Dumb

We all sail our ships across a dangerous sea, steering into the wind, reading the maps on others faces to steer clear of the rocks. Occasionally we crash into the rocks and are saved by passing friends, or we go down all hands with no hope. Clinging to the rocks of life, waiting for some distant light to spell the arrival of help. Sometimes it comes and sometimes it doesn’t.

In this stormy weather it is easy to lose your bearings, lose sight of the horizon, or even sail inadvertently into the doldrums, left to drift for what seems like an eternity all alone. We all need help now and then, and being the saviour can be an inspiring feeling. But it too has it dangers, where the genuine offer of help is mistaken for other motives. Approaching lights mistaken for enemy vessels.

I will never profess to understand people as much as some others do. I seem to go crashing about the place being myself no realising what is occurring around me.

Dumb dumb dumb.

Song for today has a beautiful guitar opening into a Jazz riff, all lounge-lizardy, and then the cutting lyric creeps in under Paul Heaton’s almost whispered voice.

‘Either you are simply Beautiful, or I am simply dumb’

Dumb by the Beautiful South. Let it wash like waves over you.

Carpet Crawlers (2001)

It’s been an oddly distressing week and a bit. Kicking off with our trusted washing machine blowing up, peaking at an incident in Costco on the weekend, and generally getting dragged into the mud with a ruptured water tank and ill relatives.

Apart from the financial burdens of things going wrong, and the emotional edge of worrying about those nearest and dearest who are in pain, the biggest impact on my life over the last week was a twenty minute episode in Costco last Sunday.

As most who know me well would be aware, I suffer from quite bad nose bleeds, usually unannounced and very heavy. I have been lucky over the past good few years that these have mainly occurred at home or in work and very rarely in public places. We were walking around Costco on Sunday when suddenly I felt a rush of blood and so duly headed for the loo’s leaving Kirsty and the girls to shop. Now for some reason this was a particularly heavy one, so I took my usual stance over the basin, taps on, endless paper towel on the go, to wait for the bleed to cease. It did not. Not a problem, just very messy.

Then something strange happened, as people came into the loo’s I noticed I was being stared at. Not spoken to, but stared at. Fine, I thought, bloke with a bad nose bleed, it’s fair enough to stare. Then, when a little lad went to use the sink next to me, his Dad pulled him away to the other end of the room whispering ‘don’t go near’. This happened again, and again, and people were queuing to use the sink furthest from me. As time went on, the bleed got worse and obviously the distress was evident. People came and went, and avoided me or whispered to each other. There I was, a man in his forties, smartly dressed, in the middle of the day, having a very bad nose bleed and of the thirty or so people who passed through the toilet not one of them asked if I was OK….. not one!

I have never felt so let down by people in my life. We all quite rightly rally to support those victims in Haiti without a thought to ourselves. But why are we scared of our neighbours? Perhaps I am an interfering busybody, but if I had seen someone bent over that sink I know I would of asked if they were OK. What the hell are people scared of? It saddened me a lot.

Now I know bigger things are going on in the world, but it is these small steps people need to take that will make a change for all of us. We need to look out for each other, not just when it’s a million miles away, we need to get our hands dirty and take a risk every now and then.

So, song for today, well it’s being difficult. I needed melancholy and an insular feel, warmth and irony. A pathetic edge with a solitary sound. So here it is ‘Carpet Crawlers’ by Genesis. Now I am not one of these geek Genesis fans who likes only the old stuff and reads all sorts of meaning into their often bizarre lyrics. I like a lot of what they do mainly for the musical skills they have. So this is a classic.

Tune out, kick back, scrunch those toes into the fleece carpet………. ‘You’ve gotta get in to get out’

Screen Kiss

Well we are all snowed in across the great UK and all people can talk about is the weather. So very British of us all isn't it.

Lots of stuff happening at the moment in my world and the one outside of my head. Determined to get even more done this year and waste less time with things that don't really matter. It's easy to get distracted when you are bored, but a busy brain keeps motoring regardless. I want to achieve 50 % more than I did last year, and also cram in some stuff just for me along the way. Is that even possible? I am not sure if time or guilt will allow such an indulgence but I am going to give it a damn good go.

Recently recorded a guide vocal for a friend which was the first singing to microphone I have done in decades, heavens I really need to practice and eat less pies!

As for the white-out, only thing to do is warm the soul with a classic track. Today Mr Dolby may be freezing to the bone recording in his boat on the coast of the UK somewhere, but I like to think it was a warmer time when he recorded 'Screen Kiss' since it ouzes Hollywood charm and West Coast warmth.

Screen Kiss, enjoy, its good enough to melt the snow.