That is all.
Addendum: Jolly Jack’s summed it up better than I ever could.
Monthly Archive for May, 2008
James is out of the office right now but will return, at the latest, on Tuesday 27th May.
In the intervening time he will be
- Driving 650 miles.
- Attending a wedding.
- Drinking too much.
- Being accosted.
- Having a hangover.
- Going Cheese Rolling.
- Getting wet.
- Grumbling about how steep this hill is.
- Taking photos.
- Not sleeping enough.
C’est la vie.
I’ve been catching up on emails recently because, to be perfectly frank, I haven’t really checked my inbox for months and I’m therefore somewhat behind. I’m a naughty, naughty man, yes I am. Anyway, in checking through I’ve uncovered this, a blog post that was never posted, no idea why, but here we go.
You know, I’d forgotten how much I enjoy that giddy mix of pleasure and excitement that flares up whenever you stumble across something new and hidden, there’s just something so very illicit about it.
Invariably your discovery is nothing new of course – a place around a bend in a footpath, a hidden nook beyond a rise that no one else climbs – but at the time you’re the first, and in your head it’s a forgotten secret, something hidden away from the ages. It’s silly, but I love it.
So yesterday, when I took my bike out for a thrash across the fields and journeyed far beyond the iron rails that gird my domain, imagine my delight at finding a sunken path to a naiad’s pool and my grief at finding it deserted.
Well, ok, not grief, but I’m still holding on to a small hope that mythology is in some way real.
There’s probably never been a naiad in it either, possibly a Nix of a Kelpie.
Anyway, it’s the first time I’ve really been out and explored my new home because, to be honest, there’s something quite bleak about Netherfield that saps your desire to do so. Shuttered shops proliferate, vicious beasts known as ‘locals’ roam the streets and a swath of industrial estates weighs upon you like a leaden sky. It isn’t exactly conducive to having a nice little walk to see what we can see.
Unless, of course, you overcome the urge to lock and bolt the doors, bar the windows and hunker down in your duvet with a cup of warm cocoa and go out, dig beneath the dirt and discover a hidden trove of secret paths, limpid pools and great big bridges.
I think I quite like it here.
Curiously, after a few months, I still do.
It’s been a strange few weeks where everything’s felt as though it happened all at once; my dad’s cancer, the trip to Valencia, the arrival of sun and greenery; it’s as though I’ve been urging toward the surface of a great deep lake and am finally reaching getting there.
Still, here we are on the other side of excitement and trepidation unscathed and content, it’s a cliché but it really is a funny old world.
My father, as you have no doubt already gathered, is doing surprisingly well considering he’s undergone major surgery. At present he’s down one kidney and a tumor the size of a rugby ball – that’s right, a fucking rugby ball – but is back home and pottering about, which is acceptable. Convalescence is going to take a fair few months but the general consensus is that it’s preferable to suddenly dropping dead.
It’s strange really; you never expect to take anything away from situations such as my recent familial crisis except, perhaps, for a sense of relief and gratitude, a more developed sense of empathy maybe. While that may well be the case, I think what I’ve come to understand most is that life, all life, is nothing more than random chance, fortune and the whim of The Lady.
For example, had my father not opted to load the dishwasher three months ago, he may never have suffered the hernia that would eventually lead to the discovery of his tumor; he could have gone on blissfully unaware and ended up significantly less alive. It’s quite scary when you think about it.
Still, all is well, or as well as it can be given the circumstances.
On a brighter note – well, an equally bright note really – Spain was amazing, laid back, sunny and full of fun. There was a slight incident on the first evening with a certain person puking up everything they’ve ever eaten (not me amazingly), but otherwise our group was a paragon of cultured virtue and suave insouciance.
Honestly.
Some might raise an eyebrow at my decision to go on a jaunt to Valencia while my father underwent major surgery but, as he pointed out; I’d have been sod all use if I’d stayed.
He makes a good point, my father, and his forbearance enabled me to have a truly wonderful time in a city possessed of what I tend to think of as ‘decadent neglect.’ That is to say, it’s full of lovely old buildings that, despite crumbling plaster, cracks and a sneaking sense of abandonment, feel right and remain delightful. I have photos.
In brief.
Paella = Win.
Tapas = Flawless victory.
Spain = <3
Touristy bit by the beach = 
Overall = Yay!
Weekends have taken on a glorious lustre these days; they’re so much more glorious* than the working week, so much more… satisfying. Time was, as a younger man, there wasn’t much difference between the two; football after school is much the same as football on a Saturday morning after all. These days however, the differences between the two are as pronounced as the differences between activities; football, no matter how you look at it, is not the same as attending a wedding or going cheese rolling.
Speaking of which.
Congratulations are in order for my fellow internet cult members. Let it be known that I wish both couples every happiness for their impending nuptials and the future. I’d name and shame you guys, but I understand these things call for discretion.
You wouldn’t want me to jinx you before you’ve started, now would you? :p
*Two uses of the word ‘glorious’ so close together? That’s poor writing that is, very poor; I don’t know what’s wrong with me. I could have said ‘lustrous sheen’ or ‘gratifying’ or pretty much anything else without being quite so repetitious. Clearly I no longer have game. Sorry.
I am not a particularly charitable person; I realise that there are people out there that genuinely need help – not mine specifically, but society’s in general – I just don’t think that throwing money at problems is particularly helpful, it has a tendency to end up in the hands of the wrong people.
Well, there’s that, and there’s my near-fanatical objection to the cynical guilt-trip you’re sent on when you tell a pretty young thing with a clipboard and a CV to fill to fuck off and stop bothering you. Charity, in my jaded opinion, is something you indulge in because you’re magnanimous, not because you’re made to feel bad.
Charities know this of course, that’s why they arrange fun events in order to extract cash without irritating people or having to pay someone to shove a clipboard in your face. I don’t begrudge them this particularly, I mean, while I’m far from magnanimous and somewhat resilient to guilt (that is to say, guilt-trips only work if it’s actually my fault, and not always then) I am highly susceptible to fun.
And I mean really susceptible to fun.
Therefore, now and again, I shell out a few quid in order to enjoy myself while trying to overlook the fact that most of my ‘donation’ goes into the pockets of middle-management and project coordinators. It makes me wonder who’s the more cynical, me or them.
It’s probably me.
Still, here we go.
Tonya’s Challenge Southwell - Sunday 1st June
NSPCC Big Bike Ride Newcastle/Gateshead - Saturday 28th June
NSPCC Big Bike ride Castle Donnington - Sunday 6th July
NRSB Park and Ride Sherwood Pines - Sunday 28th September
Oh, by the way, if you know of any other similarly themed charity events then do let me know, I’m not above pimping myself out to raise money if I’m having fun.
Before and After
It’s been a busy day.
Here it is then, the beginning of sunshine and happiness, Spring runs into Summer and we begin to bask like salamanders in the heat and collective glory of clear blue skies and zephyrs.
This is fine if you’re lissom and svelte, you can shed your clothes to the barest minimum and strut your stuff safe in the knowledge that you’re not making people queasy or upsetting the animals. Me, I just get hot and irritable because there’s a moral consensus against my being outside unless thoroughly shrouded. It’s fair enough I suppose; Yeti sightings do generate quite the scene.
Still, now that the allure of alcohol and bars seems to have receded after a decade of ascendancy, I find myself ruing ten years of neglecting those activities previously enjoyed and, more to the point, the somewhat lighter physique that comes with them. It’s sunny, it’s warm and, after ten years of doing nothing much, I find myself playing football twice a week and jogging. I’ve never actually liked jogging, granted, but here I am, making an effort. Time really is cyclical.
Kayaking next.
I have quite a lot to post about – as you might expect, what with all the recent goings on – but you’ll have to wait a little while as things are still, well, they’re still busy.
But worry not, for while we wait for the fun and games to start up again I’d like to draw your attention to Josef Fritzl and what is arguably one of the most harrowing things I’ve ever read about. You know, just to bide the time.
Personally, I don’t have the faculty to describe my feelings on the matter; it just engenders a sort of dumb shock in me every time I consider it.
Josef Fritzl breaks silence on his motives for keeping daughter as sex slave
Josef Fritzl has broken his silence about why he kept his daughter as a sex slave in a dungeon for 24 years.
Mr Fritzl, who fathered seven children by his daughter after abusing her in the cellar of his house in eastern Austria, claimed that he was obsessed with a desire to have a family with her because she was a “great housewife and a mother”.
The retired electrical engineer, who is currently on remand facing a range of possible charges including manslaughter and rape, also revealed that he projected on to Elisabeth, now 42, the incestuous desires he had for his own mother.
“I knew that Elisabeth did not want the things I did to her. I knew that I was hurting her,” Mr Fritzl said in notes given by his lawyer, Rudolf Mayer, to an Austrian magazine.
“But the urge to finally be able to taste the forbidden fruit was too strong. It was like an addiction.”
Mr Fritzl also admitted he did not use contraception while sexually abusing his daughter and said that he planned to have a “proper family” with her.
“In reality, I wanted to have children with her. I was looking forward to the offspring. It was a beautiful idea for me, to have a proper family, also down in the cellar, with a good wife and a couple of children.
“I always wanted to have many children. Not children that would have to, like I had, grow up alone, but children that would always have someone to play with. I had a dream about a large family ever since I was a little boy.”
He also confessed to having lured his daughter in the underground dungeon he secretly constructed in the cellar of his home in Amstetten, and admitted he designed and equipped the underground chamber solely for that purpose – claiming to have wanted to protect his daughter from “bad people”.
But he denied having abused Elisabeth sexually at the age of 11 – the version she reportedly told police – claiming he was not a man “that would molest children”.
“Ever since she entered puberty she did not adhere to any rules anymore. She would spend whole nights in dingy bars, drinking alcohol and smoking. I only tried to pull her out of that misery,” he said.
“I got her a job as a waitress but she would not go to work for days. She even escaped twice and hung out with bad people during this time, and they were not a good company for her. I would bring her back home each time, but she would try to escape again.
“That is why I had to do something. I had to create a place where I could keep Elisabeth, by force if necessary, away from the outside world.”
According to Mr Fritzl, he kept his daughter hostage for several months without sexually assaulting her, but gradually started to “lose control” and went to the cellar one night to rape her.
“The urge to have sex with Elisabeth was getting stronger and stronger. It was a vicious circle, a circle from which there was no exit – not only for Elisabeth, but also for myself.
“With every passing week in which I kept my daughter captive my situation was getting crazier. I really was thinking about whether I should let her go or not. But I was not able to make that decision, although - or maybe exactly because of that - I knew that with every passing day what I had done would be more severely judged.
“But I was afraid of being arrested and of having my family and everyone out there find out about my crime – and so I postponed my decision again and again. Until one day it was really too late to free Elisabeth and take her upstairs.”
Fritzl also revealed that he had incestuous desires for his mother, Maria, since early childhood, but managed to suppress them. His mother raised him on her own and had to take several jobs in order to support them in the years following the Second World War after she separated from her husband, who was, according to Fritzl, “a no-good scoundrel who was cheating on her”.
“She was as strict as it was necessary. She was the best woman in the world. And I was her husband, in some way. She was the boss at home, but I was the only man in the house.
“But I was strong, almost as strong as she was, and I have succeeded in suppressing my desires.”
Source: Times Online
It really is beyond words.
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