Dreaming is free

I had a strange childhood really. My mother now openly admits that she doesn’t like children and I suppose back then, that showed. I am not bothered about not having loving doting parents, I just got on with things then and I still do now. I was never too bothered with books either. I read the primary school stuff, Noddy and some other Blyton things. I always loved Winnie the Pooh and still do, I have my Mum to thank for that. I remember enjoying Green Eggs and Ham by Dr Zeuss from the library, it was new then. My father did read books for a while, but I think as a younger man, when I was growing up, he was too busy farming and drinking.

For all she doesn’t like children, I get my love of writing and words from my Mum. She is never without a book in her hand and reads five or six per week. It is hard to impress her with my writing, she compares everything to the very highest level and I know I am not there yet. I am often too scared to show her things I have written and likewise, she is too sceptical of it to read it anyway. She would rather read the paper end to end or a book she has read three times already, than pick up one of mine that I may have nonchalantly left on the sideboard.

Going away to boarding school at barely 11 years old, I never really took to books in my teens either. My love of music developed at an early age, when I would spend hours marvelling at the song lyrics on the back of album covers by Led Zepplin or bob Dylan. I still do that although it never dawned on me to write a few of my own, I probably would have been quite good. Sadly I realised that I couldn’t play a note and a life of rock’n’roll would be quite difficult without that. I certainly didn’t write any more things at school than was required by class-work and gave up the subject of literature as soon as it was an option. That is quite ridiculous when I look back, I probably didn’t something like woodwork instead! 

Then on leaving school at a young age, farming, girls and drinking were all I cared about. It wasn’t till I was 26 that I set out in business on my own and then the huge task of learning to read everything, write things down as well as a competent level of salesmanship set me new challenges. I did all these with ease and enjoyed those years, but they afforded me little time to think of anything else and certainly not enough time to read fiction. I used to revel in story telling though, always keen to pick up on a recent funny situation and make it my own, or retell a joke with my own characters in it. That became my best sales pitch, I would laugh my customers into buying things.

I am not quite sure when the love of writing forced its way to the top of my todo list. It was always underlying, for twenty years I have known that one day I would be a writer. Famous writers speak of the torture of seeing an empty page and it mirroring an empty head, the old writers block. For me that has never been an issue. I like to talk, I love to tell stories. It is just a simple progression on to writing them down. My English teacher once told me it is the learning what not to say, that is harder than the spoken word. The same applies to me in written form. I quite literally can write 1000 words per hour and it isn’t until I read them back that I even know what I have written.

What I have learned to do more of now is to dream and I need to stop and do it even more often. I sometimes quote that my stories write themselves, just driving my fingers to the keys without passing through my brain. This in some instances is great, but at other time it is this that holds me back. A page of writing for writing’s sake is no better than a blank page, worse in fact. Sure, the more I write, the better I get with the practice, but if I am to succeed where perhaps I am failing right now, I need to stop, think, look, listen, and sometimes possibly walk away.

So I am scribbling this blog instead, as my head clears out the words that have built up through a few days and are begging to spill over the dam. I think maybe that is what a writers blog is for? Tomorrow I can get back to writing a story that I am loving with more clarity. Loving writing it is one thing. Loving reading what I have written with complete surprise and admiration, that is where the real enjoyment lies. I hope I can always achieve that, rather than being disappointed by seeing things in print that I know are not my very best.

Shocking

A while ago we installed an electric fence system to contain our two dogs within our grounds. The device is simply a collar that gives out a warning beep when the animal gets to near to the fence and then a small electric shock if it ignores the warning. The instructions said it would take up to 31 days to train the average dog, and quite correctly, Pooper, the clever one, learned in about 10. Unfortunately it has taken Louis, the not so clever one, three and half years and he still has to wear his collar like some sort of ASBO! It is not that he is being naughty or defiant; I am quite convinced that he just forgets and wanders out into the road.

However, the device got me around to thinking about other purposes it could serve. For instance I could wear one so that it sent me a reminder when I went to near the cheese, or the pub even. I know I shouldn’t go there, but sometimes (often involving alcohol) my mind plays tricks on me and calls me to temptation. Possibly football players could wear them to stop them getting too close to other players wives or sisters. Idiot rugby players could wear them to stop them going on game shows and Andy Murray could wear one that electrocuted him every time he lost a set point at Wimbledon. The possibilities are endless. Hands up who would like to see John Prescott or Susan Boyle get a shock every time they go near a TV camera or Alan Sugar every time he says anything smug? Although the latter might be quite a drain on the batteries. Let the shocking campaign begin.

The wrong trousers

In answer to a question I raised a few months ago about the accountability of the press, I note that new rules have now been imposed in France on that subject which may affect me personally. For instance, I am no longer allowed to say ‘follow me’ on Facebook or Twitter, as this would be seen to be advertising. Also if you do follow me on Facebook (andy frazier) or Twitter (andy_the_author) I may just have to be responsible for the accuracy of my rantings, particularly if they were insulting in any way (which they are not, of course!). For those older readers, this means I may be imposed with a “super-injunction” were I to mention on the internet, say, that I happen to think that Princess Eugene’s wedding-hat was just an attention-seeking stunt or that Graham Norton is an annoying little twerp (which I wont, of course, despite both these statements being true.) On receipt of this super-injunction, I would then be able to appeal and leak contents of my insults to the press in order to gain free publicity for my latest novel while hiding in a sort of Salman Rushdie fashion on the tabloid front pages. My point here is that all this nonsense about idiots like Ryan Giggs are surely just a publicity stunt and it is as certain as a homing pigeon that both he and whatever bimbo he has been sleeping with will soon release a new book each by the time this column goes to press. It will then catapult to the top of the best-seller list and they will waltz away with a bucket load of cash, grinning from ear to ear. Do they really think we are that stupid? Well, yes they do because many of us are.

Wendy and I have been on our travels again last month, taking in the capital cities for various reasons. A visit to Cardiff found it full of Irish rugby supporters and some great craic, prior to a superb European cup final. We then progressed to Dublin to rub shoulders with the most powerful man in the world. No, not Simon Cowell, I am talking about none other than President Barack Obama. We were completely taken by surprise when Air Force One just happened to land about 10 minutes after us and we managed to escape from the airport before it was ringed in a security fence as the world’s first black president set foot on Irish soil. After claiming his roots in some small but highly publicised village nearby, he then drank the statutory pint of Guinness for the cameras before parading around the town kissing babies. I have to say it was all most inconvenient as roads were closed and public transport brought into chaos while we tried to reach our own destination, a mere Pink Floyd concert at the O2 arena. But the biggest insult of all was that a pair of talentless twits by the name of ‘Jedward’ were, for some reason, invited to ‘perform’ at a free concert in front of the Obama’s. Whatever must they have thought as these two numpties jumped around and mimed to songs, with their stupid hair, in the name of entertainment. The presidential visit may well have done some good for US-Irish relations but these two morons will have surely set Ireland’s (and Dublin’s in particular) musical reputation back 50 years. They have to be the worst thing to come out of Ireland since Gilbert O’Sullavan, or possibly the Guilford Four?

Our travels continued into Scotland, this time to Glasgow. A fine city and, despite it being colder than our fridge, we enjoyed a social gathering in the first of a series of fiftieth birthday parties that we are due to attend this year, (my own among them). Whilst visiting a local corner shop on Sauchiehall Street, one of those ridiculous situations arose that could only be scripted by the Two Ronnies. On ordering a bacon roll, the Pakistani shopkeeper asked me a question which, after three times of me requesting her to repeat, I still failed to understand as her Indian accent was so strong. Eventually, a local builder behind me in the queue translated it into Glaswegian for me but I failed to understand him either. He then repeated it to Wendy who translated it into English. Did I want red or brown sauce? Le rouge s’il vous plait, Madame, I replied in French!

            Hands up if you have tickets for the 2012 Olympics? Really? It seems that nearly half the applicants have failed as there were not enough tickets to go round. Well here is my take on that? Cheapest ticket, £190 to watch one of the early rounds of the show jumping? From £450 up to £1450 to watch the athletics finals? From a seat so far up in the stands that you wouldn’t be able to distinguish Asafa Powell from Enoch Powell? Do people really pay these prices? You would be far better watching it on TV and spending your money on a ticket to see Princess Kate’s wedding dress for a mere £17.50 per sniff!

I am not sure why but I never seem to manage to wear the right clothing at the right time. Anyone who knows me will concur that I am not exactly a fashion guru but I am not referring to style here, more to practicality. I often step off the plane in Birmingham to 50mph crosswinds without a coat, or into 26 degrees wearing two. I turned up at Hay book festival last week wearing a jacket and shoes to sweltering heat which required my panama hat, which I had left in France. So this week when I arrived back at Bergerac airport I was, for once, relieved that I had done it again; worn a thin t-shirt, shorts and flip-flops, only to be greeted with rain coming down in stair-rods. Regular readers of this column will recall that here in South West France we have been officially in a drought for months and hopefully this recent rain will bring it to an end. It may be too late for some crops as many of the sunflowers failed to germinate and maize crops are stunted. My farming brother in Rock tells me that the UK price of wheat has risen by £8 per ton due to the failed wheat harvest here in France, but at least the place is becoming green again. So now I must go and mow the lawn.

What price a suntan?

   I have never really prayed for rain, it usually turns up eventually and then continues for too long. To be honest I have never really prayed for anything except possibly for the health of my family. But rain is needed now, here in France, badly needed. We have had nothing since February, nearly four months ago. Crops are failing, grassland burned up, hay bales scarce. My brother on the farm in UK is already rejoicing at the recompense of a poor harvest across France forcing the price of wheat up yet further. Then my colleague calls me, saying corn is so expensive he can’t afford to feed his animals any more and is selling pedigree bulls off as youngsters rather than feeding them through to fruition. The local guy around here who cuts lawns for a living is thinking of packing up because he has no work. I have even given up growing vegetables this year, except some tomatoes, as the cost of watering them twice a day becomes prohibitive, not to mention the time it takes.

   It’s an ill wind that blows nobody any good and there will be an excess of fruit on trees this year but there is only so much of that we can process. The lambs seem to be doing well, they don’t really like a wet spring but I am struggling at present to shear the ewes as I cannot catch two of the wilder ones and am unable to build a coral to herd them into as I cannot get posts in the ground. I will have to soon, I know, but I keep putting it off at least until I get some help. We are fortunate we only have 9 sheep on three or four acres, so they still have enough feed; for now.

   With family problems in UK at the moment, I need to spend more time there than usual and have to rely on others to water plants when we are away, which is every other week. When I am here, to be honest it is too hot for hard labour and some of this years building projects will have to wait another year.

   Am I complaining, no not really, I have got a tan and I love the sun, after all that is why we came here. I am enjoying just filling my time writing, more and more words keep flowing as I embark on my 8th novel in as many months.

My only concern is we seen to have evolved into a world of extremes when it comes to weather patterns and in the long run there is going to be a price to pay, by someone, somewhere, sometime.

More confabulations

      Firstly I have to congratulate Mr John Collett who, in last months issue of R&DN, claimed to be goalkeeper in the 1906 Far Forest football team, which by my reckoning makes him in excess of 120 years old. Is he R&DN’s oldest reader, or was this a misprint? I am intrigued to know?

Although I say the above in jest, I do find it sad that once again the integrity in sport has been brought into doubt last month. A world champion snooker player who last year was caught blatantly cheating gets a small rap on the knuckles and then re-emerges to win the title again this year. Wrong surely? International football matches fixed, referees bribed? Motor sport, cricket, boxing, is any sport clean any more? Well I believe the problem lies possibly with Asia and its gambling habit. Yes in UK we sometimes like a little flutter, a few quid on the Grand National or a day at the point-to-point but throughout Asia the online gambling industry is spiralling out of control and largely unmonitored. As a consequence of this, billions of pounds are being made illegally as results of contests are continually being “fixed”. Once again, I can offer a solution to this inherent problem, this time in only two words. BAN IT. There you go, a simple answer would be to ban all gambling on any sport found to be corrupt, shut down all the online gambling web sites and monitor the industry; that would bring the sport back to honesty in twelve months. Sound a bit harsh? Well any other industry that was making billions of pounds illegally would never be allowed to prosper would they? With the possible exception of the world banks perhaps.

            On the subject of banks I hear the UK is looking to phase out the use of the chequebook. Why not? Holland did it years ago as has most of Europe with the exception of the French. Direct payments, online banking, secure card transactions are all common place in every industry aren’t they? Well, no actually, there is one industry that still relies heavily on the cheque book, it’s called Agriculture. It seems the average farmer still mails payments for everything by cheque and expects payment received in the same way. Certainly when speaking to one older member of the farming community this week, one Mr John Frazier, he claims it will throw his business into turmoil. “How could he trust giving out his bank details so that payments could all be made by automated transfer? It is open to fraud surely?” Based on how the banks have behaved over the last 2 years, he could well have a point?   

            I am extremely annoyed this week to read of the case of Kylie Grimes; yet another example of the common senselessness as the lunatics quietly take over the asylum. The above mentioned Kylie gate crashed a party at someone’s house, drank a bit too much and dived into the swimming pool, unfortunately injuring herself in the process. She then sued for damages against the house owner, a case which should have been looked at briefly and then slung out of court. But, such is the power of the underdog in law, the case was dragged through the courts, starting at a low level and eventually ending up in High Court at huge expense, over a four year period. The crazy basis for the law suit was that the swimming pool had inadequate signs to show which was the shallow end, despite the fact that you could clearly see the bottom.  Any sane judge would have pointed out, “if you cannot see the bottom, then your sight is evidently so bad (possibly due to inebriation) you would have little chance of reading a sign anyway.” Furthermore, any sane judge would have also mentioned that as the pool was half full of people standing in the same shallow end, with water up to their waists that, unless it was a party full of extremely tall basketball players, it was fairly evident that this was in fact the shallow end. The icing on this very sour cake was that the girl had been in the pool for at least 20 minutes prior to the accident. So why oh why does the case get awarded to this drunken teenager along with a princely sum of 6 million quid!? Because, dear reader, the legal world is rotten to its very core, that’s why. The law is not only an Ass, it wears a straw hat with holes for its ears and brays like Susan Boyle!

            Wendy and I are now back home in France although I am still making weekly trips back to UK. We arrived here to find the grass as high as an elephant’s eye, but generally the place is in reasonable order except that France, not unlike UK as I write, is in the midst of an exceptional drought. This week I planted out the 40 or so geraniums that were brought inside in the autumn, with the aid of a pick-axe! It got me round to considering, should the world eventually evolve into the globally warmed desert that some beardies are forecasting, I am sure I could offer some tips to Monty Don on my pioneering gardening techniques including (I kid you not) digging new tatties from the ground with a crow bar!

            For those of you who know her, my sister’s situation is improving slightly and she may be home from hospital in another month or so. I did manage a smile this week after a discussion with an NHS consultant when she made the following quote: “Sarah has problems with confabulation and perceveration, both of which are causing her some confusion!” Yes I had to look them up too!

WTF?...just a question

Today a new friend told me of their first grandchild. It made me think. These guys are no older than me; what-ho it could be me next. I raised a glass to wee Elsie, good luck to her, especially when I find out that her uncle was involved in an accident that could’ve cost him his life from a fall from three floors up, but he survived, thank God.

Then a nice day with royals which would’ve been good were it not on TV for four hours prior to anything happening at all. The world loves them and wishes them well, nice dress, shoes etc. A trip to the pub with the dogs should have tapped off a brilliant day were it not for a facebook message, my niece’s boyfriend, the same niece who lost her dad last year, the same one who has lost her Mum this year to a brain mess that will take a long while to heal. Kris’s Dad passes away, a man not old enough to die; leaving a boy of no age and a girl not old enough to deserve any of this so soon in their lives.

This Lord that giveth and take away? I ask you…please try and spread it out over a a few generations…..everyone needs a chance to heal…. Come on?

This is the second prayer I have written in three months, I surprise myself. And yes, you did answer the first one, (ish) as Sarah is recovering to an acceptable level. I will not be so arrogant as to ask whether this my payment? I am sure you are not arrogant enough to say it is, while giving us a royal wedding from the son of a princess you stole so heartlessly.

I write this (as very rarely I do) filled with well deserved drink on a day when nothing bad should happen. Tomorrow I may repent…

Multi Story

Can someone please explain to this poor brow-beaten chap about the phenomenon that is called “multi-tasking”? Because I, being a simple male, do not quite understand why all women claim this to be some sort of god-given benefit. Take our house for example. First thing in the morning we take it in turns to make a cup of tea but this is how it works.

Me: Go downstairs, put kettle on, get cups from cupboard, put in tea bags, get milk from fridge. Wait for kettle to boil, pour in water, stir and take two cups back upstairs.

Wendy: Go downstairs, switch on kettle. Feed dogs, check emails, let dogs out, reply to emails. Switch on kettle again as water has now gone cold. Have a bath, let dogs in, do last nights washing up, hoover the house, do some ironing, clean the windows, switch on kettle again, phone the hair-dressers, take the kids to school*, decorate the sitting room, switch kettle on again. Bring cup of tea upstairs to meet me coming halfway down, dehydrated and gasping for a brew. The excuse for why it takes 30 minutes to make a cup of tea is called multi-tasking, doing lots of jobs at once, despite them all collectively taking much longer than they would do individually. Let me think about it again…nope, I still can’t understand the concept. Maybe I should read that highly sexist book, what is it called? Men are from Mars, Women are from somewhere much much further away than that, but that’s alright because it allows them time to put on their make-up in the rear-view mirror on the way here!

Last month we moved into a small cottage near the river in Bewdley so we could stay near to family for a month or two. I will admit that living in a small town has its plus points; 20 pubs within walking distance for one thing, along with a couple of nice bistros and numerous take-away restaurants. Bewdley also boasts a network of scenic walks which are ideal to exercise our two energetic dogs, either along the river or up toward the Wyre forest. What I do take exception to though is having to carry plastic ‘pooh’ bags everywhere they go. Yes I agree that if your dog fowls the pavement, road or even gravel path, then it should be removed and disposed of sensibly. But what is sensible about collecting animal matter in a plastic bag and putting it in a dustbin? I thought that UK had gone ecco-mental in the last few years? So surely dog pooh is bio-degradable if pushed into the grass or left in a field rather than being sent in plastic bags to the country’s already over-burdened waste sites? If I were a younger man with more time and inclination on my hands, I would be out there right now inventing the bio-pooh bag, made of paper! I would probably get a big fat government hand-out for my services too. Are there no entrepreneurs left in this country? Or are they all to busy being social servants or vehicular-controlling-enforcement-operatives or whatever a bl**dy traffic warden is called these days!

We did catch a piece of nostalgia recently though, on the Severn Valley steam Railway from Bewdley through to Bridgnorth. It is over 20 years since I last went on it and I would Highley (local joke) recommend it as a pleasant day out. The dogs enjoyed it too, spending most of the way looking out of the widow for squirrels, but I was a bit indignant about having to pay £2 each for them to travel. It is not as though they used the facilities and even if they did, we would have been bound to collect in our polite little plastic sacks!

For family reasons I have travelled most days last month to Moseley hospital on the outskirts of Birmingham. Now, despite a few comments I sometimes flippantly submit in this column, I am not racist and am quite acceptable of the fact that Britain is a multicultural society. The fact that last months UK census form was printed in 56 languages gives me no unrest whatsoever. I also understand that Birmingham has become one of Britain’s first cities to have an ethnic majority population; that was always inevitable. My problem is, although south Birmingham houses a mixture of races, predominantly white I would say from a passing observation, I watched a primary school sending its children home one mid afternoon. Out of 100 children, there were no white kids at all, not even one. This fact worries me because I deduce from it that all the white kids must go to a different school and that, for want of another word, is segregation. Now maybe I am misinformed but I can only say what I saw. Perhaps the ethnic kids go home earlier than the others, or later, whatever, I don’t know? All I know is if this sort of ghetto culture is being allowed or, dare I say, actively encouraged in our cities at a junior level then we are taking one step too many towards an irreversible racial problem. A problem that will surely lead on to apartheid and ultimately to civil war? I can offer no sensible solution to this issue but I am just a little too worried that nobody else is brave enough to face up to it or tackle it with the courage and intelligence it immediately requires. The word multicultural means just that, we all live together. This is not South Africa and we should remain proud of that fact.

Yet another new catchword has sprung from the Government and its spin doctors this week, Social Mobility. The “who you know” culture must go, says that bloke who seems to hold an important job in government without being elected. Mr Clegg also states that “getting on in life because you know people” is wrong! Excuse me? So the recluse who never goes out, never speaks to anyone and has absolutely no friends is best placed for the job. Whatever job that may be? Apparently he, or she, should be allowed more social mobility. I have never heard of such tosh. People who get on in life are generally gregarious and have an ability, either natural or trained, to get on with other people. The education they acquire revolves around personal interaction and social skills as well as academic knowledge. That is how the world works, get over it. Unless, of course, you are a government official whose party got little or no votes but you managed to get into office by sucking up to the team that beat you?

*ok we don’t have any kids in the house, so maybe she is taking the pooh bags to the skip!