Time for a Break

I'm not going to be updating this blog on a weekly basis after this week. Which is not to say that I won't ever update it again, but I really need to be doing more cycling and diving to make it worthwhile. So, see you here in future again I hope, but only once I have more stories to tell!

Trenchant Wryness, the Dogging Song, and Lenten Vows

Is the tone I normally go for when writing blogposts. Which is a challenge when it comes to writing about matters religious or spiritual. It is something of a struggle to unite the side of me that meditates on filling oneself with the energy of the universe, and the side that couldn't stop giggling at the "Dogging Song" by Fascinating Aida.

I actually think one of the difficulties of being spiritual and / or religious in the modern age is that ours is a time when earnestness is not much prized. Knowingness, humour and continual self-mockery are more valuable. All of which I'm fine with, but once you start trying to deal with concepts like the meaning of life, contact with the Divine, and meditating upon one's chakras*, you have to suspend the voice in your head that wants to find the joke in everything. It's not an easy thing to do, for me anyway, and I'm still trying to find a writing style that isn't mocking, and isn't too worthy for words. I don't think I'm getting there, but I can only keep trying. Here's my latest thoughts on Lent.


Lenten Vow

Lent began on Wednesday 18th February this year. Each year, I like to make a vow for Lent, a habit that began as a child at Methodist Sunday School, with the traditional giving up of chocolate. Despite the oft-derided nature of such vows (“diet in disguise”, “First world problems” are among two of the criticisms I’ve heard), I actually think they can be useful. I think it’s good to learn how to overcome habits that can trap us, and learn that we don’t have to be dependent on external sources of pleasure.

Since I became an adult, and then a Unitarian, my vows have shifted, though, from the giving up of things, to the committing to things. Last year, I vowed to meditate for five minutes every day. (If I averaged it out, it would probably have been 2.5 minutes a day. Oops.) Now, I try to make a choice to do something that might help me to develop spiritually.

This year, I have vowed to read five passages from the Bible each day. Happily for me, I’ve done this a few times, and I’m now as far through as “Psalms”, having just finished the Book of Job. As a Unitarian, is this an odd vow? I don’t believe it has to be. I became a Unitarian because I wished to learn from all faiths, and the faith from which our church sprang – Christianity – is one I still want to study.

In an odd way, I get more from the Bible now as a Unitarian than I did in my previous habits of worship. I find it easier now to read the Bible now that I can see it in its historical context, and recognise that these are words written more than two thousand years ago by the wise men of a persecuted Middle Eastern tribe. In 2015, having received an education that introduced at least a brief introduction to the major religions of the world, it’s not necessary for me to believe this is the literal truth of God, and the only truth of God, in order to find the wisdom hidden within it. And if it challenges me, and I sometimes don’t know if I agree with it? Well, if it was easy, it wouldn’t be religion.



* not as painful as it sounds, you can do it lying down.

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.

Selkie in Spring

(Written for my church's Spring Miscellany service.)

Many island cultures around the world have folklore tales of selkies, mythical creatures who were half-human, half-seal. Traditionally, every seven years the selkie would come ashore and slip off its seal-skin to reveal a human form. Having visited the land, the selkie would don its skin again, unless prevented by a human who wished to marry it, and slip back beneath the waves. Many legends tell the tale of the selkie wife or husband pining for their seal-skin, locked away in a chest by their human partner, who feared the return of their loved one to the sea.

Around the time of spring I feel a certain empathy with the selkie, as my other skin is currently hanging in the cupboard under the stairs, and has been since last autumn, when the weather turned cold, the sea turned cloudy, and the animals and plants dwelling within it went to sleep for the winter. The British scuba diving season is generally considered to run from the Easter bank holiday until October, or whenever the winter begins to make its presence known. Like the selkie, the landlocked scuba diver may stare forlornly at their skin, dangling uselessly from a hook.

Unlike the selkie, the diver is free to don their other skin as soon as they choose, and spring is the time for doing so. Like most divers, I actually have three “other skins”; a thin wetsuit for warm water, a thick wetsuit with hood, boots and gloves for cold water, and a two-layered drysuit for colder water, which is the one that tends to see most use in spring.

As I re-don my scuba gear for the first dive of the year, I wonder at what a strange beast the scuba diver is. Jacques Cousteau called us “menfish”, and indeed we are a very odd species. It’s hard not to be aware of the limitations of the human form in water. We are highly capable surface swimmers and shallow divers, but to dive deep, we need to find some substitutes for the abilities other species have evolved as part of their physical being.

In place of fish-eyes to focus in water, I place an air-filled mask over my face to enable myself to see. In place of a seal’s tail, I don large plastic fins to propel myself through the water. An inflatable jacket and weight belt take the place of a fish’s swim bladder to control buoyancy at depth. A torch supplies the extra light that eyes which evolved on the savannah of Africa need to see clearly in depths where the red light from the sun’s rays cannot penetrate.

The drysuit mimics a seal’s insulation. Where the seal has blubber, a diver has a quilted jumpsuit, and where the seal has fur, the diver has a watertight suit that traps warm air next to the skin. Finally, where a seal can rely upon its highly efficient lungs and blood chemistry to dive for up to two hours on one breath, the human diver must strap a large tank of air to their back and fit a mouthpiece into their jaws if they wish to be under the water for more than a few minutes.

It’s perhaps no wonder that a scuba diver on land can be nearly as clumsy as a seal on a rock, and as eager to get into the water, where all our weight is supported and we move freely in three dimensions. As we re-enter the water, it’s good to pause a moment and reflect. Are we less than the seals, since they can so effortlessly do what it takes us so much effort to achieve? Are we more than the seals, since instead of evolving all these adaptations, we instead evolved a brain that can built devices to enable us to dive deep, to fly and to travel faster than the fastest land mammal on earth can run? Are we simply equal, but different?

These questions are important, but they tend to last for no more than a moment. The seals at the Farne Islands are calling, and it’s easy to feel that they miss their human playmates, as they rush to the edge of the rocks to see our boat, barking excitedly. As we slip back beneath the waves and the seals wriggle towards us to nibble our fins and allow us to pet their heads like dogs, we modern selkies might spare one more thought for the origin of the selkie myth.

Some people think it originates from when travellers of different appearance to the natives of the islands came to visit. Upon seeing humans with dark hair and eyes appearing from the sea, the islanders’ tales of their visitors became tales of human-like seals. Most people who have interacted with seals might be tempted to think that the answer is simpler. No one can look into those huge, expressive eyes, and not see a fellow creature looking back. Life returns to the sea in spring, and so do we.

The Bitter Branches of War

Taking a break from diving: here's an article I wrote for my church newsletter after Remembrance Sunday, when I read out the lyrics of PJ Harvey's "Bitter Branches":


"Bitter branches
spreading out.
There's none more bitter
than the wood.

Into the wide world,
it grows,
twisting under
soldiers' feet,

standing in line
and the damp earth underneath.

Holding up their rifles
high,
holding their young wives
who wave goodbye.

Hold up the clear glass
to look and see
soldiers standing
and the roots twist underneath.

Their young wives with white hands
wave goodbye.

Their arms as bitter branches
spreading into the world.

Wave goodbye,
Wave goodbye."


I asked Dr Barry Thomas if he would like to include this song in the Remembrance Day Service on 11th November, and offered to read it. I thought people might like to know why. Partly, of course, it is that I am a great fan of PJ Harvey’s album, “Let England Shake”. (Whilst I did my best to do justice to it, I would also advise anyone who heard me to borrow the album from a friend or the library and hear the original, as PJ Harvey is as great a musician as a writer, and certainly far better than I am as a reader.) It is one of those rare albums where the songs work as well as poems as they do pieces of music. 

Why this song in particular? Remembrance Day, rightly, is filled with memorials to those who fell in combat. There can be very few settlements in our country, however small, which do not somewhere have a list of the names of the fallen men from the army, navy and air force who died in the first and second world wars. My own place of employment, Newcastle Civic Centre, has a memorial (near the Banqueting Hall) for those who fell in Burma, Korea, and other wars in South East Asia. 

I suppose my choice was partly inspired by a story I once heard, of a headmistress of a girls’ school during the First World War who, on hearing of the casualties of on the battlefield, spoke to her pupils in assembly the next day, saying: “Girls, I have terrible news. Only one in ten of you can hope to marry.” Today, this would mean the loss of one option among many for those young girls’ lives. At the time, it meant that they would never be able to fulfil the role they had been led all their lives to expect that they would fulfil, of being wives and mothers. With many professions closed to women, they faced what could in many cases have been a lifetime of struggle to support themselves.

This might seem as though I’m equating the dismay of those young girls with the horrible suffering of men who died in combat in the First and Second World Wars. That is not my intention. Rather, I suppose that I want to emphasise the fact that war is not something fought by young, heroic men in countries far away. It is a horror that affects all parts of society, from the men who fought and died, to the families left without husbands, brothers, sons and fathers. As PJ Harvey saw it, the bitter branches of war spread out into the world. 

At the top of the stairs in my parents’ house hangs a picture of my great-grandparents. My great-grandfather is in his army uniform, about to go abroad to fight in the First World War. His innocent eyes look out towards the camera. 

Unlike many families of the time, my great-grandfather, and later my grandfathers, returned from war. Unlike some of the men they fought with, they returned to have children and support their families as those children grew up. It is a chilling thought that, had the First and Second World Wars not happened, there could well be an entire generation of men and women walking amongst us, who did not exist because the men who could have been their fathers were killed before they had the chance to lead an ordinary life. 

Given the number of wars raging in the world, it would be easy to despair. However, after centuries of conflict, wars in mainland Europe have ceased. That’s not enough on its own, but it is a start. There is quite a lot of evidence to suggest that, very slowly, violence between human beings is starting to decline, and we can only hope that this will continue in the years to come. 

Perhaps, if we continue to remember our dead and the suffering war causes, we’ll continue to believe that peace is the only way forward.

The Olympic Spirit

And here is the article I talked about last week. In other news, I own a flat. Still working on the "Home of CyclingDiver" sign to go beside the door!

Now that the Games have finished, what memories are we left with? Undoubtedly, we have seen some truly incredible feats of athleticism. No-one who saw Usain Bolt winning any of his three gold medals will forget the sight. As my best friend said to her young son before the 100m final: “You need to be looking at the television right now, and don’t blink or you’ll miss it!”. And you could say the same of Mo Farrah’s astonishing double gold in the 10,000m and 5000m races, Jessica Ennis’s victory in the women’s heptathlon, or Bradley Wiggins’ winning both the Tour de France and an Olympic time trial gold in the space of a few weeks? 

All physical feats that most human beings could never hope to match, yet perhaps what appeals most to us are the human stories behind each triumph. Experts in the field of cycling will no doubt rave over Bradley Wiggins’ remarkable achievement, but who among us, regardless of how ignorant we are of cycling, could fail to be moved by the fact that his first action, on learning he’d won the gold, was to get back onto his bike and go in search of his wife and children? Or any of the following moments:

• Gemma Gibbons’ reaction to winning the silver medal in the women’s 78kg class judo, tearfully mouthing “I love you, Mum”, in memory of her dead mother.  
• Mo Farrah, a Somalia-born immigrant to the UK, being cheered onto two gold medals by the British public before the eyes of the world. 
• Kathie Copeland’s incredulous comment to her rowing partner Sophie Hosking on winning the women’s lightweight double sculls: “We’re going to be on a stamp!” 
• Andy Murray defeating Roger Federer to win the gold at the same place where he had lost the Wimbledon final to Federer four weeks ago, sprinting to the player’s box to celebrate with his friends and family after defeating Roger Federer – then reaching out to hug a young fan.

These stories (and the many, many more that could be added to them after the last two weeks) are not unique to these Games. Earlier games too saw human beings transcend nationality and even race to offer each other a hand of friendship and support. Most people have seen the “Black Power” salute at the 1968 Mexico City Olympics, performed by John Carlos and Tommie Smith, but how many know that the gloves they were wearing actually belonged to Peter Norman, the third athlete on the podium? Norman, a supporter of civil rights (he is wearing a civil rights badge in the photograph), saw that they had forgotten their gloves. He approached and offered them his gloves to wear. (38 years later, Carlos and Smith were pallbearers at Norman’s funeral.) 

One final story, this one from the famous, or perhaps notorious, 1936 Berlin Olympics. Most of us have heard of Jesse Owens, the famous African-American athlete whose four gold medals, won in front of the Nazi regime, demonstrated the hollowness of the racist Nazi ideology. Fewer have heard of Luz Long, the German athlete and national hero who competed with Owen in the long jump. 

During the competition, Long noticed that Owen was struggling during the qualifying rounds for the long jump. He walked across and suggested that Owen try an adjustment to his technique. Owen took his advice, and went on to win the gold medal in the event – at which point he and Long embraced and walked arm-in-arm to the dressing room, posing for photos together. 

Owen said afterwards: “You can melt down all the medals and cups I have and they wouldn't be a plating on the 24-carat friendship I felt for Luz Long at that moment. Hitler must have gone crazy watching us embrace."

Still Writing My Post

I've been spending the week trying to write a post about "The Olympic Spirit", which is actually an article I want to put in my church newsletter. This has been somewhat held up by office moves, house moves (I hope - haven't yet exchanged contracts!), and my in retrospect poor decision to slug five glasses of wine last night in Perdu. Actually, I don't regret that last one. Screw it!

To hold you between now and then, here's a picture of an unexploded WWII bomb under the water, which I saw in Crete. More actual writing coming soon.

The Curmudgeon’s Guide to Polling Stations

Earlier in May, I was yet again wielding the mightly 30cm Plastic Ruler of Democracy, as a Presiding Offier at a polling station for the local election and the mayoral referendum. It inspired this, which I call the Curmudgeon's Guide to Polling Stations, aka "Advice for Voters".

 

• You will usually see two people behind the desk. One will have books of ballot papers in front of them. Approach the other, who will usually be seated nearest the door, and have a set of names and addresses in front of them. This is the Poll Clerk, with the electoral register.  
• If you don’t have your poll card with you, introduce yourself the wrong way round! Most people give their name first, then their house number, then their street. The register lists streets alphabetically, then house numbers, then names. Give the street first, then your house number, then your name, and the Poll Clerk will find you a lot faster. 
• (NB you do NOT need your poll card to vote unless you have an anonymous entry on the register. If anyone tells you otherwise, they are wrong. Nor do you need proof of identity.) 
• If the Poll Clerk reads out a funny number, it relates neither to their getting your house number or your age wrong. This is your elector number, which the other person – the Presiding Officer – needs to record that you have been issued a ballot paper. Incidentally, the Presiding Officer (usually issuing the ballot papers) is in charge of the polling station – don’t be fooled by the fact that they are not the one greeting you! 
• You have the right to ask for help. You can have a magnifying glass, a tactile voting device if you have very poor vision, assistance from the Presiding Officer or Poll Clerk if you don’t understand what’s on the ballot paper, or you can take a companion into the booth with you (they will need to sign a simple form to say that they have assisted you), and you can come back later if you want to take more time to think about it. 
• The one thing the staff cannot do is tell you how to vote. That’s up to you.
• You have the right to vote if you have a ballot paper in your hand by 10pm. If you don’t, you can’t. If you disagree, write to your MP pronto and ask for a change in the law. 
• Staff eating pasta salads or reading the paper whilst sat at the polling desk reflects not a lack of professionalism, but the fact that they are there from 6.30am to 10.15pm without a break. Yes. WITHOUT A BREAK. 
• If the staff sound like robots, please bear in mind the following: a) they are not ALLOWED to give opinions on any of the issues being decided, the candidates, or the parties involved, lest they be accused of influencing voters, b) after the first 50 or so voters, they will have said “Yes, it is quite warm in here”, “Yes, it is quite a long day”, “It’s been quite busy” about 50 or so times. Repeat as required throughout the day – EVERYONE asks the same questions! 
• Please refrain from abusing the fact that the polling station staff are not legally allowed to leave the polling station to lurk by the desk and buttonhole them with your personal views about the local area, the local councillor, or the local council. They can’t respond, and they very probably aren’t from the local area anyway. (Personally I have some sympathy for lonely older people who are taking their best chance of the day to have a conversation with someone. Everyone else will be very politely requested to leave my polling station as soon as is decently possible.)

Pip's Graves

Bit of a departure this, literally. I've left my usual Northern haunts for a visit down south to family, where we stopped off to look at "Pip's Graves" in St James's Churchyard, Cooling, in Kent. These are the tiny gravestones described by Charles Dickens as being the graves of Pip's brothers in "Great Expectations". You can see a picture here, they're quite strange and sad:

Pip's Graves

I really ought to read some Dickens this year.

I should also soon have finished my write-ups of Glastonbury 2010 and Leeds 2011, they'll be posted up here soon, and the dive season is coming! Yay!

Self-Identification

I'm currently using my writing skills to write up my annual newsletter to my family. Since my family keeps growing, this is something of a major enterprise, requiring racking of brains, and not a few stamps. (I have no grandparents left, but my aunts and uncles are grandparents.)

So instead, here's an article I read recently. I think I have found out what I am. (Which may not be news to anyone who knows me.)

Caring For Your Introvert

Back Very Soon

I've been writing stuff, believe me, and it will be posted here at the weekend. Until then, in the words of someone much wiser than me...

Some of My Favourite Quotes

Some of my favourite quotes of late:

From Rob Hunt's "Never Mind the Buoyancy" column in Sport Diver magazine:

"It's not that I'm against people "having their say" (except when it's in regard to why I haven't done the washing up), it's just that when that say is from someone who is massively ill-informed, I should be able to push them off a chair."


From Jonah Lehrer's article "Our Horizons" in the Observer:

"There should be an adjective (a synonym of sober, only worse) to describe the state of mind that comes from waiting in the orange glare of a streetlight [in the early hours of the morning] before drinking a cup of coffee."


And an all-time classic from Kurt Vonnegut:

"In the event of car alarms, every neighbourhood should have a bazooka, with a responsible adult knowing where to find it." (Timequake)

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