hour or so she was the proud owner of cheap home insurance.

I was relaying the story to my wife when she said "who is our home insurance with?".  I think I blushed, went to my office, donned my helmet and goggles and in a Fred Flinstone like manner I scurried my way through my mountainous labyrinthine pile of papers, only to find our policy had expired 10 weeks ago - we had been without home insurance for over 2 months.

So this morning I said to my wife that it's time to tackle the office paperwork.  One hour later, the pile remains, but at least I have a new blog entry.  And it's less than 4 hrs until the Ryder Cup starts.

Berlin

Last week I was fortunate enough to visit Berlin.  Initially I didn't want to go, particularly not for an outside-of-my-comfort-zone corporate event held at 7-10pm on a Friday night surrounded by 'luvvies' and other press/media types.

Nevertheless, I went, and due to the flight timings and late finish of the meeting, I had no choice but to stay overnight.  Luckily, my meeting was in the heart of the city and so I booked a cheap hotel walking distance from the event and within striking distance of historic, downtown Berlin.

Why didn't I just stay the weekend, I hear you cry?  Well, I'm a married man with kids.  If I were single I almost certainly would have stayed longer, but the trip was short notice and we had things planned and I needed to get back.  We had considered my wife flying out to join me, but cripplingly high last minute, (summer holiday), air fares put a dampener on that idea, and so I flew alone and was due to return back just after lunch on the Saturday.

I should point out that my default setting when travelling alone is 'recluse'.  I hate eating out on my own.  I feel desperately self conscious and tend to wolf down my food just to get out of the place as soon as I can, which I feel is a terrible waste of money and a real wasted opportunity, as eating out is one of the best bits of travelling, but I do need company.

Ergo, my initial plan for Berlin was to get back to my hotel at midnight, and use the late start to sleep in and catch up on some much needed rest before heading to the airport.

Thankfully, I didn't sleep well and was up and about by 9am.  The sun was shining and I had three hours to kill before I needed to be at the airport, so I set off on foot to explore. I should perhaps explain at this point that I have only been to Berlin twice before in my life:  

1989
I first went there in 1989 when I was inter-railing with my then girlfriend, now wife.  Donna and I stayed a few days in Berlin during a very special part of its history.  I remember there was a real buzz about the place.  I had heard people talk about the "Berliner Luft", which literally means "Berlin air", but is a reference to the special atmosphere that seemingly permeates everything in Berlin.  In the summer of '89 there was a lot of political unrest in Eastern Europe, especially the Eastern Bloc.

I'm no historian and I won't waste my time googling events but it was around the time the Soviet Union unravelled and geographical and political boundaries were being redrawn.  Berlin was politically tense, there were suggestions of reunification and although that didn't happen until the following year, the "Berliner Luft" was in overdrive, pumping a heady aroma of anarchy, freedom and electricity throughout the streets of the old city.

We visited Potzdamer Platz and stared at the wall.  Like many others during that time, we anarchically chipped some pieces off the crumbling relic, so maybe the transition was already underway, I'm slightly ashamed I don't quite remember.  But I do remember the atmosphere.  I remember visiting Checkpoint Charlie and reading about the heroic attempts at escape.  I remember the stunning black and white photographs of men, women, children and even soldiers like Conrad Schumann trying to break through the barbed wire to escape to the west.  Amazing stories of people hiding in car seats and suitcases to try and cross the border.

1998
The second time I went to Berlin was around 1998.  I was living in Munich at the time and went to Berlin for someone's birthday or stag do, I forget which, but I will never forget the weekend as it was quite possibly one of the best weekends of my life. There were around eight of us.  We did the sights again by day - museums, buildings, parks.  In the evening we visited bars and drank a lot.  We were seven English and one Austrian.  I'm not sure why I mention that but it might help explain the drinking part.

On the main night, probably the Saturday, we went to a huge nightclub where I seemingly danced all night.  Yes you read that right family and friends, I danced all night.  The night club was like a vast aircraft hanger, there was lots of acidy house, trance, dance, I-have-no-clue-what-I'm-talking-about kind of music, great lightshows and what seemed like thousands of people all dancing their own dances.  And there I was, dancing.  I hate night clubs.  I detest night clubs.  I hated them as a kid growing up, they blighted my teenage and university years, those godforsaken places that always left me feeling miserable, alone and skint.  Expensive, low quality booze, pretentious poseurs, the whiff of violence as the night wore on as testosterone mixed with sweat, I hated them then and I hate them now, but I loved that night in Berlin.  The "Luft" was everywhere.  It crept under my skin.  I don't know what it was.  I wasn't overly drunk, in fact I recall I drank water that night as I wanted to keep dancing, I wanted my senses to remain alive, my receptors on full alert.  I wanted to savour everything.  This was nothing to do with romance, but everything to do with deep friendships, the few of us who stayed there until the early hours didn't need to talk, we remained connected by the 'Luft', that made Berlin feel so very special.

It also felt safe, full of people that just wanted to have a good time.  There wasn't that sense of violence that I usually associated with nightclubs.  No packs of lads on the prowl looking for a fight or a vulnerable bit of skirt.  This evening felt like humanity stripped bare, love reigned supreme, a love for life, love for humanity, love for the world.

2012
Back to last week, and within 30 minutes of leaving my hotel I had reached Potzdamer Platz for the 3rd time in my life, 14 years on from my last trip.  There were pieces of wall still, kept as tourist memorabilia, watched over by a fake touristy guard who would put fake touristy stamps in your passport (for a tourist fee).  Kind of tacky, but still very poignant.  To see the 12ft high segments of wall plastered in graffiti really did bring back memories.  To think I was now stood on the border, literally with one leg either side of what was the wall.  It still felt bizarre.  To see the buildings on that side of the street that now looked identical to the ones on the other side of the street, yet just 20 years ago they would have looked so architecturally different, the wealthy side - the poor side, the capitalist side - the socialist side, the open side - the closed side, a street separated by feet and inches, yet impossibly kept apart by a 12ft high, 96 mile wide concrete wall.

I then walked on to Brandenburger Tor, the Brandenburg Gate, probably the most well known landmark of Berlin.  During the partition access through the gate was blocked for this was where the wall went.  I took a photo.  I had to.  Ever had that feeling?

I continued my walk to the Reichstag.  The very word sounds scary, immediately bringing to mind thoughts of Hitler, the Nazis, WWII.  In fact it's been there since the 19th century and is now once again home to the German Parliament.  It's so fcuking historical you can only stop, look up and stare in credulity.  It's a truly incredible building.  You try and soak up all that history but you can't, you just can't, it's too vast.  So I took another photo.

At this point I had timed out and needed to head to the airport so I hunted down a taxi and was gone, but I vowed to come back again soon.

I love Berlin in a way that I also love Munich, but for very different reasons.  I lived two years in Munich with my young family and it will always hold a special fondness and affinity for my wife and I.  I think we could easily live in Munich again, but I love Berlin for very different reasons that I have found hard to communicate in this blog.  I love its historical significance, I love the stories, I love the atmosphere.  It really does feel special and unique.  I know you can make that case for any city in the world, they all have their own stories, but Berlin's history is so far reaching, so dramatic, so close in time, and that seems to make it something truly unique.

At the weekend I told my mum about my trip to Berlin and she said my Dad had always felt the same.  Apparently he had been several times on business trips and had always promised to take Mum one day.  Dad must have bloody loved the place, all those museums and history.  He never did take Mum before he passed away, but I like to think that, somehow, accidentally, I have stumbled across the same city, unknowingly falling in love with the same places he did.

I want to go back again one day.  Perhaps I'll take my family next time, and maybe Mum might even come too.

2012 Olympics

I have to confess, I was an Olympic 2012 cynic.  Not from a sporting viewpoint as I've always loved live sport, but from a corporate standpoint.  I had my fingers badly burned in the ticket lottery last year.  I banked our family summer holiday on the Olympics, committing over £2,500 in ticket applications from opening ceremonies, gymnastics, rowing, swimming, equestrian, football through to the closing ceremony.  All I got was football at Coventry.  At first I put this down to bad luck but soon realised an awful lot of people who lived in North Buckinghamshire seemed to get tickets for non GB football at Coventry.  Hmmm.

And then of course there was all the furore leading up to the events about empty seats, about corporate greed, and I became a real cycnic, so much so that we booked a week in the sun that overlapped the opening ceremony of the Olympics and I didn't really care.  Quite glad to be out of there, I thought.

Fortunately, our villa in Spain had a TV, and fortunately, we tuned in to watch the opening ceremony.  I was hooked.  It was beautifully done, a very British affair, with real humour, humility, style and pomp which we seem to do as a nation really, really well.

And the following day as we arrived home, the games started for real.  Rowing at Eton Dorney.  Eton where? Cycling through the streets of London out into the suburbs of Surrey and beyond.  Swimming, lots of swimming, and everywhere you turned there were crowds, huge crowds.  Gymnastics, beach volleyball in the West End!  The BBC TV transmissions were superb, every sport accessible live through multiple digital streams, excellent commentary, and those fans!

The first few days didn't see too many medals for Team GB but that all changed midweek when the rowing finals started at Eton Dorney (ah yes, Eton Dorney, familiar by now), and the cycling began at the velodrome, and then on the Friday the athletics opened in the main stadium and Bang!, on your marks, get set, Go!

Gold medals seemed to be raining down on the home nations.  By the weekend we were third in the table which is amazing when you think about it.  Yes we are a fortunately wealthy nation who can invest in such non essential luxuries, but 21st in the world population wise, and we are third behind China and USA.  Quite unbelievable.  The country was going wild, but what was becoming interesting was that it wasn't about the medals, it was all about the people, the individual athletes and their back stories.

I have been reduced to tears on several occasions over the last few days, seeing individuals who have sacrificed so much, people with such unrelenting dedication it makes you feel very humble indeed.  These weren't famous people.  The majority of the people were unknown, they were running amongst us last year, 2 years ago, 3 years ago.  People who have been working a lifetime for this event.  People who sacrificed hedonism, not just for a weekend, but for a decade or more.  People who got up at 4am, day after day after day to train.  People with part-time jobs.  People who had to fundraise to get the money together for a second hand car to take them to the training ground.

People doing sports I know little of, participating in categories I barely recognise - Kirin, double sculls, repecharge, peloton, skeet, double trap - terms that come round every 4 years to most of us, but which are part of daily life for others.

To take just one example, I was utterly engaged and fascinated by the mens double trap - clay pigeon shooting to you and me.  The pressure on those guys to hit those discs in less than 0.25 secs, time after time, the amazing talent required, the hours and days and months and years of dedication and training.  And then the ultimate pressure is mind boggling.  Imagine training for four years for an event, sacrificing so much, to find yourself in the final, to find yourself one shot away away from Gold, as did Peter Wilson.  Imagine lifting that rifle, preparing to shoot for the release of the discs that would change your future from hereonin.  Unbelievable.  And the release of pressure afterwards is the end of four years of hard work, or in some cases over a decade of hard work.  An easy sentence to write but just imagine that.  We could all run our socks off on that Olympic track in London 2012, but how many of us could get up on Christmas day at 4am to go swimming, or go for a run?  How many of us could do that day after day after day, foregoing parties, take-aways, booze and all the other temptations to which most of us succumb?

The tears and emotion are because there are no people more deserving than Olympians.  The tip of the iceberg is August 2012, that's what we get to see, but when we then hear the back stories, so excellently pieced together by the BBC, we see the other 99% of the iceberg and it's that which makes us cry, because we see the true, naked human spirit in all its glory, and it's just beautiful.

We see sporting excellence every week, but often its ugly.  Premiership football is the best and worst example.  Undoubtedly these footballers have innate and profound talent, but its innately unpleasant.  People who have been force fed money and wealth all their adult lives, people who abuse their position, who get drunk and smash up bars, who rape, cheat, abuse, bully.

Alan Campbell, who won bronze in the single sculls rowing, was pushing tractor tyres up a muddy hill in Coleraine on Boxing Day.  No-one outside of the sport knew of him.  He wasn't earning vast amounts of money for pushing those tyres up that hill, in fact it was probably costing him money.  Contrast that with the Premiership teams playing football on Boxing Day, driven to the stadium in coaches, listening to 'drum n bass' on their Dr Dre Beats headsets as they exit the coach flanked by security gurads as they are whisked into the changing rooms.  Players who refuse to come off the bench as a sub because they are sulking as they didn't get to start the game.

Don't get me wrong, there are superstar athletes in Team GB too, and there are no better examples of this than Jessica Ennis and Mo Farah.  Perhaps not as wealthy as the footballers, but almost as famous.  Yet what a contrast.  Jessica Ennis is beautiful, and I don't just mean physically (although she is that too), but she has such charm, such grace.  She makes time for people, she is modest, self effacing, totally charming but also passionate and successful. It can be done.  Mo Farah is no different, a beautiful man.  The image of Mo repeatedly slapping his head after winning the 10km last night is so humbling.  He couldn't believe it, and there it was for all the world to see in all it's raw glory.  Contrast that to Maradonna smacked off his tits on coke screaming into the camera after scoring in the World Cup, overweight and bloated on drugs.  Or Joey Barton kicking a player to the ground and swinging out with his fists after receiving yet another red card for physical abuse.

I didn't want this to be an indictment of football, but it helps provide a contrast to all that's wonderful about the Olympics.  I'm a real convert from the cynic I was two weeks ago.  My corporate cynicism still exists but has been swamped by the emotion of the games and most importantly the athletes that make it all happen.  And of course its not just Team GB as there are beautiful examples everywhere you turn, from Michael Phelps superhuman achievements, to Usain Bolt, to the new generation of athletes coming along like Missy Franklin.

But I don't think I have ever seen my nation get together like this, certainly helped by the fact we are Team GB, not individual countries, but it's really underpinned by the fact that we are watching the human spirit in its most beautiful form.  We can all relate to these people in ways we will never be able to relate to Wayne Rooney.

I would give anything to be competing in London 2012, or any other Olympics for that matter.  Ever since I was a child I have had a dream, always of me entering the stadium at the end of the marathon, in second place, the roar of the crowd as I entered the stadium making the hairs on the back of my neck stand on end as I closed in on the leader, overtaking him in the home straight to win gold.

I still have that dream now, 40 years on.  It will never happen, it can never happen,  It never happened.  That makes me a little bit sad. But then I look at the other qualities people like Mo Farah, Peter Wilson, Becky Adlington, Missy Franklin, Chris Hoy, Michael Phelps, Vicky Pendleton and Jess Ennis have - humility, passion, respect, dedication, commitment, all qualities which don't have to be just consigned to the sports field.  They can apply in equal measure to all of us, in any, and every, walk of life.

The Olympics are beautiful.  I contend there is no other event on the planet that comes close to showing all of us how life should be lived.  It's surely the greatest spectacle ever.  And if we can all take something from watching these heroes, it should be that we can all become slightly better citizens of this planet.  We can all watch and learn from what's happening here.  Because it's all just so fucking beautiful.