Category Archives: Musings

How much of life is chance?

Musings

Often when I am feeling a bit off, I tend to think along certain lines. the what if creeps in, the whole thing about if I had turned left instead of right, taken this job or that, not got fired and so forth.

Often I think that with the knowledge I had at the time of those events, if I could go back in time and plot a different course, I would in all probability make the same choices again as it was circumstance that forced those choices on me rather than my wishes at the time.Has being TG made much difference to my life? Actually not much really, it hasn’t stopped me doing stuff or caused me to be disadvantaged and the present situation I am in would be broadly similar in many ways I think.

I have had certain disadvantages which I share with many of people of my particular vintage. In particular being dyslexic at a time when it was not recognized as a specific problem, though I go over it fairly well and now it really only manifests in a minor way. If I do have to write down anything on paper its a nightmare though covered with crossing out.

Whilst growing up I had various behavioural difficulty’s which caused me to experience quite a bit of bullying and its only now that I can see how that all started. One particular teacher at my comprehensive school described me as a “Catalyst for trouble” as stuff just seemed to kick of around me. By the time I was in my 20’s I had very distorted thinking and I am not sure that I have ever quite managed to escape that. I had behavioral problems that meant I was under psych care from about the age of 8, this left me with a possibly undeserved opinion at the time that all mental health professionals should be sectioned or at the very least anyone seriously thinking of such a career should have counseling first to make sue they were making the right decision.

So here I am at 56 somewhat drifting in the doldrums, and not seeing any clear way forward.

Samuel Taylor Coleridge’s Rhyme of the Ancient Mariner:

All in a hot and copper sky,
The bloody Sun, at noon,
‘Right up above the mast did stand,
No bigger than the Moon.
Day after day, day after day,
We stuck, no breath no motion;
As idle as a painted ship
Upon a painted ocean.

I spend days when I am not gigging practicing and learning new stuff (mostly studying jazz now) and also recording demo’s. Most of my solo stuff go’s on the web as that’s about the only real outlet for it.

If your playing Keys, guitar, violin and possibly doing vocals as well its not the sort of stuff that you can do at an open mike night to let off steam. Its also about a million miles from the tunes I do as one half of the Delta Ladies live. I have always been interested in a lot of different stuff musically and perhaps I would have fared better if my tastes had not been quite so varied?

I did hope when I left the day job I would be able to get the odd spot of IT related work, but its not happened, though I do the odd spot of programming to keep my mind active, but I never was a real geek or proper nerd, it was always a means to an end. I didn’t really become part of that culture. Once you understand how stuff works in code its not really any different to plumbing or putting up a set of shelves. You can teach yourself to write code from a book, which is how I got into to it by chance at the age of 40 and I can’t complain as it gave me for a 13 year period with much higher earnings than I had ever had before or am ever going to have again. Previously to that I had never had a desk job or worked in an office so it was a bit of a culture shock, and for the first 6 months I was somewhat afflicted with cabin fever. Unfortunately my brain was having none of it and after a couple of barely managed periods of depression, and loads of SSRI’s I lost the plot again, resigned from my job and ended up with my primary occupation being music, and 5 years later that’s where I am now.

I don’t deal with stress to well at all and I don’t like interruptions, so I am a natural curmudgeon!
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dyskolos But I have sort of learned to go out in the sun and sing and dance

Playing music live over the last 8 years pretty consistently (about 125 gigs a year on average, primarily boozers, but with a few notably exceptions) has made me far less introvert. The idea of singing on stage was a nightmare to me, but is now a regular part of my life, though I still see my self as an introvert primarily. I do enjoy company now but I did shun it in the past so I am somewhat changed. I enjoy the entertainment aspect of making music and on a good night its magic.
I have also met quite a lot of interesting people and played with one or two that I never thought I would get to meet via this route some of whom were quite well regarded at the time I was first getting really interested in music.

Mostly now I try and deal with life on a day to day basis as I do still have very bad days when mentally I am all over the place, but I can usually still play in that condition, perhaps because it uses a different part of the brain. I am frequently very pessimistic and have to avoid seeing roadblocks where there are none.
There are one or two new things that I am looking forward to in the pipeline, another trip to France to do 4 gigs in September and also a couple of outings playing a bit of jazz. I have done a little of that before but it will be interesting and a challenge.

Day to day life is a little difficult from time to time and there are no luxury’s to be had. On the other hand the most valuable commodity really is time. Roughly speaking every decade of my life has been very different, to such an extent that I find it difficult to relate to the me from 20 years ago and I don’t think we would have to much common ground now.

The plan is to move out of London in about two years time all being well. I don’t have any particular connections to the area that I live in, I was just lucky to have made the right choice to move here when it was starting to be re-developed, which gives me some choices as to where I might go. It was also well placed for work, as I have never had the bother of a really long commute. I cycled to work for a few years too which is also a very stress free way to of doing things if its not too far away. I got used to cycling when it was cold and when it was raining, no big hills though and only 3 miles each way.

Anyway the past is a foreign country and the futures uncertain as ever.

The good stuff is still there to be found it just requires more effort now

Musings, other

Yep, it would seem that I am complete out of touch and yet all my crusty and ancient mates seem to think they same way as me with regard to most subjects. So many people seem to think that everything is a race to be won or lost and that just over the horizon there is the crock of gold at the end of the rainbow. I think they may have been misinformed. That sort of thinking may cause you to miss an awful lot of the good lot of the good stuff along the way.

For me everything is a perpetual effort to do what I do just a little bit better and it takes more and more effort just to move forward an inch or so. But not bothering is really not an option at all and still on the worst days is a real effort to do anything with a backdrop of depression that it would be easy sink back into again. The reality is we do what we do, and then like the song says “you go back Jack, do it again, wheel turning round & round” because the alternative doesn’t bare thinking about.

I do feel like an alien creature stranded in a strange land with odd unfathomable customs half the time,more and more I realise its not the place that’s changed its me. Like many others I have spent a fair portion of my adult life being told what to do and when to do it, but when those certainty’s and patterns dissolve what are we left with?

I am feeling really old right now.

The Conservatives are much more unpopular than they realise

Musings, other, , , , , , , , , ,

Well guess what, they have been pretty unpopular with me for quite  a while so not much change there.

Powered by Guardian.co.ukThis article titled “The Conservatives are much more unpopular than they realise” was written by Sunny Hundal, for theguardian.com on Saturday 27th April 2013 11.00 UTC

Much of modern politics is based on a series of confidence tricks. After Thursday’s “better than expected” (by 0.2 percentage points) growth figures, the mood around Westminster has changed. George Osborne claims the economy is “healing” and Tory MPs feel more convinced that, with a triple-dip recession avoided, the economy is on its way up. Only 0.4 percentage points the other way and it would have been a disaster. But Conservatives shouldn’t be so self-assured because, outside the Westminster bubble, they are much more unpopular than they realise or accept.

A few weeks ago, on the eve of the budget, a flurry of polls showed Labour had drawn level with the Conservatives on economic competence, and voters were losing faith in the chancellor. In another poll, people were more likely to reject an argument on the economy if Osborne advocated it.

This kind of unpopularity is extraordinary for a chancellor who has been in the job for less than three years. Most leftwingers think they know why (“they’re Tories”), but it’s curious that even conventional Westminster wisdom says Labour should be doing better on economic matters.

But there is no historical precedent for this; in fact Labour should be languishing way behind in the polls.

The key reason is that they were in power during the biggest economic crash of the past 80 years. Voters always blame the party in power for not preventing such big crashes, and take years to forget. The Conservatives were in power when Britain crashed out of the ERM in 1992, and it took the calamity of 2007 for them to be seen as better at managing the economy – a full 15 years later.

So why have people forgiven Labour so quickly? This question is more perplexing, as Labour has made two unpopular accusations against George Osborne since 2010: first that cuts to spending are too hard and too fast, and hit the poor hardest; secondly that austerity is hurting our economic growth and leading to stagnation. Neither of those arguments were popular for Labour to make.

Osborne has argued since 2009 that cuts need to be made to public spending to reduce Britain’s debts. Voters have not liked the cuts but a majority have always accepted their need. In fact more voters have consistently blamed Labour for the cuts than the coalition government. Voters have also mostly preferred more austerity over extra spending on growth. Similarly, on UK’s economic stagnation, most voters blame the previous Labour government, the Eurozone, banks or even higher oil prices for our mess.

If Labour are making arguments that voters don’t agree with, why aren’t more rejecting the party? Maybe the Tories are just feeling midterm blues? But this explanation does not make much sense either: Labour’s reputation for managing the economy increased after they were elected in 1997, and stayed high even during the midterm.

In other words, Labour has pushed ahead with unpopular (if true) arguments in the face of a very hostile media press. Plus, voters very clearly remember they were in charge when the economy crashed in 2007. And yet the Conservative record on economic competence is just barely ahead of Labour. It’s astounding that Labour aren’t languishing in obscurity in the polls.

This suggests to me that the issue here isn’t just the economy but something wider. The speed at which the Conservatives have become so unpopular says less about the cuts they’ve implemented and more about their overall brand. This is the practical impact of the failure of Cameron’s detoxification process, which died in the face of a weak leader unable to take on his own backbenchers. Westminster wisdom downplays Tory unpopularity to mask a hostility so deep that, as Ed Miliband cuttingly said at PMQs a few weeks ago, we were united when Osborne is booed at the Paralympics. It’s only a matter of time before the latest confidence trick also falls apart.

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