Charitable

How do you explain to someone, without actually explaining, that you will not buy their raffle tickets (all proceeds to local charities, prizes donated by local businesses) because you already gave more than your allocation for the month?

Not an easy few words.

So I kept my few words to an absolute minimum, and yet still experienced a sense of guilt. It probably doesn't matter that I already gave to one of the beneficiary charities a few weeks ago…

Are we programmed to donate socially, judged unfairly when we don't?

Probably. And probably.

I always have picked 'my' charities to suit my history, circumstances and mood. And occasionally because my friends or acquaintances believe passionately-enough to mention them. Or in response to media-led frenzies. It's a perfect storm when all three influences coincide.

Yeah, because I'm only human.

Paris

Life is complicated. Living it is easy. Put one foot in front of another, breathe in, breathe out, drink, blink, eat, pee, poo, sleep, work, play, laugh, cry. And then it's over.

There is more, of course. Aspiration. The latest smartphone, TV, games console, car, a house, family, friends, safety.

And then there's freedom.

Those of us who have it are incredibly lucky. Yet still we moan about the overreaching of the states we live in. Surveillance everywhere, taxes for female sanitary items, too many traffic wardens…

Imagine being invaded by a foreign power, your independence taken away, large men with brutal attitudes and frightening weapons always in your face for reasons you cannot understand. Imagine your school, your playground, hospital, workplace, all rendered unusable by decades of conflict. Imagine your home bulldozed one day just because someone wants the plot of land it sits on. Imagine a peaceful day broken by a knock on the roof, followed only minutes later by the destruction of your home, your neighbourhood.

Imagine all of this for every day of your life, no hiding place, no security, no hope of ever influencing the people who so callously disregard you. No hope of ever getting them to change their attitudes, so in thrall are they to the bigots who elect them and pay for their advanced weapons systems.

I cannot.

I cannot begin to imagine my life being shaped by the influences that cause someone to become a terrorist. But what I can do is attempt to at least understand why.

I'm not about to start down that road right now, not in a blog post. Mine isn't a knee-jerk reaction shaped by the latest news, the cause forgotten about in a desire to have someone else do something about it. Something quick. Retribution.

Even in my comfortable existence I've not forgotten one fact, apparently beyond the wit of a sizeable proportion of the people commenting on the Paris killings of Friday 13th November 2015… And all the other atrocities carried out in the past in the name of our freedoms to give us our comfortable lives.

It's a statement that covers a multitude of 'sins.'

Religions don't kill people, people kill people.

Bucket (2015-10-17)

We're supposed to prepare a bucket list* – stuff we'd like to do, accomplish, experience before meeting the Grim Reaper, kicking the proverbial bucket. Death, it's something to be prepared for, not by winding one's life down but by living it.

Right, here's my first public list, starting with the things I've done already:

  • Visit the USA. (Five times.)
  • Visit Canada, see Niagara Falls. (Once.)
  • Visit Egypt. (Twice.)
  • Visit Amsterdam, see the red-light district. (Half-done, probably the only man alive to fail at this simple task.)
  • Visit Bruges, see Hieronymous Bosch's triptych. (Twice and once.)
  • Propose marriage somewhere extraordinarily romantic in the most romantic way imaginable. (Not in a port on a ferry! Maybe prior to a renewal of vows?)
  • Get married, have 2.4 children, get comfortable. (2 girls, currently 3 pets, comfortable is years away.)
  • Visit somewhere hot, chill out for 2 weeks. (We got married, honeymooned in Antigua, I nearly relaxed.)
  • See live NFL American Football. (Cleveland Browns.)
  • See live US College Football. (Bowling Green.)
  • See live Friday night high school Football. (Wauseon OH.)
  • Stand in front of a piece of art that won't let me go, (Cleveland, a typical Mark Rothko piece, 3 horizontal bands, perfect.)
  • Visit London, England. (I'd seen Washington DC, Ottawa, Cairo, Edinburgh, Cardiff – but not my native country's very own capital city, at least not until literally 2 weeks prior to this post!)
  • Try the cats' food to see if it's 'good enough.) (Don't try this at home children!)

Unfulfilled ambitions:

  • Read my copy of 'things to do now you're 50' and do some of those things now I am,
  • Get a UK Premier League football season ticket and redevelop a familiarity with the sport. (I used to have a Championship-level one with Burnley FC),
  • Learn to swim. (To join my family in the pool),
  • Ride a camel, (Egypt would be favourite, when 'things' settle),
  • Triage my science fiction collection, broaden my horizons,
  • Clear out the garage, even though a car will not fit,
  • Regain the patience to read again. (I used to have a voracious appetite for books, it's passed on to my oldest daughter),
  • Visit at least 2 more European countries. (Italy for my wife [she wants to see Florence, I want to visit Pompeii] and France [e.g. Euro Disney]),
  • Save up for a cruise (mini cruises across to Europe do not count),
  • Reduce my reliance on technology,
  • Live a little…

Now-impossible:

  • Become a pilot, spaceman, cowboy.
  • Turn back the clock to study for and get a university mechanical engineering degree, for a somewhat different career. (Or leave home to work for the UK Ordnance Survey as a cartographer.)
  • See Talking Heads play live. Anywhere.

Not complete, for this is a first draft at a point half-way through my life.**

Do you know something, I've been bloody lucky.

* Thanks to @bsag on App.net for providing the inspiration for this post. Just a few words, but so well-timed.

** Ha! I should be so lucky.

Lendl

All I can think of right now is Ivan Lendl's sex face.

I'm sorry to bring this up.

I should go and cook hotdogs for the girls, perhaps that'll take my mind off it?

Stony

A variation on a theme; a joke told to my daughters a few minutes ago:

"What did the Italian man say when asked why he was leading Bambi, who was wearing 2 eye patches?

'I've-a no i-dea!'"

I'm imagining your response, dear reader, is the same my girls gave me.

My wife didn't tut. Progress.

Baz’s Law

The probability that footnotes could be added to a social media post* whilst retaining meaningful content in at least 2 component parts is proportional to the number of available characters per new post but tends towards zero below 256.

Barrie Turner. (@bazbt3)

Version 1.0, 2015-03-09.

*The separation between email, social media posts and instant messages is not as rigid as in the Internet's infancy. The word 'post' is used here both for brevity's sake and to limit this document's terms of reference.

Catharty-ism

My children's discipline is a constant source of frustration to me. I've spent the last few years being consistent in my approach to it, even with the obvious discord it engenders. I've honestly thought I've being doing the right thing. Apparently not.

Today though, something remarkable happened…

For a long time I've been threatening (yes!) to throw toys away. My wife hates the idea and, even when I've implemented the threat in the past it's ultimately failed for a number of reasons – not limited to rescuing whatever's in the bin or forcing (yes!) me to do it. I've apparently been unreasonable.

Perspective may be a worthwhile thing to introduce at this point?

We're overrun with toys of all shapes and sizes, spent paper & card, paint pots & brushes, pens & pencils. Every room in the house apart from the 'master' bedroom, toilets and bathroom has mess wherever the girls (nearly 7 & 4) finish what they're doing. Bedrooms are occasionally, in a very real sense, impassable – bedclothes, dressing-up clothes, toys strewn across the floor, beads and sharp pointy things underfoot to cause maximum discomfort to unwary adults.

One of the very worst things to deal with is the horrendous number of stickers that appear on every surface in the house. They stick to furniture, floors, are run through the washing machine, clog the vacuum cleaner, stick to work clothes, to bare feet and cats…

It's been going on, as I mentioned above, for a few years now and despite my best efforts the lessons I've been trying to teach simply haven't sunk in. It would be fair to say that my wife and I don't exactly see eye-to-eye on matters of child discipline. You could say I've gone way past the point of being reasonable about it, but without any visible improvement using other methods (naughty step included) I thought it would eventually pay off.

Today though I'd just had enough. I'd asked the girls to get all of their art stuff together and make a pile of it, and put everything else in another pile. We'd then figure out between us what to keep and what to throw out. It worked until I figured out I'd got in the way – at which point I'd made the mistake of believing both girls' suggestions they'd have it done soon.

An hour later, and 2-1/2 hours in to the exercise, and after frequent reminders I gave up. No, I hadn't expected concentration for that amount of time, there'd been breakfast, juice, a bit of telly as a temporary reward…

So, all of the stuff not already sorted into the 'art stuff' pile went in bin bags, ditto all of the other toys. All this while the girls watched and asked awkward questions.

Then, the remarkable thing: my wife didn't stop me, nor did she suggest the toys shouldn't be binned. You could have slapped me down with a small wet fish! Amazing!

To spare my oldest daughter the pain of seeing her toys going into bags my wife decided to take her shopping – there's a rather important milestone-y family birthday party next weekend, and we'd also nearly run out of ketchup! My youngest daughter can still be bribed with TV, so that's what happened whilst I 'tidied up' in the back of the kitchen.

The back of our kitchen has in the past been called 'The Morning Room' (previous owners) and by us 'The Breakfast Room' (though we've never really used it as such), and now it's 'The Area' (christened thus by the girls) for art and general messing around. It's been allowed to fill up with colouring books, sticker rolls, beads, aprons, discarded paint pots, brushes, and especially completed works of art…

So all the paper and card and felt and plastic went in bin bags, and with it anything I deemed unusable. Anyone more sentimental than I would have baulked at destroying their children's precious memories, but not man-of-steel here, no. I thought about the implications, of course.

My wife and oldest daughter returned home from the shop some time after I'd finished. I helped with the unpacking, feeling good about something for the first time in a week-and-a-half.

We had another brief chat about what I'd done, she suggested sorting through the toys later – a not unreasonable thing to do given the circumstances – and I put the last bits of shopping away.

You could say that the morning had occasioned a cathartic response in me, the result of which is the 4 (yes four) bin bags (items taken only from the front & dining rooms and 'The Area') waiting next to the outer door in the utility room for my wife to sort out later. And, more-importantly for my sense of well-being, a sense of a job well-done and a feeling of an achieved consensus.

Success!

The very last item out of the very last shopping bag – another pack of stickers.

Flasher

I can only now bring myself to talk about it – such is the impact on my family.

On Sunday evening, wearing my trusty grey dressing gown, I flashed Mollie, our female cat.

Swinging dangly bits, hip sways, whatever real flashers do, I did, my wife looking on aghast. Mollie's normally inscrutable gaze faltered a little before she rolled onto her back, hands clasped cutely at her chest, legs 'akimbo.' Cute.

To me it felt liberating.

Giving an added sense of perspective, Mollie is coming up to her 4th birthday – all-but 7 months spent in our home (assuming the dates we were given are appropriate.)

And then it happened.

"You do know you just flashed your daughter," my wife said.

Ah.

Lubricant

We have a new liquid handwash. It's supposed to be scientifically formulated to minimise odours but doesn't quite get there. Now is not the time to mention the smells I'm…

The stuff inside the pump dispenser has an odd aroma – not fresh, not citrus-y or forest-y, not sensual or traditional, not exotically fruity, nor any combination of the preceding – just odd.

Around 40 years ago, before my family temporarily moved out during our home's refurbishment, my dad owned a lathe. It was fascinating and dangerous and, as a 0-10 year old, I wasn't allowed anywhere near it of course. Of course that didn't stop me from fiddling and, though I never turned a thing on it, it generated an obsession that…

Even without power, turning the chuck by hand, adjusting the gear train ratios to alter the shaft speeds and to sense the changed torque necessary to… heck even opening the main inspection panel was…

Its lubricating oil had a unique smell that fixed itself to my consciousness and remains with me to this day. Once it got on my fingers it was nigh-on impossible to shift that smell. I was extraordinarily careful to never get it on my sleeves – and of course failed.

Oh the irony of a thing supposed to shift smells evoking a memory of one so difficult to shift. Anyway, when we moved out, the lathe was sold.

This handwash alone hasn't just resurrected one memory, oh no. If I had a suitable metaphor to describe the oddness of what I'm feeling right now I'd use it. One after another, recollections are cascading towards me and, for the most part, they're good.

Just one thing stands out though – looking back it appears my dad really didn't understand my left-handedness.

Challenging

No. I'm not participating in a public fundraiser. I'm not challenging anyone else to do it, nor am I demanding they forfeit large sums of money if they fail.

A lot of people won't bother to ask what the Ice Bucket Challenge is for, concentrating merely on the social dimension. A lot will do it and donate to their favourite charity. Most, I hope, will donate to the MND/ALS charity in their region – and have fun doing so.

There's no sugar-coating this, so here goes.

Me? I've painful memories of my dad's last days to battle with. It's enough. Ok, so I donated ÂŁ25 this time round. No fanfare, no fuss, just went online and pressed buttons.

There's no escaping the simple fact that Motor Neurone Disease is a fatal disease. The odd exception stays around for longer than most but it's not much of a life.

Nearly twenty eight years after his death in hospital some memories remain undimmed. Not the kind that return on seeing a nearly-forgotten photo. Not those based solely on the photo with no memory of the actual event, no. Powerful stuff.

After the diagnosis my dad knew. And knowing, he gave up, or at least that's how I remember it. There's no shame in that, no recriminations from the people he left behind. None.

When your wife and son have to wipe, wash, dry and dress you, when eating becomes difficult, when breathing becomes a strain, the very very worst thing remains – the mind is…

My dad did crossword puzzles when other pastimes became impossible. He did them in his head. Let's face it, no longer being able to hold a pen can't be much fun. He'd struggle to make himself understood when we filled the words in but upon completing the grid together the sense of achievement, the triumph, the bright eyes – if only for a moment – gave me an inkling of how important this achievement was.

I also remember the good times – that's the important thing to remember here.

ÂŁ25 seems a pitifully small sum of money to give, especially if the current massive outpouring of goodwill advances the understanding of MND/ALS and eases the suffering of those whose lives it destroys.

Please don't make the mistake of thinking you can have a bucket emptied over your head and then give your money to just any charity – the biggest do not need your money right now. Cancer affects much greater numbers. Fighting cancer is important. Everyone I know has someone in their lives who's survived, or succumbed to The Big C. Yet…

The effects of natural or man-made disasters are, nowadays, there for all to see – often within a scant few hours of the events happening. Such things are often forgotten a scant few hours or days later – there's no personal connection thus the average human simply can't grasp the impact.

More fleeting events such as, oh I don't know, the continuation of famine and poverty worldwide caused by the diversion of funds away from those who need them most, cause me to stop and think.

Just after the shock of 9/11 I donated money, like many, to the American Red Cross's appeal. My donation was misplaced. Blood donations had to be destroyed as the existing infrastructure was unable to cope. A vanishingly small percentage of the blood got through to 9/11 victims. Sure it swelled their coffers but…

I failed to donate after Hurricane Katrina wiped out much of e.g. New Orleans. If the richest country in the world cannot look after its own why should I, a man of moderate means living in the UK, even think of doing so?

There's nothing wrong with donating time or money. There's nothing wrong with feeling better that you've helped by giving money. I'm not going to get into 'Liking' or retweeting though – suffice it to say I know people who think pressing a button HELPS!

Right now it's great that MMD/ALS is, even tenuously, high in the public's consciousness. Don't be an arse and say they're 'stealing' from more established causes. Don't try to justify your charity's position by saying 'no-one OWNS #icebucketchallenge.' Some little person somewhere managed to do something innovative without the benefit of advertising departments and focus groups – and it worked. Just accept it.

There's nothing wrong with a spur-of-the-moment donation either. On this 9/11 (ok, 11 September 2014) a Manchester, UK dogs home was the victim of a nasty, cowardly arson attack which killed around 60 and caused a massive surge in donations. By lunchtime the day after ÂŁ622,000 (a cool million US$) had been raised. It easily doubled in the few days following – something that no-one could have predicted.

"Think first, donate later." It's how I operate now. I happen to believe it's the responsible way to approach the thorny issue of wanting to do something good whilst staying within the confines of an ever-shrinking pot after all the bills have been paid.

This post originally aired 20 September 2014.