The Music Monkey

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:

The Fake Plastic Mancunian 

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. 

Bicycle Race

I have an Australian friend who currently lives in London and is a keen cyclist. As I may have mentioned, London during the rush hour is horrific for commuters and, rather than facing day after day of crowds and frustration, he prefers to cycle to work, which not only allows him to clear his head but also keep himself fit; a good thing for somebody who is marginally younger than me.

I will call him Rocky to protect the guilty.

I don’t want to generalise about Australians, but Rocky is a typical Aussie bloke and that’s one of the reasons I like him so much. Conversations with him are amazing and funny.

We visited Rocky and his wife a couple of weeks ago and I was chatting to him about my terrible procrastination when it comes to cycling. And, of course, he was blunt.

“Bloody hell, mate. It’s only FOUR MILES! Get on your bike!”

Of course, he’s right and I really should take his advice. When he said this, I chuckled and said, “You’re right. I have cycled to work before and it’s just a small pootle for somebody like me.”

For those of you who have never heard of the word pootle, it’s a British word that means to travel in a leisurely fashion taking your journey easy and relatively slowly. That’s the way I would pedal to work because I am not competitive and, at my age, racing everyone and everything would be very tiring and also mean that I arrive at work sopping wet, flooding the office with dripping sweat. I would be an even more repulsive creature than I am at the moment.

Rocky takes a different view.

“I’m a MONSTER on my bike,” he claimed when I explained what “pootle” means. “There’s NO WAY you would find me doing that. I go FAST, man. I try to overtake everybody else I see on a bike. It’s like a race and I want to win.”

I can picture him racing along the streets of London, overtaking slower cyclists with a defiant and competitive grin on his face.

However, he told me a story where he came unstuck.

During his normal journey, he spotted another cyclist in the distance travelling at roughly the same speed. Rocky allowed his competitive demon to take control and increased his pace to catch up and overtake the man in front.

At first, he started to gain ground but after a few minutes, the man’s speed also increased and Rocky didn’t like this. The distance between them grew wider and, rather than being sensible and giving up, Rocky became the monster that he had mentioned earlier.

“I pedalled like a bloody DEMON,” he said. “All the time I was watching him and it looked like he wasn’t even trying.”

Rocky pedalled even faster to catch what was now becoming his nemesis and every time he thought he was closing the gap, the man in front surged ahead again.

By this stage, Rocky was distraught. His entire focus was on one thing: defeating this man.

Thoughts started going through his head. Was this man Sir Bradley Wiggins, Chris Froome or Peter Sagan? Was he trying to beat an Olympic athlete or a Tour de France winner?

Eventually, Rocky had to reduce his speed. Desperate in defeat he watched the man pull away again, with seemingly no effort.

Rocky was now quite angry with himself. If you are competitive you probably know why. Winning is everything and if you fail to win then you are less than a human being and a total failure. I think all men are competitive to a certain extent but I have come to terms with my flaws over the years (having failed spectacularly on occasion). When I lose I accept defeat and move on.

Rocky struggled – he really struggled.

And then fate stepped in.

Rocky, now cycling much slower, turned the corner and saw in the distance a red traffic light. Waiting there was his nemesis.

“Right,” thought Rocky to himself. “Now I’ve got you.”

Rocky found some inner strength and pushed himself to get to the light before it changed to green. He wanted to see who had beaten him. He wanted to talk to his new nemesis and find out why he had lost.

After a minute or two he pulled up alongside the cyclist and, to his horror, saw that the man was a little chubby and clearly, in Rocky’s view, not as fit as Rocky himself. The nemesis had hardly got any sweat on his face. Rocky on the other hand was gasping for breathe red faced and wild with frustration.

“Bloody hell, mate!” Rocky said to the man. “What are you? Some kind of machine? I’ve been trying to catch you up for the past couple of miles and you look like you’ve hardly broken sweat!”

The man looked at Rocky as if he were an idiot.

“I’m riding an ELECTRIC BIKE mate,” he laughed.

“FOR PHAARRKKS SAKE!” screamed Rocky.

He felt like a complete idiot.

So did I.

Why? Because when he mentioned the electric bike, I sprayed the table with beer because I had been in mid sip. A mouthful of beer and a guffaw do not mix.

“Yeah,” said Rocky laughing as beer dripped down my chin. “That’s exactly how I felt.”

Despicable Dave

I am going to be very regarded as very brave – or very stupid.

Why? Because I am going to hurl two posts into the blogosphere about myself.

This is the first and it describes the negative version of the Plastic Mancunian – aka Despicable Dave. I will try to address the balance with my next post – the positive version.

The idea was inspired by a song I heard recently where singer referred to his own negative version. I started thinking about how complex humans are and how our daily lives are a constant internal battle between our various personalities and flaws as they strive to reach the pinnacle and take over our bodies for a period of time.

As with other people I am a smorgasbord of weirdness; but rather than trying to identify and describe all of my weird traits, I thought I would focus on the good bits and the bad bits.

Here are the bad bits and, as you might expect if asked “What are your strengths and weaknesses?” at an interview, I will try to turn them into positives – maybe.

Paranoia

As regular readers may have guessed, I can be the personification of Marvin the Paranoid Android. I have attempted to make light of this negative trait by personifying my paranoia as an imaginary nemesis called Captain Paranoia, a nasty person who is a constant thorn in my side, telling me how useless, ugly, thick, despicable and hated I am. The sad thing is that while I may have given the impression that I ignore him, the truth is that I don’t – and he is responsible for some of my worst decisions, my lack of bravery and giving strength to my shyness (see later).

The good news is that with age, I genuinely care less, so Captain Paranoia’s voice is weaker and I do ignore him more and more.

Nevertheless, he still catches me me out sometimes and I kick myself for my weakness.

Shyness

I may have given regular readers the impression that I have taken my shyness by the scruff of its neck, shaken it about a bit, and kicked it into the middle of next week.

The truth is that deep down I am still painfully shy and every day is a battle to force myself to be brave. I have techniques that do genuinely work when I feel courageous; the problem is that more often than not I will walk away rather than talking to a stranger and, when faced with the prospect of, say, walking into a pub full of strangers, the “fight or flight” reflex turns into “flight” – and I run away.

I am deeply aware that had I been a rampant extrovert, who could waltz into a room full of strangers and charm each and every one of them, my life would have taken a very different path.

In retrospect, I can’t imagine what that would have been like. Shyness has made me what I am today – and it’s not all bad. I am quite content despite this flaw in my personality, perhaps because over the years having extrovert friends and a little bravery have steered me somewhere in that general direction.

Also, my job, as much as I curse it sometimes, has helped me considerably – an ally against shyness.

Who would have though it?

Grumpiness

While I thrive on my ability to have a good rant and entertain the troops, I am aware that this self-indulgent desire to put the world to rights is not everybody’s cup of tea.

I ignore that and carry on regardless. People who know me well are often entertained – at first. Yet sometimes I don’t know when to stop and start to become annoying. Mrs PM has pointed this out on a couple of occasions.

I know that sometimes I can be a stubborn arsehole and when I am stubborn AND grumpy I can be infuriating, particularly when the target of my wrath is a subject that somebody who is listening feels strongly about, and when I get carried away, one or two people have started disagreeing and I have noticed that the grumpy rant becomes an embryonic argument.

I like to get things off my chest; I wear my heart on my sleeve and while a grumpy rant may be therapeutic (and it really is, dear reader), I sometimes need to step back from the precipice and turn it into a joke.

And I do – usually at my own expense – which helps matters considerably.

Procrastination

A year or two ago I declared war on procrastination. I am losing the war. For a while I actually started to arrange my days so that I could somehow schedule the writing of a novel.

I failed.

I know why I failed – writing fiction is hard – extremely hard. I can sit here at my desktop and write utter gibberish to post on a pathetic blog but trying to invent a story that is captivating, interesting and compelling with colourful characters, a wonderful plot with subtle twists and turns, that finishes leaving the reader wanting more, is very difficult.

I tried sitting there and writing it – but then I found myself doing other stuff like surfing the internet, listening to music – even doing the washing and ironing or hoovering to avoid the pain of trying to get some fiction on paper.

Sadly, the tendrils of procrastination have invaded other parts of my life too and I have on occasion simply ignored things that I have set myself to do – like writing a blog post.

I know I can beat this; at work I am very meticulous, planning everything I do, setting myself targets and generally achieving them.

So why can’t I do this at home?

The war continues.

Indecision

A standing joke between Mrs PM and me is that I am a Libran and therefore totally indecisive.

To a certain extent she is right and sometimes for her, a woman who is impulsive and slightly impatient, giving thought to decisions can be infuriating.

Whether it really is a negative trait is something I debate about. I am very careful and will generally not leap into something without first considering the pros and cons of it. The problem arises when I take too long to come to a decision.

Usually, however, the decision I make is the right one but that is little consolation if it has taken me over a week to reach a satisfactory conclusion.

I can’t ever see myself improving either, because I simply cannot just do something that appears to be right at first glance, without considering the possible outcomes.

Any More?

The answer is, of course, a resounding YES.

As humans, none of us are perfect. Some people think they are but they are wrong. We all have a bad side and I think that if you accept that negativity then you can go some way to improving yourself.

I have listed five of my negative traits but there are many more. I’m sure that if you asked my friends and family, or spent an hour discussing my bad points with Mrs PM, you would have enough notes to be able to write a book what a despicable person I am.

The truth is I am not despicable at all. My next post will hopefully provide some balance because, when I think about it, I am quite happy and content with myself – despite my flaws.

So there!

Over to you dear reader.

What are your negative traits? 

Are you prepared to admit to them in a comment on a blog written by a mad arsehole who lives in Manchester? 

I hope so – go on – be a devil!

Soul Searching on Planet Earth

Sunday 21st March is the second anniversary of “The Plastic Mancunian” blog, you know, that inane, weird and foolish drivel that escapes from my brain and somehow finds its way into cyberspace for all and sundry to read.

The blog started out as a nebulous pile of bullshit and now it has been refined into a more focussed kind of horseshit.

As strange as it seems, I have changed in that time too. Believe it or not I have become more mature.

“Oh yeah,” I hear you cry. “Didn’t you recently write about sick and sordid things that have happened to you and other people? Didn’t you come up with a fictional “confession” that was pure gobbledygook? How is that “becoming mature? You’re a middle-aged git – you should already BE mature.”

Well let me tell you how I have matured – a little at least.

I recently wrote about procrastination and how useless I am at concentrating on necessary tasks, or even doing something that I want to do, like write a book. As a result of that post I started to examine myself.

I don’t mean that I stripped off naked, stood in front of the mirror with a magnifying glass scrutinising all of my numerous physical flaws. I have no desire to examine myself in that much detail I can assure you – I scare very easily.

What I mean is, I did a little soul searching; I kind of stepped deep into my own mind and took a look at where I was going, what I wanted to do and how I was going to achieve it.

Don’t worry – I didn’t turn into a bizarre kind of spiritual freak. I simply asked myself a few questions, opened a couple of creaky old boxes in my subconscious mind and let the contents fly around a bit to get some air.

It’s a weird thing, exploring your soul and in many ways its fascinating examining what you have achieved, where you are now and what you intend to do in the future. It’s also a little disappointing.

I can imagine what you are thinking; “AARRGGGHHHH!!!! He’s having a mid-life crisis!!”

I promise you I’m not – I had that several years ago and paid the price with a divorce.

What I mean is that although I have led a reasonable life, I think I could have done things in a different and probably better way. That said, it is not necessarily a bad thing. I am quite proud of some of the things I’ve done – even the stupid things – and I wouldn’t be the person I am today had I not made mistakes.

Looking at my life now, I am a very happy chap. Sure, I give the impression that I am a grumpy middle-aged troll with my opinionated rants about what is wrong with the world but overall I am quite content with life. There are things that make me unhappy, notably the rat race and the inexorable journey through working life, but despite that I now try to direct myself towards the positive things in life.

And believe me, life really is wonderful.

However, as fantastic as life can be, there are still ways in which I can improve the journey and make myself even happier in future. Such was my aim when I wrote the post about procrastination ( which you can read here)

As I wrote that post, I realised, in a sense, that I was holding myself back a little and finding excuses to simply not do what I wanted to do. Hence I declared war on this negative aspect of my existence.

And, surprisingly, it has yielded positive results, albeit slowly.

After a failed attempt at writing a non-fiction book I decided to scrap that idea. I wrote around 6000 words and when I read it back I wasn’t particularly impressed. It was directionless and unfocussed and I couldn’t justify continuing it. After all, if I don’t like it, I wouldn’t expect anybody else to like it either.

So I thought I would have another go at a novel.

Progress has been slow (mainly because I am being too much of a perfectionist) but I am now almost 9000 words into it. My head is buzzing with the plot at the moment and I am slowly but surely chipping away – more so than any previous attempt at writing a novel. I simply need to sit down and write the bloody thing. In a sense this is where procrastination is fighting back. That and the fact that I am busy at work and end up being on call too much.

I didn’t say it was going to be easy.

I remain positive and enthusiastic and I am prevailing in the war. Moreover, other aspects of my life are improving too.

Mrs PM surprised me last month when I talked to her about it; she said “Yes – I have noticed that you seen more driven in these past months – and you are happier too.”.

That was good enough for me.

Of course, I still rant and rave, act like an idiotic child, say and do stupid things – that is part of me and it won’t change.

I don’t want it to change.

But what of “The Plastic Mancunian”?

The blog has opened new doors and without it I wouldn’t have embarked upon exploring my own soul. I wouldn’t have done so without it. When I start writing about the weird thoughts in my brain, I actually enjoy it – even the utter bilge that doesn’t make it to the blog itself.

It has become part of my life and it will remain so. I have no intention of giving it up.

Furthermore I have decided that I am going to publish my two travelogues online in blog form, in due course.

The first one records a trip to China. In 1999, Mrs PM and I embarked on a two week trip to that immense country, armed with fear and enthusiasm (the fear came from me) and I wrote a very amateurish “warts and all” account of our adventure, mainly because I wanted to remember it all. I called it “The China Chronicles”.

The second records a trip to Hong Kong, Australia and Singapore from 2005, with Mrs PM and her mum and partner. I foolishly called it “Koala Kebabs” and it was meant as a gift for Mrs PM’s mum’s 60th birthday (which was why we were going in the first place), so it is more like a diary than a travelogue.

I will of course post a link for anybody with a morbid curiosity who wants to read my attempts at being a poor version of Bill Bryson.

Moreover, I am going to start travelogue number three later this year; we are visiting the west coast of Canada and America for two weeks in May with Mrs PM’s father – so that will be fun.

So, what of me, after this little bit of soul searching?

My goals are still the same:

To win the lottery, quit the day job and travel the world write about my experiences.

To continue to drive Mrs PM up the wall with rock music in the hope that she succumbs and embraces it.

And to continue to be just the way I am but this time with the added bonus of standing triumphant over the bloodied corpse of procrastination.

And, most importantly of all, to remain happy!

Thanks again for reading the blog (even if this is the first time you have stumbled upon the crap I write) and I hope you come back to read it again.

Cheers

Dave

How Can I Get Fit?

Last night I made an arse of myself in front of strangers (yet again)!

I arrived home from work, as usual, ranting to myself about work and discovered that Mrs PM wasn’t home. With monumental self control I forced myself to calm down, forgetting the rigours of the day, breathing in slowly and meditating. And then I realised it was my turn to cook.

“OK,” I said to myself. “I can do this. I can keep calm. What I need is a little Heavy Metal and I can cope with anything.”

I switched on my computer and went straight for my new Rammstein album, carefully selecting “Bückstabü”, the track that was most likely to blast any stress away in a tsunami of noise.

With Till Lindemann growling in the background, I opened the fridge.

AAARRRGGGHHH!!! NO BLOODY MILK!

I looked at my watch and saw that the time was five to six. Five minutes before the local newsagent closed. Five minutes! It was a ten minute walk away.

“I could run,” I told myself.

With Rammstein blasting away, I grabbed my coat and before I could say “Bückstabü” I was out the door running down the street like an Olympic athlete.

As I approached the corner, two young women watched me with interest.

I ran past them and could have sworn that I heard “I didn’t know baboons ran like girls” amidst a fit of giggles. I didn’t care. My focus was my mission – to buy a carton of milk.

I arrived at the shop. It was then that I realised that I am a totally unfit forty seven year old man. I staggered over to the fridge and held on for support as the woman behind the counter watched me impatiently. She wanted to close the shop and a middle-aged pillock passing out would have made her life slightly irritating.

I gasped like a chain smoker as I approached the woman.

I meant to say, “Just the milk please,” but I think it came out as “JUSSERMELK” as I gasped for air.

“What?” said the woman. If I had been able to read her mind I’m sure I would have heard “Are you one of those people who make obscene phone calls?” I must have sounded like a complete pervert.

Somehow I managed to pay. I left the shop still gasping for breath with sweat running down my forehead and my back. I noticed the two young women were still watching me from a distance and I had to pass them on my way home.

Like a pillock, I decided to run again. Why? Call it some primeval urge but deep inside my addled brain, the male within said “You have to run past these girls. DON’T BE WEAK! YOU ARE A MAN!”

So like a moron, I ran. And I sprinted. As I passed them, I smiled.

“Hey look! I’m a middle-aged man who can sprint like Usain Bolt.” I wanted to say.

If I had been able to speak, it would have come out like “URRRRRGHHH! GIEARRRLLLLS”

They laughed at me. Not the way that girls laugh when they are flirting; they actually laughed as if they really had seen a crazy muppet, leering at them as he stumbled past. Instead of looking like Usain Bolt, I resembled a giant waddling baboon who had painted his face bright red and then had a shower in rancid sweat. My hair made my appearance even more bizarre.

I have a feeling that one of the women took a photo with their camera phone, so expect to see a bloated, smiling, half-dead baboon on You Tube or Facebook in the near future.

I arrived home and collapsed in the chair, sweating like a man who had just run a marathon. My heart was doing a fine impersonation of a drum solo. I had run for around ten minutes and it felt like I had just sprinted across Europe.

Jasper, our fat cat, wandered over and stared at me. I saw the words in his eyes: “You bloody idiot. By the way – can I have some food?”

All this has told me what I already knew. I need to get fit.

I used to be extremely fit. At school, I was a cross country runner and used to sprint around local streets delivering newspapers as well as playing football and rugby. I was one of the fastest kids in my school year and was happy running 100m, 200m, 800m, 1500m and even 3000m.

At university, I swam at least three times a week; I played squash and badminton and jogged.

At work, I played 5-a-side football twice a week and swam. I gave this up in my mid-thirties but joined a gym and only stopped going there around five years ago. Since then, my exercise regime has been walking and the occasional bike ride. Pathetic really!

When I look at my body (believe me – I don’t want to but somebody has too), I see a man who is putting on weight, slowly but surely. My gut is increasing in size; I can see flab appearing in places that I thought flab could never exist. I am sliding down the slippery slope to having a middle-aged spread.

Friends are kind – “You’re still quite slim, Dave. What’s the matter with you?” said one of Mrs PM’s friends last week. “If you are worried about your weight, just start exercising again.”

This is the problem – I want to start exercising again but I am lazy and, despite my war against procrastination, I am still procrastinating in areas such as this.

I could cycle to work but I am too sluggish in the mornings. My workplace is less than five miles from home and I drive there. Why? Because I wake up at 7am and in order to cycle, I would really need to get up an hour earlier. So, as you can see, I am a totally lazy git.

I could rejoin the gym. However, I have a couple of problems with this.

First, the gym is boring. Running on a treadmill is tedium personified. Cycling on a cycling machine is so mind-numbing that I almost fall asleep. Cross trainer machines are even more boring.

Second, the gym is embarrassing. When I am running on a running machine, I feel like a pillock. I can see people watching me, thinking “He runs like a demented road runner”. Worse, I find my eyes drifting towards female runners, particularly those in front of me.

I am a male – I can’t help it.

When a woman runs in a gym, she is usually very fit (in more ways than one) and I find myself staring in admiration, only to be glared at when she notices the lecherous goon leering at her. Of course, because I have been running, I am all sweaty, red, and gasping like a colossal pervert as I try to justify myself.

This isn’t the only source of embarrassment though. When you go to the weight machines to “pump some iron” (or in my case “give myself a hernia trying to lift a weight”), there is nothing more soul destroying than taking over from men who make Arnold Schwarzenegger look like Mr Bean. On one occasion, I was waiting to use the shoulder press and as I approached it, I found a huge black shiny man with muscles the size of Manchester leaning against it.

“Is it free?” I asked politely.

“Not just yet,” he boomed with a voice so deep that the floor shook.

I waited patiently as he started using the machine again. I goggled at the amount of weight he was lifting – and he made it look so easy. His rippling muscles mocked me as I watched, so I casually turned around and leaned up against the adjacent wall. Two minutes later, he appeared beside me.

“It’s free now,” he boomed and slapped me so hard on the back that I literally almost fell to the floor.

“Sorry about that,” he said smiling. “You need to bulk up, my friend.”

He then flexed his muscles for effect. Women who happened to be passing started giggling. My new found friend then stood in front of a mirror with other like-minded and equally massive individuals and began posing before lifting unfeasibly large quantities of weights. I felt absolutely useless.

When I started using the machine, I reduced the weights to the minimum, which was all I required. My friend watched me for a few seconds and chuckled to himself as he lifted another enormous pile of metal.

My final problem with gyms is the cost. When I joined the gym, I remember passing out when the trainer told me how much it cost per month. I had to force myself to go three times a week at least to justify the cost. In the end, procrastination took over and I stopped going – otherwise it would have been more cost effective burn a wad of cash once a month.

So I am not going to join a gym.

With winter approaching, my desire to do any form of physical exercise is diminishing. The days are cold and the nights are becoming long and dark as well as the weather becoming much worse. Should I start jogging around my neighbourhood in the rain? I don’t think so. Should I cycle in the dark and risk being smeared over the bonnet of a car? That doesn’t appeal much to me.

I think I’ll wait until New Year. – I know what my resolution will be: to get myself fit for a brand new decade. And I’m going to set myself targets and actually start in January. I know, dear reader that you are thinking to yourself “Why not start now you lazy arse?”

The problem is that I need to psyche myself up – but that will take a month or two. Of course, I realise that things could go downhill so I need to stop the rot – soon!

I have a goal - by the time I’m fifty I want to be slim and fit and not some fat lump of flab wobbling around Manchester before trying to crowbar myself back into my house.

I will cycle to work. I will walk and walk and walk. I may even run.

And finally - a message to those two young women who mocked me so mercilessly last night: come next year, I will still be a baboon – but at least I’ll be healthy (as long as I can learn to run properly).

And please don’t put me on Facebook or You Tube.

Procrastination - The War Begins

I have declared war on procrastination. Let battle commence.

“What is procrastination,” you may ask.

This short video sums it up perfectly:



Basically procrastination is the inability to perform tasks on time (if at all), preferring to defer them until later. For example, I have been planning in my mind to sit down and write a book. Each time I sit down at my PC, I become distracted with email, games, music, looking at my feet, polishing my desk, reading about the effect of rainwater on gravel and end up spending an unproductive hour wasting my time doing anything but writing.

The word “procrastination” comes from the Latin “pro” (for) “crastinus” (tomorrow), i.e. put off until tomorrow and that’s exactly what I do. And tomorrow never comes.

For me, it is not just writing a book; I know that certain other tasks need to be done but instead of getting up and doing them, I find something else to do, something mundane, something pointless, in fact anything but the task at hand.

Recently I’ve been asking myself why I procrastinate and, quite frankly, I simply cannot answer the question. I am utterly clueless. Why do I sit down at my PC with the best intentions, yet five minutes later end up playing my fourth game of “Bejeweled”? Why do I mentally prepare myself to write a chapter of a book and end up watching repeats of Blackadder?

I’ve even sat there tidying my desk. Why would I do that? Am I insane?
I don’t suffer from this annoying affliction all of the time. When I’m at work, I almost always achieve the deadlines imposed upon me and attack problems with gusto and professionalism. I am commended for it. I wouldn’t go as far as saying that I am a workaholic (far from it) but I do achieve what is expected of me; if I were to procrastinate at work I would suffer – so I don’t.

Yet when I get home, I will sit and watch TV rather than start my blockbuster. Why?

It’s not as if I have a deadline. I’ve not told myself that I need to write a book within a year. I don’t have anybody telling me that I should sit down and write the bloody thing. I want to do it for fun. I want to do it as a hobby. I’m not even sure that I will get as far as trying to publish it. The book is for me and me alone.

So what is wrong with me? Here are a few other things I procrastinate over:

(1) Mrs PM and I decided two years ago to take up dancing. Have we done it yet? No!

(2) I convinced myself after a visit to France that I wanted to retire there. Mrs PM speaks very good French. My French is pretty bad and I need to improve a lot. I decided a year ago to enrol in a French course in the centre of Manchester. Have I done it yet? No!

(3) I haven’t done any real exercise for four or five years now. Two years ago I decided to cycle to work at least twice a week during the Spring, Summer and Autumn months. The distance from home to work is approximately 5 miles. It would keep me fit, save petrol (and therefore money) and reduce stress. Have I done it? Once or twice. ONCE OR TWICE!!

What the hell is wrong with me?

I’ve had enough. The only thing that I have managed to keep up outside work is the maintenance of this blog. For some reason, I actually look forward to writing drivel for people to read, criticise, comment on or even ignore. I need to capture the feeling I get from blogging, merge it with the drive I have at work and then apply it to those areas that fester or die due to procrastination. I have done some research and I think I understand the problem. Here are the main culprits:

(1) Disorganisation and bad time management - I am totally disorganised. At work, I keep a “to do” list and manage to maintain it. At home, however, I keep no lists at all and I do not set myself deadlines.

(2) Distraction - I am easily distracted. If I start surfing the web for research, I will invariably stumble across a blog that interests me that has nothing to do with what I am doing. I will spot a game that is just dying to be played; I even end up reading stupid articles about how to take over the world armed with a cat, a pitchfork and a bag of sausages. If Mrs PM is in the other room watching TV I will actually strain my ears to discover what she is watching. I have even stooped so low as to abandon writing and researching to watch Gok Wan on TV. How utterly stupid is that?

(3) Fear of failure – I’m writing a book for myself, not for anybody else. So am I going to read it and then say “Well that’s a pile of crap, Dave!!”

(4) Feeling overwhelmed – Writing a book is not easy. I know – I’ve read books about it. Part of me feels like I have to climb a mountain with a blindfold in the middle of a hurricane.

(5) Indecision – If I am a true Libran, how can I decide what to write a book about? Do I write a horror story or a massive science fiction space opera? Do I write a thriller or romance novel? Or do I write humorous observation?

(6) Low frustration tolerance – I easily become frustrated if something is not working for me – and then I end up swearing and ranting and taking out my frustration on innocent people worldwide by trying to annihilate them on Mario Kart. But I can’t because I’m crap and that makes me even more frustrated.

(7) Paranoia – Will people like my book? Will I like my book? Will people talk about me because my book is crap?

Reading that list back makes me feel really stupid. Do you know why? Because each of the causes above can easily be overcome. I cope with this at work so why can’t I cope at home? Honestly, I feel like a wretched idiot who is making up excuses to feed the procrastination monster within; he is so full of pathetic excuses that he is obese and can barely lift his fat bloated body.

So here’s what I am going to do. I am going to declare war on that fat, ugly bloated monster within me called “The Procrastinator”. The first assault has just begun – this blog post. I am going to tackle each of the problems above as follows:

(1) Disorganisation – I will set myself deadlines and a list of things to be done by certain dates and I will try my utmost to stick to them.

(2) Distraction – I will reward myself for meeting my deadlines by allowing myself to do bits of fun stuff like getting my arse kicked on Mario kart. I will plan football matches into my schedule as well as Mrs PM time and other fun stuff. I will not allow myself to be distracted until a task has completed.

(3) Fear of failure – I am failing by not writing a book. My book is for me – if nobody else likes it, who cares? I will have achieved something even if it’s the worst book in the world ever.

(4) Feeling overwhelmed – I have a superb book about how to be a writer with tips about how to plan your work, so I am going to follow the advice in it. That way I will be able to tackle the huge amount of work by breaking it down into bite size chunks. There is no time limit on my book (I don’t have a publisher to drive me) so I will take my time and conquer the beast slowly.

(5) Indecision – I have an idea or two, so I will allow myself some time to decide and then simply go for the best option at the end of that time period.

(6) Low frustration tolerance – I appreciate that walking away from a problem or a mental block can be therapeutic. However, rather than yet another Mario Kart grand prix I shall go for a walk with my camera and then return to the problem at hand, hopefully refreshed and not frustrated.

(7) Paranoia – who cares if nobody likes my book? If I like it, that’s all that matters. If I don’t like it I will write another one.

So, dear reader, that’s it. Let battle commence.

If you have any tips or tricks to help me, I would be delighted to hear from you. Have you overcome procrastination? Do you suffer from it yourself? Please share your thoughts, no matter how trivial or pointless you think they may be. Every wise snippet will help (as will any funny ones).

I will let you know how the war progresses – starting tomorrow.