logodædalus

I know this isn't really a post. It's a review. Well, not even that. (Rest assured, I've got a couple of things up my sleeve: one needs me to actually tug my finger out and write it (it's about the hospitality industry, my mistress and nemesis), and the other needs me to fucking locate one of my syntax textbooks.)

When I say “review”, I do of course use the term loosely. I honestly don't intend on any kind of analysis, rather let me offer this to you as something that I've been listening to myself.

I've spoken in passing here before that my taste in music is generally uninteresting: I really like what could be called “indie” music: from the 80's onwards. My iPod is a happy festival of the Killers, the Jam, Madness and everything (chronologocially, at least) in between. However, I still have a dirty little pop-music secret. These are the songs I sing at work. My all-time favourite band, when I was a teenager, was The Beautiful South. And, if I'm honest, still is. (I should probably confess to an enduring weakness for Italian pop music here. But, in honesty, if I can with a straight face refer to Alex Britti as an “Italian composer”, I believe I should be able to get away with it.)

I've mentioned here before (or perhaps on this blog's predecessor) that I am not the most “musical” of people. What I like about a song isn't its tune, but rather its lyrics. The Beautiful South is, to me, the exemplar of horrendously dark lyrics with upbeat pop tunes. (Domestic violence, rape, alcoholism etc. with a really catchy beat.)

The thing about Beautiful South tracks is that they speak to me at different times of my life. (Oh ye gods, I just noticed that I wrote “speak to me” with reference to music. Honestly, I need to be shot/corrected) Years ago, when my parents were divoricing and I was caught in the middle, I really related to Your Father and I, while far too much of my early relationship with He Whom I Call Beloved (actually, he's given permission for me to use his name now. It's Kris. He's pretty damn awesome.) can be summed up by Good as Gold (Stupid as Mud).

Which brings me back to the “review” part. Alternately, to what I'm feeling at the moment. I do apologise that it's not some classical composer: it's not Carl Orff setting some mediaeval lyric to modern music. In spite of the loquaciousness, I do like to remind people that I'm a remarkably simple man: in honesty I'm something of a pikey. Cock'n'bullkid is, in my opinion, a worhty sucessor to the Beautiful South: wry and depressing lyrics with a really chirpy tune. Depression has never sounded so good:

Sorry guys, I've been rather busy recently. Well, by busy I really mean being depressed enough that I have no motivation to do much of anything. Work's kept me chugging along, and I'm happily out the other side of it now. On the other hand, I've done nothing noteworthy of late. What then to blog about?

In conclusion, I'm a shit blogger. I promise I'll write something soon.

I recently heard from a friend of mine.

What with the credit crunch, downsizing and what have you, unfortunately he’s been unemployed for the past six months. Last time I saw him was a few months ago, at a meeting of our local branch of the Conservative party. The talk was all about Cameron’s “Big Society”, an idea I’m fully behind. So, as we mingled over cheese nibbles and chardonnay, I suggested that he put some of what we’d just heard into action: while he’s looking for work, why not volunteer?

Well, yesterday he called me, with good news. He’s taken my advice, and he’s found something to keep himself occupied.

“Deiniol, my lad,” he says to me, “you’ll me proud of me.”

“Oh?” say I. “What’re you doing now?”

“It’s really fantastic. I’m preparing meals for the homeless, for drug addicts, alcoholics, unwed teenage mothers. You know, the poor unfortunates who’ve slipped through the cracks of society.”

“But that’s great!” I enthuse. “You’re what? Working with a charity?”

“Good God no. I’m the head chef at a Wetherspoon’s.”

And I'm back, ladies and gents.

I recently had the old riah zhooshed and idly inquired whether the cape around my shoulders had been shaken out since the last customer, as there appeared to be more than a few grey hairs down my front. Johann, the surly mitteleuropäisch barber, assured me that no, it was in fact all my own hair, and proceeded to point out exactly what bits of my scalp they came from. I may have made a rather undignified noise. It's now undeniable: I'm going grey at the temples. Now this by itself might not exactly be cause for concern, as I'm relatively certain that the sudden appearance of grey hair is not unconnected to stress. Nevertheless, there are other signa et portenta.

Nasal hair has become an Issue. Hangovers are becoming worse, and lasting a good day or so. My hairline is receding. Oddly, this only appears to be a problem on one side of my head (similarly, the aforementioned nasal hair problem affects only the left nostril. I am ageing lopsidedly.), although this could just be down to how I tend to part my hair. A chance remark by He Whom I Call Beloved, followed by much contortionism and a pair of mirrors, reveals that my hair is beginning to thin on the crown. The hair on my back and shoulders has become pelt-like, and I am forced to either shave my upper arms or refrain from wearing t-shirts. I desperately need to have my prescription updated, as my glasses are no longer helping me to see in the distance, and I suspect that my eyesight is now too poor to drive legally.

I shall refrain from listing the non-physical signs of ageing that I've noticed. Quite frankly, a raging intolerance for youth slang, fashion and music is just a part of the grumpy misanthropy that I have cultivated since I was twenty or so. I do feel old, though, when walking through the centre of town on Friday and Saturday nights. Clubbers are so young these days. And I swear that some bus drivers have obtained employment under false pretences: some of them don't look old enough to be in charge of a tricycle, let alone a sodding double-decker.

I am aware that this post is not without an element of chutzpah. Many (most?) of you dear and loyal readers are richer in years than I. Indeed, my husband, who is six years older than me, as bald as a billiard ball and sports a beard so streaked with grey that he appears to be speaking through a baby badger, has told me to stop being such a bloody drama queen. While tucking a nice tartan blanket around me and passing me my pipe and slippers.

I’ll confess: I dislike the summer.

In this, my twenty-eighth, I can finally say that I fail to see the point. Possibly, this is because for me the summer does not mean long, lazy days of inactivity on the beach, nor pleasant sojourns in shade-dappled forest glades. Summer is not when I jet off to foreign parts, to stroll along the quais of Saint-Tropez or to wander contentedly through the sun-warmed cobbled streets of picturesque Tuscan villages.

No. I live and work in a tourist town. Summer, to me, means endless days sweating in a sauna-like kitchen. Summer is when my working day begins before nine in the morning and doesn’t end until eleven in the evening. Summer is when I need a machete to clear my way through the hordes of babbling foreign students at the bus stop. Summer, to me, is not a time of growth, beauty and wonder; but rather of hard work and hardship, the time of scarcity before the harvest. I’ve often wondered if I have some kind of perversely inverted seasonal affective disorder, as most of my major bouts of depression have tended to occur during July and August.

Strangely, as well, during the summer I become less religious. I find it difficult to maintain the motivation for much more than my semi-regular dawn devotionals. At the same time, I find myself drawn more to esoterica: I think about myths and mythic structures, I find myself meditating more frequently. Recently, I’ve even started taking an interest in astrology, to the point of mapping out my own natal chart and attempting to interpret it. (I have a Sagittarius ascendant, with Jupiter in Sagittarius. Apparently this gives me a natural interest in religion. Who knew?) Perhaps this is because I find myself with little energy in my spare time, what with it all being expended at work, and so the “active” portions of my life tend to go on the back burner.

I much prefer spring and autumn. Autumn is when the harvest has been gathered in, both literally and metaphorically: it’s a time of plenty, when one can look back with satisfaction on a time of back-breaking work and think “thank fuck that’s all over,” and get on with the serious business of enjoying the fruits of one’s labours. Paradoxically, autumn to me also means the beginning of something new: perhaps this is a relic of my academic past, but I’ve always been comfortable with autumn being considered the start of the new year. So, while autumn marks an ending, it also shines with potential: for me, the “feel” of autumn is a combination of hope and melancholy which I’ve always felt to be my native emotional state. Spring, on the other hand, is a wonderful time, full of beauty and promise. As I have remarked before, it’s the time of year before everything goes to shit.

Nevertheless, we’ve passed the solstice, and the fire-wheel is now rolling downhill. It’ll all soon be over and September with its cool breezes will soon be upon us. Happy summer holidays everyone!

I fear, dear reader, that I have an alcohol problem. That I am, in fact, an alcoholic.

After twelve years working with and around the Devil’s Urine, coupled with what is termed “an addictive personality”, this is not a particular surprise. I’ve often reasoned with myself that I am not an alcoholic: I’m a drunk, alcoholics go to meetings, I don’t pour cornflakes on my vodka, I can stop any time I like, et cætera ad nauseam. However, the plain truth is that I have an abusive relationship with alcohol.

True, I don’t drink every day. I don’t wake up and reach for the whiskey, nor do I hide bottles of booze around the flat for surreptitious tippling. And I won’t drink while working: after all, I do have some instinct for self-preservation and impaired motor control while dealing with naked flames and incredibly sharp objects is something of a liability. I burn and cut myself enough by accident when I’m sober, and I dread to think what I would be like after a few pints. So I don’t fit the profile of your classic alcoholic.

My problem is a lack of control around alcohol. As an example, I generally have “a drink after work”. Now, given that the kitchen at The Bear closes at nine, one would expect me to have had one pint and then be on the bus home by ten. Instead, I generally have three or four pints and only leave when the pub closes. When I was at O’Murphy’s, it was not unusual for me to go for a drink after work and not get home until five the following morning. Even further back, when I was working at the chippy, a “swift half” after work ended up with me on a park bench in the snow at six in the morning, swigging rum straight from the bottle and spending the following day in hospital on a morphine drip for alcohol poisoning.

Of course, I could be blowing things out of all proportion, as normal. As I’ve learnt to deal with being bipolar, the tendency to self-medicate and the irresponsibility associated with periods of mania have become less severe. I no longer habitually pick up a bottle of wine to consume on my way home from work, for example, and I am (slowly) beginning to recognise when I’ve had too much and it’s time to go home. This concern, this sudden epiphany that I am an alcoholic could just be yet another tool my psyche has found that I can beat myself up with.

Something that my psychiatrist once noted is that there’s a somewhat fundamental tension in my personality, an opposition between hedonism and ascetism. Don’t get me wrong, I like booze. A good wine, ale or whiskey is a pleasure, in much the same way as a good meal is, or ogling an attractive man. However, at the same time there is this revulsion for all of the above, this gnawing, flesh-hating guilt which inevitably follows indulgence in any of the above. I tend not to suffer from hangovers, simply a sense of torpor conmingled with a really miserable guilt.

So, perhaps I’m “an alcoholic”, or perhaps just fucked up. Not sure what to do with that, however. I think that twelve-stepping, support groups and abstinence might be precipitate at the moment, treating the symptoms rather than the causes. I’m going to go read about Breton soundchanges in order to distract myself, I think.