Three travellers, Men of Willowdale...

On Thursday, my favourite band was inducted into the American "Rock And Roll Hall Of Fame" - which is basically an old pals club for artists that are approved by the too cool for school hipsterati that run "Rolling Stone" magazine.  I, for one, have never found myself feeling that Rush needed that sort of approval - surely coming third behind The Beatles and the Stones for number of Gold and Platinum records tells you all that you need to know...

I have never really rated the opinion of music critics - they largely seem to be bitter wannabe musicians with an axe to grind and a desire to like the "right" bands and to brainwash the gullible would be hipsters into toeing the party line.  The NME is a classic case in point - pretty much the British equivalent of the "Rolling Stone", and a prime exponent of the vile "build 'em up yo knock 'em down" culture prevalent in so much of British journalism.  They infamously described Rush as "Nazi Fascists" - which is surely particularly hurtful given that Geddy Lee's parents survived the Nazi Death Camps in WWII.  Think of that and listen to "Red Sector A" again...

I don't care if people like Rush or not.  Equally, I don't mind if other people do like them - I am not (or at least try not to be) an elitist.  I would rather like it if people gave them a chance and due credit for being a talented, innovative, hard-working and influential band.  Their music has spoken to me and many others) more than anyone else's, often describing the "view from the suburbs" - a middle class geek's view of the world.  "Subdivisions" and indeed many of the songs from the album "Signals" deals with this sort of theme.  

They are also an excellent live band who are never anything other than well-rehearsed and respectful of their audience - something that certain other Canadian artists could do well to learn.  They are now members of a club that they never really cared for, but they recognised that many of their fans cared and when inducted had the decency to turn up and thank the people whose opinions do matter to them.  Now it's back to the real business for them - see you in Glasgow on May 30th, guys!

A Hielan' Laddie...

This Friday just past, Christopher and I wore kilts of Black Watch tartan to our friends' wedding.  C looked very smart indeed.  I wore it by choice, and am proud to have done so.  

My Uncle Iain also wore it by choice, though in circumstances as far removed from a wedding as you can get.  He wore it as a member of the Black Watch, having (if I recall the family stories correctly) lied about his age to join up.  He then volunteered to join the Parachute Regiment, which was then in its infancy.  Just over 70 years ago (28th March, 1943), he was killed in action in Tunisia.  

I am glad that I have never had to join the Forces - with absolutely no disrespect to those who have - I really do not think that I am made of the right stuff for it, for a start.  I am not a brave man. Then again, I have read many stories of ordinary people who did extraordinary things in extraordinary times - perhaps I could have measured up.  I doubt it, but perhaps.  I am glad that my Uncle, and many thousands of others did, but deeply saddened that they had to.  And, because they did, I am free to choose to not join up, free to choose to wear the Black Watch tartan, and free to hope that my son will know a better world than even I have...

http://twgpp.org/information.php?id=2634521

Creepshow...

I am, in general quite lucky.  

Although my life has its challenges (whose doesn't) and the old "black dog" keeps nipping at my heels (and indeed sometimes seems to sneak in and pinch my lunch), I am fortunate to have a wonderful wife, a stunning son, a supportive and fabulous (blood, step, in-law and extended) family and some of the finest friends a man could hope for.

The snag is that I have an arch enemy - The Master to my Doctor (Mad Tom stylee, of course) if you like.  He knows and exploits my weaknesses, preying ruthlessly on every foible and failing, never failing to put the boot in when I am down...  There is no remorse, because he believes implacably that I am deserving of his venom.  And of course, as you will have already guessed he gets his digs in before anyone else because he is the hairy shambling mess that stares at me from the mirror each morning.  Perhaps being the Edward Hyde to my Henry Jekyll is the more appropriate comparison.

My mind can run off at the most unlikely tangents from seemingly innocuous starting points - imagining how people have taken something I have said differently to how I had intended and set off some sort of chain reaction with terrible consequences.  Part of me knows that I am being ridiculous, and this almost makes it worse - like being powerless in the passenger seat of a vehicle being driven by a maniac.  

But then perhaps driven is a good word to use, because I am, in some ways, much more driven than my usually relaxed exterior might suggest.  I want to do everything the best that I can - and I want to do it better the next time.  Unfortunately my expectations are all too often (perhaps) somewhat unrealistic - my reach exceeds my grasp, but I cannot cut myself any slack to accept this failure.  I do expect too much of myself, but I also can't bring myself to live any other way.  

This drive is also one of the things (as well as a fine support network and Mirtazapine) that allows me to function in any way normally - get out of bed, be a husband, parent, employee etc. A lot of the time I can reach a grudging understanding with the mirror me - perhaps this is the best that I can hope for.  The title, by the way, refers to a Twelfth Night song - which seemed appropriate to these thoughts.  

I would like to finish with a reference to another song - "Between Today and Yesterday" by Amplfier.  They just put the lyrics up on their site, and reading them reinforced why this is another song that has made a particularly strong connection to my maverick brain, like the ones that I referred to in a previous ramble.

http://www.amplifierband.com/lyrics_betweentodayandyesterday.html

Enjoy!

Pain in the Plughole... The difficulty of Remote Parenting.

I have in the past been offered quite lucrative contracting posts in the nether reaches of England, but I have rarely hesitated in turning them down.  This week I reminded myself why it is so easy to refuse relatively obscene daily rates in favour of a lesser, but still comfortable salary in Edinburgh. (Other than of course the relative security of a permanent job, and the slight but significant unease over being paid that sort of money).

Christopher headed off to Dundee last Tuesday to spend a few days with Grandad and Oma (and of course, Granny Rennie, Mad Auntie Lesley and Uncle Graeme and Auntie Pam) - giving Freya and I a chance to chill, and C the chance to be spoilt rotten for a wee while. Then, on the Wednesday night, we got a call from my Dad.  Christopher was not well - nothing major, certainly not by C's standards, just an ear infection.  Christopher was understandably not a happy bunny, but Calpol was doing its job and if things weren't better in the morning, a trip to the GP in Broughty Ferry for an antibiotic was on the cards.  

I had absolutely no concerns about the care C would receive - after all between Dad, Janice and my Mum, there was a large amount of parenting expertise, having raised 5 children successfully to adulthood, who all turned out (fairly) normal.  It still made me feel somewhat uncomfortable - I wasn't there to give the Wee Man a cuddle, help calm him down or administer the Calpol.  It reminded me a bit of the darker times when Christopher was in and out of hospital and we had to take turns spending the night in a camp bed at Sick Kids.  When it was my turn to spend the night at home there was almost always a twinge of regret that I couldn't be there beside him.  

Looking back now, I realise that you need those nights away, because the hospital time drains you more than you notice at the time.  But the sense of remoteness still gets to me.  C is home tonight, snoring away quietly upstairs (before continuing his jetset lifestyle with a few days with Papa and Granny Crosbie in Kilmarnock) ear on the mend thanks to the antibiotics.  And the selfish part of me that wants to keep him close is content.  The generous (for want of a better word) part of me is glad that I can share him with our family and let him see more of the world than he can see at home.  And I am also glad that he is confident enough that he can happily head off without too many concerns - which I am convinced is one of the positive aspects of the time that he has spent among caring strangers in Sick Kids,

I am glad that I am lucky enough to be able to stay at home with my little family most of the time - so many people - Forces or contractors or whoever - are not that fortunate.

Oh yes - and the title?  A couple of weeks ago Christopher and Freya were horsing about a bit and Freya was making noises in C's ear - eventually he exclaimed "Stop yelling in my plughole!".  Freya and I were in stitches, Christopher perplexed as to what exactly was so funny...

Closer to the Heart

i don't know about you, but for me, every so often a song comes along that seems to stand out more than its fellows and makes a more immediate and profound connection to me.  In addition  to quite a few Rush songs, an example of such a song would be "May You Never" by John Martyn.  But they don't come along that often.  So I'm happy to have found two such songs in a relatively short period of time.  

One, perhaps predictably, is the last track on the latest Rush album "The Garden" - a meditation on life and the passage of time, which just seems to express a lot of what I feel more succinctly than I am capable of.  The other is "Matmos" the lead track from Amplifier's new album "Echo Street" - I haven't spent enough time with the song yet to understand  why it makes this connection with me, I just know that it does.  

And these give me something to aspire to - I long to create something that comes in any way close to meaning as much to someone as these songs mean to me.  I used to write a lot of songs - it was a way of getting stuff out of my system - problems seem easier to comprehend when they are down in black and white in front of you.  Somewhere along the way things seemed to dry up and I started feeling that such creativity as I had, was gone.  Which in turn became a source of regret and fed the feelings that seemed to be leeching the creativity from me. This seems to be starting to turn around again - I am finding some small crumbs of inspiration creeping into my head again - and rather than the collection of dogeared notebooks that I always kept with me before, I have "OneNote" on my phone, laptop and tablet...

Now I have to find the right people to put this into action and bring it to life.  To feed my one real addiction - music.

Music fills my empty bones...

I like my commute by bus...  Seems odd, but I do.  For one thing, we live a few stops from the terminus, so C and I can always get seats for the trip to nursery.  Also, the first part of our morning commute (and the second part of our return trip - although this can often be grumpier) gives me a great chance to speak to Christopher about a lot of things - often inspired by what we see on the bus or out of the window.  
Some of the things that he comes out with really give me pause for thought, an unschooled insight into the world uncluttered by adult preconceptions, prejudices and well... ...tact!  

The other part of my journey, my solo trip to and from the office is also welcome - because it gives me a chance to be utterly selfish and do nothing but listen to music.  And I always enjoy the chance to listen to music.  Recently, I have started to enjoy it even more, because I got some rather nice new headphones (AKG K451s if you're interested - quality far beyond their £60 price tag if you ask me!) which have lead to a change in my listening habits.  I have weaned myself off the equaliser on my Creative Zen XFi-2 (although I still use the XFi setting cos they do make MP3s more listenable).  

This got me thinking this morning about how much we filter our experience of the world and how much it is filtered for us before we even really notice it.  Our perceptions are not as straightforward as we perhaps like to believe - spin of all varieties is omnipresent - so we need to apply different filters to try to get back to the truth if possible.  Which ultimately makes me somewhat jealous of Christopher and his clearer, straightforward view of the world.  Say what you see, say what you see...

Metadata...

Well kind of...  A fairly simple definition of metadata (descriptive metadata to be slightly less vague) is "data about data".  This word came to mind the other day while sorting through some stuff in the guise of tidying when I found a piece of paper with a roughly drawn sketch on it.  It is a sketch that changed my life forever.  It shows the outline of a head and torso with details of the  oesophagus and trachea - as they appear in what is known as a "Type C" TOF/OA.  

It was drawn by a doctor in a side room of the Simpson's Maternity Wing of the Royal Infirmary of Edinburgh on the afternoon of the 7th of August, 2008, as they tried to explain to me, Freya, and her parents what was different about our son who had been born almost 24 hours previously.  Shellshocked doesn't even start to cover it.  Only by experiencing that could one ever really understand how it feels.  

But that is not really what I am wittering on about this time.

I suppose what I am trying to talk about is the unseen weight that some things can carry - the hidden story that they contain.  The most obvious examples would be the many and varied items to be found in museums all around the world, or the seemingly abstract information that astronomers have used to infer the rotational speed of black holes and so many other information about our universe, but also there are many more mundane items in pretty much everyone's home.  

Sometimes these are things with some broader historical significance - on my mantelpiece for instance, I have a piece of wood that was once part of the ill-fated first Tay Rail Bridge.  Most of them (though possibly just for sentimental hoarders like me)  are invested with more specific and personal meaning - like the sketch, a number of hospital ID bracelets from C's many visits to Sick Kids, or even just the various gig t-shirts that I can't bear to part with... (None of them are actually older than my beloved wife, despite what she may try to persuade you!)

I am comfortable with these artefacts of my personal history and their attached "metadata" they are part of what has made me who I am - you can't cherrypick which parts of your past inform your future.  What I am less comfortable with is my own personal baggage - the personal foibles , fears and oddities that are almost like the mental scar tissue from the scrapes that I have landed myself in, but maybe I still have to carry these.  

What I can chose is how those "packets" of metadata effect me and my interactions with those around me - like the picture which used to represent a painful time in my life, but now I can see as a symbol of how far Christopher, Freya and I (and of course all of our friends and family) have come and how much we have learned.