Do you practice religion?
Little bit. Now & then. In an odd kind of way.
I started off with church. Various types over quite a few years from about the age of 19. It was never a good fit. I liked leather jackets and smoking cigarettes they liked disapproving of me and reprimanding me. I learnt to ignore them.
I was part of a theatre company. I toured and performed and wrote stuff. I challenged and annoyed in equal measure. I was opinionated, often wrong, loud at the wrong moments, and armed with too many questions.
Eventually I kind of gave up on it a bit. I was still around church but my disdain had developed into active dislike bordering on hate for all they stood for.
Casually and without really meaning to I happened across an eclectic group of artistic creative people who were meeting in a pub every week and debating and arguing. The bible was the starting point but in those early years it degenerated into a weekly rant about all that was wrong with church leadership and why none of us would ever go back.
Anyway, roll forward about twenty years and that same group had seen a book featuring themselves top the christian bestsellers list for a few years, had influenced and changed the landscape of the church. Debated and squabbled with all and sundry. I stuck with them and had a blast.
So yeah I practise religion. I mean not in a church or anything. Church and I are not a good fit.
But I do kinda miss Holy Joes.
What quality do you value most in a friend?
I have always said that a friend will help you bury the body, make you a cup of tea, and then ask questions.
But my ethos of friendship is far more complicated than that. I truly believe in loving the whole person. Sure, the smile and their ability to make you laugh, the perfect person to get drunk with, and the only one you would trust with those little secrets that you tell nobody else. Then all the annoying little ways that drive you crazy, they are included and embraced within the zone of this friendship.
Because what are they without those? A perfect, clean, sensible version of themselves wouldn’t do at all. Sanitised and tidy and sensible is not what you signed up for at all.
You like their weakness for chocolate because that shows they are human and can be bribed. Being late and arriving in a flurry of themselves and a sense of apology but not really actually apologising because we all know what I am like.
Being easily distracted and always feeling you have to fight to get his focus away from other shinier people annoys and delights and keeps things interesting.
Her ability to argue with irrepressible illogical nonsense that makes sense to her is what makes her so fun to be around, and letting her win the squabble, what harm does it do, and she always likes to win.
He will drink too much because he always will, and he won’t have any money, and he will need food as well, but if that is the price of him being in your orbit for a short time, then you would pay double because he is worth it and more.
If you love the person, you want all of them, not just the good bits, because the light and the shadow are where the soul is, and who are any of us without a soul?
If humans had taglines, what would yours be?
I am not sure if it qualifies as a tagline, but it seems to have been agreed some time ago that my epitaph will read ‘ Bit camp, quite funny.’ It is the word ‘quite’ that I object to.
It was agreed by a group of friends that my wife, if my demise were to occur, might not even think to invite to the funeral, let alone consult on wording for my tombstone. I think it is fair to assume that a wife has the final word. I mean, she did in most discussions; why stop now!
Taglines are more about advertising, promoting, well, strictly speaking, a kind of afterthought. Jurassic Park -no, really, really scary, honest. 24 – why can’t my daughter just stay indoors?! Die Hard ~ who cares what time of year it is?!
I am not sure I qualify for a tagline, a warning maybe, or a reminder. May be volatile … Has been known to overindulge … May implode on impact.
I identify with David Sedaris, who asked his husband what he was good at: “There are plenty of things you’re good at.” When asked for some examples, he listed vacuuming and naming stuffed animals. He says he can probably come up with a few more, but he’ll need some time to think.”
My wife treats me in this manner, sends me out shopping to look at shiny things to soothe my addled mind, or shows me where the ice cream is if I have gotten overheated over another neighbourhood bin/parking/untidy hedge debacle.
If I could choose my tagline, and in the real world, that never happens, we carry taglines that others impose on us, but I would go with ‘Fragile – Handle With Care’.
But let’s face it, nobody has listened to me before; why would they now?
‘Bit camp, quite funny it is’. In death as in life.
What’s the one luxury you can’t live without?
In our house, we are very aware of this thing that happens in life. You upgrade, you add a thing to your life, in our case, it might be a dishwasher, or a better laptop, or the new car has a feature like parking aids. Within a short time, you realise that there is no living without it.
Once you’ve lived with it, there’s no going back. The next iteration of this thing will have to include this, or else how will you manage? No matter that for all of your adult life you were quite capable of parking a car, okay, mostly you coped. Now there is no way you can possibly do it without this wonder of the modern world, the parking assistance feature.
How do I answer this question? It is a movable feast, it is at the whim of whatever new thing has changed my life. Is a wife or a dog a luxury? For the sake of discussion, let’s leave those aside. Obviously I wouldn’t want to live without either – and this conveniently saves me from having to rank them. Yeah, you would hope the wife, right?!
There are a few contenders, my MacBook Pro, my iPhone, my incredible noiseless earbuds, all make the list. I think the thing that would be hardest to manage without is my garden. It is a place of sanctuary and calm. I can occupy myself, I have a large greenhouse and a shed, and there isn’t a man alive who doesn’t like to potter in those. I can always hum to myself in the garden. Who needs podcasts when I can mutter and mumble to my heart’s content?
If you have no idea what I am talking about, I can only imagine you haven’t tried it yet. It allows you to order and tidy things, fiddle with stuff, fix things, grow stuff, plan what you are going to grow, it is like a den for grown-ups, your own private little domain. The kind of things that appeal to boys. We just like all those things, we make no apology for it.
I am going to go with my garden. Always something to do. Always a place to sit. Always something to look at.
Always there.
What are you passionate about?
Music.
All of it.
Most of it
Ok some of it.
I could list what I like and what I don’t like.
judgement would flow out of you.
because music does that.
It is a yay or a nay or a meh.
If you like what I like then you relax, don’t do it.
but if we disagree, we skip a beat and don’t connect.
music holds the rhythm of our hearts.
we dance together or drift apart.
It can lift us or hug us in the dark.
Music inspires.
soundtrack to our lives.
helps us to romance.
keeps us company.
commutes with us
communes with us
completes us
fades away to silence
ends