Category Archives: Journalism/Writing

As it says, really

Missing me; Tuscany, maybe?; Weather in Italy – when to have a holiday; In hot water; This blog

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“Looking forward to seeing you and the babies”

It hasn’t been that long.

“We are still in the restaurant, eating outside. I imagine our holidays – with the babies”

I take them out of order and, probably out of context. It’s my blog and I can do what I want.

In fact, it is only since 5.45 this morning when I got up and left him to wake up more slowly. But he was getting up at 6 anyway. He was going to the store near Venice.

It is hot and sunny there and cooler and more rainy here. But the rain will pass. And, for our holidays, I hope it is not like other years and remains hot and sunny, even if it is the third week in August – not the best week for being on holiday here, in my experience.

In fact, if you wanted my advice, holidays in the Northern part of Italy should be taken in July for the hottest, sunniest weather, with June and September cooler (but still hot) but more risky for rainy days. August, around the 15th, is almost guaranteed rain!

But I did notice that, in the message I put at the start, I was mentioned first. I also realised that he is, really, really looking forward to going away with the dogs (and me).

He has an idea for Tuscany (this is NOT the holiday). The problem is the dogs (or the babies, as you will). His parents place means that we sleep in two very small rooms and he is concerned because they go to bed early (and are up early – which all sounds good to me) but (and I more than agree with him) it’s not so easy with the dogs. The flat, which he shares with his brother, is currently being used by some cousin or something.

I don’t know how many times I have to say that I was only joking (even if the reality was that I was only half-joking). His plan is that he goes down on the Friday and I follow Saturday afternoon. Then I stay Saturday night and I (or, maybe we) come back on Sunday.

“I want you to come to C”, he says. And I really think he does. And I don’t want to take the dogs to his parents. at least, not until they know me better or something. Gentle introductions are required here, I think. Even if they will never know who I really am and are unlikely to with the language barrier.

However, he is thinking of doing this in the next couple of weeks. Let’s see. With him, I can’t get too excited lest it doesn’t happen. His mind is still unfathomable to me. I know he thinks about things a lot but what actually goes on in his head is just impossible and I can’t follow his logic (if there is any) (and that’s after my advice to Lola earlier this afternoon hahahaha).

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We expect things to work and we certainly take things for granted. Yesterday, in my head, I was looking forward to the shower I was going to have.

Except after nearly three hours, the three men went away, leaving me with a brand, spanking, new boiler …………. which didn’t work!

Another guy came today to fix it. It took him a while but he has done it. It was a blockage!!  As I said to someone at work, today.  I had one guy to carry things, one guy to fit the boiler and one guy to watch them do it.  Now, I could add – and one guy to make it actually work!

So I went to lie down for a bit and then I heard the sound of someone coming in. It was my cleaner guy. Since he had to leave early yesterday (no water) he was going to add hours next Wednesday. Instead, he chose to come and do the ironing today.

So, tonight I have a long, hot shower AND I have all my shirts ironed.

Cool, if you see what I mean.

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Today, I was recounting the story of how F & I met. The girl, A, thought it was a lovely story. Of course, my blog allows me to recount the circumstances in more detail than I would ever remember and for which I am grateful. She also wanted to know how it was to be gay; when did I know?; what about girls?, etc. I explained. I have nothing to hide. She was a bit shocked but then, in this country, there is an unawareness about it all that still surprises me. I wondered if this is what it is like in most of the world. I am truly grateful that I was born and brought up in the UK.

But back to the blog. I’m not sure that I always say all of the really important things but I think I was, mostly, faithful with my recounting the story, since it was written at the time. It makes me wonder, if, in a few years time, some of the essence of the whole thing will be gone from the blog. It’s not really a diary, is it? It’s more a collection of random thoughts and random happenings in my life. Some things are deliberately missed (for various reasons); some things omitted by accident.

I wonder what it will take?

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Generally, I have a very positive outlook on life even when, sometimes, it is hard.

But on one thing, I guess, I am a doom-monger.  That is on the general, global economy – or certainly the way the the economy works now.

>This should be interesting reading and, whereas one shouldn’t believe everything (sometimes I think anything, given some of the recent journalistic “stories” put about by the media, them being, whilst not complete fabrication, certainly omitting important facts so as to slew the story in such a way as to make the point a complete fabrication – and I can give you examples if you would like) one reads or hears, there have been, over the last couple of years, enough of these type of stories, almost always buried and never refuted (or not that I’ve seen).

As I was reading this (and the comments below the story), our Engineering Manager came up to me and we talked a little.  He asked if I knew about PIGS.  I replied yes and that it was Portugal, Italy……at which point he stopped me and said that it wasn’t Italy but Ireland. Huh? I mean, there’s being faithful to one’s country and there’s bloody stupidity. He came to tell me it had been replaced by SWINE (Scotland, Wales, Ireland North and England). On that, given what I was reading, I could not add anything other than completely agree with him. I’m really not sure who’s in a worse position – us or them!

It seems that Buzz Lightyear’s (Burlusconi) boast about Italy being in a good position is really believed!  This on the day that there is a General Strike (for various reasons including the crisis) here in Italy.  After that we talked about housing and how the prices were still far too high.  At least he agreed with me on that one – sort of.  But still believing that his money was safer in housing than anything else!  Another colleague really doesn’t believe me when I try to explain that neither he nor I will be retiring at 65 or 67 or 68 or whatever fool age they’ve currently given as the retirement age.

Maybe I am wrong, of course.  I hope so, not that it is important to me one way or another, to be honest.  But still, I really can’t see how the hell this is going to work unless things change.

Sooner or later, the model has to be changed.  And it will cause great pain and hardship unless the people decide on something radical which they won’t because the people in power believe the crap that is coming from the bankers and the like.  No one can see a different way because they are too frightened of losing the power/wealth that they have. No one in power nor those without power.

I wonder what it will take?

On being British

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I like being British.  Am I proud of being British?  Well, to be honest, not always.  It’s not that I’m not proud, it’s just that, well, I’m British and being proud is not seen as a good thing.  After all, as we all know, ‘pride comes before a fall’ – and when someone has been proud, we see their fall as just desserts.

But I do like being British.  Firstly, I speak English (obviously, proper English – none of your mispronounced, misspelt, New World stuff for me).  In spite of the fact that the Chinese language (I forget which one of them) is actually spoken by more people in the world and Spanish is up and coming, English is still the universal language for communication.  I thank our Empire for that (and the Americans power following its demise).

Secondly, we have ‘ways’ of being; ‘ways’ of doing things that I use to my advantage, especially here.

And so I was reading this and the fact that the Immigration Minister has pronounced that there should be instruction on ‘how to queue’ because that is at the heart of Britishness.

There again, in my opinion, is the problem with people.  They get ‘Britishness’ completely wrong.  It’s not the queuing that’s important although, yes, people who jump the queue will result in a load of people who feel resentment and, these days, anger.  No Britishness is all about ‘not standing out’ from the crowd.  Or, rather, not making yourself stand out from the crowd.

Of course, if just ‘not standing out from the crowd’ were essential, we would have no famous British people until they were dead.  The thing is that you are allowed to stand out, providing that it’s not because you have been making yourself stand out – i.e. someone can push you forward as long as that someone isn’t you.

Of course, the correct response to this, should you find yourself standing out there, through no real fault of your own, is to be completely self-effacing; shy but not embarrassingly so; properly attribute your ‘success’ to others or the team; be truly grateful that there are others who think you are there (out of the crowd) even if, of course, you feel you did not possibly deserve it, etc.

Of course, there are always exceptions.  In fact, there is one exception to this overall rule.  That is when you are drunk.  And by drunk I mean very drunk (totally pissed, wasted, rip-roaringly drunk).  Then you can do anything you want – but, of course, you must regret it and suffer for it from the next morning and on until the end of your life!

Which is why I found the article so funny.  Hadley Freeman’s take on what is actually required to be British I disagree with, in the main but I will go through the five points:

1.  I’ve always found that dinner at 8 means that you will sit down to eat at about 2 minutes past 8 – unless there are late-comers, who will be frowned upon as they have made themselves stand out!

2.  We don’t always (in fact rarely) react with squealing excitement.  Understated excitement means not making yourself stand out.

3.  OK, I agree with 3 – or you say something like ‘Oh this old thing – bought it years ago’ as if that makes up for the fact that whatever it is is the most stunning item of clothing in the room.

4.  No one really cares how well Marks and Spencers do – what’s important is that the quality of their underpants is second-to-none and that their food quality is absolutely amazing but sooooo expensive.

5.  Just not true.  We do date.  We also court and, as she correctly says, ‘pull’.  But she misinterprets ‘pull’.  When you go out on a date it is with a predefined person for a meal or a drink or to the cinema.  When you ‘go out on the pull’ you are single and very much hoping that, by the end of the night, you have pulled someone who may, or may not, be a future date.

However, I just loved the end bit to number 5.  This is so true, especially of me (although I found online dating a way around the getting drunk bit).  But, just for those of you who don’t read the article, she says that the British method of coupling is like this:

go to a party, get extremely drunk, drunkenly kiss someone you have been making eyes at for some time but obviously never spoke to because you were sober then, go home with them, move in with them the next day, marry them.

It really made me laugh.

Kill those damned homosexuals!

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That’s not the headline, exactly. Let’s be honest, I have some special interest in this. Not that I’m planning (or was planning) to go and spend some time in Uganda but perhaps now would not be quite the right time, even if I was/had been?  This piece, in the Guardian, effectively opens the same debate but with the twist of the readers being able to openly criticise the BBC.

It’s the reactions that get me the most.  Both on the Have Your Say site (but only the ones I saw quoted) and on the Guardian site.

I find it amusing that some people are so ignorant that they post things that suggest that, if all gay people were forced onto an island, the ‘race’ of gays would die out.  Hmmm, what a splendid idea!  Shame that the person shows up how stupid they are.  Do they think that my parents were gay?  OK, so it seems to have turned out that my sister is gay too and a 50% rate (there were four of us) does seem a little higher than the average but, unless my parents (or one of them) weren’t entirely honest, it is just a coincidence.

And, then, on the Guardian site there are some people suggesting that the BBC should not have asked the question.  OK, I can understand that you think people should not be allowed to say this sort of thing and incite hatred (opposition to which seems to be the latest ‘craze’ in the UK) but I, for one, would rather know the kind of people out there.  Not talking about it doesn’t mean it doesn’t exist in peoples’ minds.

In fact, if Uganda is considering introducing laws to effectively kill people who are gay, then I think it’s perfectly right to ask the question – at least, then, we all know where we stand!  And the BBC are saying that the proposed Ugandan law will do exactly that.

There are also those who, apparently, think that killing gay people would be a good idea.  They are fed up with all those gay pride marches.  Yes, damn me if we aren’t marching through the streets at the drop of a hat in a look-at-us-aren’t-we-normal pose, trying, as we go, to recruit members of the public or, worse, touching them because gay people, as any fule no, are highly infectious!

Actually I have been on two gay pride marches.  Two in London.  To be frank, quite boring.  Sitting on some float trying to be happy with the terrible British weather and a load of people, most of whom I couldn’t stand the sight of.  However, whereas now they are just an excuse, the original ones did do something to help [us] and for those people who marched, from that time, I am grateful.  Now, I don’t even notice that the marches are happening since the original meaning and requirement has gone.  It would be something to see people doing it in Uganda though.  Now they WOULD be fighting for something and I would give them a big cheer.

And, for those of you who have come here thinking that I am going to rant about those damned homosexual people and how terrible they are and how they undermine family values and take our jobs and harm our children and are bad people all riddled with disease – then you came to the wrong place.  Because none of that is true and it only worries me that you should be so frightened of it.  Perhaps you are on some sort of shaky ground yourself?  But fear not, I don’t think you can corrupt me into becoming a raging heterosexual.  You can keep your weird sexual practices to yourself, thanks.  I’m fine, just as I am!

Perception; A picture of Michael Foot and tramp

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I find myself re-reading the thing again.  I remember, one time (or maybe it was a few times over a few days, or a week, or a month but, in any case, it was quickly) reading as far back as I could go, being intrigued and interested and savouring it all as if I was the only person reading it; as if it was written just for me or I had found something secret that no one else knew about, like an old diary or papers full of writing, hidden away from public view.

But the re-reading is slower.  Now I have a ‘thing’ to hold on to during the imagination.  A voice.  A real, live person.  The smile.  The hands, the hair, the look.

And, strangely, because I didn’t think it would be possible, the words take on an intensity that I can hardly bear.  And that’s why it’s slow.  The intensity is almost too much but I find that it makes it even better; better but harder.

But now I think each story is different than I had thought before but that, of course, is not so true.  It may be different in my own head but the story remains the same it is only my perception of it that is different and my perception means nothing to anyone else except me.  It certainly doesn’t make the story or the protagonists different or change their view of the story in any way.

I have mentioned before how a voice can make a difference to me (take Alan Bennett as a good example) but, I suppose, and I had never noticed this before, so does the physical person.

Margaret Atwood, whose Canadian accent makes each English word a new word for me, I like not only for her voice.  She is kooky with her frizzed hair and her round face and, somehow, perfect for the books she writes.  Maya Angelou, the truly great American poetess, who still fills me with some sort of awe, just to write her name, because of her voice and the fact that she is, as one would expect, or, rather, not as one would expect but as she is, a rather large and imposing lady suiting, so perfectly, her voice and with a power that is both from her voice and her physique that made me the gibbering idiot when I wanted to say that I thought she was great and that I loved her and her power with words.

And Joan Armatrading, who, when I first met her was this rather small lady, so shy, so quiet and with her voice so deep, so powerful who has, actually, grown into her voice, if you see what I mean.

And so, the person and the voice are important and are what is now making me re-read so slowly and deliberately, trying to understand more than I did and knowing that is futile, really, since who can know anyone else by anything they do or say or write or sing.

And so I read and picture and imagine.  There are bits that, although I know I have read them before, seem new and interesting and different, like they’ve been added just now, today, for me, to make it worth the effort to re-read (even if it is no effort on its own, just effort because of that intensity I mentioned before).  And, somehow, more meaningful.  And, again, I realise that it is my perception.

And, of course, it is our perception that makes the world as it is, not the world.  The world remains constant, constantly changing of course but changing in a way that is the same.  We change, however, or, rather, our perception changes and the re-reading points this out so clearly I wonder why I hadn’t realised it before now; why anyone hadn’t realised it before now – or perhaps they did and I was just late to get here. Perhaps the joke’s on me and everyone else has realised this, almost from birth.

And now I feel quite stupid for not understanding this much better.  Not that it matters as most people who read this (few they may be) don’t know me and so, will nod sagely or laugh or whatever it is that one does when one knows the truth and reads about someone else just getting there.

And I thought I would post a picture of Michael Foot because he came up in conversation, recently, and I said that he looked like a tramp.  And it might seem that this is unimportant (and, in reality, it is) but it is important to me.  And I’m sorry that the picture didn’t come out in the same way that I had saved it but I hope you get the idea.

Finally, death!

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And, finally, we talked about death. And it seemed fitting as it was the end of the conversation. We had talked about death before – about how he was living in the flat of a woman who had died not twelve months earlier and, whether it was true or not, how he had hoped that she may not have died in her bed – the very bed that he was now sleeping in. We came to the conclusion that it was less likely, these days, as everyone seems to go to hospital or an ‘old people’s home’ to die.

But here we were, at the end of a very pleasant afternoon, saying goodbye, in that stretched out way that one does when, in reality, one doesn’t want it to end but is unsure how one can keep it going, one of us having already said we must get back, as if that were really important, which, of course, it really wasn’t, but how one doesn’t want to ruin something that has been going so well and, in order not to ruin it or run out of conversation or say something that will annoy or upset the other person, although neither of us would have said anything, I’m sure, we cut it short but then linger over this goodbye, by adding some question, which, of course, is normal and innocent enough.

And, it didn’t start off as death at all but rather holidays and then drifted into one of those conversations; a conversation that had been going all afternoon, through life, through love (both now and past), through politics, through everything, in a flow that was not forced or stilted and rambled on, much as this post is doing because we were busy (or, rather I was busy) finding out more about a person that I liked (and here, I thought about the word a lot because, in reality, it was a person that I had fallen in love with, not in a way that I was in love with V but only for the words that we had between us because, until this point, there were only words and, like being in love, I have found, over the time, a strange yearning, like I would have for a lover but, instead of this desire being for the body and a physical thing it was the yearning for more of the words and I eat each one as if I haven’t eaten at the table of literature for many years just like the insatiableness (I don’t even know if that is a real word) one has for a lover’s body and so, in the end, love would be better than like but I didn’t want you (my dear reader) to get the wrong idea) and wanting to say things that I don’t say to others because he knew me but in a way that no one else really does, since he had a perception of me that came only from this, this here, and wanting to explain myself (as if, by explaining myself, he would quickly see the things that I may have missed or, even better, that others may have missed) and the reason I was here and not having enough time and rushing through explanations in a terrible way.

And, holidays led to one thing and another (but quickly so that it wasn’t something deliberate) to death and, in the main, other people’s deaths, or, rather, lingering deaths that, because of the health care and drugs and such-like, is now more common than, perhaps 30 or 50 or, certainly, 100 years ago (see the link above) but, as a conclusion, we decided that a quick death was preferable, like a heart attack or a stroke that was so debilitating that death was swift and, one would hope, less painful. Worst was the death of the mind, since the mind is the person and that is what counts.

And that is what counts.

And, lest you misunderstand this post, the hours we had spent talking and laughing and so on, about the important things and the trivial things was, and I hesitate to use this word as many people consider it over-used, nice but I will as it fits. Again, I thought about the word a lot. I wanted to say wonderful or fabulous and they fit too but, again, it gives the wrong impression when, in reality it was comfortable and made me feel warm and was, well, nice (although I could have added ‘really’ in front of it).

And, even though I know that he will probably read this and may be disappointed that, given all that I said during the afternoon, what I did fail to add, was that I understood (or, at least, I thought I did) the person who was convinced that they were going to die, as I have and have had the same feelings except that, in my case they haven’t yet come true and, perhaps because I don’t have anyone to tell them to, I’ve never mentioned it and, in any case, it seemed crass and presumptive of me to say anything, like someone who knows you’re gay and says things like, oh I have a friend who’s gay, as if that makes it alright and gives them a green ticket to understanding me, which, of course, it doesn’t and is what I hate people doing to me and, therefore, there was no way that I was gong to do it to him.

So, just in case you (my ‘word lover’) read this rubbish that I have written, please don’t think that I was being disingenuous or secretive or closed. It just didn’t seem right. And I didn’t want to spoil an afternoon that I had enjoyed and felt so comfortable with, in a way that I don’t often feel and for which I want to thank you and have found it so difficult to explain using words which is what, after all, we both love.

I’ve been thinking that I don’t really like Telecom Italia very much

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The engineer phones me (about a day late). As my Italian is abysmal, he does try some English. We, more or less, make each other understood.

He thinks it may be necessary to come to the house. To be honest, they should have phoned me yesterday. However, he is very pleasant and tries to be helpful. Apparently they will make an appointment.

I wonder how, in the main, the engineers can be so nice and the call centre people can be so bloody crap. I guess, if they were engineers and had to actually see the people they deal with they would be nicer.

And so, once again, I am without ADSL and, so, no email or internet connection at home.

It all started Sunday night and although it had been working fine about half an hour earlier, when the break came, it was just too late. And I keep forgetting that Telecom Italia are not Infostrada and it will not ‘fix itself’ within an hour.

The next morning the same problem and I thought that if I don’t phone them now it will just continue not to work.

>I phone. It is just after 6 a.m. I have problems conversing in English at that time in the morning, even with the dogs, so Italian was, well, shall we say ‘interesting’. However, I made myself understood and the guy on the line said some stuff of which I probably caught about half. Basically, my understanding was that it was going to be fixed within four hours.

I put the phone down after I thanked him.

Then I reprocessed what he had said and had this horrible feeling that they were going to send an ‘tecnico’ round to the house within four hours! And, forgetting what day it was and that I HAD to be in work today, I toyed with the idea of not going in at all.

And then I remembered there was a reason why I had to wear a suit. We had a visitor and it was important that I was there, even if my presence was, in fact, not strictly necessary since I would sit and do nothing – except, maybe, make pleasantries with this guy, talking about his flight over; the hotel; the weather; and considering that he was someone that I didn’t much like, it all seemed so bloody pointless and not really important after all.

So, I phoned TI again. Again, Italian; again, difficult but possible. Certainly, as it was about 20 minutes later, it was a bit better. I explained that I wasn’t sure if I had understood what the guy had said to me and were they going to send this ‘tecnico’ round to my house because I had to go to work? She assured me that they weren’t. So, that’s OK then.

The annoying thing was that I had written a post and had emailed it to myself at work – it being better to re-read it before posting and do it during the day when I am, probably (hopefully) more cognisant. And, now I couldn’t. Damn.

Ah well, I thought, I could put it onto my USB key and take it to work that way. I recently got a new one as a gift (my old one being small and only working intermittently). But I couldn’t find it. Where the hell is it, I thought? Ah, I remember taking it to work.

I had no time to check at work, really, just a quick scout round my (very) messy desk. Not there. Later I even did a quick search of my desk drawers. It must be at home, somewhere.

I get home. I am excitedly expecting the internet to be obtainable. I am, of course, sadly misguided, this being Italy and the company being Telecom Italia and all. I phone again.

The automatic message says (I think) that the problem will be fixed on or before Wednesday! I’m not sure and I don’t want to believe it anyway. I wait. I get to an operator. She tells me it will be fixed tomorrow but at the very latest by Wednesday. I am incredulous. I want to be able to say that the four-hour promise was obviously pie-in-the-sky and, since they had my mobile number (I had given it to them in call 2, someone could have phoned me and add that it is totally ridiculous that, having come back to them as their customer (albeit without a choice in this) that they had, once again proved that I had been right to move to Infostrada and that, at the earliest opportunity I would return to Infostrada. I wanted to – but my Italian language skills restrict this to :- two more days? (said with the appropriate incredulous tone).

She is sorry (but doesn’t mean it, you can tell) but it is something to do with the central something or other and it is more complicated. And I know, in my heart, that, even when they say they have fixed it, it will not work in my home and they will have to come round and look and then, probably, do something at home or, after five minutes checking, something somewhere else.

I search for my USB memory stick. I remember the box it was in (I have not used it yet). It was quite large and silver in colour. It is nowhere to be found. I am frustrated.

A calls and I agree to go for a quick pasta dish at his house (F is not there because the call was unusual – it being Monday but without F he is looking for company and I am, after all, very obliging and there is only ironing that I must do but, damn it, I can’t pass up food just for that).

After the engineer phones (me knowing that I probably won’t have Internet access much before the weekend, if I am lucky) I check my desk for the umpteenth time for the USB stick. I find a small, not large, box that is more white than silver, under some papers. It is the key! I feel a little happier about the situation.

I still, very much, hate Telecom Italia.

The voices in my head

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Alan Bennett, with the exception of the one monologue I saw with Mrs Bucket, has never really been one of those authors I would wish to read. I don’t know. It’s a bit like Hockney or Lowry. It’s a form of racism on my part, I suppose, against people from ‘The North’.

It’s not that they look any different, although they seem to, once I know they’re from the North. It’s when they speak. I apologise to those of you from the North (and here I should stipulate that it’s not the North in general but, rather specifically, Lancashire, Yorkshire and parts of Cheshire and Derbyshire) but I’m afraid the accent really doesn’t do it for me – and I lived there for a number of years!

So, although I wasn’t so interested in hearing him at the Hay Festival this year, I went because, if I am being frank (and here, if nowhere else, I should be so), I thought he was dead already or, at least, nearly dead and I further thought that if I didn’t see him now, this time, I probably would never see him.

And, as I posted (or twittered, or told someone, or something like that) he was, actually very good. He is old and pasty (but then, to me, he’s always seemed old and pasty – so no change there) but he didn’t look like he was going to die any time soon and, for good measure, he was well worth seeing and hearing.

>He was highly entertaining and his flat, monotone, Northern accented voice was quite perfect for the short extracts of stories that he told. It made them seem funnier; gave them an edge that, related in a different voice, would have been missing.

When I got home, as I was about to finish ‘We Need to talk about Kevin’, for the umpteenth time, the next book I picked up was Untold Stories! This was quite freaky. If you had asked me a month back, if I had any books by Bennett, I would have been certain that I had not even one.

I suspect that this came from L, one of the many books that she was giving away when she left Milan for London.

I am enjoying the book and find it both interesting, funny and an interesting historical book – historical in the respect of it being details of the minutiae of ordinary life which, of course, is not ordinary at all at a time that is seemingly (and is, in fact, truly) my early years of life. But then, he is a storyteller. I would probably write something like:

My mother became ill. I ferried my Dad to the hospital very often. We didn’t really talk that much. I did find out, however, that my Grandfather who, supposedly died of a heart attack actually committed suicide. I was quite shocked.

He does not.  For him, of course, these are a load of pages with descriptions and details that go to make up a complete picture.

It’s interesting that, as I have posted before, it’s the voice that really works for me. As I read the words on the page I can hear him saying them; the same dry, flat voice with that Northern accent, that makes the story more real and more alive. Whereas, with most voices that I subsequently read, it’s the enjoyment of the voice itself that is the key, I’m afraid I cannot quite say that I find his voice enjoyable per se but, still, the voice does make the story. Of course, that’s only in my head

And from this (and more recent posts and another to follow) I am becoming increasingly concerned that everything that I find worth blogging about seems to be in my head (even if there are slight connections with the real world). Either my head is very large to contain all this rubbish or my ‘head life’ is taking over from real life!

The police versus the courts – opposing situations?

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It was written ‘The law is an ass’, supposedly said by one, Mr Bumble.

And there have been a couple of stories on the Guardian website today that bear more scrutiny.

The first is this. When first reported, some weeks back it reminded me of the BNP. There he was, this Chief Constable, a person who is supposed to uphold the law as it is and follow the instructions of the courts, saying that he would not. He gave his reasons which, on the face of it seemed very reasonable.

The problem with this, though, is that he is charged, as part of his job, to ensure that the ordinary citizen upholds the law and the rulings from the courts. Surely he cannot, therefore, decide to go against the court.

But reading a little deeper, the claim is made by the man whose goods his police force seized, that the police are, in fact, out to get him. And the judges in the case criticise the Chief Constable ..

.. for attempting to smear Bates in a series of newspaper articles “all of which were directed to bring Bates into disrepute as a result of suggestions that there was salacious material which he had on computers otherwise than for purely professional purposes”

Maybe the Chief Constable should have used Nixon’s line with a little change thus:

When the Chief Constable does it, that means that it is not illegal”?

The other case was that of the blogger who wanted to remain anonymous. He wrote a blog called NightJack (no longer available). I’ve never read it but it won the Orwell award for his blog, so I’m guessing it was good.

He needed to stay anonymous so that the cases detailed on his blog would remain untraceable and, also, so that he could continue to blog truthfully about his cases and the police force (from what I have gathered).

The Judge, however, thought that he had no right to privacy regarding his identity because the act of blogging is in public.

Now, for sure, this, like most other blogs is available to all who wish to read it, even those people at work (if they can find it like Pietro did). I don’t wish to be anonymous, particularly, although I have no wish to be absolutely open either, if you see what I mean BUT, if I were writing a blog about work and, say, there was some aspect of my daily work that I felt the public should be made aware of that, maybe, my workplace would not be in total agreement to, then I probably would prefer anonymity. In fact, it might be crucial.

And, in this case I think it was crucial as now, as a result of him being ‘outed’, the blog has been deleted. What a great shame.

But it does beg the question – if a blogger has no right to anonymity, then, surely, a journalists sources have no right to anonymity since, through the journalist, they have allowed their comments to be made public? And, since it was a journalist who ‘outed’ the policeman, I wonder how he would feel if all his sources were to be made public? Surely, then, it would be harder to get their scoops? And that must be bad, don’t you think?

And, therefore, for me the writing of a blog anonymously fits neatly with the source of a journalist remaining secret. The only difference being the person who actually writes the words

It seems that, in both cases, there is one law for some and another for others, depending upon who you are and this cannot be right nor just.

Something or nothing?

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This weekend I was, sort of, half-offered 2 jobs. That’s nice. One of them, unfortunately, I couldn’t take. The other, well, who knows, it’s early days yet.

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