clinging to the wreckage

  The balcony is calm and beautiful, but the sound of gun shots from the nearby shooting range is consistent. Intermittently reading and writing I receive a message from a former lover in Taiwan to say that she recently had a baby. We exchange a few lines and have a laugh at a memory of her rolling her eyes. It was one of her idiosyncrasies. It was cute. Now the gun shots somehow remind me just how far away everyone is. Family and friends. Even here… there is no one at the pool, there is no one on their balcony, there is just me and if it were not for the gunshots, I’d feel like I was the last survivor in a post-apocalyptic world. As I continue to read, I realise that sensitive scenes in films and books hurt me so much these days. When I was younger it simply seemed like fiction, but I know the suffering is real.                     Now I sit at The Ginger Man pub and sip a beer. The weather i...

  On this day, one year ago, I was in Salt Lake City for the first time. The 2 nd of august was the day of the Bad Religion concert that I used as an excuse to travel. It was an interesting time because the city is beautiful, it is well connected to the airport with a clean, efficient, and cheap train, it has a beautiful natural history museum and great bars and restaurants… but I found the people to be a little bit strange. They seemed to be either hippies who appeared to have come down from the mountains or they were extremely conservative religious types. There was no in between. Nevertheless, it was a wonderful trip and I have fond memories of riding on the bus up into the hills to visit the Natural History Museum. I also recall riding Lime Scooters around and even riding one to a sushi restaurant close to the music venue before riding the scooter to the venue to watch Bad Religion. I rode the same scooter from the concert to my hotel later that night.     ...

  The tiki social… a beer after a bike ride in the deathly heat. Is a fascinating social study. I feel like I could earn a PhD in anthropology from sitting at this bar. There is not a single man wearing a shirt. The women are all on video calls at the bar. What a world. I pay and hop onto my bicycle to venture to the next bar. Familiar people and a beautiful manager dancing through the day. A frozen margarita washes away the day’s heat and a few hours are spent in blissful retreat.     Looking around it is more apparent than ever… some people are lost. Engulfed in a world wave of tradition and trying to keep up with the neighbours. A taste of freedom at the bar turns them into a wild storm. A grin the size of the sun appears as a beer is placed before them. For a few moments, they forget that they have a spouse and a child and debt and so many responsibilities.   The day has been a wild one. Alcohol has been flowing. A pub crawl by bicycle. Some things concern me, su...

  Friday morning is sadly clouded by nausea. Hoping that fresh air will revive the spirits and the body, I take a walk to feed the ducks. There are some large ones that live permanently at the lake, they are loved by the community. I laughed out loud as one of them ran towards me when I held out my hand. The way a duck runs is very unique.                         Walking back, I felt a sense of pleasure at the thought of solitude. An empty apartment in which I can simply sit back and do nothing… or listen to music, read a book, watch a film, sing, dance, sleep… all in the blissful silence of solitude. I did my banking and some investing. Keeping a budget file, I calculate my finances precisely and invest immediately when I get paid. This has been life changing. After this, I call my dad and help him with his banking.                ...

  Sleep is a distant daydream… only a daydream because I don’t sleep enough to dream of it. It’s 03:38am and the temperature is 29 degrees C (84F). The cat is hiding; I just walked out onto the roof to see if I could see her. However, there is a beautiful full moon and the Dallas skyline in the distance is showing off an array of colours. I have a meeting at 6am, which doesn’t help. Opening the fridge at 4am, I see a bottle of Aperol, and it looks like fruit juice, I almost take a swig. Sanity prevails and I reach for the milk to add to my coffee. I stare at a sentence for fifteen minutes, remove a comma, then I add it back and close the laptop.                     Walking to the office in the 5am darkness, I think that I am clever in wearing soccer shorts to remain as cool as possible, but as I step into the office, I discover that I have left my trousers at home in the bag I had placed them ...

  Photos of ghosts are everywhere… and yet they are not really ghosts, in most cases, they are the living who have ghosted the living. A hundred methods of high-speed communication and all of them lie dormant. The baby boomers boom like wailing babies across social media to all who exist and yet those from whom we want to hear disappear into a static like grey ether. Is it fear? Is it hate? Is it jealousy? Is it a lack of interest? Perhaps it is fear. After all, I look at photos from 2008 and still feel warm from the memory of them. 2012, 2013, 2014, 2016. Then again, 2018 into 2021. All periods of great romance and love… and in 2021, it all stopped. I am not sure if I just gave up, they gave up, I got too old, I moved to a place filled with people to whom I could not relate. I went from a famous university town, Cambridge, Massachusetts, a place filled with secular humanists, to a city filled with Christians and climate change deniers. I love it here, too, but even people who drin...

 For New Year’s Eve, 2025, I travelled to Boston to be with some friends and to enjoy the snow. I stayed in Cambridge, next to my old apartment, so I could re-live the walks, sights and sounds of my old neighbourhood, which was mostly a tiny nature reserve. I had to work a little while I was there and the snow was so intense that I spent quite a bit of time inside the hotel working in the communal area. One member of staff was so friendly and helpful that we ended up staying in contact through Instagram and have chatted from time to time throughout the year. This morning I woke up and thought of messaging her to see how she was doing. I couldn’t find her… then discovered she unfollowed me and removed me as a follower. It was a sad start to the day. I only hope she is okay.       As the day progresses, I contemplate, what is the balance between insanity and creativity? To create, I feel that it is almost essential to loosen the grips on sanity. Although, consider...

 Writing in a rage. Not now. Yesterday. I wonder if I can publish the things that I say. I should, but political posts tend to cause a nasty backlash. I am simply perplexed, astonished, amazed that we are in the situation we are in. I am grieving.  Slipping on flip flops, I step away and take a short walk in a loop to the lake and back up to the swimming pool. I attempt to swim the rage away. Another beautiful day, but another day that will get too hot and cause my worry for the cat to continue. The week will gradually get hotter with Friday being 39 degrees Celsius (102F). There appears to be no reprieve.  Work begins after the swim, 07:30am, and it’s a relatively calm morning. People are on vacation, maternity leave, paternity leave, sick leave… it seems that mankind as a whole, even if enjoying a job somewhat, is always trying to escape. I invest like a man possessed in the hope of retiring as early as humanly possible. Morning activities mostly done, a mimosa seem...

  The day began too soon. Now the second mimosa sits before me. To be factual, this one is a Poinsette. The bench is in the German style and provides the perfect place to write and drink and see the outside world and all of its inhabitants. It is a truly beautiful day. The lovely and lively Abi serves me drinks and dreams as we drown in an ever-increasing fog of inebriation and heat. Finally, I retreat… back to the pool in a hope to cool down. ‘Hello British’ a voice calls at the pool, a lady I had not seen was sitting behind a bed of plants and a palm tree. After reading in the water for a while, I venture back to my apartment and pour a beer, contemplate going back out, but decide to just stay home and watch The Mandalorian and Grogu. It was silly but entertaining.                     Second day of the weekend and another early start, simply because sleep eludes me. After dreams of AI, I awa...

  The curtains are black… like my heart. Block out the sun. Combat the heat. Venture out and think of the people we can’t meet. The noise is relentless. Four people at a table and all four talking at the same time. A witch-like voice cackles and rises above the others in a sinister laugh. The bar tender is intelligent, he is well-travelled, he loves music and literature, he is good company. He turns up the jukebox and an assault begins… original music versus the witches coven.                   Flip flops are vital in this Texas heat, but I see people in jeans and boots. I feel suffocated by their jeans, as if they are a ghostly unit that leaves the legs and attacks innocent bystanders. Social norms passed on and passed on. They stay in the bar to prolong the time before having to go home to the chaos of family. I leave the bar to go home to peace and quiet and calm and escape the noise of the bar....

  The very first memory… my parents were involved in building an additional room on the house, I must have been 4 or 5 or 6 (or less), and it had rained so much that the foundations had flooded. We had an emergency operation, and I was helping to scoop water out of the ditch. If I could see a video of that moment I would, of course, be shocked, because it would not resemble in the slightest my memory… but that is the first one that I have and it is pleasant… there is happiness and peacefulness overpowering the concern for the flooding. That little Greater Manchester home… Cambourne Drive… was a little capsule of happiness. I recall the build-up to Christmas, school holidays, putting up the Christmas Tree, snow falling and already deep outside, Smokey and the Bandits on TV. I was delightfully happy. Later in life I asked my mother what her happiest memories were and she said ‘Cambourne Drive days.’               ...

  The gym twins linger daily at the pool. The first encounter with them was during a fierce storm. I had retreated to the gym to walk because it was impossible to go outside. It was a classic Texas storm; winds of fury and horizontal rain threatening to destroy all within its wake, punctuated by deafening thunder and lightning. In these storms, instant flash floods bring life to a standstill as all moving objects shelter in place, embrace and wait. I was astonished by the similarity of the twins, as I still am today. It is impossible to tell one from the other. Identical hair, faces, legs, etc. It’s difficult to determine their age… I’d say mid-twenties. Each day at lunch time they light up the pool and occasionally draw a crowd.                     For a period of time, I sit on my balcony and work, but the heat is stifling (how are the gym twins surviving in the sun? I am dying in the shade)...

  It is 40 degrees Celsius, 100 Fahrenheit, and I worry constantly about the cat. We try our best and yet we still make mistakes. For example, has it been a mistake to feed this cat for years? Would it have moved on and found a better life? Would it have perished? Is it perhaps living its best life right now? I don’t know.   I think of my family, how much my parents did for my brother and I, how differently we turned out. Why? I miss my mother tremendously. My dad has become a friend, and each day I talk to him and try in some way to repay all that was done for me. The concept of family was smaller for us, we moved away from the larger family and, even though I think of my childhood as a wonderful time, I never wanted a family of my own. I love peace and calm and quiet… but I also get lonely at times. Then I chat to friends who are married and they tell me they are horribly lonely and feel trapped in a nightmare loneliness. That is worse. It’s true that the good people disappe...

  Slow, solemn, and sad, thus begins the day. A few calls and discussions before deciding to change the scenery and walk to the office. Ridiculously, the decision comes down to the items in my fridge versus the cafeteria in the office building. I love to support the cafeteria, but I also need to utilise my groceries because I refuse to throw food away, and I want to reduce costs.                     I sit in the cafeteria now and, as always, I am astonished by people. Fridges in public spaces have glass doors so that customers can make a decision before they open the door to select the item they want. However, as I sit here for 20 minutes on most days, I observe that at least 80% of people open the door and stand with the door open trying to make a decision. And people do not make decisions very quickly. Typically, before I even enter the building, I know what I want from the fridge. It is not...

  In researching pictures and places and searching through notes for traces of the places I went and the words that were used I discovered something completely removed from my memory. This discovery was that, when I had been in Hollywood, it was to fulfil a dream of seeing Bad Religion at the Hollywood Palladium, a dream I’d had since they released a DVD of the same in 2004… but the thing that had completely slipped from my mind was that I saw them there two nights in a row. Seeing the pictures revived the memory of how it had happened. I had gone with one ticket to one night but, while I was there, they added a second show, so I decided to buy tickets and go again. I had not done this, like a groupie, since I lived in England and I watched Bad Religion in London on Friday night, close to my home, and then took the train to Manchester, close to where I was born, to watch them the following night at Manchester University. Before the Manchester show, I met Greg Hetson, a legend, and ...

  Drifting through the parking lot at 04:30am, looking for the cat. Unable to sleep. A few minutes earlier a group of people arrived, talking and laughing on the top of their voices in the corridor not seeming to realise that the doors that surround them are the doors of people’s homes and that it is 4am. Selfish people empowered by selfish people, a perpetual cycle. Questioning the value of education because ‘it won’t help to get a job’ and not realising that it brings self-development, critical thinking skills, understanding, tolerance, independently formed worldviews, etc. If your only concerns in life are cheap ‘gas’ and large salaries, you have lost before you even start.                     After going to Ojos for lunch, I watch England beat France in the ‘losers’ final of the world cup. It brings me very little joy because England were 4-0 up, then conceded 3 goals, and the tactical dec...

  The fan spins with a monotonous hum, a vaguely audible hum. There is peace and calm. Sauntering towards the door I make a bowl of food for the cat and step outside into the 6am morning. A wall of violent sound greets me as a tow truck idles right beside the door, inspecting cars in the car park that might not be legitimately parked. This is the modern world. We spend more money and effort trying to protect and punish unnecessarily than we spend contributing to helping people. People like punishing people, they prefer it to helping people. We spend money on war but not food. We spend money checking if people are in the office but not on incentives that will promote office attendance and engagement. We prefer fear over respect. It’s why some places choose religion over science… it is fear over understanding. It is control over education and freedom.                     That being committed to ...

 Every page is blank… and yet every day is a play that brings us emotion from events that occur, events often stirred by those who are unable to sit still. Nevertheless, we should wish to live deliciously and taste every moment as it arrives to the fullest. Not to be dull and conventional. To avoid dogma and tradition and convention. By this, I do not suggest cruelty, I suggest fun and growth and learning and compassion.   A part of modern convention that I see as a negative is that of people being told that they are ‘too nice.’ This results in waves of people refusing to show any level of kindness or vulnerability because they want to be the ‘stronger’ one.   Tradition often results in debt and depression because people believe that they simply have to have a home and a spouse and a child… if they don’t have it, they are depressed. And, even worse, if they do have it, they often end up struggling to pay for the home and/or the family, which in turn results in a feeling o...

  The tumble dryer spins as I stand beside it waiting for the cycle to end. ‘The only way it will end is if you walk away and do something else.’ I walk to my bedroom, climb into bed, pull the covers ups, the tumble dryer stops. I get back out of bed, walk back to the tumble dryer, and take out the towels so that I have a fresh one in the morning when I shower. A 7am meeting awaits. Every day there is a 7am meeting. It’s not so much 7am that I mind, it is more the fact that most meetings are simply not needed. To see a face, to exchange stories, that would be worthwhile, but, in most meetings, people leave their cameras off and the read numbers or ask for numbers. That could be a presentation sent as a message or linked in a webpage.                     AI is rampant, and yet people are working more than ever. That is, of course, until they become a number struck from a list and no longer have...

  An elevated view of the lake. Calm. Inside I am not so calm. It seems that people seek conflict and, yes, I know that our evolution didn’t hinge on passivity, but it seems that many people actively seek irritation. We move on and attend a watch party in the office, France v Spain, and France lose. Most of my colleagues are French, so there is a sense of despair. I escape and start to walk home. On the way, I walk into the bar to escape the sense of… what is it? A sense of despair seems a little bit too strong. A sense of disappointment is probably more accurate. Disappointment that goes back to people not seeming to want to make life better. Too caught up in anger and petty grudges and traditions and conventions. Too worried about whether or not people are in the office to actually focus on anything constructive or meaningful. Too busy with petty acts to try to get the final word in a lost argument. People start, in youth, wanting power, thinking they have power, and, in older ag...