Helpless [By Pogo]

My daughter was telling me last night about how she thinks the world is a bad place. She thinks there are too many "silly rules". She doesn't like seeing stories on the news about people being killed. She thinks people are cruel to animals.

Having just arrived back from Glastonbury I found myself in the unusual position of telling her that, in my opinion, it's not such a bad place after all. That's not something I'd normally be heard to say. I agree with her on all points - our Government is interfering too much in our lives, the world's only superpower has embarked on an empire-building drive citing morals as justificaion, and McFood is busy torturefarming and slavedriving.

But...

Spend a weekend in a muddy part of Somerset and you see a totally different side to humanity. The fun side. The alive side. The side that - temporarily, at least - escapes from The System and gets in touch with the other 80% of the brain. The subconscious. The bit that tells you what's really right and wrong.

Three days of watching people do something they love, joining in, jumping up and down with the sheer bloody joy of it all. Singing along with sixty thousand others to the words of a song you didn't even know you knew. Smiling in spite of it all. Helpless with happiness.

Moments like those are priceless. If you've never experienced one - do so at least once in your life. Otherwise you won't know what it is to be really alive.


Pogo is continually told to shut up by his long-suffering mates down the pub. Always opinionated yet rarely correct, he can't help sticking his oar in no matter what the subject. He has even been known to offer up opinions on playing various musical instruments, about which he is supremely unqualified to speak.

Notice

I'll be on holiday for the next three weeks so it's unlikely the dareyoutowrite email will be monitored. Feel free to send your columns in anyway and I'll sort them out when I'm back.

Happy Midsummer!

The Missionary [by Laura]

I was coming home from work earlier this week when a boy sat next to me in the bus; he was dressed in a neat white collar shirt and straight black trousers; I think I knew what he was even before he started talking. Earlier in life I would have been intimidated by someone who wanted to talk about something very personal to me, but this boy radiated such innocence and calm that I was intrigued to continue the conversation.

I was almost sorry when I had to get off at my stop.

He asked me a set of questions - do I believe in God? What is the purpose of life? Have I ever seeked a meaning to my existence or looked for God? Have I ever tried talking to God? Spirituality or faith are nobody else's business, so I regretted that we were in a crowded bus instead of somewhere more appropriate for such a conversation.

I told him that for now, I've settled for 'quiet disbelief' and he repeated the words after me, seemed to be amused or amazed at the thought - maybe just the choice of words.

My problem with God, gods, faith, or spirituality is not the actual ideas, but with the institutionalising of them. When things get written down they become inflexible – in the hearts and minds of men they start to represent an absolute truth; something solid and unchangeable. In my heart I know this is not what religion should be about.

And yet, don't get me wrong; religion can be the saviour the church would have you believe it is – my own step-brother was what you could call a lost soul before he found God. He's now a priest, and happily married; I haven't spoken to him for a long time, but I have the feeling that he is happy and at peace with the world and that can only be a good thing.

While I was talking to this golden-haired, befreckled boy in the bus, I felt that he was indeed a 'child at heart' in the sense the Bible teaches, and it was truly a beautiful thing.

And yet I couldn't help but wonder if his faith was coming from the heart; or whether he was just living by a book, taught to him by his church and his family. Did he come to this faith by truly finding a god, or merely by external initiation? What made him leave home to come to Denmark to share the message of his Lord, Jesus Christ the Saviour?

These days people tend to forget how important it is to have a dialogue with representatives of different ideologies; people who have their heart open for a discussion without trying to sell their ideals to you; people who believe in what they feel is true, even when it is completely different to what you believe. The key to peace is not in agreement, but in understanding.

I'm not sure if the encounter with the missionary was a random one; it set me thinking about spirituality and the things I actually do believe in. In a way, his mission was successful, even if my conclusion wasn't the one he was hoping for.

Do I believe in God? No.
I don't believe that there is a conscious entity of divine proportions out there who has capacity for love and judgement.

My own spirituality – though still fragile – is based on what my own heart has experienced. I would say I believe in the capacity of the common person to live in harmony with their surroundings and accomplish happiness not through achievements but through personal evolution. But those are just fancy words for saying 'I believe in life.'

* * *
Although otherwise common as muck, Laura claims the title of the Queen of Procrastination. She's also an expatriate Finn who spends most of the time inside her own head - out of which the words overflow on their own accord. Any resemblance to coherence is therefore purely coincidental.

A letter from a friend [by Ian]

"We were driving to the beach yesterday ( sunday ) , I had a terrible hangover, L was suffering a gall-bladder attack, I was pissed off because I had smashed the side of the car the day before, a road was cut off so we had to take the motorway past the airport, there was a huge traffic backlog towards the sea and I was gagging for a beer and some food. D was crying in the back seat and the world seemed a pretty horrible place.

It was then, just as I felt really sorry for myself, that an ambulance and two police motorbikes sped past and L and I looked at each other in a quite ashamed way as we had been griping and moaning about our bad day. By time we reached the site of the accident it became apparent that things were grim. Several motorbikes and a van were involved and i saw at least one person who hadn´t survived.

I cried quietly beneath my sunglasses as L distracted E to look through the other side window.

When I reached the sea and greeted my friends I spent a few minutes with my can of Amstel in hand remembering that age old wisdom - someone somewhere is always having a worse day than you.

Is that sad, or reassuring? I don´t know, I suppose it depends on the space you are in when you think about it. But it is , for sure, an eternal and universal truth."

* * *

Ian is of a certain age when dealing with ear-hair can seem too much of a priority. He would secretly like to wear a cardigan and slippers. He thinks writing is the new black.

To live and die in America [by Ian]

Life in California was good. We had a small and happy group of friends. Pete and Alice in particular were an interesting couple; and we spent a lot of time with them.

Pete was a Vietnam veteran, and had a law firm. Rhona and I helped out here and there. The offices were situated just adjacent to the Transamerica building; and boasted English phone-boxes and Penny Farthings on the walls. Pete could often be seen roaring around the city on his vintage English motorcycle.

Alice was a writer, and knew all the city faces. She invited us to lots of parties at her apartment on Nob Hill. She'd written several articles and a book on the effects of advertising and celebrity culture on young women; and was in demand with the tv and radio companies.

Rhona and I would often spend the weekend away with them, happily cruising along the coast in Pete's boat. The California coast is quite stunning in places, and I still remember it with clarity.

One weekend in May we had a phone call from Pete; incoherently trying to explain that someone had died. He was drunk, and it was 11 in the morning. We rushed round to his office, to find him asleep in a lounger on the sun-roof. We managed to drag him to the shower and drenched him in cool water. He began to rouse and very quickly was a sobbing, heaving mess. He told us in between huge intakes of breath that Alice was dead. She'd been found in her apartment. Alice had been brutally murdered.

In the following weeks, Pete withdrew from life. His business almost collapsed; and survived because friends and colleagues across the city helped out while he imploded. Pete became an "almost" person, secluded in his apartment over at Candlestick Park. His hair grew, he lost interest in his life-long pursuits.

Eventually a man was arrested. The court case followed. The man was bailed. 3 weeks later the man was found shot dead at his front door.With no other evidence and no other suspect, the case was wound down.

Those of us who knew Alice began to grieve again; was there to be no justice for the snuffing out of such a gifted and special life?

Pete gradually began to venture out from his isolation.He sold his apartment and bought a house in Sausalito, by the bay.We were happy to be invited there for dinner; and sat late into the night reminiscing about Alice, and all that she'd meant to us.

At the end of the evening, we hugged and kissed as we said goodbye. I told Pete I was looking forward to roaring down Route 1 on the bikes with him again.He smiled and said faintly "I think i'll be giving up the bike soon..getting a tad old for that".

A few months went by. We saw Pete less and less; and he seemed to almost be avoiding our company.Friends told us that they too had seen little of him, and rarely had he returned calls.

The following Spring, I heard that Pete had sold the business and his house.He'd moved across the country to a village in New York State.We wrote and rang a few times, with no reply. We heard from a mutual acquaintance that Pete was now living alone in the sticks, growing his own food and living off savings.

In late September I received a call from the Sullivan County Police Department. Pete had walked into the department and confessed to the shooting of Alice's killer.

Pete had followed this coke-dealing murderer home one night; and shot him once in the head and once in the chest.

Now, Pete is in prison. He writes to me here in England, and says I must come out to New York when I can.I plan to be there when he's released.

Meanwhile, I'm searching New York State for vintage English motorcycles.

Ian is of a certain age when dealing with ear-hair can seem too much of a priority. He would secretly like to wear a cardigan and slippers. He thinks writing is the new black.

Still Alive [by Pogo]

All this teary-eyed snuffling over Bonzo's recent exit-stage-right got me thinking about those heady days.

I can look back and laugh about it now.

When I was a spotty schoolkid back in the late 70s/early 80s I was convinced I'd be dead by the year 2000. Most of us were. It seemed that barely a week could go by without a mushroom cloud appearing on the telly or in the papers. They were everywhere. One of the icons of the era. By 1980 the Government was showing a series of films on the telly - Protect And Survive.

How we laughed. In horror. The very idea of unscrewing your doors and leaning them up against a wall to build yourself a makeshift fallout shelter seemed ludicrous. Painting your windows white would keep out the beta rays. Marvellous. But what about those gamma rays? The ones that slowly fry you from inside? All us schoolkids knew gamma rays could worm their way through several feet of concrete. Ghouls, we were.

Looking back at it, there was little the Government could do to reassure us. We lived 40-odd miles away from the Sellafield nuclear plant (a.k.a. "Windscales"). We all knew that the stuff they produced there was weapons grade - sure, as a by-product they were hooked into the National Grid and they provided electricity. But the plant was there to make weapons material. It'd be a direct target. We were probably doomed.

Ronald Regan became US President. We were definitely doomed. Within seconds he was over here, lecturing us about an "Evil Empire".

Luckily we had a bit of light relief from all this nuclear doom and gloom. A good old fashioned conventional war down in the South Atlantic. Stirring images of good old British Tommies yomping over mountains filled the screens. Daily reports from the first Embedded Reporter, Brian Hanrahan, crowed out of telly speakers. "I counted them all out, and I counted them all back again". Maggie told us to "Rejoice".

Then I went to college. By the time I'd sobered up the USSR had gone through a couple of new Chairmen in quick succession and suddenly we had this nice mild-mannered smiling bloke in charge, talking about "restructuring" and "openness". I liked him. Reagan started doing silly instead of scary things. He inspired The Ramones to write Bonzo Goes To Bitburg, so surely things were looking up. My fears evaporated.

So last night it was quite moving to see Mikhail Gorbachev paying his last respects. His face, paradoxically, reminds me of a time when the world was starting to look like a nice place.

What happened?

* * *

Pogo is continually told to shut up by his long-suffering mates down the pub. Always opinionated yet rarely correct, he can't help sticking his oar in no matter what the subject. He has even been known to offer up opinions on world leaders, about which he is supremely unqualified to speak.

Live a little [by Laura]

I'm teetering at a brink of a big white scary something. I know there's a change underway, one of those big fat ones that change your life around from inside out. I'm increasingly aware of it as time goes by; it's almost like watching a continent move - you're not sure it moves at all, but when you look back in a few million years, it's suddenly all different.

Suddenly I'm tired of analysing everything to death.

My priorities are changing.

I'm still frustrated with my life and my job, but there's a shade of a difference; instead of falling into despair and utter hopelessness, I'm realising that I can't see beyond the choices I make daily at work. I've been so caught up in the emotion that I haven't noticed how I've been making my problems bigger and meaner than they are in reality.

I tend to preach to others of the power of letting go, but am myself afraid of doing just that. Fear of failure as well as stupidly holding on to pride has been my downfall so far. It's time for me to learn something about humility, and as my perspectives are sliding into a whole new angle, it doesn't seem like such a horrible deal.

A friend of mine quoted a French saying to me recently; she said that you have to hit the bottom first so that you can push with your feet to get back to the surface. I've hit that bottom now and it's pretty solid under my feet: I'm ready to move with a purpose.

I have, in the simplest of terms, had enough.

There are plans to be drawn, arms to take, worlds to conquer. It's also come the time to enjoy the summer and do myself a favour or two: take time to sit in the sun; sleep with my window open; eat strawberries with ice cream; laugh for no particular reason; invite friends over for pancakes. Most importantly, it's time to take care of myself and to live a little.

What's the worst that could happen?

* * *
Although otherwise common as muck, Laura claims the title of the Queen of Procrastination. She's also an expatriate Finn who spends most of the time inside her own head - out of which the words overflow on their own accord. Any resemblance to coherence is therefore purely coincidental.

Near death on the A303 [by Ian]

So here I am, at Salisbury train station on a miserable Sunday afternoon. Should be home by 6pm..

Ksssshhhhhhhhhhhh!!!!!!!! We regret to inform you that the 3.27 from platform 2 will terminate at Andover....from there a coach service will be provided to transport you to Basingstoke where you will transfer to kssssshhhhhhhhh!!!!!!!! another coach on to Woking where normal ksssssshhhhhhhhhhhh!!!!! will be resumed.

Oh god bless me and save me from another Sunday afternoon, courtesy of our wonderful rail services.

Andover welcomes us with a sarcastic crack of thunder, and the heavens drench us again as we disembark into the gloomy, drizzly and windswept carpark.Two coaches await, and there is fairly polite jostling for position in the queue.

Foolishly, I'm heartened by the good humour of my fellow victims. Then we see him; the driver. Certainly of pensionable age, large of gut, red of face and possessed of an unnerving squint. Someone asks him : "How long 'til we arrive at Basingstoke?",.. he smiles crookedly and shouts "Well we ain't even left yet 'ave we love?!" .. We; the ticket purchasing public are not impressed by this, and shuffle uncertainly but uncomplaining onto the coach.

We eventually weave our way through the industrial nether regions of the town and find our way onto the A303 North, and I'm a little concerned that the driver seems heavy on the brakes at times.

I have fond memories of the old A303, strangely enough. It's the main route north and south out of my home town , and reminds me of all the favourite journeys I've made in my 42 years.

I trudged up here on the way to a school friends farm, so that we could nick his dads shotgun and blow the living daylights out of innocent furry creatures. We raced bastardised motorbikes in the field which ran alongside; hoping to beat the posers in their souped up Ford Capri's, and the lorry drivers who grinned and flicked the V's. I hitched to Heathrow along here when I first left the country, and screamed the guts out of my Honda 90 (oh god, how embarrassing) on my way to see my first proper girlfriend; a wonderful young lady who with verve and gusto relieved me of my innocence - startling a new-born foal in the paddock behind the garden shed.

So here I am, sitting at the front of the coach - not asleep, but enjoying these memories when there's a jolt. I look up and can see the back of the drivers head in front of me. He appears to be peering around a corner, only I can't see it because the front windscreen is completely steamed up! I realise that he's fallen asleep, and the coach is veering towards the ditch to our left.I scream and bash the back of his seat, he sits bolt upright and slams his foot on the brakes and we all lurch forward like it's a nightmare big dipper.The coach skids and slides along the slick road surface and once again my life flashes (much quicker this time) before me. We come to a dead stop, and for a moment there is complete silence. There is mumbling and shuffling, and retrieving of belongings from the floor of the coach and other people's laps. The driver coughs and standing up says " I'm very sorry about that folks, terrible conditions out there", and restarts the engine.

Not one person speaks but one old lady who says quietly from the back "I'm going to write to my MP about this".

It is 8.30 pm by the time I arrive at my local station, and my marvellous wife picks me up.

Have I since complained to South West Trains? Guess..

* * *

Ian is of a certain age when dealing with ear-hair can seem too much of a priority. He would secretly like to wear a cardigan and slippers. He thinks writing is the new black.

Voles [by Ian]

Last weekend I managed to ruin my very nice and very expensive pair of suede Campers.

I absolutely hate cleaning shoes. I guess this goes back to the Sunday evening ritual my parents enforced; whereby we had to ensure that all our school kit was clean and ready for Monday morning. Deep joy.

Anyway - suffice to say that all week I've been wearing substitute shoes that should have been donated to charity during the great shoe famine of 1912. Alternatively, they'd have made a very nice home for a family of disenfranchised voles, or something.

Now my right little toe is forcing me to adopt the gait of a 90 year old Sherpa, and something of the grimace frequently worn by those brave (but foolish) heroes seen in Sunday supplement pictures.

I'm expecting Chris Bonnington to make me an offer I can't refuse.

* * *

Ian is of a certain age when dealing with ear-hair can seem too much of a priority. He would secretly like to wear a cardigan and slippers. He thinks writing is the new black.

Euro-Apathy [by Pogo]

With the Euro elections fast approaching Auntie Beeb's been trying to draw attention to the fact by showing "special reports". They've been following the party leaders round the country. This apparently is to give each of them a chance to deliver their message... well, the only message I've picked up so far is that nobody is very interested in any of it.

Small wonder. None of the parties really seem to have a message in the first place. The Tory leader just looks smug, the LibDem looks a bit out of it, and The Liar himself is just looking for more opportunities to flash his famous plastic smile.

Political messages? None whatsoever.
Voter interest? Ditto.

A few people have attempted to call the politicians in on Iraq but they've been brushed off by platitudes issued as the politician strides away. Call that campaigning? Call that "taking the message to the people"? If the message is "we don't want to talk about embarrassing stuff" then they're doing a good job.

Don't any of our politicans know how to debate any more? With real people? Don't they know how to deal with an unpredictable agenda? If not, they shouldn't be in the job...

In the meantime we have huge billboards all over the place from the UK Independence Party: Say No To European Union.

Indeed? And why should we do that, then? What's so bad about being part of a larger Eurostate? The UK can't survive on its own any more (arguably, it never did - it just exploited a subservient Empire).

The alternative is tacit annexation by the USA.

George Bush, for all the "monkey" jibes hurled his way, has skillfully manipulated the UK into pissing off the majority of our natural ideological allies. We have far more in common historically with the nations of the EU than we have with the USA - the USA was built on the premise of "freedom for the individual" (ie "sink or swim"), whereas Europe has a strong socialist tendency. Our loyalties should lie within Europe.

A European superstate is the only viable way of exerting influence on the USA - a superpower that has begun to lose its way, and dangerously so.

We need Europe as much as it needs us.


* * *
Pogo is continually told to shut up by his long-suffering mates down the pub. Always opinionated yet rarely correct, he can't help sticking his oar in no matter what the subject. He has even been known to offer up opinions on politics, about which he is supremely unqualified to speak.

Rise and Shine [by Ian]

It's 4.30am. Why the bloody hell am I sitting at this machine, when I could be in lovely duvet land?

At 4am my eyes opened, and I was wide awake. Awake as an awake person who's really quite awake.

S and I spent the last 3 days in Sussex; and I slept for England. V nice just to lie around reading and snoozing, and having the occasional stroll on the beach.

It would be ok if there was something significant on my mind. Instead, these are some of the thoughts which forced me out of bed and into this chair:

"Black or blue shirt today?"

"I wonder how many lamp posts there are in our street"

"Think I'll only buy a packet of ten ciggies today".

So you can see what an interesting and dynamic life I've been living this week can't you? I mean, how could you possibly get a good nights kip with issues of such magnitude on your mind?

Must be off now, got to weigh the fluff in the tumble dryer...

* * *
Ian is of a certain age when dealing with ear-hair can seem too much of a priority. He would secretly like to wear a cardigan and slippers. He thinks writing is the new black.

Plans NEVER work [by Dufidusen]

Don't EVER make plans... not even for fun. You'll never win! I know - NEVER is a tough word to use... not supposed to use the word, without touching wood, clapping a bald guy, pulling a red haired girls hair and so on, but it is said so...

Even if you pinpoint your plan down to minutes, hours, milliseconds... give it up! SOMEONE or SOMETHING, will always find its way into your nicely structured little plan and screw it up... I've been killing myself lately, with this self-study thing and it means that I have no teacher and no classes to attend to. 'Aha', most people would think. 'how nice', 'It means you have loads of time to structure your studying'. Bullshit (sorry I'm infesting this nice blog with swearing)!

I've been making a foolproof timetable, with what time to read, what time to study the text closely, what time and minute to do my notes, and when to finish it all... Juuuust didn't count in, that:

- I live 5 meters from a kindergarten: Noiselevel = HUGE
- I live 10 meters from a school: Noiselevel = TREMENDOUS
- I live next to an Enrique Iglesias-loving old hag, who's 60 and thinks and acts like she's 16 (or maybe she's trying to hint out something to my Spanish BF???): Noiselevel = Abnormally high (the whole block can hear Enrique 'Bailar')
- I live 2 floors UNDER and opposite a neighbour who feels like oh, lets say, just for FUN to polish his wooden floors with a huge ACME 3000-machine. Noiselevel = Annoyingly high
- I live RIGHT BELOW an insanely demented woman and her immensely retarded boyfriend (There's so much negative stuff about this couple that I have to make a separate blog to these... they are just so unbelievable), that all the cotton in the world wouldn't make up for the sound they're producing. Oh, no, it's not that 10 sec. Lovemaking sounds... it's the bloody CLAMPETYCLAMP sound coming from they 500 kilo bodies, and they're neanderthalway of walking... Never have I heard people walk so LOUD, the loud vibrations penetrates our floor and goes straight into my little ears... they walk with their heels. Most strange thing is, they keep this going for HOURS, in a 58 Sqm flat! Do they have the closet to Narnia?? Some strange extension to another flat I haven't heard of??? Are they on straight Caffeine??? Who walks for 2-3 hours straight every night in a 58 Sqm flat?? (I'm so baffled about this, that I have to ask again!) I know I sound winy, but I have been putting up with this for 4 years - have been taking action - no reaction!... (definitely HAVE to make that extra blog about them)
Noiselevel = Outrageously, clampetyclampstabbingly, earpenetrating, cardiovascularmeltdownmenacingly LOUD!
- I suffer from sudden sleep disorder... Suddenly I get sleepy! What to do? Can't just skip my plan because I'm sleepy
- I also suffer from Sudden hunger disorder: Suddenly I get hungry - and outside my timetable...! Doesn't fit with the from "12.15-12.50: read" plan... doesn't give a damn... when my stomach is hungry - it's REALLY hungry - and food is the only thing which calms it... just like a baby. How does one plan this?

My nerves are suffering from this, I'm definitely not made for shutting in my opinion and anger... I'm Latin... where's my temper when I need it??? That temper that makes you forget who you are, where and what you're doing (and are wearing) and just speak up your mind. (Who cloned me and removed my precious Temperament??)

I shake every time I just THINK about going up there and yelling, like I'm demanding my freedom back... (Oh, definitely HAVE to make a blog about this)

Starting to get hear murmurs, and I've beginning to hear a small voice lately, not sure where it comes from? Is that stress?? From anger?
And I looove structure, and make it well... just not plans... not my plan, and I hate Forrest Gump for his 'Life is like a box of Chocolate... yadidadida'... just like plans; You never know what you're going to get!

Maybe Life's trying to tell me to be more spontaneous... well, I am... more than one needs to be... (don't mix it with Temper)... but I so desperately want my plan to work. I can't include every single variable. No can't do. No-one can!

So conclude this: Plans are like statistics and economical analysis: BULL!!