14 November 2015
Life is complicated. Living it is easy. Put one foot in front of another, breathe in, breathe out, drink, blink, eat, pee, poo, sleep, work, play, laugh, cry. And then it’s over.
There is more, of course. Aspiration. The latest smartphone, TV, games console, car, a house, family, friends, safety.
And then there’s freedom.
Those of us who have it are incredibly lucky. Yet still we moan about the overreaching of the states we live in. Surveillance everywhere, taxes for female sanitary items, too many traffic wardens…
Imagine being invaded by a foreign power, your independence taken away, large men with brutal attitudes and frightening weapons always in your face for reasons you cannot understand. Imagine your school, your playground, hospital, workplace, all rendered unusable by decades of conflict. Imagine your home bulldozed one day just because someone wants the plot of land it sits on. Imagine a peaceful day broken by a knock on the roof, followed only minutes later by the destruction of your home, your neighbourhood.
Imagine all of this for every day of your life, no hiding place, no security, no hope of ever influencing the people who so callously disregard you. No hope of ever getting them to change their attitudes, so in thrall are they to the bigots who elect them and pay for their advanced weapons systems.
I cannot.
I cannot begin to imagine my life being shaped by the influences that cause someone to become a terrorist. But what I can do is attempt to at least understand why.
I’m not about to start down that road right now, not in a blog post. Mine isn’t a knee-jerk reaction shaped by the latest news, the cause forgotten about in a desire to have someone else do something about it. Something quick. Retribution.
Even in my comfortable existence I’ve not forgotten one fact, apparently beyond the wit of a sizeable proportion of the people commenting on the Paris killings of Friday 13th November 2015… And all the other atrocities carried out in the past in the name of our freedoms to give us our comfortable lives.
It’s a statement that covers a multitude of ‘sins.’
Religions don’t kill people, people kill people.
09 March 2015
The probability that footnotes could be added to a social media post* whilst retaining meaningful content in at least 2 component parts is proportional to the number of available characters per new post but tends towards zero below 256.
Barrie Turner. (@bazbt3)
Version 1.0, 2015-03-09.
*The separation between email, social media posts and instant messages is not as rigid as in the Internet’s infancy. The word ‘post’ is used here both for brevity’s sake and to limit this document’s terms of reference.
14 February 2015
I can only now bring myself to talk about it - such is the impact on my family.
On Sunday evening, wearing my trusty grey dressing gown, I flashed Mollie, our female cat.
Swinging dangly bits, hip sways, whatever real flashers do, I did, my wife looking on aghast. Mollie’s normally inscrutable gaze faltered a little before she rolled onto her back, hands clasped cutely at her chest, legs ‘akimbo.’ Cute.
To me it felt liberating.
Giving an added sense of perspective, Mollie is coming up to her 4th birthday - all-but 7 months spent in our home (assuming the dates we were given are appropriate.)
And then it happened.
“You do know you just flashed your daughter,” my wife said.
Ah.
14 October 2014
We have a new liquid handwash. It’s supposed to be scientifically formulated to minimise odours but doesn’t quite get there. Now is not the time to mention the smells I’m…
The stuff inside the pump dispenser has an odd aroma - not fresh, not citrus-y or forest-y, not sensual or traditional, not exotically fruity, nor any combination of the preceding - just odd.
Around 40 years ago, before my family temporarily moved out during our home’s refurbishment, my dad owned a lathe. It was fascinating and dangerous and, as a 0-10 year old, I wasn’t allowed anywhere near it of course. Of course that didn’t stop me from fiddling and, though I never turned a thing on it, it generated an obsession that…
Even without power, turning the chuck by hand, adjusting the gear train ratios to alter the shaft speeds and to sense the changed torque necessary to… heck even opening the main inspection panel was…
Its lubricating oil had a unique smell that fixed itself to my consciousness and remains with me to this day. Once it got on my fingers it was nigh-on impossible to shift that smell. I was extraordinarily careful to never get it on my sleeves - and of course failed.
Oh the irony of a thing supposed to shift smells evoking a memory of one so difficult to shift. Anyway, when we moved out, the lathe was sold.
This handwash alone hasn’t just resurrected one memory, oh no. If I had a suitable metaphor to describe the oddness of what I’m feeling right now I’d use it. One after another, recollections are cascading towards me and, for the most part, they’re good.
Just one thing stands out though - looking back it appears my dad really didn’t understand my left-handedness.
20 September 2014
No. I’m not participating in a public fundraiser. I’m not challenging anyone else to do it, nor am I demanding they forfeit large sums of money if they fail.
A lot of people won’t bother to ask what the Ice Bucket Challenge is for, concentrating merely on the social dimension. A lot will do it and donate to their favourite charity. Most, I hope, will donate to the MND/ALS charity in their region - and have fun doing so.
There’s no sugar-coating this, so here goes.
Me? I’ve painful memories of my dad’s last days to battle with. It’s enough. Ok, so I donated £25 this time round. No fanfare, no fuss, just went online and pressed buttons.
There’s no escaping the simple fact that Motor Neurone Disease is a fatal disease. The odd exception stays around for longer than most but it’s not much of a life.
Nearly twenty eight years after his death in hospital some memories remain undimmed. Not the kind that return on seeing a nearly-forgotten photo. Not those based solely on the photo with no memory of the actual event, no. Powerful stuff.
After the diagnosis my dad knew. And knowing, he gave up, or at least that’s how I remember it. There’s no shame in that, no recriminations from the people he left behind. None.
When your wife and son have to wipe, wash, dry and dress you, when eating becomes difficult, when breathing becomes a strain, the very very worst thing remains - the mind is…
My dad did crossword puzzles when other pastimes became impossible. He did them in his head. Let’s face it, no longer being able to hold a pen can’t be much fun. He’d struggle to make himself understood when we filled the words in but upon completing the grid together the sense of achievement, the triumph, the bright eyes - if only for a moment - gave me an inkling of how important this achievement was.
I also remember the good times - that’s the important thing to remember here.
£25 seems a pitifully small sum of money to give, especially if the current massive outpouring of goodwill advances the understanding of MND/ALS and eases the suffering of those whose lives it destroys.
Please don’t make the mistake of thinking you can have a bucket emptied over your head and then give your money to just any charity - the biggest do not need your money right now. Cancer affects much greater numbers. Fighting cancer is important. Everyone I know has someone in their lives who’s survived, or succumbed to The Big C. Yet…
The effects of natural or man-made disasters are, nowadays, there for all to see - often within a scant few hours of the events happening. Such things are often forgotten a scant few hours or days later - there’s no personal connection thus the average human simply can’t grasp the impact.
More fleeting events such as, oh I don’t know, the continuation of famine and poverty worldwide caused by the diversion of funds away from those who need them most, cause me to stop and think.
Just after the shock of 9/11 I donated money, like many, to the American Red Cross’s appeal. My donation was misplaced. Blood donations had to be destroyed as the existing infrastructure was unable to cope. A vanishingly small percentage of the blood got through to 9/11 victims. Sure it swelled their coffers but…
I failed to donate after Hurricane Katrina wiped out much of e.g. New Orleans. If the richest country in the world cannot look after its own why should I, a man of moderate means living in the UK, even think of doing so?
There’s nothing wrong with donating time or money. There’s nothing wrong with feeling better that you’ve helped by giving money. I’m not going to get into ‘Liking’ or retweeting though - suffice it to say I know people who think pressing a button HELPS!
Right now it’s great that MMD/ALS is, even tenuously, high in the public’s consciousness. Don’t be an arse and say they’re ‘stealing’ from more established causes. Don’t try to justify your charity’s position by saying ‘no-one OWNS #icebucketchallenge.’ Some little person somewhere managed to do something innovative without the benefit of advertising departments and focus groups - and it worked. Just accept it.
There’s nothing wrong with a spur-of-the-moment donation either. On this 9/11 (ok, 11 September 2014) a Manchester, UK dogs home was the victim of a nasty, cowardly arson attack which killed around 60 and caused a massive surge in donations. By lunchtime the day after £622,000 (a cool million US$) had been raised. It easily doubled in the few days following - something that no-one could have predicted.
“Think first, donate later.” It’s how I operate now. I happen to believe it’s the responsible way to approach the thorny issue of wanting to do something good whilst staying within the confines of an ever-shrinking pot after all the bills have been paid.
This post originally aired 20 September 2014.