Four-Eyes

I develop software and one extremely useful set up is that of dual monitors. This allows me to see my code on one screen and the user interface on the other. However, of late I've observed that this is creeping into other areas of my life and even society in general.

No longer is one thing/view sufficient. When my wife and I watch TV invariably we will both also be on our mobiles or iPad at the same time. Similarly it seems seldom is there a conversation down the pub without one or more participants having a mobile in hand and a thumb beavering away.

With the arrival of Google Project Glass and the likes I can't help but think back to a saying along the lines of "a wealth of information creates a deficit of attention". Why is what we have never enough? Why must we always seek to cram more in? What happened to "less is more"? How can we appreciate the finer details of life if we choose to use a wide-angle/panoramic lens all of the time?

Mr Grey

I have always been blessed with a bit of baby face that has let me pass myself off as being a lot younger. At 27, if asked, many people would guess my age as being nearer 21. I was also blessed with a thick head of dark hair. The barber would always have to thin my hair when cutting it and often remarked that I had no fear of going bald. With the likes of George Clooney and Sean Connery going grey/sliver was never a concern of mine as a full head of silver seemed quite attractive to a large number of ladies adding a touch of distinction perhaps. 

Sadly, my genes disagreed with my barber. My father developed a 'helicopter' patch which gradually expanded forward along with an upwardly expanding forehead which finally met up leaving him bald on top. In my early thirties I could see the beginnings of this and it was amplified by the darkness of my hair. So, committed to going bad gracefully and escaping the comb-over I immediately trimmed my hair as short as it would go barring a razor blade. Thankfully I seemed to have the head shape to pull this off making it look more like a choice however a half head of grey hair was never going to achieve the Clooney look.

Despite starting to grey, the close crop has hidden this quite well as long as I cropped my hair right back once a fortnight. That is until recently. Alas that is not the case any more. Such is the extent of the grey /silver now that within one week it is clear as a bell and with it the chances of passing myself off as a thirty something have gone the way of the hair on the top of my head! Sob, sniff.

Ukuleles are cool

'Nuff said.

Curse of the home worker

The are many advantages to working from home but it is not so straight-forward as one might think, especially if you have a wife that works part-time as well as being a mum. Being at home frequently can make you become a household 'resource' despite the fact that it is your place of work.

Little things start to slip in. "Are you going to be in if I get the groceries delivered?". Of course once the groceries are delivered at the very least the fridge and freezer stuff needs to be put away.

"If I put a laundry load on can you hang it out?". Invariably it will rain and I will have to bring it in and then the sun will come out and I'll be expected to hang it back out and of course it's not two sheets, it's about 100 pairs of kids socks and knickers.

"Can you put the dinner in the oven at .... ?", which of course becomes "and turn it over/serve it up if I'm running late".

Arguments about doing the washing up have advanced with technology to arguing about who loads/unloads the dishwasher.

Then of course there is the ad-hoc school drop off/pick ups, trip to doctors, nipping out to pick up some urgent groceries, the watching the kids whilst "I pop out quickly" or "go to my exercise classes". 

When they get in from work there is also the air of "I've been busy/at work all day and you've been at home so it's  my turn for a break whilst you help out". 

Maybe I sound like a dinosaur but as the major source of income to the household I think my work at least deserve some consideration. Rant over. Still love her.

The last word

It has to be said, some of the best conversations and some of the best ideas are the ones at the end of an evening on the drink. lol

Size Matters

I think an important gauge in a relationship is the size of the things that annoy you or cause arguments. My wife is lazy very efficient/economical. Like Lewis Hamilton, if she can shave of a few seconds here and there through out the day she will. For example, we recently installed fitted wardrobes in our bedroom that have sliding doors. The doors alone cost around £300. My wife saves time by constantly leaving the doors open. Had I factored this in then as well as saving time we could have saved £300.

Another example is her keys, again she saves time by placing them at the first convenient place upon entry to our home. The place varies subject to what is most convenient at that particular moment. This does however seem to cause an issue the next day when she is late for work and cannot find them consequently spending five minutes running around the house cursing,  frantically looking for them.

Similarly, our kitchen has limited cupboard space. The best way around this limitation is to stack/organise items within the cupboard. My wife found this cost her valuable seconds and has found it far more efficient to grab an item and then when replacing it put it to the front of the cupboard and push everything else back. The challenge is further compounded by the fact that when doing the weekly shopping my wife purchases pretty much the same things each week saving valuable time by not checking what we already have. (It's not been unheard of to find four large boxes of All Bran taking up half a shelf). However, this seems to cost me time due to the fact that every time I open a cupboard, any cupboard, several items fall out and I then struggle to fit them back in the cupboard.

Of course my wife is not really lazy. She has a part-time job, looks after our kids, does the housework, etc, etc. So I guess my point is that if little things like these are my biggest gripes then I guess we're doing ok.

Paranoid Android

This morning was my eldest daughters leaving assembly at infant school as come September she'll be moving up to Junior school. It was an emotional event for many of the parents and staff made more so by the fact two key members of staff were leaving. During these reception years the kids have formed many friendships and as they move schools some will go to different schools, many will go to different classes, and yet more friendships will be made. This mornings proceedings kick off with an announcement that angers me every time I hear it: 

"Some parents have requested that photos not be taken of their children so please only take photos of your own children. Similarly please do not upload any such photos on to Facebook as it then becomes a Child Protection issue." 

For f*cks sake! The kids are packed in and the only way you're going to be able to isolate your child in a photo is to fit a telephoto lens and zoom in so only their face fills the picture and what's the point of that. It hardly captures the occasion. Now first off I do not blame the head teacher for making the announcement, and secondly I appreciate that paedophiles are the scum of the Earth but really?! 

This is paranoia to the extreme. I mean sure I wouldn't want someone taking a picture of my kids but if they're taking a picture of theirs and mine are standing next to them or in the background then so what. If that's a problem, what's with selling class photos? 

Just because these parents can't seem to look at their own kids without viewing them in a sexual light doesn't mean anyone else in the room does and if you're that f*cking paranoid then take them out of the assembly to protect them and let everyone else get on with capturing a key event in their kids childhood. If we're not careful we're going to end up with a generation that only has close up facial photographs of their school years. 

Rant over.

Billy Nomates

Fed up with living in my box, an unsuccessful day at work, and my unsuccessful attempt to convince my wife by text that I was Mr Grey,  I needed to get out of the house last night. I'd told myself earlier in the day that I would go for a run. Middle age spread has been setting in a bit of late as my metabolism, that had once allowed me to scoff at dieters and exercisers, seemed to have gone into early retirement (probably about the only part of me that will ever experience early retirement) and was now just leaving an advertising hoarding for Pirelli. 


The weather was having one of it's 'special' days. It was twenty degrees, the sun was shining, the rain torrential, and the hail stones were the size of M&M's. Yes, it's British summertime at it's finest. Given all that, my motivation to run was on par with wanting to take a shower in Auschwitz. I was feeling less than inspired and started to toy with a question that has existed since time began. Exercise or pint?

There was a definite lean towards pint and I had pretty much concluded that this was the decisive action to be taken. Prepped to leave it suddenly dawned on me. It was quiz night. Bollocks! This meant the pub would be packed with over enthusiastic semi-retired/professional quiz teams who arrive early for their weekly pre-quiz treat of a meal leaving not a spare seat in the house. Furthermore once the quiz started the pub would be echoing with the voice of the quiz master booming over the tannoy. This is of course made worse by the fact the quiz master, a lad far too young to be having such a task in his social diary, falls under the spell of the microphone and starts thinking he's funny. He's not.

With this mind I sadly and slowly start to dig out my running gear and haul my ass and beer gut out of the door. Fortunately, the rain has now stopped and I start my runny, joggy, walky thing. I decide 5km will be adequate for a night I just don't want to run (which these days is most of them). It's tough and I can't quite work out whether I'm struggling mentally or physically, probably both. Every step of the way I just want to stop.

Whilst plodding on I wonder what happened to the me from last year, the me that ran 10km three times a week in under 45 minutes and that was on the days I wasn't doing weights. Yep, there was a big step between 40 and 41. I keep going knowing that if I stop I won't get started again and that having now run half the distance walking back in the rapidly cooling air was equally unattractive. Eventually I get home.

"Good run?", my wife asks.
"No!", I reply trudging up the stairs to the shower.

Standing in the shower I conclude that quiz night or not I've earned a pint. An earlier Facebook post fishing for pub company had failed and so I wandered up there on my own. On arrival I was pleased to see one bar stool left and stuck myself on it. The barmaid tried her best to be social but it was quiz night and she was busy.

So there I sat, Billy Nomates, at the bar supping at my glass. Of course I needed something to do other than gaze into mid air do I pulled out my mobile, logged on to the free wi-fi and browsed to BBC News. There you have it, I was a modern interpretation of the old guy sat in the pub reading the newspaper and you know what, it wasn't so bad. Head tucked down reading my phone everyone just left me to it and it was in many ways quite meditative. My own little bubble, mentally answering the quiz questions (which is always easier when you're not actually playing), reading the news, and supping my pint. I realise now that when you see these old men sat on their own in the pub, maybe they came there to be alone, together.

Onward Christian soldiers

My wife, like many others, has fallen for the "mommy porn" 50 Shades of Grey trilogy and like many husbands and boyfriends there have been positive side effects. For example, on her first night of reading I had been down the pub with friends. Now under normal circumstances when I creep in from the pub late, with all of the subtleness of a hippopotamus ninja,s he would always be asleep, or at least pretending to be asleep, but no not that night ;o)

But here we are once again with a sense of frustration. One friend was moaning on Facebook how despite his wife reading 50 shades he was yet to reap him any rewards. One female friend responded to the thread that "if you want your wife to act a bit more like Ana, try acting a bit more like Mr Grey". 

Now, despite already benefiting from positive side effects, this sounded like good advice coming straight from the horses mouth. So with this idea in mind I send my wife a text, nothing brash (Mr Grey is too sophisticated for that). Far from a hot lustful reply the response I get was along the lines of  "Lol, so anyway ...".

There you go, dismissed in an instant. It's all very well you ladies rattling on about what you want from us men but first you're going to have to learn to recognise it when your presented with it!

WTF! I'm Stiffler!!

Ok, so hopefully I'm not that bad but I could certainly empathise with him in American Reunion. Looking back it wasn't so much the high school years that give me the fondest memories but the ten years that followed them. I had the best friendships and the best times. It's perhaps not then strange that I was the last one to to buy a property, the last one to get married, and the last one to start a family. 

Perhaps one of the hardest things is the way friends behaviour changed towards me. One day I'm the life and soul of the party, the guy people have the best times with. Then, without me changing, they started to move on and in some ways I got left behind or became surplus to requirement. Before long I realised I was the only one at the party. Like Stiffler, deep down I didn't want the party to end but as the saying goes 'all good things come to an end'. 

Gradually as friends got married and started families I saw less and less of them. As they acquired more responsibilities they became more sensible, and rightly so. In the meantime I was living life by one of my own ethics which was 'as long as I don't have a mortgage I'm not gonna take any sh!t from anyone'. Another movie quote that strikes a chord on this note is from Horrible Bosses:

"Quick story, my grandmother came to this country with twenty dollars in her pocket. She worked hard her whole life and never took sh!t from anyone. When she died, she had turned that twenty dollars into two thousand dollars. That sucks! You know why she didn't succeed? Because she didn't take sh!t from anyone. The key to success, and they will not teach you in business school, is taking sh!t."

This is probably a good reason why at almost thirty, like Stiffler, I was still doing jobs instead of laying the foundations of a career. Something which has cost me in later life. To many extents I am still just doing jobs and lack the financial security a career offers. So do I wish I had left the party earlier? Hell no! 

However, I do wish I'd started a career whilst partying, as I now realise growing up and having 'old skool fun' need not have been mutually exclusive. The things I miss from that time in my life is the tomfoolery, the lack of any pretence, not caring what anyone thought, making fun a priority. Sometimes things are best left as fond memories because things do change. I still don't want the party to end, there just isn't a party any more. 

Gratitude List

I remember hearing someone once say how everyday when they woke up they wrote a list if all of the things that they were grateful for in their life. This is a lovely idea, too often the mid life ... re-evaluation ... focuses on what is missing from our lives without giving enough consideration as to what we already have.

Where is the love ...

... films about couples who have been married over 10 years and aren't experiencing some kind of life event like having a baby, getting over an accident/illness, children getting married, dying, etc etc??? I'm sure there may be the odd exception, I just can't think of any. Most romantic films are about new relationships. These are of course new, exciting, full of unknowns, in short, everything that an established relationship is not. That does not mean that new relationships are better, they are just at a different stage.

These movies are just capturing the start of a relationship which, if successful, will one day become an  established relationship. In the day-to-day goings on of an established relationship there are not many unknowns, not much that is new, and perhaps not much that is exciting and this is exactly what they are meant to be, stable, predictable, secure. 


During the initial phase one overlooks any shortcomings or annoyances in a partner and one focuses on the good. If not careful over time the polarity of this viewpoint can reverse. The good points get overlooked, or taken for granted, and then even little annoyances seem to grab the attention. Maybe its like adrenaline, when at risk and pumped full of adrenaline you fail to feel the pains but when the situation is normal and good even the smallest pain stands out. 

Compromised or Compromise?

Uni-on [noun]

1. the act of uniting two or more things.
2. the state of being united.
3. a number of persons joined or associated together for some common purpose

Something to prove?

Ok, a bit off topic. I've often suspected that by and large what you see of people is driven more by insecurity than anything else. Of these insecurities I feel frustrated by peoples need to try and prove things to others. You can see it an so many aspects of their lives. Marketeers are of course are well aware this and successfully manipulate these insecurities to create markets (or victims of their will power).

Take for example clothing and the boom in brands to try help people pass themselves off as middle class or having some degree of income/wealth. Those with class/money don't wear labels (at least not in an emblazoned fashion). They do not need to, they are what or who they are and so do not feel the need to try and convince others of their status in life. It's only those that are not that try and convince us otherwise. Of course we do not see this just in clothing but all aspects of life where materials possessions are involved.

All possessions are but props in life. Take two people from opposite ends of the scale and strip them of all of their possessions (you're mentally picturing them naked now aren't you). In this scenario what marks one person out as being better than the other? What makes one persons love of his family better than the others? What allows you to measure one as more successful than the other? How is one persons happiness measured as being superior to the others?

I am not suggesting that possessions aren't important or have their place. Just that the choosing of them should be solely influenced by what you, whether as an individual/a couple/family, want not because of what others think of them. I wear what I wear because I like it, no other reason. My clothing is cheap but I like how it looks and feels and it means I don't get arrested for public nudity. I can afford the middle class labels but fail to see the value add. To me a t-shirt is a t-shirt regardless of the label. The sad thing is that the victims of the marketeers feel giving in to their insecurities makes them better than those who do not. Twisted huh?

Want, Need, Would like

One of my annoyances in life is hearing what people want. Not because I have a problem with what they want. I have a problem with their use of the word want. All too commonly, what they mean is 'would like' and there in lies the problem. If you 'need' something then it is a necessity. If you 'want' something then it is desired. If you 'would like' something then all you are doing is expressing a desire in a non-committal manner. 

It reminds of a story, I cannot remember the exact details but as with all good urban legends I remember the punchline. The story is of a young man who 'wants', he seeks the advice of a mentor who 'has' and the young man repeatedly keeps asking 'how'. Finally, the mentor leads him into the sea and holds the young mans head underwater. At first the young man is confused, then after a few seconds he tries to lift his head out of the water. The mentor resists and continues to hold the young mans head underwater. Getting more desperate the young tries to force his head up but to no avail. Eventually as he is running out of breath he starts to flail and lash out wildly at the mentor until eventually the mentor yields and the young man is able to come up for air. Confused and angry he asks the mentor why he was trying to drown him. The mentor replies along the lines of "only when you want something as much as you wanted to breathe just then, will you find a way and do what needs to done to achieve it'. Or something like that ...

When people tell me that they 'want' something in life I always want to ask them what they are doing about it. What is there plan? What steps are they taking towards achieving it? There is the crux of my frustration. The answer most commonly eludes to 'nothing'. What they mean is 'would like' or put another way, they'd take it if someone handed it to them on a plate. When someone 'would like' something it leans more towards desire but without the compulsion to get off one's arse and do something about it. 

Being honest about what one needs, wants and would like leads to contentment. I know that if I really needed or wanted something then I'd be doing something about it. If it's just something I would like then it's probably not all that important to me.

Because you're worth it!

Or are you????

The media constantly seem to be telling us that we deserve more. Better sex, more money, fantastic holidays, nice cars, you name it. Of course in most cases it's because they want to sell us something. Almost instinctively we answer this question 'yes' because that's what we'd all like to believe and of course the marketeers know this.

Perhaps before answering this question we should ask ourselves the question, why? Why do we deserve more? What have we done that warrants all of these things? A common term used with regard to the current generation is that of entitlement. It's is the older generations that raise this criticism because it seems they were brought up with an entirely different ethos. They were brought up under the belief that 'you reap what you sow' or put more commonly, 'you get what you deserve' which in short translates to 'you've currently got what you currently deserve and if you deserved more you'd have it'.

Of course this doesn't sit well with our ideals and maybe it's not something we want to acknowledge but in 9 out of 10 cases it's probably spot on. It seems that somewhere along the lines we've been sold a dummy. Somewhere along the lines someone started to convince us that just doing the ordinary day to day things (working hard, raising a family, etc) that our elders did just to get by suddenly entitles us to 'more' than they ever got.  Where is the justification?

When children leave home it seems that they want to walk straight into what they've just walked out of. Perhaps not a house but the 'luxuries' with in it (nice furniture, tv's, computers, games consoles, media players, etc, etc). The parents home represented the rewards of years of work and effort. How can it be conceivable that someone starting out should have anywhere near the same?

I'm not just referring to material things either. It is already acknowledged that the standard of living or quality of life has been increasing with each generation. Perhaps we should be content with this fact and if we desire more, then maybe we should get off our arses and do something to deserve it.

A breath of fresh air

I've always believed that we should derive the greatest pleasures in life from the simplest of things. Thanks to capitalism, we do seem to have to pay for most things these days but they do still say the best things in life are free. Following my post about living in a box, I've noticed something very simple that gives me a lot of pleasure. Fresh air.

At present I have a stinking cold and the accompanying lethargy. However, due to the extremely high levels of rain this year not only have my lawns been thriving, I haven't had a chance to cut them for over a month. Although, I like the idea of gardening my motivation is usually embarrassment. Unfortunately for me, and my neighbours, I do seem to live in a neighbourhood were people take some pride in their house and I suspect a touch of underlying one-up-manship in a few cases. The fact that the appearance of my house is not high up on my agenda right now must annoy a few them, particularly during the recent Euro 2012 where we alone proudly hung out the St. George's cross introducing a level of chaviness to the street.

So despite being knackered and snotty yesterday I felt compelled to try and at least cut the front lawn which was looking more like a meadow or nature reserve. Though I got rained on briefly, I found the fresh air wonderful. 

As a kid I was very ourdoorsy. I camped, went fishing, enjoyed cycling and the likes. I was lucky that across the road from our house were woodlands and fields and often, especially at weekends and during holidays, I would have breakfast and set off to play in the great outdoors not returning until it was time for supper. I guess, in this respect, I spent much of this time looking at, smelling, feeling, listening to nature and I miss these simple pleasures.

From time to time when I have mustered up the energy for a run I enjoy running cross-country and it acts as a brief reminder of these happy times. Running by the river is what prompted me to get some fishing gear again, and also to dig out my old canoe. I've yet to find the time to use them but just having them as an option feels good.

This morning I had to take one of the cars for an MOT. Whilst I waited I took advantage of the complimentary coffee and sat out on their little patio. Despite being in the middle of an industrial estate, once again the breathe of fresh air was good, slightly tinged with industrial-ness, but still good. Maybe even just the feel of a breeze works.

Living in a box

I think there has been a catalyst to my recent mental ramblings. I work from home. In principal its great. No wasting time and money or damaging the environment commuting. It allows me great flexibility in helping out with the kids. I don't need to wear a suit and tie, in fact I can work in my pants!

But it's not all happy pant wearing work schedules, there are some downsides. It can be hard to discipline yourself when you most need to. Work hours seem to go out of the window and because you're at home people sometimes call you when they're at home, like evenings and weekends. Also, when you leave for a place of work the kids know you have gone to work. When you're sitting in the next room it's not always an easy concept for them to grasp when you keep dismissing them and asking them to leave.

Perhaps one of the biggest negative parts is the isolation. In my previous job I was Mr Social and had a great social life around my work. Now I'm just a voice on the end of a phone, not even that most days, an email. I often do not leave the house, sometimes for days. Even then when I do it just for a local trip often less than a mile. I cannot help thinking this isolation is magnifying the problem. Some days the silence is deafening and that's when the mind start to wander ...

P.S. No that's not me pictured in the box.Yet.

As good as it gets

"Look at me, jerking off in the shower... This will be the high point of my day; it's all downhill from here. "

Kevin Spacey / American Beauty

Oops, wrong quote but similar sentiment ..

"What if this is as good as it gets? "

Jack Nicholson / As Good As It Gets

Isn't this what it's all about? Or at least a significant part of it. Doesn't this thought scare the sh!t out of us? Guess it depends upon the current state of 'this'.

One man can make a difference

Ok, time out for a quick example of a life less ordinary.

It always amazes me the concept that an individual can make a huge impact in their lifetime. It demonstrates the power that is within each of us. I'm not just talking about the likes of Gandhi, Bill Gates, Mother Theresa, Genghis Khan, etc and I'm especially not talking about celebrities though they sometimes do. 

Though their names don't always go down in history I'm talking about everyday folk, often unsung heroes, that we occasionally get to hear of. They exemplify the life less ordinary and yet in many ways what they do is ordinary and within all of us. Maybe it is how they do it, why they do it, but most notably is the effect they put it to.

Matt Harding is an example of this, and if you've not already visited his site then I implore you to www.wherethehellismatt.com . Here is a regular guy, doing something that any of us could of, but look at the effect that he has put a chance opportunity to. His 2008 video has been viewed over 43 million times! Put aside the how or the why and just look at the positive comments on his YouTube videos and Facebook page. His life is definitely less ordinary, and many people are appreciative of it.