Scenes from the Holiday Season 1: Yuletide Lockout

I went to meet a colleague on site and while I was waiting (turns out I got the day wrong), I noticed a very distressed student kocking on the doors to the building. I had seen him come down from his car a few minutes earlier, dressed in a t-shirt, ripped jeans and no shoes (it's 6 degrees C outside). A couple of his fellow students had gone in a few minutes earlier without a problem, so I figured he was just trying to get their attention. He banged on the door a few times... then went around to another door. When he came back to the first door, he was markedly more upset. It was only when I got out of my car that I noticed that he was SCREAMING at the top of his lungs, calling everyone inside the building 'stupid fuckers'. When he took a break from pounding the woodwork and hollering obscenities, I said... 'Can I help?' He replied - 'Yeah, you can get me in this fucking building. I've got an exam and the fuckers have locked the door!!. I started to say 'OK, I'll just go get a porter...', but only got to 'OK, I'll...' when he returned to beating the door down and screaming (I think to me, though he wasn't looking in my direction), 'I just went to get my medication!!!'. Naturally a few questions popped into my brain... is he mentally unwell? What medication did he need? Was it the one that allowed him to look outside and see that it was freezing outside and therefore to put on shoes? I guessed it was probably more serious, as he also appeared to have some food and an epipen of some kind. 

'OK... let me just go get the porter so he can let you in. Don't worry, I'll only be a few minutes'. I jogged off, looking back to see that he was still screaming at the door and pounding away. I got back a few minutes later, having contacted the porter and asked him to come let the poor guy in. 'Someone is coming now. He won't be long,' I said, in my best Cesar Millan voice. I was tempted to make hypnotising steer horns with my pinky and thumb, but I resisted.

When I got back to the distressed student, I could see that he'd cut his hand from the knocking. 'This is seriously going to affect my grades,' he said. 'They did it on purpose, the fuckers'. 

I tried to soothe him: 'OK, I'm sorry... we'll get you in, don't worry. Someone will be here in just a minute.' 

'They locked the door on purpose to keep me out,' he said - apparently unsoothed.

'Oh, I don't think it's that... see, the door is on a numeric keypad,' I said - again, trying to abate his conspiracy theories (although secretly I suspected the Locker-Outers might be in cahoots with the Shoe Stealers).

'I KNOW!! I just forgot the code!! LET ME IN YOU FUCKERS!!!' (He'd returned to frantically thrashing the door frame).

At this point, I probably could have been more compassionate but I just couldn't resist asking, 'Wait, so you know the code?'

'No, I don't know it! I forgot it!'

'So you USED TO KNOW the code?'

'Yeah, but we always prop open the door with a chair.'

Thankfully (for me and for him), the porter then ambled up the path and said 'Would you like the code?'.

'Yes please!' we both said, with the same degree - though I suspect different sources - of desperation.

The porter gave us the code. The student tried it. Twice. Then he resorted to calling the lock a fucker. I tried the code and the door opened. The student raced off without even so much as a 'Thank you, fucker'. 

Don't get me wrong, I feel for the guy. Sitting an exam is never nice, and it can't be much better when you spend the first 20 minutes of it beating your knuckles bloody on the door to the building. I really hope he calmed down enough to do his best on that exam. If not, I hope the invigilator is able to grant him mitigating circumstances and allow him to resit. Either way, maybe he should watch this clip and remember that it's almost Christmas. After all, if he's been good, maybe Santa will bring him some fucking shoes.

Things That Matter

I think that I, like most people (I'd imagine) have different reputations in different circles. To some, I'm incredibly logical and very organised. To others, I'm religiously spontaneous and dishevelled.  And although I may not be the same things to everyone, I can assure all of my acquaintances that some things DO matter to me consistently. Here is a  brief list of some of the less obvious (I think it goes without saying that my family and friends 'matter' a great deal. Well, it would have gone without saying, but I just said it didn't I?).

1. I care that peanut butter goes on the bread first - then the jam. And not every sandwich needs butter. If there is some kind of spreadable dairy in the filling (especially when the name of the filling includes 'butter' itself), you don't need another layer of it on the bread.
2. Manners matter, even to your closest friends and family. 'Please' and 'thank you' should be part of every   exchange of goods or services.
3. Grammar matters, even if spelling can be fluid. I accept that 'text speak' is changing language, and that using it is acceptable in certain dialogues. But if you're taking the time to use vowels and punctuation marks, use them properly, please.
4. It matters to me that the 'L' ear phone goes in my left ear, and the 'R' ear phone goes in my right ear. 
5. Swearing does not matter, and it does not indicate a lack of creativity or vocabulary (whatever my uptight teenage self might have said). Some of the brightest, kindest, most creative people I know swear like sailors. And, let's be honest: sometimes 'darn' just doesn't cut it.
6. Timekeeping matters. We live (predominately) in a world of fixed geography and predictable travel limitations. If you know that where you need to be is 10 minutes away, then leave 10 minutes before you need to be there. Be on time. If you know you're NOT going to be on time, call ahead. It matters.
7. Dark Socks are the work of the devil. 
8. Neckties are Dark Socks' suffocating evil twin.
9. Accuracy is important. I've said this a million times already: I hate exaggeration. If your point is good enough to make, it can be made with an honest account of the facts.
10. Listening is a skill, and it's one everyone should have. Don't ask me how I am, and then start to talk before I've finished my answer. Listen to what I have to say - I may surprise you. I promise to do the same.

Not exactly Baz Luhrmann 'Everybody's Free', but it'll do for now.

Wish You Were Here: The BBC

Even growing up in the States, I knew about the BBC (if only vaguely). I mean, it didn't carry Buck Rogers, Battlestar Galactica or Family Ties, but I still knew about it, and knew from my Greener friends that it had stuff worth watching. There was a time - as recently as the 90s - when British television had the (perhaps deserved) reputation as being a) boring and b) limited. When I first came here in 1992, there were 4 channels. Four. Two of those were BBC channels, one was a commercial station and the other one was Welsh language. We had to book one of the only two rooms in the dorm with a television to watch coverage of the '92 elections, and even that was a struggle. It's probably safe to say that my view of the BBC was very similar to most people's back then...

It's only been since moving here in 96, though, and gettting to see first-hand what the BBC has to offer that I've come to appreciate what a national treasure the Beeb really is. I loved my experience with PBS in the States, but I always felt that PBS was the perennially under-funded red-headed stepchild of American broadcasting. It survives in the shadows of commercial broadcasting and often is seen as a resource only for the more serious adults, or the less fortunate children. Thankfully, the BBC doesn't suffer the same financial pressures that PBS does, and because of that, exists in a league of its own when it comes to commercial-free broadcasting.

For those of you who don't know about how TV works in the UK, lemmie explain. No, there is too much; lemmie sum up. In the UK, everyone needs to be covered by a valid TV Licence if they watch or record TV as it's being broadcast. This includes the use of devices such as a computer, laptop, mobile phone or DVD/video recorder. A license to watch stuff in colour costs £145.50 a year, and a black and white license costs £49 a year. So everyone is meant to pay this license. The Government Bods have trucks the go around looking for people who are watching TV and trying to catch those who are doing it without having paid their license fee. It's a big deal. That money then goes to fund BBC broadcasting so that it can remain free of commercials. That's right... good programming AND no commercials! We don't have to choose one or the other! Sidenote: I was stunned last time I was home with the sheer volume of commercials on US television and with how many of them were selling some kind of prescription drug. Madness. Anyway... so yeah - we all chip in and the BBC makes stuff for TV, Radio and film that we like. That's the deal. There's a trust to make sure they act responsibly with our money, and there are literally hundreds of ways to communicate with BBC entities and let them know how they're doing.

Of course, the existence of the BBC - and the way it's funded - can be justified by its work in sports, journalism and documentary series alone. The fact that you've got arguably the planet's most objective and respected news resource (not perfectly so, but not bad) running 24/7 speaks for itself. David Attenborough alone has done more to expand the world's knowledge of natural history than all of the textbooks every printed. By the by... if you haven't seen the 'modern' stuff (The Blue Planet, Planet Earth, Life and Frozen Planet) then you need to get these in your life. They. Will. Amaze. You.

But you don't have to stop there - the BBC is committed to producing interesting content for everyone, not just nerds like me. In recent years, it's expanded from 2 TV channels (BBC1 and BBC2) and 5 radio stations (Radio1, 2, 3, 4 and 5 - OK, so naming stuff isn't the BBC's greatest strength) to encompass a truly comphrehensive portfolio of broadcasting interests - from Welsh Language and other regional broadcasting, to an entire network of TV for kids, to Asian music and urban DJs. Seriously - the Beeb does it all, and it does it all without adverts.

If you're wondering what's made me climb atop this particular soapbox, it probably has something to do with last night's episode of Frozen Planet. It was one of the first times that I've regretted not having an HD Sky+ Box, and it's made me seriously consider the upgrade. Beautiful, dramatic, educational. I mean: duelling narwhals. Need I say more?

Thank God for the BBC. Have a look here and see if there isn't SOMETHING you love. Go on: I dare ya. Monty Python? Yup. Family Guy? Yup. Formula One? Yup. Olympics, Wimbledon, World's Strongest Man? Yup yup yup. Dr.Who, Torchwood, Top Gear, The Simpsons, Robot Wars and The Secret Life of Plants. COME ON!!

TUEnESDAY: Lana Del Ray

More often than not, I get my ideas for TUEnSDAY from late night BBC Radio 2 or the t'interweb. Imagine my delight when BBC Radio 1 played something I think is musically beautiful. I don't get to say that much about music played on R1... there's not enough music during the time I listen (driving to and from work), and what does get airtime tends to be, for my middle-aged ears, far too mainstream, far too loud and (if I'm honest) far too young to move me in that way very often. But this song touched me today. It was a welcome respite in a day that, for a lack of a better phrase, pretty much sucked ass. And why it sucked isn't really important - neither is the fact that, realistically on the Worldwide Scale of Suckiness, my one relatively crap day today is probably still better than most people's best day - and I'm not saying that to be boastful, but to admit that I'm mindful that I am very, very fortunate. Whatever... I was feeling a bit shit today, and this song rescued me for four minutes and fifty sultry seconds.

I gather from a bit of eSearch that Lana Del Ray is something of an enigma. Somewhat refreshingly, she doesn't have a Wikipedia entry - so what info there is on her, I've gotten from her Facebook page and reviews online. Born and residing in New York, she sites as her influences a mix of artists from Britney Spears to the Beach Boys, Bob Dylan and Leonard Cohen. From her GQ.com Q&A article, I can't tell whether she's down-to-earth, ultra-cool or a bit of a ice queen. She's probably none of those, thosse being totally unrealistic and unhelpful labels that don't really describe anyone in totality. So I don't yet know what to think of HER. But this song... this song I like. I'm almost reluctant to put the video link here... partly because apparently it's so viral that you've probably already seen it... and partly because the botox overkill in the video is almost enough to distract me from the soul in the voice. But, as one person has said, 'She's beyond talented with a timeless voice so why let a minor Botox injection get in the way of that?'

I love her voice. I love this song. A love song that talks about hanging out and playing video games? You had me at 'Azeroth.' I want to dive a little deeper into Lana Del Ray - listen to some of her back catalogue and definitely keep an eye on her in the next few years. Join me, won't you...?

Two Ways Middle Age is Subtlely Kicking My Ass

Growing up, and especially in my 30s, I always knew that middle-age was coming. I also knew some of the more obvious ways that I’d know I was getting closer to it. Inevitable or just predictable, I knew that I’d encounter at least some of the following: My hairline (not exactly flattering to begin with) would creep up. My belly (again, never six-packed) would spread a bit more than I’d like. I’d spend fewer nights out on the tiles until dawn, and more evenings at home watching ‘Alf’ reruns. All of these things I expected – so when they started happening I knew that I was no longer approaching middle age, I was there. They were so obvious, so blatant… it was as if Nature had put up a missive billboard on the highway of my life that said ‘Stop kidding yourself.’

Unbeknownst to me, though, dear, sweet Mother Nature has also been putting up smaller signs, too – reminding me of my mortality in more subtle ways, just in case I missed that great big billboard. I've finally seen those less obvious hints, and there are at least two areas in which I'm now aware of my advancing maturity.

Music

Music may seem like an obvious one. But this isn’t music in the ‘I don’t understand how kids can listen to that crap’ kind of way. This is ‘modern music makes me react differently than it probably should.’ And it’s not that I’m not identifying with this music – I quite like some of the stuff in the charts – it’s that I don’t think I hear what some current artists want me to hear when I listen to their songs. For example, when I hear Eminem and L’il Wayne’s new song ‘No Love’, I’m sure they WANT me to think of tough, urban kids growing up and making it through some incredibly challenging times.  What I actually think of is this:

Sport

I still consider myself decently active. I am getting back into going to the gym regularly, and I still play fully-kitted American football against guys who are (literally) half my age. I’ve got two Defensive MVPs under my (expanding) belt this season, and have been reasonably happy with my game so far. Having said that – I expect to be hurting more and for longer now than I did when I played in my teens, 20s or even 30s. Approaching (and going past) 40, I knew I’d be a bit slower on the field and a bit quicker to feel injury. So I’m not at all surprised that all of those things are now true. But yesterday I played a round of golf in a collared shirt and chinos. The fact that I’m playing golf at all should have sent up all kinds of red flags about my impending retirement, but when you couple that with the fact that was in goddamned CHINOS and a polo shirt?? You might as well pass me the Ovaltine, because it’s 230 in the afternoon and time for bed. Chi-fucking-nos. The worst bit? I had brought shorts and a t-shirt to change into after work, and I CHOSE NOT TO. Woe. Is. Me.

Wish You Were Here: Fourteen Seven Forty-Nine

Dear Mom…

Even though I’m sure I missed a few of these over the years, your birthday is one of the times when I miss you most. Especially on a day like today, when the sun is shining and my little Peni is so full of what you called ‘hootzpah’. I can only imagine that she’s a lot like you were when you were this young – I only have the one photo of you as a child (about 7, I think), but she has the Gillespie five-head, our wispy sandy-blonde hair, dimples and looks so much like me that I’m certain that she’s got only your genes on display. I know you see her and look over her, but I sure as Hell wish you could have met her. I know that being a Grandma was something you wanted desperately and it will always be one of my biggest regrets that I couldn’t give you that before you left. Still, she’s here and I’ll make sure she knows everything about you as she grows up.

I’ll be meeting up later with Carol and planting another tree for you this year. The olive tree we planted when we moved in to the house didn’t survive the combination of last year’s harsh winter and the cats deciding that it was a litter box, but the cherry blossom and apple trees are doing well. I wonder if Peni will bring in cherry blossoms for Carol, like I used to when I was younger, coming back from my paper route (while Drew was saving the neighbourhood from ne’er-do-wells).

I think I miss you most on your birthday because sharing your 56th was one of the last things we did together. I still have that picture of you, me and the cake. Typically, the chocolate sponge was lovely, but it looked like it had been frosted by an epileptic octopus using a builder’s trowel during an earthquake. True to form, you reassured me with a soothing, “I’m sure it’ll taste lovely” – the same five words of genuine kindness that you offered every other time I’d made a pig’s ear out of one meal or another. Presentation was never my strongest suit. I like to think that you were happy then – whether it was from the cake or the morphine, I’m still not too sure. You were smiling, though, and that’s all that matters to me now. Hard to believe you died less than three weeks later.

Fifty fucking six. Sorry, I know how you hate swearing. I remember how determined you were that wouldn't say 'that sucks' because it was so vulgar. But it really was criminal… and SO unfair. But then, when I used to whine that something wasn’t fair (probably something completely insignificant and brother-related), you always replied ‘Who ever told you that life was fair?’ What a shame that you had to be so right.

I’m determined to make this a happy day, but it’s hard. I miss you. I would love to share with you whatever I’ve manage to achieve so far by work, luck or grace (probably more of the last two than the first if I’m honest). On days like today, with the smell of freshly-cut hay on the slightly salty breeze drifting lazily up the Rheidol Valley, and with the garden just about to give up her gifts, I sometimes indulge in fantasies of you spending your summers here with us, with me, with Peni. They are powerful, poignant indulgences that often come to a halt all too quickly when I remember things like the striking fact that this is not your 62nd birthday but the commemoration of a birthday that could have been – that really should have been.

Please don’t worry – I am not bitter, nor am I often this morose. You have taught me enough to know that life is for the living; a lesson that, along with many more, resonates daily with me and with your happy, vibrant and very Gillespie-looking granddaughter here in Wales. No, I can’t complain that I’m normally this emotional when I think of you. But today, especially, I want you to know that I miss you and wish you were here. Happy Birthday – we all love and miss you very much.

Love,
Dim-Son

Mind the Gap - The Difference Being Competitive and Being Disciplined

I’ve been thinking about this a lot lately – but two things have really focused my mind this past week. One of them was a blog by a friend of mine, about my age, who talks about how fun fun runs are when you’re a middle-aged man. The other was a rather humiliating gym ‘session’ with one of the players of the American football team I coach here in Aber. When I say humiliating I don’t mean in the same sense that I unwittingly disobeyed some homophobic gym etiquette, or urinated in a bin; I was just miserably incapable. I can just about overlook the fact that I am (literally) twice this guy’s age. I’m almost able to convince myself that my creaky knees, bad form and achy back are the result of the football game I played two weeks ago, not the 30-years of physical abuse I’ve put my body through or, more accurately, the last two years of neglect that have seen my fitness atrophy and my ‘wabs’ multiply ('Wabs', if you don’t know, is the wholly scientific made-up word that an ex-girlfriend used to have for my then far less considerable love handles. Don’t know why it works, but it does). I could almost overlook all the millions of excuses and nachos that I’ve been feeding myself over the past 5 years or so as my commitment to my fitness has slowly but surely dwindled. Almost.

A bit of background first. I recently had this brainstorm to try to get more guys from the football team lifting. The squad here in Aber is a strange beast – with a few exceptions, university sport in the UK is a social concept. There is no overriding corporate, personal or financial incentive for anyone to be a standout college athlete. So what you get is a club usually formed, run and coached by students, who get together once or twice a week to practice and three or four times a week to get drunk. ‘Tarannau Aberystwyth’ is no different: it is populated by a group of people who love the sport (you have to love American football in this country to stay involved because it is NOT easy), but on the whole show very little of the discipline it takes to be consistently successful at it. Like I said, you can’t blame them, really: the culture that collegiate sport is important simply does not exist in the vast majority of UK tertiary education. The problem is that it DOES exist in some universities, and the ones that have grasped the idea that you have to work hard to be successful are jumping out by leaps and bounds ahead of the pack of mediocre teams (like us). What college gridiron in the UK needs most is an understanding of how that basic concept works, and to be educated en masse on how that synergy between preparation and execution is realised. And what that takes, more than anything else, is discipline. The invention of the early morning weight lifting club was an attempt to promote the simple concept that lifting the right weights in the right way will make you a better football player.

Instead of an eye-openign session for any player, what that first, short, easy session turned out to be was a massive wake-up call for me. I tweeted after the session that ‘Your lies to yourself about your fitness become all too obvious when you lift with a friend’, and I think that sums it up pretty well. All of my gym sessions to this point (both of them, anyway) had been so much less than what I was capable of. It was too easy to convince myself that 6 reps was just as good as 8, and that I didn’t REALLY need to do that last set. Lifting with someone who (by their own admission) was just getting back into the gym and who was STILL shamefully so much fitter than me really brought home the reality of where I am. Fortunately, it also reminded me that going to the gym can be a fun, social thing – and that has made me look forward to getting in the weight room with the team as a unit come September.

I wrote in an earlier post that I wasn’t very competitive. Looking back, I think that’s probably a lie. A competitive person doesn’t care whether he or she succeeds. I do care. I really care. I HATE losing. So I don’t think that I lack competitiveness – I’m pretty sure that what I lack is discipline. It’s the discipline to do the work that has more recently been my biggest obstacle to success. And I’m getting to the stage in my life where it will become increasingly more difficult to blag my fitness, or to rely on residual fitness from years of active sport. I’m guessing this new club for the players will be as much for me as it is for them, and I can’t wait to get started.

Wish you Were Here: The Great Outdoors

Today's blog is brought to you by the letter 'C'. Now, C can be for a lot of things (including 'cookie', which seems to be good enough for this dude), but the first C we're going to talk about is Camping.

Maybe it's my Boy Scout upbringing, maybe it's the fact that I was raised in the Pacific Northwest by family and friends who were 'active', but when I think of camping, I do NOT think of this:

I think of this:

Of my last two experienecs camping, I endured one of the former, and enjoyed one of the latter. A few years back, I had the misfortune of 'camping' on the Gower Pennisula near Swansea. When I hear 'camping' I think of a quiet, contemplative time spent with friends, nature and not much else. What I GOT (on that particular occasion) was a plot in the middle of a farmer's field with 300 other people getting hopped up on cheap booze - which, somehow, made everyone able to 'play' the guitar, throw a frisbee and/or perform fire-based circus tricks (sometime all three at once).

Contrast that, if you will, with my most recent US camping experience: Yellowstone National Park. Maybe unsurprisingly, there were more people at Yellowstone than there were at The Gower. We had to book our campsite over a year in advance, and on the second night enjoyed five-star dining at one of the park's three hotel restuarants. But we stayed in a tent. Surrounded by people, we felt completely alone. We saw moose, deer, and came close enough to a buffalo that I could smell its breath (to be fair, it could probably smell mine, too - I forgot to pack a toothbrush). That, to me, was luxurious camping... but it was far closer to camping than you can ever get here.

Camping is not convenient. Camping is not clusters of confluence, cramped together like cattle. Camping is only marginally comfortable. Camping is challenging, casual and chilled. It is uncongested countryside, campstoves and cold showers, not crowds of inconsdierate cuntwaffles consuming crates of cider before crashing into your crudely constructed canopy, sending your canned chili cascading down the front of your clothes.


It may not be cool, but I love camping. And that is good enough for me.

TUnESDAY: Time to Rock Out

After yesterday's post, I got to thinking about July 4th and the annual gamut of questions that I usually get asked about this time (and at Thanksgiving). I guess those two holidays are especially American, or (at least), Americans celebrate them differently – more American – than anyone else. Anyway, as the sun was shining, my mind was dipping in and out of patriotic tunes and I'd already sent all my ribbing texts to my Welsh friends who have yet to experience what a successful war of independence is like, I had the opportunity to stumble across this little gem from my childhood:

Now, anyone who grew up in the States in the 70s or 80s is probably familiar with Schoolhouse Rock. These were short films, originally aired on ABC on Saturday mornings between 1973 and 1985. Apparently inspired by a dad who noticed that his son was having problems with his times tables, 'Multiplication Rock' kicked everything off with the unforgettable 'Three is the Magic Number' (later famously sampled by De La Soul, of course). Most of us remember the big ones: The Preamble, I'm Just a Bill, Figure Eight, Conjunction Junction, Lolly Lolly Lolly Get your Adverbs Here, Elbow Room, The Great American Melting Pot and of course the psychadelic, strangely sexy disemobdied cyborg head of Interplanet Janet. (Just look at her: pouting mouth, purple fro, retractable arms and shiny tin-plated  boobs! No wonder she's so popular with all the young rocket boys.) I mean, c'mon…these were burned into our brains, week after week, and because of this I know that I'm not the only one who can recite the Preamble to the Constitution by heart (only if I sing it, though) and tell you that when you get an injection in the ass, you use an interjection like 'Hey! That smarts,' or 'Ouch! That hurts!'. Schoolhouse Rock accomplished the seemingly impossible: to teach kids important stuff without them noticing that they've learned it. It's like hiding vegetables in spaghetti sauce – it doesn't matter how the stuff gets in there, as long as it sticks. 

What's most surprising to me – and I bet to most people my age - is that Schoolhouse Rock returned to TV for another six years between 1993 and 1999. What on earth could they possibly talk about? The original run covered all the basics – math, grammar, (American) history, science… surely they could just digitally re-master these classics and our kids would get the jump-start they needed to keep us out of the educational gutter? Well, they could have done that – but they didn't. Instead, they came up with brand-new songs, about more contemporary issues. So, between '93 and '99, you get the unforgettable classics like 'Dollars and Sense' (talking about interest and loans), 'Where the Money Goes' (paying bills), Tax Man Max (paying taxes) and my personal favourite: 'Tyrannosaurus Debt', putting the 'fun' back in 'public funding deficit'. WTF? How is any of that stuff useful? Maybe some would argue that it's more useful than anatomy or parts of speech. Maybe it's just noteworthy that Schoolhouse Rock was absent in the 80s, and the offerings of the 90s were destined to address the backlash from the soul-sucking Me Generation. Maybe ABC just decided that teaching kids how to write a check ('The Check's in the Mail') was more important than teaching them about the importance of innovation (Mother Necessity, 1977) or Women's Right (Suffrin 'til Suffrage, 1976). But it seems to me that SHR, like so many of the kids they are singing too, just grew up too fast. This film terrifies me... but maybe that's the idea...?

Yes, we need to know practical things. We even need to know about current issues, which is why I guess I'm glad that SHR went all Greenpeace on our asses when it came back AGAIN in 2009. But I can hear the development talks as they decided which tact to take this time: "Let's see, we've done grammar, math, science, and history. Then we scared the shit out of them with all our talk about debt, and inflation and paying bills. What can we do now? I know, let's cheer them up with cute little ditties about Global Warming!". To be fair, the latest batch of SHR seems to be back on a positive note. I can imagine watching 'The Trash Can Band' and enjoying teaching my daughter about the importance of recycling, or sitting down together to watch 'Don't be a Carbon Sasquatch' and learning all about carbon footprints. The problem, though, is that I can't. 2009's SHR was a straight-to-DVD job, meaning that the chance of my kid (or anyone else's) ever seeing it are about as probable as me forgetting to Unpack My Adjectives, or ever unlearning the fact that the function of a conjunction is hooking up words and phrases and clauses. Bring back the basics, says I. Cheques (or "checks" back home) are being phased out of the British economy by 2018, but as far as I know we'll still need nouns, verbs and all the numbers (even Naughty Number Nine). Whatever else is happening in the world, prepositions will still be busy, and gravity will still be making victims of us all. How do I know all of this to be true? Because Schoolhouse Rock told me so, 35 years ago.

Next week: Now you're not just bored, you're fat!

Freedom Ain't Free, Y'all.

Before you read on, please don't misunderstand me: I really do love America. Just because I choose to live somewhere else doesn't mean I'm not proud to be an American citizen. But when you Google 'What is America famous for' and one of the top answers is 'fat people', you've got to wonder what the world thinks of us - especially if you ARE an American who lives overseas. Last Friday, my wife's school hosted an 'International Evening' to celebrate the end of term and the opening of their new extension. This evening was set to show off the best of what the school has to offer, both in terms of brand new real estate and its surprisingly diverse student body. Thanks to an eclectic mix of parentage (which is, in turn, thanks to an eclectic mix of having a hospital, a University, and lots of lonely farmers); this small corner of Wales nestles in its bosom children from India, Norway, Thailand and everywhere in between. The school's International Evening was a chance to put on display the very best of these places. So, from the Italian room: fresh pasta, pizza and tiramisu. From India - deep, aromatic curries, poppadums and samosas. The Chinese room had fragrant stir-fry, egg rolls and fortune cookies. Kids in kimonos popped up with elegant sushi rolls dipped in soy sauce and wasabi. Magical… and delicious!

It will probably come as no surprise that somehow, by some incredible stroke of cosmic fortune, my wife's class was assigned to be the American room. So... what was the best that America had to offer? Well, my idea of dressing everyone up as gun-toting LA street gangs was quickly dismissed, as was my suggestion of scattering fake dead buffalo all over the room. When you’re asked to come up with an American ‘theme’, it kind of begs the question: what is America famous for? Freedom? Diversity? Bad grammar, particularly interrogatives ending in prepositions? Apparently, the students of Plascrug Elementary School define 'America' with two things: sugar and aggression.

The aggression thing was actually kind of cute, in a brainwashing kind of way. Several of the girls had organised themselves into a band of cheerleaders, complete with skirts, pom-poms and a routine to be performed in front of the school. Sounds cute as hell, right? Well, it probably would have been: they were enthusiastic, and the French girl they got to do about a dozen back handsprings down the middle of the group was pretty impressive. The problem was the 'cheer'. To me, as physically demanding as cheerleading can be as a sport, I've never understood the concept of the cheers themselves. Whether it's rhythmic spelling or 'inspirational' one-liners, I just don't get it. As a player, I can guarantee you that I've never been on the pitch, heard someone spelling 'DEFENSE' and thought... 'Right... NOW that I know how to spell it, I am really going to twat that dude'. It just doesn't work. So the cheers, for me, are always a problem. But this one was different. These girls had obviously never seen cheerleaders cheering - it was clear that they learned their cheer from watching the Olympics, or Ryder Cup, or some other event where the US gets to show off its pride (and ironic xenophobia) by incessantly chanting U-S-A, U-S-A, U-S-A over and over and over again. That's what these girls were doing: hair in pony tails, smiling from ear to ear, happy as Larry to be bounding all over the rubber-coated tarmac - screaming U-S-A at the top of their lungs like meth-fuelled, weak-beer swigging patriotic lunatics. To be fair, I think they got that one spot-on.

Case in point #2: sugar. Instead of the highly-cultured fares offered by the other rooms, the USA room was a sea of gooey stickiness. Where Italy had pasta, we had pancakes and maple syrup. Where China had bok-choi, we had chocolate chip cookies, jars of 'Fluff' marshmallow spread and Double-Stuffed Oreos. For every poppadum you could find in India, we offered a handful of butterscotch popcorn. And instead of sushi, we served up sourdough pretzels. And to wash it down? None of your pompous continental coffees here thank you. We'll have gallon after gallon after gallon of Coca Cola and Dr Pepper. And the real kicker? We were FLAT-OUT full the entire two hours. Kids, parents - even some family pets - were absolutely stuffing themselves on this crap. They couldn't stop eating long enough to say 'thank you' - entire mouthfuls of Fluff were being washed down with Dixie cups full of Dr Pepper, only to make room for the next bucket-load of popcorn. Secretly, I smiled, knowing that the new brand of American imperialism isn’t in conquering continents with military force – it is in making sure that the rest of world can’t find the energy or the breath to fight back. And it seems to be working. If we Yanks can't out-think, out-wit or out-gun you, we'll take you down with us in a hypoglycaemia-induced coma. Europe, you're welcome.

To close, I'll offer a couple of the most honestly American songs I know of. First, this one by Lee Greenwood, which talks about all the (valid) reasons that Americans should be proud, and presents it in such a way as to reinforce everything that is good and cringe-worthy about calling the USA home.

And then this one, by Trey Parker: no less honest and funny as hell. I don't think being American means I have to choose one or the other. In fact, 'being American' is defined by the fact that I can see both sides, and I have the opportunity to see both points of views expressed in song. God Bless America, indeed.

Double Jeopardy

Last Sunday, I had the opportunity to drive down some roads that I’d never been down before. And I’m not saying that metaphorically – this isn’t a post about making life-changing decisions, choosing paths and the ilk. On a journey from Aber to Cardiff, a journey I must have made over a hundred times in the past 15 years, I put my faith in Google and took the roads MUCH less travelled.

Even on the ‘good’ roads, the 93 miles between my front door and the final destination in the South Wales valleys takes about two and a half hours, regardless of whether you take the scenic coastal route, or the scenic mountainous route. Cardiff exists on the opposite point of a geographical diamond to Aberystwyth – so you can either go over the top (slightly shorter distance, but small roads) or underneath (slightly longer distance, but more of the trip is on the motorway). Sunday, I decided to see what would happen if I went straight down the middle. Well, straight-ish. Mountains, rivers and pesky villages prevent me going as the red kite flies – but you get the picture: I tried a new route.

The 16-year-old boy in me loves this new route. Having just acquired his license, he loves the twists and turns, the blind corners and the ‘Dukes of Hazzard’ style one-lane bridges that are built at such a width and slope (apparently) to launch you OVER the oncoming traffic that you wouldn’t have been able to see anyway. Driving parts of this route is like IRL Mario Karts – but instead of banana skins, you have roadkill. And instead of stars and oil slicks, you have roadkill. Sometimes instead of road, you have roadkill. Good times.

However, the 40-year-old father of 1 and ½ in me thinks that Google is doing its best to thin the population by sending people on this route. Prone, as I am, to relate my life to out-dated television programs, I like to think of the 'adventure' in terms of classic game shows. For me, a child of the 70s, the whole trip is filled with round after round of Let’s Make a Deal type choices.

Replace Monty Hall with the Grim Reaper, and instead of holidays, cars or booby prizes, think death, death or death. Will you meet your maker behind Door Number 1 (the pimped-out neon green 1.0 litre fiesta driven by a cider-fuelled young man filled with angst about his future as a gay Welsh farmer), Door Number 2 (the impossibly slow and undeniably deadly senile old farmer who drives like he owns the road because (let’s face it) at some point, he probably did), or Door Number 3 (the self-centred BMW/Audi/Range Rover driver who assumes that his cash-filled air bags will save him if he has the inconvenience of meeting you head-on)? Rest assured that on this route, you’ll meet all three – several times. Your job is to drive defensively enough to be able to avoid them (and the wildlife, the potholes and the weather) long enough to survive. Oh, and, of course, to give your would-be assasins THAT look when you pass, ensuring that they learn the valuable lesson that only your self-righteous disappointment can teach. If you live, you win. Not only that, but you get to do it all again during the bonus round: The Return Journey (which, incidentally, is just like the rest of the game except that it’s dark, you can’t read the signs and your legs are prone to unpredictable spasms).

I love the fact that there are parts of this tiny country that I still haven’t seen. And I love the fact that, in the 21st century, there are still ways to get from one decently-sized city to another on a road that requires you to ford a river, cross a cattle grid and pull over because there is not enough room for you AND a bicycle to pass safely at speed. And, to be fair, you see a lot more of that countryside when you slow down, look up, turn off the sat-nav and think more about how well you’re getting from A to B, rather than how fast. ANd best of all, at this speed: no whammies!!

The Men in My Life

Two things I should probably explain about this post. Timing: I’d like to say that I am writing this three days after Father’s Day because I didn’t want to be too predictable. But the truth is that I played a game of football on Sunday and have been in a world of hurt every single moment since. My ears have finally stopped ringing and I can just about move my fingers again, so I thought I’d get this out there, delayed as it may be. The Title: I recently heard that at least three of my friends from high school thought I was gay, so I thought I’d play to their biggest fears (or disappointments?) and lure them here with some salacious homoerotic innuendo. Well, questions about the ambiguity of my sexuality aside, there have been a few men in my life that I am grateful to have been lucky enough to spend time with, and posts in this series will focus on trying my best to articulate my gratitude to them.

My Dad

Whether he believes it or not, my dad has been a powerful force of good in my life. I believe that he carries with him an extreme and unnecessary burden of guilt for what he considers to be the ‘failure’ of his first family, but my brother and I keep trying to assure him – with words and deeds – that he did a stand-up job. The simple fact is that marriage is hella difficult – and getting married in your late teens / early twenties during the 1960s could not have made that challenge any easier. I often try to compare the timeline of my parent’s lives with my own, and I’m amazed that they lasted as a couple as long as they did. My dad got married (I think) at age 21 or 22. He and my mom had my brother as soon as morally possible after that, and I followed 20 months after him. That means that my Dad became a father for the second time at age 24ish. And (we all know that I’m crap at math) that means that by the time he was the age that I am now, I was 16.

I think about two things. First of all, what kind of father would I have been at 24? The undeniable answer to that question is: SHIT. In fact, I would have been a shit father well into my mid-30s, and there is a strong possibility that I may yet prove to be one in my early 40s. But the fact is that at 24, I was JUST out of college, completely unglued, still very much a child in terms of my ability to exist in ‘The Real World’ and very very much an idiot who would have sucked at being responsible for any ONE else, much less any three. To be willing and able to support a family at that time in your life is nothing short of saintly sacrifice. Of course, I also remember that being a parent in Miami in the 70s was a different kettle of fish than perhaps it is now – I don’t intend to enlist my kids at 7am on a Sunday morning to clean up after any all-night crazy-ass raves by the pool. The other thing I think about is how well I’d handle having a 16-year-old (and an 18-year-old) child at this point in my life. I think I can answer this one a little more positively – part of me even thinks that having a 16-year-old now would be better (for them and for me) than having one at age 52, which is what age I'll be when my daughter will be a debutante. I won’t be nearly as cool or as able as my dad was when I was that age – and here’s the photo to prove it. That’s me, aged 18, just about to do myself an injury that would haunt me for the next 22 years. Did YOU know that if you don’t boogie-board properly, you can end up with your ankles wrapped backwards by your ears as the sea tosses you from side to side like a piece of kelp? That’s the lesson I learn in about 20 minutes after this picture was taken. Anyway... that's my dad!

Now, like every other human being on the planet who ever was or ever will be, my dad has made some monumental mistakes in his life. One of the first ones that I can remember was the very first meal he ever tried to cook my brother and me after separating from my mom. At that point in his single life, ‘cooking’ wasn’t one of his strongest suits, having previously had a wife who was a skilled homemaker. Dad had no concept of what it took to take things from raw to edible, and his first attempt at microwaving some hotdogs for us one night demonstrated that lack of knowledge perfectly. As the burnt-out solid logs of meat literally smouldered on the plate, I think all three of us began to understand the different roles we’d played in our family to that point; Dad’s was certainly not ‘cook’. Unlike the 1980 Enjoli perfume woman, he may have been able to bring home the bacon, but he could not, in fact, fry it up in the pan.

But, if I’m honest, I think that making mistakes – sometimes BIG ones – is part of what being a role model is about. No one is perfect; anyone that presents themselves as someone who is is either lying, or selling something (or both). No one lives their entire life without wishing they’d done at least one or two things differently. And, after the sometimes impossible platitudes with which we’re all meant to be guiding our life, which is the more useful lesson to learn: ‘never make a mistake,’ or ‘learn from the mistakes you make’?

Whatever Dad’s mistakes have been, it seems unbelievably pompous even to consider that I would need to ‘forgive’ him anything. He is a hard worker, an honest person and someone who cares deeply about doing right by himself, his family and his faith. He has a strong (sometimes ironic) sense of moral absoluteness, and can be commended for having values to which he tries his best to adhere – even if those values are often more conservative than my own. He has given me many gifts, from my scrawny chicken legs to my sense of humour, and I am grateful for them all. The other bits, the bits he sometimes seems so ashamed of, were lessons to me, too, and I cannot help but be selfishly grateful for the mistakes he has made (and has been able to recognise as such) so that he’s then been able to encourage and to enable me to avoid some (not all) of them.

If that is not what being a father is all about, then I don’t know what is – and my kids could do far worse than to have a father who tries as hard as he does to live, laugh, love and learn as best he knows how.

Patent Pending

In the spirit of Homer Simpson’s cry of ‘Patent Pending’ every time he ‘fixed’ a neighbour’s back in ‘Pokey Mom’ (Simpsons season 12, episode 10), I give to you my list of ‘Other Blogs I Wish I had Time to Write, but will Probably Just End Up as Entry Themes Here Instead’. With a catchy name like that, I say again: PATENT PENDING, suckas!!

These Questions Three

Listen - You Might Learn Something

Anyone with any rudimentary knowledge of Monty Python will remember the character of ‘Tim the Enchanter’ from The Holy Grail. An amazing scene, usually hailed for the ridiculous explosions, the extraordinary volume of spittle that John Cleese produces, and, of course, the description of ‘a creature so foul, so cruel, that no man yet has fought with it and lived.’ Unfortunately, despite watching the film countless times, my knowledge is wanting, and I unwittingly attributed the ‘bridge crossing’ scene (famously falling 'a-fowl' of the ongoing ‘African or European swallow’ debate) to Tim, rather than to the Bridgekeeper. So I’ve taken the blog title from there, and immediately demonstrated that I know nothing. Nevertheless, as a Blog Entry Theme (BET) it could be useful to discuss things I don’t understand. Like idiots who get film references wrong. Fucking tossers, the lot of ‘em.

So’s Your Face

This was going to be about things I should have said at the time, but didn’t. In all of my advancing years, I can think of exactly one occasion where someone said something, and I said something in reply that SHUT THEM UP. My brother and I were playing a pick-up game of basketball at the local Y when one of the other players made an unsavoury comment about my brothers aversion at the oppressively mainstream cultural conceit of soap. The thing is, this dude had two problems. First of all, he was a sweaty 350-pound hairy bastard who used his belly as a battering ram. Secondly, my brother was 10 times the baller this dude was and it showed; Fat Albert was getting schooled. So when Shamu quipped ‘I can’t guard him, he stinks’, my immediate and natural response was ‘So what? You’re fat. We all have issues. Get over it’. Argument settled: Macys 1, Fatzilla 0. This BET would be a record of all OTHER times in my life when I thought of exactly the right thing to say anywhere from 10 seconds to 10 years after I should have said them. The reference, of course, is to JD’s proposal in Scrubs that, as a comeback, ‘So’s your face always make sense’.

Ninety Percent Ross

I never count Mississippilessly.

Anyone that has spent more than a day in my company will know that I am borderline OBSESSED with Friends. I could (and have been known to) watch it all day – even repeats of the same episode that I watched EARLIER that day. It is, by far, my favourite television show of all time. Corny, yes. Cliche, yes. So what... so's your face! Anyway, it seems only natural that I’ve succumbed to the ‘What Friends Character are you Most Like?’ quiz on more than one occasion, desperately hoping that one configuration of my answers will point me in the area of Joey’s confident sexuality or Chandlers’ quick wit. Alas, no matter how I try to rig the results, I am always, ALWAYS Ross. So I’ve acquiesced to the fact that I am, probably, at least 90% Ross (geek, nerd, dork, pseudo-intellectual, often effeminate) and only 10% of the cooler stuff the others have to offer. This BET could focus on my best dinosaur-loving moments, choosing to accentuate the positive aspects of Nerdity, right? God, even I can hear his voice as I right that. Unagi!

Good Lord, Sugar!

I love watching ‘The Apprentice’. At times, it’s so cringe-worthy that my wife and I are both burying our faces in the sofa cushions because we cannot bear the shame we think the would-be Apprentices should be feeling. Last night’s episode was particularly entertaining for a couple of reasons, not the least of which was Lord Sugar’s declaration to Jim (by far my most favourtest Apprentice candidate EVER): “Son, what I've forgotten about bullshit, you haven't even learned yet.”

That got me thinking about some of the stuff I’ve learned, or remembered, in the last 18 months. Here’s the first 5 that came to mind:

1. Nature is kind. How else can you explain not only the survival but the dominance of a creature that is so utterly useless at birth? Human babies must be the most defenceless, most incapable and most delicious babies in the animal kingdom, surely? When we’re born, we know as close to nothing as I think you can get. We can’t feed ourselves, don’t lift our frickin’ heads for months and it’s usually about a year before we could even begin to wobble away from the worst predator EVER. To make it worse, we shit ourselves 4 or 5 times a day. Luckily, our uber-cerebral fully mature adults have conceived of a system whereby we capture that shit and let us carry it around with us, instead of teaching us how to squat in the woods like any respectable being. The fact that we make it to an age to reproduce is nothing short of a miracle. Take away the glass wall in this clip and you have a much gorier home movie:

2. You know a lot of crap. This is kind of tied into (1) in that we are born knowing sweet FA. Other than some very basic reflexes, babies have to learn how to do everything. Even the most natural of things (you’d think), like eating, is only mastered after some incredibly arduous negotiations between baby and boob.

3. We learn very, very quickly and without necessarily being ‘taught’. My daughter can now say the numbers 1-10 in order. I don’t think she understands ‘counting’ as a logical concept, but when she does, she’ll be ready. We taught her that. We counted her peas as she ate them. We counted the stairs as we climbed them. We counted her fingers and toes and had fun doing it. However, she can also say ‘what the fuck?’ pretty clearly and I’m sure we didn’t mean to teach her that.

4. Sleep is precious. This is one of those ‘you don’t miss it ‘til it’s gone’ things. I remember, as a younger man, being able to go 2 or three days in a row, weeks on end, without sleep. I did this the entire second trimester of my Freshman year at WSU, as I volunteered at the college radio station from 2-6 on Wednesday mornings, then went and did a shift in the dorm’s prep kitchen from 7-10 before going to lectures from 11-5. It was just the way things had to be, and it was no problem. Nowadays, anything less than 7 hours one night makes the next day very hard work indeed. When those 7 hours becomes 2-hour shifts between feeds for three or four months, the fatigue starts to build. The only way I can think to describe how it makes me feel is with this clip from the AMAZING 80s TV show, The Incredible Hulk. Replace the word ‘angry’ with ‘tired’ and you’ve got it.

5. ‘Stuff’ is overrated. I’m not sure when it is in our lives that we start to buy into the ‘I need expensive toys’ shtick, but I’m hoping to curtail it as much as possible. Last Christmas, our daughter’s favourite thing to play with (and it kept her occupied for HOURS) wasn’t the expensive toy, it was the BOX THE TOY CAME IN. Maybe that’s going back to (2) – maybe she just hasn’t learned to be disappointed yet. Give it time, cariad: if my track record is anything to go by, I’ll be very surprised if some of your first five words aren’t ‘Did you keep the receipt?’

I have no doubt that the learning – hers and mine – will continue. I mean, this is only 18 months in. I have yet to try to remember any of the really important and useful stuff, like math, science and how to eat an Oreo cookie. PROPERLY.

Wish I Was There: Fill 'er up!

A British friend of mine was recently sent back to the UK after seven years of coaching US college football. It’s a pretty sad story in itself – with all the makings of at least a good after-school special about how not to trust your friends and how not to book a U-haul to move all your shit from one one-horse town to another one-horse town (especially if your ability to reside in either town – regardless of its resident horse population – depends on a work visa) until you’ve signed a contract. Anyway, this friend of mine has had to up sticks and come back to the UK, leaving the nice life he’d built for himself there, including all of the standard ‘stuff’ one accumulates in seven years: a car, a lover, a dog (hopefully not the same as the lover), books, stereos, TVs, etc. We’ve chatted briefly since his unexpected exile from The Land of Opportunity (if you know the right people and they don’t then screw you over), and it got me thinking about some to the things I do miss about Home, and some of the things I don’t.

One of the things we landed on (perhaps not unsurprisingly as we could both easily be described as gentlemen who ‘enjoy their food’) was “unlimited refills on soft drinks in restaurants”. More specifically, we bemoaned at great length the absence of such a concept in restaurants in the UK. My experience so far has taught me that the only places to get free refills (legally) on your soft drink in the UK are Nando’s, TGI Fridays and Ruby Tuesday’s. They’ve cottoned on to the idea that that little gimmick which costs them next to nothing is a great draw for cola-swiggers like myself. Of course, at Nando’s it may have been a necessity, what with the ring-ripping volcano juice they put on some of their chicken – their wait staff would be run off their feet trying to douse mouth fires if they didn’t allow bravado-fuelled fools to help themselves. But the fact is that they have understood that it costs them nothing to offer this service, and people like me remember that they do. It’s worth noting, by the way, that the restaurant at Charlie’s Stores in Coed-y-Dinas, Wales, is NOT such a place. Even though they have made the decision to allow customers to serve themselves their own drinks initially, they have NOT taken the next step to allow free refills. I found this out at the expense of my own dignity during a very busy lunchtime there, where I took my quickly-emptied vessel back to the counter for a refill, only to be shouted down by the hairnet-wearing, greasy-haired inbred bucktoothed stable-boy who unceremoniously announced to everyone in that shop and the next three down the road that ‘YOU HAVE TO PAY FOR THAT, YOU KNOW?’. My response of ‘Oh, I’m sorry, I didn’t realise. But why turn the machine to face me if you don’t expect me to use it?’ was met with very little compassion. I hope he used my £1.15 I then paid for a small Coke to buy some soap and/or some discretion.

OK, OK… I know. Free Coke refills isn’t the greatest export America has to offer. In fact, it could be one of their worst, judging by the immense girth of the average American waistline (which, according to some sources is now 40 inches, compared to 34.6 in 1979). I was shocked last time I was home to be taken to a Claim Jumpers restaurant that had done away with booths; I can only guess that it was because most people in the place wouldn’t have fit into a booth – they needed chairs that could be pushed back. And I mean WAY back. I’ll tell you what: it was very off-putting as I tried to plough my way through the 5-lb plate of deep-fried battered onion rings that I’d ordered as an appetizer. When in Rome, right…? Anyway – maybe giving people here in the UK unlimited access to liquefied tooth decay isn’t the way forward. But it is something I miss and will happily exploit when I go back home next time. Don’t worry, I’ll bring back some souvenirs – maybe some Hershey’s chocolate for you and a big ol’ case of Type 2 Diabetes for me..? Sorted.

TUnESDAY: Stupid is as Stupid Does

I can’t be the only one who’s ever thought about the ‘Soundtrack to My Life’. Many, many times – and at different stages in my life so far, I’ve reclined in the Lazy-Boy/rocking chair/camp seat/sofa and pondered (alone or with friends) about the specific selection of songs that would at once define my existence, articulate my decisions and inspire onlookers to greatness. So far, I’ve got the theme to ‘The Muppet Show’ and the old ‘Wesson Oil’ jingle. Suffice to say that either my soundtrack needs some work, or I do. With that in mind, today's TUnESDAY is all about soundtracks. Or, to be more specific, one of the great ones: the soundtrack to Forrest Gump.

It was a happy coincidence that both the weather and the television schedule were both so bleak on Sunday night that I even noticed that The Gump was on. As I’d already spent the lazy day exhausting my supply of un-viewed Friday Night Lights episodes, Forrest Gump’s appearance on the TV guide shone where perhaps on a more summery or entertaining evening it might have been overlooked. Say what you want about Tom Hanks the Oscar machine (return to roles like 'Volunteers' and 'The Money Pit' says I), this is a great film. I won’t go into any detailed review of the movie, but to say that the tale is set against some of the most iconic generation-defining songs ever to be released. It’s one of those movies where, as you’re watching it, you actually not only notice the songs, but you engage with them. They are more than just background noise or mood-setters; they are as integral to story as Bubba, or Lieutenant Dan or Jenny herself. For the most part, the songs are before my time – but they still manage to illicit strong emotions that connect me with the characters and their intertwined narratives. Maybe that’s down to the movie, maybe that’s down to the quality of the songs. My bet is that it’s an incredibly successful combination of the two.

I mean, check out these tracks; 32 songs and not a stinker amongst them (bear with me here, it's worth looking at):

"Hound Dog" performed by Elvis Presley
"Rebel Rouser" performed by Duane Eddy
"(I Don't Know Why) But I Do" performed by Clarence "Frogman" Henry
"Walk Right In" performed by The Rooftop Singers
"Land of 1000 Dances" performed by Wilson Pickett
"Blowin' in the Wind" performed by Joan Baez
"Fortunate Son" performed by Creedence Clearwater Revival
"I Can't Help Myself (Sugar Pie Honey Bunch)" performed by The Four Tops 
"Respect" performed by Aretha Frankli
"Rainy Day Women #12 & 35" performed by Bob Dylan
"Sloop John B" performed by Beach Boys
"California Dreamin'" performed by The Mamas & the Papas
"For What It's Worth" performed by Buffalo Springfield
"What the World Needs Now Is Love" performed by Jackie DeShannon
"Break on Through (To the Other Side)" performed by The Doors
"Mrs. Robinson" performed by Simon & Garfunkel
"Volunteers" performed by Jefferson Airplane
"Let's Get Together" performed by The Youngbloods
"San Francisco (Be Sure to Wear Flowers in Your Hair)" performed by Scott McKenzie
"Turn! Turn! Turn!" performed by The Byrds
"Medley: Aquarius/Let the Sunshine In" performed by The 5th Dimension
"Everybody's Talkin'" performed by Harry Nilsson
"Joy to the World" performed by Three Dog Night
"Stoned Love" performed by The Supremes
"Raindrops Keep Fallin' on My Head" performed by B. J. Thomas
"Mr. President" performed by Randy Newman
"Sweet Home Alabama" performed by Lynyrd Skynyrd
"It Keeps You Runnin'" performed by The Doobie Brothers
"I've Got to Use My Imagination" performed by Gladys Knight & the Pips
"On the Road Again" performed by Willie Nelson
"Against the Wind" performed by Bob Seger & the Silver Bullet Band
"Forrest Gump Suite" composed and conducted by Alan Silvestri

What’s even better are that there are even more songs NOT on the ‘official’ soundtrack, but remain just as relevant:

"Lovesick Blues" - Hank Williams
"Sugar Shack" - Jimmy Gilmer And The Fireballs
"Hanky Panky" - Tommy James and The Shondells
"All Along the Watchtower" - The Jimi Hendrix Experience
"Soul Kitchen" - The Doors
"Hello, I Love You" - The Doors
"People Are Strange" - The Doors
"Love Her Madly" - The Doors
"Hey Joe" - The Jimi Hendrix Experience
"Where Have All the Flowers Gone?" - Pete Seeger
"Let's Work Together" - Canned Heat
"Tie a Yellow Ribbon Round the Ole Oak Tree" - Tony Orlando & Dawn
"Get Down Tonight" - KC & The Sunshine Band
"Free Bird" - Lynyrd Skynyrd
"Running On Empty" – Jackson Browne
"Go Your Own Way" performed by Fleetwood Mac

As far as soundtracks go, this one is hard to beat. Part of the problem, I think, is that movie soundtracks can get it SO right. Most of the time, neither the characters nor the demands on their time are anything close to realistic. Hard to imagine any time at all in a 2-hour cinematic classic being spent on what most of us spend most of our lives doing. Do we ever see Spartacus playing Yahtzee on his mobile while on the toilet (because that’s how I spent a good 20 minutes of my day yesterday)? At what point does Scarlet O’Hara pull up the marigolds and swish out the manky cat food bowl? And I’m pretty sure that not even the director’s cut of Titanic gives me any insight to Jack Dawson’s lengthy and on-going battles with HSBC’s ‘not-so-local’ local call centres. And yet these things -these totally un-remarkable things – consume a great deal of the average person’s life. I guess the trick is in not only remembering (or endeavouring in) the truly remarkable things, but also in celebrating the personal victories in our relatively mundane lives. As Uncle Walt teaches us, ‘…a leaf of grass is no less than the journey-work of the stars.’ We are the grass, we are the stars and my soundtrack, Muppet Show and all, will be worth a listen someday. In some cases, I need to do get off of the Lazy Boy and do some things worth remembering. In other cases, I need to find the music to accompany the notable things I’ve already done. Until then, enjoy the music of the all-but-forgotten Forrest Gump. Thank you please.

Grads and Dads. Egads.

One time, when I was very young, my father experienced a simultaneous trifecta of personal achievements: he graduated from the University of Miami with a Master's Degree, celebrated his birthday AND got honoured for Fathers' Day. It was a happy day: not only did I get three times the gift-giving value out of my hard-earned allowance, but it burned in my brain the fact that all three of these really important days all happen sometime in the early part of June.

That's not to say that I always remember them - my dad and I have been exchanging last-minute Amazon gifts or vouchers almost every holiday for some time now. We tell ourselves (and each other) that it's WAY more practical than shipping over a real gift, what with all the EFFORT it takes to buy, wrap, label and post the stuff - but the truth is that it's just WAY easier to shop online and have some nameless person in a warehouse overseas do all that DOING on my behalf. Shame on me, I know. I can hear 'Cat's in the Cradle' whispering its guilt-laden lyrics with every click of my mouse. Holy crap... that's the perfect gift: a Harry Chapin complication album. I must get that for Dad. Would it be ironic or just plain lazy to buy it from Amazon?

At 66, Dad said this year that he's past the whole 'party and present' thing - which is great for two reasons. First of all, I'm not sure there's much left on Amazon that we haven't already bought for each other over the past 15 years since I moved abroad. We've done clothes, books, salad spinners, mini-choppers, popcorn poppers (air and oil) - what we haven't exchanged in household items probably isn't worth owning. It's also great because unless the Post Office now uses some kind of transporter-style particle transmission for its overseas letters, there's no way he got his card from us on time. I did sign my daughter's name with my left hand, though, so what it lacks in timeliness it makes up in predictable cuteness, right...? Right. So that's 'Dad' sorted. Ish.

Ozzy Osbourne: One of Birmingham's
most successful and coherent
exports.

As for Grads: with Aber's streets considerably less crowded, it's remarkable to note how different the place is without its students. Please understand - I love Aber as a student town. I loved it as a student, and I really enjoy it as a resident. However, it is nice to have a break. The streets - especially during the week - are so much cleaner, so much more manageable. The only real supermarket in town actually has food on its shelves. I can walk across campus and, for the most part, only encounter people who bathe regularly. The gym is empty and I can actually do a superset workout without getting interrupted by the narcissistic greased up valleys roid-monkey in his sweat-stained XXS wife-beater who spends a few minutes lifting between swigs on his protein shake and calls on his mobile (to his 'supplement' dealer, I guess). My eyes, ears and nose are grateful for the annual reprieve that hallmarks the summer holidays. I'll be just as glad to have them back in September, mind... especially as their seasonal replacements consist of either tattooed hordes of beach-hungry Brummies or van-fulls of socially-awkward Hasidic Jews.

So to the Dads, I say 'thank you'. We sons are notoriously ungrateful for your efforts and perhaps unsurprisingly silent in our expressions of whatever gratitude we are able to muster up. But, if that woeful song tells us anything, it tells us that we learned all that macho stoicism from you, so there! Of course, it also tells us that unless we recognise the tragedy in that cycle, we’re likely to repeat it – something I’m keen to avoid for the simple and selfish reason that I would like things to be different with my kid(s). So let’s work on that, shall we?

Grads: I say 'good luck', with only a tiny degree of 'good riddance'. The truth is that Aber would not be Aber without its students, and it's hard to hate those who ultimately add so much to the ethnic, social and economic well-being of this otherwise sleepy community. Aber needs its students and its students need the town. They're the perfect double-act and a great example of socio-economic symbiosis. Students are the Laurel to Aber’s Hardy. They’re the Tango to our Cash, the peanut butter to our jelly. They're also one of many reasons why I'm glad I live 12-miles out of town. And, to be clear: 12-miles from a tiny seaside resort town in the middle of nowhere is, technically, still the middle of nowhere.

Wish You Were Here: Prince Phillip

I hadn’t expected to write another ‘Wish You Were Here’ so soon, but after seeing this today, I can hardly resist. By way of preamble, I have to admit that I’ve never understood the American obsession with the British monarchy. I’ve never really gotten why we’d want it, why we always make comparisons to American ‘royal families’, or why – as evidenced this spring – thousands of us flock to England, adorned head-to-toe in obscenely distasteful arrangements of the Union Jack, lining the streets to cheer like loons every time one of them gets married (Y'all do remember that we fought a war to get rid of the British royals, right...?). My otherwise fiercely Welsh wife gets is: she’s a big fan of the royal family. I don’t get it…at least not the way she does. She sees majesty; I see immodesty. She sees regal bloodlines, I see political circumstance. She sees timeless grandeur, I see opulent irrelevance. There is only one thing about the Royal Family upon which we can both agree: Prince Phillip is the fucking shizzle. He, singlehandedly, almost makes the otherwise nauseating sea of pretention somewhat bearable.

As he turns 90 this week, we’ve all been asked to remember him as the remarkable figurehead of State that he’s been for the last 64 years. Phillip is the UK’s George W. Bush, saying the oddest things at the worst moments to all the wrong kinds of people. The difference (besides Phillip not being allowed anywhere near a political decision), is that where Dubya may just ramble on about things making absolutely no sense whatsoever, Phillip’s remarks always make sense – they’re just plain wrong. So wrong, in fact, that they’re freakin hilarious. Here are just a few... to a British student studying in China, 1986: ‘If you stay here much longer, you will go home with slitty eyes.’ To the British Women’s Institute in 1961: ‘British women can’t cook’. And, among my personal faves, to a Scottish driving instructor, 1995: ‘How do you keep the natives off the booze long enough to pass the test?’

And, unlike in the States, where everyone tries equally hard either to deny, justify or villify GWB's inane ramblings, everyone here in the UK (including the Duke of Edinburgh himself) knows he's a sexist, racist, classist, beer-swigging, faux-pas making baffoon. YouTube is bursting with videos either of his real 'gaffes', or mock newsreels of things he probably would have said if he'd had the chance. Take this one, for isntance, from a popular news-based comedy show called 'Mock the Week':

Prince Phillip represents everything that I think is bad about a Royal Family. He’s obscenely wealthy purely by genetic happenstance (as opposed to merit), he’s completely out-of-touch with the subjects over whom he rules, he has absolutely no concept of appropriate social behaviour and is quite possibly the most politically incorrect person ever to have walked the earth. And he does it all knowing full well that he’s talking out of his ass, and that he’ll get away with it because he’s married to The Queen. He just doesn't give a shit. Because of all of that, he’s the most enjoyable Royal I can imagine. The Queen…? Who cares! God Save Prince Phillip, says I!

Read more of Prince Phillip's 'so awful they're funny' quotes here. Well worth a read, though be prepared to spit out your tea.