Gifts in the Bible

This is an excerpt from a recent piece I wrote for the church Christmas service, "Gifts in the Bible".

...one more story, because it seems I cannot write anything without throwing in a reference to scuba diving somehow. A while back, I read the story “Menfish”, by Jacques Cousteau, which is the account of the first ever scuba dive in what was then occupied France. As Cousteau puts it, when the first ever working aqualung system arrived in the village where he was living, “no child on Christmas morning ever unwrapped a parcel with more anticipation”. With his wife and best friend as support, Cousteau tested the equipment and made the first scuba dive in history. I remember reading that story, and suddenly realising that I was reading part of my own history. Had Cousteau not made that dive, my own life would be very different. What happened in 1940 affected my life 70 years later.

This week, I read the Bible again, especially the Acts of the Apostles and the letters to the Corinthians, which I think may have perhaps the highest concentration of the words “gift” and “giving” in the entire book. The church being established in those books, however imperfectly, was one in which people would love each other, treat each other as equals, and support each other whenever it was needed. At one point, Paul writes to his followers saying “Since you have plenty at this time, it is only fair that you should help those who are in need. Then, when you are in need and they have plenty, they will help you”. I read that passage, thought about the history of Christianity and my own journey in which I arrived at the Unitarian church here in Newcastle, and felt the same sensation: that the actions of people living long before I was born had led, in one way or another, in my receiving a great gift.

(As a sidenote, I have often thought that when you go looking for something in the Bible, you’ll usually find it, but it won’t necessarily be what you expected. Perhaps that says more about the person doing the looking than it does about the Bible.)

The End of the Year Approaches

And this is probably the last blogpost from me until 2014. I'm looking forward to a new year and a new beginning. Merry Christmas.

Water Dripping Off the Light

It is a truth universally acknowledged that when you want to be leaving the house in a hurry, that is the moment when you will pause, think "Did I forget to turn the tap off?", and check the bathroom to find water dripping off the light fitting. Always a fun experience.

So far it seems to have been fixed (there's a reason I take the landlord of the flat above a bottle of wine for Christmas every so often), but I can't help being slightly alarmed at the thought I may be being haunted by a poltergeist who likes to make water drip off light fittings - it happened in the last-but-one house I lived in, too.

I've been hanging around on the Creepypasta website for a while; does it show? I came across this site via TvTropes, where I spend far too much time keeping myself awake and not doing any management assignments. An excellent repository of creepy stories, some of them are okay, some are very good, and one or two will, in the words of one reviewer, make you want to shriek, douse your computer with gasoline, set fire to it and fling it through the window. Seriously. Four words: "The Russian Sleep Experiment", rated "AAIIIEEE!" for gory, and one word, "Psychosis", rated "MeeMeeMee" ::rocking gently back and forth:: And don't even start me on "Smile Dog".

No, really. Don't.

And don't Click Reload, either.

Back at the Boiler Shop

Went back to the Boiler Shop a couple of weeks back with friends. There were no cyclists or yoga teachers with broken backs present, but there was good food, good beer, and a very pleasant surprise. I last saw Tankus the Henge at Glastonbury this year, and have wanted to catch them again ever since. Amazingly (they're based in London), they were headlining the Saturday Boiler Shop when I happened to be there. Coincidence is sometimes a fine thing.

I also learned that ping-pong is more fun when you're tipsy, and that certain of my friends should only be allowed to dance when there's a large space around them.

The Tales We Keep Telling, 4: The Glass Bottle of Piss

Nah. This one also doesn't get told until I leave my current employment. Let's just say that it occurred towards the start of my current employment, and usefully disabused me of any notion I might have had that the new employer was going to be any better organised than the last one. We'll leave it at that.

Back Again, and Blown-Over Trees

I'm back blogging again, as my laptop is now back from the repairman! Not much to report, except for some storm damage to the back garden - see photo!

Everything's been repaired. I was hoping I would need to do less to the garden in the winter. Turns out I was wrong. I think I'm developing that gardener's feel for the seasons, or at least something resembling it, as follows:

Winter = Prune trees
Spring = Plant stuff
Summer = Weeding
Autumn = Throw buckets of leaves in compost bin

More reports on Glastonbury and the fun we had in Malta (where I managed to misplace an entire ship) coming soon.

Glastonbury, Day 2: Gan for a Wander

Glastonbury, day 2, Wednesday. It was warm, if not actually sunny, and we were at a slight loose end. The festival doesn't really kick off until Thursday afternoon, and we didn't have a bar shift for a while. We had heard the distant cheer as the car park gates were opened; the punters were arriving, and later we would be needed to sell them beer.

Not to worry. We decided to wander off in pairs. I took R to see the Green Fields, which are usually the bit of the festival that gets set up first - if you're there early, go to the Green Fields as there will be something happening. We wandered around, looked at things, sent postcards (yes, you can post postcards at Glastonbury) and enjoyed a bit of alternative therapy. I had a massage, which I needed, and then fulfilled a small Glastonbury tradition of mine, of going and sitting in a meditation tent for a bit. If you have read my post about arriving at Glastonbury, you will know why.

We found the bar, and I found out when and where one of my favourite bands, "Seize the Day" were playing on the Thursday, by the always-reliable method of checking the sides of the toilets (they always put stickers there). The bar shift came and went. The team were great. My teams always are.

One last thing; as we wandered around the Green Fields, we came across a music space, with a couple attempting to play folk music whilst their young son clawed at the front of Mummy's t-shirt. One of their songs was a rather nice rendition of "The Ghost of Tom Joad". I still fondly remember Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band playing that in 2009. It seemed fitting that it should be the first live song I heard at Glastonbury 2013.

Walking Past Elephants

Not much to report this week, as I've been away in Harrogate for the historical festival they have there. Of late I have been amusing myself watching the reactions of people in the Eldon shopping centre as they walk along and suddenly realised they've just walked past two psychedelic elephants. Here's a picture of the elephants.

Attack of the Imaginary Toilet

Divers exiting the Inland Sea tunnel

Went back in the water yesterday. Even if it was only Lake Ellerton, it was wonderful. The diving instincts haven't rotted completely, the diving equipment hasn't stopped working, and I still love my drysuit. I'm sure that eventually the novelty of getting out of the water and being (mostly) dry and warm will wear off sometime, but not yet. I really, really, don't miss being cold and tired after my dives.

I also heard a funny story from one of my dive buddies, who's an instructor. We'll call him C. C was over in Malta some months ago with another instructor, D, and another diver taking the "Tec 50" course in deep diving with technical gear - we'll call him C2. C, D and C2 were planning to dive the Stubborn the following day, a WWII submarine that sits off the Maltese coast at around 55m. As such, it's well out of my range (40m max), but the three divers were planning to do this as a technical dive with decompression stops.

50m is regarded as the point at which pretty much everyone will have some level of nitrogen narcosis, although the extent varies from person to person. "The narks" are when the increased amount of nitrogen in your bloodstream from breathing compressed gas makes you feel as though you're drunk. Since you take in more gas at depth (the increased pressure at depth compresses the gas, so you're breathing more concentrated gas the deeper you go), narcosis is a risk for deeper dives. It's not actually harmful in itself, unless it causes you to do something stupid, but the effects vary from person to person, in much the same way that some drunks are Happy Drunks, others are Angry Drunks, and some people are Sad Drunks.

Because of this, C2 wanted to do a dive to 50m to see how the narcosis would affect him. They set out from the Inland Sea in Gozo towards the Azure Window, a dive where you swim through a natural tunnel in the rock, and come out over a seabed that drops down to about 50-60m. From there you turn to the side and swim along the coastline towards the Azure Window (see picture).

C, C2 & D completed the swim through and descended to about 50m. C checked his compass, pointed towards the right direction, and set off. After a minute, he looked around to check for the other two, and saw C2 swimming off fast in the opposite direction. C and D went after him, retrieved him, ascended to allow the effects of the narcosis to dissipate, then finished the dive.

When they were back on the surface, C2's first words were: "Did you see the toilet!"

"No."

"There was a toilet."

They looked at each other. It's not unknown for divers to encounter sunken toilets from shipwrecks, but this dive doesn't have one.

"No, there was no toilet."

"There was a toilet! It was chasing me and snapping its lid at me! That's why I swam away!"

It turned out that C2 had overdone it the night before, and spent a fair part of the previous night hugging the toilet bowl. Apparently this left a sufficiently deep impression on his psyche that, as soon as he hit 50m, he felt he was being attacked by an (imaginary) toilet. (Author's note: I wonder if he actually saw a moray eel? They swim around opening and closing their jaws, as it's how they breathe...)

The tale of the Savage Toilet is now passing into diving legend. When I'm in Malta in two weeks, I shall be checking to see if it's there.

Talking To The Depressed

Guidance on talking to the depressed, should you ever find yourself doing such a miserable task

1. Remember you’re talking to the depression, not the person: Ever seen the episode of “The Thick of It” where Malcolm Tucker rants that there IS no Malcolm Tucker, because his job has eaten him alive and is walking around wearing his skin? Depression is like that. The person you know is in there somewhere, but if the depression’s really bad, you’re talking to the illness, not the person. 
2. Expect negativity: Depressed people are negative. Relentlessly. Depression does this, because you need mental energy to be able to envision the world in an alternative way and right now they are completely mentally exhausted, their brain chemistry is haywire, and their brain is occupied by a demented voice screaming loudly that the world is awful and there is no hope. When your depressed person starts going on about how awful everything is, don’t try to reason them out of it. By all means point out that there are alternative ways of seeing the world, just don’t expect to be able to argue them into not being depressed.
3. Don’t expect to fix the problem: You may persuade a person with a mild case of the glooms to see the world in a slightly more cheerful way, but someone with serious depression can’t be fixed by a one-off talk, any more than you can fix a broken leg by talking at it. That’s not to say you shouldn’t try, or that the person won’t appreciate your efforts (though the appreciation may come a bit later when the depression starts to lift), but someone with depression probably needs sustained medical treatment. 
4. Don’t expect gratitude: Gratitude takes energy too. A common way for the conversation to go is for the non-depressed person to persistently try to reason the depressed person out of their depression, then look at them with a faintly expectant expression. You may quite reasonably feel that you’ve just given up your own time and energy to look after someone else and that you’d like a thank-you, but it may not happen. (I’ve encountered a couple of people where it was hard not to think that they were trying to help me so they could get the ego-boost of “fixed someone’s depression!” It doesn’t work like that. Don’t ask me to make you feel better when I’m feeling awful.) 
5. Don’t take it on yourself: Depression is their illness. If you walk away from the conversation feeling like you haven’t cheered them up and wondering what the point was, remember that it’s their depression, not yours. You did your best. 
6. Don’t try to fix everything: Even if they reel off a shopping list of woes, don’t try to suggest solutions for every one of them. Implementing lots of solutions needs lots of energy. Picking a small thing and suggesting a way to make it mildly better may work, but don’t push too hard. 
7. Don’t forget the small stuff: Have they eaten or drunk anything recently? Biscuit and a cup of tea will not fix depression, but it may help a bit. 
8. Try to gently dissuade them from anything drastic: Again, remember that they have an illness and unless you’re a doctor or therapist, you’re not responsible for curing it, or for the consequences of it. However, if they suggest doing anything drastic (Facebook rants about how dire the world is, quitting their course of study in a blaze of despair, breaking up with a partner), try to gently persuade them to sleep on it or put it off until they’re in a better frame of mind. 
9. Ask how they are, but don’t ask for a medical bulletin: Please do ask them how they are when you see them in future, and by all means ask if they’re feeling better, but don’t bring the depression up every single time you see them and ask for a detailed update – if for no other reason that the answer really may well be “same as last time, thanks” or “all right”.

The Tales We Keep Telling, 3: Got Thrown Out Of My Office By The Army

Tough luck. This one doesn't get told until I actually leave the office in question.

The Tales We Keep Telling, 2: Audience of Psychopaths

So I went to see Laura Marling at the Sage the other day (my life is a whirlwind of fun and excitement, except for the three-day bouts of depression and the knowledge that it will not be 13 people leaving my team of 33 people in September next year – it will be 15). It was a good night, despite the fact that Ms Marling was battling the forces of illness and failing musical equipment. 

It is a tribute to her musicianship that she played an entire one and a half hour set entirely on her own whilst having to make up the set list pretty much as she went along, since her main guitar wasn’t working. She was also suffering from the after-effects of the incompetence of whatever restaurant she’d eaten lunch at – she has coeliac disease and, as she put it “They glutened me, the bastards!”

Nick Mulvay, the support act was pretty good too, although I couldn’t help fondly remembering the support act last time around, Timber Timbre. This was basically one guy and a guitar, and I (perhaps unfairly) remember one thing about his act. You have to imagine a man, sitting on a stool at the front of the Sage’s Hall One stage, spot lit, strumming a guitar and singing a romantic ditty…

Timber Timbre, tunefully: “I’m coming to Paris… to kill you…”

Audience laughs, musician stops singing and playing and looks around thoughtfully.

Timber Timbre, matter of factly: “I have an audience of psychopaths”.

(Begins singing again) “I’m coming to Paris … to kill you…”

We Are the Motherfucking Eels (at the O2 Academy)

So, taking a break from Glastonbury, I went to see the Eels on 4 September, and they were good. Here's where I owe my friend A a big vote of thanks. Had it not been for him, I'd never have really got into Eels, so top marks to A for lending me their entire back catalogue, and also buying the tickest.

There's a really good review of the gig here, which saves me having to do any musical criticism. Instead, I can just say that I enjoyed the gig, apart from the O2's famously awfully-high prices for awful beer. (Thank God for hip-flasks; you didn't read that here.) The support act had listened to a lot of Laura Marling, though it could have been worse; it could have been Kei$ha.

Eels themselves were excellent. I'd forgotten how much a band can ROCK when they play live, or maybe I've just been listening to "Blinking Lights" a lot recently. "Tremendous Dynamite" was awesome, although I must admit to a slight twinge of disappointment that there was "Last Stop: This Town". Also, it is very cool when people play guitars and sing when wearing sunglasses indoors, and always will be.

I also got to see an unusual sight. Eels had a bit of a theatrical thing going on at the end of the show, with a (I'm guessing) fake tour manager who kept doing the "one more song and NO MORE" routine. This happened, we assumed the encore was over, the house lights came up, people starting heading out of the doors.. and then Eels stepped back on stage for one final song. I really wished I'd had my video out and pointing forward, because the sight of people streaming back into the fully-lit O23 arena at the end of a gig was memorably surreal.

It was a good gig. Next: Laura Marling.

Glastonbury 2013, Day One, Part the Second: Keeping Up the Proud Traditions of Arriving at Glastonbury

The coach limped into the service station and wheezed to a stop. We got off, got and settled onto the grassy verge to await the arrival of a coach with a non-broken battery. Fortunately it was quite a nice day.

One hour and several frantic messages to the people waiting in the Clowne Tesco’s car park later, the coach arrived, we loaded ourselves and our gear onto it, and set off to retrieve the Clowne people. I retrieved the Magic Piece of Paper (in whose powers I was rapidly losing face), and waited to tick people onto the coach.

One stop in Clowne and several apologies to the people who’d been forced to wait in the Tesco’s car park later, we were on our way! The coach rolled past the familiar landmarks, I explained some of the history of Glastonbury to the new guys on the team, and we tried to take photos of the Glastonbury signs out of the windows.

Soon, we were stuck in another Glastonbury landmark; the queue to get onsite. The coach drivers looked increasingly annoyed, as their hours of work were running out and they needed to get back to Leeds. Alas, things were not to get better, as the stewards at the festival had no idea where to send us. Despite my best explanations, and several frantic phone calls to the WBC staff, it took another hour before we were in the right place and had been given our wristbands by the management staff. I handed over the Magic Piece of Paper, and my work was done.

Now all I had to do was lead my team to the campsite, get our ID badges, and get the tents put up in the dark. Fortunately, I’m not unfamiliar with this, having had to do it a few times at Glastonbury, including one memorable occasion in 2009 when we arrived at the site at 2.30am. This time around things were better, because a) having learned from bitter experience, I’d insisted we eat something at the service station on the way down, and b) the bar was still open. Half an hour later, the tents were up and the beer was poured. We toasted our safe arrival, toasted the festival, and awaited our first day on site.

First, though, we had to get through the night…

Glastonbury 2013, Day One, Part the First: Coaches and Mayhem

There is an old saying that stress is what happens when your instincts shout "NO" and your mouth says "YES I'D BE GLAD TO". I should have remembered that when I agreed to count people onto the coach to the Glastonbury festival from Leeds.

Yet again, a troupe of trusty Newcastle volunteers were travelling south to volunteer for our union with the Workers Beer Company at the Glastonbury Festival. We'd got six places, I was one of them, and despite a minor hiccup over a railcard on the train, all was well. The sun was shining, and we were waiting on the grass near Mecca Bingo, over the road from Leeds Bus Station, listening to the alcoholics fighting.

I can only assume there's a wet hostel nearby, because they were there three years ago (possibly not the same people, but who knows), the last time I was waiting for a coach to Glastonbury from Leeds - next time we'll sit in the bus station. I'd already had to go in there and get first aid assistance for someone who'd collapsed. I get the feeling this may be a regular occurance, as the security guards took their time getting the first aid kit and wandering on out. By the time they'd got out there, the ambulance had arrived, unlike our coach, and half the people I was expecting to be on it.

At 1.30pm, we had a false positive as a coach drove past us without stopping. As it got round to 1.50pm, I started muttering words in my head that I wouldn't use in front of my mother*, told everyone I was off over the road to check if it was waiting for us in the coach station part of the bus station. It wasn't, but I did find all the other volunteers. Still not quite as many as I had listed on the magic piece of paper with the list of people I was supposed to count on, but it was a start.

Even better, as I started to lead the way over to the grass, the coach we'd seen 20 minutes earlier pulled in haphazardly at a bus stop outside the station. I waved frantically and ran over to ask the driver if this was the WBC coach to Glastonbury. It was. I signalled my volunteers and began counting people on.

I'd been assured that the magic piece of paper was up to date. I should have remembered that where festivals are involved, this can actually mean "four people decided at the last minute to drive down, and there are two people who aren't on the magic piece of paper". There was no way I was telling people they weren't going to Glastonbury, so I let the two people on, reassured them it would be fine, and prayed very hard that I hadn't just booked them a one-way ticket to the outside of the Glastonbury festival wall.

As the coach headed out of Leeds, I got a phone call back from the WBC to confirm that the two people were indeed registered volunteers, and would be allowed in. I leaned back in my seat, mentally thanked God that my team were all reliable, calm people who had loaded my gear on the coach for me, and exhaled for the first time in about two hours. We were running a bit late, so I texted the people we were due to meet in a Tesco's car park in Clowne (coach pick-up points are always such glamourous locations), and told them we'd be a bit late but not to worry.

It really shouldn't have surprised me when, 10 minutes later, the driver turned round and, in tones of deepest gloom, informed us: "Sorry, the coach is broken - we're going to have to stop at the next service station and wait for a replacement".


* mostly from the family of the word "Fuck".

Narrative Inevitability at the Boiler Shop Steamer.

So, earlier this month, I roamed with some friends down to the Stephenson Works, to enjoy the Boiler Shop Steamer. One of my friends, A, had been raving about this monthly event for weeks, and it did sound good. Music, my favourite pubs (Wylam Brewery, the Cumberland Arms), my favourite types of food (who doesn't love a chilli paneer wrap?) and a great venue.

We arrived, settled ourselves at a table with pints from the afore-mentioned Wylam Brewery, and after half an hour, I remarked "Well, this is unusual - an Ouseburn-themed night in Newcastle and I haven't yet met anyone I know". We nodded, and commenced enjoying the night, which was not difficult. It was a great night, sunny and warm, the beer was flowing, the food was great, A was persuaded to go on a sponsored cycle time trial*, and we were entertained by the Most Unrehearsed Cajun Band in Newcastle, AKA Bob Stork and the Heaton Playboys, aka "Rob Heron of Rob Heron and the Tea Pad Orchestra's other band".

We'd seen Rob Heron performing at the Cumberland Arms a month ago as part of the NARC festival in the Ouseburn, and it was great to hear "Danse de la Limonade" again. The evening wore on gently, punctuated by debates over tattoos, which Wylam beer was best, and how long it would take a man wearing a black t-shirt and shorts to wander up a ladder and fix the lights when they went out half-way through and left us with only the emergency lights. (Twenty minutes, but we didn't much mind.)

As the evening ended, we stood, we danced our last jig, and we prepared to leave, when I glanced to my left. And turned to my companions.

"You know what I was saying earlier about not meeting anyone I know here, and how unusual that is for Newcastle?"

"Yup."

"You know my blog, you remember that post I put up recently?"

"Yup."

"Well, there's a very familiar back brace to my left."

We turned our heads.

Newcastle really is a very, very, small town sometimes.


* I was also invited, but declined on the grounds of having been to two circuits classes led by sadists in the past two days, and being physically incapable of generating speed due to having fuck-all glycogen left in my leg muscles.

Randomly Overhead Weirdness at the Olive and Bean

The Olive and Bean Cafe is one of my favourite hangouts. It inhabits the weird hinterland at the back of the Grainger Market, a strange mix of the posh - the Olive and Bean itself, the wool shop over the road, Cafe Royale round the corner - and the vaguely disreputable - the cheapie clothes shops, Poundland, and the infamous Black Garter pub. I rather like it (the cafe and the area) and can often be found chewing a panini there on a Sunday after church, alongside most of Newcastle's middle class.

Today I happened to be sitting on the big table in the middle, when two large, fresh-faced ginger-haired chaps dropped into chairs on the corner opposite. One was clearly a student, the other older, and they looked as though they might be related. The student fella was, apparently, also an organ scholar at Oxford. (I learned this from both their conversation and the fact that they'd left papers about an upcoming service on the table in front of them, and like many people involved in politics, I can read upside down). He had been doing a risk assessment for an upcoming service, which the older chap then proceeded to evaluate.

OLDER CHAP: "This really is very open-ended, isn't it? What they're asking? I mean, for risks, you could put 'Gas explosion', 'Meteorites', 'Terrorists running in off the streets with guns, bullets flying around'..."

YOUNGER CHAP: "Yes, it is a bit like that, they like you to put follow-on actions on there as well".

OLDER CHAP: "...'Strip-searching choristers', I suppose the associated risk would be 'grinning whilst strip-searching choristers'..."

I resisted the urge to chime in with "Volcanoes exploding...". At this point, a young woman in a dress and a knitted sweater with a picture of a monkey joined them.

OLDER CHAP: "Ah, [YOUNG WOMAN], you're going to be taking care of [YOUNGER CHAP] aren't you, I've got to go soon, show him round the town?"

YOUNG WOMAN (grinning): "No, I'm planning to eat him as soon as your back is turned."

OLDER CHAP: "Well, in that case you'll still be showing him round the town, albeit with him being inside you."

The young woman pulled off her sweater.

YOUNG WOMAN: "Did I tell you, I recently grew my armpit hair to raise money for research into polycystic ovary disease?"

At this point, I made an excuse. And left.

Video For How I Feel About My Current Employment Right Now

Start watching somewhere around 1.40. In fairness, things are not quite this bad, but when you have to watch this speech to remind yourself of that, they're pretty fuckin' dire, as Mr Tucker would no doubt say.

Breaking Glass In Your Room Again

I really must get round to writing about Glastonbury some time soon. Weird stuff keeps happening; I'm doing a study course in Management and Leadership. (This might be of more relevance if my employer hadn't restructured and removed anyone I might conceiveably lead or manage, but there's always the option of moving.)

The seminars take place in the TUC office on Pilgrim Street in Newcastle. If you've caught the bus from there, you'll know it, as it's the big office block that sticks out near where the old cinema used to be. As with many places in town these days, it has empty offices.

During the break, I was wandering down the corridor to use the facilities when I heard a sound like someone hitting a wine glass with a spoon. It persisted, so I wandered to the end of the corridor and stuck my nose against the glass.

There, in the middle of an empty office, stood a man with his back to me. Smashing a wine glass with a spoon.

After the glass broke, he turned round. We exchanged queasy smiles.

I really hope that was an art project, and that building isn't just haunted by a man smashing a wine glass. With a spoon.

Pills, Thrills and Locked Doors

Collected my prescription the other day. You know how some people say “I’m a bit OCD?” I have to resist the urge to say “Oh really? Can you leave your house without checking the door is locked ten times, then having to go back into the house and check the oven is off five times, then repeat the process with the lock? Do you put your hand inside the oven in the morning to check you turned it off? If not then dude, you are NOT PLAYING IN MY LEAGUE, you just need to REMEMBER TO TURN THE DAMN IRON OFF”.

Anyway, the prescription is for the nice happy pills that make this go away, or least lessen it to the extent that I only need to check the lock five times, and sometimes not at all if it’s a good day. The worst aspect of OCD, by the way, is that you know perfectly well you have got it, and that what you are doing is ridiculous, and you are embarassed and ashamed about it, but this is where the compulsiv
e part comes in; it’s very hard to stop.

(This is why, if you know someone has OCD, unless they’ve told you it’s okay, it’s not a great idea to comment on how often they’ve checked the lock. There is nothing rational about checking. Most folks with OCD know perfectly well that the lock doesn’t get more locked if you keep checking it. That’s not the point. The point is that you’ll be terrified out of your wits later if you can’t remember whether or not you locked it. You know the feeling you would get just before you fell off a cliff? It’s that feeling.)

I have my happy pills, which is nice. Every so often I have a conversation with the doctor along the lines of:

DOCTOR: Have you considered coming off your pills?

ME: Yes, but I’m concerned about the side-effects. (A combination of feeling depressed and losing your balance to the extent that you can’t tell where the floor is, if you’re wondering.)

DOCTOR: Perhaps you could try it when you have a stable, relatively stress-free period in your life.

ME: I’ve just bought my first home, I’m working full-time and studying part-time, my employer has made me apply for my own job three times in 24 months, and is likely to do so again this Christmas.

DOCTOR: Why don’t I write you another prescription?

At least now I know where my prescription goes to; the Boots next door to the doctor’s surgery. Last time I forgot this, ran out, applied for more pills and turned up at the surgery desperate for the pills, only to be told “Sorry, we can’t give you a prescription because the system thinks you might be over-using them.”

It’s hard to convince people you’re not over-using drugs when you are clearly on the verge of replying “No, I assure you I am not, now GIVE ME MY DRUGS!”

The Yoga and Meditation Teacher With the Broken Back

This really happened: I walked into my meditation class on a Wednesday* and discovered that we had a new teacher. She was wearing what looked like a superhero costume of a two-layered green tank top, shorts, a grey thingie on her back that crossed over in front, blonde hair and a big smile, and the sort of toned arm muscles I don't have even after years of lifting weights.

Her opening line, in the sort of happy American accent that makes me think of sunshine and Florida** and people rollerskating before eating vegan pancakes for breakfast, was "Hi, just so you know, this is a back brace. I broke my back last week, but it's not as bad as it sounds".

The only thing I could think of to say was "That sounds pretty bad".

Fortunately, it was the kind of broken back you want to have, if you're going to break your back, where you crack a vetebra and think it's a muscle spasm that won't go away. She did the classic "Go to A&E, wait to see doctor, doctor suggests X-Ray to 'just make sure', doctor sidles back into the room holding the X-Ray and looking shell-shocked". Apparently when the doctor replied "You appear to have broken your back", she burst out laughing, which... seems fair.

Apparently it's healing up just fine, and the brace will be off soon.

Maybe I should suggested she tell everyone it's a superhero costume. I'd believe that.


* I recommend this. Although sometimes instead of meditating on the teacher's "you are on a golden beach" theme, I find myself meditating on what it would be like to be able to breathe water and be immune to cold, and just snuggle down in the sand at the base of a beautiful reef in Beadnell Bay. I still remember that summer's day diving. Mmmm, calm. I think this means I want to be a seal.

** I have no idea if she is from Florida.

The Tales We Keep Telling, One: The Guy Who Pissed on the Fruit Machine

It's a funny thing, going to the pub with the same group of friends for years. You develop your own little mythology, mostly featuring around alcohol and, in my case, tales from sharing a house. I kind of miss sharing a house from the point of view of funny things happening, but I SO don't miss the washing-up wars, the continual need to creep round the house for fear of waking folks up when I get insomnia, and the general sense that at any point someone might comment on something I'm doing. (What do you mean, baking at half past midnight is weird? IT'S MY LIFE DAMMIT!)

Some tales we keep telling, of course, cannot feature here for reasons of not wanting to get folks (including me) in trouble. But I see no reason I can't immortalise a few of them, and here is the famous tale of the Guy Who Pissed On the Fruit Machine.

So for this, we need to go back at least five years (flipping heck, I've been in Newcastle a long time). Our little reading group, of which I am proud to be a member, was having its Christmas Do, and we chose to begin with drinks in the Union Rooms. The Union Rooms is the Wetherspoons near Central Station, and used to be our regular haunt until the Five Swans opened, which is nearer the Central Library and handy for the buses and Metro. We prefer Wetherspoons for several reasons: it does real ale, everyone can just about afford to buy a round without needing to take out a loan, and there's no background music. It also affords us the chance to be rude about the food on a fortnightly basis, which usually ends when someone points out that each fortnight we say this, and each fortnight everyone orders the same food and complains about it afterwards.

So, back to Christmas. It was 6.30pm on a Tuesday two weeks before Christmas, and at the Union Rooms, that means a minor level of chaos. We were at the main bar downstairs, and had just bought the drinks when we turned round and saw a guy stagger in. He looked at least fifty, grey-haired and dishevelled, and had clearly been on the receiving end of the stick of life. He also didn't seem to know which room he was in, which pub he was in, or possibly which planet he was on. He staggered into the room, stood just inside the doorway, looked around the room, then turned round and pissed on the fruit machine with a sigh of relief.

I can safely say that this isn't usual behaviour, even in the Union Rooms. As we watched, the manager dashed out from behind the bar, and dragged him away, pointing and yelling "Now look what you've done!" Security became involved, and the man was propelled outside the door. We wandered back over to our table, and drank our drinks.

As we turned round and headed to the door, we saw the same man, clearly not sure where he was or why he was there. As we watched, he staggered up to the door, clearly thought "Yup, that's a door, alright", and wandered back on in.

Right in front of the manager.

I wish I could do justice in words to the expression that came over the manager's face, but if I say that he reddened, his eyes bulged, his finger pointed, and the word "YOU!!"came from his lips at treble volume, you'll get the picture. Security became involved again, and we made our escape to Zizzi's without anyone micturating in our direction.

This tale comes with a short epilogue. Some months later my friend A, who was there on the night in question, was having a curry with some friends in Latif's. As they left, he heard a familiar trickling sound and turned round. It was the same guy, in the same jacket, this time pissing on a record shop doorway. Apparently this is a hobby of his.

Either that, or A is being stalked by a random pissing guy.

It's a great life in the Toon!

Back From Glasto

 I returned from Glastonbury last week, having seen the Rolling Stones, Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds, Vampire Weekend, and many more. I also caught a hideous cold that left me unable to speak or type for a week, hence absence of blogging.

Blogging will happen soon, but until there, here's a video of Mumford and Sons closing the festival to make up for it.

Chased by a Giant Banana

You know those dreams where you’re being chased by something in a random location?

Recently I was chased around the main hall of the Eldon Leisure Centre by a giant banana carrying a golf club caddy.

Well okay, it wasn’t an actual banana. It was a man in a banana suit and we were doing circuits round the hall.

If you’re wondering, it was his 50^th birthday. Apparently this chap is famous among the regular circuiteers for eating banana sandwiches in the sauna after a workout (…?), so for his birthday they insisted he wear a banana suit and carry a golf club caddy around whilst doing the circuits class. Later, they presented him with a cake in the shape of two women’s breasts, into which the instructor pushed his head whilst someone took a photo. Everyone kissed him on the cheek on the way out.

I understand that some people take drugs so that they can see weird things. Occasionally I wonder whether I can get some drugs that STOP me seeing weird things. Since I’ll be in Glastonbury next week for the festival, I may well need them. Back soon…

Unexpected Bon Jovi

Funny how life works out. I was sitting at my desk at 5.15pm last Thursday vaguely thinking about doing another hour’s work, then going home and making a chicken curry, when my phone beeped and displayed the message “Sorry about the short notice. I’ve got some spare free tickets for Bon Jovi at the Stadium of Light tonight, do you want to come? Need to be there for seven.”

I’m not great at sudden changes to plans, so I gave myself a minute to figure out what I wanted to do. The answer turned out to be “go and see Bon Jovi with JK and C”, rather than “go home and do some work on the management course assignment”. That decided, another choice presented itself. My best friend, J, is a HUGE Jon Bon Jovi fan, to the extent that she used to draw pictures of him for assignments in Art class when we were at secondary school. (We’ve now both got mortgages and she’s got two kids; Bon Jovi have been going for a while.)

It occurred to me that J would possibly want to kill me if she couldn’t go. I then decided that she would definitely want to kill me if I didn’t offer her the chance to go, so called her to ask. I then called her husband’s phone, just to be on the safe side.

15 minutes later, I got a very excited phone call, and the plans were made. I was struck by the sudden fear that JK might have had other offers for the tickets, and called him to find out, whilst simultaneously taking a quick inventory of whether I had any clothes with me that were suitable for a rock gig, trying to figure out how to get there, wondering what to do about food, and hoping that the office bike shed would be sufficiently secure to leave my bike there overnight*.

As it was now quarter to six, I fled the office hoping that there would be enough tickets, taking with me my emergency coat from the coat rack and the trainers I’d cycled to work in, and sprinting to Boots in search of a sandwich. As I dithered between a tuna & sweetcorn and a chicken wrap, the phone beeped again. JK solved one of my problems by confirming he’d got enough tickets, and then introduced the other by asking which Metro station we were going to meet at. Confusingly, it turns out “St. Peter’s” is nearer the Stadium of Light than “Stadium of Light”; go figure. I didn’t know this at the time, so agreed we’d meet at the Stadium of Light Metro station around 7pm.

Next stop, Primark, for a cheap pair of jeans, then Haymarket to grab a train ticket. On the other side of the river, J’s husband arrived home on time. Had he not done so, I suspect J would have thrown the baby, the pram and the dog into the car, and dropped them off at his office with the words “Darling, these are yours for the evening. Mwah, see you later!”.

I got the ticket and scurried down the escalator and onto the platform to find a train already waiting with “South Hylton” on the front, which meant naff-all to me as I don’t get the Metro very often. I scurried further down the platform until I found a Metro map, confirmed that this train would land me in Sunderland not South Shields, then did what all the posters tell you not to do and hurled myself bodily onto the train as the doors went “BEEEEP” and started closing. Half a minute later I was glad I’d got on at Haymarket not Monument, as the coach half-emptied and I managed to sneak myself onto a seat in the corner and make a start on the sandwich.

Half an hour later, I was really glad I’d got on at Haymarket not Monument, as the train was heaving. The announcer kept reminding people that there was a train directly behind us calling at the same places. I doubt anyone trying to get on actually heard him, and if they did, I doubt they took any notice. It reminded me of an email about real-life Tube announcements that did the rounds a while back, one of which was: “Please let the passengers off the train first. Please let the passengers off the train FIRST ::pause:: Oh go on then, stuff yourselves in like sardines, see if I care. I’m going home”.

As we nearer Sunderland, I found myself trying to coordinate a meeting by phone between four people, one of whom had never met two of the others, and two of whom had never been to the Stadium of Light before and had not a clue where they were going. We’d agreed to meet at Stadium of Light metro station. Just before we got there, JK & C texted to say they were waiting at St. Peters. I decided to get off at Stadium of Light to meet J. Just as I reached the top of the station steps, my phone rang. It was J, and she was at St Peter’s. I had no idea where this was, other “further down the Metro line”.

At which point, inspiration struck, in the form of me remembering the earlier train announcement. I hurtled down the steps against the flow of people, then jumped back onto the train which was running behind my train (and which was, noticeably, a lot more empty). Five minutes later, I was at St Peter’s and had located everyone else. J was nearly jumping up and down with excitement. It’s nice when you can do good things for your friends, particularly since neither of us could have afforded the tickets due to the afore-mentioned mortgages. When we were inside the stadium I took a look at how much we’d have paid to get in (JK got them at the last minute through his employer), gulped, and realised that it was probably a good thing none of the people standing around us knew we hadn’t had to pay - £65 is a fair chunk of cash.

The gig itself was great. Whilst J LOOVES Bon Jovi, for me, they’re more in the “some quite good songs” bracket. I can, however, appreciate a really good show, and this was a really good show. We were lucky with the weather, which helped, and the “giant car” stage set was great, but what made the gig was the band’s showmanship. It is no mean feat to perform the same gig to a different location every night and still make the audience think you really care about them having a good time, but Bon Jovi had worked out that if the audience wants very loud American rock with a giant car, and flashing lights, with a short pause to wave your cameraphones in the air so that the stadium looks like it’s filled with little twinkly lights and a speech from the frontman about people capturing little pieces of history at that moment**, that’s what you give ‘em. They did, and we did. (The only thing they couldn’t give us was a pint of Foster’s that didn’t cost more than £4, although I think the “2-pints of beer in a glass” should catch on at more stadiums.)  Jon Bovi is a great showman, and they did a nice mix of classics and new ones.

Funny how many Bon Jovi songs you know. I realised that quite a few would have to make my “grew up listening to this” list: “Always”, “Bad Medicine”, “You Give Love a Bad Name”. Quite a few more would make my “left home to this” soundtrack; when I lived in Wiltshire I spent a lot of time in my car, and had “Crush” on the cassette player a lot. I was especially happy when “Captain Crash and the Beauty Queen From Mars” came over the speakers, though I was a little disappointed at no “Janie, Don’t Take Your Love To Town”. We danced, we sang, my camera battery miraculously didn’t run out, and we left the stadium happy.

I was even more happy when, having seen the length of the queue for the Metro home, J offered to give me a lift.

One amusing postscript: having dragged myself into work the next day feeling exactly how you would expect to feel if you’d spent four hours on your feet jumping up and down and singing, my boss approached our desks and announced to the office that he would be hiding in his room for the rest of the day, because he’d been to see Bon Jovi the night before, and had lost his voice.

* It was.

** Cheesy, but if that’s not your thing you’re at the wrong gig.

Now I Notice Plants: Strange Consequences of Home Ownership

As I continued my patio-based War on Dandelions* in the sunshine last Saturday, I mused on how your perspective can change when you own your home. I never took any interest in plants before I owned somewhere with space to grow them. Gardening was largely a mystery to me, mainly because there were other interesting things to do, like read graphic novels and go diving. Both of which are still very interesting, but I now find I notice plants more since I started tending a garden. I walk past the border at the Civic Centre and think “Interesting – they’ve interspersed the flowering plant with the leafy evergreen; I wonder if either of them tolerate shade?”

I never noticed plants before; they were just there. Now I see that someone actually had to decide on what should be there, plant it at the right time in the right place, feed and water it, and generally take care of it. You find the world has hidden depths, when you start looking for them. I doubt I’ll ever become someone who reads gardening magazines for fun, but like many things, it’s good to know a little about it. I can now understand why people get into it; the notion of having your own little realm with control to shape it as you please is quite appealing. Particularly since I spend a fair amount of time in a realm where I have naff-all control over what happens, and have to survive alongside forces which could swat me out of existence. (Insert your own joke about whether I’m referring to where I go diving or my place of work.)

Another amusing consequence I’ve noticed is that people, particularly workmen, keep calling me “Mrs”. I’m not ready for this, it makes me feel like I’m forty. Not that I’m saying that being married and female is the the equivalent of being forty, or fifty, or whatever… just that for most of my life, if I bothered to think about when I would be married, the answer was generally “in the future sometime, like maybe five, ten years”. Which for me, now, would be pushing forty.

I’d like to think it’s more due to the fact that I live in a flat which I’m paying for works being done to, and therefore am more likely to be settled and in a relationship, rather than the fact that I look and sound old enough that “Miss” isn’t an option. Though it would be nice if they asked. I’ve always believed that if you don’t know a woman’s title, you use “Ms” on the grounds that it’s impolite to start making assumptions about someone’s private life. “Ms” is the title I use if one is needed, and I rather intend that it shall remain so if I ever do get married. I don’t really see that my marital status is the business of anyone other than me, and perhaps one other person J

* The buggers are winning. In fact, I’m reminded of the old story of the man who wrote to the Ministry for Agriculture with a two-page letter detailing all the ways in which he had tried to kill the dandelions in his garden, and ending “What do you suggest?”

They wrote back saying “We suggest you learn to love the dandelion”.

Haikus of Life

Anyone else ever find themselves composing little haikus in their head as they go through life? Just me? I hope not. The haiku is a marvellous thing. Here's one that did the rounds when I worked at IBM back in 1999 (we used to send these round on email, how anyone did any work is beyond me...)

Three things are certain: 
Death, taxes, and lost data. 
Guess which has occurred. 

Windows NT just crashed.
The Blue Screen of Death.
No-one hears your screams.

Charlie Brooker once described the TV listings in haiku format, like this (more here):

The National Lottery: Winning Lines (BBC1, Sat, 8.35pm)
Applause detonates
as bubblegum balls fall in line;
you have won fuck all.

The Weakest Link (BBC2, Mon, 5.15pm)
Disgraced, her target
eats ginger malevolence.
Now, the walk of shame.

Alas, mine are not as funny, and nor do they scan so well:

I do not know why
This bloody bag spills rice all over the kitchen
But alas it does.

Birds avoid feeder
Why? Observe, lurking in 
tree, the tabby cat.

Student pedestrians
Stumble blindly in front of cycles
Toddlers with Ipods.


Incidentally both of the blog posts I've referred to in random drunken conversations, "The Ethics of Ogling Pretty People (Star Trek Into Darkness)" and "Data vs. Information via Heart Attacks in Walker" will turn up at some point. The first requires me to do more research*, the second requires me to have more than 5 minutes to do some actual writing.

* Obvious joke, but it's coming up on 11pm and I'm too knackered to be original. 

Festival Planning

Not much to report at present. I'm heading to Glastonbury next month. This may be my last time as a volunteer, or as the organiser. Then again, it may not. My going is dependent on whether or not I'm still in my current job. As a union member, I can organise my teams of bar volunteers to raise funds for the union at the festivals, which I've been doing since 2005 (my God, that's a long time). Were I employed somewhere else, or in a job where it wasn't possible for me to devote my time to organising the volunteers, this might not happen anymore, and it's not impossible for me to move jobs. That could happen next year, so I've decided to take advantage this year and enjoy Glastonbury.

Alas, I'm still doing the organising. See above t-shirt picture.

In One Way, Depth is Just a Number...

(I started writing this post back in 2010, came across it, and decided to revive it. As of 2013, I'm a Rescue diver, albeit I do need to go back to Lake Ellerton and practice fishing people out of the water some time soon. Funny how even back then I was picking holes in PADI's teaching methods...). 

And in others, it isn't.

As part of my Advanced Open Water Certificate, I'll be doing a "deep dive" whilst in Bute for the diving weekend I'm going on in March. For those not familiar with recreational diving limits, I currently have an Open Water certificate, which means I'm qualified to dive as deep as 18 metres.

In common with (I suspect) most Open Water divers, I have somewhat bent this rule - without getting myself bent, I hasten to add - whilst diving in the tropics. My deepest dive so far was 23 metres in the Maldives to see an interesting sunken ship. It was at the start of the dive, myself and my buddy had full tanks, I wasn't tired or dehydrated and I kept a close eye on my dive computer and air gauge, so I figured I wasn't running an unacceptably high risk of burning through my breathing gas or running out of bottom time. I was right.

A quick digression on some terms I'm using here:

Bent = getting the bends; decompression sickness causing by ascending too fast or staying down so long you can't come straight up but have to do decompression stops. Recreational or sports divers, like me and like everyone when they first start diving, do the sort of dives which don't require decompression stops, so that at any point in the dive, you can abort it and ascend to the surface, albeit at a slow enough rate that you don't get the bends. This is for safety reasons.

Bottom time = the amount of time you can stay submerged before you have to ascend. Governed by two factors; how much breathing gas you have, and how much nitrogen you have absorbed from breathing gas under pressure. The amount of nitrogen you have absorbed governs how long you can stay under without needing to do decompression stops to allow the nitrogen to leave your system so that you don't get the bends. The two factors are interlinked: If you're at a deeper dive, you go through your breathing gas faster, because it is delivered at a higher pressure. This also means you're breathing in more nitrogen molecules - it's a compressed gas, so there are more gas molecules in each breath you take in - so you absorb more nitrogen and have a shorter period of time you can safely stay under. Also one of many diving terms that causes juvenile humour to occur. 

For my "deep dive", I'll be going deeper than this. It's surprisingly hard to find out exactly how deep online - it's something I'll ask my instructor - but probably around 25-30 metres deep depending on the conditions.

This post starts "In one way" because a novice diver saying "depth is just a number" and leaving it at that implies that person hasn't fully grasped that deeper dives do come with a set of distinct challenges. These include the aforementioned shorter bottom time periods and the fact that they use gas a lot faster than shallower dives. They also include the unique aspect of getting the narcs.

The narcs = nitrogen narcosis. Essentially, the deeper you go, the more the higher concentration of nitrogen you're breathing makes you feel intoxicated. It's most commonly compared to being drunk, although symptoms vary from diver to diver. The narcs are harmless in themselves and go away if you ascend (safely) to a higher depth. The risk comes from feeling a bit drunk 30m below the water. It's even worse for technical divers, who have to fiddle around with their gases to try to come up with a mix that won't send them completely off their heads whilst 60m down.

But in one way, I believe that depth is just a number. Why? To me, it's in the mind. One thing I think PADI's Open Water Diver course does run the risk of is encouraging newbie divers to think "It's okay if things go wrong, I can always go back up again". I think that's the wrong mindset. Sure, there are times when a CESA (controlled emergency swimming ascent - swimming up to the surface if you've run out of air, but keeping your weight belt on so that you don't rocket up there, and exhaling to stop you from getting lung overexpansion injuries) or even the dreaded buoyant ascent are the right, i.e. only, options to handle the situation.

Buoyant ascent = ditching your weights so that you immediately become positively buoyant and fly up to the surface in an uncontrolled ascent. Extremely dangerous as you run the risk of getting lung overexpansion and the bends. Absolute last-ditch measure for getting to the top if all other hope is lost. Comes with a big AVOID DOING THIS IF YOU POSSIBLY CAN in the diving training manuals.

However, I think that's a risky mindset. It encourages you to think that all problems are solvable and there's always a way out, whereas you should be thinking about how to prevent the problems in the first place. You can get the bends coming up from 12m or even shallower. Going deeper increases the risks, but the risk is always there.

Dive safely, folks. And remember... in British waters, there's frequently bugger-all to see at 30m in March in the Farne Islands. 15m is more fun, and there are seals!

Gym Guilty Pleasures

No, this isn't me.

I don't often blog about going to the gym, although I have done this 2-3 times weekly since I was about 14 or so. (Interesting fact: girls can do this more safely than boys as our bones stop growing earlier. I reached my full height about 13.)

I don't blog much about it because what appeals to me about it - the simplicity - doesn't generally make for a good blogpost. I like the gym because I spend much of my life employing the grey matter between my ears. The gym appeals because it doesn't require this in the same way. Let's face it, it works as follows:

1. Pick heavy thing up.
2. Put heavy thing down.
3. Repeat until step (1) is no longer an option.
4. Eat.
5. Sleep.
6. Repeat.

Actually, brainpower is involved, but in a different way. It's closer to meditation than brainwork; when I do my exercises, I mentally picture the muscles I'm using and try to focus on using only them, not any others. It helps if you picture them as being in bright colours, like those big wallcharts of people with their skin off that used to freak you out aged 12 in biology class at school.

This usually works, but not always, and sometimes you get distracted by annoyances and guilty pleasures. Namely:

Gym Annoyance 1
People who don't throw their bottle caps in the bin, but instead leave them lurking in the bottle holders on the treadmill. If you can run 2 miles, you can walk 5 metres and throw your damn bottle cap in the bin.

Gym Guilty Pleasure 1
Noticing that someone has left the machine that you are about to use on the correct weight setting for you, and you don't have to fiddle about with it.

Gym Annoyance 2
People who sit around for ages on the bench or seat for the equipment you want to use, staring at the football, then, when you ask, say "yes, sorry, I'm still using it". No you're not! You're watching Everton lose to Man U!


Gym Guilty Pleasure 2

When the someone in Guilty Pleasure 1 was male. 

Gym Annoyance 3

People who don't put their weights away. Seriously. I should not have to lift 200+kg of weights of the squat rack machine so that I can do my exercises (which use about 60kg, max). This annoys both myself and one of the senior instructors at the gym to the extent of spitting. His solution is to make tannoy announcements about banning people from the gym if they can be identified on CCTV doing this. Mine, I fear, will be that one day I'll snap and hand out some gymnasium justice with a 10kg dumbbell.

Gym Guilty Pleasure 3

Watching the unfeasibly muscular lads in Annoyance 2 going on the treadmill and blowing up* after ten minutes, because they spend so much time building muscle they do no cardiovascular work at all, and thus cannot run for shit. 

I can't run that well either, although I can do 3km without stopping and am pushing for the 4km. And I can put my damn weights away.

* not literally, thank God - the brains would take FOREVER to wash out of the bottle holders.

Cartoon of the CyclingDiver

Been a busy month so far, as I continue to learn about management. Apparently the main side-effect of studying management and leadership theory is the need to resist the urge to go into your boss's office brandishing a textbook, pointing at it and saying "See, it says here you're doing this bit wrong".

On a more positive and less boring note, a good friend made me this rather excellent cartoon for my birthday. It now hangs in the bathroom, which has the vague theme "Sea". (The other themes in the house are:

• Hallway = Cats
• My bedroom = Travel
• Living room = Nostalgia
• Kitchen = Cross stitch
• Spare room = Drying laundry
• Cupboard under the stairs = Diving-related crap)

I especially like the diver in the top right hand corner :-)

Around and Around and Around and Around We Go

I just wrote my annual round robin newsletter to my friends and family. These are most commonly written at Christmas, and indeed mine usually are. In 2013, it's taken until April to get to a point when the dust from the selection process, the house-buying, and everything I had to put on hold and then pick up again has settled.

Or, as I put it at the start of the letter:

Hello again, and welcome to the very delayed letter for 2012. Why the delay? Let me start by saying that I nearly began this letter by copying and pasting from last year’s, which began:


“And yet again it is time for my annual letter to friends and family. This one has been somewhat delayed, since I normally write this letter during my leave between Christmas and New Year, when I can look back over the year just gone and pick out the highlights. However, this year, I spent that time preparing for an interview on January 9th 2012. For my own job. Those of you who have spoken to me recently may well be thinking “What, again?” Because, yes, I did have to do that earlier last year. It has been a year of great change.

I’ll start by saying that yes, I was successful earlier this year, so I’m still employed by Newcastle City Council, hopefully for the foreseeable future. I say “hopefully” because although I have a permanent contract with the Council, like anyone else, I can be made redundant, which unfortunately has happened to several of my colleagues in 2011…”

Were I to change the interview date to “18 January 2013” and the year at the end of the last paragraph to “2012”, this would be a good description of the start of this year.

Still, let's not be negative. I spent most of the letter extolling the joys of having my own place, and holidaying in Scotland (cycling), Malta, Crete, and Oban in Scotland (diving). This year, I'll be off to Glastonbury. So here's to the future!

Assertiveness for Divers, Part 3: Your Buddy is Not a Telepath

And the final section of this little essay, and one of the trickiest things I've had to learn as a diver: assertiveness with your buddy.

By this, I don't mean aggressiveness, or in-your-faceness. I don't mean a situation where you're telling your buddy "We have to do it my way!" Unless they're proposing something completely hare-brained, like diving to 40m on a 10l cylinder, playing with Great White Sharks, diving in caves with one torch with elderly batteries, in which case, have at it and / or, find another buddy.

For me, it's always been a more of a subtle thing. It's easy not to rock the boat, particularly if it's your regular buddy. After you've done it a few times, a buddy check can seem a bit superfluous. And you know which route you're following round the site - after all, you've dived it umpteen times before. And you're pretty sure you've both got the same goal for the dive. And you don't want to sound too much like a newbie diver who does everything the PADI manual way...

...except that, without the buddy check, you might not realise that your buddy has recently started wearing integrated weights, not a belt. Or that they've bought a new BCD with different releases. Or that one of you wants to stop and take pictures with the new camera. And when you get into the water, it turns out that the visibility is a lot poorer than you expected. And your buddy still wants to take photos, and the next thing you know when you pause to look round, they're not there and you can't see them.

I could keep going in this vein, but I think the point is coming across. Admittedly, everyone dives differently. I wouldn't try telling more experienced divers than I am what to do with their buddies. I do know, however, that it took me a while to get this point in my head, and to have the courage to risk looking like I'm overly-cautious, or that I do it too much by the book, and ask my buddies to do a proper buddy check with me. I'll also ask everyone I'm diving with to confirm the plan for the dive, anything they want to watch out for on the dive, what the plan is if we get split up, and where the car keys are. (By which I really mean "If it all goes tits-up and we have to drag you back to land, what's the quickest way to get to the mobile phone and call the ambulance?").

As for under the water... I say this goes double. Maybe it's me, but I find it can be tricky to communicate with other divers at the best of times, which is why I now carry a slate and pencil at all times. Sign language is great when it's all going well, but throw in some more vis or an unexpected problem, and trying to get the point across can be tricky. I came across this on a dive to Malta (remember that?) when my BCD shoulder valve leaked on the first dive of the holiday, and dumped all the air out of the jacket, and thus out of my cylinder.

I think there's a temptation under the water to not want to have to hold up the dive, to stop and say "Actually, I think there's a problem". This is not helped by the fact that some divers like to take off like rockets into the distance. I'll admit this is a pet peeve of mine; I really wish more divers in groups would actually stop and look around to check everyone is okay and keeping up, rather than leaving it to anyone having a problem to signal this. There can be a real temptation, when the dive leader signals "Ok?" to reply "Ok!" instead of "Problem over here!" and just think, "hey, it'll sort itself out".

I fell prey to this. I did, eventually, manage to signal my buddy that I had problems, but that was twenty minutes into the Dive of the Leaking Jacket (albeit it took me ten minutes to figure out what was happening). The first time around, I tried writing on the slate "Jacket leaking?" My buddy checked and wrote "Looks fine!" (Of course it did, I later realised - it had leaked all the air out, and thus wasn't visibly bubbling - I should have filled it with air whilst she was looking!)

It took me another five minutes to pluck up the nerve to go back to my much-more experienced buddy and try again to say "Actually, this dive really isn't working for me". This time around, I figured the solution, and showed her my air gauge, which showed I'd used about twice the air I normally would on a dive at this depth for this duration. This got the point across, she swam off to notify the dive leader, and he and I headed off at 3m to return to dry land and repair the valve.

And again, I learned a valuable lesson. Don't misunderstand me. I would never abandon my buddy or leave them to struggle, and I know they would do the same for me. But when it comes down to it, you are going to go play in an environment where, as Captain Bob Bates memorably paraphrased it, "where a single breath of the ambient atmosphere will, kind reader, fucking kill you" (Snappy Banter website.) 

The more I dive, the more I firmly believe that if you are not prepared and able to complete the dive using your own resources, if you are relying on your buddy to get you through it then, unless it's a teaching environment when your buddy is the instructor and is there to keep an eye on you, you are in a really dangerous situation. To quote another scuba website, "It's a buddy, not a crutch". You don't need to be prepared to do the dive if it all goes right. You need to be prepared to handle the dive if it goes wrong. If something happens to your buddy (leaking regulator, cutting themselves badly on some sharp wreckage, severe cramp meaning they can't swim), then you are going to have to be prepared to take charge of the dive and get the two of you safely back to terra firma.

I love diving. I also love driving my car. In both cases, I keep my skills in tune, my equipment maintained and an eye on the prevailing conditions. And because I do that, I've returned safely from every drive and every dive I've had (so far). And I find that when you include the risks in your dive plan, you can head out feeling more secure than if you ignore them, because you know what to do.

Happy diving, folks.