Mrs PM and I have recently returned from a week long break in Playa Blanca, Lanzarote in the Canary Islands. We were meant to go to Malaysia but Mrs PM’s job situation scuppered that somewhat and forced us to postpone that wonderful trip until 2026. The good news is that the situation is now resolved but sadly it was too late to organise that trip to the Far East. Instead we opted for a short European trip to get some winter sun.
Whenever I am abroad, especially in winter, I barely think of Manchester. As we walked along the promenade after breakfast, listening to the Atlantic Ocean lapping up on the sandy shores and rocks, the dreadful rainy cold weather that we have to endure in February in the UK is so far from my brain that Manchester may as well be on another planet.
Even the evenings are beautiful and clear in Lanzarote, if not a little chilly. All that means is that I have to wear long trousers instead of shorts as we dine within earshot of the waves. And talking about planets, we actually managed to see a couple of them with the naked eye. Mrs PM mentioned that the news had an article about all the planets being aligned. I love a good sunset and as we were sitting in a bar watching our star slowly descend behind the horizon, seemingly into the horizon, I used an app on my smartphone to find the planets – the app is called Sky Map and well worth a download. Here are a couple of sunset pictures I took.
Mercury was close to the sun but invisible and a bright spot nearby turned out to be Venus. As the sun disappeared and the sky became darker, other points of light in the firmament became visible and, with the aid of Sky Map, I could clearly identify Saturn, which looked a little dull compared to Venus but still there. The app also told me that just below Venus but perhaps too far away to see with the naked eye was Neptune.
As I moves around the sky, I then identified and saw Jupiter and Uranus. Jupiter was perfectly clear and Uranus, like Saturn, was quite dull but just about visible.
The only one I couldn’t find was Mars.
It would have been amazing to have seen this exact sky with a telescope from the desert where there is no light pollution to shield the planets. I remember a trip to Barbados where we had a little session with an astronomer who used a telescope to find Saturn for us. That was amazing and I could even see the rings.
On our last morning, we had a leisurely breakfast and had time to take a walk along the promenade for a coffee before having to return to the airport for our flight home. I enjoyed sitting by the ocean, listening to the waves and enjoying the clear blue skies and the sun reflecting off glistening turquoise water.
I felt totally relaxed.
About eight hours later we had landed at Manchester Airport and were in a cab, driving through the rainy cold streets of my home city. I looked through the rain spotted windows of the cab and the sky was dark and covered in clouds that hid any stars and planets. Part of me was disappointed and I craved sitting by the beach, stargazing while listening to the calm sea. Mrs PM was excited because she was starting her new job the following day and she was also looking forward to seeing her “babies”, that is our two domineering masters, our cats Ziggy and Star(dust).
I allowed my mind to briefly return the scene from eight hours ago, the taste of the coffee, the warm breeze, the sound of the ocean, the colours, the people.
And then I realised that in a few moments I would be home.
My home is my castle, the place where I feel most comfortable. It’s like my central office, even though I don’t work anymore and I love being there. My brief longing for Lanzarote gradually faded and once I had braved the rain, entered my house and unpacked, I had the chance to sit down with a cup of tea and think about my trip. Star(dust) put her two front paws on my stomach and stared at me as she purred. She then lay down next to me, clinging to my leg like a feline leech and fell asleep. Ziggy was sitting next to Mrs PM.
I then started thinking about our next trip to Malta in May, where we will be taking Mrs PM’s mum for a celebration of her 80th birthday. I will once again be beside the sea with a chance to explore Valetta. It will be warm sunny and in terms of weather, a million miles from Manchester.
I have a routine now that I am retired but occasionally I have to summon some willpower so that I don’t fall into the trap to becoming a couch potato and spend the whole day in a stupor in front of the television watching daytime TV.
The thing is that most people who watch daytime TV are also retirees like myself and at the moment I only reserve 45 minutes during my routine for watching daytime TV on Monday to Friday. The programme I watch is a quiz show called Countdown and is on Channel 4 in the UK at 14:10 in the afternoon from Monday to Friday.
Countdown is a game where contestants try to make the longest words from nine letters within 30 seconds. For example the letters might be:
R L T C R A E E A
A contestant who makes the word LACERATE would beat another contestant who makes the word CATERER because LACERATE is longer. There are several rounds of the letters game and a couple of numbers games which are equally challenging.
I watch the show because I can play along and it helps keep my mind sharp.
However, there is a problem. Channel 4 is a commercial channel so I have to suffer adverts in the middle of the show. I have grown out of the habit of watching commercials since streaming and recording has taken off but in the case of Countdown I watch the show as it is aired (to fit into my routine).
Generally, the people who watch TV at the time Countdown is on are older people like myself who have retired. And the adverts are targeted at us and boy are they depressing. This is the sort of thing I mean:
I was happy when I started watching Countdown and all the commercials are trying to remind me that I am an old git who will shuffle off this mortal coil and should therefore start planning my funeral right now!
So you choose to destroy any happiness I might have by thinking about the time when my body decides to release me to the afterlife?
How utterly depressing.
It’s not just funerals they advertise during daytime TV. We get insurance adverts, medical adverts and adverts for contraptions that miraculously make you able to walk better if your legs and feet are too old to cope with your body falling apart, for example:
I know I’m an older man do I need to be reminded of that on a daily basis?
I also think that they portray older people in a strange way. As you can see from above, you’ve got the active grandad up the ladder but you also get old couples who are acting like they are teenagers in love.
I mean, really?
Okay – enough about commercials. I must admit that there are some daytime TV programmes that start to draw me in if I decide to watch a little telly in morning with my breakfast. One example is Homes Under the Hammer is on BBC1.
For those of you who don’t live in the United Kingdom, Homes Under the Hammer is a programme about property development. An “expert” goes to a house that is for sale at an auction and tells us about it and the surrounding area. The house is sometimes in a dilapidated state and requires a lot of work and he or she make suggestions about what needs to be done to it. The house is then sold at the auction and the “expert” interviews the buyer asking what they are going to do to it. Later in the show, we move forward magically in time and see for ourselves how the buyer turned the wreck of a house into something that you can move into and what the buyer intends to do with it. And, of course, how much money the buyer could make.
The show is quietly addictive, in the sense that you get drawn in and find yourself waiting to see how the house was transformed and before you know it, an hour has gone by. I have to dig deep into the depths of my willpower to switch it off. The good news (or bad news?) is that because Homes Under the Hammer is on BBC1 there are no TV commercials to remind me that perhaps I should be up and about instead of festering on the couch.
There are lots of similar (and sometimes more inane) programmes for example:
A Place in the Sun – an expert takes a couple to Southern Europe to help them buy a holiday home.
Bargain Hunt – Two teams buy antiques and try to resell them at an auction for the biggest profit.
Money for Nothing – an “expert” takes people’s junk from tips and tries to make some money out of it by modernising or repairing it.
Escape to the Country – similar to A Place in the Sun but this time with city dwellers trying to buy a house in the country.
Come Dine With Me – five contestants take turns cooking for each other and marking the efforts of their competitors.
Four in a Bed – Bed and Breakfast (B&B) owners compete with each other to see who has the best B&B.
Most of it is inane drivel but there are occasions when I have been sucked in and ended up watching an episode without actually realising that I am completely wasting my valuable time.
To be honest, I think watching daytime TV or even streaming decent shows in the daytime is a bad thing for me. Countdown aside, I don’t want to spend all day lolloping on my sofa when I could be doing something far more productive.
Maybe that’s the role of these terrible commercials. Whenever I see one, my immediate thought it to rant and moan but then I realise that it is targeted at an idealised version of me that probably does spend all day on the couch watching adverts about getting deals for my own funeral. And that is a kick up the arse and makes me think – “Right! I’m still young (in mind) – let’s get up and do something constructive before it’s too late.”
In a weird way – they actually help. I hope that other people similar to me realise that talking about funerals and wishing your life away is totally depressing and counter-productive.
I’m old – but not THAT old.
Thank goodness I have a teenager in my head who screams “BORING!”
I am a close personal friend of Taylor Swift and last week I played the piano for her. She is so impressed by my progress over the past couple of years that she has asked me to perform on her next album and accompany her on her next world tour.
How incredible is that?
It is totally incredible and it is, of course, totally false.
Nevertheless it is more believable than some of the bullshit that has been spread across the planet in the past decade or so. This explosion of lies has increased exponentially with the rise of social media.
Coincidence? I think not.
Two things surprise me about the spread of lies as “truth”. The first thing is that the lies are becoming more and more outrageous. The second thing is that people actually believe them despite the evidence to the contrary.
It isn’t surprising that there are now far more conspiracy theories out there and that more and more people believe them. Nor is it surprising that a lot of politicians are blatantly lying to the world.
Take Donald Trump for example. This man is the worst person ever to have held the position of president of the United States. He had four years of power and it was a total disaster. And yet he won the last election and today he will be back in office for yet another four years. Some of the lies he told in his campaign are breathtaking.
Such blatant lying isn’t limited to just the United States. In Britain we have Boris Johnson who has given Trump a run for his money in the past.
BBC news has a “fact checker” where they analyse statements by prominent politicians and indicate the veracity of some of these outlandish statements basically indicating whether they are true, exaggerated or simply blatant lies. Yet I have read comments from people online who refuse to believe that their politician of choice is lying and say mad things like “The BBC is totally biased against the Conservative Party and is lying!”
One of the things I’ve noticed about such people is that they simply refuse to admit that people like Trump and Johnson are capable of telling lies. The same is true for conspiracy theorists.
I’ve mentioned “Flat Earthers” before and this applies doubly to them. They refuse to believe that the Earth is a sphere despite the overwhelming evidence to support it. They believe that the Earth is a giant frisbee and although scientists can prove that it is not, such people seem to thrive on this and tell scientists that they are liars and part of a global conspiracy to fool the people.
I mean WHY?
What would be the advantages of denying that the Earth is a pancake? And I’ve found that the more you try to convince such a person that the Earth is a globe, the more entrenched they become in their views, the more angry they become and they more they think that you are an idiot for believing that the planet if a sphere. It’s like they are digging themselves in and will never ever admit the folly of their views.
Such people claim that there is tons of “evidence” out there – and they are right. The “evidence” is on social media sites and comes from nutcases who believe that Terry Pratchett’s Discworld is based on the shape of our own planet.
Here is an amusing rant from comedian David Mitchell about this:
What he says is exactly true. The rise of the internet and social media makes it easy for kooks to get a voice and spread disinformation as if it is gospel. In the past certain conspiracy theorists have struggled to get their weird views to the world, having to resort to being interrogated on mainstream TV or having to write books about their views.
One of the best examples of this is David Icke, who I have mentioned on this blog before. Back in the 1980s he was a footballer and became a sports presenter on TV. But something happened and in 1991 he appeared on a chat show and claimed that he was the “Son of the Godhead” and wore turquoise to “channel positive” energy.
He was ridiculed for it.
Yet now, over 30 years after that ill-fated interview, he is a full blown conspiracy theorist and talks to thousands of people who are willing to believe him about things like interdimensional reptilian beings who can shape-shift and have been manipulating humanity through fear so that they can feed off our negative energy. He thinks that The Matrix is based on fact.
He has written loads of books on this and many other weird fantasies that he claims to be true. And his army of followers is growing. If you are so inclined you can check some of his nonsense on You Tube. I’ve watched a couple of interviews with him and they are hilarious.
The reason for actually writing this post was because of recent events in the UK that involve Elon Musk using his Twitter account (I refuse to call it X) to launch attacks on the UK government based on lies. And of course liar number one is becoming President today.
I wonder where this is all going to lead us in the future?
Imagine if I suddenly became an “influencer” on social media and started my own conspiracy theories. Do you think that people would believe me? Do you think I could get away with telling blatant lies and peddling them as if they were the absolute truth?
I couldn’t do it – I am genuine about this. There is a filter in my head that would prevent me from inventing a story, say, about the royal family being descended directly from dinosaurs, no matter how much I would love it to be true.
In fact, I couldn’t do it because somebody has already beaten me to it. Apparently, according to Mr Icke, the royal family, including King Charley boy, are all shape-shifting lizards. In fact it’s not just them – it’s most famous people. In fact, according to this video – you and I might be reptilian-human hybrids:
Sometimes I can be a bloody idiot and when that happens I get really frustrated. For example, when I break something, lose my keys or forget something important. I am a little bit of a perfectionist and when such things happen I chastise myself for my carelessness and stupidity.
And then I tell everybody about it either on this blog or in real life.
Why do I do this? Because I like self-deprecation and I find humour in it, including when the perpetrator of such misdemeanours is myself. I used to entertain people in my office with such antics, either accidentally or sometimes on purpose.
Picture the scene.
I am working in a peaceful open plan office, which incidentally includes my boss. Everyone is working away in pure silence, the levels of concentration are so tangible that you could shake their hands.
For my part, I am staring at a piece of software that refuses to cooperate. Every time I run the code, it misbehaves and throws up an error. I have drunk countless cups of tea and as the hours have passed I have been metaphorically (and maybe actually) pulling out bits of hair. I have stared at the code, looked at the software environment and even thought about blaming others (something I try not to do).
What on earth is wrong? Why can’t I see it?
And then suddenly, out of the blue, I see something. I see a typing error where I have accidentally written a zero instead of an “O”. This is an easy mistake to make even for the most brilliant programmer.
Now you would have thought that I would be happy with that – and the truth is that I am. However, I have temporarilyy lost my sanity, my sense of perception and forgotten where I am and possibly even who I am.
“YOU BLOODY IDIOT! YOU ABSOLUTE MORONIC CRETIN!” I bellow at a high volume, thrusting my face into my hands.
These words shatter the silence and when I hear my own words my sanity returns hand in hand with my perception and I know exactly where and who I am. My dignity flies off in a different direction to hide for the rest of the week.
I slowly lower my hands and look at the office. Every pair of eyes is staring at me. Some are chuckling; some have a look of concern and others are aghast with incredulity – including my boss.
“I’m so sorry,” I say with genuine contrition.
Most people roll their eyes and shake their heads before going back to work. The chucklers immediately start ribbing me.
“We’ve been telling you that for years, Dave”.
“It’s taken you this long to find out?”
“So you’ve found one of the many bugs in your code then have you, Dave?”
I can take it. I know they are joking and I also know that I am blushing slightly which, for a person as pale as I am is a significant event. I look like a bright red Belisha beacon with glasses.
Really it makes me think that perhaps I was too hard on myself. Of course I know that I am not really an idiot, a moron or a cretin. I know that I have done my job for forty years and generally (apart from a few cock-ups) I have done okay.
In fact on quite a few occasions I have been brilliant.
The truth is that so have most of my work colleagues. I have been in awe of the some of the people I have worked with over the years and each and every one of them (with a few notable exceptions) has done exactly the same as I have and questioned their own intelligence in the most derogatory displays of self-deprecation I have ever witnessed.
There is something about certain people that prohibits them from singing their own praises. I am very guilty of this. I genuinely don’t say “I am brilliant” and I don’t think I have ever uttered those words. I used to work with loads of people who were the same as me.
Of course I have worked with people who consider themselves to be the best of the best, even when they aren’t and such people are the complete opposite of me.
I would never do that.
When somebody blows their own trumpet constantly and never admits that they are wrong I am always suspicious of whether they are just arrogant or just narcissistic. Some of them are both.
In recent years I have always given praise where praise is due. I’ve said things like:
“You are an absolute star!”
“Thanks so much for helping me; I wouldn’t have worked that out in a million years!”
Sometimes just a simple “Oh thanks man! That’s really helpful!” is all that is required.
I’m a fairly modest guy but when people say such things to me, I get a little warm feeling in my core that brings a faint smile to my face.
I don’t think that people show their appreciation of others often enough. There are certain industries that are exceptions, such as actors who love to say things like “Oh you were wonderful daaaaaarrrrrrrllllllingggg!” but in my former industry it was a rare occurrence.
Managers are the worst offenders and really they should be the ones who do this the most to make their subordinates feel good about themselves. There are exceptions of course (and if you are reading this and know me – you know exactly who you are) but I have always found such people to be a rarity.
And while it is good to tell other people that they are brilliant, it is also good to realise that you yourself are brilliant. This is a major flaw of mine because I rarely admit that sometimes I am quite good at what I do. I am more likely to say the opposite even though others have endorsed my skills and appreciated them.
I must try harder to tell myself that I can be brilliant. I will continue to tell others that they are brilliant too (unless I am taking the mickey of course).
The caveat of course is that I will also continue the self-deprecation because I find it amusing myself.
I’ll leave you with somebody who finds everything brilliant.
As we approach the end of 2024, it is time for me to reflect on the year just passed and think ahead to the new year and 2025. It’s quite amazing when you consider that it has been 25 years since the turn of the millennium. That year was iconic in many ways due to it being the end of a millennium, the end of a century and a year where certain ill-informed people thought that a computer bug was going to bring about utter chaos and the world was going to end with aircraft falling from the sky and all of your electrical and electronic equipment trying to murder you in scenes reminiscent of the Terminator.
Of course none of that happened and people like me who worked with computers for a living knew it wouldn’t happen.
What is even more surprising is that it was all a quarter of a century ago. I was a young man (if you count 37 years old as young) and 2025 was so far ahead that I barely gave it any thought. Nevertheless, a lot has changed in those 25 years; for example I am now an old git aged 62 years.
Anyway, I digress. I am resurrecting some questions that will help me both summarise the past year and look forward to the next one.
1. What did you do in 2024 that you’d never done before?
I retired. I know that people only retire once, usually, but this is significant because 2024 marked 40 years since I left university and keenly (and naively) joined the rat race like an excited young puppy. Those 40 years had their ups and downs and I can now look back on them with a mixture of happiness and gratitude. Granted, the last few years were not that fulfilling and I moaned like a grumpy old man as I approached the end. The company didn’t really want me to retire and I was asked to delay it a couple of times but my mind was made up.
I am also a bit of a perfectionist and I waited until September so that I could retire exactly 40 years after I started.
During my retirement speech (it wasn’t a big one) I was positive about me career, saying that although I really wanted to retire, a big part of me would miss the people I worked with and the opportunities it gave me. And the words I spoke were true and sincere.
Nevertheless, I am delighted that I did it and I am looking forward to 2025 with renewed vigour.
2. Did you keep your New Year’s resolutions, and will you make more for next year?
I did keep most of them but it was easy because really it was more of the same things I have been working in. I won’t bore you with what they were as I have mentioned them numerous times.
For 2025, I have a slightly different plan which I will be reviewing in the next week or so but involves a more refined routine given that I now have more time on my hands.
3. Did anyone close to you give birth?
Not this year although some friends of mine became grandparents again.
4. Did anyone close to you die?
Thankfully, I have had a year free of funerals.
5. What countries did you visit?
It was quite a good year for travel this year. I went to Spain twice (Gran Canaria and Menorca), France (Nice), Greece (Skiathos), Hungary (Budapest) and Czechia (Prague).
I enjoyed all of them.
6. What would you like to have in 2025 that you lacked in 2024?
It would be nice to have a better summer than the past year or two. Global warming means that we have decent temperatures but that combined with the UK’s geographical position means that we end up with more than our fair share of rain generally. We do have great years where we have hardly any rain but my nation is never happy. When it’s too hot and sunny people say “I wish we had more rain!” and of course when it rains they say “What happened to our summer?”.
Make your minds up, fellow Brits.
7. What dates from 2024 will remain etched upon your memory, and why?
Thursday 12th September – the day I retired.
8. What was your biggest achievement of the year?
I don’t want to labour the point but I think retirement is a bit of an achievement. You could argue that it isn’t really because people have to retire eventually but looking back I am proud that I managed 40 years in the rat race without going completely bonkers.
Also, I’ve tried to be more positive this year and it has worked. My method? Simple – do not get involved in or think about politics!
9. What was your biggest failure?
Okay – I will come clean. Despite my answer to the previous question I have thought about politics once or twice and ranted mercilessly. I’m getting better though.
10. Did you suffer illness or injury?
I had a rather nasty virus a couple of weeks ago that resulted in a totally blocked nose and chesty cough for about two weeks. I was fine but it was very annoying and was a little too close to my trip to Prague. Thankfully I recovered in time. Sadly it jumped to Mrs PM shortly after our trip and she wasn’t best pleased.
11. What was the best thing you bought?
A synthesiser. I mentioned it in my previous post so I won’t go into too much detail. I am looking forward to playing with it in 2025.
12. Whose behaviour merited celebration?
As usual, I award Plastic Mancunian Knighthoods to those heroes who dedicate their lives to helping others without wanting the plaudits that many more famous people crave.
I salute you all - you know who you are.
13. Whose behaviour made you appalled and depressed?
Okay – I said above that I don’t want to mention or get involved in politics but I will try to hold myself back. Basically we managed to finally get rid of the Conservative Party in this year’s election but Nigel bloody Farage was still around and managed to con a constituency into electing him as an MP.
And Elon Musk I have a message for you. Keep your big nose out of British politics.
The less said about Donald Trump the better.
Oh – and of course mad Vladimir Putin.
14. Where did most of your money go?
Holidays as usual.
15. What did you get really, really, really excited about?
I wasn’t particularly excited about anything other than going on holiday and seeing a few bands around the city.
16. What song will always remind you of 2024?
The new song that will remind me of the year is Powernerd by the great Devin Townsend.
However, two older songs by rediscovered artists that I have ben into this year are worth a mention too. The first is Breathe by The Stranglers:
The second involves Alison Goldfrapp (from the band Goldfrapp) working with Norwegian electronic duo Röyksopp to produce this lovely tune called Impossible:
17. Compared to this time last year, are you: (a) happier or sadder? (b) thinner or fatter? (c) richer or poorer?
I am much, much happier.
I am about the same in terms of weight and body shape (perhaps a little greyer I think with a couple of more wrinkles).
I am probably less well off – but I don’t care.
18. What do you wish you’d done more of?
I was quite happy with the balance struck this year to be honest. I have got myself into a new routine and it seems to work.
19. What do you wish you’d done less of?
Worrying. I was a little perturbed about retiring until I actually did it. I had nothing to worry about but that’s easy to say.
20. How will you spend New Year's Eve?
We are going out with some friends for a New Year’s Eve party. It should be fun.
21. Did you fall in love in 2024?
I was already in love.
22. What was your favourite TV program?
There are quite a few that I liked. I saw enjoyed the three new Walking Dead spin-off series, the Boys, Sense8, Snowpiercer and I am currently enjoying reruns of Stargate SG1 (I have never seen it before) Also I am watching reruns of a comedy show in the UK called Taskmaster which I have also never seen before where a group of comedians take on ridiculous and humiliating tasks in the name of humour.
23. Do you hate anyone now that you didn’t hate this time last year?
I struggle with this because I don’t believe in hatred of a human being. I have to say that Nigel Farage pushes that belief to the absolute limit and the worst thing in the human frog is still around. And Donald Trump tests my resolve too.
24. What was the best book you read?
I’m currently about to finish a post-apocalyptic science fiction series called Under the Breaking Sky which is quite entertaining.
25. What was your greatest musical discovery?
I’ve been listening to a lot of songs by a prog band called The Pineapple Thief having discovered them towards the end of 2023. However, this year has been a year of rediscovery with artists like The Stranglers, Ayreon, Goldfrapp, Queensryche (post Geoff Tate) and Rob Zombie.
26. What did you want and get?
I wanted a synthesiser and got one (but slightly earlier than I had anticipated).
27. What did you want and not get?
More holidays? I spent too much money on travelling as it is but I could have done more.
28. What was your favourite film of this year?
I really enjoyed Deadpool and Wolverine. It was a good laugh.
29. What did you do on your birthday, and how old were you?
I was 62 years old. I ended up in Budapest with my old university buddies just before (the timing was perfect for that I guess) and when I returned I went out for a meal with Mrs PM on the day itself.
30. What one thing made your year immeasurably more satisfying?
Do I have to say this again? Retirement.
31. How would you describe your personal fashion concept in 2024?
Non-existent. I do not understand fashion at all and my fashion sense is dictated by two things.. First, Mrs PM has the final say on things I wear because (and I quote) “I’m the one who’s got to look at you and be out with you – even if you DON’T care!”. Second, the shops themselves. The places I buy clothes do tend to follow the latest trends so I would have to go out of my way to buy something eccentric and weird if I was that way inclined.
32. What kept you sane?
Mrs PM keeps me sane.
33. Which celebrity/public figure did you fancy the most?
The same ones as the last few years. I am a man of simple taste but too old to care too much.
34. What political issue stirred you the most?
I am trying to avoid politics but as I said above I was delighted that we finally have a new party in government even if Farage is still hovering around like a putrid smell.
35. Who did you miss?
Nobody leaps to mind.
36. Who was the best new person you met?
Again, nobody leaps to mind.
37. Tell us a valuable life lesson you learned in 2024.
Always plan your retirement. Mine took several years and I think I timed it perfectly.
38. Quote a song lyric that sums up your year.
I love my coffee I drink it to keep sane
If I cannot have it then I cannot play the game
Will not play the game
'Cause the game is just fucking stupid
And finally...
I wish everyone who stumbles across this blog post a very happy and fruitful 2025. May all your wishes come true – unless your name is Nigel Farage.
I have a new enemy in my war against procrastination – my piano.
I once read a book that suggests that in order to motivate yourself you should make claims about yourself to motivate you to be the person you claim to be. I think that is nonsense, because by that token I can claim to be a pianist.
I am not a pianist. What I can say is that I am a very bad pianist who can play very simple tunes but mostly makes silly mistakes that frustrate me to the point where I feel like getting up and walking away forever.
Nevertheless, in my war against procrastination, I have managed, somehow to find some willpower that I didn’t think I possessed. When I walk upstairs I see the back room and there, taunting me, is my piano and I can see it through the open door. It says to me:
“Come and have a play if you think you’re good enough”.
And to be fair, I have started doing that more often. I am a big fan of routine and habits and this has helped me in my battles with procrastination. One habit I have created is to play the piano daily – and it works. Well – when I say “play the piano daily” what I really mean is “try to play the piano daily” or “play the piano like a blind baboon daily”.
It is working. Slowly but surely, I am actually improving. I can play simple versions of tunes like “Greensleeves”, “O Sole Mio”, “Little Brown Jug”, “The Can-can” and “Scarborough Fair” – sometimes without any mistakes.
Learning to play the piano was meant to be a retirement hobby but I got so excited by the idea that I started three years before I actually retired. Mrs PM can play a little too (she had some lessons as a child) and she plays fairly regularly too. She is much better than I am.
And now that I am retired, I can in theory spend more time learning.
My big plan and goal was to learn the piano and perhaps start creating some music of my own. I consider this to be a project rather than anything more serious. And before I retired I thought at some point I could invest in a synthesiser and perhaps have some fun making mp3’s via my laptop.
Then two things happened.
First, I have a friend, an ex-colleague who retired some years ago who told me that he his making music. I was interested and then amazed when he told me that he had published it on Spotify under the name Methyl Orange. I went home and discovered that he had recorded two albums at that point. And now he has a total of four albums.
Here is one from his latest album:
The second thing that happened was that my company decided to buy me a retirement gift. I opted to leap ahead and I chose this little beast:
I have spent some time in the last three months getting used to it. It is a surprisingly complicated device with a program menu that you can easily get lost in. I also know nothing about the various electronic music terms that are required to use such a device, things like MIDI, “Attack/Decay/Sustain/Release”, Envelopes, Gain, Oscillators – the list goes on.
But, dear reader, I am getting hooked. And I think I need to sit down and learn the terminology before I can get further anyway. That said, I have had a play with my new gadget and my knowledge is increasing to the point where I have managed to produce some weird musical snippets that actually sound okay (in my view).
Being a technophile, I now need to wrestle with the geek within who wants to blindly dive into the world of electronic music, and the creative person who wants to learn the piano, I am sensible though and I realise that learning the piano is the mandatory precursor to learning the synthesiser. I can however work in parallel to a certain extent. To be honest, anybody can make a synthesiser tune with little musical knowledge but it is so much better if you have the musical knowledge of how to play the piano.
You may think that this is where the story ends. It’s not.
There is a third component that is also important. This is software that runs on your laptop and is called a Digital Audio Workshop (or DAW for short), which enables you to record songs, mix songs and add even more effects. You can do things like play a guitar via your keyboard, the guitar being a “virtual instrument”. This opens up a whole universe of music creativity. Also there is so much to the DAW – it is a complicated tool.
Here is a demo of a DAW:
I haven’t even begun to scratch the surface yet. I need to improve my piano playing as a priority, I need to learn how to use my synthesiser properly, I need to get to grips with electronic music production, effects etc. and I need to learn about DAW that I have installed.
I am quite pleased that I have a technical background. I think I’m going to need it.
Mind you, AI could come to my rescue. I posted about the possibility of becoming a lazy blogger by allowing ChatGPT to write my blog posts for me. You can read about it here:
There are websites out there that will write songs for you that you can use on podcasts, websites etc.
I did try a demo on a website called Soundraw and asked it to write an ambient song. It actually wrote six of them for me. Had I not been a tight-fisted old git and actually put my hand in my pocket I could have paid for the songs and shown them to you.
You can of course try it yourself for free to see what I mean.
I will post my progress on this blog whether I succeed or not. At the moment I want to try to create something myself rather than trying to be lazy and letting AI do it for me.
It's quite exciting and a little bit scary because what I thought of as a simple and this project of my has, in the words of an ex-colleague of mine, “grown arms and legs”.
How am I going to find time to write, learn languages and create music?
It’s a tough dilemma to have – but an enjoyable one.
Welcome to a quite warm but wet South Manchester on a late Sunday afternoon. Let’s just dive into a couple of silly questions from Sunday Stealing, shall we?
1. What was the last song you listened to?
That would be a cover of the Rolling Stones song, Sympathy for the Devil. The band covering it is Motörhead and it is actually very good.
2. What is your favourite thing about the place you live?
Manchester is a vibrant city with great people and I love it here. I live in the south of the city and it is not far from the Cheshire countryside and easily commutable via train or car to other great places like Chester, Liverpool, the Lake District, the Peak District, Wales and Yorkshire.
We also live not far from Manchester International airport from where we can fly to many places directly.
Also, if we fancy popping down to London, it is about two hours on a fast train.
I like the convenience of the city and the fact that we can escape to the country in a short time – and even further afield via the airport.
3. What is your earliest childhood memory?
That’s a tough one. I remember a few things, like some of the early toys I was bought and a giant inflatable plastic thing that looked like a punch bag. It used to sit next to my pram apparently but we had it for years and both my sisters inherited it from me. There are so many things but I can’t quite put a timeline on them.
Here, for your amusement, is a picture of my and my massively blond curls when I was probably about 2 years old. My mum’s parents lived next door so we spent a lot of time there, as you can imagine. In the photo I am outside an outside workshop that my grandad had built all by himself. At the time he was a retired bus mechanic and he basically couldn’t stop building and making things and that workshop was where a lot of the magic happened. Incidentally, somewhere out there a friend of my mum’s had a lock of that fuzzy mass in a presentation case because she thought my hair was “beautiful”. I wonder what happened to it?
3. If you could be any animal, what would you be?
I would probably opt to be a seagull. They are big birds and they live by the sea – but best of all they are famous for stealing food from people. I would have a lot of fun.
4. Who do you trust the most in your life?
Mrs PM and my sister.
5. How many languages can you say "hello" in?
English, French, German, Spanish, Portuguese, Italian, Russian, Czech, Chinese and Japanese (and possibly more?).
6. What is your favourite kind of weather?
A sunny day with a few clouds in the sky and a temperature of between 22 and 30 degrees Celsius (72 and 86 degrees Fahrenheit).
7. How did you discover that Santa wasn't real and how old were you?
I recall seeing my dad sneak into my room on Christmas Eve with a bag full of presents when I was about five or six. The next day he tried to pretend that Father Christmas had left them downstairs because there wasn’t a chimney in my bedroom so he had had to bring them upstairs. I had already been asking questions like “How does Father Christmas get around the whole world in one night?” and this episode was one step too far.
8. What is the best feeling in the world?
Sitting on a balcony overlooking the sea next to a deserted beach in a foreign country with temperatures within the goldilocks zone mentioned in question 6, sipping a cold beer with a few nibbles next to me, whilst listening to some great music.
9. What is your favourite colour?
Teal.
10. Is there a language you would love to learn?
I am currently learning Spanish and refreshing my French. I would love to refresh my German and also have a go at Italian. I think Italian sounds amazing.
11. How do you feel about reality TV?
I hate 99% of it. The only show I can tolerate is the British version of The Apprentice. The British equivalent has Lord Alan Sugar doing the honours and the only reason I watch it is to see pretentious wannabe entrepreneurs with egos the size of Wales trying to lie and fumble their way (badly) through tasks. During the later, the candidates that are left are interviewed by Alan Sugar’s “trusted advisors” and those interviews are brutal, particularly when they involve a guy called Claude Littner. Have a look and a laugh at this:
12. Did you ever skip school when you were a kid?
No. My attendance was perfect apart from when I was poorly.
13. What is your least favourite food?
Rhubarb. It is disgusting and even typing the word out makes me feel nauseous.
14. Do you have a good luck charm?
No – I’m not a superstitious person at all. Such trinkets will make no difference at all to your luck.
I don’t mind people having them though. If you are such a person and you believe in good luck charms and you think they actually bring you good luck then that’s absolutely fine by me.
